Define 'species'

[Aron-Ra]

Nothing should ever be beyond skepticism, and that includes the Bible.
You think science itself is a flawed philosophy. All Christians believe in your supposed "witness" in the New Testament. But most of them reject literal translations of the Old Testament because there's no way that can be true. I want to know why you think it is.

I never said that science was a flawed philosophy and have tried a number of times to distinquish the universal common ancestor model of real natural science. As a matter of fact science is not really a philosophy even though there are various philosophies of science. Criticisms of the tree of life model Darwin made so popular and the various other evolutionary concepts are just that, concepts. They are readily discernable from science itself.

You've have attacked every part of the scientific method, and ridiculed the entire philosophy of science as "naturalistic assumptions" which you flatly alleged were a "failed philosophy". In the process, you have proved that you don't know what science is. I suggest you look up the scientific method, because that is what you're attacking.

"The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this:

1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
2. Invent a theory that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the theory to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations.
5. Modify the theory in the light of your results.
6. Go to step 3.

Now let's see how this differs from your approach, shall we?

Science: Observe some aspect of the universe.
Religion: Assume some aspect of the universe that is unseen. Believe whatever you think your doctrine "means" regardless of what it actually says.

Science: Invent a theory that is consistent with what you have observed.
Religion: Rationalize something you think sounds consistent with what you think your doctrine means.

Science: Use the theory to make predictions.
Religion: Speculate wildly, but never propose anything testable because your dogma must be considered unquestionable, and mustn't ever be tested.

Science: Test those predictions by experiments or further observations.
Religion: Never question your priori assumption. Never accept any means of falsification of your own dogma. Accept as proof any little thing you can think of, and you can "witness" all you want to. But never expect to actually observe anything. Just continue to believe whatever you think your doctrine means.

Science: Modify the theory in the light of your results.
Religion: Unless the voice in your head tells you to, neither add to nor subtract from, nor alter your priori dogma in any way, no matter what the facts turn out to be. Never question your priori assumption, and never expect to observe anything. Just continue to believe your sacred dogma no matter what, or else you'll suffer a fate worse than death....maybe.

What you do, and what you promote, ain't nuthin' like science, which you have repeatedly ridiculed as a failed philosophy. Darwin's first view of the tree of life wasn't perfectly accurate, and neither was Linn's. But taxonomy is not "just a concept". It is an objectively verifiable reality. And it cannot be discerned from "real" science because it is real science, and you don't know what real science is.

Now, since you seldom answer anything, I have to repeat myself again: All Christians believe in your supposed "witness" in the New Testament. But most of them reject literal translations of the Old Testament because there's no way that can be true. I want to know why you think it is. Be sure to explain why your perspective differs from that of mainstream Christianity, since most of them accept evolution from common ancestry.

Also the "central tenets" of evolution are that organisms reproduce more young than can possibly survive, there is variation in all the young, and the best-adapted ones will preferentially survive and thrive well enough to pass those genes down to even more successful offspring, causing an allelic variance which leads to increased biodiversity, speciation, and many levels beyond. This is even according to your own words. Since we already know that each of these are definitely true, how do you imagine any of it to be philosophical? Things that can measured and tested this way aren't philosophies. Also, you've still never even attempted to explain what this alleged flaw is?

I did respond to this at length and addressed the statements of two of the leading thinkers in evolutionary thought in the last century.

Translation: You mined some quotes that didn't mean what you thought they did, and couldn't have revealed the flaw in evolutionary theory since the people quoted still promoted common ancestry 'til the day they died.

I have also went to some trouble to point out that there is a difference in the random variations that result in changes in the species and the rewriting of DNA producing not only a new species but a completly different class of animal.

In so doing, you've tried to contest every expert in the field on a topic you know little at all about. You understand neither speciation nor mutation, and you keep asserting that they're not related when all the experts in the field know they are. And since no one agrees with you on this point, you've had to make this allegation without basis and without citation.

The contention that I failed to address these two points is baseless.

The basis is that you still have never explained what the flaw in the common ancestry model is, nor do I think you ever could, since you can't speak in your own words and can only mine quotes you yourself don't understand.

I don't care how many times you say this I have addressed every point you made.

Except that we have all of our conversations archived in writing so that I can easily prove that you still haven't adequately addressed any of them, and never even attempted to address most of them.

Now while I dismissed the taxonomic arguments that does not mean that it was not answered. By you're own rule I may dismiss a question and at long last I find that this one was never a serious question in the first place just a bait and switch tactic.

