I Can Believe the Bible and that the World is Older than 6K

reply to post by semperfortis


Most Christian scholars do NOT believe in a Young Earth,

Young Earth creation is a tiny sliver of general Christian thought, the only reason it seems so many Christians believe in it is because the YEC movement has some players in it with loads of money who like to push there views on others,

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches (which make up 1.4 billion members of the 2.2 billion worldwide Christians) believe in whatever Science says (the Big Bang, Universe being just under 14 billion years old, Earth being 4.5 billion years old, and Life evolving after the Cambrian Explosion a billion or so years ago), and most Mainstream Protestant denominations believe in the same,

It's only a very small percentage of Fundamentalist Christian / Charismatic Christian / Pentecostal / Baptist groups who have the (false) YEC beliefs...

reply to post by godlover25

Thanks for posting that. I agree...
reply to post by TheWrightWing

Originally posted by TheWrightWing
The problem with many critics and some followers of Christianity is, they mistake the Bible for a scientific text.

It isn't.

Hmmmm......I have to wonder.....another awakening of WHOM? And WHY is it Dangerous? (I confess, I haven't watched it yet, and based this on an initial reaction to the OP and the first handful of responses ----- but.....Semper, are you trolling? )

Originally posted by TheWrightWing
The problem with many critics and some followers of Christianity is, they mistake the Bible for a scientific text. It isn't.

Another problem that has become very prevalent is that people accept what the priests of this new religion called "Science" tells them all on faith.

With respect to its great contributions to society, I think it is important to make a case that science is really affecting society more like a religion now than a field of study or a resource base of useful information. Many everyday people do not understand it at all and accept ALL its teachings on faith.

Unfortunately some scientists and academic professionals are not so noble and have perpetrated deliberate frauds and cover-ups of important discoveries.

Modern Scientific beliefs are based upon a leap of faith in the big bang theory. It has become a belief system based on faith and therefore another form of religion. Scientists, like priests can explain their beliefs but the everyday people accept it all on faith. Scientists and doctors are the priests of this new religion, getting angry and crying "heresy" when anyone respectfully disagrees with them.

Has Science become a Religion

Science - The Illuminati Religion and Mind Control Tool for the Masses

reply to post by godlover25


I live at the very start of the Bible Belt.. That should explain it all..

reply to post by semperfortis


I am a Christian and I don't believe in a 6,000 year old Earth. I also don't take every word of the Bible literally because I believe that some of it is metaphor. Having said that, even if you DO take every word of the Bible literally, the Bible does not state anywhere that the Earth is 6,000 years old. This figure is derived from Bible scholars, at least people who claim to be, who start at Adam and follow the genealogy or linage based on how old people lived. If you do that then you will in fact arrive at a figure around 6,000 years. Regardless of how convincing some of these studies are they are still just someone's opinion and nothing more. Good post and good topic!

reply to post by semperfortis

I don't "interpret" anything.. I read and I understand

Interpretation and understanding are interchangeable in this context.

Your OP you said most biblical scholars believe in Young Earth? That's interesting to me. Why do you think this?

reply to post by semperfortis


hello, this is only my opinion but to me if feel it makes the most sense,

genesis one through to gen 2.3 - God is referred to as God, we were created in his likeness, does this mean we were created as a Soul to begin with? by this i mean without a physical body. i feel this might be so, i feel we were supposed to look after the earth and all of gods beautiful creations, i don't believe we needed food and water to sustain us as we were completely free, we were created to live eternally,

gen 2.4 - this is when we now see the Lord god is used instead of just God, why? its the Lord who decides that there is no one to till the land so the lord god decided to form a man from the dust of the earth, then he describes his creation as a living soul......

is satan the Lord god? has he created a man from the earth and trapped a soul inside? after all he needs someone to till the land that God created, then the lord/satan wants to find adam a mate, the only other living creatures on earth are not of his kind, so the Lord then puts adam to sleep for a while and creates the first female from adams rib...... i'm confused now, the God in gen 1 created us at the same time, both male and female, yet in gen 2 it almost as if the lord cloned eve from adams rib,
the Lord also planted the garden of eden especially for them (even though they had the whole earth as their own garden!!) and made sure he informed adam of the tree of knowledge that they must not eat from as they will die if they do......
why would a loving God put something there that could harm us in the first place? he wouldn't, but Satan/lord god would, after satan then goes on to successfully tempt eve into eating from the tree, please bear in mind that the lord god had only warned adam about the tree, not eve, and instead of adam telling eve it was wrong he instead joined her in eating the fruit. adam knew the dangers yet did nothing,
Womans punishment was then increased pain in childbirth, if no one had given birth before her how would she know it was increased? why was man granted authority over women even though adam was the one who failed to comunicate very important information with eve? Adam called his wife eve, because she was the mother of all living, now the Lord god sends adam out of the garden

gen 4, Eve bares Cain and says i have gotten a man from the Lord.
if my theory is correct then Cain is satans son, then follows Abel, also satan's son,

