The 6000 year old Earth claim?

Question

New Earth creationists claim that the Universe is about 6000 years old. Ok, if the Universe is 6000 years old, answer this. We know the speed of light is about 3.0x10^8 meters per second. A light year is the distance light travels in one year. Some of the galaxies astronomers can see with telescopes are millions of light years away from us. That means that the light from these galaxies would take millions of years to reach us. If it takes millions of years for the light to reach us, then obviously 6000 years is not enough time for the light from these galaxies to have reached us. If the Universe is only 6000 years old, then why can we already see the light from these galaxies?

Answer 1

goddidit

Answer 2

Because these people (I believe it's young earth creationists you're referring to) take the bible literally and are very stubborn on the 'day' mentioned in Genesis being our present 24 hours. Other christians, who are the Old earth creationists, have suggested that there probably are errors in translation and the 'day' might have meant a lot more than just 24 hours. They use the verse below as a possible supporting proof saying that a 'day' to God is different than that of a 'day' to us, that God might have waited millions of years before creating humans. 2 Peter 3:8 8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. Personally I think it's rather flimsy evidence for a young earth. But ultimately does it even matter how many years you think the earth is? I mean it's not THAT serious of an issue that people would take up arms and fight against each other because they disagree on the issue of the earth's age, or so I think.

Answer 3

Creationists will tell you that's how god made it and you cannot question that. When man thought the Earth was flat they would have told you the same thing. They are full of garbage but sadly they have a lot of influence in a country that should be leading the world not deluding it.
Fortunately there are very few other leading nations that have this problem.

Answer 4

ROFL

"Were any experiments conducted to determine the speed of light?" ROFL, ROFL, ROFL!!!!! Creationists never cease to amaze me.

Are the rest of you Christians not embarrassed by these people? Don't Christians have a responsibility (even moreso than atheists) to educate these people???


The only possible answer to this question is that God made it look that way. Why God would do something like that is another question entirely.. oh wait, it isn't, because it was God's plan and I don't have to concern myself with these things. I'm just supposed to blindly follow and obey.

Answer 5

I am a Creationist and no, the world is not 6,000 years old. That is an interpretation that I do not understand, and really think those who get that out of the Bible need to re-examine what it says and that a 2 billion year old Earth does not diminish God at all. Let alone there is proof of the Earth's age.
The Bible says God did it in "days", but a measure of wisdom says that we have to be a little smarter to know what a day to God is. A literal 24 hour day, uh...no. The God of the universe is not limited to a measure of his own creation.
Your point is taken... the amazing Creator has done infinitely wonderful thing - the limitless of the universe, the incredible microscopic functioning of DNA as well.
I enjoy and treasure what he has done each day.

Answer 6

Your question is a valid one; however it depends on many assumptions, such as -
1. Light speed is a constant. [Scientists have observed that the speed of light is slowing.]
2. The nature of all laws of the universe have never changed.
[One of the fundamentally disturbing facts of quantum theory and of modern physics is that the laws of the universe may have altered, or shifted in the past]
3. The light we are seeing from those distant spaces has been "traveling" across that vast distance for those many years, because the universe has been slowly expanding. [One of the disturbing facts of "big Bang" theory is that the expansion of the universe may be been decreasing in an inverse exponential rate, therefore the distance may have been dramatically less in much less period of time than expected].
4. If you rule out God, who may have created the light intransit, you have to explain more things that are very deeply disturbing - for instance the laws of the universe appear to require a much more recent "big Bang" than was previously understood, yet the "size" of the universe is not congruent with the "time/rate" of expansion estimates.
5. Astronomers peering into "deep" space have eliminated the notion of Einsteins curved space theory. When you look into deep space you may be looking into the past; but you may also just as plausibly be looking into the future. How would you know? Space is curved and time is not "linear" but quantized and cyclical. There is no guarantee that all things we see in Astronomy can be proven to be past events.

Answer: You have to make assumptions to know, and assumptions have been proven wrong countless times in the past with "science".

Answer 7

In my Church, that is, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there are at least three prevailing positions on the age of the earth: (1) each day of the creation was 24 hours, (2) each day of the creation was actually one thousand years, and (3) the creation of the earth extended over very long periods, the duration of which we do not yet accurately know. Of the three, I adopt the last--the creative periods were of very long duration, since this seems to best fit the present scientific evidence. The Abrahamic account of the creation also replaces the word day with time (Abraham 4:8,13,19,23,31 see lds.org scriptures.) In fact, even in the Genesis account, the Hebrew word translated as "day" can also mean "time" in a general sense. It also is important to note taht the creative periods were not all necessarily of the same duration. As Elder Bruce R. McConkie (past Apostle of the Church) observed, "Each day [of the creation] ... has the duration needed for its purposes ... There is no revealed recitation specifying that each of the 'six days' involved in the Creation was of the same duration." We thus assume that the creative periods described in the Abrahamic creation account are of very long periods of varying length.

So that leaves us, still, with the question, "What is the actual age of the earth?"

The answer to this question is clearly related to how long the creative periods (or "days") were.

There is simply no revelation from God stating the precise age of the earth, nor does my Church have a stance on this issue of the age of the earth. We simply state that we do not know, for God hasn't revealed it. The Bible isn't a scientific textbook explaining the "how", but is a principled-centered map explaining the "why" of everything.

Scientists date the earth and the solar system using a variety of radiometric dating techniques. All of this evidence accumulated by science seems to point to the formation of this earth around 4.6 billion years ago.

Answer 8

Nonsense.

In Genesis, we have God existing before He created everything we can observe.

The very next line, we know this observable world become chaos.

How long is there between creation and chaos?

God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden to earth, not a new earth. How long was Adam and Eve in the Garden.

We know the duration between Adam on earth and Jesus., this is the 6000 years. We do not know the duration of the observable which includes the earth.

One last point, the bible is not a science book, so applying the scientific method against the revelation is foolish.

Answer 9

Nothing in the Bible about the earth being 6,000 years old; nor is any age given for the cosmos. Those who believe the 6,000 year figure, follow an idea credited to Archbishop James Ussher. 1581-1656. Never met the man myself and never believed what he postulated regarding time.

There are still millions of Christians who believe marginal notes in their Bibles, and church traditions, as the very word of God; sad to say. And regarding your post -- it's all relative until the fat lady sings.

Answer 10

I am actually amazed that two individuals would actually argue on the measurement of light speed.

Is our school system that bad? Are we really such an ignorant society. Whats next that the acceleration of Earth's gravity is not 9.8 m/s ^2?

Answer 11

There is no way the Earth is 6,000 years old. That doesn't even make any sense at all. Hinduism is at least 5,000 years old and possibly even 8,000 depending on what people consider as the "beginnings" of it. Dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago. Those creationists belong in the looney bin.