Researchers To Climb Ararat To Seek Noah's Ark 2226
fudgefactor7 writes "CNN/AP has a story about researchers that plan on ascending Mt. Ararat in search of the Ark of Noah. My favorite quote: ''We are not excavating it. We are not taking any artifacts. We're going to photograph it and, God willing, you're all going to see it,' McGivern said.' As if pictures can't be doctored and are absolute proof...."
Gee... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Gee... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Funny)
No, Money is the root of all evil. Send $9.99 for more information.
Re:Gee...Go back in HIstory (Score:5, Informative)
then you believe it. The word "belief" doesn't automatically invoke religion. I believe that when I go out into the parking lot my car will be sitting there because the battery is dead. I have no *proof* of this, my car could have been towed or stolen or destroyed. But I believe that it will be in the parking lot when I walk out the door. So far I'm batting 1000.
"A scientist *thinks* that the earth is round, because somebody else explained it and it makes sense."
OK, now I see the problem. You have a semantic hangup with the word "believe". Fine, use the word "think". It's the same thing. If you *think* something is true, then you believe it to be true. And if you believe something to be true, it's because you think that it's true. Christians *think* the Bible makes sense, this is the same thing as saying they believe it.
And let's not forget that the actual scientist thinks that the Earth is round because of measurements and observations he's made. You, having heard the scientist and found him credible, choose to *believe* what he is saying, since you didn't make these measurements and observations and have no first-hand scientific knowledge that would lead you to that conclusion independantly.
Face it man, a vast portion of who you are is what you've been told. When you were five, did you not cross the street without looking both ways because you had personally experimented and obtained unfavorable results - or did you *believe* your mother when she told you it was a bad idea? Did you personally try talking to the nice stranger in the trenchcoat with the candy and find out through personal experimentation that he was a child molestor - or did you *believe* your parents and teachers when they told you he was a sicko? We all hold that murder is wrong (hopefully) not because we've tried it and been dissatisfied with the results, but because other people who have been involved with actual murders tell us it tends to not work out too well, and we choose to *believe* them. We subscribe to the theory of relativity not because we've proved it ourselves - we *believe* Einstein.
There are two sources of knowledge in the world - what you prove yourself to be true and what you accept from others to be true.
That's why, when asked a question to which one might not definately know the answer but is pretty sure, a common response is "I believe so", or "I believe not". Those are not inherently religious statements.
Anybody who tells anybody anything is either believed, disbelieved, or held in reserve judgement. (assuming they speak the same language, have the same mental capacity, blah blah blah).
Don't like the word? Don't use it. But it has a well-established meaning completely divorced from faith or religion. But hey, look it up yourself, don't *believe* me...
Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mount Ararat is named in the Bible as the resting place of the Ark. That section of the Bible was written more than 2000 years ago. Scientific principles absolutely demand that someone must go up there and search for it.
If they find what looks like the remnants of a big wooden ship then whoopee, we get to debate what it really is and launch further expeditions and employ other technology and analysis to see if this is true.
If they find nothing, Someone will claim that they looked in the wrong place and try again. (Ararat is a big mountain)
If they die trying; tough luck. That happens sometimes to people trying to test an important theory.
At the very least searching for the Arc on Ararat is more important than going back to the Moon or climbing Everest again. It is roughly on par with searching for signs of life on Mars and the SETI program. I.e. Published and authenticated success would revolutionize thinking.
For the record There were many attempts to launch such an expedition in the 20th century, They all suffered political trauma. I.e. Ararat, sat on a border between enemies. The political climate has changed and former enemies are now tolerant neighbors.
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps it wasn't 17000 feet tall at the time. Simply because the earth currently has "deep" oceans and "high" mountains doesn't mean that it always did.
I'm sure some smart SlashDotter will be able to work out the cubic volume of water that must have been needed to do that, and I'm guessing it is more water than is available in the entire planet.
There's a fair bit of water on the planet. If you hypothesize a flatter planet then it seems definitely possible that the whole of it could be covered with water, assuming that your hypothesis holds.
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
the other day I read an article that states that Davinci's Clock Car was built. It has not practicle purpose, but it backs up a historical belief.
I've seen a ball of twine that was at least 2-3 meters tall and the guy who did it still avidly works on making it bigger.
I've watched some idiot, evil kenevil I think try to jump the grand canon on a motor cycle.
Canada built a space needle, it has as far as I can tell no practicle purpose what-so-ever, but they built it to have a really tall building I think.
Is it at all possible that maybe a person familiar with the tales of Noah's ark actually built a boat on top of this mountain simply to convince the people of the time of something?
I am willing to believe very easily knowing what I know of the time period that in the same way which the priests of ancient mesopotania built zigrats and convinced his followers that the gods themselves built it. I am willing also to believe that priests of a later time forces slaves to build an ark in order to prove to disbelievers that Noah's ark is true, so the rest must be too.
BTW... although we Jews very much enjoy celebrating... I mean morning.. whatever... ever historical event that is convenient for us to remember. We at one time had a small empire in Israel which we controlled using FUD. We forced our religion on others, performed extensive ethnic cleansing, built palaces (sort of), and even enslaved entire countries (Etheopia for example).
We very much enjoy letting others believe that we've always been the victim. For proof of that which can be backed up with other information, but can best be described as circumstantial in this context... remember that history is written by the winners
History (Score:5, Insightful)
Judaism is not and never has been a triumphalist religion. It does not proseletize and has no interest in converting others unless they become affiliated by marriage. It is first and formost a tribal religion providing an ancestral memory. To this end, it has been wildly successful, and has avoided most of the excesses of the triumphalist religions, Islam and Christianity.
As for Noah's Ark, this too is a much older myth predating Judaism (Atlantis is one version of it.) The story of the flood may have a historical basis; at the end of the last ice age, the melting of European glaciers flooded the Mediterranean Sea until a natural barrier collapsed. The water flooded the Black Sea in a massive rush, with water levels rising hundreds of feet in a matter of months. There is evidence that this displaced a lot of people living on the shores of the Black Sea. The flood myth may have originated with this event.
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Informative)
Radius of earth = 6371Km = 6.371e6 metres
Surface area of earth = 1.7e14 metres^2
height half way up Ararat = 2590 metres
Volume of water needed to cover surface of earth to this level = 4.4e17m^3.
Volume of water held in atmosphere = 1.3e13 metres^3
Volume of water on land or frozen in ice sheets (almost all of this is in the latter) = 3.3e16 metres^3.
So even if all of the water on the planet fell as rain, you'd still only have about a tenth as much to get you half way up Ararat.
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
If all the ice in the world melted, the sea level would rise by about 70 meters. That leaves ~2400 meters wanting for the seabed, if this boat was only half way up the mountain (assuming the parent got that height right, and 2,500 meters isn't that high)
Let's assume this shortfall was made up by plate techtonics. I haven't read the bible, but I'm assuming they're dealing with a relatively short time frame here, since the Noah story was supposed to have taken place. Let's give them a good chuck of time, say 7200 years to keep things nice a mathematically simple.
