Can God and Evolution co-exist???

They should be able to co-exist. See, sometimes I look at it like this. I'm not particularly religious and I'd always get in trouble as a kid for saying these kinds of things, but, If God is infinate as we are taught to believe, his time and our time probably don't coinside. Like a day to him could be a hundred thousand years to us. But since we are only human and we have a very definate beiging and end it's hard to understand the concept of infinate.

wow I read something really interesting but in hungarian. i'll try to translate it to you. Doesn't connecting with the coexist question but interesting anyway.

Originally posted by soothsayer
God is the universe, correct? So, because of this, since God is physics, He must work within physics... He cannot go against Himself.

As Ring said, look at Genesis. Day by day, it is laid out as evolution dictates... but remember this as well... in the Greek (original) version of the Bible, it says epochs instead of days.

And could not have God just started things, got the ball rolling, and then evolution played a part?

Ah yes, and then we get onto the bit about the time-space continuum. All past, present and future history happens simultaneously, like a one second symphony, but time is the mechanism that allows our minds to perceive the moments individually and linearally. Time is the force that keeps everything from happening at once.

Originally posted by Amadeus
How can you say that the 2 Hebrew Creation Myths in Bere#h (the Hebrew Genesis chatper 1:1 to 2:4a and 2:4b to 4:26) have anything whatsoever to do with the ORDER of Creation in either Myth 1 or Myth 2 (by the way, they DON"T MATCH) ???!!!?

The Days of Creation don't match Evolution? Parden? Let me break it down for you, then...

On the first day, God created light

On the second, God created the dome of the sky to divide the firmament

On the third, God created the earth

On the forth, the stars and moon

On the fifth, in order, the fish, animals upon land, and birds in the air

Sixth day, man.

Now, naturally, I can see where the confusion lies... I mean, creating light before the stars? Howabout this, then... In the beginning, there was VOID. Just the appearance of God had created something (ie, light to fill the void). With planetary evolution (or whatever), there must be a seperation/ gravitational pull of particles to create bodies, such as planets or stars (days 2 and 3)... are comets stars? no... it would seem easier for a planet to form before a star is able to 'explode'... which is why stars are seen after planets are made (day 4). Life, according to 'experts', began in the oceans, moved to land, and some learned to fly (the order of animals on day 5). Man, being the most evolved, was last (day 6).

Does my wacky explaination justify the days being so completly out of wack?

Also of interest is who God said "HE" (I don't believe He is actually a He in the way we think of He) was when Moses asked Him who He was,

"I am that I am."

That is such an eloquent and descriptive sentence. "I am" denotes continuous presence, eternal existence. The one second symphony of all life in this dimension, divided into parts by the space-time continuum for our perusal.

[edit on 8-7-2004 by Undomiel]

translation of the text at eh.cx.hu...:

I've been thinking about the code and I have the following ideas: The fact that in the last 5-6 thousand years around 7-8 billion people lived on earth makes the question: how is it possible to describe only with 300.000 letters the related datapack? An ordinary human name is made up from 8-15 characters. There are many who has the same name, so you'll need further distinction to sort them. If you calculate with around 12 characters and 8 billion people that's 96 billion character. But then you only have the list of names but we do know nothing about the lifes and historical events. We'd need zillions of characters to describe them in text. But in the Bible we can have many different ways of reading. The permutation of the 304805 letter with factorial calculating is so huge that even the PC's calculator can't deal with that. And so far we only tried to find racional text pieces in plane/flat, but we have the chance to leave behind the world of the 2 dimensional matrixes.
We should create a square/space(dunno the right word)matrix of the text of Tora, organizing the letters into 3, 4 or more dimensional shapes. In a cube, oktaeder, sphere etc. the number of the directions of reading is multiplying in an unbelievable way. But this ins't the omniscientsy yet.
It's the attribute of the akasha, that it contains all information from the beginning of the genesis; everything that was, is and will be maybe sometimes. As the future become past as it flows trough the presentpoint this databse growing day by day. Not only contains the history of the Earth but all the events of the whole universe, from the born of the stars to the fall of a hair. There isn't enough elemental particle in the universe to record all these data. At least not in a static way.
After all it's clear that the bible doesn't contain the omniscient or it contains it in a different way. In a way thet we can not even imagine yet. Or maybe?
In my opinion the key is the way of the dinamic datastoring.
Inasmuch as the whole genesis frames a dinamic, living and continously changing system it seems logically that the coding of the storing-system is dinamic itself. But the text of the Tora is the same for nearly 3000 years now. There's a srict rule that not even a point can be added to the text. To avoid the distortion of the code.
What if the text doesn't contains the akasha but the fix algorithms of the access? If the bible itself is only a code to the omniscients, what isn't in it but become accessable through it?...

