What year Did Adam come to earth?

[rodheadlee]

To me that would be what year did Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden? Which I suspect may not have been on earth. This earth. 

[bluebell]

I think the best you can do with that one is go off of the dates in the OT.  But I would not consider those to be factual.

[the narrator]

Given the abundant and overwhelming evidence and reality of human evolution, how are you defining Adam and Eve? Or do you reject all of that evidence and go with the biblical narrative of Adam being formed out of clay and Eve being made from his rib (or maybe baculum)?

[JVW]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

Given the abundant and overwhelming evidence and reality of human evolution, how are you defining Adam and Eve? Or do you reject all of that evidence and go with the biblical narrative of Adam being formed out of clay and Eve being made from his rib (or maybe baculum)?

No "missing link" has been found. The Bible says that God created all creatures after their "kind". I believe the Bible over the latest scientific conversations. My religion is not "the science". My religion is Christianity and I believe in God's holy word. Micro-evolution is easy to observe and has nothing to do with the argument that humans evolved from apes. Macro-evolution is impossible to observe and requires a lot of faith and speculation to believe in.

I believe that Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden roughly 6000 years ago, around the time when recorded human history began. I believe that the garden was on this Earth. I believe that the dates in the Bible are accurate. I don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden before the fall, and I don't know how many other humanoid species existed outside of the garden, but I do believe that no death occurred before the Fall and that the Great Flood literally happened.

I also believe that the Fall was necessary because God cannot create anything that is imperfect. He cannot create anything that dies or gets sick, but the consequence of the Fall cast the world out of God's presence and so corruption and death could occur and God's plan could move forward.

[rpn]

3 hours ago, the narrator said:

e abundant and overwhelming evidence and reality of human evolution

I'd challenge that description accuracy.   Yes, there is certainly evidence of age and others on the same earth that we are living on.  But we should all know that new information can tip over long held perceptions of accuracy because it has and does happen all the time.

[the narrator]

 

15 hours ago, JVW said:

No "missing link" has been found.

I haven't heard that phrase in a long time. I thought it died with the 90s. Far from your slogan, hundreds or thousands of links--whole chains--have been found in the geological and genetic record. No theory of science is more established than natural selection, which was proposed before the genetic mechanism for passing traits was established. 

 

15 hours ago, JVW said:

The Bible says that God created all creatures after their "kind".

Genesis 2 quite explicitly says that Adam was formed out of clay and that Eve was made from his "rib" (possibly a penis bone).
 

15 hours ago, JVW said:

the argument that humans evolved from apes.

Okay boomer. You clearly do not and have actively avoided the actual claims of human evolution.

 

15 hours ago, JVW said:

I believe that Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden roughly 6000 years ago, . . .  I believe that the garden was on this Earth.

From Missouri or Mesopotamia? Not sure which tradition you are coming from. This also ties to my question about how Adam and Eve are being defined, given the tremendous wealth of evidence that homo sapiens have been on the earth for up to 300,000 years, and our homo predecessors lived more than twice that long ago.

 

15 hours ago, JVW said:

roughly 6000 years ago, around the time when recorded human history began

You are off by at least 45,000 years.

 

15 hours ago, JVW said:

I do believe that no death occurred before the Fall

Does that included microbial life? Because those were living and dying on earth at least 2 billion years ago. You also have a whole lot of explaining to do about the entire known fossil record that all line up with various forms of dating and evolutionary progression.

 

15 hours ago, JVW said:

that the Great Flood literally happened.

Mount Everest is at least 50 million years old. Are you claiming that there was enough water on earth to cover it?

I appreciate you chiming in. Just the other day I was wondering if evolution-denial was still a thing (or if young(er) earth belief still existed among humans who were also capable of using modern technology, and now I know it is.

 

[rodheadlee]

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

Given the abundant and overwhelming evidence and reality of human evolution, how are you defining Adam and Eve? Or do you reject all of that evidence and go with the biblical narrative of Adam being formed out of clay and Eve being made from his rib (or maybe baculum)?

Well I believe Adam and Eve being formed out of clay and from his rib are metaphors. I also believe Adam and Eve were the first Covenant people of God and placed here when the time was right. I don't think human evolution affects this at all. As far as a no death before the fall I believe that should be interpreted as spiritual death.

[rodheadlee]

19 hours ago, bluebell said:

I think the best you can do with that one is go off of the dates in the OT.  But I would not consider those to be factual.

Right I just wondered if somebody knew what those added up to?

[the narrator]

14 hours ago, rpn said:

I'd challenge that description accuracy.   Yes, there is certainly evidence of age and others on the same earth that we are living on.  But we should all know that new information can tip over long held perceptions of accuracy because it has and does happen all the time.

