I'm going to read the Bible, and I'm going to post about it.

Setanta wrote:

The reason "real life" cracks me up is because i've been down this road with him on several occassions.

Yes we have.

And the reason you crack me up is because you make the same assumptions every time --

-- assumptions like the method of construction would have been similar (and therefore encountered similar problems) to the method of construction you are familiar with (i.e. the methods that American and European builders used for several centuries in the recent past).

The fact is the text doesn't say how the ark was constructed other than giving the outside dimensions.

Obviously a submarine and a pleasure cruiser having the same outward dimensions wouldn't necessarily function the same way in the water, so making assumptions based on just the outward dimensions of the ark might not be a good idea either.

I don't discount your knowledge of American and European ships. I have learned a lot by your posts. I'm just not sure that unsubstantiated assumptions about the ark's construction really prove anything.

As you've said, I could simply say, 'well God held it together miraculously, so it's all supernatural anyway', and that may be so. But I don't know that it's necessarily so, either.

Also as you've pointed out, this was one big challenge for any middle aged fella. And at 600 years old, Noah wasn't getting any younger. Laughing

But again, assumptions that Noah did all the manual work himself (with his sons) may or may not be true. Did he hire help? Could be.

There's a lot I don't know about this story, and a lot I won't assume. If you want to, go ahead.

I can well appreciate your skepticism because I once shared it. Doubt doesn't bother me at all. I doubt plenty and don't blame you for asking as many questions as come to mind.

Well, Setanta at least I've brought a smile to your face. Hope you are having a great night. Cool

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Noah's off the Ark!

.. By God making a huge wind that blew the water away.

"But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided" - Genesis 8:1

Of course, I have no clue where that water went. It couldn't have gone into any ocean, because the entire Earth was ocean, and it must have knocked over the Ark, what with the extreme length of the Ark and the huge wind that blew the entire Earth's water away. I do find it rather odd that people of ancient times like these thought that rain came from water being thrown up and about by winds. It goes pretty well with what God did, it seems.

So anyway, they get off the Ark because the land was finally dry.

"In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry." - Genesis 8:13

So they're happy that God has made the ground dry, right? Well, I guess God was not pleased, so he made the Earth dry... again!

"In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry." - Genesis 8:14

So now that the Earth is really really dry, we'll go onto Abraham...

---------------------------------------

Currently in Genesis chapter 20. Nothing worth posting though.

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Joe Nation wrote:

But seriously folks, this is the book that the cover of this week's TIME muses should be taught in Public Schools. Why? Because, the editors write, it is the bedrock of Western Culture.

They are correct, of course.

The Bible is where Americans and others got the idea that slavery was permissable, that the Western world's image of women as second class to males was cemented, where disagreements over which set of holy men had the best access to the Ear of God led to Continental wars for the majority of a thousand years and, let us not forget, allowed for the subjugation, ghetto-ization and near extermination of the Jews on more than one occasion.

It is a fine example of what happens when a fairy tale is taken too seriously.

Will the teachers of the Bible in the Public Schools encourage the study of same with a critical eye? Will there be any examination of the above story of the women thrown to the mob? Moral? Immoral? None of the above? Or will they gloss over the gooier parts to get to ones that are more easily swallowed? Focus on what a nice guy Christ was, right.

Joe(It will be an interesting week of study when they get to the Apocalypse.)Nation

Most of the educators I've known would be only too happy to teach the Bible in school... and I suspect you'd approve of the way the vast majority of them would do it. :wink:

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He could have just said "Let there be....just Noah and his family, and let the others NOT be."

Unless I missed something in the lecture about omnipotence?

He does have this tendency to do things in bizarre ways that look kinda like natural disasters or events...but you know, mysterious ways...!

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Cobbler wrote:

Noah's off the Ark!

.. By God making a huge wind that blew the water away.

"But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided" - Genesis 8:1

What are you talking about?

Where does it say 'the wind blew the water away'? It doesn't.

It says two things happened. It doesn't state or imply that one caused the other.

Cobbler wrote:

Of course, I have no clue where that water went. It couldn't have gone into any ocean,

Why could it not be in the ocean? The fact the 75-80% of the Earth is covered with water TO THIS DAY has to give some folks food for thought, unless their grey matter starved long ago.

