Neko Mimi Mode
Member
I'm saying the order may have significance or it may not. It doesn't need to have.
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Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
So my girlfriend thinks the Earth is 6000 years old...
- Thread starter Mengy
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There's really no difference between a literalist and an inerrant apologist, they've just come to different interpretations through the same error; a failure to accept that maybe its just wrong on some things.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
AH, the usual dingdong battle I see.
The fundamentalist Churches really don't help much, with all their emphasis on revelation and personal faith and conversion - but then the fundamentalist scientist/atheists don't help much either with their emphasis on experiment and the scientific method which are things that few of us have the opportunity (or the funding) to pursue to any degree that's likely to lead to a sensible understanding of anything.
What both sides seem to miss is that understanding is far more of a cultural and communal thing than it is an individual thing. Not only that but understanding is rather more tangentially related to truth than is commonly thought.
Long story short: there's one heck of a cultural clash between many (but not all) beliefs of religious people and many (but not all) beliefs of the scientific intelligensia. But just because there's a cultural clash doesn't mean there needs to be any individual acrimony between people from different backgrounds.
OP, don't get too hung up about what your gf believes now. Frankly, whatever we believe about what may or may not have happened even 500 years ago has very little relevance to daily life - let alone 6,000 or 4.5 billion years.
Everyone else needs to chill a bit. Everybody believes stuff because other people told them so - that's why education works sometimes, it's why persuasion and argument work sometimes, it's a good thing. It's also why evangelism works.
This whole area of understanding is woefully under-studied (because it seems mostly to be only studied in the context of religious/atheist skirmishes these days), and the big books of Western philosophy mostly take the modern-sounding individualistic approach. We're nowhere near understanding how people understand things, but one thing's for sure, we get it from each other - it's infectious. And you shouldn't be going around blaming someone for believing in young-earth creationism any more than you should blame them for getting measles.
EDIT: Thread is moving too damn fast. I think I am about five pages behind the times. Point still stands though.
Neko Mimi Mode
Member
Like I said, I'm no scholar on this, though that's what midrash is. The vehicle isn't important, but the message it's attempting to convey is.
The overall narrative is unchanged. That said I could guess birds were more consiously lumped together with fish to highlight the differences vis laxities in ritual slaughter compared to land animals. Neither birds nor fish require shechita, the former has a process called melikha and the latter requires nothing.
That's a guess, but again I'm no Torah scholar.
Sanky Panky
Banned
Of course we know geologists like Darymple recognize the the problem of excess carbon, so Snelling wasn't trying to make you believe otherwise. He was re-iterating the point. The fact that there are indeed anomalous dates (show me this vast majority of recent eruptions that have been studied that are not anomalous). Snelling studied 5 samples, and one of them gave an age that was TOO YOUNG. Whoop tee doo. It further confirms that depending what part of the rock you analize will yield wildly different ages. The difference with Snelling and the "scientists" is that the latter take dates that don't comply as errors and anomalies. They cherry pick.
Indeed, 30% of the samples had argon in them. Is 30% occurrence enough to invalidate the basis of K-Ar dating, which assumes ZERO Ar at the time the lava cooled. Snelling didn't have to tell us this. The basic assumption of the method is flawed, and we don't know how or when the old rocks formed. If they conform with the old age, they are good results. If they don't they are anomalies. Quite convenient.
You are doing yourself a disservice by highlighting the fact that even if enough argon is present, results vary wildly depending on the Argon isotope. I don't know how that makes a case for the reliability of the method, especially when scientists have NO CLUE how or when other lava flows settled. That is exactly the point Snelling was trying to make.
Except they don't always give consistent dates. We can cite many examples of different methods giving different dates, and evolutionists in particular having to either readjust their beliefs on a certain fossil, or claim contamination on dates because they wouldn't make sense. It's not black and white how you guys paint it. Of course you won't find all these erroneous dates published in peer reviewed journals. Nobody wants to go against the establishment. So what if the Grand Canyon dates are all out of whack? don't blame the methods, blame the instruments or contamination.
The argument is not whether xenoliths are old or not. The question is the assumptions of excess argon, which are clearly wrong (if even 30% of the time).
