caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

So, when did the flood occur then? The following conditions would have to be met for it to have occurred

1. Couldn't have been less than a few thousand years ago, as history was being recorded, and it would have been mentioned.

2. People had to have ample communication skills to communicate with one another the concepts that the bible writes of people communicating with one another about, and

3. People couldn't have been too far spread out, in order to allow the news of the impending flood to spread to every human.

 

We just don't know.  I'm not the one claiming we have to know when it happened.

1.  of course not

2.  right

3. sure. 

So take another guess.  When do you think it happened? 

Well we graduated to wiki, slightly more accurate than the bible...

Yes, that is when homo sapiens left Africa, but there are other species of humans which have donated their genes to the pool. Are you now saying that the bible only applies to homo sapiens? Before when I asked you, you said that all hominids were human in the bible. Are we now dropping that assumption?

That position also creates a bunch of inconsistencies that we haven't discussed yet. For example, how did we end up with Neanderthal genes in our blood if they all drowned in a world wide flood before homo sapiens left Africa?

It also means that Adam and Eve weren't particularly unique.

Jabberwocky wrote:

So, when did the flood occur then? The following conditions would have to be met for it to have occurred

1. Couldn't have been less than a few thousand years ago, as history was being recorded, and it would have been mentioned.

2. People had to have ample communication skills to communicate with one another the concepts that the bible writes of people communicating with one another about, and

3. People couldn't have been too far spread out, in order to allow the news of the impending flood to spread to every human.

 

We just don't know.  I'm not the one claiming we have to know when it happened.

1.  of course not

2.  right

3. sure. 

So take another guess.  When do you think it happened? 

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

So, when did the flood occur then? The following conditions would have to be met for it to have occurred

1. Couldn't have been less than a few thousand years ago, as history was being recorded, and it would have been mentioned.

2. People had to have ample communication skills to communicate with one another the concepts that the bible writes of people communicating with one another about, and

3. People couldn't have been too far spread out, in order to allow the news of the impending flood to spread to every human.

 

We just don't know.  I'm not the one claiming we have to know when it happened.

1.  of course not

2.  right

3. sure. 

So take another guess.  When do you think it happened? 

By agreeing with those 3 points, you have just agreed that the flood required complex enough communication, and a world-wide human population that hadn't spread far yet. Unfortunately, the population spread before language developed more complex functions (in different ways in different regions I might add). How much more do I have to dumb this down?

Timeline:

1. Human-like species roamed the earth.

2. Human-like species spread out very far

3. Human-like species developed complex enough language to convey what is said to have been conveyed in the time of the flood.

Due to the fact that 3 occurred after 2, and not before 2, it leaves no possible year in which your flood could have occurred. I won't take a guess when the flood did occur, because I just ruled it out completely (once in a paragraph, and once in a handy list form). Beyond Saving also addressed your responses effectively (thanks for filling in BS, I was on vacation for a while). Quit asking me to merely GUESS when it occurred, when I'm showing you that it didn't.

EDIT - BTW, thanks BeyondSaving for filling in while I was on vacation. You outlined more or less the same thing in yet another way.

 

They also allegedly had 120 years to spread the word according to Genesis 6 ... how far can a human travel by foot or animal in 120 years?  By foot, let's see... Wiki says the average human travels 1 mile in about 20 minutes.  That's a total possible distance of 120 miles a day, but that would be assuming they never stop walking... obviously they'd have to stop, they'd have to eat, sleep and tell the news in every community, so let's cut that distance in half.  60 miles a day... better yet, let's for the sake of argument assume that they took their time and only traveled 20 miles a day.  That would be 7300 miles in 1 year, 876,000 miles in 120 years.  This keep in mind is assuming that God did not speak to people in dreams like He's known to do from time to time.  This is also assuming the people did all the traveling by foot, not using animal transportation.   Be it that the circumference of the Earth at the equator is only 24,901.5 miles or so.. that pretty much allows plenty of time for word to spread across the globe if humans had spread that far.  Distance is poor ground to stand on against scripture.

caposkia wrote:

 

They also allegedly had 120 years to spread the word according to Genesis 6 ... how far can a human travel by foot or animal in 120 years?  By foot, let's see... Wiki says the average human travels 1 mile in about 20 minutes.  That's a total possible distance of 120 miles a day, but that would be assuming they never stop walking... obviously they'd have to stop, they'd have to eat, sleep and tell the news in every community, so let's cut that distance in half.  60 miles a day... better yet, let's for the sake of argument assume that they took their time and only traveled 20 miles a day.  That would be 7300 miles in 1 year, 876,000 miles in 120 years.  This keep in mind is assuming that God did not speak to people in dreams like He's known to do from time to time.  This is also assuming the people did all the traveling by foot, not using animal transportation.   Be it that the circumference of the Earth at the equator is only 24,901.5 miles or so.. that pretty much allows plenty of time for word to spread across the globe if humans had spread that far.  Distance is poor ground to stand on against scripture.

 

and yet the same flipping bible claims that it took a large group of people forty years to cross a couple hundred miles of desert...

Jabberwocky wrote:

By agreeing with those 3 points, you have just agreed that the flood required complex enough communication, and a world-wide human population that hadn't spread far yet. Unfortunately, the population spread before language developed more complex functions (in different ways in different regions I might add). How much more do I have to dumb this down?

maybe as far as how you have deduced the introduction of complex language without writing to support it.  Consider that complex language must have happened long before reading and writing occurred. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Timeline:

1. Human-like species roamed the earth.

2. Human-like species spread out very far

3. Human-like species developed complex enough language to convey what is said to have been conveyed in the time of the flood.