No sir, it was not. It was and is a serious question, just as you yourself agreed. In order to dismiss a question, you have to adequately explain why it is irrelevant. Not only did you not do that, you actually agreed on its importance. What you did was to refuse to answer on a number of invalid excuses, none of which were adequate to dismiss them.

When I was eleven or twelve years old, I too was told to believe the Bible was the "absolute truth", but I couldn't continue to believe that once I read it. I didn't get very far before I threw it across the room in disgust because the God I was lead to believe in couldn't have been involved in all that petty, shallow, sexist, racist, cruelty, stupidity and evil. This was not the word of God. These were obviously the words of base savages trying to justify their atrocities against their fellow man. And even if the gospels were true, Genesis still couldn't be for a great many reasons, the least of which being that it couldn't explain why we were apes. I want to know how you managed to read it backwards and get the opposite impression? Maybe if you had read it forward, like I did, then you would see my point?

Talk about making up you're mind before examining the evidence.

Well, that is apparently what you did. But as I just explained, that is not what I did. I didn't make up my mind until I read the Bible and found that it fails on its own merit, or lack thereof. Now as my understanding has improved, every time I open the Bible I find some new flaw I hadn't noticed before. And I'm shocked that you haven't discovered the same thing.

I think I may have been fortunate in that I really didn't know very many religious people when I was a child and until I was about 18 never got any further in Genesis then the begats.

How did you get that far without being outraged before you got through the first dozen chapters?

I simply read the Gospels, Acts and did a little cross referencing with the Psalms and had an interest in the other wisdom literature. I admit that I was really shocked when I finally got around to Judges, what a bizzare accumulation of events. What is more, to this day I have a very hard time understanding the prophets since they talk in highly metaphorical terms.

What about Moses? He was far and away the most disturbing feature of the Bible for me. I mean look at the people God chooses, the ones God thinks are better than anyone else;

(1) Abraham, a man ready to kill his own son when he hears a voice in his head telling him to do so. That puts Abraham right up there with Andrea Yates and Deanna Laney. Of course this voice told him to kill the boy to prove his love for God, a sick, twisted request no supreme being would ever actually make.

(2) Noah, a naked old drunk who curses his own children. Of course he's saving them from a flood sent by God to kill everyone without reason. Imagine what a contradiction that is. An all-knowing God full of prophesies and precognition. Yet in all his infallible omniscience, he still realized he had made a mistake with his creations, and had to wipe them all out horribly, and start again. This is completely inconsistent with everything God is supposed to be.

(3) Lot, a man who offered his own children to a rape mob before getting drunk and molesting his kids himself, after his wife disappeared under extremely questionable circumstances. Of course she supposedly disappeared as a result of God blowing up a whole town, again for errors he made, and again, didn't foresee.

(4) Moses, a pagan priest turned theif, liar, and murderer; the leader of a horde of wandering desert bandits, -responsible for arson, pillage, vandalism, cattle rustling, black magic spells, blood rituals, organized abortions, animal abuse, slavery, prisoner abuse, sexist and racist despotism, pedophile rape, and even genocide. This was all while misleading a band of militant "pilgrims" profoundly similar to the Taliban on a two-week trek that (with God's help) turned into a lifetime of being lost in the desert. Most of God's chosen people never even made it to the promised land, even though God had already killed the native inhabitants just to get them out of the way. What a loving god you have there, Mark.

(5) Jesus, a man who promised to sever husbands from their wives, and children from their parents, breaking up families in his honor. An alleged man of peace who bade his followers to sell their clothes and buy swords. A man who promised eternal life to a bunch of sycophants who are now all dead. A man who promised rewards for idiocy and punishment for wisdom. And a man who will wreak unspeakable cruelty against anyone not gullible enough to worship him even before God himself, in violation of the very first commandment.

In addition to this are all the babies murdered by God himself, and all the references to parents eating their own children. Yet despite all this, those who promote the Bible claim it to be a guidebook for morality and family values! The very thought of that is ghastly! None of this I would ever have suspected until I read the Bible. So I obviously didn't make up my mind before seeing the evidence. But you definitely did, and you still are.

Upon receiving Christ the Scriptures, especially the Psalms. opened up to me. It was startling to me to find the cross depicted so graphically and I was further supprised to find that there was allready a field of study devoted to Messianic prophecy and firmly established in the New Testament.

