There is an appalling lack of historical evidence backing the Bible's veracity

Some points to consider.On your argument concerning the Psalms you are biasing the discussion by using Santa Claus as your example. There are legendary figures who probably did not exist as such (Robin Hood seems to be a composite of several people, William Tell may be completely fictional) or whose story expanded and changed beyond recognition (King Arthur is likely to be one such). And it would not be surprising if songs were to become wrongly attributed to a legendary singer (especially songs about his life). So simply pointing out that Psalms (and even worse Acts) attribute some psalms to David does not reliably tell us who wrote those psalms. At the least we would need to track down more concerning the writing of those documents (Acts for instance likely relied on the attribution in Psalms, so it cannot be considered to offer any significant extra evidence).Concerning the Documentary Hypothesis of Wellhausen it seems clear that you do not have a strong grasp of what the theory says. In that case the fact that it has been widely accepted amongst the relevant experts should carry some weight with you. You must consider the fact that the hypothesis states that the documents were edited together and that the verse and chapter divisions were added later still Simply pointing to verses with other titles or epithets given to God or to even a verse were both Jahweh and Elohim are used does nothing to damage the real hypothesis. In short what you are really dismissing is a parody of your own invention.

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You don't have to believe in God to accept what the Bible itself indicates through internal chronology that Genesis was written in 1513 B.C.E

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I'm not familiar with any argument to that effect. However don't the references to the Philistines indicate that it was written at least partly after the Philistines arrived in the 12th Century BC ? And long enough after that time, that nobody would notice the impossibility of Abraham having anything to do with the Philistines ?

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As far as the two genealogies of Jesus id concerned there is a good reason why there are differences between the two: he had two parents. Luke traced the line through David’s son Nathan, instead of Solomon as did Matthew. (Lu 3:31; Mt 1:6, 7) Luke evidently follows the ancestry of Mary, thus showing Jesus’ natural descent from David, while Matthew shows Jesus’ legal right to the throne of David by descent from Solomon through Joseph, who was legally Jesus’ father. The reason why Mary wasn't listed by name is because of the customs of that time period. Jews had the saying : ”Genus matris non vocatur genus" which can be translated as "The descendant of the mother is not called (her) descendant". So instead in Luke Joseph is said to be the son of his Father-in-law; Heli.

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It certainly is not obviously true - after all if we did not have the genealogy given in Matthew nobody would think that Luke's genealogy was traced through Mary. Can you show me any record of a Jewish genealogy that does what you say that Luke did ? Does any Jewish source give a genealogy that is in fact traced through the mother, yet written as if it was traced through the father ? Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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These kinds of post do show some simlitude of objectivity in relationship to the question at hand. However, the above statement is actually an over application of the term "logical fallacy".

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In fact it's quite correct. Since experts can and do disagree they are not guaranteed to be correct. Thus arguing solely on the basis of expert opinion is not logically valid.

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If it can be demonstrated that several authorites do agree on cetain biblical historical aspects, then the application of logical fallacy is simply to strong a term to appply.

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The context was disagreement between experts, not agreement. And "logical fallacy" is NOT a strong term to apply at all. Logical validity is a very strict standard, thus observing that an argument fails to reach that standard is not a strong claim.

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"Lack of evidence" presently for a specific person or place is not the same as saying that those events or peoples are false or inaccurate, as in the case of the Hitties

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And if you go back to the OP you can see that the issue is lack of evidence - DESPITE claims to the contrary. Falsity or inaccuracy are not the issue. (Which of course means that in dismissing the OP BambooTiger was either taking the position that the validating evidence MUST exist or not bothering to even read the OP before rejecting it. Now that's bias !).

Your problem is that you do not understand what it means for an argument to be a "logical fallacy".A valid logical argument is one where the truth of the premises absolutely guarantees the truth of the conclusion. It is a very strict standard, which is why we do NOT restrict ourselves to arguments which meet it. Any argument which does not meet that standard is a logical fallacy.To say that the argument from authority is logically valid is to say that each and every expert is infallible, when speaking on matters within their field of expertise. If you do not beleive that then you must accept that the argument from authority is a logical fallacy.

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To demonstrate my point and answer your and Paulks last response, I would ask this question. Where would we get the "evidence" from if not from those "authorites" that Brian and others are relying so heavily. You cant eat your cake and have it too.

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The only thing that you have demonstrated is that you either have not read or completely failed to understand my post. If you disagree, feel free to explain - AFTER carefully reading Message 77 which you are allegedly replying to.

