Should we believe in a young earth or our lying eyes?

Originally posted by Haruo:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
This is established in our minds as much as the truth that all insects actually have six legs and there are no flying creatures with both wings and four legs.

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What about griffins?

Haruo </font>[/QUOTE]Oh yeah! Griffons! And now that you mention it, dragons are usually also pictured with wings and four legs.

Well let's look at a common housefly, or even
a horsefly. Now, it seems to me if you really
watch them you will note that they love to
wash their hands alot. NOW I KNOW THEY HAVE
NO HANDS but they sit and rub their arms together.
You see the Bible recognizes some facts from a
DIFFERENT perspective. Humans don't have 4 legs.
and yet we can crawl on all fours. What do
most insects use their 2 forward appendages for---
for holding things? GOD's perspective is not
confined to the parameters scientists have established.

But isn't that just your interpretation? You are putting your frame of mind into the interpretation of the bible, something a lot of people here seem to disagree with.

Also, I was wondering, what is your viewpoint on how old the universe is?

I believe that universe looks as old as GOD
wants it to look. I also feel that the Holy
Spirit gave me the insight about interpretations
of the Holy Bible. The Bible must be examined
though itself.

Much of what is termed science is very new and
the Bible was not used as the standard. Why
should the Bible be somehow accountable to
scientific procedure.

Science says that light must have a source.
The Bible says that God created light and
then gave it its source. Now if you listen
to an evolutionist or uniformatarian, you would
believe that the universe is millions of
years old simply on account of light year
measurements. HOWEVER, the Bible account
very neatly (and thousands of years ago before
anyone noticed that light has speed) takes
care of the problem. GOD created the light
from the distant star to our planet BEFORE HE
created that star. So how old does the universe
have to be? I still say no more than thousands
of years and not millions nor billions nor trillions...

Originally posted by A_Christian:
Now if you listen to an evolutionist or uniformatarian, you would believe that the universe is millions of years old simply on account of light year measurements. HOWEVER, the Bible account very neatly (and thousands of years ago before anyone noticed that light has speed) takes care of the problem. GOD created the light from the distant star to our planet BEFORE HE created that star.

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My problem with this is as such. The light from these stars gives us a history of what has happened to these stars and objects. To say that the light was created en route says that the history we observed never happened. Here is a picture of two galaxies colliding 114 million light years away. And here is the remains of a star we saw explode in 1987 that is 168 thousand light years away. What you are saying is that the star never actually exploded. I do not personally think that God would trick us in that manner, to let us see a history that did not actually happen. Do you?

Originally posted by A_Christian:
Well let's look at a common housefly, or even
a horsefly. Now, it seems to me if you really
watch them you will note that they love to
wash their hands alot. NOW I KNOW THEY HAVE
NO HANDS but they sit and rub their arms together.
You see the Bible recognizes some facts from a
DIFFERENT perspective. Humans don't have 4 legs.
and yet we can crawl on all fours. What do
most insects use their 2 forward appendages for---
for holding things? GOD's perspective is not
confined to the parameters scientists have established.

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Yes, and then if you keep watching, you'll see them do the same thing with their HIND legs. They'll even use their HIND legs to preen their wings.

Try again. Valiant effort, however.

What about supernovas? I mean, even if you get around the problem of how far away they are to us, how do you explain their existence at all? It takes at least a million years for them to form.

Meatros:

I believe that you will find that most things
that are stated about super novas is based on
hypotheses. We don't even understand quantum
physics. Is the universe folded on itself?
Is the distance from earth to a distant star
millions of light-years or only a worm-hole
away? Does light pass through worm-holes?

All I know is that in the beginning GOD created
space and matter. It says so in Genesis.

There are people who can scratch their head
with their foot. Does that make it a hand?

Originally posted by A_Christian:
There are people who can scratch their head
with their foot. Does that make it a hand?

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Of course not! Glad to see you coming around to being reasonable.

As for the supernova's being hypothetical, what's so hypothetical that they actually exist and they are seen far across space billions of light years, thanks to their extraordinary brightness? We're talking very basic observations of their chracterisics here! I think you'd be amazed at just how much astronomers and physisicists DO understand these days about supernovas.

I have yet another question:

If the earth is only a few thousand years old, why are there no ancient records of big meteor hits? There are a little over (IIRC) 140 big craters on the earth's surface. How is it that people survived some of the big craters? With that many craters in such a short period of time, how did early man survive?

The meteors likely hit just before during and
at the tail end of the Flood. Genesis 8:1
says that God made a wind to pass over the earth.
Meteor strikes can and will cause wind. It isn't
out of the question. We also have a small group
of people living in one small part of the entire
world----Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their
wives. Again, there are possibilities if one
is willing to consider them.

I believe that you will find that most things that are stated about super novas is based on hypotheses.
The distance it takes light to reach earth is factual, not hypothetical. Many stellar objects are so far away, it would take hundreds of thousands of years for the light to reach us.

Is the universe folded on itself?
Actually, the two prevailing theories are a 4D saddle-shaped universe and a 4D spherical shaped universe.

Is the distance from earth to a distant star millions of light-years or only a worm-hole away?
Wormholes, scientifically known as singularities, are specific objects. Light from a star a million miles away cannot be seen "via a wormhole". That's like saying the light from Vega can be seen via Usra Major. To date, there has been no record of light from a far away object escaping from a nearby singularity.

Does light pass through worm-holes? No. Light is effected by gravity. A singularity's gravity is powerful enough to trap light particles. A singularity's gravity is great enough to prevent light particles from leaving its surface.

