Life From Dirt?

[Brian2]

Here you go:

" 22“And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. 23“But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, 24eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

Do you see the part that says "life for life"?

Yes you appear to be right but when I look at some commentaries they say that the child born prematurely was also included and not just the mother. So if we accept that, then the unborn is considered a person also. But the passage is not 100% clear imo and it was the job of the judges to to the arbitration.

 

[gnostic]

Wouldn't creation be a mechanism?

Plants (1:11-12, and garden of Eden 2:8), marine life (eg fishes, whales in KJV) and birds (eg fowls in KJV) (1:20-22 and 2:19), land animals (1:24-25, and 2:19) and humans (1:27), all don’t just pop into existence, AND all fully grown.

And Adam cannot form as fully grown adult man directly from dust of the ground, which I would assume to be soil, since the next verse, Genesis 2:8, talk of creating all vegetation in the Garden of Eden. And woman (Eve) don’t magically pop into fully grown from Adam’s rib.

All of the above, what you have called “creation”, describe SUPERNATURAL events, not natural events.

Life don’t magically appear “fully-grown” as narrated in two completely different versions (Genesis 1 & Genesis 2) of creation.

Even plants being created in full varieties (kinds) and “fully-grown”, isn’t possible, nor is probable. No plants pop into existence, fully developed and fully grown. All plants take time to grow into maturity, first developed from either fertilized seeds or fertilized spores, and trees take even longer to grow, years before they can bear fruit.

Mechanisms, in science are “explanations” as to HOW things work, and in the case of this thread, nothing in Genesis offer any explanations.

The creation in Genesis, provide no understanding of any mechanisms, they just have claims of something supernatural.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Spirit things are undetectable with scientific equipment

That which is necessarily undetectable to the senses (can and will never be detected in any place at any time by any means) is indistinguishable from the nonexistent and can be treated the same. If they eventually manifest or some discovery is made best explained by positing the existence of spirits, that would be evidence for their existence, and then they can be considered.

Aristotle, who believed that our earthly world comprised only air, water, earth, and fire, posted the existence of a fifth substance (quintessence) for celestial objects, since they obviously didn't follow earthly rules. They move in circles, for example. Science never needed this fifth substance. The heavens were made of the same substance as earth, and so this extra substance was discarded as unneeded. Now, two discoveries have been made that can't be explained with the standard model for cosmology, and so, two new substances are posited to account for them, dark matter and dark energy. Neither appears to need to be conscious, so they are not thought of as evidence for spirits.

many observations have been made which seem to need consciousness outside the physical body, spirit. These observations have been in the area of out of body experiences in near death experiences, where the reports are of events etc that are confirmable.

Need? No. Suggest? Yes, but not convincingly.

Genesis 2 can be explained as being a more detailed report of human creation, which makes more sense that 2 creation accounts, one of which is not even a creation account.

You haven't addressed the contradictions, and it appears you don't intend to, so we can drop that topic.

The creation of consciousness and intelligence implies those things existing in the creator.

Yes, but that means the creator didn't create them.

The existence of those things in a creator who was the first cause iow not created, does not imply that those things were already in existence in order for the creator to be created.

I don't know what you're saying. Are you saying that the creator was created? It seems so, but I'm pretty sure that you don't believe that.

That is begging the question of a conscious brain

What question? Conscious brains exist. You and I are each using one now.

is defining abstract things as non existent except as ideas

Ideas exist. They inform actions. Abstractions are inductions - rules that unify a group of objects or processes drawn from concrete experience: "from Latin abstractus, literally ‘drawn away’, past participle of abstrahere, from ab- ‘from’ + trahere ‘draw off’."

But from back when that was not known it seems to have been those people who had a universe created by a rational God, who went down the path of thinking that the universe might be able to be understood rationally.

This has already been rebutted. I showed you where those ideas came from, and I showed you that the Bible could not have served as the source for those ideas. You made no comment. You offered no counterargument. You made no effort to show that Abraham or Moses or any other biblical character came up with Thales' insights first or that Thales learned these things from religious holy books.

