My church leadership believes that the Earth is roughly 6000-7000 years old.  I tend to disagree.  I feel that this puts God in a box and it also makes the dinosaurs hard to explain.  I would buy that God and man started their intimate relationship and our current level of consciences.

What say you?

Around 6000 years.

4.5 Billion years more or less

It scares me that people can convince themselves of such things.

I see this is going to get weird pretty quick.  Please give reasons for your beliefs if possible.

Quoted: I see this is going to get weird pretty quick.  Please give reasons for your beliefs if possible.

carbon dating

i beleive it is about 1 or 2 years older than my 2nd grade teacher was.  which puts it about 4.5 billion years.

I believe the earth is around 4.5 billion years old.  I am an old-earth creationist.  You can read more about my postition here.

Quoted: 4.5 Billion years more or less

In all likely hood more.

Quoted: Quoted: I see this is going to get weird pretty quick.  Please give reasons for your beliefs if possible. carbon dating

Carbon dating and the fossil record is what I base my theory on.  I don't see why this causes ripples in the church (Freewill Baptist by the way)

I have no problems with the long dates and times.

God created the Earth, 7 days is fine with me. There are a few references where God stretched the heavens (space in those contexts).

When you stretch space you stretch time. Makes sense that we see the effects here in terms of billion of years. Well depending on the amount distance and speed in which God stretched it. But we dont know those exact specifics or when during the timeline He did it.

33 YEARS

4.5 billion is the best educated guess we have at this time.

God gave us a brain, science, and the laws of physics.

He ment us to use them.


Sgat1r5

About 6000 years, more or less.

I have never been presented with credible evidence to dispute the Biblical account.

Examples: The geological column is dated by the fossils it contains.  Those fossils are are in turn dated by the geologic column.  In other words, it's an arbitrary and circular system.

Carbon dating is scienticically unreliable, as is dating through ice rings, etc.  The expanding universe?  We can reliably measure out to 33 light years, after that it is WAGs.

I believe the Word.

ETA: Antedeluvian dinosaurs and man coexsisted.

Quoted: 4.5 Billion years more or less

Quoted: It scares me that people can convince themselves of such things.

Me too.

On BOTH sides.

On the 6K year side, "religious" poeple are speaking out of the Scriptures silence on the matter.

On the 4.5 billion side, you've got supposed scientists speaking out of COMPLETE violation of some of the most foundational tenets of science.

Personally, I think the more relevant question is "How much time does this earth have left?"

Quoted: Personally, I think the more relevant question is "How much time does this earth have left?"

about 5 billions years then the sun turns in a red giant engulfing the earth.

Quoted: Quoted: Personally, I think the more relevant question is "How much time does this earth have left?" about 5 billions years then the sun turns in a red giant engulfing the earth.

Are ya sure?

ALOT depends on it.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Personally, I think the more relevant question is "How much time does this earth have left?" about 5 billions years then the sun turns in a red giant engulfing the earth. Are ya sure? ALOT depends on it.

Life on earth is another question, we could all be killed by nukes, runaway greenhouse effect, flood, famine, drought, locusts, meteors, death rays, but the earth should remain in place for a while until the sun turns into a Red Giant, that is unless there's something special about our sun that makes it different from all the other stars that turn into red giants.

------------------------------------
http://www.exn.ca/stories/2000/08/09/56.asp

The Sun won't shine forever

By David McCormick, August 9, 2000

Can you imagine what the Earth would be like without the Sun? The answer will be clear in about five billion years. That's when the Sun will begin to die.

But before it winks out forever it will go through a series of dramatic changes. Essentially, a star, like the Sun, is a nuclear furnace. It shines by fusing hydrogen into helium - a process called nuclear fusion.

The fusion of two hydrogen atoms into a helium atom produces energy as a by-product, which makes the star shine and gives any planets orbiting it heat and light.

A star is like a delicate balancing act. The trillions of nuclear explosions that occur in a star would blow it to pieces if not for the force of gravity pushing from the outside. Vice versa, nuclear fusion inside keeps gravity from crushing the star into oblivion.

But problems arise when stars start running out of hydrogen. After several billion years, an ordinary yellow star like our Sun will use up all of the hydrogen at its core.

