Science and Religion Message Board 2501-3000

Events related to the last ice age may be likely, Keith, if the axis and poles shifted through torque when the space-charge sheaths interacted.

E.C., if you're lurking or come by before this scrolls out, I've been checking Icarus regularly (have it bookmarked), but the latest articles they've got uploaded on the site are January. If this is a quarterly, when is your work going up?

Oh, yeah. And where did all the water come from (besides inside of earth and collapse of vapor canopy)? ...a good suppositional question for E.C., I expect, though he might choose not to answer. Better question might be what happened to the water that used to be on Mars!

And I wonder if anybody’s wondered how water managed to find its way onto the moon?...

Could it be that water was part of the proto-stellar cloud that formed the solar system? Nah, too simple. God had to put it there, no other explanation remotely possible.

(DE's???) Actually, I think Darwinism scares the god crowd. No reason it should of course, but some do take Biblical literalism as an article of faith and can't abide the scientific challenge.

You know, Leszek, we really need to work on your interpersonal communications skills, as such skills apply to polite company. Your hostility quotient is becoming disproportional.

I have next Thursday open...

Well, you know, Joy, I'm still waiting for the refutation of Darwinism as the major factor in human evolution. I'm not sure why you insist on separating man (supposedly not evolved) from the animals (evolved).

You want religion to play a part in science. Well, ok, though I don't think it belongs there, but still... I suggest that if it does, it needs to play the game by the rules, and provide the evidence for various assertions for consideration and refutation. Where religious assertions are refuted, that religion retires from the field. Fair enough?

Rose, I do not believe science can explain the beginning. I have no faith in the speculation of certain scientists with respect abiogenesis. Incidentally, abiogenesis should not be considered a theory since there is no evidence in it's support. It is only a hypothesis.

On the other hand, there is just as much evidence (none) for abiogenesis as for creation (none). You and some atheist I know can take your pick if you wish. I chose to withhold judgement on both.

Well, Rose, this happens to be one of the two types of evolution I do believe in. Assuming black moths did exist in small numbers, prior to the industrial revolution, the changing environment resulted in the black moths becoming the most numerous variation in the moth population. This is a classic example of evolution. (Have you ever heard of "natural selection"? :-)

You see, it is like this, Rose. Before natural selection can "select," it must have something to select from. The genes have to be there before they could be selected. The change in color of the moth population is something that was "selected" according to Darwin's theory.

Actually, it really does not matter whether the genes pre-existed or not. For example, If a mutation occurred to cause the existence of a black moth shortly after the beginning of the industrial revolution, the effect would have been the same.

Well, it is not always the case that the genes selected have always existed in a species. There is a thing called a mutation. These are random changes in the genes and they apparently occur on a regular basis. Some are beneficial while most are not. Harmful mutations are generally selected out, but may survive as a recessive gene. In some cases, mutations are relatively neutral and result in what might be described as random genetic drift. On the other hand, in some cases a mutation may meet a significant need and cause a significant change in a population in short order, based on natural selection.

I hasten to mention that I am not a scientist, but in my own case, It is not that I deny the evidence of a master designer, I simply find no such evidence.

On the other hand, the very mention of a master designer does cause in me a certain feeling of humility. And at the risk of your accusing me of being a sexist, I feel I must mention that I am, by vocation, a designer (of special purpose equipment), and as a designer, I sometimes find myself particularly amazed and in awe of the specific construction of certain human females and sometimes doubt that such exquisite designs could possibly be by accident.

I must admit that my designs pale in comparison, of course :-)

I am not an evolutionary scientist, Rose, but I do not believe evolutionary scientists ignore the complexity of life. The rules by which evolution operates on dominate and recessive genes is, in some cases, relatively complex. For example, in some cases, there are advantages to a gene being recessive. In some cases, a gene may continue to survive as a recessive gene when, if it was a dominate gene, it would be quickly selected out.

I think it is religious people like yourself who wish to answer difficult questions by saying: "It is in the hands of God, and that is all we need to know."

Leszek: I'm reading a book. "The Genesis Mystery". by Jeffery Goodman, PhD, he has a doctorate in anthropology, and degrees in geological sciences,, and archaeology. He's the Director of Archeological Research Assc., in Tucson ,AZ. He is also accredited by the Society of Professional Archeologists.

He feels Cro-Magnon IS modern man. He thinks all the other early species are dead-ends. He notes a 5000 year gap between the disappearance of Neaderthal, and other species, before the sudden appearance of Cro-magnon.

He lists various time lines on the species of man from other sources, such as Leaky.

I'll put that in the next post after this quote from Gould:

Recent discoveries have discredited the native notion of a single hominid lineage.- Stephen Gould and Niles Eldridge 1977.

The water is still there (on Mars) it is just bound up chemicaly and in frozen strata. There is quite a considerable amount visible at the poles.

Water is just a simple bi-polar molecule, although vital for life, life is not vital for water.

Rose,

Would it really be too much to ask that you get some new arguments? You keep re-hashing arguments that have already been refuted.

Human paleontology is a science heavily dependant upon chance discovery.-Steven Stanley.

"The New Evolutionary Timetable",1981.

Models of descent:

1. Traditional: 3Million Yrs ago-Australopithecus africanus-2Million: Homo habitus-1 million: Homo Erectus-40,000 years ago: Homo sapiens neaderthalensis-then Homo sapiens sapiens. Then about 2 million years ago Australopithecus robustus then a dead end.

2. Richard Leakey: He has 3 lines. First one is: 4 million years ago(MYA) Austral afarensis-then 3MYA austral africanus, 1.5MYA dead end. Second line: 2MYA austral robustus, then dead end. Third line: about 2MYA-homo habilis-then aprox. 1MYA homo erectus-40,000yago, neanderthal to a dead end, and homo sapiens sapiens.

3. The author's version: 3MYA-homo habilis,then a dead end at aprrox.1 milliom y ago. A branch off of this and unrelated to any other species, shows the sudden emmergence of homo sapiens sapiens. He includes Cro-magnon in this catorgory.

I think most paleontologists would agree with him... anatomically, they are almost impossible to distinguish.

5000 years is an awfully brief period, and could easily be overcome by finding another fossil. Also there are caves in Israel where anatomically modern hominid remains (separate from Cro-Magnon who lived in France) apparently overlap in time (about 90,000 years ago) with Neanderthal remains in the same locality. I think the last word on this hasn't been printed yet :)

I'll agree with your Gould and Eldridge quote, I would look on the various human species as a bush with many twigs and branches rather than a tree with evolution creating one species after another. What we sometimes forget is that the best we can do from paleontology alone is to create time lines for particular species in particular geographical areas. The lines we then draw connecting them by evolutionary forks are inferences. We understand that there have to be connections, species do not appear as if by magic, but the way we draw the connections changes as we uncover more data.

Some anthropologists like Richard Leakey presently refuse to draw any specific connections at all, feeling that it is premature to assert that we know exactly where and when the important evolutionary forks are. There's much to commend such a cautious approach. Of course, Richard Leakey doesn't deny that humans evolved from protohumans who evolved from non-humans, but he just is careful not to over-interpret his data as some other anthropologists have done, and risk getting egg on his face :)

You've put your finger on the problem. Deciphering lineages from fossils is a little like trying to figure out how a bush branches when you have a leaf from this branch and bud from that branch, etc., then you try and figure out from that exactly how the bush branches. Of course, there are usually many possible ways of arranging the bush, and people tend to assume that the dominant (or only) hominid species alive a million years ago was necessarily the ancestor of hominid species alive 500,000 years ago, and that may or may not be true.

That's why there is so much infighting among paleontologists and anthropologists, because they want to draw differently branching trees or bushes from limited data. However, they are all agreed there is a real evolutionary bush (or tree, whatever), it's just that they differ on the details of how it branches.

At present, anyone who sticks his neck out and says, without suitable ifs, ands, and buts, that *this* is the correct lineage and *all* others are wrong, is looking to get it guillotined :)

The author of the book I mentioned also states that he feels Darwin kind of stole theories from Wallace. I don't know or really care. He feels Darwin was wrong in initailly representing the Black race as inferior, because of the preconceived notions in Victorian times, that Africans, were savages. Wallace had personally lived with native of various countries, including the Amazon, and South Pacific, and found all races to be equal.

I think the Author, Jeffery Goodman, is just pointing out that no strong evidence has been exhibited yet, to show any direct linage, and that modern man appeared on the scene abruptly. He cites examples of Cro-Magnon's art work, and evidence of sosphisticated social order, and tools, and rituals of religion. The other former species didn't compare by half.

I think it's clear from Darwin's notebooks that he had come up with his theories independently of Wallace, and had certainly accumulated far more evidence in favor of it, as Wallace graciously acknowledged. They had their work presented at the same time to the Royal Academy by mutual agreement :) I'm never quite sure what Darwin's racism has to do with evolutionary theory, so I'm as baffled there as you.

It's true that there is no strong evidence for a *specific* lineage for modern humans that excludes other lineages. The evidence that a lineage exists, however, is as good as it gets. "Sudden" appearances in the fossil record are normal... it is impossible to find a perfect record of human movement to and from, and occupation of, any particular locality, at every period of time. Gaps are a fact of life in paleontology, but there's no reason to suppose that no connection could possibly exist, just because the connection hasn't been found.

However, I agree that the amount we don't know about the specific origin of modern humans vastly exceeds what we do know, so there is much room for improvement and hopefully, future discoveries will clear up some of the present unknowns.

I wonder if the recent alteration of the discussion standards for this board has escaped the notice of our so kind and tolerant hosts at CNN...

Okay, let me see if I have the "Rules According to Leszek and Keith" straight here. We have 2 ‘sides’ to most subjects which fall under the heading of "Science and Religion," which on the evolution vs. creation question both suffer from a complete lack of definitive evidence. The lack of definitive evidence results in a situation where both evolution and creation are reduced to belief systems invested with faith, thus both positions are open to refutation.

Because this is so, the evolutionist ‘side’ has instituted new rules of debate which require the opposition to "retire from the field" upon refutation. Evolutionist viewpoint is granted perpetual ‘last word’ privileges, and those who believe in creation are forthwith banished - along with whatever ‘religion’ they may represent.

Wow. My high school debate partner (who retired from the U.S. Congress 3 years ago, a parliamentarian of renown and a very fairminded man) is going to love this! Perhaps he’ll use his free time to draft this and submit it for addendum to the House Rules, which should serve to cripple the legislative branch of government forever forward!!!

As for me, until and unless CNN institutes this one-sided ‘Rule’ into the header outlining discussion standards, I will continue to present and defend my point of view. You may ‘refute’ my assertions with whatever lack of empirical evidence you wish, and I will ‘refute’ your positions with whatever lack of empirical evidence I can muster.

And yes, one of the most fascinatng mysteries is the record of cultural and technological development. Homo habilis and H. erectus had distinctive repertories of tools; H. erectus added mastery of fire; and Neanderthals added ritual. But it took anatomically modern humans to develop representational art, as far as we know. We also don't know when or how language developed - alas, brains and unwritten language don't fossilize too well :) In most every case, there is a long history of stable culture, followed by a "sudden" sea-change as some innovation (cultural, biological or both) sweeps in. Some of these things may remain mysteries for ever...

I've learned that the nature of Evolutionary Theory causes this predjudice. Evolutionist say: Creation theory is not science, because it can't be empirically proved or disproved. Natural occurances and their theories, as long as restrained to 'Natural " interpretation, is accepted.

Mysteries are meant to be solved, I hope.:)- I guess, I will need to concede that perhaps our earth is older, than I thought previously. It still doesn't negate, for me in any way, the Bible's truths. Which are an outline, not specific. I believe what it does contain is correct. I'm not sure how all these pre-humans fit into the total picture, but it is interesting.

Joy, if refuted theories stuck around and got equal time with active theories, we'd still be phlogging phlogiston and N-rays in the science class. We don't, for rather obvious reasons. Is it too much to expect adherents of religious theories to play by the same rules if they want to join the game?

The rules of science haven't changed, and they aren't defined by me or by Keith. If a theory, religious or otherwise, is refuted, or perishes for lack of evidence, that's life - I don't understand why you are taking it as a personal attack. The reason evolutionary theory is still around is because it's so good, and is supported by so much evidence, it would take a miracle to dislodge it at this stage. Or at least a far superior theory. Again, I didn't write those rules, that's just the way the science game is played. I've been playing it for a quarter of a century... it's a fun game.

Such has been the situation ever since Neichze (sp?) declared God dead and science believed it. This changes nothing in reality, however, and Neichze was declared dead by God long ago. I’ve fought long odds to be here participating in this forum, and I am limited to a specific time period in which to participate. I have no intention of letting the opposition here censor what I wouldn’t allow the DOE or Catholic Church to censor, just because they do not like what I have to say.

The problem, I think, is that I am a scientist (no longer a physicist, but I consider psychology to be a scientific examination of human consciousness), and that I am not a religious fundamentalist with predetermined ‘interpretation’ of scripture to follow. Apparently a scary combination the scripted nay-sayers don’t quite know how to deal with. But that’s their problem, not mine!

Oh, I don't reject all the moral teachings of the bible, just the ones I know to be wrong :) I just don't think it's wise to treat it as a textbook for anything other than morality. If religious believers want to bring the bible into play in the scientific arena, they'd better be prepared for the possibility that claims made by the bible that can be empricially tested - e.g. the story of Adam and Eve, Noah, etc., will be proven wrong. Those who live by the sword (or by Occam's Razor in this case :) will perish by the sword.

The difference between evolutionary theory and special creationism is that I can conceive of findings that could disprove evolution - e.g. the finding of T. rex and H. sapiens fossils in contemporaneous strata, or an absence of any correlation between familial relationships defined by paleontology and by molecular biology - whereas (as you point out) you can't do that as easily for special creation, because one of the principles of special creation is that God can do whatever god wants to do, however he wants to do it. Science assumes that the number of possibilities is much more restricted, and that since miracles do not occur today (in any scientifically meaningful sense), they didn't occur yesterday.

Anyway, that's why special creation isn't a science... there is no finding conceivable that could disprove it as a paradigm, though one can always disprove specific claims.

How might science empirically ‘prove’ any one or more of the Biblical accounts wrong? Why in the world would it waste its valuable time attempting to do so, if all that can be demonstrated as error are the interpretations of these accounts? God has nothing to fear from science.

I do not understand (truly) why it is you insist that ‘miracles’ do not occur, Leszek. I long ago postulated that what you consider to be ‘miracles’ are actually manifestations of things we do not yet have scientific explanations for. This does not mean anomalous occurrances aren’t perfectly natural.

As for "scientifically meaningful," this is predicated entirely on your personal rejection of medical, genetic and psychological sciences as science. You may share this predudice with many others who have a personal investment in defending their atheism against anything that might someday prove them ‘wrong.’ The many other branches of scientific endeavor are not so inclined to disregard the very things they are actively investigating, even though they do not yet have full explanations for the processes behind what they are investigating.

I might conversely state that science has nothing to fear from God, apart from the individual hubris of its adherants multiplied exponentially by the political institution of that hubris in the group. It has long been known that the morality of groups is equal to or lesser than the morality of the least moral member of the group. This is how groups like the KKK can continue to survive in the modern world. Why mobs who would never individually kill someone, can justify the mass execution of entire segments of their own societies. It is how science can justify the creation of weapons designed for the extinction of life on earth and the end of evolution itself.

The individual base connection to God, something I believe to be hardwired into our genetic structure, defies the outward political function of groups. It exists in direct opposition to the relative morality of the group mentality. It constitutes the whole of what replaced what should have been a genetically inherited ‘morality’ of species survival which human beings completely lack. Humans, of all creatures in evolutionary existence past and present, have a choice to ignore the evolutionary imperitives. This has brought us to where we are today.

This is psychologically established fact, demonstrable in the huge volumes of psychological research amassed to this date about how human beings think. Rejection of God is a personal choice, and cannot be legitimately based in scientific actuality. The ‘Truth’ contained in the theory of evolution has been corrupted by its misuse as a vehicle for atheism and the rejection of morality. Thus it makes a rather handy vehicle through which God might choose to reveal Himself.

Hi Joy. I notice that you make the common "error" of distinguishing or not distinguishing between "God" and "Christian God" as it suits you. In your seemingly never-ending war with Leszek, his objections are to "Christian God" and your responses appear to me to involve "God." For example, take your

As applied to "God" this sentence is true, IMHO. As applied to "Christian God" this sentence may very well be false, and I strongly incline myself to the view that it is false. "Christian God" involves certain notions like: (1) Jesus was the son of "Christian God" and was born to a virgin mother; (2) there was a flood which covered the earth for forty days and forty nights, etc. (Oh, BTW Joy, what is the duration of a "day" in the flood myth? :-) Now it is true that science or scientific method will never be able to either prove or refute any such assertions. However, I see no reason why science or scientific thought cannot be applied to draw conclusions about the likelihood of such assertions. In this way rejection of "Christian God" can be legitimately based in scientific actuality (the last two words are not ones I would use, but are employed to make the connection with your own sentence which is here under consideration). If science cannot be used to critique religious thought, then what can it be used for?

cont'd

cont'd

Also, I am with Leszek in being confused with your stand on the implications of saying that Biblical accounts are in agreement with current scientific thinking. I would appreciate it if you could clarify a few things.

1. Do you think the Big Bang is the account of creation explained in the Bible?

• If "no" to 1, carry on going :-)
• If "yes" to 1, what happens when the Big Bang is shown to no longer agree with empirical data? Do you reject the new theory and stick to the Big Bang? Or do you reject what is written in the Bible?

I have made it all look very blatant, but often the transition between defending the Christian God to defending a generic God is made rather subtly, and is missed by the non-theist.

This was one of many things I explained badly. I was trying to say that I see no reason for Christianity to be "true." Indeed, the more I learn about it, the less possible seems its truth. For this reason, I hope you can understand that I feel it is a dubious enterprise to expend the enormous effort you admit is necessary to really join the fold of "true" Christians. I see so many other things which are more valuable to me, and to those around me... and to the cause of "truth."

Oh, but Rosemary, surely this joy must pale to insignificance when compared to the great peace and calmness which is brought to me by my atheistic world view. Your joy and mine may both be indescribable, but I promise you mine is the more indescribable :-)

Sadly, truth cares neither about your joy nor mine. (Actually, I do not feel this is sad at all...)

But would you agree that this does disprove (in the suitable sense of the word "prove") the existence of certain versions of the Christian God? For example, does it disprove the Christian God who performed all the actions ascribed to him in the Bible? (Let us leave aside that question about whether such a God has a coherent definition.)

Just a quick interjection if I may (I do enjoy reading your posts, they are models of clarity :)

I don't think so, but it does discredit the inappropriate use of the Bible. There are many less drastic ways of exlaining some individual stories in Genesis - for example, the flood story could be a report of the postulated flooding of the Black Sea, which would certainly have been "all-encompassing" for any humans living there at the time who knew nothing of any outside world. And it would have been "mountain high" as far as hills within the then largely (but not completely) dry Black Sea basin would have been concerned.

So I'll agree with Cliff, it doesn't "disprove" the Christian god, because one can always reinterpret Genesis appropriately to make it fit whatever physical reality you are dealing with. Though one can certainly argue that infinitely flexible hypotheses are less than useful, it nevertheless doesn't make them untrue. I think you have to look to the details of natural history to bring notions of a simultaneously benevolent and omnipotent creator into question, as there we come into real logical contradictions.

Rosemary, you remind me of one of my sisters. I just love her to death, but she can be irritating as hell. She wants to be so nice and then she turns around and says the most outrageous and insulting things. I know it isn’t her fault. It is just that the difference between being a "Christian" or a "sinner" is so profoundly different in her mind, and she worries so much for my "soul." She just "knows" that I will spend "eternity" in Hell with the Devil. It is so incredibly important to her that I be "saved." In addition, within her own group, she develops a set of "sayings" that become "normal" to her and her group and is totally puzzled that anyone would take offense to such "normal conversation."

Give you an example of something that you said in your last post that greatly offends me. I know you had no idea whatever that such a thing might be offensive to someone like me, but consider your statement that: "it is my opinion [which I'm not entitled to make] that the Christian's I've met here, are Christians. They demonstrate this in their understanding, it's not possible for a non Christian to demonstrate such understanding."

Understanding of what. What in the world do you think you have the power as a "Christian" to understand that a "non-believer" like me is unable to understand? Well, I think I have the answer. I think it can be referred to as "talk the talk." In short, if one says the "keywords" than one is safe and on there way to "Heaven." Otherwise: "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

(At least you have the decency to use the term "non-believer." Maybe I ought to be thankful for that. My sister, and some other Christian friends of mine tend use the term "sinner" to denote non-believers such as me, and actually sees no reason why I would object to such terminology--since it is the "truth" :-)

Rosemary, now I feel really bad. After reading your posts, I went offline to composed a post, after which I got back on line and posted it.

Then I read the other posts that had been written in the interim, and realized that it looked like I was piling on, like it was a "get Rosemary day" or something. Sorry about that, Rosemary. Please try to view that post of mine as a bit of humor about human nature, in general. Or maybe, if you wish, you could discuss something about me that irritates you in a post of your own. It might do both of us some good.

Well, gorsh, I am glad someone thinks so. However, I guess I have to disagree with you given the remainder of your post - it appears I was not quite clear in my response to Cliff :-(

Let me try again. Consider proposition P:

There is enough scientific evidence to refute the occurrence of a worldwide flood ever having taken place.

Now consider proposition Q:

There exists a God which made it rain for forty days and forty nights, covering the earth in water.

(BTW, Rosemary, I hope I have fixed my previous embarrassing error concerning Flood data.) What I meant to ask Cliff was whether he would agree that P&Q, the conjunction of P and Q, is false. Following certain Christians, I did not intend to allow the variation of biblical interpretation. As we both know, if this variation is allowed, most anything can be true.

How does that strike you? :-)

Andrew, I have to admit that logic in the form P and Q tends to cause my eyes to glaze over. I program in C (Windows95/NT programs) and, of course, I have to use logical operators in my programs, but sometimes they give me fits and I have to adjust them a couple of times before getting the intended result. Usually, I have to see what they do before I am sure they are right. I saw your point, but as for the formal logic error, I will take your word for it.

From a pure humor point of view, of the ones that I read, the one I liked best was the one about Heisenberg's uncertainty principle underlying the "genesis of evolutionary variability. After quoting the paper, a portion of which was: "Generativity latent in the uncertainty relationship is non-random and ubiquitous all through various evolutionary stages from abiotic synthesis of monomers and polymers up to the emergence of behavior-induced variability of organisms," the site author asks the question: "Does that make sense to you"?

(I thought applying the Uncertainty Principle to evolution was perhaps stretching it a tad, but I don’t think it is a problem for evolutionary science.)

Actually, one of the things I liked best about the site is that the author seems to be rather up to date on the latest evidence--certainly more up to date than me. And I have a question for you Leszek.

The item about Lucy being kicked out of the family tree was rather interesting (1996), and I wanted your opinion.

It seems, according to the site author's notes that a new almost complete skeleton of Australopithecus Africanus has been found, dating to 2.6 million years ago. The problem is that Australopithecus africanus is now found to be indisputably arboreal while the supposed 3.2 million years old predecessor Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy) was bipedal. So according to the notes, this kicks the bipedal Lucy out of the family tree.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think I would have a hard time kicking the bipedal Australopithecus Afarensis out of the family tree while keeping the arboreal Australopithecus Africanus in. But according the site author, it was the scientists who were throwing Lucy out. Your thoughts?

(Only the tough questions for you, Leszek :-)

I am so sorry to hear that, Cliff :-) It is actually the way I think about a lot of things, even when I do not write them in that way. Of course, many things one says cannot be presented so precisely, but for those things that can be, the formal presentation removes some of the burden from common language. We have certainly seen in this forum the inadequacies of common language! And I have been victim as much as anyone.

In the past on this board, I have resorted to such extreme measures as using the word "proposition" when it is clear that my plain ol' English is failing to accomplish my purposes. You'll be delighted to hear that I'll likely maintain this practice (those few times I decide to post), so you'll have a shot at normal language before I get silly :-)

In any event, I gather you got my point, and I hope so did Leszek (or anyone else who cared).

Would anyone care to explain how this forms part of a useful dialog?

Rosemary,

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Au contraire, Andrew! I think you use the language very precisely and with a good deal of expertise. For instance, you used the term "slippery theologian" in address to Rosemary, then displayed some surprise that she might take offense. I noted more than a few banana peels in your posts.

