Explaining the God particle

[dad]

Alright. Now that I know what you're arguing for, I can maybe address it a little bit better. I'll be honest in saying that I'm not certain I can entirely address the theology of it, though.

From a scientific standpoint, I can really only pick the points that are falsifiable. Much of the idea is, by its nature, non-falsifiable since it doesn't make predictions that can be tested and proven to be correct or incorrect. The concept of a change in physical laws which leaves the older state undefined and which establishes a clear boundary which present physical laws do not cross cannot be disproved via the natural sciences.

Bingo. So there is no excuse to disbelieve God.

The natural sciences can strongly suggest against it (ie., we can see that the fossil record, radioisotope ratios, and cosmology all appear as they would if current natural phenomena had been standard throughout all of cosmological history),

What you find depends on what you are looking for. Science assumes a present state and then models accordingly or observes things far away accordingly.

and we can approach certainty just from that regard that it is untrue, but the theory has contained within itself a way to adjust it with no real effort to fit any available scientific evidence. Namely, by not defining the attributes of the past physical state, it can say that all evidence we see just looks like it originated from present state physics extended into the distant past, while actually coming from an unobserved process. Science on its own can't disprove it, and I've decided not to go into the theology of it.

Science doesn't know one way or the other.

So, just with modern science, we can say that the idea is unlikely.

Meaningless,since modern science equals physical only and this temporal state only.

Biblically, however, it becomes more problematic. The suggestion contained in the idea involves a split on an epic scale, with substantial and fundamental changes in the nature of reality.

Exactly.

This goes unmentioned throughout the Biblical record. While Peleg's name does mean "split", the most logical assumption here, without any further details, would be that Peleg lived at the time of the Tower of Babel.

I agree!! I also think that the effect of our brains starting to work a new way resulted in different languages! Another major trait of the former state was that the spiritual was a part of it. Notice that they tried to build UP to a nearby spiritual area!? That makes no sense today, in this physical only state. If one looks at the lifespans in light of a big change actually originating in Peleg's day, it makes more sense also than the flood year!

Regardless, such a substantial change would have gotten more mention than this.

Not if it was not meant to. Look at the first coming of Jesus, many thought that He would start to rule earth back then. It was a mystery.

The change involved in the "split/merge" idea involves an alteration of the fundamental nature of space-time, the laws of physics, and thermodynamics.

So does the millennium and apparently even the Tribulation!

There are many ways to unify science and Scripture which seem less unlikely to this.

None at all. I find flood geology weak. I also find severe reworking of simple truths of Genesis to try to accommodate science weak, and pusillanimous.

Many ancient readers did not read the days of Genesis as being 24 hour days, for instance (including St. Augustine on the Christian side and Philo on the Jewish side), so it is possible to view the text in that light in a natural way. It is much more difficult to read it naturally as suggesting a radical change in the laws governing the Universe.

Not really when you have looked into it as I have.

Massless particles must always move at the speed of light,

No!

Our light is something that is seen in the near earth space and time. Imagining it is the same far away is speculation.

so if you were to in some way negate the effect of the Higgs Field and make all particles massless, then all particles would move at a speed equal to that of light.

No need if the higgs field can only exist in this fishbowl of a temporal present state earth.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

Bingo. So there is no excuse to disbelieve God.

Well, like I said, that doesn't mean that your idea is true. I think that the arguments I made against it later are strong enough to make it seem unlikely from a Biblical perspective. Other ways of understanding science and Christianity are more effective at combining the different sources of knowledge (science and Scripture) in ways that seem less unnatural toward both.

Science, looking just at how things works now, can't say for certain that it's untrue any more than science can say for certain that the solar system isn't surrounded by an enormous sphere built by an extraterrestrial society to simulate exactly what the Universe away from the Earth would look like if it weren't there. That doesn't mean that the explanation of the Earth being surrounded by a sphere is likely, however. It just means that science can technically disprove it, since you can give the sphere any quality you want and place it as far out as you want so that no rocket can ever hit it.

What you find depends on what you are looking for. Science assumes a present state and then models accordingly or observes things far away accordingly.

Scientists may look for specific things because of scientific models, but scientific models make suggestions in themselves. For example, the Big Bang theory suggested that there should be a cosmic radiation background left over from the early days of the Universe. This was unproven for a long time, before we finally found it accidentally. The cosmic radiation background that we expected from our cosmological theories was present as the "microwave background".

This was predicted from the theory before it was seen. In this case, you can't say that people were either looking for it or building theories off of it. They simply stumbled across something that provided evidence for an earlier theory.

I agree!! I also think that the effect of our brains starting to work a new way resulted in different languages! Another major trait of the former state was that the spiritual was a part of it. Notice that they tried to build UP to a nearby spiritual area!? That makes no sense today, in this physical only state. If one looks at the lifespans in light of a big change actually originating in Peleg's day, it makes more sense also than the flood year!

Just because someone thought that they could build a tower up to Heaven doesn't mean that it was actually possible. Ancient societies tended to have a view of the world around them in which Heaven was literally above them and they could literally reach it if they could build a big enough tower. You see similar beliefs in the Greco-Roman world and even in later Christianity. Given that the people who made the Tower of Babel were very likely extremely primitive, the idea of building a high tower to reach the sky must have seemed logical to them. It doesn't mean that they could have actually done it, but the futility of their action doesn't negate the evil of their hubris. It's kind of like someone trying to shoot another person through bulletproof glass, thinking that it's a regular window.

Not if it was not meant to. Look at the first coming of Jesus, many thought that He would start to rule earth back then. It was a mystery.

Using this to place arguments in Scripture seems extremely arbitrary. I don't think it's a stretch to say that someone could make almost any argument doing this, including some that are blatantly heretical.

God wants us to come to Him, and He gave us the Bible to help us do just that. Nevertheless, the Bible says that we can have knowledge of God's existence through looking at creation, enough that we are without excuse for our sin (at least naturally, although complicating factors can tend to make us unable to see when certain things are sinful). If the Bible and the Universe were to offer conflicting accounts of how the Universe came into being, and if the Bible did not explain why these two were conflicting, then it would seem that the Universe would serve the opposite purpose (it would suggest the existence of a god, but not the Christian God).

None at all. I find flood geology weak. I also find severe reworking of simple truths of Genesis to try to accommodate science weak, and pusillanimous.

A view of the days of Genesis as not being literal 24 hour days has been fairly common for a very long time, as I noted earlier. The idea that you have, however, is much more difficult to work into the Biblical account, and it has never been done before, going back to the earliest writings on Genesis we have. I would suggest that the non-literal view is much more natural.

 

[dad]

Well, like I said, that doesn't mean that your idea is true.

You don't know. However I have a solid bible case.

I think that the arguments I made against it later are strong enough to make it seem unlikely from a Biblical perspective.

False. It is certain that this state is temporary.

Other ways of understanding science and Christianity are more effective at combining the different sources of knowledge (science and Scripture) in ways that seem less unnatural toward both.

Untrue. Nothing comes close.

Science, looking just at how things works now, can't say for certain that it's untrue any more than science can say for certain that the solar system isn't surrounded by an enormous sphere built by an extraterrestrial society to simulate exactly what the Universe away from the Earth would look like if it weren't there. That doesn't mean that the explanation of the Earth being surrounded by a sphere is likely, however. It just means that science can technically disprove it, since you can give the sphere any quality you want and place it as far out as you want so that no rocket can ever hit it.

It can neither disprove God's past nor prove it's own claimed same state past! Defeated is about the only word that comes to mind.

Scientists may look for specific things because of scientific models, but scientific models make suggestions in themselves. For example, the Big Bang theory suggested that there should be a cosmic radiation background left over from the early days of the Universe. This was unproven for a long time, before we finally found it accidentally. The cosmic radiation background that we expected from our cosmological theories was present as the "microwave background".

No. A difference in what we perceive as 'temperature' is expected in a creation model also. Especially from an earth observer!

This was predicted from the theory before it was seen. In this case, you can't say that people were either looking for it or building theories off of it. They simply stumbled across something that provided evidence for an earlier theory.

