True science and true religion agree together.

[iouae]

True science and true religion support each other.
False science will at times, oppose true religion.
False religion will at times, oppose true science.
And, obviously, false science and false religion, may or may not agree - all bets are off.

Concerning Creation, science and religion seem at loggerheads.
Science says the universe is 13.75 billion years old.
Religion says the universe is 6000 years old.
Science says we got here by evolution.
Religion says we were created.

The chasm seems so wide, that many have given up trying to bridge the divide.
This thread hopes to reconcile science and religion concerning the above issues.

I consider that the blame for the divide is 50% pseudo-science's fault and 50% pseudo-religion's fault.

Googling "how many species on earth today" one gets the answer 8.7 million.

Whatever the true number, God has devoted a lot of time and thought into creating all these fantastically wonderful and diverse plants and animals, and it must have taken even Him, a lot of time to think these up.

I know there are some here who think that God just somehow knows everything, implying that God expended very little effort thinking up these organisms, and making sure they function as planned. They think God does not need to do any planning, since God just somehow comes knowing everything.

I am not of that school. I believe God has existed eternally, and a lot of that time has been devoted to thinking up and creating these plants and animals. This means of course that God learns, which topic was discussed on another thread which I started. I believe that as God learns, or as His interest changes, so He created different creatures throughout earths history.

The fossil record in the rocks is a snapshot of what occupied God's interest in the long history of the earth. I am an old earth creationist, believing in a universe which is 13.75 billion years old, where, 500 million years ago, God suddenly in one event, populated the earth with most of the Phyla of animals that now exist. I believe that if Christians knew the truth of this Cambrian explosion, they would be able to silence the evolutionists right there. Later, I will explain how the Bible nowhere says earth is just 6000 years old. Here pseudo-religion has made Christians sound ignorant.

There have been many explosions of life on earth. Modern man exploded onto earth 6000 years ago in the form of Adam and Eve. But before that there were many mass extinctions, including the aftermath of one which left earth "without form and void". God never originally created earth "without form and void". Why would God do such a bad job in the first place, and then take six days to repair it?

This is what I hope this thread will be about.

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

NO! True sciences proves the Earth is only 5988 years old as does the Bible. Don't be deceived.

Bible: https://guidetothebible.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/guidechronologylatest1.pdf

Science: https://www.creationworldview.org/about-us/

 

[chair]

NO! True sciences proves the Earth is only 5988 years old as does the Bible. Don't be deceived.

Bible: https://guidetothebible.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/guidechronologylatest1.pdf

Science: https://www.creationworldview.org/about-us/

From the OP:
"Here pseudo-religion has made Christians sound ignorant."

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

From the OP:
"Here pseudo-religion has made Christians sound ignorant."

Not sure what you mean by that, you should speak plainly, Christians have been given a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline not fear and timidity. Jesus believed in an Earth that was only 4000 years old in His time:

Matthew 19:4
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

beginning
noun
the point in time or space at which something begins.

So do you think Jesus was lying, mistaken or telling the truth?

 

[iouae]

Not sure what you mean by that, you should speak plainly, Christians have been given a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline not fear and timidity. Jesus believed in an Earth that was only 4000 years old in His time:

Matthew 19:4
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

beginning
noun
the point in time or space at which something begins.

So do you think Jesus was lying, mistaken or telling the truth?

Its not verse 1 where folks go wrong, its mistranslating verse 2.
Genesis 1:2
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

The NIV correctly translates "was" or "haita" (Heb) as "became" in its footnote.

God did not create the earth in the beginning so that it was without form and void. Earth became without form and void.

When one looks at the fossil record there are many mass extinctions, and after many of these the earth was left "without form and void" with darkness covering the surface of the ocean.

Such was the case 65 million years ago when God destroyed the dinosaurs.
Then came the Cenozoic explosion of mammals where God suddenly creates a word utterly devoid of dinosaurs, and covered in mammals as the dominant group, as we see today. But there were other mass extinctions between the extinction of the dinosaurs and today. 6000 years ago, and after one of these mass extinctions, the story picks up in verse 2 where God is about to do a recreation. There is a time gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 of billions of years.

Its too early in the thread to answer all questions Watchman, but science and the correct understanding of the Bible will come together in the same story.

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

Its not verse 1 where folks go wrong, its mistranslating verse 2.
Genesis 1:2
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

The NIV correctly translates "was" or "haita" (Heb) as "became" in its footnote.

God did not create the earth in the beginning so that it was without form and void. Earth became without form and void.

When one looks at the fossil record there are many mass extinctions, and after many of these the earth was left "without form and void" with darkness covering the surface of the ocean.

Such was the case 65 million years ago when God destroyed the dinosaurs.
Then came the Cenozoic explosion of mammals where God suddenly creates a word utterly devoid of dinosaurs, and covered in mammals as the dominant group, as we see today. But there were other mass extinctions between the extinction of the dinosaurs and today. 6000 years ago, and after one of these mass extinctions, the story picks up in verse 2 where God is about to do a recreation. There is a time gap between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 of billions of years.

