But at the same time you say "we have no reason" to expect the conditions surrounding starlight to change. Are you vouching for the nature of the universe?
You are (surely by now) aware of how The Science™ works?
Away for a few days on an impulsive trip to Oman; this thread has turned rather more acidic !
Excellent. The scientific community tend to be rather too polite. Vituperative comments are far more entertaining.
Will have a look at the historical accuracy of the bible links. i suspect that there may well be a lot of historical detail in there, it being the history of a people and their interpretation of the world. although i might examine some other sites without christian in the title as well for balance.
the problem of course is the jump from 'history book' to 'definitive truth of the world and how everything ever happened'. historians get things wrong - both modern historians and blokes wandering round in the desert 4000 years ago. (er, sweeping generalizations, but you get my drift)
presumably the arguement is that the bible is a 'definitive truth of the world and how everything ever happened' because god 'made the bloke write down said definitive truth' just right.
um. too many assumptions for my taste. assume nothing often better.
are there creationists etc who believe that the earth is in fact billions of years old? That a god started the universe off, and left it to it? whatever one's belief in the existence or not a god, this fits with what we know so far and in no way clashes with the bible (just that the bible does rather well at condensing billions of years of development into a few history pages )
or, is the key precept that humans exist, therefore god exists.
I find this all rather confusing.
sorry for bibbling on. too many questions, too much hangover
I've been reading creation myths and this week I've been looking at how Genesis (a really beautiful book) has been understand for the last 1,000 years or so, mostly chasing up literature about the the actual geographical location of the Garden of Eden.
It's been on the North Pole, on top of a mountain in the orbit of the moon, in Turkey, Ethiopia, under lake Galillee. Cool stuff.
Now. A river flows out of Eden and separates into four heads: the Euphrates, the Havilah, the Gilhon and the Hiddekel.
Can we find where the Garden actually was? Yes, we can. We identify the rivers and trace them back to their source; we can use satellite pictures, which Sir Walter Raleigh couldn't, and find a place that fits the geographical description of the Garden in the Old Testament. (Failing that we can look for the Cherubim with the flaming sword sent to guard the gate from Adam's descendants.) We do have a problem, in that this is very unusual behaviour for rivers, and apparently doesn't happen anywhere in the Middle East, not today at least, but we should start by identifying these rivers.
OK. The Euphrates is easy: it's big and flows out of Iraq. The Havilah is apparently an Arhamaic name for the Tigris, so that's two. The Gihon and the Hiddekel have to be rivers in the same area- but because of the desertification of the region in the last 1,000 years we're almost certainly looking for dried up watercourses, not rivers, so our problem apparently isn't as serious as it seemed at first.
Hang on. Shit. There was a really big Flood, fierce enough to make mountains, shift the continents and make the Grand Canyon, and deep enough leave fossils on top of big ranges. This certainly accounts for the fact that there is no Cherubim with a sword, because the Garden, like the rest of Earth's green places, could not have survived intact and was no longer in need of guarding.
But still, how on earth are we going to find these waddies and ancient watercourses and how can we be sure that the course of the Euphrates hasn't changed in the last 6,000 years? Actually, given the cataclysm, is there any point in the exercise at all?
But hang on redux. The Hiddekel is the river 'which goeth to the east of Assyria', according to Genesis. And Assyria is the land of Asshur.
Who was born after the great Flood.
Carbon dating, on the other hand, is inaccurate, and light from distant stars might have sped up.
I've been reading creation myths and this week I've been looking at how Genesis (a really beautiful book) has been understand for the last 1,000 years or so, mostly chasing up literature about the the actual geographical location of the Garden of Eden.
It's been on the North Pole, on top of a mountain in the orbit of the moon, in Turkey, Ethiopia, under lake Galillee. Cool stuff.
Now. A river flows out of Eden and separates into four heads: the Euphrates, the Havilah, the Gilhon and the Hiddekel.
Can we find the Garden? Yes, we can. We identify the rivers and trace them back to their source; we can use satellite pictures, which Sir Walter Raleigh couldn't, and find a place that fits the geographical description of the Garden in the Old Testament. (Failing that we can look for the Cherubim with the flaming sword sent to guard the gate from Adam's descendants.) We do have a problem, in that this is very unusual behaviour for rivers, and apparently doesn't happen anywhere in the Middle East, not today at least, but we should start by identifying these rivers.
