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The age of the earth

MeganC

Seasoned Member
Real Person*
Female
Moderator note: This is a wide-ranging discussion on the age of the earth, evolution, the days of creation etc, that began on this thread and has been moved here.
(Sorry Megan for editing your post, for technical reasons it's the only way I can say something explanatory at the start of the thread!).
Note ends.


Just me but I don't really care if God made everything all at once or over a long time. All I know is that I look around and see Him everywhere. I accept God in my life and that means I don't need to worry about things no one can really understand anyway. It's all in His hands.
 
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Just throwing this in because... why not.

Evolution is not real, as God said that each would reproduce after their own kind; however, Natural Selection and Adaptation are legitimate and observable everyday - within the same species.

Many people get this confused. "Well if evolution isn't real how do explain all the different types of the same animal?" My favorite response is the story of the brown bunny family, the despised white-furred mutant and the first snowfall. Tragic tale of woe, survival and new beginnings. :p
 
Just me but I don't really care if God made everything all at once or over a long time. All I know is that I look around and see Him everywhere. I accept God in my life and that means I don't need to worry about things no one can really understand anyway. It's all in His hands.


I get what you're saying, however, the scriptures are clear on the matter. Either you believe what God said about how He did it or you don't believe Him. Believing in your own version of god is idolatry.
 
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I certainly agree that scripture is clear that God created everything in a short period of time. However:
I get what you're saying, however, the scriptures are clear on the matter. Either you believe what God said about how He did it or you don't believe Him. Believing in your own version of god is idolatry.
That goes too far. I BELIEVE the scriptures are clear on that matter. Others interpret it differently. They may be wrong - but that does not make them idolaters. This is not strictly a salvation issue, therefore there is room for differing interpretations on it.

Too many flat-earthers say "the scriptures are clear on the matter, either you believe what God said or you're an idolater". They adamantly believe they are correct that the scripture says the earth is flat. I interpret it differently. That does not make either of us an idolater. It just means we look at the same scripture and interpret it differently, and at least one (possibly both) of us is wrong.

Monogamists also say "the scriptures are clear", citing Paul's instructions for church elders. Does that make me an idolater because I disagree with their interpretation of what they believe scripture is clear on? Or are they idolaters for not interpreting scripture as I do?

Catholics say "the scripture is clear" that the bread of communion is the literal body of Christ, most Protestants say "the scripture is clear" that it can only represent His literal body, each side can reject the other as idolaters. For me, I really don't know and don't care, because it doesn't affect my life - I am instructed to take it, so I take it. I don't have to perfectly understand the theology behind it to follow Yeshua's clear instruction. Would anyone be right to consider me an idolater for choosing not to prioritise investigating this detail and coming to the exact same conclusion that they have?

Megan did not even say that she believes in evolution. She just said she doesn't see it as a big issue that doesn't affect her life today. And that's fine. Personally, I do think this is an important issue, but I don't mind if Megan disagrees. One day she may be confronted with a situation where it does become a more critical issue for her (for instance her children may reach an age where they start to question the truth of the Gospel because their schoolteachers are saying it is all a fairytale and only evolution is true), and at that point she may see the need to investigate it in more detail and come to a firm conclusion one way or another. Until then, she is focused on other matters that she does find more important - possibly issues that you and I personally reject as unimportant. That's fine.

The Body has many members, with different assignments in life, we don't all have to study the same issues in detail and come to the same conclusions. We just have to follow our Lord to the best of our personal ability and understanding. The eye cannot say to the foot, "because you are not an eye, you are not part of the body".
 
I wouldnt have thought " believing in your own version of God is idolatry".
My version of God is based on my understanding of all creation , scripture and experience.
I accept I might have gotten some bits wrong in the past, and yet still do today.
but my faulty version from my past was and is not idolatry. ( I hope )
Take the best of what is given to us. Thank god for his grace in loving us.
I'm grateful he doesn't condem us like we condem ourselves and each other. Lol
I think there is a difference between those seeking him in all innocence and those actively digging a hole in a completely different direction.
 
