god created man and the universe

[farmbif]

Ive been pondering quite a bit lately about life and death and god.
but one thought that I can't understand or wrap my head around.
man on earth is only maybe like 20 or 40 million years, or less.
the earth and our sun is estimated to be 4 Billion years old and the universe is an estimated 13.6 billion years old.
if god created it all where did god come from.
4 billion year old earth. our time on this earth is short.

[MUSTANG]

God has always been and will always be. The creation of the universe was because God wanted to.

[Thundarstick]

They say a jumping spider can only see about 2 feet away. So ask those spiders what a man looks like and you'd likley get all kinds of different answers.

When it comes to man and God, we are a kin to that spider where our senses are just absolutely inadequate, not only to describe God, but inadequate to even imagine him in a whole sense. We are limited to carnal understanding and carnal explanations, while being able to only faintly experience a spiritual understanding.

I can't see God, or understand God, but can see evidence of his power and wisdom. Where did God come from? That's like asking that jumping spider how to get to London. :shock:

[badguybuster]

Science is making a lot of assumptions regarding the age of the universe and the sun. We know VERY little about it in reality and what we do know is based on other assumptions and observations.

[fixit]

I have a long standing gripe about the scientific community and their tendency to fall back on dogma instead of allowing the facts to stand for themselves! The setting of geological and anthropological times is particularly problematic, because there really is no way to prove, or subsequently disprove, the set date. Set assertions are ultimately educated guesses, at best. Further, the scientific process is too easily corrupted by personal bias, which can unfortunately be bought, too easily!

[GhostHawk]

Thundarstick nailed it IMO.

I may not be able to see God directly. But I see his handiwork everywhere I look as soon as I am out of the realm of mankind.

Trees, grasses waving in the breeze, the ripple of a brook, the magic of a dragonfly or butterfly.
To me his Cathedral is the great outdoors. Out past the hustle and bustle. Find a quiet place, lean your back against a tree and sink DEEP. Listen with your whole being. The music of the spheres is still playing.

In the touch of a breeze I feel his presence and I am humbled.
We live so fast, we need to slow down. And we need to be better stewards of his earth.

[farmbif]

the speed of light is the speed of light its a constant that does not change and can be calculated exactly. looking out to the edge of our universe with the most advanced technology we have is how age of universe was estimated.
it is possible there is more than one universe and god created ours after another.

[Wayne Smith]

Consider - God said "let there be light" and the big bang occurred - nothing but light for millions of years!

My point simply is that we cannot understand a pre-existant, eternal God who created everything that is. We struggle to understand what He created. We have glimpses of the truth and make theories that are limited to human understanding. God is outside and beyond human understanding, after all, he created us. We are the creation, He is the creator. We want to put ourselves in His place, vainly. That very desire limits our understanding because it requires denying God.

[Thunder Stick]

We are finite creatures. Born somewhere on the timeline of human history. How can finite man comprehend a God who is infinate and has always existed?

Here is part of Chapter 38 from the book of Job, where God addresses the issue.

4
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

The entire chapter is the infinate God's response to finite man on the subject. It's a good read.

[dverna]

My pastor ridicules evolution as silly...that man could have descended from other primates. Yet, he believes the earth is 6-8000 years old. Also, creation lasted six 24 hour days.

God created all things, but the details are not revealed. In the beginning, a "day" may have been 100's of millions of "earth days". The concept of a "day" is based on the rising and setting of our sun on earth...things that did not exist at the the beginning.

How would Moses (commonly credited with writing Genesis) have understood the details of creation if God had taken 100's of millions of years to create it all. God most likely gave him the "Cliff's notes" version to KISS.

I believe in God but not the account of Creation in the Bible. It is a "story".

As to your question, Mustang answered it. Man cannot even agree on how earth and mankind were created...so how can we possibly wrap our brains around God? We accept God based on faith.

