Biblical Contradictions: Question #2

[Jan Ardena]

spidergoat,

It says "shall come to pass" meaning in the future. In hundreds of years, a population could grow exponentially.

:roflmao:

So he sits on his jack-jones (own), and wait for a city load of people to grow up. At which points he get his ass kicked.

Atheists!
You crack me up with your hoss-shit.

Common sense tells me Genesis is just another creation myth

No it doesn't.
You wish it to be.
Even if it means pretending that christianity is correct.

I think we are looking at it from an objective perspective. You are the one trying to reconcile truth and myth.

I think you've lost track of objective perception.


jan.

 

[spidergoat]

I wasn't describing an atheist position, I was describing the Biblical one, and wondering what information caused you to interpret it as false.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

Why do you think Adam and Eve were the first humans, ever?


jan.

Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are the same story, told from different view points. In other words, the man and woman in Genesis 1 is Adam and Eve.

Basically, the two chapters show two sides of the same God.

Genesis 1 shows God the All-Powerful Creator of the Universe - "And God said, 'Let there be light', and there was light".

And then in Genesis 2, we see God the Loving Father. You can see this in the image of God carefully molding man out of the clay, walking with man through the Garden, and allowing man to name all the animals in the world.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

The idea that Adam and Eve's children had relations with non-humans and produced children doesn't seem to be compatible with Scripture which states that none of the animals were a suitable mate for Adam.

Only another person-- a human endowed with a soul-- is a suitable mate for another human. God instituted marriage between Adam and Eve. Their children could not find suitable marriage partners among non-humans.

I am not sure why people try so hard to get around the obvious: The Church teaches we had a real set of first parents from whom all descend, the Bible makes it clear animals were not suitable mates for Man, and that's that.



There's the 'ick' factor of incest of course - but if it was necessary it wasn't a sin, and remember Abraham and Sarah were half-brother and half-sister, so even in his day it wasn't a taboo or a sin.

And personally I find interspecies breeding (which invariably results in infertile offspring anyway, and thus is useless for procreation purposes) a much ickier idea than incest.

 

[wellwisher]

I try to explain Genesis by finding an explanation that is consistent with both science and religion. For example, Abel was a herder of animals (herder/wanderer) and Cain was a tiller of the soil (farmer). When Cain kills Abel what died was a change of life as farming superseded herder/wandering. Civilization is about to begin. This sequence is consistent with science.

My opinion is the ancient saw the same thing as we would see. The difference was their explanation. The trick is to reverse engineer their observations from their theory to get the data. Then using this data apply a modern explanation.

For example, the ancient sky was the same as today. They saw constellations as the realm of the gods. We see the same data, but have a different explanation. If I read the arrow of archer flew true, I would look at data near the constellation of orion in the direction of the arrow. Then I translate this data.

Let's see, first come the animals, then God decides to make mankind, who is the first one made "in his image". So there could not have been other humanoids before that.

God is spirit and not matter. So matter or DNA is not the image of God. It has to do with the new human mind/spirit that would be needed to form civilization. Instead of a mirror image of a face, image of god is more like a hard drive or DVD image which is based on data and logic.

 

[wynn]

I am not sure why people try so hard to get around the obvious: The Church teaches

Not everyone is a Catholic so that they would feel obligated to the Catholic Church.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

I try to explain Genesis by finding an explanation that is consistent with both science and religion. For example, Abel was a herder of animals (herder/wanderer) and Cain was a tiller of the soil (farmer). When Cain kills Abel what died was a change of life as farming superseded herder/wandering. Civilization is about to begin. This sequence is consistent with science.

My opinion is the ancient saw the same thing as we would see. The difference was their explanation. The trick is to reverse engineer their observations from their theory to get the data. Then using this data apply a modern explanation.

For example, the ancient sky was the same as today. They saw constellations as the realm of the gods. We see the same data, but have a different explanation. If I read the arrow of archer flew true, I would look at data near the constellation of orion in the direction of the arrow. Then I translate this data.



God is spirit and not matter. So matter or DNA is not the image of God. It has to do with the new human mind/spirit that would be needed to form civilization. Instead of a mirror image of a face, image of god is more like a hard drive or DVD image which is based on data and logic.

From Catholic viewpoint, the Church teaches that Adam and Eve are our literal first parents-- mongenesis. We are not free to believe in polygenesis.

Adam and Eve's children married each other and beget more children. Cain and Abel were not Adam and Eve's only children. Cain, Abel, and Seth are merely the three children of Adam and Eve called by name in the Bible. We do not know how many they had.

