Genesis and Other Creation Myths

[Flying Pig]

On a point of information, the theory of evolution does say that changes in DNA happen suddenly. The reason that we observe changes happening slowly is because they're made up of the sum total of lots of small, sudden jumps.

 

[bhavv]

On a point of information, the theory of evolution does say that changes in DNA happen suddenly. The reason that we observe changes happening slowly is because they're made up of the sum total of lots of small, sudden jumps.

Incorrect. The reason for slow observation is that it takes many generations for favorable genes to be passed on. We are also very unlikely to observe further evolution in humans as we mostly live in pure comfort with no more need of survival of the fittest.

 

[warpus]

We're getting taller by each generation, you know.

 

[Harv]

I thought that was nutrition not genetics.

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

 

[warpus]

I thought it was both.

 

[timtofly]

They can measure how fast the plates and continents are moving and how fast they moved in the past. The Hawaiian Islands are part of a chain of volcanoes stretching to Kamchatka for 80 million years as the Pacific floor moves over a magma plume or bubble called a hot spot. I dont think there's any evidence of a recent change in the rates.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaalbara

They think supercontinents have formed several times, Pangaea is the most recent. What you're saying is possible, the first continent may have been a single landmass and the ocean covered the rest. One place for the water seems to imply one for the land too... Genesis doesn't rule out that interpretation from what I can see.

Being able to measure the current phenomenon, and thinking that it has happened in the past are two separate things. When magma is forced to the surface the ability to "clock it" is reset. The earth has a set "time" clock. The claim is that there are two portions left from 4.3 billions years ago, and all the rest is only 180 million years "old".

The mental gymnastic is something happened 180 million years ago that destroyed any evidence of land being 4.3 billion years old, thus we give it a time frame of 180 million years. The portion that is 4.3 billions years old has evidently survived multiple destructive events that keep happening during the first 4.2 billion years of the earth.

The dating of the Ocean Floor is based on the layering of magnetic strips, and the Argon Potassium dating method. It would be accurate assuming nothing disruptive has happened. There have only been 4 major disturbances that could have reset/voided any current ability to rule out any assumption errors. The last of these disruptions being about the time of Aristotle, thus only allowing the Ocean to be undisturbed for around 3000 years. The assumption was that the last disturbance was 60 million years ago. The Atlantic ocean has not had enough time to be properly dated.

Evolution supports long periods of time. The "set" time clock will always show long periods of time, and will support evolution. I am stating that since humans cannot observe a phenomenon, they cannot absolutely say it happened that way nor at that time. If humans reject what was written 5000 years ago, why would they accept what humans observed and recorded 180 million years ago? Radioactive decay is not foolproof, because there is the possibility that not enough time has passed for an accurate reading any where on earth. The cross argument is that it is double checked with other dating methods including tree rings, ice cores, and the layering of mud. They base the most accurate dating method, on smaller more so-called observable methods that rely on even more assumptions, so there is a uniform pattern across all methods. The more they do sample testing, the better the statistical analysis proves their assumptions.

The whole solar system on a whole and the assumption that all the planets and sun were formed at the same time comes from dated rocks and crystals from the moon and earth that give the Solar system a date of 4.3 billion years. Even science and the current cosmology are in agreement that the solar system was all formed at the same time. That would contradict your point that the earth came first and that God came along and started transforming it. My claim is the whole universe was created at the same point in "time" and time had not started yet, as it was not created with time. It was created without form and void. Yet it existed in some form, just not form that had energy, and motion, and by extension, time.

The Enuma Elish describes several "winds" of God carving up Tiamat, multiple impactors. And then God himself dealt the final blow sending Tiamat's carcass to a new orbit.

On what day was the water created?

