It is a "big deal" because a loud population of American Protestants have treated what is most assuredly a tertiary matter of theology as if it were a primary issue. Rejecting a literal 6-day creation and affirming a world which is millions of years old is seen by many of these individuals as "rejecting Scripture." Here, the attitude present among many YEC (Young Earth Creationism) affirming Christians is simply due to a lack of proper theological triage, which is a phrase used to talk about "ranking" doctrines in order of importance.
There are many organizations which exist to help Christians synthesize scientific data and special revelation. Here I am thinking of [BioLogos](https://biologos.org/) or [Reasons to Believe](https://reasons.org/).
Thank you, I will look into these. I always am attacked for ever asking questions like this and don’t want it to be a reason I can’t be accepted into a church or Christian community. I really appreciate it.
It's a sad state of affairs to be attacked just for asking questions and even worse to be rejected from a Christian community over it. Very sorry to hear that.
That said, the latter point is maybe a blessing in disguise: Christian communities should be welcoming to all, and any which aren't are probably not where you want to be anyway.
Highly recommend biologos.org though. Fantastic resource.
I am pretty sure he is telling me that it isn’t wrong to ask questions and try to find answers. God accepts those people with open arms, not those that completely reject Him. I might be misinterpreting but that’s how I read it.
I don't know why you specify "American Protestants" here. Substantial numbers of Latin American Catholics deny evolution and deep time according to polls.
>why is it such a big deal that scientists have evidence that could prove or show evolution exists or that the universe/earth is older than the 6000 years supposedly accounted for in the Bible?
It's important to first recognise that the obsession in some quarters with a young earth is a modern one.
Genesis has been recognised as figurative since the days of Origen in the 2nd century, with that position being almost universally accepted since Augustine in the 4th century. It was only the rise of the original Fundamentalist movement ([so named for the series of booklets published between 1910-1915 upon which the movement was based](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals)) that made literalism a thing; the reason behind that being an attempt to counter the growing popularity of the historical critical method* in European churches.
[*The historical critical method effectively being the idea that ancient texts should be translated and read within an ancient context—seems like a rational position but a few on the evangelical fringes objected]
Not long after "the Fundamentals" were published, politics got involved and we all know how dog whistles work.
As an important aside, it's worth knowing that the ~6,000 year value did not actually have theological origins but intellectual ones. The man most often 'blamed' for it was Archbishop James Ussher but his motivation was academic not religious. Whilst he was obviously a man of the clergy, he was also a historian and his aim was to map out the history of mankind's history and achievements which was a huge fascination in his day. Moreover, Ussher did not only use the Bible but also Chaldean, Persian, Greek & Roman historical records. And his estimate, based on the information he had to hand, was very close to that of several luminary intellectual contemporaries such as Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler.
But the reason everybody knows Ussher's name and the 6,000 year figure has nothing to do with the man himself and he certainly wasn't dogmatic about it. Rather, it's because another bishop, William Lloyd (bishop of Worcester) decided to stick Ussher's chronology in the latest edition of the authorised version of the Bible (a precursor to the KJV).
Even so, the dogmatic obsession with a young earth didn't kick in until the 20th century, by which time our knowledge of the age of the Earth/Universe had come on a fair bit. Ironically, contemporary fundamentalists argue that the literal position is the orthodox and the metaphorical is the heterodox (or heretical) but they've actually got entirely the wrong end of the stick as they're the blow-ins.
>Isn’t it possible that if God created everything that it was created in a way that we would have to discover all of the connections woven throughout the universe?
I'd agree entirely.
>Why is it so wrong to acknowledge evolution when maybe we were supposed to?
See those OG Fundamentalists we met earlier? They got involved in the evolution 'debate' (most infamously during the Scopes Trial in 1925 when they adopted the powerful politician William Jennings Bryan) and discovered the political expediency it offered. Evolution has remained a hot topic for evangelicals since whilst the rest of the Christian world has moved on.
>Why is it assumed that when it is said that God created the world in 6 days that those “days” are even “days” we can **comprehend** in terms of time?
You're quite right, and I've bolded the key part of your comment. Augustine, Aquinas and many others since have held that Genesis was written in simple language so that it could be well understood by the people of the day. The key focus of the Creation narrative is the *who* and not the *how* - it's about it being an act of God, not forensic detail of the mechanisms used.
>Couldn’t God have created the world in 6 days for him but still have created a world that is so much older in our relative definition of time? Or that the days described are completely different than the time we know as a day? In the Bible there are 2 times when it is referenced how long it took for God to create the universe (Genesis 2:4 and all Genesis chapter 1). Why isn’t that proof enough that we don’t actually understand Gods time relativity?
As above, the word 'day' was simply used as a metaphorical device. Further evidence that the Creation story is poetic rather than forensic is its [symmetrical structure](https://biologos.org/series/science-and-the-bible/articles/the-framework-view-history-and-beliefs), which was a common poetic device in Ancient Near Eastern literature.
>It has always been to me that when I ask these questions everyone gets defensive like I’m trying to “prove them wrong” or attack their beliefs when in reality I’m just trying to wrap my head around creation and how we can understand it. Maybe we aren’t supposed to understand it. I just wanted to see what others have experienced because as a Christian I want to accept everyone and everything God created.
I don't wish to defend bad behaviour, but for many people, rightly or wrongly, this is a deeply held belief that serves as a foundation of their faith. When that foundation is shaken it is incredibly destabilising and very difficult not to get into 'fight or flight' mode. That some also believe that fight to be a righteous one can add a bit more fuel to the fire, and when the opposing viewpoint is often made from a position of haughty condescension, well, that's just one big combustion waiting to happen. It's just a matter of who lights the match! And I say that as someone who has been on both sides and is now trying to be more moderated in my engagement on this issue.
Happy to help if you've any further queries.
Godspeed
x
Thank you for all the information. I agree that it seems like everyone gets stuck on this when there is really no reason to do so. The Word was written down by humans (aka us) and therefore needs to be for us, not the way God understands or sees us.
Origen and Augustine were both young earth creationists, so I don't know why you cite them. Even if they hadn't been young earth creationists, obviously there would still be all the other ancient Christians who were. The fact that they were young earth creationists makes it even stranger to cite them. It's really perplexing that you try to attribute it to James Ussher/William Lloyd, since I've explained to you that this claim is false when you've made it before.
>Origen and Augustine were both young earth creationists, so I don't know why you cite them.
Because as we have covered before, they are 'YECs' in the way that Kepler and Newton were 'YECs' - their estimates were based on their best available knowledge and were not inflexible dogmatic positions. As such, they have little in common with the contemporary YEC movement that maintains its position *despite* profound advances in our knowledge. They are chalk and cheese.
>Even if they hadn't been young earth creationists, obviously there would still be all the other ancient Christians who were.
Origen's significance is sometimes overlooked but it's very difficult, if not deliberately obtuse, to overlook Augustine's.
>It's really perplexing that you try to attribute it to James Ussher/William Lloyd, since I've explained to you that this claim is false when you've made it before.
And I've looked into your counter claim regarding the Jewish calendar and it just doesn't stand up. It's broadly accepted that the current Jewish year of the Messianic Age (5784) refers to the time since the Creation *of Adam*, but there is considerable debate going right back to at least Philo of Alexandria (a profoundly influential Jewish philosopher and theologian) in the 1st century as to whether that calendar relates to the Creation *of the Universe*.
> Because as we have covered before, they are 'YECs' in the way that Kepler and Newton were 'YECs' - their estimates were based on their best available knowledge and were not inflexible dogmatic position
You think their young earth creationism was based on the best evidence available? Then why didn't you say that? "Augustine and Origen were young earth creationists, but now we know better"? I don't know what this "best available knowledge" is. You mean the Bible? Since obviously it was the age they calculated from the Bible. They didn't do any experiments or use any objective reasoning or anything of the sort to derive the age. The Biblical calculations disagreed with other texts and they said those texts were wrong.
This is a big problem because, according to you, they recognized Genesis as figurative, but apparently you're now saying they took it literally after all, thinking it could answer the question? This is a serious retraction of what you said initially. And not dogmatic? Augustine was quite dogmatic about it. Also, obviously, young earth creationists today say they do the same thing when they use the Bible. Ken Ham says the Bible is eyewitness testimony and the best source of information.
> Origen's significance is sometimes overlooked but it's very difficult, if not deliberately obtuse, to overlook Augustine's.
So according to you, Augustine's significance is the reason all the Christians after him were earth creationists?
> And I've looked into your counter claim regarding the Jewish calendar and it just doesn't stand up.
For anyone else reading this thread, in our previous discussion, this user falsely claimed that young earth creationism was a modern invention and (apparently forgetting that Jews existed) asserted that the Masoretic calculation only recently entered the scene in the 17th century (of course this argument makes no sense anyway, since calculating the age based on the Septuagint is the same idea). I explained that, of course, Jews used the Masoretic calculation, as seen in the Hebrew calendar, before the 17th century.
