"The Puzzle of Ancient Man" Rebuttal?

[Dispirited]

Would anyone happen to know of a rebuttal to some of the claims made in The Puzzle of Ancient Man by Donald E. Chittick, wherein he puts forward a number of artifacts, such as allegedly ancient lenses, the Cosus Artifact, and this kind of stuff. I'm engaged in a debate with a Creationist with the most frustrating absence of logic or understanding of science. Any assistance in this would be greatly appreciated. I'm aware that the entire problem is that Creationists are partaking in wild speculation over something that lacks much conclusive evidence, and, while they speak up, real scientists remain silent because they don't want to claim speculation as truth (something Creationists have no difficulty with). Hopefully, someone has heard of some good rebuttals to this stuff.

[Whitney]

I've never even heard of the book.  

In my experience books based on nonsense are best deconstructed by way of their works cited list.

[SSY]

Perhaps the fact that it is all nonsense?

The Cosus artefact is mysteriously "missing", like a lot of evidence for god. Convenient.

The rest, while impressive feats of construction, are not evidence for god. There is a massive gap between "We don't know how these were built" to "Therefore, God exists".

[Dispirited]

Well, the theory put forth in the book is that these artifacts are evidence of great civilizations in the past, specifically pre-Flood, when we supposedly were smarter before the Fall, etc.

I was just hoping for a few good resources that examine the claims more closely and find some missing details that I could shove in her face.

[SSY]

If she believes in the flood, you have far more fertile ground to argue on. A link to the discussion perhaps?

[Dispirited]

It's a discussion going on in person, not one online. I'm still thin enough to fit through my doorway.

She believes in the Flood, in exorcisms, in the power of prayer, and that science is something you have to take on faith, because "there are lots of scientists who say the exact opposite, and so you have to take it all on faith anyway."

Frustrating, to be sure, but I don't have any good sources to refute her. I am aware of the Flood being bullshit for a number of reasons, but no good expert sources that confirm what I have picked up here and there in tidbits, nor any good sources that point at people who believe in the Flood and say, "your 'proof' that the Flood happened are ridiculous because..."

So what I'm really looking for here is some good expert sources that tell things how they are, and other good expert sources that examine what Christians believe and explain why they aren't valid.

[Prometheus]

How exactly does the presence of "accomplished" ancient civilizations prove the existence of god? I'm actually a believer in the possibility that there were somewhat advanced civilizations before those we are familiar with(Rome, greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, asia). And I've even seen evidence that these known civilizations were significantly more advanced than most people think. None of this leads me to the conclusion, "there must be a god." I think what you're seeing is this. People have certain beliefs. They go through life looking for evidence which supports these beliefs. They wind up grabbing onto anything which looks the least bit promising and holding on for dear life. The evidence didn't lead to the belief, the belief led to teh evidence.

I'm familiar with most of the stonework from the link you've shown. It's fascinated me since i was 8 years old. I think that the main issue here is that we are underestimating the resourcefulness, skill, and time these ancient builders had availible to put into their work. Most of us still suffer from a bit of ethnocentricism when it comes to things like this i believe. Some efforts have been made to prove that these people could have made the objects in question using primitive tools. I can say with certainty that the giant stone spheres where proven to have been made using simple stone mallets, a lot of know how, and even more time. I'm betting the same could be done with most of the other works if someone with the right expertise had the time and resources to work on it.

I can't help but mention these. Look up "bahgdad batteries" and "Roman mega machines".

You're trying to have a purely rational discussion with someone who bases their worldview on something that is by definition irrational. From my experience, you don't stand to gain any ground here. Even when confronted with hard facts, devout theists will not budge from their convictions. Thats what faith is all about. You might have better luck argueing with a wall.

[Recusant]

...So what I'm really looking for here is some good expert sources that tell things how they are, and other good expert sources that examine what Christians believe and explain why they aren't valid.

Hello, Dispirited.  I don't think you and I have "talked" directly before, so I offer my belated welcome to HAF.  Looking through this thread, I see some good responses, but two resources which might be of use to you that haven't been mentioned are:

1) The Talk Origins Archive, which covers many issues in the field of science that fundamentalist Christians dispute or spread mis/disinformation about.  For instance, their page on the Coso artifact shows pretty conclusively that it was nothing more than a 1920s era Champion spark plug.

2) For apologetics and "what Christians believe," you can browse the Iron Chariots website.  

I hope you find some things that you've been looking for in those pages.

[PoopShoot]

I bumped teh submit button before I was done and apparently wasn't quick enough on the cancellation draw.  Please read below.

[PoopShoot]

When I first looked at the coso artifact, it looked to me (and sounded like) the old style telephone/telegraph line insulators.  A spark plug is fine, too.  Since it's been covered, I would like to address the other stuff.

The findings there show stone blocks that fit together with laser precision ... Perfect right angles and complex indentions.  