That makes the matter settled for me and all advocates of dialectic to settle differences of opinion. It debate ends with the last plausible, unrebutted statement, which is the one I made the last time you made that same claim. If you want to go back and find that argument (or have me help you find it) and address it now, it's never too late, but as I said, until you do, the debate is over.

And of course the Bible had something to do with that. It showed a universe created by a rational God.

No, it doesn't indicate that the universe is comprehensible to man. In fact, it calls such thinking foolishness. Christianity's frequent message is that the mind of God is inscrutable, not rational. And when man began discovering the ways of the world empirically, and they contradicted church dogma, there was a backlash that we still see today on these threads. It's typical for religion to fight innovation tooth and nail for centuries and then eventually try to take credit for those innovations, including science, the US Constitution, and the American abolition of slavery.

And it was the Church who promoted learning over the centuries.

The Greeks did so as well. And the Arabs in the Middle Ages. That's not a religious practice and doesn't come from the Bible. The church set up seminaries to teach priests and promote Christianity. Eventually, the printing press came along as well as Bible translations in the local vernacular, and the church lost control and began bifurcating. The liberal arts curriculum does not come from the Bible, either. It is a result of the secular humanist approach to learning which arose post-Enlightenment.

Here's an excellent video on the topic:

It all had to start somewhere and history shows where it started.

Yes, but not with Christianity, which seems to be your thesis.

Empiricism does not know what a wrong idea is

And idea should not be called correct if it cannot also be empirically demonstrated to be correct, meaning that it can accurately describe and predict outcomes.

if you believe empiricism is that only thing that can show you a correct idea, then that is the case under your faith and you live your life governed by your faith.

No faith is needed to believe that empiricism is the only path to knowledge about the world provided one isn't calling religious (and other) intuitions knowledge. Knowledge for me is the collection of demonstrably correct ideas. They're the toolkit for navigating life. They're the ideas that inform our thoughts and motivate our choices. If they're wrong, we make bad choices.

The miracles are the very things that God has told us in the Bible that He did.

I don't believe any deity has told man anything, and even if one did, I couldn't know it.

you say that science pushed away the need for God. That is not critical thinking. Well it might be, but it is not rational thinking.

It's a fact. I explained the progression from Abrahamic monotheism through deism to atheism due to waves of scientists who first showed how the universe operated without intelligent oversight (clockwork universe) ushering in the age of deism, followed by a second wave, who showed how the universe could assemble itself from a singularity without intelligent oversight, and the deist god was dismissed in favor of atheism.

And critical thinking is rational thinking. They're synonymous. Fallacy-free reason applied to evidence and true premises is the engine that generates knowledge. All other thinking that leads to belief is faith.

Now you are posturing as if science knows the answers to the things that God has said that He did.

Everything that we know about reality comes from experiencing it (empiricism), whether that be through a telescope or while living and taking in daily life. The whole idea of gods and revelation has no bearing on the process.

How about overcoming death? Not a problem for you, just something to accept because there is no God who can overcome death.

I have been comfortable for decades with the idea that death is likely the end of personal consciousness.

You hide behind rules that you have made your faith.

Hide? I live by them openly and proudly, and they are evidence-based ideas, not faith. They have been tested, and they work. Many forget that the success of an idea relative to competing ideas, which is evidence, is what validates that idea. How much faith is involved in using something that works reliably?

 

[Subduction Zone]

It is true that on the day that A and E ate the fruit they died spiritually, meaning they lost their fellowship with God, the source of their spiritual life.
It is also true that "day" does not have to mean a literal 24 hour day and so the bodily death could come later, which it did for both A and E.
It is also true that the form of the expression that God used was a judicial pronouncement and can mean "you should know on the day you eat the fruit, that you shall surely die".
There is a lot said in the little phrase and it all came to pass when they ate the fruit.
God did not lie, as you say He did, but you just read a translation in a literal way that does not put all the implications into it and think you know what it means,,,,,,,,,,,, but really all you are doing is looking for a way to say the Bible is wrong.
You are the one who is trying to make the Bible worthless by saying it is untrue and that God is a liar, and you turn it around and say that giving a more full meaning to a sentence is what makes the Bible worthless. No you aren't justified in placing any interpretation on it that you want and you aren't justified in calling the writers a bunch of idiots.

