Toto

The main part of this thread has been shipped to E/C.

Please confine this to Biblical Criticism, and comment on the science in the E/C thread here

Celsus

Ty, spin has a point here. If TBT or whoever is arguing "The Bible says X and therefore we should use it for our cosmology/chronology", then the first point of questioning is, "Does the Bible really say X?" The reason why people like TBT, Willowtree, Lysimachus and other cranks of the day can get away with the stuff they do in E/C is because nobody is challenging their fundamental assumptions about the Bible and the source materials they're using. Instead, you get everyone talking past each other and the threads spawn to several pages without resolution. The Bible was not written so that it could be read the way modern fundamentalists and atheists generally read it. I suggest you keep them in BC&H until they have sorted out what they are saying, if they are actually correct in their interpretation of the Bible, their archaeological claims, etc. then move them on to E/C. My guess is that none of their claims will survive this forum.

Joel

WILLOWTREE

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...97#post2217297


Here is a diddy from a Celsus-ite.

Notice it is authority drunk. Reads like a Tabloid with all the "he said" name dropping.

The link author and Celsus are one and the same in style and beliefs.

http://www.eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=964

WT

WILLOWTREE

Why don't you debate me and back up your insults ?

waiting ......

WT

Celsus

Willow, in order to have a debate, you need to put up an argument. An argument does not consist of "Someone who wrote a big thick book said so, and I believe him." You have to put forward your evidence, your hypothesis, and then your conclusions. The one time you put forward such an "argument" (on "Dan"), you were laughed out of BC&H because you haven't got the faintest clue about philology, so there is nothing to debate, as yet. Go see the other thread, it should be simple challenge for someone so adept in chronology.

Joel

Dr Rick

None of their claims ever survive the EvC forum, either.

BTW, isn't addressing fundy archaeological claims here in BC&H also arguing science? How can you address archeology in this forum if ?

Doesn't that effectively rule-out archeological considerations from BC & H, too?

Celsus

I'm sure that's the case, but the Willowtree-type threads there go to hundreds of posts and countless pages as is my impression.
I can't speak for spin, but I believe he meant that science has nothing to do with how the Biblical authors viewed their writing, which is correct, since "science" didn't exist till a good couple of thousand years later. In an effort to cross disciplines, let's just say that historians read and appreciate the efforts of Herodotus, Hesiod, Manetho, Berossos, and even the Bible, not for its "scientific" value but for the way they reflect ancient ways of understanding history. We don't devalue Hesiod just because his Theogony includes gods and miraculous interventions, nor should we for any of the others. It's only the fundies and the atheists who play the fundy game who think "science" is a concern when interpreting the Bible.

Joel

Toto

I do not think that Bible Thumper was arguing that the Bible says X and therefore it is true. He was arguing that there is a miraculous coincidence between what the Bible says and what modern cosmology says, if you just stand back and squint and figure that God had to dumb things down a bit because He didn't make man smart enough. This seems to leave him enough wiggle room to get out of defending any particular assertion in Genesis.

I don't always keep up with E/C, but I was not under the impression that any of these posters got away with anything. We generally refer Noah's Ark threads and flood threads to E/C, because they specialize in that sort of subject matter.

I would ask that you avoid group insults to atheists.

In any case, the thread is split, so we'll see what happens when both paths are followed at once.

Dr Rick

Thanks for your reply, Joel; I appreciate your point of view. Rick

Celsus

Ok Toto. The thing is, TBT made the remarkable assertion:
Nothing else of his post contained any sort of argument of any kind. So the key assertion is the last sentence. Obviously the Biblical critics among us will want to point out why that assertion is a load ... er, completely unfounded with special emphasis on how Genesis was written and the historical context which gives us clues about this writing. But anyway, I'm just an atheist, Willow can tell you that we're always wrong and only argue with those assertions because of our ideological bias.

Joel