Could believing in creationism be considered a mental disorder?

[ParanoiA]

That's the bandwagon fallacy, though. Science simply hasn't been around for very long; it isn't a majority vote. There's also a false dilemma, even if the scientific explanation were wrong, it doesn't mean that answers based on religious ideologies are right by default.

 

I didn't imply any other conclusions than the context of the OP. It doesn't sound like much of a mental disorder if it's more popular than science - specifically because science just simply hasn't been around as long. That's all.

 

I don't support religion. On the contrary, I believe religion, or most of them in their present form anyway, is unhealthy and hinders human advancement, restricts free thinking and behavior. I don't support any ideology that does this. As for god, we'll find out when we die, and I'll bet my eternal soul any god that proves to exist will resemble nothing we've ever read by men.

[1veedo]

Well to prevent another pointless who's religion is better discussion I'm just going to ignore theCPE up there. I thought he was talking about evolution or ambiogenesis, not atheism, but he apparently believes evolution and atheism go together.

And to back this up you use a creationist website?! Really bad form.

Well I don't see what the problem is. christianansweres isn't the only place that claims that. I think it's funny cause I actually met someone who knows Hebrew at my old church maybe two or three years ago. He was like an exchange student from Russia except through the Catholic church (something about a nuclear power plant meltdown). But I remember asking him and in his words he said the "stupid Americans" should learn Hebrew before speculating that the English word day meant ages in the Bible. There is no possible way in the Hebrew language to make it any clearer that the authors really did mean 24 hour days.

 

That's just one guys interpretation but he tried to make it very clear that they didn't mean "periods of time" in the Bible. If you look on google I'm sure you'll find some fairly strait forward reasons for this. Eg "and there was evening and morning, one day." Even in English this seems pretty strait forward a 24 hour day. And then there's the qualifiers or context -- "King Solomon's day" means the age of King solomon but day 1, day 2 means 24 hour days etc.

[Phi for All]

Well to prevent another pointless who's religion is better discussion I'm just going to ignore theCPE up there. I thought he was talking about evolution or ambiogenesis, not atheism, but he apparently believes evolution and atheism go together.

Thank you for not responding to the personal attack. Your restraint is admirable and noted.

Well I don't see what the problem is. christianansweres isn't the only place that claims that.

But aren't they all creationist places?

I think it's funny cause I actually met someone who knows Hebrew at my old church maybe two or three years ago. He was like an exchange student from Russia except through the Catholic church (something about a nuclear power plant meltdown). But I remember asking him and in his words he said the "stupid Americans" should learn Hebrew before speculating that the English word day meant ages in the Bible. There is no possible way in the Hebrew language to make it any clearer that the authors really did mean 24 hour days.

I will send a PM to one of our members who was raised in Israel and now lives in NY. She speaks and reads Hebrew and would be a good source for this discussion (I hope it's not off-topic; I consider it to be at the root of creationist claims).

 

That's just one guys interpretation but he tried to make it very clear that they didn't mean "periods of time" in the Bible. If you look on google I'm sure you'll find some fairly strait forward reasons for this. Eg "and there was evening and morning, one day." Even in English this seems pretty strait forward a 24 hour day. And then there's the qualifiers or context -- "King Solomon's day" means the age of King solomon but day 1, day 2 means 24 hour days etc.

I can appreciate that but the Essenes at the time influenced much of Hebrew writings and were skilled in metaphor. This may just be one of those impasses that crop up when discussing religion from a scholarly viewpoint. Why did God create the heavens and earth in six days but make it look billions of years old? To strengthen the faith of those who know the truth.

 

How... circular.

[1veedo]

There are really two issues here.

 

1) What does the actual Hebrew translate to.

2) Do you believe it is metaphorical.

 

It could literally mean 24 hour days but as a personal belief you think the authors wrote it metaphorically. From what I've found Hebrew scholars seem to insist that it's clearly not metaphorical (eg http://reformationinprogress.blogspot.com/2007/07/what-does-word-day-mean-in-genesis.html), but this can be an issue about what you believe.

