I am aware I said millions of years.... this is the only part of my reply that could be called into question. So I will explain that.
We know that if you dig down in the earth, the deeper one goes then obviously the further we are going back in time. As we dig down life gets simpler and less complex. Never do we find complex life in layers where we would not expect it and these layers are significantly seperated in depth. Despite Adam naming all the animals, we never find humans beyond 400,000 years of age. Though animals continue. An immediate contradiction to the evidence. Geologists can estimate depending on the depth, the type of rock, the weather through those years etc etc and estimate an age. Darwin first noticed the apparant age of the earth BEFORE he looked into the widely discussed theory of evolution. He noticed that a mountain was made of layers and decided to measure how long it took for the layers to grow. When he realised we were talking millions of years not thousands he was shocked. If you have lots of time then you can have evolution. Before I explain further just to give you a ball park appreciation, Dinosaurs were evidently on the earth for around 185 million years, wow... I know! And died off approx 60 million years ago. We are talking big evidence for big numbers here.
As well as all the fancy geological work that provide rough estimates, we have radio-dating. (No this does not involve truck drivers and middle aged divorcee women.) Radio dating looks at the atomic decay of a compound. Everything has a half life, a set rate of decay. When you take morphine the doctor knows how much to give you because the molecules decay at a constant rate. The exact same science is used for dating things and for modern atomic clocks. Scientists can measure the decay of a fossil and estimate its age. Most famous was of course measuring via the element carbon, one of the basic building blocks of life, one of the many elements from the table in any chemisty class (or geeks bedroom). Religion used to question carbon dating, despite NO scientific evidence or even explination to back up the attack. I encourage YOU to go and read up on how radio-dating works and that YOU decide. The JW's for example would just throw mistrust on the process by saying it was a guestimation. This was due to the honest nature of science to admit the element of error, found in every experiment of measure that has taken place. But please bare in mind we are not talking a huge amount. If a dinosaur bone is 100 million years old give or take a million years. It is still not 6,000 years old. We dont use the earth to measure time anymore, we use radio-dating. The time on your PC clock is now set by the internet, the time on the internet is set by an atomic clock. The clock measures the constant decay rate of an atom and this is the mose accurate time piece we have ever discovered. This is the exact same process that we use to date dinosaurs, human remians and .... the dead sea scrolls... irony!
Ignoring these old issues for a moment, you may have noticed that carbon dating is no longer attacked by religions. You may also notice that even the JW's now have written that the earth is millions of years old and the universe billions (new brochures). Why ? Because we now measure over 30 elements when we radio date compounds. All the answers overlap and we have a very accurate picture of its age. They would be fools to even attempt to find fault. For example Potassium dating is accurate to billions of years!!
Before I go, and been as we are talking about time, I must add that despite once believing the bibles explination of man being created 6,000 years ago I did always wonder...
How old is the oldest known written language ? 9,000 years ago or 7000BC it was the early indian language, known as SANSKRIT
How old is the oldest City? 11,500 years old, Gobeki Tepe from 9500BC (though we do have man made constructions from 250,000 years ago)
How old are the oldest human remains ? 400,000 yr old teeth.
Who is considered the first human civilisation? Mesopatamia (later Babylon) was the first major civilisation. Most of the teachings in the bible originated in mesopatamia in pagan forms. Sons of gods with 12 diciples that died and were ressurected 3 days later, that performed miracles suh as raising the dead and walking on water...etc etc. The story of Gilgamesh was the original flood story, written long before Adam even supposedly existed. There are so many stories that find there way into the bible, so many that I cant list here. Go read for yourself :) x My favourite though is the golden rule "do unto others..." it originated in Babylon nearly 2000 years before Jesus, it was called The Code of Hammurabi. It was also found in an egyptian tale The Eloquent Peasant.
When did the Jewish race begin ? Abraham was approx 3,600 BC. (nb if you believe the bible Adam and many bible charachters were still alive at this point... despite noahs flood already taking place... hmmm they were hiding in the hay.)
* the 6,000 years figure is indisputable as the bible gives the names and ages of the people so we can go back as far as Adam 6000 years ago.
Ok well I said I wouldn't show my hand.. but it appears I have. I do love this subject so very much !
Can't wait to talk about evolution itself... but just to wet your appetite, when we were told to "consider why ape's dont turn into men now?" we were being asked to question something that no scientist would ever say had EVER happened. Darwin did not think apes turned into men and neither do scientists now. Those images of apes turning into men are not based on any scientific explination of evolution and are not found in textbooks. When I attended my first lecture on evolution after leaving the JW's I could not believe the description of evolution. Of course that happens I told myself, but this isnt evolution... I insisted to myself that what the JW's said evolution was, was evolution... and then it dawned on me. Oh.. they were lying about that too.
Do you really know what evolution is ?
Snare x