The flood, and meat eating.

I also wanted to respond to this as well. The level of changes comment on your part assumes that the probability pattern that we see as a thing does not contain within that pattern the ability to manifest differently.What we see as "real" and measurable is only partly so. Take the concept of a photon. The photon can exist as a wave or a particle, but in reality, exists as neither all the time, but exists as a probability to be a wave or pattern. That's the nature of physical existence, a pattern of probability which happens to occur very freguently in a known pattern.But we don't really understand completely how or why these patterns hold together, or whether the patterns have imbedded within them the ability to appear differently, and some even think they do appear differently via the multi-verse, which is a credible explanation of quantum observations.But regardless of which explanation turns out to be true, the idea that a fundamental change could be made that would in turn cause the probability patterns of all things to manifest differently is a plausible concept, and more germane to this discussion, does not imply any wasting of resources at all.

First of all, it is not just teeth we are talking about. Carnivores have a whole different digestive system from herbivores. In general, herbivores have a longer and more complex gut as well as some type of grinding mechanism - molars or a gizzard. Carnivores on the other hand have canine type teeth or fangs for killing prey and tearing flesh and a relatively short fatter gut. Omnivores, like humans, have both. We have canine teeth and molars, a long gut (small intestine) and a shorter fatter gut (large intestine).Now there is also an internal problem in Genesis itself with the "man didn't eat meat until after the flood" thesis. Remember Cain and Abel and why Cain got mad at Abel? Cain was a tiller of the ground and Abel was a keeper of sheep. They both brought offerings to God and Cain's offering was rejected while Abel's was accepted by God."And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell."Now why was Abel keeping sheep and killing them if he wasn't eating them? You could say he just wanted the skins or that he wanted them for milk. But that would be a stretch, imo.As for the passage allowing Noah to eat all of the animals of the earth, one could just as well argue that this was a special dispensation to eat "unclean" as well as "clean" animals because of a general food shortage after the flood. Also remember that Noah was told to bring more of the "clean" animals unto the ark in the first place. Why distinguish between "clean" and "unclean" if eating them wasn't contemplated? Actually this whole clean/unclean business is evidence that the flood story was constructed with the knowledge of later events because the dietary laws didn't come until much later - when Moses was in the wilderness with the Israelites. So the unclean/clean animals in the ark are something of an anachronism - meaning the Genesis flood story was probably written at about the same time as Deuteronomy - calling into question its historical accuracy.

Yes it is germain. The changes that need to take place in order to "rewire" and "replumb" all of the carnivors on earth for meat eating would essentially require God to issue a massive recall and essentially rebuild the darn things from scratch.Also, if there was no death, what did all the bacteria eat? And how come they didn't overpopulate to unmanagable proportions?Heck, what about the bacteria in our stomachs? Such over-reproduction could kill a man.

Wrong. Did you not read the post?There is no need to "recall" and "replumb" as the fundamental existence of all things is an energy pattern, or really information. Change in the information could effect change with no recall, but imo, the change would take place backwards and forwards in time, changing the entire time-line completely.On the question of bacteria or anything we see today, why would you assume that was the way it was originally?That's an assumption on your part. Take away the assumption, and the picture gets clearer, imo.

I think the text indicates that after the Fall, man ate meat. Cain raised sheep and offerred the fat of the lamb, which indicates to me meat-eating.So when we see after the Flood, God telling Noah that meat is for food as well as plants, we are not seeing so much a newly enacted practice, but that as God originally created man to only eat plants, He is affirming that man is to eat meat now, and that this is acceptable. There is a contrast with Adam's time and Noah, but since we don't see God speaking on this matter does not mean that prior to Noah, man was not suppossed to eat meat or anything like that.Imo, the text indicates a systematic change in the universe/time-line (all space-time) with the darkening of man's consciousness.

We had an interesting discussion in another thread, as to how man's gaining the "knowledge of good and evil" could be a "darkening" of consciousness. It seems to me to be more of an an enlightenment, and I haven't heard any sensible argument to the contrary.More on topic, it frankly still baffles me that anybody could think that there was a huge change in biology at The Fall^TM.Since this is actually a science forum, could we perhaps have some evidence? For instance, fossil evidence of a time when no meat-eaters existed?

