The Biblical Flood and its Nature

Gunga calls people by uncomplimentary and rude names and he has the testones to put them on ignore. Id call gunga a bit of a coward.

TELL ME where is your evidence of a worldwide flood oh greatsnakey thing. PErhaps you can roll out some simple minded Creationist web site that calculates the orbital dynamics relating to the flood, yet which fails to recognize that this is the only flood in "cryptohistory that has failed to leave one steenking piece of evidence.

I think for anyone to claim the Noah story to be literally true would be laughable: do the Maths: think of how big a craft would have to be built to hold two of every species, and how they would live for so long on a boat: I think to dismiss the idea of a worldwide flood is possibly premature:
There is evidence of an impact by an asteroid destroying the dinosaurs: certainly if it landed in a sea this would cause a flood.
Tsunami would not leave a big enough mark to influence the geological record: however they would be pretty cataclysmic for a civilisation.
I think just because something is mentioned in the Bible doesn't automatically make it hogwash, it is after all the living fossil of books: it has been around a long time: even if a lot of it appears a bit weird.

The evidence is pretty much everywhere; it's just a question of how you care to interpret it.

One of the arguments against the truth of the Noah story is the question of how big a ship anybody can build out of wood. Europeans and Americans never built anything more than a couple of hundred feet long but it's becoming increasingly clear that Chinese of the Early Ming dynasty built wooden ships which were vastly larger than that, some apparently over 400'.

That stamp proves the Chinese built 400' boats. And an apple tree proves there was a Garden of Eden.

The chixclub bolide did leave a tsunami record in the stratigraphy of several areas in the Gulf of Mexico region. The effects are just like any other local event, the effect disperses with distance and then achieves a terminal deposit at the ends .





The Bible has little credibility as "history" or "science". The two stories of of Creation, the Flood, etc are not true, they are allegorical moral tales that even the Jews will mostly tell you are Bullshit. The flood may have had a local event that helped it arise, but snakey boy is convinced, even against the good data of all geological science, that a universal flood did happen. Theres nothing I can do to change his mind. Im a licensed geologist and his base of knowledge is counter to mine. I try , as do several others, but gungas mind is made up based upon his religious convictions or some other knowledge base. He seems like an otherwise intelligent guy whose interested in Russian history, speaks Russian (he says) and is in a technical profession. SO REMEMBER, Babe Ruth was also a strike out king .

Anyone who thinks that the story of Noah's Ark is literally true, is completely insane. It's like failing a litmus test.

I firmly believe that gunga really believes that there was a worldwide flood according to the Bible. As a rational thinking person he is convinced for some reason that the story is true. Im more amazed at how he adheres to it without any questions. Im convinced that he has several portions of his brain that compartmentalize science into
1Those areas provable and rational to which he will stipulate and demand evidence

2Those areas contained in the Bible, which, for some reason, he does not dare question or demand any evidence.

Even though I dont thinkl we will ever change his mind, I find it a lot of fun trying.

I bow to your greater knowledge of geology: I think building an ark to house the world's animal species would be completely daft: there are around a million species.
Even religious fundamentalist sources say 10000 species is a minimum number that needed to be housed.
The 8 people on the ark would have had to find 2 of each species, and no more, along with a food and water supply. 20 000 animals scattered around the globe, including crossing the Atlantic Ocean. such a collection would be impossible on land, even to a government today.

What I can't understand is that even Jesus claimed his parables were allegorical; it appears these new literalists are more Christian than Jesus.

By "Atalntis," i assume that you mean Atlantis. That you would include Atlantis in a list of human cultures is evidence of just how either credulous or ill-informed you are. There is no good scientific or historical reason to assume that any such place as Atlantis ever existed. This is certainly evidence of how careless you are in presenting "wisdom" from your "fount."

I also seriously doubt that you did any serious study of geology, or you would not be making a claim about "an actual flood" within the last 10,000 years. Certainly there have been floods--tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of floods in the last 10,000 years. But in the context of this thread, your remark can be seen to imply a world-wide flood, which inundated all dry land at the same time. You'll play hell coming up with evidence for that.

I don't consider folk tales to be history, and history and literature were the double major i pursued in university, while history has been my life-long interest and study since i learned to read. The problem you have is one which i described in my last post, but which you either missed because you didn't actually read my post, or because you failed to understand it. In the at least hundreds, if not actually thousands of distinct cultures which have existed in human history, what is the incidence and prevalence of flood stories? You continue to speak of flood myths, while attempting to imply that there may be a reality behind the myth--but you produce no evidence. You either did not understand, did not read or choose to ignore the point i made about cosmogonies which posit the earth rising from water, which does not qualify as a story of a world-wide inundation. In your next post, you make a snide remark about it being obvious that i am not an academic. What do you think a piss-poor performance such as this on your part says about your intellectual credentials?

