Religion teaches man was made from clay (Earth) is this scientifically correct according to biological studies

Question

Also this clay was mixed with water

Answer 1

In a very limited sense you could say that it is correct.

Science holds that all of life (not just man) originated materials available on the Earth. If "clay" is a euphemism for "water + earth materials", then you could say it is true.

So science doesn't so much have a problem with the "clay" part as with the "was made from" part.

Answer 2

First of all, different religions teach very different stuff. Question is. Is it scientifically correct according to biological criteria? No. The human organism is not made out of clay.

The first thing you gotta remember about religious scripts is that most of them were written a very long time ago. In a time where most people did not had access to much scientifical data and information. Thus, anything unexplicable was always explained with some kind of divine intervention.
This is one of the reasons why relating science to religion has always been such a tough task.

Oh. Someone also asked, what religion teaches about men made from clay.

In the Mayan version of The Bible which is called the "Popol Vuh" or Book of the People. There is a story about how the Four Main Gods of the Mayan religion, experimented creating men out of different materials such as sand, clay and wood but all of these failed. So finally they made a man from maize and this was their final creation. This is the reason why maize was so important for the Mayan culture.

Answer 3

Recent scientific studies are showing that clay may have been necessary for the development of the first primordial cells. Most laymen do not know that DNA was not the first genetic carrier of information. It was RNA!!! But by what process were the first RNA chains assembled? This remained unclear until it was demonstrated that RNA could be assembled on "encapsulated" clay fragments. The significance of this fact is that there is a school of thought which makes clay absolutely central in the development of the first cell.

Additionally, we can observe that when lipids and water are in the same environment, the lipid droplets will tend to gather together to become stable. This spontaneous event happens without energy being required. Lipids are the key component present in cell membranes which, obviously, are necessary in the structure of a cell. But in the primordial soup, what was the source of the lipids? It appears that clay also functions in the biosynthesis of the kinds of lipids that were necessary to build the first cell membranes.

It does appear, then, that there may in fact be some evidence to suggest that the Biblical concept of man's creation from clay has some scientific support.

Answer 4

Well, there is a theory out there -- proposed by someone named Thaxton (see link) -- that claims that the original assembly of protiens which eventually became life formed in clay rather than liquid. This is an open theory and not settled science, so it can't be called scientifically "correct" or "incorrect". The same theory has been quoted by proponents of both the Bible and Quran to say that their scripture is "scientifically" true.

IMHO, reading a scientific theory backward into a scripture like this is not a particularly useful exercise. In my experience it results in a distortion of the scripture, the science or both.

Answer 5

The difficulty here may be one of translation.

The english word 'clay' usually describes a particulate mineral containing plenty of Aluminium and Silicon.

It would be difficult, using known physical & chemical processes, to transform this substance into a human being (containing plenty of Carbon and Nitrogen).

However the exact meaning of a word in one language might not quite match any available word in another, so there is a lot of leeway in translation. It is difficult to know whether the intended meaning of 'clay' (by writer or translator) is exactly as it seems.

(the meanings of many english words has changed since King James 'authorised' the classic text, so literal interpretations often miss the point.

If 'earth' or 'mud' are also thought to be reasonable substitutes for the technical term 'clay', then it is feasible that a human could be made from it. In fact, in a way, we all are.

The biological component of 'topsoil', which gardeners call 'HUMUS', contains all the basic materials that people (and all other animals) are made from. All of the nutrients that we eat, (and use to renew the cellular structure of our bodies) came from plants which got them from the soil, or from animals which ate the plants (artificial nutrients are simply manufactured copies of something we already ate before industry was invented).

So it is true that, in a metaphorical sense, we are all made from earth. God, presumably, is the one who designed the system.

Man can apparently perform this transformation,too. In hebrew folklore, there is a story of the 'Golem', a figure that can be made out of 'clay' or 'earth', and brought to life by putting a secret written inscription in its mouth. It is traditionally used to protect humans (or jewish communities) in times of danger.

Answer 6

I'm a Christian, but I have no problem believing in the theory of evolution, which to me makes perfect sense.
The Bible should not, in my opinion, be taken literally; some of it, particularly the early parts of the Old Testament are the writings of a primitive people who were struggling to understand how the world worked without the benefit of our scientific knowledge. All religions have a creation myth, and the Adam and Eve one is the one created by the Jews.
Take care.

Answer 7

Religion teaches that God made man from clay. He
molded man into His image. Science states that
man Evolved from a lower form of life. Guess that lower form must have been living in the mud at one point. I had trouble believing that man could have
evolved from a gaseous state but now that I have a
15 year old daughter who enjoys letting everyone
know she is gassey I think maybe Science is right
after all. lol

Answer 8

Yes, the Bible tells us the biological body of man was fashioned from inorganic matter ("the dust of the earth") by an unspecified process. Science fleshes out this idea by providing some details of the process involved.

Answer 9

Technically, yes. You could also say we are composed of the same elements that form stars and other interstellar matter. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc are universal compounds that form the infrastructure of material-based lifeforms.

Keep in mind that "clay" is simply a word that is meant to convey or define meaning. Clay could mean, literally, dirt or it could mean a substance with which to mold or form.

Answer 10

No, clay is inert silicon dioxide.

There's a limited number of religions that teach that people were made from clay, some have people carved from wood, made out of dough and baked, crawling down from a hole in the sky etc.