When is it time to abandon a sinking ship? (YEC?)

[KTatis]

When we are studying God's Word that He has provided to us, you say "creation allow us to gain more insight into His wisdom". Who's insight of the creation are we supposed to go by?

I see your version of "creation" as "anoretic", the same letters, but switched around and causing a loss of appetite for the Word.

Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Creation dose not allow you to gain insight into God's wisdom... well actually it dose in a step-by-step process. Eventually you will start to believe in evolution as mainstream science dose (hopefuly). But no creationism dose not give any insight into God's wisdom. When you limit yourself as a 'human being' to reason and logic to differentiate between fantasy and reality you are no where near the Lords wisdom my friend.

 

[Scotishfury09]

So, because we believe in a literal 6-day creation we believe in less of a God? Oh man, this forum gets worse and worse every day.

 

[crawfish]

When we are studying God's Word that He has provided to us, you say "creation allow us to gain more insight into His wisdom". Who's insight of the creation are we supposed to go by?

I see your version of "creation" as "anoretic", the same letters, but switched around and causing a loss of appetite for the Word.

Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Who's worshiping creation? I just notice that it has His fingerprints all over it. It's not just evolution - I see creationists denying many scientific facts because they do not mesh into their view of how God does things. Throughout the stories of the Bible, one thing is very obvious: God defies expectations. I have no expectations for evolution, although I understand it explains the evidence better than any other explanation. I am open to whatever our exploration of God's creation tells us. And as a result, I am open to realizing that, perhaps, God was telling us something different in Genesis than "how things are".

I have never hungered more for the word than when I discovered that I don't have to deny scientific fact to accept God's word. I read it now with a new sense of wonder and awe.

Oh, please -- let's not get into a "who's God is bigger" contest. Any TE's gonna stand up to correct this?

I apologize if I've offended. I think I got a little carried away in the prose.

 

[crawfish]

So, because we believe in a literal 6-day creation we believe in less of a God? Oh man, this forum gets worse and worse every day.

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna pay for this one. I apologize for making the statement.

I merely feel a sense of wonder in the absolute complexity of God's creation, from the tiniest molecule to the sheer size and number of galaxies and objects in the universe. I feel that the vast amount of time and exceedingly slow progression of how science claims the universe would be a job I cannot even comprehend a being undertaking, and that makes God powerful beyond my comprehension.

However, creationist or not, we all believe basically the same thing: God created it all.

 

[Jase]

So, because we believe in a literal 6-day creation we believe in less of a God? Oh man, this forum gets worse and worse every day.

I think he means that we can appreciate God's creation more because we don't confine it to such a small scale. No offense, but if the universe and Earth were confined to a 6,000 year time period, it would be very uninteresting and unimpressive. In geological time, 6000 years is nothing.

 

[Scotishfury09]

Apology very much accepted, crawfish.

Creationists don't think things like stars and galaxies just aren't there. We can marvel at them too. We may not have the most reasonable explanation of how or why they're there, but we still see them too.

Think of our purpose. To worship God. To most Christians this is an amazing privilege. But reasonably, this is dumb. We were created to worship, and most of us don't even do that? That's dumb, isn't it? We're prideful beings. That's why. The problem is that we shouldn't expect to reasonably understand everything. I know this opens up the arguments of "if we stopped back when we didn't understand the cell we wouldn't have gotten very far." And I agree, but as I just said, reason can't get us every where.

 

[Scotishfury09]

I think he means that we can appreciate God's creation more because we don't confine it to such a small scale. No offense, but if the universe and Earth were confined to a 6,000 year time period, it would be very uninteresting and unimpressive. In geological time, 6000 years is nothing.

Well I think your view is unimpressive and uninteresting. Why didn't God allow us to function completely in 4-D? Your view is lacking compared to what He could have done. You're just digging yourself deeper. You should have just stopped at the apology.

 

[laptoppop]

Actually, assuming time is the 4th dimension, we function in 4-d all the time <grin>

 

[Jadis40]

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna pay for this one. I apologize for making the statement.