Dude(tte?), the amount of geological, paleological, genetic, anthropological, etc evidence supporting evolution and human evolution is stronger and more voluminous than for any other theory of science. Biology today cannot be separated from natural selection. Each day more evidence is added that squarely fits our specie into the story of biological evolution, which explains why us humans share the basic physiological makeup of not just other primates, but other mammals, vertebrates, with circulatory systems, with brains, that sexually reproduce, and up the evolutionary line. Not only do we have shared physiology (and us humans with remnants that we don't use, like toe nails, back hair, goosebump, appendices, tail bone, etc), but we can use genetics now to map our evolutionary relationship to other animals with surprising certainty. If humans are unique creations by God made of clay (Gen 2) or God's mere voice and command (Gen 1), then why are we so very, very, very similar to other animals? Why are our sexual organs and sexually reproduction the same as all other mammals? (Or, at the microscopic level the same as almost all other life forms that sexually reproduce, from birds, to fish, to bees, to asparagus?) Why do we have the same number of limbs as almost all vertebrates? Why the same number of cervical vertebrates as almost all mammals? Why the same bone structure? Why are our internal organs mostly the same? Why our brain and eyes and ears where they are?

The amount of evidence, and new evidence each day, that supports natural selection and human evolution as part of it, is just so overwhelming and accumulative, that the chance of some piece of new information upending it is impossibly small and unlikely.

I'm honestly amazed that this conversation is still happening in 2024. Some major head in the sand has to be going on.

Edited July 9, 2024 by the narrator

[the narrator]

4 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Well I believe Adam and Eve being formed out of clay and from his rib are metaphors. I also believe Adam and Eve were the first Covenant people of God and placed here when the time was right. I don't think human evolution affects this at all. As far as a no death before the fall I believe that should be interpreted as spiritual death.

I think that is a very responsible and intelligent way to understand the biblical accounts from a faithful perspective. What do you mean by "placed here" though?

[JVW]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

 

I haven't heard that phrase in a long time. I thought it died with the 90s. Far from your slogan, hundreds or thousands of links--whole chains--have been found in the geological and genetic record. No theory of science is more established than natural selection, which was proposed before the genetic mechanism for passing traits was established. 

Natural selection is easy to observe and I am not arguing against it. Natural selection has not been observed to result in new species. A lizard has never been observed to naturally select into a bird, for example. I am arguing against the belief that all life began from a primordial soup and evolved from a first single celled organism.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

From Missouri or Mesopotamia? Not sure which tradition you are coming from. This also ties to my question about how Adam and Eve are being defined, given the tremendous wealth of evidence that homo sapiens have been on the earth for up to 300,000 years, and our homo predecessors lived more than twice that long ago.

I don't have a tradition here. I have no idea where the garden of Eden would have been located. But I believe that it was a real place. It doesn't really matter where it was located, it matters that it was a real place and that the fall literally happened as the Bible records. I am not saying that there weren't other homo-sapien species that existed in addition to human beings. But those species were animals, like dogs, and were not used as vessels to house God's spirit children.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

You are off by at least 45,000 years.

By "recorded human history" I mean a writing system and am referring to the Sumerians. Animals can make art. For example, there is a spider that makes an image of a large spider in its web in order to ward off predators. A writing system is a different ball game and indicates a different level of intelligence.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

Does that included microbial life? Because those were living and dying on earth at least 2 billion years ago.

I don't know.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

You also have a whole lot of explaining to do about the entire known fossil record that all line up with various forms of dating and evolutionary progression.

There are assumptions made in the dating process. There are also things observed that (currently, but maybe not in the future) contradict the dating process. For example, live tissue has been found in dinosaur fossils dated to be millions of years old (I don't have access to search engines so I don't have an article link for you). Dating requires faith and assumption because we have no way to observe or prove how all environmental factors impact decay over millions of years. Scientists are using their best reason and judgment and making an educated guess.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

Mount Everest is at least 50 million years old. Are you claiming that there was enough water on earth to cover it?

I believe in the Book of Mormon and before Christ comes to visit the Americas the face of the land was changed. We have evidence of the land changing due to earthquakes and volcanoes in the scientific realm as well. I'm pretty sure my church also believes in Pangaea, that all continents used to be one, and during the Millennium (or some other time?) they will become one again. As the Earth currently exists as I see it, I can't see how the flood could cover all of the mountains. But I don't believe that the Earth looked the way it does now when the Great Flood happened. And I don't think it's reasonable to discard the fact that literally every people on Earth have a great flood myth, that fact bears weight.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

I appreciate you chiming in. Just the other day I was wondering if evolution-denial was still a thing (or if young(er) earth belief still existed among humans who were also capable of using modern technology, and now I know it is.

