jusolson00

I need to get something off my chest, and in doing so I hope to have a lively discussion about the topic on hand on please not go off course too much. I'll Start by saying that as of lately I am questioning the very religous teachings that I grew up believing. I guess I'm actually opening my eyes and coming to my own beliefs based on information I've gathered over my 27 years of being on this planet. But see, my trouble is that I am now conflicted about what I believe. At the core of my conflict is a simply basic question. How old is the earth/universe? How old? Weird how that one innocent question can raise so many questions and in doing so, carry with it implications that have shook my beliefs to the core.

I have always been facsinated with the stars and astronomy in general. Anytime anything is on tv that has to do with space, the universe, or the earth as a whole, I'm intrigued. The last few years I have fell in love with a series on the History Channel called the "Universe", and other similar shows/ documentaries. Everything that modern science can measure points to the Universe being about 14 Billion years old, and the Earth about 4.5 Billion years old. Everything I've seen to support this makes complete sense to me and I cannot see how we could doubt that.

Now for the counter agrument. My church teaches that God made the universe and everything in it in 6, 24 hr days, about 10,000 yrs ago. And their only evidence is a book written by man guided by the word of God.

So which is it? if the earth is indeed 4.5 billion yrs old, then it complety blows my churches teachings out of the water. But if they are right and the earth is only 10,000 yrs old, then EVERTHING modern science has observed, measured, and quanitfied is complety wrong. every theory, every scientific milestone, WRONG. I just can't wrap my head around that last possiblity. So here I am, left with my own understanding of the world, and coming to my own beliefs. I just want to go on record that I do in fact believe in a higher power, but not in the same light that my church has taught me since i was a kid. I really think there has to be a blending of the two. We still don't know exactly what, how or why the universe started with the big bang. I guess I think back to the idea that thousands of years ago people KNEW that lighting was an act of god because they could not explain it any other way. Now with science we know different.

Anyway I'd love to hear what other people think about this subject. I'm open minded either way and love healthy debate.

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Speed_Gibson

If you reject the literal interpretation of Genesis, then you have no reason to call the Bible an absolute authority on anything. Old earth advocates/devout evolutionists use science as a religion and have no problem here. It is the people who tout "theistic evolution" and the complete BS of "Intelligent Design" that frustrate and irritate me. How do you say the universe was designed then leave the who part a complete blank?

Children need to be fairly exposed to both viewpoints rather than be brainwashed in either camp. For the record, I am in the group that believes the earth is in the range suggested by Bishop James Ussher, and that the Genesis account is correct. The Bible is a very reliable source for dates and goes into exhausting detail with lifespans.

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Started talking to yourself I see.
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Black Adder

telekinetic

I was in your exact shoes one year ago. I can even link you to the post, if you like. Since then I've done a lot of soul searching (and internet searching) and I am no longer a young earth creationist. I am no longer a lot of things, but definitely not that.

Pasting this from my post at the bottom of the page for people just finding this thread: A Crash Course for Young Earth Creationists.

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Martian

Science and religion are not incompatible. There's no need to choose between one or the other, except in cases of direct contradiction. In those situations, you need to make a decision as to which holds greater weight to you. Is it mountains of observed and (hypothetically, at least) verifiable data, or a book written close to two thousand years ago?

Young Earth creationism takes the Bible very literally. The problem with this is that there's absolutely no corroborating evidence. For some, that's not an obstacle. Me, I'm too much of a sceptic to take such things at face value.

Note that this doesn't make the Bible useless, as some might claim. It just means that a literal interpretation of every passage therein is, in my opinion, the wrong way to go about it. I don't see this as an obstacle, since such a thing is impractical at best anyway. I'm loathe to trot out the tired old Leviticus example; the point stands already.

As an aside, I have no problem with people teaching their children things like creationism and intelligent design at home or in church. Where I take issue is when people try to shoehorn it into the science classroom. Slapping the word theory on something doesn't make it scientific. It doesn't belong there.

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I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
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Zeraph

I've never understood why there is this big debate on science vs religion. If you really believe god is all powerful he can make the universe look anyway he freaking chooses whether it be a year old or 4 billion. Obviously our scientific observations have worked, or we wouldn't have all this technology. And if you put that together with believing in god then that must mean that science is A OK in his book. So use it, become an astronomer, whatever, you can still believe in god.

I swear I have more faith as a non-believer than most of you religious folk do.

asaris

You might want to bear in mind that the literal interpretation of Genesis used by young earth creationists is the more recent interpretation. The more traditional interpretation is that the six days are allegorical, not literal (because of course God created the universe in an instant). I don't really see any contradiction between Christianity as traditionally understood and a non-literal interpretation of Genesis.

