Creationism vs Evolution

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
961

Oh, and for the she-bear mauling. One of the interesting things in my readings is that you notice that most of the time God’s chosen people aren’t perfect–most of them have at least one glaring flaw that they struggle with. They all have typical human traits even though they are empowered. David, adultery. Moses, disobedience, etc.

That being said, I’m going to pull a Dr. Skeptix here because I am bored out of my mind and look this up…

Turns out Elisha (not elijah) was the one doing the cursing. According to the language used there, it seems the term in hebrew could mean anything from someone as young as 12 to old as 30 or so, (it is used elsewhere to denote army soldiers) so not necessarily kids. It also seems that the phrase that they used was not so much teasing as an epithet–culturally scornful, with possible ties to the “untouchable” caste of the day–lepers.

No idea whether it is supposed to be referencing lepers from my limited understanding, but I would presume its not something you would say to a prophet in innocent teasing unless you were seriously mocking him. I would assume in those days if you mocked a prophet you were also probably mocking who he represented, not just himself.

Who knows, I could be way off.

963

[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pookie wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
Well? Give up? Remember, your answer must be in the form of a question.
…

Good to know you have it all figured out as allegorical. Dumb people everywhere should flock to you for instruction on the Bible. Maybe you can elaborate and tell us why the story is not BOTH literal and allegorical. You seem to have a divine calling of some sort that allows you discern that God was just joking around with all the physical stuff.
…

Nope.
Deut 30:12-16.[i]

  1. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”
  2. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”
  3. Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.
  4. Behold, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil,
965

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pookie wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
Well? Give up? Remember, your answer must be in the form of a question.
…

Good to know you have it all figured out as allegorical. Dumb people everywhere should flock to you for instruction on the Bible. Maybe you can elaborate and tell us why the story is not BOTH literal and allegorical. You seem to have a divine calling of some sort that allows you discern that God was just joking around with all the physical stuff.
…

[/quote]
Nope.
Deut 30:12-16.[/quote]

  1. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”
  2. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”
  3. Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.
  4. Behold, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil,
966

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Oh, and for the she-bear mauling. One of the interesting things in my readings is that you notice that most of the time God’s chosen people aren’t perfect–most of them have at least one glaring flaw that they struggle with. They all have typical human traits even though they are empowered. David, adultery. Moses, disobedience, etc.

That being said, I’m going to pull a Dr. Skeptix here because I am bored out of my mind and look this up…

Turns out Elisha (not elijah) was the one doing the cursing. According to the language used there, it seems the term in hebrew could mean anything from someone as young as 12 to old as 30 or so, (it is used elsewhere to denote army soldiers) so not necessarily kids. It also seems that the phrase that they used was not so much teasing as an epithet–culturally scornful, with possible ties to the “untouchable” caste of the day–lepers.

No idea whether it is supposed to be referencing lepers from my limited understanding, but I would presume its not something you would say to a prophet in innocent teasing unless you were seriously mocking him. I would assume in those days if you mocked a prophet you were also probably mocking who he represented, not just himself.

Who knows, I could be way off.[/quote]

naar – youth, stripling. Suggests “to shake off,” as someone who would be empty of virtue.

And leprosy probably did not exist in the Middle East until Alexander’s armies brought it back from India.

968

[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pookie wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
Well? Give up? Remember, your answer must be in the form of a question.
…

Good to know you have it all figured out as allegorical. Dumb people everywhere should flock to you for instruction on the Bible. Maybe you can elaborate and tell us why the story is not BOTH literal and allegorical. You seem to have a divine calling of some sort that allows you discern that God was just joking around with all the physical stuff.
…

Nope.
Deut 30:12-16.

  1. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”
  2. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?”
  3. Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.
  4. Behold, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil,

Doc, I think I may see where you’re going with this but re-examine this in context before you try to make this analogous with the hypothetical application of the Flood as a strict allegory.

Pretty weak it that’s what you’re doing. There is a difference between metaphorical language and an allegory. For instance, if I say, “I’m gonna kick your ass all over the internet,” you could probably have the intellectual wherewithal to differentiate that from the story I told about Cowboy several pages back where he stopped by and witnessed the fight between the Crips and the Bloods.

