Could Genesis be literal?

[gluadys]

ok I can't read through all these posts, so I'll just post my answer.

I read the book "The Science of God" by Schroeder and found it absolutely amazing - far better than Collins' book. I love physics and math -- Einstein is still the man.

So the answer is yes - Genesis is literal - but the universe is also 16 billion years old. I'm finally getting some closure on this issue.

Makes sense that your love of physics would respond positively to a physicist's view. That would be another reason for reading John Polkinghorne as well--he is another physicist turned theologian.

Be aware though that precisely because he is a physicist, Shroeder is weak on biology and has a tendency to perpetuate some anti-evolution misrepresentations of evolution.

Interestingly, I also came across a quote from Polkinghorne that expressed some bewilderment, though not disagreement, about the scientific nature of biology. From his physicist's perspective it seemed too messy for good quantification and so not rigorously scientific.

But glad you have found a way forward.

 

[Havilah]

I had no problem with Collin's biology, btw - it was his theology I found terribly lacking.

I will look up Polkinghorne--thanks for the name!

 

[yeshuasavedme]

http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/canon2.stm
​

You reject the canon of historic orthodox Christianity. Simple.

What is the canon list of "orthodox" christianity? Who made the list" when year did they do so and how long after the Church was begun did they do so? who holds to it? why? -and please prove your lists and name the authors of them.
The Hebrew to English of Daniel 10:21 says this;
Daniel 10:21 "I will show you what is written/inscribed/noted in the Scripture of Truth; one/echad binds/chazaq with me in these things, Michael your Prince."

So, I have a few questions for you to answer -if you can.
Where is the Scripture of Truth written, that has written in it the things told Daniel by the angel, which things comprise Daniel, chapters 11 and 12?

Where is the Scripture written that states that in heaven the angels do not marry?
Mar 12:24 And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures... Mar 12:25 For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.

Where is the Scripture written that states that; "he that believes on [the Son of Man] Jesus Christ, that out of his inmost being shall flow rivers of living water"? Jhn 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

And where is it written in Scripture that to Jesus Christ every knee shall bow and every tongue confess?
Rom 14:10 But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Rom 14:11 For it is written, [As] I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. Rom 14:12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

So where in Scripture is this same, written, which Paul quotes about Jesus' Name? -
Phl 2:9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: Phl 2:10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth; Phl 2:11 And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

And where is this said in the "Wisdom of God"; Luk 11:49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and [some] of them they shall slay and persecute:


What does Jesus call "Scripture"?
Why is what Jesus calls Scripture different from what you call Scripture?
Who made Jesus' "canon" list?

-And who wrote the Scripture of Truth which the angel read, and from it told Daniel those things about his people which were written in it?

 

[exquirer]

Makes sense that your love of physics would respond positively to a physicist's view. That would be another reason for reading John Polkinghorne as well--he is another physicist turned theologian.

Be aware though that precisely because he is a physicist, Shroeder is weak on biology and has a tendency to perpetuate some anti-evolution misrepresentations of evolution.

Interestingly, I also came across a quote from Polkinghorne that expressed some bewilderment, though not disagreement, about the scientific nature of biology. From his physicist's perspective it seemed too messy for good quantification and so not rigorously scientific.

But glad you have found a way forward.

Unfortunately biologists are weak on mechanics and informational entropy. Natural selection as defined by economists and biologists is provably insufficient and therefore unnecessary statistically and really.

Classic Darwinian evolution is not gradual owing to the fossil record and the complexities of mechanics, electrodynamics, fluids, chemistry etc... that are found in cells - there is an amazing adaptive machinery at work and just as the darkness of death does not comprehend the light of life, so too an economic system built on saying death (Malthusian doctrine combined with natural selection) is causal in the formation, when the adaptive, intrinsically intelligent pattern of molecules and DNA/RNA (like molecular Word) clearly are, is a huge huge error from everything we know of science in other fields ......

According to Darwin, William Paley was Darwin's best teacher.

ex....

 

[gluadys]

Unfortunately biologists are weak on mechanics and informational entropy. Natural selection as defined by economists and biologists is provably insufficient and therefore unnecessary statistically and really.

Classic Darwinian evolution is not gradual owing to the fossil record and the complexities of mechanics, electrodynamics, fluids, chemistry etc... that are found in cells - there is an amazing adaptive machinery at work and just as the darkness of death does not comprehend the light of life, so too an economic system built on saying death (Malthusian doctrine combined with natural selection) is causal in the formation, when the adaptive, intrinsically intelligent pattern of molecules and DNA/RNA (like molecular Word) clearly are, is a huge huge error from everything we know of science in other fields ......

