DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Religious Dick on September 24, 2011, 10:50:28 PM
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Half of European men share King Tut's DNA
Mon Aug 1, 2011 5:52pm GMT
By Alice Baghdjian
LONDON Aug 1 (Reuters Life!) - Up to 70 percent of British men and half of all Western European men are related to the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun, geneticists in Switzerland said.
Scientists at Zurich-based DNA genealogy centre, iGENEA, reconstructed the DNA profile of the boy Pharaoh, who ascended the throne at the age of nine, his father Akhenaten and grandfather Amenhotep III, based on a film that was made for the Discovery Channel.
The results showed that King Tut belonged to a genetic profile group, known as haplogroup R1b1a2, to which more than 50 percent of all men in Western Europe belong, indicating that they share a common ancestor.
Among modern-day Egyptians this haplogroup contingent is below 1 percent, according to iGENEA.
"It was very interesting to discover that he belonged to a genetic group in Europe -- there were many possible groups in Egypt that the DNA could have belonged to," said Roman Scholz, director of the iGENEA Centre.
Around 70 percent of Spanish and 60 percent of French men also belong to the genetic group of the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.
"We think the common ancestor lived in the Caucasus about 9,500 years ago," Scholz told Reuters.
It is estimated that the earliest migration of haplogroup R1b1a2 into Europe began with the spread of agriculture in 7,000 BC, according to iGENEA.
However, the geneticists were not sure how Tutankhamun's paternal lineage came to Egypt from its region of origin.
The centre is now using DNA testing to search for the closest living relatives of "King Tut".
"The offer has only been publicised for three days but we have already seen a lot of interest," Scholz told Reuters. (Edited by Paul Casciato)
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http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFL3E7J135P20110801?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true (http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFL3E7J135P20110801?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true)
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King Tut is more closely related to Englishmen than to Egyptians, then?
That is surprising.
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Cleopatra was the granddaughter of one of Alexanders generals , I think.
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Cleopatra was not related to King Tut. She was Cleopatra VII, and the last of the Ptolemys.
You are several generations off. Cleopatra was born in 69 BCE and died in 30 BCE.
The first Ptolemy ruled from 305 to 285 BCE. He was one of Alexander's generals.
Tunankhamun lived from 1341 to 1323 BCE
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Cleopatra was not related to King Tut. She was Cleopatra VII, and the last of the Ptolemys.
You are several generations off. Cleopatra was born in 69 BCE and died in 30 BCE.
The first Ptolemy ruled from 305 to 285 BCE. He was one of Alexander's generals.
Tunankhamun lived from 1341 to 1323 BCE
Was there an earlyer invader or something similar that would explain the royal family having this gene typical of a European?
I guess you are right about the relationship of Tut to Cleo, a thousand years difference is a lot , a gene can get pretty well spread about in twenty generations.
Did the Macedonian Pharaohs intermarry the Egyption nobles?
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Tunankhamun lived from 1341 to 1323 BCE
What is the E for?
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The Pharoahs ruling Egypt before the Macedonians arrived were not Egyptians, either. Ptolemy's dynasty did not intermarry with any people of Egyptian blood. After the first generation, they continued the tradition of incestuous brother-sister marriages. Cleopatra was married to Ptolemy, her brother.
BCE stands for "Before Common Era" it is the term used by all archeologists, rather than BC, which shows a Christian bias.
Archeologists are not all Christians, nor are they missionaries or Biblical scholars.
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BCE stands for "Before Common Era" it is the term used by all archeologists, rather than BC, which shows a Christian bias.
Hahahhaa!
So they use the Popes Calender but change the BC to BCE to expunge the Christian Bias?
Hehehe People are funny.
What did they do to the Anno Domini?
So does King tuts DNA lead us to think that Egyptian royalty was imported?
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Anno Domini = CE as in Common Era. This year is 2011 CE.
Most of my students believed that AD meant "After Death", ie after the death of Jesus, which is not the case: dates begin with the assumed date of the birth of Jesus, not his death. AD is a rather confusing term, and CE is not. Anno Domini means "year of the Master" and could logically refer to either the birth year or the death year.
Pope Gregory modified the Roman calendar, and he was not the first.
The year used to begin in the Spring, which does make some sense, because that is when plants start to grow again. The Persian New Year begins in the Spring to this day.
That is why September, October, November, December mean seventh month, eighth month, ninth month, tenth month, but are presently the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12 months.
The connection of Spring to March as the first month was also connected to pagan rituals. So they switched it around, so that Jesus would be born in the dark of Winter and resurrected in the Spring: it cancelled out the pagan connections and reinforced the Christian ones. Pope Gregory reformed the calendar because it was one day or so out of synch with the orbits of the Sun and Moon.
