Re: Open Letter To Glenn

Glenn R. Morton (grmorton@waymark.net)
Fri, 02 Oct 1998 13:34:16 -0500

At 12:47 AM 10/2/98 -0700, Dario A Giraldo wrote:
>But to answer your question on scientific support, I have began with the
>following formula:
>
>(T2 - T1) = (t2-t1)[1 - (V2/C2)]0.5 Relativistic Time given by A.
Einstein
>
>A year in Jupiter isnt the same as a year on Earth, if one defines a year
>as one complete rotation of a planet around the sun. So we can be on
>Jupiter speaking about a year while on earth time we are talking about tens
>of years.
>

Let us define the year as the tick on a personal watch of

365.25 x 24 x 60 x 60= 31557600 seconds. So, you take your wrist watch and
go to Jupiter and ride along with it and I stay on earth (I don't like
breathing methane, so I will let you do that).

Jupiter is actually traveling slower than the earth (although by a
miniscule amount). Jupiter travels at 13.1 km/s while the earth travels at
29.8 km/s. the difference in velocity is 16.7 km/s This is the velocity
which will be used to calulate the time dilation since on jupter you won't
be able to tell your own motion so all you need for the above is the
difference.Given that c= 299792 km/s

Squaring all these values we have

v^2=278
c^2=8.9875 x 10^10

So when you on jupiter look at earth you will see time moving slower
because the earth is going faster.

you measure

31557600 seconds on your watch but on earth you see my watch has ticked:

31557600 seconds(1-v^2/c^2)= T2-T1=earth ticks=

31557600 seconds(1-278/8.9875 x 10^10)=

31557600 seconds (1-3.1 x 10^-9)= 31557600(.9999999969)=31557599.90217
seconds have gone by on earth time.

This is not enough to sneeze at literally less than 1 tenth of a second
difference in an entire year. How does this solve your problem?

The difference between the year you measure on your watch and the one I
measure on mine can't even be measured on a personal watch. They aren't
accurate enough.

>>That is the case regardless of whether God created the universe instantly
>>6000 years ago or 18 billion years ago. If God created the universe via the
>>big bang, then the light spoken of was not from the sun either.
>>
>
>What light are you making reference to Gen. 1:3 or Gen. 1:15?

Genesis 1:3

>You are correct if youre making reference to the ultimate kingdom of God.
>However, what is going to happen during the millenium reign of the messiah
>on this earth? Remember the last part of Revelation when Satan will be
>bound for a thousand years while the messiah reigns on earth? Rev. 20:3-15.
>
>These are two distinct events. One is to be lived in this planet and the
>other in the new earth after this one is melted away as Peter describes
>it II Pet. 3:12

But revelations 20:3-15 says nothing about lions and lambs living
peacefully together. How do you know that the isaiah reference refers to
the 1000 years? That appears to me to be an assumption. and an assumption
violated by Scripture itself. Here is part of the passage of Isaiah. It
starts by saying that it is referring to the creation of a new heaven and a
new earth. And this is clearly parallel to Rev 21 1. Isaiah

17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall
not be remembered, nor come into mind.
. . .
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw
like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt
nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.

Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and
the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

So the lion and the lamb do not refer to the 1000 years which occur in Rev
20, not 21.

>
>But God created the plants for food. Gen. 1:29-30 As a matter of interest,
>some folks teach that we should eat only veggies since that is what God
>gave men and animals to eat pre-fall. And during the early 70s there was
>this Coptic Church in SE Florida who taught that they had a divine right to
>eat and smoke marihuana and quoted Gen. 1:29 as a cornerstone for their
>teaching. They got away with it until the DEA found them being a front for
>a Jamaican druglord.
>
>But for this teaching is a problem. After leaving Egypt God commanded His
>people to eat lamb during passover. So this theory isnt that sound.

