Adam was NOT the first human

[Podo]

The article is pretty meaningless, since it's referencing scripture. Scripture isn't a historic record, and we know that there as no "first human" because that isn't how evolution works. At best, the author is examining a work of literary fiction.

[LucidElement]

3 hours ago, Harte said:

You could read this:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Harte

The creationist could argue the God was behind that voyage and helping noah gather the animals.

[LucidElement]

2 hours ago, Almighty Evan said:

There is some disagreement with this statement.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/24/opinion/l-history-didn-t-begin-in-mesopotamia-468190.html

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab25

[Will Due]

18 hours ago, back to earth said:

One does not even have to invoke science ... even within the Bible itself Adam and Eve were not the only ones 

Where did Lilith come from ?       

Not to mention, who was in the land of Nod, where Cain got himself a wife?

And who were the "sons of God" who came down to earth from heaven and had sexual relations with the "daughters of men" to begot a great race, the men of renown? 

All before Adam and Eve. 

 

[Harte]

1 hour ago, LucidElement said:

The creationist could argue the God was behind that voyage and helping noah gather the animals.

Read further. There's sections on geological evidence (or lack thereof.)

Wasn't that the question?

Harte

[Emma_Acid]

6 hours ago, LucidElement said:

Does anyone have any information or know of any websites that talk about evidence the great flood didnt exist? In that article it says its been proven by scientists, however the site didnt go into much detail.

Of course it hasn't.

[LucidElement]

8 hours ago, Harte said:

Read further. There's sections on geological evidence (or lack thereof.)

Wasn't that the question?

Harte

Basically what I'm saying is that , if you read the article it talks about certain animals not being able to survive or trek through harsh conditions. But if you talk to a creationist , they would say that was the power of God. That made it possible for those animals to sail safely on Noah's ark.

[AZDZ]

The Bible says that Adam was the first man made in His image. An important distinction!

People living in the land of Nod, of whom Cain took a wife, were not made in His image. I suspect they were part of the natural evolution science finds evidence of.

While they probably developed false narratives of a Great Spirit inhabiting physical items, God never spoke or revealed himself to the indigenous species, they never knew him the way Adam and Eve knew him.

Part of the Curse for disobeying was to be cast out of Eden where they would encounter and need to deal with the 'ignorant' idol worshiping natives. 

The Mark of Cain was a feature meant to protect him (Gen 14:15) from them lest they kill him for his crazy ideas of natural elements not being gods. An argument that continues to this day!  

[LucidElement]

4 minutes ago, AZDZ said:

The Bible says that Adam was the first man made in His image. An important distinction!

People living in the land of Nod, of whom Cain took a wife, were not made in His image. I suspect they were part of the natural evolution science finds evidence of.

While they probably developed false narratives of a Great Spirit inhabiting physical items, God never spoke or revealed himself to the indigenous species, they never knew him the way Adam and Eve knew him.

Part of the Curse for disobeying was to be cast out of Eden where they would encounter and need to deal with the 'ignorant' idol worshiping natives. 

The Mark of Cain was a feature meant to protect him (Gen 14:15) from them lest they kill him for his crazy ideas of natural elements not being gods. An argument that continues to this day!  

Thats an interesting speculation. That God created man IN HIS IMAGE. Great point to highlight. And then there were those that could have evolved naturally that were outside his image. If that's the truth, wouldn't it be interesting to know who was made by God and who evolved.!

[AZDZ]

ETA: Actually I don't think we'd want to know that information, we already have enough to divide us.

Edited July 12, 2017 by AZDZ

[Harte]

15 hours ago, LucidElement said:

Basically what I'm saying is that , if you read the article it talks about certain animals not being able to survive or trek through harsh conditions. But if you talk to a creationist , they would say that was the power of God. That made it possible for those animals to sail safely on Noah's ark.

Again, the question wasn't about that.

Obviously, a creationist can claim "God" for every inconsistency. What was asked was whether science has proven it false - which it has - through the geology of it.

But, of course, God could have quickly erased any geological remains of the Flood to keep it secret from us.

Oh. Wait.

He told Noah about it - that guy was a blabbermouth.

Harte

[Essan]

On 10/07/2017 at 6:48 PM, LucidElement said:

        I came across an interesting article i would like to share with you all and hear your feedback. I came across this article because I always find it difficult to believe there was no life before Adam and Eve, especially with all the archeological findings popping up.

