The Age of the Earth

There has been a lot of talk about the age of the earth, and there are two distinct viewpoints. The christian or religious viewpoint, and the scientific viewpoint. Christian religions tend to believe the age to be app. 6000 years old. The scientific view is that the earth is app. 4.1 to 4.2 Billion years old.

Some of the ways we know this information include carbon dating, plate techtonics, and a new one to me, radiometric dating.

Plate techtonics kinda work like this. We know for a fact how fast the continents are seperating. We also know how fast it could concievably be possible. We know factually what causes the drift. We can not only observe the movement of the continents by measurement, but we can also observe the ocean floor. The ocean floor is expanding allowing for the continents to separate. On the ocean floor, there is constant replenishment of area, due to volcanic activity allowing for molten lava to come to the surface...(well not the surface, but rather the bottom of the ocean. So not only can we see a constant movement of continents drifting apart, but an equally constant replenishment of ocean floor area from volcanic activity..which is concentrated on belts in the sea floor much like faultlines of earthquakes.

We can use these constant movement speeds to get a relatively good idea of when the continents swere all one.

Carbon dating continuosly is getting attacked by christians. Note that I didn't say scientists. So I will not address that.

Now, one other thing that I stumbled across here looking into this carbon dating stuff is radiometric dating. It is the process of dating elements due to the level of their radioactive decay. If anyone does not know what radioactive decay is, I will explain breifly. Radioactive decay is the process of an unstable element breaking down. We typically measure it in half lives. The time it takes for an element to decay by 1/2. We can observe these objects, and determine their age given there state of decay very accurately. Now, from this scientists have determined the eart to be app. 4.1-4.2 billion years old. That is a heck of a lot more than 6000 years.

That isn't all either. We can measure the accumulation of helium in the atmosphere. We can measure the rate of decay in the earths magnetic field. We can measure the accumulation of meteoric dust on the moon. Accumulations of metalic elements in the bottom of the ocean. All of these metods, including carbon dating support the multi billion year old earth.

Christians actually try to refute this stuff, and I read about 5 websites with them trying to do that over the last hour. It is really funny watching pastors pretending to be scientists, and lying to the people who will listen, much like pat robertson.

Anyway, I look forward to the onslaught of christian criticism for this stuff.

seapeople- i will give it a shot!I do believe that life was recently created and i also believe that the the earth has recently undergone a violent catastrophe called a (flood)!!!!

Plate techtonics ="All the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the waters increased"
i believe there was a whole lot of shifting going on in the earth at the time of the flood and that what you mistake for millions of years was not so very long ago, to learn more of this viewpoint on plate tectonics go here....
www.123helpme.com...

radiometric dating= "The earth is supposed to be nearly 5 billion years old, and some of these methods seem to verify ancient dates for many of earth’s igneous rocks. The answer is that these methods, are far from infallible and are based on three arbitrary assumptions (a constant rate of decay, an isolated system in which no parent or daughter element can be added or lost, and a known amount of the daughter element present initially).”i dont want to type all this stuff so go here on the matter of radiometric dating.
www.trueorigin.org...

dust on the moon= Given the rate at which cosmic dust accumulates, 4.5 billion years would have produced a layer on the moon much deeper than what we observed when we landed. although the debate here is still on going with creation scientists and secular scientists so i guess we have no room to argue yet, sence they have no theory set because they cannot figure definitivly the rate at which cosmic dust accumulates.

helium in the atmosphere="One product of radioactive decay within rocks is helium, a light gas. Helium then enters the atmosphere—at a much faster rate than it escapes the atmosphere. (Large amounts of helium should not escape into outer space, even when considering helium’s low atomic weight.) Radioactive decay of only uranium and thorium would produce all the atmosphere’s helium in only 40,000 years. Therefore, the atmosphere appears to be young."...taken from CSC
in order for your theory here to work there must be a constant, i believe there was a massive upheaval in the "constant" and so that leaves us with jack squat!!!
i do not think that preachers teaching what they believe to people is funny, actually i think it is sad that you always look for the way out! the path that looks for ways to dis proove god and the bible, its the whole fence thing again (which side your on) that helps you to find proof in your favor! well thats my best shot for tonight, i am going to bed............

