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Do Most Atheists Know that science..... Part 2

DOC said:
What would have happened if Moses told the illiterate hungry desert wanderers that the sun was a star, the earth was round, the earth traveled around the sun, etc.? They probably would have thought he was crazy, and would have said it's time for a new leader.
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But telling them that a burning bush told him that he gets to be the leader....that's much more sane.:rolleyes:


ETA: at least saying "the sun is a star, the earth was round and the earth travelled arround the sun" is the truth.
 
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DOC said:
What would have happened if Moses told the illiterate hungry desert wanderers that the sun was a star, the earth was round, the earth traveled around the sun, etc.? They probably would have thought he was crazy, and would have said it's time for a new leader.
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I thought it was supposed to be god telling them this. Wouldn't they believe god? No? Not very persuasive, is he?
 
Hokulele said:
I thought it was supposed to be god telling them this. Wouldn't they believe god? No? Not very persuasive, is he?
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So we know have the, people were too stupid back then to appreciate the truth, so god told us a wholly wrong dumbed down version of it.

It seems rather bizarre to think that perhaps, as we learned more, he could have come along and said.."that's what I meant. good for you!!"
 
joobz said:
But telling them that a burning bush told him that he gets to be the leader....that's much more sane.:rolleyes:
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To me it makes more sense to believe Moses heard God speak from a burning bush then for someone to believe that 10,000,000,000 galaxies came from something smaller than an atom, when they have no idea of the theory behind it. And for those maybe 1 in 5000 people (my estimate) who do "truly" understand the "theory" behind it, I still believe it is very hard for them to believe.
 
DOC said:
To me it makes more sense to believe Moses heard God speak from a burning bush then for someone to believe that 10,000,000,000 galaxies came from something smaller than an atom, when they have no idea of the theory behind it. And for those maybe 1 in 5000 people (my estimate) who do "truly" understand the "theory" behind it, I still believe it is very hard for them to believe.
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Still confusing belief with that which can be understood from evidence I see.
 
DOC said:
You want Genesis to be written for the people of 2008. It wasn't, it was written for primitive desert wanderers (3600 years ago) who probably didn't even have a word for a million much less a billion, who didn't know that the earth went around the sun, didn't know the sun was a star, didn't know the earth existed in space (unless they read Job 26:7), and didn't know where rain came from, etc.

And you seem not to have read the whole article cited in post 667 which gives possible reasons for the discrepancies in the time frame for the creation of stars. I'm currently not a literalist and I've always said that even before this thread. Yes there are some things that seem difficult to explain, but that doesn't mean there isn't an explanation that we don't know about yet. There are all kinds of cancer out there that we can't explain the cause of, but does that mean there is not a cause.
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Yes, but that's exactly the thing that Feynman and many other scientists don't like. The article is full of speculation without supporting evidence and with the obvious purpose of fitting the biblical account to current scientific findings.

You are right that I didn't read the entire article, sorry. However, my point is this: this whole article revolves around the notion that genesis is a correct account. The result is that when the biblical and scientific accounts concur, the account is correct; when they differ, the bible presents an analogy or allegory to be palatable, and when science doesn't have anything to say about something in the bible, the bible is right. I didn't need to read all the specific ad hoc explanations to get the picture.

Another possibility, of course, is that genesis is a literal account of a typical cosmology of the time: anthropocentric, geocentric, and wrong. And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that; I think it is a laudable attempt to make sense of the universe with the limited knowledge of the time.

And even with some of the hard to explain things in Genesis, the sequence of events is amazing given their total lack of scientific knowledge.

Genesis 1:1a - the universe came first

Genesis 1:1b - then the earth

Gen 1:10 - then land and sea

Gen 1:21 - then life in the sea

Gen 1;24-25 - then land animals

Gen 1:27 - lastly humans

Why not just say God created everything at once, why spread it out over a time frame.
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I would think this has to do with the human-ness of Gods of the time. The omnipotent omnipresent god is a much later invention. Gods of that time were like Zeus. They were powerful creatures, but with human flaws like bad tempers and bastard children. Men need time and stuff to create things, and a complex creation takes time and planning.

I'm not sure why they chose life in the sea first, but I imagine it's because of the same reason they thought there was water behind the heavens. Water obviously drives life, and it falls from the sky on occasion. How can a raindrop fall down from the sky if it wasn't already there, right? Their universe was basically made of water, land was viewed as the exception, so it would be the intuitive assumption that life was in the seas first.