First banana peel is your separation of the terms "God" and "Christian God," as if there were some difference for a concept you reject either way. This puts Christians on the defensive and splits the opposition, should there have been believers aboard who did not happen to be Christian. Two peels in one!

Second is the assertion that you might consider religion if you could find it useful to yourself. This serves to further entice a believer into hoping there might be a way to reach you, while at the same time cheapening their position to a level of consumerism. Had you received the response sought, you could then accuse the respondant of trying to "sell you a bill of goods." Another two-fer for the slip-n-slide.

Third banana peel is the statement that you’d really like to understand how Christians think, so you might understand the Christians you deal with on a daily basis. This is aimed toward eliciting specific doctrinal positions you feel confident of being able to refute.

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(Andrew, cont...)

I find it admirable that Rosemary, a theologian who is not the least bit slippery, did not fall on your carefully strewn banana peels, yet still managed to provide well-reasoned responses. I think kudos are in order for her ability to remain civil while at the same time managing to put your littered banana peels in the proper receptacle.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Rosemary is busy ministering to her congregation and supporting her husbsand’s good work. I’ve been working since early a.m. blowing up balloons and tying ribbons for the groundbreaking on our new house for the Children’s Home, and supporting my husband’s good work in finding the money with which to build this needed structure. People of many faiths as well as quite a few agnostics and humanists are also engaged in good works individually and collectively cleaning up the mess on this planet and reaching out to human beings who get lost along the way.

I personally know just 2 actual atheists (which I define as faith in the non-existence of God, and the investment of personal energy in the maintenance of that faith). They are both morose and self-centered people who cannot manage to maintain meaningful relationships with others (both have been divorced several times and sired more children than they care to support). They display a good deal of disdain for concepts like altruism, and never give of either their money or their time to those in need. I’d like to know if this is typical, or if I just happen to know the most self-centered atheists on the planet. Any thoughts on this?

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I believe I responded above to your indictment of my responses to you, Andrew. You are attempting to play a role that doesn’t suit you. Cliff and I went through some soul-searching many posts ago. I began my participation here with a certain set of issues I wished to introduce, which in the course of dialogue kept getting sidetracked. He became frustrated with me, and what he (rightfully) perceived to be my "ulterior motives."

Cliff’s objections taught me a good deal about how best to approach the subjects I wished to introduce. I learned to go ahead and give the summary position, then break the points down as participants cared to ask questions or contribute. That way I wasn’t "leading" anybody by the nose to where I wished them to go, I was honestly engaging the issues I believed important.

I’ve found that being up-front generates better dialogue. I’m not a theologian, anthropologist or geneticist. Everyone here is more expert in those areas than I am, but they put up with my opinions anyway (thank you all). I’m not a physicist anymore, but I do know about such things (E.C. is my current guru in astrophysics), even if I’m a bit out of date.

So now that I find myself on the receiving end of the kind of deviousness Cliff originally objected to so strenuously from me, I thought I’d call you on it. We’re all adults and can deal with a few rim-shots and barbs. It’s a diplomatic art form and we’re getting some good practice! If you haven’t visited the political boards, you should take a peek. There is no rudeness here to compare with what’s going on there!!!

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To everyone on Board: Maybe it's just an inate distrust of others POV's that cause the friction, at times, and the attempts to truly understand some one's view that is totally different can be agravating at times. Politics, and Religion are always Hot button topics.

Joy I agree with your wisdom, but I think, I tend to be more naive, at times. Or Stupid.:)-

So here goes to Cliff and Andrew:

Cliff, I have an annoying sister also, that I love. One day she asked me, if I knew about the "sins" of summer. I said, no,and I don't want to know. (She was in a cult-type church.) It had something to do with enjoying the beach and getting suntans, and I love the beach. So it fell on deaf ears. I just told her I'll wear sunscreen with a high rating, so I don't get cancer. this will probably be deleted , since it's off topic.

Anyway to both Andrew and Cliff: It's not supposed to be "talk the talk, or walk the walk". I personally dislike that clique. Read John chapter 3. It's about Jesus explaining to Nicodemus, what it means to be born-again. All I can say, that once a person goes through that experience, you are not the "same". We're not better, than you, or not apt to sin, we're still sinners, too. We KNOW that God IS, it can't be explained, like one explains feelings because it's not just a feeling, it's a knowing.

It's certainly not because one is not intelligent enough, or anything like that. O.K. I hope I don't slip on the banana peel.:)-back to science/religion.

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Joy, I don't know where it came from. Just a couple of days ago, you were still being silly about something ridiculous. But, now, all of a sudden, you have grown up tough.

You are now ready for the "lion" lawyers. Actually, I feel sorry for them.

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Okay, Joy. Have it your way if you please. It so doesn't matter to me if you are unable to take what I say verbatim without adding your own odd interpretations. Your diagnosis of what I am trying to elicit from you does not resonate with me in any way. I already know that I disagree with you on many things, and I am content to leave it this way. I was merely hoping to have you explain to me some aspects of your view which do not make sense to me. It is really that simple. Why am I saying this? You are obviously not listening. I feel sympathy for you, Joy. It must be rather difficult being you. But I also find it nearly impossible to have meaningful dialog with you.

Out of politeness let me try to answer the questions you pose.

As I think you know full well, atheism is a point of view which offers a great deal of flexibility in personality types. Most religions are like this too. I happen to know atheists who are wonderful, happy, compassionate people. I know Christians who are rude, greedy, and spiteful. People are who they are, no matter what labels get attached to them. Rosemary has spoken rather nicely on this in the past quite a few times.

I understand that in striving to find the real truth, many theories will come and go. But I hope you can understand that with all the conflicting statements and theories about Evolution, it's very difficult to take the good out from the bad, so to speak. All these emminent scientists have different views and ways of interpreting the data, they find, then later more modern ways are found to date fossils, and with the advent of DNA testing, and molecular studies, I sort of wait to see what will come up next.

Now poor Lucy is out.:)-

Thanks Cliff for the links, and especially the Problem with Evolution, one. I bookmarked it, for future reading.

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Marie, you’re doing fine presenting your positions and expressing your questions! You’re wearing cleats, I suspect, so banana peels aren’t much of a problem!

<blush> Thank you, Cliff. Truth is, if I’d been the one responding to Andrew’s discussion with Rosemary, I’d have fallen flat on my face and then been furious about it! Luckily, I do have some experience as a lion-tamer (I kid you not, though tigers are more fun), so they’ll come out bruised if not beaten anyway... §:o)

Andrew, I’m just a pot calling the kettle black. You are far too well-worded to qualify as a neophyte, and you’ve got dead-on aim. I admire this very much, actually, though you may be right about our inability to hold a meaningful discussion between ourselves. As I said, I know a total of 2 atheists. They are my friends and I love them dearly, but have to shake my head sometimes at their essential confusion about why the world doesn’t treat them better. There are personality types everywhere, I know. It’s just that my knowledge of atheists is limited, so I thought I’d ask. You gave a very good answer.

BTW... you wouldn’t happen to be a lawyer, would you? (kidding! §:o)

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Joy,

A neophyte at what? Somehow I think that the answer involves something ghoulish, and that any attempts to distance myself from the other ghouls will be met with resounding failure...

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A point well taken, Andrew!

Cliff - A side-note on the subject of "wild" animals, since I brought up big cats which I honestly have had some experience with. Cats are cats, thus fairly predictable on cat-terms. The most unpredictable critters to work with are primates. I once had 3 spider monkeys spend the winter in my laundry room, and my husband’s still got the scars to prove it! They never bit me or the kids, but the male (named Jethro and definitely hung up on macho) didn’t like Fredzo one bit. I found the spiders much smarter generally than either the capuchin or the Java, both of which were untamable and completely unsociable.

Filmed a movie once with chimps the producers procured from the circus retirement home. Ever seen a full-grown chimp? A grown chimp is a frightening animal for someone like me who is just 5 feet tall and 100 pounds. These guys could rip your arms off! Which doesn’t even mention their TEETH!!!

My husband filmed a commercial once with an Orangutan. Took two whole days, and he and this ape bonded very well (it was a teenager). Fredzo went on a mission for the World Council of Churches to Indonesia back in the ‘60s, and learned in places like Borneo and South Celebes that Orangs are called the "Old Men of the Forest." The natives, he says, used to adopt them and turn them into house servants. They’re so intelligent it wouldn’t surprise me!

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If you are trying to sooth feelings, Marie, you certainly missed the mark with me. I was feeling pretty good until I read your "talk the talk."

But, Marie, that is what it is. It is an excuse to think you are better than someone else. Funny thing, Marie. I knew from the beginning what you thought. But you played it cool until Rosemary slipped up and said what she really felt, for the second time, and I called her on it. And then you came charging to her rescue trying to smooth things over with the very same language she used. Go figure. (Actually, Rosemary used the word, "non-believer," but not you. For the word you used, see below :-)

I've heard that before, Marie. And it is just as insulting now as the first time I heard it. Tell you what. You can call yourself a "sinner" all you want. Otherwise, I think you probably ought to keep your opinions about sin, sinning and sinners to yourself. I do not think the way you show me respect is by calling me a "sinner."

(Actually, Marie, I have no hard feelings and bear no grudges. I mention this only because I think you ought to know how I feel. Furthermore, you don't even need to ask for forgiveness. You are already forgiven. I know you didn't mean any harm and I am used to forgiving Christians of these things :-)

Yes, but that is the way the game is played. Personally, I have no ax to grind. I just want to find out how it comes out. The more people looking at it, the better, as far as I am concerned.

Why wait. I think watching the evidence come in is fun. With a fifty yard line seat, what could be better.

Maybe. We shall see. I am still unclear as to the rationale. I keep thinking it must be a joke. I mean A. africanus was "arboreal" and A. Afarensis was "bipedal" and and they "kicked A. Afarensis out of the "tree." If it isn't a pun, it ought to be one.

It's true, that Christians view the world differently, than we did before we became saved.

But, more to the point, I certainly don't think I'm better. It floors me, actually. I'm glad that you realize, that I meant no disrespect to you or anyone, and I mean that sincerely.

But would you want me to ask you to keep your opinions to yourself?

And I do appreciate that you told me, up front.:)

Okay, Marie, so you don't see why I would object to the inference that "Christians," by virtue of being a "Christian," have "understanding" that "non-believers" do not have--but don't get the wrong idea, "we" don't think "we" are "better" than "you." "We" are "sinners" too.

Apparently you don't have much "understanding."

From CNN Interactive Community:

All posts on our topical message boards must represent a clear and direct relationship with the listed topic. When no clear and direct relationship with the topic exists, the post will be removed without further comment.

-- CNN Community Staff

So long as a significant portion of the population holds special creation to be "truth" there will be plenty of reason and opportunity to debate; I only ask that once 2+2 has been shown not to equal 5, that we move on.

I, for one, would be absolutely fascinated to see a new, strong and consistant theory of creation presented. In some absolute sense, as I do believe that God is the author and creator of this universe, I expect that creation is true. Unfortunatly; I have yet to see a valid theory of creation. Until I do I will have to be satisfied with the mechanics offered by evolution and big-bang cosmology.

Thankyou CNN staff, but I'm glad you have left recent messages on the board, because relationships such as we are trying to establish here, between two, three or four very disparate groups, probably have to go through such difficulties much as we might all wish otherwise.

Cliff, I hope I can help with what I say now, because that is my intention. The main, the primary, the most important element for any believer is their "relationship" with their Creator, whom they call Father. This relationship develops, deepens and strengthens as years go by. For some that relationship remains rather like that between a human father and his tiny baby, constantly feeding it and wiping up the dribbles at both ends!! Others are rumbustious teenagers who in fact think that they know better than their dad at any one point in time. Others are lucky enough to grow to adulthood with their Father, and learn to enjoy His wisdom and chastisement, if not really 'like' it.

I have worked in the community of faith for many years, and consequently have had lots to do with all ages, but one thing becomes quite clear in the course of time .. you can pretty much determine who does in fact have a relationship. This is not a 'judgement' on those who do not have such a relationship, it is not a separation in any sort of condemnatory way, but it 'is' obvious to others in the family. And like members of any large family, which has it's problems because all the members are so different, they are aware of the strength that they gain simply by being members of that family. They don't feel better than anyone outside the family, far from it, but they are always ready to welcome more adopted sons and daughters, so that they too can share in the strength of that family.

I suppose I still sound like your sister huh?

Cliff I have been stunned by the things I have learnt since venturing onto these boards, time and again I've had to search my heart and my faith .. does what I believe REALLY stand up? Am I kidding myself? Am I believing something because I WANT to believe it and not because it has any objective reality? I'm in a bit of a spiritual hole at the moment with one of the issues raised on this very board, I haven't yet found the answers I require. If the answer when I find it is negative, surely it will also negate the faith I have .. you see this place is making me extremely vulnerable. I will say again, that my most frequent prayer is "Lord I believe, forgive thou my unbelief." That is a true indication of "where I'm at," to use modern parlance. And IMHO, it is true of every believer .. even though we have a terrible tendency to make strident comments that appear to be arrogant.

I genuinely believe that we must try to somehow break down the walls that we cannot deny are between us, well as much as we can anyway. Could it be that often we are asking the same questions, but we're asking them from such different places that we fail in our ability to communicate effectively. In my ignorance I'll probably say this badly, but I think physics would tell me that beams of light can be regarded as wave-motions, or as particle motions. That is double dutch to me, it truly doesn't make sense other than a mere glimmer .. I come from over there, I want to know who is holding the torch? That's the 'science . religious' split.

OTOH, lets say that I really appreciated visiting the local botanical gardens. The whole setting gives me such a wonderful feeling, the trees and the flowers seem to be set in wonderful places and the colours, although disparate, never clash. But my husband, lets say, is a much more prosaic character, he wants to know why this tree is planted over here, and why that is missing. One day, we meet the designe

One day, we meet the designer, and I'm delighted, now I visit the garden, not just for the beautiful setting, but because I like spending a bit of time with the designer. My husband on the other hand is totally frustrated, because although the designer answers most of my questions, he doesn't answer those of my very practical husband. I get my 'who' questions answered, my husband doesn't get his 'what' questions answered. That's a poor example, but I can't at the moment think of a better example of what I see as the religion . science split.

Just so long as you understand that in the above scenario, I love my husband very much, love and want to learn about the practical side of his nature and I know that's not going to be easy, but that communication is undoubtedly at the bottom of it.

Joy's farewell--deleted

Rosemary Behan,
Faith has nothing to fear in science.

I have no difficulty "poo-pooing" the literal reality of the flood and then thanking God for another day of life just before bed.

All that is really required is that we give due credit to God. God can still be God and design a universe which requires no designer. It isn't up to me to critique if God has shaped the universe as I believe he has; it is up to me to be forever open to better learn how he has shaped the universe.

Do all paths lead to God? No, but paths that earnestly and honestly seek God do, some are just more difficult than others. Even the atheist glorifies God in that s/he uses the intelectual gift of the creator. It is only through action that one can glorify there creator for words are empty, vain things indeed. (Guilty as charged.)

Okay, Marie, so you don't see why I would object to the inference that "Christians," by virtue of being a "Christian," have "understanding" that "non-believers" do not have--but don't get the wrong idea, "we" don't think "we" are "better" than "you." "We" are "sinners" too. Apparently you don't have much "understanding."

Cliff, the point is that I do understand. I also asked you how you would feel; if I asked that you keep your opinions on certain subjects to yourself.

I'm not asking you to do that, nor have I asked anyone else. I'm not particularly thrilled to hear opinions, that humans descended from a common ancestor with apes. There's no proof-positive, and to me it's just someone's opinion.

It's my perogitive to look at that issue on sin in the way I do, if you don't like it, I'm sorry, but I'm not out to please everyone all the time. As you have the right not to like it, and I accept that.

Also I didn't mean to imply that Christians can see things non-beleivers can't, it's a fact. Doesn't mean they can't see some things, or not understand, there is an aspect of Christianty which is largely spiritual, as I'm sure you are aware of. Some of us Christians can't see things or understand spiritual concepts either, unless we pray and seek the Lord, which we do, if we want to grow closer to him.

Now I sound a little like Rosemary, but it is our relationship to God, that can bring to us things, that aren't able to be understood, by non-believers. Mostly those same things we hold precious, will seem quite foolish to others. I didn't get saved until about 10 years ago. I used to get discusted with Christians, all the time.

We're different, not better. :)- God wants us to: be not conformed to the world. (I'm so unperfect, it's not even funny.) But God is perfect.

Marie, you can believe as you wish. As you know, I am an agnostic. I hasten to point out that I am not an atheist, but just because I am an agnostic and allow the possibility of the existence of God, I do not allow all possible proposed manifestations of God. There are a number of proposed manifestations of God that I do not accept, simply because those proposed manifestations do not make any sense to me. For example, I have a strong tendency not to believe in a God that would deliberately mislead me and then punish me for having been misled. For example, if it is critical that I believe in the Genesis account of creation literally in order to gain paradise after death, why would God make evolution look so convincing? (Actually, I have some other more basic questions than that, but for the purpose of this argument, I think that question will do.)

Earlier today, you and I was discussing the possibility that Lucy, the 3 million years old A. Afarensis might not be on the human "family tree" because new skeletal information from another hominid, supposedly a half million years younger than Lucy turned out to be "arboreal" instead of "bipedal." Well, I don't know the true line or even, for sure, if there is a line. But it sure does look to me like there is a line there somewhere.

Now if God didn't want me to believe that that line probably existed, why did he let me see the evidence for that line? The point is I think I am okay either way. If you think I am not, then so be it.

Joy, if you really are leaving, I am very very sorry to see you go, just now when my respect for you has grown so profoundly. But if you truly are gone from here, I truly think you are ready for the lawyers. And if you trust me, send me an e-mail.

Rosemary, I read your posts and appreciate the honesty. You can rest assured that you, along with the rest of the gang, are a-okay in my books.

Joy, I'm going to be really sad if you feel you can no longer contribute. I don't want to lose touch so completely, especially as you may visit New Zealand towards the end of the year and we may have the opportunity for a cup of coffee together. Like Cliff, my support will be with you in your upcoming legal battle, and please, if you wish, add my following address to your address book so that we can keep in touch occasionally. [email protected]

Keith, I'm touched, how nice that someone understood .. thankyou. But the Flood is not my problem, I think it's fascinating, and get frustrated when only the mechanics of it are discussed. But how would it be if the Flood occured prior to continental drift? Prior to the raising of very high mountains due to tectonic activity .. just a thought from an ignorant layman. My problem is purely theological, but it's serious and I expect one day that I shall be glad that I've been forced to consider it. You'll read this in the morning, have a great start to your week.

Cliff thanks .. hands up for a high five, it's a start I'm very grateful for.

Andrew, I'm sorry no, Hamilton definitely deals with issues of theology.

It disproves the proposition that god made it rain for 40 days and nights, but it says nothing about the existence of a god, or of what his properties and characteristics are. Also, it doesn't take into account the possibility that god made a local flood that was mistaken for a world-wide one.

IOW, I'd ask the questions, is the attribute, "making it rain for 40 days and nights" a necessary attribute of a Christian god, and that without this attribute, such a god couldn't exist? And I have to answer no to both questions.

While this certainly calls into question one supposition about a Christian god, it doesn't touch the others. The god theory, like other hypotheses, is tested in bundles... disproof of one assumption doesn't necessarily disprove the rest :)

Of course, we can never exclude the possibility that some finding would displace Lucy from her position as an ancestor, but I don't think that was it.

See my reply to Cliff right above :) I think if you were to read the original papers on Lucy, the authors were always careful to present her as a possible ancestor, because they are well aware of the possibility that new findings may displace older theories, and a better candidate than the species Lucy represents might show up as a direct ancestor. That hasn't happened as yet, despite a lone statement from out of left field. Yes, there are paleontologists who aren't satisfied with Lucy, but that doesn't mean that she's out of the running, or that most don't think her candidacy has a lot going for it.

And think of this... even if the species Lucy represents wasn't the direct ancestor, it was still something very like it. And there just isn't anything else in fossil record that time that fits as well. So wait a bit, this argument is far from over :)

We are in utter agreement, I regret to say :-) For example...

This is all I aimed to disprove.

For some people it is. For me, well, I sure don't give too much thought to what forms the list of necessary attributes of a Christian God.

This is really annoying. I do not seem to be able to make the very simple point I want to make :-( Your above statement is correct if we take a scientific approach to the God. But my point is that many do not, and so their hypothesis bundle consists of one straw containing all those attributes of their own perception of God. Disproving one of these attributes removes the straw from the bundle.

In sound byte form, The general notion of God is not falsifiable, but some specific notions of God are falsifiable.

For those who don't take a scientific attitude to God, of course no disproof of anything they believe is possible, but many do have a case of "science envy" and want to be able to prove their particular subset of beliefs are necessarily true. Such beliefs are fair game. BTW, it's not that I don't understand your point, it's just that I think it's a little beside the point, because in most cases I don't think their beliefs in a particular type of god actually amount to a single straw. I don't know how many straws you have to pull out of the bundle to undermine the belief, my feeling is in some cases you can pull *all* the straws out without affecting beliefs significantly :)

Yes, but each specific notion is itself made up of several independent strands. Many Christians (I suspect most, in fact) are willing to give up the "god of the flood", for example, and yet still retain all the other notions of a Christian god. That, I think, is because flood theory isn't irreversibly welded to general Christian theory, whereas the success of your argument depends on such a necessary association.

(cont.)

The problem is that the Christian concept of god is pretty fluid, and varies from Christian to Christian... most of the things Christians believe together as necessary attributes of their god aren't amenable to scientific disproof, such as his alleged omnipotence and benevolence, or his incarnate appearance on earth.

Take another example. The resurrection is disprovable in principle if, say, one were to find a tomb of the correct date with a single shrouded corpse, with authenticated text identifying it as the "Jesus the Messiah, King of the Jews". That would at least disprove the claim that the body had risen... but Christians could still take refuge by making the untestable claim that the spirit had risen. Would this still be "Christianity"? - well, I'd have to say yes, much as when one interpretation of the fossil record displaces another, we do not discard evolution or found a new science. Not the original version to be sure, but still recognizable. That's the only point I'm trying to make, that the target is too inchoate for simple logical refutation.

I think that trying to define the Christian god is rather like trying to define life itself... it can turn into a laundry list of attributes if you're not careful. e.g. the Christian god created Adam + caused the flood + turned Lot's wife into salt + is omnipotent + is benevolent + was incarnated + ... etc., etc. One can make similar lists for the necessary attributes of a living organism and it's a fascinating exercise, as you try to include only those things you want to classify as living, and exclude the rest. Not as easy as it might first seem :)

In neither case, does disproof of any one attribute necessarily disprove the whole. Not all life has the same attributes, and some non-life has some of the attributes of life. Disproving one notion of god is a futile exercise, it's worse than cutting off the head of the Hydra :)

But I will completely agree with you here... ultimately you can, in principle, drive the argument back to a generic "There is god" claim, bereft of specific doctrinal frills. But don't expect believers to accept it :)

Your words mirror my thoughts. Now if only my words could mirror my thoughts...

I don't think you see the point of my point, however :-) I was trying to bring out into the open a (very probably unconscious) tendency for theists to shift their notion of God in mid-debate. That is, they do not resort to the argument you (and I) would have them resort to - the one by which they would say, "Yes, but that only calls into question one part of my belief in God. It does not destroy completely my concept of God." Were a theist to employ this tactic, I would be in complete agreement with them. However, I cannot recall hearing anything like this issue forth from a theist on these boards, but my memory is notoriously poor. Rather, what is done is they abandon the defence of their concept of God, retreating to the unassailable position that you cannot disprove the existence of God.

I really do apologise for being so unable to get this point across. What is frustrating is that you and I are in agreement, but you do not seem to realise it. For some reason this bothers me. I guess I have a weakness when it comes to being misunderstood :-)

You have not been misunderstood, Andrew. Quite the contrary, your points have been made very clearly and are understandable to all. What you do not recognize, possibly because you are unfamiliar with theology, is that the God of Genesis is not the exclusively "Christian God," thus dividing the god-concept into generic and Christian is not valid when speaking about Genesis.

The God of Genesis is the sole God for each of the religions of Mosaic monoetheism - Jewish, Islamic and Christian. Refutation of the events of Genesis thus constitutes refutation of monoetheism, not Christianity.

