The biogeographic evidence for evolution

[BilliardsBall]

No, it really is not. A lot of it is treated as prophecy. There is a huge difference. Some of it is history written as prophecy, Daniel is a prime example of that.

Yes, you MUST claim that Daniel's author is a fraud, writing history and claiming it as (hindsight) prophecy, however, the very Daniel passages you are likely thinking of claim to have been spoken by angels in Daniel's presence and etc. Liberal scholars have to use late dating as a prop to avoid belief (at all costs).

You might therefore find it fascinating, for example, to review "early and late dating at Jericho", where you can read about massive amounts of pottery and relics there in the ruins (I'll be there again in person in about a week, in Israel!), and then a sudden "unknown catastrophism" where there is no pottery in the record (almost like a Cambrian explosion/great extinction of shards and relics) and how the first archaeologists dated Jericho early and BOOM--Joshua was there THEN when the walls fell, and then, I bet you can guess what more recent scholars have done...?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes, you MUST claim that Daniel's author is a fraud, writing history and claiming it as (hindsight) prophecy, however, the very Daniel passages you are likely thinking of claim to have been spoken by angels in Daniel's presence and etc. Liberal scholars have to use late dating as a prop to avoid belief (at all costs).

You might therefore find it fascinating, for example, to review "early and late dating at Jericho", where you can read about massive amounts of pottery and relics there in the ruins (I'll be there again in person in about a week, in Israel!), and then a sudden "unknown catastrophism" where there is no pottery in the record (almost like a Cambrian explosion/great extinction of shards and relics) and how the first archaeologists dated Jericho early and BOOM--Joshua was there THEN when the walls fell, and then, I bet you can guess what more recent scholars have done...?

No, you accuse others of fraud because your book of myths is not written the way you want it written.

And please don't use the phrase "liberal scholars". I don't use the more appropriate "insane scholars" to describe the very few that interpret the Bible literally. If you disagree with them then show them wrong. The problem is that literalists cannot do that since the evidence supports the modern scholars.

Let's not change the topic to the Jericho myth. At least not until you get the concept of evidence down pat.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I try not to answer moot/rhetorical questions (complaints). There are people of all walks of life, except, perhaps, pilots, who claim the Earth is flat. There are foolish people everywhere, there are even--can you believe it?--people on THIS forum who claim there is no god! They must think the thousands of posters and lurkers who are theistic are all insane! They must have the biggest conspiracy theory ever--99% of people are nuts!

You claimed that there are experienced sailors who say the earth is flat, thinking somehow that you were countering a point I had made. It was an interesting way to avoid answering the question, I suppose. Now you appear to be moving the goal posts and changing the subject to god beliefs. But I want to know who you're talking about; who are these experienced sailors who think the earth is flat?

The all-knowing Creator is gentle, patient, and didn't give the Hebrew peoples higher math 1,000 years before Newton just because ST is YET AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN doing the oldest whine in the book, "God didn't do X the way I mote it so He ain't real!"

That's not my argument. Please don't try straw manning my argument again. I can see how badly you'd like to change the subject, but let's try sticking to it for once.

You'd think an all-knowing Creator would be able to convey 100% accurate details about the world it created. Now you say this god couldn't give "higher math 1,000 years before Newton." Why not? Is he all-knowing or not? You don't seem to realize that you keep limiting this God's abilities more and more when you say stuff like this. Why is this God incapable of providing his creations with 100% accuracy? I mean, from my point of view it's obvious why - because human beings wrote the Bible and didn't know anything close to the amount of information we've learned about the world all on our own, since them. From your point of view it doesn't make sense.

By the way, can you demonstrate to anybody that the "all-knowing Creator is gentile, patient, etc.?"

The Bible is prescient, contains scientific accuracies, and is 100% accurate, not "most accurate" or "highly accurate" regarding NEEDED THINGS. You don't need to know the Earth is an oblate spheroid to be blessed, truly, or know higher math to have eternal life.

No, no, no. Our discussion is about the lack of prescience in the Bible on the subject of the shape of the earth (among other things). You don't get to just repeat your claim again that the Bible is prescient. You are now arguing against that and claiming that only some things need to be "highly accurate" in order to be considered prescient, which I'm sorry, is an hilarious argument.

