Something hit me yesterday reading these forums

That has been argued and set aside. In essence, God creating an artificially-old earth, replete with fossils -- would be a deception.

God doesn't have to decieve in order to do what He does. The burried bodies are most likely remnants from the flood.

 

Its not a deception. Good grief. I do not know that there was a need for fossils at the point of creation. But there has been plenty of time for them to occur. And the current systems of dating are agenda driven and often circular in formatting. today's dating system will be discredited later. Man's science is always changing but God's Word is sure and never does. Stick with that and leave the unreliable science to those who have no hope and do not want it.

 

So where are the fossil layers that contain the millions of people that were killed in the Flood?

 

How many people were alive at the time of the flood?

Also, how creative were people compared to other critters? Might they have swum, hung onto debris, floated for some time, been displaced, etc., so as to not end up at the bottom of a particular ravine such as the many more animals seemed to? Aditionally, think OIL and COAL. Both by-products of living materal burried and broken down... Could some of that be human? Probably.

 

When Jesus created enough loaves and fishes to feed 5000+ people he created those items with an appearence of age that they didn't have. You might call it a deception, I call it God at work.

 

The deception is not that the earth was created "mature." Of course it was. Trees were already producing fruit on day one!

The deception is the issue of burried fossils and the like, all of which would indicate that life preceeded life.

 

So where are the fossil layers that contain the millions of people that were killed in the Flood?

 

Then why does the Bible say that tree "grew up out of the ground"?

Gen 2: 9And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food;

Was this growing process like the time-lapse photography films you see of plants growing? Happened in a few seconds?

 

In you humble opinion that is.

 

Thank you for your question: It's like a light bulb went off in my head. ......Let me see if I can explain.

You ask about an "aged earth"..... Well....
I believe in a 7 day week and 6 days of creation.... literally! Just as the Bible says... The plants were already mature... either producing or ready to be fruitful in their season. .... The animals were already mature and mature enough to multiply and nuture their young.

Adam and Eve... physically mature in their bodies.... sufficiently developed to accomplish God's mandates.... to care for the garden, to care for themselves and find nourishment in God's provisions, and to be fruitful and multiply.

BUT, it also occurs to me.... though this is on dangerous ground to conjecture... but given the likely-hood that the maturity of plants, animals, and man was present at the moment each was created... plants sufficient enough to sustain the nourishment of all living.... Is it not only possible but even probable..... that the earth in itself was also "aged" such that the dating systems which man (science) proposes to be a constant.... were created as an "aged" process: Thus we are often confused because of the limitations of our mind... and self-deceived that what we are told by evolutionist and dating is a process of billions upon billions of years... is actually the physical evidence of eternity stamped in the creation by our eternal Creator! If you will.... for example, the carbon dating system may actually be registering a very young earth .... if correctly understood that its beginning was at creation.... but God could have created it with such advanced "age" that It was created approximately 6000 years ago... but is evidence of eternity... with an age impossible for man to accurately measure or comprehend?

If I understand correctly, the Bible indicates that God left evidence in all that He made as a witness and testimony to us as to His existence.... and because of all this evidence... we have no excuse if we reject Him.

First.... where does it say that there were millions of people?
If I count correctly... beginning with Adam through the line of Seth to and including Noah... there were 10 generations. As only sons were counted (and not all... just those of continuity from Noah backward to Adam) with the age of each father at his son's birth.... it seems that fatherhood was more common at a later time of life than we think of as normal. Does this hint at delayed pubescence or a yet developing pro-creative drive? Gen 8:21 indicates that God removed the curse upon the ground AFTER the flood (nkjv). Gen 9:1-3 indicates the first mention of eating flesh... and the fear of man in animals.

Was this also the beginning of the predatory instinct within animals for each other? (I don't know.)

BUT prior to the flood, there was violence and all flesh had corrupted their way, Gen 6:11-12.

With the difficulties mankind faced, is it not likely that so much time and energy was consumed with survival and development of skills that the expansion of the human race was much slower than we might compute today? Thus it might have been thousands of people.. even a few million.... but we don't know: we weren't there to do a census..... and in God's eyes of goodness comprising both judgment and love.... many people could have been as little as a few hundred or few thousand judged.... from which He saved ONLY 8 persons in the ark.

Would there be a lot of human fossils? I doubt it. Considering, too, that chances are that human kind tends to congregate, not too likely that they were dispersed too far from their original beginnings.

Cain, an outcast... ventured East of the garden to the land of Nod. For the animals... this is different. Those not dependent on man for survival likely spread and populated more areas.... but were also consumed by the flood except those taken on the ark.

For the hundred years during which Noah built the ark with his sons.... he also preached the warning to the people. This also encourages me to think that they had not spread in numbers nor in places as we might suppose by todays calculations. Another aspect of this also considers that the development of iron, music etc. indicates that man was intelligent and quite sophisticated from the beginning.... and possibly very capable of running to the high ground... then grasping upon any float-um which rode the surface of water until exhausted and consumed by the deluge. How many would settle to the basins beneath the flood? or be eaten by the fish? or decay completely? I don't know. I will say..... I've ventured here to speculate.... and that CAN BE a dangerous and slippery ground IF taken too seriously.... without evidence of proof nor scriptural validation.... the later more important than the former.

