Any Hypothesis or Experiment Ideas to test for Creationism

[Gottservant]

Why does something stop and stay stopped?

Why does something run out of energy and stay run out?

These are not things science tries to answer, yet it is precisely the Lord's doing.

 

[Gottservant]

Actually I have thought about this a little, and my reasoning is that experiment, if it is to prove anything, must prove that there is no way to tell if things about God are true, by natural observation.

You might say "well that defeats the point" but remember "we are to live by faith and not by sight". If we could prove that Creationism was true we would not be proving God and the two are supposed to go hand in hand.

That said, you can always find historical evidence that the record Genesis represents is accurate. But you did not ask for historical evidence, you asked for experimentation and I think you will find that unless you get a specific burden from the Lord for this, you will make no progress.

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

It's been some days since I was last here. So I'm going to respond to a couple of posts in quick responses.

Not sure you can distinguish 'from the foundation of the world' and 'before the foundation of the world' they seem too idiomatic, too much the stylistic preference of the writer, to attempt to read a distinction between them. To be chosen before the foundation of the world is to be chosen out of. It was choosing who would be saved by the death of Christ out of all of the sinful human race. Now I am not a Calvinist and I believe from Romans 8 that this choice is based on the foreknowledge of God of who would put their faith in Christ, but Calvinist or Arminian choosing people in Christ before the foundation of the world is choosing who will be in Christ through the cross.

For Paul the cross was God's hidden wisdom decreed before the ages. 1Cor 2:2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

2Tim 1:9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

I hear what you're saying, but there's actually more to what Paul is saying then what it seems like. The reason why I say this is because if everyone who's going to receive Christ is already decided (Not that God handpicked everyone, but that by His foreknowledge, He knows everyone who's going to receive Jesus), why do people continue to preach and have that concern for "saving souls"? And why is God patient, not willing that anyone be lost but that everyone come to saving knowledge?

So maybe the plans that Paul is referring to here, wasn't necessarily about Jesus dying on a cross per say. That God always planned for us to be one with Him, but all this stuff concerning the fall put a short detour in it.


Plus there's Scripture that states God knows the end, from the beginning. In essence, if there is no beginning (when it comes to free will beings), there's no end to know. So again God definitely had plans for us, but the fall of man is a short bump in the road.

Why shouldn't God bring to completion a new creation greater that the first? 1Cor 2:9 But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him" Surely Adam would have been able to image what God planned if it was exactly the same as Eden? Would Adam have been cut off from God if he had died before he sinned? If the sting of death is sin, wouldn't Adam's death have been without any sting or power?

I wouldn't say God's plans for human kind, was just in the Garden of Eden. That was just the starting point. I believe had Adam and Eve not fall, they would have continued in to what God ultimately planned for them. I also believe Adam wouldn't have died had he not eaten from the fruit. Remember he lived almost a thousand years, and by human standards that is unbelievable. So if he lived that long after eating the fruit, who's to say he wasn't created to live forever? I mean between us, why should we consider Adam living forever as weird, and not equally see Adam living over 900 years as weird? So I don't think Adam would have died if he hadn't sinned. That Adam's sin brought death into the world.

Lantern wrote:


That's no reason to give Mary's genealogy - by 10 BC, all Jews were descended from David. I'm descended from David. Practically everyone in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe is descended from David. That's like saying that we would have needed to do an autopsy on Jesus to show that he had a liver, or other organs that practically everyone has.

I don't know if I understand this bit. My understanding is that all the people in Israel at this time descended from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

We can get back to the specific point in a minute (they all are about ignoring the text again, anyway), but first, it struck me that it might be illustrative to compare your interpretation of Gen 1 &2 with that of Luke's genealogy in chap 3.

In the case of Genesis, the text contains many poetic elements and is recognized by most Bible scholars to be likely symbolic for that reason. The majority of clergy do not insist on a literal reading, and there are many other reasons to avoid a literal interpretation.

In the case of Luke, there are no poetic or symbolic elements that are not in Jesus' own words (such as the parables). Bible scholars do not point out much that suggests a non-literal reading.

Now, comparing these two, it seems reasonable to take a non literal reading of Gen 1&2 in places, and a literal reading in Luke 3. However, you are reversing that, insisting on a literal reading of Gen 1 & 2, and insisting on a non-literal reading of Luke 3. It seems ironic.

I'm not saying we should view Luke's geneaology as figurative. I'm saying we should look at the context and statement. How the punctuation is presented concerning the mention of Joseph. The mention of Joseph is an additional statement, meaning it can be taken out and not affect the overall statement. Now it's very clear that this is an additional statement. Yet if you take out just the "as was supposed", you would think Jesus is the literal son of Joseph. Yet Luke already states in His Gospel Jesus is not Joseph's literal son. So the additional statement includes the mention of Joseph, and should be read "as was supposed the son of Joseph". That statement as a whole can be taken out, and not affect the line of descent.


So now if you took out Joseph, wouldn't the passage be read as Jesus being the literal son of Heli? That's where you put together the information concerning Mary. The conclusion would then be this is Mary's line of descent.

Sure it does, because if literal, it means that Mt lied. I'd rather not claim that our Holy Gospel is a lie. The fact that it includes Adam reinforces the idea that Adam's literal life was much longer ago than a literal reading would suggest.

I'm starting to believe the missing names may have been lost through the copying phase of the Gospels. Because as I said before, if you add in those names, you get the 14 generations Matthew mentions perfectly. (Of course since the 14 generations add up to Jesus birth, Jesus wouldn't be included in the names. So the 14 generations add up perfectly)

And if you cut out Jesus, then again, you've lost the whole point of the Gospel.

The reason Jesus is cut out because it was these 14 generations lead up to His birth. So you have 14 generations, 14 generations, and 14 generations leading up to the very birth of Jesus.

Please read Luke again. You will see that Jesus never says that the Good Samaritan story is a parable. That's not to say that it isn't - but it is to say that just because something isn't explicitly labelled as symbolic speech doesn't mean that it is not. Jesus told us about the Good Samaritan, just as he told about Genesis - without saying first that it was symbolic speech.

Plus, Genesis is indeed "by Jesus"- because our Scripture is the Word of God.

It could be the samaritan story was just a story, it could have been a literal thing that happen, but I agree with you Jesus taught parables. Genesis could be a parable/myth/or what have you, but if it is, you learn nothing about our relationship with God from it. Nothing historical. You still have the billions of years of chaos to deal with, and that stares me in the face more than a philosophical story about our relationship with God. It tells me the reality of our relationsihp with God is He doesn't care that we suffer diseases, that He created such a world from the beginning. In the least it tells me He sees those things as good, so there's no telling what else He will do to us if that is true.

Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree here. It's already clear beyond any reasonable doubt that a global flood didn't happen, that life evolved, and it seems more and more clear every day that much of the old testament (like the Exodus) is myth, which never literally happened. If you require those things to be literally historical for you to be Christian, than fine, you can't be Christian without denying reality. For me, I will still find richness and comfort with God, drawing from His word, and finding more to rejoice in with every new discovery from God's creation.

I would have to ask you why do you find comfort in God, if the history of the world is as we see it scientifically? As we still see it going on? Do you believe in miracles? If yes, what reason do you suspect God would want to heal us, if He created the world to operate around death and decay?

Did you read the article? It mentioned that these Jewish congregations were still quite active, drawing spiritual strength from their growing knowledge of God. They, like myself and millions of others, show that simply realizing a verse is symbolic and not literal is something that can strengthen, and not destroy, faith in God.

Well, there are many cults and religions in the world. I want to know what seperates us from them? It has to be more than good feelings. We are literally offering the same amount of evidence to people, as other religions do. Is that really all that our God can offer people? Simple words? If Genesis is myth and the Exodus is myth, words is all that we are really offering people. Yet I remember Paul talking about showing the power and demonstration of God. He called it fully preaching the Gospel. So if that is talking about the miracles, then he didn't offer just words. If the miracles are true, why can't Genesis be literally true as well?

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

Actually I have thought about this a little, and my reasoning is that experiment, if it is to prove anything, must prove that there is no way to tell if things about God are true, by natural observation.

You might say "well that defeats the point" but remember "we are to live by faith and not by sight". If we could prove that Creationism was true we would not be proving God and the two are supposed to go hand in hand.

That said, you can always find historical evidence that the record Genesis represents is accurate. But you did not ask for historical evidence, you asked for experimentation and I think you will find that unless you get a specific burden from the Lord for this, you will make no progress.

An experiment would show how things historically came about, if the world came about as presented in Genesis. Yes, we walk by faith, and faith simply means trust. That verse doesn't say to throw away reason. If we did that, we would be walking by blind faith. If I told you I was the richest man on the planet, and told you just to believe it no matter what, would you? If not, why do we expect God to tell us something similar without reason. Every religion offers up that same amount of evidence. Abraham walked by faith, because he had reason to. It's the same with us. The evidence would give us more reason to walk by faith/trust.

 

[Papias]

lantern wrote:

Originally Posted by Papias

That's no reason to give Mary's genealogy - by 10 BC, all Jews were descended from David. I'm descended from David. Practically everyone in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe is descended from David.

I don't know if I understand this bit. My understanding is that all the people in Israel at this time descended from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
​

They descended from them as well. If you watch the descendants of any one person, they grow exponentially over time (unless the line goes extinct within the first few generations). Another key concept is that we all have many, many ancestors (thousands, if you back just 500 years or so, and millions, if you go back a millenia or so).

For instance, my great grandparents had four kids. Those kids had, respectively, 5, 3, 0, and 4 kids. Those kids (one of which was my mom), had a total of 41 kids (averaging less than 4 kids/person), one of which is me. If you continue that basic math, then within a few centuries, that starting couple will have thousands of descendants.

Looking historically, that's what we see, too. Charles Darwin has around 100 descendants today. The descent of man: We trace those who claim Charles Darwin as an ancestor | Mail Online
Thomas Jefferson has around a thousand. This is true even if every couple only has 2 kids (zero population growth). In just a couple thousand years, everyone on earth will be your descendant if you have a kid or two who survive.

Now, look at David. He lived a thousand years before Jesus, and even by the 2nd generation after David, had hundreds of descendants. So by long before Jesus' day, all Jews (and a lot of people in other nearby areas too) were descended from him.

Try it yourself. Make two columns, with year on one and # desc. on the other. Count down in column 1 by 25 or so years, from -950, and start the other at, say, 400 (Solomon's kids), and double it every line. Overlap means that the numbers can't get bigger than the few million Jews, and you'll see you reach that long before Jesus.

-1000 -
-975 400 (read about Solomon's wives and concubines)
-925 800
-900 1,600
-875 3000
-850 6000
-825 12000
-800 24000
etc.



Papias

P.S. more later. Gotta go now.

​

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

lantern wrote:

They descended from them as well. If you watch the descendants of any one person, they grow exponentially over time (unless the line goes extinct within the first few generations). Another key concept is that we all have many, many ancestors (thousands, if you back just 500 years or so, and millions, if you go back a millenia or so).

For instance, my great grandparents had four kids. Those kids had, respectively, 5, 3, 0, and 4 kids. Those kids (one of which was my mom), had a total of 41 kids (averaging less than 4 kids/person), one of which is me. If you continue that basic math, then within a few centuries, that starting couple will have thousands of descendants.

Looking historically, that's what we see, too. Charles Darwin has around 100 descendants today.

Thomas Jefferson has around a thousand. This is true even if every couple only has 2 kids (zero population growth). In just a couple thousand years, everyone on earth will be your descendant if you have a kid or two who survive.

