Young Earth Creationism Radiometric Dating
As Bible believers, we believe the earth to be young and was formed around 6,000 years ago. Science has an opposing view and states the earth is billions of years old. We know the strong claims for an old earth, but is there much evidence to suggest the earth is young?
The Bible is a guide book to life and also a history book. We can trace history through the ages, as we are given the genealogies, plus the age of the people. But this information alone is not enough to prove conclusively to nonbelievers.
Young Earth View
The belief that the earth was formed between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago is a religious belief. Most religions have the same viewpoint, that the earth was formed thousands of years ago.
The Christian belief is that the earth was created in six days by God and this happened 6,000 years ago. It is a strong belief that the complete Bible is true and it is the word of God.
Old Earth Creationism View
The view of old earth creationism is held by people that believe in the Bible, but agree with the scientific viewpoint. This reason for this is before God created the earth in six days, God created heaven and earth. Between these two events from verses 1 to 2, there is no given time in which it happened.
There is another theory that there is a gap between the 7 day creation week and when Adam was formed. Although God created man on the sixth day Genesis 1.26-31, Adam was then formed in Genesis 2.7.
Scientific View
Science believes the earth to be 4.54 billion years old. They have been trying to calculate the age of the earth for 400 years, and this was done previously by the changes in sea levels.
The current method for dating the earth is by using rocks. They way they calculate this with radiometric dating. The layers of rock consist of elements and the decay of these layers determine the age.
Overview
From the different viewpoints, we can see that there is a huge gap between the dates. Christians believe the Bible to be true and scientists have a way of testing it. Although scientists have a method for testing the age of the earth, is it accurate and are there any other ways to know? The method for testing used to be the sea level and now it is rocks, but this method could change in the future, as one theory is replaced with another.
Age of Earth By Religions – Wikipedia
- Christians: 6,000
- Jews: 5,778
- Buddhists: 41,0000
- Sumerian and Babylonian: 200,000 to 400,000
- Egyptian: 32,500
- Greek and Roman: 4,000-4,500
- Zoroastrianism: 12,000
- Hinduism: 8,640,000
- Chinese: 41,000
- Mayan: 5,134
- Islam: 6,000
The age of the year is varied depending on the religion and culture. The majority of these say that the earth is young and only thousands of years old. So it is only the Hindus and scientists that think the earth is billions of years old, although Rigveda, a Hindu text, says in regard to the age of the earth, who really knows?
Dating the Earth by Rocks
Fossils
To get an idea of the age of the rocks, fossils are tested to determine their age. This gives a guide to the fossils which are in the substrata below. To carry out radiometric dating, the fossils must contain potassium and carbon.
Radiometric Dating
In 1904 Bertrand Boltwood first developed the radiometric carbon dating method. The first tests using this method, dated the age of the earth to be 40 million years old. The following year 26 rock samples were tested and the ages were given between 92 to 570 million years old. It was later on with refinements that the rocks were given the ages of between 410 and 2.2 billion years old.
In 1927 the age of the tests gave a range of between 1.6 to 3 billion years old. Now the age of the earth is claimed to be 4.55 ± 0.07 billion years. So we have seen a huge increase in the number of years since the testing began. But how can we be sure?
Problems with Radiometric Dating
There are a number of problems with radiometric dating. These tests are carried out with some assumptions and this is why the dates have varied over time.
Formation Condition
Depending on the condition of the rock at its beginning, it is hard to determine the starting point for the age of the rock to be measured. A good example of this, lava was tested in New Zealand Mount Ngauruhoe and the age was estimated to be 3.5 million years old, when in fact it was only 50 years old. Lava contains high amounts of argon-40, which changes the results of the test.
Contamination
Rocks are open to the earth’s atmosphere and are subject to contamination from airborne particles, rain, water flow, and gases from the earth. The case in New Zealand contained elements that ranged from 133 million years old to 3.9 billion years old in the detailed report by Answering Genesis.
Decay rate
The decay rate is a standard rate for measuring the data. The earth has been going through hot and cold cycles through the years with varying conditions in each location. Decay rates have a significant impact on the age of the object. Tests were carried out on crystals that were aged at 1.5 billion years old, but the decay of helium was only calculated at 6,000 years. This changes the decay rate to 250,000 times more than it should have been.
Other tests have been carried out on rocks only to find that they are older than the earth! More diamonds were tested and they were calculated to be 6 billion years old. That makes them 1.46 billion years older than the earth.
For more examples of the inaccuracy of the radiometric dating, watch these short videos;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg6MfnmxPB4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wlD1r–h04
More Reason to Believe a Young Earth
1. Population
The population of the earth is currently 7.5 billion years. The population of the earth at the time of Jesus Christ was around 250 million. The population after the flood during Noah’s time was 8 people.
The graph of the population of the earth correlates with the population of people in the Bible. The flood happened around 4,350 years ago. The continual population of the earth fits with the word of God.
2. Low Sea Bed
Every year the earth erodes 20 billion tons of sediment and this forms at the bottom of the sea. The depth of the sediment has been measured around the world and the average is 400 meters. If the world was billions of years old there would be thousands of miles of sediment of the ocean floors.
3. There Should Be More Skeletons
Scientists believe that human bones would last more than 3 million years before they decay. This would mean that the number of buried remains over the years would have greatly amounted, but this is not the case.
There would a vast number of human remains recovered by archaeologists as they were buried. The big case against the old age earth is that there are only thousands of remains recovered, the evolutionists would amount the figure to be billions of skeletons in the earth.
4. The History of Man Is Young
We are told that homosapiens were using tools to carve and paint cave paintings for the last 200,000 years. If this were so, we only have materials that date back to 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.
Any megalithic stone structure dates back a few thousand years, along with clay tablets that were used for documenting. We are told that Stonehenge is 10,000 years old, but we have discovered there are a number of flaws in dating rocks.
5. The Oldest Known City
The oldest known city is that of Mesopotamia, located in modern-day Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, this has been dated to 3500 BC. It was discovered in Iraq and at the time it would have been Babylon. They are also claimed to have the first wheel, plow, and time dating. This is also considered a place where the garden of Eden was located, although this is contested from Israel to Africa.
6. Evolution Speed
Hunter-gathers have been claimed to have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, the progress of man does not correlate with the progress of technology. Consider the progress stages of inventions;
- Iron age: 4000 BC
- Wheel: 3500 BC
- Bronze age: 3000 BC
- Languages: 3000 BC
- Paper: 2500 BC
- Iron age: 1000 BC
- Electric: 600 BC
7. Dinosaur blood cells and tissue
Dinosaurs have been thought to have existed millions of years ago. But tests have found that there are blood cells and tissues on dinosaur bones, in our article here. Blood cells and tissue decay rapidly and should not be found on animal remains this old.
8. Fossils
Fossils are widely known to be formed over thousands of years, but in places where there is high mineral content, fossils can be formed in a matter of months. Harder materials take longer to fossilize, but this can be done over a few years.
9. Humans and Dinosaurs coexisting
All over the world, there are depictions in vast numbers of cultures and civilizations of dinosaurs and dragons. These were created at a time when no contact was made between the people, so there is no chance of imitation.
Summary
Given that we are told certain figures are accurate, there are many uncertainties. From the dating of rocks, that produce unreliable data to evolution of the world. There are enough points to hold a strong argument for a young earth. Without looking into the possibilities that there are holes in the arguments raised, many people will go along with the view that science has the answers. Bible believers are a small voice crying in the wilderness, but we know God is good and the Bible is true.
“The entrance of your words gives light. It gives understanding to the simple.”
Psalms
119.130