An old friend, a very good friend as a matter a fact, recommended for me to read some creationist websites. So, I did. I will here give you my view of their content and the world view they seem to be selling. This is not an intentional assault on faith, or what anyone wants to hold sacred. However, if you, my reader, want to retain faith in creationism, I suggest you read no further. Otherwise you might have to ask yourself the questions that rose to my mind when I read about creationism, by creationists. The critique I here present is completely my own. I am no expert on geology, or biology, but since the creationist pages have obviously been meant to be understood by the laymen in these fields, I see no problem in handling them as a layman myself.
The creationism seems to me as an attempt to counter the results of scientific research when they contradict the holy book of one particular religion, and do not give any thought to wether their claims would make other religious and mythical stories of creation any more plausible, or not. In my opinion, the same methods could have been used to disclaim scientific research for any myth about the origins of life and the creation of the Earth.
The actual point is that there are people who feel their faith to be threatened by what science reveals. Most people in the world do not see it that way. Most people have so little education, as to even know that science does not support any religious world views. Is this the result of most scientists to be atheists? Is this the result of atheist scientists somehow controlling the scientific field and paradigm of entire world wide science community? If either of these matters are so, then why would that be? Has scientific knowledge made scientists less prone to have religious faith? The only thing that binds scientists to eachother is their interest in knowledge. It is hardly a result of any international conspiracy of atheist scientists to take over all the fields of science and ridicule those scientists whose research would support one or another religion. How could that even be possible to achieve? I have no statistics to show you, but I would think it is most likely that even today in our world most scientists are adherents of some religion, though as with all the other people, more as a result of tradition, than personal choice or revelation. It would be inconcievable that all those people would allow themselves to be ruled over by some atheist bullies, who have counterfited all of the results of their research to diminsh the role of a creator god. Would it not? That all of the scientific knowledge we today hold would be just made up false and intended by evil scientists to lead people astray from salvation and truth. Does that sound even possible?
If any particular religion and the stories in their holy books and other traditions would be true we could expect the scientific research to support those stories over and over again. This is not the case. In fact it is the opposite. Scientific research shows over and over again that the religious stories, of the creation, and otherwise are quite obviously the results of human imagination at work. Science can not explain everything. Not at the moment at least. The unexplained matters are the loopholes and niches where gods and the spirit world takes refuge. Little by little we become more aware of the mechanics that make the universe work, and every little revelation of research results takes us further away from the suggestions made by religious leadership alledgedly inspired by gods.
Most of the fields of science have resulted in research that points out that the world is a lot older than what the genealogies of the Bible would let us believe. In fact the theories and paradigms in astronomy, geology, biology, anthorpology, sociology, psychology, archaeology and history support the idea of the universe, the Earth and life to be billions of years old. Even the major sects of the same religion, as the creationist movement recognizes, have embraced this scientific world view, though as religions they naturally have not excluded the supernatural. Neither has science. Not as such. Science does not deal in the field of supernatural, because as a concept the supernatural evades the material universe. The supernatural is a question of faith. Faith in the for-ever-improvable. You see, when lightning was first explained as a natural phenomenon, it stopped to be part of the supernatural. The supernatural is a description of things we have no natural explanation to. Religion, is an attempt to explain the unexplained, from a human perspective. In my view it is a personal matter wether you believe lightning was caused by a god, be it Yahweh or Thor, but today we do know, it does not require either andropomorphic personifications of natural powers to exist. It may happen as a result of natural weather phenomenons and it is quite random.
I have no space here to go through all the wild claims made on the creationist sites, but I will give you few examples as a taste as to how they work. First, the adaptation. The creationists claim that all the living beings were created at once, or in seven days as claimed by the Bible. That there has happened no evolution, and the alteration of species visible to us is just adaptation. That god made all the creatures to be adapted to their enviroments, but they have only altered themselves in the few thousand year span the world has existed according to their interpretation of the Bible.
However, when we look at the bonestructure of a whale, there is evidence of evolution. Whales have legbones they do not use for anything. They are remains of hindlegs their ancestors had. Either that, or you can not possibly call such a creation intelligent. Why would a god create seamammals with secondary set of bones of hindlegs for nothing?
Second example are the dinosaurs and sedimentation. The creationists say that the dinosaurs were those animals that did not make it to the ark made by Noah, when the god of Jews decided to flood all the earth. We are supposed to believe, that the lower sedimentation of earth, where the dinosaur fossils are found, were formed just few thousand years ago, just prior to the great flood described in the Bible, or during it. They even give reasons as to why it is hard to find humans among the fossils from the earlier sedimentations where the various dinosaurs fossils are buried. It is reasonable enough from a surface glance, to claim that there were so few humans then that they propably would not appear in the fossilic record from that time, but what of all the other animals? Where are all the elephant remains from those sedimentations? Why are they not found in the jurassic layers and where are all the elk, and the rest of the mammals? Were mammals so rare in that world of beasts that they simply did not leave any fossils?
Why are the animals in precambrian layers completely different from the jurassic layers? And why are the fossils in the deeper layers so much more simpler than those of the later layers? The entire claim that those are just few thousand years old and that the creatures there once all existed simultaneously is proposterous.
Third example are the similarities between fossils and modern animals. The creationist would claim, that the similarities indicate that all of creation and every species existed allready in the beginning of life. Of course there are ancient fossils of similar animals, that still exist today. It is noteworthy to see what those animals are. The oldest ones in the deepest layers are the most simple forms of life. The fact that their offspring still remain unchainged, allmost unevolved, only proves that they were allready then, when the particular animals died millions of years ago and have ever since been, just perfect to their environment and had no pressure to change in order to survive. Most often the very oldest unchanged types of animals are the ones who live in the environments that have faced least change, like in the depths of the oceans. On the bottom of the seabed there is little knowledge of ice age, or volcanoes that dramatically change the athmosphere and landscape.