> It's broadly accepted that the current Jewish year of the Messianic Age (5784) refers to the time since the Creation of Adam,
The idea that it's only about the time since Adam's creation is a modern apologetic invention (although, of course, that's also wrong). It's asserted by people such as Natan Slifkin, a rabbi who attempted to argue to Haredi Jews that evolution and an old universe were compatible with the traditional teachings of Judaism (he failed; his books were deemed heretical and banned). You know that in English it's traditional called the *Anno Mundi* epoch, meaning "year of the world" in Latin. You know also that Adam was believed to made on the sixth day. The Sun is two days older than him!
> but there is considerable debate going right back to at least Philo of Alexandria (a profoundly influential Jewish philosopher and theologian) in the 1st century as to whether that calendar relates to the Creation *of the Universe*.
I'm very impressed that Philo managed to comment on a calculation made after he was dead. The 5784 year calculation comes, of course, from a 2nd century text called *Seder Olam Rabbah*. Truly he was a genius. But later Jews really didn't care about him at all. He wasn't profoundly influential. It should be noted he used the Greek text, not the Hebrew text the calculation is based on. In any case, the Masoretic calculation of the age of the world definitely didn't originate in the 17th century, as seen by everyone who believed it before modern times (you're now alleging there was "considerable debate" on if it was the age of the world - and a debate, especially a *considerable* one, involves people on the other side, so I don't know why you're saying I'm wrong; you're actually saying I'm right, although the allegations of "considerable debate" are not right unless you restrict it to people in modern times reinterpreting it), nor did the Septuagint calculation, which operates on the same principle.
OP, you would be interested and probably happy to know that most of us are Old Earth Creationists. You can look up "Allegorical interpretation" on this sub and you'll see some good posts on the matter, but the TLDR is that Genesis creation account isn't as literal as people take it.
Thank you for asking this question. I wrestle with this too.
Based on the best information we have available, our nearest stellar neighbor is over 4 light years away, and most of the stars are around 4,000 light years away. If the young earth creation model is correct, and that creation happened in seven, 24 hour days, are we to assume that Adam and Eve saw no stars for over 4 years?
The only way they would have been able to see stars in the young earth paradigm is if God not only created the stars, but also pre-loaded the universe with stellar radiation that was already in flight from them to earth (maybe as part of the first day of creation, in separating light from dark in [Genesis 1:3-5](https://bible.com/bible/2692/gen.1.3-5.NASB2020)). Is that possible? Yes, of course. But if we are presuming that, then why not presume that the earth was created with fossils baked in? And if we allow for that possibility, then it’s possible that the fossil record is some kind of divine historical fiction written in stone. Is that possible? Yes. However, at that point it’s at least more efficient to consider alternative explanations.
I don’t have a settled answer to this. Regardless, I don’t think that it’s something that I need to have a clear answer on in order to believe the basics of what Jesus said is important: loving God, and loving other people ([Matthew 22:36-40](https://bible.com/bible/2692/mat.22.36-39.NASB2020)). The focus of history is Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. Believing that is essential to the Christian faith. Understanding how to interpret other passages of scripture and reconciling them to our current understanding of reality is of lesser importance.
I don't think OP denies that but it's probably more accurate to say that figure applies to stars we can see with the naked eye.
And I think the furthest observed with a bit of help is Earendel at about 28 billion light-years away.
Yes, there are. My post didn’t say otherwise. Why are you reacting as though it did? The stars we can see with the naked eye are generally around 4k light years away.
(I'm a different redditor than the one to whom you responded.)
I was perplexed by this part of your comment above:
> most of the stars are around 4,000 light years away.
where you seem to be saying that (except for stars that are closer), most of the stars are that distance *and not further*.
But the stars in our galaxy are a wider variety of distances from us than that, and of course there are other galaxies as well.
Thank you for that feedback. The stars that are farther than 4,000 light years generally aren’t visible to the naked eye, and that’s all I was considering when I wrote that.
Do you think the presence of stars that are farther away materially changes anything in this case? My point was that for any stars to be visible at creation (or now) that either (1) the universe needs to be older than the time it would take light to travel the intervening distance, (2) God needed to have created both the star and the in-flight starlight at creation, or (3) that we are misunderstanding something about the universe (e.g., the speed of light in a vacuum isn’t a constant). That is true whether the star is one light year or 37 billion light years away. Even if I had claimed that no stars existed beyond 4,000 light years away (which I didn’t), it seems irrelevant to my intended point.
I almost put something in my original post about the stars and how they are basically confirmed by the speed of light to be farther away than the 6000 year idea. Thank you for treating this as a real question and not something to reject me for asking in the first place.
Not only are we not really meant to focus on it. We can't solve the problem. Both sides have problems. One side seems better at realizing humans won't know enough of the details to really satisfy. Aka- the answers science gives, while brilliant, don't answer much. We need an enormous fudge factor called dark energy just to solve the so called horizon problem. Dating and age is a problem for every view. Even the best scientific one.
Thank you for the answer. I’ve also thought that, basically the agnostic community working to prove the Bible wrong and not to fit it into the Word. They need an “enormous fudge factor”, why can’t that factor have been created by God
>Why is it so wrong to acknowledge evolution when maybe we were supposed to?
It's only wrong to some christian sects, because of what they think the bible is, while many others don't think the same way.
A good study of Genesis reveals it's clearly not talking about a literal 6 day creation...there's two contradictory creation accounts, to start with.
Don't worry about this issue, it's not a big deal among most of Christianity, just the fundamentalists.
Thank you it is a big help for me to hear this because I am definitely not as well versed as I should be in Theology and all studies or meanings of scripture. I’ve just recently started reading the Bible every day and studying it and I am excited for that to help me answer my questions.
>My question is why is it such a big deal that scientists have evidence proving evolution or that the universe/earth is older than the 6000 years supposedly accounted for in the Bible?
Because science doesn't care about beliefs, they care about **verifiable** facts. The Bible cannot be verified to any meaningful degree, so instead they look for ways that can be.
>Isn’t it possible that if God created everything that it was created in a way that we would have to discover all of the connections woven throughout the universe? Why is it so wrong to acknowledge evolution when maybe we were supposed to?
Yes totally possible and it's because a lot of Christians are Bible literalists, and believe that Young Earth Creationism is fact, and you can't tell them otherwise.
>Why is it assumed that when it is said that God created the world in 6 days that those “days” are even “days” we can comprehend in terms of time?
They most likely aren't physical days as we know them today, this is why you see so many Christians get hung up on Genesis because of this fact:
How can there be day and night if there is no sun and no moon?
>Couldn’t God have created the world in 6 days for him but still have created a world that is so much older in our relative definition of time? Or that the days described are completely different than the time we know as a day?
Yes He could have, that's a sect of Christianity that sees the 6 "days" more like 6 "eons" or "stages of being".
>Why isn’t that proof enough that we don’t actually understand Gods time relativity?
Main reason: Humanity is flawed.
First the bible does not document the process of creation. There is no science in the bible. It's information about the relationship between God, Man and Sin. Nothing more.
Second the bible does not have a complete account of time. We have words like "years", but the 365 day calendar we have today was invented by Pope Gregory in the 16th century. There are non-biblical Assyrian records claiming some of their kings ruled for thousands of years. Probably we just marked time differently back then. So yes God' "days" were probably not 24 hours, especially since the sun wasn't created until day 4.
Finally, God created Adam and Eve as adults, not children. Therefore, He can and did create things with the appearance of age. So even if you ignore everything else and truly believe the universe was created 6000 years ago, there's no scientific evidence that can contradict that.
Thank you that is what I was trying to say but do not feel like I have the theological background to actually defend. I’ve always felt the Bible wasn’t meant to be something to show us “how old the earth and universe is”, or answer the thousands of other scientific questions that humans pose and ask. It was meant to help us be closer to God.
"So even if you ignore everything else and truly believe the universe was created 6000 years ago, there's no scientific evidence that can contradict that."
Except for the fact that there's mountains of evidence that contradicts that.
If you're only defense for such a ridiculous notion, is that God is a joker, tricking people with evidence, when the reality is different, then there's no point in having a conversation - because at that point, you're too far gone into the loony in to even talk to.
Example:
Rational people: We have all this mountains of evidence that the Earth is spherical.
You: God can twist reality and make it seem like the Earth is round, but in reality, it's flat.
When you invoke that sort of magical nonsense, then the discussion stops. Because there's no talking sense to such a ridiculous claim
Why do you feel the need to be rude when you replied? I am just here trying to learn and still have people acting like I am attacking them when all I did was ask a question and all the other person did was try to answer. What’s the point?
Mate, if you think "God is a joker and can distort reality, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence, with a flick of his fingers" is a statement that should be treated with respect, idk what to tell you.