Do you think that the author of Genesis had any 'scientific' proof that the overwhelming majority of the Earth's surface was under the ocean?

If you were going to make up a myth and you lived in the Middle East, do you think you would have told everyone that the Earth could be covered with water?

Any idea why nearly every culture on Earth has a version of the flood story as a part of their ancient history? Do they all have a sandstorm story, or an earthquake story or a tornado story or a blizzard story?

And why does Everest have coral at it's peak?

And why does nearly every area of the Earth that is NOT currently under the ocean give evidence that it once WAS under the ocean?

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real life wrote:

And the reason you crack me up is because you make the same assumptions every time --

Capitol choice of wording I might add. Let us see.

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-- assumptions like the method of construction would have been similar (and therefore encountered similar problems) to the method of construction you are familiar with (i.e. the methods that American and European builders used for several centuries in the recent past).

The fact is the text doesn't say how the ark was constructed other than giving the outside dimensions.

A assumption in itself RL. The conclusion is simply that an assumption must be made on ho it was constructed. Either site a verse or shut up. Don't throw spears at someone for making a rational assumption.

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As you've said, I could simply say, 'well God held it together miraculously, so it's all supernatural anyway', and that may be so. But I don't know that it's necessarily so, either.

But then you'd have to additionally make a cse for why an Ark was nessisary in the first place. If God can bend the rules of the universe and hold the ark together, then why not just allow the world around noah to get flooded and keep Noah's land dry, like parting the sea etc? Face it, you're confined to argumentation based on reality.

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Also as you've pointed out, this was one big challenge for any middle aged fella. And at 600 years old, Noah wasn't getting any younger.

But again, assumptions that Noah did all the manual work himself (with his sons) may or may not be true. Did he hire help? Could be.

"Could be?"

Is that the best you can do?

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There's a lot I don't know about this story, and a lot I won't assume. If you want to, go ahead.

You've already assumed plently, don't act so confident. This is yet another case of you NOT being consistant.

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rl

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Any idea why nearly every culture on Earth has a version of the flood story as a part of their ancient history?

Its not so much that there are many flood myths. The ORDER of occurence is whats important for you. If there was a Flood that Genesis attempts to record (via the lives of the patriarchs), then Genesis was , what they call in the movie industry, "derivative" If Noah was even real, why did the Bibles flood come after others? Gilgamesh, a precursor flood, was even a story of an "alluvial" type of flood and not a worldwide one.

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And why does Everest have coral at it's peak?

Qololangma (as Everest is known ) has a N side and a S side (with me so far?) At a steep angle of unconformity, a sediment sheet is THRUST over Greenschist rocks (metamorphics)then these are thrust in an uncomformable sheet over granites and higher grade metamorphics(etc). Even a complete neophyte geology student can see that sediments were not deposited on the N side of the massif, but were slid in by tucking the metamorphics and granites beneath them (In other words the grani tes andmetamorphics are YOUNGER than the older sediments). There was a shallow sea bottom about 45 to 34 MYA when the Himalayan plateau was formed by India imposing its considerable mass onto Asia's belly. On the W side of the massif, the sedimentary column is even more complicated. The point is that your not an exploration geologist with familiarity and training at deciphering such deposits. Many Chinese geologists have been busy interpreting the massif becuse its bout the size of the West coast of US and Canada combined and its mineral rich. Finding these minerals and predicting where other deposits exist cant be resolved by endorsing a charming myth like a "worldwide flood". You should stick with YOUR day job, Im sure youre good at it.

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And why does nearly every area of the Earth that is NOT currently under the ocean give evidence that it once WAS under the ocean?

Thats total eyewash and is flatly untrue, and Im not going to explain it to you yet again (obviously youre stuck in one mindset where evidence doesnt matter). However, even areas that show water borne deposits (Theres all kinds of water borne deposits as I told you on another thread), these are predominantly NOT flood related, and, most importantly, they are NOT contemporaneous in geologic time.

