John 14:29
Says that prophecy is for proof that allows belief...
"And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe."

Matthew 13:31-33
"Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."

Mark 4:30-32
"And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it."

Luke 13:18-19
"Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it."

• Introduction:

  Believing in a young earth is not just a disagreement over some tiny detail, nor are scientists equally split over the issue - as some would like you to believe. The evidence for an old earth is OVERWHELMING. Do you know that there is a "Flat Earth Society"? Yes they believe just that! Do you know they have members to this day? Isn't it obvious that the earth is round? Just go on a plane ride and see the curvature of the earth, go to the ocean and watch a ship's mast slowly sink below the horizon with binoculars. Well to virtually ANYONE educated in any of the sciences a young Earth "member" would be looked at just as ridiculously. It's that obvious!

  Are you also aware that beliefs in a flat earth, geocentric (Earth at the center) solar system were also dogmatically promoted by the church? You don't see how that's possible? Let's look at some Biblical verses that "seem" to promote the ideas of a flat Earth, and a geocentric solar system - if taken literally. This is an example of where a single revelational theology can get you into possible trouble.

  Verses talking about "The foundations of the earth..."

  - Job 38:4, Psa 82:5, Psa 104:5, Prov 8:29, Isa 24:18, Isa 40:21, Isa 51:13, Isa 51:16, Jer 31:37, Micah 6:2
  
  

  Verses talking about "The pillars of the earth..."

  - 1 Sam 2:8, Job 9:6, Psa 75:3
  
  

  Verses talking about "The four corners of the earth..."

  - Isa 11:12, Ezek 7:2, Acts 10:11, Acts 11:5, Rev 7:1
  
  

  Partial list of verses referring to the Sun moving around the Earth (there are a bunch)

  - Gen 15:12, Exo 17:12, Lev 22:7, Deu 11:30, Josh 1:4, Judg 8:13, 2 Sam 2:24, 1 King 22:36, 2 Chr 18:34, Job 9:7, Psa 104:22, Eccl 1:5, Isa 38:8, Jer 15:9, Dan 6:14, Amos 8:9, Micah 3:6, Mal 1:11, Mat 5:45, Eph 4:26

  It kind of conjures up the picture on a giant oilrig on its pillars in the ocean - does it not?

  You think the flat earth society is just a joke? Do you think I am making this up? Or that no one takes these verses like this seriously today? Take a look at these modern sites that take these same verses from above and proclaim that the earth is not only at the center of the universe - but does not move - or even rotate.
  
  Check out what the Biblical Astronomer says
  http://www.geocentricity.com/geocentricity/whygeo.html
  Sample Quote:

  "Astronomers, pastors, and educators in the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church maintained the geocentric truths well into the twentieth century. They, with the reformers such as Luther, saw that the embracing of heliocentrism would weaken not only science, but also the authority of the Bible."

  Check out what the Non-moving Earth site says
  http://www.fixedearth.com/the_bible/copernician.html
  Sample quote:

  "THE BIBLE SAYS THE EARTH IS NOT MOVING AND CANNOT BE MOVED. WHAT'L IT BE FOLKS? FALSE SCIENCE AS THE SOURCE OF ABSOLUTE TRUTH...OR GOD'S WORD??"

  Check out what the Creation Facts and True Biblical Counseling says
  http://www.mbowden.surf3.net/Geocexpl.htm
  Sample quote:

  "There are many references to the sun "going down", "arising" etc. NOT ONCE does the Bible ever refer to the earth rotating. Those who say that the Bible is only recording the "appearance" of the movement of the sun are - (a) having to ADD to the most obvious meaning of the understanding of the Bible passage and (b) are adopting the same position as liberal critics who have tried to destroy the Bible by saying that many of the sayings of Christ were "adapted to the simple understanding and low education of His hearers" and that we are more educated today to correct what he said - or such like."

  Young earth creationists even endorse some of this stuff. ICR's Dr. Duane T. Gish has promoted and wrote a forward for the preceding book Check it out here
  http://www.mbowden.surf3.net/B4forewd.htm
  
  Check out what the Creation Science Association for Mid-America says
  http://www.csama.org/200003NL.HTM
  Sample quote:

  "The Bible strongly states that the earth can be shaken, but does not move at all (Ps 93:1). But the sun does move (e.g., Joshua 10:12-14) and does so in a circuit (Psalm 19:1-6). Some will argue "that is only your interpretation." My response is simply, "It is not an interpretation at all, it is what the words say.""

  The Earth revolving around the Sun was once considered heresy. I dare say that the only ones left that denounce that the Earth revolves about the Sun are the flat Earthers along with some ultra literal Christians as documented above! Although to this day we have a remnant of this ancient belief - for we still talk of sunrise and sunset as if the sun were moving around us. Thankfully the church finally "caught up" to the fact of the Earth revolving about the Sun - and it's high time for it to "catch up" again (to it's age)!

  This is historical proof that the church has HAD to accept science before. The case was OVERWHELMING. So any notion that the church can ignore science doesn't hold water! This change was justified - don't you think? I'm not ready to apply for membership in the Flat Earth Society... are you?

• Young Earth Evidence:

  • Alleged scientific proofs for young earth :

    At times I have read Christian "proofs" that are overly burdened with technical jargon. This is used as a ploy - as it is a generally known fact that: people generally would rather be impressed than admit ignorance. If it's so difficult to understand it must be convincing and conclusive right? Wrong. Technical does not mean accurate. I will attempt to simplify and boil these all down as much as possible. I will start off with some broad general claims and then move on to specifics.

    Scientists don't know everything - they are probably just wrong about the age of things:
    This claim concentrates on the fact that scientists don't know everything, and proceeds to leap to the conclusion, or at least imply that they must know very little. Many point out the fact that science changes it's position on things over time. Hence they propose that science will see the error of their ways and come to realize the earth and universe to be young.

    Rebuttal: It is very true that science does not know everything. The mistake is in overreacting and assuming they know nothing, or at least very little. Science indeed changes it's position on things over time - this is good. Science cannot be dogmatic. When evidence comes along that contradicts what is believed to be true... adjustments must be made, or in some cases, entire new theories established - this is how science progresses.
    
    Further, some will trivialize science by claiming: "After all they are just a bunch of theories" and comfort themselves in being opposed to science. To this I say philosophers have long recognized nothing is absolutely provable... but, are you willing to dismiss everything you "know" as false? What science strives for is practical proof. Everyday you unknowingly rely on scientific principles, laws, and theories. Do you doubt gravity - by hanging onto things as you step outside? Do you not rely on electricity and it's predicable nature when you use your hair dryer - not expecting it to shock you to death when drying your hair? Do you not rely on the predicable laws of thermodynamics and friction when you apply the brakes on your car to avoid running people down in crosswalks? We could go on and on along these lines.
    
    I think it's all too easy to underestimate the accomplishments of science. Remember, science has made tremendous strides in recent years. Science and engineering has given us electricity, the telephone, lights, internal combustion engine, radio, television, airplanes, lasers, nuclear power, computers, tremendous advancements in medicine, and on and on and on. We could not put space craft on extraterrestrial bodies, nor harness nuclear reactions in bombs and reactors, if science did not have a very good grasp on the fundamental forces, constants, and reactions in nature.

    All science that points to an old earth is the result of the mistake of uniformitarianism:
    This claim makes the argument that you cannot take present processes, rates of change, constants, etc. and work them into the past. A common application of this would be to say that the rates of radiometric decay have changed over time. And this invalidates all forms of radiometric dating and even ANY other scientific argument for an old earth or universe.

    Rebuttal: Wow - what a leap! This is an attempt to get you to dismiss ALL of science (geology, archaeology, astronomy, physics, biology, etc). This may sound like an exaggeration on my part, but it's not - this is exactly what they want you to do... because you DO have to dismiss virtually all of science to believe in a young earth.
    
    This belief in changing constants and such is illogical, and would prohibit us being able to discern how anything worked or behaved. It would mean that the behavior of all matter and energy in the entire universe is in a state of flux! Moreover, since the promoters of this idea claim the Earth is a mere 6,000 years old... this would necessitate these sweeping changes occurring right before our eyes - as they would have occurred during the time of recorded history!
    
    This is tantamount to claiming that the gravity of the Earth might have been many times stronger in say Adam's day - or possibly even operating in reverse, or that the boiling point of water might have been a thousand degrees in Abraham' day, or that the speed of sound might have been 10 miles per hour in Noah's time, or that the passage of time was faster in Christ's time!
    
    You can't have these kinds of changes going on - this would mean that the fundamental characteristics of physics, particles, and forces are all changing. These are not things you can just allow changes in - They are all interrelated to a very high degree. If they were changing there would be far reaching and drastic consequences. The existence of matter itself is tied to these laws and constants!

    All scientific evidence for an old earth is being manufactured to support evolution:
    This claim makes the argument that all scientific estimates of the age of the earth and universe are part of a vast conspiracy to promote evolution. Moreover, as the theory goes, the world's scientists are so desperate to indoctrinate us with the lie of evolution - they ignore abundant evidence (listed in bold below) in order to generate the age required by the theory.

    Rebuttal: It is very naive to believe that geologists, archaeologists, astrophysicists, nuclear physicists and many others are the mere lapdogs of evolutionists! Like any conspiracy theory, it crumbles under it's own weight when you look at the details. There are MANY arguments and competing theories among scientists. There are quite a few that do not believe in a purely naturalistic explanation for the origin and diversity of life on this planet. To suggest that all of them are at the beck and call of evolutionists (producing fraudulent evidence that defiantly flies in face of facts) is delusional. It is also worth noting that there were many scientists (a number of them Christian) who believed in an old earth before Darwin even proposed his theory!

    Earth's magnetic field decay:
    The Earth's magnetic field has been decreasing steadily since measurements were first taken some 150 years ago. This has led some creationists to calculate that the decay process must have begun less than 10,000 years ago.

    Rebuttal: Failure to recognize that the earth's magnetic field does not undergo a steady linear decay but rather follows a repeating cycle. These numerous reversal cycles have been "caught" in rock layers around the world. This happens when the natural mineral magnetite is caught in volcanic lava flows. The magnetic field of the molten magnetite falls into alignment with the earth's magnetic field of that time - And when it then cools below 570C (it's Curie point), you are left with a permanent frozen record of the earth's magnetic polarity at that time. The process itself indeed takes about 10,000 years, but repeats about every 500,000 years - we are only witnessing the most recent cycle. If you doubt that the Earth can reverse it's magnetic polarity... Be advised that the Sun does this very thing every 11 years as part of the solar cycle!

    YEC updated argument: Dr. Russell Humphreys has done more work and has a theory for magnetic field reversals during the flood. He expands the original argument to concentrate on the issue of the total energy of the field. He asserts that the total energy is decaying irregardless of the field reversals. He and other YECs question the dynamo theory and postulate there is no evidence or mechanism whereby the earth can regain strength of it's magnetic field.

    Old earth reaffirmation: Dr. Russell Humphreys set out to do independent research to disprove the magnetic field reversals. After taking a class and doing some of his own research - he became convinced of the overwhelming evidence for these field reversals! His only "spin" has been to attempt to compress them all into a single year! There have been hundreds of reversals documented - to say they could have all occurred within a single year is preposterous - especially since until recently, they denied they were even possible!

    As further proof let's look at Humphreys' most recent paper he wrote on this subject for Creation Researc Quarterly (Vol 39 No 1 pp 1-11 June 2002). In this paper you will see that contrary to early YEC claims half of the "lost" energy is indeed gained in the non-dipole component. This alone does grave harm to the YEC theory and hints at a more complicated process than simple decay. Moreover, contrary to YEC claims - Humphreys' own data shows a total increase of energy in the earth's magnetic field for 7 epochs! He smoothes over this implying this is a single blip when the whole thrust of his paper is a 1 percent drop of the earth's magnetic field being considerable - while his own data shows an increase 4 times as large as his decrease! This is especially troublesome when you consider that all YECs criticize the uniformitarian method (using current processes and extrapolating into the past) which is exactly what this whole argument centers around. Further consider that Humphreys places a tremendous significance on a mere 30 years of data and tries to cover the entire history of the earth with 30 years of data - remember, all these measurements have taken place in LESS than a single reversal cycle. That's like making dramatic statements and proclaiming new theories as fact, after measuring the Sun's magnetic output for a say mere 11 seconds instead of during an 11 year solar cycle! Further evidence of ignoring evidence can be seen in how this article gets distributed. The one most people see is this one:
    http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/39/39_1/GeoMag.htm
    But, it does not contain the data that shows the increase of the total energy - you have to go to the PDF version - which preserves all the original article as can be seen here:
    http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/39/39_1/GeoMag-Prn.pdf
    There is no hint in the former article of entire sections not being present.

    Earth's slowing rotation/leap second correction:
    Atomic clocks, which have for the last 22 years measured the earth's spin rate to the nearest billionth of a second, have consistently found that the earth is slowing down at a rate of almost one second per year. If the Earth were billions of years old, it's initial spin rate would have been fantastically too rapid.

    Rebuttal: The slowing rotation and leap second are two separate issues. The mistake is assuming them to be related. There are 2 variations going on (periodic and secular). In any case the true "spin down" rate is not 1 second per year - but .0015 per century! The confusion mainly arises from the failure to realize that one second as defined by the rotation of the earth is not the same as one second as defined by atomic clocks... There is a periodic correction, but it has nothing to do with the Earth's rotation slowing down. The leap second is merely a convenient device for keeping the two timescales always within 0.9 seconds of each other. Here is an quote/admission by young earth astronomer Danny Faulkner:
    

    "The earth's rotation is slowing at the rate of 0.0017 seconds per century. What that means is that a hundred years ago the day was 0.0017 seconds shorter than today. This is called a secular change because it changes at a fixed rate for a very long time. Superimposed on top of this is the periodic change, much larger variations that change in magnitude and sign over much shorter time scales than the secular change does. The periodic and secular time variations have nothing to do with each other. The atomic clock measurements that necessitate leap seconds every 18 months or so measure the periodic variations. The secular change is much more difficult to detect and must be deduced by other means. Much of the criticism offered by our critic here is correct. Many people apparently don't know that there is a difference between the periodic and secular changes. Extrapolating the secular change into the past does not produce a problem for an old earth."

    If you still have any doubt or really want to dig into this further, read about it at the US Naval observatory at: http://maia.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html

    Continental erosion rate:
    Erosion measurements are around .05 mm per year. This rate implies the continents (averaging about 800 meters high) would have completely disappeared after about 16 million years.

    Rebuttal: Failure to recognize that lava flows, continental and coral reef buildup, and uplift from plate tectonics are occurring at rates equivalent to, and in some cases exceeding, the erosion rate - for example the Himalayas are rising by 15 mm per year.

    Mountain Uplift Rate:
    The claim is that Earth's mountains should be taller if the current rate of plate tectonic uplift has been maintained over long periods of time.

    Rebuttal: Can you believe it? They argue both sides of this equation. Either it should wear down or build up right? Well thankfully these 2 opposing forces are designed to operate in basically a state of equilibrium - the existence of both sides of this argument is a testament to that fact. Only momentarily does one overtake the other, and its scope when it does is geographically limited.

    Lack of ocean floor sedimentation buildup:
    This claim is based on perceived lack of ocean floor sedimentation buildup if the earth is billions of years old. It allegedly only allows for an earth age of about 30 million years.

    Rebuttal: Fails to recognize periodic recycling of the ocean floor. This happens through ocean floor spreading, plate tectonics, and subduction.
    
    But more importantly, there is a curious fact YEC's do not talk about... They ironically point to a alleged lack of sediment in the oceans - not realizing they themselves need it to be much thicker! Why? This is because they believe that the flood is what is responsible for the Earth's geologic strata and fossils. They simultaneously also believe the oceans sediment is formed by erosional debris washing in from off the continents. Here's the problem - the sediment thickness on the continents is 5 times thicker (on average) than it is in the ocean basins. If all (or even most) of the Earth's sedimentary deposits is the result of a world wide catastrophic flood there should be a much thicker sedimentary deposit on the ocean floor. To prove this to yourself: place a few bricks randomly spaced in a children's play pool, now place several pounds of soil carefully on the bricks, now pour water over the bricks until they are fully covered, finally stir vigorously.... can you guess where the dirt will be the thickest when it settles out???

    River delta buildup rates:
    An attempt to assert that due to their small size the main river deltas cannot be very old. Their primary example is the Mississippi delta.

    Rebuttal: Failure to recognize that they are only evaluating the top most layer of the delta that still "looks" like a delta. In actuality the Mississippi delta is about 7 miles thick and covers much of the south central U.S.

    Rapid layering deposits at Mount Saint Helens:
    Mount Saint Helens is being touted as proof that all geologic formations can happen very rapidly. They use it to shoot down the straw man of "uniformitarianism". They tout "their" theory of catastrophisim as superior in explaining the earth's geologic formations.

    Rebuttal: There is a MAJOR problem with the flood laying down all the strata in the geologic column. How do footprints get preserved in layer after layer of sedimentary rock that is supposedly formed out of soupy sediments in suspension? The main mistake here is the assumption that scientists claim all geologic formations happen linearly and uniformly over time. Young earthers did not invent the idea of catastrophism, scientists are very aware of it. The difference is they recognize that many catastrophes have happened in the earth's long history (i.e. floods, fires, landslides, volcano eruptions, meteorite and comet impacts etc.). The young earther's definition of catastrophisim is the single event of the Biblical flood. However, there are many formations that can ONLY happen uniformly over time. The best example are coral atolls. They grow only very slowly (maximum of about 8 mm per year) with around a 100 ft or less water depth. Some coral atolls have been found thousands of feet thick sitting atop extinct volcanoes! Some have even been found miles thick -such as the Great Bahama Bank!

    Trees found growing up through millions of years of supposed deposition:
    Trees have been found complete with root systems growing through what geologists claim took millions of years to form.

    Rebuttal: Failure to recognize how coal seams from. Coal is usually formed from peat that develops in bogs and swamps. Trees exist today with their bases and root systems buried in swamps and bogs. Should we really be surprised to find an upright tree in a coal seam? As to the "millions of years of sedimentation" Well, that depends upon what kind of layer it is. For example it takes much longer to form limestone than coal. What this means is that the tree trunk found cutting through that depth of deposition would have been millions of years of sedimentation if it was not coal!

    Human skulls and artifacts found in coal seams:
    Human remains and tools have been found in coal thought to be millions of years old. Since modern man is found in this coal complete with tools - the coal formation must not be that old.

    Rebuttal: There has been some fraud here but there is also a failure to recognize that man has been mining coal seams for thousands of years. So should we really be surprised that human remains and artifacts have been found in coal? All the legitimate finds are the result of modern man being caught in a cave-in.

    Famous human foot prints next to dinosaur tracks:
    Human footprints have been found next to dinosaur tracks - therefore the dinosaurs were coexisting with man and further the dinosaur "age" is not millions of years ago.

