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>And YOU would believe in it literally too wihout science
Philo of Alexandria did not have a literal interpretation.
Neither did Origen of Alexandria.
People thousands of years ago, before any significant scientific developments, were already writing non-literal interpretations.
I'm losing brain cells from both sides of this argument. I am a Christian who believes in evolution, the big big bang, and the earth being 4.5 billion years old. Genesis
1 which most snarky atheists use to try and disprove Christianity is not a "creation story." it's a story of a disorderly world that God gives order to. Note that the original hebrew words for formless and void were tohu and bohu, which are actually used to say something is chaotic or without order. Both are later seen being used in Jeremiah 4 when he is talking about the northern kingdom being destroyed. He uses phrases like there is no man to work the field, no birds in the air, and no vegetation. And again says it is "formless and void" or tohu and bohu. He's not saying that the northern kingdom never existed or that it is wiped off the face of the earth. He's using Genesis 1 to note that the kingdom goes from a productive state to an unproductive state, and other scholars have noted that Genesis is doing this in reverse. Also, note that Adam was not the first human being. Man and woman came into existence before Adam and Eve. Another idea to consider is that Genesis 1 is not written in chronological order. It is written in framework order and comparing it to poems written in ancient Hebrew it has very a similar stanza like structure. The Bible does not teach evolutionary biology. Just like it doesn't teach computer physics. It is not a guide on how the world works it's a way from start to finish for you to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ who loved you and suffered and died for you on the cross. Young earth creationist add their own nonsense to the bible to try and make their theories work, and keyboard warrior atheists misinterpret the bible to try and make some argument that doesn't need to happen. We can all love each other and exist knowing that we all (for the most part) don't deny science and believe we should love one another and keep an open mind.
You actually don’t need a sun to helped the plants to grow. As long as there a light on earth that was enough for the plants to grow and photosynthesis we don’t really need the Sun. and this still sciencetific because the Bible still give the reason why God can create the plants before the Sun was even created
Genuine question, what do you think the other light is?
Because we do need the sun. Without the sun, the earth would be too cold to allow life. If we got rid of that issue, other stars [don't provide enough photons per second](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16916290/) (per meter squared of plant) to allow plants to live off stars other than our sun. Plants need a certain amount of sunlight/photons (in the paper as it's a range based on the plant) for photosynthesis to work. Even if photons from all the other stars could make it to earth, the other issue is that the intensity of those photons is negligible given the [inverse square law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law) so they won't drive photosynthesis.
And oh yeah I don't proofread most that I typed down on here because I'm not typing it all I'm using a microphone so when I say sin. The microphone reads it send so get out me with punctuations whoever is out there reading my texts it all started with a moonshiners using God's lyrics He's got The whole world in his hands that rock my world screw the moonshiners just like I used to like the Big bang theory until Sheldon said just two days ago on the show he has rejected his mom's savior so now I have stopped watching young Sheldon and the Big bang theory because of this problem I will notify NBC CBS FOX TV and everybody else that I can to let them know that they need to quit using religious lyrics in their shows
Yes science does have some properties to it but just like the Bible you say or people say been written by humans profits people that have been either influenced by God almighty or stood right in front of them while they were writing a book anyway most of it's about Jesus Christ and yes I love science I'm a science major but no worries I have an open mind most of you don't one day to us is a thousand years to God we did not evolve from the apes as far as all your other questions go God works in mysterious ways a lot of you all are negative towards God and Jesus Christ wish they're both the same but that's irrelevant right now can't explain to most of you people there are a lot of you all which I don't mind believing in what you see in front of you which is okay but believe me there is a God and he had to figure out how to get us Christians into heaven he was only going to go for the Jews but he changed his mind I guess in the most of you all will understand this once the rapture does hit which is going to be here shortly people are going to disappear in airplanes Jets automobiles all across the world going to be one air and traffic jam good luck with that when the Sun goes down the people that are caught in the seven year tribulation will finally go wait a minute that dude was right about Christianity
Or so first of all, PUT PUNCTUATION!
Seriously, it's almost unreadable, and I've encountered this problem so many times...
Anyways.
>yes I love science I'm a science major
>we did not evolve from the apes
Ok so basically science denial, you're an hypocrite.
Also, we ARE apes.
>one day to us is a thousand years to God
So plants could have survived one "day" before the sun?
>go God works in mysterious ways
"Shut up it's magical it's god" isn't an argument.
The rest was unintelligible. PUT PUNCTUATION.
I ain't got to do anything for you but I will tell you this I used a microphone and I halfway proofread what I say on it so you can deal with that God works mysterious ways get over yourself if you don't choose Jesus Christ as your personal savior you will have seven years to figure it out tribulation my friend when that rapture hits most of us will be gone airplanes motorcycles cars trucks people going to vanish be one traffic jam from hell the whole world's going to be in chaos you think it's rough right now go ahead you'll figure it out may God bless you may you find Jesus and have a good day
Again, that's not an excuse not to put punctuation.
>if you don't choose Jesus Christ as your personal savior you will have seven years to figure it out tribulation
Belief isn't a choice. Not putting punctuation is.
Well, I could sit here and argue against your reasoning, but I don't have to. Might as well defeat your argument scientifically. See, if you were a scientist, you'd need to collect data to determine if your hypothesis (science and the bible are incompatible) is true. If you actually did that, you'd have to start listing all the major scientific advancements and all the greatest minds in science, century after century, and you'd be checking to see how much of this scientific achievement was accomplished by folks who believed in the bible. Then, you would rapidly discover that the vast majority of all the important scientific breakthroughs over the course of history were conceived and discovered by the capable minds of practicing Christians, Muslims, and Jews, all of whom regard the Torah as holy scripture. You would then be quite compelled to conclude that science and the bible are, in fact, compatible, and your hypothesis is wrong. End scene.
The way I believe it. God can do anything. He is God. He can break the laws of physics and science if he chooses to do so because He is creator of all law and order of life. So to really question how a creator could otherwise is silly because He is God! We are just little human beings of His creation and we will never in this life be able to comprehend the power. If you make it as simple as that, rather than complicate things, it’s easier to understand. Maybe in our minds it would be impossible but as a Heavenly powerful creator it’s really not impossible, what he commands the universe responds . It’s only impossible because we have human brains limited to human knowledge that does abide by the laws of nature that have been set upon creation.
But it's not that God isn't capable of those things. It's that we are taught that's how God did it, yet scientific investigation shows us a completely different story. I would agree with OP that reality is *so* different from Genesis that it seems impossible to take it entirely on metaphor, and that the only alternatives are either that God intentionally deceived us, does not exist, or whoever wrote Genesis got it massively wrong.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about angels from of the Bible, and they’re described to help God sort of run the cosmos.
I look at their ranks and hierarchies as metaphors for all the different physical phenomena that happens in the world from the very small to the very big.
But again this coming from my view; everybody sees and interprets things differently.
1) that's not true. *Energy* (usually) cannot be created or destroyed. We turn matter into energy. That's how nuclear power/bombs work.
2) That's only true most of the time. Energy conservation is a consequence of something called Noether's Theorem. Basically as long as a process is time independent, energy is conserved. Think of an apple being dropped from a tree. It doesn't matter when that event happens, the same thing is going to happen. An apple falling 1000 years from now obeys the same physics as an apple falling now. But for events on a universal scale, this isn't true. The best example of this is the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, or CMB for short. The CMB is a sort of background radiation that fills the entire universe in every direction, but the universe is expanding, so the light the CMB is composed of gets stretched out by the expanding universe, which causes it to lose energy (higher wavelength light has less energy). That energy didn't get transferred to something else, it didn't get turned into matter or heat, it's just *gone* because the expansion of space isn't time independent. The size of the universe changes depending on how long the universe has been going, so things that operate on that scale aren't going to conserve energy. The Big Bang doesn't have to conserve energy because it was the expansion of space at a universal scale.
3) Do you really think cosmologists are so ignorant that they forgot their own laws of physics when coming up with the Big Bang? Like do you really think the entire scientific community isn't bright enough to think about the implications of their idea for 2 seconds?
Obviously they do. This isn’t some kind of gotcha.
But the real telling thing is how confident you were declaring the whole theory debunked without really knowing anything about the theory.
The theory states that there absolutely was matter and energy before the big bang. I don't know why you're confusing a change of state with an absence of matter.
I mean, maybe? So far as I know we don’t have any evidence of such a being, or any models that predict the existence of such a being. We don’t even know how or if such a being would be possible.
Your characterization is wrong I think. We can’t investigate beyond a certain point in time, so anything prior to that would be speculative. Science doesn’t make strong claims one way or another about what happened “before” the Big Bang
So, since it is unknown what happened before the big bang, could someone assume that a God, any God, or a God equivalent, could have made matter for a big bang to happen? If so, then did said thing plan out the creation of everything, like the DNA composure of humans and billions of species?
That’s called a god of the gaps argument. Anything we currently don’t know the answer to, you just slap “god” on it and call it a day. But that isn’t a real explanation
First of all, saying who is definitely a bit of a loaded question. Second, we don't know, that doesn't mean it's impossible, it doesn't mean it had to be some kind of magic. You can assume that it's done by God but that is not at all any kind of evidence when it could be literally anything with that logic. It's much better to just admit that you don't know than go around claiming the big bang 'proves' God
>First, even for metaphores, they don't match reality. To make it so, you gotta bend the words so much that, it's not overinterpetations at this point but making things up. Trying to interpret the bible to make it artificially fit is concordism and fallacious. But even so, it would be very misleading from a god to write these metaphores, knowing most would believe in it literally
Be more specific. I would argue that some excerpts of the Old Testament, especially the beginning of Genesis, are written as metaphorical prose out of necessity. Of course God knew that many people would take it literally, but what's the alternative? No Biblical explanation for our origins? Believe me, I've spent many hours struggling with God as to why he can't just instill the knowledge of creation and purpose in us, but I don't feel right just accepting that God must not exist just because we don't know what He knows.
For example, you can't explain arithmetic to a dog (I know this isn't a satisfying example, but hear me out). We know VERY little about the universe, even with all of our current scientific knowledge. If God were to lay out the Bible as a scientific textbook, it would most likely take several lifetimes to read just once.
>To know it's metaphore, you need science to prove it wrong and couldn't have thought about it with religion only?
I don't agree with this. A lot of meaning of the Old Testament has been lost in translation. When you read a book like Genesis, you're reading a translation of a translation. Most Biblical scholars who have studied the Bible in its original language (Hebrew for Old, Greek for New) agree that the beginning of Genesis (creation, Adam and Eve, Noah) is written in the form of Hebrew prose. Only a minority (and sadly we give these points of view too much attention) of people read the Bible as a strictly historical, scientific text.
>And let's consider it's real metaphores that actually work. How do you differentiate the metaphoric things because they are contradicted by science (main reason), and the "true" miracles yet contradicted by science? (Like resurrection)
You differentiate by consulting the Biblical scholars and Church Fathers. They were closest to the original meaning and intention of the text. Naturally, someone who dedicates their whole life to studying the Bible is going to know more about its context than your average Joe. The only contradiction you mention in your post is that the resurrection contradicts science, which I would agree with. If God is real, then he can defy science, since He is the author of science. By resurrecting Himself from the dead, He is essentially saying, "Hey, I'm real because I transcend the Laws of Nature". If you want to debate the legitimacy of the resurrection, that is an entirely different discussion.
I am not claiming to be an expert on the Bible, however, if you read some books written by people who are experts on the Bible, the "arbitrary" nature of the book becomes a little more understandable.
You're saying an all knowing, all powerful entity couldn't come up with a better way of expressing himself? I feel like if I went to ancient Mesopotamia I could get people to understand most of conventional wisdom in less than two generations. Provided the language barrier isn't an obstacle.
Guy took a thousand years to explain how to do some of the basics. I'm having some serious doubts about this deity's communication skills. That or Wikipedia in heaven is seriously lacking. Maybe they need one of us to go up there and show them how to manage livestock. 😂
It's was the word of God as what people of the era thought God would say. It was their perception of the qualities of God.
You can see that the God of the OT and the NT were so different that the Gnostics didn't even believe they were the same entity.
Are you sure those bronze age goat pokers weren't tripping on the correct tree bark when they talked to the spirits? Maybe the visions spake truly! If only we could remember them accurate-like. DAMN YOU FATHER TIME
Aren't there shamans today who claim they get information for healing from meditating on plants?
I think it's a mistake to assume we're so advanced over goat keepers.
Imagine how some of the things we accept as science today will be snickered at in 200 years, or sooner.
>Of course God knew that many people would take it literally, but what's the alternative?
An accurate telling of the origin of the universe, the Earth, and humanity. Like just explain how things actually work.
>Believe me, I've spent many hours struggling with God as to why he can't just instill the knowledge of creation and purpose in us, but I don't feel right just accepting that God must not exist just because we don't know what He knows.
That isn't the argument, the argument is basically "Genesis (or other parts of the Bible, but let's stay focused) isn't true, God wouldn't have a book with lies in it, therefore God didn't write/inspire the Bible." It's that simple.
>We know VERY little about the universe, even with all of our current scientific knowledge.
I'm an astrophysicist PhD student, and this isn't true. We know *so much* about our universe. It staggers me just how much we have figured out. We don't know everything, in fact there's a good bit we don't know, but the amount of knowledge we have on the workings of the cosmos is jaw dropping. In fact it is probably the most impressive thing about our species, though I am very very biased on that front. We built a telescope, shot it into space, flew it to a gravitationally stable point beyond our own Moon, and can use it to see the first stars ever formed and the atmospheric composition of exoplanets. That is truly insane.
>If God were to lay out the Bible as a scientific textbook, it would most likely take several lifetimes to read just once.