Then, the nuclear reactions move to an area around the core, where there is still hydrogen left. The core contracts, and the surrounding layer of hydrogen gets hotter and the Sun gets brighter.

This artists's rendition shows what a looming Red Giant star might look like from an orbiting planet.
This artists's rendition shows what a looming Red Giant star might look like from an orbiting planet.
Over thousands of years, as layers of hydrogen get used up, the nuclear reactions move farther and farther away from the core. As this happens, the core contracts and the Sun's outer layers start to expand like a balloon.

At this point, the Sun would be a Red Giant. Astronomers don't know exactly how far out into the Solar System the Red Giant Sun will extend. "Some models say the Earth will be engulfed, others say the Sun doesn't get that large," says Tom Bolton, an astronomer at the University of Toronto. "Either way, it doesn't make much difference from the point of view of humanity."

Right now, our Sun is middle-aged. It's been around for about five billion years, meaning it won't run short of hydrogen for another five billion years. By that time, humans will hopefully be able to zip off to a colony on another planet in another star system.

Over millions of years, the Sun gets bigger while its core gets smaller and hotter. Mercury gets vapourized and Venus fries. Then it's Earth's turn. As the Sun creeps closer, temperatures soar, the oceans boil and all life is extinguished.

Quoted: About 6000 years, more or less. I have never been presented with credible evidence to dispute the Biblical account. Examples: The geological column is dated by the fossils it contains.  Those fossils are are in turn dated by the geologic column.  In other words, it's an arbitrary and circular system. Carbon dating is scienticically unreliable, as is dating through ice rings, etc.  The expanding universe?  We can reliably measure out to 33 light years, after that it is WAGs. I believe the Word. ETA: Antedeluvian dinosaurs and man coexsisted.

Can you point me to a scripture that you are basing this on?  

I have no doubt that God created everything, I just think that in the oral historical accounts prior to being written down may have muddled how things actually happened.  If the average life span were 30 years, then saying a thousand years ago would seem like an infinite amount of time and possibly an inconceivable concept.  Thus if a thousand years was beyond concept a million or billion would be even more of an abstract concept that just got converted down into a number that they could get their minds around yet it was still a difficult concept.  The bible says that a day to God is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day meaning that time has no influence on God and He can take as much time to get what He wants done so why would he rush.  Now mind you I believe that God created everything as stated in the time frame stated so I am not trying to say that the Bible is wrong just that the writers may have not quite understood the divine timeline.

Quoted: Over millions of years, the Sun gets bigger while its core gets smaller and hotter. Mercury gets vapourized and Venus fries. Then it's Earth's turn. As the Sun creeps closer, temperatures soar, the oceans boil and all life is extinguished.

Interestingly, the Bible describes the end of  the earth as  follows:

Revelation 6: 13   and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind.

and


II Thess. 1: 7And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

  8In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

  9Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

It doesn't however talk about billions of years.

But I don't want to hijack this thread. The last comment on the end of the earth is yours.

Perhaps god's 7 days where 4 billion years? Time doesn't apply to him, perhaps it was simply to put it into a time frame we could understand. I mean really how many here can even began to understand how long 4 billion years is. A week is far easier to respect. Since all of us know how long 7 days are.

I'm undecided as far as the time that passed from the creation of the earth until the creation of Adam.  From Adam on is like 6 thousand years, according to the geneologies given in Scripture.

Quoted: Perhaps god's 7 days where 4 billion years? Time doesn't apply to him, perhaps it was simply to put it into a time frame we could understand. I mean really how many here can even began to understand how long 4 billion years is. A week is far easier to respect. Since all of us know how long 7 days are.

Or perhaps when Moses wrote "the evening and the morning were the 1st, 2nd, etc day" he meant exactly what he wrote.

Lovely speculation ya got going on there.  Try using Scripture to understand what God says about what God did.

And stop putting words in God's mouth, and assigning motives to God.

First question (and I mean it seriously): What difference does it make how old the earth is?