According to Darwin, William Paley was Darwin's best teacher.

ex....

Yes, Darwin had great respect for Paley, even though he found a better way to explain adaptation.

And biologists are not limited today to the preliminary view of classical Darwinism.

I am watching the new vistas being opened up by evo-devo and theories of self-organization which look at how development is influenced by the actual physical nature of molecules.

I think we are coming into an era when the creative aspects of developing form will be much better understood than they have been to date.

As for informational entropy, I often get the impression that (as with ID), those coming at biology from a mathematical/engineering/computer background do not take into account how some of the specifics of biology affect their theories.

The simple equation of a DNA code to an alphabet, for example, is misleading, for any alphabetical system is capable of generating many sequences that do not qualify as meaningful words. But no DNA codon is without meaning. All possible triplets of DNA say something.

 

[exquirer]

Yes, Darwin had great respect for Paley, even though he found a better way to explain adaptation.

And biologists are not limited today to the preliminary view of classical Darwinism.

I am watching the new vistas being opened up by evo-devo and theories of self-organization which look at how development is influenced by the actual physical nature of molecules.

I think we are coming into an era when the creative aspects of developing form will be much better understood than they have been to date.

As for informational entropy, I often get the impression that (as with ID), those coming at biology from a mathematical/engineering/computer background do not take into account how some of the specifics of biology affect their theories.

The simple equation of a DNA code to an alphabet, for example, is misleading, for any alphabetical system is capable of generating many sequences that do not qualify as meaningful words. But no DNA codon is without meaning. All possible triplets of DNA say something.

Yes - informational entropy is from James Clerc Maxwell and is sort of like the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle (which has a math analogue that applies to all statistics - not just particle physics).

Information entropy limits the ability of organization requiring at some point intelligent selection or judgment - and its a mathematical sort of requirement - its something statistical systems cannot get around - just as with the ability to observe statistically has fundamental limits.

Really great science sees science as limited - our knowledge is fundamentally restricted and as Einstein points out, in awe we comprehend the mystery of the universe.

IMHO its these limits (and how to get around them) that is so fascinating to me at least. And it always requires allot of intelligence and beautiful elegant design to get around these very real constraints......

In business, the worst thing to happen is have your competitor go under - it indicates fundamental market weakness for example. Modern economic theory sees cooperation and negotiation as critical, and this sort of sophisticated theory that is central to our business and economic world, is missing in the Darwinist approach that is taught to us in our youth....

Glad to hear there is a more expansive view coming into biology. Just wish, like General Relativity, the fundamental concepts were taught earlier - ie. we really are very ignorant!

ex...

 

[gluadys]

In business, the worst thing to happen is have your competitor go under - it indicates fundamental market weakness for example. Modern economic theory sees cooperation and negotiation as critical, and this sort of sophisticated theory that is central to our business and economic world, is missing in the Darwinist approach that is taught to us in our youth....

It shouldn't be missing. There has been a lot of focus in the last few decades on the evolutionary advantages of co-operation and "altruism". It may be that the competitive aspects of evolution were over-played in a 19th century ideology of unrestricted laissez-faire capitalism. The modern picture of natural selection is much more nuanced and includes a better understanding of the fitness value of co-operation even on purely Darwinian terms.

 

[exquirer]

It shouldn't be missing. There has been a lot of focus in the last few decades on the evolutionary advantages of co-operation and "altruism". It may be that the competitive aspects of evolution were over-played in a 19th century ideology of unrestricted laissez-faire capitalism. The modern picture of natural selection is much more nuanced and includes a better understanding of the fitness value of co-operation even on purely Darwinian terms.

Glad to hear it. I think the truth is found in adaptation, and as you spoke of earlier, in the sort of advanced mathematical formations.

I actually believe Dawkins is a theist! He would certainly object, but the ancient Church Father "definition" of God was intelligence, simple and compound - intrinsic and infused in the Universe (all things were made through Him that are made).

The rapid adaptation (and it is very rapid from a mechanical/electrodynamic/machine/engineering point of view) that really occurs in nature indicates massive intelligence intrinsic in the universe. Intelligence rapidly adapts, it is not static. The most sophisticated machines possible continuously improve.

However, I think objections to old fashioned Darwinian evolution are not nuanced.

