God, and science

Exactly my point RD.

Astro physicists are pretty sure they know the distances to stars.

I think there is good evidence for E=MC squared and special realativity.

Many people think they know the length of the days in Genisis based on the length of a day today.

Just FYI I believe that Jesus was in the Tomb 3 literal days (like 72 hours) just like the Bible says and I don't understand why people will such a hard line on 7 24 hour days for creation and will settle for 3 partial days for the time Jesus was in the tomb, especially since the latter is so obviously true and upon closer examination brings the Gospel accounts into perfect harmony.

There is no reason that God could not have created light in transit and a universe with an appearance of age and if that works for you fine.

To me that seems deceptive and deciet is not a part of God's character. In fact it is one thing the Bible says God can not do. Lie.

He may very well set me straight on that one day and I will gladly accept that.

In the meantime I have to believe that no man living fully understands the Genesis creation account and it was mean't to be that way. Just as no one fully understands all of the prophecies regarding the end times. It will be revealed when it has reached it's fullness.

As far as being able to buy a new ring......my wife is going one better. She said, "No big deal, we can get new rings." (notice the plural)

BTW my finger is doing much better but I have discovered that I am bruised all over my body.

Peace

Mikel

Hmmm, I can't resist commenting on that idea...
Sometimes its thru discomfort or discontentment or downright suffering, that we become aware of how God can come in and either teach us patience or compassion or cause us to appreciate the lack of suffering we had til the incident. If there are no bad times to contrast with the good times, I know I don't always appreciate the good times as much as I should. And like you sensed, sometimes when something almost catastrophic happens we realize that God is paying enough attention to avert the worst. Then you see that maybe He's got something for you to do, to say or some action to take to perhaps bless others, like with your guitar playing... He's not ready for you to quit playing, is he!?


Just my two cents worth!

I am glad you will still be able to play guitar too, by the way; guitar is such a source of inspiration for me even tho I don't play!

This post has been edited by Siobhan Blues on 04-Nov-2005, 03:22 PM

SC I was talking to my wife about this idea last night and your comment. (I'm pretty sure you are not referring to me as a psuedo scientist I don't think either word fits ) I am someone who is absorbed in finding and knowing the truth about everything that I can.

Just some food for thought hear. It is true that scientists can not explain a lot and that they try to explain beyond their ability with confidence that they should not have does this somehow make their valid work suspect? Christians do not understand everything that is in the Bible and yet often some will take stands on issues that are not understandable at this point (i.e. the wine in the Bible was non-alcoholic is one that I personally find very laughable) Does this make the Bible less valid.

I don't believe that good science is less valid or Christianity is less valid as a result of either case. We are talking about interpretation of the evidence in both cases. Unfortunately a poor interpretation often does reflect on the interpreter.

I digress....My point with my wife was that I believe in an all powerful God (omnipotent is the word) I find that God does things which to my way of thinking are more difficult than I would imagine on my own. I also find as I have said that God has a character that is totaly completely honest. An overiding theme in the Bible is Truth. Truth good lies bad, God sends His Spirit of Truth, etc....

To create a world with an appearance of age (i.e. light in transit) would seem decietful to me, that is the first reason I would have a problem with that idea. The second thing is that since nothing is to difficult for God, wouldn't it be much harder to create the universe just as it appears and then have it be in perfect harmony with the Genesis account? That is how I believe the case to be. I can't explain how that works, but neither can anyone offer a diffinitive and conclusive/believable explaination of how it works with 24 hour creation days.

I am only saying that you could argue and argue the point but there will likely be no resolution or true understanding until the day we sit together at the wedding feast when all will be made known. If there were not some things that were going to be unknowable at that time there would be no need for a debriefing.

Like I said before everyone wants to focus on 7 24 hour literal creation days (I believe this to be literal, I just believe the measure of at least some of those days was different) yet everyone wants to look at 3 days in the tomb in a non literal sense which creates all kinds of problems unnecessarily and is an easy case to make for a 24 hour literal 3 day period.