Other things to consider: Even if you take the Bible at face value (which I do), it is important to point out that in the creation account, time is not mentioned until the event described in Genesis 1:3-4. So, in theory this could allow a long period of time before that, but after things were created. (I am not a proponent of this view, I'm just pointing out that it is there).

Second, radio carbon dating, and other such methods are known to be reliable only in very short periods of time, and even then are not the best methods to use. Take, for example, the "dating" of rock created by molten lava from the first modern eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Several reputable labs around the world dated that rock to be anywhere from a couple of hundred thousand years to a couple of million years old, even though at the time of testing, it was less than 10 years old.

Third (and certainly more imporantly from the rest) it is important to note the obvious: the debate about the age of the earth is almost always centered around matters of religion (thus, appearing on this part of the message board).

This is simple, but irrefutable, proof that no matter how old you beleive the earth is, your personal religious bias has played a role in your belief.

Quoted: I'm undecided as far as the time that passed from the creation of the earth until the creation of Adam.  From Adam on is like 6 thousand years, according to the geneologies given in Scripture.

Adam got the first soul and was given conscience thought and self-awareness and thus responsibility for his actions.  I agree that this level of conscienceness began with Adam around 6000 years ago.

Quoted: 4.5 billion is the best educated guess we have at this time. God gave us a brain, science, and the laws of physics. He ment us to use them. Sgat1r5

I agree with your statement about what God gave us on the face of it, but I don't think you are being completely intellectually honest. If it is a "best educated guess" then it certainly is not proven by any aspect of science or laws of physics.

What aspects of science (the study of the observable) or laws of physics (the study of the repeatable) can possibly tell us how old (the study of history) the earth is?

ETA: Antedeluvian dinosaurs and man coexsisted.

FMD-

Call me crazy (I'm sure many here already do) but I'm not convinced that this co-existence is limited to the antedeluvian period.

Quoted: On the 6K year side, "religious" poeple are speaking out of the Scriptures silence on the matter.

Silence?

I'd say Genesis 5 is a good place to start a timeline. The counting of exact years continues at Genesis 11 (through Abraham).  After that, it gets a little fuzzy as far as exact time.  See First Chronicles for the "Cliff's Notes" version.

Personally, I think the more relevant question is "How much time does this earth have left?"

Mark 13:32-36.

ETA1:

Quoted: Can you point me to a scripture that you are basing this on?

Please see above answer to gman.  30 years was definately NOT a "generation" in the beginning of Genesis, and chapters 5 and 11 list specific periods of time between birth and firstborn, from Adam to Abraham.

ETA2:

Quoted: Call me crazy (I'm sure many here already do) but I'm not convinced that this co-existence is limited to the antedeluvian period.

[tinfoil hat]Loch Ness?[/tinfoil hat]

I wouldn't disagree, as I just don't know.  While it's fun to speculate, the catastrophy that "wiped out the dinosaurs" along with the ice age can both be explained by the Biblical flood.  It's interesting to see how pretty much every culture on the face of the Earth has "dragon" stories, though.

Quoted: Quoted: On the 6K year side, "religious" poeple are speaking out of the Scriptures silence on the matter. Silence? I'd say Genesis 5 is a good place to start a timeline. The counting of exact years continues at Genesis 11 (through Abraham).  After that, it gets a little fuzzy as far as exact time.  See First Chronicles for the "Cliff's Notes" version. .

Scripture make no definitive statement re:age of the earth.

So on this specific issue, Scripture is silent. Personally, I'm partial to the 6K guess, but as you noted above, the time before Gen 5 makes definitive staements logically impossible.

There's a part of me who (as another psoter posted) thinks "Who cares how old the earth is?"

Quoted: Scripture make no definitive statement re:age of the earth. So on this specific issue, Scripture is silent. Personally, I'm partial to the 6K guess, but as you noted above, the time before Gen 5 makes definitive staements logically impossible.

I'm not sure I get what you are saying.

Genesis 1 gives us a time (6 days) for creation, with Adam created on day 6.  If they weren't literal days, then God isn't paying attention to how things work (the "lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth" [day 4] didn't exsist until after the grass and trees [day 3]).  I have a hard time believing that vegetation exsisted for an "age" or "millions of years" without "seasons, days and years".

