deadman_932

This was posted in response to my statement that archaeology cannot reasonably be considered the handmaiden of history TODAY...and you pass on this flip remark as though it has some genuine value in the overall context I outlined? Hah. At least I know where you stand, and it is amusing to see.

The Evil One

You are of course fully at liberty to find anything I post of interest or not of interest. However, since this is a thread which afdave opened with an invitation to others to comment on his claims, it seems odd on your part to take umbrage at me commenting on them. If you'd rather discuss something other than afdave's claims, as apparently you would, you are entirely at liberty to ignore any material relating to said claims of afdave's.

I see no need to do so when afdave's claims are based on a superficial interpretation of the genesis figures only. I really am not interested in detailed text criticism of what may lie behind and/or beneath these figures until we have obtained agreement on all sides that a superficial interpretation is not reflective of reality. Feel free to undertake this exercise in text criticism yourself, however.



Since my "case", such as it is, constitutes no more nor less than a criticism of afdave's claims, I cannot see how it gathers or fails to gather merit by my success or failure in engaging with someone who is plainly not interested in discussing afdave's claims at all.


Erm, no, one can argue against the accuracy of any given interpretation -- in this case, a literal, superficial one -- independently of determing whether or not that particular interpretation is what the authors intended or not.




I don't know what translations you are referring to. All the translations I have seen go from multiples of 3600 at the start to multiples of 1 at the end. If there is an error here it is a very consistent one. Interesting in itself? Well, yes, but the Buxter has already explained why.

Then you did not understand me.

I do not need to retract it, because I never claimed it. But I'm glad we have finally reached agreement.


I am proposing (among other things) that afdave's argument would look a hell of a lot stronger if he -- or anyone he can cite -- could produce such skeletons, or alternatively explain away the skeletons that we do have from times which correspond to his proposed antediluvian period which show no sign of the extended lifespan he proposes.

Erm, no. I am arguing that the existence of such alleged people "not like us" cannot be asserted on evidence as comparatively weak as an ancient text, when there is abundant physical evidence not only to show that such lifespans are not possible now, but also have never been possible.

This is not "asserting what no-one debates" because afdave's claims imply the exact opposite: that the existence of antediluvians CAN be asserted on the evidence of written texts only, in the face of all the opposing physical evidence.

afdave disputes it. See the OP.

I rather think I have grasped it. You think (I'm not quite sure why) I should be arguing against some stance that you wish to make (I'm not quite sure what) rather than against what I'm actually arguing against, namely afdave's comments in the opening post.

[ETA - I was wrong. I hadn't grasped your point at all. Looking back on your comment here, I see that what you were actually doing was foreshadowing the appeal to the Problem of Induction which you made explicitly in your subsequent post. So see my response to that.]


Even an assertion which no one disagrees with contains content as long as it contains propositions capable of being assigned a truth value. But this devolves to a quibble about terminology; it seems to me that effectively you are asserting that there was no point making the arguments I've made because no one disagrees with them. Hopefully, you will re-read the OP, and some of afdave's other posts, and realise that there is at least one person who disagrees with my arguments.

You may see no point in arguing about egregiously non-factual statements when made by a person such as afdave, however some of us consider it at least as good a use of our time as watching whatever happens to be on telly at the moment.

Sauron

Nonsense. We can certainly discuss possible interpretations of the text, to see which of them are tenable, and which are not.

In this thread, that's exactly what we've done. The discussion is predicated upon afdave's claim that this part of Genesis is literally correct, which is one possible interpretation. In response, we accept his position, for the sake of argument, and follow through on the claim to see where it leads. In this case, it leads to an obviously impossible situation.

So the fully qualified form of the statement would be something like: "If afdave is correct and if the author of Genesis intended these to be literal years, then the claim is obviously wrong." However, when discussing these items, it's customary to use a shorthand method to refer to them; we don't fully qualify the statement because to do so is tedious and takes longer.

I'm sure you're fully aware of all this. Given that reality, it's hard to see why you tried to gain advantage by pretending that no discussion of the text could occur, without crawling inside the head of the author to determine what he/she intended. We discuss what texts (or testimony) means all the time, when we test out possible scenarios. Knowing what the authors actually intended is not relevant to determining which potential interpretations are consistent with other evidence, and which ones would be inconsistent.

