Is God a liar?

[Job 33:6]

The mountains ARE ancient, but they can't be everlasting in the literal sense, since:
1. we know they are created and
2. we know that someday God will create a new earth

They could be ancient and/or everlasting in a human perspective. For a person who might live 80 years in a good lift, a mountain may last 800 million. So, everlasting may just be an expression of grandeur.

 

[Amber Rosewater]

Me too. They have found a lighter, tree, mans footrpint and other new meterial near dinosaur bones. I hope you quickly realize the "fossil record" is the parished animals from the flood and isnt really used at all by evolutionists when ive debated them. Due to the fact its questionable.

 

[Job 33:6]

Me too. They have found a lighter, tree, mans footrpint and other new meterial near dinosaur bones. I hope you quickly realize the "fossil record" is the parished animals from the flood and isnt really used at all by evolutionists when ive debated them. Due to the fact its questionable.

who is "they?" you mean the creation institute?

 

[Amber Rosewater]

who is "they?" you mean the creation institute?

Nope, acheologists have put this out on the mainstrea artciles. Just look for the answer and youll find the truth. If yiu only look for evidence against God, then you will find it and God will help you become blind. But the bible says if you seek him with all your heart. You will find him and he will draw closer to you.

 

[Speedwell]

Nope, acheologists have put this out on the mainstrea artciles. Just look for the answer and youll find the truth. If yiu only look for evidence against God, then you will find it and God will help you become blind. But the bible says if you seek him with all your heart. You will find him and he will draw closer to you.

Keep in mind that This is a Christians-only forum. ALL of us here believe that God created the universe and man, that man fell into sin and is in need of redemption through the life, death and bodily resurrection of Christ, as revealed in divinely inspired scriptures.
Given that, your comment borders on the offensive.

 

[Job 33:6]

Nope, acheologists have put this out on the mainstrea artciles.

No archaeologists I've ever met or heard of has found a lighter in bedrock. Care to share their publication from those mainstream articles are referring to?

 

[Amber Rosewater]

Keep in mind that This is a Christians-only forum. ALL of us here believe that God created the universe and man, that man fell into sin and is in need of redemption through the life, death and bodily resurrection of Christ, as revealed in divinely inspired scriptures.
Given that, your comment borders on the offensive.

Exactly, then I dont see anything wrong with what I said. Since my implications were to heavily imply we ask God for truth.

 

[Amber Rosewater]

No archaeologists I've ever met or heard of has found a lighter in bedrock. Care to share their publication from those mainstream articles are referring to?

I had seen the article last year and now I cant seem to find it anywhere. I guess you can desregard that statement. The article did talk about how it could be time travel, but endes by saying anything can be fossilized.

 

[Job 33:6]

I had seen the article last year and now I cant seem to find it anywhere. I guess you can desregard that statement. The article did talk about how it could be time travel, but endes by saying anything can be fossilized.

I will believe it when I see it. In the mean time, ill keep an eye out for such information, and will hold my opinion that indeed the fossil succession exists.

 

[Open Heart]

They could be ancient and/or everlasting in a human perspective. For a person who might live 80 years in a good lift, a mountain may last 800 million. So, everlasting may just be an expression of grandeur.

Exactly. It's not literal. It's phenomenological, which is a form of figurative speech.

 

[Open Heart]

The bible says, let man be liars and God true.

My question is rhetorical question. The answer is obvious (God doesn't lie), and is meant to direct to reader to my point, which is that the Earth is billions of years old.

 

[SolomonVII]

For thousands of years, God led mankind to believe that the sun rotated around the world. That was our observed reality. It was common sense.
Until it wasn't.

 

[RDKirk]

For thousands of years, God led mankind to believe that the sun rotated around the world. That was our observed reality. It was common sense.
Until it wasn't.

That is, until continued observation indicated otherwise.

God did not mislead mankind to believe the sun rotated around the world, mankind had simply not yet applied enough Psalm 19.

The ancient Greeks discovered air. People did not initially thought wind was something generated in a distant place or within one's lungs, or created ad hoc by moving violently. The ancient Greeks discovered that wind wind was the evidence of the invisible air constantly surrounding us.

God did not lead men to think otherwise, it just took a while of observation--Psalm 19--to discover it.

