The Fall of Historical Adam, (Federal Head of man), impacts all of humanity to need Christ's Salvation

Faith & Science Conversation
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There’s a ton of evidence to support all those statements.

There’s a ton of evidence that YEC who go searching for evidence are cherry-picking liars who twist facts and invent “alternative facts.” It’s not hard to find if you look for it outside your information silo.

I congratulate you on being able to believe a literal YEC interpretation despite all the evidence going against you. That takes more faith than I’m capable of. Perhaps God will reward you for it. In the meantime, maybe stop pretending that there’s any evidence in your favor besides your interpretation of scripture? Thanks. Bye.

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But what you are saying makes no sense.

You are equating the loss of our innocence before God, with intelligence.

I agree that, “Adam took-stole. it was not his to eat and he had been told not to. He stole his knowledge of good and evil.” BUT that does NOT equate to intelligence, to state that it does misrepresents the reality. The term ‘equivocation’ comes to mind.

Adam and Eve were Created “in the image of God”, they were already highly intelligent!
Do you truly believe that God created man in His own image without intelligence?

The intelligence of humanity has nothing whatsoever to do with the “knowledge of good and evil”.
The ‘theft’ of the knowledge of good and evil has resulted in all the pain, suffering, misery and death throughout history since the fall of Adam when he “stole” if you wish, the knowledge of good and evil.

God Bless,
jon

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Just so you’re aware, if @Burrawang has indeed set his Discourse preferences to ignore me outright, as I suspect he has, he won’t have seen this. The “ignore” setting means that it doesn’t just hide posts in their own right; it also hides quotes from those posts embedded in other people’s replies.

Of course, as I said, the only person he’s hiding those posts from is himself. Everyone else will see them just fine.

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OK I could have been clearer and qualified the terms such as primordial soup microbes to primates or whatever, the fact of the matter is that Natural Selection and Evolution are two entirely different things; again Equivocation comes to mind with the interchangeability of the two terms by evolutionists.

God Bless,
jon

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That’s news to me, what information, papers or evidence do you offer to support your statement?

God Bless,
jon

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Adam, the rules of science, measurement, evidence and honesty that I am referring to have nothing whatsoever to do with secularism. There is nothing atheistic whatsoever about them. They are rules that apply to Christians and atheists alike, that apply whether miracles are a thing or not, that apply however old the Earth is and whoever or whatever did or did not evolve from what. They are rules that we should all be able to agree on if we’re committed to honesty, YECs, OECs and ECs alike. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if YECs don’t want to be accused of telling lies, manipulating the truth, and turning people away from God, then they need to stick to them.

I don’t have any objections to Christians searching for evidence that supports the Bible (which has a capital B, by the way). I don’t even have any objections to Christians searching for evidence that supports some sort of small-b bible that is basically a cartoon caricature of the capital-B Bible with a thick layer of science fiction slathered on top of it. What I object to is them claiming to have found evidence when they have not, or claiming that evidence supports them when it does not, or claiming that evidence does not exist when it does, or demanding that we lower our standards of rigour and quality control in order to accommodate their arguments.

I’m pretty sure that you, as a YEC, would get upset if someone started claiming that mermaids were evidence for a young earth, wouldn’t you? What I’m doing is no different. Claiming that radiocarbon in diamonds is evidence for a young earth when the levels are too low to rule out contamination is exactly the same thing as claiming that mermaids are evidence for a young earth, only with a bit more sophistry.

Yes Adam, to obey is better than to sacrifice. But to obey means that you obey this as well:

13 Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. 14 Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 16 For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly. — Deuteronomy 25:13-16

If you think that demanding that the Bible’s demands for accurate and honest measurement be upheld is “following some sort of atheist interpretation” then I’m sorry, but you’re effectively demanding the right to tell lies.

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“Nonsense that death predated the appearance of Homo sapiens,” = Correct.

I’ve absolutely no concrete reason to believe either way regarding “non-human creatures (plants, fish, birds, mammals, etc.)”, but from my observations of the animal kingdom, it is my gut feeling they’re innocent before God and when you consider that they were not created “in the image of God,” as we were, then it follows they’re not accountable as we are, who unfortunately are no longer innocent before God because of the rebellious acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil that constitutes sin.

God Bless,
jon

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Jay, don’t you see that it is not a matter of spiritualising anything.
We are all spiritual beings, whether individuals realise that fact or not is a whole other matter.

But regarding the post that relates to death, in the Biblical text:

Genesis 2 NASB 1995

15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die”.

