universal pattern of the evolution of intelligent beings

[PaladinValer]

you seem to have an anti-bible agenda here.
I will cease trying to reason with you.

I'm not anti-Bible. If anything, I'm more pro-Bible than most Creationists.

I just simply accept the fact that eisegesis is always bad interpretation and bad theology. A lot of TEs try to use eisegesis too, and I correct them as well.

You're not even using reason. You are blissfully ignoring the fact that your interpretation is completely flawed. Trying to fit what you think into what the Bible reads is not correct interpretive theology. Christianity rejects eisegesic interpretive philosophy because it denies the Holy Spirit's influence upon the reader and diminishes the authority of the Holy Writ.

Now, after all this, who is being anti-Bible? The one who respects the Holy Scriptures enough to interpret from them or the one who tries to fit whatever he wants into them, cramming it in as if it were a box of cereal into a space an inch too small?

 

[granpa]

nobody has yet pointed out any flaw in my interpretation.

 

[PaladinValer]

I did: it is eisegesic.

Not to mention black holes aren't nothing. They are the ridiculously dense remnants of truly colossal stars in an itty-bitty package. There is substance to them.

Plus the Bible says what is separates are the waters from the waters; there's no air here. More eisegesis.

You have bad cosmology, bad history, bad biology (no plants are possible before multicellular organisms) and bad interpretation. Stop! You're giving TEs a bad name.

 

[granpa]

I never said that black holes are nothing.
I have no idea why you would think that at all.
the association is with darkness.

air is a fluid.

I never said plants came before multicellular organisms.
I said that living molecules were microscopic tree-like structures and came before cells.

you are arguing against a strawman of your own creation.


it is clear that the whole pattern of genesis is that of God separating each thing from the thing that came before.
...cells evolved from living molecules which came from land which rose from the ocean which rained down from the atmosphere...

using this fact and what we know from science one can easily reconstruct the original meaning despite the translation errors on the 4th day.
(even these errors make perfect sense.
the translators simply didnt know about micro-organisms.)

 

[cubinity]

I realize you are in the middle of a debate in which you are attempting to defend the Bible from someone who clearly respects the Bible, but for a different reason you do, but I wanted to add my two cents...

The Bible that is, today, accepted as the Bible, says the sun is a 4th day creation, which you call an error, but you do so in the Bible's defense against someone who respects the Bible just as it is? What? I don't really get what you are trying to accomplish there.

Oh, and the air I breathe is a gas, not a liquid, but maybe you know something I don't.

 

[granpa]

the other poster believes the bible as it exists today is in error even more than I do.
I believe that originally the bible didnt have any errors.
(notwithstanding that large parts of it were originally fiction. Albeit highly educational fiction)

air and water are both fluids.
Fluid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In physics, a fluid is a substance that continually deforms (flows) under an applied shear stress, no matter how small. Fluids are a subset of the phases of matter and include liquids, gases, plasmas and, to some extent, plastic solids.

As for what I am trying to accomplish, why do you assume that I have some kind of agenda? This is a forum where people share ideas is it not? That is all I am doing and it doesnt seem to be getting me anywhere. All anyone here wants to do is argue.

But to each his own.
they have the right to believe whatever they want to believe

 

[PaladinValer]

I never said that black holes are nothing.

You implied so. Read: "In the beginning there was the abyss (black hole)"

A void by its own definition is the lack of substance. A black hole is not only substance but emits substance.

Furthermore, an abyss is merely a deep hole. Holes cannot exist if there is no substance to define it as a hole.

Cosmology suggests existence as a nigh-infinitely condensed speck. There is nothing outside. It isn't even void; it is non-existence, for it is beyond the material plane. In Christian theology, this is where heaven might fit, for it would be outside the material realm (ie: be outside known and unknown existence as we understand it). Humanity cannot fully grasp the concept of heaven (so far at least), after all.

So yes, you did say it even if you didn't realize it.

And this isn't a nitpick: this is the direct implication of what you said to its logical conclusion.

I have no idea why you would think that at all.
the association is with darkness.

There is no darkness without light. Without light, we'd have no understanding of darkness. That is why God is Light and even the devil while self-defiled, is too a being naturally of light and substance.

Even in the void of space, there is substance, as science has proven.

True darkness; true void does not exist. The idea of personifying it is typical of Paganism. The very Creation story is in part about denying this idea of dualism.

air is a fluid.

