> Earning a Ph.D. in the sciences generally indicates that > some one is a scientist, which is why I said "reputable scientist". You're wrong and too proud to admit it. Read this, hopefully that settles it for you: Do Creationists Publish in Notable Refereed Journals?.
> You ignored... just to make your arithmetic work out. The arithmetic works out.
> How many variations did you try before you got it to work out? The beauty of what you're fighting is that it all converges. Other studies are saying the same thing (these papers were quoted here)
In fact, a number of recent studies on living populations have indeed come up with results which indicate a much higher rate of mutation in human mtDNA.... The review in Science's 'Research News' goes still further about Eve's date, saying that 'using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.' The article says about one of the teams of scientists (the Parsons team5) that 'evolutionary studies led them to expect about one mutation in 600 generations... they were "stunned" to find 10 base-pair changes, which gave them a rate of one mutation every 40 generations.'4... Loewe, L and Scherer, S. 'Mitochondrial Eve: the plot thickens.' Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 12(11):422-423, November 1997. Gibbons, A. 'Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock'. Science 279(5347):28-29, January 2, 1998.
> The Family tree article doesn't say that there > was only one family tree at 1415BC. Talk is cheap. As I said multiple times in those posts: Give me a reason how the study _disproves_ a single ancestor.
> As far as what Newton believed in. Alchemy, Astrology, > and Creationism were all appropriate for his time, > but just as Alchemy and Astrology have been relagated > to quaint history, so has creationism. I warned about slandering the dead. According to this article, Newton bought books on astrology, but was "soon convinced of the vanity & emptiness of the pretended science of Judicial astrology". As for alchemy, that was the chemistry of the day.
> You can read reputable to mean a scientist > working to increase knowledge in his field of study > and submitting his work for review by other scientists > in the same field of study. Generally, people don't get Ph.D. unless they publish.
> The 521 scientists named Steve that have signed the > statement supporting the age of the earth and evolution > statistically represent 52,100 scientists. Science isn't a democracy. The theory-of-the-day has to account for the evidence, or change.
> As far as some of your other "facts", dendrochronology using > crossdating for bristle-cone pines has documented a continuous > history for 8,200 years. Crossdating hopscotch again. I _had_ asked for a single tree and pointed to problems of crossdating.
> There even other older living things, for example, an > 11,000 year old creosote bush in the Mojave Desert, Evidence? As it turns out, all of the rest of your mentions were bushes, with age estimates based on _current_ rate of growth and _current_ weather conditions (assuming both persisted for thousands of years)...
Except for this one... > a 13,000 year old eucalyptus in Australia, Aha - could be there treerings in the one trunk then? Er, no... " grow 40 metres apart, may be part of the same original tree. If so, they are estimated to be 13,000 years old! If not, the individuals themselves may be 3,000 years old, making them Australia's oldest trees "
I've asked time and again for more than 5500 rings in one trunk. Actually, the Bible s
Re Newton: No less a scientist than Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), one of the greatest thinkers and most-respected scientists of all time (a serious Bible student and scientific creationist, by the way!), accepted Ussher's chronology and a 6,000-year-old Earth implicitly. link
Re: > You start out with a "Gish Gallop" Get specific please. What exactly have I said wrong?
Re: > any anything newer than the 16h century Long list here
I pointed to several pieces of evidence in my posts. Attempt to debunk what you want.
Regarding your contempt for "creation scientists":
"I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily".
"Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance"
You said: > > The "biblical" flood is actually just > > a retelling of a story from the epic of Gilgamesh;
I said: > No. Its the other way around.
I say: Sorry. That was a knee jerk statement - I retract it.
My earlier statement _should_ have read: "the Biblical account is accurate to the actual historical event. The Gilgamesh epic is not."
I conveyed another sense in my statement - that the Gilgamesh epic was copied from the Bible. That _is_ possible, but not the thrust of what I meant.
And the article I referred you gave reasons why the Gilgamesh epic makes little sense when compared to Genesis. For eg: the order of release of birds from the ark.
Now...
> Even if we accept that the bible (pentateuch) was written by Moses, > Christian scholars date it no earlier than 1550 BC, so Moses would > have been writing hundreds of years after the earliest > surviving Sumerian flood stories, and possibly as much as > a thousand years after the very earliest versions.
And where is the archeological evidence for these "earliest surviving Sumerian flood stories" and their contents? (I'm not disputing that they exists, I'm just asking for your evidence and how you know what's in them). The article just stated the Gilgamesh tablet were dated to 600 BC.
But...
> Simply rejecting the generally accepted circa 600 BC date > for the composition of the pentateuch gains Christians nothing in this debate, > because by their own reckoning the date at which Moses > wrote was considerably later than the well-established archeological > date for the Sumerian flood tales.... > Furthermore, Christians are in a bind, because if they > want to revise their date for Moses' composition of the > pentateuch they are admitting that they were utterly and > completely wrong in their earlier interpretation and will > have to provide some basis in fact as to why their earlier > claims were completely false and their new claims should > be given any credence.
One marathon sentence... but worthless.
