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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?

Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
(08-14-2019, 12:01 PM)Alan V Wrote: But this is why atheists shrug off so many religious claims, not because of "atheistic bias."  Religious people speculate on any number of ideas and too often consider unwarranted speculations as facts, contrary to careful scholarship and science.
That is true, I'm sure, but probably because of my bias I see this problem of "seeing unwarranted speculations as facts" also in secular science. Multiverse-theory being one example.

(08-14-2019, 12:01 PM)Alan V Wrote: atheism is not a worldview

I don't understand this because for my native language your claim is absurd. In English it may be different. From wikipedia:
Quote:A world view[1] or worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge and point of view. A world view can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.[2]

Worldview remains a confused and confusing concept in English, used very differently by linguists and sociologists. It is for this reason that James W. Underhill suggests five subcategories: world-perceiving, world-conceiving, cultural mindset, personal world, and perspective

(08-14-2019, 12:01 PM)Alan V Wrote: I must admit that I have skipped over large portions of this present discussion, so my comments may not be entirely relevant.  But this seems like the same-old same-old to me, which we have gone over many times before.  Perhaps that's why frustrations elevate so quickly.

Yes, most of the "discussion" in this thread is noise and I should not have participated it. Easy to say afterwards. I share the frustrations. I guess almost everybody anticipated how the discussion goes, reacting according to their anticipation, like Self-fulfilling prophecy. I was surprised how it became that same-old same-old so quickly, and me participating it. I try to learn from that mistake of mine.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
(08-14-2019, 12:44 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: Why discuss about it ? 
...
Oh it has been very fruitful. 
...
So yeah ... we'll talk about whatever the hell we what to talk about. If you don't have the balls for the discussion, you can go to the "It's all nice and fluffy for Jebus" forum.

I understand why you think it's important and fruitful but I choose to limit my participation in that discussion.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
(08-14-2019, 12:59 PM)Kimdal Wrote: That is true, I'm sure, but probably because of my bias I see this problem of "seeing unwarranted speculations as facts" also in secular science. Multiverse-theory being one example. 

Yes, a multiverse is certainly a huge speculation, but I'm not sure why you would consider it unwarranted.  I think scientists not only admit that they can't eliminate it as a possibility, but that it likely could never be tested.

(08-14-2019, 12:59 PM)Kimdal Wrote: I don't understand this because for my native language your claim is absurd. In English it may be different. From wikipedia:

A world view[1] or worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge and point of view. A world view can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics.[2]

Atheists have worldviews, but atheism isn't it.  Atheism is a "no" answer to the question, "Do you believe in God?"  Even theism is not a worldview, but a "yes" answer to the question.  Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are worldviews, with many variations.  Most (but not all) atheists are materialists, so our worldview is metaphysical naturalism. I know one atheist who is also a spiritualist of a kind. Some atheists believe in free will, some don't. Some believe in objective morality, some don't. Some are anti-religious, some aren't. Atheists have diverse political and philosophical opinions. The only thing we all have in common is that we don't believe in any God or gods, though of course there are certain family resemblances and overlapping between our opinions in other areas.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
(08-14-2019, 12:24 AM)Kimdal Wrote: ...I had only one further thing that I wanted to understand for the moment. It came to my mind during the "discussion". Basically it's this: How does a human being, who tries to decide rationally, decide when there are conflicting rational opinions? I expect there are many answers, and maybe I should just have started a poll about it.

I guess it depends on the specific definition of the word "rational".

As I see it, two contradictory points of view may both be rational at the same time. As an example:
• Global warming has been caused solely by man-made emissions released since the industrial revolution.  
• Global climate changes are due to cyclical, predictable, naturally occurring planetary events.

On the other hand, one of these points of view is obviously rational, and the other irrational:
• Supernatural entities and paranormal phenomena exist in reality.
• There is no viable evidence supporting the notion of the supernatural or paranormal.

Opinions are just that, and all too often unsupported by any empirical evidence.
• Some commentators claim that the Bermuda Triangle has seen more strange air and sea mishaps than anywhere else on the planet.
• Researchers have evidence that there are several other areas on the planet that have seen even more mishaps in a similar-sized area.
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
(08-14-2019, 01:06 PM)Kimdal Wrote:
(08-14-2019, 12:44 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: Why discuss about it ? 
...
Oh it has been very fruitful. 
...
So yeah ... we'll talk about whatever the hell we what to talk about. If you don't have the balls for the discussion, you can go to the "It's all nice and fluffy for Jebus" forum.

I understand why you think it's important and fruitful but I choose to limit my participation in that discussion.

Then it will be less fruitful Tongue  as there will be less to knock down.