No. They saw something that they assigned to a preferred theory. The fit is debatable.

Just because someone thought that they could build a tower up to Heaven doesn't mean that it was actually possible.

Why not? It fits.

Ancient societies tended to have a view of the world around them in which Heaven was literally above them and they could literally reach it if they could build a big enough tower.

Ever ask yourself why!? Maybe they were right.

You see similar beliefs in the Greco-Roman world and even in later Christianity

?? Source? I do not recall Paul teaching us that there was a nearby heaven we could build stairs to!

Given that the people who made the Tower of Babel were very likely extremely primitive, the idea of building a high tower to reach the sky must have seemed logical to them. It doesn't mean that they could have actually done it, but the futility of their action doesn't negate the evil of their hubris. It's kind of like someone trying to shoot another person through bulletproof glass, thinking that it's a regular window.

Speculation. We also have the record of spirits marrying women on earth. They had to be near.

Using this to place arguments in Scripture seems extremely arbitrary. I don't think it's a stretch to say that someone could make almost any argument doing this, including some that are blatantly heretical.

False. The creation week realities and flood realities demand a different state. So does the future.

God wants us to come to Him, and He gave us the Bible to help us do just that. Nevertheless, the Bible says that we can have knowledge of God's existence through looking at creation, enough that we are without excuse for our sin (at least naturally, although complicating factors can tend to make us unable to see when certain things are sinful).

Looking at creation does not mean doubting it, by imposing Satan's anti creation, physical only concepts on what is seen.

If the Bible and the Universe were to offer conflicting accounts of how the Universe came into being, and if the Bible did not explain why these two were conflicting, then it would seem that the Universe would serve the opposite purpose (it would suggest the existence of a god, but not the Christian God).

Relax. The conflict is fabricated.

A view of the days of Genesis as not being literal 24 hour days has been fairly common for a very long time, as I noted earlier.

A desire to compromise with man's wisdom, to the point of mutilating scripture to try to fit. Pathetic.

The idea that you have, however, is much more difficult to work into the Biblical account, and it has never been done before, going back to the earliest writings on Genesis we have. I would suggest that the non-literal view is much more natural.

You don't know what you are talking about. A different state past is the easiest ans simplest explanation, that is bullet proof to science and fits the bible in every way.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

Untrue. Nothing comes close.

This is honestly a relatively extreme claim, given the fact that this reading seems extremely unnatural. People have understood the days of Genesis in ways other than literal 24 hour spans since before the birth of Christ, while your idea seems relatively new (the site you linked to goes back only to 1997). While being new in and of itself wouldn't automatically render an interpretation of a text incorrect, it does make that explanation seem unnatural and unlikely to have been the intention of the author. Being old doesn't automatically render an interpretation right (for instance, many of those who believed in non-24 hour days believed in an instantaneous creation), but it does give more credit to the ease of reading it out of a document.

There is a burden of proof in discussions like this, and when you're making an innovative and unusual claim, the burden of proof is on you to prove that it's the best way of understanding the text. It's not enough to say that other ways of interpreting the text are "mutilating" it or that the opinions of men like St. Augustine are "pathetic". You have to prove that the older and apparently more natural way of reading the days of Genesis as non-literal is impossible and that your way of dealing with the text, despite being an unnatural reading, is either the best or the only way to read it.

Technically, flood geology would involve the simplest reading of the text, but from a scientific standpoint, it is impossible. Given that, we're debating two at least somewhat difficult readings of Genesis, one of which has precedence going back two thousand years (reading the days as not being 24 hour spans) and one of which has no historical precedence and introduces serious theological concerns by suggesting that the physical and the spiritual once existed together in a sort of "alloyed" state and that they are now completely separate (which causes difficulties for the theological fact that human beings are a combination of a physical body and a spiritual soul). I would certainly argue that the first is the easiest.

No. A difference in what we perceive as 'temperature' is expected in a creation model also. Especially from an earth observer!
No. They saw something that they assigned to a preferred theory. The fit is debatable.

The Big Bang theory predicts that there should be a background of radiation in the Universe formed during the early stages of the Universe's expansion. This radiation background would have started out as very high energy gamma rays. Wavelength would have increased and energy would have decreased because the wavelength of the photons would have increased with the expansion of the Universe, and so that radiation would have gone down in energy and up in wavelength to become a microwave background. Since microwaves don't really penetrate the atmosphere, this was untested for a long time. The background was finally recorded by individuals who really weren't looking for it, and it looked exactly like what the Big Bang predicted.

This is just one example, which helps to prove the point that science makes predictions based off of the present state which play out when we look at the Universe around us. The predictive ability of science makes the idea of a different state past unlikely.

?? Source? I do not recall Paul teaching us that there was a nearby heaven we could build stairs to!

Paul didn't say that in the Bible. The Bible is divinely inspired, and preserved from any sort of error that the authors might have had regarding the nature of the Universe. That doesn't mean that the actions of people in the past were equally inspired and free from error, though. It is entirely possible (and more consistent with the easier reading of the text) to say that the builders of the Tower of Babel were incorrect about the nature of the Universe.

 

[dad]

This is honestly a relatively extreme claim, given the fact that this reading seems extremely unnatural.

Thanks. But it happens to be true. Now as for natural...that refers to nature at this time, no? Think about it.

People have understood the days of Genesis in ways other than literal 24 hour spans since before the birth of Christ, while your idea seems relatively new (the site you linked to goes back only to 1997).

People believed in creation...like all the holy men of God of all bible ages, and Jesus long before the compromise theories came! In dealing with the problem, I found a better way than surrender and compromise...belief.

While being new in and of itself wouldn't automatically render an interpretation of a text incorrect, it does make that explanation seem unnatural and unlikely to have been the intention of the author.

Meaningless. Treasures new and old are promised from the bible. It was there all along, I just dug it out.

There is a burden of proof in discussions like this, and when you're making an innovative and unusual claim, the burden of proof is on you to prove that it's the best way of understanding the text.

I have looked at the texts, and there are so many it would be impossible to list them all here. A good place to start is the future...it is I believe the key to the past. Do you admit that this earth and heavens we know now willl pass away and new ones come to exist? Do you admit huge changes in animals are coming such as lions eating grass? Do you admit differences in life spans are coming in the millennium? Do you admit a 1500 mile wide and long and high golden city is coming down from heaven to earth where we and God will live? etc etc etc?

It's not enough to say that other ways of interpreting the text are "mutilating" it or that the opinions of men like St. Augustine are "pathetic". You have to prove that the older and apparently more natural way of reading the days of Genesis as non-literal is impossible and that your way of dealing with the text, despite being an unnatural reading, is either the best or the only way to read it.

No. That is easy, but just one little issue. We can say that that will not win against science in defending creation!!!! Why do you think new ideas and weapons of spiritual war were needed? You thought God was a loser?

Technically, flood geology would involve the simplest reading of the text, but from a scientific standpoint, it is impossible.

Bingo...so we need to look deeper.

Given that, we're debating two at least somewhat difficult readings of Genesis, one of which has precedence going back two thousand years (reading the days as not being 24 hour spans) and one of which has no historical precedence and introduces serious theological concerns by suggesting that the physical and the spiritual once existed together in a sort of "alloyed" state and that they are now completely separate (which causes difficulties for the theological fact that human beings are a combination of a physical body and a spiritual soul). I would certainly argue that the first is the easiest.

Hey every tub has to stand on it's own legs. My tub does. Yours did not. Neither against science nor in the bible.

The Big Bang theory predicts that there should be a background of radiation in the Universe formed during the early stages of the Universe's expansion. This radiation background would have started out as very high energy gamma rays. Wavelength would have increased and energy would have decreased because the wavelength of the photons would have increased with the expansion of the Universe, and so that radiation would have gone down in energy and up in wavelength to become a microwave background. Since microwaves don't really penetrate the atmosphere, this was untested for a long time. The background was finally recorded by individuals who really weren't looking for it, and it looked exactly like what the Big Bang predicted.

Much ado about nothing. Bottom line, we see some differences in energy in deep space. In no way do they need to be explained by an insane theory like big bang. Really.

