Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun?

Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (Full Version)

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KaseyTom -> Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/25/2008 8:20:39 PM)
That's how I read Genesis. How could day, night, morning and evening exists without the sun? How did plants survive in absolute zero? If the answer is "God can do anything", then what's the point of all those crazy "scientific" speculations in AiG. Why not just explain all discrepancies between scientific evidence and the OT with "God can do anything"? I don't think the authors of Genesis understood the daylight was caused by the sun. I'm sure the authors didn't understand the sun provides warmth and the energy required to power the earths geographic and weather systems. Of course the authors of the OT also did not understand the light is just one spectrum of electromagnetic energy that eyes happen to be sensitive to. Much more important would be infer-red spectrum (also know as heat). Why didn't God say, "Let there be warmth"?

unclemonkey -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/25/2008 9:30:09 PM)
ORIGINAL:tk quote: That's how I read Genesis. That much you have correct. The rest of your post is drivel. quote: I don't think the authors of Genesis understood the daylight was caused by the sun. The first three words of that statement identifies your problem.

drmark -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/25/2008 10:36:17 PM)
quote: I don't think the authors of Genesis understood the daylight was caused by the sun. Do you think the human author of Revelation (that's John, BTW) understood Revelation 22:5? There are lots of ways that God can cause light besides the sun!

KaseyTom -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/25/2008 11:00:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: drmark quote: I don't think the authors of Genesis understood the daylight was caused by the sun. Do you think the human author of Revelation (that's John, BTW) understood Revelation 22:5? There are lots of ways that God can cause light besides the sun! Wasn't Revelation written thousands of years after Genesis? Didn't John benefit from the advances in astronomy, science, and philosophy made during that period?

Jhud -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 1:02:20 AM)
Actually I think every scientist believes that light existed before there was a sun and stars; why wouldn't they? Also, since you didn't know this, infrared is a form of light. All light is capable of generating heat.

KaseyTom -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 2:08:27 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Jhud Actually I think every scientist believes that light existed before there was a sun and stars; why wouldn't they? Also, since you didn't know this, infrared is a form of light. All light is capable of generating heat. The question clearly is about earth daylight. I know perfectly well the difference between visible light, infrared, and UV. I also know that infrared transmits far more radiant energy from the sun than does the visible spectrum or UV. So instead of trying to obfuscate the question with irrelevant technicalities, please describe a scenario which would allow plants to live on earth before the sun existed?

drmark -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 8:51:31 AM)
quote: So instead of trying to obfuscate the question with irrelevant technicalities, please describe a scenario which would allow plants to live on earth before the sun existed? Maybe you could unobfuscate your irrelevant technicalities by reading the Genesis account. I believe it is written at about 6th-grade reading comprehension level. At the very most, terrestrial plants would have existed no more than 24 hours without sunshine and more than likely that duration was only 12 hours or so. Do all your plants die overnight, KT?

unclemonkey -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 10:29:44 AM)
ORIGINAL:tk quote: So instead of trying to obfuscate the question with irrelevant technicalities, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” – Genesis 1:3-5 You are the one obfuscating the question with YOUR irrelevant technicalities. Please show where the above passage states that God created visible light ONLY on the first day. quote: please describe a scenario which would allow plants to live on earth before the sun existed? Here is an experiment you can perform yourself. Just before sunset this evening make a list of the living plants around your home. (note: For the purposes of this experiment you need to restrict that list to those growing naturally in an outside environment.) Tomorrow morning, just after sunrise, check those plants to determine if any are still living. If any of the plants on your list are still living tomorrow morning you have the empirical evidence needed to resolve your quandary. I.e. you will have the necessary evidence to support the claim that plants can survive overnight without the sun. You are demonstrating the validity of the observation I made in my previous post identifying the source of your problem.

unclemonkey -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 10:35:48 AM)
ORIGINAL:tk quote: Wasn't Revelation written thousands of years after Genesis? What does that have to do with the price of rice in China? quote: Didn't John benefit from the advances in astronomy, science, and philosophy made during that period? Nope.