I merely feel a sense of wonder in the absolute complexity of God's creation, from the tiniest molecule to the sheer size and number of galaxies and objects in the universe. I feel that the vast amount of time and exceedingly slow progression of how science claims the universe would be a job I cannot even comprehend a being undertaking, and that makes God powerful beyond my comprehension.

However, creationist or not, we all believe basically the same thing: God created it all.

The main difference is on the timeframe. I was convinced through my own studies of astronomy starting when I was still in elementary school that the Big Bang 13 billion or so years ago (even up to 20 billion years, depending on what criteria is used) is the best explanation, so, I've basically believed in an ancient earth for all of my life. I'm basing this on scientific observations of processes that are just now fully being revealed through modern technology.

We know that there are stellar nurseries such as exist in Orion's belt that are continuing the process of creation with the formation of new stars. I'm awed by that, and I think that it is giving us a glimpse of the processes that God used to create our own sun and solar system over a long time frame. That's why I have a problem with a literal interpretation of Genesis because it doesn't match up with what we see. Stars just don't pop into existence, planets don't just pop into existence, moons and comets don't just pop into existence. It's only in the past 100 years or so that we truly have a sense of how large the universe truly is, with galaxies that are millions of light years away. Also, I believe that supernova remnants are a strong case for an ancient universe. These remnants were once stars that had a lifespan of billions of years in some cases to millions of years in others. It takes a while for the light from supernova explosions to reach us, like that of Supernova 1987a.

I'd also have to add that plants don't just pop into existence. Trust me, I'm growing lettuce, spinach, oregano, rosemary, thyme and basil this spring and summer. I like going out each day and seeing how they're doing, but they don't grow from a seed to a full grown plant overnight. That's why I have a problem with the "appearance of age" argument.

Also, what of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? God chose the natural process of conception trough the act of the Holy Spirit within the womb of the Virgin Mary to bring about the incarnation. Jesus was in the womb for 9 months, and was born like all of us were. The difference is, Jesus was truly human and divine.

 

[Jase]

Apology very much accepted, crawfish.

Creationists don't think things like stars and galaxies just aren't there. We can marvel at them too. We may not have the most reasonable explanation of how or why they're there, but we still see them too.

But According to the YEC criteria, they aren't there. You can't have a 6,000 year old universe, with a supernova exploding 10 billion light years away, and the supernova ever actually having existed. In such a case, we still have another 9, 999, 994, 000 years to go before that supernova ever actually explodes in the YEC world. Yeah yeah, I know you can just say God isn't bound by natural laws and could make it happen, but one might ask themselves why God ever created physics if he has to permanently keep them broken to appease the YEC interpretation.

 

[Scotishfury09]

Actually, assuming time is the 4th dimension, we function in 4-d all the time <grin>

Haha. Yes. I merely meant that we can't move through the fourth dimension at will.

 

[laptoppop]

But According to the YEC criteria, they aren't there. You can't have a 6,000 year old universe, with a supernova exploding 10 billion light years away, and the supernova ever actually having existed. In such a case, we still have another 9, 999, 994, 000 years to go before that supernova ever actually explodes in the YEC world. Yeah yeah, I know you can just say God isn't bound by natural laws and could make it happen, but one might ask themselves why God ever created physics if he has to permanently keep them broken to appease the YEC interpretation.

Actually, there are a couple of different YEC explanations.
One is that God created the universe mature -- like he made Adam a man, not a baby -- so that we could appreciate more of His awesome glory.

The other refers to scriptures about God "stretching" the heavens and mathematically deals with some of the ramifications. I don't understand these well enough to explain them, but a Google search will yield several different ways of looking at it.

 

[Jase]

Actually, there are a couple of different YEC explanations.
One is that God created the universe mature -- like he made Adam a man, not a baby -- so that we could appreciate more of His awesome glory.

The other refers to scriptures about God "stretching" the heavens and mathematically deals with some of the ramifications. I don't understand these well enough to explain them, but a Google search will yield several different ways of looking at it.

I'm familiar with both explanations, but neither of them really work when you actually look into them. A mature universe doesn't explain how we can see 13 billion years worth of star light in 6,000 years. There are also physical ramifications that we can test if the speed of light were significantly different in the past ( which would be what is necessary if the "stretched" out the Heavens explanation actually worked).

