Isn't it reasonable to doubt Young Earth Creationism?

[MennoSota]

The majority views of science do.
There were some pretty good Muslim scientists too.
No they don't. First of all, light, which God created on the first day, emanates from stars, but God didn't create the sun and the stars until the fourth day. Also on the fourth day, He created plants, though science says that life began in the sea, but God didn't create sea life until day five.
Even if you want to say that 'a thousand years is as a day,' that's still only six thousand years, not 13 billion plus.

The Bible says the stars were made later. Your statement that light eminated from stars is unconfirmed. God created...light. Light is radiation. See my point...

 

[Idolater]

The Bible says the stars were made later.

That's what I said. Genesis 1:16 KJV. Fourth day.

Your statement that light eminated from stars is unconfirmed.

No it isn't. We do know that the light that God created on the first day did not emanate from the sun or stars since He hadn't yet made them on the first day.

God created...light. Light is radiation.

That's what I said.

See my point...

What point.

 

[MennoSota]

That's what I said. Genesis 1:16 KJV. Fourth day.
No it isn't. We do know that the light that God created on the first day did not emanate from the sun or stars since He hadn't yet made them on the first day.
That's what I said.
What point.

Well...I tried...

 

[George Affleck]

A day can be any length by God's measurement. There is no requirement to make a day be 24 hours simply because you have adopted a measurement for time.

Incorrect.

We have not adopted a measurement for time. We have adopted God's designation of time measurement. We did not come up with it; He did.

In taking on the responsibility for depositing with us some of the details of His creative process, He specified the length of a day in order to take interpretive mistakes out of our hands. It is true that He could have taken any amount of time, or no time at all, to create. Knowing that He would create man, subject to His laws, He accommodated His attributes to perfectly fit our condition. He specified the length of a day in anticipation of a completed creation and man, the crown of it. Furthermore, He deliberately worked within that timescale to give us the example of six days of work and one day of rest. In this He also embedded the glorious gospel of resting in the finished work of Christ, our sabbath rest. We celebrate these things every week, not every million years.

He said "Let there be light" before there was a light source; and then created the light source to obey His specifications for His creation to benefit from. The "morning and evening" designation was accurate without the sun in place because it was appointment by design. Hence He was able to declare it all "very good" on the fourth day in that the morning/evening design was adhered to.

If the scriptures were to tell us that the sun was created first, we would have legitimate reason to see it as a fairy tale. The fact that His design pronouncements are first and all else falls in line with His decrees, tells us that He specifically chose a day, and a week, to be the perfect length of time for His creatures to make sense of their world; before sin and after the fall.

 

[George Affleck]

I am smiling at the irony of your presuppositions.
What do we observe? What do we measure? How do we test?
Where is the presupposition in my questions.

I choose to assume that you have some point to this veiled reply and that I am just too dull to understand.

 

[MennoSota]

Incorrect.

We have not adopted a measurement for time. We have adopted God's designation of time measurement. We did not come up with it; He did.

In taking on the responsibility for depositing with us some of the details of His creative process, He specified the length of a day in order to take interpretive mistakes out of our hands. It is true that He could have taken any amount of time, or no time at all, to create. Knowing that He would create man, subject to His laws, He accommodated His attributes to perfectly fit our condition. He specified the length of a day in anticipation of a completed creation and man, the crown of it. Furthermore, He deliberately worked within that timescale to give us the example of six days of work and one day of rest. In this He also embedded the glorious gospel of resting in the finished work of Christ, our sabbath rest. We celebrate these things every week, not every million years.

He said "Let there be light" before there was a light source; and then created the light source to obey His specifications for His creation to benefit from. The "morning and evening" designation was accurate without the sun in place because it was appointment by design. Hence He was able to declare it all "very good" on the fourth day in that the morning/evening design was adhered to.

If the scriptures were to tell us that the sun was created first, we would have legitimate reason to see it as a fairy tale. The fact that His design pronouncements are first and all else falls in line with His decrees, tells us that He specifically chose a day, and a week, to be the perfect length of time for His creatures to make sense of their world; before sin and after the fall.

