Origin of Language = Epic Evolution/Atheist FAIL!
Offline Here is something I find quite puzzling. If God did not create us, and we evolve from other creatures, how did our languages come into existance? The world is full of many rich cultures complete with an unique linguistic form of language following an agreed set of rules. So who created the rules, the sounds, and how did this person or evolutionary ancestor get others to understand and agree with the rules? THis is obviously a huge leap from the primitive grunts and noises that other animal species make. Yes, primates can communicate on a basic level. But they can't verbalize into words, or express complete sentences conveying abstract ideas.
How would you convey to a fellow creature a metaphorical or philosophical question when there is no foundation for language? You can point to objects and make a noise, but that only gets you so far in language. The same problem exists for creating a written language.
Even if evolutionary linguists can come up with a plausible explanation, there remains one big problem. Why don't we all speak the same language?
Another issue is you don't see any transitional forms with anything resembling our complex voice box anatomy. Why did we evolve to have this feature? What was the enviromental factors that separated our genetic line from other animals and created the need for a voice box? I would be more convinced if someone found a fossil that contained at least a primitive form of a voice box.
Sure, there are a number of theories, but they are pretty weak sauce with zero supporting evidence.
OTOH, the Bible perfectly explains how language and culture came into being. Man began with an universal language after the Flood with Noah. Then after the man started building the tower of Babel, God confused the languages which scattered people all over the earth. This also explains why we find global myth stories with many details striking similiar to the Bible's account. They infused their own language and culture into the original story.
Yep, I'll take the truth of the Bible over fallible man's theories anytime.
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Offline Flood:
Ok, other folk stories don't count. any form of geological evidence would be interesting... a world flood would surely have produced this all over the place.
Babel:
Archeological evidence - ooh, that would certainly count - do you have some? I'd love to see Archeological evidence for a tower being destroyed by god. Or maybe a site where there's Archeological evidence near where you surmise the tower to have been that shows the Mayan language? Or any archeological evidence at all from the time of Babel that shows the language of English? If languages didn't evolve, then some of the scattered people must have started talking English around this time. Any evidence at all for a modern language imprinted on a tablet or something that is dated to around that time found anywhere in the world would be wonderful.
Do you have anything like this? (Or anything else noteworthy - I promise to consider anything you cite as evidence.. that doesn't come from the Bible or folklore...)
Shoot!
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Offline This topic has become a comedy. A tragic comedy, but a comedy nonetheless.
I don't suppose Old Seer saw my follow-up questions. > >
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
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Offline Flood:
Ok, other folk stories don't count. any form of geological evidence would be interesting... a world flood would surely have produced this all over the place.
Babel:
Archeological evidence - ooh, that would certainly count - do you have some? I'd love to see Archeological evidence for a tower being destroyed by god. Or maybe a site where there's Archeological evidence near where you surmise the tower to have been that shows the Mayan language? Or any archeological evidence at all from the time of Babel that shows the language of English? If languages didn't evolve, then some of the scattered people must have started talking English around this time. Any evidence at all for a modern language imprinted on a tablet or something that is dated to around that time found anywhere in the world would be wonderful.
Do you have anything like this? (Or anything else noteworthy - I promise to consider anything you cite as evidence.. that doesn't come from the Bible or folklore...)
Shoot!
Well if the tower was destroyed, why would you expect ruins to exist? Nebuchadnezzar did make an attempt to rebuild the tower, and spoke of it's former destruction:
"A former king built it, (they reckon 42 ages) but he did not
complete its head.
Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without
order expressing their words.
Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed
the sun-dried clay.
The bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great god, excited my mind to repair this building."
No wonder such a tower doesn't exist anymore. Funny, the Hanging Gardens don't exist either, but atheists will accept without question that this was once a wonder of the world! Now if you think king Nebuchadnezzar is lying, why did the Greek historian Herodotus also write about the tower? At the very least, this proves that a rebuild effort of a great tower took place in ancient Babylon.
Also, there are mud brick foundations existing in Iraq that may be part of the tower.
Futhermore, the English language arrived from other ancestoral languages so there is no way English would have been the universal language at the tower.. Maybe you've been watching too much Star Trek.
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Offline 1) It gives more credibility to the Bible's account of the Flood. Or will you argue that it is just a mere concidence that there are dozens of cultures all over the world with flood stories containing striking similarities to Genesis account?
2) Obviously, things changed after Jesus Christ paid the sin penalty for all mankind. God is willing and patient to wait as long as possible to allow people to escape judgement.
3)Really, well apparently those primitive people had foreknowledge about how to prevent spread of infectious diseases, healthy food choices, the number of stars exceeding a billion, the water cycle, the earth is suspended in space, just to name a few. Please share exactly what the Bible did get wrong!
1) The Epic of Gilgamesh story is the oldest so it details would be more accurate and the author of genesis has plagarized the true gods - you should be worshipping Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, Ea and not Jehovah, Elohim and Jesus. oh yeah and the Holy Spirit. The flood stories were all around cities that were near rivers known to flood. So the floods were local. The big problem with Noah's story is how did the kangaroos (and other marsupials) wind up in Australia, but no fossils are anywhere to be found from Mt Ararat to Australia. The bible knows nothing of continental drift and wouldn't have the time to spread as far as it did in 6,000 years if your are YEC.
2) So Jesus got worse after he died and paid the penalty. He is tolerating much worse things. Sounds pretty insane to me. How many much more suffering of man and animals must go on to satisfy his blood thirst? Did he get really pissed after his bad weekend and wants more life to suffer?
3a) Please identify how the Jews knew how to prevent the spread of diseases?
3a-1) Not eating pork? That certainly would be know to nomadic people after a number of people died.
3a-2) If someone has some infectious disease (Lev 14:1-13) he goes to the priest and the priest sends him out of town. I think most people would avoid such a person. After 8 days, the guy comes back and then if he is healthy the priest throws blood on him. Then after 7 days he does it again putting blood on his ear. Why don't do that today...duh...It can cause more disease.
