Greetings everybody,

There is this fantastic African American forum that I visit fequently and respond to occasionally. The people who post to this forum are obviously educated, intelligent and thoughtful. However, in some of the religious topics (and I know this doesn't pertain to just the Black race), there are references being made to these excessive years since the earth has been in existence. I do not believe this. How is it that people come up with these estimations? I'm just curious. Thanks to all who respond.

God bless you - Mae

Most of it comes from science and radiometric dating of rocks..in order to try to reconcile the Bible with science, all sorts of theistic evolution and "long ages" gap theories, have cropped up. However, none of them make sense when set beside the teachings of justification and sanctification as found in the Scriptures.

From a scientific point, radiometric dating requires too many chemical and physical properties to remain constant throughout time. Most of the "gap" or "long ages" theories borrow from science, and fail to consider that God can create age within His Creation. Theistic evolution seems to be the worst of the lot, for it says a lot of hideous things about God's character that just don't square with the testimony of the Law, the Prophets, or the Gospels.

Hope this helps.

Iron Deacon

OK, here we go - - - - again.

The Universe is some 15 Billion years old. The earth is some 4.8 Billion years old. And God came here some 6000 years ago and created life on this old planet. Hows them apples?
--Ðøug ™

Or, how about this: The whole universe (this part of God's Creation) is ~6000 yrs old. God created it in 7 literal days, complete with age. That meaning light was created in transit between the earth, sun moon, planets, and the stars, and radioactive elements were created in specific ratios with their decay products. Trees were created with rings. Some earth structures created with rock layers and structures in situ. Etc., etc., etc.

Of course, this brings into mind other dimensions, existences, and universes that would be far older than this one - which also can't be proven scientifically today. But that doesn't mean they don't exist.

I tend to think Creation is far, far more vast than this mere universe lends it to be.

Just thinking about the possibilities brings wonders.

Iron Deacon

Hello to MAE

Well to answer you question most people done
read or understand the bible. Then there are
the sicentist talking about millons and billoins
of years. then there is the verse in the bible
that says a day is like 1000 years. but is talking
about a day in bible prophacy and not literal.
But with all this confusion people will believe
anything there hear or read. It all goes back to
Gen where the bible says that the earth was created in 6 literal 24 hour days. If a person is
cofused on this they will be confused about all the bible truths. the bible tells the line in MATTREW and LUKE which is 6000 years. there are
some Scientist that are called creation scientist
that bebieve in creation.

I hope this helps you

your friend

DGveggie50

Didnt happen that way Mr Iron, God is not in the business of deception. Creation in the Bible is concerned ONLY with life on this earth, nothing else.
--Ðøug ™

I think it is more reasonable and scientifically credible to believe that the universe is about 10,000 years old, and life on earth was created during Creation Week about 6,000 years ago.

Let's look at some of those radiometric evidences that are presented as evidence that the crustal rock of the earth is billions of years old. The following I adapted from an article by Dr. Glenn Jackson in Creation Matters, March/April 2001:

Recent research on the subject of radioactive decay rates indicates that under certain conditions, they can be vastly increased. In 1987, Takahashi published in the Physical Review Letters (pp. 1522-7) the theory that beta decay can be faster than it is normally. Jung confirmed this with an experiment (also in Letters, pp. 2164-7) in 1992. Follow-up research was reported by Bosh in 1996 (Letters, pp. 5190-3). They discovered that radioactive Dysprosium and Rhenium decay up to one billion times faster than normal, when they are in what is called the hot plasma state of matter. Radioactive Lutetium can even decay up to ten trillion times faster than normal. Lutetium-176 is one of the radioactive elements used by evolutionists to calculate the age of the earth's crust. Takahashi suggests that this could be true for 24 other elements, too. Even the evolutionary Big-Bang proponents believe that the universe started out in a hot plasma state. So claims by evolutionists that naturally radioactive elements have undergone seemingly millions or billions of years of radioactive decay, fail to take into consideration the accelerated radioactive decay that must have taken place at the very start of the universe.

