Is God a liar?

[JacksBratt]

No - it's not that the proposed altered number are "invalid" - it's that they are all thrown off by the exact same amount, even though the different methods are unrelated.

Like what? Carbon dating, dendrochronology, speleotherms, varves, ice cores and more have all been validated by written historical records, such as when a church with wooden pews with the date carved on them is tested, or the date that history records give as the date a city burned is seen in the varves.

All of those methods and more confirm obsidian hydration, Pb-K dating, magnetic polarization, electron spin dating, and more. Each of those confirms a half dozen other methods, stretching back 4.6 billion years.

Now, what variable are you proposing that would throw off the fact that tree rings form every year, that spring runoff happens in the spring, that uranium atoms decay at a certain rate, that electrons change their spin at a certain rate, that humans write down historical dates, that oxygen diffuses through silica at given rate, that magnetic material lines up along a magnetic field, and more?

What are you proposing that won't just throw these off, but throw each one off in exactly the right amount to make it match all the other "incorrect" dates? Oh, and of course that factor will have to make humans record all their historical dates in their history book by again - the exact same incorrect amount. 5

What I'm saying is this:

If you want to measure something with a new method of measure, you must have a standard, a known standard of the unit you are measuring with...

If you want to measure temperature, you cannot say "Hey, I made this thermometer and it says this water is 1000 degrees..... when you have never calibrated the thermometer with a liquid of known temperature. Even if the water was 90 degrees and your new thermometer said 93 degrees.... by the time you reach out to millions of degrees.... your thermometer is no longer any use.

All measuring devices need to be calibrated. We have absolutely nothing that is solid concrete fact of being certified as being even10,000 years old. Everything that is old is a speculated date. There is no way we can accurately measure the age of something and state it is in the thousands or millions of billions of years old. Any tiny error would be magnified immensely.... if we were even able to state that it was close to being accurate in the first place.

Dating rocks is speculation at best, wishful thinking more likely.

 

[JacksBratt]

No, it's been confirmed over and over - with hundreds of samples and thousands of tests. In fact, it's even been tested by using known contaminated samples and shown that those produce the dates expected based on the contamination.

Besides, there are literally dozens of other proofs our our common descent (evolution). Even if all these dating methods disappeared, and we had no idea how old anything was, evolution would be better proven than the fact that the US Civil War happened. 6

In Christ-

Papias

My money is on God's word.. Some day, look me up in paradise and we will sit and laugh about all the things we were wrong about. I'll even buy you a cup of living water as we sit under the tree of life...

Sound like a plan.

 

[Speedwell]

My money is on God's word.. Some day, look me up in paradise and we will sit and laugh about all the things we were wrong about. I'll even buy you a cup of living water as we sit under the tree of life...

Sound like a plan.

If Jesus can't get me there without your silly Bible doctrine then I'm not going.

 

[JacksBratt]

If Jesus can't get me there without your silly Bible doctrine then I'm not going.

My point was:

Despite or different opinions, regarding the scriptures, we are still brothers and sisters in Christ and some day we will be given the knowledge of all things past and future.

In paradise we will be aware of our errors in our view of the scriptures.

We will all have things we misunderstood and argued. We will all be humbled by our new awareness of truth...

But..............if you don't want to come along with us...............that's up to you.

 

[BobRyan]

Well, What I found it this:

Origin of Old-Earth Geology and Ramifications for 21st Century

The idea of a very old earth developed in the early 19th century through geology and it was opposed by a group of Christian scientists and non-scientists, primarily in Britain, who collectively became known as the ‘scriptural geologists.’


Do you have a source that proves otherwise?

great source document!

Prior to the 19th century the dominant view in the Christian world of Eastern and Western Europe and North America was that God created the world in six 24-hour days about 4000 BC and that about 1600 years later the earth had been judged with a global catastrophic Flood at the time of Noah.3 In the late 18th century different histories of the earth began to be developed and popularized which were evolutionary and naturalistic in character. By this I mean that these theories sought to explain the origin and history of physical reality by appealing only to time, chance and the laws of nature working on matter. God was denied or at least left out of the picture in constructing a history of the earth.