At the same time, it is good to understand the nature of Genesis itself, and how it relates to science and scientific endeavor, because it is (as Leszek pointed out) impossible to successfully refute the account itself. It is only possible to refute interpretations of the account. As in science, interpretations of scripture are theories, and theories are subject to revision. There are only a few Christian denominations who take their interpretations so seriously that attempts at revision are viewed as threatening to the whole belief system. The rest of us are not so inflexible when it comes to matters of "Truth."

(Andrew, cont...)

Both Monotheism and Science have their roots (or at least their documented roots) in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom and the mystical - "magical" or "secret" - system known as metaphysics. The system, like the words in Genesis, is based in an allegorical (symbolic) encoding style known as "Hermetic" and founded firmly in human psychology and the existence of what Freud and Jung termed the Collective Unconsciousness of the human animal. Even in the dark and middle ages of Catholic domination, Hermetic literature was being produced by the forebares of alchemy, which led to the Royal Society and the establishment of scientific inquiry into the nature of who and what we are. Chapters 1-7 of Genesis are the finest examples of Hermetic literature ever written.

To understand the specific descent of both monotheism and science from a common base, it is necessary to consider the person of Moses, who penned the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Old Testament and basis of monoetheism). Moses was the adopted son of the Pharoh and Chief Architect of Egypt during a period of massive building projects (temples and pyramids) for which the Hebrews served as slave labor. Moses was well trained in all the physical and mystical arts of the Egyptian civilization. In short, he was a fully initiated "Priest" of the dynasties, before he discovered his true heritage as a Hebrew. It is also well to note that the Hebraic heritage of Moses was unique as well. He shared with his blood siblings Aaron and Miriam the prophetic function, or the ability to directly access the collective unconscious and "Speak With God."

Hermeticism (the symbolic encoding of "Truth" from the collective, which can never be proven false because it proceeds from the collective) is named after a Middle Kingdom mage known as Hermes Trismagestus. It is said that Hermes was entombed with a tablet of emerald on which were carved the glyphs stating the First Law of Correspondences - "As Above, So Below."

(Andrew, cont...)

The Law of Correspondences is borne out in the recent scientific quest for the Singularity at the beginning of time, the so-called big bang, which is conducted through the breaking of internal symmetries binding matter into its forms. What is true for these internal symmetries relates directly to the symmetry breaking events of the bang itself and the creation of the universe. This is why I personally like the big bang theory and the symmetry equations science now postulates for origin. There are holes, but I believe those will be plugged with minor readjustments in certain definitions for things like quantum mechanics and gravity. So long as the First Law is followed, First Cause is not far behind. This is metaphysics.

I am informing you of my position as a metaphysicist with some experience in the areas of theological understanding, physical understanding, and psychological understanding. You need not consider me conversant in any of these areas. The facts I state here are pertinent to both of the topics under discussion, which I believe to be interrelated.

I had hoped that by introducing the "common denominator" into the debate, there might be a reasonable answer to the questions posed in the header of this page. Science is sterile - a "mule" - without the collective base reference to the First Law, thus proceeds to corruption and the creation of weapons which can be labeled (and which I have labeled) absolute "Evil" in and of themselves.

Religion is sterile when it corrupts itself with subdivisional interpretations of Hermetic encoding which limit its effectiveness to prideful assertions of absolute truth which cannot be defended with anything short of force.

(Andrew, Finis...)

So in spite of digressions of this debate into petty issues of religious interpretations and scientific "refutations" which refute nothing other than interpretations, I believe it is possible to reach a fair concensus about commonality and proceed from there to a workable cooperation of all in the human quest for "Truth." Preferrably before we render evolution a moot point and end the quest altogether by using the weapons of extinction on ourselves.

If your arguments are weak, I may or may not be allowed to point that out, depending entirely on whether the elves are instructed to delete me from this board (we shall soon see). I am offering you this overview of my position because I believe your argument related to "proof" of the non-existence of God (Christian or otherwise) is flawed.

Because the exercise of my supposed "right" to speak is at stake here, you make a handy target for me through no fault of your own. My right is important to me personally, so I am asserting it personally. In so doing, I mean no assault on your person and I hope you will not take it that way. I have expressed my respect for your viewpoint and your way with words, behind which I perceive a great deal of intelligence and skill. I mean you no harm, nor do I intend to change your mind, as your viewpoint is every bit as valid to you as mine is to me.

Now I’ll back off and wait to see if I am to be allowed to remain... Cheers! §:o)

Joy Busey - Monday, 03/15/99, 1:24:00pm (#2628 of 2630)

Did you go to berkley in the 60's/70's?

Boy, I go away for a weekend and BOOM! 250 new postings. Joy, here's the author of the book "Link" that I recommended to you : Walt Becker,and the publisher is Morrow & Sons.(Not that you're going to have time to read it any time soon).

I can't leave without a nod to Cliff Beall's marvelous: "...A.africanus was<<arboreal>> and A.afarensis was<<bipedal>>, and they <<kicked>> A.afarensis out of the <<tree>>. If it isn't a pun, it ought to be one."

I LOVE THESE BOARDS!!

PS to Rosemary: I truly hope you are able to work through your "crisis of faith". No matter how it comes out for you,I wish you well.

No, we're not in disagreement, we're perhaps a little like the blind men discussing the elephant :) I'm interested in and emphasize this part, you that, but I think we have a general agreement on the nature of the beast.

I really do think that people who tend be theists, and people who tend to be atheists do have different ways of thinking, and I'm not going to be overly simplistic and claim it's a matter of scepticism over credulity, far from it. But perhaps one is less likely to suspend disbelief than the other, or have less of a rebellious streak... I don't know.

I think it's fairly clear from the number of religious scientists out there that they are able ti compartmentalize (in my view), or fuse (probably in theirs) the two modes of thinking. I'll be honest and admit I can't think along purely theological and subjective lines any more, without bringing in the topic of objective evidence. I guess one has to be willing to believe, and I'm not.

I don't know either. The big reason I read these boards is to try to better understand this point of difference between theists and atheists. It is without question a murky boundary. I am often amazed by what seems to me an irreconcilable clash between faith and scientific knowledge. For example, I knew an astrophysics grad student who (1) discovered a new quasar and (2) believed the earth was less than 10,000 years old! Unfortunately, at the time I knew him, I was not all that interested in these matters, or else I might have pressed him further about his beliefs.

§:o) I’m still here, Andrew, so I’ll risk postulating a position. Please remember that I am no more "sure" of what I think than anybody else, so as always, I could be wrong...

The connection to the collective is a psychological reality, thus "faith" is something which isn’t quantifiable by science. Some people, no matter how empirically they think in everyday life, just seem to "know" an underlying truth without explanation. Such is the 10k year anomaly which goes against everything known to be true in reality. This relates to the specific time period assignable to the creation of humans in the "Image of God," which I believe to have been a feat of genetic engineering, but also relates to innate (and non-quantifiable) knowledge of the nature of time itself.

We know (because Albert Einstein told us) that time is a relative factor in the universe. It is relative to the dimensions of the universe (length, breadth and volume if we don’t count gravity), as well as to velocity of matter and energy - which is predicated upon the absolute speed of light, or velocity (a wave function) and applied from there to position (a particle function), and distance (spacial geometry or relative motions of oberserver and observed). What I have tried repeatedly to introduce is that time is also relative to at least one and possibly two or more separate dimensionalities as well.

Good morning Andrew, I take leave to doubt the last sentence of the following, but I wish I'd known or understood about the rest.

I have detailed here before why I came to believe in the existence of a Creator. [Ex Nihil, Nihil fit: The ability we have to stand outside ourselves and 'judge.' The problem of going from "I am," to "I ought," without a "Thou shalt."] It appears that that same information does not lead you to the same conclusion. However, the 'straws' you discuss with Leszek are not crucial, they are to be investigated, and fascinating is that investigation. Personally, I welcome any and all imput into that investigation.

Joy and Rosemary,

Normally I regard myself as the resident expert on what I am thinking, but I am very grateful that here, in this forum, I have experts such as yourself to tell me what I am really thinking. It saves me having to express myself at all :-)

There are a number of proposed manifestations of God that I do not accept, simply because those proposed manifestations do not make any sense to me. For example, I have a strong tendency not to believe in a God that would deliberately mislead me and then punish me for having been misled. For example, if it is critical that I believe in the Genesis account of creation literally in order to gain paradise after death, why would God make evolution look so convincing?

Cliff: 1.God isn't the one who is misleading.

2.He isn't punishing anyone, for being mislead.

3. Whether one believes the Genesis account or not doesn't get one into paradise.

4. Is your next question to creationists or believers: why do we care about this issue, then?:)-

I don't think the evidence of "evolution" is a trick. I think there is an explanation that leads to the Creator.

Maybe it's like doing an investigation into finding the artist, who made a beautiful painting. The artist didn't sign his name, yet his signature is all over the painting, by the colors he used, the style, the tone, the mood of the painting. Does it matter if he used oil or water paints? Paper or canvas? Whether to him it took 6 days to paint it, because he was so enrapted in his work. But in reality it took weeks, or months by the standards of others, who envisioned his creation. They couldn't believe the artist created in so short a time.

Andrew ..

No doubt, because of the little thingamy on the end, this is supposed to be a joke rather than sarcastic. Would you care to address my post, and refer me to where I am expressing what you are thinking?

where that last sentence was my

I take this to mean that you... er... doubt my sincerity when expressing this sentence.

When combined with multiple previous expressions of yours to me along these lines, I take this to express that you believe I wish to stifle your input here.

Sorry, since they all went together.:)

So you seem to consider attributes, by what an organism does? That's one piece, only. Aren't organisms also classified by what they are composed of also? And are you or anyone else; only a composite of your actions? Are actions the only things that make an attribute? What about one's thoughts feelings, instincts, etc.?

There are distinct attributes that God has, as I understand them, in the Bible, and from learning about Him. Here's a partial list:

God is a spirit.

God is Love

God is Light

God is life.

God is logical and has order, not chaos. Where God is, no Confusion or chaos is.

God is Justice

God has emotions: He cries, He laughes.

God is Truth.

The stories in the Bible are the result of his attributes.

Andrew,

No Andrew, I doubt whether you will find yourself in complete agreement with a theist who admits in their statements, [as I did in that post] that their faith is not predicated on the various 'straws' in it's entirety.

Well you are 100% wrong in your 'take.' And if you can show me from that post where you gained such a mistaken impression, I will do my best not to commit such folly in future. PS., I'm still not clear as to where I was expressing your thoughts for you. I'm always a little frustrated when you answer my questions with a different point altogether.

Rosemary,

The idea was that you were supposed to have your own notion what I would do rather than "agree" in the following sentence.

And it seems I was not mistaken in this since this is precisely what you verified.

Listen, Rosemary, this is all not even close to germane to anything here, so let's forget it and move on.

Let me ask you, in the genuine spirit of wanting to know, something that Leszek has brought up. I cannot recall your answer, so forgive me this. My question is, "What would be the implications for your faith were evolution to be found undeniable?" Of course, this is hypothetical.

How are we expected to answere this question when we can not satisfactorily answere the question as regards ourselves?

Who are you? (With thanks to J. Michael Stravynski.)

Andrew ..

Objectively there would be no implications, this doesn't impinge on 'First Cause,' or 'I ought,' at all.

Subjectively, I would be quite disappointed, I have this personal opinion that God didn't use this particular method. That is, I don't have a problem with the adaptation of species, but I have a problem with everything orginating from one little greebly in the ooze somewhere.

Absolutely right. Pull all the straws. No change. You have proof, absolute. No difference. Consider the flood. First, there is no evidence it did occurred. Second, there is no evidence it could occur. Third, there is overwhelming geological evidence that it did not occur when Genesis says it occurred (4000 years ago). Guess what. Go through all those details and most Believers will say: "Well it is in the Bible and I believe the Bible."

Is this a significant problem? Not in my opinion, which--if true--is a very good thing, because it is a fact of life on this planet :-)

Does it matter at all? In the totality of the scheme of things, in my opinion, probably not.

And they could (very) easily question the "authenticated text," and would.

Andrew, I totally agree. Believers are tough. They tend to avoid concessions no matter what. Also, in a debate with a Believer, even if you get a momentary concession, you can't just mark it off as territory that has been proven and accepted, and thus you don't have to worry about it anymore. Next thing you know, you get a question that lets you in on the secret that, if you are really interested in maintaining that point, you will need to go over it again. And of course, even if you made the argument perfect the time before, make the slightest misstep this time and you have lost it all.

Well, yes, that is another favorite tactic of Believers. But, Andrew, so what? This is all just fun anyway. I don't know about you, but I have no interest in converting anyone to my beliefs. I am not sure that many people would be comfortable with my belief systyem. I just like to argue. The only thing that is really irritating about arguing with Believers is that from time to time they get to wondering if they might convert you if they just did a little testifying. But that seems to go with the territory.

I think I fully understood your point precisely, Andrew. But I will let you be the judge. Did I get it?

Good point, well stated.

Unless the "collective" is discovered to be a false concept, Joy, or if it has attributes different than what you imagine. (I understand, of course, you do not think that is possible, and I choose not to argue that point with you at this time.)

Perhaps the problem with respect to arriving at a consensus here is that for some people the quest for truth reduces to a quest for proof, or, at least, the provable, while for others the quest for truth reduces to a question of simple faith and/or belief.

Me too.

I think there is a difference. Having grown up in the church, I have every chance to be a Believer, except for one thing: it did not fit. (It is not that I think I am better than Believers, I am just different than Believers :-)

Actually, I doubt if you would not learn anything. I once worked for an engineer who happened to be a Catholic. He was one of the most careful and meticulous engineers I ever worked for. Yet one day in the cafeteria at work, I overheard him mention that in matters of faith, it gave him great comfort to turn those things over to the priest. I could not believe my ears. How could this man, one of the best engineers I ever saw, who questioned everything relating to engineering, turn such an important aspect of his life as his religion to someone else--without question. But he did.

Does this explain the engineer I mentioned, and his willingness to turn everything having to do with religion over to the priest, and find comfort in doing so? And if so, why so?

I agree that God--if he exists--has not misled me. Cheers.

Cliff, it looks as if they might let me stay if I stay on topic, whatever the topic is (undefined)... but I love these boards too! §:o) I'd never put up with all this if I didn't!!!

I perhaps failed to mention the true identity (as postulated in certain circles) of Hermes Trismagestus...

Recall from your childhood the tale of Joseph and his Coat of many colors? Yep. Same Joseph who rose to prominence in Egypt as the "Interpretor of Dreams," and whose corpse (mummy) was given to the Hebrews from its sealed tomb when they emigrated out of Africa under the leadership of Moses. An interesting specultation, I think...

I guess we are here for different reasons :-) I do not really like to argue. I like to learn and understand (and, evidently, be understood), and that is what I am trying to do here. And I have actually been learning a lot, thanks to everyone here.

Just so. While religion seems to find no place in my own life, I would not impress this very personal view on anyone else. I am not so sure that it would be suitable for many people.

BTW, Cliff, I have been meaning to clarify something. You are always sure to say you are an agnostic and not an atheist. Of course, these labels are meaningless in the absence of definitions. I would call, and have called, myself an atheist. My view of God is this. I do not deny the existence of God, but since my experience thus far gives me no reason to believe in God, I live my life as if there were no God.

Also, I thank you for getting the point of the point I was trying to make about the distinction between a general God and specific versions of God. That specific point was brought up to illustrate something else. It was the something else I am glad you saw :-)

Just a few observations on that "other" subject we’ve been discussing, in which I am a dunce and have to look everything up. I had maintained based on what that notorious college textbook told me about the one gracile Cro-Magnon skull that so many people have been led to believe was either a fully modern human or a precursor to fully modern humans, qualified as a Giant. I’ve been told more than once here that not only was there an actual race of humans called Cro-Magnon, they were actually smaller than today’s humans. So I went looking elsewhere at one of Cliff’s sites...

This overview of the anthropological models of human descent states clearly that Neanderthals were the only human inhabitants of Europe during the glacial period, all by their lonesomes for ~200,000 years!

The arrival of a.m. humans occurred approximately 40kya, and within a short 5,000 years the Neanderthals were gone.

Some digs (e.g Mladec in Czechoslovakia) have produced skeletons with a mixture of Neanderthal and modern characteristics. Since we now understand from DNA evidence that a.m. humans are NOT descended from Neandertals, what might the explanation be for apparent crossbreeds?

Then we arrive at ol’ Cro-Magnon, who gave his name to an entire "race" of moderns. The site linked above tells me, however, just as my textbook tells me, that the skulls found in this cave were not typical of their contemporaries, nor of today's people. A short quote (one sentence) from the site -

So, despite my lack of credentials in the field of anthropology and paleontology, I now have two good sources of information telling me that Cro-Magnon was not only NOT related to a.m. humans (the CM I skull was dated some 15,000 years AFTER a.m. humans arrived on the scene, but dating may be off by the "give or take 10k years" uncertainty in the methods), he was in fact a giant, representative of a population of giants.

Turning to my trusty Bible, Genesis Chapter 6, Verse 4 -

"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children unto them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

The context of the designation "mighty men" is "warrior."

Example, [2 Samuel 23: 15-17]. David looked out over his beloved city, then occupied by Philistines, and wished aloud for a cup of water from the well of Bethlehem. His "Three Mighty Men" broke through the camp and secured a cup of water from the well. David wouldn’t drink it. Instead, he likened the water to the blood of the brave warriors of Judah and poured it out upon the ground "like blood unto the Lord."

We know that the Philistine race encompassed a class of giants who were also "mighty men" in the Philistine armies. Goliath, his brother, and apparently many more, which David’s "mighty men" systematically wiped out. Interesting side note, the story of the cup of blood related to the lineage of David, which went on to produce Jesus out of Bethlehem (from the descent through Solomon and another of David’s sons).

In Templar lore (brought to Europe from Jerusalem and Acre where the Templars had maintained the Christian territories during the Crusades) the cup of blood became the middle ages’ "Holy Grail" and the object of every noble knight’s questing... before the Templars were excommunicated and targeted by the Inquisition for heresy, of course. They went to Scotland and fought against England for Robert Bruce in the establishment of the Celtic Kingdom, and everybody knows Celts were pagans... §:o)

Thank you for the response. Let me tell you why that question is interesting to me. One of the things I find personally troubling about Christianity, and similar religions, is that humankind is placed in a unique, favoured position. The same things bother me about atheistic philosophies (e.g., that of Nietzsche) which are centred on humankind to the neglect of a bigger picture. One of the things that I personally find very pleasurable about my life is the feeling that I am part of a big "mystery." Here I sit, on a little planet in a universe so immense that I will essentially never know anything about it. As part of the way this universe has developed, I have the ability to ask questions about it, and to ponder how I got here. And, for me, scientific thought (which I distinguish somewhat from scientific practice) provides a beautiful way to interpret my own experiences.

At the same time, in my world view, my own life takes on a very distinguished role. It is the only thing providing me with the opportunity to experience all the things I name above. As such, I value it enormously.

Were I suddenly to discover that humankind was the special creation of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being, I would be in a genuine quandry, as all the above would be yanked out from under me. Of course, I would have to believe this new discovery, but my life would become very different indeed!

I find it interesting that some of the feelings I describe above, we probably share, you and I. For example, might I put forward the possibility of a similarity between your feeling humbled before God and my being humbled before the enormity of my temporal and spatial surroundings? Of course, there are some great differences between how these possibly similar feeli

The reason it doesn't lead me to the same conclusion is that in the first place, it just moves the question of beginnings back a step - where did god come from, rather than where did the universe come from? And science may yet find insight about non-divine origins of the universe - it may be a scientifically tractable question. In the second place, I have no problem going from (I'll rephrase a little, because I'm not quite sure what your meaning was... this closer to what I think it might be :) "I do" to "I ought to do" without a "thou shalt" given by a god. I think we can reason our way to appropriate behavior without divine guidance, "simply" by recognizing that we need to treat others as we want to be treated, and by keeping our contracts for that reason.

So basically, I don't think scientific explanations have been exhausted in terms of explaining the nature and purpose of the universe, and I think that moral systems do not have to be handed down by a higher power - we are not children, though we frequently behave as if we are :) However, I do recognize that religious sytems can shortcut a lot of agonizing and thinking about what the right thing to do is - unfortunately, neither religion, humanism or science has ever come up with a system that can cleanly dissolve all moral ambiguities and uncertainties.

The attributes of your god that you list, love, life, light, spirit etc cannot be tested individually to see whether they are real, because they can't be quantified the way the elements a lifeform is made from can be quantified - they're in the domain of faith, not science, so they can't be proven or disproven.

However, here's one place I think science can make a substantial impact on religion. I can think of ways of testing at least some pairs of attributes, such as omnibenevolence plus omnipotence. How would scientifically quantifiable phenomena such as parasitism or disease rate as testers of such attributes (note I'm not talking here about people being free to make decisions that might be harmful, I'm talking about harm that comes to them irrespective of their thoughts, beliefs or actions)?

I'd argue that an impartial observer might find such attributes mutually exclusive, leaving the theist to have to decide on one or the other, but not both, unless some rather tortuous (to my mind) ad hoc reasoning were introduced. Some religious and philosophical traditions, even in Judaism, in fact follow this path.

Points taken. In practise, any finding of disproof of a religious claim can be questioned and dismissed as (a) inadequate, (b) misinterpreted, (c) a hoax, (d) a mistake to be rectified by further work, and probably many other reasons.

That, of course, is the same reasoning by which established scientific paradigms can resist findings contrary to their predictions, so this is something that science and religion share in common. It's only when unsubstantiated and unprovable ad hoc hypotheses used to rescue the paradigm from destruction mount up to some inescapable level that we get a paradigm shift, and then often only because those who hold the to the old paradigm die out - or the paradigm meme does :) That may be how religions get displaced too.

I'm not going to worry about how or whether early anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals were able to crossbreed, until there's good evidence that they did. And even if they did, why is that a problem? They're considered to be very closely related subspecies, after all. Suppose they could interbreed. That doesn't mean that the crossbred offspring would necessarily pass their genes down to the present day (apparently their mitochondria didn't make it) - they could have been less fit, or just plain unlucky. I think such postulated interbreeding is a marginal problem for the human lineage, unless further data disconfirms the idea that Neanderthals aren't on the direct line of descent.

I'm not sure what your biblical quotes about the sons of god and the daughters of the earth are supposed to suggest, though. Could you expand on that?

Boy, if I really knew what I was trying to get at here, I’d be a lot more sure of everything, Leszek! Basically, I’m not enough of a linguist to know if the "sons of God" in this Genesis reference designate angelic beings, which is the context elsewhere in the Bible. As I’ve said, I have a problem with the idea that angels (a separate class of created beings) can possess human bodies or interbreed with humans as this passage suggests if we take the reference to be angelic.

In my copies of the Bible - several "versions" - the term "Sons of God" designating angels and "Son of Man" designating Jesus capitalizes the word "Son." In the Genesis verse cited in my confusion about human origins, the word "son" is not capitalized. I would presume on the basis of careful translation that the capitalized word is taken in a different context than the uncapitalized word, and they may in fact originate from separate words in the original Hebrew and Greek.

So what I’m postulating is that the Genesis "sons of God" [uncapitalized] designate the humans created by God with His "image" emplanted in them, as opposed to the closely related evolutionarily-derived humans who pre-existed the new humans. I strongly suspect that the genetic rewiring of what should have been the inherited "morality" of species survival to encompass Free Will and the choice to do evil ("knowledge of good and evil") would not have precluded the possibility of crossbreeding with the preexistent humans.

For you, none of this is a conundrum. You see nothing aberrational about the human compulsion to render themselves and the rest of evolution extinct, but I do. I have stated my opinion based on evidence in my own experience that evolution is a biological imperitive of life, and that human beings are in the process of undergoing an evolutionary development at this time. It may take hundreds of years to become entirely stable in the gene pool, but it is happening if I am interpreting the evidence I have seen properly.

Basically I am attempting to clarify in my own mind what God might have had in mind when He re-engineered the species and then gave it an unfair advantage in the march of previous evolution. Whether what is happening with the brain plumbing system is part of the plan, and how I am to rationalize that in view of how close I am to the signal event.

I may be making much ado about nothing, and the newly introduced genetic "masterplan" between science, medicine and government to sample the DNA of all citizens (for purely recordkeeping, insurance and benevolent peacekeeping purposes, of course) will prove to be as harmless as the government keeps telling me it is. The slightly paranoid tingling on the crown of my head when I hear about all this, however, doesn’t make me comfortable. As I said, the research into the phenomenon has been ongoing in several fields for 7 years. A genetic tracer on the anomaly may have been identified. I am not at all comfortable with the mass collection of data which would identify the carriers of the trait, possibly identify them as "mutant," "defective," or "dangerous." We’ve been down that road before in this century...

