alexey Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 As far as I understand, we know with a fairly high degree of certainty that there was no point in history at which only 2 humans existed. How do you reconcile this fact with the story about the original sin and the fall of man? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sideshow24 Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 How do we know this with a "fairly high degree of certainty"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bang Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 How do we know this with a "fairly high degree of certainty"? Well, lets see... their kids have kids, whch are siblings.. then they have kids... and somehow back then when a brother and sister had a child, it didn't end up with a myriad of mental and physical problems. we know it because it would be pretty stupid to believe we all sprang from two people. Inbreeding isn't going to allow any species to propagate. ~Bang Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sideshow24 Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Inbreeding isn't going to allow any species to propagate.~Bang Are you familiar with rabbits? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kosher Ham Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 I don't even believe that they sinned. Free will and all... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sideshow24 Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 we know it because it would be pretty stupid to believe~Bang I don't think this is what defines "knowledge" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Bang the latest research on incest doesn't support that I agree the OP is starting from a poor assumption Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bang Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Are you familiar with rabbits? Yes, are you familiar with the fact they don't have an brains in their fuzzy little heads? A lot of species inbreed. but only one species has risen to the level of a human being. ~Bang Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 I don't even believe that they sinned. Free will and all... free will is by definition the ability to do so....of course that depends on sin existing to matter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bang Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 I don't think this is what defines "knowledge" We know it would be pretty stupid to believe a person can survive in space without a lot of life support, and we knew it before we sent anyone out there to find out. Knowledge can be inherent. If, for every generation of evolution, it became pretty apparent that siblings have kids that are pretty well damaged, the knowledge becomes obvious. ~Bang Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexey Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 How do we know this with a "fairly high degree of certainty"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve#Science_vs._literalism Genetic evidence indicates humans descended from a group of at least 10,000 people due to the amount of human genetic variation. If all humans descended from two individuals several thousand years ago, it would require an impossibly high mutation rate to account for the observed variation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bang Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 I actually think about this often. At some point there would almost have to be a common ancestor,, a single child that was born with the next step towards what has become modern homo sapiens. Right? So I guess in a way, inbreeding to some extent has been unavoidable. ~Bang Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexey Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 At some point there would almost have to be a common ancestor,, a single child that was born with the next step towards what has become modern homo sapiens.So I guess in a way, inbreeding to some extent has been unavoidable. ~Bang As far as I understand, at some point in history there existed a woman who is an ancestor of all humans that currently exist, and at another point in history there existed a man who is an ancestor to all humans that currently exist. They did not exist at the same time, however, and there were other humans around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenspandan Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 I don't think this is what defines "knowledge" At one point in time, we didn't really have a lot of information about the world around us. One way we learn about and define our world is by telling each other stories. These stories help us construct models about things like wisdom, morality, compassion, etc, but their usefulness in these areas are independant of whether they actually occured as historical fact. Indeed, every time a story is retold, it is subtly refined into a form that more acutely serves the teller's purpose. Another way we learn about our world is by interacting with it -- by trying things out, observing the results, and drawing inferences from those results which trigger new questions. Over the last few thousand years, we have accumulated an astonishing amount of information about our world, each new discovery built on the back of countless prior theories, supporting some and contradicting others. Evolution is not a theory that exists in a vacuum. It's a keystone in the architecture of human knowledge that is both supported by countless other useful and unquestioned principles, and which itself supports entire bulwarks of working knowledge that are used every day. A wise man once said, "Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken." Once, long ago, the tales we told each other were the best explanations we had -- the most precise tools, if you will -- for explaining the origin of our species and indeed life on Earth. Really, the Bible was the first swiss army knife in a way, because it served many purposes: History, morality, values, social control, entertainment, education, philosophy, and so on. For some of those purposes, these tales remain irreplaceable. But as far as Earth's literal history is concerned, we have long since fashioned far more precise instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terpskins10 Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve#Science_vs._literalism Dude, don't bring SCIENCE into this! Facts and research studies! Harrumph! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebluefood Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Very strange that this thread came up. I've been asking myself this very question as a Christian that believes the creation story is a parable. Call it...a divine sign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riggo-toni Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 One nitpicking point - your title/question doesn't make sense to those not of Catholic faith, since the doctrine of original sin comes from St Augustine, not from the Genesis account. Most Christian faiths don't accept the doctrine of original sin, which is distinct from the account of Adam and Eve. Although I believe in God, I reject a literalist approach to the Bible. Jesus constantly taught in parables, yet fundamentalists inexplicably reject the notion that many of the OT accounts like the Garden of Eden,Noah,Job, or Daniel are allegories or parables meant to be edifying rather than swallowed at face value as historical accounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skinsfan07 Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Well to believe that everyone came from Adam and Eve is ridiculous, so I'm not sure why this is a question. Like those stated before, we would have been mutated freaks if that were the case and probably would still be living in the stone age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenspandan Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Well to believe that everyone came from Adam and Eve is ridiculous, so I'm not sure why this is a question. Like those stated before, we would have been mutated freaks if that were the case and probably would still be living in the stone age. how do you know we aren't mutated freaks from what adam and eve were like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexey Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 One nitpicking point - your title/question doesn't make sense to those not of Catholic faith, since the doctrine of original sin comes from St Augustine, not from the Genesis account. Most Christian faiths don't accept the doctrine of original sin, which is distinct from the account of Adam and Eve. Although I believe in God, I reject a literalist approach to the Bible. Jesus constantly taught in parables, yet fundamentalists inexplicably reject the notion that many of the OT accounts like the Garden of Eden,Noah,Job, or Daniel are allegories or parables meant to be edifying rather than swallowed at face value as historical accounts. This is surprising. I was under the impression that the concept of redemption of the original sin through faith in Christ is a central doctrine of most (if not all) Christian faiths. ---------- Post added August-30th-2012 at 11:04 AM ---------- Very strange that this thread came up. I've been asking myself this very question as a Christian that believes the creation story is a parable. Call it...a divine sign. Seek and you shall find (some may say you shall find because there is something to find... others may say that you shall find because you are a pattern-craving animal... too bad it didn't command you to test your findings) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bang Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Well to believe that everyone came from Adam and Eve is ridiculous, so I'm not sure why this is a question. Like those stated before, we would have been mutated freaks if that were the case and probably would still be living in the stone age. WELL... to play Devil's Advocate for the Adam and Eve idea... we don't really know that,, we might BE those genetic freaks. Our potential might have been to be something else if not for inbreeding snce the Beginning. if all we know is this, than this is our normal. ~Bang Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riggo-toni Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 This is surprising. I was under the impression that the concept of redemption of the original sin through faith in Christ is a central doctrine of most (if not all) Christian faiths. Semantics...I admitted I was nitpicking. Techboy may correct me on this, but as I recall the term "original sin" comes from Augustine and is the justification for requiring infant baptism, since one would essentially be inheriting Adam's sin at birth. Protestant and other Christian dogma is that people need to be redeemed through Christ from their own sins that they themselves actually committed. I seem to recall that the concept of an inherited original. Sin was something Augustine borrowed from his previous faith, Manicheism. I could be wrong though. Hazards of approaching 50.... ---------- Post added August-30th-2012 at 11:15 AM ---------- An interesting sidenote - in the Genesis account the serpent is never actually named nor identified as the devil. This is a much later (re)interpretation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Well to believe that everyone came from Adam and Eve is ridiculous, so I'm not sure why this is a question. Like those stated before, we would have been mutated freaks if that were the case and probably would still be living in the stone age. if you accept a superior being can create a universe and two humans,the little matter of adaptive dna is a breeze to assert the limitations we operate under(and our understanding of them) onto something not bound by them is the 1st error science cannot explain God, he on the other hand can explain science Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexey Posted August 30, 2012 Author Share Posted August 30, 2012 Semantics...I admitted I was nitpicking. Techboy may correct me on this, but as I recall the term "original sin" comes from Augustine and is the justification for requiring infant baptism, since one would essentially be inheriting Adam's sin at birth. Protestant and other Christian dogma is that people need to be redeemed through Christ from their own sins that they themselves actually committed. I seem to recall that the concept of an inherited original. Sin was something Augustine borrowed from his previous faith, Manicheism. I could be wrong though. Hazards of approaching 50.... Cool, thanks for clarifying. I find it immoral to punish people for crimes of their ancestors, so I welcome getting rid of that whole concept. Although replacing a guilt trip of being inherently sinful through original sin with a guilt trip of being inherently sinful through one's own human nature does not seem like that big of an improvement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCsportsfan53 Posted August 30, 2012 Share Posted August 30, 2012 Well, lets see... their kids have kids, whch are siblings.. then they have kids... and somehow back then when a brother and sister had a child, it didn't end up with a myriad of mental and physical problems.we know it because it would be pretty stupid to believe we all sprang from two people. Inbreeding isn't going to allow any species to propagate. ~Bang on the other hand, maybe that's why humans are so ****ed up, inbred from the jump :pfft: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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