The Genesis account of creation stands literally for 24 hour time periods

Thank you Con for posting your argument. 1) The word "yom" Con starts off by saying that the word "yom" does not mean day in the temporal sense. While it is true that the word can take on different meanings depending on the context, it is a mistake to say that in Genesis 1, it does not refer to a literal 24-hour day. First of all, the chapter clearly defines the days as having an evening and morning (i.e. "and the evening and the morning were the first day). I do not see how one could misconstrue those terms to refer to a longer period of time. Next of all, examine the context with which the word "yom" is used. It is modified by a numerical article when describing the days; for example, the end of Genesis 1:5 is literally translated as "uiei-orb uiei-bqr ium achd." [1] The last two words: "day one." So we see that "yom" is modified by a number. What does this mean? Well, there are over 200 instances of the word "yom" plus a numerical article, and ALL of them refer to a 24-hour day. [2] For example, look at Genesis 8:10-11. So why, then, would this combination not refer to an ordinary day in this case? As you noted, the sun was not created until the fourth day. There WAS, however, night and day. So we see that time existed by this point, and therefore, evening and morning existed as concepts of time and were simply not yet defined by the rising and setting of the sun. 2) Starlight and time I'm glad you brought this up! Unfortunately however, this is a very complicated topic, and providing a full explanation would require way too much space and I simply don't have it. Suffice to say, for now, that phenomena and concepts such as time dilation and cosmic local time are sufficient to explain how we can see distant starlight in a young universe. I will give you a link [3] to a good article outlining this topic. Don't be so quick to reject it, however. The Big Bang itself has a major problem with starlight as well, and many proponents of it use the same kinds of explanations that young-earth creationists do! 3) Carbon-14 dating This method of dating is, in fact, completely ineffective. It has a lot of problems that are typically ignored by evolutionists. Perhaps the foremost of these is that the amount of C-14 in the atmosphere is assumed to always have been constant; in other words, that at least for a very long time, atmospheric C-14 has been in equilibrium. Dr. Willard Libby, the very founder of C-14 dating, noted that the atmosphere does not appear to be in equilibrium. As a firm believer that Earth is millions of years old, he chose to ignore it and blame it on experimental error. Unfortunately for him, this problem is very real. [4] According to his own calculations, if the atmosphere started out with no C-14, it would take 30,000 years to reach equilibrium. So we see now, according to carbon dating's founder himself, that it would take around 30,000 years for the atmosphere to reach equilibrium, and that the atmosphere does not appear to be in equilibrium. Perhaps the universe is not so old, then? Richard Dawkins himself, in The Blind Watchmaker, stated that carbon dating is "no good for the evolutionary timescale" and that it is only useful for "hundreds or a few thousand years." [5] The Geological record- Con has essentially described how the geological record is supposed to work and then jumps right to the statement that the layers can be counted up to millions of years. I would ask him to elaborate before I argue on this point. He did not prove his statements, and the only source he provided was from Wikipedia. Conclusion Con says that if what he said is too much to deal with, we can work something out. He brought up the topic of distant starlight. That is a VERY broad topic, and I had no idea how to summarize it, so I provided a good source that explains it. I apologize if this seems to be an inappropriate way to argue, but I didn't know what else to do. If Con wishes to refute some of the points in the article, then feel free to do so. However, I understand that with the topic being so broad, he may not be able to address all of the points in one argument. I understand if this is the case. Sources [1] http://www.scripture4all.org... [2] Morris, Henry M. Scientific Creationism (1974) [3] http://www.answersingenesis.org... [4] http://www.rae.org... [5] Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker pg. 226 p.s. If you want to use my arguments in a school paper, I would be happy for you to do so.