The Divine Creator, Master of heaven and earth, reached forth His hand and blessed the whole, and Adam and Eve began their life at the Garden of Eden in that primeval happiness and intimacy with God, of which their sin was so soon to deprive them and the world.
The Paradise (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Though we do have no knowledge about the where about of the Garden of Eden except from the biblical description which places it amid four rivers and names the Euphrates as one of these. Students have usually guessed its location between Ur, Calneh, near the mouth of the Euphrates, a region where the garden might include seashore, river-meadows, and mountains, and the ancient coastline of the Persian gulf.
Noah’s landing place, Mt. Ararat, the centre from which his descendants went forth for the second peopling of the earth, is fairly settled upon as being in the great culminating range of Armenia, the tremendous peaks which tower at the Euphrates’ source. The site of Babylon or Babel has been definitely established by modern research, as has also that of Ur, the city whence Abraham set out upon his journeyings.
There were the waters and by time the dry land appeared and became more and more coloured by plants or cultivated, step by step developing to its present outline. Throughout history there came people who wanted to notate these developments and how man evolved in that big system of things. These successive steps, as detailed in the Bible narrative, are told also by the investigations of science, which show that our globe must indeed have progressed through just this development. Though the biggest fault many people make is that they all want to see it happening in their notation of time, forgetting that God has an other view of minutes, hours and days.
2 Peter 3:8 (ESV): 8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
It is with this knowledge that we should look at the creation of the earth and at the evolution of our world which is still continuing to evolve and undergoing many changes, regularly presenting to mankind for him newly discovered animals and plants.
It was of the productions of God’s fourth day, the sun and moon, with all their wonder and splendour entered the Bible narrative. Those elements at the sky could be used by man as signs. The lights in the firmament of the heaven were given by the Creator so that man could divide the day from the night and have them for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years. That is to say, man from a very early period measured his days by the sunlight, his weeks and months by the changes of the moon, and his years by the shifting of the sun and stars. By them he knew the coming of spring and fall, and when to plant and when to reap his crops. They served as guides to travellers by land and sea.
In the wording of the writer of the Bereshith or the Beginning of everything we can find some indication of multiplying elements and even abundance.
Genesis 1:20 (ESV): 20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”
Psalm 104:25 (ESV): 25 Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great.
Genesis 8:17 (ESV): 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”
Genesis 9:1 (ESV): And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Inner left panel of the triptych of the Garden of Eartly Delights. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As the culmination of the sixth day of effort, God had created man, formed from “the dust of the ground” the first male and as a companion who might be with him and share his joy in God’s teaching and uplifting, from the rib of man the first female was created, who also could reproduce and bring forth new generations. Both were made in God’s image, with intellect, with an eternal soul, even with something of God’s own creative power, able to create new things.
God was even willing to give responsibility in the hands of man and gave him the right to give the things names. As such in the glow of God’s inspiration Adam named them; and he was given dominion over them, and dwelt among them as their ruler, in peace and joy. At first the beasts had no fear of Adam, nor of one another; for as yet death had not come into the world. Adam did not live, as do we, by meat, by devouring other lives.
The first book of the Bible mentions the need of the first man to have other company than those animals. God could see that it was not so good that man was alone.
Genesis 2:18 (ESV): 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
God’s first charge to man, or perhaps it were better to say the first wisdom He instilled into him, His first fatherly counsel, was that man should live on the fruit and herbs, that his “meat” should be of these alone.
Genesis 2:20–23 (ESV): 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Those first human beings had no shame and found no reason to be clothed. Naked they were part of a universe that was in unison with God’s Wishes. Together they could enjoy early happy days of innocence, ignorant of any evil, because there was not yet such thing. They were at first happy in the presence of God, conversing with Him as with a father, conscious of His ever-presence and at ease and security therein.
God, in His love and joy for His beautiful new creatures had made them a garden, a beautiful paradise for their dwelling in which they could dwell freely. Out of the ground made the Elohim God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food, in a marvellous garden surrounded by four great rivers .
God had provided only one or two restrictions. They had to follow His Words and should not eat from a certain tree, which would bring the eater of its fruit, the knowledge of good and bad. The writer of the Torah (or The Law) use symbolically a creeping animal, the serpent. Also later the serpent has usually been treated by artists symbolically to represent that temptation that came over man. The serpent’s cunning words suggest human nature arguing with itself; the baser, beastly parts stirring the mind to ambition and rage and fear.
The more sophisticated ‘animal‘ or ‘possessor of an anima or soul‘ got so much taken by the inner voices that his own thinking got so strong that he dared to go against the Wishes of the Most High. The 1st Adam and the first mannin or first woman could see that their Maker could do everything and had all wisdom. Would it not be nice for them to have such wisdom and power themselves?
The idea that when they would eat of that forbidden tree, they would become like God “… ye shall be as gods” was so much carrying them away from the Will of God that they did not mind trying it.
Genesis 3:5–7 (ESV): 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
As the first human beings had chosen to go against the Will of God and as such went wrong or sinned, their offspring became ‘infected’ as it were by that attitude of them.
Genesis 3:16–24 (ESV): 16 To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband,and he shall rule over you.”
17 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
When we look at the universe we can see that from chaos came order. But straight from the beginning we also get some idea of the Creator Himself. We come to know how He places everything one after an other making also clear differences between things, like darkness and light, which pleased Him. Order and regularity came part of our universe, having different moments, time dived by day and night.
Tetragrammaton YHWH Je-Ho-Vah, God’s Name illuminating
The myths humans created for themselves did not give any clear explanation of the reasons why and how. The eternal Creating Force, the AdonaiElohimHashemJehovah, on the other hand showed the world His love by giving it all possibilities, creating a place for each, plants with seeds for the earth (3° Phase), animals for in the waters and for in the heavens (5° Phase). After those animals in the waters God let them come on land to find their way over there and all sorts of wild animals came into being (6° Phase). When we look at the evolution presented by many scientists the Bible is not in contradiction with their findings.
Problem with man is that they expect everything to have been already like they see it today. They expect human beings to have been as well physically as psychologically formed like man today? They forget that it is their pride which makes them not accepting that they themselves had to develop and are still developing.
Question should not be how many minutes, hours, days were literally used, but how and why God did it a certain way. We should come to accept that the Divine Creator did it His Way, with a preconceived plan. God created everything according to His Wish and out of love. The saying that God saw what he had made and found it nice, finding it good, indicates that God considered it sufficient and according to His Wishes.
In the 6th phase of creation, having wrigglingorgansandcrawling bodies God also wanted a reflection or mirror image of Himself. Several Christians do want us to believe that God created after the animals an imperfect being unable to follow God His commandments, but when we look at the words of God, I do not think so. Because after God had created man in His image He, like in the previous phases was pleased with what He had created and said it was good.
Like God was pleased with His work we should also be pleased with our work when we try to do our best and when we want to live according to the Will of God. Having God, every time He established something, looking at it and being satisfied, it tells us that God has a feeling and can be pleased with what happens.
