Evidence for God from Science

Gman wrote:

August wrote:
As far as we can determine, redemptive history started between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, and went through the different periods from there. Even if we are liberal with the evidence, and stretch it to 15,000 years, it still leaves a whole lot of human history before the Biblical redemptive history starts.

What happened to those who lived before the Biblical history of redemption started?

John I'm not sure where you are getting the redemptive history times.. You mean the genealogies?

Gman wrote:

Gman wrote:

August wrote:
As far as we can determine, redemptive history started between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, and went through the different periods from there. Even if we are liberal with the evidence, and stretch it to 15,000 years, it still leaves a whole lot of human history before the Biblical redemptive history starts.

What happened to those who lived before the Biblical history of redemption started?

John I'm not sure where you are getting the redemptive history times.. You mean the genealogies?

Oh nevermind.. You are..

This link about genealogies explains it, but you are right, we are talking about some big gaps here..

http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth ... ogies.html

August wrote:(Our YEC brothers must be smiling at this point)

Gman wrote:

August wrote:(Our YEC brothers must be smiling at this point)

LOL.. No, I think it is a valid question too.. Actually if we want to add 6 thousand years into this from the first Adam, and then get all the cultures we see today from micro-evolution is a leap of faith IMO too...

But yes, how long really are these years? It is possible, as someone eluded to before, that Adam wasn't the first human but was actually the first person of the Jewish race.. Genesis 1:27 are simply the first humans, Genesis 2 is the start of the Jewish race..

Therefore this would also answer the question where Cain really got his wife...

Gman wrote: It is possible, that there were other gardens in other places of the world too before the Garden of Eden.. In fact, they could have been setup with the same foundations..

August wrote:
The Jewish race did not come about until Judah, in Gen 29. Before that there is an intermixing of cultures and bloodlines. Not really much relevance here, but it is a stretch to say that Adam, defined as the first man, is not the same first man from Gen 1.

I lean towards a spiritual creation, but that requires some Scriptural gymnastics too. Maybe we should focus more on when man actually became "made in God's image", as God is a spiritual being, not a physical being, who just manifested in human shape once.

RickD wrote:The only thing I can come up with is that there were hominids that kept getting more physically human-like, until a point where the hominid was almost the same, or the same as modern humans. I mean physically. That would solve the problem of humans sinning before Adam. Not human(no soul and no concept of God and death) equals no sin. Just like any other animal. Then maybe God then created the first human, and breathed life into him(soul). All physical evidence of pre-Adam peoples would get to a point of being almost no different, or no different than modern humans. That would account for the findings of "people" that existed before the time Adam was assumed to be created. That would still leave a problem such as the Australian aborigines. They seem to be the same now as they were 40,000 years ago.

Thanks, august. You've got me thinking too much now.

Gman wrote:

August wrote:
The Jewish race did not come about until Judah, in Gen 29. Before that there is an intermixing of cultures and bloodlines. Not really much relevance here, but it is a stretch to say that Adam, defined as the first man, is not the same first man from Gen 1.

I lean towards a spiritual creation, but that requires some Scriptural gymnastics too. Maybe we should focus more on when man actually became "made in God's image", as God is a spiritual being, not a physical being, who just manifested in human shape once.

Yes plenty to speculate.. Or you could go with the interpretation that the dates in the rocks are wrong as YEC does..

In some ways you could also say that the earth itself is millions of years old while man is 6 to 10 thousand years old too.. Therefore the rock is really old, where humans aren't.. And when you mix with the fossils with the dirt it makes everything look old..

August wrote: The issue with that is that once we start doubting one piece of evidence, then it becomes arbitrary and we pick what we want to believe as opposed what the evidence shows.

I am pretty convinced that there were some humans around at least 30k years ago, but quite possibly before that.

August wrote:

RickD wrote:The only thing I can come up with is that there were hominids that kept getting more physically human-like, until a point where the hominid was almost the same, or the same as modern humans. I mean physically. That would solve the problem of humans sinning before Adam. Not human(no soul and no concept of God and death) equals no sin. Just like any other animal. Then maybe God then created the first human, and breathed life into him(soul). All physical evidence of pre-Adam peoples would get to a point of being almost no different, or no different than modern humans. That would account for the findings of "people" that existed before the time Adam was assumed to be created. That would still leave a problem such as the Australian aborigines. They seem to be the same now as they were 40,000 years ago.

Thanks, august. You've got me thinking too much now.

The problem with this hypothesis is then how did the soul get into all those other pre-existing humans? Did God breath the soul into many, and not just Adam? But that puts paid to Adam being the single source of sin and the start of redemption in Christianity.

The other unspeakable alternative is that descendants of those pre-existing humans have no soul...not a viable alternative, methinks.

There had to be a moment in human history when one man came into existence, made in the image of God, who were to sin and lead to the need for a savior for all mankind.

RickD wrote: The theory I proposed has Adam being the first "human" by virtue of his having a soul. The pre-existing hominids weren't human per se.(no soul). So, they didn't get a soul.(You want bread! No soul for you!) The preexisting "people" didn't have a soul, ever. Therefore, they didn't need redemption, because they couldn't sin. The soul, and being made in God's image is what separates us from any other being(however physically similar to us).