geo wrote:

Interbane wrote:You're a riot! I'm not sure why I try... you are way beyond help. :chef:

You want a razor, it all boils down to two competing explanations. Either most of our modern knowledge is wrong, or some time in the past some people fabricated the Bible.

I keep saying the ultimate litmus test is the age of the earth. For Stahrwe's literal interpretation of the Bible to be true means that almost every educated person on the planet is wrong about the age of the earth. All of modern science is wrong. The geologists, the biologists, the paleontologists, the archaelogists, the astronomers, the physicists, the geochemists, not to mention all those scientists at NASA. Not just a little wrong. Wrong by 4.5 billion years! The basis for almost all of empirical science over the last 130 years is flat out wrong.

Because it says so in the Bible!

This is classic Turtle, when your arguments fail you resort to the irrelevant. We are dealing with the story of Abram here as an explanation for the transition (not evolution) he made from polytheism to monotheism. The age of the earth has nothing to do with this discussion except to serve as reassurance to you that you can dismiss my critique.

stahrwe wrote:

geo wrote:

Interbane wrote:You're a riot! I'm not sure why I try... you are way beyond help. :chef:

You want a razor, it all boils down to two competing explanations. Either most of our modern knowledge is wrong, or some time in the past some people fabricated the Bible.

I keep saying the ultimate litmus test is the age of the earth. For Stahrwe's literal interpretation of the Bible to be true means that almost every educated person on the planet is wrong about the age of the earth. All of modern science is wrong. The geologists, the biologists, the paleontologists, the archaelogists, the astronomers, the physicists, the geochemists, not to mention all those scientists at NASA. Not just a little wrong. Wrong by 4.5 billion years! The basis for almost all of empirical science over the last 130 years is flat out wrong.

Because it says so in the Bible!

This is classic Turtle, when your arguments fail you resort to the irrelevant. We are dealing with the story of Abram here as an explanation for the transition (not evolution) he made from polytheism to monotheism. The age of the earth has nothing to do with this discussion except to serve as reassurance to you that you can dismiss my critique.

On the contrary, all of your arguments are based on the literal truth of the Bible. You are saying here that a story from the Bible explains the transition from polytheism to monotheism. You are basing your claim on the infallibility of the Bible. But for the Bible to be literally true, the earth needs to be 6,000 years old. The earth is very obviously not 6,000 years old, so there goes your argument in a puff of smoke. The Bible cannot be literally true. There is no reason to continue.

Check and mate.

geo wrote:

Interbane wrote:You're a riot! I'm not sure why I try... you are way beyond help. :chef:

You want a razor, it all boils down to two competing explanations. Either most of our modern knowledge is wrong, or some time in the past some people fabricated the Bible.

I keep saying the ultimate litmus test is the age of the earth. For Stahrwe's literal interpretation of the Bible to be true means that almost every educated person on the planet is wrong about the age of the earth. All of modern science is wrong. The geologists, the biologists, the paleontologists, the archaelogists, the astronomers, the physicists, the geochemists, not to mention all those scientists at NASA. Not just a little wrong. Wrong by 4.5 billion years! The basis for almost all of empirical science over the last 130 years is flat out wrong.

Because it says so in the Bible!

stahrwe wrote:This is classic Turtle, when your arguments fail you resort to the irrelevant. We are dealing with the story of Abram here as an explanation for the transition (not evolution) he made from polytheism to monotheism. The age of the earth has nothing to do with this discussion except to serve as reassurance to you that you can dismiss my critique.

geo wrote:On the contrary, all of your arguments are based on the literal truth of the Bible. You are saying here that a story from the Bible explains the transition from polytheism to monotheism. You are basing your claim on the infallibility of the Bible. But for the Bible to be literally true, the earth needs to be 6,000 years old. The earth is very obviously not 6,000 years old, so there goes your argument in a puff of smoke. The Bible cannot be literally true. There is no reason to continue.

Check and mate.

Are you really Tat?
In tournaments, the victor never announces Checkmate, the vanquished opponent conceeds. I await your laying your king on its side.

