Reinforced by images showing what appears to be water ice, Phoenix team members are moving ahead with plans to analyse the soil in-depth. The composition of the first soil sample delivered to an onboard oven may be known within days, and the lander is already attempting to collect a second sample. Images received from Phoenix showed that several clumps of soil that had appeared in an earlier image had apparently vaporised over the course of four days.That suggests the white material is water ice and not salt or other materials, the team says.
So, was Mars once a living world? Does life continue, even today, in a holding pattern, waiting until the next global warming or some other biological event? Would finding “life” alter the way people view science? What are your views?
Those white spots weren’t ice. They were Martians. When they realized we were watching them, they moved out of range.
Teach the controversy!
Yes, teach the controversy!
But seriously….
Proof of life on Mars would mark a sea change in our understanding of abiogenesis (or exogenesis). The frantic spinning from creationists would also provide loads of entertainment.
The frantic spinning from creationists would also provide loads of entertainment.
Yeah it would, but sadly I’m sure they will dismiss it as lies and distortions from the scientific community….. sigh. Why can’t the natural world/universe be appreciated for just that?
Riiiiight. You nonbelievers are so damn funny aren’t you? You all should know that the “ice” was placed there by our lord and creator FSM.
It’s a NASA-Darwinist plot! The ice was planted there by the probe so it could conveniently be “discovered.” Don’t be fooled! This is Piltdown Man all over again!
Sorry to interrupt and to be sooo OT – but I am very excited about something, and I want to share! 🙂
Stacy
Sorry Stacy,
Uh, that’s just to convenient! First water-ice on Mars and now the possible cure for mental retardation/autism.
This is obviously a plot by neo darwinists to detract from the wholly word!
@fc – it is a good day, isn’t it!! 🙂
If Bobby Jindal vetoes SB733 I’ll know someone is messing with me.
Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!
I guess none of that really happened, I witnessed none of it, and found nothing about it in The Bible. Dream on.
😛
I’m having difficulty finding the uncontested evolutionist or atheist view showing the odds of life appearing by natural processes. Does anybody know if this equation exist?
It seems like a good question if we are to consider life popping up unassisted on another planet.
Here are a few attempts, but each has been discredited. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/addendaB.html
I’m having difficulty finding the uncontested evolutionist or atheist view showing the odds of life appearing by natural processes. Does anybody know if this equation exist?
It seems like a good question if we are to consider life popping up unassisted on another planet.
Here are a few attempts, but each has been discredited. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/addendaB.html
I know I know don’t push the button twice.
All those creationist arguments about “the odds” used to drive me crazy. I finally decided — without math and without footnotes — that where the required elements are present, life is probably inevitable. Then I wrote a series of three articles about it, each dealing with a different fallacy involved in the foolishness of those who try to compute “the odds” against life.
If you can slog through even one of them, they’re linked in a sidebox at my blog, titled “The Inevitability of Evolution (Part I)” then II, then III.
Odds aside, the bigger question is, what implications on biblical scriptures would be made if life/fossilized remains were indeed discovered on another planet?
Are we due for another rehash of “The devil did it”? This time with some sort of spaceship/teleportation device/MAGIC THING that we didn’t know about, but trust me it’s there in the bible cuz I said so dealy?
Result of global warming ? Lets look for life on mars instead of devolution.
Our Sun is a fairly average star. Our galaxy holds approximately 200 billion such stars, of which a good chunk can be assumed to have planets in orbit.
At last count, there are approximately 500 billion galaxies out in the universe, and still counting.
Once those numbers sink in, it becomes fairly obvious, given that on our one little blue dot of a planet life fairly teems, that life outside of our own solar system is HIGHLY likely, if not inevitable.
And since our technology gets better and better, it also would seem to be inevitable that we will one day detect such life. That event will indeed be momentous, but far from unexpected.
The “odds” of life appearing by natural causes are 100%. It happened.
No evidence exists that it occurred by non-natural means.
Daniel said “Result of global warming ?”Yep looks like it even on Mars: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977
Ivy Mike Says (June 23rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm):
The creationists like to argue this both ways: (1) life is so impossible that its appearance is obviously a miracle; and (2) the universe is obviously fine-tuned for life, and that’s a miracle.
Interesting. If global warming is on Mars then it must be the result of something other than manmade. Maybe the sun then. Could be a good reason why its happening here.
How do you calculate the odds of anything when you don’t really know how the single occurrence of which you are aware happened?
Egaeus
It is difficult to get a straight answer.
The data which has been proposed so far, would indicate that the odds are known, but perhaps not deemed favorable to the faithful Darwinist. And those single occurrences appear to float in the realm of imagination.
I attended a talk given by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist. He talked about the fact that we (along with all other life on this planet) are comprised primarily of the five most common elements found throughout the universe. He said that taking this into account along with the vast expanse of the universe to think we were the only life would be extremely egocentric! So it is VERY likely there is some form of life elsewhere in our universe, where and will we ever find it- don’t know.
And AGAIN:
How life began and how live has evolved from simple to complex are two SEPARATE questions and theories.
PH – creationists actually say that the universe is fine tuned for life on EARTH…
PH/IM – The jump from the existence of matter to the inevitable existence of life is logically false.
