Answers in Genesis and Young Earth Creationism :)

[B_T]

OK, folks, do you have YEC people here?

I'm a molecular biologist and I'd like to confront several of your beliefs.

For example, the Young Earth, your oppose of Evolution and so on...

[WhiteWings]

I'm not a YEC but since you are a molecular biologist I want to have your opinion on the book "Icons of Evolution"
IIRC the author, Jonathan Wells, is also a (molecular) biologist. Or at least quotes from molecular biologists.
Perhaps this question is to much off topic of perhaps not as the book may or may not confront your idea's.

The author of the book is no YEC
For example he believes in the Cambrian explosion. And that occured more than 6-10000 years ago...

http://books.google.nl/books?id=SjceLTQxfocC&dq=%22Icons+of+evolution%22&pg=PP1&ots=7wIwvzGIPF&sig=nenc-PI2c1hbgY6gTPdC4eLc7G8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

[B_T]

Please, give me a link to the book if it's available online. I'd be very interested to see it.

[WhiteWings]

I added a link to my message when you where replying.

http://www.geraldschroeder.com/sog.html
Is roughly half about matching 6 days of creation into 14 billion years. http://www.geraldschroeder.com/age.html
The other half is 'about DNA' http://www.geraldschroeder.com/evolution.html
http://www.geraldschroeder.com/evolubiblestyle.html

The books and articles I quoted look lets call it 'very possible' to me.
But I'm neither an astronomer or a (molecular) biologist; so I don't make any claims.

I also have an article somewhere that claims that Jewish scholars from long before the words evolution and big bang where invented already knew that the 6 creation days of Genesis where of a diffrent 'type' than those in teh rest of the Bible. Days of old and days of man IIRC

[B_T]

As a person who has a site dedicated to spaceflight, I may speak about astronomy, too...

Christian Fundamentalists usually say: "Evolution is false. The biggest problem with it is that if evolution is true, death must have existed before Adam and Eve"

What I usually say as a contrary: "But you know that God commanded Adam and Eve to eat everything except the fruit of life. This basically means that when they eat the fruit, the cells of the plant - the absolute minimum of life- die. So death already existed."

The same situation is with the 6 days. What is a day-night cycle from an astronomical point of view? It's related to the speed and the rotation of the Earth. So when we speak about days and nights I come to the conclusion that it's something very relative.

Usually Christian fundamentalists, believers in YEC, claim that some parts of the Bible must be taken literally while others-not. Ha! I have a friend who believes in YEC, but claims that Hell is metaphorical... This is what I call a "selective biblical reading"...

If we take the OT literally, we must also take several other verses literally. "Our Lord set the Earth on firm fondation so it cannot be moved". This is the very same problem Galileo had with the Church. He knew that the religious leaders (young earth creationists) will oppose his theory about the movement of the Earth. But he could do nothing. It contradicts the literal interpretation of the Bible.

Young Earth Creationism is flawed. It's dangerous. It's pseudoscientific.

[WhiteWings]

As a person who has a site dedicated to spaceflight, I may speak about astronomy, too...

Looking forward to that.

Christian Fundamentalists usually say: "Evolution is false. The biggest problem with it is that if evolution is true, death must have existed before Adam and Eve"

What is death? Can things without a spirit die in the biblical sense?

What I usually say as a contrary: "But you know that God commanded Adam and Eve to eat everything except the fruit of life. This basically means that when they eat the fruit, the cells of the plant - the absolute minimum of life- die. So death already existed."

Their answer to your answer is that the fruit tree is still alive.
Question: Did Adam never acidently killed, for example, a snail by stepping on it?

The same situation is with the 6 days. What is a day-night cycle from an astronomical point of view? It's related to the speed and the rotation of the Earth. So when we speak about days and nights I come to the conclusion that it's something very relative.

IIRC the Hebrew words that day and night are translated from also mean chaos=night and order=day.
Even Strong gives states that day can mean a period.

