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Creation
Whether you believe God created the world or the universe is the result of the Big Bang, ask questions here about the creation of the beautiful and wondrous earth we live on.
2,055 Questions
Bereishith bara Elohim eth hashamayim ve-eth ha'aretz?
Was the universe created for our pleasure?
We now know that there are many planets, even outside our solar system. There are probably millions, at least, of planets in the universe capable of supporting life, and many of them may actually support life forms at least as advanced as our own. This is not about science fiction and it is not preparing us for contact with 'aliens' - it is just fact.
And if there are so many planets in the universe, and so many other intelligent beings, it should be arrogant to believe that the universe was created by a god known only to us, or that it was just for our own pleasure.
What evidence is there for the missing link?
The idea of links, was derived from medieval theology's 'Great Chain of Being". The concept sported a parochial hierarchy of grater and lesser beings with mankind in dominion at the highest rank above animals, as the jewel of creation. Naturalistic ideas at this time were not spared from interjection with 'higher' metaphysical concepts, so mankind, was relegated to subservience below angels and archangels and so on, all the way up to God.
In some ways this 'chain of being' reflected upon (or from) the dominant social hierarchies, so prevalent in that time. The common classes, the aristocracy and royalty all had their place, and it was just so, because it was 'the done thing'. Anathema to this mindset, was the idea that one kind of being could ever become another, as if a servant, could move into the ruling classes. 'Good Lord... What ever will they think of next?'
By the 1860's the science of comparative anatomy, had begun to make inroads into the phenotypical relationships between modern primates (including humans - homo sapiens) the inferred kinship on the grounds of prima facie evidence was becoming hard to ignore. At that time there was no fossil evidence to support a tree of kinship in the modern hominid group.
By the early 1870's and with Darwin's "Decent of Man" the kinship of all living creatures had been preempted by more than a decade now by Darwin's "Origin of Species", so thinking people were pressed to consider the possibility that humans were a biological species (an animal) no different in principal than any other living creature. Darwin and Huxley found a receptive niche for the burgeoning idea of human/ape kinship. Darwin's idea of natural selection and kinship via common ancestors, had struck a chord. A chord that couldn't help resonating in the obvious biological structure of a particular hominid - homo sapiens. who after all, was made of flesh, bones, blood and similar organs and tissues as so many other commonly observable animals.
Nevertheless, the fertile idea seem to have spawned a few (equally fertile) misconceptions at about this time. One of those was the misconception that man sprung directly from apes. That is - modern humans evolved from modern apes. Even in educated circles, there were naturalists given to imagining something half way between modern humans and modern apes. The German evolutionist, Ernst Haeckel, went so far as naming the predicted 'half man half ape' using the conventional Linnaean system, 'pithecanthropus alalus' meaning, 'little bastard of the gap' (only kidding); it really means, 'ape man without speech'.
In latter years it was decided that it would be more prudent, to refrain from naming species before any artifacts were discovered, otherwise homo mermaidius might slip into the taxonomic charts. Good call on that one I say. Nevertheless, the hope of a mythical being can inspire and motivate people (look at god for instance), and by that token a Duch medical officer, Eugene Dubois took up the challenge to find our dearly beloved pithecanthropus. It was the dawning days of paleoanthropology and Dubois spent several years in the dedicated hunt. His reward finally came in the form of a hominid called 'Java Man' Pithecanthropus erectus. Although this hominid was actually an early species that resembles homo sapiens much more than the old world apes, the question of direct human ancestry was a moot point.
Since the time of Dubois, there has been a veritable avalanche of hominid fossils found, including nearly complete skeletons. In the case of australopthicus afarenses from the Afar region in Ethiopia we have a wealth of fossils including 'Lucy', and the 'first family' Many of these Australopithecien finds are thanks to the hard work of the Leaky family (lucky they weren't chosen to build the ark - it would have been the Leaky Ark - tee hee) and of course the ledgendary Donald Johanson and Tom Grey who discovered Lucy on the 24th of November, 1974.
The discovery of Lucy was the definitive cap on the 'missing link' controversy, as there were no doubts to Lucy's claim as a bi-pedal ancestor, and no question that she belonged to a different species either. Before this time several hominids had been considered as potential ancestors, many of which may have been close or distant cousins, but Lucy filed all the necessary criteria. If there was ever something that never went extinct but which instead learned to build campfires and work with tools, Lucy was the prime candidate. This has been reinforced time and again since the 1970's.
