Genesis: an exposition of the text

[Bonky]

1 hour ago, BobRyan said:

As an answer to this? 

The Christian religion claims to have been told the truth from the start - by the Creator of all nature, Creator of all laws of nature, has told us what "is truth". Science has no such assurance. It has to "discover over time" that spontaneous generation of fleas from dust - was total hogwash in science. Just like the helio-centric universe with all the universe revolving around our sun was total hogwash. Science had to discover over time that Othaniel Marsh's bogus horse series (still on display at the Smithsonian) showing smooth transition from Hyrax to horse - was total hogwash. It was creating links "via imagination" that did not exist in real life. The Bible had the right answer all along.

===========================

Is it your claim that the Bible does not claim that the fleas, the hyrax, the horse came from God - but rather evolved so that we can have such horse-from-hyrax stories as a possible option according to the Bible?? really??

No, I was stating that in your examples where early scientific claims were off base, it wasn't the Bible that came to the rescue it was more science or data.  This is the self correcting nature of science.  We don't get all the answers ahead of time, we have to work towards a better understanding of the subject matter. 

1 hour ago, BobRyan said:

Is that because it is "very Apparent" to you that dust, dirt, rocks and gas will indeed turn into a horse given enough time, chance, luck, 'mount improbable'? "Stories easy enough to tell but they are not science"??

I don't see how this addresses my statement that I see no evidence for the supernatural.

1 hour ago, BobRyan said:

Daniel 7 predicts 1260 years of the dark ages (as does Revelation 11,12,13) that happened exactly as predicted.

Can you provide a good resource for me to check out this prediction?   I'd be looking for something that clearly states what the original prediction was actually predicting and clearly what came to pass to fullfill that.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Bonky

[Bonky]

1 hour ago, Enoch2021 said:

Factually Incorrect...

We sure 'Know' how it didn't; Therefore... we KNOW how it did.  It's called a Disjunctive Syllogism:

There are ONLY Two Possible World-Views (*Ontological Primitives*) that can be held to account for how we (Universe/Us) are here;

Unguided -- Nature (Matter)    or     Guided --- Intelligent Agency (God)

In the context of our discussion when I mentioned "creator God" I was referring to the theistic God that created the Universe and interacts with mankind.  If you think about it, our Universe *could* be created but created accidentally or unintentionally.  Or the Universe could have been created by a being that doesn't care or concern itself with our plight. 

 

Also the quote you left from George Wald may be inaccurate.  I don't have access to that journal [not paying to get it], but I've encountered two different sites that claim the quote is not to be found.  They stated instead that the journal actually says...

 

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George Wald, Scientific American, September 1958 wrote:The great idea emerges originally in the consciousness of the race as a vague intuition; and this is the form it keeps, rude and imposing, in myth, tradition and poetry. This is its core, its enduring aspect. In this form science finds it, clothes it with fact, analyses its content, develops its detail, rejects it, and finds it ever again. In achieving the scientific view, we do not ever wholly lose the intuitive, the mythological. Both have meaning for us, and neither is complete without the other. The Book of Genesis contains still our poem of the Creation; and when God questions Job out of the whirlwind, He questions us.

Let me cite an example. Throughout our history we have entertained two kinds of views of the origin of life: one that life was created supernaturally, the other that it arose "spontaneously" from nonliving material. In the 17th to 19th centuries those opinions provided the ground of a great and bitter controversy. There came a curious point, toward the end of the 18th century, when each side of the controversy was represented by a Roman Catholic priest. The principle opponent of the theory of the spontaneous generation was then the Abbe Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian priest; and its principal champion was John Turberville Needham, an English Jesuit.

Since the only alternative to some form of spontaneous generation is a belief in supernatural creation, and since the latter view seems firmly implanted in the Judeo-Christian theology, I wondered for a time how a priest could support the theory of spontaneous generation. Needham tells one plainly. The opening paragraphs of the Book of Genesis can in fact be reconciled with either view. In its first account of Creation, it says not quite that God made living things, but He commanded the earth and waters to produce them. The language used is: "let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.... Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind." In the second version of creation the language is different and suggests a direct creative act: "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air...." In both accounts man himself--and woman--are made by God's direct intervention. The myth itself therefore offers justification for either view. Needham took the position that the earth and waters, having once been ordered to bring forth life, remained ever after free to do so; and this is what we mean by spontaneous generation.

