The Earth is how old???

fwiw, to anybody with a half a brain science is not faith based.

 

In the process of formation different minerals also show when the rock was disturbed. These processes that disturb the cascade effect of the decay will leave a trace of that disturbance. Zircon is the mineral of choice for this testing, and can tell us not only when the rock was formed, but also when significant events occurred in it's life.

Here's an article in "Nature", probably the most prestigious scientific journal....let's just call it the RRW of science.

http://geology.about.com/gi/o.htm?z...isc.edu/%7Evalley/zircons/Wilde2001Nature.pdf

 

Right, how's that MMGW working out for your heroes?

 

MMGW?

 

Anthropogenic climate change

 

Similar to cgordon3, I have faith and a beleiver in the Lord. Having said that, one must question if the Bible is to be understood as being 100% literal in its interpretation. For example: if the earth was created in 6 days, then we have another verse that states "that one day is as a 1000 to God". So right off the start we have another 6000 years to comprehend.

Another example: In Mark 11:22-24 the verse states that "faith can move mountains". Now in the entire history of mankind (including scripture) there has not been one recorded case of a faithful man moving a mountain. Things are written in the Bible in a way to be understood with a certain modicum of spiritual understanding and interpretation. Not 100% in its literal sense. If your chemist freinds are on that line, I would suggest that they are leaning towards the zealot end of the christian spectrum.

By the way... this whole idea of the creation timeline and age of the earth was started in the late 1800's by a scholar named J.N. Darby and called "Dispensationalism" (Google it if you care enough), personally I take it as a theory and nothing more. Most of Christianity has embraced it, which is fine, but its pointless to argue the point as there is too much scientific evidence to counter any theological view point. I'm content in my own faith that I am a sinner saved by grace. Pretty simple really.

 

come back to me when religion gets beyond the hypothesis stage.

I dont believe in MMGW. That is politics, not science.

 

For me this is what it boils down to really.


The rest of it... age of the earth etc... are good discussion points.

 

I believe in God without a doubt. I just dont believe in the Bible.

do you know how big the Arc would have to be to hold two of every species of animal?
and exactly how did they keep say the Lions from eating the Wildebeast?

 

Lots of areas for discussion and debate no doubt.


I have no problems with the new testament, as it is almost completely written by people who saw what they were writing about.

The first books of the bible are the head scratchers for me.

 

How about all the freshwater species? Lots of questions.

 

Not simple at all, numbering systems were vastly different in ancient times and the use of the integer 'zero' has an interesting history. I doubt the authors of the books of the bible were mathematicians, so whether a day was an actual 'day' or an allegory that implied another meaning is open to interpretation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(number)

 

This is always an interesting discussion. I guess it just depends on your starting point which one you choose at the moment. Either one starts with presently known scientific data and forms conclusions with that at its core using religious information as secondary, or a Christian can start with his interpretation of the Bible as primary because of his faith and use known scientific data to form conclusions, i.e. this is what is known now but we may find scientific data that later causes us to change our theories (the only thing i can think of at the moment would be like the discorvery of relativity and quantum mechanics which changed our view of the world from classical newtonian physics). Everyone starts with his or her own presuppositions.

Anyway, I think DaveK has a good question on why does it really matter. The only reasons I can think of as to why it matters to a lot of Christians is for theological reasons. It doesn't really matter how old the world is; the real question is how did human beings get here in the first place. God could have created the world 4.5 billion years ago or 6000 years ago, but in either case, when did he create man and how? Did we evolve or did God create us fully formed, regardless of the age of the earth? In a conservative or even moderate Christian theology, man evolving from lower life forms creates huge theological problems regarding sin, death, justice, and atonement. I could go into more detail about this, but I'll just leave it to the familiar story:
God created man as innocent,
man disobeyed God bringing sin into world,
man is cursed to toil all the days of his life and die but God still promises to Adam and Eve to "fix" the problem,
Adam's offspring are born with a sin nature,
man grows increasingly wicked,
God destroys the world through a flood,
he makes a promise to Noah,
chooses the line of Shem,
God chooses Shem's descenant Abraham and makes a convenant (i will make your name great, i will make you into a great nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed through you),
Abraham's descedant Jacob becomes Israel and God makes a convenant with the nation by way of Moses,
He gives them the Law to show his nature, holiness, and requirements,
Israel continually fails because they cannot live up to this standard (to show that man cannot overcome sin and death and find salvation on his own merit),
then we come to the new testament and Christ is born as a descendant of David and Abraham (both legally and physically as shown by the genealogies in Matthew and Luke),
Christ is God's promise to Adam and Eve, to Abraham, to Israel, to David, and to the entire earth,
Christ dies for our sins offering salvation to mankind for those that believe and an eventual resurrection in a physical body for eternity,
everyone is judged at the end,
the heavens and the earth are recreated without sin and without death.

So theologically speaking, if human death entered the world before sin then this whole thing could break down (although other Christian theologies that accept evolution will find ways to work around this problem). That's why the age of the earth is not that important. It all comes down to when man arrived on the scene, how he got here, and why he dies. I think this is what really gets Christians up in arms, and this is why your friend and his wife will defend their view of the age of the earth because they tie it in directly with the creation of man, sin, and death, probably without even realizing it. As thisle has pointed out, this is closely aligned with a dispensational point of view which a lot of evangelicals have adopted (giving rise to a lot of those awful "Left Behind" books). Of course those that hold to a reformed convenantal stance would also have a problem getting around the whole death before sin thing too. Hmmm, now I'm kind of curious about Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox position on this...

People still debate the usage of the word 'yom' in Genesis and the other aspects surrounding the creation narrative. Just to give an example:

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/39/39-4/39-4-pp529-536_JETS.pdf

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/45/45-4/45-4-PP577-584_JETS.pdf


I'm just throwing this out there to help you guys understand why this whole debate about the age of the earth is so important to a lot of theologically conservative Christians.

 

Just throwing this out there, but there is a really good article in the current issue of Skeptic Magazine by a practicing minister entitled, "Thank God for the New Atheists".

Suggested reading no matter which side of faith you fall on.

 

There was the flood - so there was no need to take them into the ark. As far as the fresh-water vs salt-water species, I believe that each have evolved through natural selection.

 

And what was their reasoning behind that age?

 

Do you believe the earth was covered with fresh water or salt water?

 

If you are a Christian time takes on a new meaning when you see God in a different dimension of time. One day could be as thousands and so on

 

Islam came around in the 7th century CE. Judiasm dates back to somewhere around 1900 BCE according to biblical accounts (hard to say exactly). The bronze age began 3300 BCE, and the Mesopotanians developed non pictographic writing and mathmatics around 3000 BCE. The Paleolithic (old stone age) era began 2.6 million years ago with the emergance of 'modern' man. That only accounts for .0005% of the world's history.

 

Man went to moon...
Found it was NOT made of cheese....
Man has not returned...