When Adam and Eve both disobeyed Gods clear instruction, the moment they rebelled against God they began to die, their bodies commenced the process of having a finite lifespan that would eventually result in physical death. We have all inherited that exact same situation whereby we have a fixed term on the Earth.
If Adam were to die immediately, then none of us would be here to talk about this matter, because humanity would not have commenced being fruitful and multiplying. Thus it is not only logical because we exist here and now, that Adam commenced dying at the fall, it is clearly a real historical account of what happened and is why Jesus incarnation and atonement for sin on our behalf is necessary.

The incessant tiresome attempts at “gotcha” moments by attacking every tiny word without trying to understand the heart of the matter has convinced me that continuing with this forum is probably more of a waste of energy that can be used to far greater profit elsewhere.
I have much work to do and time is precious and limited to do that work.
We are all here on Earth for a short time that we all must endeavour to do the most good with the resources we have been blessed to have at our disposal.

I truly wish you well and hope that some seeds planted and good fruits will in the Lord’s time come from this post titled:
The Fall of Historical Adam, (Federal Head of man), impacts all of humanity to need Christ’s Salvation

God Bless,
jon

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That is just false. The presence of the Tree of Life would indicate that Adam and Eve’s lives were already finite. This whole notion of the lack of natural death before the fall is just fallacy. This world cannot function withut death. Animals and most microbes feed on dead or dying material.

You problem is trying to rationalise the story into any sort of reality. Talking seprents and trees with fantastic powers are just not real! Wether you call it magic or not.

You have already left the literal text.

The moon is seen during the day. It rules nothing.It waxes and wains. Whether it has essential qualities is irrelevant to the text.

Your reasons do not match the text.

No, Adam’s sin was disobedience, but it was inocent. He had no concept of good and evil before eating. He did not know what sin was.

Adam could not be God’s image on earth without the nowledge of good and evil.

The story does not make rational sense. It does not match up to itself let alone any realityu that cn now be observed.

You appear to have a false view of how to interpret Scriptrue.

Regardless of your Christian beliefs. There is no need to manipulate scriptrue.

It is time you got off your high horse of superiority over those of us who do not beleive what you do

Your condescention is unbecoming

I rest my case

Richard

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Adam, good quote. Thanks.

I had meant that allusion to exemplify how many can discuss respectfully. I hope that, as a whole, it does that. Have you read any of Todd Wood’s notes?

We can open the thread again, I think, if we want to discuss the nuts and bolts there. I think you would enjoy it. We can certainly learn from each other. I started the AiG thread because I have learned much from YEC folks as well. Many are my family (in fact, I’m a distinct minority, but we get along well.) I sure struggle yet.

Thanks.

I hope you are well. With prayers,

Randy

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That describes every YECists I’ve ever interacted with because they put their modern scientific view above the scriptures plus pick and choose what to take literally.

Except they aren’t “the same methods of inquiry”. Seeing the Trinity is easy if you read the scriptures in the original languages as the ancient literature they are and according to the worldviews under which they were written; YEC depends on ignoring the original literary types and worldviews.

No, they just have no trouble with Genesis being the type of ancient literature that it actually is and put Christ at the center rather than engaging in the idolatry of putting one day above another.

Many aren’t scientists, by their own testimony: anyone who imposes a selectively literal semi-scientific worldview on the scriptures and says so right up front may be honest but is declaring they refuse to do actual science.

How often do you have to be corrected before you stop posting this falsehood?

Not from any former YECist student I knew in university – they quite honestly said they were just following what their pastors had said: that if one part of the Bible had an error then none of it could be trusted. It was those who could be shown that their pastors were wrong , that the foundation is not Genesis but Christ, whose faith survived the crisis.

But that’s what the entire YEC enterprise is about! Most people recognize that the Bible isn’t about science, so their faith isn’t bothered by geology or evolution or meteorology or astronomy; it’s only those taught the YEC dogma who have problems.

Hutton was a Christian, as were Lyell, Cuvier. Chalmers, and Miller.

You’ve been corrected in this previously; at this point you are being dishonest. Genesis tells of a flood of “the land”, which at most would be the world known to Noah.

This is what’s known as a category error. Honest scientists of all religious or non-religious views recognize that science can’t say anything about God.
Indeed it may be the fact that YECists make this category error that contributes to so many YECists college students abandoning their faith: they were never taught the basics of clear thinking and so they believe the lie that if Genesis isn’t 100% scientifically correct then the Bible is false.

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But this description does not fit YECists! YEC demands that the scriptures be read as though they were a friend’s great-grandfather’s diary of events he experienced, treating many sections as types of literature that didn’t even exist at the times when they were written.