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As I was reading through the strickly physical evidence thread here I noticed that You, not myself invoked the "miraculous" in a statement in one of your post

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I note that this claim is vague and very likely misleading. Are you really asserting that Rahvin claimed that a miracle had happened ? Or did he merely assert that a claimed event would require a miracle and moreover that the evidence that this miracle had happened was lacking.

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If the miraculous is a possibility, especially in the context of a document where numerous things can be demonstrated to be true, accurate and reliable, then it would follow that that Deitys intervention in these affairs would and could alter, correct, and return things to thier natural order, so that the "evidence" that reaches us may even appear as that event never happened.

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One point of this thread is that much of the Bible cannot be demonstrated to be true, accurate and reliable. And has been argued in other posts, that reliability is not sufficient reason to accept miracles without additional evidence.While it might be typically assumed that God COULD cover up the evidence of a miracle it is far from clear that God WOULD as you assert. And I doubt that even you believe that God would necessarily do such a thing. For instance I very much think that you believe that Jesus' tomb was left empty, rather than God creating a fake body to cover up the resurrection (as your argument implies He would do). So on what basis do you claim that God would cover up miracles ?

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Lets say Adam was real (I believe he was) and on day 10 an alien visits him and introduces himself and asks Adam how long he has been there, Adam responds by saying 10 days, the alien says, no not how long have you been in this exact place, but how long have you been alive, Adam says 10 days, the alien says this is not physically possible, everything I "know" indicates you could not only be ten days old. He begins to show Adam fossils and the such like. Adam responds by saying I can only tell you that according to God he created me ten days ago and thats all the memory I have. Deity and the miraculous would answer both questions. The miraulous would alter what the alien actually believed to be true or observable. Six day creation.

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One example is not sufficient to establish a general principle. The example must be analysed and it must be shown that the the issue does not rely on special features.In the case of Adam, your argument assumes that the alien does not and cannot have any evidence that directly contradicts or confirms Adam's statement. For a single person this might be reasonable (although it is not necessarily the case). So already you are relying on a special feature of the example.So let us expand it: The alien reports that his probes have been observing this system for some decades and he has satellite images completely covering the region, such that it is not possible that Adam if he existed more than ten days ago could have been missed. Is it your assertion that God would be forced to create false images of Adam such that this evidence could not provide any support for Adam's story ? Or would the evidence show that Adam was missing in a way that the alien could not account for ?And let us proceed to the fossils and the rocks. You assert that God for some reason created a huge amount of evidence contradicting the true six-day creation story. What "characteristics" or "aspects" of God would cause him to do that ?

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Rejection of the miraulous is on thing, invoking it and assuming its possibilty and formulating arguments against it, based on the exact information contained in the miracle, is another story completly

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By which you apparently mean that it is alright to rule out miracles a priori (something would immediately provoke accusations of closed-mindedness from most Christian apologist). However you think that it is wrong to look at the evidence and conclude that it shows that the miracle did not happen. That is a very odd position.

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Further, the extraordinary evidence itself would be the very real existence of God himself and his ability to function in this manner.

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That would only count as evidence if it could be shown to be true. If it is merely an assumption made for the sake of argument - as appears to be the case in the situation you describe - it cannot be taken as actual evidence.

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Again, you miss the point. I agree, an appeal to authority is not an appeal to his status but the information he is presenting. I never stated that the appeal is to his authority, is that, which was in question. This is why it is only a logical fallacy, if you want it to be, but not in reality.

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You are wrong. An appeal to authority is when the authority of an expert is the only reason for belief- it is not about the evidence at all. (A good example is the Dever quote you pull out from the Jewish apologist aish.com website. It is an especially good example since neither context nor source are given, so we cannot even be sure what Dever was referring to, let alone the evidence that he based his statement on.)So we are down to the fact that you have made an arbitrary assertion that God must cover up the evidence of miracles. You have not offered any valid support for this, at most only an example where the evidence is expected to be lacking for natural reason (if the six-day creation is supposed to be the second example, it shows nothing because it simply presumes that the evidence must be as it is, offering no reason at all).So it seems that your position is that miracles function according to your wishes. You want God to cover up the evidence of miracles, therefore He must do so. Apparently you even believe that your authority over God is so obvious that only an "arrogant little turd" could deny it !