will continue soon

(sorry for the bad use of some words hope the text is clear anyway)

Ring,

How interesting. So to simplify and clarify his statement, is he saying that he believes it's possible the Torah contains the access key in the form of a 3-D matrix, to a larger database?

Ring:

Which version of the Pentateuch are you referring to? The variations are +/-about 31% roughly.

E.G.

l. SamPent (Samaritan Pentateuch Version, BC 450)

2. The LXX Hebrew Underlay (pieces found in paleo scattered in caves among fragments of the Dead Sea Corpus) BC 250

3. The socalled Masoretic Text (based on a single MS in Leningrad) AD 850

4. The Pe#ta in Syriac (AD 250)

5. The Pentateuch Septuaginta (LXX) in Greek that the early Greek Christian Churches used as "holy scripture") written in Alexandria around BC 250

NEWSFLASH: None of these "ancient" vesions match each other exactly

(they are all different from each other by about 30% when you compare them for phrasing, actual words, whole sentences, major spelling differences, name/place changes (e.g. Gerazim for Horeb in the SamPent, grammar, vocabulary, text, additions, substractions, mis-copies, mis-translations, targum additions/subtractions, consonantal changes, whole paragraphs added etc.)

So which Hebrew Torah "version" would you be referring to to use for your so-called (wholly imaginary/anachronistic) "Computer"Code?

Can you explain yourself a little?

Amadeus:

Well first of all as i said this is only a translation of a text which i found most interesting. Read carefully.

I don't know which Tora the author speaks of, i think he didn't even studied the tora in original at all, these are only ideas of the possible coding system if there is any. He doesn't even states that there is any code in the bible, he's just thinking about the way it could be in it. So these aren't facts.

It isn't easy to translate this text into english so i need some patience, i'll try to post the remaining part as fast as i can

Part 2: (read continously)

A mathematical system the so-called lifegame (sorry but really dunno the meaning in english) could possibly give us an answer. The computer simulation of the lifegame is such a self-multipleing pointset, which extends according to the starting parameters, growing to infinity and shows organic (fractal) attributes. Every point exists until a certain time, lives in the system, and multipleing itself in a certain way creating more points around itself. If we mark the points with colours according to their age we get a flashing markings which gradually fills the whole screen, or the available space.
Let's say that the genesis functionally is like the lifegame. Let's assign the points of the game to the letters of the hebrew ABC in virtue of their ages (their colours). This mean that we get 22 different coloured and different old points from Alef to Taw. If we know the algorithm that creates the system, starting from a single point we can build the whole universe, like some kind of volumertic matrix (whats the proper word for that?). If we take a precise pic of this lifegame system in a certain moment, converting the points to letters than we get the Bible from it.
Imagine that God at the beginning of the creation or a certain part of genesis makes the precise picture of the lifesystem and converts it to a letterset. As long as the system's phisical laws don't change, the universe for an external spectator will seem to be totally deterministic, so every past and future condition can be forseen. The important is to know precisely the laws and the system itself to calculate the events forward and backward.
The solve of the code of the Bible will be accessable through the algorithmic use of the basic laws of universe on the charactermatrix. Hence we have to get know and understand the function of the whole universe, to posess the omniscience. But despite of all our struggle we're still far from this.
Moreover the hebrew ABC itself is an artifical system that human can't invent. It turned out lately that the characters of the early hebrew ABC in the order they're in, are the shadows of a spline drawn onto the in-time-rotating Bindu (the unmanifested source of reason ).
So the form and the order of the characters are not as they are for accident.

Just one thing

Undomiel you wrote: "Also of interest is who God said "HE" (I don't believe He is actually a He in the way we think of He) "

In the Bible God never talks about his gender. He has no gender i think. This must be because the patriarchal society (the males were more importan couse they took the food they fought in war; just like today no really just joking) of those times when the Bible was written.