There are 2 camps in the Christian scientific community. Reasons to Believe with Hugh Ross an Astro Physicist http://www.reasons.org and Institute for creation research with Henry Morris http://www.icr.org/.

I have read a lot of material from both camps, plus attended lectures and watched videos, and I find much of what both have to say to be very credible.

Both have very good points for what they believe with in their disciplines of expertise. When they get into each others areas of expertise they both get shaky.

I personally believe that the truth is somewhere in between the 2 viewpoints.

Just food for thought.

Peace

Mikel

FYI - in reference to previous posts about radiocarbon dating, here's a site which describes the method.


http://www.c14dating.com/int.html

I've started reading this topic, for I think it's pretty interested. But while reading I get so many ideas that I think I do both, read and comment, at the same time. (Modern technologies make it possible )

There were some points made about the time and the seven days god created the earth in.
But is there any prove that those 7 days where only close to what seven days mean to us?
Maybe those seven days were just 7 time periods. That might be 7 minuntes as well as 7 * 137549000 years.
Just taking some number, it could also have been 700000000 years. Yet that would involve our thinking in 10^x.
Saying that I don't mean that one day in terms of one turning of the earth needed that long. Just one time period as the 'life' of one society. The existence of a background situation...
Referencing on something people knew when the bible was written. Not what they knew when this happend but when they wrote it down in a way our today versions of the bible come from.

I really like that point, reddrake made. Just one thing I wonder about:
I totally agree on the part that Noah and his family couldn't have known everything that was known before the flood.
But why can't people before that flood have known some technique to 'clone' something in a way creating something new?
I mean I can't prove it nor can I prove the opposite. Just wondering...

Why would some people prefer to knit by hand while they can buy wonderful pullovers in shops?
Just for the fun of it.
What if god just wanted to see how nice earth developed and how nice all the living beings changed...?

Someone once told me that the time measured in meant not years but lunar years Which means about 28 days. (This makes the 100 years sleeping beauty actually slept about... 8 years, I belive, but back to the topic...)
I calculated that a few times when I started reading the bible about a year ago. (I'm not much further than I was one year ago...) With some of those ages it really does fit.
Yet moving further on there are guys that live not as long as the ones before but not as short as we do today. Counting in those lunar years whould make them have children before even turning 8.
I went back to my informant and asked how this could be and was told that those changes develop from changes in society and different ways of thinking and living.
I'm not sure whether what I think about it now is what my informant meant when telling me. As for me I came to believe that there are more than only one change and that those ages that do not fit to lunar years but not to solar years either are wither a way of evolutional process leading from the further to the latter or different stages I don't know of yet.

This is not meant to offend or anything... but... why do you have to believe this literally? What if it wasn't MEANT literally?
There are many people we kinda talk of as immortal which doesn't mean they still live (in fact most of them are long dead...)
Taking this literally I'd say everlasting life would mean not dying. Does it mean that? If no, how can everlasting life be true? (independent from the question whether the 6 day period is true...)
I mean... I'm just wondering... To me that doesn't make much sense, but that mustn't mean there is none, probably I just can't see it.

Maybe people didn't think as far as milleniums/millenia (?) when they wrote down the words of the bible?

This was mentioned before, but I only now started wondering... Do they really say light is slowing down? Might it be that light is still as fast as it used to be but needs longer to go from point A to point B than it needed 'years' ago?
Just wondering, because that doesn't seem strange to me, since greater distance means longer time when using the same speed... and the universe is extending, isn't it? At least I heard that in TV years ago... That might be considered false meanwhile though...

That's a really interesting point of view... I've really got to think about that...

Right. But why do people claim to interpret the words in the bible as they were meant? After all, we're just imperfect humans. The WORDS might be the right ones. The MEANINGS might be the right ones. Our INTERPRETATIONS of the biblical words might still be not completely right (I purposly don't say false!)

