science, creation, old earth, etc.

[Trenton Jennings]

How old was Adam when he was created? (rhetorical question) We don't know, but we do know he was a man. Not a boy, not an infant, but a man. So he had the appearance of a man of X years old. On the day he was created and zero days old he also appeared to be X years old. And if we were to wander outside the Garden of Eden and saw down a tree and count the rings the tree would appear to be of so many years old though it was less than a week old. I'm pretty sure God made forests during the week of creation and not just seeds in the ground going to be forests someday. The forest soil would have the qualities of soil of so many years too. And suppose we pick a rock off the ground and send it off to a lab for testing to its age. Perhaps the report comes back the rock is hundreds of millions or over a billion years old while it was made during the last few days of the week of creation. I think the oldest rock found was 4.5B years old.

A second rhetorical question, where does a circle begin? Have you noticed that all of nature seems to work in cycles? There are the obvious ones like day/night and lunar cycles and the year, but also precipitation, erosion to sedimentary rock to metamorphic rock and back again, etc. There are cycles in the heavens like Halley's Comet and I think the axis of the earth even wobbles on a known cycle. So when God made the world he had to make all those cycles too. They appear to be so many years old, and the earth appears to be 4.5B years old. Once a circle is drawn it appears to have no beginning or end.

Too many people try to reconcile God's word to science instead of the other way around. Science is only a comprehensive system of coherent models about the physical world arrived at by consensus and based on experiments and the reason of man. You cannot prove it is more than that, but you can engage in secular belief that it is more than that. Is it possible to prove that nothing is beyond the reason of man? Science tries to answer questions about the physical world with new or improved models of understanding, but there may be questions we haven't come to. We do not know what we do not know. Can we prove science has all the questions if not all the answers? I think of the Greek story of the blind men in the cave...

If you have had a profound life-altering experience when you found Jesus, then you are just going to believe (you are among the elect, what else can you do?), and if you are an atheist and have not that experience, then I suppose science will be your secular religion (among other alternatives generally ending in -ism).

 

[pitabread]

I suppose science will be your secular religion

Just an FYI, but referring to science as a religion is against the rules on this forum: Statement of Purpose - Creation & Evolution Statement of Purpose

 

[Aussie Pete]

How old was Adam when he was created? (rhetorical question) We don't know, but we do know he was a man. Not a boy, not an infant, but a man. So he had the appearance of a man of X years old. On the day he was created and zero days old he also appeared to be X years old. And if we were to wander outside the Garden of Eden and saw down a tree and count the rings the tree would appear to be of so many years old though it was less than a week old. I'm pretty sure God made forests during the week of creation and not just seeds in the ground going to be forests someday. The forest soil would have the qualities of soil of so many years too. And suppose we pick a rock off the ground and send it off to a lab for testing to its age. Perhaps the report comes back the rock is hundreds of millions or over a billion years old while it was made during the last few days of the week of creation. I think the oldest rock found was 4.5B years old.

A second rhetorical question, where does a circle begin? Have you noticed that all of nature seems to work in cycles? There are the obvious ones like day/night and lunar cycles and the year, but also precipitation, erosion to sedimentary rock to metamorphic rock and back again, etc. There are cycles in the heavens like Halley's Comet and I think the axis of the earth even wobbles on a known cycle. So when God made the world he had to make all those cycles too. They appear to be so many years old, and the earth appears to be 4.5B years old. Once a circle is drawn it appears to have no beginning or end.

Too many people try to reconcile God's word to science instead of the other way around. Science is only a comprehensive system of coherent models about the physical world arrived at by consensus and based on experiments and the reason of man. You cannot prove it is more than that, but you can engage in secular belief that it is more than that. Is it possible to prove that nothing is beyond the reason of man? Science tries to answer questions about the physical world with new or improved models of understanding, but there may be questions we haven't come to. We do not know what we do not know. Can we prove science has all the questions if not all the answers? I think of the Greek story of the blind men in the cave...

If you have had a profound life-altering experience when you found Jesus, then you are just going to believe (you are among the elect, what else can you do?), and if you are an atheist and have not that experience, then I suppose science will be your secular religion (among other alternatives generally ending in -ism).

If people reject God's word, there is an inner compulsion to believe something. It's also Satan's trickery as the god of this world. People need to rationalise the truth away because they know deep down that there is a God.
The not so often quoted verses from John 3:
…18Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come into the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.…

 

[pitabread]

People need to rationalise the truth away because they know deep down that there is a God.

Believe it or not, some people legitimately do not believe in a god.

If you ever want to try to reach those people and have an honest discussion, you first need to acknowledge what they actually believe, not what you think they believe. Otherwise, there will always be a gap.

(On a side note, I'd say to take this to the Apologetics forum, but I guess it's shut down now.)