The Lord God (or satan?) created man from the ground to till the land, till means farm, cultivate among other things, for what purpose when we had everything we ever needed as described by god in gen 1,
Cain a tiller of the land - his offering to the lord was the fruit that he produced whilst tilling the land
Abel a keeper of sheep - abel killed one of gods creations and offered it to the lord god,

why would the real god favour the murder of one of his own creations offered to him as a sacrifice when it was never abels to offer in the first place? where as cain tilled the land, just as the lord god had created them to do so.

Here we can see the true reason for Cains jealousy as he thought he was doing what his Lord god had intended him to do, where as his younger brother did wrong by killing a creation of the lord as it was uneccessary.
But if my theory is correct the and the lord god is satan then this was the exact scenario he intended to create, the beginning of confusion and hatred...... and all in the name of our true Creator God, but the God i feel a connection with is only pure and loving...

these are purely only my own thoughts, but up until a year and a half ago i didn't believe God existed but a few things changed for me and after a series of mind blowing revelations into the real world around me that i had no idea existed i quickly realised there was a much bigger picture and i just suddenly knew that God existed, so i started to read the bible, and what i've typed above jumped out at me immediately,

thanks for your time

reply to post by semperfortis

God created humans on the 6th day and then after resting some time could have elapsed, say many thousands of years, THEN and only THEN did God create a man from dust and breathed life, think SOUL, into him. Why else would the creation be mentioned and described twice?

My take on this is this....

Genesis 1 talks about the entire creation in the first 6 "days". The creation of mankind in the 6th day is a broad account of mankinds creation and probably refers to thousands of years.... so this would include the creation of Adam as well.

Genesis 2 seems to backtracks a little.... and gets into the details of the creation of Adam and all the ensuing drama.

God knows best.

OP: The answer you are searching for:

www.youtube.com...

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reply to post by semperfortis


Read my thread on the 2 creation stories. The first creation is paradise. The second is the material world. We are here as children to learn. When we are finished, grown and matured, we rise to new life in paradise. We must find the key. They key is love for others. When we place ourselves in Christ (Character of love for others), we are transposed from water to spirit. Genesis 1 is Elohim. Genesis 2 is Lord. The Lord is Adam.

Two Creation Stories in Genesis

Colossians 1

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

The story of Christ and the Cross were symbols for us to look back and forward. When we look back, we see the Father Adam fall. When we look forward, we see the Son Adam become a living giving Spirit. Adam is the Redeemer. Christ is the Son of God. Both are true.

1 Corinthians 10

16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.

Read this: Adam Kadmon

Adam is the Father of mankind and the kinsman redeemer. The Son of God is all souls from one. We, who are many, are one loaf. Jesus redeemed mankind.

Job 19

25 I know that my redeemer[c] lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.[d]
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet[e] in[f] my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
28 “If you say, ‘How we will hound him,
since the root of the trouble lies in him,[g]’
29 you should fear the sword yourselves;
for wrath will bring punishment by the sword,
and then you will know that there is judgment.

Job knew that Adam (Christ as last Adam) would redeem mankind. He also knew the error was in him, as well as the cure. Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." The Father is Adam. Jesus is the last Adam, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in the grave. Baptism is our immersion into the water of life. You must be born again.

Why 2 Creation stories? The Son of God sacrificed himself so that all souls could be raised back to God. Adam did not cause the fall, Eve did. Eve gains salvation through bearing humanity.

2 Timothy 2

13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

Adam gains salvation from the Son of God, the heel of the loaf on each end.

Genesis 3

And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

Why was the 2nd creation of the material world necessary? The sacrifice of the Son to redeem those who had fallen. He took them to a place of redemption. Baptism is immersion into the water to rise to new life. This is a concept known as involution and evolution.

Involution and Evolution Thread

Gospel of the Nazarenes (Lection 88)

12. For by involution and evolution shall the salvation of all the world be accomplished: by the Descent of Spirit into matter, and the Ascent of matter into Spirit through the ages.

