Aureole,
I must disagree with your sloppy analysis of how the Bible came to us. There exists an extended family of people, known as Israelites or Jews, who have carefully and meticulously preserved, recorded, revered and cherished that core document which later became known to the world as the Bible. These people also were persecuted and frequently killed for adhering to its teachings for thousands of years, and yet they (miraculously) persevered. God was not mistaken in choosing THEM to preserve that document. Indicative of the care they took of this document of singular importance to them is the fact that after thousands of years of handwriting copies and passing them on from generation to generation, the period when errors and intentional revisions were most likely to occur (before the printing presses started rolling), there were only a handful of letters and words in dispute out of over 300,000 words (I refer to the Hebrew pentateuch). This was then in turn confirmed when the dead sea scrolls were found, dating back to over two thousand years ago. (I have also seen partial documents going back another five hundred years, to the seventh century BCE, that were identical to those segments in today’s Bible.)
Your claim that the Bible is a patchwork has nothing to support it but the latter day revisionism of so called “scholars” with jobs to justify, most of whom cannot even claim fluency in Hebrew, who base these claims on the silly business of “literary style”. It is no different than many of the other revisionisms going on around us all the time (like Larry’s holocaust revisionism). It’s just people making noise for their own motives. I would hope you would not be so naive as to buy into that baseless stuff. As a scientist I would expect a more sophisticated sense of discernment from you.
I must disagree with your sloppy analysis of how the Bible came to us. There exists an extended family of people, known as Israelites…
Yada yada yada. What does this, or anything else Carol Clouser ever posts here, have to do with evolutionary theory, even in the most tangential way? More OT religious apologetics, ultimately just boring and obnoxious prosyletizing.
Alan,
I second the sentiments of Stephen Elliott. David Heddle adds much to this blog and I too would not want to see him go.
You seem to want thread after thread here to be exclusively engaged in Dembski bashing. How boring. And evil.
*****You see, in a few minutes I thought up all these ways to defeat IP address bans. I told you that I am a darn good hacker and you didn’t believe me.******
Is that a joke?
Are you claiming to be “a darn good hacker” who needs to look up IP address in wikipedia?
What do you think would happen if you scrambled your ip address Larry (the expert hacker)?
OK, it was just a joke. But one of the managers here did not think that it was funny, and threatened to ban me just for joking about it.
Larry has stupidly or dishonestly or both confused two different candidates for “a joke”. No one threatened to ban Larry for joking about being “a darn good hacker” so ignorant that he has to go to Wikipedia to find out what an IP address is – not that he was joking about that. The real joke here is clearly Larry himself.
Alan…You seem to want thread after thread here to be exclusively engaged in Dembski bashing. How boring. And evil.
I don’t see anything Alan Fox said here that justifies the claim that he wants PT threads to consist of only Dembski bashing, much less calling him evil. On the other hand, your primary (only) subject of interest seems to be yakking about your superior knowledge of the real bible, which as far as I can tell touches on PT’s subject matter not at all, and places you firmly in the camp of those adding nothing.
Carol,
If this were a blog devoted to cosmology or religious apologetics, I wouldn’t be puzzled at Dr. Heddle posting here. Repeating myself, asking him why he should want to post here (and not getting an answer) is not the same as voting to ban him.
I am also puzzled at how you think your posts here might improve the sales of Mr Landa’s oeuvre.
Comment #69838 posted by network geek on January 10, 2006 07:46 PM Larry has stupidly or dishonestly or both confused two different candidates for “a joke”. No one threatened to ban Larry for joking about being “a darn good hacker” so ignorant that he has to go to Wikipedia to find out what an IP address is — not that he was joking about that. The real joke here is clearly Larry himself.
One of the managers of this website sent me a threatening personal email which I quoted here. And I looked at the Wikipedia article to check the assertion that IP addresses are used to ban commenters. One of the things I found out in the article was that the dynamic IP addressing generally used in dial-up connections is so effective in hiding the sending computer’s identity that even the cops can have trouble tracing it.
Anyway, haven’t we kicked this dead horse enough?
You made a fool of yourself Larry .. admit it.
Comment #69837
Posted by Carol Clouser on January 10, 2006 07:45 PM (e) (s)
You seem to want thread after thread here to be exclusively engaged in Dembski bashing. How boring. And evil.
If bashing Dembski is wrong, then baby, I don’t wanna be right.
All of Genesis 7 is literally true and consistent with science.