For example, we have in the Appalachian mountains the deepwater deposits of the Martinsburg Group, the Top of this Formation had been deposited in a deep water trench and then upliftedabove base level (evidence is clear) the deposits were then overlain by Silurian Beach sands that were lain down at a variable angle of deposition depending on where in the basin it was deposited. So, by evidence , we can see , one age sediments deposited, then uplifted as the continents clashed , then they subsided and eroded and, new batches of beach deposits were lain down over top.All this occured over a period of about 35 million years(about the same time 35MYa when India slowlyslammed into Asia) India is still "slamming".

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real life wrote:

Setanta wrote:
The reason "real life" cracks me up is because i've been down this road with him on several occassions.

Yes we have.

And the reason you crack me up is because you make the same assumptions every time --

-- assumptions like the method of construction would have been similar (and therefore encountered similar problems) to the method of construction you are familiar with (i.e. the methods that American and European builders used for several centuries in the recent past).

The fact is the text doesn't say how the ark was constructed other than giving the outside dimensions.

Yes, and those outside dimensions describe an unstable craft, even if it were built with modern steel alloys, a craft unstable in calm waters--never mind the raging seas which would inevitably result from a planet-wide ocean. Construction methods don't alter the undeniable fact (as i have pointed out in detail on more than one occasion) that the dimensions given describe a craft with is far too narrow at the beam for it's length, and which draws far too little water to swim properly. Addtionally, as i have pointed out, if this old geezer, with no experience of nautical engineering, had been divinely inspired to create the huge scantlings necessary to prevent fatal hogging, there would have been a drastic reduction in the interior capacity of a vessel which already is obviously too small for its intended cargo. Seven pairs of every clean beast. Are elephants clean beasts, "real life?" How much fodder would have been necessary to feed 14 elephants? How much **** would Noah and company have been obliged to shovel each day to keep the elephant quarters clean and sanitary?

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Obviously a submarine and a pleasure cruiser having the same outward dimensions wouldn't necessarily function the same way in the water, so making assumptions based on just the outward dimensions of the ark might not be a good idea either.

For you it wouldn't, because you display such an ignorance of nautical engineering. Submarines, and this includes the earliest reliable models which were built and deployed in the 1890s, need only dive to depth of about 30 meters to be virtually immune the effects of wave action and groundswell. Even in the heaviest seas, a submarine is immune at 50 meters, and the earliest submarines could dive to 50 meters. You're comparing apples and oranges there. For example, a Typhoon class Soviet-era submarine had the following dimensions: 564.3 x 76.4 x 36 feet (Source. The draft of a submarine doesn't matter, because they can run with the decks awash without danger of capsizing. The dimensions given for the Ark, based on an 18" cubit would have been 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. But the Ark could not have swum with the decks awash, it would have sunk.

But you are ignoring an even greater distinction when you mention cruise ships. So, for example, Titanic's dimensions were 850' in length (from the stem post to the rudder post, which is the portion of the ship which sits in the water), it's depth to the "C" deck (the first deck above the waterline) was 64', and at the beam, it was 92' (Source. Now, that, in fact, makes it considerably narrower than the Ark. However, with a "height" of 30 cubits, and that calculated at 18" (and proportional dimensions hold true if you increase the size of the cubit), the Ark would only have drawn 30'--because it could not have survived it had drawn more than two-thirds of its "height" ("height" is not a term used in naval engineering) because it would have swamped, and if it had drawn less, it would have rolled and capsized. Those aren't matters of design engineering, they are realities of physics imposed on design engineering. Therefore, although Titanic was proportionally narrower, it drew more than twice as much water as the Ark, and therefore was not in any danger of either swamping or of rolling until it capsized. What is far more specific, however, was that it had a power plant which developed 51,000 horse power, and a cruising speed of 21 knots (or, roughly, 24 miles per hour). Do you suggest that the Ark had either sails, or sweeps, which would have allowed it to develop a forward speed which would have immunized it from either swamping or rolling? If so, do you claim that the eight geezers (four dudes and four dudettes) were supposed to trim sail, or pull the sweep, while assuring that all the animals got fed, and all the **** was shoveled on a daily basis? Even the fastest of sailing vessels, built on far more probably dimensions, never came close to 20 knots, and 14 knots was considered very fast--and they were in danger when ever they sailed in the Roaring Forties, to which i referred earlier for an example of the type of sea conditions the Ark would have faced on a planet-wide ocean. (Keep in mind that the seas would have been much more furious and dangerous in a planet-wide ocean than they are in the Roaring Forties of the Southern Ocean).

