answers inline On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 4:13 PM, Mary Jo Sminkey <[email protected]> wrote: > >>A few leaps. More like a few thousand. > > LOL, yeah it definitely was not the most well-constructed scientific argument. > >>Ramese III and Thutmose II or >>their successors were the only ones that would fit within that time >>frame. T > > That would depend on the exact date of the Exodus, something that is fairly > debatable.
I was referring to a 150 year period that around that time period. > > >>You would think that given the spectacular nature of those miracles, >>someone other than the Israelites or the Christians would have >>noticed. > > Well, there were no Christians during that time to have noticed. ;-) We're > also talking about a very ancient time, for which discoveries still are made > on a fairly regular basis. Christians around the time of Christ, such as Peter, Thomas etc. > > It basically comes down to ...is there definitive mention of things that we > can link to the Exodus? Nope, no proof that it occurred. But are there things > in the historical records that might be related? Possibly yes. We have no > real knowledge one way or the other. It's certainly not logical to say that > since we can't definitively link it to anything specifically, it must not > have happened. Of course, even if an Exodus did occur and we find evidence of > some natural phenomenon at the same time, it would not mean a God would have > been involved. The "argument from silence" is simply not a valid argument to > use. Using that argument, then there are plenty of invisible pink unicorns running around. > > As for the darkness at the time of Christ's death, there are certainly > writings that > refer to it second-hand, and reasons why historians such as Pliny might not > have > included it. Right up there is it not happening. Also the first chroniclers wrote well after the fact. The closest (I think his name was Joseph) did not write anything until a couple of generations after the crucifixion. > Again of course, it all depends on how someone looks at the information and > interprets it. People that want to disprove that anything supernatural > occurred will > always find a way to make the data fit that world view, just as those with the > opposite view will find a way to make it fit theirs. I often find that people > with a > non-religious position are just as likely to make huge jumps of logic as > those with > religious convictions are. The "argument from silence" is just one good > example of > that. With that sort of logic, because nothing has been written about it, then the fall of the Roman Empire was due to invisible pink unicorns and tie-dyed leprechauns shoving hallucinogenic mushrooms up the noses of the roman populace using car jacks. If there is no evidence for an event, the chances are that the event did not happen. And until there is verifiable evidence then the assumption that it didn't happen is the safest one. -- Larry C. Lyons web: http://www.lyonsmorris.com/lyons LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/larryclyons -- The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. - B. F. Skinner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:306375 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
