Hyper velocity stars like LMC runaways ...

[Just Passing Through]

In that day, they thought that when the scripture spoke of the Sun being still in the sky on Joshua's long day that the scriptures were TEACHING that the Sun orbited the Earth. But we don't accept that today at all. We see that as simply a description that came from the author's observation coupled with what he thought (based on his culture) about why the sun travelled across the sky each day.

Apply that same rationale to the firmament. You disagree with it as scientific teaching, but does that justify disagreeing with it as an observational description? The people may have wrongly thought the sky was like a hard metal dome, or not; I don’t know what people thought and it’s irrelevant to whether the underlying truth justifies the words God used to describe it. Raqia’ can mean hammered out metal, but it can also refer to anything that is spread or stretched out. It is usually used simply as a synonym for the heavens (which can refer to God’s abode or the region of space where stars are located or the atmosphere where the birds fly: Ps 19:2, 150:1, Da 12:3...). If it is comparing the sky to metal, I believe it’s not because the sky is a hard surface but because it is bright; the whole daylit sky shines with the sun’s light as if it was like metal. But that same sky is also described as “stretched out like gauze,” (Is 40:22). Unless you think birds were bumping their heads against a metal dome, raqia’ in Gen. 1:20 is just synonymous with sky. I believe the raqia’ in verse 6 is also simply the sky/atmosphere, and the waters above it were simply a thick band of clouds (raised above the lowest levels of the atmosphere, not above all atmosphere).

Now if ancient people misunderstood that (or if I’m misunderstanding it), it does not negate the possibility that whatever God meant with the word was absolutely true. The truth does not depend on correct interpretation, as you seem to admit.

But you permit the possibility that it just looked like the sun stood still for Joshua, while you say you can’t accept that what God made on day two just looked like a raqia’, whatever that is.

At the very least, it was a historical description of something that was actually seen and actually happened when the sun stood still for Joshua. But because you reject raqia’ as a descriptive term for the sky, you feel justified in rejecting the entire description of the six days of creation as having any correspondence to what actually happened or would have been seen if there were any people around to see it. To me, that’s like saying, since the sun didn’t actually stand still for Joshua in a scientifically precise sense, we can assume the whole battle never took place except as some sort of metaphor.

I really don’t want to get into an endless debate over the general issues of creationism vs theistic evolution (such as “evening and morning were the first day, the second day, the third day...” as being anything other than 24-hours, allowing not only for a thousand years but billions of years), which is what this seems to be trending toward.

I would grant that the terminology of Genesis was simplified to what ancient cultures could understand and that the actual creation was more complex than we can possibly understand. But both because Scriptures consistently treat Genesis as history and because of the consequences to Scriptural doctrines such as suffering and death being a consequence of sin, I will not yield and further debate is likely pointless. Unless something new is discussed pertinent to my general thesis, I'm probably done with this thread.

[oxmixmudd]

Apply that same rationale to the firmament. You disagree with it as scientific teaching, but does that justify disagreeing with it as an observational description? The people may have wrongly thought the sky was like a hard metal dome, or not; I don’t know what people thought and it’s irrelevant to whether the underlying truth justifies the words God used to describe it. Raqia’ can mean hammered out metal, but it can also refer to anything that is spread or stretched out. It is usually used simply as a synonym for the heavens (which can refer to God’s abode or the region of space where stars are located or the atmosphere where the birds fly: Ps 19:2, 150:1, Da 12:3...). If it is comparing the sky to metal, I believe it’s not because the sky is a hard surface but because it is bright; the whole daylit sky shines with the sun’s light as if it was like metal. But that same sky is also described as “stretched out like gauze,” (Is 40:22). Unless you think birds were bumping their heads against a metal dome, raqia’ in Gen. 1:20 is just synonymous with sky. I believe the raqia’ in verse 6 is also simply the sky/atmosphere, and the waters above it were simply a thick band of clouds (raised above the lowest levels of the atmosphere, not above all atmosphere).

Now if ancient people misunderstood that (or if I’m misunderstanding it), it does not negate the possibility that whatever God meant with the word was absolutely true. The truth does not depend on correct interpretation, as you seem to admit.

