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It wasn't an analogy. I had forgotten what discussion I was in, and posted something totally irrelevant to this topic. (hey, it happens from time to time )
"oops!" was my remark when I edited it out. That's all. Don't make it anything more than what it was.
I was actually refering to your signiture....
__________________ "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Professor Richard Dawkins.
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." - Mark Twain
"The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it." - Robert G. Ingersoll
1. That the universe had a beginning.
* rest if post deleted for no reason whatsoever *
Thank you, that is the kind of response I was hoping for.
The big question is, was the knowledge of such events written into the bible but simplified for stone-age man, or is it just coincidence?
Originally Posted by metherion
Plants came before animals.
Women do experience pain in childbirth sans medicine.
Boom headshot? Or not?
Metherion
Good point, but is woman's labour pain actually a punishment from god?
Or is genesis merely making a comment about what is already known?
After all, it seems like a pretty nasty thing for a loving deity to do, punish every woman ever for one bit of deception, when god himself lied by telling them they would surely die if they ate it.....
__________________ "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Professor Richard Dawkins.
"It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." - Mark Twain
"The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it." - Robert G. Ingersoll
Well, yeah it does. Personally I think that Genesis is an allegory/myth, and that the curse of Eve was an explanation for why women have pain in childbirth. But, nevertheless, they DO have it.
Metherion
__________________ I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then.
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.
Thank you, that is the kind of response I was hoping for.
The big question is, was the knowledge of such events written into the bible but simplified for stone-age man, or is it just coincidence?
When taking any statement in itself, it could be a coincidence perhaps; but then that is like saying that I have provided what you have asked for yet you will only accept it as a coincidence. Is that not true of any truth presented then?
Well, yeah it does. Personally I think that Genesis is an allegory/myth, and that the curse of Eve was an explanation for why women have pain in childbirth. But, nevertheless, they DO have it.
Metherion
Why do you feel the Genesis narrative to be allegory/myth?
Why do I think it's allegory/myth?
From my belief in God, I don't think He is a deciever. However, if Genesis were a literal history, He would be a liar because of everything He put in the universe indicating a younger age.
From my knowledge of Middle East cultures, I know Genesis is very very similar to several Babylonian stories that could be easily adapted to fit one God, and several were.
I also know that the literal truth of the Bible isnt what the ancient Hebrews would have been looking for, so why should we look for it?
I'll try to articulate better later if you still are curious.
Metherion
__________________ I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then.
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.
Liquid, not a gas The quark-gluon plasma was made in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider — a powerful atom smasher at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. Unexpectedly, the quark-gluon plasma behaved like a perfect liquid of quarks, instead of a gas, the physicists said.
9 And God said: 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.' And it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas; and God saw that it was good. This again was thought conflicting with Scientific findings, it was thought that the early earth was too hot for a liquid state but that has been shown not to be the case. Early earth did have water on its surface.
Are you equating a liquid quark-gluon plasma with water here? And anyway, I don't think anyone talked about quark-gluon plasmas in any connection with the Earth... they were researching the early universe, and as far as I know no currently accepted cosmological model says things like the earth came into being right at the beginning (by the way: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" The analogy with the Big Bang is slightly... dodgy at best). But I admit I'm no physicist <doubtful shrug>
<confused> Ah, I think the quarks and the early earth were supposed to be two separate arguments, right? Sorry if I misinterpreted something; it wasn't overly clear from your post... I don't think I've heard about liquid water on early earth yet, what I did hear was something like the earth's cooling occurred much earlier than we'd thought. I can possibly give you that.
But. I really doubt Jews/Christians were the only folks that believed in a temporally finite universe (correct me if they were the only ones, I'm not a big expert on religion); in that case a universe with a beginning doesn't support Christian cosmology any more than it does any other finite cosmology.
