Genesis to be Taken Literally?

70x7 · Dec 29, 2008

Genesis SHOULD be taken seriously!
Why wouldnt it? Because it seems illogical to us?
To deem the first page of the first book of the Bible would open the door to take the rest of the Bible tongue in cheek. God said it, it should be taken as such.

But is there something in particular that was in question? I can give a better more specific answer on why we should if so

mark kennedy · Dec 29, 2008

DontSpamMeBro said:
Hey all,

just signed up because I couldn't find any books I liked on whether or not the first chapters in Genesis are supposed to be taken literally. Obviously there are some differing opinions, but I was hoping I could get some good book recommendations to educate me on the subject and what the current leading theories are and why.

Links and such would also be appreciated as well, but in general the more in depth information I can get the better.

Thanks.

This place has some pretty interesting books on the subject but Creationists tend to write in more of an essay style then the kind of expositional study you are suggesting. www.creationism.org · BOOKS

Genesis clearly is focused on the generations from Adam to the early years of the children of Israel (Jacob) in Eqypt. Actually, you might want to consider how literally an historical narrative should be taken when written in the poetic prose of the ancient Hebrews. Just think about this, the first 11 chapters focus on four events, Creation, Fall, Flood and Table of Nations. Then for another 39 chapters it focuses on 4 key individules; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. If the people are taken literally and we have every reason to believe they are, why not the events?

Assyrian · Dec 29, 2008

busterdog said:
They are probably not comparable in terms of the time spent in working out the scientific bugs. Far fewer man-hours (and grants) have been invested in creationism. The latter is probably as not as elegant and refined as a field of study. However, that does not make the challenges to the conventional model any less staggering and revolutionary. Progressing science proves the assumptions are enormous.

I don't know. It is not as if creationists lack manpower, resources, or commitment. It has been 150 years since Origin was published, about 220 years since Hutton. You would think creationism would have come up with some sort of decent answer in that time. If there was one.

There are really two core issues here.

One is that I just generally dont buy into grand equations with large numbers, except as, very strictly, theories. Theories generally are not the same as proof. Proof is what excludes competing theories. The Big Bang has huge issues with its underlying assumptions.

The dark energy problem is a valid recognition of ciphers in the overall math, but if one is to assume that this energy must only manifest in a certain way, at that point we are doing the imagination thing and condemning other competing theories because they dont fit the dream.

Whether one looks at an electric universe or some other outlandish model, there is indeed alot energy manifest in terms of its results.

In sum, cosmology involves impossibly grandiose assumptions. They are so grandiose that there should be freedom to re-arrange what is assumed to be constant and what is assumed to be an enormous and wildly fluctuating variable -- which dark energy represents.

As I said in my last post, you are comparing a theory about an event at the very limits of our ability to investigate, at the very edge of observable universe, with well established and tested study of the earth's history.

The second issue is the conservation of energy issue. Many theoreticians who dont even like Setterfield do lots of interesting math that doesnt even find mass to be constant in fundamental particles. This is used to account for some of the observed phenomena, such as red-shift. You are also aware that conventional science has started to document and explore the frontier of variation in dimensionless constants. It is hard to image a less reliable and stable science than one in which such things are so changeable. It certainly allows for interesting theories, but it is pretty laughable as a method of deriving dogma to exclude the competition. All other things are not equal in such a universe -- necessarily -- and as such, there is no reason why one cannot conserve energy when the rate of atomic decay, for example, is increased.

The rate of decay does not effect the energy released per decay. You can drive your car at 5 mph or 240, the same amount of energy will be released by the combustion of a gallon of petrol. You might use it less efficiently, but energy is conserved. The whole Creationist polonium halo argument relies on the same energy being released per decay. The problem is as shernren pointed out, if you have all the decay we find in the geological record happening over billion of years, the earth has time to dissipate the energy. Run it all at high speed after Genesis 3 and the earth melts. What would happen your car if all the energy in the petrol was released in one second?

gluadys · Dec 29, 2008

70x7 said:
Genesis SHOULD be taken seriously!

Of course, it should--whether or not one takes it literally. Christians who do not take Genesis 1 literally still take it very seriously.

busterdog · Dec 29, 2008

Assyrian said:
The rate of decay does not effect the energy released per decay. You can drive your car at 5 mph or 240, the same amount of energy will be released by the combustion of a gallon of petrol. You might use it less efficiently, but energy is conserved. The whole Creationist polonium halo argument relies on the same energy being released per decay. The problem is as shernren pointed out, if you have all the decay we find in the geological record happening over billion of years, the earth has time to dissipate the energy. Run it all at high speed after Genesis 3 and the earth melts. What would happen your car if all the energy in the petrol was released in one second?

