responding to common objections to bible part 7

[total relism]

EDIT

sorry i almost let myself be brought in to off topic talk [flood stories].

brenus, if you believe yourself to be true in what you claim, please go post on my thread were that is topic, i will gladly reply there. Also if willing, please provide your case/evidence for your beliefs [jews copied] as well.

[HoreTore]

Yeah I know I looked into that, and knew that would be brought up. The thing is we are talking about completely disconnected peoples growing all sorts of different crops in completely different climates - much of the world was suitable for some sort of agriculture even during the last glacial period. Please explain why we record agriculture as beginning at around 7,000 BC in Papua New Guinea, 10,000 BC in Mexico, 5-8,000 BC in South America, when these areas were all still temperate or tropical even during the maximum extent of the ice sheet during the last glacial period (a full 22,000 years ago, supposedly).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:La...tation_map.png

A difference of 5000 years is more or less the same time...?

Anyway, it wasn't an instant thing either. As for why it happened in the first place, there are several hypothesis.

Anyhoo Rhy, can you think of a single instance where modern science has moved towards the bible instead of away from it?

Also, a rather long read about the flood. Long, but fun, so I recommend it.

[Jarmam]

What I want everyone to take away from this thread:

If your anti-scientific religious belief system is being challenged, your best strategy is to point at the assailant and say "but you're doing the same as I am...! Are too!". Best case scenario is that you win the jolly old "I know you are but what I am"-game so intellectually stimulating that it fuels thousands of de facto identical mudslinging contests.

Also I take pleasure in reading these, which I am quite sure makes me either malevolent or moronic. More importantly it means they are not irrelevant. Game on!

[total relism]

What I want everyone to take away from this thread:

If your anti-scientific religious belief system is being challenged, your best strategy is to point at the assailant and say "but you're doing the same as I am...! Are too!". Best case scenario is that you win the jolly old "I know you are but what I am"-game so intellectually stimulating that it fuels thousands of de facto identical mudslinging contests.

Also I take pleasure in reading these, which I am quite sure makes me either malevolent or moronic. More importantly it means they are not irrelevant. Game on!

you said
"If your anti-scientific religious belief system is being challenged"


I hope your not referring to me, if so please show me were this happened, if your referring to epic of gilgamesh, I will ask you read my post that provide links to refute the claim, as i have done many times to the thread were that is on topic and already discussed.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...nal&highlight=


if it is not to me or that, than i am a idiot and am sorry.

[Rhyfelwyr]

A difference of 5000 years is more or less the same time...?

Anyway, it wasn't an instant thing either. As for why it happened in the first place, there are several hypothesis.

5,000 years (I noticed you went with the maximum figure, 2-3 is equally likely) is nothing out of a supposed history of hundreds of thousands of years. As for the link on Chinese ice age farming, I don't doubt people take time to settle into an agricultural lifestyle, my point was that, globally-speaking, the advent of agriculture is pretty instantaneous.

The second link reaffirms my point - it seems that climate change, demographics, habitat etc cannot explain such a sudden advent of farming throughout the world, since these things varied hugely from place to place.

I will check out your other link etc tomorrow running out of time here...

[Tuuvi]

"clear reason brenus avoids my other link on this very topic, it refutes his claims that isreal copied from any other local belief.” I don’t avoid other link, you just expose why I don’t take them seriously. You are telling that you refute bla bla bla. So you refute that the Bible copied from the Sumerian Legends, so you avoid reality/facts in order to keep your faith. You just confirm what I said from the start. See, even I was able to make a prediction: “he (as he will probably do) dodges the question.”

“The bottom line is this - the fact that the Biblical account of the flood is preceded by a Sumerian one does not definitively prove that the Biblical account was not inspired by God.” Yes it does. As the description in the Sumerians Myths preceding the Bible accounts provides different names to the Deities and humans involved in the story. If others spoke of it before, God can’t inspire the wording of a known story.

