With Alan Whistler / Alan the Atheist on AronRa's Video

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : 1) On Flood with AronRa Referring to Soroka and Nelson · Correspondence de / of / van Hans Georg Lundahl : 2) With Alan Whistler / Alan the Atheist on AronRa's Video

Thursday or earlier

Me to Alan Whistler

Good evening, Alan Whistler!

I was looking for a sponsor of a video by AronRa.

[Alan Whitsler was a name among several others, but that he knew.]

There are two other Alan Whistlers but I think you are the guy, right?

Here is my refutation of said video:

On Flood with AronRa Referring to Soroka and Nelson
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2017/01/on-flood-with-aronra-referring-to.html

FB announces

Alan Whistler a accepté votre demande.

Alan Whistler to me

What shows this to be true //Meaning, Oceans before the Flood were more shallow and mountains before the Flood were less high. // Why would we consider it?

Me to Alan Whistler

Because if so, one problem of water volume is solved.

Also, because AronRa's refutation by text of Genesis would only work against a claim the earth had been nearly totally smooth, but not against its having mountains that were high for back then but considerably lower than later ones.

Alan Whistler to me

How can it be tested or falsified? It is a baseless assertion.

Me to Alan Whistler

If it had been false, the Flood could not have happened. Since we have tradition (and not just the Hebrew one) in favour of Flood, and since he pointed out that with present heights (or even as high as present height of Mt Ararat, greater or lesser) the Flood wouldn't work, well, there you got it. Mountains need to have been lower back then and Oceans shallower.

Alan Whistler to me

A tradition does not mean it happened. In ancient times people.thought the world was their little part of land. A flood appeared to be global to them. They need to be for an apologist. But were they?

Me to Alan Whistler

"A tradition does not mean it happened."

Usually traditions mean that.

"In ancient times people.thought the world was their little part of land. A flood appeared to be global to them."

Would have worked if Flood hadn't covered highest mountains too.

"They need to be for an apologist. But were they?"

Traditions need to be exaggerated for atheists - but were they?

Alan Whistler to me

Usually doesn't cut it I am afraid. We can dismiss that. As there is no evidence for much lower mountains and shallow seas we can dismiss that too.

Are you quite new to delivering refutation?

Me to Alan Whistler

"Usually doesn't cut it I am afraid."

Tradition usually does.

"We can dismiss that."

Or not.

"As there is no evidence for much lower mountains and shallow seas we can dismiss that too."

No evidence is actually not equal to evidence for not so, and that is what AronRa's argument needs.

"Are you quite new to delivering refutation?"

To refuting, no. To delivering it to sponsors, yes, since it is the first time I saw sponsors for a work I refuted.

[To refuting no : on internet I have been doing this for 15, soon 16 years.]

Alan Whistler to me

Because tradition usually.does does not.mean it did that time. So.no, not a refutation

As for lakes and mountains. There is no evidence so it need not be considered. It is a baseless assertion. That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Hitchens Razor.

I am.in the first section and you are not refuting anything by making baseless assertions and saying "usually".

[I later realised that "I am in the first section" referred to his reading of it, but you will see my misunderstanding him as if he had meant as someone uttering sth in it.

Seriously, he should have listened to AronRa's video once again, to know exactly what I was up to refuting, and then read all of my refutation before starting to argue about any point.]

Me to Alan Whistler

"Because tradition usually.does does not.mean it did that time. So.no, not a refutation"

I am afraid, you are not aware what is the basis of history. If you think it is archaeology, think again. Archaeology can't prove which side won at Waterloo.

If you think it is "primary sources", they are usually identified as such because of ... yes, you have got it : tradition.

"As for lakes and mountains. There is no evidence so it need not be considered."

The Flood being evidenced by tradition, as well as by palaeontology and a few other things, possibly, too, but tradition and palaeontology is what I master best, IS evidence for the conditions being such that the Flood could happen. And, if the Flood could NOT happen without lower mountains and shallower seas, well, lower mountains and shallower seas we have got. Even though the evidence be somewhat indirect.

"It is a baseless assertion."

With above no.

"That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Hitchens Razor."

With above there is no baseless assertion, "Hitchens Razor" does not apply.

+ if Hitchens Razor was meant to apply to alternative explanations and auxiliary hypotheses, it can't be used to consider the latter as impossible or a refutation as water tight.

"I am.in the first section and you are not refuting anything by making baseless assertions and saying "usually"."

I am not sure what you mean by "first section" - do you mean of the video? I mostly saw AronRa talking all the way through.

[And in the first section AronRa was talking, Alan Whistler wasn't. See my misunderstanding above.]

I made no baseless assertions, and when I say usually, it usually means it usually is like what I say.

Friday

Alan Whistler to me

I never mentioned archeology, do not begin to assume please. No tradition is not evidence. Do you know what the historical.method of verification is? If not please Google it and apply it to traditions.

What is to say one culture had a flood and believed it to be global and this mistaken myth propagated and was in turn adopted by other cultures as their own. There is another means by which this tradition could be in other cultures.

You did make a baseless assertion, that mountains were much smaller and seas shallow. Unless you can present evidence to show this is the case then it need not be entertained. The lack of supporting evidence is what makes your assertion baseless. Are you sure you are not new to this?

By first section I meant the early part if your blog. A few lines in.

And a hypothesis must be testable. Explain how you will test your mountain/sea model. How would you show it to be true?

[I still misunderstood his being in first section as his being uttering sth in it, not as his reading it.]

Saturday

Me to Alan Whistler

"I never mentioned archeology, do not begin to assume please."

I made an enumeration of different possibilities.

"No tradition is not evidence."

Indeed it is.

"Do you know what the historical.method of verification is?"

Checking with contemporary documents - if available. Checking with primary sources. Checking with several independent sources.

If Genesis is what it purports to be, the chapters on the Flood are a primary source.

The several traditions are independent sources. I'll skip forward here a bit to where you say:

"What is to say one culture had a flood and believed it to be global and this mistaken myth propagated and was in turn adopted by other cultures as their own."

I defy you to make a realistic scenario for this.

For one thing, the Peruvian Flood legend (with Inca style siblings as Mr and Mrs Noah, with Andes for the Ark) would require some explanation on how this belief spread across the Atlantic or Pacific.

