real life wrote:Setanta tried to argue that the Biblical text demands that representatives of every 'species' were on board the ark.
That is a misunderstanding of the text. But if you'd like to try to defend what he could not, go ahead.
No, i did not "try" to argue any such thing. It's pretty pathetic that you are obliged to resort to lies to prop up you feeble argument. I pointed out that the text itself states that there were to be seven pairs of every "clean" beast, and two of every "unclean beast." It is the idiocy of the biblical literalists which puts them in the position of defending against a charge that there were insufficient room on the "Ark" for all the various forms of life which now exist. To claim there were far fewer than are now known, and including all "beasts" which are only found fossilized, you need to invoke supernatural intervention, or acknowledge the evolutionary process. Either way, you're in trouble scientifically, which is the point of the thread.
Quote:The word 'species' is a modern word, as is it's definition. It doesn't appear in Genesis and neither does any synonym.
This is quaint--the lack of precision on the part of the many authors of this silly story is simply more evidence of their ignorance, and their failure to understand the scope of the absurdity of their claims.
Quote:To suppose that the writer of Genesis when he used the word 'kind' , actually meant what we mean when we use the word 'species', is an assumption without foundation or support.
I have never made any such claim or assumption. Again we see that you must lie about what others have written, and twist it to offer an objection--which objection is not even cogent. I have consistently referred to Genesis Chapter Seven, verses two and three, which use the words beast and fowl. What i have pointed out is that either old Noah took aboard every species which now exists, or evolution occurred in the interim. If you opt for evolution, not only do you abandon you creation and biblical literalist position, you opt for a timeline far older than your young earth creationist position allows. The only answer you've ever had for this was that "interbreeding" may have taken place since that time. FM has dealt effectively with that hogwash in the "Evolution? How?" thread.
As usual, you cherry-pick certain points, distort or lie outright about what others have written. You want to take this issue, and this issue alone, because you are incapable of dealing with the cumulative absurdity of the description of the vessel, the improbability of building it with only eight geezers (four of them female) available. You have claimed that Noah could have had help--without dealing with the obvious issue that any help he had would have not accepted being left behind in the flood waters. So, even though you make snotty and false claims about what i assume without foundation, you are making the same sort of claims without foundation which you falsely ascribe to me. You ignore the absurdity of the description of the vessel itself. You ignore that scripture says that he was to lade the fodder for the beast and for himself and his family. You ignore that these eight geezers had to keep this hilariously improbable vessel afloat and safe in heavy seas (don't try to feed me anything about scripture on that--cover the entire planet with water and you'll have the heaviest seas any human ever saw--remember, we're comparing the biblical horsie poop to science). You ignore that they have the care of the beasts while doing so; you ignore the monumental problem of the manure produced.
Primarily, though, you ignore the horseshit contention that these fairy tale characters lived for more than 500 years before the event occured. All of the objections about eight people managing such a project are simply magnified enormously by the contention that people that old would have accomplished it.
Once again, you can't make this work without divine intervention, and you are therefore out of the range of science, and therefore fail the test implicit in the theme of this thread--to wit, is the bible scientifically founded, or is it not.
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As for the rest of your sophomoric drivel on the nature of "species," even if your boy Noah only took onboard one representative of every genus, he'd have foundered. Even if one, implausibly, assumed he could have packed every genus into the "Ark," along with their food (as scripture clearly states he was told to do), you still ignore all the problems associated with eight geezers managing the project, let alone the height of absurdity--that Noah lived to such a great age.