If the Bible is not factual about the supernatural nature of the creation, how can we assume that the stories of salvation and afterlife are true either? If the creation is just a myth, does it not indicate that the afterlife and salvation are also mere myths? What is the actual difference between the supernatural explanations of these two?
One would expect seamammals to survive a flood. Yet we have a number of whale fossils of types of animals not known to exist today. Why did they all go extinct? Why is it that the more primitive forms of whales have disappeared? On the other hand there are billions of types of animals in the world today that would have not survived such an incident as a flood high enough to bear a ship to Mount Ararat. Not all of them could possibly fit into the ark. Did they just climb onto high mountains and survived that way? There are higher mountain ranges in the world than Ararat. If they did, why did none of the great saurian beasts climb there? Or any of the smaller sauropod lizards, for that matter? How did the saber tooth tigers all die in the flood? Their bones have been found near mountain ranges and they were quite agile beasts. Surely at least enough of the great airborne saurians could have managed to reach safety fast enough. How can it be the flood drowned all these mighty and agile animals, but the sloth survived? The sloth is an animal found only in the jungles of South America, so it could have not been aboard the Ark. It is a good climber to trees, but if the flood was high enough to bring a boat to the top of Mount Ararat, there is simply no tree tall enough for the sloth to climb into to survive. It could have decided to climb the mountains, but it really is not equipped to do so, and even, if that was the case, the Allosaurs would have surely outrunned it, possibly only stopping to eat the sloth wich are quite helpless on the ground.
Personally I doubt the ability of the sloth to come to a conclusion it needed to hit the road and ”run” for higher ground when it started to rain a lot. Logic dictates that if a flood high enough to carry a boat to Mount Ararat forced the fauna of areas too far for the animals to reach the Ark, to take refuge in the mountains, the herbivoires would have been first victims and most species of herbivores that exist today would have persihed in such confined conditions. Most insects withoug the ability to fly would have simply vanished from the world. Of course the resulting death toll would have also been terrible for the carnivores later.
How is it, that for example the Comodo dragon survived the great flood only to end up on one little island? Did the ancestors of this beast ride in the Ark or did they climb some mountain ranges? It can not swim so how did it end up on the island? There were a lot more agile predators among the saurian beasts, so how did they not survive, but this ugly mugger did? There is of course allways the possibility of a friek accident, but it is by far the only animal that we need to ask the same questions about? How did the giant tortoises of the Seychelles, Mascarenes, Galapagos and the Aldabra atoll survive the flood? It makes no sense. They certainly needed to know about the coming flood quite a lot earlier than anybody else, because with their speed to reach the tops of mountains, or the Ark takes a lot of time. In any case they are not very good climbers, so mountains do not seem like a viable option not all of these islands even have mountains, nor is it very likely they ended up in their natural habitat after taking refuge in the ark either.
If a god saw it fit to destroy the saurian beasts, why were the crocodiles saved? They are water creatures so it is natural to assume they did not even need to reach dry land to live, but why and how were all the saurian seabeasts destroyed? And why and how were the numerous types of fish and seashells we have fossils of destroyed? There are literally thousands and thousands of different species of trilobite fossils alone and they are all seabed animals. What made all of them extinct? They are to be found in the many sedimentations claimed to be the pre-flood era by the creationists, but why are the more simple forms of fish fossils in the deeper sedimentation than those of more advanced form? Did a god decide to destroy some form of barbarian imitation of life by a devil, or were these simple forms of fish only the prototypes of fish god desided to inhabit the seas with? There is nothing about this in the Bible, is there? Fish for certainty as well as the saurian seacreatures, would have survived the flood, so what destroyed all of them?
This is all just speculating from common sense. If one is not a paleontologist, one is forced to either think they have the best information about the subject, or that the Bible knows better. If one has made the leap of faith that the Bible is different from all the other holy scriptures and myths in the world, one might come to the conclusion, that the Bible has to be true in every sense. However, disbelieving what the paleontologists say about their own art is a completely new leap of faith. It contains the thought that a group of highly educated professionals are either lying, or somehow totally mistaken, and that we laymen in their field can tell better if they are right or wrong about their entire field of expertise. This is the equivalent of me telling a doctor that there is nothing wrong with my health as I do not feel bad, if the doctor has made a diagnosis that says I am terminally ill. Now, a doctor may be wrong, but are all the doctors wrong, if they come to the same conclusion?
Creationism has even some supporters with scientific degrees from universities. That does not however make their claims scientific. Science is made with many presuppositions. One of those might be, that there is in fact a supreme creator and even that the Bible is his holy connection to humanity. A scientist might even suppose that the Bible is infallible in the description of the creation of the Earth and life, but as to what conclusions he draws, it is not science at all, if the researcher will not accept results that might prove the presuppositions false. This goes for the theory of evolution just as well as it works for the Bible. The difference seems to be, that the scientists who presuppose the theory of evolution to be true in general terms, are aware of the paradigm of science to be the integrity to truth, while those (a very small minority indeed) that presuppose the Bible to be true, only work to prove it so. In any kind of research, be it in the field of science, or for example criminology, the objective truth is only achieved by accepting the evidence of the research, not by presupposing, that god did it, or that the butler did it.
January 31, 2012 at 4:41 pm
http://biologos.org/questions/genesis-flood
nuf said
February 1, 2012 at 10:22 am
I salute you, my old friend, for open mindedness! It seems that you have the capacity very few people have, to re-evaluate the fundamental understanding of the world and universe around us.
