When was the Earth created?

They don't want to be confused by facts.

Biblical fundamentalists! I have just finished a detective story in which they feature in a most sinister way. I recommend Dana Stabenow's books set in Alaska.

Elegran

I cannot understand how they can be blinded to facts and only believe what is written in the Bible or other religious book. And some of these are supposed to be intelligent people.

janthea I agree...it is a mystery

I think it is probably only a few fundamentalists who don't believe the scientists - if you looked hard enough you could probably find some people who still believed the earth was flat or that the sun revolves around it!

A lot of otherwise intelligent people believe what appear to be really silly theories. A recent programme on Radio 4 about Conan Doyle referred to the fact that he was taken in by the Cottingley Fairies. But religious fundamentalists are an easy target.

What I find even much more worrying - is that in the UK our obscession (sp?) with the maintenance of Faith schools actually allow this sort of to be officially taught in some creationists state funded schools!!!

The current geological estimate for the age of the Earth is 4.6billion years. That is 4 thousand million yrs.

There have been 5 mass extinction events the Dinosaurs were finished off very recently at about 65 million years ago!

www.bbc.co.uk/nature/extinction_events

Our countries coal measures and the limestone and gritstones that occur with them were deposited when the piece of continental crust we now call the British Isles was south of the equator around 350million years ago and slowly drifting north.

In the Western Highlands there are mountains which are about 600million years old. These are made of the eroded remains of previous mountains which themselves have probably been recycled several times, buried in seas and pushed up by moving continents for millions of years before that.

As an amateur Geology enthusiast when I look at the sites of some of these Geological sequences the unimaginable time scales involved just sets the mind boggling. I just cannot imagine how anyone who has ever seen these places can even begin to believe that they just happened just like that. It defies any logic.

I have been on several courses/holidays organised by an excellent Geology teacher who runs these as part of his business. He sees no problem at all with his Christian beliefs and the current understanding of Geological sciences.

I find it frightening that the creationist thoeries could be taught in some Free schools. None of their pupils will ever get anywhere in science.

I have come to the conclusion that the Earth doesn't really exist. It's just something I have created in my gigantic sand tray. I'm going to rebuild it tomorrow…or the next day…or the next day…

I like that, absent . One of the strange beliefs many people espouse is that only Christians believe strange things. Or that 'they' refuse to believe scientific evidence. Set up an Aunt Sally, throw things at it......then we don't have to examine too closely the things that we believe.

Quite so Lilygran. Still, it keeps them cheerful.

About 250 million years ago - more or less.
For a Christian perspective you might like to read this sermon:
cis.org.uk/upload/Resources/Creation/Denis-Alexander-11-June-2006.pdf

MiceElf grannyactivist, thank you for this link.

Thank you for that GA.

Some ancient cleric dated it precisely to about 4 o'clock on a Saturday x number of years ago!

Chap by name of Ussher in the 1500s said it was in 4004BC.

I don't want to set up any Aunt Sallies, Micelf and Lilygran, but I do want to try to understand what it is you believe. As far as I can see from this link and all the other research I have done, mainstream Christianity now accepts the theory of evolution but simply says that God set the wheels in motion. The biblical version of creation is to be seen as allegorical, a simplified version of the science for the understanding of people without the benefit of Darwin's theory.
If this is what mainstream Christianity now teaches, I cannot see that it makes any difference to either your faith or my lack of it.
I am glad that only a few deluded people want to teach creationism and I think the Churches have a duty to speak out against so-called Faith schools which are subsidised by the state.
Have I understood the position correctly?

The link ga posted is very informative.

The swivel-eyed looney (must have been) Bishop Ussher counted the begats since Adam I think, and then ascribed generation-length to them, giving him his Creation date... it was sometime after the domestication of the dog!

I have found another reference, that states that 'Dr John Lightfoot, one of the most learned seventeenth-century scholars, concluded that creation was performed by the Trinity on 23 October 4004 B.C. at 9:00 A.M., 45th meridian time.'

So there...

When was the earth created? Nobody knows, including the scientists!!

speckie123 Scientists have a good idea when the earth was formed unless you want the figure to the nearest 100yrs.

GrannyA you are only 4350 billion years out.

4.6billion yrs that is about 4.6 thousand million. +/- 1%

www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/earth_timeline/earth_formed

I have just spent a happy weekend on the Pembrokeshire coast walking down a sequence of very bent and twisted rocks which date from the Precambrian 600million years ago to the carboniferous 359 to 300million years ago. Many of these rocks can be dated by the radio active decay of particular minerals.

I am sorry to any creationists out there, but there is far too much evidence that 250million is nowhere near old enough.

I have a lump of rock in my back garden from sub marine volcanics that is over 600 million years old.

earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/teachers/t_tectonics/p_plate_reconstruction_blakey.html

How these other figures that have been speculated upon over the centuries before our current scientific understanding are still believed I cannot imagine.
See my previous post of Wed 01-May-13 18:16:56

I cannot see why this is in the in religion and spirituality thread and not the science thread.

Gosh! It never occurred to me that we had creationists in our midst until I read bits of this thread. I suppose it should have occurred to me.

<retires to recover from the shock>