Re: Genesis 1:14-19

The following are, in my opinion, stated in the above passage:

God created the sun, moon and stars.

God set them in place in a manner that they established a daily cycle--light followed by dark, followed by light etc.

The daily cycle began on the 4th day.

I do not think that the above passage demands that the sun, moon, and stars were created on the 4th day.

In my conception Genesis deal primarily withe the organization of the Earth, and not with issues regarding the creation of the Universe, except to say that God created.

I will suggest that the above passage allows for a creation of the sun, moon and stars at a previous time when the Universe was created. If so, this would simply have the above passage telling us that on the 4th day a daily cycle of light and dark came into play which has previously not be in opperation.

Yes, that raises additional questions.

You have stated it as your opinion. Do you have any authority to back up your opinion? Or is it just your opinion?



What is your exegetical basis for saying that?



You are referring to Biblical Hebrew. What specifically in the Hebrew passage do you cite as authority for your statement?

I think it is silly to address impossibility of things when you consider a concept of God. I agree with Dave when he pointed out that we want to rationally explain God by way of laws of physics and logic, and (if you believe that God did exist and is uncaused) He created these laws and is not bound by these.

Some stuff like... Can God create a rock he can not lift? It's a paradox that can only exist in human mind as we think of things as being limited, and the mere idea of infinity is incomprehensible concept as it is impossible to accurately imagine it.

I believe that Tolstoy was right when he said, if God did not exist we would have to invent one. It would be difficult to make sense of reality without underlying creative intelligent force behind it.

Anyone could create a star if they could generate a hydrogen cloud big enough and trigger its collapse. To transport enough hydrogen to a specific place in the universe might be a little difficult with our technology. If one had enough energy and could synthesize enough hydrogen molecules to form a star is another possibility.

If a big enough cloud of hydrogen collapses rapidly enough, fusion of hydrogen into helium can begin and a star is born. I don't believe in magic, and I don't believe God used magic to create the universe and life on Earth. If he spoke and something appeared, someone else was involved in the process to make something happen or appear.

God created the Law of Cause and Effect to govern our lives and the universe. I suppose it's OK to believe he used magic, but I don't see magic in the Bible, only science and technology light-years beyond our comprehension, and certainly beyond the understanding of its writers.

A more scientific description in the Bible of the beginning of the universe and life would have been nice, but we're left with only terse and cryptic information. We can come closer to the truth if we read between the lines, interpolation, or try to see what lies before and after, extrapolation. We're unlikely to understand it all until we are given that information by those who put us here on this little jewel of a planet.

Not in response specifically to Aliensanctuary but to the thread as a whole.

Certainly it would be straining at gnats while swallowing camels to suggest that, while God can create the entire universe by speaking, He can't find a way to sustain the earth for a day until he gets around to making the sun. That kind of 'logical' thinking just annoys me.

I think I've already stipulated that there's no meaningful way of distinguishing, based on the evidence, between:

A. God created the entire universe, appearing mature, a few thousand years ago and
B. God set off the Big Bang, let the universe 'cook' for 14 billion years or so until it was ready (remember, time is basically irrelevant to him) and then created life on earth a few thousand years ago

Dave brings in the Biblical evidence - or at least a particular reading of it, different from Gregory's reading of the same texts - and that's perfectly fine, though not an empirical test. I refer everyone to the 'honest creationist' thread.

General observation

Imagine a being with no beginning sitting around doing nothing for eons and then all of a sudden making a universe. Why not imagine a being who has been making things forever and is still busy doing so?

All of the evidence that humans can see indicates that something has been happening for a long long time.

mel

You've got something there, melvin. Perhaps God and 'making things' are one process. Sort of like in Einsteins relativity theory where space and time do not exist separately.

Norman Mailer believed that God is still evolving! Perhaps he is right. Who knows!

I doubt if there is any human who has the capacity to imagine endless and beginingless time and space even though it is obvious that no other model would work. To refer to something called "the big bang" as a beginning is, dare I say, shortsighted for the question then becomes what was there before that?

Any discussion of origins has to assume there was someone or something there previously and unless it is specified exactly what "beginning" we are talking about the whole exercise is useless.

And before a certain person asks me for biblical proof I will just state that the onus is on him to disproove. All of the above is obviously my personal opinion.

mel

Gary Zukov's book The Dancing Wu-Li Master about the new physics says the same thing about particle physics. Many scientists now have given up on it for the same reason. After you find that an atom is made of protons and electron, then you need to find what they are made of - quarks? and what are they made of? - and it just keeps on going. He says it looks like everything is made of 'nothing.' A good book written for ordinary people.

So what was before the big bang? Zukov mentions an incomprehenible idea (which doesn't mean it is not true) that all time and space are present here and now; past, present and future are co-terminous.

There was no "where" for something to be before that.

In fact there was no "before" either, as space, time and matter were all created in the "big bang".

Isn't quantum mechanics fascinating?

Graeme