Questions Evolutionists can't answer

[Febble]

Perhaps…

…in the beginning, God was no size at all. Because there was no Space. And no age at all, because there was no Time.
God just was.

And perhaps, because she was lonely, God grew.
And when God grew, Time and Space exploded into being.
Stuff at colossal temperatures shot outwards, clumping into clouds of burning gas and splashes of red hot liquid. Suddenly God was everywhere, because there was everywhere to be.

And God called Time and Space her Universe.
Time passed. Space spread. But still, God was lonely.
(And, with so much Time on her hands, she might even have been a little bored.)

God sighed, and said to the glowing clouds:
“Do you like this Universe I’ve made for you?”
But the clouds said nothing at all.
God said to the splashes of red hot liquid:
“Do you like this Universe I’ve made for you?”
But the splashes of liquid said nothing at all.

God waited.
The glowing clouds shrank into hot shining stars. Each hurtling drop of red hot liquid cooled, and grew a rocky crust. Some went spinning round the stars, becoming planets.

“Now this is getting interesting”, said God to herself.

And God said to the stars:

“Do you like the shining light the glowing clouds have lit for you?”
The stars said nothing at all. But God thought perhaps she heard them singing, high and faint, across the Universe.

And she said to the planets:

“Do you like the rocky mountains that have cooled to cover you?”
The planets said nothing at all.
But there was a roaring and rumbling, as the mountains threw out great fountains of molten lava, and clouds of ash, and steam, and sulphurous vapours.

From the mountain clouds, rain fell upon the surface of the planets.
God said to the rain:

“Do you like falling from the clouds that the mountain tops have made for you? Will you flow into great lakes and seas for me?”
But the rain just rained, and said nothing at all. Except on one planet, where God thought she heard the rain whisper “yes…yes…yes”.

Although it might have been her imagination.

God loved that planet, where the rain had spoken to her.
And she called it Earth, because she hoped that something interesting would grow in it.

Earth grew cooler still, and more rain fell from the mountain clouds. Icy comets crashed into Earth, and melted. Soon the mountains were running with rivers flowing into lakes, and seas, and oceans.

God said to Earth:

“Do you like the rivers and lakes, the seas and oceans the skies have made for you? Do you like being watered by the rain from the mountain clouds? Will you grow something for me?

Earth said nothing. But when God listened very closely, she could hear a muffled bubbling.

Hot lava was squeezing up through the rocky crust at the bottom of the oceans, heating the water, and squirting rich minerals into the muddy mixture.

God said to the boiling mud at the bottom of the oceans:

“Do you like these hot rich minerals the Earth has given you?”
The mud said nothing at all.

But God waited patiently. And something happened.

Something moved.
All by itself.

“Come out” coaxed God. “Come and talk to me.”
And though the creature said nothing, it wiggled a little. And divided in two.

“Well,” said God, “this is interesting”.

She watched and waited. Each creature divided into two more, and soon there were hundreds, and thousands, and millions of little creatures swimming around in the mud, feeding on the bubbling minerals, all alike. Or were they? Not quite. Some were a little different. One had a tail. It divided into two more, each with tails. Now there were hundreds with tails, and some had mouths as well. Some started to chase and eat each other. The longer God watched, the more kinds of creatures she saw.

God said to the creatures:

“Do you like the rich warm mud that feeds your wiggling bodies? Are you happy? Does it hurt when someone bites your tail?”

But the creatures said nothing. They went on chasing each other, and dividing into more and more creatures, until there were so many different kinds that God nearly lost count.
And some of them were green.

God especially liked the green ones. They rose to the surface, and basked in the sun, and instead of feeding on minerals on the muddy bottom, they fed on sugar they made themselves out of sunlight and carbon dioxide from the volcano vapours. And best of all, as they made the sugar, they also made oxygen– pure fresh air!

God said to the tiny green plants:

“Do you like the light the sun shines down on you? Are you happy? Will you make more clean fresh air for me?”

The green plants said nothing at all. But they carried on dividing, and making more sugar and fresh air. Soon the skies and the foamy seas around the Earth were filled with oxygen, and all the ocean creatures kept dividing and dividing, until, from shore to shore, there were billions of them.
God looked closely. She saw that some had little feet. Near the shore where the water was shallow, they used their feet to cling to the rocks. Some grew long tentacles, and caught passing creatures for food. Some had several feet, and walked along the rocks. Some moved by squirting water. Some grew flippers and fins.

