Science vs. Creationism

[Bawse Dawg]

 

[Nate505]

I've read the Bible perhaps six times cover to cover

I'm sorry.

 

[Zulu]

During the fifth creative “day,” the Creator proceeded to fill the oceans and the atmospheric heavens with a new form of life—“living souls”—distinct from vegetation.

Interestingly, biologists speak, among other things, of the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom, and they divide these into sub-classifications. The Hebrew word translated “soul” means “a breather.” The Bible also says that “living souls” have blood. Therefore, we may conclude that creatures having both a respiratory system and a circulatory system—the breathing denizens of the seas and heavens—began to appear in the fifth creative period.—Genesis 1:20; 9:3,*4.

On the sixth “day,” God gave more attention to the land. He created “domestic” animals and “wild” animals, these being meaningful designations when Moses penned the account. (Genesis 1:24) So it was in this sixth creative period that land mammals were formed.

Day Five was marked by the creation of the first nonhuman souls on earth. Not just one creature purposed by God to evolve into other forms, but literally swarms of living souls were then brought forth by divine power. It is stated: “God proceeded to create the great sea monsters and every living soul that moves about, which the waters swarmed forth according to their kinds, and every winged flying creature according to its kind.” Pleased with what He had produced, God blessed them and, in effect, told them to “become many,” which was possible, for these creatures of many different family kinds were divinely endowed with the ability to reproduce “according to their kinds.”—Ge 1:20-23.

Plants do gas exchange, they take in Carbon Dioxide and release molecular Oxygen!! They also have a circulatory system the xylem and phloem...

Also there are many members on the animal kingdom with out blood...


Soo ya!!!

 

[Zulu]

I find your detailed exposition here, and in your preceding entries, both knowledgeable and interesting. I've read the Bible perhaps six times cover to cover, and gone over the Genesis account probably a hundred or more times. Coming from an LDS background, I also have Joseph Smith's "inspired" versions of it, which in themselves are of three kinds. . . . one account renders a two-phase story where the first phase is a spiritual creation and the second phase is a temporal, which is to say, a physical 'this world' creation. Together with an "inspired translation" which purports to fix any problems in translation. . .

The net effect of an LDS perspective is we wonder why JS didn't fix the "day" definition by resorting to a word like "epoch" in it's place, wondering why if the Genesis story is an allegory in the first place and the fact being that we and other life were brought here from other planets, JS didn't just expand the story to include those "facts", wondering why JS said the earth was 5 billion years in it's course, wondering what else we just haven't been told, etc etc etc.

Still, I have long recognized the generality of the Genesis account being largely compatible with the geologic record and what we scientifically can surmise about the history of our planet from it's inception as a gathering center for gas and rock in a favorable orbit around the sun. . . .

Genesis alludes to the gas/rock phase, then to the liquid surface phase and finally to the emergence of dry land. Considering the amount of carbon dioxide in the equation, the first "sea"/atmosphere would have been pretty dense. Before photosynthesis became an established force in the equation, most of the oxygen was probably consumed in the upper crust as oxide rock, the sulfur being the first removed and deposited in the rock of lower layers with more metallic content. . . .

Before the thick atmosphere was cleared by chemical reaction removing vast amounts of carbon dioxide gas, there would have been no such thing as "daylight" or "days" . . . . . nope, no way is the Genesis account just stupid or something. Anyone with a mind for science has to recognize the validity of the basic story. . . .

plants, photosynthesis had to come first, in the developing seas and then on land. . . . then came the fish and animals. . . . and last perhaps of all, us humans. The Genesis account gets all that right.

Plants came later.... You had cyano bacteria and other single cellular organisms that did photosynthesis that filled our earth with its concentration if molecular oxygen!!!

 

[babe]

I rather think the effort to understand the Bible, and reading it, are some of the better days of my life. I get it that some people think there are bigger fish to fry.

for Jf0124, I get it that the pious folks around you can be intolerant or offensive, and you might be trying to carve out some ground you can stand on. And I get it that you are a serious student of science with some information at hand that can challenge others' opinions. And this is a good place to lay out your views.

Your response above, however, raises some questions in my mind on the issue of perspective and maturity. I surely don't imagine that the God of the Universe, who created us and gave us life in the conditions we are in, is really focused on one relatively inconsequential maladjustment in our conduct. Sure we are given a drive in favor of procreation, and surely God would think purposed use of our drives is better than relatively purposeless uses/abuses. I think in the larger view, having a kid counts more in the eyes of God, oh probably ten orders of magnitude. But even in that scale we often fail to raise our kids in a way that would show our respect for life.

The greatest argument, in my mind, in favor of the idea/belief in "God" is the stunning realization that God cares about us, and tries to nurture life as His primary mission.

