Can a Genesis God be Explained from a Science Perspective? (part 1)

[Blastcat]

It does not. Genesis 1:1 reads "בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ" ("In a first/initial moment, God/deity created the heavens and the earth"). The portion typically translated with something like "In the beginning" is בְּרֵאשִׁית. It is a prepositional phrase or PP (in Hebrew, prepositions are often affixes or clitics, i.e., they are attached to lexemes not written independently), with an indefinite noun. Thus, strictly speaking, any translation of the form in the beginning is wrong. However, translations always involve inaccuracies and information loss and trying to convey the indefinite nature of the noun here would probably be more misleading than just making it definite. The PP not only starts the passage, it sets up its context. It thus "qualifies" or "ranges over" the entirety of Genesis 1:1. It does assign an order to the creation of "אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ".
Time in Hebrew is generally extremely complicated. There are no tenses. However, like every language I know certain lexemes, particle, clitics, adpositions, and/or affixes can make life easier by semantically indicating notions about time (e.g., in English we have words like "begin", "start", "finish", "before", "after", etc.). Here, "בְּרֵאשִׁית" makes the answer to this question easy as we don't need to look at the aspect of the verb and the context to determine tense, we have a PP telling us that there was an initial moment of creation by god, followed by description of this creation, and NOT a statement that god first created one thing and then another.

I think that proves it to me. Genesis doesn't say heaven first then earth. It DOES say earth first then sun.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Also "begin" is misleading since things that "begin" to exist are is just a change of form of things that already exist, matter/material. The material already existed before.

This is not true. It is certainly not an accurate description of the origin of the universe according to the big bang theory, but it is also not true of basic processes at the atomic and subatomic levels and questionable at best in astrophysics and physical cosmology.
From a more philosophical perspective, the assertion that only physical/material things should be accorded an ontological status is extremely controversial. To give some counterexamples (i.e., examples of non-physical things which have been argued to be ontological), we have
1) Mathematical entities (Plato and Tegmark are the most extreme here, while Penrose's view is more tenable)
2) Emergent properties
3) Qualia
4) Pilot waves in Bohmian mechanics
5) Probabilities in Kastner's version of the transactional interpretation of quantum physics
6) Information
7) Functional or relational emergence (e.g., metabolism or the mind), a special instance of emergence where the higher-level relations/functions determine causal structure and future states of the systems whence they emerge and must be understood as existing because without understanding the systems they govern in the context of their existence you aren't actually dealing with the systems in question; i.e., without the functionally emergent and causally efficacious example of metabolism, you don't have cells because the component parts do not make up the cells without the function that makes them components of cells; this is discussed in considerable detail in Mikulecky, D. C. (2005). The Circle That Never Ends: Can Complexity be Made Simple? In D. Bonchev & D. H. Rouvray (Eds.). Complexity in Chemistry, Biology, and Ecology (Mathematical and Computational Chemistry). Springer.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I think that proves it to me. Genesis doesn't say heaven first then earth. It DOES say earth first then sun.

No, it doesn't. It literally says "at an initial moment, there was a single act of creation." It not only doesn't say that either the earth or sun was created first, it specifically states that there was only one, single creative act which simultaneously resulted in the earth and sun together. At an initial moment, both earth and sun were simultaneously created. That's what the Hebrew says.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Which part translates into Sun? I thought it was heavens and the earth right? Not necessarily Sun and the Earth or was that what was meant as well by heaven? If so, what is the translation regarding the greater and lesser light referring too?

 

[Blastcat]

Disclaimer: What in science do we know controls all things and holds the Universe together that could be called God?

Science tells us nothing about something like that. You would have to go to religion for that kind of thing.

Disclaimer: There are Laws of nature and science that exist and control and direct everything in this Universe. We have only discovered some of those laws and man did not invent the laws and man like all forms in the Universe must follow those laws.

Humans did invent these laws, as what we call "natural laws" are merely descriptions for how the universe works.

Disclaimer: The Laws of energy, gravity, relativity, conservation, thermodynamics etc. exist and seem to be present in the entire Universe and the laws are what holds everything together and directs all actions in the Universe. The laws apply to all particles from the sub atomic quarks to planets and living organisms like humans.

Agreed. Although we can't observe all of the universe, we do notice a remarkable regularity of how it works.

