Q: Creationism/Evolution/"Young Earth"

[twa]

Given the consensus that the universe is expanding (meaning that it had to come from one finite point), I'd like to know what happened before that.

What happened before before?

Let me help

In the beginning was God

Now define God and you are all knowing.

[Springfield]

As you know, I happen to think that there is good evidence for the existenence of God (and by extension His creation of everything), but that's not really the point, is it?

You asked how Genesis could align with evolution. I told you.

Fair enough.

That question is actually meaningless as stated, because time came into existence at the Big Bang, so there was no "before".

Oh, the Big Bang is pretty solidly established scientifically, through testable data like the red shift of galaxies and cosmic background radiation.

There is no way to prove that time started at the big bang. Both space and time have no end (that we can prove), so it's only natural to assume that space and time have no beginning.

Assume that there was a beginning and there was the big bang (which is commonly accepted). All of the matter in the entire universe came from somewhere. Where did the matter come from?

These are the kinds of questions that I have that science isn't advanced enough to prove and religion isn't scientific enough to prove (in my opinion).

[Enter Apotheosis]

What happened before before?

Let me help

In the beginning was God

Now define God and you are all knowing.

God is that which is beyond human comprehension. Can I now claim my official know-it-all license?

[Springfield]

Now define God and you are all knowing.

Well in order to be all knowing, you have to be God. Therefore, it is impossible for any man to define God. Like my philosophy?

[techboy]

God is that which is beyond human comprehension. Can I now claim my official know-it-all license?

Women are beyond human comprehension. I don't like the implications of your train of thought.

[brandymac27]

I was discussing this same topic with some Jewish people a couple of years ago, and they told me that Eve wasn't the first woman on earth. This got me thinking. Adam and Eve were the first people created "in His image". So, there were probably people here long before Adam and Eve, they just weren't people "God's people" so to speak.

[Enter Apotheosis]

Women are beyond human comprehension. I don't like the implications of your train of thought.

... neither do I. I'm going to go sacrifice a couple goats in the name of Janet Reno just in case.

[twa]

... neither do I. I'm going to go sacrifice a couple goats in the name of Janet Reno just in case.

It is late and you are getting goofy....C'mon Janet Reno?

Everyone knows she prefers chicken sacrifices.

[brandymac27]

... neither do I. I'm going to go sacrifice a couple goats in the name of Janet Reno just in case.

Janet Reno's a woman?

[Enter Apotheosis]

It is late and you are getting goofy....C'mon Janet Reno?

Everyone knows she prefers chicken sacrifices.

This is just further proof that I don't understand women.

Janet Reno's a woman?

I hope so... live goats aren't cheap.

[Vicious]

What do you believe is required for a belief to be rational?

One of the requirements for the belief to be rational is that it does not involve imaginary friends.

[Vicious]

I was discussing this same topic with some Jewish people a couple of years ago, and they told me that Eve wasn't the first woman on earth. This got me thinking. Adam and Eve were the first people created "in His image". So, there were probably people here long before Adam and Eve, they just weren't people "God's people" so to speak.

That kind of logic has gotten a lot of people killed, actually.

[brandymac27]

That kind of logic has gotten a lot of people killed, actually.

Well, think about it. Cain went to someplace (Damascus maybe??) and "took a wife". That means that there had to have been people on earth before God created Adam and Eve.

[Vicious]

Hrmm, agreed.

edit: While we're breaking some ground here, what do you think about there not being an afterlife. Would it be acceptable for you if being dead was the same as it was before you were alive? Seems reasonable to me.

[Pskins]

For anyone who in into the science v. god argument should see:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com

Warning: God fearing christians will NOT like this site. In fact you will despise it. Some of the humor is somewhat funny. It covers the King James bible, the book of mormon, and the Quran. It does raise some very interesting questions though.

[techboy]

It covers the King James bible, the book of mormon, and the Quran. It does raise some very interesting questions though.

Well, the primary question for me is why it uses the King James Bible, when any half-serious investigation reveals that there are much better and more accurate translations available, and the Bible was not written in English.

Of course, I know the answer... the authors of the SAB aren't interested in the truth, but simply "gotcha" exegesis, so they chose the most archaic, easily misunderstood language, to enhance their ability to twist the truth.

There's a point by point response here, which is in some ways rather juvenile (it uses cartoons), but still manages to exceed the level of discourse offered by SAB, primarily because while SAB offers one line "zingers" with little support, the parody at least provides links to more in-depth treatments.

