Questioning God's Chosen Communication

[POI]

(1) Why would an omniscient God reveal to ancient societies the questions that modern scientific communities would be interested in? (2) Why would God care more about making scientific knowledge available in these texts versus addressing how He wanted humans to live?

For debate: Does the provided video below answer the above two questions sufficiently? If not, why not? If so, then I guess God is inept?

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #88]

I see in your thinking the assumption that people long ago were intellectually inferior and abysmally ignorant. This comes right from your world view that life, including intelligence, evolved.. The fact that Americans, for example, are abysmally less informed that Americans two generations ago doesn’t disturb that assumption. The fact that the ancients built structures we cannot even begin to understand how doesn’t disturb that assumption.

I intend to answer your longer post as well, but on the whole your understanding of the ancients as well as creation science is off. The question comes up as to your readiness to attribute intelligence to ancient peoples at all. It’s called bias.

You see wrong.. They were smart. But they hadn't the body of knowledge we have now. Take for instance the man who worked out the Ptolemaic system. Though he thought the earth was at the centre of it, the planetary system was a tremendous mental leap beyond the flat earth and sky - dome. And later on, Copernicus discovered that the sun, not the earth was at the center of the system. But he didn't know the orbits were elliptical, not circular. These were great brains, but we just have more information than those people did. And we have some great brains today, too. It has always been the case that the great brains make discoveries and technological advances too, but the majority just do the normal daily living. It has always been like that.

You need to reconsider that whole aspect and also how I see it before we can profitably discuss anything.

[Mae von H]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #111]

If you want to discontinue this discussion we can do do, but you have the tendency to point to ONE piece of knowledge gained as compared to centuries ago and take that to mean we are better informed. That knowledge is available doesn’t mean all have it. Ask an anti-Israel protestor to pick out on a map which river and which sea they’re chanting about and they can’t do it. University students don’t know where the 50 states are, when Pearl Harbor was bombed or where the Ukraine is. The knowledge is there but people are more ignorant than the last generation. So what difference does it make that knowledge ha increased?

[Mae von H]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #111]
I wanted to address your misunderstanding of creation science if I may. There is the requirement that you open your mind up to the idea that man has not evolved to being smarter even if more information is currently available.

Now, one thing his is rather astounding if one will accept it, and that is, what Moses recorded as to the source of material creation matches what Einstein found millennia later. That is, that matter is really just energy. Einstein said that matter is a persistent illusion. God spoke and released energy and that became the matter we know. If one has read other ancient creation legends, as I have, the Hebrew one is astounding. The depth of sophistication in the words chosen. Energy was released and became matter. The Hebrews knew this long ago.

Second, light was created BEFORE the sun. Now the sun is not the only source of light and the sun came later. You seem to think that is the only source of light. What the chapter describes very briefly, is the solar system being made and later placed in position. Those are not the same thing. You will need to jettison the children poof version of creation. We also need to together reject the instant in 24 hours each thing we complete. I have asked the 7 literal day creationists how there was time measured when the sun and earth were not functioning as they do now. Time is relative and measured in our thinking by rotation. If the earth and sun are not yet functioning, how is time measured?

Anyway, so if the sun is not in position yet and functioning as we know them to do, how is there morning and evening as we know them to be? The answer is that these terms cannot mean what we experience them to be. It is the same if we try to figure out anything that is far outside of our experience.

I sometimes use the example of being a mother. There are no words to convey to a man or a woman who never bore children, what it is like to have a child grow within you. There are no words to accurately describe this. This is why these women like to share their experience with other mothers. They know they are understood although words cannot convey this. It is the same with Genesis. The world was different then.

Now this applies to the waters above and below. The earth is described as not having rain but the moisture in the atmosphere watered it. They have discovered evidence of tropical plant and animal life in the north pole. So the earth before the flood was different. Have you ever seen the mid Atlantic ridge? It is curiously only in the Atlantic. And the idea that water poured out in massive amounts fits the formation. Otherwise it does not look like volcanic eruption or anything else we kno of. If this is so, the world was very different than it is now.

