Re: ANE cosmology; was : A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

>I know that the claim that everything can be said in any language is
>presented as a truism. It's probably true in all languages spoken by
>westernized nations. One gets by with the 10,000 words in French, thanks
>to the Academie, or the million available in English, where there are no
>official restrictions. In tribal languages, the routine matters of life
>can be communicated: food or poison, tasty or yucky produce no problems.
>But there is no way that a tribe whose total numerical vocabulary
>consists of one, two, many can express even elementary arithmetic. I'm
>recalling a study of a couple such Amazonian tribes. The children were
>learning arithmetic, but in Portuguese. Beyond such restrictions, the
>mere availability of terminology is not necessarily enough. Imagine a
>person with an undergraduate degree in poly sci and a J.D., or one with a
>doctorate in English lit. How will they follow a detailed physical
>lecture without being versed in calculus?

BAsically, I said, that every concept could be expressed in any language, but one
would clearly have to stretch some aspects of some languages. In the example above
one can do math by stating one, two, one-and-two-many(or a many of one and two),
two-and-two many, etc to convey the concept of counting.

But languages lacking numbers do math in a practical sense:

"As has been noted, the Tawaudi people appear to lack
counting words, and barter by one-to-one correspondence. But is
it a lack of need for counting that has inhibited language
development, or has a lack of words inhibited thought?
Considering the flexibility of living languages, it is difficult
to see why words for 'threeness,' 'fourness,' etc., would not be
invented on need. Yet later evidence suggests that bilingual
school children alter their behavior depending on the language
used in the test situation (either the language of instruction or
the vernacular). The second explanation relates to logical
necessity. There is much mensuration in village life--in house
construction, for example. This is normally carried out by
matching length A to position B or by measuring by some ad hoc
unit. It was not usual for a man to argue that because X fitted
somewhere before, it must fit there again. Thus the mensuration
is empirical, pragmatic, and ad hoc. No universal units of
measurement appear to be involved, and there seems to be a
powerful connection between the ability to handle measurement and
the achievement of conservation of length (especially in
bilinguals)." ~ Max Kelly, "Papua New Guinea and Piaget--An
Eight-year Study," in Pierre R. Dasen, Piagetian Psychology, (New
York: Gardner Press, Inc, 1977), p. 184

>
>I can't vouch for the story, but I'm pretty sure that residents of the
>Sahara will have more understanding of trucks than of boats.
>Additionally, in an area where streams are small, they will be restricted
>to dugout or bark canoes. Paddles are not rudders. If they use rafts,
>sweeps are not rudders, either.

Having been an avid canoeist in my youth, the paddle is used as a rudder all the
time. It is one of the basic strokes needed to control the boat.

>
>How precise would God have to be to avoid the charge of misleading?

Have you read my examples put on this list within the past few days? I keep
answering the same question for different individuals. As I have said many times,
not very. I have said, God doesn't have to write 7th grade science texts. God
doesn't have to tell all, but is it too much to ask that when he does inspire man
to write something that he not inspire total falsehood? Couldn't he have inspired
out of the mud came life? Couldn't he have inspired, the earth is extremely old?
That would be about it.

Let me reverse the question. How WRONG does God have to be before you quit giving
him A+'s for his ability to communicate theological truth?

It seems to me that no matter what nonsense we find, many of you all claim it is
still teaching great theological truths. Is there any level of wrongness that
would result in the conclusion of 'This is utterly poppycock?'

This is why a verification of something God says about nature is important, (NOT A
SCIENCE BOOK FOR THE 10 millionth time), So the next person who again suggests that
I am asking for Hawkings and Ellis' book to be dumped into the Bible will be told
that they don't have any reading ability. FRankly, David, I don't think you do
either because I have said the same thing to you on numerous occasions, but you
continually ignore what I say.

 I
>heard John Walton say that the ancient Hebrews and Jews held that
>everything that happened in nature was the action of God.

Don't CAlvinists think this today? What is so odd about that belief?

This was
>clearly the notion of others in antiquity.

You forget the modern adherents of God's sustenance of the universe.

Thunderbolts were thrown by
>Zeus, Jove or Thor, for example. Is this strictly true, or how far should
>God have gone in correcting the notion?

So, are you saying that you have scientific evidence that God isn't in control of
anything? Why are you a CHristian then?

My point is that belief in God's control is not science and is not capable of
verification or refutation. YOu have made a category mistake by assuming that you
can do something to verify God's control or lack there of(and thus make it
science).

So, please tell me what experiment you have carried out to answer the question of
God's control of the universe? When did that issue become scientific rather than
mere belief? If it is a matter of science, then God should have corrected, if not,
then you have produced a shiny bright red herring.
Received on Mon Jun 5 06:51:05 2006