A non-creationist interpretation of Genesis

Carlos...what the HELL are you up to now? LOL!

T-Rex?

Degeneration?

COME ON!!! LOL!

Don't make me post here!

AboveAlpha

 

Just like Calvin I doubt that they would have been inspired to write anything that would have sounded absolutely weird to them. God revealed Himself to them within the limits of their cultural horizon. That does not mean we have to limit ourselves to that cultural horizon now that ours has expanded. Surely that's not what God would want. He gave us the ability to learn more and more about His creation, so we should use it.

 

Everything is bound by something. You are simply trying to compare the religious to the secular. And you can't. One is down to belief, the other down to fact.

 

Well...this here is the $64 question is it not?

Was the Bible inspired by a GOD?

Or was it simply the writings of ancient man struggling to find some sense of his place in the Universe or in this case place in the World as man at the time had no understanding of the Planet never mind the Universe?

This is where a line has to be drawn as I can understand one placing great value upon the teachings in the Bible...well at least those in the New Testament as some of the stories in the Old Testament are too WRATH OF GOD and FIRE AND BRIMSTONE...to be of much value to Modern Man in my opinion.

I can understand the need of some people to take comfort in a belief in GOD. I can see the value of the teachings of Christ. I understand the necessity that exists for some to find order and purpose in such religious text.

But what I can't find or understand is the need of some to go out of their way to find any possible interpretation of the Old Testament to fit into what we currently know as scientific FACTS.

I mean...isn't the lessons the things that are important?

I find it ridiculous when people and members here will argue points such as the 6 days in Genesis equaling a different measure of time. Or arguing to the n'th over the realities of Evolution or spending endless amounts of time researching where they believe Noah's ark might be.

I find it to be OBVIOUS that a GOD did not have a hand in influencing the writing of Genesis.

We know that Quantum Evolution exists as it is happening all around us...as we look at the Sun...the Sun is changing Hydrogen into Helium via Thermonuclear Fusion as we speak and in doing so is generating the Solar Radiation that Heats up our Planet and also gives us Sun Light.

The Sun is creating a more complex Element in Helium from Hydrogen which is a tenet of Quantum Evolution. Also we see Chemical Reactions happening all around us as Chemical Reaction is another tenet of Quantum Evolution as such things as an Electric Charge or UV-Radiation from the Sun cause Elements to combined into MOLECULES as Chemical Reaction is causing Elements to share Electron Orbits thus again Quantum Evolution is various Universal Mechanisms that create the continual drive of Matter to be arranged into more and more complex structures until it get's to the point where a extremely long and complex chain of Amino Acids which is DNA.

We know Biological Evolution to exist and there is an incredible amount of evidence to support this.

So when I read Genesis....and I can only see story as being written by ancient man who at the time knew very little...I cannot see the hand of a GOD helping as if a GOD did help I would think GENESIS would be a lot more detailed and specific given the now known realities.

AboveAlpha

 

Do you not think "revelations" by John was absolutely absurd sounding to him, when it was being revealed to him?

 

I disagree, religion has nothing to do with whether we have "freewill" or not. There can be absolutely no God, and that will have no bearing on whether we have a will that can be freely exercised by us, in the choices we make, so I'll ask again if we have no freedom to exercise our will, what is it bound by?

 

This is the problem with Revelations.

Revelations was not added to the Bible until 419 AD.

More recent methods of scholarship, such as textual criticism, have been influential in suggesting that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist and John of Patmos were three separate individuals. Differences in style, theological content, and familiarity with Greek between the Gospel of John, the epistles of John, and the Revelation are seen by some scholars as indicating three separate authors.[16] The English Biblical scholar Robert Henry Charles (1855–1931) reasoned on internal textual grounds that the book was edited by someone who spoke no Hebrew and who wished to promote a different theology from that of John. As a result, everything after 20:3, claims Charles, has been left in a haphazard state with no attempt to structure it logically. Furthermore, he says, the story of the defeat of the ten kingdoms has been deleted and replaced by 19:9-10.[17] John's theology of chastity has been replaced by the editor's theology of outright celibacy, which makes little sense when John's true church is symbolised as a bride of the Lamb. Most importantly, the editor has completely rewritten John's theology of the Millennium, which is "emptied of all significance."[18]
John Robinson in "Redating the New Testament" (1976) has heavily criticised Charles' position and accepted apostolic authorship, dating John's Gospel before the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. He also argues that John's "poor" Greek is a literary device since Galileans were known to have excellent Greek.[19] He says: "The Greek of the Apocalypse is not that of a beginner whose grammar and vocabulary might improve and mature into those of the evangelist. It is the pidgin Greek of someone who appears to know exactly what he is about[.]"[20]
It has also been contended that the core verses of the book, in general chapters 4 through 22, are surviving records of the prophecies of John the Baptist.[21] In this view, the Lamb of God references and other hallmarks of Revelation are linked to what is known of John the Baptist, though it must be confessed that little information about him is known.