Involution is turning in on one's self (within). Compare this to Luke 17:

20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

We, who are many, are the body of Christ. Christ is the head.

1 Corinthians 15

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

reply to post by semperfortis


so where do you get this 6000 figure from. I have been baffled by that for a very long time

reply to post by votan


6 'days' of Creation. A thousand years is a 'day' to Jehovah/Yahweh/YHWH.

Something like that.

First off, I'm not a Christian. However, as a child, bible theory and doctrine were drilled into my head.

So, as an intellectual exercise, I'll interject some thoughts about the OP's theory given the constraints he specified:

1. I am aware of a theory that the world has been destroyed twice. The first destruction occurred after God created the world in Chapter 1, which required him to re-create it again in Chapter 2. Perhaps the battle between Satan and God left a lot of collateral damage. Of course the second destruction was Noah's flood.

2. If I understand the OP's theory, the difference between man as created in Chapter 1 and man as created in Chapter 2 is the presence of a Soul. It occurred to me that I had recently heard something related to this notion of a sudden burst in the level of human consciousness. The theory is referred to as Behavioral Modernity.

It is the point at which Homo sapiens began to demonstrate an ability to use complex symbolic thought and express cultural creativity. These developments are often thought to be associated with the origin of language...
One theory holds that behavioral modernity occurred as a sudden event some 50 kya (50,000 years ago)

So, essentially it was at this point that man truly began to be differentiated from the beasts. I think, according to scripture, man is the only creature on earth that possesses a soul, and man is the only creature on earth that demonstrates the attributes of Behavioral Modernity.

Dex

Originally posted by Lazarus Short

It really doesn't bother me if the world is 6,000 years old or 6,000,000,000 years old.

.....really?....Really?

reply to post by semperfortis


Dear semperfortis,

I agree with you that it does not need to be 6 years old. I take a slightly different approach. I ask people how long the first day was. We consider a day to be 24 hours; but, the length of a day is related to how long the light lasts and how long the dark lasts. A day on Mars is not the same amount of hours as a day on earth. How long were the days before God made earth? It is a trick question, we have no idea how long God's days last and the story of Genesis is talking about his days, not ours because the first day per-exists earth.

The bible also says that a day for God is like a thousand years for us. The truth is that we have no idea how long a day for God is and we have no idea how long days on earth lasted in the past, we just don't know. A recent earthquake has actually changed how long a day on earth is, it is a small amount; but, shows that even the length of a day on earth is not set in stone. In the end, the real issue is whether or not we live a life of love for one another. I absolutely believe there is a God, I don't believe we are saved because we guessed right on a test, we are judged by our hearts. Peace.

reply to post by dc4lifeskater


I think you are wrong here, because it means an actual 24 hour day. Because it also say that the sun went up (and down) .

reply to post by semperfortis

I have a question that I have been asking a long time. It is stated "We will make man in our image", and then later it is stated " Christ in man's image". When did we change? And the big question is who is "WE"?

I'm not religious at all, i am techniclally atheist but this is my interpretation of what you said:

God created the creatures of Earth and left them live and evolve as time passed while he "rested" and only then 10 000 - 6000 years ago when humans got intelligent and began the humans we know today, maybe that was the blessing; intelligence, self awareness etc., what we can call the soul. Until then we were just animals like any other and god picked us to be the 'divine' magnum opus.

Originally posted by Frandawg143
reply to post by semperfortis

 

I have a question that I have been asking a long time. It is stated "We will make man in our image", and then later it is stated " Christ in man's image". When did we change? And the big question is who is "WE"?

You could think of the trinity.

Or... another view which is the way I see it...

"Let US make man in our own image" is..... US. Before man, we were.

Christ is mans image (a reflection) and Jesus in my opinion is the same as Adam... the first man. He too is supposed to be the last man.

As for his death... lets go back to the end of his life as Jesus, where he says "Its finished". Atonement or... At-One-Ment whereas man reaches his "finish" line as his soul's spirit perfects in matter. The collective of man, is also the embodiment of "Christ" or "Christ consciousness".

We all have a unique story as Jesus did. He created his final art in the last chapter, and it was good. So, we shall all do the same as we follow Christ to atonement.

reply to post by TheTimeisNigh
T%Thumbs up on your post-and I agree and appreciate the effort. Arnold Murray and Dennis are great teachers and scholars. I've listened to his program since they went on C-band in the seventies. He changed my life and gave me the internal peace I was lacking.