Picture of Mars vs. the earth. So how did Moses know?

[TagliatelliMonster]

Go ahead and mock that is expected from you

What's sad, is that I'm not mocking.

I'm just sharing my observations.

- Do you have a dogmatic investment in a religious narrative concerning human origins? Answer: yes.
- Are you willfully ignorant concerning the scientific theory and its supporting evidence concerning human origins? Or, in fact, any narrative concerning human origins that is incompatible with the one you religiously believe in? Answer: yes.
- Do you handwave away any and every post that attempts to correct you on your strawmen and misrepresentations of evolution, and then happily repeat the fallacious point as if it is valid? Answer: yes.

This makes you closed minded and intellectually dishonest concerning the subject.
It is what it is.

And to be frank, if you deny this also, you are also being dishonest about being dishonest.


As I said previously............ You don't have to believe science. But at least be honest about your motivation and reasoning.

 

[MyM]

What's sad, is that I'm not mocking.

I'm just sharing my observations.

- Do you have a dogmatic investment in a religious narrative concerning human origins? Answer: yes.
- Are you willfully ignorant concerning the scientific theory and its supporting evidence concerning human origins? Or, in fact, any narrative concerning human origins that is incompatible with the one you religiously believe in? Answer: yes.
- Do you handwave away any and every post that attempts to correct you on your strawmen and misrepresentations of evolution, and then happily repeat the fallacious point as if it is valid? Answer: yes.

This makes you closed minded and intellectually dishonest concerning the subject.
It is what it is.

And to be frank, if you deny this also, you are also being dishonest about being dishonest.


As I said previously............ You don't have to believe science. But at least be honest about your motivation and reasoning.

Call it as you may....

I will never get into evolution and I will never discuss it with someone who doesn't identify that he didn't come from apes. It's pointless...you athiests get so technical and so "into" it that you think the more you know of it the smarter you are and sound. Not so, just shows our point more.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Call it as you may....
I will never get into evolution and I will never discuss it with someone who doesn't identify that he didn't come from apes.

That's exactly as I called it.

Closed to evidence, closed to learning, closed to anything that doesn't comply to your a priori beliefs.

It's pointless...you athiests get so technical

Many many more theists accept evolution then there are even atheists in the world.
In fact, more then half of all theists accept evolution.

So there's no need to start bringing "atheism" into this as it is very much irrelevant.

and so "into" it that you think the more you know of it the smarter you are and sound.

The more you know about a subject, the more knowledgeable you are about a subject.
I think that fact stands for itself, wouldn't you say?

Not so, just shows our point more.

Your point? You don't have a point. As you acknowledged at the start of this post.
What you have are a priori religious beliefs and a mind firmly shut to anything that might suggest something else.

 

[SkepticThinker]

True, no truth in science.
Believe it by faith because it has the best evidence and ignore the fact that this evidence is just the evidence that can be used in and by science.

Nonsense. Science is evidence based. No faith required.

Please stop trying to drag science down to the level of religion. And realize how telling it is that you feel the need to do so.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The existence of life and consciousness etc in dead matter.

What do you mean, and what do you think that is evidence for?

The existence of useable data in chemical mechanisms that act as control centres for the design and many other aspects of our bodies.

What does this mean?

The fine balance of conditions for life on planet earth when life has not been found anywhere else.

What do you think that is evidence for and why?

What it said in the Bible about origins.

As noted several times, the Bible is full of the claims, not the evidence. You can't use the Bible to prove the Bible - that would be circular reasoning.
And why should anyone care about what the Bible says? Why did you choose that particular holy book and not some other one?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I just provided some evidence easily but really what I supplied is probably not what you would call evidence.

You did? What was it?

We get to a point where science cannot give answers (to creation, to life, to how things came to be as they are)

That's awfully vague. We actually know a lot about "how things came to be as they are," thanks to scientific inquiry. They theory of evolution explains the biodiversity of life on the planet, for example.

Once we get to a point where we cannot demonstrate that our claims are true, we don't just make stuff up. Instead we have to acknowledge that we simply don't have the answer yet.

and even answers that may be thunk up are not falsifiable.

Like God claims?

It ends up with sceptics either believing through a religious type of faith that there is no creator or just saying that we don't know, and living as if there is no creator anyway.

What's wrong with saying "I don't know" when we don't know a thing? It sure beats just making up an answer that's not in evidence, don't you think?
I would submit "I don't know" is often the most honest answer.

Yes we can, and don't forget butterflies that start as grubs and then get transformed into butterflies.

You've just provided me with another argument from incredulity. "I don't know how grubs could turn into butterflies" so I'm going to just go with 'God did it." Once again, that's not an explanation.
And in fact, through the use of the scientific method, we can actually go out and observe grubs turning into butterflies and the processes involved and find the answers we seek. Answers that "God did it" don't provide. Thank you for helping me demonstrate the usefulness of the scientific method.

