Definitions: Atheism and Agnosticsm.

Say, for example, that we stumble upon a computer grave site or your nearest computer museum. We would of course see number of computers of varying complexity. If we knew nothing about computers, we might conclude that there was some random process where computers were made up of cells of transistors and that these evolved to create new computers. This of course does not happen, the designers have a clear method but ideas are still tested and evolve. The key thing here is that what we may have called a random process is the thinking process of many individuals. So observing what appears to be random evolution does not rule out some higher power indirectly or directly controlling the process. Now why would God create us by evolution? Couldn't a perfect being create us all at once? Well yes, but our measure of perfection may not be his. He may have wanted to create us entirely upon already constructed building blocks, a common design technique. Or maybe he wanted to emphasize that the earth that Adam was formed with was death. We don't really know.

 

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Formed for death???

Originally posted by okinrus
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Or maybe he wanted to emphasize that the earth that Adam was formed with was death. We don't really know.
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(okinrus, hi, long-time no argue! I read your post, but I don't understand your last sentence. It's really hard to form an argument when one doesn't understand the opposition. I think I know what you were trying to say, but in order to post my replay, I would ask that you rephrase this sentence. Thanks!

 

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The account given in Genesis says that man was formed by the earth, hence the dust you are and dust you will be. We latter read that the earth was cursed by Adam's fall and that the earth cried out when Abel was murdered. Jesus also writes on the earth when he saved the condemned adultrer emphasizing that the earth was cursed by man's sin but that he brought retribution for sin.

 

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The Earth, Adam & Sin

Originally posted by okinrus
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The account given in Genesis says that man was formed by the earth, hence the dust you are and dust you will be.
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(Man was formed by the Earth and will return to the Earth, but the Spirit of God which resides in man will be forever. "Man" the body of the "human race" is temporary. Whether we shed our Earthsuit and return to the eternal spirit, or we shed a conceptus, there is no death to the spirit only the flesh.)

 

marcac

how can you dispute the length of a day? if you believe literally (i think this is the only way you can interpret this, why would they say six days if they didn't mean six days?) that god created the world in six days then there is no room for evolution or a great deal of other things in this world.

that's what i've been talking about the whole time. technical details are what lets christianity down, eve being created from adams rib cage specifically contradicts evolution. it would mean adam would have had to evolve all by himself to a human state then god decides to add females into the mix, after adam evolved into a human. that in every way contradicts evolution, females are integral to evolution occuring yet they came after males- another problem.

that's the problem though- religion to often doesn't celebrate our differences. if the christian church had succeeded in it's missionary missions everyone on this planet would believe in the bible, and that is not celebrating differences, it's wiping them out.

how are you supposed to interpret the bible? for one i don't see how you can dispute the length of a day, or something like the creation of adam and eve. i'm talking my ques from what i've read, but mainly from the beiefs of those christian people i know (and their ideas are what is commonly held by church doctrine). they don't fall inline with evolution. you and i may share almost exactly the same ideas on evolution, but it was always the interpretation of your belief that we were butting heads over.

okay, tell me how the bibles six days or gods creation of adam and eve are open to figurative interpretation? which in turn leaves space for evolution?

gee i don't know, disbelief in evolution maybe? what the church has believed for the last 100 years? i'm pretty sure your just being difficult because if you thought about it you would probably come up with a much better answer than i could. but you can't honestly say that evolution has not and still is not discounted almost fully by christian belief since its inception.

jan ardena

it hasn't changed yet has it? that is the point. atheism doesn't fall into religions catergory- it may but the point is it isn't yet.

exactly- they shouldn't have any agenda's. but the main agenda is to spread one's own religion. a most unfortunate angenda which is one of the main causes of almost all of the worlds problems today.

good for you. however, you are one of the few that will hold that belief and that is the problem.

i think (i could check but i'm feeling lazy) i was talking to marac when i said that, and the point was that it wasn't which religion he belonged to exactly, it was more that he could only see discrepancies in what atheists believed and none in his own belief. everyone should be able to see flaws in their own belief, nothing is perfect, yet i find very few thiests who will claim to have any discrepancies in their beliefs- that is a round-a-bout way of saying that their belief is perfect and in some way they are perfect to attain that sort of belief. no-one is perfect. any claim otherwise is pure arrogance.

 

It's no different than the 7 trumpets of Revelation. The word used for day in hebrew in that passage means a period of time.

