Why does my God allow children to die? Is he evil?

[SkepticThinker]

I offered to if you pointed out which was relevant to what I was talking about and why.

All of them, which is why I posted them in the first place.

 

[viole]

I do not see how anyone could hold a no-evolution position. The bible both acknowledges it and restricts it. The principle text is:

New International Version
And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so

So I easily have change but also a limit to change. Now you may object that kind is generic but my response is that this verse has nothing to do with core beliefs. It is not a scientific text, it speeds through creation in maybe a chapter or two. You said "mess", compared to what? Am I to expect God to have given the DNA sequences and mutation rates to people who could barely add, 5000 years ago, in a book about the supernatural? It is only a mess if used out of context for a purpose it does not have.

The job of science is to give explanations to objective facts. I do not expect to see differential equations or genetics in the Bible. But it is rational to expect that if the book has really been inspired by the creator of all these facts then we should read some factual truths that trascend the knowledge at the time of its writing. I do not see them. Probably, if they had ever seen another species of ape they would have omitted the "in His Image" part, in order to avoid obvious misunderstandings.

Restricting evolution to work only for kinds is the best an ancient human could come up with by observing the world around him. It is actually an obvious and expected conclusion considering that significant changes in fenotypes take place during geological eras, usually, and the authors did not have a clue about other human species, fossils, geology, strata and molecular biology.

It took thousands of years and a lot of ingenuity to come to the current sysnthesis which is, by the way, supported by the same clever primates who gave you the space shuttle and rubidium oscillators. Aren't we brilliant? We know more than God or, more plausibly, we know more than some clueless bronze age human who just wrote what he saw and misapplied induction

So, why do you reject common descent? Because Genesis says so and studying in depth the subject is boring?

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

It is a fact that great apes and dolphins are self aware like humans. That is a quantum leap in evolution that several species on this planet have achieved. Besides that, it makes little sense to say evolution is false just cause one species appears more advanced than others. One of the things evolution does is explain diversity, why some weak and some strong, some small and some big, some smart some dumb etc.

1. It is an enormously debated issues whether a few other animals have self awareness or not. Since they can't even speak it is impossible to tell what they are thinking. No evidence exists to even begin to place them in the quantum jump category humans are in.
2. Self awareness was one minor aspect of what separates us from all other beings. You cannot make one ambiguous point about one of many aspects and think you have done anything to affect my argument as a whole.
3. I never said evolution was untrue.
4. Evolution is the attempt to explain things by gradual mutation. It is powerless to explain momentary explosions of this magnitude. However evolutionary theory seems to change more than what it attempts to describe and becomes an elastic bag which stretches it's self over what ever reality is found. So just wait a bit and it will explain why without sufficient time, it never the less explains such an astronomical leap.

 

[1robin]

1robin said :“…[FONT=&quot] there is no need to reform the bible and there has been very little attempt to[/FONT][FONT=&quot].”[/FONT][FONT=&quot]# 5033[/FONT]

Do you have any idea how much of your posts are formatting statements when quoted? I will see below what it is you are trying to correct but the part about there being little correction to the bible over the almost 2000 years we have had it is a fact. We know what changes have been made and they comparatively are a tiny, tiny fraction of the whole. Actual editing probably accounts for less than 1% of the whole and is pretty much absent in core doctrine.

In this day of access to quick information, more individuals are both aware of the need to “reform” and correct biblical texts and they are, increasingly aware of the fact that no one actually knows what the original texts said in the face of the desire to know what the original texts

I find the opposite to be true. The more we learn the more textual scholars are flabbergasted by how accurate the earliest copies are.

Individuals are also increasingly aware of the tremendous amount of ongoing effort to “reform” and “correct” biblical texts. I very much agree with your prior point that the experience of revelation from God to an individual is powerful evidence to the individual that God exists and thus, being able to admit errors in sacred texts has little negative effect on the conviction of one who receives authentic revelation from an existing God. To them[FONT=&quot], knowledge of textual errors is[/FONT] like water offa ducks back.[/FONT] For them, admitting any type of reform is needed either in an imperfect individual or in an imperfect text doesn't affect either God's existence or the persons' relationship, nor the persons spiritual direction and Goals.

1. Again I have found scholarship to have less need for editing the bible because of modern research. I will give you a quote from one at the end if I think it is still applicable.
2. Yes I do believe that my faith is based in experience and not primarily text, but that was not to say the text has any major problems. It was to show that I have no need to conceal them if they did exist. Outside of the authorship of the Pentateuch, the last chapter of Mathew, and the author of Hebrews (not the content) the bible has few remaining issues left to be resolved textually. I fully expect the bible 5 generations to use from today will be identical to what was used a thousand years ago.

However, regarding the efforts to “reform” and “correct” and “determine” the biblical texts : Since no one know what the original biblical text looked like, either Old or New Testament, it is a difficult and slow process to determine what texts are original and what are added and e[FONT=&quot]specially what is missing [FONT=&quot]in[/FONT] the later texts that should ha[FONT=&quot]ve been there[/FONT][/FONT]. As you mentioned once, the stories existed as oral stories before they were written and thus there are multiple versions of early texts and traditions in existence.

Actually this is not true. And I think you mean manuscript not bible. The bible has everything necessary and some additional assets which make knowing the original a virtually given.

1. Early recording.
2. Parallel traditions.
3. Lost manuscripts recovered much much later.
4. Multiple authors.
5. Extra biblical corroboration from both history and other authors.
6. A massive and fairly early tradition. No other work is even in the ballpark for this one.

There are a few more but I have no t had to list them in a while and I have forgotten. Even with only a few of the major ones the original is almost a certainty. With them all it is without doubt.

