What Are Your Views on Adam and Eve?

[knor (Kai)]

@RichardG

Why does Christian Morality not matter. Why does Nature creating new creatures not of their kind matter. Why does might is right not matter.

Christianity is about more than humanity and salvation.

Correct, you did not mention ‘creation science’ or support it. It was just a general example of bending the rules of science.

Christian morality is not a matter of natural sciences and there is no need to push it into a question of natural science, although it may matter much for an individual researcher. It is a theological question and theology is not science.

In nature, reproducing individuals produce offspring that resemble their parents at a general level but not in detail. An exception is clonal multiplication. Look at any family with many children: there is some resemblance between the kids and the parents but the children are not copies of their parents.
Through generations, the appearance of the offspring may change so that the children differ visibly from their distant ancestors. Let that happen through millions of years and you may get offspring that differ from their ancestors so much that they are classified as a different species.

Does that happen without a Creator? The answer is a matter of belief.
My answer is that it happens through a mechanism that God planned when He created this kind of universe. It is part of a world that is described as ‘good’ in Genesis 1.

If God created this kind of universe that operates within the known laws of nature, who am I to criticize God for not creating in a way I would have chosen. If I would know all the information in the universe, maybe I would also conclude that this is the ‘good’ way.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@knor

If God created this kind of universe that operates within the known laws of nature, who am I to criticize God

But that is the big IF

It is science (who cannot see God) telling God what He did. brilliant.

Richard

[St.Roymond]

@RichardG

In Evolution humanity is a cosmic fluke.

Actually there are serious papers that have argued that intelligent bipedal mammals were inevitable. The work I’ve read falls into the category “I can understand it while I’m reading it but not later”, though.
I’m content with the position of the university friend who claimed to have calculated that only seven genetic interventions (mutations) were necessary to get from the first prokaryotes to humans.

@knor

As a believer, you can play football, fix flying machines, make surgery or be a police. In each field or profession, you have to play according to the rules of that field. Playing by the specific rules does not compromise your faith. Doing research in science is just one of the professions and you have to play that game according to the rules of science. Faith and science do not collide more than faith and football

Nicely put!

[Marg]

The Bible is a collection of writings from people who have seen God acting in the world, or who have had useful insights into his being. It is like a set of marks along the trail. It is useful in that way. But it is also like an enormous salad: it has all sorts of writing in it – history, laws, poetry, myth, dreams, stories, etc. How we should read it and the kind of truth we should see in it depends on what sort of writing we are reading. Genesis 1 is very simple history: this happened, then this happened, etc. Genesis 2-3 is more like myth or fable, a story told to explain a very difficult truth to those who are involved in the story’s problem. Take Genesis 2 as analogy, or fable.

But take Genesis 1 literally. Verse 2 is not saying that the earth was full of water and darkness, it is saying that it did not yet exist – empty and formless. If anything has no form and no substance, it does not exist in physical realm. The waters that are mentioned are in God’s realm before he began creation.

Creation begins with light. This is what was produced by the big bang, light and subatomic particles which would provide matter and darkness. So the beginning of Genesis 1 is the big bang. Then God created the heavens. This is the spreading out of the universe from the big bang and the coalescing of the heavenly bodies. The Genesis account goes on with the history of the earth as we know it to be. (Notice–what is translated “birds” is actually a word for flying things. Flying insects actually arose along with the fishes.) There are no errors.

So we have a scripture that miraculously describes the history of the earth and the universe. That has to mean something.

Genesis 2-3 is not history. It is told like a story. There is a setting. Two rivers flowed, there had been no rain, God planted a garden, etc. There is a magical talking snake, and magical fruit. We are not meant to take this literally. But we are meant to understand from it why we no longer walk with God in the cool of the morning. We wanted our own way, we wanted to do it ourselves, so God put us in a place away from him. The world we have now is what we have made of it. Now we get to decide again if we want to live with God or on our own.

The New Testament is the record of a spirit being who came and lived here to show us how much God loves us. It would have been enough just to live in this dreadful place, but he endured torture at our hands. I can’t imagine doing something like that. When I am lost, I remember what Jesus did and it changes everything.

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

In Evolution humanity is a cosmic fluke.

Actually there are serious papers that have argued that intelligent bipedal mammals were inevitable. The work I’ve read falls into the category “I can understand it while I’m reading it but not later”, though.

A very broad category

The main problem I see with those papers is that they don’t take into account the possibility that successive Chicxulub impacts may have wiped out life completely, or at least kept knocking it back to single-celled life.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

Actually there are serious papers that have argued that intelligent bipedal mammals were inevitable.

Serious or not, within the structure of Scientific Evolution there seems little to make it so. Any notion of the “perfection” of bipedal motion would be philosophical not Evolutionary. And as for Intelligence… we are in the realm of AI going sentient.
I seem to remember in TNG a proposal of how Exocoms became sentient, (Quality of Life) being an increased number of connections, the assumption being that the more intricate the brain the more likely it is to become self aware but that is Sci-Fi not science.
I guess, if you are going to exclude the intervention or creative abilities of God, sentience will remain a bit of a mystery.

Richard

[1Cor15.54 (Massimiliano)]

@RichardG

And as for Intelligence… we are in the realm of AI going sentient.