Oh, look, three of them crapping on our threads again. Joy! 🙂
firemancarl
“You all should know that the “ice†was placed there by our lord and creator FSM.”
Of course it was….for keeping our drinks cold should we drop by 🙂
@Karl
“Are we due for another rehash of “The devil did itâ€? ”
Nah….it was the snake serpent….Serpens actually….
Life-Forming Chemicals Found in Distant Galaxy
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/01/17/galaxy-amino-acid.html
Notice the astounding resemblance of this star birth center to our glorious Noodly One? In His own image!
It DOES look like the Noodly One! They should sell that picture on e bay!
😉
I only hope that we find evidence of life somewhere else in the solar system / galaxy in my lifetime. I would love to finally see the creationists shut up in embarrassment, like the one from that snake handling church in the panhandle who keeps trolling here. 😉
If we found intelligent life somewhere else in the universe, some fundie would demand that we send “missionaries” there to convert them to Christianity.
And if we established communications/transit, some would try exactly that, to no small amount of entertainment, I’m sure.
Ivy Mike Says:
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:27 pm
“Our Sun is a fairly average star. Our galaxy holds approximately 200 billion such stars, of which a good chunk can be assumed to have planets in orbit.”
And of course you would have us believe that any one of those could support life. You know that is not true.
“At last count, there are approximately 500 billion galaxies out in the universe, and still counting.”
Meaningless.
“Once those numbers sink in, it becomes fairly obvious, given that on our one little blue dot of a planet life fairly teems, that life outside of our own solar system is HIGHLY likely, if not inevitable.”
A star has to be the right size and in the right location within the galaxy. Too close to other stars, such as all of the stars in the arms of spiral galaxies and those in globular clusters (it was hilarious when Carl Sagan aimed that radio signal at a globular cluster), and life is impossible. Our star is in the right place lying outside of the spiral arm, not too far, not too close. Any closer and the earths orbit would be too wild to support life.
Planets around the stars in and around the center of the galaxy would not support life due to the gravitational effects and radiation from other stars.
Too close to a star gone nova, end of life, period. 8000 light years is not enough distance to keep the exploding stars radiation from striping our ozone layer from the atmosphere. Look at all of the factors that prevent life and your “certainty” becomes like trying to find a specific grain of sand somewhere on the coast of California.
Ivy Mike Says:
June 23rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
“The “odds†of life appearing by natural causes are 100%. It happened.
No evidence exists that it occurred by non-natural means.”
No evidence exists that it (life) occurred by natural means. Science says absence of one is not proof of another.
The evidence of creation is plentiful, some just are not honest enough to follow the evidence where it leads.
E. Morriss –
What empirical evidence exists to support creationism?
Fine-tuning is just another creationist / intelligent design argument which is nothing more than a modern versions of God-of-the-gaps reasoning. God is deemed necessary whenever science has not fully explained some phenomenon. Our Solar System is certainly a prerequisite for our existence,but to claim that this whole vast system was construted just for our (humans) existence is very anthropocentric.
Stephen Hawking said “If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Mankind much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts”.
The creationist accuses us of dishonesty while promoting arguably the most fantastic lie in all of human history using the most blatantly deceptive and sometimes violent means.
zygosporangia Says:
June 24th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
“What empirical evidence exists to support creationism?”
Far more than exists for the “life started naturally” crowd. There is not one shred of evidence, other than the wishful thinking of scientists, for living organisms beginning by chance.
Would you like to share this so-called empirical evidence or would you rather leave us in suspense?
Jonathan Smith Says:
June 24th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
“Fine-tuning is just another creationist / intelligent design argument which is nothing more than a modern versions of God-of-the-gaps reasoning. God is deemed necessary whenever science has not fully explained some phenomenon.”
Science has nothing but hopeful monsters and things that “already had the ability to reproduce” and all kinds of aces up the sleeves when it comes to most of what it claims about abiogenesis and evolution. Without a shred of evidence (no, Miller was not your saviour) athiests claim life popped up all by itself totally by chance.
“Our Solar System is certainly a prerequisite for our existence, but to claim that this whole vast system was construted just for our (humans) existence is very anthropocentric.”
I have no idea if it (the universe) was created just for us. The Bible does not state that as far as I know. If you heard that from someone, take it up with them, I didn’t say it.
Stephen Hawking said “If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Mankind much to boast of as the final result of all my effortsâ€.
ROFL! Omnipotence without knowledge is worthless. Of course atheists always claim to know how and why an omniscient and omnipotent being should do things which of course is never how they would have done it. How arrogant to assume your own knowledge is equal to such a being.
I dont know how Hawking knows Mankind is the final result of God’s efforts, but it is obvious that Hawking does not know compassion.
Karl Says:
June 24th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
“Would you like to share this so-called empirical evidence or would you rather leave us in suspense?”
Show me the proof life started by itself. All you have is maybe this, maybe that, maybe on the backs of crystals, imagined in the minds of scientists.
“Would you like to share this so-called empirical evidence or would you rather leave us in suspense?â€
Show me the proof life started by itself.