Before the first day along with the rest of the universe. When it comes to the Law of conservation of matter and energy. All matter was created and has been constant in the universe. On day one, Energy was "inserted" and has been constant since that day. The day is the perspective of earth. It lasts for 24 divisions of time, we call hours, but it hardly describes the rest of the universe. The "instant" or even 30 seconds was all it took for the universe to experience all the energy the same throughout the universe. The "leap" in logic is how did water preserve form or even had form, during this big bang event? The current model states that it took 380,000 earth years for any thing to have form. Then there was 400,000 million earth years of darkness. What is the detailed explanation for either scenario? I don't know. The Bible mentions water, and the Veda's mention water. Science says that is impossible.

We're told the Flood covered the tallest mountains and the ark came to rest on the tallest in the region, but the 6th Day people were told to fill the Earth. If thats what they were doing then they were no longer one group. The Adam was either a member of that first group or he was created later and brought to the Eden.

The Sumerian mythology says the first people were created to ease the burden of the gods, to labor for them. That was Adam's job, there was no man to till the ground and no Adam to maintain the Garden. People were already populating the world before Adam was made... Thats how Cain found a wife and why he was worried about being killed for murdering Abel.

There was only one land mass, and there were no tall mountains, and if there were, they were all destroyed in the event. They landed on the newly forming mountains, and observed the continents separating enough to seem normal, but not so fast as to cause alarm. The Genesis account says there were 8 people who survived. The veda says that God re-created humans several times during many destructive events. They agree with science that there were billions of years with multiple re-cycles. There is an account that after the Flood and right before the account of Babel and the introduction of diverse languages, a child was born whose name meant Channel and "the world was divided". This event happened slowly over a two thousand year span. Since humans had just gone through a Flood event any further action would be considered as normal after "shock" experiences. The only one to make a note called their child by a telling name. The crossable channels between the continents were starting to widen even more, and humans headed out to the land mass of their choosing while all the time they were spreading apart. The last major event recorded was the "loss of Atlantis." The spread of the Atlantic ocean was more memorable?

God made Heaven and Earth, neither of those are the universe or this planet, much less the water in Gen 1:2

God made matter without form (earth) and void (empty space/heaven). "Heaven" has multiple uses. Some say that God lives in Heaven. What does that mean? Certainly not the earth or universe. Probably not the space between the earth and the universe, although some have claimed perhaps the dark side of the moon. That is not heaven either is it? In fact some say the abode of God is in the heavens, an area that includes but not limited to the universe and what lies beyond. The word used in verse one is plural that could mean multiple places that were not designated as the other word ie earth. That does not limit God to be "only" the creator of the Solar system. and that other God's had their own section of the universe. The division of gods is needed because humans think that one God cannot do everything, but is limited in ability.

How did evening and day exist without the Sun?

Day and night happens because the earth spins. Not just because the Sun shines. The earth started spinning and there was evening and morning. How do Eskimos survive with months of near light conditions without any significant change in light and darkness? Why would you need day and night in space? People have to adjust to their environment without needing the Day and night phenomenon of earth. Day and Night needing light and darkness is a narrow view of the human sleep cycle. It also has limited the understanding of what it means to separate light and darkness. I am not sure why humans today would use a narrow definition to prove that something does not make sense, when there are lots of other uses for needing to separate light and darkness. The human body needs such separation to function, but that need does not have to limit the use of the concept.

That is near impossible, really, given how well the available data matches up with the theory and its predictions. So yes, I do deny it, because I understand that any sort of theory that replaces the Theory of Evolution is going to contain large chunks of that theory in it, much like Einstein's theory of relativity rests on the shoulders of the work of others, such as Newton.

Newton's theories were "wrong", but to some degree they work. You are able to use them to predict the movements of planets to some degree, and to an extent that is how gravity behaves.

