Here’s a question for any Christians who believe everything in the Bible is true (I’d call them “fundamentalists”, which was what they used to call themselves, I believe, but the word has a negative association these days): what about Neanderthals?
If you believe in the Bible, including Genesis, you believe in Creationism, and that means that such a thing as “cavemen” could never have existed; the first men in the Bible, both in Eden (Adam and Eve) and shortly after (Seth, Cain, Noah and so on) are described as civilized, having a society, building cities, and so on.
So, according to Bible-based Creationism, there never was such a thing as Neanderthals (or indeed any of these species), living in caves, being more advanced than apes yet less than men. Not to mention that they are supposed to have lived millions of years ago… hey, isn’t the universe just 6000 years old?
But… where do all these fossils come from?
Logically, a Christian would have to accept one of the following:
- the fossils are all fakes, created by scientists and other “enemies of faith”, to discredit Creationism
- God created the fossils to “test our faith”, making them appear much older than they really are, to all scientific tests - not to mention the fact that they are from beings that never actually existed
- Genesis is, at least in part, a fictional book
So… which is it? 
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At least for the Catholic Church this issue was settled centuries ago (by St. Augustine).
The bible is a collection of different genres: epic stories, wisdom literature, poems, reported facts with interpretations (i.e. gospels). Each genre has its own criteria for being “true”. An allegorical apocalyptic story was obviously not meant to be “true” in the sense of todays newspaper being true.
Alone the fact that there are two different Genesis stories, one right after the other, should tell us something.
Easy.
The Bible is still true, just the fossils aren’t millions of years old.
Riiight. Arguments like this remind me of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s disclaimer: “The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.”
I am always searching for the truth and very open-minded. I embrace many beliefs. I do not buy into my way is the one and only way mentlity. That is absurd! Too many souls on this earth in and too many cultures to narrow it down. I am a heretic and search for facts and also it is interesting tonote that a large part of the Bible was misinterpreted and many parts left out intentionally. A whole lot of symbolism also. The Bible is not to be taken literally! I am banging my head on the wall when it comes to fundies. These people you will never change their minds. I leave them alone in their hate filled delusional worlds. I am Pagan and I believe in reincarnation. I’m here on Earth to learn, love and evolve. Hate is not a part of any Higher Beings Plan!
Christians have an answer for just about everything. They just design their evidence around what they already believe.
Very true Joe.
The answer is the bible is fiction.
Take Isaiah 14:12 as well, talks about Lucifer fallings from the heavens…
Lucifer is Latin, which didn’t exist at the alledged time of the writing.
In addition, the original Hebrew text is about a fallen Babylonian king.
Read more of my thoughts:
http://veritabletruth.wordpress.com/2006/03/15/religion/
I’m pretty sure you’d really like Bill Hicks, if you’re not familiar with him already.
I’ve got a few posts on him, on my blog. Just scroll down if you want
There’s this one dude called Kent Hovind. Get some of his tapes and you will change your thoughts about fossils very fast.
If you believe the Christian view as well, you believe that not only is the earth only about 6,000 years old, but also that man was created with the knowledge and tools to create. There was no learning process.. Man didnt learn to crawl, walk ,and then run. They popped up from the dust of the earth running on two feet and able to build structures, tools, and to farm, etc.. So why then have structures steadily evolved? Adam and Eve certainly didn’t live in penthouse high rises. They didn’t have irrigation until the Egyptians came along and did it. So if they were to be born complete and with knowledge why didn’t they create these things? Evolution is real and can be seen all through history and not in the man-from-ape scenario. Simple processes have evolved over time and prove the bible wrong on a daily basis. Everyone should have an open mind, but dont be blind to common sense. I always thought it funny that christians are so eager to believe in burning bushes, magical rods, demons, angels, voices from the sky, the list goes on; and yet, can not for a second, believe in science or at least hear things out. I have seen science prove alot of things, least of all conjuring up spirits, or turning seas to blood.. My biggest gripe though is how anyone could think the bible was anything other than a device created for controlling the masses. It has some historical value and has some historical truths, but it has been reinterpretted, rewritten, and structured the way that the men in power of the times saw fit. Funny how not ONE of the original books of the bible survived. Not one. The dead sea scrolls came way after the first interpretation, and the first interpretation doesnt exist either..