Alright, lets take a serous look at your links. Although it should be noted that using bare links is frowned upon, and YOU should have made your own case using links only for support.The first set are supposed to show that there is "sufficient reason" to believe that God was involved in events and that there is strong enough support for the Biblical accounts that we should believe even in the miracles.The first is
WikipediaIt's hard to say what you think supports your claims here. So far as I can see it indicates that evidential support for the Bible stories is limited and there is no sign of God doing anything. On the face of it this page contradicts your claims.Amazingly Wikipedia seems to be the most authoritative source your quote, the rest being amateur sites or apologetic sites. Couldn't you find more reputable sources to support your position ?The second is bible-history.comThis page is just a list of links. If you can't be bothered to pick out the ones that you think support you, you cannot expect anyone else to do it for you.The third is Apologeticspress.orgObviously you can't expect a Christian apologetic site to be unbiased. However, although it does provide some well-known examples of archaeological support for some parts of the Bible it is hard to see how it supports your claims.The second set is supposed to deal with the Exodus (interestingly neither Wikipedia nor the Apologetics Press article from your earlier links report any evidence for the Exodus as such. Didn't you notice that ?)The first is northforest.orgAn amateur Christian site, which uncritically reports the discredited claims of David Rohl. As is well known Rohl's chronology fails to match up with the detailed Assyrian records.In the conventional chronology the death of Dudimose, for instance, is around 1690 BC. That is too early for the Exodus.The second is a Jewish apologetic site
aish.comIt's first point is that Joe Dever says that there is evidence for the Exodus. Brian has already dealt with this issue, and none of the evidence that supposedly convinced Dever is given.When it gets down to specifics concerning the Exodus it utterly contradicts Rohl. Rohl claims that the Middle Kingdom town of "Avaris" (in fact the town that preceded it) was devastated by the plagues and evacuated in the Exodus. Here, aish.com claims that the city of Pi-Ramesse, built on top of Avaris was constructed during the captivity. These claims cannot both be true.The evidence for the Exodus offered is amazingly weak. For instance the Elephantine Stele makes reference to the possibility that rebel Egyptians might hire Asiatic mercenaries. And this is taken as confirming evidence !The refutation of Ahlstrom's claim about the date when Exodus was written is based on inscriptions in temples - but no locations or dates are provided to allow any check on this assertion.It mentions an inscription about a person who might be the Biblical Balaam, although the inscription is dated to the 8th century BC, hundreds of years after the date Balaam would have had to have lived.It admits that there is no evidence for the wanderings in the desert.And with regard to Jericho it cites Bryant Wood's redating which has been discussed here before.So even this biased and unscholarly site has little to offer.And that is it.

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No I am not asserting he claimed a miracle happened,

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That is not what I asked. I asked if you really meant that Rahvin was "invoking a miracle" as the phrase is usually understood - i.e. claiming a miracle had happened. As you have concede, he did not. Thus I was correct to note that your use of the phrase was misleading at best.

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I am asserting that when you invoke the miraculous, it then begins to involve other aspects that would change the landscape if that miracle did happen. The evidence is not lacking for the miraculous if the existence of God can be demonstrated.

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However, the evidence of that would be exactly the sort of evidence that Rahvin notes is lacking.

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I do not claim that God would "cover up" miracles, since I do not claim this the rest of the statement makes no sense. Please explain what you mean by cover up.

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You did indeed assert that

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... the "evidence" that reaches us may even appear as that event never happened.

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And this is the only explanation you offer for the lack of evidence. Yet how can the evidence so clearly be absent unless God were to cover it up ?

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You expansion takes the analogy to far. In this instance I am placing the alien in the same status as ourselves, having not seen Adam, the earth or the miracle that produced him.

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By which you mean that your "analogy" is irrelevant to the cases that Rahvin referred to.

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We did not see what happened in the beginning, we were not there, so all we can go on is the information at hand, that being the existence of God and the accompanying evidence. Like the alien we must make a decision based on the best possible evidence and ALL evidence must be included without bias.

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If that were the case then you should be dealing with the real evidence, not producing analogies which even you admit to be inapplicable. Not should the alleged existence of God be included as evidence until it is demonstrated (which of course it has not been).

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This is exacally the point I am trying to make, there are simply to many alternative explanations other than your exclusive one. In this instance, there is the Gap therory, which I for the most part accept. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,(space and time), and the earth was without form and void". This explanation would account for what the alien would have seen previously and what God actually did at some other point in that space and time. There very easily could have been a day by day creation, if it is understood in the context of a huge Gap, which seems to violate no known principles.

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That isn't at all what I was talking about. And even accepting the arbitrary reading of Genesis, the Gap theory still has serious problems with the evidence. So why would God create a world which is so badly misleading ?

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None of the above statement is remotely true.

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Then you should learn to express yourself better. When you wrote It certainly seems as if you find the first acceptable, but the other unacceptable.

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My only contention is that the evidence MAY appear one way to us presently, if an actual miracle occured and the results of that miracle ould altered what we now consider as evidence.

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So you are just speculating that there MIGHT be problems with Rahvin's assertions. Hardly worth wasting a post on, if you ask me.

