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That's precisely the difficulty. The concept of morning requires some sort of planet/star system, yet those terms are explicitly used and used to define 'day'. That is why I contend we cannot blithely assume these are 'ordinary earth days'. The text doesn't really allow that.

No, they don't. They imply nothing clear when those terms are referenced before there is any morning or evening anywhere. This is why I don't understand the insistence that a clear and simple reading leads to 6 24 hr days. I am stopped at day 1 wondering how this is an 'obvious' reading.

Sure, but I assert it is just as speculative to say these were ordinary 24 hr periods when the days were defined, in these verses, with relation to an evening and morning which clearly could not have occurred. I don't see the demand to see these as 24 hr periods given those circumstances as any more 'literal' or 'commonsensical' than my speculation given the actual context.

That misses the point of my argument in #1. It's that there is explicitly referred to a morning and evening, before there is an earth/sun system. Those terms, evening, morning, are *defined* in relation to sunrise and sunset. I cannot make sense of this before there is any earth, planet, or star at all created.

Proof, I feel for you. That does not sound like an easy thing to have to constantly interact with your ex in that manner. It also sounds to me like you would do well with a solid lady by your side. It is always a gamble, but one well worth it in my opinion. if you do online dating you can specify from which zipcode even you may want to meet someone. I don't' see it as being anymore chance-y than most dating opportunities. You also have an ability to quickly sort through a lot of people based on key items such as being a Christian, liking children etc. Then you pick a public place and meet her. At that point is it any more uncertain than meeting her at the grocery store? That is all to say, there are ways you can do this while taking care of your kids and working hard as you do. Having known you in chat for a bit I can tell there are qualities there many women would find attractive and I do not doubt there is the right lady out there for you and your kids.

More are, for historical and social reasons right now. I see no reason that is necessary though. It's not a part of the work. My brother was a scientist and he was an atheist because he said if he could not see it or prove it then it did not exist. I know people who are not scientists that say the exact same thing. Haha yeah no kidding. Me too.

The story of Genesis has been written in a form which is both simple and complex, which together make it profound. It is not possible to read Genesis carefully without discovering that it is complex. One instance is what you have pointed out. The definitions that God gave to the Light and the Darkness. Which are introduced on the first day. Like you said the sun and moon had not been created, and neither had the earth appeared on the scene. It follows that whatever God created and named in those first days, before the appearance of the earth on the third day, is something special, something He would know about, and to our wonderful surprise God mentions these elements of creation, throughout the Bible, to give us an idea of what they are and what they do in creation. So far as the days are concerned, as posted by Shiloh, unless the Bible says so, the word day means day, and not an indiscriminate period. It is a word that is contextual, and if not, then on it's own just means a day, The Lord wrote in His law that the Sabbath is a memorial of creation, specifically because God made the earth in six days and commemorated the 7th. So it could not have been eons of time. God does not need eons of time to make things, the Psalmist says "He commanded and it stood fast." Neither has God chosen to use eons of time to create. His power is instant in the Gospel, there is no evolution in salvation, it is instant adoption to God. By pushing evolution into Christianity, the world is seeking to undermine faith in the immediate power and promises of God, and the speed of the word of God, not only to create but to pardon. The JW's were one of the first non christian organisations to suggest that day does not mean day, but a thousand years. The context of that text is talking about the patience of God, and not about time. Besides it is to God that time is so, and not to us. Rarely do we hear, that when God waits for our heart response, that one day is like a thousand years to Him, sadly at the same time we are quite happy to fiddle with the times in creation that diminish the image of Divinity. Alright, I suppose my point here is not just that there was something special here, insofar as having 'days' delineated before the appearance of an earth/sun system, but that there is a conceptual difficult specifically with defining a morning and evening before there is an earth/sun system. The conceptual difficulty is one that seems very fundamental, possibly represents a metaphysical impossibility as it relates to concepts and definitions, and therefore doesn't just allow- but demands- a different understanding.

My approach with this was to assume to that day refers to an 'ordinary day' unless the text indicated otherwise. My observation #1 on the text itself is what led to my more speculative thoughts and only at that point did I bring in any science... not vice versa.

Thanks, we will pray for you too alien.

That doesn't respond to the content of the thread at all. "thoughts on creationism" is this not the OP?Those are my thoughts. no,, the opening post contains my specific thoughts on the creation. The intention of the thread isn't gathering random general thoughts on creationism.

Yoga stripped of philosophical meaning and used as a series of poses meant as exercise only doesn't seem problematic to me. Perhaps it is similar to the issue of food sacrificed to idols that Paul takes up in 1 cor 8, wherein he explains that we can eat such food unless it harms our conscience or that of our brother. . 1 cor 8:8,9 Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.

That doesn't respond to the content of the thread at all.

