[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by stuck_in_chuk

Probably the best known of the biblical chronologies was produced by Rev. James Ussher in the 17th century. It determined that creation occured on Oct. 23, 4004 BC. Info here on how he came to that conclusion. He correlated biblical information (for instance, there is an unbroken male lineage from Adam to Solomon, complete with dates, provided in the bible) along with known historical events to come up with those dates. This calculation is still accepted by many Young Earth Creationists. I will point out that in 2008, a Gallup poll revealed that 44% of US adults agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years."[link] This same page references a Harris poll which shows support for evolution decreasing in the US over the past 10 years.

My point is that a very significant proportion of the US population believes that the earth is 6000-odd years old, specifically because the bible says so.

No, some people's interpretation of the Bible leads them to believe that the earth is 6000ish years old. The Bible does not say anything about the subject. The 6000ish numbers, like you said, are figured from the geneolgoies. However, we know that the people of those days didn't quite geneologies like we do today. They weren't too concerned if they skipped a generation (or several) when they were writing it down. We see examples of this elsewhere in the bible (see Matthew 1 - generations left out intentionally)

Originally Posted by stuck_in_chuk

There is a (admittedly fringe) group called the Association for Biblical Astronomy (formerly the Tychonian Society) who interpret the bible to say that the earth does not move and that all heavenly bodies revolve around the earth. Here are some relevant verses to support their view:

1 Chronicles 16:30: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable.”

Psalm 93:1: “Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ...”

Psalm 96:10: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable ...”

Psalm 104:5: “Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken.”

Isaiah 45:18: “...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast...”

Admittedly, none of these specifically say that the sun revolves around the earth, but if the earth does not move that is the conclusion that must be made. Also, I point out that some people reject the most obvious of scientific facts because they contradict their own interpretation of the bible.

Yes, such groups would be fringe groups. I don't know of any large Christian groups that still believe this. Again, the bible isn't in those passages trying to be a science textbook. The writers of those verses only knew what they could observe at the time, they didn't know that the earth "moved."

As for the pi=3 remark - I just want to make the point that if the bible were written by the omniscient creator of the universe, then he should be able to provide a bit more accuracy. Here is what the verse says:

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. 1 Kings 7:23.

The addition of the word "approximately" before the words thirty cubits would make this statement true. The fact that this (admittedly slight) inaccuracy occurs in the bible is suggestive that the book was written by primitive men and not by an omniscient creator.

Again, the point of the passage isn't to be mathematically accurate. And besides, measuring by the "cubit" is rather inaccurate anyway, as the measure of a cubit may be different depending on who is measuring, plus we can reasonably expect that they rounded off the numbers as they recorded them. It's just nonsense to read too much into the recorded numbers here.

unfortunately, 44% of Americans reject all science that does not correlate with the bible.

Even if 44% of Americans believe in a young earth, that does not mean that they reject ALL science. But I'll agree that the number is WAY too high. Whatever number it is in the US, it is significantly lower in Canada, as evangelical Christians in Canada are not as extreme in that regard as they are in the US.

Evangelicals (is the US especially) have used the Bible as a science textbook for far too long. Fortunately, I think that it is starting to turn a corner in that area, in my experience, anyway.