[Elihu702]

Young earth creationism. What are your arguments against it ?

hi all. My name is Angelo. I am a born again, evangelical christian, and i live in brazil. I am accostumed to evangelize mainly in atheist forums. Some times i am asked if i believe in a old, or a young earth. After searching and studying a littlebit, i must say : a difficult question, which at this precise moment i am not able to answer. Both proponents have their strong reasons, but to put all arguments on a balance, and say : see, this view seems more coherent, for that and that reason, seems not easy to me. There are a multitude of factors to be considered. Astronomical, archeological, panteological, biological etc. Personally, if i had to choose without taking all factors in consideration, i would prefere to stick to the young earth hypotheses. Or eventually to the gap theory. So lets say , i stick to the young earth theory, and you eventually opose this view, which are the best arguments against a young earth ? One i know right away is the starlight, which seems to be billions of years old. Eventually it could be resolved, in believing, God made the earth, and the universe , billions of years ago, but through the Gap in Genesis one, it took billions of years, until God restored the earth.

[Mrs. Mary Whitford]

Originally Posted by Elihu702

which are the best arguments against a young earth ?

There are no legitimate arguments against a young Earth. The Bible is 100% accurate, so we know for a fact that it's no older than 6000 to 10,000 years.

[Bobby-Joe]

Originally Posted by Sister Mary Maria

There are no legitimate arguments against a young Earth. The Bible is 100% accurate, so we know for a fact that it's no older than 6000 to 10,000 years.

GLORY! Any evidence that contradicts the old earth is just secular lies. We know this because the Bible says to.

[GOD=life]

Originally Posted by Elihu702

Young earth creationism. What are your arguments against it ?

Do you mean false arguments that are commonly used by misguided scientists and their followers?

Obviously, there are no valid arguments against the Truth. Only irrational opposition.

[Elihu702]

ok, i will be the advocate of the devil then, and test how you defend rationally your position of a young earth. That does not mean, i believe in old earth creationism. It is my wish, a young earth to be the most plausible explanation. I am however not convinced so far, in fact it is so. Thats why i want to test it.
I will make the research, and present the arguments against a young earth here. You can try to debunk them.

Lets start :

http://richarddawkins.net/discussion...%80%9D-c-decay

Say what you will about Young Earth Creationists, they at least have the intellectual honesty to admit that starlight could not have been created by God in transit.

They realize that If that was the case supernovas, indeed any event that took place more than 6000 years ago, would never have happened at all. Those events would be “light shows” which is quite different from evidence that they maintain could be interpreted several different ways. Young Earthers will argue the age of a fossil, but they will not claim the fossil was never a living thing.

I was given the opportunity write an essay for the April 2008 issues of Sky & Telescope Magazine (page 96) and I took aim at Answers in Genesis, the new Creationist Museum in Kentucky, and their idea that the “starlight problem” can be answered with “c-decay” the “theory” that the speed of light was once much faster than 186,000 miles per second, and thus would explain why starlight appears to have been in transit for billions of years.

I expected to hear from AiG, but the silence was deafening. A first I reasoned that I was such a little fish that I didn’t even appear on their radar. But later I came to understand that even Young Earth Creationists are embarrassed by c-decay. They know it’s nonsense and they are only too happy to talk about the fossil record and geological evidence. Those things draw attention away form starlight, the area where they are weakest and they know it.

Clear Skies

Gordon

how would you respond to that argument ?

[Mrs. Mary Whitford]

Originally Posted by Elihu702

how would you respond to that argument ?

"Read the BIBLE!"

[Elihu702]

Originally Posted by Sister Mary Maria

"Read the BIBLE!"

hand waving doesnt do it.

[Bobby-Joe]

Originally Posted by Elihu702

hand waving doesnt do it.

Friend,

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Were is your Biblical proof of an old earth?

[Billy Bob Jenkins]

I know that the Earth is young because I would go to Hell if I didn't. Reasons don't get more rational than that.

[Elihu702]

Originally Posted by Bobby-Joe

Friend,

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Were is your Biblical proof of an old earth?

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/longdays.html

Literal translations of the Hebrew word, yom, like our English word "day," can refer to a 24 hour day, sunrise to sunset (12 hours), or a long, unspecified period of time (as in "the day of the dinosaurs").

The apostle Peter tells us with God "A thousand years is as one day" (2 Peter 3:8).

