Can we agree that the story of Adam & Eve is not true?

[Manuel I Komnenos]

Well, I guess that not believing in this theory does not make you a bad Christian.

[Le Songeur]

Did you know the creation story of Genesis matches up perfectly with the scientific evolutionary count? I can post the complete evidence if anyones interested.

Out of curiosity, I would like to see how.

[Helm]

Out of curiosity, I would like to see how.

Here you go.

"And God said, 'Let there be Light.'= The formation of the sun 5,000 million years ago.

And God said, 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let dry land appear.'= The formation of the seas, and of land areas 4,200 million years ago.

'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed [vegetation].'= The beginnings of life, including single-celed photosynthetic organisms ('plants') around 3,000 million years ago.

'Let there be lights to divide the day from night.'= The first image forming eye evolved and visual information used. The lights were turned on for animal behaviour and evolution around 521 million years ago.

'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.'= The Cambrian explosion- evolutions Big Bang beginning around 520 million years ago.

'God created the great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind...'= Life was exclusively marine at this time. It was in this period that all the animal phyla that exist today evolved their characteristic forms. These facts are not common knowledge. Only an experienced biologist would know this.

'...and every winged fowl after his kind.'= All animals adapted to the vision of predators, except for birds, which could afford not to because they can escape predation through flight, and so generally can avoid camouflage colours. It is fascinating that sea creatures and birds should be singled out. These repectively, the main characters and exceptions in life's history book."

[Krixux]

There you go, plausible? Makes sense. If I was pushed to go for the cosmic mysical angle I would say Adam was something like the first being in the universe to achieve fully human awareness and so take on Gods spiritual image or something like that. Eve would be the feminine aspect of that template.

Perhaps the most interesting description of the all issue I have encountered till now !!!
Human Awareness !

On the other hand, Pointing out to the story of Creation itself it could give certain new ideas concerning the position of Adam and Eve in our History...

The sixth Day ( Gen 24 - 31)

Genesis 1:27
“So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”

Genesis 1:31
“(...)God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.”

Thus in the sixth Day of Creation there are both male and female inhabiting the Planet.
In the seventh Day God rested, implicitly with the male and female He created roaming around....

Genesis 2:2-3
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. “

Again the logic conclusion is that both male and female were around alive and kicking...and there is no :
“And there was evening, and there was morning—the seventh day”!!!
This ending is not recorded. what follows?

Genesis 2:4
“This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. “
!!!
From now on we go back to details on specific acts of creation, mainly:

Genesis 2:18
“The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.””
“I will”- future thus = We are still in the sixth Day... mankind (male and female) WAS created in the 6th day !

Genesis 2:22
“Then the LORD God made a woman(...)”
At this specific time Genesis 2:22, we are again in the sixth Day, hence from the above Genesis 1:27 “....male and female he created them.”

What follows now ? ...The entire Bible...and not the 8th or 9th or whatever day ....
Conclusion (mine for sure) = we are still in the sixth day....

Thus, the entire Creation could have been in eons of time; and there is NO literal daily creation... And: ”Adam was something like the first being in the universe to achieve fully human awareness”(From Helm)


(I might be wrong though....)
　
　
　
　
　

[basics]

" Conclusion (mine for sure) = we are still in the sixth day...."

Krixux,

And you would be quite correct because six is the number of man and the one who holds power over him is numbered 666 the unholy trinity that at the end will deceive the nations, all of them, once more. There is Diablos, his power and the one still to come, the false prophet.

The importance of the seventh day is because it is rest, God's rest which He took in the heavens where He abides, the place unreachable without a Saviour. The number in Biblical terms means perfection and can only come to a human by rebirth through faith of Jesus Christ, where His blood has made perfect them that become His.

[Mortality]

" Conclusion (mine for sure) = we are still in the sixth day...."

Krixux,

And you would be quite correct because six is the number of man and the one who holds power over him is numbered 666 the unholy trinity that at the end will deceive the nations, all of them, once more. There is Diablos, his power and the one still to come, the false prophet.

The importance of the seventh day is because it is rest, God's rest which He took in the heavens where He abides, the place unreachable without a Saviour. The number in Biblical terms means perfection and can only come to a human by rebirth through faith of Jesus Christ, where His blood has made perfect them that become His.

Basics, do you actually believe The Sky Fairy made a man, then took a rib and made a woman.

THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!

[Papay]

I believe that a portion of the biblical creation myth could be true.However its difficult to verify it.The biblical creation myth has its roots to even older stories from the middle East.Noone can know with certainty how all these stories begun

[Col. Tartleton]

I believe that a portion of the biblical creation myth could be true.However its difficult to verify it.The biblical creation myth has its roots to even older stories from the middle East.Noone can know with certainty how all these stories begun

Campfire stories.



Seriously, that's such an adorable picture.

