OK, this is just a random thought, that I'm sure you have all have had before. In genesis it says that God seperated light from dark. Since dark is the absence of light, how could they have coexisted together? And assuming that they some how coexisted together that means that there was a prexisting thing before the judeo-christian god started the creation of the universe. Since the bible does not adress where this thing that somehow managed to have light and dark coexist, where did this thing come from?

It seems to me that the cause and effect relationship between daytime and the presence of the sun in the sky was poorly understood by some early peoples. It's not too hard to understand since shortly after dawn daytime changes little except for the position of the sun. Day may have seemed a phenomenon all its own and the sun was merely set to govern it.

I think that I agree with smugg. They just wrote down what they thought was in the ballpark. Was not supposed to be absolutly scientific. They did know how god did it any more than we do. The light and the dark were divided. Now go to the next problem.

Oh yes, I understand that early societies didn't understand that type of thing. But I was just kinda wondering that with what we know about light, how could somebody take that passage literally. And I was taking the funduhmentalists view that that did actually happen, and used it against them, in that there was some pre-existing thing that conatins a mix of light and dark, that the bible doesn't mention being created by god.

Les, do me a favor and never agree with me again.

Trunks2k,
The "light" on the first day is interpreted by some to be plasma and so they take the separation of light and darkness as representing the separation of light and dark plasma.
I think the literalists would hold that the phrase of separating light from darkness is merely a metaphor (most literalists allow metaphors) for the creation of light.
Or so I would guess... I take the whole account metaphorically myself.

Reading the KJV, it doesn't really say that Light and Dark coexisted together. It reads closer to there being Darkness in the waters of Deep (Deep Space), then with his creation of Light (stars etc) he then divide the light from dark which then flows into day and night as being that separation. He then divided the waters so that earth had water on its face and the rest of space above the firmament (sky area) had all the other water.

So I hope next time we send up a space ship it doesn't create a hole in the firmament and cause all the water from space to come splashing down on us.

Thanks Trunks2K, for creating the interest to re-read Gen 1, it just keeps getting better all the time.






[This message has been edited by critical thinking made ez (edited July 09, 2001).]

mattfeld

In Mesopotamian belief, that is, Sumerian, the Sun, source of light is the son of the moon-god, Nanna. Nanna is called the Calf of Enlil. Nanna's daughter was Inanna, "the great cow of heaven, also called the "Queen of Heaven" and later assimilated to the androgynous Ishtar, the bearded, male morning star and volumptious sex goodess of the evening star (Venus). All of them, the Moon, Sun, and Venus (as Inanna) are called Bulls, the males being called calves at times. The Sumrians saw darkness as the first element in the universe, then came the moon, then the Sun.

Walter

Kosh

Actually, this is clearly indication that
somebody back there understood the physics
of photons. Probably the same person who
knew about cloning....