What is the Age of the Universe
 

The poll didn't work.

The options are supposed to be:

Billions of years ago
6000 years ago

My buddy and I are in a current debate. I'm not going to say which side I am on for a week. Then I'd be excited to discuss and debate the issue. Please be honest and vote.

There is no honest debate to be had here. The universe is approximately 15 billion years old.

Now with spicy poll flavour!


By the way, billions of years.

I agree, there is nothing to debate here.

Billions of years.

I also agree that there's nothing to debate here.

As far as I know, it's 23 years, 6 days, 11 hours, and about 20 minutes old. :thumbsup:

One more vote for billions. I see no scientific evidence to support the 6000 year theory. I see theological evidence, but that doesn't count.

[sarcasm]
pfft you guys are just idiots... i mean look at the evidence... bible contains ALL truth...[/sarcasm]



sorry, no debate, 15 bill

If it's 6000 years then a bunch of dastardly and coordinated tricks have been played on us. Otherwise it's beelions and beelions of years.

Or this could all be a dream.

I'm gonna go with the un-included option: all of it.

As far as i'm concerned, we don't know how old the universe is, we just know how long its been since the big bang.... I'm mean, all matter existed before the big bang, it was just really, really small. Right?

But in the interest of not threadjacking, I voted for 15 billion, because the universe is at least that old.

I'd agree that the choices on this poll are rather limited. To me, it seems like the science vs. religion debate in disguise. As I mentioned before, I voted for 15 billion, but I wouldn't be surprised if that number isn't completely accurate. I'd be willing to bet my life that it's way more accurate than 6000 years though.

I chose billions of years because the evidence to support comes from a field that is inherently self-correcting. If scientists discover that they are wrong in the future, they will correct it or at least calculate a closer approximation. The 6000 years figure comes from a field that claims to already know the truth, which makes it hard to admit that its wrong.

And that, folks...is why he's Captain Obvious. :D (Any relation to Obviousman, of Non Sequitor fame?)

Although...I don't see much there to disguise it. Nor do I see anyone debating it. Not that there's much there to debate...but still...it's fun to watch.

Wow...this forum is so dead :(

Which makes me sad cuz it's where I broke out into the TFP.

I'm for the billions of years.

13,7 billion years
no debate here.

This isn't science vs. religion. It's pretty clear - billions. I'm a little scared, however.. for the two people who voted for 6000. I'd ask them to pipe up, but I doubt they will.

If it's not science vs. religion, then what do you think the debate is over?

Time is relative. I guess the latest thinking is that the universe is as old as it takes Earth to circle our Sun approximately 14 billion times at it's current rate.:)

It came into being on a Thursday in June at about 3:30 pm Mountain Standard Time. Beyond that we can only guess that is billions of years old.

I would say about Infinite... but the closest thing was billions.

I'll vote for billions as well...

The universe began exactly 2 seconds ago ... I can't prove it but you can't disprove it, either.

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...gbough/OLA.gif

Sure I can.
The universe began on August 4, 1962...since, as we all know, the universe revolves around...me. :D

The universe is and can only be 600 yrs old and anybody who says it is older is a filthy heretic and will burn in the fiery pits of Hell!

...This is Tilted Nonsense isn't it?

No one knows how old the universe is. All we have are educated guesses. But, then again, I don't really care how old it is.

Slightly off-topic, but I don't think the Bible says the universe is 6,000 years old. In fact, it doesn't even touch on the subject.

You are right. In fact the Bible says something to effect that God has always been around, that would suggest that the universe has been around forever.

gatta go for the billions

Ah. It doesn't say it straight out, but it can be worked out, just as you can prove that pi equals three.

Apparently, you can take all the people that lived from Adam right down to the time of Jesus and then add up their ages, resulting in around 4000 years. This is where the 6000 year figure comes from I believe.

The universe all began with Kevin Bacon.

It has been proven many times over.

I thought the universe started with 6 degrees separation from Kevin Bacon? MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm Bacon....

CSFlim -- Yes, but that assumes that they didn't skip any generations. From what I've heard, the hebrew used in these genealogical sequences can make it either father - son or father -descendant. And, of course, that only works if the universe was created in six days. Theologians have been interpreting Genesis one allegorically at least since St. Thomas, so why can't we?

Oh, and probably billions of years.

Like I said, the universe is billions of years old. I was just explaining where the 6000 years figure comes from.

Yeah, I just thought I'd explain how you could believe in the Bible as scripture, and still believe that the universe is very, very old.

Honestly, I think either is quite possible. Therfore, I can't really vote because I don't have a strong inkling one way or another.

I don't think the answer really matters either. It's just another thing to get into a pissing match over. It requires just as much faith to believe that either the earth is billions of years or 6000 old.

So, I say, grow up and go feed some hungry people.

Sorry, but that is bollocks.
There are multiple evidence that the universe is billions of years old.
There is no evidence that the earth is 6000 years old.

Believing that the earth is 6000 years old is not faith, it is ignorance.

Prove it.

There is... it's just not very good evidence :D

With our current knowledge, we don't have a way to absolutely prove the age of the universe, so yes it is possible that either one of the estimates could be correct. However, I would say that it takes way more faith to believe in 6000 years than billions of years, because the billions of years estimate is based on the current state of our knowledge.

To put things into perspective, the 6000 years estimate comes from a time when we still thought that the earth was flat. We've made quite a few advances since then. If you're interested, this Wikipedia entry about the age of the universe does a good job of explaining our current best estimate of the age of the universe from an empircal point of view.

No, actually, we've known the earth was round far longer than we've thought it was 6000 years old.

It's true. Though carbon dating, and similar processes, can be called into question, we can reasonably say that the Earth is at least a little older than 6,000 years. Erosion, ice cores, sedimentary rock, the list goes on.
The bottom line is that there is much more actual evidence in support of the earth being billions of years old, than the circumstantial evidence provided by creationism, and other religous bases. Not very much room for discussion...