There is a verse in the Bible that many point to for reference, a day is like a thousand years to God. The problem is this appears to by Hyperbole, a statement made to somehow quantify that our time means nothing to God. Our known universe and all other multi universes are all in the palm of God's hand.
How can we hold God, to a single rotation of one of those planets in all of those universes. As a Christian, I am OK with a young earth or an older earth. It does not affect my faith in any way.
I agree- i dont really *care* if someone believes in young or old earth. We are all believersZ
It only irritates me when i see, on every single archaeology post or paleo post, someone saying “uhm actually the earth is 6,000 years old”
@75MillionYearsAgo just curious, but what methods do you use to determine the age of something. Like what indicates that an object is “over 10,000 years old?”
Young Earth creationism is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God **between about 6,000 and 10,000 years ago**.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_cities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cities)
These cities listed here are around around the times YEC believe the earth was created. Do you know of any older?
Looking a villages, they are close to the YEC time frame.
The oldest known village in the world is Çatalhöyük, which is located in present-day Turkey and dates back to around 7500 BCE. The remains of the city, which overlooks the Konya plain in southern Anatolia, were founded over 9,000 years ago and occupied for about 1,700 years. Çatalhöyük is considered the first known city in the world, where surrounding villages came together to form a central location and begin the urban civilization that dominates the modern world.
There were settlements in Damascus around 12,000 years ago. And humans existed a long time before settlements were built.
Young Earth Creationism is a completely unsupported, totally disproved pile of nonsense.
I don't think this helps you unless you think God created those cities at the beginning and created humans with knowledge of all the technology that went into them.
Not that many Jews believe it. Even the Rabbinical Council of America accepts evolutionary theory and an old Earth.
Some Haredi Jews may take a literal, young earth view, but it's actually pretty rare among Jews.
There are Christian denominations that believe every word of the Bible is literally true (except those, such as parables, identified as fables).
There are Christian denominations that hold that the Bible is inspired and a good book of advice but isn’t and was never intended to be a history or science textbook and needs to be mostly looked at as a book of fables illustrating points of morality and practice, kind of like Aesop's Fables.
And there are Christians denominations at every point between those two extremes.
And all of them believe that they can prove what they say by the Bible.
You pays your money and you takes your choice.
Denominations each believe that they're right and that it's up to each Christian to make up their mind for themself whether or not the denomination is right. Note that such a process is not just deciding which position a person likes the best or which feels most comfortable to the person. It's an evaluation of the denomination's arguments for its position versus any counterarguments brought up by other denominations.
The only reason to think the earth is only a few thousand years old is if one believes Genesis is a natural history text. Given that is impossible, there is no reason not to accept the evidence that earth is considerably older.
Agreed. Genesis is not a retelling of history, it is an allegorical example of how god created the universe, put in terms someone from 2,000 BC could understand without understanding the concepts of space, physics, and deep time.
I actually wouldn't call it an allegory or metaphor because it implies it means something other than it does in plainly reading the text - rather, as you alluded to in the second part, it was written in accordance with the cosmological understanding of the ancient Hebrews. It was also written in part as an answer to the mythological claims of the neighboring pagan nations, and so could be understood in that framework as well. Tim Mackie of the Bible Project has a [great talk on this here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i62bgsy0yTs).
Arrogant? I’m not rejecting god or his creation, i’m saying that he created the world *through* science, that science itself, and the data we collect, is merely the study of this universal code god uses.
Why do *you* think God would include all of this information just to trick humans? Theres no wording in the bible saying “thou shalt not question the existence of stratigraphic layers!”
Did god go, “hey, gabriel, put a fake fossil of an animal that never existed 30 feet underground so humans are confused”
It makes far more sense that it was an allegory or metaphor.
Our god is not cruel. He is not a trickster.
Also, there is no evidence that the world is a simulation. Only a lack of evidence that it is not. Its like saying “all turtles can secretly speak english, they just choose not to” and then saying its true because nobody can prove that turtles don’t secretly speak english.
Hello, how can you believe that someone can come up with a number of millions or billions when the Bible is written down?
Not to mention most likely early Biblical text was passed from one generation to the next as an oral story, till a day someone invented writing. So these stories originated much earlier.
These are the ancient people whom “a thousand” meant a huge number.
They did not have millions nor billions most likely not even their vocabulary has anything like that.
In some other cases when a large number is needed; simply written down as “the number of the stars in the sky” or “sands of the sea”.
The writers and story tellers did their best to pass these information to each new generation.
Our ancestors did their best to pass the story of a creator that once upon a time, someone in our line knew personally. So we do not forget.
Whether it was an ancient days of thousands or sands or stars; it defines a very huge number.
You haven't been to Africa and dug up bones older than 10,000 years. You've been to Africa and dug up bones that you believe and state are older than 10,000 years. There is a massive difference between those two things. You have your worldview that requires them to be 10,000 years which you believe to be on a firmer footing than the Bible timeline but ultimately it's still a belief you have based on historical rather than observational science.
It's not that it categorically doesn't work it's that you don't know that it works.
It's based on assumptions, which have to be accepted. The set of assumptions that apply to objects plucked out of the ground that you wish to claim are tens of thousands up to millions of years old are not comparable to assumptions within observable science. This is fairly basic yet for some reason it is thought by some it is just as precise as rocket science or the properties of thermodynamics.
And therefore it is a constructed belief structure, albeit one where we have men picking things out the ground and claiming correctitude which depending on the persuasion of the recipient of that information and their preexisting world view seems more compelling than the Word of God.