Now, look at David. He lived a thousand years before Jesus, and even by the 2nd generation after David, had hundreds of descendants. So by long before Jesus' day, all Jews (and a lot of people in other nearby areas too) were descended from him.

Try it yourself. Make two columns, with year on one and # desc. on the other. Count down in column 1 by 25 or so years, from -950, and start the other at, say, 400 (Solomon's kids), and double it every line. Overlap means that the numbers can't get bigger than the few million Jews, and you'll see you reach that long before Jesus.

-1000 -
-975 400 (read about Solomon's wives and concubines)
-925 800
-900 1,600
-875 3000
-850 6000
-825 12000
-800 24000
etc.



Papias

P.S. more later. Gotta go now.

​

I can see your points. This is very interesting.

 

[Papias]

Lantern wrote:

The mention of Joseph is an additional statement, meaning it can be taken out and not affect the overall statement.

No, the only additional part (if any) was that it was supposed, not that the next person was Joseph. The text clearly says that Joseph was the son of Heli. There is a word for son in law, and that word is not used - it uses the word "son". It's clear that the geneology is stated to be that of Joseph. The only reason anyone would even be questioning that is because it contradicts other scripture, if the genealogies are thought to be literally intended.

I'm starting to believe the missing names may have been lost through the copying phase of the Gospels. Because as I said before, if you add in those names, you get the 14 generations Matthew mentions perfectly. ....So the 14 generations add up perfectly)

While I agree that there have been many copying changes to the Gospels, putting those names back in doesn't work, because if you do a little addition, you can see that doing so would put all the added generations between David and the Babylonian captivity. So it would be someing like 14 from Adam to David, 17 from David to the Bab. Cap., then 14/13 from there to Jesus.

Even if you don't count the ends, and add the three to make up for that, then it doesn't work because they are all in the same place. (try it and see for yourself.....)

(Of course since the 14 generations add up to Jesus birth, Jesus wouldn't be included in the names

As shown above, doing so wouldn't help. Plus, that wasn't done before (for instance, David is counted in his section, as is Jeconiah in his, so keeping to the pattern means counting Jesus).

Genesis could be a parable/myth/or what have you, but if it is, you learn nothing about our relationship with God from it. Nothing historical.

Why is the history most important? Do we complain that if the Good Samaritan didn't actually happen, then you don't learn anything historical about the Good Samaritan? Of course we don't. Because we recognize that the message is much more than just a dry retelling of history, but rather speaks to our deeper relationship with God.

You still have the billions of years of chaos to deal with, and that stares me in the face more than a philosophical story about our relationship with God.

No, it tells us that God even has taken control of death, using it to his own ends. That's much more reassuring than thinking that something is out of God's control. It shows us that our God is a logical God. Specifically- Death is shown time and again to have a logical, necessary and yes, good, role. Take the example of children. Unless death removes people, you don't have room for children, so you can either have no death, and no children, or death and children. Jesus said "let the little children come to me". Looking at God's creation, you see this theme time and again. The heartwood holding up a tree is made up of dead cells, which were programmed to die after being grown by the inner bark. Coral reefs are built on the skeletons of previous coral. Without the genocide of the holy land, the Isrealites would have had no place to settle (note that this is true even if the story is a legend). Just a simple logical consideration of the mantisplosion shows how illogical the idea of a deathless world is (read about it here: http://www.christianforums.com/t7542459/#post56943417). Plus, in Is 45:7, God explicitly says that he is the one who brings death. Because our God is a logical God, he created death from the start, as a logical and helpful part of a working real world.

It tells me the reality of our relationsihp with God is He doesn't care that we suffer diseases, that He created such a world from the beginning. In the least it tells me He sees those things as good, so there's no telling what else He will do to us if that is true.

Not to me, because we are not creatures being used, millions of years ago, to get to humans. If you don't trust God, then that's a separate issue. If you do, then your thoughts above are not a concern.

Do you believe in miracles? If yes, what reason do you suspect God would want to heal us, if He created the world to operate around death and decay?

I do (well, some of them - I don't credulously swallow every "Jesus on a tortilla" story"). And I believe God wants to heal us, because he sent his only son. THe world doesn't "operate around" death and decay, but rather death and decay are natural parts of the real world.

We are literally offering the same amount of evidence to people, as other religions do. Is that really all that our God can offer people? Simple words? If Genesis is myth and the Exodus is myth, words is all that we are really offering people.

I disagree. I think we are offering a relationship with the true and living God. That's much more than words. In fact, that's much more than any history lesson - even if Genesis and Exodus were real history.

Yet I remember Paul talking about showing the power and demonstration of God. He called it fully preaching the Gospel. So if that is talking about the miracles, then he didn't offer just words. If the miracles are true, why can't Genesis be literally true as well?

So you are saying that you expect us modern day Christians to perform miracles at will like the early apostles? Sounds like a pretty high bar.

An experiment would show how things historically came about, if the world came about as presented in Genesis. Yes, we walk by faith, and faith simply means trust. That verse doesn't say to throw away reason. If we did that, we would be walking by blind faith.

As pointed out before, many, many experiments have been done, and they all show that a literal reading of Genesis and Exodus simply doesn't match the results of those experiments. There are literally tens of millions of scientists doing these experiments, in many fields. Most of them are Christians. If each one has done more than 100 experiments (and over a lifetime, most certainly have), then you have over a billion experiments that have already answered what you asked in your OP.

As I've mentioned before, that's more than you could even learn about, if you studied for your entire lifetime. Here is an overview, grouped into 29 areas, each of which includes at least millions of experiments and confirmed predictions:

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent


Isn't you OP answered? Hasn't it been answered for decades by now?

In Jesus-

Papias

 

[frogman2x]

>>Hey everyone. What I want to discuss in this topic are hypothesis for the literal reading of Genesis. How can we prove it through experimentation. Anyone have any ideas concerning that? Most of the outspoken creationists, such as the guys at Answers in Genesis, don't do any real testing. As a creationist, that drives me crazy. How can you argue something if you can't even prove it.? That's the job of a scientist, to find out the truth, and be able to back it up with evidence.

Try making something mo ut of nothing.

>>So, does anyone have an hypothesis concerning the literal creation? <<

God did it just as He says in Genesis. It is not a hypothis. What he evolutionists say is a hypothis that cannot be verified.

Nothing is impossible for God.

kermit

 

[Papias]

Hi kermit! Welcome to the forums. I hope you have a fun and informative time here.

you wrote:

Try making something mo ut of nothing.

.....God did it just as He says in Genesis. It is not a hypothis. What he evolutionists say is a hypothis that cannot be verified.

Um, I see you are Presbyterian. It seems that your church supports evolution.

From the 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA):

1. 1. Reaffirms that God is Creator, in accordance with the witness of Scripture and The Reformed Confessions.
   2. Reaffirms that there is no contradiction between an evolutionary theory of human origins and the doctrine of God as Creator.
   3. Encourages State Boards of Education across the nation to establish standards for science education in public schools based on the most reliable content of scientific knowledge as determined by the scientific community.

Maybe ask you pastor about how to approach the question of origins?

-Papias

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

No, the only additional part (if any) was that it was supposed, not that the next person was Joseph. The text clearly says that Joseph was the son of Heli. There is a word for son in law, and that word is not used - it uses the word "son". It's clear that the geneology is stated to be that of Joseph. The only reason anyone would even be questioning that is because it contradicts other scripture, if the genealogies are thought to be literally intended.

The rule for additional statements, is that it doesn't change the overall meaning of the statement. If the "as was supposed" is the additional statement by itself, and you take it out, you would think Jesus is literally Joseph's son or literally descended from him. So by itself, it changes the meaning of the sentence. The punctuation should include Joseph, and then it becomes a true additional statement. Taking it out and the text would read Jesus, son of Heli, which would mean Jesus literally descended from Heli.


Now, you might say this would then mean Heli is Jesus father. Yet we already know Jesus didn't have a human father. So what is the statement saying here, if Jesus is the son of Heli? Again this shows that Jesus descended from Heli. We can see in Matthew's Genealogy that refers Jesus as a son of David, and David being a son of Abraham. (Matthew 1: 1)

While I agree that there have been many copying changes to the Gospels, putting those names back in doesn't work, because if you do a little addition, you can see that doing so would put all the added generations between David and the Babylonian captivity. So it would be someing like 14 from Adam to David, 17 from David to the Bab. Cap., then 14/13 from there to Jesus.

Even if you don't count the ends, and add the three to make up for that, then it doesn't work because they are all in the same place. (try it and see for yourself.....)

You're right about that. I got 14/16/13

As shown above, doing so wouldn't help. Plus, that wasn't done before (for instance, David is counted in his section, as is Jeconiah in his, so keeping to the pattern means counting Jesus).

David is counted in his section, but he is only counted once. The text says something like from Abraham to David is fourteen, and from David to the captivity fourteen. So from the text, you could mistakingly count David twice because he's mention in both groups, but we know not to do that. Depending on how you count them up, you would either cut out Abraham and start your count with Isaac (To show one generation passed from Abraham to Isaac), or you count everyone once (showing a generation passing in their lifetime). If you do the second way, then Jesus wouldn't be counted because His life just begun.

Why is the history most important? Do we complain that if the Good Samaritan didn't actually happen, then you don't learn anything historical about the Good Samaritan? Of course we don't. Because we recognize that the message is much more than just a dry retelling of history, but rather speaks to our deeper relationship with God.

Well it's clear that Jesus used that story (Good Samaritan) to illustrate a point concerning the love of God. The story could have happened, and even if it didn't, we could all come across a situation like it. So it has real meaning for us. What real meaning are we learning in Genesis? If all God wanted was to share with us how much He loves us and our relationship with Him, He could have just told us and gave us examples like Jesus did. What's the point of Genesis?

I'll tell the main point of Genesis. It is supposed to lay out our origins with God. The name itself means "beginnings" I believe. Why tell us a fake beginning, or give us a false origin? The whole point was to tell us where we came from, an accurate telling or else, you eliminate the whole point. So I disagree very much the point of Genesis was to show our relationship with God, but to tell us where we came from and our origins altogether.

No, it tells us that God even has taken control of death, using it to his own ends. That's much more reassuring than thinking that something is out of God's control. It shows us that our God is a logical God. Specifically- Death is shown time and again to have a logical, necessary and yes, good, role. Take the example of children. Unless death removes people, you don't have room for children, so you can either have no death, and no children, or death and children. Jesus said "let the little children come to me". Looking at God's creation, you see this theme time and again. The heartwood holding up a tree is made up of dead cells, which were programmed to die after being grown by the inner bark. Coral reefs are built on the skeletons of previous coral. Without the genocide of the holy land, the Isrealites would have had no place to settle (note that this is true even if the story is a legend). Just a simple logical consideration of the mantisplosion shows how illogical the idea of a deathless world is (read about it here

Plus, in Is 45:7, God explicitly says that he is the one who brings death. Because our God is a logical God, he created death from the start, as a logical and helpful part of a working real world.

You're saying that God is in control, by using death. Yet this would mean death is a simple result that came about. Why can't God create the world as He wants, without having results come about that He has to control and use later? Why can't He create a world exactly how He wants? This tells me He is not in absolute control. There's plenty of room for children to be born. God did make more planets, most scientists even say there are earth like planets out there, many statistically. If we ran out of room here, we can start on another planet. (If we want to get pratical with this, man has already shown an ability to go into space. I'm sure scientists right now are laying down the road map of building space colonies and ships for people to one day find another planet to live on. It sounds like science fiction, but it is very pratical stuff) Death is not needed.

