The Fall
I’ve always had a problem with the view that there was no death in creation until the fall. Adam needs to partake of the fruit of the tree of life in order to live forever. That suggests that death was built into him, and only through this fruit is he able to stave off natural death. Death seems to have been built into creation from the beginning, not just as a result of the fall. I believe the death that came from the fall is spiritual death, not physical.

Lifespans
I don’t see how sin would cause people’s longevity to go from 900+ to 120+ (I believe Gen. 6:3 refers to how long Noah was to preach before God brought judgment through the flood, as opposed to making a new arbitrary age limit). If you look at the lifespans, they are steady for several generations, even as you go from no sin to a world filled with violence, corruption, and wickedness. The lifespans should have already been decreasing if sin was the cause of the drop in lifespan.

Evolution
As far as evolution goes, yes, I believe it does have problems. The origin of life is perhaps the greatest problem for the atheist who seeks to explain life apart from God. Perhaps evolution isn’t correct, but at least something like it appears to have happened. In general, you see that early life was very simple, and you only get complex life forms later.

I wasn’t very religious growing up. I was taught evolution was a fact, and never even questioned it. Then I became a Christian, and many of the people I admired rejected evolution. So I began to study the matter, and over a period of years, I came to reject it myself – I thought it was a total sham.

I was so convinced that evolution was bogus science, that when I decided to go back to college, I seriously considered pursuing graduate studies in biology in order to refute evolution. I wasn’t content to just complain about evolution, I was so outraged at how this pseudo-science was being beat into people, that I was determined to bring an end to it myself!

I had a few months to study before school started, and as a budding Christian apologist, I was trying to make a choice. Should I study biology in order to refute evolution, or study philosophy to present arguments for the existence of God?

I started reading college level text books in biology. I noticed that they were full of faulty arguments against God and so forth, the atheist authors made all kinds of mistakes. But something else happened. I noticed that some of the things that I had been taught by those opposed to evolution were wrong. In fact, I noticed that there was evidence for evolution, even good evidence.

Look, I don’t want to get involved in a deep scientific debate on this subject, but let me say this. I went from having been completely convinced evolution was wrong, to believing that there really is something to it. I know that makes me anathema to many, but that is where the evidence led me. Just like I followed the evidence towards faith in Christ – that there is a God, and that Jesus rose from the dead, so the evidence convinced me that evolution, or something along those lines, has occurred.

What’s hard for me to reconcile in your thoughtline is the One capable of the creation of the heavens and earth would have to fall back on Darwinism at any point. To me, there’s no logic or reason to that. That is, if we’re talkin’ about an omnipotent Deity here

I don’t see it as God “falling back” or leaning on nature, as if God needed any help. There is a kind of elegance in evolution. You don’t have a bunch of little miracles all over the place, but you see the Great Mind having put it all together at the very beginning. Through one act, God created the great variety of planets, stars, galaxies, and life forms. That shows planning and genius to me.

Sure, God has the power to have created the entire universe, fully functioning, ready for man, in a single instant. But He didn’t. Whether you believe God created the universe over 6 days or billions of years, the simple fact is, God created the world through a process, rather than a single instant.

Another point – Eve was so named, as Genesis tells us, because she was “the mother of ALL living”.

What exactly does it mean to say that she was the mother of all the living? It can’t mean mother of all living things, for she obviously isn’t the mother of the plants and animals.

Does it mean she is the mother of all the living human beings? She wasn’t the mother of Adam. Just going from the Biblical text, the woman isn’t named Eve until after God pronounced His judgment on the serpent, Adam, & the woman. As far as we can tell, she is named Eve after God has declared that from her would come the seed that would crush the serpent.

We know that Jesus was descended from Eve, and that (only) through Jesus & His cross can we have life. So Jesus’ cross becomes our tree of life. So I think it can be true that Eve was the mother of all the living, even if she wasn’t the mother of all human beings.

I’ll be sure to take a look at The Battle for the Beginning when I get the time. Genesis is one of those subjects I never get tired of studying. Just when you think you’ve already heard all there is to say on the subject, there comes something new. That is why I never get tired of studying the Bible, it is such a deep book.