I understand and respect your opinion. I am simply saying that the Church has no teaching regarding the scientific make-up of Adam and Eve's genes/DNA. That is science, which the Church makes not doctrinal statements pertaining to.

The papal encyclical Humani Generis covers this subject.

 

[Big Chiller]

Isn't this supposed to mean that all men and women are descendants of Adam and Eve "in spirit" - ie. just as Adam and Eve partook of the tree of knowledge, so everyone else who is born a human does -?

No why would it be so?

 

[Big Chiller]

If Adam and Eve and their children were to be the very first humans they would have to be physiologically and genetically superhuman so there would be no harms of inbreeding unlike the people of today.

 

[HectorDecimal]

Christians,

Please explain the following:

If Adam and Even had two children, both sons, how are we here today? Did Cain sleep with Eve, his mother? If so, doesn't the God of the bible specifically say that incest in against God's law (See Lev. 20:11-14)?

This is a fundamentalist error in translation. There are two factors that detroy this semantic error.
1. Genesis mentions more than one verse where man is created and in the first "He created THEM male and female..." folowed by the creation of the man to tend the garden...
2. We are here today because Noah and his family survived the great deluge. Where dogma fails is by insisting that God stopped creating after the 7th day.

I'd think it would be blasphemy to attribute such slothfulness to the First and Greatest being in the universe. The God I believe in went right back to work on the heavenly equivalent of Monday to design the next phase of evolution.

No. God didn't include incest in the plan and many stories of the Bible depict it as an abomination, even if accidental.

 

[billvon]

If Adam and Even had two children, both sons, how are we here today? Did Cain sleep with Eve, his mother? If so, doesn't the God of the bible specifically say that incest in against God's law (See Lev. 20:11-14)?

To me that's like asking how Santa Claus can possibly visit every child on Christmas night.

It's not intended to be literal. It's a myth intended to teach the basic precepts of a religion. There are lots of these in the Bible - the Earth really didn't stop rotating just to help someone win a battle. There really isn't a tree that lets you see "to the farthest bounds" of the Earth. The Earth really isn't fixed and immovable. Etc etc.

 

[Big Chiller]

A little something regarding the OP.


http://www.angelfire.com/bug/answering/adam_90_feet_tall.htm

 

[kx000]

You have no idea. If you have faith, ask for yourself. When you speak to God you must have unwavering faith, and you must be very specific. Ask God, was Adam, and Eve the only two to be shown to "the garden."

 

[garbonzo]

spidergoat,





''Seems to refer''. :shrug:
It says what it say's, meaning there are ''other people''. Why wouldn't there be?

I'm not a theist, but this is simple. The story of Cain killing his brother Abel does not say WHEN he did so. As was stated, these guys lived hundreds of years. By the time Cain killed Abel, there could have been 50+ people already born, as God said, go forth and multiply. This could be interpreted to mean God blessed A and E and their relative offspring with exceptional reproductive systems. If not, the closer the offspring would be to perfection, the more perfect they would be. And if you discount even that (which I believe IS Biblical teaching), and Eve's offspring concieved of lets say 1 child every 2 years (not counting twins, triplets, quadruplets, etc.), and then who KNOWS how many daughters Eve had. Even at 3 daughters (it makes sense that each brother would have at least 1 person to mate with), we are looking at about 127 offspring in 100 years (I took age 15 as age of first conception) from Eve's daughters ALONE! Now what about Eve's daughter's offspring and Eve's granddaughter's offspring and so on and so forth???? That is ALOT of people, LOL! And all that is only if Cain killed Abel 100 years after Cain's mate was born. It could have been much later for all we know.

This is such a simple no-brainer, guys, WTF? :bugeye:

Why is it an important fact?
Common sense alone tells you that other people existed before A and E, so they couldn't have been the first humans ever. It's a no brainer, unless you're looking at it from a Christian perspective. Why are YOU looking at it from such a perspective?

jan.

The above can all be explained by Christian viewpoints on the Bible. There is no need to say there were other people before Adam.

 

[garbonzo]

This is a fundamentalist error in translation. There are two factors that detroy this semantic error.
1. Genesis mentions more than one verse where man is created and in the first "He created THEM male and female..." folowed by the creation of the man to tend the garden...
2. We are here today because Noah and his family survived the great deluge. Where dogma fails is by insisting that God stopped creating after the 7th day.

I'd think it would be blasphemy to attribute such slothfulness to the First and Greatest being in the universe. The God I believe in went right back to work on the heavenly equivalent of Monday to design the next phase of evolution.

No. God didn't include incest in the plan and many stories of the Bible depict it as an abomination, even if accidental.