On the issue of maturity, I am realizing more and more as years go by that it's a wonderful quality that empowers us to let a lot of stuff just roll off and not bother us, and having an abiding self-respect is essential to that. It eliminates the needless impulse to just diss other people who are different or who don't just appreciate us as we might wish.

Evolution does not bother me. I was at one time a student of Mario Capecci and found his lectures compelling. If we can play "God" in a laboratory today, I'm sure our creator can use the same or better principles. . .. and has done so across many planets like ours. So when I find "evolutionay anomalies" or curious information about unparalleled life forms, I don't even hesitate to realize that in all likelihood, these things were not all created in a day, but rather in a process of time probably exceeding our cellular "big bang" universe. The larger reality, in my imagination, would make the known universe a tiny little blip of light on a 3-D map some cubic miles in size.

In the language of early LDS writers, the word "endless" is resorted to when discussing "God" or the heavens. . . . .

 

[babe]

Plants came later.... You had cyano bacteria and other single cellular organisms that did photosynthesis that filled our earth with its concentration if molecular oxygen!!!

I won't argue this point. . . . . we still have these life forms in underwater volcanic plumes. .. . .

I did vaguely mention the element sulfur and the sulfide zone found in plutonic rock. I have not heard of "plants" that utilize SO2, no trees nor sagebrush nor grass at least, though we have some fairly different alternatives for classifying single cellular life "plant" or "animal". Some have CO2 photosynthesis onboard, some don't. Using SO2 and as an energy-transfer series is a great trick, but don't these organisms also have carbon compounds, proteins and DNA in their essential chemistry???? If so, they are reducing carbon dioxide one way or another.

 

[MVP]

. 21 And God proceeded to create the great sea monsters and every living soul that moves about, which the waters swarmed forth according to their kinds, and every winged flying creature according to its kind.

Well Pearl's version said whales and not great sea monsters right? And your version still says winged creatures before land animals. So you agree that your story tells about whales and birds being first before reptiles and other land creatures correct? Which is not true as far as fossil records and carbon dating goes. Bible as well says Earth was created first and then God made stars. Which is not true again as we know for sure that there are billions of stars older then Earth.

 

[babe]

Well Pearl's version said whales and not great sea monsters right? And your version still says winged creatures before land animals. So you agree that your story tells about whales and birds being first before reptiles and other land creatures correct? Which is not true as far as fossil records and carbon dating goes. Bible as well says Earth was created first and then God made stars. Which is not true again as we know for sure that there are billions of stars older then Earth.

There are some differences in the terms used that arise "in translation", and it's probably a stretch to expect technical terms to be correctly applied by shepherds and plowboys across the hundreds of years between Moses and the attempt under Solomon's orders to gather the remnants of old writings and merge them together with the faithful folklore. . .. into a cohesive and compelling "faithful" narrative.

I won't choke on the fact that Bible puts some things in the fifth day, and others in the sixth day, and that it doesn't fit the fossil record exactly. . . .

Today, after only 240 years roughly speaking we Americans can't get it straight that our Constitution was a compact between sovereign states with a Federal government that was limited to specific defined powers. . . .

And, considering the probably murky primeval skies, which had more pollution generally than even Shanghai today, I can see where some anthropocentric shepherds might think the stars came later. They thought, afterall, that stars were little lanterns, not suns. . . .

 

[MVP]

There are some differences in the terms used that arise "in translation", and it's probably a stretch to expect technical terms to be correctly applied by shepherds and plowboys across the hundreds of years between Moses and the attempt under Solomon's orders to gather the remnants of old writings and merge them together with the faithful folklore. . .. into a cohesive and compelling "faithful" narrative.

I won't choke on the fact that Bible puts some things in the fifth day, and others in the sixth day, and that it doesn't fit the fossil record exactly. . . .

Today, after only 240 years roughly speaking we Americans can't get it straight that our Constitution was a compact between sovereign states with a Federal government that was limited to specific defined powers. . . .

And, considering the probably murky primeval skies, which had more pollution generally than even Shanghai today, I can see where some anthropocentric shepherds might think the stars came later. They thought, afterall, that stars were little lanterns, not suns. . . .

And it leads to simple question. Why we would take myths written by uneducated shepherds thousands of years ago seriously?

 

[babe]

And it leads to simple question. Why we would take myths written by uneducated shepherds thousands of years ago seriously?

which for many leads to another question. . . . why would we take our own myths seriously???

Some would note that obviously I don't take those myths seriously. I'm not really up here pounding on a fundamentalist pulpit raising the Bible up in the and declaring it the spirit-blreathed infallible innerrant Word of God, the position of "faith" many would take, and they would criticize me for my failure to supply something of that character. . . . well, actually they just don't believe God would contradict Himself by making a new statement.. . ..

