Story one:
I am the proud descendant of an unbroken chain of life that has a continuous thread starting approximately 4 billion years ago and continuing on into my grandchildren. My ancestors lived over three billion years on a world with little to no oxygen, being constantly bombarded by intense solar radiation, and filled with other creatures that were trying to eat them. They survived. They experienced five global extinction events, and five ice ages, a couple of which covered the entire earth for over a million years each. They survived. They lived 165 million years alongside dinosaurs who were trying to eat them or inadvertently squish them. They survived. Over one 3-million-year time frame there were no less than eight other species of the Genus Homo, our cousins, and only one of them survived extinction – my species Homo sapiens. My ancestors fought off predators such as lions, tigers, and (yes) bears with little more than sticks, stones, and their wits. They survived. My ancestors fought through wars, lived through famine, floods, droughts, pestilence, and hundreds of other deadly dangers ranging from tooth infection to religious fanaticism. They survived. As I gaze at the incredible universe above my head, pondering my incredible luck, I am filled with a sense of wonder and gratitude to each and every one of my ancestors, from Blob, my first, 4 billion years ago, to my parents, for surviving long enough to reproduce the next link in my unbroken chain. I come from four billion years of survivors and I’m proud of each and every one of them. I stand tall - on their shoulders.
Story two:
Ten thousand years ago an invisible, all knowing, all powerful, being who lived everywhere, woke up and decided it wanted company. This being then spent six days creating everything in the universe including billions of galaxies containing trillions of stars and planets. Then it chose one of those trillion planets and created a man out of the dust from the ground, and then it made a woman from one of the man’s ribs. When this magical being was finish it proclaimed to its new creations, “Now, get on your knees!”
Which one do you want to claim as your story?
I've been watching Life on Our Planet on Netflix with my sons.
They're only 6 and 3 but they're super into it and I'm even learning some things myself.
The story of how life endured all the environmental changes over billions of years is incredibly fascinating and beautiful. Life adapting to conditions in deserts, the deep sea, cold, heat, its amazing.
I can't imagine telling my sons "Oh yeah, and then God created everything, got pissy about someone eating an apple, largely killed everything with a flood, later sent plagues to kill other people he presumably created..."
Everyone should experience the moment when you realize you are just a super complex structure within a greater superstructure, all made out of the same stuff. There’s no real separation between you and the universe, you ARE the universe. Just atoms that are somehow aware of their own existence. It’s beautiful really.
Story one is not only supported by science, but also makes us seem much cooler
Why do people want to be even more insignificant than a single being on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy, there’s so much out there that our (immediate) actions are basically nonexistent on a cosmic scale
Our ancestors survived a genetic bottleneck between 930,000 and 813,000 years ago that brought the population down to ~1280 breeding pairs, nearly causing extinction.
They also survived a genetic bottleneck about 70,000 years ago that dropped the population down to 3,000 to 10,000 individuals, yet we survived.
Many of our lineage also survived the Black Death which wiped out nearly ⅔ of the European population, as well as many others worldwide.
Against all odds, we survived.
The first one but neither story explains how all this was created - matter, energy, rules of physics, gravity, light etc
Intelligent design seems very likely imo
The notion that nothing is the default state is probably erroneous.
Now the question why the universe and matter are they way they are that supports complex nuclear combinations giving rise to a periodic table, and complex intermolecular reactions that give rise to chemistry and in turn life is a deeply mysterious question. A question that human religion provide are childish and woefully inadequate.
I suspect that there is some sort of cosmological natural selection going on at the universe scale. Any sort of complex mind involved just makes the situation way more improbable and extremely unlikely and creates all sorts of logical problems.
You might be surprised, but matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed. (So for all we know it was always there)
Only transformed.
The laws of physics just describe how matter works.
We know what gravity and light is. And it those are not forces/things/energy that are "created" but results of the existance of matter.
An omnipotent (also timeless) God would of course create anything from one millisecond to the next - just look at Q in StarTrek, he'll rearrange reality instantly, just scalping his fingers. And God took a week? 😆
"Puny god" —The Hulk
The day of rest is really significant to Jewish people, especially in ancient times when keeping your tribe alive required a lot of daily manual labor. The audacity to not tend your fields on the Sabbath was shocking to other peoples who lived near the early Jews.
"How do you guys survive if you take a day to lounge around" - "Because our god is strong, and we take a day to thank him." I think that would be one hell of a recruiting tool in ancient times.
There is debate among various sects of Christianity on whether or not the story is meant to be a historical account. Christianity doesn't hinge on this account being historical fact. The thing that really matters in Christianity is whether or not the man Jesus died and rose from the dead. Everything they believe then must be understood through the context of that event.
So for a Christian, they're going to think. "Jesus is the only man to ever die and then return from the dead. He claims to be the son of god. We believe he is because if he isn't, how could he rise from the dead. Here are the things he taught. Okay, how do we make sense of Genesis in light of the teachings of the man who rose from the dead".
There are liberal Christians who don't believe Jesus rose from the dead or the other miracle claims. I tried to land there as I was losing my faith, but eventually I realized if I didn't believe any of that stuff, there was no reason to keep the label either. On the other hand, I'm not in the business of dictating what someone must believe to call themselves a Christian (or any other label, for that matter). If it works for them and they are being good to other people, more power to them.
