In an earlier episode, I talked about what scientists call the Late Heavy Bombardment, a hypothetical event that some scientists believe happened near the beginning of creation when millions of asteroids crashed into Earth and the other planets in our solar system.
No one disputes that millions of asteroids hit the Earth and other planets. Visual evidence for these meteorite impacts is abundant on Mercury, Mars, and Earth’s moon. As I mentioned in my earlier video, evidence for these impacts is no longer visible on Earth because the impact craters have been erased by plate tectonics, volcanism, and erosion. Despite the lack of visible evidence for the meteor bombardment on Earth, astrophysicists believe that it happened, and the erasure of the impact craters is proof of an ancient Earth.
I’ve decided to revise my earlier comments concerning the Late Heavy Bombardment for two reasons: 1) Young Earth Creationists’ explanation concerning plate tectonics has added another factor into the debate about the age of the Earth, and 2) many scientists are not convinced that the Late Heavy Bombardment is the best explanation for the abundant meteor impacts we see elsewhere in the solar system.
I’ll explain the latter reason first. Many scientists are not convinced that the Late Heavy Bombardment is the best explanation for the abundant meteor impacts on Mercury, Mars, and our moon. Instead of a single event described as a cataclysmic surge of impacts, many scientists now prefer to explain the proliferation of meteor impacts as the result of prolonged meteor activity that gradually declined.
This is the usual scenario: At the beginning of the creation of the universe, stars and galaxies formed from enormous clouds of cosmic gas and dust. As solar systems developed, the gravitational pull of larger objects attracted smaller objects. These clusters of cosmic material formed planets and moons. These planets and moons experienced countless collisions with asteroids. Over time, the rate of collisions decreased, but evidence of these collisions still exists in the form of meteor craters. Traces of this turbulent period are visible today as meteor craters on the Moon, Mars, and Mercury, but have been largely erased on Earth due to plate tectonics, volcanism, and erosion.
Mainstream scientists believe that the majority of meteor impacts occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago. Young-earth Creationists, however, believe that the vast majority of these meteor impacts, including the Chicxulub (CHICK-shuh-loob) impact in the Yucatan, all occurred about 4,500 years ago during Noah’s Flood.
The geologic record shows no evidence of such a worldwide flood 4,500 years ago, or anytime during human history, so we will not focus on the Flood. Instead, we will discuss the impossibility of hundreds of thousands of simultaneous meteor impacts.
The second reason for a revised video about meteor craters concerns plate tectonics. Most scientists, including young-earth creationists, agree that before Earth’s present-day continents and oceans took shape, there existed a supercontinent called Pangea. Mainstream geologists believe that around 200 million years ago, magma rose beneath the supercontinent, causing the crust to stretch and fracture into volcanic rifts that eventually split Pangaea apart.
Over time, tectonic forces moved the Earth’s crust into the continents and oceans that exist today. Mainstream scientists believe this process took millions of years. Young-earth creationists, however, believe that it all happened during Noah’s Flood. They refer to the rapid movement of tectonic plates as catastrophic plate tectonics.
Young-earth Creationists’ theory that most meteor impacts and the breakup of Pangea both happened during Noah’s Flood creates an insurmountable problem. The problem is that both events would have caused massive quantities of heat. This heat would have evaporated the oceans and melted the Earth’s crust. All life on Earth would have been destroyed, and the Earth would have been enveloped in a superheated canopy of steam.
The only time in Earth’s history that these conditions existed was 4 billion years ago during the Hadean Eon, when Earth was still forming from collisions with countless space rocks. At that time, the energy from these impacts generated enormous heat, creating a molten planet surrounded by a dense, hot blanket of steam and volcanic gases.
Both the bombardment of Earth by thousands of meteors and the rapid movement of tectonic plates would have generated enough heat to melt the Earth’s core, boil the oceans, and leave the atmosphere too hot and toxic for life to exist for thousands of years.
How do young earth creationists explain how Noah and those aboard the ark survived? Young-earth creationists routinely resort to divine intervention to explain how Noah and those on the ark survived the tremendous heat. They invoke a miracle of God that somehow dissipated the heat so that the Earth’s crust did not melt and the oceans did not boil away.
In my opinion, to invoke a miracle, especially one that conveniently explains an insurmountable problem, only raises problems for a literal interpretation of the Bible and, consequently, weakens our faith in God. A much better explanation to overcome the inevitable conclusions posed by young-earth creationists is to take another look at our interpretation of the Bible.
Just as Christians were forced to reexamine the Bible in light of scientific discoveries by Copernicus and Galileo—discoveries that proved the Earth revolves around the Sun—so too we need to reexamine the Bible in light of incontrovertible evidence for an old Earth.
The Bible says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork (Psalm 19:1).” I believe it’s time to stop believing in the fairytales espoused by young-earth creationists, and let God’s creation inform our faith. To ignore the scientific facts and believe in an impossible interpretation of the Bible is to ignore the best theological minds of the Church past and present.
Don’t make the mistake of following a minority view of the Bible propagated by a few sincere but misguided Christians who are too closed-minded to take a fresh look at the Bible in the light of God’s amazing creation.
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