Its too early in the thread to answer all questions Watchman, but science and the correct understanding of the Bible will come together in the same story.

Those who believe the 'gap theory' misinterpret verse 5 and many more:

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. http://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/1-5.htm

The Hebrew words for evening, morning, night and day (day is used twice) all use Hebrew words that can only be interpreted as a literal 24 hour period, and then these same words are repeated 6 times in chapter 1. God was making sure His people knew how He created everything in 6 days.

Then, as this wasn't enough chapter 2 begins:

Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

The words 'seventh day' is repeated 3 times. This was a Sabbath and all Sabbaths last 24 hours.

There was no 'Gap' in creation, the only gap in the gap theory is the theological gap within itself.

 

[iouae]

Those who believe the 'gap theory' misinterpret verse 5 and many more:

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. http://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/1-5.htm

The Hebrew words for evening, morning, night and day (day is used twice) all use Hebrew words that can only be interpreted as a literal 24 hour period, and then these same words are repeated 6 times in chapter 1. God was making sure His people knew how He created everything in 6 days.

Then, as this wasn't enough chapter 2 begins:

Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

The words 'seventh day' is repeated 3 times. This was a Sabbath and all Sabbaths last 24 hours.

There was no 'Gap' in creation, the only gap in the gap theory is the theological gap within itself.

I agree with you that in six literal days God recreated the heavens and the earth, and rested on the seventh literal day. But this was a recreation.

Proof of this is in the following two verses using the word "replenish".
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 9:1
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

Noah was told to replenish the earth after it had been emptied. Why would God tell Adam and Eve to replenish the earth if it had not had life before them?

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

I agree with you that in six literal days God recreated the heavens and the earth, and rested on the seventh literal day. But this was a recreation.

Proof of this is in the following two verses using the word "replenish".
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 9:1
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

Noah was told to replenish the earth after it had been emptied. Why would God tell Adam and Eve to replenish the earth if it had not had life before them?

The word translated ‘replenish’ (KJV) simply means ‘fill’ in the Hebrew.
In the English of King James’ day, ‘replenish’ also usually meant ‘fill’, not ‘refill’.
The word ‘replenish’ therefore cannot be used to support ideas about a previous creation, which was destroyed.

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/4390.htm

In any case, such erroneous theories, invented in response to the ‘millions of years’ idea, must hold to the unbiblical notion that there was death and suffering before Adam’s sin.

https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/what-does-replenish-the-earth-mean/

 

[iouae]

The word translated ‘replenish’ (KJV) simply means ‘fill’ in the Hebrew.
In the English of King James’ day, ‘replenish’ also usually meant ‘fill’, not ‘refill’.
The word ‘replenish’ therefore cannot be used to support ideas about a previous creation, which was destroyed.

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/4390.htm

In any case, such erroneous theories, invented in response to the ‘millions of years’ idea, must hold to the unbiblical notion that there was death and suffering before Adam’s sin.

https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/what-does-replenish-the-earth-mean/

There was death and suffering before Adam's sin!!!

But I want to ask you how you explain dinosaurs. You believe they did exist right? And they died out long before any human walked the earth. Adam and Eve could not have survived with dinosaurs. So how do you explain this.

And secondly, light from distant stars, many hundreds and billions of light years away, constantly streams down to earth after travelling for all that time. Scientists all know that this light is old. How do you explain it?

I say that it all can be explained.

When Paul says that through one man, death entered the world, he was speaking of human death. Or don't you believe Adam and Eve stepped on an ant, or squashed a bug? And did all those fish in the sea not eat other fish? One has to break every law of common sense to misunderstand and read more into Paul than he ever meant to say.

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

There was death and suffering before Adam's sin!!!

But I want to ask you how you explain dinosaurs. You believe they did exist right? And they died out long before any human walked the earth. Adam and Eve could not have survived with dinosaurs. So how do you explain this.

And secondly, light from distant stars, many hundreds and billions of light years away, constantly streams down to earth after travelling for all that time. Scientists all know that this light is old. How do you explain it?

I say that it all can be explained.

When Paul says that through one man, death entered the world, he was speaking of human death. Or don't you believe Adam and Eve stepped on an ant, or squashed a bug? And did all those fish in the sea not eat other fish? One has to break every law of common sense to misunderstand and read more into Paul than he ever meant to say.

Of course dinosaurs lived with men and most of them were killed off in the flood. Here are some verses about them below, as for the star light question that theory depends on the speed of light being constant but science has proven that it's speed is not constant.

Behemoth: Possibly a Brachiosaurus or a Diplodocus.

Job 40:15-24 Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you. He eats grass like an ox. Look at the strength of his loins and the power in the muscles of his belly. He stiffens his tail like a cedar tree; the tendons of his thighs are woven firmly together. His bones are bronze tubes; his limbs are like iron rods. He is the foremost of God’s works; only his Maker can draw the sword against him. The hills yield food for him, while all sorts of wild animals play there. He lies under the lotus plants, hiding in the protection of marshy reeds. Lotus plants cover him with their shade; the willows by the brook surround him. Though the river rages, Behemoth is unafraid; he remains confident, even if the Jordan surges up to his mouth. Can anyone capture him while he looks on, or pierce his nose with snares?

