Ancient and ArchaeologyÌý permalink
History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by RyosukeY (U9325493) on Sunday, 12th August 2007
I studied that the first human beings were found in Ethiopia, well at least the oldest that we could find.
If this is true by any chance, is there a possibility that Adam and Eve, the first human beings mentioned in the Bibile, are from Ethiopia?
Please tell me if you believe in this, or if you think it's rubbish.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 2
Posted by rtnofdave (U7799561) on Sunday, 12th August 2007
It is rubbish as species cannot evolve into just one of each. That said, outside of Africans, we are apparently all decended from one of 7 women, who took part in the first crossing of the Red Sea to Arabia from Ethiopia.
Adam and Eve is a legend, but David Rohl has suggested the origins lie in he mountains around Tabriz in northern Iran. Adam means "of red earth" apparently.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 3
Posted by SafricanAndy (U7173046) on Sunday, 12th August 2007
According to the Genesis story, the garden of eden was between the tigris and the euphrates riviers, i.e. Mesopotamia, not so? How could Adam and Eve have come from Ethiopia then?
Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 4
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Sunday, 12th August 2007
Your question - as rtnofdave rightly points out - juxtaposes fact and fiction, and trying to correlate both assertions, one based on scientific research and the other on a suspect translation through several languages of an iron-age Jewish religious text, is a little fatuous.
It is a bit like saying that mice live behind skirting boards. Mickey Mouse, according to its creator Disney, spoke English with a high-pitched American twang. Should I therefore be hearing nauseatingly whiney Americanisms from behind my skirting board?
Science's inability to answer neither this nor your own question - amazingly - indicates nothing lacking on the part of science. You've just got to believe me.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 5
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 12th August 2007
Hi Everyone,
I don't want to be difficult but in a formal sense every species of mammal does begin with an individual of each sex. If Ö÷²¥´óÐã sapiens evolved from, say, H. heidelbergensis then every individual in the chain belonged to one species or the other. Such are the somewhat artificial constraints that taxonomy imposes on biology.
I suppose that the originator of this thread would have to designate which species of hominin he first considered 'human' before the Lower Palaeolithic specialists had a crack at explaining where in Africa the creature evolved.
Doubtless such considerations did not inform the writer(s) of Genesis and perhaps this, and other, creation myths are best regarded as poetic accounts. It seems as unnecessary to pursue the factual content of scripture to the wire, as it would be to read Richard Dawkins in order to establish how to lead a 'good life'. That is not to say there is no history in the Bible, nor some ethics in Dawkins!
TPLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 6
Posted by rtnofdave (U7799561) on Monday, 13th August 2007
No, species evolve due to changes in DNA and the successful ones are the result of an adaptation to environmental change. If only one individual changed, it would take far too long for a species to evolve, not least as procreation requires two and the other ex hypothesi must lack this change, so not all the offspring would have the change.
Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 7
Posted by scamander (U870981) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007
I worry at wandering down an avenue in which theology becomes the mainstay point. However, a couple of aspects of Genesis need to be brought to bear on this point.
Most scholars argue that Genesis is a collection of myths/stories patched together. This is revealed in a number of ways, one of which is how Cain and Abel find wives from out of the blue. This could point to the fact that Genesis isn't the story of man per se, but in fact the story of a particular group of people and its origins amidst many other peoples.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 8
Posted by TattooedThug (U7867377) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007
the story of a particular group of people and its origins amidst many other peoples.Ìý
No doubt about it. All peoples have an 'origin' story, and this one is ours. But it is exactly that, a story.
Shame so many believe it...Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 9
Posted by Flying_Arf-RIP_scrum_V_MB (U1505179) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007
To return to the mitocondrial 'Eve' if I recall correctly she was the ancestor of all non Africans, they have also proposed a single 'Adam' based on Y Chromosome analysis, the only trouble this gives the biblical version is that this Adam & Eve were 70 generations apart.
If you want to use the bible as a reference can I refer you to the Banned from the Bible documentary which detailed some of the sections excised from the bible over the years.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 10
Posted by Elkstone (U3836042) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007
The bible can not be taken literally. When Noah built the Ark the only people who survived were his family. then were did his sons find wives to marry? All religions/cultures outlaw incest. So his sons married their sisters, and grandchildren married siblings and cousins? If that happned the family line and the human race would have developed genetic deformities and die out.
