Alternative Creations

I feel personally that the topic of Origins should be a seperate class in high school. You are not only dealing with science and religion/worldviews but also with philosophy and human history...way beyond the bounds of a science class to begin with. I also think that evolutionary views found in some religions (e.g. some forms of Hinduism) should be included, not just the creationist ones. Because I really don't think the way this topic is discussed in N. America right now as a religion vs. science issue is particularly accurate or helpful. The notion that some evolutionary ideas do not have some connection to some religions/philosophies of life is a fallacy, the notion that creationist ideas have no basis in scientific experiments is another fallacy.
As far as these creation stories go, the similarities between them despite massive geographical/cultural differences, suggest there is some kind of truth to at least parts of them.
Re. the differences in details, if the stories are not preserved properly from the beginning, of course, corruption is likely. I find it far easier to explain the similarities by suggesting that they are all related to one original story, that, in most cases, at least, has been corrupted over time. The alternative explanation...that the similarities are just coincidences takes way too much faith for me to believe.

Thanks for the invite. Maybe catch you there over the weekend. I'm off to bed now.

I would like to remind you, it isn't just a Christian story but also a Jewish one...Christians are not the only ones who believe it. Unlike the other versions of the creation myth, that typically have only one group that supports that version. I doubt any evolutionists have tried to confirm/deny the creation account. They just work from their own assumptions, and one of them is the a priori assumption that the Creation stories are simply myths...therefore, starting with different premises, they naturally end up with different conclusions. Which is fine, just as it's fine for creationists to work from their own premises. I think the history of science has shown, the more perspectives, the better.

Well, you may think they have been established...they sound like circular reasoning to me, based on assumptions that have yet to be proven...of course, proving something where there weren't any visible witnesses, is going to be very difficult indeed, requiring an awful lot of faith it seems to me.
Also, if you are going to examine a hypothesis, you have to work within it's assumptions to see if it is cohesive. Otherwise, you are always going to be groping in the dark.
Pieces of evidence can be interpreted different ways, depending on one's assumptions, it's really not as easy as you think. I think if people knew as much about evolutionary ideas in some other religions, I think they would realise the lines between science and religion are more blurred than they would like to believe. Alas, among evolutionists, only New Agers seem to have cottoned onto this fact. The rest seem to have their heads firmly planted in the sand.

I feel it might be worthy to try to study the general similarities of the stories...probably not the general differences, as they are probably corruptions over time.

Or revealed to the folks from whom everyone else descended from.
The better their record-keeping, the more accurate the transmission of the story, and vice versa of course.
I guess I would focus on any common elements, first. The word, flood, seems to come up alot but having not read all of them in their entirety myself, I would have to see all of what that would entail. Then I would look at what would be testable scientifically.
Re. Egyptian chronology, from what I've read about it, it seems to be in some disarray at the moment, which is scaring quite a few scholars it seems, as most Middle Eastern chronology has been based on the Egyptian timetable. If their dates are off for Egypt, then they are off on everyone else in the region too, including Israel.

Obviously, I meant the idea of a Flood, I do realise these stories were not originally in English, sheesh!!! I was just using the Flood as an example, I have heard of a number of Flood myths from around the world, but obviously there could be other things to look for too in creation myths. For example, if only one Flood story had a seaworthy boat in it, that story might be more likely to be original than the ones without one. Little things like that can be helpful.
However, C.S. Lewis, who was very familiar with myths as it was part of his job as a professor to study them, said the more myths you read, the easier it is to tell the difference between a historical tale and a myth. Historical documents have details in the them that myths wouldn't have, myths have a pattern to their stories for drama's sake that historical documents often don't have.
Babylonian predates Judeo/Christian mythology huh? The start date I've seen for Babylonia is about the 18th century B.C., Abraham lived around 2150BC. Abraham was the beginning of the Hebrew people specifically, so not sure where your figures are from.

