I too was raised in a Catholic environment, but I figured out that something didn't seem Kosher around age ten. LOL While I find things like psychology, sociology, and philosophy interesting, I've never devoted a lot of time to actually studying any of them. I have picked up ideas from reading various books and articles, and from discussing matters with a few wise people I admired. It's pretty hard to remain objective when the discussion gets down to religion. l find it humorous that politics falls into the same category. It's all emotionally charged and people often take contrary views as personal attacks upon themselves. I'm certain that offense is rooted in one's beliefs. It's exceptionally difficult to change what you believe in. Cognitive dissonance is what they call it.
My understanding is that certain events in the Bible appear in other cultures and coincide pretty close with the timing of said events. The one I recall at the moment is the time the earth was flooding and Noah built his ark. That flooding seemed to have happened in more places than where Noah lived.
The Ultimate Qwerky Keyboard
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I have a hunch the flood was a localized event myself.
But you are right about many religions covering the same topics and locations.
Seems many give the accounts in the same way as well. But give different spins to the reasons.
But you are right about many religions covering the same topics and locations.
Seems many give the accounts in the same way as well. But give different spins to the reasons.
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I don't know if we can ever learn the complete history of the earth given what we have left to study it. There may have been great civilizations before ours and there could have been detailed accounts of their history, all of which have been destroyed and reincorporated back into the dust from which it came. The speculations are interesting reads. I also wonder how our descendants 5000 years down the timeline will be thinking of us. I have a feeling there won't be much of this civilization left to ponder once it reaches its end.
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If you consider the earth is billions of years old, I don't doubt that many civilizations have come and gone.
I don't see a discrepancy in the bible as many folks do.
God placed people on this planet LONG BEFORE He created Adam.
And I believe at least one civilization of them were still living during Adam's time.
It makes sense if you really give it some thought.
Consider that Adam was created and lived in the Garden of Eden.
Yet somehow he learned about Mothers and Fathers, and Wives, and Children, BEFORE God made Eve.
Then too consider when Cain slew Abel. Who were ALL THE PEOPLE Cain was afraid would slay him?
To add credence to that statement, who named the rivers and built the cities, namely the city of Nod where Cain settled?
And who helped him BUILD A CITY?
And if you really want to dig deep, the bible does not contradict the big bang theory either.
Not if you figure Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as totally separate events.
I see it this way, you only have two choices here.
Either you believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, and no one existed before Adam,
Or you believe it is billions of years old, and the planet was populated first in Genesis 1, and again in Genesis 2 via Adam.
If you believe the earth is billions of years old, then you can explain the big bang theory.
In Gen 1 God created everything, on his drawing board and in his workshop.
In Gen 2 God set the big firecracker he made, which contained everything, in the center of the universe and lit the fuse.
BANG, everything spread out from that point, and what God intended to happen, just like a fourth of July aerial mortar display, happened exactly the way he designed it to happen. This would make parts of evolution correct too. Everything in the universe evolved from the big bang. This included the original peoples of planet earth before Adam.
Yes I know, there is not a single religion out there that teaches anything even close to what I believe.
Nevertheless, that is what I can extrapolate from reading the bible cover to cover a hundred times over.
I don't see a discrepancy in the bible as many folks do.
God placed people on this planet LONG BEFORE He created Adam.
And I believe at least one civilization of them were still living during Adam's time.
It makes sense if you really give it some thought.
Consider that Adam was created and lived in the Garden of Eden.
Yet somehow he learned about Mothers and Fathers, and Wives, and Children, BEFORE God made Eve.
Then too consider when Cain slew Abel. Who were ALL THE PEOPLE Cain was afraid would slay him?
To add credence to that statement, who named the rivers and built the cities, namely the city of Nod where Cain settled?
And who helped him BUILD A CITY?
And if you really want to dig deep, the bible does not contradict the big bang theory either.
Not if you figure Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as totally separate events.
I see it this way, you only have two choices here.
Either you believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, and no one existed before Adam,
Or you believe it is billions of years old, and the planet was populated first in Genesis 1, and again in Genesis 2 via Adam.
