I must admit that I have not been able to get through all of the posts in this thread. However a few things jump out at me that I would hope to address for the heathen as well as the believer in the Creator.
If one does not give credence to the Creator, better known as God, then how can that person possibly discern the wisdom contained in God's handbook to mankind, the Bible, let alone speak about it with the kind of authority that some here have done. One cannot!
But since you are bound to try (in vain) to argue with your Creator and dissemble His gift of wisdom to us, then consider this.
God created Adam just before Day Three of Creation. If you read carefully, you will see in Genesis 2:[FONT="]4: These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5: when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up -- for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. 6: But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. 7: Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. 8: And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
What this clearly says is that before the third day, that is before any plants were planted (refer to Day Three in Chapter One please) God created Adam, and then Eve. Then if you look down the page in Chapter One to Day Six, you will note that God then created men and women, both, together, at the same time and told them to populate the world, which they did.
God created Adam to be the father of His Chosen People, which the Bible chronicles from Adam to Jesus Christ and the first century church. He created many other men and women to populate and occupy this wonderful world which He created (which man, as we all know, has subsequently messed up).
Cain moved to the land of Nod, which was east of Eden, and was already a city, filled with what cities are usually filled with - people. These people did not come from Adam and Eve, but were created on Day Six. Since Adam and Eve had not yet even had Seth (let alone a daughter), this city had to be populated with men and women that God had to create before Adam and Eve could have had enough children to grow old enough to build a city (let alone be taught how to build it)
A common misconception that all pre-flood life sprang from Adam is merely the false teaching of false religions who have misguided sheople for millennia. "The foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of man." The Bible does not always follow perfect chronology, and occasionally jumps back in time, as it did in this instance. Why was it written this way? To throw non-believers and blind sheep into confusion, just as it has done here.
Consider the logic here - All men were destroyed at the time of the flood, except Noah and his family. After the flood, these eight people repopulated the world, and all of mankind, post-flood, can look to Adam and Eve as their progenitors. That is if you believe that a world wide catastrophic flood destroyed all land life some 3400 years ago.
By the way, from the time Noah and his family stepped out of the big box, approximately 3400 years ago, population growth estimates demonstrate (prove is inappropriate with this mixed group) that the Earth's current population of six billion or so, is well within the norms of what Thomas Malthus discerned in his studies. If the Earth were billions of years old, and mankind was somewhere between 100,000 and 350,000 years old, as evolution "theorists" contend, then not only would the Earth, but the solar system, galaxy and possibly the universe would not be able to hold all the people that could have been born.
Those who wish to offer their knowledge as some sort of defense in their non-belief of a Creator, and then disdain those who do believe, I can only offer a few words from the mouth of God, through His servants.
1 Corinthians 8:1 ...We know that "all of us possess knowledge." "Knowledge" puffs up, but love builds up. 2: If any one imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3: But if one loves God, one is known by him.
Hal David and Burt Bacharach "What the world need now is love sweet love, it's the only thing that there is just too little of."
Psalm 119:89 Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. 90 Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth and it stands fast. 91 By your appointment they stand, as at this day, for all things are your servants. (Including Bacharach and David)
Finally, I introduced this post with the statement - "God created man in His spiritual image." Translated, this means that God created certain men to be the inheritors of His promise of eternal life, that was brought to the attention of all mankind through Jesus Christ, His Son. Not all men were created for this special honor, but only those who conformed to the spiritual image, model, paradigm, of God, which He elaborately and comprehensively defined in His gift of grace to all mankind, the Bible.
Those who get the message at the right time will go on to live forever, whole those who don't, won't. Now appears to be the right time, for the second time.
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