Reasons to Believe - RTB old earth

[steve7150]

It is assumed that the speed of light is always constant. What if time is the constant, and the speed of light varies? After all, Einstein's theories basically concern the behavious of light, do they not? I am not qualified to give a technical explanation of my thoughts, but I do know that there are others who have had similar doubts.




I believe the perceived age of the universe has been tested several independent ways as of a few years ago. That's not to claim any infallibility and it's very possible the consensus may change over time, but it seems that the adjustments are tending toward discovering the universe to be bigger than we thought and still expanding and older than was thought as we learn more about it. I believe it's currently expanding at the speed of light, really quite unfathomable.

[steve]

You mean God imitated exactly what the light from the sun would do before the sun was created and before man was created? Also the orbit and axis and a million other things about the earth are related to the gravity from the sun and the moon, which most believe were created during the 4th day. So for the first 3 or 4 days God did the job the sun and the moon would do in relation to the earth?

It is not impossible for this scenario to be true.

For what purpose would he do this?

God may well have wished to have life (in the form of plants) appear before there was a sun to sustain them. They don't need sunlight—just light. If God's glory was the original source of light, rather than the sun, moon and stars (as is said to be the case in the New Jerusalem—Rev.21:23), then this might have the purpose of undermining the human tendency, illustrated in most ancient religions, of seeing the sun as the source of all life, and making it the primary object of worship. It seems very likely that God had symbolic reasons for enacting creation in just the way He did it. Even if the sun was to become the primary light bearer for the world, God may well have wished to demonstrate that the sun is not the Life and Light of men (John 1:4)—something that a delay in the creation of the celestial light-bearers would effectively do.

Is there scriptural evidence for this conclusion?

It appears, at first blush, to be what Genesis 1 describes, at a simple reading.

[Paidion]

You mean God imitated exactly what the light from the sun would do before the sun was created and before man was created?

No. Not exactly. Only in the sense of providing light from a particular direction for an earth which was spinning on its axis.

Also the orbit and axis and a million other things about the earth are related to the gravity from the sun and the moon, which most believe were created during the 4th day. So for the first 3 or 4 days God did the job the sun and the moon would do in relation to the earth? For what purpose would he do this? Is there scriptural evidence for this conclusion? You can make deductions using "ifs", and that's fine but the YEC position has to fill in missing details also, to fit six 24 hour creation days.

The earth may not have been in orbit — only rotating on its axis. How is the sun and moon related to the earth's rotation? Why would the sun and moon be necessary for that? If God set the earth in rotation after creating it, there would be no friction — nothing to stop it.

If there are "a million other things about the earth that are related to the gravity from the sun and the moon," please name ten of them.

As for "missing details" the assumption seems to be that, from our modern understanding of the relationships between the earth, sun, and moon, these details are missing. We know little or nothing of conditions at that time. So we don't know if any details at all are missing. I see no contradiction concerning an earth existing in space, rotating on its axis, and receiving light from a created source, or as Steve suggests, from God Himself, and thus producing night and day.

[steve7150]

then this might have the purpose of undermining the human tendency, illustrated in most ancient religions, of seeing the sun as the source of all life, and making it the primary object of worship. It seems very likely that God had symbolic reasons for enacting creation in just the way He did it. Even if the sun was to become the primary light bearer for the world, God may well have wished to demonstrate that the sun is not the Life and Light of men (John 1:4)—something that a delay in the creation of the celestial light-bearers would effectively do.


Is there scriptural evidence for this conclusion?

It appears, at first blush, to be what Genesis 1 describes, at a simple reading.






I agree that would serve an important purpose to demonstrate God is the true light though i'm uncertain this shows that the first days may be 24 hour days before the creation of the sun although symbolism and continuity is clearly something God uses often. Anyway that is a very goint point.
Any thought on the 7th day as it seems to be open ended.

[TK]

"Rabid YECs"

I didn't mean to imply that all YECs are "rabid." I apologize if that is how my statement was taken. Some are, just as there are rabid OECs. I certainly don't consider myself a rabid OEC, I just lean in that direction.

The universe doesn't seem 20,000 years old to me, but then again, I have never seen anything 20,000 years old before.

TK

[jriccitelli]

I considered the 'earth', or the 'life' on it, to be no more than 10-20,000 max.
And that is considering geology like river bed deposits and erosion, and yes moon dust, etc.
As the common debate over evolution would be when did 'life appear' on earth, I always remind evolutionists to reconsider the effect a million or billion years would have on 'fragile' biological life, when bacteria and disease could wipe everything out all advances in life within a few years.
Similarly, consider this as to why Genesis 'could' be written using days as epochs to describe huge, or long periods of time. (Notably day one and two)
The words million and billion were not only unknown in ancient vocabulary, but not even thought of (Not even the Greeks, maybe Archimedes). But it wouldn’t make any sense to say 'millions of years ago I formed the universe', it would be much more difficult for ancient readers to grasp these time dimensions than it is for us in the 21st century. And it then opens up the question, even for the ancient reader, what else was God doing for 13.2 billion years.

