The Amalekites are destroyed again and again and again.....

He knows as well as I do that I'm right. He simply doesn't want to admit it. I guess he'd rather take us all on this nonsensical side trip than to give the ancient Biblical record any credibility.

No, Buz. You don't know it, you just think it. That's what I'm trying to say, here. And it's infantile and silly of us to sit here andargue about what's so, when all we have to do is go look. And yet, I maintain that J.R.R. Tolkein established just as much geneological data for Middle Earth. Common sense dictates to me that he must have.So common sense can't resolve this issue. We'll instead have to turn to the actual evidence. We usually can't believe the lengths you'll go to to explain away any discrepancy with the evidence, or to avoid actually absorbing any refutations to your arguments.

And how do you come to know this? Mental telepathy?

I have a pretty good "handle" on the Biblical record. Do you for Tolkien's Middle Earth? Which series?

Just what I can find on Google: Science Fiction and Fantasy | Xenite.OrgThis is constructed from the Silmarillion, apparently, and therefore covers only the families of the Eldar.Clearly, Tolkein's Middle Earth is an actual, historical place, or why else would Tolkein have all this genealogical data? Just doesn't make sense, right?

Hi Buz, But Buz without you comparing it to anything else at all then you really do not know if your statement is true. Have you even bothered to look up the texts that were recommended to you?You see Buz, it is illogical to say that a collection of ancient texts are more accurate than another collection of ancient texts and then admit that you have not compared them. You really do not know if there are any superior texts or not, you even admit that you haven’t looked at any other texts. It is illogical to say that a text is superior to any other contemporary text when you haven’t compared them.If it isn’t possible for you to research the claim then it isnt possible for you to support your claim, so you have to retract it. This is contradictory Buz, the Bible is packed full of myths and you claim it contains a great deal of genealogical information. Well, Jews and Christians read myths in the Bible everyday, and many genealogies are there to try and link certain characters to a dynasty, or to explain why a particular nation should not be trusted. I am not ignoring anything, I am asking how you know what you claim is true. I am not saying that there are superior texts, I am only asking how you know there aren’t when you haven’t even bothered looking. The analogy was to try and get you to understand how ludicrous your claim is. You cannot see a problem with your claim so I broke it down into a simpler example, and you don seem to get that either. LOL, not quite what I would ask, I would ask if you had compared it to ANY secular university. Secular universities DO have religious studies departments Buz. Not just forum rules, but the basic rules of discussion do. Why should I take your word for it Buz? I would be more inclined to agree with you if you had took some time to research the subject rather than blowing a lot of hot air yet again. We could be asking you which universities you did check out though. As usual, Paul is correct again. I am not sure if Ned was being serious or not Buz. I think Ned would assume that you had looked and found none, so that is why you cannot show us any. But, you cannot even show us one that you have looked at that is inferior. Why wouldn’t it Buz? How many evangelical books are there in the Liberty Library? But your claim is not logical Buz. It assumes that a secular Uni wouldn’t have very many evangelical books!Can I say for the record that I believe that the Old Testament is a wonderful collection of ancient literature. I would say though that the New Testament is about as interesting as watching a coat of paint drying.Anyway, there are a quite few Ancient Near Eastern texts that have far superior genealogical data in them.Brian.

So Buz you say that it is neither "necessary, logical or possible" for you to do even a REASONABLE investigation of your own claim - not even checking the other sources that have been mentioned or even giving your criteria so anyone else can check (which COULD be so you can always invwent some excuse to disqualify any suggestions but more likely because you don't have any criteria at all).So llets look at your supposed "analogy" with Liberty University. You suspect that Liberty University has the best collection because it is an Evanglical school and a very big one (you may, however be wrong but at least you have some reasoning) What equivalent reasoning applies to the genealogies in the Bible ? None at all. So we are back to the situation where you claim that you are "obviouly" correct but in fact have no case at all.It is NOT obvious that you are correct and everyone here knows that. Every rational person that is.And that applies to the whole thing. You won't say what it is about the genealogies that means they should be accepted as fact rather than myth or legend. You won't deal with the other examples that have been raised. All you do is insist that you are right when it is quite obvious that you have no case.Like I said you have nothing other than empty bluster.