Three French scientists were prominent in this development. In Epochs of Nature (1778), Comte de Buffon (1708–88), postulated that the earth was the result of a collision between a comet and the sun and had gradually cooled from a molten lava state over at least 78,000 years. Pierre Laplace (1749–1827) published his nebular hypothesis in Exposition of the System of the Universe (1796). He imagined that the solar system had naturally and gradually condensed from a gas cloud during an indefinite but very long period of time. Jean Lamarck (1744–1829), in his Zoological Philosophy (1809), proposed a theory of biological evolution over long ages by means of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

New theories in geology were also being advocated at the turn of the 19th century as geology began to develop into a disciplined field of scientific study. Abraham Werner (1749–1817) was a German mineralogist. Although he published very little, his impact on geology was enormous because many of the 19th century’s greatest geologists had been his students

Historic details "matter" just as you point out.

Thanks!

 

[BobRyan]

If Jesus can't get me there without your silly Bible doctrine then I'm not going.

Is that a good thing or bad thing in your POV??

 

[BobRyan]

Simply false. First of all, others as well as myself have pointed out to you many times that Genesis 1 is structured as Hebrew poetry, along with other signs like internal puns and the symbolism in Genesis. We both agree there is symbolic language in Genesis, right? 1 If not, can you please show me the verse where Satan bites Jesus' foot?

Your first statement is not right "in real life" - in real life we have this

Darwin admitted it.
Dawkins admits it.
Provine admitted it.
P.Z. Meyers admits it.

They all agree (and none of them Creationists) that blind faith evolutionism is true and that the Bible is a lie when it comes to the doctrine on origins.. when it comes to the "truth" about what really happened.

There is a tiny group outside that think that you can marry the Bible to blind faith evolutionism. They are free to imagine it - but it does not work. No text on evolutionism starts with "for in six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth the seas and all that is in them" as IF that is how you say "evolutionism".

hence my prior post -

=================================================

As for "What the text says" --

Hebrew scholars of standing have always regarded this to be the case. Thus, Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:

‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
(c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.’
=============================================

Ex 20:11 "11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed THE Sabbath day and made it holy."

For those that missed it

Hebrew scholars of standing have always regarded this to be the case. Thus, Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:

‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
(c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.


Secondly - regarding your point from Genesis 3 - the fact that literal Satan is being addressed through the curse placed on the literal serpent in Genesis 3 - does not mean that we could simply hijack all of Genesis wrenching any part we please into "myth" and "rank symbolism".

As even the atheist and agnostic professors seem to have clearly understood.

Irrelevant. Taken literally, the text of Genesis 1 says that we live on a flat earth, under a hard dome

Just not in real life. In real life we have maps the describe the surface of a globe without having to demand that everyone imagine Earth to be a flat earth first.

That gives three (non hypocritical) positions.
1. Both the 6 day creation and the flat earth are literal (for people who are both creationists and flat-earthers).

If as you appear to suggest above - the logical fallacy of reductio ad absurdum is the only solution for propping up TE in Genesis then the TE argument is hopelessly doomed in Genesis alone.

 

[Humble Servant of Christ]

They believed the sun was a God, yes. Today, thousands of people rush to read their horoscopes......how far we have come.

Many educated people today believe in a flat earth... your point?

I don't think anyone who is educated past the 2nd grade believes in a flat earth. There are some things that are fact like a round earth. I have flown to nearly every continent and the earth is not flat.

If you sat Moses down and taught him about nuclear Physics, I'm sure he would have had the faculties to understand it....I do and I'm no genius. Molecular structures are taught in, what, grade 9?

If moses could have understood it, God would have revealed that to him in the creation account.

In regards to the scripture which you took out of context. The fools who show their annoyance are those that have been indoctrinated by the atheistic academia that brainwashes everyone to believe that men know more than God.
Take a look at the anger anyone will impart if they talk of the farce of evolution, the young earth or the fossil record and the errors of the dating of rocks.

I am sorry to say that all the anger that I have experienced from christians is from young earth folks who immediately accuse anyone who does not adhere to a 6 day creation story of being an atheist.

Watch as "Christians" bend and twist the scriptures to justify a belief that contradicts the simple, easy to understand words of God, in Genesis, that plainly describe, in detail, events that were easily within His power.

I believe that all Christians use some form of context when reading the bible. For example erets is interpreted as the world in genesis 1 but interpreted as land in genesis 4. I don't think Cain was banished from the world. Jesus speaks about slaves but we use the context of the time to understand that he is not condoning slavery for today

I didn't call any one person ignorant or arrogant. How could I do this for you? I don't even know you.

Are you saying there are not educated arrogant and educated people who are still ignorant? There are many people who are arrogant regardless of education levels or IQ.

I know many people who have degrees from university, yet they are not that intelligent. They walk around with chests sticking out and their diploma on the wall....yet they are nothing but hard drives repeating what has been stored in their brain and they couldn't think for themselves if their life depended on it.

