Changes

Defining "literal meaning"  as how people understood it at the time when it was written, is useful, so lets stick with it. However, I didn't claim that Moses wrote the the Pentateuch, I said that this is the traditional view. Modern scholars are  looking at style, word choice, and historic context, and came to the conclusion that the Pentateuch was compiled from a few earlier sources quite some time after Moses died. So, neither Adam nor Moses would be the main author, it would have been from a collection of sources, and Moses might or might not have been one of them. But if we look at the bible as contemporaries understood it, they did believe that the books were written by Moses. And both you and the modern scholars disagree with this traditional view.

Defining "literal meaning"  as how people understood it at the time when it was written, is useful, so lets stick with it. However, I didn't claim that Moses wrote the the Pentateuch, I said that this is the traditional view. Modern scholars are  looking at style, word choice, and historic context, and came to the conclusion that the Pentateuch was compiled from a few earlier sources quite some time after Moses died. So, neither Adam nor Moses would be the main author, it would have been from a collection of sources, and Moses might or might not have been one of them. But if we look at the bible as contemporaries understood it, they did believe that the books were written by Moses. And both you and the modern scholars disagree with this traditional view.

Call the creation account auto-biography if you like that better. However there is no account how the auto-biography was transferred into written from, it might be Adam, it might be Moses, it might be someone else, and we do not only not know who it was, we don't even know if he is reliable. It was been said that Moses wrote down the laws, but for the rest on the Pentateuch it is mostly unclear who wrote it. When police makes a record of an eyewitness account, they make sure that they got a signature of witness and interrogator. A report of a person claiming to have heard an eyewitness account isn't an eyewitness account anymore.  

Call the creation account auto-biography if you like that better. However there is no account how the auto-biography was transferred into written form, it might be Adam, it might be Moses, it might be someone else, and we do not only not know who it was, we don't even know if he is reliable. It was been said that Moses wrote down the laws, but for the rest on the Pentateuch it is mostly unclear who wrote it. When police makes a record of an eyewitness account, they make sure that they got a signature of witness and interrogator. A report of a person claiming to have heard an eyewitness account isn't an eyewitness account anymore.  

And the colophon that you mentioned doesn't say that it was written by Adam, it simply says that it was about Adam and his line. [[User:Order|Order]] 07:35, 9 December 2007 (EST)  

And the colophon that you mentioned doesn't say that it was written by Adam, it simply says that it was about Adam and his line. [[User:Order|Order]] 07:35, 9 December 2007 (EST)  

:"''From you wording it seems like you take  personal offense at scientists developing theories that contradict your reading of the bible.''":  What I object to is the scientists who didn't witness past events claiming superiority over God who did witness those events.

:"''From you wording it seems like you take  personal offense at scientists developing theories that contradict your reading of the bible.''":  What I object to is the scientists who didn't witness past events claiming superiority over God who did witness those events.

::What you demand of these scientists is to subject themselves to your beliefs, even though they do not share your beliefs. [[User:Order|Order]]  

::What you demand of these scientists is to subject themselves to your beliefs, even though they do not share your beliefs. [[User:Order|Order]]  

::::::::::: The maths actually work against it, as shown by evolutionists Hoyle and Wrickramasinghe.  As for there being some evidence, claiming it without demonstrating it is a non-argument.  There is almost no material evidence.  No, I can't blame others for relying on more reliable evidence, but I'm disputing that the arguments based on materialistic assumptions ''are'' more reliable.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:32, 9 December 2007 (EST)

::::::::::: The maths actually work against it, as shown by evolutionists Hoyle and Wrickramasinghe.  As for there being some evidence, claiming it without demonstrating it is a non-argument.  There is almost no material evidence.  No, I can't blame others for relying on more reliable evidence, but I'm disputing that the arguments based on materialistic assumptions ''are'' more reliable.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:32, 9 December 2007 (EST)

Hoyle and Wrickramasinghe were advocating panspermia, and their argument deals with abiogenisis. We've been over this before. Look at the work of Rechenberg, Fogel, and Holland, who have proven that simple arguments from improbability are not applying to evolution, i.e. they have proven mathematically that evolution is not a random walk. If you want to promote Hoyle's idea of panspermia to solve the problem of abiogenesis, feel free to do so. But this is a tangent. [[User:Order|Order]] 17:44, 9 December 2007 (EST)

Hoyle and Wrickramasinghe were advocating panspermia, and their argument deals with abiogenisis. We've been over this before. Look at the work of Rechenberg, Fogel, and Holland, who have proven that simple arguments from improbability are not applying to evolution, i.e. they have proven mathematically that evolution is not a random walk. If you want to promote Hoyle's idea of panspermia to solve the problem of abiogenesis, feel free to do so. But this is a tangent. [[User:Order|Order]] 17:44, 9 December 2007 (EST)

:"''And yes, I mean '''your''' reading of the bible, because even you do not read all of it literal.''":  I don't read all of it literally because it wasn't meant to be read literally!  If I read it the way that it was meant to be understood, how does that make it "my" reading?