Disclaimer: Your body matter is held together by those laws and the energy that we call life inside your body is also a result of those laws. Without those laws there would be no form possible as the laws dictate how particles and matter stick together and how energy responds.

Unfortunately, the "laws" you are talking about are our DESCRIPTIONS of reality, not prescriptions.

Disclaimer: The Laws dictate how the Universe acts and it is through those laws that planets form and solar systems like the one we live in form. If no Laws were present there would be no Universe as we know it.

The laws do not dictate anything. They are used to explain how things work.

Disclaimer: The Laws are separate from the Universe and do not have shape or form and the Laws simply exist and is an entity separate from the universe that has always existed. The big bang as described by science could not happen without those laws so the laws existed before that event. All action and reaction is dictated by the Laws.

If the laws are said to be part of the universe, it would be surprising if they weren't a part of it. Your reasoning about how the laws needing to exist before the big bang are stimulating, but hardly convincing due to the utter lack of information that we have about ANYTHING before the big bang.

Disclaimer: For this discussion then I will say God is the Laws that created and directs the Heaven and Earth and all things in the Universe.

Yes, why not just go with that?
It's not as if anyone cares if it's true.

God 1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.

Your thoughts?

God 1. seems to be a nice hypothesis without any evidence for it's existence. I don't see the point of this thread.

 

[Shad]

This is not true. It is certainly not an accurate description of the origin of the universe according to the big bang theory, but it is also not true of basic processes at the atomic and subatomic levels and questionable at best in astrophysics and physical cosmology.
From a more philosophical perspective, the assertion that only physical/material things should be accorded an ontological status is extremely controversial. To give some counterexamples (i.e., examples of non-physical things which have been argued to be ontological), we have
1) Mathematical entities (Plato and Tegmark are the most extreme here, while Penrose's view is more tenable)
2) Emergent properties
3) Qualia
4) Pilot waves in Bohmian mechanics
5) Probabilities in Kastner's version of the transactional interpretation of quantum physics
6) Information
7) Functional or relational emergence (e.g., metabolism or the mind), a special instance of emergence where the higher-level relations/functions determine causal structure and future states of the systems whence they emerge and must be understood as existing because without understanding the systems they govern in the context of their existence you aren't actually dealing with the systems in question; i.e., without the functionally emergent and causally efficacious example of metabolism, you don't have cells because the component parts do not make up the cells without the function that makes them components of cells; this is discussed in considerable detail in Mikulecky, D. C. (2005). The Circle That Never Ends: Can Complexity be Made Simple? In D. Bonchev & D. H. Rouvray (Eds.). Complexity in Chemistry, Biology, and Ecology (Mathematical and Computational Chemistry). Springer.

You missed the point or didn't understand. As per the comment I was responding to. "That Genesis would say we have a beginning doesn't need divine aspiration, one simple needs to look around and see that in this world most things have a beginning most have an end." This point takes the idea that most things begin to exist applied via inductive logic to another object in which we do not know. The former begin to exist does have certain properties which are not applicable to the other object. Its nothing more than "All Swans are white" aka the Problem of Induction. I was attacking the word play and inductive logic presented as if it were deductive.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

You missed the point or didn't understand.

Always possible.

As per the comment I was responding to. "That Genesis would say we have a beginning doesn't need divine aspiration, one simple needs to look around and see that in this world most things have a beginning most have an end." This point takes the idea that most things begin to exist applied via inductive logic to another object in which we do not know.

Correct me if my paraphrase of your argument is wrong: You are asserting that it is invalid to infer that because our experience tells us that existing things begin to exist, naturally the universe began to exist and by extension the author(s) of Genesis would naturally assert the universe also had a beginning.
I mostly agree, but I don't think you need this argument.

That Genesis would say we have a beginning doesn't need divine aspiration, one simple needs to look around and see that in this world most things have a beginning most have an end

There are many examples, from ancient Greece and China to 19th and early 20th century physics, of cultures or social groups not only positing an eternal universe (I include cyclic universes with infinitely many cycles here), but holding that it is ridiculous to suppose a beginning to the cosmos. In fact, as you may know, the origin of the term "big bang" was Fred Hoyle's derisive, dismissive way of referring to the (as far as he was concerned) ludicrous idea that the universe had an origin/beginning.
Clearly, then, the argument that we should expect creation cosmologies because of everyday experience fails, as it can't explain the plethora of alternative cosmologies throughout history in which there was no beginning.

