There must have been death in Paradise even before mans fall...

[White St*r]

White St*r,

I don't think your assumptions about the reproduction of the flies are correct. You are assuming that all of the fly maggots fed on decaying bodies, and that all of the resulting flies then obtained a blood meal from which to develop eggs. This would require a continuous supply of decaying bodies. These bodies would then actually be converted into flies. To feed that many flies all the animals on earth would have to die. When they all die the flies would only live for one month then they would die from lack of food.

Also, flies are also a food source for other creatures, thus would not live to reproduce in the numbers that you propose.

Well this is just my point owg....

The flies were obviously only eating fruits and laying there eggs in them because no animals died before sin came into the world. So no rotten bodies. No death. So this also means that there would have been no enemies to the flies because nothing ate them, since they would not have died - seeing there was no death in the world.

Which brings me back to the topic ...

 

[White St*r]

The fly example is one I have never heard before. But when the flies dies they dont become weightless and disappear. There are still dead flies on the Earth. Maybe I am not understanding you.

I just thought out the fly example myself, but I could have picked any living thing. I just picked the fly because it is so small, imagine if I picked something like rhinos!!

Anyway I also do not think you understand me because you are starting to talk about dead bodies... but there will be no dead bodies because all the flies will live to be 500 years old and still be going strong ... (or run out of space...) But I could have picked any living creature ...

 

[White St*r]

This is why I think the correct translation of Genesis 3:16 is "I will increase your pain and your conception". I think God's original plan was for us to reproduce at a much slower rate than we have seen.

Granted, that may very well have been His plan... but lets say that we reproduce 10 times slower .... then the earth would still have been uninhabitable in about 500 years at the most!!!

Remember it is every living thing on the face of the earth that is reproducing and not dying... If humans alone would have totally exhausted the planet in 750 years, and we make up only about 0.1% of the biological "mass" on the planet, then everything increasing without dying would take allot less time ...

 

[Gwenyfur]

Moved to appropriate forum

 

[gluadys]

So I am very honestly asking the question, do you not think there is room for us to believe that even while Adam was naming the animals, he was busy looking at the lion eating a sheep and said that "that animal eating the other one I am going to call a lion, and the one being eaten I am going to call a sheep..." ?

Either there must have been physical death in paradise, or God wanted us to eat the fruit just so that within 7 month His whole creation will not be squished by those overweight female flies!!!

I am putting a humoristic view on this, but I am actually asking very earnestly what your opinion is...

(Sorry, the title had to be "Paradise" and not Paradys as in my native tongue ... )

Of course you are entirely right. And it is not just the math. We have plenty of evidence of plants and animals dying, even whole species becoming extinct, long before humans even existed.

btw, as a matter of interest, what is your native language?

 

[lamblion]

Ok, I think people are kind of missing the point with the flies...

It was just an example using one of the smallest creatures on the planet...

Lets bring it right home and look at humans ....
Allowing that the human race multiplied on the earth after the flood in the ratio that the Israelites did in Egypt, their numbers would double once in fourteen years, or seventeen times in two hundred and forty years. Now this would mean, if there was no death on earth, that in just 750 years the total weight of humans would have been one third that of the earth, assuming every human weighed only 50kg!!! Not to mention that we are only living on the outside of this sphere!! Even before Noah would have died (or Adam for that matter), assuming that we all had only one sqr meter to stand in, we would still have to be stacked up 3 in top of each other!!! (That is if we used the whole surface of the earth and there was no water!!!)

And again that is not even counting the flies - AND EVERY OTHER CREATURE ON EARTH!!!

I am just honestly making a point here …

The main point is if I had to make a guess about the following, for I do not really know how to work this out, but if nothing died on earth, the whole surface of the earth would have been totally full of living creatures within a 100 years ... !!! (That is counting all the rhinos and lions and chickens etc.) Not to mention the perfect conditions that existed in paradise

What keeps us from saying that only spiritual death entered into the world by mans fall, seeing that the earth would have been totally exhausted if nothing died within a century ...?

Is there not an entire universe created by the hand of the Almighty? You do have a point and with it we should consider not just earth, but the cosmos as a whole.

Take for example during the millieniual reign of Christ on earth. During this period of 1000 years, the curse bestowed on the first man and the first women will be taken away, which means that many people will live the whole 1000 years. Now how many people do you think will inhabite this planet by then? How many children can a women have when the curse is finally lifted, and she can concieve as God intended? The human body was created to live forever, and with the heath provided in the living water and the trees of Life, the millienium will surely be a period of paridise. The scriptures say that a child will be considered 100.

Surely mans knowlege will have avanced to the point in that time where other planets will have to be inhabited throughout the cosmos(Universe). It wasn't just created for nothing.

