Castanet

I see you're getting caught up in that literal interpretation thing like a lot of others. I honestly don't think that the Bible was ever meant to be an accurate account of history, I wonder how any sound thinker could imagine anyone taking it that way.

Process wrote:This is all just typical Creationist crap - all subterfuge and obfuscation. What I want to know from the frothing fundamentalists is how the kiwi birds got to the ark, and then back again? Clearly, they have either hidden abilities to swim across oceans, or fly the same route. I guess that Creationists, being the great scientists they purport to be, will gather up few bushels of kiwi birds, and toss them off some cliffs to see if they can fly, or dump them into the ocean to see if they can do the backstroke. While they're at it, how about testing the unique cave fauna found on that far-flung island - like the glow worm? The unique vegetation too, must have some secret transportational abilities - even if there was a parting of the sea (down to the depth of the Marianna Trench - or deeper than Mt. Everest is high), the plants couldn't have made the journey. I WANT ANSWERS! You woolly headed intellectual relativists think you're pretty damn hot and trying to find holes in science, but have no answers yourselves - just carping by the ignorant, for the ignorant. You're all a waste of time.

Good day!

Well, this is all just typical Dawkins crap - dichotomizing reality into science and Bible literalism; as if there are no philosophies that encompass and go beyond both, let alone an infinite spectrum of possibilities that humans are unaware of.

Process wrote:This is all just typical Creationist crap - all subterfuge and obfuscation. What I want to know from the frothing fundamentalists is how the kiwi birds got to the ark, and then back again? Clearly, they have either hidden abilities to swim across oceans, or fly the same route. I guess that Creationists, being the great scientists they purport to be, will gather up few bushels of kiwi birds, and toss them off some cliffs to see if they can fly, or dump them into the ocean to see if they can do the backstroke. While they're at it, how about testing the unique cave fauna found on that far-flung island - like the glow worm? The unique vegetation too, must have some secret transportational abilities - even if there was a parting of the sea (down to the depth of the Marianna Trench - or deeper than Mt. Everest is high), the plants couldn't have made the journey. I WANT ANSWERS! You woolly headed intellectual relativists think you're pretty damn hot and trying to find holes in science, but have no answers yourselves - just carping by the ignorant, for the ignorant. You're all a waste of time.

Good day!

If one believes in the flood then one also can believe God brought those kiwi birds to the ark. If you have no faith in God, who many believe created all life including those birds, then you will still look for your answers.

Either way, i'm not weighing in with my opinion, this is just facts. and logic, you cannot look for a human answer when it comes to miracles. Choose not to believe in God or choose too believe.

Hmmm wrote: If one believes in the flood then one also can believe God brought those kiwi birds to the ark. If you have no faith in God, who many believe created all life including those birds, then you will still look for your answers.

Either way, i'm not weighing in with my opinion, this is just facts. and logic, you cannot look for a human answer when it comes to miracles. Choose not to believe in God or choose too believe.

Billions of people believe in a god. Not all of them believe in the biblical account of creation. Not every one believes as you do, in fact very few agree with you 100%. There are thousands of Christian sects all thinking they have the only true answer. Among them, very few will see the fruits of their belief. There are even Christians who have no problem believing in evolution and do not see the conflict between it and Genesis.

The flood story is not an historical account. The flood did not cover the entire world. It would be impossible. There is only a finite amount of water on the planet. Primitive, illiterate people saw things they could not understand. Their world was about a day's walk in any direction. When they had a flood that affected their world as they knew it they said the world was flooded. There have been many floods around the world but there is no evidence that there was ever a flood that covered the entire planet. It is a fiction. Just like many of the stories, if not all of the stories, in the bible.

It is an ancient book, written by scribes who did the bidding of their masters who had ulterior motives for having the stories written. Like all the creation myths. and there are thousands of them, the biblical account is no more and no less valid or invalid. If god so loved the world and his creation, then, if he did not give the truth to all of them, then he is a fraud and a charlatan. Your belief that your god is the only true god is an act of immense egotism.

cliffy1 wrote: Like all the creation myths. and there are thousands of them, the biblical account is no more and no less valid or invalid. If god so loved the world and his creation, then, if he did not give the truth to all of them, then he is a fraud and a charlatan. Your belief that your god is the only true god is an act of immense egotism.

While I appreciate your thoughts, I am only really commenting on one aspect of this topic by simply answering a question someone asked. If someone is questioning the Biblical account of the flood and then leaving Gods hand/direction out of the equation and looking for strictly human answers to it, they miss the point. The point is: If God caused the flood, and Instructed Noah to gather all the animals, then God can certainly make sure all the animals are gathered. Yes this requires faith.

cliffy1 wrote: If god so loved the world and his creation, then, if he did not give the truth to all of them, then he is a fraud and a charlatan. Your belief that your god is the only true god is an act of immense egotism.

Having someone pass a story on but that person changes it dramatically doesn't make the original story-teller a fraud. You ever think that everyone who thinks their god is the only true god can all be right as it's the same god?

zzontar wrote:Having someone pass a story on but that person changes it dramatically doesn't make the original story-teller a fraud. You ever think that everyone who thinks their god is the only true god can all be right as it's the same god?

And what of the polytheists?

Even thinking that our finite minds can comprehend the nature of the infinite is vastly egotistical. Humans needed gods to bolster their feelings of inadequacy, so they invented them. I can wrap my mind around the idea that a conscious entity may have cause the Universe to come into effect, but that this entity would be concerned with what goes on on an specific and insignificant speck of dust floating in an infinite sea of specks of dust I find incredulous.

There are perspectives where the basic differences between evolution and creation as world views can be somewhat soluable.