I have some latest thoughts on creation from Genesis 1. Gen 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Here is my contention with this verse in particular. At this point, the sun and earth weren't created. In view of that, what sense can be made from a reference to 'evening' and 'morning'? And, if sense cannot be readily made from that, then on what grounds do I understand the term 'day'? I believe this creates profound difficulties for the reading of 'day' to be a 24 period as measured on earth on commonsense reading grounds. I don't think this is actually possible. This isn't a problem though if I take these days to be epochs of some sort. This leads me to my more speculative thought. 2Pe 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. Alright, I don't want to claim that I think these are literally thousand year periods. What I want to claim, however, that the word 'day' can sometimes mean longer periods of time and indicate periods of time. I see that as almost required given Genesis 1:5 for the creation account. The speculative part of this is particularly my thought that when we are discussing cosmic scale creation relativity becomes prominent. That matters a lot insofar as now I have to wonder, when you want to assert a day has passed in one reference frame, from whose is that? According to relativity the passage of time differs for observers in different reference frames. This matters a great deal when discussing extreme conditions. Back to Genesis Gen 1:4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. For an even more speculative thought, this could very meaningfully refer to recombination, the point at which atoms started to form in the universe and it became transparent, allowing for light to propagate. All this leads me to think that there is no necessary issue between the Genesis account, taken very seriously, and some modern scientific theories, not necessarily anyway.

More are, for historical and social reasons right now. I see no reason that is necessary though. It's not a part of the work.

I think we ought to view science as a career choice and quite imbuing more meaning to it than that at the outset. Yeap~! Just Like A Union Of Ditch Diggers Who Are Compelled To Dig A Deep Hole Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. Hebrews 3:12 And Then Demand All Their Neighbors Blindly Jump In And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. Jeremiah 18:12 Before It Collapses Over The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. John 3:35-36 Them Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. 1 Corinthians 12:3 I am not sure how I managed to typo 'quit' into 'quite' haha. What I mean is this. Take physicists for example, the majority are into condensed matter research. What is this hole that they are digging? The part where they design quantum computers or research alternatives for silicon transistors? The large majority of researchers aren't doing anything but what probably seems mundane to most people. It's a career choice of a pretty ordinary nature.

Unfortunately headlines about science are often misleading. That cosmologists are questioning whether the Big Bang happened really is not true when we think about the Big Bang in simple terms about an event that occurred approximately 13.7 billion years ago, in which all the stuff that makes up the observable universe was very very close to each other, and that there was then expansion. That outline of events is regarded as a fact based on a handful of well established observational facts including the cosmic background radiation, which is mapped all the time to finer resolution and was specifically predicted before it was observed, the redshifting of the superclusters of galaxies suggesting a mutual moving away from each other at velocities proportional to distance, big bang nucleosynthesis, that is, the basic big bang theory provides a prediction as to the relative abundances of elements that we observe in the universe. That being said, what *is* questioned is the specific model that is true. For instance, you may have heard of the recent BICEP findings which at first seemed to confirm a special model of the big bang called the inflationary model. Upon scrutiny though it was discovered that the signals they were seeing could have been from dust. Now there is not that direct confirmation of that particular theory. Also, there is a lot of debate about singularities. Singularities are predicted to exist by the theory of General Relativity. However General Relativity and quantum mechanics have not been successfully merged on the whole, and there is the thought that when that happens we will see that there are not singularities, technically speaking. In that case the old view of the Big Bang as happening from a singularity is incorrect, but the general picture I painted above is still true. Much of this confusion is partly the fault of the scientists in question who allow for these headlines to make it all seem more exciting. Partly it is due to media who doesn't' understand the topic and so doesn't know how to report it correctly. The impression that it leaves with the public though (the big bang might be false?) is mistaken. These are technical and somewhat subtle debates in the scientific community, these are not overturning of entire paradigms.

I don't think science or scientists necessarily belong to an order that requires a special way of thinking about the world that excludes God. I see a lot of that assumption both by atheists and believers and it is all completely unnecessary. I realize a lot of science popularizers combine their authority as scientists with promotion of a secular agenda, but that is also unnecessary. In short, I think we ought to view science as a career choice and quite imbuing more meaning to it than that at the outset.

You have a valid point about Jung. I realize also he was popular and those who formed this test were partly inspired by him. But, I don't think this test need to be therefore new age or invoke his mysticism insofar as, it can easily be interpreted instead as an attempt to tease out heritable traits. That goes back to what I said earlier though, in that view, it's hard to see how these categories match real meaningful patterns of heritable characteristics.

Okay, how's that? It just seems very new age to me. Nah. It's psychology. Some of it is legit, some of it is not, but this is not astrology.

Okay, how's that?

