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11/21/2007 02:03:58 PM · #551 |
Originally posted by RonB:
... some fossils, like Piltdown Man and Brontosaurous were, indeed, fabrications ... |
Brontosaurus was not a "fabrication" -- it was merely a mistake in taxonomy. The person who assigned the name was apparently unaware that the specimen was not a new one-- same species had been found previously and assigned the name apatasaurus. Because of the timing, the latter is now the accepted name for the beast, but that in no way illegitimizes the fossils originally identified as "Brontosaurus."
"Piltdown Man" was indeed a complete fraud, but one in which scientists were the dupes, not the perpetrators.
Message edited by author 2007-11-21 14:04:10. |
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11/21/2007 02:04:56 PM · #552 |
Originally posted by NikonJeb:
Originally posted by NikonJeb:
AT THE TIME, both views were mainstream, thereby making the attitude of those who killed in the name of God, pretty grim. |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
The persecution of apostates and unbelievers by the Catholic Church through its inquisitors was NEVER "mainstream" by any valid definition of the word. It was the hierarchy of the church that did this, not the mass of believers within the church. May's well say that the USSR's shipping of millions of people to the gulags was a "mainstream" activity.
R. |
Okay.....fine....then let's do this one...CRUSADES
And we call the Mulims wack-jobs!
Or this one.....MORE CRUSADES
My point is, there was all too much horror committed in the name of God, and to just say, "Well, it was only the bosses that were the wack-jobs." doesn't really excuse the followers.
Today, your priest says,"Go kill that guy in the name of all that's holy." and you're gonna have him arrested.
I'm sure in seconds flat, I can come up with more religious horrors that you can defend as not mainstream that account for millions of lives lost in the name of God by these "minute" sections of the churches......all of which you can try to explain away, but that doesn't make the actions any less heinous.
And I know you're trying to be reasonable and accurate, but my point is the numbers, not the specific incidents......if you call 100 years of tyranny and murder an incident. |
No, I wouldn't take the same tack there. I readily acknowledge that the Catholic Church is singlehandedly responsible for an appalling number of atrocious acts committed "int he name of God".
But the inquisition was different; it didn't rely on the participation in any meaningful way of the Catholic masses, it was conceived and executed by the hierarchy of the church itself, for the benefit of the church itself, and the people (rightly) lived in terrible fear of their church because of it. They were between a rock and hard place. If they were to speak out against the church, they were in peril. Just as the Russian citizenry were during the time of the gulags...
Now the crusades, those were an abomination. But bear in mind that the *real* underpinnings of the Crusades were distinctly secular; the religious implications were an overlay plastered on by a deceitful, corrupt church hierarchy to motivate the nobility to participate.
In those days, there were basically 3 or 4 classes of people; the Church hierarchy, the nobility, the merchant class (which was slowly coming into existence at that time) and the peasantry, everyone else. The Church and the Nobles had all the power. The law of the land was primogeniture; the entire inheritance in a family went to the firstborn son.
At the same time, there were only two acceptable occupations for the disinherited nobility; they could be in the military or they could be in the church hierarchy. As Europe became more populated and individual holdings became more stratified, there was less and less for the military to do. There was nothing much left to conquer except by doing battle with your neighbors. There was a power struggle between the church and the nobility, and the church was understandably worried.
Thus, the Crusades; they siphoned off a tremendous number of this disenfranchised nobility and gave them a socially acceptable goal, with a promise of plundered treasure at the end, and cloaked it all with religious justification to make it work.
R.
ETA: I'm not saying the inquisition was not an abomination, but I'm too busy to untangle the syntax above right now :-)
Message edited by author 2007-11-21 14:07:47.
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11/21/2007 02:05:48 PM · #553 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by Flash:
The article identified a piece of pottery, carbon dated it to around 950 BCE (using science that you claim is valid), is within 70 years of the event described in Scripture AND has the name of the most famous Giant of all time inscribed on it. Reads like evidence to me. |
Yup. Evidence that somebody around that time inscribed the name "Goliath" on a piece of pottery. Hmh. Not much evidence of anything really. I could say this was hard evidence that the author who invented the fairy story of David and Goliath was a part-time potter, and you'd be able to poke as many holes in that theory as I can in yours. |
Are you now claiming that circumstantial evidence in not valid evidence?
