Expert: Dennis Herman - 1/29/2010

Question
QUESTION: The following is a copy paste of what I have typed on a message board:


Day 1

God makes heaven and a formless earth, and light and dark.

The earth was formed 9.2 billions years after the big bang, not even remotely close to each other in time periods...



And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Evening and morning the first day... hmm... that sounds like a 24 hour day  (6 days of 24 hour periods). The timeline of the big bang however is in the billions of years



God raises up the land on a watery earth, and then he creates trees and grasses.

Plants and grass were later arrivals in the history of life and earth. Grasses arose in the Cretaceous, angiosperms evolved in the Jurassic. This would put them past day 5 (after fish).


Good one:  Day 4:

God gets around to making the sun and the moon and the stars.


The sun and moon came BEFORE life existed on this planet, not after... MAJOR inaccuracy of genesis...

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Well more evidence that the days were really 24 hour periods...

Day 6

God creates terrestrial animals, and people. The people are put in charge


I'm sure anyone who has even been to elementary school would know about fossils and how ancient they are. And anyone who has studied biology AT ALL will know animals came before (long before) humans did.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Even more for the 24 hour time periods

--

So in the above, basically the bible is proven to be wrong... open up genesis and see for yourself, or I can quote the verses in a areply if you'd like.

ANSWER: So you have your opinion against the word of God.   Now let me ask you one simple question.  Can you prove anything you just claimed?  Were you there at creation?  Do you have one piece of evidence that anything on this earth is older than what the Bible claims?  

I guess that was three questions.  But the answer to each would have to be NO!

I have read the Bible for more than 30 years.  The person who taught me how to read and interpret the Bible told me thing.  If we ever find one false statement in the Bible we can throw the whole book away, because one mistake would prove it is not the word of God.   I never found a mistake.  I found a lot of questions, and they all have been answered.

Did you know the Bible actually records the rules for interpretation?  There are a handful of parables Jesus explained.  Each includes the rules of interpretation.  Here is one of them.

Mark 4

1.  And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.
2.  And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,
3.  Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
4.  And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
5.  And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
6.  But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
7.  And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
8.  And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.
9.  And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
10.  And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable.
11.  And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
12.  That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
13.  And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?
14.  The sower soweth the word.
15.  And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.
16.  And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness;
17.  And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word's sake, immediately they are offended.
18.  And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word,
19.  And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
20.  And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.
21.  And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?
22.  For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.
23.  If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Actually... I do have TONS of evidence :)
Im sorry to inform you of that...

Did you know that when scientists look into telescopes, and see galaxies that are.. 3-4 billion light years away... what they are seeing is the LIGHT from those galaxies, which has recently reached us. Look further into this if you want...

Now that light, takes a certain amount of time depending on the galaxy we are seeing, and from farther away galaxies, using calculations and etc. scientists make a factual conclusion that this light is from 3-4 billion years ago.

Now here's more evidence for why the big bang happened:

) Microwave background radiation

2) The expansion of the universe

3) The cooling of the universe

4) The ratio of hydrogen, helium, lithium, and beryllium.

5) The extreme density smoothness throughout the universe that's over 99,999 parts per 100,000.

6) Why the fluctuations in spacial density that occur at under a billionth the volume of a proton are exactly the same pattern as the largest scale structures in the universe very strongly suggesting that at one point the entire universe was smaller than a billionth the volume of a proton.

7) Why slow role inflation is continueing to this day.

8) Why the amount of matter is exactly the amount predicited by CP breakdown.


It looks like I got plenty of evidence to support incredibly strong scientific theories.

What evidence do you have for christianity to be true? none.

BTW, please refute those 8 points I made.



ANSWER: Well excuse me.  I was under the impression the original question dealt with the age of the earth.  What does the age of the universe have to do with the age of the earth?  If this light took years to make it here, don't you think God could have created other stars, worlds and universes long before He formed the earth and the sun?  

As far as evidence the Bible is true, I can only use the Bible to prove the Bible.  




KJV Daniel 5:28-31
28.  Peres; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
29.  Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
30.  In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.
31.  And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

How is that for a fulfillment of prophecy?  No sooner does Daniel announce it, the Medes conquer Babylon.

KJV Daniel 8:20-21
20.  The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.
21.  And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

Not only did Daniel foretell the over throw of Babylon he also told them who would over throw Persia.  Now for the next act.

KJV Daniel 11:20-21
20.  Then shall stand up in his estate a raiser of taxes in the glory of the kingdom: but within few days he shall be destroyed, neither in anger, nor in battle.
21.  And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.

Daniel clearly states Greece will be over thrown by a raiser of taxes.  Using only the Bible we can prove this point.

KJV Luke 2:1-3
1.  And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
2.  (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3.  And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

You can not get science to do that.  Science relies on the imaginations of mere mortal men.  Now where do you want to put your trust?

Don't forget of the over 300 prophecies of Jesus.  Every one of them was fulfilled.  And the prophecy of an economic melt down which we see happening today.  

Did you know the Bible actually gives instructions on how to study the word of God.

KJV Mark 4:11-13
11.  And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
12.  That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
13.  And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?

This parable and others like it unlock the keys to understanding scripture.

Don't be surprised, not too many people study with this amount of detail.  Sad to say, most Christians do not bother to read the word of God and decide if it is true or not on their own.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I told you already, im not interested in vague prophecies. Im looking exactly for scientific errors, and the bible contains many.

Yes god could have created the hundreds of billions of galaxies 9.2 billion years before the formation of the earth, but he clearly states that both the earth and universe were created in the beginning.


Also... answer me this one thing... why does genesis say the sun came after the earth? That is an ENOURMOUS mistake. Go read genesis again please...


Answer
The glory of God was the light.

KJV Revelation 21:23
23.  And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

It seems to me the Bible writers are still light years ahead of science.