In discussing the need to “reform” and “repair” and “correct” biblical texts, I am not talking mainly about the obvious additions you refer to (that is, stories and references which are spurious and incorrect, but have been added to biblical texts), but I am also referring to textual omissions and mis-interpretations (both ancient and modern) as well. [/FONT]

You would have to be specific. Even the bible's critics often concede what you deny. The bible is extraordinarily free of intentional change. Some translations have quite a few meaningless and unintentional mistakes in copying but very little intentional editing. You can even buy personal software that will find every difference between every version and you still won't have much. The tradition is so enormous that 99% of errors it ever had are known and indicated in all modern bibles with the explanations in most cases.

[FONT=&quot]Even if we could determine what the original text actually said for either old or new covenant texts, this corrected text would do little to prevent the skewed and individual personal interpretations that create multiple conflicting doctrines to evolve among multiple Christian movements who use the very same biblical text to support conflicting doctrines in the same way that CG DIDYMUS has suggested. [/FONT]

You can determine it to a virtual certainty in the bible's case. Textual criticism can often be counter intuitive. Did you know that the bibles textual tradition n has so many errors because it is so accurate. For example Uthman's Quran is one man's interpretation of one man's word. We have no tradition by which to measure the earliest Qurans. Uthman burned all the rivals. So it is relatively free of error and completely untrustworthy. Biblical errors are any error ever found in a any manuscript. With at least 6000 early manuscripts you should expect many errors. You should also expect that those errors can easily be found and notated. It is because the biblical textual tradition is so unearthly large that we both know what the various errors are, what the original in all likelihood said, and what the original and correct text contained. It is it's enormous volume by which it's errors and astronomical reliability can be based on.

It’s counterproductive to overstate a claim when agnostics and athiests can so easily disprove it. I assume you are not particularly and personally familiar with the changes brought on by the DSS, but are simply repeating a statement you heard someone else make or that someone else wrote? (else you would not have made the statement…).

I have seen documentaries, read textual scholarship, even heard the best critics around and none give the book of Isaiah for examples less than a 95% match with the DSS. I have even seen them do this word by word for at least Isaiah. Even the secular reporters were oohing and ahing. Along with traditional books were some distorted works adopted by the Essenes which is what got them ostracized to begin with. Only in those can major disagreements be found but they are not inspired works and so are irrelevant.

While the Dead Sea Scrolls cannot tell us much about the earliest proto-hebrew texts (which language the Hebrews adopted from the canaanites before they adopted national hebrew), they can tell us that the later Masoretic texts are quite similar to those of approx. 70 a.d. in many cases.

The importance the OT holds for me does not require that the earliest possible sources be found. To a Christian it is background and commentary and general reliability is sufficient, though I am aware of few problems with it.

However, the dead sea scrolls also reveal that later biblical texts differ radically from the early Masoretic text in some instances. Often the differences indicate loss of naratives that used to be in early texts. Thus, the DDS gives us solid evidence of CD DIDYMUS’ claim as well as specific instances of textual evolution in action.

I think your either talking about non canonical texts, texts known to have been corrupt (which is one reasons they were driven out). Everything I have ever read, ever heard, or seen has been to the exact same effect. That the DDS are in every way possible confirmatory of the OT.

The Dead Sea Scrolls from the peri-c.e. era (approx. 70 a.d.) have been a motivating force of more specific changes to Old Covenantal texts and contexts than almost any other textual discoveries of the last two centuries. They’ve also changed entire base paradigms regarding peri c.e. era Judaism and Christianity, their doctrines and practices, in profound ways. The Dead Sea Scrolls also are contributing to the “evolution” of both theology and text that CG DIDYMUS has described.

Exactly what changes have there been to the OT text in any major bible version printed in the last 30 years as a result of the DDS?

For example : Anciently, Justyn Martyr claimed in his Debate with the Jew Trypho, that Jewish textual narratives changed and some of the lost or corrupted data that would have made the scriptures more clear that Jesus was the very Messiah. (Whether the Jews would have accepted Jesus if such changes had not occurred in their scriptures is another matter) The DSS confirm that much is missing in current texts and the early canon was not closed to these jews.

This paragraph did not add anything but Justin Martyr's name. This is unusually something that is easy to settle. You need only provide what I requested above.

Continued below; I am going to be forced to paraphrase or excerpt your original claims to have enough room to respond in one post. You type so many characters plus 50% more formatting characters that after two line responses it still will not fit in a single post.

 

[1robin]

An example of modern textual evolution (correction) of biblical text:
The DSS text of O.T. Samuel is an example of original narratives lost to modern biblical text and the more correct DSS text allowed us to correct missing biblical text (some of which we did not even know was missing&#8230. For example, the DSS text adds a missing paragraph to 1 Samuel 11:1. This single correction represents forty nine words (49) which are missing in the modern Hebrew Bible as well as in other Jewish texts IN THIS SINGLE VERSE (that is, more than half of the narrative is missing in modern bibles).

This amounts to part of paragraph in a few hundred thousand words. I also do not yet see what exactly was changed. I have a Torah from when I was a kid. I have one a friend gave me a couple years back. As far as I can tell they are identical. I looked in one I keep on my desk from 1999 and did not see any notes about changes to any Duteronomistic texts beyond a few order of magnitude issues that have been well known for a long time. Who's bible is changed?

With the restoration of this passage, the final verse in Chapter 10 transitions smoothly and with a better understanding as we enter the first verse in chapter 11. With such textual restorations of the Jewish text, the entire context of the story can be put into it’s proper perspective: After restoring the missing words, the corrected Jewish text reads: "And Nahash, king of the children of Ammon, oppressed harshly the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had fled from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead (1 Sam.11:1)

To make any point stick about significant and needed changes you are going to have to go beyond the 5% I have alluded to for years in this forum. I can grant what you stated above even without your providing evidence official text has changed and it only accounts for less than .1%. My point was a general one. As far back in my posts you can go you will find the admission that maybe 5% of the bible contains errors. So to contend with my views you are going to have to show at least 10% error or more.

