Three questions for the "6000 year old earth" folks...?

Question

1. Do you believe that astronomers can accurately measure the distance to other objects in space? (Such as the moon, which we sent a rocket to?)

2. Do you believe that scientists can accurately measure the speed of light?

3. Do you realize that many of the "lights" in the sky, that god supposedly "set in the heavens" 6000 years ago... are actually hundreds of thousands of light years away from us? (Which means, the only reason we see them today is because their light was emitted hundreds of thousands of years ago...)

If you answered "yes" to questions 1 and 2, you have just inadvertantly admitted to yourself that the book of Genesis, is at best... flawed.

I invite you to look into this a bit more. But when you do, please do a little more research than Dr. Dino. :)

Edit - For those saying "just because the stars are old, doesn't mean the earth is... you are conveniently forgetting your own bible again... On the FOURTH DAY, god set the stars in the heavens..."

Edit- one more note - for the apologists saying "No, it was 6 billion years, not 6 days, etc..." Please note that this question was clearly addressed to the "6000 year old earth" folks. Save your irrelevant responses for a question that warrants them...

Answer 1

So you are saying God can't create distant lights that we can't see today. Seems like you are putting God in a box to do only what you can imagine Him to do. I learned a long time ago that God's ways are not my ways. As far as scientists are concerned, when it comes to millions and millions its only a guess. Saying something is 450 million years old cannot be accurate. Why not 449 or 451. Believe what you must.

Answer 2

I'm not a 6,000 year older but

1. No. Einstein says what you see is relative to your position.

One day we may travel billions of light years and find measurements are radically different from one spot to another.

Is the ball FALLING STRAIGHT DOWN or does it make a parabol!

Einstein says if you travel in a straight line you return to the point of origin, hence WE ARE NOT seeing things the way they really are and can't measure them.

And there is a Nobel winning Science discovery about measurement of time and distance that SHOWS, taking error into account, that the EARTH is motionless! Michelson Morely.

2. No. We don't have a clock that accurate. We can easily be off by a few nanoseconds.

Heisenberg's uncertain principle leaves open the possiblity that atomic clocks may not be precise since you can never know the position of an electron.

3. Genesis says the Universe was created on Day 1 and the Earth and Sun came into total being on day 4. The Universe is 12-14 billion years old and the Sun is 4-5 billion years old. That's 2/3 the way from creation. On a 6 day scale 4 is 2/3 of the way from day one.

Explain that prediction from a 3,000 year old book.

Answer 3

This is not a new problem, but one that all educated creationists have been aware of for a long time.

"6,000 year old earth" folks (usually referred to as "Young Earth Creationists") fall into many different camps on this issue -- the problem is not that there is no answer, but rather that there are many good answers and that creationists disagree about which one best reflects what actually happened.

Probably the two most popular positions among YEC scientists today are the Humphreys hypothesis and the "Appearance of Age" hypothesis.

Russel Humphreys' hypothesis is that the universe is finite and unbounded with an uneven distribution of matter, which would allow God to create the universe in such a way (given the relative relationships between gravity, acceleration, and time) that 6,000 years could transpire in one location (earth) while tens of billions of years transpired in other locations.

The "Appearance of Age" hypothesis is older and still the most popular (for good reason) even though the title is somewhat misleading.

It would probably be better described as the "Functional Creation" hypothesis because it holds that God created everything to be FUNCTIONAL at the moment of creation. For a functional creation, at least some plants would have to be created at a fruitbearing age, many animals created as adults, and the earth would have to be created already with heat and light coming from the sun and other heavenly objects.

The passage that describes the creation of the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day (Genesis 1.14-18) even describes them as being created with a purpose, namely to mark and deliniate the passage of time and seasons.

For distant stars to have been created to signify anything to observers on earth (in other words to have functional stars from an anthropocentric point of view) it would be necessary to have light created en route, all along those hundreds of thousands of light years of distance (and of course any being capable of creating stars in the first place would certainly be capable of creating photons).

The most common criticism of this view (and from which it gets the name "Appearance of Age") is that it would give the creation an "appearance" of being older than it actually was, and therefore make God a deciver.

This is hardly the case, however, and the same criticism could be made of any miracle recorded in the Bible or elsewhere. Anyone who believes that Jesus turned water into
wine at the wedding in Cana believes that the wine was fully functional "good wine", which means it had the same concentrations of alcohol, tannins, sugars, yeast, (heck, even grape DNA fragments), as wine that had been grown over a full season on a local vine and which had been fermented for some time according to the appropriate methods.
This would only be deceptive if Jesus had then claimed that the wine had in fact been grown and fermented naturally, and it would only "appear" old if someone (e.g. the wine taster) had assumed (as he probably would) that the wine had not been miraculously created, but was created by normal methods.

Likewise, a functional creation of stars (with light filling the universe from the time of creation) would only "appear" old if one assumes they were not miraculously created, and would only be a deception if the creator attempted to pass them off as old.

Anyway, these are only two hypotheses, and there are plenty more that have been advanced, but suffice it to say that all educated young earth creationists DO in fact answer all three of your questions with a "Yes" and have no problem doing so and at the same time believing the story of creation told in Genesis.

