Can a literal Genesis creation story really hold up?

greentwiga said:

I couldn't really understand what he was saying either. You summed it up. I liked the religious version of Occam's razor. The interpretation that needs the fewest miracles is probably the right one. My feeling is that if the Bible says it was a miracle, OK, otherwise never insert a miracle. An example might be that when it comes to Noah's flood, the miracle claimed is that God saved the eight people. Too many people insert all sorts of miracles to prop up their interpretation. I have a similar feeling about people who just spiritualize everything to make it say what they want. The interpretation with the fewest spiritualizings is probably the right one.

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It is spiritually discerned. Just as one understands it, does not mean another will. I cannot say a physicist is wrong because I can't understand him. We speak a different language. That is not difficult to comprehend is it?

Thief said:

Would you consider a chemical reaction becoming self-aware....a miracle?

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Haha... sounds a bit like one doesn't it. Perhaps a big bang of energy which changes into everything we see is a miracle. It appears though that these things have to come about by 'luck'.

Funny when people don't understand they always attack.

I think this is the only subject that someone NOT understanding it, thinks they know more than the one who does understand it?!?

Perhaps that is the height of arrogance. Perhaps it is mere blindness as the scriptures say. If that is the case, then no amount of words will persuade them.

To try and help those who do not understand what I meant earlier because they did not see earlier posts, the answer is simple. It appears in the mind of God (logos) before it does here as a physical universe.

So all things read reflect, one way or another, something that has already happened within the higher-consciousness (logos).

Genesis 1 is probably the best example of that.

Though it relates to people on earth as well, its primary function is to reveal the origins of life, the primary-consciousness that all things follow.

CG Didymus said:

So many things don't add up in Genesis.

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scripture is like many things in life, you have to study and learn to see what it means in a deeper level. That learning has to go in the right direction.

Like the Sun and stars, not only were they created after the Earth,

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There were luminaries before our luminary (sun). They have drifted off into space. That is why it says Exist as light. That is not just the big bang it is stars (suns)

but created after plants?

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that merely refers to our sun, and the stars now becoming visible

But then, I was wondering; Adam gets kicked out of Eden and has to till the soil? This is based on Gen 4:23 and 4:2 where Adam is sent out to "cultivate" the ground and his son Cain was a "tiller" of the ground. What did they till it with?

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Genesis 1 tells us that there are other people. That is how Cain found a wife. This story relates a people on a land (if you are speaking of planet earth)

Did God make them a plow and a hoe or something?

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see above

And then Abel, why was he keeping flocks? Weren't they vegetarians?

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not by then

Was it for wool? Did God make Eve a loom and Abel some shears?

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see above

I see Genesis as religious poetry, but some Christians, and I guess some Jews, see it as literal. Ken Ham on his TV show Answers in Genesis, insists that it must be taken literal, that it is foundational, without it the whole of the Bible falls. What do you think.

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It speaks >>>in a literal sense<<< of the higher-consciousness of God. That is the LITERAL bit. Because the nature of God works in a fractal way, it relates also down to us. But it will not be as ideal, as error always moves from realm to realm. We are the lowest realm other than death.

There were different periods of light, which allowed things to develop. Planets, vegetation, animals and then man. That is what it says. That is what science says.

A day, by the way, is a luminary (light). It does NOT say it is a 24 hour period. That is what we assume. Anyone going to the Pole will see that a day lasts for six months, and in outer space, a day may be a completely different amount of time. Time is relative.

There is always different angles of a story revealed that then make up the finished product. That is why it is hard to understand, which, as Peter says, some people twist to their own destruction.

Robert.Evans said:

Haha... sounds a bit like one doesn't it. Perhaps a big bang of energy which changes into everything we see is a miracle. It appears though that these things have to come about by 'luck'.

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ok...
But that First item is an item not born of woman.
Or anything else.

Unless you want to say God is beget of substance.....so then, the dead beget the living.

Muffled said:

Welcome to RF fellow granite stater.

I beleive Jesus is my teacher. Isuppose by soul you mean spirit. Mine knows a little but Jesus knows everything.

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Hello.

Paul speaks of the body , soul and spirit.
To be like Jesus is the goal.

Thief said:

ok...
But that First item is an item not born of woman.
Or anything else.

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The One that is First is Source. That is the thing that just IS.
What comes from Source is Image. Image is born of the feminine. All life came about through Chavvah (Eve).

Unless you want to say God is beget of substance.....so then, the dead beget the living.

