BioLogos Irony (YEC/OEC)

Okay… 4+ billion

The point is that God is not the father of lies. Describing him as the master of deception hardly glorifies him. And yes, your description of how he creates makes him the master of deception, which leaves us no better off than fish in a tank with fake scenery and plastic plants.

You might disdain measurements, but it’s a big part of how we live productive and healthy lives.

I think where @still_learning is going, is that from God’s standpoint, 6 days can be 4.5 billion years to us, in some form or fashion. No problem with that. The problem lies in that we are not God, and live in a universe of time-space of physical reality.

2 Peter 3:8

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Psalm 90:4

A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

Isaiah 40:15

Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.

Actually I have a problem with assigning any fixed duration of time to God. He exists in an eternal now and now has no duration it just is. You could say God’s now is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow to paraphrase a well known saying. What @still_learning is trying to do is to justify a literal 144 hour creation when you have the 4.543 B year age of the earth.

2 Likes

Exactly. Thank you. I always thought that God was eternal.

1 Like

Rings found in trees are due to growing seasons and non-growing seasons. If the tree never went through any seasons, then it wouldn’t have rings. The mere presence of rings indicates a false history. God could have created these trees without rings, but you are saying that God went through the extra effort of creating trees with rings. Not only that, but God meticulously shaped these rings so that they match up between living trees and trees that are already buried in the ground. That’s right, your scenario requires God to create the Earth with dead trees already buried in it, trees that never lived. God would also have to meticulously shape the rings in those trees, and also adjust the 14C content of those dead, never living, trees so that they line up with the living trees when you overlap their rings.

That is a whole lot of extra effort that just isn’t needed, all to create a fake history that doesn’t have to exist in order for the Earth to function.

1 Like

Actually, if you pay attention, that’s not what @still_learning is saying. S/he is saying that the history actually happened, just in an instant, because for God time is relative and God is outside it.

Sorry about confusing that. Yes, I believe if we are able to measure it to be 4.5 bill, than it is.

Evolution…a vague word…Absolutely believe in what some refer to as micro-evolution, but I prefer to call it adaptation. A dog species can become a pit bull or a collie. Or skin turns darker due to sun exposure ect. But I don’t really believe that a fish could become a money. Adaptation within it’s kind.

I agree, He is not, and yes, describing Him as one would not glorify Him. Where we are at a disconnect, is that you believe my theory to be deception, I do not. Like many things in the Bible, it is rarely about the action, it is more about the heart. I don’t think God is intending to deceive anyone. He just created some planets and stars, made some animals, enjoyed watching them do their thing, then said, We need man to rule and steward the animals and plants, Let’s create man. No deception at all.

I am not sure why you assume that? I don’t disdain measurements, or science, I love it and think it reveals God’s brilliance and glory even more. I think you disdain relativity. If you are sitting still relative to the earth, your velocity would be 0 mph, that is a speed measurement. If you are sitting still, relative to the sun, your velocity is 23,000mph, that is a speed measurement. Both measurements are correct, I don’t disdain either, I respect both.

Exactly what I am saying, or trying to say. And exactly that we are not God, much like a kid is not a parent. Try to explain quantum physics or linear algebra to a 3 year old… I am not saying without a doubt I am correct and know some truth. I am more saying this is my theory and what I believe and what makes sense to me. I am also saying that just because you can’t understand why God didn’t something or assign human logic to something, doesn’t make Him deceptive.

Exactly. Though I have heard some say that this is literal and that the earth was created in 6000 years…I am not in that camp. That just sounds like a way of explaining that God is outside of time, like when we are to forgive 70 X 7 times. I don’t think we are to count, rather we are to forgive a lot. I don’t think the 1 day =1000 years, I think God is outside of time and it is somewhat incomprehensible for us, and that is one example that God can make 1=1000 days…or 13.7 billion years.

I have a problem with assigning any fixed duration of time to God as well, nor do I believe I did. I said God is outside of time, eternal, Alpha and Omega. However, He can assign time to us. If He wanted us to think the universe was created in 1 day, I could have actually been 1 day. If he wanted time to be fairly constant after creation so that it measures to be 13.7 billion years, He could do that too.

I don’t think I am assigning a time to God, I am saying I think He assigned a time to us.

What does 1 day mean? It’s 1 rotation of the earth. So what about before the Earth was here to rotate? Could a ‘day’ still have occurred? Before the creation of Earth, there was light created on the 1st day. How could a day have been possible you say, there was no way to measure a day, the Earth didn’t exist yet to rotate. How could a year have occurred before galaxy, we measure a year to be one revolution around the sun? We also have quartz or atomic clocks, that measure vibrating between energy states. Could one measure a second before quartz cesium came to be?

