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.

[Diogenes]

[Replying to DaveD49 in post #90 et al.]

Actually as I pointed out in post #91 there were seven congruences in Genesis 1 to modern science, and no distortion is necessary to see them.

This is hilarious. You do nothing but distort, with several biased techniques:
You’ve written a great example of confirmation bias. Despite the many obvious and glaring examples from Genesis 1 that clearly contradict science, you focus on one or two that don’t contradict as badly as the others.
[while ignoring the excellent points made rebutting your claims].

Then you add poor interpretations of science to make science appear to agree with a verse or two.

Your third biased technique is to pick and choose which verses should be taken literally and which should not, always interpreting along your bias.

Overwhelmingly Genesis depicts a flat Earth covered by a dome of ‘heaven’ while the entire universe and Sun circle the Earth once a day.

“… hints at modern science can be easily seen. It doesn't need to be the exactly correct order but just the general concept.”

This is hopelessly naive and contra science.
Of COURSE the order of creation matters and the Bible got it all wrong as has been pointed out. Trees before the Sun matters, as do the other contradictions of order. Rather than try to explain the problem, you declare it does not matter.
More confirmation bias.

You've made a big deal that somehow the idea the universe 'had a beginning" somehow proves Genesis correct. Everything had a beginning (except God says the apologist).
Plus, it is hardly a fact the universe had a beginning. The evidence from Krauss and other top physicists is that the Earth has always existed, in one form or another; that it may cycle a singularity ('big bang') every 14 billions of years or so.
In any event, the singularity or 'big bang' is not a beginning from nothing, from a philosophical or absolute nothing. It emerged from a chaotic soup of short-lived elementary particles – including quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons.

[DaveD49]

[Replying to DaveD49 in post #90 et al.]

Actually as I pointed out in post #91 there were seven congruences in Genesis 1 to modern science, and no distortion is necessary to see them.

This is hilarious. You do nothing but distort, with several biased techniques:
You’ve written a great example of confirmation bias. Despite the many obvious and glaring examples from Genesis 1 that clearly contradict science, you focus on one or two that don’t contradict as badly as the others.
[while ignoring the excellent points made rebutting your claims].

Then you add poor interpretations of science to make science appear to agree with a verse or two.

Your third biased technique is to pick and choose which verses should be taken literally and which should not, always interpreting along your bias.

Overwhelmingly Genesis depicts a flat Earth covered by a dome of ‘heaven’ while the entire universe and Sun circle the Earth once a day.

“… hints at modern science can be easily seen. It doesn't need to be the exactly correct order but just the general concept.”

This is hopelessly naive and contra science.
Of COURSE the order of creation matters and the Bible got it all wrong as has been pointed out. Trees before the Sun matters, as do the other contradictions of order. Rather than try to explain the problem, you declare it does not matter.
More confirmation bias.

You've made a big deal that somehow the idea the universe 'had a beginning" somehow proves Genesis correct. Everything had a beginning (except God says the apologist).
Plus, it is hardly a fact the universe had a beginning. The evidence from Krauss and other top physicists is that the Earth has always existed, in one form or another; that it may cycle a singularity ('big bang') every 14 billions of years or so.
In any event, the singularity or 'big bang' is not a beginning from nothing, from a philosophical or absolute nothing. It emerged from a chaotic soup of short-lived elementary particles – including quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons.

And you are attempting to use the logical fallacy of "reducing the the ridiculous". If you cannot answer the point then make fun of it. "This is hilarious..." "confirmation bias", "poor interpretations of science" "you pick and choose what verses to use..." "this is hopelessly naïve...." "contra science". And all of these comments without a single suggestion as to HOW my statements conform to what you say. You are acting like the guy running for Congress who never speaks about his position but just throws mud at the opponent.

YES the writer was writing about HIS concept of the universe from the prevalent view that existed 3500 years ago. YES he was in no way, shape or form doubting that ancient view or trying to show a new interpretation. But despite all that, impossible as it may be, hints of modern understandings still seep through. You want to treat a 3500 year old text as if it were a science book, and because it isn't you refuse to see the subtle inferences that can be drawn from it. Or is it that you actually DO see it but have no desire to acknowledge them? You accuse me of "confirmation bias" but then you appeal to Krauss and "other top scientists" for your confirmation. You are right... that IS completely hilarious!

