How old is the Earth?

[Florida]

Your exactly right when saying "Track the dates of human history in the Bible, and you'll get just about 6000 years worth"...but the question isn't how long have humans been around?, but rather how old is the earth? I'm a Christian and I'm not knocking you, its just if your going to use the bible, use it right. Do not twist scriptures.

How am I twisting scripture?

In the first seven days God created everything (which, obviously, includes man). Start tracking the dates of human history, and you have 6000 years. Thus, the Earth is 6000 years old. Humans have been around since the beginning of time. Along with the dinosaurs and other animals.

 

[Indigo4]

Human progress has been accelerating. The difference in human progress between 500 BCE and 500 CE is not a huge one. The difference between 500 CE and 1500 CE is much larger. And the difference between 1500 CE and 2000 CE is larger still. In other words, human progress was very, very slow for a long time. And considering that there are still hunter-gatherer societies to this day shows that technological progress is not an inevitability. It was perfectly possible for people to go through the entire past 6000 years with no "progress" at all.

So in other words... your assumption is completely wrong.

I'm not denying the fact that there are still hunting and gathering societies up until this day. However, where is their location? Remote islands with little, if any, outside human contact. With minor populations and little area to grow in, poor education, technology, record keeping, building resources, not to mention an economy that could in no way compete with other thriving societies, explain how these people could be anything BUT hunter-gatherers. Without an outside civilization colonizing them and taking control, I don't see how it is possible for them to compete with other societies and thrive in the world. Their pattern of life will continue with little change.

Erimir- His points have already been disproved by adumbrodeus, Jihnsius and myself. We don't need more people to do so. I know that it is glaringly wrong, but it has already been said (multiple times).

Hmm...Disproved? I don't think so. Debated? Discussed? Torn Apart, Maybe. You see, if my points had been disproved, then there would be no need for a debate still. I realize that I seem to have an opinion that varies from many others here, but the fact is none of us were there...and if we actually DID know how old the Earth, People, and whatever else was, then this thread wouldn't exist. But I wouldn't say that at any point in this debate that I've been dead wrong.

 

[adumbrodeus]

How am I twisting scripture?

In the first seven days God created everything (which, obviously, includes man). Start tracking the dates of human history, and you have 6000 years. Thus, the Earth is 6000 years old. Humans have been around since the beginning of time. Along with the dinosaurs and other animals.

Rejection of imperfect tense and refusal to recognize that the Bible was not written in English?

As I pointed out, the original Bible does not say "days", that's just the translation.



Glossing over linguistic subtleties and ignoring the original version in favor of an imperfect translation are both twisting the scriptures, whether the twisting is intentional or unintentional.


But even if humans had been around since the beginning of time, again that's only recorded history. We have evidence of human activity way before recorded history, recorded history only occurs after human civilization reached a certain point, which was presumably a LONG time after the days of Adam and Eve.

People do not have enough kids in one generation to start a sophisticated civilization, which is where recorded history starts. Nor are they going to have the collected knowledge regardless.



Edit: I suggest that you at least attempt to respond to my points since I'm the only person who seemed directly willing to respond to your assertions.

 

[Erimir]

Do you have any information on how the Earth could be six thousand years old?

Well, I can't have something that doesn't exist, so no

In the first seven days God created everything (which, obviously, includes man). Start tracking the dates of human history, and you have 6000 years. Thus, the Earth is 6000 years old. Humans have been around since the beginning of time. Along with the dinosaurs and other animals.

For one, human history extends back further than 6000 years. Most of it wouldn't be "history" in the sense you're thinking, which I'm guessing is written records. However, we have knowledge that Sumerian civilization existed around 7,000 years ago. And we have also found artifacts (and skeletons) of modern humans (homo sapiens) that date back far longer than 6,000 years ago (think tens of thousands of years). So no, the study of history, if you mean history by people other than Young-Earth Christians, does not support the idea that human history, or even human civilization, is only 6,000 years old.

