The Waters Above the Firmament

[Dale]

Who says creationism doesn’t work? Atheist professors who drum naturalism, materialism and atheism into their students?

The created, or designed universe is evident to many secular physicists and astronomers - even Dawkins admits that life “appears to be designed” then pleads his case for the random origin of life in The Blind Watchmaker.

Of course it appears to be designed - because it is.

Chad Kincham: “Who says creationism doesn’t work?”

It’s obvious. I go to church with people in their eighties who have been creationists all their lives. They don’t know who Adam and Eve’s sons married. I don’t have to bring it up, they volunteer it.

In the Baptist church I grew up in, many people explained neanderthals and so forth by saying that after Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, their offspring de-evolved into subhumans for a time. That isn’t in the Bible, of course.



Chad Kincham: “The created, or designed universe is evident to many secular physicists and astronomers … ”

I fully believe that God created and designed the universe. I have not found the “intelligent design” movement to be helpful, however.

 

[coffee4u]

No verse in the Bible says that “the firmament came down.” This tells me what I already knew, that creationists add to the Bible when it suits them.

Genesis 1:6-8
And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
Water above and water below. The water above is the firmament.

Genesis 7:11
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
This is the water above and below from Genesis 1. This is the firmament water coming down. It came down as rain.

Genesis 7:12
And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Rain could not fall continuously for 40 days and nights now, the atmosphere simply doesn't hold that much but before the flood it did in the firmament.

Genesis 8:2
2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
The water up above was not completely gone, some was restrained. That water is our cloud cover now.

The intent of Genesis One is that God created the oceans with all the salt water creatures that we know today. With a recent creation and no rain before the Flood, then the ocean would have been fresh water, filled with fresh water fish.

Scripture doesn't say that the water was salty in the oceans. It says the world was made from and out of water, but salt is not mentioned. If the ocean was salty or not is a speculation.

There are salt water creatures today, but today's creatures are not the same as they were at creation. We can't assume they lived in salt water since again we don't know, that isn't mentioned. At creation all animals were herbivores, this we do know from scripture.
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
The fall changed them. We know that many animals today are carnivores. If the fall can change a herbivore into a carnivore it could have made other changes that we don't know about.

Coffee: “At the time of the flood they lived under the firmament which kept the earth warm like a blanket.”

You are adding to the Bible again. God inspired these stories, but they were composed by a middle eastern people who were used to warm weather. Nothing in the Bible says that a “firmament” which isn’t there anymore kept the earth warm.

No I am not, scripture says that the water was up there and that it came down for 40 days and nights and that there was still water left that God restrained. They lived under that water.

Coffee: “We can only imagine what the sky looked like to Noah before the flood, probably just a uniform grey.”

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.
Genesis 1:14-15 NIV

Genesis One says that the sun, moon and stars “serve as signs to mark seasons.” Did this Divine decree only take effect after the Flood?

And I was quite clear in my response to you that was just a speculation on my part. I never said it must have looked like that. I said we can imagine. Imagine means speculation.
But you make a good point about the stars that I hadn't considered when I posted that. They could obvosuly see the stars since God had created them to give light and mark seasons and days, so perhaps the firmament (the water above) was perfectly clear. None of us was there to see it which is my main point. We can't assume how the world looks and acts now was how it looked and acted then.

The point is to understand what any book of scripture meant to the original target audience.

The original people understood that God was creator and that he was one God, their God. They did not need to understand much more. They just had to trust and obey.
Scripture wasn't written just for them but for all people through every age up until Jesus returns. We are every bit as much the target audience as they were.

 

[coffee4u]

Chad Kincham: “Who says creationism doesn’t work?”

It’s obvious. I go to church with people in their eighties who have been creationists all their lives. They don’t know who Adam and Eve’s sons married. I don’t have to bring it up, they volunteer it.

In the Baptist church I grew up in, many people explained neanderthals and so forth by saying that after Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, their offspring de-evolved into subhumans for a time. That isn’t in the Bible, of course.



Chad Kincham: “The created, or designed universe is evident to many secular physicists and astronomers … ”

I fully believe that God created and designed the universe. I have not found the “intelligent design” movement to be helpful, however.

The average church goer is thoroughly confused by being bombarded with evolution nor are they taught much in churches about creation because half of the ministers also believe in evolution.

Where did they get their wives and husband?
Their siblings. It didn't became illegal until the time of mosses. Abraham was married to his half sister. It wasn't seen as odd or sinful at that time.