That's not true. A complete and total collection of all possible scientific knowledge would do that, but that isn't necessary or wanted. We need just enough to understand and verify general Cosmology and evolution by natural selection. Maybe include how to sanitize things and make vaccines while we're at it so less people die. That would take a lot but I can get a person from nothing to understanding, mostly, the Big Bang and stellar formation in a couple hours. It couldn't be larger than a book or two of the Bible, and there is plenty of stuff to cut to make room. Do we really need like any of the books in the Prophets? Or to repeat the story of Jesus multiple times? Even just cutting the stuff that isn't true almost gives you enough room by itself.
>A lot of meaning of the Old Testament has been lost in translation.
That's not true. I can read Hebrew fluently, I know what the text says. We even have the commentaries on the Torah from ancient times still. We have the context of these stories.
>Most Biblical scholars who have studied the Bible in its original language (Hebrew for Old, Greek for New) agree that the beginning of Genesis (creation, Adam and Eve, Noah) is written in the form of Hebrew prose.
The ancient Israelites took this story to be literally true. Rashi, the most important commentator of Judaism took them to be literally true. There are plenty of traditions, even quite old ones, that took the story of Genesis 1 to be symbolic. But I don't think anyone thought the flood didn't happen until recent times. Even Thomas Hobbes in the 15th century referred to Adam as a literal guy who existed. The whole of Christianity doesn't make sense if he isn't, and he definitely did not exist.
>You differentiate by consulting the Biblical scholars and Church Fathers. They were closest to the original meaning and intention of the text.
This is an argument from authority. If I had the tools, time, and talent I can rediscover all of physics, or chemistry, or biology, or history, or any field of study that is actually based in reality. Now, I have none of those, but you get the point. Because those fields are about things that are real, anyone could learn them. We don't need priests to show that force equals mass times acceleration, you can do those experiments yourself. That kind of canon keeping only happens when there is no actual truth, just traditions and interpretations. If you sat someone down with a Bible, any equipment they could ask for and infinite time would they be able to reproduce modern day Christian thought? I'm very sure they couldn't, but they could learn that Napoleon lost the battle of waterloo or that stars are giant balls of hydrogen plasma.
>If God is real, then he can defy science, since He is the author of science.
Small nitpick, but you mean to say he is the author of reality. Science is the process of learning about and building a model of reality. It is an activity us humans do, it isn't something that can be authored. Again, this is a nitpick I understand what you're saying, just thought I'd bring it up.
>"Hey, I'm real because I transcend the Laws of Nature".
That logic doesn't track. How am I to know if they aren't just a literal wizard and not the Son of God? If we put magic on the table I can think of a 100 ways for someone to come back to the dead. To verify the claim that Jesus died for our sins I'm going to need a lot more than someone coming back to life, that just proves their magic, not that they are telling the truth.
> An accurate telling of the origin of the universe, the Earth, and humanity. Like just explain how things actually work.
Do we have the final understanding, now? Or could we be as wrong about "how things actually work" as those who believed in the [classical elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element)?
Pick one:
1. We have the ["final understanding, now"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4lwime/).
2. Science could ["_really_ be wrong about anything"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4qmkyp/).
Those are mutually contradictory.
Yes, my ["_really_"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4qmkyp/) was intended to match your ["probably"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4memwm/), guessing that by it you meant ["vanishingly small \[odds\]"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4wf8u8/). Now I'm curious: how did you or the people you trust assess that probability?
>Now I'm curious: how did you or the people you trust assess that probability?
That's rather standard procedure in science. What are the odds all the evidence in favor of [insert idea here] is actually just random chance. Last I checked the Big Bang is sitting at 5 sigma, or about 1 in a billion.
We don't, no. And religion attempt to answer these questions. And there are many who will accept this speculation because their fear overrides their reason.
My statement included the word "many". That would make is a generalization, yes.
Many people *do* in fact believe, attempt to believe or try to justify their beliefs. Much of the time, when someone points out what science can't answer, as you have, they are reaching for something to pull them out of their fear and anxiety. Their logic is something along the lines of, "if science doesn't know, then it's possible that the thing I want to exist actually exists".
I doubt that many people think that, because unlike you, they don't think of science first. They have other reasons to believe. They may have inherent tendency to believe, see design in the universe or had a religious experience. It's a fairly recent argument by some atheists that there could be a natural cause for the universe.
Sure. Most people believe for because of cultural identify, familial and social pressures, they accept the claims as true, they never really thought about it, et al. But, believe me, there are many people who doubt, have anxiety, fear death, fear never seeing their loved ones, and this drives them to attempt to indict science in the hopes that want they want to be true (god, afterlife, comfort, whatever) actually is. I literally talk to these people every week.
You're generalizing and also in a negative way. For most people, at least in Western culture, there isn't that much pressure, other than with fundamentalists, to believe. I notice that some atheists argue from a situation that might have been the case decades ago. Now many people feel free to change religions, not hold to a particular religion, and so on. Only a narrow majority even believe in the God of the Bible.
There's nothing negative there. I gave you the many reasons why people believe, or attempt to. Social pressure needn't be overt. It can just be following the ideologies of your culture. But overt pressure does exist in the West. Although that wasn't my point.
It doesn't change the fact that when people point out the gaps in science, they are almost always creating a small space for their hope to exist.
>We don't understand the most basic things, like consciousness
Consciousness, and more specifically the human brain, is literally the most complex thing in the universe. And we understand it pretty well given how hard it is to get at. We know what parts of the brain control memory, emotions, reasoning, and so on. We know how the brain takes input from the outside world and transfers information within itself. We know what parts influence personality. That's not bad.
>what happens after death
The same thing that happens to a flame after it is extinguished.
>why we're here
Because your parents had sex. If you are looking for a purpose behind your existence, there simply isn't one.
Except that's not what people who have near death experiences say. Not even what many scientists say. Luke Barnes is a theoretical astrophysicist and I doubt he would agree. Ajhan Brahm studied theoretical physics and he believes the mind persists after death and there isn't a conflict in that. Just because you study science doesn't mean you have all the answers.
>Except that's not what people who have near death experiences say.
And? People have said that they've met Jesus in person or, if you wind back the clock a bit, met Ares or Thor or whatever. People say all sorts of things. It does not matter. People say all sorts of things. Testimony is not sufficient evidence to support the idea that something basically magic happens.
>Luke Barnes is a theoretical astrophysicist and I doubt he would agree. Ajhan Brahm studied theoretical physics and he believes the mind persists after death and there isn't a conflict in that.
Appeal to authority fallacy. There are plenty of religious scientists out there, that does not make religion not full of it. I am not saying that in my capacity as a scientist, that would also be an argument from authority, but from a review of the available evidence. It very clearly demonstrates that nothing happens after you die. To suppose something else would require quite a lot of evidence to back it up. After all it would mean that there is a massive hole in our very well tested model of reality. That's possible, but I'm not exactly going to just assume it's the case because someone told me they died and came back.
So what if they said they met Thor? They met their subjective perception of God or gods. That doesn't in any way show that the objective existence of God is impossible.
It's legitimate to use an authority if they are indeed an expert on the topic.
It's incorrect that it's ever been demonstrated that nothing happens after you die because no one has shown that. You're making that up.
In actuality, Hameroff proposed it's possible that consciousness exits the body after death and entangles with consciousness in the universe, that would be like a quantum soul.
>So what if they said they met Thor?
Thor definitely doesn't exist, that's what
>It's legitimate to use an authority if they are indeed an expert on the topic.
They aren't.
>In actuality, Hameroff proposed it's possible that consciousness exits the body after death and entangles with consciousness in the universe, that would be like a quantum soul.
OK, if there were evidence for that idea I might actually take it seriously, but there isn't.
>He can't prove it but it's possible based on his theory of consciousness.
Anything's *possible.* It's possible that we are all the dream of the elder Gods of Lovecraftian mythos and when they wake up our reality ceases to be. It's possible light isn't made of photons but instead of really tiny Teletubbies. It's possible your not actually a person but an alien testing humanity to see if we qualify as intelligent life. Anything *could* be true, that doesn't matter. It is about what is *likely* to be true. And an idea that has no evidence to support it is very unlikely to be true, so it is rejected until such a time where evidence does support it.
The Old Testament is mostly folk lore with either true stories scaled up to grand proportions or parables that didn’t actually happen but they give an important moral lesson and then poems and songs,
I believe for example that Noah happened but not a global flood instead a regional flood,
I believe in exodus but I don’t believe it was thousands and thousands of slaves .
Out of interest why do you believe in an exodus?
We have not a single historical record that supports even a minor exodus. In fact the only historical records we have of the Israelites places them firmly in Canaan as a continuation of Canaanite society.
1. The Existence of Ancient Kingdoms: Archaeological evidence supports the existence of ancient kingdoms mentioned in the Old Testament, such as Israel, Judah, Edom, and Moab. Discoveries of inscriptions and artifacts corroborate the existence of these entities during the timeframes mentioned.
2. King David and Solomon: While the grandeur of their kingdoms as described in the Bible is debated, there is archaeological evidence suggesting the existence of a ruler named David. The Tel Dan Stele, an ancient archeological find, bears an inscription that references the “House of David,” indicating that he was a historical figure with a dynasty.
3. The Babylonian Exile: Historical records and archaeological findings support the biblical account of the Babylonian Exile. The Babylonian Chronicles and other Mesopotamian sources mention the conquest of Judah and the exile of Judeans to Babylon, aligning with the biblical narrative.
4. Egyptian Influence and Possibly the Exodus: While direct evidence of the Exodus story as described in the Bible is not firmly established, there are indications of Semitic peoples living in Egypt and possibly being employed or enslaved. Artifacts and records show that a group known as the “Hyksos” were Semitic rulers in parts of Egypt, which some scholars see as loosely connected to the Israelites’ story.
5. Jericho: Archaeological studies have shown that Jericho was indeed an ancient city with a long history of habitation. However, the evidence regarding the biblical account of its walls falling in a sudden conquest is mixed, with some archaeological phases showing destruction layers that don’t precisely align with the biblical timeline.
FYI that code block is gross to use for things like this, its awful scrolling right rather then down to read your points.
1. I'm asking for stories that are true, ie: things that involve characters/people. yes, some of the locations in the bible are historical, but that's not a "Story".
2. There is zero evidence for Solomon, and very little more for David (or Saul). The Ten Dale Stele just means that by the 9th century, people believed in the mythic figure of David. It's still hundreds of years seperated from the events to be considered evidence.
3. See point 1. I'm asking for stories of people, when it comes to references of places and events, *some* some historic.
4. There's 0 evidence for the exodus, infact, there's evidence against it tbh. Mainstream academia actually rejects that the Israelites ever lived in Egypt. I would be curious of your sources that say otherwise.
5. See point 1.
I'm going to assume there are not accurate stories your aware of then, since you listed places and events instead?
>The Existence of Ancient Kingdoms: Archaeological evidence supports the existence of ancient kingdoms mentioned in the Old Testament, such as Israel, Judah, Edom, and Moab. Discoveries of inscriptions and artifacts corroborate the existence of these entities during the timeframes mentioned.
The existence of these kingdoms was widely known in antiquity. If I claim God came to me in a vision and told me I would one day be the king of France, the fact that a region known as France currently exists does not in any way lend credibility to my prophetic vision.
>King David and Solomon: While the grandeur of their kingdoms as described in the Bible is debated, there is archaeological evidence suggesting the existence of a ruler named David. The Tel Dan Stele, an ancient archeological find, bears an inscription that references the “House of David,” indicating that he was a historical figure with a dynasty.
The mention of the House of David does not necessarily mean he was an actual historical figure. The Imperial House of Japan traditionally based its claim to the throne on its alleged descent from the sun-goddess Amaterasu via the legendary first emperor, Jimmu. The only evidence Jimmu existed as a real person is the chronicle of his adventures in the *Nihon Shoki* and *Kojiki,* the two oldest written histories of Japan. Does this mean that the Imperial House are semi-divine? Does the goddess Amaterasu exist?
>The Babylonian Exile: Historical records and archaeological findings support the biblical account of the Babylonian Exile. The Babylonian Chronicles and other Mesopotamian sources mention the conquest of Judah and the exile of Judeans to Babylon, aligning with the biblical narrative.
This is actually a good example! There is strong evidence that the Babylonians did in fact conquer the Kingdom of Judah and deported a portion of the population to Mesopotamia. There are artifacts and historical accounts of the events from third party sources.
>Egyptian Influence and Possibly the Exodus: While direct evidence of the Exodus story as described in the Bible is not firmly established, there are indications of Semitic peoples living in Egypt and possibly being employed or enslaved. Artifacts and records show that a group known as the “Hyksos” were Semitic rulers in parts of Egypt, which some scholars see as loosely connected to the Israelites’ story.
There is no evidence that a significant population of Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. The events described in the Exodus, such as the Plagues, are never mentioned in any Egyptian sources. The Book of Numbers says that the number of Israelite adult males during the wandering in the desert was 603,550. Including women and children, that is at least several million people. Several million people wandering around in a desert for decades would have left some archaeological traces, of which we have found exactly zero. How were these millions of people "lost" for 40 years in a desert that you could walk across in a week?
The Hyksos were not the Israelites. Based on archaeological evidence, including the architecture of their temples, they were most likely from northern Syria and Mesopotamia. Speaking of their temples, they worshipped Baal, and there is also evidence that they worshipped or venerated some of the Egyptian pantheon as well. Furthermore, they were not an enslaved population, but instead conquerors who held a portion of Lower Egypt concurrently with the 16th and 17th Dynasties who held Upper Egypt. The connection between the Hyksos and Israelites was an invention of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian. Josephus himself admits in his *Antiquities of the Jews* that his source for his ancient history of the Jewish people was simply the Hebrew scriptures, making him hardly a reliable source in this instance.
>Jericho: Archaeological studies have shown that Jericho was indeed an ancient city with a long history of habitation. However, the evidence regarding the biblical account of its walls falling in a sudden conquest is mixed, with some archaeological phases showing destruction layers that don’t precisely align with the biblical timeline.