    Rebuttal: These famous tracks and prints were discovered in the Paluxy Riverbed near Glen Rose, Texas. Initially one of these tracks "looked" human like (they were too far apart though). It turns out, the "human" prints were only beginning to be exposed by the elements - further erosion revealed that they too were dinosaur tracks! The evidence is so conclusive, that most Christian articles and videos talking about these tracks have been removed from circulation. Some though still cling to this now disproved story.

    Parentless polonium radiohalos in primordial rocks:
    This is one of those that is usually stated in VERY technical terms. Radiohalos are small disruptions in a mineral's crystalline structure caused by the radioactive decay of an element within the crystal. The identity of the decaying element can be determined. Dr. Robert Gentry allegedly discovered polonium radiohalos in primordial rocks but no radiohalos from the expected parent uranium element. His conclusion being that the rocks in question were created instantaneously, with the polonium already in place, explaining why no evidence of the expected parent uranium decay is present. This plays into the appearance of age theory.

    Rebuttal: It has now come to light that some, if not all, Dr. Gentry's samples came not from primordial rocks as he asserted, but from much younger rocks - hence there must be another explanation. There are methods that can explain the radiohalos - such as hole diffusion. The final straw comes from a paper critical of Dr. Gentry's methods of the radiohalo research from fellow YOUNG EARTH creation scientist Kurt Wise!

    The young sun argument:
    Prior to our understanding of nuclear energy, the only explanation scientists could come up with for the sun's energy was gravitational contraction. If this was indeed what powered the sun, more than 100 million years ago the sun would have been larger than the earth's orbit! Further evidence came from "some" measurements that seemed to indicate a small decrease in the suns diameter.

    Rebuttal: From what we now know about nuclear reactions, the temperature and pressure inside a collapsing sun would ignite nuclear fusion (nuclear energy power is therefore unavoidable). The idea of a sun decreasing in diameter has been completely disproved by the much more precise measurements of Barry LaBonte and Robert Howard. If you still have any doubts, the sun's temperature, luminosity, spectral line emissions, radius, and mass, all dictate an energy source through converting hydrogen into helium (nuclear fusion) for about 5 billion years. It further indicates that this fusion should proceed for about another 5 billion years. This is very good science firmly rooted in physics... Remember we have nuclear reactors on the Earth now!

    Dust on the moon:
    Measurements on Mount Mauna Loa (Hawaii) indicate 14 million tons of material coming onto the earth from space per year. If this held true for the moon, and it's 4 billion years old, there should be 145 feet of dust on the moon, and there is only 2.5 inches of dust on the moon. This seemed to indicate an age restriction on the moon of about 6 million years.

    Rebuttal: These measurements were crude and did not account for material ejected into the atmosphere by volcanoes and wind. Hans Petersson (the geophysicist who made the measurements) warned of possible errors and assumptions himself. More precise measurements have now been made by satellites and subsequently have revised the figure to 23 thousand tons (from 14 million). They also measured the amount falling onto the moon directly - 11 thousand tons per year. This translates to 1.2 inches of dust for a 4.5 billion-year-old moon. The additional material has been deposited there by large meteorites as proved by the large craters we see there today.

    Lunar recession rate:
    The moon is receding from us. If you extrapolate the data backwards in time... The moon would have been in contact with the Earth no more than 2 billion years ago!

    Rebuttal: This argument makes several mistakes.
    1. Assumes a "uniformatarionistic" recession rate - Do orbits decay at a steady rate? No.
    2. Ignores data that dates the moon as younger than the Earth.
    3. Allows for a Earth Moon system many orders of magnitude older than they believe in!.
    4. Science actually expects this. The prevailing theory for the moons orbit is a collision event in the distant past!

    Persistence of comets:
    Comets burn up after several dozen revolutions around the sun - since we still have them, the universe's age must be within the "thousands" of years.

    Rebuttal: The data to support this is flawed and 30 years old! We now know that many comets have orbital periods in the thousands and even millions of years. Some will never return, as they don't even orbit the sun!

    YEC follow-up: What about short term comets (comets that take less than 200 years to orbit the Sun) there is no continuing source for these objects.

    Old earth reaffirmation: Please be aware that the existence of the Kuiper Belt has been confirmed. Why is this significant? Because scientists proposed that a belt of objects existed beyond the orbit of Neptune from 30 AU extending to roughly 100 AU (AU is astronomical unit - the earth sun distance, or 93 million miles) as just one continuing source for short period comets. The belt has long been criticized as myth by young earth creationists. Much to their dismay - the first KBO (Kuiper Belt Object) was discovered in 1992. They have since been recorded by the hundreds! Thousands are expected to be discovered - and their numbers probably extend to into the millions or beyond.

    Galaxy cluster distribution:
    In order for stars in a cluster to remain together, the overall gravity of the system must be strong enough to overcome the velocities of the individual stars within the cluster. If the gravity is too weak, the cluster will drift apart. Creationists have misapplied these calculations to galaxy clusters (not star clusters). The calculations show that the distance between galaxies in galaxy clusters indicate an age something less than 1 billion years.

    Rebuttal: These calculations are for star clusters only. They only apply to "point sources", a "point source" being something too small to measure (from earth). These calculations mean nothing when applied to galaxy clusters. Galaxies are not "point sources" (their diameters are very measurable). These calculations further assume that all the matter within the cluster is visible, nonetheless, when the calculations are applied properly to star clusters, they indicate ages for star clusters in the billions of years.

    Persistence of spiral galaxies:
    Scientific theories and calculations show that spiral structure within galaxies should "smear out" within 5 rotations. And since these rotations only take several hundred million years each - the universe must be less than 2 billion years old!

    Rebuttal: Wow where do you start! The most curious fact is that it allows for almost 2 billion years! Second, MOST galaxies are not spirals - many have indeed "smeared out". And most importantly, it ignores ongoing star formation, which will continue the spiral structure.

    Supernova remnants:
    If the universe is billions of years old... we should see many more supernova remnants. Since we do not see all the expected supernova remnants the universe must be young.

    Rebuttal: I am amazed that the YEC community puts so much stock in this, it is one of their "biggies". For starters - let's consider that stellar burning is VERY well understood - the process that makes a supernova takes at a MINIMUM millions of years. So the mere fact that we have ANY supernova destroys the entire concept of a young universe! The information that YECs use for this argument is also dated... indeed many more supernova remnants are being discovered. Dozens have been recently discovered in the Large and Small Megellanic cloud galaxies. It should also be noted that supernova remnants are VERY difficult to detect - by definition these are exploded stars. Therefore, the central star is often invisible - and since the gas cloud (remnant) is not being strongly illuminated by a star - it's obviously difficult to see. Further this faint gas cloud is ever expanding which makes it even more difficult to detect as they blend in with the general background of ionized oxygen clouds etc. The bottom line - astronomers are not at all puzzled over an alleged supernova remnant deficiency.

    Notes:

    1. These are the main scientific arguments for a young earth. No young earth argument has withstood scientific scrutiny.
    2. Science is a process of discovery, and going where the data/evidence leads you. Pseudoscience is a process of collecting evidence to support something. True science tests a theory by seeing if it fits the available data; and if it doesn't the theory will be discarded or modified accordingly. Pseudoscience turns this on it's head by testing data to see if it fits the preconceived theory - if it does not, it is the data (and not the theory) that will be discarded or modified. Most unfortunately, "creation science" is the most blatant example of pseudoscience. All of the creation "scientists" are well aware of abundant data that does not fit their theories, they discard, ignore, and certainly do not promote the abundant evidence that contradicts their theories. This is a terrible situation, as I believe there is indeed a tremendous need for "creation science" but it's almost too late for this term to have ANY real meaning.
    3. Ironically just like with evolution, young earthers themselves use methods they supposedly denounce in arguing for a young earth. Namely they use "uniformitarianistic" methods as is obvious in the following arguments from above: Earth's magnetic field decay, Continental erosion rate, Lack of ocean floor sedimentation buildup, The young sun argument, Dust on the moon, Persistence of comets, etc. They consistently accept anything that supports their view... while denouncing anything that opposes it. Total lack of credibility is the result.
    4. Almost all of the young earth arguments put the upper limit within the millions to over a billion years... a far cry from the mere 10,000 (or less) years they hope to prove.
    5. Almost all of the alleged science facts (tests, data etc.) here are old and outdated.
    6. All of the "alleged" proofs are convincing old earth arguments once corrected.
    
    
    

  • Alleged Biblical proofs for young earth :

    While I do not hold this belief, I want to be honest and point out that some verses at least at first glance seem to indicate a young earth. I would also like to point out that I do not shy away from the other sides best evidence - I meet it and deal with it head on. I think you will fond below any argument you have ever heard for a young earth. If you feel you have one that has not been dealt with - contact me via the e-mail link at the end and I will add it to the list.

    The Genesis 1 creation account itself:
    A plain reading of Genesis chapter 1 arguably means literal days. Based on this they assume Ussher's chronology is basically correct.

    Rebuttal: The flexibility of the Hebrew word for day. There are numerous instances where the Hebrew word for day DOES NOT mean a literal 24-hr day. See the entire section Those infamous days:

    The use of the Hebrew expression "evening and morning" in Genesis 1 forces the twenty-four-hour interpretation:
    Since it specifically states an evening and a morning, these must be regular solar days.

    Rebuttal: Let's look at this logically... Sunrise and sunset are visual experiences. No one was here to see (visualize) the creation except God himself. For someone to see or experience night or day (evening and morning) requires that an observer be in a fixed position on the earth. God is not fixed in time or space. His sunrise is perpetual, just as His sunset is perpetual. He sees the earth continuously half in darkness - half in light - at the same time. It is also highly unlikely that even solar days were 24 hours in duration at the time of the creation. The days were probably longer (as the earth got up to speed). It is noteworthy that Genesis records that the Sun, Moon, and stars were not appointed to be time keepers until the fourth day. Further, you can't pick just any one place on the earth, and apply the "evening and morning" routine to get 12-hrs of each - and then use that for six 24-hour days. Look at Alaska, places there have 6 months of daylight and 6 months of night (so much for two 12-hr periods making up days). If that were not enough, the amount of light and dark is totally dependent on your latitude (distance from the equator). It even changes throughout the year (hence daylight savings time). The longest day is around June 22 for us (in the northern hemi-sphere). There have even been humans who have witnessed light and darkness on the earth at the same time - astronauts have witnessed many evenings and mornings (in less than 24-hrs) while orbiting the earth. See how silly the light/dark 24-hour thing is? It's all relative.

    On a purely scientific note... we also know thanks to Einstein, that time itself is not absolute - but variable. Time does not pass at the same rate everywhere in the universe. It is dependent on your motion, and proximity (or lack of it) to a large gravity source. I know this is a difficult concept - but this (relativity) is now the most tested, and proved theory in existence. For us to force our concept of time on the creator is shear arrogance.

    Evening to morning itself does not dictate 24 hours - it's only 12 hours. It would require an evening to an evening - think about it!

    Now, let's consider it Biblically.
    
    Some young earth organizations claim that there is some biblical Hebrew rule that states occurrences of yom with the words "evening" or "morning" outside Genesis 1 always refers to 24-hour days.
    
    In fact, AiG has said the following in print:
    
    

    "Outside Genesis 1, yom is used with the word ‘evening’ or ‘morning’ 23 times. ‘Evening’ and ‘morning’ appear in association, but without yom, 38 times. All 61 times the text refers to an ordinary day—why would Genesis 1 be the exception?"
    
    Source: AiG Internet article Did God really take six days? http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/answersbook/sixdays2.asp
    

    
    Rebuttal: They are wrong on multiple fronts... First. there are 41 verses (not 23) outside Genesis 1 in which yom is used in combination with either "evening" or "morning" (or both). Is there a reason they left out some occurrences... I think so, as we shall see.
    
    There is another common Bible study concept like the former one we looked at (the reference frame of the observer) - it's to let scripture interpret scripture. Let's apply this. Just like the Hebrew word for "day" ("yom"), the Hebrew words for "evening" and "morning" ("erev" and "boqer") both have very flexible definitions and uses. Moses is the author of Genesis... If we had no other example of Moses' language, and his concept of God's time, this passage might be taken as evidence for a 24-hr creative day, however, we have Scriptural evidence that Moses made a explicit and very significant distinction between God's time and man's time.

    Consider Psalm 90:4 (written by Moses)
    "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night."

    Here Moses is telling us just like in 2 Peter 3:8 that God's time passes much more slowly than ours.

    Consider Psalm 90:6 (written by Moses)
    "In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth."

    Here Moses is making an analogy of us to grass... it clearly does not imply a 24-hr day. Morning refers to a period of growth... where evening refers to a period of death.

    Consider Psalm 90:14 (written by Moses)
    "O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days."

    The English word "early" in this verse is the same Hebrew word "boqer" used for "morning" in Genesis 1... it can also clearly be seen that "boqer" has a meaning, which cannot be tied to a 24-hr day.

    As you can see from these last 2 verses a better general translation for the Hebrew words "erev" and "boqer" would be "begin(ing)" and "end(ing)".
    
    What is more important is that outside Genesis 1, yom occurs only 4 times in combination with both Hebrew words for "evening" and "morning." The actual word order of "evening" followed by "morning" in combination with yom (as seen in Genesis 1) occurs only once outside Genesis 1. It is highly ironic that this only other identical useage defines yom as a period of time at least 3000 years long!
    
    Consider Dan 8:26
    "And the vision of the evening and the morning which was told is true: wherefore shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days."
    
    Conclusion: This claim is completely false.
    
    Note: The verses that mention day/yom that are 24 hours in length are referring to man's activity - while the verses that mention God's activity are usually much much longer.. as in Day of the Lord etc. Genesis (the creation account) is a record of God's activity - not man's.

    Yom with a ordinal (number) always refers to 24 hour days:
    I have seen many YECs lay claim to this argument, AiG has made it in print in the same article mentioned above.

    "Outside Genesis 1, yom is used with a number 410 times, and each time it means an ordinary day—why would Genesis 1 be the exception?" Source: AiG Internet article Did God really take six days? http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/answersbook/sixdays2.asp

    
    Rebuttal: First I think it's worth noting that they limit the comparisons to outside Genesis... Is there an example of this phrase within the Genesis text itself? Yes, there is - and it does not support their claim.
    
    In Genesis 29:20, the Hebrew phrase "echad yom" (the same phrase translated as "day one" in Genesis 1) here refers to a period of seven years that Jacob served Laban to obtain Rachel.
    
    Another example of the Hebrew phrase is In 1 Samuel 17:1, where David says "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul" I don't think David was expecting to die in exactly 24 hours, in fact, David was never killed by Saul, but died of old age many decades later.
    
    Yet another example that breaks their "rule" can be found in Daniel 11:20, where there is a prophecy fortelling the demise of the ruler of the Syrian kingdom (Seleucus). There Daniel says "within a few days (echad yom) shall be destroyed" refering to his reign. The reign of Seleucus actually continued for 12 years, while not a great reign it is certainly longer than 24 hours.
    
    There are also passages where "echad yom" refers to a "Day of the Lord" - which is a period of time usually interpreted as being seven years in length.
    
    Even more examples where the phrase is clearly longer than 24 hours include the following: Zechariah 3:9-10, Zechariah 14:7-8, Hosea 6:2.
    
    Conclusion: Clearly the claim that yom with a ordinal (echad yom) always refers to a period of 24 hours has been proven to be false.

    If creation transpired over a long period of time, other biblical Hebrew words would have been used.
    YECs claim that other biblical Hebrew words (such as olam or qedem) could have been used to designate a long period of time.
    
    Here again, AiG has made the claim in print (in the same article mentioned above).

    "There are words in biblical Hebrew (such as olam or qedem) that are very suitable for communicating long periods of time, or indefinite time, but none of these words are used in Genesis 1. http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/answersbook/sixdays2.asp

    Rebuttal: This argument is quite weak. The first occurences of these words actually occur in Genesis and they convey the meaning of "eterity", "everlasting", or "east" - not a long period of time.
    
    Olam and qedem were not used in biblical Hebrew to represent long periods of time. Olam is almost always translated as "eternity" "eternal" or "forever" in ancient Hebrew. Qedem has the usual meaning of "east." Alternatively, it has the meaning of "before", "old", "eternal", or "past". Neither of these terms was used to represent a period of time in biblical Hebrew.
    
    I think it is quite telling that the YECs never give any biblical examples where "olam" or "qedem" are used to indicate periods of time. If there were such examples they certainly would quote them. The fact is that all usages of these words refer to something other than a period of time.
    
    The biblical word "olam" is used in terms of eternity - often refering to God himself. Here are just some examples: Genesis, 3:22, Genesis 21:33, Daniel 12:2, Psalm 90:2, Psalm 100:5, Isiah 40:28,etc.
    
    The biblical word "qedem" is used primarily as a compass direction (east). In fact, it is used a total of 10 times in Genesis and means "east" every time. Here are some examples: Genesis 2:8, Genesis 3:24, Genesis 10:30, Genesis 11:2, Genesis 12:8, Genesis 13:11, Exodus 27:13, Exodus 38:13, etc.
    The biblical word "qedem" is also used as eternal as can be seen in Moses's book of Deuteronomy chapter 33 verse 27.
    
    Conclusion: As we have seen - "olam" and "qedem" were not used in biblical Hebrew for a period of time. Moreover, these words are actually used in Genesis itself and do not support the claim. This is especially true in that one of the key guides to interpretation is that the first occurrence of the word sets the usual meaning... in the case of both of these words it is clear that the first occurrence does not support the claim. So this claim too is proven to be false.

    Jesus declares that marriage began at the beginning of the creation
    The argument is made that Mark 10:6 says that God created male and female humans at the beginning of the creation. Here is Mark 10:6

    "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female."

    Rebuttal: If you read Genesis 1 carefully, you will find it states quite clearly that mankind was not created at the beginning of creation, but at the end - during the end of the sixth day. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So did Jesus forget how creation unfolded?
    
    YECs like to attack progressive creation, as if it were not biblical. The fact is that now matter whether you fall into the YEC or OEC camp it is clear that God created progressively. He created in a stepwise fasion across a span of 6 "days" - he did not create everything instantaneously.
    
    There is a simple explanation for this verse. For starters you will notice that the verse is never quoted in a broader context (i.e. Mark 10:2-9). Why do you think this is so? Because you will discover in the context that the subject Jesus is talking about is marriage - not creation. The Greek word, ktisis, translated "creation" has several other translations.
    
    In the King James it is also translated as building, creature, and ordinance.
    
    In the NAS it is also translated as created thing, creature, and institution.
    