And the most obvious problems are these:

• a) anyone mistaking a non-global flood for a global one, covering the highest mountains;
• b) any culture surviving only in an Ark and considering itself as all survivors of mankind would be small in numbers - how did it persuade nearest neighbouring culture that they descended from the Ark when their own memories involved they didn't?
• c) speaking of Ark, how about a non-miraculous account of why it was built to begin with?

"There is another means by which this tradition could be in other cultures."

Presumed, but not persuasively by you.

"You did make a baseless assertion, that mountains were much smaller and seas shallow. Unless you can present evidence to show this is the case then it need not be entertained."

You have two problems:

• a) Reading comprehension : I mentioned that the evidence is the Flood having occurred. + Your own calculation it couldn't have if Mount Everst at present height were the highest mountain already and if Mariana Trench were already the deepest depth;
• b) Logic : AronRa set out to proove the Flood COULD NOT have happened. For this to be a valid conclusion, flatter mountains and shallower seas need to be positively excluded, not just negatively dismissed as unsupported.

And this means YOUR side is in the situation of "positive claims require positive evidence" on this one.

To be fair to Aron, he tried to provide that, twice over:

• 1) by saying it contradicts the Bible, which mentioned "the highest mountains";
• 2) by saying it contradicts the existence of the Mountains of Ararat, also in the Bible.

In my comments and also blog post, I solved both, so it's your turn, but first a little repeat of my solutions;

• 1) "the highest mountains" of the text were so by pre-Flood standards, not necessarily identic with post-Flood comparisons + they can't have been as pointed peaks as Mount Everest, in order for the measuring of 15 cubits above them to take place;
• 2) Ararat (at least the relevant of the two peaks) rose twice over, first during Flood by eruption (after the measure of fifteen cubits above previously highest mountains), then after the Flood by tectonic movement.

To be fair to Aron, he tries to disprove this too. He is better on logic than you seem to be, unless it's simply you were slow after the pints or impatient to get to them yesterday when you wrote previous.

His disproof is that if there had been an eruption during Flood (sth which has at least some supporting evidence in the fact that Ararat features evidence of under water eruptions!) it would have been too hot to land on. And he relies a bit on interrupting Eric Hovind before he can respond to that.

On 14 november 1963, Surtsey* broke surface. On 6 december 1963 French journalists for Paris Match stayed 15 minutes on the island. They didn't leave because it was too hot, but because another erupotion was starting and they were going out of the way. Lava cools fairly quickly if there is lots of seawater to cool it. During the Flood that would not have been a major issue. So, Ararat would have had time to erupt under water, cool down, get uncovered between when Noah or his boys measured fifteen cubits over the so far highest mountains and when they landed on an Ararat which was higher than any previous mountain.

Next part of my scnario is that Ararat rose in the time after that. I am here comparing to Anak Krakatau.** This is not quite comparable, insofar as Ararat was on land, while Anak Krakatau is in the sea. But there is a common causality, namely magma pressure from inside earth. Here is the effect: "Anak Krakatau has grown at an average rate of five inches (13 cm) per week since the 1950s. This equates to an average growth of 6.8 meters per year. The island is still active, with its most recent eruptive episode having begun in 1994. Quiet periods of a few days have alternated with almost continuous Strombolian eruptions since then."

I'll spare you the obvious and obviously reversible thing about how many meters 6.8 per year would make in 4974 years, you just reply that obviously Ararat hasn't been growing that fast the last 3000 years. Quite so, but it could have been growing very much faster in the first two thousand years after the Flood.

So, BOTH attempts by AronRa to disprove the possibility of radically lower mountains or radically shallower seas up to Flood fail. That would be one reason why you resort to calling them "baseless assertions", because he failed to call them "impossible" as he tried to.

"By first section I meant the early part if your blog. A few lines in."

You mean you were the one speaking at 3:03 of video? I missed that.

[This was a misunderstanding on my part, and he meant he was reading, not uttering.]

"And a hypothesis must be testable."

A historic hypothesis must be testable in principle, but not in identic fact. For your hypothesis of a local flood mistaken for global by one culture, then spreading to others you have some misunderstandings on part of men which you have not even provided a principled parallel for. I have provided parallels in principle for the Ararat part of my case.

"Explain how you will test your mountain/sea model."

I think creation SCIENTISTS (I am a creationist and a science critic, not per se a scientist) have already tested implications about wrinkling of the crust while mud was still malleable. I leave that part to ICR, CMI et al.

"How would you show it to be true?"

It fits the fact known from tradition, both sacred one and profane ones. + It has not been shown false or impossible.

Notes:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surtsey
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa#Anak_Krakatau

Me to Alan Whistler (again)

"By first section I meant the early part if your blog. A few lines in."

[Here were the consequences of my misunderstanding just before I corrected it. I was here also hoping he used "blog" correctly as all of the posts, while he was using it as "blog post".]

Wait, you don't mean you are Tolland on the top post of the blog?

Here is the post I sent you:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : On Flood with AronRa Referring to Soroka and Nelson
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.fr/2017/01/on-flood-with-aronra-referring-to.html

Here is the blog:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.fr/

Here is the top post:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Where Tolland Proves Himself a Jerk
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.fr/2017/01/where-tolland-proves-himself-jerk.html

You aren't claiming to be Tolland, are you?

[No, he wasn't, it was my misunderstanding, where he was really claiming to be reading a few lines in.]

Alan Whistler to me

Paste a screen shot of where I claimed that.

What I meant was I am a few lines in and you are refuting nothing.

Apply the historical method of verification to your tradition and see how it fairs. You really are wasting my time.

[The words "and you are refuting nothing" indicated he meant in his reading, not in any utterance!]

Me to Alan Whistler

Ah, wait ... you are only a fews lines in on the reading?

I have applied the historical method of verification to my satisfaction, thank you.

Excluding of course all Humean bias.

[Not "human", but Humean - bias in the direction of a certain Hume]

AND excluding the idea that tradition by itself confirms nothing, since ALL historic confirmation, with very little exception for archaeology depends on tradition.

Monday

Alan Whistler to me

• OK how did tradition fair on source criticism? What is the source and how was it verified?
• When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?
• Where was it produced (localization)?
• By whom was it produced (authorship)?
• From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?
• In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
• What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?

Core principles for determining reliability Edit

The following core principles of source criticism were formulated by two Scandinavian historians, Olden-Jørgensen (1998) and Thurén (1997):[4]

Citation

Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives.

Any given source may be forged or corrupted. Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability.

The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened.

An eyewitness is more reliable than testimony at second hand, which is more reliable than hearsay at further remove, and so on.