As for predictions, astronomical predictions fall like flies. Grasping at one that seems to be right is a lame endeavor.

I could drive a fleet of mac trucks through the fables that comprise the big bang.

"When the universe was young, before the formation of stars and planets, it was smaller, much hotter, and filled with a uniform glow from its white-hot fog of hydrogen plasma. As the universe expanded, both the plasma and the radiation filling it grew cooler. When the universe cooled enough, protons and electrons could form neutral atoms. These atoms could no longer absorb the thermal radiation, and the universe became transparent instead of being an opaque fog."

Cosmic microwave background radiation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Looking at the basis for the claims, I assure you it cannot be supported, period.

This is just one example, which helps to prove the point that science makes predictions based off of the present state which play out when we look at the Universe around us.

False. Much was predicted that failed. Your witness is tossed out. No one saw a universe as a fog! Nor as a little speck o soup! Nor stars forming for the most part..etc etc etc. In the conglomerate of things needed to make your fable hold water, nothing at all is supportable!

The predictive ability of science makes the idea of a different state past unlikely.

False. It does no such thing. First of all science has no real clue what time and space are...let alone what they are in deep space! They interpret info streaming into the fishbowl.

Paul didn't say that in the Bible.

Right..nor anyone else after Babel!!!

The Bible is divinely inspired, and preserved from any sort of error that the authors might have had regarding the nature of the Universe.

There are angels coming from space to earth. They live there. So much for your claims of knowing nature in space!!

That doesn't mean that the actions of people in the past were equally inspired and free from error, though. It is entirely possible (and more consistent with the easier reading of the text) to say that the builders of the Tower of Babel were incorrect about the nature of the Universe.

Not when we see that it concerned God enough to take action! Not when we realize that spirits lived here or nearby somewhere and married women! So guess where the mistake must lie?

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

Thanks. But it happens to be true. Now as for natural...that refers to nature at this time, no? Think about it.

I refer here to a natural reading of the text. I mean this more in the sense of "easy" than "what happens in nature". As I said, any interpretation other than flood geology requires a somewhat difficult reading of the text. Since we both seem to agree that flood geology is too problematic scientifically to be the correct reading of the text, and since we both agree for independent reasons that Christianity is correct, we both believe that a reading less natural than that is necessary.

Meaningless. Treasures new and old are promised from the bible. It was there all along, I just dug it out.

It's not meaningless, actually. The less natural a reading of the text is, the less likely it is to be correct. If your theory has not been found before, then it is not a very natural reading. If another theory has been, then it would seem to be more natural. The more unnatural a reading of the Bible is, the more justification it has to have. With the idea that the days aren't literally 24 hour periods, we can justify how this could fit into the text by pointing out that the first chapter of Genesis is really unusual from a literary perspective. It doesn't read as either poetry or prose in the Hebrew, and it's the only example of its particular type of writing that we know of to exist in the language. This, combined with the fact that a non-24 hour view goes back into antiquity, suggests that this might be the best way to read the text.

With your theory, there are enough issues created both scientifically and Biblically that it would seem best to avoid if possible, and there is no justification for putting it into the text. It's more similar to the Bible code, the idea that equidistant letter spacing is used in the Bible to relay hidden prophecies, than it is to the development of our understanding of Divine revelation which leads to a more complete view of the text. It simply reads something into the Bible to support a particular view of Genesis, when other views out there do substantially less harm to the natural understanding of the book.

Do you admit that this earth and heavens we know now willl pass away and new ones come to exist? Do you admit huge changes in animals are coming such as lions eating grass? Do you admit differences in life spans are coming in the millennium? Do you admit a 1500 mile wide and long and high golden city is coming down from heaven to earth where we and God will live? etc etc etc?

I will note first, when you're talking with Catholics, please understand that the concept of a pretribulation rapture, a literal 1,000 year millennium coming in the future, and several other common Protestant ideas regarding Revelation are not accepted by Catholics. We believe that the millennium is occurring right now, with the reign of Christ in Heaven, and will last for as long as it lasts (1,000 was a number commonly used to stand in for "a lot of something" or "a really long time").

That said, we do absolutely accept the concept of a New Heaven and New Earth, so I think that I agree with you on the detail that the future will be different from the present. This really gives no justification to the view that the past and the future were the same, or that there was a merged state that has become split. The transition from the present world to the future one is portrayed in terms that would make it obvious (the present world passing away in fire, for instance), rather than an alloying of the spiritual and the physical.

No. That is easy, but just one little issue. We can say that that will not win against science in defending creation!!!! Why do you think new ideas and weapons of spiritual war were needed? You thought God was a loser?

No, I do not think that God is a "loser". God is the great, omnipotent, and omniscient creator of all things.

I will, however, reiterate what I've already said. There is no war between science and religion.

Bingo...so we need to look deeper.
Hey every tub has to stand on it's own legs. My tub does. Yours did not. Neither against science nor in the bible.

The way in which I (and many other Christians) read Genesis doesn't have to stand against science. Science is simply the use of our God-given abilities to understand the world around us, and ideally to use that understanding to glorify God. It also reads more naturally into the Biblical account than your concept.

False. Much was predicted that failed. Your witness is tossed out. No one saw a universe as a fog! Nor as a little speck o soup! Nor stars forming for the most part..etc etc etc. In the conglomerate of things needed to make your fable hold water, nothing at all is supportable!

Seeing the cosmic microwave background is as close as we could expect to seeing the "opaque fog" of the early Universe. That fog is, by its nature, not something we can see. I wasn't solely referring to astronomical predictions being proven, though. Science has a very good track record in its predictions from a physical, biological, and astronomical perspective. This includes evolutionary biology, where we have often found species that appear to be transitional in exactly the place where we would expect to find them if they were. We never see fossils believed to be older above fossils believed to be younger (at least not in strata where obvious issues don't exist), and we can look at very ancient tree rings (going back further than a strict reading of Genesis would suggest) and they show the same events visible in modern trees at the same time as one another, building up a strong chronology. These all suggest that science has predictive ability looking into the past.

Scientific theories are sometimes wrong, but if only 30% of predictions were correct (and if we could explain why the incorrect predictions were incorrect), then that would still be strong evidence that the past is not inexplicable.

There are angels coming from space to earth. They live there. So much for your claims of knowing nature in space!!

There are still interactions between angels and physical beings seen after the time you assign for the split. For instance, angels appear to the patriarchs and to later figures in ancient Israel. Demons had to be present for Jesus to cast them out, as well. Jacob even has a vision of angels climbing down a ladder (non-literal in both your theory and mine) from Heaven. This requires no merged state where Heaven was literally above Earth.

 

[dad]

I refer here to a natural reading of the text. I mean this more in the sense of "easy" than "what happens in nature". As I said, any interpretation other than flood geology requires a somewhat difficult reading of the text. Since we both seem to agree that flood geology is too problematic scientifically to be the correct reading of the text, and since we both agree for independent reasons that Christianity is correct, we both believe that a reading less natural than that is necessary.

A natural reading of what text?

It's not meaningless, actually. The less natural a reading of the text is, the less likely it is to be correct. If your theory has not been found before, then it is not a very natural reading.

So nothing new can be discovered from God's word?

If another theory has been, then it would seem to be more natural. The more unnatural a reading of the Bible is, the more justification it has to have. With the idea that the days aren't literally 24 hour periods, we can justify how this could fit into the text by pointing out that the first chapter of Genesis is really unusual from a literary perspective.

Not really. Creation week had plants days before the sun was made. Days could not be very long.

It doesn't read as either poetry or prose in the Hebrew, and it's the only example of its particular type of writing that we know of to exist in the language. This, combined with the fact that a non-24 hour view goes back into antiquity, suggests that this might be the best way to read the text.

No. The Jews took off one day a week, like God told them to, as He did rest on the seventh day.

With your theory, there are enough issues created both scientifically and Biblically that it would seem best to avoid if possible, and there is no justification for putting it into the text.

What issues??

