Made in His Image: Immune Systems, The Body's Security Force

The Bible tells us that all of creation was originally created good.

Was this back when T. rex was a vegetarian?

I pointed out where we learn about the full extent of the curse back in #46.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2381598/posts?page=46#46

As I look at what I said, it is clear that I most certainly did err in saying that we learn about the full extent of the curse in Gen. 3. What I should of said is that we first learn of the curse in Gen. 3, and it is elaborated upon in Romans and Corinthians. My bad.

Yep.

Was this back when T. rex was a vegetarian?

Yep

Sums up the fantasy world quite nicely. Vegetarian T. rex indeed.

"I pointed out where we learn about the full extent of the curse back in #46."

Your remarks simply illustrate the obvious truth that The Bible must always be understood in the context of the whole Bible. It is not as though The Bible is like an extensive series of lab reports on unrelated experiments.

There are comments made in Scripture about what conditions may have been like before the Fall.

It does indicate that there was a layer of water above the earth. I know the water canopy thing is pretty generally discounted by non-creationists, but that is what the Bible says.

But isn't this example (like the one I referred to above, of modern "creation science" founder Henry Morris adamantly insisting that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics didn't apply before the fall) perfectly indicative of the point I was making: that "creation science" should invoke mixed emotions in Biblical inerrantists like you, because of it's tendency to speculate wildly beyond the Biblical text, while at the same time giving the impression that these speculations represent the Biblical view?

In fact in this case (see my added emphasis in quoting you above) you've fallen for just such an unwarranted, or at least highly questionable, equation of "creation science" speculation with the straightforward Biblical account.

Let's see what the Bible actually does say:

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. (Genesis 1:6-8)

So, O.K. So far so good. There is a "firmament," in some translations an "expanse," or a "canopy" (the "creation science" term) if you prefer. In any case the Hebrew word "raqia". And the raqia does indeed divide waters above and below it.

But where do you get the notion that these waters are above "the earth," and therefore implicitly somewhat close to the earth, related to the earth? You clearly get that (as suggested also by your use of the term "water canopy") from "creation science".

Young earth creationists elaborated this notion of a "water canopy" (variously conceived, the dominant and majority view being a "canopy" of water vapor in the upper atmosphere and/or the atmosphere generally, less common views of a shell of solid ice, ice crystals in orbit, and other variations) because they needed to get massive amounts of water from somewhere to make their "flood geology" work.

However if you look at other things the Bible says about the raqia, this notion that the "waters above" are nearby enough to fall to the earth as rain and help the flood along falls apart:

And God made two great lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. (Genesis 1:16-17)

So we find that the sun, the moon, and the stars, are all "set ... in the firmament [raqia]." Now, if the stars are in the raqia, and the heavenly waters are above the raqia, then "the waters above" are beyond the stars. At the least beyond the clearly visible stars. Say, outside our galaxy.

Now you may think there's a flaw in that reasoning. In fact I think there is. I think the flaw is ignoring what, in my opinion, the ancient Hebrews actually believed: that the raqia was a solid dome or vault covering a flat earth -- sun, moon and stars set in it -- so the water was available to fall on the earth simply by opening "windows" in the raqia.

But of course you will reject my flat earth interpretation of the Bible. Which is fine. In any case, the point remains: The Bible does say the stars are set in the raqia, and the waters are above the raqia. You ignore these things which the Bible does say precisely because you've implicitly accepted the "creation science" account of what it says, or rather what it needs to say for the creation science scenarios to hold together.

Granted the "creation science" account does try mightily to construct a scenario which harmonizes with a literalistic and inerrantist interpretation of the Bible, but because it's also trying mightily to construct a putatively "scientific" scenario (at least to connect and fill in between the Biblical miracles) it again and again allows itself to get "carried away," as it were, with this later task, and in the process move far beyond the simple text of the Bible, and in many cases contradict at least some Biblical assertions.

This kind of thing is why I asked earlier if you might have "mixed feelings" about "creation science". You seemed to be suggesting that some of these conundrums that arise in trying to fully understand what the Bible is describing ought to be sort of held in abeyance, or somehow kept open. But doesn't "creation science" tend to break that abeyance and close those questions? It seems to me that it does.

Thank you.

I am not a Hebrew scholar. I never dissected those verses to that extent.

I don’t deny that there are problems with the different scenarios and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a reasonable explanation that makes it ALL fit together.

I think that what it gets down to, again, is that God explained to us in the most concise terms possible, something that is complex beyond what we are able to understand.

My thoughts about the second law, however, are based on the verses that I posted earlier about corruption entering the world with the fall. Stating that it entered must mean that the second law AS WE KNOW IT, didn’t apply before then.

What did apply, nobody knows, and there’s just all kinds of speculation as to what did at that time.

Since conditions in the new heaven and the new earth are indicated to be somewhat like they were before the Fall as the curse is eliminated, reading about that gives some idea of what things may have been like then.