Note: Not all Christians believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Many of them believe in theistic evolution, also. Just pointing that out.

yes, it is called the "intelligent design" theory. I can entertain that line of thought.

I read the exact same websites that you did in preperation for your response. I have some questions for you to answer before you listen to a christian website. Radiometric decy. How was this method of measuring discovered? What elements can be measured in this way and why? Why is there instances of constant decay problems? What exactly occurs during radioactive decay? By this I mean, explain the chemistry behind it, and give examples of where this occurs.

I will get to the other ones after you answer these questions.

By the way, those creation websites you quoted off of did not ever look into these questions I asked you, and I assure you of that. Like I said in my original post, it was amusing to me to watch all the creationists squirm and rambling off "proofs" of why these things are inaccurate... Funny stuff. Oh by the way. At maximim error, radiometric decay can only possibly be off by 50%. Which means that if it was worse case....the earth is about 2 billion years old. Those creation websites you referred too must have forgotten to mention that...

No, ID is completely different from theistic evolution. Everyone knows ID is just a cover for creationism. Anyways, I said theistic evolution as opposed to atheistic evolution, meaning Christians just see it as Gods way of creating us. Im not too sure on what they believe in regards to abiogenesis, but im sure its probably along the lines of God "planting the seeds" so to speak, and then watching it grow, evolve, and so forth.

Intelligent design is the thought process that evolution may have occured, but it was designed by a god to do so.

What is Theistic Evolution?

Ninki, I want to point out some things about your reply. If you look at your reply, you linked us to two seperate websites. Trueorigin.com and 123helpme.com. Both of these websites are extremely biased to start out. They are both christian websites.

When I looked into this information, I even cited looking at websites like these. I knew that these are where you would go. You didn't post anything from a college research project or a scientifically renound paper. You posted from a christian website. That was expected. I want you to understand what you just did though.

You have said in a few previous posts on different threads that you do not fit in a box. That you are open to questions. You made it very clear to me personally that you think for yourself and you do not subscribe to a religion for that very reason. Yet, you posted these websites. You believed what they had to say without question. Without questioning at all....(sound familiar to something I showed you?) You see, you are like most christians. You set out to prove our thoughts wrong, without even questioning your sources. How much do you personally know about radiometric dating? Or the gathering of dust on the Moon? How much time have you personally taken looking into it? Here is what I can say for myself. Over the past several years I have addressed this issue many times, and have honestly taken a great deal of time looking into it from both sides. I looked at the websites and others like it that pose a christian point of view.

What I see in them is a terrible mistake. The mistake is an incredibally fast reasoning process put together by people who are pastors and religious leaders. They are not scientists and most do not have a clue as to what they are talking about. They hear from someone else themselves...dont question, and pass on information that is misleading and incorrect. You can deny the age of the earth until you are blue in the face. It will never change the fact that scientifically it is simply impossible for it to be that way. You can look at religiously oriented websites all day long, and you will continue to believe incorrect information. You should start questioning what you are told, and until you do, you will be a product of information and experiences gathered by others, and not yourself.

Heres what I've pulled up. They basically believe in evolution, "theistic" is sometimes added on there just to show that they believe its a the process with God used to create life.

Intelligent Design Its a pretty vague theory, it can basically mean anything, from aliens to a higher power. Intelligence is just some abstract term they seem to throw on there as a cover for creationism. I read some of their views on evolution, which dont really make sense, but I'll give it a shot. They state that it is a process which is caused/guided by some type of higher intelligence, BUT, it also says they reject the natural aspects of it. So basically, they dont believe in natural selection and they dont believe in random mutations, its all "caused/guided" by some higher intelligence, which isnt evolution, because natural selection is the meat of the theory. Also, ive read that they believe in mirco evolution, but not marco, they think a higher intelligence is needed for specitation. So, whatever higher intelligence means, from elephants to aliens to the Christian God, there is nothing scientific about it. I probably just should have said some Christians believe in evolution, sorry for going off topic, hope you dont mind.

