New Evidence Found To Show Humans Came From Fish

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I just answered your question AGAIN! Here it is a third time if not a fourth:

Love isn't the "I don't give a worry to the two people who hurt me in my past" that you mentioned. Love is action and not neutrality.

If there is a different question I missed, I will gladly answer it.

This is not an answer to my question. It's probably time to drop it if I have to carry you through this. Thus far,it's felt like rolling a mossy boulder up an icy hill into a headwind during a mudslide. Do you even remember my original question any more? I doubt it.

And you don't gladly answer. You gladly avoid and evade. How many times have you been called on this lately, and how many times have you addressed your critics when you have?

That isn't a successful strategy for dealing with inconvenient questions of it keeps being pointed out.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The Bible's prophecy, proven true, shown even today in this thread, that scoffers . . . scoff, slowing down the progress of these and other truths

I think that the scoffers are clamoring for better prophecies. Science offers those.

 

[Polymath257]

I've seen that calculation, and it has some problems.

Here's the argument I'd seen in the past. Notice the phrase "360 days a year" :

"GOD told Ezekiel in 536 BC to lie on his side for 390 days and for each day Israel would be in captivity. THen he said to lay on his other side 40 days, and each day would be a year for the land of Juda to be in bondage. THis is a total of 430 years, from 536 bc until GOD would reform the nation of Israel.

"When GOD gave this prophecy to Ezekiel, They had already been in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. So we deduct 70 years from the 430 years, which leaves 360 years from 536 BC. So GOD is telling Ezekiel in 536 BC that he will reform the nation of Israel in 360 years. 536 BC minus 360 ='s 176 BC But GOD didn't reform Israel in 176 BC, why? Because if you go to the book of Leviticus GOD is talking about blessings and cursings.

"4 times in one chapter GOD says that if the Jews didn't obey him that he would multiply their punishment 7 times. At this time the Jews were free to leave Babylon, but they didn't, and because they didn't we multiply 360 years by 7.....360 x 7 = 2520.....So now GOD is telling Ezekiel in 536 BC that he will reform the nation of Israel in 2520 years. A prophetic year consists 12 months with 30 days each. We know this from Revelation of times time and 1/2 a time, and from Noah being in the ark 5 months for 150 days.

Why is it the 360 that is multiplied by 7 instead of the 430 (the length of punishment)? That alone would add another 490 years to the calculation.

Numerology is a sensitive science.

Indeed.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why is it the 360 that is multiplied by 7 instead of the 430 (the length of punishment)? That alone would add another 490 years to the calculation.

And why does the prophecy use a Gregorian calendar date?

May 15, 1948 fell in the Hebrew year 5708. Shouldn't the numerology take us to that?

 

[Jose Fly]

Likely it was the following:

1. The Bible emphasis on spending most time doing something more vital, warning scoffers of Hell and helping people aspire to Heaven.

2. The Bible's prophecy, proven true, shown even today in this thread, that scoffers . . . scoff, slowing down the progress of these and other truths.

If these alleged scientific revelations were so unimportant, why did you bring them up in the first place?

Of course, your question is a straw man, because the Bible writers cared to print these facts and Bible production houses printed more copies of the Bible than the next ten most popular books combined! I bet you've been offered free Bibles before! Did you read them?

Look, if we're going to get right down to it, this whole notion of the authors of the Bible having some sort of secret advanced scientific knowledge is just plain absurd. You'd think if that were true, the Hebrews would have been at least somewhat technologically advanced, yet they actually appear to have been a little behind their contemporaries. For example, for much of early Christianity it was generally understood that the Bible depicted a flat earth with a dome over it. John Calvin and Martin Luther understood it this way. Here is Luther's illustration that appeared in one of his Bibles....

And again, I have to note just how fascinating it is to see Christians appealing to science to try and gain credibility for their faith. Guess that shows what's more compelling in today's society, doesn't it?

 

[BilliardsBall]

Wow. Nobody did the math before then? Why do you think not? Perhaps that 'prophesy' was too vague to make a specific prediction? Instead, people manipulate random numbers until they get a success? Numerology leads to many garbage ideas.