But still, since no one was there to see it and all we have it what’s recorded in Scripture in the easiest to use most concise terms possible, there will always be room for varying interpretation.

I figure, again, that determining that stuff is a nice mental exercise but really irrelevant to my day to day living. I have to deal with this corrupted world as it is and that’s plenty, thank you.

I also recognize that no evolutionist is ever going to be convinced of the truth of the Bible by *creation science*. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life and the kinds of things that bring a person to that point are not intellectual debate.

You know, whatever works for you is fine. But I still don't think you're close to grasping the degree to which the creation science approach is corrosive to approaching the Bible on it's own terms.

My thoughts about the second law, however, are based on the verses that I posted earlier about corruption entering the world with the fall. Stating that it entered must mean that the second law AS WE KNOW IT, didn’t apply before then.

Like that, for instance.

The Second Law is pretty simple. It's also utterly unavoidable. What it says boils down to this: In every process in which energy is expended, in which energy is changed from one form to another, if you look at the whole process, there will, in the end, be less energy available to do work then there was in the beginning.

People get confused because of the talk about "closed systems" and "open systems," and so think, "ah, sometimes the Second Law doesn't apply, it doesn't apply to open systems." But that's not correct. The open system is part of a larger system. The Second Law ALWAYS applies, to ALL systems. You can't use energy to do ANY work -- the most basic things like walking, twitching a muscle, moving at all, talking, making any noise, respirating, metabolizing, carrying out any chemical reaction, freezing water, melting water, boiling it, or evaporating it -- without reducing the amount of energy available to do work. Without the Second Law, if you rub your hands together it won't make them warm. There can't be friction! Even if you could "walk," you wouldn't get anywhere because, absent friction, your feet wouldn't push against the ground.

In short, all of physics would have had to have been entirely different. The Second Law isn't, can't be, merely some "corruption" or degradation of, or any manner of mere change to, the original created order. The Second Law is inextricably woven into the warp and the woof of creation. It's not something that can be added to the fabric of creation after it's woven. It has to be woven in from the beginning.

So, even if you refuse to recognize it, you are not merely suggesting that the original creation was corrupted. You are suggesting that the entire universe was recreated, top down, bottom up and instead out. It isn't in any meaningful sense the same universe or the same creation. It is a different universe and a different creation. At the very least it is a fabric of creation torn apart down to the threads and rewoven to a different pattern.

Obviously the Bible in itself provides no warrant for assuming a wholesale recreation. The Bible nowhere suggests that, because a couple ate an apple, God immediately changed basically EVERYTHING, at the most fundamental levels -- e.g. all of physics and chemistry -- about how the world works.

Look what the Bible actually says: Childbirth will be hurt like hell, farming will be a bitch, and you're black balled from God's country club. That's pretty much ALL that Genesis says about the "curse".

As I've agreed, Paul builds on (I'd say, largely innovates) the idea of a cursed creation considerably. But as you yourself volunteered: "In Paul's letters, he is concerned mostly with human death and the life offered through Christ." So can't Paul's reference to, I forget the exact words, but something like a creation "groaning and travailing" can't that be taken as possibly symbolic? Isn't he making comparisons here to the pain of childbirth, and then carrying that symbolism on to the birthing of the Kingdom of God? Clearly his primary concerns are not physics and chemistry. Nor is it clear, I think, that such matters are any part of his concern.

It seems to me that, without thinking anything much of it, you've gone way, way, way beyond anything the Bible actually says. You are leagues and parsecs beyond a closed garden; the harshness of subsistence agriculture; and observing, to make a spiritual point, that a struggling nature is kind of like a woman in labor. From that you've gone to, implicitly, positing a second universal creation event of which the Bible says nothing. And I think it is the "creation science" approach that has driven you there, and not the text of the Bible itself which has pull you there.

No. I think you're reading too much into what I said. I see your reasoning, but do not posit that kind of wholesale overhaul. SOMETHING changed, but I'm not claiming that I know what it is. Corruption entered and it somehow affected the entire universe. Some day we will get a new heaven and new earth with all the former things having passed away, and while it will be somewhat like the conditions in the Garden, perfect, sin free, fellowship with God, etc. I really think it will be far better.

I don't bother with the whole death before the Fall thing because there's no way of knowing exactly what that all entails, whether it's no death, some death, human death, not human death, whatever.

I don't take implications of things from Scripture as fact.

I also tend not to avail myself of the creation science websites. I think that they have some good points. OTOH, they purpose some things that I think their arguments for are pretty tepid. I don't think that their *proofs* of things or reasoning are as iron clad as they present it to be.

Don't give them that much credit for influencing my thinking.

“No, back to the top”

Oh he knows...liberals just can’t help themselves.

wow, after all these months, he still labors under the delusion that no one is on to him?