So, to give plate techtonics the credit, the Ararat area would therefore have to be moving 33cm a year, or 1mm every single day for the last 7200 years, vertically.
Continental drift occurs at, on average, at the same speed your fingernails grow, or ~5-10cm a year. Now three time the average would be something special, but three times the yearly average purely vertically would have geo physicists very interested, esspecially considering the Arabian plate is esitmated to have an average tectonic movement of around 4cm [hypertextbook.com] per year (this is largely horizontal movement, remember).
OK, so let's give a little give and say the 4cm/y was purely vertical over the last 7200 years, that's 288 meters, leaving us still 2,112 meters short of the sea level, even if all the ice had melted.
So, tectonics would have had to have being working overtime and a half to have made up for this shortfall.
Let's think about this from the perspective of the geological record. From observation by many different people around the world of sedimentary strata, from gas sample taken from ice cores along with many other observations, it is agreed in the scientific community that sea level was about 6 meters higher ~8,000 years ago.
Now, truth is that ~8,000 years ago (7600 to be a little more precise), there were huge floods [noaa.gov], as the weather was very unstable, but the flooding that occured certainly didn't cover the Earth (there'd be some wicked Quaternary [gov.ns.ca] formations if it did), which leads me to thinking that the story of Noah's ark should be taken more in terms of a fishing tale (thiiiiiiis big), rather than an accurate record of a historical event.
Besides, need we get into the debate about exactly how big that arc would have to have been in order to contain two of every species on earth? Or that for a gentically viable population, you need around 10-20 breeding pairs (according to a genetics scientist friend of mine). Or that reforesting the Earth would have taken hundreds of thousands, if not million of years. Or that the bible has been rewritten, translated and modified many, many times (but let's not go there) .
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Interesting)
they removed and bansihed the texts of mary Madgeline, and other "unappropriate" sections.
The Old testamanent has been altered by the jewish leaders before the Catholics arrived, and the Koran has certianly been modified by the extremist muslim leaders trying to ensure their desires are there and the ideas against them were squished.
If you could point to proof that says "God Wrote THIS!" what we have today has been overly perverted by man so much that it is almost nothing like the origional.
Hell, many properly translated sections lose almost all the meaning in translation. Like whaty Jesus said on the cross at his death was not "it is finished" but "the debt is paid" which mean two very different things... yet is any english bibles corrected? nope..
If anything on this planet was handed to man by God, man certianly perverted it to his own uses by now.... and we all know that the church is generally interested in power and control instead of their real purpose... why does a church that asks for feeding the needy have to be made out of solid marble and granite cost 22 billion and have a solid gold statue or three? you could house and feed for 5 years EVERY homeless person in america with the hidden wealth in the catholic and prodistant churches.
Just my beef, 90% of christians are hippa-christans.. they have the fish on their car as the careen through traffic flipping off the slower drivers... so they tell the world.. "I'm christian! I'm an ASSHOLE!.... Christians are Assholes!"
and for the record, yes I AM christian.
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Informative)
"When he had received the drink, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit."
Here's the actual Greek:
"Hote oun elaben to oxos ho Iêsous eipen, Tetelestai, kai klinas tên kephalên paredôken to pneuma."
And here's a word for word translation of the Koine:
"When therefore he took the sour wine the Jesus said, It has finished, and bowing the head he gave up the spirit."
A more fluid, still literal, English translation would yield the following:
"Therefore, when he took the sour wine Jesus said, "It is finished," and bowing his head he gave up his spirit."
For your information, let me fully parse the word and account for why it is the way it is. The word translated into, "It is finished," tetelestai, is a perfect tense middle/passive voice (though in this case it must be passive since there's no object implied or otherwise), third person singular, indicative mood from the verb teleô. The verb teleô has many meanings, so here's a list from the Liddell & Scott, Greek-English Lexicon: "I. (1) to complete, fulfill, accomplish: generally, to perform, execute, Lat. perficere -- Pass. to be completed, fulfilled, accomplished: to come to pass, happen; (2) to make perfect, bring to maturity; (3) to bring to an end, finish, end: in Pass. to come to one's end; (4) sometimes intr. like teleutoô, to come to an end, be fulfilled, turn out. II. (1) to pay one's dues or taxes, to pay as tax, duty, due: generally to lay out, spend; (2) to be rated or assessed, to belong to, be classed among. III. to consecrate, initiate, Pass. to have oneself initiated." So yes, it *can* mean "the debt is paid," but I would argue against that for several reasons. First of all, in the account, Jesus is dying and his ministry up to his death is finished. Most logically it seems that his work on the earth before death is being referred to here. Secondly, the words "the debt" do not appear in the Greek text, so the Greek would have to be rendered "It is paid," not "the debt is paid," to be completely literal. Furthermore within the immediately surrounding context, no mention is made of debt. Finally, from a strictly Christian theological perspective, the debt had not been paid by that point, since Jesus had not suffered the pain of death, the subsequent descent into hell, and his resulting resurrection.
One other point to be made would be that it is relatively difficult to translate the Greek perfect into English, since their perfect tense is said with the viewpoint of the speaker now speaking about the ramifications of an action having occurred in the past. So a verb in the perfect tense does *not* refer to the past action, but actually to the present state/consequences. For example, take the verb lambanô, which means "I take." In the aorist, elabon, it means "I took." However, the perfect, eilêpha, can mean "I have taken" or just simply "I have" since if you have taken something, speaking about the current state now, you actually have it in your posession.
So feel free to take what I've said as you will. I can assure you, though, that the translation "it is finished" is at least as valid as "the debt is paid" if not a more accepted translation of what Jesus says.
By the way, all this comes by means of analysis from myself, a second year Greek student at the University of Illinois, so you could probably ask most people who know Greek and they could confirm what I have written here.
God bless,
Kyle Johnson
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
None of the prophecies have been proven false
It's amazing how interpetation with 20/20 hindsight can't be disproven.
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Funny)
A really big comet passes close to Earth, creating one really big tide lasting 40 days and 40 nights, peaking on Ararat.
Theory #2:
A bunch of ancient Israelites were sitting around bored one day, and one of them says: "You know what would be really funny?"
Theory #3:
Noah was already hearing voices; how much more crazy do you need to be to build a boat on the top of a mountain?
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, assuming that the whole world was flooded, who rounded up one of every insect, many of which are indigenous only to certain continents? There's millions of types of insect, many with lifespans way shorter than the time it would take to round them up. How did Noah get a pair of Wetas (New Zealand hissing raoch like thing), or the red backed spider? How did lavae with a lifespan shorter than 40 days survive? Didn't the relativity high temperatures and the low humidity bother the polar bears? How did the wheat, grass and other low lyying vegetation survive the salting of the land that would have occured after it was all under the sea? Salting is deadly to soil.
If you or anyone can sensibly, and without "an act of god", explain those questions then I will personally eat the entire Ark when it is excavated. That's right, I will fly to Turkey, climb the mountain and eat the whole Ark. I'll send photos to SlashDot as proof.
