Interpretation & Meaning in Genesis + Sabbath

What I said was theology must not dictate to science and science must not dictate to theology. Each has a place and both are needed. The Bible or theology tells us to tell the truth ant truth telling or accuracy is necessary for science, However one need not be a Christian to tell the truth or to be a scientist.

You need to learn the difference between truth and falsehood so you don’t spread lies on the internet.

Hi guys,

Thank you for your posts that answer my post #31. I will answer the last first and move upward. Even though I was told by @Marshall that everyone that have been here awhile know the scriptures I ask for, no one yet gave them to me per request. At least I know my point came across. OK. I’ll give it as a reminder to what you already know. It’s Leviticus 19:36 and Proverbs 20:23. This is only one of countless examples by which we know that God rules in the affairs of men–for our safety. What would we think if someone tries to convince us that today’s science somehow obsoleted these scriptures?

@Relates
What I said was theology must not dictate to science and science must not dictate to theology. Each has a place and both are needed. The Bible or theology tells us to tell the truth and truth telling or accuracy is necessary for science, However one need not be a Christian to tell the truth or to be a scientist.

You need to learn the difference between truth and falsehood so you don’t spread lies on the internet.

Of course one need not be a Christian to tell the truth. Of course the field of science and Biblical theology need not rudely dictate to each other!. The conscience is voluntarily guided by truth from both working in harmony. Don’t we have discernment to know truth from falsehoods that we not be taken by falsehoods? Aren’t we aware of the correct standard for the truth we abide by?

A person is a Christian only because he obeyed the Christian gospel. But the word of God is for all individuals regardless who or what he calls himself. He that obeys benefits and he that does not obey is at his own disadvantage.

@Sealkin
The two main reason why I don’t believe in a worldwide flood is if that was so then why don’t we find a certain layer of soil and rock which shows a great violent event with a large majority of human bones all over the place? We don’t and YEC fails to give an answer to my knowledge. Its also the same reason why I refuse to belive that dinosaurs lived along with humans cause if that was so then we should find dinosaur bones at a equal level of soil with human and animal bones but we don’t.

Fossil graveyards are massive and are found almost every where. Why are millions of clams found with their shells shut even though their shells open when they die naturally? How was it possible for an Ichthyosaur to be found fossilized in the act of giving birth to its young? How did fish end up fossilized in the act of engulfing another for their meals? Why do fossils including archaeopteryx tend to be found in positions as if they came to rest after they were violently tossed? Don’t these give the impression of a massive, sudden catastrophe? Raging water is powerful! Why are there flood legends found in cultures around the world? I’m speaking what I was told by scientists.

As for dinosaurs living with humans, where did American Indians get the idea of a Thunderbird? Why did Indians as well as people of ancient cultures around the world leave drawings of creatures that resemble dinosaurs beside other familiar animals? Why do dragons have basically the same reptilian appearance regardless the part of the world where they are spoken of?

As for people mingled with dinosaurs in their graves, these links should be helpful.

@Jammycakes

Absolutely! But to determine the ages of rock strata, measurements are also required, and those measurements too are based on the exact same standards. Accordingly, evidence for a young earth must meet those standards as well.

Unfortunately, I am yet to see a single young earth argument that comes anywhere close.

But is forensic determination of past events easy even with properly calibrated instruments? Does proper calibration eliminate countless possible unknown conditions that may have affected the reliability of readings of the samples through the ages? Can it eliminate limitations of the instruments and possible variables characteristic of the measurements themselves? What about possible human error?

@Bill_II

Answer to: @Ecerotops If you find info that proves contrary to your claim, would you believe it?

The early geologists were looking for proof of Noah’s flood. They were Christians and believed the Flood to be real. The problem they faced was they could find no evidence and kept finding evidence that the world was much older than 6,000 years. This is also pre-Darwin so they weren’t trying to support evolution.

Let’s not forget that God has the power of the spoken word by which things may come to past quickly. Accordingly, was even the six days needed? Have the early geologists been in the past to observe? Please go back to my answer to @Sealkin.

@Bill_II
Scientists actually have no problem accepting real evidence that goes against their claim. It is how science has worked for a very long time.

But I ask if you would personally.

