In the Beginning...

[onejayhawk]

As has been pointed out by Lexicus, if the Creation account was meant literally, as I have suggested, its wrong and its one of those situations where if you can't see that, no amount of me explaining it is going to change that.

This is too strong a statement. You have to define terms for both the writer and the reader. One of the problems you face is defining who the observer is and from where the observation is made. It is not that difficult to match literal events with the account. That said, it may not be the best reading.

J

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

@Warpus: I know what you mean and I totaly understand. However I am not talking about God in that way to subtly manipulate you, to emotionaly black mail you or anything of that sort but rather purely factually. It is you and others who give it some secondary motive but thats unnecessary. I came here for intellectual debate not to proselytize anybody.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

God is understood to be not only the creator but also the preserver. If you look at our human psychology you will see we need something to fulfill our lives to function properly. This fulfilment usually takes form of an expansion. I dont need to bash your head with rock to send you to vegetative state but I can do the same if I find a way to take away your ego and desires unless you find away to function dynamicaly without an ego in some desireless state of consciousness. And that is precisely what spirituality claims about God. But before one can be in that state of mind one usually needs to go through the desire process. In a sense God is preserving our lives through our desires.

Just because (some) spirituality claims some aspect of the real universe or the real experience of living as a human as some defining characteristic of its God doesn't mean anything. You're basically just saying "God must exist because people who say God exists define God as existing". Nonsense. Your God can suck my melons.

 

[abradley]

Your 5-year-old is a smart kid.




I don't believe Santa Claus exists either, but I still talk about him. I talk about lots of fictitious characters.

Free will has NOTHING to do with what I was talking about. You say your God created humans? I say your God did a lousy job. If your God worked for me and did such a lousy job, I'd fire him.

No, I'm not talking about robots. I'm talking about biological human beings.

What is so hard to understand about this?

Yes, but do you complain about him doing a bad job in your posts?

As for humans and robots ... exactly, we aren't robots.

 

[El_Machinae]

But the way in which we're not robots isn't all that obvious. Makes it a doozie of a pickle. Heck, my longterm plan of migrating my consciousness to silicon isn't unreasonable

 

[warpus]

@Warpus: I know what you mean and I totaly understand. However I am not talking about God in that way to subtly manipulate you, to emotionaly black mail you or anything of that sort but rather purely factually. It is you and others who give it some secondary motive but thats unnecessary. I came here for intellectual debate not to proselytize anybody.

I understand that, but if you hold an unorthodox and uncommon view about God, it would help to preface "God is in your life whether you like it or not" (or anything similar) with what exactly you mean. Otherwise mainstream Christian views will be assumed. Also, phrasing/wording, etc.

 

[Arakhor]

And suggesting that God is in everyone as your soul is probably as unorthodox as they come.

 

[Sommerswerd]

This is too strong a statement. You have to define terms for both the writer and the reader. One of the problems you face is defining who the observer is and from where the observation is made. It is not that difficult to match literal events with the account. That said, it may not be the best reading.

J

I don't think so. I also don't get the relevance of your point about defining observers and observation points. Also, coming from you, this all sounds a little too wishy-washy, fence-ride'y, participation trophy talk ie "everyone is right, it just depends on your perspective" kinda stuff... and while I can appreciate that applies in some contexts, I don't think that kind of approach is all that useful here. Either the world was created as described in Genesis or it wasn't. Either the person who first wrote the creation account believed that what they were writing really happened or they didn't. If you are a fundamentalist, you are obligated to believe that the Bible is infallible and 100% accurate and true, so you are forced to come up with explanations to keep the text "right" even when the facts/science/logic etc don't stand up to scrutiny. But I don't have that burden... at work I have that burden all the time, so I appreciate it, but I decidedly don't have the burden in this context.

 

[Arakhor]

Really though, in the creation story, if the observer is not God, we're only left with the omniscient narrator, which is hardly a good way to frame a supposedly literal account.

 

[onejayhawk]

I don't think so. I also don't get the relevance of your point about defining observers and observation points. Also, coming from you, this all sounds a little too wishy-washy, fence-ride'y, participation trophy talk ie "everyone is right, it just depends on your perspective" kinda stuff... and while I can appreciate that applies in some contexts, I don't think that kind of approach is all that useful here. Either the world was created as described in Genesis or it wasn't. Either the person who first wrote the creation account believed that what they were writing really happened or they didn't. If you are a fundamentalist, you are obligated to believe that the Bible is infallible and 100% accurate and true, so you are forced to come up with explanations to keep the text "right" even when the facts/science/logic etc don't stand up to scrutiny. But I don't have that burden... at work I have that burden all the time, so I appreciate it, but I decidedly don't have the burden in this context.