God said to the sea shore creatures:

“Do you like the shores the land and sea have made for you? The rock pools left by the tide where the sun warms the water for you? And all the different creatures you have to chase and eat? Are you happy?”
The sea shore creatures said nothing at all, but went on chasing each other, eating each other, and producing more and more of each other, until the rock pools were very crowded.

Some kinds were born who could trap water, and survive high up on rocks that the tides left dry each day. Some kinds were born who could breathe the fresh air the plants had made, and whose feet could carry them over the dry rocks to land.

And meanwhile, the deep sea animals and plants went on growing, with new kinds appearing all the time. Enormous ammonites with shells and tentacles. Soaring sea weeds that waved in the sunlit waters.

Plants grew on the land too, and in the forests, the creatures grew tall. Some ate leaves. Some ate each other.

God said to the great land creatures:

“Do you like the forests the plants have sown for you? The sun that warms your bodies? The cool fresh air the plants have made for you to breathe?
“Does it hurt when you fight each other? Do you weep when your friends are eaten?”

And the great creatures roared with pain and anger. But still they said nothing.

Then, one day, a terrible thing happened.

A gigantic rock from Space smashed into Earth. The forest caught fire with the heat of the impact, and black smoke hid the sun. Earth grew cold and dark. Plants died, because without sunlight, they could make no sugar. Plant-eaters died, because there were not enough plants to eat. Meat-eaters died, because there were not enough plant-eaters to eat.
God saw the devastation, and she wept.

“Oh my creatures!” she cried, “how can I comfort you?”

But the creatures said nothing at all.

Earth was still. Or almost. Something stirred on the cold ashen floor of the forest. Small furry creatures, who made their own body heat, and kept warm and snug at night inside their fur.

The furry creatures had survived. Their fur, and their own body heat, had kept them warm. Seeds had survived, and green shoots poked through the blackened soil.

Slowly, the forests grew again. And life was good, with the great angry creatures gone.

God said to the furry creatures, as their babies fed contentedly on their mothers’ milk:

“Do you like the peaceful forest the Space rock left for you? Do you like the milk your mothers make for you? Do you love your babies?

And, though the animals said nothing, they purred, softly.

The babies grew, and had babies of their own. Most looked like their parents. But some were a little different. Some were born with hands that were good for climbing. Some with tails that were good for balancing. Some had no tails at all. Some could make loud shrieks to warn each other when danger threatened. Some learned how to poke tasty ants out of rotten logs with sticks, and they showed their children how to use the sticks too.

God said to these clever creatures:

“Do you like your forest home? The fruit on the trees? The ants in the logs? Your families? Do you weep when your children grow and leave you?”
The clever creatures said nothing, but their eyes shone.

“Well”, thought God, “these are the cleverest creatures in my Universe, but still no-one has answered my questions”.

And she sighed, and she waited.

And waited.

A baby was born. The baby became a child. The child thought about the tasty ants, and the sticks he licked them from. He thought about his mother, and the sweet milk she gave him. He thought about the trees, and the fruit he ate from them. And he looked up at the stars in the midnight sky, shining on him from across the Universe. And he heard them singing.

God said to the child:

“Do you like the shining Universe I’ve made for you? Do you like the fruit from the trees, and your mother’s milk? Do you like the ants you poke from the logs with your stick?”

And the child answered
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“I do too” said God.
“And I love you most of all, because you love what I love.”

And then God asked the child:

“And do you hurt when you fall, and do you weep when you are lonely?”
“Yes”, said the child.

“I do too,” said God. “And now we can comfort each other.”

And through the child’s ears God heard the stars singing, and through the child’s eyes God saw the shining skies. On the child’s tongue, God tasted the ants, and in the child’s throat, God felt the sweet juice from the fruit trees. In the child’s bones, God suffered the pain of the child’s fall, and in the child’s tears, God wept with grief.

And God was not lonely any more.