This of course without the knowledge of what HoreTore just highlight: The Deluge (global one) never happened. I was generous in conceding a local reality enlarged to a Mythic History (as we don’t know if the Sumerian did believe in it or if it was just a story for the long winter nights without TV, local version of Scary Movies).

According to the Biblical narrative Noah and his family were the only ones who survived the flood. Over time Noah's descendants broke away from Jehovah worship (yes I know Jehovah is not the correct form) and founded their own religions and nations. So as Rhyfelwyr says it makes perfect sense that the Sumerians would have their own flood account alongside the Jewish one.

Also according to the Bible the Israelite religion was codified by Moses during the Exodus, but the Hebrews had already been worshiping Jehovah as Jehovah was the God of Abraham and Jacob, the founders of the Israelite nation. The book of Genesis, which contains the flood account, was purportedly written by Moses. When Moses was writing the flood account he would have been writing a story that had been passed down for generations. The flood story was not revealed by God the moment it was written down, it already existed.

In short, the fact that there is a Sumerian flood story does not falsify the belief that the Bible is an inspired text.

Yeah I know I looked into that, and knew that would be brought up. The thing is we are talking about completely disconnected peoples growing all sorts of different crops in completely different climates - much of the world was suitable for some sort of agriculture even during the last glacial period. Please explain why we record agriculture as beginning at around 7,000 BC in Papua New Guinea, 10,000 BC in Mexico, 5-8,000 BC in South America, when these areas were all still temperate or tropical even during the maximum extent of the ice sheet during the last glacial period (a full 22,000 years ago, supposedly).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:La...tation_map.png

Agriculture began in the Americas much later than it did in Eurasia. Plant cultivation was only invented in 7 different places, if I remember right, and then it slowly spread to the rest of the world. Even today there are societies which do not practice agriculture and subsist on hunting and gathering.

Farming was actually a pretty miserable lifestyle compared to gathering. Farmers had to work longer and harder to obtain food and because they relied on only a few food sources they had worse nutrition and health than gatherers (I'm willing to bet that modern gatherers have better nutrition than Americans do). I believe the current hypothesis is that at first crop cultivation was only practiced on a small scale to supplement gathering. As time went on the population grew and people began to rely on farming more and more until hunting and gathering was no longer enough to sustain the population.

Agriculture did not lead to civilization overnight either. The first farmers lived in small communities that show no sign of divisions in wealth or status. Over time (hundreds or thousands of years) societies became more and more complex until they were what we would call "Civilization".

[Papewaio]

Advantage.

Once farming showed it was at an advantage it spread.

Having said that nomadic lifestyles still exist for instance there is about half a million nomadic pastoralists in Tibet alone.

Advantages where they exist spread quickly. So where farming gave an advantage is generally when there is consistent seasons and a semi-harsh environment meaning that farming is a safer option then nomadic lifestyle.

[Tuuvi]

5,000 years (I noticed you went with the maximum figure, 2-3 is equally likely) is nothing out of a supposed history of hundreds of thousands of years. As for the link on Chinese ice age farming, I don't doubt people take time to settle into an agricultural lifestyle, my point was that, globally-speaking, the advent of agriculture is pretty instantaneous.

The second link reaffirms my point - it seems that climate change, demographics, habitat etc cannot explain such a sudden advent of farming throughout the world, since these things varied hugely from place to place.

I will check out your other link etc tomorrow running out of time here...

Looks like we both posted at the same time. A few thousand years might not seem too long in the grand scheme of things, but remember the average human lifespan is only 60-70 years. 5,000 years is a long time.

