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| How Old is the Earth? |
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| Written by David Gaddy | |||
| Wednesday, 31 December 1969 23:59 | |||
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Probably one of the biggest arguments against the Bible's account of creation is time. Some scientists will attest that if "given enough time", organisms will evolve to a more organized or advanced ...
Probably one of the biggest arguments against the Bible's account of creation is time. Some scientists will attest that if "given enough time", organisms will evolve to a more organized or advanced state. However, these proponents of evolution won't mention that this statement violates one of the principal laws of physics, which is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy. Entropy is the tendency of a closed system to move toward disorder. In other words, over time if left to their own, things do not get more organized, they become more disorganized. But all of that aside, if you can manage to take away the time in their theories, then the whole theory collapses. What we'll attempt to do here, is show that not only the biblical record, but also science itself points to a younger Earth. Thus taking the wind out of the sails of the Evolutionary theorists. Let's start with the Bible first and see what it says about the age of the earth. The Bible is unique amoung other holy books in the world, in that it dares to prophesy and to give precise details on issues. It doesn't give us a bunch of vague surmisings that could explained in any situation like most holy books do. The Bible is precise in its descriptions as well as its geneologies. It's not hard to look at the Genesis record and see by the geneologies, how many years passed between creation and the flood. Many geneologies in the scriptures give ages of the people listed. So a very clean record is kept of the lineage of Christ. With a little math we can look at the generations and ages involved and come up to about 4000 years from the creation to the birth of Christ. Since the death of Christ and the life of the apostles is all well documented by historians, we know that Christ was born 2000 years ago. So this tells us that the earth is only about 6000 years old. This presents a conflict with modern science that proposes that the earth is millions of years old. So what do we do? First thing we don't do is this: try to make the Bible fit into the scientific theories. Many have done this and it leads to strange christian theories such as the "gap theory". The "Gap Theory" comes in a couple of different flavors and I believe they are both very incorrect. The original Gap Theory says that there were a few million years between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. That first God "created the heavens and the earth", and this was the time of dinosaurs and all of the scientific theories about the age of the earth are correct as well as their account of extinction. Then something went wrong and God started over making the earth "without form or void", and thus we reach Genesis 1:2. Well, that sure is a lot of supposition on our part to try and justify the biblical record to theorists. We should accept the Bible on what it says: Genesis 1:1 tells us what God did and Genesis 1:2 begins to explain how he did it. That's all. Another "Gap Theory" is based on the idea that the "days" of creation are not 24 hour periods, but instead "ages" that could be thousands or even millions of years long. This way we have time to include dinosaurs and such before man comes along. Well there are alot of issues with this theory. First of all, God made the Sabbath day holy in Exodus 20:8-11 and in doing so explains the creation process. He says he made the earth in 6 days and the Hebrew term "yowm" is used for days which is a very specific Hebrew term that represents a 24 hour period. Let's also not forget that Adam was created on day six, then God rested on day 7. Adam only lived 930 years :) and God was obviously not "resting" during the time of the first sin. So if each day was thousands or even millions of years, then these scriptures would contradict themselves. So let's not pander to scientific theories and force the Bible into them, instead let's look at some scientific facts that may prove the biblical record. So how did the scientific community come up with these large numbers? People tend to want to take theories and present them as fact, over time it becomes fact to them. So they get applied as fact in the basis for further theories. Well time is a major factor in many standing theories like evolution, so the same time model is applied in other areas. One technique of science to date items is called Carbon Dating. Carbon Dating is too complicated to fully explain here, but the process basically measures how long the carbon in the organic material has been deteriating. Well you can imagine that to calculate this you need to know many variables about the environment, including the age of the air. Well as we say in the world of computer science, "Garbage In, Garbage Out". Or, if you put bad data into a model regardless of how precise and complex the calculations are, you will get bad data out of it. Let's just say that actual living organisms like snails have been carbon dated and shown to have died thousands of years ago. But these facts are publicised. Instead carbon dated is presented as an accurate method of dating bones and other organic material. When scientists theorized that the earth was millions of years old, they either weren't aware of a few scientific facts about the earth or it never occurred to them to extrapolate these facts in view of their world age hypothesis. I'll list a few of these facts here, but bear in mind that there are many, many more. Receding Moon - Our moon is receding a few inches from the earth every year. If we assume that the earth is millions of years old, then we have to assume that early on the moon was millions of inchs closer to the earth. The gravitational effect on the oceans would cause the utter destruction of our continents. And since science believes that Pangea (a single continent) existed at this time, then something is wrong with their theories. The Erosion Rate - Given the current rate at which the continents are eroding, about 14 million years would totally erode them to sea level. So millions of years ago the continents would have to have been miles higher to erode to their current level. By the way, how did fossils that are "millions" of years old survive those millions of years of erosion? Ocean Floor - The relatively small amount of sediment on the ocean floor appears to have accumulated over a few thousand years not millions. This fact is actually one of the reasons that the theory of Pangea (continental drift) was created by theorists. Stalactites - Even the largest known stalactites could've grown within a few thousand years. If the earth is millions of years old, where are those huge million year old stalactites? Ocean Salt - The amount of salt in the oceans increases every year. If they have existed for millions of years, then they were either once saltless or they'd be so salty now that they would be as dead as the extremely salty dead sea. Pole Ice Thickness -Ice cores at the south pole and Greenland are about 14 thousand feet deep at the most. An aircraft crash-landed in Greenland in 1942 and was excavated in 1990 from about 260 feet of ice after 48 years. At that rate of ice accumulation, the ice cores would've accumulated to their current depth over about 4400 years. Population Growth - Given the earth population growth rate the current population could've been generated in about 4000-5000 years. If people have been around for even a million years the earth would be much more densely populated. Coral - The oldest known living coral is less than 4200 years old Trees - The oldest known living tree is about 4300 years old The Historical Record - The oldest known historical records are only 6000 years old The list goes on. No doubt that evolutionist will argue these facts with more theories and suppositions. The fact is that evolution is not a theory, it has become a religion. Because it takes more faith to believe that nonsense than it does to accept the truth that life here was engineered and not an accident of random chance. I guess "given enough time" anything can be believed, even if it's based upon one suppostion after another. Just remember that "time" is on God's side, and his design is evidenced within the creation.
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