I think the clue here might be the "(as was supposed)".
Or as some might say .. "as rumour had it," or "that was assumed, presumed, or otherwise held by another opinion?":whistle::detective::whistle:
I agree - science in Man's formal understanding of how things work, and the rigour of science gives it rules to bound itself. In that sense it (pseudo)declares itself complete, because (a little like the WatchTower) it is self-referential to a large extent - a closed system.
But it is always illuminating to look at a closed system from the outside: once we do, some of those "proved" and "impossible" things find themselves affected by external forces - like Elisha's predicting the end of the famine to King Jehoram (1st Kings 7); like God using Jewish and Hebrew history to declare what He was going to do in Jesus' day; like God's spirit!
Acts5v29
OK... but do you think the holy spirit might be subject to science, i.e. might be scientifically explainable?
I'm with you in that I'm not expecting God to hop into a test tube for us to experiment on... but I wonder if there IS a way to scientifically explain and test the concept and nature of God? Just thinkin' out loud here.
Here's the problem I have. You say things like the Spirit can't be included in science, but then you accept science's view of creation, as in the statement above.
If I told you how a cake was baked, but left out the critical ingredient of SELF RAISING FLOUR because I didn't know it was an essential part of the ingredient, would you trust my instructions?
If you followed my instructions you would not have a cake! At least, not the cake I promised you.
When a scientist tells you, "This is basically how the Universe / Earth was formed..." and then proceeds to tell you the story - but you realize they've missed out an essential ingredient, doesn't it bring into question the entire recipe?
I understand where you're coming from. I certainly appreciate the difficulty of looking at the Universe and thinking it's young.
Think about this. Let's say you were there when Jesus fed the 5,000. You have one of the newly created loaves in your hand.
How old would that loaf look? Presumably Jesus didn't create it so that it needed to be baked, put in an oven, etc.
He just created it. As a loaf. Baked, presumably... and ready to eat. Mmmmm. :D
Here's the curious "thought experiment". If a scientist were to take that loaf, and study it under a microscope... or carbon dated it or whatever they would do to determine the age of the loaf, I wonder what age it would show?
I doubt it would show an age of a few minutes - because the loaf presumably would have been created as baked, which I'm guessing normally takes several hours.
Would we accuse Jesus of fooling us into thinking the loaf had the appearance of age? No... we'd just appreciate the miracle of a fully ready-to-eat loaf of bread in front of us... we'd give thanks to heaven... and then we'd gobble it down :D
Now, I don't expect scientists to do the same thing with the Universe. (How can you gobble down a universe, anyway?)
But really, IF God had done the same thing with the Universe as Jesus had done with the loaves, would the Universe really look any different?
In other words... it's not that God is trying to fool us.. it's just that what if he created our Universe as instantly as Jesus created a loaf of bread... and the "age" we see is simply because it was created "baked", as it were?
Very interesting, Gogh.. and I agree with your implication (I presume) that all the characters in the geneology you listed were meant to be viewed as real characters.
I'm just curious why you don't apply that same flawless logic when God talks about "day one", splits such a day up into "evening" and "morning", does that six times... then rests on the seventh, and even calls a law into being, whereby Jews who don't rest one day in seven get stoned to death.
Just curious to know why you accept the genealogical narrrative you quoted as literal, and yet the creation narrative as allegorical, i.e. not a period of time that includes one literal evening and morning?
(By the way, I'm familiar with "in the day God created earth and heaven"... but day here does not have any qualifiers, ie. day one, second day etc.)
I'm just curious to know what your criteria is for determining when a passage is literal or allegory of some kind.
I absolutely agree with you. I suppose part of the reason I posted, however, was because despite the "provisional" nature of science, people seem to talk very dogmatically about science, as in Seraphim's repeated assertion that science has definitely proved that the Universe is incredibly old, etc. Don't sound very "provisional" to me!
I believe you also hold this assertion to be true, very strongly.... and view Young Earth Creationism as pseudoscience. (Forgive me if I'm misrepresenting you in any way here.)
Most people, including yourself, do not really believe science is provisional. You think, on the antiquity of the Universe, for example, it's pretty much "settled"... they're reallly just debating how many X billion years it is.
If that weren't true, you'd be more open minded about the idea of the Universe being young. Think about it. :D
I asked Seraphim this, but I think it's worth thinking about yourself:
Let's say you were there when Jesus fed the 5,000... and you were able to hold one of those newly created loaves of bread in your hand, and date it using modern dating methods.
What "age" would the loaf show? Surely it wouldn't show zero age, because I'm guessing Jesus would have created it edible, ie. with all the ingredients in balance, baked and ready to go. Yet the process of baking normally takes several hours.