Sorry you didn't understand my post, to clarify, I meant a seaworthy boat as opposed to an unseaworthy one!!
Re. the last point, this article by this person might be worthy of notice - you may have a point about what I said [(1) below], but you have some hurdles for your view [(2) below] also.
I think [(3) below] is the correct view, having given it more thought (been away from apologetics for quite some time, need to refresh my memory lol).
After all, Nimrod, the founder of Babylon (Gen. 10) and Abraham (Gen. 12) were descendants of two different sons of Noah, seperated by about a century, not much between them at all:
"Three possibilities of relationship between the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and Genesis are commonly discussed: (1) that the Epic derived from the Genesis account; (2) that the Genesis account used the Epic as its source; and (3) that both accounts depended on a common source.
The first possibility”that the Epic account derived from the Genesis account”has been discounted because of the dates of the extant copies of the Epic and Genesis. The original compilations of the Epic are older than the original compilations of Genesis. Few scholars would consider this theory credible.
Therefore, lets look at the remaining two popular theories about the relationship between the Epic and Genesis.
The second hypothesis”that the Genesis account is dependent on the Epic”has significant difficulties. According to this hypothesis, the author of the Genesis account would have needed to revise the Epic as follows: change the concept of god from polytheism to absolute monotheism and add the strong, consistent moral motivation for the Flood by establishing God as righteous and gracious; write clear descriptions that show the Flood as universal in order to make the whole account consistent; change the character of the survivors to portray them as righteous and worthy to be saved; specify the survivors as four couples who are capable of replenishing the human race; add their descendants’ genealogy which agrees with the secular historical records; add the details about animals being included in pairs of every kind for the preservation of the created kinds; improve the source of the Flood from only rain to rain and underground water sufficient to cover the whole world; specify the duration of the Flood from only six days and nights and unspecified days to more than one year which is adequate for a universal Flood; redesign the structure of the Ark from the unstable cube to the ideal safe design for floating; change the order and the kind of the birds of the test flights in order to make them more logical; specify seven days interval between each test flight; and add the account of the freshly plucked olive leaf which is botanically realistic and more informative than the Epic.
Therefore, despite the many similarities between the two accounts, it would have been inconceivable to rewrite the Epic to the Genesis account, the more reliable one, unless the author was not only ethical, creative and logical, but also had enough knowledge about zoology, biology, physics, naval architectural skill, botany and ancient ethnic histories. If one does not accept the Genesis account as an historical record, there is no escaping the fact that an heroic effort has been undertaken to make that account appear to be historical.
Hermann Gunkel can only explain these facts by positing a long history of rewriting:
If a man such as our narrator became acquainted with the Babylonian material, filled with the most crass mythology, he would have only felt disgust. Furthermore, a comparison of the Babylonian and the very different Israelite narratives teaches that a long history must lie between the two.1
The third theory”that both accounts descended from a common origin”is the most plausible one. The Epic was likely derived from the Sumerian story which was probably based on an historical event, though distorted. On the other hand, according to the specifics, scientific reliability, internal consistency, the correspondence to the secular records, and the existence of common elements among the flood traditions around the world, the Genesis account seems to be more acceptable as an accurate historical record. If all human races are descendents of Noah’s three sons, the survivors from the universal Flood, and the two accounts had derived from the same historical event,2 the reason the accounts have many similarities is explicable. As K. A. Kitchen states, it is likely that “The Hebrew and Babylonian accounts may go back to a common ancient tradition, but are not borrowed directly from each other.”3 Even though the Genesis account was written in Hebrew which was used later than Akkadian in which the Epic was written, the historical event of the Flood was much earlier than the publication of the Epic.
Henry Thiessen writes-
First, it is known generally that a considerable portion of the people could read and write as far back as the time of Hammurabi; that genealogical tablets and lists were known in Babylonia centuries before Abraham; that it is possible that Abraham carried cuneiform tablets containing such records with him from Haran to Canaan; and that in this manner Moses may have come into possession of them. Whether because he had access to such records, or because he had only oral tradition, or because he had only a direct revelation from God, or because of a combination of these, conservative scholarship has always held that Moses wrote Genesis.4
Even if Moses had used some source materials which are not extant today, the process of his gathering and compiling them to write Genesis would certainly have been possible, [given his education in Egypt].5 Thus, after investigating the differences between the Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis, it seems reasonable to conclude that the flood account in the Epic is the story which lost historical accuracy and was distorted, whereas the Genesis Flood account is the accurate historical record of the Flood event."
References
1. Gunkel, p. 73.
2. Barton, p. 331.
3. Kitchen, p. 90.
4. Thiessen, p. 51.
5. Vos, p. 44.
About the author-
Nozomi Osanai earned her M.A. writing “A comparative study of the flood accounts in the Gilgamesh Epic and Genesis” as her thesis while attending Wesley Biblical Seminary in the USA, where she also studied Akkadian. She has also studied at Japan College of Social Work, where she earned her Bachelor of Social Welfare, and Tokyo Biblical Seminary and Kobe Lutheran Theological Seminary where she earned her M.Div.

Whoever told you that the Christian God was an old man in the sky??? The Creator God exists beyond the created universe, God is infinite, eternal, all-knowing and all-powerful, unlike the universe...at least that's what the Bible says about God...where do you get your info from???

LOL, cute. Alas, if only art could show what eternal, infinite, all-knowing and all-powerful would look like, that sure would be neat!

Thanks very much for your tips re. writing style.Yes, what I gave you was from a summary, which I thought we could address point by point, there is more info for the assertions, but I'm finding that getting a view of the big picture first, may help reduce misunderstandings later, and give us a framework to go by, instead of establishing the beginnings of the discussion by exchanging isolated comments here and there, which, at this site, seem to go all over the place.In answer to your first question -Your point you mentioned before, that the Akkadian that the Epic is based on predates the Hebrew that Genesis is based on, is the reason why few scholars would agree with the first scenario.
To keep these posts short and sweet, I will leave the next point for my next post.

Indeed, why add that? Unless of course, it's true!

I don't know why you think that the notion that there has been a worldwide flood would ever be conceived of as a comforting thought!!!! It never ceases to amaze me how evolutionists always say they want proof, and when you show them writings all pointing to some event, in various degrees of accuracy, they poo poo it, then the next minute they are confidently espousings things that happened millions of years ago that nobody has ever witnessed...and they say creationists aren't being reasonable??? If there was a worldwide flood, you would expect that story to be a part of the historical record all over the place! No doubt if there wasn't any, no doubt, evolutionists would say, how come no one's ever written about that if it did happen?? I think it's more a case of people finding comfort that there wont be any divine judgment for sin, the old 'I'm ok, You're ok' philosophy, that I think some folks are looking for comfort in evolutionary theory.

By the way, I do believe the facts support divine creation. I'm not saying there aren't unanswered questions but then, honest evolutionists admit they have unanswered questions too, you just have to read the small print in their books to find that out.

Well, sure, evolutionists will get skittish about anyone challenging them as to 'how things came to be'. Creationists are the same in that regard. That's why we have these discussions.
Re. evolution and beginnings, it is true that not all evolutionists are atheists, I have mentioned that before. I guess it boils down to this, as far as religious folks go -
Did God create everything in the beginning where death, pain etc. were not part of the creation until after the Fall of man? Or did he create it with that stuff already intact? How you answer that question determines alot about what kind of God you are going to worship or reject. And, thereby, how you are going to look at the world and live your life. That's why this issue is so important.