 

I started a thread though on a hebrew forum so we can see what they think -- http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=3282730#post3282730. I'm afraid some of them might post just from religious belief but hopefully they'll understand what I mean about the difference from the translation and whether it's metaphorical.

 

I wish I would have put "both" as an option but I'm sure if someone thinks it can be both they'll say so in the thread.

 

Of course neither day-age creationism nor young earth creationism have any scientific basis; both of course contradict what we know to be true on a factual level so I'd say the distinction is rather unimportant. The only Christian or religious person who "doesn't have a mental disorder" would be the "liberal" interpreters in which case it isn't technically creationism where God created each and every single life form, instead they accept that humans and all other life on this planet evolved.

 

Or in the worlds of Charles Darwin, "I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists until recently entertained, and which I formerly entertained -- namely, that each species has been independently created -- is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally extinct spaces..."

[Phi for All]

It could literally mean 24 hour days but as a personal belief you think the authors wrote it metaphorically.

Since belief in a literal six-day creation contradicts geological and evolutionary evidence it MUST be a metaphor (or a misinterpretation of yom). Very little else about creationism completely contradicts science. It's not really about anyone's personal beliefs, it's about falsely assigning characteristics to a supposedly historical event based on a system of beliefs that denies characteristics typically used with historical events.

 

The option to view the six-day creation metaphorically removes the stumbling block between creationism and science. The rest can be ignored by both sides. God can still be omnipotent so the faithful are happy and science can still ask for evidence while remaining skeptical until they get it.

[theCPE]

Thank you for not responding to the personal attack. Your restraint is admirable and noted.

 

Are you kidding me.

 

The guy accused me of discussing christianity as opposed to science, the first person to quote anything of mine involving christianity wins a prize. Further, besides just being wrong and off base he acted indignently, If you act indignently to others expect the same in return.

 

Anyway, any time spent responding on this board is just wasted time.

[Phi for All]

Are you kidding me.

No.

 

The guy accused me of discussing christianity as opposed to science, the first person to quote anything of mine involving christianity wins a prize. Further, besides just being wrong and off base he acted indignently, If you act indignently to others expect the same in return.

Indignant is acceptable. You are both making *arguments*.

 

Calling someone inept is an ad hominem fallacy and we try to call them out when we see them. Logical fallacies can often keep us from learning so we don't allow them to stand unchallenged.

 

Anyway, any time spent responding on this board is just wasted time.

It could be that, for you, it is. However, I truly hope you will realize that your ego is not that fragile, shake it off and come back.

[1veedo]

theCPE you may not have meant what you said exactly as I interpreted it but if you read your statement again you can see what I'm talking about.

 

"Both [creationists and atheists] think they KNOW the what, why, and how of origin of life and existence when in fact there is zero evidence to support either side."

 

I wont claim that atheists per say know the what, why, and how of the origin of life / existence but an atheistic explanation is through evolution, ambiogenesis and the big bang, which DO have supporting evidence but which Creationism has none. And hence I gave you a link to talk.origins thinking that would straiten up your misconception.

 

Just a note on ambiogenesis though I do not claim that proves life arose from a purely natural process, though it does show how that could have happened (especially with some really interesting research that just came out -- check out either last month's or this month's edition of scientific american). However I'm fairly happy not "knowing" how life originally arose, and partially because I'm not a chemist nor a biologist so can't really understand it in the first place!

Since belief in a literal six-day creation contradicts geological and evolutionary evidence it MUST be a metaphor (or a misinterpretation of yom).

This logic of course assumes the Bible must somehow be correct in the first place, but fair enough.

The option to view the six-day creation metaphorically removes the stumbling block between creationism and science.

