Come now gather round as I perform a magic trick

I bet you there is a website tesr for this somewhere and he's asking the same questions and then telling you what the outcome is! Fraud?

lol I will find it!!!

P.S. sorry for interrupting or whatever..

@jezer: It is more of an understanding that this text was written with very little to no understanding of cosmology. At the time it was written, the people who would've read it wouldn't have had a need to interpret things other than literally. There was nothing that contested what was written other than the creation stories of other cultures, at which point they simply ignored it or resorted to more violent measures. These interpretations could not have existed until our knowledge expanded - there would've literally been no reason for them to exist. When looking at these texts today, with the amount of knowledge we now possess, we can try to find ambiguities and replace the general idea with interpretations that would better fit reality.

For the writers to have been able to write something that would've been accepted at the time when reading it literally, but could only make sense in the future through interpretation would've required quite the foresight.

It is not some special knowledge of a rule, just an observation really.

So your answer is "yes"?

I don't need the reasoning, explanation, common sense, or premises - I need the conclusion. The "yes" or "no" answer. Unless I ask you to expand. Even in questions that seem common sense to you(for all I know, there could be some scripture somewhere in the bible that states the Creation story is supposed to be the literal account), as if they don't require you to answer and only require you to point out the common sense, I just need a simple answer.

@jezer: If these things had simple answers there would be no reason for all the debate among people. But for the sake of the trick, then yes.

Edit: (And there isn't any scripture that says so.)

@partialsanity: The questions I'm asking recently(where you're saying alot more than necessary) have simple answers, others may not.

However, going on:

So, essentially to prove my goal(well, part of it) that the Creation Story of Genesis is not necessarily contradicted by The Big Bang Theory, I have to deal with the parts that you don't think are interpretable in multiple ways and the timeline that you think is incompatible.

I can confidently gather that the timeline you're referring to are these verses:

"

The Beginning

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty,darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day."

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NIV

Specifically, the idea that the Earth existed before the Stars and Sun created in later days on Earth.

Am I right so far?

@jezer: Yes.

(And by yes, I mean all of that, not only the bold. Most of that is contradicted by not only the Big Bang but other scientific theories.)

I'm gonna go ahead and perform the first of the three parts of my magic trick, because I don't know how much I'll be posting here tomorrow.

Firstly, let's hypothetically say that the Creation story could be interpreted figuratively since it doesn't necessarily have to be interpreted literally, as we established. For reference, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/figurative Meaning, it may have symbolic, metaphoric, and/or exaggerated language.

Secondly, the verse says that in the beginning, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Hypothetically, "heavens" in this verse could refer to the stars. The universe. It does not say how exactly God made them, so at this point we can establish that this doesn't necessarily contradict the "expansion of the universe from a single point" part of The Big Bang Theory. Nor does is necessarily contradict how old the Earth is, as it doesn't say how long it took to create the heavens and Earth before the creation days had started.

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Now, I know you're probably thinking "But the Bible says he made the stars and Sun the 4th day. Which is the bible verse I bolded and pointed out above.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

Consider this. The bible says the the Spirit of God is hovering the "formless, dark" Earth. Hypothetically, what if this is an early stage of development of the earth. The Earth came from dust from the solar nebular that essentially combined and accreted into this giant mass. During the early time, the Earth didn't not have such a concrete form and there was more dust. Dust can block sunlight(which is part of the theory of how the Ice Age came about from dust and other materials blocking sunlight http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/eltanin-asteroid-could-have-triggered-ice-age-295240.html)

After a certain point, God says "Let there be light", so Earth has a more concrete form and there is less dust blocking out the sunlight.

Later in the fourth day, God makes the Sun and Moon and Stars in the sky by clearing the dust more to the point that its shining more visibly. More has accreted and become part of the Earth. Or simply there was dust blocking a bit more light that then became the Moon(as is one of the theories of how the Moon came to be from dust in the Earth's orbit that came from when an asteroid or whatever impacted the Earth and then came together to form the Moon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis). So, there's less dust in the atmosphere. More sunlight getting through. Visible stars. A Moon, possibly formed from that dust, possibly linked to the atmosphere clearing up.

Essentially, "let there be lights in the sky", according to this interpretation, does not mean he makes the stars, sun, and moon necessarily at that moment. But simply allows them to be visible as "lights in the sky". And that is a figurative way of saying how it happened. Consider the idea that this would be true from the point of view of someone on the Earth(sun and stars and Moon are "made" or "created" when atmosphere clears")---consider the fact that it says, "darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." and that the Spirit of God was in the position of that perspective.

Thus, the creation story's timeline doesn't necessarily contradict the Big Bang Theory, or at least the aspects you pointed out earlier(before your edit).

@jezer: I don't see a question. So I'll reply freely. That's a very nice take on the situation at hand, however, after the initial dust settled the Earth was a uniform mass. It wasn't until later events, like the iron catastrophe that liquids started to appear. It would be nice to be able to interpret it that way, but in essence it would be non-sense. Or is your interpretation that this god created Theia, smashed it onto Earth so it shattered and the dust would form the Moon, instead of just creating the Moon?