And of course he addresses this in the same article, which you apparently didn't catch. The point remains of excess argon, and the resulting ages are in the same ballpark. Good try.
individual interpretations to each individual, yo.
Sis Focaccia
Member
Seems like a troubled relationship. Have you tried carbon dating?
scar tissue
Banned
Sanky Panky
Banned
Damn it took 23 pages.
That poses another question: is some of it allegory, and some of it intended to push the agenda of individuals and the organization? Religion is, needless to say, incredibly lucrative, and there are many modern examples of this.
Religious people cannot become fully rational. In order to do that, you must continue scrutinizing even after you exit your comfort zone.
Vermillion
Banned
You're the best person in this thread.
Ultimadrago
Member
a message that can be muddled somewhat when authors are making value judgments on behalf of god to flesh out the story.
which is why i picked it, it doesn't really matter whether birds of land animals come in what order in genesis unless you do believe it to be literal history dictated by god jot for jot and you already gave the classic interpretation of genesis as it being a story to deliver the message that man is top of the totem poll in the animal kingdom as far as god is concerned.
The problem lies in that the story fleshes out not just the supremacy of man, but orders it against a dived up animal kingdom. one must ask why if mans supremacy is evident in being last, why aren't animals supreme over birds for being 4th opposed to third? If there is no message behind it, its existence is problematic in its redundancy. the authors did not need to divvy up the animal kingdom to get across the message and although nobody is ready to get hung up on birds getting the short stick, the fact that the authors were willing to make a value judgement on behalf of good to further the 'real' message is a problem. How many times did that happen? what were the messages that were redundant to the 'real' point and are they all as seemingly harmless as birds being below animals? These are problems worthy of atleast some pause.
even if you are comfortable in the interpretations of biblical scholars and the messages that you yourself take home, even if you are fairly confident that nothing of any real meaning was actually just fluff, you can't just expect other people to agree on all of it and it seems irresponsible to call on it to be ignored in favour of the message you personally take home from the bigger picture.
birds were ritually slaughtered and the wounds salted in sacrifices. not sure about eating, but google seems to think so.
Gorgon
Member
The Grand Canyon dates are not out of whack (contrary to the nonsense Steven Austin spews), the peer reviewed journals don't erase or hide anomalous dates of anything (so yes, contrary to what you think, anomalous data is indeed reported in scientific papers and you'd knew that if you actually read them instead of wasting your time in creationist websites), and even if 30% of ALL rocks were wrongly dated as you claim (they aren't) you'd still have 70% that would show the Earth to be vastly older than Snelling&company whishes them to be.
Look, you're free to believe in whatever you want, I'm not wasting more of my time with this. It seems I already did waste it by writing a reply to your post in the first place, and I have no wish to write a another monograph. Just don't try to pass "belief" for "critical thinking" or science. What you are trying to do is justify your religious beliefs, nothing else, and finding some kind of confort in the nonsense people like Snelling writes. If what I wrote before about Henry Morris, the founder and president of the Institute of Creation Research, where Snelling works isn't enough to start ringing the bells about the real objectives of these people, then I don't know what else you need:
Wake up to reality.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
The flip answer to that is you draw the line right at the bottom and treat it like any other book. But of course, the flip answer doesn't work because every other book gets filed under "fiction" even if it contains facts or "non-fiction" even if it contains untruths.
What you could do is you take it on its merit. Even Ussher calibrated his 4004 BC chronology against non-biblical sources in order to fill in the gaps (and indeed he may have thought differently were he around now - for all the stick the man gets he was at least a thorough researcher). A bit like taking Caesar's "Gallic Wars" on its merit - you don't expect Caesar to be unbiased about the Gauls.
If you do anything other than that, then you are relying on outside sources. They may not be very obvious outside sources (like whoever selected/edited/translated particular books or commented or preached on them and so on).