SAB is a great resource for already committed atheists that want to slap each other on the back and congratulate each other on how clever they are, but decent analysis it is not.

[Chachie]

I was discussing this same topic with some Jewish people a couple of years ago, and they told me that Eve wasn't the first woman on earth. This got me thinking. Adam and Eve were the first people created "in His image". So, there were probably people here long before Adam and Eve, they just weren't people "God's people" so to speak.

Brandy-

You should check out an author named Zecharia Sitchin. He has his detractors but his theories on when and how man came into being from earlier species of bipeds is really cool. It reads like sci-fi (and more than likely is) but he says he translates it all from Babylonian records and religion dating back to almost 4000 BC. Those tablets contain the earliest tellings of Genesis and it's a much more detailed account.

[techboy]

Anyone who is interested in anything other than a good story should run away screaming from Sitchin. SitchinIsWrong.com is run by Dr. Michael S. Heiser (who actually is an expert in the field Sitchin is trying to work in). As Dr. Heiser summarizes (emphasis his):

The work of Zecharia Sitchin was brought to my attention just over a year ago, shortly after I completed my book, The Façade. As a trained scholar in ancient Semitic languages with a lifelong interest in UFOs and paranormal phenomena, I was naturally enthused about Mr. Sitchin's studies, particularly since I had also heard he was a Sumerian scholar. I thought I had found a kindred spirit, perhaps even a guide to navigating the possible intersection of my academic disciplines with ufology, a discipline unfairly ridiculed by the academic mainstream. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

What follows will no doubt trouble some readers. I have come to learn that Mr. Sitchin has an avid following, and so that is inevitable. Nevertheless, I feel it my responsibility as someone who has earned credentials in the languages, cultures, and history of antiquity to point out the errors in Mr. Sitchin's work. Indeed, this is the academic enterprise. I have yet to find anyone with credentials or demonstrable lay-expertise in Sumerian, Akkadian, or any of the other ancient Semitic languages who positively assesses Mr. Sitchin's academic work.

The reader must realize that the substance of my disagreement is not due to "translation philosophy," as though Mr. Sitchin and I merely disagree over possible translations of certain words. What is at stake is the integrity of the cuneiform tablets themselves, along with the legacy of Sumer and Mesopotamian scribes. Very simply, the ancient Mesopotamians compiled their own dictionaries - we have them and they have been published since mid-century. The words Mr. Sitchin tells us refer to rocket ships have no such meanings according to the ancient Mesopotamians themselves. Likewise when Mr. Sitchin draws connections between Sumero-Mesopotamian gods and stories that simply do not exist in the literature (like insisting the Sumerians believed there were twelve planets and having the Anunnaki living on Nibiru, the supposed 12th planet), my argument with him is one that opposes such fabrications, not just one how words are translated. To persist in embracing Mr. Sitchin's views on this matter (and a host of others) amounts to rejecting the legacy of the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian scribes whose labors have come down to us from the ages. Put bluntly, is it more coherent to believe a Mesopotamian scribe's definition of a word, or Mr. Sitchin's?

I do believe that Mr. Sitchin has done some kind of work in the ancient languages (I have never seen academic credentials in the form of degrees or transcripts), but some of the mistakes he makes are at so basic a level of language knowledge that I sincerely doubt he knows ANY of the ancient languages he says he does. I'm guessing that with Hebrew, for example, Mr. Sitchin (being Jewish) can sight-read the language but doesn't understand ancient Biblical Hebrew grammar (much like many English readers don't have a real grasp of the mechanics of English grammar). I have seen little that convinces me that Mr. Sitchin knows any ancient languages, much less demonstrating that he is a language "expert". I say this because of Mr. Sitchin's linguistic mistakes (see below), and because he rarely interacts with scholarly articles pertaining to any linguistic material in the texts he uses. Unfortunately, there are even points he just makes up.

The reader should also know that I believe that the strange phenomena people have experienced in antiquity through the present day with respect to "UFOs" and "aliens" are real. The Facade offers an alternative paradigm to these phenomena, one that, contrary to Mr. Sitchin's reconstruction, CAN be defended (if the connections be legitimate) through ancient texts.

[Thiebear]

2000 years from now:

The science we believe will be considered barbaric.

The religion we believe will be considered myth.

[techboy]

Incidentally, if anyone wants to read the complete paper in which Plantinga defends his view that a belief in naturalism and evolution held together are self-defeating, here it is.