I've done that twice, once out of random curiosity and once for reasons you could guess at. Both times came up INTP. I am skeptical because I doubt the validity of the way this test and these categories were constructed in the first place. Some I know have survived longer term. For instance, I don't doubt that I'm an introvert, as far as that category describes a heritable personality characteristic. Others seem a bit arbitrary.

another time perhaps...

My purpose on this thread was to clear up severe confusion about what evolution implies. Criticisms of it are not going to be any good if they are aiming at a completely different target altogether. It is not the case that on 'undirected' evolution we should expect gorillas to talk, for example. That is a serious misunderstanding of what evolution is at the core. My own view is that God has directed the process of creation from the start. I accept that evolution is true insofar as there is a common ancestor for life on earth. I don't believe we all arose out of purely physical and blind processes. I really don't care what label that view has. Many would call me creationist, many would accuse me of being a patsy of atheist evolutionists, can't keep everyone happy. ====================================================================================== Are Peppered Moths an example of evolution? Besides "accepting" it, can you provide Scientific Evidence for it....? regards Yeah, I am taking the lazy route. http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_3.htm That one isn't exactly technical, but contains some interesting examples.

You may be right about the Genesis account but my reading of it so far doesn't allow for the assumption that the default position should be there was a 6 days of 24 hrs of creation a handful of thousands of years ago. Given that, the physical evidence informs my view quite a bit.

Your question was nonsensical I'm afraid. Why don't I have the ability to fly? Why can't I "see" the body heat of nearby organisms?? You demanding that gorillas should be able to speak english is just irrelevant. It's not a nonsensical question. We can't fly because according to evolutionists we have never needed to. There is no link between ourselves and birds other than the claim of a common ancestor. Birds and mammals have evolved on different branches. But evolutionists claim that man evolved from apes. Why then do we not see apes becoming more human-like? That is what was really meant when asking 'do we ever find a gorilla that speaks English'? There is zero evidence of any species evolving into a completely different species. It's why evolution has always remained as a 'theory' in science and has never become more than that. Most scientific theories either become something else (such as a law) or they disappear altogether. We have had more than a century now of the theory of evolution and it's still nothing other than a theory. In fact it would have probably died a death and become obsolete if it were not for Antitheists pushing it and promoting it at every turn. You can see as many similarities between different species as you like (and there are many) but this is no evidence of evolution. In fact, similarities between species actually suggest a common creator - in the same way that there are similarities between Picasso paintings because Picasso was the creator of them all! The reason Ezra's question doesn't work is because it is based on a wildly incorrect view of what evolution is. Whether or not you accept it, a critique doesn't work if it is based on an entirely incorrect picture. According to evolution, all life on earth has a common ancestor. The organisms that are around today are around today because its ancestors were successful at surviving long enough to procreate. That is, slugs, ants, humans etc are all equally 'evolved'. Humans are not higher on some evolutionary scale than birds, ebola, or apes. Evolution as a process doesn't 'aim' at anything, let alone intelligence or the ability to speak. Apes have the characteristics they have because their ancestors happened to survive and procreate. That's it. Asking that an ape become more 'human like' is a very serious misunderstanding of what evolution is. I understand that, but it's still just assumptions. Having a common ancestor in no way excludes the existence of a creator - in fact it could equally (if not more so) favour the existence of a creator. As for asking apes to becoming more human-like - well, you'll find that is exactly what evolutionists have suggested, that's why they have proposed the fallacy of a missing link. Proposing a missing link would be pointless if they weren't suggesting that some apes eventually turned into humans through various stages of (presumably) extinct species. It's all just hypothesis, nothing more. There is no proof, no way of establishing the premise, no real way of measuring it and no real way of applying it. It's just a suggestion, nothing more, nothing less. Is it possible? Who knows? Is it likely? No, it's exceedingly unlikely. Anything that is exceedingly unlikely and cannot be verified or quantified is no more a useful theory than suggesting the existence of a flying spaghetti monster. The only reason that evolution gets so much 'airtime' and publicity is because it offers the non-believer a way out. But because it is statistically unlikely, and I mean implausibly and irrationally unlikely, it is treated as being the truth by some people. To say that humans came about through evolution is like saying - "it's actually possible for me to win the jackpot on a lottery ticket, therefore I'm going to buy a ticket, pack my job in,vow never to work again and then just sit back and wait for my winning numbers to come up." Only a fool would think like that. There is far more proof for the existence of Jesus Christ and far more proof of his death and resurrection. To believe in evolution is just wishful thinking by those who don't want there to be a God. Evolution does make some predictions and have some explanatory power in specific ways. I think that tends to get lost in the rhetoric back and forth also. Biologists consider it a fundamental framework to their field, so this isn't just about some obnoxious atheist/anti-theist types going around yelling at Christians making it a big deal. That being said, I believe God is Creator and also believe in common ancestry, those things don't have to be opposed at the start.