Warp, faith is not based on evidence. It's based on imagination.
How are we supposed to debate imagination?
But I was not arguing about faith, but about the purported evidence for God and/or a young universe.
Everybody is, of course, entitled to their own faith and beliefs. However, once you start talking about scientific evidence, that's where we can start discussing what is and isn't, and why.
Which would mean that stars would be moving way faster than c, and kept in their orbits around the Earth by an unknown force.
Oops. Looks like I missed an obvious one. I cede my physicist privileges for the day.
(Though you sometimes have to be careful about optical effects in special relativity. Objects can appear to move faster than light if they are moving directly toward the observer. I'm not familiar with any such effect when the object moves perpendicular to the observer, however.)
Warp, faith is not based on evidence. It's based on imagination.
How are we supposed to debate imagination?
I think it is more complex than that.
Evidence can be objective and subjective. Even objective evidence can be debated. For example, I believe there is objective evidence of the Israeli exodus from Egypt as detailed in the biblical book of Exodus, but there are people who dismiss the discoverers of that evidence as hoaxes, and the inflammable political status surrounding the sites of that evidence does not help gain independent reviews. It is my subjective opinion that the evidence (I have seen videos and photographs and met people who have been to some of the sites personally) is objectively true. And for some objective evidence, interpretations can be subjective. Such as, are the coral formations that seem to be shaped like Egyptian cart wheels, formed by taking shape around the real deal, or just randomly.
I have heard people who have had medical miracles happen to them; people whom I know somewhat well and people who have come abroad to tell. Supposedly, those miracles are objectively verifiable, but I have not had the opportunity to verify them myself (no access to medical records, etc). But all of that is dismissable as well. In the words of Yeshua, even if Moses or someone of the dead come back and witness to us, we would not believe. There is always a theory, rational explanation.
People are masters of explaining. Even if I imagined up a completely fictional scenario full of fantastic miracles, given enough time, I'm sure people would be able to put together a completely rational theory why and how those events would transpire without any supernatural intervention ― even if it requires the creation of a completely new scientific theory (super strings? Probabilistic analysis?). I know this because I exercise this kind of behavior myself.
There is subjective evidence. In prayer sessions, I have received prophecies that have been fulfilled, and other kinds of words that strike true. But these interpretations are always subject to phenomena like the confirmation bias. And then there is always this problem. And I have also received prophecies and other kinds of words that did not strike true.
So in the end, it still comes to faith. All sides come together through the route of imagination. No matter which view point you represent, it's up to your imagination to make up theories and justifications for your own viewpoint. And that's why the debates go nowhere.
(Though you sometimes have to be careful about optical effects in special relativity. Objects can appear to move faster than light if they are moving directly toward the observer.)
Actually no. If an observer measures the speed of another object, he will always measure a speed less than c, no matter how that object moves relative to the observer.
There are, however, other phenomena that, while they don't cause objects to move faster than c, they cause the distance between two objects to increase faster than c. (The difference between these two things might not be immediately apparent, but they are not the same thing.) Two examples include the metric expansion of the universe, and the frame dragging effect around a rotating black hole (between the event horizon and the so-called ergosphere).
In these cases, however, the object cannot be observed (which is the reason why the observable part of the universe is smaller than the entire universe).
(Disclaimer: I'm not an astrophysicist, nor any kind of physicist, so errors in the text above are possible.)
I have heard people who have had medical miracles happen to them; people whom I know somewhat well and people who have come abroad to tell. Supposedly, those miracles are objectively verifiable, but I have not had the opportunity to verify them myself (no access to medical records, etc). But all of that is dismissable as well. In the words of Yeshua, even if Moses or someone of the dead come back and witness to us, we would not believe. There's always a theory, rational explanation.
People are masters of explaining.
It's not a question of "dismissing the evidence". It's a question of "what does the evidence prove?" When dealing with things like miracle healings, there are two completely separate issues:
1) What can be deduced from the miracle healing (assuming that it's accurate and factual)?
2) Are there any more natural explanations for the event?
The problem with believers is that they take the existence of miracles as proof of the existence of God. As I have already explained in this thread, they aren't. That's a deductive fallacy. This is not a dismissal of the "evidence". It's an objection to the faulty reasoning.
Question number 2 is a completely different subject. Do miracle healings really happen? Are they really supernatural miracles, or are they caused by something else? Are they as prevalent as Christians want us to believe? Those are interesting questions, but do not affect question number 1 above.