One further thing that was fruitful, was (actually it went over your head) the attempt to get the Utilitarian issue discussed.
There is a (now disgraced) famous apologist, ... guy used to be the President of King's College in NY.
https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&s...JTr4eUnUUs
He also ran for the senate, (and broke the law and went to prison). Anyway, he used to use Utilitarianism in his lame attempts at debate.
He tried to say that Christianity (whether it was *true* or not), was valuable, and a good thing, because it produced happier people and provided answers to those who didn't have any. The fact that was raised and not dealt with is telling to an outsider reading this thread.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
Quote:Personally, I've been convinced by Bart Ehrman and other Biblical scholars that the historical Jesus was an apocalyticist.

But Ehrman has trouble even convincing his fellow-travelers!

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/23/us/pe...story.html

Quote:Professor Crossan, like Father Meier a Roman Catholic, is equally concerned with questions of methods. He calls the variety of Jesuses produced by scholars "an academic embarrassment." His solution is to group passages from the New Testament and other early texts about Jesus into over 500 units of similar sayings or deeds, then to probe for the original events by concentrating on the material that came earliest and is found in more than one independent source.

While both authors adhere to similar scholarly ideals, their major disagreements highlight the crucial choices that result in one version of the "historical Jesus" rather than another.


Shit.  If they can't convince themselves why should we put any stock at all in their opinions?
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
(08-14-2019, 07:12 PM)Minimalist Wrote: If they can't convince themselves why should we put any stock at all in their opinions?

The question about the historical Jesus will likely never be resolved.  At best, we have different reasonable interpretations of the facts, and a lot which are not reasonable.  I prefer the apocalyptic explanation because it makes the most sense to me.

But I also prefer a diversity of opinions, as long as people are honest about the facts.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
(08-14-2019, 07:12 PM)Minimalist Wrote:
Quote:Personally, I've been convinced by Bart Ehrman and other Biblical scholars that the historical Jesus was an apocalyticist.

But Ehrman has trouble even convincing his fellow-travelers!

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/23/us/pe...story.html

Quote:Professor Crossan, like Father Meier a Roman Catholic, is equally concerned with questions of methods. He calls the variety of Jesuses produced by scholars "an academic embarrassment." His solution is to group passages from the New Testament and other early texts about Jesus into over 500 units of similar sayings or deeds, then to probe for the original events by concentrating on the material that came earliest and is found in more than one independent source.

While both authors adhere to similar scholarly ideals, their major disagreements highlight the crucial choices that result in one version of the "historical Jesus" rather than another.


Shit.  If they can't convince themselves why should we put any stock at all in their opinions?

It appears that the gospel writers/editors included quite a bit of apocalyptic material in the gospels, but whether that reflected the views of an historical person, or the views of the editors, is impossible to parse out. The writers didn't know him, (if he existed) and that far later, no one would have any way of knowing what he thought or said, about anything. The fact that there are so many borrowed "memes" and mythological themes in the gospels makes them all suspect. It's also suspect that the content of his preaching reflects the concerns of the rabbis in the late 1st Century, post temple destruction, not early 1st Century. But of course they are "gospels", a unique form of literature... the gospels are proclamations of faith, (probably written for liturgical purposes) ... not history. What is important, is that the writers of the Pauline material were Jewish apocalypticists. And for them to assert that the "Christ" (not "Jesus") was the "anointed one" in the cultural context of Jewish apocalypticism, (which by then was very well established) means that unless the (scholars or whoever) are talking about the subject, recognize and know about Hebrew culture, (which many if not most of Xtian religionists do not) , whatever they cook up, is bound to be wrong.

So I bought the book that 5 Christian "scholars" (and I use the word generously) wrote to refute Ehrman's "How Jesus Became a God" (referenced above) .... and to be honest when I saw their credentials I thought .. "hmm, am I up to this ?". Hell yes I am. The book is pathetic, (and in fact has pages of critical reviews in Amazon, but only a few are actually scholarly comments on the errors), but the book is SO badly written it's gonna be fun. It is an interesting "artifact" though. These people have big names in Christian NT (one in OT) "scholarship" ... and if this is the actual crap quality of the nonsense they put out, it's even worse than I thought. I'll start a thread with the review, when it's done.
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(08-14-2019, 08:39 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: So I bought the book that 5 Christian "scholars" (and I use the word generously) wrote to refute Ehrman's "How Jesus Became a God" (referenced above) .... and to be honest when I saw their credentials I thought .. "hmm, am I up to this ?". Hell yes I am. The book is pathetic, (and in fact has pages of critical reviews in Amazon, but only a few are actually scholarly comments on the errors), but the book is SO badly written it's gonna be fun. It is an interesting "artifact" though. These people have big names in Christian NT (one in OT) "scholarship" ... and if this is the actual crap quality of the nonsense they put out, it's even worse than I thought. I'll start a thread with the review, when it's done.
(Bolding above mine)

I may not bother looking at that thread and I try to explain why.

