And God said "Let there be light." but.......
Offline ....what language did he say it in?
Isn't language a human exclusive phenominon, thus further proving that god was made in man's image?
Idiots are Fun! No wonder every village wants one.-House
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Offline At what point did theists claim the seven days were not literal?
Edit: I mean, like what point in history is the first interpretation shown where the value is not literal?
Awesome question!
Uh . . . I don't know. I would hate to answer that without looking more carefully and it is nearly bedtime.
Spanish rabbi Aben-Ezra who lived about 1092 - 1167 had a pretty good grasp on the Hebrew day as was origninally understood more so than would Jewish tradition. Some of the Samaritans and Karaite Jews . . . scholars such as Michaelis, Rosenmueller, Gesenius, Maurer, Kalisch, Knobel, and Keil, but that has more to do with the "day" in a broader sense than is exclusively considered in the creation account itself. The word was used throughout the Hebrew scriptures, of course. I mean you can actually see it used that way. I have stuff from the 60's and 70's that is pretty standard stuff that says it. I have an 1800's reference around somewhere but I can't find it right now.
Alot of the so called bronze age thinking as percieved today really comes from the dark age thinking. Skeptics will often confuse one for the other. The ancient Hebrew was actually far ahead of the dark ages but for some reason the later dark ages interpretation as far as the earth goes will be pawned off as the much earlier though more accurate original language of the Bible. So, that can be a bit tricky to answer due to this as well.
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Offline Where does it say when all those parts of the Universe which are not visible from Earth (which is most of it) were created?
The 'lamps to light the heavens' can't apply, since they don't shine any visible light on Earth. But if the visible stars needed some special attention, what about all the other stars which are too far away to see? They still presumably need to be 'finally' created , since they do exist just as much as the visble ones.
The real answer is obvious: the writer(s) of Genesis had no idea of the real size and composition of the Universe.
Just wondering how Mt Henson fits it into his fairy tale.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline Where does it say when all those parts of the Universe which are not visible from Earth (which is most of it) were created?
The 'lamps to light the heavens' can't apply, since they don't shine any visible light on Earth. But if the visible stars needed some special attention, what about all the other stars which are too far away to see? They still presumably need to be 'finally' created , since they do exist just as much as the visble ones.
The real answer is obvious: the writer(s) of Genesis had no idea of the real size and composition of the Universe.
Just wondering how Mt Henson fits it into his fairy tale.
I don't need to fit it into my "fairy tale" Mr. Spence. I'm not saying that Moses, who wrote the book of Genesis had nor needed any idea of the real size or as mentioned by someone earlier the actual age of the universe since the age of the universe isn't speculated upon in scripture. Anything science determines the age of the universe isn't in disagreement with the Bible. The creation of the heavens which would include the sun, moon and stars was recorded in Genesis 1:1. In Genesis 1:16 the making of them shine is only a reference to what must have been the clearing of the atmosphere an indeterminate time later. The light from the sun was visible gradually. Difussed light. Not its source. Later the sun, moon and stars - the source of the light were visible themselves. The heavens were created. Complete like a bed leaving the factory. Later the bed was made, though complete at the factory it wasn't "made" as in adorned with sheets, blankets and pillows. A light is a source which produces light that is visible even though you may not be able to see the source if the light is difussed or the source is obscured.
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Offline BobSpence1 wrote:Where does it say when all those parts of the Universe which are not visible from Earth (which is most of it) were created?
The 'lamps to light the heavens' can't apply, since they don't shine any visible light on Earth. But if the visible stars needed some special attention, what about all the other stars which are too far away to see? They still presumably need to be 'finally' created , since they do exist just as much as the visble ones.
The real answer is obvious: the writer(s) of Genesis had no idea of the real size and composition of the Universe.
Just wondering how Mt Henson fits it into his fairy tale.
I don't need to fit it into my "fairy tale" Mr. Spence. I'm not saying that Moses, who wrote the book of Genesis had nor needed any idea of the real size or as mentioned by someone earlier the actual age of the universe since the age of the universe isn't speculated upon in scripture. Anything science determines the age of the universe isn't in disagreement with the Bible. The creation of the heavens which would include the sun, moon and stars was recorded in Genesis 1:1. In Genesis 1:16 the making of them shine is only a reference to what must have been the clearing of the atmosphere an indeterminate time later. The light from the sun was visible gradually. Difussed light. Not its source. Later the sun, moon and stars - the source of the light were visible themselves. The heavens were created. Complete like a bed leaving the factory. Later the bed was made, though complete at the factory it wasn't "made" as in adorned with sheets, blankets and pillows. A light is a source which produces light that is visible even though you may not be able to see the source if the light is difussed or the source is obscured.
I didn't refer to anything about the age of the Universe, why do you go on about that?
I was just wondering where the parts of the Universe which are not visible even with perfectly clear skies fit in to the creation narrative. They, after all, do make up 99%+ of the Universe.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline Moonlight is from the reflection of the sun's light. No light in the moon. Bad analogy. Do it right or not at all.
