[split] a discussion on origins sparked by "The Order of Things"

[busker]

Thanks Torkel-

I am well aware of the points you made. That said, I am fascinated that modern science does offer support that very early Earth may have initially been a "waterworld", and that DRY LAND appeared later.  Of course, there most certainly was land/harder surfaces under the oceans.

Genesis states that DRY LAND appeared later.  It also states that life in the oceans came before appearing on land, which is correct.  It is the order of those two things that I find so interesting.  In the absence of modern science, those were pretty remarkable leaps. 

As regards big bang theory, science has very little idea of what preceded it: nothing or perhaps quantum flucuations.  It's very hard to prove what was happening in the absence of space/time as we now understand it, and almost becomes a matter of "scientific faith".  "Let there be light" does seem to be a simple, elegant way of putting it.   

I posted this piece in hopes that it would spur precisely the kind of comments that you offered.  I do like stirring up the bees.

ps.  Night and day obviously occur for the blind, so they don't have to be seen to be understood.  Since the Bible is wide open to interpretaion, I "see" night and day as a cycle of one event to the next, with each cycle representing eons.  I take almost none of the Bible literally.

Actually, that is not true.
The early earth had no surface water. There was only dry land and volcanoes. There was a lot more internal heat as there were more radioactive elements that have since decayed. The early solar system had a lot more asteroids and so there was steady bombardment.
Water came later, and may have resulted from bombardment by comets.

Water has always existed as a thin skin on top of the lithosphere, btw. That much is obvious.
Génesis says that fruits came before the waters teemed with living creatures. Since flowering plants only came about in the Mesozoic, this is obviously false.

In fact, even land plants appeared well after the Cambrian explosion.

I could go on, but pointing out that the fertile imagination of ancient barbarians in the Fertile Crescent - for much of the biblical fables draw upon Mesopotamian myths - who didn’t have flushing toilets nor cherry tomatoes, was not any miraculous prognostication of the miracles of science, seems a little odd in this era of solar panels and electric vehicles.

But it wasn’t only in the Middle East that this idea of water appearing first spring up. The Indians, Chinese (if I remember correctly), and various other assorted ancient civilisations had similar myths. It’s because water was always more mysterious than land. And life relies on water.

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Also, on the "big bang" theory (a term coined by Fred Hoyle, who didn't like the idea):
> Time and space are properties of the universe, and didn't exist before the big bang by definition. It's not intuitive, it's just maths.
> The BBT is just a model that is currently accepted as the best possible explanation. It doesn't mean that it's right. The steady state theory still has its adherents. The possibility of this universe being just one of many also exists. As is the possibility that we live in a simulation, which would explain why nature seems to be governed by weird laws. Someone wrote the code for it to work in a higher order universe.

At the end of the day, any explanation for why we exist is as absurd as any other explanation. I personally think that it's all just a fevered dream inside the mind of the Red King.

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I think the Book of Job sums it up nicely, that we will never understand everything about this universe, or even come close to understanding a small fraction of it (the fun is in the game, but each answer opens up more questions), and therefore jumping to a 'God' explanation is as absurd as not jumping to it:

Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
...
He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

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Also, a sentiment nicely summarised in the Rig Veda (AL Basham's translation) - perhaps nothing indeed makes sense:


Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows - or maybe even he does not know.

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the poem has sparked off a nice discussion, though