“People living in the world when the bible was written still believed the Earth was flat.”

Suze, you’ve made the statement. Can you back it up? Who believed the world was flat in those times (or any other times)?

I understand that the ancient Greek philosophers used some fairly basic and practical reasoning to conclude that the earth was spherical. And some even made a stab at calculating the circumference, which turned out to be surprisingly accurate by modern standards.

Susie, You asked.
"How then do you explain the human remains dug up with plant matter and animal skeletons that existed much, much earlier than 6000 years ago?"

There was preexisting life before Adam just that to Adam it seemed he was the only living human after the catastrophe.

Quite a few, apparently, Dan S de Merengue.

>>Who believed the world was flat in those times [when the bible was written]<<

"And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth" Isaiah 11:12

Just one of many biblical references to an earth which has corners, and "ends".

"...the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth" Jeremiah 16:19

Not to mention, of course, the ability to see the whole of the earth from a single vantage point.

"...the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them" Matthew 4:8

Of course, we shouldn't take the Bible at all literally, should we?

I’ve never said we should take the Bible literally. We should understand it correctly in its proper literary context.

None of the passages you’ve quoted above refer to the earth’s geology or topography. The ‘ends of the earth’ or the ‘four corners of the earth’ are idioms. In similar fashion, today’s ships go to ‘all compass points’, or current weather forecasters refer to the time the ‘sun rises’, knowing full well that it doesn’t rise or fall.

I hope Suzeonline will still be online to give an answer.

If the basic components for life have been actually found in a meteorite, doesn't that mean we don't really know anything about our origins?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murchison_meteorite

Aren't we just one of many insignificant rocks out in the back blocks of space that has been randomly seeded with the stuff of life and then quietly left to go our own way.

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/

Of course we should be proud of ourselves for coming this far, but not so proud that we think we know everything about everything.

Many of us are beginning to realise that the mythical stuff of old is just that - myths, not truths. The stories are just that, old stories of how people used to live and think, important historically, but a lot of it not actually truths.

In reality surely the truth of our origins is yet to be found, and no one knows what that might be.

The truth will probably be much more incredible that any story we have made up so far and I really hope we find out something more in my lifetime!

Its just my personal opinion folks, I certainly make no claim on the truth, so no offense meant to those of faith.

Mitchell,

I am not sure that the purely rationalist view is truly vulgar. The type of enquiry you use as a model has served very well. When we are able to draw parallels with other organisms, or confirm with appropriate model "games" we gain more insight. If our ability to plumb these aspects of ourselves are limited, what we have still throws up *real* information. Given that it is still early days in understanding cognition, given that the tools we use are becoming far more effective, who is to say what the "vulgar" will not discover?

I am interested in Philo's position to some extent. I don't think his answer to my question was really very good: "the level of the human spirit and in asthetic and conceptual creative thought, self consciousness and moral conscience". He *seems* to be suggesting that this was "implanted" at some late stage of human evolution, Presumably by an already existent (evolved?) agency.

This seems to be exercise in resurrecting "irreducible complexity". The implantation of something that did not exist in "lower" animals but flowers fully-formed in us.

Is Philo asserting that these features in principle *could not* evolve?

Are there *no* indications of rudiments of these in *any* animals? Do these features vary in our present population? What impact does different mental capacity or damage have on these, or are they independent? Are there *no* fossil indications of this awareness in early humans? Of an increase parallel to the expansion of human culture? Was the human mind conveniently evolved to accomodate these capacities upon "implantation", or did it first express a rudimentary version and evolve to explore this new vector of growth?

Happy to brainstorm, you see.

Rusty