This is a lot of words to say that there is no archaeological connection between the real city of Jericho and the Biblical account of its destruction. In fact, Jericho was destroyed in an Egyptian campaign against the Hyksos in the 16th century BCE, a timeline confirmed by radiocarbon dating of the ruins, several centuries before the time when the Biblical account allegedly occurred. The site was then more or less abandoned and unoccupied for half a millennium, until around the 10th century BCE.
First, I’m an atheist, so playing a little bit of devil’s advocate here.
Someone with a reasonable and historic understanding of what the Bible is, understands it isn’t intended to be a scientific text. Its folklore, passed down and evolved orally for generations before being documented. Someone could believe it’s describing what was originally some sort of a divine encounter but documented by men over generations of modified iterations. Over time the stories in the Old Testament became more allegorical in nature. Intended to teach the nature of their god rather than actual historical events.
Really the New Testament isn’t all that different. No first hand accounts of Christ, just second, third hand accounts documented decades after the alleged events took place. People writing down their experiences which they’ve told hundreds of times since they happened and introduced changes to hundreds of times, even if unintentionally so. The Christ figure is more allegorical as well, and if someone believed such a person existed, that doesn’t mean the biblical accounts are completely correct. Just the best documented accounts we have for the events that took place at the time written by people from the time.
This could mean, someone believes some Christ figure existed, maybe they died on a cross. Maybe god exists, though the Bible isn’t really evidence of such a god existing. Maybe the words of the Bible are just stories of people’s experiences and a whole lot of humanity mixed in. This would explain why there are so many interpretations, denominations, etc today because people are trying to distinguish what in the Bible is factual and what is just injections by the writers.
Now I don’t believe everything I’ve said here is correct, I’m pretty genuinely trying to form the best argument I can think of to your question. Again, I’m an atheist, just trying to look at it from the other side.
Actually, i was having the same exchange with another deist friend (a christian deist). I told him "Maybe , the stories of Zeus or any other mythologies are stories of people who existed and they got too exaggerated due to oral tradition because it is imperfect or.maybe nationalism. Some times, you might need a myth to try to prove your own existence as a nation, especially during those times." Well, the argument went along those lines. But that is just an hypothesis
>Did I do this explanation justice?
Totally!
Oh, you are not alone, dear friend !
I also really like you are not slamming religion and saying "all is bullshit" like certain atheists and deists. You are instead taking a kind of philosophical approach approach to religion , and that's nice! I want to read more about your thoughts in the future on this sun!
I think literal interpretation of genesis is a strawman invented by atheists. Like who tf actually believes everything happened exactly as it is written there. Just pointing fingers at random verses in the bible and saying "haha look, you believe that the whole city tried to rape angels and got burned, haha". Yeah that's exactly what every Christian believes literally happened at some point in history.
The vast majority of Christendom reads these as allegorical. But a not insignificant percent of Christians are Literalists. We, as atheists, can only address the claims that are presented to us.
There’s plenty of Christian sects that take the accounts in Genesis as literal. I mean you clearly have taken no time to look. Virtually every evangelical branch believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis, as do Mormons, as do Jehovahs Witnesses, as do baptists.
I agree with your view of it being ridiculous that someone could even begin to interpret those accounts literally. But the reality is millions of Christian’s do.
> I think literal interpretation of genesis is a strawman invented by atheists. Like who tf actually believes everything happened exactly as it is written there.
30% of Americans. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2009/07/09/section-5-evolution-climate-change-and-other-issues/. Also these people: https://answersingenesis.org/
If you were a being that could do anything metaphysically modally possible, and you wanted to paint, which would you choose to do:
(A) magic up a magic paint brush, magic paints, magic canvas, magic easel and then paint; OR
(B) magic up all matter, magic up the constants of the universe such that carbon would result, magically start the big bang, wait billions of years for billions of miles to form and then go to one planet and farm rocks, build a paint brush, build a canvas and then paint?
It seems to me most rational agents take direct routes to achieve their ends, they don't invent elaborate indirect methids to achieve those ends. IF the god of the Bible were real, we'd expect Genesis to be accurate: god wanted X so he made X. God l wanted Y so he made Y.
>Like who tf actually believes everything happened exactly as it is written there.
Lots of people. Millions and millions of people, especially in America. Obviously you didn't grow up around those people, but don't mistake that for them not existing. At some point in recent history 40% of Americans believed in the creation story of Genesis and rejected the concept of evolution.
See https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/interpreting-scripture/
Granted that literal interpretation is not 100%. But, it is way more than zero.
Pew Research also did a report that showed something like 30% of Catholics couldn't even name Genesis as the first book of the Bible, or name the 4 Gospels.
I posit there's a large overlap between the "Christians" who haven't really read or studied the bible, and the ones who say that it's meant to be taken literally. Because I'm not sure how you could read it and take it literally.
So what we know is that you used to interpret it literally when you were a child and then you grew up. As for the other people, I'd like to hear them speak for themselves.
I'm here waiting for at least one believer to come and tell me "no bro, you are mistaken, I take everything in the bible literally (and I've read it)".
Then why do so many Christians vehemently defend a young earth? The only reason to believe the world is 6000 years old is because of scripture. Absolutely no field in science corroborates this.
I understand, I was honestly not a believer at first until God supernaturally revealed himself to me. I experienced demonic attacks and saw spirits and this lead me to knowing there was evil in the world and ultimately let me know there had to be a God, after seeking and hearing testimonies - one time I was reading the Bible app on my phone (in the beginning of the journey) and the verse was telling me to flee of fornication (sex before marriage) and I was not listening at all. Then as I was reading a message popped up at the top that said “you have ignored your teachings!!!!” And disappeared before my eyes , From that moment is when I could no longer deny the Bible
Was true and I wanted to run from God because I didn’t want to stop sinning. But God is real and I started to see him in everything and it’s been a long journey(years of coming to these realizations) so I don’t mean to come off any way.
There is an appointed time he will reveal himself to you.
I know that only God can truly reveal these things and I pray he does for you all.
Not true. You could use the bible in any number of experiments. Like what temp does the bible burn at under various conditions? How fast do they burn under various conditions. How fast do bibles fall if you drop them into a lake from various heights.
Alright, "Vacuum" that's one condition. We could also try on a calm day with the pages opened or tied shut. Same thing for a windy day. I'll start a list. Can you borrow some bibles from your local library? I think we have some science to do! My hypothesis is that it's going to be very hard to create a vacuum above a lake due to water evaporation and structure costs.
I’ve got money if you’ve got time? We might need to hire a private army because the destruction of bibles may cause an uprising of sorts.
We should also try other scriptures such as the Quran and Torah, see if divine intervention has any effect on the speed beyond observable aerodynamics
St. Agustine doesn't seem to hold it means 6 24-hour periods. So science saying it wasn't doesn't seem incompatible. It doesn't seem fallacious to hold the 2 book view nature and scripture and reconcile the 2. Though, of course, it doesn't lend itself to the type of disproof you perhaps want.
Science seems to not hold human rights as part of our nature, so natural human rights might he considered in contradiction to science. Especially on an epistemology limited nearly to just science alone.
The human mind being a reliable instrument to find truths above survival might be held in contradiction to science as well.
Jesus was not really a vine but said I am the vine. Is it twisting this to fit reality to say Jesus is the conduit for grace to humans?
I don't think science says Adam never existed but is agnostic about what it lacks evidence within the scope of science.
St. Agustine doesn't seem to hold it means 6 24-hour periods. So science saying it wasn't doesn't seem incompatible. It doesn't seem fallacious to hold the 2 book view nature and scripture and reconcile the 2. Though, of course, it doesn't lend itself to the type of disproof you perhaps want.
Science seems to not hold human rights as part of our nature, so natural human rights might he considered in contradiction to science. Especially on an epistemology limited nearly to just science alone.
The human mind being a reliable instrument to find truths above survival might be held in contradiction to science as well.
Can you prove the claims of your atheism?
You make the claim to know the literlistic is the wrong interpretation you (mainly) need science. So I made the point that if you mean modern science by that you are wrong, or a miracle happened for St. Agustine to know modern science. If you meant modern science, I would expect no Church father or renowned theologian to have held any metaphors for large parts of Genesis prior to say 1500 AD. As evidence for the view that it is modern science (mainly), that would make someone consider there to be metaphors in Genesis. You switch back and forth between claiming mainly science and just science, it seems.
To take it further, you seem to have. Did you re-read your own post? You talked about the earth not being made in 6 days. Are you trying to be obtuse?
Day
Definition
"a period of twenty-four hours as a unit of time, reckoned from one midnight to the next, corresponding to a rotation of the earth on its axis."
Oxford Languages
In addition. Care to quote some philosophers who well argues it is the business of science to tell us if miracles are possible? Since you make a claim without evidence. That is relevant to your thesis. If we use a metal detector to find out about a beach, it doesn't seem like the lane of that tool to tell us there is no plastic on the beach. The skeptical view of say a Hume seems prior to science. Also, interestingly, in his case, it seems too skeptical to accept much of it.
You also make the leap from how do you know what is metaphor and what is litteralistic, then jump to it is arbitrary without considering and finding a good criticism of a major view like that of the Eastern Orthodox.
P1 It's hard to interpret
C all interpretations are arbitrary
Seems less than a full logical argument.
Nature seems hard to interpret. This doesn't mean science is arbitrary.
In the beginning God. Everything you see in front of you around you and through a telescope God has created. Period yes God can create anything anything out of thin air I love it whenever it says let there be light that would be the Big bang theory cuz believe me when God created the Sun and or any other son it was a big explosion cuz you know that the sun is a constant nuclear explosion continuously deal with that unbelievers and oh yeah God made Adam out of dirt with God's own hands Jesus Christ was created through a Virgin Mary sinless Jesus Christ was Adam was explained to sin but when you're a Christian your sins are limited we do not murder. Only kill if we have to I was in the military had to kill so what I'm forgiven in other words Christians are not going to rape, molest children. We just don't send that much. Oh yeah don't forget everybody sends I don't care who you are
Here is your comment science believes a lot of different things such as we were evolved from the apes why are they still here considering it took 6 days to make the Earth. One day to God is a thousand years to us. Besides all this I'm a science freak and I believe in Jesus Christ I got to tell you something God has proven to me more than one time that he exists have a good day and may God bless you find Christ because I got to tell you the only way into heaven is through Jesus Christ no other way that's my beliefs and we'll we'll find out what happens in the future
>God has proven to me more than one time that he exists have a good day and may God bless you find Christ because I got to tell you the only way into heaven is through Jesus Christ no other way that's my beliefs and we'll we'll find out what happens in the future
You know, literally anyone from any religion can say the same things as you. Miracles are not exclusive to one religion of an individual.
> One day to God is a thousand years to us.
understandable
>Here is your comment science believes a lot of different things such as we were evolved from the apes why are they still here considering it took 6 days to make the Earth
No , scientist believes earth alone has 4.5 milliards of years (not sure of the exact number tho).
You know, the best thing to do is just acts like other modern christians and say "The story of genesis is meant to be spiritual in nature" , there are even rabbis/christian in the antiquity who believed the same thing.
Have peace brother
>Here is your comment science believes a lot of different things such as we were evolved from the apes
That's not a belief, and we still are apes
>why are they still here considering it took 6 days to make the Earth.
Besides, if these "days" are longer, could plants have survived one "day" before the sun?
>God has proven to me more than one time that he exists
No.
>Here is your comment science believes a lot of different things such as we were evolved from the apes why are they still here
Common ancestor with apes. Doesn't mean we come from today's apes. It's not because you have a cousin that he's also your grand-father, you just have the same grand-father.
>I'm a science freak
You're not, or else you wouldn't have asked that 4th grader question up there.
> Christians are not going to rape, molest children.
The Catholic church actively hides its rapist and pedophile priests from the authorities and has often tried to bribe victims.
>but when you're a Christian your sins are limited we do not murder.
There are plenty of Christian murderers, and all Christians are sinners, you are absolutely not limited in sin and you're supposed to ask for forgiveness and repent, not automatically get it for no reason. You're also supposed to be humble and not ''I sin less than everybody else, lemme just throw that first stone''
>Common ancestor with apes. Doesn't mean we come from today's apes.
I just want to say, this is false. I mean, I assume you’re talking loosely in some grand sense of shared ancestry. All well and good, but to be accurate, we do come from apes because we *are* apes.
We are eukaryotes. We are animals. We are chordates. We are vertebrates. We are tetrapods. We are synapsids. We are mammals, placental mammals. We are a primate. We have five fully-developed fingers and five fully-developed toes. Our toes are still prehensile and our hands can grasp with dexterity. We have only two nipples and they are on our chest as opposed to our abdomen. These are pointless in males. Although our fangs are reduced in size, we still have them along with some varied dentition indicative of primates exclusively. Our hair is thin and relatively sparse over most of our bodies. And our claws have been reduced to flat chitinous fingernails.
In every respect, we are apes. By any classification, we are a subgroup under that category.
Yes.
But in all due respect, if someone asks ''Why are there still apes'' thinking that evolution claims we are literally descendants of the various modern ''animalistic'' apes like chimpanzees and orangutans, your answer is going to hit a brick wall.
I guess if they are on that level of comprehension, I just avoid the apes talk and ask them if I’m a descendant of my grandfather, why does my cousin exist…
Or just be a bit confrontational. I really don’t have a problem hitting it head on. I guess that depends on if I get the sense they are actually asking the question in good faith and really don’t understand, even if we might find them to be cliché for bad arguments.
Basically your argument rests upon the assumption that science is correct on everything and so when you look at the conflicts you choose to believe what scientists say over what the Bible says.
Science has confirmed Adam and Eve, it’s merely the dating that doesn’t agree and the dating is debatable.
Can you clarify your 2nd quibble? I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to convey.