 

[SolomonVII]

That is, until continued observation indicated otherwise.

God did not mislead mankind to believe the sun rotated around the world, mankind had simply not yet applied enough Psalm 19.

The ancient Greeks discovered air. People did not initially thought wind was something generated in a distant place or within one's lungs, or created ad hoc by moving violently. The ancient Greeks discovered that wind wind was the evidence of the invisible air constantly surrounding us.

God did not lead men to think otherwise, it just took a while of observation--Psalm 19--to discover it.

We could go one step further back. The cosmology of Genesis was laid out before that recognition that the earth was a sphere by the Greeks some decades later. The description of the earth in Genesis was quite specific in its being depicted as a disk of land with the sky above holding out the water above it; water above, water below, and the firmament dome of sky keeping us dry. This would have been according to what people observed of nature at the time too. Flat earth is the reality for people who never travel more than thirty miles from the place that they were born.

In the end, all Christians have come around to accepting further observations as the better depiction of reality, whatever cosmology the Bible lays out. (And the Bible itself is not a unitary book; it was compiled over the centuries, and as the understanding of cosmology changed, so did the Biblical observations).

At this point though, maybe it is time to recognize that our own observations of nature can and have led us down startling and unexpected paths, and what is common sense now was not always common sense then.
It is not God tricking us. And of course we should adjust our sense of what is true to fit best with what we observe to be true. (Our very survival is based on trusting in the reality of our senses). That is as true with heliocentric spherical planet of centuries past as it is of a four and a half billion year old planet of today, with new observations and deductions about life forms constantly adapting to the environments. We need to go with the best explanation of reality. That is what our senses are there for in the first place.
But, on the other hand, we must recognize that just because we observe it, doesn't mean that it is true. That is where the rhetoric of the trickster God falls short. Further observations as often as not bring us to unexpected and contrary conclusions. If God is tricking us by making everything point to evolving life forms now (and therefore we are morally compelled to believe in evolution rather than an amoral trickster God), then when this latest scientific paradigm gets displaced by further observations, the logic must follow the same trajectory that God indeed tricked us by making us believe in our lying eyes.

For me, respecting the truth means respecting that evolution is the best explanation at the moment, while also understanding that there is much problematic about that explanation when it comes to an explanation for many things about the genesis of human life. At some point though, we really need to drop the rhetoric of that binary choice between believing in our observations or believing in the trickster God.
We have been tricked before by our observations, and we will be tricked again.

 

[RDKirk]

We could go one step further back. The cosmology of Genesis was laid out before that recognition that the earth was a sphere by the Greeks some decades later. The description of the earth in Genesis was quite specific in its being depicted as a disk of land with the sky above holding out the water above it; water above, water below, and the firmament dome of sky keeping us dry.

I don't see "disk" being specified at all in Genesis.

This would have been according to what people observed of nature at the time too. Flat earth is the reality for people who never travel more than thirty miles from the place that they were born.

The Greeks figured out the spheroidal nature of the earth (about 400BC) as well as its circumference (about 200BC) merely sitting on the beach, going nowhere, observing ships sailing away.

In the end, all Christians have come around to accepting further observations as the better depiction of reality, whatever cosmology the Bible lays out. (And the Bible itself is not a unitary book; it was compiled over the centuries, and as the understanding of cosmology changed, so did the Biblical observations).

At this point though, maybe it is time to recognize that our own observations of nature can and have led us down startling and unexpected paths, and what is common sense now was not always common sense then.
It is not God tricking us. And of course we should adjust our sense of what is true to fit best with what we observe to be true. (Our very survival is based on trusting in the reality of our senses). That is as true with heliocentric spherical planet of centuries past as it is of a four and a half billion year old planet of today, with new observations and deductions about life forms constantly adapting to the environments. We need to go with the best explanation of reality. That is what our senses are there for in the first place.
But, on the other hand, we must recognize that just because we observe it, doesn't mean that it is true. That is where the rhetoric of the trickster God falls short. Further observations as often as not bring us to unexpected and contrary conclusions. If God is tricking us by making everything point to evolving life forms now (and therefore we are morally compelled to believe in evolution rather than an amoral trickster God), then when this latest scientific paradigm gets displaced by further observations, the logic must follow the same trajectory that God indeed tricked us by making us believe in our lying eyes.