I believe this timeline would be more open to interpretation if god wasn't considered the creator, since it says "God made two great lights..." not "God made two great lights appear..."

Edit: Something that vexes me about the interpretations of Genesis is that with more interpretations, it takes away the omnipotence this god is supposed to have.

I don't understand how your "liquids started to appear" reference is a contradiction. Can you explain?

My interpretation is that "created" does not necessarily mean literal creation. I create a meal to eat, yet it doesn't mean I literally created the food on it, simply cooked and assembled it together(<And this isnt even figurative language) Especially when you consider the idea of figurative language. So, for example, he could have simply created the Big Bang and all of it led to Theia being created and it smashed into the Earth which led to the Moon being created, but since he executed the sequence he "created" both the Moon and Theia in that way. A programmer "creates" a calculator by creating the code that runs the commands that creates it.

Last, the phrasing can be in such a way that 'create' means "made it appear" in Figurative Language. That aside, create also means causing something to happen. So, God is essentially the creator regardless of whether he created it at that moment, or caused it to happen by kickstarting the universe.

created past participle, past tense of cre·ate(Verb)

^Google Web Definition

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/created

EDIT: Same could be said for the word "made"; they are synonymous

I think you're not considering the idea of figurative language enough, or the multiple conceptual meanings of words.

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EDIT 2: So do you agree that the creation story is not necessary contradicted by the Big Bang Theory?

You don't understand that uniform(solid) is the opposite of formless(waters)? Ignoring the celestial sequence, we can go down to an Earthbound sequence, water did not come before dry land.

Anyway, if the argument here is "God made the Big Bang and therefore the events that followed were a direct causality of such event." Then I would have to concede. That would mean, however, that everything that happened afterwards was just probability at work, not god. Taking into consideration that we could safely recreate the events of the big bang on a smaller scale in the future, that would mean this god isn't as omnipotent as everyone makes him out to be.

(I think one crafts, or prepares a meal though. One can only create recipes.)

Given that this is the ultimate interpretation, "God created the Big Bang," since it's as far as our knowledge goes concerning our origin... then wouldn't the trick be complete?

That's a whole lot of interpretation though, considering that the writers nor the readers had any way of knowing what was actually going on. They accepted the texts in the literal sense because it made sense - you can't accept the texts in a literal sense anymore because we already know better.

It is interesting that the interpretation goes back only as far as our scientific knowledge though, I wonder if that would expand if multiverses could be experimentally corroborated.

Please tell me this isn't just a "God created the Big Bang." trick.

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Edit: When taken to the ultimate interpretation that "God created the Big Bang." it wouldn't be contradictory, not only that, it would be a parallel. However, such interpretation is only achievable by only extensively and precisely changing the text into something that fits our scientific notions.

Not to mention the fact that the accreation of Earth would contradict the verses in which water came before dry land, it is contradicted by our understanding that water could not form until we gained a magnetosphere which protected the planet from solar winds, which didn't happen until the iron catastrophe. When you ignore those things and make the ultimate interpretation, then I would have no way of saying that the reigning scientific theories in any way contradict these verses.

It would mean that you have perfectly molded these texts through interpretation to fit the scientific concepts, how would I be able to say there's any contradiction in place? It would only leave the contradiction of a formless, watery, landless Earth. But since the trick is "God created the Big Bang" then it would be erased. Despite the fact that the contradiction mentioned would nullify the interpretation, since for it to be acceptable it would have to match up perfectly.

If I ignore the contradiction and accept the ultimate interpretation, then yes, I would have no way of saying that the theory of the Big Bang contradicts the creation portion of Genesis.

If I don't ignore the contradiction and refute the ultimate interpretation, then no, I can't agree that it isn't contradicted.

@partialsanity: It is only a contradiction, because again you are not considering the multiple conceptual meanings of the word.

Water is more than simply liquid, is this not correct? It has three forms--liquid, ice, gas. Water existed as icy particles floating around with the dust. There were also icy planetismals some of which may have been present and contributed to the collection of different elements that came to appear on Earth. So, if you consider that water doesn't merely mean "liquid water", there is no contradiction in the celestial sequence and earthly sequence doesn't necessarily indicate that liquid water came first before land(only that they happened in the same day).

And what if God created the Big Bang aware of everything would develop and turn out? Like I said, the fact that he sparked it doesn't mean he isn't responsible for everything or wasn't in fact simply starting a chain reaction. That's like saying a game of dominoes has nothing to do with how I ordered the dominoes, because once I flip the first one its simply physics at work(and that being true also after me being the one who made those laws of physics). I also don't see how any of it takes away from his omnipotence.... because you were expecting it to be like he snaps his fingers for things to appear? Whether we can replicate something he did..... using the physical laws he may have established, doesn't take anything away from his omnipotence. I could go to the gym and bench the bar, 45 pounds. Someone comes up to me claiming I'm not strong because they can bench the bar too. And yet, simply because I choose to bench the bar for my workout doesn't take away from the fact that I can bench 225 if I chose.

Yes, 1/3rd of my magic trick is essentially complete.

