Hi again Barbarian. Yes he believed at his time under 6000. He said this "They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousands years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed".
The evidence at hand for Augustine did not show a very ancient Earth. He did, however, say that if scientific facts should show a problem with anyone's interpretation of Scripture, we should be willing to recognize that our interpretation might be wrong.
And this is what Christians did. In the 1800s, most Christians were old Earth in their thinking. Most still are, although the Adventists have managed to gain a large number of adherents in the United States.
If we take the creation of man, Adam, and add up the generations, we find that roughly/thereabouts its 200 generations from then till now.
The problem is of gaps and other discrepancies in the various geneologies in the Bible. Since there are two, conflicting geneologies for Jesus (for example), one has to conclude that they are not reliable as histories.
That also fits with what scientists say about when they believe our decline in our dna, if I have put that correctly, or degeneration through disease, cancer etc , you know what I mean, came about or can be traced back to.
Never heard of that. In fact, we are physically better than our ancestors, and intelligence is greater to day than even a few generations ago. So doesn't seem very likely. The Flynn Effect (rising IQ) and a fairly constant increase in physical record-setting pretty much removes that issue.
Also recently saw a skeleton, fossil proof, however you want to put it heralding the great transitional species of an animal that showed the move between seals and land animals. Dawkins was sprouting off how its a great evidence. Trouble was I saw next to it in a picture a skeleton of a, living today, sea otter which was almost identical.
Show us that. My guess is that it's probably a lot more bearlike than otterlike in the details.
Age of rocks is only done by some saying "ok that rock's a million years old so that's our template" how do they know its that old?
Isochrons. And we know it works, because a blind test accuratedly dated the flow that buried Pompeii, at a known date.
Some lava flow rocks were taken from some recent day eruptions in New Zealand and dated using their methods. They said they were millions of years old! In fact they were not even 100 years old!
It's a common trick. One creationist did it at Mt. St. Helens not long ago. The trick depends on finding hardened lava containing crystals that did not melt during the lava flow. These xenocrysts, not having melted, retain the evidence of their ancient age, and therefor can be used by unscrupulous people to "prove" that the Earth is not old. In reality such flows can be accurately dated only by carefully removing the unmelted material and only checking the lava.
There are a host of other ways to get wrong dates. There are entire books written on the precautions necessary to get an accurate reading.
It unreliable and yet its used to tell people how old everything is. Its almost unbelievable, to me, that people actually fall for it all.
That's why. You see, those stories are meant to be told to scientists; they are made up for people who never heard of xenocrysts, and don't realize they are being told falsehoods.
God is unfathomably powerful, awesome, we cannot begin to understand His ways and power.
But in nature, He does reveal a bit about His character and ways. Every now and then, when I'm out by myself, perhaps watching his creatures, what I know from scientific investigations and what I know of His greatness falls together in one place in my mind, and I am staggered at the majesty of His creation and His wisdom in making it so. I wish there was a way to convey how it feels, to you.
But when he gives me His Word and says this is what He did I believe it. I don't rely on some made up theory to satisfy what I cant understand, I trust Him, in faith! That's faith!
I often pray to Him; "Your way, not my way." And so man's interpretation of His word is fallible as anything else man does. But He cannot be at odds with nature. It is His.
