[SNIP]
The Sumerians counted from the outer planets moving inwards towards the sun, and counted the Annunaki planet, Nibiru, as well as our known planets, plus the Sun and the Moon, to come up with 12.
[SNIP]
Actually, the tilting of the earth on it’s access is one of the bits of evidence as offered to the massive disturbance our solar system suffered from the passing of the planet the Sumerians said the Annunaki called “Nibiru.” Sitchin does provide a chapter on how our planets’ orbits are tweaked and so on. I’m no astrophysicist and neither is Sitchin. He is an expert on ancient languages and cultures, and maybe his understanding of how planetary bodies affect other planetary bodies can be given some slack, as this information was NOT part of the information the Annunaki are reputed to have given to the early human cultures.
The only cultures around at the time were the Sumerian and Mesopotamian ones, which did in fact record the passing of the planet Nibiru. The symbol for the “divine” planet is a winged disk, which is seen in all Sumerian structures, their art, and also was adopted and adapted by the Egyptians in their art and temples, etc.
So even though you may scoff at the “lack” of scientific information given to the Sumerians, you should know that they knew several things that should indicate an incredible amount of science and technology. They knew the earth was round, they knew the planets orbited the sun, they knew the planets relative sizes to each other, and they understood that the earth was tilted on its access and that this is the cause of our seasons, etc. Sorry to disappoint you, but the Sumerians knew things that were “discovered” thousands of years later, oops, I mean “re-discovered.”
(edited to fix vBcode)
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 11-20-2001 at 03:56 PM]
So I found myself wondering, “Yes, but how do we know what the Sumerians knew about astronomy?”, as it was my understanding that our archeological knowledge of the culture of ancient Sumer was murky at best. So I put “sumerian astronomy” into Google, and what pops up, as Hit #1, but Sitchin’s Sumerian Astronomy Refuted, which I notice is also linked at the bottom of the Skepdic.com entry on Sitchin.
And mighty entertaining reading it is, too, finishing up with:
I can’t find any support on the Web for these statements of Anvil’s:
Our knowledge of Sumerian culture comes from cuneiform tablets, which are mostly either proverbs, or historical lists of kings, or inventory lists. And then there’s the Gilgamesh epic.
So, Anvil, how do we know what the Sumerians knew about astronomy? How do we know, for example, that they knew the earth was round? Got a cite?
Hey, Dex, if it looks like this is turning into a True Believers “witnessing” thread, like the remote viewing thread, would you please–
.
.
.
.
.
.
–shoot it in the head, strangle it, disembowel it, cut it up into stew meat, and bury it out behind the barn?
Pretty please?
[sub]you thought I was gonna say “move it to Great Debates”, dincha?
no forkin’ way, man[/sub]
I thought I’d throw this into the mix (but seeing as it actually involves the original issue I’m not sure how it’s going to be received.) There’s a book in the/an Apocrypha called the Book of Enoch that tells the story of the Nephilim in greater detail, though the passages quoted in the original article seem to sum it up. It basically says that a bunch of angels were turned on by all the comely daughters of men and went down and fathered children by them. These children were the Nephilim, who were giants who ate so much that they taxed the means of humanity too far, and once all the food ran out they started consuming humans to sate their enormous hunger. The angels, meanwhile, had also brought a lot of knowledge of things like weapons, warfare, and sorcery with them, and had taught them to the mortals. Well, God would have none of this (this is the angry, Old Testament God,remember) so he punished the angels and did away with the Nephilim. The Book of Enoch I looked at gave a lot of names of the angels involved, and is really an interesting book.
Now, the question here is how valid is the Book of Enoch as a biblical text? I can’t really answer that, but I thought I’d bring it up anyway.
Don’t you hate it when you’re putting the finishing touches on a nice long post when some craptacular wacko website with some stupid java app crashes your freakin’ browser?
Hypothetically, I mean.
Ah, good to know. If they were heliocentrists, then why did the consider the Sun and Moon to be planets? Why aren’t the moons of the other planets included in the count?
So even though you may scoff at the “lack” of scientific information given to the Sumerians, you should know that they knew several things that should indicate an incredible amount of science and technology. They knew the earth was round, they knew the planets orbited the sun, they knew the planets relative sizes to each other, and they understood that the earth was tilted on its access and that this is the cause of our seasons, etc.
