[Young earth Arugment]
a simple human intelligence can produce pottery, they should
[and also]
Now, Pyramids as in Egypt/Amerindian can exist for many ten-thousands of years. If humanity has an age of more than ten-thousand years, then it can safely be argued that there should exist similar more societies like gyptian/Amerindian, and thus a multitude of pyramids covering the earth, each showing its history; but we can't find such sustaining structures as pyramids preceding the time about 3-4 thousand years ago ...
41 comments
Children can make pottery, after being told how. Now, our ancestors couldn't because there was no one to tell them how. Nor was there fire.
Same goes for the monuments. Try making huge buildings without writing, architecture and basic geometry.
This reminds me of when I was a child and asked my parents what shows they liked to watch on TV as a kid, and they told me there wasn't any TV back then. I simply could not wrap my head around the concept.
Of course, that was when I was about 6 or 8 years old. What excuse does Awais Nazir have for thinking that humans had to have had technological knowledge from the very beginning?
Finding no pottery older than 10,000 years isn't proof of no humans then, it's evidence of no pottery back then (or at least a lack of evidence FOR pottery back then). Finding no pyramids older than 6,000 years isn't proof of no humans back then, it's evidence of no pyramid-building back then (or at least a lack of evidence FOR pyramid-building back then).
There is always the possibility that evidence may be found to show that these technologies were in use even earlier than we know of so far; but there is still no reason to think that humans ALWAYS had knowledge of them. The very notion is childishly absurd.
Why? Not every society had a need or interest in building pyramids. Why would every group of humans around the world build pyramids? They sure didn't feel a need to prove to some 21st century fundie that they existed.
Not to mention that over time, anything can be destroyed or eroded. And, more than 10,000 years is a very long time. Some things remain from ancient periods, but not a whole hell of a lot.
Your ideas are fundamentally and logically flawedd.
1. humans have not been around for the entire history of the earth
2. The pyramids were built for religious reasons, and there are other monuments
How many civilizations were into pyramid-building anyway?
Egyptians, Aztecs/Mayans/Incans, Sumerians?
Don't know of any others that are typically associated with giant stone pyramids. Guess no other culture counts.
Skyscrapers can stand for hundreds of years. Evidence of their existence could last for thousands. Yet we only have evidence of them for the past hundred years or so. If the earth were older, we should have a multitude of evidence of skyscrapers covering the earth, each showing its history. Ergo, the earth can't be more than a couple of hundred years old.
Cymro nailed it; it's easy to make a pot when you've already seen a pot, or know what it is. When you live in a world without even the concept of pots, how hard would it be to conceive of such a thing?
Besides, even if you had the idea to start with, which is unlikely, you've got to know about firing clay; how might this knowledge be obtained? It's been hypothesised that glass may have been accidentally discovered in the remains of particularly hot campfires on sand, but what about pottery? Nobody builds a fire on soggy clay beds if they can help it. Furthermore, clay needs to be fired very carefully to form anything like a useful ceramic; if you just shove wet clay into an inferno and hope for the best it'll probably just disintegrate. Even if someone's campfire accidentally produced the right conditions in the accidental presence of the right kind and quality of clay, all you've got is a useless chunk of ceramic in a heap of ashes. Even assuming someone might happen to dig through the ashes and find it, what would they think of it other than some boring, useless piece of rock? How much longer before it occurs to someone, under such conditions, that one might be able to make patterns while it's soft and then make them permanent? How much longer, even than that, before the notion of anything other than patterns for mere ornamentation or idle curiosities occurs? How much idle experimentation with new shapes, without any clear goal, before something resembling a vessel is obtained? The last step in our conjecture is easy - once some clay vessel exists and gets left lying around the right way up, all it takes is a little rain to become obviously useful, but just look how many steps it must take to get to that point.
Or, for all you know, the world as we know it today was created by, I don't know, a bored schoolgirl 3 years ago and your memories of everything prior were created with the intent of deceiving you. Makes about as much sense as the Young Earth babble.
@ fritzrth - even more irrefutably, quad core processors can work for several years. Evidence of their existence could last for thousands, or at least hundreds. Yet we only have evidence of them since 2006. If they were older, we should have a multitude of evidence of quad core processors in computers all over the earth, each showing its history. Ergo, the earth can't be more than about 2 years old.
"a simple human intelligence can produce pottery, they should I can just imagine what arguing with this person would be like:
ME: "We don't have any pottery artifacts that are more than 10,000 years old, but we do have other artifacts, such as stone spear heads, that are hundreds of thousands of years old."
AWAIZ NAZIR: "You can't prove those spearheads are more than a few thousand years old! Carbon-14 dating and the geological column are tools of the Devil!"
ME: "Um ... but you just shot your own argument in the foot there. If we DID find pottery artifacts more than 10,000 years old, you'd just claim that our dating methods were wrong."
AWAIZ NAZIR: "See? I win!"
But then, there are stone knives, cave paintings, shell mounds, fire pits, etc. tens of thousands of years older than your 8000 BCE date, so, you're just blowing wind.
It took us 100,000 years to become communities, we were wandering tribes (some were wandering tribes just 600 years ago and some still are.)
Knowldge and skills don't come easy. Without schools and communities you'd be a wandering savage
A simple human intelligence can produce pottery? I'd like to see you make some! It is a difficult process, requiring skill, access to fire, and clay, none of which is promised at any given point of history.
Also, the pyramids defy our architectural abilities to this date (considering the methods of construction that the Egyptians would be forced to use), so it is incredibly absurd to believe that every civilization that existed before them would be capable of constructing comparable structures. They are the majestic exceptions, not the rule.
Lesson Starts:
Prior to 'the time of the pyramids', humans hadn't learned the engineering skills needed to build pyramids, or other high structures.
Move forward a bit in time:
Machu Pichu (and others), pyramid structures in central and south America.
Native Americans never got into 'let's build something to reach the sky', as they were more earth based in their beliefs.
No, no pottery for Native Americans, as they used leather, and other animal products for containers, as well as wood, and woven fibers. Not many examples would exist, as they would naturally break down. Of course how they are made were handed down from generation to generation.
Pottery is generally for an agrarian society, not hunters/gatherers.
Lesson ends.
You're right! Fundie societies exis on both sides of the Atlantic. Fundie Christians are concentrated in the Southern USA, Fundie Muslims, a very similar breed, are found in several areas but especially in Iran and Sudi Arabia. Mohammed lived ~1400 YA, Jesus Christ lived ~2000 YA, so the Earth can be no mre than 2000 years old! How about that!
s/humanity/civilization/g
Hey, this was an easy fix. See, now you have a theory.
When we are discovering skeletons of early humans, cave paintings, stone tools, and signs of settlement which date back over a million years then I must draw the conclusion that Awais Nazir is blowing smoke out of his ass.
But Robert E. Howard wrote that after the great cataclysm that caused atlantis to sink beneatht he sea the world was changed and all of the great civilisations colapsed, then re built the other cataclysms caused the world to change again this was the hyborian age, only egypt survived the cataclysm
[/saracsm]
Your cunning argument has blown away the claims of Australian aboriginals that they were here before Europeans! Although, given that fact I must admire the cunning way they produced middens going back scores of thousands of years.
The world was black and white up til about the late 50's. The photographic (and television) record is testimony to that.
When I was young I asked my mum when colour happened and she looked at me funny then laughed. It was a conspiracy and my mum was part of the cover up!
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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