Now go find another passage and bring it back to ol’ Flushy.[/quote]

Allegory? No. Metaphor? Only a little. Textual analysis. Yes.

I was using Deuteronomy to address your barb: “Dumb people everywhere should flock to you for instruction on the Bible.”

These verses address it well: the Old Testament is an open text, for all to read and revel in. Even Pookie. No one should flock to me, or any isolated interpreter, as interlocutor. But everyone is obliged to read and think for himself.

970

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Fixed that for you, strictly in the interest of accuracy.[/quote]

You need new material, flushy old boy. You must’ve used that “fixed it for you” schtick about 10 times this past week alone.

971

[quote]pushharder wrote:
She told me her teacher gave a fairly balanced presentation to each theory and they spent maybe a week or so in lectures and discussion.[/quote]

Each theory? Flood geology is not a theory. It doesn’t help predict anything, and it’s not falsifiable. If it was, it would’ve died out long ago, as the problems it has explaining natural evidence are simply insurmountable; once you need to invoke a supernatural agent, you’re not doing science anymore.

974

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
You didn’t like it so much. In that chapter of II Kings, God does not appear or act. Elisha calls down a curse “in God’s name” but the Editor did not say, “and God sent two she-bears…” No, it is Elisha who is performing a miracle, again proving that he is a powerful profit worthy of inheriting Elijah’s mantle. But mercy does not seem to be one of Elisha’s divine traits, unfortunately for the rapscallions.

And also unfortunately, the kids do not repent. (No time? They were “mauled” or “torn.” The text does not say “killed.” Maybe they repented afterwards in the Oursine Recovery Suite.)

Parenthetically, how does this story tie in with the Flood story?
“It is clear” that these are magical bears; their behavior is not natural. It is tradition that the supernatural creatures of the OT–these bears, the ravens that fed Elijah, the “Great Fish” that swallowed Jonah–must have been created at The Beginning, along with all the “ordinary” animals. But somehow they survived the Flood with Noah. (Note that Noah saved a male and female of each species–then did God save the 2 she-bears? Was this a sanctioned domestic partnership?)[/quote]

Interesting. Although if God create the two magical bears hundreds of years before, He must’ve known their ultimate use by Elisha; that would make him at least complicit (before the fact, ha!) in Elisha’s “miraculous” can of woop-ass.

True that.

[quote]Yep. It is explicit that in each contract, the terms are forever, and are intended not just for those alive and present, but for all the progeny, forever.
Eight will do quite nicely. A contract is a contract![/quote]

Removing all opposition with a global holocaust does tend to simplify the negotiations.

[quote]My understanding is inadequate; but Pushharder had invited a re-reading which was revelatory for me.
As for the pun, you might admit that mine was pretty good, when Push suggested a day of Final Judgment, and I promoted you to “the next round.”[/quote]

Yup, nice. Although I worry very little about upcoming divine judgments. Much less than I worry about some fanatic group getting their hands on WMDs of some kind and deciding to hasten the coming of whatever mythical judgment they’re awaiting.

975

…when Darwin was halfway compiling “On the Origins of Species” he got a letter from Indonesia. It was in fact a paper written by Alfred Russel Wallace describing natural selection. He wrote in his autobiography:

"It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are continually acting in the case of animals also; and as animals usually breed much more quickly than does mankind, the destruction every year from these causes must be enormous in order to keep down the numbers of each species, since evidently they do not increase regularly from year to year, as otherwise the world would long ago have been crowded with those that breed most quickly.

Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask the question, why do some die and some live? And the answer was clearly, on the whole the best fitted liveâ?¦ and considering the amount of individual variation that my experience as a collector had shown me to exist, then it followed that all the changes necessary for the adaptation of the species to the changing conditions would be brought aboutâ?¦

In this way every part of an animals organization could be modified exactly as required, and in the very process of this modification the unmodified would die out, and thus the definite characters and the clear isolation of each new species would be explained."