The Muslim year is somewhat defective, because it has only 354 days, 11 days short of an actual orbit of the Earth around the Sun, but in harmony with the Moon, so the seasons change from one Muslim month to another over the years. The Muslim year is 12 lunar months of equal duration.
The Christian system of enumerating dates is the most common and easily understood one, and so it is used by scientists and pretty much everyone else. The term COMMON ERA and the abbreviations CE and BCE were chosen because they did not show a pro-Christian bias. The word Christ means "anointed by God" and not all of the world's people subscribe to Jesus being the Son of God. But everyone can agree on their being a need for a common dating system. It is a pragmatic and logical decision. And do not criticize me for it, I am hardly responsible.
I can say that I approve of the use of the abbreviations CE and BCE and the terms they stand for.
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Don't take it as a personal criticism, I know you didn't personally make this decision.
I personally think it funny.
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That is why September, October, November, December mean seventh month, eighth month, ninth month, tenth month, but are presently the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12 months.
And August used to be known as "Sextilus" before it was renamed in honor of Augustus.
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Pope Gregory reformed the calendar because it was one day or so out of synch with the orbits of the Sun and Moon.
10 days when the Catholic countries accepted calendar reform in 1582. When Great Britain and America (and most of the rest of Europe) followed a century or so later, it had become 11 days. Russia did not accept the calendar until 1917 (which is why "Red October" occurred in November in much of the rest of the world), 1919 in Romania, and 1923 in Turkey and Greece - by then it was about 2 weeks out of date.
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I'd say it was pretty sloppy of the Creator of the Universe to make the orbits of the Moon and earth not correspond so that there was a precise number of months in a year.
There are 365¼ days in a year. 30.43 days in one month. I doubt that Microsoft would have designed it isn such a sloppy manner.
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What makes you think it sloppy?
Do you think Pi should come out even?
The Moon orbits the Earth at precicely the same period as it rotates and in cosmic coincidence is exactly the right size to blot out the sun in eclipse.
Is it evidence of Gods work that things are in simple ratios and one to one relationships?
In my concept of God , he is able to do and understand complexity.
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The Moon orbits the Earth at precicely the same period as it rotates and in cosmic coincidence is exactly the right size to blot out the sun in eclipse.
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The Moon is simply big enough to blot out the Sun in an eclipse. It might do so if it were a bit smaller as well.
God may understand complexity, but the Earth was not designed to be a difficult puzzle, was it? It was designed, according to the Bible, as a habitat for humans to live in. Or so we are told. It is also mostly covered by salt water, which we can neither breathe nor drink.
It seems to me that the Universe is only as organized as it has to be to not go flying apart. The synchronization of the orbits of the Earth and the Moon appear to me to be quite sloppy. I also have issues with the design of teeth, which are always under attack by decay, and the existence of things like poisonous insects and cancer.
You are free to see harmony and divine purpose in this as you wish. I don't.
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The Moon is simply big enough to blot out the Sun in an eclipse. It might do so if it were a bit smaller as well.
Nope, the size and distance is exactly right.
When the eclipse is total , the sun disapears and the Corona becomes visible.
I do not think that this co-incidence proves anything, and I don't accept that the lack of any particular coincidence you may want proves anything either.
If I pointed out that your neck and the neck of a mouse or the neck of a Giraffe would each contain exactly seven vertabra and seven is a very mistical number , would you think I had proven something?
I can't see you accepting something like that as proof of much , much as you should not expect me to accept the lack of icecream mountains and root beer springs as proof of anything.
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The moon was much closer several billion years ago.
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The moon was much closer several billion years ago.
Yes, the tides must have been spectacular when the moon and the oceans were new.
But during the era of human existence tides have been manageable and the Moon has taken up exactly equal space in the sky that the sun does.
Since you regard neatness to be the proof of Gods work, this and several other neat coincidences ought to give you better faith than I have.
Unfortunately I think that neatly put together phenomena are everywhere and do not necessarily prove anything. Soap bubbles form perfect flat planes and straight lines perfect hexagons squares and perfect spheres. This doesn't prove that soap bubbles are made by mathematical genius does it?
When a natural phenomenon forms a pattern too complex for me to ken , I cannot see the order but accept the possibility that the order is greater than I can perceive. When I see butterflies passing by I can't really tell that they are all going to a little forest in Mexico to aggregate till they load the trees to bending over. When I see horseshoe crabs wrestling on the beach I can't really tell that they have been doing the same thing since before there was a dinosaur and the moon was much larger in the sky.
When I do understand a pattern I take the understanding as a blessing, all Wisdom is originally Gods own property, he bestows it as he pleases. It is lovely when something I never understood before snaps into focus. This is a great age in which to live while discovery is practically constant and media has grown the ability to be searchable.
Things that seemed without order are being discovered to have subtle orders that were never obvious .