Usually Christian fundamentalists, believers in YEC, claim that some parts of the Bible must be taken literally while others-not. Ha! I have a friend who believes in YEC, but claims that Hell is metaphorical... This is what I call a "selective biblical reading"...

I guess I'm somewhere in the middle. Literally and metaphorically are both fine with me. But then you have to use a fixed set of rules to 'switch' between them. Even a rule like odd verses are litteral would be fine for me.... :-)


Read the links I gave you (if you wish) and write some comments on them. I have all the books mentioned so I can scan a few pages if needed.

[martincisneros]

If we take the OT literally, we must also take several other verses literally. "Our Lord set the Earth on firm fondation so it cannot be moved".

Which passage is this?  I've always understood the Bible to teach that God set the earth on nothing.  Genesis one is something that must be understood from the perspective of an observing on the world's oceans.  That's where the account is being told to us from, because it says that the Spirit was hoovering over the face of the waters.  And then when you go through the six creation days you find that all of the events are correctly described and in the correct order when compared with the scientific record.  Genesis 1:1 says that God formed the entire Cosmos, the stars, the quasars, etc.  The whole universe.  There was light in the universe, but there was no light on the surface of the world's oceans.  The earth's atmosphere is dense at this point.  Much too thick to let the light come in.  So as creation goes on you've got the earth's atmosphere being transformed from an opaque condition to a translucent condition on day two.  And then on day 4 you've got the earth's atmosphere being changed from translucent to a transparent condition.  And on days 5 and 6 you've got the advanced life showing up on earth which needed the light of the sun to be able to exist.  And that the days must be understood to be long periods of time, we have no record of "the evening and morning were the 7th day."  And you've got the author of Psalm 95 and the author of the book of Hebrews speaking of the 7th day in the future tense.  We're not seeing a speciation rate today because God's still at rest.  And when it comes to evolution, animals can change according to a very wide spectrum of genetic possibilities that were preprogrammed into them.  All varieties of cat are cats and all varieties of dogs are dogs, but there's absolutely no such thing as a transitional form where any animal has become an entirely different animal.  There are no lizards that have become birds, etc.  And the difference between an ape and a man.  What was that percentage again?  And how many nucleotides does that represent in difference, when a variation of any three is lethal??  The current speed of light that's held to be a fact is naive because it presupposes parts of space that are a vacuum, when there's no such thing.  It presupposes that light travels like a laser when it doesn't.  All of the universe is an ocean of particles and light travels more like electricity.  It flows on every wavelength to where NASA even has audio recordings of it that they've created very interesting electronic music with it.  Light travels more like electricity through an ocean of particles.  It flows through everything, bounces off of everything, is absorbed by everything, flows in and out of worm holes and black holes.  And light even flows between universes since every decision that we make creates parallel existences.  Through superstring theory; various demensions of reality, and through the curvature of space that dilates time, light is flowing through all of that like water through a garment that's in a washing machine.  Biblically and scientifically the universe isn't 15.95 billion years old.  The multiverse is easily tens of thousands of times older than that, but still finite, created, and on the foundation of God's Word as it's alpha and omega through which it'll be transformed very soon into His glorious perfection.

[B_T]

Martin:

Western Christian biblical references Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same tradition, Psalm 104:5 says, "the LORD set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place, etc."[79]

Galileo defended heliocentrism, and claimed it was not contrary to those Scripture passages. He took Augustine's position on Scripture: not to take every passage literally, particularly when the scripture in question is a book of poetry and songs, not a book of instructions or history. The writers of the Scripture wrote from the perspective of the terrestrial world, and from that vantage point the sun does rise and set. In fact, it is the earth's rotation which gives the impression of the sun in motion across the sky.

