Creationists, please explain: Noah and the Moa!

This is yet another of thousands of specious and superficial arguments against what is found in the Bible. The problem is that the antagonist takes a story from the Bible, interprets it 100% literally, and asks how that can be becvause obviously it cannot. There are thousand of stories in the Bible that cannot possibly be true from any objective standpoint. Any school kid can learn these arguments. If you'd like to cut some of the foolishness from the arguments, just pick up a copy of Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian." There it is for you in one tight little package written by a great mind.

My favorite is the story of varves. Varves are sedimentary deposits at the bottom of lakes that are themselves at the foot of glaciers. During the Winter the lake freezes over and the finer sediment is distributed along the bottom. During the Summer there is no ice and the lake is more turbulant. This is when the coarser sediment is distributed along the bottom. The combination is a varve, on the order of a mm thick. They have found varve deposits thousands of feet thick, therefore the world was not made on October 23, 2004 BC at 10:00 in the morning. So really this is like taking candy from a baby. Anybody can do it and the ability to do it does not prove such a person extraordinarily smart. Some people, such as this fellow, take great sport in it.

What if today the state of civilization was that of illiterate tribes scattered sparsley over the globe. Then the Japanese earthquake/tsunami hit with an extraordinary loss of life and property. How do you think the story of this disaster would be prortrayed by the aural history story tellers and how do you think it would sound after 10,000 years had passed?

My contention is that there was a worldwide flood about 12,000 BC that wiped out fairly advanced (as in Bronxe, maybe Iron Age) civilization. If you are familira with Graham Hancock's "Underword," he makes a fairly good case. What we are seeing in the Bible is one of many iterations of that flood story that has come down to us in hundreds of variations.

Now Creationists, at least to our minds, apparently believe all these stories literally. Of course, most of us don't know that for sure because we've never had a real heart-to-heart talk with one of these fellows (We hate and ridicule them too much to make that possible.) Have yiou ever talked, really talked, to a person who, say has graduated from a seminary? Do you know what the average seminary teaches today? It is that Jesus was a charismatic guy with a message. Period. Deal with it. Repeating that message to the congregation is probebly not going to cut it.

The real point here is that it is probably a good thing to have a shared sense of values. It's probably true that acting as our own moral authority in life raely works out too well. It's probably a good idea to have a sense of something greater than yourself that can allow you to approach life with meaning instead of meat on two legs. It might, hopefully, lead you to act in ways that are not selfish and that are even empathetic.

Of course it is more complex than that, but every time I hear people such as this fellow act so incredibly superficially I think he's just as crazy as the people he condemns. One of these days this guy, and others like him, are going to find out that their version of reality is as wrong as the fundamentalists'.

I hope I'm arouind to watch it. It should be alot of fun.

Discalimer: I'm not a Christian. I have been an athesit since I was five years old. When my mother told me that God cretaed the Earth I asked, "How did he get it out of his workshop?" At least I was being naive rather than intentionally mean.

Originally posted by Faith2011
reply to post by Kailassa

 

People Need Faith To Believe! Ask, And God Will Give You Faith.

So basically you need to say you believe in order to believe...like a blind sheep. Sorry, but I need facts and objective evidence to believe in stuff, otherwise they're nothing but fictional stories to me...

I don't believe the tale of Noah's ark is possible. In the bible it gives the size of the ark. It is just not possible to fit a pair of EVERY land animal on a ship of that size. There would have to have been hundreds of them at the very least.

reply to post by DAVID64


The entire notion is beyond ridiculous

What's likely is that there was a LOCAL flood, and some farmer had a boat, and saved his 6 goats and a cow with that boat. People love to exaggerate, so the 6 goats and cow turned into "all animals", the boat was described 100x bigger than it was, and since that farmer was normally dumb and people wouldn't believe him being so clever, they said god gave him the idea. Something like that would at least make sense...

But insisting the literal interpretation is correct, when in reality it's demonstrably wrong, is beyond insane. Everyone's entitled to believe whatever they want, and even to choose to remain ignorant and stupid...but it's kinda sad given we live in the 21st century and information/knowledge is so easily available.

Originally posted by schuyler
This is yet another of thousands of specious and superficial arguments against what is found in the Bible. The problem is that the antagonist takes a story from the Bible, interprets it 100% literally, and asks how that can be becvause obviously it cannot. There are thousand of stories in the Bible that cannot possibly be true from any objective standpoint.

The argument here is not against the bible.