There is a considerable amount of people who believe that God in some way inspired the word. Saying, "well the authors couldn't know" doesn't take away from the idea that if the words are God inspired, they could have been writing concepts in primitive ways that could be better understood with more knowledge, that they didnt understand themselves. That is why simply going "well its not like they could know that" doesn't take away from that. It could be simply that they're symbolically phrased well enough to be open to interpretation, it could also simply be a result of the nature of people to make sense and interpret things in ways they understand. It could also be more that God wrote through them in ways that people in the future could understand the actual process within the concepts.

The trick is more than just "God made the Big Bang". Part of the trick is showing you that there are assumptions you've been making that you didn't even notice. And that is the heart of the reason why the creation story in Genesis is not necessarily contradicted by the Big Bang Theory, because when you take away assumptions, you see different possibilities. The key is recognizing the bases for your reasoning and acknowledging ways that they may not be true and applying different reasoning.

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Formless, watery, landless Earth is not a contradiction, though. Earth used to be formless when it was dust and planetismals. Earth used to be landless depending on how you define land(such as solid ground form). Earth had water as in ice particles.

Do you agree that the Creation story in Genesis is not necessarily contradicted by the Big Bang Theory?

@jezer: Knowing what would happen would only add to his omniscience, not omnipotence. But back to the point at hand, dust settles, Earth is one big uniform mass orbiting the Sun, there is already light hitting it, before all the moon dust. If you're referring to the instances before the Earth was fully formed when light hit it, how could such an interpretation be made as there was no planet to be shed some light on yet? (This is for the previous interpretation that "Let there be light" would just be god moving dust out of the way, even though the overall interpretation was that God made the Big Bang and it was going to happen anyway.)

This is the problem when trying to make such an interpretation, either it all adds up, or nothing does.

I'm trying to help you see that the accreation of Earth contradicts the verses, even when doing grasp-at-straws interpretations. Water could not exist on the surface of the Earth, neither in liquid nor solid form. Even when it was in a mostly galactic dust state, these icy formations could've only possibly existed underneath rock, there could've even been pockets of liquid water somewhere near the crust but only in instances where the temperature wouldn't have reached boiling points. Even if I use an interpretation such as "the vault" being the formation of a magnetosphere, the water on surface concept would still predate it, no matter which way you possibly interpret it.

Even when interpreting the whole aspect of creation in Genesis to ensure that there would be no contradictions left, there would still be one contradiction left in the first few lines of text that couldn't possibly be interpreted in a way that would fit our scientific notions without saying "Well, they didn't really mean water on the surface, they clearly meant the water hiding under the rock. The Spirit of God was actually hovering over the crust of the Earth, which was over the pockets of water.

It knocks down the walls for the other interpretations, since any interpretation of words to make the timeline fit would be incompatible simply because there is one thing out of place. This is why I say there's a contradiction.

As you seem to have no problem with accepting cause and effect as an argument, then the Big Bang would eventually lead to the accreation of the Earth so....

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No.

@partialsanity:

I don't understand your argument. It says "the earth was formless and empty". And the spirit of God was hovering there. So, I'm making the metaphorical connection to Earth's state before it was fully accreted. The seeds of the planet were there. Its not like the bible verse specifically states that God was "hovering over the fully formed planet", in fact it says the opposite. Your semantics argument doesn't work because it whether its full or just the dust particles that would eventually accrete, it could still be referred to as Earth. Both literally and figuratively. In fact, that is Early Earth as scientists understand it.

I think I can factually state that you are incorrect on the matter. Part of the theory of how Earth got some of its gases is from planetismals randomly flying around, sometimes breaking off pieces. Planetismals from the outer portion of the solar system are icy(meaning they have water particles and are water)---that is partly why the gas giants formed the way they are, because it was colder in the outer solar system and it was icy. So, "Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." it could even simply be referring to the ice particles mixed in the dust that eventually formed the Earth. Even your argument about the "surface" doesn't hold up, since it doesn't actually say the water was on the surface. "2 Now the earth was formless and empty,darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

So, even that "one" contradiction is not a contradiction. It is you reading it and interpreting it in a way, without acknowledging the idea of figurative language. It is you trying to interpret it in a literal manner, even without you knowing what "surface of the deep means" and making some of the assumptions I pointed out. You have a mental picture that you think is necessitated by what you read, but as I keep trying to show you, it actually isn't.

Thus, there is no contradiction. The fact that I show you how your "contradictions" can be not seen as contradictions, further hints that your interpretations are not set in stone and thus there is not "necessarily" a contradiction.

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Do you agree that the Creation story in Genesis is not necessarily contradicted by the Big Bang Theory?

@jezer: Right now I'm a bit lost in the sea of interpretation, to be honest. I hope you don't mind if I ask for a recap confirmation. God created the Big Bang knowing Earth would be formed, right? And even though that would make the Sun be present there was still darkness over the "surface of the deep", despite that in your version of "formless" a surface couldn't have been present as the planet had not formed yet. And when God said "let there be light" means there was less space dust, but somehow covering sunlight by being trapped in the atmosphere despite there being no atmosphere, since we didn't have an atmosphere until living organisms existed. Before this however, the spirit of god was hovering above the small ice crystals that form when gases are exposed to the low temperatures of space, traveling along the protoplanetary disk that would later form the Earth.

