I merely said that logic was overrated.
Good point. Perhaps enjoy in an infuriated climbing the walls masochistic kind of way…
The difference is pride.
You got me. I fantasised those books. I will bow to your superior knowledge (as I indicated I would) of educated academics worldwide.
posted by Rodrigo
Bible expert? Since when does one have to be a bible “expert” to be aware of the claims it makes? Umm… the bible does say that God made all the animals and then flooded them, but he saved two of each kind to make more out of, doesn’t it? Am I making that up?
Nor does it take an expert to see the fundamental contradictions between the biblical account and what we now know to be true.
And you couldn’t be more wrong than to suggest that the question is why MY belief system doesn’t work with YOURS. Mine isn’t a belief system, per se, but rather is based on observable facts borne out by a multitude of tangible evidence. Yours is based on faith-- and nothing more.
Additionally, you are the one making the “claim” and assuming the burden of proof, not I. I don’t have to “prove” that dinosaurs existed, that has been established. I don’t have to “prove” that they became extinct millions of years before the appearance of man, that has been established. I don’t have to “prove” that no evidence suggests a global flood; in fact a considerable body of evidence specifically refutes it. Not on any “shaky evidence” or “according to this or that scientist,” either – those facts have simply come to be counted among the things we KNOW about our planet, like where hurricanes come from or why we get lightning.
Thanks for pointing out that “circular reasoning” trap, dang-- I about walked right into that one. We all would agree that we far more commonly encounter the argument, "It says so in “The Origin of Species, so it must be true” than we do, “It says so in the bible, so it must be true.” :rolleyes: Suffice it to say that circular reasoning is the friend of the creationist, not the scientist.
What you’re refusing to acknowledge, by hanging quotes around the word logical and attempting an equivalency between science and faith, is that, yes… we CAN positively establish many things about the earth, its history, the diversity and origin of many of its life forms. A careful examination of the earth, and its fossil record, has yielded mounds of information unavailable to the men who wrote the bible-- information that invalidates portions of what they wrote. Does it “prove” 100% of what you would require in order to “believe in it?” Obviously not-- but consider that YOUR “system”, such as it is, is incapable of “proving” anything.
In the end, you have, in your pile of evidence, a grand total of : the bible, and the stock answer that “God did it.”
I’ve got a whole world I can point to – and the difference is, mine is a real one.
Just because something is in a book doesn’t mean that it represents any serious scholarship. There are books that claim virtually everything. There are books that claim the pyramids were built by aliens. That doesn’t mean that any such theory or debate exists among real Egyptologists.
I’m sure I didn’t make any such assertion.
Of course not. That would be in violation of your purpose in posting to this thread, which appears to be
“I have come to make snarky remarks about the posters in this thread in terms that are vague enough to provide me with plausible deniability (in my mind) while contributing nothing of substance to the discussion..”
Since you have nothing to contribute on the topic and you admit at the beginning that you will not actually defend any position you take (and imply that you are not even capable of mounting a defense of your vague pronouncements), it would appear that your only purpose in this thread is to inflict some vague (if risible) harrassment of other posters.
If you have an actual position that you want to establish regarding the way that discussions are carried out in this Forum, the appropriate action would be to open a new thread to discuss such discussions, otherise you are merely hijacking this thread–rudely.
I will note that the assertion that I have quoted is false (although one does need to have a grasp of logic to note that).
Sequence of statements was:
A Blink Academics more educated (if that were possible) than those represented in this thread eloquently argue for and against this interpretation. That argument appears to be inconclusive.
B DtC Incorrect. Educated academics argue only against it.
C Blink You got me. I fantasised those books.
D DtC Just because something is in a book doesn’t mean that it represents any serious scholarship.
E Blink I’m sure I didn’t make any such assertion.
In point C you clearly (if sarcastically) imply that you have seen books by serious academics who actually hold that dinosaurs are mentioned in the bible. It is true that, as I noted aboved, you have couched your claim in vague terms allowing you to pretend to have not said it, but to any competent reader of English, you have, indeed, conveyed the message that you have seen such books by competent authorities and that you are simply being “gracious” enough to not fight over it.
Thus, you are not merely rude, you are dishonest.
Okay Tom,
Since you would rather think of me as rude than pay any attention to my contribution to the point of this thread, I will have to leave that up to you. If however you wish to grasp the point I was making, I will condense it here:
I did not realise what great offence would be taken by my reference to views I have read, without citing reference. This point however was not particularly critical. Incidentally, this is exactly what I was referring to when I said:
Tom said, “Since you have nothing to contribute on the topic and you admit at the beginning that you will not actually defend any position you take.”
Willful or inadvertant misinterpretation.
Sorry to be so short with you, but you were not exactly polite to me.
It says nothing implicitly either.
The question was not whether any Biblical authors were aware of dinosaurs (and it’s not at all unreasonable that people of the time may have been aware of fossils even if they didn’t understand them) but whether they wrote anything about it in the Bible. They did not.
See above. The OP was not asking about what isn’t in the Bible but what is. The question is “does the Bible mention dinosaurs?” The answer is no. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from that fact are for a different debate.
So your entire contribution has been to state (inaccurately), then restate (inaccurately), what has occurred in this thread based on your interpretation and then to try to spin your attacks on other posters as some sort of contribution? (And in restating your contributions you willfully ignore the dishonesty you employed?)
