is the earth only 6,000 years old?

[messengerserve]

I'm a Christian and I believe the age of the Earth to be about 4.5 billion years old. On the other hand, I also believe the Earth to be about 6,000 years old. Both are correct if you see it in the perspective of General Relativity.

In order to understand this simple concept, we must gather the facts first.

The Bible:

Isaiah 42:5 - NIV

This is what God the Lord says-- he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:

Jeremiah 10:12 - NIV

But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.

Jeremiah 51:15 - NIV

"He made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.

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Are these biblical verses scientifically factual? Is the Universe (the heavens) really expanding/stretching?

What does science says?

The Universe is stretching.

"Let me begin by saying that "expanding" isn't really the best word to describe what is happening to the universe, although that is the word that is often used - a word choice which I think leads to a lot of unnecessary confusion regarding what is already a difficult topic! A more accurate word for what the universe is doing might be "stretching"."

Source: Astronomy Department at Cornell University. (google the links as I can't post any links yet. I'm a new member.)

The biblical verses above are scientifically factual. God is behind the Big Bang where he created the universe out from a point of zero volume super black hole singularity and stretched them out to create the universe.

The Big Bang:

"According to the big bang theory, the universe began by expanding from an infinitesimal volume with extremely high density and temperature. The universe was initially significantly smaller than even a pore on your skin. With the big bang, the fabric of space itself began expanding like the surface of an inflating balloon – matter simply rode along the stretching space like dust on the balloon's surface. The big bang is not like an explosion of matter in otherwise empty space; rather, space itself began with the big bang and carried matter with it as it expanded."

Source: California Institute of Technology (google for the source)

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Since God is the power behind the Big Bang, he must reside in a region of immense gravity in his omnipotent powers. He is the power behind black holes where super massive stars explode into a supernova and collapses into a black hole where no light can escape. The biblical verses below confirms this:

Joel 3 - RSV

15 The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

Jeremiah 4 - NIV

23 I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone

Ezekiel 32 - NIV

7 When I snuff you out, I will cover the heavens and darken their stars;


Can stars withdraw their shining according to these verses? How?

In a Black Hole, light traveling outwards towards an event horizon is pulled back by the very strong gravitational field, because of the warping of space-time inside the event horizon, regardless of the lack of a photon mass. This prevents light from ever escaping the Black Hole.

Source : NASA (google the source)

A common type of black hole is the type produced by some dying stars. A star with a mass greater than 20 times the mass of our Sun may produce a black hole at the end of its life.

Source: Space Telescope Science Institute

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Gathering all the facts, God is the power behind the 'Big Bang' and the stretching of the Universe. He is also the power behind Black Holes. In other words, God has the power of Gravity. The Biblical verses posted above and the scientific facts agrees with each other and are not in contradiction.

According to General Relativity, gravity itself can dilate time. Let say you are on a planet with 5x the gravity of the Earth. You will notice that the clock on planet Earth will tick faster than your clock. You read 12 noon on your clock, but on planet Earth, it's already 8pm in the evening.

Can God dilate time with his power of Gravity? According to this verse:

Peter 3:8 NIV

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

With God's power of gravity, he can dilate 1 day to 1 thousand years.

So, going back to the question: Is the Earth 6,000 years old? Was the Earth created in 6 days flat or 4.5 billion years?

Reading Genesis, we should see the creation relative to God and not to us in his perspective because he was the one who was there in the beginning. Relative to God with his immense power of gravity, all creation only took 6 days relative to Him. But, relative to us on Earth, time has already gone by in billions and billions of years.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

 

[agua]

G'day messengerserve,

Interesting post for sure. Nice study.

Welcome and God bless. : )

 

[RJ]

One mustn't confuse a belief with a fact.

You can choose to believe that after death some exquisite bliss may await whatever is left of your person.
You may choose to believe that if one prays to the wrong God, a far less desirable fate awaits after the shedding of this veil of tears.
You may choose to believe that awareness may survive the destruction of your brain, but for none of these propositions there is the slightest bit of evidence. It just says so in an old collection of books.
You may choose to believe that all who think Jesus is divine will go to Hell.
It says so (twice) in another old book, favored by people born in the Middle East.

One doesn't get to choose whether the plague bacillus is a conduit for disease.
One doesn't get to choose whether the Earth orbits the sun, whether a car will keep moving once the gas tank reaches empty, and one doesn't get to choose whether we share a common ancestor.

In short, your are entitled to your own opinions, not to your own facts.

Donnie

The Bible teaches that you are saved by faith, it does not say fact.

I do think this common fact exists, you can not explain factually much about the spirit world and how it actually relates to any preconcieved notion based on one's knowledge of the physical world.