The former begin to exist does have certain properties which are not applicable to the other object. Its nothing more than "All Swans are white" aka the Problem of Induction. I was attacking the word play and inductive logic presented as if it were deductive.

It's true that reasoning inductively can lead to false conclusions. We need only one black swan to prove the induction that all swans are white false. But I don't see anywhere in the original argument you responded to the statement that we can suppose the author(s) of Genesis were correct in inductively reasoning that because we are used to things beginning to exist, therefore the universe did to. Merely that we don't need divine aspiration to explain Genesis BECAUSE the authors (and people more generally) used such inductive reasoning.
In other words, you seem to be stating that we can't conclude that because we are used to things beginning to exist, everything must begin to exist (i.e., we can't treat inductive inferences as if they were deductive conclusions). But the argument wasn't about the validity or soundness of such reasoning. It concerned whether or not we can suspect such reasoning to explain creation in Genesis.

 

[Shad]

Always possible.


Correct me if my paraphrase of your argument is wrong: You are asserting that it is invalid to infer that because our experience tells us that existing things begin to exist, naturally the universe began to exist and by extension the author(s) of Genesis would naturally assert the universe also had a beginning.
I mostly agree, but I don't think you need this argument.

I was talking about the shift when "begin" applies to other objects is not the same as "begins" means to the universe. When I began to exist there was a point in time in which I didn't exist. A clear before/after dynamic. This is not applicable to the universe if, as believed, time is part of the universe. It is a sleight of hand like trick in which the more technical aspects are omitted in order to use the basic definition of "begin" from a dictionary.

I have no issues with what you have provided regarding the technical view. As per above I was attacking the language used which is deceptive

 

[Shad]

not sure what that had to do with the point I was making?? Can you clarify?

Just because X part has a cause does not mean the whole does. Objects within the universe have a cause thus the universe must have a cause. Things in the universe have a beginning thus the universe must have a beginning. Using the Big Bang as supporting evidence is ad hoc as the argument in the basic form before this discovery is still based on such a fallacy.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Which part translates into Sun?/

No part. I was just using the terms from the post I quoted. In my original post analyzing the Hebrew, I don't use "sun"

It does not. Genesis 1:1 reads "בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ" ("In a first/initial moment, God/deity created the heavens and the earth"). The portion typically translated with something like "In the beginning" is בְּרֵאשִׁית. It is a prepositional phrase or PP (in Hebrew, prepositions are often affixes or clitics, i.e., they are attached to lexemes not written independently), with an indefinite noun. Thus, strictly speaking, any translation of the form in the beginning is wrong. However, translations always involve inaccuracies and information loss and trying to convey the indefinite nature of the noun here would probably be more misleading than just making it definite. The PP not only starts the passage, it sets up its context. It thus "qualifies" or "ranges over" the entirety of Genesis 1:1. It does assign an order to the creation of "אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ".
Time in Hebrew is generally extremely complicated. There are no tenses. However, like every language I know certain lexemes, particle, clitics, adpositions, and/or affixes can make life easier by semantically indicating notions about time (e.g., in English we have words like "begin", "start", "finish", "before", "after", etc.). Here, "בְּרֵאשִׁית" makes the answer to this question easy as we don't need to look at the aspect of the verb and the context to determine tense, we have a PP telling us that there was an initial moment of creation by god, followed by description of this creation, and NOT a statement that god first created one thing and then another.

 

[Blastcat]

No, it doesn't. It literally says "at an initial moment, there was a single act of creation." It not only doesn't say that either the earth or sun was created first, it specifically states that there was only one, single creative act which simultaneously resulted in the earth and sun together. At an initial moment, both earth and sun were simultaneously created. That's what the Hebrew says.

Oh, sorry, I only read the English translations. I guess the translators don't know the Hebrew too well.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I guess the translators don't know the Hebrew too well.