Break it down. Who is talking to whom, when, why and especially how?

I am not a fundamentalist nor do I know any. However, there is a creationism museum a couple counties over, so there must be some somewhere. Maybe I'll meet some, some day.

Really though, in the creation story, if the observer is not God, we're only left with the omniscient narrator, which is hardly a good way to frame a supposedly literal account.

The way I read it, it cannot be God. That does not mean an omniscient observer.

I take it as a series of dreams/visions/revelations. A human observer records it as literally as possible at the time (pre-writing), which is in teaching story format. Generations later the stories are set down in written form as Moses command. Hence the term Books of Moses.

J

 

[Lexicus]

Yes, but do you complain about him doing a bad job in your posts?

Point missed.

 

[Agent327]

I take it as a series of dreams/visions/revelations. A human observer records it as literally as possible at the time (pre-writing), which is in teaching story format. Generations later the stories are set down in written form as Moses command. Hence the term Books of Moses.

Eh, no. There are three interesting about Genesis - apart from the obvious fact that the teller isn't God. First, everything in the universe is created before man. Only as an explanation is added that all things on Earth are created 'to serve man'. (One wonders how a platypus will serve man.) Second, there are actually two creation stories in Genesis. (So a guy named Moses couldn't have written Genesis. Or the Pentateuch as a whole, as used to be thought.) Third, God condemns man to 'work for his daily bread'. That's interesting, because the only people who do that are peasants. (Hunters and gatherers 'work' at most 2-3 hours a day.) This tells us that Genesis is written for people familiar with agriculture. (And that, apparently, hunter-gatherers are not supposed to be the audience. In fact, the authors seem completely oblivious to the existence of hunter-gatherers.)

 

[onejayhawk]

Eh, no. There are three interesting about Genesis - apart from the obvious fact that the teller isn't God. First, everything in the universe is created before man. Only as an explanation is added that all things on Earth are created 'to serve man'. (One wonders how a platypus will serve man.) Second, there are actually two creation stories in Genesis. (So a guy named Moses couldn't have written Genesis. Or the Pentateuch as a whole, as used to be thought.) Third, God condemns man to 'work for his daily bread'. That's interesting, because the only people who do that are peasants. (Hunters and gatherers 'work' at most 2-3 hours a day.) This tells us that Genesis is written for people familiar with agriculture. (And that, apparently, hunter-gatherers are not supposed to be the audience. In fact, the authors seem completely oblivious to the existence of hunter-gatherers.)

Eh, no? Concerning what? What does this mean, "There are three interesting about Genesis."

I believe I stated that Moses did not write the account. The rest of this does not seem to contradict anything in my statement.

J

 

[Sommerswerd]

Break it down. Who is talking to whom, when, why and especially how?

Sure... Why not, for example, an ancient Dad, telling his kids a story, at bedtime, because they asked him something like "Daddy where did the trees come from?"... so a verbal account, passed down from generation to generation, and finally written down by somebody...

Or, an ancient village elder, telling the younger members of the community, as part of some rudimentary form of schooling, because they asked him something like "Elder what is that bright round thing in the sky and where did it come from?"... so a verbal account, passed down from generation to generation, and finally written down by somebody...

I am not a fundamentalist nor do I know any.

Well you're in luck, because I happen to have been raised in a Christian fundamentalist religion, so I know lots of fundamentalists and even have them in my family and circle of oldest friends and acquaintances.

 

[Agent327]

Sure... Why not, for example, an ancient Dad, telling his kids a story, at bedtime, because they asked him something like "Daddy where did the trees come from?"... so a verbal account, passed down from generation to generation, and finally written down by somebody...

Two somebodies. At least.

Eh, no? Concerning what? What does this mean, "There are three interesting about Genesis."

I believe I stated that Moses did not write the account. The rest of this does not seem to contradict anything in my statement.

No?

Generations later the stories are set down in written form as Moses command. Hence the term Books of Moses.

This is simply incorrect. As explained in my post. I listed the interesting things about Genesis. As a creation story there's not much original there: it's quite similar to other creation myths.

 

[timtofly]

How can it be similiar when every one disagrees with Berzerker who is trying to make it similar to other ancient creation stories?

Still waiting for at least one reason the story has a flaw in it. All, I am getting is that God did not tell Moses what happened, even though it was written that way. There definitely was writing at the time of Moses, and the account could still be told by God from several different perspectives.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Still waiting for at least one reason the story has a flaw in it.

Again... as my 5 year old observed. God creates day and night on the first day, but the Sun on the fourth day, which makes no sense since the sun is the source of day and night. That's one flaw...

