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how old is the earth?


The_Atheist_Mind

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The universe sprang into exsistence 3 minutes and 22 seconds ago containing everything that is now in it, including all people with brain impressions making them Think that they've been alive all this time with their memories, and all geological formations with properties that our instruments will record as being ancient. Just happened few minutes ago.

Actually, there's much evidence that indicates that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. I personally can't tell you how many times that I've heard that scientists were amazed by the ability of nature to do something. Such as the rapid regeneration of the forests around Mount St. Helens within a few short years.

KGS

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Well, no, speculating about dinosaurs didn't cause the human race to advance beyond being "hunter gatherers".

It's only due to science that the human race has amounted to anything.

In fact, I believe that one can draw a direct connection between our current state of advancement with the fact that someone named Jesus came to this Earth about 2007 years ago.
Really? I fail to see how Jesus has had any influence in that respect, at all. In fact as I remember, religion greatly hindered the progress of science...

The problem is that for the last few hundred years people have been straying somewhat and placing more faith in science than in God, with the end result being such unfortunate things as industrialization, free market capitalism, atheism, world wars, nuclear and biological weapons, and global climate change.

Religion has had no involvement with any wars or violence than, I presume?

A preoccupation with trying to figure out things that we can never know the answer to, such as dinosaurs, is symptomatic of the manner in which science has in many respects screwed up our lives.

I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say. We do have answers to many different things, so how can you say that we will never know? We already do!

Well, there is some debate to just how old the Earth is, so how can you state 4.5 billion years as a fact? Even your scientists have constantly revised their estimation of how old they believe the Earth is.

That's the great thing about science, it's constantly changing and adapting to take evidence in to account. Fair enough, we don't know exactly how old the Earth is and it'll be difficult to ever know for certain, but we have a much better idea than any religion.

And how would you know how old the Earth is anyway? Do you have access to a radio carbon dating machine and rocks that are supposedly 4.5 billion years old? I highly doubt it. So basically all you have to go on is a few books written by mere mortal scientists. Let's not forget that scientists have a tendancy of fabricating facts in order to assure themselves of plum academic positions and loads of research money.
It's illogical to say that the evidence is fabricated by scientists who are just looking for grants, because their findings are submitted to peer review. If a research group out right made up claims and tried to pass them off as being true, it'd be a perfect opportunity for another group to discredit them.

Whereas I have writings that are devinely inspired, that are the absolute truth because they are the true Word of God. Sorry, I tend to go with the truth as determined by the devine Creator and not a bunch of human scientists when given the choice.

Sorry, I was under the impression that religious texts were written by people, too. :rolleyes:

Let's see some proof that the Bible consists of "nothing more then [sic]mere fairy tales".

There is rarely consensus in scientific circles on any topic, so slamming the Bible for being "conflicting" is just a tad hypocritical. (The Bible isn't, incidently--the problem always results the readers ignorance.)

I wasn't referring to the bible, there are other religious texts besides it.

Shall I hazard a guess and say it would be just about none? Which means that your info comes from the ever unreliable Internet, if anywhere at all.

Well you'd be wrong. There's such a thing as education.

Actually, there's much evidence that indicates that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

Do share.

Edited by Raptor X7
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Actually, there's much evidence that indicates that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

oh really? do tell :hmm:

I personally can't tell you how many times that I've heard that scientists were amazed by the ability of nature to do something. Such as the rapid regeneration of the forests around Mount St. Helens within a few short years.

KGS

that just the resilients of life. wich evolved to cope with natural disasters. :rolleyes:

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The main thing I really want to know is, how can you be so sure that what's spoken in the Bible is true. The Bible was written by humans (whether you believe it to be true or not, there's no denying that), how do you know that these people didn't just make it up?

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I don't think the Bible gives any indication as to the age of the Earth. Some Christians use the genealogies in Genesis and other Old Testament books to gauge the age of the Earth, but there are several issues with this method:

  1. Genesis 1:1 seems to have the format of a heading more than part of the narrative, so there is no indication of how long after God created the Heavens and the Earth He actually began to prepare the Earth for habitation.
  2. There's no indication in the story of Adam and Eve how long Adam lived before Eve was created or how long they lived in the Garden of Eden before being kicked out.
  3. Hebrew tradition allowed for genealogies to exclude people who were not of any particular importance and refer to a grandfather or great grandfather as the "father" of the next name in the genealogy, so the genealogies are most likely not all-inclusive.
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Well, the general consensus among historians is "No, it is not". Religion was often used as a propaganda tool, much like the fear of WMDs were used prior to OIF to justify that war. Wars are usually fought for political and economic gain, and sometimes simply because one or oth of the factions are demented or possessed by bloodlust. Remember, nowhere does Jesus advocate the use of violence or war; he does quite the opposite, in fact.

