The flat earth

Dither said:

Hi Jack,
What is the rough age of the earth in your opinion?

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Science has refined the age of the universe to approximately 13.5 billion years and the age of the earth to about 4.5 billion years.

Thanks Again Jack

I believe the earth is around 6000 years old.
Recorded history and the Biblical Chronology can be traced to around that time.

Ussher chronology - Wikipedia

As Christians we can trust Gods word to be accurate, and we can also trust in Gods providence that it will remain that way until Christ returns in glory.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will never pass away.

Dither said:

Thanks Again Jack

I believe the earth is around 6000 years old.
Recorded history and the Biblical Chronology can be traced to around that time.

Ussher chronology - Wikipedia

As Christians we can trust Gods word to be accurate, and we can also trust in Gods providence that it will remain that way until Christ returns in glory.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will never pass away.

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Genesis 1:1 &2 read like this
in the summit Elohiym fattened the skies and the land,
and the land had existed in confusion and was unfilled, and darkness was upon the face of the deep sea and the wind of Elohiym was fluttering upon the face of the waters,
MTT: Genesis 1

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

At the very start--God filled the skies and the land
The land had existed empty, barren---(was without form)----both are stated as in the past.
Question then is---is this past tense meaning that God created the planet (rocks, land, water)---it was empty, except for those 3 things. "and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." However, God does not start to number the days until He creates the light.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
What is not addressed is----how long was the earth empty and without form before He began the creation week by creating the light?? Empty and without form except for land, rocks and water sounds like a water filled asteroid. That would have been a sort of the "core" of this planet, for the bible never mentions that He creates dirt and rocks again, but:
Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
He separated the water from the land. And that would have been one gigantic, massive torrential movement of incredible amounts of water and that in itself would have brought about a shaping, or forming of the earth.
Basically, it sounds as though at some point God created the core of the planet, which it states was "without form" then He began the creation week. But how long was it just a formless mass of rock and water?? And that could have been countless eons. So there are rocks that are millions of years old?---So what? Creation week itself ( forming it and creating everything on it and above it) started about 6000 years ago.

Hi MMK

I don't hold to the Genesis Gap Theory, God's creation is declared to be good before the fall so its simply not fesible. Its also used a lot by Christians trying to prove evolution and also old earth creation. Its reading too much into the scriptures IMO.

What is the Gap Theory? Did anything happen between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2?

By the way MMK, that's a great site you linked to (MTT)
Thanks so much for that,

Hello

Dither said:

Recorded history and the Biblical Chronology can be traced to around that time.

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Recorded History, yes that's a huge point in the YEC viewpoint's favour in my opinion. The big reason recorded history doesn't go any further back is perhaps that there isn't any further back to go. People appear not that much different from us, suddenly and within the biblical time frame, producing awesome ancient monuments.

Dither said:

As Christians we can trust Gods word to be accurate, and we can also trust in Gods providence that it will remain that way until Christ returns in glory.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will never pass away.

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Amen

Dither said:

Hi MMK

I don't hold to the Genesis Gap Theory, God's creation is declared to be good before the fall so its simply not fesible. Its also used a lot by Christians trying to prove evolution and also old earth creation. Its reading too much into the scriptures IMO.

What is the Gap Theory? Did anything happen between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2?

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looked that up---no---it doesn't say He created anything until He created light. Nope, don't buy their theory either. I'm saying there was any empty, formless earth with just water and rocks--nothing else. That theory is talking about a whole creation took place. Just earth, rocks and water was here for God only knows how long, and then God started creation week with creating light.

Dither said:

By the way MMK, that's a great site you linked to (MTT)
Thanks so much for that,

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That is one of my favorites.

JackRT said:

Science has refined the age of the universe to approximately 13.5 billion years and the age of the earth to about 4.5 billion years.

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I heard that the age of the earth was 4.5 billion years last June. Therefore it must now be 4.5 billion years, 5 months, 2 week and four days. Sorry to correct you, but science must be precise. God Bless

So now we have a certain consensus forming (with some of us anyway) on a YEC model of approx 6 to 8 thousand years. So now how do we reconcile that age with the age of the Milky Way which is supposedly 25,000 light years away and is by no means the farthest stars that they have found (55 million light years)

This would mean that light from these stars won't reach earth for another 18000 years so there is something really wrong with the math, or, could it be that everything is much closer than it appears and that scientists are simply making stuff up based on their assumptions that there is no God and that the book of Genesis is a myth.

