Genesis is a lie. Question for christians...

[Harry3142]

Jennimatts-

www.theologywebsite.com/etext/egypt/creation.shtml

This is the creation story that those who were the intended readers of Genesis already knew. They had learned it during their sojourn in Egypt, and until the creation stories of Genesis many of them had accepted it as fact.

This posed a major problem for Genesis' author. In the egyptian creation epic the gods and goddesses had also created all that exists in 6 literal days, but the first five days had been spent creating more gods and goddesses. It was on the sixth day that all animal life was created, including mankind, almost as an afterthought.

So what we read in Genesis is in actuality a rebuttal of what the Hebrews of that time already believed. Its author, whom I accept as Moses, since he would have been intimately familiar with all the egyptian epics, used the first creation story (Genesis 1:1-2:3) to methodically strip everything the people saw around them of its divinity. the sun, moon, and stars were not deities (or the clothes worn by a deity) but merely objects in the sky which provided light. The animals they saw around them, such as falcons, wild dogs, lions, bulls, and crocodiles, were nothing more than other species of animals, rather than their being representations of gods and goddesses.

The pantheon of egyptian gods and goddesses had over 40 deities listed, with each one of them being represented by either a celestial object, or an animal, or a combination of more than one animal. Each of them had been either painted on walls or sculpted into statues. But by the time that Moses reached Genesis 2:3, the only deity that the people could recognize as truly divine was a God that was both a spirit and invisible, so no paintings or statues could ever portray him.

The second creation story (Genesis 2:4-25) was a continuation of the author's rebuttal of the wgyptian creation epic. In that story mankind was merely another animal, and was to see himself as such. At the time that Moses wrote his stories only royalty was believed to be entitled to an afterlife, and that was because they claimed to be the descendants of the mating of gods or goddesses and human beings (sound familiar?).

But Moses set Man apart from all the other species of animals. Only he could converse with God directly. Only he had the authority to name all the other species of animals, a sign of authority at that time. Only he had a special place created where he could live and work comfortably (The Garden Of Eden). Only he had been brought to life by the direct inflow of breath from God himself. And only he had the power to decide whether he would obey God or not. He, and all his descendants, were separated from all other species of animals, and would remain so.

As for the temptation of Adam and Eve by the serpent, the author again took an egyptian epic and sanitized it. That there was a time when all speices of animals, including Man, were equally innocent of what was to be seen as good and what was to be seen as evil, is a 'given'. But at a certain point in Man's past he acquired the knowledge that certain actions were to be seen as beneficial to the society he was a part of, and so were to be seen as good, while other actions were to be seen as detrimental to the society he was a part of, and so were to be seen as evil.

But the story of the fall of Adam and Eve is a 'ripoff'. The serpent was not Satan, but Sebau, the serpent god. Ra, the sun god, engaged Sebau in battle, defeated him, hacked off his hind legs, and bound his front legs together, forcing him to crawl on his belly. This is noted in The Book of the Dead, already used by the egyptians in their religious practices. Moses took this story and attached it to Adam and Eve to illustrate that there had been a time of innocence, but that time was lost forever.

You do not present complicated formulae and calculations to small children and expect them to understand what you're telling them. Instead, you present what you want them to learn in a way that they can comprehend. This is what Moses did. He took the stories that the people were already familiar with, and he sanitized them so as to present one God who had created all that now exists, and who had given Man a special place in his creation, only to have Man betray his trust. That they could understand, and in all probability comprehend what was being told them better than we have comprehended it from our point in time.

 

[Greg1234]

The best simple definition of evolution for living organisms is "descent with modification"

But for there to be change in anything, there must be a descent from the original.

They don't? Anthony says we -- you and I and every other person -- are created. Yet we change quite a bit thru our lifetime, don't we?

Indeed we do!