BTW, as an atheist it was easy to pick apart things in the Bible that are contrary to 'science' and use those inconsistencies to dismiss the Bible and God. But that is throwing the baby out with the bath water. It was the NT that brought this non-believer to God. For me, I put aside the 'stories' that do not make sense and do not use them to shake my faith. I do not subscribe to the Bible being the "perfect" inspired word of God...for then I would not be able to believe in God. Man, as we know, is not perfect and men wrote the Bible.

The "good news" is in the NT. It requires only accepting Jesus to gain salvation. It is does NOT require accepting the Bible or its history of Creation.

If the universe is 8000 year old or 14 Billon does not matter.

[Ickisrulz]

I really believe that the "Creation" we see in Genesis is actually a reconstruction and re-population of the Earth after a cataclysmic event, probably a flood, wiped out the previous vegetation and animals (and possibly "people"). This, of course, is known as the Gap Theory and has been around for a long time. It reconciles an Old Earth as seen in geology and young human race as presented in the Old Testament. It is also possible that God created the Earth/Universe with some artificial age to it. We just don't have all the facts and our faith should not hinge on how old the Earth and Universe might

[1hole]

Science, by definition, is about facts. Facts can be observed, tested and demonstrated in labs and science can't lie ... but scientists certainly can. And - follow the money - they often do.

Claims of "God or no god" simply can't be scientifically proven in a lab. So, when pompous scientists look us in the eye and proudly proclaim, "Trust us, we say there is no God!" they exalt themselves far passed their honest (tiny) levels of spiritual knowledge and experience so that's just their arrogant religious opinion; IT IS NOT and it cannot be SCIENCE, as many committed Christian scientists would happily tell you!)

I believe God and that includes his Bible. If the reality of creation is exactly as it's Biblically stated or if it's only a metaphor isn't a deal killer to me, I just don't care. But, as much as I love each of them, I know the Bibles resting beside my bed are not translated word-for-word accounts from God as they were originally given; they simply can't be. I absolutely believe God has guarded and protected his words where they matter tho.

My Bibles had to be translated into (south American) English because I can't read the original Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek or Latin. I also know that every translation of anything foreign I may read is a "version" of the originals because there can be no literal - i.e., word-for-word translations - for much of anything. So, I read the Bibles I have and confidently follow the meanings of the important passages in order to reach the messages that matter to Christians. Nothing eternal hinges on anything except trusting that "God IS!" and following Him throughout life. Everything important falls into place after that.

I'm a week from being 81 and my aching old body is hanging on by fraying threads but I don't much care. The Lord of the Bible has proven that he can be trusted to do the right thing every time so after a lifetime of experiencing his consistent care, I have learned to totally trust him for all of my tomorrows.

(Interesting point of scientific fact: If all of our "smart scientists" were as smart as they want us to think they are, I and a lot of other folk would be in much better shape today! And, we all would have much more confidence about what tomorrow's weather will be! ;))

Scientifically, there is no way any of us prove God is or can determine the age of anything cosmic or the speed of light. Thus, we are left to make our scientific and eternal life/death decisions based on whom we choose to believe. Based on a lifetime of studying science and observing people, I choose to believe the Bible. BUT, uncertain questions don't touch any Christian doctrine so in the bigger stream of history, questions like how old anything is, or where God came from, etc., is trivial belly button contemplation. It's simply a spiritual distraction because it really doesn't matter to us. The vastly more important gospel of salvation and eternal life with God is entirely based on our personal - chosen - faith/trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord of our lives, now and forever, and that's what really matters.

(Oh yeah, as a quick aside and matter of scientific fact, it's rarely mentioned in public but real sciency type scientists with big telescopes long ago - maybe 30 ears ago? - proven that the "BIG BANG!" theory of beginnings is wrong!)

