Disprove god!

[ComradeDavo]

Way to miss my whole point, that historically Jesus existed and that it is totally illogical to believe otherwise. Give actual solid historical sources for your argument rather then cherry picking hundreds of years of pagan myths that most people in ancient Judea could not have possibly known about without modern archeology.
Which religion is true or not is a totally different argument that I'm not getting into.

There are no solid historical sources supporting Jesus's existence. Thats what i'm getting at. All of them are questionable for various reasons, be it the fact that they have similarties with pagan beliefs or are historically illogical and so forth.

Another example is that one of the first writers to mention Jesus is Flavius Josephus. This is often cited as historical evidence for Jesus. But many people say that compared to his other writings it differes, and appears to have been rewitten favourably towards jesus. This is then refuted by saying it differes from the New Testament and a Christian rewriter would have made it in line with the New Testament which is totally bypassing the fact that many Gos[pels were written, but only 4 ended up in the bible. Additionally Flavius Josephus was not born untill 37CE and the writings mentioning Jesus not written till 93–94CE. That 60 years after Jesus dies. Taking into account that the Jews had been fighting a war with the Romans it would not be surprising for myths and legends to spread in that time.

And dismissing my arguments as 'cherry picking' and 'illogical' just makes me think you don't have any real defence for your points, just faith. If my points are makign youf eel uneasy, then go do some reasearch into your faith yourself. If your just totally dismissing my points then why debate at all?

Not really. It took many decades for any semblance of an organized church to appear. If Christianity had been started as a lark, the founders would not have seen much benefit, earned any riches or gained wealth. All that came many many years later.

There have been countless religions started in the past. I'm not saying it was started for wealth and power, i'm saying it became so prelevant because people took advantage of it for variosu reasons, some of those being wealth and power.

As for benifit for early founders, well humanity has often tried to explain the unknown with religion, to confort itself against death with thoughts of an afterlife, to stop crime with morality.

 

[CocoIsKing28]

Yes! An "Atheist Debate" thread! I've been waiting for this!
Now, to disprove God, you must first tell me why you dismiss the other gods.

 

[Leoreth]

Actually, this isn't an atheism debate. It's a theism debate started by someone who doesn't understand science.

I'm an atheist, but never even once had to assert that God doesn't exist to argue against Ondskan's position.

 

[bathsheba666]

Yet Christianity exists, which contradicts Jesus not existing. Seriously, Christianity was all about Jesus, it didn't just come up suddenly in the Middle Ages like you seem to be implying. Then you have to whole problem of saying what Christianity believed in before it became dominate. Then you have the other problem of explaining why people would give up worldly pleasures and face humiliation by their peers just to follow the teachings of a man who didn't exist.

Scientology exists, which contradicts Xenu not existing.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Since none is forthcoming, how about I'll kick things off.

A new model of the early Earth suggests that until around 2.5 billion years ago oceans covered almost the whole of the planet.

Almost, but I'll grant almost as in a whole lotta water on Earth.

Life? 4500-3500 million years ago.

The Hadean (play /ˈheɪdiən/) is the first geologic eon of Earth and lies before the Archean. It began with the formation of the Earth about 4.5 Ga (billion years ago) and ended roughly 3.8 Ga, though the latter date varies according to different sources. The name "Hadean" derives from Hades, the Greek name for the underworld. The name is in reference to the "hellish" conditions on Earth at the time: the planet had just formed and was still very hot due to high volcanism, a partially molten surface and frequent collisions with other Solar System bodies. The geologist Preston Cloud coined the term in 1972, originally to label the period before the earliest-known rocks on Earth. W. Brian Harland later coined an almost synonymous term: the "Priscoan period". Other, older texts simply refer to the eon as the Pre-Archean.

A sizeable quantity of water would have been in the material which formed the Earth.[3] Water molecules would have escaped Earth's gravity more easily when it was less massive during its formation. Hydrogen and helium are expected to continually leak from the atmosphere[clarification needed].