This great controversy ended in the mid-19th century with the experiments of Louis Pasteur, which seemed to dispose finally of the possibility of spontaneous generation. For almost a century afterward biologists proudly taught their students this history and the firm conclusion that spontaneous generation had been scientifically refuted and could not possibly occur. Does this mean that they accepted the alternative view, a supernatural creation of life? Not at all. They had no theory of the origin of life, and if pressed were likely to explain that questions involving such unique events as origins and endings have no place in science.

A few years ago, however, this question re-emerged in a new form. Conceding that spontaneous generation doe not occur on earth under present circumstances, it asks how, under circumstances that prevailed earlier upon this planet, spontaneous generation did occur and was the source of the earliest living organisms. Within the past 10 years this has gone from a remote and patchwork argument spun by a few venturesome persons--A. I. Oparin in Russia, J. B. S. Haldane in England--to a favored position, proclaimed with enthusiasm by many biologists.

Have I cited here a good instance of my thesis? I had said that in these great questions one finds two opposed views, each of which is periodically espoused by science. In my example I seem to have presented a supernatural and a naturalistic view, which were indeed opposed to each other, but only one of which was ever defended scientifically. In this case it would seem that science has vacillated, not between two theories, but between one theory and no theory.

That, however, is not the end of the matter. Our present concept of the origin of life leads to the position that, in a universe composed as ours is, life inevitably arises wherever conditions permit. We look upon life as part of the order of nature. It does not emerge immediately with the establishment of that order; long ages must pass before it appears. Yet given enough time, it is an inevitable consequence of that order. When speaking for myself, I do not tend to make sentences containing the word God; but what do those persons mean who make such sentences? They mean a great many different things; indeed I would be happy to know what they mean much better than I have yet been able to discover. I have asked as opportunity offered, and intend to go on asking. What I have learned is that many educated persons now tend to equate their concept of God with their concept of the order of nature. This is not a new idea; I think it is firmly grounded in the philosophy of Spinoza. When we as scientists say then that life originated inevitably as part of the order of our universe, we are using different words but do not necessary mean a different thing from what some others mean who say that God created life. It is not only in science that great ideas come to encompass their own negation. That is true in religion also; and man's concept of God changes as he changes.

Again I don't have access to the journal, so I can't confirm.

[Enoch2021]

5 minutes ago, Bonky said:

If you think about it, our Universe *could* be created but created accidentally or unintentionally. 

Nonsense.  And you ONLY have 2 Choices for How we (Universe/Us) are here.  Nature vs Intelligent Design (God).  

It's a True Dichotomy; To refute, post the 3rd/4th/5th choices...?

 

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Or the Universe could have been created by a being that doesn't care or concern itself with our plight. 

Or the universe could be a speck of dust on a Turtle's back...and it's just Turtles, all the way down.

 

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Also the quote you left from George Wald may be inaccurate.

1.  I provided you a Source for the Quote (Review Pages 175-176)...it's as right as the rain.

2.  It's merely in SUPPORT of a Prima Facie TRUTH, There are ONLY 2 Choices:

Nature/Natural Phenomena vs Intelligent Design (God)

 

To refute, Simple: post the 3rd/4th/5th choices...?

 

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but I've encountered two different sites that claim the quote is not to be found.

Really...Where??  It sure isn't in that Red Herring Fallacy treatise that you posted.

And it doesn't matter anyway.  Your appeal is tantamount to objecting to a reference that says or 'might not' says:

"Rib Eye's come from Cows".  

 

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Again I don't have access to the journal, so I can't confirm.

You actually don't need it, just simple reasoning will get you there.

 

ps.  Are you gonna be answering these anytime soon...

