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Sarah Salviander Profile picture
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9 Nov, 8 tweets, 2 min read
If you think Genesis 1 belongs in the panoply of other creation stories, or that it copied some of them, I challenge you to actually read those other creation stories and compare them with Genesis 1. The differences are striking. These stories are not even in the same category.
Elements of pagan creation stories:

- chaotic pre-existing cosmos
- first god emerges from the chaos
- produces lots of other gods
- personal drama, warring between gods
- the world and humans made from the corpse of a dead god
- objects like the Sun and Moon personified by gods
Style of pagan creation stories:

- lengthy prose
- dramatic language

Not all non-Abrahamic creation stories follow this exact pattern, but many of them, including the ones supposedly "copied" by the Genesis author, do.
Elements of Genesis 1:

- creation of the universe from nothing by an eternal, immaterial God
- physical objects, incl. human bodies, made from the raw material of creation
- God-centered
- no personal drama
- filled with testable claims about the physical world
Style of Genesis 1:

- succinct
- austere in prose
- matter-of-face in tone
There are, of course, commonalities between all creation stories. That is expected, as part of a shared way of looking at the world for ancient cultures, which included the supernatural, order from chaos, light out of darkness, water, etc. Part of it is also explained...
...by what C.S. Lewis observed as a general recognition of elements of universal truths. If Genesis 1 is true (which I obviously believe), then we should expect other traditions to have access to at least some parts of that truth. If we fold in the theology of Heiser, then...
...all of the personal drama with the multitude of pagan gods also begins to make some sense.

Despite some thematic similarities, Genesis 1 is unique among creation stories. Don't be fooled by the fake news that Genesis is just borrowed mythology. Read and compare for yourself!

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More from @sarahsalviander

Sarah Salviander Profile picture
3 Nov
I keep seeing this silly atheist claim that if Christians read their Bibles, they'll stop believing. As if God's Word can testify against God. It's the exact opposite. The more I study scripture, the more my questions are answered, the stronger my faith, the greater my peace.
I experienced something similar in physics. As a freshman, I'd been swayed by alternative physics that flew in the face of conventional science. Agitated, I asked one of these renegade scientists how I could proceed in my university studies if what I was being taught was wrong.
He said it was necessary to master conventional physics before I could reject it, and encouraged me to study hard. So, I did. And through that I realized that conventional physics was actually quite sound. Far from rejecting it, I came to embrace it, and ended up going for a PhD.
Read 4 tweets
Sarah Salviander Profile picture
29 Oct
Modern physics is sometimes used to claim there's no such thing as objective truth. Is that a valid thing to do? Let's think this through.

We don't know for certain that objective truth exists. We have to assume it. And for certain worldviews, such as Christianity...
...there's a firm basis from which to make the claim that objective truth exists.

So, let's go ahead and assume it does. The question is, does our knowledge of modern physics—the subjectivity of relativity and the probabilistic fuzziness of quantum mechanics—disprove it?
First, the obvious defeaters. If there's no objective truth, then there's no basis for making the claim that modern physics is valid. How do we know modern physics applies for everyone at all times and in all places? Or for anyone anywhere? We don't.
Read 12 tweets
Sarah Salviander Profile picture
6 Oct
I have no idea how anyone who's read Genesis and knows anything about the history and development of the Earth can say this. It's so utterly, nakedly false that I can only surmise that people repeat it because they assume or want it to be true.

So, a thread about Genesis.
Here are some of the scientifically-verifiable claims made by Genesis:

The universe was created (Gen 1:1) ✔️
Earth initially did not exist (Gen 1:2) ✔️
Continents appeared first (Gen 1:9) ✔️
Then oceans formed (Gen 1:10) ✔️
First life was plant life (Gen 1:11) ✔️
Seed-bearing plants appear (Gen 1:11) ✔️
Sun and Moon become visible from Earth (Gen 1:15) ✔️
Animal life starts in the oceans (Gen 1:20) ✔️
Flying creatures appear (Gen 1:20) ✔️
Giant aquatic animals appear (Gen 1:21) ✔️
Other aquatic animals appear (Gen 1:21) ✔️
Read 9 tweets
Sarah Salviander Profile picture
5 Oct
The funny thing about gravity is that it's very weak compared with the other forces, but it's also the dominant force shaping the universe on large scales. Sound confusing?

Consider...

Weak: You can overcome the gravity of the entire Earth with just a small magnet.
Dominant: Gravity (indirectly) produces things like this. These are plasma jets shooting out of the core of a galaxy. These jets extend for hundreds of thousands of lys, like streams from a colossal cosmic firehose, big enough to dwarf the galaxy from which they're emanating.
Those plasma jets were produced by a supermassive black hole actively feeding on material. As interstellar gas pours down onto the black hole, the extreme gravity near the black hole speeds it up until it forms a surrounding, super-heated disk of matter. (see illustration below)
Read 5 tweets
Sarah Salviander Profile picture
21 Sep
If you think you have devastating arguments against God, that's fine, but keep in mind:

1. You don't.
2. Seriously, you don't.

Lack of religious education, and of education in general, has made rhetorically snappy but vapid arguments seem powerful.
I'm not singling atheists out here. Christians often fall for this stuff, because many don't understand Christianity, science, math, or philosophy any better than those making the vapid arguments.

Whatever your beliefs, you're not helping yourself by not knowing these things.
Whether you're Christian or atheist, treat yourself to a classical education. Learn the essentials of Christian belief, read the church fathers, study the great philosophers, learn the basics of modern science, become literate in math, and read great works of literature.
Read 6 tweets
Sarah Salviander Profile picture
15 Sep
Be cautious about 'truth' in science. If a scientific model matches observations and makes good predictions, does that mean it's 'true'? Well, consider that the Earth-centered model of the solar system matched observations and made good predictions by the standards of the time. Image
That's one reason it lasted for 2,000 years.

In fact, the Earth-centered model made better predictions than the Copernican model. Did that make it true?

It wasn't until Kepler eliminated Copernicus' epicycles (yes, Copernicus had epicycles in his model), changed the orbits…
…of planets from circular to elliptical, and eliminated uniform orbital speeds, that the Sun-centered model surpassed the Earth-centered in accuracy. We have enough data at this point to consider the Sun-centered model very likely true. But quite often in science…
Read 4 tweets

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