The "6000 Year Plan of God" is a hallmark of the Churches of God. Wow...6000 whole years! Aside from the fact that Gobekli Tepi in Turkey was abandoned 12,000 years ago shortly after the Ice Age and "modern humans" are currently and actually 100 thousand plus years old, and the plus is probably pretty large. The amazing 6000 year old plan of God persists as an error ridden and simplistic explanation of scientific reality that needs to be relegated to the dust bin of church history.
It is based baselessly on the concept of "each day is to God as a thousand years..." and the thousand year Millennium Rest in Revelation. Six thousand years for man (LOL) and a one thousand year rest makes the sum total of God's plan.
Seven Thousand years is .0000015556 % of Deep Time. In short, less than nothing. The Seven Thousand year plan of God is also 0. 04375% of real human history. What the Churches of God think they mean is that agricultural and city dwelling man has been around 6000 years, which is also inaccurate by a lot.
There is no 6000 year plan of God. That is a poetic construct at best based on the ignorance of reality and the limited knowledge of just about everything portrayed in scripture and what the authors had no idea was actually so. The Churches of God not only make scripture mean what it was never meant to mean but cannot and does not mean.
There is no mere 6000 year plan of God for mankind. If there is a God, the "Plan" is much bigger and is not remotely defined by an insignificant cultic god worshipped by an insignificant cultic people living in an insignificant location on an insignificant planet in an insignificant solar system in an insignificant galaxy which is one of trillions.
My personal 9 lb reminder the Solar System is 4.5 Billion years old.
Campo Del Cielo (Field of Heaven) Meteorite. Found in Argentina in 1517 after lying around for 5-6 thousand years.
I water jet cut it to reveal the iron/nickel nature of the meteorite. Iron meteorites originate the last few minutes in the core of exploding stars and then spewing it into the universe where it regroups in the cores of planets which then are torn apart along the way.
Hand polishing reveals the pure iron inside the brown fusion crust which formed when hitting earth's atmosphere at 40,000 mph.
Not to mention....
9,000-9,500 years old. The cranium of Kennewick Man was discovered in the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, in late July of 1996 by Thomas and Deacy, two men who had gone to the river to watch a boat race. With the assistance of Dr. James Chatters, a local paleontologist and archaeologist who was serving as forensic anthropologist at the time, much of the skeleton was found. A stone spearpoint embedded in the right ilium of the associated skeleton is a Cascade Point, a representative of the Old Cordilleran Culture, which spread from the Washington coast to the interior Columbia Plateau shortly after 9000 years ago. Researchers estimate the individual to have been between 5' 7" and 5' 9", 160 pounds and approximately 40 years old at the time of his death. Morphological analysis at the time suggested the skull exhibited features similar to Polynesian or Ainu peoples. However in 2015, DNA analysis suggests close affiliation with Northern Native American groups, particularly the Colville, Ojibwa, and Algonquin. As a result of this analysis, the remains of Kennewick Man were repatriated to these groups in compliance with NAGRPA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) in February 2017.
30,000 to 32,000 YA. This Cro-Magnon skull was discovered by L. Lartet and H. Christy on a cliff in 1868 (during the construction of railway lines in Les-Eyzies, France). Cro-Magnon, meaning "big cliff," represents the earliest modern humans from Western Europe. Classic modern human features include a large brain capacity (over 1600 cc), shortened face with rectangular eye sockets, a high forehead, hollowed cheekbones, and noticeable chin. Many feel Cro-Magnon is more similar in appearance to modern Africans than modern Europeans, suggesting that this population came from Africa or Asia.
41 comments:
A few observations.
1. There is no 6000 year plan mentioned in the bible. Biblical accounts of lineage provide some insight into the length of time back to Adam. But no where is "6000 years" portrayed as an important number.
2. The dating of various human remains and sites you mention are not firm. A quick google search of "Kennewick Man" reveals that there is very little carbon left in the skull and so it is "very difficult to date accurately" http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/~sinclair/algy399_site/kennewick_man.html#science_info
You also mention "Gobekli Tepi" in Turkey dated at 12000 years. That dating suffers from well known biases that even secular sources admit to. Everyone wants to find the earliest possible discovery and diggers in Turkey are no different. But the site represents an enormous, religious/temple kind of area without any farms or agriculture near it. It has not been reconciled with the standard anthropological narrative that "hunter gatherers" moved to agriculture before they could have the time to specialize and build sites like Gobkli Tepi. So the dating is suspect even from the narrative. And once again - dating cannot be accurately determined by stones - you have to find carbon material around the rocks that actually were part of the ancient site. There is little to none of that at Gobekli Tepi.
