Old Earth, New Creation? What Do You Think?

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prophecy4

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I'm not a scientist, but here is my theory.

What if the earth is as old as scientist say it is? That doesn't negate the Christian belief in 6,000 to 7,000 years of human history.

I don't believe in the gap theory, nor do I believe in evolution.

I think God created the Earth for some other reason originally. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void."

The Hebrew and Aramaic translations suggest that the earth "became" without form and void.

After whatever happened, I believe God created man. A few ancient cultures have myths about multiple creations.

I know as a Christian, we shouldn't believe in myths, but every myth and legend has a hint of truth. To support my theory, here is a Bible verse.

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1:28

How do you replinish something that never had anything on it?
 

rmwilliamsll

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prophecy4

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rmwilliamsll said:
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth,

that is the problem from arguing from a translation and the meaning of the English word.

the word means to fill. no overtones of refill or fill again etc.
just to fill.

Microsoft Encarta defines replinish as "replace used items in a stock"

i'm not sure what dictionary you have, but that's what mine says.

As far as my theory differing from the the gap theory. I don't need a gap for mine to work. Whatever was here before us could have been 10 billion years old before it was wiped out by themselves, God, or Satan or whateve rthe situation was. Then again, I might just misunderstand the gap theory.
 
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random_guy

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prophecy4 said:
I'm not a scientist, but here is my theory.

What if the earth is as old as scientist say it is? That doesn't negate the Christian belief in 6,000 to 7,000 years of human history.

I don't believe in the gap theory, nor do I believe in evolution.

I think God created the Earth for some other reason originally. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void."

The Hebrew and Aramaic translations suggest that the earth "became" without form and void.

After whatever happened, I believe God created man. A few ancient cultures have myths about multiple creations.

I know as a Christian, we shouldn't believe in myths, but every myth and legend has a hint of truth. To support my theory, here is a Bible verse.

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1:28

How do you replinish something that never had anything on it?

The problem is human history goes back further than 6000 years. And to support this theory, we have science. So I guess it depends on whether or not you accept things like archeology and anthropology.
 
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rmwilliamsll

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Microsoft Encarta defines replinish as "replace used items in a stock"

i'm not sure what dictionary you have, but that's what mine says.



i gave you the link to the Hebrew. it does not mean to refill, you are drawing conclusions from an English translation.
 
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random_guy

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prophecy4 said:
if i recall, the oldest artifact that has a known date is about 7,000 years old. the rest is all speculation and tests.

I have no idea where you're getting your information from seeing how you don't make it up with any sources. As for speculation and tests, that's what Creationists tend to call anything that doesn't follow their views.

Here's a review on the review of human arrival in Europe. It's a lot earlier than 7000 years.
http://webpersonal.uma.es/de/ppb/dispersal.pdf
 
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rmwilliamsll

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prophecy4 said:
if i recall, the oldest artifact that has a known date is about 7,000 years old. the rest is all speculation and tests.

my personal favorite:
"Sima de los Huesos", burial of Homo remains at least 350,000ya.
being as ritual burial is often considered the beginning of religion.
 
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prophecy4

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as i said "if i recall" because i just remember hearing it in passing. otherwise i would have backed it with a reference.

interesting how you said creationist say that about anything that doesn't fit their view.

if we're going to be scientific here, the farther you calculate and age to be using the best scientific testing, the farther off you are... that's a fact... and since when does science require actual evidence? evolution for example...

isn't there something called the scientific method? how come evolution didn't go through any steps of that before becoming a theory.

oh and to support my claim about something being here before us, read. Jeremiah 4

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

24I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
25I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
26I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.
27For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end. 28For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black; because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.


please explain where between Genesis and Revelation that this happened.

For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. Isaiah 45:18

I may be wrong, but is God saying He didn't originally create the earth "without form and void?" if so, what happened to make it that way?

again, it's just a theory of mine, i didn't say it was fact. so yes, there could be fossils millions of years old. i stated that the earth could be billions of years old.

my point is, how do we know that the fossils that scientist find are part of our creation? what if they were here when whatever that happened came to pass and we are finding remains of an older civilization?

it's just a thought, not concrete fact, sort of like evolution is...
 