Dragon

Ezekiel 32:1-2 On the first day of the twelfth month in the twelfth year, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, sing a song of sorrow for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him, ‘You compared yourself to a young lion among the nations, yet you are like the big dragon in the seas. You go through your rivers, troubling the water with your feet and making the rivers muddy.’”

Ezekiel 29:2-3 Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt: 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.

Isaiah 51:8-9 For the moth will devour them as it devours clothing. The worm will eat at them as it eats wool. But my righteousness will last forever. My salvation will continue from generation to generation.” Wake up, wake up, O LORD! Clothe yourself with strength! Flex your mighty right arm! Rouse yourself as in the days of old when you slew Egypt, the dragon of the Nile.

Leviathan: Possibly a Elasmosaurus.

Job 41:1-11 “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words? Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? Lay your hands on him; remember the battle you will not do it again! Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him. No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

Isaiah 27:1 In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Psalm 104:24-26 How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

Psalm 74:12-15 God my King is from ancient times, performing saving acts on the earth. You divided the sea with Your strength; You smashed the heads of the sea monsters in the waters; You crushed the heads of Leviathan; You fed him to the creatures of the desert. You opened up springs and streams; You dried up ever-flowing rivers.

 

[iouae]

Of course dinosaurs lived with men and most of them were killed off in the flood. Here are some verses about them below, as for the star light question that theory depends on the speed of light being constant but science has proven that it's speed is not constant.

Behemoth: Possibly a Brachiosaurus or a Diplodocus.

Job 40:15-24 Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you. He eats grass like an ox. Look at the strength of his loins and the power in the muscles of his belly. He stiffens his tail like a cedar tree; the tendons of his thighs are woven firmly together. His bones are bronze tubes; his limbs are like iron rods. He is the foremost of God’s works; only his Maker can draw the sword against him. The hills yield food for him, while all sorts of wild animals play there. He lies under the lotus plants, hiding in the protection of marshy reeds. Lotus plants cover him with their shade; the willows by the brook surround him. Though the river rages, Behemoth is unafraid; he remains confident, even if the Jordan surges up to his mouth. Can anyone capture him while he looks on, or pierce his nose with snares?

Dragon

Ezekiel 32:1-2 On the first day of the twelfth month in the twelfth year, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, “Son of man, sing a song of sorrow for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him, ‘You compared yourself to a young lion among the nations, yet you are like the big dragon in the seas. You go through your rivers, troubling the water with your feet and making the rivers muddy.’”

Ezekiel 29:2-3 Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt: 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.

Isaiah 51:8-9 For the moth will devour them as it devours clothing. The worm will eat at them as it eats wool. But my righteousness will last forever. My salvation will continue from generation to generation.” Wake up, wake up, O LORD! Clothe yourself with strength! Flex your mighty right arm! Rouse yourself as in the days of old when you slew Egypt, the dragon of the Nile.

Leviathan: Possibly a Elasmosaurus.

Job 41:1-11 “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words? Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls? Will traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? Lay your hands on him; remember the battle you will not do it again! Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him. No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

Isaiah 27:1 In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Psalm 104:24-26 How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

Psalm 74:12-15 God my King is from ancient times, performing saving acts on the earth. You divided the sea with Your strength; You smashed the heads of the sea monsters in the waters; You crushed the heads of Leviathan; You fed him to the creatures of the desert. You opened up springs and streams; You dried up ever-flowing rivers.

Watchman, I am glad to discuss this with someone like you who seems to have his ducks in a row, and seems to have the stamina for a tough fight. I just hope you have a slightly open mind and intellectual honesty.

This is what the Blue Letter Bible website says of behemoth...
Outline of Biblical Usage [?]
perhaps an extinct dinosaur
a Diplodocus or Brachiosaurus, exact meaning unknown
Some translate as elephant or hippopotamus but from the description in Job 40:15-24, this is patently absurd.
Strong’s Definitions [?](Strong’s Definitions Legend)
בְּהֵמוֹת bᵉhêmôwth, be-hay-mohth'; in form a plural or H929, but really a singular of Egyptian derivation; a water-ox, i.e. the hippopotamus or Nile-horse:—Behemoth.

Let's be honest, neither you, I or the folks above can say definitively what behemoth or leviathan are.

But I can say definitively that if they refer to dinosaurs, dinosaurs and hominids are never found as fossils in the same strata.

You are obviously aware of the different strata all having different biomes. And throughout the world, for instance Cambrian rocks are found as the lowest and first rocks to contain fossils. And never are either hominids or dinosaurs found in Cambrian rock. I just want to see how you explain the strata.

My background is science, and I want to say that your explanation that light travels at different speeds through the vacuum of space is patently laughable to scientists and cosmologists. Did you get that idea from 6days?

 

[iouae]

Psalms 19:1
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork.