Part of the ancient planet is theorized to have been disrupted by the impact that created the Moon, which should have caused melting of one or two large areas. Present composition does not match complete melting and it is hard to completely melt and mix huge rock masses.[4] However, a fair fraction of material should have been vaporized by this impact, creating a rock vapor atmosphere around the young planet. The rock vapor would have condensed within two thousand years, leaving behind hot volatiles which probably resulted in a heavy CO2 atmosphere with hydrogen and water vapor. Liquid water oceans existed despite the surface temperature of 230 °C (446 °F) because of the atmospheric pressure of the heavy CO2 atmosphere. As cooling continued, subduction and dissolving in ocean water removed most CO2 from the atmosphere but levels oscillated wildly as new surface and mantle cycles appeared.

How did people all over the world "guess" right about what the world was like 4 billion years ago before our first evidence of life and plate tectonics? These myths claim a water covered world existed before the creator arrived on the scene and some "disturbance" between the two resulted in life and land. And these are not prophecies, they are what our ancestors believed about the world and our "sky".

And a short google and wiki visit tells me they guessed wrong.

Please show me where I went wrong.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

There are many similarites between Christianity and other religions. Surely you know the term Paganism?

As for Jesus himself, well again similarities in his story and that of other religions.

Read more on wiki if you want:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_in_comparative_mythology

I recall Plotinus thoroughly debunking most of these. Most of those Pagan myths had to reinterpreted to be closer to Christianity before it made any sense to claim that Christianity borrowed from them. The other resurrection deities were clearly associated with the yearly cycle of seasons, which Christ was not. The Roman Cult of Mithras is younger than Christianity, and none of the aspects that Christians supposedly borrowed from it are found in Persians sources about the deity upon which it may or may not have been based. Things like a December 25th birthday are not very relevant, as no one in the early church believed that Jesus was born then.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Wasn't there some sort of reference that suggests him being born in the summer.

 

[Berzerker]

They certainly didn't "cite nine planets". They mentioned nine things which you or whoever you use as your source then proceeded to attribute to the planets, even though this is certainly completely baseless.

Because at the time where these texts were created three of the "nine" planets weren't actually known. Uranus was only discovered in 1781, for example. And before you chime in with "clearly these ancient texts already knew how the universe works!", you have given the answer to this claim in your own post. Who cares how planets are defined? It's a completely arbitrary category. There are more than nine objects that orbit the sun. So if you want to hold the position that Pluto was a planet all along, then so is Eris, which is larger and more massive than Pluto, as well as other trans-Neptunian objects. In any case, you can't come up with a consistent definition of "planet" that results in nine planets in the solar system.

It doesn't matter how we define planets because we didn't write these texts - they defined planets and they counted 9 before creation. If it isn't Pluto, its another object - I include Pluto as "their 9th" because of how they described it. Whatever their 9th planet was, it originally started out as a companion to Saturn (Anshar) and was released upon Marduk's "intervention" to tell the other gods of Marduk's willingness to battle Tiamat. Saturn's rings point to Pluto near perihelion and there are other mathematical relationships between the two. So Pluto is the best candidate for being this long lost companion to Saturn.

I shouldn't post all of this, so here's the relevant parts of the Enuma Elish

When on high the heaven had not been named,
Firm ground below had not been called by name, (before Heaven and Earth-dry land)
Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter, (sun)
(And) Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all, (mummu=mercury, Tiamat=Tehom)
Their waters commingling as a single body; (solar nebula)
No reed hut had been matted, no marsh land had appeared,
When no gods whatever had been brought into being,
Uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined- (destinies = orbits)
Then it was that the gods were formed within them. (between sun and Tiamat)
Lahmu and Lahamu were brought forth, by name they were called.
For aeons they grew in age and stature. (Venus and Mars - war goddess/god)
Anshar and Kishar were formed, surpassing the others.
They prolonged the days, added on the years. (Jupiter and Saturn)
Anu was their son, of his fathers the rival;
Yea, Anshar's first born, Anu was his equal.
Anu begot in his image Nudimmud. (Uranus and Neptune - sun and 8 planets)

This Nudimmud was of his fathers the master;
Of broad wisdom, understanding, mighty in strength,
Mightier by far than his grandfather, Anshar.
He had no rival among the gods, his brothers. (Neptune had the loftiest of orbits)
The divine brothers banded together,
They disturbed Tiamat as they surged back and forth,
Yea, they troubled the mood of Tiamat
By their hilarity in the Abode of Heaven.
Apsu could not lessen their clamour
And Tiamat was speechless at their ways.
Their doings were loathsome unto (. . .).
Unsavory were their ways; they were overbearing. (chaotic orbits)
Then Apsu, the begetter of the great gods,
Cried out, addressing Mummu, his vizier:
"O Mummu. my vizier, who rejoicest my spirit,
Come hither and let us go to Tiamat!"(skipping to Marduk)

