Genesis and Other Creation Myths

[timtofly]

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.

The information you provided could also indicate that instead of evolving, species were wiped out. There was no change from one species to another, but the loss of species.

The evidence is there, and even the models state that at certain points the majority of the earth's land surface has been underwater at one point or another. The effect that some portions show no sign of being completely re-cycled or sub-merged under water, because it does not take months or weeks to drown all living things. Just a few days, or even hours could have done the job. The record says that the earth was only covered by water for a few months, and the area in Africa and Australia did not have to be submerged for even that long. nor even damaged or reformed. There is evidence. It is just assumed that the earth has had millions of years to experience the evidence. Even the layering of mud and the evidence of huge inland oceans does not rule out a Flood, but can explain how the continents and oceans experienced multiple extinction events that left some species alive, while a majority of them did not survive.

The earth never took on water, and possibly has lost a lot in it's orbital path not just around the sun, but the whole solar system is moving through space. I don't think that it happened multiple times during the last 4 billion years. The evolutionary model requires the earth to have had a lot more water, than a one time Flood event. How can the earth dry out, fill back up, dry out, fill back up without a source of water?

 

[Birdjaguar]

The information you provided could also indicate that instead of evolving, species were wiped out. There was no change from one species to another, but the loss of species.

The data shows that in spite of mass extinctions, evolution continued to work and new species evolved over time from those that survived. Lots of species were wiped out. That is what it means when the quoted pieces says 90-96% of species went extinct. Life had to start over to fill the earth with living things. In the 50 million years between the Permian extinction and the Triassic extinction the evolutionary process went to work and many entirely new species were created, went forth and multiplied and then were wiped out at the end of the Triassic.

The evidence is there, and even the models state that at certain points the majority of the earth's land surface has been underwater at one point or another. The effect that some portions show no sign of being completely re-cycled or sub-merged under water, because it does not take months or weeks to drown all living things. Just a few days, or even hours could have done the job.

What evidence are you talking about? Geologic evidence tells us the over the past several hundred million years the surface of the earth has moved, risen, sunk and eroded. Yes the mountains that border the east side of Albuquerque, which are over 10,500 feet above sea level, do have fossil shells all over the crests. At one time those shells were living on a beach at sea level. But because those shells are now fossils, we know that not only were those shells living millions of years ago, but also that at some point the tectonic forces of the earth lifted that land into mountains. You seem to be forgetting that geologic forces happen both quickly (volcanoes & earthquakes) and very slowly (mountain building, plates moving, and the eroding of mountains into hills). To go with that, science has figured out how what we see around us got to look like it does. They can tell if something took a long time or a short time to happen. If I were a skilled geologist, I could tell you how long ago the shells atop my Sandia Mountains were living things and if they have any living relatives in the world today.

The record says that the earth was only covered by water for a few months, and the area in Africa and Australia did not have to be submerged for even that long. nor even damaged or reformed. There is evidence. It is just assumed that the earth has had millions of years to experience the evidence. Even the layering of mud and the evidence of huge inland oceans does not rule out a Flood, but can explain how the continents and oceans experienced multiple extinction events that left some species alive, while a majority of them did not survive.

You are ignoring a pretty critical element of geology the sequencing of events: geologic dating. For what you want to be true, you have to ignore or disbelieve that the scientific dating processes used are all wrong. If you are correct, then all of the science behind those dating methods would have to be wrong. If they are not wrong, then you have to be wrong.

The earth never took on water, and possibly has lost a lot in it's orbital path not just around the sun, but the whole solar system is moving through space. I don't think that it happened multiple times during the last 4 billion years. The evolutionary model requires the earth to have had a lot more water, than a one time Flood event. How can the earth dry out, fill back up, dry out, fill back up without a source of water?

Please show me the evolutionary model that says the earth doesn't have enough water to be true?

What is your evidence that the water on earth is here because the earth passed through the asteroid belt? Or that the earth ever passed through the asteroid belt at all?

Thanks.

 

[warpus]

Either something from within the universe created itself and the universe, something outside the universe is controlling the universe.

What about the possibility of the universe always existing? There are other possibilities as well, you seem to be shoehorning yourself into only a couple of the many possibilities here.

The size of the universe immediately after the initial expansion is not that much different than it is at this moment.

Well.. wait.. No, that doesn't sound right. The universe has been expanding since the Big Bang, non stop for 14 billion years. Do you have a source for your claim?

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.