Indeed I don't. Everytime a species breaks out of its ecological niche and infests (that's the only word for it) new territory, great damage can be caused, because species (people included) use up resources and cause pollution with no thought whatsoever. The human breakout, of course, was caused by the harnessing of agricultural technology. What brings them back into equilibrium with the environment, usually after great and often irreversible damage is done, is that the degraded environment can no longer sustain them, and the population crashes to manageable levels. That, I think, is what will happen with people, but not until after irreversible environmental damage.

This is a common phenomenon in the natural world, one that's predicted by Darwinism, which is why I don't think its aberrant. I don't, however, think its desireable, and with people, it ought to be avoidable. Unfortunately, I think it's too late, and the principles of certain fundamentalist Christian denominations to use up resources before the second coming, and the idea that the earth is here for use and pleasure, is in no small way responsible for the damage done by the west. Other religions haven't, for the most part, been more successful.

I see what you mean by the sons of god thing... I don't know if that idea could be made to fit any picture we could reasonably draw, given present knowledge, of human evolution though. However, I grant we have much learn about the development of the modern human mind, and that there is certainly a gap between the Neanderthals and us, and quite possibly between Cro-Magnon and us. You are correct to point out that this is something that requires an explanation.

Good morning Andrew ..

Yes, it does, and I've never really given that any thought before, not in a negative sense anyway. I think if I thought about it at all, I thought it was part of every person's make up. One of my sons, the ballet dancer, has a terrifying ability to vocalise things that "I think" we all carry in our heads, but most of us don't put into words. He would have been about 9 I think, when we sat at tea one day and he said, "You know, sometimes I think all this, [waving his arms] was put into place just for me [pause] and you were very lucky to get the job of my parents."

Oh yes, so do I, in fact one of my "dreams" is that investigation will be able to continue when my time on this particular planet is done. Nothing could be as boring as 'singing' all day could it? But then I don't believe a Creator who created such diversity here, would change and have a 'Heaven' so uninteresting.

Andrew, I have an extreme dislike of people saying to me, "Oh I used to be like that BUT .." Reformed smokers do it to me. There are folk in the church who do it to me constantly. Their feeling of superiority is what comes across and it's so jolly annoying I could stamp on their toes. That said, there was a terrible day in my

Sorry Andrew .. That said, there was a terrible day in my life, a terrible terrible day. I too acknowledged that if there WERE a Creator, I couldn't come to that conclusion and then carry on as if everything was the same, it would make a difference, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't like that difference. Being female, I spent most of the day in tears!!! I can only say that much later, I had to also acknowledge, that freedom, true freedom, is also the freedom to choose the path that seems to be going to constrict you and take away your sense of 'self.'

Good morning Leszek, I've heard you say this often before, but I've never replied because I don't think you'll find my answer satisfactory .. although I'd really like to understand what it is that gives me satisfaction in the "who" answer, and leaves you needing to know the "what" answer.

I don't think it's just because I lack in certain areas of my education, but I have huge problems trying to envisage the Universe, the complexity of this beautiful and strange world. I'm fascinated by so much. On a trip to Fiji a few years ago, one chap showed me his "sleepy" grass, touch it and it closes and "goes to sleep." I don't want to know "why" that happens, but I DO want to find and see other such wonderful things. I could snorkel forever, there is so much to see and admire, even when that scary shark came a bit too close. Anyway, I have so much of a problem trying to imagine a Creator who could do all these things, paint a picture of such immensity and such attention to tiny details .. that I can't be bothered with trying to work out who made Him. That for me, is definitely something that has to remain on the back burner.

Yes, with regard to the moral issue, we differ. It's obvious that the 'Golden Rule' is satisfactory, it should serve humanity just fine if we could only put it into effect .. although I always thinks it's also self serving. One wants to obey it, and have everyone else obey it so that injustice isn't done to 'oneself.' My conclusions came from a different perspective. In examining myself. The fact that I CAN stand outside myself and hear myself say .. "I am going to," followed by, "But I ought to." The fact is that I shouldn't have ever come to the "I ought to," because I'm quite capable of sublimating the 'orders' of say my parents. But if I really search deeply, there is still an "I ought to" there. Where did it come from, as I said, you can't get to "I ought," f

Leszek .. Where did it come from, as I said, you can't get to "I ought," from "I am," without a "Thou shalt."

This Universe contains much that is obviously bad and apparently meaningless, but also contains homo sapiens who seem to KNOW that it's bad and meaningless. So it seems to me, there are two possible answers. One, this is a good world that has gone wrong, but still retains the memory of what it ought to have been. Or there are two equal and independent powers behind everything, one good and one bad and this universe is the battlefield in which they fight out an endless war.

You have somehow found a third way to interpret the above data that I really don't understand, perhaps you could enlighten me?

Rosemary

I have to say that while humans are special to *me*, I don't think they are very special to the universe... it's just much too BIG! :)

I have to wonder, however, if this feeling that most people have that they specifically, and humanity in general, have a special and privileged place in the universe is not at the heart of the reason that many people feel they need a morality imposed on them, else they get too big for their britches. Perhaps one needs a sense of detachment that allows one to realise one isn't at the center of the universe to be able to figure out ethical behavior from first principles?

Just a thought, I haven't really thought too clearly about it.

Anyway, there's one of the gifts and curses of the scientific perspective... every major scientific advance has eaten at the roots of the belief that mankind is the centerpiece of creation. If my reasoning were right, perhaps fewer of us now need a deity to tell us how to behave.

It might also make us more careful of the planet we inhabit if we realised there isn't any divine safety net to protect us from our ecological excesses... there Christianity has much to learn from, say, some of the Native American theologies, though in many cases they weren't anymore environment friendly than we are. Oh well, I think I'm trying to weave too many strands together here :)

Well, the "third" way is to assume that the bad and the meaningless is just that... bad and meaningless, and try to create our own meaning just for ourselves. We don't start with the assumption that the world either started out good and turned bad, or that there are both good and evil forces... there are just forces that have effects we like or that have effects we don't like. As long as we assume the universe was built specifically for us, we are going to be confused by the way we get hurt by the universe.

Once we accept that the universe has no hostile or benevolent intention towards us at all, but is supremely indifferent, then we recover our independence, because we no longer have to try and figure out what message there is buried for us in the events we experience. There is none, and we have as much right, no more and no less, to be here and to live and create as anybody else. Neither do we have to answer to anyone else, except out fellow beings.

This isn't turning men into gods at all, but it is liberating, because we no longer have to stagger under the burden of trying to live up to perfect gods. We can accept our limitations and responsibilities. Science gave us this gift if we want to accept it, and care to use our knowledge responsibly. I'm not sure we're up to it, myself.

Just another thought...

Just a guess, mind you, but; I expect that our origins are not traceble to a single geebly, but to a multitude of similar, but distinct greeblys in a multitude of greasy, green greebly grotos all over the place.

Evolution is a game with only one rule; survive. In practice I expect evolution can be viewed as a multitude of potentials being sifted through endless sieves, with the occasional escapee over the edge!

Leszek, I saw your question about how goodness and evil can both exist in creation, but then you answered it yourself. The universe is duality-based by nature, thus everything in it has an opposite. I believe this is so because God meant it so, but you could just as easily say the cosmic seed containing the original symmetry "broke" by accident. Either way, the dual nature of nature ‘Is.’

Accepting the nature of nature and the fact that I’ve been alloted a small number of years to play around in it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it and all its opposites for the valuable lessons my thirsty mind can glean. That mind may be an evolutionary aberration, but I’m having fun with it! My faith in no way limits that, but maybe that’s because I don’t allow it to. Other do allow their speculations to be limited by religion, and leave such things up to the priests. We all selectively ignore things. In the specialized civilization we have created we leave a great deal of our thinking up to the "recognized experts" so we don’t have to think about it ourselves.

No one of us knows everything. For many people it is easy to place spirituality into a compartment where our afterlife is covered by subscribing to a religion and letting the religious experts tell us what we believe. This is understandable and acceptable, and explains why some of the more bizarre manifestations of the religious impulse still survive. As a political institution, however, religion is subject to corruption by evil. So I also think it’s good to question faith and test it. Maybe testing faith (in some Godly scientific way) is what our few short years in this classroom is all about.

Well, at least our breeding prowess outstrips our murderous tendencies thus far, so maybe you’re right. But what’s the point of intelligence, then? We’re far to smart to be happy, so what do we do for fun? Devise our own extinction!

We all die in the end anyway, and we tend to take it very personally. Why should anyone believe survival is the point of existence if we’re smart enough to know that personal survival is impossible?

Keith ..

LOL, I shall be very careful in future .. when I write words which whacky wastrels might wave waspishly and without warrant whilst wisecracking. Signed Wahine!!!

Loved it Keith, even with a dictionary, I can't emulate.

Thanks Leszek, I'm beginning to understand more clearly ..

I can only speak for me of course, but I certainly don't NEED a deity to tell me what to do. I think there is a sense in which we could say that God isn't interested in the 'behaviour' of those who are not redeemed. Christians often use the Israelites crossing the water as a picture of redemption, the Exodus in other words. But the Ten Commandments come after that .. after redemption. Just a bit of probably irrelevant info in the interests of understanding.

Now there we do part company, for I found myself unable to "just accept" such a thing. Perhaps now we're getting to the nitty gritty of the 'personality' or as Joy might say, 'hardwiring' differences between us. You'll have to put science to work finding out the answer .. should be a Nobel in it for you!!

Now that I 'fear.' I have no dependence that man is going to get that right, quite the opposite and I worry every time someone mentions 'rights,' because it seems to me that someone else always 'pays' for another man's so called 'rights.'

Neither am I.

I suspected as much. If they really wanted to shut you off the board, they would just simply refuse to let you post. I understand that this has happened to people who consistently make a nuisance of themselves.

Actually, one of the main reasons I like this board so much is the relatively wide range of "on topic" subjects: anything about science, anything about religion. I once had an extended debate with a Muslin about the Koran on the Cloning Message board. We kept it civil and the elves left us along, and it was fun, but truthfully, it was completely off topic, and they could have justifiably shut us down in a moment. But it would be on topic here. Plus, any cloning news, as well as evolution, or most anything else that I might be interested in is on topic here.

Actually that is essentially my point of view. But look at it this way Andrew: there are people who call themselves atheist who insists that they know of certainty that there is no God. Specifically, they deny the possibility of the existence of God. I consider those people to be religious people with a very dogmatic point of view, and I wish not to be associated with such ideas. I see no reason to be dogmatic about the question of the existence of God. The fact is that I do not know if God exists.

Would I like to know for certain? Of course I would like to know. I want to know everything. But the fact is that I don't. Also, I have found that, in general, people who identify themselves as agnostics are people with points of view with which I feel comfortable.

Unfortunately, other interesting stuff will have to wait until tomorrow.

Leszek -

I never questioned my faith or my future. I went looking at the spiritual options, I built a life on scientific endeavor, and I happily produced my 2.3 children right on time without a second thought. We had a brick home in the country, 2 brand new vehicles in the driveway and a weekly per diem check larger than most folk’s paychecks.

Then one day something scientifically awful happened. By happenstance my family was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I was furious. Turned out there was nothing I could do but try to save my own children. In the end, even that failed. I promise you there is nothing more unfair on this planet. I was suddenly not so sure God was my friend, and I regretted my foolishness for ever having children I couldn’t protect or even leave behind... there wasn’t any point to "survival of the species." This is what they call a serious crisis of faith I am just now rising above in many ways. My faith is not as blind as it used to be. I’ve begun to ask myself all the hard questions, not nearly so confident in myself or science as you are. I already know I’m helpless.

What do I do? I can curse God, but He wouldn’t necessarily listen or care. I can curse the universe, but it cares less than God does. Or I could decide that if we could just blow everybody into ions at the same time, we could put an end to our suffering. That last is so horrific a thought that the very thought explains quite a bit about why weapons of extinction exist.

Science never gave me any gifts, so I can’t share your faith. You say God never gave you any gifts, so you can’t share my faith. I think we can both deal with this and still be friends! §:o)

I was heartened to see someone (Leszek) finally posit the existentialist POV. Since I was raised Catholic, I can understand the "lost" feeling, of having formerly firm footing suddenly turn to a swaying rope bridge across a deep gorge, when confronting the possibility, or better, the probability, that the universe is indifferent. There is no cosmic GOOD or EVIL and we are , in the words of Sartre, "cursed to be free".

But being free means we have to assign meaning ourselves, and not depend on an a priori cosmic Meaning (capital M). There may well be a god (or God), but it, like the universe, is indifferent to we humans. Indeed, it is indifferent to cataclysms that happen with regularity throughout the universe (super-novae, etc).

I believe the Golden Rule is an expedient social contract that is the basis for the "thou shalt" that Rosemary (as well as the rest of us) keep hearing as a little voice guiding our actions.

And please, you believers out there, restrain yourselves from making something out of the term "little voice".

Interesting link, Cliff... how do you manage to find stuff sandwiched between the ever-numerous porno sites the engines always give me when I go looking for something innocuous? §:o)

If one can get past the Illuminoid (Templar, Cathare, Theosophic) connotations attached to this sort of supposedly "secret" knowledge, it can be useful in the matter of historical reality. I am of the strong opinion that people who keep their belief systems "secret" are generally up to no good. One finds in the world of circus quite a few Rom, however, and the Rom have quite a separate understanding.

I’ve exerpted two one-sentence quotes from the linked site and attributed them, which I offer in terms of my previous post about Joseph -

(Cliff, cont...)

"The pyramid tomb, discovered by Manfred Beitak and his team in Area F at Tell ed-Daba, was the original burial place of the patriarch/vizier Joseph (before his body was removed by Moses for reburial in the Promised Land)." - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995)

"[Egyptian] History recorded the man who assisted Cheops "as Souf, foreman of the works of Khufu, or as Saf-hotep, one of twelve brothers (Joseph had eleven brothers)... The sage was said to have lived to the age of 110. Genesis records the death of Joseph at 110 years of age." - Brad Steiger, Worlds Before Our Own

The Mosaic history of Joseph is detailed in Genesis 50: 22-26. It is interesting that despite Joseph’s specific (and important in context) deathbed wish, Moses did not deign to include specific reference to the mummy in Exodus. He does note, however, that the Hebrews were allowed and encouraged to take with them from Egypt all they cared to take (gold, silver, jewels, the usual booty they "borrowed" from the Egyptians). One could easily infer from this that the mummy would not have been denied them.

It could also be noted in the matter of what has been left out of the later Mosaic account relates directly to the hermetic system I previously mentioned (which may have been a product of Joseph’s unique connection to the collective unconscious if he was in fact the mage). I have said Chapters 1-7 of Genesis are primary hermetic literature. Following Noah, things begin to move into the realm of actual history and the encoding becomes far more subtle. The entirety of the Bible qualifies as hermetic, however.

Oh my!

• Frogs and princes are (with one notable exception) of completely diferent genuses. No one is suggesting that individuals transmutate into other forms in any case.
• Until such time as someone identifies a natural process in which nails will insert themselves, in an organized fashion, into lumber; I have to agree, but what does this have to do with organic chemistry?
• Nothing "just happens" and no one has claimed such.
• Ignoring all of the above; The capacity of a person to understand a thesis does not have any bearing upon the accuracy of that thesis.

Your serve ma'am.

For Rosemary - I realize I’m heading in directions unfamiliar. Just so you may not reject these speculations out of hand, I’ll be totally up front about the fact that I am NOT an occultist and I don’t buy the religious trappings that accompany these corruptions. I am firmly a Christian, albeit one who doesn’t easily take "interpretations" at face value, either.

I became interested in hermeticism back when I was a physicist. The connection between alchemy (a metaphisical art) and physics is strong. It wasn’t until we "ran away to join the circus" that I was introduced to the Rom versions of the mystical claptrap I’d rejected. Suddenly things were not nearly so obscure.

The Rom are famous for "secret knowledge," but it’s never been secret to and among the Rom themselves. Nobody else has bothered to know, since the Rom are the people commonly referred to as the "Gypsies." They hail from the region of far northern Turkish empire directly north-northeast of Afghanistan, a place called Tadjhikistan, east of the Caspian in the area of Ashkenaz.

The Rom invented and played the part of the collective archtype of the Fool. The fool is the unnumbered (zero) major arcana Tarot card, as well as the "wild card" of standard decks. It represents the unforeseen factor in both the art of divination and the art of life. What I am doing (since I did choose to become a professional fool in my life), is considering all the factors I can find and weigh, minus the weight of their attached baggage. I’m looking for Truth too.

How about this. Back in the mid-50's, Arthut C. Clarke (a TRULY visionary man) postulated that machines would one day supplant humans on the evolutionary ladder. That is to say, machines (read "computers" for lack of a better term)would eventually reach a degree of complexity such that they became sentient.

He (Clarke) envisioned a time when humans and machines would (I'm reaching for the right word here, but can't seem to dredge it up) "coalesce" into a symbiotic relationship that would represent the golden age of mankind; to be followed by a gradual (or maybe not so gradual) decline in human dominance over the earth. The machines would simply outstrip humans in every form of endeavor (and yes, machines would "reproduce" and "evolve").

Mind you, Clarke came up with this scenario back in the mid-50's!! I think we can begin to see the "golden age" he speaks of in the ever increasing symbiotic relationship humans and machines are developing(well, at this point anyway, humans are doing the developing). I realize that many people do not even acknowledge the possibility of machines attaining a level of complexity that would render them (the machines) sentient, and by sentient I mean aware of their own existence, and able to determine their future. I do believe this to be a distinct possibility, bordering on inevitability, and I can't say I'm happy about it. It's already too late to "pull the plug", because that would mean going back to pre-world war II communications technology. And we won't be ABLE to pull the plug when sentience occurs, because the steps needed to prevent that from happening will already have been taken.

Anybody else the least bit concerned about all this? I mean, if we are in fact in the golden age of Man and Machine, a) how long will it last and b) what happens to us after that?

Hi, Larry. You must have missed my Machine analogy about a thousand or more posts ago! If sentience is a product of intelligence - or the ability to self-program the neural net - we could expect the AI of today to produce sentience at some point, I think.

In lieu of human experience and emotion, (as well as the biological imperatives), however, need this be dangerous?

Hi, Joy. Understand, I'm not talking about a SEDENTARY machine with intelligence. (The term AI will be meaningless at that point). This dude will be VERY ambulatory and will be able to experience anything we experience and probably a good deal more. I don't know about emotions. Emotions are, it's pretty clear, biochemical in nature, but the machine may not have need of emotion, but I don't think anyone can say one way or the other at this point. Maybe they will deign to tell us one day.

As for fear, no, it's not that. Jealousy, maybe. Insult to the ego for sure. I frankly hope the golden age outlasts me, I don't want to be around to hand the evolutionary torch over to machines.

Hey Joy, far from it, I love it. I've no axe to grind against certain forms of knowledge, although I agree we must try very hard to keep the 'filters' up. I've learnt heaps in these forums.

Having said that, it would seem that folk on all sides are worried that "knowledge" is not in and of itself necessarily a good thing. You are concerned about WMD's, Larry about machines, and I'm positively foaming at the mouth in my concerns about gene manipulation in both plants and animals. Mind you, no-one at the top of humanity's heap is listening to us little fish. I read the other day that the World Health Organisation talk about an unseemly PLAN between growers, manufacturers, some high up officials and the Pension Plan [and that last is a surprise] with regards to tobacco addiction. Sigh, why can't I kick that particular habit, especially when I realise that I was manipulated into that addiction as a teenager. Where's my strength of character? Very depressing.

Visited 'religion' today? Bill Zimmerly used to debate on the Evolution board many many moons ago.

Just as I was posting, Paul's remark .. "I resolve to KNOW nothing but Christ," does suddenly become a pertinent reminder!!!

Larry - I'd guess it depends entirely on how we (WE) design the interface, and the degree of symbiosis we develop in service to ourselves. Without the biological constraints and (un)predictable factors of human existence, a sentient machine would not be motivated by Keith's prime Darwinian factor... survival of the species. Unless we cared to wire the machine for ruthlessness.

Biological computer chips are theoretically possible, which could be emplanted into our own neural nets and programmed from there. It's just like a prosthetic DNA add-on. Would such an artificial logic circuit qualify as sentient? A bank of such circuits? Would logic without emotion be dangerous by itself?

Thanks, Rosemary! Didn't want to scare anybody, but I find it fascinating as well. Paul's admonition is right on the money in such inquiry, which from this point in my life I'm taking to mean it's a jungle out there... you'd better know where you stand going in, or all it's going to do is sidetrack you!

I have been following "Religion" today with interest. Mr. Zimmerly is making very good points!

Joy, would you say that we have 'lost' some abilities in the area of alchemy? The 'magicians' of Egypt seemed to be able to accomplish much. Mind you, I passed through the Suez about 25 years ago and the "Gully Gully" man was still pretty impressive.

No chance to edit that, I was about to add that perhaps such knowledge was 'lost' for very good reasons.

E.C., wherever you are... They okayed deployment today. Have we re-targeted yet?

<giggle> Smoke and mirrors, Rosemary. Sleight of hand, sleight of mind. "Magic" is a scam, useful for drawing the gullible to part with sheckels, and sheckels are necessary or the magician can't eat. Actual knowledge is of physical and metaphysical processes, and all of those have perfectly natural explanations!

I agree with Joy. Much like astrology gave birth to astronomy - indeed early astronomers like Kepler were still required to create horoscopes as part of their job - alchemy gave birth to chemistry. But there is no reality to alchemy... they didn't understand the laws of chemistry at all. While certain elements transmutate, it's only in accordance with the laws of physics and radioactive decay. There is no Philospher's Stone that will transmutate base elements into gold, at least not yet. Maybe eventually we will figure out how to fuse atomic nuclei and create new nuclei at will as we please, but that day never was and isn't yet.

Though actually, you might consider steller processes and super-novae as "Philospher's Stones" in a way. The elements we are made of, except for hydrogen, helium, and lithium, were forged in stars... elements heavier than iron could only be created in super-novae.

It was poor old Carl Sagan, whom the devout like to vilify, who created the phrase, "star-stuff" (I think it was Shakespeare who said we are the stuff that stars are made of, but I could be completely wrong on that - corrections are most welcome :) - but Carl Sagan was among those who pointed out the reality of this. Most of the atoms that constitute our bodies were created within a star or super-nova... now there's drama for you! Were it not for processes occurring "billions and billions of years ago", none of us would be here to talk about it :)

Not really... Mr. Velikovsky believed that Venus erupted from Jupiter or something like that, a few thousand years ago, and had a close encounter of the Velikovsky kind with earth - I forget whether the moon was supposed to be part of this scenario or not. The man is a certifiable fruitcake, as far as geologists and astronomers are concerned, because the known history of the earth and solar system is completely inconsistent with that idea. The idea that there were colossal collisions billions of years ago isn't as silly, though. It just didn't happen in the last few hundred million years. Certainly the presence of the moon needs an explanation, and if collision provides it, fine - it's the time scale and source of the colliding planetoids that Velikovsky got wrong.

Leszek ..

What area of science do I look at, to better understand that please? And is that the same thing as "we are in general made up of the same constituents as clay," or is this real extra-terrestial stuff?

<sigh> ...and where did you learn all these Velikovskian details, Leszek? Actually, in the expanded theory Mr. V did postulate an earth without a moon (arcadian race), the postulation that none of the inner planets (to Jupiter) are formed from the gas cloud, and that Mars, Earth and the planetoid Venus jockeyed for position in the past few million years, the last encounters being within the collective memory of humanity.

And thanks for acknowledging the alchemy-science link, since it’s fundamental to the establishment of the Royal Society. I would point out, however, that the transmutation of Uranium into the heavy transuranics is exactly the same concept as the transmutation of heavy metals (lead into gold). As I told Rosemary, the mystical claptrap is just magic, and magic’s a scam like every other scam. A way to earn money by doing what one LIKES to do rather than just what one HAS to do. It’s all PR in the ego department.

Oh this itch for knowledge .. it's like a mosquito bite, you've got to scratch it!!

I’m sifting information, Rosemary. It still boils down to Moses, but Joseph’s position and accomplishments in the Egyptian belief system shouldn’t be minimized just because he’s Biblically invisible after Genesis. Velikovsky never dared broach this subject. He just demonstrated that the events of Exodus and the conquest of Canaan could be explained by natural processes, and went from there backwards to the Flood.

