IS Forum
Forum Index Register Members List Events Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Help

Go Back   International Skeptics Forum » General Topics » General Skepticism and The Paranormal
 


Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today.
Tags Graham Hancock , joe rogan , michael shermer , zahi hawass

Reply
Old 14th October 2017, 07:42 AM   #401
Squeegee Beckenheim
Penultimate Amazing
 
Squeegee Beckenheim's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 32,124
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Right, you just reject those.
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Who just rejects what?
__________________
I don't trust atoms. They make up everything.
Squeegee Beckenheim is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 10:23 AM   #402
Andy_Ross
Penultimate Amazing
 
Andy_Ross's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 47,040
It seems to me the whole case for this supposed civilization rests upon the belief that the stones were shaped by some 'unknown method' therefore it had to be some kind of high tech method so there was an advanced civilization.
Andy_Ross is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 02:04 PM   #403
Craig B
Penultimate Amazing
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
What was happening 12,500 bc?
Hunting wild animals, gathering wild plants, catching wild fish.
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
If you are referring to Puma Punku, you'd be mistaken to conclude that those ruins were carved with stone, bronze, or copper chisels...
What were they carved with in your view? And on what evidence?

By the way, I never conclude that stone has been cut cut with copper chisels.
Craig B is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 06:37 PM   #404
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim View Post
I don't understand what you're trying to say. Who just rejects what?
Facts that don't align with your preconceived notions.
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 06:50 PM   #405
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop View Post
It seems to me the whole case for this supposed civilization rests upon the belief that the stones were shaped by some 'unknown method' therefore it had to be some kind of high tech method so there was an advanced civilization.
Not quite. The size of the structures, indicate large settlements, and civilization. The ruins themselves indicate and advanced ability to move and shape stone.

That these structures date to 12,500, and thereafter we became hunter gatherers all point to a lost civilization.
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 06:52 PM   #406
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
Hunting wild animals, gathering wild plants, catching wild fish. What were they carved with in your view? And on what evidence?

By the way, I never conclude that stone has been cut cut with copper chisels.
GT was NOT built by hunter gatherers.

Whatever process or tools that shaped the stones at Puma Punku, are gone, lost to time.

The stones were NOT carved or fashioned by people without a written language.
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 06:53 PM   #407
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Pixel42 View Post
Heinrich Scliemann would be embarrassed for you. He knew what good evidence looked like, and once he found it he had no trouble convincing people.
Bull butter!

He was alone in his thoughts about Troy being a real place. People called him a fool, until he found it.
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 06:54 PM   #408
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Pixel42 View Post
Of course it is. Writers frequently create entire fictitious countries, even worlds, to make points about the real one. Jonathon Swift, Terry Pratchett ...
Right, those writers tildes they were writing fiction.

Produce a single piece of Plato saying so, and I'll accept it as such.
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 11:06 PM   #409
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
 
Pixel42's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Malmesbury, UK
Posts: 16,140
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
He was alone in his thoughts about Troy being a real place. People called him a fool, until he found it.
Nope, there were others (eg British archaeologist Frank Calvert) who thought there might be an historical basis for some of Homer's tales. But few were convinced until convincing evidence was found, which is just as it should be. No convincing evidence has ever been found for the historicity of Atlantis, despite considerable effort. The "evidence" you are offering is, I repeat, embarrassing in its inadequacy.
__________________
"If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett
Pixel42 is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 14th October 2017, 11:11 PM   #410
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
 
Pixel42's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Malmesbury, UK
Posts: 16,140
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Right, those writers tildes they were writing fiction.

Produce a single piece of Plato saying so, and I'll accept it as such.
Quote Jonathon Swift saying "Lilliput is fictional, I made it up".

Quote Terry Pratchett saying "Discworld is fictional, I made it up".

It's perfectly obvious what Plato was doing. He did it all the time.
__________________
"If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett
Pixel42 is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 12:29 AM   #411
Craig B
Penultimate Amazing
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
GT was NOT built by hunter gatherers.

Whatever process or tools that shaped the stones at PumapunkuWP, are gone, lost to time.
But not lost to archaeologists. The tools have been found
Some of the stones are in an unfinished state, showing some of the techniques used to shape them. They were initially pounded by stone hammers, which can still be found in numbers on local andesite quarries, creating depressions, and then slowly ground and polished with flat stones and sand
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
The stones were NOT carved or fashioned by people without a written language.
How do you know? Where is your evidence for a written language? If you have found examples of writing in ancient Peru, you will become famous throughout the world, I hope you realise.