YOU made a claim…that your particular myth of creation has empirical evidence to support it. Now YOU get to support that claim with said evidence. But remember…
1. The Bible is not evidence, nor is ANY religious book;
2. Trying to poke holes in evolutionary theory or abiogenesis is NOT positive support for YOUR assertions;
3. We’ve all probably heard everything you’re going to say already, and seen it debunked a million times.
4. Links to creationist propaganda sites like AiG will be laughed at for the bullshit they are.
Okay, Ace…let’s see your evidence. No redirecting, no dancing, no dodging…present your so-called “evidence” or man up and admit that all you have is your faith in your myths and your fear of science.
And all you have is a Bronze Age book of myths plagiarized from earlier cultures by ignorant goat herders and then edited and rewritten over and over again until we have the end product we see today. Only somebody who was brainwashed since birth to believe in such utter bullocks would cling so desperately to ridiculous stories and claim that tales of giants, unicorns, flying people, talking snakes, talking donkeys, people with magical hair, a global flood for which there is no evidence etc, etc, etc has more merit than the collective knowledge of centuries of scientific enquiry. I know that conversations with delusional godbotherers such as yourself and the other mindless trolls who have infested this site dedicated to SCIENCE is utterly pointless but it does bear repeating that science is not afraid to say, “We don’t know the answer yet but we’re working on it and will go where the evidence leads”. Religion says, “Read this book. It’s all in there and the answer is always ‘Goddidit'”. Invoking magic is for the intellectually lazy.
Zeus blew the first life out of his left nostril. It flew like a wet meteorite and splash-landed on earth. After that, evolution took over and here we are. Anyone who doesn’t know this is a fool!
What we have here is the classic creationist standoff. Where is this supposed mountain of evidence that supports creationism over the natural development and evolution of life on earth?
E. Morriss Says:
June 24th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Show me the proof life started by itself. All you have is maybe this, maybe that, maybe on the backs of crystals, imagined in the minds of scientists.
Well hey, you made the claim first. Burden of proof is on the claimant. We can have this circular discussion all day, but that will only show how utterly useless your way of thinking is. Meanwhile, using scientific methods, we’ve already shown how amino acids and peptides can spontaneously form under certain conditions. I’m gonna go on a limb and guess that creationists are still stuck with the “bible” as their only source of “evidence.”
The burden of proof is always on one who makes a claim, and this is true. You claim that life originated by natural processes, but can back up that claim scientifically. Worse, your commitment to evolutionary theory locks you into an epistemological nightmare, which is quite funny when you read the arrogance of say, Ivy Mike above. Whether Creationism and Scripture is true is irrelevant in this situation. You can’t back up your claim that life originated by natural means scientifically, and your own theory, when applied to the mind, leaves you withering in skepticism. I mean, can we really trust matter in motion to give us a true account of reality????????? Of course not. We could never really be sure….thus we could never be sure that evolution was correct, or anything else for that matter. I bring this up to challenge your arrogance. Your science has already been questioned and found, on your own admission, wanting in regards to the origin of life.
Karl
Forget the bible, if you can show us how amino acids and peptides can spontaneously form under certain conditions, then do it. Make us some monkeys and this debate will be over.
Meanwhile away from delusion back in the real world of science…
“More on the origination of new protein-coding genes”
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/06/more-on-the-ori.html#more
I love being called “arrogant” by a sleazy liar who uses multiple screennames to troll a science site with the purpose of disrupting it. Oh, and who presumes to critique the work of actual scientists while he himself has no scientific training whatsoever and doesn’t read any of the refutations he’s linked to. And who, in addition, posts the same discredited crap over and over again.
Hell, I’ll even admit to being arrogant. But, Johnny Mac could give me a graduate course in it.
I mean, what could be more self-righteously arrogant than coming on a science site, making a claim, and then demanding that the science-supporters prove THEIR claims? It’s damned good comedy for my morning, that’s for sure. Especially when Johnny has yet to provide a single shred of empirical evidence for the existance of ANY “creator”, let alone his own.
Despite the lulz, however, I’ll have to once again note that an evolution-related thread has been invaded by Johnny and his buttbuddies, and hopelessly derailed. It is apparent that these people have no manners in addition to having no sense of decency or honesty.
Cheezus Crust! I go away for a few days, and dreck fills the pages?
Skeptic, you said
First, the universe doesn’t care if we’re here or not. Life conforms to it’s surroundings, the surroundings don’t conform to life. For example, life here on Earth is the way it is because Earth supports these lifeforms.
Secondly, no one is suggesting there is a jump in the existance of matter to the existance of life
This is more typical creationist lack of scientific understanding.
Okay… perhaps I overestimated the reading comprehension ability of you creationists, but the basic summary of the scientific position on the natural occurrence of life is that we don’t know EXACTLY HOW the first living organisms developed, but, we have evidence showing that they were most likely unicellular, and that the materials for the construction of their cellular components were available through spontaneous generation given the environmental conditions at the time.
The problem in the debate over the origins of life is that one side has the audacity to portray itself as the de facto truth without any physical evidence or even a desire to obtain such evidence while the other presents a hypothesis along with evidence to support certain aspects of it, and acknowledges that more research is necessary to determine the facts behind this event
It would appear that the creationists are the arrogant ones who think they have the world all figured out without actually doing any “figuring.” I ask again, where is your empirical evidence for creationism?