How could the appearance of disorder to us ever prove that there is no God?
Wouldn't this be arrogantly making the claim that we already understand all possible order?
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I am not saying that the disorder of the universe proves that there is no God, just that is suggests that any that exists does not seem to care much about neatness and/or perhaps one that is not omnipotent. Perhaps only semi-omnipotent.
A totally omnipotent God could clearly make pi a whole number. The ability to do ANYTHING is absolute. Perhaps omnipotence is not possible.
Some say that the Earth is so perfect it proves that God has to exist and also must be perfect. I believe that the rather large amount of disorder in the Universe refutes that argument.
On the other hand, I do not see this as a refutation that there was a creator. As I see it, there is insufficient proof: maybe there was, maybe not. And of course, perhaps he did pop into this part of the Universe and has since left the building.
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I would like to see your proof that the Universe has any disorder anywhere in it.
Since this would have to include your proof that all possible order is humanly understandable I don't expect your reply to be swift.
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I am thinking that the presence of exploding supernova suggests disorder.
The orbits of the planets are not perfect circles. The planets themselves are not perfectly spherical. And there is the disharmony previously pointed out about the orbit of both the earth and Moon.
Sun spots indicate that the Sun is not a uniform temperature. Jupiter has that huge red spot.
Cancer is hardly a sign of perfection.
The universe is only minimally orderly. If it were only a tad more disorderly, it would fly apart entirely in a totally disorderly manner.
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I am thinking that the presence of exploding supernova suggests disorder.
The orbits of the planets are not perfect circles. The planets themselves are not perfectly spherical. And there is the disharmony previously pointed out about the orbit of both the earth and Moon.
Sun spots indicate that the Sun is not a uniform temperature. Jupiter has that huge red spot.
Cancer is hardly a sign of perfection.
The universe is only minimally orderly. If it were only a tad more disorderly, it would fly apart entirely in a totally disorderly manner.
Each of these things are easy to contradict, as I will in the next post.
But more important , if you found an example that I could not contradict you might be merely pointing at a system more complex than either of us is able to understand even though perfectly orderly.
How unlikely indeed is it ,that I might not understand something?
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Order and disorder are easy to detect, just as light and darkness are.
Any light means that something is not totally dark.
Any disorder means that something is not totally orderly.
If you say that God's order looks like disorder, I say, no it means that God's order is disorder. You can say that God has a reason for disorder, but you cannot deny that disorder exists.
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I am thinking that the presence of exploding supernova suggests disorder.
Large stars are the forges of heavy elements, these elements seldom escape the heart of a star unless by supernova, if there were no supernovae there would be no us to ponder them.
The orbits of the planets are not perfect circles. The planets themselves are not perfectly spherical. And there is the disharmony previously pointed out about the orbit of both the earth and Moon.
All orbits , however elliptical, sweep a virtual triangle with a vertex at the center of the orbit and corners on the orbit at the begginning and end of a time period, with each time period no matter what length period of time period you choose. Any equal period of time will sweep a triangle of equal surface area. Unless examined in these four dimensions this order is not evident.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion)
Soap bubbles are perfect spheres so are soap bubbles proof of divine intervention?
Planets are spheres within pretty small error percents , would you be happier on a planet that had no mountains? Would the planet be more perfect for you if we were on a mirror polished surface? "perfect" spheres do exist in Gods universe, but God doesn't seem to be doctrinaire that all shapes be simple.
Sun spots indicate that the Sun is not a uniform temperature. Jupiter has that huge red spot.
Why do these examples of solar and planetary weather strike you as blemishes? The great red spot is a cyclone at least three hundred years in duration, sunspots are clues for our understanding of the solar magnetic engine. Would a featureless planet or a homogeneous Sun be better in some way? Simplicity is nice when you find some but it need not be universal. Look at a color picture of Jupiter , the thing is beautifull.
Cancer is hardly a sign of perfection.
The universe is only minimally orderly. If it were only a tad more disorderly, it would fly apart entirely in a totally disorderly manner.
Each of us is composed of a billion or so cells each cell is complex enough itself to defy explanation in volumes and these interdependent cells form systems and networks which are dynamically complex,and yet most of us experience many years of harmony within this aggregation . WE do not understand quite why we are not always cancerous , or how some Whales , creatures of millions of billions of cells ,can live for centuries .
Just one Cell can loose discipline and become the rogue progenitor of a cancerous growth how is discipline so tight that humans can last decades and turtles or whales can last for centuries and trees can last for thousands? We do not understand how such organisation over such scales is accomplished. Why arn't we all cancerous at early ages? Every day you last your body will exibit more organisation that all human endevor put together has ever accomplished in all time.