So I would not take much stock in Revelations given these facts.

AboveAlpha

 

None of that matters to the subject. I disagree with most of it, but that doesn't matter. Whoever the writer was, he must have thought what he was writing was wild and outlandish.

 

Well here is the thing...Biblical Scholars have determined that Revelations has 3 separate authors and that as well it has been determined the person who edited Revelations was a person who did not know Hebrew.

Since Revelations was not placed into the Bible until 419 AD even though it was written between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD...there was a lot changed for the original ancient text as well.

AboveAlpha

 

You can believe that, and thats fine, but it doesn't change the fact that some of the stuff written in it, by whomever, whenever, or wherever, had to have felt wild and outlandish for the author to write.

 

You do realize that dark energy and dark matter are simply terms used to describe a mostly unknown mechanic at work in the universe, right? Wait, of course you do, as you've specifically said that you read scientific papers.

Scientists don't claim to know what it is or exactly how it works. They are 100% honest about their current ignorance. What they can see is the effect that dark energy/dark matter has on it's surroundings, they just can't explain WHY it does and HOW it does. Think of it the same way as if water was invisible and scientists didn't know what it was, but were still able to observe when things got wet and when the water moved matter.

You need 0% knowledge of evolution to know that Genesis from the bible is plain wrong. The physics and simple biology are already impossible. As I've said, you can't have plants or a planet without the sun and Genesis seems to think the sun and the stars were made after the Earth. Of course it does, because the PEOPLE who wrote the passages in Genesis didn't know a single thing about physics and astronomy. The text 100% reflects the ignorance of the time, NOT the knowledge that would have been shared by the being religious folks claim engineered everything. It wouldn't have taken much to get it right if that information was indeed coming from the creator of the universe. It could have still been ambiguous AND got the facts right, but it didn't, because it wasn't written by or sourced from a God, it was written and imagined by human beings limited by the knowledge and technology of their time.

 

In order to survive, evolutionists had no other choice but to change the meaning of the word "evolution" (change from inferior to superior, from worst to better, from simpler to more complex) into a "technical word". The desperate change was accomplished because nothing in nature was in accord with the original ideas of the theory.

The decent and honorable way was to recognize that the theory was false.

But, evolutionists decided to keep their deluded hypothesis and made the word "evolution" in the title of the theory to become a "technical word" where for this theory and solely for this theory, the word "evolution" simply means "change" regardless of what.

This is a valid action. For example, somedody, making a new theory of volcanoes appearing in the poles, uses the word "Giraffe" as a technical word that will mean the process of such a birth of volcanoes, then, for this new theory and solely for this new theory, any birth of a volcano in the North or South pole will be called a "Giraffe".

But, a technical word can't be used as a verb, otherwise such will be JARGON.

When you say that such and such species "evolved". implying any change in those species, in agreement with your theory, you are talking JARGON, because your use of the technical word is dead wrong: you can't use it as a verb.

And, who really wants to listen people who talks JARGON?

You better get more deep into the etymology of words and the meaning and application of words, because by IGNORANCE you are talking lots of JARGON here, and it is known that people who talks JARGON are people who wants to deceive others.

See? Ignorance is again the source of your replies.

Let me give you an example.

A few years ago a girl who loves ballet dancing, one day performed to the wonderful the death of the swan. It was fantastic, it was incredible how well she did it. When the interview was in progress, she was asked what motivated her to realize such a magnificent ballet dancing, and the girl said :that "she was inspired by Isadora Duncan".

