What's WT's official statement on the creation of earth?

by ukescott 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  james_woods

  OK, now I am confused. I remember the "millions of years old" thing from the 70s at the same time as the "everything that lives got made in the last 48,000 years" stuff.

  But I was led to believe from posts on this site that they were trying to distance themselves from the 7,000 year creative days by vaguely saying "evidently the creative days were thousands of years long". I was shocked - if the last day was not exactly 7,000 years, a lot of "chronology" would logically have to go to - notably, the 1975 fetish.

  Anyway, do they have an answer as to why inanimate things were made "millions of years ago", but no plants or animals until a few thousand years ago?

  What is the "evidence" for the rocks being millions of years old? Wouldn't evidence of this sort place the fossils in those rocks at the same "millions" of years old?

  Did I miss something here, i.e. did they kind of waffle on the 7,000 year days and then flip around only to re-affirm them?
• 

  heathen

  From what I've read in some newer publications is that the creation day is an undetermined length , so could be 7,000 yrs or perhaps millions . I don't think anybody can say for sure since the materials needed to build an earth must have existed a long time before the earth itself . Another monkey wrench (pardone the pun) is the global flood which would have dumped untold amounts of carbon on the earth in a year . I think it silly for creationists to say 24 hr days since we know that dinosaurs existed for a long period of time prior to mans appearance .
• 

  blondie

  james woods, the distinction is that the WTS has stopped mentioning the 7,000 years long creative days, not a word though that it is still not true. There was a quote too that it doesn't matter how old the earth is, another WTS approach to something they can't answer.

  *** w94 9/1 p. 6 Science, Religion, and the Search for Truth ***

  But what does the Bible really say? "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1) The time involved is not specified. The "first day" of creation is not even mentioned until Genesis 1:3-5. "The heavens and the earth" already existed when this first "day" began. Therefore, could the heavens and the earth be billions of years old, as scientists claim? They may very well be. The Bible simply does not specify the time covered.

  Blondie
• 

  james_woods

  Yes, & thanks Blondie - that was exactly what I remembered from the last time you posted it on one of these creation threads. So, the 7000 years is just kind of slowly being taken out of public view, I guess...(kind of like John Kerry? ha!)

  This is really kind of hilarious, in a way. Way back when the first "time of adams creation" got done by Archbishop Usher, a lot of debate went into "parsing" the creative days - and one of the weasel ways was to place the initial creation way back in time, effectively making the first "day" a lot longer than the others. Pretty soon no self-respecting theologian was insisting on 24 hour days, nor even 1000 year days, nor 7000 year days, for that matter.

  Maybe WT and it's current fascination with Intelligent Creation are doing this all over again, centuries later.

  Would a previous poster also like to comment further on how the flood would dump huge amounts of carbon on the earth? I didn't get that one either.

  Thanks, everybody.
• 

  heathen

  The point being that there was a watery canopy in outter space that would have collected carbon and once dumped on earth would simply dump alot of carbon(cosmic dust) on the ground . So you are saying you never heard the jw flood story either? Anyway this is in the creation book as well .
• 

  james_woods

  Thanks, heathen. BTW, I thought your "monkey wrench" pun was pretty good.

  I of course heard all their "flood" rhetoric. Just never heard about the "carbon theory".

  Are you sure there really is that much "carbon particles" flying around out in space?

  Wonder what prevents it from raining down on us today?
• 

  heathen

  Are you sure there really is that much "carbon particles" flying around out in space?

  I'm no expert but the WTBTS sounds pretty sure . We are talking about millions perhaps billions of years of carbon, plus stuff from meteor impacts and super volcanos . It's an interesting theory.
• 

  james_woods

  Heathen!!! - on the "carbon particle theory" -

  I'm no expert but the WTBTS sounds pretty sure

  What can I possibly say in the face of such logic? Those celebrated watchtower astro-physicists could not possible be wrong.

  James
• 

  LtCmd.Lore

  The bible says that god created the earth in 7 days... it later says that to god 1000 years is like a day. So at most, it could have taken god 7000 years to create the universe. Anything longer than that conflicts with the bible... but for the sake of argument, lets assume that the universe is only 1 billion years old. 1 billion years us would be like 1 million days to god, which equals 2,739 years in gods perspective... can you imagine, even if you lived forever, starting a project that would take a 2,739 years?!?

  The very concept of it taking this long, makes god look pretty lame in comparison to what the bible acctualy says. That equals 391 years to god for every event that the bible says took a day.

  It took 391 god years: to create light, not the sun, moon or stars, just light.

  It took 391 god years: to create a division between the waters... Whatever that means. Presumably heaven.

  It took 391 god years: to create the earth and the plants and the sea's

  It took 391 god years: to create the sun moon and stars.

  It took 391 god years: to make every kind of animal.

  It took 391 god years: to make two people... in contrast it takes about nine months in human years, to make 1. Or 2 or 3 depending on whether they have twins or triplets.

  And now he's in a 391 year rest period. And of these 391 year intervals are called 'days'

  That's lame, especialy if you translate it back to human years in which case each day was 391,000 years!

  Makes you lose a bit of respect for god if you look at him the JW way doesn't it?

  Now in only 6000 years of our human existance, or less than a week to god, we have already created all the technology and scientific breakthroughs you see today, despite our imperfection.

  LtCmd.Lore
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  heathen

  What can I possibly say in the face of such logic? Those celebrated watchtower astro-physicists could not possible be wrong.

  LMAO alot of things of prehistory are just theory anyway . At least they are willing to work with some scientists , most christians will ignore it all and conclude a 24 hour day for creation and we know it's not possible , just from looking at the fossil record . Of course they reserve the right to change the belief as more things are found out in science .The catholic church is one of the few that are ignoring the bible account of creation and going with science altogether. Big bang , evolution ................