Origin of life, Adam and the Dinosaurs

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

The immortal can Not die. The immortal are death proof. Adam and Eve were mortals who could die.

Everyone's possibly immortal until by their deaths they are proven to be otherwise.

Tell me what else God could have meant by "In the day that you eat of it you will surely die" Since Adam lived to be almost 1,000 years after eating it.

It's obvious: God backed out, like when the non-psychotic parents threaten to kill their kids if they draw on the walls and then don't even if the kids disobey.

Nah, save the Kabbalism for the other people.

And we should also save the Flintstones History to Hannah-Barabara.

Don't you feel your spirit pulling you back to the origins of Adam.

Not really.

That is, before being kicked out of Eden into a world where the ground was cursed and nothing would grow for him.

So why do we have gardens now? Post-Eden, shouldn't we all be living Mad-Max style?

It must be so frustrating for God:

God: I'm going to make men do lots of hard agricultural work for little benefit.
Man: LOL ... tractors and fertilizer. Go me!
God: I'm going to make childbirth mega-painful.
Woman: LOL ... narcotics. Go me!
God: I'm going to ban tall buildings.
Engineers: LOL ... steel. Go us!
God: I'm going to confuse their languages.
Linguists: LOL ... google translate and foreign language classes. Go us!
God: I'm going to send plagues.
Doctors: LOL ... vaccines. Go us!
God: I'm going to encourage blatant ignorance.
People: LOL ... the internet. Go us!

Only man was formed complete, in the image of God, immortal and walked the Earth for millions of years, never dying. Until they ate the forbidden fruit.

They didn't walk the earth, though. They walked in a garden, a finite space of fertile ground. Step outside it and you get ... I dunno ... Arizona?

But hey, I don't expect Hebrews to be good at judging distance or time. They took 40 years to walk a trip of about 150 hours (less than 7 days) or so in Moses' time.

It is elegant and pretty but the alleged strings are so small they can never be seen.

Being microscopic means being unable to exist?

Whether you wish to think of us as animals or not, my understanding is that God only offered 'humankind' everlasting life on Earth if they did Not break the ' do not eat ' Law.

I don't see any evidence that humans bothered to ask the other animals what God promised THEM. Of course, there are some species of jellyfish that are immortal, so I guess they're sinless?

What if the earth weren't rotating.

No gravity, or at least, less gravity.

Since God created everything, and God is outside of time, he certainly could maintain a non rotating planet to go about his work on it, it could be a thousand years, or 50 billion as we rekon them, to him it's all the same, now.

He can't defeat weapons of IRON.

Judges 1:19 New International Version (NIV)

19 The Lord was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had chariots fitted with iron.

Let me explain. Adam was created immortal, otherwise the curse of eating the fruit makes no sense.

Yes, it does. You could live up to the end of your genetic lifespan, as indicated by the lengths of your telomeres, or you could get run over by a herd of stampeding wildebeests tomorrow. Not dying tomorrow doesn't make you inherently immortal.

God did Not approve of people burning their children according to Jeremiah 32:34-35; 2 Chronicles 28:3.

And yet bratty kids are supposed to die.

Exodus 21
17 “Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.

And that makes no sense. Tell me, what did these first herbivores eat? Just grass?

There are other kinds of plants than angiosperms.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

We all know that there different meanings of the English word "day". The point in quoting Genesis 1:5 is to indicate that the Genesis creative days were all punctuated by the coming of an "evening" and a "morning" - i.e. a 24 hour day as delineated by the setting and rising of the sun. Putting it in that order also provides confirmation that a 24 hour day was intended because the Hebrew day began at sunset. There is no way that a Hebrew reader would have interpreted the days as anything other than a 24 hour day. That much is very clear, so if you want to reinterpret the creation account as something other than a sequence of six literal 24 hour days you have to take the whole account as symbolic, not merely pretend that "day" means something else.

There's a second clue in Genesis, but one has to go to two parts of it: The creation story and the Ten Commandments. The Lord took the seventh day to rest, and so must you. Honor the Sabbath, which is clearly one literal day.