No, you attempted to claim that flood myths are common to almost all cultures. In your post #3518160, you write:



I see no evidence that you've used logic at all in this passage of intellectual arms, an example of someone arriving at a gun fight with a club in his hand. Your remark in your first post in this thread, which i have quoted and linked above constitutes a claim that the incidence and prevalence of flood myths is sufficiently significant that you are entitled to use an expression such as "nearly all cultures." That's an extraordinary claim. People who make extraordinary claims have the burden of proving them. You have offered zero evidence.

I have not claimed to be an academic. Your performance in this thread gives considerable reason, however, to doubt that you were even a very attentive student.

They'd have had to have shovelled a hell of a lot of ****, too.

We've discussed this topic ad nauseum over the years. I've written literally tens of thousands of words on just how preposterous the entire Noaic flood story is. One of the easiest things to do is to point out just how un-seaworthy the described vessel would have been, especially when one considers that there was no means of propulsion--no sails, no sweeps--and only eight geezers to care for all the animals aboard while managing a suicide ship-design in what could not have been anything but the most horrendous seas in human history.

However, the silliest thing about the entire story, if one suspends disbelief about the thoroughly incredible nature of the allegations taken together, is the scriptural text which supports it. Not only are its claims too silly to be taken seriously, but they are often self-contradictory. And you display in the portion of your post which i have bold-faced above that you haven't even taken the elementary step of reading the text of the relevant chapters of Genesis.
In the King James Version, Genesis Chapter Seven, verse two:

Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

So, Bubba, that's seven matched pairs of every "clean beast." But you have said two of each species, and no more. You arrive in this discussion completely unequipped to discuss it with any authority at all, not even the authority of the casual punter.

As a first step, i recommend to you reading Genesis, Chapters Six through Nine. That would be a basic preliminary, before you tackle ancient literary texts of the middle east, ethnology and mythology on a global scale, and even rudimentary geology. But start with the basics--find a bible and read it.

Prior to modern travel most cultures live in localized areas.
Most areas have had localized flooding at one time or another.

A flood myth doesn't require a global flood which is what your statement implies. I'm not sure if that was your intent but it is the way many of us read it.

This is, of course, purest bullshit. Leaving aside the point that no postage stamp is evidence of Gunga Dim's claim, there is no evidence that the largest wooden ship known to history was produced by the Ming. In justice to the Ming, in the early part of their dynasty, they did underwrite a very ambitious maritime exploration, which saw Chinese ships reaching the coast of Madagascar. That, however, proves nothing about the size of their ships, nor their seaworthiness.

But the mere size is not what is important. It is the relative dimensions, the the undeniable physics of hydrodynamics and ship design. The six masted schooner Wyoming, built in 1909, was 450 feet from jib boom to spanker boom, which was, however, 350 feet at the deck. She was slightly over 50 feet at the beam, and drew 30 feet of water. She required a steam-powered pump constantly operating, because she inevitably shipped water like a sieve. She also required iron scantlings (anyone who doesn't know what a scantling is has no business in a discussion of the construction of wooden ships). Wyoming foundered in a storm in 1924, lost with all hands.

The description of the "Ark" is a vessel 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits "high." The latter dimension is completely irrelevant--what amount of water she drew (if she ever existed, which is not at all likely). The length of a cubit is given variously, at anywhere from 18" to 27". Using the larger dimensions just make the proposition that much more preposterous. Using the lower dimension, that makes a vessel 450 feet in length, 75 feet at the beam, and 45 feet "high." "Height" has no meaning at all in a dimensional description of a vessel at sea. The amount of water the ship draws is the relevant, important consideration. With the dimensions given, the "Ark" would have had to draw right around 30 feet. Anything much less and she would have rolled and capsized in the first heavy sea (more about heavy seas in a moment). Anything more and she would have been swamped in any considerable ground swell, let along in any storm surge, in any high seas.

But more importantly, the dimensions describe a ship doomed by its very dimensions. The scantlings would have had to have been considerable to give reasonable structural support for a vessel intended for even calm waters--which would, of course, have reduced cargo space in a vessel which were actually ridiculously small for the cargo it is alleged to have carried. Genesis requires that Noah have seven pairs of "clean" beasts, and two of every other beast, plus all of their fodder.

The ocean runs unchecked from west to east from the southeast coast of South America to the southwest coast of South America in what is known as the Southern Ocean. The normal ground swell, the normal seas when there is not a storm would be more than enough to swap a ship of those dimensions, drawing only 30 feet and with only 15 feet of freeboard, never mind the question of just what kind of horrendous seas would result if there were a world ocean, unimpeded by any dry land anywhere. (Genesis alleges that the earth was covered by water to a depth of 15 cubits, at least 22.5 feet of water over the highest mountain peaks, and of course, considerably more everywhere else.) I have always used U.S.S. Constitution as a comparison, because it is so easy to find the details of her construction online. I've often linked such information, but since Gunga Dim seems interested only in making invidious remarks about me while ignoring my posts, he, or anyone else, can look them up for themselves if they doubt what i will write.