This is not a debate about creationism – it is a debate concerning your scientific claims. Karl, are you really going to expouse spontaneous generation???? I mean really, something coming from nothing???? Must one stoop to this in order to maintain naturalism? Has science ever confirmed spontaneous generation? If I remember correctly Pasteur destroyed that rediculous notion with something called the law of biogenesis…life begets life.
Hola retard. Did you not read the part where I mentioned that the amino acids and other peptides were shown to be created by spontaneous generation, and that the process by which these building blocks were used to assemble an actual living cell STILL REMAINS UNKNOWN? What we do know from the evidence is that giraffes, dinosaurs, wombats and two humans didn’t all just appear at one point over a period of 6-7 days and lived in happy harmony until one of the two screwed it up. This is what’s being presented as the answer to how life began, and how life developed by creationists. Evolution theory disputes the creationist view of how life developed and the evidence we have on primordial earth via fossils and even concepts from basic geology disputes the magical construction of an iron-cored rocky planet complete with a diverse and self-sustaining ecosystem over 6 days.
Burden of proof is still on you. Where is your evidence for creationism? Did your dog eat it again?
Spontaneous Generation and the Origin of Life
“What Louis Pasteur and the others who denied spontaneous generation demonstrated is that life does not currently spontaneously arise in complex form from nonlife in nature; he did not demonstrate the impossibility of life arising in simple form from nonlife by way of a long and propitious series of chemical steps/selections. In particular, they did not show that life cannot arise once, and then evolve.”
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/creationist.html
Back to the creation evidence …….from mud wasn’t it?
*makes some more popcorn*
E. Morriss –
I’m still waiting for you to back up your claim that “The evidence of creation is plentiful…”
If you are going to make such a bold claim, then have the will to back it up, please.
I love how the creationists have gone from providing any evidence that their myth is true to challenging us to back up the status quo.
Apparently, there are three (or less, I can’t keep track of the socket puppets) trolls who don’t even understand how to debate nor have a discussion.
I just can’t even imagine what it must feel like to be in E. Morriss, ABO and Skepticism’s shoes, trying to maintain and reinforce beliefs so fragile, incoherant and contradictory that I’d feel the need to constantly lash out and regurgitate them on a science website.
They appear to be primarily trying to convince and reassure themselves of the validity of their own beliefs by posting here.
…..even sadder is the fact that they continually state that they have no morals and ethics without adherence to the words of their holey texts.
Irony is that creationists generally exhibit a gross willful lack of ethics whilst claiming to be adhering to the teachings of said book!
Karl
“Where is your evidence for creationism? Did your dog eat it again?”
Eeeew….I hope not! Poor dog will need a stomach pump! 🙁
I’m just waiting for the creationists to jump back into the whole morality angle. Since Racist John’s so-called departure, I found some more fun juicy tidbits about the history of his church (not surprisingly, involving more nooses and burning crosses).
Ummm … I thought this thread was about Mars! 😉
Karl, it is kind of silly to assume that the creatures you’ve listed appeared over a period of 6 or 7 days. What’s even funnier is to think they just appeared at all.
So Karl, you say that the process of spontaneous generation used to assemble a living cell remains unknown. Then how can you be sure the process is the process of spontaneous generation? And how can you show that evolution is the reason for diversity and not programming?
You need proof of creation, look in the mirror.
The best information we have indicates that the creatures you’ve listed, along with quite a few others, didn’t just appear. They were made on day 6.
Yeah, so far, its been one giant derail after another…
We now return to our UNregularly scheduled trainwreck:
ABO:
While whatever evidence we have available cannot say for sure how the presence of these spontaneously generated amino acids could have assembled themselves, or even have anything to do with the appearance of the first self-replicating proto-cell, we do know that on the 6th day after whatever point where earth could be classified as a planet, no giraffes, wombats, or any forms of life for that matter, were present. And when life, as we classify it today, did appear, it was millions of years later, in the some form of unicellular organism, and not the happy garden of vegetarian lions, tigers, coconut-chompin T-rexes, and two naked people frolicking under an apple tree.
The problem here is that your so-called “best information” offers arguably the worst and most improbable explanation as told by a few nomadic tribes wandering around the desert several thousand years ago. Based on your logic, all modern medicine is bunk when compared with the power of prayer (even the mere usage of these modern medical innovations can be considered a lack of faith), and diseases are still caused by evil spirits. When you catch the flu, do you visit the doctor or your pastor?
Re: creationist take on scientific exploration:
“God hates Mars”
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/06/25/god-hates-mars/
From “A Waste of Taxpayer Money” by Rob Hood
“I have four year old kids in my church that could tell you where life originated. If people would bother to accept the fact that everything in existence is created by an omnipotent God then, we would not need to waste money searching for an answer that even small children already know…..
…Mars is a desert planet and perhaps there is ice and maybe even water there. So what? Who cares? It’s water! That doesn’t mean a thing. Life originated on Earth when God spoke it into existence and there is no need in wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money searching for an answer that is based upon faulty evolutionary ideas.”
But it does appear to be rather fond of fractals….
“Galaxy map hints at fractal universe”
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14200-galaxy-map-hints-at-fractal-universe.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
What a maroon! … sigh.
This is the dangerous attitude I’ve been trying to warn people about. I’ve brought this point up several times before during the various ID/creationism v. evolution “debates,” and we’ve always gotten some sort of runaround response of how it only applies to evolution and other nonsense. The notion that we have it all figured out so no more effort or resources are needed to find the answers is not only harmful to science, but to the progress and well-being of mankind.