Now, I'm not sure how you're interpreting dry land and the separation of water - if there was dry land there would've already been a separation of water and dry land is still just dry land. But dry land appears, whatever that means in your interpretation, and separates the waters. So the land produces vegetation, even though there was still enough debris in the atmosphere, which was present before it should've, that it could block out the Sun, the Moon, and the rest of the stars in the universe from being visible yet somehow allowing for morning to come around. And when the great lights appeared it was simply the debris from the protoplanetary disk, formed by the crashing of Theia onto our planet, that would later form the Moon cleared up, which somehow cleared up the dust already in the premature atmosphere making the Sun, Moon, and stars now visible?

Is that the gist of it?

@jezer: @partialsanity: forget that questions. i will ask them in the science thread.

@pooty: I can still answer if you like. Yes, the Sun was formed before. Using the other stars in the universe for illumination would be possible. In 2004, someone calculated that the Milky Way contributed about as much light as 1/300th of a full moon. Without the Sun photosynthesis would just not be possible.

1. Yes

2. Do you know what the "surface of the deep means"? No? So, if you don't understand what's being referred to, how can you assert that its not possible because the Earth hasn't been formed? Better yet, how do you know what stage in the development of the Earth it is and whether it is to a degree that while it may not be fully formed its still formed enough(enough of the dust accreted together in a smaller and yet not fully formed piece) that there isn't a surface?

3. And while there may have been a smaller, less concretely shaped form of the Earth - God said let there be light, where in more of the dust accreted into a larger, more fully formed Earth. And more sunlight could get through - because before there was less sunlight getting through because of the amount of dust still floating around that earlier form of Earth(which would eventually accrete more to become Earth).As is possible - since that is the base of the reasoning for the theory that a large meteor crashing into the Earth could have caused enough earth dust and debris to be flung up into the Earth's atmosphere enough to block sunlight to a large degree.

http://phys.org/news/2012-09-pacific-ocean-meteor-trigger-ice.html

4. Possibly. The language being employed no different from the language that is used when you say a helicopter is "hovering above the ground" despite that it may be hovering over buildings, cars, and trees instead of the literal ground. Whether the water is underneath, inside pieces of planetismals, etc.

5. And on that day, it says God established both dry land and water pooled. Maybe its alluding that by that time, the dust was accreted to more of a degree that there was more substantially formed solid land. And more collected water/pools.

6. So the land starts producing vegetation with the little photosynthesis it can pick up, despite the dust in the atmosphere that may have been blocking out the stars/solar rays to a larger degree than what is shining today, not necessarily to the point that there is none(like I said, that's being too literal.) As is validated by the fact that even during the Ice Age that scientist theorize was caused by dust knocked into the atmosphere, there was enough photosynthesis that some plants survived(as well as animals) and eventually recovered enough to grow.(Link validating that its a well known idea that despite the dust in the Atmosphere freezing the temperature, some plants still survived.http://www.nps.gov/akso/parkwise/Students/ReferenceLibrary/Paleontology/PaleontologyIntro.htm Obviously it depends on the degree of dust and how much sunlight being blocked, but its perfectly plausible to have enough that most of the sunshine is being blocked, but not so much that there is not enough sunshine for plants to grow)

7. Morning not necessarily being a literal morning, as figuratively the "morning" and "evening" in the creation "days" could simply represent the mark of a beginning and ending to whatever segment of time that were each of those days. Furthermore, there seems to be well known interpretation differences concerning that the word for "day" could mean longer than a day, but a vague considerable period of time.

8. And when the great lights appeared, the dust(which may have been the dust that formed the Moon) simply cleared up(over however long a period of time) to the point that the Stars and Suns were shining more brightly not noticeably(not that it wasn't necessarily shining more dimly beforehand) and the Moon had appeared or possibly accreted out of the dust(as is one of the major theories). Yes.

All through the magic of trying to discover the possibly literal representations in the possibly figurative language of those chapters. For reference, http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-figurative-language.html"You are using figurative language any time you compare two things. When writing goes beyond the actual meanings of words, then the reader gains new insights into the objects or subjects in the work."

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So, is the Creation account in Genesis necessarily contradicted by The Big Bang Theory?

I want magic! This is a discussion of science and religion... Both of which chastise magic! One sees it as illogical, the other see it as devil's play. I want magic! Give me magic! Whoosh! Whoosh! Poof! Like that.

@jezer: I'm supposed to agree because in this interpretation one cannot be sure of anything that was written, because nothing that was written down actually meant what it meant, thus it makes it coincide...

What a crossroad, it is kind of impressive, yet not really. The only solution to make sense the story of creation is to completely change the text - make it seem like it sort of makes sense, when it doesn't. I could say that it doesn't necessarily contradict the text, but then I'd be in a paradox - if it hadn't contradicted it in the first place the interpretation wouldn't have been made...

I don't know if you realize that you've interpreted ambiguity with more ambiguity. Even taking non-ambiguous terms such as day, night, morning and evening, which were concepts that had already been established at the time of writing this down to be ambiguous...

