[DerbyX]

The writings of Shakespear are historical documents. Most if not all contain stories about historically supportable people places and things as well as events. They contain wisdom and allegorical stories. If you delve into it you can find instructions on what to do and what not to do.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Lemmy Lemmy:

poquas poquas:

As for the Da VInci code, there are people who believe in that piece of fiction as strongly as any religion that exists. Even when Dan Brown tried to explain that his story was indeed fiction, the “faithful” claimed he had to say that.

The Da Vinci code contains references to actual things. It describes Paris and London in the contemporary period. Facts are contained in the Da Vinci Code. Likewise, there are facts in the bible (the existence of the geographical places, for example, or references to peoples' occupations during the period of authorship, etc.). As Mustang1 stated, of course the bible is a historical document and a lot about history can be learned from it. But the tales therein contained are pure fiction. 1000 years from now, someone could read the Da Vinci code and get a pretty accurate account of how Paris looked in 2002. That's of historical value. But the Bible offers no more than that about its period.

Very valid point, but it brings up the issue with any "historical" event.
The author's perspective will taint the point of view and thusly, the way it's written. Recent findings around Agincourt have suggested that the English weren't nearly as outnumbered as the previous historical records claim.
All throughout human written history, the victors tend to write it. You don't think even more contemporary histories haven't been embellished?
One has to look no further than the stream of patriotic/propagandic pablum flowing from the US during and shortly after WW2. After viewing and reading a lot of the material that came out, one is left with a fairly clear impression that the US did it all on it's own and that the rest of the Allies provided "some" assistance here and there.
And holy shit, they're STILL debating who actually shot down the Red Baron, even though YEARS ago I was taught in history class it was Billy Bishop.

When you say "the tales in the Bible are pure fiction", I can assume you apply the same rules you reason with to other "historical" events or deeds that haven't been verified by contemporary sources from the same time period? Or do you accept them at face value because they haven't been "tainted" by mainstream religion?
The Romans hated Cleopatra(well except for 2 high ranking ones ) and Cleo's "biographer" was Roman. I wonder how accurate his description of her and her actions really are.
Then we come back to translations and meanings. It's been generally accepted that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Initially, this left the impression he was playing a fiddle of some sort. Then, some other historians decided that the meaning was symbolic and that Nero fiddled in the sense one "fiddles around".
Now, it's swung back to, Nero did indeed play a fiddle while Rome burned, but it was because he was so emotional about it and could nothing to stop it that what he played may have been sort of a requiem for the City. So even today, we're still trying to figure out what actually happened at that time. Then again, Nero wasn't exactly liked by the Romans so how do we know they didn't try to paint him in a bad light during that event anyway?

[poquas]

DerbyX DerbyX:

The writings of Shakespear are historical documents. Most if not all contain stories about historically supportable people places and things as well as events. They contain wisdom and allegorical stories. If you delve into it you can find instructions on what to do and what not to do.

Shakespeare wrote fiction referencing real people, places and events.

Dan Brown wrote fiction referencing real people, places and events.

Neither is historical. They do not state the actual history of what the people were doing in any particular place at a particular time.

[BartSimpson]

poquas poquas:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Lemmy Lemmy:

But the tales therein contained are pure fiction.

Wrong.

Why take my word for it?

Here's a list of the faculty for the history department at UVic.

Pick one and ask them what they think.

http://web.uvic.ca/history/faculty.html

Pick one????

Which one do you claim is backing your position?

Any of them will. Or pick any history prof. at any secular university of your choice and the result will be the same.

poquas poquas:

C'mon Bart. Your defensiveness is bordering on paranoia.

Uhm....whut?

[BartSimpson]

poquas poquas:

DerbyX DerbyX:

The writings of Shakespear are historical documents. Most if not all contain stories about historically supportable people places and things as well as events. They contain wisdom and allegorical stories. If you delve into it you can find instructions on what to do and what not to do.

Shakespeare wrote fiction referencing real people, places and events.

Dan Brown wrote fiction referencing real people, places and events.

Neither is historical. They do not state the actual history of what the people were doing in any particular place at a particular time.

