Adam & Eve

[Cabal]

Thank you AV

So that means we need to forget the first 11 Chapters of Genesis

*sigh*

AGAIN

metaphor =/= wrong

 

[AV1611VET]

And I'm a Son of Sceva!

I thought I apologized for that.

 

[Cabal]

I thought I apologized for that.

So we're still Nazis, anti-Semites and anti-Muslim then?

Come on, AV, in for a penny, in for a pound!

 

[GuidanceNeeded]

Erm....



Better.

Firstly, I don't think it follows that you can question the existence of individuals who descended from Adam and Eve. There's probably no records of your great-great-great-great-great (times....e.g. 200) grandfather. Does that mean you don't exist and the things you've done with your life didn't happen? While ancestry is somewhat important, ultimately it doesn't define the actions of your life. I realise there were a couple of prophecies that Jesus need to fulfil that involved genealogy - but if He was not of the house of David, He would still have been the Messiah, fully God, fully man, and would still have saved us.

It's also worth bearing in mind in some translations the genealogy of Jesus is written as "supposed." That word makes me wonder how precise the genealogies were to begin with.

Something else worth thinking about is - so what if one particular person didn't exist in the lines we know? Do you think that would stop God? I'm sure whatever lineage arose, his will would be done.

As pointed out below, Luke 3:23-38 gives us the family tree

Well, assuming for the time being that this is a reasonable statement - it depends largely on the individual involved. Regarding Adam and Eve, I find it exceedingly unlikely that they were the SOLE ancestors of the rest of mankind, and this would have been during a comparatively unadvanced time in history, so contemporary records would be thin on the ground.

Out of curosity, do you find the parting of the Red Sea unlikely?

I do believe Adam and Eve were the only ones on earth, they were told to be fruitful and multiply. Yes this leads to incest but that was the only way to populate the earth and God knew this and allowed it.

Genesis
1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

They carry a somewhat bigger burden of proof than, say, Moses - who was, for some part of his life, a member of the royal family in Egypt, which was a much more advanced civilisation who kept good records. His extraordinary events were on a much smaller scale, in an empirical sense (i.e., him and his wife weren't spawning all of mankind from just the two of them).

To simply say, well Adam and Eve might not have existed, therefore they all mightn't, neglects many additional factors, such as the state of civilisation in which they lived, which would alter the chances of additional pieces of evidence for different individuals surviving to today.

But this is somewhat of an intellectual argument - I personally don't go through historical data to crossreference the Bible myself, although I'm sure it would be a good thing to do. The thing is, most individuals in the Bible aren't claimed to have had such far reaching empirical effects quite like Adam and Eve. Spawning a whole civilisation from just two people simply isn't feasible. Whereas most other people in the Bible don't have those kind of claims made about them. So it's simply a case of them being more plausible to me.

Just because it doesn't sound feasible, does not mean it didn't happen. I suppose that is why I walk by faith and not sight.

It could well have been Adam and Eve. They may not have been the only first humans - but they could have been the first to encounter Him.

Or...maybe it was just one "clerical" error in one part of the genealogy and the rest is fine?

Are you saying the Bible contains errors?

It is, of course entirely possible that the lineage is accurate all the way through. However, as regards evolution then, the problem with Adam and Eve is simply the concept of a population of ONLY two individuals speciating, and then having ONLY those two creating a vast network of descendants. It's somewhat more plausible if there were others human that existed too.

Isn't anything possible through the works of God?

 

[loveiseverywhere]

For the Christian evolutionist:

Ok so if we are not to take Adam and Eve literally, then that means we can discredit all their descendants.

Which means Adam/Eve through Noah were all mythical, then Noah to lets say Jesus were all mythical? If this is true, then wouldn't that be like saying the entire Bible is nothing more than a 66 Book fable?

So who exactly would of been the first human (i.e. evolved monkey) to have a conversation with God?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NOOOOO~~!!~!

We did NOT evolve from monkeys for the last time!!!

 

[loveiseverywhere]

Where We Came From

1. Did we evolve from monkeys?

Humans did not evolve from monkeys. Humans are more closely related to modern apes than to monkeys, but we didn't evolve from apes, either. Humans share a common ancestor with modern African apes, like gorillas and chimpanzees. Scientists believe this common ancestor existed 5 to 8 million years ago. Shortly thereafter, the species diverged into two separate lineages. One of these lineages ultimately evolved into gorillas and chimps, and the other evolved into early human ancestors called hominids.
Learn More
Human Evolution

2. How did humans evolve?

Since the earliest hominid species diverged from the ancestor we share with modern African apes, 5 to 8 million years ago, there have been at least a dozen different species of these humanlike creatures. Many of these hominid species are close relatives, but not human ancestors. Most went extinct without giving rise to other species. Some of the extinct hominids known today, however, are almost certainly direct ancestors of Homo sapiens. While the total number of species that existed and the relationships among them is still unknown, the picture becomes clearer as new fossils are found. Humans evolved through the same biological processes that govern the evolution of all life on Earth. See "What is evolution?", "How does natural selection work?", and "How do organisms evolve?"