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I didn't see my grandfather's birth in person, does that mean that he's young for some reason? No, of course not.

If the universe was 14 billion light years across at the beginning

It wasn't, though. I mean, not at all. It was the size of an atom.

Creating the universe "last Thursday" is just a ploy and smoke screen

It's the exact same thing as saying the Universe was created 6,000 years ago or 2 million year ago or 2 hours ago.

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

At the moment we have no idea if there even was a start, nor are we guaranteed that we'll ever figure this out.

 

[Berzerker]

What is your evidence that the water on earth is here because the earth passed through the asteroid belt? Or that the earth ever passed through the asteroid belt at all?

Our water came from the asteroid belt... it was believed the Earth was too hot, too molten, to have surface water (hence the Hadean) for several hundred million years extending into and possibly thru the late heavy bombardment ~ 4 bya.

It was believed comets or asteroids brought us much of our water during that time. Actually comets were the first hypothetical source of our water but they were replaced by asteroids when water signatures of the latter matched up with Earth's water while comets were a mixed bag.

But new evidence - our oldest "rock" in the form of zircon crystals - suggests we had liquid water going back <4.4 billion years. That effectively ruined both comets and asteroids as the source for our water.

The mechanism for launching water bearing asteroids at us was the migration of giant outer planets (mainly Jupiter) resulting in the late heavy bombardment ~4-4.1 bya. But the earlier dating of surface water limits the time frame in which water could be delivered to us making it less likely asteroids were the source.

So either the Earth formed here with its water, or the water was brought here from the asteroid belt by impacting asteroids, or the Earth formed out there and was pushed into a new, closer orbit by a collision.

The asteroid belt was the "snow line" - where water vapor condenses - in the early solar system. A planet forming there would have been surrounded by water and contrary to current theory, that planet would have formed before Jupiter attained its enormous size.

In fact, had the Earth formed at the asteroid belt and was pushed here during a collision, Jupiter would have grown even larger with more moons as vapor and debris migrated outward.

 

[bhavv]

Yes all the fish and other sea life were wiped out by the flood.

However, the Noahs Arc storyline that man survived and gathered a male and female of every species across the entire world onto a big boat requires all sorts of crazy to believe as true.

What exactly did the animals eat during the flood? How did they survive? How did the carnivores not prey upon the other animals? How exactly did Noah manage to find, subdue, and get all those animals onto his ship?

 

[Berzerker]

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.

We can measure past movements. Take a look at the Emperor Seamounts (former Hawaiian Islands) stretching all the way to Kamchatka. It took ~80 million years for that chain to form and we dont know how many extinct volcanoes already disappeared under or onto the Eurasian plate. Any variations in the movement of the Pacific plate over that span are small, but there was a significant change in direction about 40 mya.

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.

If these disturbances voided the dating of magnetic reversals we'd have evidence for the disruptions in the sequence. Paleomagnetism is what led us to continental drift and plate tectonics, albeit a small school child a century ago could see the evidence for it in an atlas. The Atlantic Ocean has been spreading for over 100 million years at a fairly consistent rate, not even the K-T event wiping out the dinosaurs 65 mya had much effect.

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.

Meteorites provide us with an age of ~4.6 billion years... But I believe most meteorites were once part of larger, planet or Moon sized objects and not remnants of the accretionary phase of the early solar system.

I dont believe the solar system formed at the same time, the planets closer to the center/Sun would appear first followed by the outer gas giants. The one exception to this "rule", if there was one, would be an early planet forming at the snow line because of gases and vapor blown by the solar wind concentrating at that distance - perhaps a planet covered by water, maybe up to 100 or even 500-1000 miles deep.

The snow line is where several myths place the primordial Earth before creation, Tiamat (biblical tehom) formed first and between what would become Mars and Jupiter.

Once Tiamat was carved up, the Earth was given a new orbit where day and night rule (spinning closer to the Sun) and the hammered bracelet called Heaven (firmament - rakia) was left behind at the crossing point.

This is why the firmament was placed amidst the waters, it divided the solar system in two at the snow line. Many creation myths claim Heaven and Earth were one and God separated them...

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.

Current cosmology doesn't recognize "God" and if the primordial Earth (before creation) was already a planet covered by water (Gen 1:2) then God didn't show up to create for a long time.

And thats what the myths say, they clearly identify a period of time preceding creation when primordial worlds awaited God and the transformation of a planet covered by water into one with dry land and life.