The right answer to your question (from a believer's stance) - is that
(a) it can't all be literally true, because some of it is self-contradictory and some just isn't true (scientific research does mostly behave itself on the big meaningful stuff)
(b) it is actually not important where you "draw the line". There's no law - not even in the Bible - that you have to draw the line somewhere
Crash Station
Member
You guys are now talking about Santa? Jesus, now I remember why I stayed out of religion threads in the first place :lol
GraveHorizon
poop meter feature creep
On the subject of the girlfriend believing the world is 6,000 years old, am I the only person desperate enough not to care about something like that? I'd even get with a white supremacist if I had the opportunity (which would be a little ironic as I'm half white). But to be fair, I guess it would have to be brought up as an issue at a point when things start getting serious.
All this religion talk is boring and samey, but I do appreciate being turned onto the Skeptic's Annotated Bible site. Thanks to whoever linked it earlier.
All this religion talk is boring and samey, but I do appreciate being turned onto the Skeptic's Annotated Bible site. Thanks to whoever linked it earlier.
There's your problem, you either accept that for what it is or move on...
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Damn bro, that was spot on. Nice job!
Maybe he's just staying with her because she has gneiss cleavage
Ultimadrago
Member
....7/10
Pun of the year, all years.
No. Go research it for yourself. It's a huge undertaking for sure, but something more important than what most of us do in our day to day lives anyway IMO, myself included.
Too many to list, but staying confined to the book of Daniel as was mentioned, chapter 11 prophesies world events from the time of Daniel in Babylon (6th Century BC) to the end of the world. It has more prophesy in one chapter than any other place in scripture. I had to dig through many notes from a while ago but here we go. You asked for examples.
Chapter 11, verse 2, Cyrus is king of Persia (Persia rose to power following the time Daniel prophesied this while in Babylon). The three other kings to arise would be Cambyses, False Smerdis, and Darius I (530-486 BC). The fourth who gains far more riches is Xerxes. Verse 3, the mighty king is Alexander the Great coming from references in chapters 2,7, and 8. Verse 4, we know Alexander's reign was brief (in historical terms) and his empire was divided up amongst Cassander in the west, Lysimachus to the north, Seleucus to the east, and Ptolemy took the south. Verse 5, The king of the south (Ptolemy) was strong, ruling from 323 BC to 285 BC. Remember Daniel is living in the late 500 BCs while prophesying this. Verse 6, the alliance spoken of is Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 BC), second king of the south, and Antiochus Theos (261-246 BC), third king of the north. The she is Ptolemy's daughter Berenice and there is a portion of history where Berenice was betrothed to Antiochus, double crossed him, and was thrown out following her father's death, so neither of them retained their power as verse 6 states. Verse 7 refers to Ptolemy's son and Berenice's brother Ptolemy Euergetes. Now Euergetes in the south marches on the north to help his sister who was already put to death. If you're familiar with Persia and Medo-Persia it is these two kingdoms in the north and the south which is where we get the Medes and the Persians.
Skipping ahead to verse 10, the sons refer to the king of the north's sons Seleucus Ceraunus and Antiochus Magnus wage war once again against the south. Seleucus Ceraunus was poisoned by his own generals which left Antiochus Magnus to become king of the north. Antiochus overcame Nicholaus, the Egyptian general in the south and by this time the king of the south Euergetes had passed being replaced by Ptolemy Philopater in verse 11 becomes enraged and starts a new war with the north. Philopater meets Antiochus at the battle of Raphia near Gaza in 217 BC. Antiochus raises a great multitude consisting of 62,000 soldiers, 6000 horses, and 102 elephants. But that multitude was given into Philopater's hand who had a larger army. Verse 12, Philopater's heart was lifted up because of his victory but on his way back home he stopped in Jerusalem. He left Jerusalem with great wrath against the whole nation of the Jews and sought revenge upon them but was unsuccessful losing tens of thousands until 213 BC when an insurrection of the Egyptians gave Philopater the chance to lay 40,000 Jews at Alexandria. This pointless skirmish with the Jews casued many of Philopater's own people to turn against him. Verse 13, Antiochus Magnus returns from the north with an even greater army and after some years, 14 years, the peace between Philopater and Antiochus dissolved completely. Pholopater died in 204 BC leaving his son Ptolemy Epiphanes to take the throne at age 4 or 5. Antiochus seized the opportunity to enlarge the north with such a young ruler in the south. When verse 13 speaks of Antiochus having much equipment, or riches, it refers to the success he had against the eastern parts of Iran and India. Through this he acquired much wealth.
