User blog comment:SouthWriter/No Supernatural Intervention/@comment-72.174.36.122-20110217030335/@comment-1777104-20110217054147

The following entry is quite long, since it includes all of the above with my responses. I have indented my responses.

"Bofriu, who created "Primitive Europe" which equates "white Europeans" with a stunted Neanderthal cross-breed in an old-earth world history, offers the following objections to the admittedly young-earth history of NSI (divisions added by me)" First things first. If you even bothered to spend two seconds at my Primitive Europe timeline, I made it perfectly clear that I'm not writing about Europe from a racist perspective. I'm not even writing about Europeans being a cross-breed with Homo neanderthalensis, I actually state that "They are not biologically or mentally different from the White Europeans in our time-line". Besides that point though, what if I was equating White Europeans with H. neanderthalensis? In the timeline I say that "civilized" humans from Primitive Europe see White Europeans as equivelent to H. neanderthalensis. I'm writing about people who equate White Europeans with H. neanderthalensis, but I don't. There are CHRISTIAN scientists in OTL who do this by the way.(Answers In Genesis) On another topic I'm merely proposing what would happen if Europe had never developed empires, while the rest of the world had. This would probably lead to a view of Europeans similar to European's early veiws of Aboriginal Australians or Native Americans. Which weren't very positive. Consider this, if you were writing a book about the United States in the 1780's, and your main character was white, and he was discussing Native Americans, he PROBABLY should be a bit racist. Now would this mean you were racist? No it wouldn't. Going on the book you wrote alone, there would be no way to tell. You would be just writing about a time when many people were ignorant, just like I'm writing about a time when many people are ignorant.
 * I am sorry that I simplified what your time line was all about. I took the premise that the ignorant civilized folk thought this to be so, and projected it onto you.  I did indeed spend “more than two seconds” but not much more.  I was just a bit irked that you would have just put a premise and a bunch of potential links up, along with one or two actual articles, and you were jumping on my more developed time line so hard.  I agree with Answers in Genesis, by the way, on the status of Homo N.   H.N.  most likely had a vitamin and/or mineral deficiency.

I was wrong to characterize you as agreeing with your characters. As with the world I was creating, the people of the time are not projections of me – they are “on their own” with only reason to point to a creator.

"First, "non-neutral" is a poor term, why not just use a term like bias or prejudiced. I simply have a different world-view that you." I'm sorry I'm not grammatically perfect. Let's take a look at a quote from a bit later on in your rebuttal (for lack of a better word) "his just as biased world-view." So you don't want me judging your world view, but you go around bashing me for my world view (which you don't know). Seems pretty hypocritical in my opinion.
 * I hardly would say identifying your world view as biased is “bashing” you. I admit that I have a bias, but not that it determined how I present the said time line.  I explain on the portal page what my premise is and that it is at odds with many scholars of science and history.  I was careful to lay down my “ground rules” in hopes that others would go to my source material and read it for themselves.  I actually said it on this blog when inviting others to check out the new time line.

"You hold the present as the key to the past and thus assume an evolutionary history of the world. I hold that things changed drastically in the past, both leaving a lasting mark in the way things are now and changing the very nature of things over the course of human history. If the Bible is true, then humans and other animals were created perfect, and took quite some time to degenerate. That is what the Bible portrays, so we that is what I presented." I'm not very educated in religious text so I'll accept that someone would be able to live 500 years. You might want to put that somewhere in your timeline, for people like me who don't have as much knowledge about religious text. I was assuming (for the purposes of your time-line) that god created man just as he is and left him in eden. I see now that I was wrong. I'm also a bit confused about what perfect means though. Does it mean a longer time for the decay of our bodies? Better looking bodies? Greater "intelligence"? Perfect personalities? All four? I think you should really specify what the limits of this perfection are. If you just say perfection, it can be perceived to mean anything.


 * Fair enough, I did not make it clear enough on the wiki pages themselves that the source material was the Bible. The actual record, by the way, gives an average age of about 900 years.   As for “perfect” I mean man was created so as not to die.  When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they began to die.  However, having been created with bodies with no defects, they had none of the biological frailties that come from generation upon generation of mutations.  This is the same reason, by the way, that their children could mate without harm to the gene pool, mutations are random and they build up each generation.  A short answer, that says the same thing, is to say “perfect” means “complete.”  They had no deformities, their minds were free of mental disorder.  As I said – created to live forever.  Before they sinned, they had zero chance of decay.