By 1616 the attacks on Galileo had reached a head, and he went to Rome to try to persuade the Church authorities not to ban his ideas. In the end, Cardinal Bellarmine, acting on directives from the Inquisition, delivered him an order not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the centre. The decree did not prevent Galileo from discussing heliocentrism hypothetically. For the next several years Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. He revived his project of writing a book on the subject, encouraged by the election of Cardinal Barberini as Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Barberini was a friend and admirer of Galileo, and had opposed the condemnation of Galileo in 1616. The book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was published in 1632, with formal authorization from the Inquisition and papal permission.

Pope Urban VIII personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberate, Simplicius, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. This fact made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book; an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defense of the Copernican theory. To add insult to injury, Galileo put the words of Pope Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicius. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book.[80] However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the blatant bias. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings.

------------


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

[B_T]

What is death? Can things without a spirit die in the biblical sense?

Oh, wait! This is where their logic is flawed. Evolution has nothing to do with "death in the biblical sense", but as death as a biological process - cellular death, organism death. Nobody claims that "death in the biblical sense" existed before Adam and Eve. If they are the first spiritual beings (putting aside Satan, etc), there's no contradiction between evolution and the Bible.

Their answer to your answer is that the fruit tree is still alive.

This is correct. But the existing plants require stable ecosystems in order to grow. Death and the reduction of the organics is a key to stability. This is a closed cycle. Again, this is not death in the biblical sense.
Question: Did Adam never acidently killed, for example, a snail by stepping on it? - it's a very valid question.

Even Strong gives states that day can mean a period.

How long is that period?

I'll take a look of the links you gave to me.

EDIT: I started looking at the documents...

I accept a lot of the views of Gerald. For example:

Now the fact that the Bible tells us there is "evening and morning Day One", comes to teach us time from a Biblical perspective. Einstein proved that time varies from place to place in the universe, and that time varies from perspective to perspective in the universe. The Bible says there is "evening and morning Day One".

Today, we look at time going backward. We see 15 billion years. Looking forward from when the universe is very small - billions of times smaller - the Torah says six days. In truth, they both may be correct. What's exciting about the last few years in cosmology is we now have quantified the data to know the relationship of the "view of time" from the beginning, relative to the "view of time" today. It's not science fiction any longer.

The calculations come out to be as follows:

    * The first of the Biblical days lasted 24 hours, viewed from the "beginning of time perspective." But the duration from our perspective was 8 billion years.
    * The second day, from the Bible's perspective lasted 24 hours. From our perspective it lasted half of the previous day, 4 billion years.
    * The third day also lasted half of the previous day, 2 billion years.
    * The fourth day - one billion years.
    * The fifth day - one-half billion years.
    * The sixth day - one-quarter billion years.


Gerald Schroeder is quoted on another site - God and Science (http://www.godandscience.org/)... I like the scientific explainations, but I don't like some of the answers to atheists and especially about heaven and hell.

For example:

The classic Christian interpretation of hell is a place of eternal torment. However, the Bible also includes a number of verses that suggest that those who are condemned to hell are eventually destroyed. Here is a list of verse citations that promote each scenario (see the  references to read the verses themselves):
Eternal torment: Matthew 8:29, 18:8, 25:41, 46, Luke 16:23-24, 28, Hebrews 6:1-2, 2 Peter 2:9, Jude 1:7, Revelation 14:119
Eternal destruction: Matthew 7:13, John 5:24, John 8:51, Romans 6:21, 23, 9:22, 2 Corinthians 7:10, Philippians 3:18-19, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, James 1:15, 1 John 3:14, 2 Peter 3:7, 3:16, Revelation 2:11, 19:20, 20:6, 10, 14-15, 21:810
It is possible that hell will involve both torment (until the day of judgment) and eventual destruction.


.. thus saying that either Eternal Torment or Annihilation is possible. No words for universalism.

[WhiteWings]

Martin,

I've always understood the Bible to teach that God set the earth on nothing.

Hangeth on nothing. => gravitational forces.

Genesis one is something that must be understood from the perspective of an observing on the world's oceans.

I think it's observed from deep space. Different space time coordinates that bring billions of years in alignment with 6 days.