Meanwhile, the misconception of a missing link has been a die hard fallacy. In the fossil record, there are countless missing links. It should come as no surprise that there are huge gaps all over the fossil record. That is just the nature of the beast. Fossils do not appear everywhere and in the few places on earth that they do, they only appear under ideal conditions. Furthermore, many paleontologists agree that evoluton proceeds in fits and bursts. The opportunity in nature to catch a glimpse of any missing links, may be as unlikely a photographer happening to snap a lightning strike. Even worse because the photographer can prepare for the electrical storm and wait for the moment. A fossil hunter is a wandering nomad with few clues but a keen eye for fossils, When a new species does arise, we have to realize that it does so in an isolated population (not to the whole of the ancestral species). The opportunities to capture that frozen moment in time and location of a speciation event are so rare, that it is surprising that we have as many transitional specimens as we do.
In the hominid branch of evolution, we are especially fortunate and it has been hard to choose which phylogenetic tree is most parsimonious. The problem is not because we are lacking in specimens to fill the so called 'missing links', but rather that we are spoiled with choice. The phylogenetic tree, is abundant with hominid species so that disputes about where to place them revolve more around similarities than differences.
It is so very very important to remember, that Darwinian evolution is a branching phenomenon. A new species does not simply evolve from it's ancestor, one whole species transforming in totality to another, rather, it branches off into a new lineage. A small sub-population begins to exploit a newly discovered and ecologically fertile niche, and that gives rise to a new species. The transition may be short lived and the population that makes the split may be small and isolated from the ancestral group.
The chances that any transitional forms may be caught in the lens of the fossil record are small, yet still we find them. Hominids must have been a diverse group positively bristling with variation. So many must be counted as extinct cousins, (close or distant) that it is hard to know how they all fit. But the idea of a missing link is most definitely an archaic relic of our parochial homo-centric past. There are numerous evidences of the "missing link." However, this discovery leads to more problem. Imagine two cups placed at a distance. It will create one gap. Now place a cup (missing link) at the center of this two cups. Now there are now two gaps created between the now three cups. Once that two gaps again is bridged by more cups, the gaps now are 4, 8, 16 etc. etc. But that gap is now getting smaller and smaller. Sooner or later there will be a continuous train of cups with no gaps.
1. the act of producing or causing to exist; the act of creating; engendering.2.the fact of being created.
3.something that is or has been created.
4.the Creation, the original bringing into existence of the universe by God.(See also: Is there evidence for Creation?)
5.the world; the universe.
6.an original product of the mind, especially an artistic work.
How could people believe that the Earth was only 6000 years old?
There's plenty of evidence for a young Earth, in addition to religious tradition. You're unaware of this evidence because the schools keep it quiet. The following is just a small sampling of what you could find with a little research.
1) Evolutionists believe it must have taken millions of years for layers of strata to form but they can also be caused by catastrophes (a huge amount of stratum was laid down at the Mt. St. Helen eruption in just five hours).
2) Creationists see the "survival of the fittest" and the dating of rock layers by fossils as being perfect tautologies.
3) "Radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age-estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often very different. There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological clock. The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologists and evolutionists." William D. Stansfield, Ph.D., Instructor of Biology, California Polytechnic State University.
4) "Even total rock systems may be open during metamorphism and may have their isotopic systems changed, making it impossible to determine their geologic age." Prof. Gunter Faure (Department of Geology, The Ohio State University, Columbus.)
5 a). At current rates of erosion the amount of sea-floor sediments actually found do not support a "billions of years" age for the Earth.
b) The amount of Sodium Chloride in the sea, also, is a small fraction of what the "old Earth" theory would postulate.
c) The Earth's magnetic field is decaying too fast to extrapolate a long age for the Earth.
d) The rate of accumulation of Moon-dust has been measured; and the amount of dust on the Moon was found to be vastly less than what scientists had predicted before the Moon-landings.
e) Helium is generated by radioactive elements as they decay. The escape of this helium into the atmosphere can be measured. According to the Evolutionary age of the Earth there should be much more helium in the atmosphere, instead of the 0.05% that is actually there.
What did God create on the fifth day?
In short, the fish and birds.