1. 'evolution' What's that...?? Define evolution...?

2. Post the *Scientific Theory* of evolution...?

3. Post the Formal Scientific Hypotheses then *Experiments* that concretized it into a *REAL* Scientific Theory...?

4. Highlight The Independent Variables used in Each TEST...?

If nobody can speak to these 'coherently', how on Earth can it make 'more sense' ??

 

regards

[ARGOSY]

On 4/14/2017 at 4:30 PM, Bonky said:

Therein lies my comfort with science more so than religion.  Science can often [not always] get closer to what isn't true leaving us a better picture of what might be true.  Religion has no interest in uncertainty, it declares what is true and any questioning coming from outside that worldview is often met with ad hominem comments.   I'm not necessarily referring to anyone here, I mean in my experience in general.

I read this and felt it deserved a reply, but not sure how to approach it. Please be patient as I attempt to describe my personal view on science/religion. When one feels God speaking it is a strange feeling you may not have experienced yet. Someone may be at a church service and every word the preacher speaks seems directly pointed at their entire life, and God seems to be personally calling them closer.  Experiences like this can be eternally life changing, a revelation of God where you know with everything in you that the spiritual call is stronger than the limitations of the brain. And it makes sense that our brain is infinitely limited compared to God if God does exist.   Once that communication line is opened, one can never go back to relying on the limitations of this brain because one is communicating with a being so much greater , our own mental limitations become meaningless.

BUT then you find that God is less interested in proving himself, and more interested in faith and love. Even so I love science and truth and accept the truth wherever it comes from. But because I have such confidence that God is truth, I don't have the slightest doubt in an evolution/creation debate that there will be any science that comes close to challenging creationism. And this is always born out, especially Almost every bit of true evidence supports creationism.

But not being a conformist, and not being interested in popularity of my creationist peers I embrace a lot of science and the approximate geologic column and see within it creation (precambrian/Cambrian) the pre-flood world (includes Carboniferous/Permian) the flood (PT boundary), the early post-flood world (Triassic/Jurassic) and then recent history. 

Everything confirms the bible and favors creation over evolution. For example Wikipedia says this about the Cambrian Explosion:

""Almost all present animal phyla appeared during this period.""

 ""The Cambrian explosion has generated extensive scientific debate. The seemingly rapid appearance of fossils in the "Primordial Strata" was noted by William Buckland in the 1840s,^[17] and in 1859 Charles Darwin discussed it as one of the main objections that could be made against the theory of evolution by natural selection.^[18] The long-running puzzlement about the appearance of the Cambrian fauna, seemingly abruptly, without precursor, centers on three key points: whether there really was a mass diversification of complex organisms over a relatively short period of time during the early Cambrian; what might have caused such rapid change; and what it would imply about the origin of animal life. Interpretation is difficult due to a limited supply of evidence, based mainly on an incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures remaining in Cambrian rocks.""

Both the fossil record and genetics favor creation over evolution. The sudden appearance of multiple life-forms with no proof of any gene-adding process to add unique genes to the gene pool. Unique alleles are added, subtle differences that can cause a genetic advantage in a certain gene position, but an entire gene with an entirely new function that adds to fitness has never been observed in nature. So even genetics favors an adapted population with some devolving (lessened complexity), not an increasingly complex set of organisms as implicitly claimed by evolutionists.

Facts are facts, whether you are a believer or not, all true facts/true science will not contradict faith in God. There is a little falisifed science (not much) and there is a lot of misinterpreted science, but when one goes directly to the core evidence it supports creationism.

Edited April 24, 2017 by ARGOSY

[Bonky]

28 minutes ago, ARGOSY said:

I read this and felt it deserved a reply, but not sure how to approach it. Please be patient as I attempt to describe my personal view on science/religion. When one feels God speaking it is a strange feeling you may not have experienced yet. Someone may be at a church service and every word the preacher speaks seems directly pointed at their entire life, and God seems to be personally calling them closer.  Experiences like this can be eternally life changing, a revelation of God where you know with everything in you that the spiritual call is stronger than the limitations of the brain. And it makes sense that our brain is infinitely limited compared to God if God does exist.   Once that communication line is opened, one can never go back to relying on the limitations of this brain because one is communicating with a being so much greater , our own mental limitations become meaningless.

