A Serious Question: Pangea

Originally posted by sonhouse

How could a Christian in good faith ever convert to the view that
god bootstrapped the universe to produce us by making the rules
amenible to our kind of life appearing here?

Most already do, in a way. That's what the Genesis creation story is all about. Bootstrapping is exactly what is described in the beginning of Genesis. God made air, water, land, plants and animals so that the world would be amenable to supporting man.

The hangup is that some people insist that we aren't special to God if we evolved from lower species, even if that was God's chosen way to implement his design of man.


Think of a chess analogy. You've checkmated people before, I imagine. Which is more satisfying to you: starting with the rules of the game and being creative in that realm to reach an interesting mating net, or just setting up the mating net on the board to begin with? Your goal in each scenario is the same; the fact that you chose to play around while achieving it adds to the beauty. There is more to marvel at. Your checkmate isn't devalued due to the fact that it "evolved" from basic elements and rules; on the contrary, that's where its value comes from.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sorry, mis-spelled. Cartouche is right, the carvings in stone
called hieroglyphics. Scuse me! The 7 day myth was carved in stone
about 4000 years ago and is probably older than that.
I googled in the 7 day story and it overwhelmingly comes back the
genesis version, no referance to anything older. Suspicious.
There are also drawings in the burial chambers of the 7 day myth.

search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sorry, mis-spelled. Cartouche is right, the carvings in stone
called hieroglyphics. Scuse me! The 7 day myth was carved in stone
about 4000 years ago and is probably older than that.
I googled in the 7 day story and it overwhelmingly comes back the
genesis version, no referance to anything older. Suspicious.
There are also drawings in the burial chambers of the 7 day myth.

search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sorry, mis-spelled. Cartouche is right, the carvings in stone
called hieroglyphics. Scuse me! The 7 day myth was carved in stone
about 4000 years ago and is probably older than that.
I googled in the 7 day story and it overwhelmingly comes back the
genesis version, no referance to anything older. Suspicious.
There are also drawings in the burial chambers of the 7 day myth.

search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sorry, mis-spelled. Cartouche is right, the carvings in stone
called hieroglyphics. Scuse me! The 7 day myth was carved in stone
about 4000 years ago and is probably older than that.
I googled in the 7 day story and it overwhelmingly comes back the
genesis version, no referance to anything older. Suspicious.
There are also drawings in the burial chambers of the 7 day myth.

search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sorry, mis-spelled. Cartouche is right, the carvings in stone
called hieroglyphics. Scuse me! The 7 day myth was carved in stone
about 4000 years ago and is probably older than that.
I googled in the 7 day story and it overwhelmingly comes back the
genesis version, no referance to anything older. Suspicious.
There are also drawings in the burial chambers of the 7 day myth.

search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sorry, mis-spelled. Cartouche is right, the carvings in stone
called hieroglyphics. Scuse me! The 7 day myth was carved in stone
about 4000 years ago and is probably older than that.
I googled in the 7 day story and it overwhelmingly comes back the
genesis version, no referance to anything older. Suspicious.
There are also drawings in the burial chambers of the 7 day myth.

search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sorry, mis-spelled. Cartouche is right, the carvings in stone
called hieroglyphics. Scuse me! The 7 day myth was carved in stone
about 4000 years ago and is probably older than that.
I googled in the 7 day story and it overwhelmingly comes back the
genesis version, no referance to anything older. Suspicious.
There are also drawings in the burial chambers of the 7 day myth.

search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sorry, mis-spelled. Cartouche is right, the carvings in stone
called hieroglyphics. Scuse me! The 7 day myth was carved in stone
about 4000 years ago and is probably older than that.
I googled in the 7 day story and it overwhelmingly comes back the
genesis version, no referance to anything older. Suspicious.
There are also drawings in the burial chambers of the 7 day myth.

search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

Originally posted by frogstomp
search for the Enuma Elish and read the 5th Tablet

that was weird. Deja Vu

Originally posted by frogstomp
that was weird. Deja Vu

lmao. Having IE problems FS?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Not many of the established religions could ever subscribe to that
view simply because they have too much dogma at stake.
How could a Christian in good faith ever convert to the view that
god bootstrapped the universe to produce us by making the rules
amenible to our kind of life appearing here? That would imply a
hands off god who views the comings a ...[text shortened]... Muslim would
ever think twice about the possiblity, they are much too closed minded
for that.

