Why MT doesn't believe in this.

[Yanoda]

No they do not get accustomed to the noises, they are as you say trained. A trained horse can still get spooked. the fact that they are trained not to react to every noise does not show intelligence on the horse's part.

It does however show the intelligence of a human to be able to train them.

How do you know that we do not train ourselves to get used to these noises? Stick a native from the rain forest (who had little to no contact with modern society) and I'll guarantee that the person will not react differently from a another animal. We can train the individual to not get 'spooked'. That is what I was trying to convey in my previous post; when do we say that an organism becomes aware of the 'noise' and when it is trained?

Yes adult chimps can be trained to use use tools the way a 3-4 year old can. But that's where it stops. Those chimps don't continue to learn more. They don't progress far enough to know how to build houses. also they don't learn this on their own. Again the credit lies not with a chimp, but with the [i]human[i] trainer. You could train a chimp to type on a keyboard. (believe me I think we have seen some post on this forum ) but they wouldn't go beyond their training and type out their own thoughts.

Wild chimps have been observed (had no human interaction) to use tools, they were not trained. How do you know if an organism stops learning? Modern humans have developed computers and cars, yet other humans who have been secluded from our modern society (again those who live in the rain forest) have not developed further apart from spears and simple survival skills. They did not learn further and therefore (by your argument) have a similar intelligence to chimps.
What does separate us from other animals is that we were able to efficiently share knowledge, much better than an animal (or chimp for that er). Chimps can learn but likely at a slower rate than us. The amusing thing is, we try to teach animals our language (way of communication), yet humans have difficulties learning theirs (the animals). Sure we know basic forms of what an animal may convey, but we do not fully understand their 'language' either. Maybe chimps do have their own thoughts, but do not express it in a way that we understand. We can not exactly know what an animal thinks unless we fully understand them, until then, we can not assume what they think or if they think. We base most of our conclusions from observations on the animals, what they do and how they react. A human will not behave much differently from an animal if they have been secluded from society/knowledge, but they will be able to learn much faster than a chimp, that I can guarantee. That is the major difference between us and other organisms.

Note: I only addressed your previous post that was about noises on animals directly. I do not disagree that humans are more intelligent than animals, but that we cannot fully differentiate when/where instincts, freewill, awareness, knowledge, and emotions occur on animals/organisms. When do we differentiate whether an animal has been trained or taught? We train children to do certain things yet we say 'they learned it'. Both humans and animals (whether trained or taught) are able to apply the new knowledge to their advantage (mostly).

Cheers

Yanoda

[Col. Hstar]

Stick a native from the rain forest (who had little to no contact with modern society) and I'll guarantee that the person will not react differently from a another animal. We can train the individual to not get 'spooked'. That is what I was trying to convey in my previous post; when do we say that an organism becomes aware of the 'noise' and when it is trained?

Well all I was saying is that a human (even a native from the rain forest) would train themselves to the situation. Yes a human could train them and it would be faster, but left alone in modern society the native too will adapt. That itself is and interesting point, that humans will train not just each other but also themselves. For instance, I personally was diagnosed with Chron's Disease last month, I have a doctor who is training me to how to manage it, but I know that I can train myself also with study and research. Animals get sick, and while they will care for each other they do not understand why or what is making them sick, much less have another animal who will train or teach them. They lack the ability to learn beyond those things.

NO I do not claim to know what an animal thinks, but teaching any animal some tricks humans do does not bring it equal to the marvel that is the human brain.

[(SWGO)Minas_Thirith]

IT's time to give my 2 cents to this thread again with some more recent investigation and a new argument.
Well let's see, in the time when the bible was writen, i'm talking about the times of Moses
In those time there was a lack of hygiene, as well as knowledge about it, about Egypte, they were supposed to be "advanced" in the knowledge of medicine, however if you look up what kind of stuff they did to you....
One example:
Recipe against splinters, cook the blood of a worm in oil, kill a mole cook him in oil, then mix this oil with donkey [poo] and apply it on the wound with the splinters

