Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Adam and Eve?

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Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Just out of curiosity, have any of the Creationist bigwigs been able to come up with a way that Adam and Eve and their kids could have populated the whole world without:

A: Breaking the incest taboo, (okay, I suppose God might not have gotten around to banning it at the time)

B: Inbreeding, and all the resultant genetic deficiencies?

I mean, if you've ever seen the results of too much "relative closeness," especially over several generations, you know that what you get are NOT generally healthy kids who are adapted to making coherent speech, much less surviving in the wilderness. And they certainly don't live several hundred years.

Does this mean that God was constantly tampering with the genetic makeup of Adam and Eve's kids and grandkids and great-grandkids, just making sure nothing goes wrong?

And if THAT'S true... why'd He stop?

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

I don't recall God banning incest. He didn't ban polygamy, either, but most people assume he did.

There's no way to know about the genetics problem. For all we know, God created wives for all of Adam and Eve's sons from their ribs. Maybe there was a problem, and it was just never mentioned. Adam and Eve's genes had to be special in some way, to contain all the genetic information we have today. All the genes for skin, hair, and eye color, height, metabolism, and everything else was there to begin with. I've always wondered what an analasys of Adam and Eve's genetic structure would be like. Or, even better, compare Jesus' to Mary's.

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HEAD KNIGHT: We are now... no longer the Knights Who Say 'Ni'.
KNIGHTS OF NI: Ni! Shh!
HEAD KNIGHT: Shh! We are now the Knights Who Say 'Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-pikang-zoop-boing-goodem-zoo-owli-zhiv'.
RANDOM: Ni!

Posted by Jubilee (Member # 99) on :

The Old Testament is more a collection of history than anything ... there are a few chapters on what was good and bad to do as a christian (Proverbs, if I recall correctly) .. but you've got more stories about different people than anything. I mean, that's what Job, and Esther, and all the Kings, and etc are about.
The simple fact is, History written by a few people IS NOT ACCURATE. Sure, it's put in "The Bible", and therefore "holy writ" .. but the problem is that what people took for granted was never written about, and therefore we have no idea about ANY of those things. The problem of Adam and Eve was probably so simple to solve that no one ever wrote about it.

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"Elevator to hell, going up." - What Dreams May Come

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Uh...your genetic code contains instructions for all those things too, Omega. So does mine. Plus a rather large amount of stuff we don't even use.

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"I am just a worthless liar. I am just an imbecile. I will only complicate you. Trust in me and fall as well."
--
Tool

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

If you accept the basic supposition that God's work is perfect, inbreeding isn't a problem. There are no genetic defects (initially) to pass along to subsequent generations.

Of course, the above supposition implies that "perfect" people can make bad choices. Hmmm... that part doesn't contradict my experience in the least.

--Baloo

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I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Don't forget all that prophecy, Jubes.

Posted by Feste on :

One day the Lord came to Adam and said, "I've got some good news and some bad news."

Adam said, "Give me the good news first."

The Lord explained, "I've created two new organs for you. One is called a brain. It will allow you to create new things, solve problems, and have intelligent conversations with Eve. The other organ I have for you is called a penis. It will give you great physical pleasure and allow you to reproduce and populate this planet. Eve will be very happy that you now have this organ to give her children."

Adam, very excited, exclaimed, "These are great gifts you have given to me. What could possibly be bad news after such great tidings?"

The Lord looked upon Adam and said with great sorrow, "You will never be able to use these two gifts at the same time."

From "The Door: The World's Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine."

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"There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne."

Bette Davis - Old Acquaintance

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Baloo.. how many absolutely perfect people have you had firsthand experience of?

That does bring up a salient point, though.. if Adam and Eve were created perfect, how could they have done such a stupid thing as eat the "apple?"

(Of course, Lucifer was perfect to start with, too...)

Apparently perfect means something different now. "perfect" to most folks would include not erring, not making incorrect decisions, and certainly not gullible enough to listen to some stupid serpent rather than your boss.

Of course, if God is perfect, Adam and Eve could NOT be perfect, since they were vastly different. Especially in the fact that Adam and Eve weren't all-knowing. (Most likely, they were fairly ignorant.)

BTW, I put the apple in quotes because nobody REALLY knows what the fruit was. Personally, I think it was passionfruit. Yum.

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

[This message has been edited by First of Two (edited August 21, 1999).]

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Perhaps it was a mango?

Yum!

In any case, I think I've met loads of people who expect too much from God and too little of themselves (the guy I see in the mirror when I shave belongs in that category sometimes).

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It's perfectly logical. Except for this little bit right here.
www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/8641/

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

It's time for another "Useless Fact".

