The answer is in the Bible.

This is a good question. I'm surprised it was down-rated. I'll give it back. It's impossible to make any accurate estimations of time using the Bible as a reference. Its many books were written over a number of years by different people. Some parts are actually 'borrowed' from other religions like the 'creation' story. How He did it, how long it took is not important. As thick as the Bible is, the message is quite simple: Love others, Love God. Basically the same message in the books of all the other religions in the world.

Actually, I read a study where they said carbon dating is a fluke. They keep doing the test until they get a number they like, basically. Rock age is determined by the types of fossils found in it. However, fossil age is typically determined by the layer of rock it's found in. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that circular reasoning? The point being, there is no perfect system to test the age of fossils and rock. That's the whole point of faith.

Hello Sloth there are many ways of telling the age of the earth (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html#howold) all state the earth is millions of years old. they ALL can not be wrong. ""Got just made everything before we thought God did!!!! ;))))).....( ;-)

Just because someone believes God created everything, doesn't mean they think it was made in 6 24 hour days, or 6 thousand year days. The earth is obviously older than that, it would take time for the land to form, for the formation of fossils to make limestone. For the mountains to rise and fall and rise again. There is also time for dinos.

Yet another question defying God....

I've heard them explained as only being 4400 years old, dinosaurs having been killed in Noah's Flood and died out afterward because their was less oxygen in the air after the flood (go figure...). They jumped on recent discoveries of "soft" tissue in a T-Rex thigh-bone to say "see, couldn't possibly be millions of years old" in spite of perfectly adequate reasons as to why that stuff was there after so long.

Who said God didn't make dinosaurs too. The real question is who made God. After all it all started some where even before the big bang, who flicked that switch.

