Sam Harris

First, allow me to apologize to most of you for baiting people so blatantly, its not my normal mode of operation.

But, since this attack on evolution by the competing religous theories of creationism and intelligent design (which seem to me to contradict each other) is in full steam here in Texas and on the Boards, and I was advised to read the Bible, I did, for about the 8th time in my life (yes i read it through at least 8 times)

Now first off let me state that some christian apologists here on the board have already disavowed the OT.  However, I could find no reference to creation or ID in the NT, so apparently this must be based on the first 2 chapters of Genesis, which are the only places I could find "creation" explained.  If I missed some important references to creation in the NT, please correct me.

Secondly let me state that I know this has been better elsewhere, but I want to do this myself, for my own reasons.  Some days you just have to write.

Okay… Genesis Chapter One.
Day One:
The earth was created, formless and void, yet seems to be mostly water.
God was moving over the deep (deep what? water it seems)  and he said let there be light, and he seperated light from darkness, creating a morning and an evening and the first day.

Day Two:
He seperates water from water, making an "expanse" and creates heaven, which has "water" above and "water" below.  Checked on interpretations of the words used for "deep" and "water" didnt find any other interpretation than water…but I might have missed something.

Day Three:
Waters "below" heaven gathered, dry land created. Then he says "Let the earth sprout forth vegetation"  and it says the vegetation DID sprout, and God saw it was good.  Important point here.

Day Four:
This is where it gets confusing, because on day one, he did light and darkness to make a way to count days, but here on this day he is making the sun, the moon, and all the stars.  So, what was counting the days for day one to three?  Maybe in chapter one he meant a flashlight?  I have also heard that the dark and light on Day One referred to the creation of good and evil, but how do good and evil count days with mornings and evenings?  Well maybe the light from Day one was just in heaven, which is apparently located in water, like atlantis.

Day Five: Pretty easy day, birds, and fish.

Day Six: nother easy day, cows, animals and MAN.  Male and female made at the same time, in the image of god, with permission to eat everything and rule over everything else.  He clearly states he gave all the plants and animals to us to eat.

Okay so much for the first part, second part !!

Genesis 2:5 "Now no shrub was in the earth, no plant had yet sprouted, for there had been no rain" 

hmm wait, clearly plants were made on day three for man to eat on day six.  so…hmm… this part must be taking place on day two !!

but then, this story goes on to say he made man out of dust, and didnt like him being alone, so it clearly skips to day six.  Well the first part says he made all things male and female so they could mutiply, so why did he make man alone?  oh wait…
This part says God only made the Garden of Eden, not the whole earth !!
So hmm what day did God do the garden of eden thing?  Hmm maybe he made man male and female on the sixth day but then made special men later?  Did angels exist when he made heaven? When did he make them?

So confusing !!

http://www.bobkwebsite.com/genesisoriginal.html

or maybe the Jews just stole 2 or 3 myths from other cultures and blended them all together, and now silly people try to say that we should teach this total balderdash in schools.

*Bangs my head on a wall*

But what is really making me nuts, is basically "Creationism" and "Intelligent Design" have a very limited basis in the Bible, certainly NOT a literal basis, and dont actually support the "Christian" God if you read the books.  However, some people dont even READ the so called "theories" they are voting for, they just go on someones word that it "supports" the "Bible"

Can we get any dumber as a country? I think not !!

Good job!  Just a little further on, perhaps on the next page, is a completly different account of the same events, in a different order, written by a different author.  It IS very confusing!

If you are not aware of these folks, the National Center for Science Education, here is a link.  They would love to hear from you, as they like to monitor these things closely.

www.ncseweb.org

Good luck!

Pete

Because of the discussion about original sin I did some digging last night about when Genesis was written. One scholar I trust is Robin Lane Fox. He’s at Oxford, and not only a good scholar but an excellent writer, so I recommend looking for his books if you’re really interested in this stuff. In his book, “The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible,” he points out that the creation story in Genesis is really two stories, one probably written in the 6th century BC, and the other, the Adam and Eve story probably earlier, the two stories edited together by a third author. He points out that the fact that there were two not entirely compatible stories was noticed extremely early in church history. He also points out that the Hebrew used to write these creation stories is extremely difficult to translate; full of puns, words with several meanings, and often deliberately vague.