Today it may be space exploration, tomorrow it may be research into infectious diseases. “Oh hey, we don’t need to find a cure for this new disease! We already know it’s just God punishing us for our misdeeds. Why waste money finding a cure when even small children know that prayer and repenting for our sins will cure all sickness.”
Many religious cults (I wonder if this includes McDonald’s and ABO’s cults) believe that we should not fund AIDS research, as AIDS is punishment from their god for homosexuality.
Likewise, in the past, religious cults have claimed that cholera, cancer, ergot poisoning, boils, gout, congenital defects, heart attacks, or other such maladies are punishments from their gods for some sin or another. When one is ignorant of nature, one must anthropomorphize it to understand it.
Actually, Christianity teaches that God has given man a “Dominion Mandate” which requires man to research and study creation. This mandate can be found in Gen. 1:28ff. It is interesting that so many of the incredible discoveries in the history of science were made by Christians operating consciously under the dominion mandate. To accuse orthodox Christianity of hindering scientific discovery is simply a false accusation.
Than what say you of those in the creationism movement that openly advocate the halting of research into anything that COULD potentially contradict what was laid down by Genesis as the absolute truth? The Dominion Mandate may exist, but from the overall message and actions of your movement, it certainly isn’t practiced, like many other teachings from the bible that are conveniently ignored. The deceptions and deliberate misinformation provided by AIG (which gets paraded around here quite often) would seem to run counter to this mandate as well.
To echo Racist John McDonald’s extremist sentiments, perhaps you should all re-evaluate your own statuses as Christians since you’ve demonstrated a willful ignorance of God’s teachings.
zygosporangia Says:
June 25th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
E. Morriss –
I’m still waiting for you to back up your claim that “The evidence of creation is plentiful…â€
If you are going to make such a bold claim, then have the will to back it up, please.
______________
Patience Grasshopper, I work for a living and am now off for a 3-day in Cancun.
Commence argument from incredulity in 3…2…1…
Karl, I would say to them that to halt or refrain from scientific investigation would be out of accord with God’s commands. I would also note that we have nothing to fear from scientific investigation. Because all truth is God’s truth, nothing that we find in nature (the work of God) will contradict anything which we find in Scripture (the Word of God).
Unfortunately, your opinion and those sharing it comprise a minority of what can be considered “mainstream” creationist efforts. We’ve all seen the Wedge document and its mission to defeat scientific materialism, which is just another phrase for research into subjects that would hinder their efforts at promoting “the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.” This would mean that the actions of religious lobbying groups such as the Discovery Institute fly in the face of their own God’s mandate in their crusade against evolution. They don’t like the implications made by evolution theory so they want to stop it dead through misinformation and deceit instead of *gasp* calling for more resources to be put into scientific research efforts in the hope that somewhere down the line, an exhaustive study would eventually reveal the divine presence they were all hoping for. In a way, their present course of action shows a disturbing lack of faith.
Skepticism Says:
“Because all truth is God’s truth, nothing that we find in nature (the work of God) will contradict anything which we find in Scripture (the Word of God).”
How many legs does a locust have?
Define locust
I find their lack of faith… disturbing.
Sorry, couldn’t resist the obligatory paraphrased Darth Vader quote.
Noodlicious said “How many legs does a Locust have?”
That would be four legs for bible locusts, and six legs for real locusts.
Boy, ever since that “Expelled” post, this site has become a major magnet for the Holy Trollers.
Well, it is their sacred duty to Lie for Jesus.
Why would you ask to define locust? Is it that you don’t know what they are, which in that case,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust
or are you planning making the claim that the biblical term “locust” could be describing any number of arthropods that swarm and devour crops? (Although keep in mind that no terrestrial arthropod feature 4 legs so somewhere down the line someone made a typo or mistranslation.)
Don’t forget bats=birds, talking snakes, talking donkeys, flying people, and any number of reality-defying crap contained therein.
…and remember that snakes crawl on their bellies and eat dust.
So just curious, where exactly is that reference regarding four legs?
Tsk tsk….read your bibble Johnny!
put up or shut up
Leviticus 11:20-23
11:20 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.
11:21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
11:22 Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.
11:23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.
C&P from http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/lev/11.html
Four-legged insects!
Be sure to watch out for those “other flying creeping things which have four feet.” (I wish God wouldn’t get so technical!) I guess he must mean four-legged insects. You’d think that since God made the insects, and so many of them (at least several million species), that he would know how many legs they have!
Wolfhound Says: (June 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm)
Any fowl like that sounds abominable to me. Wisdom for the ages!
Yeah, but twice the drumsticks!
Wow, they have four to crawl and two to jump = 6. You’ll have to do better than that.
What translation are you using? Lev. 11:20 reads “all flying insects” in the NKJV. Looks like you are trying to erect a straw man.
“Legs above their feet” means 6 to you? Wow, any means to try to save your Big Book o’ Bullpucky. The cognitive dissonance is truly astounding.
Sorry, don’t have my Bible handy. I tossed it out in the trash years ago along with other childish things.
So if you don’t have a Bible, how did you happen upon this verse? Were you depending upon the “skeptic” sites for your information? I can tell you that everything these sites state as discrepancies in Scripture have been sufficiently and adequately answered.