It's more similar to the Bible code, the idea that equidistant letter spacing is used in the Bible to relay hidden prophecies, than it is to the development of our understanding of Divine revelation which leads to a more complete view of the text. It simply reads something into the Bible to support a particular view of Genesis, when other views out there do substantially less harm to the natural understanding of the book.

No view can oppose a different future. The past was similar, so it is safe to accept it was different also. Science requires it to be the same for all it's creation opposing models.

I will note first, when you're talking with Catholics, please understand that the concept of a pretribulation rapture, a literal 1,000 year millennium coming in the future, and several other common Protestant ideas regarding Revelation are not accepted by Catholics. We believe that the millennium is occurring right now, with the reign of Christ in Heaven, and will last for as long as it lasts (1,000 was a number commonly used to stand in for "a lot of something" or "a really long time").

So you do not believe basically in God's word. OK. It is clear that the Tribulation precedes the 1000 real year reign. I had no idea that you guys were so far gone.

That said, we do absolutely accept the concept of a New Heaven and New Earth, so I think that I agree with you on the detail that the future will be different from the present. This really gives no justification to the view that the past and the future were the same, or that there was a merged state that has become split.

The long life spans are the same in both..spirits among men in both....and the laws are different. In the Tribulation for example every mountain will be levelled, every island moved..etc...yet no killing heat.

The transition from the present world to the future one is portrayed in terms that would make it obvious (the present world passing away in fire, for instance), rather than an alloying of the spiritual and the physical.

No, that is the new heavens after the 1000 years. After the Tribulation also. In the 1000 years reign we see long lifespans and lions eating grass and etc. Notice it is not here now actually??

No, I do not think that God is a "loser". God is the great, omnipotent, and omniscient creator of all things.

Who gave us Genesis...claimed creation of man...etc.

I will, however, reiterate what I've already said. There is no war between science and religion.

Not for those that gave up long ago, no. Come on over to the fightin side.

The way in which I (and many other Christians) read Genesis doesn't have to stand against science.

No, nor for God's word.

Science is simply the use of our God-given abilities to understand the world around us, and ideally to use that understanding to glorify God. It also reads more naturally into the Biblical account than your concept.

It relegates God's word to a foolish lie. Why you would join that I have no idea.

Seeing the cosmic microwave background is as close as we could expect to seeing the "opaque fog" of the early Universe.

Nonsense. In no way need it mean anything remotely connected to that.

That fog is, by its nature, not something we can see. I wasn't solely referring to astronomical predictions being proven, though. Science has a very good track record in its predictions from a physical, biological, and astronomical perspective. This includes evolutionary biology, where we have often found species that appear to be transitional in exactly the place where we would expect to find them if they were.

And often..not? If rapid evolving was the natural order of the day in the former state, naturally a lot of evolving would have gone on. In no way does that detract from creation or kinds.

We never see fossils believed to be older above fossils believed to be younger (at least not in strata where obvious issues don't exist),

We never see most fossils at all! Man and lions and etc etc could not even fossilize apparently. Your fossil record is a partial record and insignificant.

and we can look at very ancient tree rings (going back further than a strict reading of Genesis would suggest) and they show the same events visible in modern trees at the same time as one another, building up a strong chronology. These all suggest that science has predictive ability looking into the past.

Let's see you show us ant rings up close pre 4500 years ago?? No one has done that yet. So how could you know...yet you make claims!

Scientific theories are sometimes wrong, but if only 30% of predictions were correct (and if we could explain why the incorrect predictions were incorrect), then that would still be strong evidence that the past is not inexplicable.

No. It would be strong evidence you got almost everything wrong!

There are still interactions between angels and physical beings seen after the time you assign for the split. For instance, angels appear to the patriarchs and to later figures in ancient Israel. Demons had to be present for Jesus to cast them out, as well. Jacob even has a vision of angels climbing down a ladder (non-literal in both your theory and mine) from Heaven. This requires no merged state where Heaven was literally above Earth.

False, no one sees the spirits now. They see the body that they use. In former times it was up close and personal.

Of course angels still exist and demons.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

A natural reading of what text?

Genesis.

So nothing new can be discovered from God's word?

I did not say that we can't learn new things over time. I specifically said that doctrine can develop as we learn to pierce the mysteries of God more thoroughly. I was simply saying that, when something is not found obviously in Divine Revelation, the odds that it was the intention of God to convey it are lower.

Not really. Creation week had plants days before the sun was made. Days could not be very long.

The understanding of Creation which I hold to is the Framework Interpretation. I do not believe that the "days" were really "ages". I believe that the days of Genesis were a literary framing device, and that this is a possible and relatively natural way to read Genesis.

No. The Jews took off one day a week, like God told them to, as He did rest on the seventh day.

I understand that this is the framing for the Jewish Sabbath, but it does not mean that the day of rest is modeled after a literal 24 hour day of rest. The Jews divided their lives along 7 time-period models for many different things.

So you do not believe basically in God's word. OK. It is clear that the Tribulation precedes the 1000 real year reign. I had no idea that you guys were so far gone.

If we're "so far gone", then so were all of the early Protestants and many of their descendants (Lutherans, for instance) today. The fact is that Premillennialism is not a clear Biblical teaching. For instance, it sets up a time period between the second coming and the final judgment, while the Bible is very clear that the second coming and final judgment will coincide. The Bible also states that Satan will be bound during the millennium, and Jesus is clear that He "saw Satan fall like lightning" in the first century A.D. While a millennialist view did exist in the early centuries of the Church, it very quickly became clear that this viewpoint could not be correct. I should also note that many premillennialist views in existence today are not found in ancient Christian sources, like the idea of the rapture, the idea that the Church is not the new Israel, etc. All of these concepts are unique in history to certain branches of evangelical Protestantism.

No, nor for God's word.

This is literally the first argument I've had against young Earth creationism in about half a year, and I didn't pick the fight. Most of my debates have been in favor of Christianity. I actually started this by pointing out the issues with the conflict thesis, which emerged in the 18th century out of a misguided disdain for religion and a view of it as being in opposition to "enlightenment".

Nonsense. In no way need it mean anything remotely connected to that.

The microwave background radiation resulted from radiation which escaped after the opaque fog of the early Universe went away. It was predicted by that model.

We never see most fossils at all! Man and lions and etc etc could not even fossilize apparently. Your fossil record is a partial record and insignificant.

We do have remains of human beings, although they're recent enough that the remains are (at least mostly) bones rather than true fossils. Recent organisms generally haven't had time to fossilize yet (there are unusual exceptions, like the "fossils" of people who died following the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Pompeii).

That said, the fossil record is incomplete, but that doesn't make it insignificant. It is complete enough to be significant.

Let's see you show us ant rings up close pre 4500 years ago?? No one has done that yet. So how could you know...yet you make claims!

Dendrochronology (the use of annular growth rings on trees to generate a sort of timeline going into the past) has fully anchored records going back 11,000 years. This means that we can observe a tree which died recently, find events in its past (like an obvious drought), and look for those same events in trees which died less recently. When we find those events, we can keep going further back and further back, with a strong record for how each year affected tree growth. This doesn't have any sudden breaks or points where it becomes highly abnormal as you go into the more distant past.

Other, similar methods (like ice core sampling and looking into the sediment layers found beneath lakes) can go back even further, sometimes hundreds of thousands of years. In these, too, there are no points where the record becomes abnormal. Trees are a better example, though, because they clearly represent a purely physical natural process going back past the point that you would expect for the "split/merge" theory.

No. It would be strong evidence you got almost everything wrong!

I gave the 30% figure because honestly, it's probably historically accurate. Science isn't a monolithic entity. It's composed of individuals who can make mistakes. Some of them are even mistakes that make sense with all that we know about the world around us, but they're still wrong. As we learn more, though, we generally figure out why they're wrong (although in some cases, there's still a bit of mystery to it today).

A 30% prediction rate, however, is not what you would expect if the Universe around us were utterly unpredictable and confusing based on the way that things work now. Given that we can very often explain why we're wrong in fields like paleontology or cosmology using present day physics as the basis, this is not a problem. I'm also including predictions about the present world immediately around us in this, too. We get that wrong just as often as we get things about the depths of space wrong (think of how people in the past thought that heat was caused by the transfer of a fluid called "caloric", for instance).

