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Something hit me yesterday reading these forums

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by Bobby Hamilton, Feb 9, 2012.

  1. windcatcher

    windcatcher New Member

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    While it is possible Adam might have had other sons (the Bible states he begat sons and daughters).... the Bible only tells us of three.... Cain, Able, and Seth . Adam was 130 years when Seth was born. Able was murdered by his brother and no off-spring are recorded. The generations from Cain are cited to the 6th generation; It was in the 5th generation from Cain that there's first mention of having more than one wife. In these early years of mankind... the laws or concept of incest was not present... siblings and cousins "married"..... likely reduced attraction and interest as already too familiar. Conjecture!

    Seth was 105 when the birth of his son is recorded....from which Noah was born in the 8th generation. As the importance of this Biblical geneology is the interest of the lineage from Adam to Noah... thus others born are not named, scripture indicates that in each generation sons and daughters were born... no indication of how quickly the multiplication took place: What I can know.... though Cain moved away... still there was knowledge of 6 generations from him before the Bible ceases to record his line. Not enough information is given that I can determine whether this was a line of off-spring that continued to live in proximity to Seth's line... or not. While it is possible that God could tell Moses all this information, it is just as likely that this was also part of information transmitted from one generation to the next... with such a continuity of acquaintance due to longevity... and God inspired the recording of that which He determined to be significant to His purpose for instructing us today.

    If all things were comparable and equal to today... we could be fairly certain of some things... like the time of dependency of children upon their parents before physical maturity.... and the length of gestation for humans. If compared with animals... this time is quite long for mankind. Animals reach reproductive maturity much quicker....usually within a couple of years for most. But we do not have any observational knowledge that I'm aware of from how things were at that time. For that matter, just because the age of the father is recorded for each generation from Adam to Noah does not mean that sons and daughters weren't already born to any of them.... and there is no indication that each was the first born or the first son of the previous.

    While all of this is an interesting puzzle of sorts .....I'm not sure of its importance. What is apparent.... God made man. Man fell from the first estate through disobedience and judgment fell upon him as God had forewarned: It grieved God.... and mankind continued his rebellion adding grief to grief to a loving and just Creator God. God is perfect in both His love and in His judgment..... all GOOD, ever FAITHFUL and TRUE.

    He was merciful in extending man's life, continuing to provide for His creatures and their needs, and patient in His holding back His judgment while waiting for man to return to recognize his Creator, enduring the grief of watching mankind's rebellion and growing wickedness while mankind forsook His goodness. Even when judgment was determined to be necessary to preserve His purpose.... God gave warning for 100 years, and then preserved 8 souls to continue the human race through the judgment of that age..... and to preserve the promise of His word which He had in the beginning.

    Oh How marvelous His Mercy and His Grace! How Faithful His Love and His Word! How Perfect in Holiness and Power! How Complete are His Mercies and Satisfying is the Salvation He has offered to All Who Will Receive Him! What a Glorious Creator and Savior is He!
     
    #21 windcatcher, Feb 10, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 10, 2012
  2. Magnetic Poles

    Magnetic Poles New Member

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    The simple matter is that the planet is over 4.5 billion years old. Problem solved.
     
  3. blackbird

    blackbird Active Member

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    So says---------Al Gore???????
     
  4. DaChaser1

    DaChaser1 New Member

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    problem in that statement though is that the "scientific facts" are up to interpreatation in regards to exact timing of the Creation of God, and would still see it as being much younger than those evolutionary aging "guesses!"

    based upon some presumptions that in order fo the 'theory" of Theistic evolution to be correct, has to have extreme aging!

    I personally hold to earth being older than 6,000 years,but at most 50-100 thousands of yeras, not the ole billions and billions of Dr Carl Sagan!
     
    #24 DaChaser1, Feb 13, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 13, 2012
  5. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    Okay, let's assume (as does most of Science) that your proposition is correct.

    How did the planet, the cosmos that holds it, and life arise 4.6 billion years ago?

    I sense that you will have the same problem, save one aspect, you don't have to worry about the "apperance" of age, for you are implying age by the date. All else, however, remains the same with one caveat -- it is much more difficult to investigate a ONE TIME RANDOM EVENT 4.5 billion years in the past than it is to investigate something that happened within the venue of human history as suggests the specific revelation of God via the record in Genesis.
     
  6. DaChaser1

    DaChaser1 New Member

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    non Creationist sciences have 3 BIG questions to answer!

    How did something come from nothing?
    IF you say Eternal , why cannot it be God, as He is Eternal!

    How did life even originate "naturally?"

    How did man come to exist upon earth, as he has 'something" that makes him diiferent than ANY other creature, a soul!
     
  7. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

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    Unfortunately we're using them to power our cars and power plants.
     
  8. jonathan.borland

    jonathan.borland Active Member

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    Not really, since then they would have fallen for disobeying the first commandment, you know, to be fruitful like the trees.
     
  9. gb93433

    gb93433 Active Member
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    Coal would be a similar example but it has a use.
     
  10. quantumfaith

    quantumfaith Active Member

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    :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:
     
  11. quantumfaith

    quantumfaith Active Member

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    :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:
     
  12. webdog

    webdog Active Member
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    One explanation could be the flood didn't happen instantaneously. Humans could have moved to higher ground, clung to objects, etc.
     
  13. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    Don't be so quick to high five Magnetic Poles on this one. I asked him a couple of questions regarding this old-earth position and I've noticed that he never returned to deal with those questions.

    Perhaps you can?