@Bill_II
I love how the YEC folk love to quote mine. The article you linked started with a partial quote from J.E O’Rourke which sounds like it supports the article. That is until you take the time to go to the source of the quote to see what was really said. In this case the full quote should have been: …

What was quoted that’s yours?

@Bill_ll Ecerotops care to comment?

Whether circular reasoning was used or not and regardless how well the stratigraphy may have been carried out, what gave Lyell the authority to add to scriptures? Doesn’t scripture warn us against such? What do we do with Isaiah 28:9-10? Is it not scripture that interprets scripture?

For you, @Pevaquark:

To answer my question, “How do you know that the global flood had no explanatory power to account for the earth’s geology?”, you said,
@Pevaquark
Because I’m familiar with things like plate tectonics and their rates of motion (present and historical), things like paleomagnetic strips, or geological strata or the fossil record, etc.

But were you or anyone there to observe for yourself whether or not there was really a flood? Are you making any assumptions?

Finally, I ask all of you again:

If you find scientifically derived info that to your satisfaction proves contrary to your claim, would you believe it?

But this time I want a decisive point blank yes or no answer. No explanations please. just the answer.

Earl

@Ecerotops Very interesting points you brought up with the articles. My issues with it is that if human were caught up in a world wide flood then shouldn’t we see human remains all over the geological time table at least along with all animals? Human bones don’t just destroy like that in flood water. You would think that from a violent event like that it would toss human remains all over the place and plop them in various layers of soil and rock in the geological time table? Just my take from thinking on it.

The problem with fossil graveyards is there are too many fossils to have all died at the same time. Check out Joel’s article on Quadrillions, Quintillions and Beyond: The Vast Fossil Record Refutes the Flood Geology Hypothesis

If you come home and find the streets wet, water running down the curbs, water standing on the lawns, etc. do you have to be there to know it rained? It’s called evidence and a global flood would leave evidence which isn’t there.

I don’t know how to answer this point blank.

First what do you define as “scientifically derived”. That would make a big difference in my answer.

Second what claim do you mean? Since I don’t work in the science field any claim I might make wouldn’t be the subject of scientific research.

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Human remains have been found in oldest buried flood plains in Mesopotamia 3500BC to 5000BC. The diversity of flood stories may be because there were more than one of these great floods (2 happening after 3000BC). But only the oldest of them at the dawn of civilization in the area really signifies since it is logical that many survivors would have migrated from the area to avoid a repetition of the disaster. And remember this would be long after earlier homo sapiens migrations from the area which began 70,000 years ago.

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I’m sorry that my response was cryptic. Here are some links to what I was referring to.

As I understand your question, Yes.

Yes, yes, yes and yes respectively. That’s what cross-checks do. When multiple methods with different methods and different underlying assumptions all agree with each other, that is a strong indication that those underlying assumptions were, in fact, correct. In any case, it is completely unrealistic to suggest that calibrations can be so out of whack that they can’t distinguish between thousands and billions.

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quote from kid’s article on human remains (sort of odd writing that, but whatever):
“Also, there were only two humans to start with—but lots of different animal kinds. So one would expect to find a lot more animal fossils than humans.”

It is interesting how little consistency there is in AIG regarding things. On one hand I recall they claim advanced technology and lots of people in the world before the flood, and then they claim very few people. Oh well, not going to lose sleep over it.

It’s pretty simple and I could ask the same question back to you and it boils down to this:

Hypothesis are rejected with contradictory data.

You might enjoy this short book summary -

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Thanks for posting, very well written little piece. There was a recent article I should have posted about the plate slippage in the Northwest and the great tsunami that may well happen there in the fairly near future, related to the one mentioned in the 1700’s .

Here is an article, one of many about it:

A person is a Christian ONLY because he or she accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The Word of God as you refer to it is Jesus Christ is open to all who love God.

The Word of God does not address scientific problems, but does help us when we who use our hearts and minds to solve scientific and other issues.

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Take a look at this photograph:

image

Would you agree that it shows a fossil of a fish? If so, how do you know? Were you there?