Are we expected to believe that the reason we all speak different languages is because man tried to build the Tower of Babel to climb into heaven. To prevent them, god made themspeak diffeerent languages to cause confusion. You belive this? What was the original language they were speaking at the time? Latin? Greek? Hebrew? You will find older languages in place if you dig deep enough. The ancient egyptian language for one.
So maybe things got mixed up or changed during the countless translations, which is why we have these anomalies which seem to be fairy stories which they probably are.
All cutlures have their own creation stories, Native Americans, eskimos, Aborigines, Aztecs, south african bushmen etc etc. You cant say one is correct all the others are wrong, when some cultures pre dates christianity/judaism/islam by thousands of yearsLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 11
Posted by copperworks (U5523776) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007
Genesis as a fable
Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 12
Posted by copperworks (U5523776) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007
Soory I did not complete the above post which was going to discuss the merits of Genesis as a reflection on the pitfalls of human knowledge. I changed my mind, too woolly! but hit the Post button by mistake. Sorry.
Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 13
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 14th August 2007
Genesis draws from several sources in its structure and content, and not all of them were totally compatible - they just happened to coalesce within the tribal culture that evolved into the Jewish people (I won't say 'state' as the term is very misleading and implies a culture rooted geographically, when in fact the archaic Jewish culture was, even by their own account, rather mobile, one of the reasons it picked up bits and pieces from apparently disparate faith-systems).
As a fable therefore it is doomed to raise more theological debate than it was designed to resolve, it being the kind of didactic scripture that brooks no contradiction in its correct cultural setting and therefore wilts alarmingly in impact, sense and relevance when subjected to close examination - be it theosophical, theological or simply the rigours of standard literary critique. The portion in which humankind is revealed to be created by a deity and then the relationship between human and god defined is actually one of its less difficult pieces to understand as allegory, even if elements within it have changed character through mistranslation over the millennia.
But if one takes god out of the fable one is left with nothing that makes sense allegorically, at least as a way of describing human origin. In that sense one can say that the purpose of the allegory is less to provide a definition for human origin, and more to lay down the ground rules by which human's relationship with god must then follow. In other words it is a fundamental basis for the series of rigorous and subjectively moralistic regulations that the Jewish religion (and later Christian offshoot) imposed on its 'followers' (if enforced membership in any such society can be correctly construed as 'following').Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 14
Posted by copperworks (U5523776) on Wednesday, 15th August 2007
Nordmann,
I accept that Genesis is essentially a poor allegory, reflecting its narrow origins in nomadic lore. However I question your assertion that if one takes god out of the fable one is left with nothing that makes sense allegorically. Adam and Eve, representatives of mankind, are protected and nurtured in an utopia, the price for which is ignorance of good and evil. This of course means ignorance of sin, ignorance of virtue, nakedness,morality and mortality (if percieved as good or bad)etc.
The acquirement of this knowledge, and we can leave out the disobeying god part, represents the seminal moment when man sees himself for what he is, ie gains a high degree of self-awareness. Perhaps this is an allegorical encapsulment of the qualatitive evolutionary leap which seperates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Significantly Genesis identifies the acquiring of this intelligence as our downfall from paradise, altough emphasises our means of acquiring it as the primary evil.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 15
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 15th August 2007
Perhaps, as you say, the allegory of the fruit of knowledge refers to humanity's evolutionary leap from its primal special form. It is at least a tacit suggestion that this 'knowledge' is the preserve of humans above other animals (even if it did need to be 'filched' from god to attain it). But the allegory goes way further with the concept in that it then assigns all subsequent ill to the disobedient procurement of the fruit, thereby establishing the basic precepts by which much of the rest of the biblical god / people relationship is defined. And this, I think, is its primary function as an allegory; to leave no doubt that all which pertains is in the gift of a deity.