.

I am asking you to consider that God gave humanity intelligence and a brain to learn about the natural world. Perhaps He gave us the ability to comprehend the physical world and the laws of the universe so we could see his fingerprints in creation (ie the big bang). We owe much to science such as the discovery of medicines. Is it not possible to state that God gave humanity the intelligence to erradicate diseases like Polio? Science and logic were created by God not by the devil. The laws of the universe are God's laws. God's creative power is perfect and this includes the laws of the universe. There are Christians who are conservative - literal interpretation- bible loving people who believe in an old universe and the big bang (without believing in macro evolution). It was the big bang that lead me to faith. Only God could in an instant create everything from nothing and calculate the exact physical laws to create the universe we see today starting 15billion years ago.

 

[BobRyan]

.

I am asking you to consider that God gave humanity intelligence and a brain to learn about the natural world.

And also to "read" - the Bible.

As Romans 1 points out - even the pagans can tell that the World and all life on it was "made" rather than "Making itself".

Observations in nature confirm - bacteria don't turn into amoeba.
Observations in nature confirm - bacteria won't turn into horses no matter how many generations you give them to try.

 

[Tohu va bohu]

I know this post is going to be too long, and nobody here knows me, so you have no reason to read through to the end. But I thought this might be useful in the present discussion.

The theory of relativity and modern concepts of time actually explain how we can see distant galaxies within the scope of a young earth creation. Scientists say time is a dimension, just like space – hence “space-time.” It also says that there is no such thing as a universal, objective moment that we’d call “now.” Time moves at different speeds and exists at different moments.

So, when God created the universe, he didn’t have to give every star and galaxy a star-date of 4004 BC or whatever. What if, on the fourth day of creation, God not only stretched out the dimension of space thirteen billion light years, but he stretched out the dimension of time thirteen billion years into the past, along earth’s light-cone. It's just a dimension, like space. Then even the most distant galaxy would have been seen the moment it was created; its light had thirteen billion years to get here.

We see the actual light it was emitting, not fake light created en route. Everything outside of our light-cone does not yet exist. Galaxies a million light years away? We see them because they were created a million years in our past, but they’re not a million years old; they won’t arrive at today’s star-date for another million years. They’re a few thousand years old, just like we are. They were created in our past; they are flowing into the future at the same rate as we are, but we can see their light because God created the entire space-time-dimension/light-cone simultaneously for our benefit. This could be the very reason God invented something as bizarre as relativity, to allow the entire universe to exist relative to mankind. We are truly the center of the universe, and no scientific test will ever prove it.

The other topic that has been discussed here is the question of God “lying.” I believe he has much more latitude than most people think. In the passages that say God can not lie, they are talking specifically about his promises and the word of God that he assures us is absolutely true. He can not lie.

But he can do things that will be misinterpreted, and that misinterpretation may serve his righteous purposes. For example, he once scared off the Assyrian army with the sound of horses and an approaching army that didn’t exist. He once caused water shining off the moats around Samaria to look like blood, to trick another army. That was “righteous deception.” It was misunderstood, but its purpose was the righteous purpose of protecting his people.

Lying is a sin, but so is killing, and so is anger. Yet there is righteous killing (in self-defense, war, and police enforcement of public safety), and there is righteous anger (whenever the cause is proper and the motivation is free of any sinful attitude). Why can’t there be righteous deception, for the sake of protection (as when Rahab lied to save the two spies), or to withhold information people were not entitled to and might misuse (as when God told Samuel to say he was coming for a sacrifice, not to anoint a new king; not a lie but a deceptive half-truth to hide the real purpose), for the conducting of a just war (as when God commanded Israel’s army to use an ambush against Ai; they deceived the enemy into thinking Israel was running away scared, as a military tactic at God’s command), or for judgment against God’s enemies (as when God made use of lying spirits to deceive wicked kings and bring judgment on them; God himself didn’t lie, but the lies of the prophets served his purposes)? So a creation that is not as old as it looks can serve God’s righteous purposes, too.

It was clearly God’s desire and intent to give us a natural looking home. The only question is “How natural?” If he's perfect in wisdom and power, would you expect any "flaws" that reveal it's not natural? He did it this way to leave room for faith, so that we would believe that the heavens and earth were formed at God’s command, by faith, not by sight.

The Bible warns us not to test God, that is to force him to prove he is to be trusted to our satisfaction before we will deign to believe him, so he gave us a planet that won’t let us test him; it will not in any way, shape, or form prove scientifically that it was created by God precisely as he says in his word to satisfy our demand for proof. The heavens declare the glory of God; they just don’t prove it.