We are discussing one often-advocated interpretation of this text. It may not be the correct one. But for those people who insist that it is the correct interpretation, it leads to a impossibility that requires an explanation before anyone can be asked to accept said interpretation as reasonable.

deadman_932

Since I'm multi-tasking at the moment, Sauron, I'd like to say your fisking saved me a great deal of time and effort. Thanks.

Faid

Roger Pearse:

I'm sorry, but you are obviously battling a strawman at this point. Theissue here is not whether we should "discard historical text", as you seem to claim. Need I quote posts above, that say historical records are extremely valuable and fundamental to our knowledge of the past? Who are you arguing with here?
The issue here is twofold: First, whether historical text should take precedence over empirical evidence against it- a question many have strongly raised, but your long post above does not even acknowledge-
And, second (and, perhaps, even more fundamental), the issue of what makes any kind of text a historical record in the first place.

So I was wondering if you might answer the same question I asked dave.

What is the method, in your opinion, to distinguish between "actual historical records" and mere myths?

Thanks in advance.

ericmurphy

No, they did not. Just because some people two thousand years thought so does not mean they did. There is zero empirical (there's that term again) evidence that any human has ever lived as long as 150 years, let alone 1,000 years.

The Evil One

I don't have any coreligionists. I am not a secular humanist.

All the evidence shows that the way the universe works has been consistent as far as we are able to monitor it. This includes upwards of 13 billion years back in time, so in the absence of evidence to the contrary I'm quite happy to conclude that physics (and the chemistry that depends on it, and the biology that depends on that) have worked as they do now for the duration of the existence of the earth.

"Cannot"? Unproveable. "Never have"? Adequately demonstrated to a reasonable approximation of "never".

I am puzzled that you are unaware of this.

By looking at the evidence.

It is, of course, always possible to undermine any opponent's argument by pointing out that they have not solved the Problem of Induction. However, since no one has solved the Problem of Induction, doing so does not strike me as a particularly weighty debating tactic.



You imply that I am not open minded. On the contrary, I am prepared to accept any bizarre notion that anyone cares to present as long as it comes with adequate evidence.

Being open-minded to new claims does not imply that one must continue to be open-minded towards them once they have been demonstrated to be incorrect.

Then I suggest you look it up. As I pointed out from the very start, my knowledge is limited to a very scanty acquaintance with the text as translated.

Mike PSS

Roger,
Now this just stands out as another episode of "extrodinary evidence required" to me. I've been trying to parse your comments to find out where you actually stand on this issue. You have some complaints but your responses have been so obtuse up until this point.

What are you saying here? This is just an argument for Last Thursdayism if I've ever saw one.

Not presume physics behaved the same in the past? 5000 years? W-w-w-w-h-h-h-a-a-a-t-t-t-t?

And the claiment cannot presume this? Huh?!?

But you certainly redon your Cloak of Obtuseness quickly.

It seems you have some opinions about this afterall.

See, your written words can be interpreted differently by different people at different times. I'm able to come to conclusions about your intent without you actually stating such. Just by building up a body of evidence where you say or state certain things and when taken as a whole will lead to a conclusion that you don't explicitly claim. But the evidence is there to see.

Come out and say you believe in the Genesis account, the Noachian Flood, and the other stories contained in the Bible. Or at least come out and state where you stand on anything. Otherwise your objections look like attempts to moderate without actually having that position. Dive in.

I, personally, believe that the stories of extended life in the bible and other written texts is purely fables. Someone had mentioned that the span of years for kings in one document approached normality the closer these kings were in history to the document author. That is more of what I believe. There, that wasn't so hard now.

Sauron

You're welcome. But with Roger, it's rather like shooting fisks in a barrel.

<rimshot>

ericmurphy

1) is ridiculous; DNA existed long before pond scum;
2) is established by reference to the fossil record; the evidence is conclusive;
3) no magic was involved.

Wrong three times in a row, in one post, Dave. Pretty good work, even by your standards.