Is The General Conference Afraid Of Blacksda? Options

[Pickle]

No informed person today believes the earth is six thousand years old or that life on earth is only six thousand years old. Thankfully, the bible never makes such a claim.

The Bible most certainly does make such claim. And so does Sister White.

Take the genealogies of Genesis and add them up, then add 430 years to the total that brings us down to Abraham's 75th year, or thereabouts. That takes you to the Exodus. Then add to the total 480 years for the period from the Exodus to the building of Solomon's temple. Then work out the kings' reigns from there until the Babylonian captivity. Then add the number of years from then till now. The total will be about 6000.

[Fran]

"The Age of the Earth and Creation Events"
By Fran Genesis

This is my story and I am sticking to it!

In the beginning, God called a General Conference of the universe! God was deciding who he would use to help create the Universe. After discussions with Lucifer, he realized he was bad to the bone and decided to allow the General Conference to be used to do that work. So God turned that bad Lucifer into a flying snake! It was so cool to see.

Lucifer wasn't allowed to attend the next General Conference. The conference committee was set up to put creation into the works, but everyone was afraid of that stupid flying snake and of all the snakettes.

The General Conference could not decide what to do about it, so they took their first action called "No Action". Time passed and God waited, but he was not idle. He got bored waiting for action, so for millions/billions/trillions of years he just stacked ice together to confound and confuse people in later, much later, later, later years. He occasionally stacked dirt to become called layers of the earth.

After waiting Trillions of years, God realized He made a mistake leaving this creation stuff to the General Conference.

So God said, "If you want something done, and done right, you gotta do it yourself!" And He got busy. The morning and the evening were the first day! It has been many years since that time.

The General Conference still meets regularly to this day! However, there is still an active board of "No Action" in every aspect of reality. I hear tell the snake can no longer fly, but he slithers hither, thither and yon seeking whom he can poison with his fangs. We know this because we have much clear evidence of the bitten.

God got tired of layering ice and dirt so now he is judging all of those "No Action" people of yesteryear and will soon judge all the "No Action" people of today.

However, God is getting tired and wrote ...


..... Double Click to see God's Message.


Fine Print Disclaimer:
This is not meant to add to or take away from actual scriptures of the Holy Bible. This is just a modern day, tongue in cheek, evaluation of some of the loud, clearly apparent, "NO ACTION" events happening as we speak.

[Pickle]

First, I assume you understand that 200 inches of light powdery snow in Greenland, or the Antactic, will only melt down once in a season.

Sounds plausible, but it also sounds like there are multiple assumptions hidden away in this statement that are based on uniformitarianism.

Also, that the various component they study in each ring will vary from year to year, and also that counting back 1928 rings will bring you to AD 79 when a certain mountain erupted in Italy and left it's ash in that very ring. This indicates that counting rings is dependable...unmistakable.

I don't think such things are necessarily unmistakable for dates in the distant past unless we assume that a supernaturally-caused global flood never took place. Are we absolutely certain that no conditions on earth in the wake of Noah's Flood could result in the necessity of interpreting the data differently?

Same with the lead particles they've found in certain annual growth rings during the era when Romans were smeltering lead in pots.

Still not far back enough to test the theory.

Like I said before, this is unknown from scientist to scientist. I'm guessing that a Christian scientist, if involved in the GISP/GRIP expeditions, believed in a limited 6000 year earth history, but counted rings adding up contrary to the full generations listed in the bible, that scientist would want to go back and check the accuracy of the biblical account...

I would hope not. The Bible was written by men who got their information from the One who was there in the beginning, and He knows far more than any of us.

Let me put it this way: One of the most fundamental principles of Christian education is that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. What God says is more authoritative than what I see or what I think. (Unfortunately, Eve found out the truth of that the hard way.) And if I am so uneducated that I haven't learned that simple lesson yet, I need to go back to Kindergarten, regardless of how many letters I have after my name.

Even Religious scholars can get hung up on what and what not is literal.

Talking about the age of the earth and the days of creation is not a question of whether Mose meant for us to take his words literally or not. It's a question of whether God's Word is right or wrong.

How do we know that trees haven't produced two growth rings in one year...back when the laws of nature might have been vastly different? When drilling a core out of the oldest tree ever found, Methuselah, scientists have just never been given a reason to believe this has ever happened. Regular seasons are what shapes the rings in the dependable areas where ice is drilled.

1) If the scientists were skeptics, then they wouldn't have been looking for any other answers, since they wouldn't have considered the possibility that there might have been some.

2) "Regular seasons." And that's my point: It is conceivable that the Flood, with its attending volcanic eruptions, would have resulted in less than regular seasons.

I guessing here, reasoning from cause to effect. By centralizing, and by drilling in places where layers (and particles within) were obviously duplicated.