The effect was assured, in a few days those splinters would be out, however if you would die of disease a few days after that mathered little, since this did work.
The average lifetime of the Egypts was 20-25 Years, the maximum life a cananite could live was 30 years average, and around 50% of the population was dead before they were 18.
This was due to the lack of hygiene, the lack of medicine, and the lack of morale they had, many in those times would die of a venereal disease.
Now i'm stating "those times" this lack of hygiene etc lasted trew the middle ages till around the 19'th century.
In around the year 1830ish a docter discovered that if they washed their hand they would prevent the death of womans giving birth and dying of farrowing fever.
Docters in those times would, in the morning check the cause of death from certain people and without washing their hands afterwards helping womans give birth to their children
In these cases around average of 20% died of farrowing fever, after washing their hands this droped to less then 2%

Now Moses was raised by Egyptians, educated by them as well, the Egyptians had a strange way of explaining how the world came to be, nothing near to god creating the earth
However this didn't change what he wrote in gen 1:1
Now more amazing for me are the laws that the jews were given.

Above i stated that docters working in the morning in the morgue, and later on giving birth to children meant they were potencially the cause of the death of many of those womans, the laws in moses times said that anyone touching a dead person or animal was unclean for a week, furthermore they had to live in quarantine
Anyone with any venereal disease was considered unclean, anything he touched was unclean, if anyone that has touched him or anything he touched then they were unclean.
They had to wash themselfs and stay unclean till that night, washing was very unusual in those times.

IF people had to take a dump they were to do so OUTSIDE the place where they were staying, and they had to dig a hole to do so

Also some animals were unclean, and the jews weren't allowed to eat them
They had to be "ruminants" as well as having some exeptions, now why was this? well it seems that most carnivors had a chance of having certain "worms"(i don't know the exact name) these could either make you sick, or kill you, as far as rabitts go, they bring flees and in those times disease, same thing goes with pigs

I could keep going and going with these laws, but to get to my point.
These laws gave the jews gave hygene, made the people have to wash themselfs at least one time a week wich was very unusual at those time, it gave them a morale making sure there was a minimum of venereal diseases, and since anyone with a disease had to live outside the city/encampments it made sure they weren't spreading an epidimy
So now, hygene, having to wash etc wasn't done by other people till the late 19'th century, i'm not even stating it was uncommon but it was a totally diffrent way of living wich protected them, if humanity found out about these "hygene" laws in the past 200ish years, then how come moses had them 3500 years before anyone else knew about it?
IF the bible was writen by a man and not inspired by god, then how the heck did a man educated by Egyptians come by all these laws of personal hygene wich prevented harm to the jews? since noone else ever wrote laws like this till around the year 1800 then how come this man knew?

Try giving an answer to that cience

MT

[Mandalore]

China-Blowing away your country technologically from forever ago to the 1600s!

[Darth Crater]

MT, your argument only looks at one subsection of ancient culture (the Middle East) and one section of later culture (Europe / "Western"). How do the Jews' laws about uncleanliness differ from, say, the Hindu caste system (in which only the "untouchables" work with waste or corpses)? What about the Americas or Asia; how did cultures there behave? The Middle East wasn't some magical bastion of exceptional health, as far as I'm aware (unless you're counting the Muslim empires of around the 12th century, who did indeed develop greater medical knowledge than Europe would have for some time, but that just indicates that Europe was horrifically backward in that respect). Also, you should consider how much of this behavior (like defecating away from sleeping/eating sites) is shared by other animals. It's simply a good survival strategy.

Was Moses the one who wrote Genesis? Was he the one who compiled the Jewish laws? I don't remember currently whether either of those has any supporting evidence; could someone with more biblical experience fill me in?

[Mandalore]

Romans (Greek Mythology) : Most developed public health care system in the world up to that point.
Chinese (Traditional Ancestor Worship):
Deficiency Diseases (Correction by proper diet) - 4th Century BC
Diabetes - Recognition in 2nd Century BC, further developed theories by 6th century A.D. in regards to excess of sugar in urine
Endocrinology
Inoculation
Treatment of smallpox
Thyroid Hormones to treat goiter 240 BC
Discovery of Circadian Rhythm 240 BC (Not "discovered" by whites until the 1960s)
Symptoms of leprosy (In contention with the indians as to who got to say first on this)

And that's just medicine, which the Chinese did in their spare time after planning the world's largest endeavors and designing cities that could support entire sections of Europe's population. No biggie though. I'm sure the Jews can compare. Not eating animals is good and stuff.