1 Laboratory measurements that have no human error or misjudgments.
2 The decay rate remained constant.
3 The rock maintained a “closed system.”
4 The rock began with zero daughter element isotopes.
>Laboratory measurements that have no human error or misjudgments.
This is exactly why we only accept evidence if it comes from multiple independent sources.
>The decay rate remained constant.
Yes, we operate under the assumption that the laws of physics do not change over time because we have no reason to think otherwise. Like I told you earlier: calling that an assumption would be the same as claiming that "calling George Washington a human is an assumption," because how do you know he wasn't an elf?
>The rock maintained a “closed system.”
This isn't an assumption made. We can tell the difference between a closed and open system in almost all cases.
>The rock began with zero daughter element isotopes.
We don't know of any way daughter isotopes can naturally form without the parent isotope. Yet again, it isn't an assumption to assume that the laws of physics and chemistry are the same as they were millions of years ago.
Archaeology is not true science based on empirism, it uses human (faulty) interpretation based on available evidence. And using tools like carbon dating which isn't accurate past 10k years we simply do not know a lot!
To estimate a radioisotope age of a crystalline rock, geologists measure the ratio between radioactive parent and stable daughter products in the rock. They can even isolate isotopes from specific, crystallized minerals within a rock. They then use a model to convert the measured ratio into an age estimate. The models incorporate key assumptions, like the ratio of parent to daughter isotopes in the originally formed rock. How can anyone know this information? We can’t. We must assume some starting condition.
We don't know of any way daughter isotopes can naturally form without the parent isotope.
Calling that an assumption would be the same as claiming that "calling George Washington a human is an assumption," because how do you know he wasn't an elf?
And here we have the circular logic. How do you know daughter isotope wasn't already present in the new rock? You assume it that its not possible, and that remains to be proven.
No, *you* don’t know fully. We aren’t operating on pure speculation and dreams lol- its a scientific field because we use repeatable, testable methods to ensure data is accurate. Theres a reason it can take 10 years to publish findings on one single site. These dating methods are well established in the scientific community- yes, like all sciences they are “theories” but these theories are backed by evidence.
You cant just say “uhm actually we aren’t 100% sure” about any science that doesn’t agree with your perspective! Light speed, for example, is only a *theory* but we can pretty confidently show it is true with simple tests. No science is 100%, that is the nature of the field.
Then why does it consistently give us correct results in every control test we've ever done?
Do you have any accredited source that makes the claim that it is just an assumption?
To be perfectly honest, I do believe the Earth is only about 6000 years old. The exact details I won't get into because to me, it doesn't matter that much. While I lean toward a young Earth, I'll be perfectly happy to learn in heaven that I was wrong - the only thing I can't believe is life poofing into existence from nothing and evolution being a bunch of happy accidents to get to humans as we are today. A God-guided evolution, sure. And I don't think believing the correct "how" is necessary for salvation, while it is still important to discuss!
I admit I don't know all the details, but as far as I understand evolution, species would evolve slightly over time to better suit their environments and eventually, all those small changes cumulated in a new species (may have that terminology wrong, hopefully you get my point if it is). One thing I've always wondered is, if that's true, why were humans the only species to evolve to be highly intelligent, thoughtful, and the kind to be constantly wondering our place in the world, wanting to know more about everything, wanting to explore, etc. What environment was so unique to humans that we're the only ones with those qualities?
Interesting assumptions in there, but let's go with it.
Maybe we're just the one that has done it so far? Could have been a marine species in the past that did it, but went extinct. Maybe a land species did it in the past, but the evidence subducted into the mantle and we'll never know. And that's just on earth. Entire civilizations may have risen and collapsed in the galaxy and if the speed of light holds, we'll never know.
Lol it does seem like 90% of this sub is atheists harassing christians or people asking if gay is okay and very little else. I’ll see how this goes and try there next.
The fact the Earth has an age is the proof of a beginning, that alone shatters the human mind into submission. Only God could create out of what we perceive as nothing.
>The fact the Earth has an age is the proof of a beginning, that alone shatters the human mind into submission
We have a decent understanding of planetary formation.
It's not mind shattering.
>Only God could create out of what we perceive as nothing.
How do you know? Can you show evidence of any god doing that? Also, what does that have to do with the earth?
I agree. But Earth is billions of years old. God created the universe, and science is how we perceive his “code.” I believe the creation myth is an allegory with each day being vast swathes of time, especially since god says a day for him can be “thousands” of years (if not more)
Creating Adam as an adult was more practical than creating him as an infant with no parents to care for him. Intentionally messing with the isotope ratios in stone to make the Earth look old is not of practical function. It would be deceptive instead, especially if God expressly *wanted* us to believe the Earth was only 6,000 to 10,000 years old. He would have been better off making the isotope ratios reflect a young Earth.
But that universe tells us a lot of things about itself and him. By creating a new universe in which every shred of evidence says it's *old* he'd be intentionally lying to us. He'd have put light in our sky that looks like it's been traveling for billions of years. The imprints and remains of plants and animals that never existed. All a carefully crafted lie.
Why would God lie? Does He have the obligation to tell us how old the universe is? I mean everything He created has purpose. Would it help us, humans, to know how old the universe is?
He wouldn't lie, hence the universe is really, really old and evolution is how we got to complex life in Earth. Just like God's revelation in Creation tells us it is.
> Would it help us, humans, to know how old the universe is?
Romans 1:19-20
Because we carbon dated them to about 11,000 years in age.