Verse 14, during the time of Ptolemy Epiphanes, king of the south, Antiochus, wanting to invade Egypt, made a league with King Phillip of Macedonia. The two of them agreed to divide Egypt amongst themselves. Philip was to take Caria, Libya, Cyrenaica, and Egypt. Antiochus was to take the rest. At the same time, the provinces of Egypt were rebelling against Agathocles who was the prime minister of Egypt and conducting the affairs of the south kingdom for Ptolemy Epiphanes due to his young age. Agathocles' power was going to his head and the Alexandrians rose up and put him and his family and associates to death. So indeed there were many who rose up against the king of the south. The violent ones, or robbers, depending on the translation, of verse 14, in Hebrew can be translated to destroyers. These are the ones who would eventually destroy the Jews to fulfill the vision . We know from Daniel chapter 9 and history itself that this is none other than the empire of Rome. And now Daniel prophesies through God how Rome will rise to power....
Again it must be noted this is all being recorded in the late 6th century BC. Verse 14 says that the violent ones, or Rome, will exalt themselves. Rome sent Scopas to lead Egyptian forces to Palestine in 202 BC. He took back Syria and Palestine and brought all of Judea into subjection to the authority of Egypt. This was done because Rome had accepted the guardianship of Ptolemy Epiphanes, the young king of the south. This also shows that Rome did not rise out of Alexander's kingdom, which was divided into two at this point, being north and south. Rome came from outside and went to war on behalf of the south, against the north. The vision spoken of earlier demonstrates or establishes the truth of previous visions showing that Rome was to be a significant world player. The last part of verse 14 says "but they shall fall". Scopas of Rome was defeated by Antiochus Magnus of the north. Verse 15, Antiochus was quick to recover Palestine and Syria from the Egyptians in the south. The forces of the south, Ptolemy Epiphanes, could not withstand him. Not even Epiphanes' choicest troops, which were Scopas. Scopas was sent to meet Antiochus near the Jordan river where he was defeated and chased off to Sidon. Scopas was forced to surrender to Antiochus. His 10,000 men let go; a rare defeat for a general of Rome! The end of verse 15 states that no one could withstand Antiochus Magnus of the north at this point. Verse 16, But he, that is Rome, will come back with power under the rulership of Pompey. Now Rome will start to show its mighty power...
Rome, under Pompey, was to come against the king of the north, Antiochus Asiaticus and "do as he pleases". Pompey conquered Syria and took it out of the hands of Asiaticus in 65 BC making it a province of Rome. Verse 16 says no one will be able to stand in the way of Pompey and that Rome will stay for a time in the Beautiful land, being Jerusalem. In 161 BC the Jews made an alliance with the Romans. But in 63 BC two Jewish competitors by the name of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus were fighting for the crown of Judea and when Pompey came in 63 BC, Aristobulus tried to defend the Jewish temple but was unsuccessful against Pompey. Thus Jerusalem became a province of Rome in 63 BC. Never again did Judea or Jerusalem have its independance. Rome held it until they destroyed it by the hand of Titus in 70 AD. Previous to this, Rome had conqured Macedon and Thrace. Now with the overthrow of Syria and Judea, the northern part of Alexander's kingdom was now ruled by Rome. Rome now becomes the king of the north. This is where the prophecy gets very familiar.
