Life From Dirt?

[Subduction Zone]

That is an expression that meant that from that day they would know that they would surely die.
You must think all Jews and Christians are stupid, and the writers were stupid, when God says something that is shown to be a lie on the next page, and they still believe God did not lie and nobody redacted it out over the years.

No, now you are adding unjustified context that was not there. And no, not stupid, and clearly not all. In fact most realize that Genesis is not meant to be read literally. You are not necessarily stupid. It looks more like a case of cognitive dissonance. Something near and dear to you is obviously wrong so your mind plays tricks on you.

 

[Alien826]

The simple explanations are the best. The mathematicians should be able to explain the meaning of their work.

@Polymath257 was gracious enough to try to explain to me how i (the square root of -1) could have an application in the "real" world, There is no square root of -1 (in arithmetic) by definition, as minus times minus gives a positive number. Nevertheless it is used very successfully in applications that apply to the real world. I eventually got some idea of what it was about, but it wasn't easy. Now ask a mathematician to put the concept of "spin", as it used in the quantum world, in simple terms that make sense to the average person. It's not to do with spinning as we understand it.

Mathematicians, help me out here!

 

[Polymath257]

The simple explanations are the best. The mathematicians should be able to explain the meaning of their work.

We can. Of course, you may have to do a LOT of study to understand the explanations. Some ideas are just not simple.

Even if simpler explanations are best, that doesn't mean everything *has* a simple explanation. In other words, an explanation should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. To over-simplify is a form of lying.

Some aspects of mathematics take even mathematicians *years* to understand. Why would you expect a 15 minute explanation that would be comprehensible to someone who knows no math?

 

[Polymath257]

@Polymath257 was gracious enough to try to explain to me how i (the square root of -1) could have an application in the "real" world, There is no square root of -1 (in arithmetic) by definition, as minus times minus gives a positive number. Nevertheless it is used very successfully in applications that apply to the real world. I eventually got some idea of what it was about, but it wasn't easy. Now ask a mathematician to put the concept of "spin", as it used in the quantum world, in simple terms that make sense to the average person. It's not to do with spinning as we understand it.

Mathematicians, help me out here!

Once again, the concept of positive and negative numbers doesn't apply to complex numbers. And, no, it is NOT a definition that a negative number times a negative number is a positive number. it is a *conclusion* based on the assumed order properties of numbers. For those numbers where the order properties don't apply, neither does that conclusion.

As for spin, good luck. It is an essentially quantum concept that has no large scale analog. the best that can be said is that it is a form of 'intrinsic' angular momentum. In other words, in situations where an accounting of angular momentum needs to be done, the spin needs to be added into the total.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It seems you first need to show that spirit exists before proposing it in science as an answer to anything.

I'd say that it was enough to propose that spirit exists if one has an observation not explainable without the idea. Here's the sine qua non of calling something real or actual: It has to be detectable in space and time as some sort or interaction in some place at some time with other real things, even if only a ping on a Geiger counter. Real things can do that. Things that cannot be detected at any time at any place by any means should not be called real, or existing.

if people want to claim things about Gen 2 I don't know how I can rebut them.

If you know where and how they are incorrect, it's because you can demonstrate that, but if they are correct, you cannot successfully rebut them. That's the power of rebuttal (debate, dialectic) and the reason for the impotence of all other forms of dissent and why it doesn't persuade those who require sound argument before believing. This has been an extremely difficult concept to share with the faithful not experienced in critical thought. I don't expect such people to master that over night or even ever, but it would be nice to see somebody that would even consider that possibility, or be able to repeat what is being claimed. But perhaps that's an unreasonable expectation. If so, I can't say why. I can't say why I never see it.

I was referring to God in timelessness. God's knowing probably replaced a need to think and work things out over time.

God knowing replaced a need to think? Is this god considered conscious? Does its mental content evolve like occurs in conscious minds as they observe and assess the parade of conscious content? If it does either of things, it exists in time. Why is that anathema to an Abrahamic theist? Is it because you'd like to say that God created time? If so, that's as incoherent as claiming that God created consciousness. Creation occurs over time, and nothing could be the intelligent designer of consciousness. Think about that for a moment. Intelligence implies consciousness already in existence.

they are abstract things that do not take up space.

Ideas exist in conscious brains and presumably are distributed through and/or around them.

It was Christianity that promoted learning over the centuries and which started the first universities.

Christian scripture had nothing to do with the advent of science or universities or their liberal arts curricula. Christians and the church are capable of adopting humanist methods and doing the same work, but the neither the work nor the inspiration for it come from biblical doctrine. Newton was a Christian, but his lasting contribution to mathematics and physics has nothing to do with his Christianity.

