Changes

:::::From what I have read, ‘the experts’ generally agree very little on the true nature of Genesis, and for a large part it depends on their religious orientation.  Many understand the main creation story literally, but others don’t.  A small group of Christians, apparently known as '[[Progressive Creationists]]' have spoken to me about the 6-days of creation existing in a metaphorical sense, and this is where much of my confusion arises; if one group of Christians says it means one thing and then another tells me that without doubt it means another, then I’m confused before I get to reading the first page.  What I can gather is that to some it is a literal text peppered with metaphors and parables; just to cover all eventualities!  I can understand the points in the [[Creation Week]] link, as long as you take what is written in the Bible as the perfect word of God, but my point is about the writing down of the Bible; it may be just my curious nature to question everything, but I would question; would Moses understand anything conveyed to him by a perfect and omnipotent being? Would God have had the same concept of a day as we do?  With regards to the reference to morning and evening; if Moses understood the days as God told him to be 24 hours, did he try to clarify this to the next reader by adding the reference?  And even though it is partially covered in the [[Creation Week]] link, could it not still have been poetic?  After all, much contemporary poetry does not follow implicit rules and often with revelatory texts, seeks to break with tradition.

:::::From what I have read, ‘the experts’ generally agree very little on the true nature of Genesis, and for a large part it depends on their religious orientation.  Many understand the main creation story literally, but others don’t.  A small group of Christians, apparently known as '[[Progressive Creationists]]' have spoken to me about the 6-days of creation existing in a metaphorical sense, and this is where much of my confusion arises; if one group of Christians says it means one thing and then another tells me that without doubt it means another, then I’m confused before I get to reading the first page.  What I can gather is that to some it is a literal text peppered with metaphors and parables; just to cover all eventualities!  I can understand the points in the [[Creation Week]] link, as long as you take what is written in the Bible as the perfect word of God, but my point is about the writing down of the Bible; it may be just my curious nature to question everything, but I would question; would Moses understand anything conveyed to him by a perfect and omnipotent being? Would God have had the same concept of a day as we do?  With regards to the reference to morning and evening; if Moses understood the days as God told him to be 24 hours, did he try to clarify this to the next reader by adding the reference?  And even though it is partially covered in the [[Creation Week]] link, could it not still have been poetic?  After all, much contemporary poetry does not follow implicit rules and often with revelatory texts, seeks to break with tradition.

:::::You may believe that God spoke to you through the [Bible] and I may believe that he has, but I may also believe that [Buddha] has passed on some of his enlightened wisdom in his texts when he says; ‘do not believe on the faith of Sages of the past’.  My point was that Moses (and others) traditionally wrote much of the Old Testament, and Moses was a man.  Men often create or imagine figures of God or ideas of Spirituality in order to persuade themselves that they are inspired by a higher power.  They also create ideas in order to manipulate groups of people into abiding by their will.  Men are also often wrong.  Therefore, my point is that you cannot be sure that what Moses said and wrote is the word of God, even if you believe that the Bible is exactly what Moses (etc.) said and wrote. As you well know, the first five books of the Old Testament are known as the "[Pentateuch]".  Tradition states these books to have been written by Moses.  This is improbable, since these books speak of Moses in the third person throughout and also more conclusively, they tell of the death of Moses in [Deuteronomy] 34:5.  I find that while many Christians are quick to accept archaeological data that verifies a piece of Biblical history, and are quick to accept scholars' conclusions on the questionable nature of scriptures of other religions, they downplay a critical study of their own scripture, the Bible.

:::::You may believe that God spoke to you through [The Bible] and I may believe that he has, but I may also believe that [Buddha] has passed on some of his enlightened wisdom in his texts when he says; ‘do not believe on the faith of Sages of the past’.  My point was that Moses (and others) traditionally wrote much of the Old Testament, and Moses was a man.  Men often create or imagine figures of God or ideas of Spirituality in order to persuade themselves that they are inspired by a higher power.  They also create ideas in order to manipulate groups of people into abiding by their will.  Men are also often wrong.  Therefore, my point is that you cannot be sure that what Moses said and wrote is the word of God, even if you believe that the Bible is exactly what Moses (etc.) said and wrote. As you well know, the first five books of the Old Testament are known as the "[Pentateuch]".  Tradition states these books to have been written by Moses.  This is improbable, since these books speak of Moses in the third person throughout and also more conclusively, they tell of the death of Moses in [Deuteronomy] 34:5.  I find that while many Christians are quick to accept archaeological data that verifies a piece of Biblical history, and are quick to accept scholars' conclusions on the questionable nature of scriptures of other religions, they downplay a critical study of their own scripture, the Bible.