But, Isadora Duncan was dead long ago, and the girl never mentioned that she was in contact with her "ghost" or similar. It happens that this girl knew a lot of the achievements of Isadora Duncan, and this inspired her to dance her best. Get it now?

On the other hand, from its very beginning, from its genesis, the idea that species evolved from former ones, was from simpler to more complex, from worst to better, from inferior to superior. That Genesis of the theory of evolution is dead wrong, by consequence the theory still is false, because such is what you still assuming with humans, as descendants of monkeys, apes, or humanoids, whatever you want to call the fossils of monkeys you use to prove your fallacies.

Come on, that is not "natural selection", such is stupidity. Well adapted or not to the former environment, the species just survive the best they can in the new environment, that's all.

It is important, because while the bible was inspired by God, the theory of evolution was inspied by Darwin whom after the death of his daughter showed so much hatred against God... sheeeshh... this dude was a very religious guy before the death of his daughter, and he prayed and fasting begging God to save her... but the girl died...

But, what is three feet long arms in a tens feet tall animal? I will answer it for you: A joke.

Bring here your best paleontologist. Show him this web link

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...vt=short+arms+birth+defect+pictures&FORM=IGRE

You just write "short arms birth defect pictures" in the search box. The pictures from below are catalogued as birth defects. And in many cases the arms still functioning, and the digits are useful, but still is called BIRTH DEFECT.

They are clowns because they know that T Rex showed birth defects and that birth defects can be passed from one generation into another, but such is against the doctrines of their hypothesis called "theory of evolution", and they are just bubbling a lot about millions of years of evolution pressure... ha ha ha... See? that is laughable, they are clowns.

The theory of evolution has not any authority, such a so called theory is a complete fallacy, a joke. Just check right above the birth defects, the caricature of the two T-Rex is included in that web page... lol... it appears that lots of people know what is going on and are joking at your expenses...

I will tell you how science works: Science without facts is not science. Period.

The theory of evolution has no facts. End of the story.

Look at this picture again


She perhaps can use her arms for certain duties, but are considered atrophied because when the arms are in proportional accord with the body, the functional is "normal" as with the rest of the species. If a complete species become with atrophied arms, still the primeval ancestor who passed the defect is considered the origin of the degeneration of that species.

No doubt that the theory of evolution is a complete fallacy, and you can't escape from this fact.

And no,, I do not ignore that there are gains in biological function, but the losing of characteristics PREVAILS over the gaining of new characteristics. In other words, the whole species without exeptions, are losing more characteristics than gaining new ones. At the end, when you lose more than gain, the process is called degeneration.

 

I truly think that you need help or more practice with reading comprehension.

Listen one more time, The narration of the bible DOES NOT SAY that the Sun was created the day after the plants appeared on earth. A sun created in the fourth day is what you understand because you are reading it with fixed ideas already input in your brain, so you can't see it.

I'm losing money here, I should be rich if we bet about this biblical narration. Lol

 

You are 100% wrong and the text I've pasted in multiple posts here prove it. Dude, it's written down, in the bible. It's right there for you to read. Being purposefully ignorant as you are choosing to be is completely asinine.

And yet, you have not once tried to explain why the order is the way it is. You have not explained how the passage that comes AFTER the one detailing the creation of life on Earth is the one that details the creation of the sun, moon(which they thought was also it's own light source because they had no idea that the moon's "light" is just a reflection of the sun's light), and stars.

You haven't really said anything other than to keep questioning my reading comprehension. Lay it out, here and now. Make your case. Explain to me HOW I am wrong, instead of just pointing out that I'm wrong.

I suspect you can't, thus the insults.

 

Hi, very good computer simulation in that video.

But what it can't be trusted is the "German scientist who took a balloon and drew the continents on it as they are at present, Then he gradually deflated the balloon. The continents all came together"

Please look at the pictures below. A drawing of similuated lands together (separated a little bit to give chance to an assumed ocean to expand) and when the globe was inflated, the lands and ocean increased in proportional way.





What I think is that perhaps you can "glue" simulated fixed lands to a balloon and inflate it and see what shows up, but the drawing of lands on it is simply not working.

