New Dinosaur Species Found in India

AP ^ | August 13, 2003 | RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM

[balrog666]

Anti-Screeching Placemarker.

[Alamo-Girl]

I'm so glad you replied! I had just reread my post to you last night and I was being quite dismissive when speaking of Chris King at post 2318 and used much too wide a brush with the word "also" and thus painted you as well. Please accept my apology!

Indeed, if an Enochian fragment is found and dated to 500 B.C. or earlier - I'll give you a heads up!

I have not yet looked for information on physical dating (e.g. carbon dating) on the parchments or the containers, but that's my next step.

I realize that the contextual points hold no sway to your view. Nevertheless, to me, it is significant that the manuscript from which the Qumran copies were made does not speak of Moses, the law or related Jewish traditions as being in existence, though it originated in Judea and that would be “second nature” to the residents.

[PatrickHenry]

Nevertheless, to me, it is significant that the manuscript from which the Qumran copies were made does not speak of Moses, the law or related Jewish traditions as being in existence, though it originated in Judea and that would be “second nature” to the residents.

As one of your sources said, it's not all that remarkable. If you were going to write something purportedly by a pre-Flood author, you would of course omit things that happened later. It's easy to leave things out. More significant are those things that are included in Enoch. And looking at them, there is nothing remarkably prophetic. Unless, as you say, a fragment can be decisively dated to a time that would make such writings miraculous indeed. But so far, I see no need to leap to unwarranted conclusions. I'm always open-minded to solid evidence, however. Keep me advised if something turns up.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

Using your standard of measure, thus far the eyebrow-raiser would be Enoch fragment 4Q204 which appears to be carbon dated about 180 B.C.

I'm searching for more information, but the anamoly is that orbits were not proposed by the Greeks until 150 B.C. coupled with the fact that the Enoch manuscript is a copy from a source of unknown antiquity.

Finally, there are fragments just now being made available for carbon dating - so more questions may arise.

(That's a paraphrase of what I've found thus far; I will try to find quality links and excerpts to back it up.)

[forsnax5]

I thought that this might be apropos at this point:

The Moral Sense Test

"Our new web site is up and running," writes Marc D. Hauser of Harvard's Primate Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory. "We are interested in understanding people's moral intuitions. The web site, includes background information and importantly, The Moral Sense Test. I would very much appreciate it if you would not only take the test, but also spread the word to your friends and colleagues, of all ages. We are particularly interested in getting cross-cultural data as well as developmental information, so even young children who can read would be terrifically helpful. The more the word spreads, the better for us. Thanks a lot for your help. — Marc"

[From the MST Website:] "The Moral Sense Test is a Web-based study into the nature of moral intuitions. How do humans, throughout the world, decide what is right and wrong? To answer this question, we have designed a series of moral dilemmas designed to probe the psychological mechanisms underlying our ethical judgments. By putting these questions on the Web, we hope to gain insight into the similarities and differences between the moral intuitions of people of different ages, from different cultures, with different educational backgrounds and religious beliefs, involved in different occupations and exposed to very different circumstances. Participation in the study is easy, quick and completely confidential.

"About the Moral Sense Test: Nothing captures human attention more than a moral dilemma. Whether we are soap opera fanatics or not, we can’t help sticking our noses in other people’s affairs, pronouncing our views on right and wrong, permissible and impermissible, justified or not. For hundreds of years, scholars have argued that our moral judgments arise from rational, conscious, voluntary, reflective deliberations about what ought to be. This perspective has generated the further belief that our moral psychology is a slowly developing capacity, founded entirely on experience and education, and subject to considerable variation across cultures. With the exception of a few trivial examples, one culture’s right is another’s wrong. We believe this hyper rational, culturally-specific view is no longer tenable. The MST has been designed to show why and offer an alternative. Most of our moral intuitions are unconscious, involuntary, and universal, developing in each child despite formal education. When humans, from the hunter-gathers of the Rift Valley to the billionaire dot-com-ers of the Silicon Valley generate moral intuitions they are like reflexes, something that happens to us without our being aware of how or even why. We call this capacity our moral faculty. Our aim is to use data from the MST, as well as other experiments, to explain what it is, how it evolved, and how it develops in our species, creating individuals with moral responsibilities and concerns about human welfare. The MST has been designed for all humans who are curious about that puzzling little word “ought” — about the principles that make one action right and another wrong, and why we feel elated about the former and guilty about the latter.

