Heavens Declare A Younger Solar System

[SkepticLance]

Fred asked :

 

Seriously? How about flood mythologies

 

Any modern fiction writer will tell you that their themes are ultimately based on real life experience. Floods were a factor of every day life in the era of 3000 to 4000 years ago. Thus, those who invented the original biblical stories would have no problem coming up with flood stories.

[mooeypoo]

Aren't you implying that all creation mythology is based on delusional thinking?

 

Hm. Let's see...

 

The world was created out of nothing at all in a closed system God created -- hence completely against the laws of thermodynamics that creationists always claim 'big bang' is disobeying, ha for them -- in a 'wave of a wand' of God's mighty powers.

 

He created light and darkness before creating the sun, made man and woman together - with their incredible biological system - in an instant (and then got confused when he told the story again, and decided to create man out of dirt and woman out of man, just for creativity sake?)

 

The animals were whooped into existence in a mere few hours - all 20,000 species of fish, 6,000 species of reptiles, 9,000 birds, 1,000 amphibians, and 15,000 species of mammals, not counting the thousands of species of invertibrate animals (all of these and their mates, by the way, would find their way into the ark at the flood, but we will ignore that for now).

 

For whatever divine reason, he decided to be creative and made a bunch of species *just like humans* in every respect other than about 0.1% of their Genes; hence creating the illusion of humanity being closely related to the great ape. Divine humor, lack of creativity, repeated experimentation or just sheer lack of creativity?

 

Then, God took less than a half peep (about 3-4 words in the biblical story) to create the billions and billions of diverse stars, galaxies and celestial objects, including black holes, varied galaxies, etc, and the illusion that they are farther away than creation itself. Apparantly, he intentionally slowed down the speed of light after creation (yes, I heard creationists claim that, but then again, why not? He *is* the almighty God. He is more than capable).

 

And after all of this, the infinite, all powerful God - who is outside the normal laws of physics - got so tired that he had to rest for a full day - longer than the time it took him to create the entire universe surrounding the earth plus the animals and plants.

 

And aaaaaall of this happened 4000-6000 years ago, depending on the individual belief, and is also a COMPLETE contradiction *everything* we know about astronomy, cosmology, evolutionary biology, zoology and geology.

 

 

Let me think.. mmmmm.... weighing... considering... looking around me at observational science.... hmmmmmmmm....

 

Yup. I'd call it delusional thinking.

 

Seriously? How about flood mythologies (a common religious theme)? Where did the Genesis account get the idea of the Earth 'condensing' (it doesn't actually use this word, but I think it implies that the world 'formed'), from some formless 'thing'?

 

I've studied the Old Testament for 10 years in its original language (Hebrew/Aramaic) and I must say: No, it doesn't. It's very -VERY- vague in many things, but in the story of creation one thing is VERY VERY clear: God created all in a roll of 'poofs', so-to-speak.

 

You need to remember that the english version is translated, so taking it literally is quite against the point. I'll show you the example.

 

"Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters." (Gen 1:2)

 

The hebrew original, however, does NOT have "formed" or anything close to it.

 

"וְהָאָרֶץ, הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ, וְחֹשֶׁךְ, עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם; וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם."

 

Literal translation (my best attempt): And the earth was chaotic, and darkness on the face of the abyss; and the spirit of God, floating above the water

 

I literally translated literal words; if the sentence gives out a different meaning, it's probably because the translators give it their own meaning because the bible is vague.

 

In any case, the bible does NOT say the earth was 'formed' out of something else; it was CREATED by god, out of "chaos". And this, too, comes *after* God created "Heaven and Earth" (in Gen 2:1); the 'chaos' seems to refer to the state of the earth before God decided to make it "ordered".

 

~moo

 

 

 

--- EDIT ---

 

Btw, I just noticed I may have sounded a bit (extra..) condescending through my cynicism. If my post came accross as an attack or personal insult, I appologize.. this is a subject I spent a large sum of my life arguing, and I sometimes get a bit enthusiastic. I really didn't mean to talk down on anyone, just convey my thoughts.

 

Don't let my cynicism destroy my argument.. sometimes cynicism isn't that bad..

