How Old Is The Earth?

[Kerry]

Have you been talking to one of my grade threes?

They probably know more than most.

 

[Cycel]

Cycel, the evidence is the same for both sides of the argument. Vastly different worldviews are what separates the two. Therefore, we have vastly different presuppositions and conclusions.

Actually, only you use Genesis as evidence for your position. Also, I think I am far more likely to accept certain types of scientific evidence than you are. I don't think we use the same evidence, Tintin.

 

[Kerry]

Sup Cycel how you been? Man I have been so blessed. Any way sup dog?

 

[Cycel]

They probably know more than most.

LOL! One or two actually do.

 

[Kerry]

LOL! One or two actually do.

Out of the mouth of babes.

 

[Cycel]

Sup Cycel how you been? Man I have been so blessed. Any way sup dog?

I spent 8 hours in the emergency dept. about three weeks back. I was getting very dizzy. Turned out I had an inner ear issue. It's getting better now, but I'm not quite back to normal yet. Also I have put on about 10 pounds. I've been purchasing too much ice cream, I think. I was doing so well too. Must cut back.

You've been blessed? How so?

 

[Kerry]

I spent 8 hours in the emergency dept. about three weeks back. I was getting very dizzy. Turned out I had an inner ear issue. It's getting better now, but I'm not quite back to normal yet. Also I have put one about 10 pounds. I've been purchasing too much ice cream, I think. I was doing so well too. Must cut back.

You've been blessed? How so?

Dude watch that Ice cream, It's the devil​it taste so good, Yet it our down fall. Hope you doing better.

 

[Kerry]

Erry day with Jesus is a good day. I just got news that my company was going to be continued to funded. praise God for that.

 

[Cycel]

Dude watch that Ice cream, It's the devil​it taste so good, Yet it our down fall. Hope you doing better.

LOL!

Thanks, you take care. I'm signing off for now. Morning comes early. Chow.

 

[Cycel]

Erry day with Jesus is a good day. I just got news that my company was going to be continued to funded. praise God for that.

Awesome! Too many are laid off. Will chat latter.

 

[Kerry]

LOL!

Thanks, you take care. I'm signing off for now. Morning comes early. Chow.

Good nite, love ya man and so does Jesus.

 

[Bowman]

Bowman, you and I both have very different views on this topic but I think we both believe that the Masoretic text is more reliable than the Septuagint text. I mean, Methuselah didn't tread water for a year during the Flood and then live for 16 more years!

That would be a debate for another thread....as Jesus often quoted from the LXX...

 

[Kerry]

I read proverbs and ignorance is not a virtue. Go to the ant you sluggard. You will get it in a month or two.

 

[nl]

How do you tie my remark to 'devolution'?

While an organism might be born that is less well adapted to survive – that is, it's de-evolved, as creationists like to say – it then becomes far more likely to become lunch. Such organisms do not contribute to the gene pool and so make devolution a moot point. They are not reproductively fit and they do not survive to reproduce.


Good is not best. Evolution makes things better.

Advocates for evolution appear to have more than one worldview.

[TABLE="width: 1"]
[TR]
[TD][TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]Evolution[/TD]
[TD]Dual Worldviews of Evolution [/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Evolution is a No-Brainer (Worldview #1 - Aligned closely with atheism)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Evolution moves forward on the basis of random mutations and natural selection.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Evolution is a no-brainer. (Implied: No intelligence was needed to create the universe. There is no god to thank. If there did turn out to be a god, we ought rather to complain about his work in creation than to thank him for his work.)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] De-evolution happens unless natural selection intervenes and then evolution makes advances. In a perfect situation, the fittest survive, re-produce and advance the cause of evolution. Those who are less fit do not survive and do re-produce.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Evolution is blind.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] There is no god.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Evolution happened by chance.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Evolution is a Genius (Worldview #2 - Aligned closely with pantheism)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Bumper sticker: Oh, evolve. Implication of this message on this bumper sticker is that people make willful contributions to evolution.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] "The soul of the cosmos" - Plato, Dr. Tyson, Peter Max[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] "We are stardust." - Joni Mitchell, Dr. Tyson and others[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] "We did it. We evolved." - Various claimants to being contributors to evolutionary advancement.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] There has been intelligence involved in evolution and the advance of the universe and the best and fittest people have survived and been part of it.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Evolution has been advanced by the collective genius of everything and everyone.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] The Bible [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] "…How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him…" (1 Kings 18:21)[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[Reee]