But the idea that the scriptures have to be 100% scientifically and historically accurate is a human-formed “philosophical conjecture”. It does not come from the scriptures, it comes from the philosophy called scientific materialism.

It makes perfect sense. In my university days I witnessed to people who’d never read Genesis but recognized that they needed a Savior. All that Genesis does is tell us that we are broken, but that is something most people recognize anyway.

One reason I’m a Christian is that over the centuries atheists have set out to prove that Jesus never rose from the dead, only to conclude that under their system of laws – whether in Italy, Greece, France, the U.S., or elsewhere – the evidence was sufficient to “convict” Jesus of rising from the dead. They didn’t need Genesis or any of the Old Testament, they were convicted by the strength of the evidence for a risen Christ.

I don’t see how it is logical to believe that a piece of ancient literature was written as something that didn’t even exist as a literary genre.

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Selective literalism.

It’s also a logical fallacy. Just because p implies q does not mean that p is the only thing that implies q.

It isn’t our concern whether secularism is worse, it is our concern that Christians be honest – and YECists aren’t. The evidence for that is overwhelming.

That would be people such as Dr. Michael Heiser and Dr. John Walton who have studied to know what types of literature Genesis is comprised of. In contrast, YECists are very good at pretending to know what types of literature God was required to force the writers to use to make modern people happy.

Very well said.

As does the account saying that Adam was formed from dust – that was an ancient near eastern way of saying a creature was mortal.

Yes, he has. Raqiyah’, the “firmament”, meant something hammered out like metal. It is described as holding back the waters above and having doors to let rain down.
And מְאֹרֹת֙ (me-oh-rote) is something that gives off light.

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of course there is…i have no problem with that. I attend only one religios denomination church. That is because i believe that denomination is more in tune with biblical theology than the others.

Having said that, I dont follow single doctrine because i believe all doctrines from that denomination are 100% accurate. I follow a doctrine because the theology behind it generally aligns with my own.

If i use a very rudmentary illustration…

would you agree that an individual who has been jailed for dangerous driving occasioning death is still credible in making the claim that speeding is dangerous and thus we should not speed and that individual may have been making such claims to younger drivers for years prior to his own demise?

Does this mean that driving at high speed isnt dangerous?

again , i follow bible doctrine simply because it best fits the Epistomological questions concerning my existence. It doesnt mean every driver i listen to does not willingly make mistakes!

Another example…Ravi Zacharia. The man is a fraud, however, a large amount of what he preaches was valid.

I want to have life after this lfe…i know that for an atheist, 100% when this life is over, that individual says “im kaput” and i dont care after i die.

So,

when I look at that Epistomological dilemma, and i ask myself, is there credible evidence that supports to Bible narrative. The facts are, absolutely there is evidence… a wealth of it. Creation and the Flood are an extension of that answer for me.

If we simply start with the global flood…when i consider the narrative i ask myself

“Dont you ever wonder how it is that we have all over the face of the globe vast areas of fossil fuel deposits that are covered by sedimentary layers?”

“Dont you even remotely see the connection between that and the Bible narrative of Noahs flood where all life on earth was buried by said flood waters?”

My understanding is that Geologists agree that these ffuels came about as a result of deposition and that they settled to the bottom in an environment with extremely low oxygen levels.

As far as i can tell, neither side is in dissagreement on the basics of how fossil fuels form. So then it becoms a simple question of which story best fits the Epistomlogical dilemma that i faced in the first place?

I do not believe that science drives investigation. I believe that the philosophical drives the scientific. This is also eactly what the Bibles claims as well i think.

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Smith definitely was as well; Cuvier tended somewhat deistic, but not the agnostic deistic like Lamarck.

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You’ve created a false dilemma. The choice isn’t between “Bible doctrine” (=YEC) and atheism. You’ve spent months here talking to Christians who hope for life after this life and place their trust in the resurrection on Christ’s resurrection. We’re not atheists, but we’re not YEC. You’ve never grappled with that possibility, unless you deny that we’re Christians because we accept the facts of evolution and “billions of years.”

Long before Hebrew had an alphabetic script, the Enūma Eliš described humanity’s search for godlike wisdom and immortality. It’s a common theme in the ANE and in every human culture. In my opinion, the first signs of “god-consciousness,” or to put it another way, “spiritual awakening” in humanity was intentional burial. Spurious claims about Homo naledi aside, the first known instance of that is 75,000 years ago in Africa.

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Your whole argument about fossil fuels is absolutely wrong. One side (YEC) claims it occurred because of a global flood, which is absurd. You’re uneducated in geology and place too much faith in a handful of “creation scientists” who stand against 99.9% of all other professional geologists. This is not a coin toss between two equally plausible arguments with evidence equally balanced on both sides.