As for the second question: Why is it that when such miracle healings are studied, they tend more often than not to be either inexistent, easily explained by natural means, or just hoaxes? Christians often argue that medical science is biased and has an atheistic agenda, and actively tries to deny all miracles. I don't want to repeat again why this worldwide conspiracy theory is ridiculous.
Stories about miracle healings abound, but many of them can be easily explained by simple psychology. People misinterpret and misremember what they see, stories get always changed a bit when they are retold (and people who are very dogmatic tend to exaggerate things without even noticing), and even minor apparent healings such as a chronic back pain going away (which can often be attributed to pure placebo effects) can soon become great impossible miracles such as someone who was paralyzed regaining the ability to walk. (It isn't even far-fetched to imagine how a mouth-to-mouth story slowly changes from "chronic back pain" to "paralysis, couldn't walk".)
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Bisqwit wrote:
So in the end, it still comes to faith. All sides come together through the route of imagination. No matter which view point you represent, it's up to your imagination to make up theories and justifications for your own viewpoint. And that's why the debates go nowhere.
Actually things can be only true of false.
The debate goes nowhere when people use the 'cow-is-table' logic (AKA inductive reasoning), evaluating their proposition by making the state of a few individual subjects summarize the state of the whole set.
"Tables have four legs; cows have four legs; therefore tables must be cows. "
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
"This sentence is false."
Try reading a book on Fuzzy Logic someday. As soon as you leave the confines of theoretical logic, things start to get somewhat grey.
Newton's theory of gravity is fairly accurate under most circumstances, so I'd call it a good approximation. But it's not entirely correct, thus - if we restrict ourselves to true or false - it must be false. Same goes for every macroscopic scientific law, since quantum mechanics always leave a probability > 0 of randomly tunneling into a state where the law is violated. Is that what you're trying to say?
Of course, the same goes for every theological text, too. But that's what you're trying to do here, right? Pointing out a small flaw in the bible, thus labeling all of religion as false. Right?
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yep if it's not true, then it's false.
You can either be alive or not. You can either be pregnant or not.
Now if we find a new ambiguous subject that doesn't fit either classification, then we're clearly not evaluating it properly and need to add a new possibility specifically for that case.
For example, you can classify organisms as either male or female. But there are also creatures that have reproductive organs normally associated with both male and female sexes.
Are they male and female at the same time? Nope, they are hermaphrodites.
Now in the subject of religion, it's not difficult to figure out they're just scams. It's pretty difficult to admit you've been caught by a scam though.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Now in the subject of religion, it's not difficult to figure out they're just scams.
Many/most religions are not scams. They are sometimes used for scamming, but the religion itself is not one. They are simply people believing something (maybe something they themselves came up with), and spreading that belief to other naive people, who spread it further and so on. It's all done honestly, not for scamming people, even if they may be all deceived by the products of someone's imagination.
Pointing out a small flaw (that could easily be interpreted differently) to prove that the Bible is wrong is little different from pointing out some prophecy that has become true to prove that it's right.
I propose that if you find out that prayer helps you, then it's not the worst idea to continue doing it. It helps for whatever reason, but religion commands us to regard a very special reasoning for explaining its effects as the only valid one. Same with miracles. That's a bit of a leap that I wouldn't be willing to take. I don't believe in scientific theories as absolute truths either, but I see that science works for whatever reason (it's not difficult to imagine why it would work, but it might still be working for a totally different reason), hence I rely on it. I personally haven't found that prayer is any more useful to me than meditation, which both haven't been particularly useful to me. If they turn out to work for you though, why believe in just any random theory that explains why they work and discard all the others? Can't we be satisfied without wanting to be able to explain everything in absolute terms? Why would we trust in holy books if it's easy to see how they could just be man-made with no influence from God whatsoever? Why discard every possible explanation but one? And isn't it a bit arrogant for us to assume even for a second that we could deduce the absolute, real and factual truth from reasoning? Where is the evidence for that? Do we just assume it? If we don't, then why would we believe in any of our explanations to be factual truths? They can be working substitutes for the real thing and be self-consistent, but they might be wrong anyway, can't we be satisfied with that?
