Noah's Ark in Holland

Have you seen the trailers for this movie? http://imdb.com/title/tt0413099/

Heh. Yeah, Steve Carrell should be good in that. And Morgan Freeman as God, he does that well.

Heh.

The Noahs ark in the bible is a metaphor for your body. and unless youre a 5 year old kid whom it might be acceptable to tell the story too 'as is', the meaning of the story is completely out of context for adults - to the point of being sad and perverse.

Yes, the ark finishes up landing in a nightclub in Swindon and Noah finds a novel use for an anteater's nose.....

Viscious rumours started by Ham.

Sorry, I was too busy fornicating with underage lesbian pornstars in a big hot tub of Belgian chocolate... <homer>mmm chocolate...</homer>. BTW, His memos and emails go straight into my Junk folder.

no!

if you care enough about the topic youre talking about, you'll want to find out for yourself.

Because they're dumb.

Heheh...perhaps it is MarcUk himself that is the metaphor?

I think it might be a tad foolish to dismiss the Noah story out of hand as a metaphor - despite the overwhelming and undeniable dumb quotient.

Obviously the story is based on earlier accounts and many cultures have such a myth; from Gilgamesh to Amerindian tribes....clearly there was some occurrence of significance that the later myths were based on even if at a local level.

"noah's ark as a metaphor of the body" in Google shows up this thread as #2.

Them spiders be everywhere... Scary.

My God! It's a fucking Parable. How many ignorant Christians are going to keep deluding themselves?

*** Edit: By no means am I implying that all Christians are ignorant. Just that the ones who believe the Bible is historical "fact" are ignorant. I think it's a waste of humanity for people to be even taking the time and effort to debate the possibility, much less those who build arks and write diatribes about how the earth is 7000 years old.

I don't think this guy build it to defend the old testament. I think it was just for kicks. Some people have weird hobbies.

There is a guy at my gym that works at the local "Six Flags over Jesus" (its what we call the local Baptist church, its crazy huge)

Anyway, I asked him if the church believed dinosaur's existed. He said yes they do. To which I asked how Noah managed to get the Brachiosaurus on the boat.

He said that Noah didn't take adults. He took babies.

The Bible is a record of God's interaction with mankind since Creation. That is its primary purpose, and the Bible is not meant to be a complete historical textbook of the ages.

That said, the Bible contains plenty of historical facts. While many claims remain unproven, I'd love to see you supply any outright statements of fact in the Bible that have been proven wrong.

<shameless thread hijack>

I think what we need to realize with reference to a lot of Xian fundies is that althought they are literalists, the Bible they are literal about is not the original version, it has been altered by other literalists.

The Qur'an for example, addresses this issue repeatedly and attempts to correct certain Biblical motifs which have been altered; in the case of Noah and his ark, the Qur'an affirms a local flood rather than a universal one and I can't see any reason why such a thing should not have happened.

Something is definitely going on up on Mt Ararat and even Mt Judi - there are numeorus pictures of anomalous artefacts and quite a few eyewitness accounts of finding wooden debris on the upper regions (there are not trees on Ararat), the CIA satellite photos and files re the Ark are very interesting too.

Ooh, ooh.....must not rise to bait......must......not..........rise...........to ......bait..........

Let me get this straight.

You, a doubter of the Flood account and (I think) believer in evolution, asked an Evangelical Christian a question that implied that dinosaurs and mankind co-existed on the Earth?

Forget the Brachiosaurus, how the hell did he get the T-Rex and Velociraptors onboard?

God did it.

There are some great articles/opinions on the Skeptic Report on Creationism and such. Since I will not spend the rest of the month of May arguing and discussing this topic I'd thought I'd just share this. Follow the last link and get the rest. Rather long, but worth the read. The first link is priceless, but continue with the latter. The link is there too.

"Introduction

Creationists are probably more defensive about the Flood than any other part of their mythology. One indication of that is the fact that the seminal work of modern creationism (oxymoron) was called The Genesis Flood. The Flood story apparently required lots of explanation and justification if anyone were to take creationism seriously. An instantaneous supernatural creation by an omnipotent God is somehow easier to swallow than the cobbled-up mish-mash of legends that became the biblical Flood story. Consider a few minor difficulties and childish questions:

Were pairs of every species living on Earth taken aboard the Ark? All living and extinct species? All 50 billion or so species that have ever lived on Earth? Or only land animals and birds that couldn't survive by swimming for several months? We're still talking many millions of species. And while we're at it, why does my Bible state clearly and unambiguously that two of each kind of animal were taken aboard, then immediately afterwards it seems to correct itself by informing us that seven of each "clean" animal were boarded, and then immediately after THAT it insists that two of every kind were loaded? How did Noah know which species were clean several thousand years before God imparted those laws to Moses? And if Noah knew about "clean" animals, why wasn't that knowledge passed down through the generations? Is it possible that the whole business about "clean" animals necessary for sacrifices was tacked on later by a bungling editor who forgot to check the context for obvious contradictions?

I have compiled a list of "Things Creationists Hate" which might also be of interest. "

The Whole Silly Flood Story

The Devil made Steven Speilberg come up with Velociraptors. ...Hell, he's Jewish...!!!!

Yeah aint it great?

Either way I thought his answer made more sense than most answers.