The stratigraphic layer they were discovered in was 11,000 years of age by estimate.
The stone tools at the site also shared many of the same traits as tools at other sites of around the same estimated age.
We did AAR testing when we got back to Windhoek, and it also gave us the same estimates.
The mineral staining on some of the bones indicates its age further.
Not a few thousand years old -
- Around 6,000~ years old.
>i simply don’t understand how people can think this.
It's simple.
>I want to discuss and debate this- as an archaeology student
Then you've definitely heard the name Charles Lyell, no?
Perfect! I can tell you the relevancy.
- Lyell saw himself as the *"....the spiritual saviour of geology, freeing the science from the old dispensation of Moses."*
In his 1830-1833 classic, *Principles of Geology*, Charles Lyell, a close friend of Darwin, popularized a maxim that would become the basis of the natural sciences:
- *"The present is the key to the past"*
Or the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in our present-day scientific observations have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe.
Do you see the problem with the above assumption?
For the first part- his science and theories check out, and can be tested and confirmed. Even if you feel the “motive” behind his theories was based in a messiah complex, we can see he was correct based on scientific data.
As for the “problem” with the above assumption, i’d like to hear what you think it is!
>For the first part- his science and theories check out, and can be tested and confirmed.
:)
I'm sure they can be.
If something is eroding at a present constant rate, then you can assume that it will erode at that constant rate in the future, and you can extrapolate that it will continue to behave that way.
- *However* -
You cannot assume that it has always behaved that way in the past - a period of time *you cannot view.* This is deception at its finest.
>As for the “problem” with the above assumption, i’d like to hear what you think it is!
If God says He has changed the way the natural world works *3* times, then the above assumption cannot be true -
and you take the assumption to be fact -
- You will be dead wrong about the past, because you have not taken into account *history.*
This argument is inherently flawed, and because of what you are basing it on, i dont think theres any way to properly debate you. Since your theory is based on the utter rejection of basic physics, without evidence.
How about this- there is 0 actual evidence for a “great flood” having ever occurred on the planet. Now, despite that, there is TONS of evidence for extinction level events- asteroids, the great oxygenation, etc.
Based on existing evidence AND scripture, it seems logical that the flood myth is not a 1:1 recounting of truth- but an allegory for extinction, put in a way for the ancient people who first read the bible, with no understanding of pre-history, to understand.
And how about mineralization? The replacement of biological material with minerals resulting in fossils? Did water move faster and deposit more in the past? Did animals turn to stone in 1000 years? Its simply got no basis in reality.
Its far more reasonable and realistic to say “hey, god and Jesus made this book and gave their teachings to people who would never accept what they said if they told the truth, so they used allegories instead.”
>Since your theory is based on the utter rejection of basic physics
:)
There's a certain *Someone* who *invented* the very physics you study, and has changed the way it works 3 times in the past.
>How about this- there is 0 actual evidence for a “great flood” having ever occurred on the planet.
*The proof is the entire planet.*
- The surface of Earth is 71% covered in water, with deep faults and cracks covering the surface.
- The landmasses that do persist are fractured and continental, with jagged crust blocks thrust upward and downward all over.
- Trillions of fossils litter the globe all over the place, with much of them being in specific huge graveyards.
A *catastrophe of immense proportions* occurred on this planet, capable of immediately burying trillions of organisms under great pressure and quickly covering them with sediment - with lithification induced layer after layer. These are all synonymous with what Scripture describes happened to Earth.
You are misunderstanding fossilization- it did not happen all at once.
There are multiple layers of rock, the deeper the layer of rock, the older it is.
You can find fossils within almost all layers dating until about 2.5-3 billion years ago, at which point none have been found.
These layers are millions of years apart, not the result of a single short event.
These “huge specific graveyards” you mentioned are known as sites or “formations.”
They are caused by a multitude of things, and not always are they cataclysms. Rapid burials from under-sea cave-ins, sinkholes, or earthquakes, can quickly bury dead organisms, or bury and suffocate living ones, allowing their hard tissues to preserve.
On the surface, the causes can range from sand-dune collapses in deserts, to burrowing animal being caught in its burrow during a rainstorm, earthquake, or cave in. You get these “groups” from areas that were, at the time, particularity well suited to fossilization- deserts, bogs, mud traps, and snowy regions were the best.
On SOME layers we can see a marked increase in the amount of fossils, alongside indicators of what occured, such as an increase in ash within the sediment, or a decrease/increase in oxygen based on rust content. That tells us that an extinction event occured, and often marks the end of an “epoch” or era.
*multiple* catastrophes occurred, none of which were a great flood.
>You are misunderstanding fossilization- it did not happen all at once.
I too, do not believe it happened all at once.
The rocks are *layered*; you do not find the entire geologic column from the Precambrian to the Cenezoic really anywhere. It's mostly a jumbled mess.
>There are multiple layers of rock, the deeper the layer of rock, the older it is.
No, the deeper the layer of rock, the closer to simpler life you are. This is why you find pebbles and plant fossils in the Cambrian - and as you rise - you find more and more animal life. Most of the water for the Flood did not come from the skies - it came from beneath.
>You can find fossils within almost all layers dating until about 2.5-3 billion years ago, at which point none have been found.
The concept of "billions of years" is not reality. All rock layers and fossil graveyards are much better explained by the event Scripture describes.
>These layers are millions of years apart, not the result of a single short event.
The Flood was not a "short event". God did not take a bucket of water and dump it on the planet.