The death of cells by the way is a different thing if you ask me. Also plants aren't alive as we are. The scientific definition for life is different from the Biblical definition. I believe Genesis is literal, and in it our food was consuming plants. So plants "died", but that kind of death isn't like when we cease on this planet. The death of our kind of life, the spilling of blood, is the death of the Biblical definition. The genocide of the Canaanite tribes were a part of God's judgment on those tribes. Yes, God promised Abraham the land, but that was partly because of the wickedness of the people on the land. God took the land from them, and gave it to His faithful servant Abraham and to his descendants. If it were not for the wickedness of the people in those lands, things would have been different to say the least. Again, death is not needed.


Finally, the reference to Isaiah. The things being spoken of there is God judging the people for their wickedness. The first reference about forming light and creating darkness could refer to God forming the day and night back in Genesis. Yet I don't think it's talking about that, because the hebrew language here likes to say one thing in two different ways. So the overall statement is saying one thing. So the second reference tells us what the overall statement is about. God making peace and creating evil. Did God create evil? (Thus I would certainly link that to death and suffering) If what we associate with evil is meant here, that would scare me a great deal concerning God. It's basically saying God created sin and wickedness. However, that is not what is meant here. What is meant here is God's judgment on the people. Think Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood, etc. So it's not saying anything about death here.

Not to me, because we are not creatures being used, millions of years ago, to get to humans. If you don't trust God, then that's a separate issue. If you do, then your thoughts above are not a concern.

Let me ask you a question. If God decided after everything is said and done, and we are with Him in the end, that He wants to fill us with excruciating pain for no reason, would you be okay with that? What if the things that hadn't entered into the heart of man, the things God has planned for those who love Him, is pain inconceivable? A whole new level and form of death and suffering? Are you cool with that as well? If we are learning something good here on this earth, experiencing death and so on, shouldn't it also be expected in the next age, a deeper level of it?

I do (well, some of them - I don't credulously swallow every "Jesus on a tortilla" story"). And I believe God wants to heal us, because he sent his only son. THe world doesn't "operate around" death and decay, but rather death and decay are natural parts of the real world.

Contrary to popular belief, science also rules out Jesus did any miracle whatsoever. Science rules out the miracles, just as much as it rules out Genesis. Yet you accept what science says in one, but not completely in the other. Why is that so?

I disagree. I think we are offering a relationship with the true and living God. That's much more than words. In fact, that's much more than any history lesson - even if Genesis and Exodus were real history.

All relationships start somewhere. For those who are married, I'm sure there is a history behind that relationship. For those who have been married for years, have gone through many challenges. It's that history that makes their relationship strong. Yet without history, it's like you waking up one day and upon looking beside you, you see another person in your bed, wondering who that is. It's important that we know our history with God, and I'm talking origin. There are literally millions of gods and religions out there, what seperates our God from the others? I know there definitely unique qualities about Christianity, but other religions and beliefs have unique things as well. There are a lot of common things also.

By the way, I'm not showing favortism or worshipping the subject of history. All I'm talking about is reality. I've been talking on this subject for a couple of years now, and I've come across those who say I'm making something of an idol out of this subject. That God must conform to my views of Him and such. That's not it at all. All I'm talking is reality. I know there are many parables and truths in the Bible, reality is also apart of truth is it not? I would hope so.

So you are saying that you expect us modern day Christians to perform miracles at will like the early apostles? Sounds like a pretty high bar.

Somebody should. I don't care what denomination we come from, there should be clear miracles being done due to the power God gave us. Paul in fact called this fully preaching the Gospel. Does it make sense for God to completely take the power He gave away from us? It is more needed in this day, than it ever was in the past. If God is going to take away the power to walk like Jesus walked, He would also have taken away the Holy Spirit from us as well. Remember the power is linked to His Spirit.

When Jesus walked the earth, no one was able to put Him to shame. Jesus knew what He was talking about, and people were healed. Today, people are putting us to shame left and right. Making us look like complete fools, and hardly no one is being healed. If we are to believe only a select few in this day and age can fully preach the Gospel, having miracles follow at their teaching, fine. My question is, where are they?

Again, Jesus silenced all those who tried to trip Him up, even His naysayers were afraid to dispute with Him. Yet we are being questioned in this day and age, up and down the board, and being put to shame in most cases. Our answers seems like tap dancing, and we repeat mantras without reason. The only thing that would confirm what we are saying would be the miracles. Yet they are now gone? If that is the case, God left us with nothing to be a proper witness on His behalf. Nothing but words, which in the long run means nothing. If I can become a believer through words, I can just as easily lose my belief through words. (Paul stated he wanted people's faith in God to be based on a demonstration of God's power, not on words) Of course this may be getting a little off topic, but I definitely don't mind discussing it here as well.

As pointed out before, many, many experiments have been done, and they all show that a literal reading of Genesis and Exodus simply doesn't match the results of those experiments. There are literally tens of millions of scientists doing these experiments, in many fields. Most of them are Christians. If each one has done more than 100 experiments (and over a lifetime, most certainly have), then you have over a billion experiments that have already answered what you asked in your OP.

As I've mentioned before, that's more than you could even learn about, if you studied for your entire lifetime. Here is an overview, grouped into 29 areas, each of which includes at least millions of experiments and confirmed predictions:

And all those things are based on sight, observations of the world today. There are things that once were observable, but are no longer. This is true no matter what viewpoint you're coming from. I believe that lost observation is the key to finding our true origins. I also believe the lost observation, is written in Genesis. That is why I'm going to combine science with the lost observation, and see where that experimentation leads me.

 

[Papias]

Originally Posted by Papias

The text clearly says that Joseph was the son of Heli. .

​

...The punctuation should include Joseph, and then it becomes a true additional statement. Taking it out and the text would read Jesus, son of Heli, which would mean Jesus literally descended from Heli.

Well, that's why the parenthetical statement it is in there at all - to clarify that Jesus is not the actual son of Joseph, who is then used for the geneology. I've read your points over again, and I think you are wriggling around to avoid the clear meaning of the text and have no basis for your points - in addition to repeating points that seemed to me to be refuted earlier. However, I suspect you may think similarly of my points, so I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

You're right about that. I got 14/16/13

Yeah. Maybe that last 13 is a case of copying error as you mentioned.

David is counted in his section, but he is only counted once. ..... If you do the second way, then Jesus wouldn't be counted because His life just begun.

My point was that each "cap" in Mt's geneology is counted once and only once. Those "caps" are David, (the Jew's greatest king), Jeconiah (the ruler during the Jews greatest disaster) and Jesus (the Messiah) - each counted once and only once.

Originally Posted by Papias

Why is the history most important? Do we complain that if the Good Samaritan didn't actually happen, then you don't learn anything ..?

Well it's clear that Jesus used that story (Good Samaritan) to illustrate a point concerning the love of God. ... So it has real meaning for us. What real meaning are we learning in Genesis?


​

The point is that God is the ultimate creator of everything, just as referred to in John 1.

After all, an explanation of the details of the actual creation method, describing DNA, mutations, natural selection, and geologic time, would have been boring, long, incomprehensible to the listener, and useless in conveying the overall message that God is the creator of everything. Just as in the Good Samaritan, details are not mentioned, the details of how the creation was done are not mentioned. They would distract from the overall message, and are unimportant compared to it.

The fact that God is the ultimate creator is much more important than whether He did so mainly through Larmarckian evolution, natural selection, poofing things into existance, genetic drift, or however many other ways could have been used.

I'll tell the main point of Genesis. ......The whole point was to tell us where we came from, an accurate telling or else, you eliminate the whole point.

I disagree, because it fails to do that, even if God made things by poofing them into existance. For instance, we know that making a clay dummy and blowing into it doesn't do anything.

So what kind of process, then, did God actually use? Where there other quantum aspects to the magical process of blowing? The text doesn't say. Was heat needed to supply energy? What about the fact that clay has far fewer carbon atoms than flesh? Did God's blowing split silicon atoms into carbon atoms? If so, that would require ginormous amounts of energy, and so Adam's temperature would have been near absolute zero - an adamsicle. And so on. We could go on and on for any given verse like that, because if Genesis is expected to lay out "an accurate telling", then it fails terribly.

The name itself means "beginnings" I believe. Why tell us a fake beginning, or give us a false origin?

Why tell us a fake story of the Good Samaritan, without even telling us the details of how much money he had or what his injuries were?

You're saying that God is in control, by using death. Yet this would mean death is a simple result that came about.

No, it woud mean that death is a logical way to make a functioning world that need not be constantly tinkered with to keep working.

Why can't God create the world as He wants, without having results come about that He has to control and use later? Why can't He create a world exactly how He wants? This tells me He is not in absolute control.

God can create any world he wants, of course. Being a logical God, he'll create one where logic applies. If logic applies, then consistent natural laws are a result, allowing God to create a world that can be understood by humans. I think that an incomprehensible world, where whole people popped into and out of existence, where God had to continually tinker and intervene, breaking his own natural laws, to allow it to continue working, would reflect a poorer, not a grander, creator.

You and I may differ on that. You may see the tinkering, intervening, naturally lawless God a a greater god. Being that the world isn't like that, I think that's evidence that regardless of what you and I may think, God has made the naturally lawful, logical, comprehensible world, showing that he's that kind of God.

There's plenty of room for children to be born. God did make more planets, most scientists even say there are earth like planets out there, many statistically. If we ran out of room here, we can start on another planet.

Oh great - so God's plan is that we just exterminate the native inhabitants, steal their planet, and then go on to be a cosmic invasive species to planet after planet? I would think that God sees us as better than that.

(If we want to get pratical with this, man has already shown an ability to go into space. .... very pratical stuff)

Pardon my frankness, but I think you are clueless about space travel. Please compare the distances and problems involved - I'll not list them here and now because it's off topic.

The death of cells by the way is a different thing if you ask me. Also plants aren't alive as we are. The scientific definition for life is different from the Biblical definition.

Having read several of the Bibles, I'm not aware of any verse that gives a "Biblical definition of life", or even says that there is a different, "biblical" definition. Please cite the verse if you know of one.

The genocide of the Canaanite tribes were a part of God's judgment on those tribes. ....If it were not for the wickedness of the people in those lands, things would have been different to say the least. Again, death is not needed.

So if they were not wicked, you are saying that God would have made land available somewhere else, or caused new land to appear?

If he could have done that, then why not do that anyway - since of course every single Caananite couldn't have been wicked (so this plan had to have killed countless innocent Caananites, babies,etc, plus the thousands of Israelites who died fighting them). If God was averse to death, then that seems like a simple and easy solution.

Finally, the reference to Isaiah. The things being spoken of there is God judging the people for their wickedness. ...... What is meant here is God's judgment on the people. Think Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood, etc. So it's not saying anything about death here.

And there wasn't any death in the instances of Sodom, Gomorrah, the flood, etc?

Let me ask you a question. If God decided after everything is said and done, and we are with Him in the end, that He wants to fill us with excruciating pain for no reason, would you be okay with that?

.... Are you cool with that as well?

No, I'm not. I agree that I would have serious questions as to whether or not God was good. In fact, those same questions can be raised as to the eternal torture of the unsaved in Hell (would a good and just God torture someone eternally for the comparatively minor and finite sins on earth?).

That's a big question, however, and it is often discussed. Maybe you'd like to start a thread in the General Theology section? I'm sure it's been discussed there before, and that there are people desiring to discuss it again.

If we are learning something good here on this earth, experiencing death and so on, shouldn't it also be expected in the next age, a deeper level of it?

I have a hard time imagining what an afterlife would be like, so I don't know either way.

Originally Posted by Papias

THe world doesn't "operate around" death and decay, but rather death and decay are natural parts of the real world.

