BS: Is there any merit to creationism?

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: frogprince
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 12:00 PM

Still trying to pin down what you are postulating (while wondering why I'm trying). What I'm getting now is that, somewhere around 4024 years ago (Yes, that is as credible a date as anyone has for the first written version) someone wrote down, within the available language of his time, what God then or at some unknowable time revealed about the process of creation.

When God revealed all this, was it in a deep, resonant voice? Or, did He cause someone to see it all in a dream? Or did He plug a USB cord into someone's ear?

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 12:25 PM

If on the FOURTH DAY, in Genesis, 'God made the sun'....how long were the 'days' before the sun came into being??

Maybe ALL your figurings are off!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 12:49 PM

All depends on your definition of God, doesn't it?

I'd say God is pretty well defined elsewhere without me having a definition too. God was humanity's imaginary friend before we grew up and put him away with all the other childish things. The religious retards still imagine he's there though - telling them to do unspeakable things & harbour unspeakable thoughts. His kingdom is that of Metaphor - believers do the concept, and other humans, great wrong by taking it literally.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 12:49 PM

An Earth day is approximately 86,400 seconds, with or without the flashlight.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 12:51 PM

day (dā)
n.
…
6.
a. A specific, characteristic period in one's lifetime: In Grandmother's day, skirts were long.
b. A period of opportunity or prominence: Every defendant is entitled to a day in court. That child will have her day.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
7. A period of time in history; an era: We studied the tactics used in Napoleon's day. The day of computer science is well upon us.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

8. days Period of life or activity: The sick cat's days will soon be over.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 12:51 PM

All depends on your definition of God, doesn't it?

I'd say God is pretty well defined elsewhere without me having a definition too. God was humanity's imaginary friend before we grew up and put him away with all the other childish things. The religious retards still imagine he's there though - telling them to do unspeakable things & harbour unspeakable thoughts. His kingdom is that of Metaphor - believers do the concept, and other humans, great wrong by taking it literally.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 12:59 PM

I disagree with YOUR definition of God- that is not what I mean when I refer to God.

God is the INITIAL cause of the universe- NO further interaction is required.

Even the cyclic big bang requires an a priori. If the mono bloc is stable, then what causes it to expand, and where did it come from? If it is unstable, where did it come from?

At some point, it goes beyond the realm of physics and becomes metaphysics (BY DEFINITION)

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: frogprince
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 01:22 PM

BeardedBruce: Granting you, for the purpose of discussion, complete flexibility as to the meaning of the word translated "day" in Genesis:
No human was there to remember the creation; man had no scientific tools with which to theorize about the creation process. How did the author of Genesis obtain accurate knowledge,in the language of his or anyone else's time, of this kind of data.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Musket
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 01:31 PM

So... Call the Big Bang an act of God and as everything needs to be called something, you have God.

I could run with that, same as using the "God did it" as a colloquial way of saying we haven't got a decent working hypothesis for something yet.

But do that... And it doesn't half set some hares running. Superstition requires lack of rational thought to be effective. Call something God and you aren't doing them any favours encouraging the buggers.

Beardedbruce. Just two things need tidying up in my opinion. You assert that Big Bang is cyclic. The evidence base for this is far more hypothetical than Big Bang per se. Your need for a priori assumes something prior to Big Bang, yet our best estimate to date puts time itself as a product of Big Bang, so there was nothing before, no need for any priori. There was no prior.

If you need something prior, make it prior to something other than Big Bang.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 01:44 PM

The origin of the Bible is in stories passed down from someone who claimed to have been informed by "God".

I do NOT claim they were correct or accurate, but IF they had been told the 2010CE version in 2010BCE, I suspect that ( with the translation of photon to light) "God said…" would have been what they got out of it.

++ I ++ do not claim that creationism is CORRECT: ONLY that there can be an argument made that it represents the best explanation AT THE TIME, based on what they knew. Is today's science any more than that?





" How did the author of Genesis obtain accurate knowledge,in the language of his or anyone else's time, of this kind of data."