All of this is without significance to me, and it is without relevance to our conversation.

It was around that time that I happened upon Foxes Book of Martyrs. I had heard that the Inquisition and the Salem Witch hunts were based on religious fanaticism but this was never the case. They were both exclusivly secular are allways about accumulating political power and seizing the wealth of the accused. Fox describes the Inquistion at length and it was only stopped by the Protestant Reformation and the advent of common law and the rights of the accused.

Both the inquisition and the witch hunts were based on belief systems, punishing people for their perceived beliefs is an obligately religious concern. Religion is in no way secular. Not only are you wrong again, but you're 100% reversed from the truth.

 

[Aron-Ra]

The larger question of how these catagories represent demonstrative proof has never been addressed.

Sadly, you're right. No matter how much I wanted to do that, and explain the actual evidence, you refused to let that happen, and kept dodging every question with a non-response.

I didn't bother with the follow up questions since every attempt was considered non-responsive and the dozens of terms were never defined.

All the terms were defined for you multiple times, and every response from you was deliberately evasive.

I then did a little research and found that nothing is ever defined and the whole thing is designed around a referencing system not unlike the Dewey Decimal System.

Then you haven't done any research yet. Because I'm trying to explain cladistics, and its very different than what you're trying to paint it as.

I did discuss the Homo Habilis fossils a little but the follow up questions were such a convoluted mess and the posts were virtually endless and laced with personal remarks. I had hoped that we would get into the substantive evidence at some point and I'm still waiting.

Whenever you're ready sir. Because you've been the only impediment to that so far.

I in fact answered all the relevant questions and we never had a serious difference of opinion as to many of the central terms; natural selection, species, evolution...etc. I did all that I could to point out the flaws in the philosophy of science that Darwin made so popular and pointed out that this is all conceptual.

This is part of the problem. When you say you've "pointed out" these flaws, you mean that you've only vaguely asserted that you thought there were some, but never indicated where or what they were, or explained why they were flaws.

There are still only two explanations that exaust our possible origins and the various sub-catagories of evolution are dead ends.

There are many explanations equal to Biblical creationism, but there is no equal to evolution from common ancestry. You have evaded all discussion of that so far, and still have no idea what you're talking about.

Homology has at it's central point of emphasis a flawed logic and a strongly antitheistic premise.

See? Here you go again. You make a bald assertion that is neither based on anything nor backed by anything, and its demonstrably dead wrong besides. Once again you completely ignore Lucaspa, Bushido, Gluadys, my professor Buettner, Rev. Bakker Ph.D., Dobzhansky, the pope, and the majority of global Christianity at large. If it was wrong the first time you said it, it ain't gonna get more accurate if you keep repeating it. There are more Christian evolutionists just in the U.S. than there are atheists of any flavor anywhere, and that includes most of the evolutionary biologists who wrote the books on homology in the first place. There is no part of macroevolutionary studies that is anti-theistic. Its just that "goddidit" is not an explanation of anything, and cannot be used as a substitute for the scientific method, which is what you're really opposed to.

There is no discernable difference in micro and macoevolution and the terms you elaborate endlessly has the same ambiquity.

While I wouldn't argue that microevolution and macroevolution are virtually meaningless even in our conversation, the other terms have clear, specific definitions which I have repeatedly provided. You heard them, called them "bogus" (without any justification) and dispite qualified references to the contrary, then pretended that I never provided them in the first place. All this is archived in writing and easy enough to verify, so I don't know what you're trying to pull.

What is more there should be a discernable difference between a damaged DNA stand and a random variation of the existing gene pool.

There are. The differences in the different types of mutation have already been provided for you, but you refuse to accept them, and have given no reason for your objection in any case.

When you were faced with the fact that mutations are rare and most often neutral or damgeing you abondoned the debate.

I never abandoned the debate. You lost, and kept going as if you could still win, hoping to get to the end and claim you had won. And its not like anyone couldn't see right through that either. That's why we need moderators.

You were never warranted in refusing my questions, and in fact, you even admitted an agreement with me that if creationism was true of anything at all, or if evolution from common ancestry was fundamentally mistaken, that flaw had to be found in taxonomy, because if it wasn't there, it simply couldn't be anywhere else. You dodged my questions, sir.

I never did anything of the sort.

