Scientists Strengthen Case for Life on Earth More Than 3.8 Billion Years Ago

UCLA News ^ | 20 July 2006 | Staff (press release)

[curiosity]

I feel certain you have an interesting take on these passages as well, if you'd be willing to share it.

Yes. The tree of life is a symbol for the grace of eternal life. Part of the punishment for the first sin was to deprive humanity of the grace, which the death and resurection of Christ has restored.

[curiosity]

Hidden in plain sight the two trees symbolic of life and death. The Bible continually uses trees as symbols.

I agree. However, I don't see how the trees symbolize Christ himself. Christ restores the grace of eternal life. He is not, however, the grace itself.

The Heavenly Father does not 'foresee' random events He controls events and gives to some the free will to choose what ever they choose to believe

Well, hold on a minute. If God directly controls all events, then there cannot be free will. For there to be free will, there must be some things that God allows to happen as they may, without his direct intervention. If you allow for this to be true with man's will, why cannot you allow for this to be true with certain events in the history of nature?

Quantum mechanics essentailly proves that randomness is an essential part of the universe. There are certain things, such as the positions of particles, that in principle cannot be determined certainty. If you wish to deny the reality of randomness, you must also reject modern physics in addition to modern biology.

[hosepipe]

[ As a sidebar, What exactly IS heaven? ..I'd sum it up as spiritual reality - non-corporeal, non-spatial, non-temporal. ]

Why non temporal?... You lost me.. How could time be geometric?.. or even spatial?.. Be gentle...

[PatrickHenry]

Time is like a cactus.

[hosepipe]

[ Time is like a cactus. ]

So are most people... rubbing off the spines can be a lot of work..

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply and questions!

Time is geometry - one of four dimensions we perceive: x,y,z and t for time.

And there may be more than one dimension of time (Vafa's F-theory, Wesson's 5D/2T, etc.)

For a neat animated introduction to special relativity: postulates of special relativity

[hosepipe]

[ Time is geometry - one of four dimensions we perceive: x,y,z and t for time. ]

Groovey website with totally strange observations... I liked it..

Since there is no 1st, 2nd or 3rd dimension really... they all exist as one thing or they don't exist at all.. including time..

They are a unit, thingly as a unit, if they exist at all.. The 1st dimension cannot and does not exist by itself.. as the other(2nd,3rd) dimensions do not exist by themselves either.. Whether they exist at all is only observed by an observer.. A Spiritual observer observeing spiritually may observe things totally different.. than as x,y,z and t.. Thats what I mean by the "spiritual dimension"...

Don't know if I have made myself clear, if indeed I ain't crazy to start with.. Something about the speed of light and time offends me on some level.. Its just that the speed of light is just too slow for this x,y,x,t universe.. almost a joke.. Drives me toward another paradigm..

God is a Spirit and we are spirits.. only seems logical that a spiritual universe is at the base of everything.. What we see as humans just might be a spectre(an observation) of what really is.. and is really possible..

Don't mean to be argumentative but what I write here "I sense" and have little words to express it .. Was actually hoping I might fertilize something in your mind.. But you do seem "wired" with the x,y,z,t concept.. I am not.. I can be wrong with no embarrassment..

[Just mythoughts]

Genesis 3:22-24 --


22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
I feel certain you have an interesting take on these passages as well, if you'd be willing to share it.

I am not sure what you mean by 'interesting take'.

Genesis 1:26 And God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, and Our likeness:.....

My King James has the "us" as Us in Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, "Behold, the man is become as one of Us, (not us) to know good and evil: and now, let he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:-"

I have yet to find any physical fruit, say eating an apple that gave me knowledge of good or evil. So obviously the knowledge has to do with a discovery which caused Adam and Eve to get a clue they were naked and pieced together fig leaves to cover themselves. Sound like a party.

Adam had been instructed to not mess around with that tree of the knowledge of good and evil directly by the Heavenly Father in Genesis 2:17.

There is no record that Eve was directly instructed by the Heavenly Father so Adam probably was her instructor. In either case Eve knew she was not suppose to touch the tree yet the devil in his little chat with her tells Eve in Genesis 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

So man in flesh fell, no longer innocent in their minds, lost their first love spiritually speaking to their Father thus set in motion for the time in which Christ would as we are told in Hebrews 2:14

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.

[Just mythoughts]

"I agree. However, I don't see how the trees symbolize Christ himself. Christ restores the grace of eternal life. He is not, however, the grace itself."

Trees are used continually throughout the Bible as symbols. Take for instance the parable in Judges 9:8 The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, 'Reign thou over us.'

