OT: What's your religeon?

[Rasorow]

DarkHorse said:
I have a sneaking suspicion that the Universe is attempting to create God through evolution, and maybe a little osmosis.

Actually I just like saying 'osmosis'.

That's a real interesting thought. Could the Universe itself be trying to create God? Just as the universe was condensed into the <gross understandment> compact ball of energy and matter, then expanded, could life which started with the simplest of forms, progressed through intelligent species, now be trying to fulfill the vacuum of emptiness created by the lack of a higher order? Could the eventual fulfillment of a higher order being be the "event" that begins the contraction of the universe and the devolvment of life?

Rasorow

[deccan]

Electrum said:
If one takes the time to seriously read & look into the Bible, you find that, though it is not a science book, where it touches on science, it is in perfect harmony with established scientific fact. The same holds true for other areas, as in history & geography. It soon moves to amazement when it comes to examining Biblical prophecy to historical events.

Since no one has come forward to the dispute this, I am going to do so.

You are quite correct that strong, unqualified statements concerning the Bible should not be made without having first made a serious attempt at studying the subject first-hand. Now, let me say that I have read the Bible, cover to cover, several different Versions of it in fact. On the hand, and while this may or may not be true for you, I believe that while many theists do, understandably, have first-hand knowledge of their religious canon, they have relatively little knowledge of the origins of that canon, and the process by which it came into their hands.

There are a lot of Bible-bashing sites on the internet, and I once ran one myself. I won't point you to them since I find that most of them are too partisan, focus too much on nitpicking and try too hard to grasp at tenuous straws. However, I will rely on Wikipedia, which being a community, open-to-everyone effort, should be a much more neutral, qualified, source of information.

First of all, Biblical canon looks at the various different "books" that compose the "Bible" and explains which are canon to which religious denominations and how they became canon to that denomination. The point here is that at various different points in history, different Groups of people had to gather around in a meeting and sit down to decide what God supposedly did say, and what he did not say.

Next, The Bible and history examines whether or not the Bible is actually scientifically and historically correct as you claim.

In any case, some quotes from the Wikipedia page here:

On Genesis:

The Biblical creation tale, up to and including the deluge are not a subject of dispute in the scientific community. They are generally regarded as a myth. The arguments raised come cosmology, geology, evolution (in particular fossil evidence), and textual analysis of the Bible itself, showing similarity to other mythologies.

On Jews living in Egypt:

The number of Israelites stated in the Bible, 600,000, cannot be taken at face value, as this number is thought to exceed the total Egyptian population at the time. A common suggestion is that the word "thousand" should be interpreted here as meaning "family", which gives a figure much more compatible with the historical record.

On Joshua:

The historicity of the book of Joshua is today strongly suspected, as archeological research found no evidence of a massive population increase in Canaan during this time period. At this time the land had a population of between 50,000 and 100,000. Kathleen Kenyon excavated in Jericho from 1952-1958, using improved methods of stratigraphy, and found many details which would seem to conform to the Biblical account of the conquest of Jericho, but she determined that the siege took place 150 years too early for it to have been the city Joshua's army destroyed. She dated the city by the absence of a type of imported pottery common to the era around 1400 B.C. She concluded, as had Sellin and Watzinger before her that the Biblical account of the conquest of Jericho was untenable.

For anyone interested in a detailed account of scientific errors committed in the Bible or scientifically unsound teachings perpetuated by Christian denominations throughout history, Whitehead's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom is an old but still very useful read that is now in the public domain.

Finally, Wikipedia has a page on Alleged inconsistencies in the Bible which details some of the inconsistencies within the Bible itself.

Now, I note that you do not claim that the Bible is wholly inerrant, "merely" that it has proven to be correct on an impressive number of matters. How much "correctness" should be regarded as being truly "impressive" is a really subjective matter of course. For example, I might say that the "Dao De Jing" is impressive, simply by virtue that it contains a large number of self-evident "truisms".

In the case of the Bible, personally, as I believe that it was written purely by men without divine knowledge, I would still expect these men to be reasonably intelligent, knowledgeable and relatively well-travelled, persons, and that the accuracy and correctness of their work to reflect that ability. Consequently, in order to seriously claim that the Bible is "impressive" above and beyond that standard, would require that the Bible include information that could not be known at that time and incur a far higher burden of evidence.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

As a quick reply, I've heard that creation, as described in the bible, is simaliar to many other stories of creation. I'll just point out that the order described in the bible fits the order described by the location of fossils, as it was described in my textbooks.

The arguement that the biblical creation must be false because it is simaliar to many others is a falicy(sp?), if such a congruence exists (I havn't read other religeons religeous texts, yet), it is evidence of some sort of historical congruence or origin point and hardly evidence of falsety(sp?).

[deccan]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
I'll just point out that the order described in the bible fits the order described by the location of fossils, as it was described in my textbooks.

You're going to be have to be more specific, but generally I'd say that this is not correct.

Roughly the order described in Genesis goes like this, quotes from KJV:

1: "...grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself.."

2: "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years..."