[/quote]
And lets look at the evidence that they know these things, shall we? Here is the cylinder seal that Sitchin claims shows that the Sumerians were heliocentrists:
*You may want to disable Java. * http://xfacts.com/x4.htm
Now, I see a guy in a funny hat surrounded by something that might be a fancy halo or some jewlery or something. I don’t see any indication that the things around him are supposed to be planets. If they are, why are they all in a chain instead of in their orbits?
Sitchin claims that, like the number of circles in that chain, the total number of moons in our Solar System is 24, excluding moons under 10 miles in diameter (16 km)–a completely arbitrary cut-off which is certianly not used by astronomers today, and never was widely used to my knowledge.
Including the arbitrary exclusion, I count: Phobos, Metis, Amalthea, Thebe, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Himalia, Lysithea, Elara, Carme, Pasiphae, Sinope, Prometheus, Pandora, Janus, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Helene, Rhea, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus. . . whoops, that’s 25, and we’re only 9.5 AU out! I’m cheating a bit, of course, because some of these moons were not known in Sitchin’s time. Stike Metis, Thebe, Prometheus, and Pandora, and add Phoebe, Miranda, Ariel, and Umbriel . . . And there are more where they come from.
I wouldn’t find that disappointing at all . . . if it were true. Indeed, it would be fascinating. However, that doesn’t justify distorting the evidence to make it seem so.
Well, I hate to do this guys, but the truth must out.
Sitchin seems to have, in fact, plagiarised his theory of a rogue-planet theory to explain the ancient mythologies.
The first appearance of that theory was in 1961, written by Carl Barks, in “Mythic Mystery”, a story in UNCLE SCROOGE COMICS #34. The plot of that story is that a rogue planet comes closer and closer to earth, causing great storms. Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck and the boys (Huey, Dewey, and Louie) are caught up in one such storm, and accidentally hitch a ride on Thor’s chariot, back to the rogue planet… which is inhabited by the Greek and Norse gods.
Hercules explains: “Valhalla got its name eons ago when it drifted close to earth in a period of great solar storms! During the storms, earthlings from many lands were blown onto our planet by the winds! Some called it Valhalla. Some Olympus! All mistook the local yokels for gods, which tickled our ancestors so much, they adopted the gods’ legendary names!”
Available wherever comics are sold. Well, OK, available wherever reprints and really, really old comics are sold.
Isn’t it good to know the origins of these great theories?
I disagree with your simplistic and oh-so-convenient explaination of these events, Dex. Indeed, I find that you are propogating ignorance of the very worst kind.
Why do you not mention the widely accepted explanation first proposed in Archie Comics #22, published A FULL TWO YEARS before this “duck” claptrap. In it, Betty and Veronica, after a bracing day of shopping, find themselves whisked away by a bespeckled green alien named Val (Do you sense the connection?) Val launches into an explination of how his planet accidentally colonized Earth after a trajectory miscalculation. Their orignial mission was, of course, to randomly dump people onto Io.
Doubtlessly he would have spilled onto them the secrets of the universe, but Veronica found alien food not agreeing with her delicate constitution and demanded to be dropped off in Riverdale.
From waaaaaay back in 1942!!! in Adventure Comics #75*, Sandman (in his Kirby period, yellow and purple costume) fought THE VILLAIN FROM VALHALLA, aka Thor. Thor was, in reality, “Fairy Tales Fenton” a two-bit crook and metallurgy professor(?) (and apparently a body-builder) who used a super-science hammer (and an “invisible bullet-proof suit”) that approximated the “real” Thor’s powers and abilities to commit robberies.
It was described as “an electro-mechanical marvel”. How, except through ALIENS masqurading as GAWDS could this hammer have existed? Answer: It couldn’t! Oh, “Fairy Tales Fenton” claimed to have invented them, but c’mon. A two-bit crook/metallurgy professor (and, apparently Olympic-class body-builder) inventing a weather-control “electro-mechanical marvel”. Please. It was aliens. Obviously.
That noted scholar, Tim Powers, already thoroughly explained the background of the Nephilim ( and their activities in 19th century Europe ) in his scholarly work, The Stress of Her Regard.
