Questions...

Aequitus

Do Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the earth is 6000 years old, or 4.5 billion? And if Adam and Eve were the first people on the earth, how would the multitude of races come about from the inbreeding of Adam and Eve's children? And during this time, people became wildly dispersed across the planet and adopted various other religions. I believe in the year 1AD there were 1 million people on the earth--if the earth is 6000 years old, how is it that one million people are produced from two people procreating in the span of 4000 years? And what was with people living to be hundreds of years old at the beginning of the bible? I heard recently that the maximum possible lifespan of humans was determined to be 140. And Eve being created from Adam's rib...what does that even mean?

Spectre

No, they don't believe in the earth being only 6000 years old. It is funny though how they admit that the universe could "even be millions" of years old. The official line (if I remember right) on Adam and Eve is that after they sinned they were still so close to being perfect that their offspring wouldn't have any inbred genetic imperfections. The "being so close to perfect" answers the long life span too.

free2beme

They believe that man has only been on the earth for 6000 years. At the same time, it is important to note that they feel the Dinosaurs were not meat eaters.

blondie

Answers many JWs would give:

Do Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the earth is 6000 years old, or 4.5 billion? Answer: JWs or the WTS believes what the current scientific teaching is 4.5 billion And if Adam and Eve were the first people on the earth, how would the multitude of races come about from the inbreeding of Adam and Eve's children? Answer: They teach that Adam and Eve were perfect and that their DNA did not deteriorate that much after sinning; the deterioration has been gradual over the last 6,000 years And during this time, people became wildly dispersed across the planet and adopted various other religions. I believe in the year 1AD there were 1 million people on the earth--if the earth is 6000 years old, how is it that one million people are produced from two people procreating in the span of 4000 years? Answer: The WTS/JWs believe that a global flood wiped out all but 8 people in 2370 BCE. And what was with people living to be hundreds of years old at the beginning of the bible? I heard recently that the maximum possible lifespan of humans was determined to be 140. Answer: See answer to question about DNA and inbreeding. Adam was created to live forever so lifespans also gradually declined. They declined more quickly after the global flood. Some JWs speculate that there was a water canopy before the flood over the earth which protected humans from outside radiation. With it gone after the flood, lifespans decreased more quickly. And Eve being created from Adam's rib...what does that even mean? Answer: Perhaps a form of cloning with a twist to it, that is a gender change. Remember these are not my personal answers. Blondie

jwfacts

Similar to what Blondie has said, Watchtower doctrine accepts that all life was destroyed in a global flood, except for those in the ark. This puts human history to little over 4000 years. Noah had three sons, conveniently one of each colour to populate the earth with.

When the Watchtower discusses where humans came from, and how it was Adam and Eves children committing incest it actually is deflecting people from the even more unlikely teaching that human history is only around 4000 years, and that the question should be "did Noahs grandchildren have to intermarry?"

Aequitus

Why would all of the races start their own languages and adopt different religions? Why would the JWs accept that the earth is 4.5 billion years old but seem to reject proto-human remains (like 'Lucy,' found in Chad and deemed to be between 6 and 7 million years old)?

garybuss

Reasoning From The Scriptures 1989 p. 88 Creation
Was all physical creation accomplished in just six days sometime within the past 6,000 to 10,000 years?
The facts disagree with such a conclusion: (1) Light from the Andromeda nebula can be seen on a clear night in the northern hemisphere. It takes about 2,000,000 years for that light to reach the earth, indicating that the universe must be at least millions of years old. (2) End products of radioactive decay in rocks in the earth testify that some rock formations have been undisturbed for billions of years.

"Consider the relationship between Jehovah and Jesus. They were together in heaven for perhaps billions of years."
The Watchtower, August 15, 2005
Page 27, Paragraph 15

BCZAR2ME

they feel the Dinosaurs were not meat eaters.

Is this in print?

bczar

OnTheWayOut

Wow, I am so glad you asked these questions. When my curiosity is peaked,
I take a look at the old materials in the WTLibrary. Take a gander at this completely
utterly ridiculous nonsense that defies all science.

***
w73 7/15 pp.447-448 Questions From Readers***
?
When did God create dinosaurs, and when did they become extinct?—U.S.A.
The Bible does not provide specific answers to this question. According to the Genesis account, animals were created during the fifth and sixth creative periods or ‘days.’ If the Hebrew expression translated "great sea monsters" [Hebrew, tan·ni·nim´] includes dinosaurs, which often inhabited swampy, watery areas, this would mean that dinosaurs were created on the fifth "day." (Gen. 1:21) We do not know whether they continued to exist until man was created (toward the close of the sixth "day"). At the very latest it seems likely that they must have disappeared off the earth at the time of the flood of Noah’s day. Dinosaurs were reptiles, and some kinds of dinosaurs bear strong resemblance structurally and otherwise to lizards (sauros is, in fact, the Greek word for "lizard"; saura in Leviticus 11:29, LXX). Not all types of dinosaurs were of such gigantic size. Hence, even if they had survived till the Flood, this would not have required taking pairs of the mammoth varieties into the ark. Other smaller members of the particular family or "kind" to which these belonged would have sufficed to fulfill the divine command.—Gen. 6:19, 20; 7:14.
Some of the older translations of the Bible at times use the word "dragons" to translate the Hebrew tan·ni·nim´ ("sea monsters," NW). (Ps. 74:13; 148:7; Isa. 27:1, AuthorizedVersion) The term "dragon" (Greek, dra´kon) is found in the Christian Greek Scriptures. It has been suggested as possible that, rather than having a purely mythical source, this expression may originally have been applied to enormous creatures such as the dinosaurs, taking on mythical tones only after these mammoth creatures had long disappeared. Interestingly, many of the mythical depictions of the "dragon" strongly resemble certain types within the family of huge reptilian creatures that includes the dinosaur.

Terry

I work in a bookstore and my sections are Religion, Philosophy and Metaphysics.

I see a lot of Christian books that wrestle with the huge problem of dissonace between a young Earth and the actual age determined by science.

Dinosaurs, lifespans, Noah's flood, etc. have to be eggshells walked on without cracking. It is a tough uphill battle.

There are a few authors that really do a brave job of eating their cake and still having it. People like HUGH ROSS, for example, are nifty apologists. Others, are maladroit and comical.

The audience for these books are people who devoutly wish to be CONVINCED utterly that all the data of science is wrong and their understanding of the Bible is 100% right.

The way this is done is to raise questions that push the reader into a zone of "reasonable doubt" about what statements are being made by Science. The reader is then happy to make the leap of faith beyond that.

The Watchtower plays the very same game. They create lots of doubt and subtly suggest relying on God to be true.

Only the Catholic Church, oddly enough, seems to have wised up and gone with science on these questions.

Ironic.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c014.html

The above link is quite entertaining!

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