 

[BeyondET]

Genesis 7:12
And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Rain could not fall continuously for 40 days and nights now, the atmosphere simply doesn't hold that much but before the flood it did in the firmament.

Today it can rain a lot of days, the islands of Hawaii can be measurable amount of continuous rain everyday, some records of continuous days in a row

 

[The Barbarian]

Who says creationism doesn’t work?

Most Christians, among others.

The concept of a "designer" (which the ID people say "might be a space alien") is opposed to the concept of an omniscient Creator. Being omniscient, He would have no need for "design", which is something limited creatures must do.

God never has to figure anything out.

 

[The Barbarian]

Jesus taught Adam and Eve literally,

In fact, Jesus never referred to the Bible as a literal history. He often taught allegories and parables as ways of teaching. So it's not surprising that He taught those from the Bible.

and no text says Genesis is allegorical that I’ve ever seen.

The text in Genesis 1, for example, makes it clear that it's not literal. Referring to mornings and evenings before there was a sun to have them, makes that clear.

 

[The Barbarian]

There were no oceans on the earth before the flood

As you see, God says otherwise...

Genesis 1:10 And God called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

It's not the only verse that says so.

 

[Job 33:6]

there is no limit to how people interpret it rather figurative or not that is not much of a case.

Other authors speak with the same figurative language to describe the large amount of water falling from the clouds, like the bottles of heaven being stopped, that is not huge bottles of water but a lot of rain.

It's true that people can interpret verses in Genesis as being figurative and meaning all sorts of things. I don't believe these verses were figurative as you are suggesting, but rather, I view them as being literal and I believe they mean literally what they say.

So as a tie breaker between the figurative vs literal interpretations of these verses of Genesis, I propose the following tie breaker:

We also have external historical and scientific corroboration as a means of confirming that these verses were in-fact written as literal truth. Additionally, we have OT Biblical scholars who also have suggested that these verses were written literally as well and that this was how the original Hebrew author and audience understood the subject. As described in my post here:

Why I don't believe in evolution...

 

[d taylor]

Dtaylor: “It is science that is lying about God's creation not The Bible.”

Science has no motive to lie. Scientists have no motive to lie.

Perhaps you misunderstand the Bible.

It boils down to this, either science (actually people of science) or The Bible/God is lying about The Creation. Because these two (Bible/God - science/man) are not describing the same creation. So take your pick as to who you will believe.

satan of course has used a field (science) that has been helpful to mankind. By introducing many inventions that have advanced mankind and have made life better for many.

So by garnering the trust of mankind by this field. satan has been able to take this area and deceive many (christians and nonchristians) and of course place distrust into The Bible by many (even christians in creation areas).

Why would anyone distrust science, look at what all they have given mankind. This group would never lie about God or His creation. They are just concerned about science things, never would these men lie, that is just simply crazy to believe that of them. Yea right.

Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.


What a better way to attack the trust worthiness of God by attacking His written word in the very first chapter of Tanankh/The Bible.

 

[BeyondET]

It's true that people can interpret verses in Genesis as being figurative and meaning all sorts of things. I don't believe these verses were figurative as you are suggesting, but rather, I view them as being literal and I believe they mean literally what they say.

So as a tie breaker between the figurative vs literal interpretations of these verses of Genesis, I propose the following tie breaker:

We also have external historical and scientific corroboration as a means of confirming that these verses were in-fact written as literal truth. Additionally, we have OT Biblical scholars who also have suggested that these verses were written literally as well and that this was how the original Hebrew author and audience understood the subject. As described in my post here:

Why I don't believe in evolution...

I don't believe the verses as a whole are figurative but certain words with in the verses can be. windows or doors of a building, or floodgates at a dam, or a bottle, window into a cloud, or a blackhole a window into a void

 

[chad kincham]

Most Christians, among others.

The concept of a "designer" (which the ID people say "might be a space alien") is opposed to the concept of an omniscient Creator. Being omniscient, He would have no need for "design", which is something limited creatures must do.

God never has to figure anything out.

Semantics.

And Jesus was a creationist, BTW.

 

[chad kincham]

In fact, Jesus never referred to the Bible as a literal history. He often taught allegories and parables as ways of teaching. So it's not surprising that He taught those from the Bible.

Jesus absolutely taught Adam and Eve and their creation as literal Jonah in the fish as literal, which He made a sign of His own death, burial, and resurrection, the great flood as literal, etc.

When Jesus spoke in parables He explained their meaning.

