Von Smith

Again, I have no idea why you think flax helps. Grasses like flax appear even later than trees.

spin

You are not a Hebrew scholar. You don't speak Hebrew. You don't have the means to justify your claims about the language, so when you say that "the word seed is more general" you are talking through your hat. You don't back up your claims with linguistic evidence. You just make a bald assertion. You are just making a farce out of the text because of your commitments to something that doesn't derive from the text.

In short, lee_merrill, how do you know that "the word seed is more general" based on biblical indications?

You don't need to. You haven't said anything that you were prepared to back up with evidence.

This is your generic problem, lee_merrill. You cannot relate your beliefs to the bible. You just use it as a starting point and happily obfuscate what it says. Instead of talking of seeds and grass and trees as the text does, you want it to talk about other things. It doesn't matter what the book actually says. You don't mind falsifying it for your purposes.


spin

-Jay-

Nobody with a scintilla of biological understanding is going to confuse bacteria with plants, Lee.

regards,

NinJay

shirley knott

Well, steviepinhead already addressed [demolished] what I'm sure you'd like us to take as the main thrust of your "rebuttal".
But as usual, your rebuttal is multiply misleading and completely avoids the main thrust of my argument:
correspondances cannot do the job you are asking them to.
Indeed, in your rebuttal, you immediately call upon matters external to the fact of the correspondance to try to establish it's meaningfulness. pfeh.

"A con artist makes stuff up based on what they know you would expect."
Who is contesting that? Nothing unexpected in any of the falsely so-called prophecies in the Bible.
And fiction writers? Well, how do correspondances of any sort help to distinguish fiction from fact?
And how could correspondances help us to distinguish lies from truth?

Correspondances cannot do the job you are asking of them, given what we know was known to the peoples of the time and place when the Bible was made up.

I repeat my claim: there is no such thing as prophecy on your definition.
You have provided nothing even remotely plausible as a candidate.
Still worse, you have failed to address the preconditions required for any candidate to be considered. As noted, prophecy is a conclusion, not a premise.
And it is an unsupportable conclusion based on the evidence.

no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott

Johnny Skeptic

What is unusual about a Bible writer fantasizing that God created light before he created land? While working in the dark would not bother a God, it is reasonable to assume that the idea of God working in the dark did not appeal to the writer of the book of Genesis.

Who at any time would believe that an all powerful God would need to do anything in stages? Were Adam and Eve created in stages?

Will you please tell us why God never makes anything obvious? How does that benefit him or anyone else? If the God of the Bible exists, it is his desire to create doubt and confusion. If God wanted people to believe that intelligent design exists, it is reasonable to assume that he would show up and demonstrate that it exists rather than sending someone like you to defend it. What we have here is that God only wants people to believe that intelligent design exists if another human convinces them to believe that it exists, which means that God cares more about HOW people become convinced that intelligent design exists than he does THAT people become convinced that intelligent design exists. The same goes for God's supposed desire that Christians give food to hungry people. Since God refused to give food to hundreds of thousands of people who died of starvation in the Irish Potato Famine, God cares more HOW hungry people get food than he does THAT hungry people get food. Clearly, there is a rat in the woodpile somewhere here.

lee_merrill

So quote another myth with these points!

They have been quoted, Johnny, and these other questions I believe I have addressed.

It shows that "tree" is a broad kind of word, most Hebrew words are.

Quoting verses showing usage supporting my conclusion is not evidence?

I seem to recall posting this?

Genesis 1:29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food."

Broccoli and bananas too, I would say!

Nor need they, the point is that the words could include such.

Johnny Skeptic

What is unusual about a Bible writer fantasizing that God created light before he created land? While working in the dark would not bother a God, it is reasonable to assume that the idea of God working in the dark did not appeal to the writer of the book of Genesis.

I recently started a new thread at the Science and Skepticism Forum that is titled "Biblical creationism." The link is http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=228702. I quoted your argument in the opening post. Following are the replies:

Please be sure to visit that thread, Lee. The skeptics over at the Science and Skepticism Forum need a few laughs.

Well, your "light first" argument has been demolished. What do you mean by "animate to inanimate?" What did God create that was inanimate before it became animate? Regarding simple to complex life, what is unusual about that? It would have been ridiculous for the writer to claim that animals were created before plants were created. What would the animals have eaten? What would Adam and Eve have eaten?

spin

You rarely understand anything you cite. You often don't cite anything. Are you feigning amnesia? Remember the stuff about algae? Biblical reference? None.

Your approach is that you can concoct anything that will soothe your conscience regarding the bible. This means that you can make assertions and you will believe those assertions as long as nothing opens your eyes to see that the assertions are founded on nothing.

Look at this:

Not a stitch of evidence here for your silly claim, lee_merrill. You've merely attempted to abuse another biblical text while showing no linguistic aptitude.

Again:
Not a stitch of evidence here for your silly claim lee_merrill.

All you tried to do was redefine "seed" so that it meant something, the knowledge of which was not available to the writers of the book of Genesis, as it required ummm, science.

When you start "[q]uoting verses showing usage supporting my conclusion" then you might stop looking like you have a permanent layer of egg on your face. You're one of the most evidence-less posters I've ever seen, lee_merrill.


spin

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Lee Merrill: One would think that if the God of the Bible exists, and wants people to believe that intelligent design exists, he would show up and demonstrate that it exists. Wouldn't that be much more convincing than anything that Christians could come up with? Well of course it would. The incredible, odd, and unexplained situation that we have is that God only wants people to believe that intelligent design exists if another human being convinces them to believe that it exists. That would mean that God cares more about some people choosing to TRY to convince other people to believe that intelligent design exists than he cares about how many people BELIEVE that it exists. Simply stated, God cares more about METHODS than he cares about RESULTS. That does not make any sense. The same argument applies to people who need food. James says that if a man refuses to give food to a hungry person, he is vain, and his faith is dead. Now why do fundamentalist Christians suppose that God inspired James to write that? Surely not to ensure that everyone would have enough food to eat because God refused to give food to hundreds of thousands of people who died of starvation in the Irish Potato Famine. This means that God only wants hungry people to have food if other people give them food. Simply stated, God cares more about HOW people get enough food to eat than he cares about people HAVING enough food to eat. That does not make any sense either. What does make sense is that if a God exists, he is not the God of the Bible.

Now Lee, what do you suppose that God is trying to accomplish?

-Jay-

Support the assertion, Lee. Without some support, all you have is unfettered speculation.

Just because you need to include bacteria to make your interpretation fit observed reality doesn't mean the words give you warrant to do so. The references to plants can't include bacteria, because bacteria weren't known to the Biblical writers. In the same way there aren't any references to dinosaurs in the Bible. Or airplanes. Or Japan.

regards,

NinJay