1. The difference is that the Bible claims to be established history with much established history in it. After all, that claim is a lot of what this thread is about. My understanding is that Tolkien made no claim to his geneologies, places and creatures being actually historical. Correct me if I'm wrong.2. Does anyone else seriously claim them to be historical?3. I checked your link and did some surfing on Middle Earth and saw no evidence that any of his books would equal the Bible, even if he did make claim to historicity.

I posted response to two of them and now have responded to Crashfrog the second time. You're being pushy. 1. Im either familiar with or looked at or read hundreds, maybe thousands texts in my 68 years of living.2. Perhaps I need to clarify my point/purpose of this debate. I believe the Bible to be superior in frequency and quantity of claimed historical geneological data, much of which is verifiable. Literature written as fiction is, after all, redundant to the thread's topic. The verifiable geneological information as well as fulfilled prophecies in it suggest otherwise. All time world's best seller, the majority of it's readers believing those geneologies to be true. Go figure. By the same token, schools of alleged science teach myths in colleges and universities everyday, trying to link certain observations to what they believe about what the universe was like 15 billion years ago. That leaves us at the impasse. I'm asking you to produce one. You're demanding that I research more than the hundred to thousands I'm already familiar enough with to stake a claim. Give me one sensible reason why any secular university should have reason to build space and expend all the money it would take to come any where near the evangelical books Liberty U has and we'll talk sense. With all due respect, moderator Brian, I believe you're abusing the rule here at my expense. You seem to be using this rule as a club whenever it becomes useful in ideological debate to your advantage, all the while, ignoring it elsewhere. Thousands. Am I now needing to go and count them because of forum rules? You're spinning. My claim is that no secular u has as many as Liberty U. To claim otherwise is nonsense and you know it. Why are you, the moderator, wasting our time as well as Percy's bandwith giving me this sensless hard time? Another spin. What is considered superior is relative to the reader and therefore not my claim. Think frequency and quantity of claimed historical geneological data.2;20 AM and I'm hanging it up for some shuteye. Have a good day.[This message has been edited by buzsaw, 02-29-2004]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't you ASK for an example of a fictional genealogy as detailed ? If so you can hardly discount Tolkien's work on the ground that it is fictional.Ands when are you going to produce a real argument ? You revived this thread but you've said nothing of significance yet.

Hi Buz, I didn’t say you hadn’t read any texts, but by your own admission you said that you hadn’t compared any non-biblical texts to the particular claim you are making. Reading ‘Gardeners World’ and comparing that to the Bible wouldn’t really count Buz. You still have to clarify it because I still have no idea what you are specifically arguing for. LOL, I have no desire to go onto the prophecy merry-go-round again Buz. For some reason you are replying to something that you posted. This is totally irrelevant. You haven’t researched a single text in relation to the argument that you are trying to make, you are contradicting yourself Buz. Well Buz there are many secular universities that were not always secular and many of these universities kept a divinity faculty and thus kept the books they had and added others to it. Glasgow University provides training for Church of Scotland trainee ministers, it offers Divinity Degrees, yet it is a secular uni. I am not moderator Brian, my member name is Brian, I am not talking to you in my role as moderator. Just because the going is getting tough Buz you don’t have to pull this desperate move. You have failed to research and support your claim, anyone can see that, you have been reading Demeyer too much. Asking someone to provide some evidence to support their claim is surely not an abuse, its an expectation. It isn’t to my advantage, it is to your advantage Buz! If you make a clam and then admit you haven’t researched it then you are at a disadvantage because no one will take your claim seriously until you provide some good evidence for it. Yes, hurry up, I’ll put the kettle on. Joking Well Buz as soon as you post the name of a secular uni with a religious/divinity department that has less books then your claim is unsupported. It may sound reasonable, but you don’t know if it is true or not. I don’t know it, see my Glasgow Uni as a reference. I am not a moderator, I am a forum member the same as you are. You are the only one who appears to think that this is senseless Buz, everyone else keeps waiting for you to say which texts you have compared the Bible to. What about accuracy, is that a factor?Tell you what Buz, open another thread, and in the OP try and word your argument in a way that we can all understand. Say exactly what it is you are getting at, then we can examine the evidence. I will thanks.Brian.

