The dinosaurs.
- Thread starter Mucker
- Start date
Now tell me, do these stories confirm or deny such events? Did you date them to see which story was created first? We have no proof either way, but the probability does exist that the Biblical account had been preserved either as an oral tradition, or in written form handed down from Noah, through the patriarchs and eventually to Moses, thereby making it actually older than the Sumerian accounts which were restatements (with alterations) to the original. (Genesis and Gilgamesh)
Depending on which God you believe in, you can decide for yourself what to make of any of the stories. Only one of these variations survived to become part of a religion. If you believe the Babylonian version has the correct god in mind, then what stops you from believing in that god? Except that he seem to have died out while the God of Genesis have "survived" in no less than three major theistic religions on planet earth.
In stead of just asking questions, try to answer them for a change. Compare the stories, keep the parts you believe have been preserved the best, discard the rest as anecdotal if you wish ... but in the end you have to choose whether they point to a real God or not. If you don't think so, then what are you trying to prove anyway?
ConsequentAtheist
Registered Senior Member
Probability based on what? According to whom?
Originally posted by Mucker
How do you know this? Can you provide some evidence please?
Evidence that man and dinosaurs never co-existed? Well, there is plenty of evidence out there. Evidence that is independently verified by several methods. Indisputable evidence in fact.
I don't personally have any of it to hand, of course
Sure, they all point to a flood of some kind.
Oh.. they haven't been dated? What makes you ask that, surely you know the answer?
Ya know.... that site you linked to started off very well. Then, with absolutely NOTHING to back itself up, it starts making pathetic claims like the one you pasted above. We should really take a look at the rest of their nonsense:
That's their return argument? That no "conclusive" proof has been offered, and yet here they are making the most groundless of assumptions.
And now....... let's get to the very hub of the matter, the very root of their need, (and yours), to go shouting baseless assumptions without any evidence, without ANYTHING to back it up:
So, just brush aside any evidence, anything of historical importance simply because of faith. No wonder you guys don't actually ever learn anything. Upon saying something like the quote above, everything else is brushed aside as false before it's even been studied. Any evidence the study would present is brushed aside because "well, my book's divinely inspired." I really pity these assholes.
Lol it's ridiculous. I rarely get to see such retarded statements, so this guy gets today's gold medal of retardedness. Let's try another sentence from his angle:
The story of noah is viewed for the most part as a simply metaphorical story, or a complete fallacy, even by many theists, while the epic of gilgamesh, Enuma Elish etc are viewed as being the original basis, (due to the evidence), of the book of genesis. Therefore the story of noah must be handed down from the sumerians.
Yet again another completely bias and fallacious statement, not made through care for the truth, but based solely upon his own position of worship. This guy has no merit, no place to be making statements like these. They are born of ignorant bias, and nothing else.
Again- complete and utter nonsense. He has NO place with which to make such a statement. It is he who is corrupted. He has no need for truth- he's found it within a particular place of worship and is closed off to any evidence showing otherwise.
I really can't believe you used a quote from that site in the first place to try and offer some defence. Much like the site, you have NOTHING with which to back it up. You simply took a quote from some site without even making a note of the fact it had nothing to back up its claims. What, you believe a simple say so based on what you worship is enough to establish a truth?
This is exactly where the problem comes from. You have your god, so his version must be true... I don't believe anything unless the evidence is there to support it. As such i can look at the whole lot with an open mind.... you've already dismissed the others simply because of your position of worship.
Where's the relevance? But either way that's not entirely accurate. You see, all the evidence points to most of the OT being from Sumerian origins. As such their beliefs, (although slightly changed and altered), remain to this day. When you pick up a bible and start reading from page 1, you can see the Sumerian/Babylonian influences- even the garden of eden is positioned as being in Sumeria, even the word eden coming from Sumerian for 'house of purity'. Ok the guys name has changed from adamu to adam, the fruit of enlightenment has changed to the tree of knowledge etc etc but it would still be working on Sumerian belief/religion. Further on we see abraham coming from Ur, Sumeria- and undoubtedly taking some Sumerian culture and beliefs with him. Then we see this "moses" of yours with his uncanny resemblence to the Sumerian Sargon. Everything points to Sumeria- What you gonna say next? Adam handed his story down to moses who then gave it to the sumerians who then wrote about it, over a thousand years before moses?? :bugeye: But of course here's the problem once more.. Your god is real, the rest are frauds so your version must be the real one. It's sickening.
