God is not the Creator

[nabraxas]

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.

She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate".

The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth"

According to Judeo-Christian tradition, God created the Earth out of nothing.

Prof Van Wolde, who once worked with the Italian academic and novelist Umberto Eco, said her new analysis showed that the beginning of the Bible was not the beginning of time, but the beginning of a narration.

She said: "It meant to say that God did create humans and animals, but not the Earth itself."

She writes in her thesis that the new translation fits in with ancient texts.

According to them there used to be an enormous body of water in which monsters were living, covered in darkness, she said.

She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added: "Something was wrong with the verb.

"God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"

She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the swarming at the ground.

"There was already water," she said.

"There were sea monsters. God did create some things, but not the Heaven and Earth. The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is a big misunderstanding."

God came later and made the earth livable, separating the water from the land and brought light into the darkness.

She said she hoped that her conclusions would spark "a robust debate", since her finds are not only new, but would also touch the hearts of many religious people.

She said: "Maybe I am even hurting myself. I consider myself to be religious and the Creator used to be very special, as a notion of trust. I want to keep that trust."

A spokesman for the Radboud University said: "The new interpretation is a complete shake up of the story of the Creation as we know it."

Prof Van Wolde added: "The traditional view of God the Creator is untenable now."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...s-academic.html

[devance]

A interesting outlook.

The way of resolving it is both.

Mononality and duality.

So both are artistic.

Two ways are better than one too as to the same place.

Only demonic creatures would say otherwise.

So a seperation and divide concept for nation states and works for for supposedly paranormal activity.

Demons have a pod like A pod of killer whales using ultrasound to round up the scholl of fish.

I

[paradox]

interesting stuff

[devance]

Demonic as a false threat would be if one was multiple perceptiions, they [a preditory pod] the would threat would be to create a type of shizophrenia in one of 7 multiples.

A frightening idea but false.

Alot of demonic movies have a combined demon as a absorbstion for souls.

Just what they would like, not the case except for pyschological crippling..

Just nasty preditors disturbance.

Like killer whales for a disturbance if one had multifission.

A serperate hyena of a hyena pack for every absbolute 7 self clone.

I can multifission,, so I can refute the demonic threats as to going insane, in fact very stabilizing.

[drugo]

That's interesting. Thanks for sharing.

What type of things come to mind when you imagine the point of intervention when God worked her/his magic?

Is earth a pet project of a divine being who conjures up worlds like a gardener in a jungle?

[devance]

No, God would have a 12 multiple universes outlook at the same time.

Perhaps as physicist think, but a not seperate conscious reality but a type of physics.

As exstisting in twelve universes at the same time.

If a billion universe split of anybody coughed or had sex it would be interesting but not true.

[t st tantra]

my current view on kabalah is that there was first the void,ain/ain soth/ain soth ur,3 qualities of voidness.

and god emerged from the void

and using his image ,the tree of life, created the universe....

there are many different takes on this.the flower of life book has a totally different interpretation that is fascinating.....

aside from that it says 'there are 900 versions of the bible in the world,and in many of the older ones the first sentence says,"in the beginning there were six."it starts out in other ways too;its been changed many times over the years.'

some things he says appear to be untrue but this is almost the heart of his teachings.

i will try to offer a simple explanation when i am more functional......

t s t .

[drugo]

If a billion universe split of anybody coughed or had sex it would be interesting but not true.

Can anyone understand this?

[Maurice]

Why do secularists dump their anti-Gd propaganda on everybody?

If they are so sure that Gd doesn't exist, why are they perpetually trying to prove so?

Then, how was the universe created?

And why do we use Entheogenesis (Gd within) and behave like political correctoids,

too cowardly to mention the "G" word, unless in argument to refute Gd?

A little schizophrenic don't you think?

[Alchemica]

Why do secularists dump their anti-Gd propaganda on everybody?

If they are so sure that Gd doesn't exist, why are they perpetually trying to prove so?

Then, how was the universe created?

And why do we use Entheogenesis (Gd within) and behave like political correctoids,

too cowardly to mention the "G" word, unless in argument to refute Gd?

A little schizophrenic don't you think?

I like to sit on the fence with regard to God... Science has more answers for me. As for the universe being created, how was God created?

