‘Dogma on the Rocks’

You quoted Bill Hoesch of the Institute for Creation Research as follows, “I can’t prove that the Earth is 6,000 years old, but evolutionists can’t prove it’s 4.5 billion years old.”

To this you replied, “oh?”, and then contended that the evolutionist dating has been “proved”.

Your proof of the “proof” is similar to all I have ever read by evolutionists in that there are many ifs and other nebulous statements. Your reply contained three ifs, two estimateds, one assumption and the statement that, “it is hard to avoid the conclusion that our planet was formed 4.6 billion years ago” by James Trefil in his forthcoming book, “Meditations at 10,000 Feet.”

With all the guesswork involved, how can you use the positive word “proof”? At least Hoesch honestly said he couldn’t prove his 6,000-year date.

Part of the problem in this area is the contention of fundamentalists that the Earth and life on it were all created in six literal days. The Bible uses the word “day” to cover various time periods, like “in Moses’ day.”

The Bible leaves room for the possibility that the Earth is billions of years old, but it shows that humans have been here approximately 6,000 years. There are no records of human history that go back further than that.

WILLIAM GORBY

Glendale