In the chamber of fates, the abode of destinies,
A god was engendered, most potent and wisest of gods.
In the heart of Apsu was Marduk created,
In the heart of holy Apsu was Marduk created. (the "new" Apsu = Neptune's realm)
skipping a bit...
Clothed with the halo of the ten gods, he was strong to the utmost,
As their awesome flashes were heaped upon him. (10???)
skipping more...
Anu, Enlil, and Ea he made occupy their places. (original trinity?)
.....
Gaga (Pluto?) makes its appearance in the story later as Anshar's companion sent off to the other gods to explain the situation and proclaim Marduk's supremacy. The Moon (Kingu) also appears as the leader of Tiamat's forces - many of them fled or were caught in Marduk's net. Might explain long term retrograde comets... They're slowly figuring out the Oort Cloud theory has a serious flaw.

Google cylinder seal VA 243 and compare it to this story and our solar system.

Nowhere. I never claimed you did.
It would help immensely to substantiate claims you make with supporting evidence.
I cannot cherry pick 2 myths if I don't know beforehand what's in them can I?

You took 2 myths - 1 about a cosmic egg or something and 1 about yellow clay in making man. So, you found 1 myth that might be related to the subject of what the world was like before creation - not 2. And of course you cherry picked it, if it was a myth that supported what I said you wouldn't have mentioned it. That you randomly found it just makes your whole argument even more nonsensical. And I cited a myth from China that does support what I said, so your cosmic egg aint even relevant. The Chinese did have a creation myth about a water covered world being bombarded by rocks from the sky - imagine that.

When I asked for some evidence I expected something more substantial than: this is my theory, so it must have happened this way. I'm really interested in this stuff, so please point me to some evidence. (wrt the moon)

Surely you have something beyond "take my word for it" when you say:

I have yet to see a myth that states what our world was like 4 billion years ago. And I still don't think 4 billion years ago the Earth was covered with water. I think that was later, but I'm not sure. All I'm saying is: show me.

Where did I say take my word for it? I already answered your question - our world was covered by water before ~ 4 bya. Thats what our science tells us... And it tells us the Earth went thru a bombardment ~ 4 bya that led to the appearance of life and our first real evidence of plate tectonics - the process by which continents form - thats the biblical "dry land" God called "Earth". These myths from around the world describe what the science says happened ~ 4 bya - before life and land appeared when the world was covered by water.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You took 2 myths - 1 about a cosmic egg or something and 1 about yellow clay in making man. So, you found 1 myth that might be related to the subject of what the world was like before creation - not 2. And of course you cherry picked it, if it was a myth that supported what I said you wouldn't have mentioned it. That you randomly found it just makes your whole argument even more nonsensical. And I cited a myth from China that does support what I said, so your cosmic egg aint even relevant. The Chinese did have a creation myth about a water covered world being bombarded by rocks from the sky - imagine that.

I picked 2 creation myths at random, a Chinese and a Norse. You can't cherry-pick at random. I didn't claim my 2 random picks debunked your claim, I said I picked 2 at random and briefly went through them.

Can you link me to the Chinese creation myth with the water covered Earth please. Will you finally support your claims by anything else besides your say-so?

Where did I say take my word for it?

Every time you claim:

I already answered your question - our world was covered by water before ~ 4 bya. Thats what our science tells us...

Show me where science tells us that. Because I asked 3 times, and did a little googling. First hit tells me it's 2.5 bya. 4 bya Earth was not covered by water.

If my cursory search was mistaken, by all means show me. Show me something that supports your claim instead of merely repeating it. Live up to those standards you thought applied to the Chamber.

And it tells us the Earth went thru a bombardment ~ 4 bya that led to the appearance of life and our first real evidence of plate tectonics - the process by which continents form - thats the biblical "dry land" God called "Earth". These myths from around the world describe what the science says happened ~ 4 bya - before life and land appeared when the world was covered by water.