3a-3) For bad mold to spread close up the house for 7 days and if it ain't gone, remove the stones (Leviticus 14: 33-57). Not too brilliant. Then if the house is clean sprinkle blood around. That ain't healthy. If it is so smart why don't we do that today? We have far better ways to handle mold and using blood is not in the mix.
3b) - Where does the bible say there are more than a billion stars? I don't recall that word being in the bible. Unicorns yes, Billions no.
3c) - what water cycle? Text please.
3d-1) - The earth suspended in space. The bible largely has cosmology wrong. That is why for centuries Christians believed in geocentrism and persecuted those who believed otherwise. You would agree with them if you lived at that time and today now that they cannot deny the scientific facts Christians twist bible text to fit the current understanding of cosmology. That is quite common with Christianity and Islam for that matter. Deny, deny, deny until you can't anymore and then change but pretend the bible has said that all along. Remember science can be wrong and willingly adjusts. The bible cannot be wrong even once. But, the bible is literature and not a scientific book. Due to that it contradicts itself and can easily be twisted to fit anyone' viewpoint. That is why there are over 10k Christian denominations. Religion is divergent. Science is convergent. Science moves towards concensus. It really is a tough spot for Christians to always have to be right.
3d-2)Job 25:7 He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.
This one is probably the only one that you could hang your hat on, but in verse 11 it refers to the "pillars of the heavens quake aghast at his rebuke". You can see lots of poetry. I think this one can be explained as a reference to air. But how do you reconcile this text - Job 9:6 God shakes the earth and makes its pillars to tremble
3d-3) Then there is the whole list of these which contradict the one text
Four corners of the earth: Isaiah 11:12
God shakes the earth by its edges to shake out the wicked: Job 38:12-13
Ends of the earth: Jeremiah 16:19
3d-4) The sun goes around the earth: Ps 19:4-6 (note the sun runs its course, not the earth); Ecclesiastes 1:5; Joshua 10
3d-5) Heaven is a dome above the flat earth, a canopy/tent above a flat earth: Isaiah 40:22. The bible had a concept of a sphere as found in Isaiah 22:18, but Isaiah 40:22 did not use that concept.
3d-6) The devil takes Jesus to a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the earth: Matthew 4:8 (also Dan 4:10-11). Explain which mountain would see the entire world? Even from the moon you cannot see all the kingdoms of the earth.
3d-7) The earth does not move: Psalm 104:5, Psalm 93:1; Psalm 96:10; 1 Chronicles 16:30. The earth moves about in every direction possible. The earth is spinning on its axis at about 1000 miles at hour at the equator. The earth is moving around the sun about 20 miles a second. Being part of the solar system is is moving around the galaxy and takes about 250 million years to make one rotation. The continents are drifting about an inch or so a year. At the molecular level everything is moving.
=== Extra credit ===
4) How does this genetically work? Something undiscovered?
Genesis 30:37-39
Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.
5) Numbers 5:11-29
Recipe for biblical curse
a) Holy Water b) Dirt from Temple floor (c) Biblical ink, charcoal powder mixed with gum
In a sacred clay jar mix holy water with dirt. Write curse on scroll with biblical ink. Rinse scroll in the bowl until the curse has been washed off. Serve cold.
Serves 1 suspected adulterous woman
Can you explain how this works? How does holy water, dirt from the temp floor and biblical ink identifies an unfaithful wife by causing here belly to swell if true
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
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Offline GodsUseForAMosquito wrote:Flood:
Ok, other folk stories don't count. any form of geological evidence would be interesting... a world flood would surely have produced this all over the place.
Babel:
Archeological evidence - ooh, that would certainly count - do you have some? I'd love to see Archeological evidence for a tower being destroyed by god. Or maybe a site where there's Archeological evidence near where you surmise the tower to have been that shows the Mayan language? Or any archeological evidence at all from the time of Babel that shows the language of English? If languages didn't evolve, then some of the scattered people must have started talking English around this time. Any evidence at all for a modern language imprinted on a tablet or something that is dated to around that time found anywhere in the world would be wonderful.
Do you have anything like this? (Or anything else noteworthy - I promise to consider anything you cite as evidence.. that doesn't come from the Bible or folklore...)
Shoot!
Well if the tower was destroyed, why would you expect ruins to exist? Nebuchadnezzar did make an attempt to rebuild the tower, and spoke of it's former destruction:
"A former king built it, (they reckon 42 ages) but he did not
complete its head.
Since a remote time, people had abandoned it, without
order expressing their words.
Since that time the earthquake and the thunder had dispersed
the sun-dried clay.
The bricks of the casing had been split, and the earth of the interior had been scattered in heaps. Merodach, the great god, excited my mind to repair this building."
No wonder such a tower doesn't exist anymore. Funny, the Hanging Gardens don't exist either, but atheists will accept without question that this was once a wonder of the world! Now if you think king Nebuchadnezzar is lying, why did the Greek historian Herodotus also write about the tower? At the very least, this proves that a rebuild effort of a great tower took place in ancient Babylon.
Also, there are mud brick foundations existing in Iraq that may be part of the tower.
Futhermore, the English language arrived from other ancestoral languages so there is no way English would have been the universal language at the tower.. Maybe you've been watching too much Star Trek.
Floods - not all cultures have a story of a great flood, and many that do, tell of how the flood was localized, not world wide. For example, there are stories of the Missoula Floods in NW US. But they do not say the flood was world wide, only that it covered vast areas. Which happens to be true, it wasn't the entire state of Washington or Oregon, it was only particular sections. The floods happened from 18,000 to 12,000 years ago, long before Noah is posited to have existed. Also, we have evidence in the form of layers of flood deposits that indicate the area was flooded about 40 times.
During the last Ice Age (18,000 to 12,000 years ago), and in multiple previous Ice Ages, cataclysmic floods inundated portions of the Pacific Northwest from Glacial Lake Missoula, pluvial Lake Bonneville, and perhaps from subglacial outbursts.
Glacial Lake Missoula was a body of water as large as some of the USA’s Great Lakes. This lake formed from glacial meltwater that was dammed by a lobe of the Canadian ice sheet.
Episodically, perhaps every 40 to 140 years, the waters of this huge lake forced its way past the ice dam, inundating parts of the Pacific Northwest. Eventually, the ice receded northward far enough that the dam did not reform, and the flooding episodes ceased.