The link was very interresting and a good example of how faith in the christian religion is not dependant on any particular dogmatic interpretation of the Bible.
The writer of the link you provided closes in on the same subject as I did, but from totally different angle and finds completely different evidence of the total failure of the creationist movement. Though we do come to a bit different conclusion, we do agree, that the world has to be a lot older than what the genealogies of the Bible would suggest, and though it is not openly admitted as such, the writer of the text behind the link seems to understand that there are mythical parts in the Bible.
This still leaves open the question to wich the creationists seem to have invented an answer to. If the purpose of the creation was to achieve human beings in the image of a particular god, why were the dinosaurs created and then destroyed 65 million years before our appearance on the scene? And what about the trilobites and their demise even a lot longer time before the dinosaurs? Was god unable to create humans from mud as suggested in the Bible? And of course are apes also images of a particular god, or some form of prototypes for us, the perfect images? Could it be that we will one day evolve into an even more god-like form?
Jesus said the end of the world is near, but since it has not happened in 2000 years we have no idea what Jesus ment by “near”. Every christian generation has had a number of people who have awaited the world to end in their own time, but it seems Jesus was not speaking of time in human terms, and if the creation of the world was just seven days to the Biblical god, this “near” could just as well be
milions or billions of years. We allready know it was not mere 2000 years, for sure. So, perhaps there will be time enough for us to evolve further.
February 2, 2012 at 11:08 am
Thanks. I evaluate evedence as it comes along. If I ever get to shake the hand of an alien I’ll re-evaluate. If we invent time machine I’ll re-evaluate. But as long as game is open everything is up for graps. In my opinion science / faith discussion both sides take too big leaps of conclusions. Everyone have patience to wait for results before screaming hateful propaganda to each others faces please! (Now I’m talking about in general terms. Not of this blog)
The ever reliable biologos organization has been pondering death before fall question quite a bit. I can recommend going trough their archives if one is interested in reconciling science and faith. So here’s a couple about death before fall. Sorry for the link mania:
http://biologos.org/questions/death-before-the-fall
http://biologos.org/blog/a-pastors-perspective-on-death-and-evolution
Theories about world end is strongly in the department of unanswerables. God’s time is different than ours for sure. Wether we evolve or devolve is up to science to answer. There are definitely developments in affecting human genes and putting computers inside our brains. So maybe we will see some human induced evolution during our lifetime. Just don’t but any of that microsoft crap inside my scull please.
February 2, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Well, maybe if I bear witnes to an actual miracle, I will reconsider my view on those, and if I finally meet an actual god I will reconsider my view on them also.
As to aliens, the Milky Way alone is over 100 000 light years wide, and we have found over 700 exoplanets from within the reach of few dozen light years. Most of these are gass giants because they are bigger and are therfore visible further away. We do not even know if there is life on Titan one of the moons of Saturn in our own solar system, though it is considered unlikely. I can not see how these mathematics could not have produced life on legions of other worlds. What comes to us meeting them, is of course highly unlikely by our knowledge, because the distances are so great we can not yet percieve how it could be possible to cross them, but it is a possiblity that someone else has thought of that too. Stories of UFO sightings and abductions fall into the same gategory as stories of miracles as they are never verified. Only the eyewitnes accounts of people whose hair is standing are ever awailable and no matter how conviced those people are, it allways leaves open the chance that they are telling invented stories, though they might themselves believe in them and the slight chance, that something happened wich could be explained by other more natural and logical means.
Angry hate mongering seems to be the problem of this new electric media, though I doubt that there has ever been an age in human history when issues have been only dealt in civilized conversation. I must say, and I do hope you do not take this as hatefull propaganda, that thought there are christians who are willing to discuss their religion openly it is my experience that atheists, at least among the blogists I have ever encountered, are far more eager to have a civilized conversation. I guess this is due to the fact of what a person with a particular cultural backround finds offensive. Atheists are skeptics, hence they are more often than not ready to face skepticism in many issues, even their own views. As to most christians the internet has become a channel to proclaim the joyfull message they feel so strongly about, so they are not so ready to face to music, when someone comes and blows in the house of straw. This is highly based on my own experience and it is quite possible that I am not being objective here. What are your experiences on such matters?
Please do send me the links that you find interresting and concerning our conversations of these topics. For so far I have found them intriguing. These are all such sources I would not go out to find from the internet nor would I find them if I tried, so they are by all means wellcome. Even if they do tend to strech my answers. Though as you can see from this answer, I am quite capable to make long (too long) answers even when I have not yet read the links you have posted. But I promise to look into them and continue my rants from there. There is little point just to proclaim ones own opinions on any matters, if one does not know what other people think about the same issues.
Just as there are a lot of guesses about the alledged and much desired afterlife, there are quite an abundance of guesses made about the end of the world. Who can see the future? I only tend to see these things by what is most logical to me and trust in such predictions of future that are not based on the actual hopes of people rather on what we actually do know about how the universe works.
I have a friend who could be defined as a cyborg. By natural course he would have died a long time ago, but as science has evolved he had a chance to have an artificial pacemaker for his heart, that would have been his demise only few decades ago. Now, he lives full and purposefull life of a family man. Mechanical hampering with our brains does not sound too inviting, mostly because we know our consciousnes resides on those neural pathways of the brain mass, but for centureis people believe their soul lived in their hearts, so to all those people it would propably been an abomination to even consider a machine induced to the heart. Hardly anyone would like to be the guineapig for testing some new cotraptions, but it all comes to the options does it not. If you knew you were dying from braincancer, and you were offered a chance to try on a new cure, that involved a computer chip into your brain, would you not be inclined to try it on, or would you prefer prayer, and if that did not work death and paradise?
