The ONLY two created in the beginning?

[Anonymous]

I am definitely not an expert on DNA or genetics. It was just yesterday I found out where babies came from.
But, I do have a question about this thread and order of logic. What sustains the question of possible created beings beside Adam and Eve? Is there anything more than supposition or wishful thinking? It seems the burden of proof would fall upon those who are making claims against the norm, the established truth. Has such evidence or hypothesis been layed out? Just curious.

 

[The Duke Of Marshall]

I gave a break down of the three levels of truth and how they can be used practically.

That's actually what I was getting at. Who is it that determines what level a certain truth is or is there a Scriptural formula that is applied?

And can we just ignore any truth? Well, no, a true believer will cherish all of the Word and seek to understand and believe it all.

Understanding and believing it all is one thing, but can we, for a lack of a better word, not acknowledge a certain part and add something of ours instead?


tick, tick,.....click

 

[The Duke Of Marshall]

Albinism is a genetic defect, not a race, it affects people of many ethnicities. Being light skinned, does not a European make, being dark skinned does not an African make.

Exactly! So without genetic defects how do we get multiple lineages from ONE man?

 

[Scarecrow]

"Has such evidence or hypothesis been layed out?"

Genesis 4:13-16 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." Then the LORD said to him, "Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

The supposition appears to be that the people threatening Cain were not other children, grand children, great grand children, great great grand children, etc...of Adam and Eve; that they had to be other people God created apparently with the primary purpose of terrorizing Cain and providing genetically diverse individuals for Adams descendants to marry. Maybe there are other verses too but I'm not sure what they are. I think the primary misconception is not realizing the reproductive capability of humans at that time and given their extremely long lifespans.

 

[The Duke Of Marshall]

What sustains the question of possible created beings beside Adam and Eve? Is there anything more than supposition or wishful thinking? It seems the burden of proof would fall upon those who are making claims against the norm, the established truth. Has such evidence or hypothesis been layed out? Just curious.

Well, I started out with just a theory. For some reason my gut was telling me it would be put to death rather quickly, but apparently that hasn't been so. The original theory is going off of 1) The different lineages that have ever existed 2) Women for Cain, Abel, & Seth to marry 3) Refraining from incest as theorized as always being 'known' to not be good 4) The fear by Cain as to who would seek to kill him.

So far it has proven to be a very interesting conversation.

 

[Anonymous]

So far it has proven to be a very interesting conversation

Yes, it has. I enjoy investigating ancient things.

 

[Scarecrow]

"Refraining from incest as theorized as always being 'known' to not be good"

Genesis 19:30-38 Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father." So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. Then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father." So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-ammi. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day.

Apparently the daughters had no problem procreating with their father thinking he was the last (only) man left on the planet. There is no mention that the offspring from these unions were physically or emotionally defective in any way. With the number of people on the earth limited at first it is likely that they thought the same thing "to come in to us after the manner of all the earth"...especially since God had commanded them to be fruitful and multiply.

 

[Isabella]

Albinism is a genetic defect, not a race, it affects people of many ethnicities. Being light skinned, does not a European make, being dark skinned does not an African make.

Exactly! So without genetic defects how do we get multiple lineages from ONE man?

You see, one man would not be a problem with many women (remember the reason why we are here, polygamy?) in the eventual bottleneck that the y-chromosome came from there were probably many women in the generation but not many men, this would have had to happen for a few generations until any other Y-chromosome died out.

So, genetically speaking, all men might be descended from one man, but certainly not, one woman! Genetics is a Polygamist my friend!

Another reason is the riskier lives of men back in the day helped cause the bottleneck, so therefore the Y-Chrom Adam began the lineage of man not through being created and being the first, but just through being the toughest and most sexually productive man around, he was active, not passive.

It isn't defects which causes different peoples, it is gradual mutation that happens over hundreds of generations, sometimes there are leaps, sometimes there are bottlenecks or weird mutations, but not necessarily something you would call a defect, most often we lose things genetically, rather than new stuff happening. Do you know the gene for red hair goes back to just one man? He had a mutation, so that is an example of mutation causing something that went a bit widespread

That is what genetics say, of course what religion says is different and that is fine also. People believe what they want at the end of the day.

B

 

[Isabella]

The REAL issue is where a person will spend eternity, not what some particular branch or another of science is saying today.

But that wasn't what this thread is about, nor what you were arguing earlier.

Maybe my Noah idea is right. Maybe it's wrong.