If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased.

The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations.

If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased.

Alan Whistler to me (contd)

Why didn't aboriginal Australians notice a flood? Could it be explained that the floods were local and ancients believed their little area to be the entire world? Could civilisations have adopted the Flood maths of others?

Tradition does not prove a flood.

Should we accept the oral traditions of vikings as evidence for Thor and Odin?

Me to Alan Whistler

Thank you immensely for the feedback. I hope I will not have left out any point, when you are through:

"What is the source and how was it verified?"

Diverse for diverse traditions.

"When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?"

Genesis latest written by Moses around 1510 BC, 8 - 12 overlapping generations after Adam.

To define : overlapping generations means I am counting Adam as overlapping generation to Methusalem, according to Haydock (who makes it 8 overlapping generations), while the spacing would be a little scarcer, perhaps 12 generations, with LXX chronology.

Its parts could have been transmitted in writing or not. With so few overlapping generations (plus all generations between them usually overlapping with both to some degree) the room for twisting is small.

"Where was it produced (localization)?"

The Genesis one-full-book written account as produced around 1510 BC, which is 1447 after the Flood.

"By whom was it produced (authorship)?"

By Moses.

"From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?"

From the Hebrew tradition available to Moses. Possibly, but not necessarily including pre-existing but not canonic books like Jasher (which I suppose was a work in progress now lost, or perhaps in final version identic to Chronicles, hardly to the non-canonic Jasher), Jubilees, Henoch.

"In what original form was it produced (integrity)?"

First Genesis chapters were written down or memorised (for chapters 1 - 7 each is as long as 2.5*Nicene Creed, which is a text even non-specialists know how to memorise if instructed), then they were collected by Moses into a single book.

"What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?"

Two items give it higher such than any rivals (most of which include Flood accounts too): a complete genealogy with very humdrum detail, and where long lives of men extend only to ten times normal, not to 100 times normal as among Sumerian and Egyptian kings. Of course, one could rationalise a "reign" of 40,000 years by saying after someone who did some ruling died, his laws and rulings were sufficient for 39,900 or so years till the next ruler was required, but that makes these accounts incomplete instead of unbelievable.

Greek and Norse versions instead tend to have too short a time between Flood and known history, Norse tacking Flood/Creation onto not too long before Odin came to Uppsala region, Greeks obviously blacking out the existence of Hittite Empire. Probably (I am biassed by Daqrk Lord's of Hattusha) because Greek nobility going back via Achaean, Ionic or Trojan to Hittite nobility (or Ionians might have been an enclave, like Phenicians in Thebes), had a gentleman's agreement not to speak about the world empire which failed due to civil war.

AND, item two, realistic detail about the Ark. Triply so:

• 1) The Babylonian myth extra large coracle would not have been seaworthy.
• 2) Noah's Ark would have been, as has been tested, and it would have had room for the diverse types of land animals (even if not each species according to modern terminology) and
• 3) it mentions a detail which points to highest mountains having been flatter before, even if that detail was not so interpreted along the times until recently, after you Atheists had brought up the logistics of water volume. If Noah or his sons could measure that water was 15 cubits above highest (previous to Flood) mountain, that means Ark went to its peak - or was built on it, which would have been safer. And the highest mountain peaks today are too pointed and narrow to build an Ark that size on. Therefore, these didn't yet exist.

Source criticism:

"Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives."

Perhaps more credible, but also less informative. This means, either we leave out the story line of history, or we take narratives. And plenty of them.

"Any given source may be forged or corrupted."

Yes, but less likely that a corrupted detail is independently corrupted same way in several sources (the above mentions best one = Hebrew + above mentioned rivals, Greek and Babylonian which feature Flood clearly after creation of man, Norse and Egyptian which identify Flood and Creation events, Greek and Norse opting for shorter and Babylonian-Egyptian for longer story lines).

"Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability."

I suppose this is where some would add a few words about Hebrews plagiarising from Babylonians. If so, just why did Hebrews do some details better, rather than worse, than the Babylonians?

"The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened."

Certainly. That is why a detailed pre-Flood scenario of humanly believable content as verification of Moses' Adamic and Noahic narratives make Hebrew tradition outstanding. Greeks just say men, Norse just say giants generally misbehaved after coming into existence provoking a destruction with in each case one survivor plus family.

"An eyewitness is more reliable than testimony at second hand, which is more reliable than hearsay at further remove, and so on."

Note here that ORGANISED tradition cannot be equated with hearsay. By hearsay I mean "I heard it from daddy, who had a phone call from the doctor, who had heard it from a worried neighbour, who had been watching the man". Phone calls are ideal ways to distort content, as the name "telephone game" should indicate. By organised tradition I mean things like formulating a standardised text which can be learned by heart - or copied in writing. Or, ideally, both. And like chosing who carries on tradition by who was an attentive hearer of it, and so on.

"If a number of independent sources contain the same message, the credibility of the message is strongly increased."

Hence the idea of confirming the Hebrew tradition by Babylonian and Greek traditions, some versions perhaps of Chinese, Hindoo and Egyptian ones. Since these polytheists often dissed the Hebrew monotheists, they are unlikely to have borrowed from Hebrews. While these provide too much original and meaningfully realistic detail (especially with modern checks) for the Hebrews just to have borrowed with some embroidery.

"The tendency of a source is its motivation for providing some kind of bias. Tendencies should be minimized or supplemented with opposite motivations."

I disbelieve this part, but if you like an exercise in it, take the fact that Babylonian and Hebrew traditions have very much opposite tendencies. To Hebrew tradition, one and the same God is outraged with men for moral reasons, and makes an exception for one man for a moral reason. To the Babylonian, one god is outraged because he has a headache and another saves the first man he can save. In Greek tradition, Flood story per se follows the Hebrew pattern, but the Enlil vs Enki story is demoted to a Zeus vs Prometheus one in another part of proto-history according to Greek myth. Norse tradition, like Egyptian places creation of man after an event which either is (Norse) or looks like part of (Egyptian) Flood.

"If it can be demonstrated that the witness or source has no direct interest in creating bias then the credibility of the message is increased."

I think it could be demonstrated that the Hebrew tradition had LESS interest in creating bias than the other ones. I think this matter is such that finding unbiassed sources is setting an impossible task. Unless they are brought in for one or two details, like Tacitus or Josephus for Jesus existing. And Josephus might have been biassed as leaning to Christianity.

"Why didn't aboriginal Australians notice a flood?"