The restoration of the missing paragraph helps readers to understand the situation; the conditions of the treaty of Nahash, and the underlying motive to rally around King Saul and the prophet Samuel. It elucidates the Israelite motive to Slay many Ammonites and to cause the others to flee.

Missing text in the Jewish record is NOT a rare occurrence. There are also smaller, but significant additions in verses 11, 13, 18, 22, 23 and 24 IN JUST THE FIRST CHAPTER OF SAMUEL.

I am interested in which official text has adopted these changes. Who likes it or what it solves is secondary to that.

BIBLICAL TEXTUAL EVOLUTION
Most of us that grew up reading Bezae based King James Bibles realize that switching to other bibles that had less reliance on Bezae were quite different (Codex Bezaes Book of Acts is more than 10% longer than most other versions of Acts). If you need examples to prove the importance of the many, many, small but important differences in even the known Greek biblical texts, we can discuss this, or you can trust my claim that there are many, many, many differences that are quite important in their additive effect on Christian theology.

Yes, the King James versions flaws are well known. They still fall within or close to the 5% mark I have so often quoted. Maybe you interpreted my statements for claims to perfection. Looking back I may have assumed you were familiar with my views and not been as technical as I should have been. Yes, every bible has flaws but there is virtually no major editing left to be done. Half a paragraph or a hundred similar example is not going to have much effect over all. I had in my mind the major aspects of Christ's life, the fundamental creedal foundations, Paul's doctrines, not some obscure partial paragraph in Samuel. My original claims were mad to a secular person and contained an assumption they meant meaningful changes, not this fine tuning stuff your mentioning. I am interested in what bibles have adopted these changes but in general I think we are having two distinct conversations.

The on-going effort by the individuals and teams that create the bibles you read are themselves (often) trying to reform and correct the biblical text they produce and then sell to you for your consumption. In many cases, we know the text is incorrect, but are not sure what the correction should be and so translations simply continue the errors in texts.

How do you get all these characters in one post? I type a few lines and it is too big to post in a single effort. 100 biblical scholar produced the latest NIV bible. Fundamentally it is the exact same as the bible Luther read.

Clearly, in the case of the Dead Sea Scroll text, the older text is frequently superior to the later Old covenantal texts.. This is partly the reason the New International Version Bible prefers the DSS textual readings over the traditional hebrew text. They are not the only bible trying to correct corruptions and deletions from the traditional Jewish text. "Today’s English version"; "Revised Standard Version", the "New Revised Standard Version", "The New English Bible", The "New American Bible", etc. are ALL using DSS corrections over the prior traditional Hebrew Text.

Now this is almost exactly what I want. If you can, can you provide a single post with only what version and which changes have been officially adopted in print.

It is not just the a "few naratives" that are missing, nor even merely short stories, but entire BOOKS are missing from the current Jewish narratives. For example Joshua 10 relates the "sun stool still, and the moon stopped",but it refers us to a book missing from the Jewish narrative when it says: "Is this not written in the Book of Jasher?"(Josh 10:13). It is not just this narrative that could benefit from restoration of excluded narratives and entire books, but MANY other stories cannot BE understood without referencing materials the Jews either excluded or did not include in their later records that ultimately became the Old Testament.

You seem to place a lot of value in the earliest text. Why do you not also do so for the earliest compilers. I would imagine they were very familiar with the book of Jasher and why it was not included. I am a NT textual scholarship fan so would not be able to evaluate that claim.

POST TWO OF TWO FOLLOWS

Oh boy!!!

 

[1robin]

POST TWO OF TWO


EVEN REFORMING (CORRECTING) BIBLICAL TEXT WILL NOT PREVENT FURTHER DOCTRINAL EVOLUTION ASSOCIATED WITH VARYING INTERPRETATIONS OF WHATEVER TEXT ONE ADOPTS (EVEN CORRECT TEXT)
As I pointed out, even the most basic stories in the later biblical text have different versions and conflicting interpretations. Just as an infant is sinful in your interpretation, the infant was innocent to the early Christian tradition. Just as Adams gaining of moral wisdom was a “mistake” in many modern Christian movements, it was not only according to God’s plan in early Judeo-Christian traditions, but it was THE plan from the beginning. Very basic and long-assumed translations are changing as we gain more and better information.

To make the point you were spelling out you should have instead showed hat verses were changed, why, by who, and in what version? My opinion is not that important so any counter opinions would be in this context. So it would only matter what the verses say. In my original discussion my opinion was relevant but I gave a few verses. Here only verses are appropriate but only opinion has been given.

I think your confusing a thing consistent with God's passive will with something desired and determined upon when you mentioned the Garden. You turn the tree of knowledge into something good and you no longer have a coherent doctrine, all the way through revelations.


Most of these differences are completely immaterial and insignificant; in fact most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple— slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another when scribes made intentional changes, sometimes their motives were as pure as the driven snow. And so we must rest content knowing that getting back to the earliest attainable version is the best we can do, whether or not we have reached back to the “original” text. This oldest form of the text is no
doubt closely (very closely) related to what the author originally wrote, and so it is the basis for our interpretation of his teaching.

The gentleman that I’m quoting is Bart Ehrman in Misquoting Jesus. [audience laughter]

This of course concerns the NT. As every core tenant of my faith is from the NT I have spent most of my study on it. Perhaps the OT has a little worse error rate (I usually hear it is actually better than the NT) but I have never seen anything to indicate it needs any major revision on any level.

It is important you understand my position. I think I may have been vague as I assumed who would read my post was familiar with my views. Your new, so are not.