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Funny)
There is a long and glorious tradition of liars and hacks searching for the Ark and other relics.
But they found the ark! Back in the 30s, I believe. I watched this documentary [imdb.com] on the subject awhile back. It's a pretty good flick, I highly recommend it.
Calling Marcus Brody (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Calling Marcus Brody (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Calling Marcus Brody (Score:4, Funny)
But seriously, how did this get on
What have the nerds become...
Now we'll know for sure (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now we'll know for sure (Score:5, Funny)
Don't believe them. (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how he assumes that he is going to find a large boat, and he assumes that any large boat he happens to find is going to be the one and only Noah's Ark. In his mind, "It" is Noah's Ark. He isn't looking for evidence that whatever it is on top of Mt. Ararat is Noah's Ark, he is already firmly convinced that it is.
Compare this with an arcaeologist excavating a tomb of someone. Who? I don't know, anyone: "Well, we're going to go inside the tomb, and hopefully we will find stuff. We hope we will find things that can prove who this person was, and what thier daily life was like, and maybe what their beliefs were; and maybe we'll find something really cool."
See the difference? This guy is no archaeologist. He is a christian on a quest for the 21st century holy grail.
Re:Don't believe them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Many old civilizations considered burial in boats a high honor. The Vikings were well known for this, but also the Egyptians to a smaller extent (The Nile played a huge role in their lives), and other lesser known civiliazations. A huge boat on top of a mountain is certainly very unusual, but there are other explanations for it other than an ark. When they find viking boats smack in the middle of England, does this mean that England was covered by water 1000 years ago? Or that Noah ended up there? No, of course not. They did a proper excavation and came to the conclusion that it was a viking burial. Has the boat on top of Ararat even been excavated? If not, Why not?
Re:Don't believe them. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is because all the expeditions to the formation on Mt. Ararat are religious based. When embarking on a scientific expedition, scientists try very hard to eliminate any expectations,preconceptions, or assumtions they may have about the expedition/experiment. This may be why many scientists are athiests, it just helps them put aside broad assumptions. The NASA folks even got broadsided a couple times when they discovered things they never were expecting and assumed couldn't happen (They're still trying to figure out the "mud").
My point is, these researchers, instead of doing good, honest, scientific-method based research; will inevitably fall to their beliefs and assumtions and assume things they shouldn't go assuming. Their beliefs brought them halfway around the world, isn't it plausable their beliefs will blind them to the fact that they don't have enough evidence to make any assumtions or conclusions at all? They are not allowed to excavate. Not a whole lot of information can be gained by surface penatrating radar and other gadgets and by mapping. They ought to conclude that "there is definitely something under the mound, and that they don't have enough evidence to determine what it is". What they actually conclude, however, is entirely speculation.
Re:Don't believe them. (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be implying that people are free to choose their faith and that scientists chose athiesm for convenience. It's the other way around. There are certain attributes that make a person be scientific, and these attributes cause both the interest in science and a lack of religiosity.
The stereotypical personality type of a scientist is INTJ, which is what I happen to be, and I'm Agnostic because it is the only intellectually honest thing that I can be. I couldn't be a Christian, for example, because I cannot force myself to believe something that I don't (not that I would ever want to). Religion doesn't stand up very well to scientific scrutiny to anyone who understands human nature, so scientific people tend to be Agnostic or Athiestic.
Though, I've run across a few scientific people who are actually religious. They're always such killjoys, though, since they are always like "Yeah, don't bug me about it." You'd think such people would understand the benefits of cognitive dissonance.
Re:Don't believe them. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no doubt he knows by heart every point you would make, has every reply perfectly formulated in his mind, and is horribly sick of running through it with every goddamn person he works with. It took me about 20 minutes of Descartes to realize that science and religion are totally disconnected and using one to describe the other is practically a non sequitur. Yet atheists - and I probably should count myself a member of that camp, though I despise being associated with most of them even that much - find endless delight in equine flagellation.
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
...NASA is preparing a deep-space mission to the planet Magrathea, to take pictures of Slartibartfast.
-1: Flamebait (Score:5, Flamebait)
Alternate story title:Let's troll religious people (Score:5, Insightful)
From the story text;
As if pictures can't be doctored and are absolute proof....
If that is not a "troll" I do not know what is. What if they do come back with pictures, does that automatically make them liars?
Proving Douglas Adams theories (Score:5, Funny)
"But," says Man, "Noah's Ark is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have occurred by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed at the next zebra crossing.
Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book, 'Well That About Wraps It Up for God.'
Doomed to fail (Score:5, Interesting)
God of the gaps (Score:5, Informative)
You claim that someplace or something isnt known then it must be the work of the gods. This argument keeps getting killed everytime a rational/scientific explanation comes about for such things as the weather, evolution, gravity, etc.
Now your just taking the god of the gaps to a friggin mountain. Not terribly convicing.
So today its a mountain, will your grandchildren be telling us that its in a far off galaxy (just interpret the ark as being a spaceship) when this is debunked/explained? When will the "gappers" stand-down and not take some ancient script as fact, but as interpration of events through the eyes of highly religious and uneducated peoples?
Re:God of the gaps (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh man, quit saying that. You are way too passive agressive.
A couple points: You can't have faith-based belief AND a theory. A theory is an explanation based on facts (tests, observations) while faith is complete belief in something without question with NO EVIDENCE. So you either believe this conspiracy of yours or you entertain it as a theory based on pure speculation (which makes for a lousy theory).
>My faith is in the word of the Bible,
You mean that obscene book full or murder, rape, advocating of genocide, slavery, etc?
For kicks take this fun Bible quiz. [ffrf.org] That's what you believe? Weird.
Must resist... don't get involved... gaaaa!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclaimer: Staunch athei-ostic (I don't believe in religion).
"If one believes in God, Christ, and The Holy Spirit then one has to believe that The Bible is the Word of God."
Now this is an obvious logical fallacy. Even working from an assumption that God, Christ, et al are true deities there is no assertion that they have ensured the validity of the bible.
I think the standard response by believers is "do you know the mind of God?". Implying that God could have written a pile of crap as a test or some-such...
Q.
Re:Doomed to fail (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure that's a problem?
Bruce
Don't they watch the History Channel? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not even going to bother. Those of you with a bit of logic and reasoning skills can already figure the impossibility of the whole idea.
So, for a some more fun, check out this cute rebuttal [westarkchu...christ.org] of the scientific arguments against the story. It boggles the mind how people can accept this as truth.
Here's what to do (Score:4, Funny)
Step 2: travel up Ararat with your purchase
Step 3: Seek the power of the Ark to find the Ark
Step 4: use the Ark to ask for another flood in which you use the other Ark to live (repaired) provided the first Ark works and you find the Ark with the Ark in the first place.
Ark Ark Ark
There's a Hamas leader involved? (Score:5, Funny)
Lead Scientist - "Lets get a move on. We're only at the armpit and I hear Israeli helicopters coming!"