You keep going on about this- trying to offer some kind of evidence due to a belief in a god. The answers come from historical study, not from looking at the clouds. Furthermore there's also mention of many older gods in the bible, (from marduk to tammuz). Even to this day, israelis have months of the year named after Sumerian gods. Let me guess... they were actually jewish gods but the Sumerians copied them? We have usage of multiples in the early parts of genesis, "let us", "like one of us" etc etc etc, showing evidential implications to older multiple god beliefs. That is now brushed aside with the most vulgur of groundless assumptions of a triple in one god. The evidence is there to be studied, but instead you seem to have just grabbed one out of the hat and labelled it utter fact because you say so. I pity you.
That's one way of failing to answer a question- still, you did well to try and hide it.
I spend all day every day studying these issues, you just copy basless assumptions that lack any evidence whatsoever, from worthless biased websites. You are in no position to be making statements like the one above, to me.
Look man, if you haven't figured it out yet you might aswell have not even posted in this thread. Follow the trail of evidence, not your own unfounded assumptions.
In one word: Truth.
You can;t make one quote from shitty websites and think it counts as truth. You can't just accept one version as complete fact without looking at ALL the evidence. We can worry about whether there's a bunch of gods in the sky at a later date- AFTER we've worked out whether there's accuracy in the written texts. To do that, one must study the texts and other available evidence- not the clouds.
Which is why studying the evidence is of importance instead of just making groundless assumtpions.
They're both myths now? So.... they have no historical value in the realms of truth? Only study of the evidence can establish that.
Was your bible dated? Did they use some technique completely unknown to anyone else who dated anything else? If the older Sumerian texts have been dated wrong then so have the biblical texts. Thus, if the Sumerian texts are only 500 years old, (eg), the bible has not even been written yet.
Snakelord
I didn't quote the entire website, did I? You just wasted a lot of space ranting about what they said. I do not agree that their conclusion as self-evident either, FYI.
But their groundless assumption is just as good as yours, and that is why I quoted them. I don't have datings for any of the flood stories. As the expert, I'll leave that to you.
Of course the material in Genesis was influenced by the culture of the time. But you and CA seem to think that it somehow proves something. Do the other gods demand equal opportunities now? People have always insisted their own gods are the most powerful, the most authoritive, the most real. And I suppose different cultures would like to associate with reports of what the God of another did.
Regardless of which gods any events were attributed to, I think that the survival of the culture who did the attribution should have some relevance to the case. The continued relationship between the god and the people who believe in him should actually be more than just relevant, if he is truly real.
I made the same point in the post on God's supposed "cruelty" to the Amalekites, and you consequently accused me of humanizing God too much. I'm saying that any knowledge or experience of God, hypothetical or not, cannot be distanced from the people in whose field of experience He featured.
I didn't quote the entire website, did I? You just wasted a lot of space ranting about what they said. I do not agree that their conclusion as self-evident either, FYI.
But their groundless assumption is just as good as yours, and that is why I quoted them. I don't have datings for any of the flood stories. As the expert, I'll leave that to you.
Of course the material in Genesis was influenced by the culture of the time. But you and CA seem to think that it somehow proves something. Do the other gods demand equal opportunities now? People have always insisted their own gods are the most powerful, the most authoritive, the most real. And I suppose different cultures would like to associate with reports of what the God of another did.
Regardless of which gods any events were attributed to, I think that the survival of the culture who did the attribution should have some relevance to the case. The continued relationship between the god and the people who believe in him should actually be more than just relevant, if he is truly real.
I made the same point in the post on God's supposed "cruelty" to the Amalekites, and you consequently accused me of humanizing God too much. I'm saying that any knowledge or experience of God, hypothetical or not, cannot be distanced from the people in whose field of experience He featured.
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Indeed. Which is why I would prefer you and CA to substantiate your claims.
I did not say that. Their historical value is intrinsic. I'm just concerned that you seem to think the existence of one version somehow invalidates the existence of another. These myths aren't "logical arguments", where contradictions can invalidate their premises - they are stories connected to different cultures, and should be treated as such.
Let's make a distinction between the subject/myth in question and our own arguments, shall we?
I'm sure some parts have been archeologically and contextually dated. The question is what are you dating, and what is the significance of that dating.
Do you seriously believe a younger text proves a younger story? Definitely not by default. The content is the same, what keeps the original source from being similar, given the geographic location? An informed guess is still a guess. And that goes for my own as well. I don't presume to have any information or certainty that you don't, but I will hold you to objectivity, and I expect you to do the same for me (without resorting to ad hominems as CA tends to do).