"Actually, all this happened in the space of less than 2,000 years with people that started out near perfect and lived much longer, giving them time to develop things to past what we have in the past 1,000 years with much shorter lives and mutation degenerated brains. This is not "impossible" starting from the presupposition that the Bible is true and the theories of mankind are flawed and contradictory." Notice how I said "at most 3,500 years". Okay for this I'll once again be accepting everything you have said so far. From what I can see you're saying that humans from this time-line lived to around 500 years old. Using this be can assume that the life expectancy was around 7 times greater then than it is now. From this we can assume that humans were 7 times more perfect (as far as I understand "perfect"). Shouldn't this then mean that humans would be able to advance their technology 7 times as fast too? If we assume this than humans wouldn't have advanced just 6,000 years in a mere 2,000 years, they would have advanced 14,000 years. This would place their technological advancements around the year 10,000 A.C.E. Those humans would have long ago developed machines which could fly. They also would have most likely had colonies on Mars and even more likely the Moon. A flood of 370 days (Wiki Answers : How long did Noah's flood last) would be easily escapable. By 10,000 A.C.E. most humans might not even live on the earth. This death of humans could be caused by supernatural intervention and so could the destruction of their artifacts,but without supernatural intervention though, it would be impossible.
 * As I stated above, the average age was actually 900, rather than 500 (at least based on the ages given of noted individuals in the Genesis record). That would mean if this was linear and the scientists and technicians were perfect, they would advance at 10 times the rate we would expect.  For a lifetime of thinking.  The fact that they did not leave evidence on the moon or Mars means that they did not actually do these things, for whatever reason.  However, in the page on the “Ancients” it is clear that their technology did advance at least double ours, reaching in about a thousand years what we took two thousand to accomplish.  In the course of advancing, though, they became more and more evil.  They fought wars, etc., until they felt themselves much better than the rabble of common man.  They abandoned the solar system and the earth and by the time Noah was born most of their technology had been lost.  That is why mankind was stuck on a doomed world.  The extent of the destruction would indeed completely destroy any artifacts that had not decayed in 500 years of neglect.

"You obviously have not read any of the creationist material dealing extensively with the flood models. The Bible speaks clearly of the "fountains of the deep" and of the mountains rising after the flood. Assuming long ages for earth formations has been shown by very competent scientists to be far less plausible than rapid formations due to catastrophism." I wasn't even mentioning how the Earth reformed after the flood. I was stating that the flood as you describe it in your time line would be impossible. It would be PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for a rupture in the ocean floor to cause the continents on modern day earth to sink into the ocean without supernatural intervention. You make no mention of an altered structure of the earth, so I'm assuming that there is no altered structure of the earth.
 * Okay, I stand guilty of assuming too much of my reader. The first entry in this blog, though, does “warn” the reader that a knowledge of the Bible is needed in order to determine if God has kept his hands off.  It is indeed impossible with the present earth, but that is because there are no “fountains of the deep.”  It may be true that the extent of the damage was more than man could cause alone.  I “invented” deep earth mining as a device to make this happen based on a knowledge of the text – fountains of the deep (subterranean water) and mountains rising from the sea.

"Again, you assume far to much based on the world today. The six individuals that would populate the earth after the flood represented not an isolated family but at least four separate gene pools." So are you taking the bible literally or saying that its contents only represent different events i.e. it didn't happen EXACTLY that way?
 * No. What I am saying is that there are four gene pools containing all the information needed to repopulate the earth with all the variety we see today.  Recombinations of these six individuals (whose genetic information was diverse and with very little mutation) would be more than enough to repopulate the world.

"Modern genetic studies have shown that mankind indeed came from one male (Noah) and three female (the daughter-in-laws)." I don't wish to discuss this issue due to having to take a religious stance which I don't care to do.
 * How in the world is discussing genetics taking a religious stance. Now I'm confused.

"There is less evidence for a fourth line of MdNA pointing to a possibility of Noah's wife having more children. This is exactly what the Bible's account would predict." Actually if Noah did have more children then this would be better for your argument, so I'll agree with you. Noah didn't have any more children. "Population studies clearly demonstrate that today's population could not stretch back a supposed 100,000 years or whatever, but only at most 5,000 years or so." I never opposed humanity being 5,000 +/- 1,000 years old. This issue unavoidably deals with religion too so, I'm not going to take a stance on this issue, because I don't want to discuss or take a specific stance on religion.
 * Huh? Again, how is statistics and probability getting into religion?

"The wide-spread extinction was anticipated in the taking in of the animals into the ark (or fortress, as NSI has it). The food was also in storage as seed and dried foods enough for the duration. In NSI, Noah would have had to make a lucky guess, but it is far from impossible. The "hostile environment" they would step into was a world devoid of hostile animal life, and soil freshly irrigated and trees that had already germinated from floating seed in the days since the ark came to rest. Using seed stored in the ark, a vinyard was planted early on. Other plants were probably planted even sooner as they continued to live off the stores in the ark." I'm willing to accept that 10,000 A.C.E. technology would be able to produce all the requirements for the continuation of all of earth's species of plant, animal, bacteria, fungi, and protist. I'm also willing to accept that if Noah was smart he would've realized that he would have to bring seeds to repopulate the planet. I have no problems with an ark or a fortress. I admitt I was wrong.


 * For the record, the ark did not need to preserve everything - just air breathing land animals. The micro-organisms fended well for themselves (inside or outside of the ark).