OK. The Euphrates is easy: it's big and flows out of Iraq. The Havilah is apparently an Arhamaic name for the Tigris, so that's two. The Havilah and the Hiddekel have to be rivers in the same area- but because of the desertification of the region in the last 1,000 years we're almost certainly looking for dried up watercourses, not rivers, so that problem isn't as serious as it seems at first.
Hang on. Shit. There was a really big Flood, fierce enough to make mountains, shift the continents and make the Grand Canyon, and deep enough leave fossils on top of big ranges. This certainly accounts for the fact that there is no Cherubim with a sword, because the Garden, like the rest of Earth's green places, could not have survived intact and was no longer in need of guarding.
But still, how on earth are we going to find these waddies and ancient watercourses and how can we be sure that the course of the Euphrates hasn't changed in the last 6,000 years? Actually, given the cataclysm, is there any point in the exercise at all?
But hang on redux. The Hiddekel is the river 'which goeth to the east of Assyria', according to Genesis. And Assyria is the land of Asshur.
Who was born after the great Flood.
Carbon dating, on the other hand, is inaccurate, and light from distant stars might have sped up.
What a second there, I thought for sure that the names for those places came with affidavits testifying to their uniquness, complete with plat maps and GPS data.
(Carbon dating is based on how much orignal assumptions on original concentrations. If you're going to use something to rag on Creationism, use KAr dating (the startlight thing is good too).)
But, you're doing it agian, the insurmountable odds against Evolution are easily transversed in a single leap of faith, while the Creationists are allowed none.
But, you're doing it agian, the insurmountable odds against Evolution are easily transversed in a single leap of faith, while the Creationists are allowed none.
You're not allowed a leap of faith. Either Genesis is an accurate description of what actually happened or it isn't. If it is, it has to be historically and geographically consistent. If it isn't, in any regard, we can't pick and choose which parts are accurate and which aren't. Your explanation, which is utterly dependent on the literal accuracy of this part of the Old Testament, is finished.
But hang on redux. The Hiddekel is the river 'which goeth to the east of Assyria', according to Genesis. And Assyria is the land of Asshur.
Who was born after the great Flood.
Carbon dating, on the other hand, is inaccurate, and light from distant stars might have sped up.
I honestly don't see your problem.
The Genesis account never claims to be written before the Flood, and the text refers to a river in a place that was known to people at the time of writing as Assyria.
The Genesis account never claims to be written before the Flood, and the text refers to a river in a place that was known to people at the time of writing as Assyria.
Nice reductionist, simplistic, binary thinking sig you got there.
Im going to say a really rude, blasphemous, evil word now. You might want to close your eyes and pray.
Perhaps some kind soul who's been on this board awhile would like to enlighten Marc about who's quoted in my sig (from the recent U.S. election campaign.)
But it's typical. You can't find a problem with my post so you attack the sig, and bring up some unrelated nonsense.
Let Hassan and Tonton address the skeptic side of this thread. At least they have the whole intelligence thing going for them.
Perhaps some kind soul who's been on this board awhile would like to enlighten Marc about who's quote in my sig (from the recent U.S. election campaign.)
But it's typical. You can't find a problem with my post so you attack the sig, and bring up some unrelated nonsense.
Let Hassan and Tonton address the skeptic side of this thread. At least they have the whole intelligence thing going for them.
You're not allowed a leap of faith. Either Genesis is an accurate description of what actually happened or it isn't. If it is, it has to be historically and geographically consistent. If it isn't, in any regard, we can't pick and choose which parts are accurate and which aren't. Your explanation, which is utterly dependent on the literal accuracy of this part of the Old Testament, is finished.
Yes, in theory, that is correct. In this case, you are attempting to read much into the text more than it claims. And you place all problems with the messenger and none with the reciever -- agian, you assume the human mind to be completely sufficient to itself.
At any rate, like segovious' "problem" in Luke, these "problems" all have probable explanations. You can look to the "Cain where is your brother" examples, or even attempt to impose modern cosmology on Genesis -- as if God couldn't overide the laws of physics -- (the Big Bang theory does this as well.)