 

~moo

[SHUCKLE MAN]

I think some say that Moses saw visions of the past, and wrote them down, as commanded to by God. Therefore the story may not be wholly accurate. He may not have understood wholly what was going on. It's like the supposed 'twin towers' prophecy in the Bible. It says a bird will fly into 2 pillars, but the person seeing the prophecy wouldn't have known what a plane or a skyscraper was.

 

A lot of people say the 'Big Bang' theory works well in conjunction with the creation theory. The Big Bang could have been how God created the Earth. He could have used matter from previous worlds, put them into a ball and made them explode or something. That, if anything, explains how dinosaur fossils are here if man first appeared on Earth about 6,000 years ago.

 

It also mentions in the Bible (in a few places) how God made things to create non-believers of him in the 'Last Days' in order to pick out the people with the most faith (he can't make it obvious, or else we'd all go to Heaven, and this wouldn't help him to pick out the better ones). So all these things which supposedly 'disprove' the Bible, again, are also evidence for the Bible.

 

Also, day is a period of time (it actually says this in my version of the Bible in a footnote.) It mentions day before God created day and night for a start. It also mentions later in the Bible that time is different in Heaven. It could have been one of God's days.

 

The Great Ape thing ties in with the Bible saying that things were created to have more non-believers in the 'Last Days'.

 

Those Christians that believe the 'Big Bang' can work in conjunction with the creation can easily counter God creating those other things so 'quickly' and why everything is moving apart.

 

The days aren't regular intervals of time, so he could have rested for a lot less than he spent creating things. Also, him resting is symbolic. It is why we take a day off every week to worship him. Maybe he knew that him resting, and having Moses write it in the Bible, would get us to worship him on the Sabbath. We have all these anti-Christians, who stay off work every Sunday. They could at least go to work in protest. Same goes with them celebrating Christmas (it's just helping to fulfill the prophecy in the Bible that millions will celebrate Jesus's birth for thousands of years).

 

People spend lifetimes trying to disprove religion, and fail. Nobody will be able to spend an hour thinking up arguements to disprove religion. Religion is based on faith (believing without proof), and to get to Heaven, we must have faith (therefore God cannot give us too much evidence anymore).

 

Also, people can say the Bible is mistranslated if somebody finds anything that contradicts something else (90% of the contradictions are between other versions of the Bible), or that the person who wrote the section was not inspired of God whilst writing it (e.g. Solomon's Song).

 

And finally, God can do absolutely anything. He can disobey the laws of Physics is he wants.

[swansont]

A reminder that religious discussion belongs in a religion forum, and SFN doesn't have one. The OP was asking for scientific evaluations of some claims. Let's stick to that, please.

 

And finally, God can do absolutely anything. He can disobey the laws of Physics is he wants.

 

Which is precisely why that's outside of the realm of a science discussion.

[Mr Skeptic]

Which is precisely why that's outside of the realm of a science discussion.

 

Only if god is also hiding. If he were visibly affecting the universe by breaking the laws of physics, we could observe him, no? But that is the path to endless and pointless anecdotes.

[foodchain]

Only if god is also hiding. If he were visibly affecting the universe by breaking the laws of physics, we could observe him, no? But that is the path to endless and pointless anecdotes.

 

I don’t think the path is pointless, its just that science cannot work with it. I don’t know if it ever will be able to. Science has to have something testable or empirical, thusly the reasoning behind the word. Some might call it a materialistic view on life, but I think any rational person would at least accept the idea that reality does exist regardless if you want to call it nature or some other title. Thusly I think all science can work with in reality is what it can get empirical with. You can make equations or what not in math all day but the reason math and physics are separate is physics tries to put the empirical to math or model the empirical with math.

 

So for hidden variables and the idea that some super natural entity will be one of those is a question for people that hold such a view, but empirically there is nothing to it currently for anything scientific. Science stops at the empirical and the understanding of such, this of course can grow in time. Such as at one point science could not understand as much as it can now thanks to the electron microscope.

[SkepticLance]

I know this is not a religious web site. But the arguments for a God who hides leaves me irritated. It makes no sense.

 

The Christian view is that God loves us all and wants us to know him and worship him and pray to him and so on and so on. Yet he hides. An omnipotent God could prove his own existence a million times over beyond a shred of doubt if he wished. He wants us as worshippers. And yet he hides.

 

Sorry. That does not compute.

[mooeypoo]

Agreed.