Thank you for giving us such a clear glimpse into your mindset. I think I now know how to interpret pretty much anything you say from now on.
I’m sure you have some means of putting all those animals on the ark – or some explanation about all he needed was a few ‘kinds’. But spare me.
Could you tell us how Noah lived to be 600, tho? Might make Heddle’s beliefs about Methuselah look a little more ‘scientific’. Were years only a month long back then, or something?
One of the managers of this website sent me a threatening personal email which I quoted here.
Indeed you quoted it, but you have repeatedly misrepresented its content, which was about your threat to come back under a pseudonym if you are banned, not about IP address bans or ways to get around them. If you were halfway clever you might have commented on the peculiarly circular logic of threatening to ban someone for no reason other than their claiming that, if banned, they would violate it. It reminds me of a case where someone was arrested with the sole charge being resisting arrest.
Anyway, haven’t we kicked this dead horse enough?
Not at all, Larry … THUMP!
so called “scholars” with jobs to justify
Named “Landa”?
David Heddle adds much to this blog and I too would not want to see him go.
Smmmoooooccchhhh.
Done kissing butt, Carol? Great.
Now then, would you mind telling me why your opinion that the New Testament is a load of crap, is better than Heddle’s opinion that it’s not?
Oh, and you still haven’t told me why science should give a flying fig about your religious opinions (or Heddle’s).
Yada yada yada. What does this, or anything else Carol Clouser ever posts here, have to do with evolutionary theory, even in the most tangential way? More OT religious apologetics, ultimately just boring and obnoxious prosyletizing.
It’s better than hearing her advertising Landa’s holy book. (shrug)
Anyway, I encourage Carol to keep posting. She demonstrates clearly (along with her pen pal Heddle) just what ID is really all about.
Although I *do* wish that Heddle and Carol would settle, between themselves, which of them is really the Divinely Annointed Spokesperson For God ™(c). Some of us mere mortals get kinda confused when we have two Spokespersons ™(c), one of which thinks the New Testament is the word of God, and one of whihc thinks the New Testament is a load of crap.
I wish they’d get that all figured out, somehow. Maybe a nice religious war or inquisition would settle the matter . …?
Comment #69855 posted by Dean Morrison on January 10, 2006 08:44 PM You made a fool of yourself Larry .. admit it.
I admitted that I was only kidding when I said that I am a “darn good hacker.” Now as for all those people who told me that they were absolutely sure that the Dover defendants never tried to assert privilege for the attorney-client message that Judge Jones bashed them with in the Dover opinion – when are they going to admit that they were only kidding?
I was not the one who started the flame wars that are cluttering up this website.
Arden,
What I meant to say was that Genesis 7 is meant to be interpreted literally (as opposed to metaphorically or allegorically) and yet need not be in conflict with science. I base this on the reasoning presented in my other posts on this and other threads.
The bone of contention here is the Hebrew phrase ARETZ and sometimes KOL HA-ARETZ. The popular translation is “the earth” for the former and “all the earth” for the latter. But the fact is that in 90% of the occasions where that expression appears in the Bible it definately must mean “the land” or “all the land” referring to a previousely delineated area. Examples are, “and all the land (ARETZ) became dark” referring to Egypt, and “the peoples of all the land (KOL HA-ARETZ) came to Egypt (for food)” referring to the Cannanites. These cannot reasonably refer to all the earth.
Genesis 7 refers to a flood occuring in “the land” discussed previously (Genesis 1 - 6), namely Sumeria, roughly coincident with the plains of southern Mesapotamia. Gathering the living creatures inhabiting that limited area is a much more manageable task than doing so for the entire planet. But there probably also is an element of a miracle in this. There is no denying that miracles are part of the Bible. And I don’t think that is in conflict with science. It is outside the domain of science, but not contradicted by it.
As far as “kinds” are concerned, you don’t expect the Bible to take on the role of a science primer. As I have proposed previously, the general rule is that the Bible speaks to ordinary people in the manner in which ordinary people speak while engaged in oridnary, everyday conversation. (Except where it clearly does not wish to do so.) So “kinds” refer to whatever ordinary people are likely to call “kinds”. The same applies to the bat referred to (perhaps) in Leviticus as a bird.
There is no way around the Hebrew word SHANA meaning year. The longevities of Noah and others throughout Genesis can only be miraculous. But again that is not contradicted by science. You either accept it or you do not. But you cannot use science as a basis for rejection.