[11_Panama_]

Here's alittle trivia for ya'. In the old days before toilet paper, people wiped themselves with their left hand....that's why we shake hands with the right....the left is considered "unclean".

[Yanoda]

Well all I was saying is that a human (even a native from the rain forest) would train themselves to the situation. Yes a human could train them and it would be faster, but left alone in modern society the native too will adapt. That itself is and interesting point, that humans will train not just each other but also themselves. For instance, I personally was diagnosed with Chron's Disease last month, I have a doctor who is training me to how to manage it, but I know that I can train myself also with study and research. Animals get sick, and while they will care for each other they do not understand why or what is making them sick, much less have another animal who will train or teach them. They lack the ability to learn beyond those things.

NO I do not claim to know what an animal thinks, but teaching any animal some tricks humans do does not bring it equal to the marvel that is the human brain.

Reading through our discussion again, I noticed I was just over analyzing and never actually got to the point I wanted to make. To make it short, what I wanted to say is:
That we should not underestimate the intelligence of animals. Sure they may not get to the level of our intelligence, but that doesn't mean they should be regarded any less. We learn several things from animals and it may be that they learn from us, we may not know 100%.

Hope that clarified it and our discussion was enjoyable.

To the other post!
@ MT
Good to have you back in the topic!

Egyptians were advanced in medicine in their time (ancient times). Though, further research indicates that cleanliness was not the deciding factor for categorizing their advancement in medicine. They were more known for their knowledge in diagnosing illnesses, herbal remedies and treatment of wounds. http://www.king-tut.org.uk/ancient-egyp ... dicine.htm

This was due to the lack of hygiene, the lack of medicine, and the lack of morale they had, many in those times would die of a venereal disease.
MT

I'm not sure what you mean by morale, did you mean moral? If you meant moral, then that is just an assumption that the Egyptians were bad people based on your views (ie. what you believe the Bible claims). You cannot equate having no moral to getting a disease, there is no evidence supporting that and many people (who were assumed to be 'good moral people') died of diseases.

I can also nit pick and show how backward the Bible can be when it concerns healing. In this example, it is about leprosy. In Leviticus 13 & 14.
To summarize:
To cure (clean) leprosy a priest must make several sacrifices depending on the circumstances to heal the infected. It goes further that the house should also be cleansed by sacrificing a bird and clean it with the blood.

Would you and any other person use the same procedure to cure Leprosy? I think not.

Also some animals were unclean, and the jews weren't allowed to eat them
They had to be "ruminants" as well as having some exeptions, now why was this? well it seems that most carnivors had a chance of having certain "worms"(i don't know the exact name) these could either make you sick, or kill you, as far as rabitts go, they bring flees and in those times disease, same thing goes with pigs
MT

Several animals were (ie. pigs and shrimps) not eaten by Jews and other religions was because the meat went bad quite fast and there were no refrigerators at the time. Cooking was not as advanced either at the time and some worm/parasites survived the 'cooking' then eventually eaten by humans. The rules were set to prevent people from getting sick as it was obvious that rotten meat is not good for us (smell is also a good indication). The easiest way for people to follow these rules were to claim that God commanded it.

I could keep going and going with these laws, but to get to my point.
These laws gave the jews gave hygene, made the people have to wash themselfs at least one time a week wich was very unusual at those time, it gave them a morale making sure there was a minimum of venereal diseases, and since anyone with a disease had to live outside the city/encampments it made sure they weren't spreading an epidimy
MT

Today it is not considered hygienic to wash/shower once a week, but at that time it was.
Diseases were well known in ancient times and often used as weapons (early forms of biological weapons). Bodies were often just burned in the spot to avoid such diseases spreading, many different nations and religions did this practice so it cannot be singularly given credit to the Jews or your Bible.

