Biblical Flood? Fish, squid, and shrimp fossils in the mountains of Lebanon and Peru

[SlackerBabbath]

With my mod hat on, I would say that it's a fine topic for discussion, but the links with the current topic are so tenuous that it is likely be judged off-topic if the discussion takes place in this thread. Feel free to start a new thread on the topic, in an appropriate sub-forum (depending on what angle you're coming at it from).

Again, my apologies. I had assumed that the thread was about a literal reading of Genesis and I was merely offering an alternative view about the origins of the story as an argument against taking the book literaly.
I stand corrected in my assumption.

I would guess that the change was not deliberate; I've done the same myself, misread a member's name for a long time (in this case, missing the spoonerism).

Yes, that's a plausable hypothesis that I'm willing to go with.
I did think for a moment that it was a reference to a 'bat hat'...

http://www.pinktreeparties.co.uk/communities/8/004/006/270/758/images/4528707903.jpg

Edited by jhunter1163: 

Edited for Rule 5. Do not hotlink images from other sites.

...but I'm perfectly willing to let common sense prevail in the name of peace.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Did the documentary happen to mention what the rays, squids and octopusses were doing in the mountains?

...hiding fish fossils in crevices, just before the aggro surf came up, brah...

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Did the documentary happen to mention what the rays, squids and octopusses were doing in the mountains?

They had opened a survivalist enclave to protect them from the civil chaos that would inevitably follow such a large scale disaster.

And to keep themselves safe from zombies.

 

[Correa Neto]

Lots of years ago, there was right here at JREF a discussion on Atlantis. Some people (I included myself among them) proposed Akrotiri and Helike could be Atlantis.

A poster (can't remember who, I believe s/he is AWOL or MIA) said that if it can not fulfill Pato's description, then its not Atlantis. So, if its not where Plato said it was, if its not as old as Plato says it was, if its not the size and shape Plato said it was, then its not Atlantis. S/he was right. Those cities can be, at best, primers, inspirations for the myth.

Same is valid for the universal flood from the Bible, "sampled" from Gilgamesh, whose author(s) may have "sampled" it from the Epic of Atrahasis. So, if its not global, if it has not lasted for as long as the Bible says, then its not "the" flood. Since it also happens that there are no evidences for it other than the Bible... It was not real. Just make believe. Something created to make the common rabble obey their religious elites.

 

[Slowvehicle]

They had opened a survivalist enclave to protect them from the civil chaos that would inevitably follow such a large scale disaster.

And to keep themselves safe from zombies.

"...raaaiins..."

 

[tsig]

Did the documentary happen to mention what the rays, squids and octopusses were doing in the mountains?

Vacationing?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Vacationing?

"Why are you, a sea creature, on top of a mountain?"

"Because it's there."

 

[smartcooky]

Lots of years ago, there was right here at JREF a discussion on Atlantis. Some people (I included myself among them) proposed Akrotiri and Helike could be Atlantis.

A poster (can't remember who, I believe s/he is AWOL or MIA) said that if it can not fulfill Pato's description, then its not Atlantis. So, if its not where Plato said it was, if its not as old as Plato says it was, if its not the size and shape Plato said it was, then its not Atlantis. S/he was right. Those cities can be, at best, primers, inspirations for the myth.

Well, I find that to be an overzealous and dogmatic confinement of discussion. Such restrictions are NOT the way to discovery and advancement of knowldge!!

Imagine if Heinrich Schliemann was confined to Homer's descriptions of Troy in the Iliad or Odyssey? Its doubtful he would ever have found it!

 

[Dinwar]

Well, I find that to be an overzealous and dogmatic confinement of discussion.

It also irrationally ignores the posibility of Plato being the one who was wrong. You may as well say that what you're seeing isn't Washington, DC because it doesn't fit a Tom Clancy novel's description. Plato was, even if we assume Atlantis existed, working from third-hand information and at a time when exageration was expected. If there's something real behind the story--ANY story--it's irrational to confine yourself to only a literal interpretation of that one story when looking for that reality, because storytellers aren't cartographers or historians or archaeologists or, really, scientists of any sort. They are story tellers. They are obliged to make crap up if it serves the story.

 

[Steve]

^ Exactly this.

All this conjecture about local floods and pre-biblical accounts of them is nothing more than a great big fossilised red herring.

[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/FossilHerring.jpg[/qimg]​

That fish (fossil) has a rather sad expression on its face. I wonder if it has been following this thread.