And once again my break is running short and I've gotto go... But I'll continue. That might be a promise as well as a threat. Depends on how you see it.

Have a nice day and... don't stop wondering.

Well, dear, for me it is simply and truly a matter of faith. If I can't believe the Bible for what it says, if I have to pick and choose what I can and can't take literally, if I have to call a Bible expert every time I read a verse in the Bible to make sure it means what it says, then what is the point in claiming to believe it at all? By doing these things then I am trying to validate my belief with fact, I am not taking it by faith. To put it bluntly, if I have to do all of this, then it is evident that - despite what I claim - I don't truly believe.

Several years ago I came to a point in my life where I had to make a decision - either I DO believe the Bible, word for word exactly as written - or I DON'T. And I decided that I do believe. I refuse to water down my faith with all of this scientific mumbo jumbo. I believe that my awesome God IS powerful enough to simply say the words "Let it be" and it is so. Scientists can produce all of the theoretical textbook garbage that they want, but I know what I believe, and nothing they say can or will change that. They can throw all of the most compelling, plausible theories at me that they can come up with but, in the end, it is all nothing more than just that... Theory. I don't need their theory. I have the Bible, and that, word for word exactly as written, is more than enough for me.

Back in the 70s I had a button, that I loved but I've lost somewhere along the way, which summed up my thought on the matter in its entirety:

The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.

Just to go a little further with what I just wrote, Tim LaHaye, a noted end-times scholar, in his book Are We Living In The End Times? quotes Dr. David L. Cooper as saying, "When the plain sense of scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense, but take every word at its primary, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context clearly indicate otherwise."

These are words that I live by.

Okay, so lets look at the immediate context, Genesis 1:1-5.

Genesis 1:1-2 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

Genesis 1:1-2 sets the stage for creation. God creates the heavens and the earth. In my opinion (and this is ONLY my opinion - I have no proof to back it up) what was created here was just the earth and the vast vault that we call space. At this point the universe is without sun, moon or stars. Completely empty except for the earth itself which has just emerged from the placenta of its own creation. Why do I believe this? Well, because sun, moon, and stars are not created until day 4, according to Genesis 1:14-19. (And by the way, laugh if you want but here is all the proof that I, personally, need to show me that the earth itself is OLDER than the sun, moon and stars - by a whole 3 days! )

Genesis 1:3 "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light."

In Genesis 1:3 He actually speaks the words "Let there be light" and the result?
"And there was light." Immediate. Not millions of years. He spoke, and it was. Period.

Genesis 1:4-5 "And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."

In Genesis 1:4 He quite obviously divides light and darkness. In Genesis 1:5 He names those time periods Day and Night. And how long did it take? That is also answered in Genesis 1:5: "And the evening and the morning were the first day." Notice that it says day, not millennia. He has just defined what a Day and Night are, so what next? Is He now going to turn around and use those same words - day and night - to mean something else entirely? I don't think so.

Also, I don't believe that there can be any doubt what an evening and a morning are. The Jews did not name a "day" as we do - from midnight until midnight the following day. They called a "day" from sunset of one day til sunset the next day. So this order - "the evening and the morning" made perfect sense to them, as it does to me.

Immediate Biblical context supports a literal seven-day creation. So I personally have no reason or need to look elsewhere for proof. If I begin looking elsewhere for proof to back up what the Bible says, then I am no longer living by faith, I am trying to live by fact which is contradictory to what the Bible teaches. So I have no problem at all with believing that the Lord has permitted scientists, who have gone prodding in search of proof that was not needed in the first place, to find exactly what they were hoping to find - "proof" that the earth is much older than the Bible tells us. He is not being deceitful, Raven, He is simply letting them prove themselves to be fools.

1 Corinthians 1:27 says "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty."

Romans 1:21-22 says "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools."