Due to the fact that 3 occurred after 2, and not before 2, it leaves no possible year in which your flood could have occurred. I won't take a guess when the flood did occur, because I just ruled it out completely (once in a paragraph, and once in a handy list form). Beyond Saving also addressed your responses effectively (thanks for filling in BS, I was on vacation for a while). Quit asking me to merely GUESS when it occurred, when I'm showing you that it didn't.

EDIT - BTW, thanks BeyondSaving for filling in while I was on vacation. You outlined more or less the same thing in yet another way.

They also allegedly had 120 years to spread the word according to Genesis 6 ... how far can a human travel by foot or animal in 120 years?  By foot, let's see... Wiki says the average human travels 1 mile in about 20 minutes.  That's a total possible distance of 120 miles a day, but that would be assuming they never stop walking... obviously they'd have to stop, they'd have to eat, sleep and tell the news in every community, so let's cut that distance in half.  60 miles a day... better yet, let's for the sake of argument assume that they took their time and only traveled 20 miles a day.  That would be 7300 miles in 1 year, 876,000 miles in 120 years.  This keep in mind is assuming that God did not speak to people in dreams like He's known to do from time to time.  This is also assuming the people did all the traveling by foot, not using animal transportation.   Be it that the circumference of the Earth at the equator is only 24,901.5 miles or so.. that pretty much allows plenty of time for word to spread across the globe if humans had spread that far.  Distance is poor ground to stand on against scripture.

To address the statement above... you have not showed me that it didn't occur and your case has to do with when could it have occurred so if you're going to tell me it didn't when I estimate it could have, then I need to hear your assumption... it didn't is not an appropriate response to that, rather what you just posted was.  Though your distance theory is now out, so what's next?

They also allegedly had 120 years to spread the word according to Genesis 6 ... how far can a human travel by foot or animal in 120 years?  By foot, let's see... Wiki says the average human travels 1 mile in about 20 minutes.  That's a total possible distance of 120 miles a day, but that would be assuming they never stop walking... obviously they'd have to stop, they'd have to eat, sleep and tell the news in every community, so let's cut that distance in half.  60 miles a day... better yet, let's for the sake of argument assume that they took their time and only traveled 20 miles a day.  That would be 7300 miles in 1 year, 876,000 miles in 120 years.  This keep in mind is assuming that God did not speak to people in dreams like He's known to do from time to time.  This is also assuming the people did all the traveling by foot, not using animal transportation.   Be it that the circumference of the Earth at the equator is only 24,901.5 miles or so.. that pretty much allows plenty of time for word to spread across the globe if humans had spread that far.  Distance is poor ground to stand on against scripture.

To address the statement above... you have not showed me that it didn't occur and your case has to do with when could it have occurred so if you're going to tell me it didn't when I estimate it could have, then I need to hear your assumption... it didn't is not an appropriate response to that, rather what you just posted was.  Though your distance theory is now out, so what's next?

Did spoken word occur before reading and writing? That's pretty well certain, yes. However, written word predated actual literature by hundreds, perhaps a thousand years. It was used for record keeping and such initially. You know, the things thought to be important to people of the time. Oddly, they didn't feel compelled at all to write about ANY gods, world-wide floods, and other such things. This leaves the Christian with an even more awkward problem.

The earliest literary authors known by name were Ptahhotep & Enheduanna. They both wrote of gods and godesses, which would have been a blasphemous word thing Yahweh if the old testament is to be considered authentic. They seemed to be quite unaware of Yahweh altogether. Surely if he were righteous, and felt it appropriate at the time to make his existence and omnipotence known to the Jewish people at that time, he could have popped into Egypt and said "hi" to their people, in order to steer them in the correct direction as well. No writing by the two seems to suggest that he did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Literature_and_writing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptahhotep

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enheduanna

^^^ LOOK!! Actual links relevant to what I'm stating, instead of just ending every post with "see wiki".....

Umm, you know that merely circumventing the globe would not have you able to talk to everyone, right? The surface area of the Earth is over 510 million square kilometres. What you're proposing is NOT feasible at all, even if you WERE given 120 years.

I know that the bible claims that people lived for 900+ years back then, but without any evidence to support that, you can easily toss that idea in the garbage. The evidence points to the limit of human longevity being around 120 years (with slight variations between specimens). No examples even in the 150-200 range have ever been presented. Without such examples, you are the one with the burden of proof here. Given that Noah wouldn't have started this quest as an infant, this would take at least 2 generations, likely 3 or 4 given the probability that people lived shorter lives then due to worse nutrition, far worse medical knowledge, etc.

When it comes to god speaking to people in dreams, what a pathetic copout. Seriously pathetic! The fact that you spend most of your paragraph discussing distance means that you're somewhat attached (at least on the outside) to the feasibility of what we're discussing. But then you tack that onto your post, just so that you feel you've won the argument when you posted it, no matter what I respond with. If you were truly confident of the feasibility of Noah and his family telling the whole world, that would be unnecessary. If god could just tell everyone himself (which you just suggested that he could), then Noah and his family telling everyone would be unnecessary. I can't believe you can't see how much of a crock this is!

travel takes longer in a group.  People still talk to me because they have yet to prove anything actually problematic to me about the passage.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Did spoken word occur before reading and writing? That's pretty well certain, yes. However, written word predated actual literature by hundreds, perhaps a thousand years. It was used for record keeping and such initially. You know, the things thought to be important to people of the time. Oddly, they didn't feel compelled at all to write about ANY gods, world-wide floods, and other such things. This leaves the Christian with an even more awkward problem.

not at all.  spoken word, be it that the ability to read and write was only among probably 1% of the population (a guess) would have been a very valid means of transferring information before writing became more common place.  Even in the times the scriptures were said to have been written down the majority of the populations were not able to read or write.   Also parchment was not something easy to come by and chipping rocks wasn't an efficient way of writing a story.  What was written was considered of some importance even then.  It is generally understood that most OT scripture was verbally passed down before being written.