I think the entire vegetarian/carnivore issue falls in the realm of the
freedom of the believer. If one believes that vegetables are what should
be eaten, it is of no concern. I know some fine Christians who eat no meat
and other who are carnivorous. My son is a vegetarian: I love my steak.
So, I don't think that what we eat is really all that important.

>
>>
>>But if Jubal was the father of tents, the first tent was 1.6 million years
>>ago, made by Homo erectus. See
>>
>>Gen 4:20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents,
>>and of such as have cattle.
>>"One of the most interesting but seldom recalled archaeological traces is
>>of a stone structure at site DK in the lowest strata at Olduvai. This
>>structure has been interpreted by my mother as the site of a windbreak or
>>simple hut, where stones were perhaps used to support a series of branches.
>> There are stones piled unnaturally one upon another in small heaps, and
>>these were found in a roughly circular pattern with a diameter of some 12
>>feet (3.6 m). In my view, this is certainly a 'man-made' structure and is
>>of quite special significance to our understanding of our ancestors as far
>>back as 1.8 Ma." ~ Richard Leakey, "Recent Fossil finds From East Africa,"
>>in J.R. Durant ed. Human Origins, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989) p 60-61
>>
>
>Im sorry Glenn but this description hardly gives me any assurance or
>evidence that the first official tent that we know of occurred 1.6 years
>ago. A round stone structure is the site of a tent?

Such remains are left by aborigines.

"On the surface were seven or eight circular depressions, about 4 metres
across and 0.5 metre deep. It seems certain that these were the
foundations of dome-shaped huts, which were in use in historic times in
Tasmania. These huts were constructed from a framework of pliable branches
such as tea-tree stems, thatched with bark, grass or turf, and lined inside
with skins, bark or feathers." ~ Josephine Flood, "The Archeology of the
Dreamtime, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 180

OK, then try the one 200 kyr ago at lazaret cave and elsewhere

"There are a number of candidates for Preneandertal walls constructed of
posts and perishable materials. The best known of these was part of a Riss
habitation structure at Lazaret Cave. Despite Villa's reservations,
artefact and charcoal distributions support the interpretation of a
barrier existing along the line of postholes at Lazaret, separating
intensely used areas from little used areas. Similar rock features
surrounding voids have been found at Lunel-Viel and Organac III where they
were interpreted as pole supports for walls." ~ Brian Hayden "The Cultural
Capacities of Neandertals ", Journal of Human Evolution 1993, 24:113-146,
p. 132

They believe that the neanderthals built a wall of hide.

>
>While I lived in Teheran during the late 70s, I saw countless caravans
>that came into the persian bazaar. They usually pitched their tents,
>placed their rugs over the sand and stayed there for a few days, maybe
>weeks and afterwards departed. I doubt it very seriously that anybody
>could come back in a million years and find any remains of their sites.
>There is nothing left except for the human and animal bodily secretions
>burried under the sand which Im sure little critters will feast on.

Not all tents around the world are built in the same manner as the bedoin
tents of North Africa and Middle East.

>
>And to these type of tents is the hebrew word referring to. Tents like the
>tabernacle they carried during those 40 years in the desert.
>
>>Thank you for the compliment. I have pointed out that the all inclusive
>>language is not really all inclusive. If one translates the term 'eretz'
>>as land, rather than as planet earth, you have a perfect biblical
>>description of a local flood.
>
>That is why I made my questions. However there is language that is pretty
>inclusive all flesh. More study and in depth research will bring out the
>answer. However youre quite right in your assessment of the word aretz.
> There is a variation in the hebrew from Gen. 6:7 "I will destroy man
>whom I have created from the face of the earth (adamah)" But for the rest
>of the flood account the word aretz is used.

I would point out that the term all flesh can be limited in use. It can
ONLY refer to man in Genesis 6:13 "And God said unto Noah, The end of all
flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through
them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."

So, if all flesh in the above refers to all animals, why are the animals
blamed with filling the earth with violence? 'the earth is filled with
violence through them..." So, the kitty cats are partly responsible for the
flood? NO. The flood was a judgement on man, man had filled the earth with
violence, not the kitty cats.

