I find it amusing that Christians who believe in an old earth tend to use the same arguments to defend their position as those who argue against evolution altogether. The most common argument seems to be that "the evidence we see proves it." Of course if the evidence you see through your human eyes contradicts the evidence in God's Word, the Word has to take precedent. So as far as I see, the only valid arguments are those which are based on the Bible and the interpretation of the word "day."

Flame away!
Tim | Homepage | 09.24.04 - 5:04 pm | #

Tim,

That reminds me to repeat of my credo in this area:

When science and the bible disagree, the bible is always right

When science and Christians disagree, science is sometimes right
David Heddle | Homepage | 09.24.04 - 5:15 pm | #

Don't forget that many young earthers also use science to support the young earth.
Elvis | 09.24.04 - 9:48 pm | #

David,
What are some good resources for a more old earth perspective?

I have been "on the street" doing ministry to the down and out type folk that I am 15 years rusty on this issue. Only recently as i ahve been witnessing to more educated folks has the ideas come up.

My history is I have an anthropology degree (emphasis Medical Anthropology. I was pre-med too) from Stanford and I taught science in public high schools. I have, needless to say a very strong science background, and I have never looked at the text in Genesis to be science literature. So I am a newby to the arguements.
I need good science as I can smell bad science a mile away.
brad
brad hightower | Homepage | 09.25.04 - 11:12 am | #

Brad - Shouldn't you start with a study of Hebrew and not of science? Like David said, when science and the Bible disagree, the Bible wins every time. So if you haven't studied any of this before, start with deciding whether you think the Bible can support the idea of an old earth. If it cannot (and many or perhaps even most Christians do not think it can), science will just blur the issues.

I know it sounds closed-minded, but think about it. We need to begin with the Bible lest our scientific "proof" overshadow the Bible.
Tim | Homepage | 09.25.04 - 3:45 pm | #

Elvis,

The 'science' used by YEC is not science at all. Most members of YEC Ministry's are required to sign oaths to the YEC mythology, swearing to dismiss any evidence, which contradicts the YEC dogma. That pretty much chucks science right. Yec ranks are rife with out and out conmen like Kent Hovind or Carl Baugh.
The primary scientific problem with YEC cosmogony usually reduces to one word: heat. Formation of many sedimentary rocks releases heat, radiodecay releases heat, to hold 4 trillion cubic miles of water as a vapor would require enormous heat (and pressure), four trillion ckms of water hitting the ground and ocean at terminal velocity produces heat, volcanos, earthquakes, meteorites, all produce heat. If these events occurred in a 10,000 year window, the earth's surface would be a boiling sea of lava.
PegLegDark | 09.26.04 - 2:38 am | #

Brad,

From a Christian perspective, I would try some of Hugh Ross' books--you can look online at Reasons to Believe.

For a debate among the three views commonly held by Christians, you might try The Genesis Debate
David Heddle | Homepage | 09.26.04 - 5:31 am | #

Yes certainly David. You can can count on Hugh Ross to employ the exact same misguided objections to evolution as Kent Hovind, only in his vision quest the default position is Old Earth Creationism. Strangely, when Harun Yayha employs those same objections, Islamic Creationism is the defualt position and the same for Hindu Fundies.
Stellar processes? OK. Big Bang Cosmology? OK. Plate Tectonics? OK. All those are perfectly valid inferences formulated out of observed data. Evolution? Nope ...
PegLegDark | 09.26.04 - 1:46 pm | #

PegLegDark,
If I say "second law of thermodynamics", what do you say?
Brett Scollard | 09.26.04 - 2:56 pm | #

PegLegDark,

Ross uses entirely different arguments against evolution. He has to, given that he acknowledges the earth is 4 billion years old. For example, he runs with the fossil record rather than running from it. And Ross's scince, in my opinion, is much better than the YEC guys.

Regardless, the old earth debate is not really about evolution, but about cosmology.
David Heddle | Homepage | 09.26.04 - 6:11 pm | #

David it's good to note you haven't fallen prey to the YEC Evangelicists. However Hugh ross employs a number fo arguments used by both YEC and Harun Yayha.
YEC and Harun Yayha-The Cambrian Explosion, The SLoT/Info theory, There are no transitionals, etc

Harun Yayha-The Quron (or bible for Hugh Ross) taught the Big Bang first, the strong anthropic argument.
IOW where hugh diverges from the YECists and Islamic creationists is almost exclusively on matters on antiquity.
~DS~ | 09.27.04 - 5:50 pm | #

The lack of transitionals is not just a creationist thing, its a punctuated equilibrium thing too.
Brett Scollard | 09.27.04 - 10:09 pm | #

For an excellent discussion of whether or not the Hebrew in Genesis allows anything other than a 24 hour day, see "Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?" by C. John Collins. Dr. Collins has undergraduate degrees in engineering from MIT, and is currently a Professor of Old Testament Studies at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. His focus is on the Hebrew, not on the science.
Jim Price | 09.29.04 - 1:25 pm | #

PegLegDark,

It's easy to mock fringe characters like Kent Hovind or Carl Baugh, but you can't claim to be seriously addressing the YEC when you do, since serious YEC don't agree with the likes of Hovid, either.