In Scripture God promises you that you will only have to die once , the longer you avoid one danger the more likely any other danger becomes for you. If there were no cancer as someday there may not be, you must find some other sort of death.
The Universe has a lot going on at every scale we have ever been able to examine we have found structures , from filiments composed of galaxies lined up in great curves to quanta of energy barely traceable as existing. Do we know why we exist in a universe that is so observable? No we don't, but we discover orginising principals all over the place. At no time has any proof been found that all things can be understood , nor that all things are systematic, one would have to understand all possible order to prove such a thing, one would have to be God to reasonably make the attempt.
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Order and disorder are easy to detect, just as light and darkness are.
Any light means that something is not totally dark.
Any disorder means that something is not totally orderly.
If you say that God's order looks like disorder, I say, no it means that God's order is disorder. You can say that God has a reason for disorder, but you cannot deny that disorder exists.
I can no more deny that disorder exists than you are able to say that order is not universal.
Neither of these are reasonable arguements!
Both require Gods own understanding of what order is possible , which I posit neither of us has .
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If there is no God, then God's understanding is imponderable because of his nonexistence.
You might as well ponder Darth Vader's motives.
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If there is no God, then God's understanding is imponderable because of his nonexistence.
You might as well ponder Darth Vader's motives.
That doesn't dodge the idea that your understanding is less than omnicient.
So any perception of disorder is not proof that order is imperfect, untill the person perceiving the disorder can be certain that he understands all possible orders.
Do you understand all possible sorts of order?
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How many white crows must one find to prove that the statement "All crows are black" is incorrect?
I say one.
There is only ONE way things can be in order. Any disorder, however minor, means that the order is imperfect.
There are many ways in which things can be out of order, but there is only ONE way they can be in order.
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There are many ways in which things can be out of order, but there is only ONE way they can be in order.
There are many ways of putting things in order as well. Take books for example. They can be arranged via the Dewey Decimal system, or alphabetical by title, or alphabetical by author, or alphabetical within publisher. You can also order them by size, by thickness, by color of the cover.
There is no limit to the ways things can be "in order".
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I am not talking about sorting things in different ways, I am talking about the functionality of the universe. A universe in which things operate with the greatest possible degree of harmony would be a perfect universe. One in which comets and asteroids collide and stars blow up is less than perfect.
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I am not talking about sorting things in different ways, I am talking about the functionality of the universe. A universe in which things operate with the greatest possible degree of harmony would be a perfect universe. One in which comets and asteroids collide and stars blow up is less than perfect.
Stars "blow[ing] up" is how heavier elements form planets and in turn our ecosystem. There is an order there, even though you refuse to see it.
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I do not refuse to see it, I simply point out that it is not an orderly way for this to happen. There is a reason why we do not use dynamite to construct buildings.
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There is a reason why we do not use dynamite to construct buildings.
Sure, if there is something there that would interfere with the new building.
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If your building includes stone , you know that explosives were probly used in the quarry.
Supernovas are an absolute requirement for human life to exist.
Should a requirement for neatness find fault with a universe that is dusty from all the anchient explosions?
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I did not say that the universe should be neat. I said that it is NOT neat. It is NOT orderly.
The disorderliness suggests that it was not created by an omnipotent, perfect Deity, capable of creating perfection.
That is my point.
It is also a violation of all the laws of physics the assumption that in the beginning there was nothing at all, and somehow, God created everything from nothing. The ex nihilo creation of the Universe is extremely illogical.
And of course, we know that God did not get it right the first try, because the Bible tells us so. God got do pissed at Mankind that he had a Great Flood and drowned damned near everyone.
Why? Because despite his assumed ability to know the future and to be omnipotent and perfect, he screwed up on the first go, and had to start again.
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Everywhere that humankind can understand order we do find order, anywhere we do not see order does not prove that there is any disorder because there can be order there that we are not understanding yet, if ever.
Gods process of creation need not be well ordered to our eyes to be well ordered for Gods purposes.
You do think that the story of Noahs flood is literally true?
I would feel guilty to argue you out of that.
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You do think that the story of Noahs flood is literally true?
I would feel guilty to argue you out of that.
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There was a flood that wiped out a lot of people when some phenomenon, likely an earthquake, broke the natural dam between the Sea of Marmara, which connects to the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea, which had a lot of cities and towns along its shores, all of which were flooded out rapidly. Perhaps it was raining heavily at the time. That would have seemed like the destruction of a large enough part of the world to develop into a myth of total destruction. There is clear evidence that the Black Sea rose rapidly, and that many communities were flooded.
But no, I do not believe that the entire Earth was flooded. But people who believe in the Bible DO seem to believe it. It indicates that God either was not prescient that Mankind would all become corrupt and need to be destroyed, or that he made a pretty silly mistake by not preventing it. Why create Mankind in a particular way if you know that he will not live up to your expectations? Why wipe out millions of people if you know what sort of people are needed (and apparently God knew that Noah & Co. was a good choice.
