I realize that. Bodo was exactly correct. This discussion is beyond help. You think the laws of physics were broken by some guy two thousand years ago and that there are ways of knowing such things that do not depend on observation or rational thought. I think that’s nuts. That is the situation, and even if this conversation continues on to page fifty it will, I predict, continue to be the situation. It’s nice to know there are some constants in life. 
Bollocks. Science, if it is even necessary to use such an illustrious term, tells us that the physical world has certain properties. [/quote]
The laws of science are merely observations. And yes, that includes certain properties about the world.
Actually, I didn’t make that claim. I just denied the assumption. You see, you’re claiming that the physical laws are eternal. That is an assumption science makes. But we’ve already found that at the quantum level these laws don’t all apply.
Theists have the advantage of arguing from a position of an omnipotent, omnicient God. Any sort of attempt to claim something is impossible can almost always be defeated by an appeal to these qualities.
Now, if a theist goes and tries and prove that the universe was created by God they cannot appeal to these qualities. But if an atheist tries to argue it is impossible for their to be a God, then the theists have near free-reign to explain things away by virtue of God’s nature.
Again, it is all about who is making the claim. If I am trying to prove something about God or the universe I have to back up everything I say. If you’re trying to say what I think cannot possibly right, then you have to back up what you say.
There are plenty of things I believe to exist despite the fact that I haven’t seen them, just not Jesus talking for god or as god or whatever it is you guys believe. [/quote]
But science is not the basis for your lack of belief. You cannot claim science as your bedrock foundation. You have no science to rely on for your claim.
It reveals that if the Chinese had made a map of North and South America they would have needed to have actually lived in those places long enough to do so. If they had done that they would have left evidence, things like cities and such.[/quote]
Think a little more carefully.
#1- You didn’t say the map had to be accurate, or that the map had to be inland.
#2- Chinese would not need to settle in the US to have made a map
The Chinese map could have been made by a mariner that mapped the West coast of North and South America just like Amerigo Vespucci. There is no reason a Chinese sailor could not have built a ship and done this.
If you mean the map included inland data, they still wouldn’t need to have left a city. How much evidence remains today of Lewis and Clark’s expedition? If what we have wasn’t carefully preserved we may not have any indication they ever lived did their survey.
How many cities did they leave behind?
OK you are just having fun winding me up and watching me spin right? Experimenting with just how much silliness I am willing to respond to?[/quote]
Not at all.
I don’t believe there was a Chinese map made of the Americas. It would take some evidence to convince me that is true.
However, and here’s where you and I differ, I don’t think anyone who makes such a claim must be wrong or ridiculous.
No, but it is more likely than that he was who he said he was. We are going in circles here.[/quote]
WHY is it more likely? The man raises the dead, walks on water, comes back to life… this is all extraordinary proof. It is the sort of proof that is required to make such a claim.
The problem is, we can’t verify any of it. So, we are left only to believe or disbelieve. If you want to disbelieve you need an alternate explanation. You have it.
But that doesn’t make your way of thinking any stronger.
No, just reasonable given what we know of the world.[/quote]
Yes, your doubts are reasonable. But you are not satisfied with that. You have to claim that belief is unreasonable. You still must demonstrate that it is unreasonable.
I don’t know this lady. I can’t argue with you about her. How do you know she sees ghosts? Does she tell you she sees them? Did she tell you in English? Do you really understand what she said in Chinese correctly?
Bob, the problem is that you are making some big value judgements but you don’t have the evidence to back up what you are saying. You cannot claim to know what the truth is. You can only say what you believe.
Um, actually, I believe neither of those things.
In fact, I think pretty most religious people believe that on the second count that they are observing something— just not with any of the five senses.
Call that nuts if you want, I’ll just retort thinking it’s nuts is narrow-minded.
So, I’m crazy, and you’re narrow-minded. I’d prefer not to have this thread go to page 50.
OK! I can live with that!
About the map thing though, we still have a little clearing up to do…
I’d like to begin by asking, have you ever, like, been in a boat? Cuz last time I was in a boat one of the things I noticed was that by god there’s a lot of water out there. I mean really just miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of the stuff. Corresponding to that are miles and miles and miles etc (you get the idea) of land. It is of course the intersection of these vast quantities that concerns us here you see because in order to draw a reasonably accurate map of NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA! as some claim that the Chinese had done some thousand or so years before the invention of, well, practically anything when you get right down to it, it would have been neccessay to do a great many complicated things with regards to measurement and so forth. And here we arrive at the third vast quantity at it’s intersection with the hitherto aforemnentioned vast quanities (water and land in case you have forgotten) TIME. Yes dear reader it would have taken a great deal of TIME to have drawn a reasonably accurate map of North and South America, and given vast amounts of time man is apt to do rather a lot of eating and drinking and giving birth and dying and scratching symbols on trees
and rocks and and such. The Chinese in particular have a particularly distinctive way of proceeding with regard to issues such as these in the form of the Chinese language. Perhaps you have heard of it?