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random_guy

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prophecy4 said:
as i said "if i recall" because i just remember hearing it in passing. otherwise i would have backed it with a reference.

interesting how you said creationist say that about anything that doesn't fit their view.

if we're going to be scientific here, the farther you calculate and age to be using the best scientific testing, the farther off you are... that's a fact... and since when does science require actual evidence? evolution for example...

Please give an example. If you mean how dating an artifact of human civilization gives a margin of error of +/- 4k years vs. dating the age of a fossil gives +/- 4 mill years, then you need to look at relative error. If so, I'm beginning to suspect you don't know about science.
isn't there something called the scientific method? how come evolution didn't go through any steps of that before becoming a theory.

Suspicion confirmed. Please let me know how evolution doesn't follow the scientific method. Be explicit. And if you reply, "It can't be observed" or "It can't be tested" then yes, you don't know science or evolution because we can both test and observe evolution.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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random_guy said:
Please give an example. If you mean how dating an artifact of human civilization gives a margin of error of +/- 4k years vs. dating the age of a fossil gives +/- 4 mill years, then you need to look at relative error. If so, I'm beginning to suspect you don't know about science.


Suspion confirmed. Please let me know how evolution doesn't follow the scientific method. Be explicit. And if you reply, "It can't be observed" or "It can't be tested" then yes, you don't know science or evolution because we can both test and observe evolution.

The problem with the Theory of Evolution is that science has not been able to effectively communicate what it actually is. Most people still believe that it means that man evolved from lower life forms over million of years.
 
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random_guy

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oldwiseguy said:
The problem with the Theory of Evolution is that science has not been able to effectively communicate what it actually is. Most people still believe that it means that man evolved from lower life forms over million of years.

Could you clarify? Do you mean the problem is that the general public has no idea what evolution actually is? If so, that's true, but it's a failing of our public education system.
 
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OldWiseGuy

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random_guy said:
Could you clarify? Do you mean the problem is that the general public has no idea what evolution actually is? If so, that's true, but it's a failing of our public education system.

Not really. I was taught evolution in public school. It was taught as described above. I didn't believe it then (and I wasn't a christian), and I don't believe it now, although I did get good grades in my science courses.

P.S. I haven't received updates on the theory from my old high school so I assume they are still teaching it the same way.:D
 
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gluadys

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prophecy4 said:
please explain where between Genesis and Revelation that this happened.

In the days of Jeremiah when the city of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians.

For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else. Isaiah 45:18

I may be wrong, but is God saying He didn't originally create the earth "without form and void?" if so, what happened to make it that way?

You are confusing purpose with method. Just because it was God's purpose from the beginning that the earth be inhabited doesn't mean that the primeval earth had to be habitable. God can accomplish his purpose in an orderly step-by-step fashion. As long as the final result is an earth that is habitable and inhabited, God's purpose has been realized, even if at earlier stages, the earth was not yet ready for habitation.



Houses are built to be inhabited. That doesn't mean they are habitable as soon as the foundations are poured. The rest of the construction has to occur first.


it's just a thought, not concrete fact, sort of like evolution is...

Evolution is fact.
 
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sfs

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prophecy4 said:
I'm not a scientist, but here is my theory.

What if the earth is as old as scientist say it is? That doesn't negate the Christian belief in 6,000 to 7,000 years of human history.
That still doesn't work scientifically. Human genetic variation would look very different than it does if all humans started from a single couple less than ten thousand years ago. Actual variation looks exactly like it's been accumulating in a largish (~10,000 individuals) population for many hundreds of thousands of years.

And do note that a belief in a short human history is held by some but not all (or probably even most) Christians.
 
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sfs

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oldwiseguy said:
The problem with the Theory of Evolution is that science has not been able to effectively communicate what it actually is. Most people still believe that it means that man evolved from lower life forms over million of years.
The "theory of evolution" can mean several different things. Evolutionary biology certainly holds that humans evolved from earlier life forms over millions of years. You can call that part of the theory of evolution, or restrict the theory to the scientific explanations for how and why humans evolved, but either way, human evolution is part of evolution.
 
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Is it more important to try to bend the scriptures into doing a backflip to read into them what you want to read?

Or, is the moral of the story of Genesis and its meaning what God is trying to convey? rather than an obviously inaccurate science manual?
 
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