Please be aware that I had some free time to really get down and explain why I say days were 24-hours long. I will not always be able to take the time out of my schedule to do this.

In response to No'Vah's comment: "Could you point out exactly where the Bible says "24"-hour day? In my bible lit class they asserted that the original Hebrew word later translated as 'day' in English could mean any specific period of time. Thanks."

It doesn't say "24 hours" specifically, but there are plenty of clues to see.

Let's start by taking a look at Genesis 1:5 - And GOD called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

In my Bible's Lexical Aids and Hebrew Dictionary, it says "evening" means: ereb, which basically means "dusk, evening, night". Pretty much just regular ol' night time. My Bible then goes on to say that "morning" means: boqer, which basically means "dawn, morning, day". Pretty much just regular ol' day time.

The first occurance of "Day" is the word that's constantly in question as to what it really means when it's defining a length of time. However, the same word also can be used to mean the state of...brightness, I guess. "From sunrise to sunset." Which is what it means in the first occurance. "And GOD called the light Day."

My Bible doesn't give a definition for the second occurance of "Day", which means that it is the same Hebrew word as the first occurance of the English word "Day", and it is here that it means "length of time" and not to describe an unspecified source of light. (The Sun as we know it was created on the fourth day.)

According to my Lexical Aids and Hebrew Dictionary, the word used for "Day" can mean "a number of days, some time, a year." "Today, in the daytime, on the same day, at present, now." "24-hour period, time in general, a specific point in time, a year." Seems to have many, many definitions based on context.

So that's what we have to look at... the context. "Day" is in the sentence "And the evening and morning were the first day." We could also read it as "And the (dusk, evening, night) and the (dawn, morning, day) were the first (period of time)."

In verse 9, GOD starts to separate the water and make some dry land and plants on the "third period of time". He creates every plant on the planet during this "third period of time"... and then proceeds to create stars and the planetary bodies "Sun" and "Moon" during the "fourth period of time". Although Dark and Light existed beforehand, as did the periods of dark and light (evening and morning) before He creates the Sun and Moon.

So okay... each period of time has two parts to it, and only two parts. A part of Darkness, and a part of Light, which were dubbed "Night" and "Day" by GOD. So... Let's say the period of time was longer than 24 hours. Let's say... 1,000 years! That would mean there'd be a period of Darkess that lasts for 500 years. Let's say the period of time was a million years! 500,000 years of Darkness followed by 500,000 years of Light.

I brought up the Creation of Plants because, well, I don't think plants could survive without light for 500 or 500,000 years. The same "evening and morning were the first day" is used for the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh days. My point being that the same phrase is used several times in the same context. It'll mean the same thing every time. People have said that GOD could have simply kept them alive for that long. But... why? What would be the point? If He could do that, then He could surely just create everything quickly and without the need to take a gazillion years to make everything.

There would be no use in saying GOD took a million years to create Darkness and Light, a couple hundred to create Earth, and then only 24 hours to create plants and everything else from that point on. It's just silly and confusing. I'm thinking it would surely be easier (if GOD is even restricted by such things as difficulties) to create Earth in 24 hours than it would be to create the plants and, later, the animals in the same amount of time.

Many of us believe that the days are 24 hours because that's what it's always been as long as humans can remember. Why would it need to change? Why did it STOP changing if it even did change at one time? Super insanely long days one moment, and regular ol' 24 hour days the next? Naaaaah. I don't subscribe to that. Just doesn't really make sense.

I suppose you can believe that if you want, but...

As reported on the Slashdot article Christian Churches Celebrate Darwin's Birthday, 450 "Christian" churches are actually celebrating the birthday of good ol' Charlie Darwin, the father of the THEORY and RELIGION of Evolution, stating that "Darwin's theory of biological evolution is compatible with faith and that Christians have no need to choose between religion and science".

Uhm... what? What people would say this and call themselves Christians? I continued to read the article and discovered a list, true or not, of churches reported to be celebrating:

"A variety of denominational and non-denominational churches, including Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Congregationalist, United Church of Christ, Baptist and a host of community churches, are participating in the event, which grew out of Zimmerman's The Clergy Letter Project, another effort to dispel the perception among many Christians that faith and evolution are mutually exclusive."

It doesn't at all surprise me that the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Unitarian, and Congragationalist churches are doing it. They have a warped perspective on the Bible already. But the inclusion of the United Church of Christ and the Baptist church kind of took me by surprise. They have a central office that approves what these churches do. There's a good chance the entire denomination has been compromised.

