6,000 Years Old And Counting
Jul. 8th, 2009 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
filkertomIn the 17th Century, Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh worked out his own timeline for the history of the Biblical world, starting with the precise moment when God said "Let there be light" -- nightfall preceding October 23, 4004 B.C.
It was a well-meant calculation, but it has a few problems -- inconsistency of written records, lack of a formal calendar for much of the period covered in the Bible, and ignorance of science. (Not to mention that, if Light was created at nightfall, then either there wasn't a night, or it took God several hours to pull the trigger. Not precisely omnipotent, but hey.) For the most part, it's been abandoned as a serious chronology.
But not by everyone. Many Biblical literalists insist that God spake in 4004 B.C., and all the evidence of anything before that time -- fossils, geologic layers, older civilization, whatever -- was put there by God to test the faith of his children.
And some of those children are using their concept of the age of the earth to influence environmental law. In this case, the argument literally is, the earth is 6,000 years old, and somehow it survived before environmental regulation, and we need the money, and you'll never even know the uranium mine is there.
Short-term profit at the expense of the only environment we have. Blind faith. Mistrust of science because they feel it threatens their faith.
I just don't get it. And I don't think I ever will.
It was a well-meant calculation, but it has a few problems -- inconsistency of written records, lack of a formal calendar for much of the period covered in the Bible, and ignorance of science. (Not to mention that, if Light was created at nightfall, then either there wasn't a night, or it took God several hours to pull the trigger. Not precisely omnipotent, but hey.) For the most part, it's been abandoned as a serious chronology.
But not by everyone. Many Biblical literalists insist that God spake in 4004 B.C., and all the evidence of anything before that time -- fossils, geologic layers, older civilization, whatever -- was put there by God to test the faith of his children.
And some of those children are using their concept of the age of the earth to influence environmental law. In this case, the argument literally is, the earth is 6,000 years old, and somehow it survived before environmental regulation, and we need the money, and you'll never even know the uranium mine is there.
Short-term profit at the expense of the only environment we have. Blind faith. Mistrust of science because they feel it threatens their faith.
I just don't get it. And I don't think I ever will.