There is a general breakdown in posing a machinery - any machinery - that lacks design because design is inherently beautiful. Good design and beauty go hand in hand and are found throughout nature.

There is an entropic objection to any system that relies on death to be formative for life (as there is a valid theological objection - "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot comprehend it" - "life is the light of men").

ex.....

 

[gluadys]

There is an entropic objection to any system that relies on death to be formative for life (as there is a valid theological objection - "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot comprehend it" - "life is the light of men").

ex.....

I agree. But of course, I don't understand the view that sees evolution as relying on death. Evolution relies on novel variations in DNA and on adaptive selection.

If you didn't have those, no amount of death would generate evolution. And adaptive selection is about surviving in new circumstances, not about dying in them.

So I see evolution as much more closely tied to the forces of life than to those of death.

 

[Mallon]

I see evolution as God's ANSWER to animal death. If life weren't able to adapt to its changing environments, it would all go extinct. Evolution is a blessing, not a curse.

 

[exquirer]

I agree. But of course, I don't understand the view that sees evolution as relying on death. Evolution relies on novel variations in DNA and on adaptive selection.

If you didn't have those, no amount of death would generate evolution. And adaptive selection is about surviving in new circumstances, not about dying in them.

So I see evolution as much more closely tied to the forces of life than to those of death.

I certainly agree with that point of view as well.

But there is allot more than mere survival. Consider for example how plants use photosynthesis to turn massive amounts of CO2 into O2 - a difficult and energy expensive process. It is not conducive to mere survival - to merely survive, evolve a mechanism that uses the sugar and the O2 and keep it for oneself.

But nature is not about selfishness, it is about selflessness. We focus on the fallen as we are fallen.

ex.....

 

[exquirer]

I see evolution as God's ANSWER to animal death. If life weren't able to adapt to its changing environments, it would all go extinct. Evolution is a blessing, not a curse.

Yes - and it is written in Genesis that God raised Adam up from the dust of the ground. So what if it took eons - that is exactly what Scripture teaches.

St. Peter commanded in his Epistle:
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 David taught the same thing in Psalm 90 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

And in Genesis, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and lived past the literal 24 hour day - yet on that day they surely died, because it is a liturgical day - a day we experience every Friday prior to the resurrection on Sunday.

But if time is indeed relative, then the literal view is not wrong because as man we cannot experience a billion years - but we can experience a day, and as St. Gregory said, "God became man so man could become like God" - so both views can be right at the same time.

We have to be able to experience as God man, Jesus Christ, experiences time in the fullness of the Incarnation so that the human nature can be in unconfused union with the Divine nature. But in our time, we measure things correctly as of old - and this confuses us because we have allowed ourselves to forget- we live in that age St. Peter spoke of - and age of excuses to move away from truth.

ex....

 

[gluadys]

But there is allot more than mere survival. Consider for example how plants use photosynthesis to turn massive amounts of CO2 into O2 - a difficult and energy expensive process. It is not conducive to mere survival - to merely survive, evolve a mechanism that uses the sugar and the O2 and keep it for oneself.

ex.....

I don't follow your point. Is there any chemical process of photosynthesis that would not release oxygen? (Chemistry is a long-forgotten high-school course for me.)

 

[shernren]

But there is allot more than mere survival. Consider for example how plants use photosynthesis to turn massive amounts of CO2 into O2 - a difficult and energy expensive process. It is not conducive to mere survival - to merely survive, evolve a mechanism that uses the sugar and the O2 and keep it for oneself.

But nature is not about selfishness, it is about selflessness. We focus on the fallen as we are fallen.

ex.....

No, not actually very selfless; gluadys is right to point out that photosynthesis is chemically bound (hehe) to benefit other life-forms.

Permit a bit of chemistry geeking.

Why is it that we gain energy from food? Most commonly, we get our energy from burning sugar. Sugar has the (simplified) formula of CH2O; burning it in oxygen yields:

CH2O + O2 -> CO2 + H2O + chemical energy

Notice that we've went from having one equivalent of O per C to two equivalents; this process is called (unsurprisingly) oxidation, and it's responsible for releasing the energy latent in sugars.

But how did that energy get into the sugars in the first place? Plants photosynthesize; they get the energy from the sun and stuff it into sugars:

CO2 + H2O + solar energy -> CH2O + O2

Note the pleasing symmetry between this and the earlier equation. In fact, the real genius of photosynthesis is that the plant is able firstly to convert solar energy into chemical energy, in such a way that the chemical energy can be fed right into other cellular machines that use it to put CO2 and H2O together.

