# *Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy!

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Posted by Al; [Aldurant] on October 27, 1999 at 12:25:06 {dPkPwxsNJEF1SfI4E1Nwt74NX2uzuA}:

In Reply to: Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy! posted by Can't miss! on October 27, 1999 at 04:41:44:

Gary,
Interpretation of prophesy has been getting "corrected" for 2000 years and will continue for another 2000. You really need to read James Randi's "Mask of Nostradamus", the chapter on "The Prophesy Game". About our other thread:
My interest is Genesis chapters One through Eleven. It is only these that I propose may have been partially inspired by Sumerian legends. It could be a local flood and be a common experience, yes. But the Sumerian King Sargon had a story how his mother sent him floating down the river in a little boat of bulrushes, etc, the Moses story. The Sumerian record is older. As for whether the flood was global: There were so many things that should have been destroyed or altered, but weren’t. But if it was magically prevented from destroying these things, and all normal traces of flooding were magically removed, then we can hardly discuss the flood, really. But then we shouldn’t bother to “validate” the Bible with science. It’s all magic, and not really a subject that can be rationally discussed. But what conceivable criteria for it being good or right do we have? We slam science when scientists make mistakes, or create the Piltdown man, and characterize all of science with that. We do the same for democracy, categorizing it as “mere human government”. But over two thousand years of observable, recorded actions of those who presumably “believed” The Bible, what is their overall “fruitage”? Not good, mostly, yet we dismiss this, saying that they “misrepresent” The Bible. We say they misinterpreted it. We assert, in conflict with much enduring science, that because any of The Bible turns out to be accurate history, then anything else that someone(?) has chosen to include in this collection of books is also accurate history. We have conflict with science, mainstream and otherwise, and mostly poor behavior associated with The Bible, but we either claim it is inspired by God or some more vague claim that approximates something effectively similar.
1.Now, as to “the days of creation”. I don’t think we have any reason whatever to think Genesis has more than poetic or legendary value when it comes to origins of anything. I think that,as God’s book of creation indicates, that the earth is billions of years old, that life is probably a billion years old, and multiple species are hundreds of millions of years old. Our species is at least one hundred thousand years old. The complexity and sophistication of life increases exponentially with time. Look at these figures from the “paid a penny for the first day of work” and double it each day for a month”, illustration. If one were offered this rate of pay, versus a flat $10,000 for the month, most take the ten thousand on first reflex. We see that “penny” and don’t see how it could possibly amount to much. But:
1st Day $0.01
2nd Day $0.02
3rd Day $0.04
4th Day $0.08
5th Day $0.16
6th Day $0.32
7th Day $0.64
8th Day $1.28
9th Day $2.56
10th Day $5.12
11th Day $10.24 running total -$20.47 for an entire third of the month [shall we call this the "Precambrian period?]
12th Day $20.48
13th Day $40.96
14th Day $81.92
15th Day $163.84 16th Day $327.68
17th Day $655.36
18th Day $1,310.72 running total - $2,621.07 - after over half a month [significant speciation?]
19th Day $2,621.44
20th Day $5,242.88 21st Day $10,485.76
22nd Day $20,971.52 [angiosperms?]
23rd Day $41,934.04
24th Day $83,886.08
25th Day $167,772.16 [mammals?]
26th Day $335,544.32
27th Day $671,088.64 running total - $1,342,167.90~ 3 days
to go [man?]
28th Day $1,342,177.28 [artificial intelligence?]
29th Day $2,684,354.56 [cyborgs?]
30th Day $5,368,709.12 total - $10,737,488 ~
[multiple awareness in the structure of space?]

You get the general idea. God can do it any way he likes. Bible promoters try to label science as "human opinion" yet a significant amount of the Bible is exactly that, with no peer review for check and balance. Science is much more unified. When Bible interpreters disagree they just form a new sect and label the others.

2. As for dating methods. Your method is to accept the Bible as some sort of unit. If one historical date is correct, then anything anyone who could cared to add to this collection of books would be considered accurate, no matter what it was. In view of the conflict with measurable facts in the creation, in view of the history of the proponents and originators of the Bible’s history, I do not consider this a rational or a good, or an honest alternative. Your date is in the time period of the Babylonian Empire. If you want to hear the understatement of the year,a lot happened before that. Because they got the dates of their era correct, you conclude that their account of creation which they tacked on is correct also.

The link for the dating systems is a nice summary. What you really need is a good reference book or two. The Oxford Companion to Archaeology would be a good start. Please do not confuse the openness and honesty of scientists with the things they view as needing improvement as an invalidation of any method. The religious person is used to making absolute proclamations, then is obliged to interpret everything he sees to support his original assertions. This is the essential dishonesty of much religion. The scientist structures the best thing he can and critiques it and improves it from there. Take medicine, take the airplane, take automobiles as an example. There has been malpractice, plane crashes,and wrecks. There has been fraud in all these fields. Do you discount the use of medicine, airplanes, and cars? Dating systems are no different. In the statistical average, science has produced what we treat as reliable means of measurement in all these fields. We bet out lives and our children’s lives on them. Without being gullible or worshipful or intimidated,we do recognize when something has the best chance of being right. If someone says, “this looks like it is 15% off”(that would be according to a half dozen or so other scientific methods), then you carefully test it with known items and discover the level of accuracy that you can get. For example, my hand held calculator starts rounding after a million or so. I can verify it with hand calculations or another, larger capacity calculator. Does that mean all calculators, maybe even the idea of addition, is “human thinking” or whatever? Let’say I messed up somewhere in my handling of my calculator. Made an error in addition. Does that mean that the total is not even in the ball park? No it doesn’t. My point is, we know that the creation is unforgeable,and not subject to the imagination of man. We know it is a creation of God. We do not know this about the Bible. It is history, legend, and tradition together. Why must we insist on treating it as a unit? Who decided that? Tradition.

Organized religion, and any proposal that we impeach our best efforts to understand with some magical claim is what I disagree with. There is no reason, no profit in doing this, and it detracts from needed accomplishments. The very idea that it is a moral issue to hold some unsubstantiated “belief “ in one’s head is the utmost of dishonesty, and a clear attempt at psychological control. It is neither good, nor virtuous in any respect. I believe in God, hope, and virtue, and I understand why people want religious traditions. But we are in this world on a voyage of discovery and it is difficult to change from the necessarily metaphorical summaries of the past to more exact things as we discover them.

You are right about one thing. We don’t have the time to keep discussing this to this extent. You still need to send me some specific references for your chronology, and why don’t you get on the board and tell everybody that you are not the “governing body” member?

Sincerely, Al

Follow Ups:

- **Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy! Bibleman#3 18:12:03 10/27/99 (6)
  - ***Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy! Al; 21:25:25 10/27/99 (5)
    - ****Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy! Bibleman 00:26:44 10/28/99 (4)
      - *****Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy! Al; 04:53:52 10/28/99 (3)
        - ******Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy! Bibleman 07:57:53 10/28/99 (2)
          - *******Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy! Al; 14:57:28 10/28/99 (1)
            - ********Jan/AL:Inspired Prophecy! Bibleman 18:22:15 10/28/99 (0)

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