Have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities." As an example, a piano player with a skill level of 4/10 will rate themselves as a 7 out of 10. And a piano player with a skill level of 10/10 will rate themselves as an 8/10. True experts underestimate their expertise, and the less expert someone is in a given field the more they overestimate their skill.

How does this apply to our conversation? Most evolutionists are specialized, but not truly expert, and they overestimate their expertise. (It probably lines up with the 80/20 rule, but that's just a gut feeling. I have no basis for this and haven't researched the real proportion of true experts in any given field on average.) The most expert biologists recognize that "the science isn't settled" there is still much that isn't known about evolution, and much to learn about it. True experts in any field will be very careful about what they declare to be fact. They will come across as humble and perhaps as if they aren't very confident (because they are willing to talk about the unknown). The more one dives into any specialized field, they more they become aware of how little anyone truly knows about said field, and the field of evolution is no exception. If you think the dust has settled and their is no room for debate in the field of evolution you are dead wrong, and the world's most expert, top evolutionists will agree with me on that point. However, mainstream scientific publications and media personalities will disagree with me. There's a lot more to the scientific community and its workings than you may be aware of.

[ZealouslyStriving]

https://www.gotquestions.org/irreducible-complexity.html

 

[the narrator]

Just now, JVW said:

Natural selection has not been observed to result in new species. A lizard has never been observed to naturally select into a bird, for example. I am arguing against the belief that all life began from a primordial soup and evolved from a first single celled organism.

You clearly fail to grasp how long the evolution of species takes, which is understandable given that our personal experience of the world is at most only 1/1,000,000th of the deep time that macroevolution takes. So, of course, you or nobody else, will ever personally observe macroevolution taking place. However, by observing the fossil record buried in geological time and order, it is VERY easy to observe macroevolution.

6 minutes ago, JVW said:

it matters that it was a real place and that the fall literally happened as the Bible records

A real place where a man made out of clay and a woman made out of his rib (or penis bone) were naked and talking to immortal animals, until a snake convinced them to eat a fruit, angering God, who then kicked them out of that place?

9 minutes ago, JVW said:

By "recorded human history" I mean a writing system and am referring to the Sumerians. Animals can make art. For example, there is a spider that makes an image of a large spider in its web in order to ward off predators. A writing system is a different ball game and indicates a different level of intelligence.

Well, in that case, you are a few thousand years too early. And you are just claiming "a different level of intelligence" without any evidence or support. There are uncontacted persons and cultures in the world today that have no writing system, who can very easily be taught to read and write. Going back a couple hundred years, and this was occurring all of the time as the West and East colonized peoples without any formal writing system, and then quickly taught then literacy--most of which only had an oral culture and left paintings not too dissimilar from those left on by our human ancestors 50,000+ years ago. Just look at humans today compared to the 19th century. It is not that we are somehow more inherently intelligent than them; instead, travel and communication have accelerated our learning and shown us what our brain have always been inherently capable of.

 

18 minutes ago, JVW said:

For example, live tissue has been found in dinosaur fossils dated to be millions of years old

No it hasn't. Soft tissue =/= live tissue. 

20 minutes ago, JVW said:

(I don't have access to search engines so I don't have an article link for you)

How is it that you are on the internet but can't access a search engine? I'll help you with a link: https://biologos.org/articles/soft-tissue-in-dinosaur-bones-what-does-the-evidence-really-say

21 minutes ago, JVW said:

Dating requires faith and assumption because we have no way to observe or prove how all environmental factors impact decay over millions of years. Scientists are using their best reason and judgment and making an educated guess.

That's all true, but they know enough to tell the difference between something millions of years old and six thousand years old.

 

23 minutes ago, JVW said:

We have evidence of the land changing due to earthquakes and volcanoes in the scientific realm as well.

And none of that can even come close to claiming that Everest sprout up 5,000 years ago. Plate techtonics don't work that way. And there is absolute evidence that Everest has been there for millions of years.

26 minutes ago, JVW said:

I'm pretty sure my church also believes in Pangaea, that all continents used to be one, and during the Millennium (or some other time?) they will become one again.

If "your church" is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then it doesn't believe or argue that (anymore). That idea was promoted by leaders

 

28 minutes ago, JVW said:

And I don't think it's reasonable to discard the fact that literally every people on Earth have a great flood myth, that fact bears weight.

like Joseph Fielding Smith (who also said that men would never go to the moon) and Bruce R. McConkie (who was pretty much wrong about everything).

28 minutes ago, JVW said:

literally every people on Earth have a great flood myth

That isn't true at all. It is true that some cultures have different flood myths, but that is very easily explainable by 1. flooding simply being a common and regular major life-changing and life-destroying around the world; and 2. many of those myths, including the biblical account, deriving from the older Epic of Gilgamesh, which itself is likely based on a previous myth.