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If I were to meet a man that Jesus had healed after Christs ascension, there would be according to the physical evidence no indication that he had ever been disabled. That which I would now see, would be different than that which was actually the case at some other point in time. Do you see what I am saying?

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Yes, you are saying that the issue should be addressed in generalities that might or might not be applicable. It's a pretty obvious evasion.

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I made no such assertion, it is you rewording of waht a I said that makes it as such. The words cover up are yours not mine. I believe I have demonstrated my point and explained in delieberate and accurate fashion what my position in on the matter.

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I am sorry that I assumed that your point was actually meant to be taken as applicable to the examples you were disputing. But it was the natural and charitable assumption, since you did NOT make it clear that you intended nothing of the sort.. I'll try not to give you so much credit in future.However, in that case we have your insults to Rahvin. Clearly THEY are not justified.

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For the most part the above statement is completly ignorant. It is not even close to my positon and you know it.

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It was based on the idea that you were actually trying to make a relevant point. Now I know that you were simply trying to evade the issue with vague generalities.Really both this post and the one which preceded it could have been far shorter - or better still omitted altogether. If our main point is a triviality and you aren't even prepared to claim that it is relevant, why bother ?Bu really you would be far better served starting a new thread bringing out your proof of God, is you really have one. Such a major development would obviously be more important than this thread. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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Will they be accepted as evidence, ofcourse not. They will be immediatley be rejected and dissmissed as "Unrelaible" and "unscholarly", even thought they information seems to corroborate numerous Biblical texts that refer to the Hitties and explanations of the possibilites.

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So basically you reference sites relying on discredited work or using arguments that are obviously worthless or providing vague references that can't reasonably be checked. Rather than accept that you should actually do some quality control (not to mention checking to see if the site actually DOES support your claims) you instead blame the skeptics for noticing the problems !

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I could produce authority and website, to assist my points till the cows come home, but to what end? Only to have it rejected and dississed as unreliable.

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If all you can find is rubbish or doesn't support your points then you should indeed give up. But you should be honest about it and concede instead of complaining that the skeptics aren't gullible and credulous enough to be fooled.

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In this instance it is not that I am not presenting information to support the claim, its that that information is disregarded immediatley. When i presented and article from Apologeticspress.org on Archaeology and the Bible, one responded by saying this is a Christian website, therefore biased and it is only presenting verifiable facts of history from the Bible, so what?

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It's a Christian apologetic website. It's MEANT to be biased ! The name "Apologetics Press" should TELL you that it's biased !What is more, I've checked all the direct responses and mine is the only one that mentions it. However I specifically state that it is a Christian apologetic site (which IS relevant) and I did NOT dismiss it. Rather I read it and found nothing that would support the specific claims that it was supposed to support. And I said as much.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Well it's a long post and there's a hell of a lot wrong with it.Essentially the issue seems to be that you assume that you are unquestionably right and you are trying to bully us into making the same assumption with all your unjustified and false accusations.You don't think that you should need to check the websites you cite to vet them for quality or even check whether they actually support your case. If you misuse a phrase it is everyone elses fault for not magically working out what you mean. You don't even think that you properly need to read the messages you are replying to.In Message 123 I point out that your assessment of my comments on in error on two counts. Firstly you left out the important point that the website is an Apologetic site (and admits as much in the domain name), secondly that I did not dismiss it, instead reading it and discovering that it did not support the assertiosn you intended it to support - a conclusion that does not depend on the accuracy of what it says !.Your response illustrates the problem here:

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If I referenced F.F Bruce and the fact that he is was a Christian, would that disqualify his credentials

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Since I made it perfectly clear that the issue was that the website was an Apologetic website this simply repeats the same misrepresentation that I corrected. Moreover I said nothing about credentials being disqualified at all.

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Your statement makes no sense, it shows an arrogance and bias that is far above that you are suggesting twords myself

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It is not my statement, it is your invention. Whether it results from a complete disregard for the truth or intentional dishonesty it is clearly reprehensible and unjustified.And there's far more like this. It won't do. If you want to remain here then I strongly suggest that you make an honest attempt to engage in serious discussion - instead of relying on whining and bullying to try to make people agree with you as you are doing now.I know you're going to dismiss this as you dismiss everything else which doesn't say what you want. But really you should take a long hard look at what you are doing and see how it presents Christianity.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.Edited by Admin, : Fix bold dBCode.

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Wrong. Just another bullying and assertion statment with no merit.

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No, It's exactly what is going on.

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The arrogance manifested in these statments is characteristic of yourself and most of the others. I took a considerable amount of time reading and re-reading Brians comments and your others. Then I carefully read what each website had to say in comparison to Brians and found his limited in its scope. If you cant argue apoint, then atleast stop misreprsenting me.