I have a hypothesis about why the Genesis story occurs over six days followed by a day of rest:

Go back a few millennia, before the advent of the week and the weekend, when people worked every day, and it was likely socially unacceptable for able bodied people not to work every day. Perhaps it was taught that the gods expected it. This was very likely true in man's nomadic days of hunting and gathering, and probably applied even when he settled into a farming and herding life.

Now, fast forward to the advent of monotheism, organized religion, temples, and a priesthood, which would like it to become necessary for every head of the household and probably everybody else as well to periodically come to the temple with shekels to sustain this activity, which meant taking time away from work. I'm guessing that they chose every seventh day then as it still is today.

How do we manufacture support for that idea that it is OK to take a day off if work is considered sacred and holy? Easy. Make taking a day off once a week even holier. In fact, make it a Commandment. Even the Lord rested on the seventh day, and you will, too.

This seems very plausible to me. It explains an otherwise inexplicable and counterproductive idea - that a god needed to work for six days, or needed to rest. I'm betting that that story was written to imitate the cycle in man's life that the priests had concocted.

Another possible clue: Look at how artificial the week is. A day, a month, and a year are each natural units of time reflecting celestial events: one rotation of the earth about its axis, one revolution of the moon around the earth, and one revolution of the earth around the sun.

But these apparently just won't do for this purpose. The day is too short and the month and year too long. And so, the week was created, and with it, the weekend, or Sabbath as it was originally known - a "yom" of rest - a literal 24 hour day following six others just as the Bible writers intended.

 

[Polymath257]

Everything about Genesis is correct, when not looking through muddied glasses.
The account lists 10 major stages in this order: (1) a beginning; (2) a primitive earth in darkness and enshrouded in heavy gases and water; (3) light; (4) an expanse or atmosphere; (5) large areas of dry land; (6) land plants; (7) sun, moon and stars discernible in the expanse, and seasons beginning; (8) sea monsters and flying creatures; (9) wild and tame beasts, mammals; (10) man. Science agrees that these stages occurred in this general order. What are the chances that the writer of Genesis just guessed this order? The same as if you picked at random the numbers 1 to 10 from a box, and drew them in consecutive order. The chances of doing this on your first try are 1 in 3,628,800! So, to say the writer just happened to list the foregoing events in the right order without getting the facts from somewhere is not realistic.

No wonder that Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and other deep thinkers, believed the Bible was from God!

OK, let's go through what Genesis actually says and compare, shall we?

1) The Earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep.
a. Notice that the Earth already existed.
b. There was a 'deep'. In the original, it was certainly interpreted as water, but we can allow an interpretation as 'space'. In any case, space and the Earth already exist.

2) Light.
a. This is out of order. Light would have existed LONG before the Earth. The Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, while the universe is about 13.7 billion years. There were stars long before the Earth and they would have emitted light.

3) God divided the light from the darkness. Darkness was called Night and light was called Day. This is the first day.
a. This regards darkness as a substance separate from the substance of light. This is wrong.
b. Night and Day happen because of the rotation of the Earth with respect to the sun. But the sun isn't formed until later. This is out of order.

4) God divided the waters by a firmament, calling the firmament 'heaven'. This is the second day.
a. This makes clear that the 'deep' is actually made of water.
b. No firmament has ever been discovered. So this isn't even in the *actual* order.
c. Your quote mistakes this for the formation of an atmosphere, which is clearly wrong.

5) Dry land, grass, seeded plants, fruit trees.
a. Seeded plants existed LONG before flowering plants (and fruit trees are flowering plants)
b. Grass was even later than flowering plants (since grass is, technically a flowering plant).
c. There would have been sea creatures LONG before land plants.

6) Formation of the Sun and Moon
a. The sun would have actually preceded the Earth. This is badly out of order.
b. The Moon would have formed before land plants. This is also badly out of order.
c. The sun is required for Day and Night. Again, badly out of order.

7) Whales, other sea creatures, and winged fowl.
a. In actuality, birds (winged fowl) existed before grass. Again, out of order.
b. There would have been sea creatures in the oceans before land plants.
c. Whales evolved from land animals. Again, way out of order.
d. The first whales evolved long after birds.

8) Land animals. Specifically cattle and those that 'creepeth' on the Earth.
a. There were land animals way before there were flowering plants or grass. Out of order.
b. Modern cattle came after humans (although other bovines existed before, so this is ambiguous)

9) Humans.
Well, I guess this is mostly right.