 

[dad]

Genesis.

It is not natural to assume that when God says He made the earth first, and stars and sun later, that one assume He is mistaken, and that the big bang really did it, in reverse order no less!!

I did not say that we can't learn new things over time. I specifically said that doctrine can develop as we learn to pierce the mysteries of God more thoroughly. I was simply saying that, when something is not found obviously in Divine Revelation, the odds that it was the intention of God to convey it are lower.

It is obvious once we realize it is in there and has been all along. Just like the messianic prophesies are obvious once Jesus pointed them out. The future is like the past in signature ways. The present state sticks out as different from either in the bible. Clearly. Specifically, and in many ways.

The understanding of Creation which I hold to is the Framework Interpretation. I do not believe that the "days" were really "ages". I believe that the days of Genesis were a literary framing device, and that this is a possible and relatively natural way to read Genesis.

So we simply redefine day as a framing device to make compromise theories more palatable. I see. So maybe Jesus was dead three years...centuries..? Or do we just mutilate a day where it best fits your capitulation theories?

I understand that this is the framing for the Jewish Sabbath, but it does not mean that the day of rest is modeled after a literal 24 hour day of rest. The Jews divided their lives along 7 time-period models for many different things.

For a reason!

If we're "so far gone", then so were all of the early Protestants and many of their descendants (Lutherans, for instance) today. The fact is that Premillennialism is not a clear Biblical teaching. For instance, it sets up a time period between the second coming and the final judgment, while the Bible is very clear that the second coming and final judgment will coincide.

I used to be post Trib rapture. It seemed to make sense. I now lean heavily toward pre trib rapture. There are many reasons, such as God has not appointed us to wrath, and the Trib is wrath if ever wrath was!

But when Jesus takes us, I do not think that is what the day of the Lord is, where He takes over the earth, wins the battle etc....The Rapture is just where we see the Lord in the air...and go to be with Him...later to return. After all He will return with His saints. Makes sense that they must be with Him to be able to return to earth..no?

The Bible also states that Satan will be bound during the millennium, and Jesus is clear that He "saw Satan fall like lightning" in the first century A.D. While a millennialist view did exist in the early centuries of the Church, it very quickly became clear that this viewpoint could not be correct. I should also note that many premillennialist views in existence today are not found in ancient Christian sources, like the idea of the rapture, the idea that the Church is not the new Israel, etc. All of these concepts are unique in history to certain branches of evangelical Protestantism.

Jesus also saw all the kingdoms of the world when Satan gave his tour. That means across TIME. John saw the future things that must come to pass also. So you would need a pretty good case in the bible to have Satan falling as lightening to earth before the Tribulation! That is when we are told he was cast down to earth. The 1000 year reign is just when the old boy gets detained and taken out of the picture, to get released again after that period.

The microwave background radiation resulted from radiation which escaped after the opaque fog of the early Universe went away. It was predicted by that model.

I disagree. You mean that if there was a big bang long ago, and if there was an expansion under our current earth laws, and if the 95% of the universe we do not know about or see but call dark stuff was agreeable, then we might explain the earth based observations of what appears to be energy as we think of it, as in agreement with the big bang fable!

What is the reality? A less than uniform background 'radiation'. In fact it may not be radiation unless laws and space and time were all homogeneous across the universe! 'Radiation' is an earth state feature, the way man thinks of it and knows it. It relates to things like 'temperature'. Temperature as we experience it in this space and state. In this space and under our current laws and forces energy and light must exist a certain way! All we see from far far away is HERE! If space were not the same as space here that we know, but also housed spiritual realities and forces and laws, we would not have any way of knowing that from here.

Yet all distances to stars, and composition of dust and stars etc etc is based on only earth zone space and time fabric and realities! Even the redshift that we interpret as expansion. Every step along the imaginary way to the 'singularity' is an earth zone present state and law and space step! Nothing else whatsoever! Unless you first prove that deep space is identical with the same space and time fabric and forces and laws, you have utterly no case for anything! None. I happen to know that you cannot prove space is the same out there.

We do have remains of human beings, although they're recent enough that the remains are (at least mostly) bones rather than true fossils

Post flood. I assume for now that the flood was near the Cretaceous - Tertiary boundary. To say the least, you have no bones or fossils from then for man!

Recent organisms generally haven't had time to fossilize yet (there are unusual exceptions, like the "fossils" of people who died following the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Pompeii).

That is all in box, in this state exceptions and rules. Irrelevant.

That said, the fossil record is incomplete, but that doesn't make it insignificant. It is complete enough to be significant.

False. If lions and wolves and most mammals and mankind could not fossilize, then the early record is indeed insignificant, unless you have an interest in creeping kinds!

Dendrochronology (the use of annular growth rings on trees to generate a sort of timeline going into the past) has fully anchored records going back 11,000 years.

False! Trees could grow in weeks according to the bible. Rings therefore only have a relation to years in this present state!!!

This means that we can observe a tree which died recently, find events in its past (like an obvious drought), and look for those same events in trees which died less recently. When we find those events, we can keep going further back and further back, with a strong record for how each year affected tree growth. This doesn't have any sudden breaks or points where it becomes highly abnormal as you go into the more distant past.

Only IN this present state!

Other, similar methods (like ice core sampling and looking into the sediment layers found beneath lakes) can go back even further, sometimes hundreds of thousands of years. In these, too, there are no points where the record becomes abnormal. Trees are a better example, though, because they clearly represent a purely physical natural process going back past the point that you would expect for the "split/merge" theory.

Hey how much ice at the bottom of a mile deep ice deposit do you think represents a clear record of 5000 years ago?? Really? As for varves....there was rapid deposition in the former state as well as a lot of continents bashing around and piling up mountains etc. Looking at a deck of cards one needs to know how they were shuffled to know what is what.

I gave the 30% figure because honestly, it's probably historically accurate. Science isn't a monolithic entity. It's composed of individuals who can make mistakes. Some of them are even mistakes that make sense with all that we know about the world around us, but they're still wrong. As we learn more, though, we generally figure out why they're wrong (although in some cases, there's still a bit of mystery to it today).

Even Jeane Dixon did better than that!

A 30% prediction rate, however, is not what you would expect if the Universe around us were utterly unpredictable and confusing based on the way that things work now.

Our state is ordered by God. No expected confusion in the way you imagine.

Given that we can very often explain why we're wrong in fields like paleontology or cosmology using present day physics as the basis, this is not a problem.

Inbred thinking. In box. Circular. Kind of like some folks the bible mentions--


2 Cor 10:12 .. but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are [SIZE=-1][/SIZE]not wise....

14 For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure,

Science should do likewise and not pretend it can stretch beyond the fishbowl of the present state!

I'm also including predictions about the present world immediately around us in this, too. We get that wrong just as often as we get things about the depths of space wrong (think of how people in the past thought that heat was caused by the transfer of a fluid called "caloric", for instance).

How heat transfers in this state is not an issue to the creation debate.

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

It is not natural to assume that when God says He made the earth first, and stars and sun later, that one assume He is mistaken, and that the big bang really did it, in reverse order no less!!

The point of my argument here is that it is really not very natural to include a colossal event on the scale of the one that you're suggesting without an extremely strong reason to do so. This is also one of the reasons why I don't like ideas like the Gap Theory, where Satan fell to Earth and there was an apocalyptic event which left the Earth without form and void before the first chapter of Genesis. It posits an extremely unlikely theory, then relies on questionable rules of Hebrew grammar to fit it into the account.

It is, however, fairly easy to read the days of Genesis as symbols because of the nature of the text around them. It doesn't come across the same way in English, but it really wasn't normal prose in Hebrew (repetition had special literary meaning and repetition of concepts was the basis of poetry).

It is obvious once we realize it is in there and has been all along. Just like the messianic prophesies are obvious once Jesus pointed them out. The future is like the past in signature ways. The present state sticks out as different from either in the bible. Clearly. Specifically, and in many ways.

