manderguy

I've had a fundy claim that the Bible is true because Moses wrote down all this stuff that was unknowable to science at the time (e.g. blood being unclean, etc.). I mentioned that other cultures knew stuff unknowable at the time, like the fairly world wide taboo on incest, so their religions must be true as well. Her response was that Heyerdahl's rafting expeditions proved that ancient cultures had contact and everyone borrowed the accurate information from the Hebrews.

Now the point: What do archeologists think about Heyerdahl's ideas? My quick impression off the web was that he got people thinking, but there's not much evidence that ancient cultures really did much traveling across the seas even if his rafting showed it was possible.

Anyone have a better understanding off the top of their head?

Claudia

Heyerdhal proved that even with both and navigations techniques which seem us quite primitive, transoceanoc travels are possible. He proved nothing about the real travels which took place in ancient times.

Claudia

I have read that it is right that there were contacts between America an Polynesia, but it is not Heyerdhal who proved it. It is the diffusion of sweet potatoes, if i remember correctly (if not this one, another vegetable).

Arken

Exactly. Heyerdhal was a brave man and an interesting guy to boot but there was very little science in his adventures. I can show that ancient people could have built anything from a sound player/recorder to an electric battery and, in fact, people have attempted to come up with evidence that such things have been done but proving that people had the technology to do such things does not prove that they actually did them. After all, the Inca not only had the technology to build the wheel, but from childrens' toys, we know that they even knew what wheels were... but they saw no practical value in wheels. Just because ability exists does not mean that practical application ideas do as well.

Coragyps

Manderguy, ask her for any evidence to show that blood is "unclean." Blood is red, and can stain things, but it's only ritually unclean - not germy, or bad for your health. Just because some cultures don't eat blood doesn't mean that Blutwurst or a nice Scottish black pudding aren't pretty tasty. And for all that, since Moses claimed that catfish and shrimp were "an abomination," does she avoid Red Lobster?

Lobstrosity

Does this fundy realize that humans have the ability to make observations and note correlations? It doesn't require divine intervention to recognize certain patterns (e.g. incest results in birth defects, unburied dead bodies bring disease, eating pork can cause disease, etc). One hardly has to understand why before noting that two events seemingly coincide, perhaps one usually preceding the other. A perfect example of the human capacity for such observation is the Maya, who were simply outstanding at math and astronomy (they were even able to predict eclipses of the moon). They knew a lot that was unknown to both "science" and the Hebrews.

You should also point out the irony of Jesus' invalidation of many Hebrew practices based on sanitation and health. He undid most of these achievements your fundy is touting as evidence of divine inspiration (there was a reason why the Jews didn't eat pork), and yet he's the one she chooses to worship? Why do you think the Jewish settlements remained relatively unaffected as the plague ravaged the Christian cities? It wasn't because the Jews were the source of the plague as Christians proclaimed, it was because the parts of the OT providing laws governing sanitation had been pruned out by idiotic Christians. Instead of being killed by the plague, the Jews were slaughtered by ignorant Christians.

Mageth

I never got the bit about pork. Wouldn't god have known that thoroughly cooking pork was sufficient to make it safe to eat? Why didn't he command them to "Cook your pork well, so that it is done through and through."

Arken

There have been several interesting theories about the pork taboo. For example:

1. The ecological hypothesis applied to pork avoidance suggests that pigs in the Mediterranean region could not compete economically with sheep and goats since they offered no hair products, no milk, posed herding difficulties, and were ill-suited to Middle Eastern heat. Supporters also state that since swine were in direct competition for scarce water and food resources, it would have been easy to forbid pork as food, a religious taboo that would have caused few social-cultural difficulties (Harris,
1972, 1973).

manderguy

I tried. She is possibly one of the most irrational and obstinately ignorant people I've ever stumbled across (makes Vanderzyden look smart). Most of the rest of the board thinks she's completely off her rocker.

The thread was about evolution vs. creationism so I've tried to stay away from the Bible and focus on the evidence where YEC's really get hammered in any public fora.

Anyway, I'm done posting to her in that thread. Just too much :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: as I'm sure most of you are familiar with. I certainly could point out the fact that just because such voyages (or inventions) were possible doesn't mean they occurred. She'd probably just argue that their copying the Hebrew culture demonstrates the voyages took place.

I was just curious about the opinion of Heyerdahl in the archeological community.

I always thought the pork taboo resulted from disease carrying aspects like the flu or some parasite they might spread through their feces.

Marduk

“I was just curious about the opinion of Heyerdahl in the archeological community.”

The last I read on the subject (I think it was when he recently died) was that his ideas were actually gaining favor as more stuff is dug up in S. America.