 

[Kemosloby]

OK, let's go through what Genesis actually says and compare, shall we?

1) The Earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep.
a. Notice that the Earth already existed.
b. There was a 'deep'. In the original, it was certainly interpreted as water, but we can allow an interpretation as 'space'. In any case, space and the Earth already exist.

2) Light.
a. This is out of order. Light would have existed LONG before the Earth. The Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, while the universe is about 13.7 billion years. There were stars long before the Earth and they would have emitted light.

3) God divided the light from the darkness. Darkness was called Night and light was called Day. This is the first day.
a. This regards darkness as a substance separate from the substance of light. This is wrong.
b. Night and Day happen because of the rotation of the Earth with respect to the sun. But the sun isn't formed until later. This is out of order.

4) God divided the waters by a firmament, calling the firmament 'heaven'. This is the second day.
a. This makes clear that the 'deep' is actually made of water.
b. No firmament has ever been discovered. So this isn't even in the *actual* order.
c. Your quote mistakes this for the formation of an atmosphere, which is clearly wrong.

5) Dry land, grass, seeded plants, fruit trees.
a. Seeded plants existed LONG before flowering plants (and fruit trees are flowering plants)
b. Grass was even later than flowering plants (since grass is, technically a flowering plant).
c. There would have been sea creatures LONG before land plants.

6) Formation of the Sun and Moon
a. The sun would have actually preceded the Earth. This is badly out of order.
b. The Moon would have formed before land plants. This is also badly out of order.
c. The sun is required for Day and Night. Again, badly out of order.

7) Whales, other sea creatures, and winged fowl.
a. In actuality, birds (winged fowl) existed before grass. Again, out of order.
b. There would have been sea creatures in the oceans before land plants.
c. Whales evolved from land animals. Again, way out of order.
d. The first whales evolved long after birds.

8) Land animals. Specifically cattle and those that 'creepeth' on the Earth.
a. There were land animals way before there were flowering plants or grass. Out of order.
b. Modern cattle came after humans (although other bovines existed before, so this is ambiguous)

9) Humans.
Well, I guess this is mostly right.

The Earth didn't exist yet if it was without form and void

If you notice in the flood story, there are two types of water in play. There was the water of the Earth, but then later God opened the door from Heaven and water from heaven flooded the earth, after Noah closed all the windows in the Ark it happened.

Also when God said let there be light, everything lit up, Then he divided the night and the day. The light went to Heaven and the darkness for the Earth. . The first light, we didn't get any of that. "we dwell in darkness" just the sun and stars for light.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

How could I conclude that Genesis 2:4 use of the word ' day ' means a 24-hour day for all 6 creative days.

Young earth creationists (YEC) and unbelievers have no problem understanding that the biblical creation story indicates literal days. The third group are the Christians that accept that evolution occurred over deep time and not as Genesis describes, but still believe in a creation act, albeit over a prolonged period, a variation on old earth creationism (OEC). These three groups treat the Genesis account differently:

• The YEC says that the Bible is literally correct and that the scientists are wrong.

• The OEC says that evolutionary scientists are at least partially correct*, and so calls the biblical account an allegory, not an error.

• The unbeliever says that the science is correct and the Bible incorrect.

These reflect the state of mind of each group. The first two simply cannot come to any conclusion that includes the Bible being wrong. That is not an option.

Calling the creation story an allegory presumes that its writers knew that no such thing had happened and that they were fabricating an account with a hidden meaning - perhaps political or moral. Gulliver's Travels is an allegory, meaning that its author, Swift, realized that he was writing fiction intended to make a political statement about contemporary England in which each element of the allegory represents something from history known to the author.