Well, in that case you will have no problem addressing:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11947659&postcount=145

Classification

Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. Eliade and his student, Charles H. Long, developed a classification based on some common motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types:[17]
Brahmā, the Hindu deva of creation, emerges from a lotus risen from the navel of Viṣņu, who lies with Lakshmi on the serpent Ananta Shesha

Creation ex nihilo in which the creation is through the thought, word, dream or bodily secretions of a divine being
Earth diver creation in which a diver, usually a bird or amphibian sent by a creator, plunges to the seabed through a primordial ocean to bring up sand or mud which develops into a terrestrial world
Emergence myths in which progenitors pass through a series of worlds and metamorphoses until reaching the present world
Creation by the dismemberment of a primordial being
Creation by the splitting or ordering of a primordial unity such as the cracking of a cosmic egg or a bringing order from chaos

In Maya religion, the dwarf was an embodiment of the Maize God's helpers at creation[18]

Marta Weigle further developed and refined this typology to highlight nine themes, adding elements such as deus faber, a creation crafted by a deity, creation from the work of two creators working together or against each other, creation from sacrifice and creation from division/conjugation, accretion/conjunction, or secretion.[17]

An alternative system based on six recurring narrative themes was designed by Raymond Van Over:[17]

a primeval abyss, an infinite expanse of waters or space
an originator deity which is awakened or an eternal entity within the abyss
an originator deity poised above the abyss
a cosmic egg or embryo
an originator deity creating life through sound or word
life generating from the corpse or dismembered parts of an originator deity

Come and see the relevancy of my egg!

Help! Help!

edit: Ok, for fear of being quite the buffoon I went through the entire thread. Guess how many sources you've cited? All you have posted are your words. You have displayed the very definition of the term: taking someone's word for it, since you refuse to cite scientific studies that support your word.

 

[Borachio]

Is this Mercea Eliade?

I seem to remember him writing, about mythology, something along the lines of: if it's possible to imagine something, somebody somewhere will have done so.

I went to him thinking I'd find some common basis for religions throughout the world. There doesn't really seem to be much of anything.

 

[Leoreth]

It doesn't matter how we define planets because we didn't write these texts - they defined planets and they counted 9 before creation.

Wait, so there are nine planets because this text claims there are nine planets, and these texts are a reliable source because the claim there are nine planets, and there actually are nine planets. Cyclical argument is cyclical.

If it isn't Pluto, its another object - I include Pluto as "their 9th" because of how they described it. Whatever their 9th planet was, it originally started out as a companion to Saturn (Anshar) and was released upon Marduk's "intervention" to tell the other gods of Marduk's willingness to battle Tiamat. Saturn's rings point to Pluto near perihelion and there are other mathematical relationships between the two. So Pluto is the best candidate for being this long lost companion to Saturn.

Would you care to back this up? I haven't heard anything like that before.

I shouldn't post all of this, so here's the relevant parts of the Enuma Elish

[...]

Wait, that's all you've got? Random names of deities attributed to planets just because you can? Where's the connection? Remember, there are no "parallel" Roman/Greek gods for each Mesopotamian deity, and when such parallels where drawn in ancient times then it was based on superficial similarities. Not to mention that there is no mythological basis behind the names of trans-Saturnian planets, which all were named by the people who discovered them basically at their whim. So you're missing two "links" already. Color me unimpressed.

Other inconsistencies (that's all just for fun since your argument already has failed both on grounds of astronomy and comparative religion):

Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all, (mummu=mercury, Tiamat=Tehom)

How did Mercury "bore them all"? Doesn't seem to describe Mercury all that well. Is Tiamat also referring to Mercury? If so, what attribute of Mercury does it represent? If not, why doesn't Tiamat stand for a planet?

Uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined- (destinies = orbits)

Why?? Why not destinies = temperature? Both are equally applicable. And equally ridiculous.

Lahmu and Lahamu were brought forth, by name they were called.
For aeons they grew in age and stature. (Venus and Mars - war goddess/god)

There is not even a hint in the text to the conclusion you draw here.

Anshar and Kishar were formed, surpassing the others.
They prolonged the days, added on the years. (Jupiter and Saturn)
Anu was their son, of his fathers the rival;
Yea, Anshar's first born, Anu was his equal.
Anu begot in his image Nudimmud. (Uranus and Neptune - sun and 8 planets)

How are Uranus and Neptune the "descendants" of Jupiter and Saturn? Doesn't make sense to me. Seems you are cherry picking what the text claims, even though the things you do pick are already tenuous at best.

