daemon

My apologies, you are correct; my thinking was along Mageth's line.

Bait

Daemon,
If that is the way I sounded...please accept my apologies to you and the group. I was responding to what I perceived as an attack on me(when I was trying to be civil, and have a bt of fun)with the statment "That's peanuts compared to religion -- Xianity is divided up into numerous sects, which have sometimes been willing to fight nasty fights, and that's only Xianity."

as well as:

"Definition shmefinition. I can always "demonstrate" the truth of my beliefs by "defining" them to be true."

In essence I was, perhaps mistakingly, perceiving that I was being very disrespected, especially when I was just trying to discuss another point of view, and wasn't really trying to push religion. At the time, I was even trying to concede some points.


I have to admit that you present a good case when it comes to Job. Ok...I'll buy into your explanation (that means ya won, I concede, I bow to your reasoning). The penis explanation could be a valid explanation, translation. (and I've learned something.) <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

And I tried to say, though apparently not heard, that I agree that "dragons" could very well have been snakes, etc. But as Kosh shows, there are ancient artifacts that are hard to explain. Yes, some could be lizards, chickens, etc. as Kosh said...some could be the authors imagination. (BTW Kosh, that wasn't the site I saw, although the site I saw had some of the same pictures). But the drawings are there...open for interpretation. Whether dinosaurs lived during the time of man really doesn't have impact on the Bible, or any other religious teaching. It's more of a "what if", like, hmmmm that's interesting, I hadn't looked at it that way before. It would explain many of the myths found world wide.

Bests,
Ron

Bait

Hitler and his group were anti-thesis, but used religion for there own purposes, because that is what the masses believed. But to go further, Stalin was anti-religion, as was Chairman Mao, and most of the other communist nations/parties/philosophy. No, that does not mean that all atheists are communists (before that gets started). But as you see, you tend to defend atheism, ready to attack, because you have perceived that I was attacking you, and what you do, or do not believe. My point was NOT anti-atheism, but that one cannot pin wars, etc. on any religion, or lack thereof because wars are not caused by the religion, but by men's own agenda. Religions are often used to justify by misinterpretation, in order to get the masses to go along with it.
Ron

Dr Rick

HItler was a theist.

So did/do religious leaders to this day.

They did not justify their actions with atheism. Their belief systems were faith-based and required unquestioning obedience, just as Christianity does and atheism does not.

It's irrelevant: the men you cite were not motivated by atheism.

The allegation you made that atheism is used to justify evil actions was false.

<strong> Many wars are fought over religious differences with one or more combatants claiming to act on behalf of God(s). No one goes to war to defend atheism.

<strong> Atheism is not misused in this manner.

daemon

Apology accepted. You may be being disrespected, but I had no intent of doing so, nor was I really paying that much attention to what others were saying.
This is quite questionable, Ron. A lot of theists--the majority, really--do hold with this view, but there is a very aggressive and vocal minority who do view these issues as being vital and faith-shaking. If the Bible is literally true, there was no significant amount of time for entire species to live and die before humanity came on the scene. Thus, the existence of dinosaurs before and never concurrently with man as a living species destroys Biblical literalism, unless you jump tracks and try to claim that the Creator/Satan created a bunch of skeletons to make us think they existed, etc...
"What ifs" are great, but there are an awful lot of possibilities, some more bizarre than others. In order for us to take a "what if" seriously, it really should account for all of the evidence, and the "what if" of dinosaurs being dragons or existing concurrently with humanity flatly contradicts every piece of evidence we have in regards to the dinosaur species'(that's supposed to be plural--sp?) existence. Hypotheses must fit the evidence.

I wish you luck, Ron...

Bait

Hello Daemon,

It wasn't you who I perceived was doing the disrespecting. And I may have been reading it wrong anyway.

As to the "dinosaur" debate, you came in toward the end. I'm not a "Young Earth" type, and think it is quite possible the earth is millions/billions years old based on biblical verses (That Kosh doesn't agree with) . So whether dinosaurs existed before/after/currently makes no difference to me whatsoever. I don't think the Bible has a clear timeline, therefore timeline debates are meaningless as to the message of the Bible. From an Archaeological viewpoint, certain characters of the Bible can be pretty much pinpointed because of Arch. finds. But the beginning of the earth, Noah's flood, etc.is too far in the past to really determine an exact time.

As to the flame...all I started out saying is that from some cave paintings/artifacts/etc. there exists archaeological evidence that could possibly be viewed as evidence that dinosaurs existed at the same time as man (see Kosh's post for the archaeological stuff). I just took it a little further and stated that with all of the "dragon" myths that exists around the world, perhaps that is where they started - from dinosaurs that may have been left over from the mass extinction. I was rather surprised how heated it got actually, because it was a nonsense debate to start with.

The archaeological artifacts are the only hard evidence that I know of that could possibly suggest that dinosaurs existed at the same time as men. And as Kosh stated, it can be interpreted other ways. The behemouth of Job could be an elephant, a hippo, or a dinosaur...there is NO clear evidence one way or another just based on biblical accounts. It all depends on how you choose to look at it. If you look at my post, I stated that I agree that snakes, croc's etc. could very well be the origin of the dragon myths (where I agreed and still got slammed).

As to Ipetrich's hypothesis that all of those dinosaurs that were around men were planted by aliens from outer space playing practicle jokes,
hmmmmm...now that you mention it, there ARE artifacts in South America that resemble men in space suits...

