Age of the Earth - Official OzzPoll Response
You may think that I am going to give you what I believe is the correct answer to this question. Well, I don’t know the exact answer, but if I were going to guess I would have to say the Earth is 6404 years plus or minus 96 years. That was not a serious answer, but it was stated to make a point. My example guess is an equivalent in accuracy to the scientific answer to this question that a large number of you have no doubt fallen into believing according to the results of this poll and many others. The Washington Post did a pretty good job of descsibing how many polls show where Americans sit on the subjects of age and origin of the Earth in a story titled What’s Not Evolving Is Public Opinion. Now back to the answers to the question. I am fairly certain that the Earth is not 4.55 billion years plus or minus 70 million years as a result of some “Big Bang” random event involving pond scum and a lighting bolt. The answer is that only God knows exactly how old the Earth is and I can live with that answer.
Let’s look from a non-scientific point of view how absurder the 4.55 billion year theory is when looking at how the guess was derived by Clair Cameron Patterson. Basically, he calculated guessed the age of the Earth at 4.55 billion years old with an approximately a 1.5% margin of error using a piece of cosmic rock found in Arizona. I did not just pull this out of Wikipedia. I have actually been to the Canyon Diablo Meteor Crater. All science aside and using basic math here, how can anyone calculate the age of this planet based on a rock that they don’t even know anymore about than to say it hit the Earth 30,000 years ago plus or minus 10, 000 years? This guy can not even guess the age of his sample within a 30% margin of error, but he wants us to beleive his results with a 1.5% margin of error. He came up with this calculation guess in 1953 before we even started to gather physical samples of the conditions outside our atmosphere where this rock suposedly came from in the first place. I think you get my point about how any average person could easily question Mr. Patterson’s findings.
So where does this leave us and why does it matter? I think we need to understand where some of these scientists are gettign their drive and then the reason why iot matters will be pretty clear. I think that Mr. Paterson was misguided and deceived. Who deceived him you may be asking? I believe that it was a force that he may have not even realized. It was Satan himself. There are forces of evil with power and influence over people as told of in the days of Moses. The Egyptian magicians of Pharaoh were able to perform the same miracles that Moses and Aaron performed as told in Exodus 7. These powers were not granted to these magicians from God like they were granted to Moses and Aaron. Their powers came from Satan. The magicians acknowledged that some of the miracles that they could perform were from God when they explained to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.”
These same powers and influences of Satan are everywhere and if you don’t have God in your life then you will not recognize when you are being deceived. These forces reside in a Spiritual Realm as discibed in Ephesians 6:12
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (NIV)
These spiritual forces of evil have power to influence people. I believe that the forces are behind articles like these:
Science Must Destroy Religion
There is No God (And You Know It)
I am not saying that this Huffinton Post author Sam Harris is evil, but I am saying that he has been influenced by evil forces that he may not even understand. He is a soldier in the army of Satan. His writings are an extreme example of what is driving the material being shoved down our throats on the subject of evolution and the Age of the Earth. These articles are outward and open examples of how some have declared war on God in the name of science.
It is only fitting that just yesterday Turning Point Radio began featuring a series on Spiritual Warfare by Dr. David Jeremiah. Today’s message is titled Identifying the Enemy is available at OnePlace.com. I listen to Turning Point Radio via WKCL (We Know Christ Lives) in Ladson, SC. I support WKCL and listen to them daily. I recommend that you find a good Christian radio station like this to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ. It is like a half hour of Christian education on the way to work every morning.
Now what do we do about the enemies that we identify? The answer comes in the next few verses of Ephesians 6.
13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.(NIV)
Most of this will sound crazy to you if unless you have a personal relationship with Jesus. You can learn more about this on my “How to know Jesus” page.
Quotes from the Bible are from BibleGateway.com.
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:21 am
Hi Ozz.
I find this topic to be very interesting. But because my salvation doesn’t hinge upon my knowing the exact age of the earth, I tend to take it pretty lightly and keep it in the realm of “interesting”.
I am curious, though.
Is your main point that the age of the earth is unknowable? or that we can’t trust Mr. Patterson’s findings? or that non-Christians simply cannot see things the way we do?
BTW: on which side of the fence do you fall regarding the age of the earth? In other words, how would you have answered your own poll?
For me? I am on the side of “A whole lot more than 6000 years, definately in the millions, but beyond that….I have no idea.”
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:31 am
I believe the Earth was created in six days. I believe that based on the lineage of the Bible that the Earth was create a little over 6000 years ago. I really like Dr. Kent Hovind’s arguments on this subject. I plan to blog about him later. I watched one of his videos a couple of years ago and listened to many of his other talks via mp3 downloads. I would love to be able to debate the subject the way he does.
I read the Bible literally. I agree with the late Dr. Adrian Rogers when he said, and I am paraphrasing, “There are plenty of signs and symbols used in the Bible, but once those signs are identified then they should be taken literally.” I have not figured out the exact definition of every sign. For instance, I know that years are referred to as days in places. That then tells me that the six days of could represent more than an actually Earthly day. I personally think that the six days were Earthly days as we know them today.
The point of the post was mostly that we really don’t know the Age of the Earth and that it is okay not to know. That said, we as Christians should be suspect of those who think they know the answers only through some scientific test or knowledge. Science and scientists are not our enemies, but our enemies are the forces that use science to convince us to believe things that are not of God.
Thanks for keeping me straight on closing out my point in some of these posts. I am working on that as well as my grammar and spelling.
February 2nd, 2006 at 11:42 am
Thanks for the clarification.
Here is a question:
When you are studing the Bible with a scientifically oriented, non-Christian who is trying to become a Christian, do you use the literal interpretation of 6 days as a sticking point? In other words, is it a salvation issue?
I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I am sincerely curious.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:03 pm
My immediate response to your question is Absolutely Not!
To clarify I want to say that there are a ton of things that we will never understand about the Bible, but salvation is one that is clear and literal to me. I even added a permanent page in my sidebar titled How to know Jesus to address that subject.