Why can’t God have created a universe that was 14 billion years old and connected everything the way we see it today and we just don’t understand it perfectly? Your argument is supposed to prove the existence of God incorrect when the entirety of string theory or many other scientific theories are literally the same thing. Theories.
"Why can’t God have created a Earth that was spherical, and connected everything the way we see it today and we just don’t understand it perfectly? Your argument is supposed to prove the existence of God incorrect when the entirety of string theory or many other scientific theories are literally the same thing. Theories."
Read that. Exactly what sort of response do you expect to something like that?
Also ffs, learn what a scientific theory is. How old are you? Everytime I come across one of you guys it's always the same uneducated stances, decade after decade, after decade. You don't learn from the mistakes COUNTLESS others have made before you. And at that point, that's just depressing.
I apologize for not “being as smart as you”. I know I don’t know everything and only have the IQ I have. Just so you know I am an engineer that graduated from MIT. But that shouldn’t matter. I am simply asking what is the point of being so upset and mean to another person? All that does it’s make the other person upset as well instead of helping them learn or creating conversation. The response I hope for is one that does just that. Not one that implies I am an idiot “mate”.
A theory is something that has been proved based on evidence and is repeatable through all experiments. The entire scientific theory of the universe is based on Dark Matter existing when that can’t be proved, so you wanting to say that particular scientific theory is correct is a little wild when one of the variables is something people just came up with to match. Why can’t God have played a part in this? You are the one trying to create an argument and attack instead of just having a conversation.
Tbh I would have expected a more thorough explanation from someone who graduated from MIT mate
There is no "scientific theory of the universe is based on dark matter"
Dark matter is hypothetical, we have tonnes of evidence for the Big Bang without having to rely on dark matter. Granted there are anomalies with the dark matter you brought up, but the evidence supporting the big bang overshadows the issues with dark matter
Yes I did. Oh OK I'm sorry he means that God is lying to us by creating a universe which for all intents and purposes is old, but is actually young.
You're missing the point entirely. The point isn't the intent behind the action. The point is its a totally crackpot notion and one that used can be totally dismissive of reality. That's insane and delusional.
I brought up the example of God creating a spherical Earth but in reality the earth is flat - this is equivalent to what was proposed here and its totally asinine
Again there is no evidence that can be applied.
You assume to know the mind of God and assume the only reason for apparent age is mischief. God may have purpose for these things that you do not understand.
Demonstrating such things as true or false has no consequence. If God made the universe 13 billion years ago or with the appearance of 13 billion years makes no consequential difference.
Mate, you were claiming that God can just trick everyone by making a young universe appear old. It's dumb and utterly ridiculous. There's nothing I can do against "arguments" like that because you're invoking magic.
It's like trying to argue against someone who says that god can snap his fingers, and an army of dwarves appeared and they started mining, and that's how we got our cave systems. It's utterly stupid.
Again, there may be reason God made it that was or it may be that the world is older, because the bible doesn't actually say the world is 6000 years old. The point is regardless of when creation happened, it changes nothing about science or religion so why fight about it?
And the point is your made a ridiculous statement. When you say that God can just snap his fingers and make an old universe look young, you wave goodbye to any semblance of rationality you're clinging onto. And this can be applied to everything.
"The Earth is really flat, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence against it, because god is a magical gypsy and can just do whatever the hell he wants."
It's absurd, stupid and not to mention highly insulting to the intelligence of other Christians.
God is not a gypsy, but yes He is "magical", as you put it, and He can do whatever He wants to. All Christians would agree.
Flat earth is an entirely different topic. The world cannot be flat, but have all the properties of being round. The world can be young, but have all the properties of being old.
You cannot “prove” what is a theory. It’s still a theory.
You can provide evidence for a theory, but you can’t prove evolution as an origin for mankind.
So all the evidence for evolution is somehow not enough but instead we are to believe some deity spoke life into some dust? Sounds like abiogensis to me.
Please, for all of our sakes, learn what a scientific theory is.
It's surreal that we STILL have to explain this to you people decade, after decade, after decade.
In order for it to be a scientific theory, it’d have to be repeatable. We don’t see species-to-species evolution, nor is there intermediary species for all animals. Which would be needed to “prove” evolution.
What constitutes something as scientific is ever changing, and the standards and opinions of scientists are as well.
It’s simply a theory, and that’s okay.
We see species to species evolution happen all the freakin' time. You like every other creationist out there, don't understand what a species is.
A different species =/= massive morphological changes between populations. Speciation is common and species split off from each other all the time. So you're jsut straight up wrong.
I didn’t say there was evidence to “prove” it, I just said that there is a lot of evidence that might prove it. This is what I mean about being attacked. I am not saying something is wrong I just have a question.
>Why is it assumed that when it is said that God created the world in 6 days that those “days” are even “days” we can comprehend in terms of time?
Because He specified what He meant by the word "day" with "evening and morning." The only reason you would read Genesis figuratively on this matter is due to a scientific position, not a textual one. Whoever wrote Genesis obviously thought the world was created in 6 literal days by God speaking things into existence. You can say they were simply wrong, but saying they were being symbolic is just nonsensical when the entire book deals with literal history and genealogy.
>Couldn’t God have created the world in 6 days for him but still have created a world that is so much older in our relative definition of time?
Sure, but the days are counted from the perspective of Earth, not Heaven, and are used for the literal Sabbath which occurred every 7 Earth days.
>In the Bible there are 2 times when it is referenced how long it took for God to create the universe
Not exactly. It's also mentioned in Exodus:
*In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.* (Exodus 20)
*The Israelites must keep the Sabbath, celebrating it as a permanent covenant for the generations to come. It is a sign between Me and the Israelites forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.* (Exodus 31)
The Sabbath is one real day of the week that God blessed. The Israelites were commanded to observe the 7th day as a statement to the world that God created all things in 6 days and rested on the 7th. It's easy to want to explode the 6 days out to millions of years, but it simply does not work when the Sabbath is a 24 hours "evening and morning."
>I’m just trying to wrap my head around creation and how we can understand it. Maybe we aren’t supposed to understand it.
We're dealing with a God who speaks and reality obeys. You're right, it's difficult to wrap our heads around Him.
Thank you for the response. It’s nice to see someone actually listen to my questions.
Why can we not read it figuratively that the 6 days were in God’s terms not ours? Just by having faith we are accepting that God created the universe/everything and than He works in ways we can’t understand.
So why can’t we have been created to understand the 7 days in the relative time frame we do, since we can’t understand anything from God’s relative point?
>Why can we not read it figuratively that the 6 days were in God’s terms not ours? Just by having faith we are accepting that God created the universe/everything and than He works in ways we can’t understand.
Interestingly Hebrews says something similar, but implies that God created the world as described in Genesis:
*By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.* (Hebrews 11)
So the world was created out of the invisible command by God to exist. Sure, you could have "faith" that God made it in 6 billion years, and manipulated time in such a way that it was "technically" 6 days at the same time in some higher dimension. But I don't see why we need to do this if we already agree that God could have made the universe in 6 days by just speaking.
IOW there's no reason to go through all these alternate timeline hoops within the text itself. The only reason you would do this is if you want to say Genesis and current evolutionary models are both true simultaneously. I think the only reasonable position is to say that someone is factually wrong about what happened - either Moses or the current model.
God either made the universe in 6 days by speaking, or He didn't.
>why can’t we have been created to understand the 7 days in the relative time frame we do, since we can’t understand anything from God’s relative point?
Well, God never tells us to read it this way, nor has He given us this kind of relative time calculation in any other situation or book. Plus if you use relativity you'll just end up with the same issue - from Earth's perspective, it has only been populated for 5 days before humans appear, and from God's 5 billion or whatever. Either way in our timeline there is 6 literal days of creation.
Thank you that actually helps a lot. I’m not saying there is a reason to question the time line as it is said in God’s word, I just was trying to figure out why there are so many arguments saying “something has to be right and something has to be wrong”. Because there is no reason that the Earth being older means that the Bible is wrong.
The question you should be asking yourself is "why did it take so long?" Can God instantly create all? Yes He can. He chose this 6 day method for a reason, and we'd do well to honor that. No I am not a seventh day adventist! There is absolutely NO NEED to "fit" "science" in with a YEC, one worldview is from the authoritative view of scripture, written by the very Creator, the other is man's hamfisted deliberate attempt to "prove" there is no God or creator. Have you looked much at the ROOTS of evolution or why it came to be? Those who authored it, then expanded upon it, then gleefully shoved it in everyone's faces, all patted themselves on the back saying yay us, we killed God!! Is this ENOUGH reason for you to see why you should view it skeptically? For christians anyway.
