Quote from: Tony N on November 10, 2008, 07:29:23 AM

Dear Cop, the point is not that Santa faked his own history. There is a distinct parallel between the story of Santa Claus and the story of Noah. The point is that there really is not Santa. There really was a Saint Nicholas who gave gifts to children. Other countries embellished the story of St. Nicholas to where it became Santa Claus. And just as the original true story of the world wide flood began with Noah and his kids as the authentic story handed down to Moses, so also other countries embellished the story of that event.

Cop replied: I have never denied that there may be a historical basis for myths, only that myths are a reasonably accurate account of what really happened.  I suspect that the flood story was inspired by a real catastrophic flood.  There is no reason to believe that the flood covered the entire planet, that Noah really built an ark and populated it with animals, or that the current population of humans and animals is descended from inhabitants of the ark.  Do you understand the point I'm trying to make?  It is a criticism of the literal interpretation of biblical mythology.

What you call "biblical mythology" I call an unbiased historical account Noah and family preserved. From my vantage point if a "myth" is a reasonably accurate account of what really happened, then it is no longer a myth. Maybe you need to define what "myth" is. To me a myth is a made up story kind of like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer flying through the air leading the other reindeer along and going fast enough to get Santa to every boy and girl on the planet (except Muslims of course since they are all naughty little boogers).

There are plenty of perfectly good, sound reasons for believing that the planet was submerged under water by the flood of Noah's day. The **historical account** by Noah and family is hardly a myth.

Tony's reply: No, it is a fact that Christ existed and that He performed miracles as attested to in the historical documents handed down to us in the four accounts in the New Testament. Just because some people say He never performed miracles and that God does not exist does not prove He didn't and that God does not exist.

Cop replied: Tony, just because some people say that Jesus lived and performed miracles and that God does exist does not prove anything either.  The only way to prove a claim is to provide evidence for it.  In the absence of evidence, we are entitled to remain skeptical, especially when the claim seems preposterous on the face of it.[/quote]

Tony's reply: I'd love to see an accident create the heavens and earth with all its billions of different species and billions of differing plant species and the very narrow range of gravity, temperature, etc. which allows it all to live.

Santa Claus does not exist. St. Nicholas did exist and handed out gifts to children.

Cop replied: Perhaps there was a real person who inspired the legend of Jesus.  We do not have any reason to believe that that person was anything other than an ordinary man with ordinary human powers.


Tony's reply:
We have every reason to believe that Jesus was anything other than Who the Bible says He was since it is an historical writing and not a myth nor ever presented as a myth.

Quote from: Tony N on November 10, 2008, 12:19:51 PM

What you call "biblical mythology" I call an unbiased historical account Noah and family preserved. From my vantage point if a "myth" is a reasonably accurate account of what really happened, then it is no longer a myth...

We agree on your last point, but we still disagree on whether the flood story counts as a myth.

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Maybe you need to define what "myth" is. To me a myth is a made up story kind of like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer flying through the air leading the other reindeer along and going fast enough to get Santa to every boy and girl on the planet (except Muslims of course since they are all naughty little boogers).

We agree on what a "myth" is.  I would only add that a myth typically represents a story of "superordinary" events.  That is, it may involve magic, miracles, or super powers that we do not observe in our ordinary, everyday lives.  When we call a story a myth, we are saying that it sounds preposterous from an ordinary perspective.

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There are plenty of perfectly good, sound reasons for believing that the planet was submerged under water by the flood of Noah's day. The **historical account** by Noah and family is hardly a myth.

There is no good reason to believe that the planet was ever submerged under water, and most certainly not in the period of time that humans have inhabited the Earth.  The Bible is no different from the holy scripture of any other religion.  It is a mythical account of history that mixes fact and fiction.  We have no evidence that it is anything other than that.  You certainly have provided nothing beyond bald assertions.

But there are plenty of good reasons to believe the earth was submerged under water in Noah's day. http://www.ucgstp.org/lit/gn/gn046/noahsflood.htm

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Cop replied: Tony, just because some people say that Jesus lived and performed miracles and that God does exist does not prove anything either.  The only way to prove a claim is to provide evidence for it.  In the absence of evidence, we are entitled to remain skeptical, especially when the claim seems preposterous on the face of it.

Tony's reply: I'd love to see an accident create the heavens and earth with all its billions of different species and billions of differing plant species and the very narrow range of gravity, temperature, etc. which allows it all to live.

Tony, what you are doing here is called "moving the goalposts".  We were talking about a specific biblical account--what I refer to as the "Flood Myth".  You have now jumped to another question--the creation of the Earth and its biosphere.  That could take us into the evolution debate, which is not really what we should be doing.  Let's keep the focus on just this one story--the story of the flood, Noah's ark, and the accuracy of the biblical account.[/quote]

I brought up the idea of billions of different species of animal and plant species due to you writing: "This kind of thing also comes up in discussions of the historicity of Christ.  It might well have been true that a real man served as the basis of the legend, but that doesn't mean that he performed any miracles or that God even exists." It has to do with whether God exists of not. If you wish to not move goalposts then don't bring up God's existence while we are talking about Noah's flood.
 

Tony's reply:
We have every reason to believe that Jesus was anything other than Who the Bible says He was since it is an historical writing and not a myth nor ever presented as a myth.

Well, we've argued this issue extensively, and you have still failed to list any evidence to support such a claim.  The mere assertion that we have "every reason to believe..." is not itself a reason to believe.  It is just an unsupported claim.
[/quote]

Sorry, but you are the one that has to prove your assertions.
Tony

Cop, you know what? there are scientists that do believe in a world wide flood of Noah's day but even if there were 100 such scientists you'd just say: Well the majority don't hold to it so there is just no verifiable proof.

Why don't you do us a favor and try to prove your assertions you made in this thread?