39 minutes ago, JVW said:

Have you ever heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities." As an example, a piano player with a skill level of 4/10 will rate themselves as a 7 out of 10. And a piano player with a skill level of 10/10 will rate themselves as an 8/10. True experts underestimate their expertise, and the less expert someone is in a given field the more they overestimate their skill.

How does this apply to our conversation? Most evolutionists are specialized, but not truly expert, and they overestimate their expertise. (It probably lines up with the 80/20 rule, but that's just a gut feeling. I have no basis for this and haven't researched the real proportion of true experts in any given field on average.) The most expert biologists recognize that "the science isn't settled" there is still much that isn't known about evolution, and much to learn about it. True experts in any field will be very careful about what they declare to be fact. They will come across as humble and perhaps as if they aren't very confident (because they are willing to talk about the unknown). The more one dives into any specialized field, they more they become aware of how little anyone truly knows about said field, and the field of evolution is no exception. If you think the dust has settled and their is no room for debate in the field of evolution you are dead wrong, and the world's most expert, top evolutionists will agree with me on that point. However, mainstream scientific publications and media personalities will disagree with me. There's a lot more to the scientific community and its workings than you may be aware of.

Sorry, but this all reads like someone who hasn't bothered to actually learn about the science behind biology and natural selection and is instead only relying on fundamentalist and ignorant Christian apologetics against it.

[JVW]

2 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

https://www.gotquestions.org/irreducible-complexity.html

 

My favorite example of this principle is the bombardier beetle.

[the narrator]

2 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

https://www.gotquestions.org/irreducible-complexity.html

 

Sorry, but examples of those are repeatedly shot down as we learn more about the vastness of life, genetics, biology, and evolution--or just evolution for short, since that largely covers it all. This used to be said about bird wings, eyes, and the e coli flagellar system pointed to in the link. That argument is simply a misguided god-of-the-gaps argument that inevitably ignores existing arguments and fails once those supposed gaps are understood.

[JVW]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

nobody ... will ever personally observe macroevolution taking place. However, ... it is VERY easy to observe macroevolution.

That is not observing macro-evolution, it's observing fossils. You just stated as much.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

A real place where a man made out of clay and a woman made out of his rib (or penis bone) were naked and talking to immortal animals, until a snake convinced them to eat a fruit, angering God, who then kicked them out of that place?

I never thought I'd hear such a cynical, derisive statement in an LDS message board. Take your issues with the story of the Creation and the Fall up with God, and the Bible. I didn't write down the story, I simply choose to believe it, that's all.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

Well, in that case, you are a few thousand years too early. And you are just claiming "a different level of intelligence" without any evidence or support. There are uncontacted persons and cultures in the world today that have no writing system, who can very easily be taught to read and write. Going back a couple hundred years, and this was occurring all of the time as the West and East colonized peoples without any formal writing system, and then quickly taught then literacy--most of which only had an oral culture and left paintings not too dissimilar from those left on by our human ancestors 50,000+ years ago. Just look at humans today compared to the 19th century. It is not that we are somehow more inherently intelligent than them; instead, travel and communication have accelerated our learning and shown us what our brain have always been inherently capable of.

You are splitting hairs here. So I'm a few thousand years too early, I think you get my point. I believe that the fall happened or "what year did adam come to earth" when written records first appeared. IDK if it's 6k or 10k years ago, but it's something like that. Whatever the date is, that's the date I believe. On a side note, there are some who have suggested that the population of the human race has been slowly declining and we've been offsetting that with modern technology. So we may actually be dumber than our ancestors! It's a funny thought.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

No it hasn't. Soft tissue =/= live tissue.

Sorry I meant soft tissue, thank you for correcting me here.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

How is it that you are on the internet but can't access a search engine?

I have ADHD and if I don't lock down my work computer I don't get much work done. In addition to using Open DNS (with some preconfigured filter groups) and adding some sites to its blocklist, I also have pi-hole set up and have a variety of regex blacklists in place to block all search engines and any other sites that I personally find distracting while I'm working. With pi-hole I can block per machine, so the block only impacts my work computer. I do have a phone, but I deleted the app store, web browser, and other potentially distracting apps from it so that I can be present with my family when I'm not working. The last time I had an app store on my phone I spent around $200 per month on phone games, and didn't spend much time with my kids. It wasn't good.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

I'll help you with a link: https://biologos.org/articles/soft-tissue-in-dinosaur-bones-what-does-the-evidence-really-say

This article makes several plausible suggestions. It added to the scientific discussion, but didn't concretely resolve the discrepancy. It's ok to say "I don't know" and with soft tissue the answer is "we don't know yet, but we have some theories we are exploring". I am not saying that fossils are only 6,000 years old. I'm saying we don't truly know how old they are, we only know what we think we know based on the latest scientific advancements which one day may be regarded as barbaric methods of measurement.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

And none of that can even come close to claiming that Everest sprout up 5,000 years ago. Plate techtonics don't work that way. And there is absolute evidence that Everest has been there for millions of years.