If you believe the earth is billions of years old, then you can explain the big bang theory.
In Gen 1 God created everything, on his drawing board and in his workshop.
In Gen 2 God set the big firecracker he made, which contained everything, in the center of the universe and lit the fuse.
BANG, everything spread out from that point, and what God intended to happen, just like a fourth of July aerial mortar display, happened exactly the way he designed it to happen. This would make parts of evolution correct too. Everything in the universe evolved from the big bang. This included the original peoples of planet earth before Adam.
Yes I know, there is not a single religion out there that teaches anything even close to what I believe.
Nevertheless, that is what I can extrapolate from reading the bible cover to cover a hundred times over.
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It's always fascinating for me to converse with students of the Bible. I don't think any two of them learned the same lessons even if they studied the same Bibles. The greatest problem I see with Bible scholars is that they invariably consider that book the absolute authority in that it came down directly from God via inspiration of the authors. 
Many of the less scholarly Bible students take that book literally, which as you point out is a big mistake starting right there in Genesis. So, before I even pick up a Bible to see what's in it, I see two fatal flaws that need to be overcome first. But, that's just me, a long term non-believer.
I don't see two choices for the age of the earth. It's 4.5 billions of years old,, period. There is some evidence that has been studied to come up with this age, and it's abundantly clear from fossils that life began in earnest about 3.5 millions of years ago. Humans, however, didn't show up until 66 million years ago. So, I suppose if you stretch your imagination enough there could be two phases to Genesis. One is where life in general began, and the second phase where humans began. 66 millions of years is more than enough time for several civilizations to have come and gone.
The big bang was always a problem for science given that only god could produce something from nothing. Well, that got blown away with the maturing of quantum theory. Something is created from nothing all the time on that level.
Many of the less scholarly Bible students take that book literally, which as you point out is a big mistake starting right there in Genesis. So, before I even pick up a Bible to see what's in it, I see two fatal flaws that need to be overcome first. But, that's just me, a long term non-believer. I don't see two choices for the age of the earth. It's 4.5 billions of years old,, period. There is some evidence that has been studied to come up with this age, and it's abundantly clear from fossils that life began in earnest about 3.5 millions of years ago. Humans, however, didn't show up until 66 million years ago. So, I suppose if you stretch your imagination enough there could be two phases to Genesis. One is where life in general began, and the second phase where humans began. 66 millions of years is more than enough time for several civilizations to have come and gone.
The big bang was always a problem for science given that only god could produce something from nothing. Well, that got blown away with the maturing of quantum theory. Something is created from nothing all the time on that level.
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Sounds like we do think along the same lines on most of these things.
While the bible thumpers think science is wrong.
Science actually proves much of the bible is correct.
Bible scholars look at me crazy when I say there were people before Adam, lots of them.
After all, the land of NOD existed prior to the planting of the Garden of Eden.
I think where we may differ has to do with some parts of evolution.
I do believe all things evolve over time, but even scientist say 66 million years is not enough time for the complex eye to have evolved through natural mutations, an eye alone is just to complex an organism to be happenstance.
Some scientists talk about the harmony of all things, as if it doesn't matter if you are a worm, a fish, a bird, or a people, we all have commonality in design. To some this would mean we all had the same source, a pool of amino acid, but to others, the spontaneous appearance of way too many isolated species discounts that possibility.
Also, they have never found missing links between diverse species.
This is especially troubling when we have two totally different species living at the same time, place, and era.
One could not have evolved from the other when both appeared at the same time periods.
While the bible thumpers think science is wrong.
Science actually proves much of the bible is correct.
Bible scholars look at me crazy when I say there were people before Adam, lots of them.
After all, the land of NOD existed prior to the planting of the Garden of Eden.
I think where we may differ has to do with some parts of evolution.
I do believe all things evolve over time, but even scientist say 66 million years is not enough time for the complex eye to have evolved through natural mutations, an eye alone is just to complex an organism to be happenstance.
Some scientists talk about the harmony of all things, as if it doesn't matter if you are a worm, a fish, a bird, or a people, we all have commonality in design. To some this would mean we all had the same source, a pool of amino acid, but to others, the spontaneous appearance of way too many isolated species discounts that possibility.