Contrary to popular belief, science also rules out Jesus did any miracle whatsoever. Science rules out the miracles, just as much as it rules out Genesis. Yet you accept what science says in one, but not completely in the other. Why is that so?

​

Well, first of all, I'll point out that your response here (about science and miracles) is unrelated to my point (that death and decay are natural parts of God's creation). As such, I guess you don't have a response about the death, and want to talk about this instead. I can give my answer, but since you want to talk about that, maybe start a separate thread on it too?

Science does not rule out Jesus's miracles because there isn't any evidence from that time to compare. I accept that the findings seen by studying God's creation can help inform our interpretation of scripture - which is something practically all Christians accept - you as well. This can be seen by the fact that few Christians today reject heliocentrism.

There are literally millions of gods and religions out there, what seperates our God from the others? I know there definitely unique qualities about Christianity, but other religions and beliefs have unique things as well. There are a lot of common things also.

I suspect that you'll find different answers from different Christians. For some, it might be the relationship, for others, a historical event, such as were Jesus saves them from alcoholism, may be the case, and others I'm sure. You might want to start a thread on why Christianity is better than other religions, since it is off topic on this thread.

Originally Posted by Papias

So you are saying that you expect us modern day Christians to perform miracles at will like the early apostles? Sounds like a pretty high bar.

Somebody should. ...Does it make sense for God to completely take the power He gave away from us? It is more needed in this day, than it ever was in the past.

......
Yet we are being questioned in this day and age, up and down the board, and being put to shame in most cases. Our answers seems like tap dancing, and we repeat mantras without reason. The only thing that would confirm what we are saying would be the miracles. Yet they are now gone? ....
​

Well, I have to admit I don't have a good answer for you on this one. I agree that miracles would settle a lot of questions, and they sure would come in handy in refuting atheists and those of other religions. I certainly agree that there were a lot of miracles in both the old and new testaments used to prove Christianity/Judaism. The fire sacrifice contest in 1 Kings 18 comes to mind, much of the book of Acts, etc.

I don't know God's plan. Maybe He has a reason to deny us miracles today? As with some other points above, this could be the good topic of the whole thread, perhaps in the evangelism section.

Again, Jesus silenced all those who tried to trip Him up, even His naysayers were afraid to dispute with Him.

On a side note, recognize also that even if the Gospels are free of any scribal changes over the years (which they aren't), they still only record some of the history. It seems quite possible that there were times when naysayers were not afraid to dispute him, and it would be unsurprising if these incidents were not chosen to be recorded in the Gospels, which were, after all, written to gain followers (they even say that's why they were written, see John 20:31 ).

Originally Posted by Papias

As pointed out before, many, many experiments have been done, and they all show that a literal reading of Genesis and Exodus simply doesn't match the results of those experiments. ....then you have over a billion experiments that have already answered what you asked in your OP.
​

And all those things are based on sight, observations of the world today.

Well, sure - but so is all the information you have anyway, including Genesis itself. After all, you read Genesis by sight, today. You can only use the tools of logic and deduction to conclude that Genesis itself wasn't made up wholecloth a few years ago, or 1,500 years ago, or whenever. Or that you are a human, not a space alien, that your parents raised you, that water boils at 100 degrees - literally everything you know.

Unless God is personally sending you visions in your mind today, all your information is based on observations of the world.

And if you are claiming new revelation, then that's a whole other topic.

There are things that once were observable, but are no longer. This is true no matter what viewpoint you're coming from. I believe that lost observation is the key to finding our true origins. I also believe the lost observation, is written in Genesis. That is why I'm going to combine science with the lost observation, and see where that experimentation leads me.

Do you seriously think that you are the first Christian to look at the origins question in light of all current evidence available today - including measurements, predictions, and the various bibles and scriptures in the various religions?

As pointed out above, this is well trodden ground. Maybe you'd be interested in the many Christians who have investigated this, reading from many different view points? THere is a lot out there, including "evolutionary creationism" by Lamaroux, "Darwin's Cathedral" by miller, and many more.

In Jesus' name-

Papias

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

Well, that's why the parenthetical statement it is in there at all - to clarify that Jesus is not the actual son of Joseph, who is then used for the geneology. I've read your points over again, and I think you are wriggling around to avoid the clear meaning of the text and have no basis for your points - in addition to repeating points that seemed to me to be refuted earlier. However, I suspect you may think similarly of my points, so I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

What I want to point out with this is the as was supposed by itself, changes the whole meaning of the context. If it changes the meaning, then it's not an additional statement. Yet we can tell it's meant to be one. It would only make sense if Joseph is included in the additional statement. Now, are there punctuation marks in the oldest copy of the Gospel of Luke? Did they have them in the same place as we see it in most translations? That's something to look into, because it only makes sense as an additional statement if Joseph is included in the punctutation.

The point is that God is the ultimate creator of everything, just as referred to in John 1.

After all, an explanation of the details of the actual creation method, describing DNA, mutations, natural selection, and geologic time, would have been boring, long, incomprehensible to the listener, and useless in conveying the overall message that God is the creator of everything. Just as in the Good Samaritan, details are not mentioned, the details of how the creation was done are not mentioned. They would distract from the overall message, and are unimportant compared to it.

The fact that God is the ultimate creator is much more important than whether He did so mainly through Larmarckian evolution, natural selection, poofing things into existance, genetic drift, or however many other ways could have been used.

As to specifics concerning how God created, that's not something I'm arguing for. In fact I wouldn't expect God to go through all the details like that. The people wouldn't have understood it. (When it comes to specifics, that's for us today.) What I'm arguing for is more toward the history of Adam and Eve being literal, and so forth. That Adam was the first human on earth, his disobedience brought in death (specifically the death of creatures, not cell death and things like that. Although things like cell death, I imagine operated a little differently before the fall), and all the history given in Genesis. If all those things didn't happen, then everything else afterward is not true. The Bible is nothing more than stories, with a little mix of Israelite history and so forth. That this is nothing more than another set of made up religious beliefs.


If the point of Genesis was to say God is the creator of everything, I would imagine that was something the people already knew. You don't need a story for that. This was the natural assumption. On the other hand, Genesis was meant to describe why things are the way they are. Why do we die? Why is the world the way it is? So on and so forth. This is the purpose of Genesis. If all the history of Genesis is false, that goes against it's point of answering those things.

I disagree, because it fails to do that, even if God made things by poofing them into existance. For instance, we know that making a clay dummy and blowing into it doesn't do anything.

So what kind of process, then, did God actually use? Where there other quantum aspects to the magical process of blowing? The text doesn't say. Was heat needed to supply energy? What about the fact that clay has far fewer carbon atoms than flesh? Did God's blowing split silicon atoms into carbon atoms? If so, that would require ginormous amounts of energy, and so Adam's temperature would have been near absolute zero - an adamsicle. And so on. We could go on and on for any given verse like that, because if Genesis is expected to lay out "an accurate telling", then it fails terribly.

So my reference to an accurate telling refers to the history that is presented in Genesis. The specifics are meant for us today. Yeah, there's definitely more to be understood if the history is true.

No, it woud mean that death is a logical way to make a functioning world that need not be constantly tinkered with to keep working.

Of course I believe God's original creation was a functioning world that didn't need interference. Now, you speak of death as a logical functioning part of the world, and God doesn't need to interfere with it. Yet if you look at what scientists state concerning the world and universe, even though there is order (making science possible), this world could be destroyed by number of things. Many catastrophes have happened on this planet, and many more are expected to happen. Scientists state over 90% of things that ever lived on this planet, are now extinct. Theoretically, the human race could become extinct due to any numeral of things. A drastic change in climate, a deadly outbreak from a virus, anything. This world is very chaotic when you think about it. So if God doesn't care if the human race go extinct, or if all life were to go extinct, then He definitely created the world like He wanted. However, if we are special to Him, something is not right. It would come down to Genesis being literal history, or the God of the Bible doesn't exist.

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

God can create any world he wants, of course. Being a logical God, he'll create one where logic applies. If logic applies, then consistent natural laws are a result, allowing God to create a world that can be understood by humans. I think that an incomprehensible world, where whole people popped into and out of existence, where God had to continually tinker and intervene, breaking his own natural laws, to allow it to continue working, would reflect a poorer, not a grander, creator.

You and I may differ on that. You may see the tinkering, intervening, naturally lawless God a a greater god. Being that the world isn't like that, I think that's evidence that regardless of what you and I may think, God has made the naturally lawful, logical, comprehensible world, showing that he's that kind of God.

And again I never argued that God was constantly tinkering with creation to make it work, concerning Genesis being literal history. The original, perfect creation describe in Genesis, also ran on scientific laws and logic. Death interrupted the original process, and it came to be what we see today.

Oh great - so God's plan is that we just exterminate the native inhabitants, steal their planet, and then go on to be a cosmic invasive species to planet after planet? I would think that God sees us as better than that.

Who says there are inhabitants on other planets? That's an assumption we make, and it can only be made if abiogenesis is true. Yet we are both believers in God (even though our views are different), so we believe God is the ultimate origin of life. If there is life out there on other planets, why does God favor us so much? The Bible tells us when everything is said and done, He will come on the earth and be among us. Why are we so special to God, if there is life elsewhere? (Especially more advanced/intelligent life than we)

Pardon my frankness, but I think you are clueless about space travel. Please compare the distances and problems involved - I'll not list them here and now because it's off topic.

Are you telling me then that scientists aren't considering even attempting to think of things like space colonies and such? If they aren't, we are pretty much assuring our destruction as a race. All of this may sound like wishful thinking and imaginative stuff, but it's in our nature to want to survive and explore. I'm also not saying we are currently building space colonies right now, but that we are thinking about it. We are contemplating it. Right now we are learning all we can concerning energy and fusion. All that stuff eventually leads up to real inventions of spaceships being able to travel large distances. At one time putting a man on the moon seemed like stupidity at it's best.


Right now we are launching telescopes into orbit, to look at stars, galaxies, and earth like planets. Don't find it weird one day when someone thinks about traveling there. Our telescopes here on earth were pointed at the moon for the longest. Then somebody came up with the bright idea of going there. It's the same with Mars, and it will be the same elsewhere. So the idea of space colonies and traveling to earth like planets is practical stuff. We may not be able to go now, but it's only a matter of time with things like this. One invention can turn all these things into reality.

Of course I'm just showing the idea of it all. I don't think these things will happen because I believe this age is about up. That Jesus will return before stuff like that happened. If God isn't real, and we lived long enough as a race, I believe that stuff would happen.

Having read several of the Bibles, I'm not aware of any verse that gives a "Biblical definition of life", or even says that there is a different, "biblical" definition. Please cite the verse if you know of one.

There's a couple of scriptures stating the life of a creature is in the blood. Of course we know God told Noah not to eat animals with it's blood still in it. (God actually equated life and blood together in Genesis 9:4) We know that Jesus' blood was spilled for us, representing His life, which was righteous. All these things tells us that any creature that has blood, is truly alive under the Biblical definition.

So if they were not wicked, you are saying that God would have made land available somewhere else, or caused new land to appear?

If he could have done that, then why not do that anyway - since of course every single Caananite couldn't have been wicked (so this plan had to have killed countless innocent Caananites, babies,etc, plus the thousands of Israelites who died fighting them). If God was averse to death, then that seems like a simple and easy solution.

If they were not wicked, all things could have been different. That is Abraham might not have been in the picture, maybe God would have done something special through the Canaanite people. (Remember, the Canaanites knew a little bit concerning God. Scholars have their own theories concerning that and so forth, but it's clear God had some kind of relationship with the people there. Look at Melchizedek for instance) God was looking for someone to work through, and Abraham was that person. If the Canaanites weren't wicked, God could have worked through them to bring about the ultimate purpose concerning Jesus. So it's not a matter of creating new land for Abraham, but everything could have been different.

