Sounds fair. Just wondering. All I am trying to point out is that it's not two camps separated by a wall... It's a wide area.
And I don't really know what you meant by that second quote of mine. I think I've always been clear that stuff like divine intervention and stuff cannot be proven. My main argument was that you just cannot dismiss any historicity of the biblical narratives off hand... or even by looking at the text only and ditching it because one doesn't like it.
No one has dismissed it because they don't like christianity, they have dismissed it because it doesn't stand up to scrutiny when relaying the stories that serve as the foundation for chistianity. At least, the documentary has not been made that does so.
__________________ "If I were you"
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That they are largely unfounded and are only circumstantially supported by the archaeology. Which supports the idea that they are largely made-up and highly embellished for the purpose of furthering the Jewish religion, and later the christian religion that was founded on it.
This is why it is no more out of the question to dismiss the Jewish and christian religions as it is to do so with the Greek or Roman religions. All three, and others, cite specific historical events that "prove" their god(s) exist in their claimed form and function and are interested in the daily events of humans and intervene and interact with humanity.
__________________ "If I were you"
"If you were me, you'd know the safest place to hide...is in sanity!
Well, I agree that there is no way to prove any divine intervention. However, just like it's interesting to consider the possibilities of a real David and Solomon, they same goes for wondering if there ever were a real Romulus and Remus (founders of Rome) and a real Battle of Troy. In other words: do people make things up out of thin air. I personally don't think so, at least not in the sense of inventing great events in detail and claiming they're historical. I think people's used real events and characters and molded them to bring out some religious message. Does the way these character's are sued define their historicity? IMHO I think that's a bit too easy. It's a bit like dismissing Mohammed as a historical character because we have a picture of him with a bomb in his turban (the infamous Danish cartoon). He prolly never had a bomb in his turban, yet the man did exist.
That you think the stories of the bible are real is nothing new. I've been saying that for a while. You've been denying that's your position, however. So finally owning that position is new.
Okay, Mohammad existed. So did Imhotep and Confucius. So, since all these folks existed, does that mean their religions are as valid and true as chrisianity?
__________________ "If I were you"
"If you were me, you'd know the safest place to hide...is in sanity!
Existence alone doesn't validate a religion of course. Faith does that I think.
But to ditch the Bible as a fairytale book because it talks about religion, that goes abit far IMHO. The Egyptians talked a lot about the influence of their gods, it still doesn't dismiss everything they wrote on their walls and papyri.
Maybe in a few thousand years there's a whole new religion everyone adheres to. And then reading our convo's they might dismiss your very existence because you denied any validation for religion at all. That's largely a matter of opinion, faith and personal experience. And luckily those differ among people.
Here's how you debate. This man has a long standing expertise on Egyptology, you pick out one little "contribution" that you don't like and condemn his credibilty.
Look at his main body of work: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s?ie=UTF8&a...dson&page=1
And that's just his popular books, I didn't even include his scientific publications.
And you still think this guy is FOS??? You have absolutely no idea whta you're talking about. You use a demagogic debating style that make you more of a hypocrite than you accuse me of being.
What a ridiculous statement. So he's proven to know his business... he uses his expertise in a field which you dsmiss out of hand, so eveyuthing he does is undermined? What a complete nitwittiness to reason that way. Just because you dismiss the entire subject altogether, you dismiss a scientists who knows a lot better than you what he's talking about. On what basis? I can see no other than your own bias, your agenda. That has nothing to dow ith science, no matter what DK says.
He contributes to a website, the purpose of which is to reconcile archaeology with The Bible, i.e. to interpret archaeological evidence to support The Bible. There is nothing objective or scientific about beginning with the conclusion that The Bible is an accurate description of the history of the world, and then selectively interpreting archaeological evidence to support this conclusion.
So what? A lot of scientists are asked to contribute. It's what's normal: you ask people from other fields to comment on your finds and conclusions. It doesn't automatically mean you agree with everything they say when you contribute. You just comment to what other people write: common practise in science. In fact. that's how it works: you publish, people respond (by request or not) and the debate goes on.
There is nothing objective or scientific about beginning with the conclusion that The Bible is a false description of the history of the world, and then selectively interpreting archaeological evidence to support this conclusion.
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Feb 28th, 2008 02:24 PM
