Allegory/Symbolism in Genesis 1

[Arthur Brain]

By what you just wrote, there, I recognize you to be allegorically, metaphorically, symbolically admitting the truth that @Arthur Brain is an irrationally-thinking, Bible-despising, Darwinism-blinkered wingnut.

Wow, gonna need some salve for that burn...

 

[Arthur Brain]

You have claimed that we are rigid and wrong. But that is actually you.
You have claimed that Genesis 1 is "allegory" and yet you do not describe what it is allegorical for.
You have claimed that Genesis 1 is "symbolic" and yet you have neither defined a symbol NOR what it is symbolic of.

You are nothing but bluff and bluster. Just a bag of hot air. Put up or shut up.

You've been answered on this and other related topics for years. You are rigid and unshakable on the issue just as you are with anything that runs contrary to a young earth no matter what. You've had more than enough presented to you in regards to the blatant allegory in Genesis along with actual science that in all manner of fields shows that the earth is a lot older than 6-10,000 years old.

You dismiss it all because a young earth is paramount to your belief as with many other hardliners. Your call absolutely, bit don't pretend that you ever had any honest intent to be open to such a rigid and ingrained belief being altered at all.

 

[Idolater]

No you don't.

Doubt.

 

[7djengo7]

You are rigid and unshakable on the issue just as you are with anything that runs contrary to a young earth no matter what.

Yeah, it's called logical consistency--something that truth-despising, logic-despising, Bible-despising loons like yourself refuse to ever have any part of.

You've had more than enough presented to you

to understand that Bible-despisers like Arthur Brain have nothing but their cherished falsehood and nonsense--their repetitive ravings--to hand out, and to allow rationally-thinking people to know that raving Bible-despisers like Arthur Brain need never to be taken seriously or expected to present an argument.

in regards to the blatant allegory in Genesis

What allegory?

along with actual science

Remember, what you erroneously and reflexively call "science" is merely your beloved Darwinismspeak, so your standard prop of calling such falsehood and nonsense "science" and "actual science" is only ever going to be swallowed by boobs as dumb you make yourself out to be.

that in all manner of fields shows that the earth is a lot older than 6-10,000 years old.

Here, as usual, you're merely reasserting your claim that the earth is a lot older than 6-10,000 years, with no attempt to support, and no hope of supporting it with any fact(s).

You dismiss it all because

it is merely falsehood and nonsense that you are conditioned to erroneously calling "science".

a young earth is paramount to your belief as with

all other Bible-believers, without exception. But what's that to lying Bible-despisers like you and @annabenedetti?

many other hardliners. Your call absolutely, bit don't pretend that you ever had any honest intent to be open to such a rigid and ingrained belief being altered at all.

Stop being an idiot. We're not going to stop believing the truth, even if raving, Bible-despising clowns like you continue on with your pathetic spectacle of lying and tantrum-throwing.

 

[Right Divider]

Yeah, it's called logical consistency--something that truth-despising, logic-despising, Bible-despising loons like yourself refuse to ever have any part of.



to understand that Bible-despisers like Arthur Brain have nothing but their cherished falsehood and nonsense--their repetitive ravings--to hand out, and to allow rationally-thinking people to know that raving Bible-despisers like Arthur Brain need never to be taken seriously or expected to present an argument.



What allegory?



Remember, what you erroneously and reflexively call "science" is merely your beloved Darwinismspeak, so your standard prop of calling such falsehood and nonsense "science" and "actual science" is only ever going to be swallowed by boobs as dumb you make yourself out to be.



Here, as usual, you're merely reasserting your claim that the earth is a lot older than 6-10,000 years, with no attempt to support, and no hope of supporting it with any fact(s).



it is merely falsehood and nonsense that you are conditioned to erroneously calling "science".



all other Bible-believers, without exception. But what's that to lying Bible-despisers like you and @annabenedetti?



Stop being an idiot. We're not going to stop believing the truth, even if raving, Bible-despising clowns like you continue on with your pathetic spectacle of lying and tantrum-throwing.

I can't put it any better than that!

 

[redfern]

I enter this thread openly admitting that my limited understanding of science gives me concern about how literal Genesis 1 is. As to the OP, I see several things I honestly do not understand in Genesis 1. I may itemize some of those in a later post. But first I want to comment on something already posted.