 

[Donnie]

.... you can not explain factually much about the spirit world and how it actually relates to any preconcieved notion based on one's knowledge of the physical world.

Likewise, one can not "explain factually much" about the physiology of Leprechauns, or the proclivities of Tinkerbell and how they relate to notions based on our knowledge of the physical world.

Intellectual ( and I use the word 'intellectual' quite loosely ) exercises of this sort can take any shape. I can hold forth ad nauseum on the magnificence of Zeus' beard , and when some skeptic asks me for evidence of the old God (who happened to be in good standing until he begrudgingly vacated the Olympus and sulked his way into myth, oblivion and irrelevance, due to a lack of adherents) I can simply state that our worldly knowledge has no bearing on this deity, who, after all, is part of the spirit world.

It should be crystal clear that the invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike.

Donnie

 

[Tribulation]

2 Peter 3:8 "But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

I have read in many places that "each literal day" of creation was not what WE humans call a day here on earth. It was much longer. It was a DAY to the Lord.

All of the Bible is true. But much of the Bible is symbolism. Something that is not taught very well by church leaders.

Read the first two pages of Genesis... then read the verse I posted at the top of this reply... It will start to make sense to you.

2 Peter 3:8 "One day is as a thousand years to the Lord"

 

[WaterRock]

The Bible teaches that you are saved by faith, it does not say fact.

While not to argue what the Bible teaches anyone, I would suggest that one is saved by the Grace of GOD through the gift of the Spirit, lest man should boast the works of his own faith saved him.

 

[WaterRock]

The Bible teaches that you are saved by faith, it does not say fact.

While not to argue what the Bible teaches anyone, I would suggest that one is saved by the Grace of GOD through the gift of the Spirit, lest man should boast the works of his own faith saved him.

 

[RJ]

While not to argue what the Bible teaches anyone, I would suggest that one is saved by the Grace of GOD through the gift of the Spirit, lest man should boast the works of his own faith saved him.

<SUP>8</SUP> For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— Ephesians 2:8


By only Grace, the act is a devine gift and the vehicle is faith, which is a part of the gift!
Grace first, Faith second then comes salvation.

So how do we find out what faith is? We should always first go to the Bible to see if It offers us a definition of any term or concept under consideration. In Heb 11:1 we indeed read a Biblical definition of faith: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen". This verse tells us that faith is a conviction that we have regarding something that allows us to be able to act on it as if it were assured of happening.

But where does such assurance come from? A lot of people have the above scripture memorized but then when you ask the question about where does faith come from, you either get a "I don't really know" or somebody saying that it comes from within with the implication that faith is something we develop ourselves.

Now let us go to the Bible and see if It tells us where faith comes from. Heb 12:2 says "...Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith". And Rom 12:3 says " ... God has allotted to each a measure of faith.” These two verses clearly tell us that faith is not something that we do or a presence of mind that we develop, but that faith is a gift from God.

Rom 10:17 says " ... faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ." So faith is a gift from God that we receive from the word of Christ, which in this dispensation we get from the Bible rather than from a burning bush. So in His time He will allot faith to us as needed from the word of the Bible. In 2 Cor 10:15 we see that faith can grow, so as we study the Bible God can add to our faith.

When I have difficulty undersatnding all this, I am reminded what Paul says:

<SUP>8</SUP> Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. <SUP id=en-NIV1984-28659 class=versenum>9</SUP> For we know in part and we prophesy in part, <SUP id=en-NIV1984-28660 class=versenum>10</SUP> but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. <SUP id=en-NIV1984-28661 class=versenum>11</SUP> When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. <SUP id=en-NIV1984-28662 class=versenum>12</SUP> Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
1 Corinthians 13: 8-12

There is coming a time, sooner than we think, that we will meet God face to face and we will have all our questions answered and everything will make perfect sense.

 

[Miss Elly]

Some people believe an indeterminable amount of time could have passed between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 . Perhaps millions or billions of years. Another thought is God could have created the earth to "look" older than it really is.

God may have created the earth "old". After all he did not create Adam a baby, but a full grown man. And it would have been impossible for plants to survive if they had to wait a thousand years for the sun to be created and placed in the heavens. I'm truly glad about the mysteries of the bible, that men do not understand a lot of it, except how to be saved. It will something to look forward to when we are with the Lord, that we will understand all things.

 

[tghslh]

ive went back several times now and figured up the age of man . it is approximently 6000 years. it is interesting to me to note that the sea creatures were made on the 5th day and the land animals made on the 6th day the same day man was made. now unless im wrong that is not a million years. and concidering the flood. where did noah put this rex anyway.