The Creationist Myth - 500,000-Year-Old Stone Tools, Butchered Elephant Bones Found in Israel

a reply to: undo

Science back then was a mixture of things this is true. But I don't know of any science back then or today that would have any evidence to support someone living inside a whales stomach for three days and coming back out alive. Nor do I think that there was any science dealing with Magic Fruit and talking animals, even back then. I think these stories and others were always understood to have metaphorical ideas behind them regardless of when they were written.

Revelations for example only makes sense metaphorically. Beasts with 7 horns with scarlet woman riding it and horses with different riders symbolizing stages of the end. Stuff like that in a literal sense would be beyond rational belief IMO.

a reply to: mOjOm

the trees of the garden are metaphors for genetic inheritance. the serpent is dna. the tree of knowledge is the dna for genetic inheritance via procreation. we went from being elohim copies (sounds like clones) to procreators, where we created our own copies (to have knowledge or knowing meant to create/copy via sex, or procreate, to have intimate knowledge of someone = have sex). so knowing like gods, was the same things the elohim were doing, creatively - et. al, creating copies of ourselves. it's really obvious when you recognize the metaphors are trying to explain science.

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: mOjOm

the text does not say that elohim created the adam males and female really close to the time of creation of the universe.

Like I said, I don't know for sure if my thoughts are correct as to why they only gave three options rather than 4 in their questions.

It might also be that answer #1 and your version of answer #4 might be considered the same thing. Maybe if you were to write out how you think answer #4 would be different than #1 that would help.

a reply to: mOjOm

i think i missed something. what do you mean by 3 options or 4?

a reply to: undo

Ok, but the point is that they are metaphors rather than literal Trees and Snakes. Wasn't that the point of what we were talking about??

That the Bible Stories are often Figurative rather than Literal.

a reply to: undo

here's the problem i have with that approach: it's talking about people i know and love, even if we don't have all the same viewpoints, i know and love them, and don't want them to be ostracized, degraded, condemned, and so on. it's like calling someone's significant other/parent/sibling/favorite doctor/etc, an idiot, when you happen to know that person isn't remotely stupid. so it rings: 1) disingenuous, 2) deliberately inflammatory and insulting and 3) incorrect, all for political points

Very good point. It tends to change the way you naturally want to flow with your thoughts by taking in the relationship you have with the person.

There is a possibility of doing long term damage if you aren't willing let go sometimes.

Maybe that's why I come here and let loose. I feel so free compared to the sometimes awkward exchange of human emotion in my daily life. Sometimes I forget to tap the brakes before entering a sharp turn and by the time I try and gas out of it, I've lost control of my intended path.

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: mOjOm

i think i missed something. what do you mean by 3 options or 4?

The questions and answers you talked about earlier.
#1 That earth was old and god guided evolution of man.
#2 That earth was old and it was only evolution with developed man.
# 3 That earth was young and God created man like we are now.

Then I think you were saying that they didn't give them an option for what you think should have been a 4th possibility??

Maybe I misread what you were saying though..

originally posted by: mOjOm
a reply to: undo

Ok, but the point is that they are metaphors rather than literal Trees and Snakes. Wasn't that the point of what we were talking about??

That the Bible Stories are often Figurative rather than Literal.

yeah, but the figurative examples are not necessarily (although sometimes they are) about something less than scientific. this is the trend i have uncovered from many ancient texts. they are trying to talk about science they witnessed, but are having trouble explaining it with the vocabularies they had at the time of writing. and this also was further effected by the timeframe in which any new translations were made available. for example, today, we can look at the text and recognize several different scientifically explainable events, that people 300 years ago, would've said were impossible scientifically, and therefore, false/myth/fairy tales.

a reply to: undo

I agree that some figurative language might have been used to represent some literal thing sometimes. I also think that it was done on purpose as a kind of code language for those with more knowledge to understand. Back then Science wasn't the Science we have today. Alchemy for example has some science in it that would still be valid today as science while having some mythology in it too that isn't scientific or factual at all. Then there are also parts that are a mixture of the two.

But still, there are obviously tales within the bible that were written with the intent and understanding that it's not to be taken literal at all. Some things and some ideas are always told as myth. Not because someone is trying to trick anyone into believing Fantasy is Reality but because sometimes an actual true event doesn't exists to use for it. So we create a story with certain symbolic language that reveals some kind of lesson or idea that can't be represented in a literal way but is still an important lesson to know and teach others.

a reply to: mOjOm

ahhh, well i kinda agree with muslims that the garden of eden wasn't even on this planet. and if we have humans coming and going, interplanetary or intergalactic or even interdimensional, we could end up with homo sapien bones mixed with cro mags, neanderthals, and who knows what else. so the idea of when/how we were created is, to me, not as pressing of a question as the answer of where we were created. if not on the earth, our entire fossil history might not even be here. depending on how far back in the history of the planet we actually can be traced as a species, we could've been here and left, countless times. no telling, really.

i'm tossing around the idea that pre-homo sapiens "cave men" were originally homo sapiens who underwent too many generations of cloning, degrading their dna. if our history is not entirely on this planet, that would certainly confuse researchers a great deal

You know what I just noticed, not one person on this entire thread wanted to talk about the archeological find.

That made me chuckle.

originally posted by: eisegesis
You know what I just noticed, not one person on this entire thread wanted to talk about the archeological find.

That made me chuckle.

oh sorry, will do so shortly (if you read my last few posts, though, i think that's pretty much a commentary on it)

originally posted by: mOjOm
Scientifically we have no evidence to show that humans have been around for that long and Bionically that wouldn't make sense because God Created Man very close to creating the Earth so if the Earth was really old then so would Man have to be.