Genesis 5 and 11 give us a timeline from Adam to Abraham of about 2000 years (depends on how you count, there is no "year zero" in the figures.  i.e. someone is in their first year when they are "begotten", and Luke's accounting also has a "Cainan" between Arphaxad and Shelah that Gen:11 does not).

I made the statement that after Genesis 11 things get fuzzy, but according to the accounts given in the Bible (the "begats" are handled differently after Abraham), it should give us a pretty good estimate to go on (roughly another 2000 years from Abraham to Jesus).

I guess it depends on your defenition of "definitive".  I think that there's more than enough clues in the Bible to say "The Earth is around 6000 years old, if one takes Scripture at face value".  I would not, however say, "The Earth was created at 4:45AM, on the 6th of May, in the year 4127 B.C." according to Scripture.

Any way you look at it, the Word is not silent at all.

Quoted: Quoted: Call me crazy (I'm sure many here already do) but I'm not convinced that this co-existence is limited to the antedeluvian period. [tinfoil hat]Loch Ness?[/tinfoil hat] I wouldn't disagree, as I just don't know.  While it's fun to speculate, the catastrophy that "wiped out the dinosaurs" along with the ice age can both be explained by the Biblical flood.  It's interesting to see how pretty much every culture on the face of the Earth has "dragon" stories, though.

I think Job is probably post-deluvian, and I don't think that his "behemoth" and "leviathan" represent creatures that survive to this day.

. . . but we digress from the thread's topic . . .

Didn't we just do this in a long Genesis thread?

4.5 billion sounds about right.  Genesis tells the story of creation, but
who is to say how long a "day" is to God who has been and will always be?

Evolution and God do not conflict, only the Darwin approach that leaves out
any room for God to be involved at all.

Which makes more sense to you of the following possibilities;

1) God created Earth 6000 years ago, and allowed us to grow and learn science,
but placed things around earth to "trick" us into coming up with physical
proof of an older planet, just to play with us.

2) God caused the Big Bang or whatever event you want to point to, with
full knowledge of the outcome beforehand.  Knowing we would eventually learn
science and be able to prove this did not bother Him in the least because
He knew that those who have faith will have faith regardless, and those that
don't won't. He had nothing to fear or hide from scientific observation.

Quoted: Quoted: Perhaps god's 7 days where 4 billion years? Time doesn't apply to him, perhaps it was simply to put it into a time frame we could understand. I mean really how many here can even began to understand how long 4 billion years is. A week is far easier to respect. Since all of us know how long 7 days are. Or perhaps when Moses wrote "the evening and the morning were the 1st, 2nd, etc day" he meant exactly what he wrote. Lovely speculation ya got going on there.  Try using Scripture to understand what God says about what God did. And stop putting words in God's mouth, and assigning motives to God.

+1  

A "day" is defined in the creation week as "an evening and a morning". That can hardly mean anything but a 24 hour day.

All scientific dating methods are based on the assumption that the rate of decay of the baseline element is the same now as it was in the distant past. If the rate of decay was different in the past, then the figures will not be accurate.

I trust the bible WAY more than I'll ever trust a bunch of godless scientitst, therefore I believe that the earth is no more than 15,000 or so years old.

Quoted: Didn't we just do this in a long Genesis thread? 4.5 billion sounds about right.  Genesis tells the story of creation, but who is to say how long a "day" is to God who has been and will always be?

Genesis Chapter 1: 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 19And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

I'd say that's pretty clear, at least it is in the English text.

Evolution and God do not conflict, only the Darwin approach that leaves out any room for God to be involved at all.

Actually, any "old-earth" theory that includes macroevolution must place death before sin, which conflicts with the account in Genesis.  <<ETA: Genesis 1:31 would implies a perfect creation (no sin and no death). To introduce death before day six would be irreconcilable with the nature and character of God.>>

Which makes more sense to you of the following possibilities; 1) God created Earth 6000 years ago, and allowed us to grow and learn science, but placed things around earth to "trick" us into coming up with physical proof of an older planet, just to play with us.

Please provide this "proof".