It never fails to amaze me how people can reason. The Bible makes NO mention of working again the next "week". You can't just add things to the Bible. That's stupid. By that reasoning we could add anything to the Bible, such as dragons in heaven along with the angels and living flying creatures that look like donuts, and pretty naked girls!! If you agree that the Bible is from God, you have to agree that God would put everything into it which he wanted us to know, right?!?!? So you can't say, "Oh, the Bible doesn't say it, but..." Its wrong and not Bible teaching. Actually there is even a scripture which states not to add or delete ANYTHING from the Bible.

What is to say that the creation days mentioned in the Bible are actual 24 hour days? There is a scripture which states God's time is not man's time. We could be living in the 7th day of rest right now.

Also, by that logic, why the fuck isn't God still creating???? LOL No where in the Bible does it say God created anything else. If God was still creating, it would say so SOMEWHERE in the Bible.

To your last point: Do the stories you mention come BEFORE Moses? Biblical teaching shows that incest was not forbid or abdominal until Moses' time.

As another pointed out, A and E's offspring would be very close to perfection, so inbreeding would not cause birth defects.

Again, I'm not a theist, just going by the Bible.

To Jan: It's up to the person who holds a hypothesis or a contrarian belief to prove himself, not for us to disprove it. You keep beating around the bush instead of explaining from a Bible standpoint why there would be other humanoids before A and E. I've already discredited your "Cain's city" approach. Also, if I recall correctly, the Bible states that Adam was lonely and wanted a companian. Why would he if there were other humanoids and even mates as you say out there? You say that A and E's offspring would mate with these humanoids anyway, so why not sooner rather than later? And why does the Bible not mention other humanoids THROUGHOUT? Surely there would be SOME talk about them. Why the silence? Why is there no secular evidence at all for a humanoid species other than the species which eventually became human? Also, what would God's reasoning be for creating Adam be? Would not the Bible STATE the reason?

I have a feeling you are just trolling.... No one can be this unreasonable.

 

[garbonzo]

To me that's like asking how Santa Claus can possibly visit every child on Christmas night.

It's not intended to be literal. It's a myth intended to teach the basic precepts of a religion. There are lots of these in the Bible - the Earth really didn't stop rotating just to help someone win a battle. There really isn't a tree that lets you see "to the farthest bounds" of the Earth. The Earth really isn't fixed and immovable. Etc etc.

Interesting. What scriptures are you refering to? A tree that lets you see all of Earth? Earth is fixed? Thanks.

Anyway, are you being sarcastic? You don't truly believe that anything that doesn't make sense in the Bible is a myth, do you? Why would it need to teach the basic precepts of religion? Even that doesn't really make sense. What are the basic precepts of religion? What exactly is the story of A and E TEACHING??? Sorry if you were being sarcastic. It does seem like you were, since what you said doesn't make an ounce of sense, lol. I recommend putting something like /sarcastic or >_> so people don't get confused. =P

 

[garbonzo]

A little something regarding the OP.


http://www.angelfire.com/bug/answering/adam_90_feet_tall.htm

If there were humanoid giants on Earth, why is there no fossils of them? And how did we become smaller? I think if you ask scientist or archaeologist they will agree there were no humanoid giants on Earth, unless they were of very small quantity. But that would beg the question of how they came to be, so unless they were from another planet... no.

If you were pointing to the scientist which said there is no way man could have descended from 1 couple: He is looking at it from a scientific view. If you believe in the story of A and E, then you have to believe that they were created perfect, therefore inbreeding would not reap children which genetic defects. Its simple. Any scientist which argues that is truly stupid, Imo.

 

[kx000]

Still no one has dared to ask God himself and report back with integrity.

 

[wynn]

Isn't this supposed to mean that all men and women are descendants of Adam and Eve "in spirit" - ie. just as Adam and Eve partook of the tree of knowledge, so everyone else who is born a human does -?

No why would it be so?

For me, the above is the quickest way to make sense of the A&E story.

 

[garbonzo]

:bugeye:

For me, the above is the quickest way to make sense of the A&E story.

Why in spirit? The Bible is clear that God said to Adam to he fruitful and become many. Then it states Jesus will come from Abraham who came from Adam. All humanity comes from Adam. Physically. Why through spirit? The Bible does not say that. Where do you people get these things from??????? Is this forum a magnet for ignorance? You, this Knowledge91 guy, Jan, Adstar, all have these weird stories that are not backed up by any evidence at all!!!! What the fuck? I feel like I'm being punk'd. :bugeye: I'm totally flabbergasted here.

Spidergoat seems to be the most intelligent here.