Design

[inocente]

But the fact is that many scientists do see these parallels and are aware that the technical discrepancies can be overlooked because it would have been impossible for the ancients to understand in detail all the elements of the Big Bang theory, for example, or the Darwinian dogma of Natural Selection.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Nope. In the beginning God created a singularity without heavens or even any space, and after the passing of 9,000,000,000 years from the beginning, created the earth.

And so on. These are not mere technical discrepancies. If you submitted Genesis to a scientific journal, you wouldn’t get a reply saying great but could you fix the technical discrepancies. You’d get a reply saying please don’t submit anymore of these unscientific fables.

The broader question though, is why anyone should seek approval from scientists. If you try to read the 2600 year old text as if it was a book about 21st century science then you have to explain the gaping errors. Whereas if Genesis is about spiritual truths there’s no conflict, since science is silent on spiritual truths. Trying to link Genesis to science not only misses the spiritual message, it provokes skepticism. When did science become the arbiter of faith?

I don’t know why you keep pointing to the theological divisions among Catholics unless it is to prove something: either that Catholics are not united and are becoming Protestantized in that respect (we already know this), or that Catholicism is a democracy where every point of view counts for something. The only point of view that is real, substantial, official and counts for anything is the point of view of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Would you like to cite that Catechism as to whether the bible “just another book of teachings, written by men and containing stories and advice”?

Why are you asking me? I don’t believe that and I’m not Catholic. You’d have to ask the Catholics who believe that.

I like your new verb “Protestantized”. Is that like catching cooties?

I was responding to buffalo, who said “Genesis 1 seems to be written by God Himself”. Whereas you say Genesis is “not scientifically accurate”, implying either (a) you don’t believe God Himself wrote it, or (b) God wrote it, and as God is infallible He wouldn’t make “technical discrepancies”, so science must be in error, including big bang.

Seems perfectly legitimate to point out that on a wider scale there’s such a broad spectrum of beliefs about the bible, that when it comes down to it those who believe exactly as you believe on these things might not be enough for a game of tennis doubles.

 

[inocente]

This is what the Church teaches:

Yes, although rather than that categorization scheme, I’d put emphasis on the previous section, and to differentiate Genesis 1-3 from a science textbook, especially:

*109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.

110 In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. “For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression.”

111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. "Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.*

 

[Vonsalza]

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Nope. In the beginning God created a singularity without heavens or even any space, and after the passing of 9,000,000,000 years from the beginning, created the earth.

As Christianity in general holds man as the penultimate creation, the events that lead to the manifestation of the Earth on which he lives can all be referred to as “beginning”; especially if it’s being generated by a God unbound by something as relative as time.

The text provides absolutely no reason to hold your implicit interpretation.

If you try to read the 2600 year old text as if it was a book about 21st century science then you have to explain the gaping errors.

A 3000 year old text telling a version of a likely 5-6000 year old story being read in a 21st century paradigm would indeed be a textbook example of anachronism.

I like your new verb “Protestantized”. Is that like catching cooties?

I would imagine heresy does spread in a very similar way.

Whereas you say Genesis is “not scientifically accurate”, implying either (a) you don’t believe God Himself wrote it, or (b) God wrote it, and as God is infallible He wouldn’t make “technical discrepancies”, so science must be in error, including big bang.

Or it’s not written as a scientific text. :doh2:

Again, anachronism.

Seems perfectly legitimate to point out that on a wider scale there’s such a broad spectrum of beliefs about the bible, that when it comes down to it those who believe exactly as you believe on these things might not be enough for a game of tennis doubles.

“Truth by democracy”. I imagine even your fellow Baptists would advise you in correction. The seminarians (read: the more learned) certainly would.

 

[inocente]

As Christianity in general holds man as the penultimate creation, the events that lead to the manifestation of the Earth on which he lives can all be referred to as “beginning”; especially if it’s being generated by a God unbound by something as relative as time.

The text provides absolutely no reason to hold your implicit interpretation.

Yikes.