Those who are living by faith need no proof that the Bible says what it means and means what it says. Using limited, finite mortal intelligence to try to prove things done by an omnipotent, all-mighty infinite God - THERE is the essence of true foolishness.

Romans 1:17 says "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

I have my Bible and I have my faith. All else is irrelevant.

Well... I finally read the last posts I couldn't read earlier yet there's nothing I think I must add to my previous post...

So at first let me say: Thanks Wizard, for answering. (After noone answered to my post about prophecies I thought I maybe was to confusing or maybe noone wanted to talk to me. *sniff* )

Let's just for once suppose it isn't meant literally, what the bible says but some kind of 'code'. A matter of interpretation. You're right, it seems strange that god might have made people write down the words that don't mean what they say. Yet suppose when all those things happened, suppose when those words were written the people did understand their meaning and over time 'we' just forgot how to read those lines in that way...?

I think your faith is amazingly strong. That's good for you. And I truely mean that in all the positive ways there are. It's always good to have something to believe in.
Just wanted to mention that, since somehow I feel my opinion might seem to try to keep people from believing which I don't want to.

That's true. Still we CAN not know, we just can not, since we didn't live at that time, in which way the words in the bible were meant and maybe by plainly reading them with what we know today (and we all are children of our time!) we misinterpret them in the effort to not interpret them at all...?

Sorry, but who said immediately was light? God said "Let there be light." That's well and fine. And there was light. Noone ever said it was immediately or two seconds after he finished his sentence or maybe even hundreds of years. That's something you read from those lines even though it is not written. At least if I don't miss something important here...

Sure it says day. I never doubted that. I just doubted that what was meant by day truely was a day, but I guess since you believe the words of the bible literally and I don't at all we will never get together about that point, which I don't intend. I just wanted to stimulate thinking. Mutual.
But there's something else that came to my mind... Ever noticed that 'day' is defined by using terms that aren't defined first (or anywhere at all, as far as I remember...). Until then we know the earth and the heaven, we know darkness called night and light called day. What the hell are morning and evening? (For once trying to think mathematically. *g*)
On the other hand that might be a translation error. Yet that would indicate that there are mistakes in the bible (not the original but the one 'we' know, which I think is worse enough). I'd be very sceptical to believe each word literally in that case...
By the way, did you realize, that the evening is mentioned first? Might that be, evening was more important than morning? Might it be night was more important than day...?
There were prechristian religions 'preferring' the darkness to the light for several reasons. And for the same reasons treasuring the dark time of the year and the new moon...
I think I know much too less...

That's very interesting. The celts did that as well, at least as far as I know... I wonder who else did that and who started to define a day from midnight to midnight and why...

*Nightchild steps into the night to do more thinking...*

Another thing that just came to my mind...

1. It's said god does not lie. (Let it be he can't or just he plainly doesn't, I don't care...)
2. In terms of law, not telling something counts as a lie. (I'd go with that even outside law terms.)
3. Taking the bible it says god created heaven and earth, he created all kinds of animals (including mankind), he created the sun and the stars. Noone is ever mentioned there was created some other life forms on other planets.
4. Since god doesn't lie (as stated in 1.) and don't telling something true is included in lieing (as stated in 2.) there is no life on other planets (since this would be included in 3. else).

What if we ever encountered life on some other planet? Wouldn't that be a prove that the bible can't be read literally?
Not that I claim to ever have met an alien, I'm just wondering...

Leaving out information does NOT make it a lie! If you told me you had a child, but you did NOT tell me all of the intimate details about how the child was conceived, the 9 months of misery you went through carrying it, or the 26 hours of pain and torment you went through in delivery, that does not mean that you did not have that child! Nor would it change the fact that you gave birth to this child if you did not tell me that you had other children in addition to this one! It just means that you thought those other details were irrelevant to the discussion.

God doesn't have to tell me every intimate detail about how He created the world. The simple fact of the matter is that my simple, finite, mortal mind could not understand it all anyway. If I could, then all of this would be unnecessary because then I could tell you step by step how He did it! Besides, He already DID tell us how He did it! He spoke, and it was!

