My guess is that the doctors had an intuition that sickness was something that circulated in the blood, and that leeches would suck out the sickness.
Please tell me if you find anything different in your research.
Traditional practices contain a lot of error and misunderstandings, along with the occasional valid insight. Since tradition is so durable, eradicating its errors requires the diligent practice of statistically informed, evidence-based research.
Okay, then, since you believe that God intended the Scripture to provide both a functional/teleological and a scientifically accurate, material description of the world we live in, I will not disturb the emotions of your bowels any further.
I reject the notion that the âGod intendedâ therein is functionally independent from the primary level of direct human knowledge thereto. Thus, while:
(E) you would that those humans were effective dunces, because of this-and-that interpretation, on your part, of its admittedly equivocal terminology and manner of presentation,
(T) I would that they were not principally different from modern persons in terms of basic sensibilities.
Per (T), mutli-generational, evidence-based, philosophically sound, empirical science is both logically possible and socially most naturalâŚ
âŚbut that, as even goo-to-you Evolution advocate, and Auckland philosopher of Art Stephen Davies has the basic sense to point out:
[A] crucial point (âŚ) is that, for [the paradigmatic progressive adaptivity of the human] species, the[ir] social environment is even more crucial to [their] survival and success than [is and was their] physical [environment]. (âŚ) In general, [specialists in] evolutionary psycholog[y] who discuss the environment of evolutionary adaptation [of the human individual] pay surprisingly little attention to the relevance of the fact that [that environment partly] was made up other humans.
(The Artful Species, 2012, hardcover, pg. 97)
Davies is here implying the essentially counter-progress dynamics of such things as the tyranny of humans by other humans, so that even though the tyrants aim for such progress, they undercut it by failing to abide the Divine image in any person or group that challenges their tyrannical, selfish means of realizing that aim.
Then you would not fare well if you time-traveled back to 16th century Europe and decided to trust the establishment doctors who routinely prescribed things like bleeding for their patients. And here is the exception to prove âthe ruleâ above (information from âGodâs Philosophersâ by Hannam.) Gerolamo (Jerome) Cardano managed to rise to the top in reputation among 16th century doctors for one simple reason: He didnât actually do anything. Wellâthatâs not quite true; he would dismiss all the âbleedersâ and other university doctors of the time, and tell the patient to rest a lot and eat well. And by doing this, he outperformed the establishment to enough extent that soon bishops and kings were insisting on his visit. Now you will probably use this to say â see? They had common sense back then too! But remember he is the exception â not the rule. The establishment was still bleeding people for centuries after this. Does that sound like science to you? When doing nearly nothing can outperform those who are doing something, that should give one serious pause. But old traditions die hard.
You keep accusing Chris of thinking all these ancient peoples to be âeffective duncesâ when he has told you heâs doing nothing of the sort. Those were just people being people, stubbornly adhering to their traditions as we always have then and still do now. When we have made up our minds about something confirmation evidence finds easy admission to our way of thinking and inconvenient evidence is explained away.
It sounds like you want all the ancients to have been privy to some of your modern tradition of thinking scientifically or analytically about things. And I wonât quibble that scattered ones through the ages actually did either by genius or by accident. But their numbers didnât reach any critical mass until recent centuries. Your notion that our present scientific edifice or habit of thought should somehow be inherent to all humanity from the beginning simply does not have history to back it up.
[with grammar cleanup and a few re-wordings added]
Oh?! So when scriptures speak of the church being presented as a spotless bride to Christ, it goes without saying (for you) that this refers to a material event; i.e. what you call a ârealâ wedding? This couldnât possibly be a metaphor, could it? Because so many YECs (and their unbelieving cohorts) have decided that metaphor is a dirty word to get around having to believe in the literal truth of something. Yet I donât recall any scripture passages informing us that: âohâby the way, this isnât going to be like your normal physical marriage here in this life; weâre using these symbols to help you understand a powerful point.â (In fact Jesus tells us that marriage of our ordinary material sort doesnât exist beyond our present life).
True â some ancient people were (like you?) stuck in the âonly material literal stuff counts for truthâ mode of thought â thinking of some of Jesusâ disciples on occasion and Nicodemus. Jesus gets exasperated for their reticence to reach beyond these material sorts of understandings. I think we still have the same sorts of troubles over this now, and you impute our own difficulties in this back on them! That makes it a bit ironic that you are accusing Chris of thinking they were dunces until modern times!
Sorry â Iâm throwing a lot at you here without giving you any chance to respond in between, but please take it as a compliment that your posts are provocative in good ways ., such as this insight below:
I think you really did touch on the heart of things here. And this, I think, bears having much more discussion. Iâll just say for now that the presupposition (as you present it here) that you claim for âyour sideâ is probably accepted and embraced by nearly all believers here. I think, though, that differences will show up were we to spell out and examine further presuppositions that we go by (sometimes even unconsciously so and only visible to others).
But among yours you seem to embrace the (originally) perfect humans Adam and Eve, and a descent from that ever since because of their (and now our) sin. So obviously any improvements on human welfare or intelligence over history might seem to fly in the face of that pattern. In that way Evolution (seen erroneously by so many to be a claim of inexorable progress) is seen to be an opposite and irreconcilable claim. But I think there is a different message from Scriptures in all this. I think we are identified with Adam and Eve. I.e. â far from them being some sorts of perfect specimens, they represent all of us and our sin. In the same way that we identify with Adam --we being made from dust of the earth in exactly the same way he was (Eccl. 3:20), we are now in a new way to find our identity in Christ. If Adam was some perfect, navel-free, mint-condition, childhood-free âhumanâ from the sculptorâs table, then there is precious little in that which we real human beings could identify with. And our identity with and in Adam is a major thrust of the scriptural message that is the major prelude toward Christ. I think so many young-earth creationists today lose that in trying to fight for spurious (indeed false as it turns out!) modern technical understandings where none were necessary. That is what does so much damage to Paulâs exhortations and comparisons between Adam and Christ. There is indeed much irony there!
