We really can’t place limits on God. If He truly wanted to change a past event He could. Of course we would never know because the new past would be the past we know about.
The problem is bigger then just trying to squeeze 6 days into 13.7 billion years. The sequence of events is totally different. The easiest way to resolve the conflict is to take Genesis 1 as a creation story for which the truth is God created all things. How and when He did so is NOT part of the story.
For example, Genesis describes Birds as being created before land animals. This is no science book.
Regarding changing the past, Roger Olson has an excellent blog post on the subject that is thought provoking:
That is still wrong. The atomic clock isn’t speeding up.[quote=“still_learning, post:146, topic:36495”]
why is this not a problem currently, for a universe that is 13.7 billion years old?
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It isn’t a problem because the heat from those decaying isotopes is spread over 13.7 billion years so it has time to dissipate. If you cram all that heat into a very short time period then it will turn the Earth into a melted slag heap. The amount of potassium-40 in your own body would be enough to kill you if you cranked up the decay rate to the rates you need for your model.[quote=“still_learning, post:146, topic:36495”]
Time for the ‘spaceship’ the universe is in, ticked like normal, so nothing is different than how you believe it to be. It is only different for God, who is ‘outside of the spaceship’ who saw it occur in 6 days.
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For that to work, God would need to be speeding through spacetime relative to everything in it.
The problem with Roger’s blog is he views God as being like us. As in, “In other words, he could not change the past without being on a timeline with the past.” What would prevent God, who is not on a time line, from doing as He pleases? The only limits to God’s actions are those limited by His attributes.
I think that is why he referred to it as “musings” because we do not really know and cannot know. His observation is sort of interesting that we do not see any examples of God changing the past or of people praying to change the past in scripture. It may be along the lines of “Could God create a rock too heavy for him to move?” Perhaps changing the past is a nonsense proposition too.
It would seem that the simplest question is “Could God inspire humans to write an allegorical creation story?”.
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More like instant universe in an instance. So why say it took a day to do it when it didn’t?
I am understanding this more.
Now why couldn’t you have said this on your first post? I completely missed that one, and that would put the final nail in that coffin of a theory of mine if that is true. Can any other scientist out here validate that sea and air creatures are dated to have been after land creatures?
I am not saying the clock itself isn’t speeding up, time is, but only within that ship that is traveling at a certain speed.
You still aren’t understanding my theory. Within the ‘time capsule’ that is our universe, time happened as you believe it to (or as scientists have dated it) to have happened. So this doesn’t’ invalidate my theory.
The only difference in time is the time capsule outside the universe, that one took 6 days. Like we have time on earth, and if you fly a plane around the earth, you have a different time on that plane. You had a time reference in the universe, and outside of the universe (which God is) there is a different time capsule that took 6 days.
Correct, God could have speed through spacetime to to make it take 6 days to create the universe if He wanted it to.
I agree, God is perfect, and has not need to change the past. But once something occurs, it has occurred. When Jesus says “it is finished” That can’t be undone, it is therefore in the past now.
The only reason I can think of to have this, is to parallel for us (since He created the universe for us). Which could be argued, as He created it for His glory, but everything in it, the precise knife edge improbabilities to sustain our lives is the universe created for us. And God wanted us to have a 7 day calendar, knowing that we need this for our benefit. And what better way to put importance on this 7 day calendar then to do it yourself and parallel us, whom He made in His image?
I’m not saying this guarantees this is what God did and why, but it is logical (outside of the fact that it is provable or possible) to give reasoning as to why God went through the trouble of making it a literal 7 earth days.
I am no scientist but I can say the fossil record is quite clear that life started in the sea before moving to land.
The 7 day week existed before the Hebrews came on the scene. The shortest cycle known to the ancients would be the day. The next longest cycle would be the lunar cycle. If you want to divide the lunar cycle into smaller units the best number of days to use is 7. It is not an exact fit but it is close. So that is where the 7 day week came from. The important part was not the 7 day week but the taking off 1 day out of 7 to rest. A really great idea if you had been slaves in Egypt that worked 7 days a week.
I got that. But day 4 sea creatures and day 5 land agrees with that.
I was asking if day 4 air creatures are dated before day 5 land creatures?
I am not saying it didn’t. Just because a pagan came up with a thought or method doesn’t make it wrong.
I agree. But I think if a God created people, He would know what is best for them (in physical, mental, and spiritual realm). And the fact that something works out well, is even more of a reason to believe it came from God, even if it didn’t need to be told/learned from God.