Jabberwocky wrote:

The earliest literary authors known by name were Ptahhotep & Enheduanna. They both wrote of gods and godesses, which would have been a blasphemous word thing Yahweh if the old testament is to be considered authentic. They seemed to be quite unaware of Yahweh altogether. Surely if he were righteous, and felt it appropriate at the time to make his existence and omnipotence known to the Jewish people at that time, he could have popped into Egypt and said "hi" to their people, in order to steer them in the correct direction as well. No writing by the two seems to suggest that he did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Literature_and_writing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptahhotep

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enheduanna

^^^ LOOK!! Actual links relevant to what I'm stating, instead of just ending every post with "see wiki".....

I didn't think wiki was so hard to use, but I'll keep that in mind for the future. 

Of course if they are the earliest known authors, then likely scriptures hadn't been written yet as well.. God did not reveal his name till much later in scriptures anyway.  God also says in scripture that He is known by many names.  Were any of the gods or godesses mentioned similar to the Biblical God? 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Umm, you know that merely circumventing the globe would not have you able to talk to everyone, right? The surface area of the Earth is over 510 million square kilometres. What you're proposing is NOT feasible at all, even if you WERE given 120 years.

the point is, even if people were spread out to Asia, they likely hadn't gotten to the America's yet they still could have reached those extensions of tribes... also are you assuming only one person went out and spread the word?  Noah was building an ark... don't you think "rumor" spread from town to town over 100+ years that some dude was out there building this insane floating zoo because his God said the Earth was going to be destroyed?   It's all in perspective.    Before cell phones and internet, rumors' spread across schools of over 1000 kids in 1 day.   They'd even get to neighboring towns in 48 hours or less... granted there's the phone, but rumors travel in Biblical times in similar manner, except that it would be from one traveler to the next... everyone would listen to travelers because that was really the only way of getting news from other towns unless they decided to take the journey themselves. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

I know that the bible claims that people lived for 900+ years back then, but without any evidence to support that, you can easily toss that idea in the garbage. The evidence points to the limit of human longevity being around 120 years (with slight variations between specimens). No examples even in the 150-200 range have ever been presented. Without such examples, you are the one with the burden of proof here. Given that Noah wouldn't have started this quest as an infant, this would take at least 2 generations, likely 3 or 4 given the probability that people lived shorter lives then due to worse nutrition, far worse medical knowledge, etc.

If I'm here trying to prove to you that scripture is valid... I wouldn't start with the story of Noah.  I'm here asking you to show me why I shouldn't believe it.  Excessive aging of humans?  sure that's a good reason to question it,.. but my question is then why didn't the ancient peoples of that time dismiss it knowing people couldn't live that long?  We can guess that the story was written much later and that people ultimately believe that God shortened their lives over time as scripture states, but how does that disprove the notion?

Jabberwocky wrote:

When it comes to god speaking to people in dreams, what a pathetic copout. Seriously pathetic! The fact that you spend most of your paragraph discussing distance means that you're somewhat attached (at least on the outside) to the feasibility of what we're discussing. But then you tack that onto your post, just so that you feel you've won the argument when you posted it, no matter what I respond with. If you were truly confident of the feasibility of Noah and his family telling the whole world, that would be unnecessary. If god could just tell everyone himself (which you just suggested that he could), then Noah and his family telling everyone would be unnecessary. I can't believe you can't see how much of a crock this is!

be it that it's written in scripture many times that God warns the people by this means or that, it's logical to assume the same could have happened... let's put the load of crock into perspective though... dreams?  crock... noah's family traveling?  crock (noah had to build the ark)... travelers spreading rumors over 120 years... crock??? eh.... some people actually going out telling tribe after tribe?  crock.... eh... but we really dont' know how far spread out people were...

What your response tells me is you're looking for the first excuse to dismiss the story and don't really want to put an effort in searching for "truth" which can include effectively dismissing this story as truth.  Usually the pathetic copout falls on those making the claim... instead give me sound reason why that's not a basis for the word spreading if this story actually happened or admit that your last statement was the "pathetic copout". 

Just for the record... I'm not tallying points and declaring myself winner of any argument... rather I'm challenging you to show me how your perspective is the correct one.  When you respond like that I have no reason to doubt my understanding. 

could I say the same for you? 

I cut it then said let's say they took their time and went 20 a day.

  So i cut the original capability of a human way down already... let's cut that number in half again to 10 miles a day.  I actually did 10 miles per day bushwacking in the winter in new England... some of it was unkept trail.  Yes there was deep snow in some areas. I did it in 8 hours with a 60 lb pack.  I was probably the least fit person of my group at the time as well.  If I can do it in those conditions, ancients could have easily done it...

that still covers 436,800 miles in 120 years.. per person. 

You fail to take into consideration that the distance from tribe to tribe was likely not drastic and that the people could eat, sleep and refresh their supplies each time it also wasn't likely one person that did it all if that's the way the word was spread. 

Regardless of what you fail to take into consideration, you still have no case and your ignorance cries are starting to sound like the boy who cried wolf. 

How can DNA be "misplaced"? Lineage is traced through a Y chromosome trace or mitochondrial DNA, both of which are passed down unchanged. It can't be "misplaced" or lost.

The point is that most people today have Neanderthal DNA because homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals. It isn't just a coincidence as you were trying to imply.

