How old is the Earth?!

It would appear that the majority of people are of the opinion that the Earth is billions of years old, and dates back to a supposed "big bang". An alternative idea based on working through the Biblical geneologies would suggest a figure around just six thousand years. It would seem that the only reason for not accepting the latter figure is the need to accommodate evolution? Before the end of the 18th century everyone happily accepted the Biblical timeframe. I am not aware of any evidence against such a young Earth. Anyone care to "enlighten" me?! lol

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Originally posted by joz:
If you think that the Earth dates back to the big bang you are a bit of an odd duck...

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The UNIVERSE dates back to the big bang (about 10-12 billion years ago) the Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago....

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See the difference?

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Ok, fair enough, I should've phrased the question better, but that avoids the original question! I don't believe that EITHER of them is anywhere near as old as that. I've already given allegance to the viewpoint that the universe/Earth is much younger than is generally accepted.As for the big bang theory, may I quote an article from Nature (10th August 1989) - "Apart from being philosophically unacceptable, the Big Bang is an over-simple view of how the universe began, and is unlikely to survive the decade ahead...In all respects save that of convenience, this view of the origin of the universe is thoroughly unsatisfactory. It is an effect whose cause cannot be identified, or even discussed."I think it's true to say that whilst many people still hold true to the big bang theory, they are the people that haven't really looked into the evidence. No leading scientist would hold allegance to this theory today. Remember that people once thought the Earth was flat!!

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Originally posted by joz:
Uhh Mr P there is a LOL at the end of his original post, I think he`s playing devils advocate.......

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May be wrong though but how many YECs do you know from the UK?

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I am indeed attempting to play Devil's advocate. I was kinda hoping that a few ardent defenders of a young Earth would get involved to make things more interesting. Saying that tho', I was interested by the links posted by Mr P (message 4). May I remind everyone that both sides of the coin are described as THEORIES, and therefore not completely proven. I could draw attention to the Cambridge Cosmology Group... http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/bb_problems.htmlOr the fact that NASA admit the theory to be incomplete in accounting for all observed data... http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni/uni_101bblimit.htmlNow whilst Creation, Evolution, and the Big Bang, are regarded as THEORIES, there are some things that are regarded as LAWS. These are immutable, tested, and are not subject to arbitary change. The law of gravity for example, or the laws of thermodynamics, or cause and effect.Here it gets interesting, the 1st law of thermodynamics states that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, so it follows that nothing in the universe is capable of bringing the universe into being. This leaves two options (I think!), (A) The universe has always existed (and I doubt I'll ever find someone who believes that!), or (B) It was brought into being by something OUTSIDE of itself (aka God?!). The 2nd law of thermodynamics states that in an isolated system, spontaneous processes lead to a decrease in order, so if the Earth is infinitely old we would not be able to find any sort of order....It follows then that the universe had a beginning, and that God was responsible for that beginning....lol