Thread: How does a creationist resolve this discrepancy

Originally Posted by Xei

10. a brain having a well developed cerebellum with posterior lobe and a Calcarine fissure;

I'm going to take a stab at 10 and 11... 18 and 20 are also dubious. But please, you tell me.

Actually, 10 is true. The cerebellum is mostly in charge of precision motor control and comprehension of language. The latter is a bit questionable, but he does display mastery of a keyboard.

EDIT:

That had already been addressed by Mario.

He has me on ignore. It's apparently easier to debate when you pretend one of your opponents doesn't exist.

An error in what? The grammar? Surely you see the absurdity of the idea. For, how can one establish a grammar, without first predicating the thoughts which naturally govern that grammar? Perhaps you should try to sell your own shadow to your mind -- tell me if that works. Plato would have locked you away with Freud and all the other heretics and loonies.

Quit bickering like children. It's getting rather tiresome.

Originally Posted by Aquanina

Quit bickering like children. It's getting rather tiresome.

Didn't you know better when asking this question? Or are you trying to teach people to be able to express their opinions without the need to argue about who is right? Good luck! This is what humans have to learn in order to survive: find happiness in different ideas and respecting those who share different opinions and different views. That, and make use of clean renewable energy and conquer greed.

I don't know why god couldn't create evolution. It is a perfectly running system. It might be the best way to create life, to let it evolve.
I wouldn't call myself a creationist, but I definitely think that Nature is creative. If we want to go all Biblical, I absolutely don't take the Bible literally, and I think that it was written by politicians, preists, and a few Divinely inspired prophets who weren't Scientists, but had visionary experiences which they wrote in metaphor.
I believe that the spark of life in all living beings and in the center of every particle is the creative force that some people name God as an anthropomorphized concept, but that leaves them feeling separate from it, as if God is its own being who has desires apart from our desires. the point is that the creative principle creates by becoming what it creates. You and me and the dinosaurs all are conscious living things (the dinosaurs lived in a different time, they died out) that desire happiness. And we are evolving towards happiness. On this journey, we are also discovering what happiness is. Dinosaurs were happy being big and savage and eating a lot, but our happiness is also more evolved and much more complex. It isn't that God made a mistake, because the concept of God has quite a few problems, but it is that we (as living feeling beings) have outgrown our base mentality as terrible lizards. For most animals happiness is just surviving, so survival of the fittest has been the compass for evolution. But humans are different, we can survive, but we may not survive ourselves.
God doesn't create, God becomes, and not willfully, but quite naturally and unconsciously, until it discovers itself in its manifestations. Then, evolution can become conscious, rather than an unconscious force of nature. All beings of life on this planet are just as sacred as any other, and we are all interdependent, but humans have the potential to be the flowers of consciousness on this tree of life. The flowers are part of the tree and cannot exist without it. We are the nervous system of Nature, but we are in the midst of a schizophrenic nervous breakdown. If we don't discover what happiness is then we will die out just like the dinosaurs and either our descendants or those who come after us will get closer. Of course, there is no answer that when we arrive at we will stop evolving. But the search is part of what happiness is.
The part of God that is asleep is nature, and nature is the dreamer who becomes the dream with all its creatures. This part is in search of lucidity, or lucidity is its destiny, the direction evolution heads for. The part of God that is awake does not know or care what Nature is dreaming, but waits patiently for Nature to awaken. Nature is a dream unfolding in time, The Awakened One does not dream of time, it is already and always was and will be at one with Nature before she fell asleep and after she awakens (before the Big Bang and after the Big Crunch). It is this union that is the compass for evolution. In religious words this is called Grace. In Gnostic terms the part of God who is awake is the Father, the part that is asleep is Sophia (which means Goddess of Wisdom, but she fell asleep in matter) who the Son (Christ) is sent to awaken her to her true nature again. All these aspects are within us. It is a story of lucidity. But, just a story. Not fact. But the message is true, but not fact.

What about respecting the opinions of those who don't want renewable energy?

You just got derped son.

As always, the line of tolerance is drawn when it affects others.

Ahh right, I see. I wondered why that was.

