Origin of life, Adam and the Dinosaurs

Hockeycowboy · May 3, 2017

CogentPhilosopher said:
You do realize I was a Christian before right?

I began to read the bible with an open mind to validate my beliefs and it did not turn out that way.

Just curious....what beliefs were you hoping to validate? The trinity? Hell-fire? The immediate afterlife? Do you think these teachings could be wrong?

G. K. Chesterton said, "Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting. It's been found difficult and not tried."

And therein lies a clue -- to gain accurate understanding of God's Word, you need His blessing! (Luke 10:21) He wants us to follow, and be obedient to, His son, Jesus. (Matthew 17:5; Acts of the Apostles 3:22; compare John 14:15) One area where Jesus was very specific, was at John 13:34-35. How has Christendom measured up to this? Awfully bad! They'd rather have their respective governments' approval, than God's.

In line with Matthew 7:16-20, their entire belief system should be suspect, not the Bible.

I was like you about 40 years ago, but I began questioning my beliefs, not so much the Bible. And I realized it was what I had been taught that was wrong, not the Scriptures.

It took a certain amount of humility to adjust my long-held beliefs, but it's been a worthwhile trip!

Hockeycowboy · May 3, 2017

siti said:
You can't have your cake and ha'penny by saying the "days" are figurative but the rest is real history.

Now hold on! If I say "your Grandfather was quite a dude, back in his day", I'm using the day figuratively, but how is that in any way denying it was "real history"?

That's a straw man.

Polymath257 · May 3, 2017

Hockeycowboy said:
G. K. Chesterton said, "Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting. It's been found difficult and not tried."

Which is a load of baloney. It has been tried many times and found to be dangerous. Look at Calvin in Geneva.

CogentPhilosopher · May 3, 2017

Hockeycowboy said:
Just curious....what beliefs were you hoping to validate? The trinity? Hell-fire? The immediate afterlife? Do you think these teachings could be wrong?

G. K. Chesterton said, "Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting. It's been found difficult and not tried."

And therein lies a clue -- to gain accurate understanding of God's Word, you need His blessing! (Luke 10:21) He wants us to follow, and be obedient to, His son, Jesus. (Matthew 17:5; Acts of the Apostles 3:22; compare John 14:15) One area where Jesus was very specific, was at John 13:34-35. How has Christendom measured up to this? Awfully bad! They'd rather have their respective governments' approval, than God's.

In line with Matthew 7:16-20, their entire belief system should be suspect, not the Bible.

I was like you about 40 years ago, but I began questioning my beliefs, not so much the Bible. And I realized it was what I had been taught that was wrong, not the Scriptures.

It took a certain amount of humility to adjust my long-held beliefs, but it's been a worthwhile trip!

Oh I just wanted the basic idea of the gospels to be validated, but you see I have found literally no reasons to believe that the Bible is correct while I have found numerous that show why it cannot.

siti · May 3, 2017

Hockeycowboy said:
Now hold on! If I say "your Grandfather was quite a dude, back in his day", I'm using the day figuratively, but how is that in any way denying it was "real history"?

That's a straw man.

What's a straw man? My argument or yours? Because the Genesis 1 account is not composed like your sentence about my grandfather at all. A more sensible comparison would be a sentence like this:

"One day, my grandfather proved himself quite a dude by discovering the atomic theory of matter, general relativity, quantum theory and plate tectonics all in one day whilst simultaneously balancing three blue whales on the end of his nose as he rode a bicycle upside down on the ceiling and recited the value of pi to 3 billion decimal places - and then the night came and then there was another day immediately after it on which he did some even more incredible stuff..."

...and then suggesting that although we know very well none of this really happened and even if it had it must have taken very much longer than one day...

...and it was certainly not all achieved by a single super-intelligent grandpa (I know this because I am a grandpa and I know what our limitations are - there is no way I could have balanced three blue whales on the end of my nose)

...and then attempting to resolve the patent absurdity of the sentence by suggesting that perhaps the "day" was much longer than 24 hours and yet insisting that my grandfather really did exist (as described) and really did do those things - honest!

There are only two ways to interpret a sentence like the one about my grandfather - its either the absurd delusion of a very confused and ill-informed person or its a story that I just made up, perhaps to illustrate the point that my grandfather was a rather special 'dude' but the elements of which are not intended to be taken seriously.

Ditto Genesis Chapter 1. The only difference between the ancient Hebrews and us is that they had an excuse for their ignorance.

