Evolutionism vs creationism

[fazisi]

> > It's not chance that shapes natural selection, it's time and inevitability.
>
> I've heard the 'monkeys + typewriters + infinity = hamlet' theory before, and didn't believe
> it then either. In an abstract dreamworld where nothing interferes, sure, but the logistics I
> have experienced in this reality just don't provide the same idealistic environment as neverland.
> You have finite time, with ice ages, supersized volcanoes, and meteors thrown in for flavor.
>
> You say that it is 'inevitable' that when molecules bump together long enough, they will make
> complex things. You try to avoid using terminology like 'bump together', but in essence, that
> IS what evolution is based on (and indeed, what we are still doing now if you look at mating
> that way). So if you look at it that way, even pentium processors are the inevitable result
> of enough collisions, as human-level intelligence is inevitable with enough time, and they
> will naturally want moar power for their video games. So why stop there, if human-level
> intelligence and 100 teraherz processors are inevitable, why not humans version 2.0, or 3.0,
> with some chips and beneficial bio engineering thrown in for good measure. Would only take a
> bit more time, right? With enough time, they will merge with one another as a species, leave
> their physical bodies behind and become perfection incarnate. There, you are back to the
> same problem you started with... it's inevitable.
>
> So which is more probable, ascention to godhood, or blasting ourselves back to the stone age?
> Logistics suck.

I forsee many more millenia of bumping.

[Dorten]

Except that it doesn't lead to contradictions. My reasoning is as follows:
God made Adam without knowledge of good and evil.
God made Adam without knowledge of death.
God made the tree of knowledge of good and evil with the intention of punishing Adam if he disobeyed His express command not to ate from it.
Because Adam had no knowledge of good and evil, he did not recognize that there was any problem with disobeying God.
Because Adam had no knowledge of death, he did not recognize the seriousness of the consequences of God's threat regarding death.
Because Adam had no knowledge of good and evil, he did not recognize that the snake could be lying to him (although technically it wasn't).
Therefore, Adam ate the fruit entirely ignorant of the possibility of both the moral implications and the real consequences of his actions.
Because Adam disobeyed God, God punished him for disobedience.
[Note for clarity: I'm treating Adam and Eve as the same person here. I don't actually feel that the addition of the extra person is relevant to the implications of the story. If you feel it is, then I can reform the argument reflecting this.]

Contradiction is: God is Love (says Bible) and God is non-loving, non-caring being (says you). You still don't want to accept that you may be wrong...

I'll try to give you my understanding of events. Wether you agree on it is up to you. (I'm not even sure if it's the right understanding, cause i'm not a theologist, you know)

God made Adam with basic knowledge of good and evil. Like evil is bad, and good is, well, good.
God made Adam with basic knowledge of death, at least He said, that Adam will die if he eats from a tree? so we can safely assume, that concept of death was present in Adam's knowledge, else it would be absolutely meaningless words.
God made the tree of knowledge of good and evil with two intentions.
a) So Adam could express and 'train' his love to God by fulfilling His command not to eat from it.
b) To give the knowledge to Adam, when he will be spiritually mature for it, i.e. will be able to touch and experience evil without being affected by it.
The snake offered to Adam to experience evil right now and right here. (Here my English starts to betray me, i'll try to be understandable) It's a problem of: 'I don't want to work and train, I want the power and knowledge right now, and no, I don't care if God wants otherwise'. Adam was immature, so he fell for that and experienced evil. And evil affected him, making him 'farther' from God.
God gave Adam another chance to improve situation, a chance for repentance. Asking wether Adam has eaten from the tree, He gave Adam the chance to accept his guilt. Just saying: sorry, I made You unhappy, by eating that fruit, would be enough. If Adam said that he would accept God's help.
Instead of that Adam started blaming Eve and, although indirectly, God.
Therefore Adam got even 'farther' from God, and God wasn't able to support him anymore. In my understanding it works like that: Adam says: I don't want to be with You, I want to be by myself. So God replies: OK, it's your choice, live without My help and support. And so Adam is expelled from Eden.

So you're saying that Eve didn't sin by eating from the tree?

I don't get you here

Nothing you've said here even remotely suggests that my evaluations of Christianity are incorrect. You certainly haven't made the case that my evaluations of Christianity are immoral.

Sorry, my English is not good, i don't understand the words "haven't made the case".