3. All people alive today descended from a single mother - "Mitochondrial Eve" according to DNA scientists. That fact alone is significant. They place her in Africa around 120K - 200K years ago. Their dating basis is determined by an accepted rate of mutation in the Mitochondrial DNA. However, scientists admit that the mutation rate is far from constant. Some suggest it might be 20 times faster than currently estimated. And it varies with population density and other environmental factors.
In short - the numbers you quote don't prove your point. Especially if one accepts that the bible never claims that the earth and the universe are 6000 years old. Indeed, the bible suggests it is far more ancient.
What exactly is moot?
Thanks for that information Denis.
People need to know the truth backed by
science. Where would we be without it,
still in the "dark ages" no doubt,
faith is one thing, truth is another.
toby
Back in my days in Worldwide I remember a sermon in which the minister claimed that the "giants" mentioned in the old testament were neanderthals. But I never actually heard the 6,000 year theory spoken of to much by our minister.
856
Here come the apologetics and " we can't know"s
Anon8:56AM:
1) While it is true that Armstrongists have not traditionally been young-earth-creationists, and accepted the "gap theory" positing that the Genesis "creation week" was a re-creation...
...still, according to the biblical chronologies, that would have to have happened approximately 6,000 years ago, rather than say, 5,000, or 7,000...
...so you're still putting yourself in the unenviable position of having to reject the biblical chronologies, and replace them with something else of your own invention in order to "save" the rest of the bible.
2) Let's assume that everything you say is technically "true," even though it is hideously underinformed, cherry-picks a few uncertainties and blows them wildly out of all reasonable proportion, and leaves out the context of vast amounts of corroborating data from the entire field of archaeology...
...The entire field of confirming archaeology confirms that humans and human civilizations have existed robustly throughout every biblical bottleneck such as "creation week" and "Noah's flood," and sites like Göbekli Tepe are just another data point in a coherent picture of earth history that is fundamentally at odds with and discredits the biblical mythology of earth.
For instance, the dating for Göbekli Tepe, which you seek to insinuate is impossible, is not just done using radio isotope dating, but is done with many methods, and the dating for all these methods together paints a coherent picture of a site in use beginning in the mid 10th century BCE and abandoned around 8,000 BCE.
You are entitled to your own opinion, but aren't entitled to your own facts.
If the only way you can defend your position is by essentially deceitful tactics, that tells us everything we need to know about it's defensibility.
Thank you Dennis. Pausing to reflect on the unfathomable vastness of the timeline and the universe itself can make life's problems seem insignificant, for a little while.
The assumption that the whole of the cosmos exists solely for the demesne of our goofy little species was one of the most laughably arrogant absurdities of Armstrongism.
Historically verifiable dates (using eg, writings, pottery, buildings) only go back 5000 years. And then a blank, except for the odd debatable bone find.
Before I began attending Grace Communion International in 2014 I was an alcoholic and drug addict and at the end of my rope and suicidal. But since being baptized I've been clean from that lifestyle and no matter if you believe in Almighty Jehovah God or not, you will never tell me what I can believe. If I had not gotten in church I would be dead!
Fake news! Open your Bibles, people, and read! Who are you going to believe: God or those lyin' scientists? They don't want to obey him so they construct all of their experimentation, research, and theories around getting rid of God. I asked a scientist about his once, and he said, "My primary goal is to get rid of God. I don't believe in him but I still feel the need to get rid of him. If the very idea of God goes away then I can engage in any sort of behavior I want to and run for political office. I might even be president some day!" This is an actual scientist with scholarly peer-reviewed papers published in the Journal for Getting God Out of Our Lives, so he is well worth listening to. It's time to wake up to the dangers of science!
Anon 856 wrote 1. There is no 6000 year plan mentioned in the bible.
True. I can't remember the name of the ante-Nicene Father who proclaimed a 6000 year plan, but it was likely a person COGs would consider heretical...
I don't understand.
Wcg was 55 years old before tkach started making 5 year media plans for the regions.
So 300.000 years of man and then 6000 year plan when all software was downloaded through one Eve hardware peace. (who of course was part of a group of huntet gatherers transitioning into farmers having more time at hand to do some construction work for permanent settlement.
Permanent settlement bringing all kinds of curses like dissease (animal contact, group accomodations, laboring in pain, since hunters have different skeletons adjusting to farmers, floodings (that hunters just walk away from but are considered curses by farmers) and all of the rest of genesis testifying of transition toward , farming, centralized govermnent, taxes, cities. (babel, nimrod, types of sacrifice cain and abel etc etc)
The bible being the most important testimony of that time period from oral history .....
Nck
K-bardanikto
That's the most ridiculous bullshit I have ever heard from the mouth of a religious person.
And Adam said,
"This is bone of bones,
and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called Woman,
you just gotta grab 'em by the pussy."
