Wayne Delia

Ah HA! So THAT'S why the light goes off in the inside of the refrigerator when you close the door!

WMD

Amos

Maybe they tried to tell us that order must be created out of chaos before it can makes sense in our mind which itself is like wasteland where science and labels can be used to give structure to space.

NearNihil Experience

"Maybe they tried to tell us that order must be created out of chaos before it can makes sense in our mind...."

I'm on the opposite track. I find emptiness, silence, darkness, calm and all that to represent perfect structure...not chaos. I see it as potential undecided\unstructured...and any attempt or action taken to fulfill that potential creates more parts to the machine, thereby more structure, more things to go wrong, more chaos. More parts=more chaos.

I think the darkness is hard for people to understand, that pure peace is pure nothingness...that the only perfection is stillness.
The light brought forth ruined this perfection and has sent the universe on a spiral towards chaos and back around again.
It all makes sense in my mind to say chaos is created out of order...as order breaks down.

I also think this common reversal leads to other strange mix-ups in rationale and relationship...but that's another thread I bet.

I never liked Gen 1:1...it seemed so contrary to the realities temporal causation, common sense of system orders and breakdowns, and again was some 4000yr old goat-wrangler's best guess.

"...which itself is like wasteland where science and labels can be used to give structure to space."

They sure do help get by, don' t they?

spin

This is typical error of translation being maintained and propagated by those who know no better.

The text starts,

BR'$YT BR' 'LHYM 'T-$MYM W'T-'RC

In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth

and continues with the starting state. How often do I have to repeat the structure of these verses? The first act of creation is given by the divine fiat "Let there be light!"

Wrong again. This is just xian mumbo jumbo of many centuries later, based on inadequate understanding of the Hebrew. The starting state of the cosmos was darkness and waters.

In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth, the world was without form and empty, darkness on the face of the deep and the wind of God hovering on the face of the waters.

Then God said, and note that this is the first act of divine fiat, Let there be light.

This is correct.

I don't think this is in the passage. The sun was of course created on day 4, but it was a mere inhabitant of the light.

Remember the notion of tohu wabohu (without form and empty):



spin

spin

Oh and Magus55, just look at the way the RSV, NRSV and JPS translate Gen 1:1.

Creatio ex nihilo is a platonic idea.


spin

Amos

But I don't disagree with you on that. The point made here in Gen.1:1 (NB) is that before chaos can come about structure must be given to unstructured space to make it possible for chaos to be known. In here, order in our mind must exist to make the fall of man possible or darkness would not have followed the first day.

Unstructured space is different than chaos. Unstructered space is like a void with nothing to tie our thoughts to so we can think (period). Chaos is when we absorb data and try to attach this to things we already know. Chaos is fun, or at least, a little chaos is fun for as long as it helps us get wiser.

NearNihil Experience

" The point made here in Gen.1:1 (NB) is that before chaos can come about structure must be given to unstructured space to make it possible for chaos to be known."

I think you missed what I was saying regarding the perception of said beginning state. Its all structure, whether in order or not. Look at it like matter and energy. Energy is just potential to be turned into matter. Imagine a universe filled with 100% energy...now a universe with 100% matter....now 50%\50%....these three have balance as a characteristic, a pureness...structure. I'm saying that 100% chaos is order, and that the universe(no the space its located in) started as 100% energy(potential)....and will end up in chaos, not that it started in chaos and will be brought to order...
...more parts to the machine, the more that can and does go wrong.


" In here, order in our mind must exist to make the fall of man possible or darkness would not have followed the first day. "

I don't think this is necessarily true, but I will say dark makes no sense as a description if light wasn't there to contrast it.


"Unstructured space is different than chaos. Unstructered space is like a void with nothing to tie our thoughts to so we can think (period). Chaos is when we absorb data and try to attach this to things we already know."

I just have a different view on chaos and what makes things chaotic. You seems to be saying its the unrealized potential that is called chaos, because it can lead to anything...potentialy.


"Chaos is fun, or at least, a little chaos is fun for as long as it helps us get wiser."

Ah yes, I am a whatever works kinda guy.

good luck.

Amos

Sure there can be order in imbalance but "the mighty wind swept over the waters" to say that it was 'charged' to create spontaneous life and out of this life the the story of Genesis begins to make sense by first separating the heavens and the earth, or by separating sense with no-sense. And then the light was life, and it was good etc.

Tristan Scott

It's likely that the first part of Genesis is just a retelling of what was (to them) an ancient Babylonian myth called When on High. The six days of creation mirroring the first six generations of the Babylonian gods and goddesses. This monotheistic adaption of the myth would have been familiar to the people of the area.

Doctor X

Wandering about the garden looking for Adam. . . .

--J.D.