Sorry. My comments stand.
I reserve politeness for honest discussion.
No. But apparently you aren’t going to see it any other way.
Hmm… well I didn’t intend to attack anyone, but I see how my posts could have been read that way. I think I should have lurked a bit longer before posting.
I’m struggling with this dishonesty allegation. Where was I dishonest? In years past, I have read in books written by people who I had every reason to believe were educated academics, arguments for the point that the bible mentions dinosaurs, and arguments against that point. Unfortunately I do not own any of those books, nor do I have immediate access to them. And I simply don’t have the time to pop down to my local theological college to try and find them (no I don’t remember the titles or the authors).
I can certainly understand you treating these comments with some degree of suspicion (I would, if I were you), but I do not understand why you have to accuse me of dishonesty.
In your sequence of statements, you are right in thinking that at point C I was being flippant. But I find it amazing that anyone should assert (as Diogenes did) that no educated academic would argue that the Bible mentions dinosaurs - for two reasons; firstly because I have read material that directly contradicts his assertion and secondly because I don’t believe that anyone could be aware of the views of all educated academics on the point.
I agree with D that not everything in a book represents serious scholarly work - I never said that it did. This is point E in your sequence of statements. This does not however mean that what I read was not scholarly!
Of course none of this stuff adds very much to the original point of the thread, and this is the kind of “bogged down” side argument that I didn’t want to get into. You see, having re-read the thread, it seems to me that very few people addressed the original comments in full. (See points 7 and 8 of my last post.) This is what I was trying to do.
I should have kept to the point, and saved the other observations. I am sorry for distracting focus away from the subject.
Fine.
I can assert it for the same reason that I can assert that no serious academic would argue that the Bible mentions Volkswagons…because it doesn’t. It is simply not a view that exists in academia. It is a view that exists among cranks and uneducated creationists. If you really want to persist in this then I must ask you to cite an example of an accredited scholar (meaning someone with legitimate academic credentials, not someone with a degree in “Creation Science” from Bob Jones University or somesuch) who actually propounds a view that the Job creatures should be interpreted as dinosaurs. That’s how it works in this forum. Prove me wrong.
A) That is assuming that your observations are accurate.
B) Not so. The Scientific method relies on the Scientific method. Period (or Full-stop). The claim that observation and experimentation are ways of understanding anything cannot be proven outside the system it proposes. (BTW, I use the Scientific method, and I think it’s right, just that it is not the answer for eveything)
C) The Bible says that Athens existed. Does it mean Athens does not exist? It might not prove anything to satisfy YOU.
D) I almost never use that answer as my only answer, even if it would satisfy me because it wouldn’t the other party. You may have the whole world to point to, because someone brought it to you, you didn’t start from nought. Your belief system (even if you don’t like the term) is ultimately based on you; you decide truth. If it works for you, more power to you; I still think you’re wrong
The Bible doesn’t mention dinosaurs for the same reason Cookbooks don’t mention Russian Middle-Age politics.
Are magic and ferries the same as miracles and angles?
Yup
Although ferries do exist. I’ve taken several myself.
Of course, in concept. How would you propose they differ?
For that matter, I’ve seen ferries with angles.
posted by Rodrigo:
Okay, which set of “observations” would seem to be the most trustworthy:
The one which has a self-correcting mechanism built in, and which tolerates–indeed, depends on, previously accepted principles to be shown wrong and replaced with better explanations…
or the one which remains frozen in time, 2000 years old, and which steadfastly, unbendingly insists on its own inerrancy in defiance of indisputably better explanations?
The one which can be validated through an array of separate disciplines, such as archeology, paleontology, geology, astronomy, biology, and chemistry, which collectively reinforce and confirm many such findings and whose observations can be reliably repeated and demonstrated…
or the one which depends on the word of a God, your Christian God of the bible to be precise, (not one of those fairy tales other, inferior religions cling to) as interpreted by man, translated into different languages, and constantly (yet rarely unanimously ) “interpreted” in order that we may understand what it really says?
The one which seeks to explain the world around us objectively, taking pains to formally exclude biases which could prejudice the results…
or the one with a rather obvious bias built into it, and whose existence depends on the maintenance of purely subjective factors in the minds of its adherents?
The one which “follows the data”, wherever it may go, and simply lives with the results,
or the one so tied to pre-existing dogma that every new scientific revelation, which can’t effectively be “denied,” instead must go through an often contortional process required in order to “square it” with scripture?
From which system of explanations would you expect more “accuracy?”
I guess what I’m asking for is an explanation of the inherent flaws in placing more confidence in what science tells us about the world than what theology does, specifically in relation to areas where they clash.
I’ll discount gems such as
in the hopes that you realize that while Athens does indeed exist, it certainly isn’t because it is mentioned in the bible.
Oh man, I’ve been [sic]'ed twice. Ok, so I forgot how to spell.
Or, perhaps, you realized that you would actually rather be talking about ferries and angles… 
Sorry about the hijack. Nope, just spent yesterday going over Pythagoras’s theorem so I’ve had enough with triangles and angles, but I do believe in them.
As well you should, since they are “concrete” mathematical concepts.
Oops, wrong thread… 