The Bible does not say that. The Bible does not imply that. That is merely apologetics. That is not valid theology.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes you appear to be right but when I look at some commentaries they say that the child born prematurely was also included and not just the mother. So if we accept that, then the unborn is considered a person also. But the passage is not 100% clear imo and it was the job of the judges to to the arbitration.

That is the work of antiabortionists, not people that understand the language. Even the Catholics used the term "miscarriage" in their Bibles before the Roe v Wade decision. I cannot prove it, but I can quote from my housemate's 1960's era Catholic Bible. I have an old Bible buried somewhere in my house, but I cannot find it. I remember it saying the same thing. It is very hard to find a Bible in the US that has not undergone that change.. When all of the changes follow a particular political event that indicates that it was politics that drove people to change their interpretation, not an attempt to be more accurate. Jewish sources quite often still use miscarriage since they do not tend to be as right wing as most Bible publishers.

 

[Brian2]

The Bible does not say that. The Bible does not imply that. That is merely apologetics. That is not valid theology.

There is a lot that is not said directly in Genesis.
There is stuff there that can be seen as God lying, or God being evil etc but if you read it with a trust in the goodness of God and the truth of His Word then imo you can see it from a different perspective and see answers that someone who reads it just as a critic does not see and probably does not really want to see or accept legitimate answers that show the Bible not to be in error.
It can be said to be apolagetics but is also theology.

 

[Heyo]

There is a lot that is not said directly in Genesis.
There is stuff there that can be seen as God lying, or God being evil etc but if you read it with a trust in the goodness of God and the truth of His Word then imo you can see it from a different perspective and see answers that someone who reads it just as a critic does not see and probably does not really want to see or accept legitimate answers that show the Bible not to be in error.
It can be said to be apolagetics but is also theology.

"Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest, hmm"
It's a typical human ability to see what we want to see and not what is there.

 

[Brian2]

That is the work of antiabortionists, not people that understand the language. Even the Catholics used the term "miscarriage" in their Bibles before the Roe v Wade decision. I cannot prove it, but I can quote from my housemate's 1960's era Catholic Bible. I have an old Bible buried somewhere in my house, but I cannot find it. I remember it saying the same thing. It is very hard to find a Bible in the US that has not undergone that change.. When all of the changes follow a particular political event that indicates that it was politics that drove people to change their interpretation, not an attempt to be more accurate. Jewish sources quite often still use miscarriage since they do not tend to be as right wing as most Bible publishers.

I found this article interesting.

on JSTOR

JOHN MAKUJINA, The Semantics of יצא in Exodus 21:22: Reassessing the Variables That Determine Meaning, Bulletin for Biblical Research, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2013), pp. 305-321

www.jstor.org

The gist is that Exodus 21:22,23 should not be seen as showing that a fetus is not a human. It might have a different legal status but that does not determine personhood and there is plenty of evidence in the Bible for the personhood of the fetus. This conclusion seemed to be with the view that Exodus 21:22,23 referred to a miscarriage.
The article goes on, in another section, to show that the Hebrew words used indicate a premature birth rather than a miscarriage.
But I cannot comment on the intentions of translators who used to use "miscarriage" and now use "premature birth".

 

[Brian2]

"Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest, hmm"
It's a typical human ability to see what we want to see and not what is there.

True.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Plants (1:11-12, and garden of Eden 2:8), ..