Also, they have never found missing links between diverse species.
This is especially troubling when we have two totally different species living at the same time, place, and era.
One could not have evolved from the other when both appeared at the same time periods.
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I don't know about the reasoning behind the evolution process you describe. There are, for example, computers in existence today that run Windows XP and there are super computers as big as your house that run Linux. The introduction of Linux supercomputers did not kill off XP computers entirely. I know that's not a great comparison to human evolution, but it does clearly show that the latest and greatest stage in evolution doesn't exclude the existence of it's forebears.
It's crazy to think we did not all come from the same source. Before the Big Bang there was nothing. After the Big Bang there was everything. We all came from that common source. The evolution of the universe as we know it is clearly understood by cosmologists and well documented. The specific conditions that formed planet earth are easy to generalize. The pool of elements that compose this planet is from whence all things earthly evolved, including human life forms. So why is there even a question about our origins? We all came from that original pool of elements. You don't like to think your roots are those of a gorilla? LOL That certainly is ego threatening but not very scientific.
Also, evolution of the planet is indeed one linear occurrence of random events. The key to fully appreciating evolution is the word "random" which allows for more than one line of development for life forms. Humans, for example, might have grown out of the primordial soup at several different geographical points at several different ages. What we see today is the current state of development. We humans are the supercomputers, but those XP gorillas are still among us.
To me evolution is just a problem in biological mechanics. If you want to contemplate something mind boggling think about how that pond of amino acids eventually formed and reformed itself to become self-aware animals. That is nothing less than amazing.
It's crazy to think we did not all come from the same source. Before the Big Bang there was nothing. After the Big Bang there was everything. We all came from that common source. The evolution of the universe as we know it is clearly understood by cosmologists and well documented. The specific conditions that formed planet earth are easy to generalize. The pool of elements that compose this planet is from whence all things earthly evolved, including human life forms. So why is there even a question about our origins? We all came from that original pool of elements. You don't like to think your roots are those of a gorilla? LOL That certainly is ego threatening but not very scientific.
Also, evolution of the planet is indeed one linear occurrence of random events. The key to fully appreciating evolution is the word "random" which allows for more than one line of development for life forms. Humans, for example, might have grown out of the primordial soup at several different geographical points at several different ages. What we see today is the current state of development. We humans are the supercomputers, but those XP gorillas are still among us.
To me evolution is just a problem in biological mechanics. If you want to contemplate something mind boggling think about how that pond of amino acids eventually formed and reformed itself to become self-aware animals. That is nothing less than amazing.
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The problem I have with evolution is the missing links.
I'm not discounting evolution with that statement.
But there are no links between the different species.
And if evolution is an ongoing process, why did some things stop evolving and continued on in their then and now current state?
Why did rocks not evolve into buildings, or metal evolve into cars or computers or washing machines?
Mutations have caused different varieties of the same species, but has never created a totally new species.
I've seen fish from the bottom of the ocean from areas where they were not supposed to be able to exist.
Such as in a hot poisonous area around vents where according to science, it is impossible for anything to live there.
I also think some day we will discover that creating matter from nothing really is impossible. There is something flawed in how they are going about it, an impurity somewhere giving false readings of creation.
I'm not discounting evolution with that statement.
But there are no links between the different species.
And if evolution is an ongoing process, why did some things stop evolving and continued on in their then and now current state?
Why did rocks not evolve into buildings, or metal evolve into cars or computers or washing machines?
Mutations have caused different varieties of the same species, but has never created a totally new species.
I've seen fish from the bottom of the ocean from areas where they were not supposed to be able to exist.
Such as in a hot poisonous area around vents where according to science, it is impossible for anything to live there.
I also think some day we will discover that creating matter from nothing really is impossible. There is something flawed in how they are going about it, an impurity somewhere giving false readings of creation.
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Creationism is a philosophy that has been in conflict with science since day one. There are some fantastic assumptions (beliefs) upon which some basic science is based. The concept of infinity is one of them. Quantum physics would not exist without the infinity term in its equations, for example.
