[karl marx]

1. Before Cain murdered his brother Abel, one can suppose that death, as we know it today, didnt cognitively exist. How, then, did cain know that upon inflicting pain on abel, the latter would die?
2.It is recorded in the bible that heaven belongs to those whose names were written in the 'book of life' long before the world was created. Does this mean that, excluding free will, every soul's destiny is predestined.
3. Is heaven a physical place which can be subjected and analysed within the scope of science.
4. Assuming point 3 above is wrong, can then the concept of time exist in a context devoid of matter(i.e time can only exist in presence of matter)
5. If God is all knowing, was it in order for Him to 'regret' having created people yet he foreknew they would rebel.
6.Bibilically, the world is thought to be about 6000 yrs old(?). However, God, as we think, has lived for trillions and trillions of years. Was it only 'recently' that he thought of creating man?

[Type R]

Good questions.

Originally Posted by karl marx

5. If God is all knowing, was it in order for Him to 'regret' having created people yet he foreknew they would rebel.

Did God create Satan mischievously? Did He create the Devil at all? Or is Satan an eternally pre-existing being?

Are we just actors in a play (life) with a pre-written script?

[ernestombayo7]

1. Before Cain murdered his brother Abel, one can suppose that death, as we know it today, didnt cognitively exist. How, then, did cain know that upon inflicting pain on abel, the latter would die?

He had knowledge of death.It would be odd for Adam his father not to have mentioned any of the consequences of leaving Eden.

Gen3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

2.It is recorded in the bible that heaven belongs to those whose names were written in the 'book of life' long before the world was created. Does this mean that, excluding free will, every soul's destiny is predestined

God's knowledge of future events does not negate free-will and hence there is no pre-destination.

read more here on free-will and God

3. Is heaven a physical place which can be subjected and analysed within the scope of science.

If physical you mean,material with a geographical position in the universe,most likely no.

can then the concept of time exist in a context devoid of matter(i.e time can only exist in presence of matter)

there is nothing like an entity called "time",which exists.Einstein showed through the theory of special relativity that Space and time are one thing called space-time.
If you bend space you bend time.None can exist without the other.So no space/matter, no time.

5. If God is all knowing, was it in order for Him to 'regret' having created people yet he foreknew they would rebel.

I don't see why God should not express emotion even if he knew.Eg if am told that my daughter will die in 3 weeks from cancer,does that mean on the day she dies i show no emotions because i knew she would die?

6.Bibilically, the world is thought to be about 6000 yrs old(?). However, God, as we think, has lived for trillions and trillions of years. Was it only 'recently' that he thought of creating man?

which part of the Bible explicitly says the earth is 6000 years?this is a view held by creationists who take the genesis account numbering of 6 days of creation and piece together another verse in the bible which says that "a day may be a 1000 days to God."

And God has not lived for trillions of years,he's eternal.timeless,always existed.So your question does not apply because asking when God decided to create is like asking what time was it before time?

[grip_daddy]

Ernest,

Explaining away literal creation week is assuming correctness of science at the expense of God's possibilities and abilities, and at the same time misapplying the one day, one thousand years contextual biblical framing. Genesis is recorded in man's time, not God's timelessness which would falsify the need for Sabbath commandment as was given to Israelites.

On the existence of time, assume an empty space without matter and energy: Eternity exist in this space before any action, of which at the point when an entity is appended, there was a measurable duration which, in our limited ability to express concepts, we would term as time. For example, if you would measure time by an information carrier that travels from point A to point B at a speed given by t=0, the calculated time would be absolute.

[grip_daddy]

Originally Posted by Type R

Good questions.



Did God create Satan mischievously? Did He create the Devil at all? Or is Satan an eternally pre-existing being?

Are we just actors in a play (life) with a pre-written script?

Do you think Adam had any degree of probability that he would utilise to eat the forbidden fruit without the serpent's deception? If your answer is no, then free will is not applicable whatsoever.

