Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76.

[RoadRunner79]

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So what?   Does that mean that they are unjustly biased?  It seems to me, that we are both biased, but what matters, is if we are unjustly so.   Would you agree?

For as often, as I hear that Christians are just in an echo chamber (as ironic as that is; to say to Christians who come here).  I don't find that Christians are the ones who dismiss things, because of their source!

I thought I would look at this, so I picked a link at random, I choose this one.

http://coldcasechristianity.com/2018/a-b...oboration/

Here we have someone who claims to be some kind of cold case investigator and I went to the first example of his ‘proof’ here is the passage .

*Related to Belshazzar
The existence of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, was once doubted by critics. Belshazzar is named in Daniel 5, but according to the non-Biblical historic record, the last king of Babylon was Nabonidus. Tablets have been discovered, however, describing Belshazzar as Nabonidus’ son and documenting his service as coregent in Babylon. If this is the case, Belshazzar would have been able to appoint Daniel “third highest ruler in the kingdom” for reading the handwriting on the wall (as recorded in Daniel 5:16). This would have been the highest available position for Daniel. Here, once again, we see the historicity of the Biblical record has been confirmed by archaeology.

From link above and italics mine*

Lets break it down a little…

The existence of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, was once doubted by critics. Belshazzar is named in Daniel 5, but according to the non-Biblical historic record, the last king of Babylon was Nabonidus. Tablets have been discovered, however, describing Belshazzar as Nabonidus’ son and documenting his service as coregent in Babylon.

He completely ignores that the bible says that he was the son of Nebuchadnezzar.
He (Belshazzar), was never actually King as listed in Daniel.
Nabonidus  is not mentioned in the bible.

He then goes on to say..

Here, once again, we see the historicity of the Biblical record has been confirmed by archaeology.

How?  no it hasn’t we see the usual theist practice of simply declaring something as true

That took me longer to cut and paste than to find clear flaws in. and was the very first one I read.

This is decent read of Daniel..

https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblica...#ref597863

For many centuries the apocalyptic character of the Book of Daniel was overlooked, and it was generally considered to be true history, containing genuine prophecy. In fact, the book was included among the prophetic books in the Greek canon. It is now recognized, however, that the writer’s knowledge of the exilic times was sketchy and inaccurate. His date for the fall of Jerusalem, for example, is wrong; Belshazzar is represented as the son of Nebuchadrezzar and the last king of Babylon, whereas he was actually the son of Nabonidus and, though a powerful figure, was never king……..

This is the kind of thing we are up against when we look at 'biblical proofs' That wouldn't be so bad, inaccuracies, and getting it just wrong is explainable in archaeology, but when we are also faced with the claim that a mighty god (who cannot get things wrong)  inspired and protected these accounts, it's then we have a problem.

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If it is true, that it took you longer to cut and paste that, then to spot the error, then I am going to assume that you are far more familiar with the intricacies of this part of history than I.  I'll admit that I haven't spent a great deal of time studying this area (to be able to spot an error so quickly) but I am interested and like to get all the information.   Such discussions are good, because they incentivize me to dig deeper into things.

To get technical, Belshazzar was the descendant of Nebuchadrezzar  .  One of the things, that I have learned in my studies of the Bible, is that the Hebrew language has a much smaller vocabulary than Greek or English.  Therefore one word my have a range of meanings, that may not match in a language with a broader vocabulary.  I have had this explained before in unrelated matters, and when I looked up the Hebrew word {ab}, in my software it does give a definition of father, as well as predecessor or forefather. 

As to Belshazzar being King;  this is not quite as cut and dry as you might like either.  Belshazzar's father (Nabonidus) was technically King.  And it appears that he was a very absent King, as his father preferred to travel and study old buildings, leaving Belshazzar to rule.

According to the Book of Daniel Belshazzar was called the “King” of Babylon. This claim hase been assailed by anti-Daniel critics (not Farrel Till) who point out the fact that Nabonidus was still king of Babylon officially as long as he was still alive. –Archaeological Experts point point out that Belshazzar “stood in as temporary ruler” in his father’s absence. One could say he was a stand in king. They also point out:

Further vindication of Daniel’s calling Belshazzar the king of Babylon is found in ancient text of  (which is pro-Cyrus propaganda). In talking about Nabonidus it says:

After he had obtained what he desired, a work of utter deceit, had built this abomination, a work of unholiness -when the third year was about to begin- he entrusted the army [?] to his oldest son, his first born, the troops in the country he ordered under his command. He let everything go, entrusted the kingship to him, and, himself, he started out for a long journey. The military forces of Akkad marching with him, he turned to Temâ deep in the west.

For a fuller explanation for both of these see https://explanationblog.wordpress.com/20...hadnezzar/

Here is the authors conclusion

The conclusion of this post is that there is no historical problem about Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. Perhaps a blood-relationship will indeed be proved in the future or perhaps the meanings of the terms father and son as “predecessor” and “successor” are really all we need to resolve any so-called “problem” in Daniel about this person.  — Also, I want to point to the lack of knowledge about Belshazzar out side of the Bible until the 19th century as proof of the books authenticity. Furthermore, the claims that Daniel made a mistake in identifying Belshazzar as the “son” of Nebuchadnezzar are nothing more than critical grumblings that were began when skeptics were forced to eat crow when it it was discovered that Daniel’s mention of a previously unknown Babylonian ruler had been vindicated.

