Responding to Atheism

@Emosaur I think I just managed reading Genesis 1. In fact, I translated it here. https://semmelweisreflex.com/scripture/genesis/chapter1top.php

@BibleData Yeah, that's the one. Right there, verse 11. He creates the plants on the third day. Verse 14. He creates the sun. You just provided the very material you claim isn't in the Bible.

@LordShadowfire In verse 1 the heavens and earth were complete. That means the sun, moon, stars, and planets, including earth, were already complete at verse 1. They were complete before the six "days" of creation began. Those "days" (Hebrew yohm) were an arrangement or appointment of the already created. He doesn't create the sun in verse 14. He already created it by verse 1. The Hebrew yohm, like our day, can mean any duration of time from a few hours to time indefinite. So, gradually light was visible from the already created sun, and then some time later the actual sun was visible. There was a band of debris the book of Job calls a "swaddling band" surrounding the earth that the light had to gradually penetrate.

@BibleData That is absolutely a description of God making the sun, the moon, and the stars. It is also subsequent to the description of making plants, which took place on the third day.

Plants made third day. Sun made fourth day.

However you choose to interpret the word day, unless you're prepared to assume that numbers had the reverse meaning that they do now, plants were made, and then the sun was made.

@LordShadowfire I don't think you are listening to me. Or you aren't getting my point. Maybe you can't get past the traditional interpretation of a literal 144 hour creation of heaven and earth 6,000 years ago? That's nonsense. Not Biblical.

The sun was created in verse 1. It's light was visible in verse 3. The source, that is the luminaries themselves, were visible in verse 16.

The "days" of creation aren't considering the manufacturing of the luminaries, but rather their arrangement or appointment. You can't get past the perfect state of the Hebrew bara (create) and imperfect state of asah (make). Put simply a bed is created, manufactured and then made daily. The Greek word kosmos, from which comes the English cosmos and cosmetics, means adornment; arrangement.

On Genesis 1:16 - The Hebrew waiyaas (proceeded to make), from asah, in verse 16 is different than bara (create) in verses 1, 21 and 27. Asah is the imperfect state indicating progressive action. The luminaries as part of the heavens had already been completed in verse 1, but now they were visible on Earth and prepared for their intended use. Asah can mean make, or appoint (Deuteronomy 15:1), establish (2 Samuel 7:11), form (Jeremiah 18:4), or prepare (Genesis 21:8).

The order of creation

Period 1 - Light; a division between night and day (Genesis 1:3-5)
Period 2 - The Expanse; a division between waters above and beneath. (Genesis 1:6-8)
Period 3 - Dry land and vegetation. (Genesis 1:9-13)
Period 4 - Heavenly luminaries become visible from Earth. (Genesis 1:14-19)
Period 5 - Aquatic and flying creatures. (Genesis 1:20-23)
Period 6 - Land animals and man. (Genesis 1:24-31)
Period 7 - The seventh day, God's rest, continues to this day. (Psalm 95:11; Isaiah 40:28; John 5:17; Romans 8:22; Hebrews 4:1-5)

@Emosaur No, if I was an idiot who knew nothing about the Bible I would agree with you.

@BibleData Sorry, I'm just going by the actual words in the physical book, rather than mental gymnastics. Should I not be?

Argue with the words you brought to the table:
That sure as hell doesn't sound like God creating the sun, no matter how you twist it.


Again, mental gymnastics. A simple, literal reading of the text says that he made the sun, the moon, and the stars on that day.

@LordShadowfire
You're reading a translation from a thousands year old text. That in itself isn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem for the reader is the preconceived notions of traditional theology, most of which was formulated during the dark ages or even older Greek philosophy. Not that there didn't exist more accurate theology at the time, just that the traditional nonsense was more popular. Nothing I say is original or new. See, I didn't have the tradition because I started out an unbeliever totally ignorant of theology and traditional interpretation.

In the Bible you can't always go by what the Bible is saying. Skeptics tend to cling to the most literal interpretation for a variety of reasons. They don't know any better, don't think it worth their time to look closer, object to the traditional interpretation and the strictly literal interpretation makes it seem less plausible. That's their objective.

So, the Bible says a serpent talked. It didn't. Eve thought it did because she was tricked. It gives you the story in another's perspectives. In this instance, Eve's perspective.

Similar examples of the Bible saying something that wasn't true is the ass of Balaam. The ass didn't talk. But also in the case where it appears that Samuel's "spirit" is summoned by the witch of En-dor, and where the cowardly scouts sent out came back and said the Nephilim were in the land. The scouts lied because they were afraid, the Nephilim all perished in the flood. The "spirit" of Samuel was a demon. Sometimes the Bible even gives details of earlier events using references that didn't exist at that time. For example, at Genesis 3:24 the cherubs use a flaming blade of a sword to prevent Adam and Eve from returning. No such thing existed at that time. At Genesis 2:10-14 the geographical details of Eden are given with reference to one river "to the East of Assyria" when Assyria certainly didn't exist then. But it was familiar to the reader who was reading it much later.

