Fiach

Evidence from Creation

First you need to prove to me that there was such a thing a creation. I don't accept that notion.

"The Bible is the most unique among other books because it treated human what it really deserve. Teachings such as salvation by grace, predestination, and lack of free will or ability to seek that which is good, and man being a mere dust, all of which teaches that man’s being is at the mercy of it’s creator. And as a support of these facts, Romans 1: 19-20 said, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”

The Bible is largely disconnected tribal stories of wars and conquests, atrocities, a very mean killer God, cruelty, and divinely inspired savagery. The creation myths are clearly faerie tales for stone age savages. Paul was a very sick man, suffering from epilepsy, migraine, and likely some form of schizophrenia. That is why his letters are so logically incoherent.



"In this age, there are evidences that “free will” and “intellect” does not really exist. The person “I” does not really exists apart from the nature. Man’s brain is just a mere part of the complex chain of cause and effect among particles. Major intellectual atheists, correct me if I’m wrong, have this belief. Ergo, they believe that there is no such thing as good and evil. And that as they accept how nature works, they judge things according to how nature works. "

Agreed. I think that free will is an illusion. The brain is a very complex computer. It has a number of programmes that when given a set of data will come up with a given response. The fear response described in this month's (March) issue of Discovery, shows how stereotyped this particular system is. It is also identical to all of the other non-human animals in nearly every way down to every brain and visceral structure. Cognition is more complex. It involves the Neocortex. But I am convinced that if a study could be designed (difficult) in which a human brain were given the identical data, repeatedly, that the same response would be elicited. Unfortunately in a human who has had the stimulus once, his programme has been subtly changed and the conditions are not the same. Therefore the design of a study is difficult. As to good and evil, they are terms that I use. I do not use them in terms of good being what God says, and evil being what God forbids. God changes his mind too often. Good and evil are concepts in humans that reflect genetic and cultural memory of what is harmful to self and group and what is beneficial. Beneficial is good, harmful is evil. That is as close to absolutes as we ever get.

"In reality, that is actually the aim of God. That if we find it reasonable to submit to the power of natural laws, we should find it reasonable to submit to the one who has power even over the natural laws. So then God would say, “they are without excuse.”

First, we don't know if there is a God at all, let alone whether such a hypothetical being has an aim. We have no choice but to submit to natural laws. Everything that exists is natural, we are natural. To presume that we must submit to a hypothetical being that someone else claims to have power over natural laws is irrational, when that being is unproven. We know of nothing that has power over natural laws. We know of nothing apart from nature. Believing in an improbable hypothetical being is not only a waste of our time, but it prevents humans from rolling up their sleeves and solving their own problems with human effort, not wasting time on prayer or hoping for divine magic.

Isn’t this a profound evidence of God’s existence?

No, it begs the question of trying to prove a hypothetical being by assuming the existence of that being, then giving not a shred of real evidence.

Fiach

Albert Cipriani

Fiach:
Genesis 1:1-31:
Passing over #1 in reverential silence, and only analyzing the facts provided in the next 9 statements and the order in which those facts are presented to us, you’ll note that the creation “myth” of the Judeo-Christian tradition conforms to your science and resembles no other extant creation “myth.”

The odds of “stone-age savages” getting 10 out of 10 right and in the right order (Your science didn’t get these top ten right until just this last century!) is about as odd as winning the lotto, a one-in-a-million chance. In case you are as poetically deficient as you sound, allow me to connect a few dots for you.

#2: Language for the Big Bang fails us even today. But what better word than “light” to describe that protoplasmic spiration of the Word?

#3: Here “light” refers to the light we can think of as light as distinguished from dark matter, i.e., the distillation of matter from energy.

#4: Dividing the waters refers to the formation of the solar systems, that is, the segregation of the hydrogen planets from their hydrogen suns and thereafter the agglomeration of snowball comets into the planets.

#7: Describes the view from earth once the vapors cleared, not a recapitulation of #4.

The other steps in this Creation “myth” are self-evidently clear and true, down to the creation of man being the last act in this cosmic playing out of The Word. So why don’t you now eat your words?! – Dismayed by Your Lack of Poetic and Scientific Discernment, Albert Cipriani 2/3/03
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Philosoft

Albert, why should we subscribe you your strained interpretation of Genesis, when what is obvious from reading the words as writtten is that the writers were trying to explain the origins of the Earth and the sky?

The Big Bang is accurately described by the word "light"?? Is this some kind of joke? Electromagnetism didn't even exist separately at t=0. Some people have this curious interpretation of the Big Bang as a massive, radiant explosion. It was probably none of those things.

"Light" means different things at different times, "water" means different things at different times. If all you're doing is redefining terms so that the statements in Genesis align with the known history of the universe, you'll need to do better than light = Big Bang.

Primal

Kinda strange how an almighty, benevolent God makes animals like dogs,cats and badgers just so they can run around struggling and then die in a usually very painful way. Seems kinda pointless for God to make so many lifeforms just so they can die. They do nothing to piss Him off and usually don't get a shot at heaven....what gives?

