How to explain 13.8 billion years?

DamianWarS said:

myth and allegorical applied to biblical text needs to be done so with wisdom. To blanket the whole bible in allegory is not in good judgment.

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And to argue that LEGAL code is mere myth and Legend -- LEGAL code such as the TEN Commandments is to argue against God's commandments themselves.

In LEGAL code we have this in Exodus 20

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

DamianWarS said:

There are many metapors used in scriptures whether they are literal or not misses the point.

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Not in the legal code of the Ten Commandments. Was the incarnation of Christ a "metaphor" and not real history? Many atheists think so. Same with the resurrection of Christ and bodily ascension of Christ. At some point Christians just have to "believe the Bible".

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;

That sort of literary device is a good example of what we do NOT see in Exodus 20:11 - legal code.

JackRT said:

Which of the three versions of the ten commandments found in the bible do you refer to? Exodus 34 is the only one that actually self identifies as "the ten commandments".

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Why would I reject Exodus 20 where God himself thunders the "Ten Words" from Sinai in front of the entire nation? Why pick THAT chapter to "ignore" for the Bible-ignoring devotee of blind faith evolutionism?

LadyCrosstalk said:

Jesus_is_Saint said: ↑
Anyhow, do you believe the Universe, Galaxies etc., are older than the earth?

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Yes that is true - they are older

DamianWarS said:

The long life of the pre-flood era can be argued a part of the myth but even if true your point is valid only for Shem not for Moses. The Israelites were in slavery for 400+ years of normal life span that you haven't included. And in the spirit of being literal you must include those years in your equation.

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True - but the Bible is the word of God - not the word of Man according to 2Peter 1:19-21 and 2 Tim 3:16 - it is the "Holy Spirit said" when the NT quotes the OT.

Do you really think that the "Holy Spirit is not informed"?? Or needs to have Adam tell him facts about the past??

Their ability to preserve a written account would have been very difficult.

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We have the dead sea scrolls to prove the "preserving text" over many centuries is exactly what they were doing to get us our present text.

BobRyan said:

Bible-ignoring devotee of blind faith evolutionism

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If you are implying that I am such an one then you are quite mistaken.

DamianWarS said:

myth and allegorical applied to biblical text needs to be done so with wisdom. To blanket the whole bible in allegory is not in good judgment.

Click to expand...

And to argue that LEGAL code is mere myth and Legend -- LEGAL code such as the TEN Commandments is to argue against God's commandments themselves.

In LEGAL code we have this in Exodus 20

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

DamianWarS said:

There are many metapors used in scriptures whether they are literal or not misses the point.

Click to expand...

Not in the legal code of the Ten Commandments. Was the incarnation of Christ a "metaphor" and not real history? Many atheists think so. Same with the resurrection of Christ and bodily ascension of Christ. At some point Christians just have to "believe the Bible".

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;

That sort of literary device is a good example of what we do NOT see in Exodus 20:11 - legal code.

JackRT said:

Which of the three versions of the ten commandments found in the bible do you refer to? Exodus 34 is the only one that actually self identifies as "the ten commandments".

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Why would I reject Exodus 20 where God himself thunders the "Ten Words" from Sinai in front of the entire nation? Why pick THAT chapter to "ignore" for the Bible-ignoring devotee of blind faith evolutionism?

JackRT said:

If you are implying that I am such an one then you are quite mistaken.

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I am simply pointing out that Exodus 20 is not the place to "start ignoring the Bible" when it comes to looking at the Ten Commandments.

And of course we all know that evolutionists have demonstrated a pretty good ability to "ignore the bible". (Credit where credit is due)

JacksBratt said:

Only the apostate churches teach the ToE.

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I was wondering how long it would take for the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy to appear.

Me: Hey God, was the earth created in 6 days or 13 billion years?
God: Yes.

God sits outside of time, while we walk through it. There is no past, present or future...only now. tomorrow never comes, yesterday doesnt exist! Everything that happened or is going to happen is happening now!

1day is 1000 is only to explain that God doesnt go through time like us.

If you want to make it literal, please explain why a Just and loving God burns people in hell forever (for those who believe that) when we only got less than 30mins, in Gods times (if you have lived to 80 years old) to try to get right ?

Time is for us to experience, Not God. How long? However long we think it took.

BobRyan said:

In LEGAL code we have this in Exodus 20

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

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Also in the Legal Code we have:

Exodus34:21 “Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest."

Deuteronomy 5:12 "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labour and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day
."

Why three versions? Why do Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 have quite different reasons? Why Exodus 34 so thoroughly ignored when it is the original version and the only one to self identify as "the ten commandments"?

StevenMerten said:

Hello Damian, I do not see your point. Land was created before birds. I do not see the poetry either.

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Lol you're right... sometimes I'm a little "lesdyxic" (look at the word... a bit of a joke) and read things backwards. I was caught up in the parallelism of the days and confused the order, thanks for pointing it out.