URAVIP2ME · May 3, 2017

siti said:
Of course I don't. In fact I don't think it happened at all because the "numerous animals" evolved over millions of years - we know this, the writers of the Genesis accounts did not. That is precisely the point. And in any case, it is fairly obvious that Genesis 1:1 - Genesis 2:3 is one account and the rest of Genesis 2 is a different account from a different perspective. They are EITHER
(1) intended as mythological cosmological story-telling (in which case they are great as stories and tell us absolutely nothing about the facts of the genesis of the heavens and the earth or anything in them, nothing about the facts of the origin of the human species and not even anything about the facts of the origins and history of the nation of Israel - which is what it was probably really meant as the prologue to)
OR
(2) intended as historical narrative in which case they are plain wrong.
In either case there is no reason to assume that Adam existed as a real person and even if someone approximately corresponding to the biblical Adam did really exist, he most certainly did not run around the Garden of Eden for millions of years with the dinosaurs.
I know that's not what you are saying, but that was the argument in the OP that I was refuting by suggesting that the accounts are either mythology or wrong. You can't have your cake and ha'penny by saying the "days" are figurative but the rest is real history. In any case, there are far greater issues with the science that cannot be overcome by simply extending the "days" of Genesis.

I can agree that there were animals created long before Adam came to life, such as Genesis 1:21 is before Adam.
Adam was giving names, or making names up, for the animals according to Genesis 2:19.
To me, that would take quite some time for Adam to observe animal antics before coining names for them.
I also agree about Genesis giving two (2) differing accounts:
Here is my take on the matter:
The two (2) accounts of creation are from two (2) differing viewpoints:
The 1st describes Heaven and Earth ( our cosmos ) and all in them starting from Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 2:4
The 2nd account concentrates on the creation of the human race and its fall from Genesis 2:5 to Genesis 4:26
The 1st account is constructed chronologically. ( Divided into six (6) consecutive "days")
The 2nd account is written in the order of topical importance.
Genesis chapter 2 adds some details ( which do Not conflict ) put merely takes up at a point in the 3rd "day".
ALL is created before "day" 7, and "day" 7 is still on-going from God resting from further creation.
However, soon we will be in Jesus' millennium-long day of governing over Earth for a thousand years.
Then, earth's nations will see the return of the Genesis ' tree of life ' for healing according to Revelation 22:2

URAVIP2ME · May 3, 2017

CogentPhilosopher said:
Oh I just wanted the basic idea of the gospels to be validated, .................

The 'theme' idea of Jesus' teaching was about God's kingdom according to Luke 4:43
Jesus' stressed God's kingdom in prayer ' thy kingdom come '. That same kingdom of Daniel 2:44.
Jesus never taught that we should pray to be ' taken up ' to the kingdom, or to be ' taken away ' to the kingdom,
but for God's kingdom to come. Jesus, as Prince of Peace, and King of God's Kingdom government, will establish Peace on Earth among people of goodwill.

siti · May 3, 2017

URAVIP2ME said:
However, soon we will be in Jesus' millennium-long day of governing over Earth for a thousand years.
Then, earth's nations will see the return of the Genesis ' tree of life ' for healing according to Revelation 22:2

Ooh! Really? How soon exactly? Will I get to live for millions of years like Adam did according to the OP? And since paradise is apparently to be restored (where have I heard that idea before?) will this include the reinstatement of the dinosaur? I don't think the scales of universal justice will be balanced unless I get back all that Adam threw away and get to ride on a brontosaurus across the African plains.

CogentPhilosopher · May 3, 2017

URAVIP2ME said:
The 'theme' idea of Jesus' teaching was about God's kingdom according to Luke 4:43
Jesus' stressed God's kingdom in prayer ' thy kingdom come '. That same kingdom of Daniel 2:44.
Jesus never taught that we should pray to be ' taken up ' to the kingdom, or to be ' taken away ' to the kingdom,
but for God's kingdom to come. Jesus, as Prince of Peace, and King of God's Kingdom government, will establish Peace on Earth among people of goodwill.

Congratulations.

How do you feel about killing children?

URAVIP2ME · May 3, 2017

CogentPhilosopher said:
Congratulations.
How do you feel about killing children?

Parents are responsible for minor children according to 1 Corinthians 7:14.
God did Not approve of people burning their children according to Jeremiah 32:34-35; 2 Chronicles 28:3.

We can Not read hearts, but God can.
The children of Noah's day would have grown up to be violent like their parents.
That violence would have grown to the point that No one righteous would be left on Earth.
So, as the parents were responsible for minor children back then, that holds true today.
Jesus told us that if action would Not taken then No flesh would be saved.
The living fleshly people of Revelation 7:14 will be saved (delivered/rescued) through the coming great tribulation.
The words from Jesus' mouth are 'executional words' as mentioned at Isaiah 11:3-4; Revelation 19:14-16.
An execution is: Not killing, Not murder, but is justice for the sake of the righteous.
At the soon coming ' time of separation ' of Matthew 25:31-33,37 there will be No mature ones who can say they were Not forewarned to ' repent ' if they do Not wish to ' perish ' (be destroyed) - 2 Peter 3:9
Jesus will carry on ' righteous warfare ' meaning No one righteous will be in harm's way - Revelation 19:11.