Secondly, archaeological remains of a "tower of Babel" - this is the easiest article to find -
The site at Babylon consists of a number of mounds covering an oblong area roughly 2 kilometers by 1 kilometer, oriented north to south.[citation needed] The site is bounded by the Euphrates River on the west, and by the remains of the ancient city walls otherwise. Originally, the Euphrates roughly bisected the city, as is common in the region, but the river has since shifted its course so that much of the remains on the former western part of the city are now inundated. Some portions of the city wall to the west of the river also remain. Several of the sites mounds are more prominent.
These include:
- Kasr – also called Palace or Castle. It is the location of the Neo-Babylonian ziggurat Etemenanki of Nabopolassar and later Nebuchadnezzar and lies in the center of the site.
- Amran Ibn Ali – to the south and the highest of the mounds at 25 meters. It is the site of Esagila, a temple of Marduk which also contained shrines to Ea and Nabu.
- Homera – a reddish colored mound on the west side. Most of the Hellenistic remains are here.
- Babil – in the northern end of the site, about 22 meters in height. It has been extensively subject to brick robbing since ancient times. It held a palace built by Nebuchadnezzar.
Occupation at the site dates back to the late 3rd millennium, finally achieving prominence in the early 2nd millennium under the First Babylonian Dynasty and again later in the millennium under the Kassite dynasty of Babylon. Unfortunately, almost nothing from that period has been recovered at the site of Babylon. First, the water table in the region has risen greatly over the centuries and artifacts from the time before the Neo-Babylonian Empire are unavailable to current standard archaeological methods. Secondly, the Neo-Babylonians conducted massive rebuilding projects in the city which destroyed or obscured much of the earlier record. Third, much of the western half of the city is now under the Euphrates River. Fourth, Babylon has been sacked a number of times, most notably by the Hittites and Elamites in the 2nd millennium, then by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire in the 1st millennium, after the Babylonians had revolted against their rule. Lastly, the site has been long mined for building materials on a commercial scale.
The Queen of the Night relief. The figure could be an aspect of the goddess Ishtar, Babylonian goddess of sex and love.
While knowledge of early Babylon must be pieced together from epigraphic remains found elsewhere, such as at Uruk, Nippur, and Haradum, information on the Neo-Babylonian city is available from archaeological excavations and from classical sources. Babylon was described, perhaps even visited, by a number of classical historians including Ctesias, Herodotus, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Strabo, and Cleitarchus. These reports are of variable accuracy and some political spin is involved but still provide useful data.
The first reported archaeological excavation of Babylon was conducted by Claudius James Rich in 1811–12 and again in 1817.[22][23] Robert Mignan excavated at the site briefly in 1827.[24] William Loftus visited there in 1849.[25]
Austen Henry Layard made some soundings during a brief visit in 1850 before abandoning the site.[26] Fulgence Fresnel and Julius Oppert heavily excavated Babylon from 1852 to 1854. Unfortunately, much of the result of their work was lost when a raft containing over forty crates of artifacts sank into the Tigris river.[27][28]
Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and George Smith worked there briefly in 1854. The next excavation, a major one, was conducted by Hormuzd Rassam on behalf of the British Museum. Work began in 1879, continuing until 1882, and was prompted by widespread looting occurring at the site. Using industrial scale digging in search of artifacts, Rassam recovered a large quantity of cuneiform tablets and other finds. The zealous excavation methods, common in those days, caused much damage to the archaeological context.[29][30]
A team from the German Oriental Society led by Robert Koldewey conducted the first scientific archaeological excavations at Babylon. The work was conducted every year between 1899 and 1917 until World War I intruded. Primary efforts of the dig involved the temple of Marduk and the processional way leading up to it, as well as the city wall. Hundreds of recovered tablets, as well as the noted Ishtar Gate were sent back to Germany.[31][32][33][34][35][36]
Further work by the German Archaeological Institute was conducted by Heinrich J. Lenzen in 1956 and Hansjörg Schmid 1962. The work by Lenzen dealt primarily with the Hellenistic theatre and by Schmid with the temple ziggurat Etemenanki.[37]
In more recent times, the site of Babylon was excavated by G. Bergamini on behalf of the Centro Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l'Asia and the Iraqi-Italian Institute of Archaeological Sciences. This work began with a season of excavation in 1974 followed by a topographical survey in 1977.[38] The focus was on clearing up issues raised by re-examination of the old German data. After a decade, Bergamini returned to the site in 1987–1989. The work concentrated on the area surrounding the Ishara and Ninurta temples in the Shu-Anna city-quarter of Babylon.[39][40]
It should be noted that during the restoration efforts in Babylon, some amount of excavation and room clearing has been done by the Iraqi State Organization for Antiquities and Heritage. Given the conditions in that country the last few decades, publication of archaeological activities has been understandably sparse at best.[41][42]
Note - there is a temple to some gods of Babylon, not to any deity resembling Jehovah or Yahweh. And also, most of the earliest works are long destroyed by rebuilding and by flooding. I guess, if you want to apologize some more, you could insist on those earlier works including a tower of Babel. I wouldn't know for certain and neither would you. All you have is a book that was put together by committee from scraps of writings that were copies of copies of copies.
If it were easy to prove a tower of Babel existed, I am reasonably sure one of your christian apologetics would have provided you with something you could have cut and pasted many posts ago.
And lastly, you yourself have just admitted that language evolves. It bears repeating.....
Futhermore, the English language arrived from other ancestoral languages so there is no way English would have been the universal language at the tower.. Maybe you've been watching too much Star Trek.
If languages were created at the tower by god/s/dess, then all languages were created. Right? Because haven't you been arguing that language evolution doesn't occur, right?
Hellooo, cognitive dissonance.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
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Offline 1) The Epic of Gilgamesh story is the oldest so it details would be more accurate and the author of genesis has plagarized the true gods - you should be worshipping Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, Ea and not Jehovah, Elohim and Jesus. oh yeah and the Holy Spirit. The flood stories were all around cities that were near rivers known to flood. So the floods were local. The big problem with Noah's story is how did the kangaroos (and other marsupials) wind up in Australia, but no fossils are anywhere to be found from Mt Ararat to Australia. The bible knows nothing of continental drift and wouldn't have the time to spread as far as it did in 6,000 years if your are YEC.