AT THE TIME, to get the word of an oracle, or "hear God", would have been an accepted means of determining "truth". I MAKE NO CLAIMS as to the accuracy of what they heard, or interpreted.


AS I STATED, to believe in Creationism TODAY based on the present Bible, rather than the far more accurate ( but still imperfect) scientifically determined facts of the universe ( God's Word) is to believe in the word of Man( the translation of the interpreted memories of someone trying to understand more than they can comprehend) over the word of God( (The facts as far as we can determine them).

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: frogprince
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 01:46 PM

Musket; is there developed theory to negate the possibility that there was a cycle including time before the latest Bang, and that that time ended at the point of the Bang and was replaced by the beginning of time as we know it?

(Don't bother to tell me I'm out of my depth here; I don't even suspect that I have any depth regarding any of this.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 01:54 PM

Musket,

SOMETHING has to trigger the Big Bang.

If it is stable, it has to be set off- THAT push is from "God".

If it is unstable, than the less than stable configuration that Bangs had to come from somewhere-either Creation by "God", or the collapse of a previous cycle. But that just pushes it back.


MY OPINION is that there is a cycle, with Bangs and collapses ad infinitum. I DO NOT HAVE, nor claim to have definitive evidence either way. I can see an argument that, IF IT IS NOT INFINITE, there has to be some cause, which can be labeled "God" ( or George, or Bruce, or Musket)

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 02:02 PM

"Also, religious folk don't seem to understand the scientists feel the same wonder and awe that they do, that in our own way we too are looking for meaning and understanding but do so by using our own innate curiosity."

I imagine you could find some "religious folk" who would see it that way. A lot more, I would estimate, who wouldn't. Some of them scientists, for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 02:19 PM

some cause, which can be labeled "God" ( or George, or Bruce, or Musket)

Or bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 02:19 PM

http://www.oldearth.org/The%20Hebrew%20Word%20Yom%20Used%20with%20a%20Number%20in%20Genesis%201%20-%20distribution.pdf



So the text OF THE BIBLE does NOT support the 24 hour solar day in Genesis.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 02:20 PM

No GregF. YOU are the shit around here.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 02:22 PM

So the text OF THE BIBLE does NOT support the 24 hour solar day in Genesis

You don't say...

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: pdq
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 02:48 PM

All peoples and all cultures have a basic belief in gods or God, even if He is just called the Great Spirit.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 02:54 PM

How long 'was' the 'Big Bang'?....is it 'done' yet?

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 03:26 PM

How long 'was' the 'Big Bang'?....is it 'done' yet?..maybe tomorrow, huh?...but then, 'tomorrow is another day'.....

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 04:10 PM

All peoples and all cultures have a basic belief in gods or God

ALL peoples? Really?

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 04:19 PM

Well, I guess most did/do. But then, that doesn't mean they always will. I mean, until veryveryveryveryvery recently, ALL states, nations, whevs, had capital punishment too. Now only the nasty ones we have to pretend aren't all that nasty coz it would be [whisper it racist [the unspeakable!], and anyhow they've got the oil, still do.

~M~

Oh yes - & America. SSSSSHHH!

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 04:22 PM

Sometimes, you have to step back and look at the sort of people you're arguing with and marvel at the bravery some people have in facing looking stupid in public, then look at the willingness other people have to argue with them. It's a funny old world, innit...

(If anyone reads stuff like this and takes any of it seriously, you're probably going to wind up blowing a gasket. Laugh instead at the capacity for dumbassness we humans can exhibit.)

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 04:23 PM

even if He is just called the Great Spirit

Now there's a loaded statement if ever there was one...

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 04:55 PM

SOMETHING has to trigger the Big Bang

Why? Maybe it just happened. Without reason. Beyond human comprehension.

I can live with that.