"As in every modernly held view, there are significant historical antecedents. The origins of our own perspective date back at least 300 years to the philosopher David Hume and more recently, to the political philosopher John Rawls. But unlike these prescient thinkers, we can now validate the intuitions with significant scientific evidence. Over the past twenty years, there has been growing evidence for a universally shared moral faculty based on findings in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, economics, linguistics, and neurobiology. This evidence has created a powerful movement directed at the core aspects of human nature. It is a movement that has the power to reshape our lives by uncovering the deep structure of our moral intuitions and showing how they can either support or conflict with our conscious, often legally supported decisions.

"You have the opportunity to participate in the Moral Sense Test right now. The test only takes about 10 minutes, and your responses are completely confidential. For more information, read our our privacy statement.

"This research is sponsored by the Primate Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, which is part of the Psychology Department at Harvard University."

Click here for The Moral Sense Test Website

[VadeRetro]

"Kinder, gentler! Kinder, gentler!" I know, I know.

A thousand points of light. A city on a hill!

Yeah! A city on a hill! With women. And money. And pretty trinkets.

I'll rape, you pillage. We'll get somebody else to do the burning.

[Nataku X]

Thank you for sharing the "Jesus stories" that you remember! It was fun to read about them! :o)

They're a fascinating collection of stories, and a rip-roaring read besides. And realizing that most of these extra gospels were written around the same time as the "official" gospels - and taken just as seriously by some at the time - really throws light on how we should view all those stories of miracles in the "official" gospels.

If I can accept two assumptions: (1) Jesus did indeed perform miracles, and (2) the source of the miracles is the Judeo-Christian God, then I can believe a third assumption--that God was involved in perserving the books of the New Testament that best represented His Son.

If you go the other extreme--that if one miracle was an urban legend taken seriously by others, then it discounts all other miracles--that is not quite valid either. People have been making up childhood stories of legendary leaders for millenia.

I do not like the view that if a book was not included in the canon, then it should necessarily be considered to be "heretical" or "evil" in some way. As Alamo-Girl pointed out, the New Testament quotes from the Book of Enoch many times. However, the pitiful few extracanonical books I have read never had the ring of truth to it, and there are also more logical reasons why they were rightly not included in the canon.

[Nataku X]

Very interesting! How indeed did Jesus's contemporaries accept the Book of Enoch as scriptural in such a short time? Time to dust off those Bible history textbooks. :o)

[DittoJed2]

The bones in a whale help him with intercourse. I do not believe that they are legs at all.

[Alamo-Girl]

I've got a very good source for an Enoch Astronomy fragment carbon-date:

Radiocarbon dating of scrolls and linen fragments (pdf)

Page 14 dates fragment 4Q208, Paleographic age 200, at calibrated 166-102 BC and 186-92 BC.

Again, the context is that the Greeks proposed orbits at 150 B.C. and the Qumran text is a copy in Aramaic from an orginal of unknown antiquity but seemingly originating from Judea.

I'm pinging others who may be following the discussion and thus, might want to check out the link.

[DittoJed2]

They don't have the proof that whales were land mammals. See where my beef is here? They just quote this stuff as if it were proven fact. I would have a lot less problem with the paragraph if it read ""Although its hind limbs were not found, we BELIEVE they were there, based on its hip sockets," Geisler said. "But the hip sockets were no longer connected to the spinal cord, as WE BELIEVE they WERE in earlier whales that were land animals."

As it reads now, it is very deceptive.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the heads up on your post! I agree with all of your points!

With regard to Enoch falling out of favor, I pulled the following excerpt from this link a few years back:

The Book of Enoch (also known as 1 Enoch) was once cherished by Jews and Christians alike, this book later fell into disfavor with powerful theologians–precisely because of its controversial statements on the nature and deeds of the fallen angels…

The theme of the Book of Enoch dealing with the nature and deeds of the fallen angels so infuriated the later Church fathers that one, Filastrius, actually condemned it openly as heresy (Filastrius, Liber de Haeresibus, no. 108). Nor did the rabbis deign to give credence to the book’s teaching about angels. Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai in the second century A.D. pronounced a curse upon those who believed it (Delitzsch, p. 223).