Also as I mentioned before the invention of agriculture only happened in a few places. Farming was not invented by everyone. To give an example, the main crops of North American agriculture were maize, beans, and squash, all of which were domesticated in Southern Mexico. This is one small region, inhabited by only a few different cultures, in a vast continent with hundreds of different peoples. In most places agriculture wasn't invented, it was adopted.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Looks like we both posted at the same time. A few thousand years might not seem too long in the grand scheme of things, but remember the average human lifespan is only 60-70 years

Today. With relatively good preventive health care, at least for childhood diseases; you know the type of thing that in Biblical times did take out 4/5 of the population as a matter of course.

That aside, I think it's more instructive to think of this in terms of generations. As a rule of thumb, a generation is ~20 - 25 years. So 5000 years equates to 200 - 250 generations...

[Brenus]

“Right, so the Sumerian story is in fact 100% historically accurate, and the Biblical account is therefore wrong because it doesn't match the Sumerian account?” No. Sumerian story is a legend like the one in the Bible. At this point, I don’t know if the Sumerian believed in their story or if it was the equivalent of a Doom Days Books or movies. What we know (and I understand you agree with it) is the Biblecists believe that the Flood was real and that the Bible comes from God herself.

“In short, the fact that there is a Sumerian flood story does not falsify the belief that the Bible is an inspired text.” So your point is the inspired by God text has mistaken the names of the protagonists and number of Gods involved in it. So God made mistakes as forgetting under which names and number he/she did it and to whom… Interesting theories! She/he could have a sense of humour as well, doubtfully, but possible.

“7,000 BC in Papua New Guinea, 10,000 BC in Mexico, 5-8,000 BC in South America” And this what we call “at the same time”? 3000 years… Waoh…

[Ironside]

5,000 years (I noticed you went with the maximum figure, 2-3 is equally likely) is nothing out of a supposed history of hundreds of thousands of years. As for the link on Chinese ice age farming, I don't doubt people take time to settle into an agricultural lifestyle, my point was that, globally-speaking, the advent of agriculture is pretty instantaneous.

It's not hundreds of thousands of years.

It's about 50.000-45.000 years. The creative explosion is quite important and shows a significant leap. One of the better theories for that one is that grandparents started to become common. Better experience accumulation, generational knowledge transfer and more time to do something else than food gathering and taking care of the children.

And really, it's not uncommon with great leaps happening relativly suddenly. It happens often in evolutionary history. It's just hard to track down why.

“In short, the fact that there is a Sumerian flood story does not falsify the belief that the Bible is an inspired text.” So your point is the inspired by God text has mistaken the names of the protagonists and number of Gods involved in it. So God made mistakes as forgetting under which names and number he/she did it and to whom… Interesting theories! She/he could have a sense of humour as well, doubtfully, but possible.

Ofcourse he has humour. He did intentionally lose most of his followers after having 100% of them in more or less direct contact with him. I mean the Bible is full of draconic counter meassurements God implemented as soon as He got questioned. And that was a mere fickle of His glorious powers.

[Jarmam]

you said
"If your anti-scientific religious belief system is being challenged"


I hope your not referring to me, if so please show me were this happened

coming next thread. You just show your indoctrination here. I hope you bring this link up and say you agree with it and its true and you have studied to find out. Otherwise your just showing your accepting of your religion without questioning it and total faith in there theology and inability to question and think for yourself....we shall see.

I know you are but what am I

[Greyblades]

Totalrelism and kurdishspartakus in the same thread... I need a frigging drink.

[total relism]

Totalrelism and kurdishspartakus in the same thread... I need a frigging drink.

cheers.

[Kadagar_AV]

thanks for the kind words jerk....lol. well your stupid, so take that you big bully.

I guess that won you the debate then.

I point out that you can't even, as evidenced, differentiate between "and" and "or" when reading texts, and you in turn point out that I am stupid and a big bully.

Seems legit.

[total relism]

I guess that won you the debate then.

I point out that you can't even, as evidenced, differentiate between "and" and "or" when reading texts, and you in turn point out that I am stupid and a big bully.

Seems legit.

it was a joke, sorry thought it was clear.

[Kadagar_AV]

it was a joke, sorry thought it was clear.