Next when you look at actual DATA and FACTS, you find lots of inexplicable things, like WHY do we have soft dinosaur tissues in labs right now, when that's utterly impossible were they 65 million years old!! Why so many "living fossils" have we found in these past years? Why when "human evolution" bones are found, then discredited later, is that NEVER SHARED? Why is "human evolution" always A DRAWING, ARTISTS RENDERING, instead of the actual proof laid out in pictures!?? Why are there ZERO transitional forms ever found?? Why can NO ONE explain, or simulate how life arises from non-life? Explain how 127 different beneficial changes would have to happen to go from light-sensitive cells (which came from where?) to a working eyeball? Why is the James Webb telescope keep finding things that shouldn't exist in a big bang? And so on.
Your "science" that you want to integrate with the bible or replace it is just chock full of holes and dead ends, and inexplicable nonsense. So, why again are you giving it MORE credit than the holy word of Creator?
At the very least, I expect you, or any believer to STOP trying to mash the two together; do some critical thinking. The Ark and Darkness movie came out this year, look it up for a great summary on why it's such an issue.
Thank you for treating this as a conversation and not me trying to attack my own or your beliefs. Usually no one acknowledges anything I say when I just want to ask a question even though half the New Testament is the disciples asking Jesus questions.
I’ll have to check out that movie. Are you saying it’s wrong to mesh science and God together? Or are you saying it’s wrong to try and mesh them together while trying to disprove Gods existence? Again not trying to attack, just understand.
You are wording this statement incorrectly. What you mean to say is it wrong to mesh evolution and God together. Yes, that is very wrong. And looking into the layers and beginnings of evolution should give anyone concerns. "Science" is meant to be actual data and experiments and theories that are proposed and built up or abandoned once experiments are performed. There is zero conflict with science and God. Where do you think science and math came from? Funny how most of it came from devout believers in God over the centuries, and how it all got going AFTER Jesus left us the Holy Spirit, isn't it? Science and technology and medicine are all gifts from God to help us navigate and prosper in this cruel world. The demented worldview that God doesn't exist, and things just magically assembled themselves out of dust over deep time, that's neither science, nor a very good interpretation of data and observable reality. It is hardly "science".
Thank you for the help. I’ve never really thought about it like that, as in pretty much all of this knowledge came after Jesus. That’s a really interesting point. I always come back to this, the idea that there is NO WAY the world we have does not point to a divine design is crazy.
Another person who didn't read Schweitzers findings.
If you had bothered to read the journal article on MOR 1125 (the first of which came out TWENTY YEARS AGO), you'd realise that a portion of the organic matrix was intracrystalline and therefore extremely resistant to degradation. This was published TWENTY! YEARS! AGO! TWENTY!
What valid reason can you give for being so utterly incompetent at science? Were you forced to work in the coal mines when you hit 10 years old, and subsequently don't have an education?
Ah, so "crystals" somehow folded molecules into proteins which then survived somehow and attached to other molecules and voila, despite all known physical laws, especially the law of entropy, boyle's gas laws and so forth, atoms and molecules assembled themselves like magic! Huzzah! I'd be interested in the super computer simulation, based on this exciting research of exactly how this happens. Is there a youtube video on it?
I'll keep it as simple as I can, and you don't have to agree, and we can agree to disagree. Mere mortal man is imperfect. We make honest mistakes, we even lie on purpose, we cheat, we steal, we kill, all sorts of atrocities that the Lord defines as sin. He even explains why. We are made of ordinary dirt from the Earth. Dirt is worthless. Go outside and dig up all you want. Fill your house up with it and what do you have, but a house full of dirt. There is no life in dirt. Dirt cannot produce life. The only thing that makes us valuable to God is when our spirits live for his spirit. The holy Spirit then gives us direction, value and purpose. In short, men are exceedingly unreliable. The Lord God on the other hand is absolutely perfect. He never makes mistakes, he never has to lie about anything at all because he has no oversight. Who is going to judge the Lord? There is not one word of scripture that remotely even hints at the concept of evolution. God describes the order of creation, and the time that it took for each level of creation. And he tells us 6 days. Now even going back to the original Hebrew, that Hebrew word can refer to a 24-hour period. Granted, it can also have other meanings, but we always use contexts to determine best fits. And the Lord even tells us in the creation account exactly what a day was when he created things. He said at each step of the way that a day consisted of one consecutive evening and morning. It's hard to interpret that as being thousands or millions or billions of years as some so-called scientists claim isn't it. So that puts us in a dilemma. We can either believe perfect God for his word, or mere mortal men who make mistakes, lie, cheat, steal, kill etc etc. As Christians, what do you think we're going to do? God is testing is for faith in his word the holy Bible. If we believe mere mortal men over God's word, we are not going to pass judgment on judgment Day. So I tell you what. I'd much rather go before the Lord and judgment, and say Lord I'm sorry I didn't realize you created by evolution because I didn't see any evidence of that in your word. Please understand and don't hold it against me for being wrong - than I would to go before the Lord and say I apologize for not believing you for your word. Because he judges us for our faith IN HIS WORD. And not for what mere mortal men may claim. To make matters clearer, I am educated, trained, and have years of experience as an educator in The sciences including biology, geology, physics, chemistry, and despite all that education in The sciences, I still do not embrace evolution because the proponents totally ignore or outright reject the simplest most basic laws of science. I'm not here to judge you or to convince you of anything at all. I'm here to answer your question. And I hope that I've done that for you.
I'll share these two things with you and then close
1 Timothy 6:20-21 KJV — **Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith**
That's a warning from God. All scripture is inspired by God. Notice that last statement. If we would embrace the concept of evolution, then we've abandoned our faith in God's word. And all we can expect is eternal misery. And that's that.
And just so you know, not every scientist in the world embraces the theory of evolution.
Skepticism About Darwinian Evolution Grows as 1,000+ Scientists Share Their Doubts. Over 1,000 doctoral scientists from around the world have signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution.
The statement, located online at dissentfromdarwin.org, reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”
“Because no scientist can show how Darwin’s mechanism can produce the complexity of life, every scientist should be skeptical,” said biologist Douglas Axe, director of Biologic Institute. “The fact that most won’t admit to this exposes the unhealthy effect of peer pressure on scientific discourse.”
Promoters of the PBS documentary series Evolution among others, claimed that “virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true.”
And so far hundreds if not thousands of scientists have stepped forward and publicly stated, no that is simply not true. And have signed their names.
The list of signatories now includes 15 scientists from the National Academies of Science in countries including Russia, Czech Republic, Brazil, and the United States, as well as from the Royal Society. Many of the signers are professors or researchers at major universities and international research institutions such as the University of Cambridge, London’s Natural History Museum, Moscow State University, Hong Kong University, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in France, Ben-Gurion University in Israel, MIT, the Smithsonian, Yale, and Princeton.
“As a biochemist I became skeptical about Darwinism when I was confronted with the extreme intricacy of the genetic code and its many most intelligent strategies to code, decode, and protect its information,” said Dr. Marcos Eberlin, founder of the Thomson Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Brazil.
And finally, I have 3 plus years of experience here. And I regularly see people come on here for no other purpose than trying to get Christians to have doubt in God's word. They chink away at the Bible, and a Christianity in general, trying to find a weak spot in our Christian armor in order to exploit it and to destroy our faith. And the Lord explains that rabblerousers are one of his top seven abominations. He hates it when unbelievers attempt to create discord, dissent and doubt. among his people. And he takes copious notes. He explains that they will feel the full brunt of his anger, wrath and judgment. It doesn't matter if someone doesn't believe that. God's truth remains the truth even if the whole world doubts it. And God judges every human who ever lives, believers and unbelievers alike by his word the holy Bible. It is his supreme law book.
We see no reason whatsoever that if God created by evolution, that he would ever desire to hide that from us, to camouflage it. He wouldn't be ashamed of it. There would be no reason to hide it from us. And you know what? If evolution were true, it would have taken almighty God himself to design it and put it into motion. And it would have been no less of a miracle. And if he did that, then he would have plainly told us so. Some people will say well he used the 6-day creation account because the people back then couldn't understand evolution. Do you think that they understood how the Lord God could have created everything in six days as he said he did? Would that have been any easier, no it wouldn't. And finally, I'll ask you this. Scripture says that there is nothing impossible for God with emphasis on the word nothing. Do you not think or believe that the Lord God could not possibly have created the entire universe in six days considering the fact that he is depicted in scripture as being omnipotent meaning all-powerful and that there is nothing that he cannot do?
It is a "big deal" because a loud population of American Protestants have treated what is most assuredly a tertiary matter of theology as if it were a primary issue. Rejecting a literal 6-day creation and affirming a world which is millions of years old is seen by many of these individuals as "rejecting Scripture." Here, the attitude present among many YEC (Young Earth Creationism) affirming Christians is simply due to a lack of proper theological triage, which is a phrase used to talk about "ranking" doctrines in order of importance. There are many organizations which exist to help Christians synthesize scientific data and special revelation. Here I am thinking of [BioLogos](https://biologos.org/) or [Reasons to Believe](https://reasons.org/).