Thanks, I always find it enjoyable;  digging into these things.  And if you are interested in further reading, I would recommend the Word Press link above.

[Shell B]

Well, that went as it usually does.

[vorlon13]

It's almost as though Shell B is psychic . . .

[Shell B]

It's almost as though Shell B is psychic . . .

Would that the explanation be that good.

[Succubus]

...The main issue that I am aware of, is the exodus, which revolves around some disagreements about dates.  Those holding to later dates, saying that their isn't evidence, and those who figure on earlier dates saying that there is support (along with Jericho that follows).  The other major disagreement with the exodus (even considering a earlier date) , is with the number of people.   And there are some reasonable explanations here as well... 

The issue is not some disagreements about dates, the issue is logistics.

An army of 600,000 men.
Plus 600,000 wife’s.
2.3 children per family.
Plus an unknown number of non combatants. The elderly, the injured, the shepherds and herdsmen.

I think we're looking at close to three million people here.
Canaan was about 150 miles away so if this column of people were marching eight abreast with just one metre between rows the column would be 200 miles long. The front of the column would be 50 miles into the promised land while those at the rear, eight days later due to transit time, were still throwing stones at the Egyptians.
The average depth of the Red Sea is ~700 metres with coral reefs and fuck knows what else to navigate on both sides, with wagons full of old grannies and woman having babies. How many goats, sheep, oxen, horses?

OK, they are now on the other side. A camp area for this many people would be ~750 square miles and they would require ~1,500 tons of food per day and a million fucking gallons of water.




It didn't happen, and I'm fucked if I know how an educated person can believe it did.

[Jehanne]

Alexander the Great's army was only 40K or so men, give or take 10K.

[possibletarian]

The conclusion of this post is that there is no historical problem about Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. Perhaps a blood-relationship will indeed be proved in the future or perhaps the meanings of the terms father and son as “predecessor” and “successor” are really all we need to resolve any so-called “problem” in Daniel about this person.  — Also, I want to point to the lack of knowledge about Belshazzar out side of the Bible until the 19th century as proof of the books authenticity. Furthermore, the claims that Daniel made a mistake in identifying Belshazzar as the “son” of Nebuchadnezzar are nothing more than critical grumblings that were began when skeptics were forced to eat crow when it it was discovered that Daniel’s mention of a previously unknown Babylonian ruler had been vindicated.

Goodness me i love it to

Lets look at the conclusion, lets break it down though I'm surprised to find you are once again resorting to  a christian post on word press.  *bold and italics mine*

The conclusion of this post is that there is no historical problem about Belshazzar in the book of Daniel.

Okay.. lets look...

Perhaps a blood-relationship will indeed be proved in the future

or perhaps the meanings of the terms father and son as “predecessor” and “successor”

Perhaps is hardly a sound conclusion is it now ?

Also, I want to point to the lack of knowledge about Belshazzar out side of the Bible until the 19th century as proof of the books authenticity.

Well yes and no, it has many other problems the lack of mention of the king(s), there were four between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus not mentioned, dates around the fall of Jerusalem etc.  You would expect some historical documents to have things that others do not.

the claims that Daniel made a mistake in identifying Belshazzar as the “son” of Nebuchadnezzar are nothing more than critical grumblings that were began when skeptics were forced to eat crow when it it was discovered that Daniel’s mention of a previously unknown Babylonian ruler had been vindicated.

Well no, good historians only add things to history that they have reasonable reason to do so, and it's absolutely true Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar (without some mental gymnastics that is)

Now this is the problem we have Theists tend to point to the bits of the bible that have been proven true like the existence of Belshazzar to then claim that the whole bible can be trusted, even though there are clear problems, and when faced with these problems have to write whole reams of excuses lots of 'maybe's' or 'perhaps' (as in the post above) . This is fine when speculating archaeological  meanings of finds.  

This is not however what theists claim, they claim the scriptures to be divinely inspired by a god who knows all, see's all, and has protected that text. To prove that's not the case everything would have to be true and accurate.

You need the whole of scripture to be true to prove your case. I am interested in how you would define a 'reasonable explanation' when dealing with the seeming? disparity between scripture and what we discover, when is it not a reasonable explanation.. to you at least ?

[RoadRunner79]

...The main issue that I am aware of, is the exodus, which revolves around some disagreements about dates.  Those holding to later dates, saying that their isn't evidence, and those who figure on earlier dates saying that there is support (along with Jericho that follows).  The other major disagreement with the exodus (even considering a earlier date) , is with the number of people.   And there are some reasonable explanations here as well... 

The issue is not some disagreements about dates, the issue is logistics.

An army of 600,000 men.
Plus 600,000 wife’s.
2.3 children per family.
Plus an unknown number of non combatants. The elderly, the injured, the shepherds and herdsmen.