Dan Brown...sure. But Shakespeare wrote allegorical tales of his time that were political satire and political commentary. Given that he was living in a time when free speech could result in a loss of one's head he couched his tales and commentaries in an arguably fictional background. But there's a lot of scholarly debate that proposes that his stories were far more than mere entertainment and that they are, indeed, historical records of a sort.

[Mustang1]

Wait a second, any history prof will confirm that the Bible (irrespective of edition) is 100% history? Really?

[DerbyX]

poquas poquas:

DerbyX DerbyX:

The writings of Shakespear are historical documents. Most if not all contain stories about historically supportable people places and things as well as events. They contain wisdom and allegorical stories. If you delve into it you can find instructions on what to do and what not to do.

Shakespeare wrote fiction referencing real people, places and events.

Dan Brown wrote fiction referencing real people, places and events.

Neither is historical. They do not state the actual history of what the people were doing in any particular place at a particular time.

That was my point actually.

Did you think I was defending the bible? I wager a lot I have a worse reputation then you have built so far being anti-christian but arguing that the bible isn't historical because you believe it to be full of BS (so do I) just doesn't make sense.

My point about Shakespear was exactly the point you made about fiction referencing historical events. My point was that calling it a historical document doesn't imply it is factual in nature nor give it any credence in its degrees any more then Shakespear.

[Lemmy]

poquas poquas:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Lemmy Lemmy:

But the tales therein contained are pure fiction.

Wrong.

Why take my word for it?

Here's a list of the faculty for the history department at UVic.

Pick one and ask them what they think.

http://web.uvic.ca/history/faculty.html

Pick one????

Which one do you claim is backing your position?

C'mon Bart. Your defensiveness is bordering on paranoia.

Defensive enought that he neg-repped me, the deluded baby.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Guess this bears repeating. "Very valid point, but it brings up the issue with any "historical" event.
The author's perspective will taint the point of view and thusly, the way it's written."

[Dayseed]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Dayseed
Which IS a cop-out. It's along the same lines as Creationists simply saying" Well God can do anything." It's science's response to NOT being able to replicate it in a lab, and it's not going to satisfy the truly curious.
As for naming it the Citrate strain to show it's markedly different means nothing if it's still E.Coli. Isn't that what we do with breeds of animals? We call a Doberman a Doberman because it's markedly different from the other breeds, even though it's still a dog.

Replicate what in the lab? Why is replication of a phenomenon a component of explaining the phenomenon? Secondly, the "truly curious" ARE satisfied by it. Religious bigots or ignoramuses aren't.

And thank you for proving my point twofold. Firstly, we call a Doberman a Doberman to show that, much like the Citrate strain, the gulf of difference is widening. That differentiation from breed to breed is getting nefariously close to speciation. Want more proof? Here's the secondly: You know what we don't call Dobermans anymore? Wolves. Because the wolf is the common ancestor for all domesticated dogs.

Whoops on your part.

$1:

Having said that however, I'd be quite interested in any future findings from Lenski's experiments. Personally, I think it would be pretty cool if the E.Coli DID go bicellular. Like I said, I'm not close minded, and I don't get all uppity and take it personally just because someone doesn't believe what I do in this matter.

Again, you want a specified direction for evolution and it simply doesn't work that way and nobody promised you that it did. Therefore, making up your own demands of what evolution is or isn't and then expressing disapproval when they're not met is just plain silly.

$1:

If you wanna know how I look at the evidence/proof/theories or whatever you wanna call it for evolution, I think of them like this.
If Evolution and Creationism were fighting in civil court, I believe the "evidence" on the side of evolution would sway the court to find in its favour.
However, if it was in a criminal court, neither side really has anything to be able to state its case unequivocally.

You're wrong. Oh dear sweet merciful heaven above are you flat out wrong. Evolution has been proven time and time again. Finchs, moths, nautilus', breeds of dogs and all other forms of animal husbandry, intermediate fossilized species which conform to radiotmetric and geological dating predictions, intermediates being discovered like archaeopteryx which validate the genetic closeness of birds and reptiles, Lenski's experiments, RNA spontaneously being created in the laboratory and the irrefutable testable nature of the whole damn thing.

