<< I also didn't
mention the phonolite pebble found at Olduvai gorge dated 1.6 million years
ago, which was an intentionally made piece of art and you say you would
accept the humanity of erectus if there was evidence of art and religion.
But when I give it to you you simply don't pay any attention to it.>>
I don't ignore it; I discount it for what you want it to mean. A PEBBLE? As
like evidence of what Noah and his family did?
JB <Glenn, Glenn....you can't be serious with this. How long did the Dark
Ages
>last before another explosion of artistic, literary and techonological
>advance?
GM <<About 5 million years of living like primitives.>>
You missed the question. Go back and re-read. You brought up the medieval
Dark Ages (that's why it's in caps) as a comparison. I asked you how long
THAT period lasted. NOT 5 million years, but a few hundred. You missed it,
I think, because it is not an analogy you can offer seriously. Human beings
did not regress in mental or spiritual capacity, as evidenced by the
Renaissance. Your mythical creatures did, for 4.5 million years. Absolute
stasis.
JB >Artistic ability?
GM <<NO. What he lost was the leisure time needed to produce such art. He
was
too busy trying to survive to create the Mona Lisa.>>
A fully modern man didn't do artistic squat for 4 million years because he
just didn't have the time, darn it.
Right.
Modern man can't HELP but express himself in art and worship and
innovation. And sometimes it is in the WORST conditions that his BEST
expressions emerge! Do you know that some of the greatest, most
heart-rending human art has come from suffering? And you expect us to
believe that for 4.5 million years the man who was capable of giving us the
Sanctuary of Le Trois Freres left us NOTHING like this?
You know what the problem is? It's not that you overvalue hominids (though
you do); it's that you don't value modern man enough. For you to think that
modern man could exist without significant innovation and expression for so
long is astounding.
<<OK. It is time for you to answer the questin I have been trying to get
you
to answer for about 8 months. You say that there are these non-innovative
animals, who looked like us but were not spiritual--their lack of
innovation
was proof of their lack of spirituality. So tell me Jim, do any of them
still live? Are the technologically primitive peoples on earth today,
those
people who show so little innovation, their descendants? Which tribes of
these non-innovative people are really animals? These are the tribes we
should withdraw the Wycliffe translators from. After all, animals can't be
saved and don't need the Bible. Are there any descendants of these people
still on earth today? If so who?
I know, you will ignore this like you have for the past several months.>>
I guess you're going to keep repeating this canard until someone believes
it. And so I'll keep reminding you, as I've done every time you've tried
this one, of the NUMEROUS messages I left you on the tribal v. species
distinction, along with the specific example I gave you of Ishi. If you
choose to suppress that memory, I can't help you. You don't need a lawyer,
you need a hypnotist.
Jim