Is Noah's Ark a true story???

[AutoliteParticipant]

sidecar wrote:

Technically they’re correct, though not in the way they think. Spoiler: Birds are dinosaurs.

Yes, technically you’re right there.

I’ve been watching a few Jerry Coyne videos too and I have his book ‘Why Evolution is True’.

This guy tells it straight but he can sometimes be a little too blunt. In one of his talks he slipped up a bit and referred to those who refuse to accept evolution as “morons”…

[MonkParticipant 16995]

There is geological evidence of not just one, but several floods. It is likely that stories such as that of Noah are garbled race memories.

[AutoliteParticipant]

Monk wrote:

There is geological evidence of not just one, but several floods. It is likely that stories such as that of Noah are garbled race memories.

Do you yourself not believe the ‘Noah’s Ark’ story to be literally true? If not, why not?

I mean if these types of stories are just “garbled race memories” then why does the bible just not openly portray them as such? Not doing so creates the impression that the Christian god is just phucking with us…

[MonkParticipant 16995]

Autolite wrote:

Do you yourself not believe the ‘Noah’s Ark’ story to be literally true? If not, why not?

No. There is no evidence. It also happens to be a physical impossibility. I do however accept the evidence of geology – that there has been more than one large innundation – some worldwide, some localised.

I mean if these types of stories are just “garbled race memories” then why does the bible just not openly portray them as such?

Because the ‘Bible’ is itself a motley collection of earlier texts overlaid with more recent additions. It was also heavily edited by the Early Church and many authentic – but politically inconvenient – texts excluded.

It is the earlier texts/stories that are race memories. These are worldwide and remarkably coincident.

[AutoliteParticipant]

Monk wrote:

No. There is no evidence. It also happens to be a physical impossibility.

Yet the exact same thing can be said for most of the bible stories. Atheists will even say that this also pretty much sums up the very belief in a god.

What really puzzles me is that Theists will believe in one story or tenant of their faith but will reject another when the plausibility is identical for each. No one story is any less profoundly or absurdly ridiculous than the other yet Theists will accept one and reject the other. Why is that?

And with god supposedly being ‘magical’, why wouldn’t that trump any “physical impossibility”???

[MonkParticipant 16995]

Autolite wrote:

<Yet the exact same thing can be said for most of the bible stories.

True.

Some New Testament material stands up – it is fairly recent (although overlaid in many places), and some things have been verified by Roman records and archaeological finds – but that doesn’t validate the whole corpus.

The Old Testament certainly is a collection culled from other times and other places. Some parts of that are older by millennia.

Atheists will even say that this also pretty much sums up the very belief in a god.

True, although a lawyer would say ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’.

I think that the most one can say with regard to the existence of God is ‘I don’t know’. Neither the theists or the atheists can prove their case (how do you prove a negative like that, anyway?).

That said, when it comes to logic (the ‘watchmaker’ theory is a case in point), and some of the science (dark matter, quantum physics and so on), I suspect that the theists do actually have an edge.

Atheism strikes me more as being more of a reaction – an ‘anticause’ – than anything.

What really puzzles me is that Theists will believe in one story or tenant of their faith but will reject another when the plausibility is identical for each. No one story is any less profoundly or absurdly ridiculous than the other yet they will accept one and reject the other. Why is that???

I suspect that much of it is ego – they like to feel special, that they are ‘chosen’, one of the ‘elect’. The fact that the ‘other lot’ have come to much the same conclusions and are saying much the same thing and passes them by.

[HermitParticipant]

Monk wrote:

Because the ‘Bible’ is itself a motley collection of earlier texts overlaid with more recent additions. It was also heavily edited by the Early Church and many authentic – but politically inconvenient – texts excluded.

That’s a pretty good way to put it. The Bible is a very old book that has had many men’s influence in what should and shouldn’t be in it and how it should and shouldn’t be written. How many times has it been translated? How many mistakes were made in those translations? I’d say it’s impossible to tell.

I believe the Noah’s Ark story is true, although maybe not exactly as it reads in the Bible. When God said, “…..all the animals……”, is that really what He said, or just what the writers thought He said? Maybe God said, “……all of these types of animals…..”, and not literally every species on the Earth.

That’s the problem when so many people over thousands of years have been involved in something like this, so many different people with their own ideas and their own interpretations, it can sometimes be difficult to see the truth when tainted by the influence of man.

I hesitate to use the word “faith” after what our friend Gravel said, but faith is what it comes down to I guess. I don’t put my faith into everything a preacher might say at church. He’s just a man and can make mistakes. I have to put my faith in God that He will reveal the truth to me while discarding the mistakes in what the preacher is saying. Therefore, even though I have no doubt that men who wrote and translated the Bible made some mistakes, I have faith that God can show me the truth of His Word.

I don’t pick and choose which stories in the Bible to believe. I choose to believe that God will help me make sense of it all.

The evil in women’s hearts leaves them no moral bounds as to inhibit them from descending to the lowest levels of darkness to acquire their self entitled desires.