“Lev. 11:20 reads “all flying insects†in the NKJV.”
“psst….Lev 11:20 is 4 legged fowls in KJV*
You’ll be wanting NKJ Leviticus 11:21 for 4 legged insects….
“Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth”
Bit confusing with so many versions of the inerrant word of god!
Lev 11:20 *parallel* translations…
http://www.godrules.net/library/kjv/kjvlev11.htm
There have been mistranslations of Scripture. But to mistranslate means that that there was an error with the translator, NOT THE TEXT. There has been over 400 years of scholarship to add to the table between the KJV and NKJV. That’s 400 years of better understanding in regard to the Hebrew and Greek language, which means better or more accurate translations into English. When you speak of versions, you are really speaking about translations. There was really only one version, and that was the original autographa in the Hebrew (for the Old Testament) and Greek (for the New Testament).
John, the internet is a wondrous place. Please note this page from the KJV (1611): http://www.leviticus11.com/lev11.htm which says:
20 All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.
21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
It looks like you were reading from your “Oops, We F*cked Up” edition of the Bible wherein modern apologists tried to make things more in line with the real world. As far as you can make crap like that more realistic, anyway. Looks like 400 years of saying, “Oh, crap, science and geography have advanced so far that this bit of scripture is clearly just plain WRONG so we’d better edit it to maintain the illusion of inerrency”.
Looks like we have the No True Bible fallacy to go along with the No True Scotsman fallacy.
Even I’m starting to feel embarrassed for you with the mental gymnastics it must take you to shoehorn reality into a Bronze Age Book of goatherder myths plagiarized from earlier cultures.
Actually, it’s looking like this creobot derail of a great thread about, you know, SCIENCE, has degraded into another bitch-slap fest wherein John McDonald’s sockpuppet account has turned it into a completely OT sermon.
The thread is dying, Brandon. Put it out of its misery!
Yeah, the thread should definitely be put out of its misery.
Although, my question to McDonald… I mean Skepticism or whatever he is callinng himself these days… Which translation of your bible is authoritive? Which one can we tear to pieces for you?
WH – it’s not a question about the text, it’s a question of how to properly translate the Hebrew and Greek text into English. You are trying to attack the original text using a translation. That doesn’t work.
Z – there is no “authoritative” translation because translations are not authoritative.
Will you tear it to pieces like I did your three false bird transition fossils?
So, essentially, what you are saying is that since no one truly speaks the ancient and dead languages that your mystic book was written in, it is impossible to say with authority what your mystic book contains?
I think you just shot yourself in the foot.
What is particularly amusing here is that religious zealots like John can’t see how ridiculously circular their “logic” is. Why do they believe in God? The Bible tells them God exists. Why do think the Bible is inerrant? Because they think the Bible is the word of God. Why do they think that the Bible is the word of God? Because the Bible tells them that it is. Utterly astounding.
See, back when we were children, when an adult told us to do something and we questioned them as to why we should, the response from the adult was (typically, among authoritarian, unimaginitive ones), “Because I said so”. Most of us took that as a sufficient answer/reason until we figured out that it’s not satisfying, grew a pair of balls (or the female equivalent), and rejected that response as unsatisfactory. Religious zealots never matured, emotionally or intellectually, past your typical 4 year old child with regard to the “answer”. Why do they do what they do? Because they think “God said so”. Pathetic.
Re: Bird transition fossils, dream on, ignorant troll. C&P of bullshit from creocrap sites does NOT trump peer reviewed science. Only in the bizarro world of the jesusdroids where reality and fantasy are one and the same.
Actually I stuffed up on that link in my post…..the one I’d meant to include has both original and language translations as well as different versions.
To wit…
http://scripturetext.com/leviticus/11-21.htm
“There was really only one version, and that was the original autographa in the Hebrew (for the Old Testament)”
Which makes even less sense when you look at the so called original*…..
“of every flying”
`owph (ofe)
a bird (as covered with feathers, or rather as covering with wings), often collectively — bird, that flieth, flying, fowl.creeping
sherets (sheh’-rets)
a swarm, i.e. active mass of minute animals — creep(-ing thing), move(-ing creature).thing that goeth
halak (haw-lak’)
to walk (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)upon all four
‘arba` (ar-bah’)
four — four.which have legs
kara` (kaw-raw’)
the leg (from the knee to the ankle) of men or locusts (only in the dual) — leg.above
ma`al (mah’al)
the upper part, used only adverbially with prefix upward, above, overhead, from the top, etc. — above, exceeding(-ly), forward, on (very) high, over, up(-on, -ward), very.their feet
regel (reh’-gel)
a foot (as used in walking); by implication, a step; by euphem. the pudenda — be able to endure, according as, after, coming, follow, (broken-)foot(-ed, -stool), great toe, haunt, journey, leg, piss, possession, time.to leap
nathar (naw-thar’)
to jump, i.e. be violently agitated; causatively, to terrify, shake off, untie — drive asunder, leap, (let) loose, make, move, undo.
Thanks for playing Johnny
Bah….stuffed up the positions of phrase headings there
Notice I said translations are not authoritative. I never said that there wasn’t an authoritative source. Get your facts straight.