I did not ask about the theory, I asked about the ability to record ideas in book form. Even Darwin wrote multiple editions making the discarded ones irrelevant. I am still not getting any specifics how the Genesis account is wrong, other than it does not give enough detail and has the times wrong. I agree it is concise, and the only time stamp I see is from the perspective of a planet that takes 24 hours to complete one spin on it's axis. It says nothing about the passage of time any where else. We agree that things can happen instantly, but the information from such may take billions of years for the event to be observable. My claim is we don't know if the information took that long, the information could have been there in the same instant or the 30 seconds that it lasted. How would we prove it one way or the other? We both agree that we can date a crystal at 4.3 billion years and it would take a long time for the current radiation from the sun to be seen on the other side of the universe. What we cannot prove is what all happened in those first 30 seconds. Even the ability to map redshifts and blueshifts and triangulate the size of the universe does not give us the facts of those 30 seconds other than something happened. Information of all events could have been present every where, just as quickly as the action itself.

So no, The Theory of Evolution will never be relegated to myth status, for the same reason that isn't going to ever happen and has not happened to Newton's laws of motion. Both of those theories work to some extent - if we ever figure out that The Theory of Evolution is incomplete, much like Newton's theories were, then we'll just replace them with a bigger understanding of evolution, rather than a complete replacement of the theory with something completely different. We're well past that stage, there is just too much data and too much that matches up with the Theory of Evolution perfectly. If it's wrong, it's incomplete, not completely wrong. We are never throwing this thing out, it sits at the core of our understanding of biology and the variety of life we have on this planet, and it's staying there whether we come up with a better theory or not.



It's not very exact, it's very vague. Prop open a cosmology book about the Big Bang for contrast, and look at all the detail there. Like, I don't know, this random book here maybe [warning: PDF incoming]. Genesis is incredibly vague in comparison.

Just because we can now view the information, does not mean that it just now reached us. The information has been in motion from the beginning and is a continuous stream of particles. We just have the technology to put that information into formulas and put definition to the beginning of the universe.

The biggest question remaining is why does the universe have an old age, yet supposedly so young. The choices we have are God created it or the universe is actually that old and God did not create it.

I have accepted that God created it, gave it a form that would reflect the size of the universe that he created. The point arises that he could have created it young and watched it evolve as the current model claims. There is less mental gymnastics to overcome, but why say God was involved at all. For those who claim there is no God, there is no reconciling the fact. There is no God period. To me, creating the universe with any age at all is up to the being that created it. The universe is at least 14 billion light years across. I agree that it would take 14 billion years for a universe that size to form "all on it's own". I also think that God could have created a universe that size at any time, and still allowed it to look like it "did it all on it's own" Why? To create atheist?

 

[Birdjaguar]

It is because the world is spinning more slowly and that means gravity has less effect and we are able to grow taller.

 

[onejayhawk]

It is because the world is spinning more slowly and that means gravity has less effect and we are able to grow taller.

Hal Clement wrote a SF story about a planet where the spin was so fast the planet was an oblate spheroid (like a doorknob) instead on nearly spherical. You would appear to weigh about half as much at the equator as the poles.

J

 

[Flying Pig]

Incorrect. The reason for slow observation is that it takes many generations for favorable genes to be passed on. We are also very unlikely to observe further evolution in humans as we mostly live in pure comfort with no more need of survival of the fittest.

It's partly that, but it's not as if it takes many generations for a change to happen - in each generation, a change has either happened or it hasn't. Since changing DNA is more likely than not to create something unworkable - the analogy has been made with dragging a magnetised needle over a hard drive - only small mutations usually survive long enough to be born and grow to adulthood. I also don't think you need 'survival of the fittest' in the sense of 'non-survival of the non-fittest': all that you need is groups that are, for whatever reason, slightly more inbred than the general population. When that happens, you develop traits specific to them. In Rwanda, for example, the two 'tribes' of Hutu and Tutsi originally developed from some sort of clan or trade-based system, but gradually developed physical differences that made it possible to tell them apart. If that was followed for many hundreds and thousands of years, you'd expect, after a while, only Hutus to be able to have fertile offspring with Hutus. That's the working definition for a new species.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Nobody's going to have their DNA mutate to spontaneously create a new, functioning, useful organ. That's going to take many generations.