There are so many studies that say stress is bad. And they are right. The Bible also says that worrying is pointless and harmful (which of you can add an hour of your life). A truth is a truth of God before or after it is learned of man or utilized by others or written down.
The order is sea animals then land animals then birds. Birds don’t show up until after the dinosaurs. In fact they might actually be descendants of the dinosaurs. See the BioLogos page What does the fossil record show
Doesn’t your own wording provide the answer? In which Universe does “4 days after creation day” younger than something created “5 days after creation day”? Why would you even ask the question?
However, if you meant to ask does the fossil record show the earliest birds as older than the earliest tetrapods?.. then that is an even worse question.
Since birds descend from dinosaurs… and more or less the same principle for the flying reptiles…
The important bit is the ship’s speed relative to what? In order to measure spacetime dilation you need the difference in speed between two frames of reference. There is no Golden Frame of Reference that everything is compared to. Every frame of reference is equal.[quote=“still_learning, post:156, topic:36495”]
Correct, God could have speed through spacetime to to make it take 6 days to create the universe if He wanted it to.
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If God were speeding through spacetime then some of the galaxies would be forming slowly over much longer time periods, just as we are able to see very young galaxies that are speeding away from us. Your model would only work for a select few galaxies, the ones that God is speeding towards. In an expanding galaxy you will always be speeding towards some while speeding away from others.
I’d unask the entire question…
How can a being that is separate from the universe, that doesn’t experience time, and that is outside time in any case, have a viewpoint of speeding through anything in a time-like manner? To say that God experienced 6 actual (subjective?) days for creation, or 13 billion years years means nothing. God doesn’t ‘speed’ through anything. God simply is. So if not God, exactly who does still_learning think is experiencing creation in 6 days?
That was my first thought as well, but still_learning seems adamant about having God move through spacetime and be under the effects of relativity.[quote=“Argon, post:162, topic:36495”]
To say that God experienced 6 actual (subjective?) days for creation, or 13 billion years years means nothing. God doesn’t ‘speed’ through anything. God simply is. So if not God, exactly who does still_learning think is experiencing creation in 6 days?
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It seems much more likely and simpler to conclude that God inspired the authors of Genesis to write an allegory than to twist and contort physical laws in order to adhere to a somewhat literal interpretation of Genesis . . . but that’s just me.
Could it be the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fate” that moves through time? (A reference accessible only to those of a certain minimum age…)
Sorry, yes, it was the worse question.
Thank you for that.
Sorry, relative to earth.
Unless you are the singularity in the center that everything is expanded from. Or in a different dimension, since He is outside of time. If one is outside of the universe capsule then there can be a relativety between the two. And if that being outside of the universe capsule, could be in a different (6 earth day speed) capsule moving at a different speed, that is allowed to jump out of that capsule and then be outside of time.
In this theory, I am not saying God experienced 6 days or was subjective to 6 days. Rather He assigned 6 days to that occurrence, by putting it in a different time capsule that 6 days occurred, and inside that capsule, is the universe capsule moving a 13.7 billion years.
Imagine a hollow black ball that is 1’ dia ( the universe). It is moving in linear through space time at a speed so an atomic clock inside this ball would measure 13.7 billion years from 0 spacetime till now. And there is a clear hollow ball moving even faster in an orbit around this black ball, like an electron around an atom. This clear ball could be moving so fast, that 6 days occur on an atomic clock in this ball, while the black ball is moving so much slower, that 13.7 billion years occurred if you had an atomic clock in the black ball. And there is a being who is outside the balls not moving at all, and controlling the balls speeds before any balls existed. And at the instant the clear ball was created and started moving, He got inside it, and at that exact instant also started creating that black ball. The Being is outside of time, and the balls have different relative times.
6 days occurred to this clear ball, and since this black ball is moving so much slower, 13.7 billion years passed.
It might not be correct, but it makes perfect logical sense and is a plausible theory based on the merits time relativety.
I agree after seeing that birds were on the 5th day and land on the 6th, (since that isn’t how it is fossil dated) and many other order inaccuracies I looked over, would be the thing that disproves my time warp theory, and I need to do more research on interpretations genesis.
However that order of Genesis vs. evolution (which I didn’t realize in how many things I overlooked)is what invalidates my theory, not the time warp part. I withdraw my theory on the grounds that Genesis is not to be literal, but not on the grounds of time warp being flawed.
Though it is basically pointless to debate this theory anymore, it would be more like debating superman’s powers or would Spiderman beat Batman. I am up for still defending that time warp is a logical theory within the realms of our laws of physics, but I no longer think this is what happened.
I assert Poe’s Law: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake for the genuine article.”
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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