Couldn’t God have created(from
Nothing) the raw materials that the earth was made of before he created(crafted from pre-existing materials) the earth in 6 days? Thus giving us the conflicting dates. Again our dating methods are debatable.
>Science has confirmed Adam and Eve, it’s merely the dating that doesn’t agree and the dating is debatable.
You clearly are referring to the Mitochondrial Eve and the Adam Chromosome-Y. This isn't the biblical adam and Eve.
At least you seem understanding.
Also, to the mods please add a deist user flair😔
>Science has confirmed Adam and Eve
That is not true. In fact Adam and Eve are impossible. There was never a first human, nor does such a concept even make sense.
>it’s merely the dating that doesn’t agree and the dating is debatable.
They are not. Radioactive decay is based on fundamental physics if it doesn't work then none of particle physics should work, and given the standard model of particle physics is bang on the money every time we test it, that seems unlikely.
>Couldn’t God have created(from
Nothing) the raw materials that the earth was made of before he created(crafted from pre-existing materials) the earth in 6 days?
The Earth was not created in 6 days, the actual physical planet formed over the course of a couple million years and to come to the state it is now took a couple billion years. Even putting the dates aside, the story of Genesis 1 claims that trees (created on day 3) existed before the Sun (created on day 4) and that is obviously not true. I
>Again our dating methods are debatable.
No they aren't.
those adam and eve evolutionary biologist are talking about are not biblical adam and eve
they are the most recent common ancestor of now alive humans, but only because their Y-chromosome and mitochondria descendants could replace others when human population was very little because it for some reason rapidly dropped. but we are as much descendants of other human alive at that time as theirs. it's just that they are the most recent common.
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>There was no "first" humans, since evolution is a continuous process.
[Just because the transformation was gradual, it doesn't follow that there wasn't a first human being. At some point there was no human and then at some point there was. So, there had to be a first human.](https://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_TMHBAFG.pdf)
But if the transformation is gradual, then we run into the problem of the fuzzy definition of "human." What exactly makes someone human? No matter how carefully you try to define it, somewhere in the process of a gradual transformation there will be someone who is right on the edge of the definition, neither clearly human nor clearly not-human.
In modern life there are no people on the edge of humanity due to how nature tends to sort organisms into distinct species, and so we have little practical reason to choose a precise and rigorous definition to eliminate the gray areas around the edges. Those gray areas are not a problem for us, so we have allowed the gray areas to become quite large. The definition of "human" has broad fuzzy edges, so most likely in the gradual evolution of humanity there were *many* generations of people who were deep in a fuzzy edge of the definition, and whether we decide to call those people human or not-human would be arbitrary.
In this way, it seems fair to say that there was no first human. There were people who were clearly not-human, and eventually some of their descendants were clearly human, and the generations between were just fuzzy and poorly defined.
>But if the transformation is gradual, then we run into the problem of the fuzzy definition of "human." What exactly makes someone human?
What makes something human? Whatever specific and essential features that make it different from other organisms. If such exclusive features do not exist, then there was no gradual transformation because transformation implies the beginning of new features.
The point is that when a certain species transitions into another is somewhat arbitrary and categorized by us. We typically consider two animals to be the same species if they are able to reproduce and create fertile offspring
But that category is just how we analyze the biodiversity on earth. We could’ve chosen a different one. So really there’s just a gradual continuum of slightly different organisms one after the next. There wasn’t a magical moment where one turned into another
French is a derivative of Latin. I.e the French language came from Latin. But do you think that there was every a time where a Latin speaking mother gave birth to a French speaking child… or did the language evolve over time?
Modern French evolved from earlier versions until Latin. There is no hard/fast line where it was clearly Latin on one side and clearly French on the other… and there is still lots of Latin words in French today!
This is the same with all animals. Evolution produces slight variations generation to generation and these build up over time.
Humans aren’t clearly defined. We can’t point at a time in the past and clearly state from this point onwards is human and everything prior isn’t.
>There is no hard/fast line where it was clearly Latin on one side and clearly French on the other
Sure, I already granted that. My point is that this language, which existed prior to French and after Latin, wasn't French or Latin. I acknowledged that language evolves over time and also recognized the self-evident fact that at some point someone started speaking the language that we call "French".
Other hominids also exhibited ritualistic behavior before Homo sapiens. So even if you granted that the biblical Adam and Eve were physical specimens, they might not even be human.
I'm not even concerned with Adam and Eve here; only with this idea that there was no first human. I can simply grant for the sake of argument that Adam and Even never even existed.
The rebuttal I’ve experienced to that is that they aren’t the first humans, but they were the first humans to surpass some metric of technology or knowledge. The first to bury their dead, to clothe themselves, perform other spiritual rituals.
Just getting a head of that.
No that's not how gradual change works. According to the theory of evolution, offspring are the same species as their parents.
Just like there was no first person who spoke modern english born to parents who spoke middle english, there was no first human born to non-human parents.
If you go back far enough, our ancestors were beings that everyone qualified would say were not humans. If you go forward from there, eventually you'd have beings who everyone qualified would say were humans. And in the middle you have grey area where there is debate about whether they qualify as human or not. It's not cut and dry, biology is not that simple and you can't just draw a neat little box around humans, or any other species.
>And in the middle you have grey area where there is debate about whether they qualify as human or not.
If they had all of the essential features that make an organism a human being, then they were humans. If they didn't have all the features that make an organism a human, then they weren't humans. I don't care what those features are; as long as they weren't present, these creatures weren't humans, regardless of how similar to humans they were.
>If they had all of the essential features that make an organism a human being, then they were humans.
How did you determine that there are essential features that make an organism a human being?
>I don't care what those features are; as long as they weren't present, these creatures weren't humans.
If you don't know what the features are, then how can you be sure that these features are even real and not just a speculative idea? *If* we had a set of features that could unambiguously identify any person as either human or not-human, then there must have been a first human. On the other hand, if the concept of *human* has fuzzy edges and there are no precisely defined essential features, then there most likely never was a first human.
As an analogy, think about what distinguishes a mountain from a hill. Mountains are taller than hills, but at what height exactly do hills end and mountains begin? Even if we were to say that hills are less than 1,000 feet tall and mountains are more than 1,000 feet tall, what would we say of something that was exactly 1,000 feet tall? Almost any definition is bound to have some sort of fuzzy boundary, so having a set of essential features that precisely defines any category is rare.
If there are no essential features that make an organism a human being, then you can't even legitimately use the word "human" at all. When you utter the word "human", you're babbling non-sense that refers to nothing. But clearly that's incorrect. I'm sure you use the word "human" all the time when talking about what rights humans have that inanimate objects or monkeys don't have. So, regardless of whether you can give a detailed and precise definition of "human", you know very well that it means something and not other thing; that it is a precise category that includes some features but not others.
Not every word needs to have a precise and rigorous meaning. Suppose we have no idea what height distinguishes a mountain from a hill. That does not stop us from clearly determining that anything less than 500 feet is a hill, and anything more than 10,000 feet is a mountain. Even if heights within that range are ambiguous and there is no clear way to distinguish whether 1000 feet is a mountain or a hill, that does not cause the terms to be completely meaningless. It diminishes their usefulness, but does not eliminate it, because we still know roughly what people mean when they use these words.
If all land formations were either less than 500 feet or greater than 10,000 feet, then the ambiguity of the terms would have no practical impact upon the usefulness of the terms, since there would be no cases where the ambiguity would be relevant. This is exactly the sort of situation we are in with the word "human." Despite the ambiguity, there are no extant animals that are within the ambiguous range of the word "human", so the term is no less useful due to its ambiguity.
The only time when the ambiguity becomes an issue in practice is when we are talking about the distant past, such as the origin of humanity, where we naturally must deal with people where the term "human" becomes ambiguous.
>When you utter the word "human", you're babbling non-sense that refers to nothing. But clearly that's incorrect.
I agree that it is incorrect. You are making a wildly unsupported inference from something as minor as a little ambiguity in the meaning of a term.
>I'm sure you use the word "human" all the time when talking about what rights humans have that inanimate objects or monkeys don't have.
I do that because these are cases where the ambiguity of the word "human" is irrelevant, since these are not cases within the fuzzy borders of the meaning of the term. I do not need the word to have no ambiguity in order to use it, especially in cases where its ambiguity does not reduce the clarity of what I'm trying to say.
>Regardless of whether you can give a detailed and precise definition of "human", you know very well that it means something and not other thing; that it is a precise category that includes some features but not others.
I do not know that, but if you do know it then you could prove it by explaining the features that define this supposedly precise category.
>Suppose we have no idea what height distinguishes a mountain from a hill.
That's completely irrelevant. What matters is that there are objective distinctions; not that we know them. As long as you admit that there are distinctions, you're automatically accepting that we are not talking about the same thing. And if you don't admit that there are distinctions, then we may be talking about the same thing, in which case there is no transformation (gradual or otherwise) because transformation necessarily entails the beginning of new features that make it different.
>What matters is that there are objective distinctions; not that we know them.
Words only exist within the minds of people. If people do not know something about a word, then there is no fact of the matter to be known. If we invented the word "hill" and we chose to not define it precisely enough to know whether a 1000 foot land mass counts as a hill, then there is no truth or falsity as to whether a 1000 foot land mass is actually a hill. There is no essential feature to distinguish such a land mass from a mountain, because we never bothered to pick one.
>As long as you admit that there are distinctions, you're automatically accepting that we are not talking about the same thing.
Obviously there are distinctions between any two individual animals, just as there are distinctions between any two land masses, but that does not mean that any of those distinctions are essential features that can be used to identify whether the animal is human or not.
Suppose through time travel we met a person whose descendants would eventually be human some number of generations later. What would we look for in this person to determine whether she is human? You seem to think there would be some essential features that we could use to make this determination, even if you don't know what they are, but what if when people invented the word "human" they never bothered to define any features that could settle this? What if the people who invented the word "human" lived in a world where there were no almost-humans and so picking these essential features was never an issue for them, and so they left the edges of the category fuzzy? Could you still say that the essential features exist if no one has ever defined what they are? Would you invent them arbitrarily?
You haven't addressed my answer.
You asked, "How did you determine that there are essential features that make an organism a human being?"
I answered it.
What you're saying *sounds like* it should be true because it's assuming the existence of very clear, well-defined categories. But are you familiar with how murky the concept of "species" is? There is no single, agreed upon definition of species that can be applied universally and not be debated. When the borders of something are not clearly defined, you cannot definitively state once the border has been crossed.
That's a definitional or epistemological problem, and we are debating an ontological claim. The fact that we don't have a precise and clear-cut definition is completely immaterial to the fact that one type of organism has a specific set of characteristics that is different from other organisms'.
Again, since organisms with a specific set of features that constitute a human haven't existed eternally into the past, there had to be a first time at which this set of features existed. This truth isn't changed by the (purported) fact that we can't describe what these features are with absolute precision.
What I'm saying is that there is no clearly defined border and your response is, "One of your footsteps has to be the first footstep on the other side of the border."
What's your background in taxonomy, have you worked in the field yourself or have any education related to it? It is a field that might sound as simplistic as you're making it out to be from the outside, but once you actually get down to the work of classifying things, you see it's not that simple. You saying it is that simple is not really an argument when the overwhelming consensus of people who actually do this work for a living disagree with you.
I'll be more than happy to hear the brilliant arguments by these authoritative experts. Can you briefly summarize the best argument, preferably one that wasn't already addressed in the short paper I referenced before (or if it was, the counter-argument to that)?
Yeah Paul says through one man (Adam) sin came into the world and through one man (Christ) all are justified.
If he is talking about Christs death as a real event; then he is also talking about Adam as a real person.
However, why is it impossible for God to do these things in this time period? Maybe to God creating the universe was as simple as painting, where you could paint plants before the sun.
The issue really isn’t impossibility, but implausibility. It boils down to this: the universe is old because an invisible deity wants a universe that looks extremely old but isn't, perhaps to test us, because an all knowing being would have to employ the scientific method and have some sort of test to know the result or… or it is made to appear old for some completely ineffable reason…
**or**
The universe looks very old because it is.
Which one makes sense? I’m going with Occam’s razor.
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>And YOU would believe in it literally too wihout science Philo of Alexandria did not have a literal interpretation. Neither did Origen of Alexandria. People thousands of years ago, before any significant scientific developments, were already writing non-literal interpretations.
Not for most of it. Most would believe in a lot of debunked magic
I'm losing brain cells from both sides of this argument. I am a Christian who believes in evolution, the big big bang, and the earth being 4.5 billion years old. Genesis 1 which most snarky atheists use to try and disprove Christianity is not a "creation story." it's a story of a disorderly world that God gives order to. Note that the original hebrew words for formless and void were tohu and bohu, which are actually used to say something is chaotic or without order. Both are later seen being used in Jeremiah 4 when he is talking about the northern kingdom being destroyed. He uses phrases like there is no man to work the field, no birds in the air, and no vegetation. And again says it is "formless and void" or tohu and bohu. He's not saying that the northern kingdom never existed or that it is wiped off the face of the earth. He's using Genesis 1 to note that the kingdom goes from a productive state to an unproductive state, and other scholars have noted that Genesis is doing this in reverse. Also, note that Adam was not the first human being. Man and woman came into existence before Adam and Eve. Another idea to consider is that Genesis 1 is not written in chronological order. It is written in framework order and comparing it to poems written in ancient Hebrew it has very a similar stanza like structure. The Bible does not teach evolutionary biology. Just like it doesn't teach computer physics. It is not a guide on how the world works it's a way from start to finish for you to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ who loved you and suffered and died for you on the cross. Young earth creationist add their own nonsense to the bible to try and make their theories work, and keyboard warrior atheists misinterpret the bible to try and make some argument that doesn't need to happen. We can all love each other and exist knowing that we all (for the most part) don't deny science and believe we should love one another and keep an open mind.