God declared we would divide by hours and minutes? Verse?
Let's get down to the real reason you demand a 24 hour day, even though God never demands 24 hours.
Tell me: Why does an ancient earth bother you? Why does it scare you?

 

[Idolater]

Well...I tried...

lain:

Ditto.

 

[George Affleck]

God declared we would divide by hours and minutes? Verse?

This is why the good folks at TOL provide the 'reply with quote' feature - so we don't put words in people's mouths.
Even without you asking for forgiveness I will forgive you this one time. For the rest of the 70x7 you must ask.

Let's get down to the real reason you demand a 24 hour day, even though God never demands 24 hours.

I demand nothing. The Bible plainly says a day with evening and morning. God declares He created in 6 consecutive normal day/night periods as understood by us. You may decide to divide this into 37 kilokumquats if you so desire; but it is still the same time it takes for one earth rotation - a natural day.

Tell me: Why does an ancient earth bother you? Why does it scare you?

Spoken like a true troll.
Things that are not real only frighten those who are unconvinced.
When I chose to follow Jesus I gave up believing in adult fairy tales and embraced the truth.
If you are not prepared to accept his simple words, how will you understand the hard ones?

 

[MennoSota]

This is why the good folks at TOL provide the 'reply with quote' feature - so we don't put words in people's mouths.
Even without you asking for forgiveness I will forgive you this one time. For the rest of the 70x7 you must ask.



I demand nothing. The Bible plainly says a day with evening and morning. God declares He created in 6 consecutive normal day/night periods as understood by us. You may decide to divide this into 37 kilokumquats if you so desire; but it is still the same time it takes for one earth rotation - a natural day.



Spoken like a true troll.
Things that are not real only frighten those who are unconvinced.
When I chose to follow Jesus I gave up believing in adult fairy tales and embraced the truth.
If you are not prepared to accept his simple words, how will you understand the hard ones?

Again the earth was formless and void, where is the rotation for a 24 hour day? There was no sun for the earth to rotate around, how is there a 24 hour day?

 

[Stripe]

Why not? My view permits science to follow its nose, and to report on its findings freely.

By buying into "billions of years" — even squashed into "six days" — you're assuming the veracity of Big Bang cosmology. You would concede the possibility that the theory of the Big Bang could be falsified, right? That's a scientific approach. If so, there's no need to describe God as doing billions of years worth of work.

It only requires that God performed some sort of miracle in creating everything in six days.

Matter from nothing is a miracle by definition, regardless of how long it took.

Can you sum up that problem? Is it that we gather that star light must have been traveling for all that time, or something like that?

It's the time/velocity/distance formula at work. We know the distances well enough and lightspeed seems to have an upper limit. If those numbers are as they appear, billions of years are necessary.

To me, creation must have been a bit like peeling out with a manual transmission automobile. He revved up the motor with the clutch disengaged (speeding through billions of years of activity in a matter of hours), and then popped the clutch, and away everything went. Under His direct power (I'm not deist), but that's the basic idea.

Sure. I don't think we disagree in any significant manner, but it looks like you're seeking a metaphor to explain things, whereas I would look to science.

 

[George Affleck]

Again the earth was formless and void, where is the rotation for a 24 hour day? There was no sun for the earth to rotate around, how is there a 24 hour day?

When the boys in Thailand were found, one of the first questions they asked was; " How many days have we been here?".
No light. No reference. How is it they asked the question? Because they understood the concept.

Do you suppose God could have known the concept He was about to put into motion and deliberately adhered to it without there being a sun or an earth? He says that he did.

To put it another way; how is it possible for evolutionists to talk about days, years, light years, during the period (supposedly) before the earth and our sun existed? It is because they are referencing something that people can relate to. God is not constrained to time. He can talk about things that are not as if they were.

