Difference between revisions of "Talk:World History Lecture One"

Latest revision as of 15:03, August 30, 2011

It was fun reading the first part of the article. But how many lies can one man bare? How much explicit nonsense remains funny? After a while it really became scary. Do you realize that innocent kids might read this? They may even believe that this is the truth.That is dangerous. Kids have a right to know the truth, this article sums up about every ill formed historcal view ever created.

You call scientists biased, have you ever thought about your own bias? Believing in something because someone else beleives it, or because you 'feel it in your heart'. In fact you call me a liar. That is bad, since I am fully sincere. If there were a god, he'd punish you for being so wrecklessly ignorant. This is one of the few moments i wish there were a god.

You abuse history, that is a very bad thing to do. That is how wars start. That is what causes the death of too many innocent people.

Europe is filled with beautiful artworks painted on the walls of caves. The dating of these artworks through geological evidence, radiocarbon dating and other evidence clearly places these artworks (and the primitive civilizations that created them) at between 20 and 30 million years old. The artworks reveal complex hunting systems, complex social hierarchies and tool-making. Popo 23:33, Mar 14, 2007 (UTC)

Bullflop. Not even atheist scientists claim the cave paintings are 20 to 30 million years old. That would be millions of years before the apes began walking upright, according to evolutionists. So not only are you wrong about the age of the earth, you can't even get the Darwinist claims right.--Conservateur 02:06, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

And I believe they have found writing as far back as 5500 BC in Pakistan.[1]--Jack 01:20, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Oops, misread the article. It is 5500 years old, but nevertheless in Pakistan, not Iraq.--Jack 01:21, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

I am who I am

You repeat the "I am who I am" thing several times, but do you know any biblical hebrew? YHVH (and no, it's not YHWH, there's no W sound in hebrew, it's a vav) is an unpronounceable word. It's a combination of the past, present, and future forms of the verb "to be", therefore indicating that God is, always has been, and always will be. The tetragrammaton does NOT mean "I am who I am" or "I am that I am", "I am that I am" is simply God's response to Moses asking about his name.

Your entry is unsigned, and I'd like to learn more. What are you saying YHVH means, in a simple translation???--Aschlafly 01:21, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

I think your unsigned interlocutor was correct on this one. I don't think there's a straight translation of the Name; there's certainly no Jewish tradition of one, and not a Christian one that I'm aware of - hence the LXX translating the k're Adonai with Kurie. There is something of the verb "to be" about it, but nothing susceptible to straight translation or simple explanation. DeniseM 18:45, 4 February 2009 (EST)

"YHWH" is more common than "YHVH".--Andy Schlafly 11:03, 30 August 2011 (EDT)

How dare you introduce fact? Escpecially delving into linguistics and semantics.  ;) NousEpirrhytos 15:08, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Why is every featured article locked? Now I think I know

Ah, why bother, questions are never answered either. Still awaiting proof that Scopes had an effect on the 2000 Presidential election. NousEpirrhytos 15:19, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Uh, "to calculus (English)"...forgot about Liebniz? NousEpirrhytos 15:23, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Which one do you want to edit? I can unprotect it for you, if you have a good reason. --Ed Poor 15:27, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Liebniz was German...just change it to "English and German". Any idea what grade level this lecture was written for?

I'll just post the factual errors here -- you decide what to correct. Thanks. NousEpirrhytos 15:38, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Any source for this? "People were probably smarter than they are today." Are we talking devolution here? NousEpirrhytos 16:34, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Glad to see calculus was fixed. Anyway, this: "Indus (IN-dus) Valley: 2900 BC" is incorrect -- it should read 3300 BC. NousEpirrhytos 16:37, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

This, "There is no reason to think that man existed for thousands of years without ever expressing himself in written form." is as stupid as saying that there's no good reason it took until 1903 for a heavier-than-air flying machine to be built. Andy, you really might want to do some research into linguistics and the nature and genesis of writing. Also see oral traditions and economics. NousEpirrhytos 16:43, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Uh, no... "language ... [was]] ... created in ancient history". Language was created in pre-history, writing was created in ancient history. NousEpirrhytos 16:50, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Uh, no "There is no reliable evidence of man existing before 3500 B.C." -- fossil evidence (oh yeah, that's bad)...hmmm, let's think about the cave pictures that we know are 35K years old? Come on, Andy, why are you lying to children? NousEpirrhytos 17:06, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Well, what about those cave paintings. Do you know how the date 35K was arrived at?--Aschlafly 01:24, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

Yep. Unless you can prove dating methods based on the half-life of certain isotopes to be wrong, you're standing on a crumbling shore. BTW: without looking it up, can you define "half-life"? NousEpirrhytos 18:59, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

The hwut? "Indo-Aryan language" NousEpirrhytos 17:07, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