Long story short, it's way more likely that the text is just what it appears to be on first glance, a description and genealogy of the Gods which Mesopotamians believed actually existed and knew about.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

@B-meister: I don't know. I'm just pulling my quotes from sciency looking hits on google and wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_creation_myth

Here's where I got the yellow clay and egg stuff from:

Early Chinese texts recorded fragments of creation stories. The Zhuangzi and Huainanzi cosmogonically mention Hundun. The Shujing and Guoyu describe the separation of Heaven and Earth during the legendary era of Zhuanxu. The Huainanzi and Chuci say that Nüwa created the first humans from yellow clay and repaired the fallen pillars of Heaven (cf. Axis mundi).

One of the most popular creation myths in Chinese mythology describes Pangu 盤古 separating the world egg-like Hundun 混沌 "primordial chaos" into Heaven and Earth. However, none of the ancient Chinese classics mentions the Pangu myth, which was first recorded in the (3rd century CE) Sanwu Liji 三五歴記 "Record of Cycles in Threes and Fives", written by Three Kingdoms period Daoist author Xu Zheng. Derk Bodde, who linked the myth to the ancestral mythologies of the Miao people and Yao people in southern China, paraphrases.

Heaven and Earth were once inextricably commingled (hun-tun) like a chicken's egg, within which was engendered P'an-ku (a name perhaps meaning "Coiled-up Antiquity"). After 18,000 years, this inchoate mass split apart, what was bright and light forming Heaven, and what was dark and heavy forming Earth. Thereafter, during another 18,000 years, Heaven daily increased ten feet in height, Earth daily increased ten feet in thickness, and P'an-ku, between the two, daily increased ten feet in size. This is how Heaven and Earth came to be separated by their present distance of 9 million li (roughly 30,000 English miles). (1961:382-3)

Cosmogony
Ba-Gua animated.gif

The (ca. 4th century BCE) Daodejing suggests a less mythical Chinese cosmogony and has some of the earliest allusions to creation.

There was something featureless yet complete, born before heaven and earth; Silent – amorphous – it stood alone and unchanging. We may regard it as the mother of heaven and earth. Not knowing its name, I style it the "Way." (tr. Mair 1990:90)

The Way gave birth to unity, Unity gave birth to duality, Duality gave birth to trinity, Trinity gave birth to the myriad creatures. The myriad creatures bear yin on their back and embrace yang in their bosoms. They neutralize these vapors and thereby achieve harmony. (tr. Mair 1990:9)

Later Daoists interpreted this sequence to mean the Dao "Way", formless Wuji "Without Ultimate", unitary Taiji "Great Ultimate", and binary yin and yang or Heaven and Earth.

The (ca. 4th-3rd centuries BCE) Taiyi Shengshui "Great One gave birth to water", a Daoist text recently excavated in the Guodian Chu Slips, offers an alternate creation myth, but analysis remains uncertain.
Zhou's Taiji tushuo diagram

The (ca. 120 CE) Lingxian 靈憲, by the polymath Zhang Heng, thoroughly accounts for the creation of Heaven and Earth.

Before the Great Plainness (or Great Basis, Taisu 太&#32032 came to be, there was dark limpidity and mysterious quiescence, dim and dark. No image of it can be formed. Its midst was void; its exterior was non-existence. Things remained thus for long ages; this is called obscurity (mingxing 溟&#28076. It was the root of the Dao. … When the stem of the Dao had been grown, creatures came into being and shapes were formed. At this stage, the original qi split and divided, hard and soft first divided, pure and turbid took up different positions. Heaven formed on the outside, and Earth became fixed within. Heaven took it body from the Yang, so it was round and in motion; Earth took its body from the Yin, so it was flat and quiescent. Through motion there was action and giving forth; through quiescence there was conjoining and transformation. Through binding together there was fertilization, and in time all the kinds of things were brought to growth. This is called the Great Origin (Taiyuan 太&#20803. It was the fruition of the Dao. (tr. Cullen 2008:47)

The Neo-Confucianist philosopher Zhou Dunyi provided a multifaceted cosmology in his Taiji tushuo 太極圖說 "Diagram Explaining the Supreme Ultimate", which integrated the Yijing with Daoism and Chinese Buddhism.