9. But the olive tree said unto them, 'Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?'

10. And the trees said to the fig tree, 'Come the, and reign over us.'

11 But the fig tree said unto them, 'Should I forsake my sweetness, and my 'good' fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees?'

12 Then said the trees unto the 'vine', 'Come thou, and reign over us.'

13 And the vine said unto them,'Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?'

14 Then said all the trees unto the bramble, 'Come thou, and reign over us.'

15 And the bramble said unto the trees, 'If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.'

What then follows this parable is the interpretation of the parable and while the 'trees' are allegory the interpretation is historical and prophetic.

Hosea 14:8 Ephraim shall say, "What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard Him, and observed Him: I am like a green fir tree. From Me is they fruit found.

Grace is unmerited favor, and Christ is the source from which favor is bestowed.

"Well, hold on a minute. If God directly controls all events, then there cannot be free will. For there to be free will, there must be some things that God allows to happen as they may, without his direct intervention. If you allow for this to be true with man's will, why cannot you allow for this to be true with certain events in the history of nature?"

If God said I pushed my finger in the crust of this earth and spewed a steaming pot of primordial soup and out of it crawled a cell that got together with a fair haired friend then so be it. That is NOT what is written nor described, this flesh was by design for a specific purpose or else we are alllll animals and alll constraints are thrown away.

This earth fairly represents all manner of "free will" being used, every corner of it has some manner of uprising, death and destruction and that is most certainly being allowed but yet constrained.

[betty boop]

But you do seem "wired" with the x,y,z,t concept

Hi hosepipe! Naw, not "wired." All x, y, z, and t are, it seems, are the dimensions humans just naturally perceive. This doubtless arises from the structure of our sense of ourselves as "body bound"; or if you will, as dependent on our perceptive apparatus. I don't believe that there are necessarily only four dimensions. In fact, I'm pretty certain there are more, others that we don't directly perceive. String theory expects this, though it imagines that the extra dimensions are spatial. I suspect there may be "extra " dimensions, however, that are temporal....

Here’s a way to imagine an “extra time dimension” that I think you might find interesting, from Wolfhart Pannenberg. He is professor of systematic theology at the University of Munich, and a man of Lutheran confession:

…I assert that eternity is contemporaneous with all time. With that, the concept of eternity itself is described by statements of time. With a musical parable one might speak of eternity as the sounding together of all time in a sole present. Elsewhere I have developed this concept of eternity from the human experience of time, from the relativity of the distinction of past, present, and future corresponding to the relativity of the directions in space. In view of the relativity of the modes of time to the aspect of the human being experiencing time, this resulted in the assumption that all time, if it could be, so to speak, surveyed from a “place” outside the course of time, would have to appear as contemporaneous. This assumption is confirmed by a unique phenomenon of the human experience of time through the experience of an “expanded” present in which not only the punctiliar now but everything on which a position may be taken still or already is considered as present. The concept of eternity as the sounding together of all time … is distinguished from the Greek idea of changeless existence, as founded on Parmenides and Plato. There the idea of eternity is constituted by the contrast to the world of the senses, to time and change. Understood in the sense of the suggestions above, the concept of eternity comprehends all time and everything temporal in itself – a conception of the relationship of time and eternity that goes back to Augustine and is connected to the Israelite understanding of eternity as unlimited duration throughout time.

The worldview of the theory of relativity also can be understood in the sense of a last contemporaneousness of all events that for us are partitioned into a temporal sequence. The four-dimensional continuum of space and time can be represented symbolically – projected as a three-dimensional image – as a cylinder or (under consideration of the progressive expansion of the world) as a cone or sphere. In these images, the entire world process is conceived as a single present. However, it could appear in this manner only from a point of view that would not coincide with any position in the world process.

Eternity so described must not be viewed as the mere sum of that which is scattered in time. Eternity can also be thought of as the production of the content of time which at the same time remains contained in it – in eternity. On this basis the creation of the world would be identical with the creation of the total process of time, and this act could be described as the moment of the independent confronting of the finite moments of the [4D] space-time continuum. Thus creation can be conceived, on the ground of the theory of relativity, as an eternal act that comprises the total process of finite reality, while that which is created, whose existence happens in time, originates and passes away temporally.

The above is from Pannenberg’s Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith, Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, p. 100f.

[atlaw]

Yes. The tree of life is a symbol for the grace of eternal life. Part of the punishment for the first sin was to deprive humanity of the grace, which the death and resurection of Christ has restored.

My take as well. Thank you both for your comments.