God does however make a perfect (theoretical) argument for legalising things that should be legal under "religious freedom", whether or not you believe in a higher power. Everyone should have the right to believe, or not believe IMO. Who's to say the whole concept of God is not just merely a human evolutionary concept, wired into the brain over thousands of years?

"Those who assume hypothesis as first principles of their speculations... may indeed form an ingenious romance, but a romance it will still be."-Roger Cotes

(preface to Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica)

[drugo]

I like to sit on the fence with regard to God... Science has more answers for me.

Maybe you're asking the wrong questions.

Edit: and maybe the two are not as neatly separated as one might think. The Pythagoreans did well to juggle the 'two'.

Edited October 12, 2009 by mooksha

[Maurice]

I like to sit on the fence with regard to God... Science has more answers for me. As for the universe being created, how was God created?

Gd is the creator, not the creation. i.e Unborn, undying- this is the Truth that entheogens reveal. Or are you framing your question from the perspective of "in time" or "beyond time- (eternal)" ? If from "in time" then there cannot be a debate about Gd!

God does however make a perfect (theoretical) argument for legalising things that should be legal under "religious freedom", whether or not you believe in a higher power. Everyone should have the right to believe, or not believe IMO. Who's to say the whole concept of God is not just merely a human evolutionary concept, wired into the brain over thousands of years?

Law whether religious or secular is necessary, try living without limitations, then you are in chaos!

"Those who assume hypothesis as first principles of their speculations... may indeed form an ingenious romance, but a romance it will still be."-Roger Cotes

(preface to Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica)

Who's assuming hypothesis as 1st principles? As I said, use entheogens wisely and you will realize the futility of this straw-man argument.

[Maurice]

Maybe you're asking the wrong questions.

Edit: and maybe the two are not as neatly separated as one might think. The Pythagoreans did well to juggle the 'two'.

And Descartes wrote " I think there for I am"

I disagree, IMO " I am, therefore there is thinking and doing"

The highest state is the borderlne b/w Gd the source (non-dual, beyond time, eternal) and the emergence of "I am".

[drugo]

I disagree, IMO " I am, therefore there is thinking and doing"

Maybe "I am, therefore i do" and thinking is one faculty of doing.

[botanika]

Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED"

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Where does the idea of God come from? Well, I think we have a very skewed point of view on an awful lot of things, but let's try and see where our point of view comes from. Imagine early man. Early man is, like everything else, an evolved creature and he finds himself in a world that he's begun to take a little charge of; he's begun to be a tool-maker, a changer of his environment with the tools that he's made and he makes tools, when he does, in order to make changes in his environment. To give an example of the way man operates compared to other animals, consider speciation, which, as we know, tends to occur when a small group of animals gets separated from the rest of the herd by some geological upheaval, population pressure, food shortage or whatever and finds itself in a new environment with maybe something different going on. Take a very simple example; maybe a bunch of animals suddenly finds itself in a place where the weather is rather colder. We know that in a few generations those genes which favour a thicker coat will have come to the fore and we'll come and we'll find that the animals have now got thicker coats. Early man, who's a tool maker, doesn't have to do this: he can inhabit an extraordinarily wide range of habitats on earth, from tundra to the Gobi Desert - he even manages to live in New York for heaven's sake - and the reason is that when he arrives in a new environment he doesn't have to wait for several generations; if he arrives in a colder environment and sees an animal that has those genes which favour a thicker coat, he says �I'll have it off him�. Tools have enabled us to think intentionally, to make things and to do things to create a world that fits us better. Now imagine an early man surveying his surroundings at the end of a happy day's tool making. He looks around and he sees a world which pleases him mightily: behind him are mountains with caves in - mountains are great because you can go and hide in the caves and you are out of the rain and the bears can't get you; in front of him there's the forest - it's got nuts and berries and delicious food; there's a stream going by, which is full of water - water's delicious to drink, you can float your boats in it and do all sorts of stuff with it; here's cousin Ug and he's caught a mammoth - mammoth's are great, you can eat them, you can wear their coats, you can use their bones to create weapons to catch other mammoths. I mean this is a great world, it's fantastic. But our early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, 'well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in' and then he asks himself a very treacherous question, a question which is totally meaningless and fallacious, but only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way. Man the maker looks at his world and says 'So who made this then?' Who made this? - you can see why it's a treacherous question. Early man thinks, 'Well, because there's only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he's probably male'. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , 'If he made it, what did he make it for?' Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, 'This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely' and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.