DanJames -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 12:18:51 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KaseyTom quote: ORIGINAL: Jhud Actually I think every scientist believes that light existed before there was a sun and stars; why wouldn't they? Also, since you didn't know this, infrared is a form of light. All light is capable of generating heat. The question clearly is about earth daylight. I know perfectly well the difference between visible light, infrared, and UV. I also know that infrared transmits far more radiant energy from the sun than does the visible spectrum or UV. So instead of trying to obfuscate the question with irrelevant technicalities, please describe a scenario which would allow plants to live on earth before the sun existed? The key phrase is that all light is capable of producing heat. If God did not want to miraculously cause the initial energy level to be room temperature, then he could have done it with the light that he had miraculously created on day 1. He wouldn't need to say, "Let there be warmth" since temperature is a function of other energy levels. On another note. There are a lot of miraculous things that would have had to have happened in the creation week, so "God did it." is often the default answer to a lot of questions, and I don't think that it's necessarily an unscientific starting point because we still have a lot of questions to ask. Namely, HOW did God do it? What did things look like during the creation week? How did God gather the water into one place? The only way to answer these questions (since the Bible doesn't say) is to look at the natural world.

KaseyTom -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 2:07:54 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DanJames quote: ORIGINAL: KaseyTom quote: ORIGINAL: Jhud Actually I think every scientist believes that light existed before there was a sun and stars; why wouldn't they? Also, since you didn't know this, infrared is a form of light. All light is capable of generating heat. The question clearly is about earth daylight. I know perfectly well the difference between visible light, infrared, and UV. I also know that infrared transmits far more radiant energy from the sun than does the visible spectrum or UV. So instead of trying to obfuscate the question with irrelevant technicalities, please describe a scenario which would allow plants to live on earth before the sun existed? The key phrase is that all light is capable of producing heat. If God did not want to miraculously cause the initial energy level to be room temperature, then he could have done it with the light that he had miraculously created on day 1. He wouldn't need to say, "Let there be warmth" since temperature is a function of other energy levels. On another note. There are a lot of miraculous things that would have had to have happened in the creation week, so "God did it." is often the default answer to a lot of questions, and I don't think that it's necessarily an unscientific starting point because we still have a lot of questions to ask. Namely, HOW did God do it? What did things look like during the creation week? How did God gather the water into one place? The only way to answer these questions (since the Bible doesn't say) is to look at the natural world. If the initial earth was a cold, airless rock, it would take 3 billion years for the Sun and geothermal activity to create all the conditions that would lead to a nitrated soil and CO2 rich air that modern plants require. That's why it did take 3 billion years for modern plants to appear. Just the process of creating soil with the required nutrients requires vasts amounts of pre-existing life and millions of years of rock erosion.

DanJames -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 2:37:59 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KaseyTom quote: ORIGINAL: DanJames quote: ORIGINAL: KaseyTom quote: ORIGINAL: Jhud Actually I think every scientist believes that light existed before there was a sun and stars; why wouldn't they? Also, since you didn't know this, infrared is a form of light. All light is capable of generating heat. The question clearly is about earth daylight. I know perfectly well the difference between visible light, infrared, and UV. I also know that infrared transmits far more radiant energy from the sun than does the visible spectrum or UV. So instead of trying to obfuscate the question with irrelevant technicalities, please describe a scenario which would allow plants to live on earth before the sun existed? The key phrase is that all light is capable of producing heat. If God did not want to miraculously cause the initial energy level to be room temperature, then he could have done it with the light that he had miraculously created on day 1. He wouldn't need to say, "Let there be warmth" since temperature is a function of other energy levels. On another note. There are a lot of miraculous things that would have had to have happened in the creation week, so "God did it." is often the default answer to a lot of questions, and I don't think that it's necessarily an unscientific starting point because we still have a lot of questions to ask. Namely, HOW did God do it? What did things look like during the creation week? How did God gather the water into one place? The only way to answer these questions (since the Bible doesn't say) is to look at the natural world. If the initial earth was a cold, airless rock, it would take 3 billion years for the Sun and geothermal activity to create all the conditions that would lead to a nitrated soil and CO2 rich air that modern plants require. That's why it did take 3 billion years for modern plants to appear. Just the process of creating soil with the required nutrients requires vasts amounts of pre-existing life and millions of years of rock erosion. Woah, woah, hold it. So you're giving us a cold, airless rock, but you're not giving us the rest? Let's be reasonable. The earth started covered by water. The firmament (air/sky) was placed into the earth on day two. God isn't using natural processes to create the earth. He didn't throw a rock into orbit and say, "Man I hope this doesn't take too long. My deadline is in a week."

