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Quote The bible says there is a firmament, like a sheet, that can be beaten out then rolled up with stars falling off. Please quote the scriptures that say there is a “firmament that is like a sheet that can be beaten out and rolled up with stars falling off.”
If I remember correctly, you picked that last part from revelation which most children I know would understand to be a highly symbolic book. Maybe the children I know are different than the children you know.
Please, show the scriptures that state what you are saying.
Quote Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, typically for a Victorian writer, gives very precise descriptions of Sherlock Holmes. Wasn't he based largely on a real person? And wasn't that person called “sherlock” after a while of the stories? (He hated it.) I saw a documentary on this a while ago. People kept accusing him of being only logical and uncaring, but that wasn't what he was truly like.
Quote If you have a good understanding of that material then we sure would.
I have as good an understanding of the internet as you do (maybe) and so we would have scores of 10-0 after a while of you being able to answer the questions science can't yet answer.My unanswered question to you:
What would that prove?
Quote (942767 @ April 22 2008,13:12) Quote 1Ti 6:20 ¶ O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane [and] vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: 1Ti 6:21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace [be] with thee. Amen.
What was that about babblings?Stuart
Quote (david @ April 22 2008,13:48) Quote The bible says there is a firmament, like a sheet, that can be beaten out then rolled up with stars falling off. Please quote the scriptures that say there is a “firmament that is like a sheet that can be beaten out and rolled up with stars falling off.”
If I remember correctly, you picked that last part from revelation which most children I know would understand to be a highly symbolic book. Maybe the children I know are different than the children you know.
Please, show the scriptures that state what you are saying.
How do you think your god will feel about you double-guessing his scripture, by consulting an atheist?Stuart
Quote (david @ April 22 2008,13:53) Quote Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, typically for a Victorian writer, gives very precise descriptions of Sherlock Holmes. Wasn't he based largely on a real person? And wasn't that person called “sherlock” after a while of the stories? (He hated it.) I saw a documentary on this a while ago. People kept accusing him of being only logical and uncaring, but that wasn't what he was truly like.
From the Holy Wikipedia:
Whenever Arthur Conan Doyle was asked if there was a real Sherlock Holmes, his answer never changed. Holmes was inspired, Doyle said, by Dr. Joseph Bell, for whom Doyle had worked as a clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Like Sherlock Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing large conclusions from the smallest observations. Dr. Bell was also interested in crime and assisted the police in solving a few cases.Who was Noah based on?
Stuart
Quote How do you think your god will feel about you double-guessing his scripture, by consulting an atheist? I don't remember double-guessing his scripture or whatever. I do remember asking you a question you didn't answer:
Please quote the scriptures that say there is a “firmament that is like a sheet that can be beaten out and rolled up with stars falling off.”
Quote (david @ April 22 2008,13:56) Quote If you have a good understanding of that material then we sure would.
I have as good an understanding of the internet as you do (maybe) and so we would have scores of 10-0 after a while of you being able to answer the questions science can't yet answer.My unanswered question to you:
What would that prove?
Maybe you could ask that first in your “what science can't explain” thread. Nick thought that 1000-0 wouldn't prove anything, so you are more forgiving than he. As science does not seek to prove, but to disprove, I rather think the question is irrelevant, especially in this thread.Stuart
Quote (david @ April 22 2008,18:40) Quote Who was Noah based on? Noah.
What a coincidence. They share the same name.Stuart
Quote Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, typically for a Victorian writer, gives very precise descriptions of Sherlock Holmes. To illustrate this, he would often pick a stranger and, by observing him, deduce his occupation and recent activities. These skills cause him to be considered a pioneer in forensic science (forensic pathology in particular) in a time when science was not often used in the investigations of crimes. He is an inspiration for the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bell“gives very precise descriptions of Sherlock Holmes.”
Often, when he was giving what seem to you to be precise descriptions of a completely imaginery person, Sherlock, he was just describing bell's peculiar abilities.
So your comparison is odd to me. Are you suggesting Noah was based on a real person, but the name was changed?
Hi David
Just quoting myself on the subject of what the firmament is (I though you read this, but apparently not):
Quote So thank you for answering your own question, ‘”What are you talking about? Which scripture says there some solid big thing in the sky that is attached to the stars? “ The holy Wikipedia adds this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FirmamentIncluding:
In the Hebrew Old Testament, the word used for “firmament” is “raqiya`” (pronounced rä·kē'·ah) meaning an extended solid surface or flat expanse,Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.That is all god made on day 2. A firmament. Called Heaven.
