I cannot fathom how a human being comes to the conclusion that the earth is 5,000 years old I am completely?

Question

surrounded by fundies. I am nearly speechless. I was going on at work today about the Grand Cayon "we cant say how old it is controversy" and several fundies uncloseted themselves and and I was ambushed and overwhelmed. The smartest among them claimed that there is no evidence radioactive decay has always occured at the same rate. You simply cannot cause human beings to think rationally despite what they claim.

Answer 1

christians are the destroyers of both knowledge and democracy.

Answer 2

Don't worry too much about it. The Bible has been taken out of context since it was written. The people that hold to the theory that the earth is 5000 years old feel if they say the world is any older than that they will lose ground against all the so called "evil" evolutionists. The age of the earth was calculated by someone a thousand years ago by adding up all the genealogical records found in Genesis. The whole creation story was written as Hebrew poetry. To believe that the earth was created in a literal 7 day period works for some Christians but not all Christians hold to that theory. If you look at the creation account the Sun and Moon (what we use to designate a full day) weren't created until the fourth day. So how was time measured before that? This is one of those debates that has holes in both sides. The earth could be 5000 years old, but I highly doubt it. Yet I am still able to follow Christ. Simply amazing.

Answer 3

I am fundamentally a Creationist myself. However, if one studies and does not listen to the theories of men (religious mentors) you can go back to the Hebrew and know that there were really 3 Earth ages. Science has proof to back this up! The translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew to King James English has really, really deceived thousands. There are some words in Hebrew that don't even have any possible translation into English. It is a tragedy really! I am sure the fundies you are talking about are in the group I am talking about too.

Answer 4

I do not see anyone claiming that the earth is only 5000 years old...

There are many things that humans do not know: we do not know how much carbon-14 was in the air at any point in ancient history; we do not know if the length of the day/year has always been nearly the same as today; we do not know if dinosaurs ever really walked the earth...

We speculate about these things and many more.. and for the most part we have theories that everyone accepts as being possibilities.. but we do not KNOW most of these things (and perhaps some of them are not knowable to any real degree of certainty)...

As to the age of the Grand canyon.. I have seen demonstrations that show that it could have been created in a very short (geologically speaking) period of time.. much shorter than most people think is possible...

But.. I do not consider the age of the earth as being something that I need to know in order for me to return to live with Heavenly Father.. and, since I am not a geologist or scientist that studies any part of the aging earth.. I spend most of my time studying other topics...

There will always be people who try to provide "proof" of things in this world by creating "false data" that gets copied over and over again even after it has been shown to be false (the only cases of this that I am VERY familiar with are those that I helped my professor to review, submitted by PhD candidates who seemed to have buckled under pressure to publish "significant" findings)

And Finally, How do you know that God did not create the Earth at such a state as it would appear to be Billions of years old? Or that God did not create light already in motion toward the earth from stars billions of lightyears away? Perhaps the earth was created with fossils already in the ground for us to find and speculate about.

For Paradigm: How do you know the first 4 are creationists? I don't see that written in their responses.

Answer 5

There are several assumptions at work on both sides. The facts of the matter is that none of us were there to watch the Grand Canyon being made. In addition, it may be very true that carbon dioxide content was much denser in earlier times than today. For instance, people are complaining about the burning of fossil fuels because they release CO2 into the atmosphere, however, all the fossil fuels used to be plants or CO2. Thus, burning the fossil fuels is releasing Carbon into the atmosphere that used to be present. Right now the erosion of the Grand Canyon is very minimal. At the present rate of erosion it would have taken millenia. One's presuppositions often are more influential than the actual evidence. They are the lens through which one works, especially when eye witness accounts are lacking.

Answer 6

I personally can believe the Earth is young... I can also believe it is not. I do think either is possible. Interestingly, there is a film on youtube about an Island being created. It shows people in a boat and there's a volcanic eruption a mile or so away from them and its completely visible and in less than 15 minutes, it created an Island. Even if you don't believe in God, we can see all the time that nature causes things to happen immediately and doesnt need millions of years to do so. It's not nessisary to believe in God, to believe that no, the Grand Canyon didn't need billions of years to become... it only needed a big natural event.

Answer 7

I am in the same boat. I cannot fathom the self-delusion needed to believe the earth is 5000 years old, let alone the other nonsense fundies preach. Most of their arguments are based on the teachings of the like of Ken Ham and Kent Hovind and their arguments are based on misrepresentation, misunderstanding or outright lies.

Check the link below. Most creationists have a set of stock arguments that are easily refuted (assuming they accept logic). There are refutations to the most common of these lies.

Answer 8

So the "smartest" of them thinks that chemistry worked completely differently in the recent past, and he thinks this because some Bronze Age goat herder who didn't even know what atoms are speculated that the Earth was X number of years old, where X was a number he thought was pretty large?

Answer 9

Don't worry too much about it - it's the approach that certain Christians take towards the bible that is the reason for some of their beliefs. It really is harmless.

If you want to get to the bottom of this, find out the approaches taken by different denominations of Christianity towards the bible. Try and understand what the different approaches are, and the reasons for them, and you won't feel offended or upset - or bewildered.

The Catholic Church's approach differs from those you had a discussion with. If you are interested, find out more from books from pauline.org and read the initial material from the url below.

Answer 10

People who listen to their Pastor's, Minister's, Preacher's, Priest's and so on WITHOUT reading the Bible often claim the world is only 5000 years old because they are TOLD that is how far back Adam and Eve can be traced, but those who READ the Bible know that God's 'days' while creating the earth were much longer than just 24 hours. This world is millions of years old, as are the heavens above us. You gotta love political correctness.........not!

Answer 11

LOL.... Good for them! I am so glad to hear they ambushed and overwhelmed you! Whoo Hoo!!! They are getting bolder because they have lived with the hogwash of evolution being shoved down the commonwealth throat for too long. And, I for one...am HAPPY to hear it! Let the DEBATES begin!

Take a look: www.answersingenesis.com

I helped to fund and support the building of the Creation Musuem...because I am sick to death of hearing about the earth being millions of years old, bought and sold to the world like a commodity. It is about time that Christians stand up... and fight for what is real. Yes, yes...let us get down to the fundamentals baby. We "fundies" are indeed uniting, we built the musuem to show it. The truth...it will set you free you know! I LOVE how you say they "uncloseted" themselves... too, too funny. Apropo terminology in today's "politically correct" environment.

Evolutionary subscribers have maligned the authenticity of the scriptures. To believe evolution, is to believe man instead of God. You cannot fathom it? Why? Because you have not dared to truly study it out... At least the evolutionists that have studied it out...are able to fathom WHY I believe the way that I do. And, they are able to tell me why they believe the way they do. I have friends, who are quite clear with me on that subject. I may not agree with their choice, but I certainly will not stand in their way to make their own choice. God gave us the right to choose.

Since I have a Creator, and he is a loving and just God... I am inclined to believe Him.

Rationality - it goes two ways. You think you are rational, and I am not. Like you are going to ridicule me into believing you instead of God? Get real...