[grammar cleanup and other additions in this one tooâŚ]
âŚthe establishment. Thatâs a rather crucial concept there. Iâve ever been advocating for common people, and this especially within the hypothetical that such people, during their first year of life, are planted into a zero-establishment social environment and raised by adults who have no loyalty to any establishment.
So it is almost as if you all here side with the idea that such a child shall somehow nevertheless grow up believing whatever is believed by the culture into which he or she was conceived, despite that the culture in which he or she grows up has no great pre-conditioned loyalty to any establishment (medical or otherwise).
Granted, such a hypothetical may seem to some people to be technically impossible. But I trust that most of you here are aware that fair approximations of such a hypothetical have occurred countless times throughout history, perhaps most of those in the last two centuries in North Korea and China.
Can one not use in this forum the subject of actual weddings either as metaphor or analogy to some non-âBiblicalâ subject. I assumed my usage thereof was clear: the idea, espoused by Walton, is that, since Genesis 1 does not explicitly say anything specifically of materiality as such, Genesis 1 does not mean to address so much as the mere idea of material origins. I pointed out, therefore, that Walton may as well insist that, since no one spells out to wedding guests that the wedding is a material event, that means that the records of the communication that did take place (which DO NOT so spell out) are not about a material event.
[quote=âMervin_Bitikofer, post:68, topic:36670â]
you seem to embrace the (originally) perfect humans Adam and Eve, and a descent from that ever since because of their (and now our) sin. So obviously any improvements on human welfare or intelligence over history might seem to fly in the face of that pattern. In that way Evolution (seen erroneously by so many to be a claim of inexorable progress) is seen to be an opposite and irreconcilable claim. [/quote]
No. God is the creatorâŚof those whom he has made in His creatorly image. Thatâs humans, as such. Yes, YECâs see a fall from the original, mint-condition couple. But this a fall only necessarily in biological and social terms It is not a fall from a state of superior technology, not from a state of greater technical knowledge in all things. But neither does this YEC view of Adam and Eve presume that the couple was created as anything even approximating what evos presume is the overall low mental capacities of some âStone Ageâ humanity.
Yet even Walton admits that ancient humans could readily enough understand that the Genesis 1 account teaches something that both you and Walton deny could have been understood by humans the presumed millions of years earlier: that there is a Special Creator who at once (a) is transcendent of material needs and (b) who is benevolent toward humans in the material reality of the life-support system of the cosmos. That combination radically bypasses any aloof Deistic conception of a Creator. So either (x) humans came by that combination by some means of entirely natural evolution, or (y) it was specially given to them by that Creator.
But if we allow (y), then, it seems to me at least, we immediately allow many other things that are not found within strictly naturalistic evolutionary assumptions. Thus it seems to me that only by imputing things that are alien to those assumptions can enough of those immediate allowances be countered so as to avoid admitting that Adam and Eve were created specially, and as adults.
Unfortunately, and quite prematurely, most YECâs presuppose that God created such a couple complete with a full, basic, ready-made language. But there is nothing in Genesis 1-2 to compel that presupposition, and plenty to suggest the opposite.
As for the intuition that such a couple is unrelate-able to human children, thatâs just not the case. There is no shortage of children who adore, and relate to, some basic YEC version of that couple. Do your own children fail to relate to you, even though they did not know you when you were a child?
Indeed, do we fail to relate to a God whoâs first and second explicit mention of humans is to create humans male and female and then to tell of the adult pair? There is no explicit mention of children in Genesis 1-2.
Hi, Daniel. Iâll confess that I had trouble following where you wanted to go with a lot of your responses above. But Iâll at least comment on this one below:
I wasnât speaking of how later children may hear about Adam and Eve. I was referring to a human being who popped into existence with no childhood (and so ⌠no memories? or false memories?) I was challenging that this Adam character could be one any of us would in any way identify with ⌠and yet that is exactly what Scriptures tell us to do.
It fascinates me that there is a whole litany of heresies surround the incarnation that the church had to hammer out. Some denying Jesusâ divinity, others denying his humanity, some apparently leaning too far one way or the other. My point is that it would be interesting if the later church (in that same kind of doctrinal "mind-your-ps-and-qs spirit) took the same level of umbrage over what people have done to Adam. Having Adam formed in another way than all the rest of us seems to me to be a nearly heretical denial of his full humanity. I know â some would say the same about the conception of Jesus; I donât need to go there to make my point, though. I think it instructive that we are given the birth narrative and very humanly situated Christ as our Savior. While the gospel writers were keen to make us aware of Jesusâ divinity, they were also equally keen to not let us lose site of his full humanity. I think some creationists today, however, have transferred that particular heresy [conferring an inappropriate level of âdivinityâ] back onto their Adam figure.
Such a nice paragraph! While you and I tangled about the details regarding the wrangling that went on in the monasteries - - I can see that you have the spirit of the issue well in hand and fully at your command.
Just so you know @Daniel_Pech, in historical context it âisâ possible for the functional creation to be separated from the material creation is it acknowledged that assigning the functions of the temple is different from physically building it.
