I always like to point out to them that they are forgetting that some deity decided to steal fire from a close-fisted pig headed top deity and gave it to some poor blokes that then later became more like us half a million years ago. 
kanicbird, you know when you pull a casserole from the oven, it takes more than 3 minutes to cool; right?
Let’s split the difference and say that the recorded or written history is about 5000 years old.
[QUOTE=creation museum]
Dinosaurs could have gone extinct any time after the two of each kind got off the Ark, just like many other animals have gone extinct since the Flood.
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So there were dinosaurs aboard the Ark. That must have been cool!
I suspect you may be missing kanicbird’s point, which may be that the reason some people believe that the Earth is billions of years old is the same reason that other people believe that the Earth is 6000 years old: because the “authorities” that they trust have told them so.
If so, you’re talking about two different things: the reasons we (humanity as a whole) believe something vs. the reasons that individuals believe something.
If you ever met a ‘creationist scientist’ you would hear that argument from the other side as well. And they do have explanations that can sound convincing from someone apparently in a position of authority.
I’ve seen it in person and on TV. They are what I would term creationist scientists, and IIRC the Creation Museum does try this too (though it was many years ago since I visited and may be mis-remembering).
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Bold mine, you are making an unfounded assumption, A counter claim is Science is inspired by God, but not always recognized as such. Therefore the the knowledge and the gifts of science are gifts of God, just many just fail to give God credit. This one is close to my own belief.
No, I am not, but like to understand other people’s point of views. As for this subject my explanation is that God was trying to explain how things came to be to people who would not yet be able to understand much. Much akin how parents might explain where do babies come from to a small child. It is told in a way to give them some answer that is instructive to the level they can understand, and in time, as civilization progresses more details are added (the all science is inspired and a gift from God that I expressed above, is what is being used to update the story to our level of understanding).
I sometimes wonder if the creation story in Genesis is a story of terraformation and starseeding humanity on this new world, with the light mentioned ‘in the beginning’ being the light of the ‘living spirit’ given to the earth(read: Earth able to support life), for without life there is no light in the sense of the question ‘if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’
I guess you can tell that to a YEC, which is not me
“We’ve got to stand up to the experts!” --Random Texas Politician :rolleyes:
“We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture,”
[RIGHT]–Ray Mummert
[/RIGHT]
No, I take the point as an explanation of why a large number of people hold bizarre beliefs about the world. But I don’t accept the claimed equivalence between religious authority and scientific authority as a reasonable justification for misguided beliefs. For a lay person hundreds of years ago this may have been the case. But with the vast amount of information that is now freely available to anyone with the slightest intellectual curiosity, someone who still views religiously-motivated authority as comparable to humanity’s accumulated body of scientific knowledge is nothing short of feeble-minded, utterly devoid of critical thinking skills.
And it’s not, of course.
The OP asked, “How do people convince themselves that the Earth is very young?” They have reasons, just not adequate ones. But just because someone holds correct beliefs does not guarantee that their reasons for holding those correct beliefs are any more adequate than the reasons people hold incorrect beliefs. (In some cases they certainly are, but in every case?)
No, YEC (Young Earth Creationists) have said that the Earth is 6000 years old. Jehovah’s Witnesses have said that mankind is 6000 years old. I was a Jehovah’s Witness at one time, before I thought seriously about evolution and women’s rights.
You know, one thing about the Bible that is never brought up is that in Genesis, it says God made the animals before he made Adam. And those animals were being fruitful and multiplying, so there were female animals. So why did God make Adam, and then have to make a separate decision to make a female human? “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Oh gee, really? You saw fit to give mates to every animal on the planet, but you had to think good and hard about giving your creation in your own image a mate? Why?"
To explain why women should be second class, of course. As Archie Bunker said, “He made Eve from a rib, a cheaper cut.”
There is some speculation that the original story had Eve being made from Adam’s boner bone (or “baculum”), explaining why humans don’t have one while so many other species do. (And with obvious symbolic implications.)
Is 6000 years Biblical? The Jewish year is 5777, my Reform Rabbi would say, “5777 years since recorded Hebrew history began” I believe Orthodox Jews say “5777 years since the creation of the world.”
cmkeller?
On edit, I would fanwank that man was made in G-d’s image, and G-d has no mate. G-d discovered that Adam needed “a help mate” or whatever the King James Version says. Perhaps I am too much into Star Trek.
Two Many Cats:
The traditional Jewish explanation of this is G-d did it this way so that Adam would DESIRE a mate, not simply be stuck with one. He had to be made to feel that he was missing out on something.
carnivorousplant:
I assumed that the OP’s 6000 was an approximation. The Jewish calendar does indeed consider this year to be year 5777, but I didn’t think it was worth not-picking about. What’s 223 years between friends?
That depends on whether that creation story was written before or after Gooooood’s mate Asherah was written out when the Israelites transitioned from polytheism to monotheism.
There’s a scene in Inherit the Wind where the guy standing in for William Jennings Bryan describes how the 6000 year figure was calculated.
There are verses in the prophetic books of the Bible which have a lot of imagery and numbers (involving a banded tree and times passing over it among other things) which in some tortured way, add up to 1975. My mom used that one to prove to me when I was young that 1975 might be the year of Armageddon, but probably not since “no man knows the day or the hour.” Older ex-JW’s may remember when 1975 was supposed to be THE BIG ONE!!! Even older JW’s who are still JW’s may remember that one.
Nowadays, some JW’s explain away 1975 as, “The Bible doesn’t say how many years Adam was alone in the Garden of Eden.”
Great. There’s always an excuse.
I’ll go with Mr. Keller’s explanation.