[Helm]

Campfire stories.



Seriously, that's such an adorable picture.

The kid in the middle has clearly let one rip.

[basics]

" Basics, do you actually believe The Sky Fairy made a man, then took a rib and made a woman. THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE! "

The Rifleman,

No more perfect than scientists taking genes etc from one thing and inserting them into another that people might be cured. But then we are talking of God who had just made all things out of no more than the sound of His command that it be done. Yes, I do believe it.

[Mortality]

" Basics, do you actually believe The Sky Fairy made a man, then took a rib and made a woman. THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE! "

The Rifleman,

No more perfect than scientists taking genes etc from one thing and inserting them into another that people might be cured. But then we are talking of God who had just made all things out of no more than the sound of His command that it be done. Yes, I do believe it.

See, if 'God' is truly Omnipotent, he should have known 'Adam' was going to backstab him.

[Dominicvs]

No, because God gives free-will to all mankind, therefore God doesn't know what we are going to do. Thats up to us.

[Helm]

But if there is anything God can't do then he can't be omnipotent just very powerful.

[Playfishpaste]

But if there is anything God can't do then he can't be omnipotent just very powerful.

An omnipotent, omnibenevolent being being unable to rape someone does not imply the being is not omnipotent. Omnipotent beings are able to do any task. Raping someone while you are a perfectly good being is not a task, just like making a round square is not a task. These aren't even sentences.

by extension, an omnipotent omnibenevolent being being unable to not grant you free will does not imply he is not omnipotent. Being perfectly just and denying you free will is not a task.

you might say however "If god doesn't know the future, he's not omniscient". But this implies there is a future to know. God doesn't know the color of santa claus' shoes. This is not a problem because santa claus has no shoes since he doesn't exist. Similarly God doesn't know anything about events that don't exist.

[Lord Romanus III]

An omnipotent, omnibenevolent being being unable to rape someone does not imply the being is not omnipotent.

If they are not able to do something then they are not omnipotent. The angle that I think you are looking for is him 'choosing' not to use his omnipotence?

Omnipotent beings are able to do any task. Raping someone while you are a perfectly good being is not a task, just like making a round square is not a task. These aren't even sentences.

Your comparison and words are a failure here. Raping someone (while maintaining a moral against rape) simply makes one in breach of their own moral code and it is a task. I must point out that I find your word of 'task' a bit off, too. A 'round square' is a geometrical impossibility...... Raping someone while being against rape is not impossible.

by extension, an omnipotent omnibenevolent being being unable to not grant you free will does not imply he is not omnipotent. Being perfectly just and denying you free will is not a task.

This is just a continuation of failed logic......

you might say however "If god doesn't know the future, he's not omniscient". But this implies there is a future to know. God doesn't know the color of santa claus' shoes. This is not a problem because santa claus has no shoes since he doesn't exist. Similarly God doesn't know anything about events that don't exist.

Time is linear and there is a future. Saying that god is omniscient and then him not seeing the future means that you are wrong: he does not match the definition for omniscient. We're not bending definitions to cope with your imaginary god's failures.

[Playfishpaste]

If they are not able to do something then they are not omnipotent. The angle that I think you are looking for is him 'choosing' not to use his omnipotence?

Huh?

The point is that doing bleh is not a task because bleh is not a word. Bleh is incoherent. "Being an omnibenevolent being and raping someone" is incoherent.

Your comparison and words are a failure here. Raping someone (while maintaining a moral against rape) simply makes one in breach of their own moral code and it is a task. I must point out that I find your word of 'task' a bit off, too. A 'round square' is a geometrical impossibility...... Raping someone while being against rape is not impossible.

it's not about being against rape. Omnibenevolent means perfectly good, it doesn't mean obeying your own moral commands. It means obeying the moral commands in general. You might say "well moral realism is false, so there are no objectively immoral things. Rape is just something people don't prefer" in which case you could argue against the idea of god much more easily by saying "God's incoherent because moral realism is false"

However, if the God believer was okay with ditching moral realism, he could make a similar argument against your criticism with an example like "If god is all loving it's impossible for him to wish harm on you, since he loves you". The assumption being that the loved will never have harm wished upon them by a lover. If this is a wrong assumption you could say "If god must not sin, and rape is a sin, then god cannot rape". Likewise it's incoherent to suggest god could rape, since that would imply "a being that is necessarily sinless can rape" which is incoherent. Such a being wouldn't be omnipotent, it would be contradictory and incoherent.

This is just a continuation of failed logic......

Nope. An easier to see example is the paradox of the stone. You've got a stone so heavy god can't lift it, but lifting a stone too heavy for an omnipotent being to lift is not coherent. Just as doing a thing an omnipotent being can't do is not a task.

Time is linear and there is a future. Saying that god is omniscient and then him not seeing the future means that you are wrong: he does not match the definition for omniscient. We're not bending definitions to cope with your imaginary god's failures.