Principia could have been written by an equally gifted atheist up until the part where Newton actually does inject a Christian idea into his celestial mechanics. Newton's math predicted that larger planets would toss planets like earth into the sun or out of the solar system, and so, he added his god ad hoc right where he ran out of knowledge, who was needed to nudge the planets back into position. That's where Newton jumped the shark and began adding useless faith-based ideas. That was the Christian part. Then, a century later, Laplace supplied the mathematics Newton lacked, restoring the solar system to a clockwork needing no intelligent supervision.

It was Christianity from which the more profound implication came (and to which you refer) and possible without which, the study of and testing of nature might not have begun nearly as early.

So you have already claimed. Where's your evidence. Where in the Christian Bible does that idea appear. Did Moses make that claim? Abraham? David? Jesus? Paul? None did or advocated anything like rationalism. Christians began experimenting with it in the Middle Ages (scholasticism) after reacquiring classical learning from the Arabs, who had saved Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid. But what did they add but a bunch fallacious "Proof of God" and a head count for angels dancing on pins?

Observation was added by Christians, notably I hear of Francis Bacon who is seen to be the father of empiricism.

It isn't a Christian innovation just because a Christian thinks of it as we just saw with Newton. And empiricism is the enemy of wrong ideas.

Are you saying that deism and atheism were not tenable before science?

Yes. They wouldn't have been for me. The first wave of scientists showed us the clockwork universe, where heavenly bodies move without gods or angels pushing them, gases equilibrate without any intelligent oversight, and electrons move through circuits unaided. This ushered in the age of deism, where the ruler deity was no longer needed. But how did this all get here? The builder god was still needed, but not thereafter. Then the second wave of scientists showed us how the cosmos and the tree of life assembled themselves without intelligent oversight, making the builder god no longer necessary, and making atheism tenable. It became very reasonable to believe that no god was involved in any of it.

But a naturalistic mechanism for things that were previously seen as things that God did, does not push God aside or the need for God.

It squeezes him into a narrower gap. And there is no need for a god in any scientific theory. What would it be required for? What would its job be if building and moving the world can occur without one? If one has already decided that such a god exists and was involved in creating our universe, he'll want to find a job for it - one only an intelligent designer could do. There is nothing like that. None of the unanswered questions in science require positing a god. Agreed, that doesn't rule gods out, but that's not reason enough to add them to science. Mere possibility isn't enough.

You talk science as if belief in God is and should be a matter of science.

For a critical thinker, all belief should be empirically justified.

He was saying that if you aren't going to believe in God because of nature, then God will not do a miracle especially to convince you.

His words were, "God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it." He was saying that no miracle is needed to believe in God, that sufficient evidence exists in observing nature.

So I am automatically wrong even if I am right?

You are not believed until you demonstrate that you are correct according to the rules of those you are trying to convince. Motivated reasoning violates them. It's what anybody trying to be convincing who doesn't respect humanist values does. We see it in Putin in his explanations for why he had to attack Ukraine in defense (does anybody believe that apart form somebody biased in favor of Putin or Russia?). We see it from Trump in his litany of excuses following the exposure of the Stormy Daniels hush money payments and stolen classified documents. If you are correct, you don't need to resort to specious argumentation.

I think you show a case of "motivated reasoning".

Show me where any of my reasoning is biased in any direction apart from a bias for sound argument, which is a rational bias and therefore desirable, such as a bias against drunk driving. If you are correct, you can do that. If you are incorrect, you cannot.

Not me, I'm not biased.

You're a Christian apologist. You are biased in favor of your god existing and scripture being from it, which belief is not rational but rather faith-based, and your agenda is to promote that belief.

 

[Alien826]

Once again, the concept of positive and negative numbers doesn't apply to complex numbers. And, no, it is NOT a definition that a negative number times a negative number is a positive number. it is a *conclusion* based on the assumed order properties of numbers. For those numbers where the order properties don't apply, neither does that conclusion.

As for spin, good luck. It is an essentially quantum concept that has no large scale analog. the best that can be said is that it is a form of 'intrinsic' angular momentum. In other words, in situations where an accounting of angular momentum needs to be done, the spin needs to be added into the total.

I rest my case.

And thanks.

 

[Alien826]

.... nothing could be the intelligent designer of consciousness. Think about that for a moment. Intelligence implies consciousness already in existence.