Rosemary - when I tell you that most of our elements were formed in stellar processes, this is just basic astrophysics. I'm not making it up. Check any science textbook on that sort of stuff. The big bang just didn't have enough energy to do it - that's why the universe is mostly hydrogen and helium. Most everything else was created in the stars. Of course, the bible won't tell you this, but that's because the folk who wrote it knewnothing about it.

Atoms are infinitely recyclable (until they spontaneously decay), Leszek. It's been a good while since the bang. How does this relate?

Leszek thankyou, astrophysics is the word I needed, now I know where to look.

Joy, I've been looking through my husbands books again, trying to follow Joseph, Joshua tells us his bones [no mention of a mummy] were buried at Shechem, but all the digs I found referenced in those books seem rather uninteresting considering the possible magnitude of such a find.

I don't know. (As an agnostic, I am rather fond of saying that from time to time :-)

Interesting that you noticed that. I have scanned through this site any number of times and failed to notice that. I do not know how significant it is, but you do appear to have a point.

And here I think you have lost your point. According to Genesis, those events occurred shortly before the flood which was, according to Genesis about 4000 years ago. Now note that arguments about the length of the creation day does not help you here. This was supposed to be some 2000 years after completion of creation. Either the Bible is correct in Genesis 6 or it is not. If it is correct, it must be correct in all aspects. If not, what portion of Genesis 6 can be believed?

It is clear that Genesis is only giving a summary of a much larger story. Some people have supposed that this brief passage in genesis is a summary of the contents of the Book of Enoch (I Enoch). Although, I can not find my copy of it to save my life, my best recollection is that Erich von Daniken, in his book, Chariot of the Gods, said that the Book of Enoch was the oldest book ever written and Noah preserved it by taking it into the Arc with him during the flood. Also, in Robert Charroux's book, Legacy of the Gods, is a chapter entitled, Angels and the Book of Enoch, and speaks glowingly about the Book of Enoch. Also, it should be noted that it was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Well, you know, I was interested enough to chase down a copy of the Book of Enoch, and I have a copy of the version translated by R. H. Charles with an introduction by W.O.E. Oesterley. The Book of Enoch (I Enoch) is, of course, everything that Daniken and Charroux said it was, except for one thing. It in not particularly ancient. According to the introduction by Professor Oesterley, it is part of the apocalyptic literature and the earliest portions date from about 165-161 BC (approximately the same as that other great apocalyptic work that did make it into the Jewish Bible, Daniel). It clearly has more than one author. And unlike Genesis, where the J, the E and the P documents were edited into an almost seamless whole by a master wordsmith, the transitions from author to author in I Enoch are not necessarily very smooth.

Just for fun, you will probably want to skip down to Chapter 6 where the copy reads: "And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in tho

How are you dating Genesis, Cliff? By the Creationist timeline? I have absolutely zero knowledge of how they might do this 2,000 years, 6,000 years stuff, pre or post Flood. What does "shortly before" mean, if these "mighty men" were the "men of old," grown by generations (long ones pre-Flood) enough to leave their legends.

I would postulate that the divine intervention I suspect strongly occurred, took place at the end of the last glacial period of approximately 10-12kya. How the oral tradition developed and was passed early on is anybody’s guess, given complex human brain structure and programming. Time is the relative factor in the hermetic encoding of the Bible, as it is relative to position and velocity. It’s also relative to eternity. Seven days is encoded just like 70 weeks. Just like 7 years divided by 2, and every other lineal measurement in the Writ. A product of natural psychological process, and our collective connection to separate geometries as well as to Not-Time. What does this signify, in your opinion?

P.S. Enoch has been postulated by some Quabalists to actually be the Book of Joseph, the favored Son of Israel (or the Egyptian Book of Thoth), drawn from his predecessor’s connection to the collective, as Joseph’s connection was tapped by Moses, and Moses’ connection’s been tapped ever since. Just thought I’d toss that in... §:o)

I think you do need to use the "creationist timeline" in this case since a direct lieage is described from here to historical Isreal.

There are areas of the Bible (and this is one!) where I suspect a little "after the fact" prophesy is created to establish the authority of certain secular rulars.

I, like you, expect that the events that became the seed for flood myth more likely occured 10 to 12 thousand years ago, as did the events that became "elder race" mythology seeds.

Something came to mind when I saw this, it says they were taller, not much I guess, than Today's humans. I don't have any numbers, or exact figures, but I believe the average human height has increased quite a lot in the last few generations, if it hasn't been steadily increasing for longer. I remember(dimly) seeing something saying that about 3 generations ago, the average height was 6 to 12 inches less than today. So if cro magnon is taller than us today, how much taller would have been in comparison to our ancestors? ( I just realized I could have said this in a lot fewer words)

I don't think one can put too much into relative height by itself... even today, we have many races who are considerably taller or shorter than the western European average, and besides, it's very dependent on nutritional quality... I have read that ancient hunter-gatherer cultures were generally healthier and taller than the later agriculture-based ones, and there could be many reasons for that.

I think the emphasis on the relative height of a handful of Cro-Magnon skeletons has more to do with the fact that the bible talks about "giants" somewhere than about anything else.

Quite true, nutrition has a lot to do with height, and I wasn't trying to do anything more than point out that they were comparing the height of the cro magnon skeleton to modern humans... and how that might relate to the stories of giants. As you said though, different races often have large height differences, and diet probably has a lot to do with that.

Now I've gotten to thinking about it, the stories of giants could be attributed to either another race, with different dietary and/or genetic attributes that explain the height differences, often the norsemen were said to be giants.. the mongols were reputedly pretty small.It could be cro magnon encounters, or it could be humanities' penchant for exaggeration.Very interesting to think about, it is making time pass a lot quicker here:)

To a pigmy, even an Inuit would be a giant :) I think that well-fed Europeans are taller, on average, than most... perhaps it's those Nordic genes ;) However, I'm generalizing without having any real data except my impressions of people of various ethnicities I've met... maybe the Cro-Magnon skeletons just happened to come from the tallest family in the area :)

I think looking at Genesis and trying to figure out whether any of it had a basis in historical reality is a valid exercise, but we could never be sure we had come across the actual explanation of an event - for example, was the flood tale actually derived from the postulated flooding of the Black Sea or not? There was a book on that recently published - the title escapes me and I'll wait for the paperback - but some folk evidently think a good case can be made.

But when we extrapolate from a biblical story that may have historical antecedents to assuming that that all biblical stories have strict historical antecedents, that's going further than I'm prepared to go. I think you can either take the bible on faith, and I don't, or you can ask that each story be verified, which is a reasonable request of people who do have faith in its general historical veracity (not literality, its a minority that take it literally).

And before I get jumped on for bringing faith into this, I agree that scientists also have faith. They have faith that the universe is governed by laws that they can quantify and understand. They have faith that the laws of the universe are presently unchanging and uniform in space and time, and they have faith that those laws operated in the past exactly as they do today. That's one reason they don't much care for "special creation" as defined by creationists, where the laws of the universe were suspended by god so that creation could occur under laws that no longer operate. The big bang is problem enough, but the laws stabilized very quickly (on the universal time scale) after that, and were operating just fine long before the solar system began coalescing from supernova dust.

Of course, there may be times and locations where scientists will find they have to adjust this faith, for example, at the very beginning of the universe when the laws we know were crystallising out, or at the singular centers of black holes, but outside of extremes like that, their faith has borne fruit.

I'm not suggesting we look to the bible for truth(historically speaking), but I believe most of the stories contain some relation to actual events that occured, filtered of course, through the superstitions, prejudices, and different views of people on how nature/humanity operates. The bible itself does contain a good deal of info about the last few thousand years, and it is interesting sifting out the facts from the folklore, and obtaining more insight as to what might have inspired the stories in both a factual and social sense.It's also kinda fun.

Joy - I guess it's just you and I on this (obviously boring) subject :)

I gotta tell ya, I have serious doubts that when sentience occurs in machines (maybe I need a more descriptive word than "machine")that the way WE design the interface(s) will have anything to do with how the new creatures (our creations!) will react.

You postulate that these creatures (is that a better word?) would not be motivated by "Keith's prime Darwinian factor...survival of the species. Unless we care to wire the machine for ruthlessness". I don't think it will matter how we wire it(them). I believe survival is, how to say this without opening yet another can of worms, "built in" to sentient beings (I understand that blind survival motivates non-sentient living organisms also).

Additionally, such machines(creatures,beings)would doubtless be able to transfer all experiences, thought processes,and all other aspects of awareness from one machine to another, possibly putting a whole different slant on survival (certainly an alien one to we humans). Are we talking BORG here?

You ask "would logic without emotion be dangerous by itself?". Well I don't pretend to know, but the idea certainly makes me a little nervous. As in: the Lion may lay down with the lamb, but the lamb isn't going to get much sleep.

The other question is, will such creatures, in fact, be emotionless?

Good question, Nick! That information wasn’t in either of my sources (I admit severe limitation in the anthropology department), but I’ll bet it’s out there. This would make an interesting sideways study, I think. Neandertal apparently wasn’t very tall, and there was the usual sexual dimorphism. The early hominids were about the size of chimps, and I don’t know about Erectus. But if Cro-Magnon (and similar skeletons) "averaged" taller than the humans of TODAY (as the site says), I’d guess CM at 6.5 feet or more.

Spanish accounts from the Florida contacts in the early 1500s describe the Timucuans as "giants" who averaged more than a foot taller than the scruffy, malnourished sailors. Worse, they bathed regularly and hardly wore any clothes. Naturally, the Spanish decided then and there that they’d have to make these folks extinct before bringing any women over to colonize! The Osage also averaged over 6 feet, and there were probably other tribes of similar stature. American natives are a.m. humans, so it was probably a difference in diet, exercise and fresh air making them generally healthier in childhood than the Europeans.

Hrrrmmmmmmm.......

Survival is also "wired in" to non-living systems. :-)

I don't know if logic without emotion is dangerous, although it is certainly ruthless. Emotion without logic is deffinatly dangerous!

I don't think we can sufficiently define emotion (or sentiance for that matter) such that we can make a judgement of its expresion in a disparate life system.

In "Earth Evolved Life" (EEF) <wink> we "know it when we see it," but how are we to recognise emotional content in an alien form?

Is this mentioned in the Book of Joshua, Rosemary? I seemed to recall "knowing" they’d taken Joseph out of Egypt, but when I went looking at the Exodus I was surprised to find no mention in the Moses account. For some reason, I’d been under the impression it was there.

You’re right that it seems odd not to have constructed a proper tomb in Shechem, as Abraham’s tomb in Hebron is still there! Odd as well to speak of "bones" alone rather than the mummy ("and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." Gen.50: 26).

It would be un-Hebrew to have cremated the mummy (and not mentioned this action), so I’m at a loss about the Joshua reference to "bones." Is this the only reference to what became of Joseph’s body? Why an unmarked grave? Moses must have had a reason for leaving this hole in the narrative, and the mummy remained unmentioned by all later Biblical writers. Is it unmentioned in the Commentaries? (Where are you, Josh Wilner!!?)

Do you happen to know from any source the general dating of when the Hebrews developed their language into writing? I ask because I’m wondering what original symbology Moses used. Pictographs are not well suited to hermetic encryption, as they are conceptually limited.

I am not familiar with how the creationist timeline is figured either, Keith, but I also would suspect that in such an "important" geneology would have tended to name the most "important" (or the most long-lived) generational descendant as representational of the entire generation. This dating is confused by the listing of both the age prior to producing offspring and the total age of the forebear. As I said, this is deliberate and serves a purpose, I just don’t know what it is.

I’m basing my 10-12k estimation on the physical evidence which I’m also "interpreting," since the numerical references in the Bible (IMHO) relate to something other than counting the age of the earth backwards and forwards. Time is a relative thing. Circular enough to make ya dizzy, isn’t it?

Joy,

The earliest known alphabetic script belonged to the people of Ugarit, whose language appeared to be Canaanite--the same language (different dialect) as the Israelites spoke. The Ugaritic script, however, although alphabetic, was a cuneiform script.

The earliest non-cuneiform Canaanite scripts are referred to as "proto-canaanite" and used pictures to represent phonemes: for example, the letter aleph means "ox", and was originally drawn as an oxhead; likewise, "bet" means house, "mem" is water ("mayim"), etc. Proto-Canaanite script (attested in inscriptions), is dated to the period from the 17th to 12th centuries BCE. The Phonecians simplified the script, which then lost much of its pictorial nature. The Hebrews adopted the Phonician script. I don't have a reference to a date on hand, but I'd guess--11th century or so? It wasn't until the 11th century BCE that writing right to left was standardized. For a full treatment, see:

Naveh, J. Early History of the Alphabet, An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Paleology. Jerusalem: Magness Press, 1982.

Keith - When I read "Survival is also`wired in` to non-living systems", I distinctly thought I heard Church Lady say: "Isn't that precious. Let's see, what do you suppose could be responsible for that. Could it be....GAIA!!?

I think we can define sentience well enough, whether it be in a disparate life form or not. But emotion, ay, there's the rub! Probably not. And BTW, these creatures (sentient machines) would also qualify as EEF, don't you think?

I too agree that scientists do exercise some faith in the execution of their appointed duties. I think I'd be tempted to push it back a bit further in the thought process than you suggest here, however. To wit, I think there is very good reason to believe that the universe is governed by laws that we can quantify and understand. After all, if this were not so, I think a strong case could be made that I would not be able to post this message for all the see in the manner that I do. I think faith comes in in believing that our senses are not deceiving us. For if our senses are not deceiving us, then I would try to argue that from this follows the assertion that we live in a universe we can understand. After all, my senses, which I have just assumed are not operating with malicious intent, certainly tell me that I can come to some sort of understanding about the world in which I live, even though this understanding may be constantly evolving. So I think the pursuit of science is a project which can be reasoned to be of value based on a faith in our senses.

Can we push our faith back even further? (No, my intent is not to make faith disappear...)

Matthew Neujahr - Language origins is something I am very interested in (don't know much about it though) but I guess that's off-topic here. I wonder, could a new board be started on language origins,usage and mis-usage?

And BTW, I knew your brother, Happy :)

Thank you very much, Matthew! I just put a plea in on the "religion" board for Josh as well. I'm wondering whether the Law was recorded originally in cuniform, Phonecian or heiroglyph, and in what specific language, as can best be guessed based on Moses' training, and Aaron's standing in the Hebrew community.

I have been travelling the last couple of days, so I am feeling a little slappy. What specifically are you looking for, graves for Joseph/Moses?

If you give me some direction I'll answer as best I can.

"... qualify as EEF ..."

duno...

Would , uh... creatures(?) we create from scratch be considered products of evolution? I would expect that they would imeadiately (and probably very quickly) begin to evolve once they gained the freedom to procreate.

I think logic might actually lead them to be protective of us since we would more likely have a few survivors in a catastrophy that might eventualy re-create the mechanical forms. (Cosmic snowball insurance.)

The more interesting question for this board may be;

Would they percieve us as creators, would they see us as instruments of the creator, or would they reject this altogether?

LOL about Church Lady, Larry! I think EEF in this case would be "Engineered Earth Form" rather than technically "Evolved." I don’t think a sentient machine would display emotion, but I do think a sentient machine would tend to consider every possible factor in its logic, to find rational answers. I doubt that such concepts as deliberate lies, deceptions or the need to "protect" ego (its or someone else’s) would factor highly in the machine’s logic. Survival is also a biological imperative, which might not factor at all for the machine’s ego. How such a being would consider (weigh) the factors gathered from the database of humans (in all their emotional glory) in making a decision related to its purpose as its "creator" would define it.

Which I always thought was pertinent in this debate because it gives us a third perspective to consider.

Thanks for the response, Josh! I’m not too sure of my questions... First, I’d like to know the traditional Jewish take on the specific language Moses used to set the Law in writing, and what the script might have been. Second, I’d like your considered opinion (or knowledge) about why the mummy of Joseph is not mentioned in Exodus as being transported out of Egypt or being entombed with all due ceremony in Canaan - is this left out of the Torah? Is there comment in the Talmud or later commentaries?

Guess I’d like to know if Joseph’s fate is a mystery to the Jews like it appears to be a mystery to Christians. Thanks! §:o)

Joy, the reference is Joshua 24:32, I'll see what further digging will provide.

I'm gonna stick with EEF meaning "evolved earth form" rather than "engineered" and here is my reasoning. I'll use the analogy of foreign vs domestic cars. After WWII, when foreign cars made their way into domestic markets, it was easy to tell the foreign from the domestic. As corporations became multi-national, parts for both kinds of cars were made in all regions of the globe. The change-over was very gradual; when did an "American" car become made of mostly foreign-manufactured parts? Was it still an "American" car?

Likewise, during this "Golden age" as Clarke called it, we are becoming more and more symbiotic with machines. The path from "totally human" to "no longer human" will be MUCH more gradual than the car analogy, but I believe an "evolution" of sorts will take place. There may be no demarcated threshold, this side of which is human, and that side of which is non-human, just as there is no clear line of demarcation between Latin and any of the Romance languages. We can say this is Latin and this is Spanish, but way back, as Latin was evolving (that word again) into proto-romance and eventually into full fledged Spanish, there is no clear separation.

Keith posted: "I think logic might actually lead them to be protective of us since we would more likely have a few survivors in a catastrophe that might eventually re-create the mechanical forms.(Cosmic snowball insurance)"

I don't think they would need us to re-create them post-catastrophe. The information needed for doing such a rebuilding would be "in the database" of all individuals (you know, the Borg). They might have to be careful of such things as EMP and high-energy radiation from a nearby super-nova, but I believe they would exercise prophylactic measures on their on behalf.

Finally, Keith posted:

"Would they perceive us as creators, would they see us as instruments of THE creator, or would they reject this altogether?"

This is a really interesting speculation. My take

Sorry about that... My take is that I don't believe they would need religion (I almost said they wouln't FEEL the need) since natural phenomena would be readily understandable, or at least, amenable to understanding by them. Since they wouldn't need religion, i believe they would regard us merely as precursors to their life-form. As to whether their logic would seek the Ultimate Creator... I couldn't even speculate on that.

As I recall the bones of Joseph were taken from Egypt and moved to Canaan.

First, I’d like to know the traditional Jewish take on the specific language Moses used to set the Law in writing, and what the script might have been.

Biblical Hebrew.

Joy, here's a snippet that you may find interesting. Apparently, there is an OT pseudepigraphal work, no longer extant, called the Prayer of Joseph. Knowledge of this is based largely on the writings of Origen. The passages quoted by Origen have to do mainly with Jacob, who describes among other things, a jouney from Mesopotamia. Uriel wrestled with him claiming that he was the greatest of the angels. Although Abraham and Isaac were great, Jacob is "the first-born of all living beings," in fact, the head of all the angels. This has been interpreted by some scholars to be a reflection of an anti-Christian bias appearing to revere the patriarchs above Christ. Origen however, speaks of the book as "a writing not to be despised," making this improbable. Origen held the book in high regard and says it was used by the Jews, which indicates it was of Jewish origin. Nothing is known about the authorship of the book.

The book I got that from was printed in 1975, don't know whether there has been anything since.

Good Answer! Nice and Simple! Yes! Why make complicated what should be simple?

The Jewish Rabbi's don't subscribe, to the J, and P, and Whatever for different authors of Genesis? Please Tell Cliff Beall that Moses wrote Genesis>. if you agree. thanks.

The Jewish Rabbi's don't subscribe, to the J, and P, and Whatever for different authors of Genesis? Please Tell Cliff Beall that Moses wrote Genesis>. if you agree. thank

You will usually find two different points of view among Jews as to the Torah.

One is that Hashem (G-d) gave the Torah to Moses, that is he "handed" if you will, the Torah to Moses.

The other is that it was divinely inspired. In other words G-d dictated and Moses wrote it down.

This is the cornerstone of many of the differences in belief between the Orthodox and other denominations.

If you argue that Moses took dictation, you could make the case that he interpeted G-d's word, which opens the door for further interpretation.

On the other hand, if it was just given to Moses, then it severely limits what interpretation can be applied.

That would definitely be a bummer for most people. :)-

Maybe it's both views. God, according to Genesis, said that Moses was the only man he spoke to, directly. Even Moses, though never saw God's face.

Point taken and absolutely agreed to :)

Although emotion has a chemical component; I think emotion may be a neccessary component of, or possible requirement for, sentience.

Interesting. It has suddenly occurred to me, for the very first time in my life, to wonder why the tradition exists that Moses either "wrote" the Torah (or Pentateuch) or received it verbatim from God. As far as I know, the only internal indication with respect to authorship anywhere in the Torah is that Moses received the 10 commandments from God on Mount Sinai. I know of no other internal indication that either God or Moses wrote any part of the rest of the Torah. Moses is not mentioned in Genesis.

Nevertheless, I am aware that it is a tradition that existed at the time of Flavius Josephus since Josephus specifically refers to Moses as the author. In the Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus refers specifically to Moses as the author of the creation story. Therefore, of necessity, the tradition must be older than Josephus.

I suppose the reason for the tradition should not be considered too difficult since in a world of illiterate people, there was not a large number of known literate people to choose from when the question of authorship first came up, and I would guess that there may have been a natural inclination to choose known literate people as the authors of the books of the Bible. And Moses certainly was reputed to have been literate. However, since Moses was supposedly educated in Egypt, it would seem likely that he would have been educated in the Egyptian language. As far as I know, there is no reason to believe that Moses could read and write Hebrew characters, or even that such a written language even existed at the time of Moses. But it definitely appears that the Torah was written in Hebrew.

My assumption is that the Torah was written at a later time, either by individuals who could write using Hebrew characters, or, in the beginning, it was part of an oral tradition that was eventually reduced to the written form.

I suppose that one who considers the tradition to be true might suggest that it was a tradition that rightly goes back to the time of the writing of the law. IOW, the tradition exists because it is true. But since, the scholars have convinced me of the validity of JEPD, it would appear to me that the tradition must have originated some time after the compilation of JEPD in post-exilic times.

They would see us as creators, since we are, but I don't believe they would give us any more reverence than you give your parents.More than likely they'll see us as the average teenager sees his/her parents...hopelessly outdated, somewhat embarassing to be around, but they'll treat them with respect unless they ask something impossible to reasonably obey.

Besides that, I hope if we create a new form of life, they can accept their place in the universe, without having to assign themselves undue importance or believe in a higher being to validate their existence.Maybe not though, possibly fear of the unknown is a part of sentience.

I would guess so. As soon as an entity with reasonable intelligence becomes aware of their own existance it will be painfully obvious to them that their life is transient (although this may be somewhat different in beings that can use tape back-ups!)

Good point, Keith! A sentient machine would be sentient by virtue of it’s ability to self-organize its "neural net" and make independent decisions as well as its recognition of its ability to do so. Emotions, instincts, biological imperatives and fear of non-existence would not necessarily exist in the machine or be factors in its thought processes. The fact that such a machine can preserve its accumulated thought processes and data banks eliminates the "fear" that all it learns is meaningless.

This is a confusion I attempted to delve into yesterday in relation to the mystery of Joseph, who from the Biblical accounts appears to have been afforded less than satisfactory patriarchal status. Nearly a third of the Genesis account deals with Joseph, and the only thing mentioned about him again is that his "bones" were buried in Shechem following Joshua’s conquest of Canaan (not part of the Pentateuch). The mummy and coffin of Joseph are not mentioned in the Pentateuch apart from Genesis.

Genesis, the Origins and patriarchs, may have been penned along with the books of law and census, but clearly deal with things completely allegorical. These are oral traditions, more ancient than the receipt of the Law, and chapters 1 and 2 clearly derive from separate traditions. If Moses did write Genesis, he merely set down the stories as they already existed. He did not consider Joseph or the fulfillment of Joseph’s dying wish worth wasting ink on.

(Cliff, 2 of 3)

I tried to get the Jewish slant on this from Josh Wilner, but his reply (for which I’m thankful, Josh) was less than informative. I wished to know whether the Hebrews in Egypt had already developed their separate language, even writing in a version of Phonecian script, and maintained these for the 430 years of their exile in Egypt (beginning with Joseph).

So I went looking through the various University collections and libraries. I found one recent commentary on the Joseph question, which started out well only to end in heaping mystery upon mystery. I found nothing specific to origin of the written language of Hebrew. I’ll surf some linguistic sites this weekend.

