The Waters Above the Firmament

Dale said:

Where I live, there are preachers who go out of their way to preach that there is creationism and atheism and nothing else. I have talked to at least one person on CF who was taught that as a child, then found out that creationism doesn’t work. He became an atheist. There are probably many others in the same situation.

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When I was in graduate school, I saw that a lot. Young graduates, having been raised to believe that YE creationism was an essential part of Christianity, lost their faith entirely, when they learned that YE could not be true.

Perhaps you have heard of Glenn Morton? He was a graduate of the ICR graduate school and after working as a geologist, nearly became an atheist until he realized that creationism was a latter-day add-on, not an essential Christian doctrine.
Old Earth Creation Science Testimony - Why I Left Young Earth Creationism, by Glenn Morton

Dale said:

Several times on CF I’ve had someone tell me that I’m not a Christian because I am not a Young Earth Creationist.

Where I live, there are preachers who go out of their way to preach that there is creationism and atheism and nothing else. I have talked to at least one person on CF who was taught that as a child, then found out that creationism doesn’t work. He became an atheist. There are probably many others in the same situation.

Several years ago on CF, I talked to a girl, about 20, who was taught the same thing. When she found out that creationism won’t work, she went through a year long religious crisis when she didn’t know what she believed or if she believed anything. She finally managed to make the transition to being a non-creationist Christian.

Recently, I talked to a man who is a music minister at a nondenominational church. He is studying toward a degree to become a preaching minister as well. He told me that he had taken a test that covered Noah’s Flood. Although he is a creationist, he apparently wasn’t enough of a creationist for the professor, and was downgraded on several questions on the test.

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That's the problem with organised religion, which I reject. God has only one test. Are you alive or dead?

I don't know what "creationism" is exactly. If you mean do I take God's word at face value, then I am a creationist. What is the alternative? That God lies in His word when He says that He created, formed and made everything that we see?

I've not been inclined to read Ken Ham. I do read some "Creationist" web sites.

If I see a conflict between God's word and anything else, I believe God's word. That includes history, sociology, religion and anything else that the world promotes to argue against God's word. Satan's first attack on Eve was to cast doubt on God's word - "Has God said.........?" If believing God's word makes me a creationist, I plead guilty.

The Barbarian said:

When I was in graduate school, I saw that a lot. Young graduates, having been raised to believe that YE creationism was an essential part of Christianity, lost their faith entirely, when they learned that YE could not be true.

Perhaps you have heard of Glenn Morton? He was a graduate of the ICR graduate school and after working as a geologist, nearly became an atheist until he realized that creationism was a latter-day add-on, not an essential Christian doctrine.
Old Earth Creation Science Testimony - Why I Left Young Earth Creationism, by Glenn Morton

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I don't follow this debate at all. "Could not be true". The reality is that no one knows for sure. We were not there. You either believe God or the devil, there is no in between. Satan's first attack on mankind was to cast doubt on God's word. Oh, of course, that assumes that the account of Adam and Eve's creation is true and not some kind of allegory.

Somewhere along the line, people have to live by faith. When the world clashes with God's word, I choose God's word. I am not YEC myself. I do take the Genesis account literally and I reject evolution of any kind, including theistic. And adaptation is not evolution, as far as I'm concerned.

Young graduates lost their faith when they learned that YE could not be true. when they could no longer use their own worldly wisdom to prop it up.
If someone only has faith so long as their reason and logic support it, then what they have is a logical conclusion not faith. If faith cannot withstand logic, reason or the senses, it is nothing more than an idea built upon the sand.

Proverbs 3:5

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

Which is why Peter walked on the water for a moment but then began to sink. He took his eyes off Christ and listened to his own reason. His senses told him what he was doing was not possible and logic overtook faith in that moment.

If faith is built upon logic it is built upon the shifting sand and it will shift and change as often as logic or the senses change.

Dale said:

The Israelites did not understand the water cycle, that the sun’s warmth causes water in the seas and elsewhere to evaporate. Water vapor then forms clouds, which produce rain, snow and also sleet and hail when conditions are right. As a child, I can remember being puzzled when the water level in a glass of water went down even though no one drank from it. “Water evaporates,” my mother told me.

While these things are well understood today, there were not known in Biblical times. We might expect storm clouds to be mentioned in the story of Noah and the Flood. Genesis doesn’t mention clouds before the Flood, but it does mention clouds in connection with the rainbow after the Flood.