"One clear example of Swift's use of political allegory is the Rope Dancers, who are Lilliputians seeking employment in the government, All candidates are asked to dance on the rope and whoever jumps the highest without falling is offered a high office . Very often the current ministers are asked to dance to show their skills . For instance, Flimnap, the treasurer, is required to dance on a tight rope to show his superiority to other in this respect. This jumping game may sound innocent to the children, however, politically it significance is far from innocent. Obviously, Swift makes a satire on the way in which political offices were distributed among the candidates by George I. Flimnap stands for Sir Robert Walpole the prime minister of England. Dancing on a tight rope symbolizes Walpole's skill in parliamentary tactics and political intrigues. In general, Swift wants to infer that England's system is arbitrary and corrupted." Political Allegory In Gulliver's Travels

That's allegory. The creation story doesn't meet that criterion inasmuch as its authors could not possibly have had any concept of a truth for which their story was symbolic. That's clearly an idea added after the fact to rescue the Bible account from being called wrong once it was understood that it was.

On this basis, we conclude that a day in Genesis was intended to mean 24 hours just as it says. There is no indication that the story was intended to be symbolic, which fact is clearly indicated when that is the case as with sheep versus goats, the prodigal son, and seeds taking root or being blown off.

* (OECs/mainstream Christians still don't accept Darwin's contention or implication that the process is blind and undirected, that there was no plan to create man, and that notwithstanding his unique talents, that man is not a fundamentally different kind of living thing than other living things as is implied by the notion that only he has a soul, only he is made in the image of a god, and only he matters to this god, so they don't really accept evolutionary theory, but they accept as much as they can without compromising core Christian doctrine)

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Also, to me at Genesis 1:5 God calls the ' daylight ' hours as ' day '. We know 'daylight hours' are a portion of a 24 hour day and Not 24 hours of daylight.

That pretty much seals the case for the six days being six 24-hour days. In English, we would say that a day comprises one period of continuous daylight and one of continuous darkness. These are two definitions of the word "day" with a specific relationship to one another - one is about half of the other - and the context lets us know that this is what was meant

The third meaning, as with "in the day before electric lighting" doesn't make sense in the context of daylight hours. How many daytimes and nighttimes were there in the days before electric power?

 

[Polymath257]

The Earth didn't exist yet if it was without form and void

On the contrary, it *did* exist, but was without form yet.

If you notice in the flood story, there are two types of water in play. There was the water of the Earth, but then later God opened the door from Heaven and water from heaven flooded the earth, after Noah closed all the windows in the Ark it happened.

Yes. He supposedly opened the firmament. Once again, no such thing exists.

Also when God said let there be light, everything lit up, Then he divided the night and the day. The light went to Heaven and the darkness for the Earth.

Don't forget that Heaven is the *firmament*: the thing that separates the two waters.

The point is that the sun, moon, and stars were seen as *fixed* on the firmament. The sky was seen as a solid dome over the Earth: the firmament. This same image is seen in other Biblical verses, although it is also described as a tent spread over the Earth.

. The first light, we didn't get any of that. "we dwell in darkness" just the sun and stars for light.

Not what the actual verses say.

 

[Kemosloby]

On the contrary, it *did* exist, but was without form yet.


Yes. He supposedly opened the firmament. Once again, no such thing exists.


Don't forget that Heaven is the *firmament*: the thing that separates the two waters.

The point is that the sun, moon, and stars were seen as *fixed* on the firmament. The sky was seen as a solid dome over the Earth: the firmament. This same image is seen in other Biblical verses, although it is also described as a tent spread over the Earth.



Not what the actual verses say.

No, that is you trying to explain Heaven, which you haven't seen, by things that you have seen. Interesting that the two things in Genesis, the water and light, are also the two things God will destroy us with. The waters from Heaven in the flood, And the Heavenly fire on the last day, "the brightness of his coming", light from Heaven.

 

[Polymath257]

No, that is you trying to explain Heaven, which you haven't seen, by things that you have seen.

Not at all. Genesis itself describes the firmament as dividing the waters. And the name of that firmament is 'Heaven'.

The whole thing is a myth, so debating the meaning of that myth in the context of today's understanding of the universe just seems anachronistic. Rather silly.

But it is clear that the Biblical description of the universe has the Earth covered by a 'firmament' that divides the waters above from the waters below. The Earth is seen as being placed on pillars holding it up. And there are openings in the firmament that allow water to come in.

Not at all the modern view of he universe.

 

[Kemosloby]

Not at all. Genesis itself describes the firmament as dividing the waters. And the name of that firmament is 'Heaven'.

The whole thing is a myth, so debating the meaning of that myth in the context of today's understanding of the universe just seems anachronistic. Rather silly.