Thanks for the luck wish,
Ron

Oolon Colluphid

Ron appears to be around again, so after his sidetrack into geology, it's worth following this up.

Erm, which Monday did you have in mind? Okay, you're here again now, so...

Doubtless you mean chemists, geologists (Patrick and John excluded ), particle physicists, etc? Try asking anthropologists, such as our own Dr.G.H. and Ergaster, and they’ll all tell you that ‘Lucy’ is Australopithecus afarensis. She is the best-known and most complete specimen of that species.

Based on what? I have already pointed out that her arms were much longer than any human’s. From her and from the bits of over 300 other individuals we have, we know that A afarensis had curved phalanges, which are also proportionally longer than in Homo sapiens, a U-shaped palate:



a somewhat conical ribcage... and cranial capacity of around 450cc, just over half the very bottom of the range you earlier said was human.

Here’s a composite reconstruction of an afarensis skull:



(See <a href="http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/afarcomp.htm" target="_blank">here</a> for more details on this.)

<a href="http://www.humanevolution.f2s.com/afarensis.html" target="_blank">Here</a> and <a href="http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Galaxy/1508/A_afarensis.html" target="_blank">here</a> is some more information on A afarensis.

Do you still think she was “fully human”?

True, there is much debate as to where exactly afarensis fits in the hominid family tree, whether a direct human ancestor or a closely related side branch. But there is no doubt at all as to what afarensis actually is. A curious mix of ‘ape’ and ‘human’.

Rather odd of god, not only to create humans and apes so similar, but to create just the sort of creature that evolution predicts, no? Not only what evolution predicts, but also when it predicts, and [/I]where[/I] it predicts?

You are quite right. You do not think it, based on evidence; rather, as you say, you believe it. Regardless of the evidence. Tell me, Ron: if we did share a common ancestor, just what sort of evidence would convince you?

Yep, a separate species, no argument there. But speciation has been observed, so how does that bolster your point?

Please define, then, this creation that god allegedly performed. Why might such a creator include features such as a mostly non-functional genome, a coccyx (yeah it’s got muscle attachments, but that doesn’t require it to be made from several separate bones that then fuse), a retina that is backwards from the more obvious design, a laryngeal nerve that does a substantial detour from one side of the neck to the other, a jaw too small for the number of teeth it holds, and a broken vitamin C gene, to name but a few items. This creation he performed is remarkable in its mimicry of evolution, or else his qualifications as a designer of omniscience and omnipotence are somewhat suspect.

Do you actually have any grounds for this belief?

Accident... of... nature... Hmmm. You really don’t have the least understanding of evolution do you Ron? There is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, accidental about the marvellous ‘designs’ in nature. It is NOT down to chance. The accidents are the raw material, but it is natural selection that allows only the neutral ones, and any improvements, to move on to the next level of the game, the next generation. We are not here because of chance, but because of the antithesis of chance.

Really? Is the chimp corpus callosum outside the cerebrum? Does the chimp parietal lobe not abut the occipital lobe, and does it not deal with somatosensory perception and the integration of visual and somatospatial information? Is chimp auditory perception not located in the temporal lobe? What major differences? In fact, what difference at all, that is not a matter of degree?

You might find this article interesting: <a href="http://www.2think.org/chimp.shtml" target="_blank">Similarities Found In Human, Chimp Brains</a>.

Erm, I thought you had said you accepted an old earth? Don’t sell your argument short. Call the these ten thousand. That is still a five hundreth of the time since we shared an ancestor with chimps and gorillas.

Equally, why, in millions of years, have we not evolved the heat-sensing abilities of rattlesnakes, the hearing range of dogs, the olfactory abilities of moths, the taste/olfactory sensitivity of sharks, the visual acuity of birds of prey, bat-like echolocation to see in the dark or a whale’s ability to hold its breath? Insects have been around rather longer than even primates, yet their intelligence is still a bit lacking compared to us. Cyanobacteria should be the brightest things in the galaxy, with a three and a half billion year head start on us.

You have it backwards. The question should be, why have we accelerated away from the apes in this capacity? And the simple answer is, our ancestors’ lifestyles, once they split from the other apes, meant that intelligence was a premium. Brains are big expensive things to own. You only have the limousine model if you can afford it, or rather, if you can’t afford not to. It was a feature where incremental increases over the already high primate intelligence conferred survival and reproduction value. There is much debate about what these pressures were, but likely things (it’s probably not a single factor) include having free hands and an even more complex society than other primates.

To conclude with repetition: why do you think humans and apes do not share common ancestry?

And while I'm repeating myself, please define 'kinds'. Still waiting on that one.

Cheers, Oolon

Valentine Pontifex

This is not true. My arms are longer than Lucy's and in all probablity so are yours. Indeed the vast majority of the readers of this statement have arm's longer than Lucy's. Judging from the photograph of Lucy, I would say that my 32" long arms are about twice the lenght of Lucy's arms -- give or take.

The ratio of the length of her arms to the length of her legs is much greater than any human.

Remember that Lucy was a bit over one meter all. She was REALLY small.

Oolon Colluphid

To Lord V: a definite .

Okay, Mister Nitty-Pick-Picky, what I had "already pointed out" was:

Which, as you no doubt recognise, is taken from TO.

So when mentioning it again, it didn't occur to me to include the word proportionally, because it didn't seem necessary.

But thanks for picking me up on it. People who haven't read the entire thread might have misunderstood my remark.

Cheers, Oolon

Oolon Colluphid

Bumped for Ron's attention...