Even though it is tangential, I must correct this myth about the late Jack Benny:
That doesn’t fit my memories. Jack Benny always portrayed a comic character who was tight with money and an overly confident tone-deaf violinist who insisted on driving people nuts with his off-pitch playing. It was a very popular act, one that made him a fortune. But just an act.
I had the pleasure of witnessing one of Benny’s classical performances. Benny was not world-class, obviously, but he was reasonable. He was an old friend of Isaac Stern [very famous violinist] and Stern used to say that Benny had a “very good ear” and excellent sight reading skills but hadn’t invested the necessary hours to be totally dexterous at the fingering. Nevertheless, Stern considered Benny astonishing at times, for someone who was not a professional violinist.
Benny did a lot of benefit concerts to fund-raise for various symphony orchestras. To my knowledge, when he wasn’t telling jokes at those benefits, his violin concertos were serious and always sufficient for the occasion. The screechy tune-up for laughs always ended when the maestro raised the baton and he put his full energy into the performance.
Jack Benny told a lot of jokes about his Stradivarius: “I know that it is a real Strad because I paid an entire $110 for it!” and “My Strad is admittedly of a slightly different type, but that’s only because it was made in Japan.” In actual fact, he owned a real Stradivarius and it was worth a fortune when he donated it to one of the philharmonic orchestras. (Obviously, if Benny were not a serious violinist, he probably wouldn’t have played a Strad at his concerts.)
[P.S. I’m not saying that he always brought his Stradivarius to every concert. He had several top-notch violins, each of which became collector’s items after his death, from what I’ve heard. I think they are nearly all still owned by various philharmonic orchestras.]
I wrote: “Genealogical Adam focuses on removing the polarization.”
In response, @Jeremy_Christian wrote: “Yeah, me too. That’s why I’m
here. But doing so rarely works when there’s so much compromise. Do
you not see this as a boil just waiting to burst and wreck the whole
project eventually? Do you not see the incoming ice burg?”
Jeremy, you gotta stop doing the Jack Benny “tone deaf” impression…
if I laugh too much I have an asthma attack!
I just wrote 500 words explaining that the polarization is on a
MINIMALIST interpretation of Adam and Eve being real, and why they are
IDENTICAL to the evolved humans, except in regards to Romans 5. And
after all of my writing, you continue to assert that you are ending
the polarization between YECs and Evolutionists by proposing a
humanity didn’t have Free Will until Adam.
But “gee willickers” Uncle Jeremy, that isn’t what Romans 5 talks
about. Romans 5 says Adam brought death to humanity.
Now, of course, you have this very elaborate structure where you say
your idea is “just-about-almost-the-very-same-point”. But it still
isn’t the same. Romans 5 does not embrace humanity without Free Will.
It embraces a Universe that Adam ruined. And your view of
Robot-Pre-Adamites is no substitute. Look: Adam and Eve were JUST
LIKE HUMANS because they had FREE WILL like humans. Then they ruined
the Universe. I know you prefer the sentence that says: “Adam and
Eve weren’t like humans at all.” But that is the sentence we use
AFTER the FALL… not before. Adam and Eve were JUST LIKE HUMANS is
how theology expects the scenario to progress.
So lay off man… you are starting to be a belligerent pest! In
fact, you are have already attained that status.
You are back on the “Do Not Disturb List”. Go duke it out with @swamidass. I have some real world problems, and you are taking too
much hand-holding with virtually no expectation by me that you will
ever ever ever give up your passion for robot-humanity. Thanks!
It’s been a blast!
“Maybe this comes from my having dealt with this for nearly 10 years
now, but what seems to be missing here is the foresight that once you
reach your first goal this then becomes very relevant and is poised to
crash the whole thing if you don’t work it out. Do you not anticipate
what comes next? You really should.”
You spent ten years working on the wrong part of the problem. Hey, I
think I have a teddy bear I can offer you.
“. . . you’re still too busy dismissing me to get what I’m saying.
There’s no need to eliminate original sin. In fact, I’m not sure how
GA addresses that issue at all without this component.”