> For a scientist, such revision is no big deal--science follows > evidence, and as we learn more we expect our beliefs to change.
That sarcasm would bite except...
Certain books in the Bible state the time period date they were written in: eg... "in the second year and third month of king XXX, I UUU wrote this..."
The Book of Genesis is not one of them
So it makes NO difference to Christians if Genesis was written in 1454 BC, 1809 BC or 1323 BC. We know it is ancient, and dates earlier than about 1000 BC. Indeed some people have proposed multiple ancient authors for Genesis, and the article obliquely supports that by stating how Genesis refers to cities not existing in Moses' day. If you read the description of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, this becomes even more obvious. The rivers and surrounds it describes correspond to _no_ known geographical area. It refers to the earth as being one supercontinent surrounded by sea (sound familiar?). About 1000 years later, the earth is ripped apart into continents by the flood.
> Religions try to re-interpret facts to be consistent with their faith, > which ultimately drives them to either ignore facts, or look stupid, or both.
Familiarity with the topic of discussion would make you less foolish.
In the creationist model the ice over Greenland and Antarctica builds rapidly for about 500 years during a rapid ice age (Oard, 1990). Then the amount of snowfall tapers off during the next 200 years of deglaciation.
They say that since the old-earth interpretation of ice cores assumes ancient layers of ice have been greatly compressed but point out that storms and other events can add thin layers. Quoting:
Besides subannual oscillation, other non-precipitation variables such as snow dunes, can add subannual layers.
Adding to the problems of making accurate measurements is the fact that cold or warm weather patterns can run in cycles, anywhere from a week to even a season. These cold or warm spells are typical today at any one place in the mid and high latitudes. These spells would also cause oscillations over periods of a month or longer (Shuman et al., 1995). So, there are any number of possible explanations for oscillations in the variables at smaller scales than the annual cycle. These are what the uniformitarian scientists are measuring as supposed annual cycles the deeper they go in the ice core.
The uniformitarian scientists do not believe these subannual cycles exist because of their assumed great compression of the ice sheet based on their old-Earth time scale.
I guess the reason why some people are eager to pass off the Biblical account as a bad copy of the recently discovered Gilgamesh epic (despite clear evidence to the opposite) is the influence of Christianity in their own lives. People generally don't like being told uncomfortable things by the Bible.
See my posting history for posts with more evidence.
Well, you would read about the evidence once you visited the websites and read the papers I linked to.
The second link you pointed to was a link to flood stories around the world:
Bhil (central India): Out of gratitude for the dhobi feeding it, a fish told a dhobi (a pious man) that a great deluge was coming. The man prepared a large box in which he embarked with his sister and a cock. After the flood, a messenger of Rama sent to find the state of affairs discovered the box by the cock's crowing. Rama had the box brought to him and questioned the man. Facing north, east, and west, the man swore that the woman was his sister; facing south, the man said she was his wife. Told that the fish gave the warning, Rama had the fish's tongue removed, and fish have been tongueless since. Rama ordered the man to repopulate the world, so he married his sister, and they had seven daughters and seven sons. The firstborn received a horse as a gift from Rama, but, being unable to ride, he instead went into the forest to cut wood, and so his descendants have been woodcutters to this day. [Gaster, pp. 95-96]
Kamar (Raipur District, Central India): A boy and girl were born to the first man and woman. God sent a deluge to destroy a jackal which had angered him. The man and woman heard it coming, so they shut their children in a hollow piece of wood with provisions to last until the flood subsides. The deluge came, and everything on earth was drowned. After twelve years, God created two birds and sent them to see if the jackal had been drowned. They saw nothing but a floating log and, landing on it, heard the children inside, who were saying to each other that they had only three days of provisions left. The birds told God, who caused the flood to subside, took the children from the log, and heard their story. In due time they were married. God gave each of their children the name of a different caste, and all people are descended from them. [Gaster, p. 96]
Assam (northeastern India): A flood once covered the whole world and drowned everyone except for one couple, who climbed up a tree on the highest peak of the Leng hill. In the morning, they discovered that they had been changed into a tiger and tigress. Seeing the sad state of the world, Pathian, the creator, sent a man and a woman from a cave on the hill. But as they emerged from the cave, they were terrified by the sight of the tigers. They prayed to the Creator for strength and killed the beasts. After that, they lived happily and repopulated the world. [Gaster, p. 97] ... Cherokee (Great Lakes area; eastern Tennessee): Day after day, a dog stood at the river bank and howled piteously. Rebuked by his master, the dog said a flood was coming, and he must build and provision a boat. Furthermore, the dog said, he must throw him, the dog, into the water. For a sign that he spoke the truth, the dog showed the back of his neck, which was raw and bare with flesh and bone showing. The man followed directions, and he and his family survived; from them, the present population is descended. [Gaster, pp. 116-117]
I think a few 'Best-of-2004' articles are better off published in January -- it lets them report on the full year and mitigates year-end marketing pressures. Hmmm...