We are dealing with a story on its merits. Wright did not introduce the creation story in connection with Abram, and you are not examining the merits of my beliefs, it is correctly stated that we are comparing two narratives:

1) The story from the Bible which involves a very simple, straightforward move. And, you will note that I did not even insist that it was an actual call from God, only that Abram believed it to be. He reacted to the call and viola you have monotheism.

or

2) a convoluted story of shadowy conspirators who are unnamed and whose motives are unknown someone how deciding to move a system of belief off on track and onto another with no real concept of how to do so.

In any other context, you would be arguing for #1, while we know what #2 is.

This is classic Turtle, when your arguments fail you resort to the irrelevant.

You left my arguments completely untouched and only criticized trivial, unrelated points. It doesn't matter if no one wins in "real" lotteries, that's completely irrelevant to my point. It doesn't matter if you refer to low odds as 1 in 200 or "unlikely". Saying that men were brutalized for being Christians serves no purpose. (Would YOU suddenly stop believing even if you were threatened with brutality?) You think your apoplectic replies when shown unequivocably to be wrong are cute.

You did absolutely nothing to any of my arguments, you just posted a bunch of garbage that touched on ancillary, non-critical points to make yourself feel better. It's not worthy of a reply from me. If that appears to you as turtling up, then so be it.

Let's suppose for a moment that Abram only thought he heard God's call to leave Ur and relocate to Palestine and to worship only Him.

Yes, let's start all our arguments with assumptions.

The age of the earth has nothing to do with this discussion except to serve as reassurance to you that you can dismiss my critique.

The age of the Earth has EVERYTHING to do with this discussion. You're appealing to parsimony to justify your methods of interpretation. What you fail to realize when discussing the motive that ancient scholars had for fabricating the bible, you're completely ignoring a required conclusion. If they did not fabricate the bible, most modern human knowledge is wrong. The age of the Earth is the most clear cut example. Dozens of fields of study from different locations, including different groups of people, and entirely different methods, have individually corroborated the Earth's age. The procedures and background of which are built upon a pyramidal structure of knowledge so vast and all encompassing that you're truly an idiot to think the entire scientific community is that perfectly and totally deluded. Experiments that are routinely re-created hundreds of times across the globe must ALL BE SIMULTANEOUSLY WRONG... but not only that, they must be wrong in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY!!! The only answer to which is that EVERY ONE of these scientists are working in concert to further a massive conspiracy that is so complicated and all encompassing that the dangers of Nuclear War pale in comparison to the dangers it poses. They must somehow know, out of a pool of hundreds of millions, which people will eventually turn into scientists in the near future, and recruit them to their cause before any damaging experiments are done that would possibly unravel the conspiracy.

You're right about one thing though. We can dismiss the critique of anyone who is deluded enough to believe such nonsense.

This is just one of the many arguments that you cannot win with the Bible, sorry. If one man created the earth he ought to at least have a deed or something that could be found indicating his ownership.

stahrwe wrote:

DWill wrote:stahwre, are you watching the "God in America" program? I'd be interested in your reaction (over in that thread). I also was wondering if you plan on following Wright through the Koran discussion. Would you have any of the same objections to Wright deconstructing the Koran as you have to him doing it to the Bible? And if not, why not?

I am not watching God in America. I have watched such programs before and find them less than accurate.

I will follow the discussion of the Koran but I am not knowledgeable about the Koran having only read it once so I suspect that Wright will get a free pass on it since I don't think there are any Muslims on BT.

"Such programs"--prejudging, no? I think if you were to lower your fear of PBS you'd find the program offers a non-jaundiced view of religion in our history. And by your avoidance of the question about dissection of the Koran, I'd have to assume that you'd not have a problem with Wright applying the scalpel to that book.

Interbane wrote:

This is classic Turtle, when your arguments fail you resort to the irrelevant.