I draw a conclusion that you don't.

Exactly. You are drawing a conclusion where no conclusion is warranted.

I guess so.

Yes, you did just declare it so. Glad you agree.

It's one of those things that seems to be beyond logic, a bit like declaring that spiders and bees and DNA do not show evidence of a designer.

So your conclusion that you've drawn is "beyond logic." That doesn't make any sense. You claim that such things are evidence of God's hand or whatever. But you can't show the connection. How did you draw the connection in the first place then?

And no, it's not like "declaring that spiders and bees and DNA do not show evidence of a designer." When and if there is evidence of some designer, that is the time to consider it and not before. The fact that such claims aren't required in order to understand how spiders, bees and DNA operate should tell you something. Do you have evidence that spiders and bees and DNA show evidence of a designer, and what is that evidence? You seem to have already noticed that you can't draw a demonstrable connection between those things and Gods so ... ?

It's a leap of faith one way or the other.

No, it isn't. Science is evidence-based.

Finding out how things operate does not eliminate the need for a designer in the first place, or the need for a creator or life giver.

Not necessarily, but once again, you'd need to demonstrate the existence of this designer and the need for said designer to be injected into explanations of how the world around us works.

 

[SkepticThinker]

lol I am sorry but whenever I even see the words human beings are great apes lol I have to laugh because I know the truth from my Creator.

Good for you, I guess.

Scientifically speaking, humans are great apes, because they fit the criteria for great apes.

You can correct all you want but in my opinion, you don't understand and refuse to understand my side and you come up lacking just as you see me.

"Your side" as far as I can tell, is a misrepresentation of evolution based on a misunderstanding of it. If you don't understand a thing, how can you expect to talk seriously and intelligently about it?

The Quran can testify to the fact of where we came from, how we are formed, what it is we are here for and the like-over 1400 years ago and that itself is a miracle.

The Bible makes a bunch of claims too. So what?

Neither says anything about evolution.

It's your lack of understanding of the Quran that needs tweaking, but as you say if i don't believe in my head that I am saying "your theory" is correct, you will correct me and I just know you are dying inside to have it out with someone lol...it's not me. I will never believe. My fitra will never give up my Creator like you have done.

Why should anyone care what the Quran says? Why don't you follow the Bible, or the Bhagavad Gita?

It's not "my theory." It's a scientific theory, well supported by mountains of evidence derived from multiple independent lines of research compiled by multiple independent researchers across the world over a period of over 150+ years. No evidence has ever been found to falsify it, to date. And that's not for a lack of trying on the part of believers either.

 

[YoursTrue]

True, no truth in science.
Believe it by faith because it has the best evidence and ignore the fact that this evidence is just the evidence that can be used in and by science.

actually, by this time after having listened to the arguments by those believing in science, I am wondering what science is.

 

[joelr]

You and I were not there when the Bible was written. Therefore -- we can only assume, or figure things out. Obviously there are different schools of thought or ways of looking at things. I thought about the transmission over the centuries of the Bible, the writings from Moses on down to the prophets and extensive history insofar as an ancient history book goes. And I have come to believe it is from God. From my understanding, I do realize that not all will agree with that.

There are not different schools. apologetics and denial are not schools. They attempt to make myths real and it's a mess of ad-hoc rationalization lacking any evidence.
We were not there when the Hindu myth were written either but it isn't hard to determine that they were written to be myths for the Hindu people. The same is true for the Israelite myths.
The life of Moses uses Egyptian myths and has been demonstrated in a peer-reviewed book to be non-historical (Thomas Thompson - Moses and the Patriarchs). The other stories are Mesopotamain or Babylonian myths, Noah is Gilamesh.... So yes, we fan figure stuff out and we have.
There is no possible way to just "come to an understanding" that an ancient myth is real. Especially one that is using older stories freely. You must have come at this with a pre-belief, an idea that your God was real and then had made a small leap to believe Moses was real.
Moses is mythology in the consensus opinion. of Biblical historians and archaeologists. These people spend their lives learning all possible original sources and information.
The prophecies are almost all incorrect so I don't know how you get past that? Yahweh said the Israelites would rule all nations and so on.

 

[joelr]

(Whatever...still no proof)

Proof that Santa Clause isn't real cannot be provided. However that was one entire post demonstrating some of the origins the many of the popular OT myths come from.
You can say "whatever" all day. I do not care about what any individual believes. You do not have to care about what is true. But for anyone that does I give that information.
An honest person actually attempting to look at evidence would find it interesting. But many religious folks are not at all interested in facts or knowledge about the real world, just things that support the cognitive dissonance and re-enforce beliefs already held. That's just how it is.

