Picture of Mars vs. the earth. So how did Moses know?

[SkepticThinker]

You think they figured that out? Ok...

You don't?
It's pretty basic.

 

[gnostic]

Plant life on Earth is much older than we thought

Published February 26, 2018, this new research shows that land plants evolved 100,000 years earlier than previously thought. (source: above).

This puts them at the same time as animals.

But, sea plants very likely existed long before sea animals. Sea animals had to eat something...and that was sea plants.

You mean, something like “seaweed”?

You do realize that seaweed are not plants, but are algae, don’t you?

There are number of different types of algae, some lived in marine environments (in seawater), while others thrived in freshwater.

The most dominant marine algae are the red algae, and their don’t have chloroplasts or plastids, that exist among green algae and land plants.

Chloroplasts or plastids is what store energy source in the form of starch or sugar. The green pigment that you find on plants are called chlorophyll, which absorb ultraviolet radiation from sunlight. Ultraviolet radiation is what cause chemical reactions between carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), converting them into carbohydrates (CH2O, eg starch, sugar, glucose) and oxygen (O2).

From what I have learned, not too long ago, plants may have evolved from green algae.

In the Bible, Genesis 1 only talk of creation, of generalities, eg marine creature, land animals, and land plants.

Well, it may be true that plants predated land animals, plants have never predated marine animals.

Marine invertebrates, such as primitive corals, have been around as early as the Ediacaran period, which predated the Cambrian period. Cambrian is the period of mass diversification of animals, mostly marine invertebrates, but it is also period the first vertebrate life, the jawless fish species.

There are no plants on land, in either Ediacaran or Cambrian.

Primitive plants did appear in the Ordovician period, but these plants reproduce through spores, there were no seed plants or flowering plants or fruit plants; these other plants evolved much later.

Genesis 1 only talk of seed plants and fruit trees.

Note that fruit plants evolved from flowering plants, so fruit trees didn’t exist until much later still. So the earliest flowering plants didn’t exist until the Triassic period, while the earliest fruit plants didn’t exist until the Cretaceous.

By the Triassic, the earliest dinosaurs started to evolve from the much earlier primitive reptiles.

Mammal-like creature have also predated the Triassic period, but true mammals existed as early as the Triassic. So primitive mammals have been long before the earliest fruit in the Cretaceous period.

Therefore both reptiles (as well as dinosaurs, and the earliest true birds in Jurassic period) and mammals, all predated the fruit trees.

So that more faulty claims from Genesis 1.

Seed plants, as well as their descendants, flowering plants and fruit plants didn’t exist during the Ordovician period. Plants have very long evolutionary history, and evolution took places in stages. They didn’t appear all at once, like magic, like what Genesis 1 claim.

Beside, all this, the timeline in Genesis 2 conflicted with Genesis 1 timeline, because clearly Adam was created before there were plants and land animals.

If you have actually understood Genesis creation, in chapter 2, there were...

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 one to till the ground;

Man was created first, in verse 7:

7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Which in turn, was followed by creation of plants, which was the Garden of Eden in verse 8:

8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

That’s the timeline of Genesis 2, which completely contradicted Genesis 1’s 6-day Creation.

 

[Brian2]

You mean, something like “seaweed”?

You do realize that seaweed are not plants, but are algae, don’t you?

There are number of different types of algae, some lived in marine environments (in seawater), while others thrived in freshwater.

The most dominant marine algae are the red algae, and their don’t have chloroplasts or plastids, that exist among green algae and land plants.

Chloroplasts or plastids is what store energy source in the form of starch or sugar. The green pigment that you find on plants are called chlorophyll, which absorb ultraviolet radiation from sunlight. Ultraviolet radiation is what cause chemical reactions between carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O), converting them into carbohydrates (CH2O, eg starch, sugar, glucose) and oxygen (O2).

From what I have learned, not too long ago, plants may have evolved from green algae.

Algae are in the broad category of plants. iows they are not animals.

In the Bible, Genesis 1 only talk of creation, of generalities, eg marine creature, land animals, and land plants.

Well, it may be true that plants predated land animals, plants have never predated marine animals.

Marine invertebrates, such as primitive corals, have been around as early as the Ediacaran period, which predated the Cambrian period. Cambrian is the period of mass diversification of animals, mostly marine invertebrates, but it is also period the first vertebrate life, the jawless fish species.

There are no plants on land, in either Ediacaran or Cambrian.

Primitive plants did appear in the Ordovician period, but these plants reproduce through spores, there were no seed plants or flowering plants or fruit plants; these other plants evolved much later.

