Earth Science Probably One of the Biggest

Earth Science

Probably one of the biggest and longest fought wars between science and religion has been on the subject of whether the earth was created, as science says, with a massive explosion known as the big bang or within a span of six days as religion teaches us. Science looks into and probes at what is majorly unknown and religion has always done better than that. This paper will discuss the old earth view- which corresponds to the big bang theory, the young earth view- favors the six day creation and then it will compare and contrast the two views and mention in detail why the six day creation is favored by many over the big bang theory.

Old Earth View

The Old Earth View supports the fact that the earth was at one point of time (billions of years ago) a big clump of matter that for some reason, exploded. As a result, the matter spread out and therefore, the land that we live on was created by just one 'Big Bang'. This view came about by an observation by Edwin Hubbles that the Earth and universe are continuously expanding, and that the distance between galaxies keeps increasing, directly proportional to their red shifts.

The Old Earth View expounds that the Earth once had extreme densities and temperatures. Moreover, when light elements are observed abundantly in the cosmos, and match the predictions of the formation of certain elements from nuclear processes that caused rapid expansion and cooling of the universe in its beginning.

This theory though initially made people skeptical, when in 1964, cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered, and the spectrum's wavelength seemed to have matched that of a black body. Thereafter, scientists became convinced of this theory and have been researching to find out more ever since. (Fox, 2002)

Young Earth View

The young earth view supports the fact that the earth was created in six days and that the age of the earth is in fact only a few years, perhaps 6000 years old. The holy Bible mentions that the earth was created in just a span of six days. For many this may seem surprising because this does not seem to be enough time for all the changes to take place and for everything to be put in to proper order. However, the six days may not have been the days we perceive today. There are places on the planet earth where a day lasts longer than 24 hours. If we imaging the poles themselves a day lasts much longer and in places there is no day for 6 months. If we see planets like mercury then three days last two years of mercury. So the concept of day here is relative and six days could actually have been much more. The bible mentions that God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis mentions how God created plants, water, fire, food, air, darkness, the moon, the stars, everything. Breaking down the six day, on the first day, God created light, darkness and the earth itself. On the second day heaven was created while on the third day the seas, dry land and vegetation were made. On the fourth day the sun, moon and the stars were formed and the fifth day was used to create living creatures in the sea and birds in the air. The last day of the six day creation was the day when man began to walk the earth i.e. The day God created people and land animals. Coming back to how much one day actually was, God is clearly trying to mention to us through his book that he made the earth in just six ordinary days and has used the words evening and day together to make us understand. (Kooten, 2005)

Comparison:

Though the two views of the origin of the Earth seem miles apart, there may be a few similarities between the two theories. The first and foremost matter in which both theories agree is that there was definitely a beginning of this Earth, contrary to the belief that it was also present. Moreover, the Big Bang Theory's main claim is that the Earth and universe expanded with time, rather than being created as it is in one go. The Six Day Creation too claims that at one point of time, the Heavens literally stretched out. (Drees, 2001)

However, although these claims at the surface agree, the Big Bang Theory begins the timeline of the Earth back to more than 15 billion years ago, where the Six Day says it was roughly 6000 years ago. Along with this major difference, while the Big Bang states that the Sun was first created and then the Earth came about, Six Day says that it was actually the creation of the Earth that came before the creation of the Sun. Moreover, the Six Day theory claims that the stars and moons and other constellations were made around the same time as the Sun and the Earth, Big Bang goes against this theory and says that these bodies came about a very long time after.