We've not had a religious thread for a few weeks, so seeing this item, I just had to bring it to your attention.

Noah's ark was round – so the ancient tablet tells us

The article is about a book called, Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood by Irving Finkel, curator at the British Museum. He looks after and studies the ancient clay tablets from Mesopotamia and has found that the story of the ark was written long before the bible.

Amazon UK

Amazon USA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSaJE2rqxU
Noah - Official Trailer (2014) [HD] Russel Crowe, Emma Watson

I will see the movie.

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It's unsurprising that the story of the Ark was written before the Bible considering that it is a part of the Old Testament, which is based upon in part by the Jewish Torah from which Christianity gets it's roots.

Of course the bigger myth is the fact that the Bible insists that the entire Earth was covered by the Great Flood, when in fact we know that it was only a small section. And the fact that there was no possible way for them to fit two of every animal into the Ark, then replace them geographically after the flood into their appropriate habitats.

It's unsurprising that the story of the Ark was written before the Bible considering that it is a part of the Old Testament, which is based upon in part by the Jewish Torah from which Christianity gets it's roots.

Of course the bigger myth is the fact that the Bible insists that the entire Earth was covered by the Great Flood, when in fact we know that it was only a small section. And the fact that there was no possible way for them to fit two of every animal into the Ark, then replace them geographically after the flood into their appropriate habitats.

The Jewish/Christian Bible makes perfect sense when read in context in the language and context of the day.

Since those days, there has been much corruption wrought by translation and embellishment and outright exaggeration. We also have some rather ridiculous religious dogma that also gets in the way of understanding the various Bibles for what they are.


So for example, the ENTIRE WORLD really was flooded. Just as the entire world of the farmers in the UK Somerset Levels are flooded just now. It's just that the "entire world" is/was the 'entire world' as was known to those people of that area of that time...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

So for example, the ENTIRE WORLD really was flooded. Just as the entire world of the farmers in the UK Somerset Levels are flooded just now. It's just that the "entire world" is/was the 'entire world' as was known to those people of that area of that time...

I tend to agree however there are some literalists that interpret the Bible very strictly. So when they read the ENTIRE WORLD was flooded, some actually believe that means the ENTIRE EARTH was flooded, and some of them actually believe that the Grand Canyon is a result of the run-off of all the water.

... there are some literalists that interpret the Bible very strictly...

And YAE!

They are forever lost in the darkness of their blind literality and are literally not of this reality and so are not of this Earth.

Thus they are condemned to live their dream alone FOREVER by Their Assumed God!

YAE!!!


;-P


How on earth does anyone come to believe such claptrap and perpetuate such unreal dogma?!

Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

The ENTIRE world as written about in the Bible was only the Middle East.

Considering the area of the old holy lands and the old prominence of the cities of Suma and Babylon, most likely "The World" of that time most likely to suffer a widespread flood would be the area betwixt the Tigris and Euphrates of present day Iraq.


Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Same as those that bang on about Linux :-)))

At least you get much more freedom to bang on about whatever you like rather than being entangled like vines in the Books Of EULAs...


YAE!!!!


;-)

Keep searchin',
Martin


ps: Have you ever read a certain companies' EULAs... They have you agree for yourself to submit to WHAT?! Unbelievable. (Makes the Old Testaments read like a fairy story!)

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

... there are some literalists that interpret the Bible very strictly...

And YAE!

They are forever lost in the darkness of their blind literality and are literally not of this reality and so are not of this Earth.

Thus they are condemned to live their dream alone FOREVER by Their Assumed God!

YAE!!!


;-P

LOL!

How on earth does anyone come to believe such claptrap and perpetuate such unreal dogma?!

We in the U.S. have the pleasure of owning the existence of the Creationist Museum on which Ars Technica wrote up an excellent OpEd of recent debate between Bill Nye and Creation Museum owner Ken Ham.

Interesting factoid about that was that at the end of the debate, both were asked what it would take to change their minds. Bill Nye said that, basically, evidence would change his mind into believing Creationism. Ken Ham on the other hand said that absolutely nothing would change his mind into believing his interpretation of the Bible is incorrect.