KGS

Really, like the Crusades? Like Northern Ireland? Like the sectarian seperation in Glasgow? Like Bosnia? Religous findementalism has been the reason to start war many times.

If you are as opposed to science as you make out btw, should you not be using a computer anf the technologies needed to attain internet access?

Also I would love for you to show evidence of the Earth being only a few thousand years old.

Edited by Mattshark
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Well, there is some debate to just how old the Earth is, so how can you state 4.5 billion years as a fact? Even your scientists have constantly revised their estimation of how old they believe the Earth is. And how would you know how old the Earth is anyway? Do you have access to a radio carbon dating machine and rocks that are supposedly 4.5 billion years old? I highly doubt it. So basically all you have to go on is a few books written by mere mortal scientists. Let's not forget that scientists have a tendancy of fabricating facts in order to assure themselves of plum academic positions and loads of research money.

I'd love for you to find one example of that type of fabrication. As always, when someone speaks of the scientific community yet has no idea how it really works, you display a near paranoid ignorance of the method of thinking that makes everything human's accomplish possible. If a scientist was foolish enough to fake results (which would require multiple people working in conjunction) they would quickly be shown to be untrue when publishing their results and when their conclusiond are tested by other scientists.

As far as the age of the earth, carbon dating is not used on rocks, but other radiometric dating techniques are. The oldest rocks on our planet are about 3.7-3.9 billion years old so the earth is at least that old. These techniques use the radioactive decay of elements into other elements or isotopes which occurs at an extremely precise rate. Scientists studying meteorites worldwide discovered that all meteorites from asteroids were 4.57 billion years old. As asteroids formed very early in the formation of the solar system, and our planest was forming at that time we place the age of the earth in that range.

Your common decrying of scientists as constantly revising their estimations is not true in this case as this evidence has been around for many years and everything studied since supports it. Other fields do make revisions quite often as any rational person would when confronted with new evidence. That's science strength. That's dogma's weakness.

Whereas I have writings that are devinely inspired, that are the absolute truth because they are the true Word of God. Sorry, I tend to go with the truth as determined by the devine Creator and not a bunch of human scientists when given the choice.

It's humans telling you the bible is the true word of god. You're taking humans' words for it.

Let's see some proof that the Bible consists of "nothing more then [sic] mere fairy tales".

This would hijack this thread. If you want the specific scientific lackings of biblical stories start a thread, though there have been a ton already.

Here's so info on radiometric dating from a christian. Perhaps this will lend creedance to it in your eyes:

http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resources/Wiens.html#page%2010

Edited by capeo
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Actually, there's much evidence that indicates that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. I personally can't tell you how many times that I've heard that scientists were amazed by the ability of nature to do something. Such as the rapid regeneration of the forests around Mount St. Helens within a few short years.

KGS

your an idiot. i wish they would close this thread your just dumb, there is no evidence AT ALL for the earth only being a thousand years old. their are bones of human like people which are 50,000 years old so how are you going to try and say the earth is 2000 years old and you have evidence for it? you should be banned for trying to make everyone stoop down to your iq

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Actually, there's much evidence that indicates that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. I personally can't tell you how many times that I've heard that scientists were amazed by the ability of nature to do something. Such as the rapid regeneration of the forests around Mount St. Helens within a few short years.

KGS

Ok, I'll bite. (hard) Show me your proof. Link some non biblical, credible, scientific evidence that the world is only a few thousand years old. Go ahead. I'll wait right here.

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we are patiently waiting on that credible evidence that the earth is 2000 years old. please dont dodge the situation

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it doesn't matter what calendar you go by or what religion you persue science is fact and we have proof that dinosaurs, which aren't mentioned in the bible at all, lived millions of years ago. So if thats a fact then How could the world be only a couple thousand years old? Please somebody try and disprove a fact.

What is a leviathan? That alone disproves the theory of 3 to 4 thosand years. And that is in the bible. Find out what a leviathan is and what the leviathan was for.

Edited by greggK
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your an idiot. i wish they would close this thread your just dumb, there is no evidence AT ALL for the earth only being a thousand years old. their are bones of human like people which are 50,000 years old so how are you going to try and say the earth is 2000 years old and you have evidence for it? you should be banned for trying to make everyone stoop down to your iq

You're one to talk, bro, seeing that you have a pitiful reading comprehension level. I never said that the Earth was "a thousand years old" or that it was "2000 years old".

KGS

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we are patiently waiting on that credible evidence that the earth is 2000 years old. please dont dodge the situation

i can tell you that he will probably do one of three things....