(whilst scientifically trying to understand as much as I can)

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Musket
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 05:07 PM

We are all out of our depth. Even when Einstein demonstrated that time and space are relative, neither he nor anyone since has been able to explain what cannot be explained by our understanding. If we are wedded to certain concepts such as time, cause and effect and triggers, we introduce false variables.

To say something triggered the Big Bang requires time before time existed.

It isn't my subject either. But I have enough knowledge I suppose to say that if the Big Bang is to be discussed, you have to discuss the Big Bang. Which means that time does not predate it.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 05:14 PM

...Creationism... represents the best explanation AT THE TIME, based on what they knew [in 2010BCE]. Is today's science any more than that?

Yes, it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 06:19 PM

" But I have enough knowledge I suppose to say that if the Big Bang is to be discussed, you have to discuss the Big Bang. Which means that time does not predate it. "

The theory I've heard is that the big bang happened, the universe has been expanding ever since, but is slowing down. One day, it will begin to collapse, eventually to one very dense particle. This will be essentially what things were like before the "big bang", and it will happen all over again, over and over. I suppose it would all end when things stopped moving

Maybe these bangs would happen identically, and maybe time would behave the same way. And if God exists, maybe he keeps running this experiment over and over just to see all the things that can happen.

It's the questions that make life fun. If you have all the answers, there isn't much point getting out of bed, do you think?

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: pdq
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:05 PM

And if God exists, maybe he keeps running this experiment over and over just to see all the things that can happen. ~ Jeri

I think there was a Twilight Zone episode about this exact concept.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:13 PM

I think you might be right pdq.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: frogprince
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:37 PM

So when the commandment says to rest on the Sabbath day, because God did, maybe it means that we should work for about six billion or so years, and then take a billion or so off to rest.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: frogprince
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:44 PM

Ob. Bruce; a question that hadn't occurred to me before: If the author of the Genesis account understood enough about the Big Bang to describe it as well as the language available to him permitted...
how did he learn that much about it? Did God tell him? If so, how did God communicate that sort of knowledge to him?

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 07:58 PM

"So you insist on only that meaning? Isn't my childhood the morning of my life, and my old age it's evening?"

No Bruce, with respect, it's a facile colloquialism, or else a euphemism for childhood and old age, just as "Napoleon's day" is a colloquialism.

Even in the 1 - 6 examples, in practical terms the definition of "day" didn't matter.

The salient point was and is that seven of them represented 168 hours and seven revolutions of the planet about its north/south axis.

That 365 and one quarter (approx) represented one revolution of the planet around its sun.

Any other interpretation is colloquial nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 08:04 PM

Somebody have his revolutions confused with his rotations?

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 08:33 PM

On Jan.1, 1989, I came up from my workshop, handed my wife a wooden bowl, my first ever, and informed her that I had been practicing my "New Years Revolutions"... then immediately had to qualify that as I knew that working at a lathe involved **rotations**...

...but it was a good line and is now part of family lore.

.... and 'God' is an anthropomorphic term used by our remote ancestors who hadn't yet worked out the concept of "first cause". Now that both terms... and a few others... are in common usage, it is well to to be careful how & where we employ them, as the commonly capitalized term has a huge amount of implications and psycho-emotional baggage....

(how's that for vague rambling?)

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 09:27 PM

There are merit badges and Merit cigarettes but there are no creation merits. We could give a fecund black hole merits for creating new universes but in our universe alone a new one is created every day.

If we give a merit badge to one we would have to give them to all infinity of them throughout the multiverse. They don't need no stinking badges.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST,michaelr
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 09:55 PM

Somebody have his revolutions confused with his rotations?