Evolution states that the transformation from a red giant to a white dwarf star takes billions of years. Here are some records of the white dwarf Sirius:

Egyptian hieroglyphs from 2000 B.C. described Sirius as a red star.

I forgot to mention this earlier.

Apparently you accept that 4,000 years ago, Egyptians had a sophisticated civilization with pyramids and all the like. Even though this civilization would have been completely destroyed by the flood you say happened around 4,000 years ago. I realize you said that the flood was 4,400 years ago (apparently 400 years is long enough to completely rebuild civilization). But notice also that the Great Pyramid is also about 4,500 years old. I guess that's not inconsistent, altho it's a bit strange that it's so intact despite the flood. Anyway, the Great Pyramid was built for Khufu, and we also know about the rest of 4th dynasty that followed after him. Right through the time the flood happened.. So... either you accept the dates that show that Egyptian civilization continued uninterrupted through this supposed flood, or you must not consider any dates regarding Egyptian civilization accurate, because they use the same methods to date all those things as well.

Moving on from egruntz...

I'm not denying the fact that there are still hunting and gathering societies up until this day.

My point was that "progress" is not an inevitability, so your suggestion that human kind would have definitely progressed more than it has if we had been around longer is unjustified.

And I notice you did not respond to the part where I pointed out that human progress has been accelerating. If I applied your reasoning to some other idea (let's say, that the Earth is 700 years old), then we would get this:

If we look at the difference between "1600 CE" and "2000 CE", the difference in technology is huge! There's no way humanity is 6,000 years old, because we would have progressed far more than we have now!

The rate of progress in the past couple hundred years has been possible because of the large human population (more people to come up with ideas), less disease and malnutrition and so forth (which reduces the health and intelligence of the people, not to mention taking lives), our agricultural society (which produces a food surplus, which allows some people to work as, say, engineers and scientists) and our prior knowledge. 2,000 years ago, progress was much slower because we had a smaller population, with a smaller proportion of that population involved in agricultural societies, with less knowledge and less knowledge of methods of increasing knowledge (scientific method, for example), and thus were weren't the factors that contributed to the rapid progress of the past couple centuries. And before then, before we even had populations in the millions, before there were agricultural societies, before we had knowledge about much of anything, progress was essentially nil because you had not that many people to innovate, people had to concentrate on getting food, not coming up with new tools or what have you, and died of disease and so forth. Which is why it took hundreds of thousands of years after humanity evolved to about our current level of intelligence for human civilization to progress to the point it has.

Progress enables more progress, so it is not linear, but geometric (exponential). Thus your assumption that the rate of progress over the past 6,000 years is in any way reflective of what we would have expected in the time period before that is flawed.

At any rate, do you have anything to say about the various methods of radiometric dating?

 

[AltF4]

This whole thread is absurd in even considering the possibility that the entire universe is 6000 years old as a plausible theory. It doesn't make sense on any level, not one.

Cosmic Background radiation, carbon dating, even just looking up into the sky at stars you see direct evidence of things millions to billions of years old. Every shred of scientific evidence points to a big bang 13.7 billion years ago. I can't even begin to enumerate the things that disprove a 6,000 year old earth.

The burden of proof is on the 6,000 year old earth creationists to substantiate their claims in any way. But scripture winds up being the only evidence, and the debate ends right there. There is no logical argument anyone can give against such an irrational argument.

 

[Digital Watches]

This whole thread is absurd in even considering the possibility that the entire universe is 6000 years old as a plausible theory. It doesn't make sense on any level, not one.

Cosmic Background radiation, carbon dating, even just looking up into the sky at stars you see direct evidence of things millions to billions of years old. Every shred of scientific evidence points to a big bang 13.7 billion years ago. I can't even begin to enumerate the things that disprove a 6,000 year old earth.

The burden of proof is on the 6,000 year old earth creationists to substantiate their claims in any way. But scripture winds up being the only evidence, and the debate ends right there. There is no logical argument anyone can give against such an irrational argument.

