Science and religion

[The Sherman]

i have heard (havent read it myself yet) that christians and jewish people think the world is somewhere in the region of 5000 years old, now obviously this is the single stupidest thing that anyone can even conceive but my point is when science goes directly against religion how come religeous people are so quick to rubbish that branch of science but never question the technology behind computers or say the television. I mean theres absolutely no way you can even possibly think that we would have anything we have today with out science and research. So why is all that just accepted straight away but if you say something that goes against the faith THEN science is absolute tosh!

[jake-the-peg]

I think you'll find that's only a very small faction of them that actually believe that.

You see some segments feel that they have to believe the literal truth of everything that's in their bibles (or whichever Holy book they follow) If they doubt some then they could end up whittling it down to nothing so they insist it's all literally true.

They'll stick to that in the face of anything because it's their lifebelt.

I doubt you'll find any on here that'll actuall 'fess up to believing that the world is that young, but if you're quiet and hide in the bushes they might just come out

[paulos66]

I believe it's still being taught at Emmanuel College

[Octavius]

Well I can put my hand up in the air and say that I don�t believe the world is 5,000 years old today � if I did I would probably have a birthday cake with lots of candles or summink.

My question therefore to you Sheman is, exactly how old is the world? And how do you know for sure that your estimation (assuming you don�t peek at Wikipedia etcetera) will not be the �most stupidest thing that anyone can conceive� in a hundred years or so?

[The Sherman]

well it just got me thinking. One day me and my girlfriend were out walking and she studies geology and was showing me how the rocks had moved slowly over millions of years...and well in between yawns it got me thinking i wonder what religeous people think about geology. Then i got to thinking about trees and how we count their age and how they old they can be and how we might not know really how to gage how old they are since we get so much science wrong . and it just got me thinking why are we teaching all our children this when the bible tells us that god put it there and it was about 5000 yrs ago.

and then that got me thinking about other branches of science and wondering how much did we get wrong and if only we'd look in the bible all the answers are there!

I remember asking mum when i was young "how did jesus get in mary's belly?" and now i realise sicience is all wrong you dont need men you just need god! we should just denounce science because all we need is zeus. Or Thor, whichever of those you believe in!

[Octavius]

So this bird that had you bored rigid, was it her own conceptual idea that the rock she was holding was �millions� of years old, or was it something she had been told by her tutor? It is a broad estimation though - did you ever challenge her to narrow its age down a bit? Do you think that she might have been trying to convince you that a very very old and very very much changed piece of coal would look really good on one of her fingers?

I wouldn�t recommend dating a tree by counting its rings, as to do so would mean cutting it down which isn�t very nice as it would (probably) �murder� a poor defenceless tree. It is acceptable if you plant a sapling in its place though, apparently.

[The Sherman]

actually she doesnt study geology she just made a guess
and as you cant prove her otherwise you'll pretty much have to believe her

[WaldoMcFroog]

I think we're talking about Bishop Usher here, who worked out the Earth was created on October 23, 4004 B.C.

Usher worked this out by adding the ages of the various genealogies in the Bible, and there are a surprising large number of people who insist this system is more correct than the 4.5 billion years (+/- 1%) date we have arrived at via radiometric dating and isotope dating of meteorites that stands up to repeated re-testing.

When I say large, obviously relative to the number of people who accept 4.5 billion, it's etremely small, but it's not zero, and consequently, there are a whole raft of pseudo-sceintific methods used by Young Earthers, however, like all religiously-led science, these methods are promoted specifically because they provide evidence that agrees with what the Bible (in this case, via Usher) says. They're also methodologically flawed (because if they did them properly, they wouldn't agree with the Bible at all).

[jake-the-peg]

Actually it's an interesting question as to how close you can get to many current scientific values with primitive equipment.

One of the earliest methods was the salinity of the sea - I think you can get back to 100 million years or so with that.

But the most dramatic evidence is the fossil record and it was the growing work on that a couple of hundred years ago that pretty much convinced everyboody that the Earth is really old

[The Sherman]

you jsut think that maybe at least one of the hymms would have mentioned the diosaurs if the world is that young wouldnt you?

or at least just a passing glance at the fact that they couldnt fit on the ark or just something so that we know they existed!?

[Lonnie]

The present Jewish year is 5767, that dates from the time God created the world, however, its only the ultra orthodox nowadays who believe that, The Jewish calender is used now, mainly used for various festivals

[styley]

Science keeps throwing fact after fact at poor old religion, the big bully. But in fairness to religion it does change its own rules when its going to look completely idiotic, sometimes.