Yes you did. In message #15 of our debate you said "I will concede one point I may not be able to defend. At some point the universal common ancestor model has to break down." But without any justification whatever, you refused to define your terms, or to correct your errors with the incorrect terms, or to define anything so simple as a monkey or an ape. You dodged every question.

The taxonomic questions were based on a labyrinth of terms that you never bothered to define, I simply found out that they were never meant to be.

They were meant to be, and they were defined for you many times. I gave you everything you should have ever needed, and even if I had not, it would not have mattered. I don't need to define anything for you. But I did anyway.

If the taxonomic terms were a hard science then they would not be in a perpetual state of flux.

All "hard science" is in a state of flux when new information is discovered. However, the relationships I was trying to describe to you were not in flux. Only the names of the groups had changed. The relationships were already known, and it was that which I was trying to discuss.

I knew this was bogus when you rejected my statement that hominid fossils were rare.

I knew your position was bogus when you said that. You never defined your central term despite many repeated demands that you do so. (Hypocrisy again) You never explained what you or your sources thought a hominid is. I know only two possible definitions for that word; one meaning "humanoid", (a grouping of apes which includes humans) and the other one meaning simply "human". Either way, humans are hominids, and there are hundreds of humans in the fossil record, as well as several hundred more hominids that you may or not think are human. So either way your statement is clearly wrong.

When I cited my source you simply said that the material was outdated and quoted a general disclaimer at the beggining of the textbook that in effect said that most of what was contained in those pages were subject to revision. Then we went into a lengthy discussion on the merits of taxonomics and discussed the termonology in a general way. I would have loved to have spent some time on the actual fossil evidence but there was only one transitional fossil discussed at any length and upon finding one discrepancy you did you're little victory dance and abandoned the debate.

Boy are you a sore loser! I admit I did react to your inappropriately hostile conduct and all your negative associations and insinuations. But still, what I didn't couldn't be considered a victory dance.

Not only that, but I brought up lots of fossil evidence, and you ignored it all, writing off some of the most significant points as "cartoons". Hypocrisy again.

I asked about the lineages of several other animals, and offered the human-related questions as a bonus to compare them to. The bonus questions were the only ones you answered. So I had to come back in a later post and demand that you answer the prerequisite questions so we could get started. That's also when I pointed out that none of your hominid answers were right even by your own standards. But you dodged them all again, refusing to make any corrections at all. Enough said?

First of all the hominid questions were so general that a yes and no response was all that was required.

Yes, but even then, you still answered them wrong. You used definitions for those words which no one else uses, and which you refused to define. You also refused to use the standard definitions, so your answers, (as I already explained) were meaningless in any context.

Then you said, no we have to discuss felids and a host of other taxonomic verbage that left an enormous mess.

I told you to select from any of those groups. That doesn't mean all of them. However, the hominid questions were only to be covered after one or more of the other lineages. You eventually chose to answer all of them, but only initially. You refused to look any one of them in-depth.

When you finally brought up the hominid questions again I began by discussing the Leaky find and various other points of interest. You again plunged into the taxanomic verbage that led me a merry chase through a labyrinth of verbage that is highly subjective by the various definitions and discussions of taxonomonic relations that I cited repetedly...no substantive reply was ever offered.

My "verbage" was clearly, rigidly, and repeatedly defined, despite all your pretending that it wasn't. You ignored all the substantive replies just like you ignored all the references to genetics, forensic evidence, and even the whole collection of Leakey's finds which the man emailed to me himself.

the ancient stegocephalian fish, Eliginerpeton, Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, all had too many toes on their fin/feet. Now we have only five. But the gene for six fingers in humans is still dominant, believe it or not.

You have a lost digit, nothing more.

This lost digit is more than just that, if you had looked at what I tried to show you. But then, the evolution of horses is largely just a matter of lost digits too, isn't it?

I never contended that mutations do not happen in the anecdotal evidence is actuall quite interesting. I did follow up with a couple of searches that yeilded what I had previously experienced and have come to expect. When certain taxa are identified as simular then the catagorization becomes a geneology. There was no real reason to pursue this since these little puzzles rarely yeild any concrete evidence.

I wasn't aiming for anything concrete, though I did provide a good deal of that. All I needed to do was to prove that evolution was the truest, best explanation for the origin of species and that it was the only one with any evidentiary support or scientific validity, and with your help, I have certainly done that. But while we're on the subject, why don't you cough up something concrete to support your position? There's your double-standard again.

I suppose it is time to work of a thread that addresses the fossils and the piecemeal forensics that presuppose a Darwinian descent with modification.