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11/21/2007 02:06:21 PM · #554 |
Originally posted by Flash:
Again it is the ridicule... |
Your proof itself is ridiculous, not my restating it in exactly the same terms. A name is not proof of an event any more than the name Zeus inscribed on an ancient tablet proves that he once hurled lightning bolts from a tall mountain (or even existed).
Message edited by author 2007-11-21 14:08:18. |
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11/21/2007 02:06:44 PM · #555 |
Originally posted by RonB:
And, by extension, yours, as well. |
Uh.. noooo... and I knew you were going to make that mistake. Read carefully before you post. |
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11/21/2007 02:11:16 PM · #556 |
Originally posted by Flash:
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by Flash:
The article identified a piece of pottery, carbon dated it to around 950 BCE (using science that you claim is valid), is within 70 years of the event described in Scripture AND has the name of the most famous Giant of all time inscribed on it. Reads like evidence to me. |
Yup. Evidence that somebody around that time inscribed the name "Goliath" on a piece of pottery. Hmh. Not much evidence of anything really. I could say this was hard evidence that the author who invented the fairy story of David and Goliath was a part-time potter, and you'd be able to poke as many holes in that theory as I can in yours. |
Are you now claiming that circumstantial evidence in not valid evidence? |
No. Your pottery sherd is circumstantial evidence of nothing. It is completely without context. By the admission of the director of the excavation that found this item, it relates in no way to the biblical account other than repeating the name in the story. The conclusion you desire is tainting your analysis of the facts. |
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11/21/2007 02:11:26 PM · #557 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Flash:
Again it is the ridicule... |
Your proof itself is ridiculous, not my restating it in exactly the same terms. A name is not proof of an event any more than the name Zeus inscribed on an ancient tablet proves that he once hurled lightning bolts from a tall mountain. |
It is not just the name. It is the location of the name, the carbon dating of the name, the relation of the name to the historical depiction, etc. You cannot conviently exclude the rest of the matter. You may choose not to have it hold any weight, just as I conclude that man evloving from sea life is rediculous. The circumstantial evidence relating to the biblical account is there - and more evidence of more accounts are being found every day.
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11/21/2007 02:14:38 PM · #558 |
Originally posted by Flash:
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Flash:
Again it is the ridicule... |
Your proof itself is ridiculous, not my restating it in exactly the same terms. A name is not proof of an event any more than the name Zeus inscribed on an ancient tablet proves that he once hurled lightning bolts from a tall mountain. |
It is not just the name. It is the location of the name, the carbon dating of the name, the relation of the name to the historical depiction, etc. You cannot conviently exclude the rest of the matter. You may choose not to have it hold any weight, just as I conclude that man evloving from sea life is rediculous. The circumstantial evidence relating to the biblical account is there - and more evidence of more accounts are being found every day. |
Flash, you got to be reasonable. All this shard tells us is that there was, in fact, at least one Philistine named "Goliath" in that time frame. This is good to know, it's a piece of the puzzle, but it says nothing about whether Goliath was a giant among men, or whether he was slain by David.
When people say "show me the proof Goliath existed", they are not asking for proof that somebody was named Goliath. They are asking for proof that there was a giant named Goliath who was slain by David.
R.
Message edited by author 2007-11-21 14:16:39.
