Statler Waldorf introduction.

[Thor]

That is because we have observed trees growing and people aging so we can apply what we have learned to trees and people that we have never seen before.

And we have learned about the rates of decay for certain substances, and we can apply what we have learned to determine the age of rocks, fossils, bones, etc.

But no one has ever observed how the universe began.

So what? We can make observations about the movement of stars and galaxies within the universe which allows us to draw conclusions with regard to what happened in the past.

Scientific estimates of age are based on the assumption that everything developed by natural means alone without any divine intervention.

Scientists also perform experiments without assuming that invisible gnomes come in the night and mess around with their petrie dishes. Why would scientists assume there was "divine intervention"? This would just be idiotic.

If this assuption is wrong then all of the estimates will be wrong.

I suppose so. But you have no foundation for making such an assumption.

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Lol, two mistakes in this post. First of all, an approximation is not "proof", so you didn't get anywhere with that.

Determining the age of something in science is all about approximations! Science tells us the dinosaurs died out approximately 65 million years ago. Do you expect scientists to say that the last T. Rex died off on March 3, 64,388,279 BCE?

Also, what if I asked how old you are? You might say "I'm 40". Ah, but wait a minute! Your actual age might be 40 years, 4 months and 6 days (we could really get crazy and include hours, minutes and seconds). We all use approximations when talking about the age of things. As long as the approximation is reasonably accurate (say within an error of 5%) I fail to see why you would have an issue with it.

Secondly the only reason you can approximate someone's age is because you have observed other people's lives. When was the last time you observed an Earth aging for 4.5 billion years?

That's the great thing about science. We don't need to observe something age for a long time to be able to determine how old it is. And what makes you think the Earth is 6,000 years old? When have you ever seen anything age for 6,000 years?

So when God says the Earth is young I tend to believe Him, and not you.

"God" spoke to you and told you the Earth is young? Or do you mean that an ancient unknown author who thought the Earth was the center of the universe scribbled this down and you believe it to be true?

It just so happens there is lots of evidence to back up God's claim on this one, so it's a win-win.

"Lots of evidence"? So far you haven't presented any.