The Statler Waldorf Balcony

[Rev. Rye]

Sweet I called it! You did use the "Primitive Egyptians were smarter than modern Egyptians" argument! You're getting very predictable. Since these primitive Egyptians were so smart in your eyes why did they also believe in gods and the super-natural? Or were they only "smart" when they agreed with you?

Well, "primitive Egyptians" were certainly smarter about the time period they lived in than their descendants were about that very same period by virtue of having lived in it. And quite honestly, I, as somebody with functioning brain cells, tend to defer to primary sources when it comes to matters of history.

And they believed in the super-natural because it was in ancient times and there wasn't much in the way of alternate explanations of how the world came to be that were any more sensible than a giant goose laying an egg into the Nile River.

So then you believe in the historical claims of the Bible since it is a primary source? Or do you only follow this rule when the primary sources agrees with your pre-conceived ideas about History?

Not exactly; it's an anthology of sources, the vast majority of historical parts of which were only written down around the 5th or 6th century BC. And, I have to ask about your last question: Are you sure you don't do the same with the Bible? After all, even I am willing to take historical sources (especially pre-Gibbon) with a grain of salt, especially when they talk about the supernatural. After all, even the Ancient Greek historians tended to insert their Gods into their histories. And for that matter, Ancient Egyptian sources have been backed up by a wealth of historical evidence and archaeology; and the earliest part of the Bible that has ever been backed up by any credible sort of archaeological evidence is the reign of King David and even there, there's significant room for doubt. So, simply put, I do follow the rule when there's some evidence backing up its stories. With the flood, there's just none of that, and like I said, if you take the Ussher chronology, there's actually a lot of evidence against it, most clearly, the pyramids of Giza. For that matter, historians believe that Egypt been inhabited continuously since 5400 BC, approximately a millennium and a half before Ussher claims the Earth to have been created.