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This has officially become one of the silliest discussions I've ever voluntarily participated in. Seriously...trying to prove or disprove a big boat story that ostensibly happened some 4,000 years ago with no verifiable physical evidence. Is this really that important to the validation of some of y'alls faith that this much time and effort has been expended on it? Really?
Are we nonbelievers honestly going to spend this much time and effort disproving a legend?
Talk about a full circle discussion:
"The Ark exists...a bunch of people said they saw it...sorta like UFO people."
"Yeah, but there isn't any physical evidence"
"But all these cultures have similar stories."
"Let me explain something about those stories to you"
"Bullcrap. They said the same things as Genesis"
"Nu uh"
"Did so"
"Well how do you explain how the animals could live at that altitude with no fresh water?"
"God did it"
"Well, the dove found a stick in sea water? There are no olive trees up there!"
"God did it"
"Well the shear number of animals in the Ark versus the volume of the ark doesn't add up! Physics man, physics!"
"Well science is irrelevant because it interferes with my faith. God did it. Besides, all these cultures have a similar story and abunch of people said they saw it...sorta like the UFO guys."
a) They aren't going to accept that we are right.
b) We aren't going to to accept that they are right.
c) This discussion, that is now on page 82, has said the same things over and over and now has just become silly.
d) I can't believe I participated
This has officially become one of the silliest discussions I've ever voluntarily participated in. Seriously...trying to prove or disprove a big boat story that ostensibly happened some 4,000 years ago with no verifiable physical evidence. Is this really that important to the validation of some of y'alls faith that this much time and effort has been expended on it? Really?
Are we nonbelievers honestly going to spend this much time and effort disproving a legend?
Talk about a full circle discussion:
"The Ark exists...a bunch of people said they saw it...sorta like UFO people."
"Yeah, but there isn't any physical evidence"
"But all these cultures have similar stories."
"Let me explain something about those stories to you"
"Bullcrap. They said the same things as Genesis"
"Nu uh"
"Did so"
"Well how do you explain how the animals could live at that altitude with no fresh water?"
"God did it"
"Well, the dove found a stick in sea water? There are no olive trees up there!"
"God did it"
"Well the shear number of animals in the Ark versus the volume of the ark doesn't add up! Physics man, physics!"
"Well science is irrelevant because it interferes with my faith. God did it. Besides, all these cultures have a similar story and abunch of people said they saw it...sorta like the UFO guys."
a) They aren't going to accept that we are right.
b) We aren't going to to accept that they are right.
c) This discussion, that is now on page 82, has said the same things over and over and now has just become silly.
d) I can't believe I participated
Welcome to the wonderful world of fundie education and rehabilitation..
It's a tough job with a low success rate - but someone's gotta do it
Indeed. But it is neccessary, because, if no-one takes issue with theist claims, they win by default. Arguing about things like Noah's Ark may seem futile but it is neccessary because it shows:
(a) the Bible should not be accepted without question
(b) theists can adduce a lot of unsupported possibilities as 'evidence'.
I had a long - VERY long - discussion with a theist about this subject on another forum and the two main problems for him (though he changed the subject) was how Noah got the animals together. He suggested some form of God-induced migration rather than the idea of Noah spending a century cruising the antediluvian world collecting specimens. The other was why, if the animals migrated to their present locations, we got the marsupials migrating to Australia and the non-marsupials everywhere else.
Again, it's the idea of taking the Bible story as fact and adapting it to fit the evidence rather than discard it as untenable. It is impossible to have all the species collected housed and kept alive in such numbers and such conditions? Make the 'species' a few basic 'kinds' which then evolved (at supernatural speed) into the present varieties.
Quite apart from their survival on the Ark, how did they survive in a devastated world? The carnivores should have been too busy polishing off the pairs of edible beasts to think about migrating to Africa.
The boat could not have survived a storm? Scrap the storm and just have an upwelling of the waters from under the deep (no evidence of underground seas today) with the Ark floating serenely on the surface. Unfortunately, it was then neccessary to have a cataclysm in order to have the broken-up continents speeding to their present positions, which would give us back the ark - foundering storm.
Another problem was why it was even neccessary. After creating man and allowing them to populate the earth, God decides to wipe them all out? What does that say about omniscience and forward planning?
There was an earlier suggestion that it might have been just a local event. In the Mesopotamian version it certainly looks like a local event. well, possibly, but then it means that the there might be a fact behind the myth, but the supposed divine reason for it is all myth. And that's enough reason not to base a religious faith on it.
