neilgodfrey wrote:all you are engaging in is confirmation bias, and when I have demonstrated that your model of how time is conceptualized seasonally etc is cultural and local, not universal.
This comment refers to an exchange at
viewtopic.php?p=9836#p9836
It is worth extracting the relevant bits here as another example of Neil's apparent inability to examine ancient cosmology in a sensible way, and his tendency to pile wildly false accusations (confirmation bias) on top of his failure to get the basic facts.
I raised the question whether there are any alternative explanations of the myth of Jesus Christ and the twelve disciples that are more plausible than the twelve as universal lunisolar myth. In this context, my use of 'universal' was for all people with any connection to early Christianity, in response to the false assertion in the thread that the idea that Mithras had twelve disciples is 'bonkers'.
Neil raised the irrelevant and false deflection that "the data does not support a universal 'natural structure' of time." I explained, quite simply I thought, that "in human culture, the day and year are universal governing patterns of light and dark, heat and cold, activity and rest." As well as this universal cultural recognition of the day and year (note I did not say seasons), I commented that the observation in Genesis 1 of "the relation between the sun and the moon as ‘the two great lights’ is at the core of all primitive cosmology, providing the natural structure of time in terms of years, months, weeks, days and nights."
Okay, you could nitpick about clarity of expression here, for example since Egyptians used decans. That is not actually relevant, since my point was that these temporal periods are universal natural structures of terrestrial time. The single natural structure underpins a range of cultural structures, varying by location.
I then explained the gravitational physics of the week against the universal rhythm of neap and spring tides driven by the weekly quarters of the moon. Cultural theories do not affect this universal natural physical structure of time.
I was not at all implying that isolated tribes in Australia must have had the same theory of seasons as in Europe. It seems this simple distinction between a natural and a cultural structure of time passed by Neil, who noted that Darwin in northern Australia only has two seasons, where "it's more "natural" to divide seasons not by the moon but by weather and changing hunting and foraging cylces.)"
Things to note here. I never implied that seasons are the same at all latitudes. I live in Australia, so I obviously know our temperate zone seasons are in reverse from those of Europe. But look again at Neil's innumerate claim that my astronomical "model of how time is conceptualized seasonally etc is cultural and local, not universal." This false statement by Neil invalidly mashes together unconnected points, and fails to engage on detail, much less understand the discussion.
I was not talking at this point about how time is conceptualised, but rather the natural structure of time, as an objective scientific discovery in astrophysics. Neil has given me the impression that he thinks there can be no objective universal absolutes, so it does not surprise me that he is oblivious to the objective universal absolutes in astronomy, which for the topic of terrestrial time include the year, the month, the week, the day, and for that matter, the Great Year of precession of the equinoxes. These terrestrial temporal structures have been much the same, with barely detectable change, since before humans evolved.
Without such basic astronomical understanding of time it is not possible to have a sensible conversation about how the cosmology of time influenced the Bible. Neil seems to think I am engaged in confirmation bias just because I understand that time is real.