The Bible disproves biblical YEC

[Yahya Sulaiman]

And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the great light to rule the day, and the small light to rule the night, and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth, and to rule during the day and during the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning--a fourth day. (Genesis 1:14-19, RSV)

If you take the creation story of Genesis to be literal fact then you are left here with an enormous contradiction, that there were three mornings and evenings before God ever created the distinction between day and night, for obviously if there doesn’t yet exist any distinction between day and night then morning and evening have never yet occurred, yet the text says there are three. Therefore there are only four possible options:

1. The creation story is literal and contains a glaring, self-disproving discrepancy.
2. The creation story is not literal fact.
2a. The story is true but nonliteral.
2b. The story is nonfactual.
2c. The story is nonliteral and nonfactual.

Any of these four options cook the Christian YEC’s goose--#1 and #2b because Young Earth Creationist Christians are inerrantists and consider inerrantism--especially the inerrancy of the story in question--to be an essential part of Creationism’s basis; #2a because they are not Christian Young Earth Creationists if they don’t take the creation account being taken literally, and #2c for all the above reasons combined. These people are rather stuck.

Now does this disprove Young Earth Creationism itself? Not entirely. Some Young Earth Creationists are Jews or Muslims or maybe belong to other groups or no group, which would bring up in each case entirely different discussions. But it shatters the very foundation of biblical Young Earth Creationism.

[Pure Argent]

There's no foundation to shake.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the great light to rule the day, and the small light to rule the night, and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth, and to rule during the day and during the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning--a fourth day. (Genesis 1:14-19, RSV)

If you take the creation story of Genesis to be literal fact then you are left here with an enormous contradiction, that there were three mornings and evenings before God ever created the distinction between day and night, for obviously if there doesn’t yet exist any distinction between day and night then morning and evening have never yet occurred, yet the text says there are three. Therefore there are only four possible options:

1. The creation story is literal and contains a glaring, self-disproving discrepancy.
2. The creation story is not literal fact.
2a. The story is true but nonliteral.
2b. The story is nonfactual.
2c. The story is nonliteral and nonfactual.

Any of these four options cook the Christian YEC’s goose--#1 and #2b because Young Earth Creationist Christians are inerrantists and consider inerrantism--especially the inerrancy of the story in question--to be an essential part of Creationism’s basis; #2a because they are not Christian Young Earth Creationists if they don’t take the creation account being taken literally, and #2c for all the above reasons combined. These people are rather stuck.

Now does this disprove Young Earth Creationism itself? Not entirely. Some Young Earth Creationists are Jews or Muslims or maybe belong to other groups or no group, which would bring up in each case entirely different discussions. But it shatters the very foundation of biblical Young Earth Creationism.

No, I'm afraid not. He created light on the first day and separated the light and the dark on that day.

The point of later creating the lights in the heavens -- that they are not THE LIGHT or THE DARK -- was to show that the Babylonian belief in the sun as a deity was wrong.

[Akhenaten]

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

No, I'm afraid not. He created light on the first day and separated the light and the dark on that day.

The point of later creating the lights in the heavens -- that they are not THE LIGHT or THE DARK -- was to show that the Babylonian belief in the sun as a deity was wrong.

Which just goes to show the absurdity of the bible, since it's quite obvious that the Babylonians were right all along.


Waenre

[Ichneumonwasp]

Originally Posted by Akhenaten

Which just goes to show the absurdity of the bible, since it's quite obvious that the Babylonians were right all along.


Waenre

Good point. Marduk rules.

[Yahya Sulaiman]

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

No, I'm afraid not. He created light on the first day and separated the light and the dark on that day.

The passage says, "And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night...God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth, and to rule during the day and during the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness."

[Ichneumonwasp]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

The passage says, "And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to divide between the day and the night...God set them in the expanse of the heavens, to give light on the earth, and to rule during the day and during the night, and to divide between the light and the darkness."

Yes, but earlier he said, "'Let there be light'; and there was light.
And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. "

So, night and day, light and dark preceded the creation of the lights in the heavens -- again because the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon and competed against the Babylonian religion which considered the sun, moon and stars as divinities.