> The primary scientific problem with YEC cosmogony usually reduces to one word: heat

You then go on to present a fanciful strawman scenario that no credible YEC would propose, so what's the point? Seems like a waste of time.
Randy | Homepage | 09.29.04 - 1:53 pm | #

i liked the first tims first commment the best of all the above
and davids response sums it up
the bible is always right - we just havent learnt enough yet to prove it one way or the other - whether we are talking about hebrew hemerneutics or cosmology
i personally as a lay person have leaned to the young earth camp but am interested in asking the old agers are they gappers or not - that is do they have a gap after geneses 1:1 in which to create the fossil record and if so how do they reconcile the possibility of death before sin entered the world
if not - then how do old earthers deal with young earth science observations - such as the level of moon dust, the apparent inaccuracy in c14 dating etc
tim | Homepage | 09.30.04 - 11:05 am | #

I generally lean toward a 7 day creation, but some time ago David put forth a couple of thoughts that made me start to wonder:

(I am only going to post one of those thoughts, and I won't state it as elegantly as he did)

1. Light travels at roughly 3e8 m/s. There are stars from which the light that we see on planet Earth may have taken over 100,000 light-years (and for some stars much longer) to get to earth.

How can that be explained? Did God supersede the natural laws He put in place for the light to travel much faster than usual to reach the earth? Could the light be seen from the earth at the moment of creation? (shrug)
Jason | 09.30.04 - 4:42 pm | #

Jason,

Same thought would go for the age of trees at Creation. Would there be rings? What about Adam and Eve being created? Were Adam and Eve looking like infants as we know infants today, or were they 30ish in what we know today? So, I do not separate things such as stars with what was on earth at Creation. The stars are in place just as the tree rings and just as adult humans.
Elvis | 09.30.04 - 9:02 pm | #

there has been work done to explore the measured slowing of the speed of light - enough to know that it is not a constant
the answers in genesis site has more details
tim | Homepage | 10.01.04 - 10:15 am | #

There has been much work done on the speed of light, but it is still far from certain that the speed of light has fluctuated in the past. Certainly, no study has demonstrated the degree of fluctuation necessary to account for the differences. Perhaps future work will provide more insight into the matter. As is, the speed of light is still a big dilemma.
Brett Scollard | 10.01.04 - 10:57 am | #

Rnady many of the original ICR staff and faculty spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the phsyical issues of things like heat and carrying capacity for an atmosphere. Glenn Morton for example. In terms of the Noachiian Flood, heat becamse the primary issue in holding miosute in the atmosphere. Some of the best work along those lines gives a Vapor Canopy eqauvelent to a few inches at the expense 40 to 50 degrees F of temperature increase. Similar problems crop up in everything from RD decay to the formation of limestone...
So heat is by no means a strawman, it never has been. It remains the primary fly in the ointment of Young Earth Creationism.
~DS~ | 10.02.04 - 2:16 pm | #

One of the great things about examples like SN1987A is that we can rule out significant changes in the speed of light during transit. If light had traveled 20 times faster in the past when it left SN1987A, events on that remnant would appear in slow motion, and they do not. In aiddtion the amount of compression required to transform a billion light years into the eqauvelent of a few thousand means light would have to travel much faster; which kicks up enormous inconsistencies in physics.
~DS~ | 10.02.04 - 2:22 pm | #

DS, who said the moisture had to be in the atmosphere? For example, one scenario (one person's opinion) of the rain came from a fissure in the earth that sat on top of an underground ocean. The water basically shot out and rained over the earth. No water vapor condensation for all the rain as you imply.

As for the light from stars, why is it that star light is a sticking point when it is accepted that trees had their rings at their point of Creation and that Adam and Eve were fully grown adults at their point of Creation versus going through a growth cycle of infant to toddler to child to teen to adult?

God is all powerful to make full grown trees, animals, humans, He can put the stars and light in place without us humans trying to out think God.
Elvis | 10.02.04 - 11:18 pm | #

Elvis 4 trillion cubic kms of water coming out of the earth means there is now a global space of about 10,000 meters under the earth's surface everywhere. The result would liquify the surface as the crust settled, i.e fell 10 km ... work out the kinetic energy on THAT...heat again. Water shooting out under that kind of pressure would have a mean free velocity near escape velocity. It would be like a superheated old faithful every square meter. For the water to then evaporate means it would have to be held as vapor which brings you back to the amtosphere issue. There were almost certainly all kinds of floods in the first couple of thousands years after the pleistocene, ~ 10,000 years ago. You could have regional floods. But no global floods of the type in the Noah's Ark legend.
~DS~ | 10.03.04 - 12:35 am | #

DS, who says the water has to vaporize first? On a small scale, when you water your lawn, does the water vaporize and then condenses to water your grass? No, it sprays out of your sprinkler and falls on your grass, no burning your grass.