If I'm thinking of that correctly that would be why they didn't have that 4th choice. Check my reasoning on that to be sure though...I'm still mulling it over in my head but I think that makes sense..

Personally I think that 90% of religious people define everything down to two polarizing possibilities. Either man evolved or man was created, and the two shall never meet since the common belief is that evolution represents the polar opposite of intelligent design with random existence.

No one ever suggests that Intelligent design may have used evolution as the tool to make man. I'm really not religious and I lean towards humans being a random occurrence of evolution, but I have put forth the ideal of what is more omnipotence, to do a parlor trick and pulled humans out of a hat, or start a 14.5 billion year journey to where man is finally created from a universe that started as 98% hydrogen.

The bottom line here is if the only allowable answer is creationism compared to evolution a good number of religious people will just pick creationism, if that is their only choice.

eisegesis

yeah, my posts have pretty much covered my position on the op. there's no reason i can think of, that would suggest ancient histories are not true, just that interpretations of the texts of the ancient world have mucked up the works, depending on how much science they knew at the time.

in other words, the ancient histories are trying, despite lack of a standardized vocabulary or understanding of many aspects of science, to describe what today we recognize as easily defined with science. these topics don't disagree with each other - only our understanding of science limits their meaning

a reply to: undo

Don't bother. I read everything you posted and thank you.

This thread deserves to die. C'mon Zaphod. Put it under staff review, lol.

originally posted by: eisegesis
You know what I just noticed, not one person on this entire thread wanted to talk about the archeological find.

That made me chuckle.

Hmm I think you drove this in the direction that caused this to happen...


Ok, 500,000 years, really? Since tools started 2.6 million years ago what is the significance to this? We do know of multiple exits from Africa and the earliest actually had better tools than later groups that followed.

The earliest stone toolmaking developed by at least 2.6 million years ago. The Early Stone Age includes the most basic stone toolkits made by early humans. The Early Stone Age in Africa is equivalent to what is called the Lower Paleolithic in Europe and Asia.

The oldest stone tools, known as the Oldowan toolkit, consist of at least:
• Hammerstones that show battering on their surfaces
• Stone cores that show a series of flake scars along one or more edges
• Sharp stone flakes that were struck from the cores and offer useful cutting edges, along with lots of debris from the process of percussion flaking

By about 1.76 million years ago, early humans began to strike really large flakes and then continue to shape them by striking smaller flakes from around the edges. The resulting implements included a new kind of tool called a handaxe. These tools and other kinds of ‘large cutting tools’ characterize the Acheulean toolkit.

The basic toolkit, including a variety of novel forms of stone core, continued to be made. It and the Acheulean toolkit were made for an immense period of time – ending in different places by around 400,000 to 250,000 years ago.

a reply to: Xtrozero

that was my point as well. it's all mixed up together yet is later, clearly demarcated based on a norm that is, itself, a bit wobbly (bronze tools in stone age digs, for example, being considered contamination by a bronze age culture--afterall, if all they knew how to do is move huge stones around, how would they know how to make bronze, which is an alloy of copper and some other metal, like tin or arsenic, which requires understanding of smelting).

there's evidence of bronze smelting as early as 4000 bc in mesopotamia, yet you can see egyptologists claim there's no way ancient egyptians knew how to make bronze during the time the pyramids were built, claiming their tools were only copper. considering egypt and mesopotamia were trading partners as well as intermarrying, i kinda doubt that.

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: mOjOm

the trees of the garden are metaphors for genetic inheritance. the serpent is dna. the tree of knowledge is the dna for genetic inheritance via procreation. we went from being elohim copies (sounds like clones) to procreators, where we created our own copies (to have knowledge or knowing meant to create/copy via sex, or procreate, to have intimate knowledge of someone = have sex). so knowing like gods, was the same things the elohim were doing, creatively - et. al, creating copies of ourselves. it's really obvious when you recognize the metaphors are trying to explain science.

I got a little difference view....

What if the garden of Eden was the animal kingdom? There is no good or evil there only innocence. Man at one point was a part of that world and then one day became self aware after eating from the apple of knowledge. This was the point that man could no longer walk naked and so put clothe on and had the ability to do conscious acts of good or evil, hence the reason for the serpent... The interesting part is once man left the Garden he could never go back to the world, so Eden is all around us and we are the only creature on earth that is not apart of it...

We can also say evolution, but that is a lot more boring....

a reply to: Xtrozero

well if you take the text itself, notice how it says first, that the adam were created by elohim (singular in royal we voice) male and female as copies of elohim (plural voice), you understand right away that there were female adam way before there was an "Eve". why? what's the difference between the first female adams and the female adam named eve? the meaning of her name tells you: it means MOTHER. she's the first female procreative homo sapien. what happened to make her procreative/a mother? the tree of knowledge.

that's why the text says Adam KNEW his wife and she begat. notice it doesn't say adam had sex with his wife. that's because it means the same thing. the big presto chango was we went from being copies of elohim, to being procreators who made our own copies.

originally posted by: undo
there's evidence of bronze smelting as early as 4000 bc in mesopotamia, yet you can see egyptologists claim there's no way ancient egyptians knew how to make bronze during the time the pyramids were built, claiming their tools were only copper. considering egypt and mesopotamia were trading partners as well as intermarrying, i kinda doubt that.

One of my theories is man in general stumbled along with his 90 to 120 IQ, able to copy but not really create from nothing. Throughout history people were born with very high IQs 160 and above. These people are able to create from nothing and so when one is born that one person pushes his area forward in directions never before seen. These areas can continue on or die out, and typically only during wars do these areas continue on as wars was the great distributor of knowledge.

This could be the case here where one genius pushed mesopotamia well beyond anything seen before and that knowledge would travel as you suggest as either trade or war.