Initially he had kept track of the day and night based on the original creation of light and dark; only later did he create lights in the sky to do the job on auto pilot.

Or so the creationist will say. Well, except for the bits about the Babylonians.

Marduk still rules.

[Yahya Sulaiman]

Whatever that division consisted of, it still was the creation of the division between day and night, as the verse tells you verbatim. And in any case the sun and moon had still to exist for the first days, nights, mornings, and evenings as well.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

Whatever that division consisted of, it still was the creation of the division between day and night, as the verse tells you verbatim. And in any case the sun and moon had still to exist for the first days, nights, mornings, and evenings as well.

Right. The problem the creationists have is that they have day and night without a sun, moon, or stars. It puts them in a pretty silly position, but it isn't really a contradiction.

The real fun begins when they try to say silly things like -- the Genesis account is just like what happens in the Big Bang. They try to argue that the creation of light is akin to the initial expansion of the universe (where night comes from they never say) and then gloss over the fact that the sun and moon are created on day 4 along with the stars while the earth already exists -- though they always gloss over the latter fact by saying that when it says "earth" Genesis means "universe". Some will argue that the "earth" we think of was formed on day 3 when God gathers the waters together to form dry land. The idea is supposed to be that the sun is created (ignites finally from gravitational effects) first thing on day 4. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but that is how they will argue with you.

The fact that our sun is a third generation star is kind of left out of the picture.

Not to mention the problem with plants existing before the sun, and birds and fish being created before anything crawls on land.

[Marduk]

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

So, night and day, light and dark preceded the creation of the lights in the heavens -- again because the Israelites were in captivity in Babylon and competed against the Babylonian religion which considered the sun, moon and stars as divinities.

Nu huh, they didn't believe stars to be divine themselves, but stations for the divine

Quote:

He (Marduk) made the stations for the great gods;
The stars, their images, as the stars of the Zodiac, he fixed.
He ordained the year and into sections he divided it;
For the twelve months he fixed three stars.

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

Good point. Marduk rules.

yayayayay

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

Marduk still rules.

yayayay a revival

[Akhenaten]

So it begins. The final showdown of the sun gods.

The Aten stands ready. Show yourself, O Babylon!




ETA: On second thoughts, it's not worth fighting over. Let's go and throw rocks on YHWH's roof.

[rsaavedra]

An opportune link: Bible inconsistencies

[Robert Oz]

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

...though they always gloss over the latter fact by saying that when it says "earth" Genesis means "universe". Some will argue that the "earth" we think of was formed on day 3 when God gathers the waters together to form dry land. The idea is supposed to be that the sun is created (ignites finally from gravitational effects) first thing on day 4...

Yes, yes, genesis is an accurate scientific account of the beginning of the universe, because, you see, 'day' really means 'long undefined period of time' and 'earth' means 'universe', and, and...

It's so easy to make it mean anything you like when you can change the meanings of the words as new facts come in.

It reminds me of one of my favourite Chuck Norris facts:

Chuck Norris likes to knit sweaters in his free time. And by "knit", I mean "kick", and by "sweaters", I mean "babies".

[DevilsAdvocate]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

for obviously if there doesn’t yet exist any distinction between day and night then morning and evening have never yet occurred

Says you. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. In Gen 1:4 God already made the distinction. You are confusing Gen 1:3 “Let there be light” with Gen 1:14 “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens”. Light was made in Gen 1:3, and “morning” and “evening” was made in Gen 1:4. Gen 1:14 is already into day 4.

Quote:

Gen 1:4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

Gen 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

Distiction and defintion of evening, morning, and day set.

[dikkedeur]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

If you take the creation story of Genesis to be literal fact then you are left here with an enormous contradiction, that there were three mornings and evenings before God ever created the distinction between day and night, for obviously if there doesn’t yet exist any distinction between day and night then morning and evening have never yet occurred, yet the text says there are three.

An omnipotent deity can surely keep track of the time without having to count rotations of celestial bodies.

[HansMustermann]

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

Right. The problem the creationists have is that they have day and night without a sun, moon, or stars. It puts them in a pretty silly position, but it isn't really a contradiction.

