Age of the Earth

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The Zoroastrian religion is one of the few religions that provides a specific age in which the universe and the earth was made.  The life of the Universe is 4 units of 3,000 years each, for a total of 12,000 years.  The universe as we know it (all of Creation, is the term, so we will assume the Earth is part of Creation) was made after 3000 years of perfect balance. Thus making the age of the Earth somewhere between 6000-9000 years, depending on when it fell in the Age of Creation.   
 
The Zoroastrian religion is one of the few religions that provides a specific age in which the universe and the earth was made.  The life of the Universe is 4 units of 3,000 years each, for a total of 12,000 years.  The universe as we know it (all of Creation, is the term, so we will assume the Earth is part of Creation) was made after 3000 years of perfect balance. Thus making the age of the Earth somewhere between 6000-9000 years, depending on when it fell in the Age of Creation.   
 
===Hinduism===
 
===Hinduism===
 +
On the other hand, the age of the earth in [[Hinduism]] is much bigger. Hinduism states that the earth came into being with the god Brahma and after doing some calculations with units of time found in Hinduism we come up with an age of 155.5 trillion years.<ref>[http://www.bhakti-yoga-meditation.com/hinduism-age-of-the-earth.html Bhakti Yoga Meditation - Hinduism: Age of the earth according to Vedic chronology]</ref>
  
 
==See also==
 
==See also==

Revision as of 01:10, 24 October 2011

The Age of the Earth is roughly 4.54 billion (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%) years old,[1][2] according to the scientific consensus. This wouldn't be particularly noteworthy to emphasize if it wasn't for the people that completely disregard most fields of modern science and reject it out of hand. The age is calculated based upon radiometric dating of star-stuff that fell from the skies.

Contents

Scientific Views

Formation of the solar system

The original formation of the Earth was a violent process that resulted in an early Earth that was in effect, constantly molten. Therefore, we do not and perhaps can not know exactly how old the Earth is. However, science has determined that our Solar System was formed roughly 4.54 billion years ago. This age is based on radiometric evidence from meteorites found on Earth. Lunar rock, which is collected from a body that does not have a fluid mantel or crust, so has therefore remained constant, dates to 4.4 - 4.5 billion years. Other evidence includes a few Martian meteorites that have landed on Earth, which date to a slightly older 4.5-4.6 billion years. Though not yet perfected, recently discovered technology to study the sun, helioseismics, have provided independent confirmation of the rough age of the solar system [3]

Formation of the Earth

Due to the nature of our own Earth, and the fact that the mantel is fluid and the crust has in fact undergone many stages in its formation, it is nearly impossible to find rocks that were actually created when the earth was formed. However, recently a few samples of lead, believed to be formed during the Archaeon, have been dated to 4.40 billion years[4], fitting perfectly into a theory of formation at the same time as the rest of the Solar System, at 4.5 billion years.

Other (religious) views

Simply because the concept of deep time is quite hard to wrap your head around, few cultures that existed prior to modern scientific scholarship have specifically posited an age of the Earth that expanded much beyond the longest time they could imagine. Generally, thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of years.

Early Christian and modern Young Earth Creationist Views

By and large, Christianity has always held the idea that the Earth is only thousands of years old, simply because it is difficult to consider time spans much larger than that.

The biblical creation story, and the supposedly detailed listing of generations (also known as the "begats") reinforces the idea that the Earth must have been created within the last 10,000 years or so. Similarly, Talmudic commentaries over the last 2000 years place Creation at roughly 7,000 years, give or take many thousands of years.

In the 17th century, Christians, both theologians and scientists, era attempted to define the Day of Creation more precisely. Isaac Newton, using the Bible as a template, worked out the age of the earth to be 4000BE, Johannes Keppler, 3992 BC, and Bede at 3952.

James Ussher determined that he could figure out the date of creation, by compiling a chronology of all the events in the Bible. Without explaining how he knew at what age particular "begats", "begatted", Usher decided that the date of Creation was exactly Sunday, October 23, 4000 BC [5] What a nice round number. Of course, learning that there was a miscalculation in the Gregorian calendar, and that Christ's birth is roughly 3 years off, He amended his date to Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC.

It is not at all surprising that all these dates spin near or around the 4000 mark, as they are based on a contemporary Christian theological idea that the earth only had a 6000 year life span. [6].

Though most of modern Christianity has set aside the clearly unscientific notion of "a few thousand years", there persists a group of Christians called "Young Earth Creationists" who set the date of Creation as some time within the last 10,000 years. They originally followed Ussher's dates, however, indisputable archaeological evidence of civilizations older than 6,000 years, generally pushes "NEC" types to say "up to 10,000 years.

Old Earth Creationist

Zoroastrian

The Zoroastrian religion is one of the few religions that provides a specific age in which the universe and the earth was made. The life of the Universe is 4 units of 3,000 years each, for a total of 12,000 years. The universe as we know it (all of Creation, is the term, so we will assume the Earth is part of Creation) was made after 3000 years of perfect balance. Thus making the age of the Earth somewhere between 6000-9000 years, depending on when it fell in the Age of Creation.

Hinduism

On the other hand, the age of the earth in Hinduism is much bigger. Hinduism states that the earth came into being with the god Brahma and after doing some calculations with units of time found in Hinduism we come up with an age of 155.5 trillion years.[7]

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html
  2. http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/190/1/205
  3. The new systems for studying the sun, which is a study of the acoustic waves, gives a more general date of 4.0-5.5 billion years. These dates are not as precise as the radiometric dating, but they are an independent confirmation that we are not wildly off our dates.
  4. Zircons found in the Jack Hills area of Australia have returned an age of 4.4 billion, interpreted through crystallization. These same samples seem also to suggest that there was water on the earth as early as 4.4 billion years ago. ref: wikipedia [1]
  5. Leaving science so envious that it can only at best give approximations
  6. Meaning, if you follow, we were all supposed to be dead just over 10 years ago
  7. Bhakti Yoga Meditation - Hinduism: Age of the earth according to Vedic chronology
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