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11/21/2007 02:16:13 PM · #559 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by Flash:
Even the great Flood and Noahs Ark have been explained with logic and within a historical context. |
Show me. |
I saw a show a while ago which theorized that the Bosporus (the strait separating Europe from Asia Minor) was once spanned by a rock wall or mountain range, and that as the result of a large earthquake it may have given way, allowing the Mediterranean Sea to flood the lowlands beyond, filling what is now the Black Sea. The producers suggested that such a catastrophic flood could have provided the inspiration for the story of Noah and the Flood, though with obvious literary liberties taken ... |
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11/21/2007 02:18:25 PM · #560 |
Originally posted by Flash:
....Even the great Flood and Noahs Ark have been explained with logic and within a historical context. |
AHAHAHAHAHAHA! As noted many times before, references to historical events would be expected of ANY writers, but NO proof of supernatural events described in the bible has ever been shown. Indeed, there isn't a single reference to any miracles in the Epistles of Paul, who actually lived within the time of Christ. The special effects were likely added in post production, as Matthew et al were written decades later.
It would be a waste of time to address all the fallacies put forth this morning, but I can hit the highlights. Of course intelligent people can have faith, but it would be absurd to use those beliefs alone as evidence of anything being real. Socrates with a pretty bright guy, and he was put to death for failing to believe in multiple gods. For all the best and brightest people you can list who believed in God (in the currently popular sense), there will be the best and brightest Egyptians, Aztecs, Chinese, Norse, Greek, Roman, Mayan, Anasazi, Inca, Inuit, Indian (picture a list going on for hundreds or thousands of cultures) who didn't. So? Just because a bunch of people believe something doesn't make it true, and just because a scientist believes something doesn't mean that it was subjected to scientific method OR that he wouldn't drop that belief in a heartbeat if evidence suggested otherwise. Galileo may have believed with most other people that everything revolved around the earth... riiiiight up until he saw something that didn't.
No, we can't disprove the existence of God or Zeus or Puff the Magic Dragon. We can even dig up giant reptilian fossils and winged dinosaurs as supporting evidence that Puff exists, but I'm not going to don a Nomex suit every time a large shadow appears. Would you? Every devoted believer thinks he's found the "correct" path, just like all the billions before who followed their own (different) paths. We KNOW that hominids have existed for millions of years, yet the bible (and even monotheism itself) is only a few thousand years old, and Christianity remains a minority belief to this day. That's pretty darn weak supporting evidence for something that's supposed to describe universal Truth and guidance since the beginning of time. |
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11/21/2007 02:18:38 PM · #561 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by Flash:
Even the great Flood and Noahs Ark have been explained with logic and within a historical context. |
Show me. |
I saw a show a while ago which theorized that the Bosporus (the strait separating Europe from Asia Minor) was once spanned by a rock wall or mountain range, and that as the result of a large earthquake it may have given way, allowing the Mediterranean Sea to flood the lowlands beyond, filling what is now the Black Sea. The producers suggested that such a catastrophic flood could have provided the inspiration for the story of Noah and the Flood, though with obvious literary liberties taken ... |
Right. And the "flood myth" isn't just an Old Testament story either; it shows up in many ancient texts of different religions. Almost certainly something DID happen, some catastrophic flood occurred in the "cradle of civilization", because the cross-cultural, anecdotal evidence is compelling.
R.
Message edited by author 2007-11-21 14:19:50.
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11/21/2007 02:20:15 PM · #562 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by Flash:
Even the great Flood and Noahs Ark have been explained with logic and within a historical context. |
Show me. |
I saw a show a while ago which theorized that the Bosporus (the strait separating Europe from Asia Minor) was once spanned by a rock wall or mountain range, and that as the result of a large earthquake it may have given way, allowing the Mediterranean Sea to flood the lowlands beyond, filling what is now the Black Sea. The producers suggested that such a catastrophic flood could have provided the inspiration for the story of Noah and the Flood, though with obvious literary liberties taken ... |
And further that an Egyptian named Noah was a trader, had a barge that carried goods and animals, etc etc etc.
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11/21/2007 02:21:49 PM · #563 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Love is simply biology overruling reason. |
Originally posted by NikonJeb:
Got news for ya, Spaz.....if you REALLY believe that, you have never really been in love 'cause it has nothing to do with biology. |
I'm not saying that love isn't wonderful that it doesn't feel good, nor that it is an any way bad, but, it is, a biological response.
