Old Earth & Young Earth Creationism

Originally posted by KellyJay
I don't claim what I believe is a fact, I say I believe this to be true due too....
With those that claim they know how old it is do not believe they are possibly wrong, I have
to leave room for it.

So you give equal credence to Lasthhurasayaiasm and

Originally posted by KellyJay
I don't claim what I believe is a fact, I say I believe this to be true due too....
With those that claim they know how old it is do not believe they are possibly wrong, I have
to leave room for it.

So you leave room for it.

Originally posted by JS357
So you leave room for it.

I leave room for me being wrong about how old I think the universe is. If you cannot do that
you are more of true believer than I ever was about anything.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I leave room for me being wrong about how old I think the universe is. If you cannot do that
you are more of true believer than I ever was about anything.

For us it is not a matter of faith. There are an infinite number of faiths in religions around the world, and a lot of them do not assign 6000 years to the age of Earth.

We rely on scientific evidence. If, for instance, we come across a parakeet 400 million years old, a fossil from that era, evolution gets thrown out the window. Till then, we think evolution tells the correct story and one of those tells is Earth being billions of years old.

If evidence comes along like that, we can entertain the idea of a young Earth.

Till then it is only you and your ilk who thinks Earth is only a few thousand years old.

We don't even say with certainty the Earth is a few billion years old, but all the scientific evidence dug up and radioactive testing and so forth, tests from a dozen science disciplines, all point to a 4 billion year old Earth.

WE can change our minds. You cannot, EVER, for fear of losing the underpinnings of your religion.

It is YOU who are stuck in the mire of religion, one kind of religion at that.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I know people use methods to get results and all proclaim these results mean age. So if
the universe is in fact young and those results all still say the same thing, would that than
mean the results were giving those results for different reasons? Being consistent does not
mean the results mean what we claim they do, it is still faith.

It seems you have a different understanding of what the word 'faith' means. If one person accepts the best conclusion they know of based on all the available evidence, I don't call that 'faith'. You are calling it 'faith' because you want to equate it to your own beliefs (that contradict the evidence) and claim that 'its all faith so there is really no difference'. Sorry to inform you but there is a difference between believing what the evidence tells you and believing something that is contrary to the evidence. Call them both 'faith' if you wish, but that won't make them the same.

Originally posted by twhitehead in reply to KellyJay, to whom this is also addressed
It seems you have a different understanding of what the word 'faith' means. If one person accepts the best conclusion they know of based on all the available evidence, I don't call that 'faith'. You are calling it 'faith' because you want to equate it to your own beliefs (that contradict the evidence) a ...[text shortened]... contrary to the evidence. Call them both 'faith' if you wish, but that won't make them the same.

This is the wrong language, your point concerns justified belief, not faith. I don't agree with the notion that faith is the same as belief. Faith implies faithfulness, so a faithful husband resists the temptation of other women (*), someone who is faithful to Christian beliefs would avoid other religions' ceremonies, follow the various commandments, and so forth. Belief is just a state of consciousness, whereas faith implies some sort of action (or inaction) based on the belief.

I think the problem we hit with KellyJay is the mutual incomprehension of idealists and empiricists. To justify a belief an empiricist will point to data, but the justification an idealist takes is primarily internal. So for Kelly, having accepted the existence of his God he feels justified in his beliefs on the basis of the Biblical narrative. No amount of empirical evidence that you provide him with will alter that, the basis on which he draws justification is different from yours.

From his point of view believing empirical evidence requires a similar leap of faith as believing what is in the Bible. You regard them as different because you regard empirical evidence as a stronger justification than testament. So other than the use of the word "faith" in a sense he's right, when it comes down to it there's no absolute grounds for thinking that empirical evidence gives us the truth - it gives us what our senses present to us as the truth, which isn't quite the same thing.

(*) Feel free to juggle with that sentence to fit sex, sexuality etc.

Originally posted by DeepThought
This is the wrong language, your point concerns justified belief, not faith. I don't agree with the notion that faith is the same as belief. Faith implies faithfulness, so a faithful husband resists the temptation of other women (*), someone who is faithful to Christian beliefs would avoid other religions' ceremonies, follow the various commandments, a ...[text shortened]... t quite the same thing.

(*) Feel free to juggle with that sentence to fit sex, sexuality etc.