The fact that Gilgamesh is older than the Bible doesn't prove anything. It only shows that someone bothered to write down the stories before they wrote down the oral traditions in Genesis. It is just as likely that someone copied the Gilgamesh story from the Genesis accounts. Furthermore, the dimensions for the boat in Gilgamesh are different and not sea worthy like having a slanted roof. The Biblical account gives exact measurements.
The Jews carefully preserved their history which is why you see detailed geneologies in the Bible.
2) So Jesus got worse after he died and paid the penalty. He is tolerating much worse things. Sounds pretty insane to me. How many much more suffering of man and animals must go on to satisfy his blood thirst? Did he get really pissed after his bad weekend and wants more life to suffer?
Nice. You atheists just talk out of both sides of your mouth. So God is a jerk for judging people and destroying wicked people. Now He is a jerk for withholding his judgement? Which is it going to be?
2 Peter 3:9 offers insight into the nature of God.
3a) Please identify how the Jews knew how to prevent the spread of diseases?
The Jews didn't know. God knew, and gave them specific instructions to follow to keep them alive.
There are numerous verses in regards to this subject. One example is in Deuteronomy 23:10-13 where the Israelities are told to stay outside the camp if they have an infectious discharge, and to dig and bury their feces outside of camp.
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The fact remains is that there is a huge gap between animals grunts and expressing complex thoughts through language, and you have NO PROOF to explain how it happened. It's a big hole in evolution, but of course, you will hold onto anything that goes against Christianity, without question.
You refuse to recognise any studies on the development of language and instead insist a 'god' that you are unable to define 'cast' language into men as punishment for attempting to build a mud brick tower up to heaven. You have no proof that explains the development of language beyond the naked assertions and irrationalities of your sad mythology. There are hundreds of books that outline the evolution of language. Oooh - look. Here's a free one but be careful. It has syllables.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40882466/Evolution-of-Language
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
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Offline Our spoken languages developed in much the same way that various computer languages like C, Java, and HTML developed. A group of people decided to agree on what various things were to be used to reference. There are different languages because there were so many different groups, and they all made different agreements because the agreements are arbitrary.
Questions for Theists:
http://silverskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/03/consistent-standards.html
I'm a bit of a lurker. Every now and then I will come out of my cave with a flurry of activity. Then the Ph.D. program calls and I must fall back to the shadows.
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Offline ex-minister wrote:1) The Epic of Gilgamesh story is the oldest so it details would be more accurate and the author of genesis has plagarized the true gods - you should be worshipping Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, Ea and not Jehovah, Elohim and Jesus. oh yeah and the Holy Spirit. The flood stories were all around cities that were near rivers known to flood. So the floods were local. The big problem with Noah's story is how did the kangaroos (and other marsupials) wind up in Australia, but no fossils are anywhere to be found from Mt Ararat to Australia. The bible knows nothing of continental drift and wouldn't have the time to spread as far as it did in 6,000 years if your are YEC.
The fact that Gilgamesh is older than the Bible doesn't prove anything. It only shows that someone bothered to write down the stories before they wrote down the oral traditions in Genesis. It is just as likely that someone copied the Gilgamesh story from the Genesis accounts. Furthermore, the dimensions for the boat in Gilgamesh are different and not sea worthy like having a slanted roof. The Biblical account gives exact measurements.
The Jews carefully preserved their history which is why you see detailed geneologies in the Bible.
ex-minister wrote:2) So Jesus got worse after he died and paid the penalty. He is tolerating much worse things. Sounds pretty insane to me. How many much more suffering of man and animals must go on to satisfy his blood thirst? Did he get really pissed after his bad weekend and wants more life to suffer?
Nice. You atheists just talk out of both sides of your mouth. So God is a jerk for judging people and destroying wicked people. Now He is a jerk for withholding his judgement? Which is it going to be?
2 Peter 3:9 offers insight into the nature of God.
ex-minister wrote:
3a) Please identify how the Jews knew how to prevent the spread of diseases?
The Jews didn't know. God knew, and gave them specific instructions to follow to keep them alive.
There are numerous verses in regards to this subject. One example is in Deuteronomy 23:10-13 where the Israelities are told to stay outside the camp if they have an infectious discharge, and to dig and bury their feces outside of camp.
Will you address my other questions? How about my question on throw blood all around as found in leviticus?
The ark was way too small to hold species who cannot interbred. Also the ark would have to carry all fresh water fish since salt water would dominated the world. How could the fresh water lakes become fresh again after the salt water engulfed the world and quickly at that. Did noah have containers of fresh water inboard?
You didn't respond to my kangaroo/marsupial only in Australia question? Have a response for it?
I am not trying to have it both ways, that is a false dichotomy. Jehovah and Jesus are pricks. Neither is showing any love or kindness towards their creatures nor taking responsiblity. They are all powerful, but still choose to watch mega-suffering and will continue to do so for all eternity. punishing someone for trillions and trillions of years for sins done in less than 100 years is cruel and unusual punishment. Any human would know that, except someone duped by religion.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
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Offline TWD39 wrote:ex-minister wrote:1) The Epic of Gilgamesh story is the oldest so it details would be more accurate and the author of genesis has plagarized the true gods - you should be worshipping Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, Ea and not Jehovah, Elohim and Jesus. oh yeah and the Holy Spirit. The flood stories were all around cities that were near rivers known to flood. So the floods were local. The big problem with Noah's story is how did the kangaroos (and other marsupials) wind up in Australia, but no fossils are anywhere to be found from Mt Ararat to Australia. The bible knows nothing of continental drift and wouldn't have the time to spread as far as it did in 6,000 years if your are YEC.
The fact that Gilgamesh is older than the Bible doesn't prove anything. It only shows that someone bothered to write down the stories before they wrote down the oral traditions in Genesis. It is just as likely that someone copied the Gilgamesh story from the Genesis accounts. Furthermore, the dimensions for the boat in Gilgamesh are different and not sea worthy like having a slanted roof. The Biblical account gives exact measurements.