And, yes, I have really been in love. |
Well, the POINT here is that a lot of people DO believe "love" is something more than pheromones etc, and science can't PROVE that it is or is not; all it can do is hypothesize about the biological basis of love.
And the argument can be made that whoever will not accept the transcendence of love, whoever is determined to reduce it to chemical/biological origins, has impoverished himself by cutting off his access to a world of beauty and mystery.
And, in the context of the present thread, how is this "belief in love" any different from a "belief in God"? And if you are one of those who says that "believers in God" are irrational, don't you have to also say that those who "believe in love" are likewise irrational?
R. |
Love is an emotion.
God is supposedly a supreme being. |
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11/21/2007 02:23:25 PM · #564 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by RonB:
... some fossils, like Piltdown Man and Brontosaurous were, indeed, fabrications ... |
Brontosaurus was not a "fabrication" -- it was merely a mistake in taxonomy. The person who assigned the name was apparently unaware that the specimen was not a new one-- same species had been found previously and assigned the name apatasaurus. Because of the timing, the latter is now the accepted name for the beast, but that in no way illegitimizes the fossils originally identified as "Brontosaurus."
"Piltdown Man" was indeed a complete fraud, but one in which scientists were the dupes, not the perpetrators. |
Fabricate: 1. To make; create. 2. To construct by combining or assembling diverse, typically standardized parts: fabricate small boats. 3. To concoct in order to deceive
From the Wikipedia article on Brontosaurus:
"The finds ΓΆ€” the largest dinosaur ever discovered at the time and nearly complete, lacking only a head, feet, and portions of the tail ΓΆ€” were then prepared for what was to be the first ever mounted display of a sauropod skeleton, at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History in 1905. The missing bones were created using known pieces from close relatives of Brontosaurus. Sauropod feet that were discovered at the same quarry were added, as well as a tail fashioned to appear as Marsh believed it should and what he felt was the correct skull for the massive creature. This was not a delicate Diplodocus-style skull (which would later turn out to be more accurate), but instead, a composite composed of "the biggest, thickest, strongest skull bones, lower jaws and tooth crowns from three different quarries", primarily those of Camarasaurus, the only other sauropod for which good skull material was known at the time. "
Missing bones were CREATED using pieces from close relatives, Sauropod feet were ADDED, as well as a tail FASHIONED to appear as Marsh believed it should, the skull COMPOSED of bones from 3 different quarries ( primarily those of Camarasaurus ). Sounds to me like it WAS, indeed, concocted, in order to deceive viewers into believing that the entire skeleton represented the reconstruction of a single animal, based on its fossilized remains. |
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11/21/2007 02:27:11 PM · #565 |
Apatasaurus:
 |
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11/21/2007 02:31:53 PM · #566 |
Originally posted by Flash:
And further that an Egyptian named Noah was a trader, had a barge that carried goods and animals, etc etc etc. |
And we know there was only one person ever named Noah, right? |
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11/21/2007 02:35:49 PM · #567 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by RonB:
And, by extension, yours, as well. |
Uh.. noooo... and I knew you were going to make that mistake. Read carefully before you post. |
I did.
When I said "And, by extension, yours, as well" my statement does not constitute an acceptance on my part of your logic. Rather it is a rhetorical style used to point out that IF such logic were true, then it would be as logically applicable to your own statement as it would be to that which you attempted to apply it to. |
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11/21/2007 02:40:12 PM · #568 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by Flash:
And further that an Egyptian named Noah was a trader, had a barge that carried goods and animals, etc etc etc. |
And we know there was only one person ever named Noah, right? |
Noooo. However, we do have archeological evidence supported by written accounts of an Egyptian named Noah, living in the area of the named great flood, who was a trader, had a barge that carried goods/animals and could be the catalyst for the account.
Again it is the totality of the evidence, not just the individual pieces separated. You may not agree with circumstantial evidence as proof beyond a reasonable doubt, however many juries the world over are presented with just that. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flys like a duck, then it just might be a duck.
edit to add: Unlike the evidence that suggests that all life began in the sea, therefore man is related to and evolved from fish.