Let's just put it this way. Catholics believe that Orthodoxy and Protestanism are immoral and untrue; Protestants believe that Catholicism and Orthodoxy are immoral and true. Orthodox Christians believe that Catholicism and Protestantism are immoral and untrue. I agree with all of you.

First: How could you agree with all of us if you haven't even concidered learning orthodox, and maybe even Catolic teachings?
Second: You also can read the books (but this time historical), analyse the source of division between these branches and think.

[JellySlayer]

Contradiction is: God is Love (says Bible) and God is non-loving, non-caring being (says you). You still don't want to accept that you may be wrong...

That contradiction does not necessarily invalidate my argument. I'm making no assumptions about the nature of God except what is written in the relevant text. The reason for this is that different authors have different conceptions of God, and there is no reason for them to necessarily be consistent. "God is love" could be talking about a different God entirely. There's a great book called "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong that deals with this issue at some length. Or it could be that "God is love" is wrong. The God described in the book of Genesis is not exactly what I would normally describe as "loving". He seems to spend most of his time killing people, actually.

God made Adam with basic knowledge of good and evil. Like evil is bad, and good is, well, good.
God made Adam with basic knowledge of death, at least He said, that Adam will die if he eats from a tree? so we can safely assume, that concept of death was present in Adam's knowledge, else it would be absolutely meaningless words.
God made the tree of knowledge of good and evil with two intentions.
a) So Adam could express and 'train' his love to God by fulfilling His command not to eat from it.
b) To give the knowledge to Adam, when he will be spiritually mature for it, i.e. will be able to touch and experience evil without being affected by it.
The snake offered to Adam to experience evil right now and right here. (Here my English starts to betray me, i'll try to be understandable) It's a problem of: 'I don't want to work and train, I want the power and knowledge right now, and no, I don't care if God wants otherwise'. Adam was immature, so he fell for that and experienced evil. And evil affected him, making him 'farther' from God.
God gave Adam another chance to improve situation, a chance for repentance. Asking wether Adam has eaten from the tree, He gave Adam the chance to accept his guilt. Just saying: sorry, I made You unhappy, by eating that fruit, would be enough. If Adam said that he would accept God's help.
Instead of that Adam started blaming Eve and, although indirectly, God.
Therefore Adam got even 'farther' from God, and God wasn't able to support him anymore. In my understanding it works like that: Adam says: I don't want to be with You, I want to be by myself. So God replies: OK, it's your choice, live without My help and support. And so Adam is expelled from Eden.

Three points:
First, you're reading a lot into Adam's motivations that isn't supported by the text. The only thing comment made about what Adam thought about the fruit was that it was pleasing to the eye and good for gaining wisdom. I'm not saying that this invalidates your interpretation, but if this information were as critically important as you claim, then the writer ought to have included it.
Second, you're reading a lot into God's motivations that aren't supported by the text. We have no indications as to what God's purpose for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was, or for giving the command not to eat from it. For all we know, God planned this to proceed exactly as it did. God also never mentions Adam supposedly blaming him as a problem. His punishments and curses are exclusively for eating the fruit.
Third, the interpretation of Adam failing to ask forgiveness as being the ultimate cause of the fall begs the question: why is the only way to regain God's favour later in the story through blood sacrifice?

I don't get you here

Eve didn't "blame God" for her misfortune. She correctly blamed the serpent for tricking her. If the problem is that Adam tried to blame God for the situation, why is Eve punished just as badly as Adam?

Sorry, my English is not good, i don't understand the words "haven't made the case".

"Making your case" is means essentially the same as "proving your claim" or "proving your argument". I think it originally comes from the legal system: a trial is sometimes called a "court case"; a lawyer "makes his case" by successfully convincing the judge/jury that his version of events is true.

First: How could you agree with all of us if you haven't even concidered learning orthodox, and maybe even Catolic teachings?

You all claim that the other groups practice a Christianity that is immoral or untrue. I think that all three groups are based on a belief system that is immoral and untrue, but not necessarily for the same reasons that individuals in those groups do. I don't believe that the problem is that they haven't interpreted Christianity or the Bible correctly; I believe that much of the Bible is factually false, and many of the teachings derived from it are based on Bronze Age superstitions and traditions that are morally immature compared to modern philosophy.