Constitution was 204 feet from billet head to taffrail (stem to stern), 175 feet at the waterline and 150 feet at the keel. This means she was considerably shorter, less than half the length of the alleged "Ark." She was 43 and a half feet at the beam--considerably more than half the width of the allged "Ark." She drew just over 19 feet forward, and almost 23 feet aft. This is considerably more than half the plausible draft for the alleged "Ark." Constitution, as was the case with all of the American frigates built in the 1790s, had special diagonal scantlings to prevent hogging. Hogging is the tendency of a ship to bow upward in the center of the ship because of the necessary weight distribution. The special scantlings needed made Constitution a sound ship for a naval vessel, but such reinforcement of the hull would have eaten up so much of the hold space of a merchant vessel as to make it a far less profitable ship. In merchant vessels, the off-watch portion of the crew spent a lot of time at the pumps, because hogging causes the planks of the hull to start (separate, allowing water to seep in).

Yet we are expected to believe that four old geezers (eight if you count the wives) cut down thousands of trees (Constitution was constructed from 2000 trees, exclusive of speciality woods used for fittings, and remember, Constitution was half the size alleged for the "Ark."), drag them to the construction site and build this behemoth. Why do i call them geezers? Simple, read your bible--Noah is alleged to have been 600 years old, and normal human reproductive biology means that his sons would have had to have been about 550 years old or older. (There is another contradiction in the Genesis account--in one portion, Noah is said to have been 600 years old, and in another he is said to have been in his 600th year, which would have made him 599 going on 600. That may seem to be a trivial quibble, but the bible thumpers claim that the bible is divinely inspired and inerrant, so any such contradiction flies in the face of that claim.)

These eight geezers were then to have rounded up all the beasts, put them aboard with all the food they needed for about a year at sea, shovelled all the **** (if they didn't want the ship to stink and sink, and run rampant with destructive disease--although feeding flies would not have been a problem), and managed the "ship." How did that ship swim in even calm waters, never mind a planet-girdling ocean? The scripture is silent on this issue, and most bible thumpers apparently envision it just floating along, waiting for the waters to recede (where did they recede to?). But to survive anything like a lively sea, they'd have needed sails or sweeps, just to keep her head or stern to the wind--anything else, and she'd broach, turn to and sink. That's yet another job for the geezers.

It's one of the most improbable, bullshit stories to be found in the bible, apart from miraculous claims, and the more improbable because bible thumpers expect you to swallow it with a straight face.

Once again, i will register my objection to this thread being tagged as "history." There is absolutely no historical basis for claiming that there was ever a world-wide flood. Even more hilariously silly is the story of the alleged "Ark."

Aside from river channels running straight down them, presumably under the ice, that would also have people building cities out there under the ice as well:

Off of Japan:


Off of India:


Others off of such diverse places as Cuba and Germany... Question is, why would anybody dig under dozens of feet of ice to try to build a city when they could as easily walk back a hundred miles or so and build on dry land??

Pretty ****ing stupid if you ask me.

Basic reality is that 0ur entire planet is filled with evidence of global catastrophe, the loess deposits, the "muck" deposits in the North, whale skeletons on mountain tops...

The most obvious piece of evidence to my thinking is the fact that the bulk of all mammoth remains are found inside the arctic circle where no such creatures could live today since the regions in question are a frozen hell ten months of the year and the evidence indicates that those regions were vast verdant plains just a few thousand years ago.

There is simply no way to integrate present conditions backwards in time and come up with verdant plains on the North edge of Siberia a few thousand years back, without some intervening catastrophe of global scale.

This is the thing which farmerman and other hardcore evolosers wish to avoid facing at all cost since the implications of it are fatal to all of the dating schemes used in evolution.

Ive heard that the "pet" name for the Wyoming was the USN Colander.

Lemme see whether I cant speak more slowly so that maybe you can grasp the simplicity of my point. Nobody dug under the ice to "build your cities, Any cities that were periglacial would probably have been in ICE FREE areas dupkoos.. CAn you gimme a d'oh.? Viz.:

1. In the Northern Hemisphere During the Ice ages, the farthest South that Ice reached was at about 40 degrees N lat. . SO anything south of that crooked line would have been ice free.Get it?

2. The glaciers, in forming, took up so much water that the sea levels were about 300+ ft lower than today. The coastal plains were used a places for many towns and villages. WE know that from surveys on the CAspian and off the Coastal Plains of Virginia and South CArolina. The pix that youve just included todayare quite different from those you posted a few days ago. THOSE EARLIER PICS WERE OF NATURAL SUBOCEANIC FORMATIONS, (which, by tyhe way, are covered under at least 100 ft of water today).
Your pic from JApan was exactly the same that Shoch had investigated and found was com[posed of columnar jointed basalts.

Does the fact that I am in agreement with above people make us an unholy alliance. I can understand Setanta's annoyance at this thread being called history.
Think how sad it is when we are legally obliged to point out hogwash in science.