I don’t think true AI sentience will ever happen.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@1Cor15.54

@RichardG

And as for Intelligence… we are in the realm of AI going sentient.

I don’t think true AI sentience will ever happen.

I wonder whether, if it happens, it would affect our view of either God or humanity, or both.
Would it make abiogenesis more plausible. Would it make Evolution more plausible. Would it even diminish a view of God.
I get the impression that your view has little to do with science or philosophy.

Just think of the ramifications of humanity producing what amounts to a life form superior to themselves.

Richard

[1Cor15.54 (Massimiliano)]

@RichardG

I wonder whether, if it happens, it would affect our view of either God or humanity, or both.
Would it make abiogenesis more plausible. Would it make Evolution more plausible. Would it even diminish a view of God.
I get the impression that your view has little to do with science or philosophy.

Just think of the ramifications of humanity producing what amounts to a life form superior to themselves.

Richard

I’m not gonna lie, if AI ever reached true sentience it would be a ground-breaking event (not to mention a very, very dangerous one), and would make the case for materialism much stronger, but I really don’t think it will ever happen.

[St.Roymond]

@Marg

The Bible is a collection of writings . . . . : it has all sorts of writing in it – history, laws, poetry, myth, dreams, stories, etc. How we should read it and the kind of truth we should see in it depends on what sort of writing we are reading.

Try to get that across to someone so arrogant they think it must be what it looks like to them.

@Marg

Genesis 1 is very simple history

Genesis 1 isn’t history at all – it may be narrative, but it’s two types of narrative at once, and neither is "historical in any ordinary sense of the word.

@RichardG

Serious or not, within the structure of Scientific Evolution there seems little to make it so.

They were heavily into math and molecular chemistry; the arguments were precisely that evolution must make it so.

@RichardG

Any notion of the “perfection” of bipedal motion would be philosophical not Evolutionary.

Huh? Where did that come from?

@RichardG

the assumption being that the more intricate the brain the more likely it is to become self aware but that is Sci-Fi not science.

Sci-fi got it from science.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

Serious or not, within the structure of Scientific Evolution there seems little to make it so.

They were heavily into math and molecular chemistry; the arguments were precisely that evolution must make it so

Yeah, random mathematical theory. Real proof that is.

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

Any notion of the “perfection” of bipedal motion would be philosophical not Evolutionary.

Huh? Where did that come from?

That sort of comparison is not scientific, it is philosophical. As is any sort of theorum about the direction Evolution must take,
Evolution has no goal no direction, no intelligence or guidance. (Theistic excepted)

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

he assumption being that the more intricate the brain the more likely it is to become self aware but that is Sci-Fi not science.

Sci-fi got it from science.

How can it if no AI has ever become sentient.

Richard

[St.Roymond]

@RichardG

Yeah, random mathematical theory. Real proof that is.

Huh? You again make me think you never made it to university – who said “radnom” except you?

@RichardG

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

Any notion of the “perfection” of bipedal motion would be philosophical not Evolutionary.

Huh? Where did that come from?

That sort of comparison is not scientific, it is philosophical.

So you made it up.

@RichardG

As is any sort of theorum about the direction Evolution must take,

Yep – you have no clue what you’re talking about.

@RichardG

Evolution has no goal no direction, no intelligence or guidance.

And you got your PhD in molecular biology where?

@RichardG

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

he assumption being that the more intricate the brain the more likely it is to become self aware but that is Sci-Fi not science.

Sci-fi got it from science.

How can it if no AI has ever become sentient.

Sheesh – You have so much so wrong in your post I’d have to go back to fifth grade science to start correcting it. I don’t have the patience for that even with ordinary fifth-graders.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

Sheesh – You have so much so wrong in your post I’d have to go back to fifth grade science to start correcting it. I don’t have the patience for that even with ordinary fifth-graders.

You do not have nay patience, full stop.

Nor do you read and try and understand what is written.

Nor do you attempt to justify your dismissals.. it would appear that you are right and I am wrong, period.

However.

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

Yeah, random mathematical theory. Real proof that is.

Huh? You again make me think you never made it to university – who said “radnom” except you?

Evolution is based on random deviations. That fact has never changed.

This has nothing to do with any theories on why one feature prevails or is passed on. it s the basis of change.

By definition, random cannot be predicted or be subject to control, so if there are “controls” in terms of which sequence can change or the limits of that change then they are beyond the scope of Science. They may be able to identify such limits but they cannot explain how they cmae into existence.

Therefore any attempt at mathematically predicting random changes is a fallacy. Mathematics involves fixed integers and processes. The “unknowns” have parameters that “random” cannot have.

IOW if there is a mathematical prediction it is not random!

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

That sort of comparison is not scientific, it is philosophical.

So you made it up.

So you do not accept or understand philosophy.

Philosophy is not the art of “making things up”

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

Evolution has no goal no direction, no intelligence or guidance.

And you got your PhD in molecular biology where?

It has nothing to do with microbiology. It is the nature of the beast.

Back to random. Random has not direction, or intelligence, or parameters or intelligent control.

Perhaps you think that modern theory has gone beyond such basic principles.

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

@St.Roymond

@RichardG

he assumption being that the more intricate the brain the more likely it is to become self aware but that is Sci-Fi not science.

Sci-fi got it from science.

How can it if no AI has ever become sentient.

Sheesh

Answer it!

Richard