Jack the Bodiless

Except, of course, that they did NOT get "10 out of 10 right and in the right order". Albert, let ME connect the dots for YOU.

1. Earth and oceans before the Big Bang? NO.

2. According to you, THIS is the Big Bang, our reference point.

3. How? Only solid objects divide light from darkness. But the Earth already exists (see #1).

4. The Firmament is the solid dome of the sky. It does not exist.

5. Dry land would have been present BEFORE the Earth cooled enough for liquid water to exist.

6. OK, this happened after the events previously described. But grass didn't appear until much later.

7. Oops. NO.

8. Animal life in the water, AFTER grass on land? NO. And whales, and birds? Oh dear.

9. Finally we have land animals. But grass, whales and birds should all be AFTER this.

10. Humans aren't the last species ever to evolve, so this is wrong also.

...So let's hear no more nonsense about the "right order", OK?

Jobar

Cute. But illogical Captain Kurt.

Theism does not lend itself to numerical qualification. Monotheists, monotriadists (that's me!), and polytheists are all believers in god, whereas, atheists are all dis-believers in god.

Monotriadists, huh? Never heard that one before.

Albert, it's historically true that Christians were called atheists during Roman times because they refused to worship the official Roman pantheon. I have often stated here that it's common to be an atheist in respect to one god, and an agnostic (or believer) in another. God1 =! God2. You are an unbeliever in all the thousands of gods which men worshipped before Yahweh was even thought of, and an unbeliever in all but one god worshipped today. I've heard of people who claim to believe in all gods ever thought of, even those that are forgotten; I suppose those are the only complete theists.

Oh, and it's Kirk, not Kurt. And we really have a CapnKirk as one of our members on II, so don't confuse me with him, OK?

abe smith

to the "Traditional Catholic, A.C." posted ^^^^^. Not O. Wilde, but R.W. Emerson said "A FOOLISH"(sic) "consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Newcomers, whom we-here were all ones once, tend to assert the same ol' same ol's, & to run around the much trodden tracks; and /but that's certainly okay, never better;

but (I find) that .eh, one can have done this manoeuvre enough times, at-last; and so, pass-on to other qq now more interesting.

Albert Cipriani

Philosoft:
Because what it lacks in Poindexter accuracy, it makes up for in poetry.

Philosoft:
Why should I subscribe to your interpretation of what the Genesis writers’ intention?

Philosoft:
Duh. So like, then, what did? You care to proffer a better word for it?

Words aren’t magic. They aren’t even accurate. They are symbolic placeholders for the fabric of reality. The only words we have are the words that represent that sliver of reality we have experienced. Thus far reality’s warp of things can be verbalized as a:
 solid
 liquid
 gas
 plasma
 Bose-Einstein condensate

Thus far, reality’s weave of forces can be verbalized as the:
 strong nuclear force
 weak nuclear force
 electromagnetism
 gravity

Light, which transcends thing-ness and force by being both a thing and a force -- a solid and a wave form -- and is the fastest “thing” there is, that emanates in all directions simultaneously from its source and is the premiere “thing” God has associated with Himself is the most worthy candidate I can conceive of for election as the word to describe that protoplasmic whatever which has been comically dubbed the Big Bang and to describe God Himself, aka, The Word.

Philosoft:
No thanks. I defer to you to light my path to that better word. Keep in mind, tho, that whatever word you come up with as a substitute for Genesis’s “light” must be a word that would have made sense to those “stone aged fairy-tellers” as well as to all the folks between them and us pseudo-sophisticates today. Good Luck Smart Guy, Albert Cipriani, The Traditional Catholic 2/4/03


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Albert Cipriani

Primal makes me scream!
Not really, just wanted to get "primal scream" into the same sentence in John Lennon’s memory. Primal says:
The hidden assumption in your complaint is that pain is the worst experience creatures are capable of, when in actuality, pain is the only experience creatures are capable of in reference to their Creator. Pain is the language of every finite creature’s communion with the infinite God.

To choose God is to suffer the loss of self. “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life in this world keepeth it unto life eternal.” [John 12:24,25] It is not that God is a sadist, it is that God is so delightful, no other method of freely choosing Him could be devised other than the way of pain.

The rings of Saturn, black holes, all things are SLAVISHLY doing the will of God. It is only us free creatures that have a choice in the matter. But to do His will is our heaven, our destiny, and the fulfillment of our design. So how could we FREELY do His will unless He made His path narrow, less obvious, more difficult, and even painful. Thus, through suffering and only "through that glass darkly" can we come to embrace God freely.

Were suffering not a pre-requisite to our divine calling, we could only orbit God as slavishly as the rings of Saturn do. And He’s created enough debris that can't help but to do that. We’re to do it freely and that’s our challenge. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic
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Secular Pinoy

I recognize this line of argumentation. I found this assertion in a Jehovah's Witnesses book How did we get Here: By Creation or Evolution? Hmmm...