EvC Forum: Ancient texts in discussions of science?

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Topic: Ancient texts in discussions of science?

ReverendDG

Member (Idle past 4140 days)

Posts: 1119

From: Topeka,kansas

Joined: 06-06-2005

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Message 12 of 64 (355121)
10-08-2006 4:58 AM

Reply to: Message 1 by Woodsy
10-07-2006 10:48 AM

Ancient texts are sometimes referenced during discussions of scientific matters. I would like to ask if this is proper.

it depends on what you are arguing, biology,geology, archaelogy?
i wouldn't use anything old to understand the first one, unless its on maybe a history of the science. the second only say to get an understanding of the world back then. and the last because it helps us understand the cultures and objects we have, writings are best for the study of civilaztion

The ancients, naturally, knew and understood less than we moderns. Some ancient writings are accurate, some are not. Is the antiquity of a text a valid reason to reference it in a discussion?

well somethings, a common thing is knowledge comes in cycles it seems, found, lost, found again.
remember it depends on the discussion, history is good, if you have other evidence as well, or about the beliefs of older peoples, and its great to understand why we have things the way we do now in our own culture
personally other than history i wouldn't use old texts for biology or physics or anything that gets revised
sad to say creationists can't seem to grasp this

In some cases, a text has been declared holy by some religion or other, and its adherents accord the text authority. Adherents of other religions, or none, however, are under no obligation to accord the text any authority. Are holy texts useful when discussions include non-adherents?

yes indeed it does, well for the most part, it gives you an understanding of the beliefs people hold to, sometimes it really doesn't eg:YEC,flatearth,ID,etc
its when the person you are debating has decided that this or that verse has this meaning, though the text really doesn't show it unless you use some other text that claims this
its only when you have those that are so stone set aganst hearing any other view of the same text, that you really run into problems

otherwise its a great tool since you can have a debate on the same playing field (i hope)

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	Message 1 by Woodsy, posted 10-07-2006 10:48 AM		Woodsy has not replied

ReverendDG

Member (Idle past 4140 days)

Posts: 1119

From: Topeka,kansas

Joined: 06-06-2005

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Message 44 of 64 (356975)
10-17-2006 2:12 AM

Reply to: Message 40 by Buzsaw
10-16-2006 7:13 PM

Re: It Depends.

It depends on what you're talking about. If it was related to historical data, generally speaking the ones closest to the event time wise knew more about the facts related to the event then those down the road thousands of years away from the event. Regarding the flood, most cultures have some version of a flood in their legends, et al. This is likely what the ancient Egyptian Tempest Stele, for example was aluding to in some of it's statements which to many of us lend corroboration to the ancient Biblical account. See my Exodus debate with Brian for link to the T. Stele. If there was a flood the ancients were not too far removed from the event time wise.

since i can't post to your thread there buz i'll post here about the stele.
sorry buz but that stele is not about what you are thinking it is, it wasn't a flood, it was a storm, a huge memoral storm they had at the time
http://www.therafoundation.org/...gyptduringthereignofahmose
can an admin fix that i guess i need to learn how to make linkes shorter

the fact that you make the same old canard about floods being common, so there for there was a huge one that got distorted over time is silly
i'll tell you again what i have to keep telling people who say this: when you have a large group of people who live in a place that floods, such as the nile river, you are bound to have some sort of flood story and they will have common themes, because you have water,people,animals, and gods
its part fear, part entertainment and part proof of god power
this doesn't make it a true story
this argument is like saying that because israel exists that everything in the bible is true that happened there, its a baseless assuption
there are a lot of stories that arn't anything like the noah flood, and more are obvious that they were affected by missionaries

This message is a reply to:
	Message 40 by Buzsaw, posted 10-16-2006 7:13 PM		Buzsaw has not replied

ReverendDG

Member (Idle past 4140 days)

Posts: 1119

From: Topeka,kansas

Joined: 06-06-2005

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Message 47 of 64 (356979)
10-17-2006 2:29 AM

Reply to: Message 43 by Hyroglyphx
10-16-2006 10:16 PM

Re: Pyramids built by slaves?

Well, your article clarifies some other common misnomers, namely, that when we think of slavery, we think of privaleged people beating less fortunate people. In reality, that type of maltreatment of slaves was probably the exception and not the rule. At that time, slaves and servants were often synonymous.

egyptian slavery was very complex, servents were most of the time slaves, but slaves sometimes were considered better off than freemen, the fact is the owner had the right to kill his slaves if they wanted to, but it wasn't common because a good slave is hard to come by

the author of that quote is wrong they were slaves, most if not all servents were slaves, some where indentured servents, which was pretty much slavery

For ancient Egypt, a better, or at least more precise definition of a slave might be a "person owned by a master, as was any other chattel, used as the master pleased, to the extent of being disposed of by inheritance, gift sale and so forth". In reality, such slavery seems to have been fairly rare in Egypt prior to the Greek Period, progressing over time.

from Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Egypt

That's probably true because they were in Goshen.

if this was even true, which it has never been shown to be true

This message is a reply to:
	Message 43 by Hyroglyphx, posted 10-16-2006 10:16 PM		Hyroglyphx has not replied

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