My point is that these are all human measurements we humans use. Time still ticked before the Earth was. Maybe that is why God assigned a day to His creations, because there was no measurement of time back then. It took God (who is outside of time) either 1 second, or 100 trillion years to create the universe. He is outside of time, so whatever time He assigns, is what it is. Which I think you would agree with, if Jesus said this. You argument is that you don’t believe the writings are literal.

Which brings me to another interesting point. 7 is a number of completeness, it is used many times throughout the Bible, some times even in visions as a symbol of completeness. That is another reason I believe it took 7 days, He wanted it to be complete, and so He assigned 7 days to it. Joshua marched around Jericho 7 days, they blew 7 trumpets, it is used both literally and symbolically. The mark of the beast is 666, sixes repeating, no matter how many places you go, 6 will never be a 7.

I think you are getting too wrapped around the axel of tree rings. That was an analogy to try to explain how things are measured. Is there a way to measure/age a ringless tree? Same theory applies. TIme happened, warp speed.

Thank you for saying that so I didn’t have to repeat myself to @T_aquaticus. I’m sure everyone is thanking you saving them from my long winded explanation attempts.

That is interesting. I haven’t heard that one before. I will have to do some more reading on that.

Take a look at the posts here and here.

They are measuring the age of a ringed tree.[quote=“still_learning, post:49, topic:36495”]
TIme happened, warp speed.
[/quote]
Is there any evidence, outside of the Bible, that this is what happened? Or are you proposing this solely to reconcile science with your interpretation of the Bible?

No my argument is the writings say they are not literal history. If you take them to be literal that is your choice and it is not supported by the texts.[quote=“still_learning, post:49, topic:36495”]
Which brings me to another interesting point. 7 is a number of completeness
[/quote]

7 is also the number of perfection. So which came first? The meaning of 7 or it’s use in the creation week? Since the creation story was used as one of the reasons for the Sabbath and the Sabbath was to be the seventh day of the week which had already been established as 7 days long (before Genesis was written) it makes sense that the creation story would be presented in the framework of a 7 day week. So taking 7 as the number of completeness when pagans had already established a 7 day week in a way doesn’t make sense. Of course many people assume God ordained the 7 day week so it is understandable that people would assign special meaning to the number of this basis.

Why make a week 7 days long? It is almost a perfect 1/4 of the lunar cycle. If you want to divide the lunar cycle into smaller parts of fixed length your choices are to use 2, 4, or 7 days.

@still_learning,

I don’t want to plagerize the words of a an active pro-Evolution blogger … but as soon as one starts to imagnine the evolutionary factors [which allow a population to adapt to changes in their environment] have all signed a pact where they refuse to allow any changes that affect reproductive compatibility within a population - - said person is “halfway to crazy town!”

Please pay special attention to the specific way I characterize what are the key components of speciation, rather than just “adaptation within a kind”:

“… evolutionary factors that affect reproductive compatibility of sub-groups within a population.”

For a “kind”, or a breed or a species, to retain a uniform nature (within limits), there needs to be a free interchange of genetic factors throughout the population. As soon as one group or section stops receiving and contributing its share of genetic flows, the seeds of speciation have been sown!

That’s why the study of Ring Species can be so instructive … if not crucial! They show how a continuous range of population diversity can begin to form pockets of one variety or strain of a population. These pockets may be able to breed easily with its neighboring population … bu the pockets furthest apart from each other may eventually reach the point where there is so little exchange between their two groups that they are no longer able to breed fertile offspring!

When this happens, the only thing keeping them a species are the intervening pockets of genetic diversity. If a flood, or fire, or some other disaster were to be wiped out, the channel connecting two diverse sub-populations would suddenly be gone, and there would be virtually no way for the two diverging populations to ever recover enough common genetic material that they could breed once again.

In short, Mr. Learning, there are no rules about what kind of evolutionary changes are allowed and not allowed. In the realm of speciation, it would virtually require a God waving his finger and mouthing the sound effect “poof” to make sure speciation did not happen. It happens on its own quite easy enough.

No, sorry about that. I hope I have made it clear that this is my own beliefs/theories of how one could reconcile both science and literal interpretation of the Gen 1 account.

However there are parallels and other evidence (in the Bible) like the literal 7th day Sabbath that can support my reasoning to attempt to reconcile the two, as I fully believe in both of them. And IF both were true, surely there would need to be a theory to reconcile them.

