onionsoupmix: Tricky God Strikes Again.

onionsoupmix (

onionsoupmix) wrote,
@ 2009-06-15 23:44:00

Entry tags:

astronomy, chabad, creation

Tricky God Strikes Again.

I was curious about light years recently. More specifically, if a star is hundreds of thousands of light years away and we see its light, how is the universe still 5769 years old?

So, I went on AskMoses and chatted with one of their scholars who told me that the stars were created with existing light and if they move or explode then that is the way God created them and it just appears to be exploding millions of years ago, but really it was created 5769 years ago in that exact way.

It's late at night and I'm very dimwitted today and AskMoses has no patience for me, I think. So help me out here.

1. Did the star in the above scenario ever actually explode? When?

2. Did the star in the above scenario ever actually exist? When? Before it was created to look like it exploded or after?

3. Do creationists not believe in light years? Speed of light?

4. Doesn't that mess up with physics in general, GPS systems and so on?

5. If you were God, wouldn't you just make the stars closer? Why go through the whole charade of creating illusionary stars that appear to have existed and exploded millions of years ago if the world is less than six thousand years old?

(79 comments) - (Post a new comment)

Shalmo
(Anonymous)
2009-06-16 09:54 am UTC (link)

btw number 5 in your points is awesome

Genesis is indeed filled with such scientific absurdities

The Genesis 1 creation account conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. Genesis 1:1 The earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. From science, we know that the true order of events was just the opposite.

“And God said, Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3) and “. . .And the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1 :5), versus “And God said, ‘Let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night....’ “And God made two lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also… And the evening and morning were the fourth day” (Genesis 1 :14-19). These violates two major facts. Light cannot exist without a sun, and secondly, how can morning be distinguished from evening unless there is a sun and moon? Frummies try to claim that god is the light he is referring to yet, considering the context it is quite obvious that the light god is speaking of is the light emitted by the sun. Just another feeble attempt at trying to rationalize such a MAJOR blunder.

Plants are made on the third day (Genesis 1:11) before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (Genesis 1:14-19).

“And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind… ‘And the evening and the morning were the third day” (Genesis 1:11-13), versus “And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life… And God created - great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly… And the evening and the morning were the fifth day” (Genesis 1:20-23). Genesis says that life existed first on the land as plants and later the seas teemed with living creatures. Geological science can prove that the sea teemed with animals and vegetable life long before vegetation and life appeared on land.

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, the beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made…every thing that creepth upon the earth after his kind…" (Genesis 1:24-25). Science contends that reptiles were created long before mammals, not simultaneously. While reptiles existed in the Carboniferous Age, mammals did not appear until the close of the Reptilian Age.

“And to every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so” (Genesis 1:30). Carnivorous beasts and fowl do not eat green herbs, nor were all animals originally herbivores. Simply consider tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, barracudas, tigers, etc.

God makes the animals (Genesis 2:18) and parades them before Adam to see if any would strike his fancy. But none seem to have what it takes to please him. After making the animals, God has Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have kept Adam busy for a while, why Adam would still have to be living for we haven’t even discovered nor named all the species. Also consider the idea of every living creature being brought to the Middle East, that would have killed many animals due to climatic changes.

God curses the serpent, making him crawl on his belly and eat dust (Genesis 3:14). One wonders how he got around before -- by hopping on his tail, perhaps? But snakes don’t eat dust, do they?

(Reply to this)

Shalmo
(Anonymous)
2009-06-16 09:58 am UTC (link)

there's more:

Noah is told to make an ark that is 450 feet long (Genesis 6:14-15). The largest wooden ships ever built were just over 300 feet, and they required diagonal iron strapping for support. Even so, they leaked so badly that they had to be pumped constantly. Are we to believe that Noah, with no shipbuilding knowledge and no shipbuilding tradition to rely upon, was able to construct a wooden ship that was longer than any that has been built since?