Here he mentions "laser precision" and yet speaks in terms of angles and millimeters.  A millimeter isn't so fine that a computer is required to make it.  "Perfect angles" are relatively easy to come up with and merely show a dedication on behalf of the craftsmen.  Do these people honestly want us to believe that Pythagoras was the first person to ever really understand a right angle?  Do they want us to believe that no other ancient civilization could have come up with a variant on the 3-4-5 method of measuring a right angle?  Do they really think this is less likely than an ancient supercomputer that was, apparently, biodegradable?

How could these have been made by primitive man?  Archeologists want us to believe that primitive man took stone chisels and carved these.  Seriously?

Look at this picture.  How could primitive man make such straight lines and narrow grooves with stone chisels?  

The presumption here is that the chisels were of stone.  There is no good reason to believe that a civilization who worked with stone on a regular basis AND had access to fire couldn't have come up with a primitive metal chisel.  Sure, it probably wasn't case-hardened steel, but there's no reason to think they couldn't have had access to something like copper or bronze.

Where did primitive man come up with the math symbols?

This one really makes me laugh, especially considering the "math symbols" contained on the block are unique to that particular written language.  Assuming that the list on that block is indeed mathematical equations (and the layout does make sense as a mathematical configuration), what he's really asking is "how did they come up with arbitrary symbols to indicate mathematical processes?"  It's ridiculous, considering that VERY SAME phenomenon has been found to have happened in several other cultures.

Any idiot can see these blocks were cut with a saw, a laser, or something we can’t understand.

Yes, it's obvious Jedi did it with their lightsabers.  Either that or the blocks were cut by some means and then chiseled into shape; a saw isn't a great leap, but neither is a hammer if the blocks were shaped with chisels.

These ruins are in the mountains at 13,000 feet.  Humans cannot live comfortably at above 10,000 feet.  Who would want to live above 13,000 feet?

And 17000 years isn't enough for the mountains to have risen to that height, the atmospheric composition to have changed from one that allowed people to be comfortable at the altitude, there were no drugs (like coca) that allowed people to be comfortable at those altitudes, and people clearly lived in temples.  Each of those points, or a combination of them, makes it plausible that the temples were more accessible at the time they were built and there is NO reason to think that people lived there.  In ancient times, temples were often built on high places that were difficult to access in order to be closer to the gods.  Even today, certain forms of paganism founded in mountainous regions have holy places that are high, inaccessible (or at least not easily accessible) and at altitudes that aren't comfortable, and of an atmosphere thin enough to produce hallucinations (often with the aid of drugs).  There is no reason to rule out these temples being built in places where people had "visions" due to the very circumstances that the author uses to support his ridiculous argument.

The walls at the ruins of Machu Pichu are so precise that you cannot fit a piece of paper between them.

This is a fancy way of saying "the blocks touch each other".  Seriously, take two objects that are fairly heavy, like cans of soup, and put them together so they touch.  You'll notice that paper doesn't fit between them.  Isn't weight + friction great?

I don’t know about you, but I see a helicopter, a jet, and another aircraft that looks like that flying roll thing.

Biodegradable aircraft!  Either that or something that merely resembles modern machinery.  One thing that interesting is that this picture is a famous one.  On this website it doesn't show that the pictographs are actually degraded and might have looked different in the past.

I would say it looks like humanoid beings with some sort of shiny helmets on their heads, with their feet dangling as if they were flying.

IDK, they look like people with halos to me.  You know, the kind they depicted spirits as having, which would explain how they were flying.  Of course, it could just be a depiction of early morning and the halos are just to show that the morning sun is making things glow and the artist didn't bother drawing a line for the ground.

At this point, you'll notice that the author likes to jump on the probable explanations.  You know, the ones that, if true, would have netted us a lot of archaeological artifacts of gears and engines.  Why just last week a transmission was unearthed in northern Pakistan.

Nope, your wrong.  It isn’t a jet, or an airplane.   Archeologists say it is a bird.

A bird from 700 BC that just happens to look like an airplane.  Problem is that no bird ever known has wings UNDER its body.  All birds have wings on top of its body.

It's MUCH more plausible that it's a jet with antennae and holes in its wings.  IT couldn't be a moth or anything.

All of the Nazca lines can only be seen from altitude.  Why would primitive settlements make something you can only see from the air when they don’t have the capability of flight??

It has to be that they were used for aerial navigation, being that NOBODY has EVER undertaken grand projects for the express pleasure of the gods.

Evolution is farfetched.  The theory that a blob of ooze came alive and then evolved into a million different species is too hard to believe and against all odds. ... Alien creation theory fills in all of the holes.

Yes, ALL of the holes.  Because the aliens were created by other aliens, who were created by other aliens...  It must be true because evolution is impossible due to the author's ignorance of what is involved in evolution.

...they [religious writings] all point at the same thing if you know what you are looking for.

If this isn't an admission of a preconception bias, I don't know what is.

[Prometheus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1a1Ek-HD0

A bit off topic but try showing your creationist this link. I'd love to hear his reaction rofl. This single handedly disproves intelligent design. Of course a good theist is gonna say something like, "We can never fully understand gods plans" or "How do you know god/satan didn't do this to test our faith?". This is exactly why i tend to avoid argueing with the imbeciles.