God said:

“Dearest child - will you lend me your hands, and your strong young legs as well? Will you look after my beautiful Earth for me? Will you keep the rain clean, and the skies clear, and the forests green and bright? And all the creatures that roam the land and seas, eating each other and being eaten - even though they do not answer my questions, they are all precious to me, and they are your brothers and sisters and cousins – will you love them, as I love you?”

And the child thought in deep silence.

But all he would say was:
“Perhaps....”

 

[Assyrian]

A "I dont believe that" would have been entirely satisfactory.

There was really no call for sarcasm.

Hardly sarcasm, I just thought a corny old school yard pun would lighten the mood

 

[laconicstudent]

<length essay snipped>

You used the wrong gender pronouns.

 

[Febble]

You used the wrong gender pronouns.

That matters?

I could have used either, but the feminine one seemed to work better in that way of looking at "theistic evolution". I wrote it a while back for my small son, when he wanted to understand how theistic belief might be compatible with modern scientific understanding of origins. Also the idea of the Fall.

 

[Ayersy]

Perhaps&#8230;

That's alot more comforting than my story.

Loads of stuff happens by chance...

There's this big place, like, really big. Like... MEGA HUGE. More hugererer than anything you can imagine. It goes on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.

Within this place, loads of junk happens. Stuff explodes, gravity noms alot of junk, and various points in between. There's stars and stuff, too, called suns, they generate heat and light, they're kinda handy.

At some point, through means we ain't exactly certain of, gravity pulled loads of mass together to form planets. Oh yeah, gravity also did this before, it's cool like that, and gravity also makes sure that all these planets orbit the suns, because that's just the kinda swell non-entity that gravity is.

Anywho, at some point, some non-sentient micro-organisms were all sitting around on a recent planet gravity had chunked together, called Earth, and they were like "I'm bored, yo, let's get to multiplying.", and so they did, and a long time later, their descendants had grown to be something far more interesting than they were. This tradition carried on until eventually, the internet was invented.

Then everyone sat around on Facebook.

The end.

I think your's is a tad more well written.

EDIT: Whoops. Sorry about this, forgot what part of the forum I was in. Haha, the humour on this thread distracted me too much.

 

[crawfish]

Wow, you are very perceptive
I didnt answer your question

Best thread tuck and run EVER!

 

[Papias]

Febble, that's awesome. Have you considered publishing it, or making it more available? What about an illustrated storybook for kids? I could see this finding a place in many sunday schools at churches where reality is not denied.

A few minor scientific things would need to be fixed, but those are small (such as: the stuff to make rocky planets had to be fused from hydrogen in stars, and didn't come straight from the Big Bang, which produced only H, He, an a trace of Li).


Papias

 

[Monarchist]

Best thread tuck and run EVER!

Tuck and run?

Do I have to answer every question I am asked
Am I suppose to have an answer for every question I am asked

Why dont you outshine me crawboy and answer the question for me
Why dont you step up and give me a serve of your knowledge instead of a serve of arrogance

Cmon buddy
Tuck and run

 

[crawfish]

Tuck and run?

Do I have to answer every question I am asked
Am I suppose to have an answer for every question I am asked

Why dont you outshine me crawboy and answer the question for me
Why dont you step up and give me a serve of your knowledge instead of a serve of arrogance

Cmon buddy
Tuck and run

Why don't you admit that you can't answer the question?

I can. The Tree of Life existed because man needed to eat of it to not die. By an extremely simple jump in logic, it's obvious that if he did not eat of it he would die. What does that mean? That death was possible in the world before the fall.

You can believe the bible, or you can continue to ignore the obvious problems with your theology. You would seem to be reading your theology INTO the bible rather than reading your theology OUT of the bible.

p.s. I was just being funny. I didn't think you would return to this thread, and I'm a bit surprised and impressed that you did.

 

[Monarchist]

Why don't you admit that you can't answer the question?

I can. The Tree of Life existed because man needed to eat of it to not die. By an extremely simple jump in logic, it's obvious that if he did not eat of it he would die. What does that mean? That death was possible in the world before the fall.

You can believe the bible, or you can continue to ignore the obvious problems with your theology. You would seem to be reading your theology INTO the bible rather than reading your theology OUT of the bible.

p.s. I was just being funny. I didn't think you would return to this thread, and I'm a bit surprised and impressed that you did.