No, it's just that all translations are necessarily approximations. How true this is for all translations is generally not appreciated. One way of beginning to appreciate the kind of distance that exists between a translation of a text and the source text is to consider simple words in related languages. Take the word "house" in English (which is a Germanic language). How would you translate it into German? Haus? Heim? There is never any 1-to-1 mapping between lexemes (words) in one language and those in another.
But this isn't even the real problem. The real problem is that words really on the basic units of language- constructions are. About half language consists of idioms, prefabs (i.e., prefabricated phrases/constructions like "pull strings", "leave aside", "that being said", etc.), and other structures that consist of linguistic units like words but aren't reducible to them. Additionally, in most languages a great deal of meaning and syntax consists of the forms various parts of speech take. In Hebrew, for example, the "dictionary form" of verbs is the 3rd person masculine. In other words, verbs in Hebrew encode gender, person, and number via morphology. In languages like Navajo, practically the entire language consists of verbs and things you "tack on" to them (adjectives like "red", for example, don't exist and we find instead stative verbs like "be red"). There are specialized dictionaries for mathematicians, engineers, scientists, and other academics who have to read journals and other scholarship in German, because German words are usually built up out of multiple single German words according to some fairly complicated "rules", making it impossible to get most of the language in a regular dictionary and in particular technical terms you need to know to read research in a particular field. Ancient Greek contains an large number of particles (words like "but") that are convey both syntactic and semantic information in ways so complicated that there's a required ~600 page reference text The Greek Particles solely devoted to the syntax and semantics of a handful of these particles (in Hellenistic Greek, things became significantly simpler, but still important enough to merit treatments Greek particles in the New Testament: Linguistic and exegetical studies (New Testament tools and studies) by Thrall). Hittite is an Indo-European language, yet if you know Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin it will still seem to be fundamentally foreign, as it is the language which most closely adheres to the active-stative alignment of Pre-Indo-European (transitivity functions differently, verbs are used in place of many adjectives as in languages like Navajo, instead of just active and passive voice verbs can also be middle as in Greek but unlike Greek active and middle voices work differently, reflecting the active-stative alignment of Pre-IE, etc.).
Finally, with Biblical Hebrew and other ancient languages, culture presents a linguistic barrier. Many words, linguistic conventions, speech patterns, etc., differ radically from modern languages in general reflecting a time long past.

 

[Neo Deist]

I am using the KJV version for this discussion.

That was your first mistake.

 

[Thief]

Disclaimer: This is not an attempt to promote any religion and I have no religious beliefs. It is only a thought experiment to understand the biblical book of Genesis from a science perspective and maybe find common ground for science and creationists to discuss. Since the story of creation in Genesis seems common in many religious and native beliefs I believe it is worth exploring deeper. I will not attempt to cover all things said in genesis and only those I find can be explained from a science perspective. I am using the KJV version for this discussion.

1-."In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

What in science do we know controls all things and holds the Universe together that could be called God?

There are Laws of nature and science that exist and control and direct everything in this Universe. We have only discovered some of those laws and man did not invent the laws and man like all forms in the Universe must follow those laws.

The Laws of energy, gravity, relativity, conservation, thermodynamics etc. exist and seem to be present in the entire Universe and the laws are what holds everything together and directs all actions in the Universe. The laws apply to all particles from the sub atomic quarks to planets and living organisms like humans.

Your body matter is held together by those laws and the energy that we call life inside your body is also a result of those laws. Without those laws there would be no form possible as the laws dictate how particles and matter stick together and how energy responds.

The Laws dictate how the Universe acts and it is through those laws that planets form and solar systems like the one we live in form. If no Laws were present there would be no Universe as we know it.

The Laws are separate from the Universe and do not have shape or form and the Laws simply exist and is an entity separate from the universe that has always existed. The big bang as described by science could not happen without those laws so the laws existed before that event. All action and reaction is dictated by the Laws.

For this discussion then I will say God is the Laws that created and directs the Heaven and Earth and all things in the Universe.

References:

Entity 1 -a thing with distinct and independent existence.

God 1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.

Your thoughts?

the first page got off to a bad start....
if you want to hold science and God together ...it can be done
been doing it for years

I believe in God because of science
I have no religion

 

[Thief]

That was your first mistake.

I like King James....1960ed

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

No part. I was just using the terms from the post I quoted. In my original post analyzing the Hebrew, I don't use "sun"

Always possible.