    Jesus is simply explaining that the institution of marriage was commanded from the beginning of the very first man or woman. The intended meaning would more closely follow creature, created thing, or ordinance, or institution - as Jesus is speaking to the institution of marriage for mankind. It makes no sense to translate the word "creation," since it makes the statement of Jesus false. Alternately, you could interpret it as speaking of the beginning of [their] creation. In any case, this verse has nothing to say regarding the age of creation - but a lot to say regarding the institution of marriage. Those who insist that it does speak of the creation of the earth and universe - make Jesus into a liar.
    
    You can look up the Greek word "ktisis" on an on-line lexicon here http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=2937
    
    Conclusion: The idea of Mark 10:6 supporting a young earth is false.

    The Exodus 20:9-11 (the 10 Commandments) reference back to creation:
    Since God mentions the creation "days" and our six days of work here, it proves creation was in 24-hour days.

    "Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

    Rebuttal: This still does not prove that God's days are our days. We have already seen how Moses explicitly explained to us the difference between His time and ours. Further the Bible itself (again in verses written by Moses) speaks of the Sabbath in terms of a whole year. Consider Leviticus 25:3-4 " Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard." Here we see what the Sabbath period of rest would be for a crop!
    
    Here is another angle: The rigid 6-24 hour "day" creation week equivalence with the sabbath commandment ignores analogy, forshadowing, and commemoration. It misinterprets the parallel being drawn in Exodus. A very important passage to consider here is Hebrews 10:1, which, refers back to "the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things" here Hebrews is specifically talking about the Levitical sacrifices and how their entire purpose was to signify and foreshadow the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. The same truth applies to countless other aspects of the Old Testament. The Passover ritual is a foreshadowing of the Lord's Supper and of Christ's atonement on the cross, the Feast of Tabernacles is a commemoration of the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness, and there are other examples. In the same way, the week and the Sabbath day are not meant to be exact reproductions of the Creation Week but commemorations of it. The 144 hours in a week do not mean that God created the world in only 144 hours, any more than the 8 days of the Feast of Tabernacles mean that Israel wandered in the wilderness for only 8 days - in fact, the Bible says it was 40 years! One might say "well that doesn't apply to the sabbath" My response is that proof that the sabbath is not immune to analogy was just looked at above... recall again the passage above (Leviticus 25) where the Creation Week is further commemorated in a Sabbath year to be observed every seven years (v.3-4), and in a Jubilee year to be celebrated after every seven Sabbath (50) years! (v.8-10). So, just as Leviticus 25 does not show that the Creation Week was 7 years (or 50 years) long, so Exodus 20:11 does not show that it was 144 hours. The important thing about the sabbath is not its length - but its meaning. It represents a pattern of six-and-one as a constant memorial of God's Creation.
    
    So why do we have the analogy? I believe the reason for the commandment (and its refering back to creation) is that God wanted US to have a 7 day work week, it doesn't mandate or dictate that He experience 7 of our Sun based days while He is in the act of creating the very universe (including the and Sun) within which we will experience them! It's His creation, how could His creation dictate the length of said creation? It's the analogy that's important. Under this concept, it really doesn't matter if it was 6 rotations of the earth, 6 long ages, or even 6 literary frameworks. Any one of these accomplishes the purpose for it being broken up that way. Of course, for us human beings, the 7 day week makes perfect sense - because the moon goes round in about 28 days. The lunar month can be broken into 14 days (too long) or 7 days (perfect), or 4 days (too short), or 2 days (way too short) between rests... it doesn't divide by any other numbers. There is no inherent reason to break creation into 7 individual segments (periods/"days") except to serve as an analogy for OUR sake.
    
    One final comment on this one. The young earthers are also not being consistient with their literal reading of the ten commandments... for just a couple of commandments earlier in reference to any who make a graven image/idol (Exodus 20:4-6) it speaks of God visiting the sin of the fathers of those that do so unto the third and fourth generations, but will also show love to a thousand generations of those that love Him and keep His commandments. The point being that a literal 1,000 generations is not in keeping with a young earth scenario... so much for their claim of letting the Bible speak "literally" for itself.

    The Bible says the sun and moon were not created until the 4th day:
    The point being that it blows a Big Bang scenario out of the water, as God created the earth first, then the other heavenly bodies.

    Rebuttal: Actually this poses far more problems for a young earth than it solves. Some of which should be obvious, such as how did life exist without it? How did you have 24-hr solar days? Actually the original Hebrew in Genesis is a help here... consider Genesis 1:16 "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also." The Hebrew word for "and made" the verb "asah" would better translate to "Now God had made..." as opposed to the simple past tense "And God made...". This hints to their prior creation. Remember that God created "light" during the first "day". The best explanation being they merely became clearly visible and received their assignment as timekeepers on the 4th day.

    Further, most young earth creationists fail to recognize that their order of events in Genesis actually contradicts the Bible's own statements concerning the creation's order of events. Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew says: "In beginning [there is no Hebrew article] God created the heavens [a dual noun in Hebrew] and the earth." The fact that the heavens and earth were created in verse one is inescapable in the text itself... for if the earth is not created in Genesis 1:1 - then the origin of planet earth is never discussed. Note that in verse two - earth not only exists... but already is covered by water and is shrouded in darkness.

    The earth is not the only thing created in verse one. The heavens are also created. It is a firmly entrenched conclusion among most Biblical fundamentalists that Genesis 1:14-19 teaches that the sun, moon and stars were not created until the fourth "day" of creation. As a result, they postulate a light source that is utterly unrelated to the earth's required solar system. Scripture neither teaches nor allows this position. It also contradicts another major source of information in Scripture concerning the order of events during creation - namely Psalm 104:1-5
    
    "Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire: Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever."

    Let's actually read Genesis 1:1 again...
    

    "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

    There are a two different schools of thought on what these opening few words actually mean... One claims that it is a summary of the rest of the Genesis 1 creation account, the other claims it represents the first creative act of God. How can we tell which interpretation is correct? The answer is all too simple - read the next verse! When we look at Genesis 1:2 we see that it begins with the conjunction "and." This fact immediately tells us that Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 are part of one continuous statement. Here is Genesis 1:2
    

    "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

    So, is seems inexcapable that the text claims God created the heavens and earth on the first day - or alternately, prior to the first day. What do the heavens consist of? Stars, galaxies, etc. Actually, the Hebrew phrase translated "heaven and earth" is what is used to refer to the entire universe. This demosishes the claim that God created the earth first and that the rest of the heavenly bodies were created later. To accept otherwise is to say that God created "nothing" and the earth. If God had only created the earth, then Genesis 1:1 would say "In the beginning God created the earth."
    
    I would even argue that the order is significant. It says that God created the heavens and the earth. Think about how simple and logical this is... How could God create the Earth if there was not a place for it to exist? The Earth exists within the expanse of the heavens. If the overall heavens were not created first there would not be any environment for the earth to exist within.
    
    To really seal the fate of Genesis 1:1 simply being a summary - read Genesis 2:1 (the real summary):

    "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."

    If this were not enough - try this simple thought experiment using only simple logic. I don't think any reader will doubt that the earth's rotation provides for our day/night cycle - even in the context of a simplistic ultra literal interpretation of Genesis 1. That being the case, the universe including the Sun and Earth had to be created in Genesis 1:1. How so you ask? For if not, not only does the Sun not exist until the 4th day - but the earth is not created until the first 24 hour day! Remember in this scenario Genesis describes a day which begun with evening and proceeded on to morning as the earth allegedly rotates before the light. How could you possibly have a night/day cycle? How could earth rotate to produce the 24 hr day (demanded by young earth creationists) before it and the Sun existed? Both (and more) are required to provide the celestial mechanics needed to produce the 24hr/solar day. I hope I didn't loose you, here's the bottom line - It is impossible for the earth to be created in the solar day which its own rotation produced!

    It further contradicts Psalm 104 in verse 19 concerning what actually happened on the fourth "day" of creation (their mere appointment as time keepers).
    
    Psalm 104:19
    "He appointed the moon for seasons: the sun knoweth his going down."

    And my final argument against the Sun, Moon and stars being created on the 4th day would be an obvious contradiction with Job 38:1-7 which says:
    
    "Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
    
    This verse states that the angels shouted for joy along with the stars as God lay the foundations of the earth!

    The earth must be young; fowls (birds) are not in the order of the fossil record:

    Rebuttal: There are some errors in translation and interpretation that have caused some apparent discrepancies. The Hebrew word "op" translated as "fowls," really just means flying creatures which would include insects. "Flying creatures" or "flying insects" would have been a better translation and is consistent with the fossil record.

    Animal death:
    Young-earth creationists insist that there was no death of any kind prior to the "fall" (man's sin). The entire reason for this doctrine is that it places all death after man's sin. Why is that important to young earthers? It dates every creature in the fossil record to after the fall. This arms them with alleged Biblical proof that the earth is VERY young. As we shall see this concept of no death prior to the fall is indeed the "weakest of reeds".

    These are the 3 passages that are summoned on to support this doctrine:

    Romans 8:22
    "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."

    I don't see any backing for this belief here... do you?

    They also point out 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 - but leave out verses 20 and 23... for good reason - it kills the theory!

    1 Corinthians 15:20 "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept."
    
    1 Corinthians 15:21 "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead."
    1 Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
    
    1 Corinthians 15:23 "But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming."
    
    I don't think the animal kingdom will participate in the resurrection... do you?

    Romans 5:12
    "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"

    Hello? This is speaking of Adam's sin and how it passes to all men. There is no mention of all the rest of the creatures of creation (mammals, fish, birds, insects, plants, bacteria, virus etc). You may not have seen this verse quoted in its entirety before. Young earth creationists always stop the quote after the semi-colon; the second half of the verse depicting "all men" only, is always conveniently left out in their materials. This in my opinion is outright deception!

    Death was man's punishment for sin. Man was the only creature given the possibility of immortality by God. Viruses, bacteria, insects, plants, birds, fish, mammals, and our pets never had that possibility. To interpret this verse as implying no death of any creatures prior to man's sin is taking the verse further than it can go.

    The very fact that God created reproduction, argues strongly that death, at least for the animals and other lower life forms, was part of the creation. If reproduction was not designed to compensate for death, why not place all the creatures you wanted here and simply let them live forever!

    Most do not realize how awful it would be if there was no death of any creatures. Look at viruses, bacteria, molds, cockroaches, rats, rabbits, etc. If unchecked by death, they would cover the planet! How could you grow a garden for food... imagine bugs and rabbits everywhere... multiplying wildly... never dying... eating anything green that sprouted from the ground... mosquitoes with no predators literally sucking the blood right out of you - you couldn't survive!

    Do we really think that God created a world in which these creatures would continue to multiply endlessly? Obviously not, you cannot have creatures multiplying at an exponential rate - eventually you will run out of resources and the creatures will die. We need checks and balances in controlling species - in fact, they are evidence for design. It seems death had to be part of nature when Adam was created. Adam however, being God's crowning creation and created in His likeness, had the opportunity for immortality and would escape death - had He simply obeyed.

    Further, this passage probably refers to spiritual death rather than physical death anyway. Adam indeed did not physically die immediately after eating the forbidden fruit. He died spiritually immediately after eating the fruit. Not only that but it is insinuated that with ongoing access to the tree of life, Adam would have lived forever despite sin, this is why the way to the tree of life is blocked. See passage below.

    Genesis 3:22-24
    "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

    Let's look at the creation of vegetation in a little more detail... The Bible says (in Genesis 1:11) "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so." This is an implied reference to soil. It even mentions seeds. This depicts plant activity as we understand it today - with seeds being in soil, being watered, germinating, and growing into mature plants. What is "soil"... Does it not consist of many generations of dead and dying organisms??? Does not the presence of this soil itself require much time to form? I don't think you can invoke miracles here either because God clearly defers this activity to the Earth. Most miss this interesting point - that years are demanded here. The text specifically mentions fruit bearing trees. As anyone who has grown fruit trees knows - it takes years for them to mature and bear fruit. Not only that but what was it that Adam and Eve were both eating - and commanded not to eat... FRUIT!
    
    Regarding an initial vegetarian diet and the blissful conditions within Eden. It very well could be that Adam and Eve only ate green vegetation and it's fruit. And it even "could be" that there was no carnivorous activity in the garden. However, we can infer that this was not true outside the garden. For if conditions were the same outside the garden - it wouldn't constitute much punishment to be banished from it! I believe we can determine that the conditions were WAY different outside the garden. This is where Adam experiences thorns and thistles, he has to till the ground to get crops to grow now, and I think he probably sees some creatures that were not present in the garden... after all, do you think every creature on this planet was in the garden? For example, I don't think polar bears and penguins would have been very comfortable in a tropical garden. Neither would Adam have been very comfortable with a saber tooth tiger or T-rex running around!

    I have challenged many young earth creationists to site 1 Biblical verse that says there was no animal death prior to man's fall - I have yet to see one. I do however have one that I believe indicates there indeed was animal death prior to man's fall. Psalm 104 deals with creation, consider verse 21:
    
    "The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God."
    

    • Remember that Psalm 104 deals strictly with the subject of creation... and I don't think berries can be considered "prey", and you certainly wouldn't roar after them!

    Animals not dying... is this credible? Vegetarian predators... can you imagine a T-Rex eating berries? All the predatory animals with their fierce claws and fangs begging Eve to take the fruit so they could eat meat? What of sea life... there are not exactly fruit trees growing under the ocean! What did killer whales or sharks eat early on? I used to have elaborate aquarium setups... they require a very delicate death and decay cycle involving micro organisms to provide livable water. Not only that, but no creature can even drink water (from a natural source) without devouring millions to billions of microorganisms contained in even an ounce of water. What did Venus Flytrap plants do? What of creatures that deliver poison to stun or kill their prey... it's extremely difficult to even invision a non-predatory use for these capabilities - is it not? What of all the parasitic relationships (some of which are beneficial to their host)?

    There are only two resolutions to these creatures having characteristics designed for obvious predatory purposes.
    
    

    • One would be to appeal to God altering (indeed re-making) these creatures after the fall.
      I don't think this is a viable resolution. You would have God creating again after He was finished with creation - unless you want to invoke evolution! And why would God need to alter them at all? If all living creatures were created as herbivores, why would they have to be carnivourous after the Fall? The Fall only requires death, not carnivorous activity! It doesn't follow that just because creatures are now subject to death that they must now out of necessity start preying on one another.
      
      
    • The other would have God designing in these characteristics in anticipation of the Fall.
      This is also not a valid resolution - it essentially turns the YEC argument on it's head... If predatory behaviour is so cruel and evil as YECs claim, how could God design creatures with the charcteristics to inflict this cruel and evil result and call it good - as He did seven times in the first chapter of Genesis?
    
    
    So, for the YEC understanding of cruel and evil (by their standards) death and predation to be true, you are either faced with God creating these cruel and evil characteristics and pronouncing them "very good", or you have to have them created by God after he was finished - or worse, invoke full blown darwinian style evolution for creatures to evolve brand new instruments, instincts, and behavioural characteristics. I propose that it is much more satisfying from a theological as well as scientific standpoint to have them fully designed and in place prior to the fall - it's not "evil", it's just a necessary part of God's grand design for our world.
    
    Another point to ponder is this... If the YECs are correct and predation is the result of man's sin and it is passed on to all animals (which can't sin by the way) how do we explain animals that apparently seem to have escaped the fall then? What Do I mean by that? I mean what of the animals that do not have to live in fear of predators and themselves are herbivores - for example, what are we to think of creatures like the Koala bear? Is the Koala some kind of holy or righteous creature that has managed to escape the curse of the fall?
    

    It gets worse. What of non-predatory caused death like accidents? What if an animal fell from a cliff and died... would a buzzard ignore an easy steak dinner for berries? Or would the animal have been miraculously prevented from dying in the first palace - immortal and indestructible! Would every tiny creature (like brine shrimp) be prevented from being sucked up by whales combing the ocean for food (as they do)? I could go on and on here. How do we expect to be taken seriously with these crazy beliefs!

    Another issue to consider is... if animal death is so evil and against God's plans... why did He kill the first animals - and skin them?

    Consider Genesis 3:21
    "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them."

    Further, animal sacrifice is demanded throughout the Old Testament.

    How do Christians fall prey to this ludicrous belief? It basically comes down to a gut feeling, that God's creations devouring one another cannot be perfect! This is arrogance! Who are we - to be critics of God's creation?
    
    We are not aware of God's complete plan - nor can we comprehend it. One might as well ask why God created Satan/evil (Proverbs 16:4 "The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.") YECs who use this line of reasoning are not being consistent. These same Christians will point out how good can come from seeming tragedy. Like why God allows a Christian to develop and slowly die from a painful cancer, or the children of devout Christians to be born with a disease, deformity, etc. We are told to trust God's plan in such situations. Indeed, I can look back in some of my most troubled times, when I felt I was being persecuted and that God had forsaken me - when now, in the light of hindsight I can see where these times were life course altering events which put me on a better path. We should be reluctant to attribute God's great design and checks and balances in nature to man's sin! We are warned of such thinking.
    
    Consider Isaiah 55:8-9
    
    "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
    
    Consider Romans 9:19-20
    
    "Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?"
    
    You don't think you make judgments concerning God's creation? Do you think that EVERY creature is beautiful and perfect? You think so? What about; viper snakes, cock roaches, pigs, etc. What about every day things like going to the bathroom... is that in your eyes beautiful, aromatic, and perfect? And further, God never pronounces this creation perfect, just "good" and "very good". The new heaven and new earth will be perfect creation after his ongoing day of rest from his current creation (I will elaborate on this "rest" later).
    
    I also believe the view that animals killing one another is so terrible - is "new age" creep into Christianity. The new age liberals are the ones that are worried about every criminal's well being (against capital punishment), against any form of hunting or killing of ANY animal! After all, they think that each person and animal is God (or a god) - greatly and artificially elevating the meaningfulness of temporal life on this planet.
    
    Another way to look at this is that many Christians have adopted Alfred Lord Tennyson’s view of animal death. They have adopted his emotional Romantic (and evolutionary) notion of a revulsive “Nature, red in tooth and claw”. Another name for this (theologically) is "apparent evil" (mistakingly thinking they are seeing "true evil").
    
    Is this view biblical? Consider Job 38:39 where God glorifies Himself when He asks Job the rhetorical question: “Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions...?” Clearly, in context, God is saying, “I satisfy their hunger!” And He offers no apologies, and feigns no embarrassment.
    
    Remember too that the old Testament is pretty bloody! God himself commanded the slaughter of animals, men, women and children. We as a society have become squeamish - eating only prepackaged and processed foods. Most (myself included) would have a hard time fending for ourselves without Kroger's!
    

• Old Earth Evidence:

  • Scientific evidence for an old earth/creation :

    Geologic column:
    The geologic column reveals billions of years of earth history. There are many reasons you cannot explain it away with the flood. Consider just this one ... If the flood laid down all the strata in the geologic column, how do footprints get preserved in layer after layer of sedimentary rock that is supposedly formed out of soupy sediments in suspension?

