How old did the Garden of Eden appear on Day 7?

Well, no. Not quite.

quote:

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Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

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Aquatic creatures - and birds - were made of water, not dust. Water is not "organic".(By the way, would you please provide a link to Wikipedia instead of just a quote? I have some reservations about their definition of "organic". )Other than that, your point seems to be that God put organic compounds into the soil just as if they were the result of decomposition? Since those compounds "normally" enter the soil by decomposition, what's the difference between that and putting fake fossils in the ground?

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Well, God would have been the one who put them into the ground in the first place, wouldn't He? That's what I'm kinda getting at: From our vantage point, those compounds get into the ground from the decomposition of living things. If God put those same compounds into the soil during the creation, then that soil would have the "appearance of age" - i.e. it would appear that living things had died and decomposed. Apparently, for some of them, living things are the only known natural source.The point of the OP seems to be to ask: did God create the soil with the appearance of age? That is, from our point of view, would the soil in the garden appear more than 7 days old? Nobody denies that some organic compounds can be created in the laboratory. But creating soil that looks like "regular" soil - i.e. soil containing the remains of living things, whether fossil remains or chemical remains - smacks of fakery.Incidentally, what you're saying seems to be the opposite of the arguments against abiogenesis. While the abiogenesis critics claim that some organic molecules cannot form abiotically, you say that the residue of life can be formed abiotically.(Kinda like fingerprints appearing without benefit of fingers. )

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I'm not talking about "my" point of view. I'm talking about the general human point of view - the scientific point of view, if you like. When we see soil that looks like the remains of living things, we do conclude that it probably was made of living things.You would not come to any other conclusion in any other circumstances. You're showing an apologetic point of view, the point of view that the soil could not have been made of living things, therefore it wasn't. There is no evidence to support that point of view.As I said before, you are trying to explain away fingerprints, claiming that they were not made by fingers.

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What "evidence" have you given, besides assertions? Whether or not the nutrients "could" come from other sources is not the point. What science has shown is that many of the nutrients in the soil do come from dead plants and animals.You can not just claim that some of them "magically" appeared in the soil of Eden with no prior history. All you're saying is "God did it". The scientific point of view is that soil nutrients have a history. Your point of view is that God "poofed" Eden's nutrients into the soil. Take your own advice and change your point of view.

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Since 1948, we have heard a lot about how the (Jewish) Israelis have turned the desert into rich farmland. The implication is that the Arabs had let the once-rich land go to wrack and ruin.A long time ago, I read somewhere (possibly James A. Michener's The Source) that the Arabs may have deliberately turned the farmland to desert.We Westerners (of European stock) have gone around the world converting every environment we found into an image of western Europe. Why would the desert-dwelling Arabs not be expected to convert other environments to what they were used to?Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The authors of the Bible seem to have been conflicted as to the relative merits of the (free) nomadic lifetyle and the (secure) agricultural lifestyle. Maybe our notions of the garden of Eden are just our projections of what we think paradise should be.Where I live, the buffalo used to roam - until European settlers plowed up the native grasses to plant European crops. Now, some agri-scientists are saying that much of the farmland should be returned to grassland (albeit for grazing European cattle). The nutrients (fertilizers) that were put into the soil have not succeeded in turning Canadian soil to European soil.So, maybe God injecting the necessary nutrients into the soil of Eden wasn't the best idea either.

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