 

[joelr]

Here is something I found from Britannica, under the subject of Moses. "According to the biblical account, Moses’ parents were from the tribe of Levi, one of the groups in Egypt called Hebrews. Originally the term Hebrew had nothing to do with race or ethnic origin. It derived from Habiru, a variant spelling of Ḫapiru (Apiru), a designation of a class of people who made their living by hiring themselves out for various services." While you and I differ on certain vital issues, I'd be interested in asking about this from a believing Jewish perspective as to the historicity of this point as well as whether their commentaries say it's a made=up idea or myth. But thanks anyway.

There is a large amount of Rabbinical literature not in the Bible that deals with stories about Moses. He visited the 1st heaven and even climbed to the 7th. What is known is there may have been a leader at some point named Moses who was later put to legend and was the star of the show in many of the Biblical myths. Most of that material in the Bible was written down during the 2nd Temple Period and are highly mythicized.
There is no way to uncover what is true from legend.

 

[joelr]

I take it that you think the other archaeology which puts Israel in Egypt when and where the Bible says and that has the archaeology of the conquest as correct is not true.

There is no "other archaeology"? There are a few ideas backed by one team and then another guy used that to make a DVD series about how Exodus could be true? Please link to a source?
If you are picking on D.M. murdock and then are going to post some crank amateur archaeologist team who are "proving the Bible is true" yet no one else is finding any credibility in the work then that's going to be really hypocritical.

There is nothing proven there, that is just a belief that the naturalistic methodology of anthropology and history is philosophically true.

Yes, Israel copied myths from older cultures. So what is the point? Then during the 2nd Temple Period they really started doing it.

The Christ Conspiracy

I found the above link about one of Murdock's books but could not find one debunking her Moses was a myth book. However I have no doubt that what she says in there is exaggerations made to look true by crafty thinking and writing and the willingness of people to believe such things, as is the case with the book about Jesus.
People lap up anti Biblical rhetoric even if the thinking and facts in such works is not very good at times.

D.M. Murdock has done some bad history, she isn't a PhD. Richard Carrier talks about her in his book where he demonstrates mythicism is likely 3 to 1. There are no exaggerations about Jesus, NT or anything in any of the works by Carrier, Ehrman, and so on. They are just doing history. You are wrong about Bible rhetoric, everything I have read I looked to confirm first. This is how I realized D.M. Murdock wasn't always telling the facts as they should be

However the Egyptian myths that were used on Moses are true. That she got correct. I don't use her work on NT studies. I don't use her work really at all because she isn't a PhD historian. But the Moses stores are taken from older myths.
You want credible sources>

"Generally, Moses is seen as a legendary figure, whilst retaining the possibility that Moses or a Moses-like figure existed in the 13th century BCE." Dever

1. Miller II, Robert D. (25 November 2013). Illuminating Moses: A History of Reception from Exodus to the Renaissance. BRILL. pp. 21, 24. ISBN 978-90-04-25854-9. Van Seters concluded, 'The quest for the historical Moses is a futile exercise. He now belongs only to legend.' ... "None of this means that there is not a historical Moses and that the tales do not include historical information. But in the Pentateuch, history has become memorial. Memorial revises history, reifies memory, and makes myth out of history.

. Moses the Egyptian. Harvard University Press. pp. 2, 11. ISBN 978-0-674-58739-7. We cannot be sure Moses ever lived because there are not traces of his existence outside the tradition" (p.2) "I shall not even ask the question—let alone, answer it—whether Moses was an Egyptian, or a Hebrew, or a Midianite. This question concerns the historical Moses and thus pertains to history. I am concerned with Moses as a figure of memory. As a figure of memory, Moses the Egyptian is radically different from Moses the Hebrew or the Biblical Moses.

Dever, William G. (1993). "What Remains of the House That Albright Built?". The Biblical Archaeologist. University of Chicago Press. the overwhelming scholarly consensus today is that Moses is a mythical figure

I would say there are maybe a few ways to go with some things and it is just which combination that is chosen which makes for the variety. If someone is going to choose a certain direction on one of the issues then they are probably more likely to be a certain sort of person and probably go with a similar combination as someone else who chose the same direction on that issue.
Overall there may not be as big a variety of beliefs as we might think when they can probably be grouped like that into similar types of denominations.

Some believe hell is a metaphor, some believe it's literal, it's all over the place.

 

[YoursTrue]

There are not different schools. apologetics and denial are not schools. They attempt to make myths real and it's a mess of ad-hoc rationalization lacking any evidence.
We were not there when the Hindu myth were written either but it isn't hard to determine that they were written to be myths for the Hindu people. The same is true for the Israelite myths.
The life of Moses uses Egyptian myths and has been demonstrated in a peer-reviewed book to be non-historical (Thomas Thompson - Moses and the Patriarchs). The other stories are Mesopotamain or Babylonian myths, Noah is Gilamesh.... So yes, we fan figure stuff out and we have.
There is no possible way to just "come to an understanding" that an ancient myth is real. Especially one that is using older stories freely. You must have come at this with a pre-belief, an idea that your God was real and then had made a small leap to believe Moses was real.
Moses is mythology in the consensus opinion. of Biblical historians and archaeologists. These people spend their lives learning all possible original sources and information.
The prophecies are almost all incorrect so I don't know how you get past that? Yahweh said the Israelites would rule all nations and so on.