Well, for theists of any dispensation, popping up of things is a norm rather than an exception.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I found this article interesting.

on JSTOR

JOHN MAKUJINA, The Semantics of יצא in Exodus 21:22: Reassessing the Variables That Determine Meaning, Bulletin for Biblical Research, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2013), pp. 305-321

www.jstor.org

The gist is that Exodus 21:22,23 should not be seen as showing that a fetus is not a human. It might have a different legal status but that does not determine personhood and there is plenty of evidence in the Bible for the personhood of the fetus. This conclusion seemed to be with the view that Exodus 21:22,23 referred to a miscarriage.
The article goes on, in another section, to show that the Hebrew words used indicate a premature birth rather than a miscarriage.
But I cannot comment on the intentions of translators who used to use "miscarriage" and now use "premature birth".

Miscarriage is the more appropriate scientific term. The point is that however far along she was she lost the pregnancy. In those days almost any premature birth would end up in a death. So once again, context matters. One makes laws about the usual case. If death is the usual case for a premature birth, and it definitely was then from embryo up to a month early in those days, then that is what the law would deal with first. In this case it was a monetary fine. One would have the exceptions, which were included in this example if the normal did not happen. For those claiming it was a person the exception would be a surviving baby. That does not even seem to be considered a possibility.

If it was assumed to be a baby it would be a death sentence in those days with the exception if the baby lived. We do not see that. We see a case where the fetus would probably die and it is only a monetary fine if that was the only damage done. In other words, not a person, just an object that was damaged.

 

[YoursTrue]

It sounds magical however we want it to have begun.
It is magical to think that the universe came from nothing.
It is magical for order to be the result of chaos.
It is magical for life to come from non life.
It is magical to think that we can be at this point in time yet if there has been an infinite amount of time in the past.

Sometimes when I hear the word magic used in these conversations, I think of Moses and Pharaoh's magicians matching magic for magic, so to speak, and see what wins.

 

[YoursTrue]

Plants (1:11-12, and garden of Eden 2:8), marine life (eg fishes, whales in KJV) and birds (eg fowls in KJV) (1:20-22 and 2:19), land animals (1:24-25, and 2:19) and humans (1:27), all don’t just pop into existence, AND all fully grown.

And Adam cannot form as fully grown adult man directly from dust of the ground, which I would assume to be soil, since the next verse, Genesis 2:8, talk of creating all vegetation in the Garden of Eden. And woman (Eve) don’t magically pop into fully grown from Adam’s rib.

All of the above, what you have called “creation”, describe SUPERNATURAL events, not natural events.

Life don’t magically appear “fully-grown” as narrated in two completely different versions (Genesis 1 & Genesis 2) of creation.

Even plants being created in full varieties (kinds) and “fully-grown”, isn’t possible, nor is probable. No plants pop into existence, fully developed and fully grown. All plants take time to grow into maturity, first developed from either fertilized seeds or fertilized spores, and trees take even longer to grow, years before they can bear fruit.

Mechanisms, in science are “explanations” as to HOW things work, and in the case of this thread, nothing in Genesis offer any explanations.

The creation in Genesis, provide no understanding of any mechanisms, they just have claims of something supernatural.

I would have to agree with you that these things (plants, garden of Eden, marine life, etc.) didn't just pop into existence. I wasn't there, but I'm pretty sure they took time to develop and grow. Like I said, however, I wasn't there and there are no photographs or videos.

 

[Brian2]

Miscarriage is the more appropriate scientific term. The point is that however far along she was she lost the pregnancy. In those days almost any premature birth would end up in a death. So once again, context matters. One makes laws about the usual case. If death is the usual case for a premature birth, and it definitely was then from embryo up to a month early in those days, then that is what the law would deal with first. In this case it was a monetary fine. One would have the exceptions, which were included in this example if the normal did not happen. For those claiming it was a person the exception would be a surviving baby. That does not even seem to be considered a possibility.

If it was assumed to be a baby it would be a death sentence in those days with the exception if the baby lived. We do not see that. We see a case where the fetus would probably die and it is only a monetary fine if that was the only damage done. In other words, not a person, just an object that was damaged.

I don't know and it sounds like you also don't know.