While acknowledging the small brain size (380 cc, less than that of a chimp) and obvious differences with typical modern humans, he apparently stated that the remains were those of a member of the "Australomelanesid race, which had dwelled across almost all of the Indonesian islands." ... An article in Britain's Observer quotes Dr. Jacob as suggesting the abnormality known as microcephaly (in which a human is born with a lower brain size) was responsible for Flores man's small brain/skull size. ... Dr. Soejono was quoted as saying, "...we were able to find soft tissue so that we could carry out a DNA test. We couldn't do that if it was already a fossil." Interestingly, a media release posted by Australia's Southern Cross University, on 8 November 2004, suggests that the Flores (or Liang Bua, as the site is also known) people may have inhabited the island up to about "500 years ago."
My initial post also linked to this discussion which mentioned another interesting fact:
When facts like this keep popping up... Family trees share roots in 1415BC
Everyone alive today is descended from one person who lived about 3500 years ago, probably in Asia, a study has found. American researchers created elaborate mathematical models ... The results are published in the journal Nature.
[Link to article [smh.com.au]. (free subscription required]
So a catastrophic climate change took 5200 years ago?
Bible believers have been talking about an ice age taking place a few hundred years after a world-wide deluge took place 5000 years ago...
'After the Flood you would have both', says Mike. 'The water that the Bible indicates came from under the ground during the Flood would have been very warm or hot. This water mixing with the pre-Flood ocean would result in a significantly warmer ocean, right after the Flood, than today. Warmer water means more evaporation. So you have more moisture in the air available for storms, generating snow and ice at middle and upper latitudes, close to the developing ice sheets. And the ash and gases in the air is what gives the cooling of the summers.' All this, he points out, would have been like a 'loaded gun' at the end of the Flood. 'There would have been no way to delay it, an ice age just had to start.'... Mike Oard's calculations show that a likely estimate for when the Ice Age reached its maximum would have been around 500 years after the Flood, with about another 200 years to melt. He warns that this is only a 'ballpark' figure, which could vary by hundreds of years--'but that's still a short time for evolutionists.' [Link ]
You seem to have an open and fair mind. I hope you continue on this path.
I am a Christian fundamentalist, though the fundamental of the Christian faith is love: "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (http://bible.cc/galatians/5-14.htm). Some Christians lack love, and others lack faith in God's words in the Bible. And both are wrong in these things.
Jesus accused religious authorities of his day of "making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down." (http://bible.cc/mark/7-7.htm). Corrupt institutions like the Catholic church have the habit of doing the same in this age. To prevent being misled by "identity theft", one must examine what the scriptures themselves state.
I rememer reading about a person who worked in a high voltage testing facility. They would wear a chainmail-type suit made of metal and approach an electrode whose potential was at millions of volts above their own. Even before they touched the electrode, it would arc spectacularly. However, the person in the suit was not harmed since the current went through the metal suit.
I'd imagine something similar might be required for absolute lightning safety on such trips. After all, it is possible for thunderstorms to gather before the guy has a change to navigate to a safer area or altitude.
I also highly recommend this article which I just came across. It is a scholarly debate on "The Koran and Anti-Semitism" and involves Jewish, Christian and Islamic scholars.
On the second page of this article, the Jewish scholar says: I certainly do not deny the numerous borrowings of the Qur'an from Jewish and Christian scriptures. I only underlined their re-interpretation, and application in theological and legal constructions entirely unique to Islam. For instance the Hebrew Abraham is not the same as the Muslim Abraham who prepared to sacrify Ishmael (instead of Isaac), and built with him the Kaaba. And the same goes for other biblical figures mentioned in the Qur'an including Jesus, the Muslim prophet, Isa.
The Muslim scholar responds: To state that the Abraham of the Qur'an is not the Abraham of the Torah is so ridiculous that no scholar of repute would dare say something like that.
The Jewish scholar counter-responds: I am surprised by the diatribe provoked by my remark on the different identities of the people named in the Bible and in the Qur'an. The Qur'an states in several verses that they are the same people and therefore this is a matter of faith. But Professor Muhammad will allow Jews and Christians to have another view on their own Scriptures, and, in fact, most of their scholars do not adopt the Muslim interpretation, although there is a tendency now in interfaith dialogue to avoid the matter. I have created no new fact and I do not understand Prof. Muhammad's irritation if I say for instance, that King David was an Israelite King of Israel and not a Muslim prophet - although I do acknowledge this Muslim belief which I do not share.
My initial aim was to show the differences and fundamental distinctions between the Bible and the Koran. I hope I succeed in this.
Yes, different Muslim sects have different characteristics. The Sufis place an emphasis on mysticism and are relatively liberal compared to the Wahabis and other mainstream Muslim sects that place emphasis on literal enforcement of the Koran and the Hadith.
As you pointed out, this leaves us with the question of whether the Wahabis and their ilk are as wrong, as say, the Roman Catholic church was found to be in the enlightenment.
To answer this, I'll just point you to the fact the Koran encourages war and killing under certain circumstances. The New Covenant, which Christians are bound to, has no such encouragement - rather the encouragement is to "turn the other cheek". For instance, Paul and the persecuted Christians could have aimed to form a guerilla army to oppose Roman and Jewish persecution, but didn't - they decided to suffer persecution and left it to God to pay the persecutors back.