Whose God? What God can exist along side evolution ? There are over 12000 religions on this planet, over a million gods...........

Evolution pertains to only some doctrines, not all.

Deep

It doesn't really matter, which God?
As we are only dealing with Theories, Beliefs and Faith.

...and we haven't been around long enough to know the real truth.

Let's face it, God's a pretty busy bloke what with billions of galaxies, each, probably, with millions of civilisations all at various stages of development. Working out where to pop up in a burning bush this week, and remebering whether it was parting the waves or a rain of frogs that was supposed to happen on Delta Cygnii 3 this afternoon must be a nightmare.

Obviously evolution was a means of letting planets take care of themselves for a while whilst he was tied up in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Although an athiest, I see no reason why modern evolutionary thinking and religion cannot co-exist.

Hi SoothSayer:

Excuse ME?

I think you must have not read my post very carefully, or at any rate, have misunderstood its import. Or perhaps, like most fundamentalists (who cannot even produce a "fundamental" text they can read in the original) you merely gloss over those "uncomfortable" facts which do not support your wholly untenable position with regards to any alleged scientific "evolutionary" parallels in Genesis chapter one (the socalled 1st Creation Myth):

Fact #1 Genesis chapter 1:1 to 2:4a is written in a different style that that which follows (2:4b to 4:26) and its content and theology is wholly DIFFERENT than that which follows (Gen 2:4b to 4:26). The "first" myth shows Elohim as a transcendent god who merely speaks and "it is so..."; the second myth (beginning in Gen 2:4b) has YHWH elohim crunching around in the garden of "Qeden" (which is a Sumerian Loan word, meaning "steppe") who is portrayed "anthropomorophically" (i.e. in the shape of a human with legs and all).

Of course you'll have to READ the two texts first------ which is something the proponents of your theory rarely do.

Or if they do, they probably only read the Masoretic Version in English or other translation out of the Hebrew (The Masoretic Text is a LATE TEXT = AD 850 in Leningrad =).

These two Creation Myths in Bere#h ("lit. "in the Beginning" or Gk. "Genesis") are CONTRADICTORY CREATION MYTHS (i.e. order of creation in both accounts is quite different, the 2nd writer has the sotry of Hayaah, whereas male and females are BOTH called Adam in the 1st writer's style (which continues in Gen 5:1 "male and female created he them and HE CALLED THEIR NAME ADAM" , i.e. no Hayyah ("Eve"), etc.

Fact #2 There is NO FIRMAMENT surrounding a flat earth ("SOLID dome" , Heb.= Raq'ia'q), so Gensis 1:6 is NOT SCIENCE. If you think there is a FIRMAMENT (i.e. an inverted beaten copper bowl) then show me where it is. EVOLUTION DOES NOT TEACH THERE IS A SOLID DOME WITH "WATER" ABOVE IT ANYWHERE.

Fact # 3 Evolution teaches that Vegetation APPEARED AFTER the Sun, the Moon or the Stars....NOT BEFORE (as the Hezekielte writer states).

So the order "of Evolution" is scientifically wrong in the book of Genesis.

The Creation of Vegetation is OUT OF ORDER IN GENESIS and therefore has NO Scientific "evolutionary" PARALLEL.

[The Septuaginta-LXX, the late Masoretic Text, the Pe#ta, the Palestinian DSS copies AND the Samaritan Pentateuch ALL HAVE VEGETATION CITED AS HAVING BEEN CREATED "BEFORE" THE SUN, MOON and STARS.

So all of these confused texts were apparently copying this error from an older more original text that had it wrong from the "beginning".

EVOLUTION teaches that Galaxies (including stars which are the same as "suns") PRECEDE Vegetable Life on Planets: they do NOT come AFTER like your misguided writer of Genesis writes.

So get your facts straight before you start claiming that the messy hotchpotch of pseudo-science, superstition and borrowed traditions (including the DOME) which the Israelitish priests tacked on to the beginning of their socalled Torah is in any way SCIENCE. It is NOT.

The Creation Myths in Genesis had their origin in the cult of YHWH's Spring Rituals, modelled after Canaanite and Egyptian models e.g. the 7-fold peal of Baal, see Psalms 29 for an echo of this fertility ritual.

