Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Doubting Didymus · 07-17-2003, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Denis Lamoureux
PZ,
Another in need of a remedial reading course! Did I accuse you of being a "christian (sic) fundie"? Because a Christian you're not. I have indicated that the epistemology & hermeneutic (OPPS!!! CAN'T USE WORDS LIKE THIS!!!) evident in this forum is typical of fundamentalism. You are oblivious to subtlety and hopelessly mired in crude undergrad dichotomies.

In addition, you have a typical fundie attitude & behaviour as expressed by your: "You may dress it up in five-dollar words and college classes, but you're still studying crap...and that is definitely not a "fundie" attitude." Fundies talk like that--both Christian fundies & atheist fundies (like you).

Look it, you want to believe in pathetic dysteleological myths--fill your boots. Just don't try to cover it with your pseudo-intellectual facist bullshit.

Denis

Denis, why are you not responding to any of the points and questions that are being put to you? You said you wanted to participate in this specific forum (evolution/creation as opposed to general religion), but you're yet to make a single relevant point on the topic. Are you here to discuss evolution and creation, or not?

excreationist · 07-18-2003, 03:37 AM

Denis Lamoureux:
In my last post I talked about the Genesis 1-11 genealogies again. If you (hypothetically) responded, you'd probably say something like this:

Quote:

....Your argument shows you have no concept of the intellectual-historical context. The Hebrews predate the Hebrew language. Thus, the creation account was oral, and vestiges of this appear in Gen 1-11. There are significant epistemological implications with oral traditions (as 19th C cultural anthroplogy has shown). In particular, these accounts feature critical categories much different from ours which are hellenistic in nature. Reading an ancient Semitic text through 21st C epismtemological categories is not only disrepectful and facist, it's bad math (even engineers should be able to understand that). I'm happy to entertain challenges to Christian faith anytime. But recycling foolish critiques like the creation order in Gen 1 is a waste of everyone's time.

Just in case you were to reply like that again, my reply would be similar to last time:

Quote:

.....Genesis 17:1,17,21, 25:7
Has Abraham fathering Isaac at the age of 100 and living to 175. Why 175? Why not 110? Why obviously lie like that? As I said, the ancient Hebrews and early Christians believed it was literal. In modern times it became popular to think that it wasn't literal due to outside influences like modern science.

Deuteronomy 34:7
Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.

Is that literal? Or is that yet another example of the Bible exaggerating his age for some poetic reason? Since the ancient Hebrews, etc, believed the other ages were literal, they'd probably believe Moses's age was literal too....

....Whether they are literal or not would have been passed down too... i.e. whether it is a Santa Clause type story or not as far as things like the genealogies were concerned. BTW, do you think that all of the people in the genealogies literally existed? Luke 3 seems to say that they do.

The ancient Hebrew scholars that calculated the Jews' traditional calender starting date for the creation of the universe weren't from the 21st century. They viewed the genealogies and also the 6 days as being literal. So did most of the early church fathers, and theologians like Martin Luther.

The age of Moses and Abraham, etc, aren't from Genesis 1...

You response to that part of my reply was this:

Quote:

Well, add another academic faux pas to your long list: anachrontisic historiography. Exegesis is done from the text & the historico-cultural context. Not from the Reformation 3000 years later (though interesting).

You picked up on my example of Luther, but conveniently ignored the rest completely.

Doubting Didymus:

Quote:

....You said you wanted to participate in this specific forum (evolution/creation as opposed to general religion), but you're yet to make a single relevant point on the topic....

Well Denis did make some relevant points:
e.g.

Quote:

....Think about it. If you were God, and you were revealing to a nomadic tribe you were the Creator. Would you talk about HOX genes, transitory forms, Big Bang, etc, etc,? No, of course not. Thus, the Bible HAS to have an ancient science, and it behooves us 3500 yrs later to read past it....

I don't think he backed up his case very well, but he brought up that point at least.

pz · 07-18-2003, 04:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Denis Lamoureux
PZ,
Another in need of a remedial reading course! Did I accuse you of being a "christian (sic) fundie"? Because a Christian you're not. I have indicated that the epistemology & hermeneutic (OPPS!!! CAN'T USE WORDS LIKE THIS!!!)

Yes, you can. A great many of us here are quite familiar with the words. So familiar, that when someone tries to shovel them into a post as stand-alone signifiers for his scholarliness, we're entirely unimpressed.

Quote:

evident in this forum is typical of fundamentalism. You are oblivious to subtlety and hopelessly mired in crude undergrad dichotomies.

I'm not the one categorizing people into crude and inappropriate classes like "fundie" and "non-fundie", Denis.

Quote:

In addition, you have a typical fundie attitude & behaviour as expressed by your: "You may dress it up in five-dollar words and college classes, but you're still studying crap...and that is definitely not a "fundie" attitude." Fundies talk like that--both Christian fundies & atheist fundies (like you).

