2nd February 2012, 08:36 AM
(This post was last modified: 2nd February 2012, 09:23 AM by kevin wooldridge.)
BAJR Wrote:.. .. With a colleague I can at least debate, with a crank (and I can tell you from experience ) I can't. there is no third way with a crank. archaeology is indeed not black and white, but a crank... I am afraid it is. You can't come out both enlightened... you really can't... you can't debate. have you ever tried? it is not a war, but it is also not worth my time...
That reminds me of a conversation I once had with a non-archaeologist visitor to a site where I was working. I gave the standard site tour and was impressed not only that the visitor seemed to be taking it all in, but also asking quite intelligent questions in return. Having reached the end of the tour, by then we had ventured onto discussing whether there might have been mesolithic settlement in the general area, and he asked 'So how long ago would that have been'. I suggested vaguely 'Oh maybe 10,000 years or so'..... which set him off on a raging torrent about how misguided I was because scholars had deduced from close study of the bible that the earth could not possibly be more than 6000 years old.....
Just playing devils advocate (possibly literally), would we class all creationists and believers of 'historically imprecise' religion in the same category as we'd class archaeological fruitcakes? If we could extend (perhaps patronisingly) a degree of tolerance to the former, couldn't it also cover the latter?
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...