God being satisfied and closing each day with pleasures shows us that God found it was perfect, so the elements where like God wanted them to be. Many times it is said that the Elohim saw that it was excellent. If things would not have been like God wanted it this would not have been written down.
Elohim employed two intense lights, the larger sunlight to rule the day, and the lesser moonlight to rule the night; the stars He made too in the cosmos of heaven to shine light upon the earth. (Genesis 1:18)
Elohim blessed great serpents, and every living creature that creeps and moves, which the waters teemed forth abundantly, after their species, and every winged flying creature after its species; and Elohim inspected and it was valuable in estimation. (Genesis 1:21) To those things God said to branch off and multiply, filling waters of the seas, space in the heavens, space on earth. Clearly in God His Plan creatures had to increase. He wanted a universe full of living creatures. (Genesis 1:22,24)
In the 1st book of Moses, the Bereshith we find a picture of the total beginning, the beginning of the universe. At the end of it an opening is made to the next chapter where is been given a resume of the last creation by the birth of the cosmos and the earth when they were accomplished, in the day when Jehovah Elohim fashioned the earth and cosmos, and every organism of the field before it existed in the soil, and every green plant of the field before it sprouted: for Jehovah Elohim had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to work the soil. Then there ascended a cloudiness from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the land. As in the first chapter again we hear that it is God’s Voice demanding the earth to bring forth the living creature after their species, animals, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their species; and it was firmly done. (Genesis 2:4-6; 1:24-25) And Elohim made the creatures of the earth after their species, and beasts after their species, and every thing that creeps upon the earth after their species; and Elohim inspected and it was valuable in estimation.
It is interesting to note that only after all those creeping things the Elohim spoke to fashion a being in His image, and after His likeness. Again we hear the created element had to be in the likeness of God. You may wonder if God would make something which would dissatisfy Him? though there are may TrinitarianChristians who want us to believe the man God created was so imperfect it is impossible for him to follow the Will of God. If that would be so, would God have created him and be satisfied? I do not think so.
Creatures in the created surroundings, nature given to plants, animals and man.
Like with the previous creatures the living creature made in God’s image had enough elements similar to the Godly qualities that God looked at these creatures and also was pleased and asked them to multiply too. He even was so pleased with them and placed them in His plan of creation that He gave them dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over the beasts, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (Genesis 1:27)
So Elohim created man in His own image, in the image of Elohim was mankind created; male and female fashioned He them. And Elohim blessed them, and Elohim spoke to them, asking them to be fruitful and become many, and fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of the sky, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28-29)
Throughout history man shall have to remember that the Adonai has given His Word to make the things coming into being but also giving it the ability to have every green plant bearing seed, which is upon the surface of all the earth, and every tree, containing the produce of the tree bearing seed, to the living creeping or flying creatures it being for food. (Genesis 1:30-31) It was done and the Elohim inspected every thing that He had accomplished, and behold, it was valuable in estimation. And the sunset and the sunrise were the sixth phase of His creation.
Be Strong, Be Bold (hrhome.wordpress.com)
Read what Elohim said directly to Joshua after Moses died.
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Did you catch the fact that Elohim commanded him to be strong and bold? It wasn’t simply a suggestion, it was an order. Let’s strive to follow in those footsteps, keep our eyes on YHWH, be careful to obey His Word, and live in His strength.
11. Babylonian Talmud of the Pharisee & the Zohar (12160.info)
For the rabbis oral Torah was an integral part of the Torah given to Moses on Sinai, but it was passed on orally through the generations.”[7] The stress upon the Oral Torah by the Pharisees is what caused the Pharisees to confront Jesus about His disciples breaking the “tradition of the elders.”
Reasons of Misotheist and Atheist (new.exchristian.net)
Greek mythology is different, for natural disasters are made by them
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Islam teaches that everything is God’s will; therefore Allah wills it not to intervene…always.
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Scientists observations suggests that stability on universe is an illusion
a1. Eternal chaos of the cosmos only shows us that by time and chance, life on earth or on other planets (only a theory) will eventually die
a2. Some creationist scientists’ argument about perfectly tuned universe for the sake of life is invalid for by time and chance life on earth flourished but also by time and chance it will die.
b. Allowing war, chaos, and evil
a1. Maybe God/gods is/are sick psychopaths who loves to watch action movies on real life
The story of Hannah could easily become our story. As Hannah was quietly crying out to God in her distress, another person (Eli), who was watching from a distance, wrongly judged her as being a drunkard. He misjudged both her character and her situation horribly.
Thursday, 5 March 2015 : 2nd Week of Lent (First Reading) (petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com)
This is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH! He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness.”
Desert Island Texts: The Shema (jewishnews.co.uk)
The first word with its complexity of meaning between ‘hear’, ‘listen’ and ‘understand’ already provides a deepening into the centrality of my being, helps me to become myself, to nourish my soul – the soul of ‘Israel’, that is, the angelic side of Jacob, the heel, the trickster and I am both. Can I be a Jew on a desert island, without community, without others? The word ‘Israel’ will give me much to ponder, of my history and the history of my people. I shall wonder what might be happening in the world outside, to Israel the state, and in Europe.
Dog Poop And Leash Signs (dogpoopsigns.com)
In New York City, for example, estimates show that there are about 2 million dogs. With just over 8 million human inhabitants, this would mean that roughly 25% are dog owners (assuming of course that no one owns more than one dog). Consider, then, that according to Citizens Committee for NYC, these dogs produce around 275,000 tons of feces per year. That’s 275 pounds per dog. Consequently, NYC streets are like a minefield littered with dog poop. Many a careless pedestrian will notice a funky smell emanating from their feet and only realize they’ve stepped in poop once they tread across the living room carpet. After receiving many complaints, NYC officials took action and passed a statute in 1978 called the Canine Waste Law, threatening a fine for up to $250 for each violation. The code also prohibits dog owners from allowing their pets to poop “on a sidewalk of any public place, on a floor, wall, stairway or roof of any public or private premises used by the public, or on a fence, wall or stairway of a building abutting a public place.” Violators failing to scoop their dog’s poop can be ticketed by authorized employees of NYC’s Departments of Health, Sanitation, or Parks and Recreation.
In the different cultures habiting this planet we can find many symbolicnarratives of how everything came into being. Lots of stories were created to give people an idea how the world might have began and how people first came to inhabit it.
Creation on the exterior shutters of Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (1480–90)
Concerning the myths telling about the beginning of the universe we have to notice that in most of them there is no mention of a ‘oer god’ or ‘primal god’. The primitive gods in the myths all seem to come from something, be it an egg or other element of nature. The rudimentary elements all seem to be ignited by some force or by a reaction to an action.