Ta Da! The he spoken of at the beginning of verse 17 is none other than Julius Ceasar. Julius Caesar set his face to enter with the strength of his whole of Alexander's kingdom and take it. At this time, all that was left of Alexander's empire was Egypt. At this time Ptolemy the 12th and his sister Cleopatra were to rule co-jointly in Egypt. But a dispute arose between them and Caesar set out to Egypt to settle the dispute. Caesar came to Egypt with a large army but Egypt was able to repel his attacks. Caesar sent help to neighboring countries. A large fleet came from Asia Minor as well as an army from Mithridates raised from Syria and Cilicia. Antipater, the Idumean (none other than Herod the Great) also joined Caser bringing 3000 Jews to the fight. Who would have thought that Jews would be helping Rome! And ironically the Jews held the passes into Egypt. Without this, Caesar would have failed. Ptolemy drowned in the Nile river attempting to escape. Alexandria and all of Egypt submitted then to Rome. Rome had absorbed the whole of the original kingdom of Alexander by 47 BC. Cleopatra remained ruler of Egypt until 30 BC. At this date, Egypt was officially made a province of Rome. Verse 17 says the daughter of women, Cleopatra, will be given to Caesar. Indeed, Cleopatra was given to Caesar. The two had a son and it is said that his passion for her is what started the campaign of the Egyptian war. Verse 17 also says that Cleopatra will not stand for Caesar. Cleopatra eventually joined herself to Marc Antony, the enemy of Augustus Caesar, and exerted her whole power against Rome. Verse 18 states that Julius will turn his face to the coastlands and capture many. Julius Caesar did in fact set out to conquer Spain, North Africa, and Pharnaces king of the Bosporus and was successful. But a commander was to put a stop to Julius Caesar. This commander went by a well known name, Brutus. Verse 18 finishes by stating that Brutus will repay Julius for his 'scorn'. The Hebrew would be better translated as 'reproach'. Rome was a republic, but after all of Julius Caesar's conquests the title of king was offered to him. This would certainly be a big reproach to the republic, to now become a monarchy. So Brutus was to be the one that caused the reproach offered to Julius Caesar to cease. Verse 19 sums up the famous instance in history where Brutus murders Julius Caesar, "Et tu Brute?" Julius did in fact accept the offer of kingship over Rome and turned his face back towards his homeland of Rome. Julius came to the Senate to receive his title where he was murdered by Cassius, Brutus, and others, being pierced 23 times with a dagger. He could not be found afterward. This took place in 44 BC.
The remaining verses in chapter 11 begin to speak of the remainder of time and how the office of the Papacy will arise out of Rome (look back to chapter 8 and the vision of the fourth beast with the horn, the beast being Rome and the horn being the papacy). They speak of the papacy being the anti-christ. Yes that is right. The office will gain a tremendous amount of power and hold it until the end of time. The office will be able to dictate and fabricate anything it wants concerning Christ and life and people will believe. The office is said to intercede to God on our behalf and even forgive sins. These are reserved for Christ alone, not any man. Thus it makes much sense that the office of the papacy is indeed the anti-christ spoken of in scripture.
Now how is all of that for historical detail given in a prophecy nearly 500 years before the events occurred! This instance makes it very hard for those who say the Bible is not the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God to say otherwise. And what is even more spectacular is that God wove history in such a manner for the sole purpose that Rome would come to power so that the Messiah would be crucified under her which had been God's plan since the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden.
History is fact just as much as science is fact. In the same manner a group of scientists can conclude that a scientific discovery is fact, a group of historians who piece togther many different detailed accounts can determine with relative uncertainty the events of the past. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956. Our good friend science has dated them back to 150 BC. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain the book of Daniel in its entirety on 7 of the 8 scrolls. Historians have no explanation for the prophesies found in Daniel Chapter 11. They conclude that it must have been written later, at a time when history had already played out accordingly. But given the date of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Daniel's own testimony during his time in Babylon, this cannot be. It stands to reason, the Daed Sea Scrolls themselves were only a reprint of the previous Hebrew texts of Daniel which had been written down in the 6th Century BC. Given they date to 150 BC, a few hundred years is not a large stretch at all for a scroll to remain in circulation.
I did at length above. How about Isaiah's prophecy of Cyrus by exact name in Isaiah Chapter 44:28? Cyrus did not ascend to power until 576 BC. Isaiah was written in the 8th Century BC with 7th Century expansions. What of the exact detail Isaiah gives of how the Messiah will be viewed and put to death by mankind?
I'd say all of my "claims" have been backed up by a substantial amount of historical evidence.