Evolution isn't all about mutations nor does it claim there is a single line of ascendancy. There is no question in the minds of scientist how life began, or at least no question about the circumstances that allowed it to develop. Creationists reject the science in favor of, well, creation by a supreme being. I think science would accept that if there were a way to exclude all other explanations and leave only God as the undisputable source. It turns out that God's creation is one of several explanations.
Looking for missing links is akin to searching for Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster. I doubt they ever existed. There are separate species but there is no reason they have to be linked or evolved from one another. You can look in a forest and find grass, ferns, bushes, and trees and they all have things that are common to each other but are different. It's the forest that allowed these things to develop in the first place, and not the linear progression that many people think about.
Evolution isn't all about mutations nor does it claim there is a single line of ascendancy. There is no question in the minds of scientist how life began, or at least no question about the circumstances that allowed it to develop. Creationists reject the science in favor of, well, creation by a supreme being. I think science would accept that if there were a way to exclude all other explanations and leave only God as the undisputable source. It turns out that God's creation is one of several explanations.
Looking for missing links is akin to searching for Big Foot or the Loch Ness monster. I doubt they ever existed. There are separate species but there is no reason they have to be linked or evolved from one another. You can look in a forest and find grass, ferns, bushes, and trees and they all have things that are common to each other but are different. It's the forest that allowed these things to develop in the first place, and not the linear progression that many people think about.
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In order for Quantum Physics to have any meaning, it has to tell us where the elemental particles came from in the first place. A Particle IS Something! Who created it?
Quantum Physics if I understand it correctly is the action and motion of elemental particles.
The key word here is Element!
Perhaps there was linear progression in the beginning which branched off to become other things.
This would account for almost all creatures having eyes.
Once the complex issue of forming an eye came about.
If Trilobytes came about 500 million years ago, and they did have crude eyes already that far back.
Again we have the problem of not enough time has elapsed from the formation of earth to the development of eyes.
They are just too complex, even in crustaceans to have evolved to the scale they were at that time.
Even if we assume the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, and it had no atmosphere at all for about a billion years, and microbes didn't form for another billion or so years.
It does leave one to wonder.
Quantum Physics if I understand it correctly is the action and motion of elemental particles.
The key word here is Element!
Perhaps there was linear progression in the beginning which branched off to become other things.
This would account for almost all creatures having eyes.
Once the complex issue of forming an eye came about.
If Trilobytes came about 500 million years ago, and they did have crude eyes already that far back.
Again we have the problem of not enough time has elapsed from the formation of earth to the development of eyes.
They are just too complex, even in crustaceans to have evolved to the scale they were at that time.
Even if we assume the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, and it had no atmosphere at all for about a billion years, and microbes didn't form for another billion or so years.
It does leave one to wonder.
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A quantum of matter is created when the core of an atom is broken open. Until that happens quantum particles do not exist - or more correctly they exist in a quantum state which is both a particle and not a particle (the famous Uncertainty Principle). Not until it's observed do we know if something was created. In essence it's something created from nothing. Asking "who" created those particles is the wrong question. It's more like "what" created them. There are some particle physicist who think they have the answer.
Evolution seems a lot easier to visualize. LOL Regardless of where the earth (or the universe for that matter) came from, we humans did not exist on this planet during it's formative years. The resources were all there, but they had not assembled into a life form until a billion or so years had elapsed. Once humans evolved, that opened up a whole new set of circumstances from which the next generation of life may be formed. You might call that evolution or it may simply be a life cycle that has a beginning and an end occurring over and over yielding new species each time. That view does not require missing links to fill the gaps.
Evolution seems a lot easier to visualize. LOL Regardless of where the earth (or the universe for that matter) came from, we humans did not exist on this planet during it's formative years. The resources were all there, but they had not assembled into a life form until a billion or so years had elapsed. Once humans evolved, that opened up a whole new set of circumstances from which the next generation of life may be formed. You might call that evolution or it may simply be a life cycle that has a beginning and an end occurring over and over yielding new species each time. That view does not require missing links to fill the gaps.