Baby Raptors and T-Rex are easier to handle I imagine. Haven't we all seen Jurassic Park?

You see, that's the problem. No one with half a brain needs PROOF that Noah didn't save the animal kingdom by putting two of every species on a boat for a month.

We're back to the spaghetti monster again.

Those baby Raptors and T-Rex and what not are soooo cute..... That is, until they rip you to shreds.


What's the spaghetti monster?

http://www.venganza.org/

The point is that there is just as much proof of the existence of the FSM as there is of the Christian God and the "historical facts" of the Bible.

And neither of them can be disproved.

Anyone who asks for proof that the story of the ark is not true is not being intellectually honest, plain and simple.

When I asked for debate on the Bible's historical facts, I was talking about dates, names, cities, kings, who begat whom, etc. You know, all that trivia that people commonly brush aside that make the Bible a literary and historical tour de force.

I wasn't asking per se, for you to "prove the Flood" occurred. I apologize if I was unclear.

My point is that despite the idea that the Bible was carelessly put together and subject to some editors' conspiratorial whim, the Book of Books was actually thoughtfully compiled and carefully handed down.

The story of the Great Flood was recorded in that way, and while Christians (and Jews) may not understand every detail of how it took place, we believe this occurred as is recorded. I doubt even Moses understood all the details.

I personally believe the story because, to my mind, there is an insane amount of water on this planet that - coincidentally of course - would be just enough to cover the earth as recorded in Genesis. (Ask Al Gore! )

That, coupled with the similar stories that have been recorded by the earliest progenitors of almost every culture of the planet, signals to me that something of this nature occurred in the past.

While I know a number of Christian ministries (such as Answers in Genesis have built apologetic defenses of the Flood taking place, I'm embarrassed to say that I really haven't paid too much attention to the details.

I know this is exasperating for atheists and the like, but I've come to believe in the Bible as God's Revealed Word to mankind, and the Bible says it, so I don't really need a detailed explanation. For me, the only reason to research it would be to answer other people's questions on the issue.

^^^^^^ Ok. let's do the Bible thing.

The Bible may originally be a revealed scripture but for sure it has been corrupted.

We know this because we have original texts that with modern microscopy techniques have shown unequivocal evidence of editing.

We know this because we have in the centuries since the Bible was compiled in its various forms discovered other parallel texts - of Mark for example - that contain passages not in the version in the Bible.

We know this because even without all that, the Bible as is, contains contradictory elements within itself.

And we know this because we have made historic discoveries that show the Bible's historic statements to be false.

For example, Luke's Gospel states that Herod was 'King of Judea' during the time that Qurinius was governor of Syria. We know now as an absolute fact from historical records that Herod died 10 years before Quirinius was governor and the two were not (and could not have been) contemporaries.

There are many such examples.

If we have original texts of the Bible, I would love to see them. Did Paul make any handwritten notes?


The "two endings" thing is weak. Some manuscripts - of which there are thousands by the way - have one or the other. Early church fathers quoted the longer ending, so if you think it was added later you are out of luck. If you think it was added earlier, well, what is the point? There are no doctrinal issues or incompatibilities between the two. Wikipedia is your friend.


I know you think you have discovered something that 2000 years of skeptics have overlooked. Please insure, when you post, that it's not as weak as the "Jesus died on the cross at different times in the Gospels" or similar. Make me do a bit of work.


The debate over whether Luke or Josephus is more credible is interesting. The Census Debate takes placed largely in academic circles and there are many plausible answers as to the reasons behind the discrepancy.

The tendency to blindly accept Josephus over Luke does remind me, however, about the vicious attacks by some skeptics over the fact that Daniel was listed in the Old Testament as ruling just under Belshazzar in Babylon. This was said to be a fiction of the imagination of the Jews.

In addition, Nabonidus was on the throne when Daniel records Belshazzar as ruler. Inscriptions and coins from the period were found in Nabonidus' name - the Bible was wrong!

Of course, when it was discovered that Belshazzar was co-ruler with his father during the time in question, the silence was deafening. Few had bothered with the assertion that Daniel had been listed in the Bible as the "third ruler in the kingdom", despite all historical record of the Babylonian co-rule being lost. (Daniel 5:29)

At the end of the day regardless of what the *words actually are*, it is the individuals interpretation of any text, or religious/ spiritual/ etc. experience that makes it God(s)' Word to them.

However, for the life of me whatever bits of the Bible as revealed to me in Methodist and Lutheran high schools I attended, some minor reading here and there, plus the "Lost Gospels", I cannot make head or tails of what is going on there.

What is God's Word as revealed to me has been through an evolution through various forms of Prayer, Yoga, Meditation, Friends, Sex, Drugs, WitchCraft, Power Of Now (Book) and Course in Miracles (Book), Hiking in Nature, Going for a Swim/ Run, Watching The Moon Rise Yesterday.

Frank, I am happy that you have found a way to receive God's messages and teachings, as for me though, historical, cultural, literal interpretation of the Bible has kinda made me keep it at arm's length. Also I have my own views of the Trinity as relevant to the Path Home, while Christianity in general (IMO) appears to have made Jesus purely a deity (the Son of God thing), while not emphasising enough that his way can be everyones (Christ as an approach to life, a way of living, not "[jesus] Christ as the one and only (literal) Son of God".

Ooohh... This post will get some responses....