The age of Earth: Religion versus science

Posted on September 21, 2007
Filed Under Atheism |

There are many absurd claims that people of faith make with respects to most aspects of human life, history, behavior, and future. But one of worst must be the idiotic claims by religious fundamentalists who claim that our Universe is only a few thousand years old against all rational thought based on evidence that say otherwise.

Science has known for a long time that the Earth is roughly 4.6 billion years old. Radiometric dating of meteorite material and lunar samples allows scientists to estimate our planet’s age very accurately. This does not mean that we know for sure what the planet’s exact age is but scientists can give estimates of the accuracy of their dating which currently sits at roughly plus or minus 1%.

Religious fundamentalists, on the other hand, considering the book of Genesis as a literal description of the Universe’s creation by an all-knowing and all-powerful being (known as God) estimate the Earth’ age as being somewhere between 6000 and 10000 years.

As you can tell, the difference in the planet’s age claimed by religion and science is large enough that one cannot say that both are correct, i.e., that both estimates are within certain error bounds.

One of the first religious people to try and estimate the planet’s age using Genesis as a guide was the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh James Ussher who laboriously estimated that God created the Universe at the exact time of October 22nd, 4004 BC at 6:00pm. He performed said computation in the 17th century. He managed to create what is known as Ussher’s Chronology by associating events described in the bible with historic events with a well known time frame. So, according to James Ussher, the Earth today is just over 6000 years old.

This gross miscalculation based on a misunderstanding of a book written by men has recently been resurrected in the Young Earth Creationism movement. Young Earth Creationism, once again using a literal interpretation of Genesis, considers Earth to be anywhere from 6000 to 10000 years old. Religious wacko, Ken Ham is working hard on establishing his museum that further spreads this myth claiming that man co-existed with dinosaurs while the latter were even occupants in Noah’s ark.

It is very difficult for me to understand how people can actually believe such ridiculous claims about the Earth’s age. How can anyone who has benefited so greatly from the advancements in science including life-saving medical procedures still accept scripture as the absolute truth? There are days that go by that I think that humankind is taking huge steps backwards dooming ourselves to an age of ignorance and fear (once more, that is).

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