My records show that man has been on this earth for only 6,000 years.
Who am I to believe,... God, who created man and placed him on this earth ..... or some Klempson professor?
II Peter 3:8: But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The 6000 years figure is metaphorical. I take the above statement to mean that time has no meaning when dealing with the divine, but if you multiply it out you get a figure of roughly 2.2 billion years for the age of the Earth. Still not quite the 4.6 billion that we've got estimated, but a much more reasonable number. Heck a simple copying error over the years of 2,000 being transcribed as "a thousand" would bring it to 4.4 billion years, which is darned close (and within the margin of error of the calculation)
Case in point:
II Samuel 8:4 And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven
hundred horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen: and David houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them for an hundred chariots.
I Chronicles 18:4 And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven
thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen: David also houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them an hundred chariots.
There's a numerical discrepency there. Now this could be because of two things: either the whole statement is wrong, or the more likely reason: it's a simple error in transcribing the number.
Actually it's quite naive to think that there are no translation and/or interpretation errors on our part. The most popular version of the Bible (the KJV) is written in an outdated dialect that many people of today have trouble understanding (and I don't know why people cling to it so much. John Wycliffe and William Tyndale had a valid English translation over 100 years before the KJV). Our modern English Bible is also translated from the Latin version which was itself translated from Greek and Aramaic texts. Those texts themselves were largely copied over and over by hand by many people. I do believe that the original authors were divinely inspired, but I do not believe that our
English translation is necessarily a perfect translation from the original. There's just too much room for translation error and revision (I wouldn't trust the early Catholic Church as far as I could throw it).
I am a Christian but I'm also not blind. The Earth has clearly been here more than 6,000 years (verifiable both scientifically and historically) so I will look to the Bible to explain that. If you claimed that the Bible said that water flows uphill I wouldn't proclaim the Bible to be false. I'd proclaim that you're understanding it incorrectly
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And why oh Lord has it become so fashionable to think everything that starts with a C is somehow communist and evil? Clemson (originally a military institute) is a very prestigious university and is the clear leader in the state for science and engineering (we actually got Time's Public College of the Year in 2000). There are numerous Christian clubs and groups on campus. By what right or evidence do you somehow villify it?