It was right, though. Orh is the light, as reflected off the moon from the sun. The sun is maorh which is the source of the light.
The bible only got some of it right because you are pushing words around to make it fit your interpretation of science.
[Sigh] No, I'm using a more scientific approach than simply reading the text and assuming it says what it seems to say. I'm not taking KJ or anyone elses word for it, I'm looking carefully at the original language. I can't twist the original language or its meaning to suit me and I wouldn't want to for science or any other reason. I don't know anything about science. I don't know what science says about the creation of anything. I know they have a great deal to say about evolution but that is much later.
Riddle me this:Nomadic goat herders did not know about billions of anything, let alone years. They could count, sure, but not millions, let alone billions. How could they understand 13+ billion years, the age of our universe? How could they understand 4+ billion for the age of earth? They couldn't count that high. No zeros.
You really should give god/s/dess a break.....
"Joshua, I want you to write the bible."
"Who's that? "
"this is GOD"
"Who's that?"
"The GOD of Abraham"
"Oh, yeah, what did you want?"
"I'm going to dictate my WORD to you."
"Okay, let me find a clean sheepskin.....feather......ink.......okay."
"Thirteen billion years ago.."
"Say what? What is a billion?"
"How many sheep do you have, Joshua?"
"Two hand fulls, uh, ten."
"Okay, Joshua, imagine sheep from here to Egypt and on to Assyria."
"Yes....."
"That is not one billion sheep, but close. Imagine 13 times that many sheep."
"Oh. How did you count them all, GOD?"
"Sigh. By the hand full. Okay, in the beginning....."
Hebrew numbers were spelled out, which turned out to be a more accurate way to translate. One would be a word for 1. If the number was 13 it would be two words; ten and three . If it was 30 it would be the plural form of the word three. One hundred was a separate word and two hundred would be the dual form of that. The highest number expressed by one word is 20,000, which is the dual form of 10,000; myriad. So a million would be written as a thousand thousands.
Besides, the Bible doesn't offer an age of the heavens and earth. It simply says that it was created, and then gives the "days" or periods of creation which was a finalizing that began an indeterminate time after the creation. In other words the Bible doesn't say that the earth was created in 144 hours 6,000 years ago.
It amazes me that when I point out to atheists that the Creationist got it wrong and the Bible doesn't estimate the age of the universe they should look into it and take advantage of it instead of getting bent out of shape because I might be suggesting that the Bible could be scientifically accurate. The ball is in your court, guys, don't fuck it up.
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Offline I was just wondering where the parts of the Universe which are not visible even with perfectly clear skies fit in to the creation narrative. They, after all, do make up 99%+ of the Universe.
Completely irrelevant as far as I can tell, Bob. Did you expect Genesis to name everything in the universe? Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
That's it.
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Offline BobSpence1 wrote:I was just wondering where the parts of the Universe which are not visible even with perfectly clear skies fit in to the creation narrative. They, after all, do make up 99%+ of the Universe.
Completely irrelevant as far as I can tell, Bob. Did you expect Genesis to name everything in the universe? Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
That's it.
OK. I figured that would be your response.
I wasn't expecting them to name everything in the Universe.
Just a hint that they understood that most of the Universe was not visible, and why it was created, would have given it some tiny bit of credibility.
Maybe even something that would not have made sense to the writers, but would have been a clue to later readers that it really was inspired by a source that knew more than mere men at the time.
Muslims claim the Quran contains a lot of those sorts of hidden clues. I don't find their examples at all convincing, but it does make sense as a strategy by a god who wanted to get his message thru to later generations without interfering with with the 'natural' course of human development. Much more convincing than 'miracles' to later generations, funny he didn't take such a golden opportunity, when he apparently was very keen on miracles back then.
Instead we get a creation story which seems to be anything but divinely inspired, conflicting as it does with so much of what we have since discovered about the history of the Universe and the Earth itself, quite apart from evolution.
You see, David, that's where you miss a lot of possible clues about many parts of the text by not knowing at least some relevant science, and the history of such knowledge.
Otherwise it is pretty obvious that the writer knew no more than anyone else in those tribes, and probably less than the Greeks understood at the time.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
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Offline mellestad wrote:At what point did theists claim the seven days were not literal?
Edit: I mean, like what point in history is the first interpretation shown where the value is not literal?
Awesome question!
Uh . . . I don't know. I would hate to answer that without looking more carefully and it is nearly bedtime.
Spanish rabbi Aben-Ezra who lived about 1092 - 1167 had a pretty good grasp on the Hebrew day as was origninally understood more so than would Jewish tradition. Some of the Samaritans and Karaite Jews . . . scholars such as Michaelis, Rosenmueller, Gesenius, Maurer, Kalisch, Knobel, and Keil, but that has more to do with the "day" in a broader sense than is exclusively considered in the creation account itself. The word was used throughout the Hebrew scriptures, of course. I mean you can actually see it used that way. I have stuff from the 60's and 70's that is pretty standard stuff that says it. I have an 1800's reference around somewhere but I can't find it right now.