"only about 300 million people existed in the world at the time of Christ, and extrapolating backwards further yields only one family in the year 3300 B.C" Can I see the math? What were your presumptions? NousEpirrhytos 17:13, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Hmmmm..."Old trees never predate this time either; the oldest sequoias, which never die of old age, are only 4000 years old." But the flood was 1000 years earlier. No sequoias for 1000 years? Besides, sequoias typically live for only 2000-2200 years, dying most frequently of disease or lightning strikes. NousEpirrhytos 17:26, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

"No “civilization” has been found that is older than about 3000 B.C." And yet in the chart immediately following this statement we have Mesopotamia listed at 3500 BC. Hmmm. NousEpirrhytos 17:28, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

People lived before 3000 B.C. It's the lack of civilizations surviving that I noted.--Aschlafly 01:24, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

And yet Mesopotamia had a full-blown civilisation. What do you mean by surviving? NousEpirrhytos 18:57, 28 March 2007 (EDT)

Cite please: "The dates of these ages are controversial, and historians have a bias for giving them older dates than proven by archaeology." NousEpirrhytos 17:29, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Dates

I noticed one mistake (at least I'm pretty sure it is one). Isn't the 5th Century BC 500-401 not 401-500? The years went backwards until they reached 0, then started counting up. Jrssr5 14:07, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

I fixed it. MountainDew 17:19, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

uhm... sources?

Maybe it's just me, but how on earth is any of information trustworthy when no sources are mentioned anywhere? All that is written here could just as well be made up, because there's no way to verify it. --Jacobsen 17:30, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

More dates

Is this a logic problem for the home schooled children: spot the inconsistencies in the dates? They just don't hang together. For instance, it claims the writing was invented 400 years before there was any trace of language; the first trace of civilisation was in 3000 B.C., but there are traces of the Mesopotamian civilisation in 3500 B.C., even though there was only one family in 3300 B.C. and so on. Incidentally, how was the age of the cuneiform tablet determined? Aloysius 08:22, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

Ancient Chinese Culture

I wasn't sure how the format of this class was going to address ancient cultures not based in Mesopotamia, but I wanted to provide a link to this section of the website for the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, which discusses early Chinese cultures making objects like flutes circa 7000–5700 B.C.: [2] Here's a secondary reference as well: [3] --DinsdaleP 18:01, 17 January 2009 (EST)

Wikilinks

Andy, do you mind if we start adding wikilinks to Conservapedia articles? I think it would help the student's understanding of the lectures. --DeanS^talk 16:36, 29 January 2009 (EST)

Flood

I notice the lecture proposes a date of the flud at 3300 BC. I'm afraid this may be a mistake. Ussher (where the 4004 BC date comes from), Newton and any other respectable chronology places the flood at around 2300 BC. Adam being on the Ark is something to ponder though (According to Genesis 5:5 Adam lived to be 930, which would mean he died around 2770-3074)... Actually, I've never seen the 3700 BC creation date. What is the source for that? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FundieMath (talk)

More on dates and other problems

Having seen repeated references to this from the Sock Drawer, I decided to have a look. What I find is an unfortunate (but understandable, to some extent) mixture of secular and biblical dates. I see that FundieMath has corrected the date of the flood in the table to 2300 B.C. (Ussher actually puts it at 2349 B.C., but 2300 B.C. is a common approximation, and Ussher might have been slightly out anyway.) But in another place it still says "3300 or 3000 B.C.", and other dates, such as for Egyptian civilisation, are given that predate this (but couldn't predate the flood). So really, the lecture needs a complete overhaul of the dates mentioned, not just the correction of the odd one here and there.

Part of the problem is that dates are used that are probably derived from Egyptian chronology, yet Egyptian chronology is by no means an undisputed set of dates, and is being questioned in quite high archaeological circles. (The comment above about Chinese dates are almost certainly from sources that are themselves not beyond dispute.)

Although the lecture is good in principle, it does have a number of other questionable claims, including some of the claims about languages, and the claim that the Egyptian Old Kingdom lacked the wheel, and therefore that the pyramids were built without the use of the wheel. In fact, a recent proposal on how the pyramids were built includes the use of the wheel (in the form of rollers to move the large stone blocks on).

Another problem is the date for the Wisdom books. The table list them as "dating back perhaps older than Genesis", which may be true for Job (depending also on when Genesis was written, but I agree that Job was very early), but not for the remaining Wisdom books.

Philip J. Rayment 08:00, 5 February 2009 (EST)

The lecture emphasizes that the dates are not exact, and are open to interesting discussion and debate. The problem with the 2300 B.C. date (which I disagree is a "common approximation" for the Flood) is the evidence (such as writings and civilizations) found dating back to around 3000 B.C., which presumably would have been lost in a massive flood. The sharp drop-off in historical evidence is more pronounced around 3000 B.C. than 2300 B.C.

