Can a literal Genesis creation story really hold up?

[CG Didymus]

Yeah right!....and God is not allowed to tweak His creation?

What "tweaks" has he done that have been an improvement? He, supposedly, made Adam "perfect", and when Adam disobeyed, God "tweaked" him with curses. People, allegedly, lived beyond 900 years. He "tweaked" that down by a lot. He repented making man and drowned all the bad ones. I don't know if that counts as a tweak, but, regardless, it didn't work. He "tweaked" the languages lest they build a tower that could have reached to where he lived. That would have been bad. Here it is, no one can get to heaven accept through Jesus, and those people would have should on the top floor of their tower and walked in.

 

[gnostic]

We are not made out of dust. That think so, just show how truly ignorant you are with biology.
"Dust" is rather poetic. But we are made of the same elements that stars and planets are made of.

Dust is waste or by-product. Dust by themselves are dead and have no function. While it is true that we human shed a lot of dust in one day, we are not made out of these lifeless dusts.

Although dust can multiply, they can't reproduce. And new life come from (human) reproduction of the mother's egg with father's sperm, not dusts. We are not born from the ground, like plants, which is what Genesis 2 is basically saying. And you know that Hebrew creation myth is borrowed from the older Mesopotamian myth, that originally came from Sumer.

We are made from more than just elements.

If my high school biology and chemistry mean anything, is that each element is a particle made out of only just one atom. And the reality is that we are actually composed of different molecules, not elements.

Molecule, in basic chemistry, is a particle made out of more than one type of atom. Water, for example, is comprised of a molecule of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms.

And in basic biology, each cell or gene is made out of few or many different molecules, depending on their physiological function.

 

[Aman777]

"Dust" is rather poetic. But we are made of the same elements that stars and planets are made of.

Dear Readers, Carl Sagan said it a lot better. We are Star Stuff, made from the insides of the First Stars which blew apart and scattered their Star Dust all over our world. Our physical bodies contain some of that physical matter, BUT we inherited our Human intelligence from the common ancestor of Humans, named Adam. God Bless you.

In Love,
Aman

 

[sojourner]

Dear Readers, Carl Sagan said it a lot better. We are Star Stuff, made from the insides of the First Stars which blew apart and scattered their Star Dust all over our world. Our physical bodies contain some of that physical matter

None of which is in the bible.

 

[Thief]

What "tweaks" has he done that have been an improvement? He, supposedly, made Adam "perfect", and when Adam disobeyed, God "tweaked" him with curses. People, allegedly, lived beyond 900 years. He "tweaked" that down by a lot. He repented making man and drowned all the bad ones. I don't know if that counts as a tweak, but, regardless, it didn't work. He "tweaked" the languages lest they build a tower that could have reached to where he lived. That would have been bad. Here it is, no one can get to heaven accept through Jesus, and those people would have should on the top floor of their tower and walked in.

The formation of Man was good....not perfect.

Day Six....Man as a species.
Chapter Two....a manipulation to bring forward a more spiritual creature.

 

[Sonofason]

Dust is waste or by-product. Dust by themselves are dead and have no function. While it is true that we human shed a lot of dust in one day, we are not made out of these lifeless dusts.

Although dust can multiply, they can't reproduce. And new life come from (human) reproduction of the mother's egg with father's sperm, not dusts. We are not born from the ground, like plants, which is what Genesis 2 is basically saying. And you know that Hebrew creation myth is borrowed from the older Mesopotamian myth, that originally came from Sumer.

We are made from more than just elements.

If my high school biology and chemistry mean anything, is that each element is a particle made out of only just one atom. And the reality is that we are actually composed of different molecules, not elements.

Molecule, in basic chemistry, is a particle made out of more than one type of atom. Water, for example, is comprised of a molecule of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms.

And in basic biology, each cell or gene is made out of few or many different molecules, depending on their physiological function.

Many dust particles are highly complex molecules, far more complex than basic elements.

 

[Sonofason]

So many things don't add up in Genesis. Like the Sun and stars, not only were they created after the Earth, but created after plants? But then, I was wondering; Adam gets kicked out of Eden and has to till the soil? This is based on Gen 4:23 and 4:2 where Adam is sent out to "cultivate" the ground and his son Cain was a "tiller" of the ground. What did they till it with? Did God make them a plow and a hoe or something? And then Abel, why was he keeping flocks? Weren't they vegetarians? Was it for wool? Did God make Eve a loom and Abel some shears?

I see Genesis as religious poetry, but some Christians, and I guess some Jews, see it as literal. Ken Ham on his TV show Answers in Genesis, insists that it must be taken literal, that it is foundational, without it the whole of the Bible falls. What do you think.

I think your asking good questions. Now answer them.