There is no way around the Hebrew word SHANA meaning year. The longevities of Noah and others throughout Genesis can only be miraculous. But again that is not contradicted by science. You either accept it or you do not
But why do you bother ‘proving’ the scientific accuracy of the OT when you can simply take anything that’s scientifically impossible and slap a big ‘MIRACLE’ label on it? It renders all the rest of the ‘scientific’ explanations completely vacuous.
What you said originally is:
All of Genesis 7 is literally true and consistent with science.
Bullshit. If you have to invoke miracles TWO times in order to ‘explain’ a single chapter of a single book of the Bible, then that material is not ‘consistent with science’. You can’t have it both ways. Miracles are not part of the scientific method.
Carol Clouser Wrote:There is no way around the Hebrew word SHANA meaning year. The longevities of Noah and others throughout Genesis can only be miraculous. But again that is not contradicted by science. You either accept it or you do not. But you cannot use science as a basis for rejection.
No, but we can use observation as a method of verifying how accurate the claim of Noah’s age might have been.
How many 600 y.o. people do you know, Carol? What’s the Guinness Book of Records’ entry for the oldest living human? How many miracles do you observe on an average day?
You might be predisposed to believing in miracles, and therefore accepting the possibility of a 600 y.o. H. sapiens, Carol.
The rest of us, however, tend to rely on what we see in our everyday lives. That’s how we come to the conclusion that ‘The Bible’ (and yes, by ‘The Bible’, I mean your version, along with all the others) is just a collection of fanciful stories written by a bunch of ignoramuses who didn’t have a friggin’ clue what was going on in the world around them.
And really, Carol, you haven’t typed anything to convince me that you are significantly more advanced in knowledge than they were. Which, in this day and age, is a crying shame.
Arden,
Your position makes no sense. You know, and you know that I know that you know, that the Bible is full of God and miracles right from the get go. How many entities do you know that can say “let there be…” and then, presto, “and there was…”? So why are you asking me about chapter 7? Why not just pick on chapter one?
I am not, as you assert, engaged in “proving” the “scientific accuracy” of the Bible and I certainly do not claim that miracles are part of the scientific method. I clearly stated just the opposite in my very last post! I DO assert that science cannot be used as a basis for rejection of the Bible. And you have provided nothing to persuade me or anyone otherwise.
No, you cannot slap the word miracle on everything and be done with it. If the Bible would state something that science demonstrates is highly likely to be false (let alone “proves” to be false) you would have a valid and significant point. (See, my approach is falsifiable.) If, for example, the Bible made it clear that the earth is only a few thousand years old, that would conflict with science. Science claims that is false. Slapping the word miracle on this would solve nothing.
gregonomic,
Neither you nor I nor anyone else can know whether or not we see miracles in our daily lives. Some philosopher (forget the name) has stated that “nature is merely a set of miracles we have gotten used to and take for granted.” I am not arguing quite that, but science cannot demonstrate otherwise. Your entire argument in the above post is utterly without merit and you know it.
Aredn and gregonomic,
Why do both of your posts turn at the end to profanity and insults? Because you must desperately believe that the Bible is what you say it is, and you finally realize that your supporting arguments have been shreded and rendered impotent. Insults and profanity are the last refuge of the defeated atheist.
Larry Fafarman Wrote:Comment #69810 Posted by Larry Fafarman on January 10, 2006 06:34 PM (e) (s) Comment #69781 posted by Stephen Elliott on January 10, 2006 05:02 PM Larry, Why are you so far separated from reason? ANY other scientific hypothesis was never taught as science, until it had convinced scientists that it was valid. Why is ID a special case? Evolution theory is no more scientific than the irreducible complexity concept of ID. Evolution theory cannot be used to make predictions of macro-evolution, because macro-evolution in progress cannot be directly observed. The only predictions that evolution theory can make in regard to macro-evolution are predictions of likely future discoveries of more circumstantial evidence of macro-evolution. For example, the fossil record can be used to make predictions of likely future discoveries of “missing link” fossils. And comparative anatomy can be used to make predictions about genetics, and vice-versa. And so forth. A lot of evolution theory is not actually science but is just wild speculation and philosophizing. A good example is the concept of “punctuated equilibrium” (PE), which is widely accepted by scientists today. PE is the idea that evolution occurred by short spurts followed by long plateaus. But PE is not supported by any evidence but is actually supported by an absence of evidence — the absence of “missing link” fossils. PE supposedly explains the absence of missing link fossils because the spurts of evolution were supposedly too short to leave a fossil record.