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Ringo,It's not a hard concept to grasp. Note how Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness. They had a sense of guilt. In one sense, their knowledge expanded, but in a moral sense, they consciousness fell, and the text indicates with this fall of man death and all sorts of things occur.In terms of science, I still think you are missing the point. Science is just beginning to explore the fundamental nature of existence, in terms of what we think of as physical reality, and we have just begun to develop a more whole concept of the universe as space-time. These basic concepts need to be adapted into our thinking if we are going to discuss "science" and evidence.As far as my theory here, I would not expect to find a time where no meat-eaters existed because I believe the changes that occurred with the Fall affected the entire time-line, beginning to end.I do think science will continue to make more discoveries concerning time and fundamental existence, and that these discoveries will indicate that the past is not static, as is assumed.

Well, that was the focus of our discussion in the other thread. In fact, "the text" - i.e. Genesis - doesn't say much, if anything, about physical changes in the creation.But that's another topic. I was trying to be gentle by not drawing attention to your "slippery time" concept. I'm afraid it doesn't wash, but I'll leave it to the scientists to straighten you out on that.My point is that we do have fossil evidence going back to the beginning of life, and geological evidence before that. Even if time did its little ballet, as you suggest, there should still be some evidence of "the change" in the rocks.Your "theory" appears to be just smoke and mirrors, intended to hand-wave away the complete lack of evidence for no meat-eating.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

You have evidence interpreted via unproven assumptions. You assume a linear time-line, not because science supports that concept, but because human experience assumed that was the case.But science thus far is eroding the sense of universal time associated with human experience. General relativity has done this, but we are also seeing with the principle of entanglement, that causal effects can occur from the present back towards the past, at least on the quantum level, and thus far, the more we look into time, the more we see it is part of the universe, not something the universe sits in and progresses through.As far as discovering "fossils" that show "the beginning of life" or some such, what beginning was that? Has it remained the same all these years? If you think that, you have not understood my hypothesis here at all. What you would expect is some similarity or connection to the pattern (the time-line) that existed prior, but all would be changed, including the rocks.

Sheer ad hocery.You're invoking a miracle to explain away the fact that you have no evidence.We "assume" linear time because we have no reason to assume non-linear time. If you think time somehow magically erased all the evidence at some point, you need evidence for that too.I repeat: this is a science forum. You need evidence that there was a time when there were no meat-eaters. If you invoke a "wrinkle in time" to erase the evidence, you still need evidence that such a wrinkle is possible and evidence that such an erasure did happen (at exactly the right moment for your convenience). Occam's Razor is cutting your throat.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Sorry, but you are nearly 100 years behind the times, in terms of science. The concept of universal linear time may prove to be true, but Einstein's concepts of relativity seem to have borne out.Do you have any real evidence to support your view of time?Also, this forum concerns the Bible. The evidence needed thus to explain the validity of something within the context of this particular forum is the text of the Bible, correct?The text of the Bible and most traditional Christian theology support the concept of the Fall of mankind with a subsequent negative consequences, such as death, entering the world.Perhaps you should read someone like CS Lewis's "Mere Christianity" since you seem to want to refuse to accept my claim that the concept of the Fall of Man is a fairly typical view of what the Bible teaches.Of course, the part about how God might have made these changes is not so typical, but you seem to have rejected even the basic claim of the Fall itself. We need to find some agreement on the biblical text, at least that plenty of reputable scholars have for centuries viewed the Fall in the Garden as having serious consequences, such as death.If you want to present an alternative, less mainstream view, by all means go ahead, but don't pretend that the idea of the Fall of man is some novel idea.Now, my idea on how it would have affected the whole time-line may be a little novel. I will grant you that, but once again the context here for evidence is the text itself.This message has been edited by randman, 07-26-2005 03:40 AM