 

[MennoSota]

When the boys in Thailand were found, one of the first questions they asked was; " How many days have we been here?".
No light. No reference. How is it they asked the question? Because they understood the concept.

Do you suppose God could have known the concept He was about to put into motion and deliberately adhered to it without there being a sun or an earth? He says that he did.

To put it another way; how is it possible for evolutionists to talk about days, years, light years, during the period (supposedly) before the earth and our sun existed? It is because they are referencing something that people can relate to. God is not constrained to time. He can talk about things that are not as if they were.

LOL, that's a poor argument.
Second, who's the evolutionist?
We're talking about radioactive decay, not species evolving into something new. You don't have to support evolution theory to accept an ancient earth. All you have to do is open your eyes and observe.

 

[George Affleck]

LOL, that's a poor argument.
Second, who's the evolutionist?
We're talking about radioactive decay, not species evolving into something new. You don't have to support evolution theory to accept an ancient earth. All you have to do is open your eyes and observe.

So basically, you have nothing.
I thought so.

Old earthers think that lol is an argument.

 

[MennoSota]

So basically, you have nothing.
I thought so.

Old earthers think that lol is an argument.

You just avoided what I said.

George, I have no delusion regarding changing your view about a literal 24 hour creation day. I merely point out how reasonable it is to view the days as much longer than 24 hours. I have done that.
I leave you to your view.

 

[Stripe]

I merely point out how reasonable it is to view the days as much longer than 24 hours.

You have your assertion.

You admit the sun and moon are in play from Day 4. Those are standard days.

Before that, there is a light source and we assume the Earth rotated much as it does now.

That means days. Not billions of years.

You reject the plain teaching of the Bible.

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[Idolater]

By buying into "billions of years" — even squashed into "six days" — you're assuming the veracity of Big Bang cosmology. You would concede the possibility that the theory of the Big Bang could be falsified, right? That's a scientific approach. If so, there's no need to describe God as doing billions of years worth of work.

OK.

Matter from nothing is a miracle by definition, regardless of how long it took.

I wrote that tongue-in-cheek, since we are discussing the creation of the universe. The backdrop here is that He created everything, so that is already the most profound of miracles, even, in a way, more profound than Christ's Resurrection, which is the most important event to occur within creation. So to my mind, there's nothing stopping God from doing '13 billion years of work' in six days.

It's the time/velocity/distance formula at work. We know the distances well enough and lightspeed seems to have an upper limit. If those numbers are as they appear, billions of years are necessary.

And of course you see that my view has no trouble with this, since under 10,000 years ago, and fully grown universe was set in motion, including star light that appears to have been traveling for billions of years, but was as new that first week as everything else was.

Sure. I don't think we disagree in any significant manner, but it looks like you're seeking a metaphor to explain things, whereas I would look to science.

First, I proposed an idea about how science will come to confirm the Christian faith, if given enough time before the Lord returns:

Here's what I think's going to happen. We can already see 'over 13 billions years in the past' through careful manipulation of the Hubble telescope. I think we will, who knows exactly when, but we will be able to see light from the mythical birth of the universe, and the images we will see then will be of heaven, and of Christ sitting on His throne, at the right hand of the Almighty. And we'll all at that point do a little quick math and realize that there hasn't been enough time for Him to get to heaven if He traveled at the speed of light, so He must have traveled much, much faster than the speed of light to be already sitting on His throne by the time the image of Him reached the earth. This will confirm everything.

It's a pet theory, but it's one that grips my imagination.

fwiw

And secondly, you're probably onto something with me wanting a 'metaphor,' but there's not a well-defined line between wanting a metaphor, and the truth, since what I'm trying to do is systematize, organize, interpret a wide range of varieties of scientific observations into a nutshell, and that nutshell, especially in the vacuum of precise knowledge of how it occurred, is going to resemble a metaphor, in order that we can understand the concept without knowing its true details.

Invoking the metaphor I've made, between the age of the universe, and the apparent age of Adam and Eve on say day eight, what science is trying to do cosmologically, is like taking a full grown human being, and through measurement, observation, experiments, try to determine precisely what a fertilized zygote in the womb looked like.