So then these scientists do acknowledge that there are regions where obvious duplication has taken place?

[Fran]

The Bible most certainly does make such claim. And so does Sister White.

Take the genealogies of Genesis and add them up, then add 430 years to the total that brings us down to Abraham's 75th year, or thereabouts. That takes you to the Exodus. Then add to the total 480 years for the period from the Exodus to the building of Solomon's temple. Then work out the kings' reigns from there until the Babylonian captivity. Then add the number of years from then till now. The total will be about 6000.

Bob; I am encouraged! Someone else can count! I thought God put those ages in the Bible just for me and my genealogical searches! I have genealogical files (several) of Adam or First Man Adam One even links to me, and you by the way!

No joke!

[Artiste]

"The Age of the Earth and Creation Events"
By Fran Genesis

This is my story and I am sticking to it!

In the beginning, God called a General Conference of the universe! God was deciding who he would use to help create the Universe. After discussions with Lucifer, he realized he was bad to the bone and decided to allow the General Conference to be used to do that work. So God turned that bad Lucifer into a flying snake! It was so cool to see.

Lucifer wasn't allowed to attend the next General Conference. The conference committee was set up to put creation into the works, but everyone was afraid of that stupid flying snake and of all the snakettes.

The General Conference could not decide what to do about it, so they took their first action called "No Action". Time passed and God waited, but he was not idle. He got bored waiting for action, so for millions/billions/trillions of years he just stacked ice together to confound and confuse people in later, much later, later, later years. He occasionally stacked dirt to become called layers of the earth.

After waiting Trillions of years, God realized He made a mistake leaving this creation stuff to the General Conference.

So God said, "If you want something done, and done right, you gotta do it yourself!" And He got busy. The morning and the evening were the first day! It has been many years since that time.

The General Conference still meets regularly to this day! However, there is still an active board of "No Action" in every aspect of reality. I hear tell the snake can no longer fly, but he slithers hither, thither and yon seeking whom he can poison with his fangs. We know this because we have much clear evidence of the bitten.

God got tired of layering ice and dirt so now he is judging all of those "No Action" people of yesteryear and will soon judge all the "No Action" people of today.

However, God is getting tired and wrote ...


..... Double Click to see God's Message.
Fine Print Disclaimer:
This is not meant to add to or take away from actual scriptures of the Holy Bible. This is just a modern day, tongue in cheek, evaluation of some of the loud, clearly apparent, "NO ACTION" events happening as we speak.

Wonderful, Fran!

******************************************************

[Pickle]

Evolutionary ice core analysis critiqued by a creationist:

Do Greenland ice cores show over one hundred thousand years of annual layers?

More results at http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c2c...res+creationism

[Clay]

The Bible most certainly does make such claim. And so does Sister White.

Take the genealogies of Genesis and add them up, then add 430 years to the total that brings us down to Abraham's 75th year, or thereabouts. That takes you to the Exodus. Then add to the total 480 years for the period from the Exodus to the building of Solomon's temple. Then work out the kings' reigns from there until the Babylonian captivity. Then add the number of years from then till now. The total will be about 6000.

the bible does not... and egw never claimed to be right about everything.... are you all done with this thread? We can close it and move on to something else...

[inga]

LaurenceD, I've appreciated your no-nonsense approach to the 3ABN issue.\

However, in this post, you seem to place an inordinate amount of confidence in the current dating methods of the scientific establishment which is founded on naturalism (meaning that any consideration of the acts of God, including creation, are not allowed).

I invite you to use that good mind of yours to do some serious research beyond the sources that you've read, and a good place to start is a well-researched clear article on ice cores.
You can find it on Sean Pitman's site @ http://www.detectingdesign.com/ancientice.html (In short, there is plenty of reason to believe that the original interpretation is not correct.)

While you're at the site, you'll find some other articles dealing with dating methods that would be worth your while to review.

When scientific conclusions contradict the most obvious clear reading of Scripture, it's time to ask a few more questions, rather than to blindly accept all that today's "science" has to offer.

I see a parallel here:

Thousands of people are willingly ignorant of the most egregious failings of Danny Shelton & the administrative team because they blindly accept all that Danny says.

Similarly, millions of people are ignorant of the failings of modern science in its attempt to explain the origin and age of this planet because they blindly accept all that "science" says.

Btw, there's more to the story of the RCC vs Galileo than is popularly told. It makes an interesting read in itself. Among other things, it's clear that the RCC supported the science of the day. So those who blindly accept the science of today are in the shoes of the RCC, not Galileo.

"Present Truth" is a distinctly Adventist term, and it has been used to describe Truth that God specifically designed to be proclaimed at a specific point in time.