Just because they established something that happened to be true, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. If pagans discovered 1+1=2, that doesn’t make it untrue, or not from God, or what God intended.

Was the 7 day week established before Exodus was written? Because in Exodus 23, God Himself says, I want you to rest on the 7th day. So either God made it known to man, and it is form God, or man figured it out, and God still repeated it.as a meaningful thing that He wanted to have a calendar for.

I know the pyramids have some insane knowledge/precision put into them.

“They are facing North within like 3/60s of a single degree. And it incorporates into its dimensions, the dimensions of our planet, which was probably thought to be flat then by many. If you take the height of the pyramid, you get a multiply it by 43,200, you get the polar radius, and if you take the perimeter of the pyramid, and multiply that by 43,200, you get the equatorial circumference of the earth. And that multiple of 43.200 is derived from the procession, which the earth wobbles around its axis at a rate of 1 degree every 72 years, and 43,200 is a multiple of 72. So the pyramids have given us the dimensions of our planet, on a scale defined by the planet itself” (Graham Hancock)

It is possible there were people WAY smarter or just more knowledgeable than us back then. It is also possible that when Genesis speaks of the Nephlim, that they had certain “forbidden knowledge” and shared them with humans. This is quite off topic, but the book of Enoch has some really interesting things to say about the Nephilim and what they shared with humans.

That being said, just because pagans knew of 7 days, didn’t mean that God didn’t design 7 days for us.

That may be. Though we can and have observed adaptation/micro-evolution. Have we ever observed Macro-evolution? Of course not, it takes too long. All we have is historical things to look at and guestimate. Which brings me back to legos, and building blocks. Just because observation of similar building blocks in certain things, does not mean one wasn’t intended/designed from the get go, to be something specifically different.

I do believe it could have happened, in a time warp of God designed evolution of animals maybe. But not human evolution. What makes one human? At what point did this homo erectus or whatever level of missing link attain a soul or become something in the image of God?

I am not ruling out evolution, that is just not where I am at with yet in my journey of learning. I was asked if I was pro-evolution…and I am not…at this point in time. But you guys bring up some food for thought.

But evolution is really for a different thread, this is more about OEC/YEC. Or I guess, the meaning of Gen 1 and how literal it is? Since I said I do believe in OEC and measurements, I just believe in YEC too, because of my belief in the literal Gen 1 account. Though after reading a post that @Bill_II referred me to, I think I am basically MC (Mosaic Creationism). And I use my (as some here referr to it) “time warp” theory to reconcile MC.

Post deleted

If you play with numbers enough, you can always make one number relate to something else. Does not mean it means anything. Though the pyramids are pretty neat. Now, if you had waterslides that circled around them and an big escalator to the top, you would really have something.

3 Likes

lol touché …filler

Yes, a very long time before Exodus was written.

Not really. The fitting of the blocks which some say was done with more precision that was possible has been reproduced using nothing but bronze tools.

Remember that the outer layer is missing so all of the measurements taken have to be “adjusted” for the missing blocks. So what are the odds that someone would chose an adjustment that makes the numbers come out right?

1 Like

Indeed. My default response is to see if anyone has devoted their entire life to studying a particular problem and I am genuinely interested to hear what they have concluded. In other words what claims the paper has made and tested going through the rigor of the peer review process in a legitimate journal. Not a pseudo-scientific journal or a journal that publishes anything as long as they pay enough money to get their article published.

And your response also is predictable. In classic YEC fashion you’ve also got to do what they do most: fighting scientific results. And then there’s the logical fallacy that if a particular scientific paper is null and void it automatically means your model is correct. That definitely is not true but yet I see it all the time in Christians writing about science. These things are generally what you must do as a YEC because science definitely does not support your view point.

The particular trick you cited is a fairly old trick in their playbook; one where you must misapply radiometric dating techniques to areas where they are not valid. What would actually be impressive is not misapplying carbon dating like you’ve illustrated (and also misleading Christians all around our churches and in some schools) but showing that all over the globe everywhere dinosaur fossils are appearing in rock that is less than 50,000 years old. But they aren’t there. They are always found in rock that is older then present day mammals but in rock that is much younger then simpler life forms. Everywhere we look the fossil record affirms the order predicted by evolution.

Anyways, I should’ve known better that you would actually care about the work of scientists who have spent their life on the stuff but you, being a non-expert magically know better. Yes, I have been fairly critical in my response but perhaps I have been motivated by many Christians, and my list now includes yourself, completely throwing away publications where people have spent their lifetimes dedicated to a specific question. All all because we don’t like what they have to say.

4 Likes