It’s like you’re speaking a different language…different meanings for words like “time,” “mythical,” and “change.”
If I’m doing a scientific experiment, in every case, I’m observing for some kind of…change.
Change and science are not diametrically opposed and you simply repeating that like a mantra does not make it so.
Let us remember the words of Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland:
"“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
Indeed, scientist observed changes in every experiment. However, they measure thousands of synthetic things, like time, energy and mass. Even the definitions of these invisible, mathematical things relies on Friar Thomas’ metaphysics “that the essence of substance is changeless.” Even the experimental system and scientific mathematical laws, especially when applied to Earth history, depend on the Thomasian notion that “all things remain the same” that matter is not changing itself as it ages.
Please notice that a mature worldview even affects our grammar and concepts of reality. The Bible agrees with the ancient pagans that a planet was shattered. It agrees with the pagans that planets passed close to Earth. Yet it condemns the worship of planets (like Baal and Ashteroth Jupiter and Venus). How could those things have happened? How could the Earth be bath extremely ancient, yet only have orbited the Sun a few thousand times? We can see with telescopes that the properties of all matter keep shifting throughout cosmic history. The orbits accelerate outward along with the accelerating atomic clocks. Every atom keeps blue shifting. Even local atomic clocks, when compared to their reflections from hours ago (Pioneer Anomaly) also blue shift like the atoms in hundreds of billions of galaxies. Billions of widely separated galaxies spread out from their independet cores of unformed matter, often growing into local growth spirals. Elohim commanded the luminaries in the sky to continue to become spreading things, beginning on day four. Thus we confirm the creation text with telescopes.
Why are biblical earth history and biblical creation so different from scientific stories of beginnings? All scientists were trained in the Thomasian metaphysic, that the essence (what matter IS) is not changing.
You can’t understand an earth history based on a different worldview while still holding the contrarian worldview. This is why creation does not fit science. Why would God create such a universe? He allows no one to come to true faith throughout wisdom and philosophy. He has a plan to take the wise of this age with their own skills. (See 1 Corinthians 1 - 3). Yet he draws nobodies to faith every day, sinners whom he brings to faith in his promises. This will bring him great glory on the day his faith children are revealed.
Victor
This thread is the gift that keeps on giving! As someone who speaks different languages I understand how languages affects thought but this is a beyond extreme example of bending reality to make sense of something you find inconsistent.
That being said, I’m thoroughly enjoying this! I may have to start a case study!
You are aware that Egyptians were building sundials that divided the day into 12 equal size units of time are you not? If the units are not time, even if they didn’t have a word for it, what are the units for? I know, 12 changes during the day right? Egyptian priests had divided the day and night into 24 units as far back as 2100 BC.
Victor alert. For those not familiar with this idea please see Immanuel Velikovsky’s “Earth in Upheaval”. Also Erich von Däniken’s “Chariot of the Gods”.
The Egyptians DID invent the first fixed calendar. Julius Caesar lived in Egypt for a while. He combined the fixed Egyptian Calendar with the variable Roman calendar. That was known as the year of confusion. NO one knew what day to pay their bills, “calends” was the first of the month when bills must be paid. We still use the Latin calendar today. The Egyptians, used more than one calendar. The lunar calendar varied. The yearly calendar tracked the rising of Sothis (Sirius) which is when the Nile usually flooded. The fixed duration calendar was great for astronomy. You could look at two diary entries of astronomical events. Using this calendar, you could quickly calculate how many days they were apart. This is because the months were synthetic, like ours, and had no relation to the moon. (The Babylonians would need to look up many diaries, add up the various day periods for each month, calculate which years had 13 months etc, before they could count the days between astronomical events. In all other calendars, months and years were always variable. Thus, they were not a record of time. Time had not even been invented yet during the era of Babylonian astronomy.
Consider the Egyptian stone water clocks that survived. They have a small hole in the bottom. They have different scales inscribed on the insides, for different seasons. Like the Babylonians, they used different amounts of water for a military watch at different seasons, which also varied from day to night. Every village idiot could see that the shadow of a gnomon varied the duration of its graduations throughout the seasons. If what you see is constantly changing, you cannot imagine that you are measuring time. Even the Greek astronomers, who sometimes mentioned “equal hours” knew this was merely mathematical, not an observation. An “equal hour” was the projection of observed angle on in the ecliptic onto the armillary sphere’s equator. Since the length of the ecliptic continues to vary with the seasons, an angle along it clearly changes its duration from summer to winter, day to night. The ancients tracked natures changes, not synthetic notions of time.
When we try to interpret Earth history with notions of linear time, we do eisegesis, not exegesis. The biblical authors were not philosophers. They did not speculate about time. In the original languages, a contemporary would not read any time words.
(The apostle Paul warned that the elementary principles of the world and philosophy can take us captive Colossians 2:8). Indeed, interpreting the creation with ideas about linear time grips our minds like a vise. We are so mesmerized by time that we cannot see that the changes the Bible mentions ae the ones we see. Billions of ancient galaxies continued to become spreading things, often growing into local growth spirals like the Milky Way. Visibly, the clocks, the orbits and matter’s volume keep changing. Scientists are forced to fill the universe with mythical things like a big bang, invisible matter, vacuums that adjust passing light to protect their basic assumption, the idea the Bible predicted for the last days. Only the literal text has visible confirmation in the visible history of the galaxies, that continue to become spreading things. 12 times the Bible mentions that God continues to spread out the plural heavens (evidently the galaxies).