You appear to say that you now regard the findings of science (which contradict the biblical record, by the way) as "Present Truth." Do you really wish to put science in the place that God has held in the Adventist belief system?

I'd like to see 3abn, or the Hope Channel, broadcast an intellectually honest debate over whether the SDA church--as a whole--more resembles the RCC or Galelio. Remember, the church considered his telescope an instrument of the devil much the same way Henke considers Humphrys "miracles" explanations inadequate (re helium-zircon at Los Alamos).

So, anyone still open to Present Truth, about the age of the earth could either wade through the controversial "Spat of Minutia" vs. "Gaps of the Gods" to reach a decision...

Henke's questions Humphrys can't answer http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/appendixd.html

vs.

Humphrys crticism of Henke http://www.trueorigin.org/helium01.asp

...or one could simply count the annual growth rings in ice cores, or even our oldest trees (like Methuselah), and reach a far less debatable conclusion. Did God have mountains miraculously spew ash into the atmosphere 7600 years ago when Mount Mazama (Crater Lake in Oregon) erupted? Out of the last 100,000 years, Christian scientists have explained that God created the first 94,00 layers of ice by speaking them into existence, and the last 6,000 are natural, but why would he fake Mt Mazama's eruption by placing it's ash in the ice 7600 layers down??? Or Tm. Toba's eruption 73,000 years ago in Indonesia???

Snowfall in Greenland, that very year Mazana erupted, captured the very distinguishable ash in that year's snowfall--which melted into one of the hundreds of thousands of annual growth rings in the ice. An unmistakable dating method. And there are numerous volanoes within the last 2,000 years, that we can verify with history, that pinpoint the ice core data to those exact historical years. Historians account of Mt Vesuvious eruption of AD 79 can be verified through the ice cores, for example.

Amazing that we now have an undebatable scientific method to verify historians, and even religious writings. I personlly don't use the method of reaching a conlusion first, then finding a study that will support it. Openness does not allow it. And that's where Galelio's method differed from the church. He was willing to acknowledge something that was repeatedly and demonstrably irrefutable.

But, I doubt you'd ever see anything but a one-sided presentation of this on 3abn. I've seen similar things.

This post has been edited by inga: Aug 31 2007, 10:41 PM

[Observer]

The Bible most certainly does make such claim. And so does Sister White.

Take the genealogies of Genesis and add them up, then add 430 years to the total that brings us down to Abraham's 75th year, or thereabouts. That takes you to the Exodus. Then add to the total 480 years for the period from the Exodus to the building of Solomon's temple. Then work out the kings' reigns from there until the Babylonian captivity. Then add the number of years from then till now. The total will be about 6000.

Well, it seems that we are expanding our discussion to issues beyond 3-ABN. O.K. I am NOT attempting to control what people post.

As to the Biblical record:

What was the purpose in the mind of that ancient Biblical writter when he recorded those genealogies? Was that purpose to give us a time-line, or was it to demonstrate relationships? Are we reading our 21st cent. cultural perception of genealogies that give us time-lines into an ancient culture that felt that reltationships were more important? How do we deal with the realilty that there is a class of texts which give us an expanded genealogy that adds several thousand years to the listing that we have in the Bible the we typically read?

As to Ellen White:

One fundamental question is whether or not Ellen White in her 6,000 year statements depended upon God revealing that to her in a vision, or whether or not Ellen White relied up-on the work of Archbishp Usher. Another question is: What was the fundamental focus of those passages in EGW? Were they focused on telling us about a 6,000 year time for creation? Or, were they telling us that God created, in contrast to evolution which denied that God created?

NOTE: I am a creationist who believes that God created in a 7 day period of time, but I do reject a 6,000 year time line.

In might be of interest to us to see how other conservative creationists have percieved EGWs 6,000 year statements. I do not equate the White Estate with God. But, I will note that her grandson ( A. White) clearly taught in the class I took from him at Andrews that EGWs 6,000 years statements should not be seen as having been revealed to her in a vision. He agreed that her focus was on God creating in contrast to the issue of evolution.

Bob, in my mind, your certainty that both the Bible and EGW make a claim for a 6,000 year time period is subject to challenge.

I will suggest that the major issue here is not defending what we may believe to be a 6,000 year time period. Rather it is an open mind to what the Bible actually teaches. Some may believe that it teaches a 6,000 time period. I do not. The issue then is: Are you and I both open to a change in understanding in what the Bible actually teaches. All of us must be open to the leading of the H.S., even it leads us to a p;osition that differes from what we have held.

Last Wednesday I was talking to a Conference President,on a different subject. He commentd that he appreciated a positon that I had taken on an issue. My resposne was: I can change my mind.

I have a number of beliefs in regard to what I beleive the Bible teaches in regard to creation, and more. I hope that I remain open to further light and understanding, if I am wrong.