This is why you have to know the entire Bible before you start hacking at it like a blind woodsman. That isn't mental gymnastics.


Genesis 1:1 says God created the heavens and earth. What are the heavens?

Your interpretation isn't subject to peer review as it is in science. It's your personal responsibility. So, what is your obstacle in translating the ancient Hebrew into the target language? You have the perfect state of bara (create) and the imperfect state of asah (make). You also have two different words for light, but that's later. Let's concentrate on the first verse. English created. Past tense? Again, what are the heavens created in verse 1.

What is the difference between bara and asah?


What does a literal interpretation of made a bed mean? I made my bed this morning. What does that mean? The bed didn't exist until I made it this morning? I a make it every morning. What does that mean?

All you have to do first is answer what the heavens that were already created in verse 1 involve? I've told you and you disagree?

Okay, let's go on to day. I gave you an example of how we use that word in at least three different ways. An indeterminate period of time within a narrative from a few hours to time indefinite. And a literal 24 hours. the creation account uses all three of those applications in just a few verses. At Genesis 2: 4 all six "days" are called one "day." (https://www.biblehub.com/genesis/2-4.htm)

It's the Hebrew word yohm, and it's used throughout the Bible along with the Greek to mean any period of time from a few hours to whatever the narrative calls for. (Zechariah 14:8; Proverbs 25:13; Psalm 90:4; Isaiah 49:8; Matthew 10:15) I gave the example of in my grandpa's day they worked the day shift five days a week. You could say in the dinosaur's day and that wouldn't mean a literal 24 hours.

Mental gymnastics aren't necessary you just need to get past the tradition.

@Emosaur Well, in your case I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps you are still reeling from finding out that the big cool T Rex you learned about in school was probably a giant squawking chicken and Pluto wasn't a planet?

@BibleData So it's unreliable. Got it.

Not really. Skeptics look at the most literal interpretation because the most vocal of Christians do the same. "Oh, the Bible says everything was created in a week, and my pastor says it was only six thousand years ago, so your evolutionary theory is a lie!" That sort of thing. Obviously, you know better than that, but you still defend the book. You remind me of me 20 years ago in that respect.

The original interpretation was the sky. We have to remember that these people had no conception of anything outside the bounds of earth. They couldn't imagine the vast expanses we know exist between even our planet and the sun, let alone other planets. Hell, let's be honest. The author probably thought the sky was a dome over the flat earth.

That's a poor example. You're using a well-known English expression that we all know isn't to be taken literally.

Again, even if we assume the word day is metaphorical (or more likely, mistranslated by Dark Age "scholars), you've still got the problem of proving that the sun was made in verse 1. You haven't proven that. All you've done is overlay your own assumptions about what "the heavens" means. We're still on square one.

@LordShadowfire
More like subject to user error. In a sense, not user friendly to our temporal paradigm. The Bible wasn't written for us. The Law of Moses wasn't written for James, but as he said, it was useful to him as an example. The writing was inspired in its time but the translation of our time isn't inspired. It doesn't need to be because it's only an example. It's all we need.


To some degree, yes, but atheists tend to be more demanding in their more literal interpretation. And really, I believe the atheist vs theist debate to be a product of a sociopolitical frustration on the part of a small minority of militant atheists. It's petty, really. It's our egos. A class struggle of sorts. World views colliding. Just noise that will fade away in time.

I would encourage any serious minded skeptic to not pay too much attention to creationists or Christian theology outside of the pretty well documented history of their apostasy.


Likewise I would encourage the serious skeptic to avoid the trappings of ideology. If you are an archaeologist digging around in the smoky ruins of time it isn't your job to believe in the gods you are finding, or compare unfairly their culture with your own, it's your job to find out what they believed. What motivated them. Their zeitgeist.

If you really want to understand the Bible, even from a skeptical perspective, you may have to look deeper than the King James Version or what a pastor says. If you are satisfied with not doing that you probably have other motivations, just as the believer does the same for the same reason. He isn't searching for God, he's searching for tradition and a false comfort.

There's nothing that can be done for those people. You can't educate them and you certainly can't reason with them. They aren't interested in the data. That's just a smokescreen. It's gaslighting. Translucent.

If you can't get past Genesis 1:1 the odds are you haven't the motivation. And that's fine. It's your responsibility. No one else's. You've chosen your path so follow it to the end.


Okay. What's in the sky?


They couldn't see the sun? Had no idea it existed? Their description of the sky as you see it is how they saw it - and you're sure about that.