Your argument seems to be that the future is going to be like the past, and you jump from that to the merged state/split state theory, which I think introduces some theological issues that are best avoided. For instance, the physical human body is joined to a spiritual human soul. It also runs the risk of suggesting that "spirit" and "physical" once had one substance, which is a unique and highly questionable theological position.

I really don't believe that a literal interpretation of Genesis is worth these risks, regardless of whether it's easier to read from the text as translated into English.

So we simply redefine day as a framing device to make compromise theories more palatable. I see. So maybe Jesus was dead three years...centuries..? Or do we just mutilate a day where it best fits your capitulation theories?

It's possible to take any idea and stretch it to illogical conclusions. There are people who do disbelieve in the Resurrection and who believe that it was only spiritual or that it was only a metaphor. They obviously don't follow Catholic theology, though, since we proclaim that Jesus "suffered death and was buried" and that He "rose again on the third day, and ascended into Heaven".

I used to be post Trib rapture. It seemed to make sense. I now lean heavily toward pre trib rapture. There are many reasons, such as God has not appointed us to wrath, and the Trib is wrath if ever wrath was!

But when Jesus takes us, I do not think that is what the day of the Lord is, where He takes over the earth, wins the battle etc....The Rapture is just where we see the Lord in the air...and go to be with Him...later to return. After all He will return with His saints. Makes sense that they must be with Him to be able to return to earth..no?

Pretribullationism is really a theory that only developed in the 19th century. A good comparison would be Gap Theory, which I mentioned earlier. Pretribullationism takes an argument from a handful of Bible verses, and uses them to formulate a cosmological event which is not actually included in Revelation.

A sort of Premillennialism did exist in the early Church, although again, it was very short lived. It was fundamentally different from modern Premillennialism, though, particularly in this regard. It didn't bring with it any of the problematic theology of the idea proposed by modern Premillennialism, and it did not include an event similar to the rapture.

Jesus also saw all the kingdoms of the world when Satan gave his tour. That means across TIME. John saw the future things that must come to pass also. So you would need a pretty good case in the bible to have Satan falling as lightening to earth before the Tribulation! That is when we are told he was cast down to earth. The 1000 year reign is just when the old boy gets detained and taken out of the picture, to get released again after that period.

Alright. Perhaps most importantly, the original readers of Revelation would have understand "1,000 years" to mean "a very long time", since this was a common use of the term at that period. There were other verses which would have also suggested that the millennium would not be a literal Earthly reign, including those specifying that Jesus would return only once at the Great Judgment (where Premillennialism separates the initial return of Jesus from the Judgment, or creates two judgments).

There is also no suggestion that Jesus was speaking in terms of future events when He says that He saw Satan fall. All of the terms are in the past tense, and the event is connected to an exorcism in the previous passage, which was occurring in the present. All of this suggests that the fall of Satan was not in the future.

Regardless, I'm not trying to dodge the question (hence why I answered it), but I would really rather not have an amillennialism/premillennialism debate. That's not really the purpose of this thread.

I disagree. You mean that if there was a big bang long ago, and if there was an expansion under our current earth laws, and if the 95% of the universe we do not know about or see but call dark stuff was agreeable, then we might explain the earth based observations of what appears to be energy as we think of it, as in agreement with the big bang fable!

I'm not going to claim that there aren't unusual things in the Universe, but everything we've seen (with a handful of still unexplained and relatively minor cosmological things) fits with the Big Bang. Those unexplained things don't disprove the Big Bang. The Universe is enormous, and unusual events that we have to figure out how to explain are bound to happen.

Dark matter, however, is not really in conflict with the Big Bang.

What is the reality? A less than uniform background 'radiation'. In fact it may not be radiation unless laws and space and time were all homogeneous across the universe! 'Radiation' is an earth state feature, the way man thinks of it and knows it. It relates to things like 'temperature'. Temperature as we experience it in this space and state. In this space and under our current laws and forces energy and light must exist a certain way! All we see from far far away is HERE! If space were not the same as space here that we know, but also housed spiritual realities and forces and laws, we would not have any way of knowing that from here.

Our ability to make predictions about the Universe away from the Earth allows us to make a very strong case that physical laws are constant.

No one expected the cosmic microwave background to be perfectly uniform, though. Its fluctuations have never presented a problem for science. Radiation is composed of photons, tiny particles/waves which exist as waves in the electromagnetic field (particles are waves at such a small scale). They carry energy, which can sometimes result in heat by exciting atoms, but they are not in themselves heat. They are small particles which have traveled across the gulf of space to reach the Earth.

Yet all distances to stars, and composition of dust and stars etc etc is based on only earth zone space and time fabric and realities! Even the redshift that we interpret as expansion. Every step along the imaginary way to the 'singularity' is an earth zone present state and law and space step! Nothing else whatsoever! Unless you first prove that deep space is identical with the same space and time fabric and forces and laws, you have utterly no case for anything! None. I happen to know that you cannot prove space is the same out there.

The fact that we can see redshift is actually a fairly strong case that it is. We notice spectral emission lines similar to the ones that we see here on Earth, only shifted very slightly toward lower energy in a way that looks very much like outward expansion (when something is moving away from you, waves coming from it reach you in a way that appears more spaced out than it should, and so the wavelength seems longer). Spectral emission lines, though, are a result of the fact that light is divided into quanta (the photons), which can only have one wavelength and not multiples. We also know that some spectral emission lines come from particular elements and not others, because of the way that we understand physics to work in our present state. We can look and see these same spectral emission lines coming from space, from places where we would expect to find those elements (for instance, we find the H-alpha spectral emission line coming from stars, where we would expect to see H-alpha because it comes from hydrogen). These particular emissions spectra exist because the electron can only go down from one energy level to another set energy level, and cannot exist between them. This would suggest that physics far from the Earth are very similar.

False. If lions and wolves and most mammals and mankind could not fossilize, then the early record is indeed insignificant, unless you have an interest in creeping kinds!

There's significance in the fact that they aren't found in the early record. There is no good reason why they could not fossilize, and so it strongly suggests that they were not present when the early record was put down.

False! Trees could grow in weeks according to the bible. Rings therefore only have a relation to years in this present state!!!

The rings form from alternating weather periods (usually summer and winter). They wouldn't form to look like tree rings if they were growing so rapidly.

Hey how much ice at the bottom of a mile deep ice deposit do you think represents a clear record of 5000 years ago?? Really? As for varves....there was rapid deposition in the former state as well as a lot of continents bashing around and piling up mountains etc. Looking at a deck of cards one needs to know how they were shuffled to know what is what.

Ice cores have patterns similar to those of trees, with more of certain gases trapped at given times of the year. We see no significant difference between modern and ancient ice cores, until the point where they do become less clearly differentiated because they are deep within the glacier and have been compacted by pressure.

Varves can be put down in relatively rapid succession by strong storms, but at the point which would be needed to put so many down so quickly, they would simply cease to be differentiated from one another because the storm involved would have to be constant and it would have to go on for a very long period of time.

Inbred thinking. In box. Circular. Kind of like some folks the bible mentions--


2 Cor 10:12 .. but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are [SIZE=-1][/SIZE]not wise....

14 For we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure,

Science should do likewise and not pretend it can stretch beyond the fishbowl of the present state!

I was pointing out why it seems like science can reach outside of the present state.

---------------------------------------------------

Here are a handful of my questions about your theory:

First, why do you think that Genesis chapter 1 cannot be explained in a way other than the literal? Given that the kind of grammar used is unusual and different from what is seen at any other part of the Bible, why would a more literary explanation be completely unacceptable?

Why is science able to make successful predictions about space away from the Earth, if operating only from Earth-based physics can tell us nothing about the Universe away from our own planet?

Why do events in space look as though they're occurring based on Earth-based physics (for instance, gravitational lensing, which suggests that the theory of relativity applies in space, and light emission spectra, which suggest that the physics of the atom are the same)?

How do you account for the human being, which is a union of the physical body and spiritual soul?

 

[dad]

The point of my argument here is that it is really not very natural to include a colossal event on the scale of the one that you're suggesting without an extremely strong reason to do so.

