What makes a marriage a marriage? We need to define it before we re-define it. What is distinct about it? What makes marriage…marriage?
I think we misunderstand it, and that is pure tragedy.
Man and woman were made in the image of God. They were created beings who were able to relate to God; sentient and self-aware; in His image because they possessed spirits. Out of all that God created, man is the only being who is able to commune with God.
God called this creation something special. Together they were His joy, His most cherished creation. We were created for this relationship with God, and cultivating this relationship with God is man’s responsibility and his privilege.
God created man. Then woman was made from man. Note that she was not created a separate being or species. They are two manifestations of the same created being. She was made from…
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Messages from the Mythical 
Man and woman were made in the image of God.
God created man. Then woman was made from man.
If these claims were true, then there should be evidence for it. There isn’t. There is very strong contrary evidence that we evolved through common ancestry and change over time into the species we are today. There is no evidence at all in any avenue of inquiry based on reality of any creation event.anywhere at any time in our lineage. None.
And this evidence should be present if it were, in fact, true.
Why isn’t there genetic evidence for descent from a single pair? Why does the evidence that is encoded in our DNA indicate common ancestry with other species?
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“There is no evidence at all in any avenue of inquiry based on reality of any creation event anywhere at any time in our lineage. None.” You are wrong on that. There is plenty of evidence which is unfortunately prevented from seeing the light of day in a popular sense because of the mania for control within popular scientism.
I am not a scientist, but I won’t allow you to beat me over the head with your knowledge of physics either. I am not sure there is conclusive evidence that we have the same source as other species, or that we conclusively did not descend from a single pair. That being said, I won’t be discussing things outside my knowledge here.
My post was not a scientific treatise, and I would appreciate your reading past the little bit up there before you expound on it.
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Yet you feel perfectly justified making scientific claims contrary to what is known and perfectly justified to criticize contrary scientific consensus to what you believe! All on the basis of your religious ‘certainties’, no less!
Wow.
And then you imply that unlike your scientific understanding your religious certainties are adequately based on ‘knowledge’!
And the hits keep coming.
It’s okay to admit you don’t know something. Real scientists and honest atheists do it all the time! What’s not okay is to pretend someone else must be ‘wrong’ because something knowledgeable they say goes against your religious certainties and it’s not okay to pretend that whatever scientific position is against your religious certainties is motivated by some nefarious conspiracy. The other possibility is that you are lacking knowledge, that you do not have a good understanding, that your religious certainties are in fact questionable.
Perish the thought.
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Whoa…I didn’t make any scientific claims at all. Neither did I criticize any scientific consensus! What are you talking about? I think you must have confused my blog with someone else’s!
What I said was that there is a lot of scientific evidence which actually confirms many events in the Bible…you were the one who countered my faith statements with “science.” But you probably haven’t encountered the info because popular science is so totally politicized that it’s not very…popular information.
I think I just admitted I didn’t know lots of things….I’m not remotely doing any of the several things you’re accusing me of here…You’re working so hard to characterize me with lots of unsavory attitudes and beliefs which I’ve given you no evidence that I have.
One thing I do admit: I am very certain about the loving and merciful character of my God, and the complete reliability of Scripture. I never used that Scripture to make any scientific claims. Calm down.
It’s OK for me to be certain of my beliefs. Why does it make you so angry and condescending? I am in no way bothering you with them. Again, you went to the trouble to come to my house so you could basically rant at me all. day. long.
It’s Ok for you to value your beliefs, and to write about them and share them. By all means continue to share your scientific knowledge with others as well.
But this is my blog. And even though you were to come to someone’s home to debate views which oppose your host’s, you would still be expected to be civil. Anyone speaking to me in the way you have today would be asked to leave my house. Not because you have different opinions than mine, but because of your frankly childish and offensive behavior.
Please tone down the ridicule and adopt more grown-up speech, or I will not be playing further.