So the book was denounced, banned, cursed, no doubt burned and shredded–and last but not least, lost (and conveniently forgotten) for a thousand years. But with an uncanny persistence, the Book of Enoch found its way back into circulation two centuries ago.

In 1773, rumors of a surviving copy of the book drew Scottish explorer James Bruce to distant Ethiopia. True to hearsay, the Book of Enoch had been preserved by the Ethiopic church, which put it right alongside the other books of the Bible…

Though it was once believed to be post-Christian (the similarities to Christian terminology and teaching are striking), recent discoveries of copies of the book among the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran prove that the book was in existence before the time of Jesus Christ. But the date of the original writing upon which the second century B.C. Qumran copies were based is shrouded in obscurity. It is, in a word, old…

There is abundant proof that Christ approved of the Book of Enoch. Over a hundred phrases in the New Testament find precedents in the Book of Enoch.

Another remarkable bit of evidence for the early Christians’ acceptance of the Book of Enoch was for many years buried under the King James Bible’s mistranslation of Luke 9:35, describing the transfiguration of Christ: "And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son: hear him." Apparently the translator here wished to make this verse agree with a similar verse in Matthew and Mark. But Luke’s verse in the original Greek reads: "This is my Son, the Elect One (from the Greek ho eklelegmenos, lit., "the elect one"): hear him."

The "Elect One" is a most significant term (found fourteen times) in the Book of Enoch. If the book was indeed known to the apostles of Christ, with its abundant descriptions of the Elect One who should "sit upon the throne of glory" and the Elect One who should "dwell in the midst of them," then the great scriptural authenticity is accorded to the Book of Enoch when the "voice out of the cloud" tells the apostles, "This is my Son, the Elect One"–the one promised in the Book of Enoch.

The Book of Jude tells us in vs. 14 that "Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied…" Jude also, in vs. 15, makes a direct reference to the Book of Enoch (2:1), where he writes, "to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly…" …

Many of the early church fathers also supported the Enochian writings. Justin Martyr ascribed all evil to demons whom he alleged to be the offspring of the angels who fell through lust for women (from the Ibid.)–directly referencing the Enochian writings.

Athenagoras, writing in his work called Legatio in about 170 A.D., regards Enoch as a true prophet. He describes the angels which "violated both their own nature and their office." In his writings, he goes into detail about the nature of fallen angels and the cause of their fall, which comes directly from the Enochian writings.

Many other church fathers: Tatian (110-172); Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (115-185); Clement of Alexandria (150-220); Tertullian (160-230); Origen (186-255); Lactantius (260-330); in addition to: Methodius of Philippi, Minucius Felix, Commodianus, and Ambrose of Milanalso–also approved of and supported the Enochian writings…

One by one the arguments against the Book of Enoch fade away. The day may soon arrive when the final complaints about the Book of Enoch’s lack of historicity and "late date" are also silenced by new evidence of the book’s real antiquity.

[Alamo-Girl]

Rats! I forgot to mention that researching Enoch online is much like researching the Kabbalah. Both have been embraced (with brand new interpretations of course) by a lot of "new age" sects - thus there is a lot of debris to wade through in order to get to the true historical, Jewish root of the matter.

[Junior]

Placemarker.

[PatrickHenry]

As you look into this, remember that the timing of our "orbit man," ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOS (fl. 320 - 250 BC), is not fixed with certainty. That "fl." before the dates for his name is scholar-talk for "flourished," and it means that they can narrow down the dates when he was actively working to a specific period. Usually this is because he's mentioned by contemporaries, or because he may mention some specific battle he was in, or some king he knew, or something like that. Those are not necessarily dates you can take to the bank.

Also, that same website (my only source of info at the moment) says he "lived in Alexandria (288-277 BC), where he made a series of astronomical observations." Also "He was the chief exponent of the heliocentric system." So it may not have been his original idea, but perhaps something that was being discussed in Alexandria while he was there. This is not an unreasonable notion, and it would put the first mention of the heliocentric system back a bit, and therefore Enoch seems less remarkable. Anyway, carbon-dating of the Enoch manuscript will be good evidence of something, but (unless it's wildly ancient) it would not necessarily make it certain that Enoch anticipated something that he couldn't possibly have known or heard at the time he wrote. We shall see.