Didn't they? Or did they forget about it?

Or perhaps not even that? Creation Ministries International claim Australians have at least three versions of a flood story: Jimmy Bird's Bundaba version, Albert Barangga's version, W.H. Douglas' Western Desert tradition. Here is their page on that one:

CMI : Australian Aboriginal Flood Stories
Collection by Howard Coates and W.H. Douglas
http://creation.com/australian-aboriginal-flood-stories

Unless you prefer to claim they got the general idea from Christian missionaries, but that cannot be checked. That would leave Aboriginess as a stalemate between us at least, and not as an argument for you.

"Could it be explained that the floods were local and ancients believed their little area to be the entire world?"

One problem here straight off, what about Peruvian version?

Now, I already did bring up a little problem or two with the scenario:

• 1) If an area is flooded, surrounding mountains aren't. If you were in the middle of a local flood, how could you, if you survived, miss that mountains stayed out of water?
• 2) If survivors survived on any kind of boat, how come an accidental survival didn't involve more boats and how would an accidental survivor or his descendants have come to figure the survival had been prepared by hearing voices? And, for good measure, here is a third one:
• 3) Anyone not that survivor or a local flood or descended from him would normally know his own national or family tradition, and be able to figure out his ancestors or he had survived outside the Flooded area : how do you explain anyone in such a situation took over the story as a serious take on his own background? The reverse would tend to happen, the lone survivors on a ship would meet people who had survived outside the Flood and conclude it was local.

"Could civilisations have adopted the Flood maths of others?"

[I took it as misspelling for Flood myth, not Flood math. Other traditions are inadequate about the mathematical problems we are dealing with.]

A civilisation emerging from such a disaster would depend on others not having gone through it and therefore hardly be in a position to impose it.

An Apologist countered a claim of Jesus not having really died on the Cross with the observation, if he woke up in the tomb, it would have been a next to impossible task to get out, not to mention to look impressive enough for the Disciples to believe the resurrection. The hypothetic survivor of a local Flood is pretty much in the same position.

"Tradition does not prove a flood."

Yes, it very much does. For the reasons given above.

"Should we accept the oral traditions of vikings as evidence for Thor and Odin?"

For Odin, Njord, Frey, Fjolner (the last of these not considered a god, and there is a good reason for that) having ruled in Uppsala (founded by Frey, it seems, after Odin had ruled without haivng a city), I fully accept a versified and therefore organised tradition called Ynglinga tal. That is the start of a genealogy leading up to St Olaf of Norway.

If Odin ruled ruthlessly in Uppsala, like if some Marduk or Nimrod or Asshur ruled ruthlessly in some part of Mesopotamia, he could just come out and brag (on some apt occasion, Odin about his sagacity, Nimrod about his strength) saying "you should have seen me earlier, when I created the world after killing a monster" (Odin had the modesty, relatively speaking of sharing the credit with two brothers who seem only to have existed in his narrative, not in Uppsala, and to add sth about his having been younger and stronger back then ... I shouldn't wonder).

One little detail more. If you remember or refresh your memory of AronRa's video, he did not set out to attack sources for Flood as that misunderstanding in that one. He set out to prove that the Flood was impossible. For that to be countered, I only need to point out that flatter mountains and shallower seas are thinkable, it is his duty (so far failed) to provide reasons why they can't (failed if they should be cogent ones, that is). This means that my answers here to you have gone beyond what I set up to do in the response to his video.

And sorry for misunderstanding your "few lines in" as your being present in text as making an utterance, when you seem to have meant you were reading a few lines in. Hope you got further and have seen why shallower seas and flatter mountains were possible, textually speaking. I should perhaps have added generally too, as lifting of land and rising of mountains are observed tektonic movements, a creationist only needs to suppose they happened a little faster than now in the end part of Flood and after the Flood.

Alan Whistler to me

//Diverse for diverse traditions.// Ambiguous = fail

Me to Alan Whistler

Er, no.

Diverse sources do include diverse traditions. As there are for instance British and US traditions about George Washington's War of Independence. Both agreeing when it took place.

Alan Whistler to me

//Genesis latest written by Moses around 1510 BC, 8 - 12 overlapping generations after Adam.// This is a claim - What supports it was written by Moses. The bible is not self acknowledging. What corroberates the claims made by moses from independent contemporary source?

Were there actual historians codexing the war of independence?

Citation (where I can't find attribution)

tradition
trəˈdɪʃ(ə)n/Submit
noun
1. the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.
Noun 1. historical record - writing having historical value (as opposed to fiction or myth etc.)historical record - writing having historical value (as opposed to fiction or myth etc.)

[Probably eclectic attributions]

Alan Whistler to me

How do you determine the ancient tradition is not myth or fiction?

Me to Alan Whistler

"This is a claim - What supports it was written by Moses. The bible is not self acknowledging. What corroberates the claims made by moses from independent contemporary source?"

Moses in Genesis is NOT saying he wrote Genesis. He is also NOT directly and uncontrovertibly saying "here I take the part from Adam, here I take the part from Noah" and so on. So that this is how it happened is what we have from Hebrew tradition.

I hope you depend sufficiently on English tradition to agree Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings and that he wrote it as a fairy tale, not as a documentary, even if he tried to get aspects close to that ideal of his.

I hope you depend sufficiently on Roman tradition to agree Julius Caesar wrote seven of the eight books of Bellum Gallicum, leaving the eighth to his trusted continuator Aulus Hirtius.

"Were there actual historians codexing the war of independence?"

Not as you seem to understand the word, since historians as an academic specialty did not come into existence until during 19th Century. For War of Independence or for French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, we have tradition from biassed participants. And, as with Flood, more than one tradition.

"the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way."

Someone else gave a fuller and better description which involves also information being transmitted from generation to generation.

"How do you determine the ancient tradition is not myth or fiction?"

The word myth is meaningless. As to fiction, how do you explain a tradition which starts out as fiction becoming misunderstood as fact statement? By fiction, I am supposing you mean things like Lord of the Rings, not things like Book of Mormon, which is forgery, not fiction. Though produced same way as fiction - at least that is how many take what Joseph Smith actually did.

Why is "myth" meaningless? A book of Greek mythology will include:

• Chaos giving rise to Gaia, Erebos, Nyx and Eros (and perhaps some parallel Orphic myth about a cosmic egg hatching);
• The Flood of Deucalion and Pyrrha;
• The history of Trojan War and of heroes in previous generation or in aftermath of Trojan War.