Mohammed on the other hand had no qualms about spreading Islam by the sword. Unlike the New Testament which is only concerned with spiritual matters and not with temporal power, the Koran and Hadith require the setup of an Islamic states with Islamic laws.
To see the fruits of this belief, consider that there are today no Jews in the Arabian peninsula. They were "cleansed" in Mohammads era. As this source reports, this violence is held as a sign of machismo in modern Muslim belief - here a modern Indonesian Islamic terrorist on trial taunts Jews about this historical battle from Mohammed's era.
This is responsible for outrages in this day and age like: -- terrorist murders and bombings (like the Indonesian one above) -- suicide bombings -- murders and the ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Hindu Pandits from Kashmir valley
(which used to be a stronghold of Sufism) -- 9/11 -- Beslan -- decapitation of aid workers and other non-combatants in Iraq
Let me leave you with these quotes from the Koran sourced from here. I'm sorry, I do not have a copy of the Koran easily available now, so I cannot verify them readily. However, they tie in with what we discussed this far.
Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme." (Koran 8:37)
The Koran instructs not to make friendship with Jews and Christians (Koran 5:51) but to war against them: "When the Sacred Months are over, kill those who ascribe partners to God wheresoever ye find them; seize them, encompass them, and ambush them; then if they repent and observe prayer and pay the alms, let them go their way (Koran 4:5). "Fight against those who believe not in God nor in the Last Day, who... refuse allegiance to the True Faith from among those who have received the Book, until they humbly pay tribute out of hand." (Koran 9:29) Note: These verses distinguish between warfare against pagans, and against Jews and Christians.
"...kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (Koran 2:191); "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (Koran 9:5); "murder them and treat them harshly" (Koran 9:123).
"Seize ye him, and bind ye him, And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire. Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length is seventy cubits! This was he that would not believe in Allah Most High. And would not encourage the feeding of the indigent! So no friend hath he here this Day. Nor hath he any food except the corruption from the washing of wounds, Which none do eat but those in sin." (Koran 69:30-37)
"Strike off the heads of the disbelievers"; and after making a "wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" (Koran 47:4).
"Instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers"; "smite above their nec
I read somewhere that 10% or less of lightening actually strikes the ground; most is within clouds itself.
Aircraft have metal skins, so I think the passengers in them are protected from such strikes.
Does this guy have any protection besides not going out on an overcase day? I imagine he would be more conductive than moist air, so his body would be in preferred over air as the path of a nearby lightening bolt. I guess one mitigation is if he wore some sore of conductive clothing.
Thanks for the correction, it's the Hadith (sayings and teaching of Mohammed), and not the Koran, that seem to mention stoning. However, both comprise Islamic law.
For adultery, the Koran says: Chapter 24 of Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, explicitly instructs believers to whip those found guilty of adultery. quoting from here
As for apostacy, here's quoting from Answering Islam website A. The Proof from the Qur'an for the Commandment to Execute the Apostate
Here I wish briefly to offer proof that will quiet the doubt in the hearts of those who, for lack of sources of information, may think that perhaps the punishment of death did not exist in Islam but was added at a later time by the "mawlawis" (religious leaders) on their own.
God Most High declares in the Qur'an:
But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then are they your brethren in religion. We detail our revelations for a people who have knowledge. And if they break their pledges after their treaty (hath been made with you) and assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief -- Lo! they have no binding oaths in order that they may desist. (9:11,12)[1]
The following is the occasion for the revelation of this verse: During the pilgrimage (hajj) in A.H. 9 God Most High ordered a proclamation of an immunity. By virtue of this proclamation all those who, up to that time, were fighting against God and His Apostle and were attempting to obstruct the way of God's religion through all kinds of excesses and false covenants, were granted from that time a maximum respite of four months. During this period they were to ponder their own situation. If they wanted to accept Islam, they could accept it and they would be forgiven. If they wanted to leave the country, they could leave. Within this fixed period nothing would hinder them from leaving. Thereafter those remaining, who would neither accept Islam nor leave the country, would be dealt with by the sword. In this connection it was said: "If they repent and uphold the practice of prayer and almsgiving, then they are your brothers in religion. If after this, however, they break their covenant, then war should be waged against the leaders of kufr (infidelity). Here "covenant breaking" in no way can be construed to mean "breaking of political covenants". Rather, the context clearly determines its meaning to be "confessing Islam and then renouncing it". Thereafter the meaning of "fight the heads of disbelief" (9:11,12) can only mean that war should be waged against the leaders instigating apostasy.[2]
B. Proof from the Hadith (Canonical Tradition) for the Commandment to Execute the Apostate
After the Qur'an we turn to the Hadith. This is the command of the Prophet:
1. Any person (i.e., Muslim) who has changed his religion, kill him.[3]
This tradition has been narrated by Abu Bakr, Uthman, Ali, Muadh ibn Jabal, Abu Musa Ashari, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Khalid ibn Walid and a number of other Companions, and is found in all the authentic Hadith collections.
