No, Nathaniel Jeanson was NOT Lying About Recent History

No, Nathaniel Jeanson was NOT Lying About Recent History · Continued Debate

They're Lying About History, Too
Creation Myths | 26 Oct. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUuVpkr3O4Y

3:20 Yes, "religion taught as science of history cannot be part of the curriculum" = the claim that true science and true history cannot coincide with a claim of religion.

That's the official motivation, it's as much of an anti-Christian claim as "man developed slowly from a kind of now extinct apes" is.

What Jeanson did was go behind the official motivation, which is an anti-Christian claim rather than a neutral juridic stance, and ask about the real motivations.

You can qualify that as conspiracy theorising, but when the officially stated motivation is a blatant anti-Christian claim, you can certainloy be excused for that.

shassett79

@shassett79

I don't think anyone has any problem discussing the history of various religions in school. The problem starts when the instruction involves only one religion and happens in science classes.

Mohammed didn't split the moon, Krishna didn't lift a hill, and Jesus didn't create the universe. These are stories humans tell. And while they might have historical and anthropological significance, none of them should be taught in schools as fact.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@shassett79 "The problem starts when the instruction involves only one religion"

Creationism is not just one religion, because loads of Christian religions agree with it and some non-Christian ones too.

Evolutionism is one religion, and a pretty new one.

"and happens in science classes."

So history is OK?

Would US schools be OK saying "by 1500, the Catholic Church was corrupt"? That's a religious claim, for Protestantism, but false history. The actual extent of corruption was more like Rome and surroundings (not even all of Italy, there was a preference for Trent in Italian parts of Tyrolia over Rome, when the Church called a council).

But seriously, your view means an establishment clause inverted for the science class. No part of the US Constitution says all young people shall even be exposed to Science class and you treat it as sacrosanct and holy and Creationism as a sacrilege.

The current state means Science class is mandatory and the religion of Evolutionism is a mandatory part of it.

Can you seriously say you were exposed to a curriculum very different from that?

shassett79

@hglundahl Oh please, tell me you'd be fine with Biology classes teaching Hindu creation mythology. While most religious traditions have a take on "where stuff came from," you know quite well what creationism refers to in the context of this discussion.

"Evolutionism" is a pejorative invented by creationists to put science on equal footing with religious dogma.

But yeah, I'd be fine with history classes talking about when various religious narratives were created and their influence on culture-- that's obviously part of history, right?

And in school I was taught about the obvious, empirical truth of various facets of Biology, evolution included.

CNCmachiningisfun

@CNCmachiningisfun

Theists really need to get an actual clue!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "Oh please, tell me you'd be fine with Biology classes teaching Hindu creation mythology."

For India, I would. For a class in the US in a city with lots of Indians (NYC, perhaps?) I would.

But Indian philosophy is not Creationist, it's Emergentist, however in a different way from Darwinian Evolution. To them, the world is a dream emerging from the mind of Brahma when he's dreaming.

""Evolutionism" is a pejorative"

Evolutionism is an exact parallel to Creationism or Emergentism. It's the name of a philosophical position about where things came from.

"when various religious narratives were created"

Because, people like you can't accept when the Gospel narrative was created as being along the events, and what you put instead is neither factual nor unified. That's why they don't teach it.

You can't BOTH teach as a fact that Christianity was created by St. Paul in a fit of madness and that it was fabricated by Pisonians as one set of political calculation (creating a pacifist version of Judaism) and on top of these that it was fabricated by Constantine in order to unify sunworshippers and Jews in the Empire.

If you teach all three as possibilities, you highlight the fourth possibility, the one you are allergic to.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@CNCmachiningisfun Did your sentence miss an A at the beginning?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "evolution included."

Where you taught it is obvious life began c. 3 billion years ago?

Because that precisely echoes what Nathaniel Jeanson said about the curriculum.

shassett79

@hglundahl "But Indian philosophy is not Creationist"
You seem to have an idiosyncratic understanding of creationism. I subscribe to the conventional, dictionary definition of something like "the belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation."

"Evolutionism is an exact parallel to Creationism or Emergentism."
I disagree that affirming the overwhelmingly supported scientific consensus view of biology is necessarily an "ism" in the same way that creationism is, and take issue with the false equivalence.

"If you teach all three as possibilities,"
Like I said, I'm fine with teaching known historical facts about religious traditions and discussing their cultural significance. We know roughly when Christianity began, we know the traditions it followed and derived from, and we can obviously discuss things like its spread and the historical influence of the church and its adherents. Heck, we can even discuss the particulars of the dogma. What schools can't do is teach kids that the dogma is true.

"Where you taught it is obvious life began c. 3 billion years ago?"
I was presented with the empirical support for this claim and, lacking any substantive data pointing to another conclusion, find it compelling.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79

"the belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation."

Exactly.

Hinduism says that they don't. Hinduism says they originate from a non-act (like sleep) of Brahma.

"and take issue with the false equivalence."

So do I. Creationism in the Christian sense is straightforward history.

But both are still philosophical options (different from Hinduism) and that even if Evolutionism is so much worse epistemically.

"What schools can't do is teach kids that the dogma is true."

If schools say Jesus rose from the dead, they follow Christian dogma. If they say He didn't, they follow Jewish, Muslim and Atheist dogma.

But His rising or not rising is a historic event.

"lacking any substantive data pointing to another conclusion,"

In other words, you weren't presented with the case for Christian Creationism, just like Nathaniel Jeanson said.

shassett79

@hglundahl "Hinduism says that they don't."
Not really interested in an argument about Hindu theology because it's completely beside the point, but there are Hindu traditions that absolutely posit a creation account that's consistent with the dictionary definition of creationism.

"Creationism in the Christian sense is straightforward history."
No, it's dogma. And it's fine for Christians to claim that their dogma is in fact historically accurate, but the rest of us don't have to care because there's no evidence to back those claims up.

"Evolutionism is so much worse epistemically."
Again, "evolutionism" insofar as anyone but creationists use the term, is simply the affirmation of the conclusions of essentially all subject matter experts in biology. If you take issue with that position, I'd say it's more a problem for you than the evolutionists.

"If schools say Jesus rose from the dead, they follow Christian dogma."
And if they say, "Christian tradition claims that Jesus rose from the dead," they're teaching a history class.

"But His rising or not rising is a historic event."
Not really, but the actions of people claiming he rose are certainly historical events.

"In other words, you weren't presented with the case for Christian Creationism"
There is no such case. That's the thing. Please, make the case! Make an affirmative case for Christian creationism that isn't just a shambling mass of equivocations and misunderstandings of various fields of scientific study. Make the affirmative case without bizarre unfalsifiable claims about how abiogenesis or evolution are impossible for some unspecified reason. Pretend you're writing the chapter in the biology text that's going to teach kids about creationism and why they should believe a nonphysical, atemporal, omnipotent consciousness willed life into existence as part of an ineffable plan. Explain how it did that, specifically. Make testable predicitons. Like, actually work through how that would go....

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 Here is a wiki entry on Hinduism:

Hindu texts do not provide a single canonical account of the creation; they mention a range of theories of the creation of the world, some of which are apparently contradictory.

"there's no evidence to back those claims up."