But it is clear that the Biblical description of the universe has the Earth covered by a 'firmament' that divides the waters above from the waters below. The Earth is seen as being placed on pillars holding it up. And there are openings in the firmament that allow water to come in.

Not at all the modern view of he universe.

There are four corners of the Earth too, I think most of us understand that it's a metaphor, like many things in the bible.

 

[Polymath257]

There are four corners of the Earth too, I think most of us understand that it's a metaphor, like many things in the bible.

Yes, but was it considered so by those who wrote it? Probably not.

I think it quite likely that the original authors thought the Earth to be flat, with a dome over it for the sky and four corners. Do you have any evidence otherwise?

 

[Kemosloby]

Yes, but was it considered so by those who wrote it? Probably not.

I think it quite likely that the original authors thought the Earth to be flat, with a dome over it for the sky and four corners. Do you have any evidence otherwise?

Got any evidence for what you think quite likely about?

 

[Polymath257]

Got any evidence for what you think quite likely about?

The prevalence of that viewpoint in the societies in that area at that time. The ancient Hebrews are not the only literate culture and others also wrote about a dome for the sky and the Earth being flat and with corners.

Let me go further. Do you have nay evidence that the ancient Hebrews thought the Earth to be anything but flat before the Greeks started interacting with them?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

The Earth didn't exist yet if it was without form and void

On the contrary, it *did* exist, but was without form yet.

heaven and earth - the phrase can (and, in my view, should) be viewed as a merism.

 

[Kemosloby]

The prevalence of that viewpoint in the societies in that area at that time. The ancient Hebrews are not the only literate culture and others also wrote about a dome for the sky and the Earth being flat and with corners.

Let me go further. Do you have nay evidence that the ancient Hebrews thought the Earth to be anything but flat before the Greeks started interacting with them?

There are other threads on that subject. Started one myself, Flat Earth, fact or fiction. I have decided the Earth started out flat and square, then Evolved into the big blue ball we know today, through Climate Change tm. If you want to debate it, debate it there.

 

[Jainarayan]

According to the bible the world was created roughly 6000 years ago.

The Bible never states that. It was Archbishop James Ussher in the 1600s who took the lives of all the begats and begots and tallied them up. He's the one who came up with the 6,000 years tripe.

 

[Jainarayan]

I often wonder why some Christians work so hard at trying to prove the literalness of the Bible and the existence of God. Whom are they trying to convince, others or themselves? It's sad that people spend so much time trying to prove the literalness of the book that the alleged "one true God" supposedly wrote.

 

[Polymath257]

heaven and earth - the phrase can (and, in my view, should) be viewed as a merism.

Fair enough! But that doesn't address the naming of the firmament 'heaven'. Is that in the original?

 

[Jainarayan]

It must be so frustrating for God:

God: I'm going to make men do lots of hard agricultural work for little benefit.
Man: LOL ... tractors and fertilizer. Go me!
God: I'm going to make childbirth mega-painful.
Woman: LOL ... narcotics. Go me!
God: I'm going to ban tall buildings.
Engineers: LOL ... steel. Go us!
God: I'm going to confuse their languages.
Linguists: LOL ... google translate and foreign language classes. Go us!
God: I'm going to send plagues.
Doctors: LOL ... vaccines. Go us!
God: I'm going to encourage blatant ignorance.
People: LOL ... the internet. Go us!

I can see him tugging at his beard and pulling his hair in frustration.

Maybe even kicking clouds ala Rocket Raccoon and the grass... "These... humans.... are... making... me... beat... up... clouds!!!"

 

[shmogie]

That pretty much seals the case for the six days being six 24-hour days. In English, we would say that a day comprises one period of continuous daylight and one of continuous darkness. These are two definitions of the word "day" with a specific relationship to one another - one is about half of the other - and the context lets us know that this is what was meant

The third meaning, as with "in the day before electric lighting" doesn't make sense in the context of daylight hours. How many daytimes and nighttimes were there in the days before electric power?

Isn't a day determined by one rotation of the earth ? Could not an omnipotent God have an abiity to effect this ? One of the planets, i don't remember which has a day (one complete rotation, of something like 35 earth days) just say'n