You want me to admit I cant answer the question do yah
Not a genius I guess there fella. I thought my comment made it VERY obvious that I didnt have an answer, I thought

I guessed logicaly people would understand my inferance. Having read your logic I see why I was wrong
So God said "Dont eat of the tree of life" but you are saying that if they dont eat what he has forbiden them they will die..... and you call that logical
Hmmm I am impressed, after all those naive comments and your rude arrogant smugness you would reply to me
Cheers Craw

 

[ivebeenshown]

Febble, that's awesome. Have you considered publishing it, or making it more available? What about an illustrated storybook for kids? I could see this finding a place in many sunday schools at churches where reality is not denied.
Papias

That is unsettling to me.

Is the foundation of the body of Christ not the prophets and the apostles with Christ himself as the chief cornerstone? Is it not written: "Let God be true and every man a liar?"

Also, to repeat a question:

Please. Misinterpretations like that make the Bible look silly. Aside from the obvious problems (like what did gulper eels eat, or what were spider webs for), there are so many other problems with the all-vegan world idea that I don't know where to start.

Simple math might be a good place. A praying mantis lays hundreds of eggs per season. If all of those live (because there is no death), then from 1 mantis pair in year 1, you'll have:

Year: Number of Mantids:
1 2
2 200
3 20000
4 2000000
5 2E+08
6 2E+10
7 2E+12
8 2E+14
9 2E+16
10 2E+18
11 2E+20
12 2E+22
13 2E+24
14 2E+26
15 2E+28
16 2E+30
17 2E+32
18 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (just to show what kind of numbers we have)
19 2E+36
20 2E+38

So that means that by around year 12, mantids cover the earth to the depth of 1 mile, and by year 16, the writhing mass of mantids engulfs the moon, expanding at an ever increasing speed to engulf the sun the next year and the whole solar system (including the Kuiper belt) the year after that. The mantisplosion! Things go even faster for many other insect species, because the reproduce faster.

Silly? Of course it is. Things get silly when one mistakes a metaphor for a literal statement, like having pomegranate on one's face or livestock on one's chest.

Papias

Why would there be twenty years before the fall?

 

[crawfish]

You want me to admit I cant answer the question do yah
Not a genius I guess there fella. I thought my comment made it VERY obvious that I didnt have an answer, I thought

I guessed logicaly people would understand my inferance. Having read your logic I see why I was wrong
So God said "Dont eat of the tree of life" but you are saying that if they dont eat what he has forbiden them they will die..... and you call that logical
Hmmm I am impressed, after all those naive comments and your rude arrogant smugness you would reply to me
Cheers Craw

They were forbidden from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, NOT the tree of life. Have you read the account before?

 

[Papias]

I've been wrote:

That is unsettling to me.

Is the foundation of the body of Christ not the prophets and the apostles with Christ himself as the chief cornerstone?

Why is that more unsettling to you than the presence of a book showing the earth going around the sun, or of a spherical earth in a Sunday School? I never said it should be the only or even the main book, and as such does not disagree with your statement. Febble's account includes God in a way that is also in agreement with reality. Is that not exactly the kind of stuff that should be in a sunday school?

I have answered that question, and have been waiting since post #54 for your reply. I'm sorry you missed that.


Papias wrote, in post #54:

Ive been wrote:

Why would there be twenty years before the fall?
​

So are you saying that God designed a world he knew couldn't work for more than a matter of months, on purpose? And would you call that a good design?

Papias

Papias

 

[shernren]

Hey Febble,

I do like your account of creation. I have issues with it, but in the best traditions of Christian criticism I should start with the positive. I think it is a very helpful corrective to the anthropocentrism of contemporary culture, which argues: if the world revolves around me, it must by extension revolve around humanity. It is a powerful description of the significance of creation in a universe in which we are but a pale blue dot - yet what a dot we are!

And of course, trying to pin down the theology of an artistic expression can be a self-defeating task. Yet there are three things I must take task with in your description of creation. Since it is the start of all things, its accurate theology is of paramount importance.

1. God is not motivated by loneliness, but by loveliness.

I think it's no coincidence that your tale is not very explicit about the Trinitarian nature of God. If we conceive of God only as a unitary essence/existence, it is no surprise that we may imagine God to be lonely. A solitary monad, alone in all existence, with nothing else to do or be or talk to - no wonder He created!

