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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Happy 5771th Birthday, World?

"The Lion Man",
dated 32'000 years
old.
According to our Sages (who were much smarter than you are, so don’t even start to doubt their eternal words of wisdom!), the world has a birth date that can be precisely determined. If we may take their word for it, the world will turn 5771 this Rosh Hashana.

Except…that this can not be true, because the world is around 4.5 billion years old (and the universe around 13.75 billion years, by the way). I don't think we had a calendar around that time.

Of course, there are always people who are willing to bend any logic and verses in the Torah to support their irrational beliefs, such as Dr. Gerald Schroeder. Others remain steadfast in their primitive opinions (Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb, e.g.).

However, there is clear proof that there were intelligent human beings walking around on this earth, showing signs of high sophistication. As Wikipedia reads on the topic of Evolution of Human Intelligence:
Between 170,000 to 120,000 years ago Homo sapiens first appears in East Africa. It is unclear to what extent these early modern humans had developed language, music, religion etc. 
They spread throughout Africa over the following 50,000 years or so: around 100-80,000 years ago, three main lines of Homo sapiens diverged...
...The "Great Leap Forward" leading to full behavioral modernity sets in only after this separation. Rapidly increasing sophistication in tool-making and behavior is apparent from about 80,000 years ago, and the migration out of Africa follows towards the very end of the Middle Paleolithic, some 60,000 years ago. Fully modern behavior, including figurative art, music, self-ornamentation, trade, burial rites etc. is evident by 30,000 years ago. 
The oldest unequivocal examples of prehistoric art date to this period, the Aurignacian and the Gravettian periods of prehistoric Europe, such the Venus figurines and cave painting (Chauvet Cave) and the earliest musical instruments (the bone pipe of Geissenklösterle, Germany, dated to about 36,000 years ago).
So if we are able to date human art from 36'000 years ago using Radiocarbon dating, it means that indeed our ancestors lived much longer ago than the kiruv clowns make us believe.

On that note, you will surely enjoy the video below, called Response to INCONVENIENT SCIENCE THE AGE OF MAN by YouTube user thisis3d.

Happy 'New Year' to you all!

4 comments:

  1. Shanah Tovah from your admirer, the secular humanistic rabbi. By the way, I have a daughter being raised Orthodox thanks to the kiruv clowns getting hold of my ex-wife. She just loves you, too, and she's not staying in the atheist closet forever! Have a sweet and happy year!

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  2. Hi secular humanistic rabbi! Would be great if we could hook up in some way; you can contact me under undercoverkofer(at)gmail.com. Thanks heaps!

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  3. I get so pissed at the apologetics and the bullshit that Torah is not written to teach us scientific matters. For a book whose apologists insist is not meant to teach us science, certainly spends a LOT of time discussing scientific matters. Why would YHWH spend 13 chapters describing creation if it was not meant to be taken literally? Why bother describing creation at all? What other purpose does it serve aside from being a historical account? The majority of the Torah is not theology, its a history, jewish history particularly and a fabricated history at that.

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