Seriously, I hope you get my point here. The “were you there?” argument is simply not true. The fact that nobody was there may mean that we don’t know everything about the past, but it most certainly does not mean that we don’t know anything about the past. There are some things about the past about which we can be absolutely 100% certain. Like, for example, that it stretches back far, far longer than 6,000 years. And that regardless of where, when or how extensive the Flood was, it did not play any part in the formation of the Grand Canyon, it did not create the fossil record, it did not involve the dinosaurs, and it was not accompanied by accelerated nuclear decay or catastrophic plate tectonics.

Yes I would. Did you have anything in mind?

Bear in mind that “to my satisfaction” means that it must get its facts straight and that it must respect the basic rules and principles of measurement and mathematics, as Deuteronomy 25:13-16 demands.

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Hello JPM and Jammycakes,

@JPM
quote from kid’s article on human remains (sort of odd writing that, but whatever):
“Also, there were only two humans to start with—but lots of different animal kinds. So one would expect to find a lot more animal fossils than humans.”

It is interesting how little consistency there is in AIG regarding things. On one hand I recall they claim advanced technology and lots of people in the world before the flood, and then they claim very few people. Oh well, not going to lose sleep over it.

But the AIG people admitted the scantness of available information about the people that were victims of the flood. But that did not reduce confidence in the authority of the scriptures.
I sometimes enjoy material written for kids because it is made simple and concise for easier reading. Don’t you?

@Jammycakes

Yes, yes, yes and yes respectively. That’s what cross-checks do. When multiple methods with different methods and different underlying assumptions all agree with each other, that is a strong indication that those underlying assumptions were, in fact, correct. In any case, it is completely unrealistic to suggest that calibrations can be so out of whack that they can’t distinguish between thousands and billions.

As for your first “yes,” you are not saying that forensic analysis of the past is easy, are you?

and

@jammycakes
And that regardless of where, when or how extensive the Flood was, it did not play any part in the formation of the Grand Canyon, it did not create the fossil record, it did not involve the dinosaurs, and it was not accompanied by accelerated nuclear decay or catastrophic plate

Even though the Grand Canyon did not form during the flood, it is said to have formed years after it.

Are you familiar with the “grand staircase?” This is where water drained from a huge lake after a breach at the top of the “staircase” to form the grand canyon from the massive flow. Would you like for me to point you to a DVD on this subject?

I have more for the rest of you shortly.

Earl

No, but I am saying that it’s not impossible.

Said by who? People who disregard the basic rules and principles of how to measure things? People who believe that the Flood was accompanied by accelerated nuclear decay on a scale that, by their own admission, would have released enough heat to vaporise the entire planet if it had any basis in reality?

People who actually respect the basic rules of mathematics and measurement, as the Bible demands that we do, tell us that the Grand Canyon formed between 6 million and 60 million years ago. Long before Noah’s Flood.

Are you familiar with the size and shape of the Grand Canyon? It is 277 miles long, a mile and a half deep, and up to 18 miles wide in places. Furthermore it twists and turns and meanders all over the place for most of its length. Take a look at this photograph of Horseshoe Bend for instance:

image

I’m sorry, but neither floods nor lake breaches carve out meandering channels like that. The channels carved out by floods and lake breaches are much straighter than that. And it simply isn’t realistic by any stretch of the imagination for a single lake to carve out 277 miles of them to a depth of a mile and a half and a width of up to 18 miles.

No I’d rather you didn’t. Post a link to a freely accessible text-based web page instead. Videos are a very inefficient way of communicating information. It isn’t possible to search them to find the relevant points, it isn’t possible to copy and paste from them into Google to fact check them, and it isn’t possible to skim quickly over parts of the material with which you’re familiar.

If you must post a link to a video, summarise the important points and provide timestamps.

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The Enuma Elish indicates the earth was split in half during the main event, and there were 7 major Flood events around the world after the first event. The study done in Mediterranean Sea cores said that the Mediterranean filled in 7 times, and emptied out 6 times. The Mediterranean was the first and oldest geological “split” in the Euro-African continent.

Where did this split in the earth happen mentioned in the Enuma Elish, or what moral truth were they trying to say if they were not actually recording something that humans experienced?

The ANE accounts I have read are vague when it comes to life before this event, and they say the inhabitants who lived through it mingled their blood with apes to form humankind. The last two dieties in their list of gods is the sun and moon, as if these two phenomenon happened after the earth was split and the moon formed.