Except from day VI the accounts of Adam and Eve and their descendants. For Flood Geology, the account of Noah, his wife, their three sons, their three wives.

"but the actions of people claiming he rose are certainly historical events."

... only explicable very well by an actual Jesus actually rising.

"Please, make the case!"

Which case are you most interested in?

Positive for creationism?

Not being "unfalsifiable"?

How about a negative case about 3 billion years? The dating methods are challenged.

But OK, you want a positive case. Man speaks. Man's purported ancestors according to Evolutionism don't speak. Man's purported creator according to Christian Creationism eternally speaks. Eternal speach fits temporal speach better than a "previous eternity" of non-speach.

@shassett79 "if they say, "Christian tradition claims that Jesus rose from the dead," they're teaching a history class."

Not without a discussion on whether the traditions arose with the events of from some other kind of circumstance.

Traditions sometimes have very convoluted origins, but they don't arise from nothing.

3:24 The Establishment clause 1) was way before there were any schools, and 2) speaks of the Federal Congress, not of individual states.

So, that idea about why the "religion taught as science of history cannot be part of the curriculum" would apply for legal reasons is also bogus

shassett79

No, the establishment clause applies to states via the fourteenth amendment. This is settled law and you're simply wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "via the fourteenth amendment"

I looked it up.

First, it's from 1868. This is before many of the states had compulsory education. The states took this measure between 1852 (Massachusetts) and 1918 (Mississippi). So, it's not obvious the establishment clause would have any direct bearing on curricula.

Second, as to content of the 14th:

The amendment's first section includes the Citizenship Clause, Privileges or Immunities Clause, Due Process Clause, and Equal Protection Clause. ... The second section superseded the Three-fifths Compromise, apportioning the House of Representatives and Electoral College using each state's adult male population. In allowing states to abridge voting rights "for participation in rebellion, or other crime," this section approved felony disenfranchisement. The third section disqualifies federal and state candidates who "have engaged in insurrection or rebellion," but in Trump v. Anderson (2024), the Supreme Court left its application to Congress for federal elections and state governments for state elections. The fourth section affirms public debt authorized by Congress while declining to compensate slaveholders for emancipation. The fifth section provides congressional power of enforcement, but Congress' authority to regulate private conduct has shifted to the Commerce Clause, while the anti-commandeering doctrine restrains federal interference in state law.

Not obvious that the 14th amendment extends establishment clause from congress to states.

3:49 White and O'Connor were both Episcopalians, i e theologically non-conservative Anglicans, which by the 1970's were already deeply compromised with Evolution acceptance.

That they could be motivated to do a hatchet job on what they would deem Evangelical (or Catholic) "fanaticism" is not beyond possible.

CNCmachiningisfun

Theists are funny, in a sad way!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@CNCmachiningisfun It's indeed sad that some purported Theists do the job of Atheists.

5:02 I can refute Flat Earth by conferring voyages that are historically or currently verified.

Can one reach US from West Eurasia over the Atlantic? I did.

Can one reach US from East Eurasia over the Pacific? Apparently a John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco did.

You cannot make a similar verification of Homo Erectus Soloensis developing from a kind of Australopithecus.

And genetic drift, mutations, selection aren't denied by Creationism.

Mark Nieuweboer

@marknieuweboer8099

You cannot make a similar verification for "and God said" either. At the other hand researchers from the University of Montana and the Georgia Institute of Technology have let a unicellular alga evolve into a multicellular organism. This is operational, repeatable science. Macro-evolution from one kind into another is an observable, scientifically verifiable fact. Search De Novo Origins Ratcliff.

shassett79

By your standards, you can't verify that any particular thing happened in the past, or even that the whole universe didn't pop into existence as-is and in-progress fifteen minutes ago. Good luck with that outlook! 😅

Seán Pól

@seanpol9863

Flat Earth is easy to disprove with real-world travel, but human evolution isn't that kind of evidence. We can't watch species change in a few centuries, but we can study fossils and DNA. Homo erectus and Australopithecus are linked by many fossils showing gradual changes in skulls and tools. Genetic studies also show humans share common genes with earlier species, proving shared ancestry. Creationism accepts small changes, but it denies the large-scale evolution the evidence clearly shows.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@marknieuweboer8099 "You cannot make a similar verification for "and God said" either."

I can for Moses seeing it happen in a vision and Moses speaking for God. The Exodus event and Moses writing Genesis is history like John Maximovich is history.

"have let a unicellular alga evolve into a multicellular organism."

Define multicellular in this context?

"Macro-evolution from one kind into another is an observable, scientifically verifiable fact."

Are you confusing "kind" with "species"?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "you can't verify that any particular thing happened in the past"

Yes, I can: by human testimony. That's the only way in which I know the Pacific has been crossed between the US and China.

So, human testimony is part of my standards.

"fifteen minutes ago"

As human testimony is part of my standards, so is human memory, including mine.

I recall, very many more days ago than fifteen minutes ago today, a certain channel you are commenting under (as am I) comparing Creationism to Last-Thursdayism. Dan refused to confirm he had made this much of a comparison, the one you just did, on the video.

So, no, the world didn't pop up 15 minutes ago, didn't pop up 1968 when I was born, didn't pop up 1900 when grandpa was born, didn't pop up 2000 years ago when Jesus lived, and didn't pop up 1510 years before that, because that's when the Exodus happened.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@seanpol9863 "Flat Earth is easy to disprove with real-world travel,"

Parts of which are known to most people only through human testimony. I've never seen the Pacific any further West than the water in Newport beach, reaching to the waist of a nine year old boy that I was, and waves toppling me over, which I found fun.

So, Perú to Polynesia or LA to Australia or US or Australia to China, I only know them by human testimony.

The real world is in a very high degree known by human testimony.

"we can study fossils and DNA."

Indeed, which proves that Neanderthals and Denisovans are human.

"Homo erectus and Australopithecus are linked by many fossils showing gradual changes in skulls"

Which skull shows a gradual development of Broca's area?

"and tools."

In fact, the best reason to think a certain tool comes from an Australopithecus rather than a man is, the dating of the layer is the same (in either case not carbon dating, but it may for instance be sandwich dating). There are models I find credible (I've sketched out one myself) on how this fits with Noah's Flood and the tools obviously not being by the Australopithecus that was found there.

"Genetic studies also show humans share common genes with earlier species, proving shared ancestry."

Shared genes do not prove shared ancestry rather than a shared creator.

shassett79

@hglundahl No, human testimony doesn't help you here, because that testimony could be mistaken or false. And memory isn't relevant because memory is deeply flawed and, at best, you could only know things you directly experienced to form a memory.

The exodus and the life of Jesus are religious dogma, subject to all the issues of human cognition as well as the obvious corrupting effects of religion.

But genetics, geology, fossils, etc. seem to be pretty darned concrete! Approaching the natural world with empiricism, any two people can independently derive the conclusions of evolutionary biology.

If you removed every biology text from existence and launched all of the subject matter experts into the sun, some day, someone would reach the exact same conclusions about our evolutionary lineage. But if you removed every copy of scripture from existence and launched everyone who knows the dogma into the sun, nobody would ever hear of Jesus or the exodus again.

Does that tell you anything?