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"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Cynosure

Those people who approach the Bible... especially the books of the Old Testament, and especially Genesis... like it's a wiring diagram or some other documentation that gives entirely literal explanations and instructions, to be understood and followed verbatim... those people inevitably find themselves stumbling and falling all over it. And even worse, those people end up building religious institutions that are legalistic as well as fundamentalist, and ultimately materialistic and repressive.

jusolson00

This I agree with. I've come to believe, (on my own understanding and my own research) that you cannot take Genesis literal. But my church feels otherwise. And since that is the case, I really think that I will part ways with my boy hood church. Its too bad, as I live in a small community in the midwest where I grew up. My parents go to this church and a good part of my neighbors go to this church. I wonder do any of the other major denominations see Genesis in a more flexible light? I come from a Luthern up-bringing. At anyrate I will sometime have to explain this to my current pastor. Honestly I would love to get into a debate with him about such a topic and why he feels that the Bible is factual word for word. But in the end we will agree to disagree. Does anybody out here believe in the new earth view? I am curious about how you view modern science and all that we have discovered.

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genuinegirly

Quoted because I agree.

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Lasereth

You're going through what I went through about 5 years ago.

Astronomy is awesome and makes you view your entire life differently and really makes you wonder why we're arguing over shit like the economy when there's bigger fish to fry: what's out there?

Youtube some clips of Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and listen to what he has to say, particularly about intelligent design and religion.

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dippin

The reason people should eschew a literal interpretation of the bible is not that it contradict what we know about science. Is that it contradicts itself. The two genesis, the four gospels, all describe different things. The only way they can be reconciled is if people don't interpret them literally.

Jinn

I reject the position that it's "Old Earth vs. Young Earth", because it unfairly puts the belief that Earth is only 6000 years old on the same level as rational thought.

The unverifiable, inaccurate, archaic theory proposed by Genesis is not supported by other texts of the time period or any celestial research since. When something like this runs aground against the massive flood of observable, verifiable, peer-reviewed scientific research, it should never be equated in a way that implies identical credibility.

It's acceptable to believe in a "young earth," so long as one is aware of the inherent credibility difference.

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Cynosure

I agree that an all-powerful God, who created the universe, could make the Earth appear to scientific analysis that it's very, very old, even though it's actually quite young. However, I do not agree that the God of the Bible has done this. Why would this one, true God do such a thing, to us mortals? To confuse us? To test our faith? To set the believers against the scientists?

No, that sounds like the sort of thing a devious, and perhaps even mad, god of Greek mythology would do.

Read the entire book of Genesis, and you'll see that the "creation" takes up only a very small part of it, and is not really what the book is about.

Then, what is the book of Genesis really all about? It's about the original fall of mankind that led to his separation from God, and God's initial ministrations to reconcile mankind, and mankind's rebellion against God.

Yes, the word genesis means "the origin or coming into being of something". But, see, Genesis means to explain how it came into being not so much the universe and the Earth, as it does the fall of mankind and his separation from God, and thus this harsh world and this wretched situation that we're now living in, i.e. hardships, poverty, warfare, pain and suffering, sickness and death – Genesis means to explain how that came into being.

Willravel

How old is the earth? How old is the universe? These are scientific questions, they cannot be answered with philosophy. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and the universe is a little over 13.5 billion years old. Religion doesn't even enter the equation.

Does god exist? Do I believe what's right? Is the Bible true, or mostly true, or a little true? These are philosophical questions, and only you can answer those questions for yourself.

fresnelly

That's a good way of putting it. Time can have both a scientific and a philisophical measurement. They just can't be used together. Time flies when you're having fun but the clock will tell you different.

So how many scientific units has the universe been around for? 4.5 billion.

How many Religious units has the universe been around for? Depends on your beliefs.

Using the latter to answer the former doesn't make sense.

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spindles

I don't know that this is a denomination question. I'd have to think this is a church by church thing (though I can't say I've even been to a church that believed in a literal interpretation of genesis). Many mainstream Christians (at least the ones I know) think that a literal interpretation is kooky. I think you are ready for a new church - shop around, I don't think your current one is helping you.

I suspect that your minister will be intractable about his view and asking him might just end up in an argument. Personally, I wouldn't bother.