Larry how about this prediction from way over 100 years ago. Prediction - humans have a common ancestor with other great apes. This was made before we knew about chromosomes and DNA. When we learned about chromosomes we found that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes while other great apes have 24. This according to evolutionary theory means 1 of 2 things Either humans some how lost a chromosome via some event or the other lineages of great apes some how all gained a pair of chromosomes after humans split from the lineage or hominids lost a pair. 4 different events would have needed to occur creating the new pair of chromosomes to fit what we observe. As unlikely as that is all the new chromosomes would also need to sport the same functionality. Very highly unlikely event. So Achems Razor suggests that Hominids must have some how lost a pair of chromosome. Now seeing that deleting an entire pair of chromosomes in any of the great apes would be a fatal event how could we both share a common ancestor with other great apes AND have one less pair of chromosomes? Well that points to a chromosomal fusion event. An event where 2 chromosomes literally fuse together into 1. How in the world could we show this? When we compare the human genome to other great apes almost everything lines up perfectly. Well minus our lost chromosome. But WAIT. Look a little closer and if we take the one that doesn’t match up in the human genome, chromosome #2 we see that we can take the last 2 chromosomes and stick them together and we have a chromosome that looks surprisingly like our Chromosome #2. Lets not just take that as the evidence. So if we did evolve from a common ancestor shared by other great apes we should see evidence of this fusion event that occurred in Chromosome #2. Seems Chromosomes are pretty well structured. At the ends of chromosomes there are these nice little stretches of DNA we call telomeres, look that up on Wiki too. We would expect to see these telomeres in chromosome #2 where we normally would not see them, i.e. in the middle of the chromosome where we thing the fusion event occurred. Thanks the genome project we can do just that and what do we see? We a what appear to be the telomeres from the 2 chromosomes that would have fused together from the chimp and gorilla genomes. The closer we looked the more evidence showed this to be true.
So for Evolution this fits in quite nicely. 1 of the many mechanism of evolution, fusion events, occurred millions of years ago in our linage and not in the other great apes and the signs of this event are still present. For ID you have to say that the Intelligent Designer designed chromosome #2 to appear as if it was a fusion event (something we CAN and do observe) all the way down to the telomeres that are used to mark the ends of chromosomes. There are many genetic pieces of evidence that also support this. Why do we have a broken vitamin C gene, along with other primates, but most other vertebrates don’t? It is because a gene was broken a long time ago and carried on in the primate linage.
I’d say do some research Larry, but you’ve clearly pointed out many times that you don’t need to read anything.
Let me state that you’ve made so many false statements that it is not practical to tackle them all but feel free to pick one and I’ll rip it to shreds like I did with your statement of “Evolution theory cannot be used to make predictions of macro-evolution, because macro-evolution in progress cannot be directly observed.”
Macro-evolution can be and is observed in many different ways. Given the definition of “Macro-evolution” being “evolution that leads to speciation” and speciation being “The process whereby a new species arises as a regional variant of a parent population. It usually involves a small population size. They become unable to produce fertile offspring when mating with the parent population, thus preserving whatever adaptations they had acquired in their somewhat different niche .”
We’ve seen this in the lab with Drosophila paulistorum now unable to produce fertile offspring with the parent species. We’ve seen this in nature via ring species of Salamander Ensatina where the sub species of klauberi and eschscholtzi do not interbreed. (note there are many ring species that show this type of speciation Ensatina is just one of many examples)
Larry either get a clue, which I and almost everyone else here agree will not happen, or shut up, again I and almost everyone else here agree that will not happen either but we can hope.
Carol Clouser Wrote:Neither you nor I nor anyone else can know whether or not we see miracles in our daily lives
Can’t say I’ve ever seen a 600 y.o. man sailing around with a few thousand mating pairs of animals on his ship, Carol. Have you? Did you take pics?
Why do both of your posts turn at the end to profanity and insults?
Oh, Carol, how can one be so thin-skinned and yet so thick-headed?
I don’t see any profanity in my last post - would you care to point it out for me?
Insults and profanity are the last refuge of the defeated atheist.
Did you get that from the Old Testament?
Your position makes no sense.
In your position you should be a bit more modest about making that claim of others.
You know, and you know that I know that you know, that the Bible is full of God and miracles right from the get go. How many entities do you know that can say “let there be…” and then, presto, “and there was…”? So why are you asking me about chapter 7? Why not just pick on chapter one?
