October 05, 2007

• Of all the logic holes in Creation, I think the Ark might be the biggest fish stuck in a very small barrel. And this guy is using a 12 gauge.
• I once had a minister tell the story of Jonah with the intent of correcting those that would assume it was a whale that swallowed Jonah. The bible said it was a fish so God created a special fish for the single purpose of protecting Jonah for three days (underwater) while God got his point across. Trust me, the fundamentalists are fine with the story of Noah's Ark...
• And yet he created an endless supply of whiny recalcitrants. Send more giant fish, Jehovah!
• Hey, Noah shoveled, and the Lord provided. Case closed.
• Typical, snark-filled, uber-skeptic drivel. "Hibernation... is triggered by length of daylight as well as decreasing temperatures... in the... Ark, it would not happen." Ah yes - God is capable of completely flooding the world with gargantuan amounts of water, is capable of giving complicated instructions to a man to build a monstrous boat, is capable of guiding a bird to and from Noah's boat after the storm to reassure him that land was nearby... but there's no way he could have broken the immutable Law of Hibernation, and made a few beasties fall asleep for a couple of weeks. Looking at these things with a skeptical eye is fine, so long as you keep in mind that the basic premise is itself such a leap of faith that there's no point making this big fuss about little niggling details. "The Bible says pi is really 3, so therefore it's false!" Yeah. 'Cause a rounding error was the biggest shock to my world-view that I found in the Bible.
• Oh gosh, hey, I clearly didn't read far enough because he makes my point for me later on: "..we must disregard all that I have written above. It is a load of crap; useless rhetoric and hyperbole, every word." :)
• Plenty of flood myths to choose from.
• "...but there's no way he could have broken the immutable Law of Hibernation, and made a few beasties fall asleep for a couple of weeks." He can avoid that sort of thing, can he? Why did he even need to use a flood, then? Why couldn't he just *wink out* all the human life on earth using a thought, without whacking all the other animals? Maybe it was because of all the iron? Judges 1:19 And the Lord was with Judah; and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. He's powerless against iron! This god fellow, he's not as supreme as he'd like us to believe, it seems. ;)
• He can avoid that sort of thing, can he? Why did he even need to use a flood, then? Why couldn't he just *wink out* all the human life on earth using a thought, without whacking all the other animals? Have you EVER played Simcity? Sometimes you just want to fuck around.
• Monkeyfilter: Sometimes you just want to fuck around. I'll never forget the time I left SimEarth running while I went out to a concert and came home to find the entire planet taken over by whales.
• Hank Mabuse: Indeed, why did he need to use a flood? This is the kind of question it makes more sense to ask, instead of trying to analyze-to-death every nit-picked detail. I mean, doesn't it read like the same self-serving tedium that you'd find on AnswersInGenesis, or any other pro-Fundy website? It's not written to actually try and convince anyone any differently, because you aren't dealing with the issues the un-believers really have problems with. It's just written to reassure people who already believe exactly the same thing that they're in the right. Whether it's pro-Fundy or pro-Skeptic, it still basically amounts to a huge group reach-around. I mean, okay, the Bible (among other things) seems to posit the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent being. Now assume this existence - does it make sense that the world was flooded? Does it make sense that all the animals fit on the ark? Does it make sense that Noah was able to construct the boat with limited experience? To start hacking away at these logical difficulties seems to miss the point - that you've already made such a leap in assuming the existence of an omnipotent and benevolent being, that most everything else becomes trivial by comparison. I don't mean to turn this into a debate about religion (too late?), but rather about online soapboxing. I find equally distasteful those websites which are dedicated to being uppity and snarky about their obvious superiority over The Other Side, whether they be written by Fundies, Skeptics, or anyone in between. I also don't mean to bash your link - the linking was lovely, very nicely executed, wonderful type-setting, good choice of link colours. It was just the content on the other end I took issue with! :D
• Yes, but we've had nearly 2000 years of these morons running the show, & I don't know if you notice, but the fundies gave us a dark age with, you know, quite a lot of bad things, so it is time for a flood of skepticism to wash away the bullshit, before they do it again. Cos I'm sure many of them from different groups (moslem, jew & christian) would like to. You have to expect a reaction to so many years of entrenched dogma to be a bit strident. Some times you have to knock peoples' heads against the wall to make them see the brickwork. I mean, I'm not an atheist, but I do object strongly to literalism when it comes to religious literature. It's not really spirituality if you just believe what you're told without engaging the brain and questioning it. It's just subservience. Ritual without meaning. Tribalism.
• And from a personal, rather cruel, viewpoint, I enjoy winding up the jesus freaks. ;)
• does it make sense that the world was flooded? Does it make sense that all the animals fit on the ark? It makes sens that the part of the world Noah would have known about the existence of might have flooded, and that he might have fit all the essential animals he knew existed into the ark.
• The Old Testament is a collection of books that are largely an historical account of the experience of the Israelites. This historical account is told from the perspective of people who believe that Yahweh saved and led them, and that God would speak to and interact with some of them. The historical nature of the Old Testament does not begin until Abraham. You would be hard-pressed to find any biblical scholar who believes that anything pre-Abraham is based on fact or history. Adam and Eve, Noah, etc. are all pre-Abraham. They are made up stories to show that God has had God's hand in all things from the beginning and to show where the Israelites came from. So viewing anything pre-Abraham (or Job, for that matter -- and I believe Jonah -- which were written before the Abraham stuff, but were plugged into the Old Testament at a later point) as anything other than myth would be a mistake. There is no reason to debate the possibility of it. It was one of several stories created to explain things. This is in stark contrast to the post-Abraham writings, which were written to interpret events that had occurred as seen through the eyes of a people who believed in God. Almost all early religions of that period and from before have their own version of a flood story. The rain and water create a useful symbolism, and there probably was some serious flooding going on around that time. But even at the deepest level of my Catholic beliefs, I never viewed the pre-Abraham stuff as anymore real than the parables told by Jesus in the New Testament. They are stories invented to teach a lesson. They are not interpretations of historical events. Big difference.
• What Hank said, but I am an atheist. How anyone is able to believe in some omniscient being ('who' is also jealous, cruel, sociopathic and indifferent) zooms far beyond the bounds of any imaginative leap possible for me, this least of all beings am i. "Tribalism", oh yes, no doubt! Rank superstition. Fear based and "just in case, we'd best believe!" Conspiracy theories are more credible.

• The Old Testament is a collection of books that are largely an historical a cultural-retrospective account of the experience of the Israelites.

  There's plenty of interesting material in the OT, but its value as historical record is limited. I think the Noah's Ark story predates Judaism and comes from an animistic religion. It's a great story about our relationship with the other beings that inhabit our world. It's proto-deep-green ecology.
• And from a personal, rather cruel, viewpoint, I enjoy winding up the jesus freaks. Fair enough - I just think you're denying yourself a whole other world of pleasure by limiting yourself to ridiculing only one camp of rabid zealots. :)