What you have accomplished is that I can no longer entertain the idea
that Adam and Eve were “special” before they ate of that tree.
Clearly, this is would be a wobbly foundation. Adam and Eve have to
be The Very Same as the rest of humanity prior to eating the fruit.
It is what God teaches Adam and Eve, and how they respond, that
changes the Universe. Period. Full Stop. End of Story.
If you really want to prove something … find just one theologian who
ever wrote that the only way for God to protect Cain was if the humans
he feared didn’t have free will. Go ahead… I’ll wait 4 or 5 years
while you look for that.
“I came here because there are highly intelligent and educated people,
knowledgeable in all the areas necessary to be able to comprehend this
hypothesis, who are capable of peer-reviewing what I’m laying out.
It’s a . . . niche audience that can follow what we’re talking about
here. Most drop off at the people before Adam point. You all are
beyond that here, it seems. This group seems positioned to make a
real and meaningful impact where this is concerned. The focus on
tailoring your results to the sensibilities of YEC creationists so
specifically is, I fear, a fallacy that could wreck the whole thing.
Now, imagine if we could actually bring hard evidence to the
scientists who have the YEC crowd so worked up? Wouldn’t that
accomplish the same thing? And actually get everyone, not just this
niche group, on the same page?”
My answer? No. It wouldn’t. There is nothing to wreck, except your
fantasy over Free Will.
“That doesn’t fit my memories. Jack Benny always portrayed a comic
character who was tight with money and an overly confident tone-deaf
violinist who insisted on driving people nuts with his off-pitch
playing. It was a very popular act, one that made him a fortune. But
just an act. I had the pleasure of witnessing one of Benny’s
classical performances. Benny was not world-class, obviously, but he
was reasonable.”
This is hardly inconsistent with my point. A point that I didn’t
make up… it’s a point that I read in a serious article.
This is what I could find on the spur of the moment:
Q: Did Jack Benny really play the violin that badly?
violin and perform in vaudeville for a time as a pure violinist.
However, he enjoyed performing more than practicing, so never became
the Mischa Elman (a Jewish violin virtuoso in the early part of the
century) that his parents had wanted. . . ." < THE PARENTS PUSHED
HIM.
“Later in life he found the discipline for regular practice (for
sometimes hours at a stretch), but Mary [his wife] found the noise so
unpleasant that she would make him practice in a far corner of their
upstairs floor.” < UNIMPEACHABLE EVIDENCE THAT HIS PLAYING WAS
IMPAIRED.
“. . . His daughter, Joan, also maintains that her father’s practicing
was fairly unpleasant.” < MORE UNIMPEACHABLE EVIDENCE THAT HIS
PLAYING WAS IMPAIRED.
“On the other hand, I have heard several other people say that Jack
played reasonably well.” < YES, THERE MUST HAVE BEEN. JACK COULD NOT
BE THE ONLY TONE DEAF PERSON IN THE WORLD.
Don’t know why the “free will” label is persisting when it falls so completely short of the mark.
George calls creatures without free will “automatons,” and I think rightly so.
Is a gorilla that decides to rescue a young boy that falls into his zoo enclosure, rather than to attack it, exercising “free will?” In the sense that Jeremy is promoting, I’d have to say yes.
If modern gorillas can make those choices, why would you deny it of australopithecines, early homo species, Denisovans or Neanderthals? This what George is on about, and I agree with him.
I once asked Richard Sternberg if soldier ants “chose” whether to fight for their colony, or to run away --i.e., is there a sense in which we must admit to a type of ant “bravery?”
He looked at me, excited, and said, “now THAT’S a question worth exploring! In my view, no --ants aren’t automatons in these situations.”
A suggestion: we could most likely agree on the language that “mankind did not yet have full moral capability, culpability and accountability until after the fall.”
So, if they were just like all the other humans, how did so many generations of humans before them manage to live out generations of life without once ruining the universe before Adam?
True enough. (And Isaac Stern complemented his pitch. That’s good enough for me.)