Bottom line, Man is made by God, not the reverse, so God owes us no explanations. It was God who imparted immortal souls to our mortal bodies and wants to be like a Father to us. We should all understand that eternal "life", as such, isn't a serious question, we have that guarantee from the day of conception. The serious question before us is, "Where will we spend our eternity?" and - to the astonishment of many - God leaves the answer to THAT question up to each of us! (see John 3:17/18)

I pray that everyone who reads this meandering tome will choose whom they follow very carefully. And it IS a personal choice because we each choose the way we will go. At it's best, this life is very short and then we'll be spending the rest of eternity with whichever spiritual crowd we choose to trust now. The two eternal climate choices we can make are very different.

[Hogtamer]

You would think science could come up with a cure for my cold. Or figure out how blind crabs and shrimp thrive around thermal vents at temps that would cook seafood in thousands of feet of ocean. At least give me the value of pi! The fact is, and most scientist no matter there discipline would agree, the more we learn the more questions arise.

[tankgunner59]

It all comes down to F-A-I-T-H ! Faith is believing in things not yet seen. The only real problem with it is being strong enough to trust our maker. I not only believe, but I have felt the touch of Gods Holy Spirit, as I know many others have. We can know God but only by persevering to the time He has chosen for us to be gathered to Him!

[Bigslug]

One must also wonder why, if God did in fact create man, what his purpose was in placing him on a tiny island (Earth) in the middle of a VAST vacuum and radiation-filled cosmos that would kill him even quicker than the environmental and microbial hazards he placed on our own planet to keep us in check.

It's a better method for keeping your mistakes quarantined than anything tried in Wuhan.

[dverna]

One must also wonder why, if God did in fact create man, what his purpose was in placing him on a tiny island (Earth) in the middle of a VAST vacuum and radiation-filled cosmos that would kill him even quicker than the environmental and microbial hazards he placed on our own planet to keep us in check.

It's a better method for keeping your mistakes quarantined than anything tried in Wuhan.

Many Christians believe we are special but that is not supported in the Bible. It is possible God created man on earth and other beings on other planets. Keeping us separated would be His design and we can only speculate as to why.

BTW, I do not believe God is perfect. The Bible does not confirm such a conclusion. His love is perfect, but His decisions have not been perfect.

He is smart enough to keep His creations apart until such time He deems we need to interact. Only an arrogant Christian would believe God limited Himself to only creating man on this planet. God has no constraints.

[1hole]

One must also wonder why, if God did in fact create man, what his purpose was in placing him on a tiny island (Earth) in the middle of a VAST vacuum.....

This one doesn't; I wonder about a lot of things but not that.

Old questions like, "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" or "how high is up?" are meaningless even if we could find a correct answer. And some subjects are so far out of our mental reach that spending time meditating on them is pointless. I'd rather spend my loose time doing something meaningful even if it's only in some small way, like scratching my dog's belly; he really likes that! :)


Hogtamer, first, pi are round, not square. Second, good apple pi (or cobbler) are valued beyond price. :drinks:

[anothernewb]

How are we to understand God? A good explanation from an old sci fi show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7aKEmxE9nA

[wv109323]

The Bible starts with no explanation of God's past. The Bible starts with "In the beginning God created". We must accept that by faith. God can create as he likes. He can create an oak sampling or a large full grown oak bearing acorns appearing to man to be hundreds of years old. He can create light that appears to man to be billions of years old. God's rules of creation does not have to obey our rules of science, of thermodynamics or of nature.
Dating of objects is done through chemical decomposition. We have been able to see atoms of elements for roughly 150 years. Isn't it a little strange our "scientists" can study chemical decomposition for such a short time and determine that the half life of some chemical decomposition is 2.6 billion years.
Intelligent design requires an intelligent designer. Study anything in nature and you can't tell me it was by happenstance or evolution.
God may not be visibly present as we would like but the evil works of the Devil can be plainly seen. If there is a Devil there is a God.

