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Understanding the Genesis Creation Story in dept.

Greg1234

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Hm, there seemed to be some confusion as to what the "four elements" referred to. They describe different states of reality, not different states of the physical world. Earth, water, fire and air are symbols.
 
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Keachian

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Hm, there seemed to be some confusion as to what the "four elements" referred to. They describe different states of reality, not different states of the physical world. Earth, water, fire and air are symbols.

That's still as far away from a reading of Genesis 1 as you can get if not further
 
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Standing_Ultraviolet

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Hm, there seemed to be some confusion as to what the "four elements" referred to. They describe different states of reality, not different states of the physical world. Earth, water, fire and air are symbols.

I'm not sure that I follow. No Hellenic philosophers shared this viewpoint. They very literally believed that the Earth was made up of four elements.

So I am tired and cannot discuss and reply to your posts about whose ideas the four elements were originally, the Book of Genesis or others.

Understandable. I'm not going to ask you to. I live in rural Appalachia, so I've done farm work before. I know that it's tiring.
 
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mark kennedy

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That is sooo cool, I really dig that kind of Biblically inspired art. And your grandfather explained Genesis to you that way? I think I would like that guy. This is an illustration I like to use to explain the creation of modern science, what do you think?


Grace and peace,
Mark
 
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dana b

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Hi Mark, That Newton was a very inquisitive guy. And apparently he was a believer in the Bible. You must know that in 1666 he shone light thought a crystal to make an upside down rainbow. Then he shone that light through another crystal which apparently comes out as pure white light. Is that what is happening with Mankind's consiousness?

First we went down and conscious of only base physical feeling. Thats like cave man mentality. But then with God's help we can come out in the end as pure white light consciousness. Maybe that would be Christ consciousness which we get after we have accepted Jesus as the Messiah. These are just some thoughts to provoke thinking. I too like to put the colors to the six days of Genesis for enhanced understanding.

 
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mark kennedy

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What I was alluding to was a watershed event:

If the arrival of the modern scientific age could be pinpointed to a particular moment and a particular place, it would be 27 April 1676 at the Royal Society, for it was on that day that the results obtained in a meticulous experiment- experimentum curcis- were found to fit with the hypothesis, so transforming a hypothesis into a demonstrable theory. (Isaac Newton The Last Sorcerer, Michael White)​




Some interesting thoughts. While I was knee deep in the drama of these debates I encountered Newton's color theory. In 1666 Cambridge was closed because of the London fire and a plague. He had finished his graduate studies (studied law actually) and returned home where he spent a lot of time in his mother's apple orchard. The story of the apple hitting him on the head happened there and is often embellished by biographers.

While he was at Cambridge he had acquired a couple of prisms and in his room he had a pin hole in his curtains and he used the stream of light to examine the properties of white light. This would be the basis for his famous 'experimentum crucis' that will see it's anniversary next month. From the time of Galileo and Francis Bacon the inductive method had been developed during the Scientific Revolution. With Newton it would finally be established as the very definition of science and has been ever since. In the wake of this paradigm shift Newton would develop Calculus which took Euclidean geometry out of the dark ages and provide the key precision measurements that gave rise to the industrial age.

I realize I dumped a truck on you here but like you I'm just throwing out some things to provoke thought. I really did like the art work and that approach to Bible exposition. I hope we can discuss this more over time.

Grace and peace,
Mark
 
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mark kennedy

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That's certainly interesting, I'll have to look into it. However, I honestly have no idea what the significance would be.
 
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mark kennedy

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Where did you get that date from? Newton began his optics experiments in 1670.

Newton started his light and prism experiments during his undergraduate studies. In 1666 Cambridge was closed and his interests had been progressively turning to physics. That was a casual remark, why not just take it for what it's worth.
 
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dana b

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Where did you get that date from? Newton began his optics experiments in 1670.


Here. I just copyied and pasted this from the second google entry under the heading "Isaac Newton 1666."

The diagram from Sir Isaac Newton’s crucial experiment, 1666-72. A ray of light is divided into its constituent colors by the first prism (left), and the resulting bundle of colred rays is reconstituted into white light by the second.
 
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NGC 6712

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I could swear in Opticks (1704) it mentions 1670 as the year for the prism experiments. 1666 was a plague year and that was when he started his work on gravity.
 
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dana b

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I could swear in Opticks (1704) it mentions 1670 as the year for the prism experiments. 1666 was a plague year and that was when he started his work on gravity.

My original information about Newton doing the light experiments in 1666 came from Encyclopedia Britannica 1962 edition. By the way, I have personally found that after about 1967 much additional historical information was published in this world which all of a sudden conflicts with the ideas and historical dates acknowledged up untill then.

For instance, until about 1967 there was a general consenses that Mesopotamian Civilization was the original beginning of development of mankind from cavemen into agricultual technical societies. I have visited the British Museum in London and gone to their oldest display room. The most ancient artifacts there are from Mesopotamia and dated from 4000BC -3500BC. But today many books are taking Civilization's beginnings back to 10,000BC. Where are the artifacts and evidence of this? I haven't seen them.

So, take what you read after 67 with a grain of salt and ask for evidence. The highly famed archologists in London aren't suppling any.
 
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NGC 6712

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So, take what you read after 67 with a grain of salt and ask for evidence. The highly famed archologists in London arn't suppling any.
You could equally well say take the prior to 1967 with a grain of salt. In fact more modern data tends to be more trustworthy in most disciplines. Knowledge does tend to increase over time not decrease.

Oh - for artifacts pre-Mesopotamia check Natufian culture. I think that stuff goes back 10,000 BC or so.
 
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dana b

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My personal uneducated opinion is that after 1967 conspiracies began to become prevelant. Up until then the world was more spread out and information tended to be just that, information. But with the advent of media advertising it seems the truth has now often become conditioned to fit the format of special intrest groups. Thats what it seems like to me and I'm quite an old guy.
 
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