The records that have been kept through history are accurate. The Jewish people would go to astronomical lengths to ensure the words were preserved through the ages. The Dead Sea Scrolls show us that the exact words have been preserved for over 2000 years to the present age. Why could they not be preserved for another 2000 years of history in the Old Testament?
I am well aware of these supposed contradictions circulating through the Christian denominations. The so called contradictions of the Apostle Paul with the Gospel writers. The accounts of more than one person killing Goliath. I have written concerning a number of them myself in great detail. If you would like I can send you my research. One thing to note for those who call themselves Christians but choose which parts of scripture are truth and which parts are not; If parts of Scipture are false, then Christ lied when he taught us that all of Scripture is the Word of his Father. If Christ lied, then Christ sinned. If Christ sinned, he was not perfect and could not die on the cross for the sins of the world. Which would mean that nobody has salvation. So how can a Christian who believes Christ died for their sins and gives them eternal life also believe that Christ lied and sinned when he taught that all scripture is the true Word of God? The whole system breaks down. A true Christian should beleive and base their faith that every word in the Bible is certain.
How else could 400 years of history be told in near exact detail before it happened? More than that if you count the prophesies of the Messiah.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
But, you can't believe every word in the Bible is certain, because it DOES contain so many contradictions. I mean, one has to look no further than the very beginning, Genesis itself. I even have the passages highlighted in my own Bible:
Genesis 1:25-27
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image.... So God created man in his own image.
versus:
Genesis 2:18-22
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.... And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
SO, now, which verse is correct? They can't both be correct. Either God made man first and then the animals, or God made the animals first and then man. You say that if parts of Scipture are false, then Christ lied when he taught us that all of Scripture is the Word of his Father. So, how do you explain contradictions within the Bible like this? And this is only ONE, at the very beginning...
And if any part of the Word is questionable, like this, what does that say about the believability of the rest of the Bible? How can you trust it as a verifiable source of information and data with errors and inaccuracies like this?
There is no contradiction in the verses you listed. On the sixth day God created the beasts of the earth as well as man and woman (Chapter 1:24-27). Chapter 2:19 in context should read more like "And out of the ground the Lord God, who formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, brought them to the man to see what he would call them; The Hebrew word for formed is the verb yatsar. In this verse it is used in the past perfect tense, meaning the action has already been completed at an earlier time. "God who has already formed every beast of the field." The various English translations do lose a lot of grammatical context such as this but the overall message does not change. But generally when the original Greek and Hebrew languages are studied, we can figure out all of the minute grammatical details.
I hear Russia is the Bear and USA the Eagle, and Obama is the anti-Christ - he IS black, that's close enough to evil-in-carnate for most backwards fundies right? The prophecies must be true! (Thanks Grandma!)
Hey Pro, I asked you earlier about the layout and authorship of the Bible, are you aware of how the book was constructed?
Pro said:
All sorts of people from all different sects of Christianity make similar claims all the time. Not to mention those from other religions entirely claiming the same. They all think they have the only true interpretation.
Why has your study enlightened you so much more than the myriad of scholarly others who must be "wrong", and how have they been misled?
What makes your claim more credible than any of those claiming the same but for a different sect of Christianity or religion? What about those who may have dedicated more time and effort to study than yourself but who end up with a different view?
Do you concede that you could be mistaken in at least one or more aspects of your interpretation of Christianity, or do you consider your study comprehensive to the point of being infallible?
If you're referring to how the Bible is structured by each of the 66 books, but the books do not follow the chronological order in which they were written then yes. There are Bibles that are pretty neat that do follow the chronological order. I'm aware of the authors of each book yes. It's not an issue, nor should it be. They still say what they say and were written in the times they were written. I do have to get to bed though so let's see what madness ensues in the morning. Should keep the work day interesting
Sutton Dagger
Member
Semantics?
No. Don't use words you don't understand.
His argument is rooted in epistemology.
Covered that in the section concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls which themselves date to the
2nd Century BCE and already contained the completed works of Daniel.