The Jews carefully preserved their history which is why you see detailed geneologies in the Bible.
ex-minister wrote:2) So Jesus got worse after he died and paid the penalty. He is tolerating much worse things. Sounds pretty insane to me. How many much more suffering of man and animals must go on to satisfy his blood thirst? Did he get really pissed after his bad weekend and wants more life to suffer?
Nice. You atheists just talk out of both sides of your mouth. So God is a jerk for judging people and destroying wicked people. Now He is a jerk for withholding his judgement? Which is it going to be?
2 Peter 3:9 offers insight into the nature of God.
ex-minister wrote:
3a) Please identify how the Jews knew how to prevent the spread of diseases?
The Jews didn't know. God knew, and gave them specific instructions to follow to keep them alive.
There are numerous verses in regards to this subject. One example is in Deuteronomy 23:10-13 where the Israelities are told to stay outside the camp if they have an infectious discharge, and to dig and bury their feces outside of camp.
Will you address my other questions? How about my question on throw blood all around as found in leviticus?
The ark was way too small to hold species who cannot interbred. Also the ark would have to carry all fresh water fish since salt water would dominated the world. How could the fresh water lakes become fresh again after the salt water engulfed the world and quickly at that. Did noah have containers of fresh water inboard?
You didn't respond to my kangaroo/marsupial only in Australia question? Have a response for it?
I am not trying to have it both ways, that is a false dichotomy. Jehovah and Jesus are pricks. Neither is showing any love or kindness towards their creatures nor taking responsiblity. They are all powerful, but still choose to watch mega-suffering and will continue to do so for all eternity. punishing someone for trillions and trillions of years for sins done in less than 100 years is cruel and unusual punishment. Any human would know that, except someone duped by religion.
I'll address your other points whenever I have time. It's not fair to expect me to immediately address over a dozen points in one single post and then do the same for a dozen other atheist replies. But again, atheists don't play fair.
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I'll address your other points whenever I have time. It's not fair to expect me to immediately address over a dozen points in one single post and then do the same for a dozen other atheist replies. But again, atheists don't play fair
I understand. You just made no mention of your intention originally and that Is why I asked. I am a patient person and see there is much for you to address. As you should be able to glean I have read the bible a time or two.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
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But again, atheists don't play fair.
fallacious ad hominem. Your posts are like little case studies in irrationality.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
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Offline Funny, the Hanging Gardens don't exist either, but atheists will accept without question that this was once a wonder of the world! Now if you think king Nebuchadnezzar is lying, why did the Greek historian Herodotus also write about the tower? At the very least, this proves that a rebuild effort of a great tower took place in ancient Babylon.
Not at all true.. The Hanging Gardens may well have been legend only. No archeological evidence of them exists. Many people posit that they never existed, or may have been attributed to other constructions. And why would 'Atheists' accept without question this? It's an archeological question, not anything related to atheism. The same scepticism applies to Babel - there is no evidence joining the structures
If I have time today I'll collate a list of questions raised by the various members on this post and let you address them logically to save you time. Interested in your responses.
Thanks
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Offline OK, these are the biggies - I've limited the list to only those that relate to language diversity or the Flood:
GodsUse
is it POSSIBLE that the flood stories common to many cultures around the world may be due to these cultures finding seashells and fish fossils (From seismic shifts) on mountains and other high areas?
Where is geological evidence for a global flood as described in the bible?
ex-minister
The big problem with Noah's story is how did the kangaroos (and other marsupials) wind up in Australia, but no fossils are anywhere to be found from Mt Ararat to Australia. Why not?
How could the fresh water lakes become fresh again after the salt water engulfed the world and quickly at that?
CJ:
If languages were created at the tower by god/s/dess, then all languages were created. Right? Because haven't you been arguing that language evolution doesn't occur, right?
(GUFAM: TWD, you seem confused about this.. Your original question asks why we don't all speak the same language now, but you also state that modern English comes from other ancestral languages... so does language evolve or not?! You're trying to have it both ways here.)
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Offline I thought to break out some of the discussion for ease and the "exceeding a billion" interested me first. Here is my research for your comment.
3)Really, well apparently those primitive people had foreknowledge about how to prevent spread of infectious diseases, healthy food choices, the number of stars exceeding a billion, the water cycle, the earth is suspended in space, just to name a few. Please share exactly what the Bible did get wrong!
3b) - Where does the bible say there are more than a billion stars? I don't recall that word being in the bible. Unicorns yes, Billions no.
Do the number of stars exceed a billion? I cannot find billions in the bible and of course would not expect to since it is a modern word. I found Jer 33:22 which says there are too many to count. The Hebrew word phonetically is yis-sa-per and there are only 5 occurrences of that word in the Bible.
Biblios Concordance YUSSAFER
The word is used in reference to how many stars, pieces of sand and more importantly & contextually the number of Jews there will be. Wildly different numbering schemes. Visible stars to the human eye is under 5,077. Estimate of how many stars there are 10 sextillion (10 to the 21st power). Number of grains of sand on the earth (or should that be only the sands in Israel?) is seven quintillion, five quardillion. Calculation for Grains Of Sand on Earth
Counting was not very robust for ancient Hebrews. The highest number by word was ribbo and that is 10,000. On the other hand, the Egyptians had a word for 10 million. Hebrew Numbering System. If your highest named number is 10k, 5k might seem like a lot to count and for one human it would be especially since it would take about a year to do so since we have to go around the sun to see all the stars. How do you reset yourself each night? And what if the weather is bad for a week or so? It could take years to get it right. We certainly can appreciate the earliest astronomers effort and patience.
Going off an estimate of counting human population since 50,000 B.C. we arrive at there has been 108 billion people that have ever lived. Using YEC you have to account for God's restart at Noah's Flood in 2302 B.C. And then for Jews at Abraham which is 1950 B.C. Going with what must be a higher number I will go with the scientist estimate of 50,0000 B.C. to give you an edge. Biblical Timeline
How many Jews are there today? Too many to count? Apparently not. Wiki has the total population as 13,428,300.
