Dinosaurs floating on a boat covering a flooded earth.

@kellyjay said
You think that there is anything that can be looked at today which would give anyone inerrancy about events millions and billions of years ago? Seriously what could they have that they could not be wrong about with some assumptions, or that they could be missing something unknown?

Can you rephrase the question please? I'm struggling to understand what you're asking.

@proper-knob said
Can you rephrase the question please? I'm struggling to understand what you're asking.

Well I believe reality is what it is, and that means we can view something as true, that isn’t. So is it possible assuming what we trust to come up with our views on what occurred millions or billions of years ago, could be in error due to assumptions or missing information? Therefore everyone who says that they know what happen millions or billions of years ago are simply sharing a belief not a fact? Factual statements require a very high standard for it to be a real truth statement unlike matters of faith.

@kellyjay said
Well I believe reality is what it is, and that means we can view something as true, that isn’t. So is it possible assuming what we trust to come up with our views on what occurred millions or billions of years ago, could be in error due to assumptions or missing information? Therefore everyone who says that they know what happen millions or billions of years ago are simply s ...[text shortened]... statements require a very high standard for it to be a real truth statement unlike matters of faith.

Well I believe reality is what it is, and that means we can view something as true, that isn’t.

Absolutely. Your view on humans coexisting with dinosaurs is a case in point. In fact your whole YEC position fall sunder this umbrella.

So is it possible assuming what we trust to come up with our views on what occurred millions or billions of years ago, could be in error due to assumptions or missing information?

Anything is possible. It's up to you to come up with some sort of reasonable argument or evidence to show this is the case.

Therefore everyone who says that they know what happen millions or billions of years ago are simply sharing a belief not a fact?

Again, this comes down to what evidence there is to support whatever is being claimed.

@proper-knob said
Well I believe reality is what it is, and that means we can view something as true, that isn’t.

Absolutely. Your view on humans coexisting with dinosaurs is a case in point. In fact your whole YEC position fall sunder this umbrella.

So is it possible assuming what we trust to come up with our views on what occurred millions or billions of years ago, could ...[text shortened]... fact?

Again, this comes down to what evidence there is to support whatever is being claimed.

You very well could be right! Which is why I don’t claim it as factual when it comes to dinosaurs and humans. Neither of us knows the facts surrounding the beginning of the universe or life, but we can believe what makes the most sense to us.

I don’t argue time it isn’t the main issue for me. If I am right or wrong about that doesn’t alter the points I do find compelling.

I don’t believe the way evolution is described from a single ancestor fits the natural world and all we see in it. What I think we should see is no where to found, and when asked for evidence it is in the, out of sight past. So instead of a God of the gaps, it’s processes only seen in the past.

@kellyjay said
You very well could be right! Which is why I don’t claim it as factual when it comes to dinosaurs and humans. Neither of us knows the facts surrounding the beginning of the universe or life, but we can believe what makes the most sense to us.

I don’t argue time it isn’t the main issue for me. If I am right or wrong about that doesn’t alter the points I do find compelling. ...[text shortened]... is in the, out of sight past. So instead of a God of the gaps, it’s processes only seen in the past.

Neither of us knows the facts surrounding the beginning of the universe or life, but we can believe what makes the most sense to us.

It's not about what 'makes sense to us', it's about what the evidence tells us. It appears to me you don't understand this way of thinking as you're not an evidence type of guy, your beliefs are not shaped or framed by the evidence. Your beliefs are viewed through the prism of your literal interpretation of the Biblical Genesis account and the gaps are filled in with hefty a dose of 'make-it-up-as-you-go-along-ism'. That seems quite evident from our discussion in this thread of your 'dinosaur beliefs'. Evidence is irrelevant to you, you admitted as such when you stated there was no scientific or scriptural evidence humans coexisted with dinosaurs yet you continue to believe you are correct regardless. If that's not making it up as you go along i really don't know what is.

@proper-knob said
Neither of us knows the facts surrounding the beginning of the universe or life, but we can believe what makes the most sense to us.

It's not about what 'makes sense to us', it's about what the evidence tells us. It appears to me you don't understand this way of thinking as you're not an evidence type of guy, your beliefs are not shaped or framed by the e ...[text shortened]... you are correct regardless. If that's not making it up as you go along i really don't know what is.

If I thought the way the world is around me shows me what I believe is wrong I would have to change my beliefs. Claims made about the distant past isn’t as solid as what we see today. So as I pointed out if you are telling me I need to change my views due to your beliefs about what you think occurred millions of years ago it is not something I give a lot of weight to.

Show me something in the here and now your arguments become stronger.

@kellyjay said
If I thought the way the world is around me shows me what I believe is wrong I would have to change my beliefs. Claims made about the distant past isn’t as solid as what we see today. So as I pointed out if you are telling me I need to change my views due to your beliefs about what you think occurred millions of years ago it is not something I give a lot of weight to.