There's a word we Christians use when something like this happens. We not-Catholic Christians don't use it often, but when the appropriate time arises, we'll use it. Dictionary.com seems to label it as a Catholic-specific term. Whether that is true or not, I've heard very devout Protestant Christians use it at times.

That word is HERETIC. Suggesting that God used Evolution to aid in the creation of the universe is heresy. It clearly conflicts with the 7 24-hour day Creation timeline as layed out in the first chapters of Genesis. This goes way beyond simple misinterpretation, people.

Once again, as seen on Slashdot, someone posted an article about some funky wasp (beware: Slashdotted server) that turns cockroaches into zombies, so they can be used for food for their young. Of course, everyone's going "wow! what an evolutionary achievement! how many evolutionary failures must there have been before the first momma wasp hit those particular neurons?" and I'm like....... "uh, what? that's just rediculous"

Apparently, people use parastites as a base to prove evolution, for some odd reason. The prevalent phrase they use is "how could such a wuving god ever cweate so much suffering?" It just shows their ignorance.

God didn't create them that way to begin with, sillies. Way back (you know, only 6000 years) when He created the universe, everything was... well... literally perfect. No death, unnatural or otherwise. (Including parasitical.) Some even casually think that some, if not all, animals talked. Eve sure didn't seem freaked out when a (then-legged) snake started trying to convince her to eat off that tree. But that's another topic...

The point is, the universe was perfect. Up until the point where human-kind sinned. Then everything pretty much completely and totally changed. Death was introduced into the world as a punishment for that sin, along with various other punishments that are obviously still around today.

Since there was no death before, being carnivorous was impossible. The only way to eat meat was to kill something! Everything was designed to live off plants. Heck, they even say the roots of the T-Rex's teeth were too shallow to eat anything BUT plants. So think "gigantic giraffe with scales". Mosquitos probably drank fruit juice, too. Bees still eat nectar, so I think it's safe to say that wasps did, too.

So there you go. ...and some people say that scientists aren't prejudiced. Seems they study things with the sole purpose of trying to see how it can fit into their preconceived ideas. Pssh.

http://www.noapathy.org/tracts/mythofseparation.html

I was going to look it up myself, but had trouble finding the right Article in the Constitution... so I searched Google for "seperation of church and state" and, naturally, found a trove of liberal "oh noes, religion!" groups. But then I found a shining light in the darkness.

I thought there was a real Article actually saying something about seperation. But, you know what? That phrase isn't even in a governing document. It was in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a church to calm their fears about a government instituted religion. Not religion instituted government. They have it all so completely backwards.

What are they actually using from the Constitution? The first amendment... which says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Hey, wow, will ya look at that? "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Banning prayer in schools for being "unconstitutional" is unconstitutional. Banning using the name "Jesus Christ" in the General Assembly for being "unconstitutional" is unconstitutional.

People take and either knowingly misinterpret and play ignorance to the Constitution, or are just... well... misinformed, to be polite. Read it, people. Know what it says.

Please read the article I linked to... and read the US Constitution in it's entirety.

I though this merited a post all to it's own...

It was just announced today that Indiana has passed a bill to effectively prevent anyone from mentioning "Jesus Christ" in the General Assembly. Lots of people are incredibly, unspeakably upset.

Didn't we found the United States to escape the old English government from controlling our religion? You realize that the article in the Constitution that "seperates church from state" was designed to keep that from happening... not to keep religion from influencing the government. I think people know that, but they don't want that, so they're not going to see it that way.

How can you possibly ban people from saying something and still keep in line with "Freedom of Speech"? Which, I might not have to remind you, people are always quoting and don't want infringed upon at all, period, and if they THINK you're trying to censor them, they go ecstatic. So why can't Christians plead that and be heard?

You won't hear a bill be passed to keep people from talking about Allah in government meetings, I'll bet my bottom dollar. It's interesting how all these other religions are flourishing under the governments of the planet, but Christianity is the sole religion that's still persecuted to this day, in the era of "tolerance".

Coincidence? Nah... People are afraid of what Christianity means. That there's a higher power who controls anything and everything and that humans can't earn their right to get to Heaven, and that, one day, they're going to have to answer to Him. They want to be in control of their own life... they don't WANT someone in authority over them.

So there you go.