Hyper evolution in the bible

that's a pretty accurate description, but i'm sure he'll complain about something when it's put in such a comparitively eloquent fashion.

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simple Ok since the sun moving across the sky is due to the rotation of the earth then the sun stopping in the sky for any amount of time whatever is actually due to the earth ceasing rotation. For arguements sake,say that the earth at the latitude of the middle east moves at around 350 miles per hour,which is not that hard to imagine since the eqauator moves in excess of 1000 mph,that is 25,000 miles around the middle of the globe of the earth in a 24 hour period.Now we have the scenario wherein the earth moving at 350 miles per hour is stopped.However,the occupants of said earth are still travelling at 350 miles per hour as well as trees,mountains,rivers, oceans and you get the general idea of the catastrophe ensuing.Imagine being in a car travelling at 350 miles per hour and this gigantic hand stops the car instantly.If you had the presemce of mind to wear your seat belt you have now been cleaved in two by that beltas well as doing an art deco splash through the dashbaord windshield and on into the road ahead.Not a pretty picture you agree?Hopefully this clears up the issue.

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But I realize now that these people were not in science; they didn’t understand it. They didn’t understand technology; they didn’t understand their time.

I think simple's idea has merit. You are getting a little too technical perhaps. The process could be slower.For example, we see very long lives, followed by 120 years, and then followed by 70 years.I would say that anytime there was an extraordinary miracle, there was an intervention of the spiritual realm and spiritual realm principles to produce that miracle.The idea that God's Spirit wrestled with man, and may have withdrawn some which caused less of "the life" as Jesus called himself, to be within people, less glory, to my mind has some merit.But at the same time, the Bible still says the whole earth is filled with His glory and "in Him we live and move and have our being." So in a sense there is still some joining of the spiritual with the physical, but maybe more distance was created so that God's Spirit will "not always wrestle" with men.I think you ought to take a more serious look at the idea rather than just try to figure out how to argue against it.

hi randman (and simple), This is what I have thought all my life. However, giving the matter a bit of thought just now, I see another possibility. That is, that God was tired of trying to "convince" people to do right...IOW, He was 'done talking' and was about to take action (in 120 years)...by wiping out the wicked human race, destroying the earth, and starting over with Noah.There can be no seperation of the physical from the spiritual however. Because, as I understand things, the physical exists only because of the spiritual (i.e., God's word). Which I think you recognize, too, randman.To try to explain everything in the Bible with science is to deny miracles, while the Bible clearly indicates that God can, has, and does oververride the normal physical laws -- that is, He performs miracles (be they terrible or wonderful)!While I believe that the Flood left behind evidence that can be explored scientifically, the Flood is clearly a miraculous event. I do not believe the entire thing can be explained scientifically. The sun standing still is no less a miraculous event.--JasonAbE:
The normal physical laws exist only because God made them exist...they are under His control at all times.AbE:
Also, while I strongly disagree with the idea of merged realms as a method to explain miracles in the Bible, I applaud simple's faith in the Bible.This message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 09-01-2005 02:39 AM

do i think god pulled away from man at some point, according to the bible? yes, i do. i think god's presence in the bible is pretty steadily declining chronologically.i just don't agree with the idea that at somepoint we became physical-only. i'm fine with things being both spiritual and physical ("merged") but i don't see any reason to think that ever stopped. not exactly. keep reading that genealogy, or go back and look for my earlier posts on the matter. 70 years appears to be a statistical aberation.there is no OTHER example of a normal modern lifespan in the book of genesis. abraham, isaac, jacob, and joseph all live well longer. at least two of them about 180 years. there is a gradual decrease, but no sudden change. i would say that the definition of a miracle is something that patently defies any natural explanation. miracles are the breakdown of the natural explanation for the supernatural. is stands to reason then that if a miracle is described, it HAS to be spiritual influence.and we see miracles and spiritual stuff throughout the entire bible, save for a few books. the bible is ABOUT the spiritual by and large. well, we could start another thread about WHY the lives get shorter. it doesn't seem to be a magnitude thing (as some scholars suggest). but it does seem to be a continual tweaking, not a sudden shift. right. that's fine. i think that's a pretty accurate description. although, i don't think the "wrestle" reference belongs there. that appears to be a statement god made in frustration about exterminating all human life. it just got a little lost in translation.rather, i think the issue is more about faith, and independent growth. you don't teach a kid to swim by just tossing him in the pool, but he can't wear water-wings and cling to mommy until he's 20 either. we're kind of learning to swim, and for right now that involves being at a short distance from god and maybe taking on a little water. have you read his posts? do they make sense to you? i've been studying the bible for years now. i don't have to figure out a way to argue against it, i've just read enough of it that what he says doesn't fit.simple is a nutter, plain and well, simple. we get a lot of them on this board. they all have some magical explanation to try to justify the bible with science. it's been this, it's been time travel and cd-rom's, it's been every kind weird misreading of the text and crazy creationist ad-hoc hypothesis like vapor canopies and whatever.for some reason "goddidit" just isn't good enough. it's a faith issue. they want to believe the text literally, but it doesn't make sense to them with modern knowledge and science. so they are willing to bastardize both to get them to fit. it's like putting a square peg into a round hole by filing down the corners of the square and cutting into the circle. it's great, but it requires power tools.it's sacrificing the validity and integrity of the bible, and the using science totally inappropriately. if the assumptions don't fit, why not just modify the assumptions?simple, as demonstrated by his posts here, has not even made an attempt to legitimately read and understand the bible, let alone science. when he started posting this stuff, most of the objections came in the form of quoting the bible. and they still are. he's been moving the goalposts right from the start, and now i've got him cornered, and made his contradiction and inconsistency apparent. and yet he will deny and affirm something within the same post. i don't think he even realizes it.