 

[TasManOfGod]

The Egyptians could quite easily have had the creation story passed down from the descendents of Noah from generation to generation adding to it their own inclination of idol worship. That does not mean that the story originated from Egypt or from any other region or that the fullness of truth on the matter was not revealed to Moses

 

[Greg1234]

This posed a major problem for Genesis' author. In the egyptian creation epic the gods and goddesses had also created all that exists in 6 literal days, but the first five days had been spent creating more gods and goddesses. It was on the sixth day that all animal life was created, including mankind, almost as an afterthought.

This is actually separate, documenting a more foundational creation. There was no "sixth day" in the extract you are reporting from ("On the first of these days Osiris, the eldest son of Nut, was born, and the second day was set aside to be the birthday of Horus (the son of Isis and Osiris). On the third day the second son of Nut was born, dark Set, the lord of evil. On the fourth her daughter Isis first saw the light, and her second daughter Nephthys on the fifth. In this way the curse of Ra was both fulfilled and defeated: for the days on which the children of Nut were born belonged to no year.")


In Hermetic tradition, there are seperate priniciples creating the respective life ("And every God, by his internal power, did that which was commanded him; and there were made four-footed things, and creeping things, and such as live in the water, and such as fly, and every fruitful seed, and Grass, and the Flowers of all Greens, all which had sowed in themselves the Seeds of Regeneration.")


Further, this is not the only Egyptian text on creation, but pertaining to the presentation above, the "craftsmen" would have to be made first ("Plutarch, who was High Priest at Delphi, presents these ideas in his book Isis and Osiris, which was written for the Priestess Clea. Osiris and Isis are the Craftsman and the Nurse, the Creators of the world. Their Son, Horus, is the God of the material world, the organized cosmos. Osiris thinks the Ideas that give Form to the world, but Isis is the Mediator without whom they could not become embodied or substantiated.

We know from the myth that Osiris is torn apart (for the physical world continually renews itself). The Ideas still exist in His Soul, but they are transcendent and cannot directly order our world. However, the Ideas exist also in His Body, where they are immanent. Therefore Isis unites with Osiris' Body, for She desires His Formative Seed and wants to materialize It in Her Body. When She becomes pregnant, She becomes the World Soul, the Principle of Nature (Phusis), and Nature is dependent on Her. As the Chaldean Oracles (fr. 54) state:

and on the Goddess' back is Boundless Nature hung.​

Nature's name, Phusis, comes from phuô, which means to beget, to produce, or to be something or other "by nature."
Still the world is not yet material, but only potentially material, for Nature is the principle of order in the world, but not the material world itself. This order becomes manifest in Matter only when Isis gives birth to Horus. Thus is Primal Matter organized by the Articulated Ideas, the Logos, of the Demiurge through the mediation of the World Soul. In this way we get Proclus' Seven Levels of Reality: Unity (Aiôn), Being (Kronos), Life (Rhea), Mind (Osiris), Soul (Isis), Nature (Pregnant Isis), and Body (Horus).")

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

Mutations and reproduction are parts of natural selection. Natural selection is a 2 step process:
1. Variation (mutations are a source of variation)
2. Selection (which results in differential reproduction).

Now, "designs" have a "particular purpose". Yes, you can get traits by genetic drift, but they don't have a particular purpose. The designs in living organisms -- eyes for seeing, hearts for pumping blood, DNA code for specifying amino acid sequences in proteins, et. -- are the result of natural selection.

Those designs are not results of natural selection,they are a created by God. A process of elimination and changes in allele frequencies does not have the power to create designs,it only affects the combinations of designs that already exist.

It turns out that even sexual selection is related to designs that have a purpose other than attracting a mate.

But they are not physical things, are they? Yet you say they are "realities".

They are spiritual realities. You can call them things,but they are not things in the sense of physical objects.

Remember what I was saying: "Many concepts are true but don't exist as a physical thing. After all, grace is not a physical thing, but you aren't about to discard it as false because of that, are you? How about forgiveness of sins? Is that anything but a concept?"

Are you arguing against what I said or supporting it? It appears to be support.

You seemed to think that,according to my way of thinking,grace and the forgiveness of sins must not be real because they are not physical things. But I never suggested that only physical things were real. I only said that a process is not a physical thing,as in an object. So natural selection should not be called a cause,as if it was something that had weight or mass or power.