Krauss, most certainly, is not the best advocate to use for endorsement. He does not describe himself as an atheist, but rather an "antitheist". In other words he fashions his views not to advance scientific knowledge but rather to try to dismiss the notion of God. His work has been in the field of THEORETICAL physics. Nothing that he has ever written about can be proven in the real world. He has provided no hard evidence to support his theories which have been called "pseudoscience" by other scientists. His book about a universe from nothing only came out as a possible rebut to the overwhelming evidence for God brought about by the discovery of the exact fine tuning of all the universal constants. Also keep in mind that the notion of previous and future big bangs arising from the expansion and subsequent contraction of the universe has already been disproven by science. If that were the case then the speed of the expansion of the universe should be slowing down until it stops expanding and starts retracting. But that is not the case. The expansion of the universe is actually speeding up! I do not pretend to understand it but it involves what science now calls "dark matter" and "dark energy".

[Diogenes]

And you are attempting to use the logical fallacy of "reducing the the ridiculous".

I think you mean "Reductio ad absurdum." But I agree, your point is "ridiculous."
It should be reduced.

If you cannot answer the point ....

But I did answer each point, in more than one post. You've failed to respond to those arguments. I'll repeat a couple of them. The Bible describes a flat Earth as the center of the universe and covered with a dome. This was the cosmology of the people at that time. One example is the absurdity of Joshua commanding the Sun to stop, which would have meant, in reality, the Earth stopping its spin on its axis. A true 'god' would have gotten this right. But the Bible was written by men, with all their limitations.

We don't need to explore the rest of it's absurdities because the first verse of the first book declares a whopper:
...the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Thus the Bible declares the oceans were present before the Earth was formed. You cannot reduce to an absurdity that which is already absurd.

[DaveD49]

And you are attempting to use the logical fallacy of "reducing the the ridiculous".

I think you mean "Reductio ad absurdum." But I agree, your point is "ridiculous."
It should be reduced.

If you cannot answer the point ....

But I did answer each point, in more than one post. You've failed to respond to those arguments. I'll repeat a couple of them. The Bible describes a flat Earth as the center of the universe and covered with a dome. This was the cosmology of the people at that time. One example is the absurdity of Joshua commanding the Sun to stop, which would have meant, in reality, the Earth stopping its spin on its axis. A true 'god' would have gotten this right. But the Bible was written by men, with all their limitations.

We don't need to explore the rest of it's absurdities because the first verse of the first book declares a whopper:
...the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Thus the Bible declares the oceans were present before the Earth was formed. You cannot reduce to an absurdity that which is already absurd.

I love the fact that you even had to give the "official" name of the logical fallacy rather than my off the cuff description of it as if that will win some points for you from whomever you think is keeping some sort of score. But in this discussion it is just you and me. And I most certainly DID respond. You wish to treat the Bible as a science book otherwise it is not worthy of your consideration. You want the writer have been somehow endowed with full knowledge of future science so that everything is precisely in order. And then you call my observations "absurd" because they do not precisely match up with modern science??? Sorry, but that is not the way inspiration works, and it truly is ridiculous that you insist they must. I am fully aware that the text describes an ancient concept of the universe. The writer had NO knowledge of the future. Yet despite the stories existing for hundreds of years as part of an oral tradition before he wrote it down it STILL shows hints of agreement with modern science.

I love the fact that you bring up Joshua and the sun stopping..... it sounds vaguely like some other time.... Oh! I know. Fatima 1918 where 70000+ people witnessed that the sun zigged-zagged across the sky, seemingly spin extremely rapidly and seemed to come so close to Earth as to touch it. There are hundreds of written testimonies to that event. If God wishes that the sun seem to stand still or time to stop, it is His universe... He can do what He wants with it. If He wants the sun to apparently spin like a top and seemingly almost touch the Earth, He can do that too. You cannot accept that any of this could happen so therefore they are absurdities. Sorry, but you have your head stuck in a hole.

[brunumb]

I love the fact that you bring up Joshua and the sun stopping..... it sounds vaguely like some other time.... Oh! I know. Fatima 1918 where 70000+ people witnessed that the sun zigged-zagged across the sky, seemingly spin extremely rapidly and seemed to come so close to Earth as to touch it. There are hundreds of written testimonies to that event. If God wishes that the sun seem to stand still or time to stop, it is His universe... He can do what He wants with it. If He wants the sun to apparently spin like a top and seemingly almost touch the Earth, He can do that too. You cannot accept that any of this could happen so therefore they are absurdities. Sorry, but you have your head stuck in a hole.

