NOAH'S ARK GREAT FLOOD Update

[GostHacked]

And you got it right, and he is wrong. The God I worship is a He. The Bible says so. Maybe he worships Shiva. Or Hera!

Or Kali. Or Medusa! There's lots of them femmes fatale.

Well when you religious nutjobs are ready to reconcile with each other, then maybe we can move ahead.

[betsy]

Well when you religious nutjobs are ready to reconcile with each other, then maybe we can move ahead.

Ohhhh...why did that word "nutjobs" suddenly crop up? I thought we're having a civilized discussion? I guess that's the end of it then. Okay....bye-bye.

Edited January 2, 2013 by betsy

[segnosaur]

Regardless, your suggestion that "every culture practically has a flood myth" is wrong... For example, here are a list of cultures that lacked a "global flood myth" (at least prior to the influence of missionaries):

- Celtic cultures

- Many areas of ancient China

- Japan

I said, every culture has a flood story.

Which of course is not actually supported with evidence. The best you can say is that many had a flood story. Saying "every" (or all) is an assertion without proof.

Just because some didn't make it to print doesn't mean they didn't have them!

Wow. Just totally... wow. Words escape me.

So your argument is that a lack of evidence is simply because "it got lost" (in the same vein as "the dog ate my homework".

Even though we know a lot about many of those ancient cultures, their particular creation myths, etc., and that there are sometimes very long traditions of oral and written history/story telling, it just happened that they forgot about the "big flood" (even though they seem to remember plenty of other stuff just fine.)</p>

[GostHacked]

Ohhhh...why did that word "nutjobs" suddenly crop up? I thought we're having a civilized discussion? I guess that's the end of it then. Okay....bye-bye.

Well the religious need to reconcile between themselves before they can even go after those pesky problematic atheists.

God a he? God a she? Does god have a gender? Does god visit an OBGYN or not?

[betsy]

Well the religious need to reconcile between themselves before they can even go after those pesky problematic atheists.

God a he? God a she? Does god have a gender? Does god visit an OBGYN or not?

My God is a He. Whether anyone disagrees with me on that is irrelevant. Like I said, I'm talking based on my faith.

He says his god is a she....therefore, we can't be talking about the same God that's related to the Bible. This topic is about Noah's Ark and other on-going science explorations that is related to the Bible (proving the historicity of the Bible).

Edited January 2, 2013 by betsy

[betsy]

Which of course is not actually supported with evidence. The best you can say is that many had a flood story. Saying "every" (or all) is an assertion without proof.Wow. Just totally... wow. Words escape me.

So your argument is that a lack of evidence is simply because "it got lost" (in the same vein as "the dog ate my homework".

Even though we know a lot about many of those ancient cultures, their particular creation myths, etc., and that there are sometimes very long traditions of oral and written history/story telling, it just happened that they forgot about the "big flood" (even though they seem to remember plenty of other stuff just fine.)</p>

I'm saying that every culture had experienced floods! They may not be as catastrophic as Noah's flood, or Katrina's or the tsunami flooding - but they've had their floods, nevertheless. What culture has not???? Unless you live in the mountains....but then, it may not be floodings you'd experience because of elevation, but perhaps mudflow! And perhaps they'd talk of the flood they saw from above when they looked down below....perhaps talked about that time the flood wiped out the bridge, and they couldn't go down to town for their supplies etc..,

People tend to talk about things they've experienced. Canadians who experienced the floodings of their basement would tend to reminisce on that more than they'd reminisce about something they have not personally experienced. Not all floodings are reported by mainstream media....but that doesn't lessen the experience for those who went through it personally.

Edited January 2, 2013 by betsy

[Canuckistani]

My God is a He. Whether anyone disagrees with me on that is irrelevant. Like I said, I'm talking based on my faith.

He says his god is a she....therefore, we can't be talking about the same God that's related to the Bible. This topic is about Noah's Ark and other on-going science explorations that is related to the Bible (proving the historicity of the Bible).

Women are the creators, so my God created your God.

