Re: Mount Everest and the Age of the earth
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:58 am
Yes, it does have to be one of those ages. And yes, no one knows for sure what age it is, besides God. And you don't know if Genesis was just an abstract story of what REALLY happened. It sure doesn't sound like a detailed or intellectual account as it has few details and no explanations on how things got the way they are today.Well it matters in that it cannot be all of those ages. As I said it matters little to my conclusion that the earth has always been here from man's perspective. I am not the authority on what God meant to say, nor would I try to put words in God's mouth. I feel he meant to say exactley what he said, which is why I am a proponnent of plain reading and reject the idea that it was dumbed down, or that we need to inject our own wisdom into what God wrote.
I ask you, how would God explain modern scientific processes to an ancient Man who knew nothing of anything besides that they lived in the Middle East (if they even called it that back then).
so, all of the evidence means nothing to you? If God created us in his image and yet you have no faith whatsoever in the reasoning/thinking process of your fellow man, then you should have an equal lack of faith in Man's ability to interpret the Bible correctly.I don't place my faith in scietific theory, not my own feeble attempts at explanation, nor popular science.
yes, you are correct that we can't nail events that happened that long ago into a day/hour time scale. We never will be able to "confirm" any of this, which is unfortunate. But np reject it all out of hand is ignoring the mountains of evidence that point to an old Earth. The age of the Earth was not always the same. It started out being thousands, then millions, then billions, and we've finally set the limit at 4.6 billion (not 6). This value, and all the values in between, are supported by radiometric dating, rock composition, fossil composition, and also the rates of plate movement. Plate tectonics has been proven to occurr as we can see plates subducting and rifting right now. Extrapolation of those movements is perfectly OK because those rates have no, and could not have changed in the past. If you think they can, please tell me how they could have?These forces that explain observations don't require the earth to be 6 billion years old, any more than they require the earth to be 2,422,693 years 4 months 12 days and 14.2 hours. Now it is plain to see that popular science attempts to show how plate tectonics could have worked during the last 6 billion years, but these are simple conclusions and interpretations based upon a foregone conclusion.
sorry, I didn't mean YOU were attacking, I meant the YEC's in general. I didn't think you were in that camp.I was not aware I was attacking, perhaps I have been over flamboyant in voicing that I don't see the requirement for it to be 6 billion years because we see observations. Conclusions and explanations are not evidence. I'm not certian what observation you refer to that make it painfully obvious that the earth is not 6000 years old. In any event why the restriction from 6 billion years clear back to 6000 years? Would it also be painfully obvious that the earth is not 250,000 years old
I find it funny that you say "conclusions don't make evidence" and you are attempting to defend YEC! YEC is the poster-child for this fallacy. Science is forced to extrapolate into the past because we can't possible confirm the past in the present. This is perfecly logical to do because we base our extrapolations off of what we see right now. That's the best we can do. Scientists don't pull names/dates out of a hat, they are well supported by evidence.
If you reject science for these reasons, then you must reject YEC for the same reason. If you accept YEC, then you can't criticize OEC or evolution for that same reason or you make yourself a hypocrit. YEC ALSO lacks the present-day evidence so they must make up even wilder stories (runaway subduction, canopy theory, hydroplate) with no evidence or even a feasible mechanism!
Again, YEC is based on the unproven theories you speak of. If YEC and Old Earth are wrought by the same problems, then what do you suppose we do about learning about our past? Is there a better alternative that has provable evidence?These are not evidence, they are interpretations driven by capitulation to other unproven theories. Correlation of similar fossils at two places doesn't require the causation you suggest. Too much of "evidence" is found in discussions of scientific experimentation. I would suggest that theoies are cheap and easily taint further research.
And the fossil thing is very good evidence. The Tethys Sea extended across several of the current continents and they had a distinctive shallow-water fauna. If Everest is capped by these fossils, it is logical to assume that the peak of Everest rose out of the Tethys Sea. Ignoring dates altogether, we know that this Tethys fauna was distinct from fossils found in the time of the dinosaurs and also distinct from fossils found in the current Indian Ocean. From levels of sea level rise and fall associated with Ice Ages we can place the Tethys in a certain timeframe. From the current rates of plate drift, we can extrapolate that movement back when India and Asia collided. Since the plate movment, fossil, and dating methods all agreed to a timeframe given, it is reasonable to conclude that it happened in that fashion.
YES, the date is not exact. There is an "error bar" of millions of years for these estimates sometimes. But it's the best we have right now. Things may change in the future as we discover new things.