I am so frustrated by the infantile nature of this quarters lessons. It is sort of like they are written by a someone in Kindergarten. Take for instance this from Sunday's lesson:
Somehow created suddenly becomes made visible " Gen 3:16 "Then God made two great 4lights" Or what about the third possiblity that of volcanic dust...are they trying to tell us that God used natural processes, actual destructive processes in his creation? I wish they would acknowledge the obvious but they really aren't.
They of course know that the sun moon and stars made on the 4th day does not work. There would be no water on the earth without a sun anyway, it would just be a solid ball of ice. No ocean, no liquid water. They also have to know that light created on the first day is not the light of God. If as they assert God is light then He has always been light He would not have to create himself as light on the first day.
If you want to make the verses in Genesis literal...well it just does not work anyway you slice it. But foolish people keep trying. Of course venus is not dark just because of their methane clouds the planet very likely sees the light of the sun during it's day. But sad to say the lesson quarter assumes really strange things. But really should our religion be based on strange and foolish assumptions...I think not.
A third possibility is that the sun was already in existence but was obscured by clouds or volcanic dust and was not visible or fully functional until the fourth day. One can compare this possibility with the planet Venus, where a similar situation occurs today.
Somehow created suddenly becomes made visible " Gen 3:16 "Then God made two great 4lights" Or what about the third possiblity that of volcanic dust...are they trying to tell us that God used natural processes, actual destructive processes in his creation? I wish they would acknowledge the obvious but they really aren't.
They of course know that the sun moon and stars made on the 4th day does not work. There would be no water on the earth without a sun anyway, it would just be a solid ball of ice. No ocean, no liquid water. They also have to know that light created on the first day is not the light of God. If as they assert God is light then He has always been light He would not have to create himself as light on the first day.
If you want to make the verses in Genesis literal...well it just does not work anyway you slice it. But foolish people keep trying. Of course venus is not dark just because of their methane clouds the planet very likely sees the light of the sun during it's day. But sad to say the lesson quarter assumes really strange things. But really should our religion be based on strange and foolish assumptions...I think not.
2 comments:
You know, it's just the most arrogant assumption that puny 21st century man can better ascertain how Almighty God could reveal himself; as though this "scientific" knowledge was equal to that of our Creator. If God can't tell His obedient messengers the plain truth and protect that written truth for our benefit millennia later, then God is not in control.
Man's reasoning today is just as valid as was that of Noah's contemporaries. God said, "Let there be light." We know just from whence and of what it consisted? It took a whole 24-hr day for this - as compared to creation of multitudinous fish & fowl the fifth day? Or animals the sixth? Oh, you know-it-all infantiles - consumed of infantile paralysis of analysis.
God recorded for us some very real mysteries, and if you can't accept Him by faith, then go do the honest thing and declare yourself an agnostic. He said what He did on which day and that is the literal truth. Guesswork by quarterly authors - and those revisionists on that expression - had best all leave their speculation humbled in the dust.
The most foolish assumption is that the Genesis record is symbolic, metaphorical, or even worse: a myth. AND the very worst is the end result: denying Jesus Christ as Creator, and thus, Savior.
All this crazy jabber-wocky of trying to outreason God makes such persons - pathetically - in the league of the scribes and pharisees of Jesus' day. Get real - real humble, as He is. That is the measure of true greatness. "True holiness and humility are inseparable." EGW
Ron, you are so right! These lessons are filled with contradictions. When you have an author who works for GRI as a nominal scientist, there creeps in some of the science (like an old earth) along with efforts like you highlighted to offer explanations that try to reconcile the text with science. But since the science will never line up with the reading of the text espoused by the official church and the dogmatic lesson editor (Goldstein), it is doomed to creationist contradictions and nonsense.
I think the section you highlighted raises another, maybe more fundamental issue. Who wrote Genesis and how? Scholars have reasonable explanations (multiple authors, priestly class, maybe time of Josiah), but church follows tradition of one author, Moses. It also argues that he was directly inspired by God, since we admit no human was watching the creation unfold during the 7 literal day creation week. Well, the "explanation" that it was dust or something obscuring the sun is an explanation from a human observer's view. But since there was no human present, that doesn't make sense. From God's view, there would have been no confusion; he'd have known the sun was there all along regardless of dust. So the lesson's explanation contradicts the teaching of how creation occurred.
I suppose one could argue that Moses was given a vision and "watched" the creation from the perspective of an earthly observer, and in that vision it thus seemed that there was no sun. But now you are back to the "God the Charlatan" problem Keith Miller brings out. God is now deceiving us by giving Moses false or misleading information so that we, who confidently "trust his word" as it reads, are led to believe the sun suddenly popped into being 6000 years ago plus 4 days.
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