Evolution and an Orthodox Patristic understanding of Genesis

[jckstraw72]

Besides, the whole argument for the earth being billions of years old is the fact that since the fast acceleration caused by the "Big Bang", the earth was travelling at a much greater velocity out from the beginning point. So, billions of years could have passed on the earth in what would be considered "days" at the time of the Genesis revelation.

but taht doesnt make sense. hours, days, years, etc are units of measurement used by man. so if billions of years somehow equaled 6 24 hour periods, then just say 6 days, bc to men a 24 hr period is a day. The universe has an absolute age, there is a point when God created, it cant be billions of years old, and a few thousand years old.

[TomS]

The universe has an absolute age, there is a point when God created, it cant be billions of years old, and a few thousand years old.

Are you saying that God is confined by time?

Besides, that would depend on how you define time. Are you referring to our current accceleration rate through space, or the acceleration rate 20 billion years ago?

[jckstraw72]

Sure it can. Depending on the length of time of the day at the current acceleration rate of the earth.

the earth does one rotation in 24 hrs or whatever, and we call that a day. now if the earth rotated twice as fast, then it would take 2 rotations to equal 24 hours. 24 hrs is still the same amount of time, but the earth rotated more times within those 24 hours. God spoke to Moses using the units that Moses understood -- and from the Scriptural and Patristic witness i see no reason to believe that a day was anything but 24 hrs then. so in essence God said He created in 6 24 hr periods. no matter how fast the earth rotates, 24 hours will still pass by in, well, 24 hrs.

now if i had a reason to believe that a day was understood as something other than 24 hrs in Moses's time then i might have something to think about.

[jckstraw72]

Are you saying that God is confined by time?

i said nothing of the sort. i said creation is confined by time. it has a beginning, thus it has an absolute age.

so lets say the acceleration rate used to be differnet and therefore a "day" was different, then really, all you need to do is a conversion to the new rate. it sounds to me like making inches into centimeters, except youd be calling both inches and centimeters inches.

but seriously, if i flew into space tomorrow and came back in 2012, but i swore it was only like a minute, how old would i be? (born in 1984?)

this sounds like Lucy stepping into the wardrobe -- except of course Narnia was another reality altogether, not the same universe as the wardrobe.

[stumbler]

It is really, really clear that you don't have the first bit of understanding about the theory of relativity, which has ben proven experimentally with regard to this issue.

I can see you are struggling with this, and I think it would help you to understand these ideas better if you would read a book explaining relativity.

Maybe you can start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity

there are many links there as well.

[jckstraw72]

This has been demonstrated by noting that atomic clocks at differing altitudes (and thus different gravitational potential) will eventually show different times. The effects detected in such experiments are extremely small, with differences being measured in nanoseconds.

sounds to me like different factors working on the clocks at different altitudes cause them to work differently. again, the same amount of absolute time passed. it just depends on how you want to measure that time. apparently the clocks were measuring absolute time differently.

[jckstraw72]

The effect is significant enough that the Global Positioning System needs to correct for its effect on clocks aboard artificial satellites, providing a further experimental confirmation of the effect.

see there -- the GPS corrects for the effects -- thats all you gotta do. you say way out there somehwere billions of years passed in waht was only 6 days here. i say way out there somewhere things are effected by various factors differently, and that only 6 24 hour periods passed at both places.

again with Keith Richards -- he's not actually older -- he just took lots of drugs that made his body "age" quicker than sober people. Johnny in a space ship isnt aging faster or slower, he's just under different conditions.

the quotes in the last two posts are from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitatio ... e_dilation