Orthodox Cosmology- Young Earth?

[Raskolnikov]

Hey, I haven't seen a thread on that yet, but maybe some of you people have decent input.

around two years ago, I read Seraphim Rose's book on Genesis and early man, where he basically argued for Young Earth Creationism. I found his arguments very convincing, partly because his case was coherent with the Orthodox worldview, which is always a huge factor for whether or not I accept a viewpoint. His arguments, outside of a criticism of incoherent arguments for Darwinism, were largely based on Biblical Theology and Patristics.
However: I've recently used my free time more to look into genetic anthropology and the creation of different races, and they all presume very large windows of time, usually in the 30-50 000 year range.
I think it's safe to say that you have to be a general creationist in order to be Orthodox, but what do you people think about the time frames?




In this video, Hamilton's guest makes a case that while archeology gets a lot right, they often make mistakes about carbon dating and their understanding of received historical chronologies, particularly the serial/simultaneous interpretation of Egyptian dynasties, which in turn throws off carbon dating because they are used as reference points which you need in order to use the method.

Is that what's going on with anthropology? They think admixture happened at point in time X because they used carbon dating of Egyptian artifacts as reference points? Is carbon dating a trustworthy method to begin with, given that there are several factors that influence radiocarbon decay and thus invalidate?

 

[WoodArch4033]

Hey, I haven't seen a thread on that yet, but maybe some of you people have decent input.

around two years ago, I read Seraphim Rose's book on Genesis and early man, where he basically argued for Young Earth Creationism. I found his arguments very convincing, partly because his case was coherent with the Orthodox worldview, which is always a huge factor for whether or not I accept a viewpoint. His arguments, outside of a criticism of incoherent arguments for Darwinism, were largely based on Biblical Theology and Patristics.
However: I've recently used my free time more to look into genetic anthropology and the creation of different races, and they all presume very large windows of time, usually in the 30-50 000 year range.
I think it's safe to say that you have to be a general creationist in order to be Orthodox, but what do you people think about the time frames?




In this video, Hamilton's guest makes a case that while archeology gets a lot right, they often make mistakes about carbon dating and their understanding of received historical chronologies, particularly the serial/simultaneous interpretation of Egyptian dynasties, which in turn throws off carbon dating because they are used as reference points which you need in order to use the method.

Is that what's going on with anthropology? They think admixture happened at point in time X because they used carbon dating of Egyptian artifacts as reference points? Is carbon dating a trustworthy method to begin with, given that there are several factors that influence radiocarbon decay and thus invalidate?

I think the Byzantine Calendar's dating for the age of the earth is moderate and reasonable. Each new Church year, we enter into the next year of creation. I believe we are in the year of 7,352. Fr. Seraphim Rose's lecture on evolution, which is mentioned in this forum's thread against evolution says that just because methods of carbon dating enter into millions of years of earth, that doesn't mean that's true, because it's not testing something that we've observed. Also, the age of the universe isn't exactly set and stone for scientists right now. Scientists promoted that idea just so that they could upper the chances of evolution being possible. I think that this topic goes hand and hand with being against evolution. It's a good topic for both threads.

 

[TCOCBR18]

Yes, the Byzantine calendar, used by all of Orthodox Christendom through the middle ages, starts in the year 5509 BC. So we are actually now in the year 7532 by that calendar. It counts years "anno mundi" - from the creation of the world.
The Orthodox Church no longer officially uses that calendar for counting years, but there is a holdover in Orthodoxy to this day, which is that the Liturgical year starts on September 1, New Year's Day by the Byzantine calendar. Orthodox Christians still observe that to this day; it's not a Great Feast of the Church or anything so you might not have even noticed it in your parishes, it's not a huge deal but if you're observant, yes Orthodox New Year's is in fact September 1.

The Evangelical Protestants, who get mocked so universally by secular Americans for their young Earth beliefs, conventionally cite the number 6000 years. That, like so much else in Protestantism, is based on the Hebrew Bible as opposed to the Greek Septuagint. Traditional Christians (that is, before Protestantism) always have prioritized the Septuagint, in which the calculation of the age of the Earth would be the 7532 number.

 

[Lawrence87]

In some sense I think we make things too complex for ourselves as "enlightened" Westerners.

We either live in a universe that was created by God Almighty approximately 7000 years ago, as per the church calendar. This creator has a unique purpose in mind for us and loves us beyond anything we can understand.

Or we live in a universe that is accidental, and billions of years old, everything happened for no reason completely by chance, and everything means nothing and then we die.

There is no reason to try to mesh the two. There is no compelling reason why a sane person would believe the latter.