The Hindus believe in a cyclic universe - and some scientists toy with a similar idea, bangs, expansions and collapses following each other (have I read that in Hawking's The Universe In a Nutshell? Not sure), and even universes that don't really have a beginning, just as a sphere has no beginnings or ends (though that was supposedly in five dimensional imaginary time or something, which concept tied my brain into knots even without the maths That was certainly in Hawking.).
Just out of curiosity, if someone found that the universe was indeed going through a cycle of bangs and crunches, would you convert to Hinduism? the only ones, I'm not a big expert on religions); in that case I wouldn't count the finding that the universe had a beginning as an enormous heap of evidence for a divinely inspired Bible.
4. That there were stages of life forms beginning in the sea.
Fossil evidence supports this as well. The people of ancient times did not have any evidence to suggest that life forms came about in stages.
Ehm, weirdly enough, I get quite a different picture from the Bible that came with my room (an advantage of halls of residence. You get a Bible even if you don't want one ).
"Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it..."" (third day),
and
"Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth..." (fifth day)
aaand
"Let the land produce living creatures [...] creatures that move along the ground [I suppose that includes reptiles and worms and everything non-bird, non-mammalian? pretty vague at best]..." (sixth day)
Not quite the chronology suggested by the fossil record. For one thing, the Bible says fruit-bearing (=flowering) plants came before sea life. Umm, why don't we find them in land deposits older than Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous, then? For another, sea life and birds (!) were supposedly created on the same day (so sea life according to the Bible didn't come before land life, it came cca. simultaneously). And birds before reptiles, from whom they are descended if we take the fossil record seriously.
By the way, if ancient people had no "evidence" to think life had come about in stages, they still had eyes to see. I mean, creatures quite obviously (or obviously to human perception) fall into various types. That's reason enough to believe they were created one type at a time...
I think your analogies are far-fetched at best, and simply not true at other times. Please, at least check your Bible before you base arguments on it
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"[G]ood and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Last edited by Naraoia; 4th October 2007 at 05:23 PM.
Reason: Looks nicer this way :)
(Where in the world has my blessing-bought formatting gone in the last post?)
__________________ "There is much we do not understand about the history of life, and the same will be true of our grandchildren. But, then, if we knew all there was to know, scientific interest would cease. Textbooks may portray science as a codification of facts, but it is really a disciplined way of asking about the unknown." - A.H. Knoll, Life on a Young Planet
"[G]ood and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
Why do I think it's allegory/myth?
From my belief in God, I don't think He is a deciever. However, if Genesis were a literal history, He would be a liar because of everything He put in the universe indicating a younger age.
What? I don't understand this statement.
From my knowledge of Middle East cultures, I know Genesis is very very similar to several Babylonian stories that could be easily adapted to fit one God, and several were.
I also know that the literal truth of the Bible isnt what the ancient Hebrews would have been looking for, so why should we look for it?
You don't think that the Jews were looking for a literal Savior, a literal Messiah?
Are you equating a liquid quark-gluon plasma with water here? And anyway, I don't think anyone talked about quark-gluon plasmas in any connection with the Earth... they were researching the early universe, and as far as I know no currently accepted cosmological model says things like the earth came into being right at the beginning (by the way: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" The analogy with the Big Bang is slightly... dodgy at best). But I admit I'm no physicist <doubtful shrug>
No, the gluon was in reference to this: 3. and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.
Science has shown that the early universe was dark (see below)
Up until recently, there was a conflict with Science due to the fact that it was considered impossible for a liquid form to be present during the formation of the universe. This also comes in below.
<confused> Ah, I think the quarks and the early earth were supposed to be two separate arguments, right?
Yes.
Sorry if I misinterpreted something; it wasn't overly clear from your post... I don't think I've heard about liquid water on early earth yet, what I did hear was something like the earth's cooling occurred much earlier than we'd thought. I can possibly give you that.
