Why do people believe the world was made in seven days?

Question

To all Christians/branches of Christianity/anyone who believes in the Bible:

We all know the story of "God created everything that exists (except dinosaur bones) in seven days" but... uh, why?

Why do you think that God runs on days? Why would an allpowerful being be bound by the length of time it takes our planet to spin around once? Wouldn't he have existed BEFORE a day did, and didn't a day only come into being after he made the heavens and the earth and that stuff? Totally illogical. I mean, if people would admit that maybe one of God's days isn't the same as one of our days, I could totally accept that, but otherwise it's pretty much ridiculous. If you can explain it so it's NOT ridiculous I'd appreciate it.

I don't want holier than thou speeches, I don't want scripture quotes. I want an honest, logical explanation of why you take that book of yours LITERALLY, and why apparently none of it is, say, allegorical, or exaggerated, or even just put into words and ideas humans can comprehend. I believe in a God, and that there's a lot of things humans will never understand because we aren't able to wrap our little heads around the truth, but... I mean... come on. Seven days? Before days even existed? Does it say in the bible somewhere that God made time? Please, please, help me understand.

And please don't be offended by this; I'm just so tired of hearing people say with total confidence that the bible is totally and exactly true when there are billions of pieces of evidence to the contrary. I believe that creationism and evolution can be melded together into one theory - that God may have put the spark down, and gotten things started, but, well, the bible is an obsolete book written by primitive people who, even if they WERE possessed by the true spirit of God while writing it, probably didn't understand everything he was saying. I will admit that God may be infallible, but that book sure isn't.

So, if you can, please explain some of this. I'm more interested in why people refuse to admit that the Bible may be wrong, or just misinterpreted by its readers. Are people afraid that if they admit the bible's fallibility they're admitting that everything else they believe may be wrong too? Is it just psychology and human fear? I really want to know, I don't mean irreverence. I do believe in a god... just... not the way most people do.

Please none of those joke answers or "DONT QUESTION GOD HE WILL STRIKE U DOWN" crap. It's not that I don't believe in, or worship God, it's that the Bible and its addicts confuse me like no tomorrow, and I'd like to understand better, because understanding leads to enlightenment which leads one closer to God. Just like forgiveness, and tolerance, and acceptance, and all that other stuff Jesus talked about, but a loooot of religious fanatics today kind of tack on the afternote of "only if I feel like it" or "only if they believe exactly what I believe" to those precepts.

"The shortest verse in the Bible is 'Jesus wept'. The only thing wrong with it is the past tense."

Thank you.

Answer 1

God created the world in six days not seven days and rested on the seventh day

Answer 2

It seems as if you are the one taking it literally.

I know a more recent example- some people think a moon is the time from full moon to full moon or about a month. However, at Chimney Rock Colorado the moon rises between the slot in the rocks every 12 years. so is 12 moons= 12 months = 1 year or is 12 moons = 144 years. Its a huge discrepancy depending on ones reference point.

And now we say it cost an "arm and a leg". I wonder if thousands of years from now, people will think that arms and legs were cut off?

A lot of things in the Bible reference 40 days and 40 nights, 40 years, etc. I interpret this to mean a really long time. The average life expectancy has gone from 47 in the year 1900 to 77 in 2000. Working that backwards, anyone that lived to 40 was very very very old back in the time of Jesus. "It takes a lifetime" or "40 years" was the same thing to a person writing from the perspective in a time frame from 2000 years ago- 40 was the equivalent of forever.

So, I didn't exactly answer your question but put in my two sense about some possible explanations about why the bible says what says. I know some people get ticked off at me because I wont interpret the Bible the same as them but that doesn't make me any less of a believer.

Answer 3

2Pet.3
[8] But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

And I think that a day could be a billion years for that matter. Genesis is not a history book and who ever reads it that way is not looking very deep. Because in chapter one he makes the animals and then man (male and female at the same time) then in Chapter two he makes man and then he makes the animals. They are not good enough to help him further his journey. So he makes the woman part by taking it out of man. Two different stories I know with two separate messages. Plus the seventh day never ends like all the other days, it just says God rested. So we could still logically be in the seventh day. Which would make sense because the number 8 is the number of new beginning. I wonder what the 8th day will bring. Something better we hope.

So how did this woman "help" him? She just hurt him according to mainstream Christianity. Well she did help him and he will be better for it in the end (I hope).

Answer 4

i didnt read the whole thing, but it says in the bible (or so ive heard) that "to God, 1 day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like 1 day" so being a new age liberal christian, i think this is like the summarized version of how the galaxy and everything started to exist by the will of God, and the evolution and everything, i do believe it's true, but it's just to complicated to be put in the bible, so what's written on It is just a "summarized" version

Answer 5

In 2 Peter 3:8 we find, "But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." This does not say ‘one day is an actual thousand years with the Lord’. The original language meaning simply gives time of God and man in a comparative way showing the difference of eternal and mortal (1 Cor. 15:42-49). God is perfect, eternal, therefore timeless; while man is imperfect, mortal; and therefore limited in time duration. This use of the word thousand has no reference to actual time. The word or number thousand in symbolical language of the Bible means perfect, perfection. God eternal and perfect: Man mortal and imperfect.

Answer 6

Well #1 the earth and all that goes with it was not created in 7 days. It was created in 6.
You seem a little lacking in knowledge to assert such a question with the authority you seem to try to present.
You need to read the first chapter of Genesis.

Genesis 2:1
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he RESTED on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

Answer 7

in order to understand, I think of it this way: the population was a lot "simpler" in their way of thinking when the story-book known as "the bible" was written. In order for the newest cult of the period (christianity) to become popular, it had to have a mantra...that mantra is the bible....the bible was written so that people of that time could understand it....we take it as something different and have changed dates so radically that it really is not followed closely anymore...
but suffice to say that people of that time would NOT have understood "the origin of the species" and anyone suggesting anything so radical would have been "stoned' to death almost immediately for being a devil or heretic against EVERYthing...

Answer 8

Is God a time traveler? Maybe he had the kit already and just assembled it according to his own instructions?Hmmmm.The Lord moves in mysterious ways like time travel? I'm not really into the specifics of biblical history. It's kinda like a wait and see thing.I hope it's on cable though when it happens. I wonder if God won the contract on building the universe because he said he could do it in six instead of seven days?

Answer 9

Thats how christianinty explains away science in an attemp to control people. Unless 1 day equal billions of years its not even possible. When scientist was proving how things work and making new discoverys everyday Religious people saw it as a threat to there teachings and wrote the bible.

Answer 10

Are you trying to convince us or are you trying to convince yourself?

It's hard trying to deny the innate things that God has placed in our consciousness, the knowledge of God, the knowledge that we are eternal, and the knowledge that we are all flawed(something is just not right, ie., genocide, wars, rape, murder, poverty, AIDS).

Jesus is the answer, trying to figure out little details, being stuck in doubt, weaving in and out of compromise and sin is just going to drive you mad.

Forget pride-and dare I say-forget all the intellectuals who scoff at the poor old woman at the bus stop with her rosary beads praying to get through another day.

Just believe.