That's where the account is being told to us from, because it says that the Spirit was hoovering over the face of the waters.

Or the hydrogen cloud from the Big Bang. There's a nice movie on YouTube about this. I'll try to look it up.

There was light in the universe, but there was no light on the surface of the world's oceans. The earth's atmosphere is dense at this point.

But the sun was created after the light. Light can mean something different too.

And when it comes to evolution, animals can change according to a very wide spectrum of genetic possibilities that were preprogrammed into them.

I'm not saying you are meaning it but; the books I quoted reject 'classic evolution'
Science also has lets call it the "Cambrian explosion" theory. Basically there was very very simple life for a very long time without any evolution. Then suddenly all kinds of more complex life appeared.
About the genetic makeup...
Question to B_T: Can you confirm that a certain alge has a far more complex genetic makeup as all other life?

[martincisneros]

Western Christian biblical references Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same tradition, Psalm 104:5 says, "the LORD set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place, etc."

According to Sir Frederick Hoyle, the geocentric and the heliocentric perspectives of the universe are complete equivalents.  This would be because the entire universe is in constant motion, yet each of the planets and star bodies are maintaining their proper relationship to one another.  So that if our solar system were a few lightyears from here a few years ago, relative to the expansion of the universe, when they moved over here, they're still in their proper orbits.  The world IS FIRMLY ESTABLISHED that it can't be moved from it's relative orbits around the sun and in it's relationship to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the rest of the planets.  Another thing that you've got to take into consideration about passages like that is that they're often referring to Israel and to Jerusalem so that the Psalmists could also be understood to be saying that while they were maintaining good faith with the Mosaic Covenant that there was no one to be able to strip the land from their hands or no great calamity could overtake them or their land.  Also, "not being moved" tends to be a Covenant phrase with regards to God's people.  Consider Psalm 112 when you have a chance.  All of these passages are easily prophecies of the millenium and beyond when the Lord has His proper place in the hearts of all men.  These four passages that you cited seem to particularly contain that idea -- Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, and 1Chronicles 16:30 -- because they're each in relationship to the Lord reigning.  To every Jew reading that passage, the foundation that the Lord would have set the earth on would have been the Torah, to where if you added or removed a single letter from it, or even a single grammatical mark, then you'd change the whole universe.  That was the quantum nature that they saw in each letter of each Word that God spoke.  Assuming for a minute that there were actual foundations that the Word was talking about, those are clearly revealed to us by superstring theory and the multiverse version of quantum mechanics.  The earth is set in a certain location with regards to every other particle of the whole universe, although absolutely all of it is in constant motion.  Yet because each star body maintains it's proper relationship to every other star body, etc., the geocentric and the heliocentric views of the universe are completely equivalent, as I'd already noted that Sir. Frederick Hoyle had said.  The Bible is flawless on these points, though obviously our observational data had to mature with the discoveries of the last hundred and fifty or so years as greater and greater acheivements were made with inventions, with mathematics, and with the accuracy of our collected data.

[WhiteWings]

What is death? Can things without a spirit die in the biblical sense?

Oh, wait! This is where their logic is flawed. Evolution has nothing to do with "death in the biblical sense", but as death as a biological process - cellular death, organism death. Nobody claims that "death in the biblical sense" existed before Adam and Eve. If they are the first spiritual beings (putting aside Satan, etc), there's no contradiction between evolution and the Bible.

Sure Martin will jump on this so I just write a few words on it  :laughing7:
Somewhere there are some verses/explanations that God gave both animal animal and man a soul.
But man also got a spirit.
Extrapolation on that everything before Homo-Sapiens had no spirit so is just an animal Biblically speaking.

The other problem is that some YECs have with death is that God said that everything was good.
On this site I learned that it might be good but not perfect. Or perhaps perfect for executing a plan.
Afterall if Adam and Eve where perfect they would never have eaten the forbidden fruit.
The snake that had tricking humans into sin wasn't perfect either.

Even Strong gives states that day can mean a period.

