Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Years

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morbo3000
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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by morbo3000 » Fri Apr 08, 2016 10:17 pm

Paidion wrote:Morbo, just wondering how you can affirm so definitely that Moses did not write Genesis? Do you have any evidence for this?
It's the same problem as who wrote the gospels. The author is anonymous.

The problem is compounded by its later date. We only have Papias testifying to the authorship of Matthew, which is not historically adequate. But at least he was within spitting distance of the author(s). We don't have any contemporaneous attestation to Moses' authorship. (For that matter, we don't have contemporaneous attestation to Moses, but I digress.)

The only way you can get to the authorship of the Pentateuch is through Jewish tradition, or Jesus's referencing those writings as from Moses. In both cases you have to grant supernatural authority to the traditions. Either jewish tradition. Or the Christian tradition that the gospels are inerrant scribes of Jesus words. Neither of those are compelling to me.
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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by MMathis » Fri Apr 08, 2016 10:46 pm

Paidion

When you say evolutionary idea of the universe, are you referring to humans as well?

I believe the universe is just about the age science says it is. I don't believe the human evolution nonsense.
I believe God made man about when most Christians think He did. 4-6 thousand years ago (depending on who is doing the math)

I don't think it mattered to early humans, how old anything was. When science advanced, it became interesting to study the age of everything. Can science theories be wrong? Sure, but where does Haleys Comet go on the 75 year off season :D
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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by morbo3000 » Fri Apr 08, 2016 10:47 pm

MMathis wrote:I think it more likely that we don't fully understand scriptures than to say we can see objects that are not really there.
I agree. Insisting that cosmology be constrained by a creation myth is crazy. (Imo, and intending no disrespect to those who disagree.) Even granting divine inspiration to the author doesn't require a literal 24 hour day meaning. Genesis 1, and 2, like all other Mediterranean creation myths are written from the perspective of the observer, and answering the questions his universe poses. "Where did light come from? How did I get here? Why are snakes on the ground? Why do some people speak with different languages?"

Our universe poses much different questions. Is light a particle or a wave? What is a higgs boson? What happens when black holes collide? (they produce gravitational waves.) How can it be that if I put my thumb in the air and look out at the night sky, there are hundreds of *galaxies* occupying that tiny point of view. What does cosmic background radiation tell us about the beginnings of the universe.

It is too restrictive to limit the possibilities for those answers to 56 verses written millennia ago. And those verses don't ask us to, anyway.
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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by steve7150 » Sat Apr 09, 2016 8:17 am

,[verseblock]I must deal responsibly with verses like Genesis 1:16. Its prima facie meaning would be that the stars are no older than the rest of creation, including terrestrial plants! However, if all evidence from observed science could only be interpreted in an old-universe manner, I could suggest that "He made the stars also," is an aside or sidebar, mentioned out of chronological order, and referring to an earlier action.[/verseblock]







There are many folks who take that section as God choose that moment to allow the light from the sun, moon and stars to shine through and not that these things were created on the fourth day. In other words everything was created on that first day which could have been any length. BTW I have no dog in the race, its' just a weight of the evidence matter to me.
Last edited by steve7150 on Sat Apr 09, 2016 9:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by Homer » Sat Apr 09, 2016 9:38 am

Insisting that cosmology be constrained by a creation myth is crazy.
When we allow that certain parts of the bible are a "myth", where does the mythology end and the facts begin? It seems to me that if there was no first Adam, including the fall, then the second Adam is problematic.

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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by steve7150 » Sat Apr 09, 2016 9:46 am

Insisting that cosmology be constrained by a creation myth is crazy.


When we allow that certain parts of the bible are a "myth", where does the mythology end and the facts begin? It seems to me that if there was no first Adam, including the fall, then the second Adam is problematic.








Absolutely right. Jesus referenced Abel's blood crying out but if there were no Adam then there was no Able and Jesus was wrong. So being open minded is good but there needs to be a line someplace called "faith" or else it just turns to shifting sands.

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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by steve » Sat Apr 09, 2016 10:22 am

If we use all of the physics we know, we go to the moon and back. We send space probes out that travel for years and we find pretty much what we were looking for.
I guess I am suspicious of any investigative enterprise that always seems to find what it's looking for.

