Science confirms the Bible? (souls, after-life, exist, philosophy)

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by peter-1

I have made very coherent simple ABC points in many areas which strongly suggest you cannot believe every thing you read in this area of ancient knowledge. Very compelling ABC markers, in many area's.

My point is this. If my mind is going to accept what is written and the way its written and on the subject it is concerned with as fact, including the nature of it re population control .....then I need simple ABC answers to these very simple and obvious ABC questions.

Importantly and I guess I have to use that word, it does not mean I think I am correct, it just means I don't buy it hook line and sinker.

Therefore...

No different then future people checking out the internet wayback machine and saying, hey those people believed the world is ending in 2012...or the government is holding back on the aliens and the people are getting annoyed...or a huge number of things in the murky business of human communications, not to mention this science-creation implied heavens deal where god figures are introduced.

Also and nicely....

I can go on wikpedia and read history on anything. Digging in and having a look is how things get discovered in the first place and its without what is already assumed. So investigating writings which we know have already made a position is a waste of time, unless...they address these new interesting observations.

More data in support:

In the black and white pic showing the fermamant we see the 1/4 moon in the left hand corner. So we know the moon was well noticed as I expected and suggested. They are not showing a full moon but a 1/4 type. The sun in the pic now without the Nut lady (obviously as per one of my notice's) the sun is in the exact position to light up the moon on a perfect angle in which to see the 1/4 moon....So they not only new the sun was a star( as per previous notice) but they new that it was in cause of the light from the sun which lit the moon. This gives more info as other possibilities are not only eliminated but this consequence, needs to be tailored to the whole perspective in adjoining knowledge. Its becoming almost impossible to not consider very seriously they knew the moon was a globe among other things....and that means earth is highly suspect in like global form.

We are not selling a hook, line and sinker, just asking to accept that if it looks like a fishing rod it probably IS a fishing rod, no matter to what other uses a strong fishing line and a flexible cane could possibly have been put. The illustrations and indeed the accompanying descriptions should make it clear that a sky overarching the flat earth is what they show.

That the ancients could see that the moon and sun were round (though they did tend to think of them as flat disks rather than globes) is not denied, but that does not mean that you suggestion that the leaped to the conclusion that the earth on which they stood (which looked obviously flat to them) could be round too. In fact they would have rejected the idea as absurd if you had suggested it to them.

But what you are 'sweeping under the rug' to use your term, is that, even if you were right, that would be down to human reasoning, not some special virtue of the Bible. Either way, that point is dead in the water. Please to try to understand that rather than trying to make remote and rather unlikely possibilities into probabilities. It is quite beside the point. Science proving the Bible is stone cold dead on that example. Perlease could we move on?

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by OzzyRules

It's funny because atheists say not to take the Bible literally. But if they find something that proves their assumption, then they think that part should be taken literally because it proves their assumption.

No, it's pointing out that if you treat the Bible like a science textbook you get all sorts of obviously wrong results. It's an answer to the question this thread is based on, and the answer is no.

But if your objection is that atheists pick and choose how to interpret various parts of the Bible, all they're doing is following the lead of believers who dismiss obvious errors as poetry, metaphor or whatever other excuse used to rationalize away the problems.

[KCfromNC]

Originally Posted by peter-1

I have made very coherent simple ABC points in many areas which strongly suggest you cannot believe every thing you read in this area of ancient knowledge. Very compelling ABC markers, in many area's.

When it comes down to your opinion versus multiple independent lines of evidence to the contrary, I know which one is more persuasive. You can make up all the hypotheticals that you want, but let's make this simple - can you provide sources of ancient writing backing up your ideas of what those ancients "must have" believed? If the views you attribute to them were so simple, let's see some evidence.

[NoCapo]

Originally Posted by peter-1

I have made very coherent simple ABC points in many areas which strongly suggest you cannot believe every thing you read in this area of ancient knowledge. Very compelling ABC markers, in many area's.

My point is this. If my mind is going to accept what is written and the way its written and on the subject it is concerned with as fact, including the nature of it re population control .....then I need simple ABC answers to these very simple and obvious ABC questions.

Importantly and I guess I have to use that word, it does not mean I think I am correct, it just means I don't buy it hook line and sinker.

Therefore...