It's very simple, actually, and illuminating. Ezekiel prophesied a number of years in captivity:

“…As for you [Ezekiel], lie down…for the number of days…three hundred and ninety days (for Israel’s sin)…When you have completed these…I have assigned it to you for forty days (for Judah’s sin)…a day for each year.”—Ezekiel 4:4-6

That's 430 years (biblical years of 360 days each). 70 years of captivity were served in Babylon, leaving 360 years.

Modern atheists noted this... surely the final Jewish diaspora into modern times lasted more than 360 years since the end of the Babylonian captivity! Surely the Bible was wrong:

606 BCE …Judah/Israel taken captive to Babylon

536 BCE …Cyrus allows return to Israel

...360 years later is pre-Roman times in Israel!

Some readers, noticed, however, that Leviticus 26:14-46 says Israel will pay seven times over for disobedience: "…If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

They multiplied 7 times 360 360-day years from the Cyrus decree and in the Gentile calendar this comes out to: Whoa! May 14, 1948 CE! God left it as written to demonstrate it wasn't a self-fulfilled prophecy, and for skeptics to draw it out!

What about coincidence? There are numerous Bible prophecies, these are the sole passages on the God-commanded length of the lengthy diaspora. The coincidence would be millions-to-one. There are similar precise number prophecies relating to other aspects, if you're interested. The date for Christ's crucifixion appears in the Septuagint, which scholars know dates to at least two-and-a-half centuries before Christ.

 

[BilliardsBall]

My view of justice is a system of laws and ethics that increases flourishing of all individuals. Punishment is only a blunt and barbaric tool of deterrence that should be eschewed whenever and where ever possible. A person who has profited in some way by using extreme unethical means and crimes like murder should be shorn of all such profits and power and be exiled in prison for life or until such time (nothing we have here yet) as a complete change is character can be reliably determined. I do not see what is just about killing him. What use is that?

Ethics and justice is about developing rational ways to create and sustain flourishing societies of people. Nothing to do with metaphysics.

Killing a murderer is a deterrent to future murders, 100% effective. Consider that state execution may be an ultimate deterrent rather than justice.

And I appreciate your tremendous intellect, but you cannot reduce all ethics and justice to non-metaphysics. How much justice is "enough"? How is love "measured"?

Apparently, for example, you say a heinous murderer should be held until such time as there is a complete change in character. Some relatives of murder victims have felt relief upon a murderer's execution, some disgust. Who is to say who is more correct in this matter?

 

[BilliardsBall]

I've seen that calculation, and it has some problems.

Here's the argument I'd seen in the past. Notice the phrase "360 days a year" :

"GOD told Ezekiel in 536 BC to lie on his side for 390 days and for each day Israel would be in captivity. THen he said to lay on his other side 40 days, and each day would be a year for the land of Juda to be in bondage. THis is a total of 430 years, from 536 bc until GOD would reform the nation of Israel.

"When GOD gave this prophecy to Ezekiel, They had already been in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. So we deduct 70 years from the 430 years, which leaves 360 years from 536 BC. So GOD is telling Ezekiel in 536 BC that he will reform the nation of Israel in 360 years. 536 BC minus 360 ='s 176 BC But GOD didn't reform Israel in 176 BC, why? Because if you go to the book of Leviticus GOD is talking about blessings and cursings.

"4 times in one chapter GOD says that if the Jews didn't obey him that he would multiply their punishment 7 times. At this time the Jews were free to leave Babylon, but they didn't, and because they didn't we multiply 360 years by 7.....360 x 7 = 2520.....So now GOD is telling Ezekiel in 536 BC that he will reform the nation of Israel in 2520 years. A prophetic year consists 12 months with 30 days each. We know this from Revelation of times time and 1/2 a time, and from Noah being in the ark 5 months for 150 days.