Fluid isn't what the Bible reads. It reads water. And water, while a liquid, is not the same as air. Not all fluidity is gaseous. Air is gas, not a liquid. And while it is absolutely true that naturally liquid elements to evaporate into a gaseous state, they then cease being liquid. Clouds are not gas but liquid, even though they float in the air, they are not air.

I never said plants came before multicellular organisms.
I said that living molecules were microscopic tree-like structures and came before cells.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that is scientifically not possible.

you are arguing against a strawman of your own creation.

No, I'm picking apart your argument based on, as I claimed, your false ideas of science and Scripture.

Learn what a Straw Man is, please. Reread it.

it is clear that the whole pattern of genesis is that of God separating each thing from the thing that came before.
...cells evolved from living molecules which came from land which rose from the ocean which rained down from the atmosphere...

1. The cell is the basic unit of life, not parts therein. The cell itself as a whole.
2. Life began not upon land but in the seas.

using this fact and what we know from science one can easily reconstruct the original meaning despite the translation errors on the 4th day.
(even these errors make perfect sense.
the translators simply didnt know about micro-organisms.)

There are no translation errors. Do you read Hebrew? Please, learn it and translate for us the Hebrew of Genesis 1 for us. And don't forget that ancient Hebrew isn't the same as modern Hebrew; go to the original language and please translate. You'll end up with the same words you get in a modern English translation of the Holy Writ when, read literally, you will find no support for your idea.

I realize you are in the middle of a debate in which you are attempting to defend the Bible from someone who clearly respects the Bible, but for a different reason you do, but I wanted to add my two cents...

There is no respecting the Bible when an individual's interpretation philosophy is eisegesis and who thinks that practically every translation throughout history has "mistranslated" the ancient Hebrew. It is nonsense.

the other poster believes the bible as it exists today is in error even more than I do.
I believe that originally the bible didnt have any errors.

It has plenty of historical and scientific errors. That doesn't mean I have a lesser respect for it. On the contrary, it means I have the same respect for it as the Early Church, the same body that canonized it.

air and water are both fluids.
Fluid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fallacy of Division, as I showed above, combined with the Fallacy of Equivocation.

 

[cubinity]

I will try not to poke at the individual, but stay tuned into the topic itself.

The headline reads that this is about patterns, and the OP insists that he is only trying to share his ideas, and does not have an agenda.

Okay. i will respect that.

So, I still can't figure out, then, why the OP is written to approach the topic of patterns that relate with something in the recorded Bible and then right-off dismisses the pattern that is present in the recorded Bible as an error by claiming that the sun precedes the Earth.

What evidence does the OP's author, or any readers, have that the content of the Bible was ever anything other than the pattern that is currently in the Bible? I'd be interested in that evidence if I am going to take the idea seriously.

 

[granpa]

So, I still can't figure out, then, why the OP is written to approach the topic of patterns that relate with something in the recorded Bible and then right-off dismisses the pattern that is present in the recorded Bible as an error by claiming that the sun precedes the Earth.

what an incredibly bizarre thing to say.

the reason i do so is because after studying it I have concluded that that is what the evidence points to.
I do not pick and choose what to believe based on what is convenient to me.

further you seem to imply that one must swallow the bible whole or reject it completely.
its as though you cant imagine anything in between.

you swallow a camel but choke on a gnat.

 

[miamited]

Hi all,

I read: the other poster believes the bible as it exists today is in error even more than I do.

Oh, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, Oh please stop my sides are hurting. Blah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ah. Oh please don't go any further I can't stand it my sides are splitting and my jaws ache from the huge grin that adorns my face. Blah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

 

[cubinity]

what an incredibly bizarre thing to say.

the reason i do so is because after studying it I have concluded that that is what the evidence points to.
I do not pick and choose what to believe based on what is convenient to me.

further you seem to imply that one must swallow the bible whole or reject it completely.
its as though you cant imagine anything in between.

you swallow a camel but choke on a gnat.

First, I didn't say anything about "one must swallow the bible whole or reject it."
Do you really have to put words in my mouth in or to argue against me because I have spoken so well?

This thread is presented as being about a specific pattern.
When I look to the text containing that pattern, I do see a pattern.
Then, when I compare it to the pattern you present in this thread, discrepancies are seen between the pattern you claim this is about and the pattern you've presented. It is simply those discrepancies that many have questioned already.