Again, believing in anything as a form of experiment, to see where it leads you, to uncover possible inconsistencies or to see whether it helps you looking at the world from a different perspective is something different. You can just loosely believe in something and not be surprised at all if it turns out to be wrong in the end. F.e. I wouldn't be surprised in the sense that my whole belief system would be shattered if I got picked up by a more dimensional being into a different universe or if I suddenly turned into a caterpillar. Strange things can happen every now and then. I would find it very interesting and extraordinary nonetheless, and then I would probably consider that I'm turning insane or that something truly special that I don't understand has happened to me as two possible explanations. Why treat miracles any different? Why assume that they prove exactly this or that? Either somebody has been a bit biased or delusional, is lying or something truly miraculous has happened, which we don't understand and could be explained in many ways. "Science can't explain it, religion can, so I'd rather go with religion." Do we really have that much of a drive to explain everything for us to do that? Accepting that we don't really understand something and that we can't explain what's really going on in absolute terms might hurt our egos a bit, but it's not the end of the world.
Here's a funny possible explanation. Religions are memes. They're part of human nature. Look at [URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAoJsS9Ix8]this[/URL]. We copy the rituals of our ancestors, such as praying, just for the sake of it. We are able to believe in God for the same reason, because it had always been done. And it feels right. Makes us feel safe.
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Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
Nach wrote:
Believing that God is all powerful, he can create the entire world with all the people and items in it as it is now in a moment.
I don't think you understand the consequences of that idea. Basically it means that God is deliberately tricking us into disbelieving the creation story by making the world look like it contradicts it.
No, the statement means God is all powerful and could do whatever he wants in an instant.
As for what people believe, they have free will. You're free to make a mistake and learn from it. You're also free to make a mistake and continue with the mistake.
You could call it deceitful that whenever a person makes a statue and bows down to it and says it created the world, that a large foot doesn't come down from the heavens and squash that person like a bug.
To illustrate the point better from the Bible, see the story of the Exodus. In 12:12, For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.
Okay, so all the statues of the Egyptians will will be destroyed along with the firstborn right?
Then in chapter 14:
And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn back and encamp before the exit to freedom, between the tower and the sea, in front of lord-of-the-north, over against it shall ye encamp by the sea. And Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel: They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he shall follow after them; and I will get Me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.' And they did so.
So lord of the north is left standing, the Israelites are seemingly trapped before it, and Pharaoh sees that and runs after them and drowns in the sea.
Where did Pharaoh go wrong? Why couldn't he believe that lord of the north had superior power?
Warp wrote:
Tricking someone into believing a falsity is deceitful and the same thing as lying to them.
You have free will to draw the wrong conclusions. Who told you carbon 14 dating or similar technology is correct? Maybe it has exponential rates of inaccuracy the farther back you go. If it's an exact science why can't they tell you the age of the universe down to a nanosecond?
Further, never confuse what you see with what is. Going to a magic show should make that point clear. You want to say the world appears to be 60 trillion bazillion years old, fine. But don't say it definitely is that age.
Warp wrote:
Is God a deceiving liar? I thought Satan is the one who is attributed those properties.
I don't belong to a club that believes in deifying satan, sorry.
If everything was completely obvious, and you only had one decision to make all the time, there would be no point in rewarding or punishing someone for their actions.
Warp wrote:
Maybe the entire universe spins around the earth in the opposite direction?
Which would mean that stars would be moving way faster than c, and kept in their orbits around the Earth by an unknown force.
However it is, we really don't know. The math exists to show either one as possible. One may be more probable than the other, but that's not the point.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Many/most religions are not scams. They are sometimes used for scamming, but the religion itself is not one. They are simply people believing something (maybe something they themselves came up with)
Some parts might be scam. For example, the stories about heaven and hell that are in most religions could have been invented by some people in power who wanted to control people by creating these stories so that people would fear doing things that are considered immoral and wrong, to create order in society in those days.
Nach wrote:
Does it matter to us if the world was created 7 days ago, and all things we know, and all memories, and this website are all planted?
I think that's most likely how the universe is created. When it says in the Bible that God created everything in 7 days, he was referring to our 7-day week where we continuously create things, just like the natural laws create and sustain the universe 7 days in a week. Jesus said that he is life, and since we are life, he was talking about us too. The universe wasn't created in the past, it's created similarly to how the electricity creates the things on your monitor.
As far as I know, everything in a computer is stored somewhere in memory, so I think it's similarly in reality, that every object that we think exists outside (including our body and brain) is actually stored in internal memory. Nothing exists but a seeming nothingness, or a "chaos" like ancient mythology puts it. But when we have this interpreter called consciousness born from the paradox of nothing, it can create anything in this infinite space of possibilities.