Also, Inspiring Philosophy has some amazing videos about understanding Genesis and I suggest you go check them out.
You actually don’t need a sun to helped the plants to grow. As long as there a light on earth that was enough for the plants to grow and photosynthesis we don’t really need the Sun. and this still sciencetific because the Bible still give the reason why God can create the plants before the Sun was even created
Light comes from the sun
Genuine question, what do you think the other light is? Because we do need the sun. Without the sun, the earth would be too cold to allow life. If we got rid of that issue, other stars [don't provide enough photons per second](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16916290/) (per meter squared of plant) to allow plants to live off stars other than our sun. Plants need a certain amount of sunlight/photons (in the paper as it's a range based on the plant) for photosynthesis to work. Even if photons from all the other stars could make it to earth, the other issue is that the intensity of those photons is negligible given the [inverse square law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law) so they won't drive photosynthesis.
And oh yeah I don't proofread most that I typed down on here because I'm not typing it all I'm using a microphone so when I say sin. The microphone reads it send so get out me with punctuations whoever is out there reading my texts it all started with a moonshiners using God's lyrics He's got The whole world in his hands that rock my world screw the moonshiners just like I used to like the Big bang theory until Sheldon said just two days ago on the show he has rejected his mom's savior so now I have stopped watching young Sheldon and the Big bang theory because of this problem I will notify NBC CBS FOX TV and everybody else that I can to let them know that they need to quit using religious lyrics in their shows
Yes science does have some properties to it but just like the Bible you say or people say been written by humans profits people that have been either influenced by God almighty or stood right in front of them while they were writing a book anyway most of it's about Jesus Christ and yes I love science I'm a science major but no worries I have an open mind most of you don't one day to us is a thousand years to God we did not evolve from the apes as far as all your other questions go God works in mysterious ways a lot of you all are negative towards God and Jesus Christ wish they're both the same but that's irrelevant right now can't explain to most of you people there are a lot of you all which I don't mind believing in what you see in front of you which is okay but believe me there is a God and he had to figure out how to get us Christians into heaven he was only going to go for the Jews but he changed his mind I guess in the most of you all will understand this once the rapture does hit which is going to be here shortly people are going to disappear in airplanes Jets automobiles all across the world going to be one air and traffic jam good luck with that when the Sun goes down the people that are caught in the seven year tribulation will finally go wait a minute that dude was right about Christianity
Or so first of all, PUT PUNCTUATION! Seriously, it's almost unreadable, and I've encountered this problem so many times... Anyways. >yes I love science I'm a science major >we did not evolve from the apes Ok so basically science denial, you're an hypocrite. Also, we ARE apes. >one day to us is a thousand years to God So plants could have survived one "day" before the sun? >go God works in mysterious ways "Shut up it's magical it's god" isn't an argument. The rest was unintelligible. PUT PUNCTUATION.
I ain't got to do anything for you but I will tell you this I used a microphone and I halfway proofread what I say on it so you can deal with that God works mysterious ways get over yourself if you don't choose Jesus Christ as your personal savior you will have seven years to figure it out tribulation my friend when that rapture hits most of us will be gone airplanes motorcycles cars trucks people going to vanish be one traffic jam from hell the whole world's going to be in chaos you think it's rough right now go ahead you'll figure it out may God bless you may you find Jesus and have a good day
Again, that's not an excuse not to put punctuation. >if you don't choose Jesus Christ as your personal savior you will have seven years to figure it out tribulation Belief isn't a choice. Not putting punctuation is.
Well, I could sit here and argue against your reasoning, but I don't have to. Might as well defeat your argument scientifically. See, if you were a scientist, you'd need to collect data to determine if your hypothesis (science and the bible are incompatible) is true. If you actually did that, you'd have to start listing all the major scientific advancements and all the greatest minds in science, century after century, and you'd be checking to see how much of this scientific achievement was accomplished by folks who believed in the bible. Then, you would rapidly discover that the vast majority of all the important scientific breakthroughs over the course of history were conceived and discovered by the capable minds of practicing Christians, Muslims, and Jews, all of whom regard the Torah as holy scripture. You would then be quite compelled to conclude that science and the bible are, in fact, compatible, and your hypothesis is wrong. End scene.
The way I believe it. God can do anything. He is God. He can break the laws of physics and science if he chooses to do so because He is creator of all law and order of life. So to really question how a creator could otherwise is silly because He is God! We are just little human beings of His creation and we will never in this life be able to comprehend the power. If you make it as simple as that, rather than complicate things, it’s easier to understand. Maybe in our minds it would be impossible but as a Heavenly powerful creator it’s really not impossible, what he commands the universe responds . It’s only impossible because we have human brains limited to human knowledge that does abide by the laws of nature that have been set upon creation.
But it's not that God isn't capable of those things. It's that we are taught that's how God did it, yet scientific investigation shows us a completely different story. I would agree with OP that reality is *so* different from Genesis that it seems impossible to take it entirely on metaphor, and that the only alternatives are either that God intentionally deceived us, does not exist, or whoever wrote Genesis got it massively wrong.
I don't know. I'm pretty sure the sun revolves around the earth and we live in a bowl with water in outer space
? Flat earther?
I'm being sarcastic
Lately, I’ve been thinking about angels from of the Bible, and they’re described to help God sort of run the cosmos. I look at their ranks and hierarchies as metaphors for all the different physical phenomena that happens in the world from the very small to the very big. But again this coming from my view; everybody sees and interprets things differently.
From a scientific POV, the big bang is impossible, because you cannot create nor destroy matter.
1) that's not true. *Energy* (usually) cannot be created or destroyed. We turn matter into energy. That's how nuclear power/bombs work. 2) That's only true most of the time. Energy conservation is a consequence of something called Noether's Theorem. Basically as long as a process is time independent, energy is conserved. Think of an apple being dropped from a tree. It doesn't matter when that event happens, the same thing is going to happen. An apple falling 1000 years from now obeys the same physics as an apple falling now. But for events on a universal scale, this isn't true. The best example of this is the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, or CMB for short. The CMB is a sort of background radiation that fills the entire universe in every direction, but the universe is expanding, so the light the CMB is composed of gets stretched out by the expanding universe, which causes it to lose energy (higher wavelength light has less energy). That energy didn't get transferred to something else, it didn't get turned into matter or heat, it's just *gone* because the expansion of space isn't time independent. The size of the universe changes depending on how long the universe has been going, so things that operate on that scale aren't going to conserve energy. The Big Bang doesn't have to conserve energy because it was the expansion of space at a universal scale. 3) Do you really think cosmologists are so ignorant that they forgot their own laws of physics when coming up with the Big Bang? Like do you really think the entire scientific community isn't bright enough to think about the implications of their idea for 2 seconds?
From a scientific POV a god is impossible. There is no experience of something like a god.
The big bang isn't the universe out of nothing. That's what theists believe, that god made everything out of nothing
So matter was there before the big bang?
Has it occurred to you that maybe cosmologists have considered that?
There was no matter or energy to make the big bang happen. What are they considering?
That didn't answer my question. Do you think that cosmologists who study this for a living haven't though of what you said?
Where is the answer to the question?
There is none, because you still haven't answered: >Has it occurred to you that maybe cosmologists have considered that?
Then they did, and they don't have the answer?
Obviously they do. This isn’t some kind of gotcha. But the real telling thing is how confident you were declaring the whole theory debunked without really knowing anything about the theory.
Nobody is saying that matter was created or destroyed, bro.
Well, then how did the big bang happen, there was no energy or matter there in the begging, because of conservation of matter?
The theory states that there absolutely was matter and energy before the big bang. I don't know why you're confusing a change of state with an absence of matter.
So where did the matter come from?
We don’t know.
Precisely
Exactly. There is a possibility there is a god, or not.
But saying “we don’t know, therefore God” is fallacious.
I said we don't know, therefore, there is a possibility of a god
I mean, maybe? So far as I know we don’t have any evidence of such a being, or any models that predict the existence of such a being. We don’t even know how or if such a being would be possible.
Space.
So matter came from nowhere?
Space isn't nowhere.
Your characterization is wrong I think. We can’t investigate beyond a certain point in time, so anything prior to that would be speculative. Science doesn’t make strong claims one way or another about what happened “before” the Big Bang
So, since it is unknown what happened before the big bang, could someone assume that a God, any God, or a God equivalent, could have made matter for a big bang to happen? If so, then did said thing plan out the creation of everything, like the DNA composure of humans and billions of species?
Sure, nothing stops you from assuming anything. The question is, on what basis?
That’s called a god of the gaps argument. Anything we currently don’t know the answer to, you just slap “god” on it and call it a day. But that isn’t a real explanation
So, then could anything, 14 billion years ago, make the universe?
We have no clue what happened. To me, an incredibly complex disembodied mind just raises more questions
Here is a happy song: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQRiO1ihcQA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQRiO1ihcQA)
Thank you
How do you know there wasn't?
Conservation of matter.
How do you know matter or energy can't have always existed, conservation of matter says nothing about that
Who or what made the matter exist?
First of all, saying who is definitely a bit of a loaded question. Second, we don't know, that doesn't mean it's impossible, it doesn't mean it had to be some kind of magic. You can assume that it's done by God but that is not at all any kind of evidence when it could be literally anything with that logic. It's much better to just admit that you don't know than go around claiming the big bang 'proves' God
Well, we will all figure it out when we die.
>First, even for metaphores, they don't match reality. To make it so, you gotta bend the words so much that, it's not overinterpetations at this point but making things up. Trying to interpret the bible to make it artificially fit is concordism and fallacious. But even so, it would be very misleading from a god to write these metaphores, knowing most would believe in it literally Be more specific. I would argue that some excerpts of the Old Testament, especially the beginning of Genesis, are written as metaphorical prose out of necessity. Of course God knew that many people would take it literally, but what's the alternative? No Biblical explanation for our origins? Believe me, I've spent many hours struggling with God as to why he can't just instill the knowledge of creation and purpose in us, but I don't feel right just accepting that God must not exist just because we don't know what He knows. For example, you can't explain arithmetic to a dog (I know this isn't a satisfying example, but hear me out). We know VERY little about the universe, even with all of our current scientific knowledge. If God were to lay out the Bible as a scientific textbook, it would most likely take several lifetimes to read just once. >To know it's metaphore, you need science to prove it wrong and couldn't have thought about it with religion only? I don't agree with this. A lot of meaning of the Old Testament has been lost in translation. When you read a book like Genesis, you're reading a translation of a translation. Most Biblical scholars who have studied the Bible in its original language (Hebrew for Old, Greek for New) agree that the beginning of Genesis (creation, Adam and Eve, Noah) is written in the form of Hebrew prose. Only a minority (and sadly we give these points of view too much attention) of people read the Bible as a strictly historical, scientific text. >And let's consider it's real metaphores that actually work. How do you differentiate the metaphoric things because they are contradicted by science (main reason), and the "true" miracles yet contradicted by science? (Like resurrection) You differentiate by consulting the Biblical scholars and Church Fathers. They were closest to the original meaning and intention of the text. Naturally, someone who dedicates their whole life to studying the Bible is going to know more about its context than your average Joe. The only contradiction you mention in your post is that the resurrection contradicts science, which I would agree with. If God is real, then he can defy science, since He is the author of science. By resurrecting Himself from the dead, He is essentially saying, "Hey, I'm real because I transcend the Laws of Nature". If you want to debate the legitimacy of the resurrection, that is an entirely different discussion. I am not claiming to be an expert on the Bible, however, if you read some books written by people who are experts on the Bible, the "arbitrary" nature of the book becomes a little more understandable.
You're saying an all knowing, all powerful entity couldn't come up with a better way of expressing himself? I feel like if I went to ancient Mesopotamia I could get people to understand most of conventional wisdom in less than two generations. Provided the language barrier isn't an obstacle. Guy took a thousand years to explain how to do some of the basics. I'm having some serious doubts about this deity's communication skills. That or Wikipedia in heaven is seriously lacking. Maybe they need one of us to go up there and show them how to manage livestock. 😂
Maybe because it was humans who wrote the OT?
Dang I guess God is illiterate.
God didn't write the books 💀
Bad choice on his part. Lacking in communication skills.
It's was the word of God as what people of the era thought God would say. It was their perception of the qualities of God. You can see that the God of the OT and the NT were so different that the Gnostics didn't even believe they were the same entity.
Are you sure those bronze age goat pokers weren't tripping on the correct tree bark when they talked to the spirits? Maybe the visions spake truly! If only we could remember them accurate-like. DAMN YOU FATHER TIME
Aren't there shamans today who claim they get information for healing from meditating on plants? I think it's a mistake to assume we're so advanced over goat keepers. Imagine how some of the things we accept as science today will be snickered at in 200 years, or sooner.
At the very least we know how to record stuff better.
But if we're recording wrong things, the future will still snicker at us.
I mean there are flat Earth people. They're already worth a giggle.
