Johnny Skeptic

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I will post your reply at the Science and Skepticism Forum.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Lee Merrill: Please reply to my previous post.

spin

It tries to get you to communicate meaningfully. That way there can be a discussion.

The fact that you claim no philological expertise should make you seek such expertise in order to be able to deal with the language issues you want to deal with. You are making claims about language, which you simply cannot do and hope to be meaningful.

You need to start with the language you are dealing with, not your desired conclusions and make the language try to fit. You will otherwise merely seem as though you are an opinionated know-nothing and you wouldn't want that lee_merrill.

The language you aren't dealing with is the Hebrew context for the terms you are trying to redefine to suit your conclusions. When you try to include algae as something that the text clearly relates to terrestrial flora, you are off-track and you need to do a lot of work to show that there is a case for any alternative you'd like to suggest. (If you've gotten past the first sentence of my response, please indicate with a cheeky smilie.)


spin

Sheshonq

In lurking on this thread, I didn't see where you provided any proof for:

1. unexpected correspondences based upon the science of the day

2. unique correspondences, compared to other creation myths.


For #1, I would expect you to discuss the science of the day, and show how Genesis exceeded that level of knowledge. You'd also have to explain the mistakes in Genesis as well. Please note that before you can assess the 'science of the day', you also need to provide a believable date for the writing of Genesis, because that determines what era of history we are talking about - you'll need that to make assessments of the level of scientific knowledge;

For #2, I would expect you to list a handful (say, three) other creation myths, total up the number of correspondences to actual science that each myth demonstrated, and assign some kind of weighting to them. Obvious correspondences would not get as high a weight as more amazing, non-intuitive ones, for example.

But you didn't do any of this in this thread. Did you do it elsewhere?

Johnny Skeptic

Where is Lee Merrill?

Dogfish

Raptured?

lee_merrill

As far as 1), I mentioned that creation myths often start with what is complex being created first, a primal bird lays a primal egg, a primal god has children that become the sun and moon, the first man appears and then does the rest follows, and so on. So this indicates what people expected, based on their understanding of nature, given that all these myths are not true, this would I think be a safe assumption.

This whole thread has been about "mistakes in Genesis," though I have tried to discuss correspondences, yet people don't want to discuss them at all for some surprising reason.

That would be a bit more formal, and a full verification would require a survey of all major myths, and such weighting and numbers. This being an informal discussion, I summarize what I have seen, and am willing to be corrected if wrong.

Regards,
Lee

lee_merrill

This disrespectful jibe does not merit much comment, Johnny, nor do I have time to discuss in every thread here...

Sheshonq

The fact is that creation myths often do *not* start that way, either. Your attempt to paint them all broadly with your description above does not work.

There are hundreds of such myths -- perhaps even thousands -- and nothing in this thread demonstrates that you have looked at more than a half-dozen or so. What was your criteria you used for selecting the half-dozen you have focused on?

Except it would not be a safe assumption, because you haven't demonstrated that this is prevalent among a majority of such myths, or even a sizable portion of them. Furthermore, you have to deal with the counter-examples where they do *not* start out that way.

Finally, you have not addressed the numerous places where genesis simply gets it wrong. An impartial accounting would have to add up the correct items as well as the incorrect ones; the credits as well as the debits. Are you interested in an impartial accounting of genesis, or are you only listing what you think the credits are, and ignoring the rest?

I haven't seen any posts in this thread where you listed any correspondences in genesis. And since the idea of mistakes is intertwined with claims of biblical infallibility, the audience is perfectly within its rights to ask you to focus on mistakes. Unless you don't insist on biblical infallibility, in which case I retract that last comment.

I didn't request survey of all major myths (at least not yet). I mentioned you doing proper evaluation of only three such myth stories. Of course, I would expect you to list your selection criteria as well. You would also need to deal with counter-examples.

Given that there *are* counter-examples (i..e, myths that do not start out with humans being the first creatures), whatever special status you think genesis deserves should also be extended to these other myths.

Finally, you say that you are willing to be corrected, if wrong. Yet this thread contains numerous posts where people pointed out that you were wrong, or had failed to address some shortcoming in your argument. Why have you not corrected the arguments, then?

Johnny Skeptic

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