On many topics I would agree that we can, as christians, disagree. However, the topics of biblical creation and God using macro evolution to create all things, bring us to a unique problem in biblical debate. If God used evolution to create the world and life, it puts death before sin. That causes serious theological problems. If death is part of God's creative process then it isn't the enemy. It didn't need to be defeated at the cross. The biblical concepts of death, sin, and salvation are not, mah, either or. By sin came death. Saying that death came before sin is calling God a liar. Choosing to believe that the god you serve is different because you would like him to fit your science or whatever other qualifier, is indeed creating a god in your own mind which is idolatry.

Sorry for my wording in the first post. I didn't mean to point the finger at MeganC, although it kinda sounds like i did that when i read it again. Sorry MeganC. I don't think she has thought about it much and I understand what she is saying. Essentially, I believe in God either way, I'm not worried about the details of how we got here. But, this isn't one of the topics that can be either way and it doesn't matter.
 
@Asforme&myhouse I can see where death before sin would cause an issue. However.... Does that mean that being perfect meant being completely indestructible?

Was Adam actually Perfect or was he called Good? Does perfect mean perfect agility - unable to trip or fall, perfect intellect - unable to not solve any problem, perfect perception - unable to be deceived, or does is simply mean that he was without flaw from original design (however limited/unlimited that may have been)? Now we're into areas of conjecture. Because of sin death entered the world. We know this to mean spiritual death, but was our inclusion of physical death just an assumption and not 100% accurate? If pre-fall Adam slipped and fell off a cliff, would he have died?
 
I haven't read those yet, but i won't let that stop me... :p

I'll throw these two out there:

God can do what he wants version: When God created man, he didn't create an infant. He created an adult male. If God can create an man already aged x-number of years, why not create a universe already aged x-number of years as well?

Gap Theory: Genesis says that the earth was made empty and void. The word used there is the word used to describe making something new from something already there. Elsewhere in the Old Testament we are told that God created the world perfect and the word used there is the word used to describe making something new from nothing. So the theory is that there is this gap of unknown time from when God did first create the world from nothing, but then Lucifer got all uppity He had to destroy it. That could show that the earth and universe really are physically hundreds of thousands or millions of years old, but the remodeling described in Genesis would still be accurate, truthful and as recently as 6 - 8000 years ago. That's a super-simplistic version that leaves a lot of stuff out.

I'll go read those articles now... :D
 
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Remember that we have no idea how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. They could have been there millenia. It would solve some other problems if they had been there a long time and many or even most of their children had left pre-Fall and founded all of those cities and peoples that are suddenly around by the time Cain and Abel come on the scene.
 
Remember that we have no idea how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. They could have been there millenia. It would solve some other problems if they had been there a long time and many or even most of their children had left pre-Fall and founded all of those cities and peoples that are suddenly around by the time Cain and Abel come on the scene.
Adam and Eve could not have been in the Garden of Eden for millenia. God expelled them from the garden before Cain and Abel were even conceived. (Gen. 2:24 - 3:2) And Adam was only 130 years old when Seth was born. (Gen. 4:25)
 
Did those years start counting pre-Fall though? Tracking years might not have been a thing. I'm asking. I haven't gone through the genealogies to be sure.
 
Suggested reading for the science geeks:

http://www.reasons.org/rtb-101/biblicalevidenceforanoldearth

http://shop.reasons.org/A-Matter-of-Days-p/b0411.htm

The Hebrew word for day (yom) can indicate either:
  1. Part of the daylight hours
  2. All of the daylight hours
  3. Twenty-four hours
  4. A long but finite period of time
This is one of those matters where a superficial reading of a concordance can set you down the wrong track, and a deeper understanding brings you back to the plain meaning of the text.

Yes, "yom" can mean several things, including a long but finite period of time. However, what it means is defined by the context.

Firstly, this is the context for the very first mention of the word:
Genesis 1:5 said:
God called the light “day” (yom), and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day (yom).
Here God creates light, names it "yom" (ie he defines "yom" as meaning the light period of a day, as opposed to night), and then immediately uses this same word to talk about the first "yom". It would be nonsensical if this could be paraphrased as "God defined the word "yom" to mean the daylight part of a normal day, and then there was the first "yom", but now this word suddenly means an enormous length of time that has nothing to do with how it was just defined".

