Creation

[Jipsah]

So what's to say that God did not 'create' everything with the history already built in?

Then who's to say that He didn't do it last week?

 

[Jipsah]

the scientist say that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old!

As of last Thursday.

 

[weariedsoul]

the scientist say that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old!

So they say. They once said we came from apes and that the world was flat. There are too many variables to analyze, man will never understand the universe fully, he will always get things wrong, especially if he refuses to acknowledge God. He may obtain knowledge but his inability to see all things at one time will only make it a piece of a larger puzzle. Science should embrace God, they can still marvel at his mysteries and study them, acknowledging God doesn't make one a fool, it makes him wise. That's the way science started out, most scientists believed in God at first, but since then man has become arrogant thinking he knows it all.

 

[ViaCrucis]

So they say. They once said we came from apes and that the world was flat. There are too many variables to analyze, man will never understand the universe fully, he will always get things wrong, especially if he refuses to acknowledge God. He may obtain knowledge but his inability to see all things at one time will only make it a piece of a larger puzzle. Science should embrace God, they can still marvel at his mysteries and study them, acknowledging God doesn't make one a fool, it makes him wise. That's the way science started out, most scientists believed in God at first, but since then man has become arrogant thinking he knows it all.

We didn't "come from apes", we are apes. An "ape" is any member in Hominoidea.

Just like every member in Felidae is called a "cat", from house cats to jaguars.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[weariedsoul]

We didn't "come from apes", we are apes. An "ape" is any member in Hominoidea.

Just like every member in Felidae is called a "cat", from house cats to jaguars.

-CryptoLutheran

I know we didnt come from apes, tell it to Darwin.

 

[Lion King]

We didn't "come from apes", we are apes. An "ape" is any member in Hominoidea.

Just like every member in Felidae is called a "cat", from house cats to jaguars.

-CryptoLutheran

Apes are apes, human beings are human beings. Totally different species.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Apes are apes, human beings are human beings. Totally different species.

"Ape" is not a species, for goodness' sake. If you're going to deny the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, at least know the basic terms.

 

[weariedsoul]

"Ape" is not a species, for goodness' sake. If you're going to deny the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, at least know the basic terms.

You are only debating words. We all know that evolution once taught that man evolved from an ape like creature.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6WC6upXgfbE

 

[SilenceInMotion]

the scientist say that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old!

That's because it is. You won't find one scrap of evidence that tells otherwise. All you can do is give your rather shallow interpretation of Scripture along with an equally shallow interpretation of scientific discovery.

 

[weariedsoul]

That's because it is. You won't find one scrap of evidence that tells otherwise. All you can do is give your rather shallow interpretation of Scripture along with an equally shallow interpretation of scientific discovery.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Can man really be trusted? After all he has gotten wrong? Think about it that way.

 

[SilenceInMotion]

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Can man really be trusted? After all he has gotten wrong? Think about it that way.

It is not just the singular evidences, but how they are all cross-referenced and fit together that make all the difference.

A literalist can argue that the fish fossils found on tops of mountains were due to a world-wide, cataclysmic flood, but someone else can simply say that over time, what was at the bottom of the ocean got up there through millions of years of which the crust pushed upwards on itself.
Where scientists get the upper hand in that argument is the fact that mountains get taller at a rate which coincides with the date of the fossils- they would have been on the ocean floor before the mountain formed.
This is the power of cross-referenced evidence in science.

It gets to a point, when you see this riddled in science, that you eventually have to concede that Genesis is not literal.
Evolutionary theory is among the most damning because it is actually sits on all other sciences. In order for evolution to be wrong, you practically have to discount science altogether.

 

[weariedsoul]

It is not just the singular evidences, but how they are all cross-referenced and fit together that make all the difference.

A literalist can argue that the fish fossils found on tops of mountains were due to a world-wide, cataclysmic flood, but someone else can simply say that over time, what was at the bottom of the ocean got up there through millions of years of which the crust pushed upwards on itself.
Where scientists get the upper hand in that argument is the fact that mountains get taller at a rate which coincides with the date of the fossils- they would have been on the ocean floor before the mountain formed.
This is the power of cross-referenced evidence in science.

It gets to a point, when you see this riddled in science, that you eventually have to concede that Genesis is not literal.
Evolutionary theory is among the most damning because it is actually sits on all other sciences. In order for evolution to be wrong, you practically have to discount science altogether.

Yes but we must consider that things are not always as they appear to be, and that man who denies God is bias and actually can lie about things. THe global warming data for example, they said it was getting hotter, but the thermometers they used to measure temps were purposely put beside hot air exhausts from air conditioning units. They were using flawed data. They did it on purpose. ANd even if they are not lying, that doesn't mean they are right because they have been wrong so many times before. They could be right but i wouldn't put any trust in man, especially if they are atheists.