The "mistakes" and "errors" of the Bible are nearly symantic in nature. The "...Jesus was by the lake/he wasn't by the lake" type "problems" don't all have "airtight" solutions, but it is a matter of Faith to believe that they will have airtight explanations at some point. For now the probable explanations will have to do -- not that I've ever heard that sort of statement from an evolutionist. Oooooohhh noooooooo.
It's important to note, as a system of truth, the Bible doesn't have these problems.
But like I've said, you don't believe it's possible for the Bible to exist as a fixed revelation of God, so why even feign interest? If you applied the same scrutiny to science you would find it impossible to believe in it as authoritative on the true nature of the universe -- but since your belief is in your own intellect as self-sufficient, and mankind's in general as even more so, you can ignore what you see in order to see what you wish. This is the precise reason no one ever comes back on me when I mention the infinite probability of evolution occuring -- because it's a matter of faith despite the numbers.
Alright then. After a cataclysm powerful enough to drive America from Africa and ram India into Asia in forty days, to form the Grand Canyon, to leave fossils on top of newly-formed mountains in every continent in the world (sorted for anatomical complexity, I might add, clever Flood) a writer writing in a Middle Eastern language can confidently say that a river with its source in a specific geographical place flows through a specific piece of land and can name them both?
It's not that Genesis claims to have been written before or after the Flood. Most of its events take place after the damn thing was supposed to have happened, you see.
The guy who wrote this bit is describing a world pre-deluge as if nothing at all had changed. He's naming places and describing them. How the hell is he supposed to know even where is?
This is the precise reason no one ever comes back on me when I mention the infinite probability of evolution occuring -- because it's a matter of faith despite the numbers.
break time is over for me
I've seen this explained to you dozens of times.
First you choose not to understand it and then you choose not to remember people have even tried to explain it to you. Man.
Comments
Originally posted by dmz
I'm really busy, you wouldn't just take my word for it, would you?
"trust me, trust me, It just isn't....because... I just know..."
sure I'll take your word for it, aren't we just 'busy' because we cannot define 'information'.
Originally posted by dmz
I'm really busy, you wouldn't just take my word for it, would you?
No. I've had a revelation that you're wrong.
Originally posted by Frank777
Doubtful. All you seem to be an expert on is that "sun god" nonsense you keep ranting about.
Have you convinced even one person on this board about it since you showed up here?
Thought so.
You haven't been on the internet very long have you.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah and MarkUK
No. I've had a revelation that you're wrong.
You guys crack me up.
Have either of been to the Antonine wall -- does it still exist?
Originally posted by dmz
Such a funny guy.
Originally posted by Benzene
Big font sizes don't make you any more believable.
gotya! before the edit
But at the same time you say "we have no reason" to expect the conditions surrounding starlight to change. Are you vouching for the nature of the universe?
You are (surely by now) aware of how The Science™ works?
Excellent. The scientific community tend to be rather too polite. Vituperative comments are far more entertaining.
Will have a look at the historical accuracy of the bible links. i suspect that there may well be a lot of historical detail in there, it being the history of a people and their interpretation of the world. although i might examine some other sites without christian in the title as well for balance.
the problem of course is the jump from 'history book' to 'definitive truth of the world and how everything ever happened'. historians get things wrong - both modern historians and blokes wandering round in the desert 4000 years ago. (er, sweeping generalizations, but you get my drift)
presumably the arguement is that the bible is a 'definitive truth of the world and how everything ever happened' because god 'made the bloke write down said definitive truth' just right.
um. too many assumptions for my taste. assume nothing often better.
are there creationists etc who believe that the earth is in fact billions of years old? That a god started the universe off, and left it to it? whatever one's belief in the existence or not a god, this fits with what we know so far and in no way clashes with the bible (just that the bible does rather well at condensing billions of years of development into a few history pages )
or, is the key precept that humans exist, therefore god exists.
I find this all rather confusing.
sorry for bibbling on. too many questions, too much hangover
-----
I've been reading creation myths and this week I've been looking at how Genesis (a really beautiful book) has been understand for the last 1,000 years or so, mostly chasing up literature about the the actual geographical location of the Garden of Eden.
It's been on the North Pole, on top of a mountain in the orbit of the moon, in Turkey, Ethiopia, under lake Galillee. Cool stuff.
