Vast time is thought to be the solution to the improbability of life arising spontaneously by chance and then evolving into the myriad creatures on Earth.
 
The universe is said to be 17 billion years old, and the Earth about 4.7 billion years old. Those ages, as will be explained, are by no means absolute. They are selected from among many possible ages to give abiogenesis and evolution breathing room.
 
The Uncertainty of Dating Methods
 
Any dating method that takes us beyond observable history is a guess.
 
Nobody was around for billions of years to observe and record events that could affect dating clocks. We can't know with certainty that ice at the poles has always been laid down at today's rate, that tree rings only record 365-day years, or that sediment has always accumulated at the rate we now see it accumulating. Even the sacrosanct rate of radioactive decay is not certain.
 
In fact, cataclysms have occurred which have both accelerated and slowed clocks. That would make it impossible to extrapolate from rates observed today into the past and date anything with certainty. (See my Creation-Evolution Controversy book for a more thorough discussion of many popular dating methods and their weaknesses.)

⌕ Click to enlarge

For example, in 1991 Oxford University used the radiocarbon method to date a rock painting found in Africa and determined it to be 1,200 years old. But later a Cape Town artist identified the painting as her recent creation and explained it was stolen from her garden.
 
The Harvard Institute of Geophysics used the potassium-argon method to assign an age to lava of 3 billion years. But the lava was known to have formed in 1801. In another case, lava that was known to be 1,000 years old from historical records was dated at 465,000 years old.
 
Different dating methods used for the same sample can also yield vastly disparate ages. Examples could be enumerated almost endlessly.
 
As a rule, when there are dates that do not accord with presuppositions about how old a certain thing is expected to be, they are ignored or set aside as anomalous.
 
Evolutionists are not alone in their bias about the age of the Earth. Archbishop James Ussher, in 1650, read the Bible and decided creation took place in 4004 BC. Dr. John Lightfoot, a professor at Cambridge University, one-upped Ussher and added more precision. He agreed that creation occurred in that year, but narrowed it down to October 23rd at 9:00 AM. These confident fellows, like evolutionists, also based conclusions on prior belief. Contrary evidence was summarily rejected.
 
Catastrophes
 
It is assumed that it takes millions of years to create the vast depths of sedimentary rocks in the Earth's crust. Dating these rocks would be a simple matter of measuring how much sediment is laid down today by rivers, oceans, and floods (about 0.2 millimeters per year on average), and dividing the 0.2 millimeters into the depth of the strata. This sounds reasonable enough—as long as there were no cataclysms that accelerated deposition or erosion.
 
But scientists have now come to understand that Earth history does not always move uniformly or glacially slow. Earth has a history of catastrophes. Modern examples show the dramatic impact such events can have on geology. For example, when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, 18 billion cubic feet of material laid down 600 feet of sediment. Subsequently, a 100-foot deep canyon was cut. The walls of this canyon show a layering like the walls of canyons all over the world that are used to prove billions of years of history.

⌕ Click to enlarge

⌕ Click to enlarge

Vast and quick sedimentation with sudden burial is necessary for fossil formation. Otherwise, huge dinosaurs and mammoths could not get preserved as fossils. Some creatures were killed and mummified so quickly that food is still in their mouths and undigested in their stomachs. Millions of marine creatures that would normally die, be eaten, or decay are preserved as fossils. Trees are fossilized upright coursing through 40 feet of coal. But no tree could avoid disintegration while millions of years of coal were formed around it. Extremely fragile tissue such as skin, fish scales, and eyes have even been preserved. Such would demand instantaneous burial and encasement.
 
Fossils don't prove vast time. They prove sudden catastrophe.

⌕ Click to enlarge

⌕ Click to enlarge

⌕ Click to enlarge

A Young Universe
 
Evolutionists start with the presumption of vast time and select those dating methods in support. Religionists start with the presumption of a young universe and select those dating methods in support.
 
Neither can prove their beliefs with certainty using dates.

⌕ Click to enlarge

Time is Irrelevant
 
Our physical reality is like a machine, and machines will not function without all elements simultaneously present. We're part of an infinite machine consisting of organs, cells, and biochemicals connected to an ecological web of millions of organisms, connected to air, water, light, and innumerable physical forces generated in a cosmic web of planets, stars, galaxies, and perhaps other universes. Such machine-like interdependency demands sudden creation.
 
Creation would scrap the reliability of all dating methods. Sudden creation would immediately create the appearance of age. One-second old creatures could appear decades old and one-second old galaxies could appear to be billions of years old.
 
Although the idea of sudden creation may seem ridiculous to us four- dimensionally bound creatures, in the physics of quantum reality time is irrelevant. Everything, past and future, exists simultaneously and is connected. (This mind-numbing fact is discussed more fully in a coming chapter.)
 
The integration and codependency of all elements of our reality is an impenetrable blockade to any attempt at a step-by-step evolution, no matter how much time is granted. It also conflicts with the religious notion of creation in "day" steps.
 
The Law of Time demolishes evolution. The more time, the more degradation and disorder. That's the opposite of what evolution needs. Moreover, degradation and disorder point backward to a winder upper. But the only sufficient winder upper would be intelligence. That's where logic and science lead and has nothing to do with religion.