Originally posted by A_Christian:
The meteors likely hit just before during and
at the tail end of the Flood. Genesis 8:1
says that God made a wind to pass over the earth.
Meteor strikes can and will cause wind. It isn't
out of the question.

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Actually, there is absolutely no biblical evidence of meterorites coming down during the flood of Noah. There is no terrestrial evidence of meterorites being concentrated into a single year of time in the history of the earth. There is extra-terrestrial evidence of concentrated meterite bombardment, but it is all so ancient that those craters are pretty much eroded way on earth. And there is no meteorite strike that ever caused wind UNLESS you count blast effects similar to an explosion.

What about supernovas? I mean, even if you get around the problem of how far away they are to us, how do you explain their existence at all? It takes at least a million years for them to form.

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at the rate we see today….

If the earth is only a few thousand years old, why are there no ancient records of big meteor hits? There are a little over (IIRC) 140 big craters on the earth's surface. How is it that people survived some of the big craters? With that many craters in such a short period of time, how did early man survive?

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There are plenty of ancient records. You will find them recorded in legends. Wars between the gods of the sea, the sky, and the air. Sometimes called hail, but the word translated in the Hebrew, for instance, is not meaning hail as we know it, but rocks. The Maoris (I think it is) from New Zealand have a story about when the moon got a ‘dirty face’ and it is associated with rocks being thrown. The stories are there; you just have to know where to look for them.

And many did not survive the big catastrophic hits. The Flood, Babel, and the time of Peleg were probably all times of catastrophic impacts. However, if you look, you will find the majority of impacts from any one time are concentrated on one part of the globe; for instance the impacts at the K/T extinction (65 million atomic years ago) were primarily in the western part of the northern hemisphere. The moon shows the same type of concentration, indicating fast and multiple hits in a short amount of time.

Many stellar objects are so far away, it would take hundreds of thousands of years for the light to reach us

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Only if the speed of light was the same then as now, which it wasn’t. Also, John, light photons are not ‘particles’. They have some particle-like characteristics and some wave-like characteristics, but they are not specifically either.

Also, blast effects from meteorites really are wind! Forests are blown over by them, as we know from the impact in, I think it was, Siberia, a hundred or so years ago.

at the rate we see today….

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Do you have any support for this?

There are plenty of ancient records. You will find them recorded in legends. Wars between the gods of the sea, the sky, and the air. Sometimes called hail, but the word translated in the Hebrew, for instance, is not meaning hail as we know it, but rocks. The Maoris (I think it is) from New Zealand have a story about when the moon got a ‘dirty face’ and it is associated with rocks being thrown. The stories are there; you just have to know where to look for them.

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So what was "hail" called? Also I think there is a significant difference between rocks hitting the earth (hey maybe they were *small* meteors), and big meteors hitting the earth and leaving craters.

And many did not survive the big catastrophic hits. The Flood, Babel, and the time of Peleg were probably all times of catastrophic impacts. However, if you look, you will find the majority of impacts from any one time are concentrated on one part of the globe; for instance the impacts at the K/T extinction (65 million atomic years ago) were primarily in the western part of the northern hemisphere. The moon shows the same type of concentration, indicating fast and multiple hits in a short amount of time.

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I thought you were a literalist? The flood is the flood, not a meteor hit. Do you have biblical support for this? I'm a little perplexed by your answer involving the K/T extinction. Are you admitting an old earth, or are you denying the age of the reading yet ignoring the sizable impact of the extinction?

Also, blast effects from meteorites really are wind! Forests are blown over by them, as we know from the impact in, I think it was, Siberia, a hundred or so years ago.

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IIRC- the impact from that meteor was seen from several miles away (perhaps 20-80+?). Why no record of massive explosions?

I was just wondering what you thought of the Vredefort crater? Why wasn't the end of all life as we know it written about in the bible? For Young Earthers this particular impact poses a problem, as it happened in Africa and was a HUGE meteor (roughly 300 km) Meteor Diameters (you can also see by this website that Helen's claim of centralized meteor hits is pretty much wrong.

So why wasn't the following written about in the bible:

Very big impactors are rare, but if one the size of Vredefort should hit us, it would probably spell the end of life as we know it.

Colossal fires and tidal waves would sweep away landmarks, killing millions if not billions immediately. Ejecta and dust thrown from the impact zone would do the long-term damage, darkening the skies and chilling the seas for centuries, putting an end to agriculture and possibly disrupting the atmospheric processes from which we draw our air.

This is what seems to have caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs. About 65-million years ago, an asteroid ploughed into what is now the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, setting in motion the chain reactions that killed off Earth's dominant species in a few short years. Known as the Chicxulub crater, this is regarded as the world's third-largest.

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Taken from the Cambridge Conference Correspondence

You might consider Genesis 7:16

Now you might consider as a Fundamentalist
Christian that I imagine a big hand shutting the
door of the ark. I would not laugh at the
thought; however, I would be just as likely to
imagine the blast of an asteroid collision
slamming the door shut.

Both would be under GOD's control and the
verse would still be literal. God shut him in...

I wonder if Bob is going to blast you for your interpretation...

In any event, as indicated there were more then one meteor impacts. Not to mention: why would God close the ark door with enough power to totally decimate the world? Wouldn't the ark be torn to bits?

Both would be under GOD's control and the
verse would still be literal. God shut him in...

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How would what you suggest be literal?