You can certainly blame the Indian Govt. for their corruption, lack of regulation, for not helping the survivors enough, for essentially pocketing most of the compensation,
BUT... blame for the tragedy is primarily on UCC.
> That business in India could have easily been located in the United States, Not so "easily" when it was selling the factory's output to India itself. Take off your outsourcing goggles please!
> If you want to prevent Bhopals, insist that foreign > governments have rules to make companies paying the same wages > and same safety standards as their western counterparts. Same standards, sure, by all means. As for equivalent wages, would you like to impose them on Americans workers _exporting_ to Bangladesh?
> But your point about the hostality is wrong. Actually throughout most > of history, the presecuted Jewish people found safety with the Muslims.... > The "conflict" started after one of the world wars,
That is wishful thinking on your part. Jews were much persecuted under Islamic rule as well. As this link documents:
When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results: On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.
Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.(6)
Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830 and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.(7)
Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).(8)
Jews were persecuted in the middle-east, north Africa, and in Europe. IIRC, one of the few countries where Jews were not persecuted is India (specifically South india), where a small Jewish population has existed since 300-500 AD.
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eminent domain.
> Earning a Ph.D. in the sciences generally indicates that
... just to make your arithmetic work out.
... ... they were "stunned" to find 10 base-pair changes, which gave them a rate of one mutation every 40 generations.'4 ...
> some one is a scientist, which is why I said "reputable scientist".
You're wrong and too proud to admit it. Read this, hopefully that settles it for you: Do Creationists Publish in Notable Refereed Journals?.
> You ignored
The arithmetic works out.
> How many variations did you try before you got it to work out?
The beauty of what you're fighting is that it all converges. Other studies are saying the same thing (these papers were quoted here)
In fact, a number of recent studies on living populations have indeed come up with results which indicate a much higher rate of mutation in human mtDNA.
The review in Science's 'Research News' goes still further about Eve's date, saying that 'using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.' The article says about one of the teams of scientists (the Parsons team5) that 'evolutionary studies led them to expect about one mutation in 600 generations
Loewe, L and Scherer, S. 'Mitochondrial Eve: the plot thickens.' Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 12(11):422-423, November 1997.
Gibbons, A. 'Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock'. Science 279(5347):28-29, January 2, 1998.
> The Family tree article doesn't say that there
> was only one family tree at 1415BC.
Talk is cheap. As I said multiple times in those posts:
Give me a reason how the study _disproves_ a single ancestor.
> As far as what Newton believed in. Alchemy, Astrology,
> and Creationism were all appropriate for his time,
> but just as Alchemy and Astrology have been relagated
> to quaint history, so has creationism.
I warned about slandering the dead. According to this article, Newton bought books on astrology, but was "soon convinced of the vanity & emptiness of the pretended science of Judicial astrology". As for alchemy, that was the chemistry of the day.
> You can read reputable to mean a scientist
> working to increase knowledge in his field of study
> and submitting his work for review by other scientists
> in the same field of study.
Generally, people don't get Ph.D. unless they publish.
> The 521 scientists named Steve that have signed the
> statement supporting the age of the earth and evolution
> statistically represent 52,100 scientists.
Science isn't a democracy. The theory-of-the-day has to account for the evidence, or change.
> As far as some of your other "facts", dendrochronology using
> crossdating for bristle-cone pines has documented a continuous
> history for 8,200 years.
Crossdating hopscotch again. I _had_ asked for a single tree and pointed to problems of crossdating.
> There even other older living things, for example, an
> 11,000 year old creosote bush in the Mojave Desert,
Evidence? As it turns out, all of the rest of your mentions were bushes, with age estimates based on _current_ rate of growth and _current_ weather conditions (assuming both persisted for thousands of years)...
Except for this one...
> a 13,000 year old eucalyptus in Australia,
Aha - could be there treerings in the one trunk then? Er, no...
" grow 40 metres apart, may be part of the same original tree. If so, they are estimated to be 13,000 years old! If not, the individuals themselves may be 3,000 years old, making them Australia's oldest trees "
I've asked time and again for more than 5500 rings in one trunk. Actually, the Bible s
My earliest post:
...
... was in the 1800's.
3 Papers + more info
A later one was:
Family trees share roots in 1415BC
Pick _anything_ that _I_ (and not answersingenesis.org) said wrong - show me how.
Re:
> Isaac Newton also believed in
Now that we've settled on what Newton believed about _creation_, there is quite some slander about him.
Re:
> The last reputable scientist that defended wholesale creation
Doens't earning a Ph.D. in the sciences make one a scientist? Creation scientists and other biographies of interest
Re Newton:
No less a scientist than Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), one of the greatest thinkers and most-respected scientists of all time (a serious Bible student and scientific creationist, by the way!), accepted Ussher's chronology and a 6,000-year-old Earth implicitly.
link
Re:
> You start out with a "Gish Gallop"
Get specific please. What exactly have I said wrong?
Re:
> any anything newer than the 16h century
Long list here
I pointed to several pieces of evidence in my posts. Attempt to debunk what you want.