 

[HTacianas]

How old was Adam when he was created? (rhetorical question) We don't know, but we do know he was a man. Not a boy, not an infant, but a man. So he had the appearance of a man of X years old. On the day he was created and zero days old he also appeared to be X years old. And if we were to wander outside the Garden of Eden and saw down a tree and count the rings the tree would appear to be of so many years old though it was less than a week old. I'm pretty sure God made forests during the week of creation and not just seeds in the ground going to be forests someday. The forest soil would have the qualities of soil of so many years too. And suppose we pick a rock off the ground and send it off to a lab for testing to its age. Perhaps the report comes back the rock is hundreds of millions or over a billion years old while it was made during the last few days of the week of creation. I think the oldest rock found was 4.5B years old.

A second rhetorical question, where does a circle begin? Have you noticed that all of nature seems to work in cycles? There are the obvious ones like day/night and lunar cycles and the year, but also precipitation, erosion to sedimentary rock to metamorphic rock and back again, etc. There are cycles in the heavens like Halley's Comet and I think the axis of the earth even wobbles on a known cycle. So when God made the world he had to make all those cycles too. They appear to be so many years old, and the earth appears to be 4.5B years old. Once a circle is drawn it appears to have no beginning or end.

Too many people try to reconcile God's word to science instead of the other way around. Science is only a comprehensive system of coherent models about the physical world arrived at by consensus and based on experiments and the reason of man. You cannot prove it is more than that, but you can engage in secular belief that it is more than that. Is it possible to prove that nothing is beyond the reason of man? Science tries to answer questions about the physical world with new or improved models of understanding, but there may be questions we haven't come to. We do not know what we do not know. Can we prove science has all the questions if not all the answers? I think of the Greek story of the blind men in the cave...

If you have had a profound life-altering experience when you found Jesus, then you are just going to believe (you are among the elect, what else can you do?), and if you are an atheist and have not that experience, then I suppose science will be your secular religion (among other alternatives generally ending in -ism).

You say that if you have "had a profound life-altering experience when you found Jesus, then you are just going to believe".

Believe what, exactly?

 

[Yttrium]

Too many people try to reconcile God's word to science instead of the other way around. Science is only a comprehensive system of coherent models about the physical world arrived at by consensus and based on experiments and the reason of man. You cannot prove it is more than that, but you can engage in secular belief that it is more than that. Is it possible to prove that nothing is beyond the reason of man? Science tries to answer questions about the physical world with new or improved models of understanding, but there may be questions we haven't come to. We do not know what we do not know. Can we prove science has all the questions if not all the answers? I think of the Greek story of the blind men in the cave...

On the other hand, if God created the universe, then what we see in nature is evidence of what God did. And consider that the Bible is open to a great deal of interpretation, considering all the flavors of Christianity out there.

 

[1rreducibly Complex]

How old was Adam when he was created? (rhetorical question) We don't know, but we do know he was a man.

If you read the bible.

You might realize Adam had not yet gone through puberty when he was created.

 

[BeyondET]

Hmm, formed a man or formed the man or formed man a few different translation out there, regardless none imply that Adam didn't develop from infant to man rather a 5 hour process or years but the final creation was man.

 

[Occams Barber]

How old was Adam when he was created? (rhetorical question) We don't know, but we do know he was a man. Not a boy, not an infant, but a man. So he had the appearance of a man of X years old. On the day he was created and zero days old he also appeared to be X years old. And if we were to wander outside the Garden of Eden and saw down a tree and count the rings the tree would appear to be of so many years old though it was less than a week old. I'm pretty sure God made forests during the week of creation and not just seeds in the ground going to be forests someday. The forest soil would have the qualities of soil of so many years too. And suppose we pick a rock off the ground and send it off to a lab for testing to its age. Perhaps the report comes back the rock is hundreds of millions or over a billion years old while it was made during the last few days of the week of creation. I think the oldest rock found was 4.5B years old.

A second rhetorical question, where does a circle begin? Have you noticed that all of nature seems to work in cycles? There are the obvious ones like day/night and lunar cycles and the year, but also precipitation, erosion to sedimentary rock to metamorphic rock and back again, etc. There are cycles in the heavens like Halley's Comet and I think the axis of the earth even wobbles on a known cycle. So when God made the world he had to make all those cycles too. They appear to be so many years old, and the earth appears to be 4.5B years old. Once a circle is drawn it appears to have no beginning or end.

Too many people try to reconcile God's word to science instead of the other way around. Science is only a comprehensive system of coherent models about the physical world arrived at by consensus and based on experiments and the reason of man. You cannot prove it is more than that, but you can engage in secular belief that it is more than that. Is it possible to prove that nothing is beyond the reason of man? Science tries to answer questions about the physical world with new or improved models of understanding, but there may be questions we haven't come to. We do not know what we do not know. Can we prove science has all the questions if not all the answers? I think of the Greek story of the blind men in the cave...

If you have had a profound life-altering experience when you found Jesus, then you are just going to believe (you are among the elect, what else can you do?), and if you are an atheist and have not that experience, then I suppose science will be your secular religion (among other alternatives generally ending in -ism).

That's a heck of a lot of words trying to justify a bog ordinary version of 'Last Thursdayism' or, as it's technically known, the Omphalos Hypothesis. If you're going to insist that God invented everything to look as though it had been around forever then I'd be silly arguing the toss. I can't disprove what you've said, nor can you prove it. You might get a different reaction from your fellow Christians - especially those who are quite comfortable with evolution - who might wonder why God would deliberately set out to fool everyone.