Genesis 1 only talk of seed plants and fruit trees.

Note that fruit plants evolved from flowering plants, so fruit trees didn’t exist until much later still. So the earliest flowering plants didn’t exist until the Triassic period, while the earliest fruit plants didn’t exist until the Cretaceous.

As you say, Genesis speaks in generalities and says that plants came before animals and that is what science tells us also. The oldest fossils are plant fossils.
When the Bible says "Let the earth bring forth plants" it does not mean that the plants were land plants imo.

By the Triassic, the earliest dinosaurs started to evolve from the much earlier primitive reptiles.

Mammal-like creature have also predated the Triassic period, but true mammals existed as early as the Triassic. So primitive mammals have been long before the earliest fruit in the Cretaceous period.

Therefore both reptiles (as well as dinosaurs, and the earliest true birds in Jurassic period) and mammals, all predated the fruit trees.

So that more faulty claims from Genesis 1.

Plants were created on day 3 in Genesis in embryonic form and in science the plants all came at the same time and later evolved. God created all the fruit trees in embryo when He created algae and other primitive plants.

Seed plants, as well as their descendants, flowering plants and fruit plants didn’t exist during the Ordovician period. Plants have very long evolutionary history, and evolution took places in stages. They didn’t appear all at once, like magic, like what Genesis 1 claim.

Beside, all this, the timeline in Genesis 2 conflicted with Genesis 1 timeline, because clearly Adam was created before there were plants and land animals.

Even in evolution all the plants came at the same time in embryo form and evolved over time into different types of plants.

If you have actually understood Genesis creation, in chapter 2, there were...



Man was created first, in verse 7:



Which in turn, was followed by creation of plants, which was the Garden of Eden in verse 8:



That’s the timeline of Genesis 2, which completely contradicted Genesis 1’s 6-day Creation.

I don't see Genesis 2 as a separate creation story, I see it as a more in depth of what happened when God created man.
verse 5 shows that it was before the creation of plants when God started to form man. So this was maybe on day 3 when we compare it to Genesis 1.
This was finished (I say through evolution) by some time in day 6 and God maybe did some finishing touches and breathed the spirit of life into man.
The plants had already been created and God probably used them to plant a garden east in Eden.
The animals had already been created before man on day 6 and God it seems created some more for Adam to name.

You seem to make the mistake of reading Genesis as the YECers do, so you set up a straw man to knock down.
When it says that God formed a firmament it means imo that God started making the atmosphere.
When it says that God separated the waters from the land it means imo that God started geological processes, including plate tectonics and these kept going and continued to change the land.
Everything is in embryo back in Genesis.
When it says that on day one there was darkness on the face of the deep it means imo that there was thick cloud cover over the earth which was covered in water and it was dark under that cover. (see Job 38:9) Science actually does agree with that.
The heavens and the earth were all created in verse 1 and so the sun was not created on day 4. The light from the sun started to get through the cloud cover at the end of day one when God say "Let there be light".

 

[Brian2]

I quote the Wiki article:
Bronze Age Jericho fell in the 16th century at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, the calibrated carbon remains from its City-IV destruction layer dating to 1617–1530 BCE. Notably this carbon dating c. 1573 BCE confirmed the accuracy of the stratigraphical dating c. 1550 by Kenyon.

From: Jericho - Wikipedia

There seems to be little doubt about this.

There is little doubt in the minds of some and doubt in the minds of others. And no, that does not mean that they are not all good scientists. Since neither of us are archaeologists then we both should say we have no idea about the date of the destruction but that is not how it works usually. I believe the Bible is true and I guess you have a more liberal view on that.
I find it amazing that with a couple of legitimate tweaks in viewpoints on aging, the archaeology of the conquest can be completely verified and yet Bible minimalists would rather say the Bible is wrong and stick to their idea that there was no conquest.
The stratigraphical dating sounds like a pretty in accurate method.
The carbon dating has been all over the place in Jericho and there have been calls for recalibrating of the method in the Levant. However when dating timber and charcoal there is a variety of ages of the timber all over the city and even a variety of ages of the carbon in the same piece of timber.
Any carbon dating would give the date the carbon first went into the timber when it was growing and so one would expect an older date than the actual destruction of the city.
Didn't you read my link and the pottery Kenyon ignored.