Noodle, thanks for acting the part of the Hebrew scholar, but pasting something you found in your skeptic sites doesn’t cut it.
Wolfhound – the doctrine that Scripture is the Word of God does not rest upon circular reasoning. I am afraid you have been greatly misinformed. Apparently you have never heard of classical apologetics.
It’s not a skeptic site Septicism….go take a look. You might just learn something.
So, you’re telling me that both Biblical Greek and Hebrew are your mother tongues? If not, even reading your “authoritative sources” is nothing more than an exercise in translation. Since you have already said that translations cannot be authoritative, it looks like you can never know the authoritative word of your mystic books.
So sad, you stumbled right into that one, McDonald.
There are no “original” biblical texts. The original books of the Old Testament were transcriptions of oral traditions, and the first editions are totally lost. The most recent copies are probably the Dead Sea Scrolls or something else not much older, and they — like all others — are the result of a centuries-old series of scribes copying from the work of earlier scribes. No one knows how accurately the copies were made, or what the “originals” said.
The New Testament went through a selection (and possible editing) process in the early 300s, to decide which — of several competing versions of books and letters — were “genuine” and which weren’t. They somehow made those decisions 300 years after the events they described. The “originals” of those documents don’t exist.
“The most recent copies are probably the Dead Sea Scrolls or something else not much older, and they — like all others — are the result of a centuries-old series of scribes copying from the work of earlier scribes.”
The Buddhists had some problems with copy errors in their Holy texts as well…..
When a young monk arrived at the monastery, he was assigned to helping the other monks copy the old canons and laws by hand.
He notices however, that all of the monks are copying from copies and not from the original manuscripts.
The novice questions the head abbot about this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! That error would be contained in all the subsequent copies.
â€Well we’ve been copying from copies of copies for centuries my son, but you do make a good point.â€
The head monk goes down into the caves under the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault which hasn’t been opened for hundreds of years. The old monk is gone for a good many hours. The novice gets worried and goes down to check on him.
He finds the head monk banging his head against the wall and wailing. His forehead all bloody and bruised. He is shaking uncontrollably and crying. Struggling to speak, the old abbot manages in little more than a hoarse whisper “the ‘R’!..the ‘R’…. we missed the ‘R’…… “the word was CELEBRATE†!!
PatrickHenry Says:
“The original books of the Old Testament were transcriptions of oral traditions”
Brings to mind the end results of games of Chinese Whispers we sometimes played in English class at school.
PatrickHenry Says:
June 29th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
“There are no “original†biblical texts.”
That we know of, this is true.
“The most recent copies are probably the Dead Sea Scrolls…”
ROFL! The dead sea scrolls are the oldest MSS of the old testament ever found. The copies of Isaiah are nearly 1000 years older than the previous oldest MSS of Isaiah. After nearly 100 years of copying Isaiah the only difference between the dead sea scrolls and the previous oldest scroll is about 40 mispellings, spelling differences and ommited words (mistakes). Not one of those changed any fact or doctrine. So much for the UNreliability of making copies by hand.
“…and they — like all others — are the result of a centuries-old series of scribes copying from the work of earlier scribes. No one knows how accurately the copies were made, or what the “originals†said.”
What a load of bovine excrement. I suggest you contact a Bible scholar you feel you can trust and get some real facts.
“After nearly 100 years” should have been “After nearly 1000 years”
The appearance and circulation of the gnostic gospels required the church to offically state the books which were considered inspired and authoritative. The church did not determine what books were inspired, they simply received inspired books and stated them as such. There was a working canon by the end of the first century, and until the gnostic writings there was no pressing need to officially state what books were considered inspired and thus comprising the canon.
And to help zygosporangia out, translations can be considered authoritative only to the degree that they accurately convey the meaning of the original languages.
___________
Wolfhound Says:
June 28th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
“Legs above their feet†means 6 to you? Wow, any means to try to save your Big Book o’ Bullpucky. The cognitive dissonance is truly astounding.
__________
Many Biblical critics do not reference the original Hebrew and Greek texts when searching for errors. In my opinion, this is poor, irresponsible scholarship. Skeptics are trying to correctly merge 17th century A.D. English definitions with 15th century B.C. Hebrew terminology. Such critics fail to realize translation difficulties are not exclusive to the Bible. Any text translated into another language will contain errors due to the use idioms, archaic terminology, etc. They also fail, usually willfully, to study the many uses of the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic words to see how the same word could be used to mean many different things. These words were understood by the people of the day, but as languages and cultures change the usage and understanding sometimes becomes changed or diluted.
Some words, such as the Hebrew word `atalleph (translated bats) have been lost. Over 200 Hebrew scholars worked on the NIV and concluded they could not determine the actual meaning of `atalleph. They simply used what they thought it might be, which was a bat.
While it seems to be an error, the error is not from the original since there is no reason to doubt that the people of the day knew exactly what an `atalleph was when they saw it.
Insects do not have four legs:
Lev 11:21 Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon [all] four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
“legs above their feet” is not a display of stupidity or ignorance. The Hebrew word for above had among its meaning the following:
“Above”: Hebrew ma`al
-with locative
c) upwards, higher, above
Which is consistent with the appearance of the locusts jumping legs when they are folded together and ready to leap. The “knee” is upwards, higher, or above the back and the other legs.