The latter part of your missive appears to be an attempt to set up a straw man version of what science thinks about itself. No reputable scientist or sciencey person believes that science has all the answers or even all the questions or can be applied to all problems. Describing science as a religion is also the type of ridiculous argument we've all heard before. That's why (as @pitabread has pointed out) CF has a rule to stop this.

By the way - there are many Christians who accept evolution and many Christians who do evolution. Here's a sample - BioLogos - God's Word. God's World. - BioLogos

I know you probably feel you've just come up with this new and devastating argument to wipe the floor with evolution, but honestly Trenton, it's an argument that's been around the block a few too many times to be taken too seriously.

OB

 

[Aussie Pete]

Believe it or not, some people legitimately do not believe in a god.

If you ever want to try to reach those people and have an honest discussion, you first need to acknowledge what they actually believe, not what you think they believe. Otherwise, there will always be a gap.

(On a side note, I'd say to take this to the Apologetics forum, but I guess it's shut down now.)

No one "legitimately" believes that there is no God. Atheism is trendy and fashionable these days. It's a choice people make that flies in the face of reality. God is not unfair or unjust. He has made it possible for people to know that He is real. Some people won't accept that. That's their choice. The consequences are not their choice.

 

[Jesus is my Superhero]

I've heard it said, "You cannot choose the time of your birth, nor the time of your natural death, but in between these, you have to make many choices that will determine your eternity."

 

[Occams Barber]

No one "legitimately" believes that there is no God. Atheism is trendy and fashionable these days. It's a choice people make that flies in the face of reality. God is not unfair or unjust. He has made it possible for people to know that He is real. Some people won't accept that. That's their choice. The consequences are not their choice.

I've been a non-believer since I was old enough to think about it - about 60 years. In that time I've read and listened to most (all?) of the arguments for God and never found any of them remotely convincing.

To find out at this late stage that my non-belief is a fashionable and trendy fad and an illegitimate view that 'flies in the face of reality', is a little disconcerting. If I were to point out that your belief is a figment of your imagination designed to shore up a sense of insecurity, you would, no doubt, be equally miffed.

Let's agree, like grown adults, that we can have legitimately different views without the need for childish insults.

OB

 

[Bradskii]

If you have had a profound life-altering experience when you found Jesus, then you are just going to believe (you are among the elect, what else can you do?), and if you are an atheist and have not that experience, then I suppose science will be your secular religion.

Something of a false dichotomy there, Trent. But the way I see it is that there are three choices that relate to your problem.

If Genesis doesn't correlate with the evidence, then:
a: the bible is wrong.
b: science is wrong.
c: you have interpreted the bible incorrectly.

Shall I put you down for the third option?

 

[Bradskii]

No one "legitimately" believes that there is no God.

You don't know any Hindus then?

 

[Bungle_Bear]

You don't know any Hindus then?

Little known fact - "Hindu" means "Satan worshipper"

Bizarrely, "scientist" has the same meaning.

 

[Occams Barber]

If you read the bible.

You might realize Adam had not yet gone through puberty when he was created.

[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]!!!!

Adam was a teenager!!!!

That explains a lot.

OB

 

[Jimmy D]

No one "legitimately" believes that there is no God.

I find it equally unbelievable that in this day and age adults think that the tales in Genesis are historically accurate.

Not believing in a seemingly absent, invisible entity seems reasonable. Denying the tested, accumulated knowledge of the last couple of hundred years does not.

 

[jacknife]

That's a heck of a lot of words trying to justify a bog ordinary version of 'Last Thursdayism' or, as it's technically known, the Omphalos Hypothesis. If you're going to insist that God invented everything to look as though it had been around forever then I'd be silly arguing the toss. I can't disprove what you've said, nor can you prove it. You might get a different reaction from your fellow Christians - especially those who are quite comfortable with evolution - who might wonder why God would deliberately set out to fool everyone.

The latter part of your missive appears to be an attempt to set up a straw man version of what science thinks about itself. No reputable scientist or sciencey person believes that science has all the answers or even all the questions or can be applied to all problems. Describing science as a religion is also the type of ridiculous argument we've all heard before. That's why (as @pitabread has pointed out) CF has a rule to stop this.

By the way - there are many Christians who accept evolution and many Christians who do evolution. Here's a sample - BioLogos - God's Word. God's World. - BioLogos

I know you probably feel you've just come up with this new and devastating argument to wipe the floor with evolution, but honestly Trenton, it's an argument that's been around the block a few too many times to be taken too seriously.

OB

I thought this sounded familiar isn't this one of AV's arguments as well.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

No one "legitimately" believes that there is no God.

Me. I legitimately do not believe there are any gods.

 

[Occams Barber]

I thought this sounded familiar isn't this one of AV's arguments as well.

I'm never sure what AV is arguing for or against.

It's strangely reminiscent of Dad's wacky theories of 'present future past' (or something like that).

OB