Thanks for sharing the article, I think it was written by an AI. I couldn't tell, but it sounded like the article was suggesting that the mountain range formed a few centimeters at a time over millions of years, so at some point it was a small little 1 cm mound running along the ground? The article wasn't clear about the formation over time aspect. Did you know there is an alternative scientific theory as to how mountains have formed? It involves the Earth's magnetic field and solar storms. I'm sure it's somewhere on this website. The link presented is an in-depth overview of the Electric Universe theory. https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2011/08/18/10609/

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

If "your church" is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then it doesn't believe or argue that (anymore). That idea was promoted by leaders

like Joseph Fielding Smith (who also said that men would never go to the moon) and Bruce R. McConkie (who was pretty much wrong about everything).

Doctrine and Covenants 133:18,20–25 (1831) https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/133?lang=eng#study_summary1 (see verses 17-35 for more detail)

...the Lamb shall stand upon Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand, having his Father’s name written on their foreheads... he shall stand upon the mount of Olivet... And he shall utter his voice out of Zion... which shall break down the mountains, and the valleys shall not be found. He shall command the great deep, and it shall be driven back into the north countries, and the islands shall become one land; And the land of Jerusalem and the land of Zion shall be turned back into their own place, and the earth shall be like as it was in the days before it was divided. And the Lord, even the Savior, shall stand in the midst of his people, and shall reign over all flesh.

This is canonized scripture. It can probably be interpreted in a different way than how I am interpreting it, but here it is for your perusal.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

That isn't true at all. It is true that some cultures have different flood myths, but that is very easily explainable by 1. flooding simply being a common and regular major life-changing and life-destroying around the world; and 2. many of those myths, including the biblical account, deriving from the older Epic of Gilgamesh, which itself is likely based on a previous myth.

You can say that my perspective is false, but that is your opinion. Your explanations are reasonable, but that doesn't mean they are the truth. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm simply saying that you and I don't know whether you are right or not. You are stating a belief. Everything we have been discussing in this topic thread have been beliefs, there is relatively little in this world that is proven to be objectively true.

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

Sorry, but this all reads like someone who hasn't bothered to actually learn about the science behind biology and natural selection and is instead only relying on fundamentalist and ignorant Christian apologetics against it.

The impression I get from you is that you view your beliefs as knowledge of truth and so you are viewing me as attacking your core belief system. I am not. It doesn't bother me at all that you believe in evolution the way that you do. I was an atheist for many years and was very plugged into the evolution community. I'm familiar with the evidence and the methods used to obtain that evidence, and I can see why people believe in it. That's ok. I appreciate any articles you share and read them with delight as I seek to learn more about this world, and especially to learn more about your perspective.

It does bother me when you treat me condescendingly and as if I am an ignorant idiot. I am not lesser than you, I just have a different perspective. You can either appreciate that and gain something from it, or you can dismiss it and gain nothing but frustration from our conversation. My views will not change as a result of our conversation because science isn't going to magically prove the infallible nature of the theory of macro-evolution as it is a theory that's impossible to prove. And God will not magically come down to the earth and reveal His presence to all people and reveal how He created everything. We are at an impasse.

Many people believe the same way that you do about evolution. I responded because those views are, in many ways, more religious than they are scientific and I don't think it's fair that they can be preached without rebuttal. At the heart of the scientific endeavor is critical thinking; and critical thinking requires opposition and debate, not dismissal of opposing viewpoints. The moment that there is no more debate, the matter is no longer the subject of a scientific discussion. If you cannot recognize and accept that there are valid criticisms to the theory of macro-evolution, or any other scientific field for that matter, you are not being scientifically minded.

[the narrator]

3 minutes ago, JVW said:

That is not observing macro-evolution, it's observing fossils. You just stated as much.

That is how macroevolution is observed--by seeing plainly how life in the fossil record evolves over hundreds of millions of years. This isn't some misuse of language, we observe changes in things all the time in similar ways through photographs taken over time. Even micro-evolution isn't observed in an instance, that usually takes years and is observed through records and data concerning the evolving microbial life.

 

6 minutes ago, JVW said:

3 hours ago, the narrator said:

A real place where a man made out of clay and a woman made out of his rib (or penis bone) were naked and talking to immortal animals, until a snake convinced them to eat a fruit, angering God, who then kicked them out of that place?

I never thought I'd hear such a cynical, derisive statement in an LDS message board. Take your issues with the story of the Creation and the Fall up with God, and the Bible. I didn't write down the story, I simply choose to believe it, that's all.

