Hard questions for religion to answer
Religion and science have always been at odds with each other. Religion says science can’t prove that God does not exist. Science says religion can’t prove that God does. Another thing that science and religion can’t agree on is the age of mother earth. Let us see what both religion and science have to argue about the matter.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh, Ireland, attempted to find the age of the earth by following the chronological genealogies in the scriptures. His erroneous calculations greatly influenced Christians of his day. For example, he calculated 1 BC to 1 AD, by counting the year zero. The problem was, there is no year zero. In other words, if an event occurs in 1 BC, and lasts to 1 AD, this is only 1 year. So, in order to get an accurate count when crossing the year zero, we must always adjust for this. Archbishop Ussher did not, and this threw his whole calendar off. One might charitably say that this was an easy mistake to make, nevertheless it also illustrates the carelessness with which he made decisions concerning numbers.
Many Christians of his day quickly accepted his date of creation as 4004 BC, and unfortunately it was placed within the margin of the King James Bible as a reference. This action immediately gave it a certain credibility, authority, and widespread appeal to the public. However, it was in no way a legitimate study of the age of the earth.
The Jews have another calculation. 30 September 2008 through 18 September 2009 corresponded to Hebrew year 5769 while the Hebrew year 5770 began at sundown on the evening of 18 September 2009 and will end on 8 September 2010.
The year 5770 on the Jewish calendar represents the number of years since God created the world, as calculated by adding up the ages of people in the Bible back to the time of creation. However, it is important to note that this date is not necessarily supposed to represent a scientific fact.
So there you have it. The world is only 5,770 years old according to the Jews. Some believe it is 10,000 years old. Going by the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11, though, the world was created on 11013 BC. That makes the world 13,022 years old according to some Christians.
The scientists say the world is billions of years old.
Who is correct? Religion or science?