Regarding your contempt for "creation scientists":
"I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily".
"Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance"
-- Isaac Newton
You said:
...
... but worthless.
..."
> > The "biblical" flood is actually just
> > a retelling of a story from the epic of Gilgamesh;
I said:
> No. Its the other way around.
I say: Sorry. That was a knee jerk statement - I retract it.
My earlier statement _should_ have read:
"the Biblical account is accurate to the actual historical event. The Gilgamesh epic is not."
I conveyed another sense in my statement - that the Gilgamesh epic was copied from the Bible. That _is_ possible, but not the thrust of what I meant.
And the article I referred you gave reasons why the Gilgamesh epic makes little sense when compared to Genesis. For eg: the order of release of birds from the ark.
Now...
> Even if we accept that the bible (pentateuch) was written by Moses,
> Christian scholars date it no earlier than 1550 BC, so Moses would
> have been writing hundreds of years after the earliest
> surviving Sumerian flood stories, and possibly as much as
> a thousand years after the very earliest versions.
And where is the archeological evidence for these "earliest surviving Sumerian flood stories" and their contents? (I'm not disputing that they exists, I'm just asking for your evidence and how you know what's in them). The article just stated the Gilgamesh tablet were dated to 600 BC.
But...
> Simply rejecting the generally accepted circa 600 BC date
> for the composition of the pentateuch gains Christians nothing in this debate,
> because by their own reckoning the date at which Moses
> wrote was considerably later than the well-established archeological
> date for the Sumerian flood tales.
> Furthermore, Christians are in a bind, because if they
> want to revise their date for Moses' composition of the
> pentateuch they are admitting that they were utterly and
> completely wrong in their earlier interpretation and will
> have to provide some basis in fact as to why their earlier
> claims were completely false and their new claims should
> be given any credence.
One marathon sentence
> For a scientist, such revision is no big deal--science follows
> evidence, and as we learn more we expect our beliefs to change.
That sarcasm would bite except...
Certain books in the Bible state the time period date they were written in: eg... "in the second year and third month of king XXX, I UUU wrote this
The Book of Genesis is not one of them
So it makes NO difference to Christians if Genesis was written in 1454 BC, 1809 BC or 1323 BC. We know it is ancient, and dates earlier than about 1000 BC. Indeed some people have proposed multiple ancient authors for Genesis, and the article obliquely supports that by stating how Genesis refers to cities not existing in Moses' day. If you read the description of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, this becomes even more obvious. The rivers and surrounds it describes correspond to _no_ known geographical area. It refers to the earth as being one supercontinent surrounded by sea (sound familiar?). About 1000 years later, the earth is ripped apart into continents by the flood.
> Religions try to re-interpret facts to be consistent with their faith,
> which ultimately drives them to either ignore facts, or look stupid, or both.
Familiarity with the topic of discussion would make you less foolish.
> that people are capable of incredible feats of denial of reality and cognative dissonance.
Well, tortured phrases aside, if you have something substantative to say, say it.
Do Greenland ice cores show over one hundred thousand years of annual layers? They say that since the old-earth interpretation of ice cores assumes ancient layers of ice have been greatly compressed but point out that storms and other events can add thin layers. Quoting
> The "biblical" flood is actually just a retelling of a story from the epic of Gilgamesh;
No. Its the other way around..
> as such, it likely refers to the flooding of the Persian gulf.
Both the book of Genesis in the Bible and the epic of Gilgamesh, as well as other cultures like these Indian ones and Native American -- all these claim a global flood for which there is evidence.
I guess the reason why some people are eager to pass off the Biblical account as a bad copy of the recently discovered Gilgamesh epic (despite clear evidence to the opposite) is the influence of Christianity in their own lives. People generally don't like being told uncomfortable things by the Bible.
See my posting history for posts with more evidence.
The second link you pointed to was a link to flood stories around the world:
This article reports about the "hobbit":
I am still waiting for a tree with more than 5500 tree-rings in its trunk as I requested in that discussion.
I have no comment on ice cores - I don't understand how they are estimated.
See papers mentioned here for more evidence.
My initial post also linked to this discussion which mentioned another interesting fact:[Link to article [smh.com.au]. (free subscription required]
Their date is 200 years after the Biblical flood. Take a look at this post for some information on how it corroborates the Bible.
So a catastrophic climate change took 5200 years ago?
...
Bible believers have been talking about an ice age taking place a few hundred years after a world-wide deluge took place 5000 years ago...
'After the Flood you would have both', says Mike. 'The water that the Bible indicates came from under the ground during the Flood would have been very warm or hot. This water mixing with the pre-Flood ocean would result in a significantly warmer ocean, right after the Flood, than today. Warmer water means more evaporation. So you have more moisture in the air available for storms, generating snow and ice at middle and upper latitudes, close to the developing ice sheets. And the ash and gases in the air is what gives the cooling of the summers.' All this, he points out, would have been like a 'loaded gun' at the end of the Flood. 'There would have been no way to delay it, an ice age just had to start.'