For the last time, I’d encourage you listen to Glenn Morton. He makes the same point that @jammycakes has been trying to make to @Burrawang: You trust your YEC sources because they’re Christians, but they aren’t actually interested in evidence or truth. They only want to hear what fits their narrative (Google “Morton’s Demon” sometime.) From one of Glenn’s last blog posts titled “The Sad State of Apologetics”:

I was working for an oil company and was forced daily to see contradictions between what Christians were telling me and what I personally saw. In 1979-81, I was an arrogant 29 year old in charge of hiring and training geophysicists for ARCO. I had 60 people working for me and a private secretary and flew business class to colleges all over the US recruiting. I went to CHC, the college associated with Institute of Creation Research. I met Henry Morris, Duane Gish, Steve Austin, Gerald Aardsma and others. Morris was a vapor canopy advocate and Jody Dillow had done a mathematical model of it showing that the world would be cool. I went over the math, found an error, and told Henry Morris of that error. Henry wasn’t interested. He didn’t care to hear anything that went against his view. I was learning how little YECs cared for observational data, or for being correct.

In the Genesis Flood, Henry cites a delta which formed in a matter of a few days. When I went to look up the reference what Henry didn’t tell his readers, who are obviously thinking about the Mississippi River Delta forming in a matter of days, is that Jopling’s delta is 20 feet long and 1.5 foot thick! This is egregious behavior for a Christian!

I wrote articles in the CRSQ trying to explain the problems I saw. My articles were not received well and indeed; creationists didn’t want to know the problems. In 1985 Emmett Williams became the editor of the CRSQ and I was told directly it was with the purpose to stop me from publishing in CRSQ. I must say I was disillusioned by my fellow Christians, whom I had started out believing would be truthful in all things( what a mistake).

In 1986 my last real gasp as a YEC gave a paper at the Inter. Conf. On Creationism in Pittsburgh. It was entitled, Challenges to a Young-earth. I showed geological problem after problem; and I showed pictures. I really wanted help on the issues I presented from my fellow YECS. That was not to be…

John Morris came up on stage to challenge what I had just said. He claimed to have “had experience” in the oil industry. I asked him what oil company he had worked for. I am going to let an account of this published in the Skeptical Inquirer in late 86 or early 87. It was written by Robert Schadewald. Of this event, Schadewald wrote:

"John Morris went to the microphone and identified himself as a petroleum geologist. He questioned Morton’s claim that pollen grains are found in salt formations, and accused Morton of sounding like an anticreationist, raising more problems than his critics could respond to in the time available.Morris said that the ICR staff is working on these problems all the time. He told Morton to quit raising problems and start solving them.

"Morton chopped him off at the ankles. Two questions, said Morton: ‘What oil company did you work for?’ Well, uh, actually Morris never worked for an oil company, but he once taught petroleum engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Second, How old is the Earth?’ 'If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning.’ Morton then said that he had hired several graduates of Christian Heritage College, and that all of them suffered severe crises of faith. They were utterly unprepared to face the geologic facts every petroleum geologist deals with on a daily basis. Morton neglected to add that ICR is much better known for ignoring or denying problems than dealing with them. "

It is truly sad when an atheist can say this of a Christian organization.

I’ll end there.

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I agree with pretty much everything you said in this post, but I disagree with the “regional flood” interpretation. It doesn’t really matter how far ancient Israelite notions of the extent of “the land” went. They used the word that was at hand. If a flood of “the earth” describes every land known to them, isn’t that a universal, “global” flood, whether they knew the actual extent of the globe or not? @adamjedgar is correct in one thing, which is that the flood story in Genesis is described in universal terms. Why? My own response is that the narrative flow describes a universal problem, human sinfulness, that requires a universal solution.

There are many more layers to the Genesis narrative, of course, but trying to make a regional flood the “origin story” of both Gen. 6-9 and corresponding ANE flood myths does nothing to prop up the historicity of the Bible. The same argument would apply to the historicity of the Gilgamesh myth.

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There most definitely is disagreement! Geological chemists note that the process took vast spans of time; botanists note that the formation was dependent on the fact that cellulose accumulated by the megaton until some microorganism evolved the ability to digest it.

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I met Morris and that describes him perfectly. He wasn’t interested in any scholarship that showed how the Genesis Creation accounts fit with ancient near eastern cosmology/mythology. He was also not interested in anything that science had to say; his worldview boiled down to him being right despite lacking any credentials in either science or biblical studies.

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