Learn More
Origins of Humankind

3. Is culture the result of evolution?

A society's culture consists of its accumulated learned behavior. Human culture is based at least partly on social living and language, although the ability of a species to invent and use language and engage in complex social behaviors has a biological basis. Some scientists hypothesize that language developed as a means of establishing lasting social relationships. Even a form of communication as casual as gossip provides an ingenious social tool: Suddenly, we become aware of crucial information that we never would have known otherwise. We know who needs a favor; who's available; who's already taken; and who's looking for someone -- information that, from an evolutionary perspective, can mean the difference between failure and success. So, it is certainly possible that evolutionary forces have influenced the development of human capacities for social interaction and the development of culture. While scientists tend to agree about the general role of evolution in culture, there is still great disagreement about its specific contributions.

Learn More
Is Love in Our DNA?

4. How are modern humans and Neanderthals related?

There is great debate about how we are related to Neanderthals, close hominid relatives who coexisted with our species from more than 100,000 years ago to about 28,000 years ago. Some data suggest that when anatomically modern humans dispersed into areas beyond Africa, they did so in small bands, across many different regions. As they did so, according to this hypothesis, humans merged with and interbred with Neanderthals, meaning that there is a little Neanderthal in all modern Europeans.

Scientific opinion based on other sets of data, however, suggests that the movement of anatomically modern humans out of Africa happened on a larger scale. These movements by the much more culturally and technologically advanced modern humans, the hypothesis states, would have been difficult for the Neanderthals to accommodate; the modern humans would have out-competed the Neanderthals for resources and driven them to extinction.

Learn More
Origins of Humankind

5. What do humans have in common with single-celled organisms?

Evolution describes the change over time of all living things from a single common ancestor. The "tree of life" illustrates this concept. Every branch represents a species, each connected to other such branches and the rest of tree as a whole. The forks separating one species from another represent the common ancestors shared by these species. In the case of the relatedness of humans and single-celled organisms, a journey along two different paths -- one starting at the tip of the human branch, the other starting at the tip of a single-celled organism's branch -- would ultimately lead to a fork near the base of the tree: the common ancestor shared by these two very different types of organisms. This journey would cross countless other forks and branches along the way and span perhaps more than a billion years of evolution, but it demonstrates that even the most disparate creatures are related to one another -- that all life is interconnected.

Learn More
Deep Time

6. What happened in the Cambrian explosion?

Life began more than 3 billion years before the Cambrian, and gradually diversified into a wide variety of single-celled organisms. Toward the end of the Precambrian, about 570 million years ago, a number of multicelled forms began to appear in the fossil record, including invertebrates resembling sponges and jellyfish, and some as-yet-unknown burrowing forms of life. As the Cambrian began, most of the basic body plans of invertebrates emerged from these Precambrian forms. They emerged relatively rapidly, in the geological sense -- over 10 million to 25 million years. These Cambrian forms were not identical to modern invertebrates, but were their early ancestors. Major groups of living organisms, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, did not appear until millions of years after the end of the Cambrian Period.

Learn More
Deep Time

 

[AV1611VET]

Yes this leads to incest but that was the only way to populate the earth and God knew this and allowed it.

Don't let them fool you into believing that rhetoric, sis.

If you look at the definition of incest, it is the crime of marrying or having a relation with someone who is a near kin of yours.

Thus it came after the Levitical law that prohibits it.

So incest never existed prior to the law prohibiting it.

Remember our Prohibition Law?

Was everyone who drank whiskey in the decades prior to that law guilty of that crime?

Nope ---

So don't fall for that gag.

 

[GuidanceNeeded]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NOOOOO~~!!~!

We did NOT evolve from monkeys for the last time!!!

WOW throw temper tantrums much?

LOL yeah I feel your frustration. Because that is exactly how I feel when people say I evolved from some common ancestor of a monkey.

 

[Hespera]

Out of curosity, do you find the parting of the Red Sea unlikely?

Just because it doesn't sound feasible, does not mean it didn't happen. I suppose that is why I walk by faith and not sight.

Are you saying the Bible contains errors?