 

[Correa Neto]

It also irrationally ignores the posibility of Plato being the one who was wrong. You may as well say that what you're seeing isn't Washington, DC because it doesn't fit a Tom Clancy novel's description. Plato was, even if we assume Atlantis existed, working from third-hand information and at a time when exageration was expected. If there's something real behind the story--ANY story--it's irrational to confine yourself to only a literal interpretation of that one story when looking for that reality, because storytellers aren't cartographers or historians or archaeologists or, really, scientists of any sort. They are story tellers. They are obliged to make crap up if it serves the story.

I guess you have not noticed the parts I said (actually wrote) they could be primers or inspiration...

 

[Mojo]

Well, I find that to be an overzealous and dogmatic confinement of discussion. Such restrictions are NOT the way to discovery and advancement of knowldge!!

Imagine if Heinrich Schliemann was confined to Homer's descriptions of Troy in the Iliad or Odyssey? Its doubtful he would ever have found it!

But in the case of this thread, the topic is clearly the Biblical flood. Floods that don't fit the Biblical description of a global flood are clearly not the same flood.

 

[catsmate]

Oh, I've done religion since 1958. Including conventional religions, politics, and conspiracies. (Never done NASCAR or Bigfootitis.)

How do you feel about the Shroud of Turin?...........

 

[TimCallahan]

Are the fossils in Peru allegedly 85 million years old or the material surrounding them that estimated age. Remember the link that said carbon dating is not reliable for marine life. IF the actual fish is 85 million, true, that would not be related to a local flood in the middle East.

Concerning the hilited area: Carbon 14 dating would be irrelevant for a fossil that's 85,000,000 years old. Radiocarbon decays at a fast enough rate that all of it is gone from bones or shells by 100,000 years. That's 1/850 of the age of the fossil.

BTW, my question still stands: Are you willing to propose a pass / fail test or accept someone else's pass / fail test for a scientific theory of the flood; and are you willing to accept the verdict of such a test - just as I would have to accept the verdict, falsifying evolution, of a mammalian fossil embedded in Cambrian strata along with trilobites - should the result of this this test be a fail?

If you will not subject flood theory to a pass / fail test, then your adherence to it is intellectually dishonest.

 

[jimbob]

When you embrace the squid, anything is possible. Land squid excel at gymnastics as well as keyboard based activities. Their dismounts are a little loose, however.

I'm sure that is frowned upon in Leviticus

 

[TimCallahan]

False, Noah did not have sex with his daughters, although he did have a vineyard, and drank too much one day and fell asleep naked. Actually a story like this increases the chances of the truth of the Noah story since it is an unlikely invention concerning a man God had found favor with.

Actually, the criterion of embarrassment, that you're using, may not apply here. The story was used as a justification for enslaving the Canaanites. Note that Noah doesn't curse Ham. Instead he curses Ham's son, Canaan (Gen. 9:24 - 27):

When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him he said,
"Cursed by Canaan;
a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers."
He also said,
"Blessed by the LORD my God be Shem,
and let Canaan b his slave.
God enlarge Japheth,
and let him dwell in the tents of Shem;
and let Canaan be his slave."

The whole episode of Noah's drunkenness is a very obscure, confused story. According to the biblical text, as we now have it, all that Ham did was to see his father naked. This is hardly a valid reason for cursing him. Also, the curses rendered in verse seem to imply that Canaan, not Ham, is the brother of Shem and Japheth.

 

[GeneMachine]

^ Exactly this.

All this conjecture about local floods and pre-biblical accounts of them is nothing more than a great big fossilised red herring.

[qimg]http://www.yvonneclaireadams.com/HostedStuff/FossilHerring.jpg[/qimg]​

Where's that one from, Pharaoh, may your light shine forever upon us? I dug out some fish from the Solnhofen limestones that look very similar, not anatomically, but regarding the underlying rock and the color of the fossil itself.

 

[Elizabeth I]

...The whole episode of Noah's drunkenness is a very obscure, confused story. According to the biblical text, as we now have it, all that Ham did was to see his father naked. This is hardly a valid reason for cursing him...

I always understood it as referring to Ham seeing Noah drunk and naked - in other words, misbehaving in a way that might render him undeserving of respect. In order to displace his embarrassment and guilt for the way he acted, Noah blamed Ham for seeing him instead of himself for being a drunken flasher. Since Noah is one of the patriarchs, anything he did had to be good, so Ham wound up as the bad guy in this story.

 

[Tricky]

Where's that one from, Pharaoh, may your light shine forever upon us? I dug out some fish from the Solnhofen limestones that look very similar, not anatomically, but regarding the underlying rock and the color of the fossil itself.

Looks like the Green River Formation to me. It's famous for its fish fossils.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How do you feel about the Shroud of Turin?...........

The face is definitely fake. It's not the way a face would be if it was wrapped in cloth, it's the kind of face you see in paintings. It was put there by an artist that didn't expect it to be challenged in any serious fashion.