First of all, as an atheist, I would say that there isn't a future (where is it? What does it look like?). Hence, like santa claus's shoes, there's no problem with God not knowing them.

If you would like better arguments against God's existence, try JL Schellenberg's argument from divine hiddenness, or micheal martin's perfection argument, or mackie's queerness argument.

[Vir Triumphalis]

Here you go.

"And God said, 'Let there be Light.'= The formation of the sun 5,000 million years ago.

And God said, 'Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let dry land appear.'= The formation of the seas, and of land areas 4,200 million years ago.

'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed [vegetation].'= The beginnings of life, including single-celed photosynthetic organisms ('plants') around 3,000 million years ago.

'Let there be lights to divide the day from night.'= The first image forming eye evolved and visual information used. The lights were turned on for animal behaviour and evolution around 521 million years ago.

'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.'= The Cambrian explosion- evolutions Big Bang beginning around 520 million years ago.

'God created the great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind...'= Life was exclusively marine at this time. It was in this period that all the animal phyla that exist today evolved their characteristic forms. These facts are not common knowledge. Only an experienced biologist would know this.

'...and every winged fowl after his kind.'= All animals adapted to the vision of predators, except for birds, which could afford not to because they can escape predation through flight, and so generally can avoid camouflage colours. It is fascinating that sea creatures and birds should be singled out. These repectively, the main characters and exceptions in life's history book."

That's only assuming that the writer of Genesis had a clue on what he wrote. As we all know, he never had a clue as the first suggestion of evolution came from Aristotle, a man who lived 1000+ yrs after the Genesis was written.

[Col. Tartleton]

Helm, I like that you propose that light only exists when observed.

[Primo]

Hello everyone,

I know that this has probably been discussed a thousand times here since this section of the site opened many years ago, but I came across a pretty good article and I thought I would share it and possibly provoke a discussion.

Here is the article.

Here is is just in case you cannot open the page:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Let's go back to the beginning — all the way to Adam and Eve, and to the question: Did they exist, and did all of humanity descend from that single pair?


According to the Bible (Genesis 2:7), this is how humanity began: "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." God then called the man Adam, and later created Eve from Adam's rib.


Polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find that four out of 10 Americans believe this account. It's a central tenet for much of conservative Christianity, from evangelicals to confessional churches such as the Christian Reformed Church.


But now some conservative scholars are saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis account. Asked how likely it is that we all descended from Adam and Eve, Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, replies: "That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years, so not likely at all."


Researching The Human Genome
Venema says there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple. He says with the mapping of the human genome, it's clear that modern humans emerged from other primates as a large population — long before the Genesis time frame of a few thousand years ago. And given the genetic variation of people today, he says scientists can't get that population size below 10,000 people at any time in our evolutionary history.


To get down to just two ancestors, Venema says, "You would have to postulate that there's been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time. Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence."
Venema is a senior fellow at BioLogos Foundation, a Christian group that tries to reconcile faith and science. The group was founded by Francis Collins, an evangelical and the current head of the National Institutes of Health, who, because of his position, declined an interview.


And Venema is part of a growing cadre of Christian scholars who say they want their faith to come into the 21st century. Another one is John Schneider, who taught theology at Calvin College in Michigan until recently. He says it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence.


"Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost," Schneider says. "So Christians, I think, have a challenge, have a job on their hands to reformulate some of their tradition about human beginnings."


'Fundamental Doctrines Of The Christian Faith'
To many evangelicals, this is heresy.


"From my viewpoint, a historical Adam and Eve is absolutely central to the truth claims of the Christian faith," says Fazale Rana, vice president of Reasons To Believe, an evangelical think tank that questions evolution. Rana, who has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Ohio University, readily admits that small details of Scripture could be wrong.


"But if the parts of Scripture that you are claiming to be false, in effect, are responsible for creating the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, then you've got a problem," Rana says.


Rana and others believe in a literal, historical Adam and Eve for many reasons. One is that the Genesis account makes man unique, created in the image of God — not a descendant of lower primates. Second, it tells a story of how evil came into the world, and it's not a story in which God introduced evil through the process of evolution, but one in which Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit.





Over four centuries, language from the 1611 translation has woven itself deeply into our culture.
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, says that rebellious choice infected all of humankind.


"When Adam sinned, he sinned for us," Mohler says. "And it's that very sinfulness that sets up our understanding of our need for a savior.


Mohler says the Adam and Eve story is not just about a fall from paradise: It goes to the heart of Christianity. He notes that the Apostle Paul (in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15) argued that the whole point of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection was to undo Adam's original sin.



"Without Adam, the work of Christ makes no sense whatsoever in Paul's description of the Gospel, which is the classic description of the Gospel we have in the New Testament," Mohler says.