Whether by twos or by sevens, Noah takes male and female representatives from each species of “every thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Genesis 7:8). Now this must have taken some time, along with expert knowledge of taxonomy, genetics, biogeography, and anatomy. How did Noah manage to collect the endemic species from the New World, Australia, Polynesia, and other remote regions entirely unknown to him? How, once he found them, did he transport them back to his Near Eastern home? How could he tell the male and female beetles (there are more than 500,000 species) apart? How did he know how to care for these new and unfamiliar animals? How did he find the space on the ark? How did he manage to find and care for the hundreds of thousands of parasitic species or the hundreds of thousands of plant species? (Plants are ignored in the Genesis account, but the animals wouldn’t last long if the plants died in the flood.) No, wait, don’t tell me, a miracle happened, millions of them.

All of the animals boarded the ark “in the selfsame day” (Genesis 7:13-14). Since there were several million species involved, they must have boarded at a rate of at least 100 per second. How did poor Noah and his family make sure that the correct number of each species entered through the door and then get them all settled into their proper living quarters so efficiently? I wish the airline companies could do as well!

The flood covered the highest mountain tops (Mount Everest?) with fifteen cubits to spare (Genesis 7:20). Where did all the water come from? Where did it all go? Why is there no evidence of such a massive flood in the geological record?

When the animals left the ark (Genesis 8:19), what would they have eaten? There would have been no plants after the ground had been submerged for nearly a year. What would the carnivores have eaten? Whatever prey they ate would have gone extinct. And how did the New World primates or the Australian marsupials find there way back after the flood subsided?

Noah kills the “clean beasts” and burns their dead bodies for God (Genesis 8:20). According to Genesis 7:8 this would have caused the extinction of all “clean” animals since only two of each were taken onto the ark. So why is it that we still have “clean” animals?

(Reply to this)

Shalmo
(Anonymous)
2009-06-16 10:00 am UTC (link)

last but not least:

(Genesis 14:14) Abram goes into pursuit looking for his captive relative in the city of Dan. The problem here is that the city of Dan did not exist until over 300 years after Moses died. How is it that Abram could enter the city of Dan, when the city did not even exist?

Jacob displays his (and God’s) knowledge of biology by having goats copulate while looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats (Genesis 30:37). The author of Genesis (God?) believed that genetic characteristics of the offspring are determined by what the parents see at the moment of conception. This is a laughable belief. Ask any animal husbandrist.

Camels don’t divide the hoof (Leviticus 11:4). This statement is completely moronic for every TEENAGER knows what a “camel toe” and how it used to describe a specific split.

The bible says that hares and conies are unclean because they “chew the cud” but do not part the hoof (Leviticus 11:5-6). But hares and coneys are not ruminants and they do not “chew the cud.”

Bats are birds to the biblical God (Leviticus 11:13-19 & Deuteronomy 14:11-18).

Some birds have four feet (Leviticus 11:20-21).

If there is a God, there is one thing we know for sure about him: He really likes insects (particularly beetles). There are more species of insects, by far, than all other species of life on earth. As JBS Haldane said, “he has an inordinate fondness for beetles.” Yet insects are said to have four legs in Leviticus 11:22-23.

Fiery serpents have NEVER existed yet Numbers 21:6 claims they do and TO THIS DAY STILL inhabit certain cities.

ME LOVE WACKY TORAH SCIENCE!!!!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: Shalmo
(Anonymous)
2009-06-17 04:23 am UTC (link)

you covered only a small part of the perceived contradictions between religion and modern science. I know about many more so. The basic flaw in your arguments (and the flaw in OSM's implied arguments) is in the entity you ask. I am not sure anymore whether OSM is genuine or whether she wants to mock Habad and other such ideologies, but assuming that she and you are genuine, let me give you a couple of simple advices:

1. Do not ask Habad, they are stuck in some irrational ideology, but what could you expect from people who may produce an ideology that claims that their dead leader is actually currently alive and is actually God (that argument goes also for another, older nameless religion with similar ideology.)

2. More rational Orthodox Jews came with much more plausible explanations, up to the point of embracing Evolution. Well it caused them problems with people of the same ilk as mentioned in #1, yet such people have no problems with both sides of the equation.