 

If we stick to science, it doesn't compute either, but that is not just with God, it's also with the Raelians, with Astrology, and with other pseudoscientific or "spiritual" beliefs.

 

The bottom line is that a lot of the proponents for such beliefs systematically ignore the scientific data that exist, for the purpose of promoting their own agendas.

 

Science doesn't agree with most of these, which is why they're called "pseudoscience" and "religion" and not science.

[Edtharan]

I think some say that Moses saw visions of the past, and wrote them down, as commanded to by God.

What is occuring here is: In light on modern knowledge, people are trying to retroactively interpret what the bible means.

 

And finally, God can do absolutely anything. He can disobey the laws of Physics is he wants.

Now the Bible says that God is all powerful. That means that there is nothing beyond His ability to do. So, He could input knowledge into the minds of people. In fact many people believe that God does this all the time.

 

Ok, so God can directly give someone information and understanding of that information. This would jot violate free will, as this is just information and understanding.

 

So, God could input the understanding of aeroplanes into the mind of anyone at any time, they might use different words, or whatever, but He could do this. The understanding that He could give to these people would not allow them to mistake a "Plane" for a "Bird".

 

Also, if the writer had this kind of knowledge, then they could easily have written a description of it that would not leave any mistake as to what it is. eg: A device made by people that allows them to fly like a bird.

 

The key words in this are " made by people" and "device". By including these words, then it makes it very clear that what is being talked about is not an animal and that it was made by humans.

 

This would not be beyond the power of an Omnipotent God. So either God chose not to give an understanding of the prophecy, God is not all powerful and could not give an understanding, or God does not exist as stated in the Bible. If either of the last two options are true, then it really puts doubt on the validity of the Bible.

 

If the first it true, then God is actively trying to hide Himself.

 

If God is actively trying to hide Himself, then this raises a lot of Moral and Ethical doubts about God.

 

It also mentions in the Bible (in a few places) how God made things to create non-believers of him in the 'Last Days' in order to pick out the people with the most faith

Well, in the Bible it also says that God is Omniscient, that is knows everything, so He would not need to put "things to create non-believers of him" as He would already know this without putting these things there.

 

Also, if God is actively trying to create non believers, then I question His morality. He punishes non believers by sending them to eternal torture in Hell.

 

Think about this. If God is placing things in the world to trick me into thinking that He doesn't exist, and then torturing me for an infinite amount of time just because I believe His lies. What does that make Him? Would you consider that Ethical?

 

When I was younger, I actually though about becoming a priest. But because of these things that you say that God has placed to make people disbelieve in Him, I could not accept what the Bible said and turned away from religion. So if I don't go to Heaven and therefore get tortured eternally, then it is completely God's fault as He placed the things that made me reject religion.

 

A reminder that religious discussion belongs in a religion forum, and SFN doesn't have one.

I agree that this is a Science website, but it is also a debate, and this has turned into a debate about the validity of science as compared to the validity of religion. Religion by its self has no place here, but this is not just a purely religious discussion.

 

Science is based on observing patterns. So, even if God is all powerful, there are bound to be patterns (like the deserving going to Heaven and the non deserving going to Hell). Although we can not directly observe this, there are many fields of science that we have to use written words from some observers (or testimonials form observers) and use these to determine the most likely event. In Archaeology this is used quite often to propose a theory (which later has to be tested of course).

 

Now if God is in any way consistent, He creates patterns. Without this consistency, then all His actions would be essentially random and therefore there would be no reason to have faith in Him (fear maybe, but not worship).

 

We are supposed to believe in God and have Faith in God to be allowed to enter Heaven. So this denotes that there must be some pattern to God's behaviour, people are not arbitrarily selected to enter Heaven.

 

So, even if God is all powerful and can break the laws of physics, He must be consistent and through these consistencies we can determine patterns and from these patterns we can formulate "Theories" about His actions. In that it is like science and religion can be analysed with logic. Which makes these kinds of discussions relevant to the pseudo-science part of this forum at least (in my opinion:rolleyes: ).

[losfomot]

Think about this. If God is placing things in the world to trick me into thinking that He doesn't exist, and then torturing me for an infinite amount of time just because I believe His lies. What does that make Him? Would you consider that Ethical?

 

I especially like this part, but the whole post was great.