Adam And Eve

do people believe that story of creation despite all the countless evidence that it isn't true?

even the big bang theory is popular only because it doesnt disprove any act of god, hence it gains approval by the vatican on that basis only.

 

Yes people do believe it. Do I think it is right; no... but that is not what you asked.

FYI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

 

What countless evidence do you have?

 

You don't need "countless evidence" to know the Adam and Eve story is just that -- a story.

All you need is common sense.

 

A lot can depend on whether that story is taken literally or non-literally.

 

what countless evidence? aside from highlighting my thoughtless grammar that would be... carbon dating, dinosaur bones, neanderthal reamins and artefacts. scientific testing and anslysis. the fact that women have babies and ribs dont turn into fully grown adults and the fact that whoever wrote it was a) Jewish (people who revelled in writing stories about how they won wars and slaughtered imagined enemies with god at tneir shoulder when in fact they just got pushed around a lot and ran away from home) and b) had never watched The Sky At Night.

 

thats not correct, its popular because of the vast amount of evidence.

 

"Vast amount of evidence" for what? There is a vast amount of evidence for the Big Bang theory, The Adam and Eve story is most likely a myth which, like other good myths, can be interpreted metaphorically or allegorically. In the field of genetics, there is the Mitochondrial Eve theory that the most recent common ancestor of all living modern humans was a woman who lived over 100 thousand years ago in East Africa. There is also the Y-chromosome Adam from whom all living humans are thought to be descended patrilineally. He also seems to have been African. This Adam probably never met the Mitorchondrial Eve, since he lived at least 20 thousand years earlier. Fundamentalists would probably be dismayed by the notion that these people were around tens of thousands of years before the Biblical Creation--not to mention the fact that they were probably African instead of Jewish. Oi!

 

sorry i think were on diffrent pages lol

i dont belive the big bang is widely accepted because it doesnt disprove god, i think the big bang is popular because theres alot of strong evidence behind it.

also, the position of religion before the big bang was that god created the universe.

now after the big bang has been shown to be pretty accurate all of a sudden the church says "well the big bang explains how the universe got here, but god did everyhting else." or, some say god made the big bang happen.

bottom line, science keeps explaining things that the church once claimed was the work of god. the church then responds to these claims by saying "ok science explains that part without envokig god, but god did everything else." this is "the God of the gaps" argument, where the gaps for god keep getting smaller and smaller. eventually there will be no room for god because everything will be explained without envoking magic/dieties.

 

Like most good people...I believe Jesus was a guide, to teach you right and wrong..he was killed by the wrong, for teaching right

he was a hero of his time, and it was felt right to carry on his teachings, right from wrong...but people have added their own stuff as time has gone...including the fantasy writers..

There are always believers, of everything...I just believe, no one was that good! he just tried.

Adam and Eve, I believe was a way of teaching, that just got out of hand, and very silly! I believe Adam gave Eve his heart, and its the heart man kind was made from..love!

Just my theory, well you did ask C..

 

Your faith is strong. The Big Bang theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre. And as you say, it's been shown to be pretty accurate. Like other scientific theories, including evolution, it's still tentative. Evolution is one Cambrian rabbit away from being discredited, but so far, no Cambrian rabbits, and we can be pretty confident there won't be any. However, your linear projection that "eventually there will be no room for god because everything will be explained without envoking magic/dieties" is wishful thinking. Neither of us is likely to see it, and it's purely speculative. For example, many scientists are persuaded that multiple universes hold an explanation for the integrated complexity of the universe, but so far there is no empirical evidence for one and they are, as Martin Gardner said, "the utmost violation of Occam's razor". Mathematics makes us confident, but Godel taught us that "every mathematical system that is complex enough to include arithmetic includes theorems that cannot be proved true or false within the system." Cosmologists don't yet know the nature of "dark matter', the expansion rate of the universe, the nature of human consciousness, or how life began. Not that long ago, scientists thought all the basic particles had been discovered, but then along came supersstrings, and now they seem to be in trouble in some quarters. Isaac Asimov once said:"I believe that scientific knowledge has fractal properties; that no matter how much we learn, whatever is left, however small, is as infinitely complex as the whole was to start with." If and when we get that all figured out, I'll concede your point. Otherwise, there's still room for the God of Chasms.

 

What is the simplest explanation for wishful thinking?

 

I'm not much of a human, I'd even consider myself a misanthrope at times, but even I can easily recognize that the belief in science to eventually "do-away" with God implies a profound lack of understanding of not only the concept of God but of humanity itself.