Regardless, thanks for your insights above. As to the Wisdom books, I think it is commonly recognized that some of the Psalms are very old, as old as the Book of Job.--Andy Schlafly 09:34, 5 February 2009 (EST)

When I said that 2300 B.C. was a "common approximation", I meant that it was a common approximation among those who accept a biblically-derived date of 2349 B.C. That is, it's a common approximation of 2349 B.C.

The evidence of writing and civilisation back to 3000 B.C. is part of the package of questionable secular dates. Almost all middle-eastern history is tied into the questionable Egyptian chronology. So, to be hypothetical, a tablet considered to be the oldest known example of writing is found, which cannot be directly dated, but describes events in, say Assyrian history, and that Assyrian history can be tied in to Egyptian history, and a chronology of Egyptian history has been worked out, so the Assyrian tablet can be given a date. But that date is therefore based on the Egyptian chronology, which, as I said, is being questioned (and not just by creationists), and is also in conflict (on other points) with a biblical chronology. Given the disagreement in the two chronologies, I know which one I consider to be more accurate.

Philip J. Rayment 14:56, 5 February 2009 (EST)

After some research, I see that the circa 3700 date comes from Seder 'Olam Rabbah. Pretty interesting stuff.

Andy, what do you think of the 5199 BC date derived from the Vulgate? That would peg the flood at around 3500 BC. FundieMath 17:21, 5 February 2009 (EST)

I have an open mind about the dispute over the dates. I do agree with Philip above that the dates often given for Egyptian achievements seem older than expected. If the dates for writings or civilizations are pegged to those dubious assumptions about Egypt, then it would throw everything off.

I am surprised to hear that the Vulgate would support a different date (by a thousand years) from other Christian analysis.--Andy Schlafly 19:13, 5 February 2009 (EST)

I am also surprised by the disparity. It's definitely something I'm going to look into a little more and would enjoy sharing with the community here.

On another note, your objection to the Ussher chronology based on the availability of documents is logical, but I would argue that it is much easier to doubt the secular dates of documents compared to the approximately 1600 year period between creation and flood obtained from an exegesis of Genesis. Although, the general disparity between Septuagint and Vulgate would perhaps speak to the contrary! Nonetheless, fascinating...time to dig a little deeper. FundieMath 19:40, 5 February 2009 (EST)

I'm also surprised that the Vulgate gives a different date. I notice, though, that our Latin Vulgate article says that Jerome originally translated some of the OT books from the Septuagint, so does this explain the different date? The Septuagint is well known as having different (and impossible) dates, and is generally rejected as a reliable source of those dates.

Andy, I forgot to reply to your comment about some psalms being quite old. You are correct, but these very old ones I think are quite few in number and don't really change the fact that most of the Wisdom books greatly post-date Moses. The possible exceptions are Job (as I mentioned), and a very few of the psalms.

Philip J. Rayment 21:24, 5 February 2009 (EST)

Hmm...Latin Vulgate and Vulgate?? FundieMath 21:30, 5 February 2009 (EST)

egyptian chronology

Here is an excellent article: Which Came First, the Pyramids or the Flood? at: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2503 conservative 01:49, 6 February 2009 (EST)

Yes, that's a very good discussion of the situation. Philip J. Rayment 16:43, 12 February 2009 (EST)

Resolving ambiguity

"For those who "text message" on cell phones, notice how each key has multiple possible letters and how the phone resolves the ambiguity and forms words depending on how the letters fit together to form a word."

I think this example is confusing. The phone doesn't resolve ambiguity in text messages, the reader does. To say the phone resolves the ambiguity would be analagous to saying the cuneiform tablet resolves the ambiguity as to whether "foot symbol" means "foot" or "go", etc. Such ambiguities or multiple meanings are a standard feature of language, no? There's probably no need to address this issue in the lecture. If you choose to do so, you might just say that each cuneiform symbol has multiple meanings depending on context as do modern words and symbols such that a modest number of symbols can express a great amount. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Akuron (talk)

The software in some(?) cellular telephones does resolve ambiguity. It looks up a list to see what possible words match the keys typed so far. For example, if I press the following keys, because I want the word "battle", I get the results shown:

key	result
ABC	A
ABC	Cc
TUV	Act
TUV	Actu
JKL	Battl
DEF	Battle

Cuneiform tables don't have that ability! Whether or not that ability of cellular telephones is a good analogy of a person determinging meaning from context may be another matter.

Philip J. Rayment 17:49, 14 February 2009 (EST)

That clarifies the use of the analogy: and yes, I agree with you that it doesn't help me understand how "foot" can mean "foot" or "go" depending on context. I think the analogy should foot. Akuron 19:32, 25 February 2009 (EST)