2) God caused the Big Bang or whatever event you want to point to, with full knowledge of the outcome beforehand.  Knowing we would eventually learn science and be able to prove this did not bother Him in the least because He knew that those who have faith will have faith regardless, and those that don't won't.

2nd Peter, 3rd chapter: 3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

He had has nothing to fear or hide from scientific observation.

Fixed it.



ETA: fixed formatting

Quoted: snipped a bunch of ranting and raving....

Rome has a view of this I find very appealing. Pope Pius XII was a VERY smart man,
whether or not you believe in the infalibillity of the Pontiff, he was a brilliant theologian:



According to the chronological reading, the six days of creation should be understood to have followed each other in strict chronological order. This view is often coupled with the claim that the six days were standard 24-hour days.

Some have denied that they were standard days on the basis that the Hebrew word used in this passage for day (yom) can sometimes mean a longer-than-24-hour period (as it does in Genesis 2:4). However, it seems clear that Genesis 1 presents the days to us as standard days. At the end of each one is a formula like, "And there was evening and there was morning, one day" (Gen. 1:5). Evening and morning are, of course, the transition points between day and night (this is the meaning of the Hebrew terms here), but periods of time longer than 24 hours are not composed of a day and a night. Genesis is presenting these days to us as 24-hour, solar days. If we are not meant to understand them as 24-hour days, it would most likely be because Genesis 1 is not meant to be understood as a literal chronological account.

That is a possibility. Pope Pius XII warned us, "What is the literal sense of a passage is not always as obvious in the speeches and writings of the ancient authors of the East, as it is in the works of our own time. For what they wished to express is not to be determined by the rules of grammar and philology alone, nor solely by the context; the interpreter must, as it were, go back wholly in spirit to those remote centuries of the East and with the aid of history, archaeology, ethnology, and other sciences, accurately determine what modes of writing, so to speak, the authors of that ancient period would be likely to use, and in fact did use. For the ancient peoples of the East, in order to express their ideas, did not always employ those forms or kinds of speech which we use today; but rather those used by the men of their times and countries. What those exactly were the commentator cannot determine as it were in advance, but only after a careful examination of the ancient literature of the East" (Divino Afflante Spiritu 35–36).


Pasted from here:

Adam, Eve, and Evolution

Good reading from an educated point of view.

Quoted: 4.5 billion is the best educated guess we have at this time. God gave us a brain, science, and the laws of physics. He ment us to use them. Sgat1r5

the science we have now is not infallible.they do make mistakes

how old is the earth ?
no one really knows- nor do they agree.

Other than the Bible, it there any credible evidence to suggest that the earth is less than millions of years old?

Quoted: Other than the Bible, it there any credible evidence to suggest that the earth is less than millions of years old?

And again, I'm not sure you can say that even the Bible suggests that if you do some research.

Quoted: Quoted: Other than the Bible, it there any credible evidence to suggest that the earth is less than millions of years old? And again, I'm not sure you can say that even the Bible suggests that if you do some research.

understood....but let's say I started with a "clean knowledge slate" and reviewed the available evidence. Would you come up with anything close to 6000 years?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Other than the Bible, it there any credible evidence to suggest that the earth is less than millions of years old? And again, I'm not sure you can say that even the Bible suggests that if you do some research. understood....but let's say I started with a "clean knowledge slate" and reviewed the available evidence. Would you come up with anything close to 6000 years?

I haven't been able to find anything that comes even remotely close to that short amount of time.

Quoted: Other than the Bible, it there any credible evidence to suggest that the earth is less than millions of years old?

Why would you begin with the hypothesis that the earth is millions of years old?

If you were unbiased, you would ask the question, "What evidence do we have regarding the age of the earth, and what age does that evidence suggest?"

As others on this thread have pointed out, all we can do with modern science is make gueses as to the age of the earth.

By the way, for all of you who have suggested an age of the earth of just a few billion years, I have to assume that you don't believe in evolution.