Jesus buried the dinosaurs to confuse you. (joke) This leads me to my first and in my opinion least credible idea as to what happened. God allows satan to tempt believers quite simply satan placed the dinosaurs in the ground. Some people believe that I think it is stupid. My beliefs lie somewhere below. Biblical creation happend in 6 days, that were 6 human earth days (24 hours) each day notes that there was evening and there was morning in refrence to the sun. In the book of Job the bible makes refrence (genisis 1:21 Job 40)to creatures that resemble descriptions of dinosaurs that have been excavated and identifyied. Before Adam and Eves fall into sin the earth and everything in it was perfect it has ben suggested that this caused accelarated plant growth and spread giving possibly this was God's resoning behind the dinosaurs. The bible suggests that all beings were vegatarian before the fall into sin, not beacuse meat is sinfull but unnecessary as a source of sustanance in a world where perfect unity exists. When the fall happened I would assume carnivorious dinosaurs quickly preyed oupon the larger herbavores who were most likely starving at the time as plants no longer were perfect. This is illistrated when the Lord says to adam you will toil in the feild and to eve I will greatly increase your pains in childbirth. It is safe to believe that sin itself caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. It is also possible that after the fall God simply distroyed the dinasours to protect humans, although I find this unlikely I think God would mention something like this. Even if the dinosaurs did not die we come to the flood, assuming that dinosaurs still existed at this point which by biblical standards is still safe we come to the point at which they almost have to have died logically. During the flood the earth apearently sprung open, and the heavens rained down. It is possible that the dinosaurs were not counted with the animals but were regarded as something else and never boarded the arc, but even if they did their demise is soon at hand there numbers are 2 a peice. Once the arc landed, I am confident and it is biblicly sound to believe that a rapid continental drift began otherwise only 1 continet could be populated with animals. Vegatation was scarce, the large herbavores most likely died of starvation and the same fate most likely became of the carnavores a simple lack of food. If you believe in the flood, then the fact that dinosaurs are buried deep within the earth seems logical as the waters most likely broke up and reformed much of the land as we know it and there were plenty of animals left to die in the flood and create fossils. Both the bible and science give record of a mass extinction, how would this have been known without advanced science? How do biblical authors describe creatres that so greatly resemble ones that we have exhumed from the ground so many years later? If you do not like the bible you must at least admit that it does contain some history, if you believe that the bible is false then I would say radiocarbon dating is about as accurate as you belive the bible to be. Why? Well, people have buried their dogs to have them dated 10 years later as hundreds of thousands of years old, the method holds inconsistancys and has not been tested in the scope of time to which it is being applied. The Fossil record is nearly the same story, the flood explains this wonderfully and from that perspective shows no accurate depiction of time. Science has shown inconsistant information on dinosaurs from the begining, every ten years dinosaurs seem to get 15000 years or even millions of years older simply beacuse science seeks to explain itself, many prehistoric scientific discoverys remain a topic of debate beacuse they are based on circular reasoning. A scientist may say that this plant was found in a layer of the earth that is 2 million years old so the decay should be equal to that of dinosaur fossils found nearby when they are found to be equal the fossil is dated according to the layer in which it is found and the layer is dated by the plant that it contains using a technique that is questionable at best. That sounds like foolishness to me. You must also take a moment to consider that a person who believes that the bible is the inherent word of God in its truth and purity believes in a all powerfull God who can do whatever he wants, making all of this essentially meaningless. The entire arguement at hand is based on presupposed knowledge, hence an agreement will never be reached your presupposition rests on a theory that changes frequently and my presuppositions rest on faith in a never changing well preserved set of historical documents (the bible). If I believe that the word of God is inherent and the earth sprung open at the time of the flood and you fail to see from my perspective that this is from the power of a all powerfull God then the entire arguement is worthless. Also, I have always believed the world to be 9 to 12 thousand years old, not 6. Last but not least, the Jesus buried the dinosaurs theory, and this is serous short and sweet. When God created plants and animals he did not create them all as infants, they were presumably with age maybe God created the earth with fossils in it to give it age. WHAT WHY ON EARTH WOULD GOD DO SUCH A THING? I dont know much about God, he dosent say that much to me about himself through his word. Has anybody ever supposed that God came from someplace else, and created this? What if God came from a world where evolution is true and everything makes perfect sence, God simply created us in the image of where he is from (dosent seem to far fetched since humans were created in his image) whatever his reason being for doing so and that just explains everything dont it. Now I dont belive that, but its fun to think about and its even docturnally sound. The real answer to your queston is that your answers are about as good as ours so lets just all be friends OK! [EDIT} Sorry for the spelling and mechanics first of all this was done at 330 am so cut me some slack. In refrence to a comment made about biblical accuracy, the bible is not simply translations of translations of translations theologians and some pastors often study heberew and greek so that they can read the bible in its origional languages! The torah or old testament has always been kept by the jewish scribes who were very zelous in their work, if there was even 1 gramatical mistake in the copy it would be disposed of. The same methods of copying were used with the new testament texts, we may not have any signate copyies but we do have multiple copys in alexandria that were taken directly from the signate copies that match entirely with the jewish scribes copies. The (NIV) bible was translated DIRECTLY from the origional languages to english leaving only minor errors since the mechanics of greek and hebrew are much diffrent than that of english. Example: the word love in english can be a confusing one I think we can all admit that well in the heberew language they had 3 different words for love with different meanings they had one word for erotic love one for emotional love and ond for unconditional love. This leads to what may be a sometimes choppy translation but if you have a Concordia Refrence Bible (niv) there are footnotes explaining theese translation difficultys and filling in information that may be necessary such as when a parable is told or when and object lesson is used it explains the relavance of the object to the culture of the time that we may not understand or may even misinterpret. If you read the NIV bible we have 98% unquestionable accuracy to the origional texts, the 2 percent remaining lies mainly in sentence structure and I do not remember where in the old testament but threre is some discrepencey as to a couple of dates