TORAH and SCIENCE-----age of the world / carbon dating

eeesther Posted - 23 August 2003 21:48

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But the "age" of fossils is established by carbon-dating which measures the amount of radiation present in the isotope?

MODERATOR Posted - 23 August 2003 21:56

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Carbon-14 dating rests on two assumptions. (a)that the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has always been constant, and (b) its rate of decay has always been constant.

Neither of those assumptions has been proven or close to proven. And since the world was created in six days, who knows how the cosmic radiation in the atmosphere was fluctuating then.

There is another issue that makes the carbon dating useless. When the world was created, it already had an age. In other words, when Adam for instance was created, he was an adult, even though he was one day old; there were fully grown trees; the sun's light already reached the earth; an entire world existed, full-blown and OLD.

How old was the world at the moment it was created? I don’t know -- it doesn’t say. But we do know that it didn’t start from scratch. And so lets say someone would chop down a tree 1 week after it was created and find maybe 50 rings inside - would that prove that the tree was 50 years old? Nope - it would only prove that when it was created it was created as an adult, 50 year old tree.

So even if dating would be accurate, it still doesn’t prove that the world was not created 6,000 years ago - because when it was created, it already could have been thousands of years old.

Avishai18 Posted - 18 May 2007 16:06

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“even if dating would be accurate, it still doesn’t prove that the world was not created 6,000 years ago - because when it was created, it already could have been thousands of years old”

G-d didn't have to create the world that way, though. He could have theoretically created a world where the first ever fully grown mountain was ACTUALLY 3 seconds old, and the evidence in it would show its correct age instead of displaying evidence of being 1000 years old.

Hashem's omnipotent and CREATED these laws of science, so He definitely didn't have to make a world where everything created instantaneously had an age to begin with, and especially not one that actually appeared older than 6000 years.

So then is it some sort of test of our Emunah that he created the world in a way that the scientific evidence dating the Earth contradicts our beliefs?

MODERATOR Posted - 18 May 2007 16:19

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If G-d "could have" created the world either way then the dating mechanisms don’t prove what they claim to, because they do not negate the possibility that G-d created an aged world.

But never mind that. The entire idea that G-d would have created a "new" world is not reasonable, because surely things like Adam, the animals. the trees, were created ADULTS and full grown, with all the characteristics of people and animals much older than 6 days. Insects that live in decayed dead trees had their homes to live in.

The world surely was created more than 6 days old. Adam as an adult by definition had the signs of being older than 6 days. The adult animals too. And trees with fruits on them full grown right at creation. A world swarming with life is a world that is clearly more than a few days old, and the teeming life forms are clearly showing signs of being more than a few seconds old.

SO clearly the world was much older than its creation-date. The only question is how old.

The "dating" of the scientists is therefore not test of Emunah at all - except a test of Emunah in what the scientists say.

Emunah Peshutah for sure.