Since there is no empirical evidence for an old earth of billions of years, there is no logical reason for KellyJay or RJHinds to believe in an old earth of billions of years instead of a young earth of thousands of years. 😏

Originally posted by RJHinds
Since there is no empirical evidence for an old earth of billions of years, there is no logical reason for KellyJay or RJHinds to believe in an old earth of billions of years instead of a young earth of thousands of years. 😏

Seriously Hinds, the earth really is billions of years old. Instead of exhausting you energy disputing this, your time would be much better spent contemplating how to reconcile you already held beliefs with a world vast in age. (Other Christians have managed it without compromising their faith).

Consider this a gift for the New Year.

😏

Originally posted by RJHinds
Since there is no empirical evidence for an old earth of billions of years, there is no logical reason for KellyJay or RJHinds to believe in an old earth of billions of years instead of a young earth of thousands of years. 😏

There are vast amounts of empirical evidence that the Earth is 4.3 billion years old which have been discussed ad nauseam both here and over in the Science forum. That you refuse to accept it simply shows that you are not an empiricist.

Originally posted by sonhouse
For us it is not a matter of faith. There are an infinite number of faiths in religions around the world, and a lot of them do not assign 6000 years to the age of Earth.

We rely on scientific evidence. If, for instance, we come across a parakeet 400 million years old, a fossil from that era, evolution gets thrown out the window. Till then, we think evolu ...[text shortened]... our religion.

It is YOU who are stuck in the mire of religion, one kind of religion at that.

I know you are so sure your right you call it factual not something you believe in. You have
someone tell you with these tests they confirm something is 400 millions years old, you
believe it to be true and don't see the difference between you and me on these matters.

If you just said according to these tests everyone could agree with that, but you do not
leave it there. You take it a step beyond and call it all facts as if you know you cannot be
wrong. For someone who believes in a self correction method of understanding, you leave
off the possible need to be self corrected when you get the answers you are looking for.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I know you are so sure your right you call it factual not something you believe in. You have
someone tell you with these tests they confirm something is 400 millions years old, you
believe it to be true and don't see the difference between you and me on these matters.

If you just said according to these tests everyone could agree with that, but you do ...[text shortened]... leave
off the possible need to be self corrected when you get the answers you are looking for.

Where in my statement did you think I said I knew we were right? All I said was we follow the evidence and make conclusions based on that evidence. We are not stuck in 'always right', we are stuck in what evidence we have before us.

You are the one totally stuck and no amount of scientific evidence will sway you since you feel you are justified in thinking you are outside science and the world is this supernatural thing with dragons and demons and heaven's and hell.

We think that is all man made, no deity helped write the bible.

You seem to forget people are smart, the best of us uber smart and that has been going on for thousands of years and they were quite capable of writing every word in the bible with no help from a deity. You denigrate mankind when you think the bible could only have been written by the hand of some god.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Where in my statement did you think I said I knew we were right? All I said was we follow the evidence and make conclusions based on that evidence. We are not stuck in 'always right', we are stuck in what evidence we have before us.

You are the one totally stuck and no amount of scientific evidence will sway you since you feel you are justified in think ...[text shortened]... denigrate mankind when you think the bible could only have been written by the hand of some god.

I admit I don't know how old the universe is that is the a true fact in this discussion that
we are having. I admit that you believe that based upon scientific evidence you think you
know how old the universe is, and that too I believe is a fact.

So now if you want to talk about where that leaves is, you believe your right due to the
methods you look at and dismiss the possibility that the universe got here by some
means that cannot be found through observation of the universe.

There a reason you think it can and should have begun through some means we can
find through observation, No! That does allow you to reject God by doing so which you
have a desire to do, it fits your belief system.

Originally posted by KellyJay
There a reason you think it can and should have begun through some means we can
find through observation, No! That does allow you to reject God by doing so which you
have a desire to do, it fits your belief system.

This isn't really about Christian vs Atheist beliefs. I grew up in a Christian family in a country that calls itself Christian with Christian teachers (some of which were Irish brothers) yet my parents and school syllabus all taught that the earth was billions of years old because that is what the scientific evidence tells us.

Originally posted by DeepThought
There are vast amounts of empirical evidence that the Earth is 4.3 billion years old which have been discussed ad nauseam both here and over in the Science forum. That you refuse to accept it simply shows that you are not an empiricist.

There has been speculations about the earth being billions of years old discussed, but no empirical evidence of such.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Where in my statement did you think I said I knew we were right? All I said was we follow the evidence and make conclusions based on that evidence. We are not stuck in 'always right', we are stuck in what evidence we have before us.

You are the one totally stuck and no amount of scientific evidence will sway you since you feel you are justified in think ...[text shortened]... denigrate mankind when you think the bible could only have been written by the hand of some god.

By historical calculations mankind and the earth are about 6,000 years old. No one has been able to prove that wrong as yet. 😏