The real fun begins when they try to say silly things like -- the Genesis account is just like what happens in the Big Bang. They try to argue that the creation of light is akin to the initial expansion of the universe (where night comes from they never say) and then gloss over the fact that the sun and moon are created on day 4 along with the stars while the earth already exists -- though they always gloss over the latter fact by saying that when it says "earth" Genesis means "universe". Some will argue that the "earth" we think of was formed on day 3 when God gathers the waters together to form dry land. The idea is supposed to be that the sun is created (ignites finally from gravitational effects) first thing on day 4. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but that is how they will argue with you.

The fact that our sun is a third generation star is kind of left out of the picture.

Not to mention the problem with plants existing before the sun, and birds and fish being created before anything crawls on land.

Well, that paragraph is the biggest problem I see with the "on day 4 it means the sun ignited" explanation. It glosses over the fact that Genesis 1:11-13 (day 3) already has the plants all the way to trees with fruit and seeds -- i.e., we're at least up to Carboniferous age -- before the sun ignites on day 4. We're not just talking about some simple self-replicating RNA before the sun ignited, but the whole complexity of the plant life as it is today.

The problem is that even taking it as some "by Earth it means universe" metaphor, it still gets the order awfully wrong.

It still doesn't read like something dictated by some God who created the whole universe and knows what happened before what, but as the kind of wildly wrong guess I'd expect from a bronze age goat herder who doesn't know.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Originally Posted by HansMustermann

Well, that paragraph is the biggest problem I see with the "on day 4 it means the sun ignited" explanation. It glosses over the fact that Genesis 1:11-13 (day 3) already has the plants all the way to trees with fruit and seeds -- i.e., we're at least up to Carboniferous age -- before the sun ignites on day 4. We're not just talking about some simple self-replicating RNA before the sun ignited, but the whole complexity of the plant life as it is today.

The problem is that even taking it as some "by Earth it means universe" metaphor, it still gets the order awfully wrong.

It still doesn't read like something dictated by some God who created the whole universe and knows what happened before what, but as the kind of wildly wrong guess I'd expect from a bronze age goat herder who doesn't know.

I once got into a "discussion" with someone who insisted that by "plants" what was actually meant was "archaebacteria" and that the archaebacteria where deep in the rocks of the earth, where life actually arose before the sun "ignited"; not in the oceans along thermal vents.

And all this neglecting the fact that initially the verse refers to the world which consists of primal chaos -- water -- out of which land is created. So the water is there first and land is derived from water (?), except that does not fit with our current models.

The gyrations get weirder and weirder as such conversations unfold.

I think Robert Oz pegs it spot on. That Chuck Norris is one nurturing dude.

[rsaavedra]

Another possibly opportune link, an animation on youtube:

"The thing that made the things for which there is no known maker."

[stijndeloose]

What Jehovah's Witnesses would say is the following (I'm paraphrasing and translating a reply from a discussion with a relative of mine):

The Hebrew words for "letting come to be" in Gen 1:3 and "making" in Gen 1:16 are different.

"Evidently," they would say, "god did create the sun and stars and moon on the first day, but they were undiscernable, e.g. because of a fog. God 'made' them on day four, meaning he made them discernable."

There's a few problems with this, though:

- actually when God creates the sun on day four, the text first uses the same word a in Gen 1:3, and only afterwards uses the other word (if I'm not mistaken)
- 'evidently' is Jehovah's Witnesses' favourite word to hide that they actually do not have any evidence

Any other comments would be greatly appreciated, though!

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman;4945805[1

Any of these four options cook the Christian YEC’s goose--#1 and #2b because Young Earth Creationist Christians are inerrantists and consider inerrantism--especially the inerrancy of the story in question--to be an essential part of Creationism’s basis; #2a because they are not Christian Young Earth Creationists if they don’t take the creation account being taken literally, and #2c for all the above reasons combined. These people are rather stuck.