The death of the Canaanite children were apart of God's judgment on the Canaanite people. The whole people were to be wiped out and driven out.

And there wasn't any death in the instances of Sodom, Gomorrah, the flood, etc?

Certainly, but God didn't create death itself.

No, I'm not. I agree that I would have serious questions as to whether or not God was good. In fact, those same questions can be raised as to the eternal torture of the unsaved in Hell (would a good and just God torture someone eternally for the comparatively minor and finite sins on earth?).

That's a big question, however, and it is often discussed. Maybe you'd like to start a thread in the General Theology section? I'm sure it's been discussed there before, and that there are people desiring to discuss it again.

The reason why I ask those questions is because the Bible illustrates God loves us very much. Yet if what scientists tells us is true, and our suffering in this world is natural based on how God created the world, that is very contradictory in the Bible's statements of God's love for us. The world tells us God created for us to suffer. The Bible tells us that God created a paradise for us, where we would work and not even sweat. Those are contradictory. I wouldn't equate Hell to this because technically Hell is for those who reject God outright.

I have a hard time imagining what an afterlife would be like, so I don't know either way.

Well, the Bible gives us a view of what to expect. Of course if the Bible was wrong in it's history, I shouldn't take in anything it has to say concerning the next age.

Well, first of all, I'll point out that your response here (about science and miracles) is unrelated to my point (that death and decay are natural parts of God's creation). As such, I guess you don't have a response about the death, and want to talk about this instead. I can give my answer, but since you want to talk about that, maybe start a separate thread on it too?

Science does not rule out Jesus's miracles because there isn't any evidence from that time to compare. I accept that the findings seen by studying God's creation can help inform our interpretation of scripture - which is something practically all Christians accept - you as well. This can be seen by the fact that few Christians today reject heliocentrism.

The thing is if death and decay are natural results, so is extinction. Would you tell me God wouldn't care if the human race went extinct? The world we live in, isn't exactly stable. There is order, but it's more of a chaotic order. If God truly created this place as we see it, there's definitely a disconnect from how the Bible describes God.


As for my bit concerning science proving or disproving Jesus miracles, yeah it's probably getting a little off topic. I only brought that up to say if science disproves the history of Genesis, it also disproves the miracles done by Jesus. I know the argument that's made to say we can't scientifically prove whether Jesus did any miracles, or that we couldn't disprove it, but I see that stuff as a stretch. Yeah, I might start another topic on it.

Well, I have to admit I don't have a good answer for you on this one. I agree that miracles would settle a lot of questions, and they sure would come in handy in refuting atheists and those of other religions. I certainly agree that there were a lot of miracles in both the old and new testaments used to prove Christianity/Judaism. The fire sacrifice contest in 1 Kings 18 comes to mind, much of the book of Acts, etc.

I don't know God's plan. Maybe He has a reason to deny us miracles today? As with some other points above, this could be the good topic of the whole thread, perhaps in the evangelism section.

Maybe God has a reason, or maybe God doesn't exist and those things written in Acts and so forth, never happened. Logically if God stopped the miracles, did He also stop salvation, being made righteous through Jesus? Why stop one, when all of it is really connected anyway? Yes, this is probably getting off topic as well, yet I would like to discuss all these things in one overall topic. What it really comes down to is the existence of God and is He the Biblical God. Current day science is utterly opposed to what the Bible says concerning God.

On a side note, recognize also that even if the Gospels are free of any scribal changes over the years (which they aren't), they still only record some of the history. It seems quite possible that there were times when naysayers were not afraid to dispute him, and it would be unsurprising if these incidents were not chosen to be recorded in the Gospels, which were, after all, written to gain followers (they even say that's why they were written, see John 20:31 ).

I would definitely say they confronted and disputed Him, and we do have recordings in the Gospels of that. Yet He answered their questions with great authority and reason. The main thing is if Jesus was God in the flesh, no one should have been able to put Him to shame or trip Him up. I don't suspect Jesus gave tapdancing answers.

Well, sure - but so is all the information you have anyway, including Genesis itself. After all, you read Genesis by sight, today. You can only use the tools of logic and deduction to conclude that Genesis itself wasn't made up wholecloth a few years ago, or 1,500 years ago, or whenever. Or that you are a human, not a space alien, that your parents raised you, that water boils at 100 degrees - literally everything you know.

Unless God is personally sending you visions in your mind today, all your information is based on observations of the world.

And if you are claiming new revelation, then that's a whole other topic.

What I'm saying concerning current day science, everything is based on current day observations. That the processes we see, we assume were happening for the longest. Yet there are things that were once observable, that played a key role in our existence, and are no longer observable. That without it, we get a different picture of our existence.

For instance, any creature doing science hundreds of billions of years from now, will say the universe is only hundreds of thousands of years old because by that time, the universe would have expanded so much, you won't be able to see distant galaxies with the best of telescopes. Laurence Krauss states as much in his presentation of a universe from nothing. He states we are living in a very special time, where we can see distant galaxies and come to the conclusions about the universe that we have. This would be an example of current day observation, and how views can be changed without certain observations. I believe observations are missing right now, and Genesis holds the observation that we don't see today.

Do you seriously think that you are the first Christian to look at the origins question in light of all current evidence available today - including measurements, predictions, and the various bibles and scriptures in the various religions?

As pointed out above, this is well trodden ground. Maybe you'd be interested in the many Christians who have investigated this, reading from many different view points? THere is a lot out there, including "evolutionary creationism" by Lamaroux, "Darwin's Cathedral" by miller, and many more.

In Jesus' name-

Papias

I believe there's more information for me to use today, compared to Christians in the past. From what we know today, I believe we can finally see the truth of Genesis. I may disprove Genesis like all the others came to that conclusion when I'm done, but I'm confident about this either way.

 

[Papias]

Lantern wrote:

Now, are there punctuation marks in the oldest copy of the Gospel of Luke?

Well, you had said there was a punctuation mark in an old copy, so maybe go back to what you had to support that original claim? Here, I'll give you a hand.

All of our oldest copies of the new testament are scraps, so for much of the new testament, one has to wait all the way to codex sinaiticus and vaticanus in the 4th century for the oldest witness to the text (see Complete List of Greek NT Papyri). However, in the case of Luke 3:23, we are lucky enough to have a copy from around 200 AD - still many decades after the original, but better than most examples. That's manuscript P4. So, I'll leave it from there to you to find any support for your punctuation idea.

If it changes the meaning, then it's not an additional statement. Yet we can tell it's meant to be one.

I still don't think your argument holds water. With or without punctuation, the text says that the geneology is that of Joseph.

Here, again, is the text. It's quite clear, and lacks the obvious and widely recognized poetic elements of Genesis.

Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki.....

​

As to specifics concerning how God created, that's not something I'm arguing for.

Sure it is. You are saying that Gen 1 & 2 give the details of how God created, ruling out that he created by using evolution.

In fact I wouldn't expect God to go through all the details like that. The people wouldn't have understood it. (When it comes to specifics, that's for us today.)

Right. That's why God gave us a poetic allegory, instead of telling us how he did the creating. That's why he left the details for us today, when he would give us the details through modern science.

What I'm arguing for is more toward the history of Adam and Eve being literal, and so forth. That Adam was the first human on earth,

Did you not read my post describing how Adam is a literal first human? Here, read it again, I just copied it to answer the same question here, in post #5:

http://www.christianforums.com/t7757672/#post63549372

his disobedience brought in death (specifically the death of creatures, ...),

Except that scholar after scholar, theologian after theologian, and people posting on these fora too, have all pointed out repeatedly that the text itself (both in Genesis and Paul in Romans, and elsewhere) point out that this is spiritual death, not physical death. Did Adam drop dead when the fall happened? No. If it were physical death, he would have.

and all the history given in Genesis. If all those things didn't happen, then everything else afterward is not true. The Bible is nothing more than stories, with a little mix of Israelite history and so forth. That this is nothing more than another set of made up religious beliefs.

Just like all of Jesus ministry is false if the Good Samaritan story isn't didn't actually happen?

You've repeated your statement above several times, and the Good Samaritan and other allegory in the bibles show it doesn't hold up. I think we may have to agree to disagree here too.

If the point of Genesis was to say God is the creator of everything, I would imagine that was something the people already knew. You don't need a story for that. This was the natural assumption.

Are you completely unware of the context back then? There were stories of competing Gods and Goddesses at every turn. Baal, Tiamat, Marduk, Osiris, Dionysus, Jupiter, Horus, Zeus, and on and on. Claiming that Yahweh (and no one else) was the creator was indeed needed, and was certainly not someting "everyone knew".

On the other hand, Genesis was meant to describe why things are the way they are. Why do we die? Why is the world the way it is? So on and so forth. This is the purpose of Genesis. If all the history of Genesis is false, that goes against it's point of answering those things.

Why would an allegorical reading not answer those? All those answers are still given if one sees these stories as descriptive, not as scientific textbooks (which would not have been understood at the time).

Originally Posted by Papias

No, it woud mean that death is a logical way to make a functioning world that need not be constantly tinkered with to keep working.

Of course I believe God's original creation was a functioning world that didn't need interference.
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But without death, it can't function. Please answer yes or no as to whether or not you bothered to read my link about the mantisplosion. If you aren't going to listen, then there is no point in our discussion. Also, are you unaware of how material is recycled in the biosphere? That, like so many other aspects of life, requires death.

Now, you speak of death as a logical functioning part of the world, and God doesn't need to interfere with it. Yet if you look at what scientists state concerning the world and universe, even though there is order (making science possible), this world could be destroyed by number of things.

Non sequitur. The fact that some events could wipe out all life is irrelevant and doesn't change the fact that death is a natural and necessary part of a functioning system.

Please describe how children (of all species) can exist on a finite earth without death.

Papias

 

[Papias]

lantern wrote:

And again I never argued that God was constantly tinkering with creation to make it work, concerning Genesis being literal history. The original, perfect creation describe in Genesis, also ran on scientific laws and logic.

By removing death, that's what you are arguing, because the creation cannot work without it. You even recognized this to the point of sugguesting that we'd have to invade other planets to compensate. Again, what about the mantisplosion?

Originally Posted by Papias

Oh great - so God's plan is that we just exterminate the native inhabitants, steal their planet, and then go on to be a cosmic invasive species to planet after planet? I would think that God sees us as better than that.

Who says there are inhabitants on other planets? That's an assumption we make, and it can only be made if abiogenesis is true.
​

Are you unaware of what makes a planet inhabitable? It's not an assumption that a habitable planet will already have life, it's a logical conclusion from your statement that these are inhabitable planets. Earth's chemistry and environment are made by life. Without abiogenesis, we'd have no oxygen to breathe, have a toxic atmosphere similar to Saturn's moon Titan, have no available fixated nitrogen for our DNA, have no glucose production from the sun for food, and have not protective ozone to protect us from UV radiation from space, among many other things. Earth's habitable environment is a direct result of life. Please read up on biology.

Plus, if God intended us to inhabit other planets, why would he put the nearest possibly habitable planets literally millions of years of travel away?

Originally Posted by Papias

Pardon my frankness, but I think you are clueless about space travel. Please compare the distances and problems involved - I'll not list them here and now because it's off topic.

Are you telling me then that scientists aren't considering even attempting to think of things like space colonies and such?
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They are considering space colonies supplied from earth, local to the earth. Interstellar colonization is science fiction.

