Maybe you can explain it then, and show me the verses.
When God said "let the land produce living creatures ...." Genesis 1:24, HOW did that happen?
Did he create all kinds of fish, birds, animals and insects and they all immediately appeared, fully grown - or did he make 3 different species of bird, fish etc which produced other species as they mated with each other?
Did he create fully grown frogs, or tadpoles; cubs or adult lions? Did he create saplings or fully grown trees that, if you cut them down had no rings in them because they were brand new, 1 minute old creations?
When he said "let there be lights in the sky ....", Genesis 1:14, did the massive ball of light and fire that is the sun appear from nowhere, or did God have to first make a few chemicals that he threw into the air and became the sun - just suspended there in space?
How did all these things appear after God spoke?
The verses are there. He created it all... the same way He turned the water to wine and fed the 5000 and healed the blind.... Or... do you want to medically, scientifically and the chemistry on all of His other miracles.
Birds, trees, flowers, cows, elephants... instant adults.
HOW did God create man from dust? I've read of people who, somehow, manage to carve things out of specks of dust with the aid of a powerful magnifier, but that creation still remains dust. How did mankind go from being a tiny speck of dust to being living, breathing 5 foot + high humans? Which Bible verses explain that process?
I believe the bible states that He did it with His hands. He is the only being, in the universe, that can create and give life. Even the life of a conceived child is just the combined life of a living sperm and an living egg... that got life from another sperm and egg... which got life from... well.. you know...
In the end.. it all comes down to that one breath of life into Adam... Ya.... Eve's life came from Adam's living rib. All human life started with the breath of life that made "man" a living being.
If you want to know all the details of the powers and all that He used.. you'll have to ask Him.
Even Job chapters 38-41 which has fantastic descriptions of the sea being shut up behind doors, or "tipping over the water jars of heaven", Job 38:37, or of horses "leaping like locusts", Job 39:20, does not explain these things.
I don't have to know the procedure and chemical formulae or the methods and chemistry of all that God did at these various times.. He created science, chemistry, electrical and magnetic properties.. Even time... He lives outside of all of these and has total domination over them.
Yet the lights in the sky to "separate the day from the night", were only created on "day" 4. How does that work then; where are the verses which explain it?
I don't think it matters what day they were created on. Is there anything on this earth that cannot live with or without light for a couple of days even a week?
I have no idea why this stumps people or is even an issue.. God was on site at work... In total control. Christ was probably the source of light.. before the sun anyway..
This was to show that the information, in the Bible is not hearsay. It is eyewitness account from Adam as told to his descendants... not a folk tale passed on around the campfire... The "and?" part is answered by the part of my post that you left out.....
"This was not an ancient story.. It was like me telling my son what my Grandfather told me....That's very recent."
No one's said that they didn't exist.
Did I say that they did? My point is explained above.
Absolutely... I would rather believe an account that gives an explanation and an origin.. Not one that starts off with life and will not give an answer as how life got here.
It's like telling the officer your sorry for speeding and when he asks where you got the car you just say... "That's not important... let's just start with the fact that we have the car......
I don't accept the "Well, after the living organism mutated" without explaining where this "organism" got it's life.
It's one simple fact that the whole idea hinges on. It can't start with "don't worry about that.. let's just say it's alive and not worry about the how.... er... cause we have absolutely no idea.. so we'll skip that and get to how it mutated into thousands of other living organisms over billions of years."
Without life... the theory is dead.
The Bible doesn't explain HOW all these things were created. Only that God spoke and somehow, at some point, they came to exist - they came into being because God spoke, wanted and planned that they should.
Yep, there you go.. God didn't tell us how other than... He spoke.... it happened. That's how powerful He is. It's really not important to know the rest. If you believe that this is what happened and that He is a just and righteous God... who cares?
Evolution cannot explain origins - God; the Bible does not explain process - either evolution or something else. It could have done if it were a science textbook, but it isn't.
Then why is Darwin's book called "The ORIGINS of the species"? The bible doesn't state the process because there was none... God spoke and wow... a cow.
Evolution doesn't explain the origin. The bible gives the origin. Evolution only gives theoretical, hypothetical list of proposed processes..with no explanation of where the "life" part came from.
All of which contradict the fact that nothing moves from chaos to order.. all things move from order to chaos.
I'm not a scientist, but I don't think so - and there is nothing in the Bible which says that Genesis 21 has to be taken literally.