Alot of the so called bronze age thinking as percieved today really comes from the dark age thinking. Skeptics will often confuse one for the other. The ancient Hebrew was actually far ahead of the dark ages but for some reason the later dark ages interpretation as far as the earth goes will be pawned off as the much earlier though more accurate original language of the Bible. So, that can be a bit tricky to answer due to this as well.
mellestad wrote:At what point did theists claim the seven days were not literal?
Edit: I mean, like what point in history is the first interpretation shown where the value is not literal?
Awesome question!
Uh . . . I don't know. I would hate to answer that without looking more carefully and it is nearly bedtime.
Spanish rabbi Aben-Ezra who lived about 1092 - 1167 had a pretty good grasp on the Hebrew day as was origninally understood more so than would Jewish tradition. Some of the Samaritans and Karaite Jews . . . scholars such as Michaelis, Rosenmueller, Gesenius, Maurer, Kalisch, Knobel, and Keil, but that has more to do with the "day" in a broader sense than is exclusively considered in the creation account itself. The word was used throughout the Hebrew scriptures, of course. I mean you can actually see it used that way. I have stuff from the 60's and 70's that is pretty standard stuff that says it. I have an 1800's reference around somewhere but I can't find it right now.
Alot of the so called bronze age thinking as percieved today really comes from the dark age thinking. Skeptics will often confuse one for the other. The ancient Hebrew was actually far ahead of the dark ages but for some reason the later dark ages interpretation as far as the earth goes will be pawned off as the much earlier though more accurate original language of the Bible. So, that can be a bit tricky to answer due to this as well.
I'm just wondering why you think your interpretation is more correct than other interpretations with a literal meaning. If you could show that the earliest Jewish commentary actually specifies a non literal day it would be a step in your favor.
What do ultra-orthodox Jews think? I imagine modern Jews would have the greatest understanding of Genesis. From ten minutes of Googling it looks like the more traditional a Jew is, the more they believe in a literal 7 days.
So I guess that is my point right now...not even modern Jews agree it is 7 literal days, or not. So how the hell can you know?
If I had to guess, I would say the further you go back in history, the more likely the interpretation is literal, and non-literal interpretations of Genesis have only gained popularity proportional to knowledge about the true age of the universe.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
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Offline You ask yourself why are there two different words for light and you could compare that to our use of moon and moonlight. Orh and maorh.
cj wrote:Moonlight is from the reflection of the sun's light. No light in the moon. Bad analogy. Do it right or not at all.
It was right, though. Orh is the light, as reflected off the moon from the sun. The sun is maorh which is the source of the light.
Way to change your own words to suit your own self. You didn't mention the sun the first time around, only later when I called you on it. Self-justification is a normal human condition. Recognize it in yourself first.
cj wrote:The bible only got some of it right because you are pushing words around to make it fit your interpretation of science.[Sigh] No, I'm using a more scientific approach than simply reading the text and assuming it says what it seems to say. I'm not taking KJ or anyone elses word for it, I'm looking carefully at the original language. I can't twist the original language or its meaning to suit me and I wouldn't want to for science or any other reason. I don't know anything about science. I don't know what science says about the creation of anything. I know they have a great deal to say about evolution but that is much later.
But if you don't study science, how can you know you are using a scientific approach? Do you truly understand the process of hypothesis, testing, hypothesis, testing, theory formation? Do you understand the scientific definition of theory?
Scientific theories are explanations that are based on lines of evidence, enable valid predictions, and have been tested in many ways. In contrast, there is also a popular definition of theory — a "guess" or "hunch." These conflicting definitions often cause unnecessary confusion about evolution.
Which brings me to your day argument. You claim the word has three meanings, fine. Lots of words have multiple meanings. And then you pick and choose the meanings to support your position. You offer no discussion of the possibility of different interpretations. It's your way or the highway. You actually have choices when reading Genesis - either the text is clear and says what it says exactly the way it says it, or the text is unclear and only meaningful to those who spend inordinate amounts of time translating and self-justifying and mucking around to get a meaning that suits the reader. Frankly, I don't care which is the "truth", what I care is that the whole discussion with you is fast approaching the state of "oh for pete's sake". 
cj wrote:Riddle me this:Nomadic goat herders did not know about billions of anything, let alone years. They could count, sure, but not millions, let alone billions. How could they understand 13+ billion years, the age of our universe? How could they understand 4+ billion for the age of earth? They couldn't count that high. No zeros.
You really should give god/s/dess a break.....
"Joshua, I want you to write the bible."
"Who's that? "
"this is GOD"
"Who's that?"
"The GOD of Abraham"
"Oh, yeah, what did you want?"
"I'm going to dictate my WORD to you."
"Okay, let me find a clean sheepskin.....feather......ink.......okay."
"Thirteen billion years ago.."
"Say what? What is a billion?"