And yet the provocative mystery of the Bible is that God is in Himself community. It is never spelled out for us in as many words, of course. Go too far with that truth and you end up in the error of polytheism. But we learn that "God is love", and that "God cannot change", and that He was active and alive even before the foundations of creation. How can God be love before there is anything else to love, unless He is in Himself always the Lover, the Love, and the Loved, in perfect harmony?

So God is never lonely, but always lovely. Both the lonely person and the lovely person live outward-oriented lives - but their orientation has differing significances. Loneliness is driven by incompleteness, and looks outwards to find things with which to fill that incompleteness. That is why, even though our human loneliness can help us overcome our selfishness, it often doubles back and only reinforces it: the person who is lonely outside a relationship often becomes possessive and uncaring inside one.

But loveliness points outwards, not because it is incomplete, but precisely because it is complete: it wants others to share in its completion. It is sincere because it desires nothing but the happiness of the other, and that because it does not need anything in response from the other - precisely because it is complete. This then is the outward orientation of the Trinity: creating not because He needs to, but in the purest and most sincerest way of lovingly wanting to.

There is another sense in which the Trinity is vital to the idea of God's free creation. The creation is the gift of the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the Son who honors the Father in all creation. We are told that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow - at the name of Yahweh Saves. But why not at the name of Yahweh? Why not at the name of the Father? It is because creation is given not to the Father but by the Father to the Son. In light of sin, then, the Son is told to wait a little while - to wait until the Church, now sullied and blemished, is made a perfect bride once more for the Son, in the perfect will of the Father. Creation, then, is not just an expression of love from God to creation, but an expression of love from God to God.

2. Creation is not silent; it rejoices!

In your story, creation progresses from the dumbness of cold space and bare rocks to humanity which can finally speak back to God. It is true that humans can uniquely reciprocate the love of God.

Yet creation is not silent! The heavens proclaim the glory of God; their preaching goes forth in every tongue to every land. Even the stars, simple balls of glowing gas as they are, bear testimony to God's power. Does God not hear their praises as well as He hears ours?

Moments after the universe began, it was filled with a hot plasma, in which photons could not travel very far without being absorbed by charged particles. Their energy was passed back and forth, creating massive pressure waves that swept the universe. The roars continued until the fateful moment when the universe cooled down enough for electrons and baryons to combine and start producing neutral atoms: now the photons could escape! But the very last roar before that moment was forever frozen into the architecture of space, much like the ripples in a bucket of water would be preserved if it was flash-frozen fast enough. Just today we are beginning to see the traces of these "baryonic acoustical oscillations" in the large-scale structure of the universe. I like to think of the universe, then, as beginning like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: a cluster of loud, resounding notes, followed by a pregnant silence that finally gave rise to our own soft, murmuring parts.

The universe was able to sing to God right from its beginning; and in the orbits of planets around their stars, of galaxies around their supercluster cores, of every little electron wandering around every last nucleus, it has never stopped. Humanity is hardly the pinnacle of that pattern; indeed, if anything, humanity has been silenced by sin. In the entire singing universe, we are a pale blue dot of great rebellion that refuses to join in: in C.S. Lewis' haunting terms, we are The Silent Planet.

3. God is not female.

He is not male either! Nevertheless the feminists are going to start tearing into me. I'll only say that I can be persuaded to think differently about this point, and also that it is the most culture-dependent of theological points in how we think about God.

Nevertheless, even though the Bible does give God female attributes and actions (so that He broods like a hen over creation and - in the person of the Son - over Jerusalem, and cannot forget Israel any more than the mother can forget her suckling child), His description is predominantly male. I do not believe that this is accidental. Is it culture-dependent? By all means - and yet the culturally-dependent expression must surely contain some culture-independent truth.

The truth is that God is the great initiator. In a society where it is increasingly acceptable for women to initiate, whether in education, career, or relationships, it may seem archaic to call God "Him" based on just that. I will grant that gendering God may not be the best expression in a world heading towards gender equality.