While you are correct about the quote, you are definitely wrong about being deist. As George Washington was an Episcopalian, he was also an Episcopalian Parish Leader. As far as ‘many’ being deists, this is patently false, as there is only one that flirted with being a deist that was Jefferson, he was actually a unitarian.

Jefferson, who was not a Christian, was also an Episcopalian Parish Leader, in Albemarle. So was George Wythe, an avowed Deist. Any leader who wanted power had to be a church leader – the church then performed most of the day-to-day government and social functions. Such was the political reality – non-Christians were oppressed. For example, until Jefferson changed it, Virginia law provided that Christian apostates could be punished by loss of rights and even imprisonment.

uhangtight

You see, diests do not believe in the providence of God

This is simply not true. A central tenet of classical Deism was the belied in Divine Providence – the belief that a Creator provided the Universe and then left it large alone to be dealt with by human reasoning.

Classical deism held that a human’s relationship with God was impersonal: God created the world and set it in motion but does not actively intervene in individual human affairs but rather through Divine Providence. What this means is that God will give humanity such things as reason and compassion but this applies to all and not individual intervention.

What we know of Washington does not support the contention that he was a Christian. He attended church very infrequently, and when he did go, he would hang around outside while Martha took communion.

There is no reference in any of his adult writing of any reference to Jesus and the Constitution drafted by the Constitutional Convention over which he presided, deliberately excludes any reference to God at all.

Trollman said:
It is very strange to be sure, and I probably would have thought someone who believed this to be a heretic not long ago. But this is where my own personal study has led me. Perhaps I am wrong about this, but this is the result of my own honest struggle with this difficult subject.

Well, TMan, I won’t call you a heretic, lol. I will say your take is unique in some ways, but familiar to other speculation that I’d consider more “way out there” than yours.

Suppose mankind already existed before God created Adam. Suppose that man had already arrived on the Earth as a result of some natural process that God had set in motion, like evolution.

I’ve heard various theories that offer the idea of “ancient astronauts” came here. (In fact that’s actually part of one of the competing theories of human evolution.)

I follow your line of reasoning and I think you are somewhat on the same track with most folks who are biblical literalists. But you diverge from them in your starting hypothesis and conclusions.

I believe most literalists will note that with the fall of man sin and death entered this world. Mankind was built to live forever. But with the introduction of sin decay set in – as a result, as you have noted, lifespans become increasingly shorter as the ages rolled along. Sin upon sin, century after century.

I think you get off track, though, for a couple of reasons.

It seems you are trying to reconcile bad science, i.e. “evolution”, with “what really happened”. Although evolution changes every 10 years or so and is riddled with mistakes & fraud (e.g. “Piltown Man”), I would expect God, in contrast, to be a truthful and constant reliable source.

What’s hard for me to reconcile in your thoughtline is the One capable of the creation of the heavens and earth would have to fall back on Darwinism at any point. To me, there’s no logic or reason to that. That is, if we’re talkin’ about an omnipotent Deity here

Another point – Eve was so named, as Genesis tells us, because she was “the mother of ALL living”.

But as I sez, it’s an “IMHO” the big error is in trying to reconcile changing fiction (Darwinism) with God’s established, clear word. It would be like a court considering both true and false evidence & testimony as equally valid evidence in coming to a judicial decision.

I’m not discouraging you from pondering and considering such things at length, you’re obviously considering things deeply. I’m just saying I think you might consider the possibility there may be some chaff in with the wheat. Or, to use another of Jesus’ allegories, even tiny bit of leaven can mess up the matzah. (Well, that’s more my translation of His words, lol)

There just happens to be a current series by the “Grace To You” ministry titled “The Battle for the Beginning” that may be of interest, since it’s going over things you’ve brought up – if you’re so inclined. (Nothing cult-like, it’s “generic” evangelical Christian teaching.)

You can download the MP3s of the daily talks or read them online (or do both, for free) at this page:
The Battle for the Beginning

I’ve been finding them interesting, your take may be different. But it’s all the different takes folks have that just adds to making life more interesting!

Thanks for expanding on your thoughtline, TMan.

Doesn’t sentence one contradict sentence two there (and vice versa), TMan, or am I missing something?