"How many sheep do you have, Joshua?"
"Two hand fulls, uh, ten."
"Okay, Joshua, imagine sheep from here to Egypt and on to Assyria."
"Yes....."
"That is not one billion sheep, but close. Imagine 13 times that many sheep."
"Oh. How did you count them all, GOD?"
"Sigh. By the hand full. Okay, in the beginning....."
Hebrew numbers were spelled out, which turned out to be a more accurate way to translate. One would be a word for 1. If the number was 13 it would be two words; ten and three . If it was 30 it would be the plural form of the word three. One hundred was a separate word and two hundred would be the dual form of that. The highest number expressed by one word is 20,000, which is the dual form of 10,000; myriad. So a million would be written as a thousand thousands.
Besides, the Bible doesn't offer an age of the heavens and earth. It simply says that it was created, and then gives the "days" or periods of creation which was a finalizing that began an indeterminate time after the creation. In other words the Bible doesn't say that the earth was created in 144 hours 6,000 years ago.
It amazes me that when I point out to atheists that the Creationist got it wrong and the Bible doesn't estimate the age of the universe they should look into it and take advantage of it instead of getting bent out of shape because I might be suggesting that the Bible could be scientifically accurate. The ball is in your court, guys, don't fuck it up.
The supposed age of the earth as many young earth creationists state of 6000 years was based on the count of generations. Assuming a generation was so long, and the list of ancestors was correct, you can add up 6000 years. Just as much bullpucky as you are full of.
So, a billion would be thousands thousands thousands and then tack on a 13 to get to 13 billion. Great. Just where is this gigantic number ever referenced? People now have problems envisioning that much in years or marbles or dollars, so how does a goat herder whose life revolves around seasons and generations get it?
My entire point is that the goat herder is at a disadvantage when it comes to modern knowledge and concepts. He didn't know about the circulatory system, cells, DNA, genetics, the composition of pond scum. Just how is god/s/dess supposed to tell him about how the universe formed, how evolution occurred in words he could write down? He didn't have the vocabulary or concepts for pete's sake.
And the pond scum comment is in reference to the actual contents of pond scum. Yeah, he probably knew that when the water was a certain color, his goats would die if they drank it, but he wouldn't know it was blue-green algae that caused it.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
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Offline Adventfred wrote:God sure sounds like a human
Thats because all you see him through is human eyes.
ok ok im gonna use my god eyes now 
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Offline God sure sounds like a human
Indeed, the Talmud appears exclusively like an early attempt to make "gods from men".
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
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Offline [...] telling us how Islam is amazing because Mohammad thought the wind pollinated plants before anyone else.
I thought birds and flying insects were also responsible for germination...
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
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Offline The Bible says the earth and heavens were created, and then after an indeterminate period of time the first creative "day" began. The original language itself says that the creation is complete.
not necessarily. rashi and ibn ezra insist on the hebrew as meaning something all along the lines of, "in the beginning of god's creating the heavens and the earth," and the artscroll stone edition chumash, an orthodox publication, renders it as such. other commentators, like ramban, do render it the way most of us know it, but the commonly held belief (and this is quite common among christian commentators throughout history as well--among them, i believe, augustine) is that the creation per se is not finished, but rather the "heavens and the earth" referred to in 1.1 are the as-yet unformed "stuff" of creation.
Genesis 1:16 uses an entierly different word than the one that was used for create. The sun, moon and stars were now made able to shine upon the earth. From the perspective of someone who would have been standing on the earth this is how it would look. First darkness, then light, then a clearing and the source of the light visible. It would be the same for the stars as the sun. The original language is screaming out progress in action. Not a waving of a wand and 24 hours later >Whump!< there it is. This is not always an easy thing to convey through translation.
i don't follow you on that. while you're certainly not the first person to give this interpretation, it doesn't necessarily follow from the hebrew. you're making quite a leap. it could just as easily follow that god created light and then made the sun and moon as vessels for the light. the verse gives the primary purpose of the luminaries as timekeepers, and thus it seems to be an etiology of how humans define the hours and days, not the source of light. also, reducing the sun and moon to mere timekeepers would serve a convenient polemical purpose against the surrounding pagans who worshipped them as deities.
It said that they were created before the first, actually.
perhaps you can say this hermeneutically. literally, i call foul.
The seventh "day" was mentioned by Paul thousands of years later as still going on. It continues going on to this day thousands of years after Paul.
regardless of what paul may have had to say about the seventh day, we can't just accept it blindly as having been the meaning that the writer of the priestly account of creation had in mind. it seems plain to me (and, i might add, to a lot of young earth creationists, as well as orthodox jews) that, at least as far as the six days of creation go, the text clearly refers to 24-hour periods, as it says "and there was evening and there was morning" for each day. of course, this phrase is not used in connection with the seventh day, which is intriguing, but to convolute that fact into a sort of ongoing mystical sabbath or euphemism for the present "world age" (a concept which seems to appear in jewish thought around the persian period at the earliest, shortly after P was most likely written) is purely homiletics, and thus cannot be conclusively demonstrated by the text.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
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I believe it was said in hebrew since that is the first language the bible was written in.