I was an avid follower of the teachings of the Bible for many years of my life and never had any grand experience.  I felt the warm fuzzy sensation of worshiping [singing in unison] with others, I've felt the warm embrace of like minded individuals welcoming me with open arms.  Life changing experience that I can't fully comprehend...no.  

31 minutes ago, ARGOSY said:

BUT then you find that God is less interested in proving himself, and more interested in faith and love. Even so I love science and truth and accept the truth wherever it comes from. But because I have such confidence that God is truth, I don't have the slightest doubt in an evolution/creation debate that there will be any science that comes close to challenging creationism. And this is always born out, especially Almost every bit of true evidence supports creation

I guess for many the idea of faith, a token of trust in lieu of hard solid evidence, is considered something to be valued and encouraged.  The problem is we see many times when this way of approaching life can lead to disastrous outcomes.  It doesn't seem to me, to be something that we should be encouraging as we know that we [humans] can manufacture emotions and feelings about things; desiring hard evidence is not or should not be something that is viewed as a weakness or a fault.  

4 hours ago, ARGOSY said:

Everything confirms the bible and favors creation over evolution. For example Wikipedia says this about the Cambr

So are you an old earth creationist then?

[Hawkins]

On 4/19/2017 at 0:05 PM, Bonky said:

I don't disagree.  I don't think ANYBODY has a clear answer to the nature [understanding] of our Cosmos and/or the biological life within it.  All I'm saying is that this doesn't give us the right to declare that the answer must be some creator God because it couldn't be anything else.  We don't know enough to say that.   I am no biologist or physicist, but when I read about evolution, it makes more sense to me than do the counter claims of special creation.  

 

It means that you have no truth or you need to believe a witnessing to reach such a truth. You can't stand neutral as long as your own life is concerned. 

 

We believe so because we trust humans such as Moses may have direct contact with someone we call God to get to the conclusion, a conclusion which science cannot refute! More importantly, as long as the biblical claims concern our death or alive which science can never refute, I see no point in rejecting the claims especially under the situation that 10 out of the 12 disciples of Jesus chose to martyr themselves in order to convey the truth of Jesus Christ.

[ARGOSY]

1 hour ago, Bonky said:

I was an avid follower of the teachings of the Bible for many years of my life and never had any grand experience.  I felt the warm fuzzy sensation of worshiping [singing in unison] with others, I've felt the warm embrace of like minded individuals welcoming me with open arms.  Life changing experience that I can't fully comprehend...no.  

I guess for many the idea of faith, a token of trust in lieu of hard solid evidence, is considered something to be valued and encouraged.  The problem is we see many times when this way of approaching life can lead to disastrous outcomes.  It doesn't seem to me, to be something that we should be encouraging as we know that we [humans] can manufacture emotions and feelings about things; desiring hard evidence is not or should not be something that is viewed as a weakness or a fault.  

So are you an old earth creationist then?

I do believe in a recent creation of biological life. And an older earth.

Edited April 24, 2017 by ARGOSY

[Hawkins]

On 4/19/2017 at 11:53 AM, Bonky said:

I notice in your examples it was more science that corrected itself, not the Bible correcting science.   Science has no assurance that we can answer all questions or explore all possibilities, I'm very ok with that. 

This tells us nothing about whether the contents are true or if so to what degree.  What assurance do I have that there aren't any exaggerations, tall tales, legends etc that were written down?

See my point above. 

And I don't see a correlation with what the Bible proclaims and what I perceive in reality.  I don't see an inkling of evidence that the supernatural exists.   I don't even see Christians really closely obeying/listening to the words of Christ.  In America we can't wait to bomb our enemies, christians divorce pretty regularly etc.  I'm not seeing great words of wisdom that are handed down to us that we couldn't figure out ourselves. 