"So now we say 2520 years times 360 days a year..='s 907,200. So now GOD is telling Ezekiel that in 907,200 days he would reform the nation of Israel. So now all we have to do is convert this to our year of 365.25 days per year....so....907,200 divided by 365.25 = 2483.8...So God is telling Ezekiel in 536 BC that he will reform Israel in 2483.4 of our years. Now it's simple subtraction. 2483.8 minus 536 (and because this prophecy was given in the spring....3 (point 3)....which equals 1947.5.....and to be mathematically correct, since there is no year zero, we have to add 1 year....which brings us to 1948.5 and on May 15th."

Whose going to tell him that 1948.5 takes him to the end of June, 1948 - not May 15th?

The problem I see is that too many parameters were overlooked in the calculation. If you take the number of sons of Noah divided by the number of people in the Garden of Eden divided by the the number of tribes of Israel plus the six days of creation divided by the length of the ark in cubits times the number of horsemen of the apocalypse divided by the square root of the number of apostles, what you get is not a prediction involving Israel, but rather, God telling Rehoboam how many hours until Passover.

Numerology is a sensitive science.

The May 14 date arises from 2,520 x 360 days from the decree by Cyrus, put inside our 365.25 (leap/Gregorian/solar year) to get to May 14.

But it sounds like your objection is that in the sole prophecies we have giving the exact date of the end of a 2,520-year diaspora God was off by 30 days? At least do what other skeptic friends do, and say that archaeology has objected to the Cyrus date by about 3 years!

 

[BilliardsBall]

If these alleged scientific revelations were so unimportant, why did you bring them up in the first place?


Look, if we're going to get right down to it, this whole notion of the authors of the Bible having some sort of secret advanced scientific knowledge is just plain absurd. You'd think if that were true, the Hebrews would have been at least somewhat technologically advanced, yet they actually appear to have been a little behind their contemporaries. For example, for much of early Christianity it was generally understood that the Bible depicted a flat earth with a dome over it. John Calvin and Martin Luther understood it this way. Here is Luther's illustration that appeared in one of his Bibles....

And again, I have to note just how fascinating it is to see Christians appealing to science to try and gain credibility for their faith. Guess that shows what's more compelling in today's society, doesn't it?

It's not "science facts equals credibility" it's "prescience on God's part equals credibility".

Obviously Luther missed a verse because the OT says the Earth is round or "a sphere" in the Hebrew.

 

[sayak83]

Killing a murderer is a deterrent to future murders, 100% effective. Consider that state execution may be an ultimate deterrent rather than justice.

And I appreciate your tremendous intellect, but you cannot reduce all ethics and justice to non-metaphysics. How much justice is "enough"? How is love "measured"?

Apparently, for example, you say a heinous murderer should be held until such time as there is a complete change in character. Some relatives of murder victims have felt relief upon a murderer's execution, some disgust. Who is to say who is more correct in this matter?

It actually is not a deterrence. When a violator of the law has nothing left to lose, he is more likely to go for extreme violence rather than tempering it. A society that is strong enough to be able and willing to offer hope to its worst transgressors will be far robust for every one in it, than one which fails to do so. A society that focuses more on the emotional, psychological and emotional healing of those scarred by acts of violence, the victims and the bereaved rather than the cheap and barbaric thrill whether the criminal got a death sentence or not, will do much better for its citizens. I do not understand why criminals and court cases have almost a celebrity status and TV exposure. It is true that our emotions are tuned to the tribal ways of lawlessness where extracting blood vengeance is the only way order can be kept. Just like out penchant for fatty foods or to addictive substances, such emotions do not serve our true needs. This true both at a personal level and at a political level. What was the effect of the blind lashing out by the US after 9/11 achieve? More suffering from every direction. A careful espionage work followed by abduction or assassination of the groups responsible would have (and did) take longer but would have been (and was) more effective. One is constantly faced with injustice and unfairness. Some use that anger to become terrorists and other use it to become King or Gandhi. Which way works is abundantly clear is it not?

 

[Polymath257]

It's very simple, actually, and illuminating. Ezekiel prophesied a number of years in captivity:

“…As for you [Ezekiel], lie down…for the number of days…three hundred and ninety days (for Israel’s sin)…When you have completed these…I have assigned it to you for forty days (for Judah’s sin)…a day for each year.”—Ezekiel 4:4-6

That's 430 years (biblical years of 360 days each). 70 years of captivity were served in Babylon, leaving 360 years.