For further reference, Queen Mary ("QM2") has the following dimensions:

The 'AskMen-dot-com' Queen Mary page wrote:

QM2 is the longest, largest cruise ship ever built: She's 1,132 feet long, 236 feet tall and 135 feet wide.

Once again, Queen Mary is proportionally narrower than the dimensions given for the Ark, but although she draws only about as much water as the Ark would have done, she is nearly twice as wide as the dimensions given for the ark, and she has a power plant which develops more than 150,000 horsepower, and can reach speeds of 30 knots, or almost 35 miles per hour. That is about twice as fast as the fastest sailing ships ever built. (The Cunard Lines site for the Queen Mary 2)

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I don't discount your knowledge of American and European ships. I have learned a lot by your posts. I'm just not sure that unsubstantiated assumptions about the ark's construction really prove anything.

You certainly are not sure of anything which the dimensions of the Ark as stated tell us. I'm not making "unsubstantiated assumptions," i'm pointing out what the laws of physics tell us about how wooden ships will swim in even calm water, never mind the heaviest seas ever known (planet-wide ocean, remembers?). And this does not apply solely to American and European ships. As you can see by reading this Wikipedia article, the "chinese junk" Keying, which sailed around Cape Horn (and therefore sailed through the Roaring Forties) to New York and England in 1846-48, had dimensions of 160 ft x 35 ft x 19 ft. That means she was only a third as long, but only half as wide. Her proportions were as five to one, length to width, while your Ark was as six to one. Additionally, of course, she had sails to provide forward motion to keep her swimming in heavy seas. Traveling from Hong Kong to New York around Cape Horn, she would have run before the wind in the Southern Ocean. Now, your Ark might have swum is she had been powered by sails or sweeps, but then you run into the crew problem again--are your eight geezers going to crew the ship, feed the animals and shovel the ****? For one year? How would you divide the watches--you're going to have to have four people even if you run it watch on and watch off--four people to make sail or man the sweeps, four people all of whom are supposed to be over 500 years old.

Here you can read about a xebec, the workhorse type of ship favored by Arab sailors for centuries (just so we can be sure you aren't confused, Arabs live in Asia, not America or Europe). The xebec described on that page is 130' in length, and 32.5' at the beam, and draws 10'. Or course, it is powered by sail, still an advantage over your Ark--which is always shown by christian web sites without sails or sweeps. Xebecs used both sail and sweeps. This one has a ratio of four to one, length to breadth at the beam, far superior to the six to one of your putative Ark. You can also read about the dhow, a type of vessel used by the Arabs, and by the people of the west coast of Africa and as far east as Pakistan and India for as long as the xebec has been used. I couldn't immediately find a site with the dimensions of a dhow, but the hull is constructed exactly as is the hull of a xebec (a larger ship), and significantly, the Arabs and Africans and Indians have sailed dhows since biblical times. They are much more reliable ship builders than your boy Noah.

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As you've said, I could simply say, 'well God held it together miraculously, so it's all supernatural anyway', and that may be so. But I don't know that it's necessarily so, either.

Yes, you don't know, you've demonstrated that time and again.

Quote:

Also as you've pointed out, this was one big challenge for any middle aged fella. And at 600 years old, Noah wasn't getting any younger.

But again, assumptions that Noah did all the manual work himself (with his sons) may or may not be true. Did he hire help? Could be.

There's a lot I don't know about this story, and a lot I won't assume. If you want to, go ahead.

I can well appreciate your skepticism because I once shared it. Doubt doesn't bother me at all. I doubt plenty and don't blame you for asking as many questions as come to mind.

Well, Setanta at least I've brought a smile to your face. Hope you are having a great night.

Leaving aside the preposterous nature of the construction of such a pre-eminently un-seaworthy vessel, it is clear that he had no help to crew the ship and care for the animals during this year long voyage on what would have been the roughest seas ever known--other than his wife, his boys and their wives--that's scripture.