Don't think for a moment that I'm trivializing this process. Catching light energy reliably and efficiently in a chemical molecule is an important and difficult goal in organometallic chemistry. Nature accomplishes it with magnesium atoms bundled in the chlorophyll molecule, wrapped up in the most amazing protein scaffolding. Thinking about chlorophyll bundled up in photosystems catching the photons of sunlight inspires the most absurd mental picture in my head: imagine wrapping a hamster up in a man-sized hamster ball, all the better to catch peas being shot at it with a peashooter.

Hamsters aside. The point is that for plants to store energy they have to reduce the carbon: oxygen ratio from 1:2 to 1:1, in a process called (yeah, you guessed it) reduction. Storing energy releases oxygen, just as releasing energy consumes oxygen.

Nifty? Quite. Altruistic? Not really.

 

[exquirer]

No, not actually very selfless; gluadys is right to point out that photosynthesis is chemically bound (hehe) to benefit other life-forms.

Permit a bit of chemistry geeking.

Why is it that we gain energy from food? Most commonly, we get our energy from burning sugar. Sugar has the (simplified) formula of CH2O; burning it in oxygen yields:

CH2O + O2 -> CO2 + H2O + chemical energy

Notice that we've went from having one equivalent of O per C to two equivalents; this process is called (unsurprisingly) oxidation, and it's responsible for releasing the energy latent in sugars.

But how did that energy get into the sugars in the first place? Plants photosynthesize; they get the energy from the sun and stuff it into sugars:

CO2 + H2O + solar energy -> CH2O + O2

Note the pleasing symmetry between this and the earlier equation. In fact, the real genius of photosynthesis is that the plant is able firstly to convert solar energy into chemical energy, in such a way that the chemical energy can be fed right into other cellular machines that use it to put CO2 and H2O together.

Don't think for a moment that I'm trivializing this process. Catching light energy reliably and efficiently in a chemical molecule is an important and difficult goal in organometallic chemistry. Nature accomplishes it with magnesium atoms bundled in the chlorophyll molecule, wrapped up in the most amazing protein scaffolding. Thinking about chlorophyll bundled up in photosystems catching the photons of sunlight inspires the most absurd mental picture in my head: imagine wrapping a hamster up in a man-sized hamster ball, all the better to catch peas being shot at it with a peashooter.

Hamsters aside. The point is that for plants to store energy they have to reduce the carbon: oxygen ratio from 1:2 to 1:1, in a process called (yeah, you guessed it) reduction. Storing energy releases oxygen, just as releasing energy consumes oxygen.

Nifty? Quite. Altruistic? Not really.

I think you missed the forest for the twigs - write the kcal beside those equations.

They have "evolved" a system whereby they take solar energy and:

1. Create allot of sugars whereby we can eat
2. Create allot of O2 whereby we can breath

Both of those processes required allot more energy than the plants get out of it from the sun to merely exist, survive or live. Why didn't they "evolve" a process whereby they used all the energy from the sun to simply grow? Its so simple, basic and obvious - its hard to understand why people miss this.

There are plants which use O2 to burn their own sugars - they are rare but they do exist. Why not Kudzu the planet?

And considering the long nights nearer the Artic....

The basic 18th century economic theory behind Darwinian thought is fundamentally flawed - we don't use it in business, or negotiations, or other disciplines because it doesn't really work.

 

[gluadys]

There are plants which use O2 to burn their own sugars - they are rare but they do exist. Why not Kudzu the planet?

Isn't this a separate process than photosynthesis though? IOW are not such plants using two different chemical processes for two different purposes?

The basic 18th century economic theory behind Darwinian thought is fundamentally flawed - we don't use it in business, or negotiations, or other disciplines because it doesn't really work.

Would it not be more accurate to say that Darwin's proposition of natural selection was explained in terms of the prevailing economic theory than to say it is dependent on that theory?

Nor should we overlook the fact that as economic theory has changed, so has the theory of evolution.

There are certainly worldviews that characterize a culture, an era (a Zeitgeist, if you will) that tends to colour every field of thought from science to politics, from economics to art. But the passing of a Zeitgeist and its replacement by another does not ipso facto mean the politics or science or art so influenced is also outdated. These can often survive to be expressed in the idiom of a new Zeitgeist.

 

[shernren]

There are plants which use O2 to burn their own sugars - they are rare but they do exist. Why not Kudzu the planet?