I believe that exactly the first point is in the full sense fiction, if only half humourously pretended to be believed, a bit like Father Christmas, the second point is a fairly distorted version of Flood story (I am judging after Hebrew standards, you know my bias), while the third is fairly straightforward history.

It is embellished with some untruths anyone except Homeric believers will take as such. Perseus and Andromeda becoming stars or Antaios being a son of Poseidon and Gaia and losing his strength when no longer standing on or otherwise touching "his mother" is obviously untrue. This leaves room open for speculation on how much of the story is correct. Could demons have been giving Antaeus more strength than he usually had as long as he stood on earth in a fight? That is perhaps equally incredible to an Atheist, but not to a Christian.

But even if one can be sure some of the events never happened as told, even if one can suspect some were later additions (like if you wrote some mostly documentary based epic on War of Independence but included Tomahawk in it for fun, or included Jonah Hex in some otherwise mostly documentary work on War of Secession, or even more like it, even more frequent, if you take the cherry tree story as given in that devout GW-biography and add another without admitting to inventing it), one cannot dismiss this part as non-historic, just because some very sceptic Romans divided it from history proper. Plutarch's parallel lives takes up one between Romulus and Theseus, with Theseus still representing "myth" and Romulus already representing "history", with the remark that Theseus is so late and well documented in myths as to be nearly history, Romulus is so early and dim in history as to be nearly myth, you see that the reason for including these in books starting with the content of Theogony is a very flimsy and arbitrary one, and one cannot say Hercules is as dim as Uranus and Gaea, at least.

That is why "myth" is a non-category. For "fiction" I have already answered.

Alan Whistler to me

In order:

Citing me:

Thank you immensely for the feedback. I hope I will not have left out any point, when you are through:

"What is the source and how was it verified?"

Diverse for diverse traditions. "When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?"

Genesis latest written by Moses around 1510 BC, 8 - 12 overlapping generations after Adam.

Alan Whistler to me

^^Show this to be true^^

Citing me:

To define : overlapping generations means I am counting Adam as overlapping generation to Methusalem, according to Haydock (who makes it 8 overlapping generations), while the spacing would be a little scarcer, perhaps 12 generations, with LXX chronology.

Its parts could have been transmitted in writing or not. With so few overlapping generations (plus all generations between them usually overlapping with both to some degree) the room for twisting is small.

Alan Whistler to me

^^Source criticism – How were they translated^^ exactly? Less of this COULD stuff if you wish to debunk anything

Citing me:

"Where was it produced (localization)?"

The Genesis one-full-book written account as produced around 1510 BC, which is 1447 after the Flood.

Alan Whistler to me

So not written by any contemporary, no witnesses

Citing me:

"By whom was it produced (authorship)?"

By Moses.

Alan Whistler to me

^^Show this to be true. This is a claim of the^^ bible. Bible is not verified by bible.

Circular reasoning - Dismissed

Citing me:

From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?"

From the Hebrew tradition available to Moses. Possibly, but not necessarily including pre-existing but not canonic books like Jasher (which I suppose was a work in progress now lost, or perhaps in final version identic to Chronicles, hardly to the non-canonic Jasher), Jubilees, Henoch.

Alan Whistler to me

^^What corroborates the works available to moses^^ as the story goes

Citing me:

In what original form was it produced (integrity)?"

First Genesis chapters were written down or memorised (for chapters 1 - 7 each is as long as 2.5*Nicene Creed, which is a text even non-specialists know how to memorise if instructed), then they were collected by Moses into a single book.

Alan Whistler to me

^^Nicean creed is unbiased?^^

Citing me:

"What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?"

Two items give it higher such than any rivals (most of which include Flood accounts too): a complete genealogy with very humdrum detail, and where long lives of men extend only to ten times normal, not to 100 times normal as among Sumerian and Egyptian kings. Of course, one could rationalise a "reign" of 40,000 years by saying after someone who did some ruling died, his laws and rulings were sufficient for 39,900 or so years till the next ruler was required, but that makes these accounts incomplete instead of unbelievable.

Greek and Norse versions instead tend to have too short a time between Flood and known history, Norse tacking Flood/Creation onto not too long before Odin came to Uppsala region, Greeks obviously blacking out the existence of Hittite Empire. Probably (I am biassed by Daqrk Lord's of Hattusha) because Greek nobility going back via Achaean, Ionic or Trojan to Hittite nobility (or Ionians might have been an enclave, like Phenicians in Thebes), had a gentleman's agreement not to speak about the world empire which failed due to civil war.

Alan Whistler to me

^^Could the gen genealogy be fabricated? Could it just be writers mentioning characters known to have existed? Could reported global flood timelines just be repeated times from one tradition and plagiarized?

Citing me:

AND, item two, realistic detail about the Ark. Triply so:

Alan Whistler to me

^^Are you familiar with the celestial boat of the Egyptian pharaoh called Nua Unkh??

Citing me:

• 1) The Babylonian myth extra large coracle would not have been seaworthy.
• 2) Noah's Ark would have been, as has been tested, and it would have had room for the diverse types of land animals (even if not each species according to modern terminology) and
• 3) it mentions a detail which points to highest mountains having been flatter before, even if that detail was not so interpreted along the times until recently, after you Atheists had brought up the logistics of water volume. If Noah or his sons could measure that water was 15 cubits above highest (previous to Flood) mountain, that means Ark went to its peak - or was built on it, which would have been safer. And the highest mountain peaks today are too pointed and narrow to build an Ark that size on. Therefore, these didn't yet exist.

Alan Whistler to me

^^^^ Can you present whom said the biblical ark could float and hold every species?

^^ What supports the claim? // it mentions a detail which points to highest mountains having been flatter before//

Citing me:

Source criticism:

"Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives."

Perhaps more credible, but also less informative. This means, either we leave out the story line of history, or we take narratives. And plenty of them.

Alan Whistler to me

^^Or the people writing it had knowledge of geography and history of the region – Dismissed

Citing me:

"Any given source may be forged or corrupted."

Yes, but less likely that a corrupted detail is independently corrupted same way in several sources (the above mentions best one = Hebrew + above mentioned rivals, Greek and Babylonian which feature Flood clearly after creation of man, Norse and Egyptian which identify Flood and Creation events, Greek and Norse opting for shorter and Babylonian-Egyptian for longer story lines).

