OCK POSTS #132

Hi Ock,

Welcome to the discussion..you always have something interesting to add .....starting with LOL.....7 pages before skipping to the end!!

OCK POSTS #136

OCK #139

We agree to the literal meaning of the use of "day" and "night" in Genesis 1. You're correct, according to Genesis 1, the sun was not created until the fourth day.

To understand it we must take each of the 6 days of creation as they appear with the Hebrew word "Yom" qualified by a number and the phrase, "evening and morning". The first 3 days are written the same way as the next three...so from this we know all six days are ordinary 'earth' days.

But the sun is not needed for day and night. What is needed is light and a rotating earth. On day One, God created the earth and He made light. 1:3. the phrase "evening and morning" certainly implies a rotating earth. So, if we have light from one direction and a spinning earth, there can be day and night rythm with on hemishpere in darkness or evening.

Again, Gen. 1:3 indicates God created light to provide day and night until God made the sun on the 4th day to rule the day He had made. In other words, the sun is placed in the firmament to distinguish the seasons...to rule the day that God had made 1:16.  

What is God telling us by this....what can we know from this?

First, from Apoc. 21:23, that one day the sun will not be needed as the glory of God will lighten the heavenly city. v. 25 says there won't be nights so time as we know it will have ended.

Second,  God did it this way to illustrate to us that the sun did not have priority in the Creation that people tend to give it. Down through the ages, people such as the Egyptians worshipped the sun. God warned the Isrealites in Deut. 4:19, not to worship the sun like the pagan cultures around them did. They were commanded to worship God Who made the sun, and not the sun.

Third, in plain words, the sun did not give birth to the earth as evolutionists postulate in the Big Bang hypothesis.  From the BBT, other evolutionists state that the sun's energy on earth gave rise to life reviving pagan beliefs that the sun is given credit for the wonder of God's creation.

Gee, is that what I wrote or are you jumping to conclusions?

Yes to the human mind but I'll explain that in a moment.  But astronomy still has no bearing on why we have a 7 day pattern,  (and not a 10 day pattern) since we have had  this system before astronomy found out the ways of the universe. 

but the Babylonians came way later than Moses (during Egypt's world power status) so the Babylionians have no bearing on this subject at all.   The Babylonian empire was during the six century BC.  Not 20 centuries B.C.  This is a historical and biblical fact. They conquered Jerusalem in 586 BC.  Genesis was written in about 1450 B.C during the exodus from Egypt.  Babylon was nothing then, certainly not a world power.  Persia defeated Babylon for power in 538 B.C.  So not sure where you're getting your dates there but they're wrong. 

I will repeat the seven day week as we celebrate it has no astronomical basis whatever!  Yet we order our lives around this week.  Taking a month and dividing it by 4 does not make it have astronomical basis.  The Jewish calendar has 360 days to it while ours has 365.  We have to make up time by adding another day every 4 years and the Jews make up their time by adding a 13 month every so often.  This still has no bearing on why we have a seven day pattern that runs our lives. 

My explanation is that since every effect has an adequate cause and the only cause which we can truly account for is that it was established at creation and has been deeply ingrained in our common human consciousness ever since.  Right from the get go it was established that for six days one could work but the seven day was a rest day. 

KFC, you're missing the point; Astronomy is merely the tool, not the point.

Subsequent research and study has shown that many, many cultures (Druids, Sumerians, et al.) used the lunar calendar. I'm not saying that astronomy came up with it, but that it certainly was not christians'. Whether or not that came from a God, i don't know - I have no proof.

It has a lot of basis in astronomical data, given that our entire calendar system is heavily based on the lunar cycles, et al. and subsequent revisions (though not all have been via science... ).

http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/week.html

Think about it:

The length of a month orbit/cycle is difficult to predict and varies from its average value. Because observations are subject to uncertainty and weather conditions, and astronomical methods are highly complex, there have been attempts to create fixed arithmetical rules.