During all my debating on this subject, that one has never occurred to me. Of course. Some kind of unintelligent process could create intelligence, but an intelligent designer needs pre existing intelligence to do "intelligent design" (for the first time). And we're off down the tower of turtles again. Why didn't I think of that?

 

[Heyo]

Once again, the concept of positive and negative numbers doesn't apply to complex numbers. And, no, it is NOT a definition that a negative number times a negative number is a positive number. it is a *conclusion* based on the assumed order properties of numbers. For those numbers where the order properties don't apply, neither does that conclusion.

As for spin, good luck. It is an essentially quantum concept that has no large scale analog. the best that can be said is that it is a form of 'intrinsic' angular momentum. In other words, in situations where an accounting of angular momentum needs to be done, the spin needs to be added into the total.

:informative:

 

[gnostic]

During all my debating on this subject, that one has never occurred to me. Of course. Some kind of unintelligent process could create intelligence, but an intelligent designer needs pre existing intelligence to do "intelligent design" (for the first time). And we're off down the tower of turtles again. Why didn't I think of that?

But the problem with the Designer in the Intelligent Design, is that it’s still relying on the same superstition as the “God did it” of theistic religions and the creation myths.

Plus, the Intelligent Design from the Discovery Institute, is actually a Christian Creationism, except that instead of using “God”, “Creator” and other titles for a Christian deity, they pretend that the creation myth to be “scientific” concept, by avoiding any religious references, and yet it cannot hide the fact that Phillip E Johnson, the inventor of Intelligent Design, was always a Young Earth Creationism creationist, since becoming a born again Christian. There is also the fact that he was former law student and law professor, with no background (eg no qualifications, experiences,etc) in any science field.

His partner, Stephen C Meyer, another YEC creationist, despite have a degree in geology, his professional experiences was in oil, not in biostratigraphy and paleontology.

Michael Behe, while he is a biochemist, is an OEC creationist. The problem with Behe, he is not known for being intellectually honest in his apologetic defence on ID, and his Irreducible Complexity paper, turned out to be unfalsifiable (untestable) and untested (no evidence & no experiments), which disqualified IC from being called respectively a hypothesis and science.

Intelligent Design is unfalsifiable and untested, which would make ID nothing more than pseudoscience.

 

[Brian2]

Except the passage is very clear. That would result in the death penalty.

No there is no death penalty for an accidental manslaughter afaik.

 

[Brian2]

No, now you are adding unjustified context that was not there. And no, not stupid, and clearly not all. In fact most realize that Genesis is not meant to be read literally. You are not necessarily stupid. It looks more like a case of cognitive dissonance. Something near and dear to you is obviously wrong so your mind plays tricks on you.

Genesis 3: 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

This is what the serpent said, it was a lie, the context does not matter when it comes to whether it was a lie or not. The serpent did not even mention "on the day", the serpent just denied that they would die. They did die, it was a lie.
Easy answer to the question, an answer that cannot be denied. If you want to discuss the meaning of "on the day" that is another question.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Genesis 3: 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

This is what the serpent said, it was a lie, the context does not matter when it comes to whether it was a lie or not. The serpent did not even mention "on the day", the serpent just denied that they would die. They did die, it was a lie.
Easy answer to the question, an answer that cannot be denied. If you want to discuss the meaning of "on the day" that is another question.

The context always matters. Are you supposed to have already forgotten that they were to die that day according to the myth? If they are that dumb then that is still a failure of God. In fact even if the serpent lied, which he did not, God was the bad guy in that myth. But you won't let yourself understand that. It is one of the ways that rational Christians do not take that story literally. If you actually read the story there was no immortality given to Adam and Eve. None was implied. They had the chance to be immortal. Literalists always forget that there were two trees in the garden and the Adam and Eve ate from only one of them.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No there is no death penalty for an accidental manslaughter afaik.

Do I have to quote the verses that say that if she died that the man that hit her was to die? It is very clear. This level of denial does you no good at all.

 

[Alien826]

But the problem with the Designer in the Intelligent Design, is that it’s still relying on the same superstition as the “God did it” of theistic religions and the creation myths.

Plus, the Intelligent Design from the Discovery Institute, is actually a Christian Creationism, except that instead of using “God”, “Creator” and other titles for a Christian deity, they pretend that the creation myth to be “scientific” concept, by avoiding any religious references, and yet it cannot hide the fact that Phillip E Johnson, the inventor of Intelligent Design, was always a Young Earth Creationism creationist, since becoming a born again Christian. There is also the fact that he was former law student and law professor, with no background (eg no qualifications, experiences,etc) in any science field.