 

[withreason]

The human body was created to live forever

this is a difficult theological concept since flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

with God knowing the end from the beginning and placing Adam in the garden with one command, I think God never purposed that flesh and blood would live forever.

"the earth shall wear out like a worn out wheel" this creation was created to be temporal.

 

[lamblion]

this is a difficult theological concept since flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

with God knowing the end from the beginning and placing Adam in the garden with one command, I think God never purposed that flesh and blood would live forever.

"the earth shall wear out like a worn out wheel" this creation was created to be temporal.

yes, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God and thats why those in whom which it is prepared for are not of flesh and blood. The kingdom of heaven is one thing, but scripture tells us that a whole new earth and new heaven will be created. Why? God created humanity as a special race, and because of the great work of God uniting humanity through Christ, mankind will always be a unqiue creation.

Adam's body was not subject to death, for when God created it He himself said " It is good". Everything from the hand of God is life and is not ment to die, but because of sin the body became subject to that in dying it would surly die. Yes God did know that this consiquence would accur, and that mankind would face this penalty, but He also knew that Jesus Christ would come and defeat that very thing that is caused by the error in mans freewill.

 

[homewardbound]

Granted, that may very well have been His plan... but lets say that we reproduce 10 times slower .... then the earth would still have been uninhabitable in about 500 years at the most!!!

Remember it is every living thing on the face of the earth that is reproducing and not dying... If humans alone would have totally exhausted the planet in 750 years, and we make up only about 0.1% of the biological "mass" on the planet, then everything increasing without dying would take allot less time ...

The problem with any theory we come up with regarding reproduction rates is that it's all gross speculation. I'm quite satisfied with the explanation that whatever plan God had when he created the earth, it was flawless.

 

[Theophorus]

Entropy existed before the fall. We know this because Scripture states it quite plainly. According to Genesis 2, plants had not yet appeared because (an immediate causal relationship) it had not rained.

IOW, even BEFORE the days of creation were over, natural processes had already been set in motion:

Plants don't grow without water to feed them.

That requires entropy.

I think you mean enthalpy. And these laws of thermodynamics are the fundemental bases used by many against evoltuion.

You are insisting that the laws of thermodynamics of the fallen world are true of Eden. Will they still hold fast in the world to come, or better yet, did they reign over the Christ?

 

[gluadys]

I think you mean enthalpy. And these laws of thermodynamics are the fundemental bases used by many against evoltuion.

Incorrectly. Evolution does not violate the laws of thermodynamics in any way.

You are insisting that the laws of thermodynamics of the fallen world are true of Eden.

The laws of thermodynamics apply to any material system. Are you suggesting Eden was not a physical place?

Will they still hold fast in the world to come, or better yet, did they reign over the Christ?

If the world to come is physical, yes they will. And they don't reign over anything. Natural laws are descriptions not commands. They are a mathematical expression of the relationships that exist between particles of matter, given the properties of matter as God created it.

 

[Theophorus]

Incorrectly. Evolution does not violate the laws of thermodynamics in any way.

That is certainly a debate in itself.

The laws of thermodynamics apply to any material system. Are you suggesting Eden was not a physical place?

I am suggesting that Eden was not bound to the material system of the fallen world.

If the world to come is physical, yes they will. And they don't reign over anything. Natural laws are descriptions not commands. They are a mathematical expression of the relationships that exist between particles of matter, given the properties of matter as God created it.

So Christ and God defy those mathmatical relationships/expressions/descriptions as recorded in history, or our understanding of them does not fit this model or means of measurement.

 

[artybloke]

That is certainly a debate in itself.

Only among the scientifically illiterate. Scientists themselves have no doubt that entropy and evolution are in no way related.

 

[gluadys]

That is certainly a debate in itself.

No, it's a fact. Not debatable.

I am suggesting that Eden was not bound to the material system of the fallen world.

What scriptural evidence is there that the material world of Eden was different after the fall. Look at the curse: thorns and thistles will grow in the fields. Do thorns and thistles require a different material world than wheat and beans?

Women will have pain in childbirth? Perhaps because we developed bi-pedalism? Snakes will crawl in the dust. Perhaps because they evolved leglessness?

I think you are reading into scripture events that are not recorded there.

So Christ and God defy those mathmatical relationships/expressions/descriptions as recorded in history, or our understanding of them does not fit this model or means of measurement.

Christ (who is God) and his Father are not material beings. Jesus of Nazareth was a material being and I know of nothing in the gospels that suggests he defied natural laws. He was born and grew naturally, learned like any other child, required food and drink, grew tired and needed rest, like any other human being and died a human death.

Or are you suggesting that Christ was not truly incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth?