Moses did not know he was a Hebrew until he was grown. It would appear that his brother Aaron held some significant standing in the community of slaves, so if they did have their separate language and writing, Aaron might well have been one of the keepers of that art. When Moses was exiled for killing the overseer, he was apparently able to communicate with the semites in the desert, so this also suggests there was a separate semitic (Hebrew or Canaanite) language shared by the people in and out of Egypt.

It then becomes reasonable to ask how Moses in his formal Egyptian education and "priestly" training had managed to become conversant in ancient Hebrew or the common semitic language, if it were not in general use among Egyptians.

(Cliff, 3 of 3)

I ask because of the Egyptian reverence for a sage they called Hermes, who gifted the arts of writing, mathematics, astronomy and geometry, and the speculations in metaphysical (hermetic) lore that this Hermes was Joseph.

Moses was adept at whatever systems Egypt had going for it, thus could easily have penned the books in whatever languages he was conversant in. With or without Aaron’s help, it is reasonable to conclude from the mass of detail in the books of the Law (and Numbers) that these could not have been kept orally, thus must have been encoded in some form of writing within the time period of the events themselves. So it’s not so hard to believe that Moses could have and did set these books to writing.

The speculation (fruitful or not) on the person of Joseph is related to the language and script of the original books, and whether the hermetic system contained in them was something Moses already knew through the "secret" teachings of Joseph within Egypt, or something exclusive to the Hebrews. This has nothing to do with the veracity of the Writ, but with the nature of the Writ.

It calls into question the entire pantheon of Egyptian religion and suggests a high-level monoetheistic undercurrent belied by theistic complexities in things like the "Book of the Dead." If this is a valid speculation, it would explain a good deal about why Moses left Joseph out of his accounts. He would be deliberately separating monoetheism from the pantheon at the same time he reveals monoetheism. I think it’s interesting, that’s all.

What I want to know is, would a sentient machine, built by man and acquiring sentience through the complexity of its "neural" wiring, have a soul? I think we would have to treat it as if it had.

Keith Fosburg 3/18/99 9:22:59 PM

I guess I go along with your analysis of why being able to understand natural phenomena would not preclude religious belief. But then, since religion is so often tied to an emotional basis, and since I believe these beings will evolve to an emotion-free existence, I'm right back to believing that they won't need religion.

I think I have to disagree with your advance of the idea that emotion "may be a necessary component of, or possibly a requirement for, sentience". Why would that be? I can certainly imagine a sentient intelligence unburdened by emotional baggage.

I agree with you and Nick on Nick's idea that fear of the unknown may be a part of being sentient. However, their idea of mortality would be considerably different from our own, since I believe the whole concept of individuality would "evolve" away. But then, it may evolve into something like the entity that came to encompass and absorb humankind in Clarke's story "Childhood's End". Now that's a more hopeful take on this dreary subject.

Before we could assign immaterial status to the sentience of the machine, Leszek, we’d have to assign status to our own souls! So long as the existence of a non-material aspect of sentient consciousness is in dispute, no such aspect could be assigned to the consciousness of a machine.

It’s been stated by empiricists here that the totality of human consciousness derives from natural evolution of biological (DNA-based) life forms. That the "mind" of sentient animals is merely electrical impulse that dissipates upon death. Sentience which is not derived from natural evolution might actually be better able to define what consciousness "Is" than we’ve been able to do!

What is a soul?Is it a word to describe our "humanity"? Is it a combination of self awareness and emotion?Even if we can't define it, I believe if it is truly sentient, treating the machine as though it had a soul is the only moral thing to do.

Leszek - I don't think these machine (beings) are going to be consciously "built" by humans,although that scenario is certainly possible. Rather, I believe they will evolve from us as we keep on taking bits and pieces (or is it bits and bytes) to incorporate into our human structure(s) for a variety of reasons: better health, stronger limbs, better athletic performance, etc.

The way I see this arising follows: Sex, being the Prime Directive that it is for we biological types, will be the impetus for males and females wanting to experience what their partners are experiencing. Psychologists literate in the computer sciences have been talking about this for some time now. Eventually, somebody will get around to finding a way to do that. Once THAT happens, then all sorts of doors open. Humans will be able to experience the thrill of parachute jumping without leaving the safety and comfort of their easy chair. We will play with more and more neurological retro-fits for the simple reason that we can.

As I said in a previous post, this evolution is going to take a long time, I don't believe there will be any well-marked threshold dividing human from no-longer-human.

If the other scenario (humans consciously attempting to build a sentient machine)occurs before the "evolution", then I guess we need to define what is meant by a soul. If a soul is strictly a spiritual entity, and not simply sentience itself, then I would argue they wouldn't have souls. Not an easy question.

These boards are so active, by the time I post a response to one person, 3 other intervening messages are posted.

Joy Busey 3/19/99 12:08 PM

I'll go along with that!

There might not be any fine point of transition, they might, in fact, even spend hundreds of years emulating emotional behaivior after the impetus for such action had been evo-designed out of the progeny.

Keith - "wouldn't they tend to`inherit` quite a few of our uh....unique characteristics?"

Sure, during the long transition stage, but, just as our early homonid ancesters were no longer just apes nor not quite yet human, so "intermediates" which are no longer just human but not yet.. what, machines(?) will occur. I truly don't know what to call these new beings, the word "machine" just doesn't seem to fit.

Larry and Keith - I think you’re jumping the gun on the nature and use of the technology. Biochips are a ways into the future yet, and wouldn’t have independent access to a separate database anyway. Machine sentience is I think more likely to arise from AI research using networked systems, or machine-machines. Unemplanted, basic silicon logic circuits with a cleverly open OS which allows for self-organization and retrieval. The Crays in the basement, not the biochip in our brain’s pleasure center. How then would there be any anthropomorphic consideration of "soul?"

For those contemplating the speculations here about AI [Artificial Intelligence], the above link will prove most interesting. Found it when I went looking for E.C.’s ICARUS (Planetary Sciences, Cornell). This one’s at UMichigan, but there’s a counterpart in Calgary as well.

Argh! This one works...

Joy, it is my understanding that Joseph was not a patriarch for the Jews in the sense that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah were. Joseph's relation to the Jews (the children of Judah) was that of an uncle, not a father. To the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph was a father and a patriarch. As you will recall, according to the Bible, Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. However, the Joseph tribes were not around when the Torah was being put into it's final form by temple priests in Jerusalem.

As you may recall, the northern kingdom rebelled and refused to pay tribute to the Assyrians. As a result, in 722 B.C., the Assyrians took most of the people of the northern kingdom into captivity, and those that were exiled were never again heard from. Judah, on the other hand continued to pay tribute during the Assyrian period and thus kept their kingdom and retained their identity. Furthermore, Hezekiah, after succeeding Ahaz as king of Judah, encouraged emigration of the northern Yahwists who had escaped exile. Some of those who emigrated into the southern kingdom at that time brought stories of the northern heroes such as, and in particular, Joseph. Later, in 586 B.C., Judah rebelled against Babylon in much the same way as the northern kingdom, and a significant portion of Judeans were exiled to Babylon, but their captivity in Babylon lasted only about a couple of generations or until Cyrus The Great conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., and a year later, in 538 B.C., sent the Judeans back to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple.

It appears that sometime during the pre exilic period, probably during the rein of Hezekiah, the temple priests in Jerusalem decided to reduce much of the oral tradition from both the northern and the southern kingdoms to writing as a means of saving it. Most scholars believe that the northern literature and the southern literature were originally saved in separate documents before they were edited into an almost seamless whole by a wordsmith extraordinary.

Considering the conditions under which these traditions were gathered and edited, it should not be considered surprising if significant portions of the Joseph stories were lost. Actually, the surprise is that so much of Joseph's story make it into the Bible, especially considering that Judah's hands were not clean with respect to the selling of Joseph into slavery. Of course, the priests who did the editing were from the tribe of Levi, and may not have been quite as concerned for the reputation of Judah as the children of Judah. But since their support was from the tribe of Judah, one would think that they would use reasonable discretion.

That sounds a bit far fetched to me, Joy. Would you really expect a "slave" to be the "keeper of an art"? And for what reason would he want to keep it even if he could?

Yes, that is interesting (but not very credible).

I agree the question is valid. I do not have an answer which could easily explain it in terms that I judge would be acceptable to you. I would note that fiction often neglects difficulties such as these. We have good reason to believe that there should have been a significant language problem if the account was true.

I would suspect that the Egyptian "reverence" for Hermes indicates that Hermes was an Egyptian.

I would tend to believe the "mass of detail" you refer to was late priestly writing that was intergrated into the earlier traditions.

Yes, it does seem like rather a lot of effort for a single particle, doesn't it. But I think the answer lies in this quote from your link:

IOW, the Higgs boson is a fundamental particle that is an essential prediction of the some of the current theories to explain the origin of the universe - without it, nothing could exist, or rather, it would mean our understanding of the structure of the universe was fatally flawed. So unless you set out to find it, it's rather like making a great and clamorous fuss that the world is round, but then refusing to put your money where your mouth is and fund the expense of an expedition to prove it! :)

And if they can't find it, what then? Then they realise that their theories are wrong, that the universe weighs nothing, and perhaps we are all just part of someone else's virtual reality - god's dream if you will. Alternatively, maybe they'll come up with another theory... :)

Joy - You're probably right, research into AI will probably get there first. Still, I think my scenario has (I'm sorry to say) a real good chance of playing out at some distant time in the future. In fact, the newly sentient machines from AI may help us get there (God forbid).

Let's talk about something else. this is depressing. I'm gonna watch you guys talk about Joseph & Moses et al.

Leszek said: "without it, nothing could exist, or rather, it would mean our understanding of the structure of the universe was fatally flawed. So unless you set out to find it, it's rather like making a great and clamorous fuss that the world is round, but then refusing to put your money where your mouth is and fund the expense of an expedition to prove it!"

I don’t think it’s scientists who are putting the money where their mouth is, but that’s a matter of back-scratching with the politicians and military that hold the public purse strings. Questioning the usefulness of such expensive toys is valid if there is no public benefit from the expenditure. Fancier and deadlier WMDs are not what we need or want for our money. Neither are unnatural and insanely dangerous (and expensive) means of boiling water.

The overall model, IMO, is not flawed. The definitions are flawed. That mistake is fundamental, but when it is recognized it won’t change anything but the gravitational mechanics of the bang. THAT will be useful. Space based plasma beam weapons and missile launchers (aimed at us, not at possible incoming asteroids) are, to the objective observer, not the least bit "brilliant." They are stupid. Illogical. Bizarrely anti-rational, and a perfect expression of absolute evil.

Is this why science seems so determined to "prove" God doesn’t exist?

Actually I think it's a very interesting area of speculation, Larry! What would you do if you were a graduate programmer in the Icarus project I linked, and your cray told you one day that it's alive? Started asking you unconfortable questions on its own, based on however long it had been "alive" and searching its database connections in that mode before it came directly to its "creator" with those uncomfortable questions?

Would you be tempted to unplug it, after having worked so long to make it intelligent (even if you hadn't figured on self-awareness)?

Wow. Well considered responses, Cliff! I’m not at all sure that the Babylonian exile fundamentally changed the Pentateuch’s pre-existing data, though it probably did serve to expand the extracultural content of later works, adding Persian hermetic styles and concepts. Ezekiel’s visions are indicative of this influence, I think. Had the Judeans wish to expunge Joseph from the rolls, his portion of Genesis could easily have been left out.

Moses never made it to Canaan. The legalism of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and the applications in real life situations was (and remains) very tricky as all law is, so the tradition of interpretation and commentary was already in place. This could not have occurred unless the "Thou Shalts" were codified. I think we can’t easily dismiss Moses’ position and education in the matter of the Law.

The condition of the Hebrews at the time of the Exodus is not necessarily an indicator of general intelligence and sophistication. When Joseph arranged with Pharoh for his father and brothers to relocate to Egypt with their families, servants and herds, it was supposed to be a temporary situation for the duration of the famine in Canaan. In exchange for this privilege, the 12 brothers became involved in the planning and execution of the public works projects Joseph was in charge of. The historical timeline suggests that Hebrew migration to Egypt occurred during the Hyskos rulership, which allowed the employ of a "foreigner" high in the rulership... the rulers themselves were "foreign."

The Pharoh of Joseph’s time might very well have welcomed a large influx of "foreigners" who had a brother already inside, and who could be counted upon to place their numbers firmly behind the throne in times of trouble. Many texts note that Hermes was not Egyptian.

(Cliff, cont...)

We can count forward from the brothers and the construction of grain silos and public buildings, to a time when one Pharoh or another decided to use the economic base to build gigantic temples and tombs rather than useful things. The workers and planners for such works had long been Hebrew, and these people were by then firmly entrenched in Egypt. They did tend to keep to themselves, and practiced a religion anathema to the pantheon of Egyptian gods. They no doubt also refused to aknowledge Pharoh as a god. Such has always been the nationalistic complaint against the Jews, despite so many valuable contributions to the various exilic cultures.

Concentrated as they were, the Hebrews made a handy source of slave labor and many of those who collaborated (Hebrew slavemasters and overseers) came from within the community. The politics of power hasn’t changed. Enslaving the population would not have been difficult with a sure-but-steady erosion of previously-held rights. It would only take a generation or two.

Enslavement does not mean that the Hebrews lost anything of their own cultural adhesion or spiritual tradition. These things would still have been managed by a group of leaders and a heirarchy of leadership within the community, to which Aaron likely belonged. What one does for a living doesn’t necessarily prevent one from being who one "Is," especially if what one does for a living is not a personal choice.

To presume based on the time period in question that the Hebrews - and Moses - were incapable of encoding their cultural and religious laws is, I believe, naive. It attributes to them far less sophistication than had actually been displayed from the beginning (Abraham). It is invalid to attribute this solely to their late station in Egypt as unwilling slaves, or to presume they were not as intelligent and capable as anyone else in the same period.

Joy Busey - "Would you be tempted to unplug it, after having worked so long to make it intelligent(even if you hadn't figured on self-awareness)?"

Well, as I posted earlier, I think we are already well past the unplugging stage. We'll just have to live with those uncomfortable questiions when they arise and hope the critter isn't too terribly disappointed with our answers.

BTW, slavery need not be a barrier to keeping cultural traditions. (It doesn't help it along, either!) Certainly Africans, brought to our shores as slaves, kept many of their traditions alive, even though they did so using stories as the method. Had they had access to writing, I've no doubt they would have written it all down and SOMEONE would have been appointed to be the keeper of such traditions/knowledge.

The temple was destroyed during the conquest of Judah by Babylon. Anything contained in the temple that not removed prior to it's destruction was lost. You have questioned why there is not more in the Torah (Pentateuch) about Joseph. My question is not why there is not more information about Joseph, but why there is so little about Judah? The Bible contains extensive stories about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel), but almost nothing about Judah. How could so little exist about such a great personage as the father of the nation of Judah? Judah was the father of the Jewish nation. Joseph, on the other hand, was the father of a conquered people, about whom nothing was thereafter known.

I would suspect extensive Judah stories must have existed at one time, but they were lost--perhaps in the sack of Jerusalem by the Babylons. Consider that the only mention of Judah in Genesis was his birth as the third son of Leah (Gen 29:35), mention of him as a son of Leah (Gen 35:23), mention of him as the one to suggest that Joseph be sold into slavery instead of their killing him (37:26), a brief story in Gen 38, quite uncomplimentary of Judah and his children, and a brief final mention in Gen 49:8-12. Otherwise, he is merely assumed to be one of the unnamed "brethren," of Joseph. Strange!

I can not believe there was not much more written about Judah. Perhaps if we had the complete Judah story (lost) instead of the Joseph story in the Pentateuch, we might have an totally different perspective on the Egyptian connection. Who knows?

But it would have left a rather large gap between the time of the patriarchs and the time of the exodus from Egypt. Also, much of the Jacob story is told from a "Joseph" point of view. Take a close look and tell me how much of the Jacob story you think would have had to have been deleted to get rid of the Joseph story? I think the Joseph story was included because it was a great story having great meaning. Had the temple priests had an appropriate Judah story, they might have used it, instead. More likely, they would have used both. side by side.

I suspect the tribe of Ephraim as the source of the story since according to the story, although Manasseh was the older of the two, Ephraim is set before Manasseh by Israel (Jacob) (Gen 49:20)

This is an indication for a late date of it's authorship. Much of it appears to be a "priestly" addition (from the P and D documents).

Actually, it is doubtful that some of the tribes of Israel ever had a direct connection with Egypt. For example, it is likely that the tribe of Judah was never in Egypt at all. This would provide an explanation as to why Judah had no role in the Joseph story.

Are we talking about the same thing? Joy. I thought we were talking about slavery. Are you suggesting the Egyptian slavery of the Israelites was somehow different than the slavery of African Americans in the southern United States. Alex Haley wrote a book in which he documented that the traditions of African Americans slaves in the United States were totally lost in a matter of only a few generations. And I know of nothing in the character of Jews that make them more persistent in the pursuit of their traditions than African Americans--or more intelligent.

Much of what we are discussing is not a matter intelligence, but of education. If Moses was educated as an Egyptian, it makes sense that he was literate. But to suggest that within a single generation, uneducated ex-slaves should be "capable of encoding their cultural and religious laws" in their own native language is absurd. It is akin to suggesting that African Americans within a generation of being freed from slavery, should have been able to codify their traditions in their native language. Get real. These are the kinds of things that are done by a religious elite such as a professional priesthood.

Let's see... physicists make a fundamental prediction that would prove or disprove their theories, but you think there is no reason to test it, because there is no public benefit in knowing whether their theories are true or not... did I read that right?

Excuse me if I disagree.

I also have no idea why you think science is determined to prove god doesn't exist... I and just about every other scientist on this humble globe thought that was impossible to prove, but if you know better, let us know how it can be done.

:)

Larry, I would be interested in specifically which traditions you think African American slaves were able to retain. My reading of Alex Haley's book, Roots, was that it was by only a thread that he was able to arrive at the original traditions of only one branch of his genealogy.

For example, he was able to ascertain that the religion of one of his fathers was Muslin. Haley, of course, remained a Methodist.

Do you suppose, by the way, that Israelite slaves in Egypt actually had access to writing and written records? If so, why so?

Actually, it was Reuben (firstborn) who delivered Joseph and convinced his brothers not to kill him. Judah’s story is in Genesis 38, and is quite revealing despite the unstated reasons he had gone "down from his brethren." The placing indicates this was during the time Joseph was in Egypt, before the famine. Genesis 46 says Jacob, all his sons, his sons’ sons, his daughters, his sons’ daughters, and all his seed went to Egypt. Then it names the sons and their sons, Judah among them.

Not if the ability to write was a part of Hebrew culture in Joseph’s time and thereafter when the Hebrews were favored in Egypt, Cliff. Abraham came from Ur. He and his kin spent a good deal of time in the Mesopotamian civilizations that had developed writing. If Sequoya could "invent" an alphabet to render Cherokee into written form once he was exposed to the written language, why couldn’t Joseph or one of his forefathers have done so for their language?

I question how much use it is to the rest of us to "test" an erroneous theory, that’s all. On the level of Higgs, Planck and beyond, it’s all mathematics. So what I am speaking about is a flaw in the equations. The turtles get bigger for a reason, and they’re missing something about that which should be obvious. They will figure it out. I just wonder what it’ll cost us in the meantime.

This is very true, Larry, though it should be remembered that the Hebrews were not captured tribes, but had migrated to Egypt as welcome resources. They were quite sophisticated in the cultures of the Middle East, which were well developed. What occurred in Egypt to enslave them was a late development and didn’t last long. At the time of the Exodus Moses could have demanded Egypt itself and received it. All they wanted was their freedom to leave.

I see you have decided it is an erroneous theory in the absence of the evidence that would allow you to make such a decision, then you oppose proposals to gather such evidence... I can only presume it's because you think it might prove you wrong.

There are times, Joy, when you have to test equations against reality. If the Higgs boson is one such occasion, then why not? Or should we just be satisfied with a battle of theories without ever testing any of them? I find that hardly satisfactory.

I don't care whether it's religion or science. Test, test, and test away. And if it fails, then discard it.

What in the world would I care if I'm "proven" wrong about some wild idea not-quite presented anonymously in a public forum, Leszek? Like I could dictate where the gub'ment spends my money? I've got no stake in anything my tax dollars don't buy. For what my money buys, I want more than radioactive toys for overgrown children, weapons of mass extinction, and arrogant assertions of answers based on an energy level they'll never reach.

We're at the point where observations of cosmic processes billions of light years away are about the only further clues we'll get. The specialties of science concerned with smashing atoms and guessing singularity theorems are going to have to deal with the impenetrable wall, where it becomes impossible to "test" further. The equations will either explain all that we can observe, or they are erroneous. And even when they explain observable phenomena, if they ignore cause there will still be a large black hole.

It's kind of like explaining abiogenesis with hominid jaw fragments.

I believe you are referring to Gen 37:22. It is true that Reuben was the first to object to killing Joseph. However, the reference I gave was from Gen 37:26-27 in which Judah is quoted as saying, "What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hands be on him, for he is our brother and our flesh."

I mentioned Gen 38 in my previous post, and if you think this is the extent of an appropriate account of the life of the father of the nation of Judah, I beg to differ. I think it is at most a fragment of the total of the story.

There is no indication in the Bible that any of the patriarchs had the ability to read and write. There is also no indication that Joseph could read and write in any language, although he apparently was able to speak in any language spoken to him. The bible indicates that Moses was raised as an Egyptian prince, and we may therefore assume that he was educated in the written forms of the Egyptian language. According to Matt (#2722), the Hebrews adopted the Phonician script, probably in the 11th century B.C. The question is: how were Egyptian slaves to learn of and adopt the Phonician script.

I suppose the account of what happened to Joseph at the hands of his brothers is one of those that should be read several times before any sense of its total narrative is apparent, Cliff. That would be "interpretation," wouldn’t it? Still, I believe enough information is given, from which a scenario is discernable.

Reuben was Jacob’s firstborn, titular "head" of the 12 brothers. He obviously cared a good deal about his father’s feelings and well-being, and used his position when the plot first came about to forbid the brothers from killing the lad. He was not present when the brothers set upon Joseph, but there is no indication in the text that any of them actually planned to kill him at that point.

Judah comes across as resentful of both Joseph and of Reuben’s authoritative status. When the caravan happened along it was his idea to sell Joseph into slavery, and he mentioned to his brothers that it was better than killing him. Since no one but Judah mentioned killing at this point, this indicates Judah’s opportunism and desire to be rid of Joseph as well as to thwart Reuben. Here is a classic story of sibling rivalry.

The narrative does not mention when Reuben became aware that Joseph had been sold into slavery rather than killed, but we can surmise he was not the least bit happy about the bloody coat. The reason for Judah’s departure from the home compound isn’t listed, but it is reasonable to presume his exile came as punishment from his brothers. He was included in the list of journeyers to Egypt.

I am not intrigued by any missing information about the "greatness" of Judah, who was not such a nice guy. That his descendants became the most powerful tribe had little to do with the person of Judah. It had to do with political savvy and martial skill.

I’ve got no axe to grind which doesn’t end up in a MIRV’d warhead, a "suitcase" nuke with no possible use other than terrorist action, blast unknowing commuters with neutrons during rush hour, or lead to the exposure of thousands of people to limiting doses of carcinogenic isotopes and then deny them the remedial benefits of proper medical intervention in order to keep the real situation "secret." You, and many scientists I’ve known, have no problem with these side-effects of their toys, so I guess it’s all a matter of one’s point of view. I readily admit mine’s a bit jaded.

I can’t know how familiar you are personally with the energy levels necessary to produce Higgs, or if you are aware that even if Higgs is real and can be blasted from a target it does not solve the gravity problem. If science wishes to harness a black hole to play "Let’s Find the Gravity Quanta" with, it’ll have to be off-planet. Hopefully, it’ll be out-of-solar-system.

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but high energy physics cannot artificially recreate the big bang. The faithful are going to have to accept the limitations on what can be "proven" in laboratories about the genesis of the universe from nothing. The results will of necessity be theoretical and based upon cosmological observations we can’t place under a microscope, manipulate with electron beams, touch, test or quantify. Why is this reality so unthinkable?

How would you know? It's just an assertion with the same content as those that claimed man could never fly or walk on the moon. For all you know we create dozens of universes everytime we fire up those particle colliders.