Robin, while you are considering the concept of biblical errors and the need and efforts to reform the biblical texts, you have (as far as I am able to tell), left my last post to you, unanswered. It regarded your prior unsettled claim that God’s “standard” for salvation is moral “perfection”. [FONT=&quot]

Give me the post number please.

Thanks in advance for the information in [FONT=&quot]explaining your theory of God's standard being perfection for salvatio[FONT=&quot]n, [/FONT][/FONT] and I wish you a good journey 1Robin.[/FONT]

This is the subject I most like discussing but I am a little confused. I thought we had concluded that discussion or suspended it. Is that the post you say I missed?

AS far as the last question you raise din what you quoted. I answered what salvation means according to what I thought you were asking but you could have been asking for something different. Let me try another tact.

Salvation is:
1. Our reconciliation with God based on our faith and Christ's merits.
2. It comes with the personal impartation of the Holy Spirit. The OT had the Holy Spirit come to accomplish a purpose but never (or almost never) as a possession. He comes to live in a Christian's heart with the guarantee of never leaving nor forsaking that person.
3. It required and the only thing that did require Christ's death. He need not die to be an object lesson.
4. It initiates a process of sanctification of which God is the author and finisher and is never perfected in this life. We should try to be perfect but whatever distance between our accomplishments and perfection, is infinite, and God alone will make it up at resurrection. I think there are four aspects to this and at least one is not even begun until resurrection.
5. It is the exchange of our guilt (past, present, and future) with Christ's perfection.

Here are a few verses on it:
Galatians 3:13
But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (Deuteronomy 21:22-23)

Romans 3:25-26
For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, 26for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

Romans 4:25
He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.

1 Peter 3:18
Christ suffered for our sins once for all time*. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the Spirit. (emphasis added)

Keep in mind there are two components to my argument.
1. Substitutionary atonement is the only coherent, comprehensive, and adequate answer to our sin problem.
2. That any counter merit based salvation model cannot survive the slightest scrutiny.

 

[1robin]

All of them, which is why I posted them in the first place.

For the love. Ok just give me the post number again then, please. The first link was a flop, but I will give number to a go. If it flops I am done, if it at least relevant and has actual data I will read it then go to number 3 and so forth.

 

[1robin]

The job of science is to give explanations to objective facts. I do not expect to see differential equations or genetics in the Bible. But it is rational to expect that if the book has really been inspired by the creator of all these facts then we should read some factual truths that trascend the knowledge at the time of its writing. I do not see them. Probably, if they had ever seen another species of ape they would have omitted the "in His Image" part, in order to avoid obvious misunderstandings.

I thought the issue was the intellectual integrity of creationists verses neo-creationists, not science. My point was that I think YEC is not only scientifically less justifiable but theologically less justifiable than an old earth creationist who includes evolution. You want scientific facts no bronze age man could have discovered on his own? Why didn't you say so?

1. Oceanographic currents. The guy who first discovered them looked for them based on scripture and this only occurred a few hundred years ago.
2. A spherical earth. Test me on that one if you want.
3. Hydrological cycle.
4. How many stars there are. It said uncountable when the exact countable amount visible was around 3000.
5. Creation ex-nihilo.
6. Germ theory, including the fact Leprosy can survive outside the body for days.
7. Entire museums are packed with artifacts from cultures scholars said never existed at one time but the bible stated did.
8. Both the first and second thermodynamic laws.
9. Man actually ancestors. Dirt.
10. That air has weight.
11. The ark (real or analogy) had the most stable dimensions possible in a ship. They actually taught us this in Navy basic training.

I can keep going indefinitely but this was only the first response here and there won't be any room left. I would like a debate on lists of unknowable's from the bible alone.

Restricting evolution to work only for kinds is the best an ancient human could come up with by observing the world around him. It is actually an obvious and expected conclusion considering that significant changes in fenotypes take place during geological eras, usually, and the authors did not have a clue about other human species, fossils, geology, strata and molecular biology.

Ancient man had no genetic dispositions at all. You notice I did not use that a scientific proof but you used an assumption about it as a scientific flaw. You can't do that until you have bronze age or earlier motivations in detail. It however is all that has ever been observed whether in the fossil record or in experiments using extremely fast reproducing species.

It took thousands of years and a lot of ingenuity to come to the current sysnthesis which is, by the way, supported by the same clever primates who gave you the space shuttle and rubidium oscillators. Aren't we brilliant? We know more than God or, more plausibly, we know more than some clueless bronze age human who just wrote what he saw and misapplied induction

I have little use for a theory which our brilliance caused. I only value ones that are true. The truth is that some evolution occurred but that it does show evidence of having limits just as the bible says. The rest is guess work.

So, why do you reject common descent? Because Genesis says so and studying in depth the subject is boring?

I would probably reject it given only the bible suggests it did not occur, as some in science would claim. However my personal problems with it are secular or academic and I have of a theological reason to question it. I have seen panels full of nothing but secular scholars squabbling on how much and where evolution occurred on every level. At the end of the day it is a unknowable. Common descent that I have a problem with is a abiogenesis to human tree. I am sure some bushes do exist. By the way even evolution has given up the tree model. We had gone to a bush but now we are in a jungle model which does not have a common ancestor to everything. Like I said, all trends are against materialism or naturalism.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I thought the issue was the intellectual integrity of creationists verses neo-creationists, not science. My point was that I think YEC is not only scientifically less justifiable but theologically less justifiable than an old earth creationist who includes evolution. You want scientific facts no bronze age man could have discovered on his own? Why didn't you say so?