Huh? You said you accept the Bible's literal account, and that is literally what Genesis 2 says. Have you even read it? It literally says God created Adam from clay. It literally says that Eve was created from Adam's "rib" (which some scholars argue was a euphemism for the baculum, which exists in most mammals but not humans--hence, they argue, the story explains why human men don't have them, cuz god cut it out, leaving a scar-like feature on the perineum.) It literally says they were talking to animals. I forgot to mention this, but in the Creation account before creating Eve, God literally offers a bunch of animals to Adam to see if any of those would make a good partner for him, but Adam tells God that he doesn't want to mate with an animal. The account literally has a snake convincing them to eat fruit. And the account literally has God upset that Adam and Eve gained knowledge, and so he kicks them out of the Garden. That's the story given in the Bible. If you find that cynical, then you should take that up with God.

13 minutes ago, JVW said:

I am not saying that fossils are only 6,000 years old. I'm saying we don't truly know how old they are, we only know what we think we know based on the latest scientific advancements which one day may be regarded as barbaric methods of measurement.

I believe you said there was no death before 6,000 years ago. Can't make fossils without dead animals. And we are absolutely certain with no doubt whatsover that those dinosaur fossils are hundreds of millions of years old. You can't just wave of scientific knowledge, especially when you are relying on that same science throughout the day with almost everything you do.

16 minutes ago, JVW said:

Thanks for sharing the article, I think it was written by an AI. I couldn't tell, but it sounded like the article was suggesting that the mountain range formed a few centimeters at a time over millions of years, so at some point it was a small little 1 cm mound running along the ground?

Again, you utterly fail to grasp just how long a million years is, nor how plate techtonics work. That is a very long time. At some point India was not connected to the land mass above it, as it S      L     O     W    L    Y  "collided" with that mass, the colliding plates slowly pushed the ground up, and over millions of years that upswelling of land became Everest. Not sure why that is difficult to understand.

 

27 minutes ago, JVW said:

You can say that my perspective is false, but that is your opinion. Your explanations are reasonable, but that doesn't mean they are the truth. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm simply saying that you and I don't know whether you are right or not. You are stating a belief. Everything we have been discussing in this topic thread have been beliefs, there is relatively little in this world that is proven to be objectively true.

It's not my opinion. You're the one who made up (or blindly copied) the claim that every culture has a great myth flood. That simply isn't true. You weren't stating an opinion. You are stating a fact, and now you're playing the silly "that's just my opinion game" when pointed out that your supposed fact is just wrong.

 

28 minutes ago, JVW said:

I'm familiar with the evidence and the methods used to obtain that evidence

Except you're not, else you wouldn't have made some of the claims you have.

I'm sorry that I'm coming across as condescending. That's not my intent. I'm just incredibly baffled that some of these bad arguments are still being made in 2024, when I thought they had long died off. Better for me to just step out of this thread right now.

[blackstrap]

What elements in the human body are NOT also found in the "dust of the earth " ?

[ZealouslyStriving]

Is it OK if I believe they were brought via Celestial vehicle of some sort? Cause I'm going with that. 🛸

[Calm]

7 hours ago, JVW said:

? It involves the Earth's magnetic field and solar storms. I'm sure it's somewhere on this website. The link presented is an in-depth overview of the Electric Universe theory. https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2011/08/18/10609/

Are you saying they were formed quickly somehow without the friction created by that fast movement somehow not building up enough heat to melt the rock (because such melting isn’t found)?  Slow movement allows heat from friction to dissipate some so it doesn’t heat up enough to melt.

I think I found a summary on a fundraising page…

Quote

The modern awareness that plasma composes most of the universe requires a reevaluation of theories dating from earlier times. Plasma is electrically active and employs forces that can be many times stronger than those of mechanical erosion and tectonics. One possible model envisions the globe enveloped in plasma discharges within the memory of humans. Material from space and from electrical erosion of the surface was suddenly sorted and deposited electrically to a great depth. Dust, sand, gravel, rocks, boulders, coal, and oil accumulated wherever there was dry land. Red-hot dust blown by electrically generated tornado-like winds built up strata in place: “plastered” against obstructions in a manner similar to welded tuff. Flooding filled the valleys between the mountains with sediments. Where electrical activity was strong enough, the loose material was lithified and even metamorphosed.

 

Michael Meade Steinbacher has a vision for geology. It's not the usual "gradually over millions of years" vision; it's a vision that ancient peoples were both sane and serious when they said they saw mountains created and destroyed, seas wash across the land, and their world turn upside down.

If the ancients were not sane and serious, why did evolution select for survival people who had no understanding of their environment? If the ancients were sane and serious, what we see today is only a few thousand years old: sometime after the last ice age, our planet was resurfaced.

Some people say that other planets caused it. Some say it was extreme solar flares. Both agree that plasma discharges were the primary agents.