Debunked.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2 ... acles.html

When you invent a god that can do anything, then it becomes handy to use it to explain anything that seem extraordinary at first glance. So far, no gods have been necessary, except in the minds of hard core believers who desperately need to prop up their beliefs.

[help3434]

[Replying to DaveD49 in post #94]

Reductio ad absurdum is not a fallacy.

[TRANSPONDER]

And you are attempting to use the logical fallacy of "reducing the the ridiculous".

I think you mean "Reductio ad absurdum." But I agree, your point is "ridiculous."
It should be reduced.

If you cannot answer the point ....

But I did answer each point, in more than one post. You've failed to respond to those arguments. I'll repeat a couple of them. The Bible describes a flat Earth as the center of the universe and covered with a dome. This was the cosmology of the people at that time. One example is the absurdity of Joshua commanding the Sun to stop, which would have meant, in reality, the Earth stopping its spin on its axis. A true 'god' would have gotten this right. But the Bible was written by men, with all their limitations.

We don't need to explore the rest of it's absurdities because the first verse of the first book declares a whopper:
...the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Thus the Bible declares the oceans were present before the Earth was formed. You cannot reduce to an absurdity that which is already absurd.

I love the fact that you even had to give the "official" name of the logical fallacy rather than my off the cuff description of it as if that will win some points for you from whomever you think is keeping some sort of score. But in this discussion it is just you and me. And I most certainly DID respond. You wish to treat the Bible as a science book otherwise it is not worthy of your consideration. You want the writer have been somehow endowed with full knowledge of future science so that everything is precisely in order. And then you call my observations "absurd" because they do not precisely match up with modern science??? Sorry, but that is not the way inspiration works, and it truly is ridiculous that you insist they must. I am fully aware that the text describes an ancient concept of the universe. The writer had NO knowledge of the future. Yet despite the stories existing for hundreds of years as part of an oral tradition before he wrote it down it STILL shows hints of agreement with modern science.

I love the fact that you bring up Joshua and the sun stopping..... it sounds vaguely like some other time.... Oh! I know. Fatima 1918 where 70000+ people witnessed that the sun zigged-zagged across the sky, seemingly spin extremely rapidly and seemed to come so close to Earth as to touch it. There are hundreds of written testimonies to that event. If God wishes that the sun seem to stand still or time to stop, it is His universe... He can do what He wants with it. If He wants the sun to apparently spin like a top and seemingly almost touch the Earth, He can do that too. You cannot accept that any of this could happen so therefore they are absurdities. Sorry, but you have your head stuck in a hole.

I only intervene (rather than watch) because Fatima is not a real miracle. It is demonstrably a ...I have to be very careful about terms here....an evidentially mistaken and misrepresented optical phenomenon. With some misrepresentation by various people with an agenda, not least the Vatican with the need to push the new dogma of 'the immaculate conception'. So Fatima validates nothing.

So while I'm here, Diogenes has you bang to rights. Genesis is wrong unless one denies science, and a few right guesses does not make it in agreement with science, even if one fiddles it to try to make it fit the science, excuse it as 'not being a cience' book, or plays the 'I'm so offended' card when it is pointed out, quite correctly that you are doing bias confirmation with a mix and match grab - bag of fallacies, including, but not limited to, counting the hits and ignoring the misses, fiddling the evidence to make it look like it fits the facts and 'metaphorically true', which is where 'not a science - book' is going.

You have been caught and you are trying to wriggle and gnaw your way out of the trap, notably by the red herring of pretending that the sun standing still point is a red herring. Pretty much what is par for the course.

[DaveD49]

I love the fact that you bring up Joshua and the sun stopping..... it sounds vaguely like some other time.... Oh! I know. Fatima 1918 where 70000+ people witnessed that the sun zigged-zagged across the sky, seemingly spin extremely rapidly and seemed to come so close to Earth as to touch it. There are hundreds of written testimonies to that event. If God wishes that the sun seem to stand still or time to stop, it is His universe... He can do what He wants with it. If He wants the sun to apparently spin like a top and seemingly almost touch the Earth, He can do that too. You cannot accept that any of this could happen so therefore they are absurdities. Sorry, but you have your head stuck in a hole.

Debunked.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2 ... acles.html

When you invent a god that can do anything, then it becomes handy to use it to explain anything that seem extraordinary at first glance. So far, no gods have been necessary, except in the minds of hard core believers who desperately need to prop up their beliefs.