Well i didn't really waste too much space, (perhaps 1kb's worth), but it was for a reason. Your whole statement was taken from a site with absolutely no credibility, thus why think what you quoted has any more? It just dismisses any and all evidence- preferring an unfounded acceptance based on his particular god belief. I see you doing the same. I don't care if god exists or not, i don't care if he's blue, if he's many, if he's jewish, if he's black, if he flooded the world. (what i mean by "don't care" is to say i have no default preference except for finding the factual one). I care about the truth, the facts. In order to ascertain the truth one must look at the evidence. Instead, you and the site make a baseless unfounded claim with nothing whatsoever to support its validity. If that's all that's required i must once again refer to the giant green headed turtle. Of course, in the case of that website, it would instantly be dismissed as "myth", while his particular set of beliefs are instantly stated as "fact". It is the work of pure ignorance. You very swiftly dismissed my giant green headed turtle, based on lack of evidence to suggest it. You must therefore understand that everything else works in the same manner. Unfortunately your methods with which to dimiss things are misguided. You seem to think that comments such as:
"Well, look what religion has survived", "Your turtle doesn't have any priests preaching it", and other such nonsense actually count for anything, when they don't.
What we do have, and what we must go by, is the evidence. There are a vast number of people that consider the story of noah as complete and utter fact. The evidence suggests otherwise. You, and that site, seem to get off on giving groundless statements in order to somehow defend something even when the evidence suggests otherwise.
When you, and that website, start making statements based on something other than your own worship belief, we can discuss the matter to a much greater level.
One further mistake you seem to be making is that i'm somehow trying to denounce your god. I don't care what god you believe in- what i'm focused on are historical truths. Was there a global flood? Where did it originate? Who was on the boat? etc etc... These questions cannot be answered by saying "the genesis account is fact because god says so, and everything else is a corrupted version." To find factual answers one must look at the evidence, however you and your website buddy seem to simply dismiss everything as if it's somehow an attack on you- when all that is of importance is finding facts.
My groundless assumptions which are based on evidence... As such they're not groundless assumptions. The one's on that website however, have no bearing to anything- except the self satisfaction of a person who seems to have no interest in the evidence and more in assumption based on his worship principles.
This seems to be a misconception with you on a regular basis. I'll try and put it in simple terms for you:
Ann Rice writes a book about vampires. That book is all you know but eventually a book that is much much older than it turns up. At this stage it would seem Ann Rice got her ideas from older texts and then changed/adapted/modernised the stories to suit the current culture. Instead of the vampires living in a castle in transylvania, they're now living in modern day new york among the neon lights and skyscrapers. This does not make the Ann Rice story worthless but if you're interested in the history, the origins, you need to look at the older text. You can't sit down and say that Ann Rice wrote the book first and then went back in time and told the story to the original writer. It doesn't work that way. It would not denounce the existence of vampires either- but would give credence to the possibility that the vampires have been depicted in a light that isn't quite true to the original story.
Furthermore, Ann Rice couldn't then make a claim to the reality of vampires, whereas the original writers would have more room to do so. The original writers would know if they simply made it up, or it was factual- Ann Rice wouldn't. She would be working on someone elses beliefs and ideas- without any knowledge whatsoever of its validity.
It neither denounces, or gives credence to the existence of such a thing. There are old stories, and younger stories depicting vampires. While the younger ones are based on someone elses set of beliefs and ideas, only the original author can attest to it's reality. But in this context not only would the other gods demand equal opportunity- but more credence aswell. Ann Rice's vampires differ to extreme lengths from the original vampiric beings and as a result actually have less credence than the original beings- because her story is based upon those original beliefs. She can morph, adapt and change a story to any length she feels fit but the originals still have the say in the matter. We're talking about just one story here.... now add to that the other books/stories that are copies of older texts and all you're left with is a more modernised look at someone elses belief.
And still do. As such, some people are more interested in establishing the facts of the matter. Wouldn't you agree considering what we have now are a bunch of people who don't know the facts, but instead just accept what they are told based on groundless assumptions and misguided understanding? What we have to go by is the evidence. Instead what i see is instant dismissal of evidence because it collides with a persons completely unfounded beliefs. No truth will ever be established if people continue in that manner. I have a guy knocking on my door- telling me what i should believe. I ask for evidence, but never receive any. I give a load of evidence in return and it's instantly brushed aside because it stands in the way of the belief with no evidence. It's ridiculous.
Sorry you've lost me.. please explain why.