The reason why I find argueing with you unfruitful and waste of time is because of your bias. I have bias, too, I’m not trying to deny it.

The bias we both have is just that we would have to change a lot of things in our lives if we realized we have been wrong. We might lose some of our friends. We would have to admit to ourselves and our friends that we have been wrong. Things like these are not easy. It’s personal revolution, and painful in many ways.

People have internal resistance for change in opinions, even if they love change and progress otherwise (e.g. in technology). There is a saying, translated to English: “People are afraid of becoming happy because people would have to change to become happy, and people are afraid of change”.

If you were able to write without bias, I would be very interested in your upcoming thread, but I’m really not interested in biased research. This applies to Christian bias, too. I was one of the elders in a church a couple of years ago, but I lost virtually all my friends there because I wanted to be objective and tried to show them their bias. I had to leave the church because I couldn’t just close my eyes from the bias of other leaders, even though they are very nice people otherwise. I could tell you more examples how I reject some interesting research “proving Bible true” because the research is far from objective.

I’m saying that even though I have bias, I try to be objective. What does that oxymoron mean? When I see a title of interesting research promoting Bible, it makes me glad and I hope I find the research reliable. I’m willing to believe it unless I find it unreliable. And if I find it unreliable, I just leave it unless I find it also dangerous. In that extreme case I take some more time to warn other people.

You have similar, but opposite bias. Your initial reaction (bias) would be that the research (promoting Bible) must be unreliable and even outright false. If that didn’t affect your objectivity, it wouldn’t matter. But I have seen too much that it does affect your objectivity. One concrete example was the question about “the twelve” when there were actually eleven disciples left. And sometimes I can not understand your reasoning at all, even though I’m trying to spend a lot of time understanding what the heck were you thinking.

I’m saying these things frankly, but I’m trying to be polite. I just wish you understand why I’m not interested in your ”evidence” and ”refutals”. I just don’t find them worth further investigation because such a strong bias. I have started reading them, but have lost interest very soon, unless I find some interesting new ideas (as I did in the long paper of yours, even though I found your research false)

There is one thing, though, in which I would be interested even in your biased refutal. The reason being that I have not found any other refutals so far. So, even your refutal would give me something to think and possibly reconsider. I’m planning to start a thread about book After the Flood, by Bill Cooper. Basically it’s evidence of Genesis reliability by showing that the ancient genealogies in Genesis are found in ancient, pre-Christian era (thus independent of Bible) writings in Europe. Anyway, it may take months before I start the thread, if ever, but that’s the book if you want to prepare for refuting it.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
(08-15-2019, 03:33 AM)Kimdal Wrote:
(08-14-2019, 08:39 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: So I bought the book that 5 Christian "scholars" (and I use the word generously) wrote to refute Ehrman's "How Jesus Became a God" (referenced above) .... and to be honest when I saw their credentials I thought .. "hmm, am I up to this ?". Hell yes I am. The book is pathetic, (and in fact has pages of critical reviews in Amazon, but only a few are actually scholarly comments on the errors), but the book is SO badly written it's gonna be fun. It is an interesting "artifact" though. These people have big names in Christian NT (one in OT) "scholarship" ... and if this is the actual crap quality of the nonsense they put out, it's even worse than I thought. I'll start a thread with the review, when it's done.
(Bolding above mine)

I may not bother looking at that thread and I try to explain why.

The reason why I find argueing with you unfruitful and waste of time is because of your bias. I have bias, too, I’m not trying to deny it.

The bias we both have is just that we would have to change a lot of things in our lives if we realized we have been wrong. We might lose some of our friends. We would have to admit to ourselves and our friends that we have been wrong. Things like these are not easy. It’s personal revolution, and painful in many ways.

People have internal resistance for change in opinions, even if they love change and progress otherwise (e.g. in technology). There is a saying, translated to English: “People are afraid of becoming happy because people would have to change to become happy, and people are afraid of change”.

If you were able to write without bias, I would be very interested in your upcoming thread, but I’m really not interested in biased research. This applies to Christian bias, too. I was one of the elders in a church a couple of years ago, but I lost virtually all my friends there because I wanted to be objective and tried to show them their bias. I had to leave the church because I couldn’t just close my eyes from the bias of other leaders, even though they are very nice people otherwise. I could tell you more examples how I reject some interesting research “proving Bible true” because the research is far from objective.