No different then future people checking out the internet wayback machine and saying, hey those people believed the world is ending in 2012...or the government is holding back on the aliens and the people are getting annoyed...or a huge number of things in the murky business of human communications, not to mention this science-creation implied heavens deal where god figures are introduced.

Also and nicely....

I can go on wikpedia and read history on anything. Digging in and having a look is how things get discovered in the first place and its without what is already assumed. So investigating writings which we know have already made a position is a waste of time, unless...they address these new interesting observations.

More data in support:

In the black and white pic showing the fermamant we see the 1/4 moon in the left hand corner. So we know the moon was well noticed as I expected and suggested. They are not showing a full moon but a 1/4 type. The sun in the pic now without the Nut lady (obviously as per one of my notice's) the sun is in the exact position to light up the moon on a perfect angle in which to see the 1/4 moon....So they not only new the sun was a star( as per previous notice) but they new that it was in cause of the light from the sun which lit the moon. This gives more info as other possibilities are not only eliminated but this consequence, needs to be tailored to the whole perspective in adjoining knowledge. Its becoming almost impossible to not consider very seriously they knew the moon was a globe among other things....and that means earth is highly suspect in like global form.

I am not referring to wiki, I am referring to the source materials. If you want to contribute to the field you need to participate in it. Learn Ancient Hebrew or Akkadian. Read the source material. Understand the commentaries by the centuries of scholars who have already dug into this. Looking at a picture, and applying your understanding of the world to it, and then imagining what they thought it not science, it is not history, it is honestly just useless. You are quite literally just making things up, which tells us quite a bit about you but nothing about ancient man.

This post did bring to mind another post, which I think was also you. If it wasn't then forgive the digression. There was a post about how science has stagnated and we would make so much more progress if we would just get artists, writers, and musicians together and ask their opinion on it. I think there is a fundamental problem with this idea that when someone does not understand a complex problem, they are then qualified or able to contribute to its solution. I have a relatively strong mathematical and scientific background, and yet the most I could contribute to particle physics, or even engineering problems outside my discipline, is to be a foil and ask questions, thus forcing the original person to explain their idea in simpler terms. The idea of dismissing knowledge and expertise, with out even evaluating it, without even being able to evaluate it is sheer lunacy.

The other minor rant I wanted to make it this assumption that art and science cannot coexist in the same person. I realize my work environments may be a bit of an exception, since I work on audio processing, but in my office right now, probably 20-25% of the engineers I work with are at a minimum moderately competent musicians. I personally over the course of my life have been involved in music, theatre, dance, and art. We, as a group are also reasonably well read, and many of us are at least conversant in philosophy. People with a technological or scientific specialization are not generally idiot savants. We don't need the "creative types" to rescue science, we are already doing the science, thank you very much.

-NoCapo

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

It's fine to want unanswered questions answered - we all do, though we sometimes have to accept that we may not always find them out. But it is not legitimate to use those as a pretext for not accepting a pretty - well demonstrated case.

Originally Posted by NoCapo

When there are unanswered questions you do the best you can with the facts, and leave the rest as unknown.

Very important points (and good posts, as well!)!
It's a common mistake among people (believers, particulary,) that they feel that they must KNOW the absolute truth about something which they cannot possibly know with the limited, fragmentary or ambiguous evidence available to them. At least one philosopher in the Hebrew Bible was brave enough to point this out:

I sought for wisdom in all this; (I said, I want to be wise), but it was beyond me.
What it was, proved remote, and so very deep that no one could find it.
(Qoheleth 7:23-24, AB)

Qoheleth was the "bad boy" of the Hebrew Bible that declared that knowing God was impossible, dismissed revelation, the possibility of an afterlife, and most of his tradition's religious beliefs as untenable. He probably would have liked to pal around with Job. But I digress.

The point was nicely made by Arequipa and NoCapo already that one must admit there is a certain area of knowledge that is not open to us yet, and may never be. There's nothing wrong with this, unless you're one of those people who cannot sleep at night unless they have convinced themselves that they have it all "figured out".
As for the point of studying certain subjects, if everything about a subject was already known, I don't think I'd be very interested in studying it. There is a siren call involved in the allure of discovery. But one must first admit that one doesn't know before getting on that boat.