[backwoodsman]

For example, the current astronomical model for the universe predicted that there should have been 6 to 8 feet of dust on the surface of the moon, due to the falling of small particles over millions of years. As it turned out, there were only a couple of inches of dust on the surface of the moon. Did this fact disprove the astronomical model? No, the model was simply adjusted to accomodate the fact of only two inches of moon dust.

This is a prime example of the pseudoscience that takes on a life of its own in the young-earth camp, and just won't die. Even Answers in Genesis says the moon dust argument shouldn't be used (note the date - 1993):
http://www.answersingenesis.org/article ... t-argument

AiG does neglect to mention some important parts of the story. The idea that dust would be thick enough to swallow up a lunar lander came from a misconstruing of an early study of space dust hitting Earth. Before men ever landed on the moon it was known both from further Earth-based research and from unmanned probes landing on the moon that there was only a few inches of dust. Furthermore, those who thought there might be many feet of dust on the moon failed to account for things that blast dust off the moon's surface, like asteroids.

So, the idea of a few inches of dust proving a young moon was fatally flawed from the start, never should've been used at all, and certainly should've died decades ago.

So no matter what is discovered is accomodated into the theory by adjusting the evolutionary model.

To the contrary, the Bible says all of creation testifies of God. What RTB and many others have found is that the closer you look at creation, the stronger the evidence of God. Evolution is essentially a religious belief with very little or no evidence to back it up, which in fact conflicts with much of the available scientific evidence. Atheistic evolutionists simply will not accept the possibility that God exists, so the stronger the evidence from scientific knowledge, the wilder their theories have to become to allow them to keep being atheistic evolutionists. This has been going on for many centuries.

But I don't want to talk about evolution. I wrote that last paragraph in the hope that some might see a parallel to another group with very different beliefs, yet with much the same thing going on with regard to belief vs. evidence. An objective look at true science always points to God; atheistic evolutionists can't accept that, so they twist the science until it fits their belief system. Many young-earth creationists confuse that twisted misrepresentation with the real science, and mistakenly conclude that science can't be trusted. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[jriccitelli]

(True, there are many hypothetical things involved. I consider the earth old, maybe life too, because I dont feel scripture 'demands' me to hold to a literal day and night of Genesis one, yet not without difficulty. It still yet may be a document that predates Moses, and alluding to this;)

There ‘is’ a problem of plants living before light in the expanse of the heavens.
There is a theory that explains this, and it is plausible, yet…
(First of all I hold that Gods Word is complete and true, with little or no error especially when considering the magnitude of its volume and detail)
And I do not consider this following theory plausible because of any 'perceived' problems with the creation events, but only because the natural flow of thought is interrupted after verse 1:4 and 5.

In 1:1-5 the writer is talking of the creation of lights, and suddenly goes to talking about the water and then vegetation, but in verse 14 he starts talking again about the lights again as if he never finished describing the details of verse 4.
So it seems that if you just move verses 14-19 to after verse 4 (or 3) then the flow of thought continues and it makes sense. Not because of ‘creative process’ but because of literature.
This allows the verses 13 and 20 to flow together, and it fits perfectly because ‘creatures’ are the focus of all the verse before and after the ‘break’ of 14-19.
I only consider this theory because it is probable that this account in Genesis 1 is possibly ‘older than Moses’ and has been (Like the story of Adam and Eve) possibly in existence and spoken of from even earlier times. Since the creation story of Adam has been known to exist in part in a number of ancient cultures also, quite possibly prior to Moses.

[Apollos]

"Rabid YECs"

I didn't mean to imply that all YECs are "rabid." I apologize if that is how my statement was taken. Some are, just as there are rabid OECs. I certainly don't consider myself a rabid OEC, I just lean in that direction.

The universe doesn't seem 20,000 years old to me, but then again, I have never seen anything 20,000 years old before.

TK

No need to apologize, and thanks for the clarification.

[Apollos]

[ An objective look at true science always points to God; atheistic evolutionists can't accept that, so they twist the science until it fits their belief system. Many young-earth creationists confuse that twisted misrepresentation with the real science, and mistakenly conclude that science can't be trusted. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I hope you are able to rise about simplistic caricatures one day.