(Genesis 1:20-23)
20 Then God said, "Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind." 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird-each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 Then God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply. Let the fish fill the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth."
23 And evening passed and morning came, marking the fifth day.
Answer 2
The fifth day Creation, of this earth age (eon) is defined in the book of Genesis 1:20-22. There you discover all aquatic (sea, ocean, water) life forms were created, along with all the fowl (birds) life forms that fly. Remember that in 2nd Peter chapter 3 you are told that a day with the Lord is 1000 years, therefore the fifth day was 1000 years long, not 24 hours as some incorrectly assume. You need to go read Genesis chapter 1 for yourself to understand all that is written there.
The birds and fish, I think.
If you said that the earth was formed by stars then why do you say that God created the earth?
You have to decide whether you are willing to believe science, which says that the earth was formed from material from a star, or whether you wish to believe the Genesis account, because Genesis says that the earth already existed before the stars were created. You also have to decide whether you are willing to believe that the stars are enormous, distant bodies or just lights in the firmament that separates the waters above from the waters below. Then you are in a position to say whether God really created the earth just as we have it now.
Yes, Calvinism is still believed in a number of different churches. The "Reformed Theology" follows all the teachings of Calvin as outlined in their statements of faith, and Heidelberg Catechism. A couple of denominations that follow Calvin's teachings include: The Reformed Church and The Christian Reformed Church.
In the case of the Genesis account... no.
The "thousand years as one day" is a prophetic analogy that Peter used regarding God's plan for the coming re-creation of the New Earth.
The Genesis account, on the other hand, speaks specifically of "24-hour days."
"...And the evening and the morning were the first day." (Gen.1:5)
Unlike man's reckoning of time, God's day begins with the going down of the sun... with the "nighttime" portion of the 24-hour day.
"...And the evening and the morning were the second day." (verse 8)
And so on.
The six-day creation of the earth recorded in Genesis follows on the heels of the earth's destruction by some unknown cause not disclosed in the account.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM AND VOID..." (Gen.1:1-2).
The understood form of the verb "to be" that the translators decided to use in this very first passage in the creation account leaves the reader with the impression that our Perfect Creator God made the earth very sloppily in the beginning... then had to come back later to polish up what He started, after a hiatus of who knows how much time.
There are different forms of "existence"... and each form of the verb "to be" can change the meaning of what one is reading, considerably, in this case.
If the translators would have used the form of the verb "to be" -- BECAME -- in this passage, then, Genesis 1:1-2 would read:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth BECAME without form, and void...". And a whole different understanding of what is being said comes to life.
God didn't make the earth in the beginning a shapeless sloppy mess. He made it perfectly... as He can do nothing less than perfectly. And something caused the earth's destruction sometime afterwards [what it was and the amount of time between is undisclosed].
Genesis doesn't say how long it took God to create the universe in the very beginning. It tells us how long it took God to RE-CREATE the later destroyed earth in preparation to sustain man, created on the sixth "24-hour day"... whom He created in His image... not after the image of an ape.
The earth was already there when Jesus said, "Let there be light." [see John 1:3]
He didn't have to make the earth from "scratch." He only had to "fix it up" to make it habitable for life to exist and be maintained. And He did it in the time it took "six 24-hour rotations of the earth."
The same 24-hour rotations we witness every day of our lives.
"...And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." (verse 31)
Do aliens think they you are aliens?
yes. we think other species are aliens because we dont know what they are. maybe aliens dont know about us and think we are aliens.
What are the characteristics of Allah the God of Muslims?
Islam is a monotheistic religion. Accordingly, Muslims believe in one and only one God. God worshiped by Muslims is the same God worshiped by Jews and Christians. He is called in Arabic Allah. Even Arabic Christians and Jews Have God written in their Arabic Holy books as Allah. Christians who believe that Jesus is son of God say it in Arabic as 'Isa ibn Allah' where Jesus is called Isa in Arabic,. son is Ibn in Arabic, and God is Allah in Arabic.
refer to the question below for Allah names and attributes.
You can't blow a bubble without the right ingredients, specifically a bubble solution that typically contains soap and water. The soap reduces the surface tension of the water, allowing the liquid to stretch and form a thin film. If you simply blow air without this solution, it won't create the necessary surface tension to form a bubble. Additionally, blowing too hard can burst the bubble before it fully forms.