[Gravel PitParticipant]

Wasn’t there an intriguing study done that showed the Black Sea overflowed, or a natural barrier eroded and flooded the crap out of the Mediterranean by way of the Marmara Sea? I saw it on some TV show like 10 years ago LOL. They think stuff like this is pre-Bronze Age times are where these old stories started out. If that happened 7000 years ago, then its no wonder that it would show up in the “earliest writing” we have. (I quote because so much has been lost or destroyed through the sands of time, Humans have been writing much longer than 7000 years ago)

[MonkParticipant 16995]

Gravel Pit wrote:

Wasn’t there an intriguing study done that showed the Black Sea overflowed, or a natural barrier eroded and flooded the crap out of the Mediterranean by way of the Marmara Sea?

At some point the Atlantic broke into and flooded the Mediterranean basin, and eventually the Mediterranean broke into what became the Black Sea. Much of the paleo-archaeology tallies with this.

There is also evidence of a worldwide innundation.

[Branched offParticipant 10932]

I think we are just coming to a point of maturity in Christian thinking. Religion is more about what group you identify than anything else. You identify with a group and then hang out with them, help each other out and mark important festivals and rites of passage together.

Religion does not offer the keys to the universe. When Christianity had a monopoly in the west what started as an escatological cult had to quite quickly modify into the establishment. They had the power to teach that their stories were the truth and people believed them. Now they have lost the power.

Pity is I am not happy with the religion of equality that has replaced Christianity. I would sooner they believed the god of the jews built the whole universe in 6 days and then took the day off than that man and woman are equal and gender is a social construct. The old myth just messed with the facts of what was outside in the world. The new religion tells you lies about yourself and what is in your head.

A woman is like fire -fun to play with, can warm you through and cook your food, needs constant feeding, can burn you and consume all you own

[Gravel PitParticipant]

Hermit wrote:

I hesitate to use the word “faith”

I used to absolutely Loath the word. I even coined the expression that Faith is a celebration of fear. LOL. No one repeats it because they dont understand anyway…

Im glad to say today, that I have Faith of a kind. Gone are the resentments and petty feuding with Xtians. To be honest, Im more “faithful” and more Xtian that many Chirstians themselves. I say the “our father” and multiple other prayers many times a week and attend a pretty TRADCONesque Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting.

I grew the fvck up and stopped TROLLING Xtians mostly. Which is a good thing because you will never rid the world of Faith in an anthropomorphic creator diety, its too ingrained in our Evo-Psych. Its subconscious at this point.

Besides, the Deity they claim transcends Spacetime, is so nebulous and indefinable that no two people can agree on what “God” really is. “He” is so formless and immeasurable, and so characterized by human tropes, omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience that he is indistinguishable from PURE energy or PURE truth or PURE love … At some point you have to look at the guy espousing this crap in front of you and just forgive him and love him as another human being unless he is sharpening a sword or about to infibulate an infant… then we should kill him. LOL

As Sam Harris asked, How many Christians really believe this stuff in the privacy of their own mind? How many Muslims do? The answer is A LOT! We take them at their word what they believe because some of them are prepared to die for it.

Still, many others know theres a disconnect with reality but they tow the line, the keep the status quo because they believe the Dogma is a positive force for virtuous living. To a degree they are right. I’d rather live next door to some drunks who attend Mass on Sunday, than to a commune of Blue Haired single moms.

Choose the Lesser of two Weevils!

[Gravel PitParticipant]

Branched off wrote:

I am not happy with the religion of equality that has replaced Christianity. I would sooner they believed the god of the jews built the whole universe in 6 days and then took the day off than that man and woman are equal and gender is a social construct.

Ditto. The “New Religion” is a dumpster fire. I choose the Christian Weevil!

[AutoliteParticipant]

Hermit wrote:

That’s a pretty good way to put it. The Bible is a very old book that has had many men’s influence in what should and shouldn’t be in it and how it should and shouldn’t be written. How many times has it been translated? How many mistakes were made in those translations? I’d say it’s impossible to tell.

You seem to be saying that man has corrupted the bible. That would mean that it isn’t really, in it’s current from, the ‘inerrant’ word of god. Is this what you’re implying?

I believe the Noah’s Ark story is true, although maybe not exactly as it reads in the Bible.

Does it not bother you that the same flood/ark story has been told by a couple of different cultures with only the details changing? How can you afford any credibility to just this one particular version of a common story when the other versions are today widely considered to be myths???

[AutoliteParticipant]

Gravel Pit wrote:

I grew the fvck up and stopped TROLLING Xtians mostly.

Contrary to the impression that I likely create, trolling is not my intention either.

Several years ago I became interested in human behavior (particularity personality traits) and that further developed into a passing interest in psychology. I am very curious how Theists think and why they believe in the things that they do. How can they believe in some things that their own common sense tells them cannot be true or possible yet at the very same time reject other religious beliefs precisely because they are in fact illogical and impossible? There has just got to be some very serious and intense mental gymnastics involved!