KaseyTom -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 4:18:24 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DanJames quote: ORIGINAL: KaseyTom quote: ORIGINAL: DanJames quote: ORIGINAL: KaseyTom quote: ORIGINAL: Jhud Actually I think every scientist believes that light existed before there was a sun and stars; why wouldn't they? Also, since you didn't know this, infrared is a form of light. All light is capable of generating heat. The question clearly is about earth daylight. I know perfectly well the difference between visible light, infrared, and UV. I also know that infrared transmits far more radiant energy from the sun than does the visible spectrum or UV. So instead of trying to obfuscate the question with irrelevant technicalities, please describe a scenario which would allow plants to live on earth before the sun existed? The key phrase is that all light is capable of producing heat. If God did not want to miraculously cause the initial energy level to be room temperature, then he could have done it with the light that he had miraculously created on day 1. He wouldn't need to say, "Let there be warmth" since temperature is a function of other energy levels. On another note. There are a lot of miraculous things that would have had to have happened in the creation week, so "God did it." is often the default answer to a lot of questions, and I don't think that it's necessarily an unscientific starting point because we still have a lot of questions to ask. Namely, HOW did God do it? What did things look like during the creation week? How did God gather the water into one place? The only way to answer these questions (since the Bible doesn't say) is to look at the natural world. If the initial earth was a cold, airless rock, it would take 3 billion years for the Sun and geothermal activity to create all the conditions that would lead to a nitrated soil and CO2 rich air that modern plants require. That's why it did take 3 billion years for modern plants to appear. Just the process of creating soil with the required nutrients requires vasts amounts of pre-existing life and millions of years of rock erosion. Woah, woah, hold it. So you're giving us a cold, airless rock, but you're not giving us the rest? Let's be reasonable. The earth started covered by water. The firmament (air/sky) was placed into the earth on day two. God isn't using natural processes to create the earth. He didn't throw a rock into orbit and say, "Man I hope this doesn't take too long. My deadline is in a week." Nice trick considering liquid water (or any liquid for that matter), can't exist in a vacuum.

DanJames -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/26/2008 4:33:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KaseyTom Nice trick considering liquid water (or any liquid for that matter), can't exist in a vacuum. Well, one thing I will say Kasey Tom is that you are indeed a critical thinker. Water can't exist in the liquid phase without sufficient pressure (about 0.006 atm). It would be either a vapor or a solid depending on the temperature. That is a good point.

drmark -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 12:55:53 AM)
quote: Well, one thing I will say Kasey Tom is that you are indeed a critical thinker. Except for plants living in the dark. [;)]