You do have to invoke the supernatural, because your attempts to weasel on the issue, it is clear that the vessel described would not have been seaworthy even with a full set of sails and a crew of hundreds.

In fact, i'm not asking you any questions. I have only to read the story, apply the knowledge about sailing vessels which i have acquired in fifty years of reading about a subject which has fascinated me for as long as i can remember--and i know its bullshit.

Of course, one of the points of this exercise in hilarity arising from reading the Bobble is that the absurdities in the final analysis can only appeal to divine intervention, to the supernatural; and that any of that could ever have occurred, you have not one shred of evidence.

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real life wrote:

Setanta wrote:
The reason "real life" cracks me up is because i've been down this road with him on several occassions.

Yes we have.

And the reason you crack me up is because you make the same assumptions every time --

-- assumptions like the method of construction would have been similar (and therefore encountered similar problems) to the method of construction you are familiar with (i.e. the methods that American and European builders used for several centuries in the recent past).

The fact is the text doesn't say how the ark was constructed other than giving the outside dimensions.

Yeah, it completely leaves out the part about placing a pocket universe inside of it.

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DrewDad wrote:

real life wrote:
Setanta wrote:
The reason "real life" cracks me up is because i've been down this road with him on several occassions.

Yes we have.

And the reason you crack me up is because you make the same assumptions every time --

-- assumptions like the method of construction would have been similar (and therefore encountered similar problems) to the method of construction you are familiar with (i.e. the methods that American and European builders used for several centuries in the recent past).

The fact is the text doesn't say how the ark was constructed other than giving the outside dimensions.

Yeah, it completely leaves out the part about placing a pocket universe inside of it.

A very important consideration in view of the problem of 14 elephants and tons of elephant ****--how much hay do you think they would have needed for 14 elephants?

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Cobbler wrote:

So they're happy that God has made the ground dry, right? Well, I guess God was not pleased, so he made the Earth dry... again!

I'm late to the party, so I'll just ask if anyone has mentioned Who Wrote the Bible?

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The Bobble was written by the techie, Manuel, the Mexican border.

(A completely off-the-wall reference to a thread about WWII, which is currently hosting a new member who might well qualify as the whackiest bible thumper we've yet had here.)

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Setanta wrote:

DrewDad wrote:
real life wrote:
Setanta wrote:
The reason "real life" cracks me up is because i've been down this road with him on several occassions.

Yes we have.

And the reason you crack me up is because you make the same assumptions every time --

-- assumptions like the method of construction would have been similar (and therefore encountered similar problems) to the method of construction you are familiar with (i.e. the methods that American and European builders used for several centuries in the recent past).

The fact is the text doesn't say how the ark was constructed other than giving the outside dimensions.

Yeah, it completely leaves out the part about placing a pocket universe inside of it.

A very important consideration in view of the problem of 14 elephants and tons of elephant ****--how much hay do you think they would have needed for 14 elephants?

Then again, it could have just been the first vessel in the Parade of the Tall Ships.

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Setanta wrote:

......in the final analysis can only appeal to divine intervention, to the supernatural; and that any of that could ever have occurred, you have not one shred of evidence.

You aren't suggesting that the existence of the 'supernatural' should be evaluated using 'natural' evidence, are you?

I don't think you would adopt a position such as that, would you?

If not, what type of evidence are you referring to?

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real life wrote:

Setanta wrote:
......in the final analysis can only appeal to divine intervention, to the supernatural; and that any of that could ever have occurred, you have not one shred of evidence.

You aren't suggesting that the existence of the 'supernatural' should be evaluated using 'natural' evidence, are you?

I don't think you would adopt a position such as that, would you?

If not, what type of evidence are you referring to?

No, i'm not given to the sort of tortured logic which you seem to prefer. If there had been a supernatural intervention, and leaving aside the point Eorl has already made that an omnipotent deity could have effected the destruction of all of manking except for the Noah-clan geezers without the need of the elaborate and ridiculous shifts embodied in the flood fairy tale--then the natural world would have been effected in ways which would provide evidence. Such as the bullshit you always attempt to slip in to the effect that there is evidence that all the mountains of the earth were once under water. Ignoring that even if that were true, you provide no evidence that they were all under water at the same time--Farmerman has consistently shot that horseshit claim full of holes. Shall we send him a PM and ask him to come back to this thead to expand on the subject? Even though he has already done so, in this thread?