I really need more sleep.
Matt
The legend of Noah (Score:5, Funny)
So God said to Himself, "Well, it looks like all of humanity except for this Noah cat seems to be completely fucked up. I think I'll just wipe everyone out and start over." That wasn't the end of it, he then proceeded to test Noah's faith by giving him boils and killing off most of his flocks (not that bad, most everything died later anyway).
Then God said to Noah, "You go and build an Arky Arky." And Noah said to God, "WTF is an Arky Arky?" To which God replied, "Build a big ass wooden box and paint it black. If anyone asks you what you're doing, tell them to fuck off because they had their chance to please me and they blew it. I'm only saving you and your family Noah."
So Noah, realizing that he was dealing with a kind and merciful God, went ahead chopping down trees and eating his lunch and going to the lavatry. He built a big-ass wooden box using only his forearms as measuring devices and '3' as the value of pi when calculating circular arcs for the corners so that no one accidentally stubbed their toe on anything sharp.
This was important because God then said to Noah, "Take your kids, Ham, Shemp, and Japheth, and their wives and your wife and a shitload of animals with you on the Ark."
"A shitload, huh? Is that the offical term?"
"Okay, okay. Take 2 of every animal except for animals not found in this area. Oh, and for some animals take 7. You'll probably get hungry later."
So Noah went and gathered up all known animals because we all know that at that time the great Diaspora hadn't happened yet and some animals hadn't appeared in far away places that couldn't possibly have been reachable from the Mideast.
Once Noah was done doing all these jobs, he pulled up the door to the Ark and sealed everyone in for a long passage. God, for His part, started rain. It should be noted that until this story occured, rain didn't exist. The plants were watered by a very light mist that arose every morning.
And the rain started, and it continued raining for 40 days and 40 nights. The windows on the ark were sealed too, so it must have smelled really nice inside.
After 40 days, Noah's kids started complaining about the elephants and rhinos crapping all over the place and decided to open a window. They cracked one of the windows open and saw that they were surrounded by water on all sides. An eagle also took the opportunity to get the fuck out of there. The eagle never returned. It's thought he went over the mountain and married a nice girl eagle on the other side.
Later, the kids decided that they'd send a pigeon out to survey the area because pigeons always fly home. It flew off and came back with a branch from an olive tree. Apparently, the water was everywhere but only a few feet deep.
Next thing they know, they crash onto Mount Arafat and everyone slowly disembarked into their new home, just like their old home.
God realized that maybe killing everyone and everything with water was a pretty shitty thing to do and made a covenant with Noah that He wouldn't do it again. Next time the world would end with fire. To seal the deal, He made a nice rainbow and everyone who saw it automatically realized how good God was and stuff.
From these four families (Noah and his three sons), all of us are derived. Following our family tree back up, we can all trace our lineage back to one of these four families.
Praise the Lord!
Re:The legend of Noah (Score:5, Funny)
Coincidentally... (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory skepdic post (Score:5, Informative)
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is the boat built by the Biblical character Noah. At the command of God, according to the story, Noah was to build a boat that could accommodate his extended family, about 50,000 species of animals, and about one million species of insects. The craft had to be constructed to endure a divinely planned universal flood aimed at destroying every other person and animal on earth (except, I suppose, those animals whose habitat is liquid). This was no problem, according to Dr. Max D. Younce, who says by his calculations from Genesis 6:15 that the ark was 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet deep. He says this is equivalent to "522 standard stock cars or 8 freight trains of 65 cars each." By some divine calculation he figures that all the insect species and the worms could fit in 21 box cars. He could be right, though Dr. Younce does not address the issue of how the big boxcar filled with its cargo rose with the rainwater level instead of staying put beneath the floodwaters.
Those not familiar with the story might wonder why God would destroy nearly all the descendants of all of the creatures he had created. The story is that God was displeased with all of his human creations, except for Noah and his family. Annihilating those one is displeased with has become a familiar tactic of the followers of this and many other gods.
Despite the bad example God set for Noah's descendants--imagine a human parent drowning his or her children because they were "not righteous"--the story remains a favorite among children. God likes good people. He lets them ride on a boat with a bunch of friendly animals. He shows them a great rainbow after the storm. And they all live happily ever after. Even adults like the story, though they might see it as an allegory with some sort of spiritual message, such as God is all-powerful and we owe everything, even our very existence to the Creator. Furthermore, the Creator expects us to behave ourselves. But there are many who take the story literally.
According to the story told in chapter 7 of Genesis, Noah, his crew, and the animals lived together for more than 6 months before the floodwaters receded. There are a few minor logistical problems with this arrangement, but before getting to them, there is one other thing that needs commenting on. It is obvious that floods are no laughing matter. The destruction of life and property caused by floods has plagued many animals, not just humans, from time immemorial. To watch one's family or home swept away in floodwaters must be a terrible spectacle. To see one's children drown, one's life and dreams washed away in an instant, must be a devastating experience. But if one were to discover that the flood was not a whimsical effect of chance natural events, not unplanned and purposeless, but rather the malicious and willful act of a conscious being, one might add rage to the feelings of devastation. I suppose one could argue that it is God's world; he created it, so he can destroy it if he feels like it. But such an attitude seems inappropriate for an All-Good, Loving God.
the "finding" of the Ark
Yet, as preposterous as this story seems, there are people in the twentieth century who claim they have found Noah's ark. They call themselves "arkeologists." Yes, they say that when the flood receded, Noah and his zoo were perched upon the top of Mt. Ararat in Turkey. Presumably, at that time, all the animals dispersed to the far recesses of the earth. How the animals got to the different continents, we are not told. Perhaps they floated there on debris. More problematic is how so many species survived when they had been reduced to just one pair or seven pairs of creatures. Also, you would think that the successful species that had the furthest to travel, would have left a trail of offspring along the way. What evidence is there that all species originated in Turkey? That's what the record should look like if the ark landed on Mt. Ararat.
Still, none of t
serving suggestions... (Score:5, Funny)
>He also prepared other fake wood by frying a piece of California pine on his kitchen stove in a mix of wine, iodine, sweet-and-sour and teriyaki sauces
I think my mum used to make that!
Ark Myth (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ark Myth (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand why anyone would find the fact that most cultures have some sort of flood myth unusual. Humans tend to collect themselves around bodies of water for various reasons having to do with commerce, agriculture, transportation, etc. People that live near bodies of water occasionally experience floods. Flood stories tend to be dramatic because people have to make heroic efforts to make it through the tough times that ensue. It's not surprising that these flood stories make it into their mythology.