I’m saying that even though I have bias, I try to be objective. What does that oxymoron mean? When I see a title of interesting research promoting Bible, it makes me glad and I hope I find the research reliable. I’m willing to believe it unless I find it unreliable. And if I find it unreliable, I just leave it unless I find it also dangerous. In that extreme case I take some more time to warn other people.

You have similar, but opposite bias. Your initial reaction (bias) would be that the research (promoting Bible) must be unreliable and even outright false. If that didn’t affect your objectivity, it wouldn’t matter. But I have seen too much that it does affect your objectivity. One concrete example was the question about “the twelve” when there were actually eleven disciples left. And sometimes I can not understand your reasoning at all, even though I’m trying to spend a lot of time understanding what the heck were you thinking.

I’m saying these things frankly, but I’m trying to be polite. I just wish you understand why I’m not interested in your ”evidence” and ”refutals”. I just don’t find them worth further investigation because such a strong bias. I have started reading them, but have lost interest very soon, unless I find some interesting new ideas (as I did in the long paper of yours, even though I found your research false)

There is one thing, though, in which I would be interested even in your biased refutal. The reason being that I have not found any other refutals so far. So, even your refutal would give me something to think and possibly reconsider. I’m planning to start a thread about book After the Flood, by Bill Cooper. Basically it’s evidence of Genesis reliability by showing that the ancient genealogies in Genesis are found in ancient, pre-Christian era (thus independent of Bible) writings in Europe. Anyway, it may take months before I start the thread, if ever, but that’s the book if you want to prepare for refuting it.

You have no evidence that I am biased. None at all. 
You can present no evidence that I am biased. 
Your proposition is a red herring, logically. 

Quote:Your initial reaction (bias) would be that the research (promoting Bible) must be unreliable and even outright false

False. That is your ignorant bias. Your claim of bias is nothing but an ignorant rationalization as you cannot deal with the fact we know more about your cult and it's origins, than you do. I am very familiar with Ehrman's work and reasoning, and I am also very familiar in general with Fundamentalist Christian ignorance and mis-characterizations of the Bible. I have a degree in the field. I am educated in the field. YOU are not. In fact it's a very informed and educated position, unlike yours, which is one of total ignorance, since you never formally studied the Bible or the culture that produced it. The fact is you're an ignorant, uninformed child. You seem to think this is my first rodeo. It isn't. You just the latest in a LONG line of believers who have nothing to support their assertions, as we have seen so far. I have the EXPERIENCE and EDUCATION to make the claim I did. You don't. It's not "bias". Not everyone is as ignorant and uninformed as your are.
Your claim of bias is a well-known fallacy ... a false equivalence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
Your position is NOTHING comparable to mine. You are ignorant and uneducated, I am not. In fact you do not have the background to make any judgement about anyone's research. You have demonstrated here virtually total ignorance of all relevant topics.

I couldn't care less what you read or don't read.

Please start your thread. I'll blow it totally out of the water and off the map in one post.
There was no flood. We can prove it by genetics and other sciences.
But do please, make a fool of yourself. In fact, I'll refute it here, in a few minutes.

BTW, the fact that in your ignorance you are trying to make an ancient mythological Near Eastern text into something literal, demonstrates your utter cluelessness about the text.
The Judean priests who assembled the Genesis texts had NO WAY of knowing anything about the history of the Earth or how human populations evolved.

The fact that you would even mention "generations" in Genesis demonstrates also your total ignorance of science. It's flat-out wrong. Not "biased" ... just flat-out wrong. There is no absolute boundary known to science between modern humans, and the pre-modern forms they evolved from. There are estimates, but no known dating to reference for certain when the first modern human evolved. Therefore no one can prove ANYTHING about "generations" in ANY BOOK, Genesis or otherwise. That's not bias. It's a fact. period.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
Why we absolutely know there was no world-wide flood, as described in genesis.

All floods have silt layers. There is no world-wide silt layer.
The flood myth, like many things in Genesis, (including the Yahweh god) came from Babylonian mythology.
It was taken from the 11th Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
https://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mes.../tab11.htm



GWOG's resource thread
The Great Global Flood myth

Egyptian civilization is probably familiar to most of us. Egypt’s dynastic history started with the uniting of Upper and Lower Egypt by King Menes, around 3100 BCE. The Egyptian period known as the “Old Kingdom” lasted from 2800 to 2175 BCE. During this time many of the pyramids were built. There is no record, written or archaeological, for a monster flood destroying and completely interrupting this countries infrastructure or it’s monuments such as the Sphinx, the Step Pyramid, or the Great Pyramids, which were built before ‘The Flood’. Neither were they wiped out.

