Understanding biblical genesis

Cyracuz wrote:

Given the definition of god that I have offered here and elswhere, to deny the existence of god is wrong.

Given your beliefs and definition of God, sure. But my point is that these ancient people you speak of, they have no information, no data, no knowledge worth pondering. Everything that they knew was made up.

And Gungasnake is right, too, although I'm not sure why he is making the point.

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Gungasnake

I agree that the ancients may not have had much information. But I think it is presumtuous to state that they did not for sure. We know little of those ancient cultures, and the official history isn't neccesarily accurate or complete even though it might be true.
But I do believe that when these ancients explained to their kids, or to people who had little skill or experience with abstract thinking, they would utilize aspects of contemporary life that were familiar to those they were speaking to.

stuh

Have you considered that everything we know, all our data and information, might be made up? Sounds prepostrous, sure, but I bet the very same idea was just as far fetched in the ancient times.

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Cyracuz,

No, I have not considered that idea because it would be a preposterous waste of brain cells to do so (assuming I was capable of somehow forcing my mind into the degenerative state that would be required to not arrive at the conclusion instantaneously).

In 'ancient times' there was still knowledge, just not very much of it. There was a time when nobody knew any math. When nobody knew what was inside the human body. When nobody knew what those dots in the sky were. At this time, people guessed and made up stories with no real evidence.

As time went on things were gradually figured out, not made up. Most of the things we know today have immeasurable statistical evidence or unambiguous definite proofs. If you cannot tell the difference between a logical proof and a made up story, I feel sorry for you...

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In a thousand years, they may look back on us and think that we lived in a time when nobody knew any math. When nobody knew what was inside the human body. When nobody knew what those dots in the sky were.

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stuh

Your adamant claim that there have been no civilizations on this earth as sophisticated as ours sounds very much like a made up story to me.

Archeological findings and historical writings are scarce, to say the least. We know many truly old remnants that we can't begin to explain.

So there might be a chance that some of the ancient ideas that still intrigue us today has a distant origin in the truth.

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Quote:

In a thousand years, they may look back on us and think that we lived in a time when nobody knew any math. When nobody knew what was inside the human body. When nobody knew what those dots in the sky were.

Maybe someday you will actually learn some math, learn how to do some proofs, and then hopefully it will dawn upon you that every single aspect of the math we generally use has been formally proven.

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So there might be a chance that some of the ancient ideas that still intrigue us today has a distant origin in the truth.

Many ancient ideas were true. Many ancient cultures knew a fair bit of algebra for example. They knew lots of true stuff. But most of what they believed was just made up.

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What I meant was that there could have been human cultures long before the settlements on the rivers Eufrat and Tigris, which is pretty much considered the beginning of human civilization. From before that time findings are scarce.

And I assumed that you see our culture as the most advanced one that's ever been on this earth since you seem to assume that no one in the past knew as much or more than we do today.

I believe that is something we cannot know for sure.

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Cyracuz wrote:

What I meant was that there could have been human cultures long before the settlements on the rivers Eufrat and Tigris, which is pretty much considered the beginning of human civilization. From before that time findings are scarce.

And I assumed that you see our culture as the most advanced one that's ever been on this earth since you seem to assume that no one in the past knew as much or more than we do today.

I believe that is something we cannot know for sure.

We know the age of the Earth. We know the evolution process. Therefore any other sophisticated race prior to humans could only have come from an alien spaceship. I think they would have left some non bio-degradable evidence, don't you? Maybe even some bones? Like the dinosaurs did?

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Quote:

Maybe someday you will actually learn some math, learn how to do some proofs, and then hopefully it will dawn upon you that every single aspect of the math we generally use has been formally proven.

Oh, yeah? Well, maybe someday you can teach me how to see into the future.

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How can I teach you to see into the future when you cannot understand the validity of a mathematical equation?

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You can't see something that isn't there echi !!

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I can understand the validity of mathematics as well as the next guy. Of course, I haven't quite got a handle on the super-mathematics of the future.