Not rare. All plants use O2 to burn their own sugars. We just happen to get the leftover sugars and O2.

They have "evolved" a system whereby they take solar energy and:

1. Create allot of sugars whereby we can eat
2. Create allot of O2 whereby we can breath

Both of those processes required allot more energy than the plants get out of it from the sun to merely exist, survive or live. Why didn't they "evolve" a process whereby they used all the energy from the sun to simply grow? Its so simple, basic and obvious - its hard to understand why people miss this.

Because growth has constraints.

Think of photosynthesis as a fuel tank. Why do you need fuel tanks? Because you can only get fuel at certain predetermined points and times, but you need it everywhere at all times. So you stock up.

In the same way, photosynthesis converts solar energy (which no life forms can use directly) into chemical energy (which can be used directly by life). You certainly wouldn't build a car that needs to refuel every 10 minutes. In the same way, photosynthesis converts solar energy into chemical energy at a rate faster than chemical energy can be used so as to create storage capacity. Storage is pretty important. It's why plants can survive the night.

Why not grow faster? Because energy isn't the only thing you need for growth. You also need to be able to pull in nutrients and minerals from the environment, and ultimately that is the limiting variable which controls a plant's rate of growth. Hence when you want a plant to grow faster, you don't shine ten additional lamps on it, you give it fertilizer (just as when you want a car to go faster, you don't double the fuel tank capacity, you change the engine volume).

 

[exquirer]

Not rare. All plants use O2 to burn their own sugars. We just happen to get the leftover sugars and O2.

Not to anywhere near the extent possible. There are certain plants that burn far more than others.

Because growth has constraints.

Think of photosynthesis as a fuel tank. Why do you need fuel tanks? Because you can only get fuel at certain predetermined points and times, but you need it everywhere at all times. So you stock up.

And the overstock took an atmosphere rich in CO2 and turned it into an atmosphere rich in O2 - allot of excess energy. Then the excess carbon was sequestered.

Perfect terraform engineering with adaptable self-replicating and improving machines.

In a pure Darwinian/Epicurean process the CO2 would have remained in balance, the individual life forms would have adapted survival skills to use the excess O2 for their own advantage - very merchantile thinking.

But the reality is very different, a planet was prepared for large mobile intelligent life forms to thrive off of the plant life.....

In the same way, photosynthesis converts solar energy (which no life forms can use directly) into chemical energy (which can be used directly by life).

None you know of.

You certainly wouldn't build a car that needs to refuel every 10 minutes.

No - you don't build a car that runs off solar energy and store excess unless your willing to trade the excess to someone (or something) else.

If you engineer a car on its own individual merits, it is designed to use only that fuel it needs and store only the fuel it needs.

But the plants not only remove CO2, create O2, produce sugars and sequester excess carbon for our cars - that's allot of "waste"!

Again, look at the energy balance - the organizational balance, energy entropy, informational entropy, entropy, entropy, entropy is overcome only by intelligence and living things that have innate intelligence infused in their being.

In the same way, photosynthesis converts solar energy into chemical energy at a rate faster than chemical energy can be used so as to create storage capacity. Storage is pretty important. It's why plants can survive the night.

And sequestered all that fossil fuel for our cars....

Why not grow faster? Because energy isn't the only thing you need for growth. You also need to be able to pull in nutrients and minerals from the environment, and ultimately that is the limiting variable which controls a plant's rate of growth.

Precisely - the atmosphere was once heavily CO2 and it got sequestered.... The oceans where like once soda water, and the plants cleaned them up. After all, we call factories plants for a reason.

Hence when you want a plant to grow faster, you don't shine ten additional lamps on it, you give it fertilizer (just as when you want a car to go faster, you don't double the fuel tank capacity, you change the engine volume).

And the fertilizer is N2 which is taken from the soil and dumped into the atmosphere so that when you light a match .....

ex.....

 

[shernren]

No - you don't build a car that runs off solar energy and store excess unless your willing to trade the excess to someone (or something) else.

If you engineer a car on its own individual merits, it is designed to use only that fuel it needs and store only the fuel it needs.

But the plants not only remove CO2, create O2, produce sugars and sequester excess carbon for our cars - that's allot of "waste"!

Again, look at the energy balance - the organizational balance, energy entropy, informational entropy, entropy, entropy, entropy is overcome only by intelligence and living things that have innate intelligence infused in their being.

And sequestered all that fossil fuel for our cars....