Originally Posted by peter-1

In the black and white pic showing the fermamant we see the 1/4 moon in the left hand corner. So we know the moon was well noticed as I expected and suggested. They are not showing a full moon but a 1/4 type. The sun in the pic now without the Nut lady (obviously as per one of my notice's) the sun is in the exact position to light up the moon on a perfect angle in which to see the 1/4 moon....So they not only new the sun was a star( as per previous notice) but they new that it was in cause of the light from the sun which lit the moon. This gives more info as other possibilities are not only eliminated but this consequence, needs to be tailored to the whole perspective in adjoining knowledge. Its becoming almost impossible to not consider very seriously they knew the moon was a globe among other things....and that means earth is highly suspect in like global form.

Speaking of boats, make sure you're not confusing boat imagery in Egyptian art with the moon. Of course, this is paradoxical, as well, since the Egyptians took one of the phases of the lunar cycle and represented it as a boat.

I think you're still reading back into the available evidence later ideas. Examples:

Originally Posted by peter-1

they... [k]new the sun was a star (as per previous notice)

The ancients did not view a star as

"A self-luminous celestial body consisting of a mass of gas held together by its own gravity in which the energy generated by nuclear reactions in the interior is balanced by the outflow of energy to the surface, and the inward-directed gravitational forces are balanced by the outward-directed gas and radiation pressures."

with all the concomittant properties that usually go along with a star (that planets orbit it, and moons orbit those planets).
They viewed the stars as gods - usually, (but not always) under the control of the Moon God.
So - if the ancients "knew the sun was a star" then they knew it as a god of the night, controlled by the moon.

Originally Posted by peter-1

they [k]new that it was ... the light from the sun which lit the moon.

Unfortunately, they did not think this way. I can say that because they comment on the Moon and it's luminosity. Some Egyptian sources call it "the sun that shines at night", which is to say that it is synonymous with the sun in nature - NOT that it gets it's light from the Sun.

The idea that the moon gets it's light from the sun is, quite frankly, a strange idea at first glance (like much of astronomy) and one that kids always complain about at first, or disbelieve. Eventually, though, they are shown how it works, it makes sense to them and they accept it. The idea only works, however, if one is aware of the actual dimensions (more or less) of the sun and the moon and the earth; which the ancients only knew from their observable outer shapes: sun and moon = circular surface; earth = flat surface. They did not make the connection that the earth was circular as well. (Astronomers and Geologists: forgive me, I know the earth is technically not circular, but a spheroid type thingy - but I'll leave those technical details up to you heh heh!)

The Moon
The moon had a very large cult following for thousands of years in the ancient Near East. Lunar worship was more important, by far, than Solar worship. It's features are readily visible to the naked eye, and it stands out as the brightest light in the night sky. This Hebrew passage below illustrates in it's opening lines the very important role the moon played for ancient people (though it has become demythologized by this time, and merely one of God's creations):

It is the moon that marks the changing seasons,
governing the times, their lasting sign.
By it we know the sacred seasons and pilgrimage feasts,
a light which wanes in its course.
The new moon like its name renews itself;
how wondrous it is when it changes!
An army signal for the cloud vessels on high,
it paves the firmament with its brilliance.
The beauty of the heavens and the glory of the stars,
a shining ornament in the heights of God,
By the Lord's command it keeps its prescribed place,
and does not fade as the stars keep watch.
(Wisdom of Ben Sira 43:6-10, AB; ca. 180 BCE)

Ancient peoples reverenced the moon for several reasons, but a very important one was because it was a reliable way of telling time, and the Lunar Calendar was the standard form in the ANE. Even in the Hebrew Bible the lunar system was espoused over the solar system, much to the chagrin of the author of Jubilees, who strongly argued for a solar calendar.

In Mesopotamia, Nanna (the Moon god) was the son of Enlil and Ninlil - the Great Gods who were from An, the Sky god - and was birthed before the Sun god. In turn, Nanna gave birth to Sun god. The degree of reverence with which the moon was held is most observable here (after one considers that the calendrical systems were based off of it). Nanna was known by various names (Nanna, Suen, Ashimbabbar, Nanna-Suen and eventually Sin) and his wife was Ningal. What a night! (pun unintentionally intended) The Moon God was the overseer of the other beings in the night sky, such as the stars - also gods. Because of the regularity of their movement, the Moon was seen as very powerful.