In terms of the poetry Day 1-3 God speaks things into being but as sort of vessels empty and void. Day 4-6 God fills or literally as the Hebrew puts it he "fattened" the aforementioned vessels in the order which they were spoken.

"Created" is literally "fattened" in Hebrew. These are not the same thing. Perhaps on an abstract level and English is a very abstract language so it may fit. However Hebrew is a very concrete language and in "the beginning" God did not create the heavens and the earth he "fattened" the heavens and the earth.

Fatten suggests something already there needing to be filled. For us westerners this creates a lot of questions we don't like but this wasn't an issue with ancient concrete thinking simply because they didn't think that way. What also didn't matter in the ancient Hebrew mind was the timeline. It was neither metaphor or literal, it just was the way it was presented and this was ok.

In the first few decades of the last century a great deal of research went into trying to understand oral traditions while they were still around to study. This study was greatly assisted by the use of newly invented sound recording machines. It seems that the storytellers work from a 'framework' but tailor the narrative to suit the needs and moods of the audience at the time. A story is never told the same way twice but the framework itself remains intact. Once such a story is committed to print it becomes locked in place for all time. Moreover once that has happened it becomes virtually impossible to discern what is framework and what is the story teller's own variation on the theme. This is what has happened in both the Jewish and Christian scriptures. What we are reading are very human documents.

Jesus_is_Saint said:

The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

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I have been told before as a creationist that just because something is beyond comprehension, does not mean that "God did it" is the only explanation.

They fail to notice that they do the same thing, substituting time and chance for God.

BobRyan said:

Yes that is true - they are older

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No, that is an assumption based on observation. There is no clock by which to measure the age of the galaxies or universe that we can verify from beginning to now.

Jesus_is_Saint said:

The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

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I found the answer to this VERY question while listening to secular physicists in Canada who were experimenting with "Water Splitting" using light, and "Sonal-luminescence" (basically, reverse water splitting with light)

THE CHEMISTY:
The Universe is made of stars (Hydrogen gas undergoing fusion) and gas clouds (ex: Oxygen). When you burst light energy over water, it physically splits the water molecules into hot Hydrogen gas and Oxygen. When huge amounts of Hydrogen "cool", they condense, and if there's enough, it actually fuses with itself, creating stars. Heated Oxygen gas creates "atmosphere", roughly.

SECULAR FINDINGS of CANADIAN SCIENTISTS:
Their findings were this...
If you explode HUGE amounts of energy in the form of light and sound over a Universal "ocean" of water, everything we now see could have come to existence in roughly the exact locations, in as little as 6 24-hour days (close to 3).

Now read Genesis again...

THE WORD OF GOD:
"The spirit of god hovered over the surface of the waters (Universal 'ocean'). And God said 'Let there be light' (Sound + Light)"

What do you think would happen if God's thundering voice instills ALL the energy in the Universe INSTANTLY in the form of light, over a HUGE universal 'ocean'? You'd get stars of Hydrogen gas and atmoshphere (Oxygen gas) spread all over the universe. And those physicists experiment determined it could happen VERY fast (six 24-hour days)

REAL Science and God's Word ALWAYS agree because BOTH are True, however different their details may be.

I am guessing the original question asked was to help the brother answer atheist who dispute teachings from the early church,scientist who question everything or those who believe in a literal meaning to everything written in the bible. I could be wrong but I wonder if those pursuits are even ordained to be fruitful. We are to preach the Word ( Christ Jesus ) in season and out of season but I believe that was written to preach to believers, not atheist....maybe our best weapon against unbelievers is to live the gospel in front of them in meekness and fear. Those who crucified Christ were not atheist ..they believed in God but did not know Him nor believe Him. Thus the need for "The Gospel " for believers as it were. Find the lost sheep before the day of the Lord and avoid doubtful disputations which work ungodliness.

As already mentioned there are several explanations for this to be. First of all God created time, he is not limited by it like we are in linear time. God could create the universe in a compressed time mode much like a person writes a book or makes a movie. Another thing, is at the edge of the universe, it is still the first day assuming that Einstein was correct. This means that time could be a great spiral with us on a line on it and God in the center and can be anywhere on it he chooses. The big bang proves God, that all matter was in one place before time. There was no speed and no distance. It did take all those years to prepare Earth for humans to live on it. There is a extremely narrow rare envelope that we can live in. God did not need any time at all to design and project the universe. He created time for our benefit and what it meant before us is immaterial. Black holes exist where according to science time does not travel at all. God foreknew that men would say what they do. Why did he say six days instead of 13 billion years. It must be that 13 billion years transpired in six days, our time or some other kind of time, or from time at a distance point in the universe. We don't know and cannot know because we cannot comprehend God and how or why he does things. At some point these mysteries will be revealed to the faithful, but now we know in part.
It is our nature to ponder these things. I think it is all awesome. I think he expects us to take his word for it and be faithful to wait for all thing to be revealed in that day that we are with him in body.
What ever that day means. The key is that lives in the eternal and instant time, we are limited to temporal time. Perhaps that is the meaning in itself. That he created all things and all time instantly and we are just playing it out on the timeline he chose. After all he showed the prophets the future. Our time could be compressed or expanded and we would not be able to perceive it. Everything we see actually is changed by the time we see it because time has passed no matter if we perceive it or not. a whole different universe could occupy the space we are in by being a few moments behind or before us.
The thinking of worldly people is limited to what they can see and measure. We all know that mysteries exist that we cannot explain, that are beyond coincidence. That defy science. We of the faith should know that many things exist that science cannot measure.

'Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. ' - St. Augustine

Jesus_is_Saint said:

The astronomers say the visible universe is 13.8 billion years old,
the vast distance can prove that.
Then, how valid is the Church to insist it is only 6000+ years old?

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The universe from OUR point of observation is ~14 billion years old. The key is FROM OUR observational point in space.

There is absolutely ZERO conflict with what the Torah implies the age of the universe is and what science states is the observed age.

Dr Gerald Schroeder has a unique perspective on this as he has his PhD in nuclear physics and earth and planetary sciences from MIT and taught at MIT. He was a member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, He is currently (as a Jew) is a professor at College of Jewish Studies Aish HaTorah's where he teaches the Torah.



Its actually funny because ~ 50 years ago the universally accepted scientific fact was that the universe was eternal and as such the bible could not be true.... there is however today 1 singularly UNDISPUTED fact that both the Bible/Torah are in 100% agreement on.... that is that the first 3 words of scripture are 100% FACTUALLY TRUE..... IN THE BEGINNING. Science still has not figured out that the rest of verse 1 is also factually true.

Time dilation has a massive effect on what the OBSERVED age of the Universe appears to be from our point of observation.

#2 The dirty little secret is that astrophysicists are at a loss to explain some of the constraints found in the finely tuned universe (cosmological constants) It certainly is a plausible suggestion that when some of these constants are tuned to 1% one could argue that its just random chance. However, when you have a cosmological constant that is tuned to 10 to the 128th power, NO ONE in cosmology accepts that this is a random chance event... it currently has turned cosmology upside down. No one wants to concede intelligent design but to merely chalk it up to random chance is equally untenable.


While one may choose to disregard Scripture, the easily tossed out explanations by most atheists COMPLETELY IGNORES what cosmology has to say about our universe.

JackRT said:

In your wisdom that would account for a sizable majority of Christians.

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That's just it isn't it? People like a nice story. Tickle their ears. Appease the academic world, go with the "science" of men...

But, don't you dare preach anything contrary to life in this century.. Explain it away by stating that the bible is a guide, a book of myth and allegory. Pick what you feel is right and go from there. Follow your heart....

Don't tell them that the book was written to be understood by anyone who could read... no, no, you have to have the wisdom of men, who base the interpretation on science being proven or contradicted, or their mood for that day and who's toes it's going to step on.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... I could give a rip as to "how many" people believe something or follow a certain mindset. Truth is not a majority.

In fact, if something is in agreement with the "majority" of the people of this earth, today, I'm think'n I'm off track and I better take a better look at it.

Jonathan Mathews said:

I found the answer to this VERY question while listening to secular physicists in Canada who were experimenting with "Water Splitting" using light, and "Sonal-luminescence" (basically, reverse water splitting with light)

THE CHEMISTY:
The Universe is made of stars (Hydrogen gas undergoing fusion) and gas clouds (ex: Oxygen). When you burst light energy over water, it physically splits the water molecules into hot Hydrogen gas and Oxygen. When huge amounts of Hydrogen "cool", they condense, and if there's enough, it actually fuses with itself, creating stars. Heated Oxygen gas creates "atmosphere", roughly.

SECULAR FINDINGS of CANADIAN SCIENTISTS:
Their findings were this...
If you explode HUGE amounts of energy in the form of light and sound over a Universal "ocean" of water, everything we now see could have come to existence in roughly the exact locations, in as little as 6 24-hour days (close to 3).

Now read Genesis again...

THE WORD OF GOD:
"The spirit of god hovered over the surface of the waters (Universal 'ocean'). And God said 'Let there be light' (Sound + Light)"

What do you think would happen if God's thundering voice instills ALL the energy in the Universe INSTANTLY in the form of light, over a HUGE universal 'ocean'? You'd get stars of Hydrogen gas and atmoshphere (Oxygen gas) spread all over the universe. And those physicists experiment determined it could happen VERY fast (six 24-hour days)

REAL Science and God's Word ALWAYS agree because BOTH are True, however different their details may be.

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So, Stars are condensed frozen Hydrogen?