In most of the creation stories we can find the same element over and over again: first having disorder or chaos and than coming bit by bit more order and structure in things. Most of them seem to agree on the ‘dim’ past or the ‘darkness‘ and ‘chaos‘ there must have been. Only in moderner versions we notice the trend to come to a a static universe with a finite space but all seem to look at it as an unbounded (analogous to the surface of a sphere, which has a finite area but no edges). This spheric idea might perhaps brought the dust-ball, fireball or egg in some stories. people also have been intrigued with darkness and light, intrinsic luminosity or the brightness of an object or surroundings caught the eye and attention. For this reason also in many stories we can find several figures to be spoken of as being a light in this world. Also in Christianity we find such a referral to Jesus for example, him being the light in this world and him being a new creation. (About that light and New Creation later more.)
We always should remember that it are ‘Creation myths‘, stories trying to explain things we human beings can not understand yet? It does not mean that there would not come a time that we shall see more clearly in to the matter. Science develops and more and more people come to see further in history and start finding more out about creation, telling us how things began. We always should keep in mind that those stories about creation are told in metaphorical terms to explain our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a great deal about who we are.
Modern science has propounded many theories as to how the primieval gaseous substance evolved into the present harmony of the universe. These theories may be called scientific cosmogonies; and the account of the origin of the world given in Genesis, i and ii, is styled Mosaic cosmogony. {Cosmogony}
Scientists investigate cosmology with the tools of empiricism and rationality, but creation myths define human reality in very different terms. They were also written in pre-scientific times where the oral story to get most of the people a good idea was more important than the accuracy. Moses in the same way did not want to give a detailed explanation how everything exactly came into being. In a certain way is that not so much of importance for humankind or for how we cope with life. The Book of books is there to give mankind a guide, a manual for life, not a scientific study book.
While creation myths are not literal explications they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They are the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the natural world, to any assumed spiritual world, and to each other. The creation myth acts as a cornerstone for distinguishing primary reality from relative reality, the origin and nature of being from non-being. {Sproul, Barbara C. (1979). Primal Myths. HarperOne HarperCollinsPublishers. ISBN978-0-06-067501-1, p. 6}
The Old Testament story brings us the founding-stone and in the New Testament the evangelist John tries to build further on it and continues in the lines of the First Creation, looking at a New Creation, in both instances having a voice out of darkness bringing light. Moses and John focus on that Voice, uttering words, and by bringing out the Word having the things or persons coming into existence. As such we hear that God spoke and it came into being. There was darkness and God spoke in the darkness and there was light. The Word of God sounded and heavens and earth came into being. In the same way God Spoke and the first living creatures came squirming through waters and earth. Wriggling elements started filling the world, in the air (heavens), on the ground and in the waters.
Science can only give a fairly dry description of the physical processes underlying creation. Science never has any intention to go looking behind the core element of what they can see. They are not primarily interested in looking for a godhead behind everything. They probably shall also not be able to come to the finest details of creation and to reveal God’s role.
Aker, an ancient Egyptian personification of the horizon. Two lions symbolize ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ with the sun-disk rising between the symbolic horizon between them. The hieroglyph for ‘sky’ spans across the top. Based on New Kingdom tomb paintings and the book of the dead. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Jesus also tried people to understand that God His Ways are not catchable for our limited human brain. He also wanted us to reassure us we should not worry too much about certain matters. It is good to investigate things. But by doing our research we may never forget the most important matter in life. Jesus also wanted to sooth his followers reassuring them we can trust The One Who is behind everything, and that He has provided for everything to be able to live and to be part of this creation and shall be fitting in the Plan of God.
Mat 6:24-34 NHEBJE “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon. (25) Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? (26) See the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than they? (27) “And which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment to his lifespan? (28) And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, neither do they spin, (29) yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. (30) But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith? (31) “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ (32) For the Gentiles seek after all these things, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. (33) But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (34) Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Too many Christians are loosing site of the essence of the Word of God, by going to deep into details, wanting to explain those things which are not essential for faith. We do not need to know exactly what came first and how and how it really looked like and what it had to eat or how it ate. It is sufficient to know Who was behind everything and how He let it evolve to come to the situations where it is today and how it shall still evolve in the coming years or centuries. We may not forget that after the prophesied Word War III or Armageddon there shall still be another thousand years, where we shall probably have to face a further evolution.
In the old times it was enough to tell in an easy way how things are. As such we get in Psalm 139 a description by the Psalmist’s own creation in his mother’s womb. A great deal is known about how babies form, and it is clearly through natural processes — but at the same time, Psalm 139:13 describes that God wove the embryo himself. But the Bible doesn’t tell us how God creates things, and Psalm 139:6 suggests that we couldn’t understand even if he told us.
Psa 139:13-16 NHEBJE For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. (14) I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. (15) My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. (16) Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.
God was and is everywhere. No human being, no animal nor plant can hide from Him. God is an all-knowing God without any limitations. We shall have to face our own limitations which are different for each of us.
Psa 139:2-12 NHEBJE You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. (3) You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. (4) For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Jehovah, you know it altogether. (5) You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. (6) This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it. (7) Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? (8) If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! (9) If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea; (10) Even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me. (11) If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me; the light around me will be night;” (12) even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you.
Isa 45:11-13 NHEBJE Thus says Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: “You ask me about the things that are to come, concerning my sons, and you command me concerning the work of my hands! (12) I have made the earth, and created man on it. I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens; and I have commanded all their army. (13) I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will make straight all his ways. He shall build my city, and he shall let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward,” says Jehovah of hosts.
God His word is there for us to receive enough information to continue. While many people would like to know more, that limited information in the Book of books is what God chose to tell us.
Having God’s Word we should be able to find the most essential things for life and should we able to find reasons enough to trust this Divine Creator. With those Words we should have enough building-stones to create our fortress of trust in God. those Words should take us and nit us a life of faith, worthy of the Divine Creator.
Heb 11:1-3 NHEBJE Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. (2) For by this, the elders obtained testimony. (3) By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible.
Mythicism Making Christianity More Meaningful (vridar.org)
He sounds a lot like Thomas Brodie who as a continuing practicing Roman Catholic finds the truth of the Christ Myth adds a new dimension of meaning to his faith. So will those people who imagine that “mythicism” is a plot by angry atheists to destroy Christianity please come to their senses! Some of us really are more interested in exploring the evidence for the sake of understanding. (See also an earlier post of mine: Is the Christ Myth a Threat to the Christian Faith?)
Living by the myths (renewamerica.com)
When one thinks of myths, the mind typically races to those classical tales of the ancient Greek and Roman gods. In the Roman Pantheon were stories of the way the universe, the world, the gods and mankind came into existence. The story of Deucalion and Pyrrha is the Greek myth that supplants the biblical story of Noah and the Flood. Many scholars believe the reference in Genesis chapter 6 to the fame of “mighty men, men of renown,” and their many exploits may be the roots of much classical mythology.Often myths of old were an alteration of what God had actually revealed concerning himself. Distortion, perversion, and counterfeit are the ways of the deceiver, Satan.
However, myths are not exclusive to antiquity. Every culture has them and they are the means by which people seek to explain the world in which they live.