 

Look, as I pointed out previously, I'm done talking about the roots of evolution, because it's utterly meaningless. I already pointed out to you that Darwin did not like to use the term, and preferred descent with modification; I've already explained to you that those past "theories" weren't scientific theories in the way we understand the term today, nor did they have much at all to do with evolution as we understand it today. You are still going back in time 150 years to argue against a theory that was then in its infancy and has since developed immensely. It's like if you had a time machine and opted to beat the (*)(*)(*)(*) out of Mike Tyson as a baby - you couldn't argue you won a boxing match against him, even if it was in the ring and you were both wearing gloves. It don't matter in the slightest, and I'm done addressing your flawed logic and outright lies about it.

No. I don't understand what this has to do with anything. Do you mean that the book Genesis was inspired by god, but not actually written by those who were infallible? You've completely lost me, and that's not something I see often.

Bull(*)(*)(*)(*). I'm not explaining this to you again. The idea that species evolved strictly from simpler to more complex or from worst to better was debunked as early as Darwin - that is, the very birth of the idea as a scientific theory (A note to differentiate: life has evolved from simple to more complex over time - mammals are without a doubt more complex organisms than trilobytes or sponges - it's simply that this change is not constant, and that not all organisms did evolve to become more complex). And why the (*)(*)(*)(*) are we still talking about evolution 150 years ago? What matters is the theory now. That is, the modern evolutionary synthesis. I'm just going to ignore anything else you have to say on the beginnings of the theory. Why? Because it doesn't (*)(*)(*)(*)ing matter. Hell, at this point, you're grasping for straws from before the theory was even codified. This is like discounting gravity because at some point, we didn't know why we fell and some people said some stupid (*)(*)(*)(*) about it. Speaking of stupid (*)(*)(*)(*):

And those which survive better are more likely to survive to pass on offspring, and thus their genetic material. Any mutations within the population that are beneficial are somewhat likely to outbreed the mutations which are not beneficial. This is what is known as natural selection. You have no idea what you're talking about.

The theory of evolution is inspired by natural evidence observed in nature. It doesn't matter what Darwin said, what Darwin believed, whether or not Darwin hated god, or whether or not Darwin was a 10-foot-tall, fire-breathing, red-skinned demon who ate babies and shat infectious diseases. It does. Not. Matter. You refuse to attack the substance of the theory. Why?

A useful tool for grabbing and holding squirming prey while preparing to bite its head off. Look, let's break it down. Phylogenetically, Tyrannosaurus belongs to Coelurosauria - more specifically, Tyrannosauridae. Now, looking through the order courtesy of Wikipedia, what do we see? Tyrannosauroids varied widely in size, although there was a general trend towards increasing size over time. Early tyrannosauroids were small animals.[4] One specimen of Dilong, almost fully grown, measured 1.6 meters (5.3 ft) in length,[5] and a full-grown Guanlong measured 3 meters (10 ft long).

Here's a reconstruction of Dilong:


Those arms... Don't really look that stumpy. Now how 'bout some others? Here's a later Tyrannoid, Eotyrannus:

An even later, larger one, Appalachiosaurus:

Same pattern, Albertosaurus:


...Starting to notice a pattern? The various populations within the family evolved in various directions, although what appears to have happened, at least from my estimation, is that while the species as a whole grew in size, there was no particular evolutionary pressure for the arms to become larger. But that's just an unsubstantiated hypothesis. After all, we need to keep in mind that we're talking about the genetic evolution of a phylogenetic family that went extinct 65 million years ago, and for which the fossil record is incomplete. There was another hypothesis about genetic limiting factors, but the fact is we may never know exactly why. What we can, however, discard from the outset is the idea that these "dinky" arms came about in a similar way to the defect pictures you keep linking to - after all, almost all larger tyrannoids had similar arm size, and the fingers were typical of the phylogeny.

For what it's worth, I did send a message to a friend of mine who works in a related field, asking for some insight. I'll let you know if they write back.

Everything in this is completely wrong.

