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SpiritMeadow
Guest
But it does to most everyone. That it does not for you is a personal opinion.
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Caesar517
Guest
So… does anyone know from where in the Bible the “young Earth” crowd derives their belief?
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Sabda
Guest
A literal reading of the creation account in Genesis. A day means just that to them, a literal 24 hour period. Interestingly enough the fundamentalist refuse to take passages such as John 6 literally.
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inthecloud
Guest
Science has not brainshwed anyone into believing in a Old Earth or in evolution. People believe in them becasue they offer the best posible explanations to our World. Period.
I believe in evolution becasue i see the evidencie around me every day and it help me explain a lot of things.
I believe in a Old Earth because unless God is a liar, and I do not think the Catholic God is, I do not know about the fundamentelist one, all the evidence implies a Old World and a even older Universe.
There is not a big scientific conspiracy into accepting evolution or a Old Earth or a Older Universe. Those are not beliefs you can indoctrinate people in. Those are facts.
The CC generaly follows Augustine in believing the 6 days were symbolical not six literal days.
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inthecloud
Guest
I always wondered in the same thing.
Not taking Jesus words literaly in the Gospels is OK.
Taking Genesis literaly is a must for them.
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church_mouse
Guest
I always found this article to be interesting. Seems both the Bible and science are right about the age of the earth. The article is long but well worth reading to the end as it explains just how both are in agreement about the earth’s age.
geraldschroeder.com/age.html
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Gertabelle
Guest
For some people, the age of the earth is essential to their belief in God. Not me. God made the universe – what do I care whether it was in six days as i know them, or 600 billion trillion years? That’s God’s business. I just love Him and thank Him for this amazing place in which we live.
When I learned about carbon dating, about how it is actually measured, it made me question everything about the dating of the earth. I don’t have specific references, but I’m sure a library search (or a google search) could explain how carbon dating works. Basically, scientists somehow figured out that objects release one carbon atom every 1000 years. It’s been two decades since college chemistry, so I could be off about this.
Anyway, the numbers were so enormous, it just made me wonder how they possibly figured this out. (OTOH, I’m now studying statistics, and talk about big made up numbers!
)
My questions about evolution came about when I heard a scientist on NPR once comment that there were no fossil records of “missing links” where one species actually mutated into a new species. That was sometime in the past 18 months, so of course I don’t have references.
I’m not arguing for young earth, just stating my reasons for questioning my long-held old earth surety.
How much do we really know? And how much does it relly matter?
Gertie
When I learned about carbon dating, about how it is actually measured, it made me question everything about the dating of the earth. I don’t have specific references, but I’m sure a library search (or a google search) could explain how carbon dating works. Basically, scientists somehow figured out that objects release one carbon atom every 1000 years. It’s been two decades since college chemistry, so I could be off about this.
Anyway, the numbers were so enormous, it just made me wonder how they possibly figured this out. (OTOH, I’m now studying statistics, and talk about big made up numbers!
)My questions about evolution came about when I heard a scientist on NPR once comment that there were no fossil records of “missing links” where one species actually mutated into a new species. That was sometime in the past 18 months, so of course I don’t have references.
I’m not arguing for young earth, just stating my reasons for questioning my long-held old earth surety.
How much do we really know? And how much does it relly matter?
Gertie
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jwatza
Guest
i am more inclined to think young earth based on things that I have read. Have you old earth believers truly looked into the scientific claims of young earth scientists? I am no scientist, but some of their arguments are convincing. Also, for those of you who are evolutionists, where is the evidence for evolution from one species to another? Where are the transitional fossils? I have read enough to believe that evolution from one species to another is impossible.
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jcrichton
Guest
Hi!A literal reading of the creation account in Genesis. A day means just that to them, a literal 24 hour period. Interestingly enough the fundamentalist refuse to take passages such as John 6 literally.
…that’s the beauty of the $4.99 buffet… you can grab this, ignore that, sample those, even throw out whatever you may find unpalatable!
Reality check: there’s no “choice” in “If you Love me, keep my Commandments.”
Maran atha!
Angel
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jcrichton
Guest
Hi, Gertie!For some people, the age of the earth is essential to their belief in God. Not me. God made the universe – what do I care whether it was in six days as i know them, or 600 billion trillion years? That’s God’s business. I just love Him and thank Him for this amazing place in which we live.
When I learned about carbon dating, about how it is actually measured, it made me question everything about the dating of the earth. I don’t have specific references, but I’m sure a library search (or a google search) could explain how carbon dating works. Basically, scientists somehow figured out that objects release one carbon atom every 1000 years. It’s been two decades since college chemistry, so I could be off about this.
Anyway, the numbers were so enormous, it just made me wonder how they possibly figured this out. (OTOH, I’m now studying statistics, and talk about big made up numbers!
My questions about evolution came about when I heard a scientist on NPR once comment that there were no fossil records of “missing links” where one species actually mutated into a new species. That was sometime in the past 18 months, so of course I don’t have references.
I’m not arguing for young earth, just stating my reasons for questioning my long-held old earth surety.
How much do we really know? And how much does it relly matter?