 

[PureX]

"Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest, hmm"
It's a typical human ability to see what we want to see and not what is there.

You're a man, too.

 

[Brian2]

That which is necessarily undetectable to the senses (can and will never be detected in any place at any time by any means) is indistinguishable from the nonexistent and can be treated the same. If they eventually manifest or some discovery is made best explained by positing the existence of spirits, that would be evidence for their existence, and then they can be considered.

Yes that's how things go in science.

Need? No. Suggest? Yes, but not convincingly.

Suggest, yes, convincing, matter of opinion.

You haven't addressed the contradictions, and it appears you don't intend to, so we can drop that topic.

There are contradictions only if you see Gen 2 as another creation story.

Yes, but that means the creator didn't create them.

I suppose, yes, just gave them, created beings with those capabilities.

What question? Conscious brains exist. You and I are each using one now.

Ideas exist. They inform actions. Abstractions are inductions - rules that unify a group of objects or processes drawn from concrete experience: "from Latin abstractus, literally ‘drawn away’, past participle of abstrahere, from ab- ‘from’ + trahere ‘draw off’."

You assume that it is the brain that is conscious.
The ideas in the brain which concern abstract things like love and courage etc are ideas about real things even if science cannot detect those things.

That makes the matter settled for me

That is fine in the debate but in reality neither of us really know but the evidence is there that Christianity preserved knowledge from the past and encouraged education and that this and the world view given by Christianity enabled the promotion of science in people even if parts of Christianity objected to some things that were discovered.

And idea should not be called correct if it cannot also be empirically demonstrated to be correct, meaning that it can accurately describe and predict outcomes.

That works well for science.

No faith is needed to believe that empiricism is the only path to knowledge about the world provided one isn't calling religious (and other) intuitions knowledge.

Religion and other intuitions can be correct however.

I don't believe any deity has told man anything, and even if one did, I couldn't know it.


It's a fact. I explained the progression from Abrahamic monotheism through deism to atheism due to waves of scientists who first showed how the universe operated without intelligent oversight (clockwork universe) ushering in the age of deism, followed by a second wave, who showed how the universe could assemble itself from a singularity without intelligent oversight, and the deist god was dismissed in favor of atheism.

That sounds like how the progression went but the creation of a clockwork universe without intelligence has not been shown by science, just presumed by skeptics and atheists. So you believe in the speculation.

And critical thinking is rational thinking. They're synonymous. Fallacy-free reason applied to evidence and true premises is the engine that generates knowledge. All other thinking that leads to belief is faith.

It is not rational to think that science has found mechanisms for how things work and so have taken away the need for human imagination in explaining them with "God did it",,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and so that means that the need for God has also been eliminated.

Everything that we know about reality comes from experiencing it (empiricism), whether that be through a telescope or while living and taking in daily life. The whole idea of gods and revelation has no bearing on the process.

What we know also comes from humans sharing their experiences with others. This actually is what happens when scientists tell us stuff they have experienced and what happens when Bible writers tell us stuff that they have experienced.
Empiricism is good for finding out stuff about the physical world.

I have been comfortable for decades with the idea that death is likely the end of personal consciousness.

Nevertheless death is one of those things that God has and is dealt with along with many others. Iow the creation of the physical universe, as important as it is, is/was not all there is for God to do.

Hide? I live by them openly and proudly, and they are evidence-based ideas, not faith. They have been tested, and they work. Many forget that the success of an idea relative to competing ideas, which is evidence, is what validates that idea. How much faith is involved in using something that works reliably?

You have found something that works for you, even if it does not work for all areas of life and knowledge, so you throw any other babies out with the bath water.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I don't know and it sounds like you also don't know.

What are you talking about? I just explained to you how we do know. Lying to oneself is not a good excuse for faulty beliefs.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

There are contradictions only if you see Gen 2 as another creation story.

It is another creation story, and there are contradictions if the two stories have mutually incompatible accounts. In the first creation story, humans are created after the other animals. In the second story, humans were created before the other animals. Those didn't both occur.