In the specific case of the flood legend, there is now what is considered by many reputable scholars to be evidence that where the Black Sea is now located there was once a much smaller fresh-water lake, which was flooded at about 7,500 YBP. It is claimed that the major rivers of the area had river beds which extended beyond the current shores of the Black Sea, in some cases by as much as 100 miles, the evidence of those ancient river beds now to be found on the floor of the Black Sea. It is also claimed that human artifacts are to be found on the floor of the Black Sea, at what would have been the shoreline of the smaller Euxine Lake. You can read about this hypothesis at this article at the Religious Tolerance-dot-org web site.

So, we have here a very plausible explanation for the flood stories of the Sumerians, the Akkadians, and even references to such a flood, and a patriarch who saved his family, servants and livestock with a boat which were known the Greeks and Romans. This explanation does not require supernatural intervention, and it has left tangible, natural evidence. On the other hand, your appeal to supernatural agency still leaves you with two huge problems--no physical evidence for a world-wide flood event (and your fairy tale specifies a world-wide event), and an explanation why your idiot-child god would go through such an elaborate procedure when his omnipotence would have allowed him to effect the same result by supernatural means in an instant.

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The reason the 'local flood' hypothesis is so improbable should be obvious.

Have you ever seen someone who anticipated a local flood and instead of moving out of the area, he instead builds a boat to 'save' him?

In your 'natural' hypothesis (i.e. the central character of the flood story has no 'supernatural' motivation, nor visitation, nor assistance) , you still postulate the hero of the story acts quite against[/u] human nature. Why?

Setanta wrote:

If there had been a supernatural intervention.....then the natural world would have been effected in ways which would provide evidence.

Really? So, what 'natural' evidence do you think would evidence or prove a 'supernatural' cause?

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So, we have this God whos so cagey that, although he can poof the planets, he leaves great trails of evidence to throw us off. RL is too smart for this "evidence crap". He questions the evidential BASIS of a legend (a riverine and Ponte Euxine flood) and "buys" instead into a charming old(derivative) legend where this six hundred year old patriarch and his "Medicare eligible great grandchildren" build a boat, the technology of which hadnt been re-discovered for 3 millenia. Then this ole coot gathers up the "genetic rootstock" of all the animals alive today (see he knew the difference between micro and macro evolution) and stuffs them on the boat . ALL because he hears some guy in the sky tell him that hes pissed, and is looking for some unique way to confer a genetic "bottleneck" .
Yep, theyre awarding PHD's in this stuff, first though, you gots to get really hiiiigggghhhh mon..

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real life wrote:

The reason the 'local flood' hypothesis is so improbable should be obvious.

Have you ever seen someone who anticipated a local flood and instead of moving out of the area, he instead builds a boat to 'save' him?

I didn't say that i believed it, i simply pointed out that Greeks, Romans, Akkadians and Sumerians did. As for the Euxine Lake/Black Sea hypothesis, i consider that plausible, and for the reasons i've given and which are found at the linked page.

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In your 'natural' hypothesis (i.e. the central character of the flood story has no 'supernatural' motivation, nor visitation, nor assistance) , you still postulate the hero of the story acts quite against[/u] human nature. Why?

I think you must be kind of slow, "real life." I don't for a moment believe that any of it happened, so you really should stop trying to erect strawmen.

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Setanta wrote:
If there had been a supernatural intervention.....then the natural world would have been effected in ways which would provide evidence.

Really? So, what 'natural' evidence do you think would evidence or prove a 'supernatural' cause?

Well, evidence that all of the mountains of the earth were once underwater at the same time would be a good one, because only a supernatural intervention could explain why that amount of water were no longer present.

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Setanta wrote:

real life wrote:
The reason the 'local flood' hypothesis is so improbable should be obvious.

Have you ever seen someone who anticipated a local flood and instead of moving out of the area, he instead builds a boat to 'save' him?

I didn't say that i believed it, i simply pointed out that Greeks, Romans, Akkadians and Sumerians did. As for the Euxine Lake/Black Sea hypothesis, i consider that plausible, and for the reasons i've given and which are found at the linked page.