1. he will try and dodge the situation and stear the conversation somewhere else.

2. he will give us evidence that is easily debunked and will continuously try and defend it as proof.

3. he will try and dodge this thread completely knowing that he has bean bested and try to vomiting up his religious bull **** on some other thread hoping that those that post will be ignorant and gullible enough to believe him.

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Really, like the Crusades? Like Northern Ireland? Like the sectarian seperation in Glasgow? Like Bosnia? Religous findementalism has been the reason to start war many times.

If you are as opposed to science as you make out btw, should you not be using a computer anf the technologies needed to attain internet access?

Also I would love for you to show evidence of the Earth being only a few thousand years old.

Well, Bosnia and northern Ireland are really rooted in ethnic, not religious, problems; religion is an element of the devide, but isn't the cause, which runs much deeper and, unfortunately for the academically disinclined--just about everyone here--to understand the true nature of the conflict one needs to study heeps of dull, boring and long-winded academic historical studies of the given conflict. Not quite sure what "sectarian seperation in Glasgow" is in reference to, I'm not really up to snuff on Scottish history, let alone social and religious strife within the city of Glasgow itself.

As for the Crusade, well, I really seem to be talking to the wind whenever I try to explain this whole episode, so I'm not sure what I'll accomplish anything trying to do so again; In short, the Crusade basically fall into the category of economically and politically motivated wars with religion used as a propaganda tool.

Any of you people actually set foot in a college or university level history course?

KGS

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You're one to talk, bro, seeing that you have a pitiful reading comprehension level. I never said that the Earth was "a thousand years old" or that it was "2000 years old".

KGS

trying to criticize others while providing no proof of his own. LAME! :no:

Edited by Ravinar
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Well, Bosnia and northern Ireland are really rooted in ethnic, not religious, problems; religion is an element of the devide, but isn't the cause, which runs much deeper and, unfortunately for the academically disinclined--just about everyone here--to understand the true nature of the conflict one needs to study heeps of dull, boring and long-winded academic historical studies of the given conflict. Not quite sure what "sectarian seperation in Glasgow" is in reference to, I'm not really up to snuff on Scottish history, let alone social and religious strife within the city of Glasgow itself.

As for the Crusade, well, I really seem to be talking to the wind whenever I try to explain this whole episode, so I'm not sure what I'll accomplish anything trying to do so again; In short, the Crusade basically fall into the category of economically and politically motivated wars with religion used as a propaganda tool.

Any of you people actually set foot in a college or university level history course?

KGS

and here we see a fine example of number one.

Edited by Ravinar
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i can tell you that he will probably do one of three things....

1. he will try and dodge the situation and stear the conversation somewhere else.

2. he will give us evidence that is easily debunked and will continuously try and defend it as proof.

3. he will try and dodge this thread completely knowing that he has bean bested and try to vomiting up his religious bull **** on some other thread hoping that those that post will be ignorant and gullible enough to believe him.

To be honest, the onus is on you people to prove that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. As of yet, none of you have demonstrated any knowledge of the science behind determining the ago of the Earth. Nor has anyone here cited any academic scientific work on the subject. Any of you people derived you information from anything other than CNN or Wikipedia on this subject? Any of you people want to discuss this issue in a rational and measured manner instead of resorting to the typical playground talk that has been the norm here? There's no way that any of you people can or ever will "best" me on this topic. Which is why I guess just about every answer that I've gotten on this topic has been laced sarcasm and immature taunts and comments.

KGS

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trying to criticize others while providing no proof of his own. LAME! :no:

Okay, winner, if you want a discussion on the topic, start proving your points. Let's see some evidence of the scientific works that you've read on the theory of Earth's origin and age.

KGS

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Okay, winner, if you want a discussion on the topic, start proving your points. Let's see some evidence of the scientific works that you've read on the theory of Earth's origin and age.

KGS

LMAO your a joke man.......I didnt even think the age of the earth was in question until this thread... there are thousands upon thousands of pages you can look up proving that the earth is ALOT older than a few thousand years, go find them yourself. I dont even know why im arguing with you about this its such a joke

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To be honest, the onus is on you people to prove that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. As of yet, none of you have demonstrated any knowledge of the science behind determining the ago of the Earth. Nor has anyone here cited any academic scientific work on the subject.

you know there is this realy amazing site called google.com its some thing people like to call a search engine.

Any of you people derived you information from anything other than CNN or Wikipedia on this subject? Any of you people want to discuss this issue in a rational and measured manner instead of resorting to the typical playground talk that has been the norm here? There's no way that any of you people can or ever will "best" me on this topic. Which is why I guess just about every answer that I've gotten on this topic has been laced sarcasm and immature taunts and comments.