In post 120 annabenedetti asked:

What was the source of the light on day one?

In post 121 Stripe replied:

The cosmic microwave background.

Scientists do believe the CMB (cosmic microwave background) is light that “permeated the universe in its earliest days.” But the first issue I see with Stripe’s assertion is that the CMB is omnidirectional – it is coming from essentially all parts of the sky (If sky has any meaning before the earth was formed). Doesn’t sound very compatible with there being day & night as I see in Genesis 1.

 

[Derf]

I enter this thread openly admitting that my limited understanding of science gives me concern about how literal Genesis 1 is. As to the OP, I see several things I honestly do not understand in Genesis 1. I may itemize some of those in a later post. But first I want to comment on something already posted.

In post 120 annabenedetti asked:



In post 121 Stripe replied:



Scientists do believe the CMB (cosmic microwave background) is light that “permeated the universe in its earliest days.” But the first issue I see with Stripe’s assertion is that the CMB is omnidirectional – it is coming from essentially all parts of the sky (If sky has any meaning before the earth was formed). Doesn’t sound very compatible with there being day & night as I see in Genesis 1.

that was before the light and darkness were separated.

 

[Stripe]

Scientists do believe the CMB (cosmic microwave background) is light that “permeated the universe in its earliest days.” But the first issue I see with Stripe’s assertion is that the CMB is omnidirectional – it is coming from essentially all parts of the sky (If sky has any meaning before the earth was formed). Doesn’t sound very compatible with there being day & night as I see in Genesis 1.

An excellent question!

See? There are challenges out there for us! All it takes is a little thinking about the implications of our ideas and suppression of the instinct to simply dismiss them out of hand.

However, the answer has already been hinted at. The universe had not been stretched when the CMB flared (or, more likely, the stretching caused the flare).

So the reason it looks omnidirectional today is because the flare crossed the then-smaller universe.

Not to say that this explanation gets me off the hook completely. There are still issues I see with timing and the ubiquitous nature of the CMB, but at least it's an actual discussion.

 

[redfern]

that was before the light and darkness were separated.

Thanks, Derf. But alas, I am not sure that advanced my understanding. If God separated the light and the darkness, that implies the light and darkness were not separated before He did that. Can you enlighten me on what non-separated light and darkness is, or looks like? Since light is just a common name for travelling photons, and dark is the absence of such photons, I am having trouble understanding what is being said. If I “unseparated” light and darkness, I would be mixing traveling photons into a place where there wasn’t any. I would end up with perhaps a lower concentration of photons, but that just means the light is dimmer.

 

[JudgeRightly]

Thanks, Derf. But alas, I am not sure that advanced my understanding. If God separated the light and the darkness, that implies the light and darkness were not separated before He did that. Can you enlighten me on what non-separated light and darkness is, or looks like? Since light is just a common name for travelling photons, and dark is the absence of such photons, I am having trouble understanding what is being said. If I “unseparated” light and darkness, I would be mixing traveling photons into a place where there wasn’t any. I would end up with perhaps a lower concentration of photons, but that just means the light is dimmer.

It just means that light was everywhere, and there was no shadow.

 

[Idolater]

It just means that light was everywhere, and there was no shadow.

It means more than that though, it means there was no everywhere. There was no space, since as @redfern pointed out, what does it mean to separate light from darkness, but the creation of space, with no photons in it. God is light, 1st John 1:5 (I know it's not written to you, but it's written for you, and it is profitable). How does God separate Himself (light) from ... "darkness?" What's "darkness" before Genesis 1? I don't think it exists. Darkness, as Redfern said, is space without photons. For God (Who is light) to separate light from darkness, He's going to need to create ... space. So that (for the express purpose of) there can be "darkness," whose property is space without photons, the same is also verified by both modern science and by reason.

For God to separate light from darkness, He needs to create darkness, since He is light (1Jn1:5KJV). To say that He is the otherwise inextricable combination of light and space, and that rather than darkness being a new creation, it is a metamorphosis of God, but not of God's substance, then OK, maybe that's it, but darkness is space without photons, and God is light, so before there was darkness, there was no space without light, and that doesn't actually require space at all, it could just be that God is a "light hole" as opposed to a black hole, just light, occupying no space (because there is no space required for God (literally light) to exist). He could take up no space.