and this exists only when you compare the copies found in rome to the ones found in the other churches. Thankfully none of theese innaccuracys fall anwhere near the message of salvation and do not change the overview of the bible. Dont be so quick to laugh. (please do not take that in the wrong light) Also one may ask why does the word dinosaur never appear in the bible if we believe the terrable lizards described in the bible to be dinosaurs. Quite simply, the word dinosaur is not in the king james version beacuse when that was translated (this was translated from the latin septuigents I believe) the word dinosaur did not exist. The reason it is not in the NIV is beacuse God never uses the word dinosaur and we cannot be sure that the creatures that God is describing are dinosaurs, but beyond reasonable doubt we can say that they are dinosaurs. The reason this is simply not just edited is beacuse the origional language translated to english works just fine for presenting the message of salvation, the pourpouse for which it is intended. Now, raidocarbon dating. Well you can argue this one into the dirt but it is quite simply barely scientific. As I stated above raido carbon dating is based on assumptions. For raido carbon dating to work one must assume that. 1. the rate of decay has stayed constant in the past which we have not observed. 2. You need to know the ratio of C-12 to C-14 in the atmosphere when the specimin died. #1. Debunked - You cannot assume that the rate of decay as remained a constant or use this method to support facts since there is reasurch that strongly suggests that helium diffusion rates support accelerated neucular decay. Basically you must assume constant decay to make raido carbon dating work, hardly a scientific method of producing results since your constant is not based in the realm of fact and there is evidence that stands against it. #2 Debunked - We know that raidocarbon forms faster than it decays, one thing that we cannot know is what the C-12 and C-14 levels in the atmosphere were at the time of the specimins death. Science has also found that as the earths magnetic feild decays the amount of raidocarbon produced is greater, you must not also forget that we humans have had an effect on the ratio of raidocarbon and we all know that very well. Volcanic activity at the time of the specimins death also would change the ratio since volcanos emit CO2 and lots of it. Then there is always using tree rings to prove this dating methods, and honestly I feel lazy and dont want to type all this out right now. You most likely could get a answer similar to the one I would give if you were to google the words Dendrochronology and decay or raidocarbon dating but trust me you will find the same contraversy. Please do not assume that what you read is what I believe. Now, a brief section on science itself or rather the scientist. A scientist is a person who also has a set of beliefs they will use their presupposed knowledge when going about their studys. You must know that there are christian scientists out there, and they are not out on a mission to scientificly prove the bible as that would defeat the pourpouse of a faith based religion, they just have a different set of presupposed ideas. (theese ideas humorously enough lie in the realm of making assumptions based on faith, Just like scientists (non christian) may make assumptions based on faith in statistics) One must realize that the christian scientists are not just praying but they are active in the scientific community, they serve a pourpose that is to explain things like this and expose holes in scientific data that spits in the face of God and will be tought to many belivers in Christ who will need some type of explination. Science is real, you would have to be stupid to not believe that, although its accuracy is debateable often when it comes to writing history books that cannot offend people by law. You cannot disregard the work of a christian sceintist just beacuse s/he is christian, the fact that raidocarbon forms faster than it decays may or may not have been discovered by a christian but who cares. The point is this is a fact that stands in the way of a theory. The fact that we have tested specimins that are prehistoric and extinct and different sections of thier bodys have been thousands of years in difference in age stands in the way of this dating method. Here we are, I dont think either of us are going to change our minds beacuse no factual proof stands in the way of our beliefs. If you dont want to believe in God thats cool with me, and if your right then it all still boils down to the same thing what fairy tail you believe beacuse that is what evolution sounds like to me, and thats most likely what the bible sounds like to you. (sorry for filling your mouth with words, its just and example) My final peice of my first edit is a commentary on both of our critisisms on the first and last theory presented. I do not like the first theory beacuse many new believers or just people who have questions about my faith do not like to hear things like that beacuse they are unscientific, but for some believers just a simple trust in God is all that is necessary for them so this is not really stupid it is just and example of exibiting a childlike faith if you choose to go by something like this. My third theory that was presented was not presented to be honestly a serous example, it was more of an expression of creativity and free thinking that is allowed within christianity that many people do not see as possible. [unimportant but cool tangent for the intrested reader] [based on speculation does not have any biblical accuracy or christian lessons contained in this section, it is simply based on the ideas presented in the bible] I have quite the theory, that I place no belief in and has nothing to do with my salvation but I have alot of fun thinking about it. No matter what you believe, sometime something had to come from nothing I think that boggles all of our minds at some point. Now God in the bible says that he is an all knowing diety, one which is beyond our understanding. God does not say anything about his past prior to creation, which brings us to the awsome question of WHY?? Why did God create us, well assuming that God knows everything and we can speculate that there are other beings LIKE God that are not god beacuse they have no power over our universe or realm. Possibly God came from a society, that was in fact perfect and understood their orgins in every way and knew exactly what was right and what was wrong. Now God wonders what would the world be like if there was unknown and there was no meaning of life that was revealed. Quite simply God uses his powers to create perfect man, with one varible the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Since God created man in his image but not knowing all as he did, man sought to know all and ate of the fruit. God introduces chaos into the world. God sees what he has created, and that we are made in his image and has compassion on us and gives us hope for salvation. This is what is awsome about Christ, he solves the logic humans have for getting into heave and destroys it. Humans know that we are doing something wrong, and there is two ways to deal with this, work rightousness and sacrifice. Niether of theese work since work rightousness requires perfection and sacrifice requires human/animal blood that contains innocence. The jewish religion is a great example of the mixture of theese 2 idea's. Simply Christ was perfect and sacrificed for all, now all you need is to believe. you can peice together the rest of the story.... a bunch of stuff happens and God just finishes his promises. Once again I place no belief in this....

oh...*looks at the fossilized footprints* those old things...that was from when the dinosaur carried you!