If the story was simply an allegory for the 'evolutionary leap' bit then the concept of paradise would have been handled differently, I think, in that Eden would have been even more available having eaten the fruit. The reverse is implied and the message is in fact rather anti-intellectual, suggesting that total ignorance was 'paradise' and the acquirement of knowledge a retrograde step. Without the imposition of a possessive, vengeful, control-freak deity upon the narrative this would sound simply an 'opinion', and an unpopular opinion at that since it goes against the human instinctive quest for knowledge by which the species did indeed manage to attain an evolutionary high. Once god is added to the mix however the anti-intellectualism is cloaked with a much more acceptable sheen (at least to guilt-ridden control-freaks and those controlled by them) in that no longer is it simply 'an opinion' but the 'decision of the creator', and thus becomes the root of all further moral imperatives devised under the belief-system.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 16
Posted by copperworks (U5523776) on Wednesday, 15th August 2007
I see your point "Ignorance is bliss, knowledge is a curse" seems as if it ought to be a biblical quote. I suppose I was trying to cherry-pick some unrelated allegorical meaning from what is essentially a dogmatic religious tract.
Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 17
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Wednesday, 15th August 2007
It's so easy to state that Genesis isn't true and offer opinions of what you think it means. Well, I believe Genesis is true. If you don't like it, don't blame Moses - he only wrote what God told him to. And as God was the only one there in the beginning, I think he deserves some credit for what is written down.
Evolution is the big cop out. We have to listen to all this blah blah millions of years - even thrust down our throats from school age.
Why are we so afraid of the truth? Is it because we don't want to be accountable to God. Maybe if I don't believe in him, he'll go away.
What a shame that we don't use the bible to improve our knowledge istead of trying to disprove it.
Incest was not a sin until the law came through Moses. So brother marrying sister etc happened. Evolution across genera doesn't happen. Animals adapt, yes. But every creature was after its kind and not Genesis has the right order. Yes dinosaurs were contemporary with man and went into the ark. It was through man death came into the world through sin. You can't have fossils without death! Think about it. If there was other life 'out there' why did Jesus come to this planet? Why not go and get crucified somewhere else?
Even leaving out the 'religious' bits, there is a lot of common sense on how to live in society in the bible. Look at the awful world we live in today - and it's getting worse.
If there was ever a need to promote the bible and look at it with an open mind, it's today.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 18
Posted by OldKingCole2007 (U9190432) on Wednesday, 15th August 2007
I thought Noah's sons took their wives into the Ark? I could be wrong, I haven't looked it up!
As for inter-breeding, the Royal families of Europe are infamous for their inter-breeding and although it isn't the best idea genetically-speaking, genetic deformities are the exception rather than the rule. It is only with repeated use of the same or very close genetic material that real problems arise.
For example, if an individual procreates with it's own offspring, and then its offspring's offspring, the same genetic material is duplicated, meaning that the 'grandchild' has inherited 3/4 of the genetic material of the original individual.
It is legal today to marry a second cousin and society and the law recognise that there is ample genetic diversity within this arrangement.
Getting back to Ancient history (!) why would the ancient Egyptian language be older than Hebrew? I also have a problem with:
"some cultures pre dates christianity/judaism/islam by thousands of years".
The story of Abraham is pretty close to the start of things culture-wise. Perhaps you could enlighten me?Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 19
Posted by OldKingCole2007 (U9190432) on Wednesday, 15th August 2007
I think the point was that you have Species (A) which breeds with Species (A) and they produce offspring of Species (A) and so-on, until at some point the offspring is recognised (and classified) not as Species (A) any more, but as the new Species (B).
So there must be a first of the species, a second, a third, etc.
Isn't the alternative to believe in a spontaneous change of a whole number of individuals of Species (A) into Species (B)? Sounds rather Creationist/far-fetched to me...Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 20
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
If there was ever a need to promote the bible and look at it with an open mind, it's today.
Ìý
I might suggest NoPlaceLikeRome that you take your own advice.
Mind you, the contents hardly require promotion, having been foisted on society over millennia as incontestable fact by some very powerful agencies. Thankfully humans have proved that their insatiable thirst for real knowledge is stronger than the promoters' long-held desire (relinquished only after much struggle and debate - which they lost) that the book's contents be unquestioningly accepted as scientific fact. You might indeed have noticed yourself that your views, as expressed on this thread, are not shared by the bulk of the human race. This, to me, is to the race's immeasurable credit, even if a fair percentage of them still pay lip service to the concept that the bible, while not literally true, is an allegorical work of some merit and meaning.
