[Taristin]

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. --Mohandas Gandhi

[WeatherOp]

I have a question, please no flames. Just before this thread gets closed.

Ok, you say there was no world wide flood, correct? Then please anwser this, The Egyptian pyramids are said to be around 3 to 6 thousand years old, and the Meyan pyramids are said to be a few thousand years old, and the Aztec pyramids are said to be about the same. And lets say the the Egyptian pyramids last 2 more thousand years. Ok, why are there no stuctures dated back 10 or 15 thousand years or so? War could not have got all of them. So, what happened to them?I may be wrong and the may be buildings back 8 thousand years or so. But, it is basicly cut off from there. Well, thats my question.

[Taristin]

Er... isn't it generally believed that there were no large civilizations capable of creating monumental structures before that time?

Ur, the mesopotamian city is the oldest, aside from one in Turkey. But the Turkish settlement wasn't a 'great civilization'.

It's believed that people wer nomadic before then, and therefore couldn't have built structures that would last as the Egyptans and Mesopotamians had.

[Grey Wolf]

A prominent theory is that there was a fairly large flood near the Black Sea, which inspired the flood legends in most Indo-European religions.

[Taristin]

Or there's the story of Gilgamesh... (I think that's who it was) where the flood was the annual flooding of the tigris and euphrates rivers...  That was one possibility.

[WeatherOp]

But, why were they nomads? Evolution says we turned into man from primates 64,000 or so years ago. Would we have populated enough to have big civizations? And Why did we get so smart so quick too build great things like that? I've herd of that Gilgamesh thing, but that still wouldn't explain it.

[Ace]

Originally posted by WeatherOp
I have a question, please no flames. Just before this thread gets closed.

Ok, you say there was no world wide flood, correct? Then please anwser this, The Egyptian pyramids are said to be around 3 to 6 thousand years old, and the Meyan pyramids are said to be a few thousand years old, and the Aztec pyramids are said to be about the same. And lets say the the Egyptian pyramids last 2 more thousand years. Ok, why are there no stuctures dated back 10 or 15 thousand years or so? War could not have got all of them. So, what happened to them?I may be wrong and the may be buildings back 8 thousand years or so. But, it is basicly cut off from there. Well, thats my question.

...your point? Agrarian societies are relatively recent (past 8,000 years) with evidence of non-nomadic hunter gatherers being around 12,000-10,000 years.

Before that there is plenty of evidence showing that humans have been on this planet for at least the past million years. Though nomadic and slowly developing more tools and technology as well as migrating throughout the world. Before this there were many homonid species reaching back a few more million years, occuring when the climate changed due to the ice ages.

What I don't understand is why can't some of these folks take a holistic approach to their faith. The universe was made 13 billion years ago, and god has then influenced events in human history here and there but otherwise everything has been a natural process. What is so unreasonable about this? People seem to have no issue eating shellfish or other taboo things in the old testament, why not admit that we're closer to understanding creation now and the old story was to explain the world to less technologically advanced people?

[Grey Wolf]

Here, have the National Geographic link I stick in every thread that mentions Noah:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea/ax/frame.html

As you can see on that first page, many different cultures have the flood mythos, and there is evidence of a massive flood.

On the whole nomadic thing, the reason that we lacked civilization is the lack of technology required for farming, which is a prerequisite for diversication of roles in society, which is what leads to more advanced cultures with cities and the like.

[WeatherOp]

No, my point is this. If we can make a Scientific Theory"about the same as a fact as I've herd" and say this happened 250-300 million years ago or 4 billion years ago by looking at rocks. Why can't we look back a lowly 8,000 years and say this happened looking at real tools and such. Or lets say 15,000 years.

[Taristin]

Because geographic evidence in rocks is much better preserved than wooden stick tools in dirt?

[Ace]

Originally posted by WeatherOp
No, my point is this. If we can make a Scientific Theory"about the same as a fact as I've herd" and say this happened 250-300 million years ago or 4 billion years ago by looking at rocks. Why can't we look back a lowly 8,000 years and say this happened looking at real tools and such. Or lets say 15,000 years.

We can, it's called arecheology.

The whole idea is studying past civilizations off of their remains and determining how they lived their lives, how the society lived, started, etc.

Works on the same principles as being able to determine the geologic history.

While, yes, the record is incomplete (politics in countries like Turkey, Iran, and Iraq prevent digs in those areas) we have a pretty good idea as to what happened.