It not a wonder that so many creos leave off debate with some of you people who are so paranoid of the supernatural that you become unreasonable debaters under pressure but I'm leaving off with you in your folly concerning this matter. There comes a point when reasonable debate becomes impossible.

Paul, if I remember right, I didn't distinguish initially, but I clarified the point/purpose of my position since fictional would be redundant to the topic of the thread and rather than accept that, you want to remain contentious. Sorry, but I don't have time for a lot of
endless argument that serves nobody.

Yes, we are so unreasonable when we ask you to support a claim, we are so nasty when we ask creo's to actually support an argument. Not all creo's of course, because some creo's actually know how to support an argument, they actually do some research before they claim anything.The problem with the creo camp is that so many (not all) of them appear to be totally and utterly uneducated, and I am talking about basic core skills such as reading, writing and comprehension.So many appear to lack any understanding at all of how to have a discussion, simply claiming that something is true AND admitting you haven't researched it then thinking that you have a good argument is beyond my comprehension. What on earth does the supernatural have to do with biblical genealogies? The supernatural is not within the realms of scientific or historical research, how many times do you need to be told this? We are unreasonable because you cannot support a single thing you say, I must be missing something Buz, because you admitted that you hadn't looked into the subject and that makes us unreasonable! Guess that relieves you from the responsibility of actually looking into your claim.You know Buz, the Bible (OT) is an amazing collection of literature, I really do not think that I will ever become bored of studying it, but what Bible literalists do is to make a mockery of the Bible, taking it totally out of context and arguing like a 5 year old makes a lot of the sceptics' opinions of literalists much stronger.I believe that to truly appreciate the Bible, you have to look into the background of the societies that produced it and gain a good background knowledge of non-biblical texts, doing this makes the Bible a much more enjoyable experience.Using the Bible as some sort of holy gimmick is a horrendous abuse of one of the world's greatest collections of texts. People who constantly try to find archaeological and scientific evidence to support the Bible really havent got a clue what the Bible is all about.Their faith is so weak that their brains short circuit and they start to believe that if a dog can swallow a peanut then Jonah can be swallowed by a whale.You really are missing out on so much Buz, read the Bible sure, but try and understand why it was written, where it was written and when it was written. Think about why certain texts contradict each other, why are certain stories told time and again but with slightly different circumstances, why does the Bible not fit in very well with archaeological information, why does the Bible include the supernatural, why does it contain myths and legends? It is a wonderful collection of books, but you really don't know how wonderful it is. Well that really is a shame Buz, but if you think I will lower my level of expectations of what I believe a person should provide when they claim something, then I am not prepared to do that. The truth is, you were not asked to do anything unreasonable, all you were asked for was a tiny piece of evidence that you had compared the Bible to any other ancient text and you said you hadn't. I'd you find that unreasonable then there is nothing I can do about it.I sometimes enjoy your input, even although I do not agree with very much you say, but at least you are honest enough to stick to your personal beliefs. I suppose I have to admire you for that, but you have to understand that I personally cannot accept a statement with nothing to support it.Best wishes for the future.Brian.

Well I checked and in message 71 you said
"What fiction can you cite which bothers to give such detailed and generally monotonous family record as is found in the Bible?"So you did explicitly ask for fiction.And let me understand - you have plenty of time to produce empty bluster about how you are "obviously" right but none to explain what you are talking about. It is not at all obvious that the detail is any indicator of accuracy nor that the detail is greater than in any other sources.But all you do is rant about how unreasonable people are being for not accepting your unsupported opinion as absolute truth. I have no idea WHY you think people should just agree with you. Quite frankly you are walking all over the forum rules (rules 2, 4 and arguably 3 since you are attacking people for simply refusing to accept assertions you refuse to support). So it seems clear that you DO have the time to support your assertions - the time you are wasting posting empty bluster.