It isn't right like I said, since Noah is a male descendant of Adam it is an impossible theory. Why don't you get this?

I do know this: all of those genetic studies you are so proud of have one basic flaw.

Please don't assume what I am proud of, you do not know me, it is actually rude and disparaging for you to be so presumptuous. I have responded with the facts as I know them I have no special vested interest in them beyond that. Please treat me with respect, I have not been rude to you.

Isabella, there are only two choices - eternal life in the presence of our Creator, or eternal punishment in hell.

There are only two choices as you see them. I, don't carry your beliefs therefore your worries do not concern me. Please do not throw the idea of hell in my face and expect to get a reaction, you won't. As far as I can see, every single person I love in this world BAR NONE will go to hell if there was one, therefore that is where I would go to also, for a heaven without those I love would be no paradise for me.

B

 

[The Duke Of Marshall]

Please do not throw the idea of hell in my face and expect to get a reaction, you won't. As far as I can see, every single person I love in this world BAR NONE will go to hell if there was one, therefore that is where I would go to also, for a heaven without those I love would be no paradise for me.

Of all the things you've learned, of all the things you've studied, and of all the things you've researched, not the validity of the Scriptures? Surely something must tell you deep inside that there is something besides the flesh and blood that you are.

 

[Isabella]

I did not say that, I said I don't believe in Hell (and in fact, not that many religions do believe in Hell as Christianity sees it so I am certainly not alone with that) but if it existed I would rather go there than singing praises with a bunch of virtuous strangers for the rest of eternity. I am just not a good singer!

I appreciate it is very meaningful to you, that, for some of you, it is all, your faith sustains you. I think that is wonderful and worthy of admiration, my beliefs bring me up too, it is just my belief fits in very well with genetics, I don't have to spend so much time trying to make the numbers fit the scripture, I do not have to accuse one of being wrong to make the other right in my head, they both fit and I don't need to get stressed or defensive about my beliefs, nor do I need to make anyone else think like I do. It is enough for me that I am a whole person who knows that when I die it will be the way it should be. That is enough for me.

Someone told me about this science project once, they observed mice in different environments, in one environment there was nothing, just empty space, in another there was an electric shock charge, they found that these mice would rather go to where they were going to be shocked, than to the empty space with nothing in it.

It seems that what we strive for is stimulation, any stimulation, even painful stimulation is better than nothing at all.

kind regards,
B
x

 

[MarvelousMarvin]

Isabella, I obviously offended you by calling you "proud." I'm sorry, please forgive me.

================================​

You see, one man would not be a problem with many women (remember the reason why we are here, polygamy?) in the eventual bottleneck that the y-chromosome came from there were probably many women in the generation but not many men, this would have had to happen for a few generations until any other Y-chromosome died out.

Noah was the bottleneck, not Adam. All other men (except Noah's three SONS, who carried HIS Y-chromosome) and all other Y-chromosomes (if there were any others) died in the flood. You just explained my theory in a way I was struggling to find words for! So what if he was descended from Adam? Adam did not necessarily have that Y-chromosome. Noah or one of his direct ancestors after Adam did. Think genetic mutation - that Y-chromosome had to come from somewhere.

As to you not believing in hell - truth is truth whether one chooses to believe it or not, and whether most people choose to believe it or not. Truth is not something we vote on, it is TRUTH. Until Pasteur proved otherwise, most people believed that maggots spontaneously appeared in stuff like rotten meat. Just because most people believed that did not make it true.

Hell is not a place of fellowship and fun, it is a place of loneliness and judgment. It is not true that everyone in the world will go there, because God, in His love and mercy, made a way for us to inherit eternal life. The choice is one each individual must make.

BTW, I don't believe in "religion." Christianity is all about having a relationship with our Creator, not a set of rules we must follow.

Put your faith and trust in God's only begotten Son and start building that relationship.

John 14:6 NKJV Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

But back to what this thread was originally about...

There is absolutely NO Scriptural evidence that God created more than just Adam and Eve. Science might try to say otherwise, but as already stated, modern science is FLAWED because of the ANTI-GOD presupposition on which it all is based. Scientists EXPECT to find certain results because they do not believe that God exists. Scientists blatantly ignore evidence that agrees with the Bible. Scientists promote outright hoaxes such as Nebraska Man. An entire "cave man" family was conjured up from one pig's tooth!