If the SDMB does start charging for access, will we ever hear from Anvil again?
Will Erich von Daniken sue Zecharia Sitchin for stealing his act?
Why, in his article, didn’t Dex offer the possibility that the Elohim verses have not a shred of truth to them, that they’re just remnants of stories perhaps made up around nightly campfires by bored nomadic shepherds?
Has Zecharia Sitchin ever heard of Led Zeppelin?
Has Anvil ever seen the TOS Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonis?”
Anvil said: “Reading won’t hurt you.” Sure, but reading tripe is a waste of time.
Very clever Jab1. You really are an amazing wit. Let’s see, this is my 9th post, and you have made 4,514. Yet your brilliant riposte is to ask if I will be around if SDMB charges for access. Jeez. Then you go on and cite Star Trek and quote Harlan Ellison. I also greatly admired your art with the Darwin fish script. Amazing. You clearly are a message board renaissance man.
Clearly many people don’t buy Sitchin’s views. I had not realized how sharp the knives were. My original statement was that Sitchin wrote about the Nephilim. I’m not familiar with Von Daniken, so I can’t comment on him or his theories. Some people on this thread might follow the example: if you don’t know, shut up. Did anyone post here that they HAD READ the book, and then disagreed? No. All anyone said was that through sources like The Skeptic website they have determined that Sitchin has been debunked. Further, if someone doesn’t like my ideas or opinions, that’s their right. I don’t really care, as most of these people replying to this thread with thousands of posts to their credit obviously don’t have much of a life anyway. However if you start trying to insult me or anyone who states their beliefs, then you are just a fascist. And I don’t mean that lightly.
So to sum up: read, accept, reject whatever. The Enochian texts someone mentioned was one of the only intelligent threads on here, aside from Duck Duck Goose’s humorous and intelligent posts. I’d like to close by quoting the last line in Woody Allen’s “The Front” :
“…and further more, fellas, you can…”
[returning to merry chortling]
[cursing self for not paying more attention to Archie comics in the past]
Link to Book of Enoch. Warning–it’s pretty heavy going. Even The Duck’s formidable GlurgeHandler Mark IV’s verbal circuits went into redline on this one. Think “bad Tolkien knockoff” crossed with “bad Book of Genesis pastiche” crossed with the dialogue for your choice of Grade Z “Satan enters the world and only one man/woman can stop him…” horror movies. It jumps around just the same way as a Grade Z horror movie, too, and has the same habit of never explaining plot developments, such as they are. For example, in Chapter 7, the giants apparently eat all mankind, and then start in on the reptiles, fish, and other animals, etc. Then, suddenly in Chapter 8, there they are fornicating again. But with whom? They ate everybody in Chapter 7, didn’t they? And, in between the scene with the giants eating all the humans, and the scene with them fornicating with some apparently overlooked human tidbits, there’s Azazel teaching men how to make jewelry, and there’s a whole scene with this jewelry laid out on tables. But what for?
I need some popcorn to get through this.
And, like most other Grade Z horror flicks, it has some untentionally funny dialogue:
Then there’s a long, rather dull midsection, with a lot of apocalyptic visions and stuff, but no sex (good time to go out for popcorn). Then there’s “The First Parable”, which isn’t a parable. There are actually several “parables” that come and go, but they aren’t really “parables”, the way the “love scene” in a Woody Allen movie isn’t really a “love scene”.
Then there’s a lot more apocalyptic stuff and visions. Then it looks like it’s turning into a John Wayne western:
And then, I dunno, it’s nothing but angels showing him stuff, one thing after another, and you’re sitting there going, “Yes, but where’s the plot?” There is no plot, as far as I can tell.
But stick it out until you get to Chapter 72, because that’s the obligatory “jargon” or “mumbo jumbo” scene, where somebody supposedly “explains” what’s going on and uses a lot of technical-sounding big words.
Anybody else want a refill on popcorn?
Chapter 82.
And no wonder. :rolleyes:
Fast forwarding through the rest of this. Wait! What was that…Chapter 99, ersatz proverbs.
Oh. Fast Forward some more…Wait! What was that, it looked like a sex scene…It WAS a sex scene, Chapter 106, she’s getting pregnant…Shoot, THAT wasn’t much of a SEX scene…But hey, kewl, look, it’s a “monster baby” scene! Dude!
