Science AND Genesis

[DaveD49]

This is an offshoot from the "Science vs. Genesis" topic but it covers a different main premise. That topic suggested a conflict between the two. My topic shows where there is agreement. I think that everyone would agree that it would be extremely rare for any 4000 year old document, especially one that existed for thousands of years in oral form before it was written down, to agree with ANY modern scientific concept. The very first chapter of the first book of the Bible can be seen to agree with five of them. (Not only that, but the very first Hebrew word of the first chapter of the Bible reveals a stunning prophecy which came true 2000 years later, but that is another subject.) The five modern scientific concepts and theories are the concept of a slowly developing Earth, the concept of "super-continents" such as Pangea, abiogenesis, and evolution. None of these concepts were familiar to the people of the age when it was written.

Slowly forming Earth

Now the earth was formless and void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water. God said 'Let there be light', and their was light.

(Gen1:2-3)

Imagine for a minute that you were sitting on the planet at the time it was first developing from slowly settling dust, moisture and stone. You would be able to see nothing, because the dust and moisture in the sky would block out all to sun's rays. Over a loooong period of time eventually as more dust settled the light of the sun could be seen even though you still could not see the sun itself. I have read where scientists have said that during this period of time it rained for over 10,000 years. We are in what the Bible calls the first day. The sun and the moon do not become visible until the fourth day. (BTW the Hebrew word interpreted as "day" can also be interpreted as "age" or "eon". Look it up.)

Super-Continents

God said, 'Let the waters under the heavens come together in a single mass and let dry land appear'. And so it was. God called the dry land 'earth' the the mass of waters 'seas'

(Gen1:9-10)

As more dust settled, dry land appeared starting in one place with one land mass.

Abiogenesis

This is a discredited scientific theory about the origins of life from the primordial goo, or "dirt", but it seems that the Bible agrees with it.

God said, 'Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees...

(Gen 1:11)

God said, Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly about the earth within the vault of heaven.

(Gen 1:20)

God said, Let the earth produce every kind of living creature: cattle, reptiles, and every kind of wild beast.

Gen 1:24

Note that in each case it does not say that God "zapped" them into being, but rather caused the EARTH or the WATERS to produce them. Note also the Bible also states

Evolution

Note please that in general the order of appearance of various living things corresponds to an evolutionary line-up. Simple plants, sea life, "great sea monsters", reptiles, mammals and man.

[theophile]

I suppose you mean a cosmic ocean as a feature of ancient myth -makers' creation -stories, rather than an actual feature of the cosmos?

Yes. I'm referring specifically to Genesis, which describes an uncreated sea / waters within which the heavens and the earth are created.

However my initial point was that, if we stretch the meaning of 'water' to something like 'fluid matter' (and I agree with Diogenes that this would be a distortion...), then it's not far off from reality.

The cosmos as we know it essentially is a vast ocean. i.e., a space 'filled' with fluid matter. (I know space is practically empty, but hopefully you get my drift.) And perhaps even stronger similarities emerge at the quantum level, given how fluid things are there and impossible to pin down.

The author could have used the word for 'expanse' or simply stuck with 'void.' Instead 'water' is used + 'face' (surface), (פְּנֵ֥י(pe·nei)). This further reinforces the common sense or literal use of 'water,' rather than some "cosmic ocean," whatever that might be.

The word 'deep / sea' (tehom) is also used, which implies a hidden expanse beneath the face / surface you mention.

[brunumb]

Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved one hundred years ago by Louis Pasteur, Spellanzani, Reddy and others.

You should look into spontaneous generation a little more closely.

"Rejection of spontaneous generation is no longer controversial among biologists. By the middle of the 19th century, experiments by Pasteur and others were considered to have disproven the traditional theory of spontaneous generation. Attention has turned instead to the origin of life, since all life seems to have evolved from a single form around four billion years ago."
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation]

There is a fundamental difference between abiogenesis and the rejected notion of spontaneous generation.

[brunumb]

It seems likely to me that many atheists think the same as Wald.... they refuse to believe in God because they do not WANT to believe in Him, despite the evidence.

Oh, dear. Not this old furphy yet again. No refusal involved. I do not believe in God because I CAN'T believe in Him due to the absence of any compelling evidence.

