A Question About Deception

I don't know if the earth was initially created with the appearance of age or not, and my own view is somewhat complicated which I will explain later, but for sake of argument, let's consider your premise.Let's suppose that God created the earth with apparent age as someone would a stressed look for a table or something, a matter of personal style.Now, God tells man, look here, it's actually very young, but look at how I made it look.....pretty cool.The ignoramous human though says, hey, since it doesn't look like it would if I made it, you must be trying to deceive me God.How stupid is the premise here. I mean it's not God's fault if men create myths of their own choosing, setting up assumptions and rules by which they consider data, refusing a priori some explanations and only accepting others. If men are deceived, they are deceiving themselves. God's not here to babysit every dumb idea man has and say, now now, it's not really like that, and oh yeah, I will send my Son to die again and rise again just for your generation because, you know, you should have everything proven and handed to you on your own terms.....sorry, but that's selfish hogwash. God reveals Himself to you in His own way, personalized even, but not one's own dictation but of God's choosing.Now, my view on this is that the past is not static, and what I mean by that is the past, present, and future can be seen as a whole. The time-line can grow not just forward, but the past can expand as well, and I think the timeline can expand spatially so there can be a limited form of multiverse.So let's say the universe is 15 billion years old now. In a million years, it could contract and be 4 billion years old, or perhaps be 100 billion years old, or even days old or there can be various ages for several universes in existence, connected to a degree side by side.

here is your problem. You assume God would have to be morally accountable for man's perspective and in particular your perspective so much so it is wrong if you misunderstand or misinterpret something. Basically, this is like the whiney child that complains the world isn't perfect for them.

Maybe the appearance of age, or actually even the age itself, appeared after it was initially created?Think of it like a computer program that generates a story, but if something changes in the programming, the story changes from beginning to end.

But our selfishness and depravity stems from our sin, and thinking God is wrong because He made the world in a manner where not every answer is clear is the result of that depravity.

We possess the knowledge of good and evil in the sense of having a conscience. We do not possess perfect reasoning, nor do we possess perfect knowledge of things and events, and so with imperfect reasoning and imperfect knowledge, we have flawed analysis in respect to God, and so insisting that because at some point with severely flawed analysis we misunderstand something, God has deceived us is flat out absurd.You are equating the knowledge of good and evil with knowledge in general in this instance, and moreover, our knowledge of good and evil does not lead me, for example, to believe just because I have the ability to be honestly wrong, that somehow God has deceived me. it's not the knowledge of good and evil that leads you to accuse God of deception, but your own delusion.Just because God created a world that could be subjected to and is now subjected to sin and imperfection does not mean God deceives you, but if you read the gospels, you will find that Jesus often spoke at a higher level that people misunderstood. It's pretty clear God doesn't consider it deception to speak the truth, even knowing some will misinterpret it, and frankly, I don't consider it deception from God either. God is above us, and demanding He submit to our whims and insist He only communicate at our level and wipe away all mystery and confusion is not a moral stance, but an immoral one.With that said, how much further should we go with this topic considering admin's weighing in?

What changed in the story was the Fall of man, which the Bible clearly indicates caused a change in the program, the nature of life on earth and the universe. I don't argue for a young earth, but some do and they present physical arguments. Imo, the Bible does not indicate that the days of creation are 24 hour periods, but at the same time, if that was the case, the earth could still be very ancient and the 24 hour "day" idea be true. Certainly, relativity would lean to describing the earth as a streak through space-time rather than a ball in space in time, and it is quite possible there are causal events that affect the past from the present and future. The idea that the past is static is a mere assumption, one that I believe will be shown to be wrong.

I suggest you reread your Bible a little more closely.

Rather than argue that point, I think you need to realize the Bible presents man as justifying his own sinfulness as well, and that life shows us that as well. I, for one, do not see the erroneous judgements of evos based on their own faulty analysis as evidence of God being deceptive and think your argument is quite bizarre to assert that. It's even more bizarre for evos to claim to understand the Fall and the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Certainly, men are born with a conscience to know good and evil. To suggest their perception is ever completely on par with God is rather silly.To be "as one of us" does not mean man is equal to God in moral clarity and perception. it just means he knows the difference in good and evil. but even with that innate knowledge, man's mind has reason within it and reason that is often faulty, a good example being claiming that if something looks to an evo one way based on evos adopting prejudicial assumptions, that somehow this is all God's fault.Edited by randman, : No reason given.

Exactly what it says, but percy doesn't want me to expound here on how the past may not be static. Theoritically nothing, at least from a science perspective. From a theologically perspective, God prevents and also makes things happen or allows them to happen if He has granted the power for another being to choose.

You make a good scientific argument for a young earth and that could be true. Imo though, the scriptures alone do not only support a young earth reading.I know the Bible says evening and morning, but at the same time, there wasn't even a sun and earth for there to be an evening and morning as we understand it. Long before modern science, there were very noted Jewish scholars, though not all, that also felt the 24 hour interpretation was not correct in this area.Additionally, note this passage: Here the whole 7 days or at least a few of them is referred to as one day ("in the day"). Truthfully, I think there is something to the different uses of "created" and "made" and perhaps there is something to the interpretation of God creating as a design and then forming as material creation later, but that's a different thread and I am not so sure yet what the right interpretation is.Also, remember how Jesus referred to things like walking in the day and eating his flesh, which on the surface and to his hearers meant something else entirely that Christ meant. God, at times, talks a deeper language and I think it's easy to get confused. Just because He says evening and morning doesn't necessarily mean what we think of as evening and morning in the natural, and the reason I think we should consider that is the clue He gives us about the sun and earth not even being created until 3rd and 4th days.

So enlighten us please and show an exegesis to back up your claims. Also note that I never claimed the Adam and Eve story was there to show us the age of the world, and do not believe the age of the world is set in stone or constant anyway, but that the past,present and future can expand in other ways than forward in linear time.

To become as gods and to become God are 2 different things, something Lucifer had to learn the hard way.

You are missing the point. You need to realize the story is there to illustrate some deeper theology and truths. It's true, but it's expressed the way it is for a reason.First off, they knew it was wrong to eat the fruit. They just did not "know" in the sense of be acquainted with the knowledge of good and evil. Think of "know" in this sense in the way a man "knows" his wife. They were not intimate with this knowledge, but they still knew they were doing wrong. So just on a factual level, you misread it.This calls for more analysis though.....the issue is not that God did not ever want them to know good and evil or that God doesn't plan to give us many things. The issue was one of trust. God was seeing if they would trust God's integrity or not. God, of course, knew they would not and that's a whole different can of worms, but the deception of the serpent is to suggest that God doesn't have their best interest at heart and so they should act in themselves without trusting in God.So they had a choice. Trust that God will enlighten them in due course, or enlighten themselves in disobedience to God.

They knew what right is. They were not intimate with the knowledge of good and evil. Think of like this. A virgin knows what sex is, but doesn't know his or her spouse until they know one another sexually.The knowledge of good and evil deals with an intimacy and greater depth of understanding, not just knowing if something is right or wrong. They knew it was wrong to disobey God, but had never felt anything but innocence.

The analogy may need some work, but there is absolutely nothing in the text indicating Adam and Eve thought it was acceptable and right to eat the fruit and quite a lot to indicate they knew it was wrong.Sorry, but your theory doesn't work here.