The Bible as Mythology

[One Walker]

I agree that the fundamentalists are mistaken as well. There's missing data and questionable conclusions drawn on both sides. So science isn't necessarily off by 99.999809524% More like 50% probably. The biggest problem comes when they start building other theories based on a fundamental 'fact' that isn't factual at all. The same can be said for the fundamentalists who draw literal conclusions based on incomplete data. And what data they have has been subjected to interpretation and manipulation by others (just as in science.) So again, I think we should believe what we wish to believe. That's our Truth. My only advice would be to not let it shut us off to the possibilities.

One Walker.

[purplesummer]

There's a lot of argument about all this and none can be conclusively proven because it's all subject to interpretation; aside from the accuracy and clarity of written information. The glaring fault about scientific dating has been the Carbon-14 method. Carbon-14 was originally chosen not for its accuracy but simply because it has the steadiest, most easily measurable rate of decay. The truth is, no two things decay at the same rate and Carbon-14 is only a part of the decay process. There is also Carbon-12 and a whole group of other carbon states that come and go in the decay process.

Remember that scientists go about 'proving' theories the same way law enforcement goes about 'proving' guilt. They take a bunch of circumstances and then see who or what they can fit it to. This is a system designed, set up, and run to produce an expected result. This is an obviously faulty system. Just look at the number of convicted people who have had their sentences subsequently overturned because DNA testing showed they were not present or active in the commission of a crime.

There's some interesting reading on the dating process here:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html

You don't have to agree with it or all of it. Just consider both sides of the question, then decide for yourself.


One Walker.

A lot of the people released from jail from faulty DNA evidence, had no DNA evidence in their original trial. A lot of the convictions over turned were over turned years later after we were able to use DNA evidence. I am not saying this is the case for all of the people getting out of jail on DNA evidence.

[hicksfan]

There's a lot of argument about all this and none can be conclusively proven because it's all subject to interpretation; aside from the accuracy and clarity of written information. The glaring fault about scientific dating has been the Carbon-14 method. Carbon-14 was originally chosen not for its accuracy but simply because it has the steadiest, most easily measurable rate of decay. The truth is, no two things decay at the same rate and Carbon-14 is only a part of the decay process. There is also Carbon-12 and a whole group of other carbon states that come and go in the decay process.

Remember that scientists go about 'proving' theories the same way law enforcement goes about 'proving' guilt. They take a bunch of circumstances and then see who or what they can fit it to. This is a system designed, set up, and run to produce an expected result. This is an obviously faulty system. Just look at the number of convicted people who have had their sentences subsequently overturned because DNA testing showed they were not present or active in the commission of a crime.

There's some interesting reading on the dating process here:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c007.html

You don't have to agree with it or all of it. Just consider both sides of the question, then decide for yourself.


One Walker.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011.html

Claim CD011:
Carbon-14 dating gives unreliable results.
Source:
Lee, Robert E., 1981. Radiocarbon: Ages in error. Anthropological Journal of Canada 19(3): 9-29. Reprinted in Creation Research Society Quarterly 19(2): 117-127 (1982).
Response:

1. Any tool will give bad results when misused. Radiocarbon dating has some known limitations. Any measurement that exceeds these limitations will probably be invalid. In particular, radiocarbon dating works to find ages as old as 50,000 years but not much older. Using it to date older items will give bad results. Samples can be contaminated with younger or older carbon, again invalidating the results. Because of excess 12C released into the atmosphere from the Industrial Revolution and excess 14C produced by atmospheric nuclear testing during the 1950s, materials less than 150 years old cannot be dated with radiocarbon (Faure 1998, 294).

In their claims of errors, creationists do not consider misuse of the technique. It is not uncommon for them to misuse radiocarbon dating by attempting to date samples that are millions of years old (for example, Triassic "wood") or that have been treated with organic substances. In such cases, the errors belong to the creationists, not the carbon-14 dating method.

2. Radiocarbon dating has been repeatedly tested, demonstrating its accuracy. It is calibrated by tree-ring data, which gives a nearly exact calendar for more than 11,000 years back. It has also been tested on items for which the age is known through historical records, such as parts of the Dead Sea scrolls and some wood from an Egyptian tomb (MNSU n.d.; Watson 2001). Multiple samples from a single object have been dated independently, yielding consistent results. Radiocarbon dating is also concordant with other dating techniques (e.g., Bard et al. 1990).