it's really the arrival of the computer that demonstrates it unarguably to us - is 'Is there really a Universe that is not designed from the top downwards but from the bottom upwards? Can complexity emerge from lower levels of simplicity?' It has always struck me as being bizarre that the idea of God as a creator was considered sufficient explanation for the complexity we see around us, because it simply doesn't explain where he came from. If we imagine a designer, that implies a design and that therefore each thing he designs or causes to be designed is a level simpler than him or her, then you have to ask 'What is the level above the designer?' There is one peculiar model of the Universe that has turtles all the way down, but here we have gods all the way up. It really isn't a very good answer, but a bottom-up solution, on the other hand, which rests on the incredibly powerful tautology of anything that happens, happens, clearly gives you a very simple and powerful answer that needs no other explanation whatsoever.

I would like somebody to write an evolutionary history of religion, because the way in which it has developed seems to me to show all kinds of evolutionary strategies. Think of the arms races that go on between one or two animals living the same environment. For example the race between the Amazonian manatee and a particular type of reed that it eats. The more of the reed the manatee eats, the more the reed develops silica in its cells to attack the teeth of the manatee and the more silica in the reed, the more manatee's teeth get bigger and stronger. One side does one thing and the other counters it. As we know, throughout evolution and history arms races are something that drive evolution in the most powerful ways and in the world of ideas you can see similar kinds of things happening.

-- Douglas Adams

[santiago]

Possibly some of the puzzle may be solved once or if we find intelligent life outside planet earth. Religion seems to have evolved from early origins ie neanderthals, homo erectus, sapiens as a coping mechanism. How did it help? It gave the early thinkers a means to explain shooting stars, the moon and sun, diseases and death.

Keeping in mind that death in itself is most peoples biggest fear. It always has been and always will. Religion is a means to help cope with such a traumatic event. Death isnt so bad if there is a belief that we simply keep 'living' but in a alternate reality. However religion also helps as a controlling mechanism. Not many people want to pass over into this after death alternate life if you go to the depths of hell for the wrong doings of your living life. Being judged by god for the life you lived probably maintains the balance of the status quo, keeping planet earth a safe place for most.

The most signifigant thing we could ever possibly imagine or achieve as a human race is prove life exists outside of our own planet. Not only could this prove an evolution style explanation of how we got here, it opens all sorts of questions as to the definition of the universe and how we fit into the puzzle. The ultimate would be to find a friendly intelligent life and to be able to communicate. What is their view on god? Unfortunately that could send billions manic so its a tough ethical decision.

Sometime in the future Earth may die. Scientists have predicted that the sun will expand as it runs out of fuel engulfing us all into flames and plunging the solar system into darkness. If you believe in god well thats fine as you can simply go live in some other dimension ie heaven or hell. If your more into science then the realisation is that every star comes to an end so if the star being the force generates heat etc for life then any alien life that possibly exists must have the ability to star skip in order to keep their unique genetic code continuing. It could be as simple as humans collecting every strand of animal dna, bacteria and so on, finding the targets in space to aim at, getting a few thousand of these and shooting them away for a shot at starting all over again somewhere else. A robot supercomputer will of course go along for the ride acting as 'god' once the 'noahs arks' have landed. Releasing and mixing the ingredients will be a super vital job. And so life goes on.............

[Maurice]

The reason I write Gd is because Gd is BEYOND time! ie ineffable.

To try and grasp Gd, which IS NOT a concept, with the mind in futile.

What about the word entheogen?

Take a large dose, and dissolve (what you think you are) into

non-dual awareness, cosmic consciousness, Gd, whatever you want to call it.

To try and argue against Gd, is to admit you don't understand entheogenesis!

[drugo]

Possibly some of the puzzle may be solved once or if we find intelligent life outside planet earth. Religion seems to have evolved from early origins ie neanderthals, homo erectus, sapiens as a coping mechanism. How did it help? It gave the early thinkers a means to explain shooting stars, the moon and sun, diseases and death.