Seán Pól

@hglundahl "Shared genes do not prove shared ancestry rather than a shared creator."

Now the burden of proof is on you to prove God's existence outside of scripture and personal anecdotes. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and God falls into that category.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "No, human testimony doesn't help you here, because that testimony could be mistaken or false. And memory isn't relevant because memory is deeply flawed and, at best, you could only know things you directly experienced to form a memory."

Thank you for showing that YOU are the radical sceptic. I am not.

By the way, you just threw science out of the door, because on that view, you can't know that the experiment with the Magdeburg hemispheres was performed.

"The exodus and the life of Jesus are religious dogma,"

Which doesn't exclude them from being testimony and memory.

"as well as the obvious corrupting effects of religion."

The one obvious thing is your bias.

"But genetics, geology, fossils, etc. seem to be pretty darned concrete!"

If you dug up a fossil yesterday, you still know that today only through your memory. If someone else dug it up, you are trusting human testimony.

"Approaching the natural world with empiricism,"

To which memory and testimony belong.

"any two people can independently derive the conclusions of evolutionary biology."

Except the premisses of evoutionary biology ("common genes prove common ancestry" or "evolution has gone on for millions of years") are not empirical at all.

"someone would reach the exact same conclusions about our evolutionary lineage."

No.

"if you removed every copy of scripture from existence and launched everyone who knows the dogma into the sun, nobody would ever hear of Jesus or the exodus again."

People have tried, and according to prophecy will try again. Somewhat cruder means than throwing people into the Sun, though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@seanpol9863 "Now the burden of proof is on you to prove God's existence outside of scripture and personal anecdotes."

The common creator of men and bananas?

That proves God's existence precisely as well as "the common ancestor of men and bananas" proves amoebas developed into plants or animals.

Or how about ... we see, empirically, that the universe goes around us, Sun, Moon, other planets, fix stars, each day.

Atheists are today so unable to explain that they resort to Heliocentrism!

In all seriousness, when two explanations are contrasted, the one doesn't suddenly get a walkover because the other is excluded by a burden of proof.

Unless the so one excluded is very much less obvious. Which Heliocentrism actually is.

shassett79

@hglundahl Don't thank me for doing something I certainly did not do; it's passive aggressive and childish. I'm not a radical skeptic, and you are the one putting greater stock in an explicitly religious narrative than I am in simply following empiricism where it leads via objective consideration of the observable world. Anyway, the odd specificity of Magdeburg hemispheres aside, I can demonstrate that atmospheric pressure exists. Can you demonstrate that Moses parted the Red Sea?

And while claims about the exodus are obviously a facet of history, calling the Bible "testimony" is quite a stretch. But setting that aside, there's "testimony" for all sorts of things in which I'm sure you don't believe, so I'm not sure why you're pretending to have a point with this.

Regardless, nobody "remembers" the exodus and no author of any part of the Bible ever saw Jesus alive. The testimony is all obviously dubious and I can only marvel at the sort of epistemology that would view claims like, "I dug up this bone" and "five hundred anonymous people saw a resurrected guy" with equal credence, much less prefer the latter over the former.

And it's simply ridiculous to claim that evolution isn't empirical. The people you or anyone else are mostly closely related to are their immediate family members, and given the anonymized genetic data of everyone on the planet, we could easily see who was related to whom back for as many generations as you could provide. Similarly, the claim about the timescales of evolution are obviously empirical unless you're going to propose fanciful alternatives like omnipotent beings faking all of the genetic, archaeological, paleontological, and geological evidence for the sake of tricking us, or suggest that things like radioactive decay rates have changed randomly over time for some reason.

And since you replied in such a lazy fashion (i.e. "No") to my hypothetical about people rediscovering evolutionary biology, I'll reply in kind: Yes. I'll add that your inability to elaborate speaks volumes and once again point out that, unlike evolutionary biology, there's literally nothing in the natural world which would lead anyone to rediscover Christian mythology if all such texts were destroyed.

@hglundahl They "resort to heliocentrism!?" Man, that mask is really slipping. 😅

jesuitfreemason

@jesuitfreemason

@hglundahl
The preponderance of evidence supports the scientific theory of evolution.
The preponderance of evidence clearly supports the heliocentric model.
God is not a scientific theory.
Belief is pretending to know something you don't.

Seán Pól

"because that's when the Exodus happened."

There's no solid archaeological or historical evidence that the biblical Exodus happened.

"Except the premisses of evoutionary biology ("common genes prove common ancestry" or "evolution has gone on for millions of years") are not empirical at all."

That's nonsense. Evolution is backed by mountains of hard evidence from fossils, genetics, and observed change in species today. We can even see shared DNA patterns linking humans to chimpanzees, and even to bacteria, like a family tree written in code. And radiometric dating proves the Earth's billions of years old, matching the fossil record perfectly. You can argue feelings all you like, but the data doesn't care – it's clear, testable, and everywhere you look.

@hglundahl Are you serious? The "common creator of men and bananas" isn't proof of anything. We share DNA with bananas because all life has a common biochemical origin, proven through genetics, fossils, and molecular biology. Evolution isn't a guess – it's supported by mountains of evidence from every branch of science. And heliocentrism isn't some atheist trick; it's backed by physics, satellite data, and direct observation. You can literally watch planets orbit the Sun and measure it. Claiming the universe spins around us is mediaeval nonsense, flat-out disproven centuries ago. Stop acting like ignorance wins by default when the facts are all against you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "I'm not a radical skeptic"

If so, given what you said about memory and testimony, you are totally inconsistent.

You require ME to have a scepticism about memory and testimony that YOU don't have.

"I can demonstrate that atmospheric pressure exists."

If you are not doing it right now, you are relying on memory from a time when you did.

"And while claims about the exodus are obviously a facet of history, calling the Bible "testimony" is quite a stretch."

I'm not sure you are the right person to pronounce yourself on that one.

"But setting that aside, there's "testimony" for all sorts of things in which I'm sure you don't believe,"

Like?

"Regardless, nobody "remembers" the exodus"

Moses and everyone around him did.

"no author of any part of the Bible ever saw Jesus alive."

Matthew, John, Paul (counting the resurrection, obviously), James, Peter and Jude. That's six out of eight NT authors.

"I can only marvel at the sort of epistemology that would view claims like, "I dug up this bone" and "five hundred anonymous people saw a resurrected guy" with equal credence,"

There is a difference insofar as "I dug up this bone" is direct testimony, whereas "five hundred people saw Jesus risen" is, in the mouth of St. Paul, who wasn't one of them, second hand testimony.

But the way you stress "resurrected" makes it seem you make that a criterium of disbelief, which is not an empirical, but a rationalistic criterium. You let some dogma of your reason block what would otherwise be acceptable second hand testimony (you also have first hand, from Paul and John, and from Peter too, I seem to recall).

"given the anonymized genetic data of everyone on the planet, we could easily see who was related to whom back for as many generations as you could provide."

Human variation isn't what's normally meant by Evolution.

"I'll add that your inability to elaborate speaks volumes"

You didn't elaborate on how it would be rediscovered.

"the claim about the timescales of evolution are obviously empirical"

I suppose you mean deduced from empirical data, via certain "dating methods" ... the conclusions are not directly empirical, and are worth, not simply the certitude of observations, but that multiplied by the certitude or incertitude of the methods.