 

[Sonofason]

That is a pathetically childish question and an even more pathetic attempt to transfer the burden of proof. If and when you can provide scholarship supporting your idiosyncratic and self-serving rendering of Genesis, feel free to do so.

It seems more pathetic that you didn't render any evidence to the contrary. I'll go with james2ko on this one, until you at least provide evidence to support your claim.

 

[Sonofason]

Day? Based on which time zone? Israeli time?

The sun is constantly rising and setting all over the planet at all times all 24 hours. There isn't any global "day" or "night". There's a constant day and a constant night at any given point on Earth. Why would God create the Andromeda galaxy on the first "day" in some Palestinian time zone? God's majestic and infinite throne was place on some little place of dirt on a minuscule planet in a small galaxy somewhere? It just doesn't make sense.

Oops, that's not right. The Sun doesn't rise, nor does it set. That is archaic language. Relative to the earth, the Sun doesn't move that much. Surely it doesn't rise up into the sky. Try to keep in mind, the earth rotates. It is the rotation of earth that only makes the sun appear to rise.

 

[allfoak]

There is only one way to answer this question it seems.
With a big resounding :

I have been told ( don't fully understand it, if i did i would be much more advanced),
that the scriptures especially the least corrupted ones, are written in the language of the soul.

The only way i know how to describe it is like this:
If you have ever sat outside on a lazy summer day and watched the clouds with someone you will understand.

There is more than one picture in a cloud, everyone sees something different.
And they are fluid, like the truth is fluid, it grows along with your ability to understand.
So because the wind moves them we see many things in the same cloud as we continue to look at it.
In the same way, as we apply what we learn from the scriptures and our spirit moves us we see something different in the same thing we just read yesterday.

Trying to get someone to see a cloud from our perspective takes away the enjoyment of them discovering something for themselves.
We should apply this to the creation story and all of scripture.
We are not teachers not one of us.
We are all students of ourselves and nothing more.

The creation story like the rest of scripture must be an allegory.
It represents so many things to so many people that to take it literally would be to negate every other perspective.
I am not prepared to judge everyone else as wrong and declare myself as correct.

 

[greentwiga]

Oops, that's not right. The Sun doesn't rise, nor does it set. That is archaic language. Relative to the earth, the Sun doesn't move that much. Surely it doesn't rise up into the sky. Try to keep in mind, the earth rotates. It is the rotation of earth that only makes the sun appear to rise.

We frequently state things from our viewpoint. I can look up scientific tables for when the sun will rise and set on March 13th in Boulder, Colorado. The sun moves quickly through the galaxy, but from a sun point of view, it is still, and the earth revolves around it, and also rotates. Despite the sun's speed, astronomers treat it as stationary when calculating the positions of the various planets. Thus, depending on your "experiment," it is perfectly fine to use viewpoint statements in science such as "sunrise."

 

[Sonofason]

You haven't a clue so you babble. It's intellectually dishonest.

Actually, I believe he was making perfect sense, hence your introduction of ad-hominem argumentation.

 

[sojourner]

I think your asking good questions. Now answer them.

Many times the bible inspires questions, but does not provide answers.

 

[Sonofason]

Many times the bible inspires questions, but does not provide answers.

Of course. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to try to answer those questions when they arise.

 

[Iti oj]

Of course. Nevertheless, I believe it is important to try to answer those questions when they arise.

The bible holds no truth is an answer.

 

[allfoak]

The bible holds no truth is an answer.

It is an answer...

The bible is not designed to hold any truth necessarily.
It is designed to be a spiritual catalyst.
The truth that exists can be found in yourself with the help of the bible.

maybe there are otherperspectives that you are more polarized to that give you the help you need to find that truth within yourself.

learn all perspectives,
be held by no perspective.
Wholeness is achieved when all perspectives become one perspective.

 

[Iti oj]

It is an answer...

The bible is not designed to hold any truth necessarily.
It is designed to be a spiritual catalyst.
The truth that exists can be found in yourself with the help of the bible.

maybe there are otherperspectives that you are more polarized to that give you the help you need to find that truth within yourself.

learn all perspectives,
be held by no perspective.
Wholeness is achieved when all perspectives become one perspective.

I like predictive and explanatory modeling. I can't just be open minded on topics indefinitely.

 

[Sonofason]

The bible holds no truth is an answer.

Certainly a person could have such a misguided perception. But I do not.

 

[allfoak]

I like predictive and explanatory modeling. I can't just be open minded on topics indefinitely.

Then Lucifer is your guy and chaos is is your game.

Which is fine of course.

 

[outhouse]

.

The creation story like the rest of scripture must be an allegory.
.

And sometimes its OK just to admit it is straight up mythology.

That has some allegory and metaphors added, songs and poems too.