KGS

look man i know your game. it won't matter what proof i give you. you will just claim its an unreliable source to try and proove your bronze age myth.

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Ah.. as I thought. You can't. The fact of the matter is, you failed to prove yourself, and your claim. You failed because you can't so you dragged out the tired old "No, you prove your point to me!!" dodge. Classic, really... and very predictable. Which makes you no more then a bible thumper who can't prove their claims out of a paper bag.

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To be honest, the onus is on you people to prove that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.

Radiometric Dating

We use this to determine the age of different materials. It works based on the fact that radioactive elements decay in to smaller, more stable elements; this process is known as radioactive decay. For the sake of fully understanding the process, there are many different types of decay which you'd need to know about. Here are the two most basic examples:

α-decay: Consists of two protons and two neutrons (He2+), has a relative charge of 2+, and a relative mass of 4.

β-decay: Consists of an electron, has a relative charge of -1, and a negligible mass.

Now here's how we can use that information to determine the age of something; radioactive elements have a 'half-life', which means the length of time it will take for half of the amount of any given radioactive substance to completely decay in to another (more stable) substance.

Now the isotope 226Ra/Radium decays in to 222Rn/Radon (via Alpha decay), with a half-life of 1602 years. So if we have 10g of Radium, in 1602 years we will only be left with 5g, in another 1602 years we will only be left with 2.5g, in another 1602 years we will only be left with 1.25g and so on.

We've established the half-lives of hundreds of different isotopes, so when we find different materials we can determine their age using this knowledge, keeping in mind that half-lives can range from seconds, to many billion years, depending on the isotope.

Creation of the Solar System

The commonly accepted theory of the creation of the solar system, is the Nebular hypothesis, which states that the Solar system was created from a cloud of gas (Nebula), which when disturbed, possibly by a local supernova, began to collapse due to gravity and rotate. As the cloud of gas contracted it started to spin more and more rapidly, until it was flattened out in to a circular disc. The centre of which became a proto-sun, while denser areas of gas in the outer disc began to collect together due to gravity, to form planetesimals and eventually the planets.

This is supported by the fact that all of the planets orbit the Sun in the same direction and the same plane, the masses of the planets and the abundance of different gases in different regions etc. The real killer is, we can actually see this process occuring elsewhere in the galaxy. From this we know that the Earth and the Sun should have formed at approximately the same time, and guess what? The age of the Sun matches up with the age of the Earth. Based on our understanding of the evolution of globular clusters, the age of the Solar system (The sun being a third generation star) itself also fits in nicely with the age of the Galaxy. Why would our solar system be created differently to any others?

They're just two points, there's a dozen others. Look at different geological processes, at the rate they progress there's no way we would have all of the canyons, caves, strata, mountains and trenches etc. we do, after just 6000 years. Look at life itself.

One thing I've never understood is, creationists can say "It's impossible for life to have come about by itself, that's absurd", (despite the fact our current understanding of evolution states that the first forms of life were extremely primitive), however it's perfectly reasonable that a divine being just created thousands of different species of extremely complex organisms in a day? *sigh*

As of yet, none of you have demonstrated any knowledge of the science behind determining the ago of the Earth. Nor has anyone here cited any academic scientific work on the subject.

Neither have you.

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To be honest, the onus is on you people to prove that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. As of yet, none of you have demonstrated any knowledge of the science behind determining the ago of the Earth. Nor has anyone here cited any academic scientific work on the subject. Any of you people derived you information from anything other than CNN or Wikipedia on this subject? Any of you people want to discuss this issue in a rational and measured manner instead of resorting to the typical playground talk that has been the norm here? There's no way that any of you people can or ever will "best" me on this topic. Which is why I guess just about every answer that I've gotten on this topic has been laced sarcasm and immature taunts and comments.

KGS

Age of the Earth

Age of the Earth 2

The onus is actually on you however to prove a claim that goes against science.

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i can tell you that he will probably do one of three things....

1. he will try and dodge the situation and stear the conversation somewhere else.

2. he will give us evidence that is easily debunked and will continuously try and defend it as proof.

3. he will try and dodge this thread completely knowing that he has bean bested and try to vomiting up his religious bull **** on some other thread hoping that those that post will be ignorant and gullible enough to believe him.

numer one and three have already come to pass. i wonder if he will go for number two? (sigh) people like him are so predictable :sm

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There is no proof that the age of the earth is 4.5 billion years, only proof that certain minerals found are that old. Its a good assumption or starting point if you will, but the earth could in fact be much older, perhaps trillions of years.

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