What else is not correctly understood by the poof it is there gang, christians included. It says that plant life was created in the dirt, obviously, but had not yet sprung up. This tells us matter and life developed slowly. But the plants in the earth were before the animals.

That is enough for now….I do not want this to be too long and my train is arriving.

What do you think? You know more now than a lot of christians who think the child version is the only one.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Mae von H in post #113]

There is no such thing as creation science. There is only creation non -science.

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #111]

If you want to discontinue this discussion we can do do, but you have the tendency to point to ONE piece of knowledge gained as compared to centuries ago and take that to mean we are better informed. That knowledge is available doesn’t mean all have it. Ask an anti-Israel protestor to pick out on a map which river and which sea they’re chanting about and they can’t do it. University students don’t know where the 50 states are, when Pearl Harbor was bombed or where the Ukraine is. The knowledge is there but people are more ignorant than the last generation. So what difference does it make that knowledge ha increased?

If you want to run away feel free. There will be others to make the same old debunked arguments. Your appeal tocurrent day lack of knowledge is irrelevant as regards what has been discoverwed and is known to the expertsin the field. Krauss knowns about Cosmic physics, but does he know about the latest discoveries in Saquara? Experts in the field are not experts in everytrhing (a point to bear in mind) and in the past the smartest people knew nothing about DNA because it hadn't been discovered, not because they weren't smart.

And the ignorance or lack of education of the bod in the street, then or not is absolutely nothing to do with it.

If you want to continue with this conversation in a meaningful way, you are going to have to get your mental ducks in a row because right now your objections are like random firing.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #111]
I wanted to address your misunderstanding of creation science if I may. There is the requirement that you open your mind up to the idea that man has not evolved to being smarter even if more information is currently available.

Now, one thing his is rather astounding if one will accept it, and that is, what Moses recorded as to the source of material creation matches what Einstein found millennia later. That is, that matter is really just energy. Einstein said that matter is a persistent illusion. God spoke and released energy and that became the matter we know. If one has read other ancient creation legends, as I have, the Hebrew one is astounding. The depth of sophistication in the words chosen. Energy was released and became matter. The Hebrews knew this long ago.

Second, light was created BEFORE the sun. Now the sun is not the only source of light and the sun came later. You seem to think that is the only source of light. What the chapter describes very briefly, is the solar system being made and later placed in position. Those are not the same thing. You will need to jettison the children poof version of creation. We also need to together reject the instant in 24 hours each thing we complete. I have asked the 7 literal day creationists how there was time measured when the sun and earth were not functioning as they do now. Time is relative and measured in our thinking by rotation. If the earth and sun are not yet functioning, how is time measured?

Anyway, so if the sun is not in position yet and functioning as we know them to do, how is there morning and evening as we know them to be? The answer is that these terms cannot mean what we experience them to be. It is the same if we try to figure out anything that is far outside of our experience.

I sometimes use the example of being a mother. There are no words to convey to a man or a woman who never bore children, what it is like to have a child grow within you. There are no words to accurately describe this. This is why these women like to share their experience with other mothers. They know they are understood although words cannot convey this. It is the same with Genesis. The world was different then.

Now this applies to the waters above and below. The earth is described as not having rain but the moisture in the atmosphere watered it. They have discovered evidence of tropical plant and animal life in the north pole. So the earth before the flood was different. Have you ever seen the mid Atlantic ridge? It is curiously only in the Atlantic. And the idea that water poured out in massive amounts fits the formation. Otherwise it does not look like volcanic eruption or anything else we kno of. If this is so, the world was very different than it is now.

What else is not correctly understood by the poof it is there gang, christians included. It says that plant life was created in the dirt, obviously, but had not yet sprung up. This tells us matter and life developed slowly. But the plants in the earth were before the animals.

That is enough for now….I do not want this to be too long and my train is arriving.

What do you think? You know more now than a lot of christians who think the child version is the only one.

