(I started this new thread so it wouldn't get bogged down in the languages discussion on the other Sitchin thread).


Lets say that Sitchins translations
are 100 percent right. That he has accurately reported what is written on the ancient tablets...what exactly would it prove?

The only thing it would prove...let me repeat that again...the only thing it would prove is that men, long ago, wrote down what Sitchin translated.

That's it! Nothing else!

Just because somthing is written down doesn't make it true. (the Illiad and the Odyssey for example) Everything else is speculation. We have no way of verifying what is alleged, and in science verification is EVERYTHING. If it fails that test then it simply isn't science.

So even given the benefit of the doubt, Sitchin still comes up wanting.


Now if these writings had been found on a piece of hull from an alien spacecraft ...that would be a different story!

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

How would you know its the hull of an alien spacecraft?
How many examples of the hull from an alien spacecraft do we have lying about to make an objective comparison.

I was assuming that tests would be run to determine that the hull was of alien manufacture. That proven...if the writings were on said piece of hull...that would be objective evidence.

Pardon my vagueness.

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

R.A.F.

Well, everyone knows that if it is written in some ancient language, it is written by people with ancient knowledge, and ancient knowledge is always superior to modern science...

if you are in a movie that is... :wink:

Anyway, I think it is strange how some people seems to accept something as true(and bether than what scientists have found out) if it is attributed to aliens, some ancient civilization, or similar things...

By the way, why would one write anything like this on the hull of a space craft? The hull is not a good place to write such things, i'd expect... Or are you thinking about some people writing it on a piece of a crashed craft?

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Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

Sorry R.A.F. ... I didn't really mean that seriously. I know there would be ways of determining something like that, however, for some, that still wouldn't be enough.

According to many historians, the ancients themselves knew that their gods and goddesses were fictional. But I'm sure there may have been a good number of them who thought — despite the lack of evidence for their existence — they were real anyway and worshipped them accordingly. This still happens to this day.
There are many stories in the Bible that are taken as historical accounts of real events — like the Flood, as one example — despite all the evidence that it is actually a borrowed myth with other influences added in for style.
The accounts of the Hebrew Torah and Talmud are more traditional than factual — a fact that any Rabbi will readily admit — manily due to the fact that many of the stories were borrowed from cultures within which the Ibri tribes found themsleves (the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, etc.) and most of their history was lost in the melding of their traditions with those of their captor-hosts.
With the dissolution of the major components of their polythesistic religion throughout their history, many of the tales became convoluted ... until they were reformed and classified by the rabbis who came after the first reformation of the faith, timed after the First destruction of the Temple in UrSaleem (Jerusalem). That major reformation saw the adoption of a monothesitic religious structure, the dissolution of the Baal and Asherah cults, as well as the other cults devoted to the gods of their former captors over the centuries, etc.
How can any of that be used as direct proof of anything?

Sitchin seems to think it can and uses it — along with other myths — to prove his point.

Hindsight is 20/20. It is only by comparing their rather mundane desciptions of flying machines that we get into the realm of aliens coming here from beyond.
I have my own ideas about ancient astronauts, but their origins are solidly planted right here on Planet Earth.
But that's all it is ... an idea.

Makes good sci-fi if nothing else.

Well, if Sitchin is correct, then the Enuma Elish is a description of the formation of our solar system, for one. And that there is indeed yet another planet, the "creator", if you will. And that the first verses of Genesis are really referring to the creation of our solar system, not the "universe" as it were.

For another, it would prove that the "gods" of ancient times - the anunnaki, nefilim, elohim, etc. - were real beings who created the "adammu" or A.DIM or earthling "after (their) likeness, in (their) image." This, then, would dispell the religious lines of segregation that have been the basis for most wars throughout history.

Perhaps From Godspell to Godgames explains it best.

Sorry R.A.F, but you are using the wrong example. For many centuries it was believed that the `Iliad' was a piece of imaginative and inventive fiction. In 1870, however, the German Heinrich Schliemann began excavations at the place where Troy was believed to have stood. Schliemann and his successors found the ruins of nine cities built atop one another over a period of 3,500 years. Homer's Troy was the seventh city.

I am not debating if Sitchins is wrong or right, I am not debating your point of view. I am even not debating if the Iliad is true or not. But for sure Iliad contains very important historical clues.

King Kong was set in New York.
New York is a real city.
Is King Kong then real automatically?

Nope.

Just because a myth contains real places, it does not automatically follow that it also contains real events and things.