I respect the opinions of people who don't want renewable energy, even though I disagree. But as far as I can fathom, the only reason someone would not want renewable energy is because they are invested somehow in non-renewable energy and are therefore greedy. I don't know how much I can respect greed and intolerance. But opinions about what reality is or what music one likes, etc. are all individual things that are respectable. We can make hypothetical situations in order to use the word derp, or we can deal with real situations in which you are a part. Derp.

Herp herp.

My larger point was that it's all very well respecting people's opinions about 'inconsequential' things like music or metaphysics, but even you were drawing a line for more important things, so you were kind of defeating your own point. When it comes to people who believe that women are subversive and must be repressed, do you respect that? I know I wouldn't, and I'd try to talk some sense into that person, or at least try to get them to realise they are intellectually dishonest. What about the backward, superstitious thinking that leads many people to think the above? Which side of the line is this on? Can you see that many people would place this on the same side of the line that you place greed?

But people argue about inconsequential things, and create ill feelings about it. Important things are human rights and environmental issues should also not be argued about. Yes, there are sexist and racist people, but you aren't going to change their minds by disrespecting them. People have reasons for being who they are. I see any harming anybody whether it is repressive to women, immigrants, or motivated by greed, or disrespecting someone on the basis of their harmless views on reality. I think disrespect of people is harmful. Intolerance is harmful. But I don't really like the word "tolerance". As if the best we can do is tolerate each other. I don't agree with Catholicism since it is backward in my opinion, it fosters guilt and shame, and makes pedophiles of priests, but I respect people who are Catholics. Yes, I try to point out the error of their thinking if they are full of shame, but who am I to disrespect their beliefs? Even Biblical creationsists, who I think have a very distorted idea of what is really going on, I can't disrespect them. I may be the one who has no idea of what is true or not. Let a few people believe the Earth is flat. It is their right. But they don't have the right to harm people who believe otherwise. And btw, most people on this planet believe that women should be repressed. Sad, but true. Most people think homosexuality is evil, most people don't like nomadic people, most people don't like this or that, people who are different than them. And most theists don't like atheists and most atheists don't respect theists.

Really, I don't see how it hurts to just let some people choose to believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted in spite of evidence to the contrary. It is a harmless belief. And people should have the right to believe what they want to. I have conversations with my friend's granddaughter who is a "Jew for Christ". I ask her about her beliefs and how it all works, and I point out things that don't make sense to me and she explains it, not to my satisfaction. There comes a point where I have to say "Well, maybe you are right." and leave it at that. She says "I am right!" and I say "Maybe you are. Who knows?" She can't argue with that. But I can't tell her that I think it is all bullshit. I do tell her what I believe however.

Things like harming people, violating freewill, injustice, inequality, are important, and that is where I draw the line. Aquanina is right, bickering over creationism and dinosaurs on an online forum is very childish, and there are better ways to communicate. You say yourself that "it's all very well respecting people's opinions about 'inconsequential' things like music or metaphysics". I agree, it is all very well to do that, and that is my point. So can we have peace now so we can get back on topic. Actually, what I said before was the only thing I had to say about this topic, so I will just return to see what other people say. But this is an interesting idea for a new thread. "How far should tolerance go?"

So, do you have a problem with that? Or can we get back on topic?

Well, back on the topic. Which people clearly have been sidetracked from.

This topic reminds me, I know this may not be "right on topic" but I have always wondered if the world was how it was thousands, and millions of years ago on purpose because humans weren't supposed to know the science of the world, and people, and creatures. May it be flaws that this "God" made, or just simply another reason of why to live that way.

We have the tools now, computers, microscopes, the knowledge of our human mind to know what we are made of, cells, which for to make us, as an individual. Maybe the universe works that way as well, which leads into wouldn't whoever, or whatever created us know if they created a mind such as ours we would eventually figure things out. It really leaves me questioning like crazy, all of this, there are many theories but come on, we know not EVERYONE is going to agree on the most accurate "theory", mainly these beliefs which make up religion would block them from even giving into the theory, but science is real, accurate, even though we simply just don't know all of it.