Accepting Scientific Explanations (venitism.blogspot.com)
If Adam did not literally exist, then he did not literally commit the first sin, thus there’s no need for Christ to die on the cross and the whole Bible collapses.This argument, which is indeed short-sighted, may well be the reason why hardline Christians cling so hard to Creationism in the first place and why the science-denial involved in it has become one of their two big emphases at present.
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The funny thing is that Christianity as a whole neither rises nor falls on a literal reading of Genesis–only fundamentalism/evangelicalism does. Their leaders have chosen to pin their entire religion on something this comically erroneous. The fight is not between atheists and Christians, or even between science and religion, but rather between those who understand and accept scientific explanations for our universe and those who deny and/or misunderstand those explanations. And there are Christians in both of those camps. Christianity itself isn’t the enemy; zealotry is. Indeed, we must not fall into the trap of thinking that Creationism is any sort of monolithic belief; even when surveys ask Christians what they think about the subject of evolution and the universe’s origins, a lot depends on precisely how the questions get asked. When asked questions in a way that doesn’t threaten Christians’ compartmentalizations of religion and science, they tend to fall along more sensible lines.
House of Cards and the ‘Old Testament’ God (stream.org)
Frank Underwood, after asking for a moment to himself to contemplate the priest’s message, looks defiantly up at the statue of Jesus and says that he rejects Christ’s offer because he sees it as weak and silly. Frank prefers the power-first-and-last “Old Testament God,” but only because he has molded Yahweh into his own perverted image. Like so many of us on a daily basis, Frank has created one straw-man version of God to like and one to hate, based entirely on his own craving for power and control.
A Unification of Creation and Evolution (robertjrgraham.com)
When people say that “god created the heavans and the earth in six days and on the seventh he rested”, who can say how long one of god’s days is. Why are we so egotistical as to believe that his day is the same as our’s. We don’t know god (Most of us who believe in god do so because we want to not because we have proof.) but if there is a god why can’t his, her or it’s day be a thousand or a million or even several billion of our years.Chapter 2, verse 7 of the book of Genises states “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” It does not state how long this took or what form the being we call man originally took. God’s image can be many things. We have no way of knowing. Additionally, although the bible is supposed to be the word of god, it was written by humans and therefore subject to human interpretation.
When we create something we start out with one thing and then add to it and alter it untill we finish and with some creations, such as a garden, we never finish adding to and altering it. Who says that god could not have started with one cell and through evolution added to it and altered it untill it became a human being. Who can say for sure that he, she or it is still not adding to and altering mankind. Who can say that god did not make us in such a way that we would continue to evolve without his, her or it’s intervention. Who can say that the process is finished.
Who Were The Real ‘Gods Of Eden’? (earthweareone.com)
The Sumerian scribes and their Akkadian successors inscribed clay tablets with a wealth of information about the gods. One such text, commonly known by the name of its hero, Atra-Hasis, describes the background to the creation of man, when the gods themselves were involved in the painstaking extraction of minerals from Earth:
“When the gods, as men, bore the work and suffered the toil – the toil of the gods was great, the work was heavy, the distress was much.”
Conditions were so severe that, after 40 periods of hardship, the gods rebelled against their leader Enlil. A council of the gods was then called, at which the god Ea (alias Enki) provided the solution:
“While the Birth Goddess is present, let her create a Primitive Worker, let him bear the yoke, let him carry the toil of the gods!”
The ensuing passages of the Atra-Hasis describe what appears to a modern-day reader as a cloning process, in which the goddess Nin-ti (‘Lady Life’) made fourteen pieces of ‘clay’ and impregnated fourteen ‘birth goddesses’.
anthropomorphic God or theomorphic humans (larrysmusings.com)
In the Vedic philosophy/religion of India, the atman, or spiritual monad (soul), is qualitatively like God’s spirit. It is eternal and imperishable. The atman can exist in the spiritual universe or in the material universe (as in this world). Quantitatively, the atman is infinitesimal when compared to God’s infinite Spirit, His infinite mystic power.So, too, we humans have bodies in the form of God’s. Per the Vedic teachings, we are, in our human bodies with one head, two arms, and two legs, in the form that God has. In Hindu religious art (both in paintings and in sculpture), Lord Krishna is sometimes depicted with 2 arms, and at other times is depicted with four arms – but always with one head, and two legs. Perhaps, this form is the most advantageous for consciousness to have experiences.
So we see that it is not just in Christianity that we are told that humans were created in the image and likeness of God. And, “in the image and likeness” encompasses both our spiritual component and our physical body.
The Old Testament: For and Against – A debate between Christopher Jon Bjerknes and Lasha Darkmoon (Part 1) (darkmoon.me)
Christopher John Bjerknes launches an all-out attack on the Old Testament and tell you why he thinks this is an evil and dangerous book. Bjerknes can be described as an unabashed and indeed virulent anti-Semite. He takes the line that the Jews themselves are an evil race, without any redeeming features, and that the Old Testament is one of the earliest manifestations of that intrinsic evil.
A Universe Not Made For Us – Carl Sagan on Religion [9:14] (ethicsvideolibrary.wordpress.com)
Carl Sagan begins with a discussion of the variety of creation stories and how most heavens and hells are simple extrapolations of our own politics. Instead, science is slowly discovering more about the world we live in. And it turns out, the universe is more different than anything we could have imagined and, ultimately, does not care about us or in fact could care.
When we hear the story of the creation of the universe we might get that impression.
WMAP image of the (extremely tiny) anisotropies in the cosmic background radiation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In the Holy Scriptures we get to read that there was void or a “Containing of no matter“. There was or was not something with something ” completelylacking”. At first there was a “Having no legalforce or validity” but than out of nowhere seemed to come a Voice of Some One Who spoke.
The Bible tells us that every time that One Spoke His Voice brought into being. We do find the principle of something not being there but “God said…” and it was done. The prophet Isaiah quotes the Lord as saying:
I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded (Isaiah 45:12).
So, there was not only The Voice but there where also Hands. Out of nothing we do seem to get Sound, from emptiness creating things. This means that there was a power. This incredible Power we consider to be the Most High Power. It is the Force of bringing to life, or the Force of life.
Galaxies are very important fundamental building blocks of the Universe. Some are simple, while others are very complex in structure. As one of the first steps towards a coherent theory of galaxy evolution, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, developed a classification scheme of galaxies in 1926. Although this scheme, also known as the Hubble tuning fork diagram, is now considered somewhat too simple, the basic ideas still hold… (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This creative Power of God is mentioned many other times in the Scriptures, but, as always, the mechanistic details are not supplied. It is hard to imagine, for example, what would have happened if instead of saying let there be light, the Bible had written out Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism. Even if the Bible had given us the formulas explaining the physical details, no one in ages past would have understood them, or if somehow they could have achieved comprehension, they would surely have abused the information!
There was the void or openspace which could or could have not a continuity or a break in continuity, a vacate space.
About when and how the universe came into being, science and scripture may come up with the same unambiguous result, namely, in the beginning (Genesis 1:1).