Keeping in mind that death in itself is most peoples biggest fear. It always has been and always will. Religion is a means to help cope with such a traumatic event. Death isnt so bad if there is a belief that we simply keep 'living' but in a alternate reality. However religion also helps as a controlling mechanism. Not many people want to pass over into this after death alternate life if you go to the depths of hell for the wrong doings of your living life. Being judged by god for the life you lived probably maintains the balance of the status quo, keeping planet earth a safe place for most.

The most signifigant thing we could ever possibly imagine or achieve as a human race is prove life exists outside of our own planet. Not only could this prove an evolution style explanation of how we got here, it opens all sorts of questions as to the definition of the universe and how we fit into the puzzle. The ultimate would be to find a friendly intelligent life and to be able to communicate. What is their view on god? Unfortunately that could send billions manic so its a tough ethical decision.

Sometime in the future Earth may die. Scientists have predicted that the sun will expand as it runs out of fuel engulfing us all into flames and plunging the solar system into darkness. If you believe in god well thats fine as you can simply go live in some other dimension ie heaven or hell. If your more into science then the realisation is that every star comes to an end so if the star being the force generates heat etc for life then any alien life that possibly exists must have the ability to star skip in order to keep their unique genetic code continuing. It could be as simple as humans collecting every strand of animal dna, bacteria and so on, finding the targets in space to aim at, getting a few thousand of these and shooting them away for a shot at starting all over again somewhere else. A robot supercomputer will of course go along for the ride acting as 'god' once the 'noahs arks' have landed. Releasing and mixing the ingredients will be a super vital job. And so life goes on.............

I think you are underestimating the power and trajectory of mind. The general response I get from plants is to not take 'physical' life too seriously.

Let the ineffable push the limits of language and logic, and have a good chuckle in the process.

[santiago]

Entheo comes from the latin word perdonare which means "to give wholeheartedly".

Genesis means "combining form" or "development".

I suppose i didnt understand entheogenesis until i looked in a very large dictionary, unfortunately it wasnt there so have just combined the meanings for simplicity's stake. Entheogenesis therefore means "to give and develop wholeheartedly".

Ok so now that i have admitted i didnt understand "entheogenesis" however now do, how and why does that relate to the following quote. Just curious.

To try and argue against Gd, is to admit you don't understand entheogenesis!

The use of the word "entheogenesis" seems to be a manufactured team name which has been created for the use of identifying oneself within a elete horticulture society an a means to escape and enhance reality via the use of drugs within those plants they wish to research.

The general response I get from plants is to not take 'physical' life too seriously

Certainly good advice coming from plants but what do they know about being human.

Edited October 12, 2009 by santiago

[botanika]

Let the ineffable push the limits of language and logic, and have a good chuckle in the process.

Yep, can't forget how much some plants can make us laugh

[drugo]

fierce, shallow and arrogant x

[santiago]

Not my work but was an interesting read. Once again though the typical stumbling blocks of...

who created god?

where is the end of the universe?

how can complex mathematics be explained

why the greatest scientific brains can only explain the formation of everything via a simple big bang

has hunab ku been abducted by aliens and replaced by chiral

maybe murphys law can explain god

You will always find something in the last place you look

Can Science Prove the Existence of God?

By GEORGE JOHNSON

Published: Tuesday, November 11, 2003

''I have no need for that hypothesis,'' Pierre-Simon Laplace famously responded when asked where God fit into his new astronomical theory. Using calculus and Newton's laws of gravity, he explained the forces that kept the planets from gradually drifting out of orbit, imparting some stability to the solar system. Newton had thought the Great Engineer must step in now and then to readjust the machine.

The theory didn't explain where the solar system came from. But Laplace also had an answer. The planets, he proposed, had congealed from a swirling cloud of gas and dust surrounding the sun.

O.K., so where did the sun and the mother cloud come from? And what set the whole thing revolving?

By now, scientists think they have even those answers, and they do not involve the intervention of any Great Engineer. The whole point of science for the last few hundred years has been to explain everything in terms of a physical process, something that can be described by equations.

The quest, however, is far from done. God, for those who want to use that term, can be invoked to account for phenomena that have not yet yielded to the scientific method. What is for some the ultimate question -- Does God exist? -- has become a matter of how much further the domain of the unknown will continue to contract, and if it will ultimately evaporate.