For me, respecting the truth means respecting that evolution is the best explanation at the moment, while also understanding that there is much problematic about that explanation when it comes to an explanation for many things about the genesis of human life. At some point though, we really need to drop the rhetoric of that binary choice between believing in our observations or believing in the trickster God.
We have been tricked before by our observations, and we will be tricked again.

And that is what I referred to when asking, "Is God playing 'Stump the Dummy' with man?"

Romans 1 clearly states that God holds man responsible for acknowledging the revelation of Him by nature. That being the case, nature must tell the truth--if nature lies, then man is unjustly held responsible for believing a lie.

 

[Papias]

And that is what I referred to when asking, "Is God playing 'Stump the Dummy' with man?"

Of course not. It's important to remember that God speaks to us at our level. He does not expect readers to be omniscient. So when communicating in the ancient world, His words fit the ancient world - they had to, or no one would have understood or accepted the message. Thus, yes, the Bibles describe a small sun going around a flat earth under a hard dome, because if God had literally described our Universe, it would have been too incredible to understand. At the same time, there is enough poetic indicators to show the full glory of a message that may literally show a flat earth under a dome, while simultaneously giving room for our understanding to grow with modern evidence. The words are symbolic, being both acceptable to the ancients if a literalist interpretation is used, and deep enough to grow symbolically.

The ancient Hebrew cosmology of a flat earth under a hard dome is repeated over and over in the Bibles, which has been accepted by Christians from the start all the way up through Martin Luther, and is obvious to modern Bible Scholars as well. In fact, we celebrate this flat earth view every December, because the whole "Star of Bethelehem" story only makes sense with this 'hard dome above us' view. Here (from before) are just some of the places were this is clear:

Flat Earth-

Bible tells us that the earth is flat like a piece of clay stamped under a seal (Job 38:13-14), that it has edges as only a flat plane would (Job 38:13-14,.Psa 19:4), is set on a foundation, like a table (2Sm 22:16, Ps 18:15, 102:25, Pr 8:27-29, Is 48:13), has a length as only a flat plane would (Dan 4:11, Job 11:9, Job 28:24, Job 37:3, Job 38:13, Job 38:44, Jrm 16:19), that it is a circular disk (Isa 40:22), and that its entire surface can be seen from a high tree (Dan 4:10-11) heaven (Job 28:24) or mountain (Matt 4:8) or which is impossible for a sphere, but possible for a flat disk. Taken literally, as the YECs insist we do, any one of these passages shows a flat earth. Taken together, they are even more clear. And many Christians in history have interpreted it as such.

Geocentrism-

The Bible describes the earth as unmovable, set on a foundation of either pillars in water (1 Sam 2:8, 1 Chr 16:30, Job 9:6, 38:4, Psa 24:1-2, 75:s3, 93:1, 96:10, 104:5, 136:6). It also tells us that, although the earth does not move, the sun and stars do move about it (Josh 10:12, Psa 19:4-6, 50:1, Ecc 1:5 (note “returns”, not perspective), Hab 3:11). And that the stars could be dropped down onto the earth like fruit falling from a tree (Rev. 6:13). Taken literally, as the YECs insist we do, these verses show geocentrism. And Christians in history have interpreted it as such.

We live in a Planetarium-
The Bible describes the sky (firmament -- literally "metal bowl made by a hammer"- Gen 1:6-8, 1:14-17) as a solid dome, like a tent (Isa 40:22, Psa 19:4, 104:2, Pr 8:27-29, Ezk 1:26), that is arched over the surface of the earth. It also has windows to let rain/snow in (Gen 7:11, 8:2, Deut 28:12, 2 Kings 7:2, Job 37:18, Mal 3:10, Rev 4:1). Ezekiel 1:22 and Job 37:18 even tell us that it's hard like bronze and sparkles like ice, that God walks on it (Job 22:14) and can be removed (Rev 6:14). Ex 24:10 suggests that it is like sapphire. Joshua 10:12 estimates how far the Sun and Moon are from Earth’s surface. The Sun was stopped to illuminate the Valley of Gibeon, and the Moon was stopped to illuminate the Valley of Aijalon, showing that one wasn’t sufficient for both valleys (too close). So some basic trigonometry shows that they are therefore at a roughly similar height as the valleys are from each other – which is around 20 miles. Similarly, the whole Star of Bethlehem story in Mt (where a star designates a single house) makes no sense if stars are millions of miles across, but makes perfect sense if the stars are little lights hanging from a dome above us. Taken literally, as the YECs insist we do, these verses show a solid sky above us. And again, Christians in history have interpreted it as such.

