A day in Gods world is a million here

[Panther]

Not all Spaniels have short legs!

 

[Walter]

Hi Barney:

I previously strongly recommended that you read the entire Bible and Koran prior to asserting what is not contained therein and arguing with yourself. While your arguing with yourself can be quite amusing to the learned and can provide mirth, it can mislead those less informed and it is for that reason that I am responding.

You have started at Genesis chapter 2 and then drew various conclusions. Why did you not read Genesis chapter 1 which describes the concept of creation that is presented in chapter 2?

Let me digress a bit. The Koran opens with the following words:

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace,
those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.​

If we could commence our investigations and discussions with such an attitude, then we would certainly accomplish so much more.

The Bible starts with the following statement which has never been refuted:

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

Please note that time has not yet been defined. He did not create the heavens and the earth on the first day, but He did create them in the beginning of Biblical recorded history.

In verse three, God prepared the earth for life and the first day is defined. God continues working for six days, creating life on the earth, and then rests on the seventh.

So to respond to your assertions:

1. How old is the earth? We do not know. We can only speculate and try to interpret the evidence that we can measure on the earth and in the heavens, using various assumptions that we cannot always verify.

2. How long did God take to make the earth? Again, we do not know. What we do know is that God made it in the beginning. When was the beginning? We can only speculate in the manner described in the response to question 1.

As to the rest of your assertions, please be advised that I cannot comment on stories that you learned in Sunday school or from the pulpit. You must agree that Sunday school stories are normally purposefully grossly simplified in order to teach 3 to 5 year old children, and information from a pulpit can be a subjective opinion. I urge you to read the Bible for yourself and then come and let us discuss scriptural issues more efficiently.

Regards,
Grenville

 

[Muezzin]

Wrong. "Time:" is as flawed a concept as "race."

It still exists, because we make it so. Would you say 'crime' does not exist, in any way shape or form, solely because it is a human construct?

It may be useful, but it doesnt mean it exists. Do you think there is such a thing as "race?" Both are concepts developed by humans, not reality.

It exists. It just has no ontological reality (i.e. it does not exist independently). Again, like 'crime'.

Apparently we have different concepts of existence.

 

[barney]

Hi Barney:

I previously strongly recommended that you read the entire Bible and Koran prior to asserting what is not contained therein and arguing with yourself. While your arguing with yourself can be quite amusing to the learned and can provide mirth, it can mislead those less informed and it is for that reason that I am responding.

You have started at Genesis chapter 2 and then drew various conclusions. Why did you not read Genesis chapter 1 which describes the concept of creation that is presented in chapter 2?

Let me digress a bit. The Koran opens with the following words:

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace,
those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.​

If we could commence our investigations and discussions with such an attitude, then we would certainly accomplish so much more.

The Bible starts with the following statement which has never been refuted:

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

Please note that time has not yet been defined. He did not create the heavens and the earth on the first day, but He did create them in the beginning of Biblical recorded history.

In verse three, God prepared the earth for life and the first day is defined. God continues working for six days, creating life on the earth, and then rests on the seventh.

So to respond to your assertions:

1. How old is the earth? We do not know. We can only speculate and try to interpret the evidence that we can measure on the earth and in the heavens, using various assumptions that we cannot always verify.

2. How long did God take to make the earth? Again, we do not know. What we do know is that God made it in the beginning. When was the beginning? We can only speculate in the manner described in the response to question 1.

As to the rest of your assertions, please be advised that I cannot comment on stories that you learned in Sunday school or from the pulpit. You must agree that Sunday school stories are normally purposefully grossly simplified in order to teach 3 to 5 year old children, and information from a pulpit can be a subjective opinion. I urge you to read the Bible for yourself and then come and let us discuss scriptural issues more efficiently.

Regards,
Grenville

Hi Grenville.

Firstly I cant approach any arguement seeking Gods aid & Grace. I'm a Agnostic! Thats the entire point! So I wont accomplish anything by doing this except swinging an arguement towards a pro-religeious viewpoint regardless of facts.

