Genesis 1 - Literal or not??

No. All of the bible stands or falls on Genesis. God said that He created it all in six days (evening and morning), and He canot lie.

As for the "evidence" of geology, astrology, etc:

Man tries to limit God. If God can create man as a full grown man, why is He not ablr to create a thousand year old tree? Or a deep river gorge? Or layers of rock? Or weathered mountains?

By arguing for an old earth, man is trying to restrict God to man's ideas. God is infinitely creative (just look to His world and you can see that). So why could He not have made a world that He wanted to be "aged"?

In Christ,
Trotter

 

1. One could also say the YE restrict God to their view only.

2. Could God create a world with apparent age? Yes. But why the deception?

3. I have no strong feelings either way on this though I lean Old Earth. It just seems scientific discoveries scream Old.

4. Could "morning and evening" simply mean beginning and ending? Our definition of morning is the sun rising in the east, yet there was no sun till the 4th day, so therefore the possibility exists that morning of Genesis is not our morning.

5. It was stated earlier that not believing in a literal 24 hours in Gen. 1 would be decieving on God's part. However to me it would be just as decieving to give the universe an apparent Old Age when in reality it is very young.

6. This is a most interesting discussion and both sides make very good points. I wish my IQ was several numbers higher.

 

"Light was speed up thru ceasum gas in a lab. at least a part of it was it went I believe 7 times the speed of light. And a Blackhole is something else that slows the speed of Light. Being that the Universe is vast and we do not really have a complete understanding of it we can not say for certain that there is not nothing out in space that affects the speed of light or something making stars look futher away than they really are like looking thru water at the bottom of a river it may look shallow but could be 4ft over your head." This sounds like what was described above as such: "They surmise how it might have gotten to be the way that it is. But we must emphasize "surmise" and "might." They cannot prove such things, as is evident by the continually changing hypotheses about such matters."

Yes, they have shown that a vapor of cesium in a particular configuration can pass light at 310 times the speed in a vacuum. Light travels at varying speeds through different mediums. That is why you cannot accurately judge the depth of water sometimes. That is how lenses work. But the key is in a vacuum. There is no reason to suppose that the speed of light in a vacuum has ever changed. If it did, it would leave observable effects.

"Also a Dr. Russell Humphreys came up with a theory that the Earth ..."

The problem is that Dr. Humphreys is not trained in relativity and his model shows. It does not agree with relativity nor reality. See http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/unravelling.shtml?main . A quote

"To our knowledge, not one person competent in general relativity and cosmology theory who has examined Starlight and Time has given a "pass" to this theory12. Despite the lack of expert corroboration of his work, Humphreys continues to insist on the validity of his demonstrably false theory. Unfortunately, most of the major young-earth organizations13 are continuing to follow Humphreys and are ignoring the demonstrations of the falsity of his theory which have arisen from both inside and outside the young-earth movement. "

"But never they less gravity has a big affect on the speed of light it can bend it or slow it down so who knows what esle is out there beyond our current level of physics that allows light to speed up in space. "

Gravity does not affect the speed of light. If you would like to propose other means to change the speed of light, feel free and we will look for observable effects and if the idea makes sense. Until then, we are in the world of surmising and guessing.

"It has already been proven that an Atomic Clock at sea level in England starts to get slower than an Atomic Clock in Colorodo."

I would not mind a reference for this but I would imagine that it is a relativistic effect because of different speeds and gravity. This would work towards confirming current theories.

"To try to compare modern criminal forensics with the origins of the universe is a wholly incompatible comparison."

The comparison was valid in order to show that you can figure out what happened in the past.

"You presuppose much more ... that the carbon in the rock was decaying at a constant rate, that it started with a presupposed amount, that there has been nothing to accelerate or decelerate etc. None of the presuppositions can be proven."

I beg to differ. First, if you would like to proose that the rates were different in the past, it is up to you to show how that could be. I do not believe that we have been experimentally able to change the decay rates much. In addition, a change in decay rates would have observable effects. But, more important, we do not have to assume that rates have always been the same. We can check. Remember the supernovae I posted links to above? When they explode, they make huge amounts of radioactive isotopes. We can look at them and see that decay rates were the same in the past as they are now. It is a direct observation. Furthermore, when it comes to C-14 dating, we can date items of known age and compare the results to the known ages. This has not only validated the methods, it has also allowed the method to be calibrated to give even more accurate dates. These assumptions can and have been proven.