What to do? What to do? Welp, the show must go on. Hopefully the second part of this trick is more impressive.

(And just to point out, the "surface of the deep," it means water.)

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Through the power of extreme interpretation, raising ambiguous terms and non-ambiguous ones to more ambiguous ones, and a whole lot of assumption, then I'll have to say...

Maybe.

@jezer: So basically what you're saying is that the Bible, written thousands of years ago by a bunch of superstitious ignorant men somehow corresponds to the Big Bang Theory that was proposed more recently? That they predict the beginning of the universe which was beyond our understanding scientifically until the Big Bang Theory?

Should I quote to you the various scriptures about God speaking/working in mysterious ways? The parables?

You said you studied Theology?....Eh, you should be well aware of this. Look at the whole book of Revelations. For reference, the concept is called an extended metaphor and English students make these types of connections on a daily basis depending on the material and type of english class. Old English Authors do it. English Poets. Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. Edmund Spencer's, The Faerie Queen. Shakespeare. Etc. Etc. Even certain rappers like Lupe Fiasco do it with whole songs and albums.

And, I think this is the difference between science students and English students. Its hard for you guys to try to read between text and interpret it. It's like the prototype science character Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory being wholly unable to understand common english idioms because he takes the world too literally.

You realize that there is translation related ambiguity with the word "day" used in the bible? The underlying logical concept being that it is a period of time. The simple fact that they were using "morning" and "evening" before "day" had been created, lends to using in the sense of the everpresent, underlying idea(both in literal and figurative usage) of the beginning and end of a span of time.

"I could say that it doesn't necessarily contradict the text, but then I'd be in a paradox - if it hadn't contradicted it in the first place the interpretation wouldn't have been made..."

Actually, how I specifically phrased it was "to admit that the creation part of Genesis is not necessarily contradicted by popular scientific theories." Once you admitted the creation part doesn't have to be taken literally, and you opened up the possibility of interpretation, your "paradox" disappeared.

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Interesting. Let me translate what you just said, logically

You said "maybe" to the question of "So, is the Creation account in Genesis necessarily contradicted by The Big Bang Theory?"

Maybe = possibly; neither yes nor no = perhaps = ambiguity and uncertainty

Necessarily contradicted = automatically, naturally, definitely, undoubtedly, accordingly, certainly = in such a manner as could not be otherwise = no ambiguity and definite certainty

Essentially, you answered:

"So is the Creation account in Genesis necessarily contradicted by The Big Bang Theory?"

"Not necessarily"

Making the same mistake non-religious people tend to make when trying to ridicule-- begging the question. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

In the phrasing of your question(hinting ridicule) are the implicit premises that the authors were no more than "superstitious, ignorant men" instead of authors who possibly were writing words inspired by God, able to write concepts in primitive ways that reflect those concepts at a level they could understand, that could be interpreted and better understood by a more knowledgable/advanced society in the future.

Your derision is only valid if you already assume God doesn't exist...the underlying controversial issue.

@jezer: No I'm pretty sure they were pretty much lacking in the knowledge department and the so called 'word of God' was whatever the author could think of. The Bible originated in an area that was far from the most knowledgeable place in the world. There were far more civilised and advanced societies that God could have revealed himself rather than the Ancient Middle East.

But, what justification do you have for making the claim that they were divinely inspired? Many biblical stories that purported pseudo-historical events have been soundly debunked by modern archaeology such as the story of Exodus. I honestly don't see why earlier writers would go thorough pain-staking detail after detail in order to create a mere parable, and they believed them to be actual accounts. Do you honestly believe that people in the early to late antiquity believed that these stories were merely metaphors and analogies? In my opinion their might be some truth to the tale of the Exodus, but modern archaeology has soundly debunked many of its claims. The fact is that Genesis is pretty ambiguous in terms of describing the creation of the Universe, so it is quite open to different interpretations, so therefore, I don't see how this is a productive discussion.

@partialsanity: @jezer:

The Bible does use parables, visions and dreams. But guess what? IT ALMOST ALWAYS SAYS WHEN THAT IS HAPPENING. The passage will start off: Jesus used a parable or Daniel had a vision. Moses wrote Genesis hundreds of years after the events took place. So when Moses wrote Genesis, the definition of day and night were already established. Yet God still had him use the words day.

Also the word Day is translated from the word "yom". Yom can mean longer then a day with one important exception. If you put a number next to the word yom then it means from morning to morning roughly 24 hrs. look it up

Again if it is not 6 days then you make JESUS and MOSES a liar. Jesus said at Mark 6:10 that: But from the beginning of the creation ‘God made them male and female.’” This makes it clear that Jesus taught the creation was young, for Adam and Eve existed “from the beginning”—not billions of years after the universe and Earth came into existence

Also, Moses, the same person who wrote Genesis, said again at Exodus 20:11 "For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it". The Sabbath was made off of God's creative days. If the days in Genesis was a thousand or million years then the Sabbath being every 7 DAYS would make no sense.

And Hebrews 11:3 . It clearly states that God created the universe from nothing: By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Romans 4:17 : He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed--the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

The Big Bang says that something was always there. The Bible says that God created EVERYTHING from nothing.