But it was a suitable expression in a world of gender asymmetry. In a world where men led and women followed, it was surely significant that God should be a He. There were fertility goddesses, so that a She-deity was not unthinkable. But a fertility goddess can only, at the end of the day, be a receiver. She receives into incompletion, and loves only after being loved. (I again speak in the language of those old stereotypes, without endorsing them.) Just as the land is parched and unproductive without rain, so the Earth Mother is impotent and barren without the input of an initiating god.

That is a role which God does not enter. God is in and of Himself power (though it is the power not to destroy or to enslave, but to love justly). He desires companionship, without being incomplete without it. He initiates the process of causing creation to exist, even before there was a creation that could desire existence; He upholds the existence of creation, and without His upholding, even creation's desire to exist would not exist.

As I write this, I too am disturbed that the people of old should gender God (or their main conception of God) to express these truths. But even if gendered language is an inappropriate way to express these truths, we cannot simply abandon or subvert the gendered language until God gives us better ways to express them.

That is a job for theologians far better than myself, and for poets too. Though I may disagree with the attributes of God that you convey in your writing, Febble, I appreciate the effort greatly. If we are to loosen the insane hold that science has on the minds of modern man (especially the minds of creationists), we will need every bit of artistic power that God has entrusted to people like you.

 

[dies-l]

You want me to admit I cant answer the question do yah
Not a genius I guess there fella. I thought my comment made it VERY obvious that I didnt have an answer, I thought

I guessed logicaly people would understand my inferance. Having read your logic I see why I was wrong
So God said "Dont eat of the tree of life" but you are saying that if they dont eat what he has forbiden them they will die..... and you call that logical
Hmmm I am impressed, after all those naive comments and your rude arrogant smugness you would reply to me
Cheers Craw

Um, God never said "don't eat from the tree of life." He told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The inference of the passage is that because they disobeyed, and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were banished from the garden and therefore access to the tree of life. The implication here is that had they obeyed, they would have had continued access to the tree of life and it would have sustained them.

 

[Monarchist]

Oops must have missed that bit

 

[gluadys]

3. God is not female.

He is not male either!

A better way to put it, I think, is to say that God is female and God is also male. After all it is both the male and the female who are made in the image of God, so God's nature includes both.

As I write this, I too am disturbed that the people of old should gender God (or their main conception of God) to express these truths. But even if gendered language is an inappropriate way to express these truths, we cannot simply abandon or subvert the gendered language until God gives us better ways to express them.

Although feminists--with a great deal of justification--will speak of the masculine gender of God as patriarchy, we need to keep in mind as well the limitations of language.

In English we have only a masculine or a feminine pronoun for persons. "It" is not acceptable except in a few circumstances where the gender is unknown. e.g. one might say of a child yet to be born "I wonder if it will be a musician or a scientist." But this avenue is not acceptable in English-language tradition for God because "it" normally implies impersonality. An Absolute may be "it"; not YHWH.

In Hebrew the situation is compounded in that the language has no neuter gender at all. Everything from stars to pebbles has male or female gender; so of course, God has gender too, and it happens to be male. What a difference it would have made if the grammatical gender of "god" in Hebrew had been female.

We might also have had a different view of God if our sacred texts had been originally written in a grammatically genderless language. There are such. One is Yoruba spoken in much of Nigeria. There is one and only one third-person singular pronoun which can mean "he", "she" or "it" as the context implies. And nouns and verbs have no inherent gender.

So one wonders to what extent the "maleness" of God is forced on to us, not by the nature of God but by the nature of the language we speak.

Not specifically on the gender of God, but food for thought. Does your language shape how you think?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1

 

[Assyrian]

There is the grammatically controversial third person singular use of 'they', which seems particularly appropriate for God.

 

[Febble]

Thanks for your comments on my story everyone. I have a confession to make, though: when I saw the thread title, I thought it was in Creation/Evolution forum, and then discovered it was in a Christians only forum. Although I tend to describe myself as a Christian, I'm not sure I count by this board's criteria, so I've tried to respond to posts by comments rather than a post. But I thought I ought to make it clear in the thread too.

If a mod wants to split out my story and comments on it to a thread in a forum where I am OK to post, cool. Otherwise - I'll continue to lurk

Thanks

Lizzie

 

[Assyrian]

Why would there be twenty years before the fall?

Why not?