:"''And yes, I mean '''your''' reading of the bible, because even you do not read all of it literal.''":  I don't read all of it literally because it wasn't meant to be read literally!  If I read it the way that it was meant to be understood, how does that make it "my" reading?

::How do you know how it should be understood? You do it by interpretation. Do you think that old earthers decided to go for an interpretation which they assume to be wrong? No, they follow it, because they think that it is the right interpretation. Anything else implies that they are kind of insane. [[User:Order|Order]]

::How do you know how it should be understood? You do it by interpretation. Do you think that old earthers decided to go for an interpretation which they assume to be wrong? No, they follow it, because they think that it is the right interpretation. Anything else implies that they are kind of insane. [[User:Order|Order]]

:::::::::::: I feel the urge to dismiss them as unjustified because I believe that they ''are'' unjustified.  I'm not going above some of the most prominent church teachers; I'm going along with the vast majority.  Augustine was an exception to the rule, but even so did not attempt to harmonise with scientific findings nor with old Earth ideas.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:32, 9 December 2007 (EST)

:::::::::::: I feel the urge to dismiss them as unjustified because I believe that they ''are'' unjustified.  I'm not going above some of the most prominent church teachers; I'm going along with the vast majority.  Augustine was an exception to the rule, but even so did not attempt to harmonise with scientific findings nor with old Earth ideas.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:32, 9 December 2007 (EST)

We do know that you think that they are unjustified. And calling someone like Augustine unqualified, looks like you are picking on someone just because the person disagrees with you. Furthermore, St. Augustine did advise to harmonize scripture with scientific findings. He explicitly acknowledged that people of another persuasion can have knowledge about the world, and said that is "disgraceful" to see people arguing against them just because it might be in conflict with scripture.  [[User:Order|Order]] 07:35, 9 December 2007 (EST)

We do know that you think that they are unjustified. And calling someone like Augustine unqualified, looks like you are picking on someone just because the person disagrees with you. Furthermore, St. Augustine did advise to harmonize scripture with scientific findings. He explicitly acknowledged that people of another persuasion can have knowledge about the world, and said that is "disgraceful" to see people arguing against them just because it might be in conflict with scripture.  [[User:Order|Order]] 07:35, 9 December 2007 (EST)

:"''...scientists do not propose a theory because they are evil, or because they don't like your god, but simply because they try to come up with the best explanation for the observations that they see.''":  Are you seriously claiming that atheistic scientists (i.e. the subset that is atheistic) have no motive to find explanations that exclude God?  Even evolutionists will admit that Darwin's motive was to eliminate God, and this was also the motive of people like Hutton and Lyell.

:"''...scientists do not propose a theory because they are evil, or because they don't like your god, but simply because they try to come up with the best explanation for the observations that they see.''":  Are you seriously claiming that atheistic scientists (i.e. the subset that is atheistic) have no motive to find explanations that exclude God?  Even evolutionists will admit that Darwin's motive was to eliminate God, and this was also the motive of people like Hutton and Lyell.

::Yes, this is exactly what I am claiming. You claim that scientists have as ulterior motives to bring down god. Darwin did not travel around the world because he was angry with god, but because he was curious. He didn't propose his theory because he wanted to debunk the bible, but because lamarckism and catastrophism didn't explain what he saw very well. {{unsigned|Order}}

::Yes, this is exactly what I am claiming. You claim that scientists have as ulterior motives to bring down god. Darwin did not travel around the world because he was angry with god, but because he was curious. He didn't propose his theory because he wanted to debunk the bible, but because lamarckism and catastrophism didn't explain what he saw very well. {{unsigned|Order}}

::::::::::: I'm not "hiding", just pointing out a very pertinent fact.  I'm not rejecting "any claim about the past".  I'm rejecting claims based on ideology where they conflict with reliable eyewitness accounts.  I'm rejecting the claim that ideology-based science is the only reliable source of information.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:32, 9 December 2007 (EST)

::::::::::: I'm not "hiding", just pointing out a very pertinent fact.  I'm not rejecting "any claim about the past".  I'm rejecting claims based on ideology where they conflict with reliable eyewitness accounts.  I'm rejecting the claim that ideology-based science is the only reliable source of information.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:32, 9 December 2007 (EST)

If a test of a prediction of the supernatural wants qualify as a scientific test, it should, if it fails, tell you something about the supernatural. And you have been arguing that you can't know about things that happened in the past. But feel free to drop that assumption, it wasn't very useful. However, if you want to stick to this "pertinent fact", then accept that this pertinent fact also applies to you. We know that you think that certain findings are based on ideology, but it seem like you are labeling them as ideological because the are against your "ideology". The findings you are arguing against have been proposed and observed by scientists with all kinds of background, and it would be hard to find an ideology that they all share. [[User:Order|Order]] 07:35, 9 December 2007 (EST)