You responded with
Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Please note that time has not yet been defined. He did not create the heavens and the earth on the first day, but He did create them in the beginning of Biblical recorded history.

Read this:

9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

So we see that the Formless earth....with no land, (???) had the land created by scooping up the sea and dumping it in one or two spots. This happened on Day 3, the day after he made the stars and the sun laugh: Umm the earth came from the sun!:laugh: ) Then he seperated the dark from the light from its initial state of ...of..umm...lighty-dark!

I could go on and on, but your assertation that we dont know the age of the earth is sunk by the creation on the third day of land.


At no point in the Bible's first chapter is there any indication that the beginning was not the start of the first day.

Argueing that this is what it means is jumping through rather inconvienent linguistical hoops.

The church has raged against the existance of dinosaurs and Cavemen ever since they were discovered. Why rage against it? Well because it shoots "the creation" out of the water. Nowadays, squinting carefully at the grammar of the scriptures and saying "ahh, but theres a period of time before the first day! Its Day..ummm..day NOTHING!" is, im sure you can see, just clutching at straws.

I have to admit, It filled me with wonder as a child, and as a child we accept anything.
As adults as we learn that there is no evidence for these stories, and that they are totally contradictory to facts, we must make a choice.

Either the Bible is wrong or we just arnt reading it right. Lets have another look and seperate sentances to fit a "get-out-free" clause in there.

If you had this discussion and used that approach with someone in 1815AD, they would consider you nuts. "Of course its not Day Zero! It would have said! Its day 1...look there in black and white!"


Anyway, at the end of the day, each to their own. Carefully reading it again for the fiftieth time, simply asserts that the prophets and scribes diddnt know nothing about the worlds creation, and came up with something very poetic and plausable to the pre-modern age.

Regards

 

[Philosopher]

The Bible is clear that Adam, the first man, lived only 6000 years ago. Adam was created on the sixth day of God's Creation Week, so the earth must be only 6000 years old too.

How old is the earth?

If we go back 500 years, we come to the time of Martin Luther (born in 1483), and Columbus, who “sailed the ocean blue in 1492.”

If we go back 1000 years, we come to the time of Leif Ericson, Christian explorer, who preached Christ to pagans. (World Book, 1983, vol.6, page 270.)

If we go back 2000 years, we come to the birth of Jesus Christ. Our calendar is dated from His birth.

If we go back 3000 years, we come to the time of David and Solomon; they ruled Israel about 1000 BC.

If we go back 4000 years, we come to the time of Abraham (2000 BC), ancestor of Arabs and Jews.

If we go back 5000 years, we come to the time of Enoch, who “walked with God 300 years … and God took him [into Heaven].”

If we go back 6000 years, we come to the time of Creation, and Adam and Eve (4004 BC). Luke, evangelist and historian, records Adam as the first man (Luke 3:38).

The earth is about 6000 years old. Let God's people rejoice in Him who made them! (Psalm 149:2)

We would add that although many people don't accept this timeline of history, they have difficulty deciding exactly when they would start to disagree with it.

• Was Jesus Christ real? The Bible says he was, and no serious historian doubts it.
• Was King David real? The Bible says he was. Again, there is no reason to doubt it.
• Was Abraham real? The Bible says he was. There seems no reason to doubt this either.
• Was Enoch real? The Bible says he was. There is no reason to think the Bible has suddenly lapsed into fiction when the other people were genuine historical figures.
• Was Adam real? Well, Enoch was a son of Cain, who was a son of Adam. So if Enoch was real there is no reason to think that his father Cain wasn't, or that his grandfather Adam wasn't. They were only two generations away.

And Adam was the first man, created in the first week of the earth's existence.

He lived about 6000 years ago.



Note: This rubbish I just posted was written by a Christian fundamentalist based on his interpretation of the Bible.