[Pickle]

Observer,

You've raised some excellent points.

...1656 years (from Creation to the Flood, Gen. 5)
c...427 years (from the Flood to the promise given to c. Abraham, Gen. 11, 12:4)
....430 years (from the promise to Abraham to the Exodus, Gal. 3:17)
....480 years (from the Exodus to the building of Solomon's temple, 1 Ki. 6:1)
c...380 years (from the building of Solomon's temple to the Exile in 586 BC, 1 Ki.-2 Chr.)
...2593 years (586 BC till now)
c..6000 years

You are correct that the LXX differs from the Masoretic text, but the difference is not what many people think it is. What I mean by that is that I once heard a lecturer say that since the LXX puts an extra 1000 years in there, he could move things back that amount. But his reasoning was faulty.

When we look at the info on Peleg, whose birth or life is tied to the Tower of Babel in the genealogy, we find that the LXX places his birth either 350 or 450 years earlier than the Masoretic text. Thus, using the class of texts that push Peleg back the furthest, we still end up with dates way out of sync with what some scholars propose for the ancient world. And thus a primary purpose for questioning which manuscripts to use vaporizes. If the goal of using the LXX's figures is to accept the dates of scholars for this civilization or that civilization, it doesn't work, since you can't have advanced civilizations in various places long before the Tower of Babel.

As far as the purpose of the genealogies of Gen. 5 and 11 go, I would be surpised if scholars out there felt that the author of those chapters did not intend for the reader to view them as laying out a specific timeline. Do you know how they feel on this question?

[västergötland]

Has it been unequivocally verified that under no circumstances whatsoever can multiple layers be laid down in a single year? And that no processes have merged two sequences into one, similar to what they now feel formed the El Captan (sp?) reef?

If someone can imagen two summers and two winters in one year, then maybe. Two merged sequences would not support your case Bob, so I wonder if you really want to go there.

Thus, when it comes to accepting the conclusions of evolutionists why don't believe the Bible regarding data such as ice cores, conclusions that contradict Scripture, experience tells me that there must be a thorough analysis of their work first.

Hmm, or are we in the situation where we are accepting the conclusions of evolutionists, who may and may not believe the bible, regarding data on ice cores and dendrology which contradict what sertain people such as Bishop Ussher have thought that the bible teach?

On the Methuselah tree and the other trees in that forest, they are still alive and it has been concluded that they where acorns or seeds which grew to young trees some 500 years before Ussher dated the flood. So, if the flood did take place in the year that Ussher calculated that it would have, then the flood did not cover the mountain that these trees grow on, and if the flood did cover that mountain aswell as every other mountain, then it did not take place in that calculated year but at least 500 years earlier.

[västergötland]

1) If the scientists were skeptics, then they wouldn't have been looking for any other answers, since they wouldn't have considered the possibility that there might have been some.

2) "Regular seasons." And that's my point: It is conceivable that the Flood, with its attending volcanic eruptions, would have resulted in less than regular seasons.

Except that volcanic eruptions would darken the sky and make the climate colder on a decade or longer basis. This would result in smaller growthrings, more tightly packed, but still only one a year. For two growthrings a year, we would have to think up a situation where the there would be summer and winter twise for every year that we wish to double the growthrings for.

Regarding the volcanic eruptions attending the flood and the icecore samples. Since we have seen from historical time that volcanic activity leaves clear marks in ice, it seems to me that this is an scientifically testable hyopthesis. Simply look in the ice and see if any traces can be found anywhere in it from such a year when several (hundreds?) of volcanoes erupted. Such traces would give good proof to a historical reality to the volcanic aftermath to the flood.

[Seraphim7]

the bible does not... and egw never claimed to be right about everything.... are you all done with this thread? We can close it and move on to something else...

It would seem that this thread has gone far afield starting at post #109 - http://www.blacksda.com/forums/index.php?s...st&p=212902

In light of the fact that Calvin has clearly stated we are sticking with the name BlackSDA, based on a number of factors including his discussion with a GC rep. I believe this kettle of fish is cooked. Should we consider moving the divergent conversation to its own thread or, simply close this one?

[Whitey]

It would seem that this thread has gone far afield starting at post #109 - http://www.blacksda.com/forums/index.php?s...st&p=212902
In light of the fact that Calvin has clearly stated we are sticking with the name BlackSDA, based on a number of factors including his discussion with a GC rep. I believe this kettle of fish is cooked. Should we consider moving the divergent conversation to its own thread or, simply close this one?

Seraphim deserves a word of thanks for addressing this rather entertaining issue of getting waaaaay off topic.
Yes, I vote for consideration of moving the divergent conversation to its own thread beginning with message #109 thru to #148.

[Johann]

I am grateful to see that BlackSDA survives. Aren't you?