Disproving the Bible

[Tonus]

A body I do would not expect, but Moses is supposed to have: caused the death of the first born son of every Egyptian, escaped with 600,000 slaves, wiped out the Egyptian army, and wandered the desert with 600,000 people for 40 years. Yes I would expect some Egyptian record of that and some archeological record of the 40 years.

Many more than that. Exodus 12:37 claims 600,000 men. The women and children weren't included in that number. If we assume that there was one woman and one child for each man, you now have 1,800,000 people. It's not a stretch to think that there may have been more than two million according to the story.

And they didn't leave a trace.

[Jenny A]

No offense but it sounds like you need Remedial Science classes.

For example, two siblings repopulating the Earth isn't disproved by Genetics? wtf dude.

Noah had three sons. They all had wives, so the Mitochondrial Eve would have been further back. It would seem that Noah would be the Y-chromosomal Adam if these genetic theories are correct.

No not even likely. Animals that descend from a very small number of antecedents share a whole host of traits humans do not. Cheetahs are one of those species and they are in real genetic trouble. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrar/...01_cheetah
The human genome is quite diverse.

I know that the genetic Adam and Eve nomenclature is confusing. But it doesn't mean what you think it does. The last common male ancestor to humanity lived between 150-300 thousand years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam The last common female genetic ancestor probably lived much longer ago. There's no evidence that they lived at the same time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

[The Grand Nudger]

@Tonus
Understandable. If you're gonna tell a tall tale about a desert vacation - you probably wouldn't waste too much time describing your luggage.

[Jenny A]

See, it doesn't actually matter to Steve whether or not he's on firm ground. All that matters, is that he thinks that he has something to add to the conversation. Talking at people, and not to them or with them. None of this is even important to him, because it doesn't inform his faith.

Fucking charlatan.

Wow. You have some real anger issues. I have no illusions about trying to convince you of anything. As I stated in another thread, I am new to this and wanted to discuss it with people who would argue the points. What better place to come to than this forum where there is obviously no mercy? I didn't think it would get so personal, but now I know better and I have adjusted my expectations...

You seem to have missed what the anger is about. You do not respond to criticism of your ideas, you just cut and paste in a new topic. It doesn't make for good discussion. Its evasion. Eventually it gets old.

More importantly Rhythm is probably right. You don't believe because of anything you've posted. Why is it that you SteveII believe?

[SteveII]

Contingency Argument (as explained by WLC)
1. Anything that exists has an explanation of its existence (either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause).

According to premise 1 there are two kinds of things: (a) things which exist necessarily and (b) things which exist contingently. Things which exist necessarily exist by a necessity of their own nature. Many mathematicians think that numbers, sets, and other mathematical entities exist in this way. They’re not caused to exist by something else; they just exist by the necessity of their own nature. By contrast, contingent things are caused to exist by something else. They exist because something else has produced them. Familiar physical objects like people, planets, and galaxies belong in this category.

What determination did you make to come to the conclusion that there's only two types of things? Or that things which exist necessarily can go beyond simple abstractions?

More importantly, numbers and mathematical entities don't exist in any real sense, they're functions of the human mind's attempt to quantify things for ease of communication. You and WLC are making the same mistake, of thinking that numbers exist in some abstract sense beyond human consciousness, that two equals two because there's some concept of two existing independently of minds that imposes itself upon pairs of things, rather than because that's what we've labelled any grouping of one more than one thing, but one less than three things. Numbers don't exist at all, they're a part of our language, and nothing more. Don't mistake conceptual things for things that actually exist independent of conscious thought.

And now you've got a problem, because you haven't established that anything is in the "exists necessarily" category. Even if we had just accepted that numbers were in it, you still hadn't bothered establishing that gods would be too. You seem to have real trouble with demonstrating your claims in general, actually. You make a lot of assertions, but merely saying something is so doesn't make it so: if you think it does, then there's a third category, "things that exist not," where only things that can never possibly exist ever are, and god is a part of that category. See how that's a problem?

Can you tell me what other types of things might exist that don't fall in these categories?

God would fall into the category of "in the necessity by its own nature". Any being worthy of the title of God would have to have the property of always existing.

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.

If the universe has a cause of its existence, that cause must be a non-physical, immaterial being beyond space and time. Now there are only two sorts of thing that could fit that description: either an abstract object like a number or else an unembodied mind. But abstract objects can’t cause anything. So the cause of the existence of the universe must be a transcendent Mind, which is what believers understand God to be.

The issue here is that all the things you say "must" be attributes of the cause of existence, haven't been demonstrated to be the cause of existence. You're just saying words, and providing no evidence to back it up. Now, most of us here are familiar enough with WLC's brand of apologetics to know what the actual argument is for this, but he, like you, makes the mistake of thinking that just asserting attributes as "necessary" makes that the case. He argues by defining his conclusions as things that absolutely must happen, but you can't simply wrap a demand that an argument is true around a bunch of assertions and then walk away: there needs to be some demonstration that the argument is true, or else all you've done is say a bunch of words, label those words as true because you want them to be, and then expect everyone else to disprove them.

Anyone can do that. It's not hard. It's also not persuasive.

Okay, are you saying that the universe has no cause or there are other possible causes for the universe? If your position is that there are other causes for the universe, don't you have the problem if just moving back the causal chain one step (or a million). Or do you think some sort of universe generator existed into the infinite past?

[Bibliofagus]

God would fall into the category of "in the necessity by its own nature". Any being worthy of the title of God would have to have the property of always existing.

How do you know the universe doesn't fall in this 'category'?

[The Grand Nudger]

Any being worthy of the title of God would have to have the property of always existing.

I disagree, why do you hold this to be true?

