ICANT'S position in the creation debate

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Minnemooseus writes:

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The age of the universe?

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The universe could have began to exist anywhere in that eternal light period.

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Minnemooseus writes:

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The age of the Earth?

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The earth could have then begin to exist in the universe whenever it began to exist.

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The above is consistent with the Hebrew grammar. The book of Genesis does not date either the creation of the universe or the earth. Gen 1:1 describes the first act of creation--to create the universe and the earth. The second verse says that now the earth exists in an unfinished state. The third verse describes, from an earth-centered perspective, six "days" of finishing the rest of creation. The first act (Gen 1:1) stands outside of the six day structure which begins in v. 3; even if one believes the six days are literal and recent, v. 1 is undated.

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Now if I listen to my Hebrew instructor my problem is solved. He said the word 'beginning' should have been 'beginning's'.

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That would solve my problem as there was an eternal light period that had ended in Genesis 1:2 as far as the earth was concerned.

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I don't follow this argument. Can you expand on it?

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Minnemooseus writes:

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The age of the first life on Earth?

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According to Genesis 2:7 the first life on earth was mankind before plants, animals or fowls.

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This is clearly not consistent with modern science, and I don't see how it is consistent with Gen 1, either. (In Gen 1, all other life appears before man.) Can you give a fuller textual explanation for your conclusion that man was the first life form on earth?

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I do not believe it exists in an unfinished state in Genesis 1:1.

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Therefore it had become an empty uninhabitable place. It was in darkness and covered with water. Inhabitable to water creatures only, maybe

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According to Isaiah God did not create the earth tohuw. (vain}

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Yet in Genesis 1:2 it is said to be tohuw (without form)

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So if God did not create it tohuw in Genesis 1:1 as he states in Isaiah 45:18 it came to exist tohuw as it is in Genesis 1:2.

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You seem to be describing some form of the Gap Theory. I don't hold to this, but I agree that it is a tenable view.

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I don't see how it could be inconsistent with modern science as modern science does not know how life came to exist. It is not consistent with what is believe to be the way it happened.

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We don't know how life began on earth, but we have evidence as to when. We have evidence of single-celled life roughly 3.5 billion years ago. There is absolutely no way to put humans this far back. Hominids only go back a few million years, not a few billion.

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Genesis 1:1 declares that God created the heaven and the earth.

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Genesis 2:4 declares to be the history/account of what happened in the day the Lord God created the earth and the heavens.

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Earth first as the emphasis will be on the earth.

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Genesis 2:5 tells us the earth was uninhabited, it had not rained, and there was no man.

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Genesis 2:6 tells us the face of the earth was watered by a mist from the earth.

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Genesis 2:7 tells us God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into that form the breath of life and he became a living soul.

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Life existed in God and He imparted life into man. Verifying life begats life.

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Genesis 2:8 tells us God planted a garden for man to live in.

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Genesis 2:9 tells us God caused fruit bearing trees to grow and also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden.

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Genesis 3:6 tells us the woman ate the fruit and when she gave it to her husband he chose to eat the fruit also. Proving what he said in Genesis 2:4 he gave up everything unto death for the woman.

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Genesis 3:7 - 4:24 tells us of their eyes being opened. God kicking them out of His estate into the world. There they had children who had children, who built a city.

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There were two people in this account that died. Able and a young man slain by Lamech.

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No age of any of these people are ever mentioned anywhere.

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Don't get hung up on the transliteration of the Hebrew word for man.

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This is the end of this account as I have not been able to tie anything else to it. That does not mean there is not more that belongs with this story.

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All these events took place in the light period of the day the Lord God made the earth and the heaven.

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Which brings us to the evening at Genesis 1:2, darkness had come, water covered the face of the earth and there was no inhabitants.

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God is light so He brought fourth light in Genesis 1:3.

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In Genesis 1:4 God separated the light and darkness.

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In Genesis 1:5 God called the light day and the darkness He called night. He then combined the evening (darkness) found in Genesis 1:2 with the light period that began 12 hours later as day one.

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In the following 5 24 hour periods we have described several things that took place with large numbers of huge water creatures being bara (created). We also have a male and a female mankind created in Genesis 1:27 in the image/likeness of God.

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This couple was created at the same time after all animals, fish, and fowl was made/created.

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This man and woman was never placed in a garden.

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Interesting perspective--I've never heard this view before. I'll have to think about it. You are essentially placing Gen 2:4-Gen 4 ahead of Gen 1:2-2:3.

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ICANT writes:

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What is the scientific answer to how the universe began? "We don't know."

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No, that isn't the scientific answer. The answer is: "We have lots and lots of data, and many ideas. The currently accepted one is the Big Bang Theory, and research is ongoing to either support or replace it. Check back for more updates!"

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ICANT writes:

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...but you don't have one shread of evidence of the facts of exactly how the universe began to exist.

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Really, so you are claiming that all of the math that gets so close to your much-parroted "T=0" isn't based on any data at all? Is that what you are claiming?

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ICANT seems to be asking about the origin of the Big Bang. He is correct; we don't have a scientific answer to this, and may never have one.We have scientific speculations. Some suggest a random fluctuation in the vacuum (whatever that would mean before the Big Bang) and others suggest collisions between branes in a multiverse scenario. It may be possible to obtain some secondary evidence and limits for these speculations, but they are not really testable in the normal sense, so it is questionable whether they should even be called "scientific".