A caveat - I'm an atheist, so take my advice with a grain (maybe a pillar) of salt

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Zeraph

Well Cynosure, yeah, that's what I would expect if you believe in a christian type god. If there is that type of god (I should say I do believe in some sort of "god", just not one that has such a...personality). But if you believe in the christian type, then clearly faith is somehow important part of life, otherwise god would make it easy and do something more direct to each person.

Uncertainty and faith will always be a part of life. Now *why* its a part of life is up to the individual belief system. If you're an atheist, then it's because that's the nature of physics, if your christian, its because you must be tested or washed of sin, show your faith,etc. If you're like me then it's because uncertainty and faith enhance life, without it, life would be too dull and pointless.

ratbastid

Jesus taught primarily by parable and allegory and metaphor. He was one creative dude, in terms of approaches and methods for his teachings. Why is it that his followers have to be so bloody-minded literal?

I also find it amazing that the same christians (I refuse to use a capital C) who insist on a <10k-year-old earth also missed Jesus' core message, which was "Be good to people, including those different from you, especially those who need it most."

Blessed are the meek, bitches!

Willravel

The part of the OT that deals with the age of the Earth wasn't written in a metaphoric narrative. "Jack son of Drew son of Rusty son of Charlie son of Rick..." was written as a line directly from Adam and Eve all the way to what was then the present. Either it's the worst allegory in history (worse even than Neo being an allegory for Jesus) or it was supposed to be literal.

But that's really not important. My understanding of Christianity, my experience even, was that all the lessons you need come from the retellings of the story of Jesus. His words and actions, retold in gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are supposed to be the entire foundation of Christian life, philosophy, and morality. The previous stuff, while not completely unimportant, was more about "Guess who's on his way? Jesus, that's who! But for now, here are some rules."

Anyway, Jesus never said "Oh, dude, you're not going to believe this: the Earth is only a few thousand years old! ROFL!" He never reiterated a lot of stuff from the OT. Why? You'd have to ask him, but my guess is that if he existed he didn't think it was as important as the stuff he did say.

SecretMethod70

Yes. Looking at the denomination is a good way to start, but it's true that you need to look closely at the individual church. If you were raised Lutheran, perhaps you'd be comfortable looking into the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America? They tend to be more liberal than Lutheran denominations such as Missouri Synod or Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The Catholic Church also tends to defer to science on the issue of creation and evolution. The Episcopal Church is also quite progressive on issues of science, gender, and sexual orientation. The United Methodist Church is another which I'm pretty sure has a less literal view of the bible. Also can't hurt to check out the Unitarian Universalists if you're shopping around, though they're not strictly Christian.

It's reaching the point where the majority do not view Genesis in the literal sense, but the minority tends to be quite loud.

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levite

A lot of others have already said some of the most important things to be said on the subject. But I would really want to emphasize that, from a religious perspective, absolute literalism in reading the Bible not only is unproductive, I would argue that it doesn't exist at all.

Your church wants you to believe with 100% literalism and no external interpretation that God created the world 5760 years ago in six 24-hour days. Fair enough. In that case, I presume they also teach that you are forbidden from eating rabbit (Lev. 11:7), pork (Lev. 11:8), every kind of shellfish and crustacean (Lev. 11:12), or the blood of any animal (Lev. 19:26); that you are forbidden from wearing clothes that combine wool and cotton or linen (Lev. 19:19); that you must distance yourself from your congregation every time you have an emission of semen (Deut. 23:10 and elsewhere); that when you need to crap, you have to leave the city, dig a hole, crap into it, then cover it over with the shovel you brought for the purpose (Deut. 23:12-13); that you may not charge interest on loans (Deut. 23:19); nor can you remarry your ex-wife once you have divorced her, if she's had a relationship in the meantime, since that would be abhorrent to the same degree as idolatry or bestiality (Deut. 24:1-4).

You see what I'm getting at. No church teaches those things, because of a bunch of fancy theological footwork ascribed to the Apostle Paul. But they are there. There is absolutely nothing in the Old Testament or in the Gospels to suggest that Jesus didn't expect his followers to behave like fervently religious Jews, seeing as that's what they were. Jesus might have suggested reading the Bible literally-- although I doubt it, considering he was trained by the Rabbis of the Talmud, and they didn't-- but as soon as Christianity ceased being Judaism, it stopped taking the Bible literally.

If your church wants to teach literal creationism, I say they are welcome to do so. As long as they keep strictly kosher, follow all the laws of ritual purity, and the rest of the Mosaic code as well. Otherwise, there is no absolute literalism in reading the Bible: just double-talk.