Although insects have six legs, perhaps people in ancient times were not as concerned about classifying living things in excrutiating detail as we are today, and thus regarded the two large hind legs used for jumping as being distinct from the other “lesser” legs. One set of four for creeping, one pair “to leap withal upon the earth”.
In this context (Lev 11:21) “legs” refers to the large legs used by the locust (and other insects) for jumping (see Strongs Concordance).
Bats are not birds:
Leviticus 11:13,19
And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls…and the stork,
the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.
The error in this translation is the use of the word fowls from the Hebrew word owph which literally refers to any
flying creature. Compare this to the Hebrew word tsippowr which is used to specically mean a bird. The original Hebrew text is explaining what flying creatures were acceptable for consumption and which ones were not. Because the bat is technically a flying creature, it was accurately included in this list.
From Strong’s H6833
tsippowr:
1) bird, fowl
a) bird (singular)
b) birds (coll)
Example: Lev 14:4-7
From Strong’s H5775
1) flying creatures, fowl, insects, birds
a) fowl, birds
b) winged insects
Used extensively in Genesis and about twice as much as tsippowr.
Correction:
From Strong’s H5775
`owph: <—
1) flying creatures, fowl, insects, birds
a) fowl, birds
b) winged insects
John, not that this has any bearing on, you know, SCIENCE or anything, but why do you believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God?
Ah, yes, yes, yes, make excuses for the ridiculous things written in the Bible, blame it on “mistranslation”. I’m sure it was simply mistranslation that guys supposedly lived hundreds of year, snakes and donkeys talked, etc, etc, etc. Such foolishness. No doubt you view the Greek myths as silly. To which I ask, “why”? 🙂
Who is John?
The answer to your question is study the evidence honestly and follow where it leads.
By the way Wolfhound, nice rebuttal.
But, since no one actually speaks the language that the OT was written in as their mother tongue, any translation will not be able to accurately convey the meaning of the original language. While it’s true that biblical scholars can attempt to glean word definitions and conjugations, they will entirely miss the subtler meanings. As someone who speaks three languages fluently, I can tell you that without being able to immerse oneself in such a language, it is impossible to truly grasp even an elementary text, let alone something as dense and full of alliteration as your OT.
So, by your definition above, that no translation can be authoritative, and by the fact that no one can be fluent in a dead language for lack of native speakers, you must conclude that there exists no authoritative way to glean meaning from your text.
Since you are a biblical literalist, you cannot truly know the word of your god with any authority. Your world view fails, McDonald.
The thread is dying, Brandon. Put it out of its misery!
As the author I agree, Brandon?
E., John is John McDonald, also known as “Skepticism”, among other sockpuppet handles. I was addressing him in the first response since he cannot admit to himself that belief in the God, the Bible, and the inerrancy of the Bible is not circular.
As you may have guessed, I am not a Biblical “scholar” (what an oxymoron!). I’m just a schmo who who reads the words, sees that they say incredibly stupid, reality-and-logic-defying things, and then shake my head in dismay when people who desperately want to believe this nonsense is some sort of real history narrative make excuses for it. That’s all. I can’t debate scripture because all I can do is read it, take it at face value, laugh at the stupidity inherent in it, and watch you chase your tail to defend how the folks who wrote it REALLY meant to say that x=x not x=y.
zygosporangia Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 9:14 am
“But, since no one actually speaks the language that the OT was written in as their mother tongue, any translation will not be able to accurately convey the meaning of the original language.”
Bogus
“While it’s true that biblical scholars can attempt to glean word definitions and conjugations, they will entirely miss the subtler meanings.”
Repeat that to a professional, say a Professor who has spent their lifetime doing exactly that and see what answer you get.
“As someone who speaks three languages fluently,…”
Meaningless. Does that make you a professional? I speak English fluently, but that does not make me an expert on the English language.
“I can tell you that without being able to immerse oneself in such a language, it is impossible to truly grasp even an elementary text…”
ROFL! Repeat that to a professional, say a Professor who has spent their lifetime doing exactly that and see what answer you get. I know people in Algeria that speak Arabic, French and English. It was fascinating to see two of them, one speaking French, the other replying in Arabic and a third telling me in English what the other two were saying. There was no confusion in the communication.
“So, by your definition above, that no translation can be authoritative, and by the fact that no one can be fluent in a dead language for lack of native speakers, you must conclude that there exists no authoritative way to glean meaning from your text.”
“Since you are a biblical literalist, you cannot truly know the word of your god with any authority. Your world view fails, McDonald.”
So you find fault in his/her definition. Fine, but his/her definition being wrong or inaccurate has no bearing on the Bible any more than you getting a fact about evolution wrong would invalidate science.
Wolfhound Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 11:38 am
“I can’t debate scripture because all I can do is read it, take it at face value…”
A purely self imposed limitation. It is interesting, or rather telling, how you (in the general sense) would not accept that excuse from someone with an opposing opinion about any point of evolution, and berate them because they are incompetent, lazy, etc, etc, then turn around and use the same excuse for yourself.
So who has more credibility: (1) a theology professional who has spent years studying ancient accounts of spiritual phenomena written in a dead language; or (2) a science professional who has spent years working with data that can be examined and conclusions that can be tested by his colleagues?