And yes, it does further prove the non-existence of god, while also demonstrating why god was created in the first place. He was created by man because early humans, not being able to explain most of natures phenomenons, said the only things that they knew at the time "God did it!".
Also another reason for the existance of the concept of god is that, is that early man, being the only creature on the planet that could think and suppress basic instincts, they wanted to know that their lives weren't meaningless, so they preferred to think that this is all just a test to get them to a better place.Thus scientifically proving that religion is idiotic.
"I don't believe in afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear."
The fact god talks instead of bellowing through a brazen trumpet or gushing through a flute of crackling buckyballs is a clear indication of his mournful anthro heritage. An even better example is found in genesis where the man-god stupidly creates day and night on Day Two yet waits until Day 4 to create the Sun, Moon and stars. Dur, god. And double dur hebrew scriptwriters. No wonder hollywood movies are mostly shit.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Language? What's with this lowtech starting point? Why not just make us intelligent and understand how electronics work, and give us a dvd of the bible or a hologram bible? He's god right.. What's the point of making us start at zero? The advancements we have made are not something that can be achieved, in any single lifetime so any individual benefit from a biblical standpoint would be nil....
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs
And there was light.
But seriously, some people like Hindus say, that all that exists is made of frequency, created by cosmic sound that vibrated the ancient prima materia, superstring membrane, or whatever. They believe that all that exists is basically made of sound, laically said. And the OM mantra is a human attempt to imitate this cosmic sound. It's surprising how much these ancient philosophers guessed.
Of course, this is Vedic philosophy, not the primitive desert tribes of middle east, that badly copied all their legends from Sumerians.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
As interesting as this question is, it really doesn't do much in terms of proving anything.
The Theist can answer any one of these:
1. The language of humans was the same of God. No other languages existed before the Tower of Babel. To read a Christian version of the events, go here: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/574. Obviously anyone with basic historic knowledge realizes that many languages existed before Babel, or, as Joseph Heller asks in Catch-22, why would God, in his infinite wisdom, be afraid of humans reaching the Heavens? But that's another debate.
2. What God said was merely "adapted" to the human languages (a more liberal Christian response, as it doesn't have to deal with the idiocy of taking everything in the Bible literally).
3. God speaks a language different to humans, but which can be understood by humans. There are instances in the New Testament where the Disciples were able to preach in different languages with the help of the Holy Spirit. A Theist can merely argue that the Holy Spirit guided Moses and helped him understand what God said
----------
Obviously you can't prove that language is limited to humans if you can't examine God, so that point is moot.
"The Chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. Just no Character."
"He...had gone down in flames...on the seventh day, while God was resting"
"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You should be taken outside and shot!"
Here we are in Chapter 10 with everyone talking their private language:
Genesis 10:20 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.
Genesis 10:5 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.
The all of a sudden in chapter 11 the lord creates a new reality with one language and a bunch of people working on a mud-brick tower to heaven.
Ohhhhhhhh, yes. Those early jewish novels were fucking priceless.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
God sure sounds like a human
[Laughs out loud]
You do realize that your only real argument against "God did it!" is "God didn't do it." Why are atheists so uninformed? They are as bad as believers. You always do a full circle. You take something like language which you know nothing about, apparently, and with the premise that man created God you use this ignorance to come to the conclusion of your premise. It goes like this. [premise] Man created God. [assumption] Primitive men didn't understand the things we understand. [conclusion] Man created God to explain what they couldn't understand.
Don't you realize how, well, lets be honest, stupid that is? I mean you know nothing about these primitive people and that is a pity because there is plenty of real information which demonstrates how lame your assumptions are. You know nothing about what they wrote, almost nothing about what they believed. You know nothing about, in this case, language. It is ridiculous especially when you start spouting how much more intelligent and advanced you are and how the evidence and facts are on your side when in fact all you have is a bunch of lame ass assumptions.
Thats because all you see him through is human eyes.
The Hebrew verb for “created” in Genesis 1:1 is in the perfect state, signifying completion. The creation was finished at this point. This is important when considering the verses that follow. The heavens had been created at this point, including the sun and moon and stars. The Hebrew verb has two states; the perfect state, which indicates completed action, and the imperfect state which indicates action in progress, incompleteness. In Genesis 1:1 created in the Hebrew was the perfect state indicating completeness. The act of creating the heavens and the earth were complete. In 1:3, though the KJV doesn’t indicate the imperfect state of action in progress, when God says let there be light he actually proceeded to say let there be light, and light gradually came to be. A much more accurate translation, by J.W. Watts reads: “Afterward God proceeded to say, ‘Let there be light’; and gradually light came into existence,” Benjamin Willis Newton’s translation does likewise; brackets his: “And God proceeded to say [future], Let Light become to be, and Light proceeded to become to be [future].” The imperfect state is crucial to a fuller understanding of the first chapter of Genesis because it occurs 40 times.