Jump in and comment here... I would bet every cent I could get my hands on, that if we got in a time machine and went back to check for the Red Sea being parted as described, there would be nothing to see.

Would it be time to abandon Christianity, at that point? I wonder.

Regarding what is feasible, plausible and so forth.... there is a lot about geology, genetics, anatomy and so forth that are not easy to understand, impossible without considerable study. But anyhow just coz its snot obvious doesnt mean it didnt happen.

I did put in a lot of study time tho, that is why i accept that which I can learn for myself and directly observe. Nobody gets a pass with me to say that its so just because they say its so. "Faith" doesnt work for me.

The bible obviously contains errors. One type of error is in approximations.
The bit about the value of Pi for example... approximations.

Makes me wonder, how close to exact does it have to be in order to be "true" and how far can it get before it is not "true"? Are there guidelines for this?

 

[Cabal]

As pointed out below, Luke 3:23-38 gives us the family tree

Doesn't really answer the point. We're discussing what would happen if one of the members of the family tree is dubious. I maintain it wouldn't be nearly as big a deal as you make out.

Out of curosity, do you find the parting of the Red Sea unlikely?

Not so much as Adam and Eve, because it was an event confined to a smaller scale. I'm more of a stickler for empiricism when it's on such a large scale the effects of it would be noticeable to believer and nonbeliever alike, so anything involving global geology, or the evolution of mankind across the world.

I do believe Adam and Eve were the only ones on earth, they were told to be fruitful and multiply. Yes this leads to incest but that was the only way to populate the earth and God knew this and allowed it.

Incest aside -

- and btw, to you and AV, I frankly find you resorting to this to justify your viewpoint offensive. Reminds me, again, of Euthyphro's dilemma - is something moral because God commands it, or does God command it because it is moral? I fall in the latter category. I believe if God doesn't want us to do something, it's because it's wrong. Things don't become wrong only when God passes a law against it. There were no laws pre-Moses, but God clearly took a dim view of things like murder etc (Cain and Abel, etc).

Besides, I'm very curious to know why incest is not permissible when God says not to, but "otherwise OK" and so many other disgusting things don't fall under the same category. How do you decide which is ok if not legislated against, and which is always wrong? I'll refrain from being cynical and saying it's purely to prop up your creationist beliefs, although I will say it does sound like you are non-literally interpreting like billy-oh to support them.

But I digress - incest aside, genetically, from what we have now and what we know of the last few thousand years of genetic history, it's just not possible to have the current human population from two sole individuals. And this can be seen by believer and nonbeliever alike. This then implies if we didn't evolve from more than two individuals over a couple of million, why does it look like we did, and not from two individuals over 6000 years instead?

Just because it doesn't sound feasible, does not mean it didn't happen. I suppose that is why I walk by faith and not sight.

Again, not really addressing the point - I was merely pointing out that if the Biblical genealogies fell into question, be it with one generation or all of them, it would NOT unequivocally mean they were all fables. There would be a varying degree of likelihood for each individual, and that would be based on whatever other historical evidence there existed for them. And obviously, that will vary from Biblical figure to Biblical figure.

Are you saying the Bible contains errors?

Well, the two creation accounts don't match, and two genealogies? royal family lines? in Chronicles (or maybe it's Kings) don't match, so it wouldn't be a first.

Isn't anything possible through the works of God?

Sure. But that still leaves unanswered the implications of what God left behind, both empirically and scripturally, after major global physical events like the Creation, the flood etc.

I.e., yes He could have made it such that we descended from two people who were created ex nihilo, in a world that was only 6000 years ago, created ex nihilo.

But WHY would He then leave the world looking like anything but that? Those implications can't be avoided one way or the other.

 

[dad]

Jump in and comment here... I would bet every cent I could get my hands on, that if we got in a time machine and went back to check for the Red Sea being parted as described, there would be nothing to see....

So? You want to bet every cent you have on the totally unknown to science. Others prefer some evidence, records, accounts, etc.

 

[AV1611VET]

Things don't become wrong only when God passes a law against it.

Prior to God's prohibition, the gene pool was so pure one could marry a near kinsman.

In the beginning, when plants and animals didn't carry any mutations at all, this was acceptable; but after the Fall, when mutations started getting into God's creation, it evidently took several thousand years to taint the gene pool enough that God had to legislate a prohibition against it.

And in the case of Cain killing Abel, you may want to re-read that account.

God clearly warned Cain he was about to sin.

 

[GuidanceNeeded]

Well, the two creation accounts don't match, and two genealogies? royal family lines? in Chronicles (or maybe it's Kings) don't match, so it wouldn't be a first.