For more reading (Warning: Be prepared to kill brain cells ), please visit:

http://www.conservapedia.com/How_old_is_the_earth_according_to_the_bible?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/05/30/how-old-is-earth
http://home1.gte.net/bridavis/timeline.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/creationismcreationists/a/bible.htm
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

 

[islamirama]

Man some people just like to argue for no reason but the sake of arguments. We already have the answers to the quetsions posed.

Here's the Christian view on this:

Hi Barney:

I previously strongly recommended that you read the entire Bible and Koran prior to asserting what is not contained therein and arguing with yourself. While your arguing with yourself can be quite amusing to the learned and can provide mirth, it can mislead those less informed and it is for that reason that I am responding.

You have started at Genesis chapter 2 and then drew various conclusions. Why did you not read Genesis chapter 1 which describes the concept of creation that is presented in chapter 2?

Let me digress a bit. The Koran opens with the following words:

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace,
those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.​

If we could commence our investigations and discussions with such an attitude, then we would certainly accomplish so much more.

The Bible starts with the following statement which has never been refuted:

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

Please note that time has not yet been defined. He did not create the heavens and the earth on the first day, but He did create them in the beginning of Biblical recorded history.

In verse three, God prepared the earth for life and the first day is defined. God continues working for six days, creating life on the earth, and then rests on the seventh.

So to respond to your assertions:

1. How old is the earth?
We do not know. We can only speculate and try to interpret the evidence that we can measure on the earth and in the heavens, using various assumptions that we cannot always verify.

2. How long did God take to make the earth?
Again, we do not know. What we do know is that God made it in the beginning.

When was the beginning? We can only speculate in the manner described in the response to question 1.

As to the rest of your assertions, please be advised that I cannot comment on stories that you learned in Sunday school or from the pulpit. You must agree that Sunday school stories are normally purposefully grossly simplified in order to teach 3 to 5 year old children, and information from a pulpit can be a subjective opinion. I urge you to read the Bible for yourself and then come and let us discuss scriptural issues more efficiently.

Regards,
Grenville

Here's the Mulims view on this:

My thought has always been how can God be restricted by our concept of time?

I agree. How often do we say a dog is this many years old (measuring by OUR time) rather then say the dog is this many years old (measuring by dog years)?

A day is the length of time that it takes a planet to rotate on its axis (360°). A day on Earth takes almost 24 hours.

The planet with the longest day is Venus; a day on Venus takes 243 Earth days. (A day on Venus is longer than its year; a year on Venus takes only 224.7 Earth days).

The planet with the shortest day is Jupiter; a day on Jupiter only takes 9.8 Earth hours! When you observe Jupiter from Earth, you can see some of its features change.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/planets/

So how does someone from jupitar or venus measure how long the earth was created for? how about someone from space? Why do they feel the need to say earth years, when they say day as we say day but they day is not the same as ours.

Hi.

My Mum and lots of other Christians answer the question.
"Umm the world developed over millions of years...so whats with the 7 days thingy", with the response, " Ahh, but a day here is like a million or something in heaven....and God knows best"

Anyone know when this phenomenon took off? i mean If God told Abraham or whatever prophet he was talking to at the time, the world was made in 7 days...why diddnt he just say, the world was made in 7000000000 of your earth years. Totally less confusing. i'm sure if the ancients hadnt a number for 70000000000 then God could have said " Each day that the world was made in was equal to a sand bucket and each grain was a year, after half a bucket I made Birds and after a cupful of sand I seperated light from dark, which is quite a trick , cos what were they before eh? lighty-dark? Anyway, then after the bucket was nearly full I created man...and It was good"

But he diddnt. He said 7 Days. Islam says he diddnt have to rest and it was 5 (?) days and the jews had misheard this or deliberatly changed it.

So when did the Church /Clergy /immams start saying "A day is a billion squillion years". Was it at the time when carbon dating proved that Birds came 200 million years after "Beasts of the land".

Cos if so then it just so smacks of the prophets getting racked off with thousands of people queing up and asking questions like .
"Is My blue your blue? "
"I just gotta know! how long did this place take to be built? Ask him!"
"If I eat my own leg, do i still weight the same?"
"Whats with Spanials! Why are their legs so short?"