Logical fallacy - proving some elements of the bible are historically somewhat accurate doesn't prove the historicity of the bible. Showing ruins existed of a city mentioned in the bible doesn't mean all the stories the bible sets in that city actually occurred. Showing there was a flood in the middle east doesn't prove the accuracy of the Noah and the Ark story. The presence of the Sea of Galilee doesn't prove that Jesus walked across it unless it was subjected to unusually cold temperatures during that time.

[The_Squid]

They may not be as catastrophic as Noah's flood

Noah's flood didn't cover the entire world?

Showing there was a flood in the middle east doesn't prove the accuracy of the Noah and the Ark story.

But the flood covered the highest mountain by 15 cubits. God flooded the world, not the middle east.

Edited January 2, 2013 by The_Squid

[Canuckistani]

Noah's flood didn't cover the entire world?

Who said that?

[GostHacked]

Noah's flood didn't cover the entire world?

If it did, where did all the water go?

[Canuckistani]

If it did, where did all the water go?

01 January 2009 Early Earth 'was covered in water' [Keyword: earth ]

Earth was once a 'waterworld' much like the one depicted by Hollywood, scientists believe.

A new model of the early Earth suggests that until around 2.5 billion years ago oceans covered almost the whole of the planet.

Just 2% to 3% of the Earth's surface would have been dry land, compared with 28% today.

The Earth at that time may have resembled the way it looked in Waterworld, the 1995 post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie starring Kevin Costner.

In the film, humanity struggles to survive after the ice caps melt and inundate the planet with water.

However, unlike in the movie, the oceans 2.5 billion years ago would have been devoid of fish, which had not yet evolved. Back then life consisted of nothing more complex than algae and bacteria.

The Australian scientists who produced the new computer simulation believe that billions of years ago the Earth's deep mantle was 200C hotter than it is today.

A hotter mantle would have thickened and buoyed up the Earth's crust beneath the oceans, creating shallower basins and leading to the flooding of what is now land.

The continental crust would also have spread, making it lower and flatter and more vulnerable to floods.

New Scientist magazine reported: "As the mantle cooled, land would have gradually appeared as the oceans became deeper and regions of high relief on the continental crust formed

http://www.earthdive.com/site/news/newsdetail.asp?changedate=true&changeyear=2009&id=2821

[betsy]

If it did, where did all the water go?

The most important question would be.

Where did all the water come from?

Edited January 2, 2013 by betsy

[g_bambino]

The most important question would be.

Where did all the water come from?

Both questions are equally important.

[betsy]

A lot of theories about the origin of water are floating out there ....no conclusive answer yet!

The origin of water on Earth, or the reason that there is clearly more water on the Earth than on the other planets of the Solar System, has not been clarified. There are several acknowledged theories as to how the world's oceans were formed over the past 4.6 billion years.

Some of the most likely contributory factors to the origin of the Earth's oceans are as follows:

• The cooling down of the primordial world to the point where the outgassed volatile components were held in an atmosphere of sufficient pressure for the stabilization and retention of liquid water.
  
• Comets, trans-Neptunian objects or water-rich meteorites (protoplanets) from the outer reaches of the main asteroid belt colliding with the Earth may have brought water to the world's oceans. Measurements of the ratio of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and protium point to asteroids, since similar percentage impurities in carbon-rich chondrites were found in oceanic water, whereas previous measurement of the isotopes' concentrations in comets and trans-Neptunian objects correspond only slightly to water on the Earth.
  
• Biochemically through mineralization and photosynthesis.
  
• Gradual leakage of water stored in hydrous minerals of the Earth's rocks.
  
• Photolysis: radiation can break down chemical bonds on the surface.
  

http://en.wikipedia...._water_on_Earth

There's also talk about interstellar dusts with water already in it. I've also seen a doc on CBC about very rare floating popsicle-asteroid that accidentally crashed on earth (and the heat from the sun melted them)!

Edited January 2, 2013 by betsy

[The_Squid]

The most important question would be.

Where did all the water come from?

But you said every culture has flood myths. How could any culture have missed it if it covered the entire world in water? There is no evidence of a recent (geologically speaking) flood event that covered the entire earth.