    Young earth rebuttal: The geologic column is only found in text books - it's a figment of the imagination!

    Old earth reaffirmation: This is absolutely wrong! The entire geologic column is found in 25 basins around the world. These basins are:

    1. The Ghadames Basin in Libya
    2. The Beni Mellal Basin in Morrocco
    3. The Tunisian Basin in Tunisia
    4. The Oman Interior Basin in Oman
    5. The Western Desert Basin in Egypt
    6. The Adana Basin in Turkey
    7. The Iskenderun Basin in Turkey
    8. The Moesian Platform in Bulgaria
    9. The Carpathian Basin in Poland
    10. The Baltic Basin in the USSR
    11. The Yeniseiy-Khatanga Basin in the USSR
    12. The Farah Basin in Afghanistan
    13. The Helmand Basin in Afghanistan
    14. The Yazd-Kerman-Tabas Basin in Iran
    15. The Manhai-Subei Basin in China
    16. The Jiuxi Basin China
    17. The Tung t'in - Yuan Shui Basin China
    18. The Tarim Basin China
    19. The Szechwan Basin China
    20. The Yukon-Porcupine Province Alaska
    21. The Williston Basin in North Dakota
    22. The Tampico Embayment Mexico
    23. The Bogata Basin Colombia
    24. The Bonaparte Basin, Australia
    25. The Beaufort Sea Basin/McKenzie River Delta

    Here are the details of the column at the North Dakota site. The site has been drilled to 15,064 feet deep. The various horizons were encountered at the following depths (Fm=formation, Grp=Group, Lm=Limestone).

    • Tertiary Ft. Union Fm - 100 feet
    • Cretaceous Greenhorn Fm - 4910 feet
    • Cretaceous Mowry Fm - 5370 feet
    • Cretaceous Inyan Kara Fm - 5790 feet
    • Jurassic Rierdon Fm - 6690 feet
    • Triassic Spearfish Fm - 7325 feet
    • Permian Opeche Fm - 7740 feet
    • Pennsylvanian Amsden Fm - 7990 feet
    • Pennsylvanian Tyler Fm - 8245 feet
    • Mississippian Otter Fm - 8440 feet
    • Mississippian Kibbey Lm - 8780 feet
    • Mississippian Charles Fm - 8945 feet
    • Mississippian Mission Canyon Fm - 9775 feet
    • Mississippian Lodgepole Fm. - 10255 feet
    • Devonian Bakken Fm - 11085 feet
    • Devonian Birdbear Fm - 11340 feet
    • Devonian Duperow Fm - 11422 feet
    • Devonian Souris River Fm - 11832 feet
    • Devonian Dawson Bay Fm - 12089 feet
    • Devonian Prairie Fm - 12180 feet
    • Devonian Winnipegosis Grp - 12310 feet
    • Silurian Interlake Fm - 12539 feet
    • Ordovician Stonewall Fm - 13250 feet
    • Ordovician Red River Dolomite. - 13630 feet
    • Ordovician Winnipeg Grp - 14210 feet
    • Ordovician Black Island Fm - 14355 feet
    • Cambrian Deadwood Fm - 14445 feet
    • Precambrian - 14945 feet

    Source: Former young earth petroleum geologist Glenn Morton http://home.entouch.net/dmd/geo.htm

    Now to those who say: "Yes - but why is the entire column not found everywhere? And even at these sites, if the full extent of all the layers are added up it's much thicker than that." It should be rather obvious that all of the layers wouldn't be present in their entirety - or at all, in most locations. You have events (or series of events) that erases parts of a layer, an entire layer, many layers, and you have locations where layers never even formed! For example, it wouldn't be logical to have layers of limestone, formed from the bodies of marine creatures, present in an area that, at the time at which that layer was laid down, was part of a dry continent. It is more significant that even though some layers differ from place to place, there is no spot where you can find a modern fossil in an ancient layer or an ancient fossil in a modern layer. Therefore the layers differ from place to place due only to the conditions of that place at that time. It's very simple and logical.

    Here are some other interesting geologic column facts:

    • There is no known way the column could be the result of 1 event!
    • Not divided by hydrodynamic sorting (heavier or less buoyant objects at the bottom)
      In fact, species of virtually identical hydrodynamic characteristics are separated by many millions of years of sedimentation. Furthermore, the largest dinosaurs to exist are found at the very same level as the smallest to exist - And all of the dinosaurs are found far below all more recent species of animals regardless of any identifiable criteria! And if this were not enough - How do you explain the co-location of different parts of species like plants? Their pollen and trunks are almost invariably found at the same layer. How could a flood sort the pollen, trunk, and even leaves of plants so that they would always end up coexisting within the same layer of the geologic column? It is also particularly damaging that metallic man-made artifacts are not found at the very bottom. These obviously would not all have been carried to high ground by people frantically running from a flood, they certainly didn't run to high ground or otherwise struggle to tread water on their own, and would fall through water quicker than any organism - or more plausibly... simply stay put at the bottom. Contrary to any young earth scenario - These metallic objects are at the very top of the geologic column above virtually all fossils!
    • Not divided based on mobility
      If all the creatures in the fossil were deposited by the result of a world wide flood, you would expect that highly mobile creatures capable of evasion would be the last to perish - and as a result be at the top of the fossil record... this is not the case. Highly mobile creatures capable of reaching higher ground are found right alongside some of the least mobile. You would also expect all flying animals in particular to be at the very top - again this is not the case.
    • Periodic boring by creatures within the layers
    • Periodic foot print preservations
    • Periodic layers showing erosional features (indicating they were once at the surface)
    • Existence of deposits that take time to form (such as chalk and salt deposits hundreds of feet thick)
    • Not sorted by ecological zones (continental formations sandwiched by ocean deposits indicating the ocean came and went several times in history)

    Here are some young earth articles that attempt to explain away some old earth evidence buried within the geologic column - and actually do a good job of refuting themselves by highlighting their many problems and lack of evidence:

    Article from AIG with the title "Where are all the Human Fossils?". This article has some powerful admissions. Here is a partial powerful quote from the first sentence of the conclusion paragraph by Andrew Snelling: "As far as we are aware at the present time, there are no indisputable human fossils in the fossil record...". It's at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1136.asp

    Article from AIG with the title "Can Flood Geology Explain Thick Chalk Layers?". This article (also by Snelling) has some powerful admissions. It attempts to explain just chalk deposits within the context of a global flood but actually ends up refuting itself! It makes a few far out attempts to explain it but acknowledges the many many problems. If the concentrations of those organisms got to the levels Snelling promotes - there would be no sunlight in the water! The concentrations he cites do occur but its very localized and temporary - usually concentrations driven by wind. Also if you read this article, make sure to note how many times the word evolution is used, it's connotation (as a touch stone to incite anger and draw lines in the sand). See for yourself at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v8n1_chalk.asp

    Let's deal with another objection with the geologic column... Many young earth creationists point out that in places the geologic column is not in it's usual order, it appears to even be in reverse order. They then state this proves the column is not real.
    
    There's actually a VERY simple explanation. The reason it appears to be in reverse order - is because it's upside down! Why is it upside down? In some rare circumstances the earth's crust gets folded - this can be from volcanic activity, upheaval, landslides, etc. There is a particularly conclusive (and again, simple) proof for this - fossils that are always found laid down with a particular side up - creatures like; trilobites, footprints, fossilized cracks, raindrops, etc. Well in these reversed strata - they are all found upside down! So, it is the young earthers who are actually at a loss to explain upside down strata. This should really come as no surprise - they don't have an explanation when they are right side up!

    Over an over I see scientific gymnastics to attempt to explain why this or that can happen quickly? Why does everything look so old? Why does it take scientific gymnastics? Some of the best examples of why the young earth position is wrong is contained within their own writings!

    Fossils (to many):
    
    There are a vast multitude of fossilized creatures contained within the geologic layers of the earth. In a somewhat ironic twist, young earthers actually cite some of the more famous ones as evidence for the flood - such as the Karoo Formation in South Africa. This formation alone is estimated to contain the remains of 800 billion vertebrate creatures. This 800 billion figure is actually cited and promoted by YECs - including Henry Morris of ICR. What most YECs do not know is that considerable research has been done on the Karoo Formation - it has been determined the creatures there range in size from a small lizard, to that of a cow, with the average being the size of a fox.
    
    The problem is - If all the creatures from just the Karoo Formation could be resurrected at once, there would be 21 for every single acre of land on the entire earth! Assuming this single deposit only represents a mere 1 percent of the fossilized creatures (in all likelihood it represents less). Then the preflood world had to have 100 times this number per acre (over 2,000) - including large creatures like dinosaurs!
    
    Some YECs point out (rightly) that most fossils are marine in nature (the ones in the Karoo are not). They have been led to [falsely] assume that this resolves all problems with large numbers of fossils - as the average marine fossil is quite small. What they do not realize is that this only adds to their problem. Much of the sedimentary rock (that makes up the geologic column) contains or is completely comprised of fossils (like chalk and limestone) if one assumes that only one tenth of 1 percent of sedimentary rock contains marine fossils - these ALONE (if resurrected all at once) would cover the entire surface of the planet (land and oceans) to 1.5 feet. Keep in mind, these are just the marine fossils, we discussed just one class of primitive vertebrates above - they have to be added to this - along with all the other mammals, along with all the insects, and we haven't even addressed the vast vegetation fossilization (like vast coal deposits) - they have to be added too! Now bear in mind that everyone agrees that fossilization is a rare event... What this means is that if that all the life represented by the fossils was alive at once, (as purposed by YECs) it would completely bury the entire surface of the globe by even the most conservative numbers imaginable to over a MILE DEEP! Now let's go the extra mile and make an erroneous assumption and say that even this number is two orders of magnitude too high... It would still be too much life! How could you have all this biomass alive at once? Don't forget that not all land is equally habitable - for example, were there no deserts before the flood? Where in the "world" were all these creatures? What did they eat? Would they have not been wading through their own excrements! There are many constraints - like available; land, food, water, energy, etc.

    Earth's plate tectonic movement:
    

    If you grant that at least some present day continents were once connected - the rate of separation rate of a few cm per year dictate many millions of years for them to get to their present positions.

    YEC rebuttal: Baumgardner's "Catastrophic Plate Tectonic" or "Runaway Subduction" model explains this as a result of Noah's flood.

    Old earth reaffirmation: Once again the YEC "spin" has been to compress millions of years of activity into a single year - let's look at his model...
    
    Dr. Baumgardner is a respected scientist, and although his Fortran program "Terra" has proved useful, it's ultimately based on a computer program with a bunch of variables plugged in. When used properly it does contribute to real science. It will only produce results of rapid crustal motion if one inserts completely non-physical constants into the simulation. As anyone familiar with computer models knows - a computer model can be made to produce any result at all simply by changing the model inputs to produce the desired result.
    
    Essentially his model requires the pre-Flood lithosphere (read ocean floor), to be denser than the underlying mantle. This would cause the ocean floor to sink - the heat released in the process would decrease the viscosity of the mantle and start the runaway process.
    
    He claims; all the original lithosphere became subducted, rising magma replaced it, this raised the ocean floor, caused sea levels to rise, and boiled off enough of the ocean to cause 40-150 days of rain. Then, when everything cooled off, the ocean floor lowered again, and the flood waters receded. He further claims sedimentary mountains such as the Sierras and Andes all arose post flood via isostatic rebound.
    
    Baumgardner's model is NOT realistic - and he has admitted as much at the ICC (International Conference on Creationism) - you have to invoke miracles to get it to work.
    
    For example he uses properties of rock in terms of specific heat, thermal conduction, thermal gradients, tensile strength, shear strength, compressive failure, dynamic loading and mass density profiles that have NO relation to the actual values for these properties of basalt and granite (the two basic types of crustal rock). Some of the values he uses for these constants differ DRAMATICALLY from reality.
    
    If you doubt this let's review a few specifics.
    
    

    1. The time frame for the Flood requires an effective mantle viscosity [resistance to fluid flow] almost one billion times smaller than the estimated present viscosity.
    2. The short time scale for plate motion conflicts with the long time scale implied by radiometric dating, which requires all radioactive decay since the Cambrian [where the lowest major fossil bearing rocks appear] to have taken place since the beginning of the Flood. There are a host of other methods to show this age too - it is NOT limited to radiometric dating.
    3. The thermal diffusivity of the earth, would have to increase 10,000 fold to get the subduction rates proposed! Now some of you may be aware that Baumgardner has in the past rightly pointed out that lower values actually help the runaway process - but what he hasn't revealed is that this leads to invalid convection and conduction equations! In reality this would have the model producing results that are absolutely physically impossible!
    4. Closely related to the above is that he needs miracles to cool the new ocean floor! If you have low diffusivity values you would never get the cooling needed! Based on the normal rate at which rocks conduct heat, millions of years would be required for the cooling of the oceanic lithosphere from near the molten state to its current level. This remains an unresolved problem as Baumgardner even recognizes that enhanced cooling rates, as a consequence of hydrothermal circulation of ocean water through the lithospheric layer, is insufficient to solve this problem.
    5. Also closely related to 3 & 4 is that a much faster transfer of heat from the crust into oceans would produce a temperature for the ocean and atmosphere that is too hot for almost all life. The closer you come to solving problems 3 and 4 the more difficult 5 becomes!
    6. Also related is Baumgardner's own estimates of the release of 10 to the 28 joules of energy from the subduction process. This is more than enough to boil off all the oceans! There is NO WAY Noah could have survived an event anywhere near like this! Such a wholesale restructuring of the earth's topography, compressed into just a few months, would have produced tsunamis large enough to circle the earth and be orders of magnitude larger than any ship could survive - let alone one built without modern technology thousands of years ago.
    7. He needs to raise sedimentary mountains in months rather than in the millions of years it would ordinarily take.
    8. He requires volcanism on an extraordinary scale - to say the least. I don't think anyone has run the numbers of the amount of poisonous gas that would be emitted. Toxic gases emitted by such a volcanic outpouring would make the atmosphere completely unbreathable! Consider just one typical one - Hydrogen sulfide. H2S is a common emission and a VERY lethal toxic substance - even at relatively low concentration levels. Additionally, since this is a heavy gas - it would concentrate itself right at the earth's surface. Exposure to a concentration of only 300 PPM (parts per million) for a period of 30 minutes is enough to render a worker unconscious. Exposure to a 1,000 PPM concentration of H2S in air produces rapid paralysis of the respiratory system, cardiac arrest, and death within minutes.
    9. In addition to toxic substances - the debris in the earth's atmosphere alone would also cause intolerable problems for life.
    10. Why are most sediments on high ground? Most sediments are carried until the water slows down or stops. If the water stopped in the oceans, we should expect more sediments there. Baumgardner's own modeling shows that, during the Flood, currents would be faster over continents than over ocean basins, so sediments should, on the whole, be washed from the continents into the ocean basins. Yet sediments on the ocean basin average 0.6 km thick, while they average 2.6 km thick on continents! And if this rushing and washing took place - Where's the evidence? There should be tremendous evidence found worldwide!
    
    What is ironic is that plate tectonics is an effective and successful explanation for the geology of the Earth, and that plate tectonics is an observable and measurable phenomenon. For that reason, plate tectonics is a fact, based upon substantial evidence gleaned from observation and the historical records preserved in the rocks of the oceans and continents. It was not long ago that YECs denied plate tectonics and subduction in particular - some still do!
    
    The physical evidence does not support catastrophic plate tectonics. The oceanic crust was not formed instantly following a catastrophic event. There is no actual evidence for rapid massive world wide plate tectonics in the days of Noah and Baumgardner has admitted this. It is pure speculation in an attempt to explain his biblical and scientific speculation but the YEC tout this model as virtual fact!
    
    There is vast evidence along the coasts alone for many millennia of erosion that refute the YEC timeframe.
    
    If you doubt that Baumgardner has admitted to problems and do not have access to the references below - here are a few quotes.
    
    Regarding requiring miraculous cooling:
    "These observations all point to the need to remove large amounts of heat from extensive bodies of rock in the earth in order to account for the geological change proposed for the Flood. It is the author's conclusion that this cannot happen within the framework of time-invariant physics."
    Baumgardner, 1986, p. 21.
    
    Regarding high values for viscosity:
    "Since the constant viscosity treatment does not permit the viscosity reducing mechanism described earlier, a simulation was performed in which the viscosity for the whole mantle was set to a low value of 10^14 Pa-s."
    Baumgardner, 1986, p. 23
    
    Here is an all inclusive summary statement:
    "Finally, it seems evident that the Flood catastrophe cannot be understood or modeled in terms of time-invariant laws of nature. Intervention by God in the natural order during and after the catastrophe appears to be a logical necessity. Manifestations of the intervention appear to include an enhanced rate of nuclear decay during the event and a loss of thermal energy afterward."
    Baumgardner 1986, p. 24
    
    Here is another admission (as if he did not have enough problems) - his model apparently requires 20 million years to get runaway subduction going:
    "One difficulty in making a connection between these calculations and the Flood is their time scale. Some 2 x 10^7 years is needed before the instability occurs in the second calculation. Most of this time is involved with the accumulation of a large blob of cold, dense material at the barrier created by the phase transition at 600 km depth."
    Baumgardner 1994, p. 74
    
    References:
    
    
    1. "Numerical simulation of the large-scale tectonic changes accompanying the Flood"
       by Baumgardner, John R., Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, vol. II pp 17-30 1986.
    2. "Changes accompanying Noah's Flood"
       by Baumgardner, John R., Proceedings of the second international conference on creationism, vol. II, pp. 35-45 1990.
    3. "Computer Modeling of the Large-Scale Tectonics Associated with the Genesis Flood"
       by Baumgardner, John R., Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, pp. 49-62 1994.
    4. "Runaway Subduction as the Driving Mechanism for the Genesis Flood"
       by Baumgardner, John R., Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, p. 74 1994.
    
    For a good primer on plate tectonics - check out this US Geological Survey site at:
    http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/understanding.html

    Earth's magnetic field cycle:
    The earth's magnetic field goes through a pole reversal cycle. Numerous reversal cycles have been "caught" in rock layers around the world. The process itself takes about 10,000 years, but repeats about every 500,000 years. Again - remember that our Sun does this very thing every 11 years as part of the solar cycle!

    Ocean floor sedimentation buildup:
    Even though the currently measurable ocean floor buildup does not show a 4 billion year plus buildup (due to ocean floor recycling and spreading)... it certainly indicates age well into the millions of years.

    River delta buildups:
    The Mississippi delta is about 7 miles thick and covers much of the south central U.S. Clearly this shows incredible age.

