Noah's Ark found?

[154]

If that were true, then what exactly was God's purpose in laying down a microscopic layer of iridium across the entire globe. Leaving aside scientific theories¹ and concentrating on observable facts instead. All dinosaur fossils (including large and small dinosaurs) have been found beneath this world-wide layer of iridium. All human fossils and all great ape fossils have been found above this layer. If the Earth were as young as you assert, then it would seem that all the dinosaurs drowned, a layer of iridium was deposited and then all the human drowned. What would be God's purpose in segregating the bones of different species in this manner?

Furthermore, what would God's purpose be in providing more than 100,000 years of uninterrupted layers of seasonal ice in Antarctica?

Not familiar enough with this to say, so I don't know, and I'm not going to research it now.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(1) I never got an answer to post # 726 in which I mistakenly claimed I understood your views on science. What exactly are your views on science in general and scientists in particular?

Science is good. Scientists are subject to all the foibles of men.

 

[Meadmaker]

Concerning time and age of the universe.

Food for thought, or not.



http://www.khouse.org/articles/1999/245/

Didn't notice this before I made my last post. I'll have to take a look.

 

[John Jones]

Which is exactly why, beyond this, I will not respond to you.

Calm, cool and collected as can be, son.

If you have any scientific or critical-thinking credentials, I'll be happy to examine them any time you're ready.

As far as I can tell, you got nothing.


So refresh my memory: What are you doing the pee-pee dance about?

 

[Marduk]

Brilliant.

They lie everyday to assert faith in a God who commands them not to lie and to whom they believe themselves accountable.

Yes, they do, you've given several examples of this sinful behaviour in this thread already, which by your own standard, means youre going to Hell

I hope you get a nice tan while you're there and I'll see you by the bar

 

[kerikiwi]

I wonder why 154 has so much difficulty simply saying whether or not s/he believes literally all of the bible.

 

[Ladewig]

Concerning time and age of the universe.

It is the incredible expanse that leads to the difficulties in reconciling the astronomical distances with time as we know it here on the earth. Gerald Schroeder has suggested that the expansion factor is well known from a number of quantum physics considerations as approximately 10¹². Sixteen billion years (a commonly suggested age of the universe) is about 6,000,000,000,000 days: applying the 10¹² expansion factor results in about 6 days! It all depends on whose clock you're looking at!

Another problem with this approach is that it has God creating plants one trillion days before creating the Sun.

 

[temporalillusion]

That's a proposition put forth by some in order to account for the number of species evident today. Are you claiming that speciation didn't take place? Or are you claiming that speciation couldn't have taken place to that extent given the biblical chronology? If the latter then please provide some documentation which proves that such speciation is impossible within the biblical chronology parameters. That of course is assuming you already know what those parameters are.

That's impossible to do without a starting point, so first one would have to establish what was on the ark, then it would be possible to see if the rate of change required is possible.

 

[Kopji]

from khouse:

Stretching the Heavens...

The term "stretching the heavens" appears at least 17 times in the Bible.7 According to the Scriptures, the heavens can be "torn,"8 "worn out" like a garment,9 "shaken,"10 "burnt up,"11 "split apart" like a scroll, 12 and "rolled up" like a mantle13 or a scroll.14 The concept of being "rolled up" carries some additional insights. There must be some dimension in which space is "thin." If space can be "bent," there must be a direction it can be bent toward . Thus, this tells us that there must be additional dimensions beyond those of space itself.

...or, the heavens were like a big tent with little holes in it that let the light of heaven shine down on us. Sorry, this really is just nonsense. I'll go eat my peanut butter.

 

[Meadmaker]

Concerning time and age of the universe.

Food for thought, or not.



http://www.khouse.org/articles/1999/245/

I took a look.

It's hard to say exactly what they are saying in the article. It seems a bit fuzzy. However, it appears to be a variation on the relativistic argument, that the "days" in Genesis correspond to a much longer period of time in a different reference frame.

I have no problem with that. Fine. The Bible says that to God, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day, and because of Einstein, we know that for an omniscient being, that would be true. (Simultaneous observation of spatially separated events, and that sort of thing.) So, to God, we can say that measures of time have no meaning, and one day of God's time could be any length of our time, and even the order of events have no meaning for God, so when the Bible says that all the land animals were made after all the sea animals, no problem. Time, including order of events, is meaningless for an omniscient entity.