How long is that period?

To keep it in the TentMaker spirit - Aion.  :laughhand:

3117 ~Ay yowm {yome}
Meaning:  1) day, time, year 1a) day (as opposed to night) 1b) day (24 hour period) 1b1) as defined by evening and morning in Genesis 1 1b2) as a division of time 1b2a) a working day, a day's journey 1c) days, lifetime (pl.) 1d) time, period (general) 1e) year 1f) temporal references 1f1) today 1f2) yesterday 1f3) tomorrow
Origin:  from an unused root meaning to be hot; TWOT - 852; n m
Usage:  AV - day 2008, time 64, chronicles + 01697 37, daily 32, ever 17, year 14, continually 10, when 10, as 10, while 8, full 8 always 4, whole 4, alway 4, misc 44; 2274

Simply put: As long as it takes to complete something.

[B_T]

WhiteWings: Look at my comment on the links:

Question to B_T: Can you confirm that a certain alge has a far more complex genetic makeup as all other life?

Answer: I know for sure some of the algaes (especially the brown algaes) have some cellular complexity, actually the cells appear to be more complex than those of green plants. For example the plastids of brown algaes are surrounded by 4 membranes. They are also a young group, formed only 100 years ago.

Whether this is a sign for an extremely complex organism, even more complex than all organisms we know, I can't say for sure.

[WhiteWings]

http://www.abarim-publications.com/Genesis1Theories.html
I think the above link is very interesting reading.
For those interested I also have it in word and pdf format.

About the alge:
I'm going to look it up and scan the relavant pages (with references) if I can find it.
As a non biologist I for now summarize it as:
That alge, the very very first living creation of God, has all genetic info for every life form on earth.
But not all that info is used or switched on. There is a riddle what exactly switches on the correct genes.

[B_T]

According to Sir Frederick Hoyle, the geocentric and the heliocentric perspectives of the universe are complete equivalents.  

A strange conclusion of this man. I have read only one book of him (a sci-fi one, an intelligent cloud).

 

The world IS FIRMLY ESTABLISHED that it can't be moved from it's relative orbits around the sun and in it's relationship to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the rest of the planets.

Oh.... I'm not so sure about that. The orbits can't be changed - catastophism, asteroids, etc...

Another thing that you've got to take into consideration about passages like that is that they're often referring to Israel and to Jerusalem so that the Psalmists could also be understood to be saying that while they were maintaining good faith with the Mosaic Covenant that there was no one to be able to strip the land from their hands or no great calamity could overtake them or their land.  Also, "not being moved" tends to be a Covenant phrase with regards to God's people.  Consider Psalm 112 when you have a chance.

I never thought about that.

Somewhere there are some verses/explanations that God gave both animal animal and man a soul.

Even if animals don't have spirit, the Bible says that God can destroy body and soul in Gehenna. Do animals go to heaven/hell after death?

On this site I learned that it might be good but not perfect

I don't know what the Jewish word for "perfect" is and what its meaning is.

[WhiteWings]

Hebrew has 2 words for soul. Nefesh and neshama.
All animals and humans have a nefesh; the soul of animal life. Gen 1:21
Mankind also has the neshama. Mankind has within him both the animal as the Godly.

Hope I wrote that correctly  :icon_flower:

[B_T]

That alge, the very very first living creation of God, has all genetic info for every life form on earth.

Incorrect. The very very first living creation is the bacteria. Algaes appear billions of years later, when photosynthesis as a phenomena evolves.

There is a riddle what exactly switches on the correct genes.

This is correct, however. There's DNA that codes nothing or is switched off.

[martincisneros]

Quote feature did something weird with my post, so I went ahead and dumped using the normal quotes and just shrunk the quote:

Even if animals don't have spirit, the Bible says that God can destroy body and soul in Gehenna. Do animals go to heaven/hell after death?