The momentum has been in that direction. The whirlpool of cosmic stuff that spawned the solar system spins because it is one small part of the great rotating galaxy, the Milky Way. When a random fluctuation causes enough gas and dust to bunch together, gravity takes over and celestial bodies begin to form. If you want to know where the galaxies came from, there are answers as well. Ultimately, it all comes down to the Big Bang.

That is where the chain of reasoning bottoms out. What caused the primordial explosion? At this point all but a few scientists go with Wittgenstein (''of what we cannot speak we must pass over in silence'') or with Kierkegaard, blindly taking the leap of faith into the abyss of the unknown, choosing what to believe.

Why there is something instead of nothing is not an issue that science is well equipped to address. As cosmologists understand it, the primordial eruption did not take place at a certain instant in a certain place. The Big Bang created absolutely everything, including space-time itself. How can anyone ask what set the whole thing going if there was no space or time for a creator to be in, much less any matter or energy for Him or Her or It to work with?

This rather formidable obstacle doesn't prevent a few people, some of them scientists, from trying to prove, or disprove, the existence of a deity. Almost any book or conference on science and religion inevitably includes what has become a metaphysical set piece:

The various parameters of the universe -- the charge of the electron, the strength of gravity, and so forth -- appear to be finely tuned to support the existence of stars and atoms and molecules and life. If the conditions at the instant of the Big Bang had been slightly different, the argument goes, then the universe (at least from an earthling's point of view) would have been a colossal waste of space-time. So we are the lucky benefactors of blind chance, or life was planned all along -- either by a Great Intender or by some physical or mathematical or logical law or process. Ignore the great Wittgensteinian whisper and you feel the queasy discomfort of a human mind pushed to the edge of what it is possible to know.

One theory is that the Big Bang actually spawned a plenitude of universes each randomly endowed with different physical conditions. People, of course, find themselves in one that is capable of supporting life.

''Universe'' used to mean everything that exists. To even think about this new scheme of things, the definition must be weakened to ''everything that we can get information about.'' We are required to believe in -- take on faith -- that there is something outside the universe. Might as well just call it God.

Whether the multiverse theory is more comforting than believing that human existence results from a senseless crapshoot or a holy decree is a matter of taste, not science. For many theorists it is also a betrayal of the great effort to explain the laws of physics. Some still hope to find ''a theory of the initial conditions of the universe,'' a supreme mathematical law, hidden perhaps in superstring theory, showing that the parameters of creation could have been set only in a certain way.

But then they would have to find a law to explain where the law came from . . . and ultimately an explanation of why the universe is mathematical and of where mathematics came from and what numbers are.

Like a petulant 8-year-old, we keep asking why, why, why, why. In the end, the answer is either ''just because'' or ''for God made it so.'' Take your pick.

[nabraxas]

If they are so sure that Gd doesn't exist, why are they perpetually trying to prove so?

A little schizophrenic don't you think?

Did you read the article? It's pretty clear that she does believe in the existence ov an imagined supernatural being.

Also i'm not sure why you would use the term "schizophrenic".

If you mean "delusional" then surely believing in a supernatural being with amazing powers...

[Maurice]

Entheo comes from the latin word perdonare which means "to give wholeheartedly".

Genesis means "combining form" or "development".

I suppose i didnt understand entheogenesis until i looked in a very large dictionary, unfortunately it wasnt there so have just combined the meanings for simplicity's stake. Entheogenesis therefore means "to give and develop wholeheartedly".

"En" means within. (Latin 101!"

Theos is Greek for Gd. as in Theology, Theosophy!

Ok so now that i have admitted i didnt understand "entheogenesis" however now do, how and why does that relate to the following quote. Just curious.

The use of the word "entheogenesis" seems to be a manufactured team name which has been created for the use of identifying oneself within a elete horticulture society an a means to escape and enhance reality via the use of drugs within those plants they wish to research.

You want to tell this to the EGA team mate!

Certainly good advice coming from plants but what do they know about being human.

[Maurice]

Not my work but was an interesting read. Once again though the typical stumbling blocks of...

who created god?

where is the end of the universe?

how can complex mathematics be explained

why the greatest scientific brains can only explain the formation of everything via a simple big bang

has hunab ku been abducted by aliens and replaced by chiral

maybe murphys law can explain god

You will always find something in the last place you look

As I said, take a large dose of entheogens, dissolve what you think you are into the ocean of Gd, and you won't need to ask such questions.