my religion tells me the earth is about 7,500yrs old. my geology studies tell me 4.5 billion yrs. Which is it?

Answer 1

4 .5 billion years and through evolution it changed. human beings as we are now only started with verbal communication about 7.5 thousand years ago. we evolved from bacteria to now over billions of years. God only put his spirit into us about 6000 years ago

Answer 2

If your religion is one that takes Chapter 1 of Genesis literally, start by reading Chapter 2. Chapter 2 gives an account of creation based upon the state of scientific knowledge around 500BC. Chapter 1 was added around 100BC because science had moved on. If you need to know about the relationship between God, the universe and man, the first 2 chapters of Genesis provide some interesting reading. If you're prospecting for oil, you'll find your Geology studies more useful.

The number included in geology textbooks is 4.5 billion years. This is a fairly arbitrary figure. If you ask whether this is the American billion (4.5 thousand million years) or the British billion (a thousand times as long), geologists will go vague on you.

For your day to day life, it doesn't really matter how old the Earth is. It's old. Whether you measure that in thousands, thousands of millions or millions of millions is not really important.

For your relationship with God, it doesn't matter how old the Earth is or how long it took to create it. If you are a member of a church that believes the age of the Earth is more important than the way we live our lives, try a different one.

For your Geology studies, go along with the 4.5 billion - that will get you the mark in the exam. Should you decide to become a Geologist, don't worry unduly. By the time you qualify, they will have changed their minds again - that's science.

Answer 3

Whoever told you that, must have mixed up things a little. Generally those who take the Bible creation literally (taking each day to mean 24 hour periods and not one day equal to millions of years to go along with evolutionists) believe LIFE on earth was created about 6000 years ago, not the age of earth. The popularly accepted year is 4004 BC. This has been computed using various geneologies and the time periods mentioned in the Bible. According to this belief the earth itself could be billions of years old. No problem with that. For example, if God decides to create life in Venus today the account would read something like this - "And Venus was dark and hot, covered with thick clouds raining sulfuric acid...." while Venus has been around for eons.

There are others who believe everything including the earth, other planets and stars were created 6000 years ago. No problem with that either! After all, how old was Adam when he was created? I'm sure all the methods of determining a person's age (teeth,bone x-rays etc.) would have shown him to be a mature adult when in fact he was just a few minutes old! This is how things can present when you take divine intervention into consideration.

Of course, if you don't believe in God then you have no choice but to accept what scientists tell you. And what they tell you is no gospel truth! Now, I'm all for science when it describes things AS THEY ARE TODAY(even that keeps changing with new added observations and interpretations but still I accept it since it is nothing but human endeavor and we all learn by trial and error) but the moment it ventures into describing the past, strictly speaking, it ceases to be science and steps into the realm of speculation since the observations can neither be demonstrated nor duplicated violating the very basic premises of science. A lot of assumptions go into it and assumption is not science, e.g., to determine the age of a piece of wood, carbon (C-14) present in the wood is measured and compared to the amount assumed to have been present when it was alive. How do the scientists 'know' how much C-14 was in the atmosphere, say, 10,000 years ago? For more click on the link below.

It all boils down to what you find consistent with all that you believe.

Answer 4

The Bible doesn't actually say how old the earth is. The figure that you have given is based upon one specific interpretation of Genesis chapter 1 and an adding up of genealogies. If you want to consider other interpretations of Genesis 1 then check out this link http://www.christianity.co.nz/science7.htm

It gives 7 different ways of interpreting that chapter including the classical way. As to what your geology studies tell you, you should know that scientists have been changing the estimated age of the earth for some time now. It could be that some new discoveries will cause that figure to be revised once again. Scientists are doing their best to apply their knowledge to coming up with an age for the earth but their knowledge is incomplete as any credible scientist will readily admit.

Answer 5

No where in scripture does it say that the earth itself is only 7500 years old. Scripture chronicles man's time ON the earth,not the age of the ground upon which we walk.
Fundamentalists will say that the 7 day creation period was 7 literal 24 hour days. This is both illogical and incorrect. Scripture uses the word day to point to a time period: in Noah's day (did Noah live only 1 day??? NO)
there were 6 days (or time periods) that God used to create specific things: the universe, divide the lands upon the earth, plants, animals and finally man.
So, yes, the earth can be 4.5 billions years old and still be in agreement with actual Bible texts. Man is just alittle over 6,000 years old.
It's not an either/or questions.

Answer 6

Bible says (Gen 1:1 & 1:2) that...
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

It could actually mean that there was earth.. but without "form"... we would not know how long it took between verse 1 & 2... so forget "geology", science... trust Bible... and praise God for what he has made for us/human...

Answer 7

First of all, if you read it in Hebrew you will find that where the xtians wrote 'void', the word used actually translates into something approximating 'chaos'. Stating that 'in the beginning' EVERYTHING was present. G-d, then, put order to it.
Additionally, Genesis was the last book of the five books of Moses to be written and added. It was never meant to be taken literally. Assuming you are xtian,. maybe you should try studying what your faith claims as it's foundation, not from a xtian viewpoint but on it's own as the separate entity it is . You might be surprised.

Answer 8

The Bible says: "In the beginning, God created the heavans and the earth." (Genesis 1:1). Nowhere does the Bible give a time period for 'the beginning'. You can work out from the Bible that Adam and Eve were created about 6,000 years ago.

Carbon-dating is not as accurate as people think, but the earth is clearly older that 7,500 years and the Bible does not disagree with that. It would be a mistake for Christians to ignore what the scientific evidence tells us.

Answer 9

4.5 billion is the correct answer Rock have the answer written down very firmly and don't claim any devine intervention. You must remember religion is in the mind while geology is something that can actually be proved

Answer 10

Be a realist, examine the objective facts. It would take you years of additional study to make money writing scientific papers on the subject or becoming any of the types of scientist that earns a living knowing how old the earth really is. But you could make a ton of money right now telling the faithful that the earth is young. Get a mail order degree in any old topic and instantly you could be a recognized international Creation Scientist! Sure, the truth would be a casualty. But think of the potential paycheck!

Answer 11

God is slow in his old age, he takes a few billion years to remember he is god and can do anything. Once the earth was "fully" created 7,500yrs ago, he then retired but went to hell. Satan is younger and now is all we have left to look after us until we grow up. I guess he does ok considering he is evil.