Well, obviously aside from catastrophies the objects in the universe are in relative obedience to their assigned places in relation to every other object in the universe.  The sun is constantly moving as the universe is expanding.  The sun is moving with the expanding universe and so is the earth and everything else in the universe.  Yet everything is maintaining it's relationship to everything else.  Again, within reason and allowing for delinquent astroids just as God allows for prodigal sons :icon_jokercolor:

It's actually a misnomer about animals that they don't have spirits.  They do.  And they have very specific covenant promises from God in the Scriptures. 

The Bible doesn't say that God destroys both body and soul in Gehenna.  Jesus said to fear him that can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna and in the context Jesus was addressing false teachers.  His next statement contrasted what He'd just said with the kindness of the Father.  The KJV and various other translations presume by capitalizing the "H" on "Him" that can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.  Gehenna is basically the punishment of false teachings, as you look at each of the references to it in the Gospels and in James.  False teachings, false paradigms, wrong beliefs, screwed up thinking, and the abuses of the tongue set on fire the course of nature according to James chapter 3.  The tongue is set on fire of Gehenna to purge it of all of these false doctrines that it spouts a million times a day about a million different things.  But until that fire has done it's total work, then we've got false teachers in our midsts with the religious fundamentalists that can destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.  And I know that before I got delivered from the fundamentalists that I was being destroyed in both my body and soul in Gehenna!! 

As far as the animals, Romans 8:21 indicates that they have to enter into the liberties of the children of God.  When you examine what our liberties are in Christ, then it's obvious that it's talking about additional life forms in the Creation and not just everything that's been created.  The whole creation will be moved out of it's corruption, decay, and what some would call entropy.  But that's not specifically what Romans 8:21 is talking about when it's talking about entering into the liberties of the children of God.  As you examine the whole passage and wander a few verses into the 9th chapter, then it becomes abundantly clear that St. Paul in saying what he said in Romans 8:21 is specifically referring to Hosea 2:18 because he's citing passages about those that had not been God's people becoming God's people which is what the first couple of chapters of Hosea talk about. 

Now, Paul spiritualized the passage and seems to have used Hosea 2:18 with regards to the Gentiles in Romans, but that doesn't invalidate the literal fulfillment of Hosea 2:18 as a covenant with each of the animals.  One of the provisions of that covenant is that God is abolishing war for their sakes and not for ours.  There's probably 120 passages that talk about this covenant throughout the Bible.  I could startle everyone with passages that specifically indicate a timing on that, but I'll leave it alone for the time being.  Jeremiah 31:27-28 indicates that just as man had experienced an era of the ministration of condemnation, that so had the animals, and that just as God was taking man out of that, He was taking the animals out of that as well.  We're in the general era where God's attention is moving towards the animals.  Several passages that talk about it indicate that His dealings with them would be as when God brought Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders. 

Obviously, for Isaiah 11 to come to pass there has to be a transition or a series of transitions.  I've studied this far enough over the last 11 years to know that Isaiah 11 should be taken literally.  The full armour of God is briefly mentioned in the passage indicating that it predates the devil being locked up for a thousand years.  Again, with war being stopped for their sakes per Hosea 2:18, it's very likely a provision of their covenant for him to be bound a thousand years.  Because otherwise, why bother with it until the White Throne Judgment, when you think about it?  Mark 4:30-32 promises rest to the birds as the Kingdom is reaching maturity.

[B_T]

Thank you for the long answer, Martin, but it confused me a lot. I feel there will be a lot of things I will learn some day, but not now.

[WhiteWings]

That alge, the very very first living creation of God, has all genetic info for every life form on earth.

Incorrect. The very very first living creation is the bacteria. Algaes appear billions of years later, when photosynthesis as a phenomena evolves.

There is a riddle what exactly switches on the correct genes.

This is correct, however. There's DNA that codes nothing or is switched off.