I suppose, yes, just gave them, created beings with those capabilities.

You wrote, "The creation of consciousness and intelligence implies those things existing in the creator" and I responded, "Yes, but that means the creator didn't create them." You don't consider that significant? You're describing a deity that is not the author of everything, but rather, discovered and copied some things.

You assume that it is the brain that is conscious.

Yes, consciousness is a product of brains.

The ideas in the brain which concern abstract things like love and courage etc are ideas about real things even if science cannot detect those things.

Yes, they're about real things, and we can all detect those things. They're about observable actions and their motives. We see both in ourself, and only the actions in others, from which we infer their motives by analogy.

the evidence is there that Christianity preserved knowledge from the past

But you were claiming that Christianity was its source. You were claiming that the source of the idea that the universe was comprehensible and that man might study it to beneficial effect does not come from Christianity or its scriptures. I'm guessingthat you didn't explore the video I provided about the theft of values by Christianity.

the world view given by Christianity enabled the promotion of science in people

No, science took off after the reintroduction of Greek influence in the West, which led to the Renaissance. This is from that video, about 13 minutes in:

Religion and other intuitions can be correct however.

Yes, but only if they use the principles of empiricism. Their religions aren't needed or useful for answers.

the creation of a clockwork universe without intelligence has not been shown by science

The claim was that it runs without intelligent oversight. That's what makes it a clockwork.

It is not rational to think that science has found mechanisms for how things work and so have taken away the need for human imagination in explaining them with "God did it"

It is fact that empiricism has revealed that gods are not needed to account for anything discovered to date. God of the gaps refers to this one-way progress away from god explanations.

What we know also comes from humans sharing their experiences with others.

Yes, but that's learned empirically as well - by hearing or reading them - and is less valuable evidence than direct experience, which is what one gets when one tests that advice.

You have found something that works for you, even if it does not work for all areas of life and knowledge, so you throw any other babies out with the bath water.

What babies were thrown out? What valuable belief or practice do you imagine I have given up by leaving religion? I keep reading some variation of this from assorted posters about the loss one suffers not following them into religion, but then when one asks where is the beef, it turns out it's vegan.

 

[HaEmeth]

Maybe life sprang from dirt 3.5 billion years ago though abiogenesis but I’m beginning to seriously doubt it. The God theory is sounding more and more plausible.

Your so-called "God Theory" (the Higher Intelligence Theory) is the most plausible explanation for the existence of the universe and life in it. Abiogenesis doesn't cut it. Even atheists (like Paul Dirac) admit that, as the following excerpt shows:

'One of the strong evidences pointing to intelligent creation of the material universe is that a knowledge of higher mathematics is necessary to achieve an understanding of it. Chance action by blind forces is not the creator of mathematical order and laws.

Remarking on the role of mathematics in nature, P. A. M. Dirac states in Scientific American of May 1963: “It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it.

You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines? One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it. One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and he used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better.” '- Cosmos: Mathematics in the Universe​

 

[Subduction Zone]

Your so-called "God Theory" (the Higher Intelligence Theory) is the most plausible explanation for the existence of the universe and life in it. Abiogenesis doesn't cut it. Even atheists (like Paul Dirac) admit that, as the following excerpt shows:

'One of the strong evidences pointing to intelligent creation of the material universe is that a knowledge of higher mathematics is necessary to achieve an understanding of it. Chance action by blind forces is not the creator of mathematical order and laws.​

​

Remarking on the role of mathematics in nature, P. A. M. Dirac states in Scientific American of May 1963: “It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it.​

​

You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines? One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it. One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and he used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better.” '- Cosmos: Mathematics in the Universe​

Dirac was not a biologist. So why would his opinion matter? He showed that he is all too human. That argument was made when abiogenesis was in its infancy. It is as accurate as the predictions in the late 1800's that man could not fly. Kelvin actually made such a comment.

And quotes like that need a link to a reliable science based source. Otherwise they are pretty much worthless. As yours is.