Beyond Saving wrote:

The point is that most people today have Neanderthal DNA because homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals. It isn't just a coincidence as you were trying to imply.

ok, still doesn't bring progress to the point.. the easy counter to it then would be some of Noah's children interbread with them and some didn't... this DNA discussion is going to get nowhere

Jabberwocky wrote:

So what? It would still mean that god for some reason favoured one tribe (the Jewish) over another and didn't make himself known to the Egyptians. If believing in a false god is a serious sin, then Yahweh, knowing the multiplicity of invented gods all over the place, would be damning a lot of people to hell by being passive, and deciding to only appear clearly to the Jews. Funny how there isn't a story about the Abrahams and Noah's of the world believing in a false god first, and then having Yahweh reveal himself to them. It's written as if they just knew from the start. If the narrative were true, it would mean one of two things.

1. They guessed, and somehow guessed right, or

2. Yahweh clearly made himself known in a way that Abraham and Noah wouldn't doubt, but only afforded this luxury to a small select group of people over the course of human history.

That is NOT a god who wants people to believe in him.

So what?  there goes your case.  Nice defense here, except you decided to jump a few decades into the future and lost focus of the OP

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, so scriptures hadn't been written yet. However, you posited that they were passed down orally for a long time. So god's name would have been known if the bulk of events in the scriptures had happened by then, no?

according to scripture, God was known by many names, so no. Also see (Ex. 6)

Jabberwocky wrote:

On the gods being similar...as you're someone who seems to believe the major events in the bible, the bible certainly doesn't paint the Egyptians in believers of Yahweh (or of an acceptable substitute). Are you going to assume that MAYBE they believed in Yahweh but got some details wrong? If so, why did they get the details wrong, but the writers of the bible got them right?

Same reason why the other many hundreds of scripts that didn't make it into the bible were wrong... they may not have been inspired by God to write or tell it.  I'm going to say that MAYBE Egyptian leaders did not accept belief in Yahweh.

Jabberwocky wrote:

The story you believe has mass genocide occurring because everyone except for Noah and his family were un-righteous. Certainly if they believed that, they would attempt to straighten up and fly right. Clearly, god drowned them. What incentive would they have to be spreading this news? This rules everyone but 8 people out as people who would have spread the news that this calamity is real and imminent. 8 people couldn't spread that news in time. Sorry, your arguments are just getting more and more absurd.

 

again, some dude is building a massive floating zoo because his alleged god is going to destroy the world... you don't have to agree with the rumor to spread it.  The truth was, Noah was building an arc, thats what got spread... people are going to ask why.

Jabberwocky wrote:

I would like you to start a thread then (or maybe even a 1 on 1 debate with in that board, PM the mods about that if you like) of the part of the bible you WOULD like to most use to prove to me that scripture is valid. I welcome the challenge.

You shouldn't believe it because of all the reasons I stated. We're discussing that in this thread. Not once have you seemed to accept any of my points (or any other poster's points for that matter) as a compelling reason to disbelieve something which there is 0 evidence for....ZERO...in the first place.

I have trouble accepting them because despite what you believe, they're not very compelling... it's throwing darts in the dark hoping one random point hits.  I've already refuted the timeline issue and just refuted the way word spread issue... what next?  Do you actually have compelling reasoning or just reasons why you don't accept it.  I'm not finding much motivation here to start a new thread based on this response really.  Welcoming the challenge would mean you'd have to do actual homework and come up with honest, well researched compelling answers to why I should not accept whatever it is I present as a reason to accept.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Nothing about the writings disproves the notion. I suppose it's not "disproven" per se that people never lived to be 900 years old. However, it's impossible to 100% conclusively prove such a negative. But if you compare it to any limits you test, it's absurd to state that it could have happened. It would be like you proving you can lift 300lbs, and then 310. Then adding another 10 lbs, you find it's too difficult to lift. Then you go and say "I can lift 3 tonnes. You should believe it until you prove it wrong". That is absurd. We have seen that the limit of your ability to lift weight is just over 300lbs. We know that humans max is in ther 120 year old range. We know by historical records, and by testing people's health (and comparing when people die to those tests to verify how accurate predictions based on such tests are). It has been found that the lifespan of human cells is at around 120 years, and currently we don't have any technology to extend that much. Therefore, if someone told me of a 130 year old person, I could see it as a stretch, but plausible. A 900 year old person, however, is absurd. The correct train of thought is to think of it false unless proven true. You think of it as true, unless proven false, because your book says so. There's a name for that...a logical fallacy you've been erroneously attributing to people a lot. Special pleading rears its head again!

nice..  maybe I should start a new thread just so you can come up with already refuted reasoning as to why I believe scripture is true.  Sounds redundantly entertaining.

It is impossible to prove a negative and yet you conclude on impossibility as you stated above.  Granted modern science suggests that people today cannot live past 120 years... or so...  but that says nothing of the genetic makeup of ancient peoples. that is a study of modern peoples.  That study allegedly would also prove that the average lifespan of ancient peoples could not possibly be as young as 35, but there was quite a few generations where history shows it was.  but again, we shouldn't believe that because it cannot be proven through current genetic studies of humans.

Jabberwocky wrote:

I'm not looking for an excuse to dismiss the story. It does that for itself because of how ridiculous the story is in the first place.

ah, my bad, not looking for an excuse, just blindly doing it... I see

Jabberwocky wrote:

You already seemingly agreed that 8 people couldn't spread that news (sort of...then disagreed in other parts). Remember, 510 million square kms of Earth. So you suggest "oh, maybe others helped spread the news". These others were the unrighteous who were going to be damned. Why would they help spread the news?

answered it above.  usually people who spread rumors aren't spreading them because they support the action or reasoning.