The Flat Earth model (which is the original ancient Hebrew model) is the only cosmology that ticks all the boxes biblically speaking. Please investigate Flat Earth and remove yourself from the science fiction thats been handed to us by the Agnostic Theist and Atheistic scientists whose objective has always been to remove the knowledge of God and replace it with their godless scientific musings...

ray88c said:

It's actually colder in moon light than in the shade...

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Hmmm. Could that be because it's night?

ray88c said:

We didn't land on the moon

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Yes, we did, actually.

JerryTheMaverick said:

Hello friends Im Jerry. I read recently a theory that the Earth is not a globe like they tell us but is flat. There seems to be proof in the Bible too. Isaiah 40:22, Genesis 10-11, Proverbs 8:27, Ezekiel 5:5, and others

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I'm not seeing anything about a flat earth in these verses. When Isaiah says God sits above the circle of the earth, it's just saying God is higher then the heavens. Gen. 10+11 are primarily genealogies, I don't see any hint of flat earth cosmology there. Proverbs and Ezekiel are expressing a literary feature the used to call circling the compass, it's pretty common in the Old Testament. When Isaiah prophecies against the nations about half way through the book he addresses then in a circle, starts in the north, then toward the east, then south etc. We even see it in the New Testament, at Pentecost when the nations of the languages are mentioned the writer goes in a big circle, almost like he was drawing a circle on a map. Same thing with the churches of Asia Minor, if you started from Ephesus and followed the Roman road through Asia Minor it went in a big circle finally coming back to Ephesus.

The circle in those passages is just the horizon. What you will find is that there is no real cosmology or astronomy in the Bible, just an occasional mention of terrain and the stars, usually part of a literary feature.

I believe the Bible is right in everything, and it seems to me to say that the Earth is flat. Im not against science but when it goes against God's truth I am. There seems to be science to back up a flat Earth too. Google 'Flat Earth Society'.
I dont know much about the specific math stuff but it seems legit.
Also, Ive realized Jesus surely didnt think the Earth was round. I have never heard of our Lord being wrong in anything so could he be wrong in this? I dont know. Its making me have to decide between my strong commitment to the Bible's word but also to what science tells us. Obviously theyve been wrong before (evolution, etc.) but this is big. I don't know

What does everyone else think?

Thank you for listening and God Bless

Jerry

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Educated Greeks in antiquity knew the earth was round, one of the librarians even calculated the circumference. All master mariners in Columbus' day knew the earth was round. I went to the Flat Earth Societies web site and apparently Shaq is skeptical about a round earth, I honestly think he is just misinformed. The flat earth concept has nothing to do with anything remotely Biblical as far as I can tell, it's certainly not something taught in either the New Testament or the Old Testament.

Radagast said:

Hmmm. Could that be because it's night?

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Moonlight is colder than moon shade, the properties of moonlight are different to sunlight, God Created the two great lights, the moon gives its own light, it is not a reflection of the sun. NASA also never went to the moon, they are lying to you.
ACTS 4:26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
They have decided to hide this knowledge from us and create a science fiction that removes God and heaven and hell. The original Hebrew cosmology was correct, Jesus physically ascended into heaven with a cloud and Jesus now sits on the right hand of God almighty in the heavens which are directly above us, Hell is also directly below us, nothing has changed because God doesn't change.
Please Research Flat Earth.

mark kennedy said:

Educated Greeks in antiquity knew the earth was round,

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The scripture warns us not to trust these men,

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

lismore said:

The big reason recorded history doesn't go any further back is perhaps that there isn't any further back to go.

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Flawless logic. Other possible reason might be that stegosaurs sucked at writing and their oral tradition got bit of setback in the form of huge kinetic impact on Yucatan Peninsula around 66 million years ago.

Dither said:

the moon gives its own light

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Oh crazy talk. Love it. Where does this moonlight disappear during eclipses when moon obstructs the sun.

Shouldn’t we see the moon lighting up nicely instead of the black disc sliding in front of the sun ?

If we examine our universe there are a number of observations that must be consistently explained:

1. tidal effects on earth


2. moon's near side "locked' to earth

3. phases of the moon

4. retardation of the moon's 'rising'

5. seasons of the earth

6. seasonal 24 hour days and nights in the arctic and antarctic

7. coreolis effects on earth

8. Foucault's pendulum

9. precession of the earth's axis

10. apparent daily rotation of the "fixed stars" about the pole star

11. motion of the "wandering stars" (planets) including retrograde motion

12. earth-moon centre of gravity orbits

13. eclipses of the sun, moon and planets

14. northern and southern lights

15. meteors, asteroids and comets

16. moons and/or rings around other planets

17. there are certainly other effects that I have missed

There is only one self consistent model that explains all of these observations and that is the present cosmology of our solar system. This does not explain why these objects behave as they do, it only provides a very refined model that accounts for all the observed effects.