You ask why 'we' are afraid of the truth? Your question proves rhetorical since you answer it, ironically, with a solution that can only ever indicate - at least if the truth is that which is demonstrable, provable, or extremely likely and awaiting proof - that the 'we' in your question could more accurately be replaced with a personal pronoun in the first person singular.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 21
Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
I like this sentence:
Evolution is the big cop out. We have to listen to all this blah blah millions of years - even thrust down our throats from school age.Ìý
Most of us would just replace the word "evolution" with the word "religion". I know a number of Christians and despite some heated discussions with them in the past none of them have thought that Genesis was the gospel truth (if you'll pardon the expression!) and they would laugh at the suggestion that dinosaurs were contemporary with Noah and were on the Ark.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 22
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
I accept I am in the minority but, then so was Noah!
By the way, I have no axe to grind and am not looking to generate sparks. I am happy with what I believe and am not looking to push my views on any of you. However, I have to read what you write and I hope you will read what I write. We may never agree but that's the point of debate, isn't it?
Yes, people laugh at the ideas dinosaurs on the ark. But, prove it otherwise. You can't. It comes down to belief or unbelief. If you prefer, call it acceptance or non acceptance.
I know it's stating the obvious but once you prove something you don't need faith. However, as much of what we debate cannot be proven either way, we choose what to accept or reject.
If (and I stress the 'if') we were created by God and if the bible is his word, then we could be missing out by ignoring it. Too many people who have never read the bible discount it and laugh at it and claim it is not relevant. Surely, in the pursuit of truth and proof, we should allow everything to be included until disproven?
Regards
Pete
PS According to Genesis, Noah's sons did take their respective wives on board.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 23
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Asking someone to 'prove Noah didn't take dinosaurs on the ark' is like asking someone to prove that the Greater Spotted Wibble Fink of Titan doesn't have a wart under in its third armpit.
Your reversal of the rules of rational process is understandable, since it is the only way by which you can justify such fancy parading as fact. It does raise concerns however about your ability to reason, period, and as such is often why statements like yours are often left unchallenged by rational people - the effort involved in arguing against nonsense just doesn't make it all seem worthwhile sometimes.
But your final point - that it is in the interest of 'truth and proof' to allow fanciful notions stand as fact until 'proven' untrue deserves particular comment. Can we take it then that all notions not proven to be untrue are therefore to be deemed true? And if not, why should your notions deserve to be believed ahead of other peoples' fancies?
Of course, all this is a moot point. The geological record clearly demonstrates that premise on which your post was founded is indeed untrue. There was no global flood. Dinosaurs and people did not co-exist by any means. Your notion 'yet to be proven untrue' has long ago been proven untrue. You are clinging to its belief in spite of the evidence, not because of any. With that in mind, you will have to forgive us if we take your recommendations regarding 'in the interests of truth and proof' with a pillar of salt.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 24
Posted by Flying_Arf-RIP_scrum_V_MB (U1505179) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Well said Nordmann.
Noplacelikerome - I won't bother contradicting you but to echo Nordmann, go to your bible & tell us where Jesus was born, look it up in each of the first 4 books of the new testament, even after editing in the first millenia they don't quite agree.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 25
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Not sure I follow you Flying_Arf. Jesus was born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, Galilee. Is there a point you're trying to make? If so, I'm sorry but I've missed it - could you please explain? Thanks.
Nordmann - Luke 2 mentions the census taken when Cyrenius was governor of Syria. I presume such records have long gone but would have been a possible 'proof' of Jesus' existence. I don't know if other writings mention this census or not but, if not, then the bible would have provided a practical down to earth reference to the fact that a census took place in Bethlehem in the year Jesus was born. I presume the Romans would have also noted his death but again I'm guessing the records have gone.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 26
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Dinosaurs and people did not co-exist by any means. Your notion 'yet to be proven untrue' has long ago been proven untrue.
Where is that proof, please?Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 27
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
There was no global flood. Well, according to 2 Peter 3 v 5 and 6;
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
I know there's no point going on about it because people have decided that they don't want to believe it.
We each make a choice and we each go with the consequences. I'm happy.
Regards
PeteLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 28
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Dinosaurs and people did not co-exist by any means. Your notion 'yet to be proven untrue' has long ago been proven untrue.
Where is that proof, please?
Ìý
I could begin to explain the properties of radioactive isotopes to you but I have a feeling the point would be lost to you. Or, to put it another way "I know there's no point going on about it because people have decided that they don't want to believe it."