BTW, my denomination -- Methodist -- has a different concept of grace than you posted.

If you mean "unmerited gift of salvation",the biblical use of the word grace
does not suggest that it means the gift of eternal salvation on the spot,and that is not how the early theologians of the Church understood it. The unmerited gift is the Spirit of Christ,which strengthens us to persevere in faith and obedience to God's commandments,which includes doing good works.

That is not true. UNLESS you accept atheism a priori as true.

No,I don't have to be an atheist to acknowledge that naturalism excludes the supernatural. That is what defines naturalism,whether in science or philosophy or in one's view of the world.

"Naturalistic" means we cannot comment on the supernatural. What "naturalistic" means is that we don't have to invoke miracle, but we can never exclude "supernatural" as a part of "natural". Unless you an atheist, and then you do the exclusion by faith.

Scientists do exclude the supernatural in their professional explanations. That's why they don't mention God as the creator of living creatures or spirit as the cause behind the processes of living organisms. They know about the idea that God created all things and that life is due to spirit,but they ignore it. Not merely because they can't acknowledge it,but because they choose to reject it.

Isn't reproduction "naturalistic"? What "supernatural" do we say happens during reproduction?

Reproduction is both a natural event and an act of creation by God. It happens by the power of the spirit of God.

What you are doing is, either accidentally or on purpose, trying to muddy the waters between "individuals" and "populations".

I'm not confusing individuals and populations,I'm pointing out the fact that populations exist as individuals. The concept of groups or biological species should not be separated from the fact that they exist and come into existence as individual creatures. They should not be spoken of as if they were rock formations or amorphous pools of genetic material.

Evolution applies to populations. Populations change over the course of generations, but the individuals within the population die with the same alleles that they are born with.

Again,populations exist as individuals. To say that populations change over the course of generations is to say that individuals of one generation are different from those of another generation. But the theory of evolution is not merely about descent with modification,it is a speculative story about how all species have supposedly descended from a common ancestry. The fact that populations are seen to change is some ways does not entail that they have all evolved from a common ancestry. It's like talking about climate change with the implication that it changes for the silly reasons given by advocates of "Green" energy and government control of industries.

Diversity of life refers to getting populations that are different from other populations in the past and present.

That happens through acts of reproduction of individuals,which are acts of creation.

 

[jackmt]

You are correct! if Genesis is not true? Toss the rest out. The same God of Genesis rules the new testament.

Genesis is true and 6 days should be true too. Although the earth could be older due to the fact we do not know how long it sped around the universe before God began working with it.

Right. A day is the spinning of the earth on its axis, not 86,400 seconds as modern man counts it. We don't know how long it took back then. Or even if God's day and night refer to the earth at all, since the sun wasn't created till day 4.

It is meaningless to speak of billions of years before the earth was created, even if you assume eons of time; a year is one earth trip around the sun. Again, the time frame is not modern man's, but God's. How long it took after creation (it was created before the sun) to orbit the sun is probably not the same as now. The speed of light is now known not to be a constant. There is much more to say. Later.

Much of what we think we know now will be proven to be wrong shortly.

 

[Keachian]

Right. A day is the spinning of the earth on its axis, not 86,400 seconds as modern man counts it. We don't know how long it took back then. Or even if God's day and night refer to the earth at all, since the sun wasn't created till day 4.

It is meaningless to speak of billions of years before the earth was created, even if you assume eons of time; a year is one earth trip around the sun. Again, the time frame is not modern man's, but God's. How long it took after creation (it was created before the sun) to orbit the sun is probably not the same as now. The speed of light is now known not to be a constant. There is much more to say. Later.

Much of what we think we know now will be proven to be wrong shortly.

seeing as how we've redefined time to be correlated to the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. We can easily define a year to be 31,557,600 of these so called seconds, the concept of billions of years before the earth was created now has meaning does it not?

 

[jackmt]

seeing as how we've redefined time to be correlated to the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. We can easily define a year to be 31,557,600 of these so called seconds, the concept of billions of years before the earth was created now has meaning does it not?

