Okay. Let me break your mistaken understanding down for you. Your mistake lies in the fact that you are not believing of the Bible.
As for what I have to say, the non-time "before" light was created is a mixture of things that looked and acted (to some extent) like, "... there is no knowledge of what went before the day that light was made. Some of it might correspond to billions of years, or trillions. Other of it would correspond to only an instant, like a nano-second or less. And some might correspond to any amount of time in between."
But here is the important part of what I said, "... there is no knowledge of what went before the day that light was made." Did you catch that? I'll repeat it a little shorter: "... no knowledge ..."
The closest thing that we have to understanding about the "time" before light comes in 3 parts:
1. The earth was "formless and void;"
2. There was apparently some cohesion in whatever existed because there was a "surface of the waters;"
3. How do we know that there was this cohesion and a surface of the waters? Because the "Spirit of God moved over the surface of the waters."
The New International Version translators of the ancient Hebrew write it this way, Genesis 1:1,2:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
So, now you can see your misunderstanding. It is contained in the fact that you want to believe silly science fairy tails rather than the absolute best record we have of the beginning of the earth "times," the Bible.
Before I wrote my first post in this thread I knew what type of person I was attempting to converse with, so your latest reply comes as no surprise.
Thank you for this. As you finally start to understand the flaws in your thinking, you start to pick on me, because you are running out of facts. So you move into twisting, which includes picking on me.
The fact that I do not believe in the Bible is irrelevant to the point I raised about your argument to the Earth's age. My point was, and continues to be, that you are unable to accept that your explanation of 6000 / 6200 years relies on period of time for which there is no knowledge, again I'm using your own words here. Another way to describe "no knowledge" is unknown.
You neglect to state in what way you believe that my thinking relies on no knowledge. But it doesn't matter, because...
Up until the beginning of the electromagnetic spectrum (light), we have knowledge that something existed, but it was void or empty. This means that it doesn't match our understanding of physics and physical laws.
Then God spoke light into existence, and we have the beginning of the first day. Certainly there were other things that God did to make the day - "separated the light from the darkness." But because most of it is beyond our understanding, and certainly is beyond the understanding of simple people, God chose to talk about the light, something that almost all of us understand in one way or another.
Day 1, day 2, day 3, etc., - time - down to the present; some amount of time a little over 6,000 years.
So in simple maths terms....
Earth's creation + unknown period + 6000 (or 6200 years) = Unknown
Wrong! In simple terms, nothing that we know about. "Then" 6,000+ years. I have "then" in quotes, because "then" denotes time even though there was no time. Possibly there is no correct word to use when talking about "movement" from no time into time.
The difference between a scientific explanation and your explanation is that the scientific one recognizes and allows for a margin of error, as you yourself have pointed out, while you are unable to accept that your own also has a margin of error, although your margin is an unknown quantity rather than a margin born out of reproducible physical testing.
What does a margin of error have to do with it? Does anybody know the exact number of days that have existed, other than God? However, way less of a margin of error than secular science. Why? Because even if Big Bang had been a reality, nobody knows what things were like before the BANG. But the secular margin of error is, like, 2 billion years following the BB. And that is all based on a theory that has absolutely no way to be proven. Big Bang should not even be relegated into theory it is so flawed as such.
I know that the above will mean nothing to you and that you will attempt to teach me the error of my ways by making self referencing or circular arguments as to the legitimacy of the Bible, so knock yourself out - figuratively speaking of course.
Huh! You have no answer. So you start to pick on me again.
And for the record, I agree with Spendulus's post above and like Tyrantt I also believe that time does not exist other than as a construct of man, so when I say years above I'm referring to the passage of the Earth around the Sun.
Since the sun was made on the 4th day, time existed 3 days longer than the passage of the earth around the sun. Whoopty doo. Now you really want to get picky by 3 days, all the while modern science suggests billions of years difference, and all that with a theory that shows itself to be doubtful (BBT), all the while there could be any number of things that invalidate the BB Theory entirely. Science really needs to get back to the Bible, the best record we have.