seapeople-personally i do not have a P.H.D and my name is not doctor ninki! i have college under my belt, and many hard years of living for my short life of 27 years! what i know in laymans terms about radiometric dating is this...the theory is based on a constant, i do not believe the earth was at a constant during the flood,i believe that if radiometric dating were entirely accurate nothing could change, the earth would have had to be stable, and i do not believe that it was, now i am not a scientist and i do read what they say, creation scientists that is! if you want some evedence against your theory go here.
www.cs.unc.edu...

i know you want me to go into your box and sit down nice and quiet, tell you i am afraid and that is why i need religion, act stupid and therefore confirm your suspicion that all weak minded people need god so they create him! make god up to satisfy their weak unthinking minds! i said it before and i say it now, the box you have for me, it is too small, to plain,to religious, to easy for you to throw away!!! what is the problem with me providing resource for creation science theory? where did you learn your theorys? you dont read?? who wrote what you have learned? you are a product of your influience just as i am, so if we are going to tape up any boxes tonight it better be big enough for 2! what is really funny to me is how big we think we are! but oohh how small we realy are, our Intelligence is so minimal, yet we talk as though we make big waves! nothing new under the sun!!!

as i said in another topic, these points indicate that the earth is older than 6,000 years


-during each springtime, tiny, one-celled algae bloom in Lake Suigetsu in Japan. they die and sink to the bottom of the lake. they create a thin white layer. During the rest of the year dark clay sediments settle to the bottom. the result are alternating dark and light annual layers -- much like the annual growth rings on a tree. scientists have counted about 45,000 layers, they have been accumulating since about 43,000 BCE. this is far beyond the estimates of 6 to 10 thousand years claim by creationists.

-ice core samples have been taken in Greenland that show 40,000 annual layers of ice.

-the galaxy is over 100,000 light years across. this means that light from some stars in our galaxy has taken many tens of thousands of years to reach earth. this would indicate that our galaxy is much older than what creationist claim.

-Nuclides are forms of matter that are radioactive. each nuclide decays into another form of matter at a certain rate. after an interval of time equal to its half-life, only half of the original material is left. scientists have found that, every nuclide with a half-life over 80 million years can be found naturally occurring on earth. nuclides with a half-life under 80 million years do not exist naturally at detectable levels. the only logical explanation for these observations is that the world formed billions of years ago. There are enough long-lived nuclides still around to be still detectable. The short-lived nuclides have long since decayed and disappeared. The only exceptions to the latter are short lived nuclides which are being continuously generated by the decay of long-lived nuclides.

-Because of tides, the rotation of the earth is gradually slowing, by about 1 second every 50,000 years. about 380 million years ago, each day would have been very close to 22 hours long... There would have been about 398 days in the year. studies of rings on rugose coral fosils that were independntly estimated to be 370milion years old revealed that when they were alive, there were about 400 days in the year. this relationship has been confirmed with other coral fossils. This is good proof that the world has exsisted atleast 1third or a billion years.

-the thickness of the coral reef at Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific Ocean has been measured at up to 1,380 meters. even the most optimistic coral growth rates would require that the atoll be over 130,000 years of age.

-it takes thousands of years of below freezing temps to build a 100 ft layer of permofrost. But large area in the north are permanently frozen to depths of almost one mile, this took many thousands of years to accomplish.

-radiocarbn dating of wood usin acelerator mass spectrometry, is acurate as far back as 50,000 years. the method has many wooden and textile objects to be found tens of thousands of years old.

-reversals of the earth's magnetic pole are recorded in the Atlantic Ocean sea bottom for the past 80 million years.

-The rate at which the continents are spreading apart from each other indicates that the Atlantic Ocean is about 200 million years old.