Thankfully, in the case of radioactive isoptopes and other matter whose behaviour has been proven, those who 'don't want to believe it' are rather thinner on the ground than they once were. There's hope for the species yet, in other words. Those who opt out of the pursuit of knowledge can of course 'go with the consequences'. And be happy about it of course, I wouldn't want to think they got nothing out of being intentionally ignorant of proven fact that is readily available but takes just a little intellect and application to absorb.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 29
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Hi NPLR,
No one could call me a poet, but this is a topic I feel quite strongly about so here goes:
A man went down to Jericho and helped the hurt and lame
And by his act of kindness won imperishable fame,
In a parable of Jesus from two thousand years ago;
Now archaeologists lecture us and say it was not so.
"We've tried some geophysics and have samples on a bench
But we cannot find a roadway in the bottom of our trench;
We know there were Samaritans, but we cannot find the inn",
And their lack of comprehension is a very puzzling thing.
By the shores of Kent and Sussex there are ramparts made of chalk
Some million years of sediment, I hear the experts talk,
The famous 'cliffs of Dover' of the poems and the song;
But now a creationist comes along to say we've got it wrong.
"I've dated your great cliff-tops standing mutely by the coast
From biblical analysis, four millennia at most";
So judged, the work of scholarship evaporates like dew
And his lack of comprehension means he must be taught anew.
The phrases of the scriptures strive to sketch a path divine
They are not a science treatise, nor a map of Palestine;
Forgive errors of translation and the many other faults
For they select the hardest task who try to think God's thoughts.
Leave science to the scientists, forget your cautious fears
Don't limit the illimitable to just four thousand years;
Leave them to study honestly, respecting their solution
For God just might have willed his creatures made by means of evolution.
Perhaps you and Nordmann are both right; or possibly to may both agree that I should stick to prose!
Best wishes,
TPLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 30
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Good one TP. It inspires a rejoinder - forgive me.
"One won't risk ever being called wise, nor yet being labelled dense
If one's natural position is sitting on the fence
But before one takes the posture with such keen determination
One should take the chance to check the fence itself has strong foundation!"Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 31
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Thanks TP for the humour!
Nordmann, There is plenty of evidence that the radioisotope dating systems are not the infallible techniques many think, and that they are not measuring millions of years. Factors such as the global food you deny will have a great effect of carbon dating. There are many things that affect this method whether it be volcanic activity or even the Industrial revolution. Cosmic rays and the earth's magnetic field all affect this method. So I don't accept this as a basis of argument or proof as it's unreliable. Even using radiometrics, amounts of carbon are not the same as dates. You need an unproven start date and hope for consistency in decay rates and hope there were no parent or daughter isotopes. All very flimsy in my opinion.
Regards
PeteLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 32
Posted by Elkstone (U3836042) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
"Pete
PS According to Genesis, Noah's sons did take their respective wives on board. "
You are confirming the same point I made earlier. Genesis said Noahs family were the only survivors of the human race. So their offspring had to marry siblings or cousins in other words close family members. Genetic deformites would soon resulted, which is nature's way of outlawing incestLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 33
Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
i was told once on another board a galaxy far far away that this is why there are all the different races.
because noah and his sons are the ancestors of negro, cauasan, asian, meso-american, north-america, etc
it was their way of explaining away the obvious risk of genetic deformityLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 34
Posted by Richie (U1238064) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
If there was other life 'out there' why did Jesus come to this planet? Why not go and get crucified somewhere else?
Ìý
Just picture it, Jesus arives back in heaven after having just ascended. He gets to the pearly gates (cliche I know) finds Arthur (remember Peter isn't dead yet) maning the entrance book and he says "oi Jesus, NO!!!!!!! You might think you've walked on water and risen from the dead, but you're ole man says get down to Seti Alpha 5 NOW!!!!!!"
Abother classic coming up next
Yes dinosaurs were contemporary with man and went into the ark
Ìý
Have you ever, EVER stopped to think about the idiocy of this statement. Just think about the number of types of dinosaur, Noah would have needed about 1000 arks to even start to get close to saving all of them let alone make a start on the smaller reptiles and mamillian species.
Add to that the fact that no ancient civilisation has been considerate enough to leave any sort of evidence of their dinosaur hunts
And the final winner for today
You can't have fossils without death!