So would it show "zero" age, or an age of several hours?
I personally think it would show an age of several hours, because Jesus would have created it "baked". What do you think?
Yet does that mean Jesus has "fooled you" into its age? No, because measuring its age scientifically just tells you how old it would normally be, had it needed to go through the baking process. Jesus simply created the loaf fully baked.
Now, why could that not be true of the Universe? God could have created it "fully baked" as it were... ready for life... but scientifically it would look X amount of age simply because that's how long it would take naturally... not that a cake or universe really comes into existence on its own, anyway.
No, this is not the old "appearance of age" argument... this is actually false assumption of age, just as if you examined one of Jesus' loaves scientifically, it would appear to have gone through the baking process... but nobody would accuse Jesus of trying to "fool" anyone.
So what do you think? How old would the loaf look, scientifically?
Very interesting, Gogh.. and I agree with your implication (I presume) that all the characters in the geneology you listed were meant to be viewed as real characters.
I'm just curious why you don't apply that same flawless logic when God talks about "day one", splits such a day up into "evening" and "morning", does that six times... then rests on the seventh, and even calls a law into being, whereby Jews who don't rest one day in seven get stoned to death.
Just curious to know why you accept the genealogical narrrative you quoted as literal, and yet the creation narrative as allegorical, i.e. not a period of time that includes one literal evening and morning?
(By the way, I'm familiar with "in the day God created earth and heaven"... but day here does not have any qualifiers, ie. day one, second day etc.)
I'm just curious to know what your criteria is for determining when a passage is literal or allegory of some kind.
;) and a question for the questioner:
how is it that you take the six creative days of genesis, chapter one, as being literal 24-hour earth days ... and yet continue to side-step the problematic genesis 2:2 which apparently compacts all of those days into one day "in which the heavens and earth were created"?
i'm afraid ... "does not have any qualifiers" ... just ain't a-gonna cut it for sound-thinking folks. :whistle:
six literal days, then one metaphoric day ???
168 squeezed into 24 ??? [it does not compute.] :dontknow: :dontknow: :dontknow:
;) and a question for the questioner:
how is it that you take the six creative days of genesis, chapter one, as being literal 24-hour earth days ... and yet continue to side-step the problematic genesis 2:2 which apparently compacts all of those days into one day "in which the heavens and earth were created"?
six literal days, then one metaphoric day ???
168 squeezed into 24 ??? [it does not compute.] :dontknow: :dontknow: :dontknow:
Well, I have two simple rules that I apply when determing the meaning of scripture:
(a) Context. "There is no God" is in scripture... but I would be untruthful if I tried to use this to disprove God's existence, because it is preceded by the words, "The fool has said in his heart..." :D
Similarly, as I said to Gogh.. when God talks about the day he created heaven and earth, he is speaking metaphorically because the larger context... namely, the fact that he was previously talking about individual days... requires it.
On the other hand, the numbers one, second, third, fourth and fifth provide the context for determining the meanings of each individual creative day. He speaks of "day one", "second day", etc... plus He defines and then talks about each of these days having an "evening and morning"... these phrases provide the context which supplies the meaning of "day" in each of these passages... "day one", "second day" are periods that include one literal evening and morning.
Similarly, in verse 4 God also calls the light "Day"... which might be confusing, except again the context makes it easy for us to understand what He's talking about... it's the light part of the period of time separated by an evening and a morning.
So context is king. We apply that rule everywhere else in scripture when God talks about "day"... literal or metaphorical.. why not apply that rule to Genesis 1?
(If you had to get in your tax returns in 30 days... try telling the IRS you thought they meant "ages" :D )
(b) Mode. That is, the style of writing. Are we reading poetry? A historical narrative? An apocalypse? A letter?
Different writers and books in the Bible have different modes. A psalm, for instance, is a form of poetry... which is not always meant to be taken literally. There are many allegories in the psalms.
There are lots of telltale signs that Genesis 1 is a historical narrative - that's actually what the author tells us in Gen 1:4.
So Gen 1:4's "in the day God created..." isn't a problem, because the meaning of "day" here is simply determined by the context... as is true of every other passage of scripture. It is an allegorical "day", covering all the days he created heaven and earth.
"Day one", "second day" is also determined by the context... namely, the numerical sequence, and the "evening" and "morning" cycle... namely, actual periods of roughly 24 hours... or, if one wishes to be pedantic, one rotation of the earth producing an evening and morning relative to a fixed light source.
The other thing is, if God had meant something else like an "age", "eon"... why not simply use a word like that? He may have been writing to a supposedly simple people (although they actually lived among the builders of the Pyramids!)... but I think they would have grasped the concept of "first age", "second age".