Where did the creation of the Earth take place?
=== === (This question modified to support the answer: see Discussion) It does not state a location in the Bible in which the earth was created, but simply states: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1. Since God is eternal, and none else is, it was His complete choice to create the earth, which, according to Creation Scientists, occurred approximately 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.
=== === There is more proof that the Earth is not billions or millions of years old than there is proof that it is. One proof is that layers of all types of extinct animal fossils, including dinosaurs and sea creatures are found crushed together with a multitude of human bones as a result of the great Flood of Noah's day. God made the whole universe in seven days.
Why do Christians need an uncaused first cause?
1.Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2.The Universe began to exist.
3.Therefore, the Universe had a cause.
Another Answer:
Not just Christians as it is known as the universal, immutable Law of Cause and Effect. Taken to its logical 'beginning' there must be a first cause. Even science to day is looking for the 'God particle' and some think they may have evidence of it:
The law of cause and effect states that:
Every effect has a specific and predictable cause.
Every cause or action has a specific and predictable effect.
Marcus du sautoy on the consciousness and the sense of self?
An Essay On The Consciousness And Self-Awareness by ELIZABETH BARNOR
Does anyone out there agree with prof Marcus Du Sautoy that consciousness and self-awareness can be proved only by scientific experiments? I don't. I believe that what atheist scientists are searching for is the concept of God. And so long as they deny His existence, their searches for the meaning of life - which consciousness is, will always elude them.
Consciousness, I believe, lies in the metaphysical state. And Metaphysics is ideation - an abstract awareness that is felt or sensed, but is outside of the human physical experience. The metaphysical world, as philosophers assert, can be reached only through the subconscious state. The old philosophers - like Descartes, Nietzsche and yes, William Blake, who I think of as a philosopher rather than a poet, (or maybe both), attained the subconscious state, or the metaphysical world, largely by smoking opium; which transported them to an awareness outside of their physical state, enabling them to come out with concepts and imageries that made us think of them as philosophers. They were philosophers to us because attaining the metaphysical world is not something the layman, or ordinary man, ever thinks of exploring. It is not something he even aspires to. It does not occur to him he might want to attempt going there.
And if by some fluke he chances to be there, he is not adequately equipped to recognise it. It would make him senseless. He would start behaving oddly, misinterpreting and misrepresenting what is revealed to him. It would strongly disturb him into displaying societally-unstructured behaviour. He would veer so far off-course from the codes and conventions put in place to guard and control us by Society. Society will condemn and treat him as insane.
The ordinary man, whether out of laziness, or lack of self-belief, prefers to label another as a philosopher, a scientist, a seer or somehow blessed with the sort of brain that is not meted out to all humankind. It is beyond the reaches of his mental capacity to wonder about anything other than is in front of him. What he cannot see and touch, to him does not exist and does not warrant worrying about.
Gautama Buddha sat under a tree for years to attain the same state - which he called Nirvana. Only to have his fellow man put him on a pedestal and deify and worship him. All he was doing was searching for answers to his own life problems. But I hereby claim, unscientific and non-mathematical as I am, that we all have the nature-given ability to seek answers to problems pertaining to our own lives, and life in general. That a high imagination, if summoned (and it can be done at will), can achieve the same state so that a thought can be plucked from the unseen to explain our world. We do not need, and indeed must not, make others liable to, and responsible for, finding answers to our mistakes. They can find their own answers - we must strive to do the same.
When Einstein came up with the equation E=MC(2), he was doing the same thing. Alright, he did use algebraic (mathematical) codes, signs and formulae, but he was still working with non-palpable ideas. Dreams, like imagination, can do the same thing.
During the good professor's experimentation and moments of near-clarity on BBC2 on the 20th of October 2009, he did touch on the idea of the Consciousness existing outside of the physical body. Yet that impalpable something still eluded him. He travelled the globe, visited other science professors and doctors in order to grasp different aspects of the search for his answer, but it still did not occur to him to attribute this elusiveness to a Supreme Being, a higher intelligence - simply to God, our Creator. Scientists would be more intellectual and helpful to the world and to their 'craft', if only they admit that there truly is something 'out there' that has the answer to everything that they cannot get at. And that that something is Divinity God, the Creator, and that it is at this juncture of their search that Faith comes in. And that the very fact that whatever they do, they cannot get a conclusion in certainty, means there is a God that can only be reached by faith. He has given us so much, yet we always deny Him the credit for all we have and own, which is what He alone bequeathed to us at our birth. What does He have to do for us to see him in the glory of the beauty we see around us in nature?