- Measurements by sensors attached to satellites shows that space dust accumulates on the moon at the rate of about 2 nanograms per square centimeter per year. This rate would require 4.5 billion years to reach a depth of 1.5 inches, which is aprox the depth experienced by the astronauts who walked on the moon.(thats if they did, lets leave that to the other threads)

-Evolutionary principls applied to geology indicate that about 100 million years ago, the one land mass= Pangea was beginning to split apart so that land that would become South America and Africa drifted apart, at first the drift caused some shallow seas and a few land bridges. Later the Atlantic Ocean opened up and became gradually wider until it became the ocean that we see today. this theory would have a logical consequence in the evolution of dinosaurs. before this split in land mass took place, dinosaurs would have evolved into a variety of species which were found throughout Pangea. since 100 million years ago, when the land bridges disappeared and the seas became too deep to cross, the dinosaurs would have evolved differently in Africa and South America, due to their isolation from each other. This is precisely what has been observed in the fossil record.

Now, by the way, why would the flood affect radioactive decay???

Climatic change involves changes in the solar-energy regime, these affect the hydrologic cycle. The adjustments of the hydrologic cycle to long-term variability and climatic change are recorded in surficial sediment deposits and landforms. hence the reason i stated that constant would provide accuracy, but a massive global flood would create a far from constant environment. a flood of this magnitude would make a dramatic increase in radioactive decay rates, a Flood that would cover the entire earth would also have catastrophic upliftings and sinkings of land masses and other alterations in the earth's crust, mantle and core, and cause increase in erosion and sedimentation rates.

Many things can cause radioactive decay to be off. None of these things can cause it to be off more than 50%. I have looked up a lot of information on the hydrolic cycle and radiometric dating. It is hard to find the two linked on a non-christian website. Whenever I find some case studies I will respond. In any case, I am positive that you are not an expert in this subject. I am not either. All I know is that radiometric dating....at the very worst case scenerio which is so unlikely that it ought not be considered, can only be 50% off. If it had this worse case scenerio played into a christian favor, then the world would still be 2 billion plus years old.

Many different unstable elements are measured by the way. Not all of them would necessarily be affected. I have a feeling that when I am done looking into this, we will find that dramatic changes in the climate may actually make radiometric dating more reliable. I have a little bit of knowledge about it, and also a little knowledge about potential results of massive climate changes.

Now, I have an idea of my own. Let us do something I bet has never been done before. Christians are hot to attack 15 different dating systems that all say the same thing. What if we were to try to debunk bible dating??? First off, I would argue that even christians would agree that the bible is not a book of science and strict fact. There are clear discrepancies. For instance, when they found Jesus missing at his tomb...did they have to roll away the stone, or was it already rolled back? You will find three different answers to this in the bible. Well now...if we assume one of these is correct, that puts the bible accuracy meter at 33%.

Did jesus cause the fig tree to wither? Three different answers still. Assuming one is right, bible accuracy is now at 11%. Can you see the face of God and still live? Jacob saw god face to face and survived, yet john says it is not possible. we are down to about 6% assuming one is correct.

Where are the dinosaurs? The bible gives what SOME CALL an accurate time line from adam to solomon. Dinosaurs were not once mentioned in this timeline. Since adam was here from the beginning, that means the dinosaurs must have come sometime after solomon...placing them on earth after the "great flood". (suprisingly this would explain why noah wasn't out trying to cath those bastards.). Holy crap an explanation! Now, we know dinosaurs lived....and that they would have been dramatically noticeable and written about in that time. SO the fact that they are not mentioned...in that original timeline crushes any respectability of it being a reasonable timeline. It is not rational to believe they forgot to write about giant lizards hunting them down and eating them. It is rational that they were not scientifically capable of knowing about them at the time because they werre from millions of years ago.

Now I am going to go and do my own case study on this, and it will take some time. I am going to look specifically to find discrepancies in chronological information provided by the bible in those early years. I guarantee I will find them.

Then I am going to come back here and tell christians why they are foolish for believing an off culture book, just as they tell me I am foolish for believeing mathematical data.

alright lets take it one at a time!

#1 For instance, when they found Jesus missing at his tomb...did they have to roll away the stone, or was it already rolled back?????