    Stalactite/stalagmite formations in caves:
    These formations are formed by a very slow process of water percolating down and depositing calcium. You cannot accelerate this process with the flood or any other means. Increasing the water flow stops the formation - it kind of precipitates out through partial evaporation. Growth rates are seen to be pretty consistent - In the Carlsbad caverns for example the growth rate is 10cm per 1,000 years... This translates into a 3 meter stalactite taking 30,000 years to form! Clearly the massive structures that adorn our famous caves have taken many many times more than 6,000 years to form

    Young earth rebuttal: There are stalactites forming under man made concrete structures like bridges... Since they are built recently by man, there is clearly a way these can form rapidly.

    Old earth reaffirmation: This is another one that sounds very convincing at first blush to the layman, but does not hold up to just a little scrutiny. Many bridges are built using Portland cement (a man made substance rich in minerals that are water soluble). These minerals in the man made cement can leach out rapidly under the right conditions. This however, is an entirely different chemical process at work. The two are in no way even related. The real issue is there are NO formations occurring rapidly in nature through the calcium carbonate process. Oh, and here is another not so minor point that you NEVER see addressed by young earthers - what of the structures in huge places like the Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave? The point being, you need to allow time for the huge caves to form before you can even start on the formation contained within the cave! The caves took more time to form than the formations did. The Carlsbad Caverns were once solid calcium carbonate. They were slowly eaten out, little by little, by carbonic acid to create the cave structure you see today. Now for the real mind blower... the solid calcium carbonate the caverns was carved from itself also needs time to form. The more common name for the calcium carbonate it is eaten out from is limestone. The limestone itself takes much time to form as it is a sedimentary rock (meaning it is formed from the deposits of other erosional activity). To postulate that the limestone was deposited and hardened to allow the Carlsbad Caverns to be slowly eaten away, and only then, all the subsequent stalactite/stalagmite formations got to their present sizes - ALL in a few thousand years is beyond any and all scientific credulity!

    Grand Canyon:
    It's incredible erosion depth and layers worn by obvious water erosion in the red wall - where those particular layers were once on the earth's surface.

    Young earth rebuttal: Young Earthers claim that Mount Saint Helens proves that all geologic formations can happen rapidly! They point to the gorge cut out by lava and the layers that resemble the sedimentation that old Earth geologists claim took millions of years to form.

    Old earth reaffirmation: I have read much material on this, and I have the popular video by ICR's Steve Austin. The Mount Saint Helens data is GREATLY exaggerated. It is even implied that it can explain the geologic record at large! It is painfully inadequate in explaining even the Grand Canyon! There are not the same types of layers formed - not even close. There are no limestone deposits (made from marine fossils) like found at Grand Canyon. Neither are there other typical sedimentary layers like sandstone, or shale. Further, there are many layers within the Grand Canyon that show erosion (where they were once at the surface) - Mount Saint Helens does not show this. Neither do you get a host of organisms with greater and greater complexity stacked upon one another as you move up thorough the layers. There are no genuine fossils of animals within the recent layers either. It's not even a comparison. The main point it makes is on the catastrophic deposit of the trees and claims this is ground breaking news when in actuality scientists are well aware of catastrophic tree deposits within the geologic record. He further says that this not only explains the petrified forests of Yellowstone but explains the formation of coal. If this is true... Why are there no coal deposits at Yellowstone?

    Layers of salt evaporate deposits:
    These are recurring formations hundreds of feet thick, well beneath the earth's surface, covered by sedimentary rock.

    Coral reef structures:
    Miles thick structures that grow through a biological process that takes a VERY long time. There is no way to speed up this process - it's biological. It is a fragile delicate shallow water process that has each layer of coral growing on the dead skeletal remains of the prior generation. Typical growth rates are around 1mm per year with a maximum of about 8mm per year. Now consider that the Great Bahama Bank is 18,000 feet thick (over 3 miles)! It has been measured to grow at the miniscule rate of .25mm per year... Even if we apply the typical rate of 1mm per year (4 times the currently measured rate) it would take over 5 million years to form, And even if we apply the highest rates ever observed and keep that rate constant (against all logic) it would take over six hundred and twenty five thousand years to form. Oh, did I mention that the entire reef sits atop an ancient extinct volcano?

    Varves:
    Varves are alternating thin colored layers preserved in shale or limestone that form in fresh water lakes and rivers. Simply put these layers come in pairs representing the spring deposits in the first layer with the rest of the year represented in the second layer of the pair. These layers are typically 1mm thick and differ in color and content. The spring deposits can be distinguished by various pollens and such preserved within that layer, contrasted with the lack of those deposits contained in the second layer covering the rest of the year's deposits. These alternating layers are so reliable they can be used just like tree rings (annual rings in tree trunks). Now consider that the Green River varves in Colorado contain over 20 million of these annual deposit pairs! Repeating patterns have been identified at 11 year intervals at one end, all the way up to 26,000 year intervals at the other, representing the 11 year solar cycle and 26,000 year earth precession cycle (wobble of it's rotation) respectively. Radiometric dating has also been used to confirm the reliability of the annual varve deposits. This represents 3 independent means to cross check the varve indicator of age... The solar cycle, earth's precession, radiometric dating, and varves themselves are all in agreement. Contrary to YEC claims there are a great many indicators of age that are all in agreement with each other.

    Young earth rebuttal: The Varves are not annual deposits, but were created by the process of shallow turbidity currents during the flood and pose no proof of great age. Also, fish are found protruding through more than one layer and therefore these layers must have been laid down rapidly.

    Old earth reaffirmation: Turbity currents sound impressive and I have seen this material displayed (intentionally) in a very technical manner. What the YECs fail to tell their readers is that this phenomenon is almost exclusively limited to underwater landslides occurring in the ocean! Moreover, since they believe this activity occurred during the flood - it all has to take place during a single year. Why is this so devastating? Remember that there are over 20 million pair - that's 40 million layers. This means that for all of this to have happened in a year you need a deposition rate of about three layers every two seconds! Not only that but they have to happen in a perfect alternating light/dark fashion to simulate the seasonal deposits just like we see forming today. As for the fish fossils preserved in more than one layer - this is an extremely rare occurrence. By far, most fish fossils are contained within one layer. What is most important is that this process has been observed to be happening today. Rarely a fish is to big to be covered up completely by one layer and it will take two or possibly more to completely bury the remains. Since this can be seen to be happening today it would be rather foolish to demand that it happened differently in the past.

    Existence of coal:
    Coal can be found in many layers.... takes a long time to form... and is made of plants. Coal is a fossil fuel. Most coal is millions of years old. Diamonds also attest to this process.

    Young earth rebuttal: It does not take millions of years to form coal - Mt. St. Helens produced coal very rapidly.

    Old earth reaffirmation: Contrary to YEC claims - you cannot just "cook up" coal. It is true that lava cooked some trees into a very poor grade of charcoal. However, even though charcoal may look like coal to the untrained eye, it is very different chemically from coal. True coal is only formed by the slow process of turning organic peat into coal. It is also VERY noteworthy that even though coal is organic matter (made up of carbon) it cannot be carbon dated. Prior living matter (even charcoal from ancient fires) can be dated up to about 50,000 years... There is NO detectable carbon-14 in coal. The only conclusion is that it is well over 50,000 years old and all the carbon-14 has decayed!

    Existence of petroleum products:
    Like coal, petroleum products take a very long time to form... are the byproducts of living organisms, and were already available in Noah's time as he used them to waterproof the ark  (see Gen 6:14).

    Young earth rebuttal: "Pitch" (as it is translated in the King James) might be tree resin, or sap, and need not refer to petroleum/bitumen type products. Tree resin has been used in ship building.

    Old earth reaffirmation: Although it is true that (in relatively modern times) tree resin has been used in ship building, I know of no sources for the claim that the Bible here is speaking of tree resin other than the conjecture of a few young earth creationists. The Hebrew word for the water proofing material is "kopher"; Bible translations, commentaries, dictionaries, and lexicons all define "kopher" as some type of bitumen. For example:

    • The Latin Vulgate says "bitumine"
    • The Greek Septuagint says "asphaltos" (looks familiar huh)
    • The New Living Translation says "tar".
    • Jamieson Fausset and Brown (1871) commentary says:

      "mineral pitch, asphalt, naphtha, or some bituminous substance, which, when smeared over and become hardened, would make it perfectly watertight."

    • Strongs Concordance reference is 03724 and has the following to say:

      "a cover , i . e . (literally a village (as covered in ; (specifically bitumen (as used for coating , and the henna plant (as used for dyeing ; figuratively , a redemption-price :-- bribe , camphire , pitch , ransom , satisfaction , sum of money, village".

    
    I just don't see ANY justification here for claiming this was tree sap. But, even if it's not warranted, let's give the sap idea serious consideration for a moment... does it hold up?
    
    I would make an an argument against it from common sense regarding what we know, and what would be far easier.
    
    Collecting resin from trees is a tedious and time consuming task. It takes quite a bit of work for a very small amount of resin. It is collected by “wounding” trees and collecting the resin that VERY slowly flows out. It is collected in a relatively small cup, and it takes this cup about a month to fill. The tree has to be constantly re-wounded in a new location and the collecting cup moved to continue the collection process. Here is a photo of this process: http://www.hungkuk.com.hk/a2.jpg.
    
    Now consider that Noah had an Ark to build. We are told that he built it out of wood. This means that he needed to harvest trees and fashion them into a boat - not waste time trying to slowly collect their resin over many months if not years. Further, lumber was a valuable commodity in this period... I don't think he would have enough trees (or manpower) to use them for both lumber and pitch.
    
    Also consider that God instructs Noah to pitch the Ark both inside and out. Think of how much resin would be required to coat both sides of this gigantic vessel. And what of preserving it until needed? It wouldn't do you much good if it dried out and hardened before you had time to collect enough to even apply it!
    
    Now consider that bitumen and many other related deposits are KNOWN to be VERY PLENTIFUL in the entire region. An added bonus is that it could be found in pools that were easily collected - you could harvest it quickly by the bucket. It is also easier to apply... think of trying to spread unprocessed tree sap with a primitive brush! Bitumen and its related products are known to have been widely used in this time period. For example, it was used as mortar, glue, etc. - we even have Biblical support for this, consider these other references to it's use in Genesis:
    
    The Tower of Babel used bituman as mortar (Genesis 11:1-4 RSV):
    
    "Now the whole earth had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
    
    Prior to the incineration of Sodom and Gomorrah, the area of the Dead Sea had open bitumen pits (Genesis 14:8-10 RSV):
    
    "Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar, went out, and they joined battle in the Valley of Siddim with Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar, four kings against five. Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to the mountain."
    
    Check out this very good article by the Royal Society on ancient documented use of bitumen:
    http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/mgat4ef0am1kyp996aak/contributions/3/m/c/u/3mcuhhpnjejgkrft.pdf.
    
    So, I think it's a slam dunk that bitumen already existed in the days of Noah. This is really quite devastating to the entire young earth scenario. Why? Because it is the flood deposits that are supposed to be responsible for the existience of petroleum bio-deposits. If they already existed, then there is no explanation for them nor the fossil record at large within a young earth paraqdigm!

    Combined note on coal and oil:
    The amount of coal and oil existing today greatly exceeds what could have been produced by decaying plants and animals in a short few thousand years. It is naive to think that today's coal and oil came from the buried remains of Noah's antediluvian world. Most simply have no idea how much raw material would have been required, especially for the oil deposits.

    Coal and oil are very important economic resources, as a result geologists have worked hard to estimate how much of these resources exist. There is data published by Hunt indicating that the carbon in the coal alone is 50 times that in the entire present biosphere! Further, the carbon in all oil deposits is over 600 times that in the entire present biosphere! The YEC recognize this, here is their response - Massive floating forests! I'm not kidding check this out for yourself at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4046.asp

    The expansion of the universe:
    The universe is expanding. The further away an object (such as a galaxy), the faster it is receding. Further, we see that it is expanding in all directions... this indicates it originated from a common point (the creation point). If we run the "clock" backwards we can estimate the age with the simple equation time = distance/velocity. Einstein's theory of relativity predicted an expanding universe... at the time the universe was thought to be stationary. So he doubted his results and inserted a "fudge factor". Without this factor it melds perfectly with the expanding universe we see today (15-20 billion years old). Remember too all the Biblical references to "stretching out the heavens".

    Confirmations of the vastness and age of the universe:
    If we see a galaxy 10 billion light years away... The speed of light mandates that it must have existed at least 10 billion years ago. These distances have been confirmed through a number of methods (i.e. geometry, red shift, spectral spreading, gravitational lensing, general relativity, nucleochronology, etc.) To deny the great distances to the objects we see - is to deny reality.

    Young earth rebuttal: Some young earthers claim the light was created in transit... this basically centers around the "appearance of age" theory. They proclaim that the stars and galaxies are indeed great distances from us but God created the light in place.

    There have also been attempts to claim that the speed of light is not constant.

    Russell Humphreys has developed a white hole theory that claims to make a young earth possible.

    Old earth reaffirmation: Regarding the light being created in transit... This again places God in the role of a counterfeiter, as the light would have never come from the star or galaxy. And He would have to falsify the "movie" (history) we are watching from earth. This theory would force the following example. In February of 1987 astronomers saw a supernova explosion of a star 160,000 light years distant (a real event). Now you are in then uncomfortable position of having to decide if the star ever really existed... or were we just fooled into thinking it blew up? This is because if the light we have been watching from there for the last 6,000 years was created in place - we would have been witnessing a false history, like a fake filmstrip created in space - with the real light it emitted taking another 154,000 years to get here!

    Regarding the speed of light slowing down... Most get this from Australian young earth astronomer Barry Setterfield. He claimed a slow down in the speed of light - but he represented the numbers wrong. He cited Roemer in 1675 and Bradley in 1728 as 'clocking' the speed of light at 301,300 and 301,000 kilometers-per-second, respectively. Yet the REAL historical figures were, in fact, Roemer at 214,300 kilometers-per-second and Bradley at 295,000 kilometers-per-second. Had Setterfield reported these figures accurately, he would have demonstrated that the speed of light increased over the past 300 years, instead! Is light speeding up... No. It is true that variations in the speed of light have been reported - but, these prior variations in measuring the speed were due to inaccuracies in the measuring attributable to the technological limitations of the period. If the speed of light had slowed over time - there would be observable consequences - For instance the further away an object was, the slower it's apparent motions would be... This is not the case! Here is another BIG one for contemplation - if red shift is attributable to the speed of light slowing down... how is it that some objects have a blue shift? This would have light speeding up - a clear increase in energy and in complete violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The real reason some objects have a blue shift is because of local conditions (such as several galaxies combined gravitational pull) causing these galaxies to move toward one another as opposed as away from one another. This is a exception and not the rule and is perfectly consistent with the shift of the lights frequency being related to its motion. The slow down in the speed of light theory is completely at a loss to explain the blue shift, for if you accept the blue shift - you HAVE to accept the red shift. It's the same process - just in the opposite direction. This rules out ALL theories having red shift attributable to a changing speed of light. We have been bouncing laser light of off the Moon for decades... This and other tests have shown the speed of light to be completely constant. Further, relativity is the best-proven theory science has... and it mandates a constant speed for light.

    Regarding Russell Humphreys theory... Many have pointed out errors in the theory. It's couched in highly technical terms - I think this is used as a ploy to sound sophisticated and authoritative. Most Christians are not capable of following the highly technical arguments for and against - so I think it's best to concentrate on what it claims. When you boil it down it basically accepts all of the standard Big Bang model. The initial singularity of the big bang is replaced with a white hole from which the entire universe is spewed. We are further claimed to be in a privileged position (close to where the white hole was). The result is the universe is as old as the rest of secular science believes it is, but allows for a 6,000 year old earth. Ironically it's a cosmological theory with only terrestrial consequences! Further, to get this model to harmonize with Genesis, requires them to employ a 'literal reading' of Genesis in a manner that the old Earther's receive tremendous criticism for! This is how far some are willing to go to 'prove' the young earth. It should be noted that his theory totally relies on clocks (all types of clocks) running many orders of magnitude slower on Earth than in the rest of the universe. It is therefore very damaging that he fails to explain how so many "clocks" on Earth still show an incredible passage of time... Such as radiometric decay which takes over a billion years to transpire!

    Combined note on Setterfield and Humphreys:
    You don't have to take it from me that these theories are found wanting... Read this paper (at ICR) authored by their fellow young Earth astronomer Danny Faulkner - THE CURRENT STATE OF CREATION ASTRONOMY: http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=research&action=index&page=researchp_df_r01 and also this one by John Hartnett - A New Cosmology: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v17n2_cosmology.pdf

    The background radiation:
    This is one of the most powerful proofs for the big bang theory. A general background of radiation with a measurable temperature was predicted (initially by George Gamow) before it was discovered. Further it was discovered by 2 scientists accidentally (Penzias and Wilson) - they thought they were picking up some kind of "noise" in their instruments, they subsequently received the Nobel Prize for Physics for their discovery! Further study of this background radiation has born out exactly according to predictions. This is what makes a theory powerful - predicting things that later prove to be true - just like Biblical prophecy does. It is the left over heat from the moment of creation and is consistent with a universe that is billions of years old.

    Young earth rebuttal: The YEC community criticize the COBE's (satellite used to measure the radiation and variations) fluctuations as manufactured. There have been MANY critical comments regarding the "supposed" fluctuations being beyond the instruments precision - and that statistical games had to be played to get the expected variations. Therefore they discredited the entire issue of the microwave background radiation (MBR) and it's "manufactured" fluctuations.

    Old earth reaffirmation: The COBE data can no longer be dismissed (not that it ever really could have). In June 2001, NASA launched the MAP satellite (since renamed WMAP for Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) a 145 million dollar joint project of NASA and Princeton university. This satelite can measure temperature flucuations in much higher resolution, 35 times in fact - all the way down to a millionth of a degree! In mid Feburary 2003, NASA released the first results and they are spectacular - they completely confirm and underscore the earlier measurements of COBE. You can see an over under image of the two satellites (WMAP vs. COBE) here at NASA - the correlation is SPECTACULAR - I think anyone would agree.
    http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/0206mapresults.html

    The age of our sun and other stars:
    The sun's temperature, luminosity, spectral line emissions, radius, and mass, all dictate an energy source through converting hydrogen into helium (nuclear fusion) for about 5 billion years. It further indicates that this fusion should proceed for about another 5 billion years. These same methods can be applied to other stars. These estimates are not arbitrary - they are deeply rooted in physics. Simply put - we can determine the mass of the star by measuring its gravitational effects on nearby stars and planets... and this combined with its color and brightness and what we know about nuclear processes will give us its age. Using these techniques, the oldest stars are measured to be billions of years old.
    