Yes but I still don't like that the actual events of creation are out of place. Just out of curiosity, if I remember correctly,

 

1) The sun / dark and night (which is correct, though the stars really should have came before this)

2) Then Haven and Earth (still good)

3) Here he creates land but in reality land came first, then water. I guess this is still ok if we're talking about the Bible and metaphors. Then he creates plants, but life first evolved in the sea.

4) God created the firmament, a mythical support layer above our atmosphere. In this firmament he puts the stars / planet. The firmament of course doesn't exist because we've been to the moon. Furthermore, assuming the firmament is a metaphor it still does not follow that the stars come this late, when in reality other stars existed before the sun.

5) Fish and birds.

6) Animals on the land (again out of order -- birds came latter). Then he creates man

7) Rests

 

The day-age theory still seems like creationism, with God personally creating each and every living thing.

[mooeypoo]

Yom means "Day" literally in hebrew. In fact, it doesn't mean a 24 hour day, but rather a DAY DAY -- as in, light time. In the bible, it even says "There be Day and there be NIGHT, day One".. in the jewish religion, each day starts with the setting of the sun of the previous day. The word "day" itself, in the bible, usually only refers to the light-time of the day.

 

by the way, in hebrew, the word "Yom" is used to say regular day (like in english.. 24 hour day from midnight to midnight) but also it has another meaning to say "light time", but it's used less in contemporary hebrew.

 

The jewish religious appologetics claim a few things about the meaning of days - first, that God has a different "definition" for days, and that a day for god can be a millenium for us. Second, that God's all powerful, therefore a full day is possible for the creation of whatever it is god wants to create. (of course, as to why the heck use 6 days at all and not just do everything at once, they have no answer..)

 

Since god only creates the sun in the middle of the process, then the text contradicts itself (how can there be a distinction between night and day if no sun? right.. one of many errancies).

 

Anyhoos, it's all a bunch of hooey. The literal translation of "day" as appears in context of Genesis is "lighttime" of the day (and the story mentions nighttime as a contrast). Mentioning of times, however, was always one of the bible's biggest fault - people lived to be 700 or 900, etc. It's quite hard to excuse these, unless you continuously change the definition of what day means.

 

 

As I said.. a bunch of hooey.

 

~moo

 

There is no scientific basis whatsoever to believe in many parts of it, so doesn't this irrational belief system separate people from reality, in a sense?

 

To answer the original question, I would say that if a person was born into creationism without really knowing anything else, his fault is ignorance, but not mental disorder. I would say, though, that the hardcore "never to be convinced" evangelicals out there who - no matter what - believe in creationism despite all evidence, are, in fact, suffering from some sort of disorder indeed. I don't think it's PHYSICAL though, so I wouldn't call it a mental disorder (because usually, as far as I know these are physical..?) but perhaps a psychological disorder..

 

 

There's something seriously wrong with people who ignore reality to support their delusions. if these folks would claim a pink unicorn is out there and they see it while praying, and it tells them we will all go to unicorn hell therefore they must try to convert us, then they would - most probably - be under strict medical supervision. If they start walking around preaching the end of the world, or racism, or on-the-verge-of-violence crap (as some extra evangelistic creationists do) they may even be locked up. So. Yes. I would say it fits the definition.

 

I would much rather believe they're able to be changed, without any drugs.

At least most of them.

 

That's my two cents.

 

~moo

[1veedo]

Anyhoos, it's all a bunch of hooey. The literal translation of "day" as appears in context of Genesis is "lighttime" of the day (and the story mentions nighttime as a contrast). Mentioning of times, however, was always one of the bible's biggest fault - people lived to be 700 or 900, etc. It's quite hard to excuse these, unless you continuously change the definition of what day means.

And these 900 year olds actually lived 900s of really long periods.

 

Adam and Eve sense they were made in the middle would be "ages" old.

but perhaps a psychological disorder..

Everything in psychology is at the same physical. To quote Myers, one of the largest authority in psychology, in regards to sexual orientation being physical and thus not a choice, (original emphasis) "It should not surprise us that brains differe with sexual orientation. Remember our maxim: Everything psychological is simultaneously biological." And you learn why this is true if you take psychology*.