@jezer: I have completely fallen for your trickery, oh great magician!

Wait, no, but seriously.

Don't get so excited when falling for baits - keep calm and read. My "maybe" was just simply playing around with the whole concept of ambiguity, I thought you would've understood that and prompt me to give a straight answer. Also, the trick is to get me to agree, which I haven't. Apparently it was just another failed pun among the other ones in my other posts.

You explicitly mentioned we'd only be looking at the book of Genesis, which is why no other books were brought up.

This whole thing was over when you played the hand of misinterpretation. "Surface of the deep" is referring to the ocean. This is what is taught, this is what is learned. You simply haven't read any other of the translations for the bible, more explained ones, and made loose interpretations out of incomplete information.

The problem with getting someone to agree with this, is that, even with a great amount of interpretations, one would need to fit completely. Frankly, your's falls short in a few places. It was a great attempt, but it just doesn't cut it.

Thankfully you linked a site where they have all the version, scanning things would've been annoying.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201&version=EXB Read the expanded bible.

Or the easy-to-read version if it suits you better http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201&version=ERV

Anyway, it is obvious that I don't agree, you haven't shown me an interpretation the would hammer the events together, it really was an impressive try though. When you do though, I'll be more than happy to agree.

"Once you admitted the creation part doesn't have to be taken literally, and you opened up the possibility of interpretation, your "paradox" disappeared."

You're also misinterpreting what I had said, I simply said that many interpretations existed, and that there was no rule saying it should be taken literally. The paradox here however is that, things we're interpreted literally, and it wasn't until the popular scientific theories came to light that these interpretations started appearing. Interpretations came to be because contradictions came to light, if no contradictions had surfaced there would be no interpretations.

I thought you understood that magic is subtle, friend.

1. Do you know whether the visions in Revelations are literal or figurative? You don't? As far as I know, it doesnt say. So clearly it must be literal....No. My point with the parables and etc etc was that such figurative language exists in the bible, on both occasions when it says and occasions when it doesn't. As for your comment about the word "day" being established, read through this a bit http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/642/what-is-the-specific-meaning-of-day-in-genesis-1 Also, I shouldn't have to point out to you the bible verse that says a day could be like a 1000 years in God's eyes. Also, a recurring idea presented is that evening and morning, the words for them, were also loosely translated as disorder and order on occasion.

2. Don't be lazy, if you want to assert something, bring me your proof instead of telling me to look it up. The link I posted above, however, also asserts that as a possible theory. And - it also refutes it. Look at the section that talks about three main theories of "day", not far from the top. Notice how I don't simply tell you to look up my refutation, but point you to where its at?

3. I don't even understand the argument you're trying to make here....According to you, it says "But from the beginning of the creation ‘God made them male and female.’”. This makes a point of reference to man and women during the days of creation on Earth, but not a point of reference for creation in itself. If I say that Voldemort appears in the beginning of the Goblet of Fire, does that mean the Goblet of Fire was the beginning of the Harry Potter series? Critical reading error. The idea of the creation days being the very beginning is quite overtly contradicted by simply reading the first couple verses.

4. Pooty, this is why I can't take you seriously. Whether the creative days are 7 periods of time each a billion years or seven literal days, they are seven sections of time. Our seven days of the week are seven sections of time. Whether they're the same or not, they can be symbolically connected. Do you realize that Jesus symbolically connected the bread as his body and the wine as his blood, during the Lord's Supper? But, blood and wine and bread and human bodies aren't the same. It doesn't make sense!

5. "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible." You do realize that science says that the visible universe are made of tiny particles that we can't visibly see, as well?...... Like, the idea of our world being made of things not seen is literally the same theory that science asserts.

6. I know(well hope) you fully realize that its simply referencing God's ability to do anything and undo anything. That's the connection between God bringing the dead back to life, and "calling things that are not as though they were". God telling a lame man that he can walk is calling someone thats not(able to walk) as though they are(able to walk). Same as reviving a dead person. Its basically talking about God's power and ability to perform miracles.

7. As I've just shown, no it doesn't. However, even if it did..... you realize that for God to be calling things into existence means he's creating things out of things that already existed. If he's thinking "let the world be created" he's creating it out of his will and thoughts and(most likely the word of God), things that already exist. Essentially, what I'm saying is that the argument you're trying to make here never stood a chance because in the Bible something always came from something that always existed(God).

@jezer: By your reasoning anything in the bible can be interpreted in any way people feel fits their opinion. If the Bible makes no definitive statements and everything is left up to interpretation then the Bible is worthless.

I didn't make the claim, I asserted the possibility. Such a possibility is only refuted when you already assume God doesn't exist, and that was my point. That his whole post already assumed that God didn't exist. As for Exodus/etc, I'm not knowledgable on the historical validity it has or not. However, I'm not asserting it figurative. I'm not talking about the potential literalness or figurativeness of anything other than "the creation stories in Genesis" in this thread. As for whether this is a "productive discussion", its a magic trick. Your reasoning for what it isnt a productive discussion"ambiguious, quite open to interpretation" is the reason I succeeded in my magic trick and at the heart of the trick. Though, the magic is spell together the ambiguity.