China has a reasonably accurate history starting around 3000 BCE. According to texts from a Chinese book called “Shu King” and verified by archaeological records, China was undergoing a prosperous period around 2400 to 2200 BCE during the early Yaou Dynasty. They have no record of a cataclysmic flood interrupting their whole civilization and destroying the infrastructure of the country. Neither were they wiped out.

The Indus valley civilization has a well-known history dating back to perhaps 3100 BCE. By 2500 BCE there were two major cities, Mohendaro (or Mohenjo-Daro) and Harrapa, which rivaled Egypt and Mesopotamia in population and technologies. This great Civilization also encompassed maybe 100 smaller cities, towns, and villages, and didn’t fall until about 1500 BCE. They have no record of a worldwide civilization-destroying flood. Neither were they wiped out.

The Minoan civilization was probably as old as Egypt. Based on the Island of Crete, this civilization grew quickly and was highly advanced by 2500 BCE. By the middle of the second millennium it had an alphabet, used bronze tools, had pottery, textiles, advanced architecture, and had established cities around the Islands. It continued to grow and was a center for trade and culture until about the mid-1400′s BCE when it was suddenly destroyed by the violent eruption of the Thera volcano. There has been no evidence unearthed from this civilization that shows a flood destroying their whole infrastructure, at any time in their existence. Neither were they wiped out.

Trees that were completely submerged in salt water would have died, so when we look at trees that are say 10,000 years old, and not only did they live past the "mythical flood' but they show zero evidence of a flood. Can you find trees with flood evidence ? Sure, that shows there was a local flood, not worldwide, submerged flood that killed all life including vegetation. you are familiar with barometric pressure of course so you understand introducing that much magical water into our system would have wrecked it right? There is not enough water on or in the earth to cover the planet under 40 feet above the highest mountain.

The conventional flood story states that the flood waters came from rain that lasted 40 days and 40 night right? Rain appears when the atmosphere can no longer support water in the vapor phase and it becomes saturated. So normally, the atmosphere is on the brink of saturation, and the variations in temperature and pressure caused by weather fronts are capable of altering the threshold at which precipitation will form quite easily. What about the amount of water vapor suspended in air needed for the 4.5 billion cubic kilometers of water needed for the global flood? The water vapor currently in the air is only around 2-3% on average, with a maximum of 4% limited by temperature and pressure.

The change in atmospheric conditions required to support enough vapor for 112 million cubic kilometers of rain per day - about 120,000 times more than the current daily rainfall worldwide - would have rendered the air unbreathable.

Indeed, the atmosphere really couldn't sustain that much water even under the most extreme temperature and pressure conditions the planet can produce. If the conditions were right for that much water to be in the atmosphere, humans and virtually every other animal would have drowned through the simple act of breathing, as well as turning the earth into the equivalent of a pressure cooker with atmospheric pressure at nearly a thousand psi instead of the standard 14.7 or so that we have today.

How do you explain the relative ages of mountains? For example, why weren't the Sierra Nevadas eroded as much as the Appalachians during the Flood?

Why is there no evidence of a flood in ice core series? Ice cores from Greenland have been dated back more than 40,000 years by counting annual layers. [Johnsen et al, 1992,; Alley et al, 1993] A worldwide flood would be expected to leave a layer of sediments, noticeable changes in salinity and oxygen isotope ratios, fractures from buoyancy and thermal stresses, a hiatus in trapped air bubbles, and probably other evidence. Why doesn't such evidence show up?

How are the polar ice caps even possible? Such a mass of water as the Flood would have provided sufficient buoyancy to float the polar caps off their beds and break them up. They wouldn't regrow quickly. In fact, the Greenland ice cap would not regrow under modern (last 10 ky) climatic conditions. The fact that Greenland even exists single handedly refutes the flood.

Why did the Flood not leave traces on the sea floors? A year long flood should be recognizable in sea bottom cores by (1) an uncharacteristic amount of terrestrial detritus, (2) different grain size distributions in the sediment, (3) a shift in oxygen isotope ratios (rain has a different isotopic composition from seawater), (4) a massive extinction, and (n) other characters. Why do none of these show up?

Repopulation issue

The global flood story requires that only eight people were left alive in 2349 BCE. This does not allow enough time for humans to repopulate the earth. In 2000 BCE only 350 years after the flood the population of the world was 27 million. To go from a population of eight to a population of 27 million in 350 years would require a population growth rate of 136.07%. That is 133% more than the fastest growing portions of the world today.

The Bible also places the date of construction on the Tower of Babel roughly 100 years after the great flood. Saying a population could go from 6 people (Noah and his wife don't count, they didn't have any more children) to enough people to build the Tower of Babel as it is described in the Bible is absurd. This tower was so great that it threatened God, so it must have been greater that the pyramid of Khufu which took 30,000 people to build. Even a growth rate of 500%, which is absurd beyond all imagination, would only produce about half the required people to even begin to think about such a construction project.