I'm not saying that you are necessarily wrong about the limitations to scientific enquiry, merely that you have no basis on which to make such claims, except a frequently-expressed animosity to science in general and scientists in particular.

Sometimes I feel you are trying to stake out a territory that science should be banned from exploring, because knowledge of it creates more problems than it solves. Now, that isn't an idea we should dismiss out out hand, and I have some sympathy for it. The trouble with such a concept is how would one define the boundaries of such a zone without scientific exploration? The atom bomb didn't come about because scientists were looking for the best way to blow up the world, it came about because scientists were innocently exploring the structure of the universe, and there was no prior way of knowing how much energy was contained in an atom. Knowledge begets knowledge, and you just can't kill curiosity, even if it might kill you.

Ultimately, the only way to stake out such a territory safely is to do no research at all, and ban science completely. Back to the dark ages! They were pretty horrible, but at least we couldn't blow up the planet in 30 minutes.

Life's full of tough choices, innit?

Joy,

On Abraham learning to write based on his time in mesopotamia:

Very unlikely. The simple fact is that the mesopotamians did not use a Semitic writing system; they used Sumerian cuneiform. This system is not an alphabet. It is composed of a set of wedge-shaped marks made in damp clay; these wedges in patterns represent whole words or syllables. Since the language was reduced to a syllable set rather than a set of simplest (consonantal) phonemes, there are instead of the 20-odd members of any alphabetic set, literally hundreds of cuneiform symbols one has to learn in order to gain literacy. To write syllabic cuneiform was something that would have taken years and years of specialized training as a professional scribe. It is not something the knowledge (and not mastery) of which would lead one to conjure up an alphabetic form of writing.

Also, Cliff quoted me as saying the Hebrews adopted the Phoenician script in the 11th century. I picked up Naveh's book and have an update. According to him, the earliest we see the Hebrew off-shoot of the Phoenician script is 9th or 10th century; writing Hebrew in this script died out around 100 BCE, when writing in the square "Jewish" Aramaic script became the standardized norm. The Samaritans, however, still use the old Hebrew (i.e. non-Aramaic) script.

I would agree with you that there are scientific experiments where the risk and damage is not worth the knowledge gained.

One should not explode 30,000 nuclear weapons on the planet to test the "nuclear winter" theory.

One should not play with black holes in the vicinity of the solar system.

One should not test the effects of pathogens by releasing them on unsuspecting populations.

And so on.

However, not every field of potential inquiry is as clear cut ethically as the examples above. While I think that we do need to be far more responsible as a species than we have been, I don't think science is the root cause of the irresponsibility. In fact, I think science may have given us the insights to assume more responsibility than we have ever been prepared to accept before.

BTW, I rather resent your accusation that scientists in general and I in particular are unconcerned by the side effects of scientific activities. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Thanks for the information, Matthew, always useful for consideration. Because I have no idea when the Hebrews invented their original script, ruling Abraham out is not at all unreasonable. But I think too much importance has been placed upon the late station of the Hebrews in Egypt in the matter of their separate cultural traditions and intelligence. The African tribes raided for slaves to bring to America were culturally deficient in terms of the "rest of the civilized world," and had no previous experience on which to base their rise to literacy other than that which they learned in the service of their masters. Thus there is no African-American alphabet or written tradition. They instead learned (often in secret) how to communicate in English.

This is not analogous to the Hebrew situation, whose experience in the civilized world was extensive long prior to their sojourn in Egypt. They had been exposed to the concept of codification of data and ideas in script, and were no doubt familiar with most if not all the forms of writing in popular use before they ever went to Egypt. Joseph proved particularly adept at recordkeeping, or he would never have been named visier of Egypt in charge of the surplus and distribution of foodstuffs.

So while I cannot account for the exact timing of the invention of ancient Hebrew text, I do not think it unreasonable to surmise from Joseph’s importance and the favored status enjoyed for generations of Hebrews within Egypt prior to their enslavement that they had invented such script prior to the Exodus. If not, then it’s not unreasonable to surmise that Moses was literate enough in the various scripts to have encoded the law in any one of them he chose. Thus I do not believe the Law was an oral tradition until the late first millenium b.c.e.

On interpretations, I have a version called the "Life Application Bible" which includes the literalist interpretations as subtext. I found it interesting that because Jacob’s daughter Dinah (the one who caused a nasty local vendetta against local power structure) was the only daughter mentioned by name, the literalist interpretation is that Jacob had only one daughter. That this interpretation contradicts the numerous other verses mentioning "daughters" plural is not commented upon. Are we to presume that those believers who have subscribed to the narrow view never actually read the Bible, so have no reason to question why this contradiction exists?

I have a problem with interpretations which contradict context. How the literalists can arbitrarily choose one verse to take literally at the expense of surrounding verses is beyond me. Seems to me that if one is to take the Bible literally, one must as a matter of course consider all the information. Fact is, the literalists do not do this, rendering their "interpretations" unable to stand the test of scrutiny on the same literal basis.

Like saying Mary remained a virgin all her life in spite of the several mentions of Jesus’ brothers and extended family in Nazareth. Or neglecting to consider that Jesus’ claim to the Davidic (Judah) throne came through Joseph, not Mary. Beats me...

<sigh> I might ask on what basis you presume that I have no basis, Leszek, but it wouldn’t prove fruitful. I’ll let this lie on the basis of my unwillingness to list the credentials which might cause you to "believe" that I do indeed have basis, because I strongly suspect you would reject those credentials anyway for the reason that you wouldn’t like what I have to say. I’ll rest on the reasons I have already expressed more than once for my refusal to provide credentials.

I would tell you that the boundaries are already known (and have been known for many years), but you wouldn’t believe me because your specialty lies outside the closed circle of high energy physics. You "trust" that circle to tell you what it can or can’t do, and will not consider the purely political (and funding) reasons for why they refuse to admit those limits exist.

As for scientific "innocence" in the matter of nuclear weapons, you are deluding yourself. Atomic weapons were not created by accident, nor have they been further developed and refined for 50 years by accident. This is not a situation of ignorance about how powerful the effect would be. It is the deliberate concentration of power to render the weapons as effective as possible. The weapons serve only one purpose. How can you mention innocence in this context?

Yes, Joy, if this is the only side of the story available, Judah certainly looks bad. And yes that is an interpretation. The surprise is not that a member of the tribe such as Ephraim might compose such a story. The surprise is that a book maintained and protected by the tribe of Judah would contain it. Now, it is true that the southern tribe is capable of making their own heroes look bad. For example, King David, himself, is shown to be guilty of murder and intrigue. But there is also the "good David" to balance. The surprise I find for Judah is not so much as he is pictured as being, as you said, opportunistic, it is that there is no "good Judah" to balance.

Thanks, Matt, for the information. Until you explained it just now, I never understood the relationship of Aramaic to Hebrew. As far as I knew, I was never in a position to ask someone who knew, and I never came across an explanation, so I just didn't know. Again Thanks.

I strongly object to the inference that the African tribes were culturally deficient, Joy. They had a great culture. It has been a while since I read Alex Haley's book (actually the only information I have on the subject since I was taught nothing of it in school), and, unfortunately, I can not locate it around the house just now, but I think I can say with some assurance that while it is true that they did not have a written language, at least some of the tribes had professional rememberers (people whose job it was to remember the history of a tribe or group of tribes) and it was through one of these rememberers that Haley obtained information on one of fathers, Kunta Kinta (and I hope I have spelled the name correctly).

The interesting part, as I recall, was that the rememberer could not answer questions about the relationships of past generations. The only way he could recount the history was from the beginning, but starting from the beginning, he could recite it perfectly every time. And when he got to the Kinta clan, he mentioned that Kunta had gone into the forest to get wood for a drum and was never heard from again. In addition, Alex learned that his father had been a Muslin, one of the mainline religions. They were most certainly not culturally deficient, and I would strongly suggest that the culture of the African tribes was much greater that that of the Hebrews tribes during the patriarch age.

I understand, incidentally, that after the nation of Israel was established, they also had professional rememberers to maintain their oral tradition. I understand, also, that the oral tradition was maintained for hundereds of years even after si

(cont.)

significant portions of the oral tradition was reduced to writing.

Boundaries aren't known without testing, Joy, this much is obvious. Anything else is just an appeal to authority, which is anti-scientific, but within the religious domain.

Except for Genesis, there is no evidence of Joseph's importance or the favored status of Hebrews in Egypt. Certainly there is no record of it in Egyptian writing.

In the absence of any evidence that it was written down--correction, in the absence of any evidence that it could have been written down before the 10th century B.C.--I don’t think we have much choice but to accept it. Either it was an oral tradition or it was first written from whole cloth between the 10th century and the 4th century B.C. I believe it is generally accepted that when Ezra brought the law to Jerusalem in 397 B.C., this was the finalized version of the Torah.

Joy, the matters you raise are fascinating, thankyou for giving me new areas to explore in my own reading. It was interesting that Matt raised the fact that the Samaritans still use the old Hebrew. It could definitely be argued from the books I've been reading over the last couple of days, that the Samaritans, were not "corrupted" by the invading Assyrians as has been inferred, because their theology shows no sign of influence from paganism. They insist that Shechem was only conquered politically and has been and always will be their holy city. That they are the true descendants of Joseph [Manasseh and Ephraim]. And the book on archaeology that I referred to the other day mentions that Samaritans to the present day are still practising some form of "gory sacrifice" on Mount Geriszim that overlooks Shechem. Apparently however, and I quote .. "The Samaritan Pentateuch has been only of limited use in the task of recovering a more primitive form of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. The most interesting comparative texts to date, are in Exodus and Numbers."

Or neglecting to consider that Jesus’ claim to the Davidic (Judah) throne came through Joseph, not Mary. Beats me...

Jesus' Claim did come through Mary, as you know,it's in Luke 3. So His Claim came through Mary, and Joseph as her Husband was also from the Davidic line, as shown in Matthew Chapter 1.

Leszek I am interested in your following statement.

Are we layman missing something? Exactly who IS to blame for the terrible things we see happening in our world. The latest news bulletins from Russia for example, showing us some of the one and a half million people suffering from Russia's explosions of nuclear arms whilst it struggled to 'catch up' with the West. Who is going to help those folk, is that going to be Russia's problem? We have no responsibility for our part in that "Cold War?" Did anyone tell the inhabitants of that area what was going on? Is anyone telling us what is going on in the area of genetic modifications? Now as a layman, I understand that it is economics and power that is at work here .. but who is giving them the information? Well, we understand it to be scientists .. is that correct or incorrect? Who is funding the work of these scientists? Are the inhabitants of this earth asking scientists to explore the areas that are receiving funding? Are the inhabitants of this earth going to benefit from discovering the existence or non existence of Higgs? I can only re-iterate, that at the bottom of this heap, we feel we are at the mercy of "scientists." Now this isn't because we want to stop their search, their quest for ever increasing 'knowledge' .. but because we see NO SIGNs of morality, of the Golden Rule you are so fond of quoting, being used by these "men of knowledge." You must be aware that there is a growing movement amongst the general populace, for a return to a simpler lifestyle rather than this continual "suffering" that is caused by today's huge expansion in knowledge being put into the hands of u

Leszek continued ..

unscrupulous power seeking economic leaders. I have said here before, that it is my opinion, [if we live long enough to see it happen], that there will be a backlash against "scientism" .. a big one, unless some of you struggle to get your 'house' in order.

I'm letting off steam here a bit, this is not a personal attack, I know that recent footage from Russia will upset all of us. But how do you cope as an atheist with such signs of the agony of man's failure?

Personally, Rosemary, I feel much more at the mercy of and threatened by Christians than by scientists. While I realise that perspectives in your part of the world are different, this is the sad reality I have to deal with. In the US, we have Christians standing on their hind legs and saying, I kid you not, that gays should be executed because the bible demands it. This does color my rather jaundiced view of Christianity in general, I must admit. Few scientists called for my execution last I heard.... I think I'll throw my lot in with them.

As for returning to a simpler lifestyle, by all means, go ahead. Give up your anaesthetics and your antibiotics, give up your electricity, and give up the glorious vision of our spaceship earth as seen from orbit.

When I speak of science giving us the perspective to see our world as something fragile and worth saving, that is what I mean... the view of the earth from space, impossible without science. Christianity has given us the creed that says we should exploit the earth's resources to destruction. Other cultures destroyed by Christianity did not see it this way, and now science has given them a voice. With luck, we can turn away from the evil that has been wrought by the uniquely Christian and evil concept that the world was built for our pleasure and dominion.

Let Christianity get its house in order. All the evils complained of recently on this board have been wrought by Christian nations following Christian principles. I think it's time for a change. If all these Christians actually listened to what science has to teach, rather than vilifying it, we'd all be better off.

... and Rosemary... I don't see man's failure as a failure of science... I see it as a failure of philosophy, and in the west as in Russia that means Christian philosophy. Christianity has brought our civilization to its present sorry state, and I don't think it can get us out. For that we need science, and an objective perspective.

My POV is to be rather surprised that after 2000 years of Christian disaster, anyone would advocate more of the same medicine to try and get us out of the mess we made for ourselves. I'm not surprised that Christians look around for others to blame but themselves, and pick on science as a scapegoat, but really - science has not been the dominant feature in our culture, its been religion, and Christianity in particular. If you want to point a finger of blame, that's where it belongs.

... and Rosemary - I understand your post wasn't a personal attack, of course, I realise you are above that. :) But my perspective on the relative contributions of Christianity and science (though these aren't mutually exclusive) is rather different, as I've been on the butt end of Christianity all too often, but have mostly had good experiences while practising science.

Most of the critique of science seems to me to be levelled at a straw man... some fiend that doesn't actually exist. The evils attributed to science are better laid at the door of politicians and generals. True, science has been a handmaiden to their evil-doing, but an unwilling one. Where individual scientists have erred, they've done so out of political affiliations, not out of any respect for science.

That’s kind of a blanket indictment of a simple and honest statement, Cliff. Notice, if you will, that I modified my statement with "in terms of..." which related directly to the ancient Middle Eastern cultural traditions and the European traditions that had long since abandoned the enslavement of each other. The tribal cultures are primitive on those terms, and tribal cultures which remain today are primitive on those terms. So? The intelligence was obviously there, not only to recognize the value of knowledge, but further to recognize that the knowledge they needed had to be the same knowledge their slave masters held over their heads. I think they did exactly what needed to be done. As far as I know, the Cherokee alphabet - invented for the sole purpose of preserving what traditions the European overlords were intent on destroying - is the only such development on the writing front in more than a thousand years.

And since it doesn’t matter to me when, exactly, the Hebrews developed their alphabet (especially since Moses knew all alphabets in concurrent existence), let’s drop it. We’re getting nowhere.

That is interesting about the Samaritans still using the ancient Hebrew rather than the Aramaic, Rosemary. As I told Cliff, there isn’t any point in the argument if he requires stone tablets. Most people wrote in ink on papyrus in those days, and the "laws of physics" tell us those things don’t last 3-4 thousand years. So we’ve got copies of copies in a long tradition (older than Exodus) of scribal profession, while the nay-sayers tell us it was completely oral until the return from Babylonian exile. All I could add on that are the Ezekiel stones, on which the entire prophesy is carved in relief just like the plates of a printing press...

But that’s exilic, not Mosaic. Oh, well. §:o)

Yes, Marie. Jesus had part in the Davidic lineage through Nathan on his mother’s side, and Luke takes her lineage all the way to Adam. The Solomonic heritage, however, came from Joseph’s side of the family, and this line is where the pretenders were to be found.

So, holding extinction over our heads (all my life) to make us dance to the magical tune of Wall Street and the military-industrial complex is what you term "objective?" Do you know something about the worldwide ponzi blackmail scheme using WMDs as leverage that we do not, Leszek? Please let us in on the joke. I’ve never thought it was very funny, myself.

I wouldn't know objective from a hole in the head. All I know is, it's Christian civilization that's brought us here. Yes, they may have used science to accomplish their objectives (is that what objectivity is about?), but the atom bomb is a gift of Christianity, not of science. No scientist worth his or her salt would have gotten involved in that sort of shenanigans had it not been for the politics and the military. Since you've been keen to point the finger of blame, let's point it in the right direction for once.

I know you must tire of my constant thematics, Leszek, but you hold science and scientists so blameless in their actions that it is amazing to me. The individual scientests could have said "NO." You’re telling me they were so incredibly ignorant of the corruptions of politics, wealth and power that they allowed their destructive knowledge to be ill-used without knowing what they were doing when they built and then refined the things. What you describe are some fatally stupid people.

Are they still so stupid? We’re supposed to entrust the future of mankind to "innocents" who can’t even come up with a passable definition of evil? I don’t feel very comfortable with that...

§:o) I’ve said many times we all share the blame, and it will take all of us to fix the mess. What you display in naivete about the deadly (and way too often classified) end of science, mixed with your wishful belief system, does not bode well for there being any future. My faith may be no better on the closed-minded front and has often proven deadly. Yet for all the faults religion can be legitimately blamed for, the threat of extinction for purposes of blackmail is not one of them.

Religion has been the dominant force in human affairs since written history began, yet when you look around for someone to blame for our problems, you ignore that force and instead focus on a relatively insignificant activity, in terms of resources consumed over the millenia, such as science.

No Joy. Our problems can be laid at the door of religion. At best, science was a poor dupe, and unwilling tool, of overweening religiosity. At least science has given us the hope that we can overcome the foolishness that religion has thrust upon us. It has given us the hope that an objective view of the world is possible, even if it isn't always realised. That's more than your religion has ever given us, so forgive me if I'm a little skeptical about it.

And yes, I also lay the blame for the threat of extinction at the door of Christianity. It was... the Christian priesthood and their followers led us here. Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth... that's their sorry legacy.

Religion has been the dominant force in human affairs since written history began, yet when you look around for someone to blame for our problems, you ignore that force and instead focus on a relatively insignificant activity, in terms of resources consumed over the millenia, such as science.

No Joy. Our problems can be laid at the door of religion. At best, science was a poor dupe, and unwilling tool, of overweening religiosity. At least science has given us the hope that we can overcome the foolishness that religion has thrust upon us. It has given us the hope that an objective view of the world is possible, even if it isn't always realised. That's more than your religion has ever given us, so forgive me if I'm a little skeptical about it.

And yes, I also lay the blame for the threat of extinction at the door of Christianity. It was the Christian priesthood and their followers led us here. Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth... that's their sorry legacy.

Vengence has been practiced since the beginning of humankind. People were throwing babies on the fire, sacrificing virgins and eating the brains of their conquered enemies long before there was ever a Jew or Christian around to tell them it was wrong. The excesses of religion are obvious, as I said in my last post, and the religiously fanatic cannot be trusted. Neither can the scientifically fanatic.

I was taught to forgive, and that vengence begets vengence. Justice is nice when you can get a modicum of it in this world, but it can be as big a lie as anything else. As a Christian who believes in the man who forgave those who killed him, I can say I’m not big on vengence. Judging from the Revelation (a book of terrible vengence) and history, it appears the message has been mislaid. That’s a shame.

I have been viewing this board from time to time during the last few weeks. How can two groups (science and religion) get so upset with each other when one has a history of using leeches to cure sickness and the other has a history of handling snakes to cure evil? I think you both need to just sit back, take a deep breath and admit that none of you really knows anything. You only think you might know something. This is an opportunity to exchange ideas and insights, nothing more.

Leszek,

I'm sorry, but your conclusions ar ridiculous. For example:

Are you saying this with a straight face? Such a statement is blind to the realities of human existence. For one thing, it fails to realize that Christian ideology on the one hand and the practices of Christendom on the other are by no means in harmony. The will to power, to borrow a phrase employed by perhaps the fiercest anti-Christian of the past 200 years, is something native to humanity, regardless of the ideological framework built upon it. Certainly, by your causitive reading of western history, Genghis Khan must have been a Christian, no? Certainly tribal Africa is free from strife! Certainly Athens warred with Sparta only after both were Christianized. And those dang Babylonians must surely have been Christians when they ransacked the Levant in the 6th century BCE.

People can be greedy. People can be power hungry. What is amazing to me is that systems of thought which focus on curbing these tendencies, such as Christianity, take root at all. But of course there are still warmongers and power brokers within a Christian framework, a Muslim framework, a Confucian framework, a democratic, fascist, socialist, capitalist, or objectivist framework. There always have been and always will be sick, violent people in society, and some will possess great charisma; and they will inevitably shroud their violent tendencies in whatever speak will be most easily received; whatsoever the flag may bear

I have been viewing this board from time to time during the last few weeks. How can two groups (science and religion) get so upset with each other when one has a history of using leeches to cure sickness and the other has a history of handling snakes to cure evil? I think you both need to just sit back, take a deep breath and admit that none of you really knows anything. You only think you might know something. This is an opportunity to exchange ideas and insights, nothing more.

Leszek,

...continued...

whatsoever the flag may bear that flies most easily in the winds of their time and circumstance, these people will wave, impassioned, above their sick causes. Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the sum total of the corpus of Christian teachings would be forced to recognize that the overpowering tendency is toward non-violence, stability, and equality. Yes, there have been psychopaths who have hidden behind a cross. And Stalin was an atheist, a believer in technological progress, and the objective improvement of the human condition. Whom do you blame? The man, or the rhetoric?

I have been viewing this board from time to time during the last few weeks. How can two groups (science and religion) get so upset with each other when one has a history of using leeches to cure sickness and the other has a history of handling snakes to cure evil? I think you both need to just sit back, take a deep breath and admit that none of you really knows anything. You only think you might know something. This is an opportunity to exchange ideas and insights, nothing more.

Sure, Joy, if you don't want to talk about it any more. I'm willing to quit if you are.

Ah, I see you still want to talk about it. Apparently you just want me to stop pointing out the fallacies of your assertions. Sorry. The point is that it appears to me that there is not even a possibility that what you say could be true. It is simply impossible.

But cheers. It has been fun.

Leszek, I've been sitting here this evening listening to the most beautiful music, sung by a couple of great tenor's and thinking about your uncharacteristic posts. Sweeping generalisations, most unlike your normal painstaking and carefully polite self. If I contributed in any way to your distress, I apologise.

I'm sorry you have been at the receiving end of so much hatred as well, although I suspect there have been some Christian people there somewhere, who have not behaved as badly. There are extremists everywhere, I face them myself. I've told you previously that we live in the inner city, among a lot of folk with multiple problems. I can't remember the number of times we've had to call the police because we have been threatened and worse. Just this past week they had to come and take away two people who had managed to invade our home. Thankfully they were only verbally abusive, unlike some .. but it leaves one shaking and weak at the sheer hatred that emanates from such folk. My children are regularly drilled on where to hide and how to escape such moments in our life, sadly they have seen far more than I would wish.

I wish I could believe your faith will be justified .. I mean that, I would benefit equally if that were to prove true. Sadly I think we are just not capable of bringing about the secular 'dream' of paradise, however we are definitely stubborn enough to keep trying until the bitter end.

I admitted that I had written my post in haste, and in some distress .. those pictures leaving me with an agony of soul. I was wrong to 'pick' on scientists. This is OUR problem, and somehow we're going to have to lea

learn to communicate if we are to stand even the remotest chance of trying to save something for our children. Blanket blame is going to get us nowhere, either on your side or mine. I apologise for mine and hope I will do better in future.

My final paragraph was as follows .. " Now I've often heard you say that science doesn't necessarily contradict theology and that some believers have no problem with science. Well, after the time I've spent here, I'm beginning to see that there might be a darn sight more of a mesh than I had previously ever dreampt. Science AND theology seem to be asking the same questions. The Big Bang was controlled by? Life did not emerge by chance out of the soup but by? We human beings are not merely animals or machines but? Is it possible that we are not as far apart as we think, in our desire to acquire the answers to our questions? Wouldn't it be helpful to the wider masses of folk who are led by small 'bytes' from the media, if we could in some way communicate this?

I have failed miserably to accomplish anything at all along these lines. In a way, my 'faith' gets in the way, I find myself 'defending' or 'attacking' and I have certainly learnt the reality of my Saviour's Words .. "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Being a peacemaker by nature, I find this extremely difficult so the humour in your post is very welcome, lets hear some more!!

We must each of us accept the responsibility to do what we can to make the world a better place within which to live. Only thus will we see improvements.

Hitler was a jerk, but he had little direct impact upon me, I am better served remembering to give to the local groups that help the hungry children in my state eat a hot meal each night.