Biblical "Scholars" are not true scholars, because they start with the premise that the Bible is entirely true, and apparent discrepancies must be explained. A true scholar assumes that nothing is proven and tries his best to debunk hypotheses one by one until only one remains. You never hear of a Biblical "scholar" trying to disprove anything.
The scientific method to determine the truth is to assume that the truth is unknown, and then to propose hypotheses and attempt to disprove them based on provable facts.
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There is bible arceology, which is the main reason that you know of the giant black sea flood.
If you were a scribe of the era 3000 BC(E) (heh), would you write a journal of events as best you understood them? Would your inscriptions be totally useless 5000 years later?
Try to imagine Gods point of view, is mankind a finished product or a work in progress?
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/ (http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/)
(http://biblicalarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/seal-150x167.jpg)
(http://)http://www.christiananswers.net/archaeology/ (http://www.christiananswers.net/archaeology/)
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There is bible arceology, which is the main reason that you know of the giant black sea flood.
If you were a scribe of the era 3000 BC(E) (heh), would you write a journal of events as best you understood them? Would your inscriptions be totally useless 5000 years later?
Try to imagine Gods point of view, is mankind a finished product or a work in progress?
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After God was through with creating the Garden of Eden, he said "This is good." He did NOT say "they'll be ready after several thousand years".
Or so the Bible says. If the Bible is the word of God, then you have to accept it as that. I don't. Perhaps some of it could be considered a hypothesis, but not all of it.
And no, I know of the Black Sea Flood because of archaeologists who have surveyed ruins under water there that were submerged by a flood.
The Biblical scribe said that GO flooded the entire Earth. If he was divinely inspired, he was still wrong.
To look at things from God's point of view, one must assume that there is a God. Otherwise, it is like looking at things from a unicorn's point of view,. a fire-breathing dragon's point of view, the Flying Spaghetti Monster's point of view.
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After God was through with creating the Garden of Eden, he said "This is good." He did NOT say "they'll be ready after several thousand years".
He didn't say this is finished either.
Or so the Bible says. If the Bible is the word of God, then you have to accept it as that. I don't.
I don't either, that is I don't need to accept your version of what the scripture states, I need to seek the truth starting with prayer and scripture then every other thing I can find out. Perhaps some of it could be considered a hypothesis, but not all of it.
And no, I know of the Black Sea Flood because of archaeologists who have surveyed ruins under water there that were submerged by a flood.
Why do you think they were looking?
The Biblical scribe said that GO flooded the entire Earth. If he was divinely inspired, he was still wrong.
Oh, is this an artifact of language? Or just reason to think that the statements are not absolutely literal? Contrary to popular belief amoung athiests there are few who beleive the entire bible is absolutely litterally expressed.
To look at things from God's point of view, one must assume that there is a God. Otherwise, it is like looking at things from a unicorn's point of view,. a fire-breathing dragon's point of view, the Flying Spaghetti Monster's point of view.
I am indeed asking you to make such an assumption, and no more than a mere assumption can it ever be , Gods real POV includes knowing everything, which neither of us can hope for. Assuming that we can understand a small part of the picture is something that you and I are both already doing.
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Why do you think they were looking?
According to the National Geographic articles that I have read, the Bible was not involved. They were looking for sunken ships, just as they have done in the Mediterranean. They discovered that there are two layers of water in the Black Sea., and that as a result, sea worms have not eaten wooden ships many centuries old. Then they found not only sunken ships, but sunken towns.
The search is still going on.
This began in serious when Russia and Ukraine opened up more to scientific exploration.
God's being omniscient is mere supposition, just like his existence.
You say you start a search for the truth with prayer, but this can also be seen as you beginning your search for the turth beginning with brainwashing yourself into belief into a possibly nonexistent entity.
Once you say that the Bible is not literally true, then it can mean pretty much anything you want it to mean. And that is precisely what people do, which explains why there are so many sects and denominations in what is supposed to be a single true church.
One person prays for guidance, and it tells him to look to the Book of Mormon. Another prays for guidance, and he thinks it tells him to concentrate on the Book of Revelation. Sun Myung Moon spoke with God and discovered that he was the last Messiah.
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It is kinda funny that you think of prayer as brainwashing, I can understand it tho because I understand you the same way.
Do you convince yourself that scripture is foolish before you start reading any?
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I do not try to convince myself of anything. The scientific method is to take a hypothesis and try to disprove it. If you cannot do this, it is more likely to be true.
Biblical scholarship assumes that scripture is true, even if it is somewhat absurd (like two of every animal on the Ark), and then tries to figure out how, despite any apparent absurdity, scripture can be true.
