Victor Van Heerden
Member
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2018
- Messages
- 252
We know that the scope of the Bible is limited to the care and salvation of Adam and Eve’s descendants via initially the Hebrew tribe and Yahweh and currently via Christianity and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is anthropocentric which means it regards humankind as the central or most important element of existence.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:26-27).
Humans are created in His image above the animals plus Christians who abide in Christ are ranked higher than angels because one day they will even judge them. (1 Corinthians 6:3).
Therefore according to the Bible we could argue that creating humans was the only motivation God would have for creating the universe. In fact Psalm 19:1 agrees with this logical observation and says,
" The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament show his handy work."
They declare to us and we are in awe of it.
And we further note in Psalm 8 a beautiful reflection on God’s creation and a pertinent question:
When I see the heavens, the works of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him?
Please note that this was aeons before the humble telescope came along or the Hubble space telescope that can see billion of light years into the cosmos. We know in Bible days the view of the cosmos was some what limited as they had no scientific instrument to observe its immense vastness etc.
So "the firmament" is described as a giant inverted brass bowl that has the stars fixed in it, and that it has windows that God can open to let the "waters above" flood planet Earth.
" In the Old Testament the word “shamayim” represented both the sky/atmosphere, and the dwelling place of God. The “raqia” or firmament - the visible sky - was a solid inverted bowl over the Earth, coloured blue from the heavenly ocean above it.
Rain, snow, wind and hail were kept in storehouses outside the “raqia,” which had "windows" to allow them in - the waters for Noah’s World Wide flood entered when the "windows of heaven" were opened.
Heaven extended down to and was coterminous with (i.e. it touched) the farthest edges of the Earth (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:32); humans looking up from Earth saw the floor of heaven, which they saw also as God's throne, as made of clear blue “lapislazuli” (Exodus 24:9-10), and (Ezekiel 1:26). Below that was a layer of water, the source of rain, which was separated from us by an impenetrable barrier, the firmament (Genesis 1:6-8). The rain may also be stored in heavenly cisterns (Job: 38:37) or storehouses (Deut 28:12) alongside the storehouses for wind, hail and snow. " (https://www.wikiwand.com/en...
Does this mean that the Bible got our cosmos wrong?
Because we know that the earth is not a flat sphere covered by a dome and Gods throne cannot be seen from earth. In fact the cosmos is so huge that our Milky Way galaxy, in which planet earth resides, alone consists of 200 billion stars like our sun. With 300 billion galaxies (every day thousands more are discovered) in our universe each with billion of stars - the mind boggles.
Considering the scale of our universe there has to be millions of life forms all over the forty billion light years across universe.
1. What happens to fundamentalist Christian belief if we by logical deduction conclude that intelligent life must exist on millions of planets in the universe?
2.Does the immense scale of the universe undercut or strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ?
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:26-27).
Humans are created in His image above the animals plus Christians who abide in Christ are ranked higher than angels because one day they will even judge them. (1 Corinthians 6:3).
Therefore according to the Bible we could argue that creating humans was the only motivation God would have for creating the universe. In fact Psalm 19:1 agrees with this logical observation and says,
" The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament show his handy work."
They declare to us and we are in awe of it.
And we further note in Psalm 8 a beautiful reflection on God’s creation and a pertinent question:
When I see the heavens, the works of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him?
Please note that this was aeons before the humble telescope came along or the Hubble space telescope that can see billion of light years into the cosmos. We know in Bible days the view of the cosmos was some what limited as they had no scientific instrument to observe its immense vastness etc.
So "the firmament" is described as a giant inverted brass bowl that has the stars fixed in it, and that it has windows that God can open to let the "waters above" flood planet Earth.
" In the Old Testament the word “shamayim” represented both the sky/atmosphere, and the dwelling place of God. The “raqia” or firmament - the visible sky - was a solid inverted bowl over the Earth, coloured blue from the heavenly ocean above it.
Rain, snow, wind and hail were kept in storehouses outside the “raqia,” which had "windows" to allow them in - the waters for Noah’s World Wide flood entered when the "windows of heaven" were opened.
Heaven extended down to and was coterminous with (i.e. it touched) the farthest edges of the Earth (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:32); humans looking up from Earth saw the floor of heaven, which they saw also as God's throne, as made of clear blue “lapislazuli” (Exodus 24:9-10), and (Ezekiel 1:26). Below that was a layer of water, the source of rain, which was separated from us by an impenetrable barrier, the firmament (Genesis 1:6-8). The rain may also be stored in heavenly cisterns (Job: 38:37) or storehouses (Deut 28:12) alongside the storehouses for wind, hail and snow. " (https://www.wikiwand.com/en...
Does this mean that the Bible got our cosmos wrong?
Because we know that the earth is not a flat sphere covered by a dome and Gods throne cannot be seen from earth. In fact the cosmos is so huge that our Milky Way galaxy, in which planet earth resides, alone consists of 200 billion stars like our sun. With 300 billion galaxies (every day thousands more are discovered) in our universe each with billion of stars - the mind boggles.
Considering the scale of our universe there has to be millions of life forms all over the forty billion light years across universe.
1. What happens to fundamentalist Christian belief if we by logical deduction conclude that intelligent life must exist on millions of planets in the universe?
2.Does the immense scale of the universe undercut or strengthen your faith in Jesus Christ?
