Posted on 12/15/2010 5:17:34 AM PST by ImProudToBeAnAmerican
“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.” (Exodus 20:11a KJV)
According to evolutionary scientists, the earth is over 4 billion years old; but Biblical chronology dates the age of the earth at about 6,000 years. In an attempt to reconcile the two extreme positions, many creation scientists have used 2 Peter 3:8 to state that the six days mentioned in the Genesis account were not literal 24-hour days. However, if we used the “a day is as a thousand years” formula, we would have the six days of creation plus the day of rest equaling 7,000 years, at most. Hardly a good reconciliation with 4 billion years. So, how old is the earth?...
Fifth article in a series about Creation by Rosemarie Thompson.
Comments welcome!
(Excerpt) Read more at inspiretomorrow.wordpress.com ...
One can see the blowout area using GOOGLE EARTH.
Just wanted to know where to look.
How is it an ignorant statement when it is the truth? I’m a little confused, are you just mad that It’s a factual statement, or what?
For the most part, the word of God is a literal, plain language treatise that needs reading, not interpretation.
The plain read is from God, and interpretation always takes away God’s word and adds in man’s word.
As Paul said in Romans, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Read it aloud and you will hear the word of God.
I agree, but I’d also say that those who believe in naturalistic macro-evolution do the same thing also. Bob
There is a legend that Adam’s bones were carried by Noah in the ark, then buried by Noah at Golgotha...
For sure!
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> “There is a legend that Adam’s bones were carried by Noah in the ark, then buried by Noah at Golgotha”
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Since there isn’t a word of it in the Bible, and no other coherant writings exist from that age, that would be a tough one to run with, except perhaps as the theme of a movie.
That tradition was actually articulated by Origen, who heard it around Jerusalem circa 200ad ...that’s one of the traditional origins of the name of Golgotha, the “skull” being that of Adam...magritte
Origen, no surprise!
He was a mindless gnostic.
Actually, Golgotha was a rock formation that looked like a skull, which was probably why they used it for such gruesome purpose.
Thanks for the ping!
Furthermore, I believe that God keeps his Word whole, and there is no error in it. I also do not believe His Word is in error.
That does not mean I believe in 6,000 years, or 10,000 years, as a prerequisite to me believing God is sovereign; in much the same way that being circumcised or uncircumcised is not a prerequisite. Saying God makes a baby slowly and sequentially grow from an implanted cell in the womb into a goo-goo-gaa-gaa in 9 months doesn't make me any less than someone who says He can make the kid explode from a zygote to a baby in a second (He can definitely do that, but looking at His creation that is not how things occur). I base my salvation on Christ Jesus, not on the intepretation of men (and in their interpretation they are not even consistent ...for instance is it 6,000 or the 'newer' 10,000 years?). For me that is nonsense ...it does NOTHING but divide Christians, yet it will never take one person to heaven or to hell. It is worthless and useless debate, in much the same vein as the debate of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin that was taking place at the same time Ussher was calculating the 4004BC.
That energy is better spent telling at least one family member about Christ this Christmas season than using belief in a 'young earth' as a litmus for one's belief in the sovereignity of God's Word. Particularly if one is basing the 'day' on the English translation of the Greek translation, rather than the original Hebrew 'Yom' or the Aramaic. I am certain that much debate can be made on this subject, and much already has. Just as in the past much was made about the topic of circumcision (I use it because it is a relatively neutral subject now that was big back them, with Paul having to basically address almost an entire epistle on that subject alone - Galatians. There are other similar stories, including several from Christ about Pharisees and their laws and edicts, appearing like white-washed tombs on the outside yet inside they contain the bones of dead men). There are many things about God we cannot even begin to comprehend, and it is perfectly alright for you to look at the 'Let there be Light' and see light flooding the universe in a huge rush, and for me to see it as God creating the universe via the Big Bang (which is also light and matter flooding the universe in a huge rush). There are Christians that go to Church on Saturday, and others go on Sunday (and sadly, just like in the case above, a lot of divisions has arisen on that simple issue alone ....like worshiping God on a Sunday vs a Saturday, or Saturday vs a Sunday, is a membership pass to heaven). Personally I find those arguments to be quite suspicious of a certain 'deceiver,' having brothers tear deeply into each other over the Sabbath yet the Lord wants us to worship Him every day in praise and thanksgiving.
Anyways ...I do not want this post to be as long as my prior one. My answer to you is my salvation is based on Christ Jesus. Also, that while it is 'fun' to debate certain issues (dinosaurs living with man, should one go to hospital/get a transfusion when sick - people have died because of this one, what did people speak before Babel, where was Eden, should one go to Church on Saturday or Sunday, is the Earth 6,000, 10,000, or several billion years old) ....those issues are less than useless if the One Question (of where you stand with Christ) is not addressed. Furthermore, the divisions some of those issues bring, where you can see REAL Christians truly tearing into each other, makes one wonder about the true motivation of some of those debates.
I have a feeling that someday in heaven we will meet, and we will both get an answer. It will probably make us both laugh at how off we both were.
As best I can tell, it's sort of synergistic with the need for more time for this or that evolutionary development to occur. The dates are always shifting, further and further back.
Catholics are not required to believe evolutionary theory. There are many who don't. I know of several active FReepers who are young earth Creationists.
Try again.
Yes, because, for Christians at least (which I'm given to understand you at least *profess* to be), the Scripture is where you start. If you want to start from "science" (which itself has, ah, "interpretive problems"), then just go ahead and admit that you're a materialist and be done with it.
Nevertheless, to have "Scriptural interpretation," of whatever kind, there is a necessary starting point in Scripture. If you can't even provide us with some attempt at that, then there is no way for you to successfully pretend that you have an "interpretation of Scripture." No. What you have is just some ramblings from a bunch of self-proclaimed "experts," for none of whom there is any good reason why I or anyone else should care in the least what they think about anything.
Again, you seem to be under the impression that throwing a few names and quotes around is some sort of a valid substitute for actual logic, reason, and argumentation. I assure you, they are not, and anyone with an IQ above room temperature can easily see that you haven't got a clue what you're talking about, and are simply relying upon the "authority" of others who likewise don't know what they're talking about.
In other words, your arguments are not only not convincing, but they are anti-convincing - they actually work against you in that any reasonable person, seeing you as a representative of the viewpoint you are expressing, will actually be less inclined to take that viewpoint seriously. I know I am less inclined to take anything you stump for seriously, seeing as how you can't even answer a simple question.
Really? The Bible specifically asserts that the creation was made to appear older than it actually was? I missed that bit. Please direct me to the relevant text.
However, the "milllllllions and miiiiiiiiillions of yeeeeeears" jibber-jabber, well, God didn't tell us that, nor does the actual state of the physical world suggest it. That's just a daffy and thoroughly inane idea that man came up with all by his lonesome.
It was actually a creationist idea.
Although a definite age for the earth was not established until the advent of radiometric dating in the 1950's, it was pre-Darwinian geologists, Christians and creationists to a man, who initially concluded that the earth was extremely ancient, on the order of many millions to hundreds of millions of years.
Young earth creationism and flood geology are the recent elaborations. They didn't become predominant among fundamentalists until the last several decades, initially popularized by Whitcomb and Morris' The Genesis Flood, published in 1961.
Whitcomb and Morris were reviving a "flood geology" that was innovated by George McCready Price in the 1920's.
Interestingly, Price, a Seventh Day Adventist, was motivated not by the direct requirements of the Biblical text, but by the writings of Adventist founder Ellen G. White, accepted by Adventists as an infallible "prophet," who claimed and described detailed "visions" of the creation and the flood.
So, modern YEC, at least in its origins, is basically a cult belief.
Excepting the occasional footnote, Henry Morris (a Baptist, IIRC) pretty consistently hid or downplayed his debt to Price. Notably the book in which he most completely acknowledged Price's role -- History of Modern Creationism, 1984 -- was latter pulled from publication by the Institute for Creation Research. To replace it Morris wrote a new book -- The Long War Against God: the history and impact of the creation/evolution conflict, 1989 -- which swept the Adventist influence back under the carpet.
It is not a sin to be stupid.
It is, however, a sin to be wilfully stupid.
I suspect your definition of sin is rather malleable. Faith in anthropogenic global warming based upon science has proved rather stupid. Is it a sin, in your estimation?
History contradicts your analysis.
In fact, although having at that point no way to determine a definite age, geologists had begun to recognize that the earth was extremely ancient (potentially hundreds of millions of years) before Darwin ever proposed, or even formulated, his evolutionary views.
OTOH, after Darwin proposed his theories, contemporary scientists published various calculations -- based on assumptions either as to how long the sun could have continued to burn, or as to how long it would have taken for the earth to cool to its present temperature assuming it began as a molten mass -- which vastly lowered the upper limit for the earth's age, reducing it from hundreds of millions of years or more, to tens of millions or less, in some cases very much less.
Of course these calculations were wrong. They assumed that the sun burned by chemical energy, and that there was no internal source of heat generation in the earth's rocks. But since no one could then imagine thermonuclear fusion, which powers the sun, or radioactive nuclear decay, which heats the earth; no one could show how they were wrong at the time.
So the dates actually shifted in the opposite direction from what you assume. (Granted, however, that geologists did continue to point to evidence from their discipline that the earth was extremely ancient, but without, prior to the discovery of new nuclear phenomena, being able to resolve the apparent contradiction with physics.)
Since geologists were finally able to establish a definite age for the earth -- with the development of radiometric dating techniques in the 1950's -- there has been no appreciable "shifting" of the earth's age. The determined figure has remained steady for more than half a century now.
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