I am very open however to new information or new insights that I don't currently have. 

The point is , it's never about this reality which you can perceive. Religion is almost exclusively about the next reality lying ahead. And the only way which could possibly reach such a "next reality" is by putting trust in human accounts of witnessing. Or what else do you think that you can possibly reach such a truth. For the sake or argument let's assume that afterlife exists, then how can you reach this truth. Your perception of this reality never leads to any possibly truth of your next reality! That's the point!

[rjs310]

I've had some serious debates with evolutionists and theistic evolutionists.  One thing evolutionists love to point out is that evolution is different than abiogenesis which is the origination of life.  Evolution only deals with what happened after life began.  They only argue from the standpoint of evidence of evolution.  They do not have to provide "proof" as science does not prove anything.  Proof is for mathmatics not science.  Theistic evolutionists fall back on evidence of science as well. Claiming the evidence shows that God used evolution as his method of making all there is.  He created the original life and then set in.motion the evolutionary process.  

And as others have mentioned they have no scriptural evidence to support that.  In order to make sense out of scripture they must then allegorize Genesis and use all kinds in interpretive gymnastics to accommodate their stance.  

[Enoch2021]

59 minutes ago, rjs310 said:

I've had some serious debates with evolutionists and theistic evolutionists.  One thing evolutionists love to point out is that evolution is different than abiogenesis which is the origination of life.  Evolution only deals with what happened after life began.  They only argue from the standpoint of evidence of evolution.  They do not have to provide "proof" as science does not prove anything.  Proof is for mathmatics not science.  Theistic evolutionists fall back on evidence of science as well. Claiming the evidence shows that God used evolution as his method of making all there is.  He created the original life and then set in.motion the evolutionary process.  

And as others have mentioned they have no scriptural evidence to support that.  In order to make sense out of scripture they must then allegorize Genesis and use all kinds in interpretive gymnastics to accommodate their stance.  

'evolution' doesn't and NEVER existed.  I'll show you, ask them these...

1. 'evolution' What's that...?? Define evolution...?

2. Post the *Scientific Theory* of evolution...?

3. Post the Formal Scientific Hypotheses then *Experiments* that concretized it into a *REAL* Scientific Theory...?

4. Highlight The Independent Variables used in Each TEST...?

The world's leading 'evolutionary biologists' can't answer them.  It's quite the sight to behold 

 

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They do not have to provide "proof" as science does not prove anything.  Proof is for mathmatics not science.

That's "wiki" Horse Pucky:

So we can't prove anything in Physics and Biochemistry --- "The Physical" ?? ... we can only PROVE the "IMMATERIAL" (Mathematics), eh?

Hmmm, So these aren't "PROVEN"...

a. Unless it is hindered purposely; in "Nature"....Heat Flows from Hot to Cold (*Always!*), Energy Concentrated to Dispersed (*Always!*), High GAS Pressure to Low Pressure (*Always!*)

b. Nature/Natural Law CAN NOT create or destroy matter/energy.

c. Vitamin C deficiency in Humans results in Scurvy.

d. Protein Secondary Structure is the result of Primary Structure and Hydrogen Bonding.

e. Insulin Deficiency in Type 1 Diabetics results in Keto-Acidosis.

f.  INFORMATION is ALWAYS sourced by Intelligent Agency, Without Exception!

g. Life ONLY comes from LIFE.

h. ONLY the Existence of "Which-Path Information" COLLAPSES the Wave Function.

i. The Laws of Physics and Chemistry contain no Symbolic Logic Functions.

j. Wrong Handed Stereoisomers DESTROY DNA/RNA/Protein Secondary Structure.

k. DNA: Transcription, Translation, Replication; Glycolysis, Krebs Cycle/Electron Transport Chain, Gluconeogenesis, Flagellum, Cilia...ect ect ) and Bicycles are *ALL*, IN TOTO... *Irreducibly Complex* !!!

I could go on for MONTHS !!  So you're saying, we're just not sure??  

But: 2 - 4 = -2  is " PROVED " ??  

 

regards