ETA I assume you also reject this dating, which is nowhere near the end of the Ice Age.
Since the radiocarbon date came from the lowermost and oldest layer of mound-fill underlying the andesite and sandstone stonework, the stonework must have been constructed sometime after 536–600 AD.
That's about the same age as Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, or a little later.

Last edited by Craig B; 15th October 2017 at 12:39 AM.
Craig B is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 07:08 AM   #412
Pacal
Graduate Poster
 
Pacal's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto
Posts: 1,451
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Bull butter!

He was alone in his thoughts about Troy being a real place. People called him a fool, until he found it.
Absolutely false. Schliemann was not in the least unusual in thinking Troy was a real place. The bottom line is that Troy had been thought to be a real place for thousands of years and it was also thought that the Trojan war really happened. However in the late 18th and early 19th centuries there emerged a group of skeptics who pointed out that the evidence for Homer's Troy was dubious and asked for better evidence. This was not a majority position.

This was dressed by later mythmakers has a story about a lone genius proving that the hidebound establishment was wrong.

Oh and possible site for Troy that Schliemann excavated had been known for quite sometime. It had been known that the mound Hissarlik was the location of the Greco-Roman town of Ilium/ Troy and that this is where the Greeks and Romans thought was the site of Homer's Troy / Ilium. This was known for quite sometime among European Classicalists long before Schliemann.

Schliemann was also to a large extent his own mythmaker. He sometimes, quite deliberately created false romantic stories about his own achievements. His version of the finding of Priam's Treasure is one example of that. It is almost certainly false. He also interpreted his finds to fit his mytho-romantic bent. Thus he thought the wrong layer of Hissarlik was Homer's Troy. When he excavated the shaft tombs at Mycenae, he thought he was excavating the tombs of Agamemnon et al. Further when Schliemann, before Hissarlik, excavated on the island of ithaka he thought he had found remains associated with Odyessus!

Schliemann created a romantic image of himself and then the media, loving a good story of the underdog proving the establishment wrong, ran with it. It is to put it politely an exaggeration.
Pacal is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 07:20 AM   #413
Pacal
Graduate Poster
 
Pacal's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto
Posts: 1,451
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
GT was NOT built by hunter gatherers.

Whatever process or tools that shaped the stones at Puma Punku, are gone, lost to time.

The stones were NOT carved or fashioned by people without a written language.
I suggest that you look up the work done on the Quipu used has recording devices by the Inca and apparently by earlier Andean people.

This recording device was more than a simple aide-memoire, but a fairly sophisticated device to encode information. It may not have been a full blown writing system but it was a information storage device, that structured so that different rreaders of the Quipus could "read" the same information.

There is the outside chance that Quipus could have been a full blown writing system. There is evidence that Quipus are fairly ncient in the Andean region.

Probably the worlds formost expert on the Quipus is Gary Urton. To start I suggest you take a look at his Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2003.
Pacal is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 09:11 AM   #414
Craig B
Penultimate Amazing
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
Originally Posted by Pacal View Post
I suggest that you look up the work done on the Quipu used has recording devices by the Inca and apparently by earlier Andean people.

This recording device was more than a simple aide-memoire, but a fairly sophisticated device to encode information. It may not have been a full blown writing system but it was a information storage device, that structured so that different rreaders of the Quipus could "read" the same information.

There is the outside chance that Quipus could have been a full blown writing system. There is evidence that Quipus are fairly ncient in the Andean region.

Probably the worlds formost expert on the Quipus is Gary Urton. To start I suggest you take a look at his Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2003.
Even though it may contain significant information, does binary coding in knotted string constitute a "written language"?
Craig B is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 01:56 PM   #415
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
But not lost to archaeologists. The tools have been found
Some of the stones are in an unfinished state, showing some of the techniques used to shape them. They were initially pounded by stone hammers, which can still be found in numbers on local andesite quarries, creating depressions, and then slowly ground and polished with flat stones and sand
How do you know? Where is your evidence for a written language? If you have found examples of writing in ancient Peru, you will become famous throughout the world, I hope you realise.

ETA I assume you also reject this dating, which is nowhere near the end of the Ice Age.
Since the radiocarbon date came from the lowermost and oldest layer of mound-fill underlying the andesite and sandstone stonework, the stonework must have been constructed sometime after 536–600 AD.
That's about the same age as Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, or a little later.
Those were of the later works, not the most ancient ones.

