The concept of Pangaea has fascinated me since I first hear about it years ago. Finally the puzzle-piece-piece shapes of the continents made sense! And such a theory is supported by many different evidences besides just the shapes of continents: there are also matching fossils, mountains, and glacier zones; hot spots bordering the continents; and most of all, the Bible.

Thousands of years before Wegner or even Suess theorized a super-continent, Genesis claimed as much in its first chapter: "And God said, 'Let all the waters beneath the sky be gathered into one place so dry ground may appear'" (Genesis 1:9). So from the very beginning of land it was, like the oceans, all together- Pangaea.

While Wegner is correct in the concept of Pangea, he is incorrect in the time it would have taken to tear it apart. A catastrophic occasion- like Noah's flood- would be enough to tear it apart. Now Noah's flood was no mere flood; water didn't just come down- it came up. "When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month, the underground waters burst forth on the earth, and rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky" (Genesis 7:11). If underground waters called upon by God were to burst up with extreme pressure, the violence would be able to cause plates to tear apart almost instantly and then begin to force them away from each other.

Obviously young earth creationism is not against the concept of Pangaea- in fact, Moses, inspired by God, was the first to record such an idea. After all, God was there, God created it, and God caused nature to destroy it.

A fellow student posted on my dialogue that Genesis could be right or it could be wrong, but it did not really matter because while the Scripture is God's authoritative Word, Genesis was not written to be a science book, and might be interpreted as poetry; and besides, other tales older and younger than the Old Testament narrative have laid out similar stories.

Before I post my replies to that post then, I'd like to add a couple more:

1. Genesis was not written as a science book, true, but it was written as a history. If we can't take the creation story as true, then why believe God called Abraham? That section is just as central to Christianity as God's promise to Adam- and more than one group of people take it as historical fact.

2. It would make sense that if all people descended from the same couple from creation, and then again from the same family off the ark, it would only make sense if every people group had some mangled version of a true event- and God kept a remnant who remembered the true event. 

Now, my original reply:

True, when God inspired Moses to write Genesis, He did not mean it as a science textbook but as a necessary explanation of our creation, fall, and need of a Savior (and if someone were to argue that Genesis was just a fable, than that makes both our creation and fall doubtful- and thus our need of a Savior. As my father says, "You need to stand for something or you'll fall for anything). However, since God is Truth, we can be sure that what God writes about His creation is accurate- and He should know since He's the creator! The Bible explicitly says on each day of creation that there was morning and there was evening on that day; God seems to have been really going out of His way to express the fact that the six days of creation were, in fact, six literal days. The Bible also explicitly says that there was a world-wide flood- and geography agrees, with ocean fossils found in desserts and most dinosaur fossils arched backwards like they had experienced the body spasms creatures get when drowned. Then we have several lists of genealogies that can give us an approximate idea of how much time has lapsed since then- and most will find that it is around 6,000 years.

I'd like to point out that the long earth model is just as theoretical as the young earth model, as none but God was there since the dawn of time (naturally, we should believe the only Witness, especially since He is Truth). Also, the young earth model is supported by a lot of evidence; however, the long earth model is the more popular so it is what's considered true. And why was the old earth model created? Not to support evidence- evidence can be easily (or at convincingly) interpreted either way (though certain things like our deteriorating magnetic field make more sense with a young earth model than the old earth model)- but to support evolution, another 'theory' with forced 'evidence.' And why was evolution created? To provide a model in which there was no Creator, and thus no one we had to be accountable to.

If all this seems biased, it is. There is no such thing as unbiased science; we all bring our own views to the field. However, despite all the different views of the world, there is one that is true. Since God is Truth, I'm pretty sure His way is the true one. And He has given us a warning concerning the 'truths' apart from him (stop reading if you get offended by Scriptures):

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human traditions and the basic principals of this world rather than on Christ" (Colossians 2:8).

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:2).

I got another reply by a student who wanted to know what lists I had that indicated that the Bible was likely to be only around 6,000 years old and considered that arguing for an old earth or a young earth is insignificant compared to salvation and God's love.

Again, before I post my original reply, here are a few more points I'd like to make:

1. Our own DNA genome can be traced back through the maternal line, and makes a list of its own that goes back to where we can see that everyone here came from three mothers that seemed to survive an 'extinction event' that wiped out the large amount of people who had existed before them and can themselves be traced back to a 'Mitochondrial Eve' who lived about 6,000 years ago. https://www.icr.org/article/5657/

2. Old earth theory exists to explain Evolution, which requires millions of years to create life (if even that) through death and mutation. However, the Bible clearly states that death is the punishment for sin (Romans 6:23), and came into the earth after sin (Romans 5:10). That is why Jesus had to die for our sins- He bore the punishment we deserved for our sins so we wouldn't have to. Without belief in death coming as a result of sin (and not life coming from death, like Evolution says), then it would tear down the very foundation of our salvation and make Jesus' death seem meaningless.

Now, the original post:

The spiritual benefit of looking for a definite answer of how old the earth is tied in to your reason for believing in a young earth. And the earth may very well be older than 6,000 years old (we don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, after all); however, it would not be older than 6,000 years old because God supposedly used evolution and millions of years to aid His creation- the Bible explicitly says otherwise. And if we don't believe the Bible on the point that God used six literal days to create the earth out of nothing (and us out of dust and ribs- not primordial soups and animal ancestors), then we can just keep on going through the Bible and picking what we want to believe and ignoring the rest as 'helpful fables.' Also, as I've mentioned before in a post (that mysteriously got deleted), God may have created an aged earth. After all, Adam and Eve were both 'born' adults, and I somehow doubt that on Adam's first day alive he kept stepping on eggs since it seems very likely to me that God would have made the animals adult too (yes- I believe the chicken came before the egg). And why wouldn't God accelerate some things so Adam and Eve could enjoy them sooner- like distant starlight?

So my standing for a young earth model is my taking God at His Word that there were six literal days of creation and a world-wide flood, and I believe that those would have been enough to make the world as it is now; why replace them for millions of years? And I hold to those truths because God is Truth, and if I can't believe Him about those things, then why should I believe Him about the salvation for my soul? So I will do my best to always be able to give an answer for the hope that is within me (and try to do so with gentleness and respect...) because I know that every aspect of that hope is certain.

As for the genealogies, just check Genesis, Mathew, and Luke; any age you compute from them will be an approximation, of course, but there is no way that approximation can stretch to millions of years- which, if you believe the Bible, would be how long humans would have been on the earth since we've been here since Day 6.

-I'd also like to note that since writing this article, I have come across a theory that helps to explain the distant starlight issue that is a bit complicated to post here, so I'll give you the link to an article that discusses it along with its mathmatical equations a few helpful graphs: https://creation.com/new-time-dilation-helps-creation-cosmology

-Chapter Breaks by CannibalisticNecro

-Signature by XxEthereal_AngelxX