EugEnE ([info]keeblerx) wrote,
@ 2009-01-11 18:10:00
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Creationism
I have several Christians in my friends list who are all intelligent and consistent.

How many of you (christians and non-christians) believe in a creation story or believe generally in creationism?



I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the analogy for the world being created. I like a lot of the parables and stories that come from the dozens of creation stories, myths, and legends I have heard.

I also like imagining any of them being a symbol for the way things actually went down.

"Yeah, first there was nothing, then there was something. Then there was water. Then there was land. Then there were animals and then there were people. Then god(s)/goddess(es) took a nap."

I am not a scientist. I don't care how long each of these things took. I am inclined to believe it wasn't a handful of days. I am also inclined to believe that if one animal is similar to another, that it's possible that we are related.

I was not there when the Earth was created, however... I think you'd have to be gullible or stupid to believe that it's only 10,000 years old or less (barring intervention from some deity). Though that's not what's obvious. What's obvious is that Dinosaurs are really awesome.

I also don't care what sparked any sort of big bang or any thing similar. I don't care if god(s)/goddess(es) guided any sort of evolution.

I don't know where else I am going with this.

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[info]benabik
2009-01-12 12:26 am UTC (link)
I believe in a creation story. It's definitely a story, same as the other parables. There's too much evidence for things like a Big Bang, evolution, and the like to ignore it.

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[info]musicaltree
2009-01-12 02:40 am UTC (link)
I think creation stories are awesome because they're all true. They don't have to make sense. It doesn't really matter what actually happened - things can still be true without having ever occurred. Part of being human is believing things that are completely contradictory.

The problem I have always had with creation stories is: "What happened before? X, Y or Z created things, but who created X, Y or Z?" I am a scientist, so The Big Bang & Evolution are what I need to believe in. That doesn't mean that the other versions are any less true, it just means that they didn't happen.

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[info]sad1225
2009-01-12 05:51 am UTC (link)
Creationism.

I suspect that evolution is the mechanism.

I too suspect that the creation story is symbolic. After all, Genesis 1 says that the animals came first and Genesis 2 says that man came first. To me this is a pretty clear indication that you're not supposed to take the creation story literally.

As a scientist and Christian (not a Christian Scientist), contradictions drive me up the wall. God is an ass for not making this more clear.

---

As far as 10,000 years is concerned, the creation story also talks about God creating day and night, i.e., time, so no time discrepancies or intermediate animals (that is to say Dinosaurs, fire breathing or otherwise) bother me.

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[info]keeblerx
2009-01-12 05:58 am UTC (link)
<3

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[info]lissa_dora
2009-01-13 04:50 pm UTC (link)
I love you.

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[info]btoblake
2009-01-14 03:23 am UTC (link)
I love the way you casually include the idea that god created time.. it's a nifty concept, and I'd like to play with it.

You might understand this question better than I do, and I can't resist posing it. If time is an artificial thing god created to make the universe a little more comfortable for us... how does that affect concepts like causality?

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[info]moriden
2009-01-15 06:55 pm UTC (link)
causality= the concept that something that happens causes something else to happen. you can look at this one of two ways in the perspective of created time. one that it doesnt really matter since time exists as a creation of gods will we live in and must aide by the constrictions of time and as such deal with causality. the other being that causality is merely the way in wicth we percieve events to connect to each other. in gods infinite understanding everything happens or doesnt happen at once. but for as long as there is the construct of time or our limited perceptions of temporal mecanics we can only filter reality through our understanding by viewing them linearly.

no idea if that helps with what you where asking. but i was bored so figured id give it a try.

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[info]uriel1001
2009-01-12 07:31 am UTC (link)
Creationism? I guess, in a sense. I prefer the idea that there's a potential point to existence.

Any specific creation story though? Being that I have yet to see anything that implies direct interference from any sort of "higher power", it makes very little sense to me that anyone would know just what went on at the start of it all.

This probably makes less sense than I think it does, due to complete exhaustion. Oh well.

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[info]tanechigai
2009-01-12 07:02 pm UTC (link)
Similar to what Sam said. I don't see a contradiction between the two.

I had enough "young earth" creationists offer me explanations that make me conscious that evolution is still only a theory and that we don't know for sure how old the earth really is if carbon has not always decayed at the steady rate we think it has. But...I think "old earth" and evolution are still the best theories out there considering the evidence, and so I view them as a mechanism. It's no contradiction to the theology I believe in where God does stuff through quite ordinary means.

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[info]keeblerx
2009-01-12 08:23 pm UTC (link)
Fuck evolution! I just can't fathom an existence without dinosaurs.

That, and 'early earth' really makes little sense to me, especially of the strictly 6,004yr(and 3 mos) variety. Too much stuff happened before then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_millennium_BC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_millennium_BC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_millennium_BC

Past that, though, I suppose it's speculation, it just doesn't make much sense to me. If some deity saw it fit to create Earth and the Universe without letting the ingredients settle for a few thousand to a few million years... then the very youngest that Earth and the Universe could be (Roman and/or Christian dogma not included) would be like... 9,000 or so. Also, as Sam pointed out... God is (as well as history is) an ass for not making all of this more clear.


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[info]btoblake
2009-01-14 03:17 am UTC (link)
I'm going to take a bit of a conversational walk around the block. Bear with me, a few analogies will make my point much simpler, and much more fun to read.

So, some topics, my brain isn't built to get. Subatomic physics for example... if I sat down with a textbook on it, and read it in an afternoon, I think my brain would explode into a pile of strange particles.
Oddly enough, I did once really enjoy learning it. An author wrote a lovely book that borrowed Alice's wonderland.. and because it was a fairy tale, I was fine with a particle running away from alice and running through two tiny holes in the wall at once.

The odd fairy tale was the fastest way to explain the idea, and even gets it through to me fairly accurately, and in a way I can almost remember years later.

To swing back in a more relevant direction...
I think that if an all knowing being showed up on the best college campus on earth, invited a few of the smartest people, and offered a semester long course of the physics of the first few minutes of our universe.. none of the students would be able to pass the first quiz. The concepts alone would be too complicated, we wouldn't get the math at all, and trying to understanding it would drive us batty.

So, if you were an all knowing being who'd been there since before time, and your kid asked you where'd the universe come from? Why not tell a story? Kids can learn a lot from stories.. and they might even remember it halfway accurately.

If the story is really good, they might write their favorite parts down in crayon.

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