 

[laptoppop]

A mature universe would include light "in-flight" -- in other words, it would include the ability for us to see it.

 

[Jadis40]

I'm familiar with both explanations, but neither of them really work when you actually look into them. A mature universe doesn't explain how we can see 13 billion years worth of star light in 6,000 years. There are also physical ramifications that we can test if the speed of light were significantly different in the past ( which would be what is necessary if the "stretched" out the Heavens explanation actually worked).

I found this link just recently. If you have a knowledge of Hebrew cosmology, the whole universe was a lot smaller than we know it to be, and Genesis 1 & 2 make a lot more sense when seen through the eyes of the people living at that time.

http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/ThreeTieredUniverse.htm

 

[pastorkevin73]

"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

and everything else revolves around this.

Allow me to explain, if I was telling my Children the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, I would not be doing so that they could wonder about the pattern of the Hare's fur. The moral, is what I want them to understand.

The Word of God is similar, in that God wants us to understand that, "we should love our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves". For the children of the world that focus on the pattern of the fur, are as those whose eyes do not see.

(I see that you omitted the second part, and here is our dilemma. If you do not understand that the first commandment does not exist without the second, than your understanding of the word of God, is as that of a blindman)

I'm not sure if you are misunderstanding, not getting it, or really don't know what you are talking about. Comparing God's word to the Tortiose and the Hare is a failed comparison. There is a process that one needs to go through to completely understand what a passage or
pericopie. This process is called herminutics. Have you ever sat through a service and heard the pastor mention the root word behind the English word to mean such and such in Greek (NT) or Hebrew (OT). While working on this sermon your pastor has engaged in the process of herminutics. Anyone studying God's Word needs to learn this process and use it to fully understand the scriptures. Some passages we may not need to go to indepth, but other passages need dedicated and indepth study to be clear about what God is saying. The focus of herminutics is clarity and truth, not opinion. For example, most times TEs (not all, but some) base what they believe on Genesis 1-11 on opinion, not indepth study. When it comes to God's word opinion doesn't matter, only truth matters and that is already preset by God, not man.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

 

[Jase]

A mature universe would include light "in-flight" -- in other words, it would include the ability for us to see it.

Think about what "light in flight" would entail. Light never stops being emitted from objects in space. So we won't see light being emitted from a star billions of light years away, for billions of years unless that light somehow travels billions of light years instantaneously ( and there is zero evidence of the speed of light ever traveling this fast, not to mention it would destoy every physical law of nature). So how can a constant beam of light from a star, always allow us to see it, when we have another few billion years to go before we see the first photons of light it emitted at creation? Light in flight means we aren't actually seeing the light from those objects in space, because the actual light emitted from the star hasn't even gotten close to us yet.

Instead, we are seeing "fake" light artificially being emitted in the middle of nowhere in space some 6,000 light years away so we can always see it. I mean, I hope you can at least understand why this is such a problem for the YEC model.

 

[laptoppop]

No, I honestly don't have a problem with this. Adam and Eve were created full grown. I have no problem with God making the universe full grown -- with photons in flight just as if they had been traveling for a long time. Otherwise, we would not have been able to see the extent of His wonderful creation. I'm willing to be persuaded of other explanations, but I have no problem with God creating a mature universe.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Here's an idea: Why don't you come up with a new translation for the Bible and call it the TEV (Theistic Evolution Version) or the ISV (Inspired Insight Version). In it, you could in some way define for the readers which statements, chapters or books should be taken whatever way fits with your worldview. At least that way we could have some reference point of exactly what you believe and what you take seriously.

It will not happen because TE's do not have authority figures that cannot be questioned.

There is no AiG or like group in TE because TE is about trusting God not men.

 

[laptoppop]

It will not happen because TE's do not have authority figures that cannot be questioned.

There is no AiG or like group in TE because TE is about trusting God not men.

AIG is not an unquestionable authority for YECs.

The TE equivalent is the talk.origins archive.