Chapter 108. The End. Geez–FInally. Hey, I call dibs on the bathroom, man I gotta go bad…
The logo says “Fighting ignorance since 1973.” That’s what we’re all allegedly here for, that’s what we’re about.
And the thing about fighting ignorance is that you have to let go of the fuzzy bunny idea of all opinions being created equal. They’re not. More specifically, opinions about facts are not created equal.
We know the Skeptic website to be a credible resource full of valuable information. If you would care to address the points that the debunkers make in their articles, I would love to see them.
It’s also interesting how you seem to be bent on driving up book sales for this crackpot.
At any rate, I haven’t read the guy. I have, however, read and done extensive research on Graham Hancock, a man who shares some similar beliefs. Both are pseudoscientists at their best, and in the fight against ignorance pseudoscience must be taken to task.
So you’re not going to win any converts here, I’m afraid.
Andygirl, you get poor marks for reading comprehension! I never said all opinions were equal, and I never tried to say that disagreement is bad for your health, or would promote tooth decay, or whatever other horrors you can dredge up. You got your wires all crossed up. Insulting someone is different than disagreeing with them or proving them wrong. That is my point. I never went to the Skeptic website, so I have not seen what their argument is against Sitchin. Someone else brought up the Skeptic, and they also did not mention what the specific charges were.
Graham Hancock and Sitchin might be pseudoscientists, in that they don’t hold PhD’s in all the fields they are talking about, or in fact, they might hold no credentials at all whatsoever. Yeah, I’m gonna stand up for Hancock, too. In those guys’ books, they both credit and cite so many studies and researchers and dissertations that it would be a monumental task to find these sources and prove or disprove them. That’s not my interest. If someone has done that, or if the debunking on sites like “the Skeptic” have done these things, I will of course be interested in knowing. Hancock might be nothing more than a good storyteller, but he does use other people’s research, he doesn’t claim to have done the science and math himself. To some degree, this is also true of the Sitchin books. For the record, I am no expert on this material, nor do I claim to be. I have only recently become acquainted with the Sitchin books. And like I said, I thought the books were great. If anyone gives a fiddler’s fart about the Nephilim, they will certainly come away with a whole hell of a lot more information about them after reading a Sitchin book, than they had before! I make no claims about the Sitchin books allowing you to enter paradise and be attended by 40 virgins or 40 vixens or whatever. I have no motive for “driving sales” of Sitchin’s books. If you’re so against this evil capitalist plot, why not go down to the library and check the book out for FREE? Then evil ol’ Sitchin will be foiled, and you’ll actually know what you’re talking about, and you can come back to this message board and give me hell.
First comment, said in a very loud voice as Administrator:
LEAVE OFF THE PERSONAL COMMENTS AND INSULTS. This is a forum for discussion. Humor, sure, including satire and sarcasm, are perfectly OK, but personal attacks and insults have no place in this forum. Got it? Any further behaviours of this type and I’ll take action.
And, lest anyone get hot and huffy about being singled out, I see the misbehaviours on both sides of this fence. So, EVERYONE stop it. NOW.
OK, second comment:
Jab1: << Why, in his article, didn’t Dex offer the possibility that the Elohim verses have not a shred of truth to them, that they’re just remnants of stories perhaps made up around nightly campfires by bored nomadic shepherds? >>
This will be discussed (briefly) in an upcoming set of Staff Reports. Yes, one way to answer the question would be to say, “It’s made-up stories of giants and has no more reality than Jack and Beanstalk.” I chose to answer the question (as I thought it was asked) within the terms of the text as a coherent whole. I guess, if I had been asked “What’s up with Tolkien’s ents?”, I could have answered “There’s no such thing” or I could have answered with a lengthy discussion about the importance of trees in primitive northern religions. I would, however, have answered that one within the context of Tolkien’s work as an artistic whole.
That answer your question, jab?
Penultimate comment:
Sure, there may have been aliens-from-space-disguised-as-mythological-characters in earlier works. What Carl Barks did was to tie this to the idea of a rogue-planet whose orbit erratically swings very close to earth every few thousand years. That’s the core of Sitchin’s theories (as I understand them) and I find it interesting that he doubtless picked up that idea from Uncle Scrooge.