I beleve that there was life on Earth for at least 3,000,000,000 years before someone came up with the Adam & Eve story - which itself originated at least 200,000 years after anatomical modern humans appeared.

In any case, according to the Bible, on the sixth day "God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."   Only afterwards, after he had rested on the 7th day, did "the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" etc ....

So there were men and women before Adam and Eve.  According to Genesis.

(Obviously, as with other stories such as Noahs Flood, Genesis contains two quite different, conflicting, accounts of the creation of mankind)

[Essan]

4 hours ago, AZDZ said:

The Bible says that Adam was the first man made in His image. An important distinction!

 

No it doesnt!
The first humans were created in His image
There is no description of Adam whom He created later (we have no idea of how long later, but it was after the Creation) out of some dust   
 

 

[Essan]

It is also worth noting that as early as the 3rd Day, "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" but when God created Adam, sometime after the 7th Day, " no plant had yet sprung up "

Methinks someone is telling porkies!

How can you trust any deity who keeps changing his story  

[acute]

As I always say.....

The first generation was Adam & Eve, the second generation was their offspring, but where did the third generation come from?

Choose the incest that suits your beliefs.

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

9 hours ago, AZDZ said:

The Bible says that Adam was the first man made in His image. An important distinction!

Perhaps if you are an apologist.

9 hours ago, AZDZ said:

People living in the land of Nod, of whom Cain took a wife, were not made in His image.

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

9 hours ago, AZDZ said:

I suspect they were part of the natural evolution science finds evidence of.

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

9 hours ago, AZDZ said:

While they probably developed false narratives of a Great Spirit inhabiting physical items, God never spoke or revealed himself to the indigenous species, they never knew him the way Adam and Eve knew him.

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

9 hours ago, AZDZ said:

Part of the Curse for disobeying was to be cast out of Eden where they would encounter and need to deal with the 'ignorant' idol worshiping natives. 

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

9 hours ago, AZDZ said:

The Mark of Cain was a feature meant to protect him (Gen 14:15) from them lest they kill him for his crazy ideas of natural elements not being gods. An argument that continues to this day!  

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

[Harte]

5 hours ago, Essan said:

I beleve that there was life on Earth for at least 3,000,000,000 years before someone came up with the Adam & Eve story - which itself originated at least 200,000 years after anatomical modern humans appeared.

I am loath to differ with you Essan, but there's simply no way to know what tales earlier Homo Sapiens told each other about their own beginnings, and very little doubt that they noticed it took a man and a woman to create new ones.

Harte

[Will Due]

For thousands of years after the submergence of the first Eden the mountains about the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and those to the northwest and northeast of Mesopotamia continued to rise. This elevation of the highlands was greatly accelerated about 5000 B.C., and this, together with greatly increased snowfall on the northern mountains, caused unprecedented floods each spring throughout the Euphrates valley. These spring floods grew increasingly worse so that eventually the inhabitants of the river regions were driven to the eastern highlands. For almost a thousand years scores of cities were practically deserted because of these extensive deluges.

Almost five thousand years later, as the Hebrew priests in Babylonian captivity sought to trace the Jewish people back to Adam, they found great difficulty in piecing the story together; and it occurred to one of them to abandon the effort, to let the whole world drown in its wickedness at the time of Noah's flood, and thus to be in a better position to trace Abraham right back to one of the three surviving sons of Noah.

The traditions of a time when water covered the whole of the earth's surface are universal. Many races harbor the story of a world-wide flood some time during past ages. The Biblical story of Noah, the ark, and the flood is an invention of the Hebrew priesthood during the Babylonian captivity. There has never been a universal flood since life was established on Urantia. The only time the surface of the earth was completely covered by water was during those Archeozoic ages before the land had begun to appear.

But Noah really lived; he was a wine maker of Aram, a river settlement near Erech. He kept a written record of the days of the river's rise from year to year. He brought much ridicule upon himself by going up and down the river valley advocating that all houses be built of wood, boat fashion, and that the family animals be put on board each night as the flood season approached. He would go to the neighboring river settlements every year and warn them that in so many days the floods would come. Finally a year came in which the annual floods were greatly augmented by unusually heavy rainfall so that the sudden rise of the waters wiped out the entire village; only Noah and his immediate family were saved in their houseboat.