If there is a God, the "Plan" is much bigger and is not remotely defined by an insignificant cultic god worshipped by an insignificant cultic people living in an insignificant location on an insignificant planet in an insignificant solar system in an insignificant galaxy which is one of trillions.
Which makes your article insignificant, because in your view every place and time and people would be insignificant, and so would everything they say or write.
I guess we are just living in an insignificant universe made by an insignificant God. Say, what does somebody have to do to become significant? Read a book by big men like Stephen Hawking?
K-bardanikto
Your comment, though sarcastic, is actually not far from the truth about some of those people.
Dennis is a former preacher not a scientist. He seems to just repeat what he hears from other sources, usually in the mainstream I think, without seeming to read much if any of the critics. So, he only seems to get one side and then runs with it. That is not how real science is done. So I doubt if he really knows much about the science he writes about.
Anon 4:29 p.m. As a Christian and assuming you are one as well, Didn't I (we) just repeat what we heard from mainstream churches without considering other sources? Didn't I (we) just get one side and live that way? Didn't I (we) come to the conclusion that we didn't know much about anything? Is not judgment upon us now?
There used to be a much anticipated speech in Spokesman Club, that being the "heart to heart" speech. If you have read any of Dennis Diehl's posts or comments you would see that many of them are truly 'heart to heart" of the which I have scarcely heard from any minister or leader in the COGS. In the end when it is all said and done and the truth has been made known, Mr. Diehl will be one that makes it whether it is year 7000 or year 7,000,000.
Anon 4:29 p.m. As a Christian and assuming you are one as well...
Bad assumption.
Didn't I (we) just repeat what we heard from mainstream churches without considering other sources? Didn't I (we) just get one side and live that way?
So, isn't it time to stop doing that?
Is not judgment upon us now?
I have no idea if God is judging anybody.
...heart to heart .... Mr. Diehl will be one that makes it...
Well I was talking about science. But if you want to talk about Dennis or who makes it (only God would know) go ahead.
Well, to be exact, the earliest known symbol use is c. 6600 BC in China, not c. 3000 BC in Mesopotamia. But hey, whats a few millenium here and there, right?
Nobody really knows, anyway. It's all best guess. I say live the best life you can, develop your talents, and try to put goodness back into the surrounding culture. We have collected so much empirical evidence over the past 4 decades that suggests that where prophecy is concerned, nobody knows their asses from a hole in the ground. The only people who are going to base their entire lives on that stuff have no lives to begin with. Who else would be salivating over an apocalypse?
BB
Dennis,
Have you considered repenting and trying to qualify for eternal life rather than throwing in your lot with Satan?
The response to this post is very predictable, Dennis has fallen into the influence of Satan and is headed to the lake of fire and trying to take others with him. There is very little room allowed for critical thinking in Armstrongism.
it amazes me how we dont even know the number of hairs on our head, nor do any of us know what day we will die, yet we think we know everything there is to know about the world, the earths past and whether or not there is the existence of that what cannot be perceived by our paltry five senses...
one thing is certain: the persistence of our presumptuousness and arrogance, two forces, invisible, intangible, yet very real; and given the fact that we are all but corpses on borrowed time, one failed hearbeat from non existence: whence hails this arrogant and invisible force?
3.40 AM
I disagree. We have God plane minds. This mind has enabled humans to invent instruments such as telescopes, electron microscopes and electronic oscilloscopes (to perceive split second phenomenon). Hence our 'paltry five senses' are sufficient to perceive the universe. Scientists are fully aware that we do not 'know everything there is no know.'
You smear the whole human race with the accusation of everyone having the heart of a bully or the heart of a Herb minster.
Mercy.. I just endeavor to stimulate inquiry and critical thinking in we all under the spell of go along to get along church control and only get this?
You'd think just ONE "nice 6000 year old meteorite" would appear through the fog and the haze. 😱
Dennis might sound crazy, but your comment stinks of self righteousness and arrogance, don't assume that someone that says "Lord Lord" is automatically qualifying for eternal life,"the fool in his heart says there's no God". Yet they are plenty religious fools as well let's not forget that.
I am sure all the hair follicles on s head could be accurately counted one obsessive compulsive dermatologist
I just read what Dennis composed, and it was pretty well stated.
Kudos, Den!
I have not read the comments yet, but will do so shortly.
It doesn't take any special "Holy Spirit" powers to know that I'll find obtuse people pissed, perturbed and posting to counter what they see a some kind of slight to their narrow minded God.
If only they were able to see outside of their self-imposed narrow mindedness, they might even send Dennis a Christmas present!
Well, now that you mention it, Dennis...I WAS thinking that your meteorite was pretty cool. And great idea to cut it the way you did!