remember! when God threw out adam and eve from the garden of eden, there were people already on earth!!! read the story and you will see… so adam and eve were not the first humans, since humans had already been living on earth years ago!
i suspect this includes neanderthals and such…
I don’t understand why everyone keeps saying that “Christians believe the Earth is only 6000 years old.” I am a Christian and I believe the Earth is much older than that. Now, I don’t believe that the Earth is as old as most people think it is, which would be millions if not billions of years old, but even 6000 years old is a long time! I cannot, as a Christian, ignore the facts that God and Jesus have left behind for us to examine. As a Christian, I shouldn’t see Neanderthal bones as a threat to my faith, but a Christian should see this as a fact that supports his or her faith. Maybe, and try to follow me here, God and Christ created “soulless” people-like Neanderthals before Adam and Eve were created, and maybe even these people were alive during that time as well. I don’t know, but it is just a guess. If you read about the relationship that God has with Adam and Eve, a person can see that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman created with souls. I do not try to work my faith around evidence such as bones, but I try to work these discoveries into my faith. Most of you seem to be wanting your faith to be “proven”, as if God himself has to show himself just to make you realize that he exists. The dinosaurs are such a beautiful, mysterious, and amazing creation of God. Don’t let Christian leaders fool you into thinking that such things never existed, they obviously don’t read their Bibles or believe God has created these things to show us how amazing he is. Some things will never be solved. Who cares when dinosaurs existed, or who cares when Neanderthals existed, I know God and Christ created them at some point in time and that is that. Great finds like this should strengthen everyones faith.
“Souless people???”
I have to say that this is profoundly arrogant. Why would people who are not xn, could not have been xn, and whose crime is an existence which necessarily proves the bible a collection of blatant lies, be “souless?”
Why too would clear evidence that the xn bible is at best nonsense be reason to increase anti-reason (faith) rather than to decrease irrationality (again, faith)?
As for who cares about knowledge and truth, the answer is: reasonable people. Of course those who put faith about reality and reason cannot care for if they do then they will find that the faith is without merit and without basis. However the fact that some choose to deny reality and avoid reason is not cause for everyone to deny reality and avoid reason. Recall that without those of us who care about knowledge, reason, and reality there would be no advancements in science and you would not enjoy the creature comforts you have today (such as the computer on which you typed the post) nor would you live past about 30 on average.
So who should care about reason and knowledge? Anyone who loves life, loves learning, and loves truth.
I am not one of “those” Christians, but I can’t resist…
1. To answer the initial question, God created everything. How? I don’t know and neither does the Bible. The Bible is not the revelation of God…the true act of revelation was contained in the person to whom God reveled it (as a historical event), the book is that person’s attempt to make sense of the whole thing. BUT the Bible is our only access to that initial revelation…so it is important.
2. Categories are a creation of the Enlightenment…which is soooo last millennium. The fact is your categories say nothing about “logic” and everything about how YOU construct reality. Also, “fiction” and “nonfiction” are “modern” constructions, ancient people did not see language in such dualistic terms. You (and some of my Christian cousins) are merely imposing your context on a world you are not a part of and never will be. (refer to point one). Rationalism is dead. Reality is only your perception…which is limited.
3. I love how “Christians” are lumped into one nameless faceless group…just like niggers.
4. TXStorm…don’t get your panties in a fucking bunch. You’re an atheist (at least I’m assuming you are by your comments, if not you need to explain better), so you can’t believe ANYBODY has a soul. Arrogance…take the plank out of your own eye. Plus, you speak of reason and I cannot understand anything you are saying…it is a collection of incoherent ramblings.
5. Finally…VT what archaic Bible are you reading? Did you have to dust off Granny’s 50 pound bible to pull that one out? Yes the word Lucifer is Latin and yes Latin probably did not exist when Isaiah was written. However, there were these things, I don’t know, you might have heard of them, called translations. It happens when people speak more than one language (which is true for everybody in the world other than arrogant Americans) “Lucifer” is the translation of “morning star” or “day star”. Later translations have attempted to render the words closer to the original meaning…but that is nearly impossible…see point one and two.