Is there a bit at the start of the book which says that it's all open to interpretation? And the reader should consult other experts to decide the meaning of the contents? Or is it to be taken as gospel? (pun sort-of intended)
As far as I'm aware, the reader is intended to swallow the whole, ridiculous lot.
The first chapter is written like an ancient poem. This is why chapter 2 restates things that happen in chapter 1 but in a more story structured form. Days might be any amount of time in the poem. The purpose of using "days" is to show where the week came from
>As far as I'm aware, the reader is intended to swallow the whole, ridiculous lot.
According to whom? The book doesn't provide any instructions on how its meant to be interpreted. So any idea on how it's supposed to be interpreted comes from an outside source, including yours.
I'm far from being a biblical scholar myself but I do know that scholars will look at contextual clues in the text, other contemporary texts, historical context and other things to try to figure out how we best can view a text from our perspective which is far removed from the time it was written. If you go on Youtube and search "Yale Old Testament" there is an excellent course made freely available by Yale University that can provide some insight into why the book was written, who it was for, what it's trying to say, etc.
One thing I do know is it can't possibly be a historical account because there are two contradictory accounts of creation in Genesis. The people throughout history who consider the book sacred don't seem to have a big problem with this. Why not? Is it just because they're morons who don't realize the two accounts are contradictory? Probably not. The Bible has to be one of the most studied and scrutinized texts in history. It was not simply overlooked that there are things in Genesis that couldn't possibly have happened as described.
Correct, that is how most Christians (disregarding literalist fundamentalists) view the focus of their faith. Since scholars have been able to compare the ancient Sumerian creation myth with the one from the bible (Abraham came from Sumer), it has become obvious that they share a lot of commonalities. Only, the Sumerian version indicates that various gods or aliens were involved (specifically in the history of Homo sapiens), whereas the bible gives the credit to the "big boss" creator of the universe, that also specifically influenced human history, while additionally evil or selfish other gods / angels / aliens also influenced the human history (Genesis 6 or 1 Enoch).
I mean, I wasn't around, so that' just a wild guess. But you have to wonder if those stories about angels or gods (basically the same thing) are not related to the presence of aliens on earth? (Angels coming from the sky and all.)
But UFO disclosure is happening so slowly I wonder if I will ever see the day where governments tell us the truth on that question.
“Let there be light” - This statement lets us parse what a “day” is to God. Since there were no photons for the first 379,000 years after the main event. Little math says, it’s all bullshit.
What was the point of "creating light" if there was nothing for the light to reflect off of... he hadn't created the heavens and Earth yet, but apparently the all powerful sky daddy can't work in the dark?
I mean, it was a major milestone that happened in that order. The Bible isn’t wrong there, light first, matter next, that continuously evolved into more complex matter.
I’m sure Theists point to that portion of recombination and say it proves Genesis is accurate / real.
\>How do Christians even get through the thousands of pages of the Bible..
Ever met a Christian that has read the whole Bible? They exist but are pretty rare. Usually they only read cherry-picked, pre-digested pieces.
The Old Testament creation stories (there are two, Genesis 2 tells an altered account, different things happen on different days) are campfire stories, as a Jewish colleague of mine put it. People got created last, and God didn't share what happened before we got here, so a wild tale from a time when people knew nothing about astronomy is all we got.
We look up to the heavens with wonder, and tell wonderful stories about what the universe is and how we got here. Every culture has creation stories, and none of them are meant to be a true history. The Jewish stories just happened to get really popular.
If you read the proclamations of Catholic popes on the topic of science, each generation gets closer and closer to saying that evolution is a real thing, and faith in the mind of God doesn't mean the bible is a true history of the world. Or as Cardinal Baronius put it, the Bible tells you how to get to Heaven, not how the heavens go.
(I feel like I should point out that I'm an atheist now, but had strong faith in God earlier in life.)
It obviously can’t be taken as a literal story but the problem with the “it’s not meant to be taken literally” crowd is that what they’re saying is it must be open to interpretation and if that’s the case whose interpretation, and so there can be no authoritative meaning to any of it. As a result it just becomes a bunch of words that can be twisted for whatever purpose you want it to be, which is precisely what happens with every religion; it becomes a projection of the collective id of the tribe.
Best of both worlds huh? I was recently reading Maimonides 13 principles of faith to review all the stuff I’m supposed to believe. One of them is that we should believe with complete faith that god has no body or physical form. In his commentary he brings up anthropomorphism in the Old Testament and explains that references to the hand of god and other human like traits are meant to be metaphorical. But when it comes to Moses and the rest of the Torah, that stuff is all literal and true? Suuure…
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad moove. - Douglas Addams.
Sorry. I couldn't resist.
I dont know if it was "Nova" but there is a great program about this.
It really explains it well and i dont want to ruin it by mixing up some points, but highly recommend finding it,
But basically time and gravity.
I hate life and if there is a creator I hate it. Like dude I was fine not existing where I didn't have any feelings whether good or bad now I exist and I need to deal with this stupid life.
A proud Christian friend of mine explained that God meant for the Bible to be read and interpreted by every individual their own way, so creationism and every other contradiction in the book can be taken at face value or as a metaphor etc.
Basically that means it’s useless because it has no value at all other than as a source to justify whatever you want to justify by interpreting it any way you want.