The Catholic church disagreed with the realignment of the calender, placing New Years some months off of where it was, because they believed that the world was created at the beginning of one of our new years, even if you change calenders, and that the fruit was an apple. Since apples aren't ripe in January, Adam and Eve couldn't have eaten one then, thus January couldn't be the start of the new year. The Catholic church's belief that the fruit of the TotKoGaE was an apple also lead to decreased apple sales during the dark ages, leading apple farmers to create the phrase "An apple a day keeps the doctor away".

This has been another "Useless Fact".

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Matters of greater urgency demanded my absence. Now, I am back.

Baloo: I expect a great deal of myself, and am rarely disappointed. Of course, I am frequently disappointed when other humans fail to live up to the standards that I set for myself, because I know they're all capable of at least that, if I am. Unlike the standards of a half-divine or totally divine being. (As the man said, 'it's easy to resist temptation when you're GOD.')

What is unreasonable to expect of an all-powerful being?

(whup, I can answer that myself. It is unreasonable to expect that an all-powerful being, maker, shaper and ruler of all the universes, desires the saccharine adoration of a insignificant bipedial primate on a tiny world in a corner of the universe, can be swayed by supplication, and becomes petulant if it does not receive this flattery.)

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"When we turn our back on our principles, we stop being human." -- Janeway, "Equinox"

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

I know this is old, but I came up with the solution: there was inbreeding. You know that royal family that used to exist in Europe, but died out because of inbreeding? They eventually all became redarded and sterile. But they all had the same prominent facial features. If Adam and Eve's kids married each other, then their children would all have some similar features, which would become more prominent as time went on. This explains the human races.

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"Don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my
breakfast cereal."
- Zaphod Beeblebrox,
`The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

I think the operative phrase in the statement above is "they all became retarded and sterile." This is not a good way to "be fruitful and multiply,"

Also, it is unlikely that combining genetic characteristics from closely related beings will result in the diversity of features required to create "races." More likely, you will be left with homogeniety. (That is, everybody will look the same, not different.)

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"We shall not yield to you, nor to any man." -- Freak, The Mighty.

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Of course, remember that humanity apparently repopulated itself twice (can't forget ol' Noah)...

I'd still like to here the creationist explanation for different races.

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"Well, I guess we're an Ovaltine family."
"MORE OVALTINE PLEASE!"
-American Radio Ads... *gag*... one more reason I'm glad to be above the 49th.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

OK, look at it this way. Since Tom brought up Noah, lets use him as an example. He had three sons, and each had a wife. Say each pair moved to a different area to start a family. If Ham had three sons and three daughters, and they paired off, and you continued with the threes, you'd have a pretty sizable population within a couple of centuries. Of course, there'd be a limited gene pool, so they'd share several features (big nose, small feet, red hair, etc.). Thus each person would have several traits of Ham and/or his wife. So if you were just dealing with one family, you would probably end up with everyone looking the same, but you're effectively dealing with three.

Another method is natural selection. Take Africans. A person with light skin has a lower chance of surviving near the equator, as they'd be suceptable to several skin conditions. Thus they'd have less of a chance of survival than someone with darker skin. Eventually, people with light skin would disappear. A similar thing would happen in the higher latitudes. Higher levels of pigment in skin would prevent sunlight from assisting with the creation of vitamin D3, thus causing rickets. Of course, the Inuit are an obvious exception, as they eat fish-liver oils, which are high in D3.

Then there's preference. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. People tend to be attracted to others who have similar traits to those they were brought up around. A white goose brought up by parents who were painted pink will prefer other geese that have been painted pink. Thus if half the people in a village had light skin, and half had slightly darker skin, a person with dark-skinned parents will probably marry a person with dark skin.

As for the "retarded and sterile" bit. That particular royal family was constantly marrying close relatives for a couple of centuries. The people after the flood would only have to do that for a couple of genrations. After that, the people could have started marying their third or fourth cousins instead of their sisters and first cousins. Marrying your sixth cousin twice removed doesn't have nearly as much chance of causing problems as marrying your first cousin. So, while the chances of causing retardation and sterility are slim, the physical traits remain within the group.

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"Don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my
breakfast cereal."
- Zaphod Beeblebrox,
`The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

I think you just about-almost-but-not-quite hit my point on the head their, Omega.

After the flood, the only genes for skin color would be those of the eight(?) surviving people, of which five (Noah's direct family) are very closely related.

Today, we have several different skin colors controlled by different genes.

If the population was restarted from Noah's family, explain how the few genes for skin color found in Noah's family's chromosomes became the many we have today, other than mutation followed by natural selection, or, *ahem* evolution?

Of course, the same holds true for Adam and Eve.

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"Well, I guess we're an Ovaltine family."
"MORE OVALTINE PLEASE!"
-American Radio Ads... *gag*... one more reason I'm glad to be above the 49th.

