Jordan Peterson wrestles with his own past.

Although admittedly his latest book is pretty much gobbledygook, too. ‘12 Lessons’ was far more cogent.

Good grief this so called discussion is such impenetrable pseudo philosophical mumbo jumbo! Jordan Peterson is quite lucid, indeed a miracle of clarity next to your gobbledygook below!

Emberson, why is the fact that we are typing proof to your hypothesis of the origin of life from non-living chemicals having come together, interacted and formed stable cells that were able to replicate just by chance?

“Emberson, because in this case, there is basically NO chance, no even a remotely realistic chance, not even in 13 bln years.”

Why? According to whom?

I’m typing this response. You are reading it. We are proving right now that there WAS a chance.

Emberson, because in this case, there is basically NO chance, no even a remotely realistic chance, not even in 13 bln years.

And there are physical reasons to it: it is really difficult to built proteins without the protection these proteins need, which are membranes built from Proteins, in a hostile pre-life environment.

Life comes from living organisms, it is not created, it is passed on. That is still the case. It has never been different.

It seems to be that Creationists, when faced with something highly improbably happening, turn to fairly simplistic stories to explain these events.

Why can’t they countenance the existence of sheer coincidence or chance? Why must they ascribe purpose to everything?

I assure you that these weren’t uniforms, Janet. Which I suppose makes the happenstance even more miraculous

Anon Mouse I wore the same outfit to school as all my friends every day. It was because the school had a uniform policy.

The Fruit
Adam eats forbidden fruit from something called the tree of knowledge of good and evil when Eve offers the fruit to him at the end of Genesis 3:6, after Eve herself first yields to the temptation of the fruit in the beginning of this verse at the bidding of Satan disguised as a serpent, the traditional interpretation of the talking snake in Genesis 3:1–5. So Satan is the traditional identity of the serpent. But what is an identity that can be considered for the forbidden fruit eaten in Genesis 3:6, and what is an identity that can be considered for the tree that produces this fruit? There is no reason why consideration of these two identities should not stimulate discussion, criticism, and evaluation of the validity of the following exegesis of the Genesis story. To repeat: what forbidden fruit gets eaten and what tree produces the fruit?
For thousands of years, the identity of the forbidden fruit eaten by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden story has been unknown. If the fruit is the traditionally believed apple, or another literal fruit, it would simply be called by its literal name, and not the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Because eating a piece of this literal fruit would give only knowledge of the literal fruit’s taste, not knowledge of good and evil. So…

If literal fruit is not the fruit in the world’s oldest and greatest mystery story, then what is the fruit? Why are the two super secret trees assigned the mystical names “tree of life” and “tree of knowledge of good and evil?” Is the talking snake Evil Angel speaking words, or does the talk represent something more subtle? Could two men have yielded to Adam and Eve’s temptation? Why would a smart man and woman eat from a forbidden fruit tree, instead of from one that is NOT forbidden, especially when both “trees” are right next to each other in the center of the Garden? How is the couple’s disobedience of the very first commandment to be fruitful and multiply while in the Garden linked to their decision to make only fig leaf aprons, instead of complete clothing, in this incomprehensible narrative, with its guesswork of interpretations and its hints of sexual behavior?

A lone exegesis combines all six questions for one answer, using only evidence in the dreamlike Bible chronicle, for an intelligent and sensible explanation of the world’s oldest and greatest fruit mystery. This evidence in the Genesis 2 and 3 Bible story identifies the fruit as carnal pleasure. The solid evidence offers no support for historical fruit identity opinions. But, even with the evidence, is this unique exegesis the correct exegesis?

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Bad Day in the Garden

They eat the fruit, but what do they eat?
We lift the veil, for a wary peek.
Through a forest of mystery hiding it all,
We see a body, naked and weak.

“The Random House Dictionary of the English Language” defines allegory as “a representation of an abstract, or spiritual meaning through concrete, or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.” It’s difficult to imagine a better definition than this one. But it’s even more difficult to imagine anyone making any sense of the second and third chapters of Genesis by taking everything in the two chapters literally. When was the last time someone went into a grocery store and bought some knowledge of good and evil fruit?

Although most elements in Genesis 2 and 3 represent something else, there are a number of facts in the story that can be taken at face value.

1. Adam and Eve have real human bodies.

2. Adam and Eve are not wearing any clothes.

3. God has forbidden them to do something.

4. They have disobeyed God.

5. God has punished them both for their disobedience.

The above five facts form the basis for the religious beliefs of many people who are not interested in allegories, and of many who are. But there is an all-important sixth fact, the knowledge of which would do no harm to anyone’s religious beliefs.