[Theym]

So why stop there, if human-level
intelligence and 100 teraherz processors are inevitable, why not humans version 2.0, or 3.0,
with some chips and beneficial bio engineering thrown in for good measure. Would only take a
bit more time, right?

Well, we have grown about a foot to a foot and a half as a species in the past 2000 years, does that count?

[Dorten]

That contradiction does not necessarily invalidate my argument. I'm making no assumptions about the nature of God except what is written in the relevant text. The reason for this is that different authors have different conceptions of God, and there is no reason for them to necessarily be consistent. "God is love" could be talking about a different God entirely. There's a great book called "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong that deals with this issue at some length. Or it could be that "God is love" is wrong. The God described in the book of Genesis is not exactly what I would normally describe as "loving". He seems to spend most of his time killing people, actually.

Is it not written, that God is love?
The Bible is concidered Holy Writings. For me that is axiom. So, all inconcistencies, that seem to be there are result of wrong interpretation. If you interprete it in your way, then it leads to idea of non-loving God. And that's the proof for me that your interpretation is wrong. Simple as that.
>The God described in the book of Genesis is not exactly what I would normally describe as "loving".
When a parent doesn't let his child to play video games past midnight, child also often claims, that his parent doesn't love him...

Three points:
First, you're reading a lot into Adam's motivations that isn't supported by the text. The only thing comment made about what Adam thought about the fruit was that it was pleasing to the eye and good for gaining wisdom. I'm not saying that this invalidates your interpretation, but if this information were as critically important as you claim, then the writer ought to have included it.
Second, you're reading a lot into God's motivations that aren't supported by the text. We have no indications as to what God's purpose for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was, or for giving the command not to eat from it. For all we know, God planned this to proceed exactly as it did. God also never mentions Adam supposedly blaming him as a problem. His punishments and curses are exclusively for eating the fruit.
Third, the interpretation of Adam failing to ask forgiveness as being the ultimate cause of the fall begs the question: why is the only way to regain God's favour later in the story through blood sacrifice?

First and second: mostly not me, but saints. And again, what is not directly written, can be logically implied from Writings. And if your implications contradict with other Writings, that means, that you do not understand something and should think more, or at least ask knowing people, or read books.

Eve didn't "blame God" for her misfortune. She correctly blamed the serpent for tricking her. If the problem is that Adam tried to blame God for the situation, why is Eve punished just as badly as Adam?

Correctly? has the serpent pushed the fruit down her throat?

"Making your case" is means essentially the same as "proving your claim" or "proving your argument". I think it originally comes from the legal system: a trial is sometimes called a "court case"; a lawyer "makes his case" by successfully convincing the judge/jury that his version of events is true.

You yourself said, that you found your view of Christianity to be immoral and untrue.

You all claim that the other groups practice a Christianity that is immoral or untrue. I think that all three groups are based on a belief system that is immoral and untrue, but not necessarily for the same reasons that individuals in those groups do. I don't believe that the problem is that they haven't interpreted Christianity or the Bible correctly; I believe that much of the Bible is factually false, and many of the teachings derived from it are based on Bronze Age superstitions and traditions that are morally immature compared to modern philosophy.

Again: You do not even know this belief system.
It just goes like that:
I: I believe in this and it is moral.
You: No! You believe in that, which is immoral!

Cmon!

One of your major problems (as former protestant) is that you reject to take into account anything else aside from Holy Writings. And Christianity is not baset on them solely. Cause, as you can see, Writings are very easy to understand wrong. And here goes the Tradition. Catholics perversed it. Protestants looked at perversed catholic tradition and discarded it entirely, which was wrong. But you know, when it was decided which books shold be concidered the Holy Writ, and which should not, the decisions were based on Tradition. Orthodox believe, that their Tradition is the same as then. It does not contradict to ecumenical councils, at least...

[JellySlayer]

Is it not written, that God is love?

Simply because something is written down does not make it true.

The Bible is concidered Holy Writings. For me that is axiom. So, all inconcistencies, that seem to be there are result of wrong interpretation. If you interprete it in your way, then it leads to idea of non-loving God. And that's the proof for me that your interpretation is wrong. Simple as that.

How do you know the Bible is Holy Writings? Don't take it as an axiom. Use your brain and think about it.

Frankly, if your claim is simply that anything that contradicts your viewpoint must be false, I don't know that we have much to discuss.