Dragons (dinosaurs) are mentioned in the Bible though. The modern translations just 'translate' the word for dragon as "jackal". The context most often shows that this practice is ludicrous. I love modern translations, as opposed to the KJV (which translates the word correctly) but this is one instance were theistic evolution beliefs about dinosaurs have influenced translators to interpret the word incorrectly. Of course Behemoth and Leviathan are retained, but they're seen as mythological (they weren't) and the dragon in Revelation remains, purely because it's Satan.

Ok here's the few "dragon" verses:

Jer 51:34 Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out.

Word used: tanniyn = intensive from the same as H8565; a marine or land monster, that is, sea serpent or jackal: - dragon, sea-monster, serpent, whale.


.... dragon mythology was already around at this time.... no one is talking of seeing a literal dragon here it is a simile "LIKE" a dragon.....


Mic 1:8 Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.


Different word used here.....tannah = Probably feminine of H8565; a female jackal: - dragon.
Dinosaurs wailed? Or do jackals wail? Also no reference to seeing one, just used as imagery....

Eze 29:3 Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

tanniym = intensive from the same as H8565; a marine or land monster, that is, sea serpent or jackal: - dragon, sea-monster, serpent, whale.
Once again figurative use.... unless you think Pharoah was a dinosaur??

The fact that dragon "mythology" existed in those days doesn't mean that dinosaurs were running around.... we know about dinosaurs and yet they are not running around now either.... to think that people who spoke with God (Enoch, Noah, Moses) were uneducated pratts is a mistake, I am sure Enoch knew far more than we will ever know. Moses was the first to write down the scriptures.... Before Moses everything was passed on by word of mouth, in this way knowledge of the earth before humans were created would have been passed on........... If you can find me one instance of anyone in the bible actually seeing a "dragon/dinosaur" please do

 

[jamie26301]

If you do not accept the Bible as the exclusive word of God, and as nothing more than the product of human intelligence, then you devalue the scriptures. You cannot have it both ways.

I never said that. I said inspired with errors. There is a difference from that and mere human insight.

Again, you never answered my question as to why I should accept those particular Scriptures over other Christian texts, or other world religious texts, for that matter. When did God every write in the sky "These are My words" pointing to the Protestant Bible?

 

[jamie26301]

Humbling? Personally, I find such notions ridiculous. And no, you don't seem to have a high authority of the Bible at all. I'm not stupid. I know what, "I hold the Bible in very high authority BUT..." actually means. It's much more humbling to realise the first man was crafted from the dust by his very Creator.

"Personally." Exactly my point. It's about perspective.

What what does that actually mean? That I don't believe in God? That I don't honor Him? That I want to live in sin?

There are more than ONE way of approaching Scripture, and there is more than ONE way to worship God, and until mankind accepts this, we will never live in harmony (including Christians with each other - this forum is a great example of Christians not living in harmony over reading the Bible in a black-and-white fashion), and there will always be religious wars and persecution.

And yes, I know the doctrine is that we will never have peace until Christ returns. I tend to believe that myself. However, we are called to live at peace with other people, including Christians who think differently, until He comes.

It's been said "There is no kingdom that had more civil wars than the Kingdom of Christ." Yes, the kingdom of the peacemakers, and the meek, and the pure... it's no wonder many people won't accept Christ. We (including myself) are far from living by the Bible we claim to believe in and defend.

Some Christians refute my beliefs by saying "You can't pick and choose." Well, once these very Christians start FOLLOWING THE BIBLE, and stop PICKING AND CHOOSING themselves (e.g. we are told by both Jesus and Paul to live as one and respect/love one another - yet we'll stop going to one church and start another one over one little doctrinal difference, just to spite what we don't agree with), then maybe these Christians' words will hold a little more water for me.