When did life appear? Maybe 3.7-8 bya? How about dry land? Maybe 3.9-4.0 bya? We're still not too clear on when the continents began forming, but if our oldest rock formed in water then plate tectonics came later.

I believe the bombardment of Earth around 4 bya is what triggered the creation of plates, much of the crust was sheared off (some of which plastered the Moon forming its face) and the planet underwent a 3rd episode of differentiation leading to a process of continent building.

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 Earth was without form and void, it wasn't dry land yet, it was submerged. Gen 1:1-2 are not talking about the universe or the Big Bang.

The Bible mentions water, and the Veda's mention water. Science says that is impossible.

The science says the Earth had surface water ~4.4 bya and until we find surface rock that didn't form in water we have no reason to believe the world was not covered by it that far back.

There was only one land mass, and there were no tall mountains, and if there were, they were all destroyed in the event.

There may have been one land mass originally followed by others as plate tectonics fueled the reshaping of Earth's surface, but no tall mountains? Doesn't Genesis tell us the Flood covered the tallest mountains? How does plate tectonics build land masses without building mountains?

God made matter without form (earth) and void (empty space/heaven). "Heaven" has multiple uses.

Heaven is not a void, it is the hammered bracelet, the firmament, and it was created on the 2nd Day. The Earth was without form because the water covered it, on the 3rd Day God revealed it from under the water and called the dry land "Earth" (not this planet, just the dry land). Thats why Earth's "sky" is described on the 4th Day, the Earth was not exposed and named until the 3rd.

Some say that God lives in Heaven.

Is Heaven visible?

The word used in verse one is plural that could mean multiple places that were not designated as the other word ie earth.

The "heavens" became synonymous with Earth's sky and/or the visible objects we see in our sky, but "Heaven" was made to separate the waters and named on the 2nd Day. Therefore Heaven is not the universe, the waters were there first.

The division of gods is needed because humans think that one God cannot do everything, but is limited in ability.

How many Gods create Heaven and Earth in the Euma Elish? One.

Day and night happens because the earth spins. Not just because the Sun shines. The earth started spinning and there was evening and morning.

Day and night happen because the Earth spins near the Sun. If the Earth in Gen 1:2 was spinning further away from the Sun it could be described as being in darkness, especially with the much weaker solar output back then. Of course after the "Light" it was probably spinning differently other than just closer to the Sun.

 

[timtofly]

The data shows that in spite of mass extinctions, evolution continued to work and new species evolved over time from those that survived. Lots of species were wiped out. That is what it means when the quoted pieces says 90-96% of species went extinct. Life had to start over to fill the earth with living things. In the 50 million years between the Permian extinction and the Triassic extinction the evolutionary process went to work and many entirely new species were created, went forth and multiplied and then were wiped out at the end of the Triassic.

What evidence are you talking about? Geologic evidence tells us the over the past several hundred million years the surface of the earth has moved, risen, sunk and eroded. Yes the mountains that border the east side of Albuquerque, which are over 10,500 feet above sea level, do have fossil shells all over the crests. At one time those shells were living on a beach at sea level. But because those shells are now fossils, we know that not only were those shells living millions of years ago, but also that at some point the tectonic forces of the earth lifted that land into mountains. You seem to be forgetting that geologic forces happen both quickly (volcanoes & earthquakes) and very slowly (mountain building, plates moving, and the eroding of mountains into hills). To go with that, science has figured out how what we see around us got to look like it does. They can tell if something took a long time or a short time to happen. If I were a skilled geologist, I could tell you how long ago the shells atop my Sandia Mountains were living things and if they have any living relatives in the world today.

You are ignoring a pretty critical element of geology the sequencing of events: geologic dating. For what you want to be true, you have to ignore or disbelieve that the scientific dating processes used are all wrong. If you are correct, then all of the science behind those dating methods would have to be wrong. If they are not wrong, then you have to be wrong.

Please show me the evolutionary model that says the earth doesn't have enough water to be true?

What is your evidence that the water on earth is here because the earth passed through the asteroid belt? Or that the earth ever passed through the asteroid belt at all?

Thanks.

Species were lost, but there are no fossils of intermediate types of transitional species found any where.

The Himalayans which are the tallest mountains, are the youngest at only 70 mya. Even the dinosaurs died out before they began to form. Whatever killed them could have cause the Indian Continent to crash into the Asian Continent. The Cretaceous border was at 66 million years. The mountains started forming and 3 million years later a destructive event happened?