[DittoJed2]

Don't you see, though, that Darwinism doesn't try to "give a foundation for moral beliefs and actions"?

Yes it does. By default, when a system of belief proclaims that everything arose by chance random processes and not by the agency of a holy God, then it is making a moral statement. By obliterating a holy God from the scenario, by default, Darwinism is making a statement whether it overtly does so or not. It would be as if I said "it takes a village to raise a child." I may not make an overt statement regarding the parenting abilities of parents, but in reality my view has those implications. Darwinism is a belief system (held religiously by many) that says that life is based upon chance, that only the strongest survive, and that really we are here, live, and die and that's all there is. It wants you to think that it is amoral, but it is a system of belief and by nature it cannot be amoral. It is making some moral statement in discounting Scripture and as such is destroying the foundation for any kind of moral belief. Once again, Darwinism can only teach preference not right and wrong.

Consider electricity: Edison pushed hard for using electricity to kill people. Does that make theories of electricity evil or dangerous?
No. But what you don't understand is that if you structure an entire WORLDVIEW that excludes God, then you are making a moral statement (every man is a god unto himself and is not accountable to a Creator, that the Bible is full of lies, and that man is nothing more than a more highly evolved animal). This statement is ripe with evil and danger. It has produced Hitlers, Mussolinis, Stalins, as well as Kip Kinkles and Columbine murderers.

And is Benjamin Franklin culpable for the rise of evil in the world because of his groundbreaking work on this theory?
Saw something interesting that you may already have known. The ancient Egyptians may already have known a little something about electricity. Not really relevant to this discussion, but just say that as an aside.

God is an authority higher than any earthy authority and His law stands as an unmoveable guide to write and wrong that has rational, spiritual, and emotional basis.

There's a name for this: Deus ex Machina. It's when the god in the Greek play drifts down to arbitrarily settle the insoluble conflicts between the main characters. Or any time a play, novel, or movie ends with a solution that comes out of left field. It's a sure sign of a writer who's painted themselves into a corner & doesn't have the courage to go back and rethink (and rewrite) the story so it makes more sense.


Except that isn't how God operates. This evidence may be anectdotal, but I have seen God move directly in my life. My mother felt him directly comfort her "like having a blanket wrapped around" her when my brother committed suicide in 1985. I have watched him take impossible situations where there seemed to be no hope, and turn them around. I have watched a beloved Pastor's wife tell the story of when her sweet husband passed away and God not only told him the time of his death to the minute but also allowed the family watch him as he entered paradise "It's so bright! Can't you see it!" as he reached his swollen arms (From water weight due to terminal cancer) towards the sky and went home. And, there is so much more. You see Jenny, I have seen so much in my 27 years of being a Christian (I was 9 at the time), that no matter what, I KNOW that God is there and I KNOW that He is more than just the god of the deist who winds up the universe and lets it go on its own. I know this by faith, I know this by experience, and I know this through His Word. In Darwinism, where does life have any meaning at all? It doesn't. It looks at life strictly in terms of chemicals and time. Where is there room for hope? There is none. Man is on his own. Where can we possibly understand human intelligence? Love? Joy? Peace? Nowhere, because the very things that make us human have no naturalistic explanation. In an effort to prove a theory popularized by one who had lost his faith in the 1800s, modern science is today throwing out the only thing that gives anyone any hope or meaning- that there is a God, that we are here for a purpose, and that He is sovereign. That, indeed is a very evil and dangerous doctrine.

OK, that's my negative reaction to your argument. (Which is a very popular creationist argument, believe me.) Now for a more positive vision:

The universe is a benevolent place. By which I mean: All you have to do to thrive in this world is to understand it and act accordingly. And our world is understandable - because there are no contradictions. The Truths by which we must live aren't "self-evident", unfortunately, but we have loads of history & knowledge that we can draw upon to learn what the truth is.
How do you know what truth is? And how do you know the "truth" you believe is correct? Because it benefits human kind and the world? What is to say that this truth is right or wrong? There is no foundation for stating something is right or wrong in Darwinism. Only preference. If I prefer you not live, then I can kill you and nobody can point to anything higher than man's preference to say I'm wrong. As I pointed out last night, in different parts of the world, treachery is a virtue. No contradictions? They must not have gotten the manual that this universe is supposed to be benevolent.