The Bible contains many scientific inaccuracies as well. One of those includes an inaccurate description of the shape of the earth. It appears you are trying to make my argument for me, at this point. Prescience requires accuracy.

Do you have any QUESTIONS that are not moot rhetoric?

Yes, many. But you refuse to answer them.

 

[SkepticThinker]

ADDRESS WHAT I WROTE IF YOU DARE:

1) There is no Hebrew word for "oblate spheroid" nor did ANY culture of the time have a word for that
2) It is the SAME Hebrew word as for "child's toy"
3) Ancient children used balls, not frisbee discs

Be mature in your thinking!

I already did in the very post you're responding to where you avoided answering my question.

Who cares what ANY culture had a word for? We're talking about the one specially selected by the God you worship.


You're aware that ancient peoples used discuses, right?

And again, this completely avoids the point about prescience.

Address what I wrote if you dare. Be mature in your thinking and try addressing the point.

 

[tas8831]

You claimed that there are experienced sailors who say the earth is flat, thinking somehow that you were countering a point I had made. It was an interesting way to avoid answering the question, I suppose. Now you appear to be moving the goal posts and changing the subject to god beliefs. ..
That's not my argument. Please don't try straw manning my argument again. I can see how badly you'd like to change the subject, but let's try sticking to it for once.

Yup...

In the discussion on slavery in the bible, he went from proclaiming that the bible only referred to some kind of indentured servitude, and that the slaves were released after a time, to, when verses were presented debunking that spin, resorting to claiming I was a hypocrite because I was against slavery but eat eggs....

Its what they do - most of them seem psychologically programmed to never admit to even trivial errors.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Yup...

In the discussion on slavery in the bible, he went from proclaiming that the bible only referred to some kind of indentured servitude, and that the slaves were released after a time, to, when verses were presented debunking that spin, resorting to claiming I was a hypocrite because I was against slavery but eat eggs....

Its what they do - most of them seem psychologically programmed to never admit to even trivial errors.

Oh yeah, I've been around that block a few too many times.

 

[BilliardsBall]

No, you accuse others of fraud because your book of myths is not written the way you want it written.

And please don't use the phrase "liberal scholars". I don't use the more appropriate "insane scholars" to describe the very few that interpret the Bible literally. If you disagree with them then show them wrong. The problem is that literalists cannot do that since the evidence supports the modern scholars.

Let's not change the topic to the Jericho myth. At least not until you get the concept of evidence down pat.

I didn't accuse you or any scholar of fraud, rather, I wrote:

Yes, you MUST claim that Daniel's author is a fraud, writing history and claiming it as (hindsight) prophecy, however, the very Daniel passages you are likely thinking of claim to have been spoken by angels in Daniel's presence and etc. SOME scholars have to use late dating as a prop to avoid belief (at all costs).

 

[BilliardsBall]

You claimed that there are experienced sailors who say the earth is flat, thinking somehow that you were countering a point I had made. It was an interesting way to avoid answering the question, I suppose. Now you appear to be moving the goal posts and changing the subject to god beliefs. But I want to know who you're talking about; who are these experienced sailors who think the earth is flat?


That's not my argument. Please don't try straw manning my argument again. I can see how badly you'd like to change the subject, but let's try sticking to it for once.

You'd think an all-knowing Creator would be able to convey 100% accurate details about the world it created. Now you say this god couldn't give "higher math 1,000 years before Newton." Why not? Is he all-knowing or not? You don't seem to realize that you keep limiting this God's abilities more and more when you say stuff like this. Why is this God incapable of providing his creations with 100% accuracy? I mean, from my point of view it's obvious why - because human beings wrote the Bible and didn't know anything close to the amount of information we've learned about the world all on our own, since them. From your point of view it doesn't make sense.

By the way, can you demonstrate to anybody that the "all-knowing Creator is gentile, patient, etc.?"