There is nothing uniform in how the geological record laid down the layers.

The science of dating is not wrong, and neither are the principles involved. The fault is in assumptions, that humans have no control over. So we figure out statistical calculations that attempt to come up with enough margin of error, and if the error is too high, we start the process all over again.

None of the models allow water until after the fist crust was hard/cooled. Then there was a period of intense rain. Passing through the asteroid belt was Bezerker's claim.

What about the possibility of the universe always existing? There are other possibilities as well, you seem to be shoehorning yourself into only a couple of the many possibilities here.

Well.. wait.. No, that doesn't sound right. The universe has been expanding since the Big Bang, non stop for 14 billion years. Do you have a source for your claim?

That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I didn't see my grandfather's birth in person, does that mean that he's young for some reason? No, of course not.

It wasn't, though. I mean, not at all. It was the size of an atom.



It's the exact same thing as saying the Universe was created 6,000 years ago or 2 million year ago or 2 hours ago.

At the moment we have no idea if there even was a start, nor are we guaranteed that we'll ever figure this out.

Some say the universe was an infinite size when it started and still has an infinite size. 3 minutes after the Bib Bang, all the information was there to shows signs of a 14 billion light year across universe. That size has not changed. That sounds to me though it had about the same size at the beginning as it does now. The reasoning is that we will never see past the edge of the universe.

The calculation states that the universe is flat meaning that it is expanding, but not closed where it will collapse back in on itself, or open where it will last an infinite number of years. The point where the acceleration reaches infinity is calculable, but there are multiple scenarios of what happens next.

It would seem that appearance has little to do with age, but the dating method used on objects within the system. We do not "see" a 14.3 billion wide universe, but we have dated a few stars and their date of 14.3 billion years gives us the size. That is because the information has always been there within 3 minutes of it happening. It has been in a continuous stream though for x amount of time. That time is based on any given age as long as it is the oldest.

An actual 20 year old wearing a bracelet that is dated 70 years old does not make them 70, but it would give that appearance, even if the actual appearance may be much younger, but neither give the actual age of the 20 year old.

I agree that humans may never figure it out.

Yes all the fish and other sea life were wiped out by the flood.

However, the Noahs Arc storyline that man survived and gathered a male and female of every species across the entire world onto a big boat requires all sorts of crazy to believe as true.

What exactly did the animals eat during the flood? How did they survive? How did the carnivores not prey upon the other animals? How exactly did Noah manage to find, subdue, and get all those animals onto his ship?

The account only said that land and air creatures died, it never mentioned what was in the water died. Why would one take full grown predators into an enclosed space? They took pre-pubescent mates, and some animals can hibernate. Noah did not round them up, unless they were already domesticated. They migrated. How did animals migrate in the first place? What compels them to move different places in herds?

 

[Berzerker]

http://www.nature.com/news/1998/030929/full/news030929-6.html

The Himalayas started forming 55 mya, but thats being challenged by somebody claiming they're 450-500 million years old

The Deccan Traps in India however appear to have erupted around 65 mya and probably played a role in the demise of the dinosaurs

 

[timtofly]

What that article says is that they found remnants of the mountains previous to the current ones. Which means that mountains come and go, and in the scale of time fairly rapidly. Perhaps they will tell us next that since Pangaea India has moved over the Ocean several times with a track record better than the Titanic. Not sure how they are going to reconcile that with the Ocean seams though.

 

[Berzerker]

But those earlier mountains didn't go, they're part of the current chain. The article is suggesting India has hit Asia twice with up to 400 million years between the two events. Or that India hit Asia ~450 mya but the collision either slowed, stopped, or the land masses (or their plates) separated before a 2nd collision 55 mya to produce the current range while incorporating the remains of the older one.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

How can anyone possibly know what happened 400 million years ago. It's just their opinion and no more valid than anyone else's opinion. If the ancients didn't know anything about India hitting Asia twice in the distant past, then why should we know any better now? I personally think that India rose from the sea only 250,000 years ago. Can anyone prove me wrong? Was anyone actually there?

 

[Berzerker]

sharks were around 400 mya

 

[Agent327]

How can anyone possibly know what happened 400 million years ago. It's just their opinion and no more valid than anyone else's opinion. If the ancients didn't know anything about India hitting Asia twice in the distant past, then why should we know any better now? I personally think that India rose from the sea only 250,000 years ago. Can anyone prove me wrong? Was anyone actually there?