But aren't you doing that exact same thing? From the evidence it would seem the origins are Sumerian, and thats where the field of experience would come from. Their beliefs and knowledge would have passed down through generations- to people who then travelled and settled in new areas, passing down the stories- and experiences of others- through their family line. New cultures arrive from these people, but they retain knowledge of the old beliefs and continue spreading them- but to suit their changed culture system, (see Ann Rice paragraph above). One must then look to the origins, to the people who did the experiencing, to find validity. Times change, and cultures change.. The new stories would incorporate new ideals, new enemies etc etc.... Now the enemies are the Egyptians and the god solely cares for the jews, for that culture. Nobody would say anything if they had have sat down and written something entirely unique- but you can clearly see the influences and handed down beliefs that continue to play a part- but are just adapted to the new cultural systems. In very much the same manner as Ann Rice's novels.
That's what is continually done- but instead you just instantly dismiss the evidence available, to defend your focus of worship.
No it doesn't invalidate the existence of some godly being- but the evidence does give rise to what exactly that godly being is. As for the stories themselves without need for godly beings, one must study the evidence in order to ascertain truth. Can anyone sit down and say "it was noah and it's all true, end of story" without viewing ALL the evidence? Of course not, and yet many people do. As there is a multitude of evidence to suggest the noah story as being a hand-down from older stories- we must now question its validity. You don't seem to understand that yet. You were so quick on your las post to dismiss the Sumerian texts as "myth" and yet you have no place to make such a statement. I notice the sudden usage of that word is also linked with the website which you pasted. He does exactly the same thing: "Well everyone regards genesis as fact, everyone regards sumerian as myth- thus genesis must be real." It's fallacious and ignorant. What happens is everything other than your particular point of worship is instantly dismissed as a "myth" while your is complete fact. You have no more to suggest the validity of this being you worship than you do to suggest the existence of Jason and the Argonauts, the minotaur, medusa or a big bunch of sumerian gods. You seem to think you do, i urge you to offer something to support it. As for the events themselves- (aside from the pathetic notion on that website about the god of the jews never lying and thus noah must be fact), do you have any evidence to suggest validity of the noah story as being the factual one? You're trying to defend your beliefs and yet cannot offer anything in support of them. Things do not work that way.
I'm still waiting for you to make an argument. You've provided NOTHING. All you've done is sit here and try to dismiss everything under the notion "It doesn't disprove god." If that is all you have, don't bother.
Sorry, what are you trying to ask? I explained it in my former post.
Ummmmmmmm lol? Are you even awake yet? It's not a younger story- it's a story based on older stories..... That's what i've been saying for like 5 posts. Life goes forwards --------------------->
So let's say someone way before the Sumerians actually witnessed the events:
Original guy -----> Sumerians -----> Babylonians ------> Akkadians ------> Hebrews.
That's how it works. The cultures that have come from previous cultures still have a lot of the older cultures beliefs and ideas. A guy does not witness an event > tell a culture that don't even exist yet > who then tell a culture that came beforehand. It doesn't work that way, and yet that's what you and that website keep trying to state.
Change in cultural systems. New enemies, adjusted ideals, laws, principles etc etc... For someone without an aeroplane, car, train, fast method of transport- the geographic location is quite a vast distance. Historically you can also see the travelling format of these early cultures... From extreme south, (low mesopotamia), up to Babylon, Akkadia, Assyria and continual movement inland. The stories would have followed the travellers.. As such we see a pattern and a descendance of stories... the Babylonians used and adapted many stories from their predecessors, as did the akkadians, assyrians and onto the hebrews.
During the movement of people and the passing of time- stories would inevitably change due to many reasons: "chinese whispers" is so overwhelmingly important a factor it can quite easily render a local deluge into a global one. While there is lots of evidence to show a local deluge is there any to suggest a deluge of global proportions? Again, what we rely on is the evidence. Simple acceptance is not an answer to anything.
How is it 'informed'?
I provide you with details and evidence- you dismiss them out of hand with comments such as: "what does that prove" "how does that disprove my god". These mean nothing and are completely irrelevant. To get to proving or disproving something- one must first look at the evidence. Let's do that before worrying about proof/disproof heh
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spoilsport
Registered Senior Member
The major problem I have with this is that according to Biblical geneology Noah would still have been alive when Abraham left Ur. You would think the father of all surviving humans would a nigh-deity. I mean, almost everyone loves and respects their father/grandfather excepting those who were abused or hurt. However, there is little evidence of Noah being treated as such. If everyone knew who Noah was (and they should according to the biblical account), why would the story have gained variations so quickly?
ConsequentAtheist
Registered Senior Member
Quote me.