When we look at the heavens, we are looking back in time, since light travels at a constant speed (c).
Light from the sun is 8 minutes old, meaning we see the sun as it appeared 8 minutes ago.
With bigger telescopes, we look back further and further in time at stars which gave off light up to 13 billion years ago. So the one witness to God's glory is the heavens.

The earth shows God's handiwork, or what God has been doing for these billions of years.
And it turns out that God has been creating. The fossil record shows that there have been successive ecosystems with completely different creatures to those which live today. We are most familiar with the dinosaurs which died out 65 million years ago, to be replaced, in a sudden creation, by animals and plants such as are around today, except there were no humans. Humans are recent arrivals on earth in another special creation, after another mass extinction. This latest creation act is described in Genesis 1 and took 6 days, with God resting on the seventh literal day.

Thus, we can look back at what God has been doing for all those millions of years. And He has been creating different life forms. Go to a museum and see animals such as dinosaurs.

The successive completely different types of life on earth, from oldest to youngest, occur in time periods labelled according to their different flora and fauna as ...

Pre-Cambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, Quaternary.

These can be remembered using the mnemonic ..
The pre cambrian order seems devoid of carbon permanent traces. It is just a crèche type quagmire.

The above mnemonic is true too, since for most of earth's history (the Pre-Cambrian), there was no life on earth. Thus, all the lowest and first formed rocks, have no fossils in them.

Then, all of a sudden, life explodes onto the scene and in one layer appear most Phyla of animals, with the dominant animal being Trilobites, a complicated, water-dwelling cockroach. This "Cambrian explosion" testifies to God's creation. Evolutionists say that animals slowly developed from simple ones to more complicated ones. But the record in the rocks says otherwise. Complicated animals like the Trilobites dominated from the first signs of life. The Cambrian Explosion disproves evolution right there. The Cambrian Explosion shows God's handiwork. If Christians did not have their heads buried in the sands, they would be studying Palaeontology, and rubbing evolutionists noses in the Cambrian Explosion, which disproves evolution.

Then there was the dinosaur explosion, followed by the mammal explosion, and finally the human explosion.

Every sudden appearance of diverse life forms and diverse ecosystems is a testimony to God's ongoing role as Creator. Less than one percent of all organisms which have ever existed are alive today. Over 99% are extinct and may only be seen as fossils in rocks. So if we think God is great from the wonderful array of living organisms around today, think of Him as 100 time greater, since He has created 100 times more than we see today around us.

Now I want to ask you a serious question. How long do you think it took God to think up each of the billion or more organisms which exist or existed? How long do you think it took God to think up how to get just one cell to live and function correctly? Each human cell has 10^9 chemical reactions which occur every second to keep that cell alive. Life is incredibly complicated. It took so much thought, that all humans today cannot make one cell and impart it with life. So how long did God have to think, to get even one cell to live?

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

Watchman, I am glad to discuss this with someone like you who seems to have his ducks in a row, and seems to have the stamina for a tough fight. I just hope you have a slightly open mind and intellectual honesty.

This is what the Blue Letter Bible website says of behemoth...
Outline of Biblical Usage [?]
perhaps an extinct dinosaur
a Diplodocus or Brachiosaurus, exact meaning unknown
Some translate as elephant or hippopotamus but from the description in Job 40:15-24, this is patently absurd.
Strong’s Definitions [?](Strong’s Definitions Legend)
בְּהֵמוֹת bᵉhêmôwth, be-hay-mohth'; in form a plural or H929, but really a singular of Egyptian derivation; a water-ox, i.e. the hippopotamus or Nile-horse:—Behemoth.

Let's be honest, neither you, I or the folks above can say definitively what behemoth or leviathan are.

But I can say definitively that if they refer to dinosaurs, dinosaurs and hominids are never found as fossils in the same strata.

You are obviously aware of the different strata all having different biomes. And throughout the world, for instance Cambrian rocks are found as the lowest and first rocks to contain fossils. And never are either hominids or dinosaurs found in Cambrian rock. I just want to see how you explain the strata.

My background is science, and I want to say that your explanation that light travels at different speeds through the vacuum of space is patently laughable to scientists and cosmologists. Did you get that idea from 6days?

I'm sure you've hear of the Hafele and Keating Experiment (1971):
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Relativ/airtim.html

This proves that time is a physically created property made by God and not an abstract man made idea, just as it says:

Gen 1:1
In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.

God created a beginning (time), the Heavens (space) and the Earth (matter with energy).

All three are intrinsically linked, effect one and the others are effected too. Such as with the above experiment. More recently other experiments show that light can indeed travels at different speeds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeKWeMH09Fs

But we are only talking about very small changes here, however this does show that the fundamental building blocks of the universe are fluid and not fixed. Indeed as you are surely also aware the universes expansion is speeding up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_of_the_universe

Now the big question is how this is measured because there are two fundamental assumptions that some scientist who claim the universe is very old make:

First is that observation fundamentally changes the experimental results, this is the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle or Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Secondly is the assumption about the speed of expansion over time and the fact that we can't go back in time to measure it because we don't know whether time itself has fundamentally changed, over time.