I suppose you never watch or read news either - as you can't possibly know if it's true because you weren't there. And never trust anything any scientist claims ever - as you haven't done it yourself. I'm sure you can live a happy life that way - albeit completely ignorant and distrustful of anyone whom you haven't met personally. Sort of as in the Middle Ages, to use another cliché.

Or you could employ a little faith in your fellows - and those fellows who specialize in the type of thing you are ignorant of. So you might actually learn something. Join the human race, as it were. You may forfeit living happily ever after, but that's the thing with knowledge: it's not always positive - but ever so often it is.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm not sure we should put it as 'just have faith' in people: that's replacing one form of unthinking belief in authority with another. We trust scientists because (and only when) they are open about how we know what we know. If you read a scientific paper, it has a section at the front telling you the exact way they conducted the experiment, the precautions they took against being wrong, and then a section explaining how they believe their observations demonstrate the point they set out to test. At every stage, people are invited to question, to assess whether these methods are good enough. The people who say 'trust me, I went to university' are usually selling you snake-oil or homoeopathy.

 

[Leoreth]

That's an interesting point though. A major reason that pseudoscience like homeopathy or the creationism found in this thread is so popular is because it's actually quite the effort to engage critically with the corpus of scientific research that has established a certain bit of knowledge as fact.

For instance, I have never read any of the probably hundreds of papers and articles that led to our current understanding of the formation of the Indian subcontinent. And since my knowledge of geology is limited, many of them will probably only be accessible to me to a certain extent.

I see no reason to disbelieve the current scientific consensus though, and to some extent that is only because of trust. Not so much trust in specific scientists with a certified "smart person" degree. But rather trust in the scientific community as a whole and the process by which it operates.

I know that this process includes verification by peers at various stages of the publication process. I know that discovering new information that overturns current thinking is encouraged and rewarded in the community. I know that most established knowledge relies on a wide array of facts from different scientific fields. I also know that I could actually read everything that has been written about a subject and see my initial doubts addressed.

But in the end I have to rely on those people, and trust them that if I actually did that the result is what I'm being told.

If you're naive and scientifically illiterate, to the point where "nobody was there so who knows" seems like a reasonable argument to you, it's hard to see the difference between this and pseudoscience. It's because at the most basic interface, there is no difference. Especially in highly evolved pseudoscience like climate change denialism, where a lot of effort is expended into training their believers to pretend they're talking science.

 

[timtofly]

But those earlier mountains didn't go, they're part of the current chain. The article is suggesting India has hit Asia twice with up to 400 million years between the two events. Or that India hit Asia ~450 mya but the collision either slowed, stopped, or the land masses (or their plates) separated before a 2nd collision 55 mya to produce the current range while incorporating the remains of the older one.

"The granites and schists containing these garnets were formed during a collision between India and a section of what is now Asia, the researchers suggest. The rocks were forced down to great depths, where intense heat and pressure melted and changed them.

As the collision continued, the mountains grew, pushing some of the rocks back up to the surface, the team argues. Thereafter, tons of sediment eroded from the mountains and settled on their flanks. Zircon grains in some of these ancient sediments are just slightly younger than the garnets."


According to the "facts" when a continent moves, it leaves an ocean. This ocean forced it's content under the Asian and Indian plates. When India came back it stopped the process, and "grabbed" some of the earlier mountain's rocks inside the new formation. Erosion exposed these older rocks.

There is not an older section of mountains and a newer section. The older mountains were being subducted under the Indian plate. It was that plate that allegedly grabbed the older content. Evidently the Asian continent was the cold nonparticipating partner in the whole process.

 

[warpus]

That size has not changed. That sounds to me though it had about the same size at the beginning as it does now.

What can I say, you're 100% wrong about this part here. A cursory glance over at the Big Bang Theory or Inflation Theory will steer you in the right direction, even if you squint at just one of those from 20 metres away. But I have a feeling you won't.

 

[timtofly]

Well it depends on which one you look at? I could be 10% wrong or 90% wrong. We are talking about statistics and the whole range from the beginning to infinity, and we are closer to the beginning than to infinity.

 

[warpus]

We are talking about the size of the Universe right after the big bang and now, not statistics. You are saying they are exactly the same size. I am saying that the size used to be tiny, smaller than an atom, and today it is much much bigger. So not at all the same. It's almost gone from the smallest thing you can imagine to the largest thing you can imagine.

 

[Leoreth]

For every given real number x we are closer to x than to infinity. That is what infinity means.