If they aren't, we are pretty much assuring our destruction as a race.

Or, maybe take responsible care of our God-given home in the first place?

So the idea of space colonies and traveling to earth like planets is practical stuff. We may not be able to go now, but it's only a matter of time with things like this. One invention can turn all these things into reality.

Sure, we may one day do so, but that's so far off that it's only possible if we make things sustainable here first. Again, please learn about the distances and travel times required. Interstellar travel is not seen as a practical step we could take anytime soon by scientists, or anyone familiar with the situation.

Of course I'm just showing the idea of it all. I don't think these things will happen because I believe this age is about up. That Jesus will return before stuff like that happened. If God isn't real, and we lived long enough as a race, I believe that stuff would happen.

I too think we could do so centuries from now if we first make a sustainable world, but that's another topic.

There's a couple of scriptures stating the life of a creature is in the blood.

That's not a definition, just a statement of fact. Different forms of multicellular life have different kinds of blood. Sounds like you don't have a definiton, which is OK.

Originally Posted by Papias

So if they were not wicked, you are saying that God would have made land available somewhere else, or caused new land to appear?

If he could have done that, then why not do that anyway - since of course every single Caananite couldn't have been wicked (so this plan had to have killed countless innocent Caananites, babies,etc, plus the thousands of Israelites who died fighting them). If God was averse to death, then that seems like a simple and easy solution.
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If they were not wicked, all things could have been different.

.....

As I pointed out, God could have easily avoided death there (including the deaths of Israelites and children), and did not. Your pointing out that this was a judgement for some of the Canaanites doesn't change that.

The death of the Canaanite children were apart of God's judgment on the Canaanite people. The whole people were to be wiped out and driven out.

Do you think that was something a just God would do? Well, it's off topic, so maybe just think about it yourself, in light of the evidence that shows that the conquest didn't literally happen.

Originally Posted by Papias

And there wasn't any death in the instances of Sodom, Gomorrah, the flood, etc?

Certainly, but God didn't create death itself.

​

So God didn't destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? God didn't make the flood?

Originally Posted by Papias

The reason why I ask those questions is because the Bible illustrates God loves us very much. Yet if what scientists tells us is true, and our suffering in this world is natural based on how God created the world, that is very contradictory in the Bible's statements of God's love for us.
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It seems like the opposite - that the things we see in science show us that God loves us, by showing that examples of God being intentionally cruel and deadly often didn't happen. Look at the conquest example above, where God's plan kills children and innocent Israelite soldiers. The evidence shows that God didn't actually do that. Or the flood. Or Sodom and Gomorrah. Or the idea that God would make an unworkable world, where children are impossible - science shows that God didn't do any of that. If anything, science shows time and time again that God loves us, countering a literal reading that would otherwise show that God is hateful and illogical towards us.

The thing is if death and decay are natural results, so is extinction. Would you tell me God wouldn't care if the human race went extinct?

So is extinction for most, but not all, species. God has never caused all species to go extinct. He always preserves a remnant, just as the scripture says. We are that chosen remnant - he would not cause us to go extinct.

Current day science is utterly opposed to what the Bible says concerning God.

The same could have been said in Galileo's day, about Galileo's heliocentrism. I disagree. I say instead that " Current day science is utterly opposed to (some people's interpretation of ) what the Bible says concerning God.

Because all truth, is, after all, from God.

What I'm saying concerning current day science, everything is based on current day observations.

But you seem to have missed my point. My point was that by saying you don't trust "current day observations" means that you have to also not trust Genesis itself. All of your reading of Genesis is a "current day observation". You are treating some current day observations (your observation of our current version of Genesis) as if they weren't current day observations.

That the processes we see, we assume were happening for the longest.

Such as the recording of Genesis? Such as the copying of Genesis? Such as your instructions from other humans that you should read Genesis literally? All those are current day observations by humans - by you, a human.

Yet there are things that were once observable, that played a key role in our existence, and are no longer observable.

Why do you think that is true? Because of current day observations?

I believe observations are missing right now, and Genesis holds the observation that we don't see today.

OK, but your idea that Genesis holds past observation is itself based on your current day observations. If you think current day observations can't be trusted, then your very idea of using Genesis goes out the window.

Originally Posted by Papias

Do you seriously think that you are the first Christian to look at the origins question in light of all current evidence available today - including measurements, predictions, and the various bibles and scriptures in the various religions?

As pointed out above, this is well trodden ground. Maybe you'd be interested in the many Christians who have investigated this, reading from many different view points? THere is a lot out there, including "evolutionary creationism" by Lamaroux, "Darwin's Cathedral" by miller, and many more.

I believe there's more information for me to use today, compared to Christians in the past. From what we know today, I believe we can finally see the truth of Genesis. I may disprove Genesis like all the others came to that conclusion when I'm done, but I'm confident about this either way.
​

You have a lot less information than the millions of Christians who are looking at this, researching it, and writing about it. Maybe start with a basic degree in a relevant field, so you at least have some of the information available today?

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

Lantern wrote:



Well, you had said there was a punctuation mark in an old copy, so maybe go back to what you had to support that original claim? Here, I'll give you a hand.

All of our oldest copies of the new testament are scraps, so for much of the new testament, one has to wait all the way to codex sinaiticus and vaticanus in the 4th century for the oldest witness to the text. However, in the case of Luke 3:23, we are lucky enough to have a copy from around 200 AD - still many decades after the original, but better than most examples. That's manuscript P4. So, I'll leave it from there to you to find any support for your punctuation idea.

I don't remember saying anything like that. (I could have. Perhaps you can show me where I stated it) If I said anything originally, I might have said there was no punctuation marks in the earliest copies we have.

After doing a little search on it from google, it seems there are no punctuation marks in P4. I'll continue to see if I can find more on that.

I still don't think your argument holds water. With or without punctuation, the text says that the geneology is that of Joseph.

Here, again, is the text. It's quite clear, and lacks the obvious and widely recognized poetic elements of Genesis.

Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki.....

​

That's not the best translation of the text. The oldest copy of the text only says son once, then the rest of the way it says of [name of the person]. So if the mentioning of Joseph is the additional statement, then the text would read Jesus the son of Heli, of Matthat, etc.

Sure it is. You are saying that Gen 1 & 2 give the details of how God created, ruling out that he created by using evolution.

I never argued that Genesis gave the excruciating detail on how God created, or that it goes into true scientific breakdown. If it did that, I wouldn't have this thread. I always argued from the point that Genesis is a historical account. From it, we can say God didn't create the world around the detail that science gives us today.

Right. That's why God gave us a poetic allegory, instead of telling us how he did the creating. That's why he left the details for us today, when he would give us the details through modern science.

I argue the people wouldn't have understood the breakdown into the laws and details of God's creation, but that doesn't mean they didn't understand what history is or that they didn't care about their origins. Genesis is not a science book, but it should be a history book or else the whole thing is not true. You say Genesis is allegory, a story with moral truth. I don't agree, but even if this was the case, it wouldn't be the only allegory. If we are to accept what scholars/historians/and scientists say, the whole history of Israel is allegory! Just about everything in the Bible is allegory, stories! None of it is telling us anything at all concerning God.

For the sake of the argument concerning how the people viewed Scripture, let's say we took a time machine and traveled to 500 BC/BCE Israel. We then told the people that the Exodus and everything written about Moses, didn't literally happen. We told the people that Solomon wasn't as wealthy as it's written. Finally we tell them, that Israel's true origins were just a gathering of Canaanite tribes. What do you think their response would be? If they agree with us, then I would submit to your thoughts concerning Scripture.

Did you not read my post describing how Adam is a literal first human? Here, read it again, I just copied it to answer the same question here, in post #5:

I must have missed it in this thread. I'm sorry if I have, I do respond to just about all of what you state in your posts. Yet as for my response to this thought, overall it isn't a solid answer. Adam being the first ape/human that God put a soul, that answer just seems like justification for not completely throwing out the connection of Adam and Jesus. Now, you've asked me concerning the details of Genesis and how God created, so I'll present that same questioning to you. How did God put a soul into this newly evolving ape/human? What are the mechanisms here?

By the way, evolution doesn't work like this. There's no such thing as one singular creature being the first of it's species. Evolution works as the whole species evolve, a group comes about, not a single creature. So you would have to say Adam actually represents a whole group of newly evolved humans. The problem with that is Jesus relates to Adam (concerning Christian theology) as a single person. So if Jesus was a single person, Adam had to be a single person as well.

Except that scholar after scholar, theologian after theologian, and people posting on these fora too, have all pointed out repeatedly that the text itself (both in Genesis and Paul in Romans, and elsewhere) point out that this is spiritual death, not physical death. Did Adam drop dead when the fall happened? No. If it were physical death, he would have.

Well, this really opens up another topic worth discussion. Yet it's clear from Scripture, that God sees death as an enemy. Here's 1 Corinthians 15: 20-28...


20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.

21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ&#8217;s at His coming,

24 then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power.

25 For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.

26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

27 For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, &#8220;All things are put in subjection,&#8221; it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him.

28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.



The parts I bolded indicate that the death being talked about here, is not spiritual death in itself, but physical death. Jesus was raised from the dead, and we know this is specifically talking about Jesus rising from physical death, and this kind of death is being talked about throught the passage. All of it tells me God sees physical death as an enemy. Now you mentioned spiritual and physical death concerning Adam, and as I said that opens up another discussion. Yet all in all, death is death. Spiritual, physical, it's an inclusive term.

Just like all of Jesus ministry is false if the Good Samaritan story isn't didn't actually happen?

You keep mentioning this story, but the biggest difference is the Samaritan story wasn't the beginning of the Gospel. Genesis is the beginning of the whole Biblical set up. And again, if we are to say Genesis is a story, so is most of the OT. There would be literally, almost nothing historically true concerning the OT. I don't know about you, but that is a pretty big problem. If that much detail is nothing but story and made up facts, what do you have to hold on? Every religion in the world would then be just as true as the Bible, literally.

You've repeated your statement above several times, and the Good Samaritan and other allegory in the bibles show it doesn't hold up. I think we may have to agree to disagree here too.

The thing is a good 90%+ of the Bible would then have to be allegory. In the end it's not telling us anything significant about God. If the judgments in the Bible are not true, what is that telling me about God? You admitted you don't know what to expect concerning the afterlife, and if 90% of the Bible is just story, we shouldn't expect the Bible to tell us anything concerning the afterlife or what God has planned for us. The Bible is completely useless if 90%-99% is allegory. I mean how can you prove that it's inspired by God at all? You don't have a problem with any of that?

Are you completely unware of the context back then? There were stories of competing Gods and Goddesses at every turn. Baal, Tiamat, Marduk, Osiris, Dionysus, Jupiter, Horus, Zeus, and on and on. Claiming that Yahweh (and no one else) was the creator was indeed needed, and was certainly not someting "everyone knew".

Well, who are we trying to convince? If we are talking about the people of Israel, then they certainly knew God was the creator. Yet if you're approaching this thing from the standpoint that the Exodus is not history, then it is most likely the Bible is nothing but man-made story through and through.

Why would an allegorical reading not answer those? All those answers are still given if one sees these stories as descriptive, not as scientific textbooks (which would not have been understood at the time).

And again I never stated Genesis was scientific, but presented it as history. The people understood what history was, and would be the purpose of Genesis. An allegory wouldn't answer questions of origins, unless it's a true allegory.

But without death, it can't function. Please answer yes or no as to whether or not you bothered to read my link about the mantisplosion. If you aren't going to listen, then there is no point in our discussion. Also, are you unaware of how material is recycled in the biosphere? That, like so many other aspects of life, requires death.