With the shift in the water and land masses, we know that some things that were above water are now under water and that some things that were under water are above water. If you are into thinking about the space, it just shifted. Why should there be an "extra" empty space when you rearrange things.

You know, God also parted the Red Sea where Moses lead the Israelites through. A massive amount of water parted. Where was the heat there to scald the people going through it?

I hope your little knowledge on heat is not a hinderance for you to see God's work.
Elvis | 10.03.04 - 9:57 pm | #

Elvis I think you misunderstand, If the water came from the earth then, to go away, it would have to evaporate(Those speces would be stucturally incapabale of staying 'open'). Generally speaking, there is not much water underground for the simple reason that rock does not float. There is some water, and oil etc caught in reserviors and some in inerstatial spaces. But not nearly enough to do the job.
Yes you can solve that problem with an appeal to magic and if you choose to believe such claims that's your business. Remember the infamous cartoon with the scientists and the blackboard and the words 'then a miracle happens' in between two hairy equations? But magic is not science, and it is science we are discusssing.
DarkSyde | 10.04.04 - 7:53 am | #

DarkSyde, I think you may misunderstand that rearranging the land masses and oceans can create what is under and what is exposed without having to vaporize massive amounts of water (what you attribute to magic). It's not a difficult concept.

If you call God's works (miracles) magic (such as Lazarus raised from the dead, Jesus' Ressurection), you have your word for it.
Elvis | 10.04.04 - 8:25 pm | #

I just came across this blog entry today...


'In the beginning, the world was formless and void. And the spirit of the Creationists hovered over the waters, proscribing just how God was permitted to create the Universe, lest the creationists' faith be bruised by the knowledge that the world was in fact older than 6000 years. And lo, God spake and said "has it occurred to you that I'm quite capable of doing this without your input?" Verily, the creationists were astonished by this hubris and said "well, when your Son comes down in some future age and he gives his life for the sins of the world, we'll make sure that when we spread that message, we'll encumber our audience with unlikely claims of lions eating vegetarian and Koala Bears walking across two continents and swimming an ocean to get to their habitats. And we'll also insist that if they don't believe our claims, then they can't really be saved, can they?"

And God said "Do I know you?".'
Tom R | 10.05.04 - 2:04 am | #

Elvis I think I have a pretty good handle on what you're saying. It's version of Walt Brown's Hydroplate concept.
'Rearranging' trillions or trillions of metric tons of matter would produce...you guessed it; heat. And lots of it.
Look, if you want to invoke miracle or magic or whatever you want to call it to get around physical limitation sfor the flood legend that's fine. But it's not science. In science classes we teach, ... well ... science.
~DS~ | 10.05.04 - 7:00 am | #

DS,
Do you have a source I could look at for the actual calculations that estimate the heat generation?
As a mechanical engineer I am quite familiar with heat generation and transfer; and my nerd brain just longs for working the math.
Thanks!
Brett Scollard | 10.05.04 - 9:45 am | #

Brent, I'll give you a few when I get home, otherwise from this work IP I'll have to paste it in by typing it out, UGH!
If you can narrow it down to specific events you'd like to see that would help me some. There is the vapor canopy work..i.e. how much can be held as vapor at a given P-T, there is geological material discussing brown's Hydroplate idea and the formation of all kinds of sedimentary substances. One really good source of info on this topic would be a fellow by the name of Glenn Morton. Much the material I'm familiar with comes from him. Glenn is an evangelical Christian and a geo-physicist who at one time published prolifically in YEC journals. Super nice guy. You can contact him directly at GlennMorton@entouch.net. should the need arise and I'll let him know who you are.
DarkSyde | 10.05.04 - 12:29 pm | #

Aside from the canopy theory, I'd be interested in anything on the heat generated in the noahic flood.
I'll try getting in touch with glenn too.
Thanks
Brett Scollard | 10.05.04 - 12:58 pm | #

Well, DS, I suppose when a hurricane comes through with all that water being moved, it boils people in its path.


Tom R, read Genesis. Doesn't say there are billions of years in the "day." A day is 24 hours the last time I checked. So quote the Bible versus quoting someone who doesn't like what Genesis has to say. No one is suggesting that anyone who doesn't believe in Genesis is not saved as Salvation belongs to believing in Jesus. Do you?
Elvis | 10.05.04 - 8:34 pm | #

Brent,
Canopy info by Morton http://home.entouch.net/dmd/canopy.htm and http://home.entouch.net/dmd/publi.htm

Morton's critque of Walt Brown's Hydroplate theory, fairly technical http://home.entouch.net/dmd/hydr.../ hydroplate.htm

Critique of John Woodmorrapes Noah's Ark Feasibility study
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/...ppe- review.html

Expected Flood Evidence http://www.creationism.ws/ what_i...at_if_flood.htm

Related YEC articles: RD Dating: A Christian Perspective http://www.asa3.org/aSA/resource...rces/ Wiens.html
~DS~ | 10.05.04 - 8:48 pm | #