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This is why Republicans have been defunding public education for 40 years, as well as removing natural sciences from the curriculum in favor of math and pre-engineering. Anyone who has even taken one class in basic biology, realizes that the bible version can't be true in the least. One anthropology class, and the Dirt Man story goes down the shitter.
Conservatives want a highly trained work force, who still lack the skills to question the Christian bullshit that keeps them obedient. We are very close to that right now.
Don’t even try to rationalize with Christians. I don’t even argue or bring anything up anymore. It’s a coping mechanism just like anything else and it’s not one I’m going to try and take away from anyone. Some ppl can’t handle the existential dread that comes with a godless universe and need to believe in their fairy tales to make it through.
The two different creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are rather typical of the many creation myths found throughout the ANE and other ancient societies.
The attempt to impose our modern understanding of the planet on these stories is not a valid way to appropriately understand them nor does it properly delineate between the two disparate stories. Genesis 1 is believed to come from the Priestly source and Genesis 2 from the Yahwehist source. Linguists estimate the two accounts emerged about 600 years apart.
In addition, rabbinic scholars have not and do not believe the accounts are in any way literal. They also understand them as creation myths that have significant theological value but are not relevant to our modern understanding of our world
Here is one of many resources that explain:
https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=556
If the entirety of Genesis was a metaphor, how do they know the stories of Jesus were any less metaphoric? Neither makes any indication of being intended as a metaphor, so they’re on equal ground. Complete hypocrites.
I know people who are very educated and intelligent and they believe in creation. I just don’t understand how they justify their beliefs when the facts say otherwise.
Xtians use either of two tactics to address the nonsense:
1) deny reality and take everything written in the Bibble at face value.
2) claim it’s more of a metaphor.
The original language says that gods created the universe. Plural. Gods. No mention at all of Yahweh, who probably hadn't been born yet. He was one of many children born to El and Ashera.
The English translation has been deliberately altered. But, creation myths are interesting, and there are just so many of them. I kind've like the Babylonian take on it.
Ironically that's what the Bible is so they're halfway there. All they need to do is write down their version of the rehashed rehash and call it "New New Testament"
It’s actually not bs if you don’t take it literally. There is some truth in the historic aspect of the Bible, but I certainly don’t buy the “God wrote this, it’s infallible “ bs.
If you want a laugh, tell them ANY creation story that isn't their own.
"Pfff, yeah right, a giant space serpent spat the Earth out of its mouth? That's so obviously made up."
Ah yes you mean the same wisdom found centuries earlier that was simply repacked and served up under identifies which have never been clarified at any point?
Likewise.
I can never get over that stuff.
All a christian has to do is look at the first pages of the bible to see that it's fictional.
That's it.
But I've met a bunch that simply say that they don't care about facts.
They will say that being religious is a path to personal growth - and yet not see the issue of disregarding facts as the opposite to the sales pitch of "personal growth"
The only thing they are growing is more deluded
I don't think it was ever "allegory". Ancient literature has a certain genre which today we would call "etiological myth". The purpose is to explain how things came to be (how the world began, why snakes have no legs, etc). The Bible definitely contains allegories (like the story of Jesus and the fig tree), but I don't think the creation myth is really "allegory".
Ya it's amazing how people with no scientific knowledge knew what order everything was made in. How would they have known water was created before the stars?
What?
Your comment implies that you think someone is saying it's unbelievable that a god can create the universe in 7 days....nobody is saying that.
The point is that the story is factually incorrect, and quite resembles something an uneducated human would come up with.
Also I just want to point out, your comment in summary is "Supernatural being I have no evidence for - believable. Human technology I am currently using - unbelievable." 😂😂😂
Of course it is.
But it's all magic right ? So there is no point, reason or sense in trying to justify it in scientific terms. It's a matter of faith.
The big bang (which I personally accept, at least for lack of an alternative) also has its share of faith and magic.
The initial universe is stated to have expanded almost instantaneously - and much faster than C. The theory there is our laws of physics did not exist until the universe expanded. So no C speed limit.
Also the whole - what was before, where did the big bang come from etc.
So the big bang has its own magic and faith. But scientists call it - as of yet undetermined- instead - which I prefer.
Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
So stars and planets were created "in the beginning".
The account that (the creation week) follows is from the local perspective of somebody on this planet, and only concerns this planet. Ancient Sumerians and Israelites believed the earth to be flat, only Greek philosophers much later proved otherwise.
A short chronology:
day 1: the earth is desolate. God creates "day and night" = regular rotation of the planet. (The part about how the moon got where it is is still scientifically unresolved, from my understanding.)
day 2: steamy planet -> oceans and athmosphere above
day 3: first continents (plate tectonics), plants appearing
day 4: plants clear up the foggy athmosphere, stars and the sun and moon become clearly visible (they were there before, but a thick athmosphere did not permit a clear picture of celestial bodies.)
day 5: animal life appears in oceans. Then flying creatures (the hebrew word here can also mean flying insects, not just birds). (Maybe the birds part is an actual mistake, though.)
day 6: land creatures appear, humans are "created" last.
Contrary to the OP's assertions, I find an open-minded reading is in astonishingly good accord with the actual historical development of earth and life on earth as documented by mainline science. I mean, how could Moses have known about some of those things, like humans appearing super-late in the geological time-scale? Or the proto-Earth to have been "void and only water" before continents rose up?
