• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Science and Symbols of Creation

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
I think that the modern bias is that ancient people were weren't as smart because they didn't have access to modern technology.
Yes, unfortunately it mostly is the cases.

We are constantly viewing older information through the obfuscating lens of our own modern perspective.
For my own part, I studied Comparative Mythology and got my conclusions before I began to compare this with modern cosmology.
But supposing that ancient people really understood, through their Creation Myths, genuine realities that we take for granted from our modern "scientific" perspective. What significance is that? I suppose that, generally speaking, people have an interest in their origins.
I´m sure our ancestors understood their Creation Myths and even the human connection in this.

And yes, the interestst for our origin will never be outdated - and it shouldn´t either.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Ok I follow you, But then we have to extend the concept of consciousness to an Universal level and ponder over the possibility for the human "electrical mind" to correspond with the electric energies in cosmos which contains informations of the creation.
Yes.

There is a verse in the bible. Depending on bias that reads out in a couple of ways. "in the beginning was the logos, the logos was god, the logos is god, he was with god in the beginning"

That is read out in religion traditionally individualistically. But if its read out as not just jesus but us what ever that might be, and i leave that open, then that verse is making a radical statement we are 14 billion years old according to modern science. I dont think the writer(s) would batt an eye and simply conclude that obvious.

Our bias will determine how that verse is read. And i think the writers understood that as they wrote it. My bias is nature l, and it is objective we are subject subjective to it. Modern science and religion have that inverted into an individualistic bias which i think is modern and it grew up through religion into modern science.
 

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
Yes, unfortunately it mostly is the cases.


For my own part, I studied Comparative Mythology and got my conclusions before I began to compare this with modern cosmology.

I´m sure our ancestors understood their Creation Myths and even the human connection in this.

And yes, the interestst for our origin will never be outdated - and it shouldn´t either.

I think that a couple of question emerge:
If ancient people used the scientific method to derive their Creation Myths, then why did they stop using the scientific method?
If ancient people used some other process to derive their Creation Myths, then what process is that?

Just looking at Creation Myths and seeing correlations with Cosmology is interesting, but what do we really learn from this? Is there some sort of insight into the minds of ancient peoples that we can derive from examining their Creation Myths?
 

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
Our bias will determine how that verse is read. And i think the writers understood that as they wrote it. My bias is nature l, and it is objective we are subject subjective to it. Modern science and religion have that inverted into an individualistic bias which i think is modern and it grew up through religion into modern science.
Yes :)

But if you experienced this DIRECTLY from the source itself, would you then think it will be biased or clear as a sunny day?

- I´ve had som spontaneous out-of-body-experiences in cosmos and what I saw, I just knew. But afterwards, I had some troubles remembering it and it took some years to understand what I observed and got it placed in the correct context of the visions.
 
Last edited:

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
If ancient people used the scientific method to derive their Creation Myths, then why did they stop using the scientific method?
If ancient people used some other process to derive their Creation Myths, then what process is that?
I don´t think our ancestors had more techniques but markers of sticks and stones in order to plot the motions of the creation, but they did this with a remarkable accuracy.
Just looking at Creation Myths and seeing correlations with Cosmology is interesting, but what do we really learn from this? Is there some sort of insight into the minds of ancient peoples that we can derive from examining their Creation Myths?
Personally I´ve learned that is isn´t necessary to use technological instruments in order to know something about cosmos and the creation itself.

Then one can think of the time and economical ressources which is used on todays technological investigations of space.

The insight to this knowledge and learning system is to be quiet out in the Nature and listen to the creation and follow the celestial motions throughuot the days months and seasons.

At least this was/is my Native way
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
You distinguish by WHAT is understood.I am saying i see no differnce between you and creationism in HOW you both understand. Certainly a creationist would point to their differences of what they understand as distinguishing characteristics. And thats exactly what you said as well.
But that was before the scientific method was invented. Creationists are still using ancient scientific methods that have long been discredited.
Peer Review is the key difference, it is only science if it has been repeated and tested by other scientists.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Yes :)

But if you experienced this DIRECTLY from the source itself, would you then think it will be biased or clear as a sunny day?