But you permit the possibility that it just looked like the sun stood still for Joshua, while you say you can’t accept that what God made on day two just looked like a raqia’, whatever that is.

At the very least, it was a historical description of something that was actually seen and actually happened when the sun stood still for Joshua. But because you reject raqia’ as a descriptive term for the sky, you feel justified in rejecting the entire description of the six days of creation as having any correspondence to what actually happened or would have been seen if there were any people around to see it. To me, that’s like saying, since the sun didn’t actually stand still for Joshua in a scientifically precise sense, we can assume the whole battle never took place except as some sort of metaphor.

I really don’t want to get into an endless debate over the general issues of creationism vs theistic evolution (such as “evening and morning were the first day, the second day, the third day...” as being anything other than 24-hours, allowing not only for a thousand years but billions of years), which is what this seems to be trending toward.

I would grant that the terminology of Genesis was simplified to what ancient cultures could understand and that the actual creation was more complex than we can possibly understand. But both because Scriptures consistently treat Genesis as history and because of the consequences to Scriptural doctrines such as suffering and death being a consequence of sin, I will not yield and further debate is likely pointless. Unless something new is discussed pertinent to my general thesis, I'm probably done with this thread.

I think you get partially what I am saying, but not quite getting the whole of it. I am not saying that you can't map reality back to the text in a fashion. I am saying that only after understanding what the reality is AND understanding the nature of the revelation in Genesis itself can you properly do that. The way we find out we are headed down an interpretive rabbit trail - however - it by the clarification of our understanding of what the creation IS.

But let me add one other bit of understanding from the scripture that might help you get past your internal sense that the text 'isn't true' if the days themselves are 'wrong'. We know that God has revealed himself to be outside or independent of time itself. This can be understood through a more correct understanding of the Psalms and Peter where they make the correlations between 1000 years and a day. First one needs to understand that these are not literal texts, they are a metaphor for the fact that time and time flow is arbirtrary for God. The choice of 1000 and 1 is simply symbolic for the greater truth that ANY time span, no matter how long (Psalms and Peter) or how short (Peter) can be 'perceived' by God as whatever he choses to percieve it as in relation to how WE perceive time. So it is just as true that a million years is as a day, or a billion year years is as a day. Or even that 1 second is as a day, or 1 nano-second.

Secondarily, God is revealed to be both outside time and AT ALL TIMES 'simultaneously' when He tells the Pharisees that "Before Abraham was I AM". In fact, the very name of God (the tetragrammon) implies "I am that I am". God was and is and always will be is one way of expressing that in human terms. But another way is that God always IS, whether it is the past or the present or the future (or even perhaps many possible futures).

Thirdly, God reveals that He is not limited by locality. God is BOTH Father and Son (and Holy Spirit for that matter) at the 'same time'. Nowhere is this clearer that during the incarnation where Christ exists in physical form as a man, fully God, fully man, yet the Father also exists interacting with Christ, and the Holy Spirit exists, descending on Him at his Baptism.

So God can exist at all times 'at once', He can be in all places in those times 'at once', and if He so choses, He can be involved in multiple different 'activities' in all those times and places 'at once'.

So there is, in fact, nothing that then says that the six 'days' of creation have to be 'days', or that they even have to be sequential. They could all be parallel, or some of them could be parallel and others sequential. The trick then is this: Do we have evidence from the text that this text is more an accommodation to the understanding of the writer in terms of its technical content? If that is so, then we have no reason to presume there is a real 1-1 correspondence between the days as described and the days 'as they were' so to speak. And the answer there is a resounding 'yes'. The text clearly reflects the understanding of the author - in his own time - of the structure of creation. Thus, we must accept that the temporal content may ALSO be an accommodation to the writers understanding with a different purpose than conveying scientific accuracy, just as it is as regards the physical structure.

And how do we then determine what that accomodation is? We learn what creation really is. And we do that through science. And science tells us those days were not days but very long periods of time. And that most likely God was working not only sequentially but in parallel as He created. YEC is based on the presumption that Gods revelation here can, in a vacuum, without extra-Biblical knowledge of the creation itself, provide a human understandable rendition of exactly what God did in technical terms. That assumption is shown to be absolutely false by science and the text itself. Further, that presumption is based on a very limited understanding of how God reveals through men, a very ignoranct conception of the creation itself, and a presumption about how God can move and exist in time that is contrary to what the scripture reveals about God.