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You forget, I took the time to read the websites and raised my objections. If you read the websites it doesn't show. You presented no analysis, no explanation - even though by the rules of this forum you should have in the post where you first referenced them. Not have you provided such in rebuttal to my comments, instead preferring dismissal or misrepresentation. Those are the real facts.

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What would you expect an Apologetic website to call themselves and what in the world does this have to do with anything, it makes no logical sense. Are you apologetic in nature?

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What I would "expect" an apologetic website to call itself is a complete irrelevance.The fact is that I pointed out that a website was biased because it was an apologetic website. The fact is that you misrepresented this point quite seriously - the second time after a clear and explicit explanation which you either did not bother to read or chose to ignore. And you accused me of arrogance based on words that you had put into my mouth.And this is your response - babbling evasive nonsense.

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As an example of your unobjectivity and unwillingness to entertain (the possibility that someone else may be correct on things ) other views I will cite two examples.

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Let us see if you can be honest about that.

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First I pointed out that referencing an authority is not a logical fallcy, exclusively.

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Which was incorrect. As I explained. Typically you ignored that explanation

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To demonstrate this I showed that that authority could be as wrong as he could be right, in the matters and that the strickly ability to reference him constitued no "invalid reasoning", and strictly it does not.

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Which means that it is LOGICALLY INVALID reasoning as I explained. It would only be logically valid if the expert COULD NOT BE WRONG. And as I explained, because logical validity is so restrictive we do NOT restrict ourselves to reasoning that is logically valid.

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If you are right when you cite him, then his credentials were justified. Even if he was wrong in the matter, the strict act of referencing him does not constitute "invalid reasoning" and that is what a logical fallacy constitutes.

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And as I have already explained you do not understand what a logical fallacy is.So your objection here is simply that I disagreed with your opinion - because I knew your opinion to be wrong.

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Then I gave the example of what a logical fallacy was by stating if I were to make the comment, that "I refernced him because he is always right and never wrong", this would constitute a logical fallacy, or incorrect reasoning. You seem to be aggrevated that I continue to disagree with you, even when I am supporting my points.

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Which shows that you fail to understand the difference between validity and soundness. If you included the statement "I refernced him because he is always right and never wrong" your argument WOULD be logically valid, but unsound because that premise is false.And let us remember that you are complaining because *I* disagree with *YOU*. And you refuse to consider the possibility that I am right. Which is unfortunate because I AM right.

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Secondly, I have consistently demonstrated that to "bring up" or even "talk" (invoke, whatever you want to call it)about miracles in connection with the scriptures, certain things follow from that inculcation. Again, it is not that I have NOT supported my contentions, you fellas simply have astrong opposition to being disagreed with and when someone stands toe to toe with you, you start accusing them of outlandish and ridiculous things, grow up.

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Let us remember that your "demonstration" was "analogies" which you weren't even prepared to defend as validly speaking to the actual examples. Moreover it is false to claim that there was opposition to the vague and general point you state. as has already been dealt with. You didn't even attempt to show that Rahvin ignored THAT point although you were quite willing to accuse him of doing so and insult him for it.That's 0 out of 2.

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Validity: "founded on truth or fact".
Soundness:"free from fault or error"

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In the context of logic they have more precise definitions.A valid argument is one that strictly follows the rules of logic, so that the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. An argument that is not logically valid is logically fallacious.A sound argument is a logically valid argument with true premises.So to be formal about it.Where E(x) is: an expert asserts 'x'P1 E(x)
C xIs invalid.P1 E(x)
P2 E(x) -> x
C xIs valid, but unsound.

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If I made the statement in this manner, as you quote me above, it would be niether, valid or sound, per the definitions

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Per the relevant definitions it would be valid, but not sound.

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To reduce it to, I am quoting him because he is an authority, is niether, invalid or unsound, regardless of the outcome of the information. The statement in and of itself violates no principle of incorrect reasoning, therefore not a logical fallacy. The mere fact that you and I can debate this ambiguous point, should also show what I stated earlier, that often times the very terms themselves "logical fallacy", etc,can be ambiguous and over applied to any situation or statement. Think about it.

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I don't need to think about it because I already know the correct answers. Your argument does not follow the rules of logic, it is not logically valid therefore it is logically fallacious.The term "logical fallacy" is not ambiguous, since it refers to arguments which are not logically valid.As I have pointed out logical validity ids very restrictive so we DO NOT RESTRICT OURSELVES TO LOGICALLY VALID ARGUMENTS. Arguing from expert opinion - especially a consensus of expert opinion is a very reasonable and rational thing for a non-expert to do. (Thus it is perfectly reasonable to say that the Biblical account of the Exodus is not just hopelessly implausible, it is wrong and the Israelite nation grew out of the Canaanite population because that is the consensus of the relevant experts).

