Camaban

aving an argument with a Muslim fundy, who thinks that the Koran is right because they knew that the earth, universe, etc came from a single point (Reckons the Koran says that)

Trying to find other religions that believe the same thing (preferably pre-dating islam) but having a few problems (unreliable connection ATM being one of them)

Any links?

Camaban

Incidently, I found this remark amusing

":Creation does not require proof. It requires faith. That's why creationism is always geared towards disproving evolution. We're the good guys, and the good guys are always on the defensive, having to invent new armor and new defenses to counter whatever new weapon the offense throws at them."

That's why creationism is always geared towards disproving evolution.

We're the good guys, and the good guys are always on the defensive

Camaban

"Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before We clove them asunder, and We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?"
(The Qur'an, 21:30)

This bit in particular (the bit in brackets is the muslim fundy's addition... Trying to change how the passage is read into what he'd like it to be)

Advocatus Diaboli

Hope this helps: <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/islam.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/islam.html</a>

Camaban

thanks

that'll probably come in useful with this guy.

On another note, found the Hindu myth was what I was looking for.

Saw that they knew we were all created from the one source, that the earth was created from the sun, that the heavens and earth were once one, and even THAT THEY KNEW ABOUT ATOMIC THEORY!!!

Well, I'm converted

happyboy

of course, many cultures from all around the world, many of them far older than the judeo-christian tradition, have flood myths. but they're all wrong, see??? only the inerrant word of God is correct!!! all those other floods myths are WRONG! WRONG I SAY! mwahahahahahahaha! <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Albion

Take a trawl through here and see what you come up with:

<a href="http://www.bigmyth.com/2_eng_myths.htm" target="_blank">http://www.bigmyth.com/2_eng_myths.htm</a>

Whoops - edited to say - or maybe don't bother; it looks as if they're transferring all their stuff to a CD-Rom and you can't access it on the website any more. That's a shame.

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: Albion ]</p>

Celsus

Try Ovid's version (c.50BCE?). You decide whether it's better than the Bible/Quran. For one, it's got a round earth. It's also much more flowing and lucid. As long as you stick doggedly to "all one" (line 3) and insist that chaos (line 4) refers to the universe in Planck time (10^-43 seconds) which is the earliest possible time of which we know what the universe is like, you've got the description of the Big Bang (and only quote up to line 6 - "elements compressed together"). Hey, it's cheating but that's what the Muslim apologists do too.

The Creation

Ere land and sea and the all-covering sky
Were made, in the whole world the countenance
Of nature was the same, all one, well named
Chaos, a raw and undivided mass,
Naught but a lifeless bulk, with warring seeds
Of ill-joined elements compressed together.
No sun as yet poured light upon the world,
No waxing moon her crescent filled anew,
Nor in the ambient air yet hung the earth,
Self-balanced, equipoised, nor Ocean’s arms
Embraced the long fair margin of the land.
Though there were land and sea and air, the land
No foot could tread, no creature swim the sea,
The air was lightless; nothing kept its form,
All objects were at odds, since in one mass
Cold essence fought with hot, and moist with dry,
And hard with soft and light with things of weight.
This strife a god, with nature’s blessing, solved;
Who severed land from sky and sea from land,
And from the denser vapours set apart
The ethereal sky; and, each from the blind heap
Resolved and freed, he fastened in its place
Appropriate in peace and harmony.
The fiery weightless force of heaven’s vault
Flashed up and claimed the topmost citadel;
Next came the air in lightness and in place;
The thicker earth with grosser elements
Sank burdened by its weight; lowest and last
The girdling waters pent the solid globe.
So into shape whatever god it was
Reduced the primal matter and prescribed
Its several parts. Then first, to make the earth
Even on every side, he rounded it
Into a mighty sphere, then bade the sea
Extend and rise under the rushing winds,
And gird the shores of the encircled earth.
Springs too he made and boundless fens and lakes,
And rivers hemmed in winding banks to flow,
Which, in their diverse journeyings, sometimes
The earth absorbs, sometimes they reach the sea
And in its broad domain, instead of banks,
With new-found freedom beat upon the shores.
He bade the plains spread wide, the valleys sink,
The craggy mountains rise, the forest trees
Don their green leaves; and as the vault of heaven
Has five divisions, two zones on the right,
Two on the left, and hottest burns the fifth,
With the same number Providence divine
Parcelled in zones the solid earth below.
The midmost uninhabitable heat
Claims for its own; two lie clothed deep in snow;
Two, in between, were given a temperate clime
Where warmth and cold combine in harmony.
The air hangs high above them, weightier
Than the empyrean in the same degree
As earth than water. There he bade the mists
And there the clouds to have their dwelling-place,
And thunder that should shake the hearts of men,
And lightning flashing through the freezing gales.
The world’s Creator did not grant the winds
Full freedom of the sky; who, even so,
Though each in separate regions rules his blasts,
Can well nigh tear the world apart, so fierce
Is brothers’ strife. The east wind far withdrew
Towards the morning and the rose-red walls
Of royal Petra and the Persian hills,
Clear in the long bright sunshine of the dawn.
The evening and the shores that glow beside
The setting sun are the west wind’s abode.
To Scythia and the wastes beneath the Wain
The blustering north wind marched; far opposite,
Wrapped in continual clouds, the flooded fields
Lie sodden as the south wind brings the rain.
High over these he set the empyrean
Weightless, serene, with naught of earthly dross.
Scarce had he thus all things in finite bounds
Divided when the stars, in darkness blind
Long buried, over all the spangled sky
Began to gleam; and, that no part or place
Should lack fit forms of life, the firmament
He made the home of gods and goddesses
And the bright constellations; in the sea
He set the shining fish to swim; the land
Received the beasts, the gusty air the birds.
A holier creature, of a loftier mind,
Fit master of the rest, was lacking still.
Then man was made, perhaps from seed divine
Formed by the great Creator, so to found
A better world, perhaps the new-made earth,
So lately parted from the ethereal heavens,
Kept still some essence of the kindred sky –
Earth that Prometheus moulded, mixed with water,
In likeness of the gods that govern the world –
And while the other creatures on all fours
Look downwards, man was made to hold his head
Erect in majesty and see the sky,
And raise his eyes to the bright stars above.
Thus earth, once crude and featureless, now changed
Put on the unknown form of humankind.

Camaban

hmm..

one semi-solid argument, then resorts to the "copout clause" (All those who question are merely blind)

*wonders if it'll be possible to goad him on that at all*

Camaban

he's been goaded.

going on about the Koran knowing about weather patterns and fingerprints. (He reads quite alot into it)