I asked someone once, "why do you believe what the bible has to say?" They said, "well why do you believe the books at your school?" I then said "Because my math book says 2+2=4, which can easily be proved" Which is why I am agnostic. I believe religion has potential, but I really will never have 100% belief until I witness it.

But I must say, the Bible holds many correct, physiological explanations and morals of life, even today. Which is what the people of the world have fed off of.

But anyway, to the starter of this forum: I think people have answered your question, I'm a little late. I would say many of the same things these people have.

Dirt is a metaphor for matter. They didn't have the word matter back then, they used the word "dirt". In another language of course. There is an understanding the uninitiated have and an understanding the initiated have. And the initiations and the understandings are only taught orally, verbally, not through scripture. This has always been the case, and always will be. People who read the scriptures and pass judgement either for or against will not understand what it is they are judging. It is like if someone read your dream-journal and asked you "You actually believe this stuff?!"

Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut

Dirt is a metaphor for matter. They didn't have the word matter back then, they used the word "dirt". In another language of course. There is an understanding the uninitiated have and an understanding the initiated have. And the initiations and the understandings are only taught orally, verbally, not through scripture. This has always been the case, and always will be. People who read the scriptures and pass judgement either for or against will not understand what it is they are judging. It is like if someone read your dream-journal and asked you "You actually believe this stuff?!"

If you would like a further insight as to the mysteries of the Scripture, read my Language and Experience.

There is a whole new universe as to how to write something. Plato was adept at the method also.

Imagine using principles of reason to construct a piece--how would you do it? How would you use the fundamentals of, say for example, code to shape the code that you wrote. Instead of a single dimentional presention, you expand it beyond the words themselves to a multidimentional presentation to interact directly with the reader? How would you do it so that the presentation would make sense to various levels of intelligence?

Take Plato, for example, who was preserving the implications of the two element metaphsyics, who used form to create the outline, form which is truth, and the material difference for the substance, which is always changing? In order to comprehend the work, you would have to be able to see the form of the piece, you would have to see the idea in the abstract. Now, one psychological type would seek out truth in the individual passages, and pit one set of words against another, another psychological type would see the form, and how it workd through the various ideas. The form Plato used for each piece, he used recursively--multidimensionally. When you start to see it, and work at it until it becomes solid, you see what others cannot see at all.

Or take scripture, use fundamental principles of reason to tell the same story over and over, however, the reader, not seeing how the principles are used, because the principles are not part of his basic psychology, sees meaning contradicting meaning, never seening the reality beneath it. One time something looks good, another bad. They process appearance, but the truth is not in them.

When a thing is written, it is aimed at a specific audience. You have to learn to ignore those whom you can never really communicate with. It is just a fact of life. Try as you might, you cannot change the basic animal.

I will give you the official mainstream theological explanation of the original inquiry...

I have a few years of theological study within an institution and a lot more during my free time after leaving said institution.

Here is the explanation in point form:

1. The book of Genesis with the Biblical cosmological narrative included was developed as poetry, sung and recited which is known as oral tradition historically. The story itself was created before the "Hebrews" used any written form. That being said, the Genesis narrative is not to be taken literally.

2. Even without a literal interpretation of the Genesis narrative, a supernatural creator is still possible.

3. Finally, any scientific observations on the development of matter, life, and species can and will be co-opted as 'the creators' predetermined plan for life in the universe. For example: It is now a mainstream opinion that 'God' uses evolution to develop his creation.

To many, this may not seem like creationism and in its original form the many would be correct. However, if "creation" is seen simply as the action which made life possible and subsequently humans, then indeed any system widely accepted for the development of life could be precipitated from "Yahweh's divine hand".

Tell that to the idiots that run the creation museum.

lol random interjection

I like to think of creationists as the result of flawed nurturing, even scientists who disavow evolution validity are subject to the nature verses nurture argument, and I think it's especially apparent in this circumstance that their upbringing has caused serious bias in how they might objectively examine the world. They still may have the insight to further our understanding scientifically because of how they were trained, but removing or whitewashing something so primal and basic as the principles one is introduced to as a child is a scientific endeavor in itself that I think needs to be addressed also from a philosophical standpoint, because even science needs clear cut, reality based direction guiding the morals and ethical standard on which the field operates.