- I´ve had som spontaneous out-of-body-experiences in cosmos and what I saw, I just knew. But afterwards, I had some troubles remembering it and it took some years to understand what I observed and got it placed in the correct context of the visions.
Another facinating and valid question! Terrance mckenna said he was cisited by some aliens when he took DMT. whats interesting is others had the same experience. We could conclude that based on a set of independent ovservers that indeed DMT Is some transdimension drug of some sort.

Then again whats the likelyhood that the participants took into the experience a bias created by mckenna in the conscious normal daily state? I would say oh very high!

I could then say richard dawkins who tried LSD a devout atheist said if he didnt know better he would have said that fod existed from his experience. The problem he was confronted with he only knows one way to describe that experience and its anglican. He is as stuck in church as a deep believer!

My own neurology can generate these experiences no drugs needed. But i also am extremely grounded in nature itself? Her self? Himself?

John Muir another nature tripper got it and wrote about it. But one is left with a languafe broader than simple descriptions, explainations, and scientific observarions. Thus art starts to take on a form of communication of choice. What we choose best suits who we are. It can be writing, painting, music, theater etc. All these forms are both different and interconnected. Music for me hits that magic point and especially the guitar. After all one string has 22 defined notes, it can be played as a single note and it has potentially an infinite set of notes just in its scale length! Its expressive to play, its been evolving with us since to time we started to make music its an old instrument and in wood such as a violin or acoustic it had a voice box made of trees.

Notice i slid from definition to expression in my writing?!!! Sort of like a slide on a slide guitar! Except poorly done, as usual.
 

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
I don´t think our ancestors had more techniques but markers of sticks and stones in order to plot the motions of the creation, but they did this with a remarkable accuracy.

Personally I´ve learned that is isn´t necessary to use technological instruments in order to know something about cosmos and the creation itself.

Then one can think of the time and economical ressources which is used on todays technological investigations of space.

The insight to this knowledge and learning system is to be quiet out in the Nature and listen to the creation and follow the celestial motions throughuot the days months and seasons.

At least this was/is my Native way

Right, well, if we are walking through the desert and you come upon a giant pyramid - a real architectural and engineering marvel - then the question would be: How did this pyramid come to be?

So if we are reading Creation Myths and we stumble upon some sort of incredible cosmological information, then the question would be: How was this information obtained?

Are you saying that you've personally replicated the techniques used by ancient people to obtain cosmological knowledge? What is the significance of these techniques to us? Are people in modern times expending too much time and energy to obtain cosmological information? Do you think these techniques comprise a better way? If so why? Or is this merely a way for us to understand how ancient peoples thought?
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
But that was before the scientific method was invented. Creationists are still using ancient scientific methods that have long been discredited.
Peer Review is the key difference, it is only science if it has been repeated and tested by other scientists.
And so the bible is an old science text!? Thats how creationists understand it. I know factually they are idiots and yet you insist they are bible experts!!!! Why are you insisting they understand the bible at all? Based on their expertise in science?

You should be douvting that they understand anything at all just based on their understanding of nature for cryinh outloud. What they do strongly affirm though is your understanding of the bible which is based on creationism which is nonsense.
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Another facinating and valid question! Terrance mckenna said he was visited by some aliens when he took DMT. whats interesting is others had the same experience. We could conclude that based on a set of independent ovservers that indeed DMT Is some transdimension drug of some sort.

Then again whats the likelyhood that the participants took into the experience a bias created by mckenna in the conscious normal daily state? I would say oh very high!

I could then say richard dawkins who tried LSD a devout atheist said if he didnt know better he would have said that god existed from his experience. The problem he was confronted with what he only knows and thats one way to describe that experience and its anglican. He is as stuck in church as a deep believer!