I totally agree with you that: "There are thousand of stories in the Bible that cannot possibly be true from any objective standpoint."
I love the bible, myself, I grew up reading it under the blankets by torchlight, because reading was forbidden to me as a child, so it's an old friend, and I appreciate the wisdom in it.

If you read threads like this you'll see there are certain people who call themselves Christians who do insist the bible is literally true, and are defending that position. It's that position I'm arguing against here, not the bible itself.

So you're quite wrong about there being antagonists to the bible here who are interpreting it literally. This is about creationism, and the creationists are arguing that the bible is literal truth. We are saying it cannot be interpreted literally.

This thread in its entirety is ridiculous.

I have come to the conclusion that both parties, creationists and...whatever the other(s) would like to be called, have an insatiable appetite for being correct.

You'll know when you're dead. For some of you, that's a lot sooner than you think. So take each breath with the knowledge that it could be your last and I'm sure you'll make it count. That is what this is all about anyways. (Making it count...)

Blessings
A2D

reply to post by Agree2Disagree

I have come to the conclusion that both parties, creationists and...whatever the other(s) would like to be called, have an insatiable appetite for being correct.

Well, when it comes to Noah, one party can is demonstrably wrong

reply to post by The time lord


I presume you're referring to Pangaea? That super continent started to break up 200 million years ago; it finished breaking up 60 million years ago

Pangaea

since most animals and humans became genetically corrupted through angelic activity

What am I reading??

Today science is doing the same thing

Please elaborate

reply to post by MrXYZ


and if the ark is ever found(publicly acknowledged)...

what will you have to say for yourself?

A2D

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

and if the ark is ever found(publicly acknowledged)...

what will you have to say for yourself?

A2D

Even if they found the arch, all it would prove is that someone build a suuuuuuper large ship. Also, given the size this thing had to be to host "2 of each kind", it would have been found by now if there were any remains.

But your question shows a fun fact. You don't look at evidence and then draw conclusions from that, you state a random conclusion and then try to find evidence...and then continue to believe in your claims even if there's ZERO evidence like in the case of the arch or global flood.

reply to post by MrXYZ


actually my question doesn't show anything...

I was simply interested in what it would take to get you to admit that you're wrong...which by your response, it would take more than just the ark being found...it would likely take more than an act of congress, or even an act of God....

A2D

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

actually my question doesn't show anything...

I was simply interested in what it would take to get you to admit that you're wrong...which by your response, it would take more than just the ark being found...it would likely take more than an act of congress, or even an act of God....

A2D

Certainly more than an act of congress, since congress has nothing to do with scientific discoveries and theories. And as for god, we have zero evidence he/she/it exists, so I don't worry about that

What I want is OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE...otherwise I'm gonna call whatever you say "fiction". I do that for the same reason that I don't believe in unicorns or Santa.

Originally posted by DAVID64
I don't believe the tale of Noah's ark is possible. In the bible it gives the size of the ark. It is just not possible to fit a pair of EVERY land animal on a ship of that size. There would have to have been hundreds of them at the very least.

edit on 24-3-2011 by DAVID64 because: spelling

Has anyone considered that the information needed to preserve all of these species can be stored in an incredibly small amount of space and that the animals aboard the Ark might not have been in adult or even child form but in the form of DNA?

You have to step back and realize that the knowledge pre-Flood was extremely advanced and the knowledge post-flood was not (on purpose) that Noah and his sons for the most part kept apart from the rest of the growing world. The stories passed on verbally would not have understood the mechanisms behind DNA. It would be like if the Zombie Plague hit and the only people that survived were high school drop outs - they'd have a hard time explaining to their kids how DNA worked and their kids would have an even harder time and so you get stories which get the point across but lack the technical detail to satisfy a 21st century critic.

Just a thought.

reply to post by MrXYZ


Well I'm not gonna argue with you...but I don't want to hear [snip] when God bends you over His knee and gives you a good one for being so....[stubborn]

A2D

Originally posted by MrXYZ
What I want is OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE...otherwise I'm gonna call whatever you say "fiction". I do that for the same reason that I don't believe in unicorns or Santa.

In regard to human events that happened many thousands of years ago you are not going to get evidence so you are doing nothing but trolling with anti-Christian talking points.

As for where Jesus stands on people asking for signs and miracles in order to believe.

...a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given...

It simply isn't faith without faith and its faith that is the key - not intellectual understanding. You -- having the intellectual understanding of the events that transpired thousands of years ago won't help you spiritually and thats all that God is concerned with.

