What should I reply....?

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Sorry, one of these again. I’ve got into a debate with someone. He sent me this:

"A common excuse made by apologists is that bronze age nomads wouldn’t have understood a REAL history of the Earth. How hard is it to explain germs, a round earth, a heliocentric solar system, dinosaurs, ice age etc to a child? REALLY EASY, and the child quickly understands it. It’s RIDICULOUS to say adults would not understand the same information provided by a GOD. Why would he provide this information? Why write Genesis if you’re going to provide the WRONG information?

Genesis is just one of thousands of creation myths. They are all manmade stories created by imaginative primitives. If a story WAS dictated by a god it would include a lot of useful information not available to bronze age storytellers: Dinosaurs, Ice Age, Round Earth, Heliocentric universe, Germs, Giant sun and stars. It’s not hard to impart this information; in fact much easier than the complex sacrificial rites of Leviticus. Why bother telling a false story when you can tell the true one?

You can look about 12 posts back where I show in Exodus that the days are considered literal days but let’s test this theory: Let’s try 13.5G years (age of universe) divided by 7 ‘days’ = 1.9G years each ‘day’. Light (Day): 13.5G ago. Sky on Earth: 11.6G ago. Land/Vegetation: 9.7G ago. Stars/Sun/Moon: 7.8G ago. Fish/Birds: 5.9G ago. Animals/Humans: 3G ago. God Rests: 1.9G ago. Dates and order are all way off - not even close."

:eek: I am completly lost. Can anyone please help, what should I reply to this person. Thank you.
 
This assumes that the purpose of Genesis was to provide a scientific account of creation. That assumption is not justified. God uses scripture for other purposes.
 
VociMike said:
This assumes that the purpose of Genesis was to provide a scientific account of creation. That assumption is not justified. God uses scripture for other purposes.
Click to expand...
Dear VociMike,

I’ve also been under the same assumption above. Is there a reference or published source for that assumption?

Blessings,
grannymh
 
lemonbeam said:
Sorry, one of these again. I’ve got into a debate with someone. He sent me this:

"A common excuse made by apologists is that bronze age nomads wouldn’t have understood a REAL history of the Earth. How hard is it to explain germs, a round earth, a heliocentric solar system, dinosaurs, ice age etc to a child? REALLY EASY, and the child quickly understands it. It’s RIDICULOUS to say adults would not understand the same information provided by a GOD. Why would he provide this information? Why write Genesis if you’re going to provide the WRONG information?

Genesis is just one of thousands of creation myths. They are all manmade stories created by imaginative primitives. If a story WAS dictated by a god it would include a lot of useful information not available to bronze age storytellers: Dinosaurs, Ice Age, Round Earth, Heliocentric universe, Germs, Giant sun and stars. It’s not hard to impart this information; in fact much easier than the complex sacrificial rites of Leviticus. Why bother telling a false story when you can tell the true one?

You can look about 12 posts back where I show in Exodus that the days are considered literal days but let’s test this theory: Let’s try 13.5G years (age of universe) divided by 7 ‘days’ = 1.9G years each ‘day’. Light (Day): 13.5G ago. Sky on Earth: 11.6G ago. Land/Vegetation: 9.7G ago. Stars/Sun/Moon: 7.8G ago. Fish/Birds: 5.9G ago. Animals/Humans: 3G ago. God Rests: 1.9G ago. Dates and order are all way off - not even close."

:eek: I am completly lost. Can anyone please help, what should I reply to this person. Thank you.
Click to expand...
He doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
The Genesis account is accurate, just not totally literalistic in a modern English language sense. In ancient Hebrew culture, showing the inherent symmetry and rhythm of events was an important rhetorical device to indicate the importance and meaning of the events. That culture existed a lot longer than the current global culture has and is the main readership of Genesis.
If someone were to remain the same while the universe expands, the first 7 bil. would seem to that person to be 24 hours. During that time, the earth (matter) was without form (solidness, macro physical properties), and the first form of the material unverse was an explosion of light (let there be light means something like let light burst into existence, or appear suddenly from nowhere). During that time (day), matter developed into various light elements, then some heavier elements, electrons bonding to nuclei, releasing light separate from matter. Light separated from darkness, just as Genesis says. This is actually a lot of scientific information unknown in the ancient world and startlingly recognizable in today’s astrophysics. The age and size of things – the math – wasn’t important to the story, and the poetic symmetry was, to the longest-term readership.
In the next 3.5 bil., which would seem like 24 more hours to someone remaining still while the universe expands, the heavens formed, as the Bible says; or, in more up-to-date terms, the galaxies mostly formed, our sun and solar system began.
Then 1.7 billion years, another 24 hours to our still observer, our little chunk of earth turned a billion, and life appeared. It was just flowerless plants. That’s what the Genesis account says. That’s what science says. No other ancient account tells a similar story.
A day later, or to us moving and expanding folk, 700 million years, and flowering plants, bigger animals, land animals and the like are getting a chance to come about, in response to the newly clear sky, a product of further cooling. These life forms need to know what time it is approximately, and now that we can see the sun, moon and stars as distinct lights (rather than a haze of undifferentiated light), we know how to live nocturnally or diurnally. The day and night are regulated – measured.
And another day passes, looking like 350 mil. years to earth life, and the first multicellular animals swarm abundantly in the waters, as Genesis tells us, some having wings and taking to the air. No myth is anywhere near as scientifically accurate. No science textbook is anywhere near as beautiful in its symmetrical patterning. It’s a picture of God’s nature through the wonder of creation.
Over the next day, to the still observer, or 175 million years, animal life develops and takes over the land, humans coming in after the beasts of the land. This is accurate. No other creation account of ancient times has anything in the same class of accuracy, every step of the way. None.
The next day is measured in terms of the experience of a human observer – one earth day. This is now meaningful because there is now a human observer to observe an earth day’s passing.
Genesis p(name removed by moderator)oints the origin of humanity and of civilization in the Fertile Crescent around 4000 BC. This is also accurate.
The round earth and other facts are mentioned throughout the Bible. So is the fact that, contrary to other cultures’ assumptions, the earth hangs on nothing.
 
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