The universality of religion is a sign of its authenticity. Cultural and social differences affect the interpretation and practice of spiritual truths.
It is not for me to tell you what to believe. You should examine the claims of all philosophical beliefs and decide which corresponds best to the realities of your daily life.
The purpose of Scripture is not to convey scientific but spiritual and moral truths…
I don’t know. It seems like you’re using a personal definition of the word “religion” that most people (including those who make dictionaries) would not agree with.
I disagree with this. If you read the first chapter of the Old Testament, it does provide an explanation for the origin of the universe and of man. This explanation is not supported by science. If the chapter of Genesis talked about the Big Bang say, or evolution, specifically mentioned DNA etc. and I read it today I would really be astonished and would become a Christian again.
God showing up in person, in front of every human being on earth at the exact same moment, every week, for an entire year…then every year after that on the same date…for the rest of time.
I can see this ending badly. What if the appearance happened while someone was at work?
…religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe,…
There is only one religion which satisfies this definition.
Science itself did not create the universe. It is a description of the creation of the universe. As Christianity and the jewish faith provides a description of the creation of the universe.
Let There Be Light - and there was light. 10 seconds after the **Big Bang **the universe was dominated by photons, light.
It is your position then that Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam are not religions?
Your standards would have to be pretty low to accept “let there be light” as a description of the Big Bang.
If you really want to go there, here’s New Revised Standard Version’s (accepted by Catholics) Genesis 1:
Here the heavens and the earth were made before light. Or at the very least water existed before light.
So I guess God made the sun and the stars after he made earth and light? And plants were made before the sun, moon, stars?
Genesis is mythology which conveys important truths - like the Creation of the universe. Only fundamentalists interpret it literally.
Primitive people cannot develop intellectually or morally overnight. There would have been no point in the Bible being too far ahead of its time. The Jews were certainly more advanced than the pagans who surrounded them - as the Ten Commandments demonstrate - but their society was patriarchal. Look how difficult it is get the equality of women accepted even today - and virtual slavery still exists in our Capitalist society.
But we’re talking here about the kinds of evidence that would convince skeptics. I am saying that if the Big Bang timeline was in Genesis 1, this skeptic would be convinced.
Are you honestly going to claim that the Jews were more advanced than the Greeks? They weren’t. The Greeks far surpassed them.
Not according to the definition we are both discussing.
Yet the universe was dominated by photons from 10 seconds after the BB right through the following 300,000 years. If it works…
Photons dominated the universe… go photons!
This is the only Creation account which approaches satisfying observed facts, observed by scientific instruments thousands of years after the story was committed to papyrus.
1 In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. 2 And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. 3 And God said: Be light made. And light was made. 4 And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. 5 And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.
And God said: Let there be lights made in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: 15 To shine in the firmament of heaven, and to give light upon the earth. And it was so done.
“In the beginning God created heaven, and earth…” - is an introduction to the story; in the beginning God made everything, and this is how He didit;…
They did what no-one else did.
dittoNow, go back and read the Big Bang timeline. Imagine that was in Genesis 1.
I imagine this is one of those “agree to disagree” situations. You’re trying very hard to fit an ancient creation myth with modern physics, I don’t think it’s working. Here’s an alternative that works better:
In the context of believing that everything starts out with water, these passages make a lot more sense:
You can jump through all sorts of hoops to try to reinterpret Genesis to correspond to physics. I even saw one interpretation that tries to make it work by saying that Genesis is not an account of how God did it, but how an observer on earth would have seen it.
I’m not uneducated. Notice however the main point I made wasn’t about the moon, I said nothing about the moon because I saw that coming.
What kind of hoops would you have to jump through to have plants on earth forming before the sun and the stars? The book says God made the two great lights etc., after he already made the plants. You say he only set them in place but were already made? I guess the sun wasn’t “in place” before the plants started to grow? And when Genesis said God made the “two great lights” and the stars and set them in the firmament it means they were already made, but God adjusted the angle/earth’s rotation?
Not only harsh…but not what Jesus taught.