To somehow assume that evolutionary biology has a paucity of evidence compared to all the other natural sciences is to single out evolutionary biology for bigoted reasons. Nobody knows what generates gravitational forces out there but nobody is scratching their heads wondering if its "Intelligent Clumping".

Don't buy into Creationist propaganda that evolution is somehow in crisis. It most certainly isn't.

$1:

The funny part is, when some people stupidly demand proof of God, they want criminal court type evidence, but are QUITE happy to use civil court type evidence to state their case for evolution.
Now, while Lenski's experiments are still civil court evidence, I will say it's the best I've seen so far that might have any chance of graduating to hard proof.

Guy, you should probably define what you mean by "civil court" evidence and how Lenski's experiments fall within that definition. Go for it, I'm keen to hear it.

$1:

Of course, there's no reason to not believe that evolution was a machination of God to develop the myriad of life He seeded on Earth unless one is a hard core fundie or hard core evolutionist.
I said in a previous thread similar to this topic, "How do we know that all these things we're learning from science, aren't giving us glimpses into how God did things?"

Here's how you know. Natural explanations defy God. That is, when something occurs, there's no way to measure the "divinity" of whatever just happened. There's no God-O-Meter to measure that it takes 3 Decajesuses to transsubstantiate a wafer into the body and an astounding 400 Kilojesuses to raise Lazarus from the dead.

All natural explanations have forces that are mathematically accounted for. It doesn't leave room for anything else.

[Dayseed]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

But here's the thing. What I believe harms absolutely NOBODY, and it sure doesn't require the need for those that believe otherwise to insult or otherwise belittle my intelligence level. To me, it's on the same level as the idiots that threaten 'yer gonna burn in hell' for not believing what they do. I'm certainly not accusing you of that. You've actually been quite civil with me during this discussion and I appreciate it.
I really wish it was easier to discuss this topic in a forum because of the other implications that arise, like the philosophical questions.
But I couldn't get into that today anyway. Having a bad back day and the Oxycontins have kicked in

But what you believe DOES harm people when Creationists want to slip it into school curricula North America over and push out evolution.

By the way, it does lower your intelligence. If you were to look at all of the objective evidence of pregnancy, from release of the egg, sexual intercourse, fertilization, implantation of the zygote in the uterine wall, placental creation and fetal development followed by birth and say, "Well shit, that's just civil court evidence. See, I read this book that says a stork picks out babies in a cabbage patch and carries 'em to parents" you too would think that person a goddamn fool.

Creationism and any defence of it is no different.

[DerbyX]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Guess this bears repeating. "Very valid point, but it brings up the issue with any "historical" event.
The author's perspective will taint the point of view and thusly, the way it's written."

The problem here that I see is that biblical supporters want the bible called "historical" because they think historical means factual and therefore the whole myth about jesus dying and being resurrected becomes historicaly factual when no such event occurred.

By the same token the koran and torah are historical documents. The various polytheistic gods of ancient Greece and ancient Rome are historical figures.

Doesn't mean they actually ever existed.

[Lemmy]

Dayseed Dayseed:

But what you believe DOES harm people when Creationists want to slip it into school curricula North America over and push out evolution.

By the way, it does lower your intelligence. If you were to look at all of the objective evidence of pregnancy, from release of the egg, sexual intercourse, fertilization, implantation of the zygote in the uterine wall, placental creation and fetal development followed by birth and say, "Well shit, that's just civil court evidence. See, I read this book that says a stork picks out babies in a cabbage patch and carries 'em to parents" you too would think that person a goddamn fool.

Creationism and any defence of it is no different.

Which is, alebit more eloquent, the same point I made earlier when I said that, to a non-creationist, there is no distinction between the "a-little-bit-ridiculous" and the "obviously-extremely-ridiculous". To say "Well, I know the earth wasn't really created in 6 days but..." is a fail.

[fifeboy]

I seem to have misplaced my 3D glasses. Someone have a pair I can borrow?

[poquas]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Defensive enought that he neg-repped me, the deluded baby.

A piece of advice I received many years ago went something like "The true believers are the hardest to treat".