An example of evidence that is ignored by most scientists: http://www.halos.com/ There's a few scientists trying to refute it, but they do so by attacking the character of Dr. Gentry, not by presenting credible evidence that he is wrong.

 

[Isabella]

So what if he was descended from Adam? Adam did not necessarily have that Y-chromosome. Noah or one of his direct ancestors after Adam did. Think genetic mutation - that Y-chromosome had to come from somewhere.

*sigh* Please, trust me here, there are four generations between Noah and Adam or some such. It is the same y-chromosome, it is a direct paternal line, it would have the exact same root even if there was mutation, it would have the same root and if, in fact you believe, as it seems you do, that there are no other humans besides Adam and Eve, than it is quite likely that Noah would have been terribly inbred, through his X chromosome also. Choose not to believe it but please don't argue any more on this issue, your Noah theory is inapplicable and does not work genetically.

I have no comment on the rest of your post because it isn't something that interests me, sorry.

B

 

[Isabella]

PS I forgive you for offending me.

B

 

[MarvelousMarvin]

Please, trust me here, there are four generations between Noah and Adam or some such.

Actually, it's eight generations from Adam to Noah, assuming that the genealogical lists in the Hebrew version of the Bible are correct. The Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT dating to ~200 years Before Christ, also known as LXX) lists a few more. Some Bible scholars allow for as much as 5,000 - 6,000 years from Adam to Noah, because of gaps in the genealogies. I seriously doubt that. A strict literal reading of Genesis finds ~1,700 years from Adam to Noah, which I take as "gospel truth."

And ok, I'll stick to what I know best - the Bible. I don't particularly care what the false religions of the World might teach, except to know how to refute them. And I have studied many of them. Some I studied when I was trying to prove that there is no God, some I studied because I knew people who were caught up in their lies.

Not all religions that call themselves "Christian" are Christian. That includes LDS, JW, and a bunch of others. My apologies to my Mormon and JW friends, but you worship a different Jesus than I do.

Evolution is a false religion, not a science.

Only the Bible starts with an eternally self-existent God. All other religious systems start with eternally self-existing space-time-matter.

And the Bible says that only Adam and Eve were created - all other humans descended from them.

 

[Isabella]

Please, trust me here, there are four generations between Noah and Adam or some such.

Actually, it's eight generations from Adam to Noah,

Thank you for clarifying how many generations exactly.

kind regards,

Bels

 

[The Duke Of Marshall]

One thing I just remembered is that most people who don't believe in hell are the very same people who don't want to be held responsible for anything or have to answer for anything. It's more of a self-serving belief than anything.

 

[Isabella]

One thing I just remembered is that most people who don't believe in hell are the very same people who don't want to be held responsible for anything or have to answer for anything. It's more of a self-serving belief than anything.

How can a lack of belief suddenly become a self serving belief? This idea has always worried me, it seems such a rigid religious imperialism which makes a non belief into a belief system in itself. Which it isn’t, it is just a lack of belief in something which relies on faith to be truly tangible anyway.

For example, if I choose to believe that the moon is made of cheese, you are within your rights to laugh at me, you know for a fact that the moon, is not made of cheese, that isn’t a lack of belief in Cheese Celestial bodies, it is just fact.

If I choose to believe in Fairies*, you might scoff, because you don’t believe in Fairies, but you don’t actually have any proof that they exist, so you might say ‘I don’t agree with you’ if I turned around and said you have a warped, self serving belief system for not believing in Fairies, you might feel that I am being a bit over the top.

Non belief in something is not a faith or a belief system. It is for those reasons I disapprove of Atheists and the like using Faith or Spiritual terminology to refer to themselves, any Atheists who says ‘I believe in Atheism’ hasn’t really thought things through as far as I am concerned.

As for the rather spurious claim that people who don’t believe in hell are self serving, I would ask, where is the proof? Is this just another baseless assumption? There are immoral people in the world, they wouldn’t be immoral if they believed in hell, therefore they do not believe in hell?

I could say the same for people who don’t believe in anything couldn’t I? Fact is, most people in the US claim to believe in some faith, most claim (78%) to be Christians, who, traditionally it seems, tend to believe in hell. If that is the case, then there are a huge amount of people out there, believing in hell but just not caring……

Once upon a time when lives were short and medicine was useless (dissolve one leech on your tongue daily and see me again in a week), the spectre of a short life and a painful death was pretty imaginable, throw the idea of hell into the mix and you had a lot of people fearful of that as well. Now people are not so frightened because death and hell seems far away.