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Phage0070 writes:

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Scientists didn't come up with the big bang theory without observing background radiation and the expansion of the universe.

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Lets see, the Lematre theory, was confirmed by Edwin Hubble's observations in 1929. (The universe was expanding) The BBT got it's name on March 28, 1949 by Fred Hoyle on BBC radio. The MBR was not discovered until 1964. So your facts are a little out of kelter.

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Something similar to the Big Bang theory was suggested by Edgar Allan Poe in the mid 1800's. Lemaitre, a Poe buff, likely got the idea from Poe. At this time there was observational evidence that the universe was finite (Olbers' paradox), but of course no observational evidence of CBR or expansion.

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Yeah, but there is evidence that there was one, which "proves" that genesis was wrong
Mark

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You are saying that evidence that a Big Bang occurred proves Genesis wrong? That the Genesis account precludes a Big Bang? How so??From the time of the ancient Greeks until the 20th century nearly all philosophers and scientists believed the universe to be eternal. They changed their opinion, primarily due to the extremely strong evidence for the Big Bang. Throughout this entire time the Genesis account proclaimed that the universe had a beginning, consistent with the Big Bang.I don't know ICANT's views on the Big Bang, but I see no inconsistency between the Big Bang and the Genesis account.

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You are saying that evidence that a Big Bang occurred proves Genesis wrong? That the Genesis account precludes a Big Bang? How so??

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Because one involves the solar system taking ~10 million years to appear, the other takes < 7 days. A tiny discrepancy?

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Mark

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I think you are missing the main point of this thread. ICANT claims the text does NOT say that the heavens and earth were created in a 7-day period. They were created in Gen 1:1, before the 7-day period commenced. Their creation (and the length of time to accomplish it) are undated in Scripture.I agree with ICANT on this point, as do many theologians and Hebrew scholars.

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Considering that science has proven the broader story of Genesis to be false, isn't it only logical to assume that the first 10 words are also false?

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Science has not "proven the broader story of Genesis to be false." Science has proven some specific interpretations of "the broader story of Genesis" to be false. Specifically the naive, ultra-literalistic interpretations preferred by YECs and by militant atheists.

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I too consider it false. Not based on the rest of Genesis but on there being nothing to indicate that there is a god to start with.

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You consider something false simply because you don't see any independent verification? This would be a sensible reason to withhold judgment, but not to judge it as false!

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While I agree with your statement in general, I am puzzled as to what constitutes a 'miliant' athiest. Is it entirely based upon verbal or written criticism of religion such as Dawkins (who explicitly does not criticize my religion as stated in the first chapter of the God Delusion) or PZ Myers?

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I think what puzzles me most is how can one call atheists 'militant' when I can't recall a single instance of a car bombing, school (or abortion doctor) shooting, or any other recent act of terrorism based upon a primary motivation of atheism.

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Perhaps you can provide some examples, I vaguely remember maybe one in the last 30 years.

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Good questions. By "militant" I mean those who are engaged in a (verbal) war against God and religion, trying to eradicate religion and belief in God. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris are examples of this. (Perhaps we could use the term "extreme atheist," but this doesn't capture the warfare-against-religion mindset that "militant atheist" does.)The point is that these folks tend to interpret the Bible in the worst possible light to further their agenda, rather than trying to understand what it is really saying.Not all atheists are so militant. Some are more open-minded and are willing to co-exist with religious people and to try to understand them. Lawrence Krauss, for example, is a strong atheist but not so militant as the three mentioned above.Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.

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ICANT has a history of being completely unable to comprehend a finite but unbounded dimension. We've been over the issue with him many times as to the actual nature of time, and what it means when discussing "beginnings" and "causes." He continues to insist that, if the Universe has a "beginning," it must also have a "cause," as if the notion of a preceding event has any meaning when discussing an absolute minimum value for time. As we've said to him many times, it's like asking what's farther North than the North Pole.

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I agree with you that it makes no sense to ask about things "before" the Big Bang. However, I also agree with ICANT that if the universe truly had a "beginning," this beginning must have a "cause." This argument depends on logical causality, not on existence of time.

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Causality is a property of time. If there's no time, causality breaks down.

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Then why do cosmologists speculate on the cause of the Big Bang, suggesting such things as a fluctuation in the cosmic background or a collision of branes?(Note that in Message 106 I referred to logical, not temporal causality. This is not a property of time.)

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Is time physical?

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It is as physical as length is.

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It looks like you guys are getting tripped up on whether or not time and space are "physical." Could you clarify what you mean by this?

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You said time was physical so, What is time made of?

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You assume that something physical must be made of something as you understand every day things are made of something. The answer is fields. Fields are sets of numbers that can be manipulated to get answers that comply with empirical observation. This is the same way we work with gravity, and few people have a problem with it. If the fields did not represent an actuality, we’d not likely get answers that comply with empirical observation, but random nonsense like 300 cubit arks.

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Is it really standard in particle/field theory to say that space and time are made of fields? Rather than saying that they are the physical dimensions in which the fields exist? (I frequently hear the latter, but perhaps there are different perspectives on this?)

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It looks like you guys are getting tripped up on whether or not time and space are "physical." Could you clarify what you mean by this?

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Of course they are physical. But ICANT needs them to be made of some kind of substance that we can put a name on; otherwise, he feels he has cause to treat them as one would properly treat love and beauty: products of the minds of men.

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But this still doesn't clarify what you mean that space and time are "physical." Everyone should agree that they are physical dimensions; how much more than this are you implying?