(Note: so God supposedly made plants and trees first, then made the Sun and the Moon etc. Ouch.)

3: "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good."

4: "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind..."

The above implies that God created fish first (generally correct) but makes the mistake of including whales as fish which as we now know, is not correct. But the writers of Genesis could not know what we know. Generally, evolutionary biology (supported by recent fossil findings) state that whales are descendents of land-based mammals.

It also implies that birds were created before reptiles ("creeping thing"?) and in any case, before land-based animals, and anyone who's watched "Jurassic Park" knows that's not true.

I can supply complete references to anyone who is interested.

narf poit chez BOOM said:
The arguement that the biblical creation must be false because it is simaliar to many others is a falicy(sp?), if such a congruence exists (I havn't read other religeons religeous texts, yet), it is evidence of some sort of historical congruence or origin point and hardly evidence of falsety(sp?).

You are correct of course. But the main point is not to say that it is factually false, merely to say that it is unoriginal. If there is true "congruence", then we must reasonably be able to say that the writers of Genesis based their writings on information sources completely independently of the cultures surrounding them.

Given the close cultural contact between them and the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians etc., it is more reasonable to suppose that the writers of Genesis plagiarized, to use an unkind word, from existing creation mythologies that pre-dated the Jewish religion. On the other hand, if we find significant similarities between two cultures who were completely isolated from one another, then we would be able to speculate on the possibility of congruence.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Creeping things can also mean bugs.

As for the order, KJV, 1st day: 'In the beggining God created the heaven and the Earth.' - Universe, then planet. Same.
'And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.' - Sun after planet. Different.
'and God divided the light from the darkness.' Planetary rotation. Same.
2nd day,
'And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And 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.' Seems to imply that atmosphere came after water; as far as breathable, same.
3rd day,
'And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear' Same. Also, implies that if the waters were in one place, the land was in one piece - As geologists generally say. Same.
'And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.' After water, atmosphere and land formation, plants. Note that the next verse recaps and references 'trees'.
4th,
'And 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 for seasons, and for days, and years:' Stars now. Different.
'And 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.' Different.
5th,
'And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.' Land creatures. Same. Fowl - No reference to feathers. Indeterminate.
'And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.' Creatures coming out of the water. Same. Large sea creatures after (Implied)small ones. Same. No reference to feathers.
6th,
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.' More diverse life forms(Implied) after(Implied) less diverse life forms. Same.
'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.' Humans after the establishment of every other catagory of life. Same.

11 Same
3 Different
2 Indeterminate (Labelling the fowl indeterminate)

That's enough for me to say it's amazingly accurate, given the span of time.

As for the creation myths round about that area, as I said, I havn't met the literature. However, your assertion that they are older is premature. There is no conclusive non-religious evidence that I know of.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

And this is getting kind of off-topic, so if you want to reply, please make a new thread.

[Fyron]

A few problems there Narf...

As for the order, KJV, 1st day: 'In the beggining God created the heaven and the Earth.' - Universe, then planet. Same.

No. This does not say, heaven first, then the Earth, just heaven and Earth. There is no order. This is not the same as scientific fact. It is a bit of a stretch to relete "heaven" to "universe," but that is beside the point.

'And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And 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.' Seems to imply that atmosphere came after water; as far as breathable, same.

That is an invalid assumption. There was atmosphere long before water. There are also no "waters under the firmanent," there is magma, and molten cores, and all that fun stuff, especially before the Earth started cooling enough for any water to be present in non-gaseous form.

3rd day,
'And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear' Same.

Dry land was there long before liquid water. The world was never covered entirely in water, then land started appearing. This is backwards. Water started appearing as the Earth cooled from its super hot beginnings (condensation). Unless you want to call lava water...

'And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose see is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.' After water, atmosphere and land formation, plants. Note that the next verse recaps and references 'trees'.

5th,
'And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.' Land creatures. Same.

This is rather ambiguous... doesn't say what sort of creatures the waters brought forth. Land creatures? Sea creatures? What was first, fish or land creatures? Definitely indeterminate.

Fowl - No reference to feathers. Indeterminate.

Fowl means one thing, a certain kind of bird. Fowl directly implies (and requires) feathers.

'And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.' Creatures coming out of the water. Same.

The waters only "brought forth" marine life and amphibians. Everything else was not "brought forth" by the waters, but evolved from the first amphibians, on land.

Large sea creatures after (Implied)small ones. Same.

There was no such implication. If you want to read it literally, as you did before, it implies that great whales were first.

No reference to feathers.

Again, fowl is a certain class of birds. Most certainly feathers. Can't be anything else.

6th,
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.' More diverse life forms(Implied) after(Implied) less diverse life forms. Same.

I see no such implication. Also, seems to be contradictory. All the living creatures that move were already created on day 5. How can creatures already created be recreated?

'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.' Humans after the establishment of every other catagory of life. Same.

No, not the same. There are a lot of categories of life that evolved after or parallel with humans.

That's enough for me to say it's amazingly accurate, given the span of time.

It is not that accurate...