"unless you're going to propose fanciful alternatives like omnipotent beings faking all of the genetic, archaeological, paleontological, and geological evidence for the sake of tricking us,"

Like God Almighty answers to the corps of scientists, and if what He does, given their methods, leads them to error, He is tricking them.

"suggest that things like radioactive decay rates have changed randomly over time for some reason."

For Uranium, I'll actually suggest God did speed up decay rates, not to trick anyone (the scientist has freely chosen, not been forced by God, to take the decay rate as fixed), in order to generate heat in order to solidify the mud after the Flood.

For carbon 14 and geology, I do fine without decay rates changing. And especially for palaeontology. I challenge you, who believe that pelykosaurs developed before dinosaurs proper to show me even one place (defined as sufficiently narrow to dig down from one level to the next or dig a hole beside) where a dinosaur is above a pelykosaur.

@shassett79 I was not masking as Heliocentric; Sir!

Haven't been Heliocentric since 2001.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@jesuitfreemason Belief is trusting evidence from testimony.

The "preponderance of evidence" as you put it is just an abstract cipher, an ideologeme.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@seanpol9863 "or historical"

The tradition of the Hebrews (both Jews and Samaritans) that the book of Exodus is a narrative of actual events.

Most historical facts leave no archaeological traces anyway.

"Evolution is backed by mountains of hard evidence from fossils,"

Observed changes today is not part of where the disagreement is, and is compatible with either. And part of the observations, like how chromosome numbers change (down) or how mutations affect information (sideways or down) is actually good evidence against what both sides agree to call Evolution.

"And heliocentrism isn't some atheist trick; it's backed by physics, satellite data, and direct observation."

You haven't watched earth orbit the Sun, and apart from observations from the Moon (and similar), which as a Geocentric I take to be parallactic (seeming to move, since from moving observation point) you haven't seen Earth turn around her axis either.

Christian metaphysics allows the observations to be directly factual, Atheistic doesn't, and a Christian Heliocentric is inconsistent about proof and argument.

Seán Pól

@hglundahl Mate, you're twisting facts to fit a story. The Exodus has zero archaeological proof, no bones, no cities destroyed, nothing. And evolution isn't "sideways or down"; we see mutations, DNA patterns, and fossils all lining up perfectly with common ancestry. And chromosome changes don't disprove evolution, they illustrate it in real time. And you haven't "seen" Earth spin? Mate, we have satellites, GPS, and photos from space showing exactly that. And parallax isn't "just seeming"; it's measurable and matches physics perfectly. Mate, Christian metaphysics doesn't change what satellites, clocks, and observations report – they aren't opinions; they're data. Denying mountains of evidence because it conflicts with a story isn't skepticism, it's wilful ignorance.

shassett79

@hglundahl You're not tracking the conversation. At base, you're claiming that we can't verify events for which we lack testimonial evidence and this is absurd for two reasons: first, testimonial evidence can be readily provided for any event whether it happened or not and, second, you essentially have to assume the influence of magic to claim that the obvious inferences of empirically verified, predictive models don't meaningfully constitute verification. I'm not suggesting radical skepticism by way of an appeal to solipsism, but you very nearly are. Take the oldest documented writing of any sort imaginable as "testimony" that the world existed and ask yourself, "Well, how do we know the world existed before that?" and you might start to see the point.

Moses and everyone around him did.
All we have to go on is the Bible, right? Did Moses even exist? The only evidence that he did are the claims of the Bible, so the entirety of your claim rests on whether or not I believe the account of Moses provided by the Bible. And I don't.

That's six out of eight NT authors.
Traditional authorship is generally rejected by the vast majority of Bible scholars— sorry, but the books aren't named after the people who wrote them.

Human variation isn't what's normally meant by Evolution.
The whole project of evolutionary biology is explaining genetic diversity. You're very poorly informed and should probably stop discussing evolution until you've done some reading.

You didn't elaborate on how it would be rediscovered.
Evolutionary biology would be rediscovered using nothing but methodological naturalism, just as it was the first time, but nobody is ever making up the Biblical narrative the same way again.

the conclusions are not directly empirical
They are. And now we must add empiricism to the list of things you don't understand.

I'll actually suggest God did speed up decay rates,
Grand, but now you're off to fantasy land and there's no point in arguing about any of this because there's no reason to think any natural phenomena is meaningfully related to our history.

I was not masking as Heliocentric; Sir!
Yeah, I know— I was making fun of you for being obviously wrong about the solar system, in addition to everything else. The "mask" you've let slip is that of any meaningful attachment to reality.

jesuitfreemason

@hglundahl
Testimony? You don't understand what the word testimony means.

CNCmachiningisfun

Poor little theists!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@seanpol9863 "The Exodus has zero archaeological proof, no bones, no cities destroyed,"

Actually we do see an abandonment of Jericho dated to 1550 BC, which I redate to 1470 BC as per rising (and still lower) carbon level in the atmosphere back then.

And with Exodus in 1510, 1470 is when Jericho should be taken.

But I think you missed the point that MOST historic events have NO archaeological proof. The only remains of the battle of Cannae are what could go back to a single combat between one soldier each of Romans and Carthaginians. Thousands died, two left armour to the site.

"And evolution isn't "sideways or down"; we see mutations, DNA patterns, and fossils all lining up perfectly with common ancestry."

You make a patchwork of the three, but mutations as observed in the present go sideways (brown to blue eyes) or down (normal red blood cells to sickle shaped cells, causing sickle cell anaemia), even advantages (like continued lactase production is for a type of animal husbandry giving men milk), are down in information (most people have both information to produce lactase in childhood and to turn that off around age 5 to 7 or whatever, the latter info is missing with lots of Europeans).

"And chromosome changes don't disprove evolution, they illustrate it in real time."

Except they are not extending the number of chromosome pairs. Which evolution would normally require.

"we have satellites, GPS, and photos from space showing exactly that."

Take a footage from a moving train, and you have it showing trees and hills and houses moving. The photos from space are taken from vantage points that circle Earth.

"And parallax isn't "just seeming"; it's measurable and matches physics perfectly."

Apples and oranges. I'm not talking about "annual stellar parallax", I am talking about what the name is named after: sitting in a moving train, basically, and the landscape seems to move.

"Mate, Christian metaphysics doesn't change what satellites, clocks, and observations report – they aren't opinions; they're data."

The raw data are geocentric, except when the vantage point can very easily be considered an object moving around Earth. You can have that type of raw data showing the Eiffel Tower rotates ... if you film the Eiffel Tower from a chopper moving around it.

"Denying mountains of evidence because it conflicts with a story isn't skepticism, it's wilful ignorance."

I'm not denying any raw data. I'm refusing your rereading of it. You are wilfully ignorant that raw data support Geocentrism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "At base, you're claiming that we can't verify events for which we lack testimonial evidence"

We can obviously with some types. Two roomates share a flat, you get home and the stove isn't lit, you have verified the other turned off the stove before leaving. Even if he didn't testify to it.

But complex events, adding up to non-routine results, I'd want testimonial evidence for at least salient parts of the process. For instance, "he didn't turn off the stove, there was a fire in the flat" I'd like for instance smoke from the windows or whatever. Either by own direct observation, or by testimonial evidence.