"With the light, again you presuppose that there has actually been 100,000 years and that light has traveled at a constant speed."

A change in the speed of light would have observable effects. These we do not see. The speed of light has not been changing. Do I need to post examples of the effects or do you have evidence of such effects?

"Are you open to the possibility of an old earth?
Not really, becasue the text of Scripture precludes it and there, so far, has been no evidence to the contrary that does not depend on jumps I am not prepared to make."

Fair enough on the first part. If that is where your faith leads you, fine. I disagree a bit on the second part. Mainly I just think it is impossible to take an unbiased look and not conclude the earth is old. What could be presented that would not involve jumps that are too much for you?

 

Yes the Light could be moving the same speed, But with the time going faster due to increased gravity would we be seeing the light sooner since time is faster.

http://www.carolina.com/achievements/einstein/einstein.asp

 

Most of us who participate in these discussions find that a lower IQ is valuable, it helps us to totally filter out what the "other side" is saying.

Rob

 

"Yes the Light could be moving the same speed, But with the time going faster due to increased gravity would we be seeing the light sooner since time is faster."

If you have such a theory you would like to present, go ahead. We will examine it. The only one to attempt to do so that I know of is Dr. Russell Humphreys, and I have already given you a link on that one. Going through just why he is wrong is too long and too technical to get into here but feel free to read the link. The short of it is that someone without any training in relativity is trying to make a case on relativity. And his lack of training shows.

But there is a germane aspect to Dr. Humphreys. I believe he is an astronomer. As such, he knows that it is not just that the universe "looks" old, he knows that it really has been around for billions of years. So he was trying to find a way to fit a few thousand year old earth into a many billions of year old universe, and have them both created at the same time. In general, there are obvious exceptions, the closer you are to a particular field, the more likely you are to accept the evidence from that field on the ancient age of Creation. And there are many fine Christians who research all of these fields, so this is not just a conspiracy by those out to discredit God.

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"This is a most interesting discussion and both sides make very good points. I wish my IQ was several numbers higher. "

It can be very interesting. You do not want to take anything too personal nor get too upset about any of it. It also is hard in such discussions to give all the necessary information. If you are interested, one great technique is whenever you see a given topic, to spend a few hours or days reading up on that topic. Go to all the major young earth sites (AIG, ICR, trueorigin) and use their search feature. Then go to the old earth sites. Then go to the main stream science sites. Google is often the best way. You can also try Talkorigins and use their search feature. They will often have links to both sides so you can go back and forth from one page. Once you know what everyone has to say, you can make your own decision.

 

It has been shown that others follow this theory as well, in fact I first read of it an a Scientific American article several years ago.

A recent work:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0130/p14s03-bogn.html

Also, I saw in passing some one mentioned Carbon-14 dating. Please note the unreliablility of the same:

 

You have to understand the difference between what Magueijo (the scientist in your link) proposes and what Barry proposes. Barry Setterfield proposes a change in the speed of light throughout the history of the universe right on up to a few decades ago. There are specific observational effects that this predicts and they have not been observed.

Magueijo on the other hand proposes that for a fraction of a second after the big bang that the speed of light was higher. This is proposed as an alternative to the inflationary theory. Basically both inflation and Magueijo seek to explain the smoothness of the universe. Neither give any indication that the universe might be young.

 

OK then, I do.

BTW, so have others, that is relatively .

Time compresses closer to creation.

HankD

 

"Time compresses closer to creation."

OK. I'll bite. How?

 

I don't know how. I suspect it has something to do with the equation E=MCsquared if C is no longer a constant and can be treated as a variable as long as the total expression remains in a state of equilibrium.

HankD

 

Even that is debatable since the half-life of Carbon-14 is just over 5700 years. I've seen some here at the BB claiming its usefulness into the millions of years.

So what? "theoretical" physicists can have there opinions which change year after year, but I can't?

Neither of these statements can be conclusively proven either way by anyone.

I would rather say that the Big-Bang/Primordial Soup people are grasping at straws when supposedly in total darkness at absolute zero in a perfect vacuum with no outside force acting upon it and with no outside source of energy, the Singularity (proportedly the size of a garden pea) exploded, producing the present universe.

