One can rationally believe in some form of creationism. But.....anyone who thinks the earth is 6000 years old or that man has only been on earth 6000 years old needs to read an actual science book. And then read another one.

Some science, like gravity, is well settled. There may be worthwhile debate on how old the earth is or how long homo sapiens have been around, but there is zero chance that either of those answers are anywhere close to 6000 years old.

I think the biggest mistake we make is that we try to make the Bible a science book.

I'm not seeing where anyone said the earth is only 6000 years old. The earth is no doubt millions of years old but it was said that man has only been on this planet for for a little over 6000 years.

Good point J.

I posted last Tuesday's chapel message here on TMan (on another thread), from Dr. Dan Wallace, one of our NT professors and a top 5 world scholar in the ancient Greek language, who reminded all of us here at DTS;
One of the shallowest theological statements made in our churches, (but done all the time - especially in the evangelical faith), which has been tremendously harmful to the Church is:

I believe. the Bible's true. That settles it.

A faith specifically grounded in "science" or in any book, is not true faith in the Person who wrote it.
That'll sound like foolishness to some.

Blessings,
Mark

Good points Waggler. Thanks for sharing.

I'm pretty ignorant on the geology side of this, what other dating methods are you referring to? I always thought geologists dated the fossils by dating the volcanic ash layers.

Chancey,
Here is an example of a physical method.
This shaded relief map shows differences in elevation.

I have edited as follows:
The blue line represents the present course of the Columbia River.
The red lines circle two ridges of Columbia river basalt that have been uplifted from the surrounding, rather flat laying, huge, Columbia river basalt flow.
The green line represent an alternate course that the river could have taken.

Explanation:
Basalt is a very hard igneous rock of which the water abrasion rate can be relatively easily determined.

The course of the Columbia river had already been established before the ridges (circled in red) were uplifted. If the ridges had been uplifted rapidly the course of the river would have naturally diverted to the east around the eastern terminus of the ridges ( I show this "alternate course" in green). The top of the southern ridge is about 2,200 feet in elevation, the river is about 500 feet in elevation where it cuts through the ridge. That means the river was able to gradually erode through over 1,700 feet of basalt as it was gradually uplifted. That is a slooooow process.
The fact that the river was able to erode through this hard rock at a faster rate than the rock was uplifted is therefore easy to demonstrate..

Young earth adherents try to demonstrate that nearly every major geological event like mountain building and uplift was a "catostropic" or rapidly occurring event. Examples like this gradual uplift shows that some geological processes are slow and uniformly progressive; therefore the term "uniformitarianism". Young earth guys hate this concept of uniformitarianism. But it's obvious that both types of geological processes have occurred.

Does this sort of make sense to you?