No, no, no. Our discussion is about the lack of prescience in the Bible on the subject of the shape of the earth (among other things). You don't get to just repeat your claim again that the Bible is prescient. You are now arguing against that and claiming that only some things need to be "highly accurate" in order to be considered prescient, which I'm sorry, is an hilarious argument.

The Bible contains many scientific inaccuracies as well. One of those includes an inaccurate description of the shape of the earth. It appears you are trying to make my argument for me, at this point. Prescience requires accuracy.


Yes, many. But you refuse to answer them.

I'm not being paid to tutor you, therefore, I don't see the need to answer any loaded, rhetorical questions.

Confine yourself if you can and we can converse, learning from one another.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I didn't accuse you or any scholar of fraud, rather, I wrote:

Yes, you MUST claim that Daniel's author is a fraud, writing history and claiming it as (hindsight) prophecy, however, the very Daniel passages you are likely thinking of claim to have been spoken by angels in Daniel's presence and etc. SOME scholars have to use late dating as a prop to avoid belief (at all costs).

But that is not being a fraud.

Try again.

 

[BilliardsBall]

I already did in the very post you're responding to where you avoided answering my question.

Who cares what ANY culture had a word for? We're talking about the one specially selected by the God you worship.


You're aware that ancient peoples used discuses, right?

And again, this completely avoids the point about prescience.

Address what I wrote if you dare. Be mature in your thinking and try addressing the point.

What you wrote was a non sequitur and moot, "Why didn't ancient Hebrew have a word for oblate spheroid?"

That's just one more (from you, we have many, many, many) version of "God didn't reveal/do/love/bless/punish/choose the way I LIKE, so SCREW GOD."

Do you have a real question, like, "Okay, BB, I reject the inference of a spheroid Earth from Job. Do you have some better examples of Bible prescience you'd like to try to convince me with?"

Instead, you are being petulant, childish. Please stop.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I'm not being paid to tutor you, therefore, I don't see the need to answer any loaded, rhetorical questions.

Confine yourself if you can and we can converse, learning from one another.

Confine myself? To what?

I will take your repeated refusal to address my point as an admission that you are conceding the argument. What other conclusion could I draw?

 

[SkepticThinker]

What you wrote was a non sequitur and moot, "Why didn't ancient Hebrew have a word for oblate spheroid?"

That wasn't my question at all. Why is it so difficult for you to stay on point? Why must you always straw man the argument?

That's just one more (from you, we have many, many, many) version of "God didn't reveal/do/love/bless/punish/choose the way I LIKE, so SCREW GOD."

I haven't said anything about "screw god." I'm trying to make you address a valid point in regards to your claims of prescience.

Do you have a real question, like, "Okay, BB, I reject the inference of a spheroid Earth from Job. Do you have some better examples of Bible prescience you'd like to try to convince me with?"

Why would I move onto "another" example of prescience when we haven't resolved your current claim? I mean, it's clear you can't back up what you've said and want to move on, but that's not how this works.

Instead, you are being petulant, childish. Please stop.

I'm being a petulant child? How so? You realize the quotes you've put in my mouth are not my words nor my arguments, right?

 

[BilliardsBall]

But that is not being a fraud.

Try again.

The book of Daniel contains numerous prophecies, where angelic beings/God reveals to Daniel future events. Any scholar claiming a late date for Daniel is saying the prophecies are fraudulent, like me "predicting" Lincoln will be the 16th President. The Dead Sea scrolls and other things show us the early dates for the Bible.

 

[BilliardsBall]

Confine myself? To what?

I will take your repeated refusal to address my point as an admission that you are conceding the argument. What other conclusion could I draw?

The correct conclusion is that you're asking moot rhetorical questions/illogical questions, so I don't concede "God made a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it".

 

[BilliardsBall]

That wasn't my question at all. Why is it so difficult for you to stay on point? Why must you always straw man the argument?

I haven't said anything about "screw god." I'm trying to make you address a valid point in regards to your claims of prescience.


Why would I move onto "another" example of prescience when we haven't resolved your current claim? I mean, it's clear you can't back up what you've said and want to move on, but that's not how this works.

I'm being a petulant child? How so? You realize the quotes you've put in my mouth are not my words nor my arguments, right?