 

Mental disorders are rarely "something in your head." Depression even has real, physical roots that you can identify on a cat scan. Of course in this case I do understand what you mean, just pointing out that there isn't a distinction here.

 

*Psychology is heavily rooted in biology; it's not Freudian like most people assume. But I just thought I'd show the "physics is at the root of all science" ladder

1) Psychology is based on biology

2) Biology is based on chemistry

3) Chemistry is based on physics

 

So everything leads to physics. And on each step you get a fairly large increase in complexity from very basic physical laws interacting together to create chemical reactions, DNA reproduction, and high-level consciousness It's just a bunch of neurons firing off with chemical reactions who's processes are determined by physics.

[Realitycheck]

Originally Posted by mooeypoo

 

Anyhoos, it's all a bunch of hooey. The literal translation of "day" as appears in context of Genesis is "lighttime" of the day (and the story mentions nighttime as a contrast). Mentioning of times, however, was always one of the bible's biggest fault - people lived to be 700 or 900, etc. It's quite hard to excuse these, unless you continuously change the definition of what day means.

And these 900 year olds actually lived 900s of really long periods.

 

Adam and Eve sense they were made in the middle would be "ages" old.

 

900 years, 900 mars years, or 900 lunar periods, it is all a bunch of hooey. In this one page alone, the author(s) is contradicting himself according to the history of the Torah, saying that it was delivered on Mount Sinai in 1300 BC, but then also saying that the first forms of it were not written until the 6th century BC. In all likelihood, almost all of it was just composed from oral stories, passed down from generation to generation, along the way losing almost any sense of accuracy. Don't forget the the gossip rule of mythology, that oral history loses 50% of its accuracy with every person that it goes through. When you get back to the beginning, they just had to make up a starting point. Adam and Eve probably never even existed.

 

The Israelites gathered at Mount Sinai in 1313 BCE (Jewish Year 2448) and received the Torah - the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These books, together with Nevi'im and Ketuvim are known as Torah Shebikhtav: literally the "Written Torah," as opposed to the Oral Torah, which refers to the Mishna and the Talmud. Eventually, God led them to the land of Israel.

The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BCE, destroying the First Temple that was at the center of ancient Jewish worship. The Judean elite were exiled to Babylonia and this is regarded as the first Jewish Diaspora. During this captivity the Jews in Babylon wrote what is known as the "Babylonian Talmud" while the remaining Jews in Judea wrote what is called the "Palestinian Talmud". These are the first written forms of the Torah and the Babylonian Talmud is the Talmud used to this day.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism

[waitforufo]

During various ecumenical councils held from 325 to 381 a creed was developed commonly known as the Nicene Creed. The creed is an epitome, not a full definition, of what is required for orthodoxy. It was hoped that by memorizing this summary of the faith, lay people without extensive theological training would still be able to recognize deviations from orthodox doctrines based on the Bible as interpreted in Christian Tradition. Today this creed is accepted by the Roman Catholic, Syrian Orthodox (Jacobite), Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and many other Protestant Churches.

 

The Nicene Creed begins as follows.

 

(Traditional Anglican and others)

I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible.

 

or

 

(Roman Catholic and others)

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

 

Perhaps this first article of faith was placed at the beginning of the creed based on chronological order. Perhaps it was put there due to its importance.

 

If a person believes this statement found in the Nicene Creed to be truth, can this person avoid the label “creationist?”

[Wormwood]

I have seen some interesting thoughts here.

 

Don't forget the the gossip rule of mythology, that oral history loses 50% of its accuracy with every person that it goes through.

This may be true in some cirumstances, but the hebrews were actually very good at keeping their oral traditions straight. If you need evidence look at the Talmud which was written by two different groups in two different regions with very little contradiction. This is information that had only existed verbally and was never written before the talmud.