Quoted: Quoted: Other than the Bible, it there any credible evidence to suggest that the earth is less than millions of years old? Why would you begin with the hypothesis that the earth is millions of years old? If you were unbiased, you would ask the question, "What evidence do we have regarding the age of the earth, and what age does that evidence suggest?" As others on this thread have pointed out, all we can do with modern science is make gueses as to the age of the earth. By the way, for all of you who have suggested an age of the earth of just a few billion years, I have to assume that you don't believe in evolution.

read my second post

I would begin with the hypothesis that the geological record should be able to establish some baseline number

There are differing Biblical interpretations that lead to different answers about how old the earth is.

The Genesis account of Creation is not an EXHAUSTIVE account of creation, as it does not detail the creation of everything. Angels, for instance, are not shown to be created in Genesis, but already exist.

There seems to be a gap in time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 where a whole lot of history isn't recorded. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and yet the earth was without form and void? The earth couldn't be a "was" unless at some time it was an "is", meaning the earth seems to have been here already when Genesis 1:2 picks up. Mighty difficult, it seems, for The Spirit to hover over waters of a planet that isn't there.

We do know that there was a great rebellion in heaven before the creation of man, and that Lucifer and his angels were defeated in an attempted frontal assault on God. Some theorize that they carried their disorder into the physical creation after loosing in the spiritual realm.

Thus whatever happened seems to have had an effect on planet Earth, which was without form and void and covered in water. Thus folks like myself refer to the Adamic creation, meaning the creation detailed in Genesis 1:2 and beyond, for it seems aparent in scripture that universal creation (creation of the universe, planets, etc...) happened an unknown period of time  before the creation surrounding Adam.

So how old is the Earth? I have no idea. We can speculate given the information in The Bible that the Adamic creation is around 6,000 or so years old, but there is no such measure of the age of the planet itself, or any account of what was in creation prior to Lucifer's rebellion.

Genesis, while it details the creation of man and life on this planet as we know it, is NOT a detailed account of universal origin. We have no idea what happened in Eternity past save for the precious few bits of information about that past given by the Bible.

Extinct creatures and fossils could well be remains of the creation that existed here before the Adamic creation.

Appr. 4.55 billion years old, as based on U-Pb dating of zircon crystals found in Australia, the oldest known terrestrial material. However, if there is evidence of the Earth being older found, I might reevaluate it.

The solar system is likely not much older, as based on dating of the oldest known Ca-Al rich inclusions (among the first condensed matter in a solar system, formed in the protoplanetary disk) in in-system meteorites, approximating 4.567 Ga (Giga-annum).

Unlike C14 dating, U-Pb dating works for almost any long length of time (C14 dating usually will not be possible after appr. 60,000 years), and is accurate to +/- 2Ma/3Ga.

It is my firm belief that if there is a god as set forth in the Christian faith (at least mostly benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent), he would not attempt to trick us.

Quoted: Quoted: snipped a bunch of ranting and raving.... Good reading from an educated point of view.

Glad you aren't biased or anything...

Quoted: Genesis, while it details the creation of man and life on this planet as we know it, is NOT a detailed account of universal origin. We have no idea what happened in Eternity past save for the precious few bits of information about that past given by the Bible. <snipped> Extinct creatures and fossils could well be remains of the creation that existed here before the Adamic creation.

Except that God pronounced the "Adamic" creation "Good", i.e. Lucifer's fall, Adam's sin, and death coming into God's perfect creation had to happen later.

NoVaGator, you do realize that using the Geologic column to acertain dates is flawed?

MagKnightX, if the earth is more than 4 billion years old, how do you reconcile the fact that the U-Pb dating does not match up to the amount of Helium in the Atmosphere?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: snipped a bunch of ranting and raving.... Good reading from an educated point of view. Glad you aren't biased or anything...

Hey, I quoted a POPE.  That's pretty danged open minded for me I'll have you know......

You want fair and balanced the Religion forum is not likely to make you happy.  

Quoted: You want fair and balanced the Religion forum is not likely to make you happy.

ETA: I'm open minded, just as long as you can fit a theory into the Biblical account (unabashedly biased).  FWIW, we all realize that we're talking theories, right?

Quoted: Quoted: Genesis, while it details the creation of man and life on this planet as we know it, is NOT a detailed account of universal origin. We have no idea what happened in Eternity past save for the precious few bits of information about that past given by the Bible. <snipped> Extinct creatures and fossils could well be remains of the creation that existed here before the Adamic creation. NoVaGator, you do realize that using the Geologic column to acertain dates is flawed?