It is very strange to be sure, and I probably would have thought someone who believed this to be a heretic not long ago. But this is where my own personal study has led me. Perhaps I am wrong about this, but this is the result of my own honest struggle with this difficult subject.

Interpretation
Suppose mankind already existed before God created Adam. Suppose that man had already arrived on the Earth as a result of some natural process that God had set in motion, like evolution. For some reason, perhaps God decides to then engineer a special human being. God works under the restraint of making a man that is fully compatible to evolved man (“natural man” henceforth), and genetically engineers a person that has a lifespan of about 1000 years. The genetically engineered human has such a long life span because God has designed him to be resistant to heart disease, cancer, to age well, etc. Unlike natural man, Adam and Eve are genetically perfect. But why suppose this?

Biblical Support for this Interpretation:
Cain
It would make sense out of Cain’s fear of being driven out – for there would already be plenty of people out there. It would explain how he could move far away from his family, and yet found a city. It would also help explain how his offspring could go into various industries, as if they had already existed (Genesis 4:17-22).

Noah
From Adam to Noah, with only a couple of anomalies, everyone listed lives 900+ years. What is especially significant is when the lifespans begin to gradually decline – the children of Noah. It was during the life of Noah that “the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose” Gen. 6:2. It might be that the sons of God refers to Adam’s descendants (genetically engineered man), and that the daughters of men refer to natural man. This is noted in Noah’s generation, and notice that in the next generation, the lifespan of Noah’s children are less than the 900+ that had previously been the case. Perhaps Noah’s wife is from natural man, or mixed, explaining why Noah’s sons do not live as long.

Longevity
Shem, Noah’s son, only lived 600 years. The lifespans would gradually decline until all lifespans are similar to what we see today. Notice that in Gen. 10:32 even seems to suggest that these descendants became part of peoples that already existed. If you plot the lifespans of these people, it creates a mathematical curve – clearly something is going on here. The decrease in lifespan makes sense if you have the continued mingling of Adam’s genes with natural man. Over successive generations, the weaker genetics of natural man begin to dominate, slowly watering down the “pure” genes.

Early Marriage
This would also explain why it was so important to marry close kin early on, but after Adam’s genes were sufficiently diluted, close marriage was forbidden. Close marriages are only harmful due to genetic problems. If one had perfect genes, that would not be a problem.

Sarah
Consider the odd fact that Abraham is concerned that his wife, who was then around 90 years old, was so attractive that men might kill him to take her. This is very bizarre, no? Abraham lived to be 175. Sarah died at 127, but perhaps she had a similar concentration of Adamic genes as Abraham (they were closely related). Perhaps Sarah died prematurely for whatever reason, and had a life expectancy similar to her husband, around 200 years or so. If this is true, and if she aged well (like all those closely related to Adam), even at 90, she may have only appeared to be 30-40 at the time, thus explaining how she was still very attractive.

Jacob
One more point, and I think this is key. Consider when Jacob meets Pharaoh in Gen. 47:7-10. The Bible only records one thing that Pharaoh said to Jacob – he asks Jacob “How many years have you lived?” Reading between the lines, Jacob has probably told Pharaoh about his life, prompting Pharaoh to ask “Just how old are you?!” Look at Jacob’s response.

Jacob says he is 130 years old, which is pretty impressive, considering he wouldn’t die until he was 147. When Jacob says his years are “few,” he is using the humility that was customary at that time, indicating that he realized that 130 was a lot of years compared to other people. Jacob also realizes that, even though his lifespan is greater than that of normal people, it is nothing compared to the lifespans of his ancestors! In this passage, Jacob seems to be aware that he has a much longer lifespan than normal folks, and that his family’s lifespan is gradually getting shorter, but he doesn’t appear to understand why.

The End of Longevity
After Jacob, you only see a couple more people that have special aging – like Moses and Caleb. But after that, you don’t see it again. At that point, presumably the genetics have become so diluted that there is no distinguishable difference between those who are descended from Adam and those who are not.