No one has "invented" God. His presence has been felt by man since the dawn of human existence. If you actually think that site actually debunks Fatima then you are fooling yourself. Can you please explain how three small children could have predicted that such an event would occur at that exact place and time? Can you explain how the soaking wet clothes of the people and the ground suddenly became dry? You want to make an issue that "thousands" (?????) said they saw nothing but ignore the fact that at virtually every crime where people were in a place to witness it happening there are some who have said the exact same thing when police ask them what they saw. It is their way of saying "I do not want to be involved."

[TRANSPONDER]

I love the fact that you bring up Joshua and the sun stopping..... it sounds vaguely like some other time.... Oh! I know. Fatima 1918 where 70000+ people witnessed that the sun zigged-zagged across the sky, seemingly spin extremely rapidly and seemed to come so close to Earth as to touch it. There are hundreds of written testimonies to that event. If God wishes that the sun seem to stand still or time to stop, it is His universe... He can do what He wants with it. If He wants the sun to apparently spin like a top and seemingly almost touch the Earth, He can do that too. You cannot accept that any of this could happen so therefore they are absurdities. Sorry, but you have your head stuck in a hole.

Debunked.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2 ... acles.html

When you invent a god that can do anything, then it becomes handy to use it to explain anything that seem extraordinary at first glance. So far, no gods have been necessary, except in the minds of hard core believers who desperately need to prop up their beliefs.

No one has "invented" God. His presence has been felt by man since the dawn of human existence. If you actually think that site actually debunks Fatima then you are fooling yourself. Can you please explain how three small children could have predicted that such an event would occur at that exact place and time? Can you explain how the soaking wet clothes of the people and the ground suddenly became dry? You want to make an issue that "thousands" (?????) said they saw nothing but ignore the fact that at virtually every crime where people were in a place to witness it happening there are some who have said the exact same thing when police ask them what they saw. It is their way of saying "I do not want to be involved."

Again I'll stick my nose in because you ask about Fatima. But first, You conflate the experience of 'God' (name your own) with God as per the Bible and Christianity. Biblegod is invented as much as any other god. The human experience of a god is common to all religion and whether it is a god or just a common human mental effect, your slapping the invented Biblegod on it makes that an 'invented' god.

As to Fatima, the bottom line is this - the sun did not 'dance'. The pope who said he saw it do so while in his garden, lied, because no such effect was seen (or at least remarked on) by anyone anywhere else. And the effect was a rotating kaleidescope of colours - an optical effect caused by looking at the sun through low cloud. The same 'miracle' was seen in recent years at Knock, Ireland, and I have seen it myself, looking at the sun through film negatives. So given the thing is not real, how did it happen? Again a clue. On the last event Lucia (I think that was the name of the girl) shouted for the crowd to look at the sun and see the Holy Family. Nobody did. Some saw the optical effect and others saw nothing. The girl tried to pull a fraud and it didn't work. This was not her idea, she was being manipulated by the church.

The dry clothes 'miracles' was, from what I can gather, not much of one. It was overcast, even a bit drizzly, but it did not rain. That seems to have happened on an earlier event where it poured and the brollies came out and nothing happened, including everyone stayed wet. Somehow the two events seem to have been confused, possibly because of a news photo of soaking people with umbrellas which is an earlier event and someone got the idea that was a downpour at the later event.

I'll skip over the political vs church machinations, but pick up this point about the three children. It was the one girl made this claim about a vision of an angel, but one that looked like a peasant girl with ear hoops and a short skirt. Not the heavenly queen of Immaculate conception cult statues, which is what the vision was made into later on. It is not at all clear that the other two kids endorsed this claim or saw it and I note that a later 'message' made some veiled warnings about the boy Jacinta, I recall the name was, and inconveniently. the two died in the influenza plague so they couldn't be asked about it later on. Lucia however hid not expire but remained alive to be shoved into a nunnery where this illiterate peasant girl produced a book setting out what suited the Church very well.

Fatima is most certainly NOT a miracle, even without Church exploitation of an initial dubious vision - claim.

[DaveD49]

And you are attempting to use the logical fallacy of "reducing the the ridiculous".

I think you mean "Reductio ad absurdum." But I agree, your point is "ridiculous."
It should be reduced.

If you cannot answer the point ....