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

As I mention in another thread, evolution as defined by science is a demonstrated fact. (The change in genes between one generation and the next.)

Given the above information, the gene pool would be incapble of expanding without the ability to select certain mutated genes. The problem is, there is no physical law that prevents this process from continuing to the point where individuals can no longer interbreed, at which point, by definition, two seperate species have been created.

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"Something I can't comprehend. Something so complex and couched in its equation. So dense that light cannot escape from."
--
Soul Coughing

Posted by Jaresh Inyo on :

That'd be a shame.

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Josh: I think they're getting to know each other a bit too well, if you catch my drift.
Me: Oh, I agree. I think they're spending too much time together, that is of course, if you catch my drift.
Asher: I think he's *ucking her, and he's cheating on his wife, and he's risking his marriage, and if his wife finds out about it she'll leave him and take their son, and his life will be ruined. If you catch my drift...

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

What I mean is, there isn't any physical difference between so-called macro and microevolution.

At any rate, barring future catastrophe, human evolution, so far as speciation is concerned, has probably stopped. There will never again be a time when human populations are isolated. (Again, barring catastrophe.) We are now capable of choosing our own future, for good or for ill.

P.S. If I sound a bit odd, I just took some nice cold pills.

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"Something I can't comprehend. Something so complex and couched in its equation. So dense that light cannot escape from."
--
Soul Coughing

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

*shakes head* Doesn't really matter!

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It's all about the Pentiums, Baby!
"I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him Money for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support"

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

What doesn't?

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"I told you. You're dead. This is the afterlife. And I'm God."
--Q to Picard, "Tapestry".

Posted by Cargile (Member # 45) on :

Nanoassembling a man out of "mud" is rather easy, given you have the nanoassemblers and the "mud" that has all the ingredients. But cloning a fermale version of that man was easier. Of course we didn't really use the whole rib, just a blood sample.

Also we called the orginal pair Jack and Diane. We don't know where you came up with Adam and Eve.

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"I came upon a wedding, good old families had contribed.
Bethlaham the bride-groom, Babylon the bride.
Great Babylon was naked, ah she stood there trembling for me.
And Bethlaham enflamed us both, like a shy one at some orgy.
And when we fell together, all our flesh was like a veil.
But I had to draw aside to see the serpent eat its tail.
Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain.
So I hang upon my alter, and I hoist my axe again.
And I take the one that finds me back to where it all began.
When Jesus was the honeymoon, and Cain was just a man.
And we read from pleasant Bibles, that are bound in blood and skin,
But the wilderness is gathering all its children back again."
excerpt from the song "Last Year's Man"
By Leonard Cohen.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Did ya just take the pills because you were hungry Sol? Or was it your time of the month?

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"Why can we never meet anyone nice?"
"Why can we never meet anyone who can shoot straight?"
-Lister and the cat

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Ooh, that Liam, he's always been the cheeky one.

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"Just because you're floating doesn't mean you haven't drowned."
--
They Might Be Giants

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Well, cheeky is as cheeky doesn.

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"Why can we never meet anyone nice?"
"Why can we never meet anyone who can shoot straight?"
-Lister and the cat

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

We actually covered this in class today. My statement on this will shock everyone.

I should start by saying that today scholars rely heavily on archeology for their research.

According to even the most level headed, conservative scholars today, Genesis 1-11 (!) is most likely a story used to tell the Hebrew people how life came to be. I'll give a few class notes and then shut up.

Clues to why we think this:

1. The word Adam comes from a Hebrew word meaning 'from the ground'. Eve means 'life-giver' in Hebrew. It can be said that possibly these two Biblical characters did not actually exist.

2. When Adam's sons reach maturity we have a populous Earth that has descriptions that match the New Stone Age and the Bronze Age. Even though they lived a long time back then we did not advance this quickly. This is all there in Chapter 4. The phrase my prof used was "history is telescoped"

All this suggests a "representational/thematic" presentation rather than HISTORY or SCIENCE in our modern, western sense.

The Hebrew people had to be told things in ways they could understand. Genesis was written for them! We are trying to translate a work from an ancient language and culture totally different than our own. Words like (and this shocked me a lot) heavens, fermanent, kind, and day had different meanings back then. If the original writer was here now he/she would have no clue as to our definitions of these worlds and our concept of them. Genesis 1-11 could have been told this way because that would have been the only way the Hebrews could understand creation.

Two thing I want to say though is that the Old testament does not in any way conflict with anything in the New Testament. To use an old Christian phrase, it can be said "God met them where they were at".

Oh... I need to also say Genesis does not fit any desciptions of a near eastern creation "Myth". It is an "Anti-Myth". All magic, cyclinical notions, and consorts of God (and other things) are not present. Genesis (at the very least) told the Hebrews that the creation stories of their neighbors were wrong.