 

Also, everyone is focusing on the word Yom, which does mean day like most people think of a day, but this still misses the beauty of the passage. In the first sentence of the Torah, the heavens and earth are already created. Second sentence:

the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters.

The word you guys might want to scrutinize is the word used for "was" here, because it also means "became". The earth became a dark void. If you really want to get into Gematria or Notikarion or something like that, there are some interpretations that sound pretty accurate compared to what we know today.

 

On top of this, genesis is a paraphrasing of events. It is not, nor is it supposed to be, a play by play account of everything that happened before the Torah was given. It is largely based on the religion of ancient Sumeria (which is why they have over lapping stories such as adapa/adam and eve). There is a clue to this effect in genesis when they tell you that Abraham's father was a temple priest in Ur.

 

My 2 cents anyway.

[lucaspa]

I'd like to see evidence for this... From a purely academic standpoint...

 

6. M Roach, Why men kill. Discover 19: 100-108, Dec. 1998. Summarizes study of Amazon tribe where half the males are murdered. looking for the evolutionary roots of violence.

[Realitycheck]

I have seen some interesting thoughts here.

 

 

This may be true in some cirumstances, but the hebrews were actually very good at keeping their oral traditions straight. If you need evidence look at the Talmud which was written by two different groups in two different regions with very little contradiction. This is information that had only existed verbally and was never written before the talmud.

 

 

 

When you factor in stuff like living 900 years, turning rivers to blood, and parting the red sea, you can easily see how far they got carried away with their storytelling.

[lucaspa]

The Nicene Creed begins as follows.

 

(Traditional Anglican and others)

I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible.

 

or

 

(Roman Catholic and others)

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

 

Perhaps this first article of faith was placed at the beginning of the creed based on chronological order. Perhaps it was put there due to its importance.

 

If a person believes this statement found in the Nicene Creed to be truth, can this person avoid the label “creationist?”

 

Yes. The Nicene Creed makes a theological statement: God created. This is creation.

 

Creationism is a particular HOW that God is said to have used to create. As studied in the period 1500-1831, it was a scientific theory. Scientists, all of whom were theists and many of whom were ministers, showed that creationism was false. What we have today are people who refuse to accept that the theory was falsified.

 

Is that a mental disorder? No. If refusal to accept falsification of a theory is a mental disorder, then many scientists, including Einstein, have suffered from it. There have always been scientists who refuse to accept that a particular theory has been shown to be false. There were phlogiston chemists who went to their graves refusing to accept phlogiston wasn't responsible for combustion. Maxwell and Lorentz refused to accept the falsification of the aether. Einstein refused to accept that strict determinism was falsified.

 

Now, back to the term "creationist". To be a creationist, you must believe that God directly manufactured some entities. All creationists, whatever their other disagreements, agree that humans were directly manufactured.

 

Remember, creationism is a particular method that God used to create. You can believe in creation but accept that what science has discovered is the mechanism that God used to create. This is what Darwin and the half of evolutionary biologists who are theists have done. By this belief, God created the universe by the Big Bang, galaxies, stars, and planets by gravity, life by chemistry, and the diversity of life by evolution. (Theology calls these "secondary causes"). This is "theistic evolution". It should be noted that creationists will not accept that theistic evolutionists are creationists.

 

"A Law of Nature then is the rule and Law, according to which God resolved that certain Motions should always, that is, in all Cases be performed. Every Law does immediately depend upon the Will of God." Gravesande, Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy, I, 2-3, 1726, quoted in CC Gillespie, Genesis and Geology, 1959.

 

"To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species,pg. 449.

 

For the latter, I've actually had a discussion with Christian creationists who asked me point-blank, "What don't you understand about the word 'day', it's pretty clear what a 'day' is, isn't it?" When I pointed out that Genesis was written originally in Hebrew where the word yom can also mean "an indeterminate amount of time" I could see that they had deluded themselves into forgetting all about the Hebrew influence in the Bible.