I have the reasons. The clear descriptions of the future and past that are different strongly.

This is also one of the reasons why I don't like ideas like the Gap Theory, where Satan fell to Earth and there was an apocalyptic event which left the Earth without form and void before the first chapter of Genesis. It posits an extremely unlikely theory, then relies on questionable rules of Hebrew grammar to fit it into the account.

Not the same thing. We know about the past in the bible, and the future with detail! The gap is invented.

It is, however, fairly easy to read the days of Genesis as symbols because of the nature of the text around them. It doesn't come across the same way in English, but it really wasn't normal prose in Hebrew (repetition had special literary meaning and repetition of concepts was the basis of poetry).

Read around is a good way to put it.

Your argument seems to be that the future is going to be like the past, and you jump from that to the merged state/split state theory, which I think introduces some theological issues that are best avoided. For instance, the physical human body is joined to a spiritual human soul. It also runs the risk of suggesting that "spirit" and "physical" once had one substance, which is a unique and highly questionable theological position.

If the angels had no substance how would they marry women? If we have no substance in our new bodies, how would we be like Him...who ate and etc after rising from the dead?

I really don't believe that a literal interpretation of Genesis is worth these risks, regardless of whether it's easier to read from the text as translated into English.

The risk of God meaning what He said is one believers take.

It's possible to take any idea and stretch it to illogical conclusions. There are people who do disbelieve in the Resurrection and who believe that it was only spiritual or that it was only a metaphor. They obviously don't follow Catholic theology, though, since we proclaim that Jesus "suffered death and was buried" and that He "rose again on the third day, and ascended into Heaven".

The Catholics have some things right.

Pretribullationism is really a theory that only developed in the 19th century. A good comparison would be Gap Theory, which I mentioned earlier. Pretribullationism takes an argument from a handful of Bible verses, and uses them to formulate a cosmological event which is not actually included in Revelation.

I used to think that too. However He does tell us He will come again and receive believers unto Himself. They will go up to be with Him. How can that happen when He comes back with them, and comes down to rule??

A sort of Premillennialism did exist in the early Church, although again, it was very short lived. It was fundamentally different from modern Premillennialism, though, particularly in this regard. It didn't bring with it any of the problematic theology of the idea proposed by modern Premillennialism, and it did not include an event similar to the rapture.

Call it what you want, the angel will sound and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we that are alive. We will go up ...caught up.

Alright. Perhaps most importantly, the original readers of Revelation would have understand "1,000 years" to mean "a very long time", since this was a common use of the term at that period. There were other verses which would have also suggested that the millennium would not be a literal Earthly reign, including those specifying that Jesus would return only once at the Great Judgment (where Premillennialism separates the initial return of Jesus from the Judgment, or creates two judgments).

If a man dies in that time at 100 years old he will be considered a child. You would need to butcher that too.

There is also no suggestion that Jesus was speaking in terms of future events when He says that He saw Satan fall. All of the terms are in the past tense, and the event is connected to an exorcism in the previous passage, which was occurring in the present. All of this suggests that the fall of Satan was in the future.

Future sounds right to me! Not like the Tribulation could have happened already by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm not going to claim that there aren't unusual things in the Universe, but everything we've seen (with a handful of still unexplained and relatively minor cosmological things) fits with the Big Bang.

Not if you seen the bible!! Most of the universe they can't see anyhow. The bit they can see they interpret solely through the lenses of earth state rules and realities and time and space. With different space, redshift need not mean what it means here, etc.

Those unexplained things don't disprove the Big Bang. The Universe is enormous, and unusual events that we have to figure out how to explain are bound to happen.

Especially for science that works with 5% of what is out they by their own admission, and of that, most is too far away to ever get near anyhow. They see through a present state glass...darkly. Since there is no God in their knowledge they have no chance of coming to any understanding.

Dark matter, however, is not really in conflict with the Big Bang.

Not the way they claim it should be! Remember though, they invented it! They needed something to make the 5% they do see make sense, because it does not unless they invoke something!

Our ability to make predictions about the Universe away from the Earth allows us to make a very strong case that physical laws are constant.

God predicts the stars and sun will go out. Not so constant! Man mostly predicts after the fact!!!!! 'Gee there must have been another star there before the other one blew up'....so they run computer models to declare what star used to exist, no need to see it in real life!!! 'Gee the rings of sn1987a must have been there for tens of thousands of years already...we just never saw em' etc etc etc. Some predicting!!!

No one expected the cosmic microwave background to be perfectly uniform, though. Its fluctuations have never presented a problem for science. Radiation is composed of photons, tiny particles/waves which exist as waves in the electromagnetic field (particles are waves at such a small scale). They carry energy, which can sometimes result in heat by exciting atoms, but they are not in themselves heat. They are small particles which have traveled across the gulf of space to reach the Earth.

That is what they do here...in earth space. We see nothing else, as we live here!

The fact that we can see redshift is actually a fairly strong case that it is. We notice spectral emission lines similar to the ones that we see here on Earth, only shifted very slightly toward lower energy in a way that looks very much like outward expansion (when something is moving away from you, waves coming from it reach you in a way that appears more spaced out than it should, and so the wavelength seems longer). Spectral emission lines, though, are a result of the fact that light is divided into quanta (the photons), which can only have one wavelength and not multiples. We also know that some spectral emission lines come from particular elements and not others, because of the way that we understand physics to work in our present state. We can look and see these same spectral emission lines coming from space, from places where we would expect to find those elements (for instance, we find the H-alpha spectral emission line coming from stars, where we would expect to see H-alpha because it comes from hydrogen). These particular emissions spectra exist because the electron can only go down from one energy level to another set energy level, and cannot exist between them. This would suggest that physics far from the Earth are very similar.

Of course some stuff exists in the 5% we can see like hydrogen! But unless space was the same we have no way of knowing how far away the star is. Or how big. Neither can we claim the 10 million years plus or whatever it would take in an earth space to flip hydrogen as it appears flipped in space...etc.

There's significance in the fact that they aren't found in the early record. There is no good reason why they could not fossilize, and so it strongly suggests that they were not present when the early record was put down.

Only if you artificially impose the present state and it's rules on the unknown time of the far past! No can do.

The rings form from alternating weather periods (usually summer and winter). They wouldn't form to look like tree rings if they were growing so rapidly.

Not for trees that grew in weeks!!!!! Only now!

Ice cores have patterns similar to those of trees, with more of certain gases trapped at given times of the year. We see no significant difference between modern and ancient ice cores, until the point where they do become less clearly differentiated because they are deep within the glacier and have been compacted by pressure.

Bingo. Now if most of the ice was rapidly produced, say by flood waters, we need a new explanation for gasses trapped! Your explanations are just one set! They are a belief based set.

Varves can be put down in relatively rapid succession by strong storms, but at the point which would be needed to put so many down so quickly, they would simply cease to be differentiated from one another because the storm involved would have to be constant and it would have to go on for a very long period of time.

Rapid deposits and different patterns of water cycles and the rapid reproduction of plankton and that sort of thing all change the present state assumptions totally.



Have to look at the questions bit later......

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

Read around is a good way to put it.

How do you understand the fact that Genesis chapter 1 is written in an unusual style? Is it not possible that, given that this style is between prose and poetry (in Hebrew, of course, not in English), that it could be interpreted in a symbolic way?

If the angels had no substance how would they marry women? If we have no substance in our new bodies, how would we be like Him...who ate and etc after rising from the dead?

First, and most notably, I did not say that angels do not have a substance. They do have a spiritual substance. The nature of this substance is different from the substance of physical things, but it is still a substance.

As for the Nephilim, I side with St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Alexandria in saying that the Nephilim were the children of marriages between the descendants of Cain and Seth, rather than the children of angels and human beings. This is a very old interpretation within Christianity (and Judaism, going back to the first century), and does not present the problems that viewing the Nephilim as the children of fallen angels presents.

Future sounds right to me! Not like the Tribulation could have happened already by any stretch of the imagination.

That was actually a typo. I went back and correct it. The Bible is very clear that it did not happen in the future.