With your shown comprehension of... Well... Pretty much anything. How is one to tell?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Agriculture began in the Americas much later than it did in Eurasia. Plant cultivation was only invented in 7 different places, if I remember right, and then it slowly spread to the rest of the world. Even today there are societies which do not practice agriculture and subsist on hunting and gathering.

Of course, people will only practice agriculture where it is efficient or necessary to do so. My point was that agriculture is something that came about quite suddenly on a global scale. Those different places where agriculture spread from must themselves have been spread across the world, because the many peoples had no contact with each other since agriculture began. Why, out of hundreds of thousands of years of human history, do people across the world all develop agriculture within just the last 10-13,000 years? I'm not overly concerned with the particulars of where and when, I'm talking generally with this massive timescale in mind.

Farming was actually a pretty miserable lifestyle compared to gathering. Farmers had to work longer and harder to obtain food and because they relied on only a few food sources they had worse nutrition and health than gatherers (I'm willing to bet that modern gatherers have better nutrition than Americans do). I believe the current hypothesis is that at first crop cultivation was only practiced on a small scale to supplement gathering. As time went on the population grew and people began to rely on farming more and more until hunting and gathering was no longer enough to sustain the population.

Of course, but why is does this need for an agricultural supplement come about so suddenly? We are talking about all sorts of people living in hugely different conditions, with different climates, crops, forms of social organization, evolutionary pressures, etc.

Agriculture did not lead to civilization overnight either. The first farmers lived in small communities that show no sign of divisions in wealth or status. Over time (hundreds or thousands of years) societies became more and more complex until they were what we would call "Civilization".

Indeed, but I think this is a bit tangential to the main point here. 99.999999% of all our historical finds concern just the last 10,000 years of human history where farming and civilization mutually developed. Now, a handful of fossils (almost entirely from Africa, earliest human remains from much of the world date to within the last 10,000 years) seem to indicate by dating methods that humans have been around longer than this. However, these datings do not seem to make sense to me with the historical narrative - because as I said why would they be milling around like apes for hundreds of thousands of years and then all suddenly, independent develop agriculture and civilization at pretty much the same time, despite living in completely different environments, in completely different conditions?

Advantage.

Once farming showed it was at an advantage it spread.

So why did that advantage only become apparent around 10,000 years ago, and become apparent right then in so many different environments?

It's not hundreds of thousands of years.

It's about 50.000-45.000 years. The creative explosion is quite important and shows a significant leap. One of the better theories for that one is that grandparents started to become common. Better experience accumulation, generational knowledge transfer and more time to do something else than food gathering and taking care of the children.

And really, it's not uncommon with great leaps happening relativly suddenly. It happens often in evolutionary history. It's just hard to track down why.

It is hundreds of thousands of years according to Wikipedia and my google-fu.

Well, as with the advent of agriculture, why did this phenomena suddenly occur across all peoples in all situations, even with they were completely cut off from each other and living in completely different environments? And anyway I don't think this "creative explosion" is directly relevant since why does it take another 40,000 years across all peoples and all situations before farming and civilization suddenly become apparent?

[CBR]

Why, out of hundreds of thousands of years of human history, do people across the world all develop agriculture within just the last 10-13,000 years? I'm not overly concerned with the particulars of where and when, I'm talking generally with this massive timescale in mind.

If everything happened in this inter glacial period then that might be the key. The dry conditions and lower Co2 levels of the glacial age might not been good enough, even for big river cultures to start up.

[Papewaio]

The last ice age ended about 11k years ago.

Aborigines have been in Australia for about 40-50k years ago... And funnily enough that is when the mega fauna died out too.

But Australia does not have a stable seasonal trend that is good for agriculture without modern infrastructure. So without modern plants, dams, transportation and other technology it would be rather hard to kick start an agriculture based civilisation compared with a nomadic one.