Current Jewish Population
How many humans have ever lived? 108 billion
Number Of Humans that have ever lived
Jews percentage of world population .001918 (.19 percent). This is another high estimate. More humans are alive now than ever before due to advances in modern medicine (not to be confused with biblical medicine).
Calculation of Jews that have ever lived 206,381,993 (206 million).
So the numbers are wildly divergent. The number of stars is in the sextillions (10 followed by 21 zeros) not billions (1 followed by 12 zeros). A huge, huge difference. But then I think this has more to do with your knowledge of Astronomy than anything really in the Bible. I imagine you will change your statement the bible says there are more than a sextillion number of stars. See how Christians keep adjusting what the bible says to fit? Very confusing this age of enlightenment.
So, note that the Egyptians were far more advanced than the Jews. As you should know many other cultures as well, in particular the Greeks. Thus calling the ancient Hebrews primitive is pretty accurate. They picked up things from other cultures due to where they lived, the cross roads to advanced civilizations and oddly they still were primitive.
You say God told the Jews these things. Apparently the pagan Gods told their people more advanced things and that is where the modern world has gained scientific understanding and not from the Hebrew culture. Hebrews wrote literature about an angry God who was so feed up with humans he needed to punish and destroy nearly all of them except a small remnant, not countless, not like the number of stars or sands. Even at the end with a world population now of 7 billion Revelations refers to saving the 144,000 (greek word - chiliades thousands, modified by 3 adjectives to make it 144 thousand). How small. All the old prophets talked of only saving remnants.
Only modern Jews have expanded our scientific understanding not the ancient ones. In fact it was Jews and Christians studying nature that kept bumping up into conflicts with what the Bible stated. That is why even Einstein and Newton resists the conclusions of their theories. Trying to use the Bible today as a scientific book is an exercise in futility. You should stick to what the book is really about and not try to turn it into something it is not. It would make a far better case. The majority of Christians have made that logic conclusion. Many accept modern science over primitive science. And you don't have to believe to be healed by modern science. It just works.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
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Offline So, note that the Egyptians were far more advanced than the Jews. As you should know many other cultures as well, in particular the Greeks. Thus calling the ancient Hebrews primitive is pretty accurate. They picked up things from other cultures due to where they lived, the cross roads to advanced civilizations and oddly they still were primitive.
As a side comment. There is no wonder the area remained primitive despite the traffic through it. According to archaeologists, it was barely livable even then and the population was correspondingly sparse. There is no wonder they found comfort in "a land of milk and honey" or the "lion lying with the lamb." I grew up in the desert (google Yuma, AZ and do some street level viewing for a taste of real desert) and I understand perfectly wanting to live where the conditions aren't so harsh. Color me happy in the rainy NorthWest.
See - David and Solomon by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. The entire text is on line - https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Vt7Zse3YZOaTJ5RmY3X29MRjQ/edit?pli=1
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.
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Offline I'm going to start with this, but go in order after that.
Don't I get credit at least for not ignoring your questions? Of course not. LOL
Yes you do get credit. Kudos! Don't pre-suppose that my atheist self wouldn't give you credit. I suppose pre-suppositionalism is common in theist circles though, so maybe it's just a bad habit (and bad habits can be broken)
It gives more credibility to the Bible's account of the Flood. Or will you argue that it is just a mere concidence that there are dozens of cultures all over the world with flood stories containing striking similarities to Genesis account?
I believe it is very much a coincidence. All it says is that floods occur, and people (rightfully so) saw them as a major disaster, much like they do now, so they were written about as epic catastrophes that were then exaggerated and laced with mythology.
Now if Genesis was the first myth, you may be able to say the writers knew something. However, since it isn't, you are saying that "yes, there was a flood. Others wrote about it too! MY book is the one that has all the details correct though". Then, you go ahead and offer no proof. Not good enough.
Obviously, things changed after Jesus Christ paid the sin penalty for all mankind. God is willing and patient to wait aslong as possible to allow people to escape judgement.
Right....and allow untold suffering to millions? Everyone in North Korea? The women in militant Islamic nations (and rogue militant regions in some of the more advanced ones)? The victims of serial rapists? Your position would be still flimsy, but at least miiiildly defensible were it not for the suffering of the victims. But you're suggesting that god allows deplorable things to happen to defenceless people, because he's willing to let the aggressor repent? What about the victim?? What in the hell did they do? This is the point where the Judeo-Christian god concept simply gets sick. Horrific crimes that any decent person feels nauseous even READING about can occur in this world. But fear not, the monster will get punished (although not if they repent even as late as on their death beds, so long that it's genuine). The victim's tears will get dried. By who you ask? Oh, by this sky-person who is all powerful and could have STOPPED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE....but chose not to. This just doesn't do. What would you say of a father who would watch his child get beat up every morning after dropping him off at school, and then would simply leave chalk ciphers on the bully's sidewalk saying "change your ways please" twice a month? What if he did it because he feels that the bully would be better off learning compassion, while ignoring that his own son is getting seriously beat up every day? Could you say a good thing about that father's character?
Inconsistency most certainly exists within the scientific realm. I'll give you a recent example. A new study came out now claiming that eating eggs raises your heart attack risk as much as smoking. Before, the studies claimed that eating eggs was good for you. They change their mind every year it seems with these "scientific" studies. Politics most certainly plays a role. A scientist certainly is going to be more biased to an outcome that favors the party funding their studies.
I believe the study you're referring to (the only one I can find right now, I remember reading about it, but wanted to make sure I had it right) is referring specifically to replacing your breakfast bread with an egg (common in Atkins style diets). It seems to say that's only a problem with excess. Eggs are high in protein and cholesterol, but much of it is good cholesterol. That doesn't change the fact that a body high in cholesterol probably doesn't need any of it. Also, the dangers of staying exclusively on an Atkins diet for long term have been relatively well known for some time now. The Atkins diet is not one of an athlete, but one of somebody trying to lose weight. Not exercising is a common cause of being overweight (although certainly not the only one). Cutting out carbs would be effective in that situation to lose weight, but is likely not a healthy option on a continuous basis, as we are healthier when we engage in some physical activity. Fuelling our bodies to exercise is a healthier solution than cutting off the fuel to cut out the fat.