Not the way they claim it should be! Remember though, they invented it! They needed something to make the 5% they do see make sense, because it does not unless they invoke something!

The behavior of distant objects (including galaxies) which were acting as though they had a greater mass than they appeared to was the reason for the formulation of the theory that space contained so-called "dark matter". At the time, this was very theoretical. Now, however, we can see that it does in fact exist, giving extra mass to distant objects. Things like gravitational lensing can give us a view of this, which confirms our initial predictions regarding the presence of whatever dark matter actually is (yes, this is one of those things where we don't really know why it's happening, although it isn't inconsistent with the Big Bang; it's just really weird).

"Dark energy", the other component of the Universe we don't understand, is something resulting in an acceleration of things which are moving apart from one another. While not contradictory to the Big Bang, this is really unusual and unexpected. However, the movement of everything in the Universe away from everything else, even if assisted by something as unusual as dark energy, is evidence for a Big Bang, since it seems to be an expansion of space and time from a point where it all existed in a singularity.

God predicts the stars and sun will go out. Not so constant! Man mostly predicts after the fact!!!!! 'Gee there must have been another star there before the other one blew up'....so they run computer models to declare what star used to exist, no need to see it in real life!!! 'Gee the rings of sn1987a must have been there for tens of thousands of years already...we just never saw em' etc etc etc. Some predicting!!!

Science bases its predictions off of what we see in nature. Generally, what we see in nature is a good model for what we will see looking in other places, even far away. For instance, the nebular hypothesis (originally proposed by Immanuel Kant during the 18th century) based off of gravity and other similar principles as we understand them here on Earth proved to be true, as we began to discover interstellar nurseries. From this, we were able to make further predictions about stellar formation.

flipped[/I] in space...etc.

I was mostly trying to prove that hydrogen behaves in the same way in space as it does on Earth. The emission of the H-alpha spectral line suggests that an electron on an atom of hydrogen in deep space makes the same energy level decrease and releases the same energy as an atom of hydrogen here on Earth. This would suggest that the same physics exist in space.

Not for trees that grew in weeks!!!!! Only now!

Trees that grew in weeks would grow to be enormous very quickly, but would not have annular rings, since they would not have experienced the same type of alternating periods as trees in the world today. We see what we would expect if trees had always undergone the same growth behavior.

Bingo. Now if most of the ice was rapidly produced, say by flood waters, we need a new explanation for gasses trapped! Your explanations are just one set! They are a belief based set.

There isn't a point where ice cores start to become unusual and radically different suddenly, though. Going a great distance into the past, ice cores maintain roughly the same repeating pattern which corresponds to the seasons on Earth as it is now.

Rapid deposits and different patterns of water cycles and the rapid reproduction of plankton and that sort of thing all change the present state assumptions totally.

Varves are formed from patterns of snow melt bringing certain types of sediment into a lake bed, followed by colder times when different layers are put down. Different patterns and rapid deposits do sometimes result in unusual varves, but calculations for the conditions needed to generate varves on the scale seen in lake beds during a short time period would suggest storms so close to one another that they probably would not produce varves.

 

[dad]

First, why do you think that Genesis chapter 1 cannot be explained in a way other than the literal? Given that the kind of grammar used is unusual and different from what is seen at any other part of the Bible, why would a more literary explanation be completely unacceptable?

Jesus took it literally, he talked of the beginning and the flood. So did others in the New Testament.

Why is science able to make successful predictions about space away from the Earth, if operating only from Earth-based physics can tell us nothing about the Universe away from our own planet?

There is no way to test their predictions.

Why do events in space look as though they're occurring based on Earth-based physics (for instance, gravitational lensing, which suggests that the theory of relativity applies in space, and light emission spectra, which suggest that the physics of the atom are the same)?

Because you start out believing and model accordingly.

How do you account for the human being, which is a union of the physical body and spiritual soul?

God. Remember though that this union is not forever...we are in a temporary state.

 

[Tiberius]

There is no way to test their predictions.

How do you test a different state past?

What should we see in reality if the DSP is true that would not be there if it is false?

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

Jesus took it literally, he talked of the beginning and the flood. So did others in the New Testament.

There was only one reference by Jesus to the beginning, although it occurs in two Gospels. Essentially, Jesus said that marriage originated at "the beginning of (the) creation". This does not have to imply, however, a literal 7 day creation 6,000 years ago. In context, it's used to describe the permanence of marriage and its divine institution. "The beginning of the creation" does not mean that they were brought into being at the very beginning of creation, because from a literalist framework, Adam and Eve would have still been created after that beginning.

There is no way to test their predictions.

Predictions are routinely tested by looking at the world and Universe around us. Oftentimes, they are correct, and when they are incorrect, we're able to explain why they're incorrect with present physics, which often form new, correct predictions themselves.

Because you start out believing and model accordingly.

I still don't think that you can account for the fact that these phenomena are clearly visible in space simply through that explanation. If we were just modeling according to our beliefs, we would expect to see things like gravitational lensing (which comes from the curvature of space around massive objects, a part of the explanation of gravity given by relativity), but then we wouldn't see them.

We do model according to what we believe to be true, but when we find that those models are correct, we are right in taking that as evidence that the ideas underlying the model are sound.

God. Remember though that this union is not forever...we are in a temporary state.

This union is actually permanent. The union of body and soul is separated at death, and at the resurrection, our bodies and our souls are rejoined. Without either part, we are not complete as human beings. It is a part of the nature of a human being to be both body and soul. You find this in Genesis. Our bodies are physical, and our souls (which can survive without the body) are spiritual. It is clear from the text of Genesis that this has been true from the beginning.

 

[sandwiches]

How do you test a different state past?

What should we see in reality if the DSP is true that would not be there if it is false?

You can't. You're just supposed to trust the Bible and no other records, according to Dad.

 

[Tiberius]

So it would seem, but if dad has the truth, surely there'll be a way to know for certain.

Is there, dad? Is there a way to know for certain?

 

[AV1611VET]

So it would seem, but if dad has the truth, surely there'll be a way to know for certain.

Is there, dad? Is there a way to know for certain?

Do you mean truth or Truth?

 

[dad]

How do you test a different state past?

With science one cannot test the future or far past laws and forces. The way we test what the past was like is the bible. That...or nothing.

What should we see in reality if the DSP is true that would not be there if it is false?

We should see what we see.

 

[dad]

There was only one reference by Jesus to the beginning, although it occurs in two Gospels. Essentially, Jesus said that marriage originated at "the beginning of (the) creation". This does not have to imply, however, a literal 7 day creation 6,000 years ago.

So how would that work, two gay first lifeforms got married in the beginning?

In context, it's used to describe the permanence of marriage and its divine institution. "The beginning of the creation" does not mean that they were brought into being at the very beginning of creation, because from a literalist framework, Adam and Eve would have still been created after that beginning.

Well, Jesus also referred to it here

Mr 13:19 -For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. And of course the other folks in the New Testament believed...

1Co 15:45 -And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul;

Predictions are routinely tested by looking at the world and Universe around us. Oftentimes, they are correct, and when they are incorrect, we're able to explain why they're incorrect with present physics, which often form new, correct predictions themselves.

Since present physics is all you use, of course when a scramble for a new explanation is needed after getting busted, that is what you turn to.

I still don't think that you can account for the fact that these phenomena are clearly visible in space simply through that explanation. If we were just modeling according to our beliefs, we would expect to see things like gravitational lensing (which comes from the curvature of space around massive objects, a part of the explanation of gravity given by relativity), but then we wouldn't see them.

?? I think you mean we would not see that..?

But if we see it around the sun, that is in our space. If we think we see it on two perhaps little objects not so far away, that we think are millions of light years away and huge...well, we might need to re look! No distance or size is known, unless the far space is known.

We do model according to what we believe to be true, but when we find that those models are correct, we are right in taking that as evidence that the ideas underlying the model are sound.

This union is actually permanent. The union of body and soul is separated at death, and at the resurrection, our bodies and our souls are rejoined.

Not with the old body we get a new one like Jesus. What we will live forever in is not the body we now have.