The scientist is not let off the hook, for an eternal universe would also have solved a whole host of scientific problems. According to the model pictured by classical physics, an eternal, everlasting static universe would have been just fine, but these ideas were overturned by the astronomer Hubble in 1929, and still later unambiguously verified by observations made in the mid-1960’s on the universal microwave background.
In 1929, Edwin Hubble, an astronomer working at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern California, discovered that all the galaxies in the universe appeared to be moving away from the earth and the further away they were from us the faster their speed of recession. The conclusion was that the universe could not be static but was undergoing dynamic expansion. (See e.g. G. E. Christianson, Edward Hubble: Mariner of the Nebulae, (1995) )
Arno Allan Penzias (born 26 April 1933) is an American physicist, radio astronomer and Nobel laureate in physics who is co-discoverer of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which helped establish the Big Bang theory of cosmology.
In 1965, two physicists at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey studying antenna noise discovered that the entire universe appeared to be bathed in a radiation afterglow of a singular event of vast energy taking place in the far distant past. This event has come to be known in popular terms as the “Big Bang”. We will have more to say about this in a later chapter. See: A. Penzias and G. Wilson, A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080Mc/s, ApJ, 142, 419, (1965).
The book of Genesis does not want to present a factual account but in a certain way wants to bring a tale or narrative comprehensible for most people.
Genesis simply and beautifully describes God’s initial creation, as well as His declaration of His creative purpose. It then describes the coming of sin into the world through the choices made by Adam and Eve, and the consequences of those choices for them and their descendants. Then Genesis follows their descendants’ decline into lawless violence — a decline that God brought to an end by sending a great flood, while saving eight people for a new beginning.
Genesis bringing an account from the creation of the world to the death of Joseph in Egypt, we may later find references to the course of events by the New Testament writers, by which John loves to construct his books in the same manner as the Bereshith, talking of the Word spoken and a Word bringing into being. He looks at the Old world and compares the happenings to the New World. He was convinced that in the Garden of Eden the Word spoken by God, the promise made to the first male and female creature of the human line or human tree, had come into existence with the birth of the NazareneJeshua from the lineage of king David.
Physics of Sound Sensory System of the Inner Ear & Space Time Continuum – By Doctor Emad kayyam (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Out of nothingness there was sound. That What had been for ever and is everlasting, has no beginning and no end, has no birth but also no dying or no death, and Which is an incredible Power, a Supreme Being, the Only One capable to create something from nothing. this may be very difficult to believe and is what we consider the only dogma a person of faith has come to take for truth. All other thoughts in our faith are easy to proof and are particularly explained in the Book of books,which we consider the infallible Word of that One and Only One God Who is One.
The question of how to reconcile suboptimal design with special creation is one that has puzzled many Christian groups as well as the Christadelphian community.
While the existence of suboptimal design is not ‘proof’ of evolution, for any special creationist who appeals to design in nature as evidence of special creation, the existence in nature of suboptimal design that directly leads to morbidity and mortality is a problem that is too often ignored.
Too many people want to take the Bible as an minute per minute or literal day to day account, forgetting that one day in the eyes of God is like a thousand years in the eyes of man. And they are also forgetting that perhaps God does not see any reason to have a detailed scientific account of all things when the uneducated also has to understand His Word.
God has given man, created in His image the possibility to see, hear, speak and think, using their brains to make up their minds and to come to conclusions. God has given in nature proof for all things. In it we should come to see how and what and should come to understanding.
In this contemporary world there are still too many Christians who do not want to see what God provided in nature and which treasures He left behind to be discovered by man in time.
The challenge of how to explain the scientific evidence for a very old earth, filled with fossil remains of countless generations of extinct species which are increasingly complex, has been faced by Christadelphians since the earliest days of our community.
Brother Roberts and other early expositors explained this evidence as the product of numerous creations being made and destroyed by God in succession. [1] [2] [3] Later Christadelphian commentators found this solution unsatisfying. Brother Walker objected to it on scientific grounds, pointing out that there was no break in the fossil record providing evidence for the destruction of a previous creation, and that the fossils showed earlier extinct animals had a close physical relationship to modern species which were still alive, indicating a continuity of life rather than a break.[4]
However, a far more challenging problem with which Christadelphian commentators have wrestled, is the issue of sub-optimal features within the creation. Our community has long recognized the imperfections of the human eye, acknowledging it has a blind spot.[5]
We should learn from geology, geographic changes, and take not of the many findings of people who studied several sciences. We not always should accept that they are totally right. Look at some findings, which a few years ago where considered the discovery of the time and the truth which are now considered as outdatedandno longervalableandincorrect.
We should not have to expect from the Bible to give a detailed account, but should see the general line. This over the whole line of the canonical Bible Books has been proven to be happened like it is told and should be enough information to be provided for all people to come to understanding the Works of God.
The Book of the Beginnings teaches us much; it speaks of a time and creation on this earth when animal life was not like it is now and people did not look like we recognise other human beings today. Appearance was totally different.
We should not expect the Bible giving us all details of the creatures, how they looked like or how they behaved. It does not want to specify that humans and apes have are missing an enzyme that would allow them to make their own vitamin C, like other animals do.
To come to faith people do not need to know all sub-optimal features of all living elements.
Many creatures may have features which are sub-optimal, and may let people think this would not be the work of an omnipotent and omniscient Designer. In fact brother Matthew’s description of creation was that “the evidence implies problem, failure and imperfect solution”.[6]
There are several people who also do want to believe like Brother Matthew who proposed that the angels were responsible for creation, rather than God and suggested that since angels are less powerful than God, and closer to humans, it should be expected that their characters and work would be subject to weaknesses and limitations similar to those of humans. Because of that we can see so many ‘faults‘ in creation.
But we should know better and follow the Biblical account which explains what went wrong with creation. The Bereshith tells us how the first human beings reposted and went against the wishes of their Maker, resulting them willing to go on their own, God allowing them to be their own master, with all consequences, we having to face so many problems.
We do not believe God left the work to unskilled, uninformed, and largely unsupervised agents who were compelled to learn on the job as they muddled through generation after generation of mistakes. We do know that every high person speaks in the plural form, using the pluralis majestatis or Royal we, to have their words being taken seriously and as important.
When looking at creation we should consider that it all happened over a long period of time, many thousands of years. God was the Only OneMaker Who established a natural biological process of speciation, which accounts for the variety of creatures in the fossil record and those we see today. That process followed rules established by God in the beginning, and was not blind, random, or accidental. Man revolting against their Maker choose to go their own way and where allowed to go into their own universe. In their own world they could give plants and animals and everything they created a name. they themselves had to cultivate it and work it out how to survive in the world they chose themselves. However, being a natural process without constant guidance from an intelligent being, its results were imperfect. God has always been prepared to work with a less than perfect creation, and it is a Biblical principle that His glory shines with great brightness when His character is reflected by fallible creatures.