My own neurology can generate these experiences no drugs needed. But i also am extremely grounded in nature itself? Her self? Himself?

John Muir another nature tripper got it and wrote about it. But one is left with a language broader than simple descriptions, explainations, and scientific observarions. Thus art starts to take on a form of communication of choice. What we choose best suits who we are. It can be writing, painting, music, theater etc. All these forms are both different and interconnected. Music for me hits that magic point and especially the guitar. After all one string has 22 defined notes, it can be played as a single note and it has potentially an infinite set of notes just in its scale length! Its expressive to play, its been evolving with us since to time we started to make music its an old instrument and in wood such as a violin or acoustic it had a voice box made of trees.

Notice i slid from definition to expression in my writing?!!! Sort of like a slide on a slide guitar! Except poorly done, as usual.
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
And so the bible is an old science text!? Thats how creationists understand it. I know factually they are idiots and yet you insist they are bible experts!!!! Why are you insisting they understand the bible at all? Based on their expertise in science?

You should be douvting that they understand anything at all just based on their understanding of nature for cryinh outloud. What they do strongly affirm though is your understanding of the bible which is based on creationism which is nonsense.
I've not mentioned the Bible or my understanding of it...although I probably know it as well as most theists..
Just saying creationists are not scientists in the 21st Century
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I've not mentioned the Bible or my understanding of it...although I probably know it as well as most theists..
Just saying creationists are not scientists in the 21st Century
creationists aren't even scientists 5,000 years ago. Are you proposing that these structures below were built reading esoteric metaphysic texts of their day? I doubt it..considering they were the tallest man made structures for about 4300 years. And Well into the "modern" scientific revolution btw.

The bible is not science and never has been ever. Not remotely close to it. But these structures are all science, that are inspired to be built by the esoteric texts and stories of the day.
egyptian-pyramids-hero.jpg
 

Altfish

Veteran Member
creationists aren't even scientists 5,000 years ago. Are you proposing that these structures below were built reading esoteric metaphysic texts of their day? I doubt it..considering they were the tallest man made structures for about 4300 years. And Well into the "modern" scientific revolution btw.

The bible is not science and never has been ever. Not remotely close to it. But these structures are all science, that are inspired to be built by the esoteric texts and stories of the day. View attachment 26856
Good grief!!!!

Everyone was a creationist 5000 years ago
 

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
Music for me hits that magic point and especially the guitar. After all one string has 22 defined notes, it can be played as a single note and it has potentially an infinite set of notes just in its scale length!
Yes music has it all. Vibrations, frequensies and colors - Spherical music - Tones of Cosmos . . .
 

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
Right, well, if we are walking through the desert and you come upon a giant pyramid - a real architectural and engineering marvel - then the question would be: How did this pyramid come to be?
When I spoke of "sticks and stones" I meant the ancient marking system in order to plot the days, seasons and years. Of course it takes much more technology to build a temple or a pyramid, and I guess the answer is: Hard work.

Many ritual structures really have imbedded the astronomical and cosmological knowledge because they were aligned after the Sun and even after the celestial poles. They were so to speak "Heaven on Earth".

Are you saying that you've personally replicated the techniques used by ancient people to obtain cosmological knowledge? What is the significance of these techniques to us? Are people in modern times expending too much time and energy to obtain cosmological information? Do you think these techniques comprise a better way? If so why? Or is this merely a way for us to understand how ancient peoples thought?
No not personally, but I live close to an ancient location where the measuring method was used.
The significance was/is that our ancestors followed the celestial motions and the natural growth in order to survive and trive and in order to gain knowledge of the general circuits of life, included the human circle of life and its cosmic connections.
I would say the modern people spend too much time searching with tecnological instruments and too little time listening to the creation and nature. Instruments cannot provide the overall and connected knowledge and you have to have the basic and natural knowledge before you really can understand the instrumental measurements and observations.
 