I'm curious... if God actually did mean "day one", "second day" with an evening and morning to actually represent periods of about 24 days... what could He have said differently, that would have clarified His meaning? :confused:
;) and a question for the questioner:
how is it that you take the six creative days of genesis, chapter one, as being literal 24-hour earth days ... and yet continue to side-step the problematic genesis 2:2 which apparently compacts all of those days into one day "in which the heavens and earth were created"?
six literal days, then one metaphoric day ???
168 squeezed into 24 ??? [it does not compute.] :dontknow: :dontknow: :dontknow:
Well, I have two simple rules that I apply when determing the meaning of scripture:
(a) Context. "There is no God" is in scripture... but I would be untruthful if I tried to use this to disprove God's existence, because it is preceded by the words, "The fool has said in his heart..." :D
Similarly, as I said to Gogh.. when God talks about the day he created heaven and earth, he is speaking metaphorically because the larger context... namely, the fact that he was previously talking about individual days... requires it.
On the other hand, the numbers one, second, third, fourth and fifth provide the context for determining the meanings of each individual creative day. He speaks of "day one", "second day", etc... plus He defines and then talks about each of these days having an "evening and morning"... these phrases provide the context which supplies the meaning of "day" in each of these passages... "day one", "second day" are periods that include one literal evening and morning.
Similarly, in verse 4 God also calls the light "Day"... which might be confusing, except again the context makes it easy for us to understand what He's talking about... it's the light part of the period of time separated by an evening and a morning.
So context is king. We apply that rule everywhere else in scripture when God talks about "day"... literal or metaphorical.. why not apply that rule to Genesis 1?
(If you had to get in your tax returns in 30 days... try telling the IRS you thought they meant "ages" :D )
(b) Mode. That is, the style of writing. Are we reading poetry? A historical narrative? An apocalypse? A letter?
Different writers and books in the Bible have different modes. A psalm, for instance, is a form of poetry... which is not always meant to be taken literally. There are many allegories in the psalms.
There are lots of telltale signs that Genesis 1 is a historical narrative - that's actually what the author tells us in Gen 1:4.
So Gen 1:4's "in the day God created..." isn't a problem, because the meaning of "day" here is simply determined by the context... as is true of every other passage of scripture. It is an allegorical "day", covering all the days he created heaven and earth.
"Day one", "second day" is also determined by the context... namely, the numerical sequence, and the "evening" and "morning" cycle... namely, actual periods of roughly 24 hours... or, if one wishes to be pedantic, one rotation of the earth producing an evening and morning relative to a fixed light source.
The other thing is, if God had meant something else like an "age", "eon"... why not simply use a word like that? He may have been writing to a supposedly simple people (although they actually lived among the builders of the Pyramids!)... but I think they would have grasped the concept of "first age", "second age".
I'm curious... if God actually did mean "day one", "second day" with an evening and morning to actually represent periods of about 24 days... what could He have said differently, that would have clarified His meaning? :confused:
hi, interpretum :hibye: i think you argue your position eloquently and about as well as it can be argued, and yet i am far from persuaded.
carry on. :whistle:
OK... but do you think the holy spirit might be subject to science, i.e. might be scientifically explainable?
I'm with you in that I'm not expecting God to hop into a test tube for us to experiment on... but I wonder if there IS a way to scientifically explain and test the concept and nature of God? Just thinkin' out loud here.
Here's the problem I have. You say things like the Spirit can't be included in science, but then you accept science's view of creation, as in the statement above.
If I told you how a cake was baked, but left out the critical ingredient of SELF RAISING FLOUR because I didn't know it was an essential part of the ingredient, would you trust my instructions?
If you followed my instructions you would not have a cake! At least, not the cake I promised you.
When a scientist tells you, "This is basically how the Universe / Earth was formed..." and then proceeds to tell you the story - but you realize they've missed out an essential ingredient, doesn't it bring into question the entire recipe?
I understand where you're coming from. I certainly appreciate the difficulty of looking at the Universe and thinking it's young.
Think about this. Let's say you were there when Jesus fed the 5,000. You have one of the newly created loaves in your hand.
How old would that loaf look? Presumably Jesus didn't create it so that it needed to be baked, put in an oven, etc.
He just created it. As a loaf. Baked, presumably... and ready to eat. Mmmmm. :D
Here's the curious "thought experiment". If a scientist were to take that loaf, and study it under a microscope... or carbon dated it or whatever they would do to determine the age of the loaf, I wonder what age it would show?
I doubt it would show an age of a few minutes - because the loaf presumably would have been created as baked, which I'm guessing normally takes several hours.