Assuming consistency, yes. Is there consistency across 'time'? Time is a measure of the rate of observable change. It is not an objective reality.

 

[Keachian]

Assuming consistency, yes. Is there consistency across 'time'? Time is a measure of the rate of observable change. It is not an objective reality.

Objectivity of reality is what theologically gave rise to science in the first place, the reasoning was that God isn't mad therefore we must be able to study it such that it makes sense, basically by saying that reality is not objective to many scientists you're saying that God is insane.

 

[jackmt]

Objectivity of reality is what theologically gave rise to science in the first place, the reasoning was that God isn't mad therefore we must be able to study it such that it makes sense, basically by saying that reality is not objective to many scientists you're saying that God is insane.

Reality is objective. Time is not reality. I can point to a place (objective reality). I cannot point to a literal time. We say that time travels slower in outer space. How can that mean anything if time does not exist? And how can we appeal to constancy of time if time is not constant? The instrument of time (a mental construct) measurement has slowed at a higher altitude.

 

[Keachian]

Reality is objective. Time is not reality. I can point to a place (objective reality). I cannot point to a literal time. We say that time travels slower in outer space. How can that mean anything if time does not exist? And how can we appeal to constancy of time if time is not constant? The instrument of time (a mental construct) measurement has slowed at a higher altitude.

Time is every bit a part of reality as anything else.

Do you worship an insane God?

 

[jackmt]

Time is every bit a part of reality as anything else.

Do you worship an insane God?

Belief that time has an objective reality has come about because of the way we talk about it. It has given rise to many absurd notions, such as time travel. The larger implications go unanalyzed and are fodder for sci-fi. I frequently hear intelligent people say that time is a part of reality, but they never describe it, just assert it. In what manner does it exist or in what manner does it have reality apart from being a mental construct. Does it have location as does 3D space?

 

[Keachian]

Belief that time has an objective reality has come about because of the way we talk about it. It has given rise to many absurd notions, such as time travel. The larger implications go unanalyzed and are fodder for sci-fi. I frequently hear intelligent people say that time is a part of reality, but they never describe it, just assert it. In what manner does it exist or in what manner does it have reality apart from being a mental construct. Does it have location as does 3D space?

it is affected by gravity to a certain extent.

You still haven't answered my question of whether you worship a rational God.

 

[jackmt]

it is affected by gravity to a certain extent.

You still haven't answered my question of whether you worship a rational God.

I take it as a rhetorical question. You haven't told me how time exists.

 

[Keachian]

I could care less about your thoughts on time.

So I'll take it that you believe in a rational God. My next question is why would a rational being create an irrational universe, because to my mind this is what creationists boil the universe down to.

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

Reality is objective. Time is not reality. I can point to a place (objective reality). I cannot point to a literal time. We say that time travels slower in outer space. How can that mean anything if time does not exist? And how can we appeal to constancy of time if time is not constant? The instrument of time (a mental construct) measurement has slowed at a higher altitude.

Time is not visible or tangible but it is real in that the physical world is changing or passing. We do experience a difference between past and present,which implies the passing and changing of reality. Our mental construct of time is based upon our experience of the passing and changing of reality,in particular the revolutions of the sun,moon and earth. Time as a measurement does not exist apart from that context or one like it,because there is no standard of measurement.

 

[jackmt]

Time is not visible or tangible but it is real in that the physical world is changing or passing. We do experience a difference between past and present,which implies the passing and changing of reality. Our mental construct of time is based upon our experience of the passing and changing of reality,in particular the revolutions of the sun,moon and earth. Time as a measurement does not exist apart from that context or one like it,because there is no standard of measurement.

The change is real. Time is simply the tool we invented to measure that change.

Time is likened to many things that are real. We speak of the past, but that is as of things or events having passed by us like a river or another person on a road. That is how abstract concepts are formed; they are abstracted from concrete concepts.

The term time shares roots with "tide" "tidings," pointing to the regularity of events by which people planned their lives. Semantic shift leads to cognitive shift.