This BODY is the Garden in whose center grow
The two famous trees, but nowhere a weevil.
Here is the tree of life and the one
Of knowledge of good and knowledge of evil.

This sixth fact is the key that unlocks the door, opens it, and solves the mystery: both trees are in the center of the garden. This fact is so important that it is mentioned, not just once, but twice: Genesis 2:9 and Genesis 3:3. (In Genesis 3:3 the tree of life is not specifically mentioned, but we know it is there, because we were told it is there in Genesis 2:9.) Technically, both trees could not occupy the center of the garden at the same time, unless they were entwined. But, there is no evidence for entwinement here. What these two verses tell us, is that both trees are very close to each other.

Because the two trees are right next to each other
Care must be taken to avoid the one bad.
For the fruit of both trees is pleasure,
So the pleasure is there to be had.

To be fruitful and multiply eat from the first.
But eat from the second and no one conceives.
So here we go now: one, two, three—
Pleasure, shame, fig tree leaves.

God’s first commandment to Adam and Eve was to be fruitful and multiply. To be fruitful and multiply, eat from the first. But eat from the second and no one conceives. Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden second tree, and as a result, produce no children while in the Garden of Eden. Instead of engaging in the procreative process as commanded, they use, as a procreative organ, a delivery system designed for delivery, but not for delivery of children.

This material is not just a brain teaser, nor hopefully is it an example of sophomoric cleverness. It’s really quite simple: explanations of certain fearful mysteries buried in the story for thousands of years, have been exhumed by using verse, rather than prose, to more easily reveal these explanations. The quality of the verse is both irrelevant and unimportant.

Please note: some parts of the story are totally acceptable as both symbolic and literal narrative, at least up to a point. For example, the symbolic garden can be juxtaposed with a literal garden, complete with fruit trees. Other sections can be taken as literal accounts, extra material such as Genesis 3:20-21, in which Adam gives Eve her name and God shows compassion for the pair by clothing them in animal skins for warmth, before evicting them from the garden, symbolic and literal, into the graceless and cold outside world where they forfeit their gift of eternal life they would have had if they had eaten only from the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22)

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Preliminary Wrap

The Genesis story tells us in Genesis 2:9 and 3:3 both trees are in the center of the Garden. So the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is right next to the allowed tree, the Tree of Life, and its fruit. If the forbidden fruit from the forbidden tree is literal fruit, the eating of this fruit would give only knowledge of the fruit’s taste, not knowledge of good and evil. But the covering of the genitals with fig leaf aprons following the eating of the “fruit” does indicate sudden acquisition of knowledge of good and evil, a knowledge that results in a certain type of shame. It is difficult to understand how eating literal fruit results in this type of shame. And it is difficult to understand how normal and necessary physical relations between Adam and Eve result in this type of shame, since the first and only specified commandment to them is to “Be fruitful and multiply” in the Garden, a commandment they disobey, because no children are produced until after the eviction from Eden, and after they have normal and necessary physical relations for the first time in Genesis 4:1. But their obedience is too late: guardian cherubim and a flaming sword prevent reentry into the Garden.

Adam and Eve execute a double disobedience when they eat of the forbidden fruit—they fail to procreate, by doing what they are forbidden to do. And they fail to procreate, by not doing what they are commanded to do. Both failures occur simultaneously. The fruit in the Garden of Eden is not forbidden carnal pleasure, but forbidden nonprocreative carnal pleasure—nonprocreative carnal pleasure derived from a specific forbidden physical act.

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Postscript: Traditional Identity of The Fruit Persists

The widespread belief that the fruit is an apple has its genesis in 12th-century France, based on Saint Jerome’s earlier 4th century Vulgate translation, in which he substituted the later corrected “malum,” meaning “apple,” for “malus,” meaning “evil,” to identify the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve ate. And this error remains the apex identity reaching us in the 21st century, still based on no evidence for the existence of a literal fruit. But to end on a positive note, the acceptance of the evidence-based exegesis of the identity of the fruit in the world’s oldest mystery story is at last making headway, as increasing numbers of people manage to set aside the emotions and feelings spinning them in circles, and acknowledge—at least until a better exegesis appears—the evidence in the Bible story of the talking fruit snake. This long-forgotten exegesis explains everything as it superimposes the allegorical Eden Garden upon its literal counterpart. The exegesis offers enlightenment for the untrue and oft repeated, “Only God knows what fruit they ate.” Yes, a Deity would know what “fruit” they “ate,” but the evidence in the Genesis story reveals the Deity’s knowledge of the fruit’s identity to anyone who wishes to know, and has the courage to overcome their emotional resistance and uneasiness resulting from being exposed to this knowledge. Would this exposure be eating forbidden knowledge once again? Would a Deity want us to remain ignorant of the Genesis story’s meaning? No to both questions, because our garden is not their Garden—we are not living in the Garden of Eden’s state of grace. And secondly, the evidence in the story clearly tells us that Adam and Eve did not disobey the “be fruitful and multiply” Genesis 1:28 commandment for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of good and evil. Their acquisition of this knowledge was a byproduct of their disobedient behavior, which was to experience nonprocreative physical pleasure by eating allegorical fruit from the allegorical wrong tree in the center of an allegorical garden, while at the same time quite possibly living in a literal garden with literal fruit trees and literal snakes that do not talk to women.