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Madblog, you wrote God is not responsible for our wrongdoing; he made us good. But we made us with free will so that we could love him freely by choice. (He didn’t want robots.) We choose otherwise.
Doobster responded So Eve, a made up character in a fable, ate the “forbidden fruit” and all of humankind has been suffering for that “sin” ever since. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
You then stated Thanks for clearing that up for all of humanity. It’s good to know you have definite knowledge that someone in the past didn’t exist. You KNOW it’s “fable.” Your circular reasoning is showing. I hope you’re not so disrespectful of historical methods as to doubt that a person called Jesus of Nazareth existed? He was an historically verifiable person in world history? This historical person referred to Adam and Eve, not by name, but spoke of the creation of man and woman as a real event. Other parts of the same creation account tell the story in detail and apply names.
Because IB22 doesn’t allow me to comment, I was unable to address your multiple scientific claims here contrary to scientific consensus that justifies me saying you feel perfectly justified making scientific claims contrary to what is known and perfectly justified to criticize contrary scientific consensus to what you believe! All on the basis of your religious ‘certainties’, no less!. This is an accurate assessment of what you are, in fact, doing. That I point it out is not ‘childish’ nor impolite; you impose those descriptors on what I have written because you take offense to having your scientific claims challenged and criticized. Rather than deal as an adult would with this content, you turn to complain about the context by which you receive the criticism.
So let’s look at the tone you use and to which I respond. Talk about shifting the goalposts!
You state repeatedly that I’m ‘wrong’ about this and that the other thing, so I explain why I’m not wrong… to which you seem to always find a way to take offense and never seem able to admit that you were wrong in your accusation. The accusation remains. And that’s rather rude. You don’t ever retract, which is the only respectful and polite thing to do. Nope. You feel you are still correct even when you;re not and then wonder why your ‘guest’ might take a tone no less respectful and polite than what you offer.
I suggested a shortcut that would save time and effort if, rather than announce another certainty (that is inaccurate) you first said “I don’t know” to stuff you don’t know about rather than tell me I’m wrong first when I point out a lack of knowledge you have, introduce a new point that doesn’t do what you think it does (like the gravity example to ‘prove’ why my analogy fails when it does no such thing), and then retreat behind your ‘blog-as-my-house’ excuse and insist I treat you with more respect and politeness than you are willing to show to your guest.
Your factually incorrect beliefs stated as if justified certainties and unyielding to legitimate criticism cry out for correction because they are based on belief informed only by ignorance, credulity, and gullibility. Again, describing your beliefs accurately this way I have no doubt will lead you to claiming I am being rude. But the rudeness doesn’t mitigate your intractability and intransigence.
The Adam and Even example is absolutely typical, presented by you as if a founding couple was historical not because we have any compelling evidence from reality to support it but solely because you believe Jesus presented them as such and so it must be true. This is not a way to find out anything about anything; it is a way to present ignorant beliefs – no matter who utters them – as if they were informed by knowledge. They’re not.
If Jesus suggested as much, then he would be as factually wrong as you are believing it to be true. It isn’t true. It is contrary to science. It is incompatible with scientific consensus that the science of genetics is not as you imply fundamentally wrong. And you offer nothing to suggest that your ignorance and Jesus’ might be even a possibility… other than assuming your contrary beliefs to scientific findings are sufficiently justified by authority that you are willing to grant (only God knows why) to inconsistent, factually wrong, contradictory scripture. Again,, if this accurate assessment causes you to feel offended, then that is good; you should be offended that you have been so credulous and gullible and stop blaming the messenger who thinks you should be capable of becoming a critical thinker concerned about lacking knowledge and concerned with supporting what’s true rather than just another helpless and hopeless religious automaton.
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I never made any scientific claims at all. I never even pretended to make scientific statements of any kind. You can stop being offended by them, wherever they are.