 

[timtofly]

Would it be like a software program that writes itself over and over, and in the process even if the new host has imperfections, the software attempts to correct when the host passes it on, but yet the program as a whole can maintain the original form even after millions of iterations?

A program that can adapt and learn from the environment, allow for errors, yet still maintain it's original form, unable to change to a slightly different form no matter how it was manipulated?

It seems like some expect it to change to even a slightly different program, but all it is doing is maintaining itself? Does it add new information that can change it or just able to restore itself when error arises? Does adaption mean the same thing as something different? If it adapts too far, will it die out, unable to correct itself? Never mind the fact, the host decides on it's own that it will not pass on the program? Or even the environment cancels out the host for any given reason.

 

[Flying Pig]

Nobody's going to have their DNA mutate to spontaneously create a new, functioning, useful organ. That's going to take many generations.

Yes, but one generation will have a 'stage 1' organ (in Dawkins' famous example, a small group of cells that can detect light above a certain threshold), and several generations more will continue to have a stage 1 organ, then the next generation will have a 'stage 2' organ (I think he then went to cells that can detect the intensity of the light), then that will stay around for several generations, then one of them will mutate into a 'stage 3' organ, and so on, until many 'jumps' later you've got a modern eye. At every stage, it has to be an improvement by itself.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

At every stage of the complete (slow) process yes... Can't help but think we're basically agreeing and quibbling over minutiae here.

 

[Flying Pig]

The point was to challenge the idea that science doesn't admit that things change suddenly. On the contrary, in this case science admits that things only ever change suddenly.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Well that notion was so vague anyway. Meteor strikes cause very sudden changes. Supernovae even bigger and even more sudden changes. As far as I'm aware these concept are pretty much embraced by mainstream science.

 

[warpus]

The biggest question remaining is why does the universe have an old age, yet supposedly so young.

I'm not sure where you're getting that the universe is old yet young. It appears to be around 14 billion years old, surely that isn't young. I mean, it's all relative, but nobody would ever say that billions of years is "young", so I'm not sure what you really mean by that.

The choices we have are God created it or the universe is actually that old and God did not create it.

There are a lot more possibilities than that, I don't know why you'd think that these are the only 2 options.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Or why you'd think there's anything bad about the second one anyway.

 

[warpus]

Either way, you could have God creating the universe "as is" last Thursday, he could have created it 200 years ago, or 6,000, or 60,000 or 20 billion, or 200 billion, or maybe something other than a God created our universe, or nothing did, or it came about via natural processes only, maybe it resides in another universe, or a multiverse, or maybe not. There's so many possibilities it isn't even funny, to say "There's only 2 options here guys" seems like you're willfully ignoring all the other ones because you have an agenda. (I just can't think of any other reason why you'd say that, not you you, but anyone)

 

[timtofly]

The point was to challenge the idea that science doesn't admit that things change suddenly. On the contrary, in this case science admits that things only ever change suddenly.

If there was an event that wiped everything out, it could also wipe out the DNA, and the process would have to start all over again. For example if the dinosaurs were all wiped out, how did the DNA survive without a means to regenerate itself, and the claim is, it did not regenerate more dinosaurs. That DNA was lost.

Species don't change suddenly. They may end suddenly, and information (that particular arrangement of DNA) is lost.

Humans do not accept that other humans recorded an event that claims all the mountains were under water, because they refuse to see the evidence to support anything else, but their assumed explanation. Therefore something drastic like that did not happen. Something drastic happened that wiped out the dinosaurs, because we do not have any dinosaurs alive today. Another explanation could be that the entire environment changed and dinosaurs naturally died out, because their genetic makeup would not allow them to adapt to the new environment. Not to mention the fact that humans have been capable of erasing entire species just by killing all of them.