We'll see.

 

[YoursTrue]

Proof that Santa Clause isn't real cannot be provided. However that was one entire post demonstrating some of the origins the many of the popular OT myths come from.
You can say "whatever" all day. I do not care about what any individual believes. You do not have to care about what is true. But for anyone that does I give that information.
An honest person actually attempting to look at evidence would find it interesting. But many religious folks are not at all interested in facts or knowledge about the real world, just things that support the cognitive dissonance and re-enforce beliefs already held. That's just how it is.

I think, to an extent, you might want to argue this with someone else. Have a nice day/evening etc.

 

[Brian2]

When you have multiple independent lines of evidence all converging on the same answer, that's when you have an answer that is very trustworthy. Because of this, evolution is often seen as the most established and best evidenced idea in all of science.

Yes evolution has good supporting evidence but probably the evidence could be answered another way, one that incorporated a God doing some creating and adjusting along the way.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yes evolution has good supporting evidence but probably the evidence could be answered another way,

I don't see how, and since you apparently don't feel like explaining how, I'm going to go ahead and assume that you can't do it.

So as it stands, it screams EVOLUTION and nothing else.

one that incorporated a God doing some creating and adjusting along the way.

In the same way that we can imagine undetectable graviton pixies regulating gravity from the 29th dimension.

- It's unfalsifiable
- no evidence suggests it
- there's no reason at all to propose it.

 

[Brian2]

I don't see how, and since you apparently don't feel like explaining how, I'm going to go ahead and assume that you can't do it.

So as it stands, it screams EVOLUTION and nothing else.



In the same way that we can imagine undetectable graviton pixies regulating gravity from the 29th dimension.

- It's unfalsifiable
- no evidence suggests it
- there's no reason at all to propose it.

You get it already with those graviton pixies.
The thing is that many conclusions in science concerning the past have come about because of the presumption of no supernatural. It screams evolution and nothing else because of that presumption. Even the definition of "life" and "consciousness" is made up with that presumption in mind.
Maybe the Cambrian explosion suggests more that science can say.

 

[SkepticThinker]

You get it already with those graviton pixies.
The thing is that many conclusions in science concerning the past have come about because of the presumption of no supernatural. It screams evolution and nothing else because of that presumption. Even the definition of "life" and "consciousness" is made up with that presumption in mind.

What evidence do we have for positing the supernatural in the first place? Why should anyone insert anything into an explanation for anything, if it's not in evidence?
Science is EVIDENCE-based.

I don't understand what you don't get about this.

Maybe the Cambrian explosion suggests more that science can say.

What do you think the Cambrian explosion suggests?

 

[YoursTrue]

You get it already with those graviton pixies.
The thing is that many conclusions in science concerning the past have come about because of the presumption of no supernatural. It screams evolution and nothing else because of that presumption. Even the definition of "life" and "consciousness" is made up with that presumption in mind.
Maybe the Cambrian explosion suggests more that science can say.

I can understand how some (many?) might believe in the concept of life having evolved. I used to believe that, too. Frankly it was not helpful for me as the time wore on because -- I (1) had no real solid concept of God, and (2) I did whatever seemed ok for me to do without much conscientious thinking about right or wrong, because - I did not believe in God anyway. But now I do and so I must say my life is not only much better (not perfect, but then who is?) and I have hope for everlasting life, the truth of which only God can give. (But that's because I no longer believe in the theory of evolution as assumed by scientists, but now I believe in God structuring, setting forth, and enabling life.) Just making my statement here,

 

[SkepticThinker]

I can understand how some (many?) might believe in the concept of life having evolved. I used to believe that, too. Frankly it was not helpful for me as the time wore on because -- I (1) had no real solid concept of God, and (2) I did whatever seemed ok for me to do without much conscientious thinking about right or wrong, because - I did not believe in God anyway. But now I do and so I must say my life is not only much better (not perfect, but then who is?) and I have hope for everlasting life, the truth of which only God can give. (But that's because I no longer believe in the theory of evolution as assumed by scientists, but now I believe in God structuring, setting forth, and enabling life.) Just making my statement here,

Life evolves. That is a fact. There is a demonstrable change in allele frequencies in populations over time.
Evolution is the foundation of biology.

I have no idea what that has to do with a God existing or not, because a God could very easily have set up a universe/planet where evolution is a fact of life.