We have no valid reason to adhere against all logic and understanding to that particular reading of the text. No valid reason scripturally, no valid reason scientifically.

The issue of what does the Fall mean and what does sin and death entering the world mean in a context where God uses evolution or great periods of time would be next to be evaluated or understood. And that element may direct our understanding of the text and what science reveals about the creation. But this buisiness of hoping all of science is wrong so that a flawed interpretation of the text of Genesis 1 can be shown true is unnecessary, and unwarrented. There is no reason to abandon faith in the text, in God, or in Christ if the universe is billions of years old and God used great periods of time to create the world, the life in it, and mankind.


Jim

[Teallaura]

I am sorry to hear about that description of what is going on in your life Teal. I hope and pray it improves.

If you at some later point find the time, you might want to study a bit more about Radiometric dating from standard sources, or sources that have taken into account some of the misleading YEC claims about it. For example, the assumption is not that the composition was 100% at some point. In fact, there are specific ways to assess the original composition of radiogenic and non-radiogenic components at the formation of the sample (isochrons).

Jim

Hi,

I still want to start the other thread but in going over the posts I realized I had missed something in this one.

Do you have any suggestions for good sources on this for the lay person? I really tried for years to get an explanation for why they were radiometrically dating rocks - what I had been taught since first grade was impossible since original composition cannot be known. For the most part, I got nothing - mostly 'it's science, stupid'. And when I did get an explanation, it wasn't from a YEC source. I don't out of hand reject such sources - but if you wanna know what the horse thinks it's doing, it's best to ask the metaphorical horse. The '100% composition assumption' was that answer.

[Sea of red]

Hi,

I still want to start the other thread but in going over the posts I realized I had missed something in this one.

Do you have any suggestions for good sources on this for the lay person? I really tried for years to get an explanation for why they were radiometrically dating rocks - what I had been taught since first grade was impossible since original composition cannot be known. For the most part, I got nothing - mostly 'it's science, stupid'. And when I did get an explanation, it wasn't from a YEC source. I don't out of hand reject such sources - but if you wanna know what the horse thinks it's doing, it's best to ask the metaphorical horse. The '100% composition assumption' was that answer.

Do you prefer straight reading, or illustrations?

[oxmixmudd]

Hi,

I still want to start the other thread but in going over the posts I realized I had missed something in this one.

Do you have any suggestions for good sources on this for the lay person? I really tried for years to get an explanation for why they were radiometrically dating rocks - what I had been taught since first grade was impossible since original composition cannot be known. For the most part, I got nothing - mostly 'it's science, stupid'. And when I did get an explanation, it wasn't from a YEC source. I don't out of hand reject such sources - but if you wanna know what the horse thinks it's doing, it's best to ask the metaphorical horse. The '100% composition assumption' was that answer.

One I really like is by Dr. Roger Wiens. He is a Christian and the document can be found on the ASA website - an organisation made up of Christian Scientists that try to write on Science/Faith issues:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Jim

[rogue06]

One I really like is by Dr. Roger Wiens. He is a Christian and the document can be found on the ASA website - an organisation made up of Christian Scientists that try to write on Science/Faith issues:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Jim

Excellent resource that keeps it simple and easy to follow for laymen without getting condescending.

[Teallaura]

Do you prefer straight reading, or illustrations?

Let's go with illustrations since I'm not well versed. I can do either once I've got the concepts down - but I don't know that I've got that far.

[Teallaura]

One I really like is by Dr. Roger Wiens. He is a Christian and the document can be found on the ASA website - an organisation made up of Christian Scientists that try to write on Science/Faith issues:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Jim

Cool! Thanks much!

[Sea of red]

Let's go with illustrations since I'm not well versed. I can do either once I've got the concepts down - but I don't know that I've got that far.

West Virginia University has an excellent source for life history that should be easy enough for anybody - it's what I recommend. They're are illustrations, pictures, and explanations given along the way.

http://pages.geo.wvu.edu/~kammer/g23...tricDating.pdf

http://pages.geo.wvu.edu/~kammer/geol331.htm

[Teallaura]

Thank you!