The ancients called them "gods"—capricious, destructive, but sometimes safeguarding. They resurfaced the Earth, decimated species, and left behind what today we think was evolved gradually over millions of years.

Michael's vision is to interpret what he sees not by textbook hypotheses of what “must” be under the surface but by legends of what eyewitnesses saw on the surface.

“Rivers of fire,” “fire serpents,” and “thunderbolts of the gods” melted mountains “like wax” and ripped out canyons. They jolted Earth’s rotation and threw seas across continents. Hurricane winds blew thick dust that extinguished all light. If these thunderbolts were planetary-scale plasma discharges, they could have accomplished all this in moments instead of in millennia.

Michael is a professional photographer with a talent for discerning intelligible patterns in the evidence before his eyes. He needs ongoing funding to continue his field research documenting the “geology of legends.” 

Furthermore, he would like to help fund ongoing experiments into the effects of electrical discharge on surrounding bodies of dust. The resulting formations mimic common mesa-and-valley topographies. Experiments with dust sifted onto the discharge platform from above have generated formations that resemble the SW US deserts and mountains. Further experiments with greater power, water components, and a range of temperatures need to be conducted. Funding for equipment, measurement, and documentation is required. 

Is this the theory you were thinking of?  Intelligent beings created plasma charges on earth that attracted dust in significant enough amounts to create deep layers quite quickly in selected areas to terraform earth?  Or is there another theory?

Edited July 10, 2024 by Calm

[JVW]

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

Huh? You said you accept the Bible's literal account, and that is literally what Genesis 2 says. Have you even read it? It literally says God created Adam from clay. It literally says that Eve was created from Adam's "rib" (which some scholars argue was a euphemism for the baculum, which exists in most mammals but not humans--hence, they argue, the story explains why human men don't have them, cuz god cut it out, leaving a scar-like feature on the perineum.) It literally says they were talking to animals. I forgot to mention this, but in the Creation account before creating Eve, God literally offers a bunch of animals to Adam to see if any of those would make a good partner for him, but Adam tells God that he doesn't want to mate with an animal. The account literally has a snake convincing them to eat fruit. And the account literally has God upset that Adam and Eve gained knowledge, and so he kicks them out of the Garden. That's the story given in the Bible. If you find that cynical, then you should take that up with God.

The sentence you wrote about the Fall was identical to the way atheists write about the Fall. What you wrote wasn't wrong, but it came across as very snarky and disrespectful. (It reminded me of giphy posts during Easter which are generally about how God had sex with a virgin so that He could murder His Son.) I do believe the story in the Bible. I believe that there was no death before the Fall, that Adam was created out of the dust of the Earth, and that Eve was beguiled by the serpent.

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

I believe you said there was no death before 6,000 years ago. Can't make fossils without dead animals.

You are correct, I was wrong for saying that I never said that. Thanks for calling me out on it. I did state that I believed there was no death before the Fall (because there was no corruption) which means that I believe no fossils were formed before whenever the Fall happened. I do not believe that the Earth was created in 6,000 years though. I view a "day" in the creation account to mean a "creative time period".

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

And we are absolutely certain with no doubt whatsover that those dinosaur fossils are hundreds of millions of years old. You can't just wave of scientific knowledge, especially when you are relying on that same science throughout the day with almost everything you do.

We are not "absolutely certain with no doubt whatsoever". You may be absolutely certain, the scientific experts are not. Science is never absolutely certain. I don't understand how you can't see this point. Certainty is the realm of dogma and religious thought, it is not the realm of science. The moment a scientist feels certain they will no longer generate hypotheses and perform experiments which is what science is all about.

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

Again, you utterly fail to grasp just how long a million years is, nor how plate techtonics work. That is a very long time. At some point India was not connected to the land mass above it, as it S      L     O     W    L    Y  "collided" with that mass, the colliding plates slowly pushed the ground up, and over millions of years that upswelling of land became Everest. Not sure why that is difficult to understand.

That theory makes sense to me. It is entirely within reason to believe that that is the way Mount Everest was formed. I still believe that the Great Flood was a literal event. I don't know how to reconcile it with Mount Everest, and I'm ok with there not being a resolution to this apparent contradiction at this exact moment. It's impossible to resolve because nobody can perform repeatable, observable experiments to prove that either of the events happened in the way you or I believe.

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

It's not my opinion. You're the one who made up (or blindly copied) the claim that every culture has a great myth flood. That simply isn't true. You weren't stating an opinion. You are stating a fact, and now you're playing the silly "that's just my opinion game" when pointed out that your supposed fact is just wrong.