fiat_lux -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 8:33:44 AM)
quote: I don't think the authors of Genesis understood the daylight was caused by the sun. I'm sure the authors didn't understand the sun provides warmth and the energy required to power the earths geographic and weather systems. Of course the authors of the OT also did not understand the light is just one spectrum of electromagnetic energy that eyes happen to be sensitive to. Much more important would be infer-red spectrum (also know as heat). Why didn't God say, "Let there be warmth"? Despite unclemonkey's mockery, you're right that they're probably didn't. However, as I understand it, the creationist argument that he's putting forward (and even more so certain theistic evolutionists do this, so I'm not trying to single anyone out) suggests that God hid modern scientific knowledge in the Bible which wasn't known to either its writers or most of its readers throughout history, but which we can recognize today. Hence, for example, his claim that when the Bible says God created light, it means God created everything along the electromagnetic spectrum, despite the fact that we have no evidence the original Hebrew writers or readers would have understood it that way. (An interesting divergence from the usual contention that to interpret the Bible we have to understand ancient culture.) I am of course speculating about someone else's beliefs here so unclemonkey is welcome to come in and tell me this is rubbish. quote: If the answer is "God can do anything", then what's the point of all those crazy "scientific" speculations in AiG. Why not just explain all discrepancies between scientific evidence and the OT with "God can do anything"? I don't think the authors of Genesis understood the daylight was caused by the sun. I'm sure the authors didn't understand the sun provides warmth and the energy required to power the earths geographic and weather systems. How else would they explain it? Look, if you're going to accept divine influence at any stage in the development of our solar system, then mechanistic scientific explanations already aren't going to work, and the "God did it" explanation is going to surface again and again. Why, for example, would it matter if plants couldn't have survived the night before the sun was created under natural conditions, if we're already accepting, at least for the sake of argument, that --a-- God created the plants, and --b-- God created the sun?

unclemonkey -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 10:32:45 AM)
ORIGINAL:fiat_lux quote: quote: Of course the authors of the OT also did not understand the light is just one spectrum of electromagnetic energy that eyes happen to be sensitive to. Despite unclemonkey's mockery, you're right that they're probably didn't. Such speculation is based solely on the uniformitarian assumption that ancient man was completely ignorant of the world around him and the atheistic assumption that God is not the author of the Bible. There is much evidence that contradicts the assumption that ancient man was so ignorant. And the assumption that men, rather than God, wrote the Bible is just plain wrong.

Raptorman -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 11:19:02 AM)
So, Unclemonkey, you're basically saying that they had the means to find out about the electromagnetic spectrum? What, did they have some very unique and complicated apparatus which told them visible light is not the only kind of radiation? While ancient man's accomplishments have often surprised and amazed us, we have no shred of evidence that they had invented anything nearly as complex as that. I suppose God could have told Adam and Eve, but there's no reason to think that knowledge about the electromagnetic spectrum would survive Noah's Flood. Almost certainly it would have been gone by the time the book of Genesis was written, and so the author had no awareness of it. Yes, I know Genesis was inspired by God, like the rest of Scripture, but why would God give Moses this knowledge, all of a sudden, that the electromagnetic spectrum exists? Why does "God created light" have to have the original meaning that God made every form of light, and that people must have understood it like that? Gosh, you go after us all the time for "reading things into the text," but when you do it, it's suddenly okay?

Jhud -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 11:40:01 AM)
quote: So, Unclemonkey, you're basically saying that they had the means to find out about the electromagnetic spectrum? What, did they have some very unique and complicated apparatus which told them visible light is not the only kind of radiation? While ancient man's accomplishments have often surprised and amazed us, we have no shred of evidence that they had invented anything nearly as complex as that. I suppose God could have told Adam and Eve, but there's no reason to think that knowledge about the electromagnetic spectrum would survive Noah's Flood. Almost certainly it would have been gone by the time the book of Genesis was written, and so the author had no awareness of it. Yes, I know Genesis was inspired by God, like the rest of Scripture, but why would God give Moses this knowledge, all of a sudden, that the electromagnetic spectrum exists? Why does "God created light" have to have the original meaning that God made every form of light, and that people must have understood it like that? Gosh, you go after us all the time for "reading things into the text," but when you do it, it's suddenly okay? I don't think it is neccesary that God would give Moses knowledge of the electromagnetic spectrum as we understand it to believe that God gave Moses sufficient knowledge that his description of the origin of the universe could be understood to encompass knowledge of an electromagnetic spectrum when such knowledge became available through other means. I think it is sufficiently amazing that a nomadic semetic sheep herder understood that universe had an origin in the past, as did the earth, solar system, life , and mankind, and that each of these systems were increasingly ordered in such a way to allow us to live here on this planet.