Later verses indicate that though the light was gradually increasing after the first “day” but the source of that light wasn’t discernable until the fourth. This has caused a great deal of confusion with science minded skeptics. The sun had been created in verse 1, the light had penetrated the dust and debris by the first creative “day” but the source was not yet visible.
The Hebrew word for light used in verse 2 is ohr, which means the light given from the source rather than the source itself. Ohr is light diffused. Genesis 1:2 says it was dark upon the watery deep. Apparently there was a band of water vapor, gasses and dust that prevented the light from the sun from shinning upon the earth for some undetermined period of time. Keep in mind that the Hebrew word yohm translated day is not a literal 24 hour period.
On the first creative “day” light (Hebrew ohr, meaning light in a general source) from the luminaries was visible on earth. Now, (1:14) on the fourth day the luminaries themselves (Hebrew maohr, meaning the source of light) were visible. The light on the first day had been diffused light, probably because of debris in the atmosphere from creation.
A comparison with science and the Bible. Moses wrote that the division of day and night were products of the luminaries in the sixteenth Century B.C.E. but up until the fifth it was thought that light was a bright vapor and darkness was a black vapor, the latter of which ascended from the ground.
At Genesis 1:16 the Hebrew word asah, meaning “make” is used. Earlier, in verse 1 the Hebrew word bara, meaning “create” was used. At Genesis 1:1, before the first creative “day,” the heavens, which would include the luminaries, had been created and now on the fourth creative “day” the luminaries are being made in the sense that a bed is made. Not that it is manufactured but that it is, already having been manufactured, now prepared in a way for use. Genesis 1:14-18 is talking about God preparing the already existing luminaries in the sense that he was appointing them in their way for use. The dust and debris now dissipated, the source of light is now discernible so as to distinguish seasons.
Uh . . . if you ask me that is pretty impressive for a primitive bunch of goat-herders who didn't know what the fuck was going on.
Christ, please don't get started. Before you know it we'll have a Muslim on here telling us how Islam is amazing because Mohammad thought the wind pollinated plants before anyone else.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
What's impressive is the amount of nitpicking you are doing to get where you want to be.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Uh . . . hmmm. Okay, lets do this.
Philology classifies languages into distinct families. Usually the parent of each isn't identified. There is no evidence of any one parent for all. In Genesis 10 Noah's sons descendants are listed as families, tongues, lands, nations. The confusion of languages wasn't simply a branching of dialects, but completely new languages which would result in differences of expressing not just words, but feelings and thought.
Professor S. R. Driver “Languages, however, differ not only in grammar and roots, but also . . . in the manner in which ideas are built up into a sentence. Different races do not think in the same way; and consequently the forms taken by the sentence in different languages are not the same.” (A Dictionary of the Bible, edited by J. Hastings, 1905, Vol. IV, p. 791)
Some languages, like Chinese, are monosyllabic while others, like German, are formed by agglutination, joining words side by side. Hausfriedensbruch in German literally means "house peace breakage." Translated into English it would mean "trespass." Syntax is important in some languages while in others it isn't. This requires a great deal of effort to adjust to.
The confusion of language at Babel produced, in time, related dialects which tend to develop into separate languages or sister dialects while the parent becomes almost indistinguishable. Shem's descendants who wouldn't have been among the Babel crowd, came to speak Hebrew, Aramaean, and Arabic. Geographic barriers, wars and conquests, immigration and communication breakdowns contribute to this.
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: “The earliest records of written language, the only linguistic fossils man can hope to have, go back no more than about 4,000 or 5,000 years.” (1985, Vol. 22, p. 567)
Science Illustrated of July 1948 (p. 63): “Older forms of the languages known today were far more difficult than their modern descendants . . . man appears not to have begun with a simple speech, and gradually made it more complex, but rather to have gotten hold of a tremendously knotty speech somewhere in the unrecorded past, and gradually simplified it to the modern forms.”
Linguist Dr. Mason: “the idea that ‘savages’ speak in a series of grunts, and are unable to express many ‘civilized’ concepts, is very wrong . . . many of the languages of non-literate peoples are far more complex than modern European ones.” (Science News Letter, September 3, 1955, p. 148)
Sir Henry Rawlinson, Oriental language scholar: “If we were to be thus guided by the mere intersection of linguistic paths, and independently of all reference to the scriptural record, we should still be led to fix on the plains of Shinar, as the focus from which the various lines had radiated.” (The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britian and Ireland, London, 1855, Vol. 15, p. 232.)
To put it simply, those mentioned at Genesis chapter 10 were speaking in different dialects, whereas those after Babel were speaking entirely different languages.
Over the din of the stout atheist rallying cry of "I just want to hear the evidence! The believer has the burden of proof!" reality rears its fat ugly head.
Go argue with a Muslim about which holy book is more amazing.