If you'd prefer not to wade through that paper with all its philisophical jargon, then Plantinga's The Dawkins Confusion, which is a review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, might be better. Here's a relevant excerpt:

Toward the end of the book, Dawkins endorses a certain limited skepticism. Since we have been cobbled together by (unguided) evolution, it is unlikely, he thinks, that our view of the world is overall accurate; natural selection is interested in adaptive behavior, not in true belief. But Dawkins fails to plumb the real depths of the skeptical implications of the view that we have come to be by way of unguided evolution. We can see this as follows. Like most naturalists, Dawkins is a materialist about human beings: human persons are material objects; they are not immaterial selves or souls or substances joined to a body, and they don't contain any immaterial substance as a part. From this point of view, our beliefs would be dependent on neurophysiology, and (no doubt) a belief would just be a neurological structure of some complex kind. Now the neurophysiology on which our beliefs depend will doubtless be adaptive; but why think for a moment that the beliefs dependent on or caused by that neurophysiology will be mostly true? Why think our cognitive faculties are reliable?

From a theistic point of view, we'd expect that our cognitive faculties would be (for the most part, and given certain qualifications and caveats) reliable. God has created us in his image, and an important part of our image bearing is our resembling him in being able to form true beliefs and achieve knowledge. But from a naturalist point of view the thought that our cognitive faculties are reliable (produce a preponderance of true beliefs) would be at best a naïve hope. The naturalist can be reasonably sure that the neurophysiology underlying belief formation is adaptive, but nothing follows about the truth of the beliefs depending on that neurophysiology. In fact he'd have to hold that it is unlikely, given unguided evolution, that our cognitive faculties are reliable. It's as likely, given unguided evolution, that we live in a sort of dream world as that we actually know something about ourselves and our world.

If this is so, the naturalist has a defeater for the natural assumption that his cognitive faculties are reliable—a reason for rejecting that belief, for no longer holding it. (Example of a defeater: suppose someone once told me that you were born in Michigan and I believed her; but now I ask you, and you tell me you were born in Brazil. That gives me a defeater for my belief that you were born in Michigan.) And if he has a defeater for that belief, he also has a defeater for any belief that is a product of his cognitive faculties. But of course that would be all of his beliefs—including naturalism itself. So the naturalist has a defeater for naturalism; natural- ism, therefore, is self-defeating and cannot be rationally believed.

The real problem here, obviously, is Dawkins' naturalism, his belief that there is no such person as God or anyone like God. That is because naturalism implies that evolution is unguided. So a broader conclusion is that one can't rationally accept both naturalism and evolution; naturalism, therefore, is in conflict with a premier doctrine of contemporary science. People like Dawkins hold that there is a conflict between science and religion because they think there is a conflict between evolution and theism; the truth of the matter, however, is that the conflict is between science and naturalism, not between science and belief in God.

The God Delusion is full of bluster and bombast, but it really doesn't give even the slightest reason for thinking belief in God mistaken, let alone a "delusion."

The naturalism that Dawkins embraces, furthermore, in addition to its intrinsic unloveliness and its dispiriting conclusions about human beings and their place in the universe, is in deep self-referential trouble. There is no reason to believe it; and there is excellent reason to reject it.

So, far from being incompatible with theism and creationism, Plantinga argues that one needs creationism to coherently hold to a belief in evolution.

[brandymac27]

Hrmm, agreed.

edit: While we're breaking some ground here, what do you think about there not being an afterlife. Would it be acceptable for you if being dead was the same as it was before you were alive? Seems reasonable to me.

In all honesty, I don't know. My head and my heart tell me 2 completely different things. My head tells me that it's completely reasonable to assume that things will be like they were before we were born. The only problem I see with this, is ghosts. I know it sounds silly, but there are tons of people (I even have one in my family) who swear they've seen a ghost. If they really did see one, then it completely debunks this theory that there is no afterlife.

My heart on the other hand really wants to believe that there is a heaven that we will all go to and be reunited with our loved ones.

[Dan T.]

Professor and Biblical Scholar Bart Ehrman wrote "Misquoting Jesus," about how how changes have come to the texts of the Bible through myriad transcriptions over time. He began his career in biblical studies as an evangelical Christian.

He doesn't argue against the infallibility of the Word of God, but does argue that the Word of God has been mutated and misinterpreted over time by the fallibility of the scribes and translators.

It is a fascinating history of the texts of the Bible over time.