And, final comment:
[ restatement of theme ]
STAY AWAY FROM INSULTS DIRECTED AT THE PERSON. Insult the ideas, sure, but not the person.
May I respectfully suggest that Anvil, who is a big fan of folks “reading for themselves”, trots on over to Skepdic.com and reads for himself?
Yo, Anvil. You’re surprised the knives are so sharp. Well, this is why–this is an entire website devoted to Fighting Ignorance. Not only that, but we all specialize in debunking things like Urban Legends, the paranormal, pseudoscience, various quack medical cures, etc. Get it? That’s what we do here, it’s what we’re all about. And we tend to have little patience with folks who come in here wishing to discuss a theory, and who merely cling to the theory and resist all encouragement to find out for themselves whether it’s true, no matter how many links to Snopes or Skeptic’s Dictionary or Quackwatch we provide.
Generally the knives tend to be sheathed if after a few back-and-forth exchanges it appears that you are “getting it”, or at least that you’re willing to discuss the possibility that your chosen theory is, if not totally wrong, then at least “flawed”.
Jab’s reference to your low post count was a version of something we frequently find ourselves saying to people who register here because something Cecil or a Staff Member says on the Straight Dope Home Page pushes their hot button. So they come into a Comments forum and begin posting, but with their very first post it’s clear that unfortunately their position is directly contrary to that of The Master or his Minions, and indeed, to most of the scientific world. This usually involves things dealing with the paranormal or pseudoscience, or “conspiracy theory” things like the moon landing hoax. We tell these people:
I’ll read Sitchin. I will then present an analysis of some of his statements using a variety of sources, ranging from one of my Anthropology professors who is an archeologist specializing in the relevant time period, the course I took with her on cult archaeology, my own research, and a variety of other sources as needed.
It might be a lost cause, but I’ll do my very best to explain what pseudoscience is and why Sitchin and Hancock practice it.
My caveat is that I’m leaving today for Thanksgiving break, so this will most likely take at the very least a week and a half to pull together.
No, that’s not the definition of a pseudoscientist. There are a few (rare) examples of fine mainstream scientists who do not have degrees in their fields of specialty. There are more examples of pseudoscientists who do had degrees in the field the expound upon.
In general, a pseudoscientist is someone who does not submit his work to the academic community for critique and/or does not discard his hypothesis when it has been shown to be wrong.
Sitchin is a pseudoscientist because his work contradicts mainstream archeology, not to mention astronomy, by postulating a wild extraterrestrial explanation without providing adequate evidence. He does his own translations, which disagree with the translations of other experts. He most often does not provide photographs of original artifacts, but rather his own sketches of them. He does not reveal the sources of many of his text. Ye veriliy he numbereth the moons of the solar system to match his eccentric interpretations, rather than couting 'em.
This is not how hard-working, honest scolars work, Ace.
This is just a cop-out. If the sources I got my information from have misrepresented Sitchin’s ideas in any way, please point out which ones.
I await your responses to the points I raised regarding Sitchin’s astronomy. If you only respond to only one thing, please explain the lack of historical naked-eye observations of Marduk despite its 3600 year orbital period.
[Homer Simpson]
In case you couldn’t tell, i was being sarcastic!
[/Homer Simpson]
Let this be a lesson: Always assume your opponent is better armed than you.
You must be one of the 100 adults on the planet who have never heard of his book Chariots of the Gods? His “theory” (more like an ignorant guess) is that the various god myths are ancient peoples’ attempts to understand visitations by extra-terrestrials.
That’s right: von Daniken believes God was E.T.! (Or maybe the other way around.)
All I have to know is the subject. Interstellar flight by living beings is very likely impossible. Anyone who says otherwise is displaying his ignorance about the laws of physics.
As compared to a person who reads crackpot pseudoscientific books in his spare time?
Godwin’s law! Godwin’s law!
And as for going to the library to read Sitchin’s books, I will if you agree to read Isaac Asimov (non-fiction), Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould. Many of Sitchin’s books are available at the Los Angeles Public Library (which means they were purchased with MY tax dollars, goddammit!)
*