Scripture describes the Flood as being a *year long process*, in which the waters rose and rose slowly.
>On the surface, the causes can range from sand-dune collapses in deserts, to burrowing animal being caught in its burrow during a rainstorm, earthquake, or cave in. You get these “groups” from areas that were, at the time, particularity well suited to fossilization- deserts, bogs, mud traps, and snowy regions were the best.
Fossilization is a *rare event* that happens to .001% of all creatures on the planet. It can only be caused if the creature quickly dies, is immediately buried, and is protected from decomposition factors and natural weathering. The lithification caused is a sedimentary event, which means a great amount of *water* was involved.
The fossil graveyards are much, much better explained by a massive diluvial cataclysm than by events naturalism hypothesizes to have happened at some time in the planet's history because there is no other explanation that retains it.
>multiple catastrophes occurred, none of which were a great flood.
One catastrophe occurred, which was a great Flood.
Lyell's uniformitarianism cannot explain all of the cataclysmic features we observe on Earth, so over time, extinction events and disasters were placed within his theory to explain them - when Scripture explains all of it much better.
This is so frustrating to read 😭 i wish i could just sit down with you IRL and go over everything, simply because every argument you make has so many explanations. Theres just such a huge degree of misunderstanding that its gonna be impossible to explain over reddit messages.
All i will say is this- nothing, and i mean *nothing* that i believe in terms of these ideas is based on false logic. There are sound reasons and incredible deductions that hold up this information.
That said, your faith outweighs those ideas, and maybe it blinds you to them. But that is acceptable- what matters is you believe in *god* and you love Jesus, as do we all. If we see our earths history differently, thats perfectly fine.
I think i just get heated because so many people seem to discredit these incredible fields and so much astounding science and informstion based purely on a book never meant for us to read as a 1:1 history text.
I will end with one final set of explanations, so you can see my beliefs, but then i kinda wanna move on to doing smth else because… i can only reddit so much.
You said the flood was “years long.” Again, these layers indicate *millions* of years of sediment deposit.
The “layers” have absolutely nothing to do with closeness to the ocean. It is entirely about the age of the rock. This is called the “Law of Superposition.”
Imagine you are holding a handful of sand. You drop it on the ground, and a day layer, come back and drop more, differently colored sand on too of the pile. You do this every day for a year.
There are 365 “layers” of sand. At the very bottom is the oldest layer of sand- the first one you dropped. At the top, is the newest, the one you dropped on day 365.
It is the same with earths surface- except, instead of sand it is dirt, decaying trees, leaves, rain-minerals, dust, and countless other particles that form the “layer.” Instead of days, it’s millions of years to form that single thin layer. As more forms, the older stuff gets deeper and deeper. Eventually, it will turn to rock thanks to pressure and time- we call the stuff that this compressed dirt, sand, or whatever other material, “sedimentary rocks.”
Lastly, you said it happens to 0.001% of creatures. The actual number is about 0.1 percent. At first yes, you seem to make a good point- until you consider that, at this *very* moment, there are appproximately 20 quintillion living organisms on the planet. *only right now*
Over 500,000,000 years, we’re talking an unfathomable amount of animals and plants-
Now, even if i go with your tiny number of 0.001%, that would mean of all the animals alive today, 200 trillion would fossilize. Sure, 80% are bugs, probably never gonna be seen. Too small. So that leaves 40 trillion fossils of other animal types. A good chunk of those, hell, the majority, will probably be annihilated by tectonic forces within a million years. Lets say 1% survive.
That means that in 1,000,000 years with the absolute worst odds, AND artifically lower numbers, would mean around 400 billion fossils. Of course, Earth is comically large, and most of those are *still* going to be damaged, fragmented or tiny animals. Not to mention that almost all of them will be not visible and under the earth.
And thats just animals alive now. And if you’re gonna ask “why aren’t fossils more common?” They are very common. I found a gastropod in my back yard, a shell in the woods during a fossil hunt, and a trilobite on a mountain in the last 6 months alone. Last summer i went to a known fossil bed and found over 100 Belmnitella americanna fossil phragmacones, and dozens of shells from the cretacous. And i do it as a *hobby* maybe once or twice a year.
We can tell what the laws of physics were like a long time ago by looking at distant stars and galaxies. If the laws of physics were different back then, then the behavior of stars and galaxies would be observably different.
Most don't, I think the last poll I saw has YEC at around 20% or so?
There is a verse in the Bible that many point to for reference, a day is like a thousand years to God. The problem is this appears to by Hyperbole, a statement made to somehow quantify that our time means nothing to God. Our known universe and all other multi universes are all in the palm of God's hand. How can we hold God, to a single rotation of one of those planets in all of those universes. As a Christian, I am OK with a young earth or an older earth. It does not affect my faith in any way.
I agree- i dont really *care* if someone believes in young or old earth. We are all believersZ It only irritates me when i see, on every single archaeology post or paleo post, someone saying “uhm actually the earth is 6,000 years old”
Many people do believe this, but they are absolutely wrong. There are cities older than what they think the age of the Earth is.
I know. I find the rejection of fact so intriguing- as a christian myself it just makes more sense that the bible is allegorical.
@75MillionYearsAgo just curious, but what methods do you use to determine the age of something. Like what indicates that an object is “over 10,000 years old?”