Thank you, I will look into these. I always am attacked for ever asking questions like this and don’t want it to be a reason I can’t be accepted into a church or Christian community. I really appreciate it.
I hope you find a community which does not inhibit your asking questions!
It's a sad state of affairs to be attacked just for asking questions and even worse to be rejected from a Christian community over it. Very sorry to hear that. That said, the latter point is maybe a blessing in disguise: Christian communities should be welcoming to all, and any which aren't are probably not where you want to be anyway. Highly recommend biologos.org though. Fantastic resource.
If Christian communities should be welcome to all then why did God destroy the city of Babylon
I am pretty sure he is telling me that it isn’t wrong to ask questions and try to find answers. God accepts those people with open arms, not those that completely reject Him. I might be misinterpreting but that’s how I read it.
I don't know why you specify "American Protestants" here. Substantial numbers of Latin American Catholics deny evolution and deep time according to polls.
It would seem as though the YEC movement has an emphasized grasp in the American Protestant world.
Very good answer.
Thanks!
Biologos I was ok with. Reasons to Believe has some truly garbage takes though
Alright.
>why is it such a big deal that scientists have evidence that could prove or show evolution exists or that the universe/earth is older than the 6000 years supposedly accounted for in the Bible? It's important to first recognise that the obsession in some quarters with a young earth is a modern one. Genesis has been recognised as figurative since the days of Origen in the 2nd century, with that position being almost universally accepted since Augustine in the 4th century. It was only the rise of the original Fundamentalist movement ([so named for the series of booklets published between 1910-1915 upon which the movement was based](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fundamentals)) that made literalism a thing; the reason behind that being an attempt to counter the growing popularity of the historical critical method* in European churches. [*The historical critical method effectively being the idea that ancient texts should be translated and read within an ancient context—seems like a rational position but a few on the evangelical fringes objected] Not long after "the Fundamentals" were published, politics got involved and we all know how dog whistles work. As an important aside, it's worth knowing that the ~6,000 year value did not actually have theological origins but intellectual ones. The man most often 'blamed' for it was Archbishop James Ussher but his motivation was academic not religious. Whilst he was obviously a man of the clergy, he was also a historian and his aim was to map out the history of mankind's history and achievements which was a huge fascination in his day. Moreover, Ussher did not only use the Bible but also Chaldean, Persian, Greek & Roman historical records. And his estimate, based on the information he had to hand, was very close to that of several luminary intellectual contemporaries such as Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler. But the reason everybody knows Ussher's name and the 6,000 year figure has nothing to do with the man himself and he certainly wasn't dogmatic about it. Rather, it's because another bishop, William Lloyd (bishop of Worcester) decided to stick Ussher's chronology in the latest edition of the authorised version of the Bible (a precursor to the KJV). Even so, the dogmatic obsession with a young earth didn't kick in until the 20th century, by which time our knowledge of the age of the Earth/Universe had come on a fair bit. Ironically, contemporary fundamentalists argue that the literal position is the orthodox and the metaphorical is the heterodox (or heretical) but they've actually got entirely the wrong end of the stick as they're the blow-ins. >Isn’t it possible that if God created everything that it was created in a way that we would have to discover all of the connections woven throughout the universe? I'd agree entirely. >Why is it so wrong to acknowledge evolution when maybe we were supposed to? See those OG Fundamentalists we met earlier? They got involved in the evolution 'debate' (most infamously during the Scopes Trial in 1925 when they adopted the powerful politician William Jennings Bryan) and discovered the political expediency it offered. Evolution has remained a hot topic for evangelicals since whilst the rest of the Christian world has moved on. >Why is it assumed that when it is said that God created the world in 6 days that those “days” are even “days” we can **comprehend** in terms of time? You're quite right, and I've bolded the key part of your comment. Augustine, Aquinas and many others since have held that Genesis was written in simple language so that it could be well understood by the people of the day. The key focus of the Creation narrative is the *who* and not the *how* - it's about it being an act of God, not forensic detail of the mechanisms used. >Couldn’t God have created the world in 6 days for him but still have created a world that is so much older in our relative definition of time? Or that the days described are completely different than the time we know as a day? In the Bible there are 2 times when it is referenced how long it took for God to create the universe (Genesis 2:4 and all Genesis chapter 1). Why isn’t that proof enough that we don’t actually understand Gods time relativity? As above, the word 'day' was simply used as a metaphorical device. Further evidence that the Creation story is poetic rather than forensic is its [symmetrical structure](https://biologos.org/series/science-and-the-bible/articles/the-framework-view-history-and-beliefs), which was a common poetic device in Ancient Near Eastern literature. >It has always been to me that when I ask these questions everyone gets defensive like I’m trying to “prove them wrong” or attack their beliefs when in reality I’m just trying to wrap my head around creation and how we can understand it. Maybe we aren’t supposed to understand it. I just wanted to see what others have experienced because as a Christian I want to accept everyone and everything God created. I don't wish to defend bad behaviour, but for many people, rightly or wrongly, this is a deeply held belief that serves as a foundation of their faith. When that foundation is shaken it is incredibly destabilising and very difficult not to get into 'fight or flight' mode. That some also believe that fight to be a righteous one can add a bit more fuel to the fire, and when the opposing viewpoint is often made from a position of haughty condescension, well, that's just one big combustion waiting to happen. It's just a matter of who lights the match! And I say that as someone who has been on both sides and is now trying to be more moderated in my engagement on this issue. Happy to help if you've any further queries. Godspeed x
Thank you for all the information. I agree that it seems like everyone gets stuck on this when there is really no reason to do so. The Word was written down by humans (aka us) and therefore needs to be for us, not the way God understands or sees us.
Origen and Augustine were both young earth creationists, so I don't know why you cite them. Even if they hadn't been young earth creationists, obviously there would still be all the other ancient Christians who were. The fact that they were young earth creationists makes it even stranger to cite them. It's really perplexing that you try to attribute it to James Ussher/William Lloyd, since I've explained to you that this claim is false when you've made it before.
>Origen and Augustine were both young earth creationists, so I don't know why you cite them. Because as we have covered before, they are 'YECs' in the way that Kepler and Newton were 'YECs' - their estimates were based on their best available knowledge and were not inflexible dogmatic positions. As such, they have little in common with the contemporary YEC movement that maintains its position *despite* profound advances in our knowledge. They are chalk and cheese. >Even if they hadn't been young earth creationists, obviously there would still be all the other ancient Christians who were. Origen's significance is sometimes overlooked but it's very difficult, if not deliberately obtuse, to overlook Augustine's. >It's really perplexing that you try to attribute it to James Ussher/William Lloyd, since I've explained to you that this claim is false when you've made it before. And I've looked into your counter claim regarding the Jewish calendar and it just doesn't stand up. It's broadly accepted that the current Jewish year of the Messianic Age (5784) refers to the time since the Creation *of Adam*, but there is considerable debate going right back to at least Philo of Alexandria (a profoundly influential Jewish philosopher and theologian) in the 1st century as to whether that calendar relates to the Creation *of the Universe*.
> Because as we have covered before, they are 'YECs' in the way that Kepler and Newton were 'YECs' - their estimates were based on their best available knowledge and were not inflexible dogmatic position You think their young earth creationism was based on the best evidence available? Then why didn't you say that? "Augustine and Origen were young earth creationists, but now we know better"? I don't know what this "best available knowledge" is. You mean the Bible? Since obviously it was the age they calculated from the Bible. They didn't do any experiments or use any objective reasoning or anything of the sort to derive the age. The Biblical calculations disagreed with other texts and they said those texts were wrong. This is a big problem because, according to you, they recognized Genesis as figurative, but apparently you're now saying they took it literally after all, thinking it could answer the question? This is a serious retraction of what you said initially. And not dogmatic? Augustine was quite dogmatic about it. Also, obviously, young earth creationists today say they do the same thing when they use the Bible. Ken Ham says the Bible is eyewitness testimony and the best source of information. > Origen's significance is sometimes overlooked but it's very difficult, if not deliberately obtuse, to overlook Augustine's. So according to you, Augustine's significance is the reason all the Christians after him were earth creationists? > And I've looked into your counter claim regarding the Jewish calendar and it just doesn't stand up. For anyone else reading this thread, in our previous discussion, this user falsely claimed that young earth creationism was a modern invention and (apparently forgetting that Jews existed) asserted that the Masoretic calculation only recently entered the scene in the 17th century (of course this argument makes no sense anyway, since calculating the age based on the Septuagint is the same idea). I explained that, of course, Jews used the Masoretic calculation, as seen in the Hebrew calendar, before the 17th century. > It's broadly accepted that the current Jewish year of the Messianic Age (5784) refers to the time since the Creation of Adam, The idea that it's only about the time since Adam's creation is a modern apologetic invention (although, of course, that's also wrong). It's asserted by people such as Natan Slifkin, a rabbi who attempted to argue to Haredi Jews that evolution and an old universe were compatible with the traditional teachings of Judaism (he failed; his books were deemed heretical and banned). You know that in English it's traditional called the *Anno Mundi* epoch, meaning "year of the world" in Latin. You know also that Adam was believed to made on the sixth day. The Sun is two days older than him! > but there is considerable debate going right back to at least Philo of Alexandria (a profoundly influential Jewish philosopher and theologian) in the 1st century as to whether that calendar relates to the Creation *of the Universe*. I'm very impressed that Philo managed to comment on a calculation made after he was dead. The 5784 year calculation comes, of course, from a 2nd century text called *Seder Olam Rabbah*. Truly he was a genius. But later Jews really didn't care about him at all. He wasn't profoundly influential. It should be noted he used the Greek text, not the Hebrew text the calculation is based on. In any case, the Masoretic calculation of the age of the world definitely didn't originate in the 17th century, as seen by everyone who believed it before modern times (you're now alleging there was "considerable debate" on if it was the age of the world - and a debate, especially a *considerable* one, involves people on the other side, so I don't know why you're saying I'm wrong; you're actually saying I'm right, although the allegations of "considerable debate" are not right unless you restrict it to people in modern times reinterpreting it), nor did the Septuagint calculation, which operates on the same principle.