And there you go again.

What's really going on here is something very typical around here and very childish. You know that atheists despise fundamentalism, so you charge in and start calling everyone a "fundie". You're trying to insult people. It's not very effective, though. If I were to do a similar thing on ChristianForums, for instance, and post there calling them heretics and atheists, they'd be right to wonder what I was smoking.

Quote:

Look it, you want to believe in pathetic dysteleological myths

Sorry, but I don't believe in pathetic myths. If I wanted to, I'd become a christian.

As for dysteleology -- it's not a myth, it's the lesson of nature. The kind of teleology fundamentalist christians try to imagine is the product of a biased and invalid hermeneutic.

If you'd like to discuss your evidence for teleology, go ahead. I hope it's not going to be something like the fact that your dad loves you, which is the last bit of dazzling evidence a professing christian left for us.

Quote:

--fill your boots. Just don't try to cover it with your pseudo-intellectual facist bullshit.

Great example of irony there, Denis.

Denis Lamoureux · 07-18-2003, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by excreationist
Denis Lamoureux:

Why don't you teach us yourself? But remember that we mightn't take your word as being the final authority on the matter, even though you teach at a university. You need to justify your assertions like we are supposed to.
But that might be too much hard work for you.

Just because a view about the Bible is fundamentalist or simplistic, it doesn't prove that it is therefore false.
I'm talking about what message the ancient Hebrew authors intended to convey and what their contemporaries (ancient Hebrew scholars) thought. The traditional Jewish calender was based on calculations by ancient Hebrew scholars who in turn assumed that the genealogies were literal. Also, most early Christians believed in literal genealogies. You conveniently ignored my mentioning of the ancient Hebrew scholars, but criticized me for mentioning Luther.
The only reason you gave that somehow proves that the genealogies in Genesis aren't true is that they contain a "statistically significant pattern". When questioned about this you replied to scombrid: (you ignored me)

Instead of just answering the question you say pointless stuff like that. Why? (Well I guess it doesn't matter why)

In Genesis 11:10-26, the statistically significant patterns would probably be that the generations are about every 30 years, and the lifespans gradually decrease (with some exceptions). And in Genesis 5:3-32, the average age is about 900-950... it goes up and down - not mostly down, like in Genesis 11.
You talk about "the pattern" and "a statistically significant pattern" as if there is only one pattern. But the patterns from the genealogies in Genesis 5 are different from the patterns in Genesis 11. There doesn't seem to be an overall pattern that they both fit.
They agree with the genealogies with Luke 3 - that is kind of a pattern.
Your reply was:

When asked, you didn't explain how that is supposed to prove that the authors of Genesis and Luke didn't think the genealogies were literal. After all, in the Luke genealogy, it says that people believed that Jesus's father was Joseph - if the genealogy is fictional, why not just make up a fake father's name for Jesus?

There are also a lot of other discussions which you dropped in order to pursue the new theme of your posts.

Excreationist,
Ignore you? How about you ignoring me? I asked you for the pattern in the Gen 5 genealogy. And I'm still awaiting. Seeing your observational skills are not that great, and you wanting to be taught (your words), let me take you by the hand and help you out: make three columns for the categories of ages in Gen 5. Now, do you see a pattern? Is it statistically significant? What are the implications for YEC? We'll deal later with historical criticism (Opps! New hermeneutical concept! Someone is gonna skubala [Double Opps!! Can't use Greek because some Spock baby is going to start crying and say I'm show boating] his pants and start whining for sure!).

Denis

Denis Lamoureux · 07-18-2003, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich
[B]Denis Lamoureux:

Here's the aphorism featured prominently on my home page:

"The purpose of the Bible is to teach us that God is the Creator, and not how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit created."

Then Ipetrich comments:
Except that it is really "That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes."

Ipetrich,
How am I suppose to take you seriously when you write pathetic stuff like this? In fact, if you are going to take me to task, this passage was originally written in Italian. So, the original word was not 'intention.' Whether one translates it into the English words 'purpose' or 'intention' is immaterial.

Denis

pz · 07-18-2003, 02:02 PM

Denis, would you mind backing up and just explaining what the hell has got you foaming at the mouth?

People here, even the militant atheists like me, tend to be favorably disposed to theistic evolutionists, since even if you are inventing supernatural beings, at least you are taking pains to respect the lessons of the natural world. We share a similar dislike of the shallow interpretations of biblical literalists; yet for some reason, if one of the atheists here dares to criticize facile and obvious creationist interpretations of genesis, you rant "fundie, fundie, fundie!" at them. Not only is it hypocritical, since it's clear you also do not accept such interpretations, but it's bad theology, something I'd expect you to be much better at than most of us here.