And, when questioned about those discrepancies, you claim not to believe that the text you are supposedly referring to is accurate. You argue that you are not referring to the pattern that appears in the text today, but a pattern that previously existed: a pattern there is no evidence for.

So, I believe I am being absolutely clear: I am not talking about the Bible as a whole, but only about the specific section you are supposedly referring to. I am saying that you don't accept the very part you are supposedly referring to.

So, what I can't figure out is why. Why are you arguing about something that is not in the Bible, and then criticizing your opponents for not respecting what the Bible actually does say? It simply doesn't make any sense.

 

[granpa]

we KNOW the sun existed before the earth.

therefore we KNOW that the sun and moon werent created on the 4th day.
we KNOW that part of the bible is wrong.
nobody in their right mind questions that.

but there is a very simple explanation.
it originally said round things (bacteria and eukaryotes) were created on the 4th day
when it was translated to hebrew the translators didnt know about microbes so they mistranslated it.

this is confirmed by the general pattern of genesis.
each created thing being separated from the previous thing.

all very simple and I've already explained it several times.
How many more times do you want me to explain it?

 

[PaladinValer]

It did NOT originally say those things. There are no ancient texts, not even the Dead Sea Scrolls, that give evidence to what you suggest.

You're wrong. You're idea of the Holy Bible is dead wrong.

You have both TEs and YECs telling you the same thing.

 

[miamited]

Hi Granpa,

You wrote: we KNOW the sun existed before the earth.

How do we know that? I certainly don't know that, nor can I postulate any reason that it would necessarily have to be so. How do you know this? You don't think that God could speak into existence a single planetary form in all of the vast emptiness of space before He created all the other heavenly bodies. Why? Why do you find this impossible for God?

therefore we KNOW that the sun and moon werent created on the 4th day.

Then you base your entire logical process on this 'fact' that you claim we know. Now, I'm saying that your intitial premise is wrong and, therefore, all that follows that is built upon that initial premise is probably all wrong also. You make the claim that the sun and moon could not possibly have been created after the earth, and based on that positive 'proof', claim that the Scriptures must be in error. See, I don't have that problem. I fully understand that the body of mass that we call the earth, since it was made by the miraculous word of God, could have been set in place in the vast emptiness of space and then that same God who does miraculous things said, "Now, let there be other heaveny bodies surrounding this singular body that I have created to be the home of my greatest creation, 'man'. I have no problem understanding and believing that that is exactly what God did. He's God! He gets to do things anyway He wants.

nobody in their right mind questions that.

Ah, then yes, I'm not in my right mind. Quite frankly, I'm of the mind of Christ. I have crucified myself and my mind and my thoughts and now hold them captive to the mind of Christ. Although, I readily admit that sometimes it's a struggle between my sin nature in my flesh and my spiritual nature conformed to Christ. Sometimes I read things in the Scriptures, just as you do, and my carnal mind tries to tell me that such things just aren't possible. But, then a remind myself, "Hey, we're talking about God here. He can do the impossible. He is not limited to natural, logical, scientifically proven methods. He can just speak or think something to happen, even something as awesome and huge as the entire universe, He can just will it into existence in a mere matter of moments. He is God! He is not bound as we are, by natural, scientifically proven methods. He often works outside of such boundaries and exists entirely outside of such boundaries. He is God!

He can say, "Let there be,..." and a singular planet in all the vastness of space appears in a mere moment that is spinning in place, covered by water. It will be in place and formed just exactly as His great mind and thoughts and will have conceived it. He is God! He can do that!

He can say, "Let there be,..." and suddenly from out of nowhere with no apparent source to us, there can be light that penetrates the vast inky blackness of this space. You see, God lives in a different realm. When He began speaking all that He created in this realm to sustain us, there was already light. It was in His realm and He could very easily have sent that same light into this realm so that the vast expanse of space could well have had light without any of the sources that we think of as giving off light today in our universe. Friend, I'm firmly convinced that the realm in which God lives in, has light and has always had. John speaks of seeing the throne room of God and all the glittering and sparkling in that realm that would be caused by light reflecting off of the things around the throne. He writes of seeing a beautiful rainbow of colors surrounding the throne of God and all of this would, certianly to me, infer that there is light in the heavenly realm where God and His angels reside. And just as God can cause an angel to step out of that realm and appear to Mary and Daniel and the few others who have seen angels, He can also cause light to appear out of seemingly nowhere.