Alan Whistler to me

^^Still a chance – FAIL^^

Citing me:

"Strong indications of the originality of the source increase its reliability."

I suppose this is where some would add a few words about Hebrews plagiarising from Babylonians. If so, just why did Hebrews do some details better, rather than worse, than the Babylonians?

Alan Whistler to me

^^Argument from ignorance, because you don’t know why doesn’t mean they didnt

Citing me:

"The closer a source is to the event which it purports to describe, the more one can trust it to give an accurate historical description of what actually happened."

Certainly. That is why a detailed pre-Flood scenario of humanly believable content as verification of Moses' Adamic and Noahic narratives make Hebrew tradition outstanding. Greeks just say men, Norse just say giants generally misbehaved after coming into existence provoking a destruction with in each case one survivor plus family.

Alan Whistler to me

^^Shame some ancient civilisations missed the^^ GLOBAL FLOOD

Done. The rest is pointless.

Your sources attesting the sources are biased. Nicean's, really?

Your book makes claims so the claims can not be supported by more claims in the same book - Take a logic course - please.

Me to Alan Whistler

"Less of this COULD stuff if you wish to debunk anything"

Answering YOUR points and debunking Aron's are two very different things.

Logic. Why don't they teach logic in these schools. BBL / tomorrow perhaps.

Alan Whistler to me

But you are not. You are presenting assertions not supported in reality. That is not debunking.

Try top down logical presentation

P[remiss] 1
P2
P3
P4

C[onclusion] 1
Etc

Premises to logical conclusion. If your premises are strong and true no problem. If there can be any other explanations to.your premises then they can't be accepted.

To you.....

Rephrasing but not citing me:

Currently you say bible says mountains were lower

This fits with global flood

Therefore global flood happened.

Alan Whistler to me

These are not strong premises and don't. Lead logically to that conclusion.

First premise must be supported outside of the claim of the text asserting the situation. It is not self acknowledging.

Today

Tuesday, 17.I.2017

Me to Alan Whistler

You are not just sore in logic, you pretend to teach me logic too.

"But you are not. You are presenting assertions not supported in reality. That is not debunking."

There are TWO cases. NN asks for proof of my positions, I have to present proof. NN claims to disprove my position, what I have to do is not prove my position, but disprove his disproofs, and for that COULD is good enough.

Then, I am NOT presenting assertions not supported in reality. I am in part going by facts, and in parts by probabilities or possibilities which are coherent with the facts.

"Premises to logical conclusion."

I am very well capable of doing a syllogism without your aid, sir.

"If your premises are strong and true no problem."

Unless there is some problem with the form of the syllogism. It seems the one needing a lesson in logic was you.

"If there can be any other explanations to.your premises then they can't be accepted"

That is precisely AronRa's problem in the video. I have shown there can be other explanations to the reasons why he claims the mountains cannot have been lower and the seas cannot have been shallower.

"Currently you say bible says mountains were lower / This fits with global flood / Therefore global flood happened."

Eh, no. That is NOT my logic. You are drawing up a strawman. In this case it is rather two things:

• 1) If you analyse a certain passage in the Bible, it really says mountains were lower. But AronRa said the Flood can't have happpened, because mountains can't have been low enough. His reason : "the Bible says so". My conclusion : he is sore at reading the Bible.
  
  
• 2) If you analyse a certain passage in the Bible, it really says mountains were lower. This explains the Flood that lots of traditions independently attest. But the other traditions don't mention this detail, so on this account the Bible is superior to the other Flood traditions.

NEITHER of those two corresponds to your strawman.

"These are not strong premises and don't. Lead logically to that conclusion."

Totally agreeing about the syllogism you strawmanly presented as mine.

"First premise must be supported outside of the claim of the text asserting the situation. It is not self acknowledging."

Er, not quite right either. First premise IS about the text. It can ONLY be asserted according to the text.

So much for your pretense of teaching me logic.

Alan Whistler to me

No you assert the mountains were much lower. That is an assertion.

You say bible says so but this is then an assertion of the bible which must be supported to be considered. Are you not sure regarding the burden of proof? What tradition proves mountains were much lower.

We already established tradition could be borrowed from one civilisation by another. We established tradition can be myth. Therefore you must show the traditions to be facts. Not just say tradition must be true as sometimes tradition is true lol.

Me to Alan Whistler

Before answering your latest, here is my catching up since yesterday:

Me citing him

// Genesis latest written by Moses around 1510 BC, 8 - 12 overlapping generations after Adam.

^^Show this to be true^^ //

Me to Alan Whistler

Which one of the claims?

• "Genesis latest written by Moses" - Hebrew tradition for authorship.
• "around 1510 BC" - Later Biblical books (thus independent of Genesis) adding up years between Exodus event and Birth of Christ.
• "8 - 12 overlapping generations after Adam." - Genealogies in Genesis.

Me citing him

// To define : overlapping generations means I am counting Adam as overlapping generation to Methusalem, according to Haydock (who makes it 8 overlapping generations), while the spacing would be a little scarcer, perhaps 12 generations, with LXX chronology.

Its parts could have been transmitted in writing or not. With so few overlapping generations (plus all generations between them usually overlapping with both to some degree) the room for twisting is small.

^^Source criticism – How were they translated^^ exactly? Less of this COULD stuff if you wish to debunk anything //

Me to Alan Whistler

In this conversation you are asking me not to debunk but to establish sth, namely two things, and here that Genesis is reliable (elsewhere that Flood happened).

Saying that you don't know if x before telling y of z also wrote down a note or not doesn't add up to a substantial doubt on whether x actually did tell y about z. It works out either way.

And I suppose your "translated" is a mistake for "transmitted"?

Since Hebrew was the language pre-Babel since Adam and continued to be so for Hebrews (hence the name) up to Moses, there was never ANY need of translation. At an utmost limit, the pre-Babel language could have been Aramaic, and if so the translating would have been like translating from Danish to Swedish or from Yola to Braid Scots. Or from Cockney to Irish Brogue.

Me citing him

// "Where was it produced (localization)?"

The Genesis one-full-book written account as produced around 1510 BC, which is 1447 after the Flood.
________________________
So not written by any contemporary, no witnesses //

Me to Alan Whistler

The Genesis includes narratives composed, either orally or as written parts of Genesis, by precisely witnesses. It is only as a full book that the final composition was 1447 years or so after the Flood. You see, the Flood (with Prequels and Sequels) is in chapters 6 to 9 of Genesis. But Genesis has 50 chapters. For the final book, you don't just need the eyewitness accounts for chapter 7, you also need the eyewitness accounts for chapters 12 to 50. Obviously you could not have those immediately after the composition (oral or written) of what is now chapters 6 to 9 of Genesis. Abraham was born 2015 BC, which is 942 years after the Flood, according to one LXX chronology.