I do agree with you about politics playing a role though, but it's typically lobbying to cease scientific studies, especially when it comes to climate change. I doubt any study concerning the nutrition of an egg was a big deal in the realm of political lobby-ists. Also, that is why we have something called peer review. If a scientist does publish deliberately erroneous information (most often by setting up the experiments in a way that he has a higher probability of getting the desired result), the rest of the scientific community usually calls BS.
Could you provide some examples of scientific studies that you think are erroneous, and a result of political lobbying, meant to promote our "atheist dogma"?
If you believe God's actions are inconsistent then you are merely surface reading, and never truly studied the Bible.
No. His actions are inconsistent, and the book is inconsistent to an incredible degree. According to the bible, can god be seen? There are only three potential answers you can give here. Yes, no, and "the bible doesn't say for certain". The problem is, it asserts BOTH positions more than once. Now when I'm reading a book that is supposed to be the truth of things that happened, the supernatural nature of our world, and what's to come some day in the future, this kind of contradiction will not do! If by "surface reading" you mean reading the words, and what they mean, then yes. I apologize for reading a book claiming to be the ultimate truth, in a way that I would be able to know the ultimate truth! When I read books on science, I read them so that I understand what they're talking about, and am able to learn from it. Now if I read a book that said "a helium atom has 2 protons", then two chapters later, it read "a helium atom has 3 protons", I would say that that is incorrect. What I would not do, is attempt to read it in a way that I could somehow accept this obvious irreconcilable difference. If the book was RIDDLED with such mistakes, I would state that the contents of the book can not all be true. In that, even if I were to find some facts in this book, I would cite it as an unreliable source of facts. The bible holds exactly that position for me, and anybody who reads it critically (or, as you suggested, studied it). Have you ever read the whole thing? I've heard it works wonders in turning people away from belief.
Obviously you never heard of the term, ziggaurat. You are assuming the towel of Babel was built like a modern day skyscraper. Another example of overlaying modern society onto ancient times.
Ok, perhaps it was a bad assumption on my part concerning the construction of the alleged Tower of Babel. However, you never touched on the pyramids. Those were built in times before god decided to relax for a few thousand years. These temples are also great structures, built for people who are treated as gods, and may even believe themselves to be gods. Why didn't those get destroyed?
Funny that you claim it was slave labour, but atheists will say that there is no way the Israelities helped build the pyramids as slaves. Which is it going to be?
Why pre-suppose that their slaves had to be Jews? They could have been Egyptians. Just because Egypt was powerful, doesn't mean that every citizen living there was. Take a look at the less powerful first world nations, such as Sweden and Switzerland. They are very healthy nations, but not overly powerful. On the other hand, the USA is a very powerful nation that has a much higher poverty level than the aforementioned.
To my knowledge, there is no historical evidence that Jews were enslaved in Egypt.
Atheists will just make up any claim as long as it prevents you from admitting the Bible is accurate.
Nah, that's unnecessary. The bible is obviously inaccurate, because the contradicting lines in the bible say so. 
Really, well apparently those primitive people had foreknowledge about how to prevent spread of infectious diseases, healthy food choices, the number of stars exceeding a billion, the water cycle, the earth is suspended in space, just to name a few. Please share exactly what the Bible did get wrong!
Genesis 1 - What is the firmament? Why make grass and trees before the sun that they require for photosynthesis? Why refer to the moon as a light? Why group the sun and the moon into one category, and then the stars as an afterthought? Would the divine not know that the sun has more in common with the stars, and the moon more in common with the earth, than both of the "lights" do with each other? Also, on that number of stars, why the need to spend 6 full days concentrating mostly on the earth, when he was able to crank out the rest of the cosmos in a small portion of his 4th day?...the inaccuracy doesn't end there, but I don't need to go much further. Oh, why a different story in chapter 2?
1 Samuel 2:8 / Job 9:6 - The earth has pillars?
John 15:15 vs John 16:12 - In the former, Jesus says that everything god has told him, he has told his disciples. In the latter, he says there are some things they can not yet bear.
Leviticus chapter 11 - Bats are birds?
Matthew 4:8 - How could you see every kingdom of the earth from a tall mountain, considering the shape of our planet? Is it because our earth is actually a flat disc (Isaiah 40:22 suggests that?)...or maybe it's not even disc shaped (Ezekiel 7:2)
Let's start with this, and go from there.
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
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Offline I'll address your other points whenever I have time. It's not fair to expect me to immediately address over a dozen points in one single post and then do the same for a dozen other atheist replies. But again, atheists don't play fair.
cj wrote:No evidence exists for such a structure. Find me a pile of ancient bricks that could have been such a tower and I will revise my opinions.There is still much of the Middle East that has not been excavated and certainly part of the problem is you have hostile governments controlling the lands in those areas .. our first evidences of language occur in *Mesopotamia? ..
Let's avoid the foul language for a moment, K ? Bluntly, Speaking of the fertile land between two rivers, of *the Sumerians ..
Thorkild Jacobsen's translation from one of the oldest bodies of religious texts in the world: " .. could address EnLil, verily, in but a single tongue. In those days (having) lordly bouts, princely bouts .. (did) EnKi, (having) lordly bouts, .. having princely bouts fought, having princely bouts fought, .. did EnKi, lord of abundance, lord of effective command, did the lord of intelligence, ..the country's clever one, did the leader of the gods, did the sagacious omen-revealed; lord of Eridu 'estrange the tongues of their mouths as many as were there. The tongues of men which were one'. (taking in, then sending an envoy to Aratta)."
For anyone who can but does not. With a quick internet search on 'google', one finds this . .
In those days...the people entrusted [to him] could address Enlil, verily, in but a single tongue. In those days...did Enki...estrange the tongues in their mouths as many as were put there.. The tongues of men which were one (Jacobsen 1997; cf. Kramer 1968, 1970; Cohen 1973).
Though a lot to take in but you do realize these accounts, of the region, both pre-date and precede the biblical account ?