Humans have observed DNA change in form, but never has new information made a sudden jump. No one has observed the effect that they are assuming happened. "There were gradual changes and eventually there was new information totally different than the original DNA." This is not possible, mutations do not change the original programming to make a completely different program. It only changes to adapt relative to the environment around it. There are other options, but they have been ruled out, as "too vague".

I'm not sure where you're getting that the universe is old yet young. It appears to be around 14 billion years old, surely that isn't young. I mean, it's all relative, but nobody would ever say that billions of years is "young", so I'm not sure what you really mean by that.

There are a lot more possibilities than that, I don't know why you'd think that these are the only 2 options.

There is only one reality unless there are multiple realities. Is it possible to collect enough data, to prove what is actually happening? Either something from within the universe created itself and the universe, something outside the universe is controlling the universe. The universe is self generating, and is in the middle of x amount of cycles. It is created new every x amount of time. Why does there have to be a hundred options, or a thousand options, or a million options. Unless there is a new universe every x second, then stating only one option is viable; given the fact that we can only observe one iteration at a time that we are aware of. How can we figure this out, if we are deceived about reality?

The size of the universe immediately after the initial expansion is not that much different than it is at this moment. It seems that the expansion was claimed to be so slow at the start that it has only been noticeably changing in the last 500,000 million years. That is not from observation, but because the universe was given a age and then the expansion was calculated by the assumed age, not any observable phenomenon. I am not going to give the universe an age, because I don't have any information that would compel me to do so. Neither do I accept that it is as old as most humans assume it to be. I suppose it would be easy for me to say that God created the universe 14 billion years ago, and the Solar system 4.3 billion years ago, but why limit my options?

I say the universe is young and it is impossible to deduce it's exact age, because no one observed what condition the universe was in at the beginning. If the universe was 14 billion light years across at the beginning, how old do you think it is if it has not expanded more than a few thousand light years across, and the speed of expansion has been accelerating? How fast was it expanding at the beginning, and what is the rate of acceleration of this expansion? Those facts are assumed.

The genesis account claims God created everything in a mature completely whole (DNA) form. Every species held their own unique DNA that allowed that species to adapt to any environmental changes that species needed to adapt too. Why would God not create everything else with a mature age, even billions of years old? One reason that DNA is similar is because we all live in the same environment. There have been events in this environment that has affected the ability for some species to survive, and also messes with the ability to correctly give exact ages for the environment that we exist in.

Either way, you could have God creating the universe "as is" last Thursday, he could have created it 200 years ago, or 6,000, or 60,000 or 20 billion, or 200 billion, or maybe something other than a God created our universe, or nothing did, or it came about via natural processes only, maybe it resides in another universe, or a multiverse, or maybe not. There's so many possibilities it isn't even funny, to say "There's only 2 options here guys" seems like you're willfully ignoring all the other ones because you have an agenda. (I just can't think of any other reason why you'd say that, not you you, but anyone)

I am not ruling out the vast options out there, but I do enjoy coming up with explanations for what happened. Creating the universe "last Thursday" is just a ploy and smoke screen, because science cannot prove that as a fact, but it does allow humans to come up with some interesting concepts. The reason that humans narrow down their reality, is probably because as far as we know we only have one, not myriads. I do enjoy attempting to put holes into the argument that humans can only use the scientific method to prove anything, and yet I am the one accused of championing only one agenda. What is the point of using stereotypical arguments, when humans can imagine other plausible ones? Only to be told they are not plausible, go back to the stereotypes.

If there is only one reality, is it not logical to expect reality had only one start?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Species don't change suddenly. They may end suddenly, and information (that particular arrangement of DNA) is lost.

Humans do not accept that other humans recorded an event that claims all the mountains were under water, because they refuse to see the evidence to support anything else, but their assumed explanation. Therefore something drastic like that did not happen. Something drastic happened that wiped out the dinosaurs, because we do not have any dinosaurs alive today. Another explanation could be that the entire environment changed and dinosaurs naturally died out, because their genetic makeup would not allow them to adapt to the new environment. Not to mention the fact that humans have been capable of erasing entire species just by killing all of them.