Secondly, the context for every day (at least 1-6) includes the words "evening", "morning", and a number (first, second etc). Throughout scripture, whenever the word "yom" is used in conjunction with any one of these three terms, it clearly refers to a standard "day". Throughout Genesis 1, all three of these are used in conjunction with each use of the word "yom". This completely firmly defines every single "yom" as referring to a normal "day".

Thirdly, we are told in Exodus 20:8-11 to work for 6 "yom" and rest for one "yom" because God created the world in six "yom" and rested for one "yom". Again, this only makes sense if the word "yom" means a literal day. We are not being told to work for six long periods of time and rest for one long period of time.

Scripture is extremely clear on this point. This article has a detailed discussion, explaining from many sources both ancient and modern how there is a very clear consensus among serious scholars from all backgrounds that the author of Genesis clearly intended the days to be interpreted as literal 24-hour days, and why they state this:
https://answersingenesis.org/days-of-creation/why-i-believe-in-24-hour-days/

The ONLY reason to believe the days were long periods of time (or to believe the gap theory or any other such view), is in order to shoehorn a pre-existing assumption that the earth is millions of years old into the Biblical account.

The "millions of years" hypothesis has been invented largely to allow time for evolution to occur, and is inextricable from evolution - without evolution the long ages are unnecessary. Therefore the day-age theory has been invented largely in order to fit evolution into the Bible. However, the order of Creation is completely different to the supposed order of evolution - plants come before the sun, birds come before land animals, plants come before sea creatures - even if "yom" could be plausibly translated as "a long period of time" in this passage, it would make absolutely no practical sense to do so, because it just wouldn't work. This is why the "gap" theory has been proposed as an alternative (inserting millions of years between two verses and shoving evolution in there, rather than attempting to make the account fit evolution). That has its own scriptural issues, which I can elaborate if anyone needs that. But the biggest issue is more fundamental, and comes down to who we choose to put our faith in.

Many people today believe that "scientists" have "proven" that the earth is ancient, and you'd be an idiot to think otherwise. They then believe the Bible must be reinterpreted to fit this view. In other words, they take the words of men as more authoratitive than the words of God, and think the words of God must be reinterpreted to fit the opinions of man.

I am a research scientist by trade. In my experience, theologians and laypeople generally believe in an ancient earth and evolution because they haven't studied it hard and so just believe what they were taught in school. While scientists are actually far more likely to acknowledge problems with these views, because they realise the lack of sound science behind them. I even had an atheistic genetics lecturer at university who freely taught how evolution just didn't work! And I heard of a formal creation / evolution debate between teachers at a Christian school - the theology department arguing for evolution and the science department arguing for creation...

Science has not proven an ancient earth. Nor has it proven evolution. In fact, there is an enormous amount of scientific evidence that both ideas are impossible - but you won't be taught that in school. We live in an atheistic culture that is firmly invested in the idea that God doesn't exist, and therefore all scientific data is interpreted based on the preconception that creation did not occur and the earth is ancient to allow time for life to evolve by itself (if it could even do that). Don't be intimidated by this. In the same way, our culture claims that human-induced global warming is correct, that too is equally unscientific but promoted for political / religious reasons. Don't be intimidated by that either. Real science is entirely consistent with scripture.

Ok, my head's sore, I'm going back to bed... Hope that helps someone!
 
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I don't believe in evolution or even that the earth is millions of years old. But I do see how an extended stay in the garden could explain the existence of civilization so soon after leaving the Garden. After all, God told them to be be fruitful and multiply from the get go. I don't think they waited until after the Fall to start doing that. Its not important at all, just brain candy mostly but I think its interesting.
 
hmmmm.... brain candy.......
 
I don't think we are told there was "civilization" that soon. We are told that Cain built a city. That could just mean that he built a house, started breeding, and a century or so later had a city of his kids naturally grow around him. It doesn't have to mean he suddenly built a city soon after killing Abel.
 
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