Now that I think of it, darkness, and thus space, has to be created, because God being an inextricable combination of space and light, and then God metamorphosing into a spread out space (rather than all space inextricably combined with light), is more like pantheism. Like, everything's God, because God used to be an inextricable combination of space and light, but now He opened Himself up and we are all Him now, because creation was just a change in God's mode of existence.

No. God created space, and when He first removed photons from space, He created darkness. Before He separated light from darkness though, there wasn't even any logical need for space to exist, since light can just exist, taking up no space (presuming that black holes are basically this).

Could be that separating light from darkness is the creation of outer space. In such case modern science tells us it's actually still occurring, or that it at least looks like it's still occurring. That's what the red shift indicates.

 

[Clete]

I enter this thread openly admitting that my limited understanding of science gives me concern about how literal Genesis 1 is. As to the OP, I see several things I honestly do not understand in Genesis 1. I may itemize some of those in a later post. But first I want to comment on something already posted.

In post 120 annabenedetti asked:



In post 121 Stripe replied:



Scientists do believe the CMB (cosmic microwave background) is light that “permeated the universe in its earliest days.” But the first issue I see with Stripe’s assertion is that the CMB is omnidirectional – it is coming from essentially all parts of the sky (If sky has any meaning before the earth was formed). Doesn’t sound very compatible with there being day & night as I see in Genesis 1.

Stripes answer doesn't work. At least not as stated.

First of all, it should be pointed out that we aren't told what the source of the light was and so we really don't know and so this is all speculation. That doesn't mean its a waste of time because it's valuable to think things through and attempt to have some consistent way of explaining things but we don't want to get overly dogmatic about such things.

So, maybe the CMB is super redshifted left overs from the light that was created at the beginning of the creation procecss but how would that answer the question, "What was the source of the light?" The CMB is light, so all you've done is modify the question to "What was the source of the CMB?"

This might sound trite, unsatisfying and unconvincing but the source of the light was God. He may well have created something that was the source of the light but it isn't necessary to assume so. The very act of creation itself, it seems to me, would have created light all over the place anyway and, if all there was initially was energy then everything that existed was one form or another of light and there wouldn't be a "source" other than He that created it. It would just be a vast ocean of photons of energy zipping around in every direction. Since we know that energy can be converted to matter, the rest of creation could have just been God converting some of that energy into matter and the left-overs are what we detect as the CMB.

 

[Clete]

It means more than that though, it means there was no everywhere. There was no space....

No.

Space is not a thing, it is an idea.
Same goes for time. It's an idea and does not exist ontologically.

Space is a convention of language that is used to convey information about the location and movement of things relative to other things.
Time is a convention of language that is used to convey information about the duration and sequence of events relative to other events.

If something (say God, for example) exists, it has both location and duration. Even if that location is "everywhere" and the duration is "infinite".

Clete

P.S. This post deserved more detail but I'm out of time and so had to be super brief!

 

[Idolater]

No.

Space is not a thing, it is an idea.
Same goes for time. It's an idea and does not exist ontologically.

Space is a convention of language that is used to convey information about the location and movement of things relative to other things.
Time is a convention of language that is used to convey information about the duration and sequence of events relative to other events.

If something (say God, for example) exists, it has both location and duration. Even if that location is "everywhere" and the duration is "infinite".

But what is the distinction between this and pantheism.

 

[Stripe]

Stripes answer doesn't work. At least not as stated.

First of all, it should be pointed out that we aren't told what the source of the light was and so we really don't know and so this is all speculation. That doesn't mean its a waste of time because it's valuable to think things through and attempt to have some consistent way of explaining things but we don't want to get overly dogmatic about such things.

So, maybe the CMB is super redshifted left overs from the light that was created at the beginning of the creation procecss but how would that answer the question, "What was the source of the light?" The CMB is light, so all you've done is modify the question to "What was the source of the CMB?"