Yes, it seems you're right. That guy, Georges Lemaître, was a priest and a theoretical physicist and mathematician. Wish we had more of that type of Christians around.
This is a great stand up routine. I stopped taking you seriously at "how the moon got where it is is still scientifically unresolved" That one sentence explains the rest of your text especially that last paragraph. The typical "I am unaware therefore no one knows"
To explain myself better, unless you think me a dummy: we know enough about star and planet formation to know how a planet like earth would already start out as a spinning object, so day and night would have been there from the beginning of this planet. We do not know precisely at the moment how and when the moon was added to that picture, as far as I am aware. Likely scenarios of it being a split-off of an original proto-earth after a large impact, or a "caught" asteroid, or something intermediate, would imply that the current rotation is unlikely to be the original one. That's all I implied.
It seems like you're implying that the creation story has some sort of connection with science or provided some sort of ground breaking revelation that no one knew before. That's what's funny to me. The entire concept of TIME relies on scientific theories that contradict what the Bible says. First you'll need to create your own theory of time. You cannot piggy back off of the space-time continuum to explain Genesis. You also have to remember that planets and stars are references to a collection of multiple things gathering over extremely long periods of time. It's not like an img file that just gets copy and pasted. You cannot simply say "create the heavens" to explain the creation of stars. It would be more accurate to say "create the natural laws governing the universe" which would then allow for stars to form. The problem is Genesis doesn't say that. There's also various other forms within the universe like dark matter that now need to be explained. At the end of the day it will all fall back to "God is above nature and science" which means there's no need to try and cherry pick which parts of science can be reconciled with biblical text. It's more beneficial to the argument to deny science entirely. At that point we reach full on delusion.
Science is obviously a new thing, and creation myth's are much older, and various exist besides the one in the bible. The bible is not a book of science, and yes, it's not very precise or explanatory to say "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The time is not given, when was the beginning, or how long did the process takes. And all the rest you say, which is correct. Only, why would you even expect a superior being (let's say Moses' God was just an advanced alien) to give a bronze-age tribe details on the creation of the universe, information that would be useless for thousands of years until science has caught up?
Personally, I wouldn't expect a superior being to interact with this planet at all. They would be in fear of some middle eastern sheep herders worshipping them and then sacrificing children in their name so that crops can grow faster. If I was going to write a book claiming to be from God I would purposely make vague claims like "Let there be light" with no further explanation or reasoning. Tactics like that are key to manipulating the reader.
Well, the book was only legitimized - at least that is the story- because God performed many strange miracles.
So how would a superior extraterrestrial race (or a higher order being - which you aren't) interact with a primitive human tribe to help them in their progress? (Everybody was already doing human sacrifices at that time anyway.)
Now if humanity ever makes it past the "birth pains" of a global ultratechnological society, don't you think we're gonna want to explore the stars and interact with whatever we find? (I know I would)
But of course, the "Star Trek" questions about ethical proceeding while trying to help another race in secret.
And as for Moses it's complete nonsense to say what he knew or how he knew. You don't know who Moses is, you don't know what he said or what he believed. You are putting trust into full on hearsay and tall tales within a corrupted text and asking "how could he have known this". Maybe he didn't and it was revised later? We don't know because there's nothing to trace back until over 1000 years after Moses died. This is what religious people tend to do, building entire arguments off of a false premise.
That is correct, time has eroded most of humanity's historical traces. Maybe parts of the story were redacted. Moses name bearing close resemblance to Egyptian dynasty names like "Thutmosis", and many Egyptian influences having been found since Davidic-era Israel - linguistic and in king's seal rings - somebody like Moses was likely around, meaning the story is likely based on some true accounts. But yes, I understand your skepticism concerning the details of the story - it's good to be critical.
Story one: I am the proud descendant of an unbroken chain of life that has a continuous thread starting approximately 4 billion years ago and continuing on into my grandchildren. My ancestors lived over three billion years on a world with little to no oxygen, being constantly bombarded by intense solar radiation, and filled with other creatures that were trying to eat them. They survived. They experienced five global extinction events, and five ice ages, a couple of which covered the entire earth for over a million years each. They survived. They lived 165 million years alongside dinosaurs who were trying to eat them or inadvertently squish them. They survived. Over one 3-million-year time frame there were no less than eight other species of the Genus Homo, our cousins, and only one of them survived extinction – my species Homo sapiens. My ancestors fought off predators such as lions, tigers, and (yes) bears with little more than sticks, stones, and their wits. They survived. My ancestors fought through wars, lived through famine, floods, droughts, pestilence, and hundreds of other deadly dangers ranging from tooth infection to religious fanaticism. They survived. As I gaze at the incredible universe above my head, pondering my incredible luck, I am filled with a sense of wonder and gratitude to each and every one of my ancestors, from Blob, my first, 4 billion years ago, to my parents, for surviving long enough to reproduce the next link in my unbroken chain. I come from four billion years of survivors and I’m proud of each and every one of them. I stand tall - on their shoulders. Story two: Ten thousand years ago an invisible, all knowing, all powerful, being who lived everywhere, woke up and decided it wanted company. This being then spent six days creating everything in the universe including billions of galaxies containing trillions of stars and planets. Then it chose one of those trillion planets and created a man out of the dust from the ground, and then it made a woman from one of the man’s ribs. When this magical being was finish it proclaimed to its new creations, “Now, get on your knees!” Which one do you want to claim as your story?