And so on and so forth the great debate trundles ever forward with barely a pause as new problems present themselves and are resolved and the mind begins to wander and spin and the screen on our computer takes on an orange glow and just for a moment you wonder, is that a halo? or the dim yet almost perversly insistent glow of rational thought asserting itself once again?
OK! I can live with that!
About the map thing though, we still have a little clearing up to do…
I’d like to begin by asking, have you ever, like, been in a boat? Cuz last time I was in a boat one of the things I noticed was that by god there’s a lot of water out there. I mean really just miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of the stuff. Corresponding to that are miles and miles and miles etc (you get the idea) of land. It is of course the intersection of these vast quantities that concerns us here you see because in order to draw a reasonably accurate map of NORTH AND SOUTH America! as some claim that the Chinese had done some thousand or so years before the invention of, well, practically anything when you get right down to it, it would have been neccessay to do a great many complicated things with regards to measurement and so forth. And here we arrive at the third vast quantity at it’s intersection with the hitherto aforemnentioned vast quanities (water and land in case you have forgotten) TIME. Yes dear reader it would have taken a great deal of TIME to have drawn a reasonably accurate map of North and South America, and given vast amounts of time man is apt to do rather a lot of eating and drinking and giving birth and dying and scratching symbols on trees
and rocks and and such. The Chinese in particular have a particularly distinctive way of proceeding with regard to issues such as these in the form of the Chinese language. Perhaps you have heard of it? [/quote]
Hey, I’m not saying it’s likely. Just possible.
Europeans made a map of North and South America. It took a year. The technology they used wasn’t great.
So, what’s to say someone didn’t sail out, find land, and then sail back? But then, people didn’t actually believe the person really did what he said he did? He went out again and died?
Totally believable.
I don’t believe it, but it is rational and reasonable to do so.
[quote=“puiwaihin”] So, what’s to say someone didn’t sail out, find land, and then sail back? But then, people didn’t actually believe the person really did what he said he did? He went out again and died?
Totally believable.
I don’t believe it, but it is rational and reasonable to do so.[/quote]
I am beginning to think that almost anything is rational and reasonable to you. Like for example that “someone” (I suspect you mean a crew) sailed from China to the Americas, left no trace of their visit, returned to China and left no historical record of such a voyage there either, but a map of North America and South America! appears some thousand years later. This is rational and resonable to you? Please, I beg of, tell me you are joking.
It would be surprising if they left a trace of their visit. The early explorers left little behind for us to discover. It is only permanent type settlements that we find a lot of arhaelogical records.
The lack of a historical record in China could be attributed to nobody actually believing the person who made the voyage. Or, perhaps the group that made the voyage ended up on the wrong side of a war and their claims of visiting the Western Paradise were silenced along with their lives. Yet, the map remained.
These are all just possibilities. They aren’t even a stretch of the imagination. This involves no ghosts, aliens, or divine power. Just a group of explorers lost to the chaos of history.
Of course, all I’m saying is pure fiction. There’s nothing to suggest this at all. But if there were a map that could reasonably be passed off as 1000 years old of North and South America, and some back-story to explain why it has just been discovered, I would be open to the possibility that it was real. After all, there are ways it could have happened.
OK so some crew of brave sailors sailed across the pacific up and down the entire west side of North and South America, drew a map of it, then up and down the east coast of north and south america, drew a map of that too showing such details as the gulf of St Lawrence and Hudson’s Bay! and then what? Did they fashion an ice breaker out of ceramic pots and make a go of it though the north west passage or did they turn around and sail all the way back around the tip of South America again before heading back to China to drop off the map they drew? No, on second thought they must have gone over the pole becuse that detail is contained in the map. Perhaps they taught the eskimo a thing about dim sum and such who knows! But then hey, it seems to me the passage over the north of Europe is contained in the map also so let’s see… what could they have done? I suspect they went straight north from China over the Eurasian continent, straight over the north of Canada then down the west side of North and South America up the east, across over to Europe around the the tip of Africa and then across the Indian Ocean to China! It’s all perfectly reasonable and within the realm of possibility, and after all, they left a map. It must be true.
You’re introducing a level of detail I was not aware of coming into the discussion.
I thought the map was something you either made up or something someone else had claimed elsewhere but without such a level of detail available.
Given your level of detail it does become very difficult to accept for a number of reasons.
Is it still possible? Yes, but the level of improbability has increased considerably. There’s too much evidence against it.
Until you added in all these details, though, I’d find the idea of a Chinese explorer coming back with a map well within reason. But the map being accurate on both sides of the continent and including the St. Lawrence river and the polar caps is incredible.
There would need to be more evidence to support the map for it not to be dismissed.