I'm not trying to establish a specific date, I'm trying to ascertain a possible age.

There's a fairly high degree of agreement between various bits of evidence to support any theory that states that the earth is quite old.

Quoted: Quoted: Genesis, while it details the creation of man and life on this planet as we know it, is NOT a detailed account of universal origin. We have no idea what happened in Eternity past save for the precious few bits of information about that past given by the Bible. <snipped> Extinct creatures and fossils could well be remains of the creation that existed here before the Adamic creation. Except that God pronounced the "Adamic" creation "Good", i.e. Lucifer's fall, Adam's sin, and death coming into God's perfect creation had to happen later. NoVaGator, you do realize that using the Geologic column to acertain dates is flawed? MagKnightX, if the earth is more than 4 billion years old, how do you reconcile the fact that the U-Pb dating does not match up to the amount of Helium in the Atmosphere?

Please explain.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Genesis, while it details the creation of man and life on this planet as we know it, is NOT a detailed account of universal origin. We have no idea what happened in Eternity past save for the precious few bits of information about that past given by the Bible. <snipped> Extinct creatures and fossils could well be remains of the creation that existed here before the Adamic creation. Except that God pronounced the "Adamic" creation "Good", i.e. Lucifer's fall, Adam's sin, and death coming into God's perfect creation had to happen later. NoVaGator, you do realize that using the Geologic column to acertain dates is flawed? MagKnightX, if the earth is more than 4 billion years old, how do you reconcile the fact that the U-Pb dating does not match up to the amount of Helium in the Atmosphere? Please explain.

He can't, he's just repeating the same old incorrect theories

www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

1. Accumulation of Helium in the atmosphere

The young-Earth argument goes something like this: helium-4 is created by radioactive decay (alpha particles are helium nuclei) and is constantly added to the atmosphere. Helium is not light enough to escape the Earth's gravity (unlike hydrogen), and it will therefore accumulate over time. The current level of helium in the atmosphere would accumulate in less than two hundred thousand years, therefore the Earth is young. (I believe this argument was originally put forth by Mormon young-Earther Melvin Cook, in a letter to the editor which was published in Nature.)

But helium can and does escape from the atmosphere, at rates calculated to be nearly identical to rates of production. In order to "get" a young age from their calculations, young-Earthers "handwave away" mechanisms by which helium can escape. For example, Henry Morris says:

   "There is no evidence at all that Helium 4 either does, or can, escape from the exosphere in significant amounts." ( Morris 1974, p. 151 )

But Morris is wrong. Surely one cannot "invent" a good dating mechanism by simply ignoring processes which work in the opposite direction of the process which the date is based upon. Dalrymple says:

   "Banks and Holzer (12) have shown that the polar wind can account for an escape of (2 to 4) x 106 ions/cm2 /sec of 4He, which is nearly identical to the estimated production flux of (2.5 +/- 1.5) x 106 atoms/cm2/sec. Calculations for 3He lead to similar results, i.e., a rate virtually identical to the estimated production flux. Another possible escape mechanism is direct interaction of the solar wind with the upper atmosphere during the short periods of lower magnetic-field intensity while the field is reversing. Sheldon and Kern (112) estimated that 20 geomagnetic-field reversals over the past 3.5 million years would have assured a balance between helium production and loss." ( Dalrymple 1984, p. 112 )

Dalrymple's references:

   * (12) Banks, P. M. & T. E. Holzer. 1969. "High-latitude plasma transport: the polar wind" in Journal of Geophysical Research 74, pp. 6317-6332.
   * (112) Sheldon, W. R. & J. W. Kern. 1972. "Atmospheric helium and geomagnetic field reversals" in Journal of Geophysical Research 77, pp. 6194-6201.

This argument also appears in the following creationist literature:

   Baker (1976, pp. 25-26)
   Brown (1989, pp. 16 and 52)
   Jansma (1985, p. 61)
   Whitcomb and Morris (1961, pp. 384-385)
   Wysong (1976, pp. 161-163)