The Theroy (Score:4, Informative)
Space.com have the Satellite image (Score:5, Informative)
Gilgamesh (Score:5, Funny)
Creationists have DEBUNKED Previous Ararat Claims (Score:5, Informative)
The money could be better spent. (Score:4, Insightful)
History and Theology Don't Mix (Score:5, Interesting)
Trust is built from a person's knowledge and experience with someone else. (Your parents, friends, teachers, etc.) Faith, on the otherhand, is at best only second-hand trust for most people. You trust in the bible, God, Allah, Jesus, because someone else that you trust has said they trust in it. It's very hard to evaluate and build that trust first-hand yourself. With the different translations and interpretations of the bible, even RTFB doesn't always build trust. Trying to somehow "verify" the Bible with science is so sought after because people trust science more than they actually trust the bible (their faith may prevent them from admitting this though).
I have to say that it more than bugs me when I see the bible refer to pi as 3.0. This one mistake really blows my trust, but not my faith. Seeing more and more contradictions really makes me start to question how my parents reconciled these discrepencies. After reading enough of them it really makes me question my faith.
I don't pretend to give answers. But I recently started to read one of the best "intellectual examinations" on the Jewish version of the Old Testament. It's called God, A Biography and it's "agenda" is to explain God as an evolving character in a book. Quite deservedly, it won the pulitzer prize in biography because its quirky title is more than just a marketing effort. It really does try to be a good biography of God.
It doesn't try to explain away contradictions in the bible other than saying that God can change just as man can (and yes, I know some people who will find that fact alone to be sacrilege). The author doesn't seem to push either a pro or anti religious agenda. God is just a character. If you want, you can read it like you'd read the Cliff's Notes version of Hamlet strictly for a deeper understanding of the character portrayed in this book whether you "beleive" the book is the truth or not.
Having been nastily betrayed by two life long friends in the name of Christianity, I still don't feel that I'm ready to accept most churches as anything other than as organized political organizations. But I still have theological questions myself and this biography has been able to make more sense of the Bible and God. No clue where this will lead me in my spiritual journey (heck, I may even go back to agnosticism or athiesm), but it was a very helpful read.
No expeditions to Mt. Arrarat or carbon datings of the pollen found in the shroud of Turin is really going to come up with as satisfactory an answer. My apologies in advance if this is considered off-topic.
Forget Noah (Score:5, Funny)
Some comments for the skeptics (Score:5, Insightful)
1. the bible is all made up
2. there's no way $situation could happen
3. this wont prove anything
To which i have a few short responses. Please give them some consideration before flaming me
1. This is a hard argument to make. The bible talks about lots of different things. Some of these things have been verified via archalogical evidence. Insofar as a recording of ancient history, the bible is surprisingly accurate in all of the things it depicts which are verifiable
Note that this is sort of the same as me writing a book with 100 pages, and on 3 randomly distributed pages, i describe newtonian physics, and the other 97 pages contain stuff that doesn't make sense to anybody, and can't be proven or disproven using any known technique
From a scientific perspective, my book isn't very interesting.
Until somebody figure's out page 4. And then in another 50 years, maybe someone figures out what page 5 means. And so on.
There's lots of stuff described in the bible that has been shown to be historically consistant. Much more than has shown to be historically inconsistant.
2. This won't be a very satisfying answer, but here goes.
the bible is sort of axiomatic. If you beleive
- that god is all powerful
- always does what is right
- is smarter than you
- the bible is the inerrant word of god as transcribed via people divinely inspired to do so
then a lot of what happens in the bible can be swallowed. Still, some things are hard to beleive. It's hard to beleive that somebody could part a body of water so that people could walk through it unharmed. It's hard to beleive because we've never seen anything like it, and because we cant explain how it would work.
There are lots of things in the bible that we have a hard time buying for those reasons - we've never experienced it, and we can't understand/explain how it would work.
The first "Reason" isn't a reason at all. We never experienced the creation of planet earth, but we know it happened. None of us were alive when president lincoln was shot, but most of us know it happened. The issue of never experiencing something personaly is really not an effective argument against unbeleivable things depicted in the bible.
The more interesting and common argument is the second one - there's no way that could happen. This usually revolves around some scientific argument, or rather, some lack of a scientific explanation for how it _could_ have happened. Parting seas, turning water into blood, feeding thousands with just a little food, healing blindless/leprosy/etc.
This is where the axiomatic nature of things comes into play.
If you buy that God is all powerful, then god can do whatever he wants to, certainly any of the above mentioned things.
The part is what people _Really_ dont like to hear. Just because _you_ cant explain something, doesn't mean god doesn't know how it works. Your inability to come up with a thoery or explanation for how something could have happened isn't standing in the way of an all powerful smarter-than-you god in the slightest.
So, if you buy the basic axioms of god, the rest sort of comes out in the wash. It's nice when science or achaeology catches up with what the bible has already described, but its not necessary.
3. Of course not. The point isn't to prove god exists. You either think he does or you don't. If it was factually obvious that god existed then you having a choice in the matter of wether to beleive or not wouldn't be very useful, now would it ?
I'm frankly not sure what the point of this trip is, but it won't prove god does or doesn't exist. People that refuse to beleive in god will read the results of this journey how they want to. People that refuse to beleive in anyting but god will read the results of this journey how they want to.
But there's the ever important swing vote.
W
My own thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
Noah, the servant of Allah (Score:5, Informative)
011.040 (Thus it was) till, when Our commandment came to pass and the oven gushed forth water, We said: Load therein two of every kind, a pair (the male and female), and thy household, save him against whom the word hath gone forth already, and those who believe. And but a few were they who believed with him.
011.041 And he said: Embark therein! In the name of Allah be its course and its mooring. Lo! my Lord is Forgiving, Merciful.
011.042 And it sailed with them amid waves like mountains, and Noah cried unto his son - and he was standing aloof - O my son! Come ride with us, and be not with the disbelievers.
011.043 He said: I shall betake me to some mountain that will save me from the water. (Noah) said: This day there is none that saveth from the commandment of Allah save him on whom He hath had mercy. And the wave came in between them, so he was among the drowned.
011.044 And it was said: O earth! Swallow thy water and, O sky! be cleared of clouds! And the water was made to subside. And the commandment was fulfilled. And it (the ship) came to rest upon (the mount) Al-Judi and it was said: A far removal for wrongdoing folk!
Link for further reading: Surah 11 at Islam.tc [islam.tc]
Ark is in Iran, not Turkey? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ldolphin.org/franz-sinai.html
http:
IAAT (I am a Theologian) (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to use the IAAT tag :)
So here's the deal folks, I've got a B.Theology with majors in systematic theology and biblical studies, I read/write biblical greek and ecclesiastical latin and I'm a soon-to-be candidate for ordination. I have some Christian street-cred.
Also, look at my /. user ID number, and compare it to your own. I'm a professional software developer and I've worked with some of the biggest names in the industry.
Also, for the record, I love science and see no conflict between it and religion, just as long as they keep out of each others hair. If science tries to tell me the meaning of my existance or if religion tries to tell me the true value of Pi, I yell bullshit and bitch-slap 'em back where they came from.
So what I want to say, and hopefully my short intro is enough to make some of you pause for a moment to listen, is that many people here seem to have an innacurate idea of what Christianity is all about.
