Re: Sorry, no fish in the DNA tank

On Nov 17, 4:14 pm, "Uriel" <ur...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
rnorman wrote:
On Nov 16, 1:52 pm, "\(M\)-adman" <g...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
rnorman wrote:

<snip>


One of my positions is that you do not take your position on ancient
texts far enough. You do not give them full credit. Although it is
obvious you have a healthy respect for them.

If you read the bible and look for main points that is made, most
religions have these same main points. Religion has cluttered these
main points. An example of A main point would be "love thy
neighbor". Each religion, even the poly and non-god types of
religions have a flavor of that statement somewhere in their
dogma.(in fact i have posted the individual examples before) For
this reason God's word is absolute, unchanging truth. Because the
statement had an origin to have been passed down and passed along so
many cultural lines. All one has to do is follow the history of the
language and one can determine a general location of where a saying
such as "love thy neighbor" originated. If three languages converge
at the same spot, then that is the probable location and further
research can be done there.

That is my position based on knowledge of hebrew and sumarian
languages and far to many books to even list on the subjects.

As far as ancient documents taking persident over modern documents,
i do not take one over the other as a matter of routine. I compare
and decide what is more likely the truth.

An example would be evolution. Modern evolution is wrong when
compared to ancient texts,

<sarcasm>
Correct. Modern evolution doesn't know that cattle giving birth in
sight of striped sticks will produce striped babies. Science is as yet
completely apathetic to sympathetic magic.
</sarcasm>

Note: I consider sarcasm tags to be too heavy-handed for my tastes,
but you don't seem to ba able to pick up on when I am being sarcastic.
Fair enough, over the internet.

while modern medicine is correct when
compared to ancient texts.

In what way are ancient texts correct regarding modern medicine?

--

You admit that ancient texts have error --  "clutter" you call it.
You pick out one very general and bland admonishment "love thy
neighbor" and say that proves the truth of ancient documents.

Only because what seems to be "one very general and bland admonishment " is
actually an across the board belief held by every major religion and most
all of the minor ones.

It is called "comment element". So there is a high probability of truth that
the common element is correct because every major religion and most all of
the minor ones hold the same concept. The concept had an origin like
language has an origin.

Yes, and evolution has tentative explanations for them. So moral
principles like the Golden Rule are very common among humans, and
language is universal.


The origin of the concept is the same because the concept among the various
religions is the same. There is a lower probability the concept had many
origins. A higher probability the concept came from the same origin

Yes - human nature.

Most social animals have prohibitions against killing their own kind,
especially in their own herd. The exceptions generally lead to
reproductive advantages.


I doubt you get it.


Not only do we get it, we can explain it. Applying evolutionary math
to moral codes have led to many (provisional, as always) insights.

My
argument acknowledges that those documents do contain some truths but
they also contain many contradictions and statements we now know to be
false

Many  contradictions are a matter of translation. We know more now regarding
these dead languages then was known when the bible was originally
translated.

And many contradictions are real. Like language, some moral codes are
arbitrary and unique to various cultures, some of them arising from
different needs. Yahweh once said that slavery was just dandy. Do you
disagree, or do you claim that this is a translation error?


and articles of faith that are undocemented except the claim
that "God said...".  For example, many documents talk about "a flood"
and we already know that there were many floods.  Somehow you argue
that this proves that there was a single massive and global flood and
that it happened in a way that seems exactly as described in one book,
the book of Genesis.

I never claimed this. I have often said the flood "*SEEMED*" as if it were
world wide to the peoples of that day.

Yes, you have. I suggest that there is no reason to think that these
refer to one flood. Why not many local ones, spread over thousands of
years? Or even, they have occasional floods, so they can imagine one
big honkin' flood. We have no reason to think that any particular ones
were real, nor that they are the same one.


You say that many documents talk about creation
in many different ways but you argue that this proves that there was a
single creation event and that it happened in a way that seems exactly
as described in one book, the book of Genesis.

Again, you are wrong. What i have always said and maintained is there was 2
creations. One perphaps billions of years old. Then a second, creation of
Eden, around 6 to 13 thousand years ago. I lean toward 12 thousand or around
the last ice age.

Evidence?

Perhaps "Eden" was simply the lost hunter gatherer culture, and the
myth was a dimmeory of when people "just walked around" plucking fruit
and eating slow zebras... Wasn't Cain a farmer, and Able a hunter?
That is, the ones who produced crops supplanted those who hunted
animals, and did it by violence. But the price we paid was back-
breaking labor. Bu this is only seeking the grain of history that
might be behind this particular myth. It certainly says nothing about
the nature of evolution, nor the existence of gods.


I also allow for micro evolution with in the "kind" as described in the
bible.

Insisting on a barrier which neither you nor anyone else has ever
provided evidence for.