Okay.


No, they didn't think that until the dark ages. But their lack of knowledge had been resolved by the time you say the sun was introduced into their crazy narrative? Three verses later? I've already explained the language to you. Now I have to argue your conjectural cultural appropriation? And I'm the one doing mental gymnastics?

Just to give you some perspective the book of Job was written prior to Genesis and it talks about several constellations. In the dark ages, however, they thought that day and night were caused by vapors, or miasmas, either from the sky or the earth. They also thought that disease was caused by these miasmas. The germ theory wouldn't replace the miasmatic school of medicine until Pasteur and Lister, among others, in the 1860's - 1870's. We still have remnants of that archaic school in modern medicine, like the surgical mask.

So smart phones a smart people do not make.


It's the same. You can't just explain away the perfect and imperfect states of bara and asah. You aren't doing that. One conveys completion, the other progressive action.


I don't know what to tell you. In the creation account, day means the daylight hours, a literal 24 hour period and an indeterminate period of time. David and Paul mention the seventh day as continuing thousands of years later and I gave multiple verses where the term is used for various times outside of the creation account throughout the Bible as well as contemporary English.

There isn't much more I can do for you.

@BibleData You sure do use a lot of words to agree with me.

Yeah, well, they say that anybody who doesn't take the Bible literally is an apostate, and a disciple of Satan, so there we go.

Hey, you were the one who brought up Genesis, dude. We can debate other parts of the Bible if you want.

No, the Bible is crystal clear. Everything was dark. Nice try, though.

Nope. Didn't say that. Keep the straw men out of this. I said the book says God created the sky, and then the sun. End of story. It's a creation myth, a way of explaining how the sun, moon, and stars came to be.

Again, you are ignoring the fact that Genesis chapter 1 is a creation myth. It doesn't matter that Job was written an unknown number of centuries earlier.

Look. If you have to have knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and probably some dead languages I've never heard of in order to get the proper meaning, what's the point? To get good rules for behavior? I can find that anywhere.

And they still fall in order, even if we assume the author means an epoch instead of a literal day.

@LordShadowfire
I'm not agreeing with you, I'm saying the Bible isn't unreliable, we are.


They're wrong. It's important to know when to take it literally and when not to. Genesis 1:1 isn't a matter of whether or not to take it literal, it's a matter of linguistics. Something is lost in translation.


The point is that you are biased due to tradition.


Everything was dark until verse 3 because of the debris surrounding the planet earth in the newly created universe. The imperfect state of asah (make) indicates this as does the gradual appearance of the source of light later which is why there are two different words for light used in each case. It's difficult to translate but some older more careful translations more clearly indicate this progressive action indicated by the imperfect state.


Wrong.


There. That incorrect assumption is why you can't have this discussion properly. Your estimation is based upon a faulty premise. An unnecessary one. It's irrelevant but you have to make it to reach your predetermined conclusion. There isn't any point in your doing that since you're already convinced. You can't understand something if you insist on misunderstanding it for your own convenience.

I've had this discussion with countless skeptics, you aren't going to convince me and you've already convinced yourself, so that isn't the point here. The point is debate? Then you need to give more reason for your observation, your hypothesis. Your logic is flawed because the sun, moon and stars are in the sky. Either way, I'm right. The sun was already complete.

Here's the evidence you have to refute to support your claim that the sun was created after plants.

1. Genesis 1:1 uses bara for created. In Hebrew it's the perfect state, meaning, without a doubt, that the heavens and earth were complete before the "days of creation" began. The spiritual heavens were already created an indeterminate time prior to that as indicated elsewhere, Job for example. The English uses the past tense, created. The sky, the physical heavens, include the sun, moon and stars.

2. The heavens are created, 1:1. Light appears, is made to shine, gradually as is indicated with the imperfect state of asah which is different than bara in verses 3 and 16. Created / made. Asah can be translated as appoint or prepare, God was preparing the already created earth in the 6 "days." You can't say the sun wasn't any more created than the earth from verse 1 because they are both being prepared. Not created twice. The "in the beginning" wasn't the beginning of all things created, it was the beginning of the heavens and earth.

3. At 1:1 the heavens and earth are created. At 1:2 There is no light, no land. At 1:3 light appears gradually. At 1:4 there is a division of night and day. Only at 1:5 is the first day. The day is metaphorical. Revelation to angels observing from heaven. At 1:6 the waters are divided. At 1:7 the expanse is made. At 1:8 God calls the expanse sky. (atmosphere) At 1:9 land is made. At 1:10 God calls land and sea. At 1:11 vegetation appears.


You haven't provided any evidence to that effect.


Job was completed in c. 1473, Genesis was completed in 1513.


Exactly. Then do it.