It's completely unclear what point you are trying to make. You never know, if you took the time to state your argument clearly, we might even agree with you. Heck, we're shameless atheists -- even if it was something disparaging about us, we might take a kind of arrogant pride in agreeing with you. But even if not, we'd at least know what we're contending over.

lpetrich · 07-18-2003, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Denis Lamoureux
(on that well-known Baronius-Galileo remark)
Ipetrich,
How am I suppose to take you seriously when you write pathetic stuff like this? ...

Denis, why are you so sore about this? I was pointing out that your comment is a gross misquote -- even if the ultimate meaning is similar.

Furthermore, I like the "heaven" version -- it has a nice symmetry of phrase.

Denis Lamoureux · 07-18-2003, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by lpetrich
Denis, why are you so sore about this? I was pointing out that your comment is a gross misquote -- even if the ultimate meaning is similar.

What the hell are you talking about? The aphorism on my home page is a "gross misquote"?!? Do you know what a misquote is? Do you think I went to the "Letter of Christian" wanting to find the Baronio quote, and I misquoted it into my aphorism? Surely, you can't be this ridiculous.

Denis

excreationist · 07-18-2003, 07:00 PM

Denis Lamoureux

Quote:

Excreationist,
Ignore you? How about you ignoring me? I asked you for the pattern in the Gen 5 genealogy. And I'm still awaiting.

Well this is what I've written on that topic:

Quote:

....Basically, the people before the flood lived to about 900. The exception is Lamech - he only lived to 777. That seems to emphasize Genesis 4:24 which talks about 7 and 77. The other ages don't seem to have much special significance. The age when the ancestors gave birth to the next at line ("age at fatherhood") varies a lot before the flood - from 65 years, to Noah's 502.....
....After the flood there is a statistically significant pattern... the lifespans *generally* got smaller. This would be to explain why no-one today lives to be 900. The "age at fatherhood" is usually about 30 but it varied too.....
....In Genesis 11:10-26, the statistically significant patterns would probably be that the generations are about every 30 years, and the lifespans gradually decrease (with some exceptions). And in Genesis 5:3-32, the average age is about 900-950... it goes up and down - not mostly down, like in Genesis 11.
You talk about "the pattern" and "a statistically significant pattern" as if there is only one pattern. But the patterns from the genealogies in Genesis 5 are different from the patterns in Genesis 11. There doesn't seem to be an overall pattern that they both fit....

Though I didn't come up with the answer you wanted, I tried to.

Quote:

Seeing your observational skills are not that great, and you wanting to be taught (your words), let me take you by the hand and help you out: make three columns for the categories of ages in Gen 5.

You didn't say anything about making three columns before.
I don't have a clue about what you mean by the three "categories of ages".
You can see the ages in Genesis 5 here:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wenke...enealogies.htm

Quote:

Now, do you see a pattern? Is it statistically significant?

Well first I need to know what you mean by three "categories of ages". There is the age at death and the age they give birth to the next in line - but that is only two categories of ages(?).

Quote:

What are the implications for YEC?

Well I'll first need to see what the pattern is meant to be in order to answer that.

Denis Lamoureux · 07-18-2003, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by excreationist
Denis Lamoureux

Though I didn't come up with the answer you wanted, I tried to.

You didn't say anything about making three columns before.
I don't have a clue about what you mean by the three "categories of ages".

Well first I need to know what you mean by three "categories of ages". There is the age at death and the age they give birth to the next in line - but that is only two categories of ages(?).

Well I'll first need to see what the pattern is meant to be in order to answer that.

Fair enough. I wanted to know if you could figure the pattern out on your own. Everyone in this forum is so pumped on their commitment to the scientific method, I wanted to try out a little experiment on observational skills because all the critiques of Scripture I read here are pretty shallow. Most are attacking the Bible with fundie atheist arguments, but few have shown me any hint of a scientific analysis of the ancient Text.

I apologize for the lack of clarity regarding the ages/years. You are right there are two sets of ages, and another set of numbers, the years lived after the birth of the stated son.

Write out the three sets of numbers--find the pattern.

Denis

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07-18-2003, 02:02 PM	#86
pz Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Morris, MN Posts: 3,341	Denis, would you mind backing up and just explaining what the hell has got you foaming at the mouth? People here, even the militant atheists like me, tend to be favorably disposed to theistic evolutionists, since even if you are inventing supernatural beings, at least you are taking pains to respect the lessons of the natural world. We share a similar dislike of the shallow interpretations of biblical literalists; yet for some reason, if one of the atheists here dares to criticize facile and obvious creationist interpretations of genesis, you rant "fundie, fundie, fundie!" at them. Not only is it hypocritical, since it's clear you also do not accept such interpretations, but it's bad theology, something I'd expect you to be much better at than most of us here. It's completely unclear what point you are trying to make. You never know, if you took the time to state your argument clearly, we might even agree with you. Heck, we're shameless atheists -- even if it was something disparaging about us, we might take a kind of arrogant pride in agreeing with you. But even if not, we'd at least know what we're contending over.

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