Message edited by author 2007-11-21 14:42:45.
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11/21/2007 02:41:55 PM · #569 |
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by RonB:
And, by extension, yours, as well. |
Uh.. noooo... and I knew you were going to make that mistake. Read carefully before you post. |
I did.
When I said "And, by extension, yours, as well" my statement does not constitute an acceptance on my part of your logic. Rather it is a rhetorical style used to point out that IF such logic were true, then it would be as logically applicable to your own statement as it would be to that which you attempted to apply it to. |
My statement was the original. You can't refute it based on a trick of semantics. It happened like this.
Louis: A and B equals C.
Ron: Likewise, D and E equals F.
Louis: Bat and Duck equals Doorstop.
Ron: Therefore A and B doesn't equal C.
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11/21/2007 02:46:19 PM · #570 |
Originally posted by Flash:
...we do have archeological evidence supported by written accounts of an Egyptian named Noah, living in the area of the named great flood, who was a trader, had a barge that carried goods/animals... |
Show us: 1. The "area of the named great flood", and how it was scientifically established to be an area of great flood. 2. The independent historical account that describes this individual. 3. The archaeological evidence for the barge they found and the animals it carried.
Message edited by author 2007-11-21 14:46:37. |
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11/21/2007 02:51:20 PM · #571 |
| The totality of the evidence, if indeed there is any, is that an Egyptian named Noah lived in the area of the named great flood, was a trader, and had a barge that carried goods/animals, none of which is even the slightest bit remarkable. If we find archeological evidence that there was man named Jason who captained a ship near Turkey around the same time as the story of the Argonauts, that does nothing to confirm dragons, fire-breathing oxen or harpies. |
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11/21/2007 02:52:57 PM · #572 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
The totality of the evidence, if indeed there is any, is that an Egyptian named Noah lived in the area of the named great flood, was a trader, and had a barge that carried goods/animals, none of which is even the slightest bit remarkable. If we find archeological evidence that there was man named Jason who captained a ship near Turkey around the same time as the story of the Argonauts, that does nothing to confirm dragons, fire-breathing oxen or harpies. |
And how does this prove that man evolved from fish?
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11/21/2007 02:57:14 PM · #573 |
Originally posted by Flash:
Originally posted by scalvert:
The totality of the evidence, if indeed there is any, is that an Egyptian named Noah lived in the area of the named great flood, was a trader, and had a barge that carried goods/animals, none of which is even the slightest bit remarkable. If we find archeological evidence that there was man named Jason who captained a ship near Turkey around the same time as the story of the Argonauts, that does nothing to confirm dragons, fire-breathing oxen or harpies. |
And how does this prove that man evolved from fish? |
*Slaps forehead* |
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11/21/2007 02:58:22 PM · #574 |
Originally posted by Flash:
Unlike the evidence that suggests that all life began in the sea, therefore man is related to and evolved from fish. |
You mean the fact that sedimentary layers deposited first are both older and beneath those deposited later, and that beyond a certain age/layer no fossils of land animals whatsoever are found anywhere in the world, yet many forms of aquatic life continue to appear in layers much older/deeper? Can you offer a better explanation? |
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11/21/2007 03:01:41 PM · #575 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by Flash:
Originally posted by scalvert:
The totality of the evidence, if indeed there is any, is that an Egyptian named Noah lived in the area of the named great flood, was a trader, and had a barge that carried goods/animals, none of which is even the slightest bit remarkable. If we find archeological evidence that there was man named Jason who captained a ship near Turkey around the same time as the story of the Argonauts, that does nothing to confirm dragons, fire-breathing oxen or harpies. |
And how does this prove that man evolved from fish? |
*Slaps forehead* |
Hope you are gaining some sense. For several posts now I have specifically equated the circumstantial evidence of scriptural events with the "reasoning" of the evolutionists that all life began in the sea, therefore man is evolved from fish. Both you and Scalvert have purposely (imo) avoided that.
Answer the question. How does the attack on my evidence proove that man has evolved from fish?
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