However, for us, in a reference frame sitting on the Earth and attached to it, time does have a meaning, and in that reference frame, the rocks tell us that they've been here for a few billion years. As long as no one objects to teaching that in science class, I'm good with it.

Now, the deluge, though, is an entirely different matter. If, as the article says, the Bible supports the law of conservation of matter, then all that water had to come from somewhere, and had to go somewhere, and there isn't enough water. All the evidence says that there was no deluge, and Einstein can't help us out here.

 

[Meadmaker]

By the way. The article that 154 linked to alleged that the atomic clocks in Greenwich and Boulder run at different rates due to their different elevations. (It says that gravity makes the difference.) That's wrong, isn't it? They aren't moving with respect to each other, so they ought to keep the same time, correct?

 

[SOdhner]

You mean about the consequent supposed diversification of species after the flood?
That's a proposition put forth by some in order to account for the number of species evident today.

By you. Put forth by you. You said that at the time of the flood there were only basic types of animals and they were all adapted to the same environment and then afterwards (without any miracles) they spread and evolved to be the critters we know today.

Or are you claiming that speciation couldn't have taken place to that extent given the biblical chronology?

The flood ended in 2343 BC. You are saying that between then and the time we started documenting animals (I'll be really generous and say that leaves 2000 years) we got from a few basic "types" to everything we know. But then in the following 2000 years between then and now we don't see that kind of super-rapid change.

Heck, let's just take humans as an example. By your logic, humans should have adapted to all sorts of different environments and yet we haven't. It just flat out doesn't happen like that.

Here are examples of observed incidences of speciation.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Oh, man. I can't believe I wasted my time reading that. It didn't come even close to providing any evidence at all for your position.

 

[Belz...]

"Ego is thinking you are part of the creator's chosen human race."
Uh-huh...

Of course I know what "chosen' means, in my understanding.

I'm asking you, yet again, what does "chosen" mean to you since you brought it up?

Why is this so difficult with you?

I assumed that you knew what I meant, because it didn't cross my mind that someone would be sufficiently ignorant of his own religion not to.

According to christianity, humanity is the only race (species) that has souls and goes to heave (chosen). That is arrogance of the highest order. Why ? Because it assumes that souls (which have never been shown to exist) are exclusive to humans, for some reason, and that our existence -- your existence -- is very, very special because not only was it ordained by the omnipotent super-daddy who created the universe, but because he has a very special plan JUST for you.

When theists talk about ego by nonbelievers, they make me laugh. Atheists like me claim that humans, me included, are not cosmically "special" in any way, and that our existence has no purpose beyond what we give it. That is not ego, that is humility.

Please tell me if there are other words in my posts you don't understant.

Calm, cool and collected as can be, son.

And yet all you do is whine and brag.

 

[Belz...]

Science is good. Scientists are subject to all the foibles of men.

And reading the good book, it seems gods also have them.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

I think we all understand that, but most of us would see that as a problem. By putting your greatest confidence in your faith, you basically are saying that anything that contradcts your faith can be dismissed.

With respect to the flood, someone could point out impossibilities in the flood story all day long, but it goes against your faith, so it wouldn't be persuasive to you. You could hear the arguments, and have no counterarguments, but your real confidence would remain in your faith, and so you would simply brush off whatever arguments you've heard.

There's a similar pattern in your bigfoot sighting. "I am very confident in what I saw." The fact that an undiscovered large mammal living so close to humans would leave certain evidence behind, and no one has ever found that evidence despite intense search, is irrelevant. You saw something, and you know what you saw, so there must be some explanation.

There's a certain egotism involved. You know what you saw, so it must be true. You know what your faith tells you, via the Good Book, about the flood, so it must be true.

However, the rocks of the Earth also tell a story, even if it is more difficult to interpret than the story in Genesis. Your faith tells you that God authored the story in Genesis, but men were involved in the construction and preservation of that story. Not so with the rocks. The story of the rocks was authored by the creator of the universe alone. Perhaps you should listen to what they have to say.

This is well-said from start to finish.

 

[Marcus]

Whether it's circular or not or evidence or not is irrelevasnt. What is relevant is that it was and is necessary for their faith as Peter pointed out.