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I never accused Rahvin of believing in or using miracles as an argument in his post.

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That has nothing to do with the quoted material, and I did not say that you did elsewhere either.

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My contention was that if you reference them in connection with the scriptures and the historical accuracy, it could offer another explanation for the physical evidence we now see, this was the only point I was making, you blew it all out of shape.

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According to you, you proposed it only as something that might apply to some miracles. You did not mean it to be taken as applying to the specific examples Rahvin mentioned.
You did not show that Rahvin had ignored the possibility.

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My analogies were not intended as an argument in this connection or in counter to him but as an"illustration" to the application of the point, not argument I was making.

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Which is my point. You were not and are not prepared to claim that your "analogies" actually showed anything relevant to your accusations. For all you know Rahvin ahd considered and included that possibility.

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I further stated that if I were going to cite miracles as evidence I would support them with the obvious physical evidence of the existence of God or a creator.

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Such an argument would fail both on the grounds that the mere "existence of God or creator" would not support the occurrence of any particular miracle. Moreover since there is no such "obvious physical evidence" your argument would fail on that ground, too.Really if you have a secret proof that God exists - and it would have to be secret, not obvious because of all the people who don't know it - it really would be worthy of a thread of its own.

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Lets put in question form. If God exists and miracles did happen as the scriptures indicated, could and would it change the physical evidence that we now examine? Yes or No?

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If miracles did happen as the Bible says then some of them should leave detectable evidence and the lack of that evidence would be reason to conclude that the miracle did not happen. (In addition to the low prior probability of any particular miracle, which itself would have to be overcome before the miracle could be accepted).

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Further, since you still have not posted any credentials that I "requested", I know you are not required, but since you have not I must assume you are as "unqualified" and "biased" as I am to speak on historical matters.

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True I did not waste my time on an irrelevant diversion you cooked up as an evasion tactic. However, qualifications or their absence are not a measure of bias at all and I am satisfied that I am much better read on the subject that you are. (For instance I am familiar with the basics of Rohls's claims and the objections to them. You failed to even notice that Rohl's ideas contradicted those of the aish.com page you cited).

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Also, you never told me what problems the Gap theory presents in connection with this aspect of the discussion.

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I don't remember you asking, and it was a peripheral point.
However I can sketch out some objections. The fact is that the gap is not justified by the text (for instance the first day is most naturally read as the very first day, but the Gap Theory denies that). The creation of the sun, moon and stars is mentioned as occurring after the alleged gap (although they must have existed before it, and your own use of it assumes as much) and there is no gap visible in the archaeological record in the last 10,000 years - indeed the Gap must end with a global flood which is surely not visible at all.

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True again, according to the strict rules of "logic".

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Well thank you for finally admitting as mcuh.

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But logic has to be applied to reality and common sense.

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But misusing the terminolgoy does not accomplish that. Recognsiing the limits of logic and employing other methods, which are less than absolutely reliable but still "good enough" is the correct approach.

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Therefore the term "unsound" as a strict "logical" application to a categorical or objective statement does not always apply

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Statements cannot be logically unsound because the term only applies to arguments. However, the term WOULD always apply to arguments. The issue is not the terminology, but what we do about it. (And the practical way to handle it would be to evaluate the extent of the problem, rather than rejecting the argument simply because it was not logically sound).

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In this instance, it is not an "unsound", "invalid" or fallacoius as a principle or definition in reality to appeal to an authority. This is why I said it is ambiguous. Not that logic or the term (L/F) is ambiguous, but that it does not always apply in reality, or to the strict terms "sound" or "valid.

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But there is no ambiguity, simply a failure on your part to understand what a "logical fallacy" is. Your whole objection is based on your misunderstanding as I explained some time ago. If you actually paid attention to the contents of the replies when you are "responding" to them progress would be considerably faster.

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Common sense and reality would dictate that the term Logical fallacy could not always be applied to every statment and be correct in principle, If there is no obvious reason that it violates in reality.

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There is an obvious reason in reality why the argument from authority violates logic - authorities are not always correct.

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You may be able to demonstrate from a strict logical argument that this or that is unsound,but it is exacally why the "more precise method" in logic "sometimes" (not always) negates what is true in reality. That is why we would know the strict "appeal" to an authority is not an unsound practice in the application of everyday deductive reasoning. This was my meaning in the first place

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i.e. your sole point was a failure to understand the meaning of "logical fallacy", just as I said at the start.

