Alternative Creations

Open question for Creationists.I see a lot of posts here supporting YEC and sighting the Bible as a source. Posters hold that they believe in the Word and accept it as truth. That's fine.My question is, do you further accept the Creationist beliefs from other cultures / religeons?For example (there are obviously extreme truncated for space):Egyptian -- The world begins with a series of floods until ground can rise above it.African -- The Creator vomits up all of creationNorse -- A mix of fire and ice formed Ymir the giant who sweated out giants and men.Comanche -- The gods summon a wind from the four corners and create man from dust.Mayan -- After the gods fail making men of clay and wood, they wipe everything clean with a great flood. Then with the help of mountain lion, coyote, parrot and crow, they manage to make men of flesh.Chinese -- Ziene spat on his hand and from that formed all creation. This creation was destroyed by a great flood brought about by Zie. Only two people were spared A-Zie and his sister.Inuit -- At first there was only water, then land rose out of the water and Raven stabbed it with his beak. This land had only room for one house and in it lived a man and woman and their son Raven, who has stabbed the land.Obviously I have left out many many other stories of Creation. I'm sure there are literally thousands more that could be listed.You'll notice that many of this stories have striking similiarities to Judeo/Christian/Muslim origin stories (beginning with nothing or water, a great flood, people made of clay/dust, etc.) However, they also have striking differences. (Multiple gods, animals already in existance, etc.)Do these stories merit equal weight in the eyes of Creationists? Do they too merit classroom time, just like Intelligent Design? If so, doesn't that just make biology into the study of compairative religeon? If not, why are they discounted in favor of another choice?

Is there something wrong with this topic? It's dropping down the list pretty quick without comment

Actually after starting this thread, I started another one about this specific topic. I go into detail about causation for commonality of mythology.It's in the faith and belief forum, and if I was better poster, I'd be able to link it right here.The long and short of it is this, just because two mythologies have something in common, doesn't mean they are descended from the same source. There are lots of reasons the experiences of humans in one part of the world are like the experiences of others in another part of the world.Hope to see you on that thread.

Well, yes the Christian creation story is also the Jewish creation story, and Islam for that matter. This is because Christianity and Islam are both offshoots of Judaism.As for your statement about disproving other myths, I assume that what you are saying is that evolutionists haven't tried to dismantle, say Norse, creation myths.I counter with this - Evolutionists aren't trying to dismantle anyone's creation story (Christian or otherwise). We're just saying - this is the way it is. If your Creation story happens to coincide with the data, fantastic. If not, oh well.But the secondary question raised by your statement is this: Do you think that the Norse myth of all life being vomitted up by a cow is on par with the Judeo/Christian creation story? That is, do you think that evolutionists should be as tasked in dismantling this myth as you feel it is in dismantling the Great Flood?

Why would you believe that the differences are corruptions over time?That's coming from the assumption that there is a one true begining witnessed by all of these cultures.Additionally, how would you determine what is a difference? For example -Christianity says there was Noah and he built an ark to avoid the flood.Egyptians say that the world began as a series of floods from the Nile until enough ground was deposited for it to rise above the water.How would you determine if the Egyptian myth is a corruption of the Christian myth or vica-versa? Chronologically? The Egyptian creation story predates the Christian story by quite a bit.

Well, obviously the word "flood" doesn't appear in these myths, including the original Christian myths.The word "flood" in an English word which has certain meanings. Similiar words with similiar meanings have been translated for us to mean "flood", but as with any translation, it speaks more of the translator than the text.I'm riffing here, I am not a linguist but --
The Babylonian word for "flood" could mean "bathe" or "wash away with water" (something more akin to our idea of a tidal wave).If the person who was translating these myths was a Christian monk, he might find "flood" a good English translation. If the person translating these was from modern Indonesia, they might think "tidal wave" a more suiting translation.Commonality of terms is a tough one.But more importantly, you said - This implies that there is a standard against which you are testing. If the have better record-keeping, then their story is closer to and if poorer they are farther from .

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What I'm interested in is how you would determine what is the standard and what is a deviation from the standard?

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In other words if I gave you two stories that were identical except for one thing, one said it rained for 40 days and another said it rained for 60 days. Obviously these two are closely related. But which record keeper is "better" and therefore closer to the "truth".

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This only gets trickier the more differences you find.

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Forget Egyptian chronology, try Babylonian, which also predates the Judeo/Christian mythology. Is it more accurate since it's closer to the begining of time? If not, why not?

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Are you settling on the Christian Flood story as an arbitrary truth and on what grounds?

I don't think that your point here really contradicts what he was saying. In fact, you two seem to have strong common ground.Often we get so involved in a discussion that we fail to see where we agree. Saying that the first Buddha's teachings were true, similiar to Christ's, and that they are the best common sense is certainly great ground to share.

How do you figure? By your thinking, wouldn't a story with no boat predate any story which included one.You can't be suggesting that the reason the Christian Flood story is older is because it contains a boat one which the story teller could have sailed.That's like saying that Cannonball Run 3 takes place before the Cannonball Run 1, since there isn't any engine trouble in Cannonball Run 1.Here's some stuff on Babylon Since Babylon is mentioned in a tablet from 23rd cent BC, it's reasonable to assume that it existed before that tablet was etched, and therefore to assume that it's mythology predates it's existance.