Of course you are right. Bacteria becomes before alge. But it doesn't really matter in this case.
The point is, as I understood it, that lifeform-X had all the genetic codes for becoming human, rhino and hamster among other things...
So in my over-simplification the correct parts of the genes where not 'switched on'.
The main point of the page I still haven't found is that this lifeform that apears simple was in fact very complex.
And that uproots Darwins tree. The simple lifeform 'everything' evolved from was/is more complex than what evolved from it. (speaking DNA wise)
During the few million years of the cambrian explosion suddenly many switches got pulled and all kind of complex life suddenly came into existance.

Another sleepless night. I hate it when I can't back up a claim I made  :sigh:  :thumbdown:  :dontknow:

[martincisneros]

Thank you for the long answer, Martin, but it confused me a lot. I feel there will be a lot of things I will learn some day, but not now.

I just hope that I wasn't too confusing on the matter.  I allow for St. Paul to have been bending the passage in Hosea just a wee bit in building his argument for the salvation of all of mankind, just as any really zealous preacher before and since has "taken liberties" when building their case, with first building their tedious case very carefully and then summing up with basically throwing the kitchen sink at everyone with every other passage they could think of that could remotely include their particular concept of something.  But Romans 8:21 has a primary meaning in my understanding that's often overlooked because it's the challenging interpretation on a few levels.  And referring back to a former post:

I think it's observed from deep space. Different space time coordinates that bring billions of years in alignment with 6 days...But the sun was created after the light. Light can mean something different too.

No, the account is being told to us from the surface of the world's oceans.  The Hebrew for the first verse indicates that God created the whole space time demension and everything else, including the planets, the stars, and anything else you can think of in the universe.  So, everything's already out there, but the earth still has an atmosphere similar to perhaps Jupiter or Saturn with all of those primordial gasses.  The passage in Genesis 1 doesn't say that God was creating light at that time, but saying "Let there be," or in other words let the light become visible to an observer on the surface of the world's oceans.  Hebrew for some reason is rich in verbs but poor in nouns.  The first verse indicates that God's creating absolutely everything brand new, and that's said regarding the animals and mankind. 

But everything else seems to have just been a setting of things in order so that advanced life could exist on the planet.  The "Let there be light" passage wasn't the creation of light before the sun was formed.  The sun, moon, and stars simply gradually became more and more visible from the surface of the planet earth.  The sun was created in Genesis 1:1.  I'm not reading science into the chapter.  The interpretation is that radically different when you allow verse 2 to establish the point of view of an observer on the surface of the earth's waters.  On day one the sun is starting to become slightly visible on the earth to enable photosynthesis.  On day two a stable water cycle is being set up.  On day three you've got vegetation that is in a greenhouse environment and starting to boom with life, fruits, and veggies as vegetation typically does in a greenhouse.  On day 4 the atmosphere has become transparent.  It had only been translucent since day 1.  It was totally opaque previous to that.  And on days 5 and 6 you've got all of the animals, as well as Adam showing up to the buffet that God had set up.  More advanced life needed the atmosphere to be transparent.  You need a good shot of clear sunlight for vitamin D and for other reasons.  Probably on day 4 the constellations were assigned their Messianic meanings that the descendants of Adam would talk about in future generations.  But they weren't created at that time.  They simply became clearly visible on the earth.  Genesis 1 is such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful chapter, that as I said has everything correctly described and in the correct order when compared with the scientific record.  As far as how old everything is and how long each "day" was, just as with everything else that we've been studying, it was as long as it needed to be.  I never lose my cool with the 24hr a day literalist on the 6 days of Creation, although the Rabbis will typically envision 7 days of creation with God creating the blessing on the 7th day, but that's another subject entirely.  The earth's rotation was slightly faster then than it is now, so it could have been 6 twenty three hour days or each day could be hundreds of millions of years.  Or entropy could be worse than any of us have ever had any idea and the young earth creationists could be right, when you consider that the electromagnetic field of the planet was 10 times greater back then than it is now, but running at the correct frequency to support rather than to harm life.  There's no telling how that messes with the numbers to have had the battery of this planet gradually dying since the fall.  Although sunspot activity with the sun seems to pinch and recharge the earth's magnetic field, particularly at the poles with the aurora borealis and the aurora australis, which may be fragments of the old firmament still in place after it was shattered at the deluge.  But I'm not dogmatic about that.  Perhaps in it's present form that's all the "firmament" was ever meant to be.  Or perhaps in previous millenia it was slightly bigger.