All valid scientific inquiry starts by assuming that the actual truth is unknown. It acknowledges that some of the truth may be unknowable, but it tries to ferret out all the truth anyway.
If you pray to a God before you read the scripture, you are demonstrating that you believe before you even ask any question about the scripture. You will not find valid scientific answers that way.
It is valid to read literature from the standpoint of those for whom it is written. You can read the work of the Romans and Greeks assuming that they believed X, Y and Z about Jupiter, Zeus, Ares or Mars. You can read the Bible assuming that it was written for believers of this or that, to better understand the authors, but that is literary inquiry, not scientific inquiry, as the subjects of the inquiry are the minds and points of view of the authors.
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I do not try to convince myself of anything. The scientific method is to take a hypothesis and try to disprove it. If you cannot do this, it is more likely to be true.
Biblical scholarship assumes that scripture is true, even if it is somewhat absurd (like two of every animal on the Ark), and then tries to figure out how, despite any apparent absurdity, scripture can be true.
All valid scientific inquiry starts by assuming that the actual truth is unknown. It acknowledges that some of the truth may be unknowable, but it tries to ferret out all the truth anyway.
If you pray to a God before you read the scripture, you are demonstrating that you believe before you even ask any question about the scripture. You will not find valid scientific answers that way.
It is valid to read literature from the standpoint of those for whom it is written. You can read the work of the Romans and Greeks assuming that they believed X, Y and Z about Jupiter, Zeus, Ares or Mars. You can read the Bible assuming that it was written for believers of this or that, to better understand the authors, but that is literary inquiry, not scientific inquiry, as the subjects of the inquiry are the minds and points of view of the authors.
Well there you go, read the scriptures as communications from God to regular people , not chemical , mathematical , scientific receipts of reproducible accuracy.
Gods message is about the state you keep your soul , not so much accurate natural history.
There is some scientific insight in the Bible but that is not the subject or purpose of the Bible.
You can use a Ferrari car to plow a feild , but it would be better to use a John Deer tractor which is made for that purpose.
You might puzzle out something about linguistics from the story of the Tower of Babel , much simpler to reference a tome intended for language study.
It is not "scientific" to assume that there is no God , which is a hypothisis you would need Gods cooperation to prove.
God does have a message to you , but he is not apparently intrested in browbeating you , threatening you or even overwhelming you with proof.
Matter of fact there are dozens of scriptures that deal with the value of faith, which is what you need whether you choose to be certain of Gods nonexistance or of his existance.
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What is the value of faith if you believe that the Earth is flat, and lies at the center of the Universe. What is the value of faith if you believe that mental illness is caused by demonic possession, and that the stars predict the future? If you believe these things, you will never arrive at the truth. Unless you know the truth, more truths cannot be discovered.
Take leprosy. A curse from God in the Bible. Someone assumed that it was simply a disease, caused by a bacteria. The bacteria was isolated and a way of curing it was discovered.
All worthwhile scientific discoveries begin with the assumption that nothing is known. Then you start with a hypothesis and try to disprove it. So if you wish to study God, you take his existence as a hypothesis and then attempt to disprove it.
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I read the Bible assuming that it was written by some human beings and translated by others into English. If it were written by an all-knowing perfect God, it would certainly be easier to understand. It says that a cloth of linen and wool may not be worn, but it does not say why. It does not explain why some locusts are Kosher and others are trayf (non Kosher).
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All worthwhile scientific discoveries begin with the assumption that nothing is known. Then you start with a hypothesis and try to disprove it. So if you wish to study God, you take his existence as a hypothesis and then attempt to disprove it.
Yes, do that.
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(http://s3.silent-tower.org/icegiants.jpg)
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Actually, the proper method would be to assume that no entity exists unless there is evidence that it does, in fact exist.
One of the rules of logic is that you cannot prove a negative. You can observe that there are no unicorns or fire-breathing dragons. but you cannot prove that they never have existed. you were to find some strange fossils, perhaps you could prove that they once existed.
The absence of Ice Giants is most likely due to the fact that there never were any Ice Giants in the first place.
The burden of proof for God's existence, like the burden of proof for the existence of unicorns, fire-breathing dragons, and even the Flying Spaghetti Monster, rests upon the believers to prove.
Jesus, it appears, has yet to abolish wicked people. He should, at the very least, tell his Daddy to stop making them. They are, after all, mortal.
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Jesus absolutely never said that Christians would ever suffer any lack of wicked persons untill the end of the world.
I note a total lack of intrest in what Jesus actually did promise.
As far as Earthly situation ...http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24&version=NIV (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24&version=NIV)
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.
Now how could you get this with any derth of wicked people?
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I believe that Jesus promised to return and rule for a thousand years in peace and harmony. He has not popped in so far, but this rather implies that the wicked will be eliminated. This is in the Book of Revelation.