So we agree that there are common teachings in some mythos, but back to my original question.Do Creationists discount the myths of other cultures (particularly those that conflict with their account) and on what basis do they claim spiritual superiority over those other religious texts?

okay, first off, gotta use "peek" feature to see the code people are using to box quotes and such. Also, please break up text with enter key to help seperate ideas. Big blocks of text are often hard to decipher.Here's the points broken down - Why do few scholars consider this theory credible? They offer no explaination for this statement. The point here basically is that there are differences between the two stories. It goes on to excruciating detail about what the differences are. But, speaking as someone who's just gone through a year of rewrites on a screenplay, it's just pen and paper.As for the points that the author of the Noah account would have to have knowledge of zoology, biology, physics, naval architectural skill, botany and ancient ethnic histories - that simply doesn't follow.Where in the Noah account is there anything that approaches zoology/biology beyond the "two of every animal". What physics are needed for the Noah account? What naval architecture? What botany? And why would they need a knowledge of ethnic histories?You don't need any of these things to write what's there. The flood story is very short and very sparse on specific detail. Huh? Why would it be inconceivable? Also, why is the Genesis account hte more reliable one?Isn't the point of this essay to "prove" that the Genesis account is the more reliable one? You can't very well prove something by simply stating it. Okay, this isn't a bad start for this section. What? Where's the evidence for this? What are these "common elements among the flood traditions" that they are talking about? What "scientific reliability"? What "secular records"? They haven't sited a source or even given an example.Frankly this entire essay looks like it's written as a justification for believing the Noah story over other stories, but does not give any evidence as to why that should be so.Perhaps if we look to source material from outside of the region it would be clearer.Many Native American creation stories involve floods, but no boats. Certainly no, two of every animal. Often the animals are completely unaffected by the floods, or in some cases actually bring the floods. Also, in several cases, it's the animals that save the people from the waters.Clearly, these stories are not decended from the Christian myths, as these people would have been seperate from Noah and his kin for roughly 8,000 years prior to the flood.Do we discount these stories of creation in favor of Biblical Creation, and if so, why?

Or even more importantly, why believe one particular myth over any other given myth? What makes the other myths wrong?

Here's the problem Steve, what you are offering up as proof has some serious trouble.First, not all writings date from the same period, nor do they describe the same event. There is a flood in Babylonia myth, and flooding in Egyptian myth, but the Egyptian flooding is the regular annual flooding of the Nile, not a world wide destructive event. And those two cultures are extremely close in both time and geography.Just because multiple myths contain water doesn't mean that they speak of the same actual event.Water as a symbol is very universal. It's incredibly important for life, it's frequently a symbol for rebirth (I would suggest this has alot to do with the natural processes of birth). As such, it makes sense that stories about rebirth would contain water. The Great Flood is one such rebirth story.The second problem is this idea that the stories have "varying degrees of accuracy".Other than coming from a foundation that presumes that the Biblical Flood story is factual, how would you figure out the "accuracy" of other flood myths. It seems to me that you are judging accuracy as "how similiar this myth is to the one in the Bible."But couldn't you just as easily say that the Biblical story is very inaccurate because it deviates a great deal from the Navajo Flood story?The myths themselves do not offer us "proof" of an event. If they did the Earth would be riding on the back of a giant Turtle and there would be a river on which we could row into Hades.Additionally, many many fields of science (geology, linguistics, biology, radiology, astronomy, paleontology, archaeology, etc, etc) tell us that the Earth has been around much longer than six thousand years.So, even if all the myths in the world were extremely similiar in their story (which frankly they aren't), we'd still have a great deal of trouble discarding all the evidence accumulated over centuries of research which tells us that the six thousand year deadline is very suspect. No one is suggesting that because the Flood story is not literally true, therefore there is no God. Far from it. Many (most?) scientists believe in God. Many (most?) religious leaders will tell you that the "truth" of the Flood story is in the meaning of the story as a spiritual account, not as a historical record.Please remember that no scientist is out there trying to disprove God. First, because we can't do that. God is not "disprovable" and is therefore immune to science. Second because we really have no interest in trying to do that.Philosophers on the other hand... watch you're back around those guys.

There are always unanswered questions in science. It's the most important part of science.Remember also, that evolutionists aren't concerned with "creation". The Theory of Evolution is very hands off as to how the ball got started.It's completely compatable to say "God started life on Earth through some divine spark. That life then evolved through many forms over vast amounts of time until we reach today."Some people may disagree with it, but ToE doesn't care.Evolutionists only get skittish when people start saying that T-Rex and the turkey were created on the same day.

Aren't right and wrong / good and evil a matter of perspective?Was the Inquisition right or wrong? Good or evil? How about the Crusades? How about the Muslims who fought against the Crusaders? I'm sure both sides of that conflict were absolutely convinced they were the good guys and fighting evil.It may be that humanity is the only species where an individual can put himself in the shoes of another. In this case, we have a profound ability to judge the "fairness" of an action. But this tremendous feat of imagination doesn't necessarily imply a deity.I think our ideas of morality, of good and evil, come from our ability to look at a position from different perspectives. People generally agree that there are evil people in the world (Dahlmer for example) and we agree to this because they take actions with no regard to the harm they cause others. They act without putting themselves in the others shoes.It's simplistic, but I think reasonable, to infer all of human morality as arrising from that perspective.

Wow are we off topic but...I would suggest that because we are social animals depending on the group for our survival, our sense of morality has arrisen as things that do not upset the group. So sharing food is reinforced, while randomly murdering people is shunned.Do we really need an external force inserting a moral code in our heads?