You should reread my post for the idea of the logical fallacy of begging the question, you're still committing it in the first half of your post. Also, reread this specifically: "instead of authors who possibly were writing words inspired by God, able to write concepts in primitive ways that reflect those concepts at a level they could understand, that could be interpreted and better understood by a more knowledgable/advanced society in the future." To make it clearer, this is asserting the possibility of God inspiring them to right a figurative account that can be understood more indepthly in the future with our larger accumulation of knowledge.

Actually, by my reasoning, I'm talking about the Creation account of Genesis. I asserted that it may be figurative. I also asserted that Revelation may be figurative, especially since its supposed to be a prophetic vision. That doesn't mean that everything is figurative. No more than the idea that every part of a book is a Prologue or an Epilogue. Or the glossary or the foreword. I don't even how you come to the conclusion that it makes no definitive statements when I've mostly been talking about One story at the very beginning of the bible, not the whole bible.

Also, I rather consistently debunk your interpretations. But thats not because everything is up for interpretation....its because I am better at interpreting words than you, as an English Minor.

@jezer: That doesn't mean that everything is figurative.

But it COULD mean that every book is figurative?

Lol alright. However, like I pointed out, any ambiguity in your answer is equivalent to a "yes" for the same valid reasoning I used for your "bait". Also, too lazy to post an image at the moment ;)

I brought up Revelations, Shakespeare, etc. to show you examples of occasions when things written were more than simply what was written, not to actually examine Revelations or Shakespeare. The way you questioned it was as if you didn't know that people do that with literature, commonly.

Here are the possible Hebrew translations that I found here:

Brown-Driver-Briggs' Hebrew Definitions: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/genesis2.html#n06

tehôm

/Strong's H8415)

1. deep, depths, deep places, abyss, the deep, sea
   1. deep (of subterranean waters)
   2. deep, sea, abysses (of sea)
   3. primeval ocean, deep
   4. deep, depth (of river)
   5. abyss, the grave

Take notice 5. Abyss/grave and 1. subterranean waters. Neither definition is simply ocean, and these are all indicated as possible translations. Essentially, what I'm saying is your "literal contradiction", that which you previously called the "one contradiction", isn't even necessarily a contradiction without even looking at possible figurative interpretations. Referencing http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/genesis2.html#n06 which is referencing this Lexicon http://cadrebible.com/bdb for those translations.

Neither subterranean waters(I believe you were the one who said that pockets of water only existed underneath planetismals, though I don't actually agree with this) or grave/abyss necessarily contradict anything. Even, apparently some scholar William Dumbrell interprets the 'deep' as hinting more at: 'William Dumbrell notes that that the reference to the "deep" in this verse "alludes to the detail of theancient Near Eastern cosmologies" in which "a general threat to order comes from the unruly and chaotic sea, which is finally tamed by a warrior god." Dumbrell goes on to suggest that Genesis 1:2 "reflects something of the chaos/order struggle characteristic of ancient cosmologies".^{[7]' A}As in, the Earth in a more unruly and chaotic state before the days of creation.

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All of this points to the idea that your one contradiction isn't necessarily a contradiction, from both a literal standpoint of the translation and the figurative translation of how the literal translation you're promoting may be understood. And if your one contradiction isn't necessarily a contradiction, then isn't it true that the Creation story isn't necessarily contradicted by the Big Bang Theory?

True, but I was eliminating your paradox on the basis that it doesn't correspond to how I phrased my goal/question. Now, you would actually have a paradox if I stated we were talking of the "literal words" or "text", but I simply said "story of creation" and then questioned you to the point where "story" refers to interpretations of the story, not the literal account. So then my thread goal subsumed interpretations of the story of Creation. Essentially, you have a paradox, but not in the context of the situation we're in, in this thread. Same as you have a paradox talking about "jumbo shrimp", but not in the context of a restaurant.

@jezer: Did you even try to read the easy-to-read version? It's meant for people less-versed in bible-talk to understand. :(

In the context of the accounts of creation, "surface of the deep" will converge through the all the different translations on that it means "ocean." Just because you want to make this trick work does not mean a misinterpretation of what something actually means would be accepted.

It's okay to not bat a thousand - I was wrong with the ice particles within the planetesimals. I forgot about desublimation. I only remembered that water boiled first. It happens.

I'd also like to point out another thing, if the text is God talking through people, then the words there would be absolute, because "God's Word" is absolute. You can doubt it or try to twist it, but it remains as the "Absolute Truth." I didn't bring this up because I didn't know we could use things from other books in the bible.

God might make you go mute for it, though.

At least its not permanent.

As an English minor you must be aware that it would be a mistake to repeat the same exact words when a narration takes place. So ".... surface of the water, .... surface of the water" would've been a literary redundancy.

I understand you're trying to use double-talk to make an argument here, presumably because you feel this would be good practice for your possible future law career, but this seems like a scam that failed to use the correct wording in the opening rules. The goal was to admit that the reigning scientific theories did not necessarily contradict the creation part of Genesis, not your creation story of Genesis. Be more clear with opening rules when performing scams, it is one of the fundamental basics.