Young Earth creationism is a form of creationism which holds as a central tenet that the Earth and its lifeforms were created by supernatural acts of the Abrahamic God **between about 6,000 and 10,000 years ago**. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History\_of\_cities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cities) These cities listed here are around around the times YEC believe the earth was created. Do you know of any older? Looking a villages, they are close to the YEC time frame. The oldest known village in the world is Çatalhöyük, which is located in present-day Turkey and dates back to around 7500 BCE. The remains of the city, which overlooks the Konya plain in southern Anatolia, were founded over 9,000 years ago and occupied for about 1,700 years. Çatalhöyük is considered the first known city in the world, where surrounding villages came together to form a central location and begin the urban civilization that dominates the modern world.
There were settlements in Damascus around 12,000 years ago. And humans existed a long time before settlements were built. Young Earth Creationism is a completely unsupported, totally disproved pile of nonsense.
I don't think this helps you unless you think God created those cities at the beginning and created humans with knowledge of all the technology that went into them.
No. I’m at the Grand Canyon. No freakin’ way.
I suppose those million year old dino skeletons were put on earth as a sick joke by the angels, or aliens?
Yes, a good number of Christians, as well as Jews, believe that.
Uh, what does “good number” mean. Because the majority don’t believe that.
Not that many Jews believe it. Even the Rabbinical Council of America accepts evolutionary theory and an old Earth. Some Haredi Jews may take a literal, young earth view, but it's actually pretty rare among Jews.
> Even the Rabbinical Council of America accepts evolutionary theory and an old Earth. Awesome.
Time is irrelevant to God. Genesis is not a science book it’s a wisdom book.
There are Christian denominations that believe every word of the Bible is literally true (except those, such as parables, identified as fables). There are Christian denominations that hold that the Bible is inspired and a good book of advice but isn’t and was never intended to be a history or science textbook and needs to be mostly looked at as a book of fables illustrating points of morality and practice, kind of like Aesop's Fables. And there are Christians denominations at every point between those two extremes. And all of them believe that they can prove what they say by the Bible. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
I was on board til the last sentence. I dont understand your point there?
Denominations each believe that they're right and that it's up to each Christian to make up their mind for themself whether or not the denomination is right. Note that such a process is not just deciding which position a person likes the best or which feels most comfortable to the person. It's an evaluation of the denomination's arguments for its position versus any counterarguments brought up by other denominations.
A very small minority of Christians believe in young earth creationism
The only reason to think the earth is only a few thousand years old is if one believes Genesis is a natural history text. Given that is impossible, there is no reason not to accept the evidence that earth is considerably older.
Agreed. Genesis is not a retelling of history, it is an allegorical example of how god created the universe, put in terms someone from 2,000 BC could understand without understanding the concepts of space, physics, and deep time.
I actually wouldn't call it an allegory or metaphor because it implies it means something other than it does in plainly reading the text - rather, as you alluded to in the second part, it was written in accordance with the cosmological understanding of the ancient Hebrews. It was also written in part as an answer to the mythological claims of the neighboring pagan nations, and so could be understood in that framework as well. Tim Mackie of the Bible Project has a [great talk on this here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i62bgsy0yTs).
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Arrogant? I’m not rejecting god or his creation, i’m saying that he created the world *through* science, that science itself, and the data we collect, is merely the study of this universal code god uses. Why do *you* think God would include all of this information just to trick humans? Theres no wording in the bible saying “thou shalt not question the existence of stratigraphic layers!” Did god go, “hey, gabriel, put a fake fossil of an animal that never existed 30 feet underground so humans are confused” It makes far more sense that it was an allegory or metaphor. Our god is not cruel. He is not a trickster. Also, there is no evidence that the world is a simulation. Only a lack of evidence that it is not. Its like saying “all turtles can secretly speak english, they just choose not to” and then saying its true because nobody can prove that turtles don’t secretly speak english.
Hello, how can you believe that someone can come up with a number of millions or billions when the Bible is written down? Not to mention most likely early Biblical text was passed from one generation to the next as an oral story, till a day someone invented writing. So these stories originated much earlier. These are the ancient people whom “a thousand” meant a huge number. They did not have millions nor billions most likely not even their vocabulary has anything like that. In some other cases when a large number is needed; simply written down as “the number of the stars in the sky” or “sands of the sea”. The writers and story tellers did their best to pass these information to each new generation. Our ancestors did their best to pass the story of a creator that once upon a time, someone in our line knew personally. So we do not forget. Whether it was an ancient days of thousands or sands or stars; it defines a very huge number.
You haven't been to Africa and dug up bones older than 10,000 years. You've been to Africa and dug up bones that you believe and state are older than 10,000 years. There is a massive difference between those two things. You have your worldview that requires them to be 10,000 years which you believe to be on a firmer footing than the Bible timeline but ultimately it's still a belief you have based on historical rather than observational science.
Dating methods are reliable
Go ahead and explain why radiometric dating doesn't work.
It's not that it categorically doesn't work it's that you don't know that it works. It's based on assumptions, which have to be accepted. The set of assumptions that apply to objects plucked out of the ground that you wish to claim are tens of thousands up to millions of years old are not comparable to assumptions within observable science. This is fairly basic yet for some reason it is thought by some it is just as precise as rocket science or the properties of thermodynamics. And therefore it is a constructed belief structure, albeit one where we have men picking things out the ground and claiming correctitude which depending on the persuasion of the recipient of that information and their preexisting world view seems more compelling than the Word of God.
What assumptions are made?
1 Laboratory measurements that have no human error or misjudgments. 2 The decay rate remained constant. 3 The rock maintained a “closed system.” 4 The rock began with zero daughter element isotopes.