Ìý
Nuff Said!Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 35
Posted by Elkstone (U3836042) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
posted by Richie
i was told once on another board a galaxy far far away that this is why there are all the different races.
because noah and his sons are the ancestors of negro, cauasan, asian, meso-american, north-america, etc
it was their way of explaining away the obvious risk of genetic deformity
In other words Noah's sons being from different races were not his. Did he adopt them? He only had 3 sons, there are more than 3 races. What race was Noah?
Some claim that using the bible that there are just 3 main types: caucasion, mongolian and negro. Again rubbish. The last to 'evolve' according to scientists were blue eyed blondes. The first would have been African, followed by aboriginies, indians, chinese(orientals). According to Genesis the white race was most important. That is the line taken by western christians since 16th century, who use the Noah cursed Ham fable to justify slavery, and later used it justify taking away lands from indiginous peoples in the Americas and elswhereLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 36
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
When I hear someone try to cast doubt on radioisotopic decay as a means of establishing geological and palaeonthological age I always give them a decent pause afterwards to allow them to formulate an explanation for how such a technique, prone as they say it is to such aberrational results, has yet despite several repeated refinements and recalibrations arrived at amazingly uniform and accurate results since first applied in the 1920s. I have yet to hear that pause punctuated by such an explanation.
The fact is that the earth, and the fossil record are datable. It is no longer a question of guesswork, or working it out from the 'begats' contained in a particular belief system of a relatively small iron-age community as understood by an Irish archbishop in the 17th century. His figure of 4,000 years and a bit are classic bad computation - what one invariably gets when one uses the wrong input to ascertain a result pertaining to something else entirely. The data arrived at through scientific method does not invite scepticism. Those who declare themselves sceptical must give good reason why they are. They never do.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 37
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Richie
What a pity you didn't stop to think? How big was the ark? 300x50x30 cubits. That equates to 1.54 million cubic feet. That's plenty of room! The 2 animals would not have to be full grown. Even the dinosaurs would have plenty of room. Even allowing for 8000 genera of species that's only 16000 animals. The median size was probably that of a rat. Of around 668 supposed genera of dinosaur only about 106 weighed more than 10 tons when fully grown. So there was plenty of room for animals, food, even excrement! Yet, people like you scoff and sneer without engaging brain.
If you don't want to belief it, that's fine. But don't say it couldn't have happened because it did. Nautical experts have admitted that the design would work in a flood.
The point about fossils and death realtes to the bible account that it was "by man came death". So, if there was no death before man, there couldn't be fossils. So dinosaurs are contemporary with man.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 38
Posted by Elkstone (U3836042) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Another point I wanted to make, dont we see the Church or some christian fundamentalists, cast doubt on the safety of using condoms to combat the spread of AIDS by saying they are not 100% reliable? Without barrier protection is how the virus spread so rapidly and other STDs. They pay for scientific research to support their teachings based on the bible
Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 39
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
This topic had a tenuous link with history at best when it started. It has now moved into the realms of fantasy. I am not interested in pursuing a conversation with someone for whom the laws of physics are malleable to the extent that a wooden vessel of the magnitude described with a cargo tonnage exceeding its own considerable weight will not render it impossible to load, let alone float, without self-destruction, or for whom conjecture regarding data already ascertained based on palpably false and agenda-driven claims exceeds scientific certitude at every turn. It is simply pointless arguing with stupidity, and even more so arguing with a stupid person with an agenda.
Their agenda however has nothing to do with history, nor can it. On that basis alone simple courtesy should dictate that they take it elsewhere. This is a history messageboard, not a recruitment opportunity for fundamentalist twaddle merchants.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 40
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Why I am sceptical;
You obviously know how the carbon clock works. It starts ticking when something dies. So it can only measure something that was alive i.e. not volvanic rock. A half life is about 5,700 years to convert from carbon bak to nitrogen. So after only 11,400 years you are already down to 1/4 of the original. In theory, anything over 50,000 years old should have any traceable carbon 14 left in it. So, if anything, if we find any traces at all, it would suggest it was younger.
You can't calibrate the clock outside of recorded history. Plus all the factors that influence any measurement that I have stated in a previous post. That's why I'm sceptical.