Now add into this the experimentally verified non-relativistic laws of motion and of gravity, known as Newtonian or classical mechanics, and we now have the why that explains the model in a near perfect manner. It is so successful that it has enabled us to send people into earth and moon orbits, to the moon itself and even return to earth. We have been able to navigate probes to all the planets and beyond. People have stood on our moon and observed our planet rotating in front of them in real time. Any other cosmology finds it necessary to suspend known laws of science, hypothesize supernatural intervention and invoke a conspiracy theory extending over centuries involving tens of millions of people a great many of whom are Christian.

In Old Testament times it is certainly true that they regarded the earth as flat in a three tiered universe --- flat with a sky-dome (the firmament) overhead. Just like the rapture theory and the trinity theory, the flat earth worldview is nowhere stated explicitly but it is alluded to in many places. There are also many old testament and even a few new testament stories that are only to be understood in a flat earth context. Generally this flat earth was regarded as circular but we are in places told that it has four corners and is supported by pillars and that there are storehouses for the snow and hail. Of course this seems very primitive to us today but we must remember that these scriptures come out of a far less sophisticated culture. A culture that was deeply suspicious of anything Gentile. It may well be that some of the educated elite were aware of the Greek notion of a spherical world but with an illiteracy rate of about 90% the common people certainly were not. The scriptures were most likely written with the naivety of the common people in mind and used language that would not stretch their credulity too far.



In New Testament times, the young Christian church had a similar suspicion of paganism. Over a period of several centuries it systematically destroyed all things pagan. Temples, shrines, academies, libraries and universities were pulled down and burned. Their priests, teachers and professors were tortured and executed often in front of bloodthirsty Christian mobs. They destroyed not just spiritual works but any book even the slightest bit tainted by paganism even if it was on astronomy, medicine, engineering, technology, mathematics, geography, history or architecture. This massive loss of the underpinnings of civilization contributed in part to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and the subsequent thousand years of the Dark Ages. In AD380 after a yet another wave of persecution, the 95 year-old hierophant Nestorius, ended the Eleusinian Mysteries and announced the predominance of mental darkness over the human race. How very ironic and prophetic!



It is little wonder then that the flat earth notion persisted so long and that the bible was used to support it. After all the flat earth was the biblical worldview. Should it concern us that the bible supported this notion? Not at all! We do not need to rush to its defense and use weasel words to somehow prove to ourselves that the bible authors had the same worldview that we do. We must realize that these authors lived in a historical context and that the language and ideas that they used fit that context as well.

JackRT said:

We must realize that these authors lived in a historical context and that the language and ideas that they used fit that context as well.

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Thin edge of the wedge. Next they fear we take God in context and discover there is nothing there either but contemporary futile hope that those short lives full of toil and hardship had to have some hope of better future in the next world if not in this one.

Not like this was unheard of concept before Christianity.

Ancient Egyptians didn’t make mummies and build pyramids because it was fashionable but to secure their futures in afterlife.

It is a hard psychological thing to confront that one day you will be gone. Through the ages people have found different ways to cope with it.

JackRT said:

It may well be that some of the educated elite were aware of the Greek notion of a spherical world but with an illiteracy rate of about 90% the common people certainly were not.

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The medieval church clerics, and the early church fathers, were educated. They knew the earth was round. Their debate was over: was the Southern Hemisphere inhabited?

JackRT said:

Over a period of several centuries it systematically destroyed all things pagan. Temples, shrines, academies, libraries and universities were pulled down and burned.

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Never happened (except for the temples, and they were in many cases just relabelled as churches). Instead, the medieval church collected up all the pagan philosophy it could.

JackRT said:

They destroyed not just spiritual works but any book even the slightest bit tainted by paganism even if it was on astronomy, medicine, engineering, technology, mathematics, geography, history or architecture.

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That, my friend, is absolute and total garbage. Never happened.

JackRT said:

It is little wonder then that the flat earth notion persisted so long and that the bible was used to support it.

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That's a myth.

To quote Bede, from around the year 700:

We call the earth a globe, not as if the shape of a sphere were expressed in the diversity of plains and mountains, but because, if all things (terrestrial) are included in the outline, the earth's circumference will represent the figure of a perfect globe. Hence it is that the stars of the northern hemisphere appear to us, but never those of the southern; while on the other hand, the people who live on the southern part of the earth cannot see our stars, because the globe obstructs their view.

Dither said:

The scripture warns us not to trust these men,

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

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You misinterpret the passage. In fact, Paul quotes pagan philosophers several times in his epistles.