Howard

WOB
(testing)

Celsus

Surely you mean WALOB.* Actually, to be honest, I have it on good account that it's open season. They're fl o o di ng BC&H at the moment (though we actually managed to clear out one the other day), so you'll just have to wait till the janitors come in tomorrow morning. Until then, a good 12 gauge and plenty of buckshot should see you through the day. Thank you for your concern.

Information Desk #666

* What a load of bollocks/baloney

RGD

Silly me - I thought it meant 'Wacko on Board."

The Bible Thumper

All I'm saying is this:


In the Beginning, (beginning has been proven) God made the heavens and earth. (He did. First the Heavens, then the Earth). The earth was without form, and without life (Again, 110% truth. Both the Earth was formless, and the Sun was a gaseous cloud, where the fusion process has not yet kicked in).
and darkness was[a] on the face of the deep (part of scripture that is not understood. Some variations say 'Dome', others say 'Firmament'). 3Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light (fusion of heavy isotopes of hydrogen begins in the Sun, bringing fourth light). 4And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. (Thus, God creates the Heavens, Sun and Earth in this metaphorical 'First Day'. This is exactly what the Earth scientist said). 6Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." 7Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day (Verses 6, 7 and 8 are not understood by me. Different translations yield different words, but still no clear meaning. I suspect a disparity between the Hebrew language and English. Does anyone here have a different suggestion?) 9Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. 10And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good (The Earth scientist said the same thing; that is, that there was one place where there was dry land, and the rest of the globe was water. Then continental drift started. Sadly, Moses left continental drift out of Genesis). 11Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so. 12And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13So the evening and the morning were the third day (This is roughly what the Earth scientist says, only rather than seed-bearing vegitation, it was an algae mat, followed, probably, by seed-bearing vegitation). 14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. 16Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19So the evening and the morning were the fourth day (there's an inconsistency here, which we can attribute to information lost in translation or an incompatability between Hebrew and English. Does anyone else have different input with regard to the subject-matter?) 20Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens." 21So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23So the evening and the morning were the fifth day (some here would dispute this part of Genesis; that the bird came after the dinosaur. But were there not prehistoric flying dinosaurs? Archaeopteryx comes to mind. Thus, Genesis remains historically correct) 24Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind"; and it was so. 25And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (As a general rule, it's assumed mammals came after the living organisms listed in Genesis 1:21-22. Thus Genesis maintains it's integrity). 26Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all[b] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (One of th most beautiful passages in Genesis, and it maintains scientific integrity, as fossil records prove man came after lesser mammals, and the lesser mammals came after the birds, seed-bearing vegitation).

With exception to some scriptural discrepancies as mentioned above, I can't see how Genesis does not conform well with Earth history. Can someone objectively clue me in here? Not out of anger towards God (many here are angry at Him) or out of envy (Many here are jealous that the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth is uncanny in it's accuracy with regards to Earth history. Far more accurate than anything Pagan, Grecian or Roman*), but objectively and in humility. Please?

*Someones gonna mention that Christianity is Rome's religion since 370 AD. I just know it!
When I said 'Roman', I was referring to the Roman gods.

Celsus

Sigh. This thread should never have been split. TBT: Read spin's post to explain why your translation is completely off, and therefore why your argument is completely faulty. I'm sure spin would be more than willing to help you along if you go post your response to him in that thread.

Joel

Asha'man

It fails to conform to the scientific consensus of Earth history in just about every way possible.

First, the time scale is wrong. The text very clearly talks about days, and specifically refers to a morning and evening. (Claiming that the author meant anything other than a literal day goes against the tradition of the Sabbath, since it is based on God resting on the 7th day, so any alternate interpretation is simply not justified by the text.) This is utterly at odds with Earth history, which we know took place over a period of billions of years.

Second, the order is wrong. The text clearly identifies certain things as having been created on specific days, and the days are ordered. For example, in verse 11, on the third day, flowering plants, fruit trees, and grasses were created. However, in verse 16, on the fourth day, the Sun and the Moon were created. Scientifically, this is laughable. The Sun and Moon are both about 4.6 billion years old, and flowering plants appeared less than 130 million years ago.

Third, a personal nitpick about verse 16, the Moon is not a light. It is a rock in the sunlight. You are arguing that a technical description may have been beyond the scope of Moses’ understanding, but I can’t imagine a desert dweller not being able to understand the idea of a rock that is sitting in the sunlight while the observer sits in the shade.

Plognark

Ok.

Ok.