That's similar to how nothing really exists in computers either, it's just ones and zeroes, which turn into everything when they are interpreted as intended. I've also heard scientists say that the amount of positive and negative energy (the ones and zeroes) in the universe when put together, results in zero/neutral energy. In computers we currently only have binary code, but the universe has negative, positive and neutral, and perhaps also infinite variations between them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-energy_universehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginnungagap
It is impossible to have a rational discussion with somebody who stubborningly maintains the position that all opinions and points of view on how the world works are equally valid simply because we can never have a 100% certainty of anything.
That position is both ridiculous and impractical.
Suppose that someone asks me "what color is that car?" and I tell him "blue". Then he argues: "How can you be so certain? Can you prove with absolute certainty that it's blue and not for example yellow?"
I proceed to ask a third person what color he thinks the car is. He answers "blue". I ask ten people, all say "blue". I ask a thousand people, all say "blue". I photograph the car with a digital camera and corroborate from the pixel values that the car is, indeed, blue. I take a spectrometer and measure the light reflected from the car's surface and corroborate that it's blue. I ask the car manufacturer what color the car is, and he responds blue.
"But you still can't be 100% certain. Maybe 99.9%, but not 100%. Thus the opinion that the car is really yellow is equally valid."
No it's not. The car is blue beyond all reasonable doubt, and the car is definitely not yellow beyond all reasonable doubt. The two positions "the car is blue" and "the car is yellow" are not equally valid. It doesn't matter that one can never prove with 100% certainty that the former is true. Claiming otherwise is both ridiculous and impractical.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Warp wrote:
I ask the car manufacturer what color the car is, and he responds blue.
I find you saying that ironic.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Please start reading actual scientific books rather than some biased pseudoscientific crap. For your own good.
1. It is biased. I will give you that.
2. It is not pseudoscientific. It is actual science. The experiments have been interpreted different ways, that's all.
3. What you read is also biased.
Do you understand that you are highly biased in your reading? You will easily believe anything you read that supports your world-view, regardless of how credible it might be, while dismissing everything else that doesn't.
I feel that you do the same thing.
3. He got healed in a way that nobody could explain (except if it was a miracle).
Do you understand what "argument from ignorance" means? If not, then please tell me so I can explain it to you, and why it doesn't work.
I was not saying this was an argument from ignorance. Can you explain it any other way?
I was saying that mutations are what need to occur for different species to have a different amount of chromosomes. That must happen for a species to evolve into another.
You seem to be mindlessly repeating some factoids that you have either read somewhere or came up on your own. You don't even understand what you are saying. You are effectively saying above that every species has a different amount of chromosomes. I don't think you even know what a chromosome is. Do you understand that most species have about 30-60 chromosomes, and that there are literally millions of different species?
Yes, some of the species now may have evolved from one to another, but some mutations must have occured (I wasn't saying that every single case of one species turning into another was through mutation). And also, hermit crabs have 127 pairs of chromosomes (making 254 in the end), so some have more than 30-60 chromosomes.
Also, you don't need mutations for new species to form. Just look up, for example, the so-called ring species.
Ring species are probably the result of microevolution.
I won't change my views because I feel like everything I know points to what I think.
So you are basically saying that feelings are more reliable than observation, measurement and testing. (Of course that's clear because all creationists think like that. It's just that I admire your unusual honesty about it.)
I am saying that first, the Bible is more reliable than observation, measurement and testing, and that second, I honestly think that the observation, measurement and testing point to it.
1. I am not wanting to change my mind because of my beliefs and how I interpret the evidence.
2. You are not wanting to change your mind because of your beliefs and how you interpret the evidence.
You see, that's another annoying creationist tactic: Try to make the position of the skeptic equal to the position of the believer. Skepticism is "just another belief system", exactly in par with any other belief system. This way the creationist justifies his position as being at least as equally valid as anybody else's (but most certainly better, in their minds at least).
Please start reading actual scientific books rather than some biased pseudoscientific crap.
Do you understand that you are highly biased in your reading?
(Yeah, I know I'm quoting the same thing twice)
I have actually been thinking the same thing about you (before you said this). Have you ever read any of the books that I have read about this subject? And another thing, I have never even heard of a book written recently (which means The Origin of Species (which actually spends more time talking about what could be said against it than for it) is out) that shows how all the things I was talking about earlier was wrong.