RPMs are revolutions per minute, no? Seems to me the two words are synonyms.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 10:04 PM

Creation stories are never history, and should never be taken as that. In a way, taking the creation stories in Genesis as history is a kind of idolatry. So is treating the Bible as the word of God in a quasi-magical sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 10:14 PM

The Earth revolves around the Sun. The Earth rotates on its axis. There are two words to distinguish the situations.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jeri
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 10:31 PM

I said something earlier because of a history of science teachers correcting students. Just passing it along.
The problem one has when one is in a country without an official state religion is whose creation myth should be the accepted-as-fact one. We have loads of them in the US, including an American Indian one involving a world turtle which is way to close to Discworld. That the religions right nutjobs think the Christian version should be taught in public schools is something that unconstitutional as well as Children of the Corn creepy.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 10:39 PM

I'd find it more natural to say a record revolves on a turntable than that it rotates. ("What's a turntable? And what's a record?")

Maybe if Genesis was written in a more folksy style people would recognise it was a story, and stories don't have to be factual to be true.

"One time God woke up and he said 'It's too dark to see - let there be light". And the world lit up, and that was the first day. And God picked up the dark, and stuck it in his pocket till it was time to let it out, and that was the first night..."

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Mar 14 - 10:49 PM

frogprince: "So when the commandment says to rest on the Sabbath day, because God did, maybe it means that we should work for about six billion or so years, and then take a billion or so off to rest."

Works for me.

frogprince: "If the author of the Genesis account understood enough about the Big Bang to describe it as well as the language available to him permitted...how did he learn that much about it? Did God tell him? If so, how did God communicate that sort of knowledge to him?"

God invited him up for lunch... Navy beans and ham....the rest is history.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Musket
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 04:49 AM

How come the authors of the original texts that have been continually altered to eventually form the bible knew about Big Bang then?

Hilarious.

Even someone who knew what he was talking about, the astronomer Fred Hoyle, didn't see enough evidence in his day to buy into the concept. Newton, who had even read the bible, (including in ancient Hebrew) didn't catch onto this, as he thought time and space were absolutes. Einstein had problems with probability, which is a necessary variable in Big Bang concept.

The art of theology is fine, but the branch that twists ancient fairy stories to fit in with reality and displays semi literate ancients as visionaries....

When you say visionary, you have to compare them with real ones such as the late Arthur C Clarke. He had his faults but you don't need to twist his ideas to fit in with modern thinking. They are and were what they are and were.

Ancient scriptures are, I'm sure, fascinating for understanding human development from a couple of thousand years ago, but reading anything further into it, you may as well read an Area 51 conspiracy website.....

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Stu
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 05:55 AM

""And God said "Let there be light."

Correlation does not imply causation.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 09:40 AM

Thoughts for a rainy Saturday:

How would you think up the idea of light if you'd never experienced, encountered or 'seen' any?

Maybe we got a big bang era because someone forgot to bring the 'd'.

What if time behaved like a fractal?

Find out who first said that history repeats itself because historians repeat each other.

Write a limerick about how one would feel on finding out the spider plant's single-minded intention is to eat the cat.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Musket
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 09:47 AM

A female plant of the spider,
Thought that the cat would deride her
And of this young kitten
Was gob smacked and smitten
So ate him and now he's inside her.



What the fuck am I doing?

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 10:11 AM

Is there any merit to the Is There Any Merit to Creationism? thread? Perhaps a word from Jack the Sailor would be helpful at this juncture - I find his continued absence disquieting. Or will all this find its way into his novel as well?

Otherwise...

An overfed Tom of Miss Ryder,
Was tempted by the shoots of her spider,
He toppled the crock,
All over her frock,
Now Tom is Miss Ryder's spider's fertiliser.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: bobad
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 10:39 AM

I notice that the OP started this thread and disappeared. I am wondering if his purpose is to gather fodder for his supposed novel or is he simply flaming as he is wont to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 10:39 AM

Thank you both, gentlemen.

Subject: RE: BS: Is there any merit to creationism?
From: Jeri
Date: 25 Mar 14 - 11:02 AM

Bobad, I don't think anyone cares.
I tried to write a limerick about time being fractal, but couldn't find a reason why the confused pterodactyl who was very precise and exactyl should figure out time was fractal. While it wouldn't surprise me if it was, I think it's more apt to be Fibonacci... although I think a fractal might be a Fibonacci that dropped acid.