"and this is absurd for two reasons: first, testimonial evidence can be readily provided for any event whether it happened or not"

I don't think you understand what testimonial evidence means. If a liar told me he had seen the flat burn just to force me to stay away over night, I'd discover that. If someone thought he saw smoke from the window, but it was really from leaves burning in the garden, I'd discover that. Testimonial evidence is normally to be believed, and I'd like evidence for error or lies before discarding it.

"and, second, you essentially have to assume the influence of magic to claim that the obvious inferences of empirically verified, predictive models don't meaningfully constitute verification."

I have, using your words, essentially to assume the influence of magic to explain that we are thinking and at the same time have bodies.

The inferences you are referring to are not "obvious" except to a certain world view which to this day cannot explain how come we can think and how men started to talk. I'm not exaggerating. And that's unlike Christianity.

"All we have to go on is the Bible, right? Did Moses even exist? The only evidence that he did are the claims of the Bible,"

Caesar conquered Gaul (the parts that weren't already conquered before him). All we have to go on is Bellum Gallicum, by Caesar. Did Caesar even exist? The only evidence he did are claims of the Corpus Caesareum (of which Bellum Gallicum is a part).

"the entirety of your claim rests on whether or not I believe"

I'm appealing to saner judgements than yours.

"Traditional authorship is generally rejected by the vast majority of Bible scholars"

... of a certain, non-Catholic type. Traditional authorship is the default, and scholars denying it have an axe to grind.

"The whole project of evolutionary biology is explaining genetic diversity."

The usual mechanisms do explain variation within humans. They do not explain the 14 % difference between man and chimp. Yes, 14. New study corrected the 1% figure.

"nothing but methodological naturalism,"

Methodological naturalism is the problem, not the solution. It cannot explain, mind, logic, morals and speech.

And you just named a premiss not empirically given.

"nobody is ever making up the Biblical narrative the same way again."

The Biblical narratives weren't made up in the first place.

"we must add empiricism to the list of things you don't understand."

If you add "methodological naturalism" to empirical data, you will come to conclusions that are not derived from empirical data, but from methodological naturalism.

"because there's no reason to think any natural phenomena is meaningfully related to our history."

If "meaningfully" means "uniformly" the fantasy land is yours. You are denying empirical (if second hand) evidence for the Flood, not just from the Bible, but from Pagans around the world. Accept the story, and we must conclude God sped some processes up to make the world liveable again. Reject it, and you reject, basically, human testimony, not just divine faith.

"The "mask" you've let slip is that of any meaningful attachment to reality."

You abuse the word "meaningful" quite a lot, don't you. Meaningful or not, as mentioned to Seán Pól, I am attached to the realities of what observations are made and how they are made.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@jesuitfreemason You are free to elaborate.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@CNCmachiningisfun You are free to elaborate.

Seán Pól

@hglundahl Are you serious? Jericho's ruins are from centuries before the supposed Exodus, and every expert knows it. There's no sign of Israelites, no burnt layers, no bones, nothing that matches the story. You can't just change radiocarbon dates to fit a Bible timeline. That's not science, it's wishful thinking. And saying "most events have no archaeological proof" is nonsense. We've got clear records, weapons, graves, and debris from Cannae, Troy, and loads of other sites. You're twisting "lack of total proof" into "my myth could be true", which is ridiculous. Evolution isn't some patchwork fantasy – it's backed by DNA, fossils, and observable mutations that add complexity over time, not just swap colours or cause disease. Chromosome fusion in humans is proof of shared ancestry with other primates, not a problem for it. And for god's sake, the Earth isn't the centre of the universe. Satellites, flight paths, seasons, Foucault's pendulum, GPS – all of it proves Earth moves. Mate, you can't wave that away by saying it "looks geocentric." That's like filming from a merry-go-round and claiming the world spins around you. The data don't "support" geocentrism; you're forcing them to. Mate, it's delusion dressed up as argument.

shassett79

@seanpol9863 "Are you serious? Jericho's ruins are from centuries before the supposed Exodus, and every expert knows it."
For what it's worth, I'm afraid that hglundahl is indeed serious, and I'm kind of at a loss over how to get them to be even slightly less wrong now that we've bounced several comments back and forth...

shassett79

@hglundahl "you have verified the other turned off the stove before leaving. Even if he didn't testify to it."

That invites questions of epistemology and what it means to you for something to have been verified. Is verification simply a process of abductive reasoning by which the most plausible explanation is accepted? The roommate is indeed the most plausible explanation, but it's also possible that the utility company turned off the gas or that some sort of vigilante fire marshal broke in to make sure you hadn't left the gas on.

"Testimonial evidence is normally to be believed, and I'd like evidence for error or lies before discarding it."
However you'd like to approach it, of course, but abductive reasoning seems to make it obvious that we shouldn't trust testimony about supernatural claims, and particularly not when there's an obvious incentive to lie about events.

"I have, using your words, essentially to assume the influence of magic to explain that we are thinking and at the same time have bodies."
Not really, unless you're a solipsist. Are you a solipsist?

"Did Caesar even exist?"
It seems likely, but I I'm not terribly invested in the existence of Caesar, haven't constructed a worldview around his existence, and my life wouldn't change a bit if someone could prove that he was purely mythological.

"Traditional authorship is the default, and scholars denying it have an axe to grind."
It's only "the default" if your approach is to simply accept church doctrine and ignore biblical scholarship. Also, many of the scholars who reject traditional authorship are themselves Christian and your attempt to impugn their motives en masse is unconvincing, to say the least.

"They do not explain the 14 % difference between man and chimp."
I'm not going to argue about genetics with you, but if you've done any reading on the topic you should know that the 99% and 86% comparisons are measuring different things and that, by using the same methodology that Casey Luskin used to get his 86% number, you only get 92% similarity between members of the same species! And chimps are still by far our closest genetic relatives, so the phylogenetic tree doesn't change at all. Sadly, you've been taken by propaganda from the Discovery Institute.

"Methodological naturalism is the problem, not the solution."
Methodological naturalism is why you live in the Information Age and have the capacity to spew your ignorance on a global network for everyone to see.

"The Biblical narratives weren't made up in the first place."
Of course they were. Just like all of the other religious narratives.

"you will come to conclusions that are not derived from empirical data, but from methodological naturalism."
Tell me you have no idea what science actually is without saying it.

"You are denying empirical (if second hand) evidence for the Flood,"
There is no such evidence. In the ancient world flood myths were a dime a dozen and the one from the Bible is obviously derived from existing flood mythology. Besides that, every measurable claim purportedly offering evidence for the biblical flood has been easily dismissed by a variety of scientific disciplines. Ever hear of "the heat problem?"

"I am attached to the realities of what observations are made and how they are made."
No, you aren't. You reject empiricism in favor of a religious mythology you simply assume to be true. The only observation you seem to be relying on is that a lot of people think the Bible is true.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "hglundahl is indeed serious, and I'm kind of at a loss over how to get them to be even slightly less wrong"

While hglundahl isn't very gender specific, the full screen name Hans-Georg Lundahl is.