This might sound trite, unsatisfying and unconvincing but the source of the light was God. He may well have created something that was the source of the light but it isn't necessary to assume so. The very act of creation itself, it seems to me, would have created light all over the place anyway and, if all there was initially was energy then everything that existed was one form or another of light and there wouldn't be a "source" other than He that created it. It would just be a vast ocean of photons of energy zipping around in every direction. Since we know that energy can be converted to matter, the rest of creation could have just been God converting some of that energy into matter and the left-overs are what we detect as the CMB.

I haven't read a satisfying answer to the distant starlight problem, and the CMB origin is the end point of the discussion. I don't know the answers. All I can do is put forward ideas that might lead somewhere if we get some rational pushback on them.

On what is the CMB's source: There are two possibilities I see. Either the stretching happened on day 1 or day 4. Again, there are problems with both. The day 1 idea has the CMB being a result of God switching on gravity. The day 4 idea would have the flare a result of the stretching.

I've read plenty of ideas on both, but I have seen problems with all of them.

 

[annabenedetti]

Doubt.

You couldn't be more condescending if it were a school assignment to write the most condescending thing you could think of.

I've read much of what Flannery O'Connor wrote, including a large volume of her correspondence. She had the kind of Catholic sense that no matter how gritty things get, the opportunity for grace is always present, and that all of us, whether we realize it or recognize it or not, have a yearning for the divine. I've had my doubts over the years, yes. I still struggle with some Church teaching. But I've been Catholic longer than you've been alive, and I will stay a Catholic. There is no other kind of Christianity for me. I'm not the best Catholic, but I don't have to be. I hope that helps you with your "doubt."

 

[annabenedetti]

I enter this thread openly admitting that my limited understanding of science gives me concern about how literal Genesis 1 is. As to the OP, I see several things I honestly do not understand in Genesis 1. I may itemize some of those in a later post. But first I want to comment on something already posted.

In post 120 annabenedetti asked:



In post 121 Stripe replied:



Scientists do believe the CMB (cosmic microwave background) is light that “permeated the universe in its earliest days.” But the first issue I see with Stripe’s assertion is that the CMB is omnidirectional – it is coming from essentially all parts of the sky (If sky has any meaning before the earth was formed). Doesn’t sound very compatible with there being day & night as I see in Genesis 1.

Exactly. Best wishes to you in your conversations in this thread, I specifically asked how the earth could be in shadow (to have evening on that side) without the light being fixed in one place, and didn't get a useful answer.

 

[Stripe]

Exactly. Best wishes to you in your conversations in this thread, I specifically asked how the earth could be in shadow (to have evening on that side) without the light being fixed in one place, and didn't get a useful answer.

Because your wording makes no sense. There does not have to be a "fixed point" of light to have a shadow. There just has to be a general direction from which the light arrives.

 

[Clete]

But what is the distinction between this and pantheism.

What?

I don't see ANY connection between what I said and pantheism.

Explain it to me.

 

[Clete]

I haven't read a satisfying answer to the distant starlight problem, and the CMB origin is the end point of the discussion. I don't know the answers. All I can do is put forward ideas that might lead somewhere if we get some rational pushback on them.

On what is the CMB's source: There are two possibilities I see. Either the stretching happened on day 1 or day 4. Again, there are problems with both. The day 1 idea has the CMB being a result of God switching on gravity. The day 4 idea would have the flare a result of the stretching.

I've read plenty of ideas on both, but I have seen problems with all of them.

I sort of intuitively buck an the very idea of thinking that we can explain such things. I don't mind it in terms of the mental exercise and I understand that you'll never answer questions that you don't try to answer but at the end of the day, there may very well be an insufficient amount of information with which to determine any definitive answer to such questions.

For example, it is just as possible as any other explanation that God created the universe in the state we see it in now. The statements in the bible about God stretching out the heavens might give an indication about something that actually happened but it is also possible that such statements are actually be just poetic language. Whether He actually stretched anything out or not, there wouldn't have been much purpose in creating objects in the sky that we would never have any opportunity to see. God does say explicitly that the Sun, Moon and Stars are there for signs. A sign that you can't see is pretty worthless, right, so if that's what God had in mind then He would have created them in such a way that we can see them. Whether that creation is conducive to scientific scrutiny is a different question. It certainly seems to be at least to some degree but there comes a point where we have to acknowledge that some things may not be knowable to us and that the answer, "I don't know." is as valid as any other.