Well, it's iffy, especially in "light" of the division of the light at night and day later on. At this point it's just undefined "light" with no apparent source. God doesn't set a source till day four when he supposedly decides to make the sun and moon and stars as offical locations of light. It also says nothing of getting the earth spinning, or setting the earth rotating to cause the light and day. I mean, this is something the Greeks had figured out already. :huh:

Well, the thing is, earth was probably a hot blob of molten rock for a while after formation, and pretty dry and barren. Most solar system formation models I know of indicate that the earth would have been too hot to hold much water early on; it literally would have boiled off into space. It's only after it cooled enough that gradual deposition of water from comets would have built up a good amount of water on the surface. It also helps that earth's geology does a decent job of recycling that water back into the oceans rather than sublimating it, like what very likely happened on Mars.

I don't, but i'm sure others do. There's always been issues figuring a proper translation, unfortunately. Still, it's peculiar that they heavens are called a "firmament". Not quite correct. I'm aware of some shakey apologetics for this, but I have yet to see any that pass muster without really reaching.

Well, again, earth probably started off quite barren and dry. It's also not hard to imagine that this is simply them speaking of the ocean, no? Water gathered together in one place? To an ancient Hebrew the ocean or the mediteranean probably did look like one big-ass gathering of water.

It's not a huge stretch, but there are other more likely explanations for this section.

Well, the whole fruit and seed thing is sort of an issue. There were already plenty of little critters running about by the time fruit-bearing plants and actual trees were around.

Actually I don't think this can be attributed to an information loss; that looks like some fast hand wavign on your part, to be honest. It's pretty clear that the order is rather hosed. This passage also indicates that the "light" was not embodied in a single form, such as the sun or moon, but just....light. And then it's only after we've got plants and trees and shrubs and stuff that the moon and sun are formed? And that the stars are created? That's pretty bad.

Not really. You're forgetting all the primitive little land critters that hadn't evolved flight yet. We had early versions of slugs and bugs crawling on land long before anything had evolved the ability of flight.

Well...not really. Again, the birds are out of order completely. A lot happened before the era of the dinosaurs.

Well, it's no that hard a stretch really, that early man would want to elevate himself above a rugged, cruel world as its master, and of course, being the only noteworthy tool using mammal on the block could help with the ego boosting. but the ordering of critter types is still off.

Only if you ignore the "some discrepancies". It doesn't conform very well at all.

Sure

I have but one thing to say to that:


Relax, we know what you meant.

The Bible Thumper

Adding details (like the "little critters") won't help your case any, plognark. The Holy Book leaves out many details. Critters, continental drift, dinosaurs, e.t.c.

Thus, disregarding insignificant developments such as dinosaurs (large in size but small in significance from the Creation standpoint) and "critters", we see that the Basic Instructions still proves to be uncanny in its accuracy and integrity.
Genesis was written long before the Grecian empire came to rise, plognark (further proof that many on this message board denounce the Bible without doing a lick of research about the Bible. Their ignorance regarding events and timelines astounds me. Not as much now as it did when I first came to this message board, however. This messae board has made me immune to ignorance).
When Genesis is unquestionably accurate, you attribute it to luck. Where there's doubt, you say, "Yeah, but what about all the little critters? Why doesn't the Bible mention the little critters that were made before the birds?" The 'luck' quote is above. Here's the 'doubt' quote:
To expand on the littel critters, folks, here's a quote:
Like what? Algae mats? Trilobites? What? The only significant events that took place before the dinosaurs are listed in Genesis 1:1-6.
Again, HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW does the Basic Instruction not conform? Well?

Crowley

Since we are on the topic of creation myths, have you ever read the Silmarillion? Now that is a shit cool creation myth. Hell, it even includes Satan (Melkor) in it.

You would think that if a prophet was receiving a divine vision from which to write the story of creation it could have been more interesting and accurate than what a man using his senses and his reason could come up with. Yet, there is nothing in Genesis that would indicate that the author was anything other an uneducated man writing a creation myth based on his peoples' beliefs and his own limited understanding of the Universe. If he had received a divine vision he could have been given the words to use even if he did not fully understand it all. In this, we woud have a god offering illumination and knowledge rather than exposition and ignorance. But this does not seem to have occurred.

Instead, we are given a creation myth built in days, a non-sensical order to the creation events, and the idea that we humans are created in the image of a god who has no known substance. If god is indeed, three beings in one who can operate independently and yet still be one entity, how does that relate to me? While people sometimes argue that I seem like a different person before and after coffee, I doubt you are willing to agree that this would correspond to the holy trio. I have a physical body and require food and air to live. Does your god require these things? How could he be omnipotent if he did? How could he have existed prior to the creation of the Universe? How then could we be created in his image?

(Personally, I believe the author included the 'in his image' bit because the Jews of the time, like most tribes and cultures, had their gods and they were trying to demonstrate that they were mighty people because they were modeled after the image of their god.)

The Bible Thumper

...And I'm tired of Atheists expecting a perfect order and translation of Genesis even though the Book was written nearly 4,000 years ago. The Atheists {Edited} expect and demand that not a word of Genesis be lost in translation, or reasons related to the handing down of sacred scripture written on biodegradeable paper from one generation to the next...