As for Original Sin, he’s got a real gem, but I’ll post that in the Original Sin thread.

Anyway, reading English translations of the creation story in Genesis and insisting on taking it as the God-given truth about the actual creation of the universe is downright ridiculous. If you look this up on line, you’ll find the opinion that Moses wrote Genesis. At least this was actually a tradition for awhile. You’ll also find the amazing idea that Adam wrote it!

Well I read one Intelligent Design book and it really seems to me they are actually inventing a New Idea of God, totally removed from Biblical Literalists.  It makes me wonder if they win, what will the kids really think after they get to 20 or 30 or so?  Seems to me the ideas in the ID book I read are actually much closer to materialism and even Buddaism.

Thanks for the link hampsteade, I need it = )

ID is a fall-back position adapted when it became apparent that the creationism story wasn’t going to withstand the advances in archieology much longer.

ID is a dusted-off version of a theory advanced in the 1800’s, and cleaned up a little bit.  Best I have seen on it is “Creationism’s Trojan Horse” available on Amazon.

The ID “theory” is just as much rubbish as creationism.

You stoled my topic name!! LOL

Hey, this is combat! I will roll up my sleeves and demolish your interpretations with sound doctrine. I just don’t have time right now. But I’ll get to ya! ha ha, you dirty dog!

[quote author=“Iisbliss”]
Day Six: nother easy day, cows, animals and MAN.  Male and female made at the same time, in the image of god

I’m confused. I thought god was an old white guy with a beard. Now I find out that he’s actually a androgenous transgender-bending type, male and female at the same time. Come to think of it,  I think I might have seen him at a mardi gras party in San Francisco last year.

Was god the first metro-sexual? Does he know about shoes, as well as cosmology and all that manly stuff. Wow! Maybe that explains all the gay priests?

Champ, enlighten me on this one - this is awesome stuff. Does Cardinal Rats-ass know about this?

The story in a nutshell:  A few thousand years ago, an omnipotent invisible deity (male of course), apparently for lack of anything better to do with an eternity to kill, whips up the cosmos in 6 days, while rigging geology and dinosaur fossils and cosmology to test our faith by making it look like this process took much longer.

Then, his crowning achievement:  Man.  Made in his image, complete with his useless nipples and backward retinas and tailbone remnants and the 50% of his DNA that he shares with bananas.  (Again, apparently to throw us off the track by making it look like all life on earth shares an ancestry.)

Later (if you go by the second version of the story), the deity creates Woman from Adam’s rib, perhaps just to put those nipples to use.  But never forget that Man came first; that women are child-bearers and lifegivers, and that all human embryos begin as females, should not influence you to think otherwise.  (God has a plan for your nipples, fellas, have faith.)

From here, the situation quickly deteriorates… the talking snake convinces Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden magic tree of knowledge.  And then Eve convinces Adam to do the same.  Thus confirming the well-known fact that knowledge and women are the source of all evil and suffering in the world, and men are completely innocent.

So, fearing that Adam and Eve will eat from the magic tree of life as well (he’s omnipotent and infallible but painfully insecure—just keep reading), he banishes them from the Garden, the entrance to which is guarded by two angels with swords of fire, who are still standing there to this day.  (Just try to make ‘em laugh, it’s hopeless!)

Now why shouldn’t this be taught in science classes, you pinko Commie hippie leftist elitist intellectual liberal babykilling god-hating class-warriors?!  Can you prove it didn’t happen?

Now why shouldn’t this be taught in science classes, you pinko Commie hippie leftist elitist intellectual liberal babykilling god-hating class-warriors?!  Can you prove it didn’t happen?

I can prove it didn’t happen, damn it! My belief it didn’t happen is proof enough!

Kidding aside… IT DIDN’T HAPPEN

——if you know you are, you know your purpose——