And here is something else to consider when it comes to dating earth's crustal rocks based on radiometric estimates:

When uranium in granite undergoes radioactive decay, it breaks down into helium and thorium. Helium is a gas with a very small molecule, that can easily work its way through the molecular lattice of crystals in the granite, and its rate of escape is known. Interestingly, while there is enough thorium and helium present in the granite to have been formed at the present rate over billions of years, yet most of the helium is still there in the granite; only a small amount has escaped, the amount that would escape in only a few thousand years. Also, if the uranium had been breaking down into helium and thorium at a constant rate for billions of years, then the helium diffusing out of crustal granite would have built up in the earth's atmosphere to a concentration millions of times greater than is the case today. We should all be talking like Mickey Mouse, in squeaky voices! The only way to reconcile these contradictory evidences is to conclude that some time in the past, at the beginning of the creation of the universe, radioactive decay must have taken place millions of times faster than it does today. This means that attempts to age-date rocks using the assumption that rates of radioactive decay have always been the same, will be totally mistaken. But since the rate of radioactive decay is involved with "C," the speed of light, this would necessarily have to mean that C was greatly different in the first few moments of the universe. This in turn would imply that just because we can see the light from stars that now are estimated to be billions of lightyears away, that does not mean the light has to have been traveling for billions of years to get here. In the first few moments of the Creation of the universe, the whole universe was filled with light, for the speed of light was virtually infinite. Then God "separated the light from the darkness" and changed the value of "C" to its present value, so organic life could be created, without being fried by hard radiation.

If the universe is billions of years old, then why did scientists find there are short-lived isotopes in lunar rock samples brought back to earth by the Apollo astronauts? Specifically, scientists found the less common isotope of Uranium, U-236, and of Thorium, Th-230. U-236 has a half-life of 23.9 million years. The half-life of Th-230 is only 75,380 years. A half-life is the time it takes half of the element to undergo radioactive decay and break down into other elements. After only a dozen or so half-lives, the amount left becomes so small it is undetectable. This proves that the moon cannot be billions of years old, otherwise these isotopes would no longer be detectable in lunar rock samples.

Then of course, we can go back again to the question that evolutionists hate to hear, because they have no good answer: How is it that there is only about half an inch of dust on the moon produced by infalling dust from space, instead of the hundreds of feet that should be expected if space dust has been infalling down on the moon for billions of years?

Looking at theological arguments, let me ask if God, who the Bible tells us knows the end from the beginning, would have been willing to wait for billions of years to get around to having to deal with sin? Would He not rather have preferred to get it over with as soon as possible? Note that the very first creature God created, Lucifer, is the one who chose to invent sin. This suggests that God did indeed wish to get the controversy involving sin over with right away, and not have it hanging over His head, and the heads of His creatures, for billions of years.

I believe that theologically, it is most reasonable to conclude that the universe is no more than about 10,000 years old.

Ron Lambert

[ March 23, 2002, 01:50 AM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]

Ron, you are wrong. There is no truth in your idle speculations. Why dont you get your blather published in Nature or perhaps Scientific American. Maybe it would be in the same issue as Ron Wyatt's kaka. You use ssuch terms as "can be" and "could be" --- lets get some real science here. When God created the universe see Gen 0:1 and on, the reason it could be created is that the speed of light was fixed. THAT is what makes the space-time continuum.

>> would [God] have been willing to wait for billions of years to get around to having to deal with sin? <<

Why not, who says that Satan isnt billions of years old? God isnt limited by our concept of time.
--Ðøug ™

Doug, you asked for factual science. I gave you factual science, and cited my sources. In 1987, Takahashi published in the Physical Review Letters (pp. 1522-7) the theory that beta decay can be faster than it is normally. Jung confirmed this with an experiment (also in Letters, pp. 2164-7) in 1992. Follow-up research was reported by Bosh in 1996 (Letters, pp. 5190-3). They discovered that radioactive Dysprosium and Rhenium decay up to one billion times faster than normal, when they are in what is called the hot plasma state of matter. Radioactive Lutetium can even decay up to ten trillion times faster than normal. Lutetium-176 is one of the radioactive elements used by evolutionists to calculate the age of the earth's crust.

Did you read those words? Here we have theory confirmed by experiment. Radioactive elements in the hot plasma state undergo nuclear decay billions and even trillions of times faster than normal. This is not conjecture. It was confirmed by experiment.

Do not all evolutionists propose that at the early moments of the universe, all matter existed in the hot plasma state? Where is your respect for science if you do not acknowledge the implications of this?

And what about the helium that is still in earth's crustal granite? What about the short-lived isotopes that were found in moon rock brought back by Apollo astronauts?

What more conclusive evidence could there possibly be? What more evidence do you want? What is your reason for preferring to believe the lies and fairy tales of evolution about vast ages for anything, in the face of conclusive scientific evidence to the contrary, that has been verified by experiment?

Ron Lambert

Ron, there are some that believe the earth is flat. There are very few that believe the entire universe is only 10,000 years old. Maybe you are the only one. The Hot Inflationary Big Bang (HIBB) is virtually a law. Virtually all scientists accept it as fact. The observed data support it. Why is it believed? It makes sense.
--Ðøug ™