I can't help you with that. I don't know of any piecemeal forensics that presupposes anything. I'm studying paleontology instead. That we can talk about, although you've avoided every attempt at that so far.

Notice that the list of terms are never associated with the actaul evidence. This has become the party line for evolution and it's generally based of anecdotal evidence. In short the question was never qualified and therefore was dismissed along with the other rationalizations from taxonomic verbage.

There were no rationalizations. Everything was demonstrated to be inextricably tied to various types of physical evidence simultaneously, and the only thing "anecdotal" was your reaction; dismissing any extinct transitional species rendered for you as "cartoons". But all my questions were qualified and you had no right to ignore them. The only reason you did is because you knew you could not answer some of them without comprimising your whole position immediately.

How come you still refuse to explain what a primate is, Mark?

We are talking about two different things, I never rejected evolution because the definition would make everyone an evolutionist.

Not quite. I know of a few creationists who deny any kind of evolution at any level. JohnR7 is one of them. Others accept evolution almost entirely, but refuse to call it what it is. They call it "adaptation" instead because they believe they're not permitted to believe in anything with "evolution" attached to it. These are the people who are somehow unable to tell the difference between evolution and common ancestry, or common ancestry and material atheism. Wait a minute, you're one of those too, aren't you?

But just to clarify, I recognize that traditional taxonomy, even as it is often taught in school today, is annoyingly subjective and immaterial. However cladistic taxonomy is not. It is empirical and demonstrable, and the only means of taxonomic classification that consistently makes sense in an objective manner.

The primary issue is our origins and just becuase something is classified along with fish, apes, or reptiles does not make them any of those thing based on a subjective classification system that presupposes lines of descent.

Once again, there is no presupposition necessary. Can you tell me how to tell a monkey or an ape apart from a dog, camel, squirrel or whatever, -with a consistent definition applicable to all of monkeys or apes, extant or extinct, without presupposing descent? If so, what is that definition?

The water here is muddy and the reasoning is circular.

I am not using any circular reasoning, and you're not using any reasoning of any kind at all.

The is a philosophical premise in the tree of life catagorizations and denying this is to reject evolution as a philosophy of science. This was never how the modern sythesis approach this subject since it included subjective objective duality and applied it to modern biology. I may have missed a couple of the pages mentioned but I'll be writting my summary for the formal debate shortly and when I am done I'll check the rest of the thread to see what I missed

This passage, like nearly every other sentence you ever write, makes no sense because it is based on a false premise. The categorization of life implies descent. There is/was no premise involved in that

 

[JAL]

You gave examples of your own religous experience and that of others. Let me expound further what I mean by "lie or exaggerate about religious experiences." Many people who see visions claim to feel sure, at the very core of their being, that the experience has a self-authenticating merit; they claim to feel sure that what they tapped into was either the true God, or some fount of goodness, or simply pure energy. And my own experience leads me to believe that these people are NOT sure of such merits. At least your testimony seems very honest. You even used the word "demonic" which rules out any assurance of a fount of goodness. The Bible seems clear that pagan religious experiences are real. It also seems clear that these false prophets will be held accountable for deceiving others, and even themselves, as to the merits of their visions and revelations. And I'm glad you brought out Abraham's example of hearing a voice demanding that he slaughter his son. Actually this is my favorite example in the whole Bible. Because if Abraham had even the most remote doubt about whether the voice was from the true Fount of Goodness, his behavior was evil. But if he was sure in the absolute sense of sureness - that is, if he was UNABLE to question the action - how can we blame him? We would have to applaud him! And that's what the Bible does, because all that you can expect of anyone is that they do what they are SURE is right. Stated differently, if you experience a level of sureness so absolute that it is impossible for you to rethink the issue even momentarily, your conscience obligates you to execute the action. This is just a tautology. Christianity assumes that when Moses took Israel into the promised land, God gave all Israel this abolute sureness. Like Abraham, they heard the voice (see Heb 3) and knew that God was asking them to take the land. Frankly I don't believe that anyone has heard God speak this way in NT times. Certainly Jesus never advocated violence of any kind. I'm very confident that the Crusaders were following their leaders rather than God's voice. What they did was evil, plain and simple.