By the way, when an amateur is playing at home—even accomplished university School of Music students—attempting difficult fingerings at high speed—bad pitch is very common. So I’m not surprised that it drove family members nuts. (It comes with the instrument.) But in concert, I considered Benny’s pitch quite good, and I can’t stand both extremes: inaccurate pitch and auto-tune. (I’m amazed that people can stand the over-use of auto-tune in contemporary pop music.) However, I also think that Benny could play quite lazy when he was tired from a packed schedule. I remember one of his serious performances at the end of his old TV show and it drifted at times, though the sound engineering back then wasn’t always great.
Actually that’s exactly what it’s talking about. Your model doesn’t address this at all. Mine does. So how am I the bad guy?
Yeah, Adam did bring death. All humans before Adam don’t have free will so there’s nothing to threaten their everlasting life. Adam, on the other hand, has free will and his family passed it onto naturally evolved humans. Doing exactly what you said, bringing death to humanity. Not biological death. Spiritual death.
Well then I’ll wear my pest badge with pride. Go ahead and tell your dad on me. This group apparently needs a pest because there’s a large blind spot you all seem to be missing. Now, I’m only talking to you at this point, so maybe you’re not totally in line with others, but if you are this is a big problem for this whole effort.
These are real world problems.
Except for the part where you’re suggesting humans just like us with free will managed to live lives just like Jesus, rather than that making him significant, and lived without sin until goofy Adam and Eve messed it all up.
Yeah, they also say Jesus was significant to have lived a sin free life, in spite of being “just like us” and having free will. You’re saying there were generations of humans before Adam who did the same.
Do you not see a problem? How this is defeating the very beliefs you’re making such an effort to not tread upon?
No. This is normal mammalian behavior. We care for our young, and those same instincts drive these behaviors. We mammals don’t come in eggs. We’re exposed very early on. Mammals had to develop these instincts.
Okay. Let’s go with that. Now, what does that mean? Full moral capability? Now we’re going to have to somehow quantify moral capability, culpability, and accountability? How does that fix anything?
Seriously, it’s hard for an agnostic to assess when this sort of discussion is beyond the norms. Tag or message me if there is a problem, otherwise I’ll leave well enough alone.
The mark is the biblical language employed, not our shorthand interpretations of it.
You are right to see in mammals, and especially primates, something unusual --which the Hebrew scriptures refer to as their “nephesh.” But that is not identical with “instincts.” It is by no means normal mammalian behavior to protect the young of another species entirely; even young human kids can be cruel to kittens, e.g.
Domesticated animals are invariously described as having this “nephesh” quality --it is not a spirit or soul, exactly, but some kind of rudimentary moral sense and drive towards sociability. The “adam” (Gen. 1:26) that was around before “imago Dei humanity” was created (Genesis 1:27) had at least this level of distinction from simpler animals.
Everything’s fine; it’s a theological discussion over word choice and underlying concepts. Anyone not thoroughly familiar with the text would be understandably puzzled.
George is --by his own description --a self-appointed watchdog over the long term prospects of GA, and sees red in ways I don’t without prolonged discusion. Fair enough, George?
So you find this gorilla not killing a small child as “unusual”? This isn’t at all unusual for mammals. We have naturally evolved instincts to nurture and care for the young. Our young spend a long time completely defenseless. The reason mammals survived long enough for us to evolve is the same instinct that causes this behavior in gorillas.
These are not shorthand interpretations. These are interpretations made in the correct context science provides. Like the wording I pointed out in Hebrew that I doubted meant what everyone said. It peaked the Hebrew Professor’s (can’t remember names well just yet) and led to a whole thing that @swamidass was “impressed” with.
That didn’t come from an extensive knowledge of Hebrew. That came from reading these texts against the context of actual history when these events were actually happening. The very same way I’m sure it was finally recognized that there were humans before Adam.
There’s something else St. Augustine said … “Interpretation of biblical passages must be informed by the current state of demonstrable knowledge.” ~ St. Augustine
Yes, as a mammal he would. Science agrees on this point.