His partner, Stephen C Meyer, another YEC creationist, despite have a degree in geology, his professional experiences was in oil, not in biostratigraphy and paleontology.

Michael Behe, while he is a biochemist, is an OEC creationist. The problem with Behe, he is not known for being intellectually honest in his apologetic defence on ID, and his Irreducible Complexity paper, turned out to be unfalsifiable (untestable) and untested (no evidence & no experiments), which disqualified IC from being called respectively a hypothesis and science.

Intelligent Design is unfalsifiable and untested, which would make ID nothing more than pseudoscience.

Agreed, but you may have misunderstood what I said.

 

[Brian2]

Do I have to quote the verses that say that if she died that the man that hit her was to die? It is very clear. This level of denial does you no good at all.

Yes do please let me know.

 

[Brian2]

The context always matters. Are you supposed to have already forgotten that they were to die that day according to the myth? If they are that dumb then that is still a failure of God. In fact even if the serpent lied, which he did not, God was the bad guy in that myth. But you won't let yourself understand that. It is one of the ways that rational Christians do not take that story literally. If you actually read the story there was no immortality given to Adam and Eve. None was implied. They had the chance to be immortal. Literalists always forget that there were two trees in the garden and the Adam and Eve ate from only one of them.

I did not say that they had been given immortality.
They lost the chance to eat from the tree of life through their disobedience.
And yes the serpent lied, as I have shown by quoting the text.
And no, God did nothing wrong.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes do please let me know.

Here you go:

" 22“And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. 23“But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, 24eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

Do you see the part that says "life for life"?

 

[Brian2]

I'd say that it was enough to propose that spirit exists if one has an observation not explainable without the idea. Here's the sine qua non of calling something real or actual: It has to be detectable in space and time as some sort or interaction in some place at some time with other real things, even if only a ping on a Geiger counter. Real things can do that. Things that cannot be detected at any time at any place by any means should not be called real, or existing.

You are thinking of physical things when you mention a Geiger counter. Spirit things are undetectable with scientific equipment but many observations have been made which seem to need consciousness outside the physical body, spirit. These observations have been in the area of out of body experiences in near death experiences, where the reports are of events etc that are confirmable.

If you know where and how they are incorrect, it's because you can demonstrate that, but if they are correct, you cannot successfully rebut them. That's the power of rebuttal (debate, dialectic) and the reason for the impotence of all other forms of dissent and why it doesn't persuade those who require sound argument before believing. This has been an extremely difficult concept to share with the faithful not experienced in critical thought. I don't expect such people to master that over night or even ever, but it would be nice to see somebody that would even consider that possibility, or be able to repeat what is being claimed. But perhaps that's an unreasonable expectation. If so, I can't say why. I can't say why I never see it.

They are incorrect because Genesis 2 can be explained as being a more detailed report of human creation, which makes more sense that 2 creation accounts, one of which is not even a creation account.

God knowing replaced a need to think? Is this god considered conscious? Does its mental content evolve like occurs in conscious minds as they observe and assess the parade of conscious content? If it does either of things, it exists in time. Why is that anathema to an Abrahamic theist? Is it because you'd like to say that God created time? If so, that's as incoherent as claiming that God created consciousness. Creation occurs over time, and nothing could be the intelligent designer of consciousness. Think about that for a moment. Intelligence implies consciousness already in existence.

The creation of consciousness and intelligence implies those things existing in the creator.
The existence of those things in a creator who was the first cause iow not created, does not imply that those things were already in existence in order for the creator to be created.

Ideas exist in conscious brains and presumably are distributed through and/or around them.

That is begging the question of a conscious brain and is defining abstract things as non existent except as ideas, just as you define God and anything else that is not detectable through science.

Christian scripture had nothing to do with the advent of science or universities or their liberal arts curricula. Christians and the church are capable of adopting humanist methods and doing the same work, but the neither the work nor the inspiration for it come from biblical doctrine. Newton was a Christian, but his lasting contribution to mathematics and physics has nothing to do with his Christianity.

Principia could have been written by an equally gifted atheist up until the part where Newton actually does inject a Christian idea into his celestial mechanics. Newton's math predicted that larger planets would toss planets like earth into the sun or out of the solar system, and so, he added his god ad hoc right where he ran out of knowledge, who was needed to nudge the planets back into position. That's where Newton jumped the shark and began adding useless faith-based ideas. That was the Christian part. Then, a century later, Laplace supplied the mathematics Newton lacked, restoring the solar system to a clockwork needing no intelligent supervision.