The tendency for the evangelical Christian church to source their information outside of mainstream science [7] tends however to blunt the impact of such scientifically informed Christian warnings both against science denialism and basing first principles on demonstrably false views of the natural world. Deconversion anecdotes such as these, culled from a 2002 TalkOrigins post of the month [8] are representative of the one-way traffic towards unbelief that often results when science and faith are pitted against each other.
Young earth creationist organisations remain stubbornly wedded to an a priori commitment to a fundamentalist reading of Genesis. Terry Mortenson, a YEC theologian and historian regards adherence to Biblical literalism as important because he regards it as fundamental to his theological world view:
None of us, including any particular scholar (no matter how respected he is), or even the majority of scholars or Christians, can be the final authority for determining truth. God’s Word must be the authority. And it clearly teaches creation in six literal days about six thousand years ago and a global catastrophic Flood at the time of Noah. We must graciously but uncompromisingly contend for the literal historical truth of Genesis 1–11, which is absolutely fundamental to all other doctrines in the Bible. [9]
What Mortenson fails to so convincingly is justify why a Christian must interpret Genesis 1-11 literally or exactly how our salvation depends on recent creation in six days or a literal world-wide flood. Instead he damns respected 19th century Christian scholars such as Torrey, Warfield and Dana as ‘compromisers’ for being willing to follow the scientific evidence where it led them, even if it contradicted with a particular interpretation of the creation narratives.
This refusal to engage with modern science is particularly acute given that the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly against flood geology and recent creationism, and in fact was recognised by conservative Christians well before Darwin. To be blunt, any Christian doctrine that hinges on a literal world-wide flood that laid down the fossils or recent creation in six days has been falsified, and no amount of appeal to a literal reading of Genesis will change observable reality. [10] Mortenson and his colleagues at Answers in Genesis may pride themselves on not compromising on what they believe to be a fundamental principle, but all they are doing is forcing believers to choose between observable reality and dogma, which as the Barna Group has shown is not a strategy for long-term growth of Christianity. More importantly, it is forcing believers to base fundamental doctrines on a description of the natural world that is demonstrably false.
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Notes:
[1] ‘Interested Stranger.—No doubt the earth has gone through changes. Christadelphian. — Have not these changes been in the nature of progress—an advance from a crude to a more perfect state? Interested Stranger.—It has doubtless been so. Christadelphian.—From what sort of a state did this process make its start? Interested Stranger.—That, I think, we cannot ascertain. Christadelphian. — Not in an exact sense perhaps; but are we not justified in saying that if we go far enough back in the record of the earth’s physical history, as written in the rocks, we come to a time when the earth was a molten mass, incapable of sustaining life, either vegetable or animal? Interested Stranger.—That is believed by the geologist; and I do not see that any thing can be said against it.’, Roberts, ‘A Page for the Interested Stranger – No. 2’, The Christadelphian(22.255.405), 1885.
[2] ‘Geology teaches us much; it speaks of a time and creation on this earth when animal life, if not totally, was nearly unknown, and only the lower order of vegetable life covering its face, and this must have existed many thousands of years; and during the whole of that long period, the earth was undergoing wonderful and necessary changes to fit it for a creation of a higher order, and evidently with the creature man in view. There are evidences to show that when this early period had done its work, it was replaced by a creation of a higher order , when animal and vegetable forms of a far more wonderful structure were brought into existence and most admirably adopted to the atmosphere, climate, and peculiarities of that creation; and this, again, must have lasted for many thousands of years, and in its turn been swept away, and a grander creation built on its ruins. And so on, stage after stage.’, Simons, ‘Why Man was not at once made Perfect’, The Christadelphian (21.238.177), 1884.
[3] ‘There can be no reasonable doubt that when the non-fossiliferous rocks were first formed t he heat of the earth’s matter was too intense for vegetable and animal life to exist. There can be no reasonable doubt that it was only in a later age that the lower forms of plant and animal life could exist . And there can be no reasonable doubt that the succeeding ages allowed the creation of still higher and more perfect forms, till we reach the age called the “Tertiary,” and the “Post-pliocene” period of that age, when we are told remains of man are found for the first time. All of this, I say, I do not doubt. The facts of old mother earth’s storehouse are too convincingly inscribed upon her crust to allow me to doubt. At the same time, and amid it all, I have the most implicit faith and unbounded trust in God and His sacred word.’, Welch, ‘Knowledge.- No., 12 Geology’, The Christadelphian (28.329.416), 1891.
[4] ‘If we suppose a sudden and absolute break some 6,000 years ago, or before, resulting in the destruction of all life, and that the creation account of Genesis describes a new creation following, we ought to find some evidence of the break, and we cannot well account for the apparently close relationship that obtains between extinct and existing forms. There are forms becoming extinct in our own day from slow and natural causes. May it not have been so in pre-Adamic times? The professors tell us for instance that some of these ancient birds, whose strides we can see for ourselves from their footprints were from four to six feet long, were like gigantic ostriches.’, Walker, ‘Genesis’, The Christadelphian (47.557.501), 1910.
[6] “So to take the human elements, the frustration, the changes of plan and the solution along with God allowing that process to work its way through, and applying it to a creative environment where the evidence implies problem, failure and imperfect solution.”, Matthew Wigzell, email on his email list “Watchmen“, 17 January, 2013; (brother Matthew has explained this email list was not private, and both he and other members have shared publicly emails by various members of the list.)
[10] See for example Alan Hayward’s “Creation and Evolution – The Facts and Fallacies” (Triangle Books, 1985). Although his arguments against evolution were flawed even in the early 1980s, and are utterly dated now, his critique of flood geology and young earth creationism still hold up today.
6 significant steps in the quest to find the shape of the universe (royaldockside.com)
The latest immersive spectacular at the Peter Harrison Planetarium at Greenwich’s Royal Observatory is the exquisitely rendered exploration of the structure and history of the universe.
Narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dark Universe moves from Edwin Hubble’s discovery of an expanding universe to the enigma of dark matter and dark energy.
In between, the design team of astrophysicists and visualisation experts, commissioned by the American Museum of Natural History, take the viewer through time and space in a series of sweeping journeys.
After the Fact (briankoberlein.com)
One of the common accusations made about cosmology is that it is just a kludge model to explain away all the strange things we see in the universe. Galactic redshift? Invent the big bang. Galaxies don’t move the right way? Invent dark matter and dark energy. Tweak any model enough and you can make it fit data. Part of the reason for this is the way scientific discovery is represented. The lone genius has a revolutionary idea that clears away all the stuffy old models. But that’s not how science gets done. Scientific models are often proposed to explain strange data, but the real test is whether the predictions they make hold up under scrutiny. Take, for example, the story of the cosmic microwave background.
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The CMB was actually discovered 25 years before Penzias/Wilson “stumbled” across it… In a 1940 paper, Canadian astronomer Andrew McKellar (1910-1960) published “excellent coincidences obtained between the wave lengths of three of the unidentified, sharp, interstellar lines and lines arising from the lowest states of the CH, NaH, and CN molecules” (from spectral analysis). Based on data obtained, McKellar stated that “the maximum ‘effective’ temperature of interstellar space would be 2.7K” — no reference to “ghost radiation” from the “birth of the Universe”… McKellar’s findings have apparently been largely forgotten.