First off, T Rex showed no such birth defects, it simply showed that in millions of years of evolution, the bodies of various species within the family grew while the arms, for the most part, did not. It's not quite clear why, but the idea that it was some crippling birth defect can be excluded right from the get-go.
Secondly, most debilitating birth defects in animals don't get passed down because of their debilitating nature - if this truly was a birth defect, and caused the member of the species that had it problems (as having arms several times smaller than one would normally expect to have generally would), that member of the species would most likely not breed - and its genes certainly wouldn't propagate within the species better than the genes of someone without the defect.
Thirdly, there is nothing in evolution that states that such cannot happen. Should the mutation be legitimately negative, it is unlikely that it would happen (and virtually unheard-of). You are still arguing against a theory which only existed in the past or your own head.

I was going to ask if you actually knew about any of the evidence supporting evolution, but then I read this:

This seems to say "no". So does this. DonExodus does a wonderful job explaining some of the evidence available for evolution - not all of it by any means (there is more evidence for evolution than there is for almost any other scientific theory), but some of the more important points. And he has full citations for all of it. And then, of course, there's far more extensive works, like this one. Whole bunch more here. Ooh, even more. So no. Your assertion that "the theory of evolution has no facts" is simply not true. It makes me wonder who taught you about it in the first place. Come on, be honest - who taught you about evolution? Where did you get your information?

And yet the entirety of evidence you have provided for this is one piece which would be completely unsupported if it weren't already proven wrong, and one other case which is not even species-wide, but merely a known genetic defect and extremely poor evidence for devolution.

 

Your reply:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

What is going on is that you havent a thing to offer other than a lot of hollow words, shabby dodges and falsehoods.

 

The modifications established by Darwin in his fallacy "natural selection" were only and solely in "favor" of the species , something that is similar to imply from worst to better, from inferior to superior, from simpler to more complex.

You can't escape that Darwin was in the same boat with Geoffroy, Lamarck and others who, by natural ignorance didn't get yet the process of life. For them, I found that is justifiable their ignorance, but for current evolutionists who insist in such a nonsense called evolution, no, they must be exposed to what they are, a bunch of clowns and people who talks JARGON.

In order to survive, evolutionists had no other choice but to change the meaning of the word "evolution" (change from inferior to superior, from worst to better, from simpler to more complex) into a "technical word". The desperate change was accomplished because nothing in nature was in accord with the original ideas of the theory.

The decent and honorable way was to recognize that the theory was false.

But, evolutionists decided to keep their deluded hypothesis and made the word "evolution" in the title of the theory to become a "technical word" where for this theory and solely for this theory, the word "evolution" simply means "change" regardless of what.

This is a valid action. For example, somedody, making a new theory of volcanoes appearing in the poles, uses the word "Giraffe" as a technical word that will mean the process of such a birth of volcanoes, then, for this new theory and solely for this new theory, any birth of a volcano in the North or South pole will be called a "Giraffe".

But, a technical word can't be used as a verb, otherwise such will be JARGON.

When you say that such and such species "evolved". implying any change in those species, in agreement with your theory, you are talking JARGON, because your use of the technical word is dead wrong: you can't use it as a verb.

And, who really wants to listen people who talks JARGON?

You better get more deep into the etymology of words and the meaning and application of words, because by IGNORANCE you are talking lots of JARGON here, and it is known that people who talks JARGON are people who wants to deceive others.

Don't worry about it, I understand your reply... speaks Jargon, believes that Darwin was different than Geoffrey about species being "favored" throughout generations... of course can't get what "inspired by God or by Isadora Duncan" might mean... lets keep going...

What a flowered answer, I want to learn that... I want to degenerate like you do with your answers... what a precious example of decay, you are confirming my point, just an adverse environment in front of you and your replies have started to degenerate so fast!!!

No, natural selection is a commandment given by Darwin, and implies solely favourable variations, but species with the most unfavourable variations have survived until today, and we can name a lot, like, evolutionists, atheists...

The reality is that there is not a rule or a common genetical principle to check who survives and who doesn't. The situation is very simple: the survival of the species will depend of being at the right place at the right moment, that's all... nothing selects anything... it is time for you to get mature about this issue. Just observe the recent species that have passed to extinction, and others who survived like the horse... if the horse was never domesticated... ufff... long ago such should probably be another extincted species...