1. Which would mean that stars would be moving way faster than c, and 2. kept in their orbits around the Earth by an unknown force.
1. Stars, according to today’s measurements, are farther than 13.75 light years away from us. They say that this happens because they move away from us and that the space in between us are expanding as well. This could also easily explain how the stars are moving away faster than c.
2. God could be that force.
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
Warp, faith is not based on evidence. It's based on imagination.
How are we supposed to debate imagination?
Faith is actually based on belief, not imagination. And faith just gets supported by evidence. Someone can still have faith on something that doesn't have much evidence. And, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
A few more things I want to say. First, I looked up more on abiogenesis, and they do say that it started out as little blobs that could split. But they still have to say that proteins were made randomly. They have performed experiments that show that amino acids can be made naturally, and that they can link up randomly. It would still be a very small chance that the amino acids would link just right.
Also, with your hypothesis that there may be another universe that created this one (along with an infinite amount of others), what if one of those other ones happened to create a god? What if he found a way (because of what his physics were like) to travel to other universes? There would still be a god! And I feel this hypothesis is as far fetched as the hypothesis you made earlier.
And third, just curious, Warp, how do you think Christianity got started? Was it the twelve disciples wanted to try to make a new religion, they were mislead or what? This is just a curiosity.
Just curious sudgy. If you're going to use the words evening and morning as being completely literal and refuting my claim. Then how would you explain the order of creation presented in Genesis 2 as compared to Genesis 1?
Genesis 1:
Day 1:
Heavens and Earth
Light
Day 2:
Separated the water from the sky (which is also water according to the literal reading)
Day 3:
Created land and plants
Day 4, etc.
Day 6:
Man and Animals
Genesis 2:
Day 7:
Rest
Day 8:
Plants and Man.
So, why is the Bible literally correct when it mentions morning and evening, but misinterpreted when I point out that the orders of creation presented are in conflict?
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
The Hebrew word erets can either mean earth, meaning global, or land, refering to a certain area. It is simply saying that God hasn't made these things in that land. You can also see that throughout genesis 2 it is talking about Eden, not the world.
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sudgy wrote:
Faith is actually based on belief, not imagination
Yeah, of course you can believe in something you're told even though you can't perceive it (or any kind of evidence proving it) with any of your senses... WITHOUT USING YOUR IMAGINATION.
Riveting tale, chap
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
Yeah, of course you can believe in something you're told even though you can't perceive it (or any kind of evidence proving it) with any of your senses... WITHOUT USING YOUR IMAGINATION.
1. I don't completely believe in Christianity because I was told so. It was also a choice of my own.
2. I feel there is evidence toward Christianity. And evidence can't prove anything, as I've said before.
3. I do perceive it through what he has done in my life.
You don't even know what I read because I have not mentioned any of the literature I may be reading. And scientific papers seldom have a bias; instead, they report findings, results of experiments and measurements, and occasionally hypotheses to describe phenomena. (Sure, some papers might have a clear bias, and a fraction of those might even pass the peer-reviewing test, but I'd estimate that's a relatively rare occurrence.)
3. He got healed in a way that nobody could explain (except if it was a miracle).
Do you understand what "argument from ignorance" means? If not, then please tell me so I can explain it to you, and why it doesn't work.
I was not saying this was an argument from ignorance. Can you explain it any other way?
You were not saying it, but it's an archetypal example. You argued for the existence of God, and as evidence for it, you mention a "miracle healing" that, according to your own words, "nobody could explain". Hence you are arguing from something unexplained. That's the very definition of argument from ignorance.
"This cannot be explained, hence God" is an argumentative fallacy. The conclusion does not follow from the premise. I'm pretty sure you see this (even if you refuse to admit it).
(Also, you are clearly implying that there can be only one possible explanation. However, in practice it means "there is only one possible explanation I will accept; I will refuse to accept any other explanation". This is bias. And yes, there are other possible explanations, both natural and supernatural, even when assuming it was a true "miracle".)
Yes, some of the species now may have evolved from one to another, but some mutations must have occured (I wasn't saying that every single case of one species turning into another was through mutation).
Those two sentences are contradictory.
And also, hermit crabs have 127 pairs of chromosomes (making 254 in the end), so some have more than 30-60 chromosomes.
