I'm having a hard time deciding what to do here. On the one hand, I entered into debate with him knowing what I was getting into. On the other hand, he thinks that Noah's Ark is history. My time on this Earth is valuable. Sigh...
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
Okay.
It's frustrating when you pick out only part of a quote. Will you acknowledge that your attack on "science disproves God" is a strawman? What you quoted wasn't a concession, it was an admission that if your strawman existed, I'd be against it. Do you understand my point?
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
A. What kind of God are you seeking evidence for?
B. What form of evidence would be distinctive enough for you to acknowledge it AS evidence of or for God and not simply explain it away as something else?Serious question.
On A., I'm not seeking evidence. I sought, past tense, and found none. Nothing else I've seen has remotely swayed me.
On B., it's pretty hard to put this in an abstract sense without so many qualifying factors that it would be meaningless. I'd have to analyze evidence as it's presented to me. Making sweeping statements about what is and isn't evidence would be irresponsible.
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
I'm sure there was some animal that inspired our modern view of the beast.
If the people of times past could call the hippopotamus a horse, I can certainly see where liberty of naming could produce a "unicorn" based on, say, an antelope, or some similarly swift mono-horned plain animal.
Aren't decidedly "unpeople" looking creatures like dugongs and manatees supposed to be the source of mermaid tales?
Heck, if a hippopotamus justifies the name "river horse" from the Greeks, I could see something as unlikely as a rhinoceros being what we're talking about.
Good god, missing the point entirely. Let's try again. Please try not to miss the forest for the trees:
Do you believe in Santa Claus? Not some historical figure, but the red-suited elf living in the north pole. The point isn't a pseudo-historical search for "What Ifs", it's this: Would you believe in something no empirical evidence for its existence? Santa Claus? The teapot? God? Doesn't matter which.
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
Please do so.
Given your seeming lack of evolutionary knowledge, and how it informs our knowledge of the past, the first place I'd point you toward is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Say-Matters/dp/0231139624
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
I haven't made exhaustive searches by any means, but, from my understanding, nearly every time the Bible has said,
"Such and such settlement was found here and X happened with them", archaeology has uncovered evidence of the settlements in question.Where its alluded to battles, corroborating records in other ancient texts have later been found to confirm.
I know of no case where Bible historicity has proven false yet, where the Bible said "X happened" when "X" never did.
Nobody gives a sh*t if there are some cities that correspond. Do we have firsthand or verified accounts of Jesus's divinity? Do we have any empirical evidence of miracles, supernatural phenomenon, divine intervention, existence of an afterlife, etc.? You know, all the things that would make the Bible an actual divine text, instead of a vaguely historical, deeply flawed tome written by scientifically illiterate people who borrowed myths, stories, symbols, and heresay to incorporate into an incoherent, and oftentimes flatly evil, text.
Also, you're displaying a lack of thoroughness in your search for sources like these. A recent account I read on Jesus's historicity concluded that there was - barely - enough verified historical accounts to reasonably claim that Jesus existed as a man on the Earth. His conclusions stop there, because everything else concerning Jesus is so shrouded in myth and revisions and secondhand sources separated by decades or centuries that the actual details of his life become historically moot.
In any case, the point is that you're only familiar with your side of the discussion. Which is a boring way to walk through life, especially on something you base your worldview on. Similar literature searches on other sections of the Bible will yield similarly acerbic results on either its historical falseness or internal contradictions.
Originally posted by bluewaterrider
Reasonably so.
It is relatively new compared to other philosophical concepts.It has its objectors, too, and I'm not sure you're aware of that fact:
Several problems:
- Your block quote doesn't transfer burden of proof. It only attempts to bring both into the same burden. If you want your ideas to be taken seriously, the onus is still upon you to provide the evidence.
- It ignores the mathematically viable models we have for the universe's existence. That isn't proof, and scientists would be the first to tell you that, but it's also something, which is more than any theistic explanation has going for it in terms of empirical or logical evidence.
- It pushes back the questions of existence another level instead of answering anything. Positing God as an unmoved mover, the traditional response to this challenge, is a faith-based guess.
Do you believe in the Easter Bunny?