Stone masons were asked tocarte hundreds of interlocking wall pieces each with 50+ sides and perfect right angles. To mine eyes, the blocks look molded or cast...but there is no evidence to look at other than the ruins. One stone of interest features an 1/4 inch square line cut into the stone with holes drilled equal distance apart. That line was NO chiseled out.

GT was dated to 12,500...
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 02:00 PM   #416
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Pixel42 View Post
Nope, there were others (eg British archaeologist Frank Calvert) who thought there might be an historical basis for some of Homer's tales. But few were convinced until convincing evidence was found, which is just as it should be. No convincing evidence has ever been found for the historicity of Atlantis, despite considerable effort. The "evidence" you are offering is, I repeat, embarrassing in its inadequacy.
Are you really claiming that it was generally accepted that Troy was NOT a fictional city, but in fact real?
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 02:25 PM   #417
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
 
Pixel42's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Malmesbury, UK
Posts: 16,140
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Are you really claiming that it was generally accepted that Troy was NOT a fictional city, but in fact real?
I'm saying that Schliemann was not the only person who thought that Troy might have been a real place.
__________________
"If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett
Pixel42 is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 02:51 PM   #418
Andy_Ross
Penultimate Amazing
 
Andy_Ross's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 47,040
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
To mine eyes, the blocks look molded or cast.
So that would be concrete?
Andy_Ross is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 03:15 PM   #419
Pacal
Graduate Poster
 
Pacal's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto
Posts: 1,451
Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
Even though it may contain significant information, does binary coding in knotted string constitute a "written language"?
I suggest you read Urton's book. Binary coding of knotted strings is actually fairly sophisticated. And has I mentioned in my previous posting it may constitute a full blown writing system. My point is that the Inca and likely their predecessors had at the very least a sophisticated system via the Quipus for the storage and recording of information even if it turns out it didn't record a language.

This method of recording etc., information would it seems have amply suited for their needs of record keeping and has such recording a language was likely not necessary for them, the Inca etc., to organize etc., their feats of civil engineering such has the Inca Road system.
Pacal is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 03:50 PM   #420
Matthew Ellard
Illuminator
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,094
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Facts that don't align with your preconceived notions.
That's right.
1) Archaeological evidence from Göbekli Tepe is clear that beer from only wild grains existed indicating there was no pre-existing large scale agriculture (selective breeding)
2) There is no legacy DNA evidence in the area of pre-9000 year old selective breeding confirming no pre-existing agriculture.
3) The motifs and structures found at Göbekli Tepe also exist at many other later archaeological sites indicating the population did not die out or were wiped out by a magical flood.
Matthew Ellard is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 04:04 PM   #421
Matthew Ellard
Illuminator
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,094
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
To mine eyes, the blocks look molded or cast...but there is no evidence to look at other than the ruins.
Nope. In archaeology you look at the nearby ruins to see if the technology spread with the population, for example Karahan Tepe.

It's the same reason archaeologists study Ionic and Doric Columns spreading through the Aegean. .
Attached Images
File Type: jpg T-Shaped-Pillars-at-Karahan-Tepe.jpg (47.7 KB, 5 views)
Matthew Ellard is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 04:14 PM   #422
Craig B
Penultimate Amazing
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
Originally Posted by Pacal View Post
I suggest you read Urton's book. Binary coding of knotted strings is actually fairly sophisticated. And has I mentioned in my previous posting it may constitute a full blown writing system. My point is that the Inca and likely their predecessors had at the very least a sophisticated system via the Quipus for the storage and recording of information even if it turns out it didn't record a language.

This method of recording etc., information would it seems have amply suited for their needs of record keeping and has such recording a language was likely not necessary for them, the Inca etc., to organize etc., their feats of civil engineering such has the Inca Road system.
Thank you for the reference to the book. Meanwhile I'm discussing the issue with you. The Quipus were highly evolved string tallies; and they contained significant information. But I'm saying that ancient Peru had no written language, even if there was a knotted string mathematical notation. Do you disagree? Are the quipus documents specifically composed in Quechua or Aymara, or some other mode of speech? You appear on the contrary to be saying that written language was not necessary for construction of these architectural wonders.