The heavens declare the universe to be at least 10 billion years old. In addition, we have the ability to see galaxies in the universe which are billions of light years away. If one claims the universe is 6,000 years old, he must state that God created the light from these distant galaxies in transit less than 6,000 light years from the earth. There are signs that the light has indeed been in transit for very long periods of time and was not somehow created in space relatively recently. Frequencies of known spectral lines show spreading or broadening which would occur after long travel times through space containing dust and debris. Since this light appears to be very old and to have originated from a point billions of light years away, if the universe is actually 6,000 years old, the heavens must be declaring a lie, an apparently old universe which is actually very young.

Let me give one example. For now let us assume the universe is 6 to 10 thousand years old and God created the light-beams already in place. Say we are watching a star in our telescope which is two million light years away, and we notice that it explodes (yes, supernova explosions have been observed). That means the light reaching us now is carrying the information recording this distant happening. Now trace this part of the light beam backwards in time along the path of the light beam. By the time you get back to the time of creation (6 to 10 thousand years ago) you have reached a point which is less than 1 percent of the distance to the star. This would mean that the "explosion" part of the light-beam began its journey from here - and not from the star! Thus, the information recording this explosion had to be "built-in" to the light beam, so what we see as having happened to that star may never have happened at all. The idea that observation of things further than around 10,000 light-years away is not necessarily linked to physical reality would be unsettling from both a scientific and theological viewpoint. I cannot accept a God who lies by creating deceptions.

[James Dewitt]

[QUOTE=Elihu702;
tl;dr
[/QUOTE]

Look the term 1 light year is described as a way of measuring the speed of light. How far will light travel in one year. It has nothing to do with the age of the universe but its size. When God created every thing some where between 6 and 10 thousand years ago, he did it all at one time. God can therefore travel faster than light and the universe is proof of that.

[A Follower]

First, light doesn't show whether it is old or young. It remains the same light. It is impossible for scientists to measure the distance to the stars. All they have is theories on how fast stars move across the sky is supposedly related to how far away they are. Except there is no proof for these theories. No spacecraft sent out by scientists has ever encountered a star, which obviously means that scientists don't really know where the stars are.

Your argument about days not being days is ridiculous. If a day is a thousand years, do you think we shouldn't rest or go to church for the next 6000 years? Our week is a perfect mirror of the week in which God created the universe and rested. Even Jesus Himself reaffirmed that weeks are to be 7 regular days.

[Elihu702]

Originally Posted by Billy Bob Jenkins

I know that the Earth is young because I would go to Hell if I didn't. Reasons don't get more rational than that.

So your salvation depends on your faith of a young earth ? could you explain, why ?

[Bobby-Joe]

Originally Posted by Elihu702

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/longdays.html

Literal translations of the Hebrew word, yom, like our English word "day," can refer to a 24 hour day, sunrise to sunset (12 hours), or a long, unspecified period of time (as in "the day of the dinosaurs").

The apostle Peter tells us with God "A thousand years is as one day" (2 Peter 3:8).

So the earth is 6,000 years old. And?

This thread
http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=36734
Shoots down your starlight theory.

Nice try friend.

[James Dewitt]

Originally Posted by Elihu702

So your salvation depends on your faith of a young earth ? could you explain, why ?

Does the Bible or God say the earth is older than we say it is? If you don't believe God who can you? And what happens if you call God a Liar?

[Pastor Isaac Peters]

Originally Posted by Elihu702

So your salvation depends on your faith of a young earth ? could you explain, why ?

Without a young earth, Christianity would completely fall apart. Do you agree with me that Christ died to save us from something, and in the absence of that something, God's temporary sacrifice of Himself to Himself would have been completely unnecessary? That something, dear friend, is the sin that Adam brought into the world:

Romans 5:18-19: Therefore as by the offence of one [judgment came] upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one [the free gift came] upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Note the emphasis on one man's offense and disobedience. Scripture talks about a literal single Adam, not some sort of allegory for mankind in general.

Now the only way we know anything about Adam is through the Bible. The only way we know anything about Adam from the Bible is through a literal reading of Genesis; if any part of it were read figuratively, we'd have to read the whole thing figuratively, and then we'd have no basis for believing that the literal single man called Adam ever existed. A literal reading of Genesis, of course, leads us to young-earth creationism.

So there you have it. No young earth => no literal Adam => no need for Christ to die for our sins => no basis for Christianity. That is why salvation depends on our faith in a young earth.

[Elihu702]

Originally Posted by James Dewitt

Does the Bible or God say the earth is older than we say it is? If you don't believe God who can you? And what happens if you call God a Liar?

could you please show, where the bible says explicitly, the earth is six thousand years old ?

[James Dewitt]

Originally Posted by Elihu702

could you please show, where the bible says explicitly, the earth is six thousand years old ?