Victor
Did I say anything about calendars? You ignored the point I was making. The Egyptians divided the day/night into 24 uniform intervals of time. How do you explain this?
The Greek’s didn’t know the earth’s orbit was elliptical. That wasn’t know until Kepler discovered it in the 17th century.
Strange since the Egyptians seemed to have a good idea of time.
And don’t forget the Greeks were able to determine the time of a solstice to within a couple of hours. Hard to do if you don’t know what uniform time is. And it was quite a feat given the instruments they had to work with.
I think the point @Reggie_O_Donoghue is raising is that there are enough “voices” within the Bible that we can see that “innocent references” to things or practices that have pagan origins… as well as specific references to pagan gods that celebrate Yahweh… are within the acceptable range of narratives that do not
offend Yahweh.
What do you mean by “synthetic”? I have a suspicion that you might not mean what everybody else means…
No, actually we are studying earth’s history, period.
Peter predicted two earth history stories for the last days. Because they regard an idea, they will disregard that the plural heavens came out long ago (ouranoi ek palai). They also disregard that waters used to stand with the land. Those same waters destroyed the land at the cataclysm.Peter predicted why they do so. They regard an idea: all things remain the same, panta houtos diamenei. (2 Peter 3:3-6).
Indeed, most scientific earth history stories depend on the medieval notion that matter is not changing itself. This is the basis for the operational definitions of physicists (measured time, mass energy). The two areas were Friar Thomas’ metaphysics are visibly at odds with real Earth histories are the ones Peter predicted.
Consider scientific cosmologies. They focus on undetectable space time, six times as much invisible matter as the visible kind and the accretion of stars from space dust. Why? Most scientific cosmologies depend on the idea Peter predicted: that all things remain the same. Only the words of the creation account are confirmed in the visible history of how billions of galaxies formed. Elohim continues to speak (imperfect verb) to the sky luminaries. They are to continue to become spreading things (noun raqiya). Indeed, we can see with telescopes how billions of galaxies spread out from tiny cores of unformed matter. The light clocks and the outward moving star streams accelerate together. Many early galaxies continue to change (at many ranges) into local growth spirals as the visible properties of matter keep shifting. How appropriate that the scriptures use the noun raqiya: spreading things.
The Earth has a bifurcated geology. Earth’s early oceans stood on the land. A thousand meters of sedimentary rocks (loaded with marine fossils) sit on granite foundations. The modern deep ocean stand on basalt without a covering of layered sedimentary rocks. Why the difference. According to Psalm 104, wide valleys formed to accept the waters that stood above the mountains. The Bible also repeatedly states that the Earth spreads out continually. Indeed, a global expansion seam runs through every ocean, spewing out lava and mineral hot waters. The continents fit together on a minuscule planet, without any of the modern abyssal seas. Of course this violates Thomas’ metaphysics: that the essence of substance is changeless. Thus, they must invent undetected subduction.
Scientists cannot accept a growing Earth or growing galaxies, even though they have visible support, because they regard the notion that all things remain the same. Only biblical Earth histories have visible support in the geology of our planet and the visible history of hundreds of billions of galaxies.
Change and science are opposite worldviews.
Victor
You may be right about the Earth getting bigger with every century … I remember when I was very young…
I’m quite sure the Earth was no bigger than a fairly small circle of land surrounded by ocean - - no bigger than my mother could drive in one day and still be able ti get us back in our own beds that same night.
Tables exist. We can see them, touch them etc. Something is synthetic because it has no visible counterpart. For example, time only exists the invisible world of mathematical reality. By the way, God has visible support, even though he is not seen. Romans 1 says that God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen in the things he made.
The ancients did not need to imagine time. It has no visible counterpart nor do we see anything that suggests its attributes. The ancients used visible changes in the very places westerners imagine time. They tracked nature’s changes: new moons, sunrises, solstices etc. These, however, were not time per se in the ancient system. They were merely visible markers for the changing world.
According to Genesis One, Elohim continues to speak to the sky luminaries. They are to become spreading things (noun raqiya). Indeed, the spreading lights in the sky are to mark days and years. With telescopes we see to the creation era. In billions of examples, at many ranges, we observe that galaxies continue to spread out, often growing into local growth spirals. We even confirm what happened on day seven. Galaxies continue to spread out, but globs packed with tiny stars only emerge from cores during the creation week. Only nearby galaxies eject dust streams from their cores, often forming dust bars, instead of star streams.
Changing Earth Creationists are not like young earth or old earth creationists. Change and time are opposite worldviews.
Victor
No, they’re not.
Time exists in the very visible swing of a pendulum, the yearly revolution of the earth around the sun, or the slow drip of a water clock.
Electrical potential has no visible counterpart. There is nothing that you can see that would suggest it’s attributes. But I guarantee that if I told you that a live wire contained 10,000 volts you would not be willing to touch it.
No they used what they could see as a way to measure time. Otherwise why would an Egyptian sundial from 2100 BC be marked with uniform spacings to register the passing of time?
That’s cool, but here’s the thing, the earth ‘isn’t’ expanding in real life,
Does anybody self-identify as “anti-science”? Most people conceive of themselves as quite scientific but anti-the-wrong-KIND-of-science…
Not over time, anyway, but maybe that’s your mistake…?
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