essentialsaltes -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 12:00:31 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Jhud I think it is sufficiently amazing that a nomadic semetic sheep herder understood that universe had an origin in the past, as did the earth, solar system, life , and mankind, and that each of these systems were increasingly ordered in such a way to allow us to live here on this planet. I don't see what's so amazing. Don't most primitive mythologies cover the same topics?

drmark -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 1:19:43 PM)
I would also tend in general agreement with es on this issue (shock). Moses spent 40 years as an Egyptian aristocrat and was exposed to the finest intellectual endeavors of the ancient Middle East. What is truly amazing is not that he would have comprehension limitations but that Moses' audience of nomadic herdsmen would receive a written document so detailed and accurate that it passes scientific scrutiny even 3000 years after its composition!

DanJames -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 1:29:22 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: drmark I would also tend in general agreement with es on this issue (shock). Moses spent 40 years as an Egyptian aristocrat and was exposed to the finest intellectual endeavors of the ancient Middle East. What is truly amazing is not that he would have comprehension limitations but that Moses' audience of nomadic herdsmen would receive a written document so detailed and accurate that it passes scientific scrutiny even 3000 years after its composition! It's bad enough that you're agreeing with ES, but to DISAGREE with Jack, AND agree with ES... I don't think I can take much more of this. However! I would note that Jack is correct that the author didn't need to understand what the details of what happened (i.e. what is the range of wavelengths for the visible light) in order to record that on the first day God said "let there be light".

KaseyTom -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 2:07:41 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: unclemonkey ORIGINAL:fiat_lux quote: quote: Of course the authors of the OT also did not understand the light is just one spectrum of electromagnetic energy that eyes happen to be sensitive to. Despite unclemonkey's mockery, you're right that they're probably didn't. Such speculation is based solely on the uniformitarian assumption that ancient man was completely ignorant of the world around him and the atheistic assumption that God is not the author of the Bible. There is much evidence that contradicts the assumption that ancient man was so ignorant. And the assumption that men, rather than God, wrote the Bible is just plain wrong. Would it be an uninformed assumption that Einstein was unaware of string theory or that Newton was unaware of relativity theory? If God wrote the Bible, why does it not contain a single piece of plainly stated scientific or geographic information that was not know to the scholars of the time. Please spare me the vaguely worded passages that only that can only be interpreted as scientific geological evidence through the wildest speculation i.e. that behemouths must be dinosaurs or Job:26.7 implying an earth floating in space.

KaseyTom -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 2:20:38 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KaseyTom quote: ORIGINAL: unclemonkey ORIGINAL:fiat_lux quote: quote: Of course the authors of the OT also did not understand the light is just one spectrum of electromagnetic energy that eyes happen to be sensitive to. Despite unclemonkey's mockery, you're right that they're probably didn't. Such speculation is based solely on the uniformitarian assumption that ancient man was completely ignorant of the world around him and the atheistic assumption that God is not the author of the Bible. There is much evidence that contradicts the assumption that ancient man was so ignorant. And the assumption that men, rather than God, wrote the Bible is just plain wrong. Would it be an uninformed assumption that Einstein was unaware of string theory or that Newton was unaware of relativity theory? If God wrote the Bible, why doesn't it contain a single piece of plainly stated scientific or geographic information that was not known to the scholars of the time? Please spare me the vaguely worded passages that can only be interpreted as scientific or geographic evidence through wild and desperately hopeful speculation i.e. that behemoths must be dinosaurs or Job:26.7 implying an earth floating in space.

Jhud -> RE: Did God create light, day, night, and plants before He created the Sun? (9/27/2008 2:26:10 PM)
quote: I don't see what's so amazing. Don't most primitive mythologies cover the same topics? Not at all in the same manner; in fact that is one of the things that convinced Tolkien and Lewis of the truth of the Bible; it was significantly different than other ancient mythologies.

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