I come from the Catholic tradition, and about 1 in 5 people on this planet identify themselves as Catholic so I think I'm safe in saying that official Catholic doctrine would be a safe place to start if we are looking at 'what do Christians believe?' I'll let the smaller denominations speak for themselves rather than attempt to cover their views too, but here is the official Catholic view on whether we should take the bible literally.
The following quotes come from the document, Verbum Dei (Latin, "The Word of God") which has the status of being an 'Apostolic Constitution' of the Second Vatican Council. Basically, it doesn't come any more official than this folks - All Catholics are required to adhere to these guidelines or otherwise get out of dodge, so this is what a numerical majority of Christians on the planet believe.
Is the bible history?
Sorry if your neighbourhood or country is full of Christians who are sure that the true value of pi is 3.0 because that's the figure that the bible gives, but you can be rest assured that the vast majority of Christians do not hold anything like that view.
Noah's Ark is clearly a literary form (flood story) that is documented to have existed all over the ancient world. The official methodology that Catholics would use to understand this story involves looking at the ways in which the Jewish version is different from say, the Sumerian version, thereby gaining some insight into what the Old Testament authors thought was important about it. Also, we'd look at it to see if it can shed any light on our understanding of the New testament too, because, well shucks, we're Christians not Jews and we like to see eveything in terms of Christ - even the Old Testament.
But you won't find any Catholic theologians freezing their ass off on top of
Re:So..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nature Of The Flood (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to take small exception to your assumptions about flooding in the area. Non-literialist biblical researchers had long thought that flooding in Mesopotamia led to the story of the Flood, as a major flood is recorded in the Summerian Epic Of Gilgamesh [ancienttexts.org]. More recently, a case has been made [nationalgeographic.com] that the flooding [cnn.com] of the Black Sea basin, which previously held a smaller fresh water lake, would have provided the seed for the story.
Compare this localized 1000 foot (300m) flood with the 17000 foot (5000m) global flood posited by the biblical story. Now, before someone lays into me for discounting the power of the Lord, consider how scientific research approaches this.
1. make observations of nature.
2. based on those observations, make an informed guess about why something came to be what was observed.
3. develop series of tests that might support your assertion, tests that other people can make independently.
4. collate data collected from many such tests, and see if the results support the theory.
For a localized Black Sea flood, there is previously collected evidence that due to the end of the last ice age, ice sheet melt flooded the eastern Med area, and what is now the Bosporus strait was breached about 7000 years ago. Salt water added 300m to the level of the Black Sea within a matter of months, drowning hundreds of square miles of land. Recent archeological dives along this now submerged land seem to show paleolithic human settlements. Further research is needed before strong conclusions can be drawn.
For a global 5000m+ flood, the very first thing we need to account for is the lack of suitable debris that would have washed ashore at high elevations as the waters subsided. If the Ark survived, some of the other wood left floating around might be expected to. The next thing would be to account for the volume of the ocean being doubled, and then halved, all in the course of a few months. Where did it come from, and where did it go?
As a biblical literalist, if your answer is basically that the Lord gave, and the Lord took away, then you've provided faith as evidence. While one's faith can be tested, it can't be independently checked and verified. The scientific method of investigating the works of the Lord assumes - baring evidence to the contrary - that the Lord maintains His creation in a consistent state: hot air rises, the sun sets, gravity sucks. If He doesn't, then the method will need to adjust.
So far, however, the method has proved useful at measuring the nature of Nature, such that we can reliably do things based on many of the conclusions we've drawn so far.
Re:Actually no (Score:4, Insightful)
If somebody found the ark it would be the biggest tourist destination in the world and the Turkish govt would make billions off of it. It's in their interest to find something.
Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you think is the first thing the lions would do when they left the ark?
EAT THE MEASLEY TWO GAZELLES. Oops, no more gazelles.
You can argue it all you want, but the gestation period of any 3 generations of gazelles, zebras, or whatever required to even begin feeding the a single generation of lions or other carnivores would mean a lot of carnivores would go hungry if everyone started with a PAIR at the same time.
You can't just "start up" the food chain like that. Ever do a "rabbit and foxes" related rates problem in diff eq? The stable state is impossible to achieve with a deficit of prey in the initial conditions.
A little thought is dangerous.
Re:Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the issue is that the grandparent (and others like him... such as me) aren't assuming that the one happened but not the other. What we're saying is more like this:
"The idea of a worldwide flood itself has all these various and sundry problems, A, B, C, etc..."
"But IF you come up with explanations for those problems (without invoking miracles), then you have the problem of Noah building this incredibly unlikely boat, and sub-problems D, E, F, etc..."
"But even IF you assume that Noah got the boat built (without God performing a specific boat-building miracle), then you have to figure out how Noah got all the animals to the boat, sub-problems G, H, I, etc..."
"But, again, even IF you assume that Noah got all the animals there (again, without a divine miracle to help), you have to figure out how he kept thousands of animal species and millions of insect species alive and fed for 40 days, which causes sub-problems J, K, and L... etc..."
And so on and so forth. The whole idea is to point out the innumerable problems with the whole plan. Naturally you can just invoke miracles left and right, but the whole point of scientific inquiry is to understand our world, and if the response to that is, "You shouldn't try to understand it, you should just have faith," then guess what? Those who understand it are inevitably going to out-compete those who don't.
Re:So..... (Score:5, Funny)
No, you blasphemer! It proves that EVERY WORD IN THE BIBLE IS TRUE!!! And if you don't accept THIS CLEAR PROOF OF THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH OF THE WORD OF GOD, then clearly you are an ATHEIST SATANIST GOD-HATING AMERICA-HATING TERRORIST COMMUNIST
<wipes froth off mouth>
Oops, I must have been channeling Jack Chick for a moment. Anyway
Seriously, of course, "people knew how to build boats" is exactly what it proves, and all it proves. But that won't stop the fundies from reacting as above. A while back, someone -- wish I could remember who it was (maybe I should pray harder?) -- came up with the best answer I've ever heard to the absurd claims made by ideologues masquerading as archaeologists in regards to "proof"-by-artifact of a literal interpretation of the Bible. It goes roughly like this:
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Groovy.
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
The best that science can say is "We have this model that, so far, doesn't conflict with any data. If you've got an argument that our model is wrong, we'd love to hear it."
Religions, on the other hand, generally claim absolute certainty about something: "We know the Earth was created 6000 years ago, because this book says so. To question this is heretical."
It's this claim of certainty that pisses off science types. I've got no problem with the idea of a deity, just the "take it on faith that there is a deity with these traits" bit.
IAAP (I am a physicist)
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Informative)
It's not enough to simple make a statement like this - back it up with proof - a URL, a citation, whatever - so I can go to the same source as you and read that comment myself.
For example, http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton.
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
-Don.
Re:The Lord knew what he doing (Score:5, Funny)
Take off every 'ark'. Move 'ark'. For great superstition.
