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Time and Dating method

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:08 am
by godslanguage
When was the tme/dating method created. ie: 60 minutes= 1 hour, 24 hour day, 1 year = 12 months or 365 days. When was this dating method used historically-- in the records, how far back???

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:58 am
by Turgonian
I have no idea, but in any case the 24-hour day has been around for a while... :)

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:31 am
by godslanguage
I'm just wondering at what point in our 250, 000 years of history did humans decide to use this dating method.

Re: Time and Dating method

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:08 am
by Canuckster1127
godslanguage wrote:When was the tme/dating method created. ie: 60 minutes= 1 hour, 24 hour day, 1 year = 12 months or 365 days. When was this dating method used historically-- in the records, how far back???
Sorry I missed this earlier.

http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/time.html

The short answer is that seconds, minutes etc are all tied into longitude of the earth and developed as a measure when people observed regularity in terms of the position of the sun in the sky and the stars at night.

Re: Time and Dating method

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:28 am
by godslanguage
Thanks for the link Canukster

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 4:57 pm
by godslanguage
What I'm trying to get out of this is the biblical interpretation of the word Yom. I just don't know how to tie it in together. If the Earth was created in 6 days, then the time of days, a 24 hour literal interpretation would have been invented before it. When God created the Sun for the daytime and the moon to guide the nightime, this would be around a 24 approximation, I'm thinking that it wasn't exact but it would have been the way time was determined, by the light and darkness obviously.

Let me ask you this, in terms of going towards the Intelligent design perspective, how was it that we actually have a earth and moon tuned towards a specific time frame. Is it that we have adapting to these settings, or is it that they have been determined for living things to exist in the first place. A finely tuned time frame that without it, living things could not exist. Its really interesting to me that we have an earth that spins at a certain rate, has a sun and a moon to guide it. Without one of these things, life would not exist, lucky us, I guess intelligent design does'nt explain anything, does it.

Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:34 pm
by Canuckster1127
godslanguage wrote:What I'm trying to get out of this is the biblical interpretation of the word Yom. I just don't know how to tie it in together. If the Earth was created in 6 days, then the time of days, a 24 hour literal interpretation would have been invented before it. When God created the Sun for the daytime and the moon to guide the nightime, this would be around a 24 approximation, I'm thinking that it wasn't exact but it would have been the way time was determined, by the light and darkness obviously.

Let me ask you this, in terms of going towards the Intelligent design perspective, how was it that we actually have a earth and moon tuned towards a specific time frame. Is it that we have adapting to these settings, or is it that they have been determined for living things to exist in the first place. A finely tuned time frame that without it, living things could not exist. Its really interesting to me that we have an earth that spins at a certain rate, has a sun and a moon to guide it. Without one of these things, life would not exist, lucky us, I guess intelligent design does'nt explain anything, does it.
That is a significant problem for the YEC position.

On the one hand, if they push for their "literal rendering" of the text to hold that the language used is precise and scientific then they do indeed have to explain the means for establishing a 24 hour day absent the celestial bodies upon which it is based.

On the other hand, if they accept in part the argument of OEC supporters that Gen 1:1 explains the difficulty by putting it from the perspective of the face of the earth and the covering of dust referenced in Job, then it begs the question, if they can accept a perspectival hermeneutic in this instance, why do they insist it is not acceptable on a consistent basis throughout the passage.

In terms of Intelligent design, this issue really doesn't apply. Intelligent Design is really just what was known in the past as Natural Theology. As Intelligent Design is simply claiming evidence of intelligent arrangement and doesn't claim to know if that designer is the God of the Bible, an alien culture or any other deity claimed by man. Intelligent design only claims the evidence of intelligence, it doesn't and cannot claim the origin of it.