 

Phi, yes "yom" can mean time longer than a day, but it doesn't in Genesis 1. The authors deliberately set up creation to be six 24-hr days so that they would have a justification for the Sabbath. The authors intended a 24 hour day. The internal clues are:

1. In the first 3 days, the text specifically says "morning and evening" even tho there is no sun. This is there to make the day 24 hours.

2. When we get to the 7th day, which could be indefinite, we don't have "yom" anymore. Instead Genesis 2:1 and 2:2 uses the word "beyom" which means "in THE day" and is limited to occuring in a 24 hour day. This limits the 7th day to 24 hours because, otherwise, the ambiguity of "yom" in this context could have God still resting.

3. Exodus 20:11 and a passage in Levitcus explicitly tie the 6 days of work and 1 day of rest in the Commandment of the Sabbath to the 6 days of creation. If creation "days" were indefinite time, then the justification doesn't work.

 

So Day-Age Creationism fails on hermeneutical grounds as well as scientific grounds.

 

As I said, this is what the authors intended. The reason is to make a theological statement, not actual history.

 

Can creationism be called delusion when it seems somewhat cleverly and insistently perpetuated by a third party, in this case the creationist churches?

 

Creationism can be called a "con". The professional creationists are conning the laypeople creationists. The reason for this is that creationism does not have God as the object of worship. Creationism -- based on Biblical literalism or Fundamentalism -- worships the Bible, not God. This can be seen in the pamphlets The Fundamentals (online at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/6528/fundcont.htm ) A basic statement of Fundamentalism is that the Bible is "inerrant". Science and Higher Criticism (and Jesus) challenge this belief. Since the literal Bible is god, Fundamentalists simply ignore Jesus but feel compelled to attack science and Higher Criticism. After all, if science is right, their god can't be real.

 

When you factor in stuff like living 900 years, turning rivers to blood, and parting the red sea, you can easily see how far they got carried away with their storytelling.

 

Not necessarily. That's the problem: you have to take the claims one at a time, like we do everywhere else (such as Origin of Species). The 900 years can be falsified because it won't fit with history, but the miracles of the Plagues and Parting the Red Sea can't be falsified by science. I can easily see how you can have a personal opinion that these accounts are not true, but you can't know they aren't true.

[waitforufo]

The reason for this is that creationism does not have God as the object of worship. Creationism -- based on Biblical literalism or Fundamentalism -- worships the Bible, not God.

 

I am in complete agreement with the above quote.

 

All theological scholars of any merit agree that the Bible is a divinely inspired work, not a divinely created work. To be understood, the Bible must therefore be interpreted. The beginning of the Nicene Creed points out that “all that is, seen and unseen” is divinely created. Nature therefore needs no interpretation. It is what it is. Knowledge gained by understanding the divinely created trumps the interpretations of the divinely inspired. Does this make the Bible wrong? Theologians will tell you no, just wrongly interpreted.

 

Are creationists’ nuts? I would say they are just stubborn. They appear to be delusional, but to be clinically delusional I think you have to have hallucinations or visions.

[lucaspa]

I am in complete agreement with the above quote. ... Knowledge gained by understanding the divinely created trumps the interpretations of the divinely inspired. Does this make the Bible wrong? Theologians will tell you no, just wrongly interpreted.

 

This was stated by Christians over 170 years ago:

 

"If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437; quoted by Stephen Neill in Anglicanism, Penguin Books, 1960, pg. 240.

 

Are creationists’ nuts? I would say they are just stubborn. They appear to be delusional, but to be clinically delusional I think you have to have hallucinations or visions.

 

I would say that the professional creationists are criminal. They know differently and deliberately mislead the rank and file. Why? Because Fundamentalism is one religion where the religion is geared to the power of the priests or ministers. It's about them having power: theological and political.