     
  14. DaChaser1

    DaChaser1 New Member

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    Except that there are many scientists that would hold that the scientific facts that non Creationist scientists inteprete is screen through their filters and the facts do NOT support that ancient a Universe, earth, but one much younger!
     
  15. windcatcher

    windcatcher New Member

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    Agreed, close if not same: If the earth is only 6000 aprox years old from the time of its creation... but it was "aged" with the readiness to support all that was created on it... it is likely that even the carbon dating system, which is so often referred to by scientist, actually contained an age AT ITS CREATION much older than it actually was. Thus it points to the infinite.. or eternal.
    Conscious or not of our "filters" ...We all have them ...
    At some point it boils down to What do we believe, Why do we believe it, and What difference does it make?

    Because none of us were present at the beginning, each of us begins at some starting point: If we wish to begin with a witness... the most sure is what God has said and given to us in the Bible.

    To reject the Bible one must start from where he is and try to unravel by venturing back... there's a near point in time where he loses the ability of direct observation and must speculate within the power and limitations of his own knowledge and that of others whom he accepts as being reliable. Looking for answers, means choosing a direction for search and devoting study and time in an uncertain direction, even the probability of hitting a wall beyond which one cannot honestly go. That a man's life, pride, and devotion is often spent on such endeavors increases the likelihood that as commitment to cause grows so does determination to prove "right" at all cost dissuade him (even blinding him) from admissions to error or defeat. Having error and then becoming determined in that error, the resistance to change increases; the resistance to challenge the false premise upon which this one's hopes are built; even as confusion and frustration builds, so does the determination not to be proved wrong; the loss or great cost to adapt, to change, to reverse direction and seriously consider another course is then more challenging.... even as it may open another option which may include God and might lead to a real faith in which one can then be assured.

    Perhaps if we spent as much fervor in prayer that God would open the eyes of these scientist who have no knowledge but the evolutionary model, and no true spiritual sight but the agnosticism or philosophies of man, God might turn their minds to think on such questions and give them a thirst to search in a righted direction.... and possibly find Him!
     
    #35 windcatcher, Feb 14, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 14, 2012
  16. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    In any case, wherever we place the advent of the cosmos -- 6000 years ago or bilions of years ago, the questions remain the same:

    1. Why is there something instead of nothing?
    2. How is it that this universe appears (at an extreme precise level) custom-crafted to support human life on this planet in this galaxy?
    3. How did that life, human, animal, plant, and any other exotic species that might transcend common understandings, come to be from non-organic materials.
    4. Where did the non-organic chemicals come from and how was it that they happened to be arranged in a precise and particular order so as to support (abundant!) life?
    5. Noting that a "beginning" is a logical and physical necessity in this cosmos, what was the first cause and necesary ingredient that brought about a contingent universe?

    I don't see that backing up the date helps with a single one of these issues. Perhaps someone out there who is more enlightened than I can help us to know how this all works.

    Oh, and you don't get to lay out a highly ordered equation, then break into the middle with the words "then evolution happened" then return to the highly ordered equation. :laugh:
     
  17. DaChaser1

    DaChaser1 New Member

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    How did life originate in the Universe, and how did man come forth with 'something" distinct different than any other "animal", having a soul?

    waiting to hear from the Evolutionist in regards to those life questions!
     
  18. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    Keep waiting...

    There is no current answer. And, in fact, the current state of the art in abiogenesis is to speculate panspermia, hence the almost frantic search for live elsewhere in the universe. The problem does not go away, however. It merely gets removed to a place where testing and observation are even more difficult.

    Miller-Urey was supposed to give us an answer concerning the transition between non-organic and organic molecules, but that experiment was already deemed a failure in its time by its peers who recognized that (1) it was an experiment in "intentional design" and (2) it stipulated atomospheric conditions that both did not exist, and had they existed would have certainly also snuffed out that rudimentary organic molecule for it is anerobic in nature.

    What is even more interesting is that since Miller-Urey, there have been no further positive results of like nature, save that his experiment can be repeated but for the reasons given above, means nothing.

    A side note here: Evolutionists, when pinned down, will quickly retreat to a position that stipulates that life had to exist prior to the evolutionary process beginning, for evolution is nothing other than change in existing life forms. Though they also hold to abiogenesis of life in the universe arising sponteneously via natural and random processes, they have no idea what those processes were/are (and why are they not still happening today) nor do they have any real solutions to some of the more sticky issues such as how "information" came to direct the process for which prior information is required in order to happen. Everything points to a divine "intelligent creator" who created on purpose with a precision unmatched by any human effort on a scale that borders right next to infinite in its scope and magnitude (not being an actual infinite, for no "actual" infinity exists within the bounds of this universe).
     
  19. DaChaser1

    DaChaser1 New Member

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    IF evolutionists are correct in their assuming of mutation ans changes within species...

    Wouldn't the DNA already have encoded all the necessary data for each indivdual species, and IF changes to another was happening, would HAVE to have additional data incorporated within DNA, as inexternal outside force/process(God?)

    Could natural selection by itself do that?
     
  20. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    Yes, and no. There is no evidence that DNA is ever upwardly manipulated by natural proceses. In virtually every case that exists (even when experiments are designed intentionally to produce upward drift) most modifications stem from turning off a gene instead of creating a new one.

    Oh, and it should be said here that Chritians SHOULD believe in evolution -- but carefully defined. We do hold to "micro-evolution" where species adapt to situations and surroundings. We see evidence of this everywhere. But, what we never see is one creature or species ever becoming another by natural genetic manipulation. It is rather well known that mutations are seldom, if ever, beneficial and the genetic structure is such that it is self-correcting.
     
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