I trust pure science completely. It's the scientists that I don't fully trust. Not that I think them liars (though I have no reason to believe them to be more objective and honest with data than the average non-scientist would be), but I do not trust their omniscience. Neither do many of them. Yes, we have been to the moon and back—but that was when they still thought there were nine "planets" in our solar system. If changes and retractions of this kind, even concerning near-space, are still forthcoming, I would like to retain the right to place a higher confidence in that which does not ever lead me astray, like the scriptures. If they are given by God, as Jesus believed, then, when correctly understood, they will never deceive.
I think it more likely that we don't fully understand scriptures than to say we can see objects that are not really there.
There is always that possibility, as I mentioned. Any data is capable of being misinterpreted, as I said at the outset. It is also possible that we are misinterpreting physical and visible data. Anyone who would deny this possibility must be out of touch with the history of scientific discovery, and seems to be participating in the hubris of modern Scientism. I admit that modern theories and interpretations of data, these days, contradict ancient theories of the proper understanding of Genesis. So what does that tell us? Somebody is mistaken. It seems arrogant to assume, prior to the accumulation of all possible data, that we already know who is mistaken. Science, for all we know, may still be in its infancy—or, more probably, like a child in its "terrible twos"—just knowledgeable enough to be self-confident, but still operating upon very limited experience.
Insisting that cosmology be constrained by a creation myth is crazy.
The insistence that Genesis one is "myth" is a great example of what I have just said. Many informed and intelligent people see it as a myth, and many equally sophisticated people do not. The only real case for the :myth" theory is that historic interpretations of Genesis are in conflict with the theories of science that dominate at the present moment. The same was once true of Galileo's views, Pasteur's views, and Intelligent Design views, in different eras. Those who opposed these minority positions were eventually either shown to be wrong, or at least irrationally prejudicial. Modern science is sometimes self-correcting (as scientists often claim), but it is also an ideological community as resistant to change as is any religion.

Of course, modern biblical scholarship, like secular science itself, has also proclaimed that Genesis one is a myth. Like the secular community, liberal Bible scholars exhibit a loyalty to their ideological preferences, a reluctance to disagree with the scholarly consensus, and a hubris of self-congratulation that they are not like other men, who still believe things about the Bible which have never been disproved, but which have fallen out of fashion. Intellectual communities, like religions, are resistant to change in the face of hostile evidence, and are very good at ignoring or explaining away what they cannot accommodate.

I don't deny that my biblical conservatism is susceptible to these psychological forces, which makes me determined to remain open to a compelling case against any opinion I hold. However, I maintain a high bar for proof of any new idea that contradicts a still-viable long-standing opinion that (according to all extant evidence) was sponsored by the incarnate Son of God. Some are very quick to lower that bar. This is not because they are forced to do so by evidence or logic. I believe they are forced to do so by social pressures.

If those who reach different conclusion from mine feel they have not lowered that bar, and insist that the evidence forces them to abandon older views—more power to them. I retain the right to look independently at the data available to me, and to follow a rigorous, skeptical logic, before abandoning views that have been thought, even among thousands of scientists who are Christians, to be well-established.

On the other hand, I am disinterested in my assessments, because I could not give a rip how old the universe is, nor whether Genesis turns out to be literal or figurative. I am just committed to a greater skepticism than most, when confronted with arguments that depend upon unfounded worldview presuppositions. I have no objection to abandoning ancient foolishness in favor of modern wisdom, but I am resistant to abandoning ancient wisdom for unsubstantiated modern opinions.

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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by TK » Sun Apr 10, 2016 7:04 am

Supernovas, nebulas, black holes etc are the toughest things, to me, for a YE creationist to explain. I believe they are constrained to the "appearance of age" concept which would mean that God created supernovas already made and black holes already formed.

The problem with this is that black holes and novas are evidence of something that happened previously- named a dying star and exploding stars. Both processes take eons longer than 6000 years.

If God created black holes already formed and novas and nebulas already there, then that is deception, because by observation man knows what causes these things. When an astronomer looks at the sky through a ground telescope or through Hubble, and sees a black hole or nebula, he rightfully says that "there is a star that has collapsed on itself" or "there is a star that has gone supernova."

It is kind of like saying that God could have created the earth with large forests appearing as if they have burned or trees already fallen and petrified. Why would he do such a thing?

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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by Paidion » Sun Apr 10, 2016 7:54 pm

The problem I have with your reasoning, TK, is that we know from observation that forests have taken fire and left charred remains. And I think there are observations that verify the process of petrifying as well. However, black holes and novas are NOT evidence of dying stars and exploding stars. Rather this is but a theory or explanation of black holes and novas.

I took but one year of astronomy at university. At first I enjoyed mapping the celestial sphere, and becoming acquainted with conditions on the moon and the sun, and becoming more familiar with the constellations. But the latter part of the course went into speculation and astronomical theories. It seemed unreal, and more like mythology and fairy tales.
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Re: Days of Creation/24 Hour Periods, Age of Earth/6000 Year

Post by TK » Mon Apr 11, 2016 11:10 am

Paidion-

Per Wikipedia three Milky Way supernova events have been witnessed with the naked eye but many have been seen with telescopes in other galaxies. So it is pretty clear that these are exploding stars.

But it is possible I am missing your point.

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