Would we accuse Jesus of fooling us into thinking the loaf had the appearance of age? No... we'd just appreciate the miracle of a fully ready-to-eat loaf of bread in front of us... we'd give thanks to heaven... and then we'd gobble it down :D
Now, I don't expect scientists to do the same thing with the Universe. (How can you gobble down a universe, anyway?)
But really, IF God had done the same thing with the Universe as Jesus had done with the loaves, would the Universe really look any different?
In other words... it's not that God is trying to fool us.. it's just that what if he created our Universe as instantly as Jesus created a loaf of bread... and the "age" we see is simply because it was created "baked", as it were?
Hi Interpretum,
Well to answer the question about the holy spirit, I don`t think it could ever be scientifically explainable. For one thing the whole idea that the holy spirit is simply Gods active force, or energy field is to diminish how it is presented in scripture. Its actually more akin to Gods personality with hands and teeth. A personality can not be predicted or incorporated into a theory. It is also beyond laws because it made those laws that science then goes on to dissect.
With regard to the idea that the holy spirit is a missing ingredient in the cake of creation is based on a false premise. If you told me how to make a cake but left out a crucial ingredient, I might ask you to tell me what the missing ingredient was. However I would not ask you to tell me the ingredients of the ingredients, which is what I would be doing if I were to assume that the holy spirit was the missing ingredient of the cake. The holy spirit made the ingredients but it itself is not an ingredient. Like God himself it cannot be defined as an ingredient. It cant be defined at all. Its more fundamental than that. An ingredient is by definition defined relative to other things. Its static is a sense, whereas the holy spirit is fundamentally non definable and non static. Its a restless entity, always on the move. This is probably why Gods name means among other things, something causing to become. Its never still, defined or static.
Joh 3:8 The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone that has been born from the spirit."
Your illustration regarding the loaves and fishes is an interesting one. Ive not heard that type of argument before. I guess its an attempt to get around the falsified evidence argument.
It might sound a bit picky for me point this out, but bare with me. Carbon dating only works after the living matter dies or is no longer alive. At that point the clock starts counting down in terms of the chemical changes in the type of carbon measured. Decomposition is also another change that occurs in living matter after it dies. So the ordinary bread could be dated. Although its not possible to get measurements accurate enough to date in terms of days or minutes for carbon dating. If it was though, what would it show? With the natural bread the carbon 14 would start to decay as soon as backing was complete. The supernatural bread could show anything as its creation was not by natural means. It all depends how it was supernaturally created. If it was identical to the natural bread it would have carbon 14 in it, which would break down identically to the natural bread and show the same age, just as the supernatural bread would decay if not eaten like the natural bread. Its decay rate could also be used the determine age. If the supernatural bread had no carbon 14 in it it could not be dated using carbon dating. The supernatural bread would either show the same age as the normal bread or not be amenable to carbon dating techniques. It would decompose though because its bread and that would tell us its age from the date of its creation. The question to ask here is what is the point of carbon fourteen? Why would God put it in the bread supernaturally if he did? Humans don`t need it in their diets.
This brings me to the whole point of radiation. Carbon dating works because it measures the changes of radioactive carbon 14 decay rates. Just as one can tell the age of food by how far it is spoiled because of decomposition, so can the same be done with carbon dating. We all know the point of decomposition. It is the natural process of things breaking down into their basic elements. It represents how matter changes over time. If it didn't new things could not live, and many natural processes would be static and not work. Radiation is the same. The reason radiation exists is because it represents how elements turn into new or different elements. God built into nature its own ability to change and create. Things breaking down and things changing form via natural processes implies God did not want the universe to made static. It implies he didn't make the universe as we see it now in six days. If he did there would be no need for things like radiation and decomposition. The universe would not be expanding and changing form.
If one encounters a million dominoes that appear to be in the process of the chain reaction, and half have fallen with the other half still falling, we can come to two possible conclusions. Either we have come in to the situation half way through the automatic process that started a long time before we entered the room, or we could conclude that the person who set up the dominoes set up the first half already fallen and just before we entered the room pushed over the remaining dominoes and ran out of the room. Which is the most reasonable explanation?
Radioactivity is part of such a domino process that is only even needed so that one element can turn into another. Its why stars produce elements like carbon from hydrogen, and all the things needed to make life. If God created it all instantly, such processes would not be needed, and we wouldn't even have carbon to be able to do carbon dating. If it was all instantly made, God would have made all the elements as they are without the ability for them to change into new ones. In other words if God created it all six thousand years ago, certain things in it should not exist because things like radioactivity are to do with natural creation not supernatural creation. They are part of the cake baking rather than the cake already being baked instantly a short time ago. God makes self baking cakes. When God creates ice he makes every snow flake different and unique. When humans make ice we make ice cubes!