>The God described in the book of Genesis is not exactly what I would normally describe as "loving".

When a parent doesn't let his child to play video games past midnight, child also often claims, that his parent doesn't love him...

So when God had his children murder thousands of his other children in the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy and Judges then rape all the virgin women, this was somehow showing his love to those people? When God wiped out all of mankind with a flood, that was an example of divine love? What great love was shown when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to prove his blind obedience? When he sent bears to maul dozens of children for calling Elisha bald? Every one of these things are in your Holy Scriptures.

First and second: mostly not me, but saints. And again, what is not directly written, can be logically implied from Writings. And if your implications contradict with other Writings, that means, that you do not understand something and should think more, or at least ask knowing people, or read books.

The words "God is love" were written a thousand years after the passages that we're discussing. That means the original interpretation of this text could not possibly have included this information. That means that your saints are re-interpretating this passage from its original meaning based on their new theological standpoint. My point of view is entirely consistent with the Old Testament God: malevolent, petty, capricious, ruthless, and violent.

Correctly? has the serpent pushed the fruit down her throat?

She said the serpent deceived her.

You yourself said, that you found your view of Christianity to be immoral and untrue.

Sorry, I think I misinterpreted what you wrote earlier. I retract this objection.

I do think you're misinterpreting what I mean when I say Christianity is untrue. I don't mean that I believe my interpretation of Christianity was untrue. I think that Christianity is based on things that are not true. As a few examples: the first five books of the Bible were not written by Moses. They were written by at least four different people, spanning a period of hundreds of years in time, and their works have been mashed together uncritically. This can be easily demonstrated through historical linguistics. There is no extra-biblical evidence for Abraham, the Exodus, the Ten Commandments, the walls of Jericho: Israeli archeology has spent decades looking for such evidence. The account of the birth of Jesus is lifted more or less directly from older Egyptian myths. There is no extra-biblical evidence for any of the events surrounding Jesus' death or resurrection, and the accounts that we do have don't even agree on the basic facts of the matter. This is but a small sampling of things that the Bible claims that, at best, have no evidence to support them, and, at worst, are flat wrong or plagarized from other religions.

One of your major problems (as former protestant) is that you reject to take into account anything else aside from Holy Writings. And Christianity is not baset on them solely. Cause, as you can see, Writings are very easy to understand wrong. And here goes the Tradition. Catholics perversed it. Protestants looked at perversed catholic tradition and discarded it entirely, which was wrong. But you know, when it was decided which books shold be concidered the Holy Writ, and which should not, the decisions were based on Tradition. Orthodox believe, that their Tradition is the same as then. It does not contradict to ecumenical councils, at least...

I don't see why the interpretations of any of these people that you're speaking of are particularly more valid than mine, or, if not mine, than those of modern scholars. Or why the councils should be assumed to have chosen everything correctly: how do we know that Arianism wasn't correct rather than Homoiousianism, to take one rather infamous example?

[Dorten]

>How do you know the Bible is Holy Writings? Don't take it as an axiom. Use your brain and think about it.

I was a conviced atheist till about five years ago. I know how to use my brain, thanks. I just investigated the matter, found, that both materialistic and christian views of the world are both equally fit in 'describe the world's inner works philosophically' niche, and both do not contradict with all my life experience and knowledge. And I had to use my brain a lot during this. And I've chosen Christianity, cause it's at least moral. And as i've chosen the path, i had to accept it's foundations.

>So when God had his children murder thousands of his other children in the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy
>and Judges then rape all the virgin women, this was somehow showing his love to those people? When God
>wiped out all of mankind with a flood, that was an example of divine love? What great love was shown when
>God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to prove his blind obedience? When he sent bears to maul dozens of
>children for calling Elisha bald? Every one of these things are in your Holy Scriptures.

Yes. And you just show your misunderstanding of what love is and what an afterlife is.
And just so you know: any suffering here worth it, if it reduces sufferings there.
When you have sphacelation on your leg, and a doctor has to amputate it without anaesthesia, you wouldn't call doctor evil and cruel.

>My point of view is entirely consistent with the Old Testament God: malevolent, petty, capricious,
>ruthless, and violent.

Old Testament God is absolutely the same as New Testament God. Only people differ. But you just do not want to use your brain, and think. It's always simple to stick to your stereotypes after all...