Basically it is a fact that there's a lot that we do not know and to assume that we have a good understanding of how the universe works is a flawed way of thinking because a lot of well meaning people have always thought this througout history.

The best way of understand the scientific workings of the universe is to match it to what the Bible says. The best scientist I have come across who teaches Biblical Scientific Creationism is Dr Grady McMurtry (there are others but he is very thorough). For example:

This is about dinosaurs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=840&v=tOrD9K9khiU

This is about radio metric carbon dating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Qr9ZZ-Y30

There's many more and one I wanted to find was when he explained about light travelling from distant stars and how this is measured. May be you will come across it? But I recommend watching these.

 

[Clete]

True science and true religion support each other.
False science will at times, oppose true religion.
False religion will at times, oppose true science.
And, obviously, false science and false religion, may or may not agree - all bets are off.

Concerning Creation, science and religion seem at loggerheads.
Science says the universe is 13.75 billion years old.
Religion says the universe is 6000 years old.
Science says we got here by evolution.
Religion says we were created.

The chasm seems so wide, that many have given up trying to bridge the divide.
This thread hopes to reconcile science and religion concerning the above issues.

I consider that the blame for the divide is 50% pseudo-science's fault and 50% pseudo-religion's fault.

Googling "how many species on earth today" one gets the answer 8.7 million.

Whatever the true number, God has devoted a lot of time and thought into creating all these fantastically wonderful and diverse plants and animals, and it must have taken even Him, a lot of time to think these up.

I know there are some here who think that God just somehow knows everything, implying that God expended very little effort thinking up these organisms, and making sure they function as planned. They think God does not need to do any planning, since God just somehow comes knowing everything.

I am not of that school. I believe God has existed eternally, and a lot of that time has been devoted to thinking up and creating these plants and animals. This means of course that God learns, which topic was discussed on another thread which I started. I believe that as God learns, or as His interest changes, so He created different creatures throughout earths history.

The fossil record in the rocks is a snapshot of what occupied God's interest in the long history of the earth. I am an old earth creationist, believing in a universe which is 13.75 billion years old, where, 500 million years ago, God suddenly in one event, populated the earth with most of the Phyla of animals that now exist. I believe that if Christians knew the truth of this Cambrian explosion, they would be able to silence the evolutionists right there. Later, I will explain how the Bible nowhere says earth is just 6000 years old. Here pseudo-religion has made Christians sound ignorant.

There have been many explosions of life on earth. Modern man exploded onto earth 6000 years ago in the form of Adam and Eve. But before that there were many mass extinctions, including the aftermath of one which left earth "without form and void". God never originally created earth "without form and void". Why would God do such a bad job in the first place, and then take six days to repair it?

This is what I hope this thread will be about.

Your desire to reconcile these two worldviews will not succeed. What you are attempting to do is to reconcile a biblical worldview with a atheistic worldview. It cannot be done.

Further, your solution seems to have been to reject both!

Having said that, the first few lines of your post are exactly correct. The truth does not contradict itself. If the bible is true then it will be consistent with reality, by definition, which is what true science attempts to study and understand. The problem, however, isn't with science or the bible, its with people and with the blinding power that paradigm has on one's ability to detect errors in their thinking and on their willingness to correct an error if one happens to be detected. The bigger the impact on one's worldview an error will have, the less likely it is to be acknowledged, if it is even detected in the first place. Scientists think that the peer review process eliminates such paradigm blindness but it doesn't. It helps, especially when the peer review is competitive in nature, but, on the whole, a group of people with rose colored glasses on will be just as color blind as any one person. Theologians, however, are even worse. There is no attempt at all, in most cases, to study the bible in a dispassionate, logical manner. As a general rule, religious people believe what they are taught. If they go to a seminary, it's always to one that makes no effort to teach them how to think for themselves and to determine by a logical process what doctrines are true and which are false. On the contrary, the seminary exists to pound one particular religious worldview into it's students heads. The truth of their doctrine is assumed and no dissenting voice is heard above a whisper - if at all. Indeed, seminary students do not go to seminary to learn how to critically think, they go there specifically for the purpose of immersing themselves into a particular way of thinking. When they come out, they have invested countless hours and thousands of dollars into becoming "educated". Changing their minds to an appreciable degree is all but impossible, regardless of the argument or evidence. The same, of course, is true of scientists who have spent equal amounts of time, effort and money on their education. The likelihood of their ever rejecting the atheistic worldview that they've invested their whole lives into is very nearly zero.

Resting in Him,
Clete

 

[Clete]

I'm sure you've hear of the Hafele and Keating Experiment (1971):
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Relativ/airtim.html

This proves that time is a physically created property made by God and not an abstract man made idea, just as it says:

Gen 1:1
In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.

God created a beginning (time), the Heavens (space) and the Earth (matter with energy).

That experiment does not prove what you suggest. Motion effects clocks, not time. If you don't believe that there is a difference then you simply don't know what you are talking about.

There is no better refutation of your position than this...