Because chapter 7 is the chapter about which you said this:
All of Genesis 7 is literally true and consistent with science.
Remember now?
Given that you had to invoke two ‘miracles’ to explain just that one chapter, this would seem to sink this claim. Using miracles for explanation does violence to the scientific method. Yet you said that part of the OT is consistent with science. I’m rather startled that you can’t see the wild inconsistency here.
What you seem to be saying, underlyingly, is “the OT is completely truthful and consistent with science. The parts that seem impossible? Well, they’re just miracles, not violations of science! Not the same thing at all!”
So do you now abandon this bizarre claim?
Insults and profanity are the last refuge of the defeated atheist.
Spare me. If you can’t handle having it pointed out that your arguments don’t make sense, you shouldn’t come here. Don’t pretend to be so fragile.
And Carol? ‘Person who does not believe in the inerrancy of the Old Testament’ does not equal ‘Athiest’.
Carol Wrote:No, you cannot slap the word miracle on everything and be done with it. If the Bible would state something that science demonstrates is highly likely to be false (let alone “proves” to be false) you would have a valid and significant point. (See, my approach is falsifiable.) If, for example, the Bible made it clear that the earth is only a few thousand years old, that would conflict with science. Science claims that is false. Slapping the word miracle on this would solve nothing.
But as gregonomic just wrote, human can’t live to 600 years and you.… chose not to respond to that. Does that mean 600 years old human beings are consistent with science? Or is it a miracle?
But as gregonomic just wrote, human can’t live to 600 years and you.… chose not to respond to that. Does that mean 600 years old human beings are consistent with science? Or is it a miracle?
I tried to pin down Heddle on almost this exact same issue (Methuselah living to be 900) last month, and he evaded the question with great vigor, as well.
Carol so now you are an authority on ancient floods in mesopotainia as well as biological aging AND decoding myth and 3000 (or more) year old pseudo science.
OK I’ll take you up on it 3 questions 1. Why did Michael Angelo paint rams horns on Moses in the Sistene Chapel what is the significance of them and what other myths use the same symbol.
2. What is the commonality between the Egyptian Book of the Dead stories and the Hebrew world view.
3. Choose either the historical method of imposing world view on neighboring tribes through completely wiping them out or changing the world view to account for multiculturalism OR various second coming myths from say 5000 years ago to 2000 years ago OR the effects of overgrazing by goats and sheep on the forrests in mesopotainia.
Carol, precisely how does a theist, such as yourself, defeat an atheist? Do you defeat him/her with overwhelming knowledge of the True Bible. An atheist has no use for the bible, yours or anyone else’s. Do you put the fear of god in someone who does not see the necessity to believe in a god, your god or any other. All of your ruminations about the bible and its relation to science are essentially meaningless. You obviously have a very high opinion of yourself and of the importance of your religious notions. Sorry, I’m not impressed.
k.e. Wrote:Carol so now you are an authority on ancient floods in mesopotainia as well as biological aging AND decoding myth and 3000 (or more) year old pseudo science.
OK I’ll take you up on it 3 questions
Didn’t Darwin wrote that even if there is no fossil record at all, the evidence for evolution is still overwhelming? And that discussion on fossils evidence only take up 11% of Origin of Species? Bear in mind that was written before the beginning of molecular biology.
In a similar manner, even if the bible is completely consistent with science, the evidence against its divinity is still overwhelming. The multiple fronts that bible has to fight today - scientific, historic, morality - I’ll never understand why anyone would take it seriously.
In the case of biblical literalists, the answer to Eugene’s question would likely be: because they are cowards clinging to ignorance in a tight, dark (but warm!) crevice.
If a device like Zaphod’s (HHG2tU) glasses (what were they named, again?) could be devised to work against possible moral, ethical, psychological threats the owner of the patent would make zillions.
I don’t see any profanity in my last post - would you care to point it out for me?
On this, unlike much else, she is technically correct:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=frigging http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=profane
How, Stephen, can you possibly be taking “they” as referring to “Evolutionary theory”? Rather, it refers to “practices” – those scientific practices from which evolutionary theory (like all scientific theories) proceeds. Christians like to lay claim to many things that they have no claim to, such as the invention of science and universities. (This is reminiscent of the old joke about the Russians laying claim to inventing all sorts of things they didn’t, institutionalized by the Chekov character of Star Trek.)