Hans-Georg will lead you to Hans-Georg Henke, the boy soldier photographed in 1945, to Hans-Georg Gadamer, a bearded philosopher, Hans-Georg von Friedeburg, a German admiral who died in 1945, Hans-Georg Tersling, a Danish architect who built in the French city of Menton ... and who had a moustache.

"That invites questions of epistemology and what it means to you for something to have been verified."

As long as the flat isn't burning down, I'm very satisfied, but usually it's better if the roommate or oneself is turning it off, whoever is last in the kitchen.

"but it's also possible that the utility company turned off the gas or that some sort of vigilante fire marshal broke in to make sure you hadn't left the gas on."

The latter wouldn't happen if there were no fire and had been no fire, and the former wouldn't happen if the gas bill had been paid. If the former happened, I'd find out.

Point is, several scenarios in which I'm lied to or mistaken end up with me finding out in the end.

"but abductive reasoning seems to make it obvious that we shouldn't trust testimony about supernatural claims,"

How so? Why? What is your reasoning about that?

Oh, by the way, a miracle story involves an observable claim and a supernatural miracle left as sole explanation. Only the observable claim is testimony proper, the supernatural miracle explaining it is a deduction from it.

"and particularly not when there's an obvious incentive to lie about events."

Name the obvious incentive.

"Not really, unless you're a solipsist."

The connection to solipsism is not well worked out.

Things with extension usually don't think. Thoughts don't have extension, even if objects thought of have such. Things with extension have not been observed able to produce thoughts. Except for man. So, the concluded facts that mind isn't body, that we are mind and body, that the own mind isn't omnipotent and therefore not guiding the own body by sheer omnipotence, all of these go together to the mystery of how a finite mind and a body are united.

A mystery that Christian theology solves by Creation. Again, Hinduism is a very different beast, Hinduism generally solves it by the mind just thinking it's in the body.

"my life wouldn't change a bit if someone could prove that he was purely mythological."

You have just proven, you have no business speaking of history.

"It's only "the default" if your approach is to simply accept church doctrine and ignore biblical scholarship."

It's the default irrespective of Church doctrine, and accepting scholarship to the contrary is a thing that needs arguing in each case. I find it the default that Spiderman was written originally by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. I find it the default that Tolkien was the author of Lord of the Rings. That's what "traditional authorship" means. You treat it as if it meant a claim Sam Gamgee wrote the Red Book of Westmarch (after Bilbo and Frodo). We don't have a tradition from Westmarch West of Michel Delving. We do have a tradition from Oxford dons and 1954—1955 publications.

"by using the same methodology that Casey Luskin used to get his 86% number, you only get 92% similarity between members of the same species!"

I wouldn't mind a source.

"Methodological naturalism is why you live in the Information Age"

No. In things doable by human action, naturalism as a focus has always been the default. But it's when we approach speculative subjects that methodological naturalism becomes a thing. That you have some routine in science and that it's an omnipresent thing in the scientific circles you either are part of or look up to (not exact same situation), I don't doubt. Stepping outside that routine is however not the same thing as having no idea of it.

"Of course they were. Just like all of the other religious narratives."

That's a close on Solipsistic way to argue. I wouldn't state that even of the Utnapishtim narrative contradicting the Biblical Flood on some points. Someone had a motive to make up a quarrel between Enlil and Enki (one causing Flood, other causing Ark) and someone was not keeping the original proportions of the Ark (which unlike those of the super coracle actually are seaworthy on one year's voyage on mostly a global ocean), but the general idea of a Flood narrative is, in Babylon as in the Bible, a tradition from the event.

Whether you are into actual science or just into psychology (which isn't one, but is a technique of bullying), you are certainly not an avid student of religious narratives.

"In the ancient world flood myths were a dime a dozen and the one from the Bible is obviously derived from existing flood mythology."

Or all of the flood myths are derived, more or less faithfully, from the event.

"Besides that, every measurable claim purportedly offering evidence for the biblical flood has been easily dismissed by a variety of scientific disciplines."

How about this one? You will find palaeontology older than Late Pleistocene in these configurations:

• aquatic biota all the way down
• aquatic biota on top, terrestrial biota below
• terrestrial biota all the way
  
  
• one layer of terrestrial biota in each place

But not in these:

• terrestrial biota over aquatic ones
  
  
• different layers of terrestrial biota on top of each other.

Wasn't falsified the time I had available to check with Palaeocritti.

"Ever hear of "the heat problem?""

Soroka-Nelson's, which is about heat problem of Flood waters coming through nearly only precipitation? Or the one Gutsick Gibbon prefers, sped up decay rates for some isotopes, each speeding of decay coming with heat? I've dealt with both. Flood waters came to a large extent through subterranean reservoirs, and those isotopes helped to fast solidify the mud. And no, it's not about every item of the isotope down to the mantle.

"No, you aren't."

If you are into psychology, you majored on therapy, a k a bullying. As an analysis of what I said, it's atrocious.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@seanpol9863 "Jericho's ruins are from centuries before the supposed Exodus, and every expert knows it."

When do YOU place the Exodus? Ramses II? That's modernist misreading.

Or a Jewish one. If Jews take the 480 years in III Kings 6:1 as exact rather than a minimum, and then shorten the "intertestamental period" radically, as they did to make a false match of Bar Kokhba with the weeks of Daniel, they may land around the time of Ramses II.

But Catholic and Orthodox chronologists, like in the Christmas Day martyrology or the Biblical chronology of Syncellus, Exodus is placed way earlier, 1510 BC in the Christmas proclamation, and 1683 BC in Syncellus. Obviously 1470 BC or 1643 BC are both closer to Jericho's carbon date of 1550 BC than Ramses II is. To me, that's simply a part of my calibration for carbon dating. In 1470 BC (yes, I chose the Christmas martyrology over Syncellus) the atmospheric level of C14 was such as to cause a date to be 80 years too old.

"There's no sign of Israelites"

Why would there be an Israelite in Jericho, when none of them died?

Or do you mean of a distinctive Israelite culture? Why would there even be one? Given Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their men lived in Canaan as strangers, as very localised minorities, it would make sense if they adopted the surrounding Canaanean culture. In Egypt, they would have adopted Egyptian culture partially. So, when they arrived, their material culture would be a mix of indigenous Canaanean and Egyptian ... exactly like it was in Canaan at this time. Credits to Caleb Howell for this argument.

"no burnt layers,"

Here is a quote from CMI:

After the walls fell, the city was set on fire (Joshua 6:24). A one-meter-thick layer of ash and debris, including jars of burnt wheat, has been found in many sections of the city.

The jars full of charred grain support the Bible’s claims that the attack took place just after the harvest (Joshua 3:15), that the siege was short (seven days), and that the Israelites did not plunder the city, except for the precious metals that were “put into the treasury of the house of the Lord” (Joshua 6:24) and the individual sin of Achan (Joshua 7:21).

Presumably someone you are taking it from either didn't do a thorough work, or you are simply building on someone who presumed the Exodus was "supposed to happen" under Ramses II.

"You can't just change radiocarbon dates to fit a Bible timeline. That's not science, it's wishful thinking."