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It's all about the Pentiums, Baby!
"I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him Money for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support"

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I'd be careful. In the eyes of many, you're starting to blaspheme.

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"Recombination, then Viacom; Safeway."
--
Soul Coughing

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Rah, rah, blasphemy!

Actually, there exist Jewish mystic texts (The Quabbala, Kaballa,or however you pronounce it.) Many of the ancient Jews clearly believed in macic and spiritualism. Perhaps Genesis was merely "sanitized for your protection."

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"We shall not yield to you, nor to any man." -- Freak, The Mighty.

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

No, First!

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It's all about the Pentiums, Baby!
"I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him Money for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support"

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

No, what?

No, "Rah, rah, blasphemy?" Okay, perhaps not, but I recall a quote by a famous someone who said that "the Gods admire man for his blasphemies."

or did you mean
No, "sanitized for your protection?" If so, how do you know? Were you around when the thing was put together, then?
(For a good time, ask your profs about the "P" and "Q" documents. That's from a scholarly theory that asserts that what is now known as "Genesis" was actually a number of differing stories somewhat haphazardly stitched together to form the narrative.)

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"We shall not yield to you, nor to any man." -- Freak, The Mighty.

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

No to everything.

It's Sunday, so I can't ask, but a version of that could be true. Although, it would be a "positive" one. Genesis was most likely told orally for many years and written down later, but if you're are familiar with the "Myth/Anti-Myth" statement you would know how different Genesis is from anything else.

Elements of Genesis are so different than other ancient, Near Eastern Creation stories that it is foolish to think the Hebrews created there own story.
The Genesis account emphasized one God, unlike other Creation stories of it's time.

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It's all about the Pentiums, Baby!
"I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him Money for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support"

Posted by Jubilee (Member # 99) on :

Qabalah.

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"If you will not have me as myself, Perhaps as someone else. Perhaps as you, I'll be worth noticing. Then even a eunuch won't resist, The power of one kiss, from such as me.
I'll be that girl: and you would be right over. If I were a field, you would be in clover. If I were the sun, you would be in shadow. If I had a gun, there'd be no tomorrow."
~ Barenaked Ladies

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Bless you.

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"Recombination, then Viacom; Safeway."
--
Soul Coughing

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

*Makes note to look up pre-Judaic monotheistic religions once he gets back to work*

Bet there were.

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"We shall not yield to you, nor to any man." -- Freak, The Mighty.

Posted by HMS White Star (Member # 174) on :

That's easy, Aten (or Aton) the Sun god. As I remember the step-parents (or something like that) of King Tut (Akhenaton and Nefertiti) decided that the Sun god Aten was the only god, well basically to strip the temples of there wealth and give it to the son of the sun god (who just happened to be the pharaoh of course). His subjects didn't like that and kind of overthrew him and they returned to there polytheistic roots.

A here is a link that reminded me a little on the info http://verdenet.com/isis/Akhenaton.htm

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HMS White Star (your local friendly agent of Chaos:-) )

[This message has been edited by HMS White Star (edited September 14, 1999).]

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

Bryce: That's what I've been taught in Catholic school all along. The writers of Genesis had no concept of "historical accuracy" as we do today, and what Genesis says is that humans have value and are born good, which is a contradictory belief to other cultures of its time.

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"I told you. You're dead. This is the afterlife. And I'm God."
--Q to Picard, "Tapestry".

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

Eh? Whuzzat?

If people are "born good," whence cometh the Catholic Doctrine of Original Sin, and the belief that unbaptized children end up in Hell?

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"We shall not yield to you, nor to any man." -- Freak, The Mighty.

Posted by HMS White Star (Member # 174) on :

That's a good question there is really 2 options which I believe are allowed by the Catholic Church 1.) is that they go to heaven period (which is my personal belief) 2. They go to place call Limbo which is place of eternal happiness, but that's not heaven (errr that teaching is kind of confusing but that is the offical teaching) While option 2 is the offical teaching, it is not a requiered to be believed by members of the Catholic Church. Of course the reason I know this and a 13 years of Catholic Education and the ability to ask them all sorts of annoying questions. He He what a waste of a good education.

Tora a question, exactly which catholic school did you/ do you go to? The only reason I ask is that I attended an annoying Catholic School (6 years of wearing a tie) and would like to know what you thought of it.

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HMS White Star (your local friendly agent of Chaos:-) )

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

I'm just saying that that's NOT what they teach at the local catholic school here. I know because I'm dating an alumni, who also has nieces and nephews who attend it.

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"We shall not yield to you, nor to any man." -- Freak, The Mighty.