Posted on 10/22/2004 7:22:56 AM PDT by Publius Valerius
Universe's 6,000th birthday ...
Tim Radford Friday October 22, 2004 The Guardian
Britain's geologists are about to celebrate the fact that the universe is exactly 6,000 years old.
At 6pm tonight at the Geological Society of London, scientists will raise their glasses to James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh (below), who in 1650 used the chronology of the Bible to calculate the precise date and moment of creation.
Working from the book of Genesis, and risking some speculation on the Hebrew calendar, he calculated that it began at 6pm on Saturday October 22, 4004 BC.
Actually, he put the date at October 23, and then pedantically realised that time must have begun the night before, because the Bible said that "the evening and the morning were the first day."
The geologists selected the anniversary for a day-long conference on some of the fakes, frauds and hoaxes that have plagued geological and palaeontological research for centuries. "It's not that we think Archbishop Ussher's date was a fraud," said Ted Nield, the society's communications officer. "It's just that it was spectacularly wrong."
Dr Nield conceded, too, that in toasting the archbishop's calculations the geologists were committing another error. More than 6,000 years have passed since 4004 BC. The symmetry is only apparent. The date is a mere numerological reflection. The real anniversary passed unnoticed, in 1997.
Man cannot deal with origins apart from faith. If your religion is evolution then you believe the universe began between 5 and 15 billion years ago. You do not derive that number from science. You mostly have enemies of God making declarative statements and since they have the emprimateur of science, then that makes it so. But it doesn't. It is taken as an article of faith. An honest athiest would agree. The Christian faith will continue to be the object of derision by scientists who do not have the answers. So for those of you who side with the Big Bang theory, please answer this. If you agree that true science is dependent upon the 1st and 2nd Laws of thermodynamics, then what existed 1 second before the big bang. Remember energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and energy moves from a higher energy state to a lower energy state. Will await your reply. Is it back to the void?
> Or fudge the numbers so that it appears correct...cold fusion, global warming, silicon implants, etc...
Tell me... how do you know that cold fusion, say, is bunk? Did John Edward, Speaker to the Dead, tell you? Did you divine that info from a Ouiji board? Maybe it was beamed into your head by Space Friends from Comet Hale-Bopp?
Or...
Did *science* show that cold fusion was not what it was cracked up to be?
It was the latter. Despite the efforts of crackpots and cranks (the Discovery Institute springs to mind...), science is self-correcting. One does not need to pass through a scientific seminary and enter a scientific priesthood to do good science, as Emily Rosa demonstrates. Science is open to all to examine and discover. You are free to present your work and your results; if they stand up to scrutiny they may be accepted, and conventional wisdom overturned. But if your work is crap... you will most likely be laughed at.
If you work in the realm of religion, however, and your work is nonsense... you just might get yourself a TV show.
What about all the 'acts of proof' in the Old Testament?
The passage I thought you were referncing is 2Peter 3:8. With the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day.
yes and no
4003 whole years BC(1 to 4003) + 2003 whole years AD (1 to 2003) plus year fractions (23 Oct to Dec31 4004) & (1 Jan to Oct 22 2004) = 6007
Face it, Science is a "religion".
Scientists have their creed - "The scientific method"
They have their worshipers - scientists
They have their rituals of membership - until you have aquired enough knowledge and accreditation - membership
They have their religous tribunals and heretics
They have their bishops - Einstein, Hawkins, Pasteur, Newton
They have their sacraments - scientific awards, publications
They have their reformations - Earth revolves around sun, Sun revolves around earth.
They are hypocrites like everyone else and should not preach from lofty perches as in the title of the thread.
Tell that to DOW chemicals...the "scientific experts" are the ones doing the laughing all the way to the bank...
> Face it, Science is a "religion".
No, it's not. The rest of your thesis is similarly bunk.
> Tell that to DOW chemicals
Now you've slipped into the realm of "lawyers." A wholly different area.
Not this time. There is a moratorium until after the election.
Science has the first 13 billion light years covered.
BUMP
Maybe, if you believe that Jesus never did anything but weep.
That post needed a bad analogy warning
If the fossils were millions of years old, they would be fully depleted of Carbon 14. No fossil has ever been found that has been fully depleted of it's carbon 14.
What Carbon dating reveals about long ages
And you assume that the universe is older than the earth because you assume that the earth evolved. In fact scripture records that the earth was formed first and the stars after.
> if you believe that Jesus never did anything but weep.
The "Buddy Christ" is offensive to those who have statues of the "Cranky Upstairs Neighbor Christ."
In 2Peter 3, St. Peter is refering to the mockers who say that since the promise of the Lord's day has not been fulfilled yet, that it will not be fulfilled. (2Peter 3:3 "Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mockinf, follow after their own lusts, {v.4} and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the father fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.'".
It is talking about judment from God for their sin of unbelief. It will come in God's timing. Since He is not tied to our time and space, we should not assume that because we have not seen judment ourselves, that it is any less likely to come. The whole book of 2 Peter is about warning the church against false doctrine and false teachers. The thousand years is a day and vice versa, has not reflection on the actual time to wait for the judgment. It is an idiom designed to convey that God is not bound by time as we are.
Christ said that if God cut short the time to equal 7 years otherwise no life would be left on the earth after the Day of the Lord.
I believe that Daniel is the only book in the Old Testament to assign a time frame to the "Day of the Lord".
I know that there are legitimate disputes surrounding this topic, but there are certain facts that have to be accepted if one takes a serious and reasonable approach to the text of the Bible.
There is no "before" the big bang, as there is nothing south of the south pole.
False. These fossils would only fall back to the background level of C14.
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