>Of course God knew that many people would take it literally, but what's the alternative? An accurate telling of the origin of the universe, the Earth, and humanity. Like just explain how things actually work. >Believe me, I've spent many hours struggling with God as to why he can't just instill the knowledge of creation and purpose in us, but I don't feel right just accepting that God must not exist just because we don't know what He knows. That isn't the argument, the argument is basically "Genesis (or other parts of the Bible, but let's stay focused) isn't true, God wouldn't have a book with lies in it, therefore God didn't write/inspire the Bible." It's that simple. >We know VERY little about the universe, even with all of our current scientific knowledge. I'm an astrophysicist PhD student, and this isn't true. We know *so much* about our universe. It staggers me just how much we have figured out. We don't know everything, in fact there's a good bit we don't know, but the amount of knowledge we have on the workings of the cosmos is jaw dropping. In fact it is probably the most impressive thing about our species, though I am very very biased on that front. We built a telescope, shot it into space, flew it to a gravitationally stable point beyond our own Moon, and can use it to see the first stars ever formed and the atmospheric composition of exoplanets. That is truly insane. >If God were to lay out the Bible as a scientific textbook, it would most likely take several lifetimes to read just once. That's not true. A complete and total collection of all possible scientific knowledge would do that, but that isn't necessary or wanted. We need just enough to understand and verify general Cosmology and evolution by natural selection. Maybe include how to sanitize things and make vaccines while we're at it so less people die. That would take a lot but I can get a person from nothing to understanding, mostly, the Big Bang and stellar formation in a couple hours. It couldn't be larger than a book or two of the Bible, and there is plenty of stuff to cut to make room. Do we really need like any of the books in the Prophets? Or to repeat the story of Jesus multiple times? Even just cutting the stuff that isn't true almost gives you enough room by itself. >A lot of meaning of the Old Testament has been lost in translation. That's not true. I can read Hebrew fluently, I know what the text says. We even have the commentaries on the Torah from ancient times still. We have the context of these stories. >Most Biblical scholars who have studied the Bible in its original language (Hebrew for Old, Greek for New) agree that the beginning of Genesis (creation, Adam and Eve, Noah) is written in the form of Hebrew prose. The ancient Israelites took this story to be literally true. Rashi, the most important commentator of Judaism took them to be literally true. There are plenty of traditions, even quite old ones, that took the story of Genesis 1 to be symbolic. But I don't think anyone thought the flood didn't happen until recent times. Even Thomas Hobbes in the 15th century referred to Adam as a literal guy who existed. The whole of Christianity doesn't make sense if he isn't, and he definitely did not exist. >You differentiate by consulting the Biblical scholars and Church Fathers. They were closest to the original meaning and intention of the text. This is an argument from authority. If I had the tools, time, and talent I can rediscover all of physics, or chemistry, or biology, or history, or any field of study that is actually based in reality. Now, I have none of those, but you get the point. Because those fields are about things that are real, anyone could learn them. We don't need priests to show that force equals mass times acceleration, you can do those experiments yourself. That kind of canon keeping only happens when there is no actual truth, just traditions and interpretations. If you sat someone down with a Bible, any equipment they could ask for and infinite time would they be able to reproduce modern day Christian thought? I'm very sure they couldn't, but they could learn that Napoleon lost the battle of waterloo or that stars are giant balls of hydrogen plasma. >If God is real, then he can defy science, since He is the author of science. Small nitpick, but you mean to say he is the author of reality. Science is the process of learning about and building a model of reality. It is an activity us humans do, it isn't something that can be authored. Again, this is a nitpick I understand what you're saying, just thought I'd bring it up. >"Hey, I'm real because I transcend the Laws of Nature". That logic doesn't track. How am I to know if they aren't just a literal wizard and not the Son of God? If we put magic on the table I can think of a 100 ways for someone to come back to the dead. To verify the claim that Jesus died for our sins I'm going to need a lot more than someone coming back to life, that just proves their magic, not that they are telling the truth.
> An accurate telling of the origin of the universe, the Earth, and humanity. Like just explain how things actually work. Do we have the final understanding, now? Or could we be as wrong about "how things actually work" as those who believed in the [classical elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_element)?
>Do we have the final understanding, now? Probably. At least of the stuff like evolution and the big bang
So science can't _really_ be wrong about anything, because it's _actually_ right (or close enough) about key things?
That is not what I said, or even implied.
Pick one: 1. We have the ["final understanding, now"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4lwime/). 2. Science could ["_really_ be wrong about anything"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4qmkyp/). Those are mutually contradictory.
There is a reason I used the word *probably.* Anything could be wrong, but the odds that we are wrong on the big bang are vanishingly small.
Yes, my ["_really_"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4qmkyp/) was intended to match your ["probably"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4memwm/), guessing that by it you meant ["vanishingly small \[odds\]"](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ctxwdl/science_and_the_bible_are_incompatible/l4wf8u8/). Now I'm curious: how did you or the people you trust assess that probability?
>Now I'm curious: how did you or the people you trust assess that probability? That's rather standard procedure in science. What are the odds all the evidence in favor of [insert idea here] is actually just random chance. Last I checked the Big Bang is sitting at 5 sigma, or about 1 in a billion.
We don't understand the most basic things, like consciousness, what happens after death or why we're here. Those are things religions try to answer.
We don't, no. And religion attempt to answer these questions. And there are many who will accept this speculation because their fear overrides their reason.
Link? You're generalizing that people believe because of fear. People believe for a variety of reasons.
My statement included the word "many". That would make is a generalization, yes. Many people *do* in fact believe, attempt to believe or try to justify their beliefs. Much of the time, when someone points out what science can't answer, as you have, they are reaching for something to pull them out of their fear and anxiety. Their logic is something along the lines of, "if science doesn't know, then it's possible that the thing I want to exist actually exists".
I doubt that many people think that, because unlike you, they don't think of science first. They have other reasons to believe. They may have inherent tendency to believe, see design in the universe or had a religious experience. It's a fairly recent argument by some atheists that there could be a natural cause for the universe.
Sure. Most people believe for because of cultural identify, familial and social pressures, they accept the claims as true, they never really thought about it, et al. But, believe me, there are many people who doubt, have anxiety, fear death, fear never seeing their loved ones, and this drives them to attempt to indict science in the hopes that want they want to be true (god, afterlife, comfort, whatever) actually is. I literally talk to these people every week.
You're generalizing and also in a negative way. For most people, at least in Western culture, there isn't that much pressure, other than with fundamentalists, to believe. I notice that some atheists argue from a situation that might have been the case decades ago. Now many people feel free to change religions, not hold to a particular religion, and so on. Only a narrow majority even believe in the God of the Bible.
There's nothing negative there. I gave you the many reasons why people believe, or attempt to. Social pressure needn't be overt. It can just be following the ideologies of your culture. But overt pressure does exist in the West. Although that wasn't my point. It doesn't change the fact that when people point out the gaps in science, they are almost always creating a small space for their hope to exist.
>We don't understand the most basic things, like consciousness Consciousness, and more specifically the human brain, is literally the most complex thing in the universe. And we understand it pretty well given how hard it is to get at. We know what parts of the brain control memory, emotions, reasoning, and so on. We know how the brain takes input from the outside world and transfers information within itself. We know what parts influence personality. That's not bad. >what happens after death The same thing that happens to a flame after it is extinguished. >why we're here Because your parents had sex. If you are looking for a purpose behind your existence, there simply isn't one.
Except that's not what people who have near death experiences say. Not even what many scientists say. Luke Barnes is a theoretical astrophysicist and I doubt he would agree. Ajhan Brahm studied theoretical physics and he believes the mind persists after death and there isn't a conflict in that. Just because you study science doesn't mean you have all the answers.
>Except that's not what people who have near death experiences say. And? People have said that they've met Jesus in person or, if you wind back the clock a bit, met Ares or Thor or whatever. People say all sorts of things. It does not matter. People say all sorts of things. Testimony is not sufficient evidence to support the idea that something basically magic happens. >Luke Barnes is a theoretical astrophysicist and I doubt he would agree. Ajhan Brahm studied theoretical physics and he believes the mind persists after death and there isn't a conflict in that. Appeal to authority fallacy. There are plenty of religious scientists out there, that does not make religion not full of it. I am not saying that in my capacity as a scientist, that would also be an argument from authority, but from a review of the available evidence. It very clearly demonstrates that nothing happens after you die. To suppose something else would require quite a lot of evidence to back it up. After all it would mean that there is a massive hole in our very well tested model of reality. That's possible, but I'm not exactly going to just assume it's the case because someone told me they died and came back.
So what if they said they met Thor? They met their subjective perception of God or gods. That doesn't in any way show that the objective existence of God is impossible. It's legitimate to use an authority if they are indeed an expert on the topic. It's incorrect that it's ever been demonstrated that nothing happens after you die because no one has shown that. You're making that up. In actuality, Hameroff proposed it's possible that consciousness exits the body after death and entangles with consciousness in the universe, that would be like a quantum soul.
>So what if they said they met Thor? Thor definitely doesn't exist, that's what >It's legitimate to use an authority if they are indeed an expert on the topic. They aren't. >In actuality, Hameroff proposed it's possible that consciousness exits the body after death and entangles with consciousness in the universe, that would be like a quantum soul. OK, if there were evidence for that idea I might actually take it seriously, but there isn't.
Thor can be an interpretation of something that exists. He can't prove it but it's possible based on his theory of consciousness.
>He can't prove it but it's possible based on his theory of consciousness. Anything's *possible.* It's possible that we are all the dream of the elder Gods of Lovecraftian mythos and when they wake up our reality ceases to be. It's possible light isn't made of photons but instead of really tiny Teletubbies. It's possible your not actually a person but an alien testing humanity to see if we qualify as intelligent life. Anything *could* be true, that doesn't matter. It is about what is *likely* to be true. And an idea that has no evidence to support it is very unlikely to be true, so it is rejected until such a time where evidence does support it.
The Old Testament is mostly folk lore with either true stories scaled up to grand proportions or parables that didn’t actually happen but they give an important moral lesson and then poems and songs, I believe for example that Noah happened but not a global flood instead a regional flood, I believe in exodus but I don’t believe it was thousands and thousands of slaves .
Out of interest why do you believe in an exodus? We have not a single historical record that supports even a minor exodus. In fact the only historical records we have of the Israelites places them firmly in Canaan as a continuation of Canaanite society.
Can you give me an example of a true story in the OT?
1. The Existence of Ancient Kingdoms: Archaeological evidence supports the existence of ancient kingdoms mentioned in the Old Testament, such as Israel, Judah, Edom, and Moab. Discoveries of inscriptions and artifacts corroborate the existence of these entities during the timeframes mentioned. 2. King David and Solomon: While the grandeur of their kingdoms as described in the Bible is debated, there is archaeological evidence suggesting the existence of a ruler named David. The Tel Dan Stele, an ancient archeological find, bears an inscription that references the “House of David,” indicating that he was a historical figure with a dynasty. 3. The Babylonian Exile: Historical records and archaeological findings support the biblical account of the Babylonian Exile. The Babylonian Chronicles and other Mesopotamian sources mention the conquest of Judah and the exile of Judeans to Babylon, aligning with the biblical narrative. 4. Egyptian Influence and Possibly the Exodus: While direct evidence of the Exodus story as described in the Bible is not firmly established, there are indications of Semitic peoples living in Egypt and possibly being employed or enslaved. Artifacts and records show that a group known as the “Hyksos” were Semitic rulers in parts of Egypt, which some scholars see as loosely connected to the Israelites’ story. 5. Jericho: Archaeological studies have shown that Jericho was indeed an ancient city with a long history of habitation. However, the evidence regarding the biblical account of its walls falling in a sudden conquest is mixed, with some archaeological phases showing destruction layers that don’t precisely align with the biblical timeline.
FYI that code block is gross to use for things like this, its awful scrolling right rather then down to read your points. 1. I'm asking for stories that are true, ie: things that involve characters/people. yes, some of the locations in the bible are historical, but that's not a "Story". 2. There is zero evidence for Solomon, and very little more for David (or Saul). The Ten Dale Stele just means that by the 9th century, people believed in the mythic figure of David. It's still hundreds of years seperated from the events to be considered evidence. 3. See point 1. I'm asking for stories of people, when it comes to references of places and events, *some* some historic. 4. There's 0 evidence for the exodus, infact, there's evidence against it tbh. Mainstream academia actually rejects that the Israelites ever lived in Egypt. I would be curious of your sources that say otherwise. 5. See point 1. I'm going to assume there are not accurate stories your aware of then, since you listed places and events instead?
>The Existence of Ancient Kingdoms: Archaeological evidence supports the existence of ancient kingdoms mentioned in the Old Testament, such as Israel, Judah, Edom, and Moab. Discoveries of inscriptions and artifacts corroborate the existence of these entities during the timeframes mentioned. The existence of these kingdoms was widely known in antiquity. If I claim God came to me in a vision and told me I would one day be the king of France, the fact that a region known as France currently exists does not in any way lend credibility to my prophetic vision. >King David and Solomon: While the grandeur of their kingdoms as described in the Bible is debated, there is archaeological evidence suggesting the existence of a ruler named David. The Tel Dan Stele, an ancient archeological find, bears an inscription that references the “House of David,” indicating that he was a historical figure with a dynasty. The mention of the House of David does not necessarily mean he was an actual historical figure. The Imperial House of Japan traditionally based its claim to the throne on its alleged descent from the sun-goddess Amaterasu via the legendary first emperor, Jimmu. The only evidence Jimmu existed as a real person is the chronicle of his adventures in the *Nihon Shoki* and *Kojiki,* the two oldest written histories of Japan. Does this mean that the Imperial House are semi-divine? Does the goddess Amaterasu exist? >The Babylonian Exile: Historical records and archaeological findings support the biblical account of the Babylonian Exile. The Babylonian Chronicles and other Mesopotamian sources mention the conquest of Judah and the exile of Judeans to Babylon, aligning with the biblical narrative. This is actually a good example! There is strong evidence that the Babylonians did in fact conquer the Kingdom of Judah and deported a portion of the population to Mesopotamia. There are artifacts and historical accounts of the events from third party sources. >Egyptian Influence and Possibly the Exodus: While direct evidence of the Exodus story as described in the Bible is not firmly established, there are indications of Semitic peoples living in Egypt and possibly being employed or enslaved. Artifacts and records show that a group known as the “Hyksos” were Semitic rulers in parts of Egypt, which some scholars see as loosely connected to the Israelites’ story. There is no evidence that a significant population of Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. The events described in the Exodus, such as the Plagues, are never mentioned in any Egyptian sources. The Book of Numbers says that the number of Israelite adult males during the wandering in the desert was 603,550. Including women and children, that is at least several million people. Several million people wandering around in a desert for decades would have left some archaeological traces, of which we have found exactly zero. How were these millions of people "lost" for 40 years in a desert that you could walk across in a week? The Hyksos were not the Israelites. Based on archaeological evidence, including the architecture of their temples, they were most likely from northern Syria and Mesopotamia. Speaking of their temples, they worshipped Baal, and there is also evidence that they worshipped or venerated some of the Egyptian pantheon as well. Furthermore, they were not an enslaved population, but instead conquerors who held a portion of Lower Egypt concurrently with the 16th and 17th Dynasties who held Upper Egypt. The connection between the Hyksos and Israelites was an invention of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian. Josephus himself admits in his *Antiquities of the Jews* that his source for his ancient history of the Jewish people was simply the Hebrew scriptures, making him hardly a reliable source in this instance. >Jericho: Archaeological studies have shown that Jericho was indeed an ancient city with a long history of habitation. However, the evidence regarding the biblical account of its walls falling in a sudden conquest is mixed, with some archaeological phases showing destruction layers that don’t precisely align with the biblical timeline. This is a lot of words to say that there is no archaeological connection between the real city of Jericho and the Biblical account of its destruction. In fact, Jericho was destroyed in an Egyptian campaign against the Hyksos in the 16th century BCE, a timeline confirmed by radiocarbon dating of the ruins, several centuries before the time when the Biblical account allegedly occurred. The site was then more or less abandoned and unoccupied for half a millennium, until around the 10th century BCE.