The ancient people of course saw the different phases and positions of the moon (this is how they charted their social and religious calendars), and the cresecent moon became a popular way of representing it. The symbolism that emerged from this is well known:

Although for the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the moon's growth, dissapearance and re-emergence in a never-ending cycle personified change, it was a change viewed from within the larger parameters of continuity. In fact, of all the nocturnal luminaries, the changes in shape and position of the moon were the most readily accessible to observe and chart. Its waxing and waning might symbolize both finite time and eternity, light transforming into darkness, and life into death and back again. Thus, lunar motion came to represent both the natural and cultural life cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death.
(DDD, "Moon", B.B. Schmidt, p. 586)

As to the Egyptian art I posted - it is not the only Egyptian depiction of the moon, and it would be folly to assume that just one depiction signifies a more modern scientific understanding of astronomy. There are many myths that deal with the Egyptian moon, especially ones dealing with Osiris and Thoth. I'm not an Egyptologist, so I must admit that I'm not very familiar with all of the various moon-motifs in Egyptian iconography and written material. I do know that it was seen in different ways, however. You are probably familiar with one of it's symbols already without knowing it:


Now, if you can derive a scientific understanding of the moon from that, then I'll be impressed!

As to your question about where the sun goes, etc. with Nut, she supposedly swallowed the sun (in some stories) and passed it through her every day. The Egyptians also had a lunar calendar, and the most famous exception to this was the famous heresy in which the pharaoh Akhenaten elevated the Sun God as the most important god to be worshipped. This did not last very long, however.

Anyways, with that as a background, it becomes increasingly clear that the ancient Near Easterners had definite ideas of what happened in the sky - they just don't correspond to what we know is actually happening in the sky astronomically. They did the best they could, and there's really no need to read into their words more modern ideas. The following post says this nicely:

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

When it comes down to your opinion versus multiple independent lines of evidence to the contrary, I know which one is more persuasive. You can make up all the hypotheticals that you want, but let's make this simple - can you provide sources of ancient writing backing up your ideas of what those ancients "must have" believed? If the views you attribute to them were so simple, let's see some evidence.

There have been a lot of posts since I started writing this post ha ha! Forgive me if I'm repeating points which have already been made.

[peter-1]

Originally Posted by whoppers

Very important points (and good posts, as well!)!
It's a common mistake among people (believers, particulary,) that they feel that they must KNOW the absolute truth about something which they cannot possibly know with the limited, fragmentary or ambiguous evidence available to them. At least one philosopher in the Hebrew Bible was brave enough to point this out:

I sought for wisdom in all this; (I said, I want to be wise), but it was beyond me.
What it was, proved remote, and so very deep that no one could find it.
(Qoheleth 7:23-24, AB)

Qoheleth was the "bad boy" of the Hebrew Bible that declared that knowing God was impossible, dismissed revelation, the possibility of an afterlife, and most of his tradition's religious beliefs as untenable. He probably would have liked to pal around with Job. But I digress.

The point was nicely made by Arequipa and NoCapo already that one must admit there is a certain area of knowledge that is not open to us yet, and may never be. There's nothing wrong with this, unless you're one of those people who cannot sleep at night unless they have convinced themselves that they have it all "figured out".
As for the point of studying certain subjects, if everything about a subject was already known, I don't think I'd be very interested in studying it. There is a siren call involved in the allure of discovery. But one must first admit that one doesn't know before getting on that boat.



Speaking of boats, make sure you're not confusing boat imagery in Egyptian art with the moon. Of course, this is paradoxical, as well, since the Egyptians took one of the phases of the lunar cycle and represented it as a boat.

I think you're still reading back into the available evidence later ideas. Examples:


The ancients did not view a star as

"A self-luminous celestial body consisting of a mass of gas held together by its own gravity in which the energy generated by nuclear reactions in the interior is balanced by the outflow of energy to the surface, and the inward-directed gravitational forces are balanced by the outward-directed gas and radiation pressures."

with all the concomittant properties that usually go along with a star (that planets orbit it, and moons orbit those planets).
They viewed the stars as gods - usually, (but not always) under the control of the Moon God.
So - if the ancients "knew the sun was a star" then they knew it as a god of the night, controlled by the moon.