Loose Ends
If this hypothesis is correct, then why didn’t God simply say so in the Bible? Well, considering we didn’t even have a basic knowledge of evolution or genetics until relatively recently, it wouldn’t have made any sense to anyone until the present time anyway. So it would make sense of the fact that the Bible records some very odd things (the life spans) which are obviously noteworthy, but never tries to explain them. These things could be figured out thousands of years later when man reached a certain level of scientific understanding.

Trollman said:
I believe Genesis’ record of the creation of Adam & Eve is a literal, true, accurate, historically correct account of how those two historical persons came to be. I also believe that human beings probably evolved.

Doesn’t sentence one contradict sentence two there (and vice versa), TMan, or am I missing something?

GOD wasn’t a democrat so he didn’t use nuance to explain what he did – he just said “on day one, I did this, on day two I did that..on day three…”
And for those that think I’m crazy, I’ll give a simple one – please explain the seven day week.

I think there is a lot more to the Genesis creation account than most people are aware of. Which day of the week did God create the Earth? Read carefully.

I think most people would consider me a Biblical conservative – I believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, infallible, inerrant, and so forth. However, I do not believe my understanding of the Bible is infallible.

I’ve studied the creation account and evolution for years now. Over that time, as I continued to learn more and more, my positions have changed a great deal.

My current view is that the creation week in Genesis 1 refers to a literal, 6 24-hour day period of creation. I also believe the universe is probably billions of years old.

I believe Genesis’ record of the creation of Adam & Eve is a literal, true, accurate, historically correct account of how those two historical persons came to be. I also believe that human beings probably evolved. I believe there are some things in Genesis that are very difficult to explain apart from presupposing something like evolution.

I must have missed it. What is the source of repeated reference that Sarah Palin believes dinosaurs still existed only a few thousand years ago?

It was a blog. A joke that Damon and the media fell for before it was debunked. Repeatedly. More here. And here.

I think they also could be referring to the info that is mentioned HERE.

Palin was an avowed young earth creationist in 1997, according to Philip Munger:

As the ceremony concluded, I bumped into her in a hall away from other people. I congratulated her on her victory, and took her aside to ask about her faith. Among other things, she declared that she was a young earth creationist, accepting both that the world was about 6,000-plus years old, and that humans and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time. I asked how she felt about the second coming and the end times. She responded that she fully believed that the signs of Jesus returning soon “during MY lifetime,” were obvious. “I can see that, maybe you can’t – but it guides me every day.”

Munger reports that she later softened her stance to say that she “wasn’t necessarily” a young earth creationist anymore, but that her faith in the impending apocalypse remained undiminished.

After doing a search on Philip Munger, he appears to be a real person, but I do not know how reliable a source he is.

“Let us teach our children that the God of comfort is also the God of righteousness. Those who trouble their own house will inherit the wind. Justice will Prevail.” – Bill Clinton, April 23, 1985, after the Oklahoma City bombing

And all God’s children say – AMEN!!!

“Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.” – John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, Jan. 20, 1961

How many of you think John Kennedy would be the democratic nominee today after a statement like that? All lgms, raise your hand.

Yep…just as I suspected. None.

In my opinion it appears that JFK was the last Democrat President…
the rest have been Democratic Socialists.

JFK stood up to the Communists, so he would never be the nominee of today’s Democrat[ic Socialist] Party.

I must have missed it. What is the source of repeated reference that Sarah Palin believes dinosaurs still existed only a few thousand years ago?

It was a blog. A joke that Damon and the media fell for before it was debunked. Repeatedly. More here. And here.

I must have missed it. What is the ssource of repeated reference that Sarah Palin believes dinosaurs still existed only a few thousand years ago?

I’ve tried to find that out myself. I certainly don’t believe anything that I am told about Palin until checking it out first. Remember the smear that Palin supposedly called Hillary a whiner? FALSE.

Anyway, all I could find was a claim by some guy that, several years ago, she told him that she was a young earth creationist. Sounds pretty iffy to me, but don’t wait for the facts before pouncing. And where is Trig’s birth certificate and DNA test?!?!?!?! Lefty wackos wanna know!

lonewolf asks:

What is the source of repeated reference that Sarah Palin believes dinosaurs still existed only a few thousand years ago?

I hazard a guess:

Obama’s back orifice?