At the end of the peaceful thousand-years reign, THEN the Earth will, according to Revelations, be turned over to Satan. No explanation for this is given.
All this is a diversion from the topic of Biblical "scholarship" vs the scientific method, which is an improvement of the pursuit of the truth and has produced superior results. At least superior visible results.
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A thousand years of peacefull reign proves a point, but why do you call it a promise made by Jesus?
After a thousand years of the most benevolent dictatorship possible , people would still accept temptation and do wrong.
Think of in terms of being a thought experirnent.
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http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20:3-5&version=NIV (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+20:3-5&version=NIV)
4 I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They[a] had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
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I consider Revelation to be the rantings of a disturbed mind, by the way.
Not a thought experiment.
Not gonna happen.
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You might get it better , if you realised yourself as a thought experiment .
The word of God is real, we are ephemeral.
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http://www.nicky510.com/comics/2011-09-19OlfGodisArt.png (http://www.nicky510.com/comics/2011-09-19OlfGodisArt.png)
(http://www.nicky510.com/comics/2011-09-19OlfGodisArt.png)
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Quote from: Xavier_Onassis on October 06, 2011, 12:47:49 AM
All worthwhile scientific discoveries begin with the assumption that nothing is known. Then you start with a hypothesis and try to disprove it. So if you wish to study God, you take his existence as a hypothesis and then attempt to disprove it.
Actually, the proper method would be to assume that no entity exists unless there is evidence that it does, in fact exist.
You know ,I like the first method much better.
So science depends a lot on preference?
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No, science depends on logic, and one of the prime rules of logic is that you cannot prove a negative.
You cannot prove that there are no unicorns, fire-breathing dragons, jackalopes or deities.
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No, science depends on logic, and one of the prime rules of logic is that you cannot prove a negative.
You cannot prove that there are no unicorns, fire-breathing dragons, jackalopes or deities.
Unicorns are Narwhales , the bombardeer beetle sprays boiling acid, the real jackalope is called the Dik-dik in its native land and you would have nothing to say if God had not created you.
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Unicorns are not Narwhals. They have four legs.
Beetles are not dragons.
A jackalope is a rodent, not an African deer.
And there is no proof that God created anyone.
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Unicorns are not Narwhals. They have four legs.
Beetles are not dragons.
A jackalope is a rodent, not an African deer.
And there is no proof that God created anyone.
Picky picky, Each of these is real and proves the concept is not impossible . What were you asking proof to be?
BTW Jackrabits are not rodents they are more like a hare, the dik dik is an antelope the size of a jackrabbit , how much closer does it need to be?
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Damara_Dik-Dik.JPG/800px-Damara_Dik-Dik.JPG)(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Feldhase.jpg)
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You are correct, jackrabbits are hares. All rabbits and all hares are lagomorphs. A dik dik is of the genus bovidae, and has no antlers. The mythical jackalope has antlers.
I was not discussing concepts. I simply said that you cannot prove the nonexistence of even mythical creatures. Proving the existence is similar actual creatures is not the same thing.
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You are correct, jackrabbits are hares. All rabbits and all hares are lagomorphs. A dik dik is of the genus bovidae, and has no antlers. The mythical jackalope has antlers.
I was not discussing concepts. I simply said that you cannot prove the nonexistence of even mythical creatures. Proving the existence is similar actual creatures is not the same thing.
Gods fingerprints are on everything, but I guess that proving the existance requires more evidence than any criminal trial jury would require.
Proving that Centaurs do not exist would be possible by proving that the horse size body couldn't be kept fed by a human size set of teeth.
Is the concept a possibility or an impossibility?
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YOU SEE God's fingerprints on everything, because you believe that God created everything. God makes few personal appearances.
I don't see any use in debating centaurs or any mythical animals.
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YOU SEE God's fingerprints on everything, because you believe that God created everything. God makes few personal appearances.
I don't see any use in debating centaurs or any mythical animals.
You brought them up!
I should not win this easily that point.
Some concepts can be proven impossible , some cannot.
An Elf living for a few centurys would be no more impossible than tortorses or whales doing so.
A Dragon is only diffrent in detail from a Crocadile or a petrodactal, that a beetle can toss superheated fluid proves only that an unlikly concept is not an impossibility.
Zombies, as it turns out, have really been running around in Hati for a long time , but the details are not in agreement with the movies.
Giant human shaped creatures would not work above a certain size , the laws of strength increase in squares and the laws of mass increase in cubes so a Goliath of twelve feet is plausable but not a giant much bigger, somewhere around fifteen feet tall true impossibility sets in. Bipedal Dinosaurs do not resemble humans in shape well enough to demonstrate diffrently. Even with the dinosaurs there appears to have been a maximum practical and perhaps a minimum impossible size, they were exploreing the limits of that envelope.