Intellectual Rift
That's only true if you read the Bible literally, says Dennis Venema at Trinity Western University. But if you read the Bible as poetry and allegory as well as history, you can see God's hand in nature — and in evolution.


"There's nothing to be scared of here," Venema says. "There is nothing to be alarmed about. It's actually an opportunity to have an increasingly accurate understanding of the world — and from a Christian perspective, that's an increasingly accurate understanding of how God brought us into existence."
This debate over a historical Adam and Eve is not just another heady squabble. It's ripping apart the evangelical intelligentsia.


"Evangelicalism has a tendency to devour its young," says Daniel Harlow, a religion professor at Calvin College, a Christian Reformed school that subscribes to the fall of Adam and Eve as a central part of its faith.


"You get evangelicals who push the envelope, maybe; they get the courage to work in sensitive, difficult areas," Harlow says. "And they get slapped down. They get fired or dismissed or pressured out."
Harlow should know: Calvin College investigated him after he wrote an article questioning the historical Adam. His colleague and fellow theologian, John Schneider, wrote a similar article and was pressured to resign after 25 years at the college. Schneider is now beginning a research fellowship at Notre Dame.



'A Galileo Moment'


Several other well known theologians at Christian universities have been forced out; some see a parallel to a previous time when science conflicted with religious doctrine.


"The evolution controversy today is, I think, a Galileo moment," says Karl Giberson, who authored several books trying to reconcile Christianity and evolution, including The Language of Science and Faith, with Francis Collins.


Giberson — who taught physics at Eastern Nazarene College until his views became too uncomfortable in Christian academia — says Protestants who question Adam and Eve are akin to Galileo in the 1600s, who defied Catholic Church doctrine by stating that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa. Galileo was condemned by the church, and it took more than three centuries for the Vatican to express regret at its error.


"When you ignore science, you end up with egg on your face," Giberson says. "The Catholic Church has had an awful lot of egg on its face for centuries because of Galileo. And Protestants would do very well to look at that and to learn from it."


Abandoning Theology?
Fuzale Rana isn't so sure this is a Galileo moment: That would imply the scientists are correct. But he does believe the stakes are even higher in today's battle over evolution. It is not just about the movement of the earth, but about the nature of God and man, of sin and redemption.


"I think this is going to be a pivotal point in Church history," he says. "Because what rests at the very heart of this debate is whether or not key ideas within Christianity are ultimately true or not."
But others say Christians can no longer afford to ignore the evidence from the human genome and fossils just to maintain a literal view of Genesis.


"This stuff is unavoidable," says Dan Harlow at Calvin College. "Evangelicals have to either face up to it or they have to stick their head in the sand. And if they do that, they will lose whatever intellectual currency or respectability they have."


"If so, that's simply the price we'll have to pay," says Southern Baptist seminary's Albert Mohler. "The moment you say 'We have to abandon this theology in order to have the respect of the world,' you end up with neither biblical orthodoxy nor the respect of the world."


Mohler and others say if other Protestants want to accommodate science, fine. But they shouldn't be surprised if their faith unravels.

We know today that there is no way that everyone on earth was created by two people. I believe that we can also agree that a women cannot be made from a man's rib. I think we can also agree that snakes do not talk. So, does that not mean that this is story is just that, a story? And, if so, what does that do to Christianity? Is that not what the religion is based on?



Testudo

It does nothing to the Christianity. The bible is more a guideline, a handbook of life, to call it that way, written by humans. Written by humans means not entirely true.

The writers of the bible had a clue what they are writing about, and what they wrote helped thousands of people. From this point of view everythings written in the bible is true, as the advice it gives helped so many, which is proofable.

I just don´t get why all scientists are so eager to speak against knowledge of thousands years past. Also, everyone knows how often science was so wrong. The funniest thing after my opinion is how they always have a grudge against the churche because of galileo - one man speaking against many - yet if a knew scientist makes a new theory, which is lateron commonly accepted as true, they do everything to finish him off. Research those cases - It really is funny.

[Himster]

It does nothing to the Christianity. The bible is more a guideline, a handbook of life, to call it that way, written by humans. Written by humans means not entirely true.

So you're not a christian then.

The writers of the bible had a clue what they are writing about, and what they wrote helped thousands of people. From this point of view everythings written in the bible is true, as the advice it gives helped so many, which is proofable.

Have you even read the bible?

I just don´t get why all scientists are so eager to speak against knowledge of thousands years past.

If it's demonstrably false, it's demonstrably false, that's all there is to it. Humans existed long before 6000 years ago: simple.

Also, everyone knows how often science was so wrong. The funniest thing after my opinion is how they always have a grudge against the churche because of galileo - one man speaking against many - yet if a knew scientist makes a new theory, which is lateron commonly accepted as true, they do everything to finish him off. Research those cases - It really is funny.

Eh, what?