Hello, Greylorn:
Do you think that the 2nd version - which is an earlier depiction - overturns the version in Genesis 1:27?
“27God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.”
Reply 1 of 2.
JD,
Your questions are excellent and pertinent, and you are correct that the answers must be integral to my hypotheses. I used the plural form of hypothesis because you’ve addressed only the one I presented in prior post. Others are required to make sense of things.
You must know from prior correspondences that I’m
nota Bible guy, and do not attempt to interpret either the Torah or the New Testament, or the Kuran, Book of the Dead, etc. as the inspired writings of the Creator of the Universe, figuring that He’d have done a much better job of it than we see, and would not have given us two different creation stories, both written by captive Hebrews during the Babylonian Captivity, and both clearly cribbed from Babylonian creation stories which they in turn stole from some Greeks.
Since both stories are IMO written by humans, the question of whether one supersedes or conflicts with another seems irrelevant. Neither are adequate creation models. Discussing the demerits of Big Bang theory seems to me more interesting and profitable.
But, the post you addressed was a reply to someone else who I do not know. My Biblical reference was there in case he was one of those who try to reconcile their ideas with Biblical stuff. I don’t regard the O.T. as a consistent, God-inspired work; rather as a fascinating mix of religion, metaphysics, and bizarre history. .
If the entity called the “soul” has always existed, where did it repose? Remember, the meaning of the word, “create,” is not the watered down version of it we find roaming about today.
“Create” is one of those troublesome English words which takes on different meanings in different contexts. And yep, some definitions are diluted. From your context I cannot tell which one you are referring to.
Personally, I use “create” to mean, the making of something which has not previously been made by the entity doing the making. Since I accept the laws of thermodynamics, I assume that God did not create energy from nothing and then use it to create the universe, but rather that energy has always been around, and that God shaped it, like a potter shapes clay, into the core components of the universe.
Explaining my soul concept is probably not appropriate for the CAF because of the background I’d need to introduce it, but I’m only two chapters from finishing my book. I can offer this: “Where” is not a definable term prior to the construction of the physical universe.
That is not the cop-out answer you might imagine it to be. Imagine that you invite an electrical-engineer friend over to watch the Packers and the Vikings play this Sunday, and during a commercial break, ask him, “Where is the signal that contains this video and audio information?”
The obvious answer to you might be, “At my antenna.” But other people have TV’s at different locations, and they can watch the same game. Does that mean that the signal is everywhere? Your friend would say no, pointing out that the signal attenuates with distance, or as a function of intervening matter, or e/m interference. He might try to explain that the signal exists in phase space. But he cannot explain to you what that means unless you’ve taken a few serious calculus and physics courses.
Your question about where the soul might have reposed is excellent, but the answer does require an explanation in the context of physics. This just is not the place and time for such.