URAVIP2ME · May 3, 2017

siti said:
Ooh! Really? How soon exactly? Will I get to live for millions of years like Adam did according to the OP? And since paradise is apparently to be restored (where have I heard that idea before?) will this include the reinstatement of the dinosaur? I don't think the scales of universal justice will be balanced unless I get back all that Adam threw away and get to ride on a brontosaurus across the African plains.

I would like to see a picture of you riding that brontosaurus across the African plains.
Since dinosaur bones are Not found mixed with human bones, then dinosaurs were long gone before Adam existed.
Animals were never offered everlasting life, that gift was reserved for humans.
Adam and Eve could have lived forever on Earth if they did Not break God's Law.
As law breakers they forfeited everlasting life. Since we are innocent of what A&E did, God provided a way out for us according to Genesis 3:15. That promised ' seed ' (offspring) proved to be Jesus who opens up the 'door' ( or garden gate ) for us to gain what father Adam lost for us: Everlasting life on a beautiful paradisical Earth.

P.S. Would you settle for riding a Zebra across the African plains, or _________.

Hockeycowboy · May 3, 2017

Polymath257 said:
Which is a load of baloney. It has been tried many times and found to be dangerous. Look at Calvin in Geneva.

Uh, I guess you didn't want to read the rest of the post?

"...found to be dangerous", lol. Yeah, apostate Christianity.
But was Jesus dangerous? Were the Apostles? If you think so, to whom?

CogentPhilosopher · May 3, 2017

URAVIP2ME said:
The children of Noah's day would have grown up to be violent like their parents.
That violence would have grown to the point that No one righteous would be left on Earth.

So your saying that if a kid was likely to become violent, it's okay to murder them?

Also I was referring more to the alleged plagues of Egypt in which the first born citizens where killed because of what their ruler that they have no power over decided to do.

Hockeycowboy · May 3, 2017

siti said:
What's a straw man? My argument or yours? Because the Genesis 1 account is not composed like your sentence about my grandfather at all. A more sensible comparison would be a sentence like this:

"One day, my grandfather proved himself quite a dude by discovering the atomic theory of matter, general relativity, quantum theory and plate tectonics all in one day whilst simultaneously balancing three blue whales on the end of his nose as he rode a bicycle upside down on the ceiling and recited the value of pi to 3 billion decimal places - and then the night came and then there was another day immediately after it on which he did some even more incredible stuff..."

...and then suggesting that although we know very well none of this really happened and even if it had it must have taken very much longer than one day...

...and it was certainly not all achieved by a single super-intelligent grandpa (I know this because I am a grandpa and I know what our limitations are - there is no way I could have balanced three blue whales on the end of my nose)

...and then attempting to resolve the patent absurdity of the sentence by suggesting that perhaps the "day" was much longer than 24 hours and yet insisting that my grandfather really did exist (as described) and really did do those things - honest!

There are only two ways to interpret a sentence like the one about my grandfather - its either the absurd delusion of a very confused and ill-informed person or its a story that I just made up, perhaps to illustrate the point that my grandfather was a rather special 'dude' but the elements of which are not intended to be taken seriously.

Ditto Genesis Chapter 1. The only difference between the ancient Hebrews and us is that they had an excuse for their ignorance.

Everything about Genesis is correct, when not looking through muddied glasses.
The account lists 10 major stages in this order: (1) a beginning; (2) a primitive earth in darkness and enshrouded in heavy gases and water; (3) light; (4) an expanse or atmosphere; (5) large areas of dry land; (6) land plants; (7) sun, moon and stars discernible in the expanse, and seasons beginning; (8) sea monsters and flying creatures; (9) wild and tame beasts, mammals; (10) man. Science agrees that these stages occurred in this general order. What are the chances that the writer of Genesis just guessed this order? The same as if you picked at random the numbers 1 to 10 from a box, and drew them in consecutive order. The chances of doing this on your first try are 1 in 3,628,800! So, to say the writer just happened to list the foregoing events in the right order without getting the facts from somewhere is not realistic.

No wonder that Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and other deep thinkers, believed the Bible was from God!

siti · May 4, 2017

Hockeycowboy said:
What are the chances that the writer of Genesis just guessed this order?