We know what we look like at conception, and this is part of how we can know, even apart from religion, that unqualified, deliberate abortion is tantamount to murder---but it is because we are reproducing actively. We do not know of any universes that are being conceived, gestating, being born, and so we are never going to be able to get confirmation of our cosmologies in the way that we confirm how human beings are generated.

But also, how was Adam created? Was it in the same way that babies are born today, did He just speed up the process, bringing Adam all the way from fertilized egg to full grown man in a day? Or was Adam's creation a singular event, never to be repeated, strictly for the purpose of creating? We don't know that, and we don't know how the universe was created either. I am as are you, trying to integrate what science discovers, with what God has said, and 'the scripture cannot be broken' (Jn10:35KJV), as Christ said. So whatever science thinks it knows, I forbid myself from accepting anything that contravenes God's Word.

 

[Derf]

Sure. There are two firmaments. The first was created within the primordial ocean, the second is the firmament "of the heavens."

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Sorry it took awhile to get back to this. Are you referring to these verses:
[Gen 1:6 KJV] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
[Gen 1:7 KJV] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Sorry it took awhile to get back to this. Are you referring to these verses:
[Gen 1:6 KJV] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
[Gen 1:7 KJV] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so.

That's the first one.

 

[Derf]

That's the first one.

You or [MENTION=4167]Stripe[/MENTION] are going to have to help me out. That's the only one I see.

 

[Derf]

To understand Paul, one has to read the context.

I don't believe Romans 8 is speaking about any creature other than man. Paul speaks of the flesh versus the spirit, speaks of being carnally minded, speaks of redemption of sons of God etc. Romans 8 promises nothing to animals. And when it speaks of the whole creation groaning, I believe this refers to all mankind, created fleshly, groaning, including us with the ernest of the Spirit. From the context the "whole creation" is not the whole earth, whole cosmos, or even all creatures, but the "whole creation" only is referencing humans made of flesh.

The Greek word for "whole" in "whole creation groaneth" (Rom 8:22) is "pas" and is usually translated "all".

So here again we have a problem with including what in the "all". Here the "all" refers to all mankind, or all human flesh and there is nothing in Rom 8 to suggest it refers to all other creatures.

I don't think it's a matter of what "all" refers to, but what "creation" refers to. Nevertheless, I don't think your rendition of what "creation" means is out of the question.

Assuming it means "man" or "mankind" brings with it some other difficulties, but they're not insurmountable.

The "all's" in the passage indeed are caveated alls, but they still mean "all". We just need to figure out what is the thing "all" is referring to. It could be "all" the unsaved. It could mean "all" the Gentiles.

Or it could be that God intended from the start to fry the whole earth with all its mortal plants and animals, and then have New Jerusalem come down from heaven.

2Pe 3:10
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Jesus himself cursed fig trees and allowed demons to drive pigs over a cliff. I really think we have to get over the idea that all death has to be bad. Look at the OT with its death penalty for dozens of crimes - all commanded by God.

And lets not forget the flood - where a whole earth full of innocent animals was killed off by none other than God.

I suppose it is possible that God intended to destroy His creation from the beginning, but it doesn't seem like it. Do you really think He makes things just so He can destroy them? He most often gives reasons for the destruction, and I don't remember Him ever giving the reason that "it was intended for destruction in the first place". The closest to that idea would be [Rom 9:22 KJV] [What] if God, willing to shew [his] wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:, but then He must have made them to be wrathful at, like He's not fulfilled if there's no one around to be wrathful at.

The flood was certainly a result of His wrath for the violence He saw in man. The fig tree because there were no figs (though mostly as a picture to the leaders of jerusalem), and the pigs because of the demons.

Will there be non-human creatures and plants in the heaven/new jerusalem? There are a few mentioned that might be there, like the tree of life. The "four living creatures" of Revelation might be representative of the creatures of the earth (including man).