I always find that, carried to its logical conclusions, creationism ends up implying heresies that the church long ago rejected. I do not claim creationists are heretics. I think they have not really thought through the implications of what they are saying.

The suggestion that we cannot know the physics of Eden suggests that God did not really create the world we know, that his promise that winter and summer, seedtime and harvest, and the other predictable aspects of nature is null and void because the fall destroyed the pattern of natural law. We may as well be Buddhists or Hindus who think of the world as illusion as believe such nonsense.

The suggestion that Jesus Christ was somehow immune to natural law is at bottom a rejection of his humanity, which carries with it a rejection of the efficacy of the atonement.

 

[Theophorus]

No, it's a fact. Not debatable.

Entropy only applies to closed systems.

What scriptural evidence is there that the material world of Eden was different after the fall. Look at the curse: thorns and thistles will grow in the fields. Do thorns and thistles require a different material world than wheat and beans?

Women will have pain in childbirth? Perhaps because we developed bi-pedalism? Snakes will crawl in the dust. Perhaps because they evolved leglessness?

I think you are reading into scripture events that are not recorded there.

The scriptures say death came by Adam. I guess you are reading into things.

Christ (who is God) and his Father are not material beings. Jesus of Nazareth was a material being and I know of nothing in the gospels that suggests he defied natural laws.

He rose from the dead.

The suggestion that Jesus Christ was somehow immune to natural law is at bottom a rejection of his humanity, which carries with it a rejection of the efficacy of the atonement.

Christ was not immune. But he was not susceptible to death like us. The scriptures say Christ chose to lay down his life, that nothing could take it from him. To suggest otherwise destroys the efficacy of the atonement.

 

[random_guy]

Entropy only applies to closed systems.

No, entropy applies to both open and closed systems. It's just easier to do the math on closed systems. As for evolution violating the 2nd LoTD, among most scientists and mathematicians, among almost every single biology department in universities, evolution does not violate the 2nd Law.

If it did, don't you think every single physics department would've noticed this? Why does it take a Creationist with almost no scientific training to see what no Nobel physicist can't see?

 

[Mallon]

If it did, don't you think every single physics department would've noticed this? Why does it take a Creationist with almost no scientific training to see what no Nobel physicist can't see?

Because anti-evolutionists haven't been brainwashed by institutes for higher learning. At least, that's what they say.

 

[withreason]

No, entropy applies to both open and closed systems. It's just easier to do the math on closed systems. As for evolution violating the 2nd LoTD, among most scientists and mathematicians, among almost every single biology department in universities, evolution does not violate the 2nd Law.

If it did, don't you think every single physics department would've noticed this? Why does it take a Creationist with almost no scientific training to see what no Nobel physicist can't see?

I personally would love to say hurray to this, yet there seems to be some pretty viable observations to the closed system theory. which would not apply to all biological life forms.
a seed for example..tossed on the ground, does not decay do to entropy...unless, all the open support is cut off. then and only then does it appear, to be subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. in fact..some seeds will last years without loss of genetic information, as long as there is an open source of free energy.

as an edit addition...I think they have found seeds over 2000 years old that have been germinated and sprouted, I did read that somewhere....

 

[random_guy]

I personally would love to say hurray to this, yet there seems to be some pretty viable observations to the closed system theory. which would not apply to all biological life forms.
a seed for example..tossed on the ground, does not decay do to entropy...unless, all the open support is cut off. then and only then, is it subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. in fact..some seeds will last years without loss of genetic information, as long as there is an open source of free energy.

I'm not sure what you are saying. Could you clarify? Do you mean that seeds are still viable after many years of storage, like when a seed is put in a ground? What do you mean by seeds don't decay to entropy? Seeds decay depending if fungus or bacteria get into the seed shell to break it down. I'm not sure I understand what having an open or closed system has to do with this.

Also, what do you mean by loss of genetic information. What is genetic information, because according to information theory, you should have a metric to measure information. So how do you measure the information in a seed?

I think you're confusing decay and breakdown from bacteria/fungus/etc with the Creationist version of the 2nd Law where everything turns into something simpler,

EDIT: Also seeds last longer if they kept in cold storage (depending on the species). This isn't because of it stops the 2nd Law. It's because it prevents any bacteria from breaking down the shell as well as prevents the seed's metabolic activity, keeping dormant.

 

[random_guy]

To add to my point on genetic information and why it is useless, rice has 12 chromosome pairs, humans have 23 chromosome pairs, and potatoes have 24 chromosome pairs. Which one has more information? If you say humans, how did you measure it? If you say humans, does a human with blonde hair have more or less information than one with red hair?

Genetic information is nothing more than hand waving and hoping that no one pays attention that it is never defined.