Until then, unless you have something in the Bible about germ theory or something similar, I'm going to tune you out before you get into numerology.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
On an unrelated note, I've been meaning to ask you. Your signature . . . what the hell is that about? Uncontrollable salivation around babies?
Didn't you know that atheists eat babies and kittens?
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Ahh, yes of course. I must have blocked that out of my memories or I missed my false regression therapy sessions.
How's it going? I wondered how long it would be before your interpretations made their presence felt...
And to think I thought the bible had a literal meaning.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
You tease!
Its going as well as can be expected, AE, and you?
Go back and read your Bible. The Sun and Stars were created in Genesis 1:14-19. Funnily enough, the reason why the sun exists isn't to provide photosynthesis to the poor plants or even heat the poor Earth. Nope, the purpose of the sun was to keep track of time. Amazing! How could goat-herders know that? There is no Biblical proof for your "the light was growing stronger" theory, especially when the Bible specifically SAYS that the sun was created on the FOURTH day.
"The Chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. Just no Character."
"He...had gone down in flames...on the seventh day, while God was resting"
"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You should be taken outside and shot!"
Excellent refutation. I'm stunned by your ignorant insistence. When that was told to a group of scientist who were making a public criticism of the Bible they had the good sense to accept their error. Not you, though! Keep up the good work.
I am not a linguist. I don't pretend to be. Not my field. I could get excited about linguistics and the hebrew bible if - and only if - I actually spoke hebrew, aramaic, greek, and latin. Since I don't, I am not impressed by linguistic arguments, and I don't bother to read them in any detail.
I do find it amazing how much time you spent analyzing and writing about the meaning of just two words and how they shade the meaning of the entire chapter. How does this provide proof of the bible being correct? "Making is not creating is not making is not creating is not..." I could make the same point in English or any other language, but common usage would trump any esoteric twist I tried to put on it.
If you have to go back and re-translate the entire book to justify your belief and suit your own internal logic, then I have to ask, just how hard are you working at it to believe? Shouldn't belief be easier than that?
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Oh darn! You caught me. No, seriously, your argument has next to no Biblical support (nothing about vapors, dust, etc. about the Creation). Why would Genesis 16 say that God made the stars ALSO? That would be utterly redundant if they, along with the Sun, had already been created. Why use the same vocabulary that is used when describing the creations of the other days? If it was already created, why not make it clear that it was so?
Quite clearly the Bible is saying that stars and other such things did not exist before the Fourth Day
And, actually, because according to Genesis 1:14 says that God was the one that set the time on the Heavens so that Earth could keep track of things, we can infer that God's time is the same as ours. The Bible literally means 7 days.
Anyway, there's a bunch of scientifically wrong things with your explanation so I doubt these scientists really had to shut-up.
"The Chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. Just no Character."
"He...had gone down in flames...on the seventh day, while God was resting"
"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You should be taken outside and shot!"
Scholars in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek can't converse or write or even simply read those languages, they just study them and try to piece the words together more like a puzzle. All you have to do is look at their work.
Four words which amount to create, make, light and the source of the light. It isn't really that complicated. If a skeptic says that the sun was created before there was light, or was created twice you just have to look at those four words. The luminaries were created. You have to ask why were there two different words for create and make and you see it is similar to my bed making analogy. You ask yourself why are there two different words for light and you could compare that to our use of moon and moonlight. Orh and maorh.
Thats just the way it appears to you. It may seem overcomplicated like any foriegn language would, but go unnoticed when commonly used in your own language. It does seem very difficult to skeptics of the Bible to begin to understand because they are accustomed to percieve, oddly enough, as much as they complain about a literal or selective interpretation while at the same time that is exactly what they demand. For example, if an atheist is used to thinking of the Bible as presenting the creation account as six literal days and you show them how the Hebrew word translated as day is used three different ways in the creation account AND how the English word day is used in exactly those three ways as well they say you are twisting the meaning to suit your needs. Retranslation isn't needed there at all.
It just fascinates the hell out of me because they are exactly as ignorant and willfully so as the unbeliever who argues against them for a literal six day creation. So, their science got it right, there is no disagreement with the Bible and yet it still pisses them off because they believe what they want to believe and want absolutely nothing to do with reason.
If that isn't religious narrowmindedness then what is?
Give it up cj. People spend their entire lives making the Bible so vague and twisty that it can mean anything. If you don't agree with one translation, you just pick another, and another, and another until you have an amalgamation that matches your own bias.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
I know... I've heard dozens of different interpretations of Genesis, each backed up with Biblical text it's incredible. The fun part is that they are all "plausible" given what Genesis says, but all contradict each other. Since the Bible is extremely clear on Genesis meant to be taken literally (even Jesus alludes to Genesis and never once says that Creation didn't mean 7 human days), I think the best interpretation is the literal one. None of this vapor nonsense. God didn't create vapor and dust to hide the sun until the fourth day. If that was the case, Genesis 1:14-19 would be utterly redundant and misleading.
"The Chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. Just no Character."