976

[quote]pushharder wrote:
pookie wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Fixed that for you, strictly in the interest of accuracy.

You need new material, flushy old boy. You must’ve used that “fixed it for you” schtick about 10 times this past week alone.

Sometimes the old material just keeps on keepin’ on. Even the schticky stuff.[/quote]

If the goal is to keep on boring, then it’s doing admirably well.

[quote](Where in Quebec do you do your pastoring? I may want to stop by some day and donnez un coup de pied �  votre bout, Frenchy. Either that or incendiez votre mobile home)

;-)[/quote]

Quaqtaq, third igloo on the left.

977

I found an honest creationist.

Kurt Wise. Kurt Wise - Wikipedia

He has a degree in paleontology from Harvard University where he studied under the supervision of Stephen Jay Gould. Impressive credentials.

So, why is Wise honest?

In a presentation at the conference, Wise showed a slide of a fossil sequence that moved from reptile to mammal, with some transitional fossils in between. He veered suddenly from his usual hyperactive mode to contemplative. “It’s a pain in the neck,” he said. “It fits the evolutionary prediction quite well.” Wise and others have come up with various theories explaining how the flood could have produced such perfect order. Wise is refining a theory, for example, that the order reflects how far the animals lived from the shore, so those living farthest from the water show up last in the record. But they haven’t settled on anything yet.

He goes on to say:

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand.

He could admit that all the evidence in the universe is against his position, yet still maintain it? Why even bother with science anyway if one has already decided that Scripture trumps all?

978

[quote]pookie wrote:
I found an honest creationist.

Kurt Wise. Kurt Wise - Wikipedia

He has a degree in paleontology from Harvard University where he studied under the supervision of Stephen Jay Gould. Impressive credentials.

So, why is Wise honest?

In a presentation at the conference, Wise showed a slide of a fossil sequence that moved from reptile to mammal, with some transitional fossils in between. He veered suddenly from his usual hyperactive mode to contemplative. “It’s a pain in the neck,” he said. “It fits the evolutionary prediction quite well.” Wise and others have come up with various theories explaining how the flood could have produced such perfect order. Wise is refining a theory, for example, that the order reflects how far the animals lived from the shore, so those living farthest from the water show up last in the record. But they haven’t settled on anything yet.

He goes on to say:

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand.

He could admit that all the evidence in the universe is against his position, yet still maintain it? Why even bother with science anyway if one has already decided that Scripture trumps all?

[/quote]

Perhaps Prof Wise is indeed a close student of S J Gould. Hidden away in one of his essays is his comment, to which I have alluded, that creationism and evolution (or faith and science) belong to different majesteria. Some would dismiss this as double-think; how can both propositions be true? Well, perhaps Prof Wise understands that each process is absolutely true in their separate realms, even when contradictory.

979

[quote]pookie wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:

Parenthetically, how does this story tie in with the Flood story?
“It is clear” that these are magical bears; their behavior is not natural. It is tradition that the supernatural creatures of the OT–these bears, the ravens that fed Elijah, the “Great Fish” that swallowed Jonah–must have been created at The Beginning, along with all the “ordinary” animals. But somehow they survived the Flood with Noah. (Note that Noah saved a male and female of each species–then did God save the 2 she-bears? Was this a sanctioned domestic partnership?)

Interesting. Although if God create the two magical bears hundreds of years before, He must’ve known their ultimate use by Elisha; that would make him at least complicit (before the fact, ha!) in Elisha’s “miraculous” can of woop-ass.

I offer only I B Singer’s answer to the question of whether there is “free will.” “Free will?” he pondered. “Yes, there is free will–because we have no other choice!”

True that.

[/quote]

From the beginning Man has both the inclination to Evil and the inclination to Good. Which Elisha used is a demonstration of Free Will. Unfortunately for those cut-ups.

(Funny how I set this up, eh?)

As for puns, I guess you didn’t like my last interlinguistic culinary example: “biscuit…souffle…twice.” Just trying to inject a “breath” of fresh air…