Summit Clock Experiment 2.0: Time is Absolute

 

[iouae]

I'm sure you've hear of the Hafele and Keating Experiment (1971):
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Relativ/airtim.html

This proves that time is a physically created property made by God and not an abstract man made idea, just as it says:

Gen 1:1
In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.

God created a beginning (time), the Heavens (space) and the Earth (matter with energy).

All three are intrinsically linked, effect one and the others are effected too. Such as with the above experiment.

The Keating experiment was to prove Einsteins theory that "c" remains constant for any observer while time is prepared to go faster or slower to make sure that c remains constant. Einstein was big in favour of c being constant. If the speed of light is constant, and it comes from distant galaxies, this in no way diminishes what all scientists believe to be the age of that light. Even your friend Dr McMurtry raved about the size of the universe. Light from distant stars logically has to be older, for it to have gotten here. If God created the universe 6000 years ago, He would have had to make the light from all stars further away than 6000 light years, that light would have had to miraculously travel faster than c to get here.

More recently other experiments show that light can indeed travels at different speeds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeKWeMH09Fs

But we are only talking about very small changes here, however this does show that the fundamental building blocks of the universe are fluid and not fixed. Indeed as you are surely also aware the universes expansion is speeding up:

That video gave nothing certain about low energy photons travelling SLIGHTLY faster than high energy ones. As they wondered, without proof. And this is far too slight to change how light so distant got here in only 6000 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_expansion_of_the_universe

Now the big question is how this is measured because there are two fundamental assumptions that some scientist who claim the universe is very old make:

First is that observation fundamentally changes the experimental results, this is the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle or Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Secondly is the assumption about the speed of expansion over time and the fact that we can't go back in time to measure it because we don't know whether time itself has fundamentally changed, over time.

Basically it is a fact that there's a lot that we do not know and to assume that we have a good understanding of how the universe works is a flawed way of thinking because a lot of well meaning people have always thought this througout history.

But there is so much that science DOES know, that we cannot grasp at straws. The distance that light has travelled at a constant speed is irrefutable, and easily explainable by an old universe. If God has existed forever, why fight a 13.75 billion year old universe, which is like a month to God? And all we have to accept is that the earth BECAME without form and void. Which makes sense because why would God make it in ruin? And Is 45:18 says explicitly that God did not create the earth "tohu" or "without form" (strongs H8414)
For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, H8414 he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

The best way of understand the scientific workings of the universe is to match it to what the Bible says. The best scientist I have come across who teaches Biblical Scientific Creationism is Dr Grady McMurtry (there are others but he is very thorough). For example:

This is about dinosaurs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=840&v=tOrD9K9khiU

I watched him. He is quite entertaining, like Eric Hovind. But he set my science bull dust detector off many times.
First some of his good points.

He spoke of the size of the universe, which implies aged light from stars, which he ignored.
He mentioned the Father turning to the Son and saying "watch this" as He showed off by making a platypus. That is exactly the sort of thing I believe goes on in heaven as God creates. And this nails predestination and the idea that God knows everything, and cannot learn. I agree with him there.
I agree with him that animals can be fossilised as they are killed. I have killed a few beetles by fossilising them in fibreglass resin to make key rings.
I agree with him that many dinosaurs were small.
I agree with him that God may have been bragging to Job about dinosaurs in Job 40. But God could brag to me today about dinosaurs and I would agree with God that they truly are amazing. It does not mean they were contemporary with Job. We moderns think we invented dinosaurs. Ancients knew about them since fossil bones were more abundant then.

Now his bull dust.
It is utterly absurd that all the billions of organisms that God created were all created in one time and place at the beginning and have been slowly dying out since then so that there are fewer today.
Only if one has never taken ones nose out of the Bible, and looked at the fossil record, could one say that.
It is to utterly ignore the fact that all the different ages fossilise separately, and each age is followed by God recreating an entirely new set of creatures.

And this is what I want to emphasise. This demonstrates the glory of God.
The fact that the curtain comes down on the dinosaurs, and rises on a completely new set of fauna, namely the mammals, is both a fact, and a testament to Gods greatness and creativity.

Next error...
That Josephus, Marco Polo and Alexander the Great saw dinosaurs. Right, just like the local village idiot sees flying saucers or Nessie, and we take that with a heap of salt.

That dinosaurs went onto the ark. Never have dinosaur fossils been found with hominid fossils. If the flood fossilised both together, human and dinosaur bones would be found in the same strata. But dinosaur bones are ALWAYS found in deeper strata, by far than Hominid ones. If God had wanted dinosaurs today He could have taken eggs onto the ark. But the last dino had died out 65 million years before the ark, unless one calls crocodiles and birds dino's.

That all dinosaurs were vegetarian.

You saw how big dinosaurs are compared to man. Maybe you saw Jurassic Park. It is UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for mankind to have lived a year on the same earth with dinosaurs. They would have served as snacks for velociraptor and T Rex, who certainly were not vegetarian.

This is about radio metric carbon dating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1Qr9ZZ-Y30

I have not watched this yet, but all dating methods are inaccurate, I know that.
But, what is beyond dispute, and which question you avoid, is why fossils are always found in strata. Always the Jurassic animals are found together with Jurassic plants, around the world, and never found with Quaternary or modern plants as would have been the case in a flood.