That bolded one is all the reference I found for water. With the disclaimer "analysis remains uncertain" my curiosity is piqued. Which is the exact reason I am asking about these analysiseses.

I mean it's not top-notch research, but then again, I'm not the one making extra-ordinary claims.

 

[Leoreth]

But the egg-like shape of the universe clearly references how the universe expanded non-uniformly during cosmic inflation!

 

[Harv]

There are no solid historical sources supporting Jesus's existence. Thats what i'm getting at. . . .

What is your definition of a solid historical source?

Additionally Flavius Josephus was not born untill 37CE and the writings mentioning Jesus not written till 93–94CE. That 60 years after Jesus dies.

Do you know of any solid historicial sources that are more contemporary to the events in Judea between 29AD and 33AD?

You said 93-94AD is 60 years after Jesus dies. How can he die if he never existed in the first place? What date do you give for the death of Jesus? What solid historical source did you use to arrive at that date?

And dismissing my arguments as 'cherry picking' and 'illogical' just makes me think you don't have any real defence for your points, just faith. If my points are making you feel uneasy, then go do some reasearch into your faith yourself. If your just totally dismissing my points then why debate at all?

If you have already decided on a conclusion, that Jesus never did exist, then you can cherry pick your solid historical sources to support your conclusion. This is why your arguments were dismissed as 'cherry picking' and 'illogical.' This Wikipedia Article claims "virtually all modern scolars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed and biblical scolars and classical historians regard theories of his non-existance as effectively refuted."

 

[Berzerker]

I picked 2 creation myths at random, a Chinese and a Norse. You can't cherry-pick at random. I didn't claim my 2 random picks debunked your claim, I said I picked 2 at random and briefly went through them.

Can you link me to the Chinese creation myth with the water covered Earth please. Will you finally support your claims by anything else besides your say-so?

Every time you claim:
Show me where science tells us that. Because I asked 3 times, and did a little googling. First hit tells me it's 2.5 bya. 4 bya Earth was not covered by water.

If my cursory search was mistaken, by all means show me. Show me something that supports your claim instead of merely repeating it. Live up to those standards you thought applied to the Chamber.

Well, in that case you will have no problem addressing:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11947659&postcount=145

Come and see the relevancy of my egg!

Help! Help!

edit: Ok, for fear of being quite the buffoon I went through the entire thread. Guess how many sources you've cited? All you have posted are your words. You have displayed the very definition of the term: taking someone's word for it, since you refuse to cite scientific studies that support your word.

I didn't ask you for sources or links, it look like I gotta remind you again about what we (not you) were debating. HB said he could show any religious text offered up for scrutiny was BS and he'd prove it. Notice the title of the thread? Disprove God? Thats your job, not mine. But get this straight, you jumped into my debate with HB with a strawman. I offered him the opening verses of Genesis and the numerous corroborating myths - and you started demanding to know why myths you picked at random aint among those myths. How did the Norse myth disprove anything? You said something about 9 worlds and I ran down a brief list of cultures that associate 9 with the heavens. And?

@B-meister: I don't know. I'm just pulling my quotes from sciency looking hits on google and wiki.

Here's where I got the yellow clay and egg stuff from:

That bolded one is all the reference I found for water. With the disclaimer "analysis remains uncertain" my curiosity is piqued. Which is the exact reason I am asking about these analysiseses.

I mean it's not top-notch research, but then again, I'm not the one making extra-ordinary claims.

And why does the cosmic egg disprove my claim? Sounds like a metaphorical explanation for the Earth's surface - like an egg thats been cracked. You cited the myth - Panku chiseled or hammered Heaven and Earth apart - the "chaos" Panku was floating in was the water covered world.

a primeval abyss, an infinite expanse of waters or space
an originator deity which is awakened or an eternal entity within the abyss
an originator deity poised above the abyss
a cosmic egg or embryo
an originator deity creating life through sound or word
life generating from the corpse or dismembered parts of an originator deity

So which of these proves there was no water covered world before land and life were created? The primeval abyss and the dismembered corpse are the water covered proto-Earth. Your link to the Hadean is outdated, we have evidence of water going back ~4.4 bya and the minerals formed in water - the oldest "continental" rock starts appearing ~ 4 bya and life shortly afterward.