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Genesis states that it did not rain before the flood, but the fountains of the deep watered the earth - there was not enough water above ground at that time to have the hydrologic cycle.

To flood the earth the fountains of the deep were opened up and spewed gigantic fountains of high pressure water high into the air all over the world, which fell to earth as rain.

Post flood the earth is 71% covered with water, sufficient to have significant evaporation into the atmosphere for today’s hydrological cycle to occur.

Moses didn’t invent the Genesis creation account - God spent 40 days with Moses on Mount Sinai and gave it to him.

For many decades the standard cosmological model was the steady state model, aka the uniformitarian model, that said the universe always existed, yet all along the Genesis account stated that the universe had a sudden beginning in a point in time, long before science caught up with that fact with the Big Bang theory and proved Genesis right.

Long before astronomy and telescopes existed, the Bible knew that the earth floats in space, at a time when it was thought the earth was supported on the back of Atlas or on an elephants back.

Aussie Pete said:

I don't follow this debate at all. "Could not be true". The reality is that no one knows for sure.

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Absent the worst sort of Cartesian nihilism, it's still very obvious that YE creationism cannot be true. Honest YE creationists, like Kurt Wise admit that the evidence is not consistent with their beliefs,but chose to believe their interpretation of Genesis. And yes, Wise says "my understanding of Genesis." Other YE creationists, like Gerald Aardsma, imagine a "virtual history", a kind of cosmic backstory God left behind to make it look as though all of this happened, even though it didn't.

The reality is that evolution is directly observed all around us, constantly. Speciation is a fact, something even most creationists now admit (although they claim some unobservable limit that prevents speciation beyond points they select).

chad kincham said:

Genesis states that it did not rain before the flood,

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No. It says it didn't rain in Eden. Nothing about not raining before the Flood. In fact, there would have been rain in Adam's time, even if you accept YE creationism. God says there were seas and rivers, which would have required a hydrologic cycle. Evaporation and condensation are a physical consequence of having seas and rivers.

The notion that seas were formed by an eruption of water from the ground is just a modern revision of God's word that is directly contradicted by Genesis. And it would have been catastrophic for all life on Earth if that had happened. The energy required to toss oceans of water into the upper atmosphere would have to be removed as heat. That heat would have steamed to death all living things on the surface of the earth. Would you like to see some numbers?

chad kincham said:

Long before astronomy and telescopes existed, the Bible knew that the earth floats in space,

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That's wrong, too. It says says the Earth is a circle that is suspended. It says the sky is a solid dome with windows in it for rain to fall through.

And in Biblical times, many people, like the Greeks had figured out the Earth was sphere. Would you like to learn how they knew?

Dale said:

I wasn’t going to bring up belief in a flat earth, but you did. You are barking up the wrong tree if you think that the ancient Israelites knew the earth is round. Did they understand gravity? I don’t think so.

Here is one verse that doesn’t fit with your claim.

He [God] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Psalm 104: 5 NIV

How do you reconcile an earth set on foundations with an earth moving rapidly around the sun? As I said, the Bible is not a science text.

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Initially, the Israelites thought the Earth was flat and covered by a solid dome. But by around 300 BC, educated Jews almost certainly were aware that it was round; almost everyone around the Mediterranean knew this.

Dale said:

I wasn’t going to bring up belief in a flat earth, but you did. You are barking up the wrong tree if you think that the ancient Israelites knew the earth is round. Did they understand gravity? I don’t think so.

Here is one verse that doesn’t fit with your claim.

He [God] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Psalm 104: 5 NIV

How do you reconcile an earth set on foundations with an earth moving rapidly around the sun? As I said, the Bible is not a science text.

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The Hebrews knew God's true creation and not the lie one now accepted by a majority of people.

I do not have to reconcile anything, i believe the creation that God created and that is described in The Bible.

It is science that is lying about God's creation not The Bible.

Dale said:

He [God] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Psalm 104: 5 NIV

How do you reconcile an earth set on foundations with an earth moving rapidly around the sun? As I said, the Bible is not a science text.

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The verse you quoted is a psalm so it is poetry or song. It does not require reconciliation to anything. The verse is using poetic language. Poetic language contains truth but is not meant to be taken literally word by word. It uses poetic license to create a picture in the mind but that picture will vary a lot between people.