There is no past. We cannot go back in time. Time is a mental construct, not a physical reality. Nor is it preternatural like three dimensional space (even space is a trinity) in which everything that is made exists. It is an epiphenomenon; an unintended consequence of the system; an illusion, like a mirage.

 

[Anthony Puccetti]

The change is real. Time is simply the tool we invented to measure that change.

Time is likened to many things that are real. We speak of the past, but that is as of things or events having passed by us like a river or another person on a road. That is how abstract concepts are formed; they are abstracted from concrete concepts.

Time is not a tool we invented. Time is not itself a measurement,it is only measurable. That we can measure change does not make time a mere mental construct. Human ideas of measurement are mental reflections of natural reality.

The term time shares roots with "tide" "tidings," pointing to the regularity of events by which people planned their lives. Semantic shift leads to cognitive shift.

This does not mean that time is a mere mental construct. It only shows that people in simpler cultures thought more in terms of concrete images.

There is no past. We cannot go back in time. Time is a mental construct, not a physical reality. Nor is it preternatural like three dimensional space (even space is a trinity) in which everything that is made exists. It is an epiphenomenon; an unintended consequence of the system; an illusion, like a mirage.

It isn't an illusion. We experience the passing and distance of time throughout our lives,just as we experience spacial distance. We acknowledge moments just as we acknowledge places.

The fact that things are and then are not,or that things change,shows that there is past and present. The fact that events happen,not just one event of being,shows that time is real. The passing of time is the prerequisite for change in the physical world. Change happens because things or realities are of limited duration,which has to do with time.

 

[jackmt]

Time is not a tool we invented. Time is not itself a measurement,it is only measurable. That we can measure change does not make time a mere mental construct. Human ideas of measurement are mental reflections of natural reality.



This does not mean that time is a mere mental construct. It only shows that people in simpler cultures thought more in terms of concrete images.

There is no past. We cannot go back in time. Time is a mental construct, not a physical reality. Nor is it preternatural like three dimensional space (even space is a trinity) in which everything that is made exists. It is an epiphenomenon; an unintended consequence of the system; an illusion, like a mirage.

It isn't an illusion. We experience the passing and distance of time throughout our lives,just as we experience spacial distance. We acknowledge moments just as we acknowledge places.

The fact that things are and then are not,or that things change,shows that there is past and present. The fact that events happen,not just one event of being,shows that time is real. The passing of time is the prerequisite for change in the physical world. Change happens because things or realities are of limited duration,which has to do with time.[/quote]

The passing of time is the prerequisite for change in the physical world. Anthony Puccetti

You have this relationship backwards. Changein the physical world is what we call time.

Your argument does not convince. Tell me exactly what you conceive time to be if not merely a mental construct. It does not have being like objects. It does not have location like space. What properties does it have, where is it, and in what form does it exist? Until you tell me these things, you are merely attempting to prove time exists by repeatedly asserting that it does or stating that it exists for exactly the reasons I say it doesn't.

 

[mathetes123]

It isn't an illusion. We experience the passing and distance of time throughout our lives,just as we experience spacial distance. We acknowledge moments just as we acknowledge places.

The fact that things are and then are not,or that things change,shows that there is past and present. The fact that events happen,not just one event of being,shows that time is real. The passing of time is the prerequisite for change in the physical world. Change happens because things or realities are of limited duration,which has to do with time.

The passing of time is the prerequisite for change in the physical world. Anthony Puccetti

You have this relationship backwards. Changein the physical world is what we call time.

Your argument does not convince. Tell me exactly what you conceive time to be if not merely a mental construct. It does not have being like objects. It does not have location like space. What properties does it have, where is it, and in what form does it exist? Until you tell me these things, you are merely attempting to prove time exists by repeatedly asserting that it does or stating that it exists for exactly the reasons I say it doesn't.

Does gravity exist, or is it a mental construct? How about our thoughts? They don't have form, substance or location, and yet we use them to formulate arguments to deny the creator who gave us the ability to conceive them.