How old is the earth?
That's easy - Adam lived 4000 years before Christ. So take 2013, add 4000 years, and that makes 6013 years.
Oh, and Adam was created on the 6th day, so add six days. It's that simple. Next question.
Wait. I've taken Biology, Genetics, and most importantly, Geology.
I know the earth is 4.54 billion years old. There are a few thousand ways to verify that the earth is at least millions of years old, and plenty of ways to confirm it is billions of years old.
It was part of the forming solar system which revolved around the sun.
Water formed on earth about 100 million years after that. Then there were amino acids, lipids, and the building blocks of life emerged. First were the prokaryotes, then the eukaryotes, oxygen, moss, plants etc...
The atmosphere changed, animals developed in the water, then on the land. Eventually there were dinosaurs etc...
About 85 million years ago primates formed, and separated themselves from the other mammals.
The first Homo Sapiens evolved about 300,000 years ago, with minor changes leading up to the human form we know now.
Yeah - that's a really simplified version, but you get the point. The two stories seem quite divergent.
Now is when I should stand on my soap box and yell "The Dinosaurs are a hoax. Man was created from the dust!"
Which begs the question - how is anything created?
What if we simply change the word "create" to "make." Things might make a lot more sense.
Is it possible to make sharp cheddar cheese?
Sure, ask the folks at Tillamook. You take milk, salt, and culture enzymes, and combine them correctly in the right environment with heating and cooling and drying - and leave them there for a few years and you'll have delicious sharp cheddar cheese.
Can you make a diamond? Sure. Bury some coal about 89 miles deep in the ground and leave it there for 2 billion years.
Can we make things that seem to defy reason? Sure - What if I told you I could make water boil using no heat source. I could put a cup of water in a box, make the water boil, and you could put your hand inside the box and touch the sides and feel no heat. What would you say?
You would say I used a microwave.
I am a Mormon, a member of the LDS church. I have read the words hundreds of times in our scriptures: "The glory of God is intelligence."
We are not meant to be ignorant. Yes, we are asked to follow with faith, but we are also asked to seek knowledge and understanding about all subjects.
SO - WHAT IS MY POINT?
It makes perfect sense to me that God is the most intelligent being in the universe. He knows exactly how to create a human body in his own image. He knows exactly what is needed, when, and through what process you can make a human. You start with a planet that has a heat source - the sun.
You need the water to separate from the land, the atmosphere to clear, and then you start the process of making life. First a few cells, then more, then complex organisms, then plants which will evolve to make animals, which will eventually evolve to the form of man. When the process is complete you have a body in the form and image of God. A spirit can be placed in that body, and the process of creating the first man is complete.
Like the bible says: "God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
That is exactly what I believe God did. He created man, from the dust of the earth (over 4.4 billion years) and then breathed into him his spirit, and Adam was the first "living soul" (body + spirit).
This is my idea. I don't know if it's right - but it makes sense to me.
I don't know how it all works. Just like 500 years ago a microwave would have befuddled everyone, so do God's miracles befuddle people today. They would make perfect sense if we had more understanding - of the properties of matter, the laws of physics, the natural rules which govern our universe.
God knows all things. He knows how everything works. He knows how to create a human - I think it's through a process called evolution.
2 comments:
They're not all that divergent when you look at the phases.
Science:
0. big bang and dust clouds
1. Stars coalesce and planets form.
2. hot planet meant no water on the surface until the planet cooled enough. Mostly clouds (think Venus).
3. Earth cooled, oceans and rivers and continents created. Plants are first multi-celled organism.
4. Finally after sufficient rain the cloud cover has thinned enough to show the other stars. Some point in time the moon collided with the earth (this might have happened after animals, I don't know enough about it.)
5. Oceans team with animal life, some things begin to escape the ocean.
6. Animals, and birds and man.
Moses:
0. darkness and nothing
1. Separate darkness from light.
2. Separate the waters below and the waters above the firmament (sky).
3. gathered the waters, created plants.
4. stars, sun and moon created.
5. fish and birds created. (Deviation here. Birds came before animals).
6. land animals and man.
What always gets me is that Jesus, the creator of this planet, is trying to explain astrophysics and biology to a shepherd of mediocre intelligence (Moses). Moses isn't going to understand everything and he's definitely not going to have the patience to watch it in real-time so that means the demonstration is something like time-lapse or a divine replacement thereof.
So how is Moses demarcating days? I dunno maybe with the coming and going of the greatest brightness and glory he sees? Maybe that's the coming and going of the pre-mortal Christ as he starts the next phase of creation/making?
Makes sense to me.
Brian - exactly.
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