Could it be that the CMB has been misinterpreted? Could it simply be thermalized starlight, the “temperature of space”?
NASA Has Revisited the Pillars of Creation and It’s Stunning (nerdist.com) In 1995, after one servicing mission to repair a warped mirror, Hubble took the iconic image of the so-called “Pillars of Creation.” It revealed in unprecedented detail three giant columns of cold gas bathed in hot ultraviolet light in the Eagle Nebula. It’s an evocative image. Inside those pillars of gas are the building blocks of solar systems like our own.
“Dark Universe” Opens January 16 in the Hansen Dome Theatre (clarkplanetarium.org) Dark Universe starts 100 million light years away from Earth. After flying to our own Milky Way Galaxy, visualized using the latest scientific data, and to our own planet, viewers arrive at California’s Mount Wilson Observatory, where Edwin Hubble’s discovery that the universe is expanding gave the first hint of the Big Bang. That initial discovery, and ever more sensitive instruments on the ground and in space, led to other breakthroughs that give astronomers an increasingly detailed and precise picture of how our universe formed and evolved.
But these revelations have also uncovered intriguing new mysteries. What is the mysterious Dark Energy accelerating cosmic expansion? What is the invisible Dark Matter underlying galaxies that, together with dark energy, account for at least 95 percent of the universe? What lies beyond our cosmic horizon?
In stunningly detailed scenes based on authentic scientific data, including a NASA probe’s breathtaking plunge into Jupiter’s atmosphere and novel visualizations of unobservable dark matter, Dark Universe explores this new age of cosmic discovery and reveals the myst
On Lorser Feitelson’s Life Begins (greg.org)
:Life Begins is oil and collage on a shaped masonite panel around two feet square. The painted elements are the blue space, which often gets called a sky, and a half peach and pit on a small plate. The collage elements are two black&white photographs, or close to it, of a doctor holding a newborn baby, cropped to preserve the caption, which gives the work its title; and an astronomical feature.
Transmitting Live from Mount Wilson: How KCET’s Signal Comes to You (kcet.org)
Television, by its own design, seems like magic — you turn on a box (or, nowadays, a panel), and images and sound magically appear out of nowhere. Of course, how those images and sounds find their way to you isn’t as magical as the experience of enjoying the content that’s being broadcast, but we all know that television signals reach our sets via antenna, cable, or satellite dish.
The exact journey of how those signals travel from the television station to your set is something we usually take for granted, or fail to think about at all, yet it has been a fundamental concern to the people who perform the day-to-day task of keeping KCET on the air for the past 50 years.
When looking at Genesis some Christians do want to take it literally, being oneday of 24 hours, and as such forgetting that one day for God is as thousand years for man.
Simplified human evolution (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Lots of Christians do not see that it is talking about swarming and creeping creatures and does not specify how they looked like. big problem of many conservative Christians is that they do want to see the 1° Adam and the 2° Adam to be copies of the Caucasianhuman being of today. They resist to accept that the first creature being called man was full of hair, running on his four limbs and not talking proper English but making audible noises not comparable to the languages we do know today. Such an ‘animal like’ human being is for them unacceptable, but it is not a contradiction with the writings of the Bible.
Several conservative Christians by making the heart of Christian and/or Christadelphian theology contingent on evolution being false is setting people who uncritically accept such wholesale rejection of most of modern science up for failure. When they discover that the Earth is indeed ancient, and that humans and apes do share a common ancestor, the tragedy is that they will think that this falsifies Christianity, and reject belief altogether.
John Thomas, the founding figure of the Christadelphian movement was somewhat inconsistent in his position on this subject, but in the article ‘The Bible Doctrine Concerning the Tempter Considered. No. II.’, he unambiguously states that both Adam and Eve would have eventually died in time:
‘Adam’s nature was animal. Very good of its kind, as was the nature of all the other creatures. These did not sin, yet they returned to dust whence they came. So probably would Adam, if he had been left to the ordinary course of things as they were. But he would not have returned to dust if he had continued obedient.
He would doubtless have been “changed in the twinkling of an eye” on eating of the Tree of Life. But, being disobedient, his sin determined his fate, and that of the creatures. It doomed them all to death according to law, and “nature” unchanged was permitted to take its course.’ {Thomas J. ‘The Bible Doctrine Concerning the Tempter Considered. No. II.’, The Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come (1852) 2:181}
Christians should look at the Bereshith as a book of Beginnings telling in a short way what happened in the past, not telling in detail what went on from day 1 to day 7 as 24 hours periods but as periods in the development of things, Having first chaos and darkness, than light. From dryness to humidity getting waters which started to depart and showing up dry land. Next having water creatures moving around looking for different ways and also finding dry land. Going on land changing form by time, we can see land-creatures coming into existence.
Such an evolution of those animals changing in form does not at all have to contradict what is written in the Holy Scriptures. Problem by lots of people is their superior thinking, not willing to accept that the human being would not be at once a very intellectual being, looking very nicely shaved and manicured, speaking a very complex language.
Human beings have received brains from God which they should use. God gave us His Word in the Book of books and provided evidence in nature to be found by research. We may not neglect such evidence, for the fact of evolution comes from many disciplines ranging from comparative anatomy to the biogeographical distribution of species.
An other mistake of many Christians when they here of a Christian who believes in a sort of evolution is that they think that that Christian agrees with the evolution theory of Darwin, which should not be the case. We can disagree with Darwin’s theories but accept a sort of evolution. We can not be blind that our ancestors looked totally different than we. Look for example at the length of the people in the 16th century, the length and constitution of the people around the two World Wars and the present generation of youngsters who are much greater than our world war and boom generation. We can not deny man has changed a lot the last 50 years.
We also do have to accept we still do not know a lot about different sorts of animals, of which there are many still species discovered and undiscovered of which we did not know of their existence.