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,God put stars in the firmament. How were they attached? This event in Revelation completes the picture:
Rev 6:13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
Rev 6:14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; …So the firmament is a solid thing with stars in it or somehow attached to it. And no spacecraft has ever encountered such a solid thing. Unless NASA is an atheist conspiracy, and there is a secret firmament-cutting attachment on the front of rockets.
Do you need more scripture to tell you how to interpret this scripture? What kind of word games does your god like to play? It's like the plot of The Seventh Seal, except instead of chess with death, you are playing cryptic crossword games with god.
Stuart
Quote (david @ April 22 2008,18:46) Quote Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, typically for a Victorian writer, gives very precise descriptions of Sherlock Holmes. To illustrate this, he would often pick a stranger and, by observing him, deduce his occupation and recent activities. These skills cause him to be considered a pioneer in forensic science (forensic pathology in particular) in a time when science was not often used in the investigations of crimes. He is an inspiration for the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bell“gives very precise descriptions of Sherlock Holmes.”
Often, when he was giving what seem to you to be precise descriptions of a completely imaginery person, Sherlock, he was just describing bell's peculiar abilities.
So your comparison is odd to me. Are you suggesting Noah was based on a real person, but the name was changed?
I am suggesting, to make it more obvious than it needs to be, that Noah is a fictional character, and that the degree of detail of description and number of mentions he gets, does not make a fictional character into an historical figure.I think I could be susceptible to a really cogent and credible argument with no evidence to the contrary that there was a man called Sherlock Holmes who did some cunning forensic detecting. You believe a man and his family guided representatives of all the land-dwelling animals into a single boat, and released them to repopulate their species over a few thousand years, regaining all their instincts and not taking advantage of eating one another on the journey. You believe that on the basis of a story likely written by an anonymous person (the writing attributed to Moses shows at least 5 distinct writing styles), contained in an anthology which has at least 4 things that can be shown to be totally unreasonable, or completely untrue.
As it is, both Noah is almost certainly fictional and Sherlock Holmes definitely is. Sorry to break the news to you so abruptly. I assume you have caught up with the truth about Santa Claus and tooth fairies.
Stuart
Anyone?
Gen 30:37 And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods.
Gen 30:38 And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.
Gen 30:39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.
Notwithstanding the use of the collective noun ‘flocks’ for herds of cattle, can any biblical literalist explain how striped rods can cause genetic changes in the offspring of animals copulating nearby?
Stuart
It's not surprising that no one seems willing to defend this one. Why should you try? It is nonsense, and certainly not inspired by a creator with the supposed biochemical abilities of the Judeo-christian deity. Striped rods changing genes is human superstition.
Score Reality 5 – Biblical literalism 0
Quote It's not surprising that no one seems willing to defend this one. Why should you try? Indeed, Why? You ask questions that we often don't know the answers to. And then you act like that means something, anymore than me asking you something science doesn't have an answer for.
But, concerning your question (which is a false one) you ask:
can any biblical literalist explain how striped rods can cause genetic changes in the offspring of animals copulating nearbyIt is not the striped rods themselves or the false theory of prenatal influence that was at work here. Please note a little further down:
““In this way GOD has taken the stock from your father and given it to me. “ (Gen 31:9)I think what you should focus on is trying to find something that actually contradicts what we KNOW to be true.
That thing about the 12,000 year old civilization seems interesting, where “the massive sequence of stratification layers SUGGESTS several millennia of activity, PERHAPS reaching back to the Mesolithic.” Oh, and don't forget the radio carbon dating.Hi David
Stu: It's not surprising that no one seems willing to defend this one. Why should you try?
Quote Indeed, Why? You ask questions that we often don't know the answers to.
Would you expect me to ask questions that had a credible biblical answer in a thread subtitled “What biblical literalists can't explain”?Quote And then you act like that means something, anymore than me asking you something science doesn't have an answer for.
Broken record. Science accepts it could be wrong, but gives the best evidence-based theory it can. Can we take the bible as we take every science textbook, that the information contained therein is as right as the authors could discern at the time of publication, but new evidence may render it obsolete? If you don’t know the answer, and I can show you evidence that says the bible cannot be right, what value does that biblical truth claim have?No scientists says that placing striped rods near cattle can affect cattle genetics. Your bible does. Either you agree it is a factual account of a real event, or it is not. Are you saying this is a fable, not an historical record?
Quote But, concerning your question (which is a false one) you ask:
can any biblical literalist explain how striped rods can cause genetic changes in the offspring of animals copulating nearby
It is not the striped rods themselves or the false theory of prenatal influence that was at work here. Please note a little further down:
““In this way GOD has taken the stock from your father and given it to me. ” (Gen 31:9)
Why is it a ‘false question’? Are you saying god did it all along? Are you playing your miracle trump card here, as prophesised by kejonn? That does not constitute an explanation.Quote I think what you should focus on is trying to find something that actually contradicts what we KNOW to be true.