I think we're looking at close to three million people here.
Canaan was about 150 miles away so if this column of people were marching eight abreast with just one metre between rows the column would be 200 miles long. The front of the column would be 50 miles into the promised land while those at the rear, eight days later due to transit time, were still throwing stones at the Egyptians.
The average depth of the Red Sea is ~700 metres with coral reefs and fuck knows what else to navigate on both sides, with wagons full of old grannies and woman having babies. How many goats, sheep, oxen, horses?

OK, they are now on the other side. A camp area for this many people would be ~750 square miles and they would require ~1,500 tons of food per day and a million fucking gallons of water.




It didn't happen, and I'm fucked if I know how an educated person can believe it did.

I think that these are valid points, and I'm certainly sympathetic to them.   I think I've normally heard estimates of 1.5 to 2 million instead of 3, but that doesn't help much at all.

There are some who I think make a pretty good case concerning the word which is translated into 1000.   Again it has to do with the semantics and the range of meaning of the word eleph.  While it came to be used mostly in regards to a military group and eventually to mean 1000, it started as a description for a group of cattle, and later a much smaller military grouping.

I've not gotten into a very wide spread study concerning this, but it seems reasonable that over the years, and through changes of language, or even translations, that this may have come to be misunderstood.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yes. And for something to be at all plausible within the realm of science it has to be falsfiable... and all evidence is empirical, and empirical evidence is exactly what science deals with.

OK, you're merely dressing up materialism.

That's not an an argument and it has nothing to do with materialism... it would still apply if idealism is true (and maybe it is?).

Wrong. As soon as something is unfalsifiable it's outside the natural world and therefore non-empirical and therefore there's impossible to have evidence of it within our natural world... which is the only world we live in.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/

Popper accordingly repudiates induction and rejects the view that it is the characteristic method of scientific investigation and inference, substituting falsifiability in its place. It is easy, he argues, to obtain evidence in favour of virtually any theory, and he consequently holds that such ‘corroboration’, as he terms it, should count scientifically only if it is the positive result of a genuinely ‘risky’ prediction, which might conceivably have been false.

This doesn't apply to things outside the natural world. He's talking about science in case you didn't notice.

And his point is that whereas there can be evidence from other theories... falsifaiblity is the best approach and this is why it is now the standard of science. Other forms of evidence are not considered scientific anymore... that was my point there.

If you want to claim that the evidence you have is unfalsifable and unscientific still weak evidence then that's one thing... but to claim that it's evidence of something outside the natural world is another. It can't be. There is no theory of science that addresses things outside the natural world. You know this so your point is simply a red herring.

Furthermore, other theories can also be interpreted from a point of view of falsfiability... to say that you can take the approach of confirmation and that can work as well doesn't mean it couldn't work even better through falsfiaiblity. Neither can apply to God because God doesn't even reside in the natural world.

I believe in causality outside of the known universe but I don't pretend that there is evidence of that like you do. If you wanna call that faith simply because it is belief without evidence that is one thing: But I wouldn't call basing a belief no less probable than improbable based on all information we can ever possibly gather (none) to be faith.

This is not the case with God. With God you are postulating a complex entity outside the universe that is unknowable by definition but also has certain characterisics... it's all very unparsimonious. It's not like you're having faith in A as opposed to not A when not A is no less parsimonious than A. I wouldn't call that faith. The A you choose as opposed to the not A is a complex entity rather than no complex entity. That requires evidence and you're just going completely against Occam's razor.

P.S. No one is on block for me now. I will get back to talking to Khem and Roadrunner but once someone starts repeatedly ignoring all my points in one particular thread I'll start ignoring them in that particular thread... while making it clear that I'm ignoring them because they're ignoring my points so it's pointless discussing with them.

I have to remind myself why I have these debates. It's not just because I want to correct and be corrected... it's because I want to correct and be corrected and if the one person or I is corrected I want the person who is incorrect to be willing to acknowledge it and to actually want to learn from the discussion.

If someone has repeatedly demonstrated that they are not trying to be helpful in a discussion... I will ignore them in that thread and tell them that's why: Because they not only ignored my points but showed no interest in stopping doing so. So the discussion simply becomes a waste of time and energy for the both of us.

I have also decided that from now on I will kudos people for being helpful in a debate whether I agree with them or not. Form now on kudos doesn't mean simply "I agree with this post." It can simply mean "I'm particularly enjoying this debate because it seems to me like we're actually debating properly".

[John V]

OK, you're merely dressing up materialism.

That's not an an argument.

Sure it is. You said previously, "You're literally believing in something that there can't possibly be any evidence of." We've now seen that you base this on a priori materialism.

This doesn't apply to things outside the natural world. He's talking about science in case you didn't notice.

And his point is that whereas there can be evidence from other theories... falsifaiblity is the best approach and this is why it is now the standard of science. Other forms of evidence are not considered scientific anymore... that was my point there.

If you want to claim that the evidence you have is unfalsifable and unscientific still weak evidence then that's one thing... but to claim that it's evidence of something outside the natural world is another. It can't be. There is no theory of science that addresses things outside the natural world. You know this so your point is simply a red herring.

More materialism. Nothing more.