Tomorrow there could be evidence found of a magical flying city of Atlantis, YHWH, or even the alien trapped in a volcano the scientologists talk about and scientists would be willing to adapt their theories if there's enough proof

[WeatherOp]

Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
On the whole nomadic thing, the reason that we lacked civilization is the lack of technology required for farming, which is a prerequisite for diversication of roles in society, which is what leads to more advanced cultures with cities and the like.

Ok, let me add this. The population on the Earth has doubled or tripled over the past thousand or so years. If they didn't know how to farm the would starve, and over 64,000 years don't you think that they would have multipled too?

[Grey Wolf]

Large geographic formations are a tad bit more durable than wooden tools, or even bone or stone tools.

[WeatherOp]

And that my friend, is the problem with man. You may be telling me today that evolution is true, but tommorow you could be telling me that aliens planted us on Earth.

[Ford Prefect]

That's not humanity's fault. It's the fault of the universe for not telling what's true.

[Ace]

Originally posted by WeatherOp



Ok, let me add this. The population on the Earth has doubled or tripled over the past thousand or so years. If they didn't know how to farm the would starve, and over 64,000 years don't you think that they would have multipled too?

Your population can only increase as much as the food you have. Farming isn't going to happen until you have enough of a surplus in an area to allow you to have leisure time to experiment.

That's why fertile areas like the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, and the Yellow river all led to the fist major civilizations (that we have records of).

With an area with enough food year round to be sedentary you'll start domesticating your plants and animals as opposed to hunting. It's a slow process but then you build a civilization. Eventually writing and such happens.

Keep in mind, while there has been rapid change in the last three centuries things developed at a slow pace until the development of the scientific method. Applying the modern pace of things to earlier times is fallacial.

Civilizations like Sumer, Babylon, and China lasted thousands of years with little change much like medieval Europe did for several hundred years. It's not hard to see why it'd take so long for literate cultures to develop out of nomads.

If you want more information take a class on biological anthropology or archeology.

Also on your comment about 'man being flawed due to changing its mind' that is the strength of humanity. If we find more evidence of what occured it is right and proper to change our mind and worldview to match with the reality.

While there might be comfort in relying on unchanging words (which change between translations but that's an issue for theologians) there should be a greater comfort in knowing that we don't know everything and that we're willing to adapt to find out more.

[übermetroid]

Originally posted by jdjtcagle


Only till you submit to God will you know the TRUTH my friend, and the TRUTH will set you free.

What if I am allready Free?  :thepimp:

[WeatherOp]

Originally posted by Ace


Your population can only increase as much as the food you have. Farming isn't going to happen until you have enough of a surplus in an area to allow you to have leisure time to experiment.

That's why fertile areas like the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, and the Yellow river all led to the fist major civilizations (that we have records of).

With an area with enough food year round to be sedentary you'll start domesticating your plants and animals as opposed to hunting. It's a slow process but then you build a civilization. Eventually writing and such happens.

Keep in mind, while there has been rapid change in the last three centuries things developed at a slow pace until the development of the scientific method. Applying the modern pace of things to earlier times is fallacial.

Civilizations like Sumer, Babylon, and China lasted thousands of years with little change much like medieval Europe did for several hundred years. It's not hard to see why it'd take so long for literate cultures to develop out of nomads.

If you want more information take a class on biological anthropology or archeology.

Also on your comment about 'man being flawed due to changing its mind' that is the strength of humanity. If we find more evidence of what occured it is right and proper to change our mind and worldview to match with the reality.

While there might be comfort in relying on unchanging words (which change between translations but that's an issue for theologians) there should be a greater comfort in knowing that we don't know everything and that we're willing to adapt to find out more.

But, why... How did we come from people who couldn't build nothing, to someone who could build the huge pyramids? I though evolution take millions of years to do anything?

[Grey Wolf]

This isn't evolution in that sense, my friend. This is social evolution, a far different proposition. You are nearly identical genetically and physically to neolithic man. However, the culture you were raised in is far different.

[WeatherOp]

But, the thing that don't fit is that they had 64,000 years to get smarter, if you look over the last 6 to 8 thousand years, we have come so fast. And if that was the case, than that means somebody would have woke up one morning and said" Hey I'm gonna build this and this and this. Why didn't it happen sooner? If you would add it up, and 64,000 years ago, we started avancing like we have in the past 6,000 or so. We would have devoloped LS or subspace and we would have huge cruisers flying thru space. I really don't know about that far. Too much FS.


Well, good night all.