How about this instead. Theists believe in God because they were inculcated with that belief through indoctrination and are now too fearful to shed it because of the horrendous consequences they are convinced await.

[DaveD49]

There is a fundamental difference between abiogenesis and the rejected notion of spontaneous generation.

You seem to be under the impression that I was arguing against the concept of abiogenesis. I am not. But I recognize the fact that life is so complicated that it would have been impossible for it to happen without the guidance of a massive intelligence. The same holds true for evolution.

[brunumb]

There is a fundamental difference between abiogenesis and the rejected notion of spontaneous generation.

You seem to be under the impression that I was arguing against the concept of abiogenesis. I am not. But I recognize the fact that life is so complicated that it would have been impossible for it to happen without the guidance of a massive intelligence. The same holds true for evolution.

Life as we know it now may be complicated, but that doesn't mean that it started out that way. The Lockheed Martin-made F-35 Lightning II is an extremely complicated airplane. If we go back in time and observe the evolution of such craft it becomes perfectly clear that they didn't start off that way. The beginning was probably something as simple as a kite.

[Diogenes]

The author could have used the word for 'expanse' or simply stuck with 'void.' Instead 'water' is used + 'face' (surface), (פְּנֵ֥י(pe·nei)). This further reinforces the common sense or literal use of 'water,' rather than some "cosmic ocean," whatever that might be.

The word 'deep / sea' (tehom) is also used, which implies a hidden expanse beneath the face / surface you mention.

Not likely. Both in English and Hebrew "the deep" is a common reference to the sea, referencing its great depth:
"of the deep," תְהֹ֑ום (te·ho·vm;) means "deep, sea, abyss."
https://biblehub.com/lexicon/genesis/1-2.htm

[Miles]

I think that everyone would agree that it would be extremely rare for any 4000 year old document, especially one that existed for thousands of years in oral form before it was written down, to agree with ANY modern scientific concept.

But isn't the Bible the word of an all knowing god?

Psalm 139:4
Even before there is a word on my tongue [still unspoken], Behold, O Lord, You know it all.

And all scripture is from god and true?

2 Timothy 3:16
16 All Scripture is given by God. And all Scripture is useful for teaching and for showing people what is wrong in their lives. It is useful for correcting faults and teaching the right way to live.

Psalm 33:4
For the word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.

The very first chapter of the first book of the Bible can be seen to agree with five of them. The five modern scientific concepts and theories are the concept of a slowly developing Earth, the concept of "super-continents" such as Pangea, abiogenesis, and evolution. None of these concepts were familiar to the people of the age when it was written.

Slowly forming Earth

Now the earth was formless and void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water. God said 'Let there be light', and their was light.

(Gen1:2-3)

Not a thing about a "slowly forming Earth."

Super-Continents

God said, 'Let the waters under the heavens come together in a single mass and let dry land appear'. And so it was. God called the dry land 'earth' the the mass of waters 'seas'

(Gen1:9-10)

As more dust settled, dry land appeared starting in one place with one land mass.

Looked at 54 different Bibles and not a thing about a super continent or one land mass.

Abiogenesis

This is a discredited scientific theory

Don't you wish.

about the origins of life from the primordial goo, or "dirt", but it seems that the Bible agrees with it.

God said, 'Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees...

(Gen 1:11)

God said, Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly about the earth within the vault of heaven.

(Gen 1:20)

God said, Let the earth produce every kind of living creature: cattle, reptiles, and every kind of wild beast.

Gen 1:24

Note that in each case it does not say that God "zapped" them into being, but rather caused the EARTH or the WATERS to produce them. Note also the Bible also states

Evolution

Note please that in general the order of appearance of various living things corresponds to an evolutionary line-up. Simple plants, sea life, "great sea monsters", reptiles, mammals and man.

But it's not the "general order." In the Bible vegetation precedes the formation of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, when, as we well know it follows the Sun, Moon, and Stars. And despite what the Bible says, animal life, particularly fish, preceded gymnosperms and flowering plants by a good 200 million years.


This is stuff, which for those of us who know better, call Silly. Thanks for the chuckle.

.