Firstly: removing CO2, producing O2, producing sugars, and sequestering carbon are all integral to the one job of converting solar energy into chemical energy. You can't have one without the other, for purely chemical reasons that really have nothing to do with biology.

Secondly, why would storing excess not be a beneficial process?

By your logic:

- we shouldn't save money, we should constantly be spending as much money as we receive from moment to moment.
- we shouldn't accumulate knowledge, we should only read up about as much as we need to know at any one given time and forego anything irrelevant.
- we shouldn't bother with HR, we only need to train up new leaders at the moment that old ones go.

Storage in itself grants security, which to me is a pretty good benefit. (Just tell those whose financial storage was ravaged in the recent crash that they haven't really lost anything!) Of course, storing things runs the risk of someone stealing your stored things but that's life (hehe), you just put up mechanisms that protect your stores, and the thieves find ways to get around those mechanisms, and so on ...

To take your analogy to its logical limit: if you designed a car that only used as much solar energy as it could get at any one moment and didn't store energy, you would have an expensive hunk of metal that could not move at all for at least half the day.

Another thing to remember is that plants frequently offer chemical energy so that animals will do things for them that they can't do themselves. The evolutionary reason that fruit is delicious and nutritious, for example, is because it causes animals to willingly spread plant seeds far beyond what any individual plant could achieve on its own.

But the third thing to note is that you have not shown that photosynthesis could not possibly have evolved. Yes, photosynthesis is good. It's a fantastic chemical reaction. And from the theistic point of view, God certainly gave this planet a fantastic terraforming system. (Although you have to wonder: if Genesis 1 was literally true, why would God need to use plants to terraform the planet? Oops.)

But evolution is not a statement of (dys)teleology. Yes, photosynthesis is wonderful and works well - that doesn't show that it didn't evolve. Something that is wonderful and works well could have been produced by God by natural means instead of supernatural. And again, just because something benefits other organisms doesn't mean it couldn't have evolved. Are plants better off with photosynthesis than without? Certainly. The fact that animals are also better off doesn't change that one bit.

And the fertilizer is N2 which is taken from the soil and dumped into the atmosphere so that when you light a match .....

Huh?

 

[theIdi0t]

I've kind of been toying with this idea for a few days now, but I'm sure there are holes that I'm not seeing.

Could it be possible that the writer(s) of Genesis fully meant for Genesis to be taken literally? They could have assumed the world really was created in 6 days just as the Egyptians believed Ra literally drug the sun across the skies. Their intent was to establish theological truths that were given by God, but not necessarily clarified by him (how did we get here, when did we get here, etc.). They knew that God created everything and only God created everything but they didn't know how he did it, so they made something up and assumed it was right.

No, I don't believe the writers of Genesis fully meant for the story to be taken literally.

I think the dilemma for many of us, is that we tend to have an anachronistic view of ancient civilizations. We have mechanics and means to explore how we got here. With the age of science came the curiosity for questions of how.

We naively assume that the ancient Hebrews weren't aware of their ignorance of such things, that they lacked a means of determining the how, but yet had some sort of desire to answer that question, and bought any fanciful fabrication as true, without no one wondering how could this dude of possibly known? I mean we have two side by side accounts of the Genesis creation story, they both can't be literally true, unless we engage in some sort of mental gymnastics.

And I'd argue that most of today's humanity doesn't really care too much about the mechanics of created life, on the how we got here. Even for myself who didn't believe in a literal genesis at a young age, learning about the mechanics of how we got here, really wasn't of interest to me, till my curiosity was spiked by those passionate creationism vs. evolution debates. Reflecting on the notions of everyday life, making sense out of trajedy, and suffering kept me occupied enough, that wondering about how we got here was just an excessive luxury.

The only reason we have such a curiosity is that it doesn't take us beating our heads on the wall to contemplate it. If you lived in the harsh and cruel world of the ancient Hebrews, who had to make sense of rampant death, oppression, and suffering, how much stock do you think would be placed in wondering about how we got here? rather than all our thoughts consumed with reflecting on the meaning of why are we here, what is the meaning of this misery, is there any hope remaining among it.

We can afford the luxury of wondering how. For me, an understanding of the how, is just a sort of hobby, a past time, with no real vital impact on my life at all. If I didn't have a means to explore it, I wouldn't be that much curious about it at all.

The assumption the ancients Hebrews cared so much about how, is a claim that not only were they ignorant of the how, but that they were ignorant of their ignorance as well.