Unfortunately, they did not think this way. I can say that because they comment on the Moon and it's luminosity. Some Egyptian sources call it "the sun that shines at night", which is to say that it is synonymous with the sun in nature - NOT that it gets it's light from the Sun.

The idea that the moon gets it's light from the sun is, quite frankly, a strange idea at first glance (like much of astronomy) and one that kids always complain about at first, or disbelieve. Eventually, though, they are shown how it works, it makes sense to them and they accept it. The idea only works, however, if one is aware of the actual dimensions (more or less) of the sun and the moon and the earth; which the ancients only knew from their observable outer shapes: sun and moon = circular surface; earth = flat surface. They did not make the connection that the earth was circular as well. (Astronomers and Geologists: forgive me, I know the earth is technically not circular, but a spheroid type thingy - but I'll leave those technical details up to you heh heh!)

The Moon
The moon had a very large cult following for thousands of years in the ancient Near East. Lunar worship was more important, by far, than Solar worship. It's features are readily visible to the naked eye, and it stands out as the brightest light in the night sky. This Hebrew passage below illustrates in it's opening lines the very important role the moon played for ancient people (though it has become demythologized by this time, and merely one of God's creations):

It is the moon that marks the changing seasons,
governing the times, their lasting sign.
By it we know the sacred seasons and pilgrimage feasts,
a light which wanes in its course.
The new moon like its name renews itself;
how wondrous it is when it changes!
An army signal for the cloud vessels on high,
it paves the firmament with its brilliance.
The beauty of the heavens and the glory of the stars,
a shining ornament in the heights of God,
By the Lord's command it keeps its prescribed place,
and does not fade as the stars keep watch.
(Wisdom of Ben Sira 43:6-10, AB; ca. 180 BCE)

Ancient peoples reverenced the moon for several reasons, but a very important one was because it was a reliable way of telling time, and the Lunar Calendar was the standard form in the ANE. Even in the Hebrew Bible the lunar system was espoused over the solar system, much to the chagrin of the author of Jubilees, who strongly argued for a solar calendar.

In Mesopotamia, Nanna (the Moon god) was the son of Enlil and Ninlil - the Great Gods who were from An, the Sky god - and was birthed before the Sun god. In turn, Nanna gave birth to Sun god. The degree of reverence with which the moon was held is most observable here (after one considers that the calendrical systems were based off of it). Nanna was known by various names (Nanna, Suen, Ashimbabbar, Nanna-Suen and eventually Sin) and his wife was Ningal. What a night! (pun unintentionally intended) The Moon God was the overseer of the other beings in the night sky, such as the stars - also gods. Because of the regularity of their movement, the Moon was seen as very powerful.

The ancient people of course saw the different phases and positions of the moon (this is how they charted their social and religious calendars), and the cresecent moon became a popular way of representing it. The symbolism that emerged from this is well known:

Although for the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the moon's growth, dissapearance and re-emergence in a never-ending cycle personified change, it was a change viewed from within the larger parameters of continuity. In fact, of all the nocturnal luminaries, the changes in shape and position of the moon were the most readily accessible to observe and chart. Its waxing and waning might symbolize both finite time and eternity, light transforming into darkness, and life into death and back again. Thus, lunar motion came to represent both the natural and cultural life cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death.
(DDD, "Moon", B.B. Schmidt, p. 586)

As to the Egyptian art I posted - it is not the only Egyptian depiction of the moon, and it would be folly to assume that just one depiction signifies a more modern scientific understanding of astronomy. There are many myths that deal with the Egyptian moon, especially ones dealing with Osiris and Thoth. I'm not an Egyptologist, so I must admit that I'm not very familiar with all of the various moon-motifs in Egyptian iconography and written material. I do know that it was seen in different ways, however. You are probably familiar with one of it's symbols already without knowing it:


Now, if you can derive a scientific understanding of the moon from that, then I'll be impressed!

As to your question about where the sun goes, etc. with Nut, she supposedly swallowed the sun (in some stories) and passed it through her every day. The Egyptians also had a lunar calendar, and the most famous exception to this was the famous heresy in which the pharaoh Akhenaten elevated the Sun God as the most important god to be worshipped. This did not last very long, however.