It’s not that God wanted to deceive anybody, but that he wanted to withhold the proof to which we are not entitled. Yet how else could he possibly withhold proof that he is the Creator unless the natural home he gave us looks so very natural that no scientific test, experiment, or observation will ever distinguish a young world from an old one, a created world from an evolved one? God tells us clearly and plainly that he created us; only someone who is unwilling to take God fully at his word will be deceived to think otherwise.

But every time a scientist finds one more piece of evidence that doesn’t disprove evolution, he concludes that it proves evolution, and others believe him because he is smart and his theories make sense. An appearance of age (a perfect appearance, complete with every single radioactive dating analysis, every single geological feature, even every single fossil lying in its correct layer of rock) fulfills God’s righteous purposes: 1) leaving room for faith, not sight; 2) withholding proof we are not entitled to; 3) passing judgment on those who do not believe God’s word. God is not a liar; he cannot be. “Let God be true and every man a liar,” no matter how many phd’s the man has or even if the man is you yourself, relying on reason instead of revelation.

You may now ignore me and return to your discussion.

 

[Humble Servant of Christ]

And also to "read" - the Bible.

As Romans 1 points out - even the pagans can tell that the World and all life on it was "made" rather than "Making itself".

Observations in nature confirm - bacteria don't turn into amoeba.
Observations in nature confirm - bacteria won't turn into horses no matter how many generations you give them to try.

Did I say that I believe in macro evolution. I actually stated that I did not and yes there is no scientific proof that life came from proteins. Science has debunked the primordial soup theory already. Not sure the relevance of your post here.

Please read everything before pulling words out of context.

Also Romans 1:20 speaks of God's creative power and divine nature being seen. I think science shows us God's creative power and our abilities to see and understand the natural world allows us to understand His divine nature in creation over billions of years.

 

[BobRyan]

.

I am asking you to consider that God gave humanity intelligence and a brain to learn about the natural world. Perhaps He gave us the ability to comprehend the physical world and the laws of the universe so we could see his fingerprints in creation (ie the big bang). We owe much to science such as the discovery of medicines. Is it not possible to state that God gave humanity the intelligence to erradicate diseases like Polio? Science and logic were created by God not by the devil. The laws of the universe are God's laws. God's creative power is perfect and this includes the laws of the universe. There are Christians who are conservative - literal interpretation- bible loving people who believe in an old universe and the big bang (without believing in macro evolution). It was the big bang that lead me to faith. Only God could in an instant create everything from nothing and calculate the exact physical laws to create the universe we see today starting 15billion years ago.

Ok - you make a good point here - I agree that science and the Bible agree... that nature agrees with its author. But we do not know the age of the universe is any better determine by man than the age of Dinosaurs or life on planet earth. Those guesses are likely to both be in error.

What is clear - as you say -- is that the "Big Bang" is pointing to "in the beginning God said" -- a key detail and difference between atheism and the Bible

 

[BobRyan]

Did I say that I believe in macro evolution. I actually stated that I did not and yes there is no scientific proof that life came from proteins. Science has debunked the primordial soup theory already. Not sure the relevance of your post here.

Please read everything before pulling words out of context.

Also Romans 1:20 speaks of God's creative power and divine nature being seen. I think science shows us God's creative power and our abilities to see and understand the natural world allows us to understand His divine nature in creation over billions of years.

Sorry about that - I did post too soon. I affirm the points made - but not the implication that you did not also agree with those points. for that I am sorry.

 

[BobRyan]

I know this post is going to be too long, and nobody here knows me, so you have no reason to read through to the end. But I thought this might be useful in the present discussion.

The theory of relativity and modern concepts of time actually explain how we can see distant galaxies within the scope of a young earth creation. Scientists say time is a dimension, just like space – hence “space-time.” It also says that there is no such thing as a universal, objective moment that we’d call “now.” Time moves at different speeds and exists at different moments.

So, when God created the universe, he didn’t have to give every star and galaxy a star-date of 4004 BC or whatever. What if, on the fourth day of creation, God not only stretched out the dimension of space thirteen billion light years, but he stretched out the dimension of time thirteen billion years into the past, along earth’s light-cone. It's just a dimension, like space. Then even the most distant galaxy would have been seen the moment it was created; its light had thirteen billion years to get here.