As a concept, an all encompassing intelligence without any knowable limit might seem unlikly to you, but what is supposed to be impossible about it?
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The usual reason why people say they believe in a Creator is that the universe is too complex to be created.
But a creator capable of creating the universe would be even MORE complex.
And would also have to be created.
A self-creating universe is easier for me to believe than a self creating or eternal creator.
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The usual reason why people say they believe in a Creator is that the universe is too complex to be created.
But a creator capable of creating the universe would be even MORE complex.
And would also have to be created.
A self-creating universe is easier for me to believe than a self creating or eternal creator.
Isn't that a paradox for you?
Certain that something was self created.
You hold the opinion that it is more likely free of thought than intelligent?
It is complex either way, either caotic ,or too complex for us to understand the order.
When we find regularity and order what is this evidence of?
I think of the universe as a subset of Gods thought.
I don't know if I am right , but I am if God thinks so.
I need to ask him.
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I don't know if I am right , but I am if God thinks so.
As Rush Limbaugh once heard his tailor say, " That is a very big but."
I need to ask him.
A good idea, but he seems to have been rendered speechless. Carry a fire extinguisher with you, so you can tell God in the guise of flaming shrubbery from other talking foliage, that might be Satan in disguise.
What is more likely? A self-creating Universe, or a self-creating Creator, who created it?
It seems to be one or the other, but of course, there are other possibilities:
(1) The Universe has always existed, and oscillates between the Big Bang and the Big Squeeze and has always done so.
(2) The Universe is God, which is rather like the first supposition, but with more morality and a defined purpose.
(3) God created the Universe out of Himself. Which seems to contradict that we were made in His image, since we certainly do not look like we could spare extra parts. God, despite the belief that we look like Him, chose to appear, not as an exceptionally perfect and large human, but as a burning bush, for undefined reasons.
I still see the existence of God and his nature to be speculation.
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It is not speculation to God himself , who can indeed make himself felt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekhinah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekhinah)
Of course you would just apply the fire extinguisher.
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The proverbial burning bush, was burning, but not consuming the bush.
The fire extinguisher would put out any normal burning bushes you might chance to meet, even talking ones.
If it was not put out, then you would know it was the Real Deal Deity.
That, and perhaps the voice of James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, or George Burns.
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The proverbial burning bush, was burning, but not consuming the bush.
The fire extinguisher would put out any normal burning bushes you might chance to meet, even talking ones.
I would expect you, even so, to look for the trick or the scientific explanation.
And that is not too bad, Moses himself was not really eager.
Science is worth the effort , but it will never explain the world , the universe and everything.
An expanding fraction against infinity is the best that can be expected.
God starts from the other end of that process, having all understanding he must compress a lot to adress us.
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Science is worth the effort , but it will never explain the world , the universe and everything.
An expanding fraction against infinity is the best that can be expected.
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Knowledge, including science, is its own reward.Of course we will never understand everything, but just look at how much we have learned in the last 50 years. The more we know, the better we can relate to the Earth and universe around us.
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Science is worth the effort , but it will never explain the world , the universe and everything.
An expanding fraction against infinity is the best that can be expected.
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Knowledge, including science, is its own reward.Of course we will never understand everything, but just look at how much we have learned in the last 50 years. The more we know, the better we can relate to the Earth and universe around us.
This doesn't seem to be so.
The Human Race was in better communion with nature and more a part of it centurys ago with much less science.
I still like science , but it seems to be misused as often as not.
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The Human Race was in better communion with nature and more a part of it centurys ago with much less science.
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What is the proof of that? We know what life expectancy of ancient humans was. They lived short, brutish lives.
Dying of a bacterial infection and rotting into the soil at the age of 28 is not my idea of "better communion with nature" in any way I would like to commune with it.
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The Human Race was in better communion with nature and more a part of it centurys ago with much less science.
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What is the proof of that? We know what life expectancy of ancient humans was. They lived short, brutish lives.
Dying of a bacterial infection and rotting into the soil at the age of 28 is not my idea of "better communion with nature" in any way I would like to commune with it.
Six centurys ago we lived a lifestyle that the planet could have supported forever.
We presently live a lifestyle that must change as we exaust resorce after resorce.
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I prefer to live now, thank you very much.
If this were 1411, odds are we would have both died of something by now: wars, disease, famines and plagues.
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Getting back to the subject of King Tut's DNA, does anyone realize that Steve Martin has more of it than anyone else on earth?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wgTPH5y1-ZI#t=138s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wgTPH5y1-ZI#t=138s)
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I wonder what King Tut would have said to see Martin's act.
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"Off with his head?"
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I think Tut would simply be baffled.