The Ark

I won’t get into the issue of how pandas, and polar bears, and ants, and anteaters, and sloths etc etc all animals from all over the world from different continents somehow swam/flew/crawled across massive oceans to line up for the ark cruise…or what they ate, or where the poop went, or how they breathed from that tiny window, or how the different species survived from various climates and requiring specific foods. I will dabble into some building issues however;

Noah's Ark was a great rectangular box of gopherwood, or perhaps some combination of other woods colloquially referred to as gopherwood. Its dimensions are given as 137 meters long, 23 meters wide, and 14 meters high. This is very, very big; it would have been the longest wooden ship ever built. These dimensions rank it as one of history's greatest engineering achievements; but they also mark the start of our sea trials, our test of whether or not it's possible for this ship to have ever sailed, or indeed, been built at all.

Would it have been possible to find enough material to build Noah's Ark? When another early supership was built, the Great Michael (completed in Scotland in 1511) it was said to have consumed "all the woods of Fife". Fife was a county in Scotland famous for its shipbuilding. The Great Michael's timber had to be purchased and imported not only from other parts of Scotland, but also from France, the Baltic Sea, and from a large number of cargo ships from Norway. Yet at 73 meters, she was only about half the length of Noah's Ark. Clearly a ship twice the length of the Great Michael, and larger in all other dimensions, would have required many times as much timber. It's never been clearly stated exactly where Noah's Ark is said to have been built, but it would have been somewhere in Mesopotamia, probably along either the Tigris or Euphrates rivers. This area is now Iraq, which has never been known for its abundance of shipbuilding timber.

Whether a wooden ship the size of Noah's Ark could be made seaworthy is in grave doubt. At 137 meters (450 feet), Noah's Ark would be the largest wooden vessel ever confirmed to have been built. In recorded history, some dozen or so wooden ships have been constructed over 90 meters; few have been successful. Even so, these wooden ships had a great advantage over Noah's Ark: their curved hull shapes. Stress loads are distributed much more efficiently over three dimensionally curved surfaces than they are over flat surfaces. But even with this advantage, real-world large wooden ships have had severe problems. The sailing ships the 100 meter Wyoming (sunk in 1924) and 99 meter Santiago (sunk in 1918) were so large that they flexed in the water, opening up seams in the hull and leaking. The 102 meter British warships HMS Orlando and HMS Mersey had such bad structural problems that they were scrapped in 1871 and 1875 after only a few years in service. Most of the largest wooden ships were, like Noah's Ark, unpowered barges. Yet even those built in modern times, such as the 103 meter Pretoria in 1901, required substantial amounts of steel reinforcement; and even then needed steam-powered pumps to fight the constant flex-induced leaking.

Mythical Global Flood date IAW the Bible

I love when creationists posit that the "global flood didn't neccessarily happen in 2348 BCE"...Atheists don’t posit the mythical flood happened in 2348ish BCE…The date for the mythical flood is part of Xtian’s fable, we just deal with the myth as it is presented...for example:

"Paul, a university trained Jew, well skilled in the Hebrew language, the religion of the Jews and the writings of Moses, wrote in the early years of the Christian era, a letter to the church at Galatia (Galatians 3:17). He stated that the Israelites left Egypt to return to the promised land 430 years after God gave the promise to Abraham, the founder of the Jewish race.

According to Acts 7:4 and Genesis 12:1-4, Abraham was 75 years old when God gave him the promise and in the same year his father Terah was 205 years old and Abraham was born when Terah was 130 years of age (Gen.11:26-33).

The statements of genealogy in Genesis 11:10-26, are father-son statements and link Abraham to Noah’s son, Shem. The statements list the persons by name. Their year of birth against their father’s age is listed and their father is named. These chronologies do not have missing generations; there are no gaps.

If we add up the figures mentioned between Shem’s 100th year (Gen. 11:10) and Abraham (Gen. 11:26) we get 350 years. Since 9 names are mentioned it is 350 years ± 9 (9 margins of error of up to 1 year each).

Genesis 11:10 tells us that Shem was 100 years old, 2 years after the Flood had finished. When was Noah’s Flood? 1,981 years to AD 1 plus 967 years to the founding of Solomon’s Temple plus 480 years to the end of the Exodus plus 430 years to the promise to Abraham plus 75 years to Abraham’s birth plus 350 years to Shem’s 100th birthday plus 2 years to the Flood. The Biblical data places the Flood at 2304 BC ± 11 years."

http://creation.com/the-date-of-noahs-flood

Now I can eviscerate this "doctors" BS based on facts like...the exodus didnt happen either, but why bother. The point is, I have seen some variations, but all Xtian myth points to the area of 2300 BCE...which is what I said. Lets look at more delusion..