 

I would say that the rank and file creationists are tragic. They have been fed, and believed, a tragic logical error: if God did not create the way creationism says, then God did not create and does not exist. They are also tragic for being duped by people who use them for money and political power.

[Realitycheck]

What I was originally thinking of was this. If someone attaches their faith to something that is untrue, then whatever expected outcomes that are also attached to this faith automatically bottom out and the only thing they can rely upon is luck and ingenuity. This is where science triumphs.

[Glider]

Are creationists’ nuts? I would say they are just stubborn. They appear to be delusional, but to be clinically delusional I think you have to have hallucinations or visions.

'Delusional' is not really a clinical term, although it has a clinical use. Anybody can be deluded, it simply means to hold a false belief that is resistant to change even in the face of evidence to the contrary. For example, white supremacists are deluded.

 

Clinically, delusions are usually wildly irrational (e.g. 'they're beaming thoughts into my head' or 'my dragon only eats jam') and are usually a symptom of some other underlying psychopathology.

[1veedo]

The word you guys might want to scrutinize is the word used for "was" here, because it also means "became". The earth became a dark void. If you really want to get into Gematria or Notikarion or something like that, there are some interpretations that sound pretty accurate compared to what we know today.

Not so: http://scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=349440#post349440

On top of this, genesis is a paraphrasing of events. It is not, nor is it supposed to be, a play by play account of everything that happened before the Torah was given.

Actually most Biblical scholars do seem to think the authors intended it to be literal history (and the same authors wrote a couple other books of the Bible too), though it is up to personal belief if it is or not, or if it's even real in the first place.

[ParanoiA]

Aren't non-creationists mentally ill? I don't mean creationists as how they've been politically defined - my head spins wading through the various definitions of "god did it" science.

 

To believe something came from nothing is quite irrational isn't it? Where did the universe and life come from? The materials?

 

Humans are built to understand things a certain way, to borrow from Dawkins. We require a "something" in order to make "something else". So for people to believe that "something" created what we understand to be the universe, is quite rational.

 

It's those who learn about the mechanics of evolution and then draw conclusions about origin that are irrational. A false sense of knowledge. Just because I know how an engine works, doesn't mean it wasn't manufactured by humans. Why would any rational scientist equate knowledge of mechanics to knowledge of origin?

[swansont]

Aren't non-creationists mentally ill? I don't mean creationists as how they've been politically defined - my head spins wading through the various definitions of "god did it" science.

 

To believe something came from nothing is quite irrational isn't it? Where did the universe and life come from? The materials?

 

Humans are built to understand things a certain way, to borrow from Dawkins. We require a "something" in order to make "something else". So for people to believe that "something" created what we understand to be the universe, is quite rational.

 

It's those who learn about the mechanics of evolution and then draw conclusions about origin that are irrational. A false sense of knowledge. Just because I know how an engine works, doesn't mean it wasn't manufactured by humans. Why would any rational scientist equate knowledge of mechanics to knowledge of origin?

 

"God did it" isn't science. It represents the end of inquiry, while science represents the start.

 

Evolution doesn't address origins.

 

Why can't one be agnostic about the origin of the universe? Why postulate a deity to explain it? Why the need for an answer, and satisfaction from having that answer, regardless of it being right or wrong? That's a false sense of knowledge.

 

Why does the universe need a start or have its creation explained, but the deity doesn't?

[ParanoiA]

"God did it" isn't science. It represents the end of inquiry, while science represents the start.

 

It represents the end of inquiry as to ultimate origin, which is compatible with science since its concerned with "how" and the mechanics.

 

Evolution doesn't address origins.

 

Glad we agree.

 

Why can't one be agnostic about the origin of the universe? Why postulate a deity to explain it? Why the need for an answer, and satisfaction from having that answer, regardless of it being right or wrong? That's a false sense of knowledge.

 

Because agnostic makes the prediction that we will never know - that's faith, just like theism. Why assume something came from nothing? Wouldn't that be supernatural? Creationism is based on the supernatural too. Maybe both are mentally ill...