This is all very nice. However, you grossly underestimate the YEC propensity for rationalization, special pleading and outright dishonesty. Remember, what creationism is about has nothing to do with science. Rather, it is a psychological prop for a belief system that gives their lives structure and meaning. Ergo, the logic of your argument is going to make zero headway with them. This is one reason they keep coming back after crushing defeats. Their court losses in Kansas and the Dover, Pennsylvania case haven't shaken their belief system one whit.

As an example of what I'm talking about, let me offer this anecdote: I had been debating with a YEC for some time. He insisted there were no transitional fossils and certainly no transitional forms between apelike primates and humans. I got a number of renditions of fossil hominid skulls drawn to the same scale and laid them out on one page according to the age of the skulls. This clearly showed a progression from smaller to larger braincases, reduction of the ratio of facial bones to the cranium and reduction of prognathism - the forward thrust of the jaws - over time. In short, the skulls demonstrated the evolution of modern humans from very apelike australopithecines. This creatonist's reaction when I showed him this evidence was, "All I see here are a bunch of skulls."

[Yahya Sulaiman]

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

Right. The problem the creationists have is that they have day and night without a sun, moon, or stars. It puts them in a pretty silly position, but it isn't really a contradiction.

How is it not a contradiction? Without those things there can be no day and night.

Quote:

They always gloss over the latter fact by saying that when it says "earth" Genesis means "universe".

Actually, in these ancient languages the term they had for "universe" (which as I understand it wasn't a word, perhaps even with any exact cognate, which came out until the time of the ancient Greeks who coined that particular word) was "the heavens and the earth", since technically this includes the whole physical universe as anything beyond the earth's atmosphere is the heavens from our point of view. I once read a Billy Graham book (little more than a hardcover pamphlet really) where he pointed out that the first verse of Genesis saying that the "heavens and the earth" was created presumably (if his interpretation is correct) all at once according to Genesis 1:1, fits the modern scientific idea of it all coming from the same source (singularity). Of course he omitted the rest of the story...

Quote:

The fact that our sun is a third generation star is kind of left out of the picture.

Not in the Koran, which uses the same word for "sun" and "star" and sharply distinguishes in terms of what label it would use for the moon. But then again, I'm not here for dawah and I digress. Just thought it connected enough to the subject. Forgive me if I overstepped my bounds: I'm not here to preach.

[Ocelot]

Oh Come on Quote the qhole thing.

Day1:

Quote:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Day 2

Quote:

6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Day 3

Quote:

9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

and now day 4

Quote:

14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day

So apparently on Day one we have the heaven, the earth, light and darkness. That's perfectly sufficient for there to be a "Day"

Day in this case could refer to

1) 24 hours of time passing
2) The earth rotating through a full revolution.
3) The light increasing in intensity, peaking and returning to darkness.

or any combination of the three. In fact the term is well specified in Genesis 1:5 as refering to a the light.

So clearly any creationist with but two brain cells to rub togather can field this question.

It's not that I agree with them. In fact I'm vehemently opposed to the anti-science stance that the majority of them maintain in order to shore up their beliefs. However sending someone out to bat armed only with this argument is asking for them to come back having recived an arse whipping.

There are now many good reasons to reject YEC.

There's general relativeity, redshift and the hubble constant and the recent measurement fo the comological constant friom which we can deduce and age of the univers around 13.7 billion years. Even prior to the measurement of the cosmological constant the age of the univers had been narrowed to the order of billions of years.

There's the evidence of geological age of various formations and of platetectonics, including the magnetic reversals as the pole shifts a few times every million years, imprinted on the "new" oceanic plates. Meanwhile there's radiometric dating placing the oldest rocks on earth at around 3.9 billion years. There's consistent evidence from multiple dating methods and samples that inert rocks from around the solar system cooled 4.5 billion years ago. Or a progression of fossil evidence showing evolution of species over a long period of time.

There's dendrochronilogical dates of sections of bristolecone pines preserved in peat bogs dating back 9,000 years. These confirm carbon dating to a reasonable degree of acuracy and allow us to refine those dates. We can date frozen mammoths back to about 45,000 years.

There's evidence from the molecular clock showing at what age various species had a common ancestor. This new technique allows us to build a phylogenetic tree of life with dates stretching back billions of years.