 

[Aupmanyav]

OK, they say water had been on Mars. But the photo of Mars I saw in a journal really showed that the words used to describe the scene might be barren, waste or void. Rocks and lots of them. So the question is -- how do you think Moses knew the earth, at the beginning, was "waste and void;"? (American Standard Version, Genesis 1:2) You think he figured it out that it might have looked that way, although he saw greenery, and animals? I'm also figuring that he couldn't see much on Mars at that point. So how did Moses know the earth's surface was just plain not filled with life as he saw it? Just general reasoning? Of course, the Bible does say that star differs from star...and we know that planets themselves differ from each other.. but so far no one has discovered a planet like the earth as it is now, not conjecture, with trees and animals.

That is where Moses faltered.
Mars is desolate today, though it may not have been like that in the past. Moses is describing it in the wrong order. Earth has never been 'waste and void'. Life started very early in the history of earth. The other earth-like (List of potentially habitable exoplanets - Wikipedia) planets are too far for us to know about. The only one nearest is Proxima Centauri b, which is 4.25 light-years distant from us (or 24,985,000,000,000 miles - Nearly 25 trillion miles). You have a lot others at thrice that distance.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Algae are in the broad category of plants. iows they are not animals.
Verse 5 shows that it was before the creation of plants when God started to form man. So this was maybe on day 3 when we compare it to.

God seeded just on thing, s-RNA (Bacterial small RNAs - Small RNA - Wikipedia) bacteria from which all other forms or life evolved (Plants, animals and Humans). God did not need to seed or create anything after that (other than Jesus, of course). Evolution took over.

 

[Brian2]

God seeded just on thing, s-RNA (Bacterial small RNAs - Small RNA - Wikipedia) bacteria from which all other forms or life evolved (Plants, animals and Humans). God did not need to seed or create anything after that (other than Jesus, of course). Evolution took over.

God said He created other things, but the pre human Jesus was not created and all things were created through Him.

 

[gnostic]

The oldest fossils are plant fossils.

No, Brian.

The oldest fossils are microfossils of bacteria species, that predated all plant fossils and animal fossils.

As you say, Genesis speaks in generalities and says that plants came before animals and that is what science tells us also. The oldest fossils are plant fossils.
When the Bible says "Let the earth bring forth plants" it does not mean that the plants were land plants imo.


Plants were created on day 3 in Genesis in embryonic form and in science the plants all came at the same time and later evolved. God created all the fruit trees in embryo when He created algae and other primitive plants.


Even in evolution all the plants came at the same time in embryo form and evolved over time into different types of plants.

And, no. Here you are not only wrong in each of your these points, you are making up scenarios that have never happened.

The time between the earliest flowering plants (in the Triassic, about 160 million years ago) and the earliest fruit plants, is about over 100 million years later, (in the Eocene epoch, around 52 million years ago).

Both are seed plants, but before the Triassic, the seed plants bore no flowers, and before the Eocene, the seed plants bore no fruits.

The earliest seed plants (that bore no flowers and no fruits), was around 364 million years ago. So there are gap of 200 million years before seed plants started growing flowers.

Now, I am not paleontologist, so if you look up seed plants and flowering plants, I am correct about these times, but I cannot tell you what these primitive plants are, specifically.

All I know is that you are making up things about the embryonic craps. If you don’t know anything about botanical history of early plants, then don’t try to con me with this nonsense about embryonic form.

At least do some little reading and research on the subject.

 

[Astrophile]

OK, they say water had been on Mars. But the photo of Mars I saw in a journal really showed that the words used to describe the scene might be barren, waste or void. Rocks and lots of them. So the question is -- how do you think Moses knew the earth, at the beginning, was "waste and void;"? (American Standard Version, Genesis 1:2) You think he figured it out that it might have looked that way, although he saw greenery, and animals? I'm also figuring that he couldn't see much on Mars at that point. So how did Moses know the earth's surface was just plain not filled with life as he saw it? Just general reasoning? Of course, the Bible does say that star differs from star...and we know that planets themselves differ from each other.. but so far no one has discovered a planet like the earth as it is now, not conjecture, with trees and animals.

There are plenty of desert areas ('barren wastelands') on the Earth, including the Negev desert, and parts of Jordan, Syria, Arabia and Egypt.

 

[Twilight Hue]

First it must be noted that evidence of the "Exodus" or Moses is non-existant. As far as barren coming before vegetation and animal life ... there is a normal human bias to view simple being before complex.

All it takes is observation of the surrounding environment. Barren patches amiss areas that are lush and vibrant. It's not hard to see how that connection of then and now was made.

 

[YoursTrue]

Again, your reference to Mars or any other planet is irrelevant to the discussion.