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Just Another Doctrinal Neologism?

Is this exegesis beginning with Genesis 1:28, continuing through Genesis 2 and 3, and concluding with Genesis 4:1 just another neologism? No, it is not. If the exegesis is only another neologism, but not the exhumation and revelation of the original story, then not only do the individuals who first hear the story have absolutely no idea what the story means, but neither does the original storyteller. Imagine the storyteller saying, “Sometimes I just say things. I don’t know what they mean.” It is somewhat difficult to imagine this event happening.

If it does happen, then the original storyteller tells the story while having no understanding of the words being said, unless the storyteller decides to deliberately disguise and beautify the story, to hide its true meaning. This will certainly require complex ability, to intentionally mystify at the very dawn of human consciousness. It will also require the original listeners to not ask the original storyteller any questions about this new story—a story that makes no sense. So, the mystification probably happens later. And, of course, when it does, everyone will know the meaning of the entire story. For a while.

Ps.: your and the parents of your friend did the laundry of your school outfits, that have been bought in the same shop, for the same reason and for a purpose.

Is that not my point?

No zooming out can make that reason and purpose disappear!

Many things do never happen randomly, because the very essence of their design, their building plan, shows proof how, for instance, a cell was built to overcome physical barriers to random interaction of molecules.

Otherwise I refer you to our friend Steven. Maybe he is willing to explain what 1 in 10 to the power of 41,000 really means.

A distraction?

It makes a big difference if you believe that you are who, when and where you are due to many many random events and only a few conscious decision made by yourself,

- or that somebody has put you there for a purpose and that your eternal soul is going to be judged after your earthly body has died.

Jurgen,

At 10^67, I think we can agree that I’d never have enough time in the universe to keep dealing and repeat that same deck order.

When I was a kid I wore the same outfit to school as a friend. You have to consider the odds that: both of our parents made enough money to but these clothes, that they’d have the same clothes in two different sizes (friend was rather tall), that both of these shirts would be clean at the same time in the laundry cycle, and that we’d both, independently, choose to wear that shirt on the same day of the week to school…well, my point is that they were long odds, when you zoom out and take a long look at the universe.

My further point is that “astronomical odds” simply don’t justify the existence of a creator – random chance does happen. The existence (or nonexistence) of a creator is, quite frankly, immaterial and a distraction for us.

Correction: the number of subatomic particles in the UNIVERSE is estimated to be 10 to the power of 80.

Anon, in principle you are correct, but your analogy is a bad one because the probality it uses for the deck being randomly shuffled in that order is simply a totally different animal.

I checked the source, a book called Signature in the Cell from the author Stephen Meyer (no joke).

He (and the mathematician to whom he refers) calculated the chance of the proteins for a minimallu complex cell coming together in a random event to be 1 in 10 to the power of 41,000.

The number of subatomic particles in the cell is estimated to be 10 to the power of 80.

And then I would like to add that this scenario is only thinkable on a planet with favorable conditions, similar to earth.

As I said, the odds are so extremely extremely against a random event, that we have to conclude that that event cannot have happened by chance.

To your analogy, you will never have enough cards nor enough time. For the random cell creation event even 13 bln years is by far by far not enough.

The other day I was playing poker and I dealt myself a straight flush. Now, I found out that the order of the deck that was shuffled – it was likely the first time any deck of cards had ever been shuffled in that specific order. Ever. Across all games of poker played, across all decks shuffled. That probability is so low, God just had to have been in those cards that dealt me a straight flush.

That’s the logic, right Jurgen?

Steven, re: the toss of coin.

We can falsify the evolutionary hypothesis of the creation of life, of the first cell.