Now. A river flows out of Eden and separates into four heads: the Euphrates, the Havilah, the Gilhon and the Hiddekel.
Can we find where the Garden actually was? Yes, we can. We identify the rivers and trace them back to their source; we can use satellite pictures, which Sir Walter Raleigh couldn't, and find a place that fits the geographical description of the Garden in the Old Testament. (Failing that we can look for the Cherubim with the flaming sword sent to guard the gate from Adam's descendants.) We do have a problem, in that this is very unusual behaviour for rivers, and apparently doesn't happen anywhere in the Middle East, not today at least, but we should start by identifying these rivers.
OK. The Euphrates is easy: it's big and flows out of Iraq. The Havilah is apparently an Arhamaic name for the Tigris, so that's two. The Gihon and the Hiddekel have to be rivers in the same area- but because of the desertification of the region in the last 1,000 years we're almost certainly looking for dried up watercourses, not rivers, so our problem apparently isn't as serious as it seemed at first.
Hang on. Shit. There was a really big Flood, fierce enough to make mountains, shift the continents and make the Grand Canyon, and deep enough leave fossils on top of big ranges. This certainly accounts for the fact that there is no Cherubim with a sword, because the Garden, like the rest of Earth's green places, could not have survived intact and was no longer in need of guarding.
But still, how on earth are we going to find these waddies and ancient watercourses and how can we be sure that the course of the Euphrates hasn't changed in the last 6,000 years? Actually, given the cataclysm, is there any point in the exercise at all?
But hang on redux. The Hiddekel is the river 'which goeth to the east of Assyria', according to Genesis. And Assyria is the land of Asshur.
Who was born after the great Flood.
Carbon dating, on the other hand, is inaccurate, and light from distant stars might have sped up.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
I stumbled on something interesting.
I've been reading creation myths and this week I've been looking at how Genesis (a really beautiful book) has been understand for the last 1,000 years or so, mostly chasing up literature about the the actual geographical location of the Garden of Eden.
It's been on the North Pole, on top of a mountain in the orbit of the moon, in Turkey, Ethiopia, under lake Galillee. Cool stuff.
Now. A river flows out of Eden and separates into four heads: the Euphrates, the Havilah, the Gilhon and the Hiddekel.
Can we find the Garden? Yes, we can. We identify the rivers and trace them back to their source; we can use satellite pictures, which Sir Walter Raleigh couldn't, and find a place that fits the geographical description of the Garden in the Old Testament. (Failing that we can look for the Cherubim with the flaming sword sent to guard the gate from Adam's descendants.) We do have a problem, in that this is very unusual behaviour for rivers, and apparently doesn't happen anywhere in the Middle East, not today at least, but we should start by identifying these rivers.
OK. The Euphrates is easy: it's big and flows out of Iraq. The Havilah is apparently an Arhamaic name for the Tigris, so that's two. The Havilah and the Hiddekel have to be rivers in the same area- but because of the desertification of the region in the last 1,000 years we're almost certainly looking for dried up watercourses, not rivers, so that problem isn't as serious as it seems at first.
Hang on. Shit. There was a really big Flood, fierce enough to make mountains, shift the continents and make the Grand Canyon, and deep enough leave fossils on top of big ranges. This certainly accounts for the fact that there is no Cherubim with a sword, because the Garden, like the rest of Earth's green places, could not have survived intact and was no longer in need of guarding.
But still, how on earth are we going to find these waddies and ancient watercourses and how can we be sure that the course of the Euphrates hasn't changed in the last 6,000 years? Actually, given the cataclysm, is there any point in the exercise at all?
But hang on redux. The Hiddekel is the river 'which goeth to the east of Assyria', according to Genesis. And Assyria is the land of Asshur.
Who was born after the great Flood.
Carbon dating, on the other hand, is inaccurate, and light from distant stars might have sped up.
What a second there, I thought for sure that the names for those places came with affidavits testifying to their uniquness, complete with plat maps and GPS data.
(Carbon dating is based on how much orignal assumptions on original concentrations. If you're going to use something to rag on Creationism, use KAr dating (the startlight thing is good too).)
But, you're doing it agian, the insurmountable odds against Evolution are easily transversed in a single leap of faith, while the Creationists are allowed none.