Show me something in the here and now your arguments become stronger.

Claims made about the distant past isn’t as solid as what we see today.

Do you not see the massive contradiction here? The Book of Genesis, being the prism through which you view the history of the world, was written circa 2500yrs ago. You can't claim the 'distant past' is unreliable and then base your entire worldview on a book from the 'distant past'. That's nonsensical.

@proper-knob said
Claims made about the distant past isn’t as solid as what we see today.

Do you not see the massive contradiction here? The Book of Genesis, being the prism through which you view the history of the world, was written circa 2500yrs ago. You can't claim the 'distant past' is unreliable and then base your entire worldview on a book from the 'distant past'. That's nonsensical.

The claim is the distant past is hard to validate today! If there are claims about the distant past what do we see today that would lead us to believe that this claim is true and that one is false?

Nothing controversial in that is there? If you were to tell me life arose from non-life not being able to say how or why put that claim in the realm of faith without evidence don’t you think? If you want to say that the universe was not created but cannot come up with any explanation other then you don’t like it, that shows how it could have happened, isn’t that a rebuttal without reason?

We are all creatures of faith in my opinion.

@proper-knob said
Claims made about the distant past isn’t as solid as what we see today.

Do you not see the massive contradiction here? The Book of Genesis, being the prism through which you view the history of the world, was written circa 2500yrs ago. You can't claim the 'distant past' is unreliable and then base your entire worldview on a book from the 'distant past'. That's nonsensical.

The issue with the Bible and what it says about the past with creation may be unreliable to you as you claim. But to ones who believe in God (Jehovah) and have complete faith in this book, see the earth differently then ones who do not believe in the Bible. Faith is the issue here, not a blind faith but real faith which is obtained by the study of it, seeing how things that were prophesied years or even centuries before hand, have to true. There are still some prophesies that have yet to happen but they pertain to our future and many of them are starting to come true with world events that are happening now.
So no we may not have all the answers of things that happened in the past that only Jehovah and the angels witnessed. But as time goes on and science digs deeper into some of the things we all want to know, we all need to wait with open eyes to see what happens.

@galveston75 said
The issue with the Bible and what it says about the past with creation may be unreliable to you as you claim. But to ones who believe in God (Jehovah) and have complete faith in this book, see the earth differently then ones who do not believe in the Bible. Faith is the issue here, not a blind faith but real faith which is obtained by the study of it, seeing how things t ...[text shortened]... into some of the things we all want to know, we all need to wait with open eyes to see what happens.

Why do you put (Jehovah) in parenthesis after “God”?

@kellyjay said
The claim is the distant past is hard to validate today! If there are claims about the distant past what do we see today that would lead us to believe that this claim is true and that one is false?

Nothing controversial in that is there? If you were to tell me life arose from non-life not being able to say how or why put that claim in the realm of faith without evidence d ...[text shortened]... have happened, isn’t that a rebuttal without reason?

We are all creatures of faith in my opinion.

You seem to have missed my point entirely. The distant past is hard to validate, we agree on this, and yet you base your worldview on a book which was written in the (fairly) distant past. Do you not see the contradiction?

@divegeester said
Why do you put (Jehovah) in parenthesis after “God”?

To emphasize it. Some here don't really like it or get confused to whom it actually belongs too. That's all.

@proper-knob said
You seem to have missed my point entirely. The distant past is hard to validate, we agree on this, and yet you base your worldview on a book which was written in the (fairly) distant past. Do you not see the contradiction?

I agree it was written in the distant past, it was written in three different languages, by about forty different people. The books cover variety of topics with predictions and history, The number of individual manuscripts gathered from around the world number in the thousands unlike any other historical documents, so they can be shown truthful by comparison, because if anyone attempted to alter the text the shear numbers of manuscripts would highlight the deception. So I trust the scriptures!

@kellyjay said
I agree it was written in the distant past, it was written in three different languages, by about forty different people. The books cover variety of topics with predictions and history, The number of individual manuscripts gathered from around the world number in the thousands unlike any other historical documents, so they can be shown truthful by comparison, because if anyo ...[text shortened]... the text the shear numbers of manuscripts would highlight the deception. So I trust the scriptures!

Good stuff. Plus many, many times haters of the bible which would include dictators and other rulers ever since the bible existed, have tried to destroy the bible or at least keep it from the masses. The dark ages is the most obvious time for this.
But the really miraculous part of all it's been thru is it's still here and available to almost the whole planet. Even with Russia banning the Witnesses "again" and even taking all the Kingdom Halls away from them, they will be fine.

@galveston75 said
To emphasize it. Some here don't really like it or get confused to whom it actually belongs too. That's all.

Who doesn’t like it and why? Jehovah is one of the many names of God. No big deal.