1. Oceanographic currents. The guy who first discovered them looked for them based on scripture and this only occurred a few hundred years ago.
2. A spherical earth. Test me on that one if you want.
3. Hydrological cycle.
4. How many stars there are. It said uncountable when the exact countable amount visible was around 3000.
5. Creation ex-nihilo.
6. Germ theory, including the fact Leprosy can survive outside the body for days.
7. Entire museums are packed with artifacts from cultures scholars said never existed at one time but the bible stated did.
8. Both the first and second thermodynamic laws.
9. Man actually ancestors. Dirt.
10. That air has weight.
11. The ark (real or analogy) had the most stable dimensions possible in a ship. They actually taught us this in Navy basic training.

.

I know we've been through some of these before, and I wasn't exactly blown away then (I mean, #1 could have been figured out by anyone who had travelled on a ship before including the ancient Greeks, whom I'm sure you wouldn't say were provided knowledge of the seas by Poseidon; and #6 is quite a huge stretch), but could you cite verses to match these claims?

 

[1robin]

I know we've been through some of these before, and I wasn't exactly blown away then (I mean, #1 could have been figured out by anyone who had travelled on a ship before including the ancient Greeks, whom I'm sure you wouldn't say were provided knowledge of the seas by Poseidon; and #6 is quite a huge stretch), but could you cite verses to match these claims?

Actually not being blown away is so docile I would happy with it. I usually get far more militant and unjustifiable dismissals
based in preference. I will take not blown away instead.

Could have been but wasn't. I guess it was that hard after all. It would have at least had to wait for trans-oceanographic sailing. There was a founder for Oceanographic currents. He was not a 3500Bc Egyptian, a 1500BC Greek, a 50BC Roman, not even a 15th century Englishman.

I think he was an American, his name was Mathew Maury and it occurred In the 20th century.


Here is a blurb on it:

At one time, when Commodore Maury was very sick, he asked one of his daughters to get the Bible and read to him. She chose Psalm 8, the eighth verse of which speaks of "whatsoever walketh through the paths of the sea," he repeated "the paths of the sea, the paths of the sea, if God says the paths of the sea, they are there, and if I ever get out of this bed I will find them."

Some have called into question the Story of Matthew Maury using the Bible as a guide to discover ocean currents. In a nutshell, I find it incredible that the US Naval Institute would not only publish the story if untrue in 1929, but then puts the quote of the entire verse of Ps 8:8 "Paths of the seas" on his monument. What did the US Naval academy know that modern skeptics don't know that would lead them to do this? The book also references an earlier newspaper story that says the same thing. But the evidence gets even more powerful, given the fact that the State of Virginia built a monument to Maury at Goshen Pass in 1923 and put this inscription on it: "HIS INSPIRATION HOLY WRIT Psalms 8 and 107, Verses 8, 23 and 24 Ecclesiastes Chap. 1, Verse 8". Perhaps one of the most important reasons NOT to reject the story, is because no one BACK THEN questioned it! To me the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour that the basic story must be true. The US Navel academy and the State of Virginia are not some irresponsible Internet vigilantes promoting rumors and half truths. THEY ARE THE AUTHORITATIVE HISTORIANS. The only question is about WHEN Maury was first inspired by the Bible to discover ocean currents.
Matthew Fontaine Maury "Pathfinder Of Sea" Psalms 8

or

Apparently he is even known as the father of all modern oceanography.
Matthew Fontaine Maury - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://sci.odu.edu/sci/Scire/18Edition/father_ocean.html

It is a huge difference between charting eddies, whirlpools, and inlets on you few miles of coast you sail in ancient times and knowing that currents run from Japan to California. It would have been quite a while before anyone would have the experience to even begin to put the pieces together. Yet David records it in the Psalms.

I would have agreed that #6 was a stretch until I read up on Leprosy and bathing requirements in the OT. There is much more there than I have mentioned in our civil war comparisons before.

 

[idav]

I would probably reject it given only the bible suggests it did not occur, as some in science would claim. However my personal problems with it are secular or academic and I have of a theological reason to question it. I have seen panels full of nothing but secular scholars squabbling on how much and where evolution occurred on every level. At the end of the day it is a unknowable. Common descent that I have a problem with is a abiogenesis to human tree. I am sure some bushes do exist. By the way even evolution has given up the tree model. We had gone to a bush but now we are in a jungle model which does not have a common ancestor to everything. Like I said, all trends are against materialism or naturalism.

All those trends are not issues for evolution. So animals cross bred more than expected, well that should have been expected, they are animals we are talking about. We didnt just make this stuff up, going from abiogenesis to humans is what we have evidence for even if its hard to believe the evidence right in front of us. Naturalism is what has been holding its trend, all of the body of science and knowledge is against the supernatural people are so fond of. There is no way supernatural events are the norm, materialism and physicalism have us grounded in a less mysterious reality.

 

[1robin]

All those trends are not issues for evolution. So animals cross bred more than expected, well that should have been expected, they are animals we are talking about. We didnt just make this stuff up, going from abiogenesis to humans is what we have evidence for even if its hard to believe the evidence right in front of us. Naturalism is what has been holding its trend, all of the body of science and knowledge is against the supernatural people are so fond of. There is no way supernatural events are the norm, materialism and physicalism have us grounded in a less mysterious reality.

Those trends have been such a problem for the theory that it now has models which are not recognizable to the original ones and ones which do not seem to have a coherent natural explanation.

I will give you one example. The Cambrian fossils from the shale deposit in Canada (I believe) called by the name Burgess when sent back were so impossible to put into the slow gradual models currently agreed to that the most important fossil collection in possibly ever was hidden in the basement of the Smithsonian specifically because they defied the going theory. They taught a flawed model for I think 60 additional years and it was only after some students uncovered the fossils that what we know of as punctuated equilibrium appeared on the scene. 60 years of wrong teaching because they did not like the evidence. Punctuated equilibrium produced a bush like model.
Based on what I have no idea but now the bush is out of vogue and we have a forest model. Each successive model made a total materialistic explanation less probable and the science is still in it's infancy. I have no doubt evidence is not too troublesome to some evolutionists but the original model has suffered life threatening damage and the trends are all in the direction that lack a universal natural explanation. My only question is how long will the theory as a explanation in totality be defended after there is nothing defensible to it.