Sutton Dagger
Member
That doesn't impact upon the 2nd Century dating for Daniel at all. The 2nd century date is arrived at by the use of entomology, anachronisms and literary style. I'm more inclined to side with mainstream scholarship who present their evidence and critique of the book, you have not provided any evidence that the book is 6th Century and thus the so called prophecies are erroneous. You should have picked something that wasn't so mainstream (in terms of prophecies), in this case, historians have your number.
SouthernDragon
Member
Nice.
The creation story in Genesis hasn't been interpreted literally for a very long time? My 9 years of catechism says otherwise. It's interpreted as 100% literal today unless there was just some memo my teachers and priests didn't get. It's not even popular opinion today among the religious that the universe is 15 billions years old when we know so much. Why would it have been popular opinion 1000 years ago when we knew hardly anything in comparison? I don't buy it.
I haven't heard of these Jewish people before but a google search shows me that Issac ben Samuel does take the creation story to be mostly literal.
"Isaac states that the universe is actually 15,340,500,000 years old. Isaac arrived at this conclusion by distinguishing between earthly "solar years" and "divine years," based on a verse from Psalms, which states that "A thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday" (Psalm 90:4). If each day of a divine year is equal to a thousand earthly "solar years," then a divine year would be 365,250 years long. Isaac then makes some other calculations based on the Talmud and the Biblical sabbatical year, and arrives at the said number. The scientific estimation places the occurrence of the Big Bang at 13.7 ± 0.2 billion years ago."
"By interpreting the texts of Sefer ha-Temunah and the Midrash, Isaac ben Samuel of Acre calculated the age of the universe to be 15,340,500,000 years old. His reasoning was as follows: as the Midrash states, "A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday" (Psalm 90:4); a physical year contains 365 ¼ days, which, if multiplied by 1000 would give the length of a divine year as 365,250 physical years; if we are living in the last, 7th Sabbatical cycle, that would mean that the creation as it described in the Bible happened 42,000 divine years ago; to convert this figure to physical years it should be multiplied by 365,250; this gives the result 15,340,500,000 years. "
He just takes one word as non literal. He still believes in the creation story of plants coming before the stars and no evolution, I suppose. Correct me if I'm wrong. Not too far off the 14 billion years of the Big Bang, you say? Don't you think there's a rather huge problem with this interpretation? Genesis started with the Earth being created! This view is actually more wrong and more insane than a completely literal interpretation. If you accept this, it means that plants on earth existed billions of years before the sun!
The historical insight the genealogies provide is basically a timeline from the first man created to Jesus. Why is it told like history when the author meant meant for it to be a metaphorical fable?
If you're referring to how the Bible is structured by each of the 66 books, but the books do not follow the chronological order in which they were written then yes. There are Bibles that are pretty neat that do follow the chronological order. I'm aware of the authors of each book yes. It's not an issue, nor should it be. They still say what they say and were written in the times they were written. I do have to get to bed though so let's see what madness ensues in the morning. Should keep the work day interesting
I'm glad you are versed on it, plus you know ancient greek, so this means I shouldn't have to go into any great detail about a couple of things. I'll keep my post short since you are going to bed. Fun new testament facts:
Paul refers to himself and his crew as apostles, however MMLJ refer to them as disciples.
Paul's letters are the oldest christian writings contained in the NT but are arranged AFTER MMLJ to give you the impression that Jesus was going to have a second coming. Hard to return if you've never been in the first place.
Paul never met Jesus, yet you'd think he'd want to go and meet the person/deity he was writing such nice things about.
MMLJ were all written by people that were illiterate at Semitic languages - they got all their information from the Septuagint, the greek translations of Jewish doctrine.
MMLJ were not written by MMLJ, we don't know who wrote them, but they certainly weren't Jews.
"Matthew", "Luke", and "John" all based their stories on "Mark". Basically fanfics.
"Mark"'s story is written as a fiction, with an all knowing narrator. He's also pretty funny, he makes quite a few jokes and ironic situations in the story.
"Mark" was quite the fan of Homer. (I am too)
Paul expected the rapture to occur within his lifetime.
etc, etc.
If the gospel Jesus was a fake, then the NT can be reduced to Paul, Timothy, and Peter and John(real John). And all their writings come from their interpretations of the OT, and all their prophecies turned out bunk.