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060738170

NPR has a capsule of Ehrman and his book:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5052156

[Vicious]

In all honesty, I don't know. My head and my heart tell me 2 completely different things. My head tells me that it's completely reasonable to assume that things will be like they were before we were born. The only problem I see with this, is ghosts. I know it sounds silly, but there are tons of people (I even have one in my family) who swear they've seen a ghost. If they really did see one, then it completely debunks this theory that there is no afterlife.

My heart on the other hand really wants to believe that there is a heaven that we will all go to and be reunited with our loved ones.

I saw a ghost once. A shock of hair in my eyebrow is white because of it, traumatizing event. I don't think it has to do with a soul or anything like that though. I just did not get that vibe.

[techboy]

Professor and Biblical Scholar Bart Ehrman wrote "Misquoting Jesus," about how how changes have come to the texts of the Bible through myriad transcriptions over time. He began his career in biblical studies as an evangelical Christian.

He doesn't argue against the infallibility of the Word of God, but does argue that the Word of God has been mutated and misinterpreted over time by the fallibility of the scribes and translators.

Dr. Ehrman is a top-notch textual critic, who was the protege of the person widely considered to be the preminent textual critic of the 20th century, Dr. Bruce Metzger.

It's important, though, not to let the sensationalism of the popular media (or Dr. Ehrman himself), overstate the case.

First, as I elaborate upon in this post, people who talk about the Bible being hopelessly corrupt, changed, or unreadable are as outside the mainstream of the scholarly field of textual criticism as Young Earth Creationists are outside of the mainstream of science. Yes, I mean the "jesus rode a dino-horse" people.

But what about Dr. Ehrman, who I have already written is a top-notch scholar?

Well, it turns out that in Misquoting Jesus, one thing the careful reader will notice is that Dr. Ehrman, while talking about all of the variants I myself mention in the above linked post, and perhaps putting a slightly different spin on them (), himself admits that none of the disputed areas affect any major Christian doctrine, and that most of these are trivial matters like spelling issues and the like.

What's more, the issues he raises are already known and accounted for by textual criticism (if not by the average lay person), and so when I mention in the link that the text of the New Testament is around 98% established, with no significant Christian doctrine effected (quoting, among others, Ehrman's mentor Metzger), it already includes the areas Ehrman brings up.

Check out this review of Dr. Ehrman's book by Dr. Craig Blomberg. He speaks very highly of some of the work, but then there's this:

Thus a substantial majority of this book provides information already well-known and well-accessible in other sources, such as Bruce Metzger’s works on the text and transmission of the New Testament (including one that Ehrman himself recently helped to revise), but in slightly more popular form that is likely to reach a wider audience. What most distinguishes the work are the spins Ehrman puts on some of the data at numerous junctures and his propensity for focusing on the most drastic of all the changes in the history of the text, leaving the uninitiated likely to think there are numerous additional examples of various phenomena he discusses when there are not. Thus his first extended examples of textual problems in the New Testament are the woman caught in adultery and the longer ending of Mark. After demonstrating how neither of these is likely to be part of the originals of either Gospel, Ehrman concedes that “most of the changes are not of this magnitude” (p. 69). But this sounds as if there are at least a few others that are of similar size, when in fact there are no other textual variants anywhere that are even one-fourth as long as these thirteen- and twelve-verse additions.

Emphasis mine.

Dr. Daniel Wallace has a similar comment in his review:

First is my plea to all biblical scholars to take seriously their responsibility in caring for God’s people. Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on issues that they have little understanding of. Indeed, even agnostic teachers bear this responsibility. Unfortunately, the average layperson will leave Misquoting Jesus with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain. A good teacher doesn’t hold back on telling his students what’s what, but he also knows how to package the material so they don’t let emotion get in the way of reason. The irony is that Misquoting Jesus is supposed to be all about reason and evidence, but it has been creating as much panic and alarm as The Da Vinci Code. Is that really the pedagogical effect Ehrman was seeking? I have to assume that he knew what kind of a reaction he would get from this book, for he does not change the impression at all in his interviews. Being provocative, even at the risk of being misunderstood, seems to be more important to him than being honest even at the risk of being boring. But a good teacher does not create Chicken Littles.74

Emphasis mine again.