I read the answers but I’m still not quite understanding them. I guess I’m searching for an answer that will make sense to me but that that answer might well not exist… 🙁

[AutoliteParticipant]

Branched off wrote:

I think we are just coming to a point of maturity in Christian thinking.

I hear about Christians rejecting many of their own bible stories with many now saying that they are mostly just allegory and metaphors and are not to be believed literally. The only remaining universally accepted Christian belief seems to be that there is a magical man in the sky. Everything else I guess is now subject to interpretation…

[HermitParticipant]

Autolite wrote:

Hermit wrote:

That’s a pretty good way to put it. The Bible is a very old book that has had many men’s influence in what should and shouldn’t be in it and how it should and shouldn’t be written. How many times has it been translated? How many mistakes were made in those translations? I’d say it’s impossible to tell.

You seem to be saying that man has corrupted the bible. That would mean that it isn’t really, in it’s current from, the ‘inerrant’ word of god. Is this what you’re implying?

I believe the Noah’s Ark story is true, although maybe not exactly as it reads in the Bible.

Does it not bother you that the same flood/ark story has been told by a couple of different cultures with only the details changing? How can you afford any credibility to just this one particular version of a common story when the other versions are today widely considered to be myths???

What I’m saying is, I believe the Word of God is true and I also believe that while most of the men who were responsible for putting His Word in the Bible, along with the subsequent translations, wanted to do their best to make it accurate, they were human beings and probably made some mistakes. That’s life. The truth in His Word is still there and can be found, if you want to find it.

No, it doesn’t bother me, no more than the fact that there are so many different beliefs in God and many people consider those to be myths.

The evil in women’s hearts leaves them no moral bounds as to inhibit them from descending to the lowest levels of darkness to acquire their self entitled desires.

[sidecarParticipant 35837]

Autolite wrote:

I mean if these types of stories are just “garbled race memories” then why does the bible just not openly portray them as such?

Because the primitive authors of the bible wouldn’t know the meaning of “garbled race memories”.

Hermit wrote:

I believe the Noah’s Ark story is true, although maybe not exactly as it reads in the Bible.

It is true. But, yes, not as it reads in the bible.

The very earliest civilizations all started in river valleys (because that’s where the drinkable water was). The Nile river in Egypt flooded regularly and predictably. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia did not. Archeological evidence shows fairly conclusively that the ancient Mesopotamian cities regularly, though randomly, got their sh​it wrecked by giant floods from the Tigris and Euphrates.

It’s no coincidence that the Noah story (or Atrahasis story or Ziusudra story or Utnapishtim story etc.) comes out of those repeatedly flood fu​cked cities.

Monk wrote:

At some point the Atlantic broke into and flooded the Mediterranean basin, and eventually the Mediterranean broke into what became the Black Sea. Much of the paleo-archaeology tallies with this.

This.

Not just at some point. The whole Mediterranean has dried up completely multiple times, only to be flooded again when sea levels managed to peek over the straits of Gibraltar. I think the Nazis might have had a plan to take advantage of that and intentionally drain the Mediterranean.

The same sort of thing is happening today with the vanished Aral sea.

And then there’s all of Doggerland and its ilk to consider. The end of the last ice age flooded human occupied lands all over the planet, so it should be no wonder that various people might be holding onto some ancient flooding trauma in the form of myths and legends.

[AutoliteParticipant]

Hermit wrote:

The truth in His Word is still there and can be found, if you want to find it.

If I “want to find it”!?! You’re now saying that “His Word” is up my my own personal interpretation?

It’s not very reassuring that I must search for and formulate my own interpretation of a set of instructions on which a comprehensive and correct understanding will determine the disposition of my eternal soul.

That would be like printing one of those airline crash survival guide pamphlets in the form of a cross-word puzzle…

[HermitParticipant]

Autolite wrote:

Hermit wrote:

The truth in His Word is still there and can be found, if you want to find it.

If I “want to find it”!?! You’re now saying that “His Word” is up my my own personal interpretation?
It’s not very reassuring that I must search for and formulate my own interpretation of a set of instructions on which a comprehensive and correct understanding will determine the disposition of my eternal soul.
That would be like printing one of those airline crash survival guide pamphlets in the form of a cross-word puzzle…

That is absolutely not at all what I was saying.

The evil in women’s hearts leaves them no moral bounds as to inhibit them from descending to the lowest levels of darkness to acquire their self entitled desires.

[AutoliteParticipant]

Hermit wrote:

That is absolutely not at all what I was saying.

Well what did you mean then by saying “if you want to find it”? Why would I even need to do a search for something that really should be self evident, easily comprehended and readily apparent?

Consider also that I was indoctrinated into Christianity as a young child and that I was still a believer well into my early adulthood. I eventually concluded my ‘search’ with the determination that the whole thing was absolute bullshhit…

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