Part of the problem, Mr. Aron-Ra, is that you don't see how all men could stand guilty before God - and I don't blame you, because frankly the orthodox model has not been entirely convincing. In my metaphysics, everything is physical including the human soul. Tertullian held to a physical soul and insisted it was the only way to define universal guilt in Adam. Let's assume that God only created ONE human soul - Adam's. When he fell, God removed most of his sin-tainted soul from his body and has held it in suspended animation ever since. Every time a human embryo is conceived, God awakens a portion of this suspended soul and merges it with the embryo. That's why we're all born with original sin even though we don't remember being Adam. On judgment day God will jog our memory. We are Adam.

Of course you're too much of a hard-core evolutionist to believe in Adam. I understand that. I'm rather dealing with your presumption that the human race cannot possibly stand universally guilty before God.

You also have a problem with hell. Good, so do I. I truly believe that Scripture is highly encrypted, and that we often miss the truth for lack of hearing God clarify Scripture. Certainly I myself suffer from this hardness of hearing. The surface level is, so to speak, the best that God could do. The surface seems to speak of eternal hell, which helps people take it seriously because it is, in fact, very serious stuff. But although the Fire of hell is eternal (God is Fire according to Scripture), and the Smoke is likewise eternal, I don't believe the suffering is eternal. Here too I depart from orthodoxy. I can't prove this conclusion biblically. I can only offer evidence that NT Greek allows for this reading. Actually it's my own DAILY experience of God's love that leads me to disbelieve eternal torment. But it could easily last a thousand years, or a million, or whatever. I don't want any part of it.

You gave many examples of biblical heroes being quite immoral. You take this as evidence against the Bible. Actually it seems to me clear corroboration of the Bible. After all, people who fabricate a religion tend to hide the leaders' faults. The Bible puts those faults in bold faced type. For instance it tells us that David killed Bathsheeba's husband just to commit adultery.

In one sense I'm glad you're an atheist because atheism requires faith. After all, you cannot really PROVE that God doesn't exist, so some measure of faith is required. Guess what? All it takes to believe in the Bible is that same kind of faith. Faith can take care of all the doubts that you have about the Bible. So in a way you are on the right track.

 

[JAL]

And I forgot to add this. Although you see many reasons to reject the Bible, I hope you have considered all the reasons for accepting it. I seem to recall hearing two good examples a while back. I hope I have this right. As I recall, (1) God told Moses to circumcise newborns on the eighth day. Centuries later, it was medically verified that the eighth day is indeed a very ideal time for circumcision. (2) According to Moses, people who touched diseased bodies were to wash their hands in running water. Unfortunately, even in the 1800's, American physicans were still washing their hands in a bowl of water where the germs simply collected. The physicans then passed these germs on to anyone else they touched. Here too Moses was millennia ahead of his time. Water was a precious commodity for Israel. He let this running water go to waste!

 

[h2whoa]

You do realise that medical opinion is now thoroughly opposed to circumcision?

It is an unecessary mutilation of someone else's body without their consent.

h2

 

[Data]

You do realise that medical opinion is now thoroughly opposed to circumcision?

It is an unecessary mutilation of someone else's body without their consent.

h2

Yup. America (and isreal, 'o course, but they have religious reasons) is the only civilised country where male circumcision still really happens. And it's declining.

 

[JAL]

You do realise that medical opinion is now thoroughly opposed to circumcision?

It is an unecessary mutilation of someone else's body without their consent.

h2

No, I wasn't aware of that. But if circumcision is performed, would the eighth day be a good day for it? If so, I won't be easily convinced that Moses reached this conclusion by sheer coincidence.

 

[h2whoa]

No, I wasn't aware of that. But if circumcision is performed, would the eighth day be a good day for it? If so, I won't be easily convinced that Moses reached this conclusion by sheer coincidence.

As far as I'm aware there is no reason that the eighth day is a good day to slice the skin off a baby's penis.

I'm afraid you're going to have to provide evidence for this. After a brief search of Pubmed and ISI Web of Knowledge (which I have access to throught my Universuty's subscription), I could find no scientific literature relating to this. If you can find sources, great, but I expect them to be bona fide scientific resources, not cut and pastes from a religious website...

h2

 

[JAL]

As far as I'm aware there is no reason that the eighth day is a good day to slice the skin off a baby's penis.

I'm afraid you're going to have to provide evidence for this. After a brief search of Pubmed and ISI Web of Knowledge (which I have access to throught my Universuty's subscription), I could find no scientific literature relating to this. If you can find sources, great, but I expect them to be bona fide scientific resources, not cut and pastes from a religious website...

h2

Fair enough. I thought this was well-documented, but apparently I was wrong. If I come across anything, I will let you know.