For a more detailed analysis of each of the problem areas, see Dr. Wallace's review I linked earlier. For example, here is his response to Dr. Ehrman's discussion of Hebrews 2:8-9:

Hebrews 2.8–9

Translations are roughly united in how they treat Heb 2.9b. The NET is representative: “by God’s grace he would experience death on behalf of everyone.” Ehrman suggests that “by God’s grace”—χάριτι θεου'—is a secondary reading. Instead, he argues that “apart from God,” or χωρὶς θεοῦ, is what the author originally wrote. There are but three Greek manuscripts that have this reading, all from the tenth century or later. Codex 1739, however, is one of them, and it is a copy of an early and decent manuscript. χωρὶς θεοῦ is also discussed in several fathers, one Vulgate manuscript, and some copies of the Pe****ta.36 Many scholars would dismiss such paltry evidence without further ado. If they bother to treat the internal evidence at all, it is because even though it has a poor pedigree, χωρὶς θεοῦ is the harder reading and thus may require some explanation, since scribes tended to smooth out the wording of the text. As well, something needs to explain the several patristic citations. But if a reading is an unintentional change, the canon of the harder reading is invalid. The hardest reading will be a nonsense reading, something that cannot be created on purpose. Although χωρίς is apparently the harder reading,37 it can be explained as an accidental alteration. It is most likely due either to a ‘scribal lapse’38 in which an inattentive copyist confused χωρίς for χάριτι, or ‘a marginal gloss’ in which a scribe was thinking of 1 Cor 15.27 which, like Heb 2.8, quotes Ps 8.6 in reference to God’s subjection of all things to Christ.39

Without going into the details of Ehrman’s defense of χωρίς, we simply wish to note four things. First, he overstates his case by assuming that his view is certainly correct. After three pages of discussion of this text in his Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, he pronounces the verdict: “The external evidence notwithstanding, Hebrews 2:9 must have originally said that Jesus died ‘apart from God.’”40 He’s still seeing things in black and white terms. Second, Ehrman’s text-critical views are getting dangerously close to rigorous eclecticism.41 The external data seem to mean less and less to him as he seems to want to see theological corruption in the text. Third, even though he is certain about his verdict, his mentor, Bruce Metzger, is not. A year after Orthodox Corruption was published, Metzger’s second edition of his Textual Commentary appeared. The UBS committee still gave the χάριτι θεοῦ reading the palm, but this time upgrading their conviction to an ‘A’ rating.42 Finally, even assuming that χωρὶς θεοῦ is the correct reading here, Ehrman has not made out a case that this is a variant that “affect the interpretation of an entire book of the New Testament.”43 He argues that “[t]he less attested reading is also more consistent with the theology of Hebrews.”44 He adds that the author “repeatedly emphasizes that Jesus died a fully human, shameful death, totally removed from the realm whence he came, the realm of God. His sacrifice, as a result, was accepted as the perfect expiation for sin. Moreover, God did not intervene in his passion and did nothing to minimize his pain. Jesus died ‘apart from God.’”45 If this is the view of Jesus throughout Hebrews, how does the variant that Ehrman adopts in 2.9 change that portrait? In his Orthodox Corruption, Ehrman says that “Hebrews 5:7 speaks of Jesus, in the face of death, beseeching God with loud cries and tears.”46 But that this text is speaking of Jesus ‘in the face of death’ is not at all clear (nor does Ehrman defend this view). Further, he builds on this in his concluding chapter of Misquoting Jesus—even though he has never established the point—when he asks, “Was [Jesus] completely distraught in the face of death?”47 He goes even further in Orthodox Corruption. I am at a loss to understand how Ehrman can claim that the author of Hebrews seems to know “of passion traditions in which Jesus was terrified in the face of death”48 unless it is by connecting three dots, all of which are dubious—viz., reading χωρὶς θεοῦin Heb 2.9, seeing 5.7 as referring principally to the death of Christ and that his prayers were principally for himself,49 and then regarding the loud cries there to reflect his terrified state. Ehrman seems to be building his case on linked hypotheses, which is a poor foundation at best.

I think the most telling point is that even if Dr. Ehrman is correct, it still doesn't change the reading of Hebrews or any important doctrine of the Church. I bolded that part, because I think it's representative of most of Dr. Ehrman's arguments. As another example, even if he's right that Jesus was angry, there are other places where Jesus shows anger (like cleansing the Temple). Another case of overstating the consequence.

I think this is where Dr. Ehrman goes off-course. He makes a good case for his variant readings, but blows the impact out of proportion.

Incidentally, it's often thought incorrectly that Dr. Ehrman left the faith because of his issues with textual criticism. That is incorrect. He has said on multiple occasions that it was due to his difficulties with the Problem of Evil. I'm not sure if that matters to anyone, but there it is.

[Vicious]

Why does God hide from us now? It used to be he'd destroy cities, tell people to kill their children etc.. You can't get a single peep from him these days.