[Paul Hazelwood]

OK, folks, do you have YEC people here?

I'm a molecular biologist and I'd like to confront several of your beliefs.

For example, the Young Earth, your oppose of Evolution and so on...

I'm not necessarily a YEC, but your intro here is rather vague.  How about giving a outline summary of what you do feel is correct. 

For instance,  saying evolution is true or false does not address the real issue that causes this debate in the first place.   Parties wanting to discuss this should come to an understanding between the terms evolution and descent with modification (common descent).

There is also scientific opinion that the process by which a single cell split and kept increasing information that changed it into more complex organisms with more features does not have to be taken into account concerning evolutionary change in the organisms that are alive and observable today. 

In reality, what molecular biologists have to observe in real time today is not affected by what might have happened long ago.  So if you cannot demonstrate common descent through empirical observation you are not limited to what you can observe and study on the molecular level of what you have to work with now, which is real live organsisms.

Biblical literalists need the age of the earth to match their interpretation of scripture, but in reality, we could have an old universe and much younger life than what evolutionary theory demands.  But the reverse cannot be true, in a shorter time frame you cannot demonstrate the larger molecular changes that  took the  life long ago that has less molecular information and features and changes them to  organsisms with more information and features that we see today.

So, that is why YEC's spend more time arguing the age of the earth.

Scientists cannot demonstrate the reality of a God with the scientific method so they  cannot claim that the universe was made and now appears old in any conclusion they draw, even though that could be the case if an entity indeed created it.   It is also true that God could have set things in motion exactly how peer reviewed secular science is theorizing it happened and the biblical story does not need to be physically literal in order for it to be true.  And none of that detracts from the truth of the bible to be Gods word for us.


The biblical literalists have shown that eventually even their scientists have to accept the data through the scientific method.   They have been forced by the scientific method to drop many of the old arguments such as "moon dust" and very significantly  new species.

Sure "now" they maintain that the new species is still a "like kind"  but the point is that at one time their scientists drew the line between micro and macro evolution to macro being a new species of any kind whatsoever,  so they have had to change their stance on that.

And an even greater problem,  scientists or people that use science to say that we can prove or deny a God miss what the scientific method is used for.

Early scientists theorized that if a God created everything they would find order in what appears to be chaos and they were correct.  Does this prove God?  No, but it is a valid hypothesis that could be possible.  And often the possibility of a God creating something can cause scientists to ask questions about data that they may not otherwise.

However, when trying to find a cure for cancer, the molecular biologist does not gain anything in the study of what we have to observe by stating that there is a hypothesis that God may have created all of this.

[martincisneros]

The scientific method actually came from the Bible.  Renaissance researchers noticed patterns when the Bible was describing physical events.  Genesis 1 follows the scientific method.

[WhiteWings]

I think it's observed from deep space. Different space time coordinates that bring billions of years in alignment with 6 days...But the sun was created after the light. Light can mean something different too.

No, the account is being told to us from the surface of the world's oceans.

Do you belive in the 6 day yec age or the scientific age?
If the scientific age how do you align 6 days with billions of years?


Few scanned pages on age and dna: http://www.yousendit.com/download/bVlBdFdSbEFYSHpIRGc9PQ

http://www.genesisbigbang.com/ => little movie

[Paul Hazelwood]

The scientific method actually came from the Bible.  Renaissance researchers noticed patterns when the Bible was describing physical events.  Genesis 1 follows the scientific method.

I believe that to be true.   The issue that seems to arise is that if an old earth / universe and evolution (common descent) can be proven false that proves God exists.  Do you believe that?