You left my arguments completely untouched and only criticized trivial, unrelated points. It doesn't matter if no one wins in "real" lotteries, that's completely irrelevant to my point. It doesn't matter if you refer to low odds as 1 in 200 or "unlikely". Saying that men were brutalized for being Christians serves no purpose. (Would YOU suddenly stop believing even if you were threatened with brutality?) You think your apoplectic replies when shown unequivocably to be wrong are cute.

You did absolutely nothing to any of my arguments, you just posted a bunch of garbage that touched on ancillary, non-critical points to make yourself feel better. It's not worthy of a reply from me. If that appears to you as turtling up, then so be it.

Let's suppose for a moment that Abram only thought he heard God's call to leave Ur and relocate to Palestine and to worship only Him.

Yes, let's start all our arguments with assumptions.

The age of the earth has nothing to do with this discussion except to serve as reassurance to you that you can dismiss my critique.

The age of the Earth has EVERYTHING to do with this discussion. You're appealing to parsimony to justify your methods of interpretation. What you fail to realize when discussing the motive that ancient scholars had for fabricating the bible, you're completely ignoring a required conclusion. If they did not fabricate the bible, most modern human knowledge is wrong. The age of the Earth is the most clear cut example. Dozens of fields of study from different locations, including different groups of people, and entirely different methods, have individually corroborated the Earth's age. The procedures and background of which are built upon a pyramidal structure of knowledge so vast and all encompassing that you're truly an idiot to think the entire scientific community is that perfectly and totally deluded. Experiments that are routinely re-created hundreds of times across the globe must ALL BE SIMULTANEOUSLY WRONG... but not only that, they must be wrong in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY!!! The only answer to which is that EVERY ONE of these scientists are working in concert to further a massive conspiracy that is so complicated and all encompassing that the dangers of Nuclear War pale in comparison to the dangers it poses. They must somehow know, out of a pool of hundreds of millions, which people will eventually turn into scientists in the near future, and recruit them to their cause before any damaging experiments are done that would possibly unravel the conspiracy.

You're right about one thing though. We can dismiss the critique of anyone who is deluded enough to believe such nonsense.

I am quite astounded that you claim I have not addressed the major elements of the issues. I have:

1) provided the correct explanation as to how monotheism emerged from poyltheism.
2) demonstrated numerous major, significant errors and omissions in TEoG.
3) addressed Wright's concept of the evolution of god as a zero sum game to a non-zero sum game and shown that he is mistaken.

But now, you want to get into a YEC argument because you have no defense to what I have presented.

Okay, if you want to do the YEC thing, start another discussion and I will be happy to continue for as many posts as you have a stomach for but that discussion has no place here as, if Wright even mentions the age of the earth, (I don't recall it), it is not indexed.

Star Burst wrote:This is just one of the many arguments that you cannot win with the Bible, sorry. If one man created the earth he ought to at least have a deed or something that could be found indicating his ownership.

Not relevant to this discussion.

DWill wrote:

stahrwe wrote:

DWill wrote:stahwre, are you watching the "God in America" program? I'd be interested in your reaction (over in that thread). I also was wondering if you plan on following Wright through the Koran discussion. Would you have any of the same objections to Wright deconstructing the Koran as you have to him doing it to the Bible? And if not, why not?

I am not watching God in America. I have watched such programs before and find them less than accurate.

I will follow the discussion of the Koran but I am not knowledgeable about the Koran having only read it once so I suspect that Wright will get a free pass on it since I don't think there are any Muslims on BT.

"Such programs"--prejudging, no? I think if you were to lower your fear of PBS you'd find the program offers a non-jaundiced view of religion in our history. And by your avoidance of the question about dissection of the Koran, I'd have to assume that you'd not have a problem with Wright applying the scalpel to that book.

I listen to NPR all the time.

Does the program include Bill Moyers?
If he is involved in any way, I am not interested.

How did I avoid your question about the Koran?

stahrwe wrote:

Star Burst wrote:This is just one of the many arguments that you cannot win with the Bible, sorry. If one man created the earth he ought to at least have a deed or something that could be found indicating his ownership.

Not relevant to this discussion.

Yeah it is. Cause you will no doubt try to prove him with the Bible.