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That makes no sense whatsoever. How does every major culture having a flood myth make the bible somehow more valid? You have not explained anything here.
Ok, so where was god on Kim Il-Sung or Kim Jong Il? Emporor Hirohito? Sathya Sai-Baba? If you say that god exists, and destroys junk when people try to be like him, it's up to you to explain why he doesn't do it now. Once again, you didn't explain anything.
You see, in science, there is much incomplete information. We do our best to extrapolate what happened in our gaps in knowledge, and often times, new evidence presents itself proving the predictions correct, or at least close. In science, though, incomplete information is accepted, while inconsistency is not. God's actions are not consistent within the bible, and they are even more inconsistent than the reality we observe. I'd ask you to explain why, but you seem quite incapable of grasping this concept.
Slave labour, and lots of it. Without researching it at length, we know that the pyramids were built for Pharaohs. They were men of great power (who were to be worshipped like gods as well...where was Yahweh on this one? Perhaps the story was written the way it was to condemn this practice, because even your book obviously frames the Egyptians as enemies...but I digress). These men were powerful enough to mobilize an extremely large group of labourers.
As far as the stability of them, you can't really compare a pyramid to a tower in this sense. Even building one out of lego you can see how sturdy a tetrahedron is with its 4 triangular sides on a square base. It may not be complicated engineering, but it's engineering. Building an extremely large narrow building is a much more difficult endeavour.
The problem with that as an argument is that the writers of the bible could certainly have written it using real places. For a book that claims to describe history, the archaeological finds had BETTER support it. It wouldn't have been difficult for the writers of the bible to get the locations and scenery right (they certainly screwed up on Nazareth though...). It would, however, be difficult for them to get other things right, such as biology, or what's in outer space. These are things they got wrong. All of this makes sense if...the bible was a book of fables or legends, originally in an oral tradition, then later written down. There is nothing in the bible that could not have been written by people that primitive.
Theists - If your god is omnipotent, remember the following: He (or she) has the cure for cancer, but won't tell us what it is.
lakes of fire are fouler language still. As are naked assertions of god's entitlement to commit genocide on the basis of no precedent and no cogent proof.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pyramidworkforce.htm
It is possible, or even probable that these two types of construction teams may have been largely made up of a relatively skilled, permanent royal work force. However, it is clear, given the volume of work required to construct the Great Pyramid, that more workers were needed. These workers were probably helpers, and if slaves were used at all, they would have probably been included in this larger workforce. However, many of these helpers were probably unskilled agricultural workers employed on a seasonal basis during the Nile inundation.
It gives more credibility to the Bible's account of the Flood. Or will you argue that it is just a mere concidence that there are dozens of cultures all over the world with flood stories containing striking similarities to Genesis account?
Obviously, things changed after Jesus Christ paid the sin penalty for all mankind. God is willing and patient to wait as long as possible to allow people to escape judgement.
Inconsistency most certainly exists within the scientific realm. I'll give you a recent example. A new study came out now claiming that eating eggs raises your heart attack risk as much as smoking. Before, the studies claimed that eating eggs was good for you. They change their mind every year it seems with these "scientific" studies. Politics most certainly plays a role. A scientist certainly is going to be more biased to an outcome that favors the party funding their studies. If you believe God's actions are inconsistent then you are merely surface reading, and never truly studied the Bible.
Obviously you never heard of the term, ziggaurat. You are assuming the towel of Babel was built like a modern day skyscraper. Another example of overlaying modern society onto ancient times. Funny that you claim it was slave labour, but atheists will say that there is no way the Israelities helped build the pyramids as slaves. Which is it going to be? Atheists will just make up any claim as long as it prevents you from admitting the Bible is accurate.
Really, well apparently those primitive people had foreknowledge about how to prevent spread of infectious diseases, healthy food choices, the number of stars exceeding a billion, the water cycle, the earth is suspended in space, just to name a few. Please share exactly what the Bible did get wrong!
Don't I get credit at least for not ignoring your questions? Of course not. LOL
stories travel and get retold. it doesn't mean any of them are true. i could just as easily say the genesis account contains striking resemblances to the epic of gilgamesh. you have no proof which account was derived from which. the medieval chinese novel journey to the west with its mischievous monkey god character bears striking resemblance to hanuman, the indian monkey god in the ramayana. two civilizations, separated by vast geographical and cultural differences, telling similar stories. by your logic, that renders credibility to one of them. which?
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Your comments fail to explain exactly how civilizations separated by vast geographical and cultural differences managed to preserve a tale about a Great Flood containing several elements in common with the Bible.
A more likely explanation is that their ancestors existed in the same region and were scattered by the Towel of Babel event. I could easily say that the Epic of Gilgamesh copied from the oral tradition of the Genesis story which contains much more detail such as the exact dimensions of the ark.
Please provide a single piece of evidence that the tower of Babel existed (that doesn't come from the bible, obviously, unless you want to be labelled a presuppositionalist).
Please provide a single piece of evidence that the Great Flood happened (that doesn't come from the bible, obviously, again).
Otherwise your theories are just stories from a story book.. which could have been written by anybody. This is not a sensible thing to take your belief from, without supplementary evidence.
I don't mean to troll (well maybe a little) but isn't this an argument based on a lot of unproven assumptions? I see this no differently than arguing about a unicorn's nail polish preference. Arguing if god or the bible was the cause/source of anything is silly.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I would also ask you, is it POSSIBLE that the flood stories common to many cultures around the world may be due to these cultures finding seashells and fish fossils on mountains and other high areas?
This is known to have happened due to plate tectonics pushing up land that was originally under the ocean as they very slowly crash into each other... but back then these cultures would not know about this.. seashell are found on hills and mountains all over the world for this reason... seems to me a likely reason for stories about flooding.
But maybe you think the seashells really are there because of a great flood? If so, you've regressed to the knowledge level of primitive tribespeople.
Double Post
You need to tell me what are your requirements for accepted evidence. Apparently extra-biblical accounts of an event don't count. Archaelogy doesn't count. How in the world can someone provide evidence when you lay down strict rules that rejects so much?