If a test of a prediction of the supernatural wants qualify as a scientific test, it should, if it fails, tell you something about the supernatural. And you have been arguing that you can't know about things that happened in the past. But feel free to drop that assumption, it wasn't very useful. However, if you want to stick to this "pertinent fact", then accept that this pertinent fact also applies to you. We know that you think that certain findings are based on ideology, but it seem like you are labeling them as ideological because the are against your "ideology". The findings you are arguing against have been proposed and observed by scientists with all kinds of background, and it would be hard to find an ideology that they all share. [[User:Order|Order]] 07:35, 9 December 2007 (EST)

:"''It doesn't give useful answers to the scientific questions.''": It is, in that sense, not a science book, but that doesn't meant that when it touches on areas of science, such as astronomy (creation of sun, moon, and stars), geology (flood), etc. that it is incorrect.

:"''It doesn't give useful answers to the scientific questions.''": It is, in that sense, not a science book, but that doesn't meant that when it touches on areas of science, such as astronomy (creation of sun, moon, and stars), geology (flood), etc. that it is incorrect.

::No, sometimes it is correct, sometimes its incorrect. And the knowledge in it is patchy. It doesn't tell us how the moon sun or starts were made, only that it happened. Is say not much about geology, nothing about how rock formations, clay, granite, minerals, natural resources were formed. And physics is mostly absent, just like mathematics. [[User:Order|Order]]

::No, sometimes it is correct, sometimes its incorrect. And the knowledge in it is patchy. It doesn't tell us how the moon sun or starts were made, only that it happened. Is say not much about geology, nothing about how rock formations, clay, granite, minerals, natural resources were formed. And physics is mostly absent, just like mathematics. [[User:Order|Order]]

::::::::::: I'm not repeating it to make it better, but to remind you of something that you appear to have forgotten or overlooked.  If God witnessed it (as He must, because He is omniscient), then there ''was'' an eyewitness.  That there were no ''human'' eyewitnesses is artificially restricting the possibilities.  I "want to prove ... that all other interpretations are wrong" because I believe that they ''are'' wrong, and want the truth to be known, and because the incorrect ideas are undermining efforts to evangelise.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:32, 9 December 2007 (EST)

::::::::::: I'm not repeating it to make it better, but to remind you of something that you appear to have forgotten or overlooked.  If God witnessed it (as He must, because He is omniscient), then there ''was'' an eyewitness.  That there were no ''human'' eyewitnesses is artificially restricting the possibilities.  I "want to prove ... that all other interpretations are wrong" because I believe that they ''are'' wrong, and want the truth to be known, and because the incorrect ideas are undermining efforts to evangelise.  [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 05:32, 9 December 2007 (EST)

Problem is that we only have human accounts about what the non-human eyewitness account might have been. Furthermore, your view is based on quite a few assumptions, which is fine when talking religion. But when you claim it is science, you will have to accept that scientist drop some of the assumptions to see if the same couldn't be explained without. That's part of Occam's Razor. If you bring you faith based account to the dissection table of science, don't be surprised if it gets dissected. But, it is good to know that you want to disprove any other account, because you want to evangelize. This way of evangelism exactly what St Augustine warned against, but we already know that you don't think too highly of him. [[User:Order|Order]] 07:35, 9 December 2007 (EST)

Problem is that we only have human accounts about what the non-human eyewitness account might have been. Furthermore, your view is based on quite a few assumptions, which is fine when talking religion. But when you claim it is science, you will have to accept that scientist drop some of the assumptions to see if the same couldn't be explained without. That's part of Occam's Razor. If you bring you faith based account to the dissection table of science, don't be surprised if it gets dissected. But, it is good to know that you want to disprove any other account, because you want to evangelize. This way of evangelism exactly what St Augustine warned against, but we already know that you don't think too highly of him. [[User:Order|Order]] 07:35, 9 December 2007 (EST)

:"''When scientists develop theories that contradict your interpretation of the bible, they do it because they have a different interpretation of the bible, and not because they want to bring god down.''": Already answered above.

:"''When scientists develop theories that contradict your interpretation of the bible, they do it because they have a different interpretation of the bible, and not because they want to bring god down.''": Already answered above.

:"'' ''Their'' findings do not contradict ''their'' view of the bible, only ''your'' view of it.''":  Which scientists are you talking about?  In the case of atheists, their "findings" often ''do'' contradict "their" reading of it—because that is their motive.  That's why we have so many atheists claiming that the Bible got it wrong—because they believe that the science ''does'' contradict (their reading of) the Bible.

:"'' ''Their'' findings do not contradict ''their'' view of the bible, only ''your'' view of it.''":  Which scientists are you talking about?  In the case of atheists, their "findings" often ''do'' contradict "their" reading of it—because that is their motive.  That's why we have so many atheists claiming that the Bible got it wrong—because they believe that the science ''does'' contradict (their reading of) the Bible.