My bad. Thats what I get for trying to use examples.

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Another thought:

The ancients were astute astronomers — or at least ... many of them were observant of celestial events, wrote them down, and made patterns from the chaos at times. In this way they were able to determine that eclipses happen, the sun and moon do certain things, and even, the whole of the sky seems to move — precession — among other things.
I'm sure they also saw many things that they had no clue about, like aurorae (a distinct possibility even at lower latitudes especially during intense solar activity) and meteor showers and possibly storms.
They must have also seen novae, supernovae, bollides, and comets of all sorts and styles. What is faint today wasn't back then, so the sky was probably alight with many wonders in ancient times.

Since most — if not all — religious ideals stem from pinings of death and the promise of a continuation afterwards, (mostly as solice to the mourning), and that which would rule them peacefully in that after realm ... and the connection to a seemingly eternal sky to a seemingly eternal soul is easy to make ... it logically follows that the afterlife would be lived in this realm (heaven) and ruled by gods — who would also logically have to live up there too.
Ideas about how they get around in the sky (wings comes to mind first) and their weaponry (lightning, fireballs. etc) and their heralds (comets, meteors and the like) ... with all that it is easy to see why the stories sound the way they do.
Tales of flaming chariots and thunderbolt spears make perfect sense as pure myth when you look at it this way. It just makes sense that the gods would travel in ways familiar to the people at the time ... which in turn can explain why the gods (as they are appearing today: aliens), would travel in ways we today expect aliens to travel. Firey chariots become flying saucers or muti-staged rockets; lightning spears become laser beams; arrows of Shamash become nuclear weaponry.
I understand why it happens, but I can't agree with those who think that IS how it happened.

Since when have we invented time machines to go back and make difinitive statements like Sitchin has?

WHERE do you get all that? Perhaps I can explain it a different way.

If I write down that the sky is blue what exactly does that prove. You with me so far? O.k. Well it certainly doesn't prove that the sky is blue, even though it is. It proves that I wrote it down and NOTHING ELSE. There is absolutely no way of proving the truth of the statement itself simply because it was wrote down. GET IT!!


Sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Sorry, in advance, for being a little snippy.

edited to change green to blue

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Yep, you would only have proven someone wrote down roughly what Sitchin said they wrote down.

It would have no bearing on it's validity, or it's relationship to reality at the time it was written.

If I write that a note that says that we landed men on the moon Io on this date, and someone finds this written note in 3,000 years and translates it correctly into their language, does that mean it really happened?

Of course writing something down doesn't automatically make it true. :-? It's only true if it's been written by Sitchin. :wink:

If the discoverers of my note have not yet managed to get that far, then will they believe we had superior technology that has been lost?

Correct, it simply means that Sitchin has worked out what the ancient Sumerians believed...

Once upon a time the Earth was flat, at the centre of the universe. Once there were only 5 planets in the solar system. Once there was only one galaxy. Once we couldn't fly. Once we believed all of these things were absolute and unchangeable

As we learn more about existence - our view changes. The Sumerians view, if it mirrors Sitchin's translation, is simply wrong.

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bunk: Empty talk; nonsense.
de·bunk: To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims of.
http://home.iprimus.com.au/eddo/images/fredheadtsp.gif

GOT IT!

However, if Sitchin is right and the Enuma Elish really is a description of the solar system's formation, how would the ancients have known that? How could they have known about the planets beyond Saturn? Who could've told them?

And no worries about "being a little snippy" since I myself have that propensity.

ADIM, for the umpteenth time — NO ONE BUT SITCHIN SAYS THE SUMERIANS KNEW ANY PLANETS BEYOND SATURN — NO MATTER WHAT SOME RORSCHACKESQUE CLAY CYLNDER IMPRESSION LEAD HIM TO BELIEVE.
The few astronomical references found in the Sumerian records NEVER MENTION ANY PLANETS OTHER THAN THE 5 ALREADY KNOWN.

They were HORRIBLE astronomers.
Get it?
(I know you don't want to.)

#-o

Have fun running around in circles guys.
I'm outta here.

If, in fact, written records prove nothing, then would that not apply to everything that has been written in this forum as well? For example, is a reader of posts here in a position to prove the true identities of any person posting here, let alone the validity of what they have written? Even if a poster places information about themselves in a profile, that info would still have to be verified to be accurate.

All these posts prove is that there is a forum here that is updated regularly with additional new text, but the existence of it proves nothing about the content of it.