As an A - Z explanation for genetic reality it is 99.9% made up. As evidence for the existence of natural selection and mutation not so much so. I imagine the final remedy will be to arrive exactly where the bible began. With nature having a mechanistic role in quite a few things and God having a agency roll in them all and a mechanistic roll in others.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Those trends have been such a problem for the theory that it now has models which are not recognizable to the original ones and ones which do not seem to have a coherent natural explanation.

I will give you one example. The Cambrian fossils from the shale deposit in Canada (I believe) called by the name Burgess when sent back were so impossible to put into the slow gradual models currently agreed to that the most important fossil collection in possibly ever was hidden in the basement of the Smithsonian specifically because they defied the going theory. They taught a flawed model for I think 60 additional years and it was only after some students uncovered the fossils that what we know of as punctuated equilibrium appeared on the scene. 60 years of wrong teaching because they did not like the evidence. Punctuated equilibrium produced a bush like model.
Based on what I have no idea but now the bush is out of vogue and we have a forest model. Each successive model made a total materialistic explanation less probable and the science is still in it's infancy. I have no doubt evidence is not too troublesome to some evolutionists but the original model has suffered life threatening damage and the trends are all in the direction that lack a universal natural explanation. My only question is how long will the theory as a explanation in totality be defended after there is nothing defensible to it.

Have you got a link or something? This smells kind of fishy.

As an A - Z explanation for genetic reality it is 99.9% made up. As evidence for the existence of natural selection and mutation not so much so. I imagine the final remedy will be to arrive exactly where the bible began. With nature having a mechanistic role in quite a few things and God having a agency roll in them all and a mechanistic roll in others.

How could someone possibly demonstrate this?

 

[idav]

Those trends have been such a problem for the theory that it now has models which are not recognizable to the original ones and ones which do not seem to have a coherent natural explanation.

I will give you one example. The Cambrian fossils from the shale deposit in Canada (I believe) called by the name Burgess when sent back were so impossible to put into the slow gradual models currently agreed to that the most important fossil collection in possibly ever was hidden in the basement of the Smithsonian specifically because they defied the going theory. They taught a flawed model for I think 60 additional years and it was only after some students uncovered the fossils that what we know of as punctuated equilibrium appeared on the scene. 60 years of wrong teaching because they did not like the evidence. Punctuated equilibrium produced a bush like model.
Based on what I have no idea but now the bush is out of vogue and we have a forest model. Each successive model made a total materialistic explanation less probable and the science is still in it's infancy. I have no doubt evidence is not too troublesome to some evolutionists but the original model has suffered life threatening damage and the trends are all in the direction that lack a universal natural explanation. My only question is how long will the theory as a explanation in totality be defended after there is nothing defensible to it.

As an A - Z explanation for genetic reality it is 99.9% made up. As evidence for the existence of natural selection and mutation not so much so. I imagine the final remedy will be to arrive exactly where the bible began. With nature having a mechanistic role in quite a few things and God having a agency roll in them all and a mechanistic roll in others.

The fossil evidence alone is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution. They have fit the pieces together and find single celled organisms emerging and plants then land animals and on and on. It even sorta fits the order geneisis tells it which is intersting, it gets real close. So I dont see the issue, unless the earth really is very young then evolution wouldnt have enough time to be correct.

 

[viole]

I thought the issue was the intellectual integrity of creationists verses neo-creationists, not science. My point was that I think YEC is not only scientifically less justifiable but theologically less justifiable than an old earth creationist who includes evolution. You want scientific facts no bronze age man could have discovered on his own? Why didn't you say so?

1. Oceanographic currents. The guy who first discovered them looked for them based on scripture and this only occurred a few hundred years ago.
2. A spherical earth. Test me on that one if you want.
3. Hydrological cycle.
4. How many stars there are. It said uncountable when the exact countable amount visible was around 3000.
5. Creation ex-nihilo.
6. Germ theory, including the fact Leprosy can survive outside the body for days.
7. Entire museums are packed with artifacts from cultures scholars said never existed at one time but the bible stated did.
8. Both the first and second thermodynamic laws.
9. Man actually ancestors. Dirt.
10. That air has weight.
11. The ark (real or analogy) had the most stable dimensions possible in a ship. They actually taught us this in Navy basic training.

I can keep going indefinitely but this was only the first response here and there won't be any room left. I would like a debate on lists of unknowable's from the bible alone.

You do not have to go on indefinitely. Just show me one example that could not have been guessed by what was known at that time.

Ancient man had no genetic dispositions at all. You notice I did not use that a scientific proof but you used an assumption about it as a scientific flaw. You can't do that until you have bronze age or earlier motivations in detail. It however is all that has ever been observed whether in the fossil record or in experiments using extremely fast reproducing species.

Well, of course they did not have any predispositions, if they call bird a bat.

I have little use for a theory which our brilliance caused. I only value ones that are true. The truth is that some evolution occurred but that it does show evidence of having limits just as the bible says. The rest is guess work.

What the Bible says is a deepity, that is, something that sounds important but it is obvious and expected, given what they knew.

And what you call guess work is scientific orthodoxy today. Enjoying the same status as all other conquests of the human intellect and ingenuity. You don't get a burial at Wenstminster abbey (Christian church) next to Newton for guess work. I bet nobody will ever evict Darwin's place from there by proving that the first ancestor of a dog was a dog, lol.