Gertie
I agree with most of what you said (have no actual scientific knowledge so I cannot argue past human understanding and that ole common sense)… but here’s how some of the views are done in (both scientists and otherwise): God Created everything that exists out of nothing. This means that pure energy made matter appear… how much energy did it take? …is carbon-dating measuring the actual matter or the residual energy embeded in that matter? …is there a clue in the Bible that tells us that there is more to the creation of the Earth than the 6-day cycle that is suggested (for the benefit of simple understanding)?
This is what the Holy Scriptures say:
1 In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. 2 And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)
It is interesting that “In the beginning” does not indicate the length of time that elapsed and that the cycles of time only begin when Yahweh God starts to bring forth Life!
Yet, even at this very moment of Creation the Sun and the Moon are not brought into existence till the fourth cycle:
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14 And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: 15 To shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth. And it was so done. 16 And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars. 17 And he set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth. 18 And to rule the day and the night, and to divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And the evening and morning were the fourth day. (Genesis 1:13-19)
So the Bible is neither suggesting a young Earth nor a billion years old Earth!
Maran atha!
Angel
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thistle
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Carbon dating is accurate. It doesn’t mistake 65 million years ago for dinasaurs or 4 billion plus for the age of the earth to 6000 yearold earth. Its ridiculous for anyone to seriously think that the earth is so young!
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Caesar517
Guest
My uncle thinks the Earth is only a few thousand years old. When asked about carbon dating, he declared it to be inaccurate because, “the scientists just make up any number they want.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to hear him explain this rediculous assertion.
He also thinks being a Lord of the Rings fan is enough to send you to Hell because, “it was written be a Catholic priest.” I wish I had of been there to correct him.
The sad thing is that he was raised Catholic, but brainwashed by his protestant wife.
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GemmaRose
Guest
I just don’t see why it matters.
God made it all - I don’t really care how long He took to do it.
God made it all - I don’t really care how long He took to do it.
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juliamajor
Guest
Perfect answer!
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Sabda
Guest
While I do believe in an old earth I’m open as to whether evolution happened or not.
A wise Cardinal once stated “the Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.” YEC in the desire to prove a young earth take the Bible as literal historical and scientific fact. That is not the purpose of the Bible. Are there historical facts in the Bible? Yes there are. Are there fables, fictional stories in the Bible? Again, yes there are.
I have looked into the young earth theory and the science doesn’t fly. Young earthers belief in a young earth also hinges on the flood account. The Church teaches that we do have to believe in the flood account but we don’t have to believe in a world wide flood account. After all if all the area that you lived in flooded that would seem like the whole world to you wouldn’t it?
another thing to keep in mind is from Genesis 7:
Does that sounds like all the animals of the earth? No, it doesn’t. Now do we know exactly what animals were taken on the ark? No we don’t but we can guess based on what animals were considered clean and what animals were considered unclean and what animals would have been the most use to the people. Young earthers insist that it was all the animals. I have yet to see them deal with the above passage. Which limits the number of animals.
Ya, that’s basically the conclusion I have come to but it’s still interesting to learn about.
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
Two things you should keep in mind: first carbon dating is accepted by all scientific disciplines as accurate. Surely no scientist would waste his/her entire career based on a system of dating they recognized as inherently faulty. I know of no serious question of this at all by any discipline.For some people, the age of the earth is essential to their belief in God. Not me. God made the universe – what do I care whether it was in six days as i know them, or 600 billion trillion years? That’s God’s business. I just love Him and thank Him for this amazing place in which we live.
When I learned about carbon dating, about how it is actually measured, it made me question everything about the dating of the earth. I don’t have specific references, but I’m sure a library search (or a google search) could explain how carbon dating works. Basically, scientists somehow figured out that objects release one carbon atom every 1000 years. It’s been two decades since college chemistry, so I could be off about this.
Anyway, the numbers were so enormous, it just made me wonder how they possibly figured this out. (OTOH, I’m now studying statistics, and talk about big made up numbers!
My questions about evolution came about when I heard a scientist on NPR once comment that there were no fossil records of “missing links” where one species actually mutated into a new species. That was sometime in the past 18 months, so of course I don’t have references.
I’m not arguing for young earth, just stating my reasons for questioning my long-held old earth surety.
How much do we really know? And how much does it relly matter?
Gertie
- The claim that there are no transitional fossils is patently false. There are many, and they are well attested to both in the literature and frankly on tons of these threads here. I just saw a piece from Live Science yesterday about a fossil found recently that has 4 “leg” but also fins and was a water creature. They expect it to help them define the period between fish and those amphibians who finally developed the capacity to stay on dry land.
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
There are very few if any scientists who hold to such a believe. It is unsupported by all the other disciplines. Again, why would tens of thousands of scientists waste their time doing research based on what they clearly would have to see as faulty information?
There are tons of transitional fossils as has been alluded to throughout the literature and frankly on this forum.
Two popes would differ with you on the idea that evolution is impossible. It is proven for all intents and purposes. This is an old old argument and frankly I doubt anyone is going to be bothered again with it. It seems to pop up every once in a while, but even most of the hard-nosed skeptics here end up conceding the basis premise after several weeks of evidence being presented. There is no reputable counter evidence.