In the 154 years since Darwin published the first edition of The Origin of Species, the fossil evidence for evolution has increased considerably. In particular, we can demonstrate the evolution of tetrapods from lobe-finned fish, whales from terrestrial mammals, birds from dinosaurs, and humans from primates to a degree that would have astonished earlier palaeontologists. While the nature of speciation and the sheer improbabilities involved in dead animals being fossilised and then found mean that the fossil record will always be an imperfect record, what we have demonstrates the reality of large-scale evolutionary change beyond reasonable doubt. {The Fossil Evidence for Common Descent 1: Missing Links and other Special Creationist Fallacies}
Despite this, special creationists still continue in their desperate attempts to wave away the evidence. Given that practically no special creationists (and certainly no Christadelphian science denialists) are palaeontologists, their arguments invariably hinge on quote mining mainstream scientists, peddling out-of-date arguments which betray a lack of familiarity with the contemporary scientific literature, or advancing ideas about ‘missing links’ that indicate a failure to recognise that evolution is a tree, not a ladder. {The Fossil Evidence for Common Descent 1: Missing Links and other Special Creationist Fallacies}
The fundamental special creationist misconception is the belief in evolution as a ladder, with single celled life at the bottom rung, with all other life arranged progressively on higher rungs from worms to fish to amphibians and so on with mammals on the top rungs and humans at the top. Coupled with their quote mining of Darwin’s remarks that as “innumerable transitional forms” are not found “embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth”, this forms the basis of the special creationist claim that evolution cannot be true because of the alleged lack of transitional fossils. {The Fossil Evidence for Common Descent 1: Missing Links and other Special Creationist Fallacies}
The evolution of life is modelled not as a ladder, but as a tree, something that is obvious when we think of the pattern that develops when the process of descent with modification from an original ancestral population is mapped out. We start with an ancestral population that diverges into more than one group, with each successor group in turn likewise diverging, and so on:
The diagram of divergence of taxa presented by Charles Darwin in On the origin of species (1859)
{The Fossil Evidence for Common Descent 1: Missing Links and other Special Creationist Fallacies}
Concept: Artificial Intelligence (gradypbrown.wordpress.com)
Human beings, plants, and animals undeniably have souls, but whether or not a construct that was made by mortal hands has a soul is still an ongoing mystery. Some of my characters in my upcoming third volume will be an example of this age-old puzzle.
Another Catholic defends the historicity of Adam and Eve (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
When I was in Mississippi last week, I was once again given Catholicism as an example of a faith that has no problem with evolution. I politely disagreed, noting that the Church’s official doctrine accepts Adam and Eve as humanty’s literal ancestors, that Catholicism sees humans as evolutionarily special since God vouchsafed us a soul, and that the Church accepts the existence of demons afflicting us and has an Official Vatican Exorcist (and many other exorcists elsewhere) to expel them. Further, even though the Church sort-of-accepts evolution, 27% of American Catholics are still young-Earth creationists. At the very least, one must describe the Church’s stand on evolution as “mixed.”
And even reputable Catholic theologians take an anti-evolution stand. One of them is Dennis Bonnette, whose ludicrous essay “Did Adam and Eve really exist?” (answer: “YES!”) appeared in November’s Crisis magazine.
Where is Light (divinedirection.typepad.com)
If God called down the presence of the glory of the Lord, then what happened since that time? Why isn’t it being manifested on the earth today? After all, if we are truly filled with the divine light of God, then wouldn’t we be like human, electric bug zappers? This isn’t just any light we’re talking about here; it’s the light of Almighty God! Think about it for a moment: If any darkness or any evil even gets close to the light of God, shouldn’t it supernaturally disintegrate, kind of like getting too close to the sun?
Adam and Eve are Ancient “Archetypes” (jacksonwu.org)
“Adam” is not actually a proper name for a single individual. It is a collective noun, which refers to humanity. On rare occasions, it points to an individual, but people in the neighborhood wouldn’t have called him “Adam” if they wanted to invite him over for a steak and salad.
Adam bears this representative status as the “image of God” (language found in other ancient documents besides the Bible). This imagery indicates that Adam has royal authority to govern over God’s creation.
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Adam and Eve are “archetypes.” For Walton, this means Adam was “a representative of a group in whom all others in the group are embodied” (240). A person is an archetype if what is true of the one is also true for all those who are represented by in him. Adam and Eve are historical, not fictitious. In some sense, Christ, Abraham, and Melchizedek are also archetypes.
By the way, Walton suggests that Genesis 2 is a “sequel” of Gen 1. Chapter two does not go back and elaborate further on Day Six (from Gen 1). So, we shouldn’t confuse the “Adam” (or “man”) in Gen 1:26–28 with the “Adam” of Gen 2–3.
An anarchistic reading of the Bible (2) – Creation and what follows (thinkingpacifism.net)
The very beginning of the Bible provides much important information about the Bible as a whole, about the cosmology of the whole, about the character of the God seen to be central to the entire story, and about the relationships between humankind and this God.
Though the creation account in Genesis one portrays God as the power behind what is, the actual exercise of that power is muted. God speaks and what is is made. The dynamic is quite peaceable—in contrast to some other ancient creation myths (especially the Babylonian) that portray violence at the heart of things.
Remarkably, this creator God speaks of human beings (male and female) being created in God’s own image. There humanity is commissioned to care for the rest of creation as God’s stewards. This picture connects with both of our key anarchistic factors. The relationship between God and humanity is not one of domination, command-and-obedience. It is rather a relationship of like with like. God is not Other; rather, humans are created to be like God. And, perhaps even more importantly, the picture here is that all humanity shares in this divine image—kingly, perhaps, but in a strongly egalitarian sense. As well, human beings are given power and responsibility.
An anarchistic reading of the Bible (1) – Creation and what follows (thinkingpacifism.net)
On the one hand, the Christian Bible is a collection of widely disparate writings—spanning close to 1,000 years from the earliest to the latest books, numerous social and political settings, various genres of literature, and two main languages. It is clearly a human book, its separate pieces written as occasional statements that address specific issues and settings.
On the other hand, the Bible as a collection of writings is the master story for Christians. It is assumed to have, on some level, a meaningful coherence that allows it to be used as sacred scripture. Some parts are seen as more clear and definitive than others, but as a rule Christians think of the authority of the Bible involving all of its parts.
How the Bible works as an authority is a complicated and contested issue. One general approach, that stands in profound tension with an anarchistic sensibility, it to approach the Bible as the source of absolute truths that simply need to be heard and followed (“the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it”). In this view, though, the Bible never actually stands alone as an authority. Theologian Edward Farley has developed a critique of what he calls “the house of authority” which requires three authoritative presences: the Bible as the revealed truth from God, official doctrinal statements (creeds, confessions, etc.) that provide definitive interpretations of the Bible, and institutions of authority that enforce the official interpretations (See his book Ecclesial Reflections. In light of this analysis, we can see why biblical authority is a problem for an anarchistic sensibility—it is tied in with centralized human authority (often centralized human authoritarianism).
A Unification of Creation and Evolution (robertjrgraham.com)
When people say that “god created the heavans and the earth in six days and on the seventh he rested”, who can say how long one of god’s days is. Why are we so egotistical as to believe that his day is the same as our’s. We don’t know god (Most of us who believe in god do so because we want to not because we have proof.) but if there is a god why can’t his, her or it’s day be a thousand or a million or even several billion of our years.
Chapter 2, verse 7 of the book of Genises states “then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” It does not state how long this took or what form the being we call man originally took. God’s image can be many things. We have no way of knowing. Additionally, although the bible is supposed to be the word of god, it was written by humans and therefore subject to human interpretation.
Big Brother has a lot to offer (georgehach.wordpress.com)
We all have a big brother who would like to help us have a better quality of life. His name is Jesus. He inspired 4 books in the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They will give you great insight into how to live better.
Messiah For All 