I don't know where you got the idea of 7days for christians and jews and 5 days for Muslims. The earth was created in 6days according to all 3 faiths, with difference being that the people of the book says God rested on 7th day while Islam says God is Al-Mighty and doens't get tired nor needs rest.

And we don't need to say 1 day = xxx now and change our knowledge and belief becuase of what science has revealed. Islam is the truth where as science is nothing more than error and trials. Science is a guessing game where you make a guess (hypotesis) and then you prove your guess to be right or wrong and then that is a fact for you. But this fact is not absolute fact becuase science advances in time as does our knowledge and then we find out what we thought to be the fact and true is false now according to our new knowledge and discoveries.

A recent example is alcohol. At first doctors said wine is ok in small doses for pregnant women, just last week a new news article came out that said that the previous facts are false and that it's not ok and pregnant women shouldn't drink one bit.

Anyways, the point being that science is not absolute and what it true today may not be true tomorrow. What rock you examined today with our current methods may not be as old as it is by the advance science of tomorrow.

Anyways, here's some interesting readings for you.

Is a day with Allaah one thousand years or fifty thousand years?

haykh Muhammad al-Ameen al-Shanqeeti said in his book Daf’ Ayhaam al-Idtiraab ‘an Aayaat al-Kitaab (p. 158):

“The aayah (interpretation of the meaning) ‘…And, verily, a day with your Lord is as a thousand years of what you reckon’ [al-Hajj 22:47] indicates that the length of a day with Allaah is a thousand years. The same is indicated by the aayah (interpretation of the meaning) ‘He arranges (every) affair from the heavens to the earth, then it (the affair) will go up to Him, in one Day, the space whereof is a thousand years of your reckoning.’ [al-Sajdah 32:5]. Another aayah indicates something different (interpretation of the meaning): ‘The angels and the Rooh [Jibreel] ascend to Him in a Day the measure whereof is fifty thousand years’ [al-Ma’aarij 70:4].

There are two ways in which these aayaat may be reconciled:

The first was reported by Ibn Abi Haatim via Sammaak from ‘Ikrimah from Ibn ‘Abbaas: the day of a thousand years mentioned in Soorat al-Hajj is one of the six days in which Allaah created the heavens and the earth; the day of a thousand years mentioned in Soorat al-Sajdah is the length of time it takes for a matter to go up to Allaah; and the day of fifty thousand years is the Day of Resurrection.

The second (way of reconciling the aayaat) is that what is meant by all of them is the Day of Resurrection, and the difference in the time span depends on whether a person is a believer or a kaafir. This is indicated by the aayah (interpretation of the meaning): ‘Truly that Day will be a Hard Day, far from easy for the disbelievers.” [al-Muddaththir 74:9-10]. These two suggestions were mentioned by the author of al-Itqaan. And Allaah knows best.”

Islam Q&A
Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid

Like woodrow mentioned, the time concept in the west is different then the east. The west its 24hrs no matter what. But also its a fact that days are longer in the summer and shorter in the winter (measured by day light of course). Even in the old days in the west, time was measured as it is in the east today. Summers are longer than winters. When the sun goes doesn, its night time and people than go to sleep.

So a day with Allah based on above readings is a 1000yrs. And to contradict you, Allah does tell us in the Quran how long that day is in human years

[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]*{...verily a day in the sight of thy Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning.}* (Al-Hajj 22:47) [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]

And the 50,000yrs years will be the day of Resurrection. It will be a day streched out to the max and would equal to 50,000 years for us. Think of it as one loooong hot summer day.

Anyways, Here's some Islamic view on the following...


[/FONT]Were the heavens and the earth created in six days or eight?