Our good friend Ken Ham from the Answersingenesis misinformation site says..

Calculated BC date for creation: 4004
Calculated AM date for the Flood: - 1656
Calculated BC date for the Flood: 2348
Current Year (minus one2): + 2011
Number of years since beginning of Flood: 4359

wait there's more...

"First-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus used manuscripts available during his time to calculate that Noah's Flood occurred 1556 years after the creation of Adam. By adding the ages of the patriarchs listed in the Bible, other scholars have come up with roughly similar dates.

Irish archbishop James Ussher calculated that the creation of the world took place in 4004 BC. If 1656 is deducted from 4004 then the worldwide flood of Noah's time was around 2348 BC (if both chronologies are correct; but please note that there is some disagreement even among conservative Bible believers on these dates).

Josephus, Ussher, and other scholars disagree slightly on some of their dates. But most agree that a straightforward reading of the Bible indicates the Deluge must have taken place in the third millennium before the birth of Jesus Christ — probably between 2500 BC and 2300 BC."

http://www.creationtips.com/flooddate.html

well what do you know...it would seem those that sell the myth, all seem to say it occurred around 2300-2400ish BCE....so when I say weather conditions havent existed in the last 10k years to create greenland, that would be check mate.
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[Image: FB_IMG_1518175683773.jpg]



Cue "special pleading" in 5....4.....3......2......1..................
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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(08-15-2019, 04:43 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote: You have no evidence that I am biased. None at all. 
You can present no evidence that I am biased. 

It may be that we have different understanding of what is bias. But based on what I understand about bias I don't have to provide any evidence that you are biased. You have provided the evidence yourself in almost every message of yours. If you can't see, I don't think I can help you to see it. I have tried enough already.

Btw, I was not talking about the Flood, but the Table of Nations (Genesis 10) that has been proven 99% accurate by independent (of Bible and Christianity) ancient sources. I'm planning to start working on providing the evidence (that you might want to refute), but I have also other things in my life. If you are in hurry, the book provides the evidence. I have no more evidence than that book.
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Of course archaeology dismisses Noah and the rest of the bullshit which sort of torpedoes your "accuracy" claim, doesn't it?

Oh, I forgot.  YOU aren't biased!
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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(08-15-2019, 06:12 AM)Minimalist Wrote: Oh, I forgot.  YOU aren't biased!
Incorrect. As I have explained, I'm biased, too. Awareness of one's own bias helps to take countermeasures against it.
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Lack of belief in god(s) or believing there are no gods?
Total false equivalence. We don't have a different notion of bias. You're introducing it as a diversion. Since you can't actually argue any specifics, as you have no education, instead you attempt to toss in the ringer of bias, as you think it makes your positions equal to those who actually know what they are talking about. It's totally obvious and pathetic.

There is a VAST difference between positions that are informed, can provide the evidence for the FACTS they are based on, and positions that are not informed, and have no facts to support them.

This "biased" bullshit is a lame attempt to create a false equivalence between positions based on years of study and FACTS and positions that are based on ignorance. It's dishonest to the max, and obviously outright flat-out false.

Nice try there, rookie. Fail again.

Which does raise the problems with the refutation to the Ehrman book. Historians know and can trace when things happened and when culture changed ... rather precisely.
Ehrman is very specific about his positions and specific history. The pathetic refutation of his book is specific about the theology bullshit, but not about history. They do not refute the historical FACTS Ehrman presents.

Re the flood information :
You didn't watch the video ... it's about genetic diversity. You didn't read the posts ... human genetic diversity and the bottleneck that would be created from the flood.
The Table of the Nations is meaningless bullshit. First of all there is no way anyone could know who was a child of anyone. The time-frame is impossible genetically .... genetic diversity and DNA PROVES the "generations" impossible. Genetics knows the mutation rates and DNA changes also knows the migration patterns of humans.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.c...n-journey/
https://www.biointeractive.org/classroom...-migration

Quote:... the Table of Nations (Genesis 10) that has been proven 99% accurate by independent (of Bible and Christianity) ancient sources.

It has not, by any science. In fact DNA proves the claims are not only totally false, but impossible.
Bullshit. Once again, no references, no support of the claim. Dismissed.
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(08-13-2019, 06:02 PM)Kimdal Wrote: Maybe nothing, but there might be. Being human means being biased. Being biased might affect the scientific work. It’s not supposed to affect, but we are all human beings.