See, now, you are mischaracterizing things.
perfectly reasonable != within the realm of possibility != must be true
I’d say with all the details you have added that the map is still within the realm of possibility. However, it is no longer perfectly reasonable. And once more, just because something is perfectly reasonable does not make it necessarily true. Before you added the details I would think the idea was still perfectly reasonable as well.
No worries Puiwaihin. I’m just getting carried away with my own rhetoric these days for some strange reason. Half of what I said wasn’t even accurate. Anyway, here’s a link to the map. It couldn’t have been made without a trip over the top of North America, the Eurasian continent and around the tip of Africa. It’s nonsense IMHO.
[quote=“bob”]Anyway, here’s a link to the map. It couldn’t have been made without a trip over the top of North America, the Eurasian continent and around the tip of Africa. It’s nonsense IMHO.
economist.com/books/displays … id=5381851[/quote]
After reading the description from the Economist, I’d have to put the map being authentic back squarely as reasonable.
But it is far from certainly true.
My best guess is that the person who copied the map added the whole North/South American continents himself (referencing later maps from the period) and just claimed the 1400’s map included it.
That’s what I’m guessing too but there are obviously a lot of people who are willing to over look the irrationality of it all because they want to believe it. Sort of like some poor sod living in the middle wast 2000 years ago. Nuthin to do but bake his head in the sun and scratch patterns in the dirt with his big toe. But wait, here comes perenially joyous dude telling poor sod he’s made in the image of god, and with enough faith he’ll be welcomed into paradise after death. Heck, I’m ready to join that plan myself.
I didn’t say believing the map was correct was irrational. Actually, it is very much rational to believe it is possibly authenic. I don’t think it probably is, but it’s rational to think so.
No it isn’t. Or perhaps it is. Rational but not reasonable perhaps. In line with the dictates of rational thought but still as dumb as donkey dung? Heck, I dunno.
Well, rational and reasonable are almost the same.
See, I don’t get why a person can’t believe the map is authentic. The number one reason we would think it unlikely is not a rational reason. That number one reason is that it contradicts what we believe. We have an irrational response to that automatically. That’s confirmation bias, and pretty much all humans have it.
According to the article, the trip was made by a Chinese admiral. The trip was well documented. All the information corresponds to information available at the time. The story does not claim the admiral discovered all the things on the map, but that the map was composed of information from both the Chinese and also from contact with Europeans.
All these things jive with reason.
There are some unexplained things, but that does not make it unreasonable. Otherwise you’d have to say that evolution, quantum mechanics, and psychology are unreasonable.
But just because something is reasonable does not make it persuasive. And just because something is persuasive does not make it true.
I don’t find the evidence given persuasive. But I find it reasonable.
This one gives more detail…
1421.tv/pages/maps/voyages.htm#calicut
Here it is claimed that several colonies were established along the west coast of North America from Canada all the way down to peru, and that a vessel sailed the Berring Straights from Europe to China.
That information is more difficult to believe. As you rightly point out, a claim for establishment of colonies is difficult to back up and there likely would be some remaining evidence from colonies.
And so it appears that, using what information is available to us and a healthy dose of rationality, we have concluded that the “Chinese discovered the world” concept is likely a sham. How likely is it do you think that if we had been alive at the time of Jesus, and had the same information and technology available to us that we have today, we would have concluded that that whole story was a sham as well?
Not necessarily a sham. And parts of it are likely true. That doesn’t mean it is all true or certainly true. But neither does it mean it is certainly false either.
Applying a healthy dose of rationality, the best thing to do is withold judgement.
You see, it is rational to believe in the Chinese map. It is also rational to believe it is a sham. What is irrational is thinking that anyone who believes in the map is nuts.
Why is it irrational to think that it’s nuts to believe in the map? Because your decision that it is nuts is not based on the facts. It is based on a reaction to your preconceptions. It is an emotional/psychological defence, not rational, reasoned thinking.
We still can’t conclude the story is a sham. We can believe it is a sham. We can’t conclude it is true, we can just believe it is true.
That applies to a belief in God. There is no conclusion. The evidence is not overwhelming on either side.
You are still assuming that if history played out now that our technology wouldn’t confirm the Biblical story. You are assuming it would disprove it, and that’s not something you can do.
You can disbelieve in the map. But you can’t be sure it’s false and you can’t call anyone who believes in it unreasonable.
You can disbelieve in God. But you can’t be sure there’s no God and you can’t call anyone who believes in God unreasonable.
I believe what you believe about the Chinese map. But I don’t believe anyone who disagrees with us is being unreasonable because of that difference in belief.
What are you talking about? I never said people who believed the whole “Chinese discovered the world in 1401” idea were nuts. I said the story was probably a sham. And my statement “was” based on rational, reasoned thinking and some knowledge of the world, its size, and what historical records that have been left etc. Given a certain
Please don’t include me in more conversations about god. I’ve made my position clear on that a dozen times. It is Jesus as the literal son of god, and god as an active agent in worldly affairs that I have a problem with.