Earlier Water on Earth? Oldest Rock Suggests Hospitable Young Planet
Geological evidence suggests that Earth may have had surface water --and thus conditions to support life -- millions of years earlier than previously thought. Scientists reconstructed the portrait of early Earth by reading the telltale chemical composition of the oldest known terrestrial rock. The 4.4-billion-year-old mineral sample suggests that early Earth was not a roiling ocean of magma, but instead was cool enough for water, continents, and conditions that could have supported life. The age of the sample may also undermine accepted current views on how and when the moon was formed. The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and is published in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
But. I really doubt Jews/Christians were the only folks that believed in a temporally finite universe (correct me if they were the only ones, I'm not a big expert on religion); in that case a universe with a beginning doesn't support Christian cosmology any more than it does any other finite cosmology.
It doesn't mean something is less true just because others believe it true.
The Hindus believe in a cyclic universe - and some scientists toy with a similar idea, bangs, expansions and collapses following each other (have I read that in Hawking's The Universe In a Nutshell? Not sure), and even universes that don't really have a beginning, just as a sphere has no beginnings or ends (though that was supposedly in five dimensional imaginary time or something, which concept tied my brain into knots even without the maths That was certainly in Hawking.).
So? There is no evidence to support this concept that I am aware of.
Just out of curiosity, if someone found that the universe was indeed going through a cycle of bangs and crunches, would you convert to Hinduism?
No. I have studied other religions. It was God Himself who revealed who He was..The Christian God. I don't expect you to believe me, but that is why I would not "convert" to Hinduism or any other religion.
the only ones, I'm not a big expert on religions); in that case I wouldn't count the finding that the universe had a beginning as an enormous heap of evidence for a divinely inspired Bible.
The OP asked for one truth in the Genesis account, I have given several.
Ehm, weirdly enough, I get quite a different picture from the Bible that came with my room (an advantage of halls of residence. You get a Bible even if you don't want one ).
"Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it..."" (third day),
and
"Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth..." (fifth day)
aaand
"Let the land produce living creatures [...] creatures that move along the ground [I suppose that includes reptiles and worms and everything non-bird, non-mammalian? pretty vague at best]..." (sixth day)
Vague does not mean untrue.
Not quite the chronology suggested by the fossil record. For one thing, the Bible says fruit-bearing (=flowering) plants came before sea life.
"It may have been that life evolved and was completely extinguished several times" in catastrophic, meteorite-triggered extinction events well before that, Valley says. The research conducted by Valley, Peck, Graham and Wilde was also supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council and a Dean Morgridge Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship.
From link I provided above.
Which is one possibility.
Another is that they are far earlier than thought which happens over and over again.
Umm, why don't we find them in land deposits older than Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous, then? For another, sea life and birds (!) were supposedly created on the same day (so sea life according to the Bible didn't come before land life, it came cca. simultaneously). And birds before reptiles, from whom they are descended if we take the fossil record seriously.
I have to go, I'll try to get back as soon as I can.
By the way, if ancient people had no "evidence" to think life had come about in stages, they still had eyes to see. I mean, creatures quite obviously (or obviously to human perception) fall into various types. That's reason enough to believe they were created one type at a time...
Are you really serious? This takes skeptical to outrageous proportions!!!
I think your analogies are far-fetched at best, and simply not true at other times. Please, at least check your Bible before you base arguments on it
LOL where do you propose that I am misrepresenting the Bible?
Last edited by Oncedeceived; 6th October 2007 at 08:37 AM.
(hey, it happens from time to time 
)
And anyway, I don't think anyone talked about quark-gluon plasmas in any connection with the Earth... they were researching the early universe, and as far as I know no currently accepted cosmological model says things like the earth came into being right at the beginning (by the way: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" The analogy with the Big Bang is slightly... dodgy at best). But I admit I'm no physicist <doubtful shrug>
the only ones, I'm not a big expert on religions); in that case I wouldn't count the finding that the universe had a beginning as an enormous heap of evidence for a divinely inspired Bible. 
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