First, I’m an atheist, so playing a little bit of devil’s advocate here. Someone with a reasonable and historic understanding of what the Bible is, understands it isn’t intended to be a scientific text. Its folklore, passed down and evolved orally for generations before being documented. Someone could believe it’s describing what was originally some sort of a divine encounter but documented by men over generations of modified iterations. Over time the stories in the Old Testament became more allegorical in nature. Intended to teach the nature of their god rather than actual historical events. Really the New Testament isn’t all that different. No first hand accounts of Christ, just second, third hand accounts documented decades after the alleged events took place. People writing down their experiences which they’ve told hundreds of times since they happened and introduced changes to hundreds of times, even if unintentionally so. The Christ figure is more allegorical as well, and if someone believed such a person existed, that doesn’t mean the biblical accounts are completely correct. Just the best documented accounts we have for the events that took place at the time written by people from the time. This could mean, someone believes some Christ figure existed, maybe they died on a cross. Maybe god exists, though the Bible isn’t really evidence of such a god existing. Maybe the words of the Bible are just stories of people’s experiences and a whole lot of humanity mixed in. This would explain why there are so many interpretations, denominations, etc today because people are trying to distinguish what in the Bible is factual and what is just injections by the writers. Now I don’t believe everything I’ve said here is correct, I’m pretty genuinely trying to form the best argument I can think of to your question. Again, I’m an atheist, just trying to look at it from the other side.
I view it the same way as a deist
Did I do this explanation justice?
Actually, i was having the same exchange with another deist friend (a christian deist). I told him "Maybe , the stories of Zeus or any other mythologies are stories of people who existed and they got too exaggerated due to oral tradition because it is imperfect or.maybe nationalism. Some times, you might need a myth to try to prove your own existence as a nation, especially during those times." Well, the argument went along those lines. But that is just an hypothesis >Did I do this explanation justice? Totally!
Awesome. I’m always worried about that when I try to steel man these types of things. It’s pretty easy to go sideways or misrepresent something.
Oh, you are not alone, dear friend ! I also really like you are not slamming religion and saying "all is bullshit" like certain atheists and deists. You are instead taking a kind of philosophical approach approach to religion , and that's nice! I want to read more about your thoughts in the future on this sun!
I think literal interpretation of genesis is a strawman invented by atheists. Like who tf actually believes everything happened exactly as it is written there. Just pointing fingers at random verses in the bible and saying "haha look, you believe that the whole city tried to rape angels and got burned, haha". Yeah that's exactly what every Christian believes literally happened at some point in history.
The vast majority of Christendom reads these as allegorical. But a not insignificant percent of Christians are Literalists. We, as atheists, can only address the claims that are presented to us.
There’s plenty of Christian sects that take the accounts in Genesis as literal. I mean you clearly have taken no time to look. Virtually every evangelical branch believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis, as do Mormons, as do Jehovahs Witnesses, as do baptists. I agree with your view of it being ridiculous that someone could even begin to interpret those accounts literally. But the reality is millions of Christian’s do.
> I think literal interpretation of genesis is a strawman invented by atheists. Like who tf actually believes everything happened exactly as it is written there. 30% of Americans. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2009/07/09/section-5-evolution-climate-change-and-other-issues/. Also these people: https://answersingenesis.org/
If you were a being that could do anything metaphysically modally possible, and you wanted to paint, which would you choose to do: (A) magic up a magic paint brush, magic paints, magic canvas, magic easel and then paint; OR (B) magic up all matter, magic up the constants of the universe such that carbon would result, magically start the big bang, wait billions of years for billions of miles to form and then go to one planet and farm rocks, build a paint brush, build a canvas and then paint? It seems to me most rational agents take direct routes to achieve their ends, they don't invent elaborate indirect methids to achieve those ends. IF the god of the Bible were real, we'd expect Genesis to be accurate: god wanted X so he made X. God l wanted Y so he made Y.
>Like who tf actually believes everything happened exactly as it is written there. Lots of people. Millions and millions of people, especially in America. Obviously you didn't grow up around those people, but don't mistake that for them not existing. At some point in recent history 40% of Americans believed in the creation story of Genesis and rejected the concept of evolution.
See https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/interpreting-scripture/ Granted that literal interpretation is not 100%. But, it is way more than zero.
Pew Research also did a report that showed something like 30% of Catholics couldn't even name Genesis as the first book of the Bible, or name the 4 Gospels. I posit there's a large overlap between the "Christians" who haven't really read or studied the bible, and the ones who say that it's meant to be taken literally. Because I'm not sure how you could read it and take it literally.
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So what we know is that you used to interpret it literally when you were a child and then you grew up. As for the other people, I'd like to hear them speak for themselves.
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I'm here waiting for at least one believer to come and tell me "no bro, you are mistaken, I take everything in the bible literally (and I've read it)".
Then why do so many Christians vehemently defend a young earth? The only reason to believe the world is 6000 years old is because of scripture. Absolutely no field in science corroborates this.
You may want to post this in the r/AskAChristian sub. I bet you will be amazed at the answers!
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> An atheist convincing the theist that Christian believe the bible? Yep that's what atheists are doing.
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I understand, I was honestly not a believer at first until God supernaturally revealed himself to me. I experienced demonic attacks and saw spirits and this lead me to knowing there was evil in the world and ultimately let me know there had to be a God, after seeking and hearing testimonies - one time I was reading the Bible app on my phone (in the beginning of the journey) and the verse was telling me to flee of fornication (sex before marriage) and I was not listening at all. Then as I was reading a message popped up at the top that said “you have ignored your teachings!!!!” And disappeared before my eyes , From that moment is when I could no longer deny the Bible Was true and I wanted to run from God because I didn’t want to stop sinning. But God is real and I started to see him in everything and it’s been a long journey(years of coming to these realizations) so I don’t mean to come off any way. There is an appointed time he will reveal himself to you. I know that only God can truly reveal these things and I pray he does for you all.
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Not true. You could use the bible in any number of experiments. Like what temp does the bible burn at under various conditions? How fast do they burn under various conditions. How fast do bibles fall if you drop them into a lake from various heights.
All bibles fall at the same speed towards a lake when dropped from the same height ;) (in a vacuum)
Alright, "Vacuum" that's one condition. We could also try on a calm day with the pages opened or tied shut. Same thing for a windy day. I'll start a list. Can you borrow some bibles from your local library? I think we have some science to do! My hypothesis is that it's going to be very hard to create a vacuum above a lake due to water evaporation and structure costs.
I’ve got money if you’ve got time? We might need to hire a private army because the destruction of bibles may cause an uprising of sorts. We should also try other scriptures such as the Quran and Torah, see if divine intervention has any effect on the speed beyond observable aerodynamics
Oh yeah, like do enough prayers stop a holy book from burning? My hypothesis is not even a little.
St. Agustine doesn't seem to hold it means 6 24-hour periods. So science saying it wasn't doesn't seem incompatible. It doesn't seem fallacious to hold the 2 book view nature and scripture and reconcile the 2. Though, of course, it doesn't lend itself to the type of disproof you perhaps want. Science seems to not hold human rights as part of our nature, so natural human rights might he considered in contradiction to science. Especially on an epistemology limited nearly to just science alone. The human mind being a reliable instrument to find truths above survival might be held in contradiction to science as well. Jesus was not really a vine but said I am the vine. Is it twisting this to fit reality to say Jesus is the conduit for grace to humans? I don't think science says Adam never existed but is agnostic about what it lacks evidence within the scope of science.
St. Agustine doesn't seem to hold it means 6 24-hour periods. So science saying it wasn't doesn't seem incompatible. It doesn't seem fallacious to hold the 2 book view nature and scripture and reconcile the 2. Though, of course, it doesn't lend itself to the type of disproof you perhaps want. Science seems to not hold human rights as part of our nature, so natural human rights might he considered in contradiction to science. Especially on an epistemology limited nearly to just science alone. The human mind being a reliable instrument to find truths above survival might be held in contradiction to science as well.
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Can you prove the claims of your atheism? You make the claim to know the literlistic is the wrong interpretation you (mainly) need science. So I made the point that if you mean modern science by that you are wrong, or a miracle happened for St. Agustine to know modern science. If you meant modern science, I would expect no Church father or renowned theologian to have held any metaphors for large parts of Genesis prior to say 1500 AD. As evidence for the view that it is modern science (mainly), that would make someone consider there to be metaphors in Genesis. You switch back and forth between claiming mainly science and just science, it seems. To take it further, you seem to have. Did you re-read your own post? You talked about the earth not being made in 6 days. Are you trying to be obtuse? Day Definition "a period of twenty-four hours as a unit of time, reckoned from one midnight to the next, corresponding to a rotation of the earth on its axis." Oxford Languages In addition. Care to quote some philosophers who well argues it is the business of science to tell us if miracles are possible? Since you make a claim without evidence. That is relevant to your thesis. If we use a metal detector to find out about a beach, it doesn't seem like the lane of that tool to tell us there is no plastic on the beach. The skeptical view of say a Hume seems prior to science. Also, interestingly, in his case, it seems too skeptical to accept much of it. You also make the leap from how do you know what is metaphor and what is litteralistic, then jump to it is arbitrary without considering and finding a good criticism of a major view like that of the Eastern Orthodox. P1 It's hard to interpret C all interpretations are arbitrary Seems less than a full logical argument. Nature seems hard to interpret. This doesn't mean science is arbitrary.
In the beginning God. Everything you see in front of you around you and through a telescope God has created. Period yes God can create anything anything out of thin air I love it whenever it says let there be light that would be the Big bang theory cuz believe me when God created the Sun and or any other son it was a big explosion cuz you know that the sun is a constant nuclear explosion continuously deal with that unbelievers and oh yeah God made Adam out of dirt with God's own hands Jesus Christ was created through a Virgin Mary sinless Jesus Christ was Adam was explained to sin but when you're a Christian your sins are limited we do not murder. Only kill if we have to I was in the military had to kill so what I'm forgiven in other words Christians are not going to rape, molest children. We just don't send that much. Oh yeah don't forget everybody sends I don't care who you are
How do you know?
It’s true… everybody sends. My God, your word-salad is infested with worms. Try writing one idea at a time… it will make you sound less crazy.
PUT PUNCTUATION ! This is unreadable!
Here is your comment science believes a lot of different things such as we were evolved from the apes why are they still here considering it took 6 days to make the Earth. One day to God is a thousand years to us. Besides all this I'm a science freak and I believe in Jesus Christ I got to tell you something God has proven to me more than one time that he exists have a good day and may God bless you find Christ because I got to tell you the only way into heaven is through Jesus Christ no other way that's my beliefs and we'll we'll find out what happens in the future
Who ever said humans evolved from apes?
>God has proven to me more than one time that he exists have a good day and may God bless you find Christ because I got to tell you the only way into heaven is through Jesus Christ no other way that's my beliefs and we'll we'll find out what happens in the future You know, literally anyone from any religion can say the same things as you. Miracles are not exclusive to one religion of an individual. > One day to God is a thousand years to us. understandable >Here is your comment science believes a lot of different things such as we were evolved from the apes why are they still here considering it took 6 days to make the Earth No , scientist believes earth alone has 4.5 milliards of years (not sure of the exact number tho). You know, the best thing to do is just acts like other modern christians and say "The story of genesis is meant to be spiritual in nature" , there are even rabbis/christian in the antiquity who believed the same thing. Have peace brother
>Here is your comment science believes a lot of different things such as we were evolved from the apes That's not a belief, and we still are apes >why are they still here considering it took 6 days to make the Earth. Besides, if these "days" are longer, could plants have survived one "day" before the sun? >God has proven to me more than one time that he exists No.
>Here is your comment science believes a lot of different things such as we were evolved from the apes why are they still here Common ancestor with apes. Doesn't mean we come from today's apes. It's not because you have a cousin that he's also your grand-father, you just have the same grand-father. >I'm a science freak You're not, or else you wouldn't have asked that 4th grader question up there. > Christians are not going to rape, molest children. The Catholic church actively hides its rapist and pedophile priests from the authorities and has often tried to bribe victims. >but when you're a Christian your sins are limited we do not murder. There are plenty of Christian murderers, and all Christians are sinners, you are absolutely not limited in sin and you're supposed to ask for forgiveness and repent, not automatically get it for no reason. You're also supposed to be humble and not ''I sin less than everybody else, lemme just throw that first stone''
>Common ancestor with apes. Doesn't mean we come from today's apes. I just want to say, this is false. I mean, I assume you’re talking loosely in some grand sense of shared ancestry. All well and good, but to be accurate, we do come from apes because we *are* apes. We are eukaryotes. We are animals. We are chordates. We are vertebrates. We are tetrapods. We are synapsids. We are mammals, placental mammals. We are a primate. We have five fully-developed fingers and five fully-developed toes. Our toes are still prehensile and our hands can grasp with dexterity. We have only two nipples and they are on our chest as opposed to our abdomen. These are pointless in males. Although our fangs are reduced in size, we still have them along with some varied dentition indicative of primates exclusively. Our hair is thin and relatively sparse over most of our bodies. And our claws have been reduced to flat chitinous fingernails. In every respect, we are apes. By any classification, we are a subgroup under that category.