 

Edited July 13, 2017 by Will Due

[Opus Magnus]

In genesis, when it talks about the nephilim, the offspring of the son's of God that descended onto the earth because they saw the daughters of men fair, and decided to make them their wives.  It says the giants they bred were men of great renown, men of legends.  I think this may be eluding to the mythology of demi-gods.  Also, a distinction, is it doesn't say there were giants on the earth, but there were giants in the earth in those days.  This is a distinction, that in the bible in other places sometimes it says in the earth.  Also, in the Lord's prayer, it literally says "In heaven as in the earth," but in church they always say, "in heaven as on the earth."  This has always bothered me, as a simplicity of mind, which Solomon hates.  That they can't comprehend that things are IN the earth, so they replace it with on.

 

 

Also, when I was like 11 years old I finished the game Xenogears by Squaresoft.  It was a controversial game because of its religious content.  It had a lot of stuff in it, but one of the ideas was about the tree of life, and knowledge, and it was like the tree of knowledge or life, was like a big computer used to modify DNA and originate life.  Anyway, it was a really cool game and the ideas were really strange, but cool how they said all the stuff, and a huge coverup by a secret caste of people called the sheperds who controlled the rest of humanity, but were cannibals.  Anyway, I read Gnostic texts, from the Nag Hammadhi scrolls.  Some of the books in there go over the same stuff as in the game, sort of.  Like it's all supposed to be metaphors.   When you see the other mythologies have the parts of Genesis, it makes you wonder.  Anyway, it's interesting to read the Gnostic perspectives, just to consider, because some times it's sort of twisted.  Though, I didn't know the stuff from Xenogears was probably based on much older writings from ancient people like this. 

A lot of the stuff in the Nag Hammadhi scrolls I don't get along with, it just can't fit in with the scripture, it's obviously corrupt, but there's a lot of other books in it, that even if you don't believe it, it's interesting to consider.

[Mr Walker]

On 11/07/2017 at 4:05 AM, Opus Magnus said:

Hmm, idk, maybe.  I've never thought of it before.  I guess, thinking of the Lord's prayer it's all we's and us, not I.  Though, idk if it really makes sense because I don't think there was supposed to be anyone else besides God around at that time.  Because, if they use that, then I think there still has to be a we around, so I don't think it would make sense to apply the we to mankind, since it's being made, but that there were other beings around at that time.

The bible does not presuppose that humans were the first, or only, beings created by god, and indeed  there are some stories in the bible which suggest that there were many worlds under gods governance, with only the earth falling during the great battle of the angels during the war in heaven.  In job,  god is conversing with beings during an important meeting in heaven,  when satan arrives from earth to seek permission to test job.    Hebrews 1:2 says that god made the worldS, not one world.

rev 5:13 tells us that these worlds remain unfallen. 

[Mr Walker]

On 13/07/2017 at 10:01 AM, acute said:

As I always say.....

The first generation was Adam & Eve, the second generation was their offspring, but where did the third generation come from?

Choose the incest that suits your beliefs.

Incest tis only a problem if it causes genetic defects or limitations to a gene pool.  Given the biblical story that the first generations of man still retained a lot of the longevity and power of their creation,  it is arguable (logically if not scientifically ) that there was no genetic flaw in the first people and thus only as sin  (separation from the tree of life)  began to take effect, did lives shorten and disabilities and imperfections arise in humans  

[back to earth]

20 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Incest tis only a problem if it causes genetic defects or limitations to a gene pool.

 

Just  wow !   ....  thats all ... wow ! 

20 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

 Given the biblical story that the first generations of man still retained a lot of the longevity and power of their creation,  it is arguable (logically if not scientifically ) that there was no genetic flaw in the first people and thus only as sin  (separation from the tree of life)  began to take effect, did lives shorten and disabilities and imperfections arise in humans  

 

 I see ... it was sin was it .... nothing to do with genetics or invasive virus that cause mutations. 

 

I would LOVE to see your pages of 'scientific evidence ' you put up when challenged on anything  ....   

 

so... off you go ... lets see the scientific evidence for your claim that it was sin that  caused  genetic defects .