References:

1. Bard, Edouard, Bruno Hamelin, Richard G. Fairbanks and Alan Zindler, 1990. Calibration of the 14C timescale over the past 30,000 years using mass spectrometric U-Th ages from Barbados corals. Nature 345: 405-410.
2. Faure, Gunter, 1998. Principles and Applications of Geochemistry, 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
3. MNSU, n.d. Radio-carbon dating. http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/archaeology/dat ... arbon.html
4. Watson, Kathie, 2001. Radiometric time scale. http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/radiometric.html

Further Reading:
Higham, Tom, 1999. Radiocarbon WEB-Info. http://www.c14dating.com/

Thompson, Tim, 2003. A radiometric dating resource list. http://www.tim-thompson.com/radiometric ... eliability

[sheelanagig]

The Old testament part of the Bible is the History of the Hebrews.
Therefore a lot of it is true as written by the Hebrews who recorded their history. Not many culture recorded their history, or if they did, this history was destroyed or hidden.
But as you know any account of a story in history has many meanings depending on which side you saw it from.....

eg, The Vietnam War... There are the governments account, the generals accounts, the soldiers accounts and finally the civillians accounts, on both sides.
So we could possibly have 8 different accounts from that 1 war.
As for the recording of that history, it is usually the victor or the stronger nations events of that time which will be recorded and remembered in a few hundred years time.

Victors tend to have a habit of destroying evidence that can prove them wrong.... That is why we know very little about our past histories before Christianity began.
The early Christians destroyed anything they thought was pagan, or things they did not understand.

[hicksfan]

The Old testament part of the Bible is the History of the Hebrews.

so what happened to that race of giants that were the byproduct of the "sons of god" that had sex with "daughters of man" in genesis chapter 6?

[sheelanagig]

If you have the time read and watch some of the information I have linked below, this may answer some of your questions.

There is so much to this fantastic planet we call home, than we could ever realise

http://giantstitans.blogspot.com/
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/b ... 2/art00003
http://www.geocities.com/age_of_giants/ ... ralia.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ6qftmn6kY&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d38x8Y5QAlA

[hicksfan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganthropus

Extreme claims

Meganthropus has been the target of numerous extreme claims, none of which are supported by peer-reviewed authors. Perhaps the most common claim is that Meganthropus was a giant, one unsourced claim put them at 9 feet (2.75 m) tall and 750 to 1000 pounds (340 to 450 kilograms). No exact height has been published in a peer reviewed journal recently, and none give an indication of Meganthropus being substantially larger than H. erectus.

There have been some rumors of post-cranial material, but those have either yet to be published or belong to H. erectus. Reports, most if not all apparently from Australian researcher Rex Gilroy, place Meganthropus in Australia, and attach it to giant tools and even modern day reports. However, almost all paleoanthropologists maintain that Meganthropus is only known from central Java. In a similar way, some Bigfoot researchers claim that Bigfoot is a modern Meganthropus.

Some creationists insist that Meganthropus are Nephilim, but there is nothing to suggest that it was anything other than a hominid, albeit a particularly robust one.

----------------------------------------------------

most ridiculous claim in those links:
http://giantstitans.blogspot.com/

"We have also recently discovered many confluent foot imprints in molten rock, of both giants humans and dinosaurs. They were discovered at Dinosaur Park, in Texas. So there was an age when giant men and dinosaurs co-existed."

i guess as long as we're making stuff up, let's go hog wild. the only thing missing is velikovsky's worlds in collision.

[sheelanagig]

As I said in an earlier post, mankind has a nasty habit of destroying all evidence from the past......

And in the last 2000 years, Historical evidence that does not conform with the church and its dogma's has systmatically been destroyed.

In the east and far east where Christianity has had little influence there is a richness of eveidence of humanities past which goes back thousands if not a million years....
The bible whould have us beleive that mankind has only been on this planet for the last 8,000 years... Yet the evidence goes back to proove we have lived here far longer than that.

[hicksfan]

modern humans have been around some 50,000 years. the farthest scope of homo sapien, about 200,000 years. homo erectus goes back almost 2 million years, but we're talking about something not much like us at all in the brain department.

[bennyjet]

Noahs Ark was'nt a Boat....it was a Arc of light

n=Symbol for U-turn,return,'3arth>Heaven>3arth'
0=Symbol for Planet,In this case 3arth
A=Alpha the beginning,The planning,The Paper & compass!
H=Symbol for 'from one plain to another,one Planet to another,One surface to another...H='l'>>'l'
S=Symbol for snake,The annual reguvenation,shedding of skin

The word 'noAHS' therefore means..'To return to 3arth,In the beginning,from one plain to another,reguvenated'

ARC= A Body of 'light' from across a divide or gap'

[bennyjet]

More precisely 'A sustained luminous discharge across a divide or gap'

[bennyjet]

FLOOD= An overflowing body of water.onto normally dry land
OR..
FLOOD=To 'fill' abundantly or excessively! to pour forth in a Flood like manner!

The BiBle is open to interpretation...But is definately relevent in todays climate...especially from a speculative & analytical mind!