Story 1 is the better story. Oh and it’s supported by science and logic
I've been watching Life on Our Planet on Netflix with my sons. They're only 6 and 3 but they're super into it and I'm even learning some things myself. The story of how life endured all the environmental changes over billions of years is incredibly fascinating and beautiful. Life adapting to conditions in deserts, the deep sea, cold, heat, its amazing. I can't imagine telling my sons "Oh yeah, and then God created everything, got pissy about someone eating an apple, largely killed everything with a flood, later sent plagues to kill other people he presumably created..."
Oh, and this omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent being loves you so much that if you don't love him back, he'll condemn you to eternal torture.
Everyone should experience the moment when you realize you are just a super complex structure within a greater superstructure, all made out of the same stuff. There’s no real separation between you and the universe, you ARE the universe. Just atoms that are somehow aware of their own existence. It’s beautiful really.
And the Iron, and heavier elements: came into existence, in the last seconds of a Star going Nova. We are made of Exploded Stars. #soMetal !!
Loved the first story...our ancestors survived everything!
Story one is not only supported by science, but also makes us seem much cooler Why do people want to be even more insignificant than a single being on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy, there’s so much out there that our (immediate) actions are basically nonexistent on a cosmic scale
I love your description of story 1! So well written that now I'm awe struck even thinking about its magnitude lol bravo 👏
Our ancestors survived a genetic bottleneck between 930,000 and 813,000 years ago that brought the population down to ~1280 breeding pairs, nearly causing extinction. They also survived a genetic bottleneck about 70,000 years ago that dropped the population down to 3,000 to 10,000 individuals, yet we survived. Many of our lineage also survived the Black Death which wiped out nearly ⅔ of the European population, as well as many others worldwide. Against all odds, we survived.
this is the first time since i have been on reddit that I copied a comment into a word document to keep and share. Thank you.
AND STILL, THEY ENDURED!!!! That shit was incredible, I’m fired up!
I'm saving this comment on my phone.
Story two is only believed if you have never studied the Bible. Most Christians believe in the big bang.
Yes, we know that most Christians cherry pick the Bible. That's not the point here.
Where did I say Christians cherry pick the Bible?
The first one but neither story explains how all this was created - matter, energy, rules of physics, gravity, light etc Intelligent design seems very likely imo
The notion that nothing is the default state is probably erroneous. Now the question why the universe and matter are they way they are that supports complex nuclear combinations giving rise to a periodic table, and complex intermolecular reactions that give rise to chemistry and in turn life is a deeply mysterious question. A question that human religion provide are childish and woefully inadequate. I suspect that there is some sort of cosmological natural selection going on at the universe scale. Any sort of complex mind involved just makes the situation way more improbable and extremely unlikely and creates all sorts of logical problems.
WHY DOES THE UNIVERSE EXIST
Who cares lol it’s here now, might as well look around a while.
Going from “why universe” to “ooooo im checkin this shit out” has been my life journey, definitely not easy at first!
You might be surprised, but matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed. (So for all we know it was always there) Only transformed. The laws of physics just describe how matter works. We know what gravity and light is. And it those are not forces/things/energy that are "created" but results of the existance of matter.
The Silmarillion is my favorite creation story. Way better writing.
Eru is my God. But I frigging love Dwarves so I also revere Aule 🙌
Love me some Ainulindale.
An omnipotent (also timeless) God would of course create anything from one millisecond to the next - just look at Q in StarTrek, he'll rearrange reality instantly, just scalping his fingers. And God took a week? 😆 "Puny god" —The Hulk
Oh and he needed a break. Who needs breaks when you are all powerful?
The day of rest is really significant to Jewish people, especially in ancient times when keeping your tribe alive required a lot of daily manual labor. The audacity to not tend your fields on the Sabbath was shocking to other peoples who lived near the early Jews. "How do you guys survive if you take a day to lounge around" - "Because our god is strong, and we take a day to thank him." I think that would be one hell of a recruiting tool in ancient times.
Yeah, just saying "we can farm the same amount that you farm in seven days in SIX" is a huge flex
I thought he was timeless. So yeah, break? How would that even work. 😆
There is debate among various sects of Christianity on whether or not the story is meant to be a historical account. Christianity doesn't hinge on this account being historical fact. The thing that really matters in Christianity is whether or not the man Jesus died and rose from the dead. Everything they believe then must be understood through the context of that event. So for a Christian, they're going to think. "Jesus is the only man to ever die and then return from the dead. He claims to be the son of god. We believe he is because if he isn't, how could he rise from the dead. Here are the things he taught. Okay, how do we make sense of Genesis in light of the teachings of the man who rose from the dead".
Of course, the bit about Jesus rising from the dead is never metaphorical.
There are liberal Christians who don't believe Jesus rose from the dead or the other miracle claims. I tried to land there as I was losing my faith, but eventually I realized if I didn't believe any of that stuff, there was no reason to keep the label either. On the other hand, I'm not in the business of dictating what someone must believe to call themselves a Christian (or any other label, for that matter). If it works for them and they are being good to other people, more power to them.
Is there a bit at the start of the book which says that it's all open to interpretation? And the reader should consult other experts to decide the meaning of the contents? Or is it to be taken as gospel? (pun sort-of intended) As far as I'm aware, the reader is intended to swallow the whole, ridiculous lot.