Jabberwocky wrote:

So what? It would still mean that god for some reason favoured one tribe (the Jewish) over another and didn't make himself known to the Egyptians. If believing in a false god is a serious sin, then Yahweh, knowing the multiplicity of invented gods all over the place, would be damning a lot of people to hell by being passive, and deciding to only appear clearly to the Jews. Funny how there isn't a story about the Abrahams and Noah's of the world believing in a false god first, and then having Yahweh reveal himself to them. It's written as if they just knew from the start. If the narrative were true, it would mean one of two things.

1. They guessed, and somehow guessed right, or

2. Yahweh clearly made himself known in a way that Abraham and Noah wouldn't doubt, but only afforded this luxury to a small select group of people over the course of human history.

That is NOT a god who wants people to believe in him.

So what?  there goes your case.  Nice defense here, except you decided to jump a few decades into the future and lost focus of the OP

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, so scriptures hadn't been written yet. However, you posited that they were passed down orally for a long time. So god's name would have been known if the bulk of events in the scriptures had happened by then, no?

according to scripture, God was known by many names, so no. Also see (Ex. 6)

Jabberwocky wrote:

On the gods being similar...as you're someone who seems to believe the major events in the bible, the bible certainly doesn't paint the Egyptians in believers of Yahweh (or of an acceptable substitute). Are you going to assume that MAYBE they believed in Yahweh but got some details wrong? If so, why did they get the details wrong, but the writers of the bible got them right?

Same reason why the other many hundreds of scripts that didn't make it into the bible were wrong... they may not have been inspired by God to write or tell it.  I'm going to say that MAYBE Egyptian leaders did not accept belief in Yahweh.

Jabberwocky wrote:

The story you believe has mass genocide occurring because everyone except for Noah and his family were un-righteous. Certainly if they believed that, they would attempt to straighten up and fly right. Clearly, god drowned them. What incentive would they have to be spreading this news? This rules everyone but 8 people out as people who would have spread the news that this calamity is real and imminent. 8 people couldn't spread that news in time. Sorry, your arguments are just getting more and more absurd.

 

again, some dude is building a massive floating zoo because his alleged god is going to destroy the world... you don't have to agree with the rumor to spread it.  The truth was, Noah was building an arc, thats what got spread... people are going to ask why.

Jabberwocky wrote:

I would like you to start a thread then (or maybe even a 1 on 1 debate with in that board, PM the mods about that if you like) of the part of the bible you WOULD like to most use to prove to me that scripture is valid. I welcome the challenge.

You shouldn't believe it because of all the reasons I stated. We're discussing that in this thread. Not once have you seemed to accept any of my points (or any other poster's points for that matter) as a compelling reason to disbelieve something which there is 0 evidence for....ZERO...in the first place.

I have trouble accepting them because despite what you believe, they're not very compelling... it's throwing darts in the dark hoping one random point hits.  I've already refuted the timeline issue and just refuted the way word spread issue... what next?  Do you actually have compelling reasoning or just reasons why you don't accept it.  I'm not finding much motivation here to start a new thread based on this response really.  Welcoming the challenge would mean you'd have to do actual homework and come up with honest, well researched compelling answers to why I should not accept whatever it is I present as a reason to accept.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Nothing about the writings disproves the notion. I suppose it's not "disproven" per se that people never lived to be 900 years old. However, it's impossible to 100% conclusively prove such a negative. But if you compare it to any limits you test, it's absurd to state that it could have happened. It would be like you proving you can lift 300lbs, and then 310. Then adding another 10 lbs, you find it's too difficult to lift. Then you go and say "I can lift 3 tonnes. You should believe it until you prove it wrong". That is absurd. We have seen that the limit of your ability to lift weight is just over 300lbs. We know that humans max is in ther 120 year old range. We know by historical records, and by testing people's health (and comparing when people die to those tests to verify how accurate predictions based on such tests are). It has been found that the lifespan of human cells is at around 120 years, and currently we don't have any technology to extend that much. Therefore, if someone told me of a 130 year old person, I could see it as a stretch, but plausible. A 900 year old person, however, is absurd. The correct train of thought is to think of it false unless proven true. You think of it as true, unless proven false, because your book says so. There's a name for that...a logical fallacy you've been erroneously attributing to people a lot. Special pleading rears its head again!

nice..  maybe I should start a new thread just so you can come up with already refuted reasoning as to why I believe scripture is true.  Sounds redundantly entertaining.

It is impossible to prove a negative and yet you conclude on impossibility as you stated above.  Granted modern science suggests that people today cannot live past 120 years... or so...  but that says nothing of the genetic makeup of ancient peoples. that is a study of modern peoples.  That study allegedly would also prove that the average lifespan of ancient peoples could not possibly be as young as 35, but there was quite a few generations where history shows it was.  but again, we shouldn't believe that because it cannot be proven through current genetic studies of humans.

Jabberwocky wrote:

I'm not looking for an excuse to dismiss the story. It does that for itself because of how ridiculous the story is in the first place.

ah, my bad, not looking for an excuse, just blindly doing it... I see

Jabberwocky wrote:

You already seemingly agreed that 8 people couldn't spread that news (sort of...then disagreed in other parts). Remember, 510 million square kms of Earth. So you suggest "oh, maybe others helped spread the news". These others were the unrighteous who were going to be damned. Why would they help spread the news?

answered it above.  usually people who spread rumors aren't spreading them because they support the action or reasoning.

caposkia wrote:

then why bother having a discussion with me.  Obviously you believe whatever I say is probably going to be wrong, so leave it be then.

Well at the beginning you claimed to be open minded and said that if data could be presented that cast doubt on your story you would doubt it. However, it turns out that was apparently a lie. Hopefully, some lurker out there who actually is willing to accept new data and question their prior beliefs will learn something where you have not.

