Greeings to one and all,

I found your contributions educational, diverse and enriched by lots of continued dialogues.

I am particularly impressed with the absence of badmouthing of others with opposing views.

I think to change mind we need to win each other over, rather than trying to win over each other.

But given that non-verbal communication counts most in a discussion, here we are handicapped by written communication only.

This makes it harder to connect with people with opposing views without getting their back up by the content of our writings.

There may be the need to first positively connect with each other, before many of us can even listen to a contrary view.

So we could start with what we agree with in the others' writings, rather than starting with criticising.

So that we could develop a good-will bond, based on our common humanity that brings us together more than the possible divisiveness of contesting views could set us against each other.

Also maybe we should put forward an argument not in the first person, but in the third, to avoid competition with our opponent.

For example, instead of saying 'I argue', we could say 'it is argued.

Converely, instead of saying: 'You are wrong', we could say 'There are are facts and arguments which seem to contradict the view that such and such...'

But the greates barrier to changing mind may be the difference in different people's dimensions of consciousness.

If a person is exlusively a materialist, that person may have no experiential awareness of the existence of the spiritual dimension, even though such plane may even be more real than the transient world of material reality.

It requires an experiential awareness of the spiritual dimension of reality to discuss spiritual matters meaningfully but when a person is wedded to the material dimension exclusively, spiritual matters may seem nonsense to such person.

Now, mhaze so you are agreeing universal floods and land crossing of the Red sea is not the issue but the Noah and the Moses is the falacy.

The Chinese ancient history tells of Nukua and the five colours of the rainbow. "Dr. John Morris points out that many of the language groups migrating from Babel “took with them technological knowledge which they put to use in their new homelands. History documents the fact that several major cultures sprang into existence seemingly from nowhere at about the same time— the Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Phoenecians, the Indians, as well as the Chinese— and each possessed a curious mixture of truth and pagan thought, as would be expected from peoples only briefly separated from Noah and his teachings as well as the star- worshipping, pyramid- building heresy of Nimrod at Babel.” http://www.orthodox.cn/localchurch/200406ancientcnhist_en.htm

http://www.cogwriter.com/news/old-testament-history/chinese-evidence-of-the-great-flood/
The last article identifies the fact of 8 persons surviving = to Genesis 6: 10; 7: 13; 8: 18; 9:18.

The ancient Chinese language has symbols that represent the same stories as the flood and pre flood creation account remembered long before Babylon.
Was there a Noah who built a boat to save his family and animals? According to many ancient histories YES!

Josephus,

So you believe that Noah died 350 years after the
flood at the ripe old age of 950?

Wow!

Was there a Moses, in Egyptian means son
http://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/moses-0012411

If one accepts the biblical dating of Solomon’s time , we know that he started building his famous temple in 960 BC, and the text of 1 Kings 6 v1 states that this was 480 years since the Exodus .
Thus, we can fix a date for the Exodus of 1440 BC, when Moses was 80 years old. This would mean that he was born around 1520 BC and is an adult in the court between 1500 and 1480 BC.

Where Does the Name Moses Come From?
1500 – 1480 BC is the time of the pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut, and she had a close confidant, described by the well-known Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley in her book on Hatshepsut, as the ‘Greatest of the Great’.

The father of Hatshepsut was Thutmose l , and his name means ‘son of Thoth’, the god of wisdom, ‘mose’ meaning ‘son’. This is a common use of the word ‘mose’ as in ‘Ra meeses’, son of the sun god Ra, etc.

The biblical text tells us that it was the pharaoh’s daughter who named Moses. Exodus 2 v 10 states that, “she called him Moses because she said, ‘I drew him out of the water’”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRr538aPIfk

Before the flood the human genome was more resilliant and protected by an upper atmosphere creating a green house effect. From the time of the flood since human life has shortened.

During the 1,000 years following the Flood, however, the Bible records a progressive decline in the life span of the patriarchs, from Noah, who lived to be 950 years old, until Abraham at 175 In fact, Moses was unusually old for his time 120 years. Although psalm 90: 10 attributed to him, when he reflected on the brevity of life, he said: “The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years.

11 Shem 600 Genesis 11:10–11
12 Arphaxad438 Genesis 11:12–13
13 Shelah 433 Genesis 11:14–15
14 Eber 464 Genesis 11:16–17
15 Peleg 239 Genesis 11:18–19
16 Reu 239 Genesis 11:20–21
17 Serug 230 Genesis 11:22–23
18 Nahor 148 Genesis 11:24–25
19 Terah 205 Genesis 11:32
20 Abraham 175 Genesis 25:7

Andris says: "If a person is exlusively a materialist, that person may have no experiential awareness of the existence of the spiritual dimension, even though such plane may even be more real than the transient world of material reality.
It requires an experiential awareness of the spiritual dimension of reality to discuss spiritual matters meaningfully but when a person is wedded to the material dimension exclusively, spiritual matters may seem nonsense to such person."

The problem with claims of a spiritual dimension is that there is no way to measure/detect it by an independent means. We don't have a spiritually detecting machine. So what this leads to is the situation were you can make a claim about the "spiritual dimension" based on your personal beliefs and I can make an opposing claim and we've no way to determine who is making a truthful claim.

Eg: I could say that a particular tree has a spiritual dimension to it and it is of particular importance to my belief system because this tree is the source of Mogomaka (don't google this- I just made this word up) and the Mogomaka effuses peace and happiness to anybody who sits under it and contemplates the meaning of life and the universe. But on the other hand you could say that, while it is true that the tree is the source of Mogomaka, Mogomaka is actually associated with death, pain and destruction and all that meditate near it shall surely have an immediate painful death. So, in a case like this where the two claims contradict how are we to decide which is right?

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