That’s all, peace be with you…
There is a real problem with these two claims, can you see it? :
[quote]God created everything.[/quote]
[quote] The fact is your categories say nothing about “logic” and everything about how YOU construct reality.[/quote]
Either “god” created reality, or we each created everything, it cannot be both ways.
Reality is NOT perception, perception is perception. Reality is what is. The use of dishonest attempts are redefining words (a variety of the equivocation fallacy) does not change that to which the words refer.
As for your mistaking your own confusion for any evidence of any characteristic of anyone else, well that is simply wrong-headed. This sort of thinking is no different from claiming that Jim cannot be cut because Bob is not bleeding. If you do not understand these very simple and very basic aspects of sound reasoning, then the problem lay in you, not in anyone else. But then, given that you are denying reality, denying reason itself, and denying rationality, clearly nothing whatsoever follows, including truth as it is dependent upon all three (more accurately it is strictly dependent upon reality since truth is simply correspondence to reality, and the KNOWLEDGE of truth is dependent upon the other two.)
So by your own arguments NOTHING you say can possibly be true, which necessarily leads your claims to be false, and thus self-defeating. The use of ad hominem simply reveals fear stemmed by some small part of you realizing this fact. If you truly wished peace for anyone here you would have refrained from the personal attacks, thus demonstrating that this statement too must be false.
Your straw man makes me laugh…
Uno…you are cross pollinating two of my arguments.
In the first I am pointing out that God’s creation was a historical event, one that cannot be recreated. Even if God does not exist, the beginning of the universe was a historical event and science can only point to attributes of that beginning, not recreate it. The revelation of that creation was a historical event as well, and is bound by same problem.
In the second I am pointing out that categories are a creation of the individual person and are a person’s perception, not reality. I am not stating that reality is perception, but the process of categorizing reality is done through perception. Reality has no categories. One cannot talk of reality logically because there is no way of communicating about it without using categorizations and structure. Even the words I am typing are creating categories, but those words are not reality, they merely point to reality.
Now you are presenting these arguments as the the same or connected and they are not. The first deals with everything outside your head and the second deals with everything inside your head. Categories are in your head. Words, like “reality” point to categories and nothing else. Platonic understanding of categories would have you think that we can understand them in themselves, outside of our perception. Wrong! You cannot understand categories outside of your own cognitive experiences, which is Kant’s point.
Dos…I did make a mistake however: [quote comment="24806"]Also, “fiction” and “nonfiction” are “modern” constructions, ancient people did not see language in such dualistic terms. You (and some of my Christian cousins) are merely imposing your context on
a world you are not a part of and never will be. (refer to point one). [/quote]
This should be its own section, so that people would not get confused and think all of point two is referring to point one. In fact I probably should not have even said “refer to point one”…
Tres…You, dear TXStorm, are the one who is confused, for you are merely fighting shadows that you have created. Now you can call those shadows “reality” because they are all in your head and with that I would agree. However, don’t make me believe those shadows are real anywhere else.
Cuatro…I am not attacking you argument when I say:[quote post="106"]don’t get your panties in a fucking bunch.[/quote]
Ad hominem has to do with attacking the argument through the person. You have no argument when you call other people arrogant, you are just being rude. I was being rude back.
[quote post="106"]Plus, you speak of reason and I cannot understand anything you are saying…it is a collection of incoherent ramblings.[/quote]
When I said this I really did not understand what you were saying, and after rereading what you wrote on March 30th, I understand it. So I retract this statement.
Now, what you were saying then was wrong still because you think “reason” “knowledge” and “reality” can be understood and used for creation. Nope. As I noted before they are categories and categories are not real outside of perception. You also err by assuming that creation, such as computers, cannot be done without understanding or pursuing understanding (in whole or in part). People create all the time without understanding or wanting to understand. Some creations work, some don’t. Art, for example, can have nothing to do with reason or reality. Science was important in creating my computer…but it did not and could not invent or in itself create the computer. Again, the idea that science (or reason) can solve and do everything is a relic of the Enlightenment…move on!
NUNC EST BIBENDUM
Guys, you’re getting offtopic. Comments should be related to the original post.
I understand that sometimes one topic brings another, which then brings another, and so on. In these cases, please use the forum: start a new thread there, and post a link to it here. Thanks.