3. I do not contest the specific facts mentioned by you or implied by OSM, but I am a student of history and one part of history is the history of science. There were many theories that were proved to be totally wrong and many that were proved to be only partially correct. Yet, even in the world of modern science such theories resurface every now and then.

Example in mind is the 18th century theories of Phlogiston and Ether, two theoretical, related materials and absolutely imaginary that came to explain some physical phenomena. These materials proved to be figments of the imagination of those who dreamed those theories, yet these two materials resurfaced recently in the so called SCIENTIFIC world with two new names the 'Hot Dark Matter' (a.k.a Phlogiston) and the 'Cold Dark Matter' (a.k.a Ether.)

I know, I know, you would attack me, saying that these imaginary materials are not so much imaginary and the theories proved mathematically that those materials do exist somewhere in the universe, they just don't WANT to be seen. Maybe these materials are God.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Shalmo (Anonymous) 2009-06-17 09:33 pm UTC (link)
	in my opinion Judaism is lie these scientific absurdities are not biult on theories but facts if Torah was true then it would be reconcilable with science, no? for instance Samuel states the earth rests on pillars. Even if you think science changes, how reliable is that? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Shalmo - (Anonymous), 2009-06-17 10:52 pm UTC

Re: Shalmo - (Anonymous), 2009-06-23 05:05 am UTC

sethg_prime
2009-06-16 12:26 pm UTC (link)

There are "scientific creationists" who claim that the speed of light has actually decayed over the past six thousand years, and then plot a curve of this "decay" that makes the observed positions of stars consistent with a six-thousand-year-old universe. It's the sort of thing that makes real physicists laugh, and then cry.

I've said before--maybe even on this lj--that the real challenge for young-earth creationists is explaining Çatalhöyük.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	onionsoupmix 2009-06-16 01:37 pm UTC (link)
	That's easy, they just say that the system dating the settlement is faulty. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

sethg_prime
2009-06-16 02:04 pm UTC (link)

The organic Çatalhöyük artifacts can be carbon-dated. The accuracy of carbon-dating can be confirmed by using it on artifacts for which we have documented dates (e.g., Egyptian mummies) and also by comparing it to the dendrochronological record.

I'm sure there are hard-core creationists who would say that God either made trees grow multiple rings in one year for thousands of years, or that He created a complete abandoned city with human skeletons at the same time that He created Adam and Eve, but at that point they start looking really silly, right?

	ymarkov 2009-06-16 01:23 pm UTC (link)
	Literal creationism is silly. That point has been made abundantly. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	onionsoupmix 2009-06-16 01:36 pm UTC (link)
	Look, a vast majority of frum Jews believe in literal creationism. How? Why? Are all those chareidi rabbis silly? Misinformed? The chabad rebbe? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	onionsoupmix 2009-06-17 01:07 am UTC (link)
	Dear YHVH, Thanks for posting on my blog, that is very special. BTW, I think I found your page on facebook http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/GoodLord?ref=mf It's great that you're managing to keep up with technology these days and dropped the whole Bas Kol shtick. Also, is there a star named after me? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Great post with very good questions onionsoupmix 2009-06-17 07:43 pm UTC (link)
	"Life would be so much easier." That's so true. But ironically many frum people somehow think that people without their beliefs have an easier life... the grass is always greener and all that. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2009-06-17 05:10 pm UTC (link)
	I looked over some of the postings in this thread. The sheer ignorance of the likes of Shalmo makes one wonder if he ever got past third grade -- and I mean in science and biology, never mind his Torah education. Kushmir Intuchis (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Shalmo (Anonymous) 2009-06-23 10:39 am UTC (link)
	Then care to at least provide some rebuttals to the scientific absurdities pointed out in the Torah. Its easy to talk bullshit about how your enemy does not know science or Torah, but how about you actually rebuttal the arguments to make your case worth something (Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2009-06-18 07:47 am UTC (link)
	This sounds oddly like the "G-d made fossils seem old just to fool us and test our faith" argument. Oddly enough, Lubavitchers weren't the originators of that line of thinking. It seems to be popular in some fundamentalist Christian corners. What I don't understand is why it's okay to suddenly borrow theological explanations from another religion. JRKmommy (Reply to this)

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