If you consider your answer to have a possibility of being yes, then Satan's free will comes into focus.

[ernestombayo7]

Originally Posted by grip_daddy

Ernest,

Explaining away literal creation week is assuming correctness of science at the expense of God's possibilities and abilities, and at the same time misapplying the one day, one thousand years contextual biblical framing. Genesis is recorded in man's time, not God's timelessness which would falsify the need for Sabbath commandment as was given to Israelites.

I think there is absolutely no basis to which creasionists should date the earth as 6000 years.It unbiblical and even against modern observations which clearly show that the Earth is 5 billion years.
the sabbath commandment applies to man,so God had to use man's time.

On the existence of time, assume an empty space without matter and energy: Eternity exist in this space before any action, of which at the point when an entity is appended, there was a measurable duration which, in our limited ability to express concepts, we would term as time. For example, if you would measure time by an information carrier that travels from point A to point B at a speed given by t=0, the calculated time would be absolute.

Its hard to imagine even how an empty universe could arise.assuming that the fate of the universe is a slow cold freeze where all the stars will burn out then these will still exist:
A gas particle or ion every cubic centimeter or decimeter,
Dark matter,
Dark energy,
Gravitons,
neutrinos.

and Quantum foam where particles are being created and destroyed instantly.
On the quantum level,the smallest level that a particle does not have locality or dimension. Thus the distinction between space and matter disappears on the quantum level,

but even granted that the universe is a vaccumm,devoid of anything,then how would you measure time with the information carrier?how would it move from point A to B?using which medium?how do you even define locations in a vacuum.

[grip_daddy]

Ernest,

As a creationist I would reason from the events of the garden of Eden. Using the book of Genesis chapter five, you'll get to accept that Adam appeared in history about six thousand to seven thousand years ago, thereby contradicting observations made by science that man is over ten thousand years, contradicting observations that lions and other carnivorous animals have existed for tens of thousands of years. Disregarding literal creation week will give you problems even when understanding the flood of Noah.

Ok, on time. Let us assume the vacuumed space. If matter froze today to nothingness (God can do that), then after an indefinite period it is brought back into existent, you will agree with me that the two events (freezing and coming back) was separated by a duration of time beyond our measure but in reality, existed. The fact that you cant measure it doesn't mean it is not there.

Time measured by physicists is the illusion. How do they measure it? They use clocks made of atoms? How does speed affect behavior of matter? If high speed affects how atoms interact, thereby affecting how light from a source is reflected from an object to the observer's eyes, that effect does not affect time in itself, but how it was measured...the instruments of measure were affected, but not time.

[YB*]

Originally Posted by Type R

Good questions.

Did God create Satan mischievously? Did He create the Devil at all? Or is Satan an eternally pre-existing being?

Are we just actors in a play (life) with a pre-written script?

Right there is a concept I advanced not too long back, And also a question was put across. Can God create what he cant control or destroy? Without getting into the long quotes and referals of other thinkers, I say, God as we know him has no control over satan, God as we know him has no control over human life. Just like Satan does not.

God and Satan are 2 equal opposing forces: bringing my earlier hypothesis of a master creator, who created humans, born with a clean slate, no Goodness or evil in them, then the 2 make a rush for their souls (humans)

That would be the reason why God cannot end the earth or the world as we know it when he wants, but he is also bound by laws of a higher being to wait until after a certain time, hence the period prophecies, an all time powerful God, would not be bound by a timeline, and the argument that its to give man time to change would be moot, because we are not collective as beings, you live your 100 yrs and you are outta here, so man as a people, species whatever will never change to suit God or please him, he knows that, he has watched for 6000 yrs

Dont talk about mercy, relating to humans not being wiped out by God, coz we all die everyday and in different ways,and eventually we shall all die, so killing humans and starting over is not beyond logic, and it has been done before. mercy would mean to me, not dying (if you percieve that as mercy) or end of suffering and sickness.