Maybe you should show us where Einstein's concepts of relativity account for the erasure of geological evidence.Let me recap:1. You asserted that there were no meat eaters before The Fall.2. I asked you for evidence to support that assertion.3. You asserted that a "time warp", or something, had erased the evidence.4. I asked you for evidence to support that assertion.I have only said that we have no reason to assume any weirdness in the absence of evidence of any weirdness. I don't think the guidelines require me to disprove every miracle that you invoke. You could use the 'weirdness of time" ploy to explain away any lack of evidence.Once again: where is your evidence?Back up your idea that there were no meat eaters before The Fall.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Ringo, I think you are very confused here about what is occuring in this discussion.The text of the Bible supports the concept that man was originally created to eat only plants, or fruit and vegetables.Do you disagree with that?The evidence is the Bible itself.Do you have a problem with that?Now, in terms of what existed prior to the Fall, we can only speculate if we excuse the Bible itself as evidence, but hopefully, trying to examine what we have discovered thus far about time and physical existence could be helpful in trying to come up with a hypothesis of that time.The scientific evidence, I have already mentioned, namely that early indications of scientific inquiries into the nature of time indicate that time is part of the universe and dependant and relative to it, and that the principle of entanglement in quantum physics indicates there can be a causal effect from the present back towards the past.That's what we know from science thus far, but obviously we are at a very primitive stage in discovering the nature of what we call "time."My prediction is that we will discover that the past is not static, and that causal effects backwards in time so to speak add up over long periods of time to create significant change.Science may never though be able to replay the Fall, and thus prove scientifically what occurred. The best we can probably do is show how the scenario I depicted is plausible, and even with that, we are still very early in scientific discovery of even the most basic things, such as how things physically exist, and what physical existence actually consists of.If we are going to have a reasonable discussion about the Bible, such as the effects of the Fall, it is pretty useless on your part to demand scientific evidence before discussing the concept. That does not mean scientific evidence cannot emerge that supports a biblical concept, but the biblical concepts and text predate science and were not the result of science.As for me, I am reasonably satisfied that scientific discoveries do indeed back up the Bible. When scientists, for instance, speak of the Big Bang, to me that is powerful evidence of Genesis "Let there be light" at the beginning of creation.When scientists speak of dark matter and dark energy, that is strong evidence to me of Genesis where God separates the light from the "darkness." "Darkness" in that context always seemed more than mere absence of light. The text suggests a real thing that was separated from light, not a mere absence, and modern science is once again backing the Bible up, at least in the way I see it.But the idea that no biblical concept can be discussed or believed until science "catches up to it" is absurd, imo.This message has been edited by randman, 07-26-2005 04:05 AM

Yes, I disagree with that. Yes, I have a problem with that.But this is not a Faith and Belief thread. This is a science thread, so we are looking at how science relates to the Bible. No. We still have the actual evidence. No need to speculate.All of your gibberish about time is irrelevant. I asked you to show us where Einstein said anything about time erasing physical evidence.Does your time "theory" erase evidence or not? If it does, how is it any different from any other miracle?

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

parts of it, yes. parts of it, no. it's a little contradictory at times. one has to remember the primary function of genesis. genesis is a collection of etiologies for the most part, "just so" stories. it's the genesis of the people -- but more importantly it's the genesis of practices. one needs only look at the ends of stories to tell why they are there:chapter 1 is "why we take saturday off."
chapter 2 is "why we marry."
chapter 3 is "why we work in the field, have painful childbirths and a patriarchal society, and why snakes have no legs."etc.that bit at the end of noah's tale is "why we have rainbows, and why we eat meat."so it really needs not make sense with an earlier tale. they are all loosely related -- but not actually ONE story. in any case, realizing that this is the structure and function of genesis, one also has to immediately recognize that these are justifying practices contemporary to the authors -- they're being written AFTER the practices started.these are the traditional cultural myths. the stories of the patriarchs are similar to the stories of OUR patriarchs. "i cannot tell a lie" "throwing the silver dollar across the delaware" etc. these stories are common -- but not actually true. george washington never said or did those things.so, the question is why we should accept a loose and contradictory collection of anachronistic cultural traditions as scientific or historical evidence? the people who collected it may not have even done that.

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