Giant Mystery Blob Discovered near Dawn of Time

[AaronBDisney]

TK,
I have to admit that I don't understand alot of the mysteries in space. But I have to believe the Bible over even my own understanding. This is Exodus 20:11
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

God said all these things were created in six days. Now, we know from Genesis 1 that the earth is said to have been created before the sun, moon, stars, etc. - And we know that Adam was created on the SIXTH day, the sixth from the first in which the earth was created. Is it your understanding the Adam was created billions of years ago?

I assume, and maybe wrongly so, that you think the earth was here for billions of years before Adam was created, but if that's so then he wasn't created on the sixth day. I, personally, follow the young earth understanding and am resigned to leaving some of these interesting questions as mysteries that I may never know. But let God's word be true and every man a liar.

[TK]

You're right, Aaron that assuming a billions of year old earth i would place the creation of adam and eve considerably more recent. i have to tell you that i still dont understand Gen 2 in relation to Gen 1. A lot sure happened on day 6.

i certainly am not 100% convinced of the OE view, but there is a guy in my church who says the earth is 6,783 years old (or something along those lines-- but he has an exact number like this) and i certainly can't buy that either.

TK

[thrombomodulin]

I've spent the last few posts on some details of BB theory, but I think its worth mentioning just a little more detail about Humphrey's theory which is the best young earth theory which I am aware of. Humphrey's idea is that the universe is bounded - all matter is concentrated in one area of space. This is actually quite inline with the popular, but incorrect picture, of the big bang, where all a small volume of matter expands into an infinite and empty space.

Humphrey's postulates that the earth is at the center of the universe. If one assumes that Einstien's equations are legitimate descriptions of the laws of nature that God created, then it follows that the rate of the passage of time is not uniform. Time will pass by slowly on earth, and more quickly the further one travels always from the earth. Namely, one day passing on earth could synchronously occur with millions of years passing by in some distant galaxy. Humphrey's claims his theory:
1. Solves the mystery of the time required for light to reach us from distant stars.
2. Explains redshift of more distant starlight.
3. Explains cosmic background radiation.
4. Is consistent with astronomical observations.

Thus, one can believe the earth is ~6000 years old, that stars are millions of years old, and that the earth was created before the stars (as allowed for by Einstien's idea that clocks progress at different rates due to gravitational time dilation).

[AaronBDisney]

there is a guy in my church who says the earth is 6,783 years old (or something along those lines-- but he has an exact number like this)

What?!?! He couldn't put a month and day on it?? Tell him come back when he gets a little more precise!

[TK]

He probably got it from Ussher's "annnals of the world"-- i think Ken Ham's site says the earth is around this old as well.

perhaps it is. looks older to me, though. i know, i know. appearances can be deceiving.

Pete- in regard to Humphrey's theory (thanks for summarizing it)-- why does it not get more mainstream support? I mean if his theory is the truth, wouldnt others come up with the idea as well (perhaps they have- i am just not aware of it) I know that Hugh Ross definitely disagrees, and obviously it gets no (or little) support from non-christian astrophysicists.

TK

[AaronBDisney]

He probably got it from Ussher's "annnals of the world"-- i think Ken Ham's site says the earth is around this old as well.

perhaps it is. looks older to me, though. i know, i know. appearances can be deceiving.

They certainly can. Adam looked full grown and was only 1 day old. The wine at the wedding in Cana looked like it had gone through the entire process and yet it just came into being in a split second. I really really think that if the world is more than a few thousand years old, it would take a lot of scripture contortion to keep the Bible credible.

[TK]

aaron wrote:

it would take a lot of scripture contortion to keep the Bible credible.

unless Genesis 1 is a poem, and not a scientific treatise. just sayin'!

TK

[thrombomodulin]

TK,

I think the correlation between true ideas and their popularity is very often quite disappointing. Nevertheless, the organizations ICR, Answers in Genesis, trueorigin.org, and creation ministries international all positively speak of Dr. Humphreys theory.

Its easy to find the exchanges between Ross and Humphrey's online, but the articles are scatter in many different places. Its been quite a while since I've looked over them.

Peter

[darinhouston]

They certainly can. Adam looked full grown and was only 1 day old. The wine at the wedding in Cana looked like it had gone through the entire process and yet it just came into being in a split second. I really really think that if the world is more than a few thousand years old, it would take a lot of scripture contortion to keep the Bible credible.

Or simply recognize the range of meanings for 1 day. Also, even if you go poetic, poetic doesn't have to mean that it is not factually true. I do think it's factually true, but there are clear patterns that appear to me to support something along the lines of the framework hypothesis -- that is, something to help a largely verbal society pass the information around and down. That means you have to be circumspect on literalism, but not that you have to doubt the basic information conveyed. I am on the fence on the framework hypothesis -- it seems to suggest a parallelism and consistency that rings somewhat hollow after the "pretty cool" first blush. Personally, I lean to literal with a shade of poetic license but choose to accept that "yom" has "undefinite period of time" among its literal meanings.

[TK]

I have often wondered what evidence Young earth creationists would accept as "proof" that the earth is over 15000 or so years old. It seems that when any such attempted proof is presented, then either the OE dating methods are flawed, the great flood created the Grand Canyon, dinosaurs really did hang out with Abraham, the speed of light doesnt work like we think, etc.

I realize from the YE perspective the burden of proof is perhaps on the OE'ers. But if everything the OEs come up with is explained away as simply not accurate, then I am not sure that any common ground can ever be reached.

Is there any YE proponent here who can tell me what evidence you might accept as conclusive that the earth is in fact extremely old (and i am speaking hypothetically, of course).

As an opposite example, if they found a t-rex fossil with human remains inside of it, then I would have to accept that dinos and humans indeed co-habitated.

TK