The Truth shall set you free
Submitted by Wayne on Wed, 2007-12-05 08:23.
Bible | Creationism | Doctrine | History | Stupidity
I was just talking with a fellow Messianic believer the other day about this problem. No, not the problem of stupid atheists (if you'll forgive the redundancy), but the problem with believers who cannot defend their faith. All of nature, science, and history screams out in support of Biblical truth, but most believers cannot even begin to understand this. For shame!
Too many believers are happy learning their secular, God-hating worldview from the [evil] government schools and then living with massive cognitive dissonance for the rest of their lives--or worse, just abandoning the Word altogether in favor of lies.
How many ice ages were there? When did they occur? What caused them? How could Noah possibly have fit two of every kind of animal on the ark? How old is the universe? How do you explain distant starlight? What about all that radiometric dating that supposedly proves an old creation? How could the ten plagues of Egypt have been real? How many Temples have there been? Where were they located, exactly? When did the name "Palestine" come into use, and to what did it refer? Who are the Palestinians today, really? Did Adam and Eve really exist? Did Adam walk with God in the Garden of Eden--physically? Were there really pre-incarnate Christophanies? Just how much land was promised to Israel by God? Is modern Israel still the beneficiary to God's covenants?
Inexcusable ignorance of the Word of God prevents so many believers from fully knowing and believing the Truth. It's right in front of our faces, in both extra-Biblical evidence and in the written Word. Only a secret--or not so secret--desire to rebel against God prevents us from learning the truth. Answers to all of the above questions should be understood by every believer. That's just basic stuff! If you don't know the truth, seek it. Read the Word. Discuss it. Analyze the data. (I offer to help you. Ask me.)
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Explain the dinosaurs.
Submitted by Charla on Mon, 2007-12-10 00:59.
OK, you read the subject. Explain the dinosaurs. We know they existed because their bones were left behind.
I hypothesized (back in '88, remember that Wayne?) that these creatures existed but the writers of the Bible didn't know about them. They didn't know because there were no archeologists back in their day, digging around and finding bones to carbon date (however erroneously, but whatever).
So Moses would not have had the slightest clue to even mention them. But even though Moses didn't know about them, we could still assume that the dinosaurs were "included" in the creation verses (Genesis 1:20-25).
Close
Submitted by Wayne on Mon, 2007-12-10 05:23.
Dinosaurs were indeed part of creation. And they were indeed on Noah's ark. Therefore, there were some that survived the flood and propagated afterward. (This is also a good explanation for why some today have claimed to see supposedly extinct species, say, in various bodies of water.) The Bible mentions "bohemoths" (e.g., Job), and it's often thought this is a reference to a dinosaur. To be sure, though, the climate change after the flood--the ice age--changed the Earth significantly. It's likely many creatures of ark ancestry would have died out due to an inability to adapt.
As for fossils, it takes a special set of circumstances for fossils to form. Oddly enough, the flood presents exactly the circumstances necessary.
Moses didn't mention lots of animals, but mentioned others. I don't think he was tasked with cataloging creation, so any omission or inclusion is not particularly noteworthy.
Good 'nuff?
Answers
One.
After the flood, about 4500 years ago. It lasted about 500-700 years.
The flood. The primary source of water for the flood was "fountains from the deep". This water would likely have been very warm (especially if it was sub-tectonic as it's believed to have been). Simultaneously, the volcanic activity during this time of rapid tectonic movement spewed lots of sun-blocking debris into the air. Warming oceans and cooling air are the necessary combination to create lots of frozen precipitation. Normally, cold air lowers atmospheric moisture; thus, secularists have no explanation for the cause of their "many" ice ages.
Not every animal was represented but merely every kind. To be sure, lots of species were lost in the flood. (Even secularists talk of mass extinctions caused by cataclysms.) Calculations have been done and can easily be shown that all these animals would have fit on the ark sized as the Word describes it. In fact, there would have been lots of space left over.
About 6000 years, from the perspective of Earth.
The Earth is indeed somewhat near the center of the universe. (Recent cosmological evidence supports this, too.) If all the mass of the universe started near here, the whole of the universe would have existed within the event horizon of a gravitational black hole. As the mass was "stretched out", the event horizon collapsed, with Earth popping out of it nearly last. During this time, there would have been incredible space-time distortions, consistent with General Relativity, whereby the stars that escaped the event horizon first would have had billions of years (from their perspective) to shine whereas only days would pass here on Earth. This warping of time is not an illusion but a measurable (and actually measured) effect.
There are several assumptions in all radiometric dating:
All of these are unprovable, meaning there's no way to prove the effectiveness of any radiometric dating. Additionally, when multiple methods of radiometric dating are used, they almost always give wildly different ages for the same samples.
There was a show on the history channel just a few months ago with possible explanations for all of the plagues. God could certainly have managed nature to engineer them just as they happened.
Two. Solomon's and Herod's. Herod's was actually a rebuild of the one built after the exile, though.
On the Temple Mount (duh) in Jerusalem. However, it is now believed they were located between the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The two Muslim fixtures were actually adopted from an old Roman temple. Using other Roman temples as examples, these structures would have flanked where the Hebrew Temple stood (although the Temple had been destroyed earlier).
135 A.D. by Roman emperor Hadrian, as a means of insulting the Jews. There has never been a state of Palestine.
Arabs, largely Jordanian in recent heritage. There's no such people as "Palestinians".
Yes. Even secularists, in analyzing mDNA, have discovered all of humanity has descended from one woman.
Yes. God cannot be in the presence of sin, or we will surely die. Before Adam sinned, and given Original Sin had not occurred yet, he could indeed be in the physical presence of the Lord.
Yes. Melchizedek is thought to be one. Most any place where the phrase "the angel of the Lord" is used in Scriptures (note the definite article) is thought to be a pre-incarnate Christophany. Jesus is the Body of the Lord, His physical manifestation. Anywhere the Lord shows up physically, it's a Christophany.
Far more than the Jews now inhabit. It actually stretched from the Mediterranean all the way to the Tigris and Euphrates, not just the Jordan river. Most of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq are part of the Promised Land.
Yes. God said those covenants were eternal, perpetual. Our very salvation is through the Jews. God has not and will not ever abandon His chosen people.