The bible and other ancient texts are more accurate then many want to admit

Yes, Aphrodite and Zeus are real! I believe! Wait, you still haven't
offered more than empty assertions.


You ignore all the
responses from people here arguing that, in the books of the
Pentateuch, God orders us to stone rape victims to death (but only if
they were raped in the city) and to stone ungracious children to death
and that mixing threads in a garment is an abomination as in trimming
the corners of your beard.  My guess is that you call these the
religious "clutter" that hides the real ancient truths.

You are on the right track. I doubt God told anyone to "stone" anybody. The
clutter is the "stoning" and things like stoning that clearly did not
originate from God.

But other stuff, which you approve of, did? We have several folks
claiming ot be the sole experts on interpreting religious texts.
Perhaps you guys should sort it out first, so we know whose
unsupported assertions to embrace.


That leaves
the tiny little problem:  who gets to decide exactly which portions of
ancient texts are real truth and which portions are religious
clutter?

Try applying some common sense.

OK.

The scientists, who actually accomplish things, know what they're
talking about. You, who are the 913,043,466th self-appointed expert in
what the ancient texts really mean, do not.


That leaves another problem, exactly where in the truths of
ancient text is the proof that God did not create the universe and
living things and humans using the vehicle of the laws of natural
science and evolution?

He may very well have done just that. We do not even know what gives organic
matter that is in a state of chaos it's animating effects and order. Or
Life.

Duh. Scientists who are theists say that science is studying how god
does things. You come along and claim that God doesn't do things the
way the evidnece indicates things get done. We atheists say you have
provided no evidence for gods, and those of us who are theist say you
have provided no eivdence he does things differently than scientists
have figured out so far.


Science has clearly NOT discovered God's methods yet in a mere 300 years of
serious scientific discovery.

We've discovered quite a bit about how things get done. Of course
there is a lot more to discover. Haven't seen any evidence of gods
yet.


Evolution has gaps. Evolution is part guess work.

Evolution is what happens. Evolutionary science is not complete - no
science is. But the overall picture is pretty good.


The claim that you make above is that because many ancient texts say
"love thy neighbor" that proves that the word of God is absolute and
unchanging truth.

All it proves is the concept may have had a common origin. The probalties
are high. Why can you not get that into your head?

You claim this is evidence for a god. why can't you get it in your
head that it is not? It is evidence for a common human condition.

Why do you think i am
selling "God is absolute and unchanging truth"?

UNchainging truth used to say that slavery is OK. Now it doesn't. Just
sayin'...

God is truth. God is
unchanging.

Nonsense. Eternal God or not, there is only *your image of him that
you can see. This is the idol, carved by you, that you were warned not
to worship.

What man has written down about God is not necessarly absolute
and unchanging truth. But if you do some dective work you can seperate God's
truth from man's clutter.

You have only succeeded in separating Your ideas from the ideas of
others. If you want ot be objective - study reality. If you want to
wallow in self-deception, reject all ideas but your own.


In this case, "love thy neighbor as you would yourself" seems to be one of
God's truths based on the concept being held by so many other ancient
religions --as well as-- modern religions.

But not by all.




You may have noticed that there is no logical
connection between the premise and the conclusion.  You may also have
noticed that, as others have pointed out, the "neighbor" mentioned is
a very limited set of humanity;  most of humanity is eligible for
slaughter and, in the books of Moses, the Pentateuch, God commands the
slaughter of innumerable people, kinspeople, neighbor, and stranger
alike.  I guess that is just a sort of "tough love".

That is man distorting everything around him. As usual. It is a rather
simple concept.

Demonstrate how they are wrong, and you are right. Show me how they
have fooled themselves into believing that which they wanted to be
true, and you have not.




No, there is absolutely nothing in the claims you present here or
anywhere else that I have seen to even hint at the notion that ancient
texts contain absolute and unchanging truth and that there is a
mechanism for detecting which portions of those texts corresponds to
that anbsolute and unchanging truth and which portions do not.

Then you are blind as a bat

Oh, if only we would stop looking at the world around us and look at
*you!


Can
you clarify these points for me?  Note:  I am not ridiculing your
position.  Just saying that you have not made it clear.  One answer
that I will accept is that you take this particular statement as
absolute truth on faith.  I cannot argue with that.  That is the claim
of many people of religion and there is no rejoinder except to present
evidence to shake that faith.

Of course it takes faith.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" said the Great and
Powerful Oz.

Apply some common sense to what ancient man was
trying to tell us with that faith and the answers get a bit more in focus..

Curiously, my common sense tells me that pre-scientific peoples won't
have much interesting to say about scientific matters (i.e. how the
world works).

It may point science in directions it had not thought of yet.

Magic?

Kermit

.

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