Wait, so there are nine planets because this text claims there are nine planets, and these texts are a reliable source because the claim there are nine planets, and there actually are nine planets. Cyclical argument is cyclical.

No, there are 9 planets in their creation myth - it doesn't matter if astronomers recently demoted Pluto - it still played a role in their creation myth. You're arguing that because Pluto was recently demoted, it no longer can be a planet in ancient creation myths. Thats illogical...

Would you care to back this up? I haven't heard anything like that before.

Back it up how? I read a theory claiming Pluto was a satellite of Saturn so I drew a map of our solar system to ~scale - and Saturn's rings pointed to Pluto. Furthermore, they both ascend the ecliptic very closely and if we subtract Saturn's orbital distance from Pluto's, a nice 2 to 1 ratio appears. Maybe just a coincidence, but if the Earth was at the asteroid belt the planets would be in nice 2 to 1 ratios out to Neptune (did I already mention that?).

Wait, that's all you've got? Random names of deities attributed to planets just because you can? Where's the connection? Remember, there are no "parallel" Roman/Greek gods for each Mesopotamian deity, and when such parallels where drawn in ancient times then it was based on superficial similarities. Not to mention that there is no mythological basis behind the names of trans-Saturnian planets, which all were named by the people who discovered them basically at their whim. So you're missing two "links" already. Color me unimpressed.

I showed a creation myth that describes 9 planets and you said they believed in 5 planets - where's your creation myth? Now, the Romans/Greeks were latecomers but they borrowed from the east and they had a pantheon of gods - the 12 Olympians - but they didn't have Mesopotamian counterparts and/or predecessors? The Sumerian pantheon was 12 gods - and their creation story described 12 members to our current solar system and they depicted those 12 members to our solar system on a cylinder seal VA 243 (you can google it).

Other inconsistencies (that's all just for fun since your argument already has failed both on grounds of astronomy and comparative religion):

Maybe you should ask for clarification before dancing in the streets, neither of you are acting in good faith and its boring as hell

How did Mercury "bore them all"? Doesn't seem to describe Mercury all that well. Is Tiamat also referring to Mercury? If so, what attribute of Mercury does it represent? If not, why doesn't Tiamat stand for a planet?

Mummu is the Sun's vizier and Tiamat is the biblical Tehom who gave birth to them - the watery dragon/serpent. According to the text, 3 planetary gods were between Tiamat and the Sun and 4 beyond her - Pluto made Tiamat the 6th planet from beyond (and the Earth is now the 7th planet).

Why?? Why not destinies = temperature? Both are equally applicable. And equally ridiculous.

I've never seen any translations or interpretations equating destiny with temperature

There is not even a hint in the text to the conclusion you draw here.

Is there a hint of 2 deities being born or formed in that verse?

How are Uranus and Neptune the "descendants" of Jupiter and Saturn?

They came afterward

Doesn't make sense to me. Seems you are cherry picking what the text claims, even though the things you do pick are already tenuous at best.

I was asked to cherry pick by HB

Long story short, it's way more likely that the text is just what it appears to be on first glance, a description and genealogy of the Gods which Mesopotamians believed actually existed and knew about.

12 gods - sun, moon, 9 planets and "the creator"... This story is about what was "here" before Heaven and Earth were created, about the solar system. It is a long story, but the opening verses makes that much clear. If it aint a story involving the planets, why do scholars recognize some of the deities as planets?

 

[TomYo689]

I would like to enter the discussion in defense of a god. While not having a nieche in the laws of physics or any force that does not pretain to human psycology, it does have a presence there. If the concept of a god did not exist at all no one would discuss it. Anyone who either believes or acknowledges the belief is impacted by the idea of a god or gods. So it exists in the mind of the believer and may shape the behavior as such. As real as a 2012 apocalypse rumor which I'm sure you've all heard some version of. No one denies the existance of a rumor even if they don't believe it

 

[Arakhor]

You never explained how the Babylonians knew about Pluto and why we didn't discover its existence until 1930, despite the Babylonians apparently knowing of its existence 3000 years previously.

 

[History_Buff]

As real as a 2012 apocalypse rumor which I'm sure you've all heard some version of. No one denies the existance of a rumor even if they don't believe it

Well yes, but thing to keep in mind is that just because a bunch of idiots think the world is going to end in 2012 doesn't mean it actually is.