 

Why does the universe need a start or have its creation explained, but the deity doesn't?

 

Because the deity is supernatural, and there is no explanation by natural law, by definition. Of course, the same can be said for the universe's supernatural infiniteness as well.

 

I'm just making the point that assuming the universe has no beginning is just as "supernatural" as assuming the universe was created by a deity. Neither is any more absurd than the other.

 

No mental illness. Just closed mindedness.

[Wormwood]

Not so: [url']http://scienceforums.net/forum/showt...440#post349440[/url]

I am going to take that as you have no idea what I'm talking about. Alright, forget notikarion or gematria; let's just look at the most basic encoded information. I don't know if any of you are Jewish, but as some of you may know, ancient hebrew was much different than hebrew today. The first, and biggest difference is that there were no vowels, and at the time of the Torah, there wasn't even vowel pointing yet. So in a word like YHVH, you have the meaning of the word itself, but you also have the meaning of each character mingled with that, so that each concept builds on or adds to the word. That is know as paronomasia and was fairly common in ancient writing.

 

There are numerous translations of the first line of genesis ranging from what you are familiar with to something like:

At the first, when the gods began to create the sky and the Earth, the Earth was in the greatest possible state of chaos."

You might find this helpful:

http://www.read-the-bible.org/Beginning.html

http://hope-of-israel.org/shekina2.htm

 

I know for a fact that most bibles intentionally mistranslate certain things, or use translations that are "culturally correct". For example, in some parts of genesis the word used for God is Elohim which is plural and means "gods". Who is God talking to when he says "we" should kick adam and eve out of the garden before they eat the fruit of knowledge and become as one of US? The fact that elohim is used is significant, as every single word was carefully selected for the torah. This is because the creation of man is not the topic of genesis. That's why it only gets one line, but the specifics of the temple or the arc of the covenant gets several pages. Genesis is a spiritual beggining. How do you think Adam and eve's children were able to find wives? Why were there kings of Edom before the law was handed down or before people had been created? Some people will say that "we" means the royal we, but it is only used in genesis in specific contexts. This is because all of the pre-torah genesis is based on the religion that preceeded it in ancient Sumeria. The great flood, Adapa (Adam and Eve), Soddom and Gammorah; these are all things that were borrowed from a polytheistic culture, hence the "gods" created man. This is why "god" lies to Adam and Eve, why there is a talking serpent in the garden (ENKI), and why Abraham's father was known as a temple priest from Ur (The father of Judaism was fathered by another religion). Looking at Adam and eve, the story doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you look at the story of Adapa, it makes more sense. Adapa, wasn't the first hominid, but he was the first homo sapien capable of civilization. There wasn't one man and one woman, but 7 of each which allows enough genetic variance to avoid severly inbred children. And the serpent was the god ENKI whose symbol was the snake, but who was the protagonist of man in this first religion (hence god lying and "satan" telling the truth). When looking at the older stories, it is easy to see that there is paraphrasing going on, but with poetic signifigance.

Why not look up the name of every person from Adam to Noah, then translate their names and you might notice something interesting, and that the Genesis is not a play by play account, but a paraphrased poetic telling of the time before the law.

 

Also:

Talmud Chaggiga 13b-14a states that there were 974 generations before God created Adam. How does that fit a literal interpretation?

 

 

Actually most Biblical scholars do seem to think the authors intended it to be literal history (and the same authors wrote a couple other books of the Bible too), though it is up to personal belief if it is or not, or if it's even real in the first place.

No; many Christian scholars think it is literal. Most Jews believe in Science from my experience. There may be some who believe the literal reading, but they are not the majority. Even in the middle ages Rabbis were warning about when the Torah conflicts with science.

 

As for the authors of genesis writing other books, I'm not sure where you got that information. Many of the stories in genesis were circulating for 1000 years before there were even Jews. Maybe you meant the person that compiled genesis, also wrote the other four books of the Torah?