Wake up to reality, you seem like wanting to have "in control" how species survive, and that is pure crap... just accept that nature works different than your wishes. By the way, a fact is that species just degenerate, you don't need a theory for this process because is a fact.

The substance of the theory? What substance are you talking about? The only fact is that species do degenerate.

[QUOTEA useful tool for grabbing and holding squirming prey while preparing to bite its head off. Look, let's break it down. Phylogenetically, Tyrannosaurus belongs to Coelurosauria - more specifically, Tyrannosauridae. Now, looking through the order courtesy of Wikipedia, what do we see? Tyrannosauroids varied widely in size, although there was a general trend towards increasing size over time. Early tyrannosauroids were small animals.[4] One specimen of Dilong, almost fully grown, measured 1.6 meters (5.3 ft) in length,[5] and a full-grown Guanlong measured 3 meters (10 ft long).

Here's a reconstruction of Dilong:


Those arms... Don't really look that stumpy. Now how 'bout some others? Here's a later Tyrannoid, Eotyrannus:

An even later, larger one, Appalachiosaurus:

Same pattern, Albertosaurus:
[/QUOTE]

Thanks! you have saved me lots of work doing the same copy and paste.

Notice that the different dinos showed the same birth defect inherited from a common ancestor, They will pass the atrophied arm defect to their descendants.as well.

Here is Johnny!!!



Birth defects can be passed throughout generations. Notice that the "variations" are many, according to the lexplanation in the book the children were some with normal lenght of arms and more or less digits, a little girl with short and one deformed arm, a little boy with less digits than the others...

So, thanks for your pictures, we can see in graphics how birth defect also affected this dino species

Look, your opinion about the pictures is not of great importance at this point, we know that you are just learning new expressions in this discussion like "evolutionary pressure", but please don't feel "pressured" to use it here.

And you are incorrect that you don't know why of those "genetic limited factors" and this and that, because we already know that you don't know anything about the natural process of life... so, you really don't have to worry about it... we understand...

That is good to know.

Oh, come on, nobody believes you the storytelling that a body will grow proportionally throughout generations while the arms keep their smaller size as "evolutionay pressure"... that is stupid. Please stop writing more ridiculous stuff.

Become back to reality, the arms became atrophied since a common ancestor who started the defect and passed it to the rest.

The situation probably was of having affected the thyroid gland and grow bigger than different generations, something that is also a weird mutation, they can have several mutations at the same time, growing up to gigantic sizes while having athropied arms, nothing out of "normal" considering how that environment should become while the falling of meteorites, perhaps rain of meteorites every year... they must have passed through years of drastic changes in the environment, and apparently some chemicals in the water might have caused such changes in some places of the globe, we weren't there... but comparing similitudes with chemical exposure by individuals and animals, we can have an idea of what was going on in those times.

A dude in a video can say whatever, here we discuss such "whatever".

So, bring your "facts" one by one here. Don't need to fill up pages, bring ONE at the time.

No one is talking about any devolution, the process of life on earth shows a degenerate tendency and this fact doesn't need of any theory.

 

Your point? Whether the Bible was inspired by God, and if so to which extend, is a matter of personal faith. That you don’t believe what I believe is fine with me. What I find annoying though is some atheists’ compulsive need to keep butting in whenever believers try to discuss their faith. It’s what has derailed this post into the ever same futile exchange of the ever same half-baked arguments. A bit like Groundhog Day, really.

But when such atheists erroneously link science/evolution with a lack of faith it’s doubly annoying. In this thread it just hinders my attempts to open a door by which Elijah might accept modern science. On a more important political level it hinders the efforts of those who want proper science being taught at school. As (atheist) Michael Ruse has pointed out:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/evolution-in-the-classroom-here-we-go-again/45698

 

Not at all. While it may sound absurd to our modern ears, The Book of Revelation is written in a style of apocalyptic literature that 1. Century Jews were rather familiar with. The seven Christian communities in Asia Minor,that the text was in all likelihood addressed to, would have had a pretty good grasp of what John was on about. For more: http://www.christianbiblereference.org/faq_Revelation.htm.

 

You are right about Revelation, but what do you suppose makes most Christians on these forums reject the truth of apocalyptic literature and accept the silliness of Darby?