 

[jamie26301]

So the ones that adapt have a better chance to survive. Survival of the fittest. It's about staying alive. I had made the observation about 'devolution' because of Cycel's statement that millions of Christians believe in evolution. I just can't see any evidence for that in the scriptures. For one thing, every time that God made something he saw that it was 'good'. If you make something that's 'good' you want it to stay like that.

I see great emphasis on "good" but no one has defined it. We are saying "good" according to what WE think of as "good," in this culture and with the English language, and based on the context. But across different cultures, what is "good" and "bad" can be vastly different things. Because Moses doesn't spell it out, we have no way of knowing for sure.

Like I said, I take the position that Hebrews were no different than any other ancient culture and weaved legends together with actual experiences to make a point.

Funny how there is this said that the garden of Eden is still there, with angels guarding it. How come, in these thousands of years, its entrance has never been found?

Who wants to change something that's working? And you definitely don't want a scratch on your brand new car, in my case bicycle. So, the creation was brand new and shiny and God wanted to keep it up to scratch, for everything was vibrantly alive and nothing had died on him as yet. He put Adam in charge of the earth and in not so many words warned him, "keep away from that tree, or things will get scratched!" Things went very fast from there. It seemed Eve got in the driving seat and Adam just went along with her reckless behavior, flouting all the rules and wrecking everything that had been so beautifully put together. As a result it became no less than a total write-off and god declared it suitable for the scrap heap only. It went from absolutely perfect to something that was dead, decaying and fading away, not fit to survive.....not evolution. Sorry, not how the story went in every detail, but I wanted to take some literary liberties to illustrate that the word that would best describe Gods creation is not 'evolution'.

Right. I am well aware. Again, the words in the creation account that are greatly emphasized are general, and would likely mean something different in Hebrew culture than it does in ours.

 

[jamie26301]

The Church fathers were also interested in promoting documents that would support its hierarchy. Some non-orthodox Christian writings taught that once an individual reached spiritual maturity they were beyond the authority of the clergy who were not spiritually mature. That meant such a person could even speak with more authority than a bishop. In a Church that was interested in maintaining tight control of it authority this meant stressing those texts that promoted a central authority, which the Church insisted it had inherited through Peter. There were other gospels that did not recognize Peter's authority; they were declared heretical and burned.

Jamie, you might enjoy AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and The Christian State, by Charles Freeman.

Thank you! I just opened up my Lost Scriptures book last night and was reading some non-canonical gospels. Very interesting how a variant of Matthew's gospel was widely accepted for a long time, until it was ultimately denied as being inspired. And that was because it omitted Christ's birth - and thus put emphasis on Him being born just a man and chosen by God, instead of born of the Holy Spirit. Because we KNOW that "Almighty" God doesn't have the power to anoint a man to be the Messiah.

For anyone who is interested (for those who don't want to remain ignorant - and I mean actually look into the sources, instead of reading second-hand sources that tries to debunk them - about our varying Christian roots):

Amazon.com: Lost Scriptures : Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament eBook: Bart D. Ehrman: Kindle Store

The same man who compiled this book, also lead a very interesting and enlightening lecture series:

Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication: Bart D. Ehrman: 9791565856058: Amazon.com: Books

 

[jamie26301]

You know what bugs me, and that I can't understand? How come we teach that ALL are sinners, and will take advantage to exploit others, and yet exempt a man or men from doing the same thing (selecting Scriptures for a political purpose rather than because inspired) just because he SAYS he's Christian? Are we saying they were sinless, and immune to any such motives? They would have to be sinless to be immune.

It's funny how we don't think of our own religious leaders as being selfishly motivated, but everyone else (Islam and others), THEIR leaders were driven by selfish motives. It's really quite a disturbing way of looking at the world. We often say today that just because you say you're a Christian, it doesn't make you one. Yet these ancient men that we don't know personally or much about, JUST because they say they're genuine Christians, that means they are. There's a disconnect between those two beliefs.