I am surprised by this post, to tell the truth. I start reading and immediately come across the statement "there is too much dogma at stake." Here's what Meriam-Webster has to say about dogma:

1 a : something held as an established opinion; especially : a definite authoritative tenet b : a code of such tenets c : a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds
2 : a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church

How does any of this have to do with God or our relationship wth him? Perhaps we just need to wake up, realize that dogma means nothing in an ultimate sense, toss down our cards and walk away from that table.

And once again you are making incredible jumps of reasoning based apparently on your own emotion concerning the matter. You say just because God created a perfectly working world to begin with he looks at it with disdain and humor? If you build an engine from scratch, or wrote a best selling novel, would you feel disdain for it just because it runs perfectly and only needs an occasional fine tuning? What if you were reading a novel and the author suddenly shows up at the door, asking for the book back says, "sorry, I found out that I did that all wrong. I didn't spend enough time and effort creating it to begin with so I'm going to have to re-write it. The new version isn't actually going to be any better, but it'll have lots of dogma in it"?

God is supposed to be perfect--that is an inarguable definition. Therefore whatever he may create must also be perfect and do exactly what it is intended to do. Nothing can ever blow up in God's face unless that is exactly what it is supposed to do. So by your completely unfounded argument God is going to feel distain for his creation no matter what.

Originally posted by David C
[b]Another refreshing reminder of the "stompingaboutbeatingchestandyellingatthosewhodon'tbelieveinyourgenius" mentality that is so pervasive.

Yes, that mainly comes from the Christian chestbeaters, or hadn't you noticed? Oh, that's right, you just now joined.

Sonny, post hoc ergo propter hoc is a nice way of saying, "don't yell you ...[text shortened]... ssed the part where Jesus was teaching the Jesusbots to be egotistical and overly condescending?

[/b]Most certainly, the stompers are often the irrational Christians - but there are an equal, if not greater amount of chest-thumpers in all the other groups (athiests, gnostics and agnostics).

Good! A little condescension goes a long way, doesn't it? Feel better now?

Mom? When did you learn to type?!

Face it. While this nor the Sumerian tablets may to be conclusive 'proof' that Genesis was plagarized, it is strong evidence. For you to bleat "It's not!" is as much of a logical fallacy as the inverse.

Try this one (a truly hypothetical situation):
A hundred years from now, the Nazi underground has filled the world with its propaganda and convinced most people that WW2 never happened - it's a myth sold my a bunch of fundees who are tarnishing the true face of history. Most records and evidences of the war have been removed and eradicated or just vanished in the mists of time.
While nobody can prove that WW2 was a real event, quite a few still believe it did (and are called closed-minded bigots without knowledge of history). Somebody brings out a book about WW2 (a reprint dated 2007, thought to have been written in the early 1950's, but can't be proven).

So the argument goes: "We've got a le Carre novel here, based on the myth of WW2, that is older (1982 - reprint as well). It has a lot of obviously mythological characteristics about it (Hitler won the war) but there are several similarities between it and your "historical book". It is only logical that your book has plagarized le Carre's mythology to try and sell the myth of WW2."

My argument is this - the only similarities between the Sumerian tablets, the Cairo rock, hundreds of other works and the Bible is that they tell of a Creation and a Flood.

Is it not possible that the flood and Creation happened and these are multiple (if often, fantastic) retellings of the same events? Writings are often copied and passed on, so one can also not be sure that the Sumerian tablets are an older recounting than the Creation account of Genesis.

I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where Jesus was teaching the Jesusbots to be egotistical and overly condescending?

As Bosse, I'm still trying on the hat of Creationism (seeing if it fits) and while I'm very happy with it, a character comes along every now and again, to whom I just have to remove my hat and fire away...

Originally posted by Halitose
lmao. Having IE problems FS?

nah , I just kept forgeting I had written it.

Originally posted by RatX
Is it not possible that the flood and Creation happened and these are multiple (if often, fantastic) retellings of the same events? Writings are often copied and passed on, so one can also not be sure that the Sumerian tablets are an older recounting than the Creation account of Genesis.

Given that context, why should we choose to take the xtian bible as the true depiction of these events, rather than, say...the Hopi indian version? Or the Mayans? Or the Greek pantheon? With your logic, the xtian recount of these (alleged) events is just another retelling with a different backdrop.