h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>According to the King James bible, 'god created man, and called THEM Adam' - while obviously not a direct quote, I believe that this shows that they were talking about the tribe Adam, rather than a single being.<<

Bull!! Even if we're speaking of a SINGLE individual, whose gender is not known, or indifferent, we generally speak of THEM!

Apart from that, I DO believe that your interpretation may hold true in some other form: The Bible is written in a symbolical manner. Thus "Adam & Eve" may as well be symbolic for "mankind".

'God created man, male and female created he them' ... That help with the them thing?

Even though I DO agree that a lot of crap is to be found in the Bible, I feel that you might benefit from the following correction:

Those dinosaurs prove nothing!
The bible very clearly indicates that animal life was created BEFORE man. It never said anywhere, that the delay was of such a tiny length, that man would have lived side-by-side with the Dino's.

>>The only thing that bothers me is what makes us so different from the animals, what dramatically changed in our evolution?<<

On that subject, I'd like to suggest that maybe God wasn't at all responsible. What to think of the possibility that we have been influenced in some way by *Visitors from outer space*

They may have had a lot of knowledge back then, which all looked like witch-craft to our ancestors. Right now we ourselves are genetically altering several species of lifeforms, so why wouldn't some other race of intelligent beings have existed, capable of the same or more?

Not only would it be arrogant to assume that we are the only intelligent life in the universe. It would be most arrogant to assume that we're the first!

It does amaze me that anyone should have to state that someone needs a lot of balls to start this kind of forum.

I am astonished by the news from the states that some state or other has banned the teaching of evolution - i was under the impression that the US was the land of the free - or is that, 'land of the free so long as your free is the same as ours'? reminds me of orwell and how some pigs are more equal than others.

i am a biological anthropologist by training (we study evolution as it pertains to humans and primates).

i must say that i have no problem with adam and eve as a concept of allegory. the problem seems to come when an individual needs to justify their faith by convincing themselves that they must believe every word as written in a book.

this leads to wilder and wilder justifications to marry science and religion:

cf: Bishop Ussher's analysis of scripture which provided the date that earth was created in 4004 B.C or our man Gerald Schroeder.

cheers all

The idea that we did not evolve naturally is an interesting one. The most likely way it could have happened is called panspermia (greek for all seeding). Imagine if mankind was faced with extinction in the not to distant future and the only way to survive would be to send out crafts into space, controlled by computers to find and land on a planet similar to ours. Once landed they would recreate man (possibly inseminating eggs with sperm and incubating(or whatever)) and then man would interact with the surroundings and evolve with time.

Taking this as not to improbable, then you can imagine if this happenend to another race far out in another galaxy millons of years ago then we could be the result.

Just a thought.

Moving into evolutionary theory here, I read a report a number of years ago with some interesting tenets :

One hypotheses put forward was that man is not at the top of the evolutionary scale, rather Gorillas (or was it monkeys?) are. The theory goes that man is a creature which has forced the environment to adapt to it's whims, rather than being governed by the environment itself. The opposable thumb query is brought into question by it being proposed that this is actually a genetic deformity, rather than a genetic advancement, forcing man out of the trees, and the subsequent transformation of his environment.

Given the wanton destruction, development of weapons etc that has categorised mans time on earth, It would certainly suggest - to me - that our brains cannot be wired up properly, possibly another argument for man being genetically deformed rather than advanced.

This sounds logical enough for me.

On the other hand, we might still have evolved naturally, but at some point have been influenced by some alien race as well, to create the distinction between us and our animal ancestors.

At that point, we may have produced this book we call Bible, to give an explanation to that which we couldn't otherwise scientifically explain at that time (us being the subject of some changes, and not yet accustomed to scientifical reasoning).

Dont get me wrong, the only reason I said it took a lot of balls is that this forum is now going to rage on for a long time and be a subject of hot debate. I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech its just that everyone has such different opinions to get across in a small space. I just hope any religious people dont get offended by anyones ramblings.
Cheers.

Anyone participating in a forum on any subject is BOUND to bump into people believing the opposite. That shouldn't stop anyone from sharing their own belief with others, as long as we don't start calling eachother names, or making eachother look ridiculous in any other way.

For some subjects to be started some balls are indeed required. And it takes balls to admit that, too!

I am not in the least offended by the ramblings of others on this subject. It is fascinating to see what other people believe, even if you don't agree with them. It does seem that there are very few Christian members of h2g2 though. Is this down to the nature of the books that started it all, or are other Christians, and even other religious h2g2 members, just shy!

I'd rather believe otherwise ofcourse.

True, we tend to adjust the environment to our needs, instead of adjust ourselves to agree with the environment. But THAT doesn't make us some form of degenerate.