I say this, by the way, as a practicing Jew, who does keep strictly kosher and so forth, and yet, following the Jewish tradition, would never consider absolute literalism an option in reading the Bible. We have always interpreted, and many of the early Christians did as well-- some of the later Christians, too. I see no reason (no Reason) in a church choosing to read Genesis absolutely literally and not other texts. It's just fundamentalism for the sake of plain cussedness, and to me, that does not seem theologically, philosophically, or religiously helpful. If that's your church, then with all respect to your childhood connections and feelings, I think you will be better off quit of them, from a purely theological standpoint.

And lest you think what I say is anti-Christianism, there are some Jews who try to take the traditional Jewish teachings about the Bible just as literally, and be just as fundamentalist, and I have said the same to them, and would say it again at the drop of a hat.

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

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Willravel

BTW, regardless of whether you're a creationist or not, you should use kosher salt. It's just better. Also, kosher hot dogs. That's one subject where I'm a strict literalist.

robot_parade

Young earth creationism is bunk, pure and simple. It's probably also the single greatest assault on Christ's teachings in the world today.

Think about it. What better way to destroy the message of Jesus than to equate it with something completely ridiculous?

Cynosure

Not just a "christian type" god. The Old Testament – particularly its first few books, which is what I've been referring to – is at the core of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Even so, it appears to me that atheists are want to lump all gods together, whether it be the omniscient and omnipotent, all- and ever-present God of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, who is perfect and peerless, or the anthropomorphic, physical (albeit immortal, though they can die or be destroyed) and limited (albeit super-powerful) gods of Greek, Norse and Hindu mythology, who are flawed, as well as many and competitive with one another.

If there is a God, it stands to reason that he/she (surely, such a God would be both and neither) would be an intelligent, sentient, and, yes, even caring being. Why? Because of the representation given by us human beings, who are like points of light – thinking, feeling, and caring – in a dark, vast and cold universe that operates like highly complex, yet utterly impersonal, clockwork. As for the other animals on our world: even the brightest of them are vastly inferior to us human beings in their ability to think, feel and care, for they are mostly if not entirely limited to their instincts and programming.

Zeraph

Well that's why I said christian type god and not christian god.

"If there is a God, it stands to reason..." I don't think that it stands to reason Cyn. Individually we're loving and caring but look at us as a whole. We're selfish and violent. And if god created it all then he's also responsible for that dark, impersonal, clockwork part of the universe too. So if we're going by percentages he's much more mechanical than human.

Willravel

I'm going to allow Epicurus address this:
The point Epicurus makes isn't that a god or gods are either not omnipotent, are malevolent, etc., but that you can't apply standard reason to theology. You can't apply reason to the supernatural. You can't apply reason to god.

Cynosure

IMHO, Epicurus, in that oft-quoted observation of his – as logical, enlightened, and unbiased as it appears to be – was speaking out of ignorance and narrow-mindednes, and perhaps even out of personal bitterness and resentment toward religion and believers in the supernatural. (Yes, I'm saying that about Epicurus! LoL.)

We human beings (mortals though we be) can indeed apply our reason (limited and imperfect as it is) to God, i.e. to his existence, to his characteristics, and to his actions. However, when we do, when we consider or postulate what God is, and what God does or does not do, and the why's and how's thereof of his actions/inaction, we must look at not only the big picture (and I do mean the BIG picture, which includes all of humanity, throughout all of human history), but also the eternal scheme of things. Thus, it appear to me that Epicurus was being short-sighted and probably even sarcastic.

Frosstbyte

Vanity, truly my favorite sin.

If something exists capable of creating a universe as infinitely complex as ours is, I find it astonishingly difficult to believe that it cares about six billion members of one species on a small blue green planet orbiting a nondescript mid-phase star. You realize there are more than twenty times the number of galaxies (observable) in our universe than there are human beings on earth? "All of human history" is the tiniest blip in the "BIG" picture that it's hardly worth mentioning.

I'm willing to grant that the enormous complexity and variety of our universe suggests that something pulling the switch. I think the jump from that to he/she/it/they having anything invested in this planet is incredibly difficult, other than out of a desire to feel special.

Willravel

In what way were his conclusions short-sighted?

Cynosure

That viewpoint sounds more nihilistic than humble, to me.

What if this great, big universe was created by God for the sole purpose of hosting mankind? Why, I once read a science article that theorized and gave evidence to support that our universe needs to be as enormous, and as teeming with stars and planets, as it is, in order to contain at least one solar system and planet suitable for human life. I've read other articles (again, scientific ones, not religious) that theorize and give evidence to support that we are probably the only intelligent life in this universe.