Sigh, If only science had a system embedded in its methodology to detect and eliminate such bias. What would we call it? How about 'pal revaluation'.
Or something like that.
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To shrug off information as biased can itself be biased. It simply begs the question.

Saying "all humans are biased" is true, but not particularly useful when it comes to specifics.

Many people could easily be accused of bias because they already did their research years ago, and have no wish to repeat it.
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(08-13-2019, 06:02 PM)Kimdal Wrote: Maybe nothing, but there might be. Being human means being biased. Being biased might affect the scientific work. It’s not supposed to affect, but we are all human beings.

Fail again. 
Researchers can design their studies to minimize bias. Peer review and the study design can minimize bias. 
He is just a dishonest troll. He pushing a dishonest false equivalence between an informed state and uninformed condition. 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917255/
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(08-15-2019, 11:25 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote:
(08-13-2019, 06:02 PM)Kimdal Wrote: Maybe nothing, but there might be. Being human means being biased. Being biased might affect the scientific work. It’s not supposed to affect, but we are all human beings.

Researchers can design their studies to minimize bias. Peer review and the study design can minimize bias. 
He is just a dishonest troll. He pushing a dishonest false equivalence between an informed state and uninformed condition. 

Why do you find it difficult to imagine that some people don't understand how science minimizes bias?
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(08-15-2019, 12:11 PM)Alan V Wrote:
(08-15-2019, 11:25 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote:
(08-13-2019, 06:02 PM)Kimdal Wrote: Maybe nothing, but there might be. Being human means being biased. Being biased might affect the scientific work. It’s not supposed to affect, but we are all human beings.

Researchers can design their studies to minimize bias. Peer review and the study design can minimize bias. 
He is just a dishonest troll. He pushing a dishonest false equivalence between an informed state and uninformed condition. 

Why do you find it difficult to imagine that some people don't understand how science minimizes bias?

It isn't just science. It's everything. 
With him, every position everyone has about every subject is somehow the result of bias, and thus illegitimate, or "just as legitimate" as any other.
Thus things that have been determined to be true (facts) are of equal value to things that are not. 
Fallacy of false equivalence. It's his schtick.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/
http://theconversation.com/how-do-you-kn...logy-63884

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

We've seen him make (at least) two entirely false claims.
1. The Big bang Theory is about a "beginning".
2. The Table of Nations (in Genesis) has been proven true.
Both claims reflect a complete ignorance of basic science.
It's not about bias, or the result of bias. It is possible to know the facts about some things, with no bias involved.
His position is also a form of Solipsism. There are established ways to know what reality is, that involve no bias.
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(08-15-2019, 01:24 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: It isn't just science. It's everything. 

I thought perhaps Kimdal just didn't understand the logic behind methodological naturalism.
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(08-15-2019, 02:32 PM)Alan V Wrote: I thought perhaps Kimdal just didn't understand the logic behind methodological naturalism.

You're so sweet. You tend to think too highly of everyone, even when they're being ignorant twats right in front of you.
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bi·as
/ˈbīəs/
noun
1.
prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

A position based on facts, ... facts that can be shown to be true in patterns that can be demonstrated to be true,
by people competent to discuss these facts is, by definition, not a biased position.

Bias is not a universal. It is possible to know and check whether one's position on something is biased or not.

Edit : I am not biased toward religion. I know far more about religion than he will ever know. I have always contended (here and elsewhere) that there really is no practical difference between agnostic atheism and the highest forms of other systems ... those being European contemplative Christian mysticism, (Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross), "The Dark Night of the Soul", "The Cloud of Unknowing" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_of_Unknowing , some Indian Buddhist systems, and Chinese Tao mysticism. 
The Abbott of one of the most well-known monastic communities in the US is one of my friends ... whom I visit every summer, as are a few monks in a couple of the European Cistercian foundations.
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(08-15-2019, 02:34 PM)Phaedrus Wrote:
(08-15-2019, 02:32 PM)Alan V Wrote: I thought perhaps Kimdal just didn't understand the logic behind methodological naturalism.

You're so sweet. You tend to think too highly of everyone, even when they're being ignorant twats right in front of you.

Well, after what Bucky posted, I'm thinking that Kimdal whole "bias" thing is his way of restating the Christian contention that man's fallen nature is such that we can't trust anything we do on our own; we can only trust God.  

If that's the case, we should be arguing that point rather than accusing him of being a troll.  Kimdal hasn't been posting long enough to come to that conclusion, in my opinion at least.

Of course, some religious people are too far down their own rabbit holes to talk with productively.  They suffer from a number of mutually supporting assumptions, so one can't break through with any helpful critiques.  But Kimdal seems more interesting and thoughtful than that. Give him a bit more time.
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