Even in your OP, the flood occurred in the middle east. So what probably happened was a flood. And the writers of early religious texts took this flood and blew it up into the biblical flood myth. Nothing wrong with that.... It's where myths come from! But let's not pretend it was anything but.....

Edited January 2, 2013 by The_Squid

[g_bambino]

Even in your OP, the flood occurred in the middle east. So what probably happened was a flood.

That's basically what betsy's been saying all along; except, this might be the flood that's at the root of the Biblical flood story. Then again, it might not be; which makes this entire thread kind of pointless.

[The_Squid]

That's basically what betsy's been saying all along; except, this might be the flood that's at the root of the Biblical flood story. Then again, it might not be; which makes this entire thread kind of pointless.

Very true. Bthis may have been the flood that inspired the myth! Wow, I guess.

Betsy, do you believe that the flood covered the entire world above the highest mountain by 15 cubits?

[dre]

Very true. Bthis may have been the flood that inspired the myth! Wow, I guess.

Yeah... Wow...

[Guest Manny]

Where was he if there was nowhere? Along from where?

Maybe the same place that the universe was, before the big bang. Although, according to science there is no "before". There was no dimension of time, nor was there 3 dimensional space. And yet, it "happened".

Don't get me wrong, I don't disbelieve it. But it is not easy to understand without some sort of leap of faith.

[dre]

Maybe the same place that the universe was, before the big bang. Although, according to science there is no "before". There was no dimension of time, nor was there 3 dimensional space. And yet, it "happened".

Don't get me wrong, I don't disbelieve it. But it is not easy to understand without some sort of leap of faith.

No but its easy to say "I dont understand!" instead of making up wild stories to explain it.

I dont know what was there before and I dont even really care. Theres smart people trying to figure it out, and maybe one day they will... Thats good enough for me.

[Guest Manny]

No but its easy to say "I dont understand!" instead of making up wild stories to explain it.

As far as I'm concerned, the story of creation today is wild and beyond comprehension for me. And you. We put our faith in the scientists,

the new priests

I dont know what was there before and I dont even really care. Theres smart people trying to figure it out, and maybe one day they will... Thats good enough for me.

Exactly.

[The_Squid]

faith in the scientists,

the new priests

Not at all. The peer review process is much different than the priesthood. Priests do not use evidence. Scientific theories and evidence must hold up to scrutiny and testing such theories must produce repeatable results. To call this faith is to not understand science.

[Guest Manny]

Not at all. The peer review process is much different than the priesthood. Priests do not use evidence. Scientific theories and evidence must hold up to scrutiny and testing such theories must produce repeatable results. To call this faith is to not understand science.

No man you missed the point. Go back and read it again

[betsy]

Not at all. The peer review process is much different than the priesthood.

Peer review? Ha-ha-ha! Oh you guys....the gift that keeps on giving!

This article was not the first written about the so-called "peer reviews!"....

According to

US National Library of Medicine

National Institutes of Health

Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals

Peer review is at the heart of the processes of not just medical journals but of all of science. It is the method by which grants are allocated, papers published, academics promoted, and Nobel prizes won. Yet it is hard to define. It has until recently been unstudied. And its defects are easier to identify than its attributes. Yet it shows no sign of going away. Famously, it is compared with democracy: a system full of problems but the least worst we have.

So we have little evidence on the effectiveness of peer review, but we have considerable evidence on its defects. In addition to being poor at detecting gross defects and almost useless for detecting fraud it is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC1420798/

Scientific theories and evidence must hold up to scrutiny and testing such theories must produce repeatable results. To call this faith is to not understand science.

IT IS FAITH! It is rooted in belief!

CONCLUSION

So peer review is a flawed process, full of easily identified defects with little evidence that it works. Nevertheless, it is likely to remain central to science and journals because there is no obvious alternative, and scientists and editors have a continuing belief in peer review. How odd that science should be rooted in belief.

Especially when you believe and readily swallow the myth of the big bang and macro-evolution! And your peer review is your bible! Faith!

Edited January 3, 2013 by betsy

[Mighty AC]

I think this Sam Harris quote fits perfectly:

Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says, “Well, that’s not how I choose to think about water.”? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn’t share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?