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We know the age of the earth, true. And we know something of the evolution process. But not all. By our estimations the human species in it's current form has existed for approximately 100 thousand years.
History places the first civilized culture between four and six thousand years ago.

That leaves nintyfour thousand years, in which man has had the potential to discover what we've found in a few hundred years. Does it sound right to you that we've discovered it for the first time ever?

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echi,

I apologize for biting your head off. Your comment indicated that you thought math of the present was possible to be considered all wrong in the future. I hope you understand why that can't be right because it can all be proven without any premises.

Quote:

That leaves nintyfour thousand years, in which man has had the potential to discover what we've found in a few hundred years. Does it sound right to you that we've discovered it for the first time ever?

Clearly, the function is not linear.

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The Book of Genesis is not a scientific textbook, it is not a primer for the sciences, it does not pretend to ANY kind of science. Genesis is parable, it is human reflection on the nature of things, not as objects of scientific curiousity but an way-points in the journey of encounter between the human soul and God.

More simply, Genesis is a parable NOT an explanation.

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Stuh, what do you mean "the function is not linear"? It's morning over here, and I'm usually a little dim witted at that time of day. Smile

kiwimac

I agree that the genesis is a parable, not an explanation. But if it is possible to interpret the parable in a way that doesn't offend the intelligence of man, I wuold think that was a good thing.

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Cyracuz wrote:

Stuh, what do you mean "the function is not linear"? It's morning over here, and I'm usually a little dim witted at that time of day.

kiwimac

I agree that the genesis is a parable, not an explanation. But if it is possible to interpret the parable in a way that doesn't offend the intelligence of man, I wuold think that was a good thing.

Yes, I agree. But we need to start by getting rid of this 'literal 6 days' heiferdust. The processes by which God put all into being are still in play, the game is not yet over, the creation not yet finished.

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Here's the best example I know of a bible story being real and having a religious interpretation which a reader can take or leave, i.e. of the whole thing being written in a subjective language which is so alien to us moderns as to cause most to simply jettison the story, mistakenly.

There is zero reason to expect an ancient author, Isaiah in this case, to make an obscure reference without bothering to explain the reference if it adds nothing to the story he's trying to tell. That would just be making work for himself unnecessarily.

In Isaiah 30:26, Isaiah speaks of the end of the world in future time, and notes

Quote:

...the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.

Most would assume he means cramming seven days worth of light into one day, but that is wrong. Midrashic sources including Louis Ginzberg's "Legends of the Jews" indicate that he is referring to the seven days which preceeded the flood and which are mentioned twice in the space of a paragraph around Genesis 7:4

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Gen. 7:4 "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights;...

Gen. 7:10 "And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth."

The sentence should have been translated "The light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of THE seven days."

Midrashic sources claim that God "turned on the primordial lights of the universe" for the week preceeding the flood in commemoration of the death of Methusaleh, who had died at the time.

What they're really saying is that there was a cosmic event of some sort in or close to our own system, followed by seven days of intense light and radiation, followed by the flood, which most scientists view as a fairytale.

Except that, when you strip the religious interpretation out of the story, you have a story which makes a lot of sense, and hangs together logically. The clear-cut implication is that the Noachean flood was part of some larger solar-system-wide calamity.

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Cyracuz wrote:

Stuh, what do you mean "the function is not linear"? It's morning over here, and I'm usually a little dim witted at that time of day.

kiwimac

I agree that the genesis is a parable, not an explanation. But if it is possible to interpret the parable in a way that doesn't offend the intelligence of man, I wuold think that was a good thing.

I mean that it is an exponential process. Evolution and progress start off slowly. Just think about Moore's law, it basically says that technology grows twice as fast every 2 years.

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I don't know, stuh.

Some claim that there have been found models of gliing planes in ancient egyptian remnants. I have no idea how accurate this claim is though.

But if there was a civiliszation say 50000 years ago, in a time where man was at the same evolutionary state, biologically speaking, as he is today, then why is it impossible that that civilization could have been more advanced that ours?

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Understanding biblical genesis

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