Creation of the earth and universe



(1) The Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran

A) The Quran on Human Embryonic Development
B) The Quran on Mountains
C) The Quran on the Origin of the Universe
D) The Quran on the Cerebrum
E) The Quran on Seas and Rivers
F) The Quran on Deeps Seas and Internal Waves
G) The Quran on Clouds
H) Scientists’ Comments on the Scientific Miracles in the Holy Quran (with RealPlayer Video)

As for the non-religion based people, they really don't know the facts. Their facts are based on scientific reasoning which itself is a tool used by man to find the facts by trial and error. How often have we seen something as facts but as science progress that those "facts" are then changed to new facts with new evidence. There is no absolute answer with science, its only what our limited capacity can come up with as an answer to anything till someone smarter comes along and re-answers the same question.

Earth may have been created loooooong before humans were created. We are not the center of the universe, God created other creatures as well and spread them thru out the universe. We are not the only intelligent beings either, it's foolish to think otherwise.

 

[barney]

Note: This rubbish I just posted was written by a Christian fundamentalist based on his interpretation of the Bible.

For more reading (Warning: Be prepared to kill brain cells ), please visit:

http://www.conservapedia.com/How_old_is_the_earth_according_to_the_bible?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/05/30/how-old-is-earth
http://home1.gte.net/bridavis/timeline.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/creationismcreationists/a/bible.htm
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

Owch! My head! Thanks for the link.

I love the bit where he says there are 63 sources in his study that state the world is <10000 years old, but only a few that state its older.
Mmmmmm...the 63 sources, those would be the christian ones eh? :laugh:

 

[Walter]

Hi Barney:

Have you read the verses that you quoted? Do they not show that your assertion that God made land on the third day is erroneous? Please read the verse again.

Genesis 1:9 - Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

Please note that it does not say that God created the land at this time, it says “and let the dry land appear”. You must agree that this means that the land was created before, but it was under the water. What water? The water described in Geneses 1:1

Genesis 1:1 - And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And when was the earth that was under the water created?

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

When was this beginning? There is insufficient evidence in the Biblical account to say conclusively.

You then asserted:

At no point in the Bible's first chapter is there any indication that the beginning was not the start of the first day.
Argueing that this is what it means is jumping through rather inconvienent linguistical hoops. .

You claim to be from England. Well if English is your first language, and if you cannot see what is clearly written in the Queen’s English, then I cannot help you. Let us therefore agree to disagree and move on. Have a great weekend.

Regards,
Grenville

 

[Philosopher]

Owch! My head! Thanks for the link.

I love the bit where he says there are 63 sources in his study that state the world is <10000 years old, but only a few that state its older.
Mmmmmm...the 63 sources, those would be the christian ones eh? :laugh:

LOL, it comes mostly from the Bible :rollseyes Somebody needs to educate God.

 

[barney]

Let us therefore agree to disagree and move on. Have a great weekend.

Regards,
Grenville

Agreed! And have a great one yourself.

 

[Trumble]

It depends on how you define existence. If you define existence based on your senses, then there really is no way you can prove whether light, time, magnetism, or you exist. For example, lets say you are blind, deaf, and you do not have the ability to feel through your senses. All of your senses you have that help you identify things are turned off. Would I exit? I may be standing right in front of you ...according to your philosophy, I wouldn't exist because you don't have your senses to detect me. Therefore if you define time not so much as a measurement, but a progression of events, you can 'have time pass you buy' and not even know it. So just because you can't perceive time, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You just have to discover it.
So turn your senses back on and get enlightened.

Senses have nothing to do with it. If you accept, for sake of argument, no more than the cogito as a starting position you could (eventually) postulate everything from God to general relativity; the fact you would certainly be hard pushed to test either experimentally doesn't matter in the slightest. It is not important whether I know where you are standing, or even whether you exist; the important thing is that I know there is an 'I', I am able to conceive there may be a 'you', that you may be standing in front of me, but that you may have the capacity to be doing something other than that. ALL of that, though, is a human construct; it can't possibly be anything else.

But what if you discard your assumption; that there are senses to be turned back on, that there is a "you" (or indeed an "I") to do the perceiving, or (at the very least) that at some time there has been, or will be. Where then is 'time' and 'momentum'?