Mike Oard's calculations show that a likely estimate for when the Ice Age reached its maximum would have been around 500 years after the Flood, with about another 200 years to melt. He warns that this is only a 'ballpark' figure, which could vary by hundreds of years--'but that's still a short time for evolutionists.'
[Link ]
Global ice age information
Link to discussion of other evidence...
Dictionary Definition of an Athlete:a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina
"Motor Sports"
"Video Games"
You seem to have an open and fair mind. I hope you continue on this path.
I am a Christian fundamentalist, though the fundamental of the Christian faith is love: "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (http://bible.cc/galatians/5-14.htm). Some Christians lack love, and others lack faith in God's words in the Bible. And both are wrong in these things.
Jesus accused religious authorities of his day of "making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down." (http://bible.cc/mark/7-7.htm). Corrupt institutions like the Catholic church have the habit of doing the same in this age. To prevent being misled by "identity theft", one must examine what the scriptures themselves state.
I rememer reading about a person who worked in a high voltage testing facility. They would wear a chainmail-type suit made of metal and approach an electrode whose potential was at millions of volts above their own. Even before they touched the electrode, it would arc spectacularly. However, the person in the suit was not harmed since the current went through the metal suit.
I'd imagine something similar might be required for absolute lightning safety on such trips. After all, it is possible for thunderstorms to gather before the guy has a change to navigate to a safer area or altitude.
I also highly recommend this article which I just came across. It is a scholarly debate on "The Koran and Anti-Semitism" and involves Jewish, Christian and Islamic scholars.
On the second page of this article, the Jewish scholar says:
I certainly do not deny the numerous borrowings of the Qur'an from Jewish and Christian scriptures. I only underlined their re-interpretation, and application in theological and legal constructions entirely unique to Islam. For instance the Hebrew Abraham is not the same as the Muslim Abraham who prepared to sacrify Ishmael (instead of Isaac), and built with him the Kaaba. And the same goes for other biblical figures mentioned in the Qur'an including Jesus, the Muslim prophet, Isa.
The Muslim scholar responds:
To state that the Abraham of the Qur'an is not the Abraham of the Torah is so ridiculous that no scholar of repute would dare say something like that.
The Jewish scholar counter-responds:
I am surprised by the diatribe provoked by my remark on the different identities of the people named in the Bible and in the Qur'an. The Qur'an states in several verses that they are the same people and therefore this is a matter of faith. But Professor Muhammad will allow Jews and Christians to have another view on their own Scriptures, and, in fact, most of their scholars do not adopt the Muslim interpretation, although there is a tendency now in interfaith dialogue to avoid the matter. I have created no new fact and I do not understand Prof. Muhammad's irritation if I say for instance, that King David was an Israelite King of Israel and not a Muslim prophet - although I do acknowledge this Muslim belief which I do not share.
My initial aim was to show the differences and fundamental distinctions between the Bible and the Koran. I hope I succeed in this.
Yes, different Muslim sects have different characteristics. The Sufis place an emphasis on mysticism and are relatively liberal compared to the Wahabis and other mainstream Muslim sects that place emphasis on literal enforcement of the Koran and the Hadith.
As you pointed out, this leaves us with the question of whether the Wahabis and their ilk are as wrong, as say, the Roman Catholic church was found to be in the enlightenment.
To answer this, I'll just point you to the fact the Koran encourages war and killing under certain circumstances. The New Covenant, which Christians are bound to, has no such encouragement - rather the encouragement is to "turn the other cheek". For instance, Paul and the persecuted Christians could have aimed to form a guerilla army to oppose Roman and Jewish persecution, but didn't - they decided to suffer persecution and left it to God to pay the persecutors back.
Mohammed on the other hand had no qualms about spreading Islam by the sword. Unlike the New Testament which is only concerned with spiritual matters and not with temporal power, the Koran and Hadith require the setup of an Islamic states with Islamic laws.
To see the fruits of this belief, consider that there are today no Jews in the Arabian peninsula. They were "cleansed" in Mohammads era. As this source reports, this violence is held as a sign of machismo in modern Muslim belief - here a modern Indonesian Islamic terrorist on trial taunts Jews about this historical battle from Mohammed's era.
This is responsible for outrages in this day and age like:
-- terrorist murders and bombings (like the Indonesian one above)
-- suicide bombings
-- murders and the ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Hindu Pandits from Kashmir valley
(which used to be a stronghold of Sufism)
-- 9/11
-- Beslan
-- decapitation of aid workers and other non-combatants in Iraq
Let me leave you with these quotes from the Koran sourced from here. I'm sorry, I do not have a copy of the Koran easily available now, so I cannot verify them readily. However, they tie in with what we discussed this far.
Make war on them until idolatry is no more and Allah's religion reigns supreme." (Koran 8:37)
The Koran instructs not to make friendship with Jews and Christians (Koran 5:51) but to war against them: "When the Sacred Months are over, kill those who ascribe partners to God wheresoever ye find them; seize them, encompass them, and ambush them; then if they repent and observe prayer and pay the alms, let them go their way (Koran 4:5). "Fight against those who believe not in God nor in the Last Day, who... refuse allegiance to the True Faith from among those who have received the Book, until they humbly pay tribute out of hand." (Koran 9:29) Note: These verses distinguish between warfare against pagans, and against Jews and Christians.
