# Prove that the earth is 6,000 years old **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 23, 2003, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295 "2003-07-23T02:25:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/21 "2003-07-23T06:04:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Blue Sky \* > \*\*Relevant website \*\* Your link isn’t really relevant: "Interestingly, they all seem to indicate a Young Earth, or certainly, not one that is millions or billions of years old. " In other words, they don’t even try to prove that the earth is 6,000 years old. They just try to prove that it’s younger than millions of years old. Can you prove that it’s actually 6,000 years old? For example, how do you explain the radioisotope data? The half-life of thorium-234 is only a couple of weeks or so. If the earth were really as old as 6,000 years, all the thorium-234 should have burned itself out long ago. And yet, there’s still plenty of it around! How do you explain that? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/22 "2003-07-23T06:13:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Soup\_du\_jour \* > \*\*What about the timezone? \*\* Well, since the river flowing out of the Garden of Eden branched into four rivers, one of which was the Euphrates and another of which flowed west to Syria (see [Genesis 2:10-14](http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=GEN+2&language=english&version=KJV&showfn=on&showxref=on)), I think we have to assume that it was at 9 a.m., [BT](http://www.worldtimezone.com/wtz-names/wtz-bt.html) - Baghdad time! ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/23 "2003-07-23T06:46:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*One wonders what time zone that’s measured from. It follows, in fact, that at 9 am on The First Day - the instant the world was created - it was in fact The Previous Day in some parts of the world. There’s a brainbender. 😛 😛 \*\* The very Gates of Hell (do you hear me? Hell) are gaping wide open for smart alecs. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/24 "2003-07-23T06:57:22Z")
Bring 'em on. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/25 "2003-07-23T11:44:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben \* > **In other words, they don’t even try to prove that the earth is 6,000 years old. They just try to prove that it’s younger than millions of years old.** To be fair, some were trying to show it was less than 20,000 years old iirc. You were hoping to hear from people who claimed the earth is less than 10,000 years old - they’re getting closer. Normally I would be a devil’s advocate and try and defend the position, but I can’t read it without laughing. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/26 "2003-07-23T11:50:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Soup\_du\_jour \* > \*\*What about the timezone? \*\* Greenwich Meant Time of course :smack: You don’t think god would go mucking about, do you? ---
**Author:** ![refusal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/27 "2003-07-23T14:04:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SimonX \* > \*\*Greenwich Meant Time of course :smack: > You don’t think god would go mucking about, do you? \*\* Wouldn’t it be British Summer Time? I’m not certain, but it’s generally the last weekend in October the clocks go back. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/28 "2003-07-23T14:13:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*According to Jewish doctrine, it’s even less. 5,763 years. \*\* Minor nitpick: According to Jewish tradition, it is 5763 years since Adam, not since Creation. One could posit billions of years between Creation and Adam. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![stick\_monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@stick\_monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stick_monkey)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/29 "2003-07-23T14:23:29Z")
Just a question…for ben…curiosity is getting to me Isn’t thorium-234 actually being created within uranium deposits constantly. So that, even though it’s half-life is constantly causing it to degrade into something else, something else is constantly degrading/combining in the same structure to create it. _caveat:_ I am not a geologist, physicist, chemist, radioligist, or any other ‘ist’. I am an engineer, the fact that you asked this question multiple times got me thinking about it, and I was just curious if my assumption is correct. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/30 "2003-07-23T14:31:33Z")
I don’t know the answer to your Thorium question, **stick monkey** , but that may be the point to which **Ben** was alluding; creationists are quite adept at picking a process (say coastal erosion) and extrapolating to bizarre but convenient conclusions, by completely ignoring other processes that work in (general) opposition to the first one (in the case of this example, these would be deposition, upthrust, volcanic activity etc). ---
**Author:** ![stick\_monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@stick\_monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stick_monkey)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/31 "2003-07-23T16:36:58Z")
I figured that’s the kind of question it was, after reading his tract that had the dust piling up under his bed and the population of rabits exploding (or whatever the rest was). That was just the only one that I didn’t have an explanation for off hand and was curious if I determined the correct answer (or close) using logic or not. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/32 "2003-07-24T00:01:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Northern Piper \* > [James Ussher](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ussher), Anglican Archbishop of Armagh in the early 17th century, calculated that [Creation](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_the_date_of_Creation) occurred on October 23, 4004 B.C. One of his colleagues, [John Lightfoot](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lightfoot), gave an even more precise figure: > > > [@](#): > > > > [T]his work took place and man was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B.C., at nine o’clock in the morning. I’d be very cautious about that Wikipedia entry. The [article](http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/ussher.htm) it relies on does at least quote at length from a translation of part of Ussher’s _Annales_, but, in summarising it, the entry slightly misses the point. The most crucial part of Ussher’s text is: > [@](#): > > \*\*ut for as much as the