No, I don't think I read your link concerning mantisplosion. The last link I read in good detail was the one concerning Jewish people seeing the Scriptures through allegory, and the last link you gave that I remember dealt with the 29 evidences for evolution I believe. (And the reason why I didn't read that one was because I've seen it and read a good bit of it before) Yet I have looked up that word "mantisplosion" just now on google, and the result I got back points to other threads, and not mine. Perhaps you are referring to posts made in other threads.


My thing is, and I know you will never agree with me whatsoever on this point, the earth operated differently before the fall. You keep mentioning these process that we observe today, yet today is different from what would have been going on back then. So you can't put today's processes in the scope of what it would have been like for Adam. Also, if there was no death, why are we saying certain processes are needed to sustain life? Basically this states things worked differently back then. Think about this, Jesus gives us eternal life. So in the next age, do you think God will cease from having order? Or will there be processes that sustains eternal life? If you believe there will still be scientific processes in the next life, why not believe there were different processes going on in the literal reading of Genesis?

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

Non sequitur. The fact that some events could wipe out all life is irrelevant and doesn't change the fact that death is a natural and necessary part of a functioning system.

Well, if something threaten to wipe out the human race, don't you think God need to intervene? If He does, this system isn't functioning like He wanted it to it seems.

Please describe how children (of all species) can exist on a finite earth without death.

Papias

You act as though God couldn't handle this type thing. We both appeal to God concerning creation don't we? God can handle it. (We do know He created more planets) God's original plan was for the creatures to multiple on the face of the earth. That was the beginning. Once that was accomplish, I imagine the next step would take place. Adam threw a monkey wrench in it, but after the flood, God gave that same duty for Adam and the creatures on the ark. Once everything is said and done, the next step will take place.

lantern wrote:



By removing death, that's what you are arguing, because the creation cannot work without it. You even recognized this to the point of sugguesting that we'd have to invade other planets to compensate. Again, what about the mantisplosion?

You have to explain to me what is mantisplosion. Again I try to seperate what is meant by death. If we are talking cell death, plant death, and so forth, that is not the death I'm talking about. I'm talking specifically the death of creatures. That's it. (Though again things like cell death, I imagine worked differently back then)

The point concerning other planets was simply a solution to house increasing life on the earth. That could have been God's next step. God also could have cut off the birth of new creatures, going into the next phase with us. (As Jesus mentions that no one will be married in Heaven. We might assume from this that there will be no new births in the next age) All this stuff is plausible, without having to say the earth couldn't operate if we lived forever. It's clear God had plans for us, He can handle it. The death of creatures was not needed. Your mistake is seeing the world today, as the world God created originally.

Are you unaware of what makes a planet inhabitable? It's not an assumption that a habitable planet will already have life, it's a logical conclusion from your statement that these are inhabitable planets. Earth's chemistry and environment are made by life. Without abiogenesis, we'd have no oxygen to breathe, have a toxic atmosphere similar to Saturn's moon Titan, have no available fixated nitrogen for our DNA, have no glucose production from the sun for food, and have not protective ozone to protect us from UV radiation from space, among many other things. Earth's habitable environment is a direct result of life. Please read up on biology.

Plus, if God intended us to inhabit other planets, why would he put the nearest possibly habitable planets literally millions of years of travel away?

Things like abiogenesis is in itself an assumption. Yes, if it did happen, we can logically conclude it happen elsewhere. All the stuff that you mention concerning the chemistry of inhabitable planets, would be true. Yet if it didn't happen, we can say there is no life elsewhere. Yet again, just like my definition of death, my definition of life is different from how you view it. Again, the Biblical definition of life is creatures with blood. And don't give me things that have a function within them, that operates similar to how blood operates. There are scientific definitions that seperates blood, from things like tree sap for instance. Tree sap is not blood, even though it carries some similar functions. So overall, if we are to say we found an inhabitable planet, and assume things like bacteria and other single cell organisms were on that planet as a result, that wouldn't mean there is "life" on that planet. Scientific life, yes, but not Biblical life.


So I think this is something you should note with me when I talk about death and life. This is what I'm referring to. Why would God put habital planets so far away if He intended for us to inhabit them? The simple thing to think on here is that God can transport us Himself to those planets if need be. He transported Philip to another place. It's said that we will all be caught up when Jesus returns. Jesus appeared and reappeared in the presence of the disciples after He rose again. Distance ain't no thing but a chicken wing to God.

Now people on the outside could say I'm making up stuff, saying God could do anything He wants. Yet what I present, I'm presenting from what we have in Scripture. I'm not making up stuff at all. Now, the Bible could be made up.

They are considering space colonies supplied from earth, local to the earth. Interstellar colonization is science fiction.

It's fiction, but not really. I think we both agree given time, it can be possible. Even if it's not possible, it's not like that will stop scientists from acheiving it anyway.



​

That's not a definition, just a statement of fact. Different forms of multicellular life have different kinds of blood. Sounds like you don't have a definiton, which is OK.

Different kinds of blood is not blood, or at least not the blood that is referred to in the Bible. Granted, it's not a specific scientific defintion, but it's clear enough. God equates the blood being the representative of the life of a creature, so every creature that has this type of blood, is what life is in the Biblical sense. The science of it all and specifics is for us to look into. That's the reason for this thread. Again, think about Jesus blood, how important it is to the theology conerning His sacrifice. How it connects to the sayings concerning blood in the OT. So there's an evident definition here, concerning true life.

As I pointed out, God could have easily avoided death there (including the deaths of Israelites and children), and did not. Your pointing out that this was a judgement for some of the Canaanites doesn't change that.

First, we can't speak on the death of Israelites. We could just as easily say God protected all the Israelite soldiers as they fought, and suffer no loss. It's not farfetched at all to say that. Secondly, death is the judgment for going against God. It's a natural result, but the wrath of God on the people dealt with putting them to death and wiping out their name from the face of the earth. God doesn't enjoy it, but it was a legal judgment. It had to be done in other words.

So God didn't destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? God didn't make the flood?

He did do those things, but what does that have to do with God creating death? Those things came as a result of the wickedness of the people. They felt the wrath of God. Yet God didn't originally create death and suffering as a natural part of the world.

It seems like the opposite - that the things we see in science show us that God loves us, by showing that examples of God being intentionally cruel and deadly often didn't happen. Look at the conquest example above, where God's plan kills children and innocent Israelite soldiers. The evidence shows that God didn't actually do that. Or the flood. Or Sodom and Gomorrah. Or the idea that God would make an unworkable world, where children are impossible - science shows that God didn't do any of that. If anything, science shows time and time again that God loves us, countering a literal reading that would otherwise show that God is hateful and illogical towards us.

So the ebola virus demonstrated God's love for us? The Black Plague that nearly wiped out Europe? If those things represent God's love, I don't know what to tell you. A literal reading shows us that man is the one that brought suffering into the world, that God actually created a paradise and intended for us to live forever with Him.

I can see you accept pretty much all of what science has told you about the natural world. Yet you don't truly consider what it says about God, if He created this place to operate as we see it today. I think if we were honest, while science doesn't rule out God or a god's existence, it for sure rules out God as describe in the Bible hands down. I don't see how you reconcile the God of the Bible as creating the world we see today. It's not possible.

So is extinction for most, but not all, species. God has never caused all species to go extinct. He always preserves a remnant, just as the scripture says. We are that chosen remnant - he would not cause us to go extinct.

So He would have to intervene for us not to go extinct. So there's a problem with the world, if God has to intervene at any point. If there's a problem, then the world is not how God originally created it to be. There is no reason to think otherwise. Either the world is how God created it originally, and thus if we go extinct, then that's how God planned it. Or, something is wrong in this world. That death (of creatures) is what's wrong with this world.

But you seem to have missed my point. My point was that by saying you don't trust "current day observations" means that you have to also not trust Genesis itself. All of your reading of Genesis is a "current day observation". You are treating some current day observations (your observation of our current version of Genesis) as if they weren't current day observations.

I don't think I follow this line of reasoning. How can written information be a current day observation? Going back to my reference concerning Lawrence Krauss' statement concerning the universe, if I wrote down the universe is billions of years old today, then some creature finds my writing hundreds of billions of years from now, that information is still from this time period. It's kind of like that with the Bible. Genesis would be God's account of history. God was there in the beginning, and the information there is ultimately from Him. So even if I'm looking at it today, the information is about the beginning.


All science does is take in what we see today concerning the natural world. The processes we see are a current thing. It's not written information from the pass. The processes have changed, written information doesn't change.

Such as the recording of Genesis? Such as the copying of Genesis? Such as your instructions from other humans that you should read Genesis literally? All those are current day observations by humans - by you, a human.

I argue reading Genesis as history was always the correct way to read it. Again, if we took a time machine back to 500 BC/BCE Israel and asked the people if Genesis among other things were simply stories, I imagine their response would be that was literal history.

Why do you think that is true? Because of current day observations?

Well, I can give you an example of lost observation. In Big Bang cosmology, it's said there was a time of cosmic inflation. We have zero evidence for this time period, but we assume it happened. (Or else things wouldn't add up) So let's say this cosmic inflation is true. There's no observable evidence for it. So this is an instance of something once being observable, but is not observable today. Again hundreds of billions of years from now, any creature living in that day won't be able to see distant galaxies. So their view of the universe will only be hundreds of thousands of years old depending on the size of their own galaxy. Science is limited to this, and I believe Genesis holds missing observation.

OK, but your idea that Genesis holds past observation is itself based on your current day observations. If you think current day observations can't be trusted, then your very idea of using Genesis goes out the window.

So I hope I answered your line of reasoning here. Also, I don't say observations can't be trusted, but that there is missing observation, and we can't come to a full conclusion concerning our origins just based on what we see today.

You have a lot less information than the millions of Christians who are looking at this, researching it, and writing about it. Maybe start with a basic degree in a relevant field, so you at least have some of the information available today?

In Christ-

Papias

I don't need a degree specifically. There's books composed of all the information they had, and I have new scientific discoveries to work with. All the information I need is available to anyone.

 

[Papias]

Lantern wrote:

Originally Posted by Papias

Well, you had said there was a punctuation mark in an old copy, so maybe go back to what you had to support that original claim? ....

I don't remember saying anything like that.

We are both not quite remembering it right. In post #61 you mention a "study" that showed that there was additional punctuation suggesting it was added.

I might have said there was no punctuation marks in the earliest copies we have........That's not the best translation of the text. The oldest copy of the text only says son once, then the rest of the way it says of [name of the person].

The manuscripts generally lack puctuation (even periods, etc.). All the evidence and translations state this plainly as the genealogy including and going back from Joseph. If you have evidence of punctuation suggesting otherwise, or a reliable manuscript suggesting otherwise, I've been waiting for many posts to see it.

I never argued that Genesis gave the excruciating detail on how God created, or that it goes into true scientific breakdown.

Since we both agree that it doesn't go into a "true scientific breakdown", then why would either of us expect it to describe evolution?

I argue the people wouldn't have understood the breakdown into the laws and details of God's creation, but that doesn't mean they didn't understand what history is or that they didn't care about their origins.

It does give the origin. It emphasizes over and over that the origin is that God did the creating. Isn't that what is most important about origin?

Genesis is not a science book, but it should be a history book or else the whole thing is not true.

So if the Good Samaritan is not history, then the whole ministry of Jesus is not true?

For the sake of the argument concerning how the people viewed Scripture, let's say we took a time machine and traveled to 500 BC/BCE Israel. We then told the people that the Exodus and everything written about Moses, didn't literally happen. We told the people that Solomon wasn't as wealthy as it's written. Finally we tell them, that Israel's true origins were just a gathering of Canaanite tribes. What do you think their response would be? If they agree with us, then I would submit to your thoughts concerning Scripture.