Thanks for your very interesting reply, which made me work quite hard watching the videos.

There's many more and one I wanted to find was when he explained about light travelling from distant stars and how this is measured. May be you will come across it? But I recommend watching these.

 

[iouae]

Your desire to reconcile these two worldviews will not succeed. What you are attempting to do is to reconcile a biblical worldview with a atheistic worldview. It cannot be done.

Resting in Him,
Clete

Crete, I agree with much that you say. But I am not trying to reconcile a biblical worldview with an atheistic one, but with what true science says. These reconcile perfectly as will come out later in the thread.

 

[WatchmanOnTheWall]

The Keating experiment was to prove Einsteins theory that "c" remains constant for any observer while time is prepared to go faster or slower to make sure that c remains constant. Einstein was big in favour of c being constant. If the speed of light is constant, and it comes from distant galaxies, this in no way diminishes what all scientists believe to be the age of that light. Even your friend Dr McMurtry raved about the size of the universe. Light from distant stars logically has to be older, for it to have gotten here. If God created the universe 6000 years ago, He would have had to make the light from all stars further away than 6000 light years, that light would have had to miraculously travel faster than c to get here.


That video gave nothing certain about low energy photons travelling SLIGHTLY faster than high energy ones. As they wondered, without proof. And this is far too slight to change how light so distant got here in only 6000 years.


But there is so much that science DOES know, that we cannot grasp at straws. The distance that light has travelled at a constant speed is irrefutable, and easily explainable by an old universe. If God has existed forever, why fight a 13.75 billion year old universe, which is like a month to God? And all we have to accept is that the earth BECAME without form and void. Which makes sense because why would God make it in ruin? And Is 45:18 says explicitly that God did not create the earth "tohu" or "without form" (strongs H8414)
For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, H8414 he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

I watched him. He is quite entertaining, like Eric Hovind. But he set my science bull dust detector off many times.
First some of his good points.

He spoke of the size of the universe, which implies aged light from stars, which he ignored.
He mentioned the Father turning to the Son and saying "watch this" as He showed off by making a platypus. That is exactly the sort of thing I believe goes on in heaven as God creates. And this nails predestination and the idea that God knows everything, and cannot learn. I agree with him there.
I agree with him that animals can be fossilised as they are killed. I have killed a few beetles by fossilising them in fibreglass resin to make key rings.
I agree with him that many dinosaurs were small.
I agree with him that God may have been bragging to Job about dinosaurs in Job 40. But God could brag to me today about dinosaurs and I would agree with God that they truly are amazing. It does not mean they were contemporary with Job. We moderns think we invented dinosaurs. Ancients knew about them since fossil bones were more abundant then.

Now his bull dust.
It is utterly absurd that all the billions of organisms that God created were all created in one time and place at the beginning and have been slowly dying out since then so that there are fewer today.
Only if one has never taken ones nose out of the Bible, and looked at the fossil record, could one say that.
It is to utterly ignore the fact that all the different ages fossilise separately, and each age is followed by God recreating an entirely new set of creatures.

And this is what I want to emphasise. This demonstrates the glory of God.
The fact that the curtain comes down on the dinosaurs, and rises on a completely new set of fauna, namely the mammals, is both a fact, and a testament to Gods greatness and creativity.

Next error...
That Josephus, Marco Polo and Alexander the Great saw dinosaurs. Right, just like the local village idiot sees flying saucers or Nessie, and we take that with a heap of salt.

That dinosaurs went onto the ark. Never have dinosaur fossils been found with hominid fossils. If the flood fossilised both together, human and dinosaur bones would be found in the same strata. But dinosaur bones are ALWAYS found in deeper strata, by far than Hominid ones. If God had wanted dinosaurs today He could have taken eggs onto the ark. But the last dino had died out 65 million years before the ark, unless one calls crocodiles and birds dino's.

That all dinosaurs were vegetarian.

You saw how big dinosaurs are compared to man. Maybe you saw Jurassic Park. It is UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE for mankind to have lived a year on the same earth with dinosaurs. They would have served as snacks for velociraptor and T Rex, who certainly were not vegetarian.



I have not watched this yet, but all dating methods are inaccurate, I know that.
But, what is beyond dispute, and which question you avoid, is why fossils are always found in strata. Always the Jurassic animals are found together with Jurassic plants, around the world, and never found with Quaternary or modern plants as would have been the case in a flood.

Thanks for your very interesting reply, which made me work quite hard watching the videos.

Thanks for your time in looking at the links, most people here will not look at links, which is a shame as it shuts down the debate, so not much is learnt and beliefs are not challenged or changed. Thus furtherance of oneself is curtailed. I guess that has something to do with predestination though.

I looked at:

8414 [e]
ṯō·hū
תֹ֥הוּ
in vain it
Noun

but this is just a difference in interpretation.

I liked your for's and against's yet I have seen Dr McMurtry, and others, explain why creation scientists and secular scientists interpret the fossil record differently, with each party claiming the strata proves there argument. So again this is interpretation.