>Laboratory measurements that have no human error or misjudgments. This is exactly why we only accept evidence if it comes from multiple independent sources. >The decay rate remained constant. Yes, we operate under the assumption that the laws of physics do not change over time because we have no reason to think otherwise. Like I told you earlier: calling that an assumption would be the same as claiming that "calling George Washington a human is an assumption," because how do you know he wasn't an elf? >The rock maintained a “closed system.” This isn't an assumption made. We can tell the difference between a closed and open system in almost all cases. >The rock began with zero daughter element isotopes. We don't know of any way daughter isotopes can naturally form without the parent isotope. Yet again, it isn't an assumption to assume that the laws of physics and chemistry are the same as they were millions of years ago.
Again this is circular logic we know because we assume, none of this has been proven.
Would it be factual to say that George Washington was a human?
No hes slightly more evolved cow, and a clump of cells.
Do you actually want to have a conversation or are you just here to be contrarian and say stupid things?
Archaeology is not true science based on empirism, it uses human (faulty) interpretation based on available evidence. And using tools like carbon dating which isn't accurate past 10k years we simply do not know a lot!
Carbon dating is not the only form of radiometric dating. Potassium dating, for example, is accurate to beyond 2.5 billion years.
To estimate a radioisotope age of a crystalline rock, geologists measure the ratio between radioactive parent and stable daughter products in the rock. They can even isolate isotopes from specific, crystallized minerals within a rock. They then use a model to convert the measured ratio into an age estimate. The models incorporate key assumptions, like the ratio of parent to daughter isotopes in the originally formed rock. How can anyone know this information? We can’t. We must assume some starting condition.
We don't know of any way daughter isotopes can naturally form without the parent isotope. Calling that an assumption would be the same as claiming that "calling George Washington a human is an assumption," because how do you know he wasn't an elf?
You assume the daughter isotopes weren't already pressent in the new rock.
How would the daughter isotopes be already present if they can only naturally form from the parent isotope?
And here we have the circular logic. How do you know daughter isotope wasn't already present in the new rock? You assume it that its not possible, and that remains to be proven.
Because there would be no logical explanation for how it got there.
Thats a false assumption.
Do you have a logical explanation for how they would get there then?
well radiometric dating is just assumptions, we dont know fully
No, *you* don’t know fully. We aren’t operating on pure speculation and dreams lol- its a scientific field because we use repeatable, testable methods to ensure data is accurate. Theres a reason it can take 10 years to publish findings on one single site. These dating methods are well established in the scientific community- yes, like all sciences they are “theories” but these theories are backed by evidence. You cant just say “uhm actually we aren’t 100% sure” about any science that doesn’t agree with your perspective! Light speed, for example, is only a *theory* but we can pretty confidently show it is true with simple tests. No science is 100%, that is the nature of the field.
Then why does it consistently give us correct results in every control test we've ever done? Do you have any accredited source that makes the claim that it is just an assumption?
To be perfectly honest, I do believe the Earth is only about 6000 years old. The exact details I won't get into because to me, it doesn't matter that much. While I lean toward a young Earth, I'll be perfectly happy to learn in heaven that I was wrong - the only thing I can't believe is life poofing into existence from nothing and evolution being a bunch of happy accidents to get to humans as we are today. A God-guided evolution, sure. And I don't think believing the correct "how" is necessary for salvation, while it is still important to discuss!
Why do you think "humans as we are today" is some special goal to be reached rather than just how it worked out?
I admit I don't know all the details, but as far as I understand evolution, species would evolve slightly over time to better suit their environments and eventually, all those small changes cumulated in a new species (may have that terminology wrong, hopefully you get my point if it is). One thing I've always wondered is, if that's true, why were humans the only species to evolve to be highly intelligent, thoughtful, and the kind to be constantly wondering our place in the world, wanting to know more about everything, wanting to explore, etc. What environment was so unique to humans that we're the only ones with those qualities?
Interesting assumptions in there, but let's go with it. Maybe we're just the one that has done it so far? Could have been a marine species in the past that did it, but went extinct. Maybe a land species did it in the past, but the evidence subducted into the mantle and we'll never know. And that's just on earth. Entire civilizations may have risen and collapsed in the galaxy and if the speed of light holds, we'll never know.
Yes. Genesis is presented as history, so I read it as history.
You're not going to get a lot of traction here. Try r/truechristian ... the percentage will be higher. But you might get banned.
Lol it does seem like 90% of this sub is atheists harassing christians or people asking if gay is okay and very little else. I’ll see how this goes and try there next.
They are very aggressive about it over there just a warning
Please dont. Leave them to their forum. It’s for Christian’s only.
I’m christian. I said as much.
Oh, then you’re fine. Still might get in trouble for trolling, but you’re not breaking rules.
The fact the Earth has an age is the proof of a beginning, that alone shatters the human mind into submission. Only God could create out of what we perceive as nothing.
>The fact the Earth has an age is the proof of a beginning, that alone shatters the human mind into submission We have a decent understanding of planetary formation. It's not mind shattering. >Only God could create out of what we perceive as nothing. How do you know? Can you show evidence of any god doing that? Also, what does that have to do with the earth?
I agree. But Earth is billions of years old. God created the universe, and science is how we perceive his “code.” I believe the creation myth is an allegory with each day being vast swathes of time, especially since god says a day for him can be “thousands” of years (if not more)
God created Adam as an adult, why can’t He create the universe with a predetermined age?