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In your 'natural' hypothesis (i.e. the central character of the flood story has no 'supernatural' motivation, nor visitation, nor assistance) , you still postulate the hero of the story acts quite against[/u] human nature. Why?

I think you must be kind of slow, "real life." I don't for a moment believe that any of it happened, so you really should stop trying to erect strawmen.

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Setanta wrote:
If there had been a supernatural intervention.....then the natural world would have been effected in ways which would provide evidence.

Really? So, what 'natural' evidence do you think would evidence or prove a 'supernatural' cause?

Well, evidence that all of the mountains of the earth were once underwater at the same time would be a good one, because only a supernatural intervention could explain why that amount of water were no longer present.

Hi Setanta,

There may have been a Black Sea area 'local flood'. However, that doesn't mean there couldn't have been other floods, including a worldwide flood.

I don't think the Black Sea hypothesis fits the Biblical flood because:

A local Black Sea flood would not adequately explain why nearly every area on Earth shows evidence of having been under the sea.

A local Black Sea flood would not adequately explain why nearly every culture on Earth has a catastrophic flood story.

A local Black Sea flood would not adequately explain why the hero of the story had to build a boat. Normally, if a person knows there area is flooding or will flood in a catastrophic manner such as in the story, then they don't have time to build a huge boat, they would simply move out of the flooded (or anticipated flooded) area.

As to 'where the water went' after a worldwide flood, it's all still here. 70-80% of Earth is STILL covered with water.

Areas like Everest are now higher than they were when they were undersea, we all agree.

It's the timing we disagree on.

But if the high mountainous areas of Earth were lower during a worldwide flood and the seabeds higher, there is adequate water on Earth to cover the globe.

Hope you are having a great day. Cool

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real life wrote:

There may have been a Black Sea area 'local flood'. However, that doesn't mean there couldn't have been other floods, including a worldwide flood.

Obviously there have been "other floods," we have the evidence from our own experiences that flooding is a common phenomenon. A world-wide flood, however, would be an extraordinary event, for which you have consistently failed to produce any evidence of any character.

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I don't think the Black Sea hypothesis fits the Biblical flood because: A local Black Sea flood would not adequately explain why nearly every area on Earth shows evidence of having been under the sea.

If your thesis is predicated that "nearly every area on Earth" has been under the sea, you have failed to account for a world-wide flood--you want to remove the qualifier "nearly" the next time you attempt to peddle that story. In any event, you have not provided any evidence that even "nearly every area on Earth" has been under the sea.

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I don't think the Black Sea hypothesis fits the Biblical flood because: A local Black Sea flood would not adequately explain why nearly every culture on Earth has a catastrophic flood story.

Once again, you've hamstrung your argument by using the qualifier "nearly." Once again, you have provided no evidence that "nearly" every culture on earth has a catastrophic flood story. Finally, the occurrence of local flooding is sufficiently common to account for flood accounts, even if you were able to demonstrate that "nearly" every culture on earth has catastrophic flood legends--which, however, you have sadly failed to do.

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I don't think the Black Sea hypothesis fits the Biblical flood because: A local Black Sea flood would not adequately explain why the hero of the story had to build a boat. Normally, if a person knows there area is flooding or will flood in a catastrophic manner such as in the story, then they don't have time to build a huge boat, they would simply move out of the flooded (or anticipated flooded) area.

I have no good reason to assume that the "Ark" story has any provenance in an historical event, no matter how garbled. That is why i earlier commented that i'm not buying any of it, although i do find the Euxine Lake/Black Sea event as a plausible basis for the origin of catastrophic flood legends in the southwest Asian region of the world. That such a legend was embellished with geezers who built boats and saved all of the animal life is not to be wondered at by anyone familiar with embellishment of popular stories over time, especially when the stories are transmitted by oral tradition. There is an excellent example in our own nation's history. Parson Mason Locke Weems published A History of the Life and Death, Virtues and Exploits of General George Washington in 1800, less than a year after Washington died. It is the source of such totally spurious stories as the cherry tree incident ("I cannot tell a lie . . . ") and that Washington once threw a dollar across the Potomac River. It was only a matter of months after Washington's death in December, 1799, that Weems published his book, and almost all of the fictions about Washington's life are contained in the work, and have been retailed ever since. Weems was a rector in the Truro Parish of the Episcopal Church in Virginia, in which both George Washington and his father, Augustine, had been vestrymen--so the gullible in their millions bought the stories, hook, line and sinker, based on Weems claim that the had the stories from eye-witnesses.