I'm also still waiting for the Socratic questioning I was promised.

I digress though, we can move on to the second part if you'd like. I'm still somewhat interested in what your take on abiogenesis and evolution are, though it is a fleeting interest at best by now. I thought I was going to be wowed, but not in the way I was.

1. I still don't really see the point you were trying to make with your links. You linked to the "Expanded Bible" and "Easy-to-Read" version(out of many versions on that website that you could filter through). Er cool? The link I posted, if I remember correctly, showed the Hebrew word and the different possible words it could translate to. You say that the different versions "converge" on "ocean", while giving no reasoning or explanation. It sounds like you're simply saying, "well, alot of those different versions have different words.... but ocean's in line with most of them, so hey, its taught to mean ocean and mean's ocean" Correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm right, surely you must acknowledge that an agreed upon word for the translation simply as an amalgamation or mixture of all the different possible meaning is neither concrete or definite to justify you saying that there can be no other literal translation and figurative interpretation.

My trick is run on uncertainty, if there is any bit of uncertainty that the word is not necessarily the translation, than my trick still works. The link I posted(that goes back to the hebrew word and different translations from it) suggests that uncertainty. The idea that "ocean" is simply the agreed upon word as a compromise of all the different possible ones suggests the same.

2.

3. Not exactly sure how you're trying to phrase your reasoning or what book you're quoting or what point you're trying to make. If you had put the book, I'm sure I'd refute your reasoning better but I'll make do. There's the issue of to what degree they are God's Word and what degree they are the author's. They could be inspired(via muse or dream) by God meaning the author's are phrasing and transcribing what is the truth shown to them, or they could be directly written by God/holy spirit in their body. Or some combination of both. In both circumstances, God could be seen as talking through people in the sense that I meant it when I phrased the idea....This is another case of you taking words too literally, Sheldon.

4. It took me a while to realize what you were actually talking about here.

As someone who's taken other foreign languages, what I'm sure is that its a mistake to try to directly impose English structures and grammatical rules on other languages and disregard it when its translated to English. I remember once someoen told me "callate la boca" doesn't make sense as meaning shut up because it translates to "mouth shut", at which point I told him that this isn't Google Translate and thats not how translations work.

5. My mistake, I said "creation part" instead of "creation story". Unfortunately, that actually doesn't make a difference. You've already admitted, despite whatever reasoning I "misinterpreted"(even though I made it clear that the conclusion was the only thing that mattered to me not your meaning or what you meant.) you yourself admitted that the creation part is up to the interpretation of anyone. I know that. You know that. Pooty knows that. SC knows that. Essentially, the creation part of Genesis is everyone's individual "story" of how they interpret the words and everything that make up it. Which is the same for almost everything. Everything you perceive is your senses interpretation and individual story of the world. Its no different when it comes to what you see - the text that you read.

Lol this is hardly a scam(well, in the way you just said), like I just said, both Pooty and SC were pretty aware of what I was gonna do before I started if I read back through the thread.

Please stop backpedaling and trying to argue against your own admittance to the validity of any interpretation I assert as being acceptable for my goal of what I set out to do. I honestly don't see how you can argue from this angle logically. This is me not being bigoted or stubborn, I just don't see your reasoning here.

I'll move on to the next part when we've come to a conclusion here.(As a heads up, I do a bit of the same thing there, except its much easier to reconcile the two. However, it focuses on evolution in terms of humans so my argument there is more vulnerable since I wasnt as concerned with comparing what it says with evolution in terms of other species) Meaning, you sufficiently convince me that there is no chance any interpretation of the Creation story in Genesis can also allow for the truth of The Big Bang Theory or I convince you that it isn't necessarily contradicted. Which, I think it would be hard for you to do so from the simple fact that convincing that something is never possible in an issue filled with uncertainty requires stronger, superhuman evidence as opposed to the opposite(which is my goal). Just being honest.

So, is the Creation account in Genesis necessarily contradicted by The Big Bang Theory?

@jezer: Uhhh, no.

Well then, it appears I failed in my trick and this thread is discontinued(though, I of course, don't think I actually have lol. Since your lack of admittance hinges only on your rejecting a common sense answer you gave to a previous question...I didn't count on my volunteer simply ignoring their own words and investing personally in their own stance no matter what. Your reaction was essentially the same as Glitch-Spawn's. And I did technically get you to admit it with your "joking" answer of Maybe)

I am a man of my word though, you may request one thing. (except nudes)

@jezer: I answered your question. I'm just not going to try to reason with you anymore.

3 pages. No magic. Boring.

@chaos_prime said:

@optimuspalm said:

3 pages. No magic. Boring.

LOL its like I'm looking in a mirror! But to be fair, I thought I looked more upset than that....where's my magic dammit!

@optimuspalm we must be twins then? LOL

@chaos_prime: Charlie?

(I couldn't think of any other suitable name for an orang-utan lol)

Oscar? ;)

@chaos_prime: yep, that works.

On topic: Think of a card....

yep thought of one.

5 of hearts?

Amazing!! Now thats magic for u!!