You DID ask why God didn't use a word for oblate spheroid/why Hebrew had no such word.

What have we resolved or not resolved about my current claim? I claim the Hebrew word is "sphere"; you claim "disk". I also claim that Job predates the Greek scholars who measured the Earth.

What I did do is concede how you remain unconvinced, and that we can look at another claim, as soon as you stop being childish! What is your problem today and why am I hearing about it? Shouldn't you ask God why He used some Hebrew word in His text? That's what I do, which is how I know so much about the Bible.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The book of Daniel contains numerous prophecies, where angelic beings/God reveals to Daniel future events. Any scholar claiming a late date for Daniel is saying the prophecies are fraudulent, like me "predicting" Lincoln will be the 16th President. The Dead Sea scrolls and other things show us the early dates for the Bible.

No, that is your interpretation of the book. Talk to Jews what their interpretation is. You will find that they are quite different from Christians.

 

[gnostic]

You DID ask why God didn't use a word for oblate spheroid/why Hebrew had no such word.

What have we resolved or not resolved about my current claim? I claim the Hebrew word is "sphere"; you claim "disk". I also claim that Job predates the Greek scholars who measured the Earth.

There are no “ends” or “edges” to the Earth, BilliardsBall, if the Earth were like a “sphere” or “ball”. A disk have “edges” and “ends”.

[24] For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;

[13] That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?

It is clear that who ever wrote Job, has no understanding of the shape of the Earth, and Job 28 & 38, prove that the Bible saw the Earth shape as being disk, not a sphere.

And from the view from Earth, man couldn’t see the whole universe, if “heaven” = universe.

Because of the human eyes’ limitations, we could only see a very tiny fraction of the Milky Way, unaided (eg naked eye, hence, no binoculars or telescopes).

Say you live in New York City, if you were to count the number of stars in your location (naked eye, of course), it could be anywhere under 3000 stars.

The Milky Way have somewhere between 100 million and 400 billion stars. From the above figures, it is obvious astronomers can’t tell exactly the number of stars, because our own Solar System is located on one of minor spiral arms of the Milky Way.

So our view are blocked by other spiral arms of stars and thick cloud of dust and gases, that prevent us from viewing the other side of the galaxy, as well as blocking the direct line of sight of the Milky Way’s bar-shaped core.

We only see a portion of the Sagittarius spiral arm (Carina-Sagittarius arm), which blocked our view, behind it. And behind this arm, are the Centaurus spiral arm (Scutum-Centaurus), and then the Norma arm (Norma-Outer arm). These 3 spirals are actually blocking from viewing the Milky Way’s centre.

And the only stars we can view are local stars, those stars on the Orion spur - which is where our Solar System is located - a very portion of stars on the Sagittarius arm that immediately blocked our view towards the centre, and a tiny portion of stars on the Perseus arm, from the other direction.

Slightly larger objects that we can see with the naked eye, are the Andromeda Galaxy (about 2 million light years away) and the Triangular Galaxy (over 3 billion ly away). But without decent size telescope, these two look like cloudy blobs, not spiral galaxies.

It took the year 1919, for Edwin Hubble to discover these two objects and recognize that Andromeda and Triangulum were galaxies outside of the Milky Way, and not nebulas within the Milky Way. Hubble was using a newly built Hooker Telescope (the Mount Wilson Observatory, California); it was the largest optical telescope in the world, at that time.

BEFORE 1919, every astronomers have assumed that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the universe. Hubble’s discovery in 1919, changed everyone’s view about the size of the universe.

Since 2002, astronomers have estimated that there might be more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. And it is quite possible that the universe could be even larger than the observable universe.

Despite how powerful our current technology compared to Hubble’s time, there are still limitations of what we can observe in our universe.

 

[BilliardsBall]

No, that is your interpretation of the book. Talk to Jews what their interpretation is. You will find that they are quite different from Christians.

I wrote: "The book of Daniel contains numerous prophecies, where angelic beings/God reveals to Daniel future events. Any scholar claiming a late date for Daniel is saying the prophecies are fraudulent, like me "predicting" Lincoln will be the 16th President. The Dead Sea scrolls and other things show us the early dates for the Bible."