Modern atheists noted this... surely the final Jewish diaspora into modern times lasted more than 360 years since the end of the Babylonian captivity! Surely the Bible was wrong:

606 BCE …Judah/Israel taken captive to Babylon

536 BCE …Cyrus allows return to Israel

...360 years later is pre-Roman times in Israel!

Some readers, noticed, however, that Leviticus 26:14-46 says Israel will pay seven times over for disobedience: "…If also after these things you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins."

They multiplied 7 times 360 360-day years from the Cyrus decree and in the Gentile calendar this comes out to: Whoa! May 14, 1948 CE! God left it as written to demonstrate it wasn't a self-fulfilled prophecy, and for skeptics to draw it out!

Wait a minute here. First, you get the multiplication by 7 from a completely different source. This is the type of numerology that shows a completely wrong 'prophesy'. You can *always* make up some numerical gobbledegook to do *anything*. That this was so well 'hidden' shows it to NOT be a prophesy, but special pleading.

Second, you would *expect* to multiply the *punishment* by 7, in other words, the 430, not the 360. That would put things 490 years later.

Third, did you take into consideration changes in calendar? And why do you think it is down to the day? That wasn't explained.

What about coincidence?

There are numerous Bible prophecies, these are the sole passages on the God-commanded length of the lengthy diaspora. The coincidence would be millions-to-one. There are similar precise number prophecies relating to other aspects, if you're interested. The date for Christ's crucifixion appears in the Septuagint, which scholars know dates to at least two-and-a-half centuries before Christ.

Wow. Passover appears in the Septuagint. Remarkable.

 

[Polymath257]

The May 14 date arises from 2,520 x 360 days from the decree by Cyrus, put inside our 365.25 (leap/Gregorian/solar year) to get to May 14.

And why would you do that? Neither the Gregorian nor the Julian calendars were used at the time.

But it sounds like your objection is that in the sole prophecies we have giving the exact date of the end of a 2,520-year diaspora God was off by 30 days? At least do what other skeptic friends do, and say that archaeology has objected to the Cyrus date by about 3 years!

No, it was off by 490 years: you didn't include the 70 years from the original 430 when you multiplied by 7.

 

[Jose Fly]

It's not "science facts equals credibility"

Yes it is; that's the entire point behind the argument!

it's "prescience on God's part equals credibility".

But the prescience is only realized after science makes and confirms the discovery. Remove science from the argument and it completely falls apart.

Obviously Luther missed a verse because the OT says the Earth is round or "a sphere" in the Hebrew.

No it doesn't. It says "circle", which is flat. It also says Satan took Jesus to a mountaintop where they could see all the kingdoms of the world. Obviously that's not possible on a spherical earth.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

The May 14 date arises from 2,520 x 360 days from the decree by Cyrus, put inside our 365.25 (leap/Gregorian/solar year) to get to May 14.

But it sounds like your objection is that in the sole prophecies we have giving the exact date of the end of a 2,520-year diaspora God was off by 30 days? At least do what other skeptic friends do, and say that archaeology has objected to the Cyrus date by about 3 years!

I had other objections, but as usual, you ignored them.

The calculation I've seen ends with 1948.5, which is mid-year, or about June 30th, or about an eighth of a real year (they're not 360 days). And 45 days is a big miss for a god trying to demonstrate his prophetic prowess.

As indicated, you ignored the salient points to yet another post. There's no point in my even naming them to you, since when I have in the past, it wasn't incentive enough for you to either got back and address those issues, or to not do it the next chance you had to do so.

The rebuttal and its three central points all remain unanswered and therefore stand. The temple prophecy is low quality prophecy, and the argument you provided has no persuasive power. As I indicated, and one of the many points you ignored, one can use the same Bible to show that it predicted any date you like if all that is necessary is to find numbers that can be combined to arrive at a pre-decided result - the sine qua non of self-fulfilling prophecy.

This matter, like so many others with you, has stalled at this juncture.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Obviously Luther missed a verse because the OT says the Earth is round or "a sphere" in the Hebrew.