Well Genesis 8:8,9 tell us that Noah sent out a dove, yet it could find no place to (set its feet), and because of this, it returned to the Ark. And when Noah did this a second time. The dove did return to the Ark with a freshly plucked olive leaf, and in that part your are correct. However, I might point out, that this event occured over eleven months after the rains stopped. And so, because of the passage of so many months, this occurance would not require a magic tree. And I might point out also that Olive trees can be found growing on mountains. And in some cases, the have been found growing almost a half a mile above sea level.
Again, you missed the point. The point was to show that what you claim is the Ark can't be the ark. What magic tree are you talking about? I am only referring to wherereal olive trees thrive, none of your floating dead branches that do not indicate any place to land. None are located anywhere near the elevations you are talking about. You were talking about almost three miles, a far cry from only a half-mile.
If you took the time to read the story, you would of understood that it was not just the rain that flooded the earth. The Bible states that the fountains of the deep were opened up. It is believed that the earth's crust collapsed. I believed the earth's diameter is close to 8,000 miles. And the depth of the water during the flood was close to 6 miles. And if science is now telling us that the universe was once so small we could put it in our shirt pocket. Well for you to suggest that anything else would be impossible, especially after that statement. I find that HILARIOUS.
"Oh yes, of course we could put the entire universe in our shirt pocket, that only makes sense. But the idea of an 8,000 mile Diameter earth absorbing 6 miles of water? (IMPOSSIBLE). LOL
I believe your universe in the shirt pocket, is much more of a myth, then the Biblical flood account.
Fountains of the deep opened up? What does that mean? Did the earth used to be filled with water or something?
I wonder where they kept the komodo dragons, black widows, brown recluses, diamondback rattlesnakes, black mambas, and king cobras.
Yeah I have asked about similar animals myself. Could you imagine a male gorilla in an ark full of animals?! Especially when his female was in heat! Yikes!
Yeah I have asked about similar animals myself. Could you imagine a male gorilla in an ark full of animals?! Especially when his female was in heat! Yikes!
This is probably why Noah took to drinking after the ordeal was over!
Genesis 9
Quote:
20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded [a] to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.
If a person wants to find a reason to disbelieve the Bible they can, but in the end it won't hold water.
Quote from: rifleman, 2009: "If a person has to believe in the bible to feel secure, they will, no matter what quality of evidence refutes it."
To your quite valid point, Fullback, I had just this very discussion tonight with my 20 yr old son, who, oddly, is a sort of semi-Christian, as we drove through the dark, over the Cascade Mountains. Kept us awake!
Anyhow, he points out that the majority of Christians do not take this sort of thing as far as the crackpot literalists do. That many or most practicing and socially functional Christians do not sequester themselves down in the basement of their aging mother's house, banging away on their computers, and defending the indefensible.
He suggested that I, as well as the others on the "Reality Team" here, perhaps just back off, because there is NOTHNIG that we can ever say, no matter how well presented or evidenced or carefully refuted, that will pry it's way into the tight-as-a-clam minds of the literalist Christians.
So I for one am going to take his advice. Having been away from C-D for even just a couple of days, I do now see that my personal goal of perhaps bringing some rational reality to this long-enduring argument is pointless with some in the current audience, and it's better to let them be.
Especially when they won't answer simple questions that would box them in. No wonder that they avoid them, huh?
Over time, the truth about the absurdities of literalistic biblical interpretations, coupled with the ongoing and spectacular growth of scientific knowledge about our ancient world and it's evolved inhabitants and ancestors, has been accepted by more and more mature, rational thinkers.
This is now being amply demonstrated in the growing number of atheists in North America and Europe (tho' perhaps not in the less educated regions or where theist thugs still preside, stoning the dis-believers in the public square).
And would they also write that the water rose above the highest mountains? That would pretty much rule out the local flood theory.
Even an illiterate man would understand that.
This true, but look at it this way how high was the highest moutain? It is all a matter of perspective
Ok, let's hear what kinds of crazy ideas can explain all of that away.
Magic of course.
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The point was to show that what you claim is the Ark can't be the ark. What magic tree are you talking about? I am only referring to where real olive trees thrive, none of your floating dead branches that do not indicate any place to land. None are located anywhere near the elevations you are talking about. You were talking about almost three miles, a far cry from only a half-mile.
Or...