Anyways, with that as a background, it becomes increasingly clear that the ancient Near Easterners had definite ideas of what happened in the sky - they just don't correspond to what we know is actually happening in the sky astronomically. They did the best they could, and there's really no need to read into their words more modern ideas. The following post says this nicely:



There have been a lot of posts since I started writing this post ha ha! Forgive me if I'm repeating points which have already been made.

1) I don't know what boat your talking about and I never referred to any boat.

2) That eye up there, you say its the moon... They knew how to draw a moon, so far not confirmed Ive got another god figure and will figure out those markings on the eye...it looks like a 3 god idea, maybe more not sure yet ( thats what the picture says in more ways then can be argued its the moon...and I'm in the process of figuring out what these symbols mean...maybe thats why you can't figure out the markings eh whoppers? ever think of that? hmmm......(without the biased lead hand...shes the path..motion, how do you think people put motion in still art?...theres many ways....

3)Nut is not the dome as per the sketch's, shes yellow in all of them and filled with stars telling us she's a star. With stars out side of her so she cannot be the dome. She is the path of the Sun, if they revered her shes a type of sun-god.

4)Quickly in this spot...a person can read as much as they like, much of it that you produce has now required abstract poetry? Not very convincing at all. The pictures carry the weight...not the writings due to previously explained, as well the continuous arguments in this era about most of it. If they all agree Nut is the dome, its not my fault they cannot interpet art properly. Sorry theres too many markers in these drawings.

5)You've come back with nothing but writings which fail to address these issues, "supposedly, best we can tell, popular guess's, a poem ?

6)Nut, "supposedly swallowed it"....come on ....and then how did it get to the other side? ( these supposedly answers are NOT going to cut the cheese.

7) Very importantly.....try and show a full globe with charactor people on it in any scale that would properly depict a view....can't do it can you? They drew out a caption, and enclosed the "given within the etchings"....

8) Anybody can go to wikpedia and ...follow the leader...theres not even a point to examining this if a person can't add anything to it. may as well file the whole thing.

Your answer above tells me I'm prob right. The pic's carry more weight then the writings. So far nothing in proper rebut. I'm going to go and get a few more rugs.....not my fault I can pick this stuff out..I'm not into reading and swallowing stuff thats all clamored with supposed excuse's and a mountain of uncertainty's when a language in its purest form is available. And would typically exclude any possible population control or explanatory issues, unknown in the maze of stuff which is left in writings and all the problems.

Your he he and sarcasm , nice to see something original other then copy-paste. ( .attitude deserves a shot.
Ive learned quite a bit in how these issues are answered.

Oh BTW. I can barely keep up with all the sideliner grandiose insights...so their going behind the tree out back, in my grandiose pail.

OK edit...I found a really good old Egyptian rug....Nut is yellow and the sky is blue. A deep well determined blue at that. So there yu-all go. a more then worthy kick at the cat...its beginning to look like suggesting Nut is a dome is almost impossible, as we understand the word dome.

[whoppers]

Before I proceed with addressing your misgivings, bear in mind that these were people that believed in gods; animal-headed gods; that the stability of the Universe depended on the daily journey of the Sun through the Underworld (that's where the Sun went after it "passed" through Nut), the daily defeat of a snake, and the eventual return to move across the sky again; that the Unverse was created by a god masturbating in the Tigris or Nile rivers or by gods having cosmic sex: Heaven (Nut) and Earth (Geb), for instance. There are multiple stories, because different geographical sites produced their own Creation Accounts - so there is not always agreement on how things came to be. That alone should be enough to caution one against deriving modern scientific principles from the stories. We are already in the realm of extreme mythic fantasy accounting for natural phenomena.

This shouldn't be surprising.

Originally Posted by peter-1

1) I don't know what boat your talking about and I never referred to any boat.

I know you didn't refer to a boat. I already explained what "boat" I was referring to. Do I need to explain it again? One of the phases of the moon depicted pictorially was frequently turned sideways to represent a boat. The same shape was used. My advice was to make sure that when you are looking at Egyptian art representing cosmological scenes that you do not confuse a picture of a boat with the moon - especially as boats are usually involved in artistic renditions of cosmological and mythic scenes.
Understand now?

The ancients had different visions of HOW these celestial bodies moved through the sky - some had a chariot pulling it, others had a boat ferrying it. Take your pick - they were certainly imaginative.