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If therefore, the Cananites were related to the Israelites and visversa, due to the fact that the cannanites were also decendants of the sons of Noah also, why would this be a problem? We are talking about a relatively small geographical area.

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We are not talking about them being related by being "descendents of the sons of Noah" - Noah is not even mentioned. We are talking about a much closer relationship, where the Israelites were a Canaanite tribe who did not invade en masse after escaping Egypt, but instead gradually grew in situ.Please try and understand what you are responding to.

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I am going to take a wild, nutty guess and say he doesnt and did not. Now I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I am sure that is a safe bet.

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So you feel free to ignore the rules here and throw personal attacs based only on the self-serving guess that your opponent is as lazy as you are.

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Its not a secret and I have already done this in the thread, 'Is logic Science'. There is obvious physical evidence, its called an Axiom

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I have reread the thread and seen that all it contains is a hopelessly flawed philosophical argument that ID should be considered science. There is no "obvious physical evidence of God" presented in it, and if it were it would not be called an axiom (that you say so only demonstrates that you have refused to learn from that thread).

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The evidence it left behind is called Creation and the design in nature, wether you believe in evolution or not. Theres a start

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This "evidence" is far from sufficient to demonstrate the existence of God.

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Give me an example of what evidence should be left behind, since you do not believe in miracles but are going to set up the rules on how they should operate

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I am not going to set rules. Instead I am going to follow the approach that you said should be followed.To take an example, if the Earth were created 6000 years ago the evidence of past age should be expected to be no more than is necessary. Fossils are not necessary, therefore they should not exist in original created rock, let alone present significant evidence for evolution. False radiometric ages are not necessary. Large craters that show all the signs of being produced by metoer impacts that never ocurred are not necessary and so on. Even on this superficial evalutaion it is clear that the evidence indicates that this miracle did not occur, unless you assume intnetional deception on God's part.

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Trust me it was not an evasion tactic in connection with the "bias" discussion.

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Lack of formal qualifications is not evidence of bias therefore it is clearly irrelevant. However it was not in a pure discussion of bias. It was in a discussion of your gross misrepresentation of my statement that an apologetic webite should be expected to be biased.
The real issue was not qualifications, nor even the meaning of "apologetic" (although that was far more relevant) it was your repeated misrepresentation, made in the face of a clear and unambiguous correction.

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No, Just read vs1 and then vs 2 and you can imagine the possible expanse of time. Verse 2 also, appears to be a reiteration of vs 1.

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The point is that it has to be imagined, there is nothing in the text to suggest it - or to even hint that anything of any importance happened in the gap. And even then you have to take it out of context to avoid the problems with later verses that I pointed out. And that's just the textual issues - you still have to deal with the physical evidence.

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Here is one example of how a miracle could have left Skewed information as is debated in Henry M Morris, Creation and the The Genisis flood , think thats the title. Its been a long time since i read it.

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An example of how a miracle merely might have left what you call "Skewed information" is of no real value, even if you presented it. Even if you want to assert that a particular miracle claim cannot be reasonably rejected you should present evidence that that miracle should be expected to leave no evidence.

IN deference to Percy's wishes I will try to focus on points relevant to the topic, rather than your numerous other errors.

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Why? I have no expectations of what a miracle should do or not do "exclusively" in relationship to existence of what the physical evidence warrents

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So you admit that you didn't care whether your response to Rahvin made a relevant point or not.

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Further, when I do present evidence form the existence of God, you say, its no evidence.

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By which you mean that I truthfully pointed out that simply asserting that God's existence is evidence of miracles is not in itself evidence. And also pointed out that even if you could demonstrate the existence of God, it would not be evidence for any specific miracle.A valid response would be to present actual arguments to the contrary. Clearly you have none.

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While, admittedly it is an argument that involves some imagination,

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It's handling of the Biblical text is pure imagination. We can only suppose that you do not belong to a sect that objects to "adding to the Bible".

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it on the other hand incorporates (inculcates, for Subbie) all of the available evidence at hand, to include the apperance of an ancient earth, fossils, the obvious fact that finite things cannot create themselves or come from nothing.

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As I have already pointed out evidence that it does not incorporate, this assertion has already been refuted.

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What other verse are you speaking about that you say suggest there is a contextual contradiction to the Gap therory

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My earlier post dealt with this point. However since you obviously cannot be bothered to go back and read it I will point out one example from the verses you quote. The Gap theory proposes billions of years worth of days between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Genesis 1:5 deals with the creation of the first day.