Prof Du Sautoy did mention Descartes and his idea of his consciousness or existence being determined by his self-awareness: 'I think, therefore I am.' It is only through his thinking (the mind, the (sub)consciousness) that Descartes could actualise his existence. He (Descartes) also asserts that God exists because we are moved to wonder about Him. The very fact that we can conceptualise Him and debate whether or not He exists, is proof that He does. The human mind cannot accept what it does not see and touch except through Thought/Ideation/Metaphysics. Creators of film special effects go into their minds (the metaphysical world), to evoke the pyrotechnics and monstrosities that fill us with awe at the cinema. We are awed by special effects because not till somebody thinks or imagines up and builds, we cannot even begin to perceive them. They do this and we think of them as geniuses we admire. God does more than that. We see the proof of his creativity in the natural world we inhabit, in our own selves. In the fact that we cannot will ourselves to live and die - that is all to His will, yet we deny Him His rightly-deserved admiration and praise. That is all He asks of us, not much from One who has given us so much. And yet we cannot show our awe in his creativity that surpasses all mankind is capable of.
The mind is a great thing. If properly utilised for its rightful purpose, it can achieve so much for us. And that was one of God's stipulations with man when after creating Adam and then Eve, He entrusted the world and all in it into their care. He wanted us to use the mind to look after ourselves and the World he created for us. The mind is encapsulated in the brain while we have Consciousness and does its miraculous work: In scientific terms the connective activities of thousands, if not millions, of neurons that allow us to live and perform. I will endeavour to call these connective activities the Consciousness which gives us self-awareness. Again, Du Sautoy conceded that the Mind/Consciousness is separate from the physical body.
Yes, they are separate. But the end (death) of one - the physical body, should not mean the cessation of the other - the Consciousness or Soul. The Soul does leave the physical body at death but it passes into a bigger, collective Consciousness - A spirit world. Or a world full of departed or separated souls, or consciousness that is another dimension - akin to the Metaphysics. We die a little when we dream in sleep. When we dream in sleep, it is the Soul leaving to reacquaint itself with its own world. Our dearly departed ones visit us in our sleep when we dream of them, and do things with us. Complex situations and ideas are unravelled and simplified to us in dreams. Biblical prophets saw visions in dreams. We all possess the ability to imagine what in wakefulness eludes us, in dreams. We visit our Subconscious world when we sleep and dream. If we are fortunate, the essence of our being is revealed to us in dreams and we become more aware of who we are in consciousness.
It is no coincidence when people turn spiritual after Near Death Experiences. They are fortunate enough to have died and come back - usually with a specific purpose. Rather like waking up from a deep sleep and remembering a dream. Often such people find their lives change and take on a new meaning. They are no longer afraid of dying because they might have seen previously-departed loved ones and know they will resume their lives with them again one day. And behind all these uncertainties and certainties looms large the idea of God. He is the Ultimate Decision-maker who decides our decisions before we make them. He is the unknown quantity behind the causation of the Big Bang when He said 'Let there be Light.' The Big Bang caused an almighty flash of light when it happened. Or so we are told. But the proof of this is in the Bible. And it was there before the Einsteins and Hawkingses came along and tried to take the credit from God and give it to science. But, let me indulge myself here and ask, What is Science? Yes, science is scaled/measured Proof - Fact. It is having the concrete result of an experiment to show it can be proved. But is not Science itself an idea? Is it not intangible, in that it cannot be touched and felt? So could we not be naming God when we say the word 'science'?
From the foregoing it is obvious that I am a Christian. Not religious, as I do not ascribe to the idea of Religion. I am just a believer in the ideas of God and Jesus Christ - unashamedly so. And I make no excuses for that. And, we have proof that Jesus did exist among humans.
With a pinch of salt is the short answer!
Presumably, there were two myths that became mixed together. You may wonder how such obviously contraditory stories managed to appear in the bible, but, for many years, it would have been inconceivable to point out such things. In Britain it used to be illegal to claim that anything in the gospels was untrue (hence the expression Gospel truth).