I hope that helps,
Isaac

Answer 4

It is a common misconception that the Bible say’s everything was created in 6 day’s. The Bible is translated from ancient Hebrew, and the original word that’s been translated into ‘day’ is ‘yohm’, which can mean different lengths of time. So the days are actually periods of time in which these things were being seen to happen, from an earthly perspective. In fact in ‘Genesis 2:4’ all the creative day’s are said to be one ‘day’, and we are actually still in the ‘7th day’, which has lasted so far for 1000’s of years (Hebrews 4:4-6).
The reason why it say that that within the day ‘there came to be evening, and there came to be morning a… day’, is that the Bible show’s that when something is first starting, to the observers the final result would be unclear (the observer would be in darkness ‘mentally’). Then as time goes on, and especially when whatever was concluded, the light would ‘dawn’ on them (Proverbs 4:18).


Genesis 2:4
This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time of their being created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven.

Hebrew 4:4-6
For in one place he has said of the seventh day as follows: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works,” and again in this place: “They shall not enter into my rest.” Since, therefore, it remains for some to enter into it…

Proverbs 4:18
But the path of the righteous ones is like the bright light that is getting lighter and lighter until the day is firmly established.

Answer 5

Allow me to set the record straight about this ongoing fued..........
Several Bible versions, including the New International Version, the Scofield Reference Bible and the Companion Bible, note that the phrase "the earth was without form and void" (verse 2) can be rightly translated "the earth became without form and void." The Hebrew word hayah, translated "was," means "to become, occur, come to pass, be" (Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1985, "To Be").

In other words, God created the earth, but the original Hebrew can just as easily indicate that it later became "without form, and void." It can indicate that something spoiled the original creation described in Genesis 1:1 and caused God to restore order out of chaos—which would have happened during six days of restoration followed by a Sabbath rest day.
Suffice it to say here that God does not create by first creating chaos (Isaiah 45:18; 1 Corinthians 14:33). God told the powerful angelic being Lucifer, "You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity [lawlessness] was found in you" (Ezekiel 28:15). God is a being of perfection, order and beauty. Chaos and disorder result from rejection of or rebellion against Him. Scripture reveals that angels already existed before earth's creation (Job 38:4-7). Angelic beings were the first to introduce disharmony and confusion into God's perfect creation.

Other scriptures indicate that an original, earlier creation (Genesis 1:1) preceded the earth being "without form, and void" (Hebrew tohu and bohu, meaning a condition of chaotic disorder and confusion) in verse 2. Isaiah 45:18 tells us specifically that God "did not create it [the earth] in vain [tohu]." The chaotic condition described in Genesis 1:2 came later.

This chaos apparently resulted from a rebellion against God by Satan and a third of the angels (Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:12-17; Revelation 12:4). Later, after an unspecified interval, during six days followed by the seventh-day Sabbath, God could have accomplished a full restoration of what had become chaotic (Genesis 1; Exodus 20:11).

In other words, a time gap seems to be indicated between the original creation described in Genesis 1:1 and earth's restoration in verse 2. This unspecified period could have encompassed billions of years, accounting for the "deep time" that geologists and other scientists seem to have discovered in the last two centuries.

Therefore the Bible itself, when correctly understood, offers a logical solution to this supposed creation enigma and has no inherent conflict with the possibility that the universe may be 15 billion years old. The Bible itself simply doesn't say how old the universe, or earth, is. But it does plainly say: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Answer 6

It ironic that the Bible gets blamed for every crackpot that interprets it in ways that must be admitted scientifically to not be supportable.

It got blamed for the flat earth, for the earth is the center of the universe, and now this!

Reading these very ancient words, it is evident that no human could have been the author of this knowledge:

Job 26: 7 He stretcheth out the north over empty space, And hangeth the earth upon nothing (ASV)

Isaiah 40:22 It is he that sitteth above the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in;(ASV)

So when you attack the Genesis creation account, perhaps read it first and don't rely on people's interpretation of times and ages:
Here is a discussion that tries to look at the Bible's account without a preconceived acceptance of church dogma.

http://bythebible.page.tl/Creation.htm

Answer 7

We see the light from stars that are too far away from us for their light to have reached us within 6000 years because they were near enough to us for their light to reach us, and then some, 6000 years ago when God flung them out. He created the earth first, before he created all the lights in the sky.

Answer 8

If you have done more than just read the Bible. . .actually studied it. You would know that everything did not start at "In the beginning" a lot went on before Gensis 1:1. The fall of Satan for instance. . . .

Answer 9

1. yes
2. yes
3. yes

I know that the book of Genesis is not completely accurate as far as time goes and anyone who doesn't believe this is not fully informed scientifically. I do believe that some great power whether you call it God or Allah or whatever created everything in the universe. During the time that Genesis was written, there was simply not enough scientific knowledge to accurately detail what happened and how much time it took. Do not try to downplay people's beliefs. It is their choice what to believe. Not everyone believes the same things you do, so do not judge.

Answer 10

So, what is the problem with Earth being only 6k years old anyway. Just because there are stars thousands/millions of light-years removed from our planet does not indicate that we are any older than 6000 years.

As for Genesis being flawed, that is an opinion, much like evolution, psychology, global 'climate change', etc.
There is no solid proof either way.

Here is the passage for stars Genesis 1:
14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.