If the universe has a cause of its existence, that cause must be a non-physical, immaterial being beyond space and time.

I disagree, why do you hold this to be true?

[SteveII]

The Hebrew Torah has been around (in Hebrew) since the 5th century BC.

No. We are not misunderstanding each other. You are being deliberately obtuse. You are making this claim and I am demanding that you provide tangible evidence of it. We have fragments of the septuagint which pre-date the Dead Sea Scrolls which are the oldest versions of "hebrew" scriptures.

http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/featured-scrolls

The discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls in a remote Judean Desert cave in 1947 is widely considered the greatest archaeological event of the twentieth century. Bedouin treasure hunters and archaeologists ultimately found the remains of hundreds of ancient scrolls. These fragile pieces of parchment and papyrus, including the oldest existing copies of the Hebrew Bible,

Now, you are asserting that this shit existed in "hebrew" in the 5th century and I'm saying it is time to put up or shut up. Let's see the evidence.

What I meant to say is that of books that eventually comprise what we call the OT have been copied for centuries or even millennium. The fact that we don't have a copy that old does not mean that older copies didn't exist. How accurate are the copies seem to be the pertinent question. I was trying to point out that the Jews had a process to minimize mistakes. How accurate could the existing copies be?? That would be impossible to know. However, we do know that the Jews believed that they had accurate copies and accredited authorship of these copies to individuals at least up to the first century.

[FatAndFaithless]

What determination did you make to come to the conclusion that there's only two types of things? Or that things which exist necessarily can go beyond simple abstractions?

More importantly, numbers and mathematical entities don't exist in any real sense, they're functions of the human mind's attempt to quantify things for ease of communication. You and WLC are making the same mistake, of thinking that numbers exist in some abstract sense beyond human consciousness, that two equals two because there's some concept of two existing independently of minds that imposes itself upon pairs of things, rather than because that's what we've labelled any grouping of one more than one thing, but one less than three things. Numbers don't exist at all, they're a part of our language, and nothing more. Don't mistake conceptual things for things that actually exist independent of conscious thought.

And now you've got a problem, because you haven't established that anything is in the "exists necessarily" category. Even if we had just accepted that numbers were in it, you still hadn't bothered establishing that gods would be too. You seem to have real trouble with demonstrating your claims in general, actually. You make a lot of assertions, but merely saying something is so doesn't make it so: if you think it does, then there's a third category, "things that exist not," where only things that can never possibly exist ever are, and god is a part of that category. See how that's a problem?

Can you tell me what other types of things might exist that don't fall in these categories?

God would fall into the category of "in the necessity by its own nature". Any being worthy of the title of God would have to have the property of always existing.

2. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.

If the universe has a cause of its existence, that cause must be a non-physical, immaterial being beyond space and time. Now there are only two sorts of thing that could fit that description: either an abstract object like a number or else an unembodied mind. But abstract objects can’t cause anything. So the cause of the existence of the universe must be a transcendent Mind, which is what believers understand God to be.

The issue here is that all the things you say "must" be attributes of the cause of existence, haven't been demonstrated to be the cause of existence. You're just saying words, and providing no evidence to back it up. Now, most of us here are familiar enough with WLC's brand of apologetics to know what the actual argument is for this, but he, like you, makes the mistake of thinking that just asserting attributes as "necessary" makes that the case. He argues by defining his conclusions as things that absolutely must happen, but you can't simply wrap a demand that an argument is true around a bunch of assertions and then walk away: there needs to be some demonstration that the argument is true, or else all you've done is say a bunch of words, label those words as true because you want them to be, and then expect everyone else to disprove them.

Anyone can do that. It's not hard. It's also not persuasive.

Okay, are you saying that the universe has no cause or there are other possible causes for the universe? If your position is that there are other causes for the universe, don't you have the problem if just moving back the causal chain one step (or a million). Or do you think some sort of universe generator existed into the infinite past?

Also, saying that we do not accept your God explanation for the universe is not the assertion of another method, you just haven't met the burden of proof for your claim. Even the ideas of time and eternity might be moot before the point of the big bang, as it's impossible for us (for now at least) to look back further than that. Your concept of time is entirely based on your experience with time as you understand it, and we don't understand time at the point of or before the big bang (or if it even existed as we define it), so you're making assertions about things that not only you don't know, but at this point in our history it's not possible to know.

[SteveII]

Other than the flat earth (which I don't have any idea what you are talking about) and the 6 days of creation (which has already been discussed having different legit interpretations) none of these things have been disproved. What you would have to disprove is the existence of God and that is not on your list Godslayer.

While the myth of the flood is common around the world there was no global flood in the history of the real world. There might have been flood myths in your particular tradition, but we are concerned with the history of the real world. And in such context there was no Noah, no ark, no flood. Ignoring the fact that the myth is borrowed, almost verbatim, from earlier myths (such as the epic of Gilgamesh, which predates the earliest dating of the bible by over one thousand years) the idea of it happening is absurd and impossible. It does not require the non-existence of God to say this. God may or may not still exist and the accuracy of a flood myth would have no bearing on that.

Also population genetics do cast the idea of two people being the source of humanity into serious doubt, and that's a generous way of phrasing it. The idea of a virgin birth is ridiculous for similar reasons, in that a woman by herself does not have the genetic material to make a baby. This was understandably not know at the time the gospels were composed, but there is little excuse today.

As to walking on water, maybe Jesus was the Flash. But I doubt it. The Flash had a cooler suit

Since I am not a scientist and it is not one of my hobbies, I can't judge the content of some of the articles I read. Can you tell me why this article is scientifically wrong or does not match the facts?

http://creation.com/noah-and-genetics