RD,
Are you interested in addressing anything that was actually written? You make many baseless and wholly disconnected assertions without any support whatsoever, often directly contradicting your own assertions.
Case in point:
[quote]Reality is only your perception[/quote]
[quote] I am not stating that reality is perception[/quote]
This use of x= -x is the core and entirity of your arguments here.
If you have anything at all to offer which relates to anything said, or which can be made to be sensible, follow Pedro’s suggestion and start a thread where I will respond. Until you allow for reality to exist, which means of course allowing that the law of noncontradiction is inherent to reality, then necessarily as already pointed out, your own claims cannot have any meaning because of your own arguments.
Yes, we are off topic. I apologize for filling your blog with my ramblings, they should be directed to the forum. Thank you for providing the space for people to hone their intellectual skills or to interact with thinking people, regardless of what they believe. Not many places on the internet allow for that.
As for continuing the discussion, I will start a post about this in the forum…as soon as I have time. I will let you, TX, know when it is up.
The bible says there was a flood, I’m sure you’ve heard about Noah and the Ark and think it sounds extremely silly, but I’m using it as part of this theory. based on scripture this would be roughly 4400 years ago, and based on the assumption there was a universal flood the following predictions can be made!
1) There will be hundreds of layer of strata, floods automatically do that, moving water sorts particles in all sorts of layers, its called hydrologic sorting lol.
2) There will be billions of fossils including coal and oil found within those layers from the many animals etc that would’ve died from the flood
3) Huge Cannons and Deltas would form due to rapid and massive erosion from the flood
4) There would be many legends all over the world to tell of the flood.
I have an answer.
Think about it like this.
Adam and Eve were created as adults, not infants.
So why should the earth be any different?
I believe God created the earth to be old.
We can see stars millions of lightyears away. How would we be able to see them unless God created a mature world? In the same way, God is not bound by any rules. He is the Designer of the rules, He is the Creator of everything. God could easily have implimented fossils into the earth, and while it may not seem logical to us, neither does eternity. God created our minds to have bounds, because if we understood everything, we’d BE God. That’s not how He intended it to be, thus you have MY theory.
Who’s to say that adam wasnt a neanderthal. the bible said the covered themselves with fig leaves so they didnt sound that advanced in technology now did they. plus the bible does speak of the ”nephilim” who were a race of people not entirely human that roamed the earth in ancient times. some of the responses on here are down right sad and ridiculous. science does nothing but prove the bible right. the bible describes earth suspended in space(job26:7). it describes our hydrologic cycle (job36:27-28, job26:8, ecc.1:6-7). the expansion of the universe ( isaiah40:22, 42:5, 45:12). plus it was also right about man being the last creation, most scientist will tell you that humans are very new to the earth as far as a history timescale is concerned. science has also proven that a flood has happened in our ancient past, look it up on wikepedia its called the “meltwater pulse 1A”. dinosaurs were destroyed in the flood and YES noah did get some on the ark. alligators, komoto dragons, and other countless reptiles we have today is proof they made it on the boat. im sure you’ll ask now why we dont have t-rex’s running around then, huh? simple, i will give you an example. DOGS……there are many types of dogs like shitzu, pittbull, jack russell, and many more. but do you think noah is gonna waste his time gathering every type of dog? NO, hes just gonna find a couple of mutts and throw them on there…….kinda like dinosaurs. the word “dinosaur” was invented in the 1800’s, so what did people call dinosaurs before that? they called them dragons or “great terrible lizards”. the bible dont talk about dinosaurs but it does mention dragons and lizards as does every ancient civilization across the globe. there is a answer to every question so dont be closed minded just cuz you dont find it right away. questions and responses like these i have seen today are usually from people who dont read the bible, athiest, mis-led christians, and others of questionable I.Q.. the word of god is very accurate historically and scientifically.