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God is beget from his own Self, and is seen in the feminine Image. Within the masculine, it is latent, conceptual, not actual (as we would think of it)

Muffled said:

I beleive Jesus is my teacher. Isuppose by soul you mean spirit. Mine knows a little but Jesus knows everything.

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Good. Interestingly, the gnostics said that when the lord spoke to them, it was their own soul that answered. If this is the case, it would beg the question as to how we can then get things wrong. If we are he, then we would not. It has to be a reflective state of something higher... me thinks

Robert.Evans said:

Good. Interestingly, the gnostics said that when the lord spoke to them, it was their own soul that answered. If this is the case, it would beg the question as to how we can then get things wrong. If we are he, then we would not. It has to be a reflective state of something higher... me thinks

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Our soul is the offspring of God and we are the offspring of our soul.
Our soul is eternal and knows all.

We are a separate consciousness from our soul.
Most don't have the capacity to know the difference.

Robert.Evans said:

Hmmm... don't think that is what I said.

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Read it again. What do you mean by "literalness?" Can you explain the empirical evidence you have for this "literalness?" What comparisons, criticisms, observations can you present to bolster your position? Any? If there's no evidence of the literal neater of the accounts, your appellation of "literal" is based solely on some feel-good belief.

A myth is not necessarily untrue.

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A myth is also not necessarily factual.

Robert.Evans said:

It is spiritually discerned. Just as one understands it, does not mean another will. I cannot say a physicist is wrong because I can't understand him. We speak a different language. That is not difficult to comprehend is it?

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But it is scholastically exegeted. Your method represents (as I claimed earlier) an amorphous, feel-good sort of thing. Discernment is fine when seeking deeper meaning or importance for you, but discernment does nothing in determining the factual veracity of the textual claims.

Robert.Evans said:

Funny when people don't understand they always attack.

I think this is the only subject that someone NOT understanding it, thinks they know more than the one who does understand it?!?

Perhaps that is the height of arrogance. Perhaps it is mere blindness as the scriptures say. If that is the case, then no amount of words will persuade them.

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Outhouse understands the nature of the text. You have some more explaining to do before your claim to understanding is acceptable. I think you're guilty of your own accusations of misapprehension and blindness, if I read you correctly.

Robert.Evans said:

To try and help those who do not understand what I meant earlier because they did not see earlier posts, the answer is simple. It appears in the mind of God (logos) before it does here as a physical universe.

So all things read reflect, one way or another, something that has already happened within the higher-consciousness (logos).

Genesis 1 is probably the best example of that.

Though it relates to people on earth as well, its primary function is to reveal the origins of life, the primary-consciousness that all things follow.

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That's pretty theology, but it adds 0 to the exegesis of the text.

Robert.Evans said:

scripture is like many things in life, you have to study and learn to see what it means in a deeper level. That learning has to go in the right direction.

There were luminaries before our luminary (sun). They have drifted off into space. That is why it says Exist as light. That is not just the big bang it is stars (suns)

that merely refers to our sun, and the stars now becoming visible

Genesis 1 tells us that there are other people. That is how Cain found a wife. This story relates a people on a land (if you are speaking of planet earth)

see above

not by then

see above

It speaks >>>in a literal sense<<< of the higher-consciousness of God. That is the LITERAL bit. Because the nature of God works in a fractal way, it relates also down to us. But it will not be as ideal, as error always moves from realm to realm. We are the lowest realm other than death.

There were different periods of light, which allowed things to develop. Planets, vegetation, animals and then man. That is what it says. That is what science says.

A day, by the way, is a luminary (light). It does NOT say it is a 24 hour period. That is what we assume. Anyone going to the Pole will see that a day lasts for six months, and in outer space, a day may be a completely different amount of time. Time is relative.

There is always different angles of a story revealed that then make up the finished product. That is why it is hard to understand, which, as Peter says, some people twist to their own destruction.

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This all smacks of desperate twisting of interpretation to make the texts literalistically look like what we know about science. Try poetics and metaphor instead of scientific reporting.

God is beget from his own Self, and is seen in the feminine Image. Within the masculine, it is latent, conceptual, not actual

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Metaphysical pandering.

Robert.Evans said:

It is spiritually discerned. Just as one understands it, does not mean another will. I cannot say a physicist is wrong because I can't understand him. We speak a different language. That is not difficult to comprehend is it?

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Yes, but another Physicist knows when the first Physicist is speaking gobbledegook.

allfoak said:

We are a separate consciousness from our soul.
.

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:biglaugh:


How about making a statement you can substantiate?

Robert.Evans said:

Funny when people don't understand they always attack.

.

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In this case, you have admitted not having the education.

And that much is painfully obvious.