[1hole]

... The Bible starts with "In the beginning God created". We must accept that by faith. God can create as he likes. He can create an oak sampling or a large full grown oak bearing acorns appearing to man to be hundreds of years old. He can create light that appears to man to be billions of years old. God's rules of creation does not have to obey our rules of science, of thermodynamics or of nature.

THAT is the answer to a lot of questions about how old the universe is, an answer which doesn't matter about anything at all.
I believe creation required 6 days but it's not a crucial Christian issue so I wouldn't die for it.

I believe that if a modern scientist with a time machine dropped back to the very first Sunday he would looked at God's week old creation and said, "Goodness, look at the tree rings and weathered rocks, this place has to be millions of years old!" And his subsequent lab age tests would surely confirm what he first believed but ... I believe he would be wrong.

Thing is, most non-believers think of a god who is little more than a bigger image of themselves and that's far too small; God is BIG and he can create as he likes!

Not only did God create everything that was created, he also created the (observable) "natural laws" of science. Surely we could all agree that a spiritual God would not limit himself to his own physical laws. (Even human politicians won't do that!)

Whatever, come quickly Lord Jesus!

[gkainz]

My favorite response to the question
“Which came first? The chicken or the egg?
is
“Genesis 1:21 says God created ‘…every winged bird according to their kind…’ not eggs.”
:)

[Char-Gar]

God is wholly other! Being wholly other, we don't have the concepts and words to talking about God. All we know about God is what has been revealed to us. Revelation while very partial, is enough to understand the essential character and nature of God.

[Gobeyond]

3.1416 will do. There is plenty of scientific evidence for a young creation. There is only inches of dust on the moon not 13.6 billion years worth. The fossil record shows that the flood changed things and the older fossils ar on top. Frozen dinosaurs show they lived in the ice age since the flood about 2250 BC. Time since Adam and Eve in the Bible’s genealogies only adds up to almost 6000 years and so does the Jewish calendar. If the sun was 13.6 billion years old it would have burned out long ago because of its size and mass . It’s a small star and it’s stage in life is suggestive of youth. It loses so much mass per year that it wouldn’t be very old. Heck God could have just moved those stars over there or created them over there all those light years away. They suggest a lot of time.

Look into creation science, much more they have found.

[Thundarstick]

Amen to that! Anything that's found that don't fit into the already established scientific theories about ages, evolution, geology, etc, are hidden away and sometimes destroyed to avoid having to explain them!

[Good Cheer]

I rely upon the 1611 King James translation with notes by Bullinger (1922) and Strong's Concordance (published by Holman, not the one by Nelson) for the good sense of Genesis 1:2. Once it was clear that the world came to be waste there was no longer confusion over much of the matters concerning geology and paleontology.

[1hole]

Just a few thoughts about Bible Versions:

Some of us old guys make far too much noise about opposing newer Bible "versions". The KJV itself is clearly labeled a version; it is NOT and was never meant to be a direct translation! Like, there were no "thees" or "thous", etc., in the original texts and the "Holy Ghost" should have read Holy Spirit". And those are just the easy to see translation errors! And all translations of anything has to be a version, word-for-word direct translations are impossible because of vastly differing grammar!

No one today uses a 1611 KJV. In fact, few people today have even seen one. I did see one (a photo copy replica anyway) and I put it down pretty quickly. It was written in Elizabethan English and that grammar alone can be as difficult for us to follow as Greek.

There were no copyright laws in 1611 so later printers could (and some did) revise the KJV as seemed right to them and each one made as many copies of his new version as he - or his customer - wished. But, so far as I know, there is no record of that revision history because keeping that record wasn't relevant at that time and there was no central place to control that data anyway.

Thus, there is no way to track all of the KJV revisions today but it's been suggested that each new copy run saw noticeable (but spiritually trivial) changes by well meaning printers just trying to keep up with drifts in the constantly evolving spelling and grammar changes in the English language. And that's been very good for us. Believe me, if we had no newer versions than the 1611, few of us would get much value out of trying to read our Bibles!