[steve-b]

What stupidity.

When you attach a descriptive header to a block of text, it's customary to place it on a separate line.

[hosepipe]

[ Here’s a way to imagine an “extra time dimension” that I think you might find interesting, from Wolfhart Pannenberg. ]

WoW... what an interesting view, thanks... You were correct.. Wolfy resonates on some of my wavelenghs.. Although he explains it as a bit of a "Rube Goldberg" mechanically.. my mind/concept/observation goes more or less that way..

My driving factor is I think.. That with eternal "beings" time would not be such a big deal(being eternal).. The way it is with beings that will "die someday"(humans).. For to them(humans) time is a very important and limiting fact/factor.. and would impact about everything they thought about.. in their ugh!.. algorithms..

If its true (as the bible specifies) that God and literally ALL humans are already eternal.. meaning all live forever "somewhere".. (i.e. heaven/hell).. Then time is and would be a very earthy thing.. at least the importance of "time"..

Thats where I get my love of the word "timing" supplanting "time".. For timing is always important.. The music of the ages demands it.. and the wavelenghs of harmony seek it out.. What good is a stopped metronome..

The God of the bible offers heaven or hell.. I think you know where I'm going with this.. The God that invented heaven and hell for earthly minds to conjecture just might be saying something toward physics, don't you think?.. Since they are both metaphores of something else.. But WHAT?...

Thanks for Dr. Pannenberg's musings.. although not the same as my own, they did relate somewhat... its somehow comforting to observe another Moonbat(me/Wolfy) in operation..

[betty boop]

Thats where I get my love of the word "timing" supplanting "time".. For timing is always important.. The music of the ages demands it.. and the wavelenghs of harmony seek it out.. What good is a stopped metronome..

LOLOL!!!! Without "timing," nothing would ever happen!!!! I guess that's because we live in a contingent universe, as they say.... :^)

I'm so glad you enjoyed Dr. Pannenberg's remarks, hosepipe. His Toward a Theology of Nature is a most impressive (not to mention thought-provoking) work -- I highly recommend it.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for this excellent sidebar and all your engaging posts! And thank you for the fascinating Pannenberg excerpt, betty boop! The book is one of my favorites.

Hosepipe, your objection to space/time as “real” strikes me as quite similar to the metaphysical naturalists’ objection that consciousness/mind is not “real”.

In both, the object is not corporeal or material. It is not “thingly” in the sense it can be observed by microscope or telescope.

Nevertheless, in both cases, we can observe that the objects actually exist because of the effects manifest on other observable “things”.

On the one hand, we can and do successfully calculate area and cubic feet, launch spacecraft, observe “if then” relationships of motion, force, etc. And on the other hand, we can and do measure that choices are made and things or events result from those choices.

Of course the most blind of the atheists will aver that the mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. An epiphenomenon is a secondary phenomenon which cannot cause anything to happen. So in their view, there is no choice – it is just the physical brain doing its thing. All very deterministic you see – involuntary, no free will, no personal responsibility, etc.

Interestingly, in both cases, the poison pill appears to be causality itself. I say this because causality is what gives us the sense of time passing – A precedes B precedes C. It also is what gives us the sense of mind – awareness precedes choice precedes result.

As I recall, Aristotle explained time with the phenomenon of counting – one, two, three – time is the passing from one event to the next.

Seems to me your objection concerns “what is time in the spiritual realm, the true reality?”

If so, then my first observation would be that both the physical and spiritual realms are creations of God the Father through Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:12-20).

IOW, they are caused by the One who is uncaused. That means there is no sense of causality to God the Father, but there is a sense of causality according to His will – i.e. a sense of time.

Several theological points converge on this observation. For one thing, because God is not Himself caused then therefore what He says, is. He cannot lie or make His command not be so. When He commands, it is done utterly without regard to a sense of time.

Thus when one is received by Jesus, his name is indeed written from the foundation of the world – beyond time. And Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world, He is always slain and always risen, always the lamb and always the lion. And because the Father is not caused, there was no other way to bring Adamic man back home to the spiritual realm. His judgment of “death, death” in Eden is timeless and so must the redemption be timeless.

But getting back to causality…

In this heaven and earth - spiritual and physical realms – causality (or a sense of time passing) is part of God’s will for Creation. But that may not be the case at all for the new heaven and earth (repeating here a post from another thread:

The theology of a 7,000 year limit of Adamic man on earth (with the last 1,000 years being Christ’s reign on earth) is based on the seven days of Creation in Genesis as applied to these verses and Revelation 20:

For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night. – Psalms 90:4

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:8

IOW, the theology takes the long view of this creation, this heaven and earth – beginning to end, the new heaven and earth.