Read this

http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=3802

[Elihu702]

Originally Posted by Pastor Isaac Peters

Without a young earth, Christianity would completely fall apart. Do you agree with me that Christ died to save us from something, and in the absence of that something, God's temporary sacrifice of Himself to Himself would have been completely unnecessary? That something, dear friend, is the sin that Adam brought into the world:

Romans 5:18-19: Therefore as by the offence of one [judgment came] upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one [the free gift came] upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Note the emphasis on one man's offense and disobedience. Scripture talks about a literal single Adam, not some sort of allegory for mankind in general.

Now the only way we know anything about Adam is through the Bible. The only way we know anything about Adam from the Bible is through a literal reading of Genesis; if any part of it were read figuratively, we'd have to read the whole thing figuratively, and then we'd have no basis for believing that the literal single man called Adam ever existed. A literal reading of Genesis, of course, leads us to young-earth creationism.

So there you have it. No young earth => no literal Adam => no need for Christ to die for our sins => no basis for Christianity. That is why salvation depends on our faith in a young earth.

i fully agree with you. If Genesis, and Adam and Eve, would not be a real story, the bible and the plan of salvation would be worthless.

According to Dr.Hugh Ross, the genalogies of the bible however must be interpreted, and not be taken literally. Lets see what he writes :

http://www.reasons.org/genesis-genealogies

When names are intentionally left out of a genealogy, it is referred to as “telescoping.” In a telescoped genealogy only the highlights are given, usually the names of the most important and relevant people.

the telescoping of genealogies was a fairly common practice in ancient times. Such telescoping is perfectly acceptable and literal (based on Hebrew word usage)—even if it may be disconcerting to modern readers

some argue that our conclusions about other Biblical genealogies may not apply to Genesis 5 and 11. Those holding Ussher’s chronology estimate that Adam and Eve were created around 6,000 years ago on the assumption that the Genesis genealogies are complete (see Genesis Genealogies on page 20). Nothing in the text, however, requires that these genealogies be complete. Biblical scholars who hold that the genealogies are telescoped would place the creation of Adam and Eve at around 10 to 30,000 years ago but perhaps as late as 60,000 years ago.

Typically when a genealogy is telescoped, the number of names is reduced to an aesthetically pleasing number, usually a multiple of either 7 or 10 and less important names are omitted until that number is reached. For example, the genealogy of Genesis 4:17-18 contains 7 names. The genealogies in Genesis 5:3-32; 11:10-26; and Ruth 4:18-22 all have 10 names each. The genealogy of the nations (Genesis 10:2-29; 1 Chronicles 1:5-23) contains 70 names. Matthew arranged his genealogy (Matthew 1:2-17) into 3 groups of 14 names each. There are 14 names from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the exile, and 14 from the exile to Jesus Christ. To get the groups of 14, Matthew omitted at least 4 names (see below) and counted Jeconiah’s name twice. (See Matthew’s Genealogy on page 16.) Matthew clearly indicates in his gospel that that arrangement was intentional (Matthew 1:17). Whereas Matthew’s genealogy is broken into sections, Luke’s genealogy (Luke 3:23-28) is given as a single list. Luke has 14 names from Abraham to David, 21 from David to the exile, and 21 from the exile to Jesus Christ (in contrast to Matthew’s 14 names each). Luke also has an additional 21 names from Abraham back to Adam. (See Luke’s Genealogy on page 17.)[7]

Prominent Conservative Theologians Who Hold That The Genesis Genealogies Are Telescoped:
William Henry Green, “Primeval Creation,” Bibliotheca Sacra, April 1890, pp. 285-303.
B. B. Warfield, “On the Antiquity and Unity of the Human Race,” reprinted in Biblical and Theological Studies (P & R, 1968), pp. 238-261.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 40-41.
James Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion, Part II, Chapter IV.
R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, pp. 147-52.
Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time.

[GodIsAlmighty]

If God can create the universe, then why do people question such silly things as how He could make it like it is today in 6,000 years? Of course He can. And he can do it in any order he wants, too. Tell me: why would the Lord wait billions of years before His people came into existence? It's stupid. A few days is the most I'd be able to put up with a big farm filled with only things that don't know of your existence (with all due respect to the many farmers at Freehold).

EDIT:

According to Dr.Hugh Ross, the genalogies of the bible however must be interpreted, and not be taken literally. Lets see what he writes

This is ridiculous. God did not write "And on this day came Adam and Eve" because he was speaking metaphorically, and actually meant "The people made in my image were originally monkeys millions of years ago".