 

[h2whoa]

Fair enough. I thought this was well-documented, but apparently I was wrong. If I come across anything, I will let you know.

Nice one

h2

 

[JAL]

Ok, this was admittedly a religious website, but the author seems to have some sources. If you feel the sources are bad, feel free to discredit them:

In Genesis 17:12, God specifically directed Abraham to circumcise newborn males on the eighth day. Why the eighth day? In 1935, professor H. Dam proposed the name “vitamin K” for the factor in foods that helped prevent hemorrhaging in baby chicks. We now know vitamin K is responsible for the production (by the liver) of the element known as prothrombin. If vitamin K is deficient, there will be a prothrombin deficiency and hemorrhaging may occur. Oddly, it is only on the fifth through the seventh days of the newborn male’s life that vitamin K (produced by bacteria in the intestinal tract) is present in adequate quantities. Vitamin K, coupled with prothrombin, causes blood coagulation, which is important in any surgical procedure. Holt and McIntosh, in their classic work, Holt Pediatrics, observed that a newborn infant has “peculiar susceptibility to bleeding between the second and fifth days of life.... Hemorrhages at this time, though often inconsequential, are sometimes extensive; they may produce serious damage to internal organs, especially to the brain, and cause death from shock and exsanguination” (1953, pp. 125-126). Obviously, then, if vitamin K is not produced in sufficient quantities until days five through seven, it would be wise to postpone any surgery until some time after that. But why did God specify day eight?

On the eighth day, the amount of prothrombin present actually is elevated above one-hundred percent of normal—and is the only day in the male’s life in which this will be the case under normal conditions. If surgery is to be performed, day eight is the perfect day to do it. Vitamin K and prothrombin levels are at their peak. The chart below, patterned after one published by S.I. McMillen, M.D., in his book, None of These Diseases, portrays this in graphic form.

http://www.apologeticspress.org/faq/r&r9307b.htm

 

[JAL]

Another website added this advice:

You can verify with any Obstetrician that the 8th day of life is the ideal time for a circumcision, and that any circumcision done earlier requires an injection of Vitamin K supplement.

Oh, and here's an article from
[font=Arial,Helvetica,sans serif]ALAN F. GUTTMACHER, M.D.
Associate Professor of Obstetrics,
Johns Hopkins University[/font]


http://www.circumstitions.com/1941.html

Maybe the Bible was right after all? Wouldn't suprise me.

 

[JAL]

Oh, I just remembered another medical practice given by Moses - quarantine the diseased. This too, as far as I know, was overlooked by American physicians for centuries until they fully understood germs and their spread when quarantine isn't practiced.

 

[h2whoa]

Oh, I just remembered another medical practice given by Moses - quarantine the diseased. This too, as far as I know, was overlooked by American physicians for centuries until they fully understood germs and their spread when quarantine isn't practiced.

Hi,

Thanks for the sources on cirumcision. I'll definitely look into them but I haven't had a chance yet.

However Istill stand by the point that the medical profession regards circumcision as medically undesirable (bar explicit medical conditions) given that it is unconsented mutilation and results in a loss of sensation in the glans (and this is the real reason it is practiced). Therefore, I doubt that any day could be considered "the best". It would be like "what is the best day after birth to cut off a baby's thumb (without anaesthetic)?"

However, this aside, I haven't checked through your sources yet but I remain very very sceptical that there could be any possible benefit in removing a foresking eight days after birth. The foreskin is well formed ages before birth, so the time after birth would have no effect.

Besides, why did God design us with foreskins?


Anyway, moving on to your above quote. I have to say that that is just weak. Quarantining sick people was not ignored until germ theory. People always try to dissociate from sick people because it is pretty obvious that you become ill by mixing with them. During the Black Death they were isolating patients left, right and centre and they had no knowledge of germ theory.

So that one is just weak. It's like saying they knew not to put their face in the fire despite people not knowing all about heat being about atoms vibrating and the amount of energy available.

It's just obvious.

h2

 

[yossarian]

Maybe the Bible was right after all? Wouldn't suprise me.

wouldn't surprise me either - you don't need to measure serum levels of vitamin K to see that the child you circumcize too early bleeds too much

 

[Mistermystery]

What a bunch of nonsense. Circumsision is the most stupidist thing ever, especially when you try to rationalise it with "it's okay because it's in the bible". There are equally if not more studies that show that having a foreskin does not mean that you're uncleaner, more decease-ridden, or anything else. Heck, I'm a living example of that. And why would God design us with foreskins if he doesn't want us to have them?