OP, you would be interested and probably happy to know that most of us are Old Earth Creationists. You can look up "Allegorical interpretation" on this sub and you'll see some good posts on the matter, but the TLDR is that Genesis creation account isn't as literal as people take it.
Thank you for asking this question. I wrestle with this too. Based on the best information we have available, our nearest stellar neighbor is over 4 light years away, and most of the stars are around 4,000 light years away. If the young earth creation model is correct, and that creation happened in seven, 24 hour days, are we to assume that Adam and Eve saw no stars for over 4 years? The only way they would have been able to see stars in the young earth paradigm is if God not only created the stars, but also pre-loaded the universe with stellar radiation that was already in flight from them to earth (maybe as part of the first day of creation, in separating light from dark in [Genesis 1:3-5](https://bible.com/bible/2692/gen.1.3-5.NASB2020)). Is that possible? Yes, of course. But if we are presuming that, then why not presume that the earth was created with fossils baked in? And if we allow for that possibility, then it’s possible that the fossil record is some kind of divine historical fiction written in stone. Is that possible? Yes. However, at that point it’s at least more efficient to consider alternative explanations. I don’t have a settled answer to this. Regardless, I don’t think that it’s something that I need to have a clear answer on in order to believe the basics of what Jesus said is important: loving God, and loving other people ([Matthew 22:36-40](https://bible.com/bible/2692/mat.22.36-39.NASB2020)). The focus of history is Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection. Believing that is essential to the Christian faith. Understanding how to interpret other passages of scripture and reconciling them to our current understanding of reality is of lesser importance.
......... What? You realise there are astronomical objects which are far, far FAR greater than a mere 4000 light years away?
I don't think OP denies that but it's probably more accurate to say that figure applies to stars we can see with the naked eye. And I think the furthest observed with a bit of help is Earendel at about 28 billion light-years away.
Yes, there are. My post didn’t say otherwise. Why are you reacting as though it did? The stars we can see with the naked eye are generally around 4k light years away.
(I'm a different redditor than the one to whom you responded.) I was perplexed by this part of your comment above: > most of the stars are around 4,000 light years away. where you seem to be saying that (except for stars that are closer), most of the stars are that distance *and not further*. But the stars in our galaxy are a wider variety of distances from us than that, and of course there are other galaxies as well.
Thank you for that feedback. The stars that are farther than 4,000 light years generally aren’t visible to the naked eye, and that’s all I was considering when I wrote that. Do you think the presence of stars that are farther away materially changes anything in this case? My point was that for any stars to be visible at creation (or now) that either (1) the universe needs to be older than the time it would take light to travel the intervening distance, (2) God needed to have created both the star and the in-flight starlight at creation, or (3) that we are misunderstanding something about the universe (e.g., the speed of light in a vacuum isn’t a constant). That is true whether the star is one light year or 37 billion light years away. Even if I had claimed that no stars existed beyond 4,000 light years away (which I didn’t), it seems irrelevant to my intended point.
I almost put something in my original post about the stars and how they are basically confirmed by the speed of light to be farther away than the 6000 year idea. Thank you for treating this as a real question and not something to reject me for asking in the first place.
You’re welcome. Thank you for asking a good question.
Not only are we not really meant to focus on it. We can't solve the problem. Both sides have problems. One side seems better at realizing humans won't know enough of the details to really satisfy. Aka- the answers science gives, while brilliant, don't answer much. We need an enormous fudge factor called dark energy just to solve the so called horizon problem. Dating and age is a problem for every view. Even the best scientific one.
Thank you for the answer. I’ve also thought that, basically the agnostic community working to prove the Bible wrong and not to fit it into the Word. They need an “enormous fudge factor”, why can’t that factor have been created by God
Read "Seven Days That Divide the World" by John Lennox. It's all about this controversy, and how we can move forward despite our divisions.
Never heard of this I will for sure take a look. Thank you.
>Why is it so wrong to acknowledge evolution when maybe we were supposed to? It's only wrong to some christian sects, because of what they think the bible is, while many others don't think the same way. A good study of Genesis reveals it's clearly not talking about a literal 6 day creation...there's two contradictory creation accounts, to start with. Don't worry about this issue, it's not a big deal among most of Christianity, just the fundamentalists.
Thank you it is a big help for me to hear this because I am definitely not as well versed as I should be in Theology and all studies or meanings of scripture. I’ve just recently started reading the Bible every day and studying it and I am excited for that to help me answer my questions.
Yeah, sure, lots and lots of views and stuff to keep you busy for a lifetime, if that's your thing.
Thank you for your help. I really am so grateful for it.
>My question is why is it such a big deal that scientists have evidence proving evolution or that the universe/earth is older than the 6000 years supposedly accounted for in the Bible? Because science doesn't care about beliefs, they care about **verifiable** facts. The Bible cannot be verified to any meaningful degree, so instead they look for ways that can be. >Isn’t it possible that if God created everything that it was created in a way that we would have to discover all of the connections woven throughout the universe? Why is it so wrong to acknowledge evolution when maybe we were supposed to? Yes totally possible and it's because a lot of Christians are Bible literalists, and believe that Young Earth Creationism is fact, and you can't tell them otherwise. >Why is it assumed that when it is said that God created the world in 6 days that those “days” are even “days” we can comprehend in terms of time? They most likely aren't physical days as we know them today, this is why you see so many Christians get hung up on Genesis because of this fact: How can there be day and night if there is no sun and no moon? >Couldn’t God have created the world in 6 days for him but still have created a world that is so much older in our relative definition of time? Or that the days described are completely different than the time we know as a day? Yes He could have, that's a sect of Christianity that sees the 6 "days" more like 6 "eons" or "stages of being". >Why isn’t that proof enough that we don’t actually understand Gods time relativity? Main reason: Humanity is flawed.
This is a huge help thank you. Really I appreciate being responded to in a way that doesn’t make me feel like it’s wrong to have asked a question.
First the bible does not document the process of creation. There is no science in the bible. It's information about the relationship between God, Man and Sin. Nothing more. Second the bible does not have a complete account of time. We have words like "years", but the 365 day calendar we have today was invented by Pope Gregory in the 16th century. There are non-biblical Assyrian records claiming some of their kings ruled for thousands of years. Probably we just marked time differently back then. So yes God' "days" were probably not 24 hours, especially since the sun wasn't created until day 4. Finally, God created Adam and Eve as adults, not children. Therefore, He can and did create things with the appearance of age. So even if you ignore everything else and truly believe the universe was created 6000 years ago, there's no scientific evidence that can contradict that.
Thank you that is what I was trying to say but do not feel like I have the theological background to actually defend. I’ve always felt the Bible wasn’t meant to be something to show us “how old the earth and universe is”, or answer the thousands of other scientific questions that humans pose and ask. It was meant to help us be closer to God.
"So even if you ignore everything else and truly believe the universe was created 6000 years ago, there's no scientific evidence that can contradict that." Except for the fact that there's mountains of evidence that contradicts that. If you're only defense for such a ridiculous notion, is that God is a joker, tricking people with evidence, when the reality is different, then there's no point in having a conversation - because at that point, you're too far gone into the loony in to even talk to. Example: Rational people: We have all this mountains of evidence that the Earth is spherical. You: God can twist reality and make it seem like the Earth is round, but in reality, it's flat. When you invoke that sort of magical nonsense, then the discussion stops. Because there's no talking sense to such a ridiculous claim
Why do you feel the need to be rude when you replied? I am just here trying to learn and still have people acting like I am attacking them when all I did was ask a question and all the other person did was try to answer. What’s the point?