I do not think that there is any evidence to support a theory of a flood that covered all the land. There may be stories that tell such a tale, but not evidence as that word is generally used. Do you have such evidence? The same can be said about all our water coming from the earth once being in the asteroid belt. There is no evidence of that and lots of evidence against it.

Also, the dinosaurs never did die out and their DNA is alive and well in birds. Most species of dinosaurs did die about 65 million years ago, but the small subset that thrived in the post cataclysmic time has carried the dinosaur legacy to every corner of the globe. And keep in mind that there were events prior to 65 million years ago that killed off even more of life's species.

In a landmark paper published in 1982, Jack Sepkoski and David M. Raup identified five mass extinctions. They were originally identified as outliers to a general trend of decreasing extinction rates during the Phanerozoic,[3] but as more stringent statistical tests have been applied to the accumulating data, the "Big Five" cannot be so clearly defined, but rather appear to represent the largest (or some of the largest) of a relatively smooth continuum of extinction events.[3]

Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (End Cretaceous, K-Pg extinction, or formerly K-T extinction): 66 Ma at the Cretaceous (Maastrichtian)-Paleogene (Danian) transition interval.[4] The event formerly called the Cretaceous-Tertiary or K–T extinction or K-T boundary is now officially named the Cretaceous–Paleogene (or K–Pg) extinction event. About 17% of all families, 50% of all genera[5] and 75% of all species became extinct.[6] In the seas it reduced the percentage of sessile animals (those unable to move about) to about 33%. All non-avian dinosaurs became extinct during that time.[7] The boundary event was severe with a significant amount of variability in the rate of extinction between and among different clades. Mammals and birds, the latter descended from theropod dinosaurs, emerged as dominant large land animals.
Triassic–Jurassic extinction event (End Triassic): 201.3 Ma at the Triassic-Jurassic transition. About 23% of all families, 48% of all genera (20% of marine families and 55% of marine genera) and 70% to 75% of all species went extinct.[5] Most non-dinosaurian archosaurs, most therapsids, and most of the large amphibians were eliminated, leaving dinosaurs with little terrestrial competition. Non-dinosaurian archosaurs continued to dominate aquatic environments, while non-archosaurian diapsids continued to dominate marine environments. The Temnospondyl lineage of large amphibians also survived until the Cretaceous in Australia (e.g., Koolasuchus).
Permian–Triassic extinction event (End Permian): 252 Ma at the Permian-Triassic transition. Earth's largest extinction killed 57% of all families, 83% of all genera and 90% to 96% of all species[5] (53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera, about 96% of all marine species and an estimated 70% of land species, including insects).[8] The highly successful marine arthropod, the trilobite became extinct. The evidence of plants is less clear, but new taxa became dominant after the extinction.[9] The "Great Dying" had enormous evolutionary significance: on land, it ended the primacy of mammal-like reptiles. The recovery of vertebrates took 30 million years,[10] but the vacant niches created the opportunity for archosaurs to become ascendant. In the seas, the percentage of animals that were sessile dropped from 67% to 50%. The whole late Permian was a difficult time for at least marine life, even before the "Great Dying".
Late Devonian extinction: 375–360 Ma near the Devonian-Carboniferous transition. At the end of the Frasnian Age in the later part(s) of the Devonian Period, a prolonged series of extinctions eliminated about 19% of all families, 50% of all genera[5] and 70% of all species.[citation needed] This extinction event lasted perhaps as long as 20 million years, and there is evidence for a series of extinction pulses within this period.
Ordovician–Silurian extinction events (End Ordovician or O-S): 450–440 Ma at the Ordovician-Silurian transition. Two events occurred that killed off 27% of all families, 57% of all genera and 60% to 70% of all species.[5] Together they are ranked by many scientists as the second largest of the five major extinctions in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that went extinct.