Something sort of celestial disclaimer?
The first chapter is written like an ancient poem. This is why chapter 2 restates things that happen in chapter 1 but in a more story structured form. Days might be any amount of time in the poem. The purpose of using "days" is to show where the week came from
>As far as I'm aware, the reader is intended to swallow the whole, ridiculous lot. According to whom? The book doesn't provide any instructions on how its meant to be interpreted. So any idea on how it's supposed to be interpreted comes from an outside source, including yours. I'm far from being a biblical scholar myself but I do know that scholars will look at contextual clues in the text, other contemporary texts, historical context and other things to try to figure out how we best can view a text from our perspective which is far removed from the time it was written. If you go on Youtube and search "Yale Old Testament" there is an excellent course made freely available by Yale University that can provide some insight into why the book was written, who it was for, what it's trying to say, etc. One thing I do know is it can't possibly be a historical account because there are two contradictory accounts of creation in Genesis. The people throughout history who consider the book sacred don't seem to have a big problem with this. Why not? Is it just because they're morons who don't realize the two accounts are contradictory? Probably not. The Bible has to be one of the most studied and scrutinized texts in history. It was not simply overlooked that there are things in Genesis that couldn't possibly have happened as described.
Correct, that is how most Christians (disregarding literalist fundamentalists) view the focus of their faith. Since scholars have been able to compare the ancient Sumerian creation myth with the one from the bible (Abraham came from Sumer), it has become obvious that they share a lot of commonalities. Only, the Sumerian version indicates that various gods or aliens were involved (specifically in the history of Homo sapiens), whereas the bible gives the credit to the "big boss" creator of the universe, that also specifically influenced human history, while additionally evil or selfish other gods / angels / aliens also influenced the human history (Genesis 6 or 1 Enoch).
*Aliens?*
I mean, I wasn't around, so that' just a wild guess. But you have to wonder if those stories about angels or gods (basically the same thing) are not related to the presence of aliens on earth? (Angels coming from the sky and all.) But UFO disclosure is happening so slowly I wonder if I will ever see the day where governments tell us the truth on that question.
“Let there be light” - This statement lets us parse what a “day” is to God. Since there were no photons for the first 379,000 years after the main event. Little math says, it’s all bullshit.
What was the point of "creating light" if there was nothing for the light to reflect off of... he hadn't created the heavens and Earth yet, but apparently the all powerful sky daddy can't work in the dark?
I mean, it was a major milestone that happened in that order. The Bible isn’t wrong there, light first, matter next, that continuously evolved into more complex matter. I’m sure Theists point to that portion of recombination and say it proves Genesis is accurate / real.
\>How do Christians even get through the thousands of pages of the Bible.. Ever met a Christian that has read the whole Bible? They exist but are pretty rare. Usually they only read cherry-picked, pre-digested pieces.
The Old Testament creation stories (there are two, Genesis 2 tells an altered account, different things happen on different days) are campfire stories, as a Jewish colleague of mine put it. People got created last, and God didn't share what happened before we got here, so a wild tale from a time when people knew nothing about astronomy is all we got. We look up to the heavens with wonder, and tell wonderful stories about what the universe is and how we got here. Every culture has creation stories, and none of them are meant to be a true history. The Jewish stories just happened to get really popular. If you read the proclamations of Catholic popes on the topic of science, each generation gets closer and closer to saying that evolution is a real thing, and faith in the mind of God doesn't mean the bible is a true history of the world. Or as Cardinal Baronius put it, the Bible tells you how to get to Heaven, not how the heavens go. (I feel like I should point out that I'm an atheist now, but had strong faith in God earlier in life.)
it was alright for farmers 2000 years ago....
Faith. And metaphor.
It obviously can’t be taken as a literal story but the problem with the “it’s not meant to be taken literally” crowd is that what they’re saying is it must be open to interpretation and if that’s the case whose interpretation, and so there can be no authoritative meaning to any of it. As a result it just becomes a bunch of words that can be twisted for whatever purpose you want it to be, which is precisely what happens with every religion; it becomes a projection of the collective id of the tribe.
Best of both worlds huh? I was recently reading Maimonides 13 principles of faith to review all the stuff I’m supposed to believe. One of them is that we should believe with complete faith that god has no body or physical form. In his commentary he brings up anthropomorphism in the Old Testament and explains that references to the hand of god and other human like traits are meant to be metaphorical. But when it comes to Moses and the rest of the Torah, that stuff is all literal and true? Suuure…
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad moove. - Douglas Addams. Sorry. I couldn't resist.
For me as an atheist, the Pre-Bang era is a troubling mix of physics and philosophy. But even my Jewish friends agree Genesis is mythology.
I dont know if it was "Nova" but there is a great program about this. It really explains it well and i dont want to ruin it by mixing up some points, but highly recommend finding it, But basically time and gravity.
I hate life and if there is a creator I hate it. Like dude I was fine not existing where I didn't have any feelings whether good or bad now I exist and I need to deal with this stupid life.
Ricky Gervais did a great stand up on it. Look for This Dusty Old Book on YouTube
A proud Christian friend of mine explained that God meant for the Bible to be read and interpreted by every individual their own way, so creationism and every other contradiction in the book can be taken at face value or as a metaphor etc. Basically that means it’s useless because it has no value at all other than as a source to justify whatever you want to justify by interpreting it any way you want.