Human engineering humans is not however, what I meant by evolution of us humans. I meant billions of years of evolution. We need to overcome a little cultural evolution to surpass the cultural need for greed to survive as a humanity from the technological catastrophy we have managed to create, in order for us to have time to become humans 1.2 versions. Evolution does not allways lead to progress, but I have hope for humanity, simply because I myself am capable of understanding the necessity of personal sacrifice for the greater good. Hence, I do not take myself as such a special individual and I do think most people are capable of understanding what needs to be done in order for our planet not being destroyed by ourselves. That is how high and how low we are on the evolution ladder, that we have produced enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on earth for several times, but regardless of all our hate and greed we have also manged to restrain ourselves from actually using them for that. Gods have played very small roles in that game, it has been all about human ethics.
February 3, 2012 at 2:36 pm
In the spirit of a new more peaceful internet. Want a GOOD link? Try this guy:
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pscindx.htm
Especially good are his excellent scientific movie reviews. Bound to make you laugh. And great science and religion section too.
February 3, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Thanks alot, it seems like a good link indeed. First I had to check out something familiar to me and went sraight for his revue of the Star Ship Troopers. If you have not seen it, you might not want to read my comment further.
I have never read the book, but I personally really liked the film. The page you linked has some fun points about it, but only one I really agree is that the soldiers are clustering in combat zones and on the march. This is just as annoying in any hollywood movies, and they all seem to fail in that. I suppose it has something to do with transmitting the idea of a mass of soldiers. Never the less, as the writer said it looks goofy. The fact that they do not have artillery in the scene in which the commentator wonders do they not have such able military means in the far future, the troop is actually on a recon mission and they are send there as a bait, when the capabilities of the human army are drawn narrow across a series of worlds. And they are send there by a not so high ranking officer who is trying to prove a hypothesis. Before that their beachead assault on the prime world of the Arachnids is obviously failed before they can even hope to deploy any heavy equipment, so no wonder there either. In the first battle the clustering of the soldiers reminded me much of the disasterous situation on the so called “Utah beach” in the landing at Normandy, when the American troops could not get through the German defences and thousands of men were merely presenting targets to the automatic weapons of the germans. I once read a description of that battle by one of the German machine gunners who said that he killed hundreds of US soldiers in a matter of hours, just because the landing ships all delivered their cargo right in front of him. SO, if you are making a film of a military catastrophy why would it not look like one?
I recommend the film because of the Basil Polendouris music just like the commentator, but also of its own virtue. Well, I am partial because the director Paul Verhoeven is a favourite of mine. I think what he was trying to accomplish is the reflection to how close modern western societes are to fascism. This he does on several of his films like for example the Robocop. How the line to militarism is only a thin veil.
As you know here in Finland you may get prison sentence for not serving in the armed forces and in the US volunteering in the army may get you a stipendium into a higher education than you would otherwise afford. Also the grey nazi-German type uniforms kind of amused me, as they were very similar to those Finnish uniforms I wore when I joined military.
However, though the writer noted that it would be most unlikely that evolution would produce a space faring species, I think he is in error as far as the movie goes. His mistake is based on the assumption he makes that the aracnids have no technology. But as the film goes on, it is revealed that there are indeed intelligent aracnids. Sort of their equivelant of scientists. This leads to the natural assumption, that they have technology, it is simply based on a different sort of technology from ours. And that is one of the things that make this movie good sci-fi. The sending of their seed across the void is an intelligent and logical aim by the arachnids and they achieve it by some sort of bio engineering. Who knows maybe the warrior caste is just a form of bio-robots designed for certain purpose just as their bigger cousins the tanksters seem to be.
It is typical to us humans that we evaluate everything trough our own measure. If the aliens do not have guns and spaceships they do not have intelligence and can not have technology. Maybe it was the very fact that the writer did not understand this issue while to me it was one of the leading points of the story.
This is a typical mistake humans make even between different human cultures. Because the other culture does not have the technical capabilities as ours, we are somehow better than they are, and as a result of this illusion of supremacy empires have lost wars to small, but determined nations.
Anyway a fun link, and I expect to enjoy myself rading more of it.
Now, I am leaving for a weekend of wild partying in Hiittinen, and I am going to get myself blind drunk, so do not wonder if I am not writing here until some time next week.
February 7, 2012 at 9:55 pm
As a former creationist, I didn’t believe that science was some sort of conspiracy. I did, however, believe that scientists heavily favored materialism, which is natural considering how science works. I just assumed that this bias led them to ignore supernatural explanations.
Where science differed with Christianity, I believed it was because there were two ways of viewing the evidence. Many creationist videos will say something akin to “we interpret the evidence through the Bible.” Strangely, as a Bible-believing Christian, I honestly saw nothing wrong with this explanation, because I saw nothing wrong with the Bible.
Noah’s Flood
One of my biggest doubts as a Christian began with the story of Noah’s flood, and you hit on many of the reasons. The Bible says TWO of every animal, so what happened to the millions of species that we now know as extinct? Is the Bible wrong, or did they all die after leaving the ark?
Some Creationists have suggested that birds are not found with the dinosaurs because they could fly, but didn’t some birds die before the flood? And why aren’t flying pteranodons also found in the top layers?
Another fact that bothered me was how we could find hundreds of thousands of invertebrate fossils in places like the Burgess Shale and China, without a single vertebrate! If everything was created at the same time, where are all the fish?
There were so many problems with the flood account that, for me, the theory finally broke… it just did not happen, and I knew it. And if the Bible was wrong about the flood…
Evolution
I didn’t believe in evolution either, just adaptations (what we’d call micro-evolution). But I do remember looking at different dog skulls and wondering how so many different dogs could all come from the grey wolf. And if you can eventually breed a pug and a great dane from a grey wolf, maybe… given enough time… well maybe you could get something that looked REALLY different, but was still similar in some ways. And if that’s possible… maybe men and apes can be related.
Then there’s all the genetic similarities between us and all other living things, especially chimps. And facts like how the gene to produce Vitamin C is broken in the exact same place in both us AND chimps. Why on earth would God WANT to stop only humans and apes from making Vitamin C? I could understand one or the other breaking since creation… but both? And in the same place?
And why would God give whales DNA to make tooth enamel? Or humans the same DNA that a mouse has to grow a tail?
And then I learned about atavism, and how we could coax chickens to grow teeth, and how some dolphins will grow hind leg bones. Or how some humans will grow multiple nipples along the “milk ridge” like dogs or pigs. Eventually, that too just became just too much to ignore.
But you know me, I’m full of questions.
February 8, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Now Mr 500. Go and read the first link I put here (very first post). No need to go to all or nothing explanations. To me that seems a bit too radical. Certainly there was a flood but how large? Well read the link and say how you feel.
February 8, 2012 at 8:05 am
@ 500 Questions, how nice to have your comment on this. It seems to me that the only ones in this world really interrested in creationism are either creationists or atheists. And perhaps other people who encounter the creationist world view as a surprice.
It is easy to deem the faith of other people as fancy and fanaticism and that is done all around the world all the time. Mostly by people who have a firm faith in their own cultural tradition. Yet, it is obvious to me, that though most people who call themselves christians do not spend much time pondering the actual veracity of their conviction (that is to say, the values given to them by their cultural heritage), the creationists actually have invested time and effort to this question. And they have reached a solution, wich is that the Bible has to be literally true, otherwise their faith in god would go unwarranted. If every part of the Bible is not actually true, then could it be that all the parts of the book that look like folklore are just that? A mere myth?
So, is the creationism more of an answer to the scientific research results that challenge the mythical origin of life and all, or to the conclusions atheists and skeptics have drawn from the scientific research results, or just a desperate attempt to hold on to the conservative values and world view of a past era?
The larger sects of all religions have embraced most of the scientific world view, but as the knowledge of the general public becomes more aware of the contradictions between those two, they are struggling in maintaining their believability. People really need to want to believe these days, in comparrison to people of the past world where it was just given to believe in the one and only truth that was ever awailable. However, who would not want to believe there is something better in stall for them after death? It is like a pretty fairy tale nobody would want to disbelief. But plausibility is such, that after one has recognized the uncle behind the Father Christmass mask, there is no return, even if one would so much like to believe in Santa.
Most people have no time, or interrest, to ponder about such things. To most people life is about struggle with much more mundane issues and such complicated matters as gods are left for the “ritual expert” of the society to solve. For this duty the “ritual expert” is often given a fair, or even luxorius, standard of living. Should ordinary people be accountable for not taking the time to be responsible about their “eternal souls”, and if they do, will most of them really find all the religious stories plausible? Certainly by far most of them will find their own cultural tradition most plausible in such issues.
All religions are eclective. Most religions declare a take it or leave it policy, but there is no mind police that can controll over what people find plausible, or not.
To me the Bible, just like all the other religious scriptures and stories I have ever bothered to read, are just plain obvious folklore and myth. They confirm the human ethos of trying to explain the inexplainable and the unanswerable and preferably in a way that seems beneficial to them selves. This does not mean there could actually exist gods. Yet, it seems to me highly unlikely, that if there were gods we would know so little about them, if they wanted to reveal themselves to us, or could understand so much about their motives, as religions would expect us to believe.
I am quite willing to accept the existance of gods, if their existance is ever given any veracity. But there will not be such, will there?
Anyhow, I think your questions are marvellous, and do hope you keep them up. After all, if there is a benevolent god, it will understand why you needed to ask them and answer you so you would understand. If there is an evil god, we can not expect it to keep any promises it has made, so questioning it, is everyones ethical duty. If there is an indifferent god, then it is all the same, if it existed or not…
But it is allways important, why we make our choises and on what kind of morals do we base them on.
February 8, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Hey you guys! There is a nother interresting link here:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/self-domestication/?intcid=story_ribbon
It may have some sort of an answer as to how did the wolves turn into dogs. It also refers to the evolutionary process of social strength. All this reminds me how the US became the leading commercial power in the world. Was it due to hard work of the US citizens? You bet it was, but more than that when the Europe succumbed into the WWI the US was indebted to the European banks and nations some 3 million dollars. When the war was over the European nations owed the US some 13 million dollars. So, the agression Europe had shown in conquering the rest of the world turned on itself when the culture of agression led the European nations to fight each other. Twice! This is actually cultural evolution in process. Now, after reading the linked article, I would say that it is not such a surprice that the same “laws” affect both cultural and natural evolution as in both cases behaviour models are what change and also cause the change. I do not know if there are any gods behind this, but it would certainly look like they are not really needed for all this to happen.
February 8, 2012 at 7:32 pm
“…the Bible has to be literally true, otherwise their faith in god would go unwarranted. If every part of the Bible is not actually true, then could it be that all the parts of the book that look like folklore are just that? A mere myth?”
I think that’s it, exactly. Fundies like Ken Ham (who runs the Creation Museum and AnswersInGenesis.org) admit this fact, it is a slippery slope.
Jesus himself acknowledges the flood story, so if it didn’t happen, then apparently Jesus wasn’t aware that it was a myth. And if JESUS didn’t know the truth, what else did He get wrong?
Ideally, I think most Christians would like this to be a literal story with a global flood. We’d also like to find an ark on Mt. Ararat. But failing that, due to the flood of contradictory evidence, we turn it into a local flood, or label it allegory, rather than write it off entirely.
But I find it wholly illogical and unsatisfying to think that the Bible story is describing nothing but a local flood. Even if some elements of the story are based in truth, then it is still GREATLY exaggerated. I imagine the original story would be seen today as wholly uninspiring and non-miraculous.
Ken Ham’s site AnswersInGenesis also opposes the idea of a local flood, pointing out that “If the Flood was local, why did Noah have to build an Ark? He could have walked to the other side of the mountains and missed it.” Also, why build an ark if the animals can just go elsewhere? And how was God able to murder all men with a local flood?
See: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v21/n3/flood
And as Rautakyy once pointed out, all the dinosaurs wouldn’t have died from a local flood. (Nor would all other fossilized extinct species we know of today.)
So, if it WAS a local flood, then the ark was totally overkill. God should’ve just told Noah to take a hike while He destroyed that part of the world.
The only reason a new “balanced interpretation” is necessary is because too many people have realized this story is bunk, and rater than throw out the Bible (which we hold too dear) we do our best to evolve the story and salvage what’s left.
Noah’s flood story is absolutely critical, because out of the 150 or so miracles described in the Bible, Noah’s ark is possibly the ONLY miracle that would’ve left actual, undeniable proof. But if all it was was a local flood, then all we’re left with is 150 miraculous claims that anyone could’ve made up. In fact, I did 250 miracles this morning, maybe you should worship me? I’ll go ahead and open a PayPal account where everyone can send me their 10%.
February 9, 2012 at 8:24 am
Depends on what you are going to do with my money
Now as I believe (and have heard) this belief in global food is a rather recent development (20:th century). So is this whole ultra literal creationist interpretation of the bible. Recent development. Needles head to head with science.
Certainly earlier interpretationists of the bible did not require this radical interpretation. And nor did bible writers.
“in this period of history, people understood the whole Earth as a smaller geographical area. There is no evidence to suggest that people of this time had explored the far reaches of the globe or had any understanding of its scope”
And from here:
http://biologos.org/uploads/projects/Keller_white_paper.pdf
“The evidence is that Near Eastern ‘myths’ did not evolve over time into historical accounts, but rather historical events tended to evolve over time into more mythological stories”
So it was a habit to make history a bit “better” than it was. I can almost see Noah getting his family plus chickens and goats in to the boat and riding this huge local flood out. To him and his neighbors who drowned it was a world class event. They told the story and future generations glorified it. Thus was the habit and I see no problem. Main idea of the story for hebrews and thus Jesus was religious education, not pinpoint historical accuracy.
Really. Don’t they teach hermeneutics in the US?
Naah. To be honest I stumbled on this discovery myself recently. It is most liberating feeling in the world. Bible and science need not to clash.
I can defenately recommend a good solid 44 minute lecture of the worldview of biblical writers:
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dlamoure/6_adam/index.html
February 9, 2012 at 5:03 pm
That first quote is from here:
http://biologos.org/questions/genesis-flood
February 9, 2012 at 8:59 pm
@Old Friend / Boxi’n horned saint, maybe it would be good if you chose one alius, so everybody could understand to whom they are having a conversation. It is just a bit more polite that way.
@ everybody, the idea of a global flood is just as old as the notion of the global form of the globe is to the christians. The Egyptians and the Chinese knew hundreds of years before Christ, but common knowledge this has been in the christendom only form the 17th century. It is only recent study (well, 20th century) that has revealed it cannot be true.
Please correct me, if I am wrong, but to what 500 Questions is referring to is the actual problem of a gods only actual means of communication with humanity – The holy Bible – seems a bit unplausible, if some of it is just mere myth, or even just bold exaggeration.
There are many mythical aspects in the Bible, like for example the resurrection of Jesus. Now, if we look at the Gospels as mere historical sources, just as when we diminsh the flooding to a local phenomenon and accept that the Bible writers might have exaggerated quite a bit, when they claimed the ark landed on Mt. Ararat (you see, no local flood would have taken it up there), the result is, that Jesus most propably did not die on the cross. Anyone may have the faith in this story of him actually dying and then resurrecting, but if the source is “corrupted” as in the flood story, then the likelines of such marvellous incident is quite remote. Much more likely the entire story was just exaggerated a bit.
Be it as it may, the interresting part is, that the more we know about natural history and human cultural evolution, or even about other religions, the less wondrous the Bible actually seems. All the wonders and great deeds of gods (as there are many gods in the Bible not just the one, like often mistakenly thought) seem less and less supernatural and more like random natural events, or typically human cultural phenomenons. But of course this does not only work for the Bible, it is just the same with all stories of supernatural.
Like I said, anyone has the right to hold whatever faith, as long as they do not act unethically as a result. Jesus, Buddha, and even prophet Mohammed demanded people to be compassionate. It really does not matter, if compassion is set by a god, or evolved as a pretty nifty survival mechanics as part of nature. What is important is to be more reliant to ones own ability to compassion, than to any old rules or laws in any old books, not to mention demagogues who go out to explain them as will of a god/gods. Right?
February 9, 2012 at 9:28 pm
Yep, exaggeration is a slippery slope.
I understand the human desire to line up with Bible with science so it stays relevant and viable, but without miracles, the Bible becomes impotent.
The slippery slope…
http://scrwmedia.com/ufj/files/2011/10/Descent-Of-The-Modernists.jpg
February 10, 2012 at 2:19 pm
I keep changing cus my cool devil logo is not working here.