About not being wired up correctly upstairs: Nobody is perfect.
Most races of animal took tens of thousands of years to develop into the best shapes possible. Mankind just isn't quite old enough to have adjusted fully to what they should be. Maybe in time we will... who's to say?

Without the intention to offend anyone, we might also suggest that most Christians do not dare think otherwise than instructed by the church. And let's be clear about one thing: the church is not at all a democratic institution!

In most churches, you aren't tought to think independantly or scientifically; you're tought to think what the Pope says is safe for you to think.

Thus, perhaps most of us here are less Christian (or at least less religious) than the average.

The translation of dinosaur means "terrible lizard" and in the Bible, lizards are created at the same time as the rest of the animals. This is before God creates man. If the slowing down of time (a previous post of mine) is correct then that leaves a few million years between the dinosaurs being created and man being created. Admittedly the Bible doesn't say how the dinosaurs were killed off, but then only the first chapter or two of the Bible is about the creation, and it would be impossible to recount everything that happened in that space, especially as the Bible is not supposed to be a story of the universe, but a description of how Jesus saved us from our sins.

Only the Catholic church is controlled by the Pope. There are a whole lot of Christians who do not really listen to the Pope at all.

Christianity is very different to church. Church is the gathering of Christian people. Church is not democratic, but Chrisians can be and are. Most of the people that I know who are Christians are free thinking people. Admittedly there are those who aren't, but isn't that the case in society as a whole?

I am at the moment taking part in an Alpha course, which is a course designed to show that Christianity is relevant to today, and to improve knowledge of the Christian faith I have. We are not taught to think that Christianity is the only way of life, but are encouraged to look up the sources of things that are said, so that we can make up our own minds as to whether the Bible is the truth. I'd call that being taught to think independently. Maybe it has bias to it, but then as the Bible encourages people to tell of the difference Christianity has made to them, that is to be expected.

'what the Pope says is safe for you to think. '

This - I believe - is true of the Catholic division of christianity, but less so for the protestants. In fact - if memory serves me correctly - the Protestant division was set up by King Henry VIII because under the Catholics, the pope would not let him have a divorce. He therefore decided to split from the Catholic faith, and protestant faith was brought into an organised religion

"Let us follow the Gourd.

No, NO, We must follow the Shoe"

I personally have nothing agains Christians as such, what I do object to however, is the inherent dictatorship in Christianity. It seems to me that this is about the only religion which suffers it to such a degree. Probably best served by the Anology :

There is only one absolute path to the top of any mountain.

The other religions I've looked at seem to say :

There are many paths to the top, and it is up to you to choose which one to take.

I will gladly admit that I stand corrected in several points.

Although the institution is not democratic, the individual participating in it, may still be a free, independant thinking human being. Just like any other being, like you so justly said.

I'm a christian in name only, meaning that my parent chose to have me baptised as a catholic. However, I never found much help, faith or truth in catholicism. Or maybe I just don't feel the need for it.
On the other hand, though I believe everybody has the right to believe otherwise, I've found a lot of inconsistancies in the Bible, and have thus chosen to take only the general idea of it, the symbolic meaning that I found, to be a guideline on how I should interact with my fellow humans.
Apart from that, to me the Holy Book is just a nice story with little significance. No offence intended.

>>I personally have nothing agains Christians as such, what I do object to however, is the inherent dictatorship in Christianity.<<

Not only that, my brother, it seems ever so hypocrite as well.
I wouldn't see the leaders of most christian churches live in poverty. And in their teachings you'll find that we should share with our brothers that which we have, and they don't. but do you see the Pope eat or drink any less to feed a hungry person anywhere?

Several non-christian beliefs are much more consistent. Many ways to the top, several Gods to choose from, priests that gather material goods, only to divide it among the poor.

And what about the crusades: fighting WARS to bring christianity to others. As if forcing it upon them is what the "only God" would have wished us to do. But this is mostly to be addressed at the catholics, of course. They have quite an inheritance.

Yet again it is not Christianity where the dictatorship lies, but the "Christians", who choose to make the church a dictatorship. Christianity does say that we should share with others. However, it also accepts that humans are not perfect, and often make mistakes. Jesus died for us, because he was the son of God, he was perfect, so that it did not matter that we made mistakes, God woould always forgive us.
So we should be aiming to be as good as Jesus was, but accept that we are not perfect like he was.

Finally, about the wars, it is yet again the individual Christians who are to blame rather than the message of Christianity.

'There can only be one god', 'you must not worship any other', etc. Sounds like dictartoship to me.

I guess we'll just have to agree to differ on this one Jimbo.