B
Buzzard3
Guest
I never said “it all started with ‘kinds’ 6000 years ago”. Let me try and resolve your obvious confusion: The Bible concerns itself with the relationship between God and man. Genesis is a book of history, but the millions-billions(?) of years of pre-Adamic history is presented in figurative (non-literal) language, coz it is not important. However, when Adam appears in the narrative, Genesis gets much more literal, coz this is the important stuff.
The text suggests that Adam and Eve and their descendants were vegetarians (Gen 1)… until after the Flood, when God gives Noah et al permission to eat meat (Gen 9). This change of diet may have been necessary due to the gradual degeneration of bodily functions brought on by the effects of Original Sin – it got to the stage where humans could no longer survive on a vegetarian diet. The appendix may have played a role in enabling humans to survive on their original vegetarian diet – after the Fall it may have suffered a gradual loss in its original function, thus necessitating the introduction of meat into the human diet (which reminds of when the Dali Lama said he had to start eating meat for the sake of his health).
As for the “kinds” mentioned in Genesis, I’ve never said a thing about it or offered an interpretation. But since you’ve brought it up, “kinds” may be an apt description of what S.J. Gould observed in the fossil record:
”Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.” (The Panda’s Thumb, p.182);
“Every paleontologist knows that most species don’t change. That’s bothersome … brings great distress … They may get a little bigger or bumpier, but they remain the same species, and that’s not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don’t change, it’s not evolution, so you don’t talk about it.” (S.J. Gould, Lecture at Hobart and William College, 14/2/1980)
The text suggests that Adam and Eve and their descendants were vegetarians (Gen 1)… until after the Flood, when God gives Noah et al permission to eat meat (Gen 9). This change of diet may have been necessary due to the gradual degeneration of bodily functions brought on by the effects of Original Sin – it got to the stage where humans could no longer survive on a vegetarian diet. The appendix may have played a role in enabling humans to survive on their original vegetarian diet – after the Fall it may have suffered a gradual loss in its original function, thus necessitating the introduction of meat into the human diet (which reminds of when the Dali Lama said he had to start eating meat for the sake of his health).
As for the “kinds” mentioned in Genesis, I’ve never said a thing about it or offered an interpretation. But since you’ve brought it up, “kinds” may be an apt description of what S.J. Gould observed in the fossil record:
”Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.” (The Panda’s Thumb, p.182);
“Every paleontologist knows that most species don’t change. That’s bothersome … brings great distress … They may get a little bigger or bumpier, but they remain the same species, and that’s not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don’t change, it’s not evolution, so you don’t talk about it.” (S.J. Gould, Lecture at Hobart and William College, 14/2/1980)
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