Re: Dating Adam
Glenn Morton (GRMorton@gnn.com)
Wed, 05 Jun 1996 22:22:19>With regard to my claim that there was no literal Adam Glenn says,
>
>>What is the source for your knowledge here? I don't know who the
>>kings of Egypt were in the 35th century BC but that does not allow me to
>>say definitively that there were no kings at that time. I would dare say
>>that you are as lacking in proof for this statement as I am lacking
>>proof for my belief that there was an Adam. Your certitude has no
>>place on this issue unless you have been talking privately to God and He
>>told you this information.
>
>Well I did talk privately to God quite a bit about this about 10 years
> ago :) .
>
>Seriously,my claim follows logically from acceptance of BOTH positions of
>Glenn and Dick (forgive me if I mis-remember exact details, but I think
> I have the essential points correct):
>
>1) Glenn says that a literal Adam must be the progenitor of all mankind,
>but anthropological and molecular biological evidence establishes that
> any such progenitor is older than 100,000 years, maybe as old as 5.5
> million years.I agree with this 100% and am impressed by the weight of
>evidence.
>
>2) Dick says that a literal reading of Genesis demands that any literal
> Adam must be 7,000 years old (or less?). I confess I'm inclined to agree
> with this -- it seems to be in accord with the Biblical timeline
>presented, and it strains credulity to think that a 5-million year old
>ancestor could wind up in a Hebrew story of only a few thousand years
>ago.
>
>I and a large fraction of the posts accept BOTH 1 and 2 -- a literal
> Adam
>must be the progenitor of all mankind -- hence older than many 10's of
>thousands of years -- but must also be no older than 7,000 years.
>
> ----><----
>
>There is no logical possibility of satisfying both these conditions,
> ergo there was no literal Adam.
Although Dick once told me that I showed no evidence of ever having taken
a logic course, (and my professor quite agreed) :-) I did learn one thing
in that class. From a logical contradiction anything can be proven. Your
argument starts from a logical contradiction. Dick and I do not agree on
very many of these issues. Thus our views are logically contradictory
with each other. You have chosen to start with the proposition that Dick
and I accept both 1 and 2. This is wrong. I accept the evidence for the
antiquity of humanity but but not the concept that Adam lived 7000 years
ago. I won't speak for Dick.
To convince you that anything can be proven from a logical contradiction
assume the truth of both statements below.
1. The sky is blue.
2. The sky is not blue.
Consider the test statement "You do not exist." We know that when
combined, at the very least,
The statement "The sky is blue and you do not exist" is either true or
false.
But "The sky is not blue and you do not exist" is also either true of
false.
"The sky is blue" and "the sky is not blue" are true by assumption. And
since it is impossible for the statement "you do not exist" to be true and
false at the same time, the only solution to the above situation is for
all three statements to be true.
Thus is is true that you do not exist. So please start acting like the
non-existent person you really are. :-)
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm