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This is in part a response to furrykef, who says that the Bible is hardly believable and eschews science. Well, does it? That depends on your interpretation. Certainly in some views, it's simply not possible. In others, however ...

As part of a mental exercise and also striving to better understand some things, I took it upon myself to study the opening creation verses of Genesis, while looking more closely at certain scientific theories. Some of what I'm about to describe here are things I've always believed, but for all the verses I've looked at them, and compared them to scientific thories surrounding the geological and evolutionary histories of Earth. I have always had an allegorical interpretation of the creation verses, mind you.

I might delve a bit further into Genesis later on, but for now, I'm just going by the creation story.

For this, I used the New International Version.



The state of the universe before the "causality," I'll call it. I don't recall where I read this but some scientists have theorized that the universe 'existed' in some way before the causality. Genesis refers to 'waters' a lot at various points, but I don't think that's much of a problem. It's obviously using water in poetic terms at several points. The usage of water in various ways to describe quite un-watery things is something that human poets have done since the dawn of our time. I often hear space referred to as a "black sea”, ocean, or water, after all. Heck, think of that one video game series, "Star Ocean."



There's the "causality." Typically we see this as the Big Bang, but the Big Bang competes with other theories--Brane collisions, Big Burps, oscillating universe ... These are typically still explosive "separations of light and darkness," however--a creation of the universe, separating matter from its previous state and creating all the stars and galaxies. There're various methods to build a bridge, but it'll still be a bridge.
However, most evidence we have--observations from Hubble, not to mention the satellite observatory named after him, etc.--suggest that the Big Bang theory is most likely. By the way, did you know that none other than a Roman Catholic priest proposed the Big Bang theory? Georges Lemaître was his name. (Rhetorically) Who says you can't be both a scientist who fathered a modern scientific theory AND a man of the cloth?



You know what this has always sounded like to me? Accretion disk. The gases that swirled together to form the Sun, slowly developing a protostar, and later the excess matter forming the planets of our solar system. The formation of the sun happened roughly 4,600 million years ago, but it was still a sort of protostar--or at least young and dim--at the time of Earth's formation, during or shortly after, excess gas and matter in the disk condensed, forming a globe of lava. It's important to note that the Earth, therefore, started out as a bunch of gas and other heavier elements--I suppose this would be best described as a sort of sky, separating what will be the Earth from the rest of the universe. As things condense and solidify, you get a superhot ball of lava--no doubt, there was still a sort of sky, but hardly like the one we now know.

To wit, I've read in some places (Wikipedia being one) that the atmosphere Earth has now is called the 'Third Atmosphere'--the one that was present in Earth's formative years was made mostly of hydrogen and helium. It was quickly replaced by a thicker, more complex composition--probably this atmosphere was present for some of the Hadean and most of the Archean eons, and once photosynthetic life took off significantly, that marked the point when this "second atmosphere" was in transition to the current atmosphere of today. The "second atmosphere" as it's called had something like 100 times as much gas as what we have now. Keep that in mind, I'll be talking about this later.



Lava is often characterized to be much like water, for a start. The lava cools to form dry land--during this process, which I believe took around 500 million years, the atmosphere was thickening and changing composition, and the first REAL oceans, oceans of water, formed. (There is evidence to support presence of water at this time, despite the problem of the Earth's sun still not emitting light at its peak, and they’re not strong enough to melt ice into oceans according to the problem). At any rate, I don't think there're any real issues here with the creation verses so far.



... Then we go right into the first big issue. Taken word for word, this goes against what science has observed as far as the development of life is concerned, not to mention cosmology and geology. As we know them, plants appeared on the land AFTER aquatic animals first developed. However, here, we're told different, though that depends on your interpretation. You also have to keep in mind that the Bible's verses as we have them date creation of plants before "the stars, sun and moon" (I'll get to that in a second).

There might be a possible explanation, which would also go in line with how the other "life creation" verses are presented. A view I personally hold is that the process BEGAN, and continued to develop as God worked to other ends, rather than each phase being wholly completed before the next phase--meaning that God started things in motion and by the time he brought about the creation of humans, that was when everything described was present in the world. This sort of thinking is already something one has to consider otherwise when relating Bible verses with scientific findings--and it may lend to this. Scientists have found evidence that single-celled life might have been in development as far back as the Hadean eon, the first phase of Earth's development--which is between Earth's creation (4600 MYA) to 4000~3800 MYAish. We know that life definitely existed in the next eon, the Achaean. Achaean's atmosphere was still not oxygenic by this time, though oxygen-producing life started to appear here.

The thing is, what possible evidence from the Hadean exists points towards photosynthetic life--and most prokaryotes (generally agreed to be the first among organized life) are photosynthetic, though their abilities vary and the prokaryotes have the most extremophiles. If the Hadean evidence is panned, then you still have to consider life from the Achaean eon. Certainly cyanobacteria was among the first life forms, which are nourished from light--but other earlier life forms got their nourishment from carbon dioxide, and not by consuming each other. What are plants generally (but not wholly) known for, that sets them apart from practically all other non-bacterial life?

To point out further--among all life, the first to develop to multicelluarlity were algae and seaweeds. Interesting, no?

So there're several possibilities. This phase in Genesis refers to the start and ongoing development of flora on Earth, starting with simple life forms that share a common function with plants. Alternatively, it might be that this is more literal and Moses wrote down the order incorrectly, or this was garbled through "da telephone game" as Strong Bad would say. God might be shaking Moses by his shoulders in Heaven and going "I TOLD YOU! PLANTS CAME AFTER FISH! NOT BEFORE!"

However, thinking about it, I don't know--when you take into account that fully developed life as we know it didn't happen in phases, but that each "type" as categorized in the Bible appeared successively, and gradually took the form(s) we know them by, this might actually be closer to what science has observed ...



Oh dear, train wreck! Here the word-for-word application of the creation story would fall apart. Dividing light from darkness--but didn't that already happen? Why are the stars, sun and moon created NOW? Not to mention before plants, which work off photosynthesis? Just for kicks though, let's look at the relationship between the creation verses here and the Sun/moon/planets.

Maybe it wasn't the stars, as in the other stars in the universe, described here. Think about it--in early civilizations, the planets were often considered stars themselves. In Eastern cultures, for example, Mars is called the "fire star." Mercury is called the "water star," Venus is called the "metal star," Saturn is called the "earth star," Neptune is the "sky king star," and Uranus is the "sea king star." Therefore, if the planets were commonly called stars along with the real deal, I don't see why it could be specifically referring to THEIR creation instead. After all, the separation of light from darkness would entail the formation of real stars elsewhere, right?

I'm not sure when or if exact dates on planetary formation occurred. As far as I understand it no real attempt at pinning down "specific" times has been made--probably because we simply lack the technology to scour the planets of our system as we have Earth. We're able to figure out Earth's age because we can go almost anywhere on the surface and check out the rocks. It takes a lot of time and money to send two robots to Mars, who simply can't do everything, though they're friggin' awesome on their own.

The only real estimate on Mercury's formation I can find is that it formed sometime over four billion years ago. The context of what I've read on some sites (Wikipedia being one) sounds as if it formed AFTER Earth took general shape, since Earth is thought to have started forming roughly at the same time the sun did, and certainly took shape by the Achaean eon. Other sources assume Mercury formed right when Earth did.

Venus ... pfft. I don't know if we'll ever know its age. If we went by what the missions to Venus' surface found, then Venus would be only 650 million years old--but that ain't right at all. Something major happened on Venus, and because of that, I don't think we can really date its rocks reliably. I'm sure, however, that Venus is older than its surface can be dated by--roughly 4 billion years ago.

Now, the Moon seems most likely that it would have been created after the Earth. Two theories out of the four prominent ones proposed deal with the Moon being created from the Earth itself, one of which (Giant Impact Theory, stating the moon spawned from Earth after a major surface impact) reconciles several inconsistencies in the Earth and Moon themselves, and links similarities the Earth has in composition with the Moon. An important thing about the Giant Impact theory is that it explains why the Earth has seasons--the angle of impact and the size of the impactor sped Earth's rotation up and at a tilt.

Giant Impact theory takes place sometime in the Hadean era, typically "just after" the Earth formed--this is important to remember.

The real glaring problem with comparing these verses to scientific studies is that if we take this to mean "God created them at this point," the sun's creation taking place after the Earth simply doesn't parse. As for the planets, they probably started forming at the same time as Earth did, or close after. I haven't been able to get some figures or estimates on this. I don't quite think the timing is important, though. When you get right down to it, a lot of stuff categorized as the "days" God spent creating past the causation happened--or began--in the same eon.

There is another interpretation, though, and after looking into some things, I think that the creation verses' timing makes more sense this way. In reading some opinions of other apologetics and scholars, they found the phrasing to be odd--and obviously noted some of the same problems here. Remember the second atmosphere I mentioned? Being 100 times gassier than the current atmosphere--and composed likely of hydrogen/water vapor, carbon dioxide, ammonia, and a bit of nitrogen, I don't think you'd be able to see through it very well. It was probably a lot like Venus.

Over time, the water vapor condensed, rained down, and brought the carbon dioxide with it, making things easier to see--could it be that these verses aren't specifically referring to the creation of the Sun, moon, and stars/planets, but merely to the atmosphere thinning out and slowly becoming more hospitable, in the process revealing them from Earth's point of view?



Not much I can say here--birds being formed in this phase is an obvious inconsistency with what science has observed. Archeological evidence points to birds being an offshoot of dinosaur development.

However, animals did first originate in the water--note the 'animals' bit there. As far as I can tell, multi-celled animals came after multi-celled (seaborne) plants, and the animals were of course seaborne. The Cambrian eon was one big party until that extinction event. They must've all been drinking too much Listerine. (Everyone knows only Coach Z has the power to handle that stuff!)



Again, there is little to say here. Land animals developed after sea animals, so in the context of evolution theory, this is correct. It's just that birds developed after land animals.



Ladies and gentlemen, the main event! Heeeeeeeeereeeeee's humanity! Again, in the context of evolution, the human species is the most recent development (in the context of what the Bible is grouping together). Keep in mind that the idea of evolving from an ape doesn't necessarily conflict with these verses, especially keeping in mind all that I've said prior--and also keep in mind that some of the largest organizations of Christianity find no problem with evolution itself--two popes have explicitly given it their papal stamp of approval, so to speak. In other words, the presence of ancestral offshoots like Homo erectus, Homo habilius, and those directly in our ancestral line linking us back to the apes can be seen as evidence of guiding us towards what we are now.

In any case, God's words to humanity speak much about what sets us apart from the rest of life on the Earth. God made us in our own image, what does that mean? It can be interpreted many ways than just "made to look like God's physical form"--which is kinda silly when you think about how God interacts with humanity. Off the top of my head, direct interventions by God are not typically in human form, save Jesus. I think it more closely speaks about our ability to reason, our intelligence--that like God, our intelligent thinking beings. More specifically, we among all life that has developed on Earth possess a highly developed ability to reason, to use speech, language, and introspection. We are self-aware. Our ability to apply that to the world and overcome obstacles, make tools, to use our brains instead of brawn.

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So, let's sum up. From a literal, word for word standpoint, Genesis just doesn't match up with science. The most glaring differences would be birds being created before land animals, plants being created before the sun, stars, and moon--not to mention the plants are specifically mentioned as land based.

However, it is possible--and in some cases, extremely easy--to see the parallels in the creation verse accounts to what science has discovered. By taking a closer look at the details, it's possible to see that--if you assume Genesis is written in a very poetic manner (which Didymus mentions--that Genesis reads like a song in the original Hebrew) and allow for some assumptions that go against literal word-for-word interpretation--that the creation verses are not so far fetched after all. Really, when matched up with science in that regard, there's only one serious deviation from scientific observations. It might be that the original version that Moses wrote could have been very well matched to current observations in science, and became slightly distorted over time--who knows.

Among the various creation stories that various religions have, I've found that the Judeo-Christian verses hold up very well in light of scientific studies. Not perfectly, but very well--it's very, VERY eerie.

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You expect me to read that monstrosity? I have far better things to do than listen to you defend the stupid, ridiclous teachings of the so-called "Bible" (which has caused more pain and suffering than anything to date and especially for homosexuals and did I mention I'M TRANSSEXUAL and all those damn fundie christians make life so hard for me and America is a hotbed of ignorance and sheer stupidity...)

WHOAH! Guess I was channelling Ol' Rosie there for a minute.

What I mean to say it this:

Excellent work, Trev. My basic thoughts on this subject are the same as yours. While a literal interpretation of Genesis does contradict science, the account of the creation is by no means unreconcilable with modern scientific discoveries.

I think that religion will always be misrepresented as the denial of science, and that the religious are trying to rever the world to the "dark ages". I think that evolution and the Bible are incompatible. Others may have different beliefs, but my personal belief is that because God created Man in His image, and God is the same eternally, then there was no macro-evolution (evolution that allows a species to become a differents species, not to be confused with micro-evolution, or horizontal evolution which allows a specie to become more specialized, i.e., faster, stronger, longer fur, or other minor changes in physical structure).

Edit: Read your post, lahi. My position is "love the sinner, hate the sin." The problem is that there are too many people out there calling themselves Christians who are not Christians at heart. The other problem is that the haters are the most vocal.

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I don't know, that seems to make a lot of assumptions. Instead of saying "well if we assume this means that and that's symbolic of this, then it works", wouldn't it make more sense to leave room for inconsistencies? After all, you can't be sure if your interpretation of the symbolism is correct, and as you said, Moses may simply have written it wrong.

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the Bible is not meant to be a science textbook, or a history book, or a storybook. it contains aspects of all these things, but it's primarily intended to instruct humans of how best to live: it's a law book.

that said, i would recommend you check out a book called "Genesis and the Big Bang" by Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a Bible scholar and PhD in nuclear physics. it's bloody brilliant.

True. Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

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Advanced Instructions Before Leaving Earth

Aible. sounds like what my father wants

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If you're a Christian (or even if you aren't) and interested in professional scientific opinions on how science fits in with the Bible, I reccommend Answers in Genesis. I know, I posted this on a different discussion topic, and at the risk of sounding like a fanboi, I absolutely love the site. I had a lot of doubts about how exactly creation and stuff fit together, but AiG had a ton of informative articles about the subject. It is from an evangelical viewpoint, so if you have a more liberal view of the Bible you might not find it to your liking, but I found it all fascinating.

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Wow. Another one of THESE topics on a forum. I've said plenty about it all recently. And if you want to read it, it's all on another forum I sometimes go to.

http://www.sonicstadium.org/board/index.php?showtopic=10393

And that topic is like 51 pages long now. You can probably find all the debates, questions and answers you want in that massive thread.

Interesting you should mention that web site, especially in connection with "professional scientists." Concerning Ken Ham, the company's president, Wikipedia says, "His arguments are widely disputed by those in the skeptic community and have not gained the acceptance of any mainstream scientific organization." But let's not take Wikipedia's word for it. AiG's criteria for determing who is a "professional scientist" is anybody who has a doctorate in a scientific field, which seems fair. By AiG's count there are at least 154 scientists in the world who have doubts about evolution. As an amusing counterpoint, Project Steve has the number of "professional scientists" who both believe in evolution and happen to be named Steve surpassing 700 (about 1% of "professional scientists" are named Steve; there are only four Steves on AiG's list). Of course, this proves nothing, but it does crack me up.

There's also the No Answers in Genesis site, which is worth taking a look at, but which I find fairly petty.

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Thanks for the input, guys! Now for some of the responses ...

Eh. I don't prescribe to Answers in Genesis, or Young Earth Creationism, personally. That's a bone of contention even among other creationists, and religious scientists (who I think typically believe evolution is the norm, but (like me) feel that evolution one of the instruments God used to create the world). Good example of the lattermost: Kenneth Miller, who is staunchly religious but rejects creationism.*

The one thing I'd like to add here is that a while back I came across a page--I think it was on (ugh) Internet Infidels--claiming that Liberal Christianity and a liberal interpretation of Genesis 1 (similar to mine in the concept that for God, a "day" could be millions of years) were both 'intellectually dishonest' (ending with a "call for intellectual honesty" that amounted to "n00b mindless xtians" ... e_e ).

Their whole point consisted nothing but harping on the concept of 'days' as stated in the Bible, trying to throw the interpretation in doubt by saying that the "phases of creation" could not be evently spaced into six periods of time, no matter how long each one was. It proceeded to compare a timeline of basic events in the geologic period to such an evenly spaced "bible timeline."

I don't know if this is similar to what IJ linked to (I looked, but No Answers In Genesis doesn't seem to target this sort of thing, only misquotes by creationists and creationist hoaxes), but I found that EXTREMELY petty and laughable. One only needs to look at how geologists and biologists divvy up Earth's life. THEY don't seem to care too much about "equal spaces in time"--Eons, Eras, Periods and Epochs all have wildly varying lengths of time--in fact, I don't think any two single eons/eras/periods/epochs have the same time span at all.

It's better to think of the "days" as I interpreted it in the same light that scientists use for the geologic time period--that a "day" merely means a period of time, unspecified in length, and very un-uniform. Remember that, as Didymus had said before, these verse are written like a song--songs can be by their nature very poetic with lyrics and flowery, not to-the-point.



I pretty much agree with you. The Bible is not one thing, as its composite books cover many different things--history, psalms, stories/parables/fables, and records of law.

Despite that, I think it's necessary to at least respond to the challenges atheists and other non-Christians (and in this case, non-Jews since this is a part we both share) make about the plausibility of scripture.

Also, this is a part of the Bible that I think was not just a mere song.



Hrm. I'll check it out if I can. Looked it up at Amazon; it does indeed sound interesting!



Well, the assumptions I do make in my interpretations include:

• That, based on what Didymus has said, Genesis' creation verses were originally a song. This might not be so much of an assumption though, but it is the basis for some (or maybe all?) of my reasoning.
• "Days" being a poetic method of describing various periods in the creation sequence, not literal 24-hour Earth days
• The idea that the 'creation' of the Sun and Moon was in reality the effect of the Second Atmosphere giving way to the Third, allowing for their visiblity from Earth
• That each of the phases involving creation of life describes the end result--that in reality, at each point it began and developed until modern times (and probably is still in motion)

Some are fundamental in their assumption, I grant you that, but I don't think these are truly deviating from scripture, especially if given what Didymus has said about these verses is true. Genesis' creation verses as a song leave a lot of possibility in the meaning behind the verses.

That said, I don't see why the fact that many people have interpreted the Bible (and these verses in particular) in different ways is grounds for dismissing my interpretation. I'm not trying to get on a high horse here. I'm not saying that I believe my interpretation is the only correct one. I just don't see where the reasoning is in the opinion that "because so many people have different ideas, the whole thing should be dismissed."

Some other things that underlie my interpretations and beliefs:

I'm of the opinion that the Bible, while divinely inspired, is so old that there is a possibility of inconsistencies occuring over time, packet loss as they say in the vernacular. It may indeed be possible that some parts have been changed over time, by accident or maybe even by intent.

That might not be so much the case for the New Testament, but the Old Testament and Tanakh have got to be ... what, three, four millenia old? That and--well, Cobalt can best answer this, but isn't the Tanakh also complemented by Jewish oral traditions and law?

Here's another thing, and is more fundamental to my interpretation.

Have you ever noticed how the language of the Bible is? It's describing things in such a way that people from Moses' (and later, Jesus') time periods can understand. We are different people from those that walked the Exodus. Just as people from centuries now will be different from us.

If you went back in time and had to describe a modern piece of technology to someone from the Classical age, you'd most likely describe it in a way they'd understand, not in a way we'd understand. I know Didymus got onto me for this once, but I have to bring up the example again--of a NASA Engineer who read the prophet Eziekel's accounts of witnessing God (which is the first thing written in his book) on a chariot, and looked at it from a engineering standpoint--then proceeded to sketch a spaceship from it.

Now I'm not saying I buy into Ezekiel's Spaceship, but when looking at my interpretation, you'll better see where I'm coming from if you apply the concept behind that. In other words, if you look at the bible the Bible as written for people millenia prior whose ability to scientifically observe the world around them was far more muted than ours, and therefore describes things in ways they'd understand, you can see where I come from.

This is how I can believe that it's possible to apply scientific findings to the creation verses and come up with something eerily close to current scientific studies. Back when Moses lived, the people of the time period had no idea what accretion disks were, or probably weren't even aware of the existence of bacteria.

*Glancing at the Wikipedia page, I found it funny that Ham views things like the Big Bang theory as a secular threat to religion, when it was a Roman Catholic priest who proposed that theory in the first place--and back then, said priest was jeered at by non-Christian scientists (including Albert Einstein himself) for advancing such a theory!

I also find it equally amusing that militant atheists wield the Big Bang theory along with evolution like they are some sort of bane against religion, when the Roman Catholic church got behind both concepts without much fuss.

This is more or less offtopic rantng, which is why I moved it down here.

(EDIT: Trying to clear up some parts I think got muddled, like most of my posts)

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Geez! And I think my posts get long sometimes...

Apparently you've been wanting me to say something about this, but instead of addressing the individual points, I'll just say that the problem with interpreting Genesis in this manner is that, well, you're interpreting. It reminds me of when people attempt to prove Nostradamus had predicted something; often, something will happen that will fit the prediction, but the prediction could have fit a wide variety of scenarios.

That's not to say that Genesis is completely irreconcilable with science. I just think the common literal interpretation (that the Earth was created in six days and that Adam was indeed the first human being) is. There are the usual counterarguments such as "what if a day isn't really a day" and so on, but that isn't a literal interpretation. It is the literal interpretation I really have a beef with, not the story of Genesis in general.

- Kef

Hmm. A big problem that many people seem to have in the creation debate is what exactly the concept of "day" really is. It makes sense from both sides: an omnipotent God making the universe in six days because it fits into his will, or that same omnipotent God who makes the universe gradually over the course of billions of years. Now, I haven't said anything new yet in this post, just putting down my thoughts.

But on to my actual point, my church recently did a study on Genesis (actually, we're still in it, only more towards the end) and one of the first things that was discussed was the definition of day. The main problems arise from not the verse in Genesis itself, but a verse later in the Bible (that has been quoted already) that states that a thousand days are the same as one to God. In English, this gives question to how long the Genesis "days" actually are.

"In English" is the key phrase here. The Old Testament was originally written in Aramaic (please tell me if that's wrong, however the name of language doesn't effect the following) and as such special care needs to be taken in interpreting the Bible word for word in the English.

If we go back to the original translations, we find that the word used for "day" is the word that conveys the idea of a single twenty-four hour period of time. This word is also used throughout Genesis as well as other early books to show the same meaning. Now, you might say that it is speaking metaphorically, but why would the author (be it Moses or whoever) use this word in such a way only in this point? It doesn't make much sense to me, but that what I think.

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Then the logical conclusion to reach is that the entire 7-day creation story is just a simplified explanation of how the universe came to be, told in such a way so the simpleminded people of that time period could comprehend it, just like the Norse creation stories of how Odin and his brothers killed the giant Ymir and made the Earth from his body.

I've never thought Genesis was meant to be taken at face value, personally. Most of it is, to me, a fable meant to explain what must have been considered unexplainable.

Most of the rest of the Bible, now, I have an easier time believing.

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beep beep I'm a Jeep

Capt. Ido Nos, you might be interested in reading this excerpt from an apologist website. I don't agree with a lot of stuff Rich Deem says, but his apologetics are interesting. Didymus could probably give some insight too:

[/quote]

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I believe the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament in vernacular Greek. I think some of the Old Testament was actually written in Aramaic, but not Genesis.

- Kef

Meant to say something in reply to furrykef:



To me, this sounds similar to what I've seen some atheists say before--that all interpretations of the Bible should be dismissed, save for the literal one, because according to them Christians only started "trying to reinterpret" the Bible once scientific observations proved a literal interpretation wrong.

I'd like to point out right here that there is a world of difference between interpreting Nostradamus and interpreteting Genesis. Interpreting Nostradamus is a far more fitting analogy for interpreteting the Book of Revelations, because that is something which, at the time of the book's writing, did not happen. It may well have already happened by now depending on which theory you prescribe to (such as the one I follow, that Revelations speaks of the fall of the Roman Empire). Genesis is an account of something that already happened when it was written. So, the analogy you've used is a little unfair from the start.

I've seen atheists elsewhere think they've "defeated" Christians by 'sandwiching' them, somewhat like this: "Ha! Your interpretations are no more valid than people trying to prove Nostradamus predicted something! The only true reading of the Bible is a literal one, which is false. We win, there is no God!"

Well, that's simply not true. Early Christians actually supported the idea that passages like Genesis should NOT be interpreted literally. St. Augustine, one of the greatest theologicians of the Roman Catholic church, supported this view with his various writings. Did I mention he lived around 400 AD? That's at least 1400 years before science seriously got into geology and evolution.

Something I've recently learned is that, indeed, at points it was considered heretical to interpret those passages literally.

My point here is that, again, it's unreasonable to dismiss the interpretations people have of Genesis just because it's not taking a 21st-century literalist view. It's even more unreasonable to think that only a literal view should be prescribed to, especially ... as I've said time and time again ... evidence from our own scholars here in the forum say that those passages are songlike in nature. How many songs out there exist that do not "get to the point" but speak of things in a flowery, symbolic style? How many bards and artists have written deeper meanings into their songs than what can be taken from a word-for-word basis?

Yes, interpretations such as mine are not the same as taking Genesis word for word--but as J.R.R Tolkein himself said (and C.S. Lewis supported) is that allegories and even myths are "truths in unfamiliar clothing." My opinion on this is reinforced from learning what many early Christians thought and supported.

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That's not really what I'm saying. I'm saying it was the literal interpretation that really bugged me and so I spend my effort on refuting that. I don't really have any particular issue with a less literal interpretation except that I simply don't believe in it.

I will say, however, that you're indeed correct that interpretations cannot be dismissed because of the mere fact they're interpretations. That still does not solve any practical problems, however... for example, how do we know what interpretation is the correct one? Especially when we can't really know... before we understood evolution, it seemed natural to assume a literal interpretation of Genesis, just as people had assumed a geocentric view of the universe since they didn't know better, and that the Earth is flat as the eye can plainly see. (Whether people had always interpreted Genesis literally before evolution was known is irrelevant; I'm examining the process through which interpretations emerge.) Now that we have more information, the interpretation changes. OK, that's fine and dandy, but this has shown us that we cannot always safely assume one interpretation or another going by the text of the Bible alone, because science has shown the literal interpretation "wrong". But before it did, we didn't know... people just blindly believed this literal interpretation. For thousands of years, we didn't have the information needed to interpret Genesis "correctly". How are we supposed to handle this sort of thing? Interpret things literally until proven otherwise?

True, that such conundrums exist doesn't disprove the existence of God or the truth of the Bible, but it does make me not want to bother with the whole thing.

- Kef

Okay, you just kinda disregarded everything I said, reiterated your opinion, and winked with a grin.

At least, that's what I got out of your post. This is what I saw as your main point: "Whether or not other interpretations existed before science taught us evolution are irrelevant. People blindly believed a literal interpretation until it was disproven by scientific study. How are we supposed to handle this sort of thing? Interpret things literally until proven otherwise? "

To me, that says you assume that all Christians in the past blindly, without thinking about it, believed the literal interpretation was correct. That further tells me you have disregarded the information about early Christian thinkers--not just Aquinas, but others like Hippolytus who lives 200 years before him--advocating non-literal interpretation. Of course you did claim this as irrelevant.

So, what I am seeing is your continued assumption that the literal interpretation was the only one taught and supported by an overwhelming majority throughout all of the pre-evolutionary theory history, that such literal interpretations were considered heretical at some points is somehow irrelevant.

But if some, if not a significant amount, of Christianity's most important early theologicians supported non-literal interpretations, and (especially in Aquinas' case) arguing that Christians should not blindly or foolishly believe things that are contrary to reality (and this is back in AD 400 folks!), don't you think that undermines the claim that Christians just mindlessly believed a literal interpretation, and that there is a unsolved "practical problem" due to this?

Or to put it another way, and perhaps easier to understand where I'm coming from--early Christians had healthy debate on just how to interpret things in the Bible like Genesis. It was not the blind belief in literal interpretations you speak of. To brush the debate and arguments from those earlier days as "irrelevant" and focus on something that was very likely not widely prescribed to in early Christianity or even later on, smacks of a straw man argument--dismissing an important and crucal fact to understand, since it complexifies and vastly increases the difficulty with which atheists can lay claim to "Christians mindlessly believing" and not critically thinking.

But yes, the myriad interpretations and discussion of them in Christianity does solve a practical problem for you--that the Bible may not be as contradictory as atheists like yourself claim.

And finally, tangiental:



You are bothering with it, though. If you truly did not want to bother with it, you'd be either an agnostic or apatheist. As it stands, you extol your atheism, your denial in the existence of any god, you posted a thread on why you are an atheist, and actively--albeit far more politely and respectably than many others--argue that theistic beliefs are fallacious.

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Pretty much, yes, because most of what you said is not what I'm interested in. A lot of what you say, I have no quarrel with. It's as if you're expecting me to go toe to toe with you on the individual points, even though I'm not interested in debating them right now. Yes, that a literal interpretation of Genesis was considered heretical at some points is irrelevant to me because I'm simply not interested in those points of view. I'm not arguing against points of view that consider it heretical, so why discuss it?

Apparently, in the same vein, a lot of the things I'm saying aren't interesting to you in exactly the same fashion, so perhaps I ought to just get out of this thread.

EDIT:



As I've explained in the thread that you mention, I don't deny the existence of God, I don't believe in him. There is a semantic distinction: denying says "There is no God [end of story]", and not believing is "There may or may not be a God, but I'm not inclined to think there is one." I also don't believe that theistic beliefs are fallacious per se, so much that common reasons for holding some beliefs seem questionable. I'll also note that the same things can apply to atheism. I think there is no sound logical argument that God exists (or we'd all point to it), but there is no sound logical argument that he doesn't, either. Everybody's on his own path, and I was simply explaining why I've chosen mine.

- Kef

Because from what I understand, you keep insisting that most Christians pre-evolution "blindly believed a literal interpretation." This in turn lays support for what you've said in other threads, where you are advocating the idea that there is a flaw with trying to even interpret the Bible, because (you claim) the Bible is nonsense from the start--that no one can find meaning in it, and therefore imply that Christians are foolish/stupid/blind to believe in it.

You and PianoManGidley have both expressed sentiments like that in varying strengths.

All your posts in this thread hinge on that idea from which you progress to say "What are we supposed to do, believe something literal until proven otherwise?" Despite that historical facts showing that many Christian thinkers did NOT do this at all undermine this argument, which I've been saying for the past three posts. When these facts are pointed out, you wink, grin, and say it doesn't matter. Even though it does. You say you have no quarrel with it, but they directly interfere with the conclusions you come to.

That's what's chafing me. From what I am seeing, you think the literal interpretations are the only ones that ever existed pre-evolution, and from there you use this assumption to say "the problem with your comparison of scientific studies to Genesis is that you're trying to reinterpret Genesis away from a literal one," which in your arguments defeats the whole idea that the Bible may not be as unbelievable to people as you've said. Again, history shows that since Christianity's inception people have put ciritical thought towards passages like in Genesis, interpreting them other than word for word.

In short, people have always approached the Bible from various angles. You can't assume people "blindly believed" a literal interpretation, that somehow looking at it from other ways is deviant and heretical. Especially when literal interpretations WERE considered heretical at points.

As for the tangent:



I'll be honest--I've given up trying to pick out semantic differences in the word 'atheist.' Many MANY times I've heard various attempts by atheists and non atheists to seperate the 'deniers' from the 'disbelievers.' "atheist," "Atheist," "weak atheist," "strong atheist" ... It's not like, say, Christianity, where an individual denomination has its own name, and you can be specific and through the use of that name you know what to typically expect the Christian believes in.

The main problem is that the denier atheists lay claim to the title 'atheism' as well. And most people recognize that someone who is 'atheist' is someone who does not believe in the existence of God, no matter how strong that disbelief is. For now, it's hard to seperate the two groups into something most people will quickly recognize and understand.

I mean, imagine if all Christians called themselves Christian--if the words "Lutheran," "Catholic," "Baptist," "Anglican," or "Mormon" didn't exist. You can see my frustration.



Probably the only thing you've said here I've been able to get behind fully.

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