Last edited:

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
The bible is not science and never has been ever. Not remotely close to it. But these structures are all science, that are inspired to be built by the esoteric texts and stories of the day.
Well, I would consider the biblical Story of Creation as an ancient science. Unfortunately this telling has been hugely downgraded after focusing on the "one and only invisible god" and by loosing the mytho-cosmological language.
Once upon a time JHVH has a female consort, Ashera, but "she" was abandoned together with all the mythical symbolism which really spoke of the creation in our local part of the Universe.
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
We have numerous cultural Stories of Creation, which very much seems to be similar to each other…
I disagree. There is a vast range of very different creation or origin stories across different cultures, societies or religions and those are just the ones we have meaning records of. That doesn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t all come from the same source and refer to the same actual events but it would require an explanation for all those differences (not just in detail but in fundamental structure and implication) if that is the hypothesis.

Can they possibly be interpreted into modern terms and give some modern scientific sense?
Anything is possible but why would we? What is the underlying reason for proposing that all creation myths are actually about some small subset of cosmological development? Their purported similarity (even if that were accepted) and your ability to spin the texts to vaguely equate the two aren’t reasons in and of themselves.

I am interpreting the Creation Myths as describing the pre-conditions and the factual creation of our Milky Way (and Solar System) and using concepts and descriptions from modern cosmological science in order to compare and evalue the ancient and modern knowledge.
You mean you’ve already reached that conclusion and are retrospectively interpreting the text in that way (extremely loosely). I propose that you could take literally any fictional story and project the same broad interpretation on to it. There’s nothing special about the creation myths in this context, it just happens that they’re about creation.

And please don’t dismiss this out of hand as nay-saying dismissal. I’m not declaring that you’re wrong, only arguing that you’d need to provide more justification for your hypothesis.
 

Native

Free Natural Philosopher & Comparative Mythologist
I disagree. There is a vast range of very different creation or origin stories across different cultures, societies or religions and those are just the ones we have meaning records of. That doesn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t all come from the same source and refer to the same actual events but it would require an explanation for all those differences (not just in detail but in fundamental structure and implication) if that is the hypothesis.
Obviously you don´t take the cultural Stories of Creation very seriously, do you? Of course they all come from the same sources!

We all live on the same planet Earth; in the same Solar System; in the same Milky Way galaxy and in the same local part of the observable Universe. This IS the Story of Creation and this is logically the same sources for all humans in all cultures.

The basic telling is similar in all cultures, but of course different cultures often use different local symbols in order to describe and illustrate the creation.
You mean you’ve already reached that conclusion and are retrospectively interpreting the text in that way (extremely loosely). I propose that you could take literally any fictional story and project the same broad interpretation on to it. There’s nothing special about the creation myths in this context, it just happens that they’re about creation.
Yes I do and yes I can. And it all gives sense when you take the cultural tellings seriously and put it into the correct cosmological context, which is the creation of the Milky Way ands everything in it, including our Solar System.
 

HonestJoe

Well-Known Member
Obviously you don´t take the cultural Stories of Creation very seriously, do you? Of course they all come from the same sources!
I take them seriously as part of human cultural development, the means by which we were able to accept our place in a world and universe that was a mystery (and therefore frightening). I don’t see how this is different to mythical (or exaggerated) stories of gods, magic, monsters and great heroes. Must they also all come from the same source and be about the same things?

Yes I do and yes I can. And it all gives sense when you take the cultural tellings seriously and put it into the correct cosmological context, which is the creation of the Milky Way ands everything in it, including our Solar System.
Again, you could do exactly the same thing with literally any story. Do you deny even the possibility that you could be influenced by confirmation bias?

And, of course, the other hole in your hypothesis is the complete lack of explanation for how this situation could possibly come about. How could information about the development of the Milky Way (at least our current understanding of it, which is incomplete and could be wrong) get in to all of these stories and myths in the first place? Remember, I don’t know is a valid answer but that could be applied to your entire hypothesis.
 
Top