Honestly it would be nice to have a discussion about the psychology underlying theism, but we don't really have an expert on the topic, and there are a number of people who would run that thread into the ground. I might well be one of them.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Thanks Bezerker. You made the credibility of your claims crystal clear to me

 

[Leoreth]

No, there are 9 planets in their creation myth - it doesn't matter if astronomers recently demoted Pluto - it still played a role in their creation myth. You're arguing that because Pluto was recently demoted, it no longer can be a planet in ancient creation myths. Thats illogical...

You still miss the overall point. Your original argument is that ancient texts "know things" because they list the nine planets in the solar system, but according to you the only reason there are nine planets is because your clearly authoritative text says so. So the argument why your text is a reliable source depends on statements made in the text. That's illogical.

Back it up how? I read a theory claiming Pluto was a satellite of Saturn so I drew a map of our solar system to ~scale - and Saturn's rings pointed to Pluto. Furthermore, they both ascend the ecliptic very closely and if we subtract Saturn's orbital distance from Pluto's, a nice 2 to 1 ratio appears. Maybe just a coincidence, but if the Earth was at the asteroid belt the planets would be in nice 2 to 1 ratios out to Neptune (did I already mention that?).

I still have no idea how this works. First of all, how can a disk "point" to something? Saturn's and therefore its rings' tilt is ~26°, Pluto's orbital inclination is ~11°. Maybe there is a constellation where Saturn's rings "point" to Pluto (the only way I can understand this is that Pluto is in the same plane as Saturn's rings, which still isn't what I understand as pointing), but there is nothing special to that constellation and it may be very rare. The rest of the time, I can't imagine how Saturn's rings point to Pluto under any conceivable definition of "point" (much less how you were able to draw the three-dimensional map necessary to figure that out, for that matter).

I showed a creation myth that describes 9 planets and you said they believed in 5 planets - where's your creation myth?

Why do I need a creation myth? I don't claim that all truths have a corresponding myth here, that's your shtick. It's pretty common knowledge that there were no planets associated in Greek/Roman myth with Neptune, Uranus and Pluto, simply because the only planets known to them (as in observable to them) were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (and Earth, although they didn't think of it as a planet).

Now, the Romans/Greeks were latecomers but they borrowed from the east and they had a pantheon of gods - the 12 Olympians - but they didn't have Mesopotamian counterparts and/or predecessors? The Sumerian pantheon was 12 gods - and their creation story described 12 members to our current solar system and they depicted those 12 members to our solar system on a cylinder seal VA 243 (you can google it).

So your argument why two things are the same is again that there are the same number of them? Roman/Greek gods don't map to Mesopotamian deities, and they certainly didn't adapt them.

Maybe you should ask for clarification before dancing in the streets, neither of you are acting in good faith and its boring as hell

With all due respect, I think we have given your crazy theories more respect than they deserve already.

Mummu is the Sun's vizier and Tiamat is the biblical Tehom who gave birth to them - the watery dragon/serpent. According to the text, 3 planetary gods were between Tiamat and the Sun and 4 beyond her - Pluto made Tiamat the 6th planet from beyond (and the Earth is now the 7th planet).

... and this relates to actual reality how?

I've never seen any translations or interpretations equating destiny with temperature

That's not an argument for why destiny = orbit. It's just as arbitrary, unless you can provide some linguistical evidence.

Is there a hint of 2 deities being born or formed in that verse?

Yes, but nothing about war gods, much less any reason to identify them with Venus and Mars, much less any reason to identify them with the planets of that name.

They came afterward

But Uranus and Neptune didn't "come afterward".

I was asked to cherry pick by HB

I don't know what that's supposed to mean.

12 gods - sun, moon, 9 planets and "the creator"... This story is about what was "here" before Heaven and Earth were created, about the solar system. It is a long story, but the opening verses makes that much clear. If it aint a story involving the planets, why do scholars recognize some of the deities as planets?

I can only guess, but I could think of two possibilities:

a) they identify deities with planets because that's what the ancient Mesopotamians did, which doesn't imply that their creation myth actually details the origins of the solar system.
b) they are horrible pseudoscientifical hacks and don't deserve the term "scholars".