Yes, isotope concentration can be measured both consistently and accurately but that's not the same as dating something. You need a starting position and prove that decay is constant. Even if you use parent and daughter isotopes such as potassium-40 to argon-40 or uranium-238 to lead-206 there is still inconsistency. For example, in Australia charred wood was founf in a lava flow that formed basalt. Carbon 14 dating dated the wood at 45,00 years and the lava that burnt it was measured at 45 million years old using the potassium-argon method! Oh yeah, right. Again in the Grand Canyon basalt from lava flows were measured using the rubidium-strontium method. It showed that the lava flows were much older than the basalt - an impossibilty.
That's why I'm sceptical.
If there was any accuracy in these measuring systems, you would expect there to be some similarity in results.
Scientists claim to find carbon 14 samples in fossils that are millions of years old - they are taking you all for a ride!
That's why I accept the idea of a young earth - based on the scientific evidence above.
That's why I'm sceptical.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 41
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
Nordmann
You are missing the point. The bible does contain history. Very good history. But you stupidly write it off to pursue your own agenda. I was trying to be helpful and suggest that the bible deserves a place in discovering history. You may not believe it but some of it is historically attested through other sources and we were trying to find out if that included historical proof of the existance of Jesus.
If you're going to make claims then you have to back them with evidence - that what you want everyone else to do. It's only fair.
Regards
PeteLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 42
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
You're lifting your info from christian fundamentalist internet sites
and both they and you are revealing a distinct ignorance of Carbon-14 dating as it is exercised in calibration of fossil age. In their case I assume it is wilful, in yours I'm not so sure.
As I said, there is no point in discussing any topic with someone who misrepresents proven fact as fallacy, and who pomotes their own fallacies through the confusion they aim to cause by questioning perfectly valid data. Least of all, might I add, on a history messageboard. I would advise you to bring your agenda to a site where it might be more acceptable. Here it is an affront both to rational thought and to the board members who wish to keep the site as it is, a forum for discussing hitorical topics.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 43
Posted by Elkstone (U3836042) on Thursday, 16th August 2007
How can anyone use the bible as basis for facts whether historical or scientific? The measurements and timescales are open to question, we dont know for sure what criteria was used for 'cubits' or other measures found in the bible. Or even land areas and borders. It is guess work and not precise. Where was the flood? the garden of Eden? or 'Israel'?. You can not use the bible to accurately plot them on a modern map or you will end up lost. How come it does not mention other continents and peoples? China, India, Ausralia Americas are not mentioned. If god or who ever wrote the bible knew everything, there would be no room for doubt.
You can not because it is open to interpretation and therefore unreliable which is what has been shown in the posts above.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 44
Posted by scamander (U870981) on Friday, 17th August 2007
This discussion has wandered way past its remit. Personally I admire Noplace for his faith, but am also part frustrated, part yawnsome in dealing with another person who wants to enter the debating arena only to withdraw when it suits him under the term "faith".
I wouldn't group Noplace with the more extreme of his faith, he says himself that he wouldn't want to push his views upon us and kudos to him on that. But you simply cannot pursue a line of argument in which your only tactic (in order to prove your point of view) is to disprove the rival. Constructing a feasible argument necessitates that you not only critique the opposing line of thought but support your own. Creationism is a classic example of this, the main tactic being you go to 11 year olds and ask whether a theory of science (which is way beyond their comprehension) sounds unusual. If someone had come up to me at the age of 11 and asked whether the finer points of genetics and, say, carbon dating made sense I would have sat dumbfounded.
They then jump over the young mind with the faulted concept that if the accepted line of carbon-dating etc doesn't make 100% sense then it simply MUST be the magic sky pixies.
Even the most hardened of Biblical scholars accept that there are many contradictions in the Bible. A previous poster mentioned the birth place of Christ. You can write books on the many discrepancies of this - for example the fact that Herod was dead before the conventional birth date of Christ, further compounded by the imaginary census which was simply untrue (the only one recorded was several years AD). Then there's the fact that Christ had an older brother (the need for his mum to be a virgin based on an earlier propehcy on the messiah, in fact much of Christ's life seems to be massaged to fit these varying criteria).
At this point you often find the Christian will either (a) go no about carbon dating or (b) say something along the lines of "faith". Either way you simply can't argue. Science doesn't operate from a default position of "knowing all" but it attempts to improve knowledge. Religion, on the other hand, operates from a point of view of "knowing all" and therefore simply attempts to highlight the gaps in knowledge that science has. Essentially this is an undefeatable position, but science offers the chance to debate and improve knowledge. Religion, on the other hand doesn't. In fact its track record in this department is pretty abysmal, wrong word order a few centuries ago got you burnt at the stake.