On history of creationism
I mean of course modern creation science an it’s high degree of concordism
From the same article:
http://biologos.org/questions/genesis-flood
“1961, Young Earth Creationists Henry M. Morris and John C. Whitcomb, Jr. updated Price’s work by writing The Genesis Flood. This book argued that the creation of the Earth was relatively recent, and that the Fall of Man started the second law of thermodynamics. The book also claims that Noah’s Flood was global and produced most of the geological strata we see today. Many regard the work of Morris and Whitcomb to be a major foundational step in the development of modern day creation science, which has since gained a worldwide foothold.”
On flood being true
I did not say that food did not happen did I? Even in my super duper creationist days I did not believe that every little detail in bible is to be taken literally. After all I would not have eyes and hands left in me to write this
The word to use is inspired. God used humans and their views to communicate eternal message of salvation. Holy Spirit made sure that the word was preserved intact.
Thus:
- It is not clear what mountain they are actually refering to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_of_Ararat
- All the animals could have referred to all the known animals to that place at that time.
- We been trough koi/erets before
And so on..
I believe there is a strong possibility of surprisingly much of that flood account actually being true. Just how much? Can’t say. Was it a miracle ordained by God? Of course!
February 11, 2012 at 2:40 pm
In my opinion, it is quite likely, that the myth about an ark is derived from an actual ancient flood in the river valley of Mesapotamia. These stories derive from the earliest era when humans had turned into farming and sedanterism from hunter gatherer societes in the fruitfull half moon of Levantine area. After a long rainy season, one familygroup and their farm animals saved themselves from a particularly nasty flood by using a riverboat, or makeshift raft. It was an unorthodox method as other people in that area who were saved from the flood mainly took to the hills. To exactly what molehills is the “mountains of Ararat” is referring to is impossible to know, but for certainly it is not referring to Mt. Ararat, or any of the Armenian mountains, nor other higher mountain ranges north of Levant, because they are simply too high for a local natural flood to reach. The catastrophy and the curious survival method of this one familygroup, caused a legend to be born. No gods were really required, but they fit nicely in to the oral tradition of the area. As is easily feasible from the Gilgamesh epic. It is typical to these stories, that the gods had some form of justification to destroy all those people who did not survive the flood. That is how human psyche works. This disaster could never happen to us, because we are good people and gods care about us, but use their supernatural powers to punish the bad people. Later as the Hebrew were absorbing the local folklore of their new “given” homeland this article was added, with the appropriate connontations to the Hebrew nomadic understanding of a god.
Or, maybe a particular god decided it was somehow more clever to save a faithfull supporter & family + some animals by a boat, especially built for the local type of flood, rather than to simply send this guy footslogging with his family and herd of goats to the highground.
Never the less, it is a bit curious how these stories in the Bible, wich is supposed to be the main means of communication between the creator entity and humanity, are in every turn just as obscure as this one. It seriously eats away the credibility of any of the stories in that book.
Why would a god want to delude all these simple creationist souls to believe the flood was global and hence the theory of evolution just simply can not work? Or me to think the concept of a god is human invention? If that was not the purpose, could all this history be in a form little less mythical and a bit more concrete? Why would we not have the right to expect a bit more plausible confirmation to something we are expected to actually believe? Is it really be too much to ask from an allmighty entity? Why?
February 11, 2012 at 8:14 pm
The whole point as I told you is not the actual facts of the flood but religious education. This is it’s purpose for existing in the bible. Actual facts are beyond recovery anyways.
If someone believes that it was a global event does not change anything. Still it’s main purpose remains religious education. Allmighty entity is giving us all the info we need in this story. Do not be bad and never forget who made us and so on.
February 11, 2012 at 9:28 pm
BHS:
So, I understand what you’re saying the Bible’s main purpose is religious education, and the other facts of history don’t really matter.
If this is true, then how does the Bible differ from other religious texts? Can’t the Mormon also argue that the historical facts in the Book of Mormon don’t really matter, but its message? With so many different religious texts to choose from, how are we to know which one has truly been revealed by our creator(s)?
God seems to try to and cement His claims through things like winning wars, miracles, and prophecy. If He is saying through these actions that “My claim to be God is true, while all others are false” then these claims are all we have to prove that claim.
If it turns out that these claims offer no actual proof, then the Bible is no better than any other holy book.
Rautakyy:
Christians will debate it, but it does look like the flood story was derived from the earlier tale of Gilgamesh.
So if BHS is right, and the historical facts don’t matter, then maybe we should be placing our faith in Mesopotamian mythology, since they seem to have the earlier, more authentic, version of the Noah story. Just as Christians reject the later New Testament gospels, they should also reject the later versions of the Noah story, otherwise it’s a double standard.
February 12, 2012 at 8:17 am
Now Mr 500 I did not say that the account is not true. Just the opposite.
Is every little detail as it happened? Possible. If you analyze the account carefully, as we discussed here, it is entirely possible to construct a believable flood account. It is just that archeological evidence is lost in time.
Fact for christians remains that we can read the flood account as it is written in the bible and see it’s religious meaning. God inspired the original writers to write what they did and its teaching is valuable trough all times and cultures.
If that is not enough to convince you then perhaps it’s time to start reading that book of mormons
February 12, 2012 at 2:24 pm
If the details are supposed to come from an allmighty entity to the inspired writers, then we have every right to expect every detail to be correct. Do we not? After all, that really is all that we have even to estimate, if the stories of such a god are true, or just similar myths as every other myth and fairy tale in the world. That in it self, speaks loudly on behalf that the Bible is just folklore and the fact that these stories are so ladden with mythical elements simply amplifies the actual lack of a god anywhere, but in the minds of people.
That is the reason why this creationist movement started. Is it not?
A creationist might argue that the Bible has to be true because if there are mistakes in it, how can we tell if any of the wondrous things described in it are true? In that sense they do have a point. However, if I am to choose between the scientific explanation and all the many religious explanations in the world, I can not help myself, but to find the scientific one more plausible.