Originally posted by dmz
But, you're doing it agian, the insurmountable odds against Evolution are easily transversed in a single leap of faith, while the Creationists are allowed none.
You're not allowed a leap of faith. Either Genesis is an accurate description of what actually happened or it isn't. If it is, it has to be historically and geographically consistent. If it isn't, in any regard, we can't pick and choose which parts are accurate and which aren't. Your explanation, which is utterly dependent on the literal accuracy of this part of the Old Testament, is finished.
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
I stumbled on something interesting....
But hang on redux. The Hiddekel is the river 'which goeth to the east of Assyria', according to Genesis. And Assyria is the land of Asshur.
Who was born after the great Flood.
Carbon dating, on the other hand, is inaccurate, and light from distant stars might have sped up.
I honestly don't see your problem.
The Genesis account never claims to be written before the Flood, and the text refers to a river in a place that was known to people at the time of writing as Assyria.
Originally posted by Frank777
I honestly don't see your problem.
The Genesis account never claims to be written before the Flood, and the text refers to a river in a place that was known to people at the time of writing as Assyria.
Nice reductionist, simplistic, binary thinking sig you got there.
Im going to say a really rude, blasphemous, evil word now. You might want to close your eyes and pray.
.
.
.
.
.
"Astrotheology"
But it's typical. You can't find a problem with my post so you attack the sig, and bring up some unrelated nonsense.
Let Hassan and Tonton address the skeptic side of this thread. At least they have the whole intelligence thing going for them.
Originally posted by Frank777
Perhaps some kind soul who's been on this board awhile would like to enlighten Marc about who's quote in my sig (from the recent U.S. election campaign.)
But it's typical. You can't find a problem with my post so you attack the sig, and bring up some unrelated nonsense.
Let Hassan and Tonton address the skeptic side of this thread. At least they have the whole intelligence thing going for them.
ooooh, scratch, scratch, scratch....
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
You're not allowed a leap of faith. Either Genesis is an accurate description of what actually happened or it isn't. If it is, it has to be historically and geographically consistent. If it isn't, in any regard, we can't pick and choose which parts are accurate and which aren't. Your explanation, which is utterly dependent on the literal accuracy of this part of the Old Testament, is finished.
Yes, in theory, that is correct. In this case, you are attempting to read much into the text more than it claims. And you place all problems with the messenger and none with the reciever -- agian, you assume the human mind to be completely sufficient to itself.
At any rate, like segovious' "problem" in Luke, these "problems" all have probable explanations. You can look to the "Cain where is your brother" examples, or even attempt to impose modern cosmology on Genesis -- as if God couldn't overide the laws of physics -- (the Big Bang theory does this as well.)
The "mistakes" and "errors" of the Bible are nearly symantic in nature. The "...Jesus was by the lake/he wasn't by the lake" type "problems" don't all have "airtight" solutions, but it is a matter of Faith to believe that they will have airtight explanations at some point. For now the probable explanations will have to do -- not that I've ever heard that sort of statement from an evolutionist. Oooooohhh noooooooo.
It's important to note, as a system of truth, the Bible doesn't have these problems.
But like I've said, you don't believe it's possible for the Bible to exist as a fixed revelation of God, so why even feign interest? If you applied the same scrutiny to science you would find it impossible to believe in it as authoritative on the true nature of the universe -- but since your belief is in your own intellect as self-sufficient, and mankind's in general as even more so, you can ignore what you see in order to see what you wish. This is the precise reason no one ever comes back on me when I mention the infinite probability of evolution occuring -- because it's a matter of faith despite the numbers.
break time is over for me
It's not that Genesis claims to have been written before or after the Flood. Most of its events take place after the damn thing was supposed to have happened, you see.
The guy who wrote this bit is describing a world pre-deluge as if nothing at all had changed. He's naming places and describing them. How the hell is he supposed to know even where is?
Originally posted by dmz
This is the precise reason no one ever comes back on me when I mention the infinite probability of evolution occuring -- because it's a matter of faith despite the numbers.
break time is over for me
I've seen this explained to you dozens of times.
First you choose not to understand it and then you choose not to remember people have even tried to explain it to you. Man.
Breaktime's over for me too.
probabilities
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html
starlight
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE412.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/distance.html
carbon dating
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-c14.html