We see the actual light it was emitting, not fake light created en route. Everything outside of our light-cone does not yet exist. Galaxies a million light years away? We see them because they were created a million years in our past, but they’re not a million years old; they won’t arrive at today’s star-date for another million years. They’re a few thousand years old, just like we are. They were created in our past; they are flowing into the future at the same rate as we are, but we can see their light because God created the entire space-time-dimension/light-cone simultaneously for our benefit. This could be the very reason God invented something as bizarre as relativity, to allow the entire universe to exist relative to mankind. We are truly the center of the universe, and no scientific test will ever prove it.
.

Interesting but I think the Bible puts the throne of God and heaven at the center of the universe with all the angels in it - as created, finite beings in that "center" as well.

1. As for universal time - relativity allows all the universe to be in the same "time zone" provided that the speed of the orbits and rotation of other planets around their sun and around their galaxy center is comparable to ours. That is not the complex part.

2. How light gets here is a puzzle. and it is one that God solves on day 1 of creation week "let there be light" before creating the sun.

3. There is nothing in the Bible that requires that Angels, heaven, the throne of God the rest of the universe "not exist" until the 7 day creation week on our planet. That is likely to be the wrong view of history.

 

[Humble Servant of Christ]

Sorry about that - I did post too soon. I affirm the points made - but not the implication that you did not also agree with those points. for that I am sorry.

Thanks for the apology. No problem at all. May God bless you and your family. I believe we both have Psalm 31:14 inscribed in our hearts.

 

[Speedwell]

Is that a good thing or bad thing in your POV??

Well, it would certainly give you something to rejoice about--another believer in Christ gone to hell because he didn't also believe in "biblical" creationism.

 

[JacksBratt]

Well, it would certainly give you something to rejoice about--another believer in Christ gone to hell because he didn't also believe in "biblical" creationism.

You are not going to "go to Hell" if you are a believer....

Although it is not a salvation issue, we have to consider why we take something like the gospel and the whole story of Christ's life, with all it's supernatural events, miracles and unscientific occurrences, to be solid truth. All the while dispelling the literal Genesis as allegorical due to the observations of men.............just because our salvation doesn't depend on it.

To me, it is disturbing that, IMO, it seems like the only reasons people accept the magnificent events of the Gospel, is because the state of their eternal soul depends on it.

I have to wonder, if Salvation was not dependent on the understanding, faith and belief in the supernatural events of Christ's life, we would consider them poetry, metaphor and allegory as well.

So, why do we discard similar supernatural events of creation.....just because the eternal state of our souls does not depend on it being fact?

Was and is the literal acceptance of Genesis NOT within Gods capabilities?

Why then do we doubt it?

Because some men say that what they see is different?

I'm sure that the gospel is actually even more fantastically supernatural, when you think about it.


SO.......as for me........ I will take Genesis as it is written......Let God be true and every man a liar.

No man in a white coat is going to tell me that God was wrong.

 

[Speedwell]

You are not going to "go to Hell" if you are a believer....

Although it is not a salvation issue, we have to consider why we take something like the gospel and the whole story of Christ's life, with all it's supernatural events, miracles and unscientific occurrences, to be solid truth. All the while dispelling the literal Genesis as allegorical due to the observations of men.............just because our salvation doesn't depend on it.

To me, it is disturbing that, IMO, it seems like the only reasons people accept the magnificent events of the Gospel, is because the state of their eternal soul depends on it.

I have to wonder, if Salvation was not dependent on the understanding, faith and belief in the supernatural events of Christ's life, we would consider them poetry, metaphor and allegory as well.

So, why do we discard similar supernatural events of creation.....just because the eternal state of our souls does not depend on it being fact?

Was and is the literal acceptance of Genesis NOT within Gods capabilities?

Why then do we doubt it?

Because some men say that what they see is different?

I'm sure that the gospel is actually even more fantastically supernatural, when you think about it.


SO.......as for me........ I will take Genesis as it is written......Let God be true and every man a liar.

No man in a white coat is going to tell me that God was wrong.

Let me get this straight: You are saying that it is somehow wrong to accept the life, death and resurrection of Christ as real events if we do not accept the Genesis creation stories as describing real events and also that they are 100% accurate literal accounts. Is that right?

 

[Aman777]

You are not going to "go to Hell" if you are a believer....

Correction: Those who have NOT been born again Spiritually by the Trinity will not enter Heaven. Jesus:>>Jhn 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

 

[Speedwell]

Correction: Those who have NOT been born again Spiritually by the Trinity will not enter Heaven. Jesus:>>Jhn 3:7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

"...and believe that Genesis is accurate literal history" according to some of our YEC colleagues. Otherwise we wouldn't be arguing about it.