Luther missed a verse? That's creative.

The Hebrews had a word for sphere - "dur." It is used elsewhere in the Old Testament, but not when describing the earth. Isaiah 22:18 says Yahweh ”will turn and toss you like a ball (ka-dur).” Isaiah 22:18 Hebrew Text Analysis

The Hebrew word used was "chuwg" - circle. A circle is no more a sphere than a square is a cube or a triangle a pyramid.

 

[SkepticThinker]

He's been asked that repeatedly, and asked to define what love means in this context. Try to guess what happened. If you can, I'll call you Isaiah.

I know, I know. But I had to try.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Jesus transforms people. For example, many people are able to come off self-destructive behaviors in only two steps:

1. Admitting their powerlessness/lack of willpower.

2. Asking for Christ's transformation power.

Many people come off self-destructive behaviour with no god or Jesus at all. Many people come off self-destructive behaviour by turning to Allah or Buddha. Many people who have already turned to Jesus or god(s) many times, never manage to overcome their self-destructive behaviours. And many people have asked for Christ's transformative power and found nothing at all.

Even if admitting one's lack of willpower and believing in Jesus were the only way people were able to change their self-destructive behaviours, I still don't see how that would be evidence for the existence of the Christian god. It would be evidence that people are able to overcome their self-destructive behaviours by making changes to their mindset/lifestyle.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Me, too.

Explain how Israel self-fulfilled these biblical prophecies:

1. You will be scattered, via Assyria, Babylon and Rome.

2. You will flee to many nations, in each, blessing them with your knowledge and talents.

3. You will be persecuted in each of these nations.

4. You will reestablish a Jewish nation, literally in a single day, which day will be May 14, 1948 CE.

Numbers 1-3 aren't all that impressive to me, as far as what I would expect from a half decent prophecy. They're kind of loose and vague, don't you think? They would be relatively easy to actualize by simply moving to one of those nations, having any kind of knowledge or talent whatsoever (as most human beings do) and experiencing feelings of persecution from some of the people around them. Given that human beings aren't all that comfortable with people that are different from themselves in some way, persecution from at least a couple of people is pretty likely to happen. I don't think it's all that accurate to say that a Jewish nation will be established "literally in a day" as such a thing was a long time in the making, in the case of Israel. A long time in the making from people actively working to make it happen. I fail to see how any god is required for any of this to have occurred or how this constitutes any kind of solid prophecy.

As to number 4 (and to all of them, really), would you mind quoting the Bible verses to me? I don't recall seeing such an exact date for the formation of Israel, in the Bible.

 

[SkepticThinker]

And why does the prophecy use a Gregorian calendar date?

May 15, 1948 fell in the Hebrew year 5708. Shouldn't the numerology take us to that?

It's not a prophecy. It's a riddle.

 

[Milton Platt]

The old fish to humans story got some new legs today (get it? new legs ha ha). Maybe a pictogram will help.

The evolution scientists gave us this apes-to-human story because people couldn't absorb the "truth" all at once. It's considered by blacks to be racist, for one. I do not see transitional fossils for another. It must be the evolutionists sixth sense. The see the evolution dead everywhere.

Today, the evolution scientists must think we can be fed the whole "truth" now. They're telling us the "fish" story now. This appears in Nature, so it must really be serious.

"Scientists find 'oldest human ancestor'

Researchers have discovered the earliest known ancestor of humans - along with a vast range of other species.

They say that fossilised traces of the 540-million-year-old creature are "exquisitely well preserved".

The microscopic sea animal is the earliest known step on the evolutionary path that led to fish and - eventually - to humans.

Details of the discovery from central China appear in Nature journal.

The research team says that Saccorhytus is the most primitive example of a category of animals called "deuterostomes" which are common ancestors of a broad range of species, including vertebrates (backboned animals).

Saccorhytus was about a millimetre in size, and is thought to have lived between grains of sand on the sea bed.

Scientists find 'oldest human ancestor' - BBC News

I do not see transitional fossils

In a very real sense, all fossils are transitional because they differ slightly from their predecessors.