Why are Jesus' genealogies in Matthew and Luke so different?

 

[Cabal]

Prior to God's prohibition, the gene pool was so pure one could marry a near kinsman.

In the beginning, when plants and animals didn't carry any mutations at all, this was acceptable; but after the Fall, when mutations started getting into God's creation, it evidently took several thousand years to taint the gene pool enough that God had to legislate a prohibition against it.

And in the case of Cain killing Abel, you may want to re-read that account.

God clearly warned Cain he was about to sin.

Firstly, God isn't explicitly commanding Adam and Eve to commit incest, that's all you putting that bit in there -

(btw, it's funny how even after the funky fruit of The Fall messed everything up for us our genes were still so perfect that we could still inbreed? And yet I'm sure the Fall would be invoked by some creationists to explain away all those awkward little DNA fragments that REALLY make it look like we evolved from apes!)

- whereas He explicitly warns Cain, and it's recorded in the scripture that what He is doing is wrong.

Secondly - God still clearly considered murder wrong despite the fact that there was no moral laws put in place yet, and indeed that would not occur for many generations to come. So I'm gonna ask again, how do you decide which acts fall under the OK if not legislated against banner, and which fall under the ALWAYS WRONG banner?

Apart from backing up your creationism of course.

But hey, priorities, right? It's only a bit of incest for several hundred generations!

 

[Cabal]

Why are Jesus' genealogies in Matthew and Luke so different?

I'll read that in a sec, I was actually referring to lists in one of the OT books, but I can't recall which ones....anyway, iirc there's a discrepancy there too.

 

[loveiseverywhere]

WOW throw temper tantrums much?

LOL yeah I feel your frustration. Because that is exactly how I feel when people say I evolved from some common ancestor of a monkey.

I'm frustrated because you won't listen. If you don't want to believe that we evolved from a common ancestor then why are you asking questions when you're not going to accept the answers you're given?

If you really want some answers to your questions, I suggest getting off the computer, going to the bookstore and getting a copy of Creation VS Evolution or the Counter Creationism Handbook. All your questions are in those books and all the answers to those questions are in there. It would save a lot of back and forth.

Secondly, the reason I typed it so large is because you've been told this a million times. Maybe this time you'll remember it.

 

[GuidanceNeeded]

I'm frustrated because you won't listen. If you don't want to believe that we evolved from a common ancestor then why are you asking questions when you're not going to accept the answers you're given?

If you really want some answers to your questions, I suggest getting off the computer, going to the bookstore and getting a copy of Creation VS Evolution or the Counter Creationism Handbook. All your questions are in those books and all the answers to those questions are in there. It would save a lot of back and forth.

Secondly, the reason I typed it so large is because you've been told this a million times. Maybe this time you'll remember it.

No and I will NEVER believe I evolved from "a common ancestor of a monkey", even if told a million and one times. Oh and believe you me even without your large typed words, I do know what you guys say!

And if you read my first posting I am really talking about Adam and Eve and which part you guys start taking the Bible literally or the people of the Bible rather. This thread truly isn't about your common ancestor theory.

God Bless

 

[Jester4kicks]

No and I will NEVER believe I evolved from "a common ancestor of a monkey", even if told a million and one times. Oh and believe you me even without your large typed words, I do know what you guys say!

And if you read my first posting I am really talking about Adam and Eve and which part you guys start taking the Bible literally or the people of the Bible rather. This thread truly isn't about your common ancestor theory.

God Bless

1) It's not his theory.

2) It's good to know you have made up your mind about something and are willing to dismiss any information that contradicts your own world view. It's not often that people like you admit that they are willfully-blind to any information outside of their narrow perspective.

 

[Hespera]

No and I will NEVER believe I evolved from "a common ancestor of a monkey", even if told a million and one times. Oh and believe you me even without your large typed words, I do know what you guys say!

And if you read my first posting I am really talking about Adam and Eve and which part you guys start taking the Bible literally or the people of the Bible rather. This thread truly isn't about your common ancestor theory.

God Bless

I hope that I will never reach the point where i would say "I will NEVER believe .......". That is really kind of sad. I guess its why Im interested in science, I want to know how things really work, I want to know new things.

 

[GuidanceNeeded]

I hope that I will never reach the point where i would say "I will NEVER believe .......". That is really kind of sad. I guess its why Im interested in science, I want to know how things really work, I want to know new things.

Ok I'll change it just for argument sake.

Only if God Himself tells me that evolution is true, will I believe it, but until then, I'm going to continue to believe I am a descendant of Adam and Eve