Hi Dick,
You wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of Dick Fischer
>Sent: Friday, April 19, 2002 4:57 PM
>To: asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: RE: How and when did we become "men"?
>
>
>Glenn wrote a lot of stuff about slaughtering bears, and ended with:
>
>
>Now, Dick, live by your choice. Animal sacrifice is much older than 7000
>years ago.
>
>What was missing from Catal Huyuk was the evidence of animal sacrifice
>seen in excavations of middle eastern civilizations that flourished after
>7000
>years ago. There were no alters, no grooved stones to run off the blood so
>it could be collected instead of spilling on the ground and drawing flies.
>It is
>this kind of ritualistic, wholesale animal sacrifice to appease the gods or
>to
>atone for sins that is missing prior to 7000 years ago.
Woah, Dick, don't go leaping to conclusions. I just presented many cases
which show all signs of being animal sacrifice and now without even
discussing why those examples don't qualify, you simply repeat your
falsified claim. You once made the claim that you were an 'evidence' sort
of guy. Then discuss the evidence.
And while we agree that animal sacrifice is a great evidence for religous
belief, it isn't the only evidence for religious belief, nor is it, as you
seem to imply, the sine qua non of religious belief. You seem to think that
without it, there is no spirituality. What of the fraction of Hindus who
perform no sacrifices? Are you seriously claiming that they aren't spiritual
and they don't have the image of God?
If one makes the assumption that lack of animal sacrifice means that the
image of god is missing, then I must confess I am not made in the imgage of
God. I have never seen an animal sacrificed in any church service I have
attended throughout my life. Maybe you go to a different denomination than
I. Maybe you go to a denomination where each Sunday they kill a chicken in
the service. Must be kinda messy. I guess all those poor southern Baptists
who think they are going to heaven will have to face the fact that because
they don't kill animals in their services, they don't have a soul to save.
And come to think of it, I have visited synagogues on occasion and have
never seen dead bulls, goats, sheep or pigeons in them either. I guess they
lost the image of God when Titus conquored Jerusalem. Wow, I bet they don't
know that. Do you think someone should tell them?
>
>I believe the Sumerians picked up on the practice from the Accadians who
>learned it from the patriarchs themselves, maybe all the way back to Abel.
So why don't you explain why the slaughter of bears doesn't count for animal
sacrifice? Are bears not animals? Or is it because it is easier to ignore
and not mention it, acting like it doesn't exist, rather than dealing with
it? Ignoring data seems to be all too common an activity among apologists.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
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