All this incontravertable and empirical evidence is in opposition to creationist claims. Moreover rather than just tearing down a one claim, it builds a consistant picture in it's own right with diffferent independant areas of study confirming results e.g. Archeological evidence of the date of the first uses of human clothing overlapping with the phylogentic evidence of the date at which the human head louse and body louse last had a common ancestor. The key point being that the body louse requires clothes as a habitat. Note that both areas confirm the world to be at least 30,000 years older than the young earth creationists claim.

These are good arguments against Young Earth Creatoinism as these are the areas of science which the YECs must attack to preserve their belief.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

How is it not a contradiction? Without those things there can be no day and night.

Their answer is -- this is God we're talkin' 'bout here. He can do anything, so he can make light without the sun or stars. The sun and stars are just markers.

Quote:

Actually, in these ancient languages the term they had for "universe" (which as I understand it wasn't a word, perhaps even with any exact cognate, which came out until the time of the ancient Greeks who coined that particular word) was "the heavens and the earth", since technically this includes the whole physical universe as anything beyond the earth's atmosphere is the heavens from our point of view. I once read a Billy Graham book (little more than a hardcover pamphlet really) where he pointed out that the first verse of Genesis saying that the "heavens and the earth" was created presumably (if his interpretation is correct) all at once according to Genesis 1:1, fits the modern scientific idea of it all coming from the same source (singularity). Of course he omitted the rest of the story...

Right, which helps show up how weird their interpretations get. In the story there is clearly an Earth long before there is a moon or sun or any other stars. But they persist in interpreting earth and waters of the deep, etc. as "the universe" or "all of creation" or whatever they think will keep their ideas afloat.

Quote:

Not in the Koran, which uses the same word for "sun" and "star" and sharply distinguishes in terms of what label it would use for the moon. But then again, I'm not here for dawah and I digress. Just thought it connected enough to the subject. Forgive me if I overstepped my bounds: I'm not here to preach.

Right, but we're talking Genesis here; and I've yet to meet a young-earther who didn't squirm out of any "seeming contradiction" with some fancy footwork -- usually by redefining the words and then turning around and insisting that the Bible must be read literally.

As Tim Callahan pointed out rationalization is their friend.

[HansMustermann]

Originally Posted by Ichneumonwasp

I once got into a "discussion" with someone who insisted that by "plants" what was actually meant was "archaebacteria" and that the archaebacteria where deep in the rocks of the earth, where life actually arose before the sun "ignited"; not in the oceans along thermal vents.

Right. Except that:

1. Genesis 1:11 and 1:12 are actually very clear there that they mean herbs and trees with fruits and seed. If God said herbs and trees with fruits and seeds, but it actually meant archaeobacteria... well, see that Chuck Norris quote.

2. Plus, it becomes not very useful a text at all. If any word can (and every other word does) mean something completely different, then, you know, what makes anyone think they've understood the rest of it right? I mean then equally God could come at the end and say "I may have said you'll rise to live for ever, but by that I meant that you stay dead. Now go back to pushing the daisies."

3. So basically it's explaining an idiocy by an even bigger idiocy? Cells are just droplets of sea water with a membrane and some chemistry going inside. It's just been an increasingly complex exercise of insulating and regulating the composition of some reactions that were happening in that water. Most of those reactions wouldn't even work at all in rocks.

Basically if you want them to appear in rocks, then you do have irreducible complexity. You have some reactions that work only in the water in a cell, hence they could have only appeared at the same time as the membrane. The same reactions also need a certain concentration range of ions and other substances, so they'd need to appear at the same time as the protein valves on the cell, at the very least. The same reactions need aminoacids and the RNA/DNA pieces, so if you move them from the water where that stuff formed naturally, into rocks where they don't, the whole mechanism also needs to appear simultaneously with the mechanisms to synthetise all that.

Basically the life appearing in the water makes sense because all that necessary stuff was already in the water. A bacterium just appearing inside a rock, involves so much stuff appearing out of nowhere at the same time, that you might as well to just taking Genesis literally. It's not any more improbable than that.