The different groups of Levetical Yahwistic priests who re-wrote these Myths after the Babylonian Exile were "celebrating the Creation," in terms of their own clan-god, not scientifically picking it apart or describing it in modern scientific terms---something these pre-scientific peoples were in no position to understand in the modern astronomical sense anyway--how could they?

Easy question... YES

WHY

Because God created .. LIFE... EVOLUTION and DEATH...

Evolution drives everything.. from the laws of the physical universe to biological entities.

You think God just said.. Hey Ooo lets see what will happen if I do this!!! and created the universe... you don't think he had some sort of plan to drive his creation??

You people make god sound so uncreative.. No he didn't make a universe where the laws of nature evolved to have such a balance as to create life.. no no no.. he simply snapped his fingers and it was all here.

It's like to me your saying instead of creating delicate and beautiful symphonies.. he likes to whistle dixie!!!

If I were God I'd be hurt by all that.. lol

Please bear with me on this one - anyone who has created computer programs knows that you can get better flexibility of a program if you create a function. this function may be simple to square the number - so that any program calling the function will get the number squared. The interesting thing about program functions is that they have NO purpose on their own but are very efficient in program codes. If we can find an equivalent of program functions in DNA - then this hints very strongly at an intelligence at work and not evolution (as a function is no use on its own). I think there is some mileage here to lok at the DNA t prove whether the DNA is one long string of commands (evolved) or broken into paragraphs/functions (intelligence).

On the other issue of laws of physics - I struggle with this. Our existence completely relies on those laws being repeatable e.g. catch a ball, throw a spear. Could it be that our brain is an interface making the laws have some sense i.e. we don't know what happens in the outside world but our brain translates to make some sense of it. Bit deep sorry

Originally posted by Amadeus
Hi SoothSayer:

Excuse ME?

I think you must have not read my post very carefully, or at any rate, have misunderstood its import. Or perhaps, like most fundamentalists (who cannot even produce a "fundamental" text they can read in the original) you merely gloss over those "uncomfortable" facts which do not support your wholly untenable position with regards to any alleged scientific "evolutionary" parallels in Genesis chapter one (the socalled 1st Creation Myth):

So get your facts straight before you start claiming that the messy hotchpotch of pseudo-science, superstition and borrowed traditions (including the DOME) which the Israelitish priests tacked on to the beginning of their socalled Torah is in any way SCIENCE. It is NOT.

I, for one, don't believe in either God creation or evolution. I personally believe in the Sumerian Gods (may I say... aliens) 'created' mankind as a slave race. Having known that the Book of Genesis was taken from much older Chaldean texts, and also knowing that the same said people knew far more about the world, the solar system, and yes verily, the galaxy (which might dictate two trains of thought... they were 'out there', or that knowledge was passed... as other myths and legends have stated).

You cannot glimpse the entirety of the workings of the universe/God from one source, though... each mythology (after all, aren't all relgions myth? What is the difference between the two?) offers a section, an aspect. Go to other sources, read other materials, and open your eyes to see the larger picture...

I am a Gemini, I like to look at things from all angles, and judge for myself, before I say anything... so before you make claims or accusations, I suggest you think things through before opening your mouth again.

As to why I said Genesis follows evolution...

Doesn't it? I don't think when I 'clarified' each day, day by day, that I had plants before stars... but, then again, since other stars are still having planets formed around them, why not? More stars are born each day. But we still have fully developed plants right here.

trust your faith....

I recently found the website REASONS TO BELIEVE
www.reasons.org...[/url]
I have not had time to read this in depth yet, but it seems to be written, at least in part, by Christian scientists.
The home Page says--
"...Whether you are looking for scientific support for your faith or answers to questions about God and science, Reasons To Believe exists for you...."
Below that phrase, two of the topics listed are:
Evidence for Design
Creation vs. Evolution
You may find more of what you seek at their FAQ page.
As a retired autoworker, I can state that no vehicle is ever built without design. The parts are connected with tools to assemble the finished product. I believe in an Intelligent Design for our Universe. The BIG BANG would have been one tool used. Evolution MAY be another. Before asked, yes, I am a Christian.
If anybody reads the Bible, read it to see what it says, not what you have been told it says. Too many things that people "claim" are written there are Directly Contradictory to what it actually says. When I finally read it through, I was amazed at what I learned---- and at what I had to UNlearn.