Anon writes-
"Before I began attending Grace Communion International in 2014 I was an alcoholic and drug addict and at the end of my rope and suicidal. But since being baptized I've been clean from that lifestyle and no matter if you believe in Almighty Jehovah God or not, you will never tell me what I can believe. If I had not gotten in church I would be dead!"
Anon, good for you that you are no longer having those awful problems!
I hope you're well enough to be aware that no one here is telling you what you can believe!
Countless people have overcome addictions and other bad and criminal ways of living by immersing themselves in various faiths like Islam, Christianity and many other religions.
Please understand that although questioning the tenets of your particular religion may not be the right course for you, questioning IS what is right and natural for many other people.
K-Bar wants us to just open our Bibles and read and believe.....
My questions for him are-
* Why not just open our Holy Quran and read and believe?
* Why not just open our Torah or Talmud and read and believe?
* Why not just open our Tripitakas and read and believe?
* Why not just open our Kojiki and read and believe?
* Why not just open our Book of Mormon and read and believe?
* Why not just open our Bhagavad Gita and read and believe?
The people who like these books tell of miracles as "proof" that any given one of these religious offerings is the closest to God and the best.
Is it only "fake news" when someone says something positive about a religion that's not your own? Milleu matters.
Dennis,
Good luck in your effort to share knowledge with those who already have all the answers. They are busy reading and quoting the scriptures.
Once we are convinced we have the answers, it is extremely difficult to admit our true ignorance and lack of knowledge.
Don't get discouraged. You are making a difference.
Bosley Hair Restoration does this with each patient, and I assume that their competitors do as well.
BB
Using biblical numbers in Genesis, Herman Hoeh concluded creation of man was in 4026 BC, which conincided with Second Coming date of September 5, 1975.
There is very little room allowed for critical thinking in Armstrongism.
And you know the anonymous poster is an Armstrongite because ...
Because what?
Why do some people seem to think any critic of the scientific establishment is a religious fanatic? Don't they know about the many scientists who are critics for purely scientific reasons? Look at Tesla for example. He knew relativity was junk science. Einstein never invented a single thing that actually worked. Tesla did. Who was the better man? The record clearly shows--to those who bother to examine it--that all Einstein did was plagiarize pre-existing formulas and put a weird twist on them to make them original in some way (which is why his theories sound wacky), then use his friends in the journals and media to make him famous.
I feel sorry for you. Apparently, all Armstrongism ever did for you was to open your mind to endless conspiracy theories.
Science has a peer review process. The "Scientific Method" is a process that criticizes and tests its own work product, following an evidentiary trail to arrive at truth. Science is a society of critics. What survives the rigorous testing process becomes knowledge. Friends in the scientific community try to trash each others' work, not to make one another famous. Yet, they know and respect that process, and remain as friends and colleagues even though they attack one anothers' work.
You did complete Junior High, right?
BB
BB, Great answer to that person,
I might add that sometimes science cannot (yet)) arrive at the truth. Then they call it a theory. The authority of that theory is established through and by the network of other peer reviewers/persons/experts/institutions that are willing to accept that theory temporarily UNTIL new facts come up or a better more explanative theory is presented.
It works a bit like google search.
If I search polar bears on google and there are not many (authoritative) links to your personal website on polar bears. Your website might be number 100.000 to pop up. On the other hand national geographic might be in the top 10 results through the established links and reviews of other authorities on the subject of polar bears.
So any wacky theory that might be presented could present a or the truth. The authority of that theory could be strengthened by the number of people subscribing to that theory HOWEVER with a weighted factor of the established autorities like Universities who sometimes have up to 500 years of experience in presenting theories in a manner that is generally accepted by those that have reviewed the results thereof over a number of years.
So copy pasting "a random conspiracy theory" and substituting MAO or Hitler with the letters HWA will not do for a compelling argument. Although it is generally accepted as a one time rant by a person who needed to get that of his chest.
What is accepted is when you keep calling "a theory" a theory, that is all right. What makes me respect you is if you are able to come up with a better upgraded theory and have convinced many authorities and scores of other decision makers that it presents a workable solution for the progress of mankind.
Just ranting at Einstein does not do that. I hope this will further inspire your quest for the "best theory" at hand.
nck
There seems to be a growing movement, nck, to take us backwards into a failed and defeated ideology. The alt. right wants all the white people to adapt the racist attitudes of the Third Reich. If that's what white people are about to become, then I want racial reassignment. I want a race-change operation!
BB
Ok have the race change and keep the monniker as Black Biker. Or change to AA, Asian Anonymous. Just CC me to let me know. I wouldn't mind the DD, it l cost you some. All better than SS.
nck
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