*sigh* Will you at least acknowledge that you were confusing terminology when you originally said that each species has a different amount of chromosomes? It's not hard. Just write something like: "Oops, yeah. I was confusing chromosomes with something else entirely. Sorry."
Also, you don't need mutations for new species to form. Just look up, for example, the so-called ring species.
Ring species are probably the result of microevolution.
You haven't even clearly defined this mythical "microevolution" of yours. Apparently "microevolution" can form new species, yet it's different from "macroevolution", which also can form new species... How exactly are they different? (Answer: They aren't. The distinction is artificially kept by creationists.)
More importantly: What exactly stops these two new species from deviating more and more from each other during eons, until they look nothing like each other? Also, what stops these two species from spawning yet other new species in a similar way (which then may spawn yet new species, and so on)?
You see how diversity of life can be explained via evolution?
I am saying that first, the Bible is more reliable than observation, measurement and testing
That's your belief, but what's your justification for it? Why do you think that?
1. Which would mean that stars would be moving way faster than c, and 2. kept in their orbits around the Earth by an unknown force.
1. Stars, according to today’s measurements, are farther than 13.75 light years away from us.
I think you have an error of scale here. (Yes, that's certainly true, but I don't think that's what you meant.)
They say that this happens because they move away from us and that the space in between us are expanding as well.
Technically speaking yes (because in the beginning all space and energy was compressed into a single point which expanded), but I don't think that's what you mean with that. I understand what you are writing that the current stars we see were closer to Earth and have gotten farther since. No. The current stars we see formed long before Earth even existed.
This could also easily explain how the stars are moving away faster than c.
Now you are confusing two entirely different subjects. The context was this (probably not completely serious) idea that stars are orbiting Earth. In other words, the movement of the stars would be parallel to us, not away from us.
The most distant stars in our universe are moving away from us faster than c. However, we cannot see them (for that very reason). However, that's an entirely different subject.
2. God could be that force.
And so could fairies or the fire spirit Volcanos. Or me, for that matter.
The Hebrew word erets can either mean earth, meaning global, or land, refering to a certain area. It is simply saying that God hasn't made these things in that land. You can also see that throughout genesis 2 it is talking about Eden, not the world.
Objection.
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 use different words for many things (this is because Biblical Scholars believe that Genesis 2 was written in around 1000 BCE whereas Genesis 1 was written around 600 BCE)
However, Genesis 2 consistently uses the same word as Genesis 1 to refer to the Earth. And it's very clearly referring to the whole earth.
For instance:
Genesis 2:4
אֵ֣לֶּהתוֹלְד֧וֹתהַשָּׁמַ֛יִםאָ֖רֶץבְּהִבָּֽרְאָ֑םבְּי֗וֹםעֲשׂ֛וֹתיְהוָ֥האֱלֹהִ֖יםאֶ֥רֶץוְשָׁמָֽיִם׃
Translated:
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
The word used for earth is:
אֶ֥רֶץ
or eras
This same word is also used in Genesis 1:2, which begins:
וְהָאָ֗רֶץהָיְתָ֥התֹ֙הוּ֙
or "The earth was formless"
אָ֗רֶץ
Please note that the diacritic markings are slightly different. However, these are the same as the word used in Genesis 2, it merely distinguishes between different grammatical roles of the same word in this instance. It should be noted that in the Torah, the diacritic marks do not exist. They are simply used in modern Hebrew to assist in pronunciation and reading.
Compare with Genesis 2:5 which is the verse you're taking issue with:
וְכֹ֣ל ׀שִׂ֣יחַהַשָּׂדֶ֗הטֶ֚רֶםיִֽהְיֶ֣הבָאָ֔רֶץוְכָלעֵ֥שֶׂב־הַשָּׂדֶ֖הטֶ֣רֶםיִצְמָ֑חכִּי֩לֹ֨אהִמְטִ֜יריְהוָ֤האֱלֹהִים֙עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץוְאָדָ֣םאַ֔יִןלַֽעֲבֹ֖דאֶת־הָֽאֲדָמָֽה׃
Translated:
Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground
The word used for earth in this case is:
אָ֔רֶץ
and
אָ֔רֶץ
Which, if you notice, is the same word. Not a translation ambiguity.
There are, of course, other words in ancient Hebrew that mean area or land as well as other words that mean world or earth. Why wasn't a distinction made if one was intended? And why do you believe that a distinction was intended when there's no evidence that one was?
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