OUR YOUNG EARTH

By Jameson OReilly

In the beginning, God

created the heavens and
the earth. Over the span
of just six days, He set
the stage for the last
6,000 years with Adam
and Eve, created in his
own image, as the first
stars of the show. The
infant
earth
had
everything
that
we
humans could ever need,
from fertile land to
domesticable animals.
This is the same earth
that we have inherited
from
our
ancestors,
although
calling
it
young is a bit of a
misnomer. It is younger
than how old the secular
community believes it to
be, but if something that
has existed for all of time
is young, then what does
it mean to be old?

they fail to understand is

that God did not plant

the tree 6,000 years ago,

he created them 6,000
years ago, rings and all.
Just as Adam was created

The Plants
For many, one definition
of old is the number of
rings that a tree has.
They gain one per year,
so it is usually a good
measure of how old the
tree is. Many have
pointed out that because
there are trees with
more than 6,000 rings,
they, and by extension
the Earth, must be older
than 6,000 years. What

as a grown man with a

navel, the trees were
created with evidence of
growth
that
never
actually happened.
The Animals

Both when God first

created them and when
Noah marshalled them
onto Ark, there was a
pair of each kind of
animal. A male and
female canine, a male
and female finch, even a
male
and
female
dinosaur. All of the
species we see today
evolved from the original
pair
of
their
kind
through
natural
selection, just as Darwin
described. Just like how
God created the trees in
the process of growing,
he created animals in
the process of evolving.
Evolution did happen,
just not molecules-toman evolution.
Of course, this brings up
the question of the fossil
record.
The
Bible
makes
no
explicit
mention of this, but it is
likely that God created
Earth with fossils already
in it, possibly to test our
faith. There are also
problems
with
the
chemical and radioactive
dating methods that
some scientists use to
measure the age of the
fossils. For example, it is
impossible to test the
accuracy of the methods
on the scales that they
are claimed to work on.

The Humans
Initially, Adam and Eve
lived free from all of the
things that currently
afflict the human race:
greed, sickness, hunger,
etc. It was only after
Satan, disguised as a
snake, convinced Eve to
eat a fruit from the
forbidden
Tree
of
Knowledge that they fell
out of Gods good graces.
This is the Original Sin
and got them kicked out
of
Paradise.
Four
thousand years later,
Jesus died upon the cross
to
earn
us
Gods
forgiveness for this act.
From these original two,
all
of our
species
diversity came forth as
another
punishment
from God. Some years
after the Great Flood, the
Tower of Babel was
under construction and
nearing heaven because
it was so tall. To disrupt
this process and future,

similar efforts, He made

everyone start speaking
different
languages.
Once
nobody
could
understand each other,
the group could no
longer work together
and construction halted.
All of the different
linguistic
groups
dispersed and grew into
the ethnicities that we
know today.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank

Professor
Musselman
for discussing this idea
with me and helping to
make if more concrete. I
would also like to thank
my mother for forcing
me to go to Sunday
School for 8 years.
Finally, Simone deserves
acknowledgement
for
working with me during
class
and
providing
support.
Sources
Fowler,
Thomas.
Overview
of
the
Theological
and
Religious Interpretations
of Evolution. Modern
Age 1 Sep. 2010: 271-84.
EBSCOHost. Web. 9 Mar.
2015.
Genesis

1:1

BibleGateway.com.

NIV.

Biblica, n. d. Web. 9 Mar.

2015.
The Bible, the Word of
God as delivered
through his Prophets.