If God chose to create life on other planets but chose not to tell us that He had done so, that would NOT make Him a liar, just as you not telling me the fact that you had given birth to other children would not mean that you did not give birth to a particular child. It would simply mean that He felt that it was not relevant to the topic at hand. Would the existence or non-existence of life on other worlds have any relevance to the salvation of your soul? Would it change the fact that Jesus was born, lived, and died to give us the opportunity to restore ourselves to a right relationship with God? Nope! The fact is that such a detail would be completely irrelevant to the discussion of God and His infinite grace, and so would not require mentioning in a book devoted solely to the purpose of helping us find forgiveness for our sins.

Sorry, dear, your logic is flawed.

"Why would some people prefer to knit by hand while they can buy wonderful pullovers in shops?
Just for the fun of it.
What if god just wanted to see how nice earth developed and how nice all the living beings changed...?"

First of all, I agree with this and it sums up my view in an analogy that I could not think of on my own. The point is God did create the earth but why does it matter how he created it.

My purpose to start this topic was to let people see that God is not bound by any means and anyone of us here could be right. I wanted to see what people thought. I came to the conclusion that everyone has great ideas...So...Then I started wanting to convey the idea that arguing about it (not debating it here exactly but in the Supreme court) was pointless. I agree that there is much of a difference between Christians, polythiests, Hindu ect. But a Christian specifically should have no reason to debate another Christian on the particularities of the religion. My belief that the Bible is not always literal is not going to keep me from Heaven, it is a detail. I'm not saying that I should be able to contort every verse,or read the Bible in a way that suits me, but if I think of 7 days as 7 million years then I'm not being unfaithful. Okay sorry for the tangent...Main point is we shouldn't argue about it in court because in a way it doesn't matter who is right.

See, that's what science is. You find an idea, try to prove it and sometimes you are right and sometimes someone finds some mistakes in you premisses. That's how life is.
But as I said, I was just wondering...

I agree with you Keltic Kitty

I think night child also made the point I have tried to get across with her comments on let there be light. We often read in things that are not specifically (literally) stated.

It's part of the use of one of the great gifts that God has given us, Imagination.

We use it all the time to fill in the blanks. It's like with a comic strip (no I am not comparing the Bible to a comic strip just the way we often interpret the evidence) What happens between the panels is sometimes where the story really takes place.

It's why 15 people can witness the same event and come up with 15 seemingly different storys. They are all true the details are just different.

Good talk everyone!!!

Mikel

But you see? That's just my point. It's not me who is filling in words. Its you. God said Let there be light. And there was light! There is NO mention of thousands or millions of years. The very next words are And there was light. Being a literalist, I take that quite literally. God spoke and it was! In verses 4-5 God himself defined what a day and night are. Then the next words are "And the evening and the morning were the first DAY." After defining what a day and night are, why would He then turn around and use the same words to mean something different? THAT would be deceitful.

Sure it's you who fills in some words. Not all. But some.
As I mentioned before at that point we all know what heaven and earth are and what day and night are. Yet noone told us what morning and evening are. You INTERPRET those words with what you know they are.
Show me the line where morning and evening are defined before using them to define what a day means.
And you can't tell me the term day is used to define evening and morning, since then evening would be sunrise and morning sunset, because evening was mentioned first and day was defined as the light.

And about that time thing... It's said "God said Let there be light. And there was light!" Okay, let's just stick with that.
It doesn't say millions of years later. But it also doesn't say immediately. And my understanding of the english language (which might as well be wrong, for I am german!) tells me, that "And there was light!" doesn't include any time as to how much of it passed before the words of god and the reaction of light being.

I believe I didn't interpret any of those words. Just took them and used them. But well, I could be wrong anyway, sometimes you don't see your own mistakes... But then please SHOW them to me for that I can LEARN from them...