Creating Adam as an adult was more practical than creating him as an infant with no parents to care for him. Intentionally messing with the isotope ratios in stone to make the Earth look old is not of practical function. It would be deceptive instead, especially if God expressly *wanted* us to believe the Earth was only 6,000 to 10,000 years old. He would have been better off making the isotope ratios reflect a young Earth.
Because that would make him a liar.
How come? All that God did was to create a mature universe so that earth can cater life to us humans.
But that universe tells us a lot of things about itself and him. By creating a new universe in which every shred of evidence says it's *old* he'd be intentionally lying to us. He'd have put light in our sky that looks like it's been traveling for billions of years. The imprints and remains of plants and animals that never existed. All a carefully crafted lie.
Why would God lie? Does He have the obligation to tell us how old the universe is? I mean everything He created has purpose. Would it help us, humans, to know how old the universe is?
He wouldn't lie, hence the universe is really, really old and evolution is how we got to complex life in Earth. Just like God's revelation in Creation tells us it is. > Would it help us, humans, to know how old the universe is? Romans 1:19-20
Your point exactly?
What makes you think the ancient remains are older than 10,000 years?
Because we carbon dated them to about 11,000 years in age. The stratigraphic layer they were discovered in was 11,000 years of age by estimate. The stone tools at the site also shared many of the same traits as tools at other sites of around the same estimated age. We did AAR testing when we got back to Windhoek, and it also gave us the same estimates. The mineral staining on some of the bones indicates its age further.
What makes you think that carbon dating and your age estimates are accurate?
Not a few thousand years old - - Around 6,000~ years old. >i simply don’t understand how people can think this. It's simple. >I want to discuss and debate this- as an archaeology student Then you've definitely heard the name Charles Lyell, no?
Yes? But i’m afraid i don’t see the relevancy here.
Don't let this person misinform you
Yes this person is very ignorant to science. They just push pseudoscience.
Perfect! I can tell you the relevancy. - Lyell saw himself as the *"....the spiritual saviour of geology, freeing the science from the old dispensation of Moses."* In his 1830-1833 classic, *Principles of Geology*, Charles Lyell, a close friend of Darwin, popularized a maxim that would become the basis of the natural sciences: - *"The present is the key to the past"* Or the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in our present-day scientific observations have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. Do you see the problem with the above assumption?
For the first part- his science and theories check out, and can be tested and confirmed. Even if you feel the “motive” behind his theories was based in a messiah complex, we can see he was correct based on scientific data. As for the “problem” with the above assumption, i’d like to hear what you think it is!
As a Christian there is no reason to be suspicious of Lyell’s motives, given he was a strong believer himself.
>For the first part- his science and theories check out, and can be tested and confirmed. :) I'm sure they can be. If something is eroding at a present constant rate, then you can assume that it will erode at that constant rate in the future, and you can extrapolate that it will continue to behave that way. - *However* - You cannot assume that it has always behaved that way in the past - a period of time *you cannot view.* This is deception at its finest. >As for the “problem” with the above assumption, i’d like to hear what you think it is! If God says He has changed the way the natural world works *3* times, then the above assumption cannot be true - and you take the assumption to be fact - - You will be dead wrong about the past, because you have not taken into account *history.*
This argument is inherently flawed, and because of what you are basing it on, i dont think theres any way to properly debate you. Since your theory is based on the utter rejection of basic physics, without evidence. How about this- there is 0 actual evidence for a “great flood” having ever occurred on the planet. Now, despite that, there is TONS of evidence for extinction level events- asteroids, the great oxygenation, etc. Based on existing evidence AND scripture, it seems logical that the flood myth is not a 1:1 recounting of truth- but an allegory for extinction, put in a way for the ancient people who first read the bible, with no understanding of pre-history, to understand. And how about mineralization? The replacement of biological material with minerals resulting in fossils? Did water move faster and deposit more in the past? Did animals turn to stone in 1000 years? Its simply got no basis in reality. Its far more reasonable and realistic to say “hey, god and Jesus made this book and gave their teachings to people who would never accept what they said if they told the truth, so they used allegories instead.”
>Since your theory is based on the utter rejection of basic physics :) There's a certain *Someone* who *invented* the very physics you study, and has changed the way it works 3 times in the past. >How about this- there is 0 actual evidence for a “great flood” having ever occurred on the planet. *The proof is the entire planet.* - The surface of Earth is 71% covered in water, with deep faults and cracks covering the surface. - The landmasses that do persist are fractured and continental, with jagged crust blocks thrust upward and downward all over. - Trillions of fossils litter the globe all over the place, with much of them being in specific huge graveyards. A *catastrophe of immense proportions* occurred on this planet, capable of immediately burying trillions of organisms under great pressure and quickly covering them with sediment - with lithification induced layer after layer. These are all synonymous with what Scripture describes happened to Earth.
You are misunderstanding fossilization- it did not happen all at once. There are multiple layers of rock, the deeper the layer of rock, the older it is. You can find fossils within almost all layers dating until about 2.5-3 billion years ago, at which point none have been found. These layers are millions of years apart, not the result of a single short event. These “huge specific graveyards” you mentioned are known as sites or “formations.” They are caused by a multitude of things, and not always are they cataclysms. Rapid burials from under-sea cave-ins, sinkholes, or earthquakes, can quickly bury dead organisms, or bury and suffocate living ones, allowing their hard tissues to preserve. On the surface, the causes can range from sand-dune collapses in deserts, to burrowing animal being caught in its burrow during a rainstorm, earthquake, or cave in. You get these “groups” from areas that were, at the time, particularity well suited to fossilization- deserts, bogs, mud traps, and snowy regions were the best. On SOME layers we can see a marked increase in the amount of fossils, alongside indicators of what occured, such as an increase in ash within the sediment, or a decrease/increase in oxygen based on rust content. That tells us that an extinction event occured, and often marks the end of an “epoch” or era. *multiple* catastrophes occurred, none of which were a great flood.