So at what point do you start taking the biblical text literally? When the axe head floats, the donkey talks, the Red Sea opens up, the burning bush, the lions mouths are sealed, the fiery furnace doesn't burn the men, Elijah brings the fire from heaven, Christ died and rose again?????
I prefer to believe that the bible is literal... from Genesis1:1. This doesn't create a single issue.
Oh and as far as the "Christ is a door" argument.. It's basic comprehension of context.
Years ago when I was on the "Religion" boards of the BBC website, there was a creationist who often argued that the earth was made in 6 literal days because God said that it was, and that anything which suggested that the earth was older than 6,000 years old - like fossils - was either a lie planted by the devil or was a test from God to see who would believe in him.
The problem was that he found himself in debate with people who had studied, and were qualified in, astronomy, geology, zoology, palaeontology etc who tore his arguments to pieces. The end result was that, far from bearing witness to Scripture, this man just made himself look foolish - his arguments were easily shot down and he had no answer for the scientific facts only "what you are saying/showing me isn't true; the Bible is."
Well, very few of us that hold to the 6 days of creation have the education to debate those in those fields.
Instead, I, who works at applied science.... understand that any analytical instrument that I have ever operated... must be calibrated in order to be accurate. For this to take place you must have known accredited standards for the metric you are going to measure. I can buy a thermometer from a store and it will read boiling water at 90 degrees.. So.. I calibrate it by a known standard... and adjust it to read 100 degrees in boiling water.
Just what are these people using as a calibration standard to tell them that something is 2 billion years old... This method is, although accepted.... very unreliable.
When it is all boiled down.. I'll take the words of God over any guy in a white lab coat.
And... there are people in those fields that still hold to 6 days of creation. You won't see many of them shouting from a mountain top as they would lose their credentials, funding, tenure... career.
If Genesis 1 is to be taken literally, then everything was created within 72 hours - after about a fortnight, the tallest tree would only be 2 weeks and 3 days old, assuming it had been created fully formed. Although how anyone could measure an hour when a) God is outside time, b) the sun and moon weren't created til day 4 and c) humans weren't created until day 6 and had no concept of when everything else was created, is anyone's guess.
Simply due to the facts that:
1/ Just because God is outside the constraints of time.. does not mean He doesn't understand it and is able to measure it and state that "there was evening and morning, the first day"..
2/ The sun and moon are not necessary to measure time. They do not dictate what time is. They mark it. God created a "day" and set up the sun and moon to work within it.. but... That doesn't mean that if the sun blew up.. your clock wouldn't know what an hour was. A day is a day is a day.. before the sun.. God just synchronized it with His already existing time.
3/Adam was created and taught what happened.. Is God's word not good enough? God even got Adam to name all the animals.... God and Adam and Eve had a pretty close relationship. It was not "anyone's guess".
But.. you are free to believe as you do. These are my opinions.
No, our salvation is dependant on us accepting that we can never do enough, or anything, to atone for our sin and accept God's love, and that all is possible because Jesus went to the cross for us. Salvation is through Jesus alone, who died to reconcile us to God.
You missed my point.
You solidly believe that Christ died on the cross and rose again, conquering death.. as payment for your sins... because it is written. As are all of the other totally scientifically impossible things that Jesus did.
You believe these other contradictions in and of science.. because ... if you did not.. you would have no basis for your salvation
You can toss out and disregard these other contradictions in and of science in Genesis because your salvation is not dependent on them.
However, you cannot cherry pick what unscientific writings you can or cannot believe... The bible is the word of God.. If parts of it are false.. how do you know which ones..
So.. you hold on to a few miracles of science.. your soul is safe... and you question and contradict and argue the rest.
As for myself.. I'll believe all of it.
Let me ask you one question..
Is there anything in the Genesis 6 days of creation that would be impossible for God?
What a person believes about the origins of the universe, doesn't change that
True.. However we are not to be stumbling blocks are we?
If you make a mockery of Genesis and state that the wisdom of men trumps the words of the bible.. a non believer would rightly question all the words in the book.
You cheery pick and accept enough to grant your belief in salvation through the blood of Christ.
Non believers have no salvation. Ridiculing the content of the Bible.. may keep them from ever seeing that all of it is true.. It may also lead them to believe non of it.
I don't believe that those tricked into nonacceptance of Genesis are not saved... Not at all..
I just don't know why they would hold on to the wisdom of the creation when the creator has told them what happened.
creationists are sinners and need the Lord just as much as evolutionists do.
Absolutely.