actually, in my opinion the rapture is just that.
It's just the meeting in the air.
The proponents of "pretrip" rapture go one step further: they say the raptured people are taken to heaven. Other people say they are just raptured to anything close to the sky and that's it. The controversy going on about this topic.... is if there is a "rapture
to heaven" or not.
But for our discussion, it suffices to know that there is a point in time when the raptured people are no longer on earth, but somewhere in the sky. If underneath the earth gets destroyed, it won't do harm to them, as I see it.
When they are "in the air", that doesn't mean they will feel like being eliminated. The rapture is perceived as a pleasant event for the raptured people, see Mat 24:40. "taken" means something positive because it is compared to the flood when being taken meant being saved (Matthew 24:37-39).
I wasn't kind, it's just natural for evangelists to be open for debate, that's what I'm here for.
well, yeah, that's basically it, thank you for formulating this.
it doesn't match Bible passages.
See for instance Psalms 147:9. For the Theory of Evolution there is survival of the
fittest. Those who are best adapt to their environment survive, those who are not don't.
However, God constantly saves those who are not fit at all, it seems. This runs counter to the ToE.
Genesis 21:17. Same situation as above: a really unfit person was saved from death. By God.
Additionally, the Theory if Evolution is the only scientific theory that overlaps with theology, as I see it. According to the ToE, God cannot and must not have created one single living being seperately from any other. The Theory of Evolution has set down the number of how many common ancestors there are: 1. Only 1 common universal ancestor of all life.
If God would go ahead and create just one worm today... the whole ToE would be bunk.
Compare this to the theory of Gravitation: if an angel came to lift up the pencil in front of you... gravitation would still be true. The angel would "beat" gravitation and lift the pencil up by
his or her own force... but gravitation is still there.
In sharp contrast, when God creates one worm seperately, the principle of common ancestory of all life would be gone/ is gone.
I don't think so. God wants communication, Ephesians 5:20. And communication involves a clear language.
If "day", for instance means everything from a day till 3 billion years.... it means nothing, in my view, and you can't use this word for communication, for instance. If you have too many words with no meaning you can't talk. That's the problem that I see.
God wants to be understood as he wants to be a good father, Luke 15:6, so things are rather simple, as I see it.
The way people understand the word "day" today may be just what has become dominant or common.
The Bible was not apparently written in English, but here:
"
Old English dæg "period during which the sun is above the horizon," also "lifetime, definite time of existence," from Proto-Germanic *dages- "day" (source also of Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, Dutch dag, Old Frisian di, dei, Old High German tag, German Tag, Old Norse dagr, Gothic dags), according to Watkins, from PIE root
*agh- "a day." He adds that the Germanic initial d- is "of obscure origin." But Boutkan says it is from PIE root *dhegh- "to burn" (see
fever). Not considered to be related to Latin dies (which is from PIE root
*dyeu- "to shine").
Meaning originally, in English, "the daylight hours;" it expanded to mean "the 24-hour period" in late Anglo-Saxon times. The day formerly began at sunset, hence Old English Wodnesniht was what we would call "Tuesday night." Names of the weekdays were not regularly capitalized in English until 17c.
From late 12c. as "a time period as distinguished from other time periods." Day-by-day "daily" is from late 14c.; all day "all the time" is from late 14c. Day off "day away from work" is attested from 1883; day-tripper first recorded 1897. The days in nowadays, etc. is a relic of the Old English and Middle English use of the adverbial genitive.
All in a day's work "something unusual taken as routine" is by 1820. The nostalgic those were the days is attested by 1907. That'll be the day, expressing mild doubt following some boast or claim, is by 1941. To call it a day "stop working" is by 1919; earlier call it a half-day (1838). One of these days "at some day in the near future" is from late 15c. One of those days "a day of misfortune" is by 1936."
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Greek (Septuagint, the Bible apparently known to and used by the people writing the New Testament):
ΓΕΝΕΣΙΣ 1 Apostolic Bible Polyglot
Strong's Greek: 2250. ἡμέρα (hémera) -- day
a day
Feminine (with
hora implied) of a derivative of hemai (to sit; akin to the base of
hedraios) meaning tame, i.e. Gentle; day, i.e. (literally) the time space between dawn and dark, or the whole
aganaktesis hours (but several days were usually reckoned by the Jews as inclusive of the parts of both extremes); figuratively, a period (always defined more or less clearly by the context) -- age, + alway, (mid-)day (by day, (-ly)), + for ever, judgment, (day) time, while, years.
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Hebrew
Genesis 1:5 Hebrew Text Analysis
Strong's Hebrew: 3117. יוֹם (yom) -- day
"
age, always, continually, daily, birth, each, today,
From an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb) -- age, + always, + chronicals, continually(-ance), daily, ((birth-), each, to) day, (now a, two) days (agone), + elder, X end, + evening, + (for) ever(-lasting, -more), X full, life, as (so) long as (... Live), (even) now, + old, + outlived, + perpetually, presently, + remaineth, X required, season, X since, space, then, (process of) time, + as at other times, + in trouble, weather, (as) when, (a, the, within a) while (that), X whole (+ age), (full) year(-ly), + younger."
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It seems that the words are used in English, Greek, and Hebrew in a multitude of ways, to mean a multitude of things, including "indefinite periods of time". Furthermore, if the rotation of the Earth is faster and gradually becomes slower, a person could live for many more days while still having an approximately normal seeming lifespan by our standards. If the rotation of the Earth is slowed or still, a day by even that definition of day can be incredibly lengthy.
They say "survival of the fittest", but it isn't always the case, as you pointed out, and many times there are different weird things that account for the different things where a species might get saved, they would call it "Chance", we call it "God". God forms the baby in the wombs, shapes them, that is God's action at work, and does so in stages, step by step, from cells to whatever else, and so God can also over a period make things move, animals roaring and killing each other just like cells, and this and that happening over time, which ends up with so and such lion being the winner of some battle and breeding these children then this happens and that happens, and then their faces take on different shapes with mutations created by God and so on and so forth, its like the process we see in the womb but out in the wild, the reason it is hard to see is that its very slow and long, and we have very short lifespans and limited vision and can't see the big picture as it plays out in God's formation of things, but do you personally consider God's activities to be present and active in the operation and consequences and results of all things whatsoever?