OK - let's play the odds game then. He had a fairly easy guess with the first one, and the last one is also a given, given the anthropocentric view point so that reduces the odds of getting the rest right by almost two orders of magnitude straight away because he only had to guess 8 of them (according to your sequence).

And then he got at least part of your number (6) out of sequence - angiosperms (flowering/fruiting plants) (Day 3 in Genesis 1) did not appear until about 100-200 million years after the first animals emerged onto land (Day 6). He also got both halves of your number (8) out of sequence - flying creatures (winged theropods) (Day 5 in Genesis) did not emerge until long after land animals had become well-established (Day 6) and they evolved into birds even later still and the sea monsters (Day 5) existed well before land plants emerged (Day 3). The appearance of the sun, moon and stars in the sky on day 4 (after the appearance of land plants on day 3 (which now - I presume according to your interpretation - may have been millions of years earlier than the events of day 4) is highly doubtful even allowing for considerable leeway of interpretation.

By my reckoning that means the writer suggests a sequence of events over six creative "days" and got them hopelessly out of sequence with at least 3 or 4 of the "days" in completely the wrong order and with some aspects on days 3, 5 and 6 that could not possibly go together with other things that were said to be on the same "day".

So yes - I'd say he guessed - and rather inaccurately at that! I'd say the chances that he guessed would be about 100%.

Altfish · May 4, 2017

arthra said:
I'd also suggest that the "days" in question can be viewed as vast periods of time "Yowm"....

The story of Adam and Eve is in my view symbolic of the relationship between God and man at the beginning of a cycle. In the first chapters of Genesis there are three questions asked:

In Genesis 3:9 God called to the man "Where are you?" not because He doesn't know where he is but because it's an existential spiritual question.. Where are you?

The second question found in Genesis 3:13 is "What have you done?" Again not that He doesn't know but asking us to review what we've done in this life...

A third question is found in Genesis 4:9 "Where is your brother?" Not that God doesn't know and needs to ask but the question is also existential where is your brother? and with that the implied who is your brother? as well.

So there are many levels of meaning I would suggest in scriptures.

Why, when God was writing this book, could he not have made it clear what he meant?
I mean it is not difficult. Or even better, why can't he just publish a new edition, even do it on Kindle, just to clear up all these 'interpretations'.

Hockeycowboy · May 4, 2017

siti said:
angiosperms (flowering/fruiting plants) (Day 3 in Genesis 1) did not appear until about 100-200 million years after the first animals emerged onto land (Day 6).

And that makes no sense. Tell me, what did these first herbivores eat? Just grass?

Do you think that all the fossilized remains of the earliest flora that have been found ...were the first? Or could it be these soft-bodied organisms, simply weren't preserved?

Same with birds....their hollow bones, needed for flight, aren't exactly conducive to preservation.

siti · May 4, 2017

Hockeycowboy said:
And that makes no sense. Tell me, what did these first herbivores eat? Just grass?

Who said they were herbivores? They might have eaten fish or other marine animals - perhaps stranded at the waters edge, possibly insects or non-flowering plants like mosses, liverworts, cycads etc. They certainly didn't eat grass - grass is an angiosperm and did not emerge until much later - most of the dinosaurs (let alone the earlier land-dwelling tetrapods) never set eyes on grass. And birds certainly came much later than land animals - there is no question about that in the fossil record.

So in terms of biology here's the comparison:

Genesis has this sequence: (1) flowering plants (2) sea monsters (3) birds (4) land animals

The fossil record shows: (1) sea monsters (2) land animals (3) flowering plants (4) birds

You can very easily look this up. Like I said, he guessed rather inaccurately.

Polymath257 · May 4, 2017

Hockeycowboy said:
Uh, I guess you didn't want to read the rest of the post?

"...found to be dangerous", lol. Yeah, apostate Christianity.
But was Jesus dangerous? Were the Apostles? If you think so, to whom?

Faith based government is dangerous. Always.

Polymath257 · May 4, 2017

Hockeycowboy said:
And that makes no sense. Tell me, what did these first herbivores eat? Just grass?

Grass didn't appear until very late also. Before flowering plants were other types of plants: ferns, for example. Conifers are also not 'flowering plants'.

Do you think that all the fossilized remains of the earliest flora that have been found ...were the first? Or could it be these soft-bodied organisms, simply weren't preserved?

We may be off by a bit, but certainly not enough to change the order.

Same with birds....their hollow bones, needed for flight, aren't exactly conducive to preservation.

We actually have a very good record of the transition between theropod dinosaurs and early birds. Again, we are certainly not off by enough to change the order.

Origin of life, Adam and the Dinosaurs

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