Humans had spread that far over 2 million years ago, I already showed you that evidence and you already conceded you were wrong remember? So if you are assuming that they did not, then you are assuming the story happened more than 2 million years ago. Which is at odds with your more recent claim that it occurred within the last 200,000 years. It can't be both and both hypothesis have significant problems meshing with reality.

That is because until roughly 15,000 BC long distance trade was not common at all. One of the main things that caused humanity to go through the rapid technological development that got us out of the stone age was trade, which is why the populations of people who were disconnected from everyone else were technologically stunted. There is evidence that localized trade (within roughly 1,000 miles) did occur to a small extent in some tribes as far back as 150,000 years ago. But the idea that people routinely traveled from one tribe to the next is absurd. Most likely, most people lived their entire lives never seeing a person outside of their immediate tribe which is probably why many of them had high levels of inbreeding. 

Which is yet another story of the bible that doesn't match up with what we know about reality.

I am not the one making assumptions. We do know how tribes were spread out. We have a large collection of data on where humans lived, how they lived and their relationship to people in other parts of the world. You are appealing to ignorance in an area where we are not ignorant.

 

caposkia wrote:

I know you believe you're making progress in disproving this story, but I have discussed every reason and why that doesn't stand as sound reasoning whether you want to believe it or not.  if not, that's your choice.

Lol, no you haven't. You have changed your story in an attempt to avoid all the evidence I have presented and the problems that make the story highly doubtful. One post you assert the flood happened within 200,000 years and when the problems with that are presented you switch back to saying it must have happened much earlier. You make assumptions about humans farming, trading, speaking the same language etc. when the evidence available suggests that these things didn't happen at the dates we are talking about. Everything you post is based on assumptions, which more often than not are easily proved absurd. You have yet to offer a single bit of evidence on any of the topics we have discussed across either thread. Your entire belief rests on the bible being right no matter what external evidence suggests.

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Huh? I have no idea how this undermines my position. Address my point instead of simply saying that somehow I'm arguing against myself. Is point 1 true, or 2? Or some point 3 I'm missing? How and why.

You talked about belief and how either God only revealed himself to the jews or they took a lucky guess... going futher back you make statements that you believe contradict each other yet I agreed with them suggesting then the story is impossible yet you based that understanding off text and not history of conversation. 

Your point is people either took a guess and got it right (believed in other gods first possibly) or God only selected a few which means God doesn't want people to know him.

Really has nothing to do with the OP so this is the end of this right here.

First considering the Bible as a whole and how people knew God in the first place, the Egyptians are likely the decendents of a person/family or group of people who chose to walk away from God  and/or follow their own Gods and passed down that heritage... the Bible suggests that Adam and Eve knew God without a doubt.  Either they failed to tell their children or just some of their children or some of their grandchildren failed to tell or so on, but somewhere along the line, someone stopped following the Biblical God and started a tribe of non-believers... the trend just continued.

Moving on to Kings, you'll find a some of the signature kings in scripture believed in another god first. 

Considering Abraham and Moses, Moses had a heritage that He was aware of... He was brought up and raised by teh pharoahs wives and thus would have been brought up outside the Yahweh belief, yet God spoke to him.  Just as the pharoah was, I'm sure He was aware of the Jewish belief, but it's not clear whether he truly believed it before or not.

Abraham.  I cannot find anywhere in scripture that suggests Abraham knew the name of God... at least not before his name was changed.  In Genesis Chapter 14, there's a  quote from Abram saying "Lord God Most High"... LORD ususally is in place of YHWH, but in this case, there's no indication in the Hebrew that I can see of Abram using God by name... He only knew that this god he was following was thee God.. and not just another god out there. 

The point is, some human ultimately had to choose to not follow God for their children to not know Him.  Considering these particular people who you wish had a story of alternate belief, they possibly did and God revealed himself to them..  Is it because God didn't want others to know Him?  God takes care of His flock.  Others witness what happens and come to Him, but those people he came to were already a part of it. 

More of this on another thread if you'd like. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

So? If Genesis and Exodus were both passed down orally before the written word, then when Genesis was first written down, his name would have been known due to the knowledge of Exodus. If this was passed down by different people, then that hurts the reliability of the accounts even more. Hell, it could mean that they're about different gods, and the references to Genesis in Exodus were put in later just to tie the two together.

how does any of that hurt the reliability of the accounts?  Especially seeing as spoken word was considered a means of a signature up until recent centuries.  People were careful about how they portrayed stories handed down by their parents... it's nothing like today. 

The account of Genesis is actually one of the newer books of the OT and so it is written with Gods name in it though it likely wasn't known.

Jabberwocky wrote:

 The delusion is strong here. The timeline issue was never refuted. Once you stopped arguing with Noah and his family telling everyone themselves (as you realized that circumnavigating the globe wouldn't be enough), you then implied that people would tell other people. As I've just said above, that is insufficient warning.

actually I still stand by the possibility of one family spreading the word as a possibility over 120 years... look at the math written... Considering how far people have likely spread, it was very possible... but if you don't like that understanding, and you don't it's also possible for others to spread it quicker. 

I'm assuming you're finally admitting your delusion here????

Jabberwocky wrote:

You are willing to believe things that fly in the face of science if they're mentioned in the bible. Are you willing to make the same concession for other absurd claims? What if I told you there was a lemur that could talk 3 million years ago? Because we've never found one isn't proof that it didn't exist. What say you about the lemur who talked?