*A 3000 year old text telling a version of a likely 5-6000 year old story being read in a 21st century paradigm would indeed be a textbook example of anachronism.

Or it’s not written as a scientific text. :doh2:

Again, anachronism.*

Agreed, but I already said that to Charles, without any of your trademark sarcasm.

“Truth by democracy”. I imagine even your fellow Baptists would advise you in correction. The seminarians (read: the more learned) certainly would.

Given how you read scripture, it’s predictable that you wouldn’t actually read what I wrote, but use it as a pretext for yet another insult.

Do you have a view on the OP?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Seems perfectly legitimate to point out that on a wider scale there’s such a broad spectrum of beliefs about the bible, that when it comes down to it those who believe exactly as you believe on these things might not be enough for a game of tennis doubles.

As I have already pointed out several times for your edification there are any number of highly competent astronomers and biologists who see evidence of intelligent design behind the universe. If you don’t see intelligent design of the universe explained in Genesis that would be your problem, not theirs.

Obviously, Genesis is intended primarily to teach us about man’s role in the universe, his moral compass, and his spiritual destiny. I never said otherwise, so you have created a straw man there. But if Genesis offers the added bonus of giving us a poetic account of creation that is at least roughly consistent with modern science, we should not feel obliged to mock it because of the fact that it is short on science but long on the general outline of creation.

Let there be light! = The Big Bang

Life in the ocean sprawling into air and land
culminating at last in the appearance of man = Evolution

Do you see a comparable account of the Creation anywhere else in the ancient world?

If so, please identify with a link.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Seems perfectly legitimate to point out that on a wider scale there’s such a broad spectrum of beliefs about the bible, that when it comes down to it those who believe exactly as you believe on these things might not be enough for a game of tennis doubles.

Seems also likely to point out that you think like all Protestants.

That one is allowed to discover the truth all by one’s self with little or no help from the Church.

What else could explain the absurd proliferation of Churches in the Protestant world.

Protestantism has divided and conquered biblical truth thousands of times.

That is why Protestantism, despite its claims to the opposite, is not as biblical religion.

There is no passage in Scripture that even suggests that division is allowed, and plenty of passages that show the Church, is the final arbiter of theological authority.

II Peter 3:16

“He (Paul) writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

Matthew 16:19

“I will give you (Peter) the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

This authority was given to Peter as the rock of the Church. It was not given to millions of pebbles.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Nope. In the beginning God created a singularity without heavens or even any space, and after the passing of 9,000,000,000 years from the beginning, created the earth.

It might be best to refrain from judging Genesis scientifically wrong and never to be taken literally. In the quoted portion, the bible does not specify sequence or time, and a sequence of events does follow, further defining 1:1.

It’s like saying “Britain’s success in the Battle of Britain won the war.” The reader realizes those were not simultaneous events, but descriptive of a larger story without a delineated sequence of events, which one expects to follow the introductory sentence.

I am not one of those who say the entire bible is to be taken literally in our perception of what it is to be literal. But as new things are posited or demonstrated by, e.g., astrophysicists, one is sometimes struck that something once thought not to be literally true, actually is.

 

[inocente]

As I have already pointed out several times for your edification there are any number of highly competent astronomers and biologists who see evidence of intelligent design behind the universe. If you don’t see intelligent design of the universe explained in Genesis that would be your problem, not theirs.

Obviously, Genesis is intended primarily to teach us about man’s role in the universe, his moral compass, and his spiritual destiny. I never said otherwise, so you have created a straw man there. But if Genesis offers the added bonus of giving us a poetic account of creation that is at least roughly consistent with modern science, we should not feel obliged to mock it because of the fact that it is short on science but long on the general outline of creation.

Let there be light! The Big Bang

Life in the ocean sprawling into air and land
culminating at last in the appearance of man Evolution

Do you see a comparable account anywhere else in the ancient world?

If so, please identify with a link.

I don’t see how let there be light is the big bang. I think the comparison is wrong anyway, that theory says the photon epoch had to wait until after the quark epoch, hadron epoch and lepton epoch. Let there be quark.