Had a flood such as the Euxine Lake/Black Sea hypothesis suggests taken place 7500 YBP, that means there were thousands of years of oral tradition before written languages were developed and allowed someone to write down the story. Consider if you will the following scenario. A story teller is retailing the great flood story, and claims that the flood covered the entire earth, killing all living things. It would only take on skeptic in the audience to say: "Oh yeah, well, where did we come from, where did all the animals around us come from?"--for the story to be altered. Your story teller, if he is at all clever, comes back with: "Well, ya see, there was this geezer, and god warned him about the flood, so he started building this great, big boat . . . "

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As to 'where the water went' after a worldwide flood, it's all still here. 70-80% of Earth is STILL covered with water.

Ah, but it's not covered with water to a depth of 15 cubits above the tops of all the mountains. Even if all of the polar ice caps melted, it would not be sufficient water to cover even low mountain ranges such as the Appalachian chain, or even the "tall hills" in the British Isles which are rather grandiloquently described as mountains. In fact, it would only likely flood coastal areas:

[url=http://science.howstuffworks.com/question473.htm][b]How Stuff Works-dot-com[/b][/url] wrote:

If all of the Antarctic ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise about 61 meters (200 feet).

A rise of 200 feet is not going to cover any mountain ranges, so you need to demonstrate that there were no mountains 6000 years ago which were more than 175 feet above modern mean sea level (200 feet minus 15 cubits, based on a 20" cubit), or, you need to demonstrate that all land every on the planet has risen as significant amount since that time--otherwise, you don't have enough water to produce the effect noted. So, if you can demonstrate that all the mountains of the earth were once covered with water, at the same time, you will have produced the evidence of supernatural intervention which account for why there is no longer sufficient water on the planet to cover all of the mountains of the earth--or you need to demonstrate that land has risen, in some cases, tens of thousands of feet since then. Good luck.

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Areas like Everest are now higher than they were when they were undersea, we all agree.

No, we don't all agree that Everest and K2 were ever "undersea," and although you've tried to peddle this story more than once, i've never seen you present any plausible evidence to that effect. Shall we get Farmerman back in here to review this fairy tale? You've got some serious math problems, even if one concedes that Everest and K2 were once "undersea" (which i don't), because K2 comes in at over 28,000 feet above mean sea level, and Everest at just over 29,000 feet. You do provide mild hilarity, though.

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It's the timing we disagree on.

We disagree on a whole helluvalot more than that, and you provide not a shred of evidence for your hilarious tales.

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But if the high mountainous areas of Earth were lower during a worldwide flood and the seabeds higher, there is adequate water on Earth to cover the globe.

Even if the melting of both the icecaps, all the glaciers and Greenland ice sheet raised the level of the seas 1000 feet, rather than the 200 feet stated at the site i linked, you still would have to account for literally tens of thousands of feet of rise, and you haven't even demonstrated that all the mountains of the earth were once "undersea," let alone that they were ever all "undersea" at the same time.

http://p.vtourist.com/577548-Benbulben_Mountain-Sligo.jpg

This is an image of Ben Bulben, the most distinctive "mountain" in Ireland. My friend and i once "climbed" Ben Bulben from the south in a couple of hours, which actually only involved some strenuous hiking. The top of Ben Bulben is about 1600 feet above mean sea level. Even if one takes the 200 feet given in the source i linked above, and increases it five-fold to 1000 feet, that's still not enough water to cover Ben Bulben, let alone "real" mountains.

You've got your work cut out for you--so far, i've not seen you provide one iota of plausible evidence for any of your silly speculations.

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Hope you are having a great day.

Oh yeah, i always do when you start posting your fairy tales--i've already laughed aloud several times in this exercise.

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I'm going to read the Bible, and I'm going to post about it.

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