The situation is parallel to Livy. He composed Ab Urbe Condita between 27 BC and 9 BC. But whatever witness accounts he had for First Book, on founding of Rome, his own text is not as his identic to the witness accounts, it is just based on them, at best in quotes (note that since Latin had changed fairly much between the time of Aeneas and Livy, this would involve at least some translation of the Danish to Swedish type, most probably along the way.

Me citing him

// By Moses.

^^Show this to be true. This is a claim of the^^ bible. Bible is not verified by bible. //

Me to Alan Whistler

You are here trying to treat "the Bible" as one witness. But one witness can be verified by another witness. So, if "the Bible" were one witness, it would need a verification outside the Bible.

For Moses being author of Genesis, I refer to Hebrew tradition, once again. For Hebrew tradition saying this soon after Moses and not just recently when challenged by Western atheism, it is a perfectly circle free verification to refer to later books = other witnesseS! = of the Bible.

"Circular reasoning - Dismissed"

Oh, come on, don't tell me you are so sore at logic as to confuse "vicious circle in proving", "vicious circle in explaining" and "one part of Bible confirming another part"?

Me citing him

From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?"

// From the Hebrew tradition available to Moses. Possibly, but not necessarily including pre-existing but not canonic books like Jasher (which I suppose was a work in progress now lost, or perhaps in final version identic to Chronicles, hardly to the non-canonic Jasher), Jubilees, Henoch.

^^What corroborates the works available to moses^^ as the story goes //

Me to Alan Whistler

His integrity. Plus his divine mission, as corroborated by his miracles in Exodus. This corroborates that the oral or written works available to him were enough.

Also, the integrity of tradition. It would be a funny people who had had no accounts of either Creation or Flood or Abraham and then their boss wrote a made up book, and they just accepted it, even without having had any previous accounts of any of these things.

Me citing him

// n what original form was it produced (integrity)?"

First Genesis chapters were written down or memorised (for chapters 1 - 7 each is as long as 2.5*Nicene Creed, which is a text even non-specialists know how to memorise if instructed), then they were collected by Moses into a single book.

^^Nicean creed is unbiased?^^ //

Me to Alan Whistler

Nicene Creed as example of sth which anyone can learn by heart is an unbiassed example. If you want an unbiassed verification that medium length of first seven chapters of Genesis is indeed 2.5 times the length of the Nicene Creed, you copy the chapters as continuous text onto a word document, and then copy the Nicene Creed sufficiently many times to get another word document the same length.

The point is, if ANYONE can learn the Nicene Creed by heart, then people who were good at learning by heart could very easily have learned chapter by chapter of early Genesis history by heart, and no need for a written account for the tradition to be solid.

"^^Could the gen genealogy be fabricated?"

Very unlikely. Pagans did NOT do so boring stuff.

"Could it just be writers mentioning characters known to have existed?"

Very unlikely, as we deal with writers dealing with an already existing tradition.

"Could reported global flood timelines just be repeated times from one tradition and plagiarized?"

Impossible, since it is precisely the timelines which are different between the traditions. This is where Hebrew tradition seems superior to the others that have different timelines.

It is in the "golden mean" between Egyptian / Babylonian timelines which are longer and Norse / Greek timelines which are radically shorter.

"^^Are you familiar with the celestial boat of the Egyptian pharaoh called Nua Unkh??"

No, I am not. Tell me what its qualities of not sinking would have been in a global flood? Are you invoking a space ship by Ancient Alien Astronauts to make it?

"^^^^ Can you present whom said the biblical ark could float and hold every species?"

Every kind, not every Linnean species.

For its holding every kind of land vertebrate (that, not every species of any non-aquatic including invertebrate, is the requirement), I refer to the calculation of John Woodmorappe, on Creation Ministries International.

For Ark floating, THEY refer to Japanese or South Korean navy doing scaled experiments. Independently of them.

Since right now they don't seem to be selling Woodmorappe's study, I link to Don Batten's fairly cheap resumé:

How did the animals fit on Noah's Ark?
£0.50
https://ukstore.creation.com/how-did-the-animals-fit-on-noahs-ark

As to the experiment, which they refer to, perhaps it is not navy, but "S.W. Hong, S. S. Na, B. S. Hyun, S. Y. Hong, D. S. Gong, K. J. Kang, S. H. Suh, K. H. Lee and Y. G. Je are all on the staff of the Korea Research Institute of Ships and Engineering, Taejon."

CMI : Safety investigation of Noah’s Ark in a seaway
by S.W. Hong, S.S. Na, B.S. Hyun, S.Y. Hong, D.S. Gong, K.J. Kang, S.H. Suh, K.H. Lee, and Y.G. Je
http://creation.com/safety-investigation-of-noahs-ark-in-a-seaway

Me citing him

// ^^ What supports the claim? // it mentions a detail which points to highest mountains having been flatter before// //

Me to Alan Whistler

Did you miss my reflection on the "fifteen cubits"?

If a witness says "waters were 15 cubits above the highest mountains", this implies 15 cubits were somehow measured. And since all the traditions are implicitly claiming to base their Flood accounts on witness (Norse tradition claiming it was divine or gigantic witness, since Flood was before creation of man) let's treat each account as a witness account and see how well it fares.

So, this possible witness account says sth which implies some measuring was done. 15 cubits means half the height of the Ark. "and the height of it thirty cubits." Noah could for instance very easily have known that ships normally have water lines at half their height and have painted a water line at 15 cubits. Since there was a window, he could have looked down on the painted line and see it disappear when Ark started to feel like no longer just standing firm on ... the top of Mount Everest? The present peak of Mount Ararat? No, those peaks are too narrow. Analyse that, along with the phrase that the waters rose 15 cubits above the highest mountain, what the text claims is that the Ark was built on the one or one of two or more mountains of same and known height, and that there were no higher mountains anywhere in the world.

If we take "And the waters prevailed beyond measure upon the earth: and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. [20] The water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains which it covered." as referring to Mount Everest the measuring doesn't make sense.

If we take it as referring to 15 cubits on a low hill, known to be lower than the highest mountains, the words "all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. [20] The water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains which it covered." don't make sense.