Scientists change carbon dates to fit dendrochronological timelines. And you accept that as science. For instance, carbon date 550 BC corresponds to all dates from 750 BC to 450 BC. It's called the Hallstadt plateau. What happened was that in 750 BC radiocarbon levels in the atmosphere were higher than 100 pmC, and actually higher than they would have been to have 1643 BC date to 1550 BC. In 450 BC, they were lower than 100 pmC, and lower than they were on my view in order to have 1470 date as 1550 BC.

Calibration means, 100 pmC is not a natural constant of atmospheric carbon 14 content, and sometimes carbon dates are changed accordingly.

The scientists who discovered the Hallstadt plateau did me a huge favour, so I'm inclined to credit dendro that far back (they allow for the city of Romulus in 750 BC to carbon date to 550 BC, the date when archaeologists say Rome has its oldest city scape), but when it comes to things older than the Fall of Troy (carbon date matches historical date of 1179 BC, disagree with Caleb Howell on this one), I'll prefer historic and mainly Biblical dates over dendro for calibration.

Historic records are historic records and as such a very certain calibrator. Far less subjectivity involved than in matching tree ring fragments.

"We've got clear records, weapons, graves, and debris from Cannae, Troy, and loads of other sites."

Troy is a city. The battle of Cannae was not in a city and I checked the archaeological record: one Roman armour, one Carthaginian armour.

That we have archaeology from loads of sites doesn't add up to us having archaeology from most of events. I didn't say "nearly every city has disappeared" but "most historic events leave no archaeological traces [readable to this time]" .... which is perfectly compatible with there being loads of archaeology.

In Bellum Gallicum Caesar says of himself "Caesar aedificavit pontem in laco Genava" if my memory preserved the correct phrasing, and we haven't found the wooden bridge of Caesar.

"You're twisting "lack of total proof" into "my myth could be true", which is ridiculous."

You are misusing the word myth. Insofar as mythology items involve human observers in society (including armies or heros reporting back to cities), I would say most myth is history. Somewhat garbled history at times, but still history. I'm not saying "my myth could be true" I'm saying most myths are historically true. And I refuse to use the word myth for events described by contemporaries (like Exodus by Moses, taking of Jericho by Joshua).

I would say, you are among the benighted guys who imagine:

• religious people invent myths and mistake them for historic reality all the time
• and it never is historic reality any time
• and the fact that the historic Exodus is vital to a religion or two (Christianity, possibly even Judaism) should be a red flag that it is probably a myth and therefore probably not true.

Now, each item of these is nonsense.

"and observable mutations that add complexity over time,"

You are dreaming. No mutation adding complexity has been observed in the present. The 110 or 111 types of cells in the human body are obviously a complexity, and it's estimated, apart from nervous system, that one cell type appears on average once every 3 million years. No new cell type in the nervous system has appeared while scientists have been looking. No new cell type in the human body has appeared while scientists were looking. Obviously, Evolutionists and Creationists totally agree that no human scientist was looking at cell types 3 million years ago.

I would highly contest the idea that creatures living now are more complex than dinosaurs, which on your view is a clade died 65 million years ago, or, if you count birds as dinosaurs, died except for birds 65 million years ago. The idea of evolution adding complexity probably comes from the idea that group x evolved from group y (like birds from dinosaurs), which always involves insurmountable amounts of complexity.

A mutation cannot create a function. A function often depends on several different genes, and any of them is complete in its non-mutated form and can be useless, deleting the function, if there is just one mutation. Retinas of blind chiclids have 10 genes, and two of them have a mutation each, making the chiclids blind. This is how sensitive a function is to precise formulation of genes and several of them interacting. A clear case of irreducible complexity.

"Chromosome fusion in humans is proof of shared ancestry with other primates, not a problem for it."

Oh, I didn't say our chromosome 2 was the problem for us coming from apes. Part of your problem is, you are too eager guessing the topic. Speech is the main problem, with 14 % difference in the DNA too. But thank you for mentioning fusion ... a chromosome has usually two telomeres, one centromere, and genes between each of the telomeres and the centromere. If two chromosomes fuse, there is no problem. It's if they split from a single one that there is. Even if you suppose the centromere was part of a reduplication event, a split between the two centromeres would not add the necessary two new telomeres.

"Satellites, flight paths, seasons, Foucault's pendulum, GPS – all of it proves Earth moves."

Seasons involve the Sun moving around the Zodiac. That's how Geocentrics explained seasons, and I can't for my life see why that explanation is supposed to have ceased to work now, especially for a Christian, who can say it's God who turns the universe around and its an angel that takes the Sun along the Zodiac (as St Thomas Aquinas thought and taught).

All the rest that you mentioned are compatible with the movement of the universe spreading downwards to us. I would say, because space-time isn't just a void, but an actual substance, I'm calling it the aether. When God moves the universe, God moves the aether. But not Earth. A satellite "proving earth moves" either does so by showing serially different meridians, if so it is because the satellite moves. Or. By staying over the same spot. And being supposed to move. Moves through the aether, if not through absolute space.

"Mate, you can't wave that away by saying it "looks geocentric." That's like filming from a merry-go-round and claiming the world spins around you."

The thing is, that mechanism for making something look as moving when it isn't works for both world views. It's the exact phenomenon called in the more general and primary sense parallax. However, resting on earth doesn't strike me as mounting a merry-go-round. Filming from a satellite or going with a rocket to the Moon and filming from there does. And no, Moon doesn't take a month to go around Earth, Moon takes c. 25 hours to go around Earth. Moon takes about a month to go around the Zodiac.

"The data don't "support" geocentrism; you're forcing them to. Mate, it's delusion dressed up as argument."

The data don't support heliocentrism. You are forcing them to. It's delusion on a collective scale dressed up as argument.

shassett79

@hglundahl "The latter wouldn't happen if there were no fire and had been no fire, and..."
Yes, we can constrain the possibility space by providing additional information, but that doesn't really address the point about what verification actually means in your epistemology. You express confidence that you'll eventually find out if you were mistaken, but there are a variety of circumstances where you probably won't if we reach beyond pedestrian concerns like who turned off the stove and into the subject matter that's usually at issue in these discussions.

"How so? Why? What is your reasoning about that?"
If abductive reasoning is inference to the best explanation, and I have no reason to conclude anything supernatural ever happens, then how could the supernatural possibly be the best explanation for anything?

"Name the obvious incentive."
There are plenty! It could be a desire for the acclaim or social power conferred by being an important member of a social movement that is propagated via impressive, fanciful stories. It could be something in the vein of a sunk-cost fallacy, where a person would prefer spread a narrative rather than admit they were taken in. It could be something as simple as an honest, well-meaning person who fervently advocates for belief that's simply not true, even though they think it is.

"The connection to solipsism is not well worked out."
You shouldn't need to "assume the influence of magic to explain that we are thinking and at the same time have bodies" unless you seriously entertain solipsism. Either way, you left off an important thing we don't see in the world when you were making your list: We never seen consciousness without an associated physical substrate. Based on this, it is reasonable to expect that consciousness will always be associated with a physical substrate and so, at best, you can point at dualism as a possibility even though it's entirely reasonable to conclude that consciousness is something physical brains do.

"I wouldn't mind a source."
This channel has discussed Luskin and the 86% figure at length. But you could also wander over to the channel "Gutsick Gibbon" where Erika goes into the research in nauseating detail.