The problem why the practice (of washing hands) was used/discovered again so late was due to the loss of knowledge and technological advancement. That is why we had the Dark Ages in Europe for a millennium. But, if you say that Moses knew about this already (from the account of the Bible), why didn't the priests etc. tell the people about washing? Couldn't they have prevented many deaths due to diseases?
This is the problem with the Bible I kept addressing, it is easily interpreted in different ways based on the situation and view of the interpreter. Don't forget that at the same time (Dark Ages, AKA the Middle Ages), many people were executed for questioning the Bible or did actions (harmless) that were not wanted by the Church in the name of God.
There were many instances (Galileo for example) where the Church protested scientific studies that contradicted their Bible and ideology.

As Panama stated, the left hand is still considered unclean in many cultures (Muslims being the main example) and is used to do unclean 'tasks'. Since people did not clean often (or did not have the means) they made a rule separating the hands actions to reduce the chance of spreading illnesses. That I was taught as a child when I lived in Morocco, a Muslim country.

Cheers

Yanoda

[Col. Hstar]

This is the problem with the Bible I kept addressing, it is easily interpreted in different ways based on the situation and view of the interpreter. Don't forget that at the same time (Dark Ages, AKA the Middle Ages), many people were executed for questioning the Bible or did actions (harmless) that were not wanted by the Church in the name of God.

You, can't judge the bible by the actions of those who claim to follow it. People doing evil things in the name of God was foretold by his son Jesus Christ when he was on earth. At Matt 13:24-26, Jesus gave an Illustration, and explained it in vs 37-39

24 Another illustration he set before them, saying: “The kingdom of the heavens has become like a man that sowed fine seed in his field. 25 While men were sleeping, his enemy came and oversowed weeds in among the wheat, and left. 26 When the blade sprouted and produced fruit, then the weeds appeared also. 36 Then after dismissing the crowds he went into the house. And his disciples came to him and said: “Explain to us the illustration of the weeds in the field.” 37 In response he said: “The sower of the fine seed is the Son of man; 38 the field is the world; as for the fine seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; but the weeds are the sons of the wicked one, 39 and the enemy that sowed them is the Devil.

At 2 Peter2:1,2 the Apostle Peter also warned of the effect these weeds (or false Christians) on the way people would view Christianity and the bible.

However, there also came to be false prophets among the people, as there will also be false teachers among YOU. These very ones will quietly bring in destructive sects and will disown even the owner that bought them, bringing speedy destruction upon themselves. 2 Furthermore, many will follow their acts of loose conduct, and on account of these the way of the truth will be spoken of abusively.

During the following 2 centuries, Bible truth became corrupted with Greek Mythology, and many people started accepting pagan doctrines and teaching as bible truths. So when in the 4th century Constantine adopted Christianity as the religion of the Holy Roman Empire it was as Jesus said over run with weeds or false teaching. So many of these Holy Wars and atrocities being committed in the name of God are actually being fueled by Satan the Devil.

I understand that what your saying is that the interpretation of the bible basically depends on who does the interpreting, but there are enough things in the bible that are straight forward enough to know if the one interpreting it , is doing it correctly.

For instance, how many religions have priest, or bishops, or clergy or any member who condones going off to war and fighting and killing for ones own country. Some even take the extra step to bless troops before entering battle, this is completely contrary to what Jesus taught. Jesus taught to love your neighbor- Matt 22:39 and he taught that we should be no part of the world or it's affairs - John 17:16. How can anyone who claims to follow the teachings of Jesus go to war or condone it.

What about religions which charge patrons and parishioners money. When instructing his disciples how to preach Jesus said at Matt 10:8 that they received free, so give free. yes it cost money for people who have devoted their lives to teaching others about God, but as Jesus pointed out at Luke 10:7 that a worker is worthy of his wages. In other words God sustains those who work in harmony with his will.

Idol worship. This goes all the way back to the 10 commandments. Idolatry involves a ceremony or a ritual. Idolatry is the veneration, love, worship, or adoration of an idol. How many churches and religious organizations use idols or images to worship god. The cross for example is sacred to many religions, or the statues of Mary, or rosaries, and yet this was the 3rd commandment.

These are just some of the things we can use to look objectively at any Christen Religion that claims to work in the name of God.