    Another issue is: Given that we have now measured the mass of the Sun, that we also now know it's composition, and that nuclear reactions are what powers the Sun - we can determine how long it will last. Why is this notable... how does it differ from what is stated above? Consider that this means it is now beyond dispute that the Sun has enough material to last for billions of years - even if you believe the universe was young! The significance is, if the young earthers were correct - don't you think that's a EXTREME amount of potential energy (material & life) for man's needs (by their time scale)? Why would God give us enough material to have a Sun for billions of years if we were only to be here for thousands? I know of NO theologians who think man will be here for billions of years from now - and the Sun obviously will not last for eternity... I think if God created an energy source DESIGNED to last for billions of years - it was because He needed to provide energy for His creation that long! Not only that, but if the Sun was formed according to anywhere near how our stellar models dictate - the Sun has to be billions of years old to provide the stable and properly composed spectrum and intensity we need. It is one of the fine tuning proofs for creation now recognized by intelligent design proponents!

    Radioactive elements:
    We can gauge the age of the universe based on the amount and types of radioactive elements that are both existing and not existing. Simply put the short-lived ones (with half-lives in the millions of years) are gone... while the long lived ones (with half-lives in the billions of years) are still present. This indicates a universe in the billions of years old. For further details see radioactive dating below.

    Dust on the moon:
    Measurements made on the moon itself show 2.5 inches of dust on the moon. Measurements also show 11 thousand tons of material falling onto the moon per year. This equates to 1.2 of the 2.5 inches. When you allow for additional material deposited there by large meteorites (as proved by the large craters we see there today) it is just what you would expect for a 4.5 billion year old moon.

    Craters on the moon, other planets, and earth:
    On the moon they imply a vast history of meteorite activity. Craters overlay craters that overlay craters. The frequency of impacts is very low. If the entire crater history were in the last few thousand years we would have noticed these tremendous impacts. There are also numerous craters on the earth with proof of countless ages on top of them.

    Star cluster distribution:
    In order for stars in a cluster to remain together, the overall gravity of the system must be strong enough to overcome the velocities of the individual stars within the cluster. If the gravity is too weak, the cluster will drift apart. These calculations indicate ages for star clusters in the billions of years.

    Spiral galaxies:
    Scientific theories and calculations show that spiral structure within galaxies should "smear out" within 5 rotations. And these rotations take several hundred million years each. From some of the spirals we see today, we can tell they have been rotating for millions of years. how is this? It's the spiral pattern themselves. It's like watching water go down the drain - like water spirals down into the drain - a galaxy's material spirals down into the gravity well of the core. The spiral pattern can be thought of as a kind of contrail depicting the history of the individual differing orbits of the stars smoothed out across a VERY long spiral pattern/trail. This DEMANDS much time to have elapsed without God artificially creating all these objects mid orbit with the artificial appearance of much time passing to get to it's present stage! Further, some of them have degraded to the point they are no longer spirals - and dictates age in the billions of years.

    Radioactive dating:
    This is probably one of the areas that get written about the most. Young earth creationists usually devote an entire chapter of their books to its alleged problems - often imaginary or greatly exaggerated. Since the dates being measured can be in the billions of years, and there is a margin of error, the dates can be off by more years than the young earth creationists believe the earth to be. This leads them to laugh at the error being stated as +/- x million years... well that's because we are dealing with billions of years of history. An analogy would be young earthers counting how many thousandths of an inch a major interstate had, while the rest of us were counting the miles!

    Radiometric dating is basically measuring the amount of decay in a radioactive element. Radioactive is just that - it is actively radiating energy. When this energy is radiated away it will change into another element. This process is measured in terms of "half life" - which refers to the amount of time required for there to only be half of the original element present. After another half-life there is only half of that original half left (or 1/4) - this continues on down the line. With carbon 14 dating for example if an item was dated to 11,540 years, it would only have 1/4 of the original carbon 14 which means that it had gone through 2 half life periods (5770 + 5770 = 11,540 years). You can only go back about 10 half-lives before there is so little of the original material left - you can't measure it.

    The way it works is kind of simple. Think of the analogy of a solar system, pretend at specified rate planet orbits decay to the point that they drift away - this is similar to what happens to the atoms of these radioactive elements. The orbits of the atom particles are not stable long term - they have a shelf life if you will (the half-life). Nothing on this earth is forever - it will eventually decay. If fact, we have discovered that the entire universe is literally wearing out just as depicted in the Bible (Isiah 51:56). God has created the laws of physics, wound up the universe and is letting it run down... we can even measure this wearing down... it's called entropy. Radioactive decay is proof of this wearing down. Radioactive decay too supports the Bible.

    I will briefly cover 2 of the main type of radioactive dating here - there are others and they are getting more accurate all the time.

    Carbon 14 dating has a half-life of 5,770 years. It decays into nitrogen 14. It is only useful for measuring the age of prior living matter. The amount of initial carbon 14 can be determined by the amount of carbon 12 still present (which does not decay within the useful range). Ages can be determined up to 50,000 years (age since man) with an approximate 15% error rate. Carbon 14 has been cross-referenced with tree rings to achieve a very high degree of accuracy for ages up to 9,000 years. Carbon 14 dating has helped prove the age of events in the Bible - it is not something to be feared.

    Potassium-Argon dating measures the rate of breakdown of potassium 40. It has a half-life of 1.3 billion years. It decays into argon 40. It is useful for dating only volcanic matter form the millions to billions of years with a plus minus date of 50,000 years.

    There are no very good ways to date things (radioactively) in the "in between" age of 50,000 years to a million years. They are working on it.

    The notion that radioactive decay proceeded at a different rate in the past is impossible! Radioactive decay is by definition a nuclear process. Any conditions such as temperature, pressure, radiation, etc. strong enough to alter the atomic decay rate, would completely destroy whatever it is that you are trying to date (such as a fossil or its surrounding sedimentary deposits).

    The only issues are the amount of original parent material, and possible contamination.

    Young earth rebuttal: The evidence for radiometric dating is weak - there is little (if any) evidence for actual decay - and even if it occurred, the rate of decay could have been higher in the past (for example during the flood). A special young earth group of scientists (RATE) has been put together that openly challenges the wisdom of conventional science on radiometric dating.

    Old earth reaffirmation: The RATE group has had much difficulty explaining away the problem of radiometric dating. In fact, in their most recent findings - they make some powerful admissions. They now freely admit that much radiometric decay has indeed irrefutably taken place. They further admit you can't simply appeal to the geological processes (read the flood) to solve this difficult problem.
    
    Check out these quotes from the most recent RATE (pro YEC) paper:
    

    "Others had tried—and for some, the search went on for a while in the early RATE days—to find the answer in geological processes. But Drs Humphreys and Baumgardner realized that there were too many independent lines of evidence (the variety of elements used in ‘standard’ radioisotope dating, mature uranium radiohalos, fission track dating and more) that indicated that huge amounts of radioactive decay had actually taken place. It would be hard to imagine that geologic processes could explain all these. Rather, there was likely to be a single, unifying answer that concerned the nuclear decay processes themselves."

    And what about this one this one...
    

    "By measuring the amount of uranium and ‘radiogenic lead’ in these crystals, one can calculate that, if the decay rate has been constant, about 1.5 billion years must have passed. (This is consistent with the geologic ‘age’ assigned to the granites in which these zircons are found.)"

    Source:
    http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2003/0821rate.asp
    
    It is equally hard to envision a greatly accelerated rate of decay in the past... If the current radioactive decay rate is sufficient to sustain plate tectonics over a few billion years, one must wonder... What are the consequences of putting a few billion years of decay into the short time scales they require?
    
    If all that decay were confined to a single year or a few days (during the creation week) you would have an unimaginable amount of energy (read heat) released. You would vaporize the oceans and melt the earth. And if all this decay actually took place -- how is it that we STILL have active uranium mines... it should have all decayed (actually went up like a nuke with that fast of a decay) long ago. Since they (YECs) believe the earth is only a few thousand years old, and they admit (now) that much decay has taken place, and moreover they trust carbon dates into biblical times (read thousands of years) but still want them to be off for even further back -- Let's not forget, they believe the entire universe is only thousands of years old -- so it puts a VERY tiny window on when these decay rates could have been functioning differently that today's measurable rates. And the further back you "trust" any radioactive dates, the more unexplainable their position becomes especially when you want the uranium derived dates to be operating differently than say carbon dates. Why is all this important? Because they completely miss the point that the earth is a very poor conductor of heat. If this much heat was released (through accelerated decay) the earth would still be VERY hot -- you cannot cool the earth in a mere few thousand years to present levels. The situation is completely hopeless.

  • Biblical evidence for an old earth :

    Job 15:7
    Job is the oldest book in the Bible. In this verse, Job is asked, "Wast thou made before the hills?" Is it logical that Job would have been asked this question of digging sarcasm had he thought the age of the hills and man - were virtually the same, separated by a mere five days?

    Genesis genealogies
    There is evidence of deep time contained within the Genesis genealogies. There are more names mentioned after the flood than before the flood, even though before the flood should account for a longer time period at the time when Moses would have been writing Genesis. And evidence for huge gaps exist in even the more extensive list. Take for example Noah's son that went on board the ark with him... he (Ham) is listed in a very manner of fact way as being the father of Mizraim. Why is this notable? Well, many (if not most) readers are unaware that Mizraim is the Hebrew word for "double straits", it is significant because this was the Hebrew name for the two (upper and lower) Egypts. It obviously refers to the two sides of the Nile river. Do you see why this is significant now? How many generations would it have taken to have established all of upper and lower Egypt? Think of the ancient rich history of Egypt... all the millenia of just recorded history, the kings lists, the many many years of Pre-Dynastic history that me have no record of - but have their monuments... all being referred to here by way of a single grandson of Noah - there is deep time here associated with this single name - and all of it is ascribed to the time frame after the flood!

    Habakkuk 3:6
    In this verse the mountains are described as "everlasting," the hills are "perpetual." The Hebrew words "ad" and "owlam" mean long duration, ancient, forever, and continuous existence.

    Ecclesiastes 1:10
    Consider this verse: "Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us." Could "any thing" include the old earth dispute?

    2 Peter 3:3-8
    Here is my absolute personal favorite passage for the Bible depicting an old earth. Somewhat ironically the young earthers also use this passage to fight an old earth! They cite it only because they have been told that it shoots down the "straw man" of "uniformatarianism". This word is another touchstone for them... just like evolution.

    I think there are a great number of young earth Christians out there that must think science is based completely on uniformatarianism (the idea that nothing changes). Science is all to aware that things do the following: yes some stay the same, some change linearly, some change exponentially, some in cycles sinusoidally, etc. I suppose the young earthers have to leave their houses carefully, watching out for the sudden reversal of gravity that may send them floating out into space!

    This passage basically tells us that Christ is coming - but it's on His timetable. And His time is a very long time to us. In the process of making this point though the Creations great age is declared - in a very emphatic way. I have put the key phrases in bold.

    It's worth noting that many great Christians throughout history have thought Christ's return was eminent during their lifetime.

    2 Peter 3:3-8 (in its entirety)
    "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

    Several things are clear about this verse:

    • Contrary to YEC claims - It's within the context of Creation (Creation is mentioned in the passage) they usually start the quote somewhere after verse 4
    • Curiously says "from the beginning of the Creation" rather than simply "from the Creation" further implying a long time for Creation
    • "By the word of God" the heavens are declared "of old"
    • It tells to us "be not ignorant of" the fact God's time is not our time - it compares one of His days to a thousand of our years

    Here are several passages that I believe refer back... to the ancient Creation days (the "days" of Genesis 1):

    Deuteronomy 32:6-7
    "Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee? Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee."

    Psalm 77:5
    "I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times."

    Psalm 143:5
    "I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands."

    Those infamous days in Genesis:
    Young earthers strictly enforce the "days of creation" in Genesis chapter 1 consisting of six 24-hr time periods. From absolutely nothing to: the universe, all galaxies, all stars, the earth, moon, sun, plants, animals, man, the garden, Eve, and Adam naming all the animals in less than one week (144 literal hours)!

    Further there was only one creation - unless you appeal to a non-biblical prior one that is never mentioned. The creation would include EVERYTHING. All the items listed above, PLUS the angels. The Bible states that angels are created beings - it further states we are created "a little lower than the angels" (Psalm 8:4-5).

    Young earthers tend to put the temptation of Eve on the 6th day (Based on Genesis 2). This means Lucifer's fall (he was once an arc angel) and the subsequent "war in heaven" was all over prior to man's fall - as Satan was waiting in the garden to tempt Eve. If we believe the Bible quite literally - then God had a bad week wouldn't you say? All hell broke loose in less than 144 hours!

    Let's look a little closer at Satan's fall. In Ezekiel 28:14-15, we are told he was the "anointed cherub," was "on the holy mountain of God," and was "perfect in his ways" from the day he was created until "iniquity" was found in him. His heart was "lifted up" because of his "beauty." When Satan fell one third of the heavenly hosts fell with him (Revelation 12:3-4).

    In Revelation 12:7-9, we learn there was actually "war in heaven." Satan fought against "Michael and his angels," was ultimately defeated and "cast out into the earth."

    How long would all of this taken? How long would it take one of God's newly created "perfect" angels to be overcome with himself and full of pride to the point of challenging God? How long would it take for him to convince a third of the other newly created angels to follow him and even make war with Michael? How long would this war have lasted? I don't know about you, but I bet it's more than 144 of our hours!

    Here are some other fine points against 24-hr days.

    The sun, moon, and the stars were not "assigned to be the timekeepers" until the fourth "day".
    The fact that our time accounting is tied to and inseparable from the celestial objects in our solar system cannot be overstated... Consider the following:
    
    The Day comes from the apparent motion of the Sun (but is actually the interval it takes for the Earth to revolve once about its axis).
    
    The week represents the approximate quarter phase positions of the Moon. Did you know that even the days of the week are named after solar system objects? They are named after the Sun, the Moon, and the five then known planets (Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn respectively). SUNday, MONday, and SATURday survive to this day. The rest have the Germanic equivalent names for the gods represented by Mars ("Tiw's day"/Tuesday), Mercury ("Woden's day"/Wednesday), Jupiter ("Thor's day"/Thursday), and Venus ("Freya or Frigg's day"/Friday).
    
    Our month and the very word month comes from Moon (MOONth), and represents the time interval it takes for the Moon to traverse its 4 phase cycle. There are 12 of these lunar phase cycles in a Year.
    
    And last, but not least, our year (and it's 4 seasons) represent the time it takes for the Earth to complete one revolution about the Sun!
    It would appear we cannot keep track of time without the Sun, Mo n, and our Earth's journey through the solar system!
    
    We must be careful not to claim our clocks run on the same standard as God's clock! The writer of Genesis can only make a record when someone tells him how to keep time. The "clock" we are given for keeping time by in Genesis is the motion of sun, moon and stars for an observer on earth, and since this method of tracking time (we still use solar system movements to track time) was not yet assigned, you cannot by definition assign a 24-hr solar day to the first 3 days at the least. Consistency would argue against any of them being 24-hr days.

    In 'light' of this - Young earthers appeal for a source of light on one side of the Earth: acting as a Sun, providing the same amount of light as the Sun, shines on each side for 12-hrs like the Sun, but is not actually the Sun! Are we to believe God used a giant cosmic spotlight to light up the Earth for a mere 72 hours until He could ignite the sun? Doesn't this cast God's creation in a somewhat artificial light ? The only answer is that the Sun and Moon are created in Genesis 1:1, remember God created light (the Sun) on the first 'day'. I don't think God needs a flashlight to get his work done... what about you? Sarcasm aside for the moment, this really is an argument for a 2 Sun model - not only that but a 2 Moon model... for both, and more are required for our stable orbit, tides, days, and nights. This would seem to make God rather short sighted - having to provide multiple mechanisms for his creation one way initially, change his mind, and then have to go through subsequent multiple creation steps to provide for it in a totally different way. Does this make ANY sense?

    Too much happens on the sixth day:
    In Genesis chapter 1 we are told that all the land mammals and both Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day. In Genesis 2 we are given much more detail. A lot happened between Adam and Eve's creation. God plants a garden (Eden), God places Adam in the garden, all kinds of trees grow forth from the ground (again, remember it takes years for them to mature and bear fruit), Adam receives instructions on caring for the Garden, Adam starts his caring for the garden, he then studies and names all the animals, Adam seeing that the animals have mates... longs for one of his own, God puts Adam in a deep sleep, Adam gets his operation, he recovers, God introduces Eve to him, Adam proclaims her "bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh", God now gives them all His instructions (including filling the earth - I'm sure Adam's first few hours with Eve were, well, interesting - I think any man would pass on the animal naming for a while), and most also place the temptation of Eve and man's fall all on the daylight portion of this single 24-hr day! Whew what a day! One more thing... why did Adam have to care for the garden before Eve is created on the 6th day? Especially since it's less than 6 "days" old... actually (according to the young earth view) it's less than 1 "day" old.

    Lets go back and think a bit more about Adams creation... most envision that Adam was created an adult. This may or not be the case - it's an assumption - the Bible is silent as to Adam's created "age". Man raises children, would not the almighty be capable? Even if Adam was created an adult... would he have been created both speaking and recognizing speech? And further, not just recognize words but a full understanding and comprehension of language? Was he born with a gardeners skills, and how to make tools? For if not, how long would Adam's "education" have lasted? More than a single day I bet. Most recognize this problem, and argue that Adam was somehow a genius or even super human. There is no Biblical basis for this and in fact the Bible seems to indicate the exact opposite. Genesis in fact, has his knowledge purposely and intentionally "limited" by God! He was much more child like I imagine (mentally, even if not physically). He didn't even know about good and evil! His knowledge had to have limits (hence the tree of "knowledge" of good and evil). the Bible even says "his eyes were opened" (he did not even know he was naked). This puts the trees knowledge giving abilities a little beyond simply just good and evil - Adam and Eve were the only people on earth, in that context, naked was not bad nor inherently evil.

    Let's not forget that Genesis implies (Genesis 3:8) that Adam had walks and talks with God. He had to be given instructions as to his responsibilities in the garden etc. If God had "prewired" him with all the memories of how to understand and utter speech... why stop there? Implant into his mind ALL that he should know... if you instill any pre-knowledge at all - why subsequently resort to less efficient methods (spoken instructions)?

    Let's now go back to the creation of Eve for a moment. Eve is arguably created "fully functional". So you might demand consistency that Adam was too (created an adult)... again this is an assumption. We DO know that Eve is created differently... as Adam is formed from the dust of the ground, whereas Eve is created from a part of Adams side (rib is a mistranslation). It would seem plausible that Eve may have been something akin to a rapid clone where God uses Adam's DNA to create Eve... I'm not making this up Genesis says she is "made" from Adam. Surrounding all this is a Biblical indication that Eve is not created right away (at least not the same day). Genesis 2:23 says, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh ..." The word "now" in this passage is the Hebrew word "pa am". It is usually translated as "now at length" or "at last." This is a case where some of the meaning is lost in translation. This word would be appropriate only after a long wait - it would not be appropriate if Eve came along a mere few hours or minutes after Adam's own creation.

    The 7th day is not 24-hrs:
    The seventh day in Genesis 1 and 2 is not closed out like the other six are. The "evening and morning" phrase is missing.