It is an obvious fact that I believe my own beliefs and you believe your own beliefs. Everyone is fairly certain of the things they believe…or else they don’t believe those things. I truly don’t understand your outrage that I am certain about some things. Everyone is. Is it offensive to know something now, or to adopt a belief?
You profess absolute certainty about things you can’t possibly know for certain unless you’ve been present throughout human history, such as from the beginning. This does not offend me.
I am not offended by your differing views. You are welcome to them, and to share them. I am intolerant of your insulting and demeaning speech. And you’re not making yourself a pleasant person to converse with, and I don’t seek out conversations with unpleasant people who talk off topic. And speaking of off-topic. We’re not going to continue a conversation you couldn’t continue on another blog. Stick to the topic of this post here.
Finally, I have asked you to respect me, my blog, my other guests…but you have continued to behave badly. If my blog makes you so very angry, why are you here? I will address the comments you have made up til now if necessary but please remember that this is my place and I set the rules. I am glad to discuss but you will not use my blog as your megaphone.
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Sorry tildeb but we do know. We have the word of the God who did it. We have the eyewitness accounts of the people who experienced the various events described in scripture. We have the internal logic of the scriptures which is apparent to those who examine it without an agenda. We have the critical examinations of 2,000 years worth of scholarship, much of which began from a hostile perspective but which arrived at different conclusions than their initial bias dictated. We have the structures of western society which work because they are founded on truth rather than preference. We have a man who came back from the dead. We have a church that cannot be exterminated despite the determination of dictators and tyrants. We have a Jewish nation as predicted in prophecy, secure in a sea of enemies because that’s what the actual God actually promised. We have our own changed lives. You have the agenda driven assertions of scientism and fool yourself that questions unanswerable by science are in fact “settled science.” You’re right: we can’t know what we can’t know. But as the Bible tells us we can close our eyes, stop up our ears and pretend we don’t know what we do know.
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Oh, good grief.
Why didn’t you just cut to the chase and pronounce, “The bible says it, I believe it. That settles it.” You’re just arguing the Napkin Religion again. (The Napkin Religion is the one true religion because it says so right here on this napkin).
Look, we have copies of copies of copies of manuscripts. That’s as close to ‘primary sources’ as any of us can get through scripture. What THEY claim is not evidence (eye witness ‘accounts’, ‘internal logic’, other believers, yada, yada, yada).
We have known forgeries. We have known later additions (see ‘camels’ for this). We have mis-translatrions, We have substantial rewritings. We have multiple authorship of singular books. We have hundreds of perfectly accessible contradictions, claims that are incompatibility between books, claims that are incompatibilities between references, claims that are indisputably historical fictions, and factually incorrect claims throughout scripture. To these brute facts about the quality of the books of the bible available to anyone who wishes to investigate biblical scholarship with an unbiased eye, you pretend such scholarship is wrong by your contrary beliefs. You then have the audacity to suggest such scholarship is due to ‘scientism’ and bias. Oh, that’s why there’s not a shred of evidence for any ‘exodus’ that should be there because the bible tells us it is there. Yet it’s not. It must be ‘scientism’ at work with archeologists from the international community busy burying the real evidence. Yeah, that’s sane. If your DNA does not indicate a single founding ancestor, It must be someone else’s bias at work. After all, we know the bible is true because, well, it says so right here on this napkin… ummm, I mean right here in this bible.
Good grief. What is the matter with your critical faculties?
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tildeb, you are woefully ignorant of the historicity and archaeology of the ancient manuscripts. We have manuscript evidence dating to about twenty years after Jesus’ time on earth. We have many, many more manuscripts of Biblical books than we have of any other ancient evidence. And aside from clerical errors they agree remarkably. Your other information is likewise very incorrect. Why would you think you are a better expert at your subject AND mine? Give me some credit. Oh yes, you can’t do that.
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Absolutely every objection you raise has been dealt with countless times by scholars, commentators and, yes scientists. Absolutely every one.