Mgoblue201
Won't stop picking the right nation
I don't know how you're deriving 30%. Snelling himself only says 20%. And as Dalrymple claims, two large studies of recent historical lava flows from which the dates were known beforehand gave largely unanimous results in line with the time of their formation, except in the case of the 1801 Hualalai samples where xenoliths were present, which Snelling tries to pass off as a case that disproves the efficacy of K-Ar dating (quite the contrary, the scientists had a methodological basis for telling which samples were contaminated - that is the entire point). When the results are largely in your favor, there is no need to cherry pick. If we apply the same statistics to rocks from which we are not aware beforehand of the date of their formation, then we should expect over 80% of the ancient rocks to give a correct date. This is an 80% rate (at the very least) that he cannot explain. For some reason he thinks that a smaller subset invalidates the entire thing (it doesn't). That is the very definition of cherry picking.
(Just so your aware, the issue isn't that xenoliths are old, but that they contaminate the sample with disproportionate argon*. Then again, I think you're trying to project an aura of authority on an issue that you're learning about on the fly and know very little about. It's clear that you didn't really know anything about the list you posted from the ICR site, since you posted references that didn't correspond with the actual list of rocks.)
Lastly, if you're going to list the Grand Canyon date, you can at least explain what you mean by it, which I assume is a reference to the Steven Austin saga. I don't have time to go through it, but apparently Austin rigged the test in his favor by intentionally dating an older sample, the flow's source, which was designed to fail.
*I don't know why you're dismissing the argument of contamination. Xenoliths contaminate the samples. This is a fact. Scientists do not simply assume that the sample is contaminated because it gives an incorrect date. Please stop making this fallacious argument.
About Daniel Chapter 11, it's widely believed to have been written after the events he prophesied about happened.
Here's the evidence for it via SkepticsAnnotatedBible.
By the way, here's some failed predictions.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/proph/long.html
Here's the evidence for it via SkepticsAnnotatedBible.
By the way, here's some failed predictions.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/proph/long.html
One is real, the other likely isnt and if we are taking the Christian afterlife, not all that beautiful or desirable imo
GraveHorizon
poop meter feature creep
Can we just get a list detailing which parts of the bible are and aren't canon? These debates would be much easier if we only had to talk about the parts that are actually confirmed as true.
Devolution
Member
Mgoblue201
Won't stop picking the right nation
I only have a limited understanding, but I believe that scientists can corroborate carbon dating by measuring artifacts for which the date is already known or checking it with other dating methods such as tree rings. However, carbon dating is limited and has a number of caveats. It is only accurate for artifacts that are younger than 50,000 years old. For older samples, scientists might use potassium-argon or uranium-lead, both of which have a half-life ranging in the billions of years.
I see he interprets the days as cycles. Another thing that will probably confuse the issue is that some view the creation story very much in a spiritual perspective and not a physical one. In other words Adam and Eve in the garden of eden are not viewed as being physical beings, it is a level of consciousness/awareness. In that sense it's very hard to prove it either right or wrong of course.
One view in Jewish thought is that it isn't the first time life has been created. It is continuously happening in the form of cycles.
Trent Strong
Banned
You realize there are black fundamentalists?
scar tissue
Banned
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Please just shut the fuck up, Pro.
Concerning the prophecies: if you word some shit very vaguely and wait a few thousand years, there's a good chance you'll find some event that fits your prophecy.
If god knew everything and wanted to show it, he'd have put some mindbogglingly precise prophecies in there.
I'm sure there are, there are probably even black fundies that think Obama is the anti-Christ. I did preface my statement by specifically stating that the backwards fundamentalists thought this and not all fundamentalists.
How about this: Not all fundamentalists believe the same thing, but we can all (most of us who are being honest with ourselves at least) agree whatever they believe it is pretty mixed up and often devoid a rational interpretation of the reality we all share.
Happy?
scar tissue: Some of the 'prophecies' were even written by prophets that had the foresight to know they should write about events that just happened and claim that they wrote it down before it happened. :lol
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