Re:Uhhh (Score:5, Informative)
However, W. F. Libby, inventor of radiocarbon dating, thought that the samples that were tested had been contaminated by their surroundings, and by the rate of decay in high altitude. So nothing has been conclusively shown either way.
Strangely enough ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Both Arafat and Sharon took their last name from geographical locations that have historical connotations for their respective peoples.
But I agree, it'd be quite difficult to climb Arafat ...
Re:The survey says... (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm. No. The scientists will not care any more about that book than they do now. It does not provide anything that helps us do research (otherwise known as science). They may ask to see the boat though, there is stuff to apply science to there.
Science is not some alternative to religion, it's only a tool. I guess the truth scares religous folk, and hence they always see science as some sort of competitor.
Re:The survey says... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Scientific folk" only see religion as a competitor when politicians use religion to shut down science (as George Bush did with stem cell research), or to prevent teaching of science in the schools.
Re:The survey says... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a little fuzzy on that point - you are saying that if they find something that is definitively identified as The Ark (like a little plaque on it, that says "The Ark"), then the laws of physics will be rewritten to accomodate a literal reading of the bible? Somehow I doubt that is going to happen, even if there is a little plaque.
Re:hate and ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I wish religious people would do that.
You want an example? How about the story of Onan? Homosexuals get a lot of trouble from that one today. I doubt many of them decide to be homosexuals, they can't help it and the bible says to treat them... the way it says to treat lepers, which is another part that led to tremendous pain on the part of innocents.
Bruce
Re:hate and ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Bruce, check out the second half of the Bible. There is this one guy who hangs out with lepers, prostitutes and even tax collectors (much worse than homosexuals, in my book). He had this funny habit of loving everyone despite their sins or social status. Of course, the powers that be kill him for this but it all works out in the end.
Re:The survey says... (Score:5, Interesting)
But through that period, "Eli" was a tribal God who was worshipped by the Israelites ("I am the God of your fathers").Moise didn't claim that the Egyptian Gods didn't exist, he simply claimed that his God was more powerful, and that his people should only worship that single God. He used the stories (myths) they held from their ancestors before being enslaved to help free them. He was a tribal God. Vengeful and jealous, as he says in the Bible. Not evil, simply a different vision of God than we have today. Why? Because we create the image of God that we use. Not to say that there is no such thing as "God", but I say that what we hold, what we call God in various eras is really a reflection of ourselves, of what we believe could exist that is greater than us. A "father figure", in a way, and also a protector.
Now, from the time of the Exile at Babylon, things changed for the Hebrews. Their contact with Zoroastroism changed their vision of their God and that's when they turned a bit more philosophical. Further penetration from Greek hellenistic thoughts (Plato and others) furthered the drifting toward a new kind of monotheism: before, they believed that their God was the only one for themselves, but now they started to believe it was the only one there was, that other tribal Gods were false ones.
Then we get Jesus, and Paul, and the influence of Mithraism, but I don't want to get into this too far 'cause this post is going to be long enough as it is and I'm not sure getting into a deep religious debate on Slashdot is a good idea, but Jesus and his followers brought a different perspective, a universalism that the Jews never had: a single God for all.
Until I'd say Aquinas this fusion of Jewish monotheism and hellenistic philosophy progressed, and then it pretty much congealed, as far as the catholic church is concerned, at least. Other currents continued and are still progressing: pantheism, new age philosophies, people are still creating new, more progressive images and ideas of God.
The point is this: the God of Abraham is NOT the same God as the one we see today. The image has evolved, and changed. Although the ideas answer the same basic needs in humans, the need has evolved, as has the response to that need. The problem of entranched religions is that their traditions and history at one point prevents them from progressing in such a way. They get stuck, and Christianity (as a Jewish sect) is the worst of the lot, as its history dates more or less 4000 years into the past. Some traditions simply cannot be reconciled with modern viewpoints about the idea of God. You can only stretch it so far.
So I'm, not convinced that the idea of perfection and love that we attribute to our modern idea of God is a device of the church. I think it's more of an evolution of the modern mind.
Luckily, I have karma to burn lately. Hope you liked my little dissertation.
When loved ones are weirder than you (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to help people buy books like this on tape, and than lock them in a car and drive around till they realize how foolish it is to believe that their are dinosaurs at the bottom of lakes and secret nazi occult space temples on the dark side of the moon.
Re:So what if they find it? (Score:5, Informative)
About 14% [adherents.com].
Re:The Bible has been shown again and again to be (Score:5, Informative)
This is simply untrue. Till wrote a good article on the subject:
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazine s/tsr/1998
Archaeology and Biblical Accuracy
Farrell Till
Has archaeology proven the historical accuracy of the Bible? If you listened only to biblical inerrantists, you would certainly think so. Amateur apologists have spread this claim all over the internet, and in a letter published in this issue, Everett Hatcher even asserted that archaeology supports that "the Bible is the inerrant word of God." Such a claim as this is almost too absurd to deserve space for publication, because archaeology could prove the inerrancy of the Bible only if it unearthed undeniable evidence of the accuracy of every single statement in the Bible. If archaeological confirmation of, say, 95% of the information in the Bible should exist, then this would not constitute archaeological proof that the Bible is inerrant, because it would always be possible that error exists in the unconfirmed five percent.
Has archaeology confirmed the historical accuracy of some information in the Bible? Indeed it has, but I know of no person who has ever tried to deny that some biblical history is accurate. The inscription on the Moabite Stone, for example, provides disinterested, nonbiblical confirmation that king Mesha of the Moabites, mentioned in 2 Kings 3:4-27, was probably an actual historical character. The Black Obelisk provides a record of the payment of tribute to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III by Jehu, king of the Israelites (2 Kings 9-10; 2 Chron. 22:7-9). Likewise, the Babylonian Chronicle attests to the historicity of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his conquest of Jerusalem as recorded in 2 Kings 25. Other examples could be cited, but these are sufficient to show that archaeology has corroborated some information in the Bible.
What biblicists who get so excited over archaeological discoveries like these apparently can't understand is that extrabiblical confirmation of some of the Bible does not constitute confirmation of all if the Bible. For example, the fact that archaeological evidence confirms that Jehu was an actual historical character confirms only that he was an actual historical character. It does not confirm the historical accuracy of everything that the Bible attributed to him. Did a "son of the prophets" go to Ramoth-gilead and anoint Jehu king of Israel while the reigning king was home in Jezreel recovering from battle wounds (2 Kings 9:1-10)? Did Jehu then ride to Jezreel in a chariot and massacre the Israelite royal family and usurp the throne (2 Kings 9:16 ff)? We simply cannot determine this from an Assyrian inscription that claimed Jehu paid tribute to Shalmaneser, so in the absence of disinterested, nonbiblical records that attest to these events, it is hardly accurate to say that archaeology has proven the historicity of what the Bible recorded about Jehu. Likewise, extrabiblical references to Nebuchadnezzar may confirm his historical existence, but they do not corroborate the accuracy of such biblical claims as his dream that Daniel interpreted (Dan. 2) or his seven-year period of insanity (Dan. 4:4-37). To so argue is to read entirely too much into the archaeological records.