But I did answer each point, in more than one post. You've failed to respond to those arguments. I'll repeat a couple of them. The Bible describes a flat Earth as the center of the universe and covered with a dome. This was the cosmology of the people at that time. One example is the absurdity of Joshua commanding the Sun to stop, which would have meant, in reality, the Earth stopping its spin on its axis. A true 'god' would have gotten this right. But the Bible was written by men, with all their limitations.

We don't need to explore the rest of it's absurdities because the first verse of the first book declares a whopper:
...the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Thus the Bible declares the oceans were present before the Earth was formed. You cannot reduce to an absurdity that which is already absurd.

I love the fact that you even had to give the "official" name of the logical fallacy rather than my off the cuff description of it as if that will win some points for you from whomever you think is keeping some sort of score. But in this discussion it is just you and me. And I most certainly DID respond. You wish to treat the Bible as a science book otherwise it is not worthy of your consideration. You want the writer have been somehow endowed with full knowledge of future science so that everything is precisely in order. And then you call my observations "absurd" because they do not precisely match up with modern science??? Sorry, but that is not the way inspiration works, and it truly is ridiculous that you insist they must. I am fully aware that the text describes an ancient concept of the universe. The writer had NO knowledge of the future. Yet despite the stories existing for hundreds of years as part of an oral tradition before he wrote it down it STILL shows hints of agreement with modern science.

I love the fact that you bring up Joshua and the sun stopping..... it sounds vaguely like some other time.... Oh! I know. Fatima 1918 where 70000+ people witnessed that the sun zigged-zagged across the sky, seemingly spin extremely rapidly and seemed to come so close to Earth as to touch it. There are hundreds of written testimonies to that event. If God wishes that the sun seem to stand still or time to stop, it is His universe... He can do what He wants with it. If He wants the sun to apparently spin like a top and seemingly almost touch the Earth, He can do that too. You cannot accept that any of this could happen so therefore they are absurdities. Sorry, but you have your head stuck in a hole.

I only intervene (rather than watch) because Fatima is not a real miracle. It is demonstrably a ...I have to be very careful about terms here....an evidentially mistaken and misrepresented optical phenomenon. With some misrepresentation by various people with an agenda, not least the Vatican with the need to push the new dogma of 'the immaculate conception'. So Fatima validates nothing.

So while I'm here, Diogenes has you bang to rights. Genesis is wrong unless one denies science, and a few right guesses does not make it in agreement with science, even if one fiddles it to try to make it fit the science, excuse it as 'not being a cience' book, or plays the 'I'm so offended' card when it is pointed out, quite correctly that you are doing bias confirmation with a mix and match grab - bag of fallacies, including, but not limited to, counting the hits and ignoring the misses, fiddling the evidence to make it look like it fits the facts and 'metaphorically true', which is where 'not a science - book' is going.

You have been caught and you are trying to wriggle and gnaw your way out of the trap, notably by the red herring of pretending that the sun standing still point is a red herring. Pretty much what is par for the course.

Wow. You guys really think it is about keeping some sort of score. You talk about hits and misses just as you are making misses yourself. I am fully aware that you would like to dismiss Fatima but once again you cannot get around the fact that those 70,000+ people were gathered because 3 small children predicted an event was going to take place at that exact location and time a month before hand, and that among the crowd were a large number of skeptics, atheists, and scientists who testified to seeing the event. You apparently are like Diogenes in that you insist that if the Bible were "from God" then it should read like a modern science book. Absurd. It contains the view of the universe that was prevalent in the day. But there are HINTS of agreement with modern science which also can be seen. So far I counted seven of them in just the first chapter of the first book of the Bible. You can scream all you want that it does not explicitly say that and I would agree with you. But do you deny that the universe had a beginning? Legitimate science says it did. Do you deny that at first the Earth was a formless dust/moisture cloud? Science says that. Do you deny that at various times in Earth's history light from the sun could have been completely blocked out? Science agrees. Do you deny that at various times in Earth's history before any mountains formed that it could have been completely water or ice covered? Science says so. Do you deny that life had to come from lifelessness? Science is silent on that subject. Do you deny that there was an order to the appearance of lifeforms with mammals being the latest manifestation? Science accepts that even if they cannot prove it. Do you deny that the only reason that you are giving me a tough time with this is because you can see the hints that I mentioned, understand what the implications of it are to your theological views and so cannot acknowledge it? Do you deny that IF God truly does exist and is responsible in some way for the creation of all things that making it appear that the sun stopped or spun rapidly or seemingly come close to Earth would be child's play for Him?