Here is a good explanation of this by a well known and respected Bible scholar, who reflects the view of practically all open bible scholars. In fact, the reality that the Bibles describe a flat earth, under a hard dome, underwater, is so well accepted among clergy and Bible scholars that it's taught in most seminaries. Ask your pastor - he'll probably confirm it too.

In Christ-

Papias​

 

[SolomonVII]

I don't see "disk" being specified at all in Genesis.

Okay. I don't see a helicocentric sphere fourth rock from the sun described either. Looking at the Bible more closely is not going to bring that kind of cosmological understanding out. The world view of Genesis was very much like what the world view of the people at the time of Genesis held, and what they would have been able to see with their own eyes from the perspective that was available to them at the time.

The Greeks figured out the spheroidal nature of the earth (about 400BC) as well as its circumference (about 200BC) merely sitting on the beach, going nowhere, observing ships sailing away.

And before 400 BC nobody had yet recognized that the earth was spheroidal. Genesis creation story does not describe that kind of a world, nor should it. If it did it would be sort of like Jesus reciting a bit of Shakespeare as he was traveling down the birth canal of Mary.
It would be incongruent with human experience for people to describe what was totally outside of their experience of the time.
And as the understanding of the world grows, so did the developing stories of the Bible reflect this different understanding.

And that is what I referred to when asking, "Is God playing 'Stump the Dummy' with man?"

Romans 1 clearly states that God holds man responsible for acknowledging the revelation of Him by nature. That being the case, nature must tell the truth--if nature lies, then man is unjustly held responsible for believing a lie.

It is a very important Christian (and Jewish) principle that God does not blot out tomorrow what he ordained as law yesterday. It is the existence of a lawful universe that makes scientific development possible in the first place.

 

[RDKirk]

In fact, the reality that the Bibles describe a flat earth, under a hard dome, underwater, is so well accepted among clergy and Bible scholars that it's taught in most seminaries. Ask your pastor - he'll probably confirm it too.

In Christ-

Papias​

I would disagree that scripture teaches any such thing.

What scripture itself says it actually does is provide a syllabus for teaching righteousness. It uses various means of carrying across the concept of righteousness.

Discovery of the universe is left to the universe.

 

[SolomonVII]

What Does Firmament Mean? Bible Definition and Meaning


Dictionaries - Easton's Bible Dictionary - Firmament
Firmament [N] http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/smiths-bible-dictionary/firmament.html
from the Vulgate firmamentum, which is used as the translation of the Hebrew raki'a . This word means simply "expansion." It denotes the space or expanse like an arch appearing immediately above us. They who rendered raki'a by firmamentum regarded it as a solid body. The language of Scripture is not scientific but popular, and hence we read of the sun rising and setting, and also here the use of this particular word. It is plain that it was used to denote solidity as well as expansion. It formed a division between the waters above and the waters below ( Genesis 1:7 ). The raki'a supported the upper reservoir ( Psalms 148:4 ). It was the support also of the heavenly bodies ( Genesis 1:14 ), and is spoken of as having "windows" and "doors" ( Genesis 7:11 ; Isaiah 24:18 ; Malachi 3:10 ) through which the rain and snow might descend.

 

[Open Heart]

For thousands of years, God led mankind to believe that the sun rotated around the world. That was our observed reality. It was common sense.
Until it wasn't.

We go with what the evidence shows until new evidence comes up so that the sum of all evidence indicates something else. IOW, at one time, the best evidence indicated the earth was flat. Now the evidence indicates it is spheroid. At one time, the best evidence indicated Newtonian Physics. Now the evidence indicates Relativity. Someday we will have new information, and Relativity will be a thing of the past along with Newtonian Physics.