>
>But lets note one thing. When God makes his initial assessment, He wants
>to destroy it all. But what happens on verse 8? Noah finds grace before
>the eyes of God. Could this event have changed the divine intent and God
>decided just to do away with life in the corrupt region of Mesopotamia?

I don't think the flood was in Mesopotamia. It is a site that does not
match the description of the flood.
>> And as to the 'under all the heavens'
>>phrase, you will find a similar use of thunder being heard from lightning
>>that strikes all places under the heavens in Job 37:3. Since I can't hear
>>lightning from Oklahoma city, or even from Denton Texas, I presume that the
>>phrase 'under the whole heaven' is used to describe the land from horizon
>>to horizon. Within that region, I can hear the thunder. Do you think the
>>Bible is wrong by saying that thunder can be heard after it has been
>>directed to various places under the whole heaven?
>
>With the aid of technology today yes I heard gun blasts from Bagdad. :)

Agreed, but answer the question in the context of the technology of the
Hebrews. You wanted us to get a rabbi to talk about the genealogies
because we were inserting modern ideas into the Hebrew. I ask the question
again. Is not the Job 37:3 a limited use of the term 'under all the
heavens'?>

>>YES. 40 days of rain left about 6 feet of sand along the Mississippi River
>>basin and covered lots of farm fields in 1993
>>
>
>But how many trees have been removed from the Mississippi shores?

I don't fully understand this question.

Remember
>that the land in pre-flood times may have looked quite different than
>todays.

Why? Where in the Bible does it say that the land looked different? What I
am doing with this is trying to get you to realize how many non-biblical
assumptions go into the YEC/global flood framework. What Christians have
done is to allow the belief in a global flood turn the deductions into
proven facts. Yes, if there was a global flood, the preflood earth would
have looked quite different. But if there wasn't, then it might not have.

Have you ever seen a real cedar tree in Lebanon? Yet they were
>quite famous in antiquity and were even used to build Solomons first
>temple. The Scriptures mention that one could smell their forests in
>Jerusalmen, but not so today.

What does this ahve to do with lightning under the whole heavens. No where
does the scripture say that we could smell the cedars of Lebanon under the
whole heaven. We are discussing the use of a term not how far the
fragrance of trees can be blown.
>>
>>Fascinating. Do you have a name for this guy? And a reference? I would
>>love to learn more about this.
>>
>
>Well Glenn not only will you love Moses ben Nahman (1194-1270 AD Spain &
>Israel) who is also known as Nahmanides but you will quote his work Guide
>For The Perplexed (1190) in your writings.

Thanks.
>But the closing of Gen. 2:7 have something in hebrew that is lost in
>English. The acutal hebrew text reads: "and the adam became to a living
>soul". Nahamides, seven hundred years ago wrote that the to is
>superflous from a grammatical stance and so must be there to teach
>something. Lamed (to), he noted, indicates a change in form and may have
>been placed there to describe mankind as progressing through stages of
>mineral, plant, fish and animal. Finally upon receiving the neshama, that
>creature which was formed already became human. Nahamides concluded in his
>extensive comentary regarding this to as: "Or it may be that the verse is
>stating that prior to receiving the neshama, it was a completely living
>being and by the neshama it was transformed into another man". (Nahmanides
>comentary on Gen. 2:7)

wow. You are correct that I am going to have to get ahold of Nahmanides

>
>Now these remarks come from one of the major jewish kabalistic commentators
>on Scripture. He contends that the Biblical text has told us that before
>the neshama there was something like a man that was not quite human.
>
>How do you like this little bit of info?

I like it. But there is absolutely nothing to require the usage of this
with the advent of anatomically modern men when H. erectus also behaved
humanly, built a village, carved a venus figurine etc. It very well might
mean that 'not quite human' creature was Australopithecus, or even a chimp.

glenn

Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm