How can religious people continue to believe so many things that have been proven wrong?

Question

An Example:

We know (are pretty sure) the earth is 4 billion years old. Even if it's not we KNOW it is at least millions of years old. The last dinosaur lived 65 million years ago and we have the bones to prove it. Yet the Bible says the universe and earth are 6 thousand years old! There are tons of discrepancies like this that prove the Bible is wrong, but Christian's just close their eyes and don't want to hear it.

Answer 1

they don't call it "blind faith" for nothing

Answer 2

Your question is arrogant and ignorant. You example is a very poor example, shows your ignorance of the Word of God and illustrates your ability to "close your eyes" and believe what you want to believe.

1) So many things have been PROVEN wrong: There is
nothing - scientifically or archaelogically - that has
PROVEN my faith is wrong. In fact, those things have
when they have PROVEN anything, have shown that
the things written in the Bible are completely accurate.

2) You KNOW - followed up with "pretty sure". You can't
KNOW and only be pretty sure.

3) "The last dinasaur lived 65 million years ago". Haven't
you ever seen a crocadile or heard about the
"dinosaur fish" found off of the coast of Africa.
They still exist.

4) "The Bible says the universe and earth are 6 thousand
years old." Site the verse. You are trying to add up
the years from Jesus to Adam arriving at your
conclusion. But the time before Adam is not
accounted for. If you want to say the Bible says
on the first day... second day.... and so on, the
Bible also says that with God a day is like 1000
years and 1000 years like one day.

5) "There are tons of discrepancies" just sounds like you
are parroting the atheists and agnostics that like to
dwell on this site "seeking whom they may devour."
My guess is that you have never read the Bible, you
have never read any actual research on these
subjects but are only repeating what a philosophy
that fits into your world view.

I do not deny that many "Chrisitans" believe but don't
know why - blindly beleiving. But you aren't any
different. You are not a seeker of any truth. Just
someone seeking to be comfortable in their sin.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Keep in mind that the creation story was an attempt by people who had no access to modern science to explain the origin of the universe and life on earth. EVERY culture has a story along those lines. There are theories, probably on the net, that the six days of creation correspond fairly well to the different ages of prehistory. I agree with science, that the earth is rather older than six thousand years, and that life began with simpler forms. However, even conceding "the Big Bang," who or what set it up? This is the "uncaused first cause." An entity that could engineer something like that is not subject to the same physical laws the rest of us are. By any reasonable definition that would be a god!

Much of the Bible is history, and we can neither prove nor disprove all of the entries there, although science has, in fact, provided some evidence of them. The balance is a philosophy of life, and you would be hard pressed to find a better one (one man's opinion). As a philosophy, you may agree or not, but it defies "proof" or "disproof." The bottom line is faith: belief in something which may or may not be provable. As long as it doesn't harm you, don't condemn others for it.

Answer 4

Hey now, they can be as brainwashed and ignorant as they want.. Let them be.


[edit]
The bible is written by man, and man is hardly ever accurate. The bible IS history, which means it is in the past. I do like your example, because it does prove that what the bible says about how old the earth and universe is wrong. Although, I believe the bible has been misinterpreted. Back in the day, the word "earth" and "land" were interchangable. For example, in the bible wher eit says "God flooded the earth" or whatever what it really meant was a certain piece of land probably. No one knows for sure, and we may never really know.
All I know is that I'm not going to put my life in parallel with a book that is thousands of years old.
I believe that as long as you are a good person, your religion and beliefs don't matter. I am not atheist, I am not Christian, I'm not anything. I just live.

Answer 5

because nothing has been PROVEN. Yes we have dinosaur bones- that for the most part, most of them we don't know for sure have been put together correctly- I meanlook at all the so called prehistoric man skulls that turned out to be a big fat hoax - they were pieces of different species of different ages put together using nothing more than someones active imagination.
Secondly, MOST true and honest scientists will tell you that carbon dating is not even close to being a reliable way to tell how old something is. So far there is no reliable foolproof way to figure out how old bones and fossils are. Because of a global flood (that scientists that DONT believe the Bible can agree happened) about 4, 000 - 6,000 years ago (funny how when you really study true science does line up with the Bible !) there really can be no reliable source for dating bones and fossils. All of the real evidence supports the Bible and creation- the only evidence that supports otherwise is the imaginations of men who refuse to accept there is a higher power they will have to face and be accountable to one day!