You cannot verify from water covering a low hill to 15 cubits above peak that Mount Everest also was covered to 15 cubits above peak, and no one can ever have been stupid enough to believe that.

You can, on your view, say that the Genesis account is fiction, misunderstanding, fraud and whatever else, but you cannot claim it was written by bunglers who couldn't think. IF we, for comparison with other Flood traditions, treat each as a possible witness account, lets give each of Deucalion, Noah, Atrahasis their best. Giving Noah his best is assuming if he or his sons wrote a line like that, they knew geography and they knew that what they called the very high mountains were things they could build a very long ark on. It was 300 cubits long, good luck doing carpentry that size on top of OUR very high mountains!

Me citing him

//Perhaps more credible, but also less informative. This means, either we leave out the story line of history, or we take narratives. And plenty of them. //

"^^Or the people writing it had knowledge of geography and history of the region – Dismissed"

Me to Alan Whistler

Your grasp of logic is somewhat flimsy. I am here getting to the point that relics are more credible than narrative, according to those historians, but answering that relics are less informative, and therefore in order to have narrative history at all, we need to take also narratives, and plenty of them, as sufficiently credible. YOUR rebuttal simply doesn't adress the point.

YOUR rebuttal makes a point about which narratives between several one should better trust, but has no bearing at all on whether one should trust relics only or narrative as well. A little hint : without narrative it is difficult to identify a relic even as a relic.

"^^Still a chance – FAIL^^"

Sorry, but you are not dealing with history any more. History has no water tight proof. It only has "beyond any reasonable doubt". And that I have given you.

Me citing him

// I suppose this is where some would add a few words about Hebrews plagiarising from Babylonians. If so, just why did Hebrews do some details better, rather than worse, than the Babylonians?

"^^Argument from ignorance, because you don’t know why doesn’t mean they didnt" //

Me to Alan Whistler

When dealing with speculation on what men can have done, we also deal with reasonable motivations and capacitations. What you are suggesting is the near miracle that a bungler copies the story of a bungler and makes it more plausible than it was in his source. For more plausible see the points already adressed.

"^^Shame some ancient civilisations missed the^^ GLOBAL FLOOD"

Name one you think did so, and I'll probably be able to refer you to its Flood legend. I am only dealing with named four, because those are the ones I know best.

Me citing him

// Done. The rest is pointless. Your sources attesting the sources are biased. Nicean's, really? //

Me to Alan Whistler

You are Alan the Atheist on Answers in Reason, right?

Rename it "answers in unreason", since it is unreasonable to consider your kind of debate as anything more than strawmen. I did not use Nicene Creed as a source, I did use it as a well known example of what a man can without much problem learn by heart if he is motivated. Any Muslim who denies the Nicene Creed and holds it in horror would have to admit it is, and any Atheist who thinks any Creeds are stupid and Nicene vs rival Homoiusian and Homoian creeds ultrastupid would have to admit that texts this length can be learned by heart by normal people. HENCE, any text the length of each of first seven chapters of Genesis could also have been learned by heart. And once a text is learned by heart, oral transmission is not hearsay, but organised tradition. You pick on the fact that I used an example with religious connotations to illustrate a point which should be uncontroversial, and construe this into my "relying on biassed sources", and on top of that imply that that is an error in history, where often enough all sources we do have are biassed, one way or the other!

Alan Whistler to me

Citing me

Before answering your latest, here is my catching up since yesterday:

// Genesis latest written by Moses around 1510 BC, 8 - 12 overlapping generations after Adam.

^^Show this to be true^^ //

Which one of the claims?

Alan Whistler to me

FFS dude, all of your claims and assertions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof

Citing

Philosophical burden of proof - Wikipedia
In epistemology, the burden of proof (Latin: onus probandi (shorthand for Onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat) is the obligation on a party in a dispute to provide sufficient warrant for their position.

Alan Whistler to me

I have asked you over and over to aupport all assertions, you are wasting my time - if you dont know you have to then you have no business bothering me.

FB announces

Fin de la discussion

Me to Alan Whistler

Apparently you don't have patience enough to read two lines ahead before answering a rhetorical question which irritates you.

[could not send]

Me to Alan Whistler

What I was writing when receiving his rude note

"No you assert the mountains were much lower. That is an assertion."

In my reply to AronRa, it is at least a possibility and that is all I need. I am stating it as a fact, because I believe it is a fact.

"You say bible says so but this is then an assertion of the bible which must be supported to be considered."

Your comment is faulty in two ways:

• 1) It is trying to treat the whole Bible as "one witness" which needs to be confirmed by "another witness" which would therefore need to be extr-Biblical.
• 2) The Bible does not directly assert this. The Genesis witness makes an assertion which makes it a reasonable conclusion.

"Are you not sure regarding the burden of proof?"

We are not pleading before court. I am not pleading before a court that you are a heretic. But if you simply mean "positive claims require positive evidence, I heartily agree. But I do nnot agree I had missed on that one, and you have pretended I did so by strawmanning time after time.

"What tradition proves mountains were much lower."

I never said that that particular item or detail was proven by other traditions. The Flood is. This particular tradition is proving itself superior to the others by

"We already established tradition could be borrowed from one civilisation by another."

In general this is true, and in general this poses no problem for credibility of it either. We have a tradition about Confucius, which we have borrowed from the Chinese tradition about Confucius.

With regards to the Flood, where for once a borrowing would be problematic for veracity, I have also shown that a borrowing presumes a scenario you have been unwilling to explain.

"We established tradition can be myth."

You pretend to have established that as a fact. I pretend that the supposed fact is a meaningless jumble of words, because "myth" has no one meaning which can universally be seen as meaningful in dismissing veracity of fact.

"Therefore you must show the traditions to be facts."

Any historic narrative depends on tradition. When between two conflicting traditions I don't trust one, it is generally because I think the other is more credible, not because it is a tradition. If there is a tradition with claim of historic facthood, it is presumable evidence for that facthood, not just a dubious proposition which needs to be established on other grounds.

"Not just say tradition must be true as sometimes tradition is true lol."

That was not the point. The point is that ALL historic narrative is known as true only because tradition is presumed as true.

You seem to think "tradition" is generally unreliable, but some traditions can on other "historical" ground be shown as more reliable than others.

The reverse is true. In "history" all narrative depends on tradition, tradition is generally seen as basically reliable, but some traditions are shown less reliable than others. Often enough by other, more reliable ones.