Don't get me wrong, I agree totally with the idea that simply writing something down doesn't prove anything about the content of the written material. But I would think that this idea would then apply to both the pro-PXers AND to the con-PXers in this context.

Regards, LariAnn

Not the same.

Yeah, it's possible that people are lying or misinformed. But it's easy to do away with such an existential doubt: you can always check the facts yourself. Buy a telescope. Watch the skies. Time the sunset.

On the other hand, if some guys who died thousands of years ago say they were created by aliens, and that's all the "evidence" you've got, how are you going to know for sure?

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"The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it." -George Bernard Shaw

Val, did you miss the title of this thread? "WHAT IF SITCHIN IS RIGHT"

Get it? Want to?

So, IF SITCHIN IS RIGHT, the Enuma Elish describes the formation of the solar system!

Geez!

No, if Sitchin is right, it describes what the Sumerians thought was the creation of the solar system.

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

OK :-?

But again, "if it describes what the Sumerians thought was the creation of the solar system," how could they have known about the asteroid belt, the planets beyond Saturn, and of course, Nibiru?

I don't know, I'm just a semantics cop! :wink:

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Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

"If Sitchin is right, what does that prove?"

That's a bit too much to try and put down in a post. I suggest reading The 12th Planet, and you would know to what extent of human history his theory would affect. Or at the least, read the posts from the three Sitchin "allowers" (A.DIM, Outcast, and myself) in "Sitchin Continued" and its mother thread "pyramids and orion question" (link found at beginning of Sitchin Continued). We covered quite a bit of what his theory is about, though based on the size of those two threads, it may just be faster to read the darn book.

However, Sitchin probably isn't right. I don't think anyone can truly say any theory is 100% right with a straight face. That includes mainstream theories, which only exist because the previous theory was wrong. But does Sitchin have a fresh insight into human origins? And do his theories make a lot of sense in the grand scale? Yes they do. Perhaps he is on the right track. Or maybe he's on the wrong track. Who really knows? But it is a theory worth reading because it does a great job at explaining many things and mysteries in our past, and the evolution of religion, in a scientifically possible way. It combines the arguments of the evolutionists and the creationists, and says that perhaps they are both right. How much value you give to Sitchin's theory is up to you to decide. I try to look at things from a mainstream point of view first, and if there are inconsistencies in the logic or things don't sit quite well with me, I do allow an Ancient Astronaut theory as a possibility if it fits better than the conventional theory.

Very well put, LariAnn. And welcome to the BABB!

I only want to add that it seems few people have actually read Sitchin, yet many have rebutted against him. I'm sure this is mostly due to the unfortunate association with the Zetacrazies' PX. I also think this is why we so often veer off on tangents, such as the most recent "linguistics" (semantics, I daresay?) episode.

Regards,

Chris

my emphasis - Is this not amazing in and of itself, or what?

But I'm confused Val, you make the above statement, and then later add:

Well, which is it? :-?

And regarding circles, I prefer 360degrees rather than 180degrees. :wink:

Not that I wanted to get drawn back in ... but this is a direct issue with one of my posts.


The ancients (such as the Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese) were astute astronomers.
The Sumerians were horrible astronomers.

Get it?

The Sumerian records show a distinct lack (of interest or skill) in astronomy. They either didn't feel they needed to keep such track of the sky — as opposed to other cultures which did — or we haven't found the volumes missing from their record yet.
What they did have was rather basic and DO NOT mention any other bodies in the solar system other than Mer. Ve. Ea. Mar. Jup. and Sat., of course including the moon and the sun.
It is also rather doubtful that they knew any more of these planets than what we already think they know since the moons of Jupiter — visible even with the most modest magnifications — are not mentioned. Saturn's rings I can forgive because those can be difficult to spot with simple magnifications.

If they were to have recieved knowledge on these outer worlds, the facts would be hard to dismiss. They would know much more than you think they did ... like the fact other worlds have moons — such an important part of this planet's heirarchy of belief — and that Saturn has so many they crowd it like bees around an apiary.
I am amazed that the Sumerians — or the Anunnanki, if you insist — didn't mention these wonders. I mean, c'mon, legends and myths are still centered around the aurorae and comets, and these are nothing compared to the delicate wonder of the Saturnian ring system or the massive moons of Jupiter. Yet — nothing.
You may think that this is a minor point, but that just goes to show how little you may understand about the way people thought back then. We'd have legends and hundreds of depictions of the Saturnian system if they knew about it. They would also depict Jupiter fronted by four major deities.
Nothing.
Why?
I tend to believe it's because they didn't know about them — the rings and moons that is.
How can that be is they are alledged to have gotten their outerworldly lessons from aliens who saw these things upclose and personal?