Given that "He [God] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." A variety of meanings may be drawn from this.
One person may say the earth will not wander around space, that its orbit around the sun will never be changed.
Another may say this means the earth does not orbit but rather is still and unmoving.
Perhaps someone else thinks this means the earth is up on a brick foundation.

But whatever the mind comes up with, it is still just a poetic picture, it is not a historical text. It is poetry, so by its very nature it is open to interpretation.
Because of that you cannot build a doctrine or teaching on pure poetry you need more.

No one said the Bible is science, science is mans attempt to understand the world through his logic and senses, where as scripture if God's breathed word to us, it is divinely given truth.

Dale said:

Thanks for a sensible answer. If the Israelites associated clouds with rain from experience, they usually didn’t say that in a religious context. Maybe there was a distinction between practical knowledge and formal knowledge.

Here are some more verses that say that God and the heavenly floodgates are the source of rain, but do not make any mention of clouds.

Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit;
whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare. The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake …
Isaiah 24:18 NIV

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
Malachi 3:10 NIV

When you live in a dry climate, rain is considered a blessing.

He [God] waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
Psalm 104:13 NIV


Again, water comes from “chambers” in heaven, by God’s authority, but no mention of clouds.

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Elijah's experience was definitely in a religious context. He had just defeated the prophets/priests of Baal, and he was PRAYING for rain. He asked his servant to go down and look to see what was happening, but he didn't tell his servant what to look for, as far as we know--though his servant no doubt heard Elijah praying for rain. What did the servant report? A small cloud. Not rain. Not floodgates of heaven. Just a small cloud. Elijah knew the small cloud would turn into a larger one:
"And soon the sky was black with clouds. A heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm".

Here are some more:
[Job 26:8 KJV] 8 He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them.
[Job 37:11 KJV] 11 Also by watering he wearieth the thick cloud: he scattereth his bright cloud:
[Ezek 1:28 KJV] 28 As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so [was] the appearance of the brightness round about. This [was] the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw [it], I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.

You can ignore these, but it only takes one to show a recognition that rain comes from clouds. You should remove that part of your supposition.

Dale said:

The more I listen to creationists, the more I am convinced that they don’t know what evolution is. For most creationists, being against “evolution” has little to do with biology, it means they are against all of science.

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We don't need to know all the details of evolution to know that it's against God's word.
Evolution requires million of years of living and dying.
Scripture says that death came in due to Adam's sin, yet evolutionists would have us believe it was millions of years of living and dying before man even came to be. Scripture says that death is not a normal part of life but is an enemy, one that is due to be vanquished at which point there will once again be no death.
1 Corinthians 15:26
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

This has nothing to do with science or being against science. Science has given us many wonderful things and so long as it is not contradicting God's word most us are all for it.
Man is working under severe limitations. No one was there to see how God created. No one but Adam and Eve experienced the properties of the original created world and how it changed with the fall and the people who experienced the flood and how the world changed yet again are also gone. That is a lot of missing information.

Everything we know about the earth and the universe indicates great age. I’ve always been interested in astronomy so try these examples. The Magellanic Clouds, satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, are 120,000 light years away, light from there took 120,000 years to get here. The closest major galaxy outside of our own is the Andromeda galaxy, which is 2.5 million light years away. The most distant quasar is over 13 billion light years away. Yes, YEC is impossible.

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"Everything we know"
Everything man thinks he knows.
The smartest person in the world has nothing on God. Whatever man is trying to understand, God designed it and knows it exactly. If God says X is this way and a man says X is that way, I will always trust God's take on it not some man. I don't care what letters he or she has after their name, they are human. Humans make mistakes. Why ask the watch repairman when you can go ask the watch maker?

"Yes, YEC is impossible."
Luke 1:37
37 For with God nothing will be impossible."

Creationists have told me that God created the light as if it had been emitted long, long ago. That would make God a liar, God would be lying to us about how old the universe is. I don’t believe that.

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God isn't lying to you, man is.