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you know what? i'm not a wacky creationist. but i AM literalist. i'll agree to that. the bible's position seems to be that the spiritual is very physical and vice verse. it's beyond them even relying on each other, imho. it's that they are two fundamental properties of everything. and this merge is particularly insulting to that. god has rules -- and god breaks them from time to time. because he can. sometimes, he does it show off (like the exodus), sometimes he does it help people (like the sun standing still), and sometimes he does it to punish people (like the flood).who is to say that god cannot do something? that's silly. god can do whatever he wants. really cool miracles happening is not an indication that the rules were different. if the rules made it ok, well, it's not a miracle, is it? most importantly, the bible is a book about spiritual matters. it has no concern really for science. in fact, i might even be able to demonstrate that it has little concern for factuality, too. it's about a different kind of truth: it's about meaning. they why not the how.to confuse the bible with science, or try to mix the two is a fundamental error at any level. if you're willing to accept that god works miracles like salvation -- then god works miracles. well, i dunno about that, actually. personally i think he set them up so he didn't have to control everything himself. any good designer has a degree of laziness in him. but that's not to say god doesn't control something from time to time. i don't. simply reading it at face value is not good enough for him. he doesn't have faith in the bible, he has faith in his particular mental framework loosely based on the bible. as i've shown, much of doesn't even make sense in terms of the bible. he's not looking to believe in what the bible says -- if he was "goddidit" would be good enough, really. he's looking for a way to justify the bible with science. he's trying to apply it to the real world, and coming up short.that's why we get ad-hoc creationist explanations for stuff. because they don't have faith in the bible.

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No, thats about right.

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simple, your entire point is that this merge is a justification for the flood

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No, not just the flood year, but a lot of other things, like decay, and lightspeed, etc.

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why is the merge necessary for the flood, but not the sun standing still?

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Just cause you are starting to catch it a little, don't blame me for backpeddling. Now, as for the sun stsnding still, we haven't yet explored it much here, so how can we say something was or was not neccesary. The split already happened, as I understand it so far, so I would say it was not required for Joshua's battle. Why not, we have not yet determined, after all you brought it up.

Fairly poignant considering present circumstances.I appreciate your comments on the receding aspect of the glory during that era, and I agree it is not a sudden shift as you state, and that we are still both spiritual and natural.I am not so sure though you and simple are as far apart as you think. Maybe it's more a matter of degrees.The Bible does seem to suggest considerable shifting and changed from pre-Noah to after Babylon and through Aberaham to Moses time even.Aberaham, for example, married his half-sister without any hint in the Bible of shame. That was taboo by the time of Moses, and most think is universally taboo across the board in human soceities, but evidently not, if you accept the Bible, during Aberaham's time.

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This is what I have thought all my life. However, giving the matter a bit of thought just now, I see another possibility. That is, that God was tired of trying to "convince" people to do right...IOW, He was 'done talking' and was about to take action (in 120 years)...by wiping out the wicked human race, destroying the earth, and starting over with Noah.

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This is what I, and many others had thought as well. That the 120 years was a countdown till the flood. Now, however, I believe it actually was a countdown till the split.

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as I understand things, the physical exists only because of the spiritual (i.e., God's word). Which I think you recognize, too, randman.

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In a sense, this is true. But just because the physical was seperated from the spiritual, does not mean the spiritual is not still around. It is, but is seperate at the moment. Descriptions of heaven, where there could not be just a PO universe, show us that it has properties of both. Eating from trees, lions laying with lambs, mansions, rivers, fruit, gold, precious stones, walking, drinking, etc.