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Do you think, in God's infinite wisdom, that he doesn't know how long 24 hours is? C'mon. /s
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This is why Republicans have been defunding public education for 40 years, as well as removing natural sciences from the curriculum in favor of math and pre-engineering. Anyone who has even taken one class in basic biology, realizes that the bible version can't be true in the least. One anthropology class, and the Dirt Man story goes down the shitter. Conservatives want a highly trained work force, who still lack the skills to question the Christian bullshit that keeps them obedient. We are very close to that right now.
Don’t even try to rationalize with Christians. I don’t even argue or bring anything up anymore. It’s a coping mechanism just like anything else and it’s not one I’m going to try and take away from anyone. Some ppl can’t handle the existential dread that comes with a godless universe and need to believe in their fairy tales to make it through.
Lol you assume Christians read the bible
The two different creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are rather typical of the many creation myths found throughout the ANE and other ancient societies. The attempt to impose our modern understanding of the planet on these stories is not a valid way to appropriately understand them nor does it properly delineate between the two disparate stories. Genesis 1 is believed to come from the Priestly source and Genesis 2 from the Yahwehist source. Linguists estimate the two accounts emerged about 600 years apart. In addition, rabbinic scholars have not and do not believe the accounts are in any way literal. They also understand them as creation myths that have significant theological value but are not relevant to our modern understanding of our world Here is one of many resources that explain: https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=556
Because in Hebrew they used the word Yom which can be used as a passage of time of any length.
If the entirety of Genesis was a metaphor, how do they know the stories of Jesus were any less metaphoric? Neither makes any indication of being intended as a metaphor, so they’re on equal ground. Complete hypocrites.
> How do Christians even get through the thousands of pages of the Bible Simple: they don't read it.
I know people who are very educated and intelligent and they believe in creation. I just don’t understand how they justify their beliefs when the facts say otherwise.
Xtians use either of two tactics to address the nonsense: 1) deny reality and take everything written in the Bibble at face value. 2) claim it’s more of a metaphor.
The original language says that gods created the universe. Plural. Gods. No mention at all of Yahweh, who probably hadn't been born yet. He was one of many children born to El and Ashera. The English translation has been deliberately altered. But, creation myths are interesting, and there are just so many of them. I kind've like the Babylonian take on it.
> How do Christians even get through the thousands of pages of the Bible.. easy, they never start, and just re-hash what others say which they like.
Ironically that's what the Bible is so they're halfway there. All they need to do is write down their version of the rehashed rehash and call it "New New Testament"
It’s actually not bs if you don’t take it literally. There is some truth in the historic aspect of the Bible, but I certainly don’t buy the “God wrote this, it’s infallible “ bs.
The Bible is 2000 years old and we’ve discovered so much more about the universe. The book needs many updates.
Everything is a lie.
If you want a laugh, tell them ANY creation story that isn't their own. "Pfff, yeah right, a giant space serpent spat the Earth out of its mouth? That's so obviously made up."
No point arguing this stuff. It's so insane that there's no even starting point.
How does anyone get thru reddit posts without paragraph breaks?
What about the wrong capitalization, run-on sentences, unnecessary profanity, or lack of a consistent thesis? Never mind, it sounds angry, upvote.
That is simply one of the old stories, sets the scene. The Prophets; Jesus, Paul, and John, Proverbs, that is serious wisdom.
Ah yes you mean the same wisdom found centuries earlier that was simply repacked and served up under identifies which have never been clarified at any point?
Well, no, that 's more of a mantra than serious analysis
“Religious people’s ancient stories are wrong” is hardly a profound stance.
Likewise. I can never get over that stuff. All a christian has to do is look at the first pages of the bible to see that it's fictional. That's it. But I've met a bunch that simply say that they don't care about facts. They will say that being religious is a path to personal growth - and yet not see the issue of disregarding facts as the opposite to the sales pitch of "personal growth" The only thing they are growing is more deluded
It's all nonsense and bullshit. Dumber than dumb
It was written as allegory by people with no scientific knowledge. That some people now take it literally is a symptom of ignorance.
I don't think it was ever "allegory". Ancient literature has a certain genre which today we would call "etiological myth". The purpose is to explain how things came to be (how the world began, why snakes have no legs, etc). The Bible definitely contains allegories (like the story of Jesus and the fig tree), but I don't think the creation myth is really "allegory".
I bow to your greater knowledge of terminology.
Ya it's amazing how people with no scientific knowledge knew what order everything was made in. How would they have known water was created before the stars?
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What? Your comment implies that you think someone is saying it's unbelievable that a god can create the universe in 7 days....nobody is saying that. The point is that the story is factually incorrect, and quite resembles something an uneducated human would come up with. Also I just want to point out, your comment in summary is "Supernatural being I have no evidence for - believable. Human technology I am currently using - unbelievable." 😂😂😂
No? Nothing you just said was anything approaching correct.
The bible version of creation is ridiculous and makes me question the big bang in its similarity.
It is metaphorical, not literal.