God breathed out the stars and moved them into place. Just because natural movement of light takes millions of years does not mean God is held to that same reality. God could have moved stars a billion light years away with the light trailing back to earth in seconds.
It has nothing to do with God lying and everything to do with your own perception of what God can do. If man comes to some conclusion that it must have taken 6 million years for that light to reach the earth that is due to his own limitations. Men have to work with what can be seen and measured but the cleverest man does not have all the pieces, no one was here to see how the original world was created or how it functioned.

I don’t doubt that God created everything. I never did. I would suggest that if you are going to ask if “God lies in His word” then you should also ask, “Did God lie in the things that He created?” or “Did God lie to us when He created the universe?” I don’t think so.

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Its not really about God being creator, I am sure you do view God as the creator, it's about the origins of sin and death. It's about trusting God's word over what men say.

It is far more likely that literalists have either misunderstood the Bible, or the Bible was never intended to be used the way they are using it.

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Exodus 20 is God speaking quite plainly to Mosses. It wasn't poetry or prophetic text.
When God said
13You shall not murder.
14You shall not commit adultery.
15You shall not steal.
He meant exactly what he said, no hidden meanings.
And when he continues on in verse 11 and says
11For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.
He is still speaking plainly. You either trust the text or you don't. I choose to trust the text. It has nothing to do with any church or book or preacher, I trust the text because I believe it to be God breathed and I don't believe God would lie or lead us astray.

Dale said:

Since God only has one test, why are creationists trying to add more?

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Gotta make the club more restrictive? I don't know, why. And Jesus says there are two commandments on which everything else depends.

Love God.
Love your neighbor.

So simple, and yet people always want to make it more complicated. Do those two things, and you can't go wrong.

Dale said:

Coffee << The verse you quoted is a psalm so it is poetry or song. It does not require reconciliation to anything. The verse is using poetic language. Poetic language contains truth but is not meant to be taken literally word by word. It uses poetic license to create a picture in the mind but that picture will vary a lot between people. >>

Coffee, Jesus did not treat the Psalms as mere poetry. Take a look at this passage.

“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to beGod.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, `I have said you are gods’? [Psalm 82:6]
If he called them `gods’, to whom the word of God came — and the Scripture cannot be broken —
what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, `I am God’s Son’?
John 10:33-36 NIV

Here Jesus makes no distinction between the Law of the Old Testament, and the Psalms. Instead, Jesus freely invokes the Psalms in theological debate with the Pharisees.

Among the Epistles, Romans is very heavy with theology. That’s one of the reasons it was placed as the first of the Epistles, following Acts, in the New Testament. Paul quoted four or five Psalms in virtually every chapter of Romans. Once more, the Psalms were written to be sung but they have solid content and cannot be dismissed as mere poetry.

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You are pulling out verses that have nothing to do with the specifics of this thread.
I am only talking about Psalm 104 verse 5 because you used it incorrectly to try and prove a point.

In that case I could pull out one myself.
Psalm 98:8
Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy;
Does this mean I can make up a teaching saying that rivers have hands and that mountains sing words? I think not. It's poetry. Which is exactly what Psalm 104 verse 5 is.
You who laid the foundations of the earth,
So that it should not be moved forever,
You can no more make a teaching saying the earth is sitting up on bricks and mortar than I can say the hills sing. Both are using poetic language.

I am not looking up the other verses as I have no time plus it is diverting off the topic at hand, which is what you are trying to do. Could make for an interesting thread of its own though.

Dale said:

AussiePete: “That's the problem with organised religion, which I reject.”

The problem isn’t organized religion, the problem is narrow religion.

Consider this passage from the Gospel of Mark.

“Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No-one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us.
Mark 9:38-40 NIV

John’s first inclination was to reject someone who “was not one of us.” Churches and denominations have been inclined to do this from the beginning. Jesus flatly tells John that he has made a mistake. Jesus says “whoever is not against us is for us.”

I wish creationists could see it that way.

AussiePete: “God has only one test. Are you alive or dead? ”

Since God only has one test, why are creationists trying to add more?

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Ask them, not me. I could be called a Creationist, although I detest labels and isms that divide Christians. Lord Jesus said that we must be born again. That's it. Doctrine doesn't save anyone. Jesus saves. That's why I have no denomination against my name. Denominations are inherently wrong. Paul rebuked the Corinthians for the cliques that formed around individuals. It's a mark of spiritual immaturity. I have found that the denomination is not all that much of a consideration for most Christians these days, at least in Australia. It's more the hierarchy that want to preserve the structures.