Genesis gives us a week of creation detail. There is no mention of the sun and moon. Just two great lights. Two great lights could be anything nearby that provided light during the day and night on the earth before this event. That God created the sun and moon for days and seasons did not mean that it was implemented at the time of creation. Such purposes could have been implemented hundreds and thousands of years after the act of creation. According to all accounts the moon was not even in it’s current form until millions of years after the big bang. ANE accounts say humans or some beings actually experienced it.

Genesis does not say the earth was formed first or already existed from a previous universe. It says that God created the universe and the substance that would become all the solar systems including stars and planets at the same time. A universe that was near 14 billion years in size. The makup of the universe was empty and void. When God separated the light and darkness that is spatial just like separating the waters was spatial. The big bang agrees, because after the first light there was darkness. The evening or advent of the spatial darkness was the first day. If we moved through space we would still keep a 24 hour day cycle because that is what our bodies have adjusted to. If we ended up in a situation where that changed, we would have to evolve over time to the change forced upon us.

Does the 24 hour cycle that we are used to govern the whole universe, or is that just a solar system phenomenon? If before this cataclysmic event the earth had a different mass, size, and even location in respect to the sun, would this not change the dynamic of every currently observable interpretation of the past? The interpretations we have now of the evidence hinge on nothing changing that I have listed in the last billion years. Some of the age of the earth has to be attributed to God giving the universe a size, and age accordingly and in relationship with a solar system that is much younger while doing both at the same time. God did not deceive modern humans, because while separated by thousands of years ANE humans claimed to have experienced all of the events of creation to within days of it starting, but the earth itself has gone through an event that unintentionally messed with all the evidence.

Is it even possible that dinasours can even survive under current conditions? They have not seem to have had much luck doing so.

If the sun and moon are not literally mentioned, why attribute them to the two great lights? Especially since the moon did not even exist in the beginning. It does not even makes sense as being figurative since the figurative part about tjeir purpose would not have happened if the moon was not around. Unless the light at night was just figurative and literally never happened.

And in the case of the Grand Canyon if an existing river already meandered, several major releases of water would have kept to a more crooked shape not necessarily a straight line.

Compare Colorado to the Mississippi which has not dug a canyon but has over time put more debri into the Gulf of Mexico. There is not millions of years of debri left at the end of the Colorado River. During violent floods, debri is deposited differently, because it lessons the length of where that debri is deposited, as opposed to normal flooding and water carrying debri further. Slow etching of the Canyon is doable if you have a river 18 miles wide miraculous moving slow enough where considering the original height would be an impossibility. The Niagara would be an example of the change in heights. It is not winding nor 18 miles high, nor formed quickly but over time. Three rivers that would have emptied the same huge body of water covering most of central USA.

Says who?

Consider the Nile River Canyon which is deeper than the Grand Canyon, was cut while the Mediterranean Sea was empty and then was filled with sediment after the Mediterranean Sea was refilled. Try to squeeze that into 6,000 years.

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Is this what you’re looking for?

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Actually I was hoping @Timtofly would point to a YEC source that says

And a little Googling lead to a paper which dated the Colorado River Delta to a median age of 1,700 mya which points out that there actually are millions of years of sediment at the end of the Colorado River. Those pesky measurements sure get in the way of a good story.

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Last I checked it is based on how long it takes the earth to rotate around it’s axis so it is a purely local thing.

I can’t see why or how that would happen. Also, unless something else changes messing with the earth’s rotational period or distance from the sun would have rather sever effects on our climate. There are laws of nature put in place by God that would govern what would happen.

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What would you define as severe? The formation of mountains? A total upset in plate tectonics destroying all the original dated areas and giving the majority of liveable area much younger dates? Even from human observation we do have that the Colorado had strong flooding events on a regular basis. Even human intervention does not change the weather, or the possibility of more floods to occur. It would be hard to observe now as there are major dams along the length of the whole river. If events were to happen that would cause the dams to fail, we would have a full observation of what has happened more than once in the past. So technically the Colorado river does not need millions of years to accomplish what we see today. It just needs the right conditions in regards to the area having more active geological activity. According to wiki, the better the dating accuracy and a better mapping of the area such activity gets closer to our time, not further away.