I know this has gone off the topic you were discussing Yanoda, but I saw that statement and I just wanted to comment on it. And yes I enjoy our discussions too :)

Also as a side note, I think that the point MT was driving at was that the regulations and guidelines for hygiene given to the ancient Israel of that time were all scientifically sound, and yes, ahead of their time. I don't think he was claiming that modern medicine came from them.

Oie sooooo much typing :P

[(SWGO)Minas_Thirith]

To the other post!
@ MT
Good to have you back in the topic

I'm not sure what you mean by morale, did you mean moral? If you meant moral, then that is just an assumption that the Egyptians were bad people based on your views (ie. what you believe the Bible claims). You cannot equate having no moral to getting a disease, there is no evidence supporting that and many people (who were assumed to be 'good moral people') died of diseases.

I can also nit pick and show how backward the Bible can be when it concerns healing. In this example, it is about leprosy. In Leviticus 13 & 14.
To summarize:
To cure (clean) leprosy a priest must make several sacrifices depending on the circumstances to heal the infected. It goes further that the house should also be cleansed by sacrificing a bird and clean it with the blood.

Would you and any other person use the same procedure to cure Leprosy? I think not.
Well for starters i did mean moral, and i wasn't necesarily talking about Egyptian moral, more like general.
You see the moral i'm talking about isn't based on the bible but of statements of historians, for example the fact that the Amorites by law were allowed to have intercourse with cattle while in other cases there was no restrictions, if anyone here by common sence doesn't state this is inmoral then there is something wrong with you lol.
As far as lev 13-14 goes ill copy/paste it when i get home, from what i'm reading the priests had to inspect these posible lepra cases and depending on the case and color declare it one way or another.
I don't find anything regarding a bird


Several animals were (ie. pigs and shrimps) not eaten by Jews and other religions was because the meat went bad quite fast and there were no refrigerators at the time. Cooking was not as advanced either at the time and some worm/parasites survived the 'cooking' then eventually eaten by humans. The rules were set to prevent people from getting sick as it was obvious that rotten meat is not good for us (smell is also a good indication). The easiest way for people to follow these rules were to claim that God commanded it.
the smell sure as hell wasn't ovbios in the middle ages, and most people around israel at that time nor in the future followed said rules, so as far as my unanswered question goes, how did moses raised by Egyptians knew all this? There was no science to proove anything all these laws weren't ussed by the rest of humanity till the last freaking 100' s of years, moses wasn't tought any of this, yet after leaving Egypte he stated all this

Today it is not considered hygienic to wash/shower once a week, but at that time it was.
Diseases were well known in ancient times and often used as weapons (early forms of biological weapons). Bodies were often just burned in the spot to avoid such diseases spreading, many different nations and religions did this practice so it cannot be singularly given credit to the Jews or your Bible.

The problem why the practice (of washing hands) was used/discovered again so late was due to the loss of knowledge and technological advancement. That is why we had the Dark Ages in Europe for a millennium. But, if you say that Moses knew about this already (from the account of the Bible), why didn't the priests etc. tell the people about washing? Couldn't they have prevented many deaths due to diseases?
This is the problem with the Bible I kept addressing, it is easily interpreted in different ways based on the situation and view of the interpreter. Don't forget that at the same time (Dark Ages, AKA the Middle Ages), many people were executed for questioning the Bible or did actions (harmless) that were not wanted by the Church in the name of God.
There were many instances (Galileo for example) where the Church protested scientific studies that contradicted their Bible and ideology.

The first mistake yet again is binding the bible to a religion.
The curch back then did do such things, but i also recall them stating that bad people would go to hell for an eternal suffering, however the bible doesn't state this.

As far as spreading these laws i don't recall the name p(i have to look it up) there was a man during the plague that applied the laws of the bible recalling cleansiness as a consequence that village/region had no rats, wich meant no plague, stats show that only less then 5% of the people there became sick.
He spread the word about it, but instead of others applying this method they tortured him and excecuted him. Because they tought that since there were little to no people sick there that he was one of the persons spreading the plague
Cheers

Yanoda

bold are the answers, jeez hard work doing this with a phone

Mt