Now this flaw is easily explained away to fundamentalists by saying "God can do whatever he wants with his magic powers", or something similar, and completely ignoring the scientific facts that the very concept of day and night are a result of the planet's rotation relative to the sun, etc... The problem for non-fundamentalists is that "God can do whatever he wants with his magic powers" is remarkably similar to "Santa can fly around the world in one night with his magic powers"... in that its not an explanation at all, but is instead just a version of "because I said so"... and simply ignoring inconvenient scientific facts isn't something I feel the need to do just to prop up the Bible.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You are saying "You can't live without God" to someone who has grown up in an overly religious society and has worked hard to push religion out of his life and has faced prejudice and hardships as a result. The only other people who have ever told me that were people who were trying their hardest to keep me in the grasp of the religion. So when I read that statement, I have to unfortunately lump you in with them.

I don't claim hardships (I never had to escape from an Iron Curtain country and live in a refugee camp), but having religion shoved in my face in public schools wasn't fun. I'm not talking about things as trivial as Christmas concerts; in fact, I rather enjoyed those and even helped put together a couple of them in junior high (we did a rock opera called "It's Cool in the Furnace"; I still have the music for that one).

Doing Christmas concerts, and singing and playing in a church are things I did by my free choice. I could have said no. However, being ordered to stand and pray... not only in Grade 1, but also in my student teacher practicum 12 years later, in a public school?! That was flat-out coercion, since this was before we had the Charter that guarantees that people can't be discriminated against on the basis of religion (or non-religion). The teacher who ordered me to participate in prayers had the power to say whether or not I could continue in the B.Ed. program. So of course I did as I was ordered (though she couldn't actually force me to say the words), and tapdanced around awkward questions in the astronomy classes I taught when the kids asked where the universe came from.

You have redefined some words so that God = universe, and that's fine, but 99.999999% of people do not use those words like you do. Since we do not agree about the starting axioms here at all, it's impolite to suggest that your conclusion is applicable to anybody but yourself. Since it's applicable only to yourself, and especially since you find yourself in a situation where you are faced with people who have been told "You can't live without God" and had to work hard to get away from all that, of course you are going to get eyerolls and pushback.

Exactly.

"In my opinion God is equal to the universe" is much more prudent to say than: "God is in your life whether you like it or not", which is not how you worded it, but that's how it came out (to me). It comes off as a bit militant maybe, even if that's not what you exactly meant to convey.

This is something I get thrown in my face on a frequent basis. I passed "tired of it" YEARS ago.

In all fairness, one may freely believe there is no God, and live life to the fullest. To someone who accepts God as a reality, God sustains all life, whether that life accepts it or not. I live just fine not believing in evolution, how did we get here if evolution is not a reality?

Well, we didn't get here by magic. And that's what Genesis adds up to.

Not accepting evolution (for which there is a great deal of evidence) makes as much sense as not accepting gravity. Both have "theory of" in front of them, yet I doubt you'd be inclined to step off a 10-storey building without a parachute or safety net below.

Yes, but do you complain about him doing a bad job in your posts?

No, because Santa Claus doesn't write my posts. I write them myself.

That said, Santa still owes me a particular game I asked for when I was 4 years old. That was 48 Christmases ago. Damn, he's slow.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ You used an analogy of "if X exists, he's doing an awful job" earlier WRT God. That could be used on Santa as well, if you look at the distribution of toys vs behavior the world over. No toys at all are actually being set by a magic flying being once a year! He must really suck at this!

In that sense, Santa and God are comparable indeed. Their observed consequences on the world are identical, and the logic behind their construction and representation is similarly weak. Even the promise of reward for good behavior and punishment for bad is there.

The only real "mistake" with Santa is that he's too easily falsifiable. Most religions avoid falsifiable claims like the plague, because they know the outcome of that path. That should give an interesting viewpoint of some of the leaders though, as they seem quite able to anticipate that there won't be any variance in what we can observe...

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Just because (some) spirituality claims some aspect of the real universe or the real experience of living as a human as some defining characteristic of its God doesn't mean anything. You're basically just saying "God must exist because people who say God exists define God as existing". Nonsense. Your God can suck my melons.

I am defining God as all-existence/the Abolute - both manifest and unmanifest. So in that sense no one can live without God. If you say this is my limit and everything beyond it I dont believe and is nonsense you are welcome to keep your scepticism only dont think that this is an attitude of a honest thinker. Everything has to be tested before it can be rejected that would seem to me to be true both for science and spirituality and even when something may seem impossible atm there is usually no justfication for honest thinker saying it may be impossible thereafter as well.