The 7000 limit for Adamic man is also a traditional understanding of time in Orthodox Judaism. I have not yet read San Hedrin 97b, but I understand it contains a reference to that very point.

Pseudepigraphral manuscripts explicitly make the connection, most notably Enoch 2 and the epistle of Barnabas 15:1-5.

Moreover concerning the Sabbath likewise it is written in the Ten Words, in which He spake to Moses face to face on Mount Sinai; And ye shall hallow the Sabbath of the Lord with pure hands and with a pure heart. And in another place He saith; If my sons observe the Sabbath then I will bestow My mercy upon them.

Of the Sabbath He speaketh in the beginning of the creation; And God made the works of His hands in six days, and He ended on the seventh day, and rested on it, and He hallowed it.

Give heed, children, what this meaneth; He ended in six days. He meaneth this, that in six thousand years the Lord shall bring all things to an end; for the day with Him signifyeth a thousand years; and this He himself beareth me witness, saying; Behold, the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything shall come to an end.

And He rested on the seventh day. this He meaneth; when His Son shall come, and shall abolish the time of the Lawless One, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he truly rest on the seventh day. – Barnabas 15:1-5

I said to him: Earth you are, and into the earth whence I took you you shalt go, and I will not ruin you, but send you whence I took you. Then I can again receive you at My second presence.

And I blessed all my creatures visible and invisible. And Adam was five and half hours in paradise. And I blessed the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, on which he rested from all his works.

And I appointed the eighth day also, that the eighth day should be the first-created after my work, and that the first seven revolve in the form of the seventh thousand, and that at the beginning of the eighth thousand there should be a time of not-counting, endless, with neither years nor months nor weeks nor days nor hours.

And now, Enoch, all that I have told you, all that you have understood, all that you have seen of heavenly things, all that you have seen on earth, and all that I have written in books by my great wisdom, all these things I have devised and created from the uppermost foundation to the lower and to the end, and there is no counsellor nor inheritor to my creations.

I am self-eternal, not made with hands, and without change - Enoch 2 32 and 33:1-3

… there are some difficulties in accounting for the calendar of Adamic man. The biggest difference appears to be several centuries concerning the captivity of Jews in Babylon. Thus we cannot know the date and time as Christ has said:

But of that day and [that] hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. – Mark 13:32

For the Lurkers: the above theology is not "young earth creationism" - it refers to the appointed life span of Adamic man (Adam and his offspring) - not the age of the universe.

[Bryan24]

I heard they found a tag on a rock that said,

"Rock for Sale. 3 day old. Free DVD of Big Bang if 10 rock bought. Guarantee for 4,000,000,000 year."

[hosepipe]

#216.. Now that was a heroic effort weaving a woof through amazing concepts obscurely known darkly.... Well done.. Causality is at some root of it/them.. I see two universes.. the x,y,z,t one and a Spiritual one.. I call them different dimensions.. Might not be a good way to put it but in my mind it computes.. Consider how Jesus walked on water(non frozen water).. ax heads floated, and many other things foreign to the x,y,z,t.. universe happened.. Jesus appears to have access to another universe(and maybe us too).. above and dominate of this one..

That must be what I'm talking about here.. I call it the Spiritual Universe.. (needing a term).. In, This Spiritual Universe physical(x,y,z,t) laws are fluid (evidently).. Unless the Spiritual Universe is brought to bear the x,y,z,t universe is not fluid.. Consider... "Speak to that mountain to be removed and cast into the sea and it will happen"... Maybe thats not prose..

I do not think any of us can negotiate these things presently, accurately, but it is fun to try.. Consider another Universe enclosing the one we call "the Universe(x,y,z,t)"... Thats what I'm talking about.. or trying to talk about.. maybe multi-level casuality.. Now would'nt that be something?..

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your meditations and views!

Of a truth we usually end up our discussions on these matters with the semantics.

What you are calling a spiritual dimension, I call the spiritual realm. The term "dimension" has a specific meaning to me.

[hosepipe]

[ What you are calling a spiritual dimension, I call the spiritual realm. The term "dimension" has a specific meaning to me. ]

I know, believe me, I know... Semantics?.. Quite a bugaboo... Only makes me crave for language to become obsolete.. You know where spirits can merge obviating anything so crude as language.. You know... gender is quite a curse too.. The x,y,z,t dimension is one thing the spiritual dimension is quite another.. Ok realm, I can live with that...