A basic question that shapes world views is what is a human?

Looking at evolution, there is the concept of "the great leap forward". At some point, and very, very recently in our evolution (which is very, very recent in geologic time) "something changed" and we start to see developments that we associate with humanness. Art and other symbolic representions appear, as do technological changes. Agriculture and domestic animals appear. Groups such as the Neanderthal did not manage to fully make this and the subsequent "leaps" that lead to us.

So what changed? What allowed our ancestors to out compete the more robust Neanderthal?

The "answers" I have read, and I'll defer to more knowledgeable folks here, all seem to be "chicken and egg" problems, especially considering that Neanderthals had bigger brains.

I speculate that we won't ever quite be able to nail it down, but we've all had some of those "aha" moments where something we couldn't do or understand became something we could do or understand. Perhaps *bleep* Sapiens just happened to be the lucky ones who had the key "aha" moment and were able to pass it on (makes sense when you look at the notion that our population had become very small and "we" were not that far from extinction - what saved us? - possibly this "aha" moment). Maybe it all boils down to being able to speculate?

Then I look at the religious text myths that I am familiar with, and from the viewpoint that religious texts are largely allegorical (and there I differ in world view from literalists), I see some parallel insights. Perhaps, just perhaps, the "garden of Eden" is simply allegory for the state of being that Neanderthals and our distant ancestors experienced? The "forbidden fruit" allegory for the reason for "the great leap forward" that may have remained in our racial memory? Myths, much maligned in our current culture, often contain insights and wisdom (sometimes the perpetuation of fallacies) that allowed folks in the past to understand things and form their world views. (Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" is worth reading in that context.)

If you get past the artificial stigma, the Judeo-Christian creation myths do appear to me to have some parallels with evolution when viewed as allegory. They just try to explain the age old question "where did I come from".

From my limited understanding, the "big bang theory" certainly has the scent of early Greek creation myth about. However, "the big bang theory" is a theory (not a specultaion - as most myths are) with provable elements (and unresolved questions).

Hanging on to a creationist allegory as literally true is problematic in that such dogged refusal to accept new insights tends lock a person's world view.

Sneaksuit wrote:
Well, this is all just typical Dawkins crap - dichotomizing reality into science and Bible literalism; as if there are no philosophies that encompass and go beyond both, let alone an infinite spectrum of possibilities that humans are unaware of.

Well, this is all just typical metaphysical crap - obfuscating reality into pointless daydreams about how unknowable the universe is, creating hypothetical questions and making up meaningless answers. It all seems so deep if you just say "there's no way we'll ever know man, the universe is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma!"

Perhaps we should consider that Zeus made people out of clay and Thor rid the world of frost giants. We can't prove it didn't happen, and in an infinite spectrum of possibilities, surely there must be a place where Zeus or Thor exist as the creator of the universe.

hobbyguy wrote: If you get past the artificial stigma, the Judeo-Christian creation myths do appear to me to have some parallels with evolution when viewed as allegory....Hanging on to a creationist allegory as literally true is problematic in that such dogged refusal to accept new insights tends lock a person's world view.

I don't believe the Bible was ever meant to be taken literally, I think it was the intent of the authors to convey a moral message through fictional accounts. An unswerving literalist view as held by Christian religions today is in my mind a big part of the reason they are losing popularity among more progressive (and educated) countries as they are not willing to even attempt to reconcile Biblical interpretation with scientific fact. When taken as allegory, the Bible gains a huge degree of flexibility when it comes to accepting the moral teachings without having to get on board with historical accounts that strain believability.

Geckonidae wrote: Perhaps we should consider that Zeus made people out of clay and Thor rid the world of frost giants. We can't prove it didn't happen, and in an infinite spectrum of possibilities, surely there must be a place where Zeus or Thor exist as the creator of the universe.

Yes there is always that. In the absence of definitive proof we cannot discount any theory, still there is proven fact that supports some theories as more probable than others. It's when we get into the areas that are heavy in speculation that the fight begins as there is always someone who wants to lay an unsupported claim to the undiscovered territory.

I think what worked for me was to have some sort of "theory" of my own that didn't go against what I have accepted as fact but still kept the door open for the many possibilities that are out there. It had to be something that I was comfortable with in my own mind as opposed to having to accept something that didn't ring true just because someone else said that's the rule.

You don't know the difference between a notion, speculation and a whim vs. a hypothesis, theory, and scientific law. May I suggest you get an education before venturing into a learned discussion, because you're using a screwdriver and calling it jello.

There is no such thing as believing in evolution OR creationism. For one we have evidence, for the other we do not. Period.

jennylives wrote:There is no such thing as evolution OR creationism. For one we have evidence, for the other we do not. Period.

There is no evidence to support how life was started through evolution. Atheists find it hard to believe a higher intelligence could create life when we humans are almost there ourselves, yet they'll easily believe that a bolt of lightning striking an inanimate object can create life that instantly knows how to eat, breathe, reproduce, and branch off into everything from a shrub to a giraffe. Amazing.

There doesn't need to be, it's not part of the theory. You are referring to abiogenisis.

Process wrote:You don't know the difference between a notion, speculation and a whim vs. a hypothesis, theory, and scientific law. May I suggest you get an education before venturing into a learned discussion, because you're using a screwdriver and calling it jello.

But what is hypothesis other than speculation? Personally I question the objectivity of a "scientist" who has already decided what is not possible when there is no evidence to support such a decision. Those who are unable to include "I don't know" in their vocabulary are a hindrance to discovery. In the realm of the unknown anything is possible.

Please feel free to make a relevant contribution to the discussion. If you have one.