The average length of the synodic month is 29.530589 days. This means the length of a month is alternately 29 and 30 days (termed respectively hollow and full). It takes this long to complete a single revolution round the earth. [2] The distribution of hollow and full months can be determined using continued fractions, and examining successive approximations for the length of the month in terms of fractions of a day. In the list below, after the number of days listed in the numerator, an integer number of months as listed in the denominator have been completed:

29 / 1 (error: 1 day after about 2 months) 30 / 1 (error: 1 day after about 2 months) 59 / 2 (error: 1 day after about 33 months) 443 / 15 (error: 1 day after about 30 years) 502 / 17 (error: 1 day after about 70 years) 1447 / 49 (error: 1 day after about 3 millennia) 25101 / 850 (error: dependent on change of synodic month value)

These fractions can be used in the construction of lunar calendars, or in combination with a solar calendar to produce a lunisolar calendar. The 49-month cycle was proposed as the basis of an alternative Easter computation by Isaac Newton around 1700 [3]. The tabular Islamic calendar's 360-month cycle is equivalent to 24×15 months minus a correction of one day.

~Alderic

Thanks, Lula...I think.  I've been gone a long time because God didn't like my IP and kept me from posting.  JU said there was no block on my account, and they couldn't figure it out, so it MUST have been God.  In fact, God was upset because I lived where I lived.  Anytime I traveled anywhere that had a different IP, I was able to post.  It's pretty clear by religious reasoning that God didn't like my IP.

At any rate, good to be back.  Perhaps God will soon become annoyed with this IP as well, but I'm too quick for him.  I'll be changing it again soon.

So back to what you were saying about the earth, I can then assume that God stayed fixed in one position so that His light shined...gee freaking whiz...sort of like a sun for those first 3 days?

At any rate we have it made fact that God emits Photons, right?  So God is likely to be a nuclear process.  Unfortunately, there weren't any nuclear processes prior to the existence of stars.  Well, except for HIM which makes not one but TWO first effects with no cause.  Oh my oh my...the distance you have to twist physical fact to explain this just makes anyone with an appreciation for Ockham's Razor want to cry.

Now, for the rest of you readers, I'd like to propose observation.  For in nearly everyone of these threads where Lula appears, Lula and KFC wind up arguing Bible semantics until the rest of us are puking up blood.  Lula is very devout.  Kfc is very devout.  AT LEAST one of them will be wrong.  Possibly both - who knows?  Is this of statistical significance when you're deciding for yourself what truth is?  That's up to you, folks.

Peace out

lula posts:

Basmas posts:

What I meant by that sentence is exactly what it says. Don't make the leap that I'm accusing evolutionists who believe in the Big Bang stellar evolution theory of worshipping the sun. There is a difference between the two, although some pagans did both.

Lula, these things are as verified as much as your so called evidence (archaeological, historical, et al) for your Bible/Church, yet I don't see you question the authenticity of those findings. Where's the objectivity? Honestly? I think the problem is that you're just too narrow in your vision; you're unwilling to peak your head out of your ten by ten cube.

It's there, it's been dated; It's evidence. (Note I didn't say proof)

~Alderic

Lula, I'm curious; pray tell....how long is a day to your God?

Actually, lula - setting aside your double negative that thereby implies that carbon dating IS in fact reliable - carbon dating was proven to be accurate by Willard Libby (U Chicago - 1949) through dating it, and then comparing the results to known historical records.

Source:

Arnold, J. R.; Libby, W. F. (1949). "Age Determinations by Radiocarbon Content: Checks with Samples of Known Age". Science 110 (2869): 678–680. doi:10.1126/science.110.2869.678. PMID 15407879. http://hbar.phys.msu.ru/gorm/fomenko/libby.htm.

~Alderic

Ooh for the double negative! My bad. Sometimes my fingers are in gear on the keyboard before my brain is!

Nah, Libby's radio carbon methods are no doubt workable but not 100% reliably accurate results.  Why? becasue he and his associates proceeded on 2 faulty assumptions.

Namely, one....the way everything is now, so it always has been, and 2....no contaminating factor has previously disturbed any object tested with radiodating techniques.

The results of the samples are nice, but without regard to the immense uncertainities of HOW the past may have affected them. Libby's other problem is that actual recorded historical events only go back as far as the Sumerians to about 3500BC. There is just no getting around the actual facts. ANyone can claim something is 35,000 years old but can't actually prove it beyond doubt. Without historical records there is just no way to verify C-14.

Daiwa, for shame.  You know better than to get involved in this!!  Always love to see your posts, however.

I do it for entertainment.  It's kind of like watching the monkeys at the zoo.  In fact (chuckle) it's EXACTLY like that.  Literally.

I have the right answer about the 7 day week.

Who cares?  Does it matter?  

Uh oh...is some imagined God gonna punish me for not having the proper respect for why a bunch of apes chose 7 days for a week?  I'd be shaking in my shoes if I were currently wearing any.