SteveMiller wrote:kwrandolph wrote:This comes to the question, what is the nature of light? Is it a separate creation? Or is it the byproduct of setting atoms into motion? From physics I learn that light is the result of nuclear motion.
The picture I get from reading Genesis 1:1–3 is that God created the earth, which initially was absolutely still, lifeless, in darkness, yet already had atoms of all kinds and molecular compounds. Then God set the completed earth into motion, and light is the result of motion.
So did God create light in v1 or v3?
Before verse 3 there was no light. The earth was absolutely still, not moving. We’re talking about 0° K. In verse 3 God didn’t “create” light, i.e. as a new creation, rather he had light come into being. Or in physics terms, God warmed up the earth and started the atoms jiggling, and as the atoms jiggled, light came forth.
SteveMiller wrote:kwrandolph wrote:SteveMiller wrote:All the dating methods have assumptions which may be wrong.
However we know for sure that dinosaurs covered the earth at one time. Now there are none. What happened to them? Why would God go to all the trouble to preserve them on Noah's ark only to let them go extinct shortly afterward? I don't think they were around at the time of Noah's ark. I think they existed between Gen 1:1 and 1:2.
What about the dinosaurs? When did they go extinct? Did they go extinct? Did people have interactions with them?
For example, what was the “grendel” that Beowulf killed? While that was in Denmark, and referencing to other histories is datable to about 500 AD, apparently that animal was widespread, for in Switzerland there’s a city named “Forest of the Grendels” — Grindelwald. The description fits the T-Rex. It also fits the burrunjur in some very wild areas in Australia.
What about other records in history? For example, in English records, there was one farmer who killed a “dragon” that had three horns on its head. Another record another farmer killed one that had spikes on its tail. And still more of sightings, and this is just England. In other very remote places, sightings continue up to this day. Are all dinosaurs extinct? Have they become very few because humans killed them off and loss of habitat?
Is there any need to postulate a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? Is there any linguistic reason to say that that gap must be there?
Karl W. Randolph.
I don't think there is a linguistic need for a gap between v1 and v2, but the text allows for that.
I reconcile the text with what I consider to be verifiable science.
What do you mean by “science”?
The science I was taught in state universities and in secular science textbooks unanimously limits science to the study of observable phenomena where the observations are repeatable, from which are derived hypotheses and theories and against which theories and hypotheses are tested. That definition limits science to the study of present, physical processes. The past is no longer observable, therefore cannot be studied by science. Science cannot study ideas like justice, aesthetics, love, mercy, etc. because these and similar concepts are not observable. Any theory that depends on unobservable “facts” by definition cannot be a scientific theory. That definition limits science able to discuss only a small window of total knowledge.
According to that definition, no dating method is scientific, because they are all based on unobservable presuppositions. Fossils are dug out of the ground, but we cannot observe how and when they were formed. People can guess, based on their religious choices and presuppositions, but those guesses by definition are not science.
SteveMiller wrote:Dinosaurs are a huge category of creatures, not just a species. There were dinosaurs as small as chickens. There were herbivores and carnivores. Yet now there are none.
Are there none? Or is it just that “scientists” don’t want their nice little bubble burst, a bubble that claims that there are none, therefore they don’t go out and look, don’t follow up on observations by natives? Nor even of westerners who claim to have seen them? (“Oh, they’re not scientists.” What sort of excuse is that?)
Fresh dinosaur tracks in wet mud have been recorded in the area around the Licouri Swamp in Africa, for centuries. Natives tell they prefer to stay in water, and which fruits they like to eat. Job 40:21–23. That’s just one example, there are others in other areas of the earth.
SteveMiller wrote:So God put 2 of each species of this huge category of creatures on the ark, and now there is not one left that can be verified? What other species have gone extinct? Not many, and most of those are just an adaption of a species that still lives.
Around 1900 in one area of Wales, the local farmers killed off scaled flying creatures, because they had too much a liking for the farmers’ chickens. They were reported to have sparkled like jewels when they flew. They were only about the size of large hawks.
SteveMiller wrote:Another reason for a time gap is that today we can see stars which are 13 billion light years away turn into super novas and burn up. We are seeing an event that happened 13 billion years ago.
How do the “scientists” know the distances and times? The times are no longer observable, and the distances merely guesses based on the guessed times.
I consider the linguistic study of Bible Hebrew a science, because we have the text before us. But you never see me speculating on “proto-Semitic” because it’s merely speculated, not observed.
And there’s no linguistic indication of a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 that I know of.
Do you have a different definition for “science”?
Karl W. Randolph.