Man, that's a naive way to go about it. You're perfectly right, of course, but most people willing to argue a religious belief that directly contradicts scientific findings isn't going to be convinced. This thread and most like it are always going to devolve into
"No, YOU disprove it."
"I already did."
"Oh yeah? Well maybe it was planted there to test my faith!"
"What kind of theory is that?"
"You can't disprove it!"

Honestly, I don't see why anyone bothers having religious debates anymore.

 

[halfDemon]

This "debate" is hardly debatable.

Debating science against religion is a hopeless cause, for both sides. Scientific theories are theories because they have so far not been disproved by any scientific mean. Religious theories are theories because they can't be disproved by science, nor anything else, because the answer could always be, "He did it on purpose," or "It's a test." There is no disproving one's belief.

So until supporters of the religious half actually find scientific evidence to disprove sscientif evidence, or until scientific supporters find ways to disprove beliefs, this debate will never end, and thus is not truly debatable.

 

[DH_Ninja]

Even gravity is still a theory, come to think of it, doesn't that method also go with the whole thing on Evolution as well.

 

[Gamer4Fire]

Hmm...Disproved? I don't think so. Debated? Discussed? Torn Apart, Maybe. You see, if my points had been disproved, then there would be no need for a debate still.

What are you reading? We disproved Egruntz point and Erimir did again, not yours.

This "debate" is hardly debatable.

Debating science against religion is a hopeless cause, for both sides. Scientific theories are theories because they have so far not been disproved by any scientific mean. Religious theories are theories because they can't be disproved by science, nor anything else, because the answer could always be, "He did it on purpose," or "It's a test." There is no disproving one's belief.

So until supporters of the religious half actually find scientific evidence to disprove sscientif evidence, or until scientific supporters find ways to disprove beliefs, this debate will never end, and thus is not truly debatable.

This isn't a debate. This is a disucssion of why some people believe the Earth to be six to nine thousand years old.

 

[Florida]

What are you reading? We disproved Egruntz point and Erimir did again, not yours..

Speaking of debating, I still haven't received a reply from my last PM.
And, if you read my PM, you'd know that I already know those points were nonsense. Those were just notes I took from Dr. Kent Hovind's tape.

 

[halfDemon]

This isn't a debate. This is a disucssion of why some people believe the Earth to be six to nine thousand years old.

Then why post it in the Debate Hall?

There isn't much to discuss on why some people believe 6000 years, and why others believe 4.5 billion. We've stated the facts and beliefs in the first few posts, leaving nothing to discuss.

 

[AltF4]

Those were just notes I took from Dr. Kent Hovind's tape.

Don't even refer to that fraud as a doctor.


Summarizing debate:

Some people believe the Earth to be 6,000 years old because the bible says so (but not even in all interpretations. It's still ambiguous), despite all scientific evidence.

Others believe the universe to be about 4.5-4.7 billion years old (The earth itself is much younger) because that's what every indication points to.


Unless some actual scientific evidence surfaces to substantiate a 6,000 year old earth (or universe for that matter) this debate is finished.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Then why post it in the Debate Hall?

There isn't much to discuss on why some people believe 6000 years, and why others believe 4.5 billion. We've stated the facts and beliefs in the first few posts, leaving nothing to discuss.

Because, while "Debate Hall" is a convenient title, it's purpose is not to solely House debates, otherwise we'd be using the Rules of Formal Debating. Instead it also houses discussions, with the forum title indicating that it is a place for intelligent discussion and/or debate, not that it is solely devoted to debating.

Thus, discussions about why people believe why they believe are appropriate, as are relevant tangents.

 

[Indigo4]

What are you reading? We disproved Egruntz point and Erimir did again, not yours.

Forgive me, Gamer4fire, I thought you were telling Erimer my points had been disproved because he brought up my point in his debate. Sorry, my mistake. >>; (After I re-read it, I saw the mistake I made. -_-())