The fact that the Bible needs higly skilled interpretation to be explicit and in some sort of concert with science and somewhat even fails there, tells me that there are no gods at work here. Or at least that it is not plausible enough from my perspective for me to find faith in me. To me it is strange, that I should be punished for that.
The book of Mormon is just as silly as the Bible. Or even sillier, because it has the same mythical claims as the Bible, but since it is not so old it is by far more easier to show the errors in it. But they are on the same level on the fact that both do make the boldest and totally unsubstantiated claims about the supernatural and expect us to not to contemplate them reasonably, but simply to have faith in them.
There is a conflict between science and religion. It is not emphasized since so many people would be deeply hurt (many scientists even) and especially, if the religious leadership would feel threatened by science, then they would use their demagogial powers against science, and it would certainly not be the first time in history. Thus a status quo stands between scientific research and religious dogma. Up to a certain degree. It is us very few among people who even contemplate such things. In the meanwhile most people in the world are part of the wrong sect or religion by most other people in the world and according to many, many theological claims, that we are expected to have faith in, most people also end up in eternal torment, as a direct result.
Why is it, we should not forget who created us? And what purpose does it serve so many people have such a different notion about who created us, or even how we were not created, but evolved naturally? If there actually is a “benevolent” god, who wants to save us from the eternal pain, why is it so unfair who has that fate and who does not?
However, if the Bible tells you to be good and has you from doing evil things, that is just fine by me. I think that is the sort of religious thinking we have to respect even, if we do not find faith in any gods plausible. In that sense, I think it does not matter what gods you worship. I hope I can be a good person without the Biblical and often quite controversial advice. I would even be so bold to claim, that I have mostly managed quite well, even without this magical guidebook, wich is so often used to lead people to do evil things also.
February 12, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Clash between religion an science is in my humble opinion is indeed a needles one. Just like this discussion we are having about the flood. One can argue to and fro but fact remains that ultimate proof of the matter is utterly and irrevocably lost. To my current knowledge belief in local deluge makes a lot of sense biblically and scientifically. Belief in global flood is ignoring the facts. That is closing ones eyes from reality. I can recommend a good one on this by Ramm commented by ever unbribable Steven Dutch.
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/RammReconcile.HTM
Sums up nicely how we ended up in this situation. But still one does not need this capability to interpret bible to come in to same conclusions as I trough all this up and down trough science. Hyperothodox believers still end up in to same conclusions as I do. Without hours of study as I did
People with will and capability can still perform this same science trip and come to very same conclusions if they want to.
There is just too much archeological evidence to dismiss bible as just another book of mythology. But going trough that is just another loooong discussion
February 14, 2012 at 10:00 am
Obviously you are not aware of how much archaeological evidence there is to back up other books of mythology. Myths are allways backed up by reality, because they are based on the realities in wich the tellers of these tales live in. For example there are plenty of things in the Finnish epic Kalevala that the collector of the poems Mr. Lönnrot could have not known about the iron age Finnish society, but that have been confirmed by archaeology later. Yet, even so we do not take it the world was created by Ilmatar, now do we?
I do agree with you on that the clash between religion and science is a needles one as long as religion is limited to mysticism, that does not dictate politics.
However, even religions that are originally based on compassion have been used as excuses for violence. That violence often derives from assumed “values” claimed to have been based on those religions. But the values of modern society have long gone evolved over the tribal moralism that almost any religions present as values.
February 13, 2012 at 11:07 am
I read all the first sentences of this post and decided to not read the whole post. Again, shorter posts, pictures, and a few succint ideas would help me, as a reader.
Curious if your commentor know how to spell “through”. It has an “H”.
February 13, 2012 at 11:07 am
PS, I just did a short cartoon on Buddhist Creationism. Like you, R, I find creationism bankrupt.
February 14, 2012 at 10:06 am
@Sabio, thanks for the tips. I must admit I am a bit lazy about the pictures and could add them up. On the other hand, when I read a blog post, or a book, I am not inclined to expect the chapters to be very short, or to have more pictures. Do you think it is the media, that demands more pictures and shorter text, or is it just your personal preferences?
I promise to take a look at your Buddhist Creationism cartoon.
February 14, 2012 at 11:13 am
Hey Raut!
Well, most of us blog authors are not brilliant or saying anything unique or original. There is so much to read in the world. So, if it is a well-reviewed author or one I already know is great, I will read long stuff of theirs. Bloggers, though, perhaps benefit keeping it short and adding a bit of eye-candy until they prove they are brilliant and that long time spent reading dry black-and-white was worth sacrificing all the rest of stuff I could have read.
Yeah, I think it is the nature of the media and the authors.
February 19, 2012 at 3:34 am
This is the kind of literal Christianity I grew up with…
February 19, 2012 at 5:48 am
This project “The Ark Encounter” is kind of a mixed up experience of something I have been doing for the last twelve years. Me and a bunch of my friends did built a reconstruction of the oldest seabed wrecks in Finnish waters (you can see a picture of it at my post titeled “Viking”). Some thousand years old type of ship and we have had this hobby of sailing with it every summer. In the beginning we had to collect donations from people to get the raw materials like wood, ropes and tar.
Now, for years I have also been working for the marine industry and in the shipyard of Turku to build bigger and ever bigger cruisers for the Royal Caribean Cruises. When we put together the two last ones of these titans, that were so big they actually have a park inside each one, we the workers, used to make jokes about it, that what we actually were building was arks for the richest Americans with their pets to clamber into when the next great flood came along. Before either of these ships had names their working title was the “Genesis” project, so you can imagine where that idea came from.