But, if the mass of gasoline in the tank changes and you burn the entire mass within the same period of time, now you have something completely different.

As for changing constants, argue with Scientific American.

Or Arp.

http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/is_physics_changing

Imagine my reaction when reading a book review in Physics Today I caught a glimpse of the words low mass electrons. It turned out to be "Selectivity and Discord" a book by Allan Franklin 7 about controversial experiments some of which were ultimately accepted and some of which were rejected. The introduction to the chapter on low mass electron-positron states read: . . . the earliest results were all thought to be in sufficient agreement to support the existence of the electron-positron states . . . . Eventually the results were shown to be incorrect. The consensus is that there are no low mass electron-positron states. Franklin shows enough of the observed peaks observed in high energy heavy element collisions in accelerators to indicate the strength of the evidence. Some of them fit ratios of quasar redshift peaks. I can only remark that low mass electrons from nearby galaxies or quasars would be expected to show peaks at certain preferred values. Low mass electrons from higher redshift objects would have displaced peaks. In addition, this younger material is ejected intermittently in different directions from notoriously variable centers. I wonder why it was not possible just to say we do not have an explanation for these laboratory observations but perhaps it will become clearer as time goes on. Somehow I am reminded of the remark that some scientists would rather be wrong than uncertain. It seemed like a rather bitter controversy with damage done to some participants.

Here is a dispute about the variable mass of electrons!

So, like I said in response to the OP, lets change some of other numbers to balance the equations. Just shorten up the time and mess with the mass (or something else, like c).

And Arp doesnt like the Setterfield model.

shernren · Dec 30, 2008

busterdog said:
Here is a dispute about the variable mass of electrons!

So, like I said in response to the OP, lets change some of other numbers to balance the equations. Just shorten up the time and mess with the mass (or something else, like c).

And Arp doesnt like the Setterfield model.

Without knowing which experiments Arp is citing I have no idea what he's talking about; in basic advanced physics*, however, there is the notion of "effective mass" which might be (suitably misinterpreted, of course) the source of Arp's confidence.

Imagine a see-saw with an adult on one end and a kid on the other. It turns out that sometimes it's a lot simpler to model this system by replacing both adult and kid with a single mass, the "effective mass", at just one point along the see-saw. Similarly, when you treat a system with a negative electron and a positive nucleus, an ordinary analysis would have to take into account not only the fact that the electron moves around the nucleus but that the nucleus wobbles around a bit because it is drawn to the electron. You can get around this (IIRC) by pretending that the nucleus is stationary and that the electron has a reduced mass. But this reduced mass isn't physically real, and pushing the theory too hard in that direction gives results which are wrong right here and now in the lab.

Also, we've been over this article before. The value of the Hubble constant is known today to be about 70-80 km/s/Mpc. Therefore, if Narlikar's theories predict a slope of about 50, then they are - how do we put this subtly - wrong.

*"Basic advanced physics" may seem like an oxymoron but it is a perfectly valid phrase, being what most undergraduate physics students emerge with a good grasp of. The boundary between basic and advanced advanced physics is neatly delineated by the work of science popularizers: thus, for example, you will see popular books describing the general theory of the Big Bang using language suitable for the general populace, but none describing, say, the relative importance of the various parameters in the Lambda-CDM model.

Most science popularizers will stop short of advanced advanced physics, recognizing that some things just can't be explained without jargon. And I give up too.

busterdog · Dec 30, 2008

shernren said:
*"Basic advanced physics" may seem like an oxymoron but it is a perfectly valid phrase, being what most undergraduate physics students emerge with a good grasp of. The boundary between basic and advanced advanced physics is neatly delineated by the work of science popularizers: thus, for example, you will see popular books describing the general theory of the Big Bang using language suitable for the general populace, but none describing, say, the relative importance of the various parameters in the Lambda-CDM model.

Most science popularizers will stop short of advanced advanced physics, recognizing that some things just can't be explained without jargon. And I give up too.

That is the beauty of dimensionless constants for popularizers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbVKWCpNFhY

You can always make it go one more -- to 11.

Assyrian · Dec 30, 2008

Probably why God went for the BIG bang.

busterdog · Dec 31, 2008

Assyrian said:
Probably why God went for the BIG bang.

That's an 11 in my book!

Genesis to be Taken Literally?

70x7

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mark kennedy

Natura non facit saltum

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Assyrian

Basically pulling an Obama (Thanks Calminian!)

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gluadys

Legend

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busterdog

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shernren

you are not reading this.

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busterdog

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Assyrian

Basically pulling an Obama (Thanks Calminian!)

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