I could post lots more links but I'm not sure if this would help, after all if you had it in you heart to look into this more then you could easily do that yourself.

You see when I looked into this subject myself I soon realised that the Earth had to be either young as the Bible suggests or old as secular scientist claim. It's one or the other. I also quickly realised that there was not any absolute proof available for either argument because it always boiled down to interpretation.

However, I believe this is because God wants all the glory for Himself and His Son Jesus. Jesus said:

Matthew 12:39
He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Therefore the only sign, or evidence, we have for Jesus being the Messiah; The Holy Anointed One of God the Most High who knows all things like God and can not lie, is the resurrection. This event began Christianity because no one could find Jesus' dead body afterwards and everyone involved had looked for it.

Jesus also said:

Matthew 19:4
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

beginning
noun
the point in time or space at which something begins.

The beginning was day 1 which lasted the same length as every other day. Adam was created on day 6 in year 1AM and died at 130 in year 131AM.

So was Jesus was lying, mistaken or got it right? The glory is His.

 

[iouae]

Matthew 19:4
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Then there is your Matt 19:4 when I believe it refers to the beginning of the creation of man, on the 6th day.



beginning
noun
the point in time or space at which something begins.

The beginning was day 1 which lasted the same length as every other day. Adam was created on day 6 in year 1AM and died at 130 in year 131AM.

So was Jesus was lying, mistaken or got it right? The glory is His.

Like you Watchman, I like to take Bible words as literally as possible.

But when the Bible says "in the beginning", it does NOT always refer to the same point in time.

For instance...

Gen 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

This refers to the beginning of the creation of the material universe.

Pro 8:22
The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

This beginning refers to BEFORE the creation of the material universe.

Jhn 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Jhn 1:2
The same was in the beginning with God.

This beginning refers to long before the creation of the material universe when not even the angels had been created as John goes on to say.

Heb 1:10
And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

This beginning refers to the creation of the heavens, which was 13.75 billion years ago, and the foundation of the earth, refers to the fact that earth was a ball of matter which consolidated and only cooled 5 billion years ago when life began. The earth in other words had foundations in the making for 8.75 billion years. This is what science says and I don't find it disagrees with scripture which says earth had a foundation. A foundation is not the house, but precedes the house.

The Matt 19:4 one you quoted I believe refers to "at the beginning" when God created man, on the 6th day.

One last technicality. I know a little Hebrew. Hebrew has a definite article "ha" which is a suffix added at the start of a word when the writer means "the".

Genesis 1:1 starts "Bereshith...." which has no definite article. Most accurately it is not speaking of THE beginning but A beginning.
It could even mean "To begin". "Be" at the start of "Bereshith" could be one of many prepositions such as "to" or "in".

Thus it could even be saying "To begin - Gods created the heavens and the earth" meaning the beginning is the beginning of this story or book and not a specific beginning in time. As I say, my Hebrew is limited, but as far as I know this is the case.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

This beginning refers to the creation of the heavens, which was 13.75 billion years ago, and the foundation of the earth, refers to the fact that earth was a ball of matter which consolidated and only cooled 5 billion years ago when life began. The earth in other words had foundations in the making for 8.75 billion years. This is what science says and I don't find it disagrees with scripture which says earth had a foundation. A foundation is not the house, but precedes the house.

No. That is what science theorizes.

The believer need not assume the burden here. Scientific theories are moving targets. To say that science must have the final word is to make an unscientific statement. Science is an open canon, therefore contradiction is to be expected. We expect no contradiction in Scripture because it is a closed canon. What Scripture says it has always said and will always say. Again, science is an open canon. It has said things which it no longer says and what it says today may yet be changed. The believer must allow the Bible to say what it says. Whatever one thinks about physics, astronomy, or any other science, he has no right to impose his unproven, ever advancing scientific explanations on Scripture and make Scripture say something other than what Scripture says.

The epistemic limitation of scientific discovery is that first, it is limited to natural phenomena. Secondly, it is bound to observable fact. Thirdly, is only ever descriptive, never explanatory. Fourthly, deals with probability. Fifthly, is always open to re-evaluation.

With these limitations we can accept everything natural science teaches. The fact that it conflicts with the plain teaching of God's word does not require us to adopt a pseudo-science or to re-evaluate God's word in the light of it. Sarah's womb was dead and Sarah had a child in her old age. The two facts conflict with each other. Both are legitimately maintained in the belief that God calleth those things which be not as though they were.

Some serious hermeneutical hopscotch is needed to deny the literal meaning of days in Exodus 20:11.
- The ordinance of the Sabbath is now doubtful if six days is not literal.
- If the first Adam is allegorical, then the second Adam is, too?
- A literal Adam is required in Romans.
- The Apostle clearly described Adam as the first human sinner—not whatever millions of human-like beings in the presumed evolutionary chain.
- Death came through Adamic sin, an explanation from Scripture that is cast aside in the notion of millions of years of death and destruction prior to Adam assumed by evolution.

AMR