[Diogenes]

I recognize the fact that life is so complicated that it would have been impossible for it to happen without the guidance of a massive intelligence. The same holds true for evolution.

Both of these statements are utter rubbish for which you offer no support. Your baseless claims reveal a fundamental and deep ignorance of the facts as well as a complete failure to understand the immensity of what can happen slowly over a billion years.

[POI]

I agree that the Bible is an open-ended book (or rather library of books). A person can read the exact same passage 50 times and get one perspective from it, but then the 51st time he can get blown away with an entirely different view.

And yet, this was god's way to convey truth?.?.?.?

True, it is not a science book, nor a history book, nor a poetic book, nor a song book. But it contains all of those things. It is also important to recognize for instance that where it is written like a history book that the method of keeping "history" back then was very different than it is now, and unless that is taken into account you will get a distorted view of what actually happened.

We don't even know what the author meant. We can't ask them, they are dead. Were these literal stories, figurative stories, other? Since we do not know, we can argue until the cows come home. This is why you have YEC's, OEC's, etc... If it was truly god inspired, it would appear he happily resides as the author of confusion.

But here's my hunch... I think the authors thought they were getting messages from god, just like how many feel god interfaces with them today. These authors then wrote events down, as they thought what literally happened. We now know that much of it is false. So now, commence the apologetics to spin things accordingly.

Yes, I agree that there is much that was based on the knowledge of the day. The passages referring to the "pillars of the earth" stem from the prevailing Babylonian concept of the universe where a flat earth was attached by pillars to the back of a giant turtle slowly walking through space. Obviously the author was not making the claim that this is the concept of the universe which we should have for all time. He was just writing about what he thought he supposed to be true. Divine Inspiration does not mean that every word of the Scripture is true. It is about the message which the stories were meant to convey was inspired. But sometimes that message is hidden.

Please note what I stated above in red.

George Wald was a brilliant Harvard professor, scientist and atheist. I have his actual quote from Scientific American: "When it comes to the origin of life, we have only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility…Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved one hundred years ago by Louis Pasteur, Spellanzani, Reddy and others. That leads us scientifically to only one possible conclusion — that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God…I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation arising to evolution.”

Why do I care what these scientists say here? They are scientists, not teachers of a basic logics class. Would you ask Dr. William Craig to operate on you? NO. Maybe they should stay in their own lane Maybe they never entertained the idea of false dichotomies, as it relates to (evolution vs god). A true dichotomy would be (A, or not A). So if he stated, "if it wasn't evolution, then I don't know how it started", then that would not be a fallacious statement. In this case, it would be evolution or not evolution. NOT evolution or god. That is a false dichotomy.

You are absolutely correct, matter can neither be created nor destroyed. That is a truism that applies to the existing universe. It does not account for the creation of the universe itself. The Big Bang which began the universe took a MASSIVE amount of power. The only possible source of that power is God. After the Big Bang the only thing that existed was the simplest element, hydrogen. This created suns who pressure created helium and whose explosion created all the other elements. But the unanswerable question is where did the first creative energy come from if not from God?

So you are going with the classic argument of, I cannot think of anything else, therefore god. I suggest studying cosmology, for starters.

[TRANSPONDER]

I don't want to get into patting ourselves on the back mode, and I needn't say anything other than Thanks for some excellent posts, but our pal Dave is making some classic errors. Claiming that Abiogenesis is debunked. First I heard of it. And you can bet if that had been done we'd hear it quick enough. Appeal to complexity, a pebble (at sub atomic level) is complex, but nobody says a god has to make a pebble. It's one of those apologetics claims like 'a greater thing has to cause a lesser' which was excellently refuted with 'a pebble can cause an avalanche'.

And appeal to authority. Now Dave might NOT be making the error of appealing to scientists as authority when they also dismiss science as being mere human opinion, but the fact is that a scientist might have a Nobel prize in biology but that does not make him an expert in Cosmology. I heard one scientist make the classic apologetics error of 'have you looked everywhere in the universe?' which is not only appeal to unknowns, but a god beyond where we can see is as irrelevant as an ET race on a distant planet. It is a god here interacting with us, that matters. Scientists out of their field may know no more than any poster here and perhaps less.