From this point in history and knowing that the universe is governed by rational laws, it is easy to think that we could have worked that out. But from back when that was not known it seems to have been those people who had a universe created by a rational God, who went down the path of thinking that the universe might be able to be understood rationally. And of course the Bible had something to do with that. It showed a universe created by a rational God. And it was the Church who promoted learning over the centuries.

So you have already claimed. Where's your evidence. Where in the Christian Bible does that idea appear. Did Moses make that claim? Abraham? David? Jesus? Paul? None did or advocated anything like rationalism. Christians began experimenting with it in the Middle Ages (scholasticism) after reacquiring classical learning from the Arabs, who had saved Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid. But what did they add but a bunch fallacious "Proof of God" and a head count for angels dancing on pins?

It all had to start somewhere and history shows where it started.

It isn't a Christian innovation just because a Christian thinks of it as we just saw with Newton. And empiricism is the enemy of wrong ideas.

Empiricism does not know what a wrong idea is,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, but if you believe empiricism is that only thing that can show you a correct idea, then that is the case under your faith and you live your life governed by your faith.

Yes. They wouldn't have been for me. The first wave of scientists showed us the clockwork universe, where heavenly bodies move without gods or angels pushing them, gases equilibrate without any intelligent oversight, and electrons move through circuits unaided. This ushered in the age of deism, where the ruler deity was no longer needed. But how did this all get here? The builder god was still needed, but not thereafter. Then the second wave of scientists showed us how the cosmos and the tree of life assembled themselves without intelligent oversight, making the builder god no longer necessary, and making atheism tenable. It became very reasonable to believe that no god was involved in any of it.

So your's is a "Give me a couple of miracles and we don't need a God from there on" faith.
The miracles are the very things that God has told us in the Bible that He did.
The rest of the "God of the Gaps" idea that your atheism seems to base itself on, is the ignorance of humanity when it made up scenarios about what God did. So the ignorance of humanity is pushed aside with science and you say that science pushed away the need for God.
That is not critical thinking. Well it might be, but it is not rational thinking.

It squeezes him into a narrower gap. And there is no need for a god in any scientific theory. What would it be required for? What would its job be if building and moving the world can occur without one? If one has already decided that such a god exists and was involved in creating our universe, he'll want to find a job for it - one only an intelligent designer could do. There is nothing like that. None of the unanswered questions in science require positing a god. Agreed, that doesn't rule gods out, but that's not reason enough to add them to science. Mere possibility isn't enough.

Now you are posturing as if science knows the answers to the things that God has said that He did.
You also seem ignorant of the other things that God is doing in the world. No doubt you see evil as not real because it cannot be studied by science. A construct of the human mind no doubt. Something to be overcome by education.
How about overcoming death? Not a problem for you, just something to accept because there is no God who can overcome death.

You are not believed until you demonstrate that you are correct according to the rules of those you are trying to convince.

You hide behind rules that you have made your faith.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I did not say that they had been given immortality.
They lost the chance to eat from the tree of life through their disobedience.
And yes the serpent lied, as I have shown by quoting the text.
And no, God did nothing wrong.

Sorry, but that was God's evil doing. You do not get to give God an out for lying when he was the one that forced the issue. And you are again forgetting that God said "that day". Please don't practice apologetics. It makes the Bible worthless because then one is justified in placing any interpretation upon it that one wants.

 

[Brian2]

Sorry, but that was God's evil doing. You do not get to give God an out for lying when he was the one that forced the issue. And you are again forgetting that God said "that day". Please don't practice apologetics. It makes the Bible worthless because then one is justified in placing any interpretation upon it that one wants.

It is true that on the day that A and E ate the fruit they died spiritually, meaning they lost their fellowship with God, the source of their spiritual life.
It is also true that "day" does not have to mean a literal 24 hour day and so the bodily death could come later, which it did for both A and E.
It is also true that the form of the expression that God used was a judicial pronouncement and can mean "you should know on the day you eat the fruit, that you shall surely die".
There is a lot said in the little phrase and it all came to pass when they ate the fruit.
God did not lie, as you say He did, but you just read a translation in a literal way that does not put all the implications into it and think you know what it means,,,,,,,,,,,, but really all you are doing is looking for a way to say the Bible is wrong.
You are the one who is trying to make the Bible worthless by saying it is untrue and that God is a liar, and you turn it around and say that giving a more full meaning to a sentence is what makes the Bible worthless. No you aren't justified in placing any interpretation on it that you want and you aren't justified in calling the writers a bunch of idiots.