You suddenly make the Al pacino's character (John Milton) in The devil's advocate a whole lot more truthfuller. And that's not a good thing, since he plays the devil.

"God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow."

Also jal, you link to various pro circumsision sites, but circumvent the other side of the issue. PSD (http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/ptsd2/) for instanceis directly related to circumsision in many cases (http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/rhinehart1/). Did you know that babies can get into a life-treathening shock because of circumsision? Did you know the dangerous infections they can get by simply cutting into healthy skin?

I suggest you start (just like with evolution) look for some unbiased sites, before comming on with sites like "circumsistion.org" or whatever your (in my opinion sick³) site was called.

 

[Ondoher]

In one sense I'm glad you're an atheist because atheism requires faith. After all, you cannot really PROVE that God doesn't exist, so some measure of faith is required.

Atheism is not the claim that god does not or cannot exist. It is the lack of belief that he does. I don't believe in god because I remain unconvinced, I do not claim absolute knowledge of his nonexistence. This makes me an agnostic atheist. http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blathq_athorag.htm

 

[JAL]

As far as circumcision, everyone seems to be missing the point - or perhaps attempting to gloss over it surreptitiously? I never asserted that circumcision is medically beneficial. According to Paul, circumcision and baptism were parallel in terms of ceremonial initiation into the covenant community. An uncircumcised Jew was in essence no Jew at all, and an unbaptized Christian generally could not join the Church. So the value of circumcision need not be medicinal. Was baptism medicinal? Of course not. All this talk about "medicinal value" is sidestepping the fact that somehow Moses knew what the medical profession did not realize till about 1935 - that the eighth day is ideal. There is nothing particularly "obvious" about the eighth day given that a person whol lives to be only 20 has lived about 7200 days. If it was so "obvious", why did it take us till 1935? Am I to entertain seriously the notion that Isreal had better experimental technique than we do now, 3000 years ago? You can try to explain it away all you want, but you won't convince me that way.

And let me add that circumcision quite possibly had some medicinal value back then which is undiscoverable now. There are a lot of infections that have died out in the last 100 years due to enhanced sanitation. Back in Israel's day there may have been some kind of infection that circumcision reduced but is no longer traceable. A good parallel is this. Moses prohibited certain food such as pork. Why? Back then it was probably unsafe for lack of refrigeration whence an infection or food posioning was likely. Today it's reasonably safe to eat pork.

 

[Mistermystery]

As far as circumcision, everyone seems to be missing the point - or perhaps attempting to gloss over it surreptitiously? I never asserted that circumcision is medically beneficial. According to Paul, circumcision and baptism were parallel in terms of ceremonial initiation into the covenant community. An uncircumcised Jew was in essence no Jew at all, and an unbaptized Christian generally could not join the Church. So the value of circumcision need not be medicinal. Was baptism medicinal? Of course not.

okay, I understand what you say now. I'm sorry that I misunderstood you.

All this talk about "medicinal value" is sidestepping the fact that somehow Moses knew what the medical profession did not realize till about 1935 - that the eighth day is ideal.

Can you somehow prove that it was Moses that knew this? Do you have evidence for this?

And let me add that circumcision quite possibly had some medicinal value back then which is undiscoverable now. There are a lot of infections that have died out in the last 100 years due to enhanced sanitation.

Wow I disagree entirely here! This has nothing to do with circumsision, but with cleaner living in general.

 

[JAL]

Atheism is not the claim that god does not or cannot exist. It is the lack of belief that he does. I don't believe in god because I remain unconvinced, I do not claim absolute knowledge of his nonexistence. This makes me an agnostic atheist. http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blathq_athorag.htm

I don't understand your definition of atheism. Feel free to clarify it if you like. Your definition seems to make atheism indistinguishable from agnosticism. You then seem to imply as much by calling yourself an "agnostic atheist." I have never seen those two terms juxtaposed like that. The website you referenced does so, but I can't make any sense of it. To me, an "agnosticc atheist" is just a fancy name for an agnostic and thus serves no purpose. In any case, I was not addressing your brand of atheism. I was addressing Aron-ra who, as far as I can tell, denies God unequivocally. That was the kind of atheism I had in mind.