Not really unless if we extend the creation of Eve to all other lifeforms.

Of course if you accept evolution and a more literal intepretation, then there was only females of other species before mankind.

 

how long a period of time? how sure are you of what you say? if it says six periods of time then it must be referring to a set length of time.

mankind evolved. we aren't different to that of every organism on this planet. that is why it's a contradiction. anyway, it would seem that all other life forms came before humans and were created by god, evolution doesn't come into play anywhere there.

excuse me, what do you mean only females of other species before mankind? the interpretation of adam and eve can't really be taken any other way. it is specifically talking about the creation of man, why would such events be described if they didn't happen? micro-evolution has been observed, macro-evolution has much evidence in its favour, including micro-evolution. why would you not accept evolution? other than reason that you have been brought up not to believe in it.

 

I know Jewish people who all say the same thing. How long a time does not matter, because I suspect that the use of days was only to demarcate a certain structure to the creation account.

I was brought up believing evolution but I'm not sure what your point is there. Eve was the first human woman, but that does not rule out other woman as the tale of Lilith proves. If we classify ourselves into different species, then at some point in time we can say that there was no other human women before this. Also the most likely interpetation is that Eve was made out of Adam's rib to emphasize Eve's responsibility to guard Adam's heart. Of course I have no problem with the literal intepretation that Eve was created from Adam's rib or the DNA from Adam's rib.

 

As previously quoted:

To refuse to recognize the likelihood that the rib story is little more than warmed-over Sumerian mythology suggests a noteworthy commitment to ignorance and superstition.

 

that's a beaut. if this was the case then adam and eve would not have been able to have children together. biologically impossible.

 

No, there's no reason that God couldn't change Eve's DNA. God would have to do so anyways to make her female.

No, even if we can say that the Sumerian version is related to the bibical one, it is possible that there was one common true source to both stories. I don't see any major resemblance though. Take any genre of books and you will see resemblances and common themes in each one.

 

As I said: a noteworthy commitment to ignorance and superstition.

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Your argument is that because a sumerian motif got into one of the many oral traditions of the bible this automatically makes all of the bible wrong and therefore, because I find this logic faulty I'm somehow labeled "ignorant" and "superstious". This all, of course, is not quite fair because first stories of genesis are one of the parts of the bible where we have the least amount of information on. So perhaps these oral traditions came from Abraham himself and that he borrowed this from his culture.

 

Show me, from this thread or any other thread, where I have said that "all of the bible [is] wrong".

There's no 'there' in your 'therefore'. What you find "faulty" is your ignorant and/or dishonest distortion of what I wrote.

Yes.

Stop whining. You're not interested in information. Go read Friedman or Finkelstein or Mazar or Dever or Redford or Laughlin or Cross or Smith or Mendenhall or ...

Or maybe it was told by Leprechauns vacationing in the levant.

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You have continouly repudiated all of what it is in the bible, of course that is expected from an atheist. By all, I mean all supernatural and extraordinary events in the bible. It's a slight exaggeration but not dishonest because cllearly from context, you were trying to extend this to other passages in the bible and then extend it to my superstition but all you've really done is score ego points. It's really no different than claiming that the bibical story of genesis was copied from Gilgamesh.

 

Actually, I think you're referring to the story of the Flood.

 

Well there's the flood and a few more commonalities. Gilgamesh failed the test to stay awake for 6 days and 7 nights for eternal life and Gilgamesh was robbed of the plant that would make him younger by a snake.

 

i'm sorry, but doesn't any of this sound stupid to your own ears? it's like santa; i believed in him once, but the idea of a jolly fat man squeezing through chimney's and delivering presents to all the children of the world now sounds silly (being completely objective) to me. unfortuantely the tales told in the bible fair no better, especially when we're supposed to believe that a omniscient god who is fair and loving was the source of these events. the two don't line up. the actions wouldn't represent that of a god who is supposed to be what i just described. i think if you're going to believe in a god atleast give him some credit for what he has achieved throughout the universe instead of ascribing some silly stories to him, that are obviously made up from the limitations of the own authors knowledge at the time it was written.

 

It would, if there wasn't the testimony of many Turkish, who claim to have been inside the ark, atop Ararat, around the time of World War 2, prior to it being covered again by an avalance. There was just a big story about on the History Channel about a month and a half ago, interviewing about 20 people who claim to have actually been in the ark.

The Judeo-Christian God always leaves sufficient evidence of his work, for all but the most rebellious.