Where did my post even mention sources of light? Of course other stars produced light, where did I say they didn't? I have no idea what you are trying to prove with the word -juggling about the sun standing still.The Bible says plainly that the daylight continued and nothing to do with a light source that was always there. And if you check Genesis it says God created heaven and earth. Where does it say 'out of nothing'? And I don't recall Einstein ever arguing about Cosmic Origins. I think you may be confusing what you would like the Bible and Einstein to say with what they actually did say.

Tropical plant and animal life in the North pole? What, in the ice? Pollen counts but there is no land there to have fossil remains. Did you mean Antarctica? And I let waters above and below go, because I know this could be argued as you do. Don't refute arguments I haven't raised.

No.The science says there was NO..NO plant life on the earth when there was an abundance of life in the Cambrian sea. Plants started getting a foothold on land (so the palaeontology indicates) in the Silurian period - after the first life in the seas. Long after. Your attempt to pass this off as the seeds being in the ground beforehand is such a ludicrous denial of science that even science -deniers will be embarrassed because if they deny the science, at least, they know what the science is.

[The Tanager]

God has no problem laying down his moral standards. God already knows society will fail, regardless of circumstance. An objective God given moral law, or a (not-yet) God given objective moral law, is still impossible to follow. Hence, there is no need to beat around the bush.

It's not logically impossible to follow, but I agree humans won't follow whatever the law is. What is the supposed problem?

[POI]

I agree humans won't follow whatever the law is.

Then the following rationale does not compute. --> "God is willing to work with us, taking a slower route, because it will be better for us in the long run."

Then there exists no valid reason for God to temporarily conform to human standards instead of the Bible-God's objective moral standards.

[TRANSPONDER]

I agree humans won't follow whatever the law is.

Then the following rationale does not compute. --> "God is willing to work with us, taking a slower route, because it will be better for us in the long run."

Then there exists no valid reason for God to temporarily conform to human standards instead of the Bible-God's objective moral standards.

And it looks to me (at least) like the old business of 'That is just how it would look if there was no god there). Which means no reason to believe there is a (intervening) god. It is the same with ID. and a few other apologetics - trying to take what is known and make it look like evidence for a god (Biblegod or one of the others). Bible apologetics have always been bedevilled by 'a priori godfaith' which invalidates the logic to begin with. Poking holes in Evolution in finding an unanswered question or two does not invalidate evolution, and the effort to shoehorn God i with IC was shot down at Dover and shown what a shame IC was.

Morality doesn't have the same science backup as Evolution being more subjective (human behavior), but with DNA explaining how human (an animal) instinct works, it was the start of research into biology -based morality. Or may be, as I haven't seen any such research being done, but I can see it as an apologetic - morals (good or bad) are evolved animal instincts.

Human morals are socially evolved from instinct just as music, art, language and indeed religion are (so I suggest) based on evolved instinct that still isn't understood. But that doesn't mean 'God' has got to be the answer. It does not (never mind 'Which god?') and hasn't been since the 90's, when argument from morality failed as a Bible apologetic.

I don't need to cue the dirty smear of old time dictators, we got that right away. It is as invalid as citing the evils done in the name of religion. They only get cited when religious apologists try to claim the high moral ground, and then a Tuo Quoque is perfectly valid. Otherwise it is what humans do (good and bad) and has no bearing on whether Theism or atheism is correct.

[The Tanager]

I agree humans won't follow whatever the law is.

Then the following rationale does not compute. --> "God is willing to work with us, taking a slower route, because it will be better for us in the long run."

Then there exists no valid reason for God to temporarily conform to human standards instead of the Bible-God's objective moral standards.

If God knows humans won’t perfectly follow the law, why is not moving them forward at all better than moving them forward slowly?

[The Tanager]

Human morals are socially evolved from instinct just as music, art, language and indeed religion are (so I suggest) based on evolved instinct that still isn't understood. But that doesn't mean 'God' has got to be the answer.

Do you view morality as an objective or subjective feature of reality?