I recently wrote, "Stop trimming my answers, so people can see your cherry picking."

And I AM a Jew! I know how Jews interpret Daniel! You are absolutely wrong.

Daniel constantly, constantly says, "Word of the Lord revealed... angel told me X..." etc. I've known since I was a (Jewish) child, for one example, that Daniel prophesied Alexander the Great, and grew up with the (alleged) tale that Alexander was delighted to learn he was prophesied in Daniel and made obeisance and offerings at the Temple.

Restating: Daniel is either an early book showing prescience or a later book showing a liar who claims God and angels are revealing future events, that were rather in the past.

There is MUCH evidence that Daniel is early, and not only is it the prescient word of God, even skeptics who give it the latest possible dating know it comes before Jesus, who fulfilled Daniel's prophecies of Messiah, in timing and nature. JESUS IS GOD!

 

[BilliardsBall]

There are no “ends” or “edges” to the Earth, BilliardsBall, if the Earth were like a “sphere” or “ball”. A disk have “edges” and “ends”.





It is clear that who ever wrote Job, has no understanding of the shape of the Earth, and Job 28 & 38, prove that the Bible saw the Earth shape as being disk, not a sphere.

And from the view from Earth, man couldn’t see the whole universe, if “heaven” = universe.

Because of the human eyes’ limitations, we could only see a very tiny fraction of the Milky Way, unaided (eg naked eye, hence, no binoculars or telescopes).

Say you live in New York City, if you were to count the number of stars in your location (naked eye, of course), it could be anywhere under 3000 stars.

The Milky Way have somewhere between 100 million and 400 billion stars. From the above figures, it is obvious astronomers can’t tell exactly the number of stars, because our own Solar System is located on one of minor spiral arms of the Milky Way.

So our view are blocked by other spiral arms of stars and thick cloud of dust and gases, that prevent us from viewing the other side of the galaxy, as well as blocking the direct line of sight of the Milky Way’s bar-shaped core.

We only see a portion of the Sagittarius spiral arm (Carina-Sagittarius arm), which blocked our view, behind it. And behind this arm, are the Centaurus spiral arm (Scutum-Centaurus), and then the Norma arm (Norma-Outer arm). These 3 spirals are actually blocking from viewing the Milky Way’s centre.

And the only stars we can view are local stars, those stars on the Orion spur - which is where our Solar System is located - a very portion of stars on the Sagittarius arm that immediately blocked our view towards the centre, and a tiny portion of stars on the Perseus arm, from the other direction.

Slightly larger objects that we can see with the naked eye, are the Andromeda Galaxy (about 2 million light years away) and the Triangular Galaxy (over 3 billion ly away). But without decent size telescope, these two look like cloudy blobs, not spiral galaxies.

It took the year 1919, for Edwin Hubble to discover these two objects and recognize that Andromeda and Triangulum were galaxies outside of the Milky Way, and not nebulas within the Milky Way. Hubble was using a newly built Hooker Telescope (the Mount Wilson Observatory, California); it was the largest optical telescope in the world, at that time.

BEFORE 1919, every astronomers have assumed that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the universe. Hubble’s discovery in 1919, changed everyone’s view about the size of the universe.

Since 2002, astronomers have estimated that there might be more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. And it is quite possible that the universe could be even larger than the observable universe.

Despite how powerful our current technology compared to Hubble’s time, there are still limitations of what we can observe in our universe.

It sounds like you're saying God cannot see the whole universe. I bet He can.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The correct conclusion is that you're asking moot rhetorical questions/illogical questions, so I don't concede "God made a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it".

I didn't ask you whether "God made a rock so heavy He couldn't lift it". But you already knew that.

So we're at the usual point in the conversation where you repeatedly refuse to respond to questions or points, after you've already distorted the position of the person you are conversing with, then accuse the other person of being rude or childish so that you can dismiss them and move on from the difficult questions you desperately do not want to answer in the first place.


Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is getting really old BB. And it really doesn't make your position all that convincing or appealing.