I would probably reject it given only the bible suggests it did not occur, as some in science would claim. However my personal problems with it are secular or academic and I have of a theological reason to question it. I have seen panels full of nothing but secular scholars squabbling on how much and where evolution occurred on every level. At the end of the day it is a unknowable. Common descent that I have a problem with is a abiogenesis to human tree. I am sure some bushes do exist. By the way even evolution has given up the tree model. We had gone to a bush but now we are in a jungle model which does not have a common ancestor to everything. Like I said, all trends are against materialism or naturalism.

Yes, I am aware that you have theological reasons to reject it. Because you, correctly, see that evolution by natural selection and common descent are Christianity killers. i am also sure that believers in leprechauns have also leprechaunological reasons to reject the evolutionary interpretation that does not see any evidence of leprechauns. Everybody has his reasons. The question is how much weight science has to give to these objections. Not a lot, obviously.

By the way, the bush model refers to human evolution (Do you prefer that?), not to all of life. I am not aware of any scientist that has evidence that life developed independently several times, are you?

And what trends are you talking about? You call people like D'Souza and Comfort trend setters? Craig is slightly smarter and he would probably laugh at their interpretation of "evolution".

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

Have you got a link or something? This smells kind of fishy.

I would have sworn I had gone through this step by step with you previously. Oh well. I got it from a book called the science of God by Schroeder and other places over the years but I think that is what I referenced last time so I will provide an alternate source.

These approximately 530-million-year-old fossils entirely eliminated the false reasoning of gradual evolution. Yet they were brought out from where they had been stored and presented to the world only after 70 years had gone by. Walcott had decided to conceal the fossils he had obtained rather than making them available up to his fellow scientists.

As the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Walcott was a dyed-in-the-wool Darwinist. According to the theory of evolution, fossils with relatively simple structures were to be expected in rocks of such great age. Yet in terms of complexity, the fossils he discovered were no different from our present-day creatures, such as crabs, starfish and worms. For Darwinists, the alarming aspect of this was that no fossil specimen that might be proposed as the ancestor of these creatures was to be found, either in Burgess Shale or in older rocks.

Faced with these dilemmas, Walcott was all too aware that the fossils he had obtained would constitute a major stumbling block for the theory of evolution. Instead of announcing them, he sent them to the Smithsonian, together with a few photographs he had taken and a set of notes. There the fossils were locked away in drawers and forgotten for 70 years. The Burgess Shale fossils were brought to light only in 1985, when the museum archives were re-examined. The Israeli scientist Gerald Schroeder comments:

Had Walcott wanted, he could have hired a phalanx of graduate students to work on the fossils. But he chose not to rock the boat of evolution. Today fossil representatives of the Cambrian era have been found in China, Africa, the British Isles, Sweden, Greenland. The [Cambrian] explosion was worldwide. But before it became proper to discuss the extraordinary nature of the explosion, the data were simply not reported.40

How Fossils

It is even more ironic because I think Walcott was a theist. Even a theist can be so wedded to a theory of naturalism he won't let even proof rock the boat.

How could someone possibly demonstrate this?

Well I am not sure the "nay" vote has the burden. It is claimed to be an explanation from A - Z so those that claim it must show it is. My opinion comes from over twenty years watching scholars duke it out in evolutionary debates. I doubt if either side could put in a post or three enough data to prove either it was or was an A - Z explanation.

 

[1robin]

The fossil evidence alone is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution. They have fit the pieces together and find single celled organisms emerging and plants then land animals and on and on. It even sorta fits the order geneisis tells it which is intersting, it gets real close. So I dont see the issue, unless the earth really is very young then evolution wouldnt have enough time to be correct.

Your making a common but terrible mistake. You think that if I question an aspect or model of evolution I have dismissed the whole concept. Even re-reading what I posted in the last few days would show hat is not the case. The bible justifies evolution, it juts does not grant it an A -Z explanatory status. This is where I happen to fall from a scientific view, not a theological one. When I became a Christian I was not biblically educated and thought from all the pathetic rhetoric that evolution and the bible were mutually exclusive so I set out to find why evolution was wrong. I found problem after problem with evolution to no end but I never found enough to dismiss it entirely. I finally opened the bible to see where this controversy rested. I found unlike what non-theists seem to suggest the bible is not against evolution. It posited change within kinds thousands of years before Darwin. It supported evolution but just limited it. So my secular studies and theology as usual were confirmatory. Evolution is a good explanation for many things. It is horrific for others.

 

[1robin]

You do not have to go on indefinitely. Just show me one example that could not have been guessed by what was known at that time.

Are you suggesting all the ones I gave are guesswork? How did bronze age men who firmly believed as much later men of science did that leprosy was genetic, come up with the idea that leprosy could exist outside the body, even on walls, floors, and clothes, or that air had weight. I could agree some are not so strong but that would still leave dozens that are. Any effort to kill those dozens or more by the death of a thousand paper cuts would appear desperate.

Well, of course they did not have any predispositions, if they call bird a bat.

Not one biblical author used either term you gave. I think you referring to a certain verse I have shown is actually correct. However since I am not sure and since I can't recall the verses location I will await you to tell me what your saying here.

This has nothing to do with the justification of the verses but I want to show just how arbitrary this taxonomy crap is. If the Hebrew concept of the Hebrew word for bird was winged entity then a bat would be one and would be one as much or more so compared to modern arbitrary taxonomy which would deny it. Taxonomy is not related to objective facts. It is a contrived tool and has little effect on anything.

What the Bible says is a deepity, that is, something that sounds important but it is obvious and expected, given what they knew.

Come on. Atheist buzz words are not exactly common ground. I think it began to exist in 2009 and since I do not think Dennet a god debater it is only by luck I would have heard it.