Correct me if my paraphrase of your argument is wrong: You are asserting that it is invalid to infer that because our experience tells us that existing things begin to exist, naturally the universe began to exist and by extension the author(s) of Genesis would naturally assert the universe also had a beginning.
I mostly agree, but I don't think you need this argument.

There are many examples, from ancient Greece and China to 19th and early 20th century physics, of cultures or social groups not only positing an eternal universe (I include cyclic universes with infinitely many cycles here), but holding that it is ridiculous to suppose a beginning to the cosmos. In fact, as you may know, the origin of the term "big bang" was Fred Hoyle's derisive, dismissive way of referring to the (as far as he was concerned) ludicrous idea that the universe had an origin/beginning.
Clearly, then, the argument that we should expect creation cosmologies because of everyday experience fails, as it can't explain the plethora of alternative cosmologies throughout history in which there was no beginning.

It's true that reasoning inductively can lead to false conclusions. We need only one black swan to prove the induction that all swans are white false. But I don't see anywhere in the original argument you responded to the statement that we can suppose the author(s) of Genesis were correct in inductively reasoning that because we are used to things beginning to exist, therefore the universe did to. Merely that we don't need divine aspiration to explain Genesis BECAUSE the authors (and people more generally) used such inductive reasoning.
In other words, you seem to be stating that we can't conclude that because we are used to things beginning to exist, everything must begin to exist (i.e., we can't treat inductive inferences as if they were deductive conclusions). But the argument wasn't about the validity or soundness of such reasoning. It concerned whether or not we can suspect such reasoning to explain creation in Genesis.

I am aware, it was more to explain as you explained in your second part of people using inductive reasoning. The basis of my argument was that when discussing people from "back in the day" we shouldn't really disparage them or really elevate them either.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Just because X part has a cause does not mean the whole does. Objects within the universe have a cause thus the universe must have a cause. Things in the universe have a beginning thus the universe must have a beginning. Using the Big Bang as supporting evidence is ad hoc as the argument in the basic form before this discovery is still based on such a fallacy.

Right, but what I was getting at was that we shouldn't really think too highly or too negatively of people from the past or find that if they were right about something to be shocking.

 

[idea]

In "a" beginning God "organized" the heavens and the earth....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/6274502/God-is-not-the-Creator-claims-academic.html

see also http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/vocabulary_studies.html

Child Root

Transliteration: "Qa-NeH"
Meaning: To build a nest.
Comments: This child root is a nest builder, one who builds a nest such as a bird. Also God as in Bereshiyt (Genesis) 14.19; "God most high creator (qaneh) of sky and earth". The English word "create" is an abstract word and a foriegn concept to the Hebrews. While we see God as one who makes something from nothing (create), the Hebrews saw God like a bird who goes about acquiring and gathering materials to build a nest (qen), the sky and earth. The Hebrews saw man as the children (eggs) that God built the nest for.
Definition: Reference:

 

[Etritonakin]

It does not. Genesis 1:1 reads "בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ" ("In a first/initial moment, God/deity created the heavens and the earth"). The portion typically translated with something like "In the beginning" is בְּרֵאשִׁית. It is a prepositional phrase or PP (in Hebrew, prepositions are often affixes or clitics, i.e., they are attached to lexemes not written independently), with an indefinite noun. Thus, strictly speaking, any translation of the form in the beginning is wrong. However, translations always involve inaccuracies and information loss and trying to convey the indefinite nature of the noun here would probably be more misleading than just making it definite. The PP not only starts the passage, it sets up its context. It thus "qualifies" or "ranges over" the entirety of Genesis 1:1. It does assign an order to the creation of "אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ".
Time in Hebrew is generally extremely complicated. There are no tenses. However, like every language I know certain lexemes, particle, clitics, adpositions, and/or affixes can make life easier by semantically indicating notions about time (e.g., in English we have words like "begin", "start", "finish", "before", "after", etc.). Here, "בְּרֵאשִׁית" makes the answer to this question easy as we don't need to look at the aspect of the verb and the context to determine tense, we have a PP telling us that there was an initial moment of creation by god, followed by description of this creation, and NOT a statement that god first created one thing and then another.

I was being sarcastic.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I was being sarcastic.

Ah. Well that analysis of the Hebrew was a waste of time, then. Oh well.