Part 39 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

From exploration, it appears that there is nothing pristine anywhere in our solar system aside from the fact that it exists in its current order. So the idea that earths creation began with a pristine orb, later mucked up by man, doesn't fit. The existence of fossils and bones is inarguable. What is contended is mankind's beginnings and relationship with them. So for creation to to work, the earth would have had to be recycled and repurposed. This is neither more nor less unimaginable than everything's existence in the first place. We are more than an idea, right?

 

Nobody is saying it's a pristine orb. We know how the earth was formed. But that was 4 billions years ago. You are simply going against everything we know. You believe the myth of the BOM yet refuse what we actually know. Fossils and bones exist from earths distant past.
And no. We are not anyone's idea. We evolved. No god sat down on his throne and thought how to create us.

 

Mitt. Camels are mentioned in relation to Abraham simply because when the mythical story was written - around 700-500 BCE - camels were domesticated. Of course, GotQuestions believe the mythical story. Even though they can't answer - like you - my questions.

 

Isn't this a case of modifying religious models to fit a progression of results from studying nature?

I don't know what you are implying when you suggest we are "more than an idea".

 

It's just a theory which adjusts theists misperceptions about creation according to fossils, bones and dating. Creationists try to squeeze everything into seven thousand years. And Evolutionists try to tie mankind to fossils, bones and dating over millions of years. But if God recycled and repurposed the earth for the creation of Adam and Eve, it would explain all the leftovers from previous uses.
What I meant by we are more than an idea is that biblical creation is more than just a pristine idea that everything just popped into existence.

 

You need to explain why a "creation" method would leave detritus throughout the entire world, sprinkled through time.

Are you claiming that god guided evolution?

 

Dude, my computer is made from the earth. Does that make my computer four billion years old. Did my computer evolve to what it is. It was made by men about five years ago. The earth has nothing to do with mankind or our beginnings. You are trying to marry mankind with things found in the earth, or determining a connection by way of association. The earth carries remnants of its former purpose. Then it was remade and repurposed for the creation of man. Or I should say it could have been. This is all speculation on my part.

 

You aren't looking in all the right places.

Stuff like gold that is in your computer was created in supernovae that occurred a long, long time before this solar system existed.

I'm not sure why you bring up man's creation off advanced tools.

I'm glad you point out your speculation.

 

No I'm suggesting that the earth was at one time an entire other planet, maybe even elsewhere in the universe, with other life forms on it. It ran its course and God then set it in its present course, remaking it to suit his purpose for the creation of man. So you are trying to link mankind with all the stuff in the earth left over from its previous purpose and inhabitants. The commonality is that all the previous inhabitants as well as mankind were created from the same materials in the earth by the same God. That's my theory to explain the disconnect between creation and evolution.

 

The fossils we find are the distant progenitors of the life that is living on Earth today. These fossils form a time line of evolutionary change. The dna sharing is major. We share much of the dna needed for cell division, for dna replication, and other root functions with bananas.

The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. And, it is tested every day. In fact, evolution is a foundation of all modern biology.

When we dig, we don't find aliens. When it comes to mankind, we find a family tree that has all the indicators of evolution, showing change over the last 5 to 7 millions years and culminating in modern man.

Plus, humans as of today are not the final product of anthropoid evolution. We are continuing to evolve - just as other life forms are continuing to evolve - just as Earth's life forms have been evolving for the last ~3.7 billion years.

The disconnect comes form suggesting creationism, without examining the evidence.

 

No offense, but evolution is an absurdity, both forwards and backwards. Man isn't suited to being an animal. Neither are animals suited to or would be men in the natural world. It is aberrant in nature and reason. And there is no proof that men were ever animals or that animals have ever become men outside of imagination.

 

We ARE animals. Right Now.

We've overcome many of the difficulties in clothe less, fireless, medicine free, outdoor living.

Our ecological niche is based on having large, complex brains - not physical strength, speed, warm protective coats, etc.

Look at the changes we've made to our living conditions since 500 bce!!!

Then go back another few tens of thousands of years where we still see pretty amazing and still surviving cave art.

 

You can present facts and try to reason with him all you want, but his mind is made up. There's none so blind as those who will not see.

 

If you want to believe that you are the result of dead amino acids that somehow got mixed together in a way that spontaneously produced life in the scum of a pond, you can do that.

I just don't have that kind of Faith.

My belief that you are incorrect is based on the available science. For one you cannot reproduce spontaneous emergence of life, nor can you stimulate the evolution of organisms without cutting up DNA and reassembling it artificially. It takes a lot of faith to believe that man evoled from scum.

 

We are mortal creatures, yes. But we are not animals except by the limitations of science. Science can't measure the spiritual. That's why science says that man eats, drinks, breathes, and procreates just like an animal. So all the boxes are checked for equity. But it's rather dumb to conclude that men are animals by the boxes checked. Men are only animals by the blindness of science to see the difference. Can we not judge for ourselves? Science is our tool, not our guide. To say that man came from animals is to say that animals traded the capacity to survive in the natural world to become vulnerable and subjects to it. It is counter intuitive. Were they to excel, they would develop sharper senses and greater strength and speed. Not morph into retards, which is what we are in nature.