However, the reason I can live with a conscience of my own comes from an experience I find comparable to men of faith of other ages, times, and cultures. While I don't feel to call my belief infallible, I would think the God I believe I know would give you the same kind of knowledge if you went directly to Him with your questions, and felt to give Him a chance to give you understandable answers. I feel a kinship of spirit with others who have taken God seriously. . . . shepherds who didn't need exact scientific knowledge like you may have before they would say a prayer, or love their Maker.

In the larger scheme of things, I don't think I am much better informed for all we can know from science, than those shepherds. I accept my condition, and I can still feel to reverence the same God those shepherds did. Obviously, I find other things than technical expertise in science important to my faith. . . .

And I do most seriously believe that God would want us to make that fundamental choice on the basis of love rather than scientific fact.

Most importantly, I believe that God is willing to let us run in this life, and learn all we can, even make mistakes. . . even go wrong for years and decades on our own thinking, until perhaps we might turn and look for Him somehow. . . . and that when we do that, God has made a way for us to come Home, and be forgiven for everything we didn't know, and be loved in a condition still pretty ignorant for all we still won't know.

The Christians have this song. . . .

"He loved me ere I knew Him, and all my love is due Him":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8ajtJtNXF4

 

[babe]

When I read the Bible, and find say the story of a seriously-afflicted woman in a pressing crowd reaching out in faith to touch the robes of Jesus, and being healed in an instant, I am not reading about something that is a myth to me, but something I can relate to from my own experience. Jesus turned and asked who touched Him, and his friends wondered why he would ask a question like that in a pressing crowd, but he knew something had gone out from Him. Just as I know on one and more occasion, something came to me from Him.

So who am I? What reason would God have to care about me? I found it just unanswerably amazing to know God does care, and would do such a thing for me. For what reason? Why not everybody? I don't know. All I know is that He did it for me. And all I can do is admit that central fact of my life to anyone who would want to know.

I was both totally blind and totally paralyzed on that day, no less afflicted than any story of any healing that Jesus did during His mortal time on earth as found told in the Bible. . . .

I don't think I'm fundamentally different in any way from anyone who doesn't know as I know, except maybe that God would like some people to know what He has done for all of us. . . .something far more enduring and necessary than my eyesight and walking in the broader scheme of our existence.

If we will turn and look for Him, he will come to us and show us what we need to know. . . . principally that we are loved. Loved with a love that goes so far beyond our life in this world that it can make everything we suffer here pass away like a moment of discomfort forgotten as a trifle. . . . for the transcending power of that love. And if we should never have experienced a day of not knowing that, and needing to seek it, we would never be able to value it. . . .

So somehow, our little journey in the dark in this life is meant to give us the time and space to learn, and we will come through it with a kind of knowledge that transcends scientific facts. . . . . and means much more than we can imagine. . . .

We are all blind, but we will all see someday. . . .

But we are also given something more important than that. . . . the chance to choose what we will love. . . . . and be.

 

[colton]

The "6 days to create earth thing doesn't dispute science because days could mean something else." Sounds great and all, but if you weren't trying to incorporate the bible into science than you wouldn't try to find a bunch of loopholes. The 'word of God' shouldn't be trying to trick you.

I don't see the use of symbolism as being "trying to trick" anyone.

Colton, If I came and told you that a virgin had given birth would you believe me just because I told you so?

Depends on what evidences you provided, I suppose.

I'm surprised that a physics professor would think that the laws that govern the universe can be put on hold for a short period of time with divine intervention.

I'm a scientist, but I don't believe science holds all the answers about how the universe works.

Do we have any recordings that gravity has stopped working, or someone has risen from the dead?

Well, the Bible records testimonies of people who said Jesus walked on water, and that Jesus rose from the dead. More recently Joseph Smith testified that the angel Moroni (a resurrected individual) appeared to him and stood in the air above his bed. And that Jesus and God the Father appeared to him in a column of light over his head. So yes, we certainly have recordings of such things happening--but as in the hypothetical case you presented above (you telling me me a virgin had given birth), people need to judge for themselves how credible they find these records/testimonies.

I'm not a huge fan of what Hantlers believes, but hey he is all in. People who grew up religious then later in life just found so much evidence to contradict their beliefs so they try to cram it all into one thing. You could not have two more incompatible things, and I must admit people have done a great job making up stories that seem to make it all work. But come on... The book has been changed throughout history, or the 'meanings' of the words are different? That is just going to great lengths to avoid saying what I think a lot of people know deep down, but they are terrified to admit.
If you wanna believe that stuff it's fine, but don't try to find science in the Bible.

I'm not trying to find science in the Bible, not sure why you would think that. But I think both science and the Bible are 100% compatible if both are properly understood. Any apparent discrepancies come about because we either do not fully understand one or the other. (Same thing for the Book of Mormon, for that matter.)