Answer 6

No, the earth is not 1 million or any billion yrs old. Man, listen to yourself, what a discrepancy!!!!! The dinosaurs are pre-flood creatures what scientist claim to be the prehistoric/"ice age" creatures. There is evidence tht water covered the entire earth. Christians accept the account of the Great Flood, evolutionist choose to address this by claiming there was an Ice Age. You are placing your faith in a theory tht has a discrepancy of millions to billions of years. The Bible is straightforward. There is no confusion about such things.

http://www.chick.com/information/general/salvation.asp

Answer 7

I would like you to show me where in the Bible it says that the earth and universe are 6 thousand years old...
Have you studied the Bible (ever read it?) to affirm with authority that it is wrong, or are you just repeating things that you've heard somewhere else? Because it's only the responsible thing to do to study/research first and then make such affirmations.
I would also like to see you disprove the historical accuracy of the Bible, if you can, and also try to disprove that Jesus came to this world, that He lived an exemplary life, that He was who He claimed to be, that He did miracles, that He died and resurrected on the third day, and that He did that to pay for my sins. Because THAT is the basis of my faith, and not the dinosaurs.
When you can do all that, come back and post, because you might be the only person in the world capable of disproving those things. Or maybe you might end up convincing yourself of the truth, if your not afraid of doing so...

Answer 8

Technically the bible doesn't "SAY" the world is 6000 years old. People have computed that from some assumptions from Adam onward. Then you have the definition of what a day is during genesis.

But in any case, I expect the answers you'll get are things like 'science hasn't proved this', 'the evidence of carbon dating is wrong', 'the devil planted bad evidence to confused us', etc.

I think the important thing is, what would effect people's lives more: figuring out the age of the earth, or figuring out that hating and killing each other is wrong?

Maybe it's the latter we should focus more religious argument on.

Answer 9

You could say though that the Earth has only been recorded by mankind for 6 thousand years. But you are right, a lot of religious people just close their ears to other points of view. The bible is sexist against women and states that homosexuality is wrong, but christians interpret the bible as they want.

Answer 10

Ack! I can't believe I'm jumping into this cesspool!
People believe because everyone needs to believe in something greater than themselves. (Whether it be God, science, or the history of their tribe.)

Millions and millions of Christians--those that have no need to pound their Bibles in places like Answers--are quite satisfied that A.) the earth was created about 6,000 years ago and that B.) the earth is vastly more ancient than that, and was formed by stellar gasses and dust under the influence of gravity.

It's like standing on two different mountain tops and looking at the village below. Both pictures are correct, yet they are incredibly different. Yet most people would have no trouble viewing each of them and realizing that both were truth.

It's only when people like you find the need to prove that one perspective is wrong, or people like them feel the need to convince you that all the science is nothing more than fantasy that there's a problem. (And I have to admit that they seem the most vocal, and the least well-informed.)

Those of us (and I believe we are the majority of Christians) who can see the village from both perspectives (and who also realize that there are a heck of a lot more mountain tops out there than we'll ever be able to reach) have no problem whatsoever knowing what we're seeing.

Answer 11

You talk of proof and offer several different answers as to the age of the earth... Every time you people open your mouth, you've added a couple billion or hundred billions of years to the age of the earth or the universe, hoping that everyone follows you with an equally implausible leap of faith that anything can happen to planets and creatures if you give it enough time... Can horses have developed from some one celled thing that slithered forth out of the primoridial soup? Sure, but you have to give every link in that progressive evolutionary chain a couple of hundred billion years of evolving, that could happen... Even if the fossil record has huge, gaping holes in it and your "proof" requires you to accept assumptions that can never be substantiated.

Are there definitive examples of macro evolution? I know of some examples of micro evolution, in which a species will have adapted to a certain climate or situation within its environment, but are there examples of, and definite documented species that we know have, for example - any type of bird that was once an insect? What would that be...

Just because you have an abundance of theories, none of which have been locked down airtight, does not make your acceptance of a faith in science any different than our faith in God having created all things, even if that requires us to accept some things that we cannot explain or do not understand. You have yours, and are welcome to it. Apparently you do not offer me that same respect. Oh well...