Listen, consider carefully the account of the shepherds watching over their flocks on the night that our Savior was born. The account says that 'suddenly' there was with this singular angel who was delivering the news of the Christ's birth a heavenly host of angels. I'm confident that this heavenly host of angels would have been surrounded by the light emanating from the heavenly realm of God. Let's look at the star that led the wise men to the Savior. That was no ordinary star that still hangs in the sky. No, that was a light, that appeared in the sky and could well have been, although yes this is conjecture, a small tear that God made in our realm in which the light of His realm shone through and appeared as a star in the sky. It is that light that God could easily have shone from His realm into ours that could have been the first light.

Friend, God is God!!!! He can do these things and He has blessed you with the written word to explain to our simple minds just exactly what He had done and here is the first test of a man's faith, 'Will you believe God's truth? Or will you rather deny God's truth and rest upon the wisdom of men?" I stand with God. Yes, even though I may not ever be able to explain how God did all that He did. I trust that He did it just as He has revealed it to us. How? I don't know. I don't have even the slightest inkling of all that God can do and the ways of God apart from what He has told me in His word.

How He created the angelic realm? I don't know! I don't have a clue! But I know that He did. How did God send the first light into this realm of existence? I don't know! Yes I have these conjectures and they certainly make sense to a man such as myself who is not in his right mind, but I know that God, not some ignorant man who didn't understand how the cosmos and the creation worked, but God had written the things that are revealed to us in the account of Genesis.

You see, friend, that is the first place where you and I are separated. You believe that the account of the creation was written by men of little understanding. While I fully confirm that the written words were put to paper by men, I believe that the ideas, thoughts, intentions, and evidences that were written down by these men didn't come from their frail and lacking minds, but came, as Paul declares from the leading and instruction of God's Holy Spirit working through them to reveal the things that God wants us to know and believe.

So, unfortunately, I can't fall back on the excuse that what we read in the Genesis account cannot be true because it came from the minds of men with little or no understanding. No! As I understand the Scriptures, if I say that a part of them are not true... I am calling God a liar! I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to do that, and God has given me understanding of a way that every word of the Scriptures is true. I can fully understand how this realm might have light and yet not a star or other heavenly body in all of the universe. I can fully understand how the earth could have hung in space for a matter of days before all the other heavenly bodies were set around it.

But that understanding comes from knowing that God is the God of miracles and as soon as I try to set 'scientific' methodology as my cornerstone of the creation, then I'm in deep doo-doo. Because science cannot today, nor will it ever be able to explain a miracle. It is contradictory to the very definition of miracle.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[miamited]

Hi granpa,

Here, let me give you something to think about.

If God, in the next five minutes of our time were to say, "Let the earth be on the opposite side of it's orbit." In the blink of an eye everything would be turned around on the earth. We would instantly begin to have winter in what had moments ago been summer and the part of the earth that had been experiencing winter would begin to reckon temperatures of 90 degrees. Ice and snow would be melting so fast that floods would be everywhere in what had just been winter. Those who were just experiencing summer would rush into their homes to get jackets and mittens and swimming pools would quickly freeze in the middle of July.

Scientists would be running around scrambling to provide answers. You'd begin to hear things about outside gravitational forces and perhaps the earth went through a black hole and all sorts of other ideas. There would be equations and theories abounding that would give us 'scientifically logical' reasons for what had just happened. But the truth would be, even though you would be hard pressed to find a scientist to confirm it, is that God just said, "Let the earth be on the other side of its orbit." Nothing any more difficult than that. Now the Revelation and several of the writings of the prophets do warn us that some very strange things are going to be happening among the heavens as we come near the time of God's wrath. We're going to find a lot of scientists scratching their heads and saying things like, "We just don't understand it". And they will continue to search for 'scientifically proven' reasons to explain all that is happening, but mark my words those explanation will not be the truth. Just as the explanations today regarding the creation of all things that we get from scientists seems to make sense. They seem to have some logical reasoning that could explain things, but, and I'm sure you'll have a difficult time with this, I'm convinced that they're wrong.