In absolutist terms, hell is something you go to once you have done X, whether you repent or not, whether you spend the rest of your life doing good deeds. This is NOT something that is a feature of the modern Christian movement (as far as I know, please correct me if I am wrong).

Have you ever read Constantine or seen the film? John Constantine was a young man with the ‘sight’ anyway blah blah, he gets depressed and tried to kill himself, he was in hell before he was revived by the medical team, he then spends the following two decades or more fighting the demons of hell, hoping that the good he does will off set the bad and when he dies he will avoid hell. The Angel Gabriel comes to him and says that it doesn’t matter how many evil demons he sent back to hell, he will die because he has lung cancer and he will go to hell because of the 'life he took'( he was a suicide) even though he was only clinically dead for 15 minutes he committed the act, and hell bound he was.

There is a lot more to it than that but I don’t want to give spoilers away, but the point is, that IS how absolutist Christianity used to be, do X and spend eternity in hell. Now people feel they have a chance and an opportunity to fix things before they die, now we don’t tend to believe suicides go to hell or the many other people who had done bad things and repented.

Anyway, I am sure you all know a heck of a lot more about the notion of redemption and the like than I do as it pertains to current Christian belief, but all I meant was it is perfectly possible to believe in hell but just not see it as somewhere you are likely to go.

For my own part, I know plenty of people who don’t believe in hell who are not self serving. I don’t believe in hell and I would like to know what evidence you have that I am self serving? Fear is not an altruistic trait btw. The choices I make are not based upon fear of hell, they are based upon what is the right thing to do. Which is more self serving? the person who thinks they would go to hell if they don’t choose rightly or the person who chooses rightly because it is the right thing to do, even if they will receive no blessed afterlife in return?

B

* Please note, I do not believe the moon is made of cheese, I am not an atheist but the jury is out on Fairies.

 

[MarvelousMarvin]

In absolutist terms, hell is something you go to once you have done X, whether you repent or not, whether you spend the rest of your life doing good deeds. This is NOT something that is a feature of the modern Christian movement (as far as I know, please correct me if I am wrong).

In true Christian (Biblical) terms, hell is the place where a person who has NOT chosen to do X will spend eternity.

What is X? See the verse quoted in my sig. (Romans 10:9 in case my sig has changed since posting this.) The key is "...believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead..." And no amount of good deeds will "punch your ticket" to Heaven – it is ONLY through faith in Yeshua Ha'Mashiach (Jesus' Hebrew name, meaning "Jesus the Messiah" or "Jesus Christ") that our "ticket is punched."

Hell is a real place, created by God as a place of eternal punishment for those angels who rebelled against Him. Jesus talked about hell in terms that unmistakably tell us He believed it to be a real place, and more importantly, He talked about how to avoid going there. If Jesus talks about something, it is real.

As for the book and film Constantine, no, I have neither read the book nor seen the movie. But it is man's ideas, not God's, being portrayed. How do I know, even though I have not read the book or seen the film? The little bit you described goes against everything the Bible teaches.

There is a lot more to it than that but I don’t want to give spoilers away, but the point is, that IS how absolutist Christianity used to be, do X and spend eternity in hell.

Actually, what you said in the first quote above would be true – if you define the X as dying without having accepted Jesus as your personal Savior. (But then, it's too late to do all those useless "good deeds.") Any doctrine that teaches what you describe as " absolutist Christianity" is false. God is a God of love, mercy, and grace. His only begotten Son, Jesus of Nazareth, born of a virgin, knew no sin – ever. But He took on Himself the guilt of ALL sin any of us have ever committed, and paid the price for us – death, meaning separation from God the Father. So all we need to do is believe in Him and make a public confession of that faith, and we will spend eternity with Him.

John 15:13 NKJV Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.

Jesus is my Friend.

 

[Isabella]

I am not sure PolyDoc, but going by your definitions, I think it is assumed that Constantine has done X, or, at least Christianity featured in the film but even so, with doing X, since he committed suicide as a teenager he wasn't entitled to enter Heaven.

However **spoilers**

Constantine is allowed to enter heaven for sacrificing himself to save someone else.

I don't know how Biblical this is, to be honest, it is neither here nor there to me, my previous point was the idea that people who refer to themselves as Christians don't always see Hell as a place that they are likely to go to. I will leave it up to Christians themselves to have an argument over who is a real Christian.

B