I believe you have pointed out the real problem far better than I’ve been able to do, Matthew. I’ve too often allowed myself to defend. The problem with attempting to get a concensus about where in the human animal the threat arises is that by so doing, we come up against those concepts so flatly rejected here from the moment I enjoined to ask my first question - What is the nature of Evil?

To address the problems civilization faces as we head into the next milennium, there must be recognition of both the capacity for evil and the need to curb the evil. I have been completely unable to obtain a definition. Some say cyclones and earthquakes are evil, as if they weren’t the natural processes of the planet. Some say there is no such thing as evil, because all human actions are relative to the subjective reasons for choosing to do evil. Some have said that evil cannot exist because evil so evidently DOES exist.

We have never made it past this impasse, even after I identified WMDs as the best expression of absolute evil ever devised. You have read the defenses of poor, duped scientists who had no idea what it was they were creating. Against this kind of reasoning, there can be no concensus.

Well, I wasn't in a very good mood last night when I posted all that, but I just got tired of hearing on several boards how all the good things of civilization were due to Christianity, and all the bad things someone else's fault, especially those atheistic evolutionists, when we've been a Christian civilization for 2000 years :) I had no business implying that it was somehow the fault of Christianity specifically, as of course it is just the result of common human failings. I really doubt any other belief system would have done any better.

Never mind me, Rosemary, I just have some stressful things going on right now. I agree with Keith that we all share responsibility in how the products of human curiosity and its tool, science, are used. Too often we forget that scientists are just human beings and imagine that simply because they are scientists, they don't think & act as people first. Of course, some of them have been all too willing to promote the myth of a scientific priesthood.

I think the answer is that we all have a responsibility to be as scientifically educated as we can be, so that we can participate in decisions made necessary by advances in knowledge. I'm not really sure where religion can participate in this, but certainly as most people believe in one religion or another we can't ignore or cold-shoulder it. I haven't found the answers on this board yet, but I'm still looking :)

I think Sagan had a very nice approach to the integration of reason and faith in Contact. Unfortunatly the needs of entertainment outruled the needs of accuracy and this message suffered when the book was translated to film.

Reason is how we do things, faith is why we bother in the first place.

Whew, catching up from my last post on Saturday 3/20/99 was both time-consuming and stressful.

First, to Cliff Beale #2775 3/20/99 5:18 PM

You asked which specific traditions I thought African slaves (later, African-American slaves) were able to retain in the face of slavery in the U.S. I'm afraid my "scholarship" is limited to that same book you mention, Alex Haley's "Roots".

I made 2 unwarranted assumptions. First, I assumed we were only talking about a few generations, not hundreds of years, and so it seemed reasonable to conclude (without any further evidence, mind you) that cultural knowledge/traditions could be maintained over such a time period. Second, I thought I "knew" from that master teacher, Common Knowledge, that the Israelites were literate while in Egypt. Such lazy, um... "scholarship" deserves to be called out instantly if not sooner.

Another point, though, if the Israelites were literate, is the nature of their captivity in Egypt. Was it the same as for Africans in the U.S, where families were broken up and sold to all corners of the slave-holding states, thus making it much more difficult for cultural traditions to survive even a few generations?

Lastly, I have been privileged to witness truly human interaction on these boards as I caught up with all the postings since 3PM Saturday. Responses among certain individuals started heading toward the acrimonious, but, in the end, veered safely back on course to a most civilized human discourse accompanied by the sweet fragrance of forgiveness and respect.(I wonder if the machines could manage that?)

I still love these boards.

"Impossible" is a hefty word to toss in a speculation, Cliff. I’m surprised Leszek hasn’t pointed out that this assertion is at least as questionable as my assertion that physicists will never be able to build a machine powerful enough to blast a gravity quanta out of an atom.

I would ask what it was about the Babylonian captivity which possessed the Israelites to invent their script if their captivity in the equally literate nation of Egypt had not done so. Or what it was about the traveling tribes of Abraham that they could not see the value of the various encoding methods they encountered, to record things like the price and payment for the lands they purchased, the accounting of herds and chattels, the pictographs of religious import that they helped to paint and carve onto the walls of tombs and temples that remain to this day some of the greatest man-made monuments ever built.

...Or that the man Moses, the Prince of Egypt and foundling of Israel, could not have encoded the Law. The word "impossible" effectively stifles speculation, which is why it has become fruitless.

Yet another philosophical gem from your corner, Keith! Thank you. §:o)

I hope I’m not in your "acrimonious" category, Larry, though I probably deserve to be. I think you have grasped something Cliff has not, which is pertinent to the nature of the Law and whether it was committed to writing from the first.

The Hebrews went to Egypt in time of regional long-term famine, where their brother Joseph had been appointed visier over the building of surplus storage and distribution of foodstuffs. This job description of necessity requires literacy. The building and adornment of temples also required literacy. Recordkeeping, religious texts painted on walls, the reading of architectural plans, etc. Thus it may be reasonably presumed that at least a heirarchy of the Hebrew contingent in Egypt was literate. We know for all reasonable intents and purposes that Moses was literate.

The Hebrews were not enslaved like animals, which is essentially what happened to the Africans brought to America as slaves. In Egypt during the latter years they comprised a class of enforced labor not unlike our barely-paid laborers of today kept so busy figuring out how to stay alive that they dare not rise above their economic enslavement and reach for something more. The Hebrews still maintained their enclaves (ghettos), their families, etc., at least when Pharoh wasn’t ordering the slaughter of newborn children to reduce their population strength. That was a political action rather than a personal ownership prerogative, and indicated a significant political fear brought to fruition in the very person of Moses. It is wrong to equate the separate situations merely on the semantics of the term "slave."

"There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other... Science enhances the moral values of life...because every advance in knowledge brings us face to face with the mystery of our own being."

It depends on what you are talking about, Joy. For example, if I said that it was impossible for the patriarchs to have been literate in the 12th century, the chances of being correct are excellent. As Matt has pointed out, the written scripts that existed in that time frame were not Semitic, and, furthermore, they were pictographic, not alphabetic. It was not impossible to master a pictographic script if that is your only job, but if your time is occupied with normal living, the study that would be necessary to master such a script would be most inconvenient.

Get real, Joy. The Israelites adopted their script in the 10th century B.C., centuries before the Babylon captivity (note that this was captivity, or exile, not slavery). We have good reason to believe that the development of the Hebrew script was accomplished by the rein of David because, according to II Sam 8:16,17, Jehoshaphat was a "recorder," and Seraiah was a "scribe." It is highly probable that by that time scribal schools existed since writing would have become important for business and official documents. In addition there would likely have been the beginnings of tradition such as songs, that would have been committed to writing. (cont.)

(cont.)

We know for certain that the development of the Hebrew script was accomplished by 940 B. C. because we have the Gezer calendar which contains three Hebrew characters. Thus by the time of the Babylon exile in 586 B. C, the Israelites would have had a 400 year tradition of writing. A rather different situation, I would think.

First, there is no evidence save the Bible that Moses was a "Prince of Egypt." If Moses was "Prince of Egypt," Egyptian scribes were unaware of it. Second, even if Moses was educated into the Egyptian script--which is unlikely since a prince might typically use scribes to do the tedious recording of business transactions and the writing of official documents--there is no evidence he used that language to record any portion of the Bible. And as far as use of the Hebrew language is concerned, he could not possibly have use a Hebrew script because it had not yet been invented.

My most reliable timeline places the Exodus at between 1450 and 1440 b.c.e. and the start of David’s reign at 1010, at which time you acknowledge the existence of Hebrew script was well developed, with a society of scribes. What makes you believe so strongly the script did not exist at the time of Judges? The rule of the Judges began within 75 years of the Exodus. Because no "independent source" has verified this for you?

The problem that you and I have in discussing my simple speculation is that you reject the Biblical account, and I do not. You don’t believe that Moses was adopted by the sister of Pharoh, or that being adopted into the royal family necessarily gives one any particular educational privilege. You do not believe that the Chief Architect would have to be able to read plans, do the mathematics of design, or know what it was the slaves were painting on the wall of the temple. After all, they had scribes for that...

I think the best answer I could get was given by Josh Wilner. Moses wrote it (Pentateuch) in ancient Hebrew. I expect he probably knows more about it than either of us. §:o)

My understanding is that the Exodus was probably about 1250 BC. I do not disallow the possibility of the development of the Hebrew script before the time of David, but it had to be after it became available to the Hebrews. As Matt pointed out, it was not a Hebrew invention, but something they adopted and applied to their own language.

I did not mean to be rude, Cliff. It’s just that because there is so little information put out by the Jews about the development of their script, I wondered when it was developed specific to the position of Joseph and how much about it Moses (or Aaron) might have known at the time the Law was handed down.

The "idea" for language is hardwired in the human animal. Early exposure to the concept of symbology begets writing. This is why I speculated that the Hebrews who had been well versed in the customs of ancient civilizations from Ur (Abraham) to Egypt were indeed exposed to the concept of symbolic encoding of data and ideas in a number of existing scripts, thus were not limited in their ability to develop their own version at any time from Abraham forward.

I apologize for my frustration with your need for "independent confirmation" of things that may not be confirmable apart from the Jews, who might not wish to contribute to the body of knowledge about the development. Rejection of the history as those involved encoded it is odd considering how readily the encoding of various concurrent cultures are accepted at face value. I think this is a personal predudice rather than an educated hypothesis based on what the book actually says. Much of the modern work in ancient history is similarly predudiced, so don’t feel as if you’re all by yourself!

§:o)

I do not remember accusing you of being rude, Joy. But it sometimes appears to me that you do not desire to face the facts. For example, when Matt says: "The simple fact is that the mesopotamians did not use a Semitic writing system; they used Sumerian cuneiform. This system is not an alphabet...instead of the 20-odd members of any alphabetic set, literally hundreds of cuneiform symbols one has to learn in order to gain literacy, " it makes perfect sense to me. But you assert:

And when Matt says: "Also, Cliff quoted me as saying the Hebrews adopted the Phoenician script in the 11th century. I picked up Naveh's book and have an update. According to him, the earliest we see the Hebrew off-shoot of the Phoenician script is 9th or 10th century..." it makes perfect sense to me. But you wonder:

I have a hard time understanding why you can not understand the time sequence and why it would be impossible for Moses to have used the Hebrew script to write the Torah. (Note that I have every confidence that Matt's sources are the very best available. It is abundantly clear to me that Matt knows what he is talking about. Everything he says has a ring of truth.)

Joy and Cliff, I've gotten quite lost in this discussion, but I was interested to read in a discussion of semitic languages, that these include Sinaitic, Ugaritic, Phoen. with it's Punic derivatives, Moabite and Hebrew. Then it shows a table showing the differences between the alphabets just mentioned .. they are remarkably similar, which is no doubt why, they are grouped together. However of more interest to you perhaps, is that it says Sinaitic inscriptions, which preserve certain phonemes which coalesced into other phonemes in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, have been found dating from the 18th to the 15th Centuries BC. There is masses of detail in the article which I found quite tedious, but it's quite obvious that the written was there along with the spoken, from the beginning .. it's just that we don't necessarily have records of it.

It appears you’ve forgotten that my question was merely whether or not Hebrew script existed at the time, or whether we might speculate that Moses used some other script. I don’t recall ever mentioning cuniform as a possibility, and I didn’t think heiroglyphs were flexible enough. I wondered what less formal writing was in general use in Egypt (which built libraries in 2500 b.c.e., for a presumably literate class of the population).

I received a perfectly adequate answer from the Josh within hours of asking the question, which you have seemed determined to refute ever since. Moses wrote the Torah in ancient Hebrew. That well served my own reasons for asking.

So what we have here is an opinion from someone whose source and words you choose to believe in this matter without reservation, despite the fact that Semetic scripts precursive to ancient Hebrew were in use in the Sinai mining district hundreds of years prior to the time of Exodus (yes I did go looking... all the way to Israel). This just happens to be the location of the Midianite tribes with whom Moses lived during his exile, and from whom Moses gained his wife Zipporah.

Neither you nor Matt know what language Moses penned the Torah in, which shouldn’t matter to you since you don’t believe he wrote it anyway. Tossing words like "impossible" is not credible given the preexisting bias. None of this is necessary.

I am having a little trouble at this point understanding what it is, exactly, you are attempting to refute. You are free to believe the Bible is fanciful mythology if you like. You are not the first - and will not be the last - to disregard Jewish history because the "Holy" part makes you uncomfortable. I do not share your opinion. The Writ r

Thanks, Rosemary! I found the information about the Sinai scripts at the Dept. of Archaeology of the Hebrew University at Haifa, and confirmed it through Penn State. That’s all I really wanted to know, because I never could quite comprehend the notion that the Hebrews used "professional rememberers" for all that detail, all the applications of the detail, and then all the commentaries about the applications of the details. I’ve spent some time around Jewish people, and you get a real sense of how much they love to fuss and discuss details. It’s such a natural part of their nature that I don’t believe it’s a late evolutionary development, and there aren’t enough "professional rememberers" in existence to keep up with any tiny bit of the Law! §:o)

Rosemary, could you be a bit more specific about the source of this "information."

Specifically what did you find, Joy?

Joy,

On "rememberers". I'm not sure what you are talking about here, but: traditional Judaism does insist that there is a "dual Torah": the written, which Moses preserved as the Pentateuch; and the oral, which was passed down from Moses through the generations by word of mouth alone until reduced by Rabbis to writing in the 2nd century CE in the form of the Mishnah. The Mishnah is quite a hunk of material to be committed to human memories for a millenium and a half.

Now, you've asked about what types of script were employed at what time. You have mentioned the hyskos invasion of Egypt. You have considered written traditions from Babylonia. All this tells me something about your personal biblical hermeneutic: namely, that you don't believe that the Bible can be understood in and of itself. You are attempting, quite rightly in my opinion, to embed and understand the stories of the Bible within the historical realities which surround the time periods in which the stories claim to have taken place. However, you pursue this methodology haphazardly.

Essentially, there is no reason to believe that the texts of the Pentateuch were composed by a single hand, let alone by an actual historical figure "Moses." Even only a cursory knowledge of philology, linguistics, or literary theory would tell one that the texts were not composed by a single author. These five books are filled with doublets, divergent theological positions, blatant factual contradictions, clustered specialized vocabularies, and datable historical/ideological references which all point to multiple authors.

You seem more than willing to apply modern scholarship techniques to extra-biblical sources of information; how can you reasonably refuse

Gosh Cliff, nothing terribly scholarly I'm afraid, it came from The Zondervan Encycylopedia of the Bible, editor Merrill C. Tenney, printed in 1976. It seems to be a "huge" subject, but what I wrote I quoted almost verbatim. May have missed out a few of those squiggly things!!!

I spent most of the night attempting to backtrack through the many pages I accessed to reach the archaeological data, which of course I was so thrilled to find that I neglected to bookmark it. Old Timer’s Disease, no doubt. Still, I did note the pathways, linked below:

(cont...)

(Cliff, cont...) From the site -

"During the times of the Early Kingdom of Egypt, in the third millennium BC, Sinai was densely inhabited by Semitic copper-smelting and turquoise-mining tribes, who resisted the penetration of Pharaonic expeditions into their territory. We could establish the existence of a fairly large industrial metallurgical enterprise...There are copper mines, miners' camps and copper smelting installations, spread from the western parts of southern Sinai to as far east as Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba."

"In 1904-5 the great British archaeologist Sir William Finders Petrie "unearthed fragments of several stone tablets there. These tablets were inscribed with writing in a strange pictographic alphabet that, much later, was proved to have belonged to a Semitic-Canaanite language related to ancient Hebrew."

"...The settlement at Serabit-el-Khadem had been an important center for the mining and manufacture of copper and turquoise from roughly 1990 BC until 1190 BC. These dates meant that there was no anachronism in the assumption that Moses might have sojourned here in the thirteenth century BC, just prior to the Exodus."

- Beno Rothenberg, Sinai Explorations 1967-1972

(Cliff, cont...)

You will find many more scholarly works on this subject among the links above, as I’m sure I could, but I simply wanted to know whether a Semitic script existed at the time, and whether or not Moses was exposed to it. In order to preserve papyrus over the centuries, the scribes copied and recopied, as papyrus is just slightly tougher than cardboard. I would suspect that the refinement of the early Semitic into actual Hebrew progressed as the need to clarify concepts (as with the Midrash) arose in the application of the Law. Hope this helps!

First, let me thank you kindly for the compliment, Matthew. I have indeed attempted to place the events into historical and cultural perspective, though I think you misunderstand my reasons for doing so. The information that Moses wrote the Pentateuch in ancient Hebrew was given to me by Josh Wilner, resident rabbi on the "Religion" board who has been kind enough to clarify the various questions we Christians, atheists and agnostics argue around which directly concern Hebraic history. This tells me that the Jewish tradition of scholarship holds that Moses wrote the Pentateuch in ancient Hebrew script.

I was then informed here that this is "impossible," because no such script existed at the time. This did not make sense based on my (albiet personal) opinion of the high intelligence of the early Hebrews, the position of Joseph in Egypt during the time of Jacob, or the privileged position of Moses in the years before the Exodus in conjunction with his blood brotherhood to Aaron, who held position in the Hebrew community.

So I went looking, and found that Moses could indeed have written the Law in a version of ancient Hebrew or its immediate precursor. As to the collection of works apparently from separate sources in the Pentateuch, this merely proves that Moses did not attempt to impose his personal stamp on the existing cultural traditions of the Hebrews, but rather penned those traditions as they came to him - possibly by "rememberers" while in the wilderness of Sinai. I do not think this is unreasonable given the situation and the personalities involved.

A Note of Departure for the Duration -

To rationalize my personal reasons for delving into the subject of the Hebrew experience and subsequent developments in this discussion...

Western thought traditions evolved (along "meme" lines?) from the Hebraic traditions preexistent, which were so different from the surrounding oriental thought forms. The eastern thought traditions of India and the far east tend view reality as one coherent whole both physical and non-physical. At a given point in recent western history, the traditions upon which our thought depended were suddenly rejected in toto and something very aberrational grew from the vacuum. This is what I thought to address in my participation in this forum.

Rampant skepticism is a uniquely western trait of mind, which is wont to assert absolutes which cannot be demonstrated absolute. I would refer to my previous quote from Max Planck, whose brilliance gave us so very much to think about in our quest toward the Singularity at the beginning of time, and which so well echos the First Law of Correspondences... "As above, so below." There is no fundamental discordance between science and religion, there is only resistence to the universal whole which depends upon the integration of both hemispheres of the human brain and their ramifications in the area of consciousness. (1 of 3, cont...)

(2 of 3, cont...)

I have never before been challenged to "prove" that what I believe to be truth about Hebraic history and the development of western thought, by people who maintain with such certainty that what I believe to be true is "impossible." I have seldom encountered that particular word, in any experience of science, psychology or religion. It thoroughly cuts off all possible avenues of approach, thereby rendering mutual understanding and cooperation itself "impossible."

Any purportedly scientific mindset which automatically rejects the meaningfulness of history in relation to things spiritual is error. Science and religion are complementary and must be so or we are not heading in the right direction - we’ll never reach our goal. There’s no point in the quest if we are doing nothing more from either side but "proving" the other wrong.

Too much of science these days appears devoted to proving that God does not exist, and I’ll be darned if I can figure out exactly where and when this change of course occurred. Nor am I able to understand why it occurred. Best guess on my part has something to do with those weapons of extinction I have so often mentioned, and a knee-jerk defense by science aimed at justification. I believe this must be challenged directly. I have done so, as best I can. My meager attempt to gift to my grandchild something more than a plastic ball with a map on its surface. I would gift him the world and all its wonders if the world were mine to give.

In truth, while I am speaking truth, this is my own knee-jerk defense for my role in the evil I here condemn. For all the truths I will never be allowed to tell about what went wrong, I would not leave the world defenseless against the beast. I know its name, and have called it to task.

(3 of 3, finis...)

I have asserted that the weapons express an absolute in a world where absolutes are very hard to find... Evil. If there is an absolute evil existent in the world, we could also recognize that there must exist its opposing concept. Duality is the nature of nature above and below. We know this. We must not continue to ignore it.

What I have presented are realities deserving of consideration, for the recognition of evil within the human spirit (and its exterior expression) must also suggest the existence of good in the human spirit. This goodness is in need of salvation from the overweaning pride of evil, hopefully before evil ends the quest altogether. Many religious people carry their pride with them into salvation, and this is error too. Our true quest is for that which preexists, the First Cause. This must be approached with humility before the wonder of creation, and our unique position within creation. It’s our lesson to learn... The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil.

Today we have once again waded into war, where two world wars have been born in this most interesting of centuries. Wars... and rumors of wars... this time for the "right" reasons rather than the wrong ones. Related, as usual, to religion and its ugliest manifestations. May God have mercy on us all. I will leave you my friends while I also go off to do battle, with a blessing from the tribe from whom I learned the most about what is real on all levels in this world...

Dev’lessie avion de Rom!
(The Gypsy Travels With God)

Thankyou Joy, may God be with you, keep you and strengthen you, and above all, give you His Peace. Oh, and when you return, after your 'struggles' please don't change your name, we've got used to Joy.

And Ephesians 6:10-18

I appreciate that you spent half the night looking for them, Joy, but I was quite disappointed with the "links." The first one, the one you labeled: "Bible Archaeology" turned out to be a "Christian Answers,net" page with no hint of where to go from there. There was a "search" edit field and I typed "Sinai" in the edit field and I received the notification that: "No documents match the query."

The next link you provided was the main page for the University of Haifa. And again, I had no idea which path to take to arrive at information on the "Sinai scripts" to which you referred. You said the information was here, but I had no way of knowing how to path to the information.

The other three links were simply pages of additional links. I read the titles of the links hoping something would pop out at me, but nothing did. Actually, these pages of links looked interesting and I bookmarked the first two; the reason I did not bookmark the third is because I had previously bookmarked it.

At this point, however, I was very frustrated. I did not understand why you had not given me an address that would take me to directly to your information, instead of pages of links with no instructions as to which link to access. But, as I was re-read your series of posts, I noticed something. You had given a specific name as the source of three paragraphs you quoted. (Ah, this was something for which I could search!!!) The name was Beno Rothenberg and apparently the quote was from some reference entitled, "Sinai Explorations 1967-1972."

Sinai (cont.)

I therefore did a search and actually found a page that contained those quotes. I probably ought to note that you made an error in attributing all three paragraphs that you quoted to Rothenberg. While the first Paragraph was by him, according to the site, the second and third paragraphs you attributed to Rothenberg were actually written by Graham Hancock and contain in his book: The Sign and the Seal

From the Table of Contents, select "The Exodus," and you will be taken to the document containing the quotes from your post, reference #2842.

Please understand that I have never heard of Beno Rothenberg nor Graham Hancock, and do not know what kind of reputation they enjoy among the scholars. Since I assume that Matt may know, I will ask him: Matt, if you are aware of such reputations either way, I would be most interested. In addition, it would be interesting for me if you were to review the site containing the quotes Joy copied in her post 2842. I would be interested in anything you might wish to say on the matter.

Sinai (cont.)

Joy, one last thing. From your post 2845 and from Rosemary's subsequent post, I got the idea that you are now departing the board for some period of time. I am sorry about that because I do hold you in high regard. For the most part conversing with you has been a lot of fun, even if it has been somewhat frustrating for me from time to time.

And I would make one final point. A couple of days ago, you made reference to my "comfort" level with respect to things "holy." Please believe me when I say that my comfort level has nothing whatever to do with anything that I might or might not accept as true or correct. I am most willing to accept anything from any quarter if that anything has reliable evidence to support it. If I am basing a belief on Archaeological evidence, however, I want the best evidence from the most reliable Archaeologist with the best reputation among his peers. That is what is important to me. How am I to judge such things otherwise? I have to rely on those who are in position to know. Therefore, it is not so much that a scientist or scholar has to convince me, it is that he must convince his peers. If he is able to convince his peers, then convincing me is a sure shot. It has nothing to do with my "comfort."

What this means is, if your information proves reliable, I will want to consider carefully how much sense your conclusions make with respect to the evidence, and, of course, I will want to know why conventional scholarship apparently tends to discount that evidence in arriving at a different conclusion. But you should understand that I have no axe to grind. I really don't care how it is. I just want to know how it is, as reliably as possible. I wish you had given me actual links to the evidence you were considering, when you were considering it, so we could have considered it together. But perhaps you wanted to work it out in your own mind without my help. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that

Cliff, if you ever find a link that satisfies your criteria, I'd be very grateful if you'd let me know .. thankyou. PS, I think Joy has gone to fight her legal battles.