But even if we aren't, I see no conflict with a God capable of creating a vast and complex universe, and still deeply caring about the human beings on "a small blue green planet orbiting a nondescript mid-phase star".

Whatever, this very issue has already been addressed in the Bible, and more than once. Here's one example...

Frosstbyte

I've actually found the viewpoint soothing, to be perfectly honest, and it has nothing to do with nihilism. I didn't say that nothing matters because of the scope of the universe compared to earth, I just said that the argument that "god made all of this for us" holds very little weight to me, given how much "all this" encompasses and how very little of it we're likely to ever see.

ratbastid

I just had a shocking thought... what if that's as far in the book as they got??

TheProf

I just wanted to mention that the concept of the age of the earth as based on the genealogy is Christian-denomination-specific. For example it is almost ironic that the Orthodox Christians do not take that literal interpretation but instead have no problem accepting the fact that the Earth and the universe is billions of years old. The age of the Earth does not negative or strengthen the argument for the existence of God. As others mentioned above, focusing on that and trying to extrapolate from that is missing the forest for the trees when it comes to Christianity. And overall, is a very weak argument against God since the explanation of it not being literal works perfectly well. The sun was created on the 4th day -- that alone tells you the first few days couldn't have been 'days' in our regular understanding.

Willravel

For anyone that's wondering, the 6000 years is based on Gen 5 and 11, which supposedly give a perfectly accurate timescale for progeny:
Gen. 5: 1-8, NKJ
This starts at Adam and goes on quite some time. The idea is that these are a simple and unquestionable chronological link between the first week of existence and now. Even from a theological standpoint, I find this to be a weak argument. For example:
- There could be a gap of 4.5 billion years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
- Also, the first "day", often cited as evidence that "day" means a 24-hour period, could actually demonstrate the opposite. It's possible that the darkness was a period of about 9 billion years between the big bang and the formation of the sun, and that the light was the 4.57 billion years of the sun. This would establish context for the use of day (yom) for the rest of the chapter meaning "eon" (or long passage of time) instead of a 24-hour day and would thus completely void the young earth theory.

The true stumble is when you come to the order of development from Genesis 1:

It's this, not the age of the earth, that creates the most substantial rift between creationism and a verifiable scientific history of life on our planet. Fish easily predate fruit-bearing trees by hundreds of millions of years. Reptiles predate birds because birds came from reptiles. And yes, stars predate fruit trees, too.

I'm surprised that people get hung up on the age of the earth instead of the order of evolution of life on the planet. It's the latter I've always found to be the most glaring inconsistency.

Cynosure

People who point to this and say, "See? Add up all these, and you find the earth is only around 6,000 years old!" are being technical and legalistic, and even superficial and materialistic.

Considering that the Bible was written by many different authors over a period of ancient human history spanning some two thousand years, it shouldn't be at all surprising that at least some erroneous (yet ultimately trivial) stuff like what is found in that passage, quoted above, got into the Bible. For the Bible is an incredible and multifarious compilation of oral tradition, written history, poetry (mostly spiritual, but some of it romantic and even erotic), philosophy, folk wisdom, sagely observations and advice, spiritual revelations, dreams and prophecies, personal testimony, eyewitness accounts, allegory, etc. That some fundamentalists and/or fantatics take stuff like that passage and make it the focal point of a particular belief and argument... in this case, that ours is a young earth... when there is overwhelming and irrefutable scientific evidence that shows otherwise...

MSD

Kosher salt isn't kosher, it's used to kosher meat.

Willravel

i know, but it's still better.

telekinetic

I was watching a program on PBS yesterday, a real interesting one about the ice sheets. The ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland have layers, like rings of a tree, that can be counted. They are formed as snow falls and is compressed under new snow, but summer snow (with the sun on it 24 hours a day) looks different than winter snow, which falls in the dark, so you get annual banded cross sections that look like rings of a tree:



These layers have lots of data in them--there are trapped air bubbles (down to a certain level, before the pressure becomes too great) so atmospheric composition can be measured, and there are different ratios of isotopes that tell us what the temperature was when the snow fell.

All of that is fine and good, the point to all of this is, in Antarctica they have drilled an uninterrupted ice core record going back to 400,000 years, and in Greenland it goes back to 100,000.

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snowy

The United Methodist Church definitely has a less literal view of the Bible, and they're very progressive. They do have less ritual in their services, though, so if a person is used to that, it can be a bit strange at first.

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telekinetic

Just found this: A Crash Course for Young Earth Creationists.


Each of these claims has scientifically valid sources if you click the video link.

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