The simplest DNA we know :
- has a certain amount of molecules ordered in a way that it makes sense, that they describe a code describing information,
- are put into two strings opposing each other, two strings that chemically do not want to stay together, so need to be kept there by force,
- and these dna-strings need to be protected from the environment by a cell membrane consisting of molecules that are originally coded by the DNA and produced in the cell,
- to make things even more complicated, the cell needs and energy source; these are the mitochondria that come with their own genetic instructions.

There is a creation scientist, whose name I need to look up, sorry, who has calculated the probability of the event, in which the most basic requirements of the most simple DNA we know would come together by chance in the right order.

I believe that guy was not even considering the mitochondria-requirement, but here I am not so sure.

To give an analogy for his result:

If you assume a number for all existing molecules in the universe and calculate the number describing the possible contact between these molecules, each molecule hitting every other at least once.

That number was lower than the “1 in x” – ratio of the chance of the simplest DNA being by chance.

So: DNA / life cannot have come into existence by chance. Impossible.

mrscracker, well, a tease then.

Only by applying doublethink can they do that in this case.

You’re not a troll Mr Steven.

Some scientists can hold two thoughts in their minds at the same time Mr. Fedders.
🙂

So, a creation scientist is one who applies no scientific thinking to the start of life or the universe but instead thinks an ancient story in a book is real?

mrscracker,

just to show you I’m an equal opportunity troll,

I frequently tease evolutionary biologists by pointing out that intelligent design cannot be falsified.

Let me explain.

I challenged a bioinformatics expert as follows:

I would toss a coin, specifically an Australian $2 coin, 200 times. When it landed tails I would write down a zero, and for each head a one. So he would have a completely random string of zeroes and ones.

Then I would present him with another string of zeroes and ones that was not random and not generated with a random number generator. His job was to use any statistical tests he liked to see whether he could pick out the random string.

Anyway, he and his buddies threw every statistical test they could imagine at the two strings but, in the end, had to admit defeat.

So what was the second, non-random, string?

It was the 201st to 400th binary digit of pi. Bit it could just as well have been the 201st to 400th binary digit of the cube root of 19.

So what is the point of this? Why does it mean we cannot falsify intelligent design?

If we cannot determine a random sequence from a deterministic one like 200 binary digits of pi then how can we know whether evolution is completely random? We’ve got a sequence of events. They look random, But are they?

Of course just because we cannot falsify intelligent design does not mean it’s happening. We just have no way of knowing one way or the other.

BTW I suggest you don’t do this. Have you ever tried tossing a coin 200 times?

Another BTW. The first person we know of to think in evolutionary terms was the Greek Poet, Lucretius round about 60 BC.

Some physicists postulate what they call “super determinism” everything is predetermined but so chaotic we can’t make long range predictions of any precision. So the fact that you would be Catholic was already baked into the universe at the time of the big bang.

But I’m afraid that super determinism, like intelligent design, uis one of those things that cannot be falsified.

Could the identity of the unknown forbidden fruit in the world’s oldest and greatest mystery story have something to do with procreation and the family Adam and Eve do not have until after their eviction from Eden at the end of Genesis 3? Adam and Eve disobey the Genesis 1:28 commandment—the first commandment—to “be fruitful and multiply [in the Garden]” when they become one flesh incorrectly (Genesis 2:24) by eating from the wrong tree in the allegorical Garden’s center (Genesis 2:9). So they disobey not just one commandment, but two at the same time. Finally, it is interesting that half of Eve’s punishment in Genesis 3:16 is painful childbirth—because she chooses to not have children in the Garden of Eden and God wants to remind her of her decision?

The entire evidence-based exegesis is included in the preceding four sentences. But why was this confusing allegory, whatever its meaning, constructed in the first place, as the original literal story most certainly came first, a story that confused absolutely no one, unlike the allegory into which it evolved? The widely held belief that the forbidden fruit in the Bible story is an apple illustrates among other things how confirmation bias serves as a terrible mechanism that cripples our critical thinking as it prevents discussion, criticism, and evaluation of the validity of the proposed exegesis that begins with Genesis 1:28, continues through Genesis 2 and 3, and concludes with Genesis 4:1. So the struggle continues in an effort to protect the self-esteem of so many who have held lifelong beliefs they are unable to change.

Mr. Fedders, a Creation Scientist can simply be one who acknowledges a Creator. Or it can be one who believes the universe was created in six, 24 hour calendar days. Or anything in between .
I believe in a Creator but I think I’d leave it up to Him as far as how long Creation took & in what manner. His choice after all.
:)

I like Jordan Peterson too, Mr. Jurgen.

I doubt that gin improves the taste of coffee Mr. Steven but I believe icecream does.
Things are changing now but years ago instant Nescafe was what you’d frequently find in Mexico.

What on earth is a “Creation scientist”?