Bottom line, pick an orthodox Bible version that you like and use it!

I read and treasure my very old (1959) Schofield KJV but I study my NKJV and Amplified Bible. (And my Strong's number coded Hebrew-Greek-English Interliniear Bible and some lexicons too but I don't recommended them to most folk. All that studying stuff can be fun if you lean that way but it really isn't necessary for laymen.)
Truth is, any good Bible version, or even paraphrase, has all of the "word study" most of us will ever need to know built right in.


NOTE:

I do NOT recommend paying any attention at all to anything from Jehovah Witness (their "New World Translation" is a collection of twisted fabrication, it's not a translation), Seventh Day Adventists (they teach some weirdly false stuff), Mormons (a huge library of fabrications), Christian Science (they're neither Christian nor science), Roman Catholics (with their many Popist additions and contradictions), .... and there's another false but obscure "bible" I can't recall right now.

[farmbif]

each to his own beliefs and bibles, how do any of us mere mortals know what is truly right or wrong.
like some people from Asia might say the only book that can be believed is the Mahābhārata, with its seemingly fantastical tales that just might all be true, and others might only believe the book that their parents and parents before them believed.

[1hole]

each to his own beliefs and bibles, how do any of us mere mortals know what is truly right or wrong.

Actually, it's pretty easy for open eyed humans to establish which single book of religion is trustworthy.

Test: Check a book's prophecies to see if any outrageously improbable events were predicted and recorded history have proven it true.

My Bible and the historical records are loaded with proofs, all dead-on stuff too. And, unlike with Nostradamus, no arms length, squinty-eyed manipulations are required to sorta make it work. All those easily testable points should be enough to prove my Bible's trustworthiness, in fact lawyers have said its proofs would be acceptable as evidence in court.

[Good Cheer]

each to his own beliefs and bibles, how do any of us mere mortals know what is truly right or wrong.
like some people from Asia might say the only book that can be believed is the Mahābhārata, with its seemingly fantastical tales that just might all be true, and others might only believe the book that their parents and parents before them believed.

How can someone read the ancient scripts and not recognize the world that was? The rebellion made a real mess of things.

[Good Cheer]

The beauty of the King James translation is the study tools that are keyed to it. Interlinears help too, they also being keyed to the King James text. Each translation is going to have it's problems but due to the centuries of examination performed by our antecedents, those who have walked this path before us, I find none else is as useful for study.

[Good Cheer]

Ive been pondering quite a bit lately about life and death and god.
but one thought that I can't understand or wrap my head around.
man on earth is only maybe like 20 or 40 million years, or less.
the earth and our sun is estimated to be 4 Billion years old and the universe is an estimated 13.6 billion years old.
if god created it all where did god come from.
4 billion year old earth. our time on this earth is short.

How our creator came to be isn't going to be answered with anything except conjecture and assumptions. It's just beyond the scope of our present knowledge. We're about like guppies in an aquarium guessing at what is outside the living room window.

[Ickisrulz]

The beauty of the King James translation is the study tools that are keyed to it. Interlinears help too, they also being keyed to the King James text. Each translation is going to have it's problems but due to the centuries of examination performed by our antecedents, those who have walked this path before us, I find none else is as useful for study.

In the last 20+ years we have been blessed with computerized Bible study. Logos is probably the best/most powerful and keys everything to everything else. Paper based materials don't even compare. I remember the days of having 4-5 books laying on my desk and thumbing through them for comparison. Now you can have all that and more on your laptop. (It does takes money though, but worth it.)

[Char-Gar]

God can create "ex nihilo", which simple means he can make something out of nothing. We can't do that, we must start with something to make anything. Once we can accept that God is not limited by what we can do and understand, life and faith get much easier. If we can't or won't accept that, we will be forever like the dog chasing his own tail. We will die asking the same questions we have all our life.