I'm not backpedaling. Name me a culture or society that doesn't have a flood myth. I haven't found one. In my initial statement about all peoples having a flood myth I should have phrased it as "I believe that every people group have a flood myth." or "I believe that virtually every people group have a flood myth." Your explanation as to why this doesn't bear any weight into supporting the idea of a literal flood is reasonable. Thank you for sharing it, but I don't believe in your reasoning.

Perhaps I should have framed the conversation in my initial post that I am stating my personal opinion in everything I write. I assumed that everyone knows that everything ever written or spoken is that person's opinion, whether or not it's an opinion about an accepted fact.

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

Except you're not, else you wouldn't have made some of the claims you have.

I'm sorry that I'm coming across as condescending.

It was the "OK Boomer" comment that made you come across that way.

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

That's not my intent. I'm just incredibly baffled that some of these bad arguments are still being made in 2024, when I thought they had long died off.

You seem to be having a difficult time understanding that a person can be aware of opposing viewpoints (or facts, as you view them) and choose not to believe them. To you, and anyone else that has the same convictions that you do, my arguments are bad. Even if I had a thousand peer-reviewed papers supporting my views, my arguments would still be considered bad if they contradicted yours. People are not persuaded to change their belief system simply because they are exposed to a rebuttal of it, that's not how life works.

I have had very in-depth, scientific discussions with others about scientific fields that I'm incredibly well-versed in. I used mountains of peer-reviewed research and evidence to support my claims. I also spent hours pouring over research that contradicted the research I had gathered. My goal is to gain truth, not to be right. Their minds were not changed, they viewed my arguments as bad, and they thought I was a harmful idiot. This was because their views, which were supported by their own scientific research, were part of their belief system. Their views on the issues we were debating were what they framed their life around and it impacted the way they behaved in life. I am arguing for my belief system, just like you are, but my belief system is in the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon. I don't feel threatened when people try to discount God's word because it is a religious text accepted by faith in Jesus Christ. I understand that I don't have any real legs to stand on if I'm arguing from a religious angle, and as long as a view is not anti-Christ, I'm willing to consider it and possibly even adopt it into my belief system.

18 hours ago, the narrator said:

Better for me to just step out of this thread right now.

I enjoyed chatting with you. Thank you for all of the time and effort you put into your posts.

[JVW]

12 hours ago, Calm said:

Are you saying they were formed quickly somehow without the friction created by that fast movement somehow not building up enough heat to melt the rock (because such melting isn’t found)?  Slow movement allows heat from friction to dissipate some so it doesn’t heat up enough to melt.

I think I found a summary on a fundraising page…

Is this the theory you were thinking of?  Intelligent beings created plasma charges on earth that attracted dust in significant enough amounts to create deep layers quite quickly in selected areas to terraform earth?  Or is there another theory?

https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2022/01/24/the-glasshouse-mountains/
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2021/05/20/easter-egg-hunt-in-laramie-mountains-part-1/

I don't remember the details. I haven't done a ton of research into the theory. But it had something to do with plasma bolts striking the Earth and creating shockwaves of rock which are what the mountains are. Like a ripple in Earth. Don't quote me on that but I think that's the general sentiment expressed in this theory.

[rodheadlee]

On 7/9/2024 at 8:38 AM, the narrator said:

I think that is a very responsible and intelligent way to understand the biblical accounts from a faithful perspective. What do you mean by "placed here" though?

Well I think that Adam and Eve went through their metamorphosis on a different earth and a different age. I believe they were Spirit children and then human beings and then Celestial beings on another Earth. Then they either volunteered and or were chosen to be the Adam and Eve of this Earth. I don't know if the Garden of Eden, which was a terrestrial world, was on a different planet or planet Earth. When they were placed outside the Garden they were placed on this Earth which is a telestial  world. 

[ZealouslyStriving]

34 minutes ago, JVW said:

I do not believe that the Earth was created in 6,000 years though. I view a "day" in the creation account to mean a "creative time period".

You seem to have some support in this thinking...

From Abraham:

"13 And it came to pass that they numbered the days; from the evening until the morning they called night; and it came to pass, from the morning until the evening they called day; and it was the third time."

*Further verses speak of times of creation instead of days.*

[the narrator]

59 minutes ago, rodheadlee said:

Well I think that Adam and Eve went through their metamorphosis on a different earth and a different age. I believe they were Spirit children and then human beings and then Celestial beings on another Earth.

What, then, is your explanation for why we humans are so anatomically and genetically similar to other life forms, particularly primates (where are genetic code is 98-99% the same? Why our genetic code has 90% similar to all other mammals? Or even 40% similar to bananas? And why does our genetic coding match up perfectly with how our place in the entire evolutionary tree of life? And why do we have anatomical features shared with other animals that we have no need of (or are even detrimental to us) such as toe nails, appendices, back hair, tail bone, and a spinal column still not entire suited to standing up all the time?

Not looking to debate; just interested in your explanation.