I am glad to see you agreeing that the previous questions have been on biblical claims that are not true.Quote That thing about the 12,000 year old civilization seems interesting, where “the massive sequence of stratification layers SUGGESTS several millennia of activity, PERHAPS reaching back to the Mesolithic.” Oh, and don't forget the radio carbon dating.
Yes radiocarbon dating could tell us a great deal about such a site, were suitable artifacts available. They would actually be within the range of that technique. I take it from your snide tone of voice that you don’t approve of carbon dating. Why not, do tell?Stuart
Quote (Stu @ April 24 2008,03:39) I take it from your snide tone of voice that you don’t approve of carbon dating. Why not, do tell?
Because it shows things are older than the biblical record of creation?Quote (david @ April 20 2008,04:50) [The Genesis account isn't written like those other stories of course. It tells us the precise year, month, and day when the Deluge began, when and where the ark came to rest, and when the earth dried off. Details about the ark are also precise–the layout, the measurements, and the material used to build it. Fables, by contrast, are usually vague in their descriptions, and like gilgamesh's story, for example, the sip was a cube. That's not gonna work, is it?
There are two geneological accounts in the Bible that testify that Noah was a real person. (1 Chron 1:4; luke 3:36)David,
Colter tells us to look at the Urantia papers, they are very detailed, no vague allegories or symbolism. Your defense of the Genesis creation story would apply to them as well. So what is the difference?
As for the creation of man himself not much detail in scripture here,
Gen 2:7
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Greek Myth
Prometheus took some of this earth, and kneading it up with water, made man in the image of the gods. He gave him an upright stature, so that while all other animals turn their faces downward, and look to the earth, he raises his to heaven, and gazes on the stars.Not much difference here either.
Quote (Stu @ April 17 2008,02:18) The firmament anyone? Big sheet/solid thing in the sky, actually not really there?
Stuart
Not proving or disproving the firmament being valid, but I found this today. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…._Tanakh- The ancient Mesopotamians believed that the world was a flat circular disc surrounded by a saltwater sea. The habitable earth was a single giant continent inside this sea, and floated on a second sea, the freshwater apsu, which supplied the water in springs, wells and rivers and was connected with the saltwater sea. The sky was a solid disk above the earth, curved to touch the earth at its rim, with the heavens of the gods above. So far as can be deduced from clues in the bible, the ancient Hebrew geography was identical with that of the Babylonians: a flat circular earth floating above a freshwater sea, surrounded by a saltwater sea, with a solid sky-dome (raqia, the “firmament”) above. It is the creation of this world which Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 describe.[3][4]
Comparisons between the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts are often obscured by English translations, which impose on the Hebrew the Christian doctrines of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) and of the Trinity. Thus the opening of Genesis 1 is traditionally rendered: “In the beginning God created both Heaven and Earth…”, whereas the Hebrew makes it clear that Genesis 1:1-3 is describing the state of chaos immediately prior to God's creation:[5]
- “In the beginning of God's creating the skies and the earth, when the earth had been shapeless and formless, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God's spirit was hovering on the face of the water, God said, 'Let there be light!”[6]
In both Enuma Elish and Genesis, creation is an act of divine speech – the Enuma Elish describes pre-creation as a time “when above, the heavens had not been named, and below the earth had not been called by name”, while in Genesis each act of divine creation is introduced with the formula: “And God said, let there be…”. The sequence of creation is identical: light, firmament, dry land, luminaries, and man. In both Enuma Elish and Genesis the primordial world is formless and empty (the tohu wa bohu of Genesis 1:2), the only existing thing the watery abyss which exists prior to creation (Tiamat in the Enuma Elish, tehom, the “deep”, a linguistic cognate of tiamat, in Genesis 1:2). In both, the firmament, conceived as a solid inverted bowl, is created in the midst of the primeval waters to separate the heavens from the earth (Genesis 1:6–7, Enuma Elish 4:137–40). Day and night precede the creation of the luminous bodies (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, and 14ff.; Enuma Elish 1:38), whose function is to yield light and regulate time (Gen. 1:14; Enuma Elish 5:12–13). In Enuma Elish, the gods consult before creating man (Enuma Elish 6:4), while Genesis has: “Let us make man in our own image…” (Genesis 1:26) – and in both, the creation of man is followed by divine rest. “Thus, it appears that the so-called Priestly Source account echoes this earlier Mesopotamian story of creation.”
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