:::::My small point about translation (your Strike 1, 2 & 3) was questioning – as you point out the language is quite loose; ‘isn’t it conceivable that…over thousands of years’ etc. If you read the King James Version, it is most likely that you have as accurate version as possible.  As historians (or part-time historians), we cannot know what has happened in the past, we can only critically examine the evidence we have to create an idea of what has or might have happened, that is what history is.  To claim that anything in the past is definite is to speak outside of your authority whether you are a historian, scientist, philosopher or anything, so even one translation to English could have been changed in some ways.

:::::My small point about translation (your Strike 1, 2 & 3) was questioning – as you point out the language is quite loose; ‘isn’t it conceivable that…over thousands of years’ etc. If you read the King James Version, it is most likely that you have as accurate version as possible.  As historians (or part-time historians), we cannot know what has happened in the past, we can only critically examine the evidence we have to create an idea of what has or might have happened, that is what history is.  To claim that anything in the past is definite is to speak outside of your authority whether you are a historian, scientist, philosopher or anything, so even one translation to English could have been changed in some ways.

:::::''On the basis of scientific evidence, dinosaurs existed millions of years ago…” : No, that's on the basis of the evolutionary theory, not the scientific evidence…” …this idea is rejected by Creationists, who claim the science is wrong.:  No, they claim that the philosophy underlying evolution is wrong, not the science.”''  I’m sorry but that is pure ignorance.  It is not proved or disproved on the basis of the evolutionary theory; it is on the basis of fossil evidence and dating methods.  If you can give me your scientific opposition to the various methods of dating, which have been used to accurately measure the ages of various buildings and relics around the world then please, let me know, but don’t try and discredit what I’m saying by using the evolutionary theory argument, because that is not relevant here.  Christians often use carbon or radiometric dating as evidence that events occurred at a time in-keeping with that in the Bible, as seen [http://www.s8int.com/edom.html here], however when it is used to prove the age of the dinosaurs is millions of years, it is repudiated, often citing that dinosaur bones are ‘too old to be accurately dated’ or ‘the methods are inaccurate’, though most leading scientists maintain that these claims are [http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton.html unfounded]. Please don’t say tell me that carbon dating cannot date anything beyond 70,000 years, because I know.  It is the dating techniques using ‘rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years’ to which I am referring.

:::::''On the basis of scientific evidence, dinosaurs existed millions of years ago…” : No, that's on the basis of the evolutionary theory, not the scientific evidence…” …this idea is rejected by Creationists, who claim the science is wrong.:  No, they claim that the philosophy underlying evolution is wrong, not the science.”''  I’m sorry but that is pure ignorance.  It is not proved or disproved on the basis of the evolutionary theory; it is on the basis of fossil evidence and dating methods.  If you can give me your scientific opposition to the various methods of dating, which have been used to accurately measure the ages of various buildings and relics around the world then please, let me know, but don’t try and discredit what I’m saying by using the evolutionary theory argument, because that is not relevant here.  Christians often use carbon or radiometric dating as evidence that events occurred at a time in-keeping with that in the Bible, as seen [http://www.s8int.com/edom.html here], however when it is used to prove the age of the dinosaurs is millions of years, it is repudiated, often citing that dinosaur bones are ‘too old to be accurately dated’ or ‘the methods are inaccurate’, though most leading scientists maintain that these claims are [http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton.html unfounded]. Please don’t say tell me that carbon dating cannot date anything beyond 70,000 years, because I know.  It is the dating techniques using ‘rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead, all of which have very long half-lives, ranging from 0.7 to 48.6 billion years’ to which I am referring.

::::: ''Proposed size?  Are you so ignorant of the idea that you dismiss so readily that you are not even aware that the Bible records the size of the ark?''  No I’m not that ignorant, to be honest I didn’t really know what a ‘[cubit]’ was and I admit I could have phrased the question better. 300 x 50 x 30 cubits could have meant anything to me; I thought maybe you could provide me with a useful answer of how big that would be in terms of commonly used measurements today, rather than attack the wording and theory of my question.  Please also do not accuse me of readily dismissing anything; it is with some consideration and a desire for truth that I look beyond what I have been taught.  Having researched it further it seems that, contrary to my earlier claim, that Noah’s ark may well have been of the size required to carry all of the kinds of creatures, not species, that are on the earth today.  That is, as long as such a large vessel could have been constructed (one would not have been seen again until the 19th Century).  And of course as long as there weren’t hundreds of 50ft lizards marauding through the corridors!