I would say that lemur who talked is actually the one that put the teapot in orbit around Jupiter. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Yeah. I guess the reasonable thing to believe is that god wanted to punish an entire species by drowning them. A god that of course created the species, including their brains. So god was mad at this species for their tendencies and what they do, which is a result of what's going on in the brains that he created. Got it. Reductio ad absurdum? Perhaps. But that's only a logical fallacy if it's missing some important information, or otherwise distorts the point. The funny part is, it's the other side that misses an important detail. If the bible is true, then god created the human brain. That would mean that our tendencies and our nature was something that god chose for our brains. If god created humans perfect to begin with, then the fall could have never happened in the first place. The entire thing stinks.

really... how does that run logic?  Let's take a look... Anyone can create something perfect.. does that mean it's going to be used for everything it's supposed to be use for? of course not.  The thing with perfection is choice is a part of it too.  God created hands so perfect that they can create almost anything we can imagine... however with human choice, those hands can also kill other humans... is that a flaw in the design or just a bad choice made by the owner. 

Then we go on to bad choices being a flaw in the construction of the brain.  Well, what is "bad"?  is that a thing we can hold or observe?  or is it merely something that someone else or soemthing else does that is contrary to the observers intentions and or liking.  I'd say it's the contrary one.  So bad choices aren't flaws, but rather contrary to Gods intentions.  That's the problem with beings who are self aware and have a choice... they think they know better than God and so choose not to take Gods guidance in making chioces... thus Gods perfect creation creates its own flaws and thus results in a flawed perspective of God. 

You may not like the story because it looks like God made the mistakes, but if you take the whole thing in logical perspective, the only blame is on the being that made the choices for themselves.

*sigh* No need to discuss this in any thread. If salvation is dependant on belief, and a child is born into a situation where they're going to not believe in god (or at least likely to not believe in god) then god's failure to make his existence more obvious is god actively condemning those people to hell. It's that simple.

I guess that particular detail doesn't hurt the reliability so much. I read something wrong, my apologies.

As far as spoken word...signatures...what?? Also, what evidence do you have that people were more careful in handing down stories told to them by their parents?

Ok, so which is it? How did the word spread? Did 8 people cover 510 million square kilometres of earth (317 million square miles for you backwards imperial scale using folk) or did the word spread from person to person who didn't believe it anyway?

On a side note, where does it say that anyone was even warned? Isn't defending genocide fun?

The teapot is orbiting the sun actually, between the Earth and Mars, thank you very much.

No we can't. We can do great things, but nothing is perfect. If someone says that the oldest buildings in the world will last forever, remember that they will only last until heat death melts the earth/them.

Hands so perfect....I don't even know where to go with this. Did god create the decently laid out keyboard I'm typing on (which is adapted from a "no jamming" typewriter layout, Dvorak is actually better). No he didn't. Someone saw our hands, and created something to adapt to them. Did god create the piano? No. Same idea. Hands seem perfect because our human brains are creative to find countless uses for them (and our brains create things that humans use that are designed to fit well into our hands)

However, I will tell you this. If you're right about god creating all of this, then god created my brain. God created my hands capable of strangling someone. However, god would have made my brain incapable of ever making that decision. I have a very short list of people who I honestly detest, and I might even be frighteningly apathetic if they were to die tragically. However, I could not do the deed myself. I believe that it violates the basic most important rules by which humans should live, and someone would have to alter my state of mind likely with substances beyond anything I've ever experienced in order for me to ever make such a decision. God made my brain one that is incapable of killing. How novel. Why then make it capable of disbelief? Why make Adam and Eve's brain so gullible when snakes talk? Why make a psychopath's brain one that derives joy from the pain of others?

caposkia wrote:

You may not like the story because it looks like God made the mistakes, but if you take the whole thing in logical perspective, the only blame is on the being that made the choices for themselves.

*sigh*. Yes, the story implies that god DID make mistakes! You're almost there!

 The closest thing I've done is some very simply programming...and I mean very simple. I programmed some simple text based games for a graphing calculator, like find a number between 1 and 100 in 6 guesses, where it tells you after each guess if the answer is higher or lower. That game was incapable of calling me an idiot. I could, however, have programmed in such a feature.

Now imagine if one person were to build a computer from the ground up by themselves. All they have is the raw materials. So they get to work. Printing circuit boards, putting together processI've never designed a brain. I'm incapable of doing that. The VERY cutting edge of medical technology right now is growing organs, and the brain is a ways away from even being started I'm sure.ors, chips, soldering everything to the boards, etc. etc. Then, the thing begins to work, and they program the software to make the computer useful. When they're done, the computer works exactly as designed. The computer does everything that the designer wanted it to do. What do you call that? A good designer! What if, though the computer didn't work as designed? What if it had flaws, where another computer savvy user could program malicious software into it? Would you call them a bad designer? Eh....well, it depends. We are dealing with humans here, and we DO have limitations. Now, what if they programmed it so badly, that even the most computer illiterate person was able to use that computer to steal the world's banking information? Well then you'd call that designer a right idiot, wouldn't you!

According to your story, your god created two people, who were easily co-erced by a talking snake (which the moron put there too!!!), to fuck us all over forever. And you're expecting someone to say that god did a splendid job??  Please!

to the contrary, they don't seem perfect, but they were designed perfectly...  the point is perfection can be tainted by those who abuse it.

c'mon, that's like trying to blame the person who invented the internet for its capability to solicit child porn.  God created your brain with all kinds of capabilities... to take away the capability to do bad things is to take away the capability to make a choice and to be able to be independent.  Just like with the hands, your brain and how its developed and used is the choice of those who raised you and mainly yourself. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

*sigh* No need to discuss this in any thread. If salvation is dependant on belief, and a child is born into a situation where they're going to not believe in god (or at least likely to not believe in god) then god's failure to make his existence more obvious is god actively condemning those people to hell. It's that simple.