You did’nt say anything about how stone-age man knew plants were formed before the moon formed and animals were formed after the moon formed.
You did not say anything about the inspiration stone-age man claimed was the source of this information.I mean, I don’t know what to say to this. The same passage that says the moon was formed after plants formed also says the sun and stars were formed after plants formed.You did’nt say anything about how stone-age man knew plants were formed before the moon formed and animals were formed after the moon formed.
…
The stars and planets were created earlier but were then later made as ‘lights for the earth’ in a more refined way they were ‘set’ to give ‘seasons and times’. The last of these lights to be made was the moon, which was created not long after the earth, (and the moon was also created after the plants were created). This gives Earth the full compliment of lights, the lesser light, the moon, its greater light the sun, and the stars.
.Fascinating position in that the onus on proving a positive claim, doesn’t fall upon the person making the positive claim.
It also tells men not to covet their neighbor’s wives. Polygamy was permitted in the Old Testament.
Why? This thread is about evidence that would convince skeptics. The OP presumably wants skeptics to tell them what would be convincing.
The stars were already created, after light was created in 1:3 and before plants were created in 1:11. The stars were, thus not created in 1:14.I mean, I don’t know what to say to this. **The same passage that says the moon was formed after plants formed also says the sun and stars were formed after plants formed. **
Yet, in one breath you say that the sun and stars were really formed before plants formed, but the passage simply means God set the earth’s rotation/angle but the moon actually was formed after the plants
(I guess those plants would have had the sun shining on them, but afterward God adjusted the earths rotation and that’s what the passage is really talking about when it says : "God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.)
Yet the moon is excepted from this, and was supposedly the last to be formed (it’s not listed last in the passage, the stars are listed last).
I guess you have to stretch some more and say that by “plants” the writer of Genesis really meant the single cells that used photosynthesis, and not the trees and flowers we generally think about when we say “plants.”
Even with that, you don’t get plants forming before the moon: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution
Of course had any life formed before the impact thought to have created the Moon, we’d have no way to know because the impact would have wiped it out and altered the earth so significantly that evidence of possible beginnings of life would have melted away.
The fact is, you can devise ever more elaborate interpretations of Genesis, or you can just go with the simplest one and put it in the same category as the creation myths of the time and the location and recognize that folk believed it all began with water, that the “firmament” is an inverted bowl to separate the lower water from the higher water etc.
The true test is not whether you’re creative enough (and clearly you’re very creative), but whether a skeptic upon reading this would say “wow, there is absolutely no way man could have written this passage. It must have come from God.” Can I say that? No, absolutely not. Nothing about it says “God” to me. There are countless creation myths similar to it that were written by human beings.
Not so fast, you skeptic, you. There are those who say the collision which formed the moon actually aided the speedy formation of life forms which had already begun nearly half a billion years before. [as it says in Genesis]. The collision did not wipe out life it had the opposite effect on it.
The evidence, clearly, is that the majority of people do believe in a Creator and, the majority do not believe they were abducted by aliens.Fascinating position in that the onus on proving a positive claim, doesn’t fall upon the person making the positive claim.
So, if I happen to come across a group of people who all believe that they’ve been abducted by aliens, experimented upon and taken to the aliens home world and then returned back to earth…
You’re saying that because the majority of the people believe it, the onus is on me to prove that they weren’t abducted by aliens?
How do your reckon, as your position is firmly argumentum ad populum.
I’ll also remind you, in the words of Christopher Hitchens;
“What Can Be Asserted Without Evidence Can Be Dismissed Without Evidence”
Fascinating position in that the onus on proving a positive claim, doesn’t fall upon the person making the positive claim.
So, if I happen to come across a group of people who all believe that they’ve been abducted by aliens, experimented upon and taken to the aliens home world and then returned back to earth…
You’re saying that because the majority of the people believe it, the onus is on me to prove that they weren’t abducted by aliens?
How do your reckon, as your position is firmly argumentum ad populum.
I’ll also remind you, in the words of Christopher Hitchens;
“What Can Be Asserted Without Evidence Can Be Dismissed Without Evidence”