I answered this before! the answers do not contradict themselves, but just for a refresher course here goes!
" The women arrive at the tomb"
Unaware of events at the tomb, the five women arrive, as they approach discussing the impending problem of how they would get the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb (Mark 16:3). Still some way off the tomb, they see in the distance that the stone has already been moved. Quickly jumping to the conclusion that the authorities must have opened the tomb and moved the body, Mary Magdalene turns on her heel, running back to in panic and grief to cry those now famous words to John: "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have laid him!" (John 20:2). Note the two very important points of cross corroboration here:
Although at a first glance, John has Mary setting off alone, she uses the all important plural "we". It is only by reading the other gospels that we discover why, and who was with her.
Yet John still records her use of "we" because that it how he remembers it. If John had simply been making things up he had gone along, he would have written "I" in Mary’s report, not "we".
This also explains why Mary did not mention the angels when she spoke to John. Again, we need to look at the details that the other gospel writers provide; Matthew reports the initial descent of the angel, only seen by the Roman guards. Mark and Luke report that when the women arrived, the angels were inside the tomb. So when did Mary turn back? According to John, when she saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. And when was that? Mark provides the answer: ‘When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance’ (Mark 16:4). By reading all the gospel accounts, we have the complete picture:
Arriving at the edge of the garden, the women look up from a distance and see the stone has been rolled back the tomb.
Mary jumps to the obvious conclusion, and runs back to Peter and John in Jerusalem.
The other women continued to the tomb, and went on inside where they encountered the angels.
Not only do these accounts fit together perfectly, but we can see why, for John, it is important that Mary Magdalene did turn back and race back to Jerusalem. It was her report that led to him personally visiting the tomb and experiencing the renewal of his faith. To the other three gospel writers, it was a minor detail, since Mary, like the other four women, could later report seeing both the angels and the risen Lord Jesus.
IF YOU READ ALL THIS AND WANT A FULL TIMELINE GO HERE
www.answering-islam.org...

#2can we see the face of god and live?????

who did jacob wrestle with? who did adam talk to? who came to visit abraham by sodom??? Jesus!!!!
when we see god we see jesus he is god in flesh! when they saw the father, they saw a glimpse of his splendor, and hid from him!
god the father, god the son and the holy spirit,and they are all one!

# 3 Where are the dinosaurs?

JOB. and if you dont like this answer, then i say they were more interested in showing the lineage of the messiah than bringing up every detail!

# 4 Then I am going to come back here and tell christians why they are foolish for believing an off culture book!!!!

What? who ever called you foolish? and the bible is not off culture, it is alive, relevent, powerful and is my source of strength and with this strength i can stand! only by the living word do we stand! jesus is the living word! In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god!!!!!!!!

with a short and simple answer

Can you show me that the radiometric dating methods comply with the scientific method?

I hate it when people say that Job has dinosaurs in it. Why would someone allow themselves to be so ignorant to reality. Half of the dinosaurs were meat eaters. They were huge. They were fast. They would have hardly gone unnoticed. Does anyone else find it hard to believe that there would be two individual mentions in the bible? Regarding things that would have been an absolute terror? I am not even going to readress the fact that there are 4 completely different accounts of the day jesus rose from the dead in the gospels.

Jake, I do not exactly understand your question. Are you saying you want me to scientifically explain radiometric dating? Please explain.

And just something for you to think about. You said, with a short and simple answer. Your question was not a yes or no question. You are trying to trap me into answering a question without being able to use all the information needed to do so. I wonder why????

[edit on 2/14/2005 by Seapeople]

Wow

Just read your edit

You are a paranoid little guy arent you.
For a second there I thought we might be able to have a calm, methodical conversation. Then you edited it.

Did you see lord of the rings?
You remind me of golem...shmegal...the paranoid hairless guy...except in your case, instead of the ring being 'precious"...its evolution.
No one dare talk about your 'precious"...

I have given up hope of having a sane conversation with you.

I apologize.

I am truly not sure what you are asking. Please explain.

Is this what christians resort to these days?