Tag: Russ Humphreys

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Age of the Earth astronomy Creation/evolution Physics Science

Evidence For a Young World

Sometimes people ask me to show them some evidence that can only be interpreted to mean that the earth and the universe is about 6000 years old as the biblical chronologies suggest. Well, all evidence can be interpreted from both an old earth/universe perspective or from a young earth/universe perspective.  But to make some of that evidence fit into an old universe one may have to make some extreme assumptions. Nevertheless all evidence must be interpreted within an interpretive framework else we could never understand it. What evidence then is best interpreted with a young earth/universe worldview? That is the question. When we look into it we find that there are some lines of evidence that require additional assumptions to maintain a uniformitarian age of billions of years.

Earth outer core
Electrical resistance in the earth’s core wears down the electric current which produces the earth’s magnetic field. That causes the earth’s magnetic field to lose energy rapidly.

Recently I had the pleasure of spending some time with Dr D. Russell Humphreys as we toured around Israel and taught Messianic congregations about Genesis creation which includes all aspects from the creation of the universe to the global flood in Noah’s day. Russ gave a presentation on Evidence for a Young World.

Some of those evidences are:

  1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
  2. Too few supernova remnants.
  3. Comets disintegrate too quickly.
  4. Not enough mud on the sea floor.
  5. Not enough sodium in the sea.
  6. The earth’s magnetic field is decaying too fast.
  7. Many strata are too tightly bent.
  8. Biological material decays too fast.
  9. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic “ages” to a few years.
  10. Too much helium in minerals.
  11. Too much carbon 14 in deep geologic strata.

The numbers for the ages listed (often millions of years) in his presentation are maximum possible ages set by each process, not the actual ages. The ages required by evolutionary theory are often much greater than determined. The point is that the maximum possible ages are always much less than the required evolutionary ages, while the biblical age (about 6,000 years) always fits comfortably within the maximum possible ages.

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astronomy Cosmology Creation/evolution Physics

Scripture and a static universe biblical creation cosmogony

2007_0507Image0132In regards to concepts relating to the Universe being static, that is, it is not expanding as is most commonly believed, I received the following email comment from a friend. His comments are in green text below.
I am curious what you think about Job 37:18:
 “Can you, like him, spread [Hebrew: רָקַע raqa`] out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?”
I have been looking at the equations for small bending of a thin plate under distributed load and they look the same as the GR equations in the case of weak fields if you treat the load on the plate as the gravitating mass and treat mechanical strain as the gravitational potential scaled by c-2. 
So, could raqia be a thin plate rather than a membrane? A plate supports load due to resistance to bending, while a membrane supports load due to tension and the edges. In contrast, plate does not need such tension. The only challenge is that plates aren’t easy to roll like a tent curtain, but Job 37:18 suggests that bending a hard thing isn’t a problem for God.
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Cosmology Creation/evolution Physics

Tension not extension in creation cosmology

For a considerable period of time modern biblical creationists as well as non-biblical creationists, like the progressive creationists (with an old earth/big bang embracing worldview) have used many biblical texts to argue that Scripture supports cosmological expansion of the universe. In 2011 I reviewed those texts.1  What I found was that to suggest that they describe cosmological expansion of space, with galaxies being spread out in space using the often-quoted rubber-sheet analogy, is not justifiable and is pure eisegesis.  The straightforward meaning is that of God constructing the heavens above and the earth below as a description of His preparation of a habitat for man. The metaphors used are of putting up a tent or canopy, which does not stretch like a rubber sheet.

Even though the texts do not rule out the notion of cosmological expansion, because they are silent on the matter, they do not explicitly describe it. Therefore I believe if we

  1. properly exegete what the scriptures say, and
  2. are as faithful as we know how in developing our cosmologies (really cosmogony; the description of the origin of the universe), God will lead us into the truth.

We may not in our lifetimes discover exactly how He created the universe, but it is also true that if we are not faithful to His Word we may never find that truth we seek.

“He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”  Ecclesiastes 3:11

Recently I received an email from Russ Humphreys in regards to this matter as it had been discussed on the Creation Research Society discussion site. The email is reproduced here with Dr Humphreys’ permission.

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Cosmology Creation/evolution History Physics

6-Day Creation of the Universe

6-daysThe big bang theory describes the origin of the Universe starting some 13.8 billion years ago with a ultra-hot plasma cooling to form hydrogen and helium gas in an expanding universe. From this, a billion years later, stars and then galaxies allegedly started to form. Some of the stars exploded building the heavier elements and dust and then about 5 billion years ago our sun allegedly condensed from a solar nebula of the gas and dust from recycled stars. Then about 4.6 billion years ago planet Earth and the rest of the planets in the solar system formed from the remnants of that cloud. Eventually the Earth cooled, oceans formed, life started by some unknown mechanism, crawled out of the ocean onto the land, and over the past 3.8 billion years life evolved from single-celled organisms to the complex life today. Man allegedly evolved from some ape-like ancestors over the past 2 million years. But what does the straight-forward account of the Creation in Genesis chapter 1 describe?

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