Even then it was getting on for 400,000 years before there was enough transparency for photons to travel any distance. I don’t know the wavelengths of those photons. They would have to be in a narrow range to be what we call light, the human visible spectrum is markedly small.

And there were no humans to see it as we didn’t arrive for another 9,000,000,000 years.

So I’m not sure God meant any of the above when He said let there be light.

And of course, the theory of a big bang is less than one hundred years’ old, and there are new findings all the time, so it’s not exactly certain it’s a correct theory anyway.

I’m sure there are people of other religions who also pick out statements from their holy books with the benefit of hindsight, but I think it’s a long way from what the writers had in mind. I mean if you try to read Genesis 1 as if hearing it for the first time, around a campfire 2600 years ago, never having heard of God. Maybe the first thing that would hit you is this idea of one God, who created everything. One being, not tribal gods, not multiple spirits, one God! And all he had to do was command it, just say it, and it happened. What power!

I think our over-familiarity with the text makes us ignore the big picture the writers had in mind.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I don’t see how let there be light is the big bang. I think the comparison is wrong anyway, that theory says the photon epoch had to wait until after the quark epoch, hadron epoch and lepton epoch. Let there be quark.

Genesis 1 King James Version

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The quark epoch is bolded. Certainly it is the first part of the Big Bang.

“heaven and earth” may certainly be taken as synonyms for the universe of space and matter.

 

[STT]

Genesis 1 King James Version

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The quark epoch is bolded. Certainly it is the first part of the Big Bang.

“heaven and earth” may certainly be taken as synonyms for the universe of space and matter.

You can translate those verse to anything if you don’t take them literally!

 

[buffalo]

Since Genesis 1 seems to be written by God, consider God sees time as a rolled up tape measure of say 7 layers. We live on the timeline and have to look back through the graduations. Could a God day be one layer?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You can translate those verse to anything if you don’t take them literally!

Well … not anything. But the poet is allowed to be more metaphorical than the astronomer.

 

[tonyrey]

You can translate those verse to anything if you don’t take them literally!

“anything” is a gross exaggeration…

 

[tonyrey]

It might be best to refrain from judging Genesis scientifically wrong and never to be taken literally. In the quoted portion, the bible does not specify sequence or time, and a sequence of events does follow, further defining 1:1.

It’s like saying “Britain’s success in the Battle of Britain won the war.” The reader realizes those were not simultaneous events, but descriptive of a larger story without a delineated sequence of events, which one expects to follow the introductory sentence.

I am not one of those who say the entire bible is to be taken literally in our perception of what it is to be literal. But as new things are posited or demonstrated by, e.g., astrophysicists, one is sometimes struck that something once thought not to be literally true, actually is.

The **purposeful **Creation by God of the universe and man - i.e. Design - is the fundamental message of Genesis.

 

[tonyrey]

As I have already pointed out several times for your edification there are any number of highly competent astronomers and biologists who see evidence of intelligent design behind the universe. If you don’t see intelligent design of the universe explained in Genesis that would be your problem, not theirs.

Obviously, Genesis is intended primarily to teach us about man’s role in the universe, his moral compass, and his spiritual destiny. I never said otherwise, so you have created a straw man there. But if Genesis offers the added bonus of giving us a poetic account of creation that is at least roughly consistent with modern science, we should not feel obliged to mock it because of the fact that it is short on science but long on the general outline of creation.

Let there be light! = The Big Bang

Life in the ocean sprawling into air and land
culminating at last in the appearance of man = Evolution

Do you see a comparable account of the Creation anywhere else in the ancient world?

If so, please identify with a link.

Irrefutable!

 

[Aloysium]

Well … not anything. But the poet is allowed to be more metaphorical than the astronomer.

There was no “bang” big or otherwise. There are no electron clouds of probability. It’s all metaphorical. What about Mathematics, reducing something to a quantity? “Literal” seems to boil down to simply “agreement on a meaning”.

 

[Vonsalza]

You can translate those verse to anything if you don’t take them literally!