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If by physical evidence you mean ToE,

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Aside from the fact that I would never make the glaring error of calling a theory "physical evidence" all you had to do was look at my earlier post to see what I meant. In fact you would do very well to review older posts whenever they are relevant since you obviously cannot remember even your own pasts posts. It would save you from many errors that look like intentional dishonesty.

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In my view the Gap theory explains this "seeming" problem and is still consistent with the Word of God,

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Which simply means that you accept that the evidence indicates that the miracle in question did not occur. Thus you accept my point.Which renders the rest of the paragraph redundant. Although it is interesting to note that your earlier assertion that you "had no view" on what evidence would be left my miracles is untrue. Now you assert that the evidence should be expected to indicate that the miracle did not occur.

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This is exacally what I mean. In my view to make such a statement is simply ludicrous, not you but your position. ( I have got to be careful here because, because I am not one of the favored children here and I will get suspended if I refer to you in such a manner.)
"that which may be Known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shown it unto them. For the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, so that they are without EXCUSE" Romans 1.
Now I dont want to get into a discussion about design here I only quoted this to demonstrate that anyone can reject anything but they will not do it from a lack if Evidence.
What would you consider as evidence of the lack of support for Gods existence?

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Obviously I know what is and is not obvious to me. Therefore I can say that ROmans 1 is quite definitely wrong on this point.And it is silly to ask for evidence of a lack of evidence ! What am I supposed to do ? Go through everything I know explaining why it is not evidence that God exists ?

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How is my guessing that he does not believe in miracles a personal attack, your language is way to strong.

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Of course that is not what I said you had done, nor is it what you did do. Can we start with the point that "arrogant little turd" IS a personal attack ?

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Go ahead and present your "evidence" for this, if you will.

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Since my assertion is that there is a consensus of experts, here is what on such expert says. Since he is the very expert quoted by aish.com - a quote which you copied _ I would think that his statement carries some weight.From {URL=Page not found | SD JEWISH JOURNAL San Diego Jewish Journal[/URL]
Also, on hte arhaeological evidence for the existence of the Israelites he adds: And it must be remembered that Dever tends to the maximalist side of the mainstream (which is why Aish quoted him). He is not biased against the Biblical account.His book on the origins of the Israelites may be found on Google books

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Besides this Noah is mentioned in the Bible, if we are not going to immediately exclude it as evidence.

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Might I suggest that since you so obviously hate admitting that you have made an error you try harder to avoid making them in the first place ? Repeating an obvious mistake -as you have done here - only compounds the problem.

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Reality would suggest that there is nothing wrong, incorrect or even inaccurate about a simply refering to a Scholar, even if a "logical fallacy" designates it as Unsound or Invalid.

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In saying that all you are doing is echoing my point that it is a way of arguing that is - if done correctly - "good enough".Yes, you can argue and argue and argue. The problem is that you prefer arguing to the truth.

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It amazes me how people argue about the bible. Look at the fist few sentences that describe creation, pretty much as the big bang. There was chaos until light. at the introduction of light, came time. After that was day and night. A day, is one rotation of the earth...so no one knows the length of time this really means, but creation is described just as we know the order had to be.

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It always amazes me that people try to assume that Genesis 1 has anything to do with our modern scientific understanding when it is so obviously geocentric with its roots in the earlier creation myths of the Middle East. To point out just one problem, numerous stars formed in the ~9 billion years between the Big Bang and the formation of the Earth - yet Genesis 1 doesn't place the creation of stars before the first day as it surely should if you were correct.

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Now look at the fulfillment of prophecy. I think the bible has been pretty accurate, and the only place this info could have come from, is outside space-time...thus from God.

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We have looked, a number of times. And found that success usually rests on "creative interpretations" of the prophecy in question (and that is being kind). On a more objective assessment we see failure after failure.Edited by Admin, : Fix quotes.

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So, we have one group of "Scientist" (Christians) who have understood/tested the veracity of scripture and found the results to be precisely as "predicted". (prophesied)

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No,we have a group of religious apologists who attempt to force science to fit their interpretation of scripture.

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And another group of "Scientist" (unbelievers) that doesn't understand, and without the ability to test, deny it's verscity based on their "Belief", rather than the actual results of a test.

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Again, no. We have people doing genuine science- including some believers - who happen to come to conclusions contradictory to the dogmas of some sects.

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Would you say that is "good Science"???

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The fact that you malign and misrepresent the positions of honest scientists is hardly a reason to condemn their work.

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Scripture doesn't only prophecy future events, it also includes a "SCHEDULE" (timeframe) in which these events will occur,

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No, it does not. A few books give some indication of a timeframe for some future events (e.g. Daniel places the End Times in the mid-2nd Century BC) but they do not agree and they have all failed.