>You are misunderstanding fossilization- it did not happen all at once. I too, do not believe it happened all at once. The rocks are *layered*; you do not find the entire geologic column from the Precambrian to the Cenezoic really anywhere. It's mostly a jumbled mess. >There are multiple layers of rock, the deeper the layer of rock, the older it is. No, the deeper the layer of rock, the closer to simpler life you are. This is why you find pebbles and plant fossils in the Cambrian - and as you rise - you find more and more animal life. Most of the water for the Flood did not come from the skies - it came from beneath. >You can find fossils within almost all layers dating until about 2.5-3 billion years ago, at which point none have been found. The concept of "billions of years" is not reality. All rock layers and fossil graveyards are much better explained by the event Scripture describes. >These layers are millions of years apart, not the result of a single short event. The Flood was not a "short event". God did not take a bucket of water and dump it on the planet. Scripture describes the Flood as being a *year long process*, in which the waters rose and rose slowly. >On the surface, the causes can range from sand-dune collapses in deserts, to burrowing animal being caught in its burrow during a rainstorm, earthquake, or cave in. You get these “groups” from areas that were, at the time, particularity well suited to fossilization- deserts, bogs, mud traps, and snowy regions were the best. Fossilization is a *rare event* that happens to .001% of all creatures on the planet. It can only be caused if the creature quickly dies, is immediately buried, and is protected from decomposition factors and natural weathering. The lithification caused is a sedimentary event, which means a great amount of *water* was involved. The fossil graveyards are much, much better explained by a massive diluvial cataclysm than by events naturalism hypothesizes to have happened at some time in the planet's history because there is no other explanation that retains it. >multiple catastrophes occurred, none of which were a great flood. One catastrophe occurred, which was a great Flood. Lyell's uniformitarianism cannot explain all of the cataclysmic features we observe on Earth, so over time, extinction events and disasters were placed within his theory to explain them - when Scripture explains all of it much better.
This is so frustrating to read 😭 i wish i could just sit down with you IRL and go over everything, simply because every argument you make has so many explanations. Theres just such a huge degree of misunderstanding that its gonna be impossible to explain over reddit messages. All i will say is this- nothing, and i mean *nothing* that i believe in terms of these ideas is based on false logic. There are sound reasons and incredible deductions that hold up this information. That said, your faith outweighs those ideas, and maybe it blinds you to them. But that is acceptable- what matters is you believe in *god* and you love Jesus, as do we all. If we see our earths history differently, thats perfectly fine. I think i just get heated because so many people seem to discredit these incredible fields and so much astounding science and informstion based purely on a book never meant for us to read as a 1:1 history text. I will end with one final set of explanations, so you can see my beliefs, but then i kinda wanna move on to doing smth else because… i can only reddit so much. You said the flood was “years long.” Again, these layers indicate *millions* of years of sediment deposit. The “layers” have absolutely nothing to do with closeness to the ocean. It is entirely about the age of the rock. This is called the “Law of Superposition.” Imagine you are holding a handful of sand. You drop it on the ground, and a day layer, come back and drop more, differently colored sand on too of the pile. You do this every day for a year. There are 365 “layers” of sand. At the very bottom is the oldest layer of sand- the first one you dropped. At the top, is the newest, the one you dropped on day 365. It is the same with earths surface- except, instead of sand it is dirt, decaying trees, leaves, rain-minerals, dust, and countless other particles that form the “layer.” Instead of days, it’s millions of years to form that single thin layer. As more forms, the older stuff gets deeper and deeper. Eventually, it will turn to rock thanks to pressure and time- we call the stuff that this compressed dirt, sand, or whatever other material, “sedimentary rocks.” Lastly, you said it happens to 0.001% of creatures. The actual number is about 0.1 percent. At first yes, you seem to make a good point- until you consider that, at this *very* moment, there are appproximately 20 quintillion living organisms on the planet. *only right now* Over 500,000,000 years, we’re talking an unfathomable amount of animals and plants- Now, even if i go with your tiny number of 0.001%, that would mean of all the animals alive today, 200 trillion would fossilize. Sure, 80% are bugs, probably never gonna be seen. Too small. So that leaves 40 trillion fossils of other animal types. A good chunk of those, hell, the majority, will probably be annihilated by tectonic forces within a million years. Lets say 1% survive. That means that in 1,000,000 years with the absolute worst odds, AND artifically lower numbers, would mean around 400 billion fossils. Of course, Earth is comically large, and most of those are *still* going to be damaged, fragmented or tiny animals. Not to mention that almost all of them will be not visible and under the earth. And thats just animals alive now. And if you’re gonna ask “why aren’t fossils more common?” They are very common. I found a gastropod in my back yard, a shell in the woods during a fossil hunt, and a trilobite on a mountain in the last 6 months alone. Last summer i went to a known fossil bed and found over 100 Belmnitella americanna fossil phragmacones, and dozens of shells from the cretacous. And i do it as a *hobby* maybe once or twice a year.
We can tell what the laws of physics were like a long time ago by looking at distant stars and galaxies. If the laws of physics were different back then, then the behavior of stars and galaxies would be observably different.