"...kill the disbelievers wherever we find them" (Koran 2:191); "fight and slay the Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (Koran 9:5); "murder them and treat them harshly" (Koran 9:123).
"Seize ye him, and bind ye him, And burn ye him in the Blazing Fire. Further, make him march in a chain, whereof the length is seventy cubits! This was he that would not believe in Allah Most High. And would not encourage the feeding of the indigent! So no friend hath he here this Day. Nor hath he any food except the corruption from the washing of wounds, Which none do eat but those in sin." (Koran 69:30-37)
"Strike off the heads of the disbelievers"; and after making a "wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" (Koran 47:4).
"Instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers"; "smite above their nec
> a balloonist should be concerned about lightning, too.
:)
Thanks for the correction.
I read somewhere that 10% or less of lightening actually strikes the ground; most is within clouds itself.
Aircraft have metal skins, so I think the passengers in them are protected from such strikes.
Does this guy have any protection besides not going out on an overcase day? I imagine he would be more conductive than moist air, so his body would be in preferred over air as the path of a nearby lightening bolt. I guess one mitigation is if he wore some sore of conductive clothing.
Thanks for the correction, it's the Hadith (sayings and teaching of Mohammed), and not the Koran, that seem to mention stoning. However, both comprise Islamic law.
For adultery, the Koran says:
Chapter 24 of Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, explicitly instructs believers to whip those found guilty of adultery.
quoting from here
As for apostacy, here's quoting from Answering Islam website
A. The Proof from the Qur'an for the Commandment to Execute the Apostate
Here I wish briefly to offer proof that will quiet the doubt in the hearts of those who, for lack of sources of information, may think that perhaps the punishment of death did not exist in Islam but was added at a later time by the "mawlawis" (religious leaders) on their own.
God Most High declares in the Qur'an:
But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then are they your brethren in religion. We detail our revelations for a people who have knowledge. And if they break their pledges after their treaty (hath been made with you) and assail your religion, then fight the heads of disbelief -- Lo! they have no binding oaths in order that they may desist. (9:11,12)[1]
The following is the occasion for the revelation of this verse: During the pilgrimage (hajj) in A.H. 9 God Most High ordered a proclamation of an immunity. By virtue of this proclamation all those who, up to that time, were fighting against God and His Apostle and were attempting to obstruct the way of God's religion through all kinds of excesses and false covenants, were granted from that time a maximum respite of four months. During this period they were to ponder their own situation. If they wanted to accept Islam, they could accept it and they would be forgiven. If they wanted to leave the country, they could leave. Within this fixed period nothing would hinder them from leaving. Thereafter those remaining, who would neither accept Islam nor leave the country, would be dealt with by the sword. In this connection it was said: "If they repent and uphold the practice of prayer and almsgiving, then they are your brothers in religion. If after this, however, they break their covenant, then war should be waged against the leaders of kufr (infidelity). Here "covenant breaking" in no way can be construed to mean "breaking of political covenants". Rather, the context clearly determines its meaning to be "confessing Islam and then renouncing it". Thereafter the meaning of "fight the heads of disbelief" (9:11,12) can only mean that war should be waged against the leaders instigating apostasy.[2]
B. Proof from the Hadith (Canonical Tradition) for the Commandment to Execute the Apostate
After the Qur'an we turn to the Hadith. This is the command of the Prophet:
1. Any person (i.e., Muslim) who has changed his religion, kill him.[3]
This tradition has been narrated by Abu Bakr, Uthman, Ali, Muadh ibn Jabal, Abu Musa Ashari, Abdullah ibn Abbas, Khalid ibn Walid and a number of other Companions, and is found in all the authentic Hadith collections.
You can certainly blame the Indian Govt. for their corruption, lack of regulation, for not helping the survivors enough, for essentially pocketing most of the compensation,
BUT... blame for the tragedy is primarily on UCC.
> That business in India could have easily been located in the United States,
Not so "easily" when it was selling the factory's output to India itself. Take off your outsourcing goggles please!
> If you want to prevent Bhopals, insist that foreign
> governments have rules to make companies paying the same wages
> and same safety standards as their western counterparts.
Same standards, sure, by all means. As for equivalent wages, would you like to impose them on Americans workers _exporting_ to Bangladesh?
> But your point about the hostality is wrong. Actually throughout most ...
> of history, the presecuted Jewish people found safety with the Muslims.
> The "conflict" started after one of the world wars,
That is wishful thinking on your part. Jews were much persecuted under Islamic rule as well.
As this link documents:
When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results: On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.
Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.(6)
Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830 and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.(7)
Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).(8)
Jews were persecuted in the middle-east, north Africa, and in Europe.
IIRC, one of the few countries where Jews were not persecuted is India (specifically South india), where a small Jewish population has existed since 300-500 AD.
Well, you said it, not me. Sad to know that's how your mind works. :-/