That is integral to the discussion. We're discussing that Mars is "barren and void." Period. And I find it amazing that there is "scientific" conjecture that it may (?) have once housed life. Like maybe there were humans, and elephants, etc. on the planet and they went out of existence no longer to evolve because of a problem with that? What do you think?

 

[YoursTrue]

There are plenty of desert areas ('barren wastelands') on the Earth, including the Negev desert, and parts of Jordan, Syria, Arabia and Egypt.

No kidding. Really? (So?)

 

[YoursTrue]

Umm...yes. Obviously.

Really? Thanks for mentioning that...

 

[YoursTrue]

Let's take it very, very slowly, OK?

How do we think the Genesis writer knew that before vegetation and animal life the Earth was "uninhabited"?

Just think about what you are asking.

What do you think "uninhabited" means?

Let me help you out a little. Maybe there were men from Mars and they flew away and maybe they died -- went extinct before vegetation and animal life on the earth, how about that? Or maybe from the moon...

 

[YoursTrue]

That is where Moses faltered.
Mars is desolate today, though it may not have been like that in the past. Moses is describing it in the wrong order. Earth has never been 'waste and void'. Life started very early in the history of earth. The other earth-like (List of potentially habitable exoplanets - Wikipedia) planets are too far for us to know about. The only one nearest is Proxima Centauri b, which is 4.25 light-years distant from us (or 24,985,000,000,000 miles - Nearly 25 trillion miles). You have a lot others at thrice that distance.

Yes, some figure it may not have always been desolate. I know that. It is all conjecture. Now so that you say life started very early in the history of the earth. What's the history? And when would you say, imagine, or think the earth started? (I love the title at least of "potentially habitable exoplanets..." I'm saying what a crock...hey look, you have lots of ideas about many things -- people take sides -- good or bad --

 

[YoursTrue]

God seeded just on thing, s-RNA (Bacterial small RNAs - Small RNA - Wikipedia) bacteria from which all other forms or life evolved (Plants, animals and Humans). God did not need to seed or create anything after that (other than Jesus, of course). Evolution took over.

Life though. Evolution, if it is true, is based on skeletons (by that I mean conjecture), needs life to continue, doesn't it? Wanna take a guess about how life began?????????

 

[YoursTrue]

I was responding to your statement in post 23, where you said :
"Got any idea of what the earth looked like before it sprouted life? The surface of the moon and Mars look eerily somewhat alike. Zilch. Rocks. Barren."

It is you that seems to think the appearance of Mars is in some way significant, not me. I did not start that this thread.

Again, the appearance of the surfaces of Mars and the moon show that -- these objects appear to be "barren and void."

 

[Aupmanyav]

Yes, some figure it may not have always been desolate. I know that. It is all conjecture. Now so that you say life started very early in the history of the earth. What's the history? And when would you say, imagine, or think the earth started? (I love the title at least of "potentially habitable exoplanets..." I'm saying what a crock...hey look, you have lots of ideas about many things -- people take sides -- good or bad --

Earth remains the only place in the universe known to harbour life, and fossil evidence from the Earth informs most studies of abiogenesis. The age of the Earth is 4.54 Gy (billion years); the earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates from at least 3.5 Gya (Gy ago), and possibly as early as the Eoarchean Era (3.6–4.0 Gya). In 2017 possible evidence of early life on land was found in 3.48 Gyo (Gy old) geyserite and other related mineral deposits (often found around hot springs and geysers) uncovered in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia. Other discoveries suggest that life may have appeared on Earth even earlier. As of 2017, microfossils (fossilised microorganisms) within hydrothermal-vent precipitates dated 3.77 to 4.28 Gya in rocks in Quebec may harbour the oldest record of life on Earth, soon after ocean formation 4.4 Gya during the Hadean Eon.

On 4 November 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarfs within the Milky Way. 11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting Sun-like stars.

Also see: List of potentially habitable exoplanets - Wikipedia, Superhabitable planet - Wikipedia (more habitable than Earth), Planetary Habitability Laboratory - Wikipedia, ect.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Life though. Evolution, if it is true, is based on skeletons (by that I mean conjecture), needs life to continue, doesn't it? Wanna take a guess about how life began?

I do not need to guess, I know.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Again, the appearance of the surfaces of Mars and the moon show that - these objects appear to be "barren and void."

Yeah, they are barren now, but at least Mars may not have been this barren in earlier times - so, Moses was wrong. Can't blame him, the times that he may have lived in. It is natural that people at that time thought that there was something like God or soul.
But he should not have claimed that he got a carved stone from God.