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Oh, yes. We call that ‘apologetics’ but just because some sophisticated theologians can argue that up is really another kind of down and black really means white, then you’re absolutely right; every criticism has been dealt with. Squinting just so is so much fun!
But we’re still left with ‘primary source material’ that is in fact copies of copies of copies with hundreds of easy to read contradictions throughout the ‘divinely inspired’ bible and the utter lack of evidence for claims made in the bible. Of course, we get to play the ‘but this is metaphor’ and ‘this is historical’ game every time another claimed biblical mole gets whacked by reality. You’re still left with the never answered question, “But how can you determine the difference?” No scholar has been able to answer that one with anything other than more of the same, namely, authority, revelation, and faith. After all is said and done, for example, there is more authenticity to Harry Potter’s story than there is for Jesus as god incarnate.
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“You have the agenda driven assertions of scientism and fool yourself that questions unanswerable by science are in fact “settled science.”
If I asserted that science says that bacteria and viruses cause disease, would you say that I was practicing “scientism?” It seems to me that one tends to claim that another is practicing “scientism” primarily when one does not like the conclusion of science with respect to a particular issue.
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The cause of disease is demonstrable and verified through observation and experimentation according to the principles of scientific methodologies. It meets established burdens of proof. If I “don’t like” the idea that bacteria causes disease and reject it I am objectively wrong. “Scientism” is faith in the ability of science to solve all mysteries regardless of their accessibility to scientific methods of investigation. It is the acceptance of “proof” of that which cannot be proven within the discipline of science. I have no trouble accepting tildeb’s assertion that DNA evidence does not indicate a single founding pair. That statement is as far as science can go at this point. To confidently assert that therefore, we KNOW there was no single founding pair is to assume knowledge we don’t have. That’s scientism.
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“Scientism” is faith in the ability of science to solve all mysteries regardless of their accessibility to scientific methods of investigation.
Then it’s a good thing that no one – including me – practices this… which you seem to assume doesn’t really matter as long as you can sling it at anyone using the term ‘know’.
But I have very high confidence – as much as I have in germ theory – that our modeling of the genetic explanation demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that we do not descend from a single founding couple. If we do, then our understanding of genetics is wrong. You are suggesting that it might be, in which case would you mind explaining an alternative model that still accounts for all the applications, therapies, and technologies that so inconveniently work utilizing this explanation for what seems like everyone everywhere all the time? If you wouldn’t mind, I would appreciate you raising any reasonable doubt you seem to have about my high degree of confidence in genetics, that is. Just so you’re not exercising the same ‘scientism’ you so smugly seem willing to charge me with.
….
I’ll wait…
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I can’t. There. I’m not sure Ptolemy could’ve proposed the Copernican concept of the cosmos or Newton’s law of gravitation, not to mention quantum mechanics. Why should he? Ancient society was able to navigate, create calendars, plant crops and predict eclipses and other natural events with an earth-centered cosmology. Therefore it was correct.
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“I have no trouble accepting tildeb’s assertion that DNA evidence does not indicate a single founding pair.”
And that’s a conclusion derived using the same methods as those used by those who conclude that bacteria and viruses cause disease. I’m not sure what you mean be “established burdens of proof.”
“To confidently assert that therefore, we KNOW there was no single founding pair is to assume knowledge we don’t have.”
Ah. I think that we need a definition of the word “know” here.
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tildeb, there is vastly more manuscript evidence for the Biblical accounts than there is for many other events and persons whose existence we don’t doubt…there are more than 5 thousand manuscripts of the New Testament today; by comparison, the next closest numerous is The Iliad: there are 650 Greek manuscripts of the Iliad and they were written 1000 years after Homer. The earliest portion of manuscript we have for the N.T. is from 150 A.D…In comparing the written evidence between the Biblical accounts and other ancient histories, the written evidence for the Bible is hugely more numerous, dates to much much closer to the events, and agrees 97%, with no doctrinal disagreement at all.
Your information is simply wrong.
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