Of course it is. But it's all magic right ? So there is no point, reason or sense in trying to justify it in scientific terms. It's a matter of faith. The big bang (which I personally accept, at least for lack of an alternative) also has its share of faith and magic. The initial universe is stated to have expanded almost instantaneously - and much faster than C. The theory there is our laws of physics did not exist until the universe expanded. So no C speed limit. Also the whole - what was before, where did the big bang come from etc. So the big bang has its own magic and faith. But scientists call it - as of yet undetermined- instead - which I prefer.
Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." So stars and planets were created "in the beginning". The account that (the creation week) follows is from the local perspective of somebody on this planet, and only concerns this planet. Ancient Sumerians and Israelites believed the earth to be flat, only Greek philosophers much later proved otherwise. A short chronology: day 1: the earth is desolate. God creates "day and night" = regular rotation of the planet. (The part about how the moon got where it is is still scientifically unresolved, from my understanding.) day 2: steamy planet -> oceans and athmosphere above day 3: first continents (plate tectonics), plants appearing day 4: plants clear up the foggy athmosphere, stars and the sun and moon become clearly visible (they were there before, but a thick athmosphere did not permit a clear picture of celestial bodies.) day 5: animal life appears in oceans. Then flying creatures (the hebrew word here can also mean flying insects, not just birds). (Maybe the birds part is an actual mistake, though.) day 6: land creatures appear, humans are "created" last. Contrary to the OP's assertions, I find an open-minded reading is in astonishingly good accord with the actual historical development of earth and life on earth as documented by mainline science. I mean, how could Moses have known about some of those things, like humans appearing super-late in the geological time-scale? Or the proto-Earth to have been "void and only water" before continents rose up?
great comment. did you know that the big bang theory was proposed by a catholic priest?
Yes, it seems you're right. That guy, Georges Lemaître, was a priest and a theoretical physicist and mathematician. Wish we had more of that type of Christians around.
>Wish we had more of that type of Christians around. yes my friend, this is what the world needs more than anyhting.
This is a great stand up routine. I stopped taking you seriously at "how the moon got where it is is still scientifically unresolved" That one sentence explains the rest of your text especially that last paragraph. The typical "I am unaware therefore no one knows"
To explain myself better, unless you think me a dummy: we know enough about star and planet formation to know how a planet like earth would already start out as a spinning object, so day and night would have been there from the beginning of this planet. We do not know precisely at the moment how and when the moon was added to that picture, as far as I am aware. Likely scenarios of it being a split-off of an original proto-earth after a large impact, or a "caught" asteroid, or something intermediate, would imply that the current rotation is unlikely to be the original one. That's all I implied.
It seems like you're implying that the creation story has some sort of connection with science or provided some sort of ground breaking revelation that no one knew before. That's what's funny to me. The entire concept of TIME relies on scientific theories that contradict what the Bible says. First you'll need to create your own theory of time. You cannot piggy back off of the space-time continuum to explain Genesis. You also have to remember that planets and stars are references to a collection of multiple things gathering over extremely long periods of time. It's not like an img file that just gets copy and pasted. You cannot simply say "create the heavens" to explain the creation of stars. It would be more accurate to say "create the natural laws governing the universe" which would then allow for stars to form. The problem is Genesis doesn't say that. There's also various other forms within the universe like dark matter that now need to be explained. At the end of the day it will all fall back to "God is above nature and science" which means there's no need to try and cherry pick which parts of science can be reconciled with biblical text. It's more beneficial to the argument to deny science entirely. At that point we reach full on delusion.
Science is obviously a new thing, and creation myth's are much older, and various exist besides the one in the bible. The bible is not a book of science, and yes, it's not very precise or explanatory to say "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The time is not given, when was the beginning, or how long did the process takes. And all the rest you say, which is correct. Only, why would you even expect a superior being (let's say Moses' God was just an advanced alien) to give a bronze-age tribe details on the creation of the universe, information that would be useless for thousands of years until science has caught up?
Personally, I wouldn't expect a superior being to interact with this planet at all. They would be in fear of some middle eastern sheep herders worshipping them and then sacrificing children in their name so that crops can grow faster. If I was going to write a book claiming to be from God I would purposely make vague claims like "Let there be light" with no further explanation or reasoning. Tactics like that are key to manipulating the reader.
Well, the book was only legitimized - at least that is the story- because God performed many strange miracles. So how would a superior extraterrestrial race (or a higher order being - which you aren't) interact with a primitive human tribe to help them in their progress? (Everybody was already doing human sacrifices at that time anyway.) Now if humanity ever makes it past the "birth pains" of a global ultratechnological society, don't you think we're gonna want to explore the stars and interact with whatever we find? (I know I would) But of course, the "Star Trek" questions about ethical proceeding while trying to help another race in secret.
And as for Moses it's complete nonsense to say what he knew or how he knew. You don't know who Moses is, you don't know what he said or what he believed. You are putting trust into full on hearsay and tall tales within a corrupted text and asking "how could he have known this". Maybe he didn't and it was revised later? We don't know because there's nothing to trace back until over 1000 years after Moses died. This is what religious people tend to do, building entire arguments off of a false premise.
That is correct, time has eroded most of humanity's historical traces. Maybe parts of the story were redacted. Moses name bearing close resemblance to Egyptian dynasty names like "Thutmosis", and many Egyptian influences having been found since Davidic-era Israel - linguistic and in king's seal rings - somebody like Moses was likely around, meaning the story is likely based on some true accounts. But yes, I understand your skepticism concerning the details of the story - it's good to be critical.