Originally Posted by peter-1

2) That eye up there, you say its the moon... They knew how to draw a moon, so far not confirmed Ive got another god figure and will figure out those markings on the eye...it looks like a 3 god idea, maybe more not sure yet ( thats what the picture says in more ways then can be argued its the moon...and I'm in the process of figuring out what these symbols mean....(without the biased lead hand...shes the path..motion, how do you think people put motion in still art?...theres many ways....

Well, the standard way of depicting the moon in Egyptian iconagraphy was a disc resting on a crescent, like this:


(Just ignore the mouse heh heh!)
From the boat depicted, it should be obvious how they imagine it moved across the sky. Some gods wore this symbol on his head (see above). The "sickle moon" could be depicted as a cutting weapon, such as what Thoth held at times.

The Eye of the Moon (the symbol from my previous post, and the one you are commenting on) stems from a myth in which Horus and Seth (represeting light and darkness) battle, and Seth ends up stealing the eye of Horus. Then he eats it. YUMMY! Various versions then tell how Horus, with the help of his divine pals, rips out Seth's eye OR disembowels him OR that the eye sinks to the bottom of the cosmic ocean and is retrieved by Thoth and Shu. Whatever the reason, or whatever influenced them to portray the Eye in this way, they did so. It's also known as the Wedget Eye, if I'm not mistaken. I may be off on some of the details, but I think the general picture is more or less correct.


But, again - the point is that the moon was portrayed differently.

Originally Posted by peter-1

3)Nut is not the dome as per the sketch's, shes yellow in all of them and filled with stars telling us she's a star. With stars out side of her so she cannot be the dome. She is the path of the Sun, if they revered her shes a type of sun-god.

a) She's "a star" because she's "filled with stars"? That makes no sense.
b) The stars you think you see outside of here are actually representations of water - once again, a reference to the cosmic waters above the "dome".
c) She was the upper half of the pair "heaven" and "earth"; that's already been established, and is quite clear in the Egyptian writings. She is not the Sun god, especially as the Sun moves through her, and is typically viewed as part of the heavens, or hanging from the heavens - as the moon and stars are.
You need to rethink that, or read the very clear references in Egyptian writings.

Originally Posted by peter-1

4)Quickly in this spot...a person can read as much as they like, much of it that you produce has now required abstract poetry? Not very convincing at all. The pictures carry the weight...not the writings due to previously explained, as well the continuous arguments in this era about most of it. If they all agree Nut is the dome, its not my fault they cannot interpet art properly. Sorry theres too many markers in these drawings.

a) The Egyptians didn't START with artistic renditions, and THEN interpreted them into Cosmogonies. Art was always a reflection of either oral or written stories and myths. I think you have the order backwards.
b) What abstract poetry are you talking about? I don't mean this in a mean fashion, but it appears that English is not your first language - am I correct? So perhaps what you perceive as abstract poetry is merely a problem with reading poetry rendered in English?

At any rate - if a written document (and I use that loosely to refer to writing on any material - papyrus or stone monument) clearly tells a story and explains how the writer viewed the Universe, then this is much more reliable than looking at an artistic rendition alone. Besides, depending on it's purpose, Art was usually accompanied with written material - either interwoven with the Art or off to the side. If you want a better understanding of the picture you are focusing on, you are going to have to learn what the hieroglyphs say, as well.

Originally Posted by peter-1

5)You've come back with nothing but writings which fail to address these issues, a poem ?

If you cannot see the pertinence of why I quoted those verses, then you need to read it again, please.

Originally Posted by peter-1

6)Nut, "supposedly swallowed it"....come on ....and then how did it get to the other side? ( these supposedly answers are NOT going to cut the cheese.

See the top of this post - you know, the fact that we are dealing with fantasy and myth. I explained it up there. How do you think something exits you when you eat it? It may be utterly ridiculous sounding, but then so does the myth about a god ejaculating to fill a river up! The Underworld was the next step after the "passing", which was usually viewed as a place of filth, feces and mud. It made sense to them. It was at this point that the narratives of the daily journey of the Sun through the Underworld, the battle with the Snake, etc. occured.


Don't start rejecting one mythic idea, while embracing another one!

Originally Posted by peter-1

7) Very importantly.....try and show a full globe with charactor people on it in any scale that would properly depict a view....can't do it can you? They drew out a caption, and enclosed the "given within the etchings"....