One thing I do know: That is that I don't know that NO fossils of mankind have been found dating to pre-flood. Just one fossil remain from that time would suffice as evidence. But, if I believe the Bible.... whether or not any are found... I know God does not lie... and whether it was 10 that died in the flood or tens of thousands... it matters not.... God judged them all and save 8 out of it...... and THAT settles it for me.

 

The same question could be asked of all the animals that were alive at the time of the flood. The answer is that most animal and human remains were not buried in suitable sediment for fossilization to take place.

Next, as previously mentioned it isn't likely there were "millions" of people at the time of the flood. IMHO, the percentage of humans to animals of all types was very low. Even with animals, we don't have massive amounts of fossils all over the world. If we did, it wouldn't be "news" to the degree it is when a complete skeletal fossil turns up of the larger animals that roamed the earth at that time. Considering the world as a whole, there are only isolated spots where there's an abundance of non-sea life fossils have been found.

 

-At the beginning, The plants were growing in dirt. What is dirt made of? Dead and decomposed plant and animal matter. Was God deceptive in covering most of the area of earth with substance that we know is evidence of prior plant and animal life? If the Material is not so decomposed, but still in the shape of a bone, does that automatically make it more deceptive?

 

Don't know, wasn't there. We only know what we are told and evidently, the process happened rather quickly. On day 6 there were animals and human beings eating fruit and grain.

There is this -- sort of a reverse episode (and also harkening to Jesus' expectation that fruit trees are SUPPOSED to bear fruit to feed hungry humans -- and would except for the curse -- as we see finalized in Revelation where they once again do bear fruit continually.

“And on the morrow, when they had come out of Bethany, he [Jesus] hungered. And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if perhaps he might find anything thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season of figs. And he answered and said unto it, ‘No man [will] eat fruit from you from now on — for ever.’ And his disciples heard it . . .And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance said unto him, ‘Rabbi, behold, the fig tree that you cursed is withered away’” (Mk. 11:12-14; 20-21).

 

It tells me that people obeyed God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" and were enabled by their superior physical bodies not yet completely tainted from the Fall to produce many children. We don't know how old women could become and continue to birth children but I would guess it went beyond the age of 50. We don't know how many children Cain's line had. We don't know if humans from A&E's line mingled with Cain's line (very likely) and these would not have been recorded.

How many years was it from the Creation to the Flood? 1,500 years? That's 50 - 70 child bearing generations. There could have easily been millions of people on earth at the time of the Flood.

 

God is not deceptive. Everything He does is yea and yea. His word is true; The real identity of the Creator is imprinted upon all that He made.... in all His Creation. I'd never thought about it this way before... but the Bible declares even the heavens declare the glory of God. We're made in His image. The Psalmist says that even if he descends to hell.... he can't flee from God nor hide from Him there. IOW.... all creation shows forth God's handiwork; or one might think of it as the signature of the author... just like an artist signs a painting... authenticating it as made by and belonging to Him; originating by Him. The Bible says that God placed eternity in man's heart. Why isn't it probable that God also placed the signature of eternity within the date of the earth itself... for man to discover. God does not deceive; Only we are deceived.... because rather than seeking and searching for the truth... we look inward to our own imaginations and create fables to excuse ourselves, commend ourselves, and attempt to make ourselves as equal to God.... when we continue to yield to the master deceiver whose mastery and lie was accepted in the garden the moment of the fall. Thus, the "science" which springs from our natural preference to these fables, may actually uncover real evidence... but it perverts the understanding because the inclination of the natural man is to reject the truth and create a god after our own image..... as contrasted to bearing the truth and carrying forth the glory (which we departed from in the fall) of God given when He created us in His image.

IOW, the evidence of science reveals that by carbon dating... the creation APPEARS to have been made so many eons ago... our mind is incapable of comprehending it. However, the earth and the carbon dating that science observes as "evidence" of creation ... may be the "imprint" of the Eternal One upon it... making it impossible to register the true beginning.... even if only 6 or 7 thousand years old.

What we mistake for the measure of time... is actually the signature of the Creator upon His creation... not the actual time it took to make that creation: Another way of putting this.... the earth may be very young in its existence... like 6 thousand years.... yet carry within it the evidence which contemporary scientist interpret by measurement to be so very old, or aged... that its impossible for them to conclude the time of its origin. What they (the scientist) interpret to be representative of time... is actually the evidence God created in a young but 'already aged' creation ... as you put it... hinting at His eternal existence .....His presence and being beyond and before anything He made ever came into being... a timelessness which man cannot ever measure. God has not deceived us! Creation bears the testimony of His mark upon it. When we reject Him, we reject the evidence He gave us; we deceive ourselves when we reject the truth and make up our own stories, as evolutionary science has.

 

Actually I think the notion of created with age is foundational to a thorough-going cosmology. I'm not a young earther either. If we consider the first creation account (Gen 1:1-2:3) to be a polemical refutation to the pagan creation myths contemporary the early Isrealite generations, then the data in the second account becomes a clearer indication concerning the nature of actual creation.

Fossils are not, IMHO, part of the original creation account but did get in place naturally. Also if we account for Adam and Eve in Eden being a temporally unique situation (given the nature of its creation) they could have easily lived for a very long time between their creation and the Fall. Even more if the place of Eden, not temporally aligned with earth, had a unique time structure. I don't know but the accounts in Genesis are not modernist empirical standards but pre-modern, pre-scientific accounts of creation. That needs to be understood.

Anyways, all that said, you don't have to dismiss a valid argument just because you find it difficult. All arguments of cosmology are difficult.