by the way concerning jesse’s post about legends of the flood. legends of the flood and even the garden od eden are laced with-in most ancient peoples religeons and beliefs (not just christian). the ancient civilization called the sumerians are most reguarded as the “first civilization” and are often also credited with inventing the first written language. the sumerians belived in the flood and the garden although they were call different names. instead of noah it was gilgamesh who built a giant boat for animals. they also had a snake in the garden who tempted just as in the bible. in the bible a tribe of the nephilim were called the “anakim”. the sumerians said there was a race of beings who came from the sky and enslaved there people and taught them many secrets of wisdom such as the stars and astrology, and these people were called the “anunaki”. notice how anakim and anunaki are very similar words. before we go any further we need to refresh you on who the bible sez the nephilim and anakim were. the bible said the fallen angels(satan and his crew) were cast down to earth and they had offspring with the human woman who gave birth to the nephilim who were giants. a good example is goliath who fought david, he was a giant and a member of a tribe of nephilim. if im correct i do belive greek mythology was real big on there giant humanoids. but notice how this account of the bible is very similar to the beliefs of the first known civilization. this is just one example of a ancient society having twin beliefs, there are many more, especially the flood so check it out before you rush to a conclusion. and never make your conclusion a final one for facts always arise, wether they are new or just new to you!
So how did Noah get all those different species, including, plants and insects from all over the world on to his ark and then drop them off again? How long would it take to load them on and how big did the Ark have to be? How did he feed them all and provide the fresh water? Has anyone ever tried growing anything in soil that has been saturated with salt water? I have asked these questions before and the answers were not rationally and scientific based but based on the magic hand of God assisting Noah. Those who believe in the Bible criticize scientist (without understanding the science they are criticizing to begin with) for gaps in the fossil record for example, but they always fail to apply the same scrutiny to their own assumptions. I have read so many assumptions just on this page that are based on nothing more than someone trying to narrate a scenario to make what they literally believe in the Bible sound “plausible”, when in fact there is NO scientific evidence at all to support their interpretations. For example the assumption that Adam and Eve had no genetic flaws. They have to have it this way or else incest would have produced what we know today about interbreeding. They offer no evidence in nature for this, they just have to have it this way for Genesis and God sanctioned incest to make sense. It is always some supernatural intervention by God. Science doesn’t justify its theories (literalist Christians do not use the term “theory” in a scientific sense) by supernatural events – this is what people did before science. And one more thing, to call the Bible scientifically accurate over some sentences that at best can be interpreted as correct hunches, is misusing the definition of Science. Do we call it science when the earliest references to the concept of atoms date back to ancient India in the 6th century BCE? The Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools developed elaborate theories of how atoms combined into more complex objects (first in pairs, then trios of pairs). The references to atoms in the West emerged a century later from Leucippus whose student, Democritus, systemized his views. In approximately 450 BCE, Democritus coined the term atomos, which meant “uncuttable” or “the smallest indivisible particle of matter”. The concept that matter is composed of discrete units and cannot be divided into arbitrarily tiny quantities has been around for millennia, but these ideas were founded in abstract, philosophical reasoning rather than experimentation and empirical observation. And there are many in history they have used philosophical reasoning and were dead wrong, this why philosophical reasoning is not science. So those few sentences in the Bible that literalist say “hey look the Bible is scientific”, therefore infallible, is based on hunches not science. In the Bible are no observations, evidence and experiments listed by individuals and cross examined by other experts; just a few sentences. But extrapolation and reading into things is rampant in the literalist camp. Again guessing is not science but this is what literalist have to do when they have no scientific reasoning to explain supernatural events that happened in the past in the Bible. The reason we do not have supernatural events today is because Jesus came; how convenient. I also love that people say God did things which contradict what we observe in natural law today because God is God and can do anything, again how convenient. Yet no one has offered evidence (philosophical rationalization that there must be a God because things are so complex has been addressed above as not science and not valid scientific proof) that God does actually exist. I am not saying “he” doesn’t, but these supernatural powers that God used to make the Universe look old are speculation based on nothing but speculation that there is a God that deliberately created a universe to look old. How some people can claim that thinking that God created the universe to look old as being as true as the sun burring in the sky, is beyond comprehension. It think it would be productive for literalist to ask themselves why they need to have everything in the Bible literally true and if it isn’t what does that do to their faith and outlook on life. For me I lean towards an existence of a higher power but I do not need to insist that I am correct and everyone else is wrong. If I did make that bold and presumptuous statement I better be able to back it up with proof. I can’t and neither can anybody else despite what they have convinced themselves of.