Young Earth.

[Atheist]

If there any young earth creationists here, I'd be interested to hear why you hold that view. I'm not looking for a squabble, just seeking to understand where you are coming from.

[naomi24]

An interesting short article here.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13688-evolution-myths-creationism-is-a-coherent-alternative-to-evolution/

[Atheist]

By young Earth creqtionaists I did mean those who believe the earth (or do they mean universe? Maybe some think the universe is just a sort of big screen in the sky put there to interest us.) is only 6000 years old.
I'm not sure where the figure comes from; I have an idea it might come from adding up the ages of biblical characters.
I'd be interested to hear from any thoughtful people; less keen to have ongoing feuds taking over 'my' thread.
:-)

[Atheist]

Naomi, thanks for the link.

[naomi24]

You're welcome. Incidentally, if you'd like to start a thread here I'll answer your question to me from the Science section.

[Radagast]

Bishop James Ussher calculated from Biblical family trees that the earth was created in October 4004 BC. That was in the 17th century long before radioactivity was discovered.

[Khandro]

Atheist; //I'm not looking for a squabble,...//

My aunt Fanny !

[naomi24]

It’s quite interesting that Theland uses Answers in Genesis to support his claims, and yet part of their ‘evidence’ for a young earth is based on the fact that Carbon Dating is ineffective on samples claimed to be billions of years old. No mention that carbon dating is effective on samples up to 55,000 years old. They seem to have neglected to acknowledge almost 50,000 years in their reckoning.

[jim360]

Nobody uses Carbon dating to estimate the age of the Earth anyway, so it isn't even relevant to the discussion.

[rowanwitch]

I like to consider the universe expanding outward, until it runs out of energy slowly then collapsing back to a single point that eventually explodes again and so on... Like the universe is breathing in and out through the vastness of space and time. No madder than many other ideas suggested and just as like!y as the god and creation myths

[naomi24]

Jim, //Nobody uses Carbon dating to estimate the age of the Earth anyway, so it isn't even relevant to the discussion.//

No, but it’s used to date other things - and many are found to be far older than 6000 years. It therefore follows that the earth must be older than that…. so it is absolutely relevant to this discussion. Essential in fact because it instantly turns the young earth theory on its head.

[davebro]

"I like to consider the universe expanding outward, until it runs out of energy slowly then collapsing back to a single point that eventually explodes again and so on"

Yes but that would imply that expansion is slowing down when, in fact, I think it has been shown that expansion is accelerating.

[jim360]

// Jim, //Nobody uses Carbon dating to estimate the age of the Earth anyway, so it isn't even relevant to the discussion.//

No, but it’s used to date other things - and many are found to be far older than 6000 years. It therefore follows that the earth must be older than that…. so it is absolutely relevant to this discussion. Essential in fact because it instantly turns the young earth theory on its head. //

OK, no argument there -- still, it's true that people get way too hung up on known issues with reliability of Carbon Dating when it's at most only a small piece of the picture.

[naomi24]

Now if you want irrelevant to this discussion, Jim, that's it. The fact is carbon dating can confirm that many samples prove to be far older than 6000 years. Therefore the earth must be older than that.

[Atheist]

Pax vobisum, Khandro.

[jim360]

Carbon dating has known issues with uncertainty owing to, for example, fluctuations in the amount of Carbon-14 on Earth over time. So in that sense it's not wholly unreasonable for people to be sceptical about the results obtained. Yes, I trust its reliability in proving that there is material on Earth dating back 50,000 or so years. But if I wanted to prove to a sceptic that the Earth is old, I wouldn't point to C14 dating as that proof; or, at the very least, I wouldn't only point to it. Better to cite all the other, independent techniques, that aren't so vulnerable to the same issues: most notably, uranium-lead dating.

Put another way, it's good to have another (sharper) weapon in your armoury in arguing against Young Earth theories.

[naomi24]

Jim, //I trust its reliability in proving that there is material on Earth dating back 50,000 or so years.//

Good - because for the purposes of this discussion all that’s needed is evidence that the earth is more than 6000 years old - and Carbon Dating does it. Anything else is surplus to requirements here.

[jim360]

Agreed, but then I'm not the person you need to persuade. How do you persuade people who don't trust the reliability of Carbon Dating that the Earth is older than Young-Earth Creationism would have you believe?

Answer: Use other dating techniques. Granted, even that probably won't work for the sufficiently stubborn sceptic, but it's worth mentioning all the same. There are other ways to establish the ancientness of Earth.

[naomi24]

Don't tell me - tell them.

[eve1974]

I’m not young but I believe in creation AND evolution

I believe that what the bible refers to as “one day” cld easily be thousands of years.

and if God created man out of the dust who’s to say that within the dust wasn’t a tiny omoeba that subsequently divided and divided Zillions of times to
Make man etc etc

The bible needed to be written in a way that mere mortals wld understand at that time.


Ps - hopefully this stays a chat without going into the usual slanging

[eve1974]

Ps I re read and now understand that the “young” part refers to the theory not the individual lol