"I can assume you meant to say that "the article is NOT arranged in an appropriate structure" rather that "is aranged ..." However, you do not make your point very well. The home page "The History of the World" may be inappropriately named, but it provides links to the time line as it unfolds. It was a work in progress when Pitakang nominated it, and I had only recently even gave it much thought beyond the first few pages. It was my hope that others would offer suggestions and even articles. One such article, on the Renaissance coming early, was submitted and is posted. I have not had time to tie everything to the portal page, but enough is there to be able to find the bulk of the articles. Based on that, I would agree, the organization needs work." Once again I don't have perfect grammar (and neither do you). I still stand by what I said, and what you haven't disputed; that I found many problems just by looking in one section of your homepage. I also checked and only found 3 links on your homepage to other pages in your time line, whereas when I checked the category section of your time line I saw 7 pages. This means that half of your pages (not including the portal) aren't linked to from your portal page. I also find it very redundant that you have a history of the world page and a time line page, when you can discuss the same things on each. I also find it very unrealistic that there's a Roman Empire in this time-line. If god never intervened there would probably be no Roman Empire. The world would be an incredibly different place, because humanity was affected from its creation. At least due to the Chaos Theory.
 * As I said, the organization needs work. If it were to be featured, it would be improved overnight.  That is, as I said in my conclusion, a foul ball (which counts as a strike).  As for the Roman empire, their “religion” was not based on supernatural intervention.  Their gods are ones they created from ancient memories turned into myth and legend.  I fully appreciate the “butterfly effect” in writing this time line.  I acknowledge this in the introduction in saying that it could have gone anywhere, but I chose to keep it  as close as possible to our history so as to make it easier to write.  For instance, I let the flood be caused by man so there would not be survivors from global war that would have competed with Noah and his family,  producing so many variables that this would cease to be alternate history and become “parallel history.”  You will find the same is true as you work on your “Primitive Europe” articles.

"As I have said elsewhere, this "featured" status was not my idea, but I will not sit by and have one editor trash my world-view as "implausible" based on his just as biased world-view." When I first found the article I thought it had a bias toward Christianity, and I still think it does. I had never looked at the other articles as having a bias toward atheism though. When I posted my objection I saw it as one of the only featured nominees with a religious bias. I do now see it from a different perspective though. It would be a good idea to remove religious neutrality as a requirement for a featured time-line. I don't believe I ever stated my world view, you'd be surprised. I never did mean to trash your world view, I just felt that the time-line wasn't neutral. Due to the requirement I still feel that this time-line isn't neutral and shouldn't be featured, but neither should any time-line as long as that requirement stands.
 * I see now why world-view matters. No one is without presuppositions.  And when one tries to explain something without regard to ones presuppositions, he does not get very far.  In presenting my assumptions up front, I let my readers know where I was coming from.  I in no way presented any of the tenets of the Christian Faith (apart from accepting the Bible as reliable), and openly presented an assumption that is opposed to Christianity – that God did not communicate with humanity.  In taking these steps, I first defined the conditions, and then set out to assure that “religion” had very little to do with the development of the people involved.

"The world-view from which the article is presented is based simply on taking a source document as the truth. The conclusions from there on are based on an assumed divergence from that truth that radically changes parts of history while leaving nary a ripple on others. It is, as all other alternate histories, based on known facts and interpolated. So, no, I reject the "Not Neutral" accusation, even if this is never considered worthy of "recognition." The score, as I see it is one foul ball, not a "strike out."" I'm not going to restate what I said above, but I am going to say I'm not one to judge, and I never meant to. A time-line should be regarded as the same despite being based on Athesm, Christianity, Islam, Animism, etc. Religion shouldn't be a factor in deciding to feature a time-line. I retract my statement saying that this time-line shouldn't be featured. and propose that this time-line be looked at again for featured status. I'm not saying I support or reject it, I'm just saying a lot of the members of this community judge it unfairly because it's based on Christianity. I will immediately remove any comment I made about this time-line's featured status. I plan for this to be the last time I ever discuss it. Sources: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/206.asp http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Category:No_Supernatural_Intervention http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Primitive_Europe_or%3A_How_I_Learned_to_Stop_Worrying_and_Love_Being_Colonized http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_long_did_Noah's_flood_last http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond


 * I like how you included sources. I had thought I might do that if I had to, but hoped that others would check out things on their own.  In short, I was a bit lazy.   I do not solicit more discussion on the matter from you, but end on this.  A belief in a young earth is not a tenet per se of Christianity.  Therefore this time line is not “based on Christianity.”  Besides, a very good time line that was a featured was indeed “based on” a version of Christianity – one where Jesus was found as an infant in a world changed a hundred years or so prior to his birth.  His mother had died, and his father unknown.  The time line was http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/%C3%86tas_ab_Brian[[Ætas ab Brian|  Ætas ab Brian].  The writer assumed Jesus was special, and showed him as somewhat supernatural.  His story was loosely based on “Life of Brian” in which a boy named Brian was born at the same time as Jesus and mistaken for him (loose understanding on my part, based only on reviews).   Thank you for your questions, and I hope my answers have helped.  I will go back to the time line and see if  I can clean up the links.  Its the least I can do.