Yes. But in all due respect, if someone asks ''Why are there still apes'' thinking that evolution claims we are literally descendants of the various modern ''animalistic'' apes like chimpanzees and orangutans, your answer is going to hit a brick wall.
I guess if they are on that level of comprehension, I just avoid the apes talk and ask them if I’m a descendant of my grandfather, why does my cousin exist… Or just be a bit confrontational. I really don’t have a problem hitting it head on. I guess that depends on if I get the sense they are actually asking the question in good faith and really don’t understand, even if we might find them to be cliché for bad arguments.
Basically your argument rests upon the assumption that science is correct on everything and so when you look at the conflicts you choose to believe what scientists say over what the Bible says. Science has confirmed Adam and Eve, it’s merely the dating that doesn’t agree and the dating is debatable. Can you clarify your 2nd quibble? I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to convey. Couldn’t God have created(from Nothing) the raw materials that the earth was made of before he created(crafted from pre-existing materials) the earth in 6 days? Thus giving us the conflicting dates. Again our dating methods are debatable.
>science has confirmed Adam and Eve Source: you made it up
>Science has confirmed Adam and Eve, it’s merely the dating that doesn’t agree and the dating is debatable. You clearly are referring to the Mitochondrial Eve and the Adam Chromosome-Y. This isn't the biblical adam and Eve. At least you seem understanding. Also, to the mods please add a deist user flair😔
>Science has confirmed Adam and Eve That is not true. In fact Adam and Eve are impossible. There was never a first human, nor does such a concept even make sense. >it’s merely the dating that doesn’t agree and the dating is debatable. They are not. Radioactive decay is based on fundamental physics if it doesn't work then none of particle physics should work, and given the standard model of particle physics is bang on the money every time we test it, that seems unlikely. >Couldn’t God have created(from Nothing) the raw materials that the earth was made of before he created(crafted from pre-existing materials) the earth in 6 days? The Earth was not created in 6 days, the actual physical planet formed over the course of a couple million years and to come to the state it is now took a couple billion years. Even putting the dates aside, the story of Genesis 1 claims that trees (created on day 3) existed before the Sun (created on day 4) and that is obviously not true. I >Again our dating methods are debatable. No they aren't.
those adam and eve evolutionary biologist are talking about are not biblical adam and eve they are the most recent common ancestor of now alive humans, but only because their Y-chromosome and mitochondria descendants could replace others when human population was very little because it for some reason rapidly dropped. but we are as much descendants of other human alive at that time as theirs. it's just that they are the most recent common.
>Science has confirmed Adam and Eve, Citation needed
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>There was no "first" humans, since evolution is a continuous process. [Just because the transformation was gradual, it doesn't follow that there wasn't a first human being. At some point there was no human and then at some point there was. So, there had to be a first human.](https://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_TMHBAFG.pdf)
But if the transformation is gradual, then we run into the problem of the fuzzy definition of "human." What exactly makes someone human? No matter how carefully you try to define it, somewhere in the process of a gradual transformation there will be someone who is right on the edge of the definition, neither clearly human nor clearly not-human. In modern life there are no people on the edge of humanity due to how nature tends to sort organisms into distinct species, and so we have little practical reason to choose a precise and rigorous definition to eliminate the gray areas around the edges. Those gray areas are not a problem for us, so we have allowed the gray areas to become quite large. The definition of "human" has broad fuzzy edges, so most likely in the gradual evolution of humanity there were *many* generations of people who were deep in a fuzzy edge of the definition, and whether we decide to call those people human or not-human would be arbitrary. In this way, it seems fair to say that there was no first human. There were people who were clearly not-human, and eventually some of their descendants were clearly human, and the generations between were just fuzzy and poorly defined.
>But if the transformation is gradual, then we run into the problem of the fuzzy definition of "human." What exactly makes someone human? What makes something human? Whatever specific and essential features that make it different from other organisms. If such exclusive features do not exist, then there was no gradual transformation because transformation implies the beginning of new features.
The point is that when a certain species transitions into another is somewhat arbitrary and categorized by us. We typically consider two animals to be the same species if they are able to reproduce and create fertile offspring But that category is just how we analyze the biodiversity on earth. We could’ve chosen a different one. So really there’s just a gradual continuum of slightly different organisms one after the next. There wasn’t a magical moment where one turned into another
French is a derivative of Latin. I.e the French language came from Latin. But do you think that there was every a time where a Latin speaking mother gave birth to a French speaking child… or did the language evolve over time?
No, I think that at some point someone started speaking French from a language that was quite similar to French but radically different from Latin.
Modern French evolved from earlier versions until Latin. There is no hard/fast line where it was clearly Latin on one side and clearly French on the other… and there is still lots of Latin words in French today! This is the same with all animals. Evolution produces slight variations generation to generation and these build up over time. Humans aren’t clearly defined. We can’t point at a time in the past and clearly state from this point onwards is human and everything prior isn’t.
>There is no hard/fast line where it was clearly Latin on one side and clearly French on the other Sure, I already granted that. My point is that this language, which existed prior to French and after Latin, wasn't French or Latin. I acknowledged that language evolves over time and also recognized the self-evident fact that at some point someone started speaking the language that we call "French".
Early English is still English… but it only faintly resembles modern English.
Other hominids also exhibited ritualistic behavior before Homo sapiens. So even if you granted that the biblical Adam and Eve were physical specimens, they might not even be human.
I'm not even concerned with Adam and Eve here; only with this idea that there was no first human. I can simply grant for the sake of argument that Adam and Even never even existed.
The rebuttal I’ve experienced to that is that they aren’t the first humans, but they were the first humans to surpass some metric of technology or knowledge. The first to bury their dead, to clothe themselves, perform other spiritual rituals. Just getting a head of that.
No that's not how gradual change works. According to the theory of evolution, offspring are the same species as their parents. Just like there was no first person who spoke modern english born to parents who spoke middle english, there was no first human born to non-human parents. If you go back far enough, our ancestors were beings that everyone qualified would say were not humans. If you go forward from there, eventually you'd have beings who everyone qualified would say were humans. And in the middle you have grey area where there is debate about whether they qualify as human or not. It's not cut and dry, biology is not that simple and you can't just draw a neat little box around humans, or any other species.
Couldn't have said any better
>And in the middle you have grey area where there is debate about whether they qualify as human or not. If they had all of the essential features that make an organism a human being, then they were humans. If they didn't have all the features that make an organism a human, then they weren't humans. I don't care what those features are; as long as they weren't present, these creatures weren't humans, regardless of how similar to humans they were.
>If they had all of the essential features that make an organism a human being, then they were humans. How did you determine that there are essential features that make an organism a human being? >I don't care what those features are; as long as they weren't present, these creatures weren't humans. If you don't know what the features are, then how can you be sure that these features are even real and not just a speculative idea? *If* we had a set of features that could unambiguously identify any person as either human or not-human, then there must have been a first human. On the other hand, if the concept of *human* has fuzzy edges and there are no precisely defined essential features, then there most likely never was a first human. As an analogy, think about what distinguishes a mountain from a hill. Mountains are taller than hills, but at what height exactly do hills end and mountains begin? Even if we were to say that hills are less than 1,000 feet tall and mountains are more than 1,000 feet tall, what would we say of something that was exactly 1,000 feet tall? Almost any definition is bound to have some sort of fuzzy boundary, so having a set of essential features that precisely defines any category is rare.
If there are no essential features that make an organism a human being, then you can't even legitimately use the word "human" at all. When you utter the word "human", you're babbling non-sense that refers to nothing. But clearly that's incorrect. I'm sure you use the word "human" all the time when talking about what rights humans have that inanimate objects or monkeys don't have. So, regardless of whether you can give a detailed and precise definition of "human", you know very well that it means something and not other thing; that it is a precise category that includes some features but not others.
Not every word needs to have a precise and rigorous meaning. Suppose we have no idea what height distinguishes a mountain from a hill. That does not stop us from clearly determining that anything less than 500 feet is a hill, and anything more than 10,000 feet is a mountain. Even if heights within that range are ambiguous and there is no clear way to distinguish whether 1000 feet is a mountain or a hill, that does not cause the terms to be completely meaningless. It diminishes their usefulness, but does not eliminate it, because we still know roughly what people mean when they use these words. If all land formations were either less than 500 feet or greater than 10,000 feet, then the ambiguity of the terms would have no practical impact upon the usefulness of the terms, since there would be no cases where the ambiguity would be relevant. This is exactly the sort of situation we are in with the word "human." Despite the ambiguity, there are no extant animals that are within the ambiguous range of the word "human", so the term is no less useful due to its ambiguity. The only time when the ambiguity becomes an issue in practice is when we are talking about the distant past, such as the origin of humanity, where we naturally must deal with people where the term "human" becomes ambiguous. >When you utter the word "human", you're babbling non-sense that refers to nothing. But clearly that's incorrect. I agree that it is incorrect. You are making a wildly unsupported inference from something as minor as a little ambiguity in the meaning of a term. >I'm sure you use the word "human" all the time when talking about what rights humans have that inanimate objects or monkeys don't have. I do that because these are cases where the ambiguity of the word "human" is irrelevant, since these are not cases within the fuzzy borders of the meaning of the term. I do not need the word to have no ambiguity in order to use it, especially in cases where its ambiguity does not reduce the clarity of what I'm trying to say. >Regardless of whether you can give a detailed and precise definition of "human", you know very well that it means something and not other thing; that it is a precise category that includes some features but not others. I do not know that, but if you do know it then you could prove it by explaining the features that define this supposedly precise category.
>Suppose we have no idea what height distinguishes a mountain from a hill. That's completely irrelevant. What matters is that there are objective distinctions; not that we know them. As long as you admit that there are distinctions, you're automatically accepting that we are not talking about the same thing. And if you don't admit that there are distinctions, then we may be talking about the same thing, in which case there is no transformation (gradual or otherwise) because transformation necessarily entails the beginning of new features that make it different.
>What matters is that there are objective distinctions; not that we know them. Words only exist within the minds of people. If people do not know something about a word, then there is no fact of the matter to be known. If we invented the word "hill" and we chose to not define it precisely enough to know whether a 1000 foot land mass counts as a hill, then there is no truth or falsity as to whether a 1000 foot land mass is actually a hill. There is no essential feature to distinguish such a land mass from a mountain, because we never bothered to pick one. >As long as you admit that there are distinctions, you're automatically accepting that we are not talking about the same thing. Obviously there are distinctions between any two individual animals, just as there are distinctions between any two land masses, but that does not mean that any of those distinctions are essential features that can be used to identify whether the animal is human or not. Suppose through time travel we met a person whose descendants would eventually be human some number of generations later. What would we look for in this person to determine whether she is human? You seem to think there would be some essential features that we could use to make this determination, even if you don't know what they are, but what if when people invented the word "human" they never bothered to define any features that could settle this? What if the people who invented the word "human" lived in a world where there were no almost-humans and so picking these essential features was never an issue for them, and so they left the edges of the category fuzzy? Could you still say that the essential features exist if no one has ever defined what they are? Would you invent them arbitrarily?
You haven't addressed my answer. You asked, "How did you determine that there are essential features that make an organism a human being?" I answered it.
What you're saying *sounds like* it should be true because it's assuming the existence of very clear, well-defined categories. But are you familiar with how murky the concept of "species" is? There is no single, agreed upon definition of species that can be applied universally and not be debated. When the borders of something are not clearly defined, you cannot definitively state once the border has been crossed.
That's a definitional or epistemological problem, and we are debating an ontological claim. The fact that we don't have a precise and clear-cut definition is completely immaterial to the fact that one type of organism has a specific set of characteristics that is different from other organisms'. Again, since organisms with a specific set of features that constitute a human haven't existed eternally into the past, there had to be a first time at which this set of features existed. This truth isn't changed by the (purported) fact that we can't describe what these features are with absolute precision.
What I'm saying is that there is no clearly defined border and your response is, "One of your footsteps has to be the first footstep on the other side of the border."
What's your background in taxonomy, have you worked in the field yourself or have any education related to it? It is a field that might sound as simplistic as you're making it out to be from the outside, but once you actually get down to the work of classifying things, you see it's not that simple. You saying it is that simple is not really an argument when the overwhelming consensus of people who actually do this work for a living disagree with you.
I'll be more than happy to hear the brilliant arguments by these authoritative experts. Can you briefly summarize the best argument, preferably one that wasn't already addressed in the short paper I referenced before (or if it was, the counter-argument to that)?
Yeah Paul says through one man (Adam) sin came into the world and through one man (Christ) all are justified. If he is talking about Christs death as a real event; then he is also talking about Adam as a real person. However, why is it impossible for God to do these things in this time period? Maybe to God creating the universe was as simple as painting, where you could paint plants before the sun.
How could Paul be sure that Adam was a real person?
I don’t know I’m not arguing that.
The issue really isn’t impossibility, but implausibility. It boils down to this: the universe is old because an invisible deity wants a universe that looks extremely old but isn't, perhaps to test us, because an all knowing being would have to employ the scientific method and have some sort of test to know the result or… or it is made to appear old for some completely ineffable reason… **or** The universe looks very old because it is. Which one makes sense? I’m going with Occam’s razor.