Probably the most fundamental moral truth is: Cooperate honestly with everyone, except those who've proven to be untrustworthy or dishonest in the past. In other words, don't be the one to start defrauding or stealing from others. But you can "steal" your stuff back, or enact some kind of proportionate justice upon someone who harms you.
Sound similar to "do unto others as you would have them do unto You."

This kind of principle is the basis for just about every system of law or morality in civilized nations that I can think of. And it's no coincidence: Since humans are the rational animal,
But why is he rational?
we will necessarily each have different goals & values in life. We need a moral framework that is compatible with such individuality.
But who decides what this moral framework is? As I stated before, opinions in America are quite different than those elsewhere. In some places in Europe, euthanasia as A.O.K. It isn't here. Around our nation, some people feel that abortion is A.O.K. while others believe it is murder. Some feel homosexuality is wrong, other's applaud it. In Africa, some are cannibals, others abhor such a thing. In the Middle East, some feel it is virtuous to crash airliners into tall American buildings, while we call such a thing "terrorism" and disdain it. Who makes up the rules? They aren't self evident, but can they be evident at all in a world with such a wide variety of opinion on right and wrong. If we are just animals, what makes your opinion any more right than Osamas? How can there be any absolute right and wrong without a higher standard than human preference? Darwinism can not answer these questions in any way resembling legitimacy because it has cut the legs out from moral law altogether.

A simple libertarian principle of non-initiation of force or fraud, coupled with the necessity for enacting justice when infringed against, ensures a virtuous cycle of cooperation.
You are thinking with a Western mind. Not every culture values such things.

It's no coincidence, either, that the tribe you mentioned that holds ritual murder in high regard is a primitive tribe. There is no way you can build a civilization upon ritual murder of innocents - because no good can come out of harming someone except in retaliation for when they have done real harm to you.

Now, if you asked a member of that tribe if they like their system, they'd probably say "yes". But that's only because that's the only system they know! If you taught them about life under different systems, most of them would realize (after getting over the culture shock) that there are much better ways to live. I think the model of the free, Enlightenment western society is taking over the world because more & more people in diverse cultures are learning what the alternate ways of living are out there.
Have you watched the news lately?????

[DittoJed2]

Yes! That is precisely the issue! I assume you agree that the answers of science are just fine -- but only scientifically.
Science is far from infallible, and Darwinistic science has no foundation for answers about life (not the biological mechanisms, the rest of life)because it has no foundation for such having thrown out the supernatural.

So at that point it's a question of your personal ranking of information.
No, it is a matter of God's truth. It doesn't matter if I believe it or not, truth is truth. There are indeed ABSOLUTES in the world, and God set them up. If I want life to go well, I will live by His standards. If not, I can choose not to but that does not change the truth. I may believe that I can jump off a building and that gravity will not be real and I'll float to the ground- but that doesn't change the truth. The TRUTH belongs to God, and all truth is His truth. Some of it, He has revealed in Scripture to us. Some of it, will be seen in the afterlife. But all Truth is true truth and all truth is God's truth.

[VadeRetro]

And you, dear sir, didn't answer a single objection that Ted put forward.

Aetiocetus.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your analysis and bringing the link forward!

When I first ran into Aristarchus and found the date 150 BC, his name was mentioned in conjunction with the first assertion of heliocentricity. The link provided by Right Wing Professor, from a NASA site, confirms the 150 BC date but attributes it to Ptolemy.

It seems to me that Aristarchus' assertions were like a minority report in the Greek science community until 150 B.C.

Or to sum it up, if Enoch was being modified from time-to-time to include all the latest science theories out of Greece it may have been the first scientific journal (LOL!) That tickled me so much, I had to ping Right Wing Professor, too.

But I truly doubt that is the case. Qumran was a library (though it did have a commercial records area) - and the Jewish tradition was to copy religious texts with great precision, so I doubt it was a science journal.

[Alamo-Girl]

Er, if I may throw in two cents and a link for the Lurkers following your discussion...

Darwin's theory of evolution doesn't even attempt to define "what is life". Indeed, it is a question of great importance and interest - but mostly to physicists, philosophers and theologians:

The Physics of Symbols: Bridging the Epistemic Cut