As such I don't blame those with faith, it must be pretty unnerving having all these people all questions and not having a convenient organ to condemn them with, after all it means they have to actively debate, which is something they are way behind in doing.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 45
Posted by NoPlaceLikeRome (U5927535) on Friday, 17th August 2007
Scamander - thank-you for your remarks. Nordmann, we will always differ but I hear what you are saying and, out of respect, will withdraw from this message board. If I have offended anyone then I apologise because that was never an intention. Debating causes friction but I trust without the need for animosity. I wish you all well.
Regards
PeteLink to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 46
Posted by Docdogsbody (U6435748) on Friday, 17th August 2007
I suggest Pete should read a book called "Was God an Astronaut"by a guy Von Dainican (i hope i got his name right)and then see if his "faith" is still as strong? he dos not condem the Bible but
just askes a lot of aukward questions,which the church cannot answer.A few centuries back people
were being burned at stake for saying the Earth
was a globus and not a disc,and if you traveled to far you would fall off the edge.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 47
Posted by Flying_Arf-RIP_scrum_V_MB (U1505179) on Monday, 20th August 2007
Most of Erich von Daniken's claims (along with de la Pour Trench, who EvD cribbed from) are as flimsy as the creationist's. One of major bits of 'evidence' he used was the aircraft parking bays carved out on a Central American platau, these turned out to be a stylised carving of a birds foot & only about 8 foot long.
Read Richards Dawkins latest book, which is based on 'proper' research.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 48
Posted by Docdogsbody (U6435748) on Sunday, 26th August 2007
Fly_Arf,"Read Richard Dawkins Latest Book"great
which one? The God Delusion,The selfish Gene, or
what? Eric Von Daniken admits that he made a lot of mistakes in his first book,which he made the corrections in his second book,i only know the title in German,Reise nach Kiri Barti.I will try to get, The God Delusion,if this is the one you mean,Dawkins is a scientist among other things,
where as EvD is as i remember a Journalist.So don't go mixing Apples with Pears,they both aim in the same direction,the one backed up by science,the other asks how could this or that happen or why is it so?,Both in the end are putting "Gods" works in question if there is such a thing.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 49
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 27th August 2007
Apples and pears couldn't be more different in this case;
Erik von Daniken - one time hotel manager, car salesman, convicted of and imprisoned for embezzlement and fraud. No scientific, archaeological, anthropological or related field background, yet writes as if he has. Has produced several very profitable books purporting to establish a connection between religious belief and interstellar travel. Each book is riddled with falsehoods, misrepresenation of data and pseudo-scientific claims that do not survive the simplest of examinations. When questioned regarding the proof that he had used fraudulent evidence (eg. having paid a potter to create 'genuine antique shards' depicting flying saucers) his response was that it was ok to produce false evidence in order to convince people of the truth of his allegations. Nuff said.
Richard Dawkins - biologist who claims with proffered evidence of provable data that science can, does, and will continue to make religious belief an irrelevance. The thrust of his main argument is that science in fact already has destroyed the validity once claimed for scriptural explanations of the universe and that the people who perpetuate these invalidated beliefs are misguided, mistaken, brainwashed, or pursuing an agenda that is less than honourable.
One a charlatan, the other dedicated to exposing charlatans. Not quite a pincer movement against god.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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Message 50
Posted by Docdogsbody (U6435748) on Monday, 27th August 2007
Hi Nordmann,As usual a good researched post.When i said that EvD and Dawkins are steering to the same goal,their goal is how can i get my fingers
in you purse in the most subtile way,their bank acount is surely bigger than yours or mine.
I hold both EvD and Dawkins for Shysters and Carpetbaggers in their own way.
Nordmann, which tag can man decorate you with?
a Doughting Thomas,a believer,an Ätheist or what,
I have read your theads on Jesus,and how you put the presure on the Bible punchers about Relgion
and history,truths and untruths,which i found very well presented.
Last but not least,have you read through,"Beyond
Belief 2006:science,Religion,Reason and survival,
its very good especialy the reply from Scott Atran.Link to this forum: History and Christianity: Adam and Eve are Ethiopians?
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