I agree, and in addition I'm saying that advanced technology wasn't necessary either, and its presence can't be inferred from the archeological record unless artefacts unambiguously produced by it turn up in excavation ... and they haven't.
Craig B is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 15th October 2017, 04:54 PM   #423
Pacal
Graduate Poster
 
Pacal's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto
Posts: 1,451
Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
Thank you for the reference to the book. Meanwhile I'm discussing the issue with you. The Quipus were highly evolved string tallies; and they contained significant information. But I'm saying that ancient Peru had no written language, even if there was a knotted string mathematical notation. Do you disagree? Are the quipus documents specifically composed in Quechua or Aymara, or some other mode of speech? You appear on the contrary to be saying that written language was not necessary for construction of these architectural wonders.

I agree, and in addition I'm saying that advanced technology wasn't necessary either, and its presence can't be inferred from the archeological record unless artefacts unambiguously produced by it turn up in excavation ... and they haven't.
I guess I'm not making myself clear. I was responding to KOA comment that since the natives of Peru didn't have a written language they could not build Puma Punka etc. My point was that they had a sophisticated system of recording information in the Quipus and that system would more or less satisfy the requirement for information storage to manage building various monuments and massive public works.

Gary Urton has claimed that he has deciphered the names of places in the Quipus. His main focus of work for the last decade or so has been the so-called historical Quipus. Has I said there is the outside chance that the Quipus may in fact turnout to be a complete writing system.

I personally suspect that the Quipus are not a complete writing system but instead a system of encoding information that a trained Quipus reader could read. It may have incorporated some elements of a phonetic system of writing but it would not be a complete writing system.

Sadly the whole debate regarding the Quipus is marred by the fact that there are not that many Quipus and further that the historical Quipus are very few indeed. The great majority of surviving Quipus are it appears census records of various kinds. There are also astronomical Quipus. Allied to this is that there are Quipus now located in Europe that are almost certainly forgeries. Most experts on the Quipus disregard those.
Pacal is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 04:01 PM   #424
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Captain_Swoop View Post
So that would be concrete?
Nope, this stone is diorite, but the block are perfectly symmetrical, interlocking with not so much as a paper space between them.

I don't have any idea how they came to be, but I know they were not formed with chisels.
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 04:02 PM   #425
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Pixel42 View Post
I'm saying that Schliemann was not the only person who thought that Troy might have been a real place.
Right...other 'crackpots' did too. He stance was certainly not 'mainstream'.
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 04:05 PM   #426
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
*Where did the water from the scablands flood go?

*How much did it raise sea levels?
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 04:41 PM   #427
Hans
Philosopher
 
Hans's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 9,071
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Bull butter!

He was alone in his thoughts about Troy being a real place. People called him a fool, until he found it.
Actually he didn't find it another guy did but he gets the credit because he knew how to play the media. Whether the city he found was Troy (he picked the wrong one from the different levels) is still not fully confirmed - but highly likely.

The guy who found the site:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Calvert

Oh and their were other people who thought Troy was real - it is incorrect to say he 'was alone'.
Hans is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 04:44 PM   #428
Hans
Philosopher
 
Hans's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 9,071
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Right...other 'crackpots' did too. He stance was certainly not 'mainstream'.
The Romans all thought it was real and use to take tours their and they recolonized the site. So they certainly thought it was real. Lots of people thought it was real. The 'mainstream' at that time held that the world was created by God 6000 years ago.......it was better to alt back then
Hans is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 05:39 PM   #429
Matthew Ellard
Illuminator
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,094
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
.... but I know they were not formed with chisels.
Klaus Schmidt found stone hammers and blades at Gobekli Tepe.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...mple-83613665/
Matthew Ellard is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 06:31 PM   #430
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
These cuts were NOT carved with chisels...
Attached Images
File Type: jpeg images-40.jpeg (8.7 KB, 76 views)
File Type: jpeg images-39.jpeg (9.6 KB, 77 views)
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 06:33 PM   #431
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
...
Attached Images
File Type: jpeg images-41.jpeg (7.2 KB, 76 views)
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 06:46 PM   #432
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Not Puma Punku...but also NOT carved with stone chisels...
Attached Images
File Type: jpg Al-Naslaa-Rock-Formation3-1-1.jpg (99.0 KB, 2 views)
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 07:01 PM   #433
Craig B
Penultimate Amazing
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Right...other 'crackpots' did too. He stance was certainly not 'mainstream'.
It was a reasonable opinion held by respected scholars. This is from Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary 1771, entry on "history"
The Greeks knew very well how to distinguish between history and fable, between real facts and the tales of Herodotus:

... The date of the taking of Troy is specified in these marbles; but no mention is made of Apollo's arrows, or of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, or of the ridiculous combats of the gods.
Voltaire therefore thought that Troy was real, but that in the Iliad mythical elements had been added to the authentic material. Voltaire was not a "lone nut", but an influential commentator.
Craig B is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 07:10 PM   #434
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
It was a reasonable opinion held by respected scholars. This is from Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary 1771, entry on "history"
The Greeks knew very well how to distinguish between history and fable, between real facts and the tales of Herodotus:

... The date of the taking of Troy is specified in these marbles; but no mention is made of Apollo's arrows, or of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, or of the ridiculous combats of the gods.
Voltaire therefore thought that Troy was real, but that in the Iliad mythical elements had been added to the authentic material. Voltaire was not a "lone nut", but an influential commentator.
Now apply the same reasoning to Atlantis.

Why make up whole-cloth a city?? Maybe the characters or moral was made up, but the city and the facts surrounding it were likely real.
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 07:28 PM   #435
Craig B
Penultimate Amazing
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Now apply the same reasoning to Atlantis.

Why make up whole-cloth a city?? Maybe the characters or moral was made up, but the city and the facts surrounding it were likely real.
What are you on about now? Troy really existed, and many scholars believed it existed, contrary to your "Schliemann was regarded as a nutcase" proposition. So now we've to change the subject. But Troy was found. If Atlantis is ever found I will happily "apply the same reasoning" to it. Until then, why should I? The circumstances are not the same.
Craig B is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 08:02 PM   #436
King of the Americas
Banned
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
Originally Posted by Craig B View Post
What are you on about now? Troy really existed, and many scholars believed it existed, contrary to your "Schliemann was regarded as a nutcase" proposition. So now we've to change the subject. But Troy was found. If Atlantis is ever found I will happily "apply the same reasoning" to it. Until then, why should I? The circumstances are not the same.
Atlantis was a true story about a lost ancient civilization...
King of the Americas is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 08:10 PM   #437
Matthew Ellard
Illuminator
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,094
Originally Posted by Matthew Ellard
Klaus Schmidt found stone hammers and blades at Gobekli Tepe.
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
These cuts were NOT carved with chisels...
That's an argument from your personal belief system.

You have yet another problem. You claim that all the evidence was washed away in a magical flood, yet Klaus Schimdt, the Gobekli Tepe archaeologist found the stone tools used construct it. It gets worse for you. The skull incisions found at Gobekli Tepe are also only from stone tools.

More recently archaeologists found the residue of the grains that were used there and they were all wild grains. That destroys your fantasy about pre-12,500 agriculture.

It would seem your magical flood only removed evidence relating to your fantasy claims but left all the normal evidence there.
Matthew Ellard is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 08:26 PM   #438
Matthew Ellard
Illuminator
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,094
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
These cuts were NOT carved with chisels...
String (straight edge), groove made by stone for split line and wooden wedges to force split. It's a well known technique.

One of the first things we made in anthropological prehistory, at uni was rope....way before we knapped stone tools.
Matthew Ellard is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 08:44 PM   #439
Matthew Ellard
Illuminator
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,094
I have a really simple question for King of America.

If there was a massive flood at Gobekli Tepe that washed away everything, then why didn't it wash away the residue beer made from wild grains?


"In the December issue of the journal Antiquity, archaeologists describe evidence of nearly 11,000-year-old beer brewing troughs at a cultic feasting site in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe."
https://www.livescience.com/25855-st...iscovered.html
Matthew Ellard is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 16th October 2017, 09:28 PM   #440
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
 
Pixel42's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Malmesbury, UK
Posts: 16,140
Originally Posted by King of the Americas View Post
Atlantis was a true story about a lost ancient civilization...
The fact that there are true stories about real cities does not mean that every story about a city is a true story about a real city.

The fact that Troy was a real place does not make it any more likely that Atlantis or Anch Morpock are real places. There are ways to determine which stories are most likely to be historical and which fictional. The story of Atlantis ticks none of the boxes for the former and all of the boxes for the latter.
__________________
"If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett
Pixel42 is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Reply

International Skeptics Forum » General Topics » General Skepticism and The Paranormal

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 01:07 AM.
Powered by vBulletin. Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

This forum began as part of the James Randi Education Foundation (JREF). However, the forum now exists as
an independent entity with no affiliation with or endorsement by the JREF, including the section in reference to "JREF" topics.

Disclaimer: Messages posted in the Forum are solely the opinion of their authors.