 

Please do not post evidence that incest is okay    though .    < shudder > 

[+DanL]

Just for a bit if it is possible allow me to toss a little historical reality in here. I am not talking about religion, rather just the realities of how things were done and where some ideas may have come from.

The old testament of the christian Bible is based on the history of the Jewish people. The books of the Bible were selected from many books that make up the Jewish history. This stuff was an oral tradition for a long long time and then at some point written down. There were/are many books that were not picked to be included in the Christian version of the bible.

As is common in MANY peoples history, the first person that that group of people recognition as the first of their group this person becomes the FIRST. The fact is that the “in his image” revered to in the Bible may have been a philosophical statement rather than a physical statement. People all over the world look physically a lot different but what make you jewish has little to do with what you look like. The old testament is filled with instructions about how to act and what to do and very few instructions about what you are supposed o look like.

The old testament has many common ideas and stories with other doccuments such as the Sumerian tales of sat Gilgamesh. In the end what has come down to us is a book that started as the oral history of several groups that has been adapted over and over to better suit different groups. The Jews didn't include all of the things that you find in other VERY similar texts then the bible was picked from those and not all was included in that version and then the protestants did it again and didn't include everything that was in the Catholic texts.

Adam was the first human that the Jewish peoples recognized as their direct ancestor. Because of the picking and choosing in each book of the bible and even withing each chapter of each book there is a lot of disharmony. You can only find a sort of sense of some parts by going into other earlier documents that are not included in the version of the story that you have.

Another problem is that the Bible for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, was hand written. This also led to modifications that were not always intended but were left in place nonetheless. It has been extremely interesting comparing the exact text of the dead sea scrolls that are the “same” books that we see today in our bibles. It is a little like that kiddie game where a story is told from one child to another in whisper then at the end of several passings you compare the end result with where it started.

The story of Lilith is not included in the King James Bible. In the older texts when god made mankind he did it just as he did all the other creatures...male and female alike. Evedently Lilith was more than Adam could deal with and she basically told him to kiss off and left him in some versions. Since Adam was now alone god decided to make him a new mate that wasn't made just as he had been made and Lilith had been made but instead made Eve from a part of Adam so that he would be stronger and she would be more subservient to him.

LOL, Judging from my wife I thing that Seth and probably Cain went on to marry and have kids with the children of Lilith because my wife didn't get the message about being easier for a male to boss her around. She would have been like Lilith and Adam would have been in trouble.

Now, about that flood. The tale of a massive flood is pretty much world wide and found in the older histories of about every group. I have no problem understanding this at all and assure you, the great flood was very real AND a flood that was experienced on every continent. Before the end of the Ice-age somewhere around 12 to 15 thousand years ago the Persion gulf and much of the Mediterranean Sea was dry. The coast lines world wide was hundreds of feet lower than they are now. All people that lived anywhere near a sea coast and many that lived in rich fertile valleys around the world were flooded out and from their homes. In some cases this was a slow thing but in others it was probably extremely sudden. Imagine what it was like when the waters of the rising sea might have suddenly breached a land bridge at the Strait of Gibraltar and came rushing into the much lower and mostly dry Mediterranean basin!!

The survivors of this saw their entire world suddenly underwater and as time went by that is what the story many times repeated reflects. There are several versions of this. At one time the Black Sea was a fresh water lakes that was then suddenly inundated as the Mediterranean did to it much as the ocean did to the Mediterranean basin. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles may also have been suddenly breached.

The Old Testament of the Bible is based on the history of the Jewish people. It is about things that were experienced by a primitive people that lived through a lot of seriously terrible geological and political times. Over and over they have risen and fallen as a people and this is reflected in their stories. Whether you accept this book as a factual description of their relationship with their god or not it is nonetheless a rather good description considering how many people have picked and chosen and rewritten it for thousands of years of some well understood periods in our planets history.

 

[back to earth]

On 7/11/2017 at 11:31 PM, LucidElement said:

Does anyone have any information or know of any websites that talk about evidence the great flood didnt exist? In that article it says its been proven by scientists, however the site didnt go into much detail.

If it was 'world wide' then it did not affect Australia     

[GlitterRose]

On 7/12/2017 at 6:08 PM, Noteverythingisaconspiracy said:

Perhaps if you are an apologist.

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

Or perhaps it never happened in the first place ?

I feel like this is the appropriate response to every post on this discussion.