>There is no extra-biblical evidence for Abraham, the Exodus, the Ten Commandments, the walls of
>Jericho: Israeli archeology has spent decades looking for such evidence.

Well, at least Exodus has it's evidence. I'll try to google it for you, if you want.

>I don't see why the interpretations of any of these people that you're speaking of are particularly more
>valid than mine, or, if not mine, than those of modern scholars. Or why the councils should be assumed to
>have chosen everything correctly: how do we know that Arianism wasn't correct rather than
>Homoiousianism, to take one rather infamous example?
Frankly, if your claim is simply that anything that contradicts your viewpoint must be false, I don't know that we have much to discuss.
No, really.

[gut]

> you just do not want to use your brain, and think

Please stop saying things like that about Mr. Slayer. It is obviously not
true, and is starting to annoy even me (and I'm kinda on your side).

[Dorten]

> you just do not want to use your brain, and think

Please stop saying things like that about Mr. Slayer. It is obviously not
true, and is starting to annoy even me (and I'm kinda on your side).

I'm not telling, that he can not think (that is untrue). But he do not want to.

It's just what I was saying in my first posts here: someone has his twisted interpretation of christian belief, and says, that christianity itself is immoral and untrue. And when you try to tell him, that he just doesn't understand this or that, he replies: "and why should I believe you, or Bible, or whatever there is?"

Like:
- Whole math is wrong!: you can take x=1, divide the equation by (x-1) and get x/(x-1)=1/(x-1) so (x-1)/(x-1)=0 and 1=0
-But wait, if x=0, then you cannot divide by x-1!
-How's that? I has just divided without any trouble and proven that math is wrong!
...
and so on and so forth.

Sad.

[JellySlayer]

>How do you know the Bible is Holy Writings? Don't take it as an axiom. Use your brain and think about it.

I was a conviced atheist till about five years ago. I know how to use my brain, thanks. I just investigated the matter, found, that both materialistic and christian views of the world are both equally fit in 'describe the world's inner works philosophically' niche, and both do not contradict with all my life experience and knowledge. And I had to use my brain a lot during this. And I've chosen Christianity, cause it's at least moral. And as i've chosen the path, i had to accept it's foundations.

So you've accepted that the Scriptures are true entirely based on what they say? Okay.

>So when God had his children murder thousands of his other children in the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy
>and Judges then rape all the virgin women, this was somehow showing his love to those people? When God
>wiped out all of mankind with a flood, that was an example of divine love? What great love was shown when
>God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son to prove his blind obedience? When he sent bears to maul dozens of
>children for calling Elisha bald? Every one of these things are in your Holy Scriptures.

Yes. And you just show your misunderstanding of what love is and what an afterlife is.
And just so you know: any suffering here worth it, if it reduces sufferings there.

No, sir. You have no understanding of what morality is. I don't know what else to say to this. I'm flabbergasted.

>My point of view is entirely consistent with the Old Testament God: malevolent, petty, capricious,
>ruthless, and violent.

Old Testament God is absolutely the same as New Testament God. Only people differ. But you just do not want to use your brain, and think. It's always simple to stick to your stereotypes after all...

Okay, fine. Your God is malevolent, petty, capricious, ruthless, and violent. This isn't a stereotype. If a person did half the things that I just described above your God doing, he'd be considered the greatest villain and history and we'd consider hanging him from the nearest tree a service to humanity.

>There is no extra-biblical evidence for Abraham, the Exodus, the Ten Commandments, the walls of
>Jericho: Israeli archeology has spent decades looking for such evidence.

Well, at least Exodus has it's evidence. I'll try to google it for you, if you want.

Here's Wikipedia's summary of it:

While some archaeologists leave open the possibility of a Semitic tribe coming from Egyptian servitude among the early hilltop settlers and that Moses or a Moses-like figure may have existed in Transjordan ca 1250-1200, they dismiss the possibility that the Exodus could have happened as described in the Bible.[21] A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence which can be directly related to the Exodus narrative of an Egyptian captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness,[18] and it has become increasingly clear that Iron Age Israel - the kingdoms of Judah and Israel - has its origins in Canaan, not Egypt:[22] the culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite. Almost the sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether this can be taken as an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.[23]

That's from the article "The Exodus". The article is sourced, so you can check the original material yourself.