The only answer I can provide as to how someone comes to believe this stuff - they identify very strongly and emotionally to all things God and the Bible. Given a perfectly rational, yet complex explanation of how things work and how things came to be, or an emotionally charged explanation that we are the result of a single entity that created us in His image, are loved by Him so much that we must devote our lives to this creator, some people will choose the comforting thoughts over the harsh realities of the Universe. Beyond that I can't explain it much other than I grew up as one of the literalists and that seems to be the best explanation I can provide.

I watched Beyond the wormhole last night. the subject was creationism and evolution.
The point that creationists allways harp on is that evolution would take to long. So a creator had to have done it.

They had a mathematican who showed 3 scenarios. The first was a creator who did all the right things and lo and behold lifein very little time. the second was the brute force scenario. Where if you didnt get it right the first time you had to start all over at the beginning. It was estimated that it would take longer to create life than the age of the universe. The 3rd approach was that if you didnt get it right you didnt have to go back to the beginng and start over you just did something different and moved on untill you met youir goal.

And the time estimated was longer than a creator but a hell of a lot less than the age of the universe.

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Old James

The only answer I can provide as to how someone comes to believe this stuff - they identify very strongly and emotionally to all things God and the Bible. Given a perfectly rational, yet complex explanation of how things work and how things came to be, or an emotionally charged explanation that we are the result of a single entity that created us in His image, are loved by Him so much that we must devote our lives to this creator, some people will choose the comforting thoughts over the harsh realities of the Universe. Beyond that I can't explain it much other than I grew up as one of the literalists and that seems to be the best explanation I can provide.

I find that strange though. I mean, I understand how believing in God can be comforting, but the level they take their belief, I wonder how they can still consider it comforting? I mean, these are the people that also consider hell to be a very real place and that think that going to hell is pretty much a given. How can such a belief be comforting if you attached some of the most gruesome horror stories to it? Its like believing that you own the most comfortable bed in the world, but that you can only have that comfortable bed with a giant all consuming monster beneath it and that the monster will eat you if you sleep in any way other than on your back.

Of course the bigger myth is the fact that the Bible insists that the entire Earth was covered by the Great Flood, when in fact we know that it was only a small section. And the fact that there was no possible way for them to fit two of every animal into the Ark, then replace them geographically after the flood into their appropriate habitats.

More than that. Genesis 7 describes taking the animals as one pair of unclean beasts and seven pairs of clean beasts, so there'd have been loads.
Maybe Noah was a Time Lord, and the Ark was bigger on the inside. (Or smaller on the outside!)

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

The only answer I can provide as to how someone comes to believe this stuff - they identify very strongly and emotionally to all things God and the Bible. Given a perfectly rational, yet complex explanation of how things work and how things came to be, or an emotionally charged explanation that we are the result of a single entity that created us in His image, are loved by Him so much that we must devote our lives to this creator, some people will choose the comforting thoughts over the harsh realities of the Universe. Beyond that I can't explain it much other than I grew up as one of the literalists and that seems to be the best explanation I can provide.

I find that strange though. I mean, I understand how believing in God can be comforting, but the level they take their belief, I wonder how they can still consider it comforting? I mean, these are the people that also consider hell to be a very real place and that think that going to hell is pretty much a given. How can such a belief be comforting if you attached some of the most gruesome horror stories to it? Its like believing that you own the most comfortable bed in the world, but that you can only have that comfortable bed with a giant all consuming monster beneath it and that the monster will eat you if you sleep in any way other than on your back.

Looking at it from the outside in, yes, it is quite strange. I suppose different people find different things comforting. It would seem that you aren't meant to question why you have the most comfortable bed and that you have to sleep on it on your back. You just accept it with impunity and you enjoy what you have. I get the impression from them that ignorance is encouraged and literalism shouldn't be questioned.

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Must not conflict resolve by suggesting that someone should go sit on an ice pick...

Well, what started as "excusable ignorance" turned into "just plain wrong". Suspect it got a bit difficult to backtrack at that point. Print cost of a re-run would have been prohibitive. Once "damage limitation" didn't work and "control through fear" became severely frayed at the edges - "downright deceit/delusion" was all that was left.

Maybe I'm being harsh...but when I'm told that dinosaur fossils were put into the rocks by a)god (as a test of faith) or b)the devil (to deceive the faithless) I know I've entered ga ga land and its forty fathoms beneath the sea and still sinking.

Still, it's TREMENDOUS fun dropping in something about evolution at that point :)

Hope I wasn't interrupting! Small fish...BIG POND