[GodGunsGuts]

Food for thought, ping.

[OneWingedShark]

Honestly, is it better to argue about the age of the Earth or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin... or, perhaps, show some moral outrage at Congress’s retroactive, punitive onerous taxation or “Mandatory Volunteerism” and pursuing some sort of real Justice?

In short, is God more concerned about you ‘being right’ or ‘DOING right’?

[Always Right]

I think there is enough ambiguity as to what happens before and during the first day of creation to allow for a old earth even with a very literal reading of Genesis.

[piytar]

Why do people waste time with this trivial garbage? To the literalists: God created light on the first day, the heavens on the second, and the land and sea on the third. In other words, the universe, the stars (including the sun), and then the Earth. That means until the third day of creation, THE EARTHLY DAY DIDN’T EXIST. Gee, think our omnipotent God who exists beyod our understanding of time might have his own definition of “day”? One not limited by our mortal existence? And that He might have simplified the explanation for a bunch of people with no understanding of cosmology?

Sheesh.

[JudgemAll]

“Let the dead bury the dead”

Indeed, to Christians, actual age as we compute it matters not. The rhythm and cadence is meant to be eternal and devoid of faithless interfering anxieties over “how long” this or that will take.

Another way to look at it is that the Earth is round (Moses can only flee so far, the key is the health of the soul as per the Gold Calf incident) and so is time, and the so called bucks “stop” at Christ on the cross.

[RobbyS]

However, it does make a big deal about Adam. Christ is the new Adam. And Eve. The relationship between Adam and Eve is made the model for marriage by Christ. one of the most positive changes made by Jesus in human morality. Even if one tries to make it a metaphor, the moral unity of mankind does not mesh well with Darwinian theories of the origin of man.

[Domandred]

Whether you believe Earth is five thousand years, a few million years, round, flat as a pancake, center of the universe, or backwater corner, honestly doesn’t make a difference to salvation in the belief in Jesus Christ.

[D-fendr]

But reading the Bible for physics is like reading Principia for theology.

Using it as a science text devalues the Scripture.

[starlifter]

I suppose we'll know for sure eventually.

[Future Snake Eater]

In my experience, the first response from Christians who do not accept the age of the earth that the Scriptures indicate, is to say something like “The New Testament does not make a big deal out of the age of the earth” or “It is not the purpose of the Bible to give the age of the earth”. Their point is that (1) the issue of the age of the earth is a non-essential, and (2) therefore not something we should argue about.

I agree. I find this whole topic asinine. All it does is get Christians worked up over minutiae, and gets the atheists/agnostics riled up over "what idiots all Christians are."

Some people just need to find a hobby.

[Palmetto]

The "age" of the earth is a question pondered by Christians who do not understand that time is not constant, and in fact itself is a component of creation.

It is a foolish question which betrays the questioner's ignorance.

[ChessExpert]

Does anyone know what Judaism has to say about the age of the earth?