Hi
Submitted by F.O.D. on January 21 2001 03:08:51
In reply to Hello submitted by Piemur on January 20 2001 00:54:14
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Hello Piemur, nice to have you here. You mentioned a verse from Genesis 2, so I thought it might be appropriate to talk a bit about Genesis 1. We humans seem to have this tendency to want things to be simple, so that we won't have to think about them and their real meaning. For instance, Genesis 1 gives an account of God making the world in six days, and therefore we want to believe that that was the way it actually happened. However, empirical observation, studying the stars and their interactions, seems to suggest that they were formed over eons, not in six days. So we have a contradiction, and how do we resolve it? We resolve it by looking for the point of the Creation account in Genesis 1. Why is it there and what is it intended to communicate to us? It was very important to the Israelites to maintain their separateness from the pagan nations around them who did not worship God. The Babylonians, for instance, had a story very like Genesis 1 in many ways, speaking of the creation of the earth and the heavens. It's found in the Epic of Gilgamesh, I think. So Genesis 1 was written to say that God was the one who created, rather than being something created by chaos, which is what Gilgamash says. So the point of Genesis 1 is to tell us that God created us, that he put order and beauty into the world. As far as the six-days goes, that seems to be the vehicle used for communicating the truth, and so the six-days itself becomes a kind of partial truth, saying there was order in the creation. That truth is completed when we understand the creation of stars and planets actually apparently took place over billions of years, rather than the six days spoken of in Genesis 1. We see this contradiction between the written word in Genesis 1 and the observations we make in astrophysics and other disciplines about how the universe is held together, and we find we have to understand the point of the Genesis 1 story in order to resolve the contradiction. Likewise when we look at Genesis 2 we have a similar contradiction, where the text talks about male and female people falling in love, while empirical observation shows that sometimes males fall in love with other males. Study of the way the world is built indicates that stars are formed over billions of years, not in six days. What does it say of the way men and women relate to each other? Some studies made in the last decade indicate, possibly inconclusively, that maybe there is a genetic component to homosexuality. What does it mean if it is true? Would you argue it's the effect of mankind's sin, in the same way that there was no cancer before the Fall? Even if that were the case, what would it mean? After all, we don't condemn a deaf person because they don't speak properly, rather, we encourage them to live life to the full in their own way, communing in sign language. A different theory of the origins of gay attraction seems to make more sense to me. A researcher whose name escapes did some studies in the last 15 years or so, indicating that being attracted to other guys comes about because of minute hormonal fluctuations in the womb, which affect different babies' brains and bodies in different ways at different times during gestation. His research has apparently been reproduced by others, indicating the theory has some reliability. What this means is that different levels of hormones in a mother's body during pregnancy lead to different sorts of people being born, most of whom like members of the opposite sex, some like members of their own, others still fit in between, liking both. This provides statistical variation in the ways people are attracted to other people, which makes sense since that's the way the universe usually works. Some people are taller than others, some tanner better than others, some put weight on more than others, some like members of their own sex more than others. Now to say that is not a part of God's order is to say statistical variation is not a part of God's order. If that were the case, then before the Fall all people would have been the same height, would have had the same tan, would have put on and lost weight the same way. Much as I hate the phrase, this theory would seem to indicate that indeed "God made me that way", insofar as God made and maintains the law of physics that lead the hormone molecules to behave the way they do and have the affect they have on a developing baby's brain and body. Coming back to Genesis 2, we need to ask, have we really understood the point of the chapter. Is the male-female bit the point? Or is it possible to say that the point is something else, of which male-female is the given example? For instance, is the point that it is not good to be alone, that we need an intimate relationship with someone else, someone who is not an animal? Is the point that when we are ready to unite ourself with someone else, that we must commit ourself to them over all others and be one with them, just as in the example of the man and wife, they were to leave their parents and become one? This interpretation is consistent with the Gospel and God's plan of communing with Man, and also resolves the contradiction between the example being male and female, while seeing in real life that sometimes males fall in love with males. Why then is there a man and a woman in the story? Well, there would be no need for it to be any other way, unless gender was in fact the point of the story. I am suggesting it is not. Perhaps it based on some stories other nations were telling, which had a primaeval man and woman (I don't know if Gilgamesh has an Adam and Eve, but it does have a Noah), but being retold to get the correct point across? That would be a good project, to see what other nations say about Adam and Eve. Genesis 1 tells us a truth, that God made the world, but it is only a partial truth inasfar as the timing of the events is concerned. Observations about the antiquity of the stars completes the truth. Genesis 2 likewise tells us a truth, that it is not good to be alone, that it is good for an man and a woman to unite together, but perhaps it too is only a partial truth as far as relations between human beings go. Maybe recognising that some males will bond with other males completes the truth? Well, that's something to think about. Hope that wasn't too heavy now. When will we know what it all really means? When we're dead. My brother says that's too late cause I'll be in Hell then, but he, apparently, is a bigot, so who cares what he says? Say hi to Jaxom for me when you see him. Fod |
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