And Hank ...

You keep on saying that the Anunnanki were far removed from the Sumerians and that they left soon after instilling kingship onto man.
How can that be?
Sitchin believes that the Annunanki didn't evacuate until 1300 BCE. The Sumerians are from a time long before that. This means that man would have had a good 2ooo or 3ooo years with them here.
Why is it that the other cultures that existed, like the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, among others lesser tribes and societies strewn about — who would have seen the ships and the aliens first hand — why is it that only the Sumerians say anything about them — and of course — only if you read what they wrote "the right way?"

Val, you keep talking as if the Anunnaki had set up schools where they would teach humans about the wonders of the universe. If you have read Sitchin, as you state, you would know that is absolutely not the case. They taught humans, en masse, nothing. They taught only a handful of individuals (in fact, only Adapa comes to mind) advanced knowledge. Now, with Adapa, we're probably talking 15,000-20,000 years ago, at least (perhaps even 200,000 years ago), or somewhere in that vicinity. That's a looong time ago.

How do you expect Sumerians, who lived circa 4000BC, to still have detailed scientific knowledge of the universe? All that can be expected of them are legends based on ancient knowledge that has been passed down over thousands of years. Some interesting knowledge will survive, and perhaps in an allegorical form, but not the type of details you are expecting of them. What Sitchin does, is take these Sumerian allegories and try to figure out the underlying science that spawned them, and then see if it all makes sense. Which most of it does.

Also, why would a Sumerian care about moons around another planet that he or she cannot see? Or rings? Of importance to the Sumerian were the 12 main heavenly bodies, because the Sumerians associated them with the 12 ruling members of the Anunnaki. The Sumerians wanted to associate 12 celestial objects with rulers. What 12 would you choose? Would it be any different than the 12 that the Sumerians chose? And why?

According to Sitchin, the vast majority of the Anunnaki (which peaked at around 300) left around 10,000-11,000 BC. Of the handful who remained, most of them left sometime around 3000-4000BC. The only one I recall remaining after that was Marduk, who finally was able to become the leader after the departure of Enlil and Enki. He stayed on for a while as a "God", who would appoint human priest-kings to control the human population, and was the basis for the whole concept of religion. In fact, according to Sitchin, Marduk was Ra. Prior to Marduk, the Anunnaki were not considered gods. In Sumer they were called "dingir", meaning "righteous ones of the bright pointed objects". They were our masters, but not our gods.

I still see no evidence to support the idea that the ancients had ANY advanced knowledge, whatsoever.

Now I'm not trying to tell you how you should word your posts...like I could but I'm having a little trouble with your phraseology here. It makes sense to you, (or Outcast or A.DIM) but there are obviously different opinions here and I just don't want a newbie to come on this board and think...Wow, Sitchin must be right...Hank said so. (It could happen, Val, stop laughing). A better way to put it would be "I think Sitchin's ideas make sense". Thats an opinion...and a wording I can live with. (Sorry to Nit-pick)

Then WHY would a Sumerian care about little bitty Pluto...which they also could not see? You're not trying to tell us that they "saw" Pluto, but were unable to see Saturn's rings, are you?

When you pick "n" choose what you want to see in Sitchin's theorys, to justify them...well...It just makes the entire premise a whole lot harder to swallow...you see that, don't you?

__________________
"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

Because in trying to come up with a celestial body to honor your master with, you're not going to pick rings. You're going to pick a planet. Not an insignificant moon, but a planet, with its independant orbit or "destiny". The Sumerian knowledge of the solar system would be based on information handed down through the generations over thousands of years. I think we can forgive them if they lost some details. The important thing is, if they're right, they had knowledge of the existance of the outer planets, which they should not have been able to see. The fact that Mars is the six pointed star, and Venus the eight pointed star, is also odd considering that those are the numbers of the planets if you are counting them from the outside in, as an observer on Nibiru would be. Off course, this is an oddity that, individually, could be brushed off as coincidence. But as a whole, the entire collection of all these little pieces fit together astonishingly well in Sitchin's theory, and come together in a way that makes a lot of sense, in my opinion.

(you're right, it is my opinion)