Theists: what does your god want for you?

[CleanShavenJesus]

Oh, yeah.

Entire biological kingdoms are never even hinted at (fungi, protists, the bacteria). God told Adam to name all the beasts after their kind, a tall order when there are more than a million classified species in the animal kingdom and only a minuscule fraction of animals (all conveniently local to the middle east) are depicted as existing in Eden.

I find it kind of odd that anybody took the Bible seriously once it was obvious that the universe took a lot longer to make than one week, yet here we are, more than a hundred years later, every piece of evidence ever found contradicting the Bible, and people still interpret it literally.

You are assuming Genesis, which has two accounts, is meant to be taken literally.

I don't see any allegorical use for it. It's the Bible's way of explaining how we got here.

[Darkstar]

You are assuming Genesis, which has two accounts, is meant to be taken literally.

Wait...so if Genesis isn't literal, does that mean that by extension all stories that refer to people as direct descendants of Adam and Eve (Descendants of Adam and Eve) are also fictional? And when you say Genesis, do you mean just the creation account, or all of Genesis?

[jstrodel]

Well, many people believe that Genesis is partially literal and that there was historical adam and eve but the process of creation took place over a longer period. Others believe that the genealogies are basically literal but contain gaps in them. Others believe that the characters adam and eve are symbolic and the genealogies are metaphorical. Peter Eens is one scholar who has written about a non historical adam. Honestly, I don't know that much about it. I don't have any specific position on whether adam is a literal character or not, I don't know that much about it. It does seem like there are problems with genealogies that are non-literal, but at the same time, the hebrew word av for father does not necessarily refer to a single biological father, Abraham is referred to as the father of Israel. Some people might understand the genealogies to refer to a metaphorical series of fathers who existed in the past that represent mythical pre-history, similar to understanding abraham as the av of many nations, though he was not the biological father.

Honestly, this doesn't completely satisfy me because it seems like Genesis is historical. But I really couldn't say. It is worth studying more, I could not say whether Adam and Eve were intended to be taken as literal people. The culture of the ancient world is also different from ours and Genesis is not written at all the same way that modern histories are.

To say that Genesis is mythical or allegorical does not imply that it is of the literary genre of fiction though. Genesis could be a spiritual history of the world that has literal and non-literal components. This does not mean it is false, and would make it consistent with a lot of the literature of the ancient world. Again, I could not say whether it is intended to be a literal history or not.

Here is one article about it: http://biologos.org/blog/a-historical-adam

[Ryantology]

To say that Genesis is mythical or allegorical does not imply that it is of the literary genre of fiction though.

No, not technically. Literary fiction is generally self-aware. The authors of the Bible had no clue about cosmology and physics, so they cannot have been expected to have any idea how the universe truly began, so they cobbled together a bunch of local superstitions and decided that an old Canaanite deity made the whole thing himself. They have some excuse for being ignorant. It's people in the 21st century who have none. The world wasn't made in six days, and humans have been around a lot longer than six thousand years.

[jstrodel]

What if God simply wanted to use simple imagery to communicate a message that would not easily fit in a thousand pages or so? What use to most people have for a detailed origin of the universe, which eludes the modern mind, which would take libraries and libraries and libraries full of books to be able to establish?

Can you offer a single argument that proves why God should prefer this method of libraries full of scientific literature to communicate God's nature and the role God had in history over a simple, memorizable perhaps to some degree an abstraction of a complex series of events that really have next to no role in most of the people's lives.

Put it in formal logic (self evident propositions + presuppositions -> conclusion ) . I want to see what sort of presupposition about God's nature would be required to sustain a view of the world that makes the Bible useless if it does not give people more advanced and detailed knowledge of the universe in the ancient world, including knowledge that would potentially give people the ability to make nuclear weapons.

[Ryantology]

What if God simply wanted to use simple imagery to communicate a message that would not easily fit in a thousand pages or so? What use to most people have for a detailed origin of the universe, which eludes the modern mind, which would take libraries and libraries and libraries full of books to be able to establish?

Oh, that God of yours. He has the ability to create a universe but he's just completely lost when it comes to communication. He's the ultimate autistic.

Can you offer a single argument that proves why God should prefer this method of libraries full of scientific literature to communicate God's nature and the role God had in history over a simple, memorizable perhaps to some degree an abstraction of a complex series of events that really have next to no role in most of the people's lives.

Can you offer me a single reason why God should prefer to give people an account which is misleading and of no real value to understanding the universe? If it has no value to understanding the universe, what was the point of the Genesis story even being in the Bible? Why would anyone need to know any account except an accurate account?

Put it in formal logic (self evident propositions + presuppositions -> conclusion ) . I want to see what sort of presupposition about God's nature would be required to sustain a view of the world that makes the Bible useless if it does not give people more advanced and detailed knowledge of the universe in the ancient world, including knowledge that would potentially give people the ability to make nuclear weapons.

Prove the existence of God using formal logic and I'll use the same method to demonstrate his intentions. Until then, don't ask me to do something you can't do.

[catfish]

You are assuming Genesis, which has two accounts, is meant to be taken literally.

I don't see any allegorical use for it. It's the Bible's way of explaining how we got here.

And just like that, the atheist goes all literal fundy on us.

[Ryantology]

Religious fundamentalists are really annoying people, but I have a bit more respect for them than I do for the casual religious. The religious fundamentalist applies critical thinking skills to search for the truth, the problem is that they search for it in a fraudulent textbook. If they applied their skills properly, they'd make good scientists, probably.

Casual, revisionist religious people only want enough material to corroborate what they've already decided to be true. That's why there are a lot of people who believe that the malevolent, violent and psychopathic Christian God is a kind, loving being who cares deeply about them and their lives.

[catfish]

Casual, revisionist religious people only want enough material to corroborate what they've already decided to be true. That's why there are a lot of people who believe that the malevolent, violent and psychopathic Christian God is a kind, loving being who cares deeply about them and their lives.

And just like that, the atheist reads just enough to support what he believes...

[Ryantology]

What have I missed?