I can actually demonstrate your wrong here. Germ theory, specifically the idea that any contact with the sick or dead should be followed by a thorough washing in running water before anyone else is contacted is in several places in Levitical teaching.

1. If a obvious common sense conclusion why were the best of medical scientists in 1860 still killing tens of thousand by not doing it.
2. If not a intuitive no brainer how did they know about it 3000 years before science did.

I think I could make the same case format for every one of my claims. They knew it and science took a long long time to catch up.

And what you call guess work is scientific orthodoxy today. Enjoying the same status as all other conquests of the human intellect and ingenuity. You don't get a burial at Wenstminster abbey (Christian church) next to Newton for guess work. I bet nobody will ever evict Darwin's place from there by proving that the first ancestor of a dog was a dog, lol.

Darwin not only guessed quite a bit but turned out to be wrong quite a bit. He even sets up conditions under which at least his initial model should be rejected. I have seen at least three that have been met in spades. I think Darwin is so celebrated is because his guesses were very ingenious even if they were not always correct. I have no desire to evict him from anything but call what he did as what it was. Not the first, not the best, problematic in many areas, but extremely profound and paradigm shifting. BTW I notice you say he is buried in a Christian church. Must not be so much mutual exclusion between evolution and the bible after all.

Yes, I am aware that you have theological reasons to reject it. Because you, correctly, see that evolution by natural selection and common descent are Christianity killers.

No I do not and that is not what I said. I said if the bible said no evolution ever happened I could use that as a reason to believe it never took place. I said however that it does not (it in fact says the exact opposite 2500 years before Darwin). I find what the bible says and what the evidence justifies to be as usual, very close. That God operates by natural law in most cases but he supplies an agency explanation of natural law and suggests it has limits and he occasionally circumvents it. Miraculous intervention is a rare exception to natural law in the bible. I find natural law as a mechanistic explanation for most of genetic history but powerless to explain reality on rare occasion in exactly the same fashion.

i am also sure that believers in leprechauns have also leprechaunological reasons to reject the evolutionary interpretation that does not see any evidence of leprechauns. Everybody has his reasons. The question is how much weight science has to give to these objections. Not a lot, obviously.

You really misunderstood what I said but maybe I didn't say it well.

By the way, the bush model refers to human evolution (Do you prefer that?), not to all of life. I am not aware of any scientist that has evidence that life developed independently several times, are you?

No one knows what model applies to what with any certainty. I have seen evolutionists complain about the shifting models until what now resembles a forest has emerged. I have seen it applied to life in general or distinct species. I can't say they are right or wrong, the only thing I can say is they don't know and the trends are not in naturalism favor.

And what trends are you talking about? You call people like D'Souza and Comfort trend setters? Craig is slightly smarter and he would probably laugh at their interpretation of "evolution".

I never suggested D'Souza was a genetic trend setter. He is a political philosopher. He has the second highest grossing political documentary in history so I guess he sets the trends in politics and some historical debate issues but I did not claim such. I am not familiar with Comfort (if that is a person). Craig would and has validated every claim I have made here. He would use better words but makes similar arguments. However Craig is a philosopher not a geneticist. My trends come mainly from secular evolutionists. I can and have made entire cases using only Dawkins admissions.

BTW two side notes:

1. Darwin was not the first to posit evolution. Long before him even a monk made a name for doing so. The bible did so thousands of years earlier.
2. The intuitive aspect of design in nature is so over whelming that I have never seen any evolutionist no matter how militantly atheistic who described it without constantly claiming design every few sentences. I am sure they officially denounce design yet it is so apparent their subconscious betrays them constantly.

 

[viole]

Are you suggesting all the ones I gave are guesswork? How did bronze age men who firmly believed as much later men of science did that leprosy was genetic, come up with the idea that leprosy could exist outside the body, even on walls, floors, and clothes, or that air had weight. I could agree some are not so strong but that would still leave dozens that are. Any effort to kill those dozens or more by the death of a thousand paper cuts would appear desperate.

I am suggesting exactly that. It does not take alot of imagination to realize that you might get leprosy by touching something touched by someone with leprosy.

If you notice that you might get sick by drinking water with a rotting corpse inside, you might easily come to the conclusion that death and sickness is not confined in the body. It is not a big deal. Simple cause effect deduction. I knew that as a child without being able to read Pasteur.

The one thing that I really find puzzling of those ancient hebrews is that they postulated that all matter might be made of atoms, thousands years before science confirmed that. That was really remarkable.

Oh wait. Those were the greeks. They must have been inspired by Zeus, then

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

Darwin not only guessed quite a bit but turned out to be wrong quite a bit. He even sets up conditions under which at least his initial model should be rejected. I have seen at least three that have been met in spades. I think Darwin is so celebrated is because his guesses were very ingenious even if they were not always correct. I have no desire to evict him from anything but call what he did as what it was. Not the first, not the best, problematic in many areas, but extremely profound and paradigm shifting. BTW I notice you say he is buried in a Christian church. Must not be so much mutual exclusion between evolution and the bible after all.

He did not guess. He observed and deduced a theory. Like Newton. Newton was also wrong on many points. His theory is useless to explain things that occur in our solar system. You need relativity for that.

But this is really the best those guys could do with what they knew.

Yes, he is is buried in the church were English kings and queens are crowned. He was also self declared agnostic. By your logic, agnosticism and the bible are not contradictory, either.

But I see what you mean. He was not buried there for his agnosticism. But don't forget, he claimed what is still orthodoxy today. That there is a tree of life and humans come ultimately from bacteria-like creatures.

If that is not a contradiction with your "evolution by kinds" , then it is basically your problem. It is, at least, in contradiction with your theology.

Ciao

- viole