first day of the world began with the evening of the first day of the week, I have observed that the Sunday, which in the year 710 aforesaid came nearest the Autumnal AEquinox, by astronomical tables (notwithstanding the stay of the sun in the dayes of Joshua, and the going back of it in the dayes c Ezekiah) happened upon the 23 day of the Julian October; from thence concluded that from the evening preceding that first day of the Julian year, both the first day of the creation and the first motion of time are to be deduced. So Ussher was actually dating Creation from the evening of the 22nd. This is a common confusion, partly deriving from the fact that he was careful to distinguish between the creation of the earth “without form and void” and the act of “let there be light”. It’s the latter he dates to “in the middle of the first day”, meaning the 23rd. The information about Lightfoot’s estimate is more badly out. In 1647 he published an estimate of 3928 B.C. (see the reproduction of his table in Fig.2.2 of _The Age of the Earth_, Stanford, 1991 by G. Brent Dalrymple). This is the dating he adopted in his [New Testament commentaries](http://www.gospelcom.net/eword/comments/matthew/light/matthew2.htm). There seems no great consensus amongst secondary works as to what his exact suggested date was, but everybody seems to think it was in September. It is true that he’d suggested in an earlier work of 1642 that man was created at 9 o’clock in the morning (Dalrymple, p21). For Lightfoot’s date, the article cited by Wikipedia is relying on Andrew D. White’s famous 1897 book _A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom_, a Victorian polemical work now regarded by historians of science as notoriously unreliable. Stephen Jay Gould’s essay on Ussher (in _Eight Little Piggies_) is recommended, as is James Barr’s detailed 1985 discussion of his chronology (_Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library_, 67, 575). ---
**Author:** ![laigle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laigle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/laigle)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/33 "2003-07-24T03:00:40Z")
Ahem. \ Well you tell me… you ever met nobody 600 **1** years old, city boy? Yeah… didn’t think so. Note: The above was sarcasm. If you didn’t realize this, then by all means remove yourself from the gene pool immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/34 "2003-07-24T04:53:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Minor nitpick: According to Jewish tradition, it is 5763 years since Adam, not since Creation. One could posit billions of years between Creation and Adam. I figured that was the case, Zev - and I’m aware (and happy) that Jews generally don’t have the problem of fundamentalist interpretation. Although I’ll confess to getting hopping mad when my youngest brother came home from Hebrew School one day with a ditto that said the world was 5,763 years old. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7feea3/32.png) [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/35 "2003-07-24T05:03:48Z")
How can anyone date the Earth? Where would you take it? To a movie on Jupiter? ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/36 "2003-07-24T14:22:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*I figured that was the case, Zev - and I’m aware (and happy) that Jews generally don’t have the problem of fundamentalist interpretation. Although I’ll confess to getting hopping mad when my youngest brother came home from Hebrew School one day with a ditto that said the world was 5,763 years old. \*\* Well, hold on. Not so quick. Maintaining that the six days of creation were six literal, 24-hour days and that the universe is only 5763 years (plus six days, plus however long since last _Rosh HaShannah_) years old is a valid POV WRT Jewish tradition. I was merely pointing out that there are schools of thought within Jewish tradition that the SDoC weren’t literal 24-hour days and that one can posit billions of years between Creation and Adam. IOW, both old-earth and young-earth creationism can fit within the framework of Orthodox Judaism. Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/37 "2003-07-24T18:18:30Z")
Look, I know how we can settle this once and for all. Cut the Earth in half and count the rings. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/38 "2003-07-24T19:16:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pravnik \* > \*\*Look, I know how we can settle this once and for all. > > Cut the Earth in half and count the rings. \*\* Phht. That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. The Earth doesn’t have rings. You’re thinking of Saturn. ---
**Author:** ![Dob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Dob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dob)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/39 "2003-07-24T20:10:51Z")
Having gone to Mr. Blue Sky’s ‘relevant’ website and found this little tidbit interesting. I did some other searches but couldnt find anything that refuted the proposed problem below. > [@](#): > > Besides conflicting with the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics, the Big Bang Theory contradicts the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum. For example, how does the Big Bang Theory explain “Retrograde Motion” (the backward spin of some planets and the backward orbits of some moons) without violating the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum? > > Everything in the universe is spinning - planets, stars, galaxies, etc. It would take an enormous amount of energy to start a planet spinning (Inertia). To solve this, advocates of the Big Bang Theory claim that the singularity that blew up in a sudden big bang was spinning before it exploded, thus everything within it was spinning as it flung out. The problem is Venus, Uranus, and Pluto are spinning backwards (Retrograde Motion). Why is this a problem? If something spinning clockwise blows up, all of the pieces will be spinning clockwise (the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum). How can the Big Bang explain Retrograde Motion? anyone help me out here? ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295/40 "2003-07-24T20:21:15Z")
There is a response to this issue on the Talk Origins website. [http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/nov99.html](http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/nov99.html) Scroll down about half-way. The answer is lengthy, so I’m not posting it here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prove-that-the-earth-is-6-000-years-old/190295.md?page=3)