    All the other "days" however long they were, definitely had a start and end to them. This day is NEVER closed out anywhere in the Bible - in fact the only other references to this "day", are talking about how it continues to today! Consider the two following passages:

    Sample from Hebrews 4 verse 4-5 (read the whole chapter though)

    "For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest."

    Sample from Psalm 95 verse 11 (read the whole chapter though)

    "Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest."

    It would seem that there is an ongoing rest for the people of God. This indicates, that the seventh "day" of the creation week has carried on through the ages, especially when coupled with the lack of closure on the 7th "day" in Genesis. It would be consistent then, given that the seventh day was a long period of time - the other six "days" would have been too.

    Jesus himself portrays the ongoing Sabbath day. In John chapter 5 verses 17, Jesus is arguing with the Jewish religious leaders about healing people on the Sabbath (that is, the seventh day). His response is (John 5:17 NLT):
    
    "My Father never stops working, so why should I?"
    
    The point of this statement is easily missed... we readily see the claim by Jesus that God is his Father - and this claim itself was deeply offensive to the Jews. But most miss the main point He was making... that it was alright for him to work on the Sabbath (by healing people) because God, his Father, was still at work on his sabbath. There is no point to Jesus's argument unless both He, and the Jewish religious leaders, believed that God's 'sabbath' was still continuing even as He spoke.

    Genesis itself has the creation "day" being longer than a literal day:

    Genesis 2:4
    "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,"

    This is a summary of the creation account. In this verse the word day (Hebrew "yom") refers to all the "days" of creation. In Hebrew the word for generations "toledah" always refers to a long time period, never to anything as short as 144 hours, further, the plural form is used, demanding a series of long time periods. It has been used to refer to the time God has existed. Consider Ecclesiastes 1:4

    "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever."

    We are informed explicitly and repeatedly, both in Old and New Testaments, that God's time is not to be confused with man's time. God's clock alone was running during the creation. A studious person could conclude that one of God's creation "days" was not a regular simple 24-hour period from the scriptural evidence alone... when you weigh in the scientific evidence, making the case convincingly for an ancient earth, I see no other conclusion.

A possible old earth time line :

This is only a rough sketch. Unlike the young earth chronology - it is not meant to be a rigid law that must be followed if you are to believe in an old earth. There is some possible flexibility within the creation account itself, as the order of creation does not follow exactly the same between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

This is only to give you an idea of a possible time line. Remarkable agreement exits between the scientific view and the biblical view if you just simply make the "days" longer than a simple 24-hr day.

15-20 billion years ago (Genesis 1:1) The beginning

Initial creation of the universe (big bang if you will) where time space and matter are all brought into existence form the spoken word of God.

5-6 billion years ago (Genesis 1:2)

The earth and solar system were a mere nebula ("formless and void"). God moves/stirs the waters (nebula). The entire universe is made mostly of hydrogen, which is the main ingredient or element of water.

4.6 billion years ago (Genesis 1:3) 1st Day Starts

"Let there be light". God ignited the sun. With some nebula remaining - the earth would have been surrounded on all sides by light (reflecting off the gaseous glowing "clouds" of the nebula).

4.5 billion years ago (Genesis 1:4)

Separation of light from darkness. God cleared away the nebula, and allowed for there to be darkness for the 1st time on one side of the earth (the side facing away from the sun).

4 billion years ago (Genesis 1:6) 2nd Day starts

The earth cools... water in a liquid state becomes possible, crude atmosphere (air space between the water and thick clouds) starts to take shape.

2.5 billion years ago (Genesis 1:6) 3rd Day starts

The surface of the earth itself begins to take shape, dry land appears, the continents and seas form.

1-2 billion years ago (Genesis 1:11)

The first plants are created.

1 billion years ago (Genesis 1:14) 4th Day starts

The earth's atmosphere clears and clearly reveals the sun, moon, and stars. Now that they are visible, God designates them as timekeepers.

500 million years ago (Genesis 1:20) 5th Day starts

God creates animal life in the oceans, then insects, and then amphibians.

500 million years ago (Genesis 1:20) 6th Day starts

God creates reptiles and dinosaurs. A little later in the "day" he creates mammals.

10-50 thousand years ago (Genesis 1:26)

God creates Adam (modern man). Subsequently all the rest of the events of the Bible unfold.

What about Intelligent Design :

• First, The Good News...
  
  

  Intelligent Design (or simply ID) is becoming a popular hot topic amongst Christians. For the first time (in a long time) Christians are making intellectual arguments that are making waves even within the scientific community.
  
  Basically, the ID movement is a modern rebirth of much older teleological arguments. I feel these arguments for the existence of a designer (God) to have been given the best shove forward they have seen in over 200 years.
  
  For example, I like William Paley's "watchmaker" argument. In 1802 William Paley wrote Natural Theology. In this work, he presented an argument for the existence of God based on perceived design in the world. He begins by stating that if one walks across a field and sees a stone it would be rather absurd to ask how the stone came to be there. Conversely, if during your walk in the field you came across a pocket watch (recently invented in Paley's time) it would be reasonable to ask how it came to be there. The point being recognizing the unnaturalness or non-randomness of the watch. How upon studying the watch - one could discern it as a machine bearing clear traits of design, such as the recognition of specificity of form, fit, function, purpose - even beauty. How could one possibly ignore or dismiss all the mechanics of numerous parts such as gears, springs, bearings, etc., all functioning together to move in a very precise way as to indicate the passage of time? The implication being that if there was a watch - there had to be a watchmaker!
  
  Paley's watchmaker argument is beautiful in it's simplicity and clarity of thought. It was persuasive with many for over 50 years. The strongest rebuttals of Paley's argument centered around how a watch is not a good analogy to life - the fact that one is a machine and one is not. This eventually led to wide spread belief in the fallacy of the argument. In 1859, most thought Darwin had finally and completely refuted Paley in his Origin of Species.
  
  Well, enter the 20th century! Modern scientific advancements and instruments such as the electron microscope along with work from scientists such as Professor of Biochemistry Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box - have "resurrected" Paley's argument anew!
  
  In Darwin's time the cell could not be probed - and was assumed to be extremely simple, basically a blob of protoplasm. Darwin could have not been more wrong - contrary to previous assumptions, life at the cellular level has proven extremely complex. So complex in fact, that Michael Behe has coined the term "Irreducible complexity" to refer to the tiny bio-mechanical structures found inside the cell - Paley's original argument has been vindicated! Behe's irreducible complexity forms a powerful argument against naturalistic Darwinian evolution.
  
  Extremely small machines (at the molecular level) have indeed been identified inside the cell. Here are two great resources to see what this is about:
  
  1. For an on-line example check out Access Research Network's page dedicated to Behe's Bacterial Flagellum Motor here: http://www.arn.org/docs/mm/flagellum_all.htm.
  
  2. There is also a fantastic video available called Unlocking the Mystery of Life. You can check it out (including clips) here: http://www.illustramedia.com/umolinfo.htm.
  
  Other interesting areas of ID research:

  
  
  • Origin of Life
    Another area where science can point out the short comings of naturalism is in the research pertaining to the origin of life - or OOL. OOL researchers have been dealt an utter failure in attempting to discover ANY possible route for a self-assembling - and further, self reproducing organism. It is also now known that the early earth possessed an environment unfriendly toward alleged pre-biotic compounds. In fact, it is becoming more and more apparent that bioorganic molecules necessary for life are highly unstable in a non-organic environment.
    
    
  • Anthropic Principle
    The anthropic principle's complexities and odds against randomness keep growing by orders of magnitude.
    
    There are many arguments I have heard that attempt to dismiss the extreme apparent design characteristics that allow us to be here. Analogies to dismiss this extremely remote by chance circumstances include the exact cloud formations in the sky on a given day, the chances against getting a particular poker hand (or any sequence of poker hands) etc.
    
    What may seem good arguments on the surface are actually very weak. They look at only 1 thing and note its odds and there is no apparent design or purpose in these analogies. By contrast, with the anthropic principle, we have hundreds of extremely fine tuned parameters that ALL must be exactly as they are essentially working together for us to be here and pondering them!
    
    
  • DNA
    The incredible design aspects of DNA. How it resembles a complex algorithm or language, how it has self correcting properties - etc. How efficient it is at coding vast amounts of information into a tiny package. Many have doubted or dismissed the information encapsulated in DNA - I would like to respond to this short sightedness (or perhaps denial) with 2 quotes.
    
    1. Bill Gates. (founder of Microsoft) in his book "The Road Ahead" (1996, page 228) commented - "Human DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created".
       
       
    2. Len Adleman (University of Southern California), has some rather impressive computing credentials. His name stands for the "A" in RSA Data Security, an algorithm that has become the de facto standard for industrial-strength encryption of data sent over computer networks. He is often quoted for the statement that - "a single gram of DNA can hold as much information as 1 trillion CDs". Moreover, the ideas he has articulated on using the molecular structure of DNA to process information could one day result in computers many times faster and more powerful than existing machines.
       
    
    Besides being incredibly complex and efficient, there is no known mechanism for the code to intelligently increase it's own complexity towards a specific purpose. Bill Gates has told us how he recognizes that DNA is way more advanced than any software his company has written - and he is not in the habit of hiring in-efficient programmers (early versions of Windows aside) - it's ludicrous to assume that nature alone could out due his software engineers with nothing more than mere chance... in short, an intelligent designer way more advanced than man has left clues for His existence in all life!
    
    
  • Emerging Problems for Evolution
    
    • Lack of transitional fossils
      The incredible lack (or at least scarcity) of transitional fossils - and how most of, if not all the even claimed ones are of a tenuous nature. The fact that the fossil record shows far more evidence of stasis. Recognition of this is the sole reason for the emergence of the theory of punctuated equilibrium - which essentially says "it's magic and happens all at once"!
      
      
    • Cambrian explosion
      Where virtually every phylum to exist (approx. 70) appears suddenly - and not gradually as you would expect with Darwinism. With the Cambrian explosion, virtually all phyla to exist appear at once without any traceable predecessors. A further problem for macro-evolution is the continually shrinking time frame for the Cambrian explosion - currently at an upper limit of 3 million years - an instant in geological time. It should also not go unnoticed that the number of phylum has ever since been decreasing - extinction (and not speciation) has been the dominant trend ever since.
      
      
    • The "Icons" of evolution
      Jonathan Wells, who holds two Ph.D.s, one in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, and one in Religious Studies from Yale University has written a book exposing the "Icons of Evolution". He details how they are exaggerations at best and outright frauds at worst. You can read all about his book on-line here: http://www.iconsofevolution.com/.
      
      
    • Natural selection's limitations
      Natural selection alone is merely a funnel effect. It essentially takes 2 (or more) organisms and through environmental pressures, selects which one survives. It does not explain the evolution or development of the creatures or traits themselves that will make survival and/or reproduction more likely. Even allowing for natural selection acting upon random mutation cannot explain increases in complexity. This requires a net increase in genetic information, which is at odds with all that has been observed - which is merely genetic losses and/or recombinations. Further, any genetic mutation that is beneficial has been observed to be so rare as to limit evolution to simple life forms with incredibly high populations and extremely short reproductive cycles. This would prohibit higher life forms such as mammals from benefiting from evolution in any significant way.
      
      
• Now, The Bad News...
  
  One might ask "Considering the above, is there a down side?" - unfortunately, there is. Due to past abuses, and YEC pseudo science, the latest work of Christians involved with ID have a hard time getting taken seriously. The ID community needs to distance itself from those (historically) called "creationists". This is a most unfortunate and regrettable situation. We finally have good science to counter evolution - but our credibility is already severely damaged.
  
  The ID movement itself bears some responsibility for this - as it has yet to repudiate any of the former (even egregious and obvious) pseudo science of other Christians and creationist groups. ID has a "big tent" policy that they have been operating under in order not to offend some camps - not the least of which is the young earth camp. I know why they do this - it's so that they do not cut off a segment of their revenue. This attitude is more understandable than you may know... YEC organizations have demonstrated how powerful they are in basically (what I would consider) "blackmailing" other Christian organizations. They threaten to withdraw not only their public support - but promise to inform and attempt to sway key Christian donors and other organizations to also withdraw their support. They also openly criticize organizations through print and Web sites that take any approach that might be considered old earth. They disparage these organizations and their leaders and encourage all their followers to do the same. They also encourage them to call, write, e-mail, or fax them directly - they often even provide all the contact info they can dig up on a "target" organization. You can see a sampling of this here: http://www.geocities.com/vr_junkie/aigtactics.htm
  
  Even though their "big tent" policy is understandable - it is not without it's cost - namely, credibility. They are in a tough spot. They will eventually have to denounce young earth creationism - it's inevitable. They are already starting to take some heat from some Christian groups for this. Christianity Today has an article taking them to task for "the strategic refusal of the ID movement to engage in constructive criticism of the Young Earth view" see at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/009/24.62.html.
  
  There is a silver lining... Though you won't see ID refuting the YEC view (even though almost all reject it), neither will you see them promoting it! Proof of this is in that you can find many many ID books and articles listed on YEC sites - but you will not see any YEC books nor their articles listed on ID sites.
  
  The YECs are also in somewhat of a tough spot where ID is concerned. They have spent a great deal of time and resources basically tearing down the credibility of scientists and their work - it would be a bit disingenuous to now hail some of their discoveries! This is especially true in that the same science that points to ID also points to an old earth - This is why YECs have a love/hate relationship with ID. They are finding themselves a tad irrelevant in the current debate and are attempting to play catch-up!
  

Why have so many Christians adopted young-earth creationism :

The biggest reason is that while the science of the young earth proponents is terrible, otherwise, the rest of their theology is correct. Couple this with well meaning Christians fed up with evolution who have traditionally been at a disadvantage scientifically, and you have baited the trap.

Christians have also been misled. Evolution is being used as a scare tactic, and a straw man to draw gullible Christians into young-earth creationism. An old earth does is not equivalent to belief in evolution. It is now obvious to most scientists that even a 4 billion old earth is not near enough time to go from random chemicals to man - you need an infinitely old earth. Scientists now realize that life seems to have started all at once (like with the Cambrian Explosion). Darwinian methods do not explain what they see.

Christians... are some doing damage :

I take no pleasure in speaking critical of other Christians, however, I cannot in good conscience let legions of Christians follow these young earth proponents (or their associates) without knowing the full truth. I reluctantly must say that I believe some Christians are doing SERIOUS harm. In my opinion, some have crossed over to deceit in their teachings. I will provide some information here and you can decide. In any case, you should become familiar with whose teachings you follow, and the extent and implications of those teachings. Some knowledge of who they are, where they come from, what they believe, and what they have wrote is prudent.

Henry Morris:

I believe Henry Morris and his Institute for Creation Research provide erroneous information (concerning the age of the earth, dinosaurs, etc.) You will notice (with research) that everyone he cites as agreeing with his views, or the authors of other books or publications he refers to - are all on his staff (or were at one time). He does not make this clear - I have found out through much reading. This would seem to indicate scientists agree with his opinion after a critical peer review - when nothing could be further from the truth. His science does not add up, and he continues to promote ideas that are scientifically unsound or even disproved.

He holds some rather strange beliefs. For example, here's a snippet from an article with a quote from Henry Morris at a 1986 Creation Science seminar describing Hell's location:

Henry Morris was asked about the bottomless pit of Revelation 9:1-11. [Morris] answered, "Whenever Hades or Sheol is referred to in the Bible, it's always down in the earth, the depths of the earth. So right there in the center of the earth, apparently there's a great opening that we can't really deal with in terms of our seismic instruments or other instrumentation. But apparently, it is there. You can take the Bible to mean what it says."

And I have seen materials on his web site, where He espouses the belief that perhaps all the stories of sailors encountering sea monsters and such are true. He sees them as proof of man's coexistence with dinosaurs.

He even has material on his web site stating that the old myths of half-human half horse people and such were possibly true. He explains these mythical creatures as Lucifer experimenting with God's creation and related to the Nephilim (the "giants" of Genesis 6:4). * Update: After John recently took over, this page has apparently now been pulled.

Morris even wrote in a book in 1978, "The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth" (Bethany House Publishers), that the craters on the moon are the result of Michael's war with Lucifer in heaven!

This is the kind of person that "scientifically" backs a young earth. It is most unfortunate Christians are following him by the legions!

Material you can check out at ICR for yourself:

• Henry Morris' Web site: http://www.icr.org
• His page admitting no human prints beside dinosaur tracks (Impact 151): http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=255
• His page still promoting the disproved human prints (Impact 35): http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=81
• His page discussing sailor dinosaur sightings (Back To Genesis 53b): http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-053b.htm (This one now pulled from site).
• His page claiming modern Jonahs (Back To Genesis 60b): http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-060b.htm (This one now pulled from site)
• His page where you can clearly tell he hates dinosaurs (Impact 167): http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=271

Morris background:

Henry Morris is a Southern Baptist who first founded the Creation Research Society (CRS) then in 1972, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). He is the main proponent behind the modern young earth creation-science movement. His publication of The Genesis Flood with John C. Whitcomb is responsible for the recent revival of "flood geology" and "appearance of age" theories.

Ken Ham:

I also believe Ken Ham and his Answers in Genesis (AIG) organization provide erroneous information (concerning the age of the earth, dinosaurs, etc.) Ken Ham worked for Henry Morris' ICR for about 7 years. He holds almost all of Henry Morris' views. Ken however, is more aggressive and confrontational. From reading his articles and hearing his debates - I can tell you he constantly gets "cornered" scientifically. He resorts to pure emotion to get other Christians to rally behind him.

Ham Background:

Since coming to America in 1987, Australian Ken Ham has become one of the most in-demand Christian conference speakers in the United States. Each year he gives talks on such topics as dinosaurs, Creation vs. evolution, etc.

He is the executive director of Answers in Genesis. He is the author of The Lie: Evolution and children's books such as D is for Dinosaur, A is for Adam.

Ken is also co-director of AIG's sister group in Australia, also called Answers in Genesis. From 1986 through 1993, Ken was "on loan" from the Australian organization (then called the Creation Science Foundation) to the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).

Material you can check out at AIG for yourself:

• Ken Ham's Web site: http://www.answersingenesis.org
• Page making fun of non-Christian callers, placing dinosaurs on the ark, and implying evolution from the biblical kind: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4264news4-3-2000.asp
• Page at AIG where he promotes evolution (specifically descent with mutation)! http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v23n2_canyon_panda.asp
  
  Concerning this panda/evolution business... I find it ironic that the main reason for the belief in a young earth - is that it does not allow time for evolution. And then they (YEC community) turn around and require evolution at a much higher rate than the most enthusiastic evolutionist would dare suggest. While chromosome studies show some similarities between bears and pandas - they are pretty different. Further the small panda is closest to a raccoon. This excludes a common ancestor for all pandas.
  