They have explanations for things that certainly seem to come from logical processes, but that, to me, is the whole of the problem. I read on the creation threads all of the equations and theoretical algorithms and postulates that 'explain' in simple 'scientifically proven' methods that 'prove' the earth and the universe are billions of years old. The creation didn't come from logical processes. Man did not evolve from some other creature form. No! God created all of this realm of existence for the very purpose of making a place where a creature of flesh, called Adam, could live. That creature was created by God for God's purpose and all of the earth and the universe was created by God for God's purpose. Just as God can move the earth from one side of its orbit to another with the mere thinking or speaking such an event, so too can God create all that we see.

That it takes billions of years for the light of a distant star to reach the earth. Maybe for men, but not for God. God can merely speak, "Let there be stars in the heavens..." and practically instantly every body in the universe that emits light and is large enough to be seen by the naked eye or any greater visual device would be seen. I contend that on the sixth day when Adam was created, he could look towards the heavens on a clear evening with none of the distracting light that we have today on the earth and see every single one of the same stars that you and I see.

As I understand the Scriptures, that is real faith. That we believe God over and above any scientific postulates or proofs that might be offered. I stand with God. Six literal days of approximately 24 hours He created everything that is in this realm of existence. EVERYTHING!!!! Nothing has evolved. Nothing sat around for billions of years waiting for man to 'become' what God wanted him to become. God started with a great and awesome plan to create man and the first part of that plan was to create a place for man to live. Create a place where a living creature of flesh and blood that would, just as the angels were created to do, be with Him and understand that their very existence came from the hand of Him who created them and give Him glory and honor and praise for His goodness and His provisions that we might have life.

But, just as with the angelic realm, disobedience caused that both the heavenly realm and the earthly realm were not as God intended them to be. The last two chapters of the Revelation explain clearly how the day is coming that God will rectify that situation.

God bless you.
In Christ, Ted

 

[Greg1234]

Others are correct: you are trying to fit in cosmology where it doesn't fit.

The Holy Writ literally taken is that the Earth was before the sun. That's a fact: the Holy Bible when taken literally in this sense is wrong. Thankfully, it can be as wrong as it wants to be in matters outside salvation, faith, doctrine, and morals.

The initial creation was not through currently perceptible resources. There's nothing wrong with it.

 

[cubinity]

I've already explained it several times.
How many more times do you want me to explain it?

Zero.
I don't want you to keep explaining it at all.
I want you to admit that you have no evidence for it.
I want you to appreciate that we have our evidence: the Bible.
Therefore, even if we are also wrong, we at least have a stronger foundation of evidence for our position than you have for yours.

 

[PaladinValer]

The initial creation was not through currently perceptible resources. There's nothing wrong with it.

English please.

 

[artybloke]

Seems to be that what we have here is another Bibliolatrist who worships his mistaken interpretation of the Bible rather than a) the God who inspired the writers of the Bible and b) the God who left his testimony of creation in the very creation itself. (They are of course, the same God.)

Also, another one who seems to elide the concepts of 'truth' and 'fact' as if they were the same thing.

 

[lucaspa]

we KNOW the sun existed before the earth.

But not according to Genesis.

therefore we KNOW that the sun and moon werent created on the 4th day.
we KNOW that part of the bible is wrong.
nobody in their right mind questions that.

Why not? Creationists don't let extrabiblical evidence question that humans evolve rather than were directly created.

it originally said round things (bacteria and eukaryotes) were created on the 4th day
when it was translated to hebrew the translators didnt know about microbes so they mistranslated it.

The text says "lights" were created on the 4th day. Nothing about "round things". Also, bacteria are not round. Many are rods. So, looked at from one side, they are rectangular from that side.

this is confirmed by the general pattern of genesis.
each created thing being separated from the previous thing.

But you have a different pattern in your OP than that given in Genesis 1.

I am amused that you say "from sharks or Eurypterids God drew out animals" Sharks and Eurypterids are animals.

I'm also trying to see where you get Eurypterids from the Genesis text:
"God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. "

from land God drew out tree shaped living molecules

First, this isn't what the text says:
"The earth brought forth [fn]vegetation, [fn]plants yielding seed after [fn]their kind, and trees bearing fruit [fn]with seed in them, after [fn]their kind; and God saw that it was good. " The text is talking vegetation, including "herbs"

RNA is not "tree-shaped". It is a linear molecule.

How many more times do you want me to explain it?

Until your explanation is consistent with what is in the text of Genesis 1. Basically, you have mangled both what God tells us in scripture and what God tells us in His Creation. Your sequence is illegitimate in regards to both.

Granpa, how do you know God followed the same order on other worlds? Why would He have to?