I imagine you have quite the struggle reading Aesop, or any poetic parable, then.

As we know rabbits and turtles can’t talk.

 

[STT]

I imagine you have quite the struggle reading Aesop, or any poetic parable, then.

As we know rabbits and turtles can’t talk.

Why the content of Genesis should be poetics when there is the danger of misinterpretation? What is poetics about the few first verse of Genesis? We know that the Earth was formed and was not created.

 

[inocente]

inocente;14587419:

Seems perfectly legitimate to point out that on a wider scale there’s such a broad spectrum of beliefs about the bible, that when it comes down to it those who believe exactly as you believe on these things might not be enough for a game of tennis doubles.

Seems also likely to point out that you think like all Protestants.

That one is allowed to discover the truth all by one’s self with little or no help from the Church.

What else could explain the absurd proliferation of Churches in the Protestant world.

Protestantism has divided and conquered biblical truth thousands of times.

That is why Protestantism, despite its claims to the opposite, is not as biblical religion.

There is no passage in Scripture that even suggests that division is allowed, and plenty of passages that show the Church, is the final arbiter of theological authority.

Thanks for the opportunity to repeat that it was Catholics who have the broad spectrum of beliefs. Those who cannot recite the CCC by heart, have never heard of Aquinas, and don’t think Genesis 1-3 is modern science are, I suggest, not thereby somehow lesser Catholics. We are each responsible for our own soul, we will all be judged by Christ. We all belong to the same Shepherd, wherever we go on Sunday.

Genesis 1 King James Version

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The quark epoch is bolded. Certainly it is the first part of the Big Bang.

“heaven and earth” may certainly be taken as synonyms for the universe of space and matter.

Not sure when ye olde Protestant KJV became the modern Catholic’s bible of choice , but sorry no they can’t.
I think you’ve proved how much the text has to be twisted to impose a modern meaning. Look instead at the writers’ Hebrew:

heaven הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם haš·šā·ma·yim is always heaven or sky, it’s where God speaks to Moses from
biblehub.com/hebrew/hashshamayim_8064.htm
biblehub.com/hebrew/8064.htm

earth הָאָֽרֶץ׃ hā·’ā·reṣ is always the land, the lands, countryside, territory
biblehub.com/hebrew/haaretz_776.htm
biblehub.com/hebrew/776.htm

 

[inocente]

It might be best to refrain from judging Genesis scientifically wrong and never to be taken literally. In the quoted portion, the bible does not specify sequence or time, and a sequence of events does follow, further defining 1:1.

It’s like saying “Britain’s success in the Battle of Britain won the war.” The reader realizes those were not simultaneous events, but descriptive of a larger story without a delineated sequence of events, which one expects to follow the introductory sentence.

I am not one of those who say the entire bible is to be taken literally in our perception of what it is to be literal. But as new things are posited or demonstrated by, e.g., astrophysicists, one is sometimes struck that something once thought not to be literally true, actually is.

It’s not factually true though. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

According to science, in the beginning there were no heavens, no darkness, no deep, no waters, for in a singularity there is no space. The earth didn’t appear until the universe was 67% its current age (and humans didn’t appear until it was 99.998% its current age). Everything in the two verses is factually wrong, according to modern science.

But I suggest the lines weren’t written as impersonal physics, they were instead written from and for a human perspective. Ordinary mortals cannot imagine the inside of a singularity (for starters, it doesn’t have one), but we can imagine the picture painted by the verses. In the original Hebrew (previous post), the writers seem to be saying the land was formless and empty, either structure-less, mixed with liquid, or flooded by water. All was darkness. We can imagine that. The only movement, the only life, was God’s wə·rū·aḥ (Spirit, breath, wind). Some commentators say it not only indicates that only God is alive, but that he is cherishing his creation, by analogy to the same expression used in Deuteronomy 32:11 for an eagle hovering over her young. I’ll have to do some research on what modern scholarship makes of those two verses, but I suggest it will try to understand what the writers intended spiritually in the context of their own culture rather than 21st century American scientific culture.