Question: How accurate is the information on this graphic?

[Ziploc Surprise]

Your fundy friend asked you to prove an observation which led to the theory that he just can't handle. IOW, he has no fucking clue, and the monumental wall of ignorance he has built between his beliefs and reality would be impressive if it weren't so common.

The fact that natural selection takes a very very long time just didn't get into his thick head. Oddly I thought he was smarter than that before I started debating with him. He's an extremely reticent individual. Not many of his opinions leave his mouth, the internet sort of opened his mouth (it was an internet debate) too much. This reminds me of a saying, it goes something like: Better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

About Tyndale, from what I recall from what I read, his heresy revolves around his religious based reasons for objecting to Henry the 8th's divorce and remarriage and his unauthorized translation of the Bible. I.e. the "right" translation of the Bible was strongly determined by how well it fits into the kings ambitions.

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Yeah I experienced this about two weekends ago when one of my fundy friends thought he won a debate because I couldn't produce an experiment that proved evolution (I couldn't find any link to any experiment that produced a separate species, the process by which was completely manipulated by the experimenter). Everything else we said (I had another atheist debating with me) was irrelevant. He was hunting for an admission. When he thought he got this, he stopped debating. I don't think he noticed or cared that the throughout the whole debate he made himself look like a complete dunce.

As for Ehrman, is as narrow minded and as cherry picking as he is accused of being? Or even close to this?

Those experiments are detailed in Dawkins' Greatest Show on Earth. Of course, even if you had cited them the jesus freak would have simply ignored them. They ignore anything that does not have their sky-daddy in a starring role.

As for Ehrman, what he has done for textual criticism is what Finkelstein and Silbermann have done for archaeology. Neatly summarized for the layman recent research ( or in Ehrman's case not so recent - the fuck ups in the bible have been known for 300 years) and put it out so that non specialists can understand it. In the course of it Ehrman has let it be known that he used to be a fundie and is now an agnostic because of his research. This is treason to jesus freaks and they will never forgive him.

My only complaint with Ehrman is that he seems unable to take the next step. Having shown that the new testament is a heavily edited pile of shit he still insists on seeking a historical "core" to it instead of facing the reality that it was a concoction meant to fill a specific niche.
And things got out of hand.

BTW, Finkelstein also goes off the track a bit at the end because he abandons his own metholdology. There is no more archaeological evidence for "Josiah" than there is for "Solomon" yet he insists upon treating this story as real rather than as more fiction. It becomes a bit like someone citing King Arthur as real.

Well that's fortunate I'm just about done the book I'm reading and I've bought "the Greatest Show on Earth". This should be interesting.

I read several books at once (mostly because I camp a lot and I don't like to bring electronic books on a camp out). One of the books I'm reading is "The Mythmaker" by Hyam Maccoby. I'm not far into the book but it promises to fill in (to some degree) what Ehrman has left out. It will be interesting if I ever finish it. I've been so busy lately.

As for Josiah, I thought there was some evidence for his existence. If not then it kind of throws off the theory behind the motive for writing most of the Old Testament. Shouldn't there be some sort of motive for writing it or is just general emerging nationalism that developed in the vacuum of failing major empires be enough?