::::: ''Proposed size?  Are you so ignorant of the idea that you dismiss so readily that you are not even aware that the Bible records the size of the ark?''  No I’m not that ignorant, to be honest I didn’t really know what a ‘cubit’ was and I admit I could have phrased the question better. 300 x 50 x 30 cubits could have meant anything to me; I thought maybe you could provide me with a useful answer of how big that would be in terms of commonly used measurements today, rather than attack the wording and theory of my question.  Please also do not accuse me of readily dismissing anything; it is with some consideration and a desire for truth that I look beyond what I have been taught.  Having researched it further it seems that, contrary to my earlier claim, that Noah’s ark may well have been of the size required to carry all of the kinds of creatures, not species, that are on the earth today.  That is, as long as such a large vessel could have been constructed (one would not have been seen again until the 19th Century).  And of course as long as there weren’t hundreds of 50ft lizards marauding through the corridors!

:::::''You don't know how big the ark was, you haven't got any figures on how many animals would need to have been on it, yet you can conclude that it's not big enough...'' Being English I love a good bit of sarcasm and that was pretty tasty!  It was a sweeping generalization admittedly, but the reason for the ambiguity in figures is that as you can see above, I had no idea how big the stated size of the ark actually meant it was, and also because there is often confusion as to whether the reference to ‘each kind’ in the Bible is referring to each individual species to the smallest variation, or a more general division.

:::::''You don't know how big the ark was, you haven't got any figures on how many animals would need to have been on it, yet you can conclude that it's not big enough...'' Being English I love a good bit of sarcasm and that was pretty tasty!  It was a sweeping generalization admittedly, but the reason for the ambiguity in figures is that as you can see above, I had no idea how big the stated size of the ark actually meant it was, and also because there is often confusion as to whether the reference to ‘each kind’ in the Bible is referring to each individual species to the smallest variation, or a more general division.

:::::''I trust that you won't return here with more arguments until you have actually learnt a reasonable amount about the subject.''  Please don't accuse me of knowing next to nothing about a subject you only understand from one point of view.  I can accept that some of the things I have written are probably wrong, and others have been phrased badly.  I hope you can as well.  My original post here had no real agenda, and this has now developed very much into a two person discusion of providing counter-arguments for each other without getting far.  Whilst I have found it useful and also very interesting, I had hoped to find more of a discussion with a lot more theoretical and philosophical musings.  I find it very frustrating that we, as humans, unconditionally rely on unproven science and theoretical history to prove our own points, whilst dismissing other science because it is only theoretical.  That is the very point of science, and the very nature of it since [Aristotle] first set out a logical way of thinking.  You observe, predict, then experiment and adjust; it is an ongoing process of refining and defining.  Once you have created a theory, as a scientist the very first thing you should do is to examine it under the conditions it is most likely to be proved false.  That is science; it doesn’t claim to know the ultimate answers, just guide you towards what’s right. While this is completely off-topic again, I found it very [http://members.aol.com/projbin/plerdyn.htm /interesting].  I hope you don't find my points or arguments offensive because they aren't meant to be.  As I have said before, my purpose here is understanding, hoping both to be understood and to understand. [[User:Entheogenicorder|Entheogenicorder]] 15:57, 5 February 2008 (BWT)

:::::''I trust that you won't return here with more arguments until you have actually learnt a reasonable amount about the subject.''  Please don't accuse me of knowing next to nothing about a subject you only understand from one point of view.  I can accept that some of the things I have written are probably wrong, and others have been phrased badly.  I hope you can as well.  My original post here had no real agenda, and this has now developed very much into a two person discusion of providing counter-arguments for each other without getting far.  Whilst I have found it useful and also very interesting, I had hoped to find more of a discussion with a lot more theoretical and philosophical musings.  I find it very frustrating that we, as humans, unconditionally rely on unproven science and theoretical history to prove our own points, whilst dismissing other science because it is only theoretical.  That is the very point of science, and the very nature of it since Aristotle first set out a logical way of thinking.  You observe, predict, then experiment and adjust; it is an ongoing process of refining and defining.  Once you have created a theory, as a scientist the very first thing you should do is to examine it under the conditions it is most likely to be proved false.  That is science; it doesn’t claim to know the ultimate answers, just guide you towards what’s right. While this is completely off-topic again, I found it very [http://members.aol.com/projbin/plerdyn.htm interesting].  I hope you don't find my points or arguments offensive because they aren't meant to be.  As I have said before, my purpose here is understanding, hoping both to be understood and to understand. [[User:Entheogenicorder|Entheogenicorder]] 15:57, 5 February 2008 (BWT)

== Dinosaurs are not Reptiles ==

== Dinosaurs are not Reptiles ==