The fact is that some archaeological discoveries in confirming part of the Bible simultaneously cast doubt on the accuracy of other parts. The Moabite Stone, for example, corroborates the biblical claim that there was a king of Moab named Mesha, but the inscription on the stone gives a different account of the war between Moab and the Israelites recorded in 2 Kings 3. Mesha's inscription on the stone claimed overwhelming victory, but the biblical account claims that the Israelites routed the Moabite forces and withdrew only after they saw Mesha sacrifice his eldest son as a burnt offering on the wall of the city the Moabites had retreated to (2 Kings 3:26-27). So the Moabite Stone, rather than corro
Re:The Bible has been shown again and again to be (Score:4, Insightful)
1- If it really happened, wouldn't all river fishes be dead, since they cannot live in sea ?
2- Wouldn't we expect to find amazing evidences like whales, dolphins and sharks skeletons in the most unusual places, from the animals trapped in some valley when the water came back to the normal levels ?
Just my 2 cents...
Re:The Bible has been shown again and again to be (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Bible has been shown again and again to be (Score:4, Interesting)
There are very ancient and fragile geological structures that would have been destroyed by a flood.
But then the claims in the Bible for the worldwide flood as absurd on its face. If you calculate how many animals there are and the time needed to load them into the ark in the period of time described, they would be going so fast they would be a fine paste at the back end. (Not that they would fit.)
Creationists have been pushing the ark myth and various other Biblical claims for a while now. There is plenty of physical evidence that shows that they are wrong.
But faith overrides reason.
The "hatred" you are precieving is that of having to deal with a large group of supposedly educated people who will not listen to reasoned arguments or physical evidence. You insist on making claims that are shown over and over to be without merit, yet you insist on claiming that there is no evidence refuting them.
talk.origins on usenet has been dealing with the same arguments over and over for more than 10 years.
The Creationists have yet to be able to present any sort of theory that has any predictive value about the world. Their excuse is "God did it". No evidence. Nothing but contradictory religious writings.
It is not hatred, it is frustration. Frustration with the willfully ignorant. People who are willing to believe Creationists who have been shown over and over to be lying and ignore Scientists who have physical evidence showing them that they are wrong.
Seeing people tell the same lies over and over just starts to get you pissed off after a while.
Their method of science is faulty. (Score:5, Insightful)
A few reasons. First, these gentlemen, as far as I can tell, are doing this in an attempt to prove Christianity. They are not out to learn anything they do not already know, and if they are, they are not intending to share it with the rest of the world by any verifiable means (pictures, are as the story points out, weak as evidence for anything). Their ultimate purpose is to deliver a conclusion, not facts. Your typical archaelogist visits a location to learn more about an unknown culture, not to offer conclusions, but simply to offer knowledge and let the information speak.
Do you see the subtle distinction here? On one hand, we have the scientist that assumes something to be true then goes looking only for evidence that supports it. On the other hand, we have the scientist that that explores and records only what is observed and lets the facts speak for themselves. Which of these categories is likely to get the most cynical reaction? Which category do you think these guys fall into?
There is also a negative reaction from many rational people to the heavy-weight evangelistic nature of Christianity. Rational people usually want evidence to back up claims, evidence which is often not offered by evangelism. This can put people at odds against an idealogy. Would you dislike it if people of other religions came thumping you with their religious beliefs using threats of punishment and slander? Would it make you uncomfortable? Also, many active religions today (key point to remember with your claim--many ancient religions of noteworthy attention are no longer practiced) use fear and coersion to recruit new members. Fear of eternal suffering or punishment is commen. Religions often do this at great financial benefit to themselves.
I could go on and on, but I digress. Nevertheless, I think when you look at all this, you find that there is a great deal of cause for people to express hostility towards religion. Perhaps you should take these things into consideration before you feel like you or your belief system are being picked on.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty hard to reconcile the bible with the abundance of archaeoligcal evidence that shows that dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years before the first humans showed up.
Reading and believing in the Bible doesn't require the reader to take it literally. Some random and eclectic [preteristarchive.com] examples of people [hiwaay.net] who don't read [united.edu] the Bible literally. [rutgers.edu]
These fairy tales don't fly on slashdot because the people here are educated enough to know better.
No, they really aren't; I read views on Christianity and other religions that are chock full of misconceptions or misunderstandings all the time.
There's a major tendency by various posters on Slashdot to overgeneralize American Protestant fundamentalism into Christian orthodoxy. If you don't know the differences between fundamentalism and orthodoxy, realize that your knowledge of Christianity ranks fairly low. (Which is to say that people can't be experts on everything. Even on Slashdot.)
My opinion, having been a Slash reader since the site's infancy, is that there's actually a fairly low level of religious knowledge amongst the learned Slashdot crowd. This tends to [unfortunately] manifest itself in haughty arrogance. QED indeed.
Re:Other Adventures like this: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Other Adventures like this: (Score:5, Informative)
You all laugh but let me be the first to say.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wild Goose chase... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of what's wrong in this world stems from religions. Not the beliefs that state "be kind/loving/generous to your fellow man", but the zealots who blindly follow, believe, and misinterpret everything that they've been told/read.
I know 100% for a fact this will fail, but that won't stop people from bringing up counter-arguments against it.. and how that these events really took place, yadda yadda.
No, they aren't taking my money, but they're definitely taking someone else's money. Not only that, but I have to live in a world and witness things turn to shit due to religion.
For example, President GWB doesn't want Gay Marriages because... *gasp* religion says it's bad. I'm not gay, but if that isn't some closed minded thinking, I don't know what is. Any extremist (terrorists in particular).. it seems that most of the closed minded events that take place in this world are driven by misinterpreted religions, but religions nonetheless.
Spouting off about it on a "Researchers look for Noah's Ark" is probably not the best of places for it, but I like to speak my mind when given the slightest opportunity to do so.
Re:Why so negative? (Score:5, Interesting)
This kind of stuff makes most of the world think that the most powerful nation on earth is run by some Taliban-like cult: the last nation on earth of Christian heritage where significant numbers of people count the "begats" and argue that the world is under 10,000 years old, that almost all living things were destroyed by a world-wide flood, that dinosaur bones were (pick one) created by the devil, or by God to test our faith, or were forgotten by Noah when he collected two of each animal for the ark.
There are a lot of Christians I respect, but they treat the Bible as inspiration and consider most of the stories in it to be legends and parables. Just as Jesus told the story of the mustard seed, the Bible tells the story of a man named Job. It's a lesson, like Aesop's fables.
Re:Conspiracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? Because according to Genesis 8:4, [biblegateway.net] the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
That would be like saying that I own a moderate-sized building somewhere in the Rocky Mountains; now go find it. That's a BIG region to cover -- a whole mountain range....
Ararat is only one mountain in the mountains of Ararat. I think they're looking in the wrong place, assuming that 5,000 years of decay has left anything standing, in the first place.