Photosynthesis and the problem with the creation story

by purrpurr 17 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  purrpurr

  I just noticed in the bible that on day three, God created the plants and trees on the earth...

  Day four, God created the sun, moon and stars!

  So that means that the vegetation that is by its very nature dependant upon light to grow and photosynthesise was created a day before the sun that it needs to live!???

  This gets even more strange when you factor in the jw exhuse that a day to God is like a thousand years. And therefore each creation day was a thousand years long.

  This means (evidently- yes I used that word) that the sunlight dependant vegetation was not only created without the sun but also survived without the sun for a thousand years!
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  username

  Another rabbit and hat trick pulled by whoever thought, yeah lets make one day into 1000. It's yet another ploy to draw in those who have questions, this being one of those questions "answered."
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  Heaven

  A few years back I had a discussion with a couple of Christian support workers at my Dad's nursing home. I asked them "What would the Earth be like without the sun?" They had no clue. I told them "It would be a frozen hunk of rock with nothing living on it." I then said "But the Bible claims that plants were alive on the Earth before the sun was created. This is false. There is no way this could happen. " I was promptly told I was taking those scriptures in Genesis out of context. I asked them to explain how I was doing that. They could not.

  This is not the only instance in the Bible where our present day knowledge does not jive with Bronze and Iron Age Middle Eastern desert dwellers' understanding of the cosmos.

  
  
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  erbie

  Christopher Hitchens - top bloke 👍

  Plant life without sunlight for a thousand years;

  It just gets better and better
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  Half banana

  The Bible is a very misleading book!
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  St George of England

  This was dealt with by JW's in the 1969 book "Is the Bible really the word of God?" book.

  In chapter 2 it states that the Genesis account does not include the creation of the sun and planets. It also "answers" how plants may have lived for thousands of years without photosynthesis due to sunlight. By the way creative days were then reckoned to be 7,000 years each.

  I'm not defending this stuff, just saying where you can get the JW answer if you are interested.

  George
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  Half banana

  Thanks for that George, it just goes to show that the JW religion produces information by idiots and for idiots.
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  Island Man

  If I remember correctly, JWs resolve this issue by saying that what happened on day 4 isn't the literal creation of the sun moon and stars but only their being made discernible as distinct objects in the sky. Prior to that sunlight was already reaching the earth's surface from day one when God said let light come to be. Only, the sunlight was diffuse, shining through a haze and one could not make out the sun or any other heavenly body as distinct objects in the sky. They basically teach that what happened on day 4 is the clearing of the atmospheric clouds to allow heavenly objects to be distinctly discernible for the first time.
  
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  Billyblobber

  To be more specific, they say that the creation story is given from an earthly perspective, and is given as someone on the planet seeing it being made around them. Therefore, when it agrees with science, it's because it was inspired, where it doesn't; because "different perspective."
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  James Mixon

  For "Us" skeptics.

  We skeptics have long ridiculed the science of biblical creation over this point.

  How could there be light bathing the earth before the sun was created?

  Actually there are many sources of light, not just the sun. There are also many types

  of light, not just visible light. Short-wave light includes ultraviolet light, x-rays and others.

  Light does not automatically require the sun.

  "Institute for creation Research". By John D. Morris Ph D.