In today’s episode, I’ll be continuing our discussion about the origins of life. If you didn’t watch the first two videos, then I encourage you to watch them before you watch this one because each video in this series builds on the previous one.

As I mentioned in the first two videos, we should not discount scientific or naturalistic evidence simply because it goes against a theory of a young Earth. If there is evidence that Earth is very old, we should consider revising our interpretation of Genesis chapter one. Just as the Copernican revolution forced Christians to revise their belief that the Earth was the center of the solar system, so too, we should be willing to revise our beliefs about the age of the Earth.

For example, the evidence of impact craters is evidence that the Earth is very old. Craters—the result of meteor and asteroid impacts—show that during an earlier time in history, millions of space-borne rocks smashed into Earth, the moon, and other planets.

The evidence on Earth for these ancient impacts has been mostly obscured by erosion and tectonic activity, but on Earth’s moon and the planets Mercury and Mars craters are abundant. These craters are proof that Earth is very old.

Young Earth Creationists, however, have a different explanation. Young Earth Creationists believe that millions of meteors did hit Earth, but they hit relatively recently. They believe that millions of meteors hit either before the creation of life on the fifth and sixth days of creation or during the flood.

The problem with the first scenario is that the time when these meteors hit the Earth lasted for a long period of time. Some craters on the moon and on Mars have been overlapped by volcanic activity. Such evidence of post-bombardment volcanic activity is proof that meteors hit much earlier in history. One or two days is not enough time for the meteor bombardment to take place.

Another problem is that the post-bombardment atmosphere would not be conducive for life. A dust cloud would have obscured the sun, and the atmosphere would have been unbreathable. Plants and animals would not have been able to survive.

The second scenario is also impossible. Noah and his family would not have survived a bombardment of millions of meteors. A meteor that hit the ocean would create a splash that would send water at least ten kilometers into the air and create waves hundreds of meters high. The impact of a meteor hitting the ocean would also cause huge quantities of water to vaporize. This water vapor injected into the stratosphere would alter the climate. The impact of hundreds of thousands of meteors and asteroids would have destroyed Noah’s ark and drastically changed Earth’s climate for many years.

Young Earth creationists have no answers for the great meteor bombardments. Only an old Earth scenario allows for the evidence of millions of meteors and asteroids hitting Earth.