 

big bang theory was first proposed by a catholic priest? holy shit, you learn something new every day, thanks!!

as for the theory of evolution, i see it as an "umbrella term" that encompasses many thoeries under it and intersects with many other fields of study including natural selection, paleontology, genetics, geology, and much more that i cant think of. the information gathered by these diffrent sciences are consistent with the theory of evolution and if anyone does some research they will find that theres tremendous evidence to back it up. so for you to say that evolution is just one cambrian rabbit away from being discredited, in my opinion, is a gross misrepresentation of this fact, as if its a really weak theory that science is about to disprove. on the contrary, as time goes on and we gather more information and refine the theory further it becomes stronger to the point that its undeniable.

as for science explaining away god, i do belive that has been the trend. i agree there will be some subjects that may be too complex for us to understand with our current knowledge but even if we find phenomenons that we cant explain with science, i belive it is very poor logic to just say "ok we dont understand this so god did it".

i agree that we dont fully understand the nature of dark matter, or the nature of conciousness and alot of other things, but why would you insert a diety to explain that? and yes what we dont know is vastly greater than what we do know but inserting a diety anywhere to explain away those things is a terrible leap in logic that i just dont understand. in fact, i propose that trying to explain those things with god or magic just takes us backwards in science because now we have to try to explain the nature of a diety which by definition is impossible. there is no need to envoke a diety to explain any natural phenomenon and i have faith (lol) that this trend will continue and the gaps in which you can insert god will continue to get smaller and smaller until its just embarrassingly ridiculous (in my opinion we have already reached that point).

 

Re evolution: I believe in evolution because of the overwhelming amount of evidence in its favor from a variety of fields of science. But it's still tentative, as is all science. When I said it was one Cambrian rabbit away from being discredited, I meant to pay it a compliment. Evolution is refutable--the key characteristic in making it scientific. The "Cambrian rabbits" expression comes from the biolobgist J.B.S. Haldane who gave it as an example of what kind of finding could refute evolution. A theory that isn't refutable is metaphysics, not science. But the important point is that true science can't really tell us what we we'll know in the future on the basis of projections from what we know or are learning now. The belief that it can is scientism--a secular faith. If I were a betting man, which I am, I'd bet that many of the unsolved mysteries of the universe will eventually be solved by science--assuming we haven't extinguished ourselves first by its misuse. And I don't think God or the supernatural should serve as an all purpose explanation for whatever we don't understand. That's just lazy thinking. As for Adam and Eve, I think we know enough to say confidently that it's only an allegory.

But like many believers, I'm struck by the "too good to be trueness" of our existence. Either we're just amazingly lucky--many time winners of multiple cosmic lotteries--or there are more things on Heaven and earth, than Horatio ever dreamt of in his science books. Take evolution, for example. Evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould concluded that if Pikaia hadn't survived the Burgess decimation, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Intelligent life might not have evolved. Hip Forums wouldn't exist. Some might say no small loss, but I think it's all too cool for school. Why is it that we've apparently evolved far more brain power than needed for a bunch of naked apes to meet the needs of day-to-day survival? What is the evolutionary advantage of consciousness? Since life is too short to wait for science to answer such questions, I bet my life on the basis of hunches based on available evidence, reason, experience, intuition, and street wisdom while keeping an open mind. I couldn't begin to explain the nature of a deity, but I think belief in one helps in giving me a positive orientation toward reality while muddling through.

 

i think we agree on evolution then, im happy ive learned something from our disscussion and i hope everyone else has too! your a cool dude!

and the way you describe your belief in a diety is very satisfying to me, great post.

 

I think Zecharia Sitchin has hit it pretty close with the theories he puts forth in his books starting with the 12th Planet, where he claims mankind are the results of genetic experimentation. Not saying he is correct, but it makes much more sense than what has been written by those espousing the christian belief system. The funny thing is, more and more modern science is verifying that what he claims were written in the ancient Sumerian and other writings are true.

 

For a website devoted to debunking Sitchin, see http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/
Ancient alien theories might make "more sense" than Bronze Age ceation stories, but the explanations that make the most sense regard them all as myths.

 

There are two creation stories in the bible coming from different periods. The first story is younger than the second story and is a cosmic insight. The second and older story is a proprietary explanation of the ruling class. In both stories creation comes via the breath of god. In both stories mans spirit comes from other than the substance of the earth.

There are differences between the two and the inherent tensions between existed then and play out in modern times. On the one we have these supposed god given qualities and rights as human beings confronting on the other, the desire for personal power creating a competitive environment that we have to work to attain.

 

that sounds a bit like nineteenth century capitalist ideology to me.
i dont understand how the bible can be deconstructed on the basis of modern theory.
like using binary code to assess the mechanism of a watch, some approaches just dont seem suitable for analysis of certain things. obvious that, i know.