Replies

>Why would that be such a startling “yarn” to you, Muridae? If God is about making a physical creation, why wouldn’t He use the “physical materials” that He specially created for that purpose? I.e., “physical materials” here symbolized as “dirt,” or “the dust of the ground?”

>Even that very reduced and concrete term, “dirt,” manifests from ideas of space, time, matter, and law — all divinely created.

Actually, you bring up a rather good point; if there is a god fitting the definition you prescribe to, and if said god did indeed make stuff, it would presumably be using upon physical materials.

The thing is that - and I mean no offense - there is nothing to suggest that dirt, time, space, matter, or anything else is divinely created. The typical argument from the other side is “but how could it get here if not by god”, which is not exactly a defensible point; it can be countered by noting the uncreated pre-existance of god which is presumed by such a declaration (as the comic itself uses a red herring to avoid having to counter), where as if you have a god that “just exists”, having a universe that “just exists” is no less feasible - and in fact possibly more so, as having a universe that just exists cuts out a middle man, if you will; there’s one less unexplained variable.

Now, I really didn’t come here to talk theology (though I suppose I got myself into this anyway), as I prefer to discuss things that have more concrete support and evidence, though I can if you wish.

To say quite simply, if you’re going to propose a deity as having created everything, I must ask how you support such a statement; what is your evidence, and how would such an idea be falsified?

And, of course, on the other hand I must ask you this: If the “dust” in Genesis is symbolic for the base physical materials out of which we are indeed composed, could not the entire creation story be metaphor (if a...fairly inaccurate one) or symbolism for life diversifying via evolutionary means? I don’t see your faith as being necessarily opposed to the findings of science.