buz, I will not hold a Great debate with you on any subject at this time.
But, I would be most happy to try to repond in a thread on Wyatt or on evidence in general. I think that a discussion of the differing ways evidence is viewed might be informative to all the membership. Let me try to point out why.
Pretend for a second that someone did find the remains of an old vessel. The size matched the Biblical description of Noah's Ark. It is found in the Middle East, Turkey or Iran. And on one of the recovered timbers is found an inscription "I Noah built this Ark and took aboard two tutrle dove and a partridge in a pear tree." Samples of the wood were taken and radiocarbon dated to about 4000-5000 years ago.
Now the qestion. Would that evidence make me think the Biblical account of the flood was correct?
The answer is a resounding "No!"
I have no problem believing that there was a flood, that there was some guy named Noah, that Noah built a boat, that he took some critters aboard. None of that is outside the realm of possibility.
However the bulk of the evidence shows that there was not a worldwide flood anytime in the last 600,000 years or so.
The bulk of the evidence shows that there was no one bottleneck event that is common to all existing species of critters.
Those two chains of evidence are sufficient to discount the tale of Noah and the flood as told in the Bible.
Is it possible that Wyatt or someone else could find the remains of some vessel? Sure.
Is it possible that that vessel could be shown to be the one mentioned in the Bible? Unlikely but certainly possible.
Would that validate the story in the Bible? No!
The same line of reasoning needs to be applied to all of Wyatts alleged findings. Not only must the evidence FOR something be considered, but we also need to consider the evidence AGAINST. Both sides MUST be presented if we are to consider Theological History and Archeology to be as ethical as other areas of science.
One problem I see is that the Theological Community is nowhere near as ethical as the Science Community. Oh, there are folk in both that are not ethical, but the Scientific Community has ethics guidelines and procedures that are totally lacking in the Theological Community.
When a scientist is caught falsifying data, or excluding data that refutes his or her results, the Scientific Community sanctions them, and all of their work is then either thrown out, or reexamined by outside independant sources to check validity. The individual is then cast out of the scientific community or all future results from that individual marked as suspect.
There is nothing like that Ethics Procedure in the group that claim to be scientists such as Wyatt or Hovind or Baugh or the like. There are specific examples of unethical behavior in the body of work from Ron Wyatt.
Some examples of such behavior can be seen in the so called Altar of the Golden Calf evidence in Ron's Exodus case. In that particular incident parts of the pictoglyphs were modifed to change the significance of the image. Only selected pictoglyphs were included and all the others excluded. A claim was made (I will admit it is couched in terms that allow Ron to plead innocent) that they were not common when in fact, such glyphs are found throughout the Middle East and across North Africa. Finally it was not mentioned that such glyphs are common to folk native to the area and dating to about a thousand years before the alleged Exodus or even longer.
Another example is the images of the chariot wheels themselves. The claim is made that they are computer enhanced when the fact is that it was far more than enhancement. They were simply drawn. You can see this image in
Message 264 and in
Message 245. That image is not an "enhancement", it is a friggen drawing. In addition, even the alleged original image seen in the lower position of
Message 245 is NOT evidence that can be related to any specific event.
As I have said, I will be happy to discuss any of the evidence with you in a regular thread. Let me make a suggestion.
Select whichever of Ron's findings you believe you can best support. Pick one item to start with. You present the case in support of Ron's position on that item. I and others will present the case against that item. Then we can move on to the next item you believe can be best supported.
If we work through this in that fashion I believe the people reading the thread will be able to make their own judgements about the validity of either position.
Edited by jar, : add a space and change even to event
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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