"No [,Methodological naturalism is not why I live in the Information Age]"
Yes, it absolutely is. Literally no technology in existence that defines Information Age society was developed via appeals to the supernatural. I can't imagine why you'd even push back on this point.

"That's a close on Solipsistic way to argue."
I don't see how. We know that humans invent stories and mythologies to explain the world. We know that humans have invented millions of religions. We have little reason to conclude that any particular religion isn't part of that same pattern and everyone reason to conclude that it is. And all I can say about your passive-aggressive implication of bullying or your assessment of my knowledge of religion traditions is that they don't impress me.

"Or all of the flood myths are derived, more or less faithfully, from the event."
The seemingly physically impossible event that would have required more water than exists on the Earth and for which there is no geological evidence. "Miracles" though, right?

"I've dealt with both. Flood waters came to a large extent through subterranean reservoirs, and those isotopes helped to fast solidify the mud"
The ability to hand-wave a solution that generally ignores the entirety of one or more scientific disciplines isn't really what I'd call "dealing with it," but you do you.

"If you are into psychology, you majored on therapy, a k a bullying."
I'm not bullying you; I'm pointing out why you're wrong. If I sound strident, it's because I'm frustrated to see an otherwise seemingly intelligent person so completely lost in religious dogma.

@hglundahl "The data don't support heliocentrism. You are forcing them to. It's delusion on a collective scale dressed up as argument."
This wasn't addressed to me but I'm still fascinating by which data you could possibly be alluding to here. Can you expand a little on the data that should cause us to reject heliocentrism?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@shassett79 "You express confidence that you'll eventually find out if you were mistaken,"

There is a point in mistakes and lies usually being exposed.

It means, memory and testimony are by default trustworthy, except when they aren't. Not by default untrustworthy except when exceptionally proven trustworthy.

"and I have no reason to conclude anything supernatural ever happens,"

Then you are a bit uneducated about the reasons there are.

Whether for supernatural things (see Geocentrism below) or supernatural events.

"It could be a desire for the acclaim or social power conferred by being an important member of a social movement that is propagated via impressive, fanciful stories."

1) Like no one in the movement is likely to find out about being lied to?
2) Like the person involved in inventions had no fear of repercussions, laying down their lives for sth they were knowing they had invented?

But "it could be" is a very vague reason for anything.

"a person would prefer spread a narrative rather than admit they were taken in."

How many would be needed in that situation?

"It could be something as simple as an honest, well-meaning person who fervently advocates for belief that's simply not true, even though they think it is."

Which begs the question of how he came to believe sth true if no one lied to him, which brings things back to previous.

"We never seen consciousness without an associated physical substrate."

We have never seen consciousness at all. We have only seen physical substrates. We have ascertained consciousness through what we see in some of them, and what we know by introspection in ourselves.

"Based on this, it is reasonable to expect that consciousness will always be associated with a physical substrate"

No. There is no specific reasons in either consciousness or physics why consciousness should be a subcategory of physics. There is a reason why non-physical consciousness should not be directly observed. This is a good reason to conclude that consciousness and physics for some reason overlap. And how it overlaps in us, is a mystery explicable by what you would refer to as "magic".

"it's entirely reasonable to conclude that consciousness is something physical brains do."

It isn't. There are good reasons for parallels between physical states of the brain and states of consciousness, but there is no reason to believe brain physics can be about sth, which, by definition, consciousness is.

"This channel ... "Gutsick Gibbon" "

Fair enough.

"Literally no technology in existence that defines Information Age society was developed via appeals to the supernatural."

Literally no technology in existence from the Middle Ages was developed via appeals to the supernatural. The point of technology is, some part of reality is in the immediate more directly affected by human action than by whatever is the ultimate cause of reality.

In other words, it's not "methodological naturalism" (in enquiries of theoretical kinds), it's "technological focus" -- which by definition puts the supernatural out of focus, miracles not being produced by or regular producers of technology and supernatural explanations at diverse ends of causal chains not being the part of the causal chains that human technology uses.

"We know that humans invent stories and mythologies to explain the world."

Partly true. But there is a huge difference between saying "god after god refused to fight a dragon until Enlil did and then when he did, he beat her and created Earth from her" and saying "Hercules lived in Tiryns and his contemporaries or survivors took him for a god" ...

I would never dream of attributing any credence to Enlil fighting the she-snake Tiamat, but I would also not dream of discrediting more of Hercules than Catholicism requires. Parts of what's false comes from Hercules' strength providing authority and Zeus being their "god" of authority. Part of what's false comes from Hercules' tendency to brag (as many brave soldiers do) and no one's inclination to contradict him. And parts simply latch on to what was already there of this sort.

"We know that humans have invented millions of religions."

And where religions are false is usually more of ultimate explanations than about narratives supposed to have taken place among men. Like your religion of Naturalism is false. I would still trust you if you told me who your (non-divine) daddy was or where you served in the military ... up to a point.

"We have little reason to conclude that any particular religion isn't part of that same pattern and everyone reason to conclude that it is."

You are excepting your own religion all the time, and pushing for too much "invention + absurd credulity" as to any other religion.

"your passive-aggressive implication of bullying"

Passive aggressive? That's shrink talk. Bully!

"your assessment of my knowledge of religion traditions"

Whatever you have so far said doesn't strike me as being very familiar with them.

"that would have required more water than exists on the Earth"

Not if Mount Everest is a higher mountain and Mariana Trench is a deeper sea depth than anything that existed in the pre-Flood world. The water is sufficient to cover an equalised Earth surface to c. 1.5 or 2 km depth. Even with a difference between land and sea bottom, the water would have been 1 km above the higher pre-Flood areas. And the unevenness today is sufficient to restore dry land.

"and for which there is no geological evidence."

Except the kind that's diversely labelled Permian to Quarternary, depending on the kind of fossils you find (in diverse biotopes).

"generally ignores the entirety of one or more scientific disciplines"

Tell me what "here-and-now" discipline I'm supposed to ignore? Like I know I oppose stratigraphic dating, that's for sure. It's also not a here and now type of science, unlike air pressure.

"If I sound strident,"

I didn't mean the stridency. I meant the totally off analysis. Which happened to serve a disparaging end. If a psychologist bullies, the last thing he wants to do is actually sound strident.

"Can you expand a little on the data that should cause us to reject heliocentrism?"

1) We observe Earth still.
2) We observe Heaven moving each day, and several bodies in Heaven move in other types of periods (year for sun, month for moon, retrogrades, stellar "parallaxes")
3) We have no reason other than methodological naturalism to reject the direct and non-parallactic interpretation of what we observe.

I already said, I'm not counting on an Atheist or an adherent of Methodological Naturalism to reject Heliocentrism. They are so completely lost in their anti-religious dogma. Or rather anti-supernatural religious dogma.

jesuitfreemason

@hglundahl
'You are free to elaborate.'

'a spoken or written statement that something is true, esp. one given in a court of law, or the act of giving such a statement:'
Testimony is not evidence.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@jesuitfreemason That testimony is not evidence may be true of certain types of case in certain courts, but generally speaking, testimony is evidence.

This debate

is not over here, but I'm putting newer "lines" in a new post, it will be published All Saints' Day in the Evening. Here: Continued Debate