Not really a good point. Egyptian Art was very distinctive in how they portrayed things, and they already are known for their peculiar "sideways" view in many eras.

Originally Posted by peter-1

8) Anybody can go to wikpedia and ...follow the leader...theres not even a point to examining this if a person can't add anything to it. may as well file the whole thing.

Originally Posted by peter-1

Your answer above tells me I'm prob right. The pic's carry more weight then the writings. So far nothing in proper rebut. I'm going to go and get a few more rugs.....not my fault I can pick this stuff out..I'm not into reading and swallowing stuff thats all clamored with supposed excuse's and a mountain of uncertainty's when a language in its purest form is available. And would typically exclude any possible population control or explanatory issues, unknown in the maze of stuff which is left in writings and all the problems.

Plenty has been added and plenty of points have been rebutted - you're just not listening to the answers. I'm sorry you're having trouble understanding old ancient myths and the posts that have been posted to help elucidate them. But one person's inability to comprehend the replies he has received does not negate years of scholarship on the subject that is quite certain in some of these areas. Perhaps it's a language barrier you're experiencing? Your stubborness and claims that none of your questions have been answered or rebutted makes me wonder if you're Dtango's twin. Please tell me you are not. Please...

Originally Posted by peter-1

Your he he and sarcasm , nice to see something original other then copy-paste. ( .attitude deserves a shot.

Thanks. I think. I rarely "copy and paste", but if I do cite another source (which is quite normal, by the way) I usually type it out laboriously by hand from a book lying open in front of me (I have a large library on the ANE), and then provide the barest minimal information for anyone who is interested in following it up.

In the end - I think it's wonderful that you're exploring this avenue of research, but research is exactly what you might have to do if you're unable to see the answers to your questions here. If you start out, however, with the a priori assumption that the Egyptians were fully aware of Pythagorean astronomy, then you will find yourself engaging in a futile endeavor.

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by peter-1

Oh BTW. I can barely keep up with all the sideliner grandiose insights...so their going behind the tree out back, in my grandiose pail.

You really should try - you might find it all coming into place at some point. It will click, eventually.

Originally Posted by peter-1

OK edit...I found a really good old Egyptian rug....Nut is yellow and the sky is blue. A deep well determined blue at that. So there yu-all go. a more then worthy kick at the cat...its beginning to look like suggesting Nut is a dome is almost impossible, as we understand the word dome.

See my previous post about why privileging art over narrative is not the best recourse. You will find that the depictions of Nut and Geb take many different colors, shapes and forms.







In addition, you will also find Nut depicted as a cow. Moo.




By the way - the color of the sky (blue) was accounted for by the Cosmic Waters above. Makes sense to an ancient person, doesn't it?

[peter-1]

Thankyou....I read above quickly and found contradictions in your hasty reply, as well tossing the body full of stars out as insignificant caught my eye right away, and tells me you really don't have a clue as to what your dealing with in the expression of art. Not a clue.

So unlike yourself, I will patiently examine your entry , have a look at a few other things Ive found, (all art) and get back.
Your theories are in a total jam. Theres way too many problems which do not comply with each other yet...are in highlight expressing an attempt at how things are put together which infers a compliance which allows the order in the attempt to begin with...Basic ABC cognitive application.

Quickly...your trying to suggest that cow is a dome , and not the Nut-God..?
This is getting crazy. I notice your missing the ones with the blue sky and favor stuff that looks like its been treated unsuccessfully...interesting, I see the black and white one above has him sitting in that concave dish again

Its not going to work whoppers...pushing things off the table in haste....this is a philosophy forum, thinkers ...not the community hall or local school.

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

No, it's pointing out that if you treat the Bible like a science textbook you get all sorts of obviously wrong results. It's an answer to the question this thread is based on, and the answer is no.

But if your objection is that atheists pick and choose how to interpret various parts of the Bible, all they're doing is following the lead of believers who dismiss obvious errors as poetry, metaphor or whatever other excuse used to rationalize away the problems.

Indeed Ozzy's post seems almost another example of (wrongly) accusing us of what they do themselves - insisting that the Bible be taken literally until it begins to look so untenable that it can't be. The it becomes 'metaphorical' which seems to mean that it is 'True' in some sense other than actually being factual.