 

On this planet, lifeforms are either vegetation or animals. Are you spinach?

 

If that is science, science is stupid.

 

Because the flood waters started receding as written in Scripture.

We Read in Scripture:

The Flood Recedes

8 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede. 2 The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky were stopped. 3 So the floodwaters gradually receded from the earth. After 150 days, 4 exactly five months from the time the flood began,[a] the boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. 5 Two and a half months later, as the waters continued to go down, other mountain peaks became visible.

6 After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat 7 and released a raven. The bird flew back and forth until the floodwaters on the earth had dried up. 8 He also released a dove to see if the water had receded and it could find dry ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to land because the water still covered the ground. So it returned to the boat, and Noah held out his hand and drew the dove back inside. 10 After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again. 11 This time the dove returned to him in the evening with a fresh olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the floodwaters were almost gone. 12 He waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back. Genesis 8:1-12 NLT

Footnotes
a. 8:4 Hebrew on the seventeenth day of the seventh month; see 7:11.
b. 8:5 Hebrew On the first day of the tenth month; see 7:11 and note on 8:4.

Noah's flood was a real-life historical event and so it's not a fairy tale.

You might ask where did all the water go? Well, the passage below of Psalm 104:6-9 is telling us prior to the flood ("Pre-flood") the mountains were lower, and the valleys higher, but after the flood, God raised the mountains and sank the valleys, this suggests vertical tectonics late in the Flood to drain the floodwaters.

We Read in Scripture:

6 You clothed the earth with floods of water,
water that covered even the mountains.
7 At your command, the water fled;
at the sound of your thunder, it hurried away.
8 Mountains rose and valleys sank
to the levels you decreed.
9 Then you set a firm boundary for the seas,
so they would never again cover the earth. Psalm 104:6-9 NLT

Ok thanks Gawd for your post.

 

How is it that you claim all these things and yet it is known that they could not have happened as the Bible says. All these claims yet you can't deny my postings with any relevant information showing I am wrong.

The Biblical story of Noah's flood is simply a story. It did not, and cannot, happen. That's basic science.

 

Evolution is not the same issue as abiogenesis.

For evolution, there is a solution that clearly took over at first life.

And, with evolution we have the advantage of seeing it continue to work throughout the entire timeframe of the evidence we have.

Abiogenesis is harder, because it may have happened only once. Or, maybe more than once, but with only one attempt being successful.

There are signs of life from 3.7 billion years ago. It's not easy to study the steps the led to those ancient life forms. But, that is NOT an excuse for suggesting that whatever happened was supernatural magic.

 

How does the Noah story fit with the claim of an omniscient god?

Remember that the story says that God was going to wipe out all life and start over.

But, he changed his mind. This omniscient God didn't know about Noah and when Noah was found he decided NOT to do what he was going to do.

Has mankind changed god's mind in other ways, too?

How did god not notice Noah? How many others did god not know about?

 

in 4 billion years trillions of events have occurred which may have brought forth life. We are not that advanced scientifically to effect abiogenesis neither are we aware of every one of the trillions of events throughout earths history.

The Bible says it can be done. Genesis 2.
Prometheus created a man and Athena gave him life.
Several Sumerian gods did it.
Another formed man of mud and gave him life.

Seriously. Our science can stimulate a body back to life after death. We have 20 amino acids which make up the proteins in our body out of the 500 known amino acids. Who knows what happened in the distant past.

 

Yes! Evolution doesn't have an objective beyond survival and procreation.

Brains aren't an objective. Strength isn't an objective. Humans aren't an objective.

 

The 'animal' - ape/chimp family evolved to take advantage of the natural world. It wasn't a sudden decision to 'trade the capacity to survive'. It was a slow process.
When you were born you didn't have the 'capacity to survive'. It took you years to become self-sufficient, and that's with modern technology/knowledge. Even now you take advantage of opportunities that come your way. A group of our ancestors did the very same and they built up their knowledge over the generations. They learnt that food was available on the ground and over time learnt to walk upright. And so on. That's where we come in. Chimps are known to be highly intelligent.
The difference between peoples of the world is not intelligence, but learning and opportunity.

The 'spiritual/religion' doesn't come into it except in your mind.

 

I was born and raised in a non religious home. But I have always known from first hearing of evolution that it was absurd. No other thing I have ever heard has struck me with such absurdity as the theory of evolution. Even talk of God, when I heard it from time to time, though I couldn't fathom it and had zero interest in it and cast it off as totally inapplicable to my life. Yet it never struck me as an absurdity or an insult to spirit and intellect as did evolution. I don't know, maybe I was born spiritually minded. But evolution devalues everything across the board that I value, which is essentially spirit.