 

[SilenceInMotion]

Yes but we must consider that things are not always as they appear to be, and that man who denies God is bias and actually can lie about things. THe global warming data for example, they said it was getting hotter, but the thermometers they used to measure temps were purposely put beside hot air exhausts from air conditioning units. They were using flawed data. They did it on purpose. ANd even if they are not lying, that doesn't mean they are right because they have been wrong so many times before. They could be right but i wouldn't put any trust in man, especially if they are atheists.

Climatology is a very new science. A lot of people don't really realize that. Global warming is more a political endeavor then anything else., I don't believe anyone can be really certain on what's going on with the Earth's climate. As such, it is not a science talked about much except by skeptics and, well, Democrats

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

You are only debating words. We all know that evolution once taught that man evolved from an ape like creature.

EVOLUCION S.Bravo - YouTube

No, man is an ape, evolved from other apes.

 

[Lion King]

No, man is an ape, evolved from other apes.

Man was created from dust, and to dust he shall return...

The first man is of the earth, made of dust: the second man is the Lord from heaven. 1 Corinthians 15:47

 

[andreha]

So what's to say that God did not 'create' everything with the history already built in?

I notice that Genesis does not say he created the particles that would become stars... but that he created stars.

I also notice that Genesis states that God created man... fully grown.

So what's to say that God didn't 'create' with 14-15 Trillion years of history built in when he created 10k years or so ago? (from our POV)

Why hook ourselves to the idea that something, created from nothing, has to be created in the way we think?

Food for thought.

Forgive me...

Good points indeed.

After all, to God, a day is like a thousand years, and vice versa. Nothing could have stopped God from creating somthing that would, to us, seem a lot older.

 

[New_Wineskin]

So what's to say that God did not 'create' everything with the history already built in?

I notice that Genesis does not say he created the particles that would become stars... but that he created stars.

I also notice that Genesis states that God created man... fully grown.

So what's to say that God didn't 'create' with 14-15 Trillion years of history built in when he created 10k years or so ago? (from our POV)

That would make the Lord highly deceptive - a liar .

 

[New_Wineskin]

Climatology is a very new science. A lot of people don't really realize that. Global warming is more a political endeavor then anything else., I don't believe anyone can be really certain on what's going on with the Earth's climate. As such, it is not a science talked about much except by skeptics and, well, Democrats

New evidence from many points throughout the world that temperature rise plateaued 16 years ago .

 

[OrthodoxyUSA]

I find myself wondering at the many things that happened in the first instant that God said "Let there be..."

Truely many billions of things happened at once, as the big bang theory suggests.

Not that it all started from a single point and expanded like an explosion (I used to think that's what was meant by big bang), but rather that it all came into being at the same time like rolling out a carpet.

Creation is not the same as 'building' something from other existing materials, but rather calling something 'from nothing' into being.

We seem to think that we understand the 'birth' of stars. Yet from a creation point of view, they came into being without the birth process.

However when we look at them we see them as being billions of years old as we attempt to calculate how old they 'must be', always keeping in mind our ideas of how they 'must have' come to exist. It could be that all of that 'growth' we seem to think must have taken so much 'time', happened in the first instant, created that way.

God's creation is great and mysterious.

I don't see how we could view it as God being a liar, when he clearly tells us that is what he did.

All of this, just for conversation... The Orthodox Churches teach very little on the subject.

Forgive me...

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

However when we look at them we see them as being billions of years old as we attempt to calculate how old they 'must be', always keeping in mind our ideas of how they 'must have' come to exist.

Well, that's really not how science is done. It's not a deductive process. We observe entities that are billions of light years away and therefore billions of light years in the past; we observe stars in formation that accounts for the stellar behavior of later-stage observable stars, and the death of stars that demonstrates what conditions are necessary for the variety of ends to stellar evolution; we detect the speed of galaxies moving away from one another at such and such a speed and various places throughout the known universe and directly see that they form a pattern of movement away from a central point in space. That's how it works, and the fact that everything matches up is a testimony to the coherence of the scientific method, not to this idea creationists have that scientists set out to demonstrate a coherence deductively.

I highly, highly recommend this excellent series on youtube by an English weather sciences journalist which presents the mainstream views on cosmic, galactic, planetary, geological, and biological evolution:

From Big Bang to Us -- Made Easy - YouTube

Warning: I'm fairly certain he's agnostic or an atheist. But it's the clearest presentation in non-mathematical form of the big picture I know of. At the very least, it makes clear what the scientific consensus actually is, which I'd hope creationists would want to know when they take all the trouble to refute and deny it. In fact, video #6 on the idea of natural selection was shown in my systematic theology class in grad school specifically so that students would have some idea of what it was my church, the LCMS, denied.