  Further, the Giant Panda is quite unique, living only in China and possessing many very unique characteristics, such as: a second thumb for eating its favorite staple (bamboo), larger wrist bones, different posture (they sit upright like a person), locomotion, etc. They are the only member of the genus (not species) Ailuropoda. Recall that descent with mutation (as depicted in this article) is the BASIC mechanism of full blown Darwinian evolution! To accept that the Panda is a mutation from a bear... is to make an evolutionist of yourself.
  
  If animals had been doing all this branching out into species, it would have exploited most if not all of the variability before the flood. If it had not, and the animals somehow still retained the ability to speciate post flood (with only 1 pair no doubt) - and it was on the rapid time scale the YEC propose - we would see these animals changing in front of our eyes!
  
  You see in AIG's scenario the variability was implanted into the first kind (during the creation "days"). Then it branched off into new species (the variability potential decreasing with each generation - like they admit in the article "subset of information") This would have gone on for thousands of years - then they want to kill off every one (in the flood) and start all over again with a single pair - and do all this speciation all over again. The problem is - all the variation would have already been exploited and used up - if it was ever there to start with!
  
  AIG is so adamant to prove their evolution - they point out weird occurrences like the liger (cross of a lion and a tiger). It does not follow that because someone can get a hybrid by breeding 2 different species artificially (through deprivation and captivity) and on even RARER occasions these offspring are fertile, that every type of bear (brown, black, Kodiak, polar, panda, etc) came about from a single pair of the bear "kind" through descent with mutation. This example is closer to explaining breeds of say dogs or cats than new species evolving. But, they insist on this being evidence for their broader definition of scientific species and refer to it as biblical "kinds".
  
  It is my opinion they have cut off their own foot! They want to denounce evolution and they turn around and endorse it. They may not propose chemicals or ape to man - but they endorse all the processes that will get you there - and fast!
  
  
• Page at AIG where he believes in modern dinosaurs, Loch Ness monster and more! Australia’s Aborigines... Did they see dinosaurs? http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v21n1_aboriginals_dinosaurs.asp
  
  In this incredible article AIG lends credibility to the Dreamtime stories of the aborigines. Insinuating stories of the large bipedal reptile monsters and such - like 'Bunyip', 'Burrunjor', 'Kulta', 'Yarru' (or 'Yarrba'), ‘Mirreeulla’, and even man eating kangaroos can and should be taken seriously!
  
  Here are just a few excerpts:
  

  "AFRICA’S CONGO JUNGLE is becoming increasingly known as the reputed refuge of a mysterious creature called Mokele-Mbembe."
  
  "This would suggest that some of these animals may have still been living in Australia some two to three hundred years ago, or even more recently."
  
  "The creature was said to be amphibious, laid eggs, and from the descriptions, appeared to combine ‘the characteristics of a bird and an alligator’ — i.e. a bipedal reptile..." One of the Aboriginals, named Mumbowran, showed ‘several deep wounds on his breast made by the claws of the animal’."
  
  "Some parts of northern Australia’s vastness are still little explored, and large areas of it are closed to public access. Perhaps some creatures unknown to science are still to be found there. "
  
  "Unfortunately, the Aborigines maintain, the ‘land eventually all dried up, the forests became desert, the swamps emptied, and Kulta died’. This actually fits the most common creationist models of the changing climate after Noah’s Flood."
  
  "While the controversy surrounding Scotland’s famous Loch Ness Monster waxes and wanes, many people are unaware that lake monsters have been reported elsewhere."
  
  "Man-eating kangaroos … confirming the stories For many years, Aboriginal stories of ‘savage giant kangaroos that preyed on men’ were dismissed by Europeans as nonsense. ‘Everyone knows’ that there can be no such thing as a flesh-eating kangaroo. The truth, however, is otherwise."
  
  "Once again we have a seemingly ‘mythical’ Aboriginal account confirmed by the fossil record, and bringing so-called ‘prehistory’ into line with the Bible’s account of the true history of the world."
  

  One must wonder how they seperate the above dreamtime stories from these... Are they also to be deemed worthy of consideration::
  • The sun was made from the result of two creatures engaged in a fight... one took the others egg and threw it up into the sky. It landed on a heap of firewood in the sky and ignited. It's yellow yolk spilled all over it, and lit up the world below to the astonishment of every creature on it.
  • The moon was a fish that was caught but climbed a tree before it could be cooked and went up into the sky to become the moon. It's phases are the result someone eating part of the fish and it growing back.
  • The land on all the earth used to be flat - the hills are the result two animals fighting. After the fight was over, one's hip started to hurt. Upon blowing on a sore hills come up in a flash from the plain. The more it blew, the more hills kept coming up. Entire ranges and all the hills were created this way.
  • The gods like the "Wandjina" (plural) who upon completion of their earthly tasks, turned into a rockface image.
  • The "shamans" who were estemed and thought to ascend to the sky gods upon being ritualistically "killed" and then rise again.
  • The "Ancestor Spirits" who can be people, animals, stars, hills or other in-animate objects.
  • The story of the famous three sisters mountain ("Meehni", "Wimlah" and "Gunnedoo") where a witchdoctor decided to turn them into large rocks to protect them - only to die before he could change them back!
  
  Note: For further reading on the dreamtime stories, or more information see Australian Legendary Tales by K. Langloh Parker (1897).
  
  Also, if you are interested in reading a complete account of some of the above creative dreamtime stories, here are a few of them that are on-line:

  HOW THE SUN WAS MADE  http://www.didgeridoos.net.au/dreamtime%20stories/sun.htm
  FISH MOON  http://www.didgeridoos.net.au/dreamtime%20stories/fish_moon.htm
  HOW THE HILLS CAME TO BE  http://www.didgeridoos.net.au/dreamtime%20stories/how%20the%20hills%20came%20to%20be.htm

Dr Dino/Kent Hovind/CSE:

I also believe Kent Hovind and his Creation Science Evangelism (CSE) organization provide erroneous information (concerning the age of the earth, dinosaurs, etc.) Unfortunately, Kent Hovind is also quite popular amongst fundamentalist churches and travels around the country lecturing and provides books and videos promoting young earth views. He also used to provide information on how not to pay your federal taxes! I personally read a page there http://www.drdino.com/irs.htm (now since pulled) where he gave tax advice (another pundit of the voluntary tax myth). He has been in trouble with the IRS multiple times. The only hint of his trouble is on Dr. Dino's page here http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=faq&specific=44 (This article no pulled) where he complains about Hank Hanegraaff, the "Bible answer man" accusing him of not paying his taxes (point # 9).

Hovind background:

Even many young earth proponents distance themselves from Mr. Hovind. he claims to have a Ph.D. - but it turns out it is awarded from a degree mil! This is no joke click here http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/9917/hovind/wild_hovind.html (This article now pulled) to see the split level that awarded him his degree for 100 dollars! Here is another link http://www.geocities.com/odonate/hovind.htm to read about him

He claims to have pictures of modern dinosaurs! Be sure to check out this link http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&specific=15 (This article now pulled - although I found another site with the picture: http://www.algonet.se/~tourtel/hovind_seminar/part3b_images/Image108.jpg) look at the last dinosaur supposedly from lake Erie... It's obviously a plastic toy/model!

What's wrong with YEC/Former young earth testimonials:

It is noteworthy that organizations that used to send people out into the field to do research work for the young earth cause have stopped doing so (ICR stands for Institute for Creation Research). The reason is that the people they were sending out into the field to do research to prove the young earth view came back convinced in an old earth. The evidence they would discover would lead them to the truth - hence no one is being sent out into the field anymore. Some have published papers on why they left. Here are some examples:

• Why I left Young-earth Creationism--by Glenn Morton: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/gstory.htm
• Steve Robertson's Story: A Graduate of Christian Heritage College (ICR) who works in Geology: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/robertso.htm
• Steve Smith's Story: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/ssmith.htm
• The Testimony of a Formerly Young Earth Missionary -by Dr. Joshua Zorn http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/resources/zorn.html

Creation Publications and peer review?

Many believe that the publication "Creation Ex Nihilo/Technical Journal /TJ/CentJ" (they keep changing the name) is a peer reviewed independent publication. This is not so. This publication is written and published by Ken Ham's Answers In Genesis organization. I have found that many do not realize this.

My main gripe with the YEC methodology :

Are you still wondering why am I so negative against young earth creationists? In a nutshell it's their tactics with others with whom they disagree. I do not know if you have read some of their accusations regarding old earth creationists - but it is vile. If you want to see a sample read this paper by young earth Creationist Danny Faulkner (Ph.D. Astronomer) criticizing old earth creationist Dr. Hugh Ross. The paper is entitled "The Dubious Apologetics of Hugh Ross" you can read it here:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4149.asp

Here you can see my point by point comments on it - by request of Danny Faulkner himself at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RTB_Discussion_Group/message/137

My comments went largely unanswered. His main point was a trivial dispute regarding what equipment was involved in MACHO discoveries. He neglects to recognize that Hugh said the scopes in dispute were used to CONFIRM the discoveries... he did not state they were used full time for the initial discoveries. Danny's few comments on my critique of his paper are here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RTB_Discussion_Group/message/148

For a more thorough treatment of these tactics see AIG's Negative Tactics at: http://www.geocities.com/vr_junkie/aigtactics.htm

Here is my assessment of these typical tactics...

The YEC community sits around and pretends that the evidence points to a young earth - as if there is NO old earth evidence! It's the LARGE ELEPHANT standing in the center of the room that no YEC proponent dare mention! Proof of this abounds... Glenn Morton's testimony shows what will happen if you dare to even mention the "elephant". The YEC community is not honest with the science - and no matter how pure the motive - this ultimately makes you dishonest! As everyone at the higher levels of this debate knows - every HONEST scientist within the YEC fold will usually admit (although only privately) that the vast body of evidence points to an old earth conclusion.

In light of this fact, the "game" (as I see it) is to sling enough mud and see what sticks. The logic is to cloud the science along with the scientists reputations and motives to the extent that most uninitiated people will accept the YEC interpretations of the evidence. This is effective with many - as they keep telling them that this is the only biblically possible interpretation.

As has been admitted by notable scientific YEC proponents - No scientist has come to the conclusion of a young earth without being persuaded by a "biblically" driven YEC predisposition. This fact is most significant - for it declares that if the YEC interpretation of SPECIAL revelation is true, God's NATURAL revelation is defective - as it is incapable of leading even a single scientist to the correct conclusion!

How should we conduct ourselves toward scientists :

With meekness as is illustrated in the following verse.
1 Pet 3:15
"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:"

We should make sure we have our facts straight, and our methods are correct as Christ illustrates in this verse.
Mat 7:5
"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

We must be VERY careful in how we deal with atheistic scientists. The motivation for mocking, scorn and ridicule is foolish pride. We should be very careful not to alienate our mission field... our goal is to lead them to Christ - with each and every (usually false) comment of ridicule - it makes it that much harder or even impossible to reach them.

We should not judge, mock, or in other words make fun of scientists. Consider the following verse.
Mat 7:2
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

If we mock others thinking them fools we might wake up some day, and find that it is us who have been the fools. Consider the following passage.
Prov 1:22 and 26-27:
"How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you."

We have a dire need in regaining respect and credibility. For young earth creationism is so lacking in fact and logic - it is causing any reference to creation to be banned from our schools. Creation is becoming synonymous with fools! If we don't change our ways - our children are going to be absorbing nothing but atheistic evolution.

If we were in a better position of credibility, we could point out some of the false teachings in evolution. We could dispute some of the "facts" that are of a tenuous nature, etc. Unfortunately, our complaints fall on deaf ears due to our own beliefs in dates and ages that are completely unsound. This is one of the reasons so many must accept evolution - the only other alternative is seen as worse!

We need to "wake up and smell the coffee" regarding the age of the earth and universe, just like the church woke up to the Sun's central role in the solar system... We have way too much at stake.

Summary :

I will be the first to admit that a "true" knowledge of origins is not a prerequisite to accepting salvation (at least not to all). But the young Earth proponents (like Ham and Morris) come VERY close to claiming that if you don't believe in their interpretations - you're going to hell. It would appear they approve of turning the age issue into a litmus test for being Christian. Should we be so quick to draw lines into the sand? Cannot we accommodate different interpretations of the more controversial areas of the Bible?

They claim that any altering of their literal meaning of Genesis 1 and 2 causes the whole Bible to unravel. I have personally watched a video as part of the "Precept Upon Precept" inductive Bible study course on Genesis chapter 1, where Institute for Creation Scientist Kurt Wise "cut out" every verse you would have to eliminate if Genesis 1 and 2's "literal" meaning were not true - needless to say he cut virtually every verse from the Bible.

Does the Gospel demand a young earth? Ken Ham (of Answers in Genesis) thinks so... In his article entitled The Necessity for believing in six literal days he says:

"As soon as Christians allow for death, suffering, and disease before sin, then the whole foundations of the message of the Cross and the Atonement have been destroyed. ... The whole message of the Gospel falls apart if one allows millions of years for the creation of the world."
Source:http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1316.asp

I for one do not think the case for God and Creation is so weak... that it cannot tolerate an old Universe. I realize allot of this paper has been somewhat confrontational, but I think good Christians CAN disagree on this issue and remain civilized - and be united in our opposition into an atheistic totally naturalistic origin for the cosmos and life.

The important thing for us not to lose sight of is that we agree on "who" Created, and that it's not so important as to when, or how long Creation took. No one disputes God took time with His Creation (he could have made all in an instant) we are just arguing about "how long". Time, day and night are all relative. Einstein has proven that time itself is dependent on your motion and proximity to a large gravity source. God is outside of time. Time is a dimension of our Universe. Time (not our concept of it anyway) did not exist prior to Creation. It's nothing more than a measure of "rate" related to "speed" while traveling. So for us to impose our puny little time scales on him is in some respects ridiculous. It's even possible to reconcile that for Him it could be 6 days, and at the same "time" billions of years for us!

However the "new" beliefs in 6 24-hr days, all creatures including dinosaurs on the ark, and 6 thousand-year-old earth present a tremendous barrier to anyone with even a smidgen of education in any of the sciences. I would argue to suffer the possibility of an old earth... if only to make it easier for others to believe.

I would like to bring up a real life example of the effect of enforcing a young earth view:
I know a pastor of a large Baptist church which has a brother who is a geologist... This pastor (a YEC proponent) has been unable to reach his brother because he cannot accept the Bible as fact because he understands it to demand the YEC position - the YEC are VERY effective in getting this message out! Hence scientists are driven away from faith.

Now note that some YEC proponents admit that you can believe in evolution and still be a Christian... That said, what does it profit us to insist on six twenty four hour days for creation? How many unsaved do you think say:

"Oh - If only someone had told me that the days in Genesis were each 24 hours, I would have accepted Christ years ago!"

Now I can tell you that turning this argument around does make it possible for people to come to Christ. Once you remove some barriers and shed the indefensible position, you can allow people with scientific backgrounds to come into faith - and at the same time boost the respectability of Christians at large.

As further evidence of this, consider a quote from an open letter to young earth creationists - by a former young earth creationist, Paul Smith:

"When I see young-earth arguments becoming effective enough so that atheists are converted first to young-earthism and then to Christianity, I will reconsider using them apologetically. For the time being, though, I do not see this happening, and I do see arguments against Darwinism - and arguments from the Big-Bang - bringing atheistic biologists, philosophers and physicists into the Body of Christ."

And for even more evidence that it has no persuasive power to thos who do not already believe, consider R.J. Riggins' statement:

"After years of intensive research, I have all but given up hope of finding a biologist, geologist, physicist, astronomer, paleontologist, or whatever, who--through his actual field or laboratory research--came up with such overwhelming evidence that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old... --that he came to the inescapable conclusion that it was all created recently. Then he looked around for who knew that all along. Then he became a fundamentalist Protestant...

It never happens in that order. A person FIRST becomes a fundamentalist--either raised that way or converted--THEN learns what he is supposed to believe about the history of Earth and life."

I see it this way... the old classic argument of the atheist and the Christian - where the Christian points out that he has nothing to loose if he is wrong - whereas the atheist has everything to loose if he is wrong. Apply this same argument to young earth creationism!

I thank you for reading this paper, and hope that you are either challenged, inspired, or relieved! If you liked the paper and found it useful or informative... Please take a second and send me E-mail.

I leave you with the words of St. Thomas Aquinas: "The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Christian, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false."

Further information :

Old Earth

• Old earth reading (Christian perspective):

  • Gerald L. Schroeder, Genesis and the Big Bang (Bantam Books, 1990)
  • Hugh Ross, The Fingerprint of God (Promise Publishing, 1989)
  • Hugh Ross, The Creator And The cosmos (Navpress Publishing, 1995)
  • Hugh Ross, The Genesis Question (Navpress Publishing, 1998)
  • Dick Fischer, The Origins Solution (Fairway Press, 1996)
  • Don Stoner, A New Look at an Old Earth - On-line edition (Schroeder Publishing, 1997)
  
  
  

• Old earth web sites (Christian perspective):

  • Hugh Ross' Reasons To Believe: http://www.reasons.org
  • God and Science: http://www.godandscience.org/
  • Affiliation of Christian Geologists: http://www.wheaton.edu/acg/
  • American Scientific Affiliation: http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/index.html
  • Glenn Morton's Creation/Evolution Page: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm Although Glenn is a theistic evolutionist (which I disagree with) he has much to contribute in his geology work - especially since he was a former often quoted YEC
  • Institute For Biblical and Scientific Studies: http://www.bibleandscience.com/

Young earth

• Young earth reading (Christian perspective):

  • Henry Morris, The Genesis Record (Creation-Life Publishers, 1976)
  • Henry Morris, The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth (Bethany House Publishers, 1978)
  • Duane Gish, Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record (Creation-Life Publishers, 1985)
  
  
  

• Young earth web sites (Christian perspective):

  • Answers in Genesis: http://www.answersingenesis.org/
  • Center for Scientific Creation: http://www.creationscience.com/
  • Christian Answers Network: http://christiananswers.net
  • Creation Science Evangelism http://www.drdino.com
  • Institute For Creation Research: http://www.icr.org

Are you a Christian :

If not, are you interested in how to become a Christian and be saved? If so, I encourage you to really READ and STUDY the following few verses. I consider them to be the most important in the Bible.

(John 3:16 KJV) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Here are the steps:



1. (Rom 3:10 KJV) As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
2. (Rom 3:23 KJV) For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
3. (Rom 6:23 KJV) For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
   
4. (Rom 5:8 KJV) But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
5. (Rom 10:13 KJV) For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
   

Do you agree with and accept everything in the above verses? Do you acknowledge that you have sinned? Do you believe there was a person named Christ, and further that He was God's son... who came down to earth to pay for our (man's) sins? Have you called upon the name of the Lord? This is what determines salvation and Christianity. If you have any questions, feel free to E-mail me.