Originally posted by schuyler
My contention is that there was a worldwide flood about 12,000 BC that wiped out fairly advanced (as in Bronxe, maybe Iron Age) civilization. If you are familira with Graham Hancock's "Underword," he makes a fairly good case. What we are seeing in the Bible is one of many iterations of that flood story that has come down to us in hundreds of variations.

Presupposition -

a) The environment was radically different pre-flood. There was an impact on gravity and other factors which allowed for species to be larger and live longer.

b) The people that lived up to 10 times longer than the average human alive presently would have rapidly advanced in their knowledge due to the lack of degeneration of the mind and avoidance of having to pass on and reset their knowledge.

c) The people that were alive at that time came in contact with a non-human species which rapidly progressed their understanding including manipulation of DNA.

Reasoning -

The above is basically the storyline of Genesis and Enoch pre-flood. Now, you can argue that carbon-dating and so on will disprove this and thats fine - I'll agree to disagree. This, though is the potential history of the world pre-flood and one that I believe based on the rest of the context of the scriptures. Therefore, my contention is that the people pre-flood were more advanced that we are at present and it is what they unlocked that caused their destruction. That Noah was not only pure of spirit but he and his sons were the last humans (operative word) left alive.

[edit]
Believing the above isn't a prerequisite for having faith as most Christians will not believe what I am saying. The only reason for knowing the above is because those that forget history are doomed to repeat it and we're heading in that direction with a world-wide assault on the genome of countless species.

reply to post by MrXYZ


Why are guys still looking for Noah's Ark? It's long gone but there's no need for the physical Noah's Ark to prove that the Holy Scriptures is factually accurate.

As for the Noah Moa - idunno but maybe it was brought there by the explorers of long ago. Impossible or possible? For example, there are plants that are native to one continent but was also found on another continent - how did it get there? Turned out that migrating birds did it - ate on one continent -poop in in the other continent. Some lizards / salamaders were found on different continents - how'd they get there? Turned out that these lizards are great hitchhikers.

So the Noah Moa is not a mystery at all unless you're saying that what I just said are impossible to even occur.

So what say you?

thx,
edmc2

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

Well I'm not gonna argue with you...but I don't want to hear [snip] when God bends you over His knee and gives you a good one for being so....[stubborn]

A2D

Ohhhh, the old "fear god" speech...cute Not gonna impress many in the 21st century...

Originally posted by ararisq

Originally posted by MrXYZ
What I want is OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE...otherwise I'm gonna call whatever you say "fiction". I do that for the same reason that I don't believe in unicorns or Santa.

In regard to human events that happened many thousands of years ago you are not going to get evidence so you are doing nothing but trolling with anti-Christian talking points.

As for where Jesus stands on people asking for signs and miracles in order to believe.

...a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given...

It simply isn't faith without faith and its faith that is the key - not intellectual understanding. You having the Intellectual understanding of the events isn't the key to life.

Of course we have objective evidence...fossils, DNA, migratory data...

And as for your Jesus quote, very cute...again, welcome to the 21st century where rational people need more than scare tactics based on fairy tales

I'm not anti-Christian...be as Christian as you like, but showing an incredible lack of knowledge when it comes to the theory of evolution, while attacking said theory, makes you look silly

Not knowing isn't bad...but blatant ignorance is.

reply to post by edmc^2

So what say you?

I say that you still haven't posted any objective evidence that proves any of your (or the bible's) claims

Originally posted by MrXYZ
Of course we have objective evidence...fossils, DNA, migratory data...

I don't remember asking if you have geologic evidence. You are asking for evidence of a singular event which transpired thousands of years ago knowing that none can be provided.

And as for your Jesus quote, very cute...again, welcome to the 21st century where rational people need more than scare tactics based on fairy tales

You act like you are superior to the people of the 1st century. The quote I placed was not a fear quote. Its a simple fact that to be a believer you must believe - to precondition your belief based on absolute evidence is something you will not receive as the quote from Jesus implies.

I'm not anti-Christian...be as Christian as you like, but showing an incredible lack of knowledge when it comes to the theory of evolution, while attacking said theory, makes you look silly.

You are not anti-Christian but you start a trolling thread against Christianity knowing that no one was alive at the time and you cannot possibly receive the answer you require? Yeah right. As for evolution, it has no bearing in the topic being discussed and it isn't being attacked - deflect much?