Biblical reference for Earth being 10,000 years old?

[tatt]

This was mentioned in the programme about Darwin but I don't reacll seeing this in the bible. Can anyone quote me a reference?

Yes, it's strange how this one issue seems to be such a sticking point for people, either way. You can believe it or not believe it, same with the other things you've mentioned. I guess it's a biggy lately because of the whole ID teaching in schools thing, so people who would be happy not to bother worrying about it are having to take a position and argue it. And that makes it clear how odd some of the arguments are, when a lot of people really just mean "I believe it because I believe it". Like I say, it doesn't worry me if people do, it only bothers me when people start with the stuff like believer07 earlier on saying we can't trust carbon dating because scientists want to disprove God - I'm a scientist, and there really isn't a conspiracy in science to falsify evidence in order to prove God doesn't exist. If carbon dating says that rocks are a certain age, then that's what the evidence shows - either because they are that old, or because God made them to look that way for reasons I don't personally understand. You'd think she might be a bit busy to toast rocks and arrange them in neat layers....

THis is the thing, I did Geology at Uni. Both myself and a lecturer, coming from different sides (he is very involved with his church) could agree that the Bible story was basically a theory. At the time of writing it was spot on to the level of understanding that we could achieve. We have in the centuries since the theory was written, learned more about the nature of the Universe, and as a result one theory has been repaced with another. This is the nature of science, and human development. I just don't understand why we keep going back to the old theory, I mean you would be laughed in your face if you said that disease was caused by miasma (the spreading of diseases by a poisonous mist or vapour given off by dead bodies), I mean it does make sense, but we know better now.....

Yes, and things can be "true" without being scientifically accurate - I'm happy with the idea that the universe is here because God caused it to come into being, that we all continue to exist because it is part of God's plan, that our purpose is to develop in relationship with God - all ideas which are there in the creation story. But I also believe that "creation" was a slow process involving geological lengths of time and evolution by natural selection. I don't find those concepts to be mutually exclusive.