Salvation is dependant on acceptance.  It is said that Satan 'believes".  Considering the comment about people not telling their children..  You make the assumption that throughout life then, they had no opportunity to hear the truth.  That's not how it works.  People condemn themselves to hell just like jail.. e.g. a child who is born in a house where the father is a criminal and the mother is a criminal is not necessarily going to grow up to be a criminal... granted their odds aren't great.   The thing is, if you condemn every child born into such a life like that, then you've already given up on them... that's not their fault.  This is what the whole NT is about...

Jabberwocky wrote:

I guess that particular detail doesn't hurt the reliability so much. I read something wrong, my apologies.

As far as spoken word...signatures...what?? Also, what evidence do you have that people were more careful in handing down stories told to them by their parents?

no worries, it happens. 

Considering evidence that peopel were more careful handing down stories in the ancient world.... just look up any history of any culture before documentation of stories was possible... consider the dating of most historical stories compared to when they were understood to have been written down.  Also take into consideration that the history of people is littered with storytelling. 

I looked and found it difficult to find a specific author discussing in length about oral history, but Wikipedia seems to cover the idea that it wasn't uncommon and goes through the different methods of orally transmitting a cultures history.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_tradition

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok, so which is it? How did the word spread? Did 8 people cover 510 million square kilometres of earth (317 million square miles for you backwards imperial scale using folk) or did the word spread from person to person who didn't believe it anyway?

On a side note, where does it say that anyone was even warned? Isn't defending genocide fun?

Which is it?  I don't know for sure.   As I've mentioned way way way back when I first started this thread, most of the conversations about this story have to be based on assumption because we just don't know enough about it to say for sure. 

Let's put it this way, did they need to be warned or did they already know?  considering the timing of the culture if God is real and Genesis is true, they would have all already known that thier choices were not in favor of the God. 

Defending Genocide is fun for you?  you like cool aid?

Jabberwocky wrote:

The teapot is orbiting the sun actually, between the Earth and Mars, thank you very much.

So the monkey was WRONG!!!!!  never trust a monkey smoking weed.

Jabberwocky wrote:

No we can't. We can do great things, but nothing is perfect. If someone says that the oldest buildings in the world will last forever, remember that they will only last until heat death melts the earth/them.

so is that imperfect design or material

Jabberwocky wrote:

Hands so perfect....I don't even know where to go with this. Did god create the decently laid out keyboard I'm typing on (which is adapted from a "no jamming" typewriter layout, Dvorak is actually better). No he didn't. Someone saw our hands, and created something to adapt to them. Did god create the piano? No. Same idea. Hands seem perfect because our human brains are creative to find countless uses for them (and our brains create things that humans use that are designed to fit well into our hands)

to the contrary, they don't seem perfect, but they were designed perfectly...  the point is perfection can be tainted by those who abuse it.

Jabberwocky wrote:

However, I will tell you this. If you're right about god creating all of this, then god created my brain. God created my hands capable of strangling someone. However, god would have made my brain incapable of ever making that decision. I have a very short list of people who I honestly detest, and I might even be frighteningly apathetic if they were to die tragically. However, I could not do the deed myself. I believe that it violates the basic most important rules by which humans should live, and someone would have to alter my state of mind likely with substances beyond anything I've ever experienced in order for me to ever make such a decision. God made my brain one that is incapable of killing. How novel. Why then make it capable of disbelief? Why make Adam and Eve's brain so gullible when snakes talk? Why make a psychopath's brain one that derives joy from the pain of others?

c'mon, that's like trying to blame the person who invented the internet for its capability to solicit child porn.  God created your brain with all kinds of capabilities... to take away the capability to do bad things is to take away the capability to make a choice and to be able to be independent.  Just like with the hands, your brain and how its developed and used is the choice of those who raised you and mainly yourself. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

You may not like the story because it looks like God made the mistakes, but if you take the whole thing in logical perspective, the only blame is on the being that made the choices for themselves.

*sigh*. Yes, the story implies that god DID make mistakes! You're almost there!

yea, cause you read that carefully... and thank you for clarifying why people misinterpret scripture. 

I've never designed a brain. I'm incapable of doing that. The VERY cutting edge of medical technology right now is growing organs, and the brain is a ways away from even being started I'm sure. The closest thing I've done is some very simply programming...and I mean very simple. I programmed some simple text based games for a graphing calculator, like find a number between 1 and 100 in 6 guesses, where it tells you after each guess if the answer is higher or lower. That game was incapable of calling me an idiot. I could, however, have programmed in such a feature.

Now imagine if one person were to build a computer from the ground up by themselves. All they have is the raw materials. So they get to work. Printing circuit boards, putting together processors, chips, soldering everything to the boards, etc. etc. Then, the thing begins to work, and they program the software to make the computer useful. When they're done, the computer works exactly as designed. The computer does everything that the designer wanted it to do. What do you call that? A good designer! What if, though the computer didn't work as designed? What if it had flaws, where another computer savvy user could program malicious software into it? Would you call them a bad designer? Eh....well, it depends. We are dealing with humans here, and we DO have limitations. Now, what if they programmed it so badly, that even the most computer illiterate person was able to use that computer to steal the world's banking information? Well then you'd call that designer a right idiot, wouldn't you!

According to your story, your god created two people, who were easily co-erced by a talking snake (which the moron put there too!!!), to fuck us all over forever. And you're expecting someone to say that god did a splendid job??  Please!

 Wow, this thread got popular in my absence! anyone care to paraphrase what's been going on?

There are gaping holes in Evolution too,

Jabberwocky wrote:

and don't ever say that there are gaping holes in the unifying theory of all biology before you know anything CLOSE to enough about it to utter such a statement.

THANK YOU for this sentiment. the ignorant making hasty judgments based on tired truisms and sloppy reading of sloppily written third- or fourth-hand sources unfortunately does not exist only in the realm of scientific debate.