[Sigurd]

Of course, people will only practice agriculture where it is efficient or necessary to do so. My point was that agriculture is something that came about quite suddenly on a global scale. Those different places where agriculture spread from must themselves have been spread across the world, because the many peoples had no contact with each other since agriculture began. Why, out of hundreds of thousands of years of human history, do people across the world all develop agriculture within just the last 10-13,000 years? I'm not overly concerned with the particulars of where and when, I'm talking generally with this massive timescale in mind.

[Ironside]

Of course, people will only practice agriculture where it is efficient or necessary to do so. My point was that agriculture is something that came about quite suddenly on a global scale. Those different places where agriculture spread from must themselves have been spread across the world, because the many peoples had no contact with each other since agriculture began. Why, out of hundreds of thousands of years of human history, do people across the world all develop agriculture within just the last 10-13,000 years? I'm not overly concerned with the particulars of where and when, I'm talking generally with this massive timescale in mind.

What problem does agriculture (and animal husbandry) solve?
It improves the amount of food you can get from a region.
What issues does it have?
It costs a lot of spare time.
Think of it this way. Would you work twice as much if you got 3 times the money, but you can only spend as much as you do now? Of course not, that would be pointless.
So it only solves food shortages if the population density is high.

It does seem to take several thousands of years to go from hunter gathering to agriculture. So basically the problem is only solvable if you have a few thousand years when overpopulation is a consistant problem. You'll need population boom, crash, boom, crash. Not boom, crash, wait 400 years, boom, crash. Who remebers an oral source that haven't been relevant for 400 years?
So if a global event, like the end of an ice age, gives higher consistant, but unsustainable growth rates, then the problem would occur at about the same point globally. Add then that you'll need specific plants (and animals) fit for domestication and you'll get a pattern like this.

It's similar to cocurrent independent inventions. They have the added factor of shared starting information, but they still have the same principle that when the problem occurs and its solution is possible, it won't take long for similar, yet different solutions to appear around the same time.

Well, as with the advent of agriculture, why did this phenomena suddenly occur across all peoples in all situations, even with they were completely cut off from each other and living in completely different environments? And anyway I don't think this "creative explosion" is directly relevant since why does it take another 40,000 years across all peoples and all situations before farming and civilization suddenly become apparent?

It didn't. That one seems to have spread. And progressed. It's kind of a starting leap (it's the start of the Upper Paleolithic).

Its relevance is that to solve this kind of multigenerational problem you'll need to have a culture that allows for its invention. The average human are poor on advanced inventing, but good at understanding it after its been invented. Time jump a bunch of Romans and it'll probably take them fairly little effort to make new cellphone models with proper education and training. But that fact doesn't change that the Romans didn't invent the cellphone.
So the timeframe is how long you had a culture that allowed for the invention of agriculture, not how long you had a people capable of doing agriculture after it has been invented.

[Empire*Of*Media]

Totalrelism and kurdishspartakus in the same thread... I need a frigging drink.

ah i now mentioned no one can think about what others post in here, its not me only its Rhyfelwyr too! and Tiago too! and many too!
and why you people always think your the Right one huh ?

ok i said.....say whatever you want GODS your the perfect right there is nothing wrong about your ideas & believes ..........

cheers now....

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Anyhoo Rhy, can you think of a single instance where modern science has moved towards the bible instead of away from it?

Moving from "Steady State" to "Big Bang"

Cookie please.

[Tuuvi]

“In short, the fact that there is a Sumerian flood story does not falsify the belief that the Bible is an inspired text.” So your point is the inspired by God text has mistaken the names of the protagonists and number of Gods involved in it. So God made mistakes as forgetting under which names and number he/she did it and to whom… Interesting theories! She/he could have a sense of humour as well, doubtfully, but possible.

Huh? No. Who says the Sumerian account had the details right or didn't deviate from what actually happened over time?