Just like if we went back and told them that all our traits are encoded in DNA, more information that whole encyclopedias, encoded in all of our trillions of cells, that people can travel to the moon, and that invisible radio waves shoot through each of them every second?

Of course, in all those cases, they would not agree with us.

I'm sorry if I have, I do respond to just about all of what you state in your posts.

Yes, you do - better than many of us. I notice and appreciate that. Thank you.

Now, you've asked me concerning the details of Genesis and how God created, so I'll present that same questioning to you. How did God put a soul into this newly evolving ape/human? What are the mechanisms here?

My whole point has always been that we should not expect that kind of detail in there, so of course it's not there (which supports my point). As to how God did that, I don't know - God does.

Yet as for my response to this thought, overall it isn't a solid answer. ....By the way, evolution doesn't work like this. .....Evolution works as the whole species evolve, a group comes about, not a single creature. So you would have to say Adam actually represents a whole group of newly evolved humans. The problem with that is Jesus relates to Adam (concerning Christian theology) as a single person. So if Jesus was a single person, Adam had to be a single person as well.

You are right that evolution works by populations evolving, and so from a strictly biological standpoint, Adam was the same species as his contemporaries. You don't seem to understand that in a breeding population, everyone will soon be descended from any single individual in the past. To understand this, please repead the King David number column exercise, except this time, for Adam. You'll see the same thing. If, afterwards, you don't see how a single person Adam is fully consistent with the scientific story, let me know.

Originally Posted by Papias

Except that scholar after scholar, theologian after theologian, and people posting on these fora too, have all pointed out repeatedly that the text itself (both in Genesis and Paul in Romans, and elsewhere) point out that this is spiritual death, not physical death. Did Adam drop dead when the fall happened? No. If it were physical death, he would have.

Well, this really opens up another topic worth discussion. Yet it's clear from Scripture, that God sees death as an enemy. Here's 1 Corinthians 15: 20-28...

​

Because the text is sometimes referring to spiritual death, sometimes physical death, and sometimes death in general. To sort all those out is indeed another whole topic. Feel free to start a thread on it in the scripture section if you like. If you do a little searching, you can find threads on it. Assyrian, in particular, often does a good job explaining this.

You keep mentioning this story, but the biggest difference is the Samaritan story wasn't the beginning of the Gospel. Genesis is the beginning of the whole Biblical set up.

.....An allegory wouldn't answer questions of origins, unless it's a true allegory.

That's silly to say that if allegory is used in the beginning, the whole work is useless. Just look at the Gospel of John - it starts out with allegory (allegory, by the way, about Jesus origin).

So you think that the whole Gospel of John is trash, unless Jesus is literally an electromagnetic wave? That John doesn't tell us about Jesus' origin?

I mean how can you prove that it's inspired by God at all? You don't have a problem with any of that?

I would certainly have a problem if I didn't think that my Bible (and many of the other Bibles) was inspired by God. I think it is based on changed lives, not science descriptions. After all, all religions use that, such as here: Science Islam - Scientists Comment on the Quran.

Originally Posted by Papias

Are you completely unware of the context back then? There were stories of competing Gods and Goddesses at every turn. Baal, Tiamat, Marduk, Osiris, Dionysus, Jupiter, Horus, Zeus, and on and on. Claiming that Yahweh (and no one else) was the creator was indeed needed, and was certainly not someting "everyone knew".

Well, who are we trying to convince? If we are talking about the people of Israel, then they certainly knew God was the creator.
​

The people of Israel were buffeted on every side by gods and creation stories of all sorts. of course what they needed most was a story that showed that their God did the creating.





Originally Posted by Papias

But without death, it can't function. Please answer yes or no as to whether or not you bothered to read my link about the mantisplosion. ... Also, are you unaware of how material is recycled in the biosphere? That, like so many other aspects of life, requires death.

No, I don't think I read your link concerning mantisplosion.

Thanks for the direct answer. Look back to Post #87. You quote it in a following post, too.

My thing is, and I know you will never agree with me whatsoever on this point, the earth operated differently before the fall.

I'm not saying that they can't operate differently. Just that they have to operating in a way that logically works, because our God is a great, and logical, god.

Sorry I can't get to your second post now. Hopefully soon.

Blessings-

Papias
​

 

[Lantern Keirebu]

Thanks for your response. I'll let you respond to my other points before I respond again. And I'll try to shorten my responses up, and get them in one post. Oh, and now I know what you mean concerning mantisplosion. I have a response concerning that, it concerns the same thing concerning current day observation.

 

[Papias]

Well, if something threaten to wipe out the human race, don't you think God need to intervene? If He does, this system isn't functioning like He wanted it to it seems.

Sure - has anything every successfully wiped out the human race? If not, then God obviously hasn't had to intervene. Might He need to? I don't know.

Oh, and now I know what you mean concerning mantisplosion. I have a response concerning that, it concerns the same thing concerning current day observation.

Cool. Then I'll leave all the mantisplosion stuff until after I hear that.

Originally Posted by Papias

Are you unaware of what makes a planet inhabitable? It's not an assumption that a habitable planet will already have life, it's a logical conclusion from your statement that these are inhabitable planets. Earth's chemistry and environment are made by life. Without abiogenesis, we'd have no oxygen to breathe, have a toxic atmosphere similar to Saturn's moon Titan, have no available fixated nitrogen for our DNA, have no glucose production from the sun for food, and have not protective ozone to protect us from UV radiation from space, among many other things. Earth's habitable environment is a direct result of life. Please read up on biology.

Things like abiogenesis is in itself an assumption. Yes, if it did happen, we can logically conclude it happen elsewhere. All the stuff that you mention concerning the chemistry of inhabitable planets, would be true.
​

It doesn't matter if abiogenesis is true or not. It would be just as true if God had miraculously caused the first cells to appear. Your whole response ignored the point that it is life itself that makes a planet inhabitable, regardless of how that life starts.

Plus, if God intended us to inhabit other planets, why would he put the nearest possibly habitable planets literally millions of years of travel away?

Again, the Biblical definition of life is creatures with blood. ....inhabitable planet, and assume things like bacteria and other single cell organisms were on that planet as a result, that wouldn't mean there is "life" on that planet. Scientific life, yes, but not Biblical life.

Except that the Bible doesn't define life. You are only referring to a statement that states the obvious - that animals cannot live without blood. That's not a definition.

Different kinds of blood is not blood, or at least not the blood that is referred to in the Bible.

Please tell me the verse that describes the properties of what is "blood" and what is "not blood", as part of a definition. Thanks.

Granted, it's not a specific scientific defintion, but it's clear enough. God equates the blood being the representative of the life of a creature, so every creature that has this type of blood, is what life is in the Biblical sense.

It's not a definition at all. All it is is a statement of the obvious - that an animal cannot live without blood. Until you supply a real definition (including what is "blood" and what isn't), we'll have to go by actual definitions of what life is or is not.

Also - are you a Jehovah's Witness? That whole "blood" thing is a main point of Jehovah's witnesses, I think that might be one of the many points where they are not in the mainstream of Christianity.

Again, think about Jesus blood, how important it is to the theology conerning His sacrifice. How it connects to the sayings concerning blood in the OT. So there's an evident definition here, concerning true life.

But none of that includes a definition. Is it human blood? Only that of middle easterners? Any mammal? Vertebrate blood? Does it include only endotherms?

Even if you could point to a verse defining blood (and I don't think you can), then you have a classic rectangles and squares argument - where having blood would say something is alive, but nothing to say that other things aren't alive too, just as all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

It sounds like you are mistaking a ritualistic point for a definition. Just as if I said that Jesus' statement that "I am the bread of life" to define "life" as "bread".

First, we can't speak on the death of Israelites. We could just as easily say God protected all the Israelite soldiers as they fought, and suffer no loss. It's not farfetched at all to say that.

So are you claiming that the Bible doesn't mention Israelite death?

Secondly, death is the judgment for going against God.

So lazarus, and all other cases of death, are judgements for going against God? What about the Israelite deaths? What about the babies drowned in the flood? Job's children? Is there a verse you can point to that death (which kind?) is exclusively a judement from God?

It's a natural result, but the wrath of God on the people dealt with putting them to death and wiping out their name from the face of the earth. God doesn't enjoy it, but it was a legal judgment. It had to be done in other words.

So maybe we agree, since I too see physcial death as a natural result, which God sometimes uses as a judgement? Or do you mean spiritual death?

Originally Posted by Papias

So God didn't destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? God didn't make the flood?

He did do those things, but what does that have to do with God creating death? Those things came as a result of the wickedness of the people. They felt the wrath of God. Yet God didn't originally create death and suffering as a natural part of the world.
​

In those cases as in countless others, God caused physcial death. It's really quite simple and clear.

So the ebola virus demonstrated God's love for us? The Black Plague that nearly wiped out Europe? If those things represent God's love, I don't know what to tell you.

That opens the wider question of theodicy. I think that's your main focus anyway. Maybe it would be useful to get feedback in the philosphy section? http://www.christianforums.com/f459/

A literal reading shows us that man is the one that brought suffering into the world, that God actually created a paradise and intended for us to live forever with Him.

No, a literal reading of every word in the Bibles makes no sense, contradicts both the rest of the Bibles as well as God's revelation in the natural world, and is self -defeating - just like thinking that Exodus means that God flew the Jews out of Egypt on giant eagles (which is what the text literally says).

I can see you accept pretty much all of what science has told you about the natural world. Yet you don't truly consider what it says about God, if He created this place to operate as we see it today. I think if we were honest, while science doesn't rule out God or a god's existence, it for sure rules out God as describe in the Bible hands down. I don't see how you reconcile the God of the Bible as creating the world we see today. It's not possible.

All truth is from God. There is no need to separate out that which has been found through science vs. other means.

So He would have to intervene for us not to go extinct. So there's a problem with the world, if God has to intervene at any point.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't think there is a problem, and I pointed out that nothing has ever caused all species, or even all humans, to go extinct.

Originally Posted by Papias

But you seem to have missed my point. My point was that by saying you don't trust "current day observations" means that you have to also not trust Genesis itself. All of your reading of Genesis is a "current day observation". You are treating some current day observations (your observation of our current version of Genesis) as if they weren't current day observations.

I don't think I follow this line of reasoning. How can written information be a current day observation?
​

Because you are reading it today. Because, based on observations today, you think it was written earlier than today. By saying that today's observations can't be trusted, you are going back on your statement that you would avoid last thursdayism.

the information there is ultimately from Him. So even if I'm looking at it today, the information is about the beginning.

So if I wrote on a piece of paper "the flying spaghetti monster made everying in the beginning", then that piece of paper would not be observations made today?

Originally Posted by Papias

OK, but your idea that Genesis holds past observation is itself based on your current day observations. If you think current day observations can't be trusted, then your very idea of using Genesis goes out the window.

So I hope I answered your line of reasoning here. Also, I don't say observations can't be trusted, but that there is missing observation, and we can't come to a full conclusion concerning our origins just based on what we see today.

​

No, you didn't. You showed that you still don't get it - you still are only applying your "current observation" objection in an selective way, as if you had blinders on.

Originally Posted by Papias

I don't need a degree specifically. There's books composed of all the information they had, and I have new scientific discoveries to work with. All the information I need is available to anyone.

Um, so you don't need a degree? You'll find anything you need on your own? It shows that you not only are ignorant, but are ignorant of how much you are ignorant of.

Please don't take that as an attack, but rather as a suggestion to learn.....

Papias