The relevance depends on what you are looking for. If you have faith you don't need anyone to convince you of the truth of the bible. If you are looking to persuade others, circular logic is not going to help you. Things found in the bible are not evidence of things found in the bible.

 

[Radrook]

That's impossible to do without a starting point, so first one would have to establish what was on the ark, then it would be possible to see if the rate of change required is possible.

Thanx for the feedback. I thought you were claiming that the time was insufficient to account for the present varieties. my misunderstanding.

 

[Ladewig]

That's impossible to do without a starting point, so first one would have to establish what was on the ark, then it would be possible to see if the rate of change required is possible.

What was on the ark was no more than 1.5 million cubic feet of animals. With 5000 mammal species today, 11,000 bird species, 8000 reptile species. I am not convinced that one could have a small enough number to fit on the Ark turn into the numbers we see today. I'll have to do some research on that matter.

 

[154]

"Was The Ark Big Enough?

Many people are skeptical about a literal ark having saved all the animals, etc. They are doubtful that it could have been big enough. (They don't really know how big it was, or how many animals were involved, but still they remain skeptical.)

The ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits abeam, and 30 cubits high. The cubit was a measure intended to represent the distance between the elbow and the tip of the fingers, and is approximated by most scholars at about 18 inches. (Various cubits have been discovered ranging from 17 to 25 inches.)

Assuming an 18-inch cubit, the ark would contain 1.5 million cubic feet, and would displace approximately 24,000 tons. This space approximates over 500 railroad cars and could contain 125,000 sheep or their equivalent. Since it has been estimated that there were about 18,000 species, and most of those would be smaller than a sheep, the space doesn't seem to be a real problem.

(Some scholars suggest that a 25-inch cubit might have been involved, which would almost triple that capacity.)"

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/504/

 

[temporalillusion]

Thanx for the feedback. I thought you were claiming that the time was insufficient to account for the present varieties. my misunderstanding.

Most likely time will be insufficient given any definition of "kinds" someone wants to make up out of thin air, but until a real definition of kind comes along it's hard to say.

Though it is funny because on one hand yec's will say that evolution is impossible even given a long time span, and then on the other hand will depend on evolution in a short span to produce the currently observed variety from some relatively small group of organism.

It doesn't matter anyway, the lack of a recent genetic bottleneck in every single extant species all at the same time indicates that there was never an event which narrowed the population of every species down to a few individuals.

 

[SOdhner]

"Was The Ark Big Enough?

It was both not big enough (for everything it needed to carry), and far too big (to be seaworthy).

Assuming an 18-inch cubit, the ark would contain 1.5 million cubic feet, and would displace approximately 24,000 tons. This space approximates over 500 railroad cars and could contain 125,000 sheep or their equivalent. Since it has been estimated that there were about 18,000 species, and most of those would be smaller than a sheep, the space doesn't seem to be a real problem.

18,000 species is something you're just making up and by extension you are just guessing on the size but I'm fine with that. Let's say a quarter of them were "clean". That gives us 90,000 animals. To use your comparison, sheep generally weigh about 150-200 pounds so let's round all the way down to 100. We'll assume that the flood is fresh water and they can drink that, but the bible specifically says that they need food so we'll give them two pounds of food a day. Let's also say the flood was 300 days, although we would actually need to plan for way more than that. So now we have 63,000,000 pounds of stuff on board - that's 31,500 tons. Of course, we still need to deal with all of the equipment to contain these animals and the fact that not all space is able to be used by Noah.

Also, that it's not even remotely seaworthy. Also, that the animals would all die. Also, that they wouldn't be able to spread and get to where they were going. Also, that there wouldn't be enough to keep the species alive, let alone diversify as they would need to. Also, that the water should still be here. Also, that the environment would be utterly destroyed and wouldn't be able to recover in the time that has supposedly passed since then. And so on.

Thanx for the feedback. I thought you were claiming that the time was insufficient to account for the present varieties. my misunderstanding.

No that was me. You know, the one you keep carefully avoiding? Just be honest. Between you and me... you're a troll, right? Like, a really clever skillful elegant troll? Because nobody who ACTUALLY believes something is this good at avoiding critical discussion of it. I mean, there's just no way that you can selectively respond in the way you do unless it's a game and you don't really believe what you are saying.