Original Intent Of the Bible

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
[b]Christians used to think a lot like this a century ago, but archeology has shown that the Old testament was a lot more reliable than had been thought. This cannot be denied. There are many mainstream Biblical scholars who are otherwise quite liberal that will testify to this.[/QUOTE]

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Links to specific archeological journal articles/information to back up this claim, please.

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Creationists have simply said - well, what about the flood?

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Um, no, that's not what Creationists have said.

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Creationists have said, "The Flood happened because the Bible (as we interpret it) said it did, and we are going to pick and choose the evidence (that real scientists have collected) which seems to support what the Bible says and then ignore or try to discredit or distort any evidence which seems to disprove what the Bible (as we interpret it) says."

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We really do feel that the flood opens up a much better understanding to the origin of the geolgical column.

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Feeling like you are doing something and actually having accomplished that something are two very different things, I'm afraid.

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And similarly for genomes and evolution. You just think we're being naive but we're quite thorough and deadly serious. We don't overlook much at all even though we are in the minority.

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This is just funny. Most of what tries to pass for "science" on Creationist sites is really pretty bad. The logic is bad, the research methods are bad, and often the basic knowledge of the subject is limited. Or, they are just leaving things out and misquoting real scientists in order to deceive.

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I can support these assertions, and I will provide many examples if you like.

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So when the Bible talks of something that most certainly would have changed the face of the globe we'll at least go and look for that!

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It was already looked for and rejected by Creationist Geologists 100 years ago. The difference is, those Creationists 100 years ago were intellectually honest and not politically-motivated.

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[QUOTE]And boy did we get excited when we found it and began to understand how it got lost by the earlier generations of creationists.
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What you are suggesting is to utterly nullify several hundred years of research and invalidate the life's work of several hundred thousand (at least) scientists.You are living in a fantasy world if you think that Flood geology has any basis in reality.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
We'll just have to agree to disagree Schrafinator.

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Look, if you are not interested in providing evidence to support your position on a debate board, then I am a bit at a loss as to why you are here.Are you sure you have no respone at all to anything I have pointed out or asked? Gee, if not, that sure seems like a point or two for science. Your silence is deafening.So, what archaeological evidence supports anything other than the existence of certain cities mentioned in the Bible?? Please back up your claim with evidence or retract the claim.I have been wondering, TB, how you feel about the Creationist's mangling of the second law of thermodynamics, since you have a PhD in Physics? You say that Creationists are so thorough, but they have been getting the 2nd LoT so very wrong (in varying ways) for years and years.When they get the 2nd LoT so wrong, why do you have confidence in their scholarship in other fields?(This is one of those examples of bad Creationist 'science' which I said that I could provide)------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 05-21-2002]

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[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 05-21-2002]

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
I'm glad you asked about the 2nd law (of thermodynamics) Shrif. I disagree entirely with the creationist arguements and I intend to take them up on it. I agree with the open/closed system points made by evoltuionists.

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Well, you didn't really answer my question fully.You said that Creationists are very thorough. I pointed out that they have been mangling the 2nd LoT for years and years. I am wondering why it is you have such confidence in Creation "science" if they do such a disservice to Physics.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
[b]OK Schrafinator, much of what you said came up in other posts/threads but I will deal with them one by one briefly:

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You say creaitonists just read the Bible and impose it via interpretaions of data. Yes this is partically true but IMO, the only reason I think about the flood much is that there is good evidence for it.[/QUOTE]

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Look, AIG states plain as day on their website that any data which contradicts the Bible is going to be rejected. This means that you, and others who read AIG, are not getting the whole picture, by definition. That's why they call their sites ministries. They don't care about full disclosure of the data, or about free inquiry, or about. (This is also why they don't present their data to profesional journals or at conferences.) They just care about convincing as many people as they can that the Bible is correct, and they don't care if they mislead people along the way.

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I just don't understand how someone who says they have a PhD would be OK with this. I would think it would be offensive to you from an intellectual standpoint.

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Otherwise I would probably still believe it but I wouldn't think about it much.

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That's nice from a faith standpoint, but I thought we were talking about science here?

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As such I find it a key to understading earth prehistory and understanding (the lack of) macroevoltuion.

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What you don't understand is a lot.

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You commented on me 'feeling' things. 'We feel' is also commonly used in English to mean 'in our opinions' and I think you know that is more than 'emotional'.

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I knew exactly what you meant, and I meant what I said. You may have the "opinion" that Creationists have "opened up" a great deal of understanding about Earth history, but this is demonstrably not the case.

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Some creaitonist sites are just 'quoters'. AIG and ICR are pretty good.

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Pretty good at what? Science? I don't think so.

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Creation 'science' violates every tenet of scientific inquiry. I find it amazing that someone with a PhD has to be told this.

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[QUOTE]I believe the early creationists were unaware that a catastrophe could generate neat layering. In addition they never proposed the simple idea (in my reading anyway) that Lyellian features could have been rapily carved out of soft sediments. Why not? - I'm not sure, possibly due to the first point in this paragraph.

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I understand that what we are saying is controversial and comes of sounding like a 'lunar landing hoax'. I'm sorry it feels like that to you. Having said that we retain a lot of mainstream concepts. Lyellian feautures just happaend fast, plate tectonics happened fast, magnetic reversals happened fast because - guess what - God probably accelerated radioisotopic decay. So if you did get it wrong you got it wrong for a good reason. I don't have a problem with this becasue although I love science I am utterly convinced there are far more important things than science.[/b]

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You can't possibly love science if you think what AIG and ICR are doing is anything remotely like science. You can't even know what science is if you think that they do science.I agree that there are more important things than science. We aren't talking about the relative importance of things. We are, actually, talking about science on this board.I would like you to convince me that Creation 'science' doesn't reject data based upon it being contradictory to their interpretation of scripture.

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[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 05-22-2002]

[QUOTE] So eg, this means that horse/zebras/mules are a kind for example (I think). Biology and genomics is currently consistent with this idea. When more genomes are in this will clarify the issue. At the moment science is consistent with a world of several thousand distinct genomes.[/B][/QUOTE]So, are Bonobos and Humans in the same "kind"?They are at least as closeley-related as zebras and horses.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
[b]Have you got evidence for that? Zebras and Horses produce offspring that survive (although they might be sterile) don't they? I doubt that many people suspect that Bonobos and humans would produce viable offspring![/QUOTE]

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Au contraire! MANY people suspect that Bonobos and Humans would produce living offspring (also thought to be sterile hybrids), but nobody is about to do the experiment for ethical reasons.

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%DNA similarity isn't that useful either.

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Why not?

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At the end of the day we really need the genomes (which we will have in about 5 years). At the edn of the day if you really want to believe that man evolved from a common ansecestor with apes over a period of 5-10 millions of years, feel free.

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Hmm, I'd like to be careful with the word "believe", here. I "believe" that humans and apes share a common ancestor, etc., in the same way I "believe" that the sun is a very nearby star, and that most of the other little pinpricks of light we see in the night sky are other stars, very much like our sun.

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It is "belief" based upon evidence; upon the repeated passage through the rigors of the scientific method.

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However, we already know that the pattern of protein expression in brain is very different between man and apes.

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When you write of "pattern of protein expression in brain", what specific work are you referring to?

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[QUOTE]And we'll have a much more infomed discussion when the genomes are in. [/b]

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So far, all the genetic information we have is consistent with the morphological tree of life. What makes you think that things will be different in the future? Or, are you simply hoping against hope?