And it looks like you didn't read my paragraph about how the flood account wasn't directly inspired by God, as in God wasn't the one telling the story, either.

However, these datings do not seem to make sense to me with the historical narrative - because as I said why would they be milling around like apes for hundreds of thousands of years and then all suddenly, independent develop agriculture and civilization at pretty much the same time, despite living in completely different environments, in completely different conditions?

I don't know enough to answer your questions but I want to point out that living as a hunter gatherer does not equate to milling around like apes for hundreds of thousands of years.

Hunter Gatherers have culture and raise families just like "Civilized Man" does. They are/were Homo Sapiens after all.

Before the advent of agriculture, humanity spread across the globe, adapted to new climates and invented new technologies. It's not like nothing was going on before people started farming.

[Sigurd]

Moving from "Steady State" to "Big Bang"

*coughBOLLOCKScough*

[Brenus]

“And it looks like you didn't read my paragraph about how the flood account wasn't directly inspired by God, as in God wasn't the one telling the story, either.” So if a part of the Bible is not inspired by God, the Bible as such is not inspired by God. It is like a woman being pregnant: she is or not (she can’t be half). For the bilblecists, the Book is from God and no question asked. So, in order to believe so, they have to reject all notions or informations dismissing this belief. That is my point from start.
“Who says the Sumerian account had the details right or didn't deviate from what actually happened over time?” Well, the fact is they don’t pretend (well, as they were a dead civilisation even before the Hebrews show-up). The Biblecists insist on God writting the Bible. The fact that the Sumerian story (legend) is reported (based upon as they say in Hollywood) in the Bible prove them wrong. Note: As said before, the deluge NEVER happened….

[total relism]

“And it looks like you didn't read my paragraph about how the flood account wasn't directly inspired by God, as in God wasn't the one telling the story, either.” So if a part of the Bible is not inspired by God, the Bible as such is not inspired by God. It is like a woman being pregnant: she is or not (she can’t be half). For the bilblecists, the Book is from God and no question asked. So, in order to believe so, they have to reject all notions or informations dismissing this belief. That is my point from start.
“Who says the Sumerian account had the details right or didn't deviate from what actually happened over time?” Well, the fact is they don’t pretend (well, as they were a dead civilisation even before the Hebrews show-up). The Biblecists insist on God writting the Bible. The fact that the Sumerian story (legend) is reported (based upon as they say in Hollywood) in the Bible prove them wrong. Note: As said before, the deluge NEVER happened….

yes facts, such as your claim you made that is opposed the facts [other thread you wont go on].

[Brenus]

You will never understand: I don't think that religious writings/manipulation/opinions/fairies tales are facts. None of them.

[Tuuvi]

“And it looks like you didn't read my paragraph about how the flood account wasn't directly inspired by God, as in God wasn't the one telling the story, either.” So if a part of the Bible is not inspired by God, the Bible as such is not inspired by God. It is like a woman being pregnant: she is or not (she can’t be half). For the bilblecists, the Book is from God and no question asked. So, in order to believe so, they have to reject all notions or informations dismissing this belief. That is my point from start.
“Who says the Sumerian account had the details right or didn't deviate from what actually happened over time?” Well, the fact is they don’t pretend (well, as they were a dead civilisation even before the Hebrews show-up). The Biblecists insist on God writting the Bible. The fact that the Sumerian story (legend) is reported (based upon as they say in Hollywood) in the Bible prove them wrong. Note: As said before, the deluge NEVER happened….

I said "not directly inspired", not "not inspired". What I meant was, Genesis was written by a man thousands of years after the flood took place (hypothetically speaking, I'm not trying to argue that the deluge was a real event). God did not write the Bible. That is an absurd belief even from a Christian/Jewish perspective.

If the flood really happened, and if both the Sumerians and the Hebrews were descendants of the survivors, then it is possible that the Hebrew flood account was not based on the Sumerian one, and that both accounts are alternate depictions of the same event.