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Gertabelle
Guest
Thanks for sharing your ideas. You seem very passionate about this topic, as you go from post to post trying to correct the “errors” in others’ thinking.
I think you missed the point of my post, however. I am neither for “young” or “old” earth. (I’m a “save the earth” type actually.) Like you, I am an intelligent, questioning, seeking human being. Until I do my own research, I don’t really care what anyone posts here or anywhere else on these forums. I have the ability to read up on the science at a university library and make my own decisions, thank you very much.
And when I get a break from writing my prospectus, getting through this statistics class, and get started on my dissertation, I’ll get to that scientific research on evolution, carbon dating, etc. In other words, sometime around January of 2010, I’ll get to it. Really, why would I care except for curiosity?
In the meanwhile, I will continue to value my questions about the science of evolution. But thanks for trying to “set me straight.”
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buffalo
Guest
In all these discussions a major assumption is made - that time is linear.
What if time has another dimension or is not linear? What if the speed of light is slowing down?
What if time has another dimension or is not linear? What if the speed of light is slowing down?
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D_M
Guest
The best scriptural arguments I’ve heard for a young earth are as follows:
i) Argument from Sinai
Exodus 20:8-11 "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your catlte, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
From these verses we see that the seventh day of the week is blessed because that was the day the Lord took rest. The argument then follows that even if the word ‘day’ in the bible can be interpreted as meaning a period which is not a literal day, the fact that the seventh day is hallowed because it was the day God rested, would appear to suggest a literal interpretation of Genesis.
ii) Argument of Original Sin
Romans 5:12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned-
It is argued that since death is a result of sin, that the evoluionary claim that there were in fact millions of generations of deaths before the fall could not work according to our understanding or original sin. It would suggest that death existed before there was sin. That is to say, the creation was corrupted before a sin had been committed.
iii) Argument from Genesis
Genesis 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
The argument that because it specifies morning and evening, that it must have meant a solar day that creation week followed.
Objection to Arguments I and III:
As Pope Paul VI said, we are greatly separated from the past, and what could seem to be a literal passage may in fact have not been meant as such by the authors who employed styles of writing, different literary devices and ways of communicating written ideas that are no longer used today.
For example compare Shakespeare’s english with modern english; the way of expressing ideas is somewhat different even though it is the same langauage. It is likewise true that modern hebrew is several thousand years separated from the style used by the author of Genesis, who may have meant something different than what seems to be inferred
Objection to Argument II: It is not really an evil thing for animals to experience pain or die and as such it is not a necessary conclusion that the existence of biological evolutionary death indicates creation had been corrupted.
It is also true that the word ‘death’ in the biblical sense often means something other than what is biological, and the death that entered the world through Adam, in which we are all conceived into, is not the same as biological death, but rather refers to our spirits being ‘dead’.
I haven’t found myself necessarily convinced of either young or old earth.
Maybe we should ask someone who knows…
(you may repeat this yourself if you would like to help)
Lord, if it be pleasing to your will, help us better understand your words so that we may know if they are literal or metaphorical, and open our eyes to the truth in this mystery. We ask this through Jesus Christ Your Son. Amen.
i) Argument from Sinai
Exodus 20:8-11 "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your catlte, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
From these verses we see that the seventh day of the week is blessed because that was the day the Lord took rest. The argument then follows that even if the word ‘day’ in the bible can be interpreted as meaning a period which is not a literal day, the fact that the seventh day is hallowed because it was the day God rested, would appear to suggest a literal interpretation of Genesis.
ii) Argument of Original Sin
Romans 5:12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned-
It is argued that since death is a result of sin, that the evoluionary claim that there were in fact millions of generations of deaths before the fall could not work according to our understanding or original sin. It would suggest that death existed before there was sin. That is to say, the creation was corrupted before a sin had been committed.
iii) Argument from Genesis
Genesis 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
The argument that because it specifies morning and evening, that it must have meant a solar day that creation week followed.
Objection to Arguments I and III:
As Pope Paul VI said, we are greatly separated from the past, and what could seem to be a literal passage may in fact have not been meant as such by the authors who employed styles of writing, different literary devices and ways of communicating written ideas that are no longer used today.
For example compare Shakespeare’s english with modern english; the way of expressing ideas is somewhat different even though it is the same langauage. It is likewise true that modern hebrew is several thousand years separated from the style used by the author of Genesis, who may have meant something different than what seems to be inferred
Objection to Argument II: It is not really an evil thing for animals to experience pain or die and as such it is not a necessary conclusion that the existence of biological evolutionary death indicates creation had been corrupted.
It is also true that the word ‘death’ in the biblical sense often means something other than what is biological, and the death that entered the world through Adam, in which we are all conceived into, is not the same as biological death, but rather refers to our spirits being ‘dead’.
I haven’t found myself necessarily convinced of either young or old earth.
Maybe we should ask someone who knows…
(you may repeat this yourself if you would like to help)
Lord, if it be pleasing to your will, help us better understand your words so that we may know if they are literal or metaphorical, and open our eyes to the truth in this mystery. We ask this through Jesus Christ Your Son. Amen.
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