<<None of [these experts] give full humanity to these hominids.>
Glenn responded:
<<They don't have to. The fact that they believe this was a primitive
burial
ritual, says all I need to know theologically. An idiot savant, is
theologically fully human even if he is quite different mentally from you
or
me.>>
But Glenn, you have posited more than "idiot savant" for Adam, Eve, Cain,
Abel, Noah, etc. Biblically, for you, they weren't pit throwers. They were
sophisticated worshipers. They talked to God, they built altars...and you
say that the pit throwers, a mere 300,000 years ago, were only "struggling"
with these issues. I know about your technological dark age, but now we
have mental and spiritual dark ages as well. That's the real problem I have
with your framework. It just doesn't fit the data. How did God worshipping,
fully lingual, complex speech man--fully functional 5 million years ago--
revert to the bipeds you have to strain to find "signs" of humanity within?
<<I don't have to have the evolutionist agree with me. I don't know why
you
continue to think I do. I can cite their fact, e.g. the fact of special
mortuary practice, and then interpret that fact within my own framework.>>
That's fine, but I (and the experts) don't see that framework as having any
foundation. You quote evolutionists to help your cause. I quote them to
show you they don't support your cause. If you want to stop quoting them, I
will too.
<<If it was anything like that in the past, those Sima people were mighty
motivated to get those bodies into that pit.>>
Let's say they were. You would have us draw the conclusion that this
manifested a human-like pondering about death. But is that enough for your
theory? Why had they regressed so much?
<<By the way Jim. Is there any set of behaviors which you could name which
would convince you that these people were people? >>
The anatomical evidence of articulate speech (not ambiguous fissures in the
crania, but actual ability in the larynx and mouth), coupled with the
reflective art of the sort we see 35,000 years ago, would be a start.
Putting corpses in a pit, even one 1600 feet away, coupled with...what?
Art? Speech? This record does not even approach homo divinus.
IOW, I want a "set of behaviors" that reminds us of Noah, not Washoe.
Jim