"He...had gone down in flames...on the seventh day, while God was resting"
"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You should be taken outside and shot!"
Though I should be doing some work here in the office writing a story about infrastructure at some tedious steelworks, I am wanking about watching cricket on TV, downloading some tunes and surfing the net.
Groan. My bored and lazy brain is my enemy.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Moonlight is from the reflection of the sun's light. No light in the moon. Bad analogy. Do it right or not at all.
The bible only got some of it right because you are pushing words around to make it fit your interpretation of science.
Riddle me this:
Nomadic goat herders did not know about billions of anything, let alone years. They could count, sure, but not millions, let alone billions. How could they understand 13+ billion years, the age of our universe? How could they understand 4+ billion for the age of earth? They couldn't count that high. No zeros.
You really should give god/s/dess a break.....
"Joshua, I want you to write the bible."
"Who's that? "
"this is GOD"
"Who's that?"
"The GOD of Abraham"
"Oh, yeah, what did you want?"
"I'm going to dictate my WORD to you."
"Okay, let me find a clean sheepskin.....feather......ink.......okay."
"Thirteen billion years ago.."
"Say what? What is a billion?"
"How many sheep do you have, Joshua?"
"Two hand fulls, uh, ten."
"Okay, Joshua, imagine sheep from here to Egypt and on to Assyria."
"Yes....."
"That is not one billion sheep, but close. Imagine 13 times that many sheep."
"Oh. How did you count them all, GOD?"
"Sigh. By the hand full. Okay, in the beginning....."
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
Genesis 1:1 says, simply: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Are not the sun, moon and stars a part of the heavens? Do you the unbeliever or I the believer have to stretch our imaginations in recognition of this fact? Most scholars agree that this creation is separate from any of the following creative days. The Bible says the earth and heavens were created, and then after an indeterminate period of time the first creative "day" began. The original language itself says that the creation is complete.
Genesis 1:16 uses an entierly different word than the one that was used for create. The sun, moon and stars were now made able to shine upon the earth. From the perspective of someone who would have been standing on the earth this is how it would look. First darkness, then light, then a clearing and the source of the light visible. It would be the same for the stars as the sun. The original language is screaming out progress in action. Not a waving of a wand and 24 hours later >Whump!< there it is. This is not always an easy thing to convey through translation. This sort of goes along with my post on language in this thread. Take the German Hausfriedensbruch which literally means house peace breakage. Well you can't translate that into English like that! You have to get its meaning. Tresspass. Thus the more accurate translating progressive action is given.
It said that they were created before the first, actually.
That actually demonstrates your using logic. I appreciate that. Your conclusion is wrong but it was a pretty good effort. As I said earlier, the term day (from the Hebrew yohm) is used in three different ways in the brief creation account itself. That being the daylight hours, the day and night being a day and all 6 days of creation as one day. The last similar to our expression "my grandfather's day." The seventh "day" was mentioned by Paul thousands of years later as still going on. It continues going on to this day thousands of years after Paul.
They didn't have to shut up. They didn't have to do anything, but they did acknowledge their error. For clarification, though I was only referring to the Hebrew bara / asah (create / make) portion of my post which they were in error of. They didn't understand the distinction between the two until it was pointed out to them.
At what point did theists claim the seven days were not literal?
Edit: I mean, like what point in history is the first interpretation shown where the value is not literal?
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
"The Chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. Just no Character."
"He...had gone down in flames...on the seventh day, while God was resting"
"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You should be taken outside and shot!"
Whether or not the Sun and ilk are part of the Heavens AFTER the fourth day is irrelevant if I'm saying that they weren't BEFORE the fourth day.
Most scholars also agree that the Bible is fairly inaccurate. At any rate, the Creation WAS complete. God merely aggregated a "clock" to the Heavens. Doesn't mean the Heavens themselves weren't created. And if this creation is separate from the other days, how come God says it took him Seven days? If what you claim is true, God would say it took him SIX days.
First off, the Creation portion of Genesis isn't written from the perspective of someone standing on Earth. For example, Genesis 1:14 is written from the perspective of the Heavens. And it doesn't matter that later the word "made" is used if the day begins with the phrase "And God said let there be ___", which signifies CREATION.
Yes, but given the context, whenever God says "Let there be __x__", it is CREATION.
Again, this doesn't work if I claim that the Sun wasn't originally a part of the Heavens.
No, Paul is just drawing an analogy, not giving a detailed account of what happened during Creation. Yet further proof that God means 7 "human" (technically not limited to humans, but w/e) days is when he asks that we humans respect the Seventh day as the Sabbath. Now why would he do that if it wasn't to be taken literally as 7 days by humans? This coupled with what I pointed out earlier clearly demonstrate that it MEANS 7 days. Besides, if it doesn't the time difference between days is inconsistent. Does that sound like your Biblical God?
Alright, this clarification makes a ton of a load more sense.
"The Chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. Just no Character."
"He...had gone down in flames...on the seventh day, while God was resting"
"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You should be taken outside and shot!"