“Age-Of-The-Earth” Questions:

(1) Carbon dating: Radiometric dating is one of the strongest killers of Biblical literacy and one that creationists love to hate. Basically, radiometric dating measures the amount of an isotope and its decayed products are present in a given sample. It is based on the universally admitted fact that radioactive things decay at a certain rate. Through simple math, one can figure out the age of the sample. Radiometric dating is important because it proves that fossils are much older than a few thousand years old. This data shows that the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years which obviously destroys the Ussher Chronology. Creationists often claim that “decay rates have changed” or “I carbon-dated my dead cat and the answer was off, so . . .” I have heard all kinds of silly attempts to discredit radiometric dating. The fact remains that we have used this method with not only carbon-14, but with more than 50 other isotopes to confirm the dates. Each of these 50 isotopes decays at a different rate. Yet, they all agree that the Earth is more than 4.5 billion years old. This is important. The half-life for isotopes range from 70*10-18 seconds for Be-8 to 2.28*1024 years for Te-128. This is a huge range of time. That means that God would have had to speed up each of the 50 isotope’s half-lives by vastly different factors in order to fool us into thinking that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. How ridiculous. My question is: Why do creationists make insane claims about basic laws of physics in order to defend a Bronze Age myth?
The idea has always been that, if the earth is 4.5 billion years old, that somehow provides the basis for the legitimacy of evolution by providing a chronological platform that would accommodate the timeframes necessary for evolution to accomplish itself. An unfortunate byproduct of that has been to attack the age of the earth suggested by James Ussher (1581-1656), the Anglican archbishop of Ireland, who suggested that, based on Biblical chronologies, the earth came into being in approximately 4004 BC—around 6:00 pm, October 22, 4004 BC, to be precise. Ussher was actually a man of magnificent scholarship who, despite his questionable methodology, remains a hero of sorts of “young-earth creationists.”
Actually, the problem with Carbon-14 dating is that it is flawed in three ways because of the assumptions the scientists who promote it have made, and those assumptions are: (1) that the initial conditions of the rock sample are accurately known, (2) the amount of initial or resulting elements in a sample has not been altered by processes other than radioactive decay, and (3) the decay rate of the original isotope has remained constant since the rock was formed. Fundamentally, while using scientific method in the present, there are also assumptions about past historical events regarding the rock of which we can only assume. Because of this, we cannot objectively directly measure the age of anything. To understand this better, let’s take the example of an hourglass, with sand pouring into the bottom and still remaining in the top. Now we could measure how fast the sand is falling and how much sand is already in the bottom of the hourglass to compute how much time has passed since the glass was turned over, and these would be correct from an observational standpoint, but the conclusions could still be wrong. They would be wrong based upon three assumptions we would be making: (1) was there any sand in the bottom of the hourglass when it was first turned over (what were the initial conditions), (2) had any sand been removed from the hourglass (obviously impossible if the hourglass was sealed), and (3) was the sand falling at a constant rate. Our ultimate answer is completed wedded to our assumptions. If our assumptions are wrong, there is no way our final answer can be right. In the same way, because of errant assumptions (including historical science which can never be observed), the conclusions for the age of the earth based upon Carbon-14 dating must be viewed as incorrect.

(2) Egyptian dynastic records: Thanks to a well-developed system of recordkeeping and well-preserved papyri (which, oddly enough, survived the Flood), we know an amazing amount about the Egyptian dynasties of the Old Kingdom. We know the exact years that each pharaoh rose to power and then was replaced beginning with the Pharaoh Zanakht, who rose to power in 2649 BC. This line continues unbroken until the Pharaoh Unas (2356-2323 BC) who obviously survived the “Global Flood” in 2349. This lines continues until Nemtyenmzaf (2255-2246 BC) who reigned while God was changing everyone’s language. Luckily, God forgot Egypt existed and no major disruptive linguistic change occurred during those few centuries when the Tower of Babel supposedly happened.
One of the issues with Egyptian chronology is that later-day historians have assumed that each Egyptian king (Pharaoh) discovered in its historical record ruled individually, at their own time. The truth has been discovered that there were often several Egyptian kings ruling simultaneously in different parts of the country, their reigns overlapping. In other words, there was not a singular succession of kings but rather simultaneous reigns that were being recorded. This would make their history go back far earlier than first thought, allowing Egypt’s civilization to be in full flower prior to the Flood. If that was true, the Bible (including the Flood) would certainly be shown to be grossly in error and, therefore, no longer valid. When those dates are revised to be consistent with not only Biblical but modern understandings of history (including the review and opinion of contemporary Egyptian historians), Egyptian and Old Testament chronologies and timeframes are completely compatible.

(3) (Tree rings) Dendrochronology, the study of tree rings, is an interesting and informative science that can tell us much about history. Every year, each tree creates a new growth ring. The size of this ring depends on the conditions of that year. Scientists can take cores of these trees and count the number of tree rings in order to give the age of the tree. Each year has a distinctive pattern depending on the local conditions. Amazingly, we have a species of tree, known as Bristlecone Pines, that provide a record of tree rings that extends back 11,000 years to 9,000 BC. This is an obvious problem for those who believe that the Earth was still “matter unorganized” back then. We even have a tree, known as Methuselah, that has now been alive for 4,842 years and counting as shown by its rings. That means that the tree was born in 2831 BC. This tree (and many others) kept living right on through the Flood that supposedly killed everything in 2350 BC. The lowly Bristlecone Pine has toppled the Holy Bible simply by living when it should have died.
If we use Adam as an example, then the idea of tree rings somehow telling us a different story than the Biblical account becomes silly. We know that Adam was “created” directly by God versus being formed by evolutionary processes. The Bible says, Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them—Genesis 1:26-27. Later, the Bible says, [T]he Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being—Genesis 2:7. When God formed Adam and brought him to life, He brought to life a fully mature man. What that means is that Adam was in the prime of adult, fully functioning manhood—even when he was five seconds old! God created him in maturity—as He did Eve and the rest of His creation. The trees were brought into being fully formed and mature, ready to re-create immediately. So were the animals, ready to mate right away—just as He commanded them; regarding trees and other vegetation: Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good—Genesis 1:11-12. Similar thoughts are expressed regarding animals: And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good—Genesis 1:24-25. God created a creation that was ready to function immediately, created to be in the prime of life immediately after being created into life. That appearance of maturity would have masked their true age in real time. Thus, tree rings cannot accurately tell an age.

(4) Here are some actual good arguments by atheists against the Bible—something for us to look at in our study. The pyramids: Everyone knows that they are there. Even Southern Baptist apologists can’t deny their existence. So how does their very existence destroy Biblical inerrantism? Because every single one of them was build hundreds of years before the Bible says that the Flood supposedly wiped out humanity. The Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza was built around 2550 BC according to Egyptian records. That is 200 years before the Flood. Embarrassingly, God’s miles-high flood made no mark on the pyramids or their contents. The mummies and artifacts inside are still dry and in great shape. If there really had been enough water to cover the Earth, it would have exerted a force of at least 1.8 million pounds per square foot on the pyramids (assuming that the water was high enough to cover the entire Earth and all the mountains as the Bible says). This amount of pressure would have completely destroyed the antiquated architecture and mummies.
See above for essential argument. Bottom line: Egyptian civilization does not predate the Flood.