Also, humans come last obviously because man was at the top of the food chain then too, yet completely dependent on sun, water, animals and plants. The whole thing must then have been created specifically for man.

Just my take.
 
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DOC said:
You want Genesis to be written for the people of 2008. It wasn't, it was written for primitive desert wanderers (3600 years ago) who probably didn't even have a word for a million much less a billion, who didn't know that the earth went around the sun, didn't know the sun was a star, didn't know the earth existed in space (unless they read Job 26:7), and didn't know where rain came from, etc.
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They didn't have a word for a million, so they had to be told everything was created in 6 days. They were primitive, and wouldn't have understood trees being created after land animals. They didn't know the sun was a star and wouldn't have understood that things look really small when they are are really far away.


Genesis 1:1a - the universe came first

Genesis 1:1b - then the earth

Gen 1:10 - then land and sea

Gen 1:21 - then life in the sea

Gen 1;24-25 - then land animals

Gen 1:27 - lastly humans
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You missed out the fruti-bearing trees -- I'm sad. What will I eat after lunch today?

Why not just say God created everything at once, why spread it out over a time frame.
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Why not have God tell the truth?:
"My children, this is what you believe about your origins: [...] Generation after generation you will build knowledge and understanding. And then you will know things I can not tell you today."
 
DOC said:
To me it makes more sense to believe Moses heard God speak from a burning bush then for someone to believe that 10,000,000,000 galaxies came from something smaller than an atom, when they have no idea of the theory behind it. And for those maybe 1 in 5000 people (my estimate) who do "truly" understand the "theory" behind it, I still believe it is very hard for them to believe.
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Please explain the theory behing a burning bush talking so I can compare.

Can you please explain how did Moses hear the sound from the bush. How did the bush make word-like noises and how did God make that happen? or did God delude Moses to think that the bush talked. If so how did he do it ?
Did he physically resonate Moses ear drums in a way that made Moses think the words were coming from the bush? or did he interfere with the electrical signal to Moses brain ?

As we are in a science thread, you should be able to explain the science behind a talking bush.
 
DOC said:
To me it makes more sense to believe Moses heard God speak from a burning bush then for someone to believe that 10,000,000,000 galaxies came from something smaller than an atom, when they have no idea of the theory behind it.
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I thought that the point of god was faith? Why would god need to explain the theory? Simply to say that it was so and that one day we could confirm this informaton...




DOC said:
And for those maybe 1 in 5000 people (my estimate) who do "truly" understand the "theory" behind it, I still believe it is very hard for them to believe.
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You have a hard time believing that the people represented by your made up statistic and fit your true scottsman classification still don't actually fit your true scottsman classification?
 
DOC said:
To me it makes more sense to believe Moses heard God speak from a burning bush then for someone to believe that 10,000,000,000 galaxies came from something smaller than an atom, when they have no idea of the theory behind it. And for those maybe 1 in 5000 people (my estimate) who do "truly" understand the "theory" behind it, I still believe it is very hard for them to believe.
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I believe you are in error.
 
DOC said:
What would have happened if Moses told the illiterate hungry desert wanderers that the sun was a star, the earth was round, the earth traveled around the sun, etc.? They probably would have thought he was crazy, and would have said it's time for a new leader.
Click to expand...

I wonder how familiar you are with Exodus. I wonder if you know what the 10 plagues were, or what happened at the Red Sea. I wonder if you know about the pillar of smoke by day, and the pillar of fire by night. I wonder if you’re aware that Moses’s face glowed with a literal aura after speaking with God -- a sight so frightening to the people, he had to cover his face with a veil when he walked among them.

I wonder if you're aware of Noah, Lot, Jonah, the Tower of Babel, etc., etc.

I wonder what your definition of “crazy” is.
 
Mark Felt said:
It's not.
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This thread has amply demonstrated that not only is genesis not close to a scientific interpetation, it clearly contradicts science in a number of places. Congratulations, Doc, on making this clear to all of us.
 
The problem with using the excuse that God told dumbed down stories so the people of the time would believe him, is that he never presented any new information at all, in any form. The news that microbes cause disease (which could have saved billions of lives) could have been presented in any number of dumbed down ways. All the writings in the Bible are consistent with being written by people, and not at all consistent with an authorship by Sky Daddy.
 
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