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Also, while I strongly disagree with the idea of merged realms as a method to explain miracles in the Bible

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Jesus ressurected body was both physical, and spiritual and eternal. He ate, yet went through walls etc. I don't see how we have to think it was a miracle that Adam lived so long, then other miracles everyone else did then as well. Sounds more like thats the way it operated for some reason then. Same with trees growing in a few days, I don't think every try needed to be a miracle, we just need to ask what was set up differently then, than now? Heaven is a merged realm, as is the new heaven and earth, because it is a complete universe then, eternal, and impossible in this temporary physical only realm.

Yea, you can read it that way. He was through talking.I agree that the physical is a product in some sense of the spiritual.Miracles though can be in timing as well, and God manipulating natural laws in an extraordinary manner. Elisha prayed against and then for rain, and God answers. That's miraculous even though rain is a natural thing. The timing and form of the natural can then be miraculous as well.

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Now we have the scenario wherein the earth moving at 350 miles per hour is stopped.However,the occupants of said earth are still travelling at 350 miles per hour as well as trees,mountains,rivers, oceans and you get the general idea of the catastrophe ensuing

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Why would the world have to be stopped, to make it appear that the sun was still? You may be right, but it is a little hard to grasp. If I take a tennis ball, and lamp, and hold the ball, turning it (not stopping it, and throwing off say some ants on it)-Could not it be turned in such a way, as to alter the usual angle (that faces the lamp)-so it continues facing the lamp much longer? This was what I meant by the axis of the earth, possibly changing then. (As I say, lets leave the moon out of it for now)
Now, so far, on this issue, these are questions, not locked in rigid theories. Just trying to figure out how He did it. I think we have evidence that ancient temples were alligned differently somewhat, and that there indeed was a change of something, (I think axis?)

Hi Simple,I was using the term "merged realms" to describe your belief system in general.I actually disagree with idea that the physical realm has been split from spiritual realm. I see the physical as a mere extension of the spiritual, which depends completely upon the spiritual (God's word) for it's existence and operation...and always subject to the spiritual.You probably won't see things my way. You seem very convinced of the idea of a PO universe, which I see as impossible. Perhaps you will consider a few points, though.In the days of Eber the earth was divided. [Genesis 10:25] I think that a few verses later -- Genesis 10:32 -- a clue as to what is meant by "divided" is given:These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.As far as I can tell, what is being spoken of is the division of the earth into nations...not the division of the spiritual from the physical.You might also consider the words of 2 Peter 3:5-7, which says: The spiritual [the word of God] made and keeps the physical [the universe and the earth].Finally, there are tremendous miracles after the "split" you propose. Just one of which is the sun standing still. For the sun to stand still (the moving of the sun is an illusion caused by the rotation of the earth), the earth must suddenly stop rotating...it rotates at 1000 mph at the equator. For it to suddenly stop rotating requires God to override normal physical laws. By faith, I believe this event happened, but it is outside the realm of science to explain such a thing. All science can do is say, "Such an event would be a miracle!"You, like me, are doing your best (I assume) to try to make sense out of the physical world and the Bible, too. I don't expect you to change your views just because you've read a post on an internet message board, but, if you're like me, you will at least give consideration to my points.I am not assuming you will change your view, but I do want to let you know that I have had to change or discard several views. But, I have never had to lose faith in the Bible.I don't do that [change views] easily, though. And, I never recommend anyone make a hasty switch of views. I encourage careful thought and study.You apparently believe the Bible. If you believe Jesus enough to keep His commandments, that is more important to me than all these discussions.Good luck in your search for truth.--JasonThis message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 09-01-2005 04:28 AM

Simple,I suppose it's possible. Though I think it more likely that the Flood caused the axis change (or rather a wobble in the axis that eventually found a new equilibrium at the current tilt).However, let's suppose that God extended the day by tilting the axis. Doesn't that still prove that the physical world and spiritual world are not divided?Just a thought.--JasonAbE: While I do not consider it proof of the split you propose, I do consider that an interesting idea regarding the day extension.This message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 09-01-2005 04:23 AM

simple The motion of the sun across the sky is a result of the earth rotating so a sun that is motionless must be a result of the halting of this rotation. There is no way to turn it that would maintain the rotation necessary ro prevent the disaster I outlined.If you were to introduce a motion that could do so {say by shifting rotation of axial centers towards the equator} then you have introduced an additional motion beyond the mere stopping of the earth.You have now stopped rotation about the poles of the earth and translated it to a new position that introduces additonal forces that increase the damage.There is quite simply no means of accomplishing this.You may experiment with your lamp and tennis ball by taking a felt and putting a mark on the ball and then prove this to yourself.This way you need not take my word for it and you can have empirical evidence to show you the facts of the matter.This message has been edited by sidelined, Thu, 2005-09-01 10:08 AM