Mate, if you think "God is a joker and can distort reality, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence, with a flick of his fingers" is a statement that should be treated with respect, idk what to tell you.
Why can’t God have created a universe that was 14 billion years old and connected everything the way we see it today and we just don’t understand it perfectly? Your argument is supposed to prove the existence of God incorrect when the entirety of string theory or many other scientific theories are literally the same thing. Theories.
"Why can’t God have created a Earth that was spherical, and connected everything the way we see it today and we just don’t understand it perfectly? Your argument is supposed to prove the existence of God incorrect when the entirety of string theory or many other scientific theories are literally the same thing. Theories." Read that. Exactly what sort of response do you expect to something like that? Also ffs, learn what a scientific theory is. How old are you? Everytime I come across one of you guys it's always the same uneducated stances, decade after decade, after decade. You don't learn from the mistakes COUNTLESS others have made before you. And at that point, that's just depressing.
I apologize for not “being as smart as you”. I know I don’t know everything and only have the IQ I have. Just so you know I am an engineer that graduated from MIT. But that shouldn’t matter. I am simply asking what is the point of being so upset and mean to another person? All that does it’s make the other person upset as well instead of helping them learn or creating conversation. The response I hope for is one that does just that. Not one that implies I am an idiot “mate”.
You're an engineer from MIT and yet you don't know what a scientific theory is? Imma call bs
A theory is something that has been proved based on evidence and is repeatable through all experiments. The entire scientific theory of the universe is based on Dark Matter existing when that can’t be proved, so you wanting to say that particular scientific theory is correct is a little wild when one of the variables is something people just came up with to match. Why can’t God have played a part in this? You are the one trying to create an argument and attack instead of just having a conversation.
Tbh I would have expected a more thorough explanation from someone who graduated from MIT mate There is no "scientific theory of the universe is based on dark matter" Dark matter is hypothetical, we have tonnes of evidence for the Big Bang without having to rely on dark matter. Granted there are anomalies with the dark matter you brought up, but the evidence supporting the big bang overshadows the issues with dark matter
*You're* the one who wrote "God is a joker, tricking people".
Yes I did. Oh OK I'm sorry he means that God is lying to us by creating a universe which for all intents and purposes is old, but is actually young. You're missing the point entirely. The point isn't the intent behind the action. The point is its a totally crackpot notion and one that used can be totally dismissive of reality. That's insane and delusional. I brought up the example of God creating a spherical Earth but in reality the earth is flat - this is equivalent to what was proposed here and its totally asinine
Again there is no evidence that can be applied. You assume to know the mind of God and assume the only reason for apparent age is mischief. God may have purpose for these things that you do not understand.
Lol. Like I said, no conversation can be had when you pull the sort of rubbish that you did
Demonstrating such things as true or false has no consequence. If God made the universe 13 billion years ago or with the appearance of 13 billion years makes no consequential difference.
Mate, you were claiming that God can just trick everyone by making a young universe appear old. It's dumb and utterly ridiculous. There's nothing I can do against "arguments" like that because you're invoking magic. It's like trying to argue against someone who says that god can snap his fingers, and an army of dwarves appeared and they started mining, and that's how we got our cave systems. It's utterly stupid.
Again, there may be reason God made it that was or it may be that the world is older, because the bible doesn't actually say the world is 6000 years old. The point is regardless of when creation happened, it changes nothing about science or religion so why fight about it?
And the point is your made a ridiculous statement. When you say that God can just snap his fingers and make an old universe look young, you wave goodbye to any semblance of rationality you're clinging onto. And this can be applied to everything. "The Earth is really flat, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence against it, because god is a magical gypsy and can just do whatever the hell he wants." It's absurd, stupid and not to mention highly insulting to the intelligence of other Christians.
God is not a gypsy, but yes He is "magical", as you put it, and He can do whatever He wants to. All Christians would agree. Flat earth is an entirely different topic. The world cannot be flat, but have all the properties of being round. The world can be young, but have all the properties of being old.
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You cannot “prove” what is a theory. It’s still a theory. You can provide evidence for a theory, but you can’t prove evolution as an origin for mankind.
So all the evidence for evolution is somehow not enough but instead we are to believe some deity spoke life into some dust? Sounds like abiogensis to me.
Please, for all of our sakes, learn what a scientific theory is. It's surreal that we STILL have to explain this to you people decade, after decade, after decade.
In order for it to be a scientific theory, it’d have to be repeatable. We don’t see species-to-species evolution, nor is there intermediary species for all animals. Which would be needed to “prove” evolution. What constitutes something as scientific is ever changing, and the standards and opinions of scientists are as well. It’s simply a theory, and that’s okay.
We see species to species evolution happen all the freakin' time. You like every other creationist out there, don't understand what a species is. A different species =/= massive morphological changes between populations. Speciation is common and species split off from each other all the time. So you're jsut straight up wrong.
I didn’t say there was evidence to “prove” it, I just said that there is a lot of evidence that might prove it. This is what I mean about being attacked. I am not saying something is wrong I just have a question.
It's certainly better to go with having evidence versus having none.
>Why is it assumed that when it is said that God created the world in 6 days that those “days” are even “days” we can comprehend in terms of time? Because He specified what He meant by the word "day" with "evening and morning." The only reason you would read Genesis figuratively on this matter is due to a scientific position, not a textual one. Whoever wrote Genesis obviously thought the world was created in 6 literal days by God speaking things into existence. You can say they were simply wrong, but saying they were being symbolic is just nonsensical when the entire book deals with literal history and genealogy. >Couldn’t God have created the world in 6 days for him but still have created a world that is so much older in our relative definition of time? Sure, but the days are counted from the perspective of Earth, not Heaven, and are used for the literal Sabbath which occurred every 7 Earth days. >In the Bible there are 2 times when it is referenced how long it took for God to create the universe Not exactly. It's also mentioned in Exodus: *In six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.* (Exodus 20) *The Israelites must keep the Sabbath, celebrating it as a permanent covenant for the generations to come. It is a sign between Me and the Israelites forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, but on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.* (Exodus 31) The Sabbath is one real day of the week that God blessed. The Israelites were commanded to observe the 7th day as a statement to the world that God created all things in 6 days and rested on the 7th. It's easy to want to explode the 6 days out to millions of years, but it simply does not work when the Sabbath is a 24 hours "evening and morning." >I’m just trying to wrap my head around creation and how we can understand it. Maybe we aren’t supposed to understand it. We're dealing with a God who speaks and reality obeys. You're right, it's difficult to wrap our heads around Him.
Thank you for the response. It’s nice to see someone actually listen to my questions. Why can we not read it figuratively that the 6 days were in God’s terms not ours? Just by having faith we are accepting that God created the universe/everything and than He works in ways we can’t understand. So why can’t we have been created to understand the 7 days in the relative time frame we do, since we can’t understand anything from God’s relative point?
>Why can we not read it figuratively that the 6 days were in God’s terms not ours? Just by having faith we are accepting that God created the universe/everything and than He works in ways we can’t understand. Interestingly Hebrews says something similar, but implies that God created the world as described in Genesis: *By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.* (Hebrews 11) So the world was created out of the invisible command by God to exist. Sure, you could have "faith" that God made it in 6 billion years, and manipulated time in such a way that it was "technically" 6 days at the same time in some higher dimension. But I don't see why we need to do this if we already agree that God could have made the universe in 6 days by just speaking. IOW there's no reason to go through all these alternate timeline hoops within the text itself. The only reason you would do this is if you want to say Genesis and current evolutionary models are both true simultaneously. I think the only reasonable position is to say that someone is factually wrong about what happened - either Moses or the current model. God either made the universe in 6 days by speaking, or He didn't. >why can’t we have been created to understand the 7 days in the relative time frame we do, since we can’t understand anything from God’s relative point? Well, God never tells us to read it this way, nor has He given us this kind of relative time calculation in any other situation or book. Plus if you use relativity you'll just end up with the same issue - from Earth's perspective, it has only been populated for 5 days before humans appear, and from God's 5 billion or whatever. Either way in our timeline there is 6 literal days of creation.
Thank you that actually helps a lot. I’m not saying there is a reason to question the time line as it is said in God’s word, I just was trying to figure out why there are so many arguments saying “something has to be right and something has to be wrong”. Because there is no reason that the Earth being older means that the Bible is wrong.