Adam and Eve and their creation were never taught metaphorically or allegorically by Jesus.

 

[chad kincham]

In the Baptist church I grew up in, many people explained neanderthals and so forth by saying that after Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, their offspring de-evolved into subhumans for a time. That isn’t in the Bible, of course.

There are no Neanderthals, that’s an evolutionist invention - so called Neanderthals fall within the parameters of variations that exist in “modern” man.

The original Neanderthal skeleton found was in reality a person with arthritis.



Neanderthal Myths: The First Skeleton Was Just Arthritic

 

[chad kincham]

Most Christians, among others.

The concept of a "designer" (which the ID people say "might be a space alien") is opposed to the concept of an omniscient Creator. Being omniscient, He would have no need for "design", which is something limited creatures must do.

God never has to figure anything out.

ID doesn’t propose that the designer was a space alien, but that there’s no way to prove who the designer is, only that one has to exist based on the evidence.

God of course is not from earth and dwells in space, thus by definition can be called a space alien.

 

[chad kincham]

Well, let's take a look...

Genesis 1:10 And God called the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, he called Seas.

Genesis 1:22 And he blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea:

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.



Sorry, you can't have seas without a hydrologic cycle. You can't have rivers without them, either. It's just physics. Seas evaporate. Water vapor cools and rain falls and forming rivers, returns to the sea.

The seas were small bodies of water, like the Sea of Galilee.

Genesis says it didn’t rain on the earth pre-flood, thus precluding any hydrologic cycle until the earth became 71% water.

 

[The Barbarian]

The seas were small bodies of water, like the Sea of Galilee.

No. Not only is that assumption not in scripture, there were whales romping around in the seas, according to God. So much, much bigger bodies of water. (edit: actually, it doesn't say they were romping, but they obviously were doing well)

An orca (a medium-sized cetacean) needs about a quarter-million kcal of food per day, meaning that a huge area of ocean is needed for every whale to provide that kind of food.

Genesis says it didn’t rain on the earth pre-flood

No, it actually doesn't say that. That's man's alteration of God's word.

precluding any hydrologic cycle until the earth became 71% water.

The Earth isn't 71% water. Moreover, without a hydrologic cycle, there would be no rivers. Basic physics.

 

[The Barbarian]

There are no Neanderthals, that’s an evolutionist invention

No, that's wrong. The Neanderthal genome has been sequenced, and they are an entirely different sub-species of human; some geneticists even think they qualify as a separate species.
Neanderthals: species or subspecies? | COMPASS

To summarize, present-day humans outside of Africa show traces of Neanderthal DNA, but there are no Neanderthal mtDNA or Neanderthal Y chromosomes in modern human populations. The current consensus among anthropologists is that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens are indeed separate species, although that might change with further research and with the discovery of more Neanderthal samples.
Neanderthal DNA: How different were they from humans? | Real Archaeology

I tend to think they are a subspecies of H. sapiens, mainly because early Neanderthals looked more like us than later ones. But that's not a sure thing. It looks as though most geneticists think the evidence shows them to be a separate species.

so called Neanderthals fall within the parameters of variations that exist in “modern” man.

Wrong. They were genetically quite different than anatomically modern humans.

 

[The Barbarian]

The original Neanderthal skeleton found was in reality a person with arthritis.

But the skeletons of many healthy Neandertals of both sexes and all ages, show that their numerous anatomical differences with us, are not the result of illness.

 

[The Barbarian]

The concept of a "designer" (which the ID people say "might be a space alien") is opposed to the concept of an omniscient Creator. Being omniscient, He would have no need for "design", which is something limited creatures must do.

God never has to figure anything out.

Semantics.

Hardly. It's the difference between an omnipotent Creator, and a mere "designer."

And Jesus was a creationist, BTW.

Since YE creationism is no older than the 20th century, He would have to be a theistic evolutionist. How could it be otherwise? He made it that way, after all.

 

[BeyondET]

There are no Neanderthals, that’s an evolutionist invention - so called Neanderthals fall within the parameters of variations that exist in “modern” man.

The original Neanderthal skeleton found was in reality a person with arthritis.



Neanderthal Myths: The First Skeleton Was Just Arthritic

human with arthritis? that is not what the article states, simply that a neanderthal had arthritis and pictures have depicted neanderthal's as hunched over.

and i read this in the article below.

n fact, it was learned that while man split ways with primates more than 5 million years ago, the human and Neanderthal branch only diverged about 400,000 years ago.