Then several billions of years later (no on is sure how many) out a seething cauldron of deadly poison methane-ammonia "soup" crawled Mr and Mrs thallophyte which eventually became you and I?

How can anyone complain about my theories if the wise and educated of this world believe those above?

HankD

 

"I don't know how. I suspect it has something to do with the equation E=MCsquared if C is no longer a constant and can be treated as a variable as long as the total expression remains in a state of equilibrium."

A changing speed of light has consequences. Not the least is the E=mc2 you mentioned. Since the the amount of energy released when matter is converted to eneregy increases with the square of the speed of light, if the speed of light was 10 times as high, the energy released would be 100 times as much. Radioactive decay would fry all life on earth. The sun would be incredibly more luminous, if it could survive that much internal force with as little gravity as it has, as stars go.

Let me quote myself from another thread on another consequence. A few things may be changed from the original for clarity.

I also must ask, if you think time was "compressed" do you think that means that more time has passed in the rest of the universe than here on earth?

"Even that is debatable since the half-life of Carbon-14 is just over 5700 years."

Let's see, after 50000 years that means that about 0.2% of the original C14 would remain. Very small, but detectable. Any smaller and it is hard to shield the lab well enough to prevent background radiation from interfering. You are also down at the limits where contamination becomes more of a concern. So for a well preserved sample, 50000 years is a good upper limit. For less well preserved, less.

"I've seen some here at the BB claiming its usefulness into the millions of years."

Then they are wrong. Point them out and we can educate them. Other isotopes of other elements are good for millions of years, however.

"Neither of these statements can be conclusively proven either way by anyone."

For C14, well it depends. Calibration with items of known age show that the method can be very accurate. But, since we are dating organic items, contamination is a real concern. Of course that leads to dates that are too young. But C14 is only good upto the tens of thousands of years at best. Other methods are useful for demonstrating the great age of the earth and are reliable.

The constant speed of light is well established. As I have said, there are consequences of a faster speed of light which we could observe. And we have not done so.

"I would rather say that the Big-Bang/Primordial Soup people are grasping at straws when supposedly in total darkness at absolute zero in a perfect vacuum with no outside force acting upon it and with no outside source of energy, the Singularity (proportedly the size of a garden pea) exploded, producing the present universe."

Well, it is really even worse than that. Before the Big Bang, there would not have even beed any space to have a vacuum in. Think of it more as the expansion of space itself than an explosion. More accurate.

"Then several billions of years later (no on is sure how many)"

13.7 billion years ago for the universe. 4.56 billion years ago for earth. The oldest evidence for life that I know of is 3.8 billion years.

"Then several billions of years later (no on is sure how many) out a seething cauldron of deadly poison methane-ammonia "soup" crawled Mr and Mrs thallophyte which eventually became you and I?"

Well, the abiogenesis stuff is still pretty far out there. It is in its infancy. And of course we can never really know the answer because the chemicals involved do not last that long. But I know God wanted life here so I can be sure that He arranged for it, how ever it happened. One advantage I have as a Christian.

Now beyond that, the closer to now you get, the better the evidence, with exceptions of course. But most rock older than 300 million years old or so has already been subducted or eroded, so little to go on. More recently though, there are good fossils for such things as the transition from fish to amphibians and then to reptiles. The reptiles to mammals transition is very well documented. ANd so on.

 

One thing you have forgotten UTEOTW.

Even the disputers of this world admit that the laws of "creation" are probably no longer in effect neither can they be re-created in this present "maintenance" phase of the life of the universe.

If this is indeed true then all your calculations are for naught.

HankD

 

Now this is a good question IMO. I'de have to think about that.

HankD

 

You may be right, I'm not a good judge of my inner workings. I started out my young manhood as an atheist/agnostic in engineering and modern physics, switched to higher mathematics, was later saved and began changing my views.

HankD

 

Lord be praised! You were saved from engineering! Pray for us lost souls...

-Pluvivs

 

"Lord be praised! You were saved from engineering! Pray for us lost souls..."

Amen!

As one of the junior engineers (ignore the "Senior" in my title) I get to start my 6-8 weeks of 12 hour night shifts Saturday. Me and one other guy get to split them all. Except for the week he is gone on vacation.