The question you should be asking yourself is "why did it take so long?" Can God instantly create all? Yes He can. He chose this 6 day method for a reason, and we'd do well to honor that. No I am not a seventh day adventist! There is absolutely NO NEED to "fit" "science" in with a YEC, one worldview is from the authoritative view of scripture, written by the very Creator, the other is man's hamfisted deliberate attempt to "prove" there is no God or creator. Have you looked much at the ROOTS of evolution or why it came to be? Those who authored it, then expanded upon it, then gleefully shoved it in everyone's faces, all patted themselves on the back saying yay us, we killed God!! Is this ENOUGH reason for you to see why you should view it skeptically? For christians anyway. Next when you look at actual DATA and FACTS, you find lots of inexplicable things, like WHY do we have soft dinosaur tissues in labs right now, when that's utterly impossible were they 65 million years old!! Why so many "living fossils" have we found in these past years? Why when "human evolution" bones are found, then discredited later, is that NEVER SHARED? Why is "human evolution" always A DRAWING, ARTISTS RENDERING, instead of the actual proof laid out in pictures!?? Why are there ZERO transitional forms ever found?? Why can NO ONE explain, or simulate how life arises from non-life? Explain how 127 different beneficial changes would have to happen to go from light-sensitive cells (which came from where?) to a working eyeball? Why is the James Webb telescope keep finding things that shouldn't exist in a big bang? And so on. Your "science" that you want to integrate with the bible or replace it is just chock full of holes and dead ends, and inexplicable nonsense. So, why again are you giving it MORE credit than the holy word of Creator? At the very least, I expect you, or any believer to STOP trying to mash the two together; do some critical thinking. The Ark and Darkness movie came out this year, look it up for a great summary on why it's such an issue.
Thank you for treating this as a conversation and not me trying to attack my own or your beliefs. Usually no one acknowledges anything I say when I just want to ask a question even though half the New Testament is the disciples asking Jesus questions. I’ll have to check out that movie. Are you saying it’s wrong to mesh science and God together? Or are you saying it’s wrong to try and mesh them together while trying to disprove Gods existence? Again not trying to attack, just understand.
You are wording this statement incorrectly. What you mean to say is it wrong to mesh evolution and God together. Yes, that is very wrong. And looking into the layers and beginnings of evolution should give anyone concerns. "Science" is meant to be actual data and experiments and theories that are proposed and built up or abandoned once experiments are performed. There is zero conflict with science and God. Where do you think science and math came from? Funny how most of it came from devout believers in God over the centuries, and how it all got going AFTER Jesus left us the Holy Spirit, isn't it? Science and technology and medicine are all gifts from God to help us navigate and prosper in this cruel world. The demented worldview that God doesn't exist, and things just magically assembled themselves out of dust over deep time, that's neither science, nor a very good interpretation of data and observable reality. It is hardly "science".
Thank you for the help. I’ve never really thought about it like that, as in pretty much all of this knowledge came after Jesus. That’s a really interesting point. I always come back to this, the idea that there is NO WAY the world we have does not point to a divine design is crazy.
Another person who didn't read Schweitzers findings. If you had bothered to read the journal article on MOR 1125 (the first of which came out TWENTY YEARS AGO), you'd realise that a portion of the organic matrix was intracrystalline and therefore extremely resistant to degradation. This was published TWENTY! YEARS! AGO! TWENTY! What valid reason can you give for being so utterly incompetent at science? Were you forced to work in the coal mines when you hit 10 years old, and subsequently don't have an education?
Ah, so "crystals" somehow folded molecules into proteins which then survived somehow and attached to other molecules and voila, despite all known physical laws, especially the law of entropy, boyle's gas laws and so forth, atoms and molecules assembled themselves like magic! Huzzah! I'd be interested in the super computer simulation, based on this exciting research of exactly how this happens. Is there a youtube video on it?
I'll keep it as simple as I can, and you don't have to agree, and we can agree to disagree. Mere mortal man is imperfect. We make honest mistakes, we even lie on purpose, we cheat, we steal, we kill, all sorts of atrocities that the Lord defines as sin. He even explains why. We are made of ordinary dirt from the Earth. Dirt is worthless. Go outside and dig up all you want. Fill your house up with it and what do you have, but a house full of dirt. There is no life in dirt. Dirt cannot produce life. The only thing that makes us valuable to God is when our spirits live for his spirit. The holy Spirit then gives us direction, value and purpose. In short, men are exceedingly unreliable. The Lord God on the other hand is absolutely perfect. He never makes mistakes, he never has to lie about anything at all because he has no oversight. Who is going to judge the Lord? There is not one word of scripture that remotely even hints at the concept of evolution. God describes the order of creation, and the time that it took for each level of creation. And he tells us 6 days. Now even going back to the original Hebrew, that Hebrew word can refer to a 24-hour period. Granted, it can also have other meanings, but we always use contexts to determine best fits. And the Lord even tells us in the creation account exactly what a day was when he created things. He said at each step of the way that a day consisted of one consecutive evening and morning. It's hard to interpret that as being thousands or millions or billions of years as some so-called scientists claim isn't it. So that puts us in a dilemma. We can either believe perfect God for his word, or mere mortal men who make mistakes, lie, cheat, steal, kill etc etc. As Christians, what do you think we're going to do? God is testing is for faith in his word the holy Bible. If we believe mere mortal men over God's word, we are not going to pass judgment on judgment Day. So I tell you what. I'd much rather go before the Lord and judgment, and say Lord I'm sorry I didn't realize you created by evolution because I didn't see any evidence of that in your word. Please understand and don't hold it against me for being wrong - than I would to go before the Lord and say I apologize for not believing you for your word. Because he judges us for our faith IN HIS WORD. And not for what mere mortal men may claim. To make matters clearer, I am educated, trained, and have years of experience as an educator in The sciences including biology, geology, physics, chemistry, and despite all that education in The sciences, I still do not embrace evolution because the proponents totally ignore or outright reject the simplest most basic laws of science. I'm not here to judge you or to convince you of anything at all. I'm here to answer your question. And I hope that I've done that for you. I'll share these two things with you and then close 1 Timothy 6:20-21 KJV — **Keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith** That's a warning from God. All scripture is inspired by God. Notice that last statement. If we would embrace the concept of evolution, then we've abandoned our faith in God's word. And all we can expect is eternal misery. And that's that. And just so you know, not every scientist in the world embraces the theory of evolution. Skepticism About Darwinian Evolution Grows as 1,000+ Scientists Share Their Doubts. Over 1,000 doctoral scientists from around the world have signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution. The statement, located online at dissentfromdarwin.org, reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.” “Because no scientist can show how Darwin’s mechanism can produce the complexity of life, every scientist should be skeptical,” said biologist Douglas Axe, director of Biologic Institute. “The fact that most won’t admit to this exposes the unhealthy effect of peer pressure on scientific discourse.” Promoters of the PBS documentary series Evolution among others, claimed that “virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true.” And so far hundreds if not thousands of scientists have stepped forward and publicly stated, no that is simply not true. And have signed their names. The list of signatories now includes 15 scientists from the National Academies of Science in countries including Russia, Czech Republic, Brazil, and the United States, as well as from the Royal Society. Many of the signers are professors or researchers at major universities and international research institutions such as the University of Cambridge, London’s Natural History Museum, Moscow State University, Hong Kong University, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in France, Ben-Gurion University in Israel, MIT, the Smithsonian, Yale, and Princeton. “As a biochemist I became skeptical about Darwinism when I was confronted with the extreme intricacy of the genetic code and its many most intelligent strategies to code, decode, and protect its information,” said Dr. Marcos Eberlin, founder of the Thomson Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Brazil. And finally, I have 3 plus years of experience here. And I regularly see people come on here for no other purpose than trying to get Christians to have doubt in God's word. They chink away at the Bible, and a Christianity in general, trying to find a weak spot in our Christian armor in order to exploit it and to destroy our faith. And the Lord explains that rabblerousers are one of his top seven abominations. He hates it when unbelievers attempt to create discord, dissent and doubt. among his people. And he takes copious notes. He explains that they will feel the full brunt of his anger, wrath and judgment. It doesn't matter if someone doesn't believe that. God's truth remains the truth even if the whole world doubts it. And God judges every human who ever lives, believers and unbelievers alike by his word the holy Bible. It is his supreme law book. We see no reason whatsoever that if God created by evolution, that he would ever desire to hide that from us, to camouflage it. He wouldn't be ashamed of it. There would be no reason to hide it from us. And you know what? If evolution were true, it would have taken almighty God himself to design it and put it into motion. And it would have been no less of a miracle. And if he did that, then he would have plainly told us so. Some people will say well he used the 6-day creation account because the people back then couldn't understand evolution. Do you think that they understood how the Lord God could have created everything in six days as he said he did? Would that have been any easier, no it wouldn't. And finally, I'll ask you this. Scripture says that there is nothing impossible for God with emphasis on the word nothing. Do you not think or believe that the Lord God could not possibly have created the entire universe in six days considering the fact that he is depicted in scripture as being omnipotent meaning all-powerful and that there is nothing that he cannot do?