I want to see a flying TREX, that must have been cool...like a dragon I suppose, with fire and everything

Who said they flew? Feathers are excellent insulation for warm-blooded animals.

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Which of the board's unbelievers do you suspect engage in such behavior, if you don't doubt it?

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Vast majority if not all of them. Including you.

When you're this smart and in possession of the truth, you don't keep it quiet. And I've heard too many discussions off board to believe it doesn't happen.

If agrad regards it as his duty to stop the spread of lies with truth it's unclear why that duty ends here.

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Should I chase you around for 6 pages accusing you of being a liar? You are wrong in your assertion about me, and I feel fairly certain that's what you would do if you were in my shoes.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd very surprised if the caricature you have painted in your mind about atheists is indeed an accurate reflection of reality.

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Based on a suspicion? It's not a caricature. I've personally heard the discussions. Been dragged into them.

Why would your duty to spread truth stop here? If people are believing lies and that's bad why wouldn't you tell them wherever you encounter them?

Go back and look how immediately hostile Sapper got with Martin. What's the point of that?

Like I said, no amount of geology can persuade the literalist mind. But hey, if you have geologic evidence that a global flood happened, you should definitely get that stuff published in Nature because you will blow everyone's minds and shake the very foundations of geology.

Mountain ranges in Montana.

Mt Jumbo shorelines

Beautiful. Also carved by glaciers. Along with millions of years as part of a shallow inland sea. What's your point?

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That being the claim that all humans were still in this narrow geographic region where this flood occurred. At the same time however all other animals live outside this geographic region.

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I don't see why this is causing so much difficulty for you. I think it's fairly well established by both the bible and "secular science" that animals came onto the scene before humans did. And it seems fairly well established by "secular science" (certainly by the bible) that humans populated the globe through migration and colonization, and not through parallel separate strands of humans popping up on all 6 continents simultaneously, right?

Like I said, with proper understanding, there is no conflict.

It took upwards of 50,000 years to expand to Australia and 80,000 years to reach the Americas. Noah had some mad boat-building skills for people who barely had tools.

The timeline for humans spreading to other continents doesn't match up with a mass flood event described in the ot nor is there a generic bottleneck that would occur from such an event.

Now why don't you look up how widespread humanity was by the time we had developed domestication and could make wine....

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Now why don't you look up how widespread humanity was by the time we had developed domestication and could make wine....

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We domesticated grains more than 12,000 years ago, beer was developed about the same time, and genetics suggests dogs have been domesticated for far, far longer (archaeologically distinct dog remains turn up 12,000 years ago, but obviously those wouldn't be the first domesticated dogs). What's your argument?

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I think characterizing the story as a lie is arrogant and nasty. It implies the people spreading it know it's untrue.

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It is most certainly appropriate to characterize the story as a lie because of the overwhelming evidence against any possibility of it actually being true. Claiming ignorance isn't sufficient defense when it comes to spreading lies. You can't just say whatever you want and expect it to not be questioned when the facts (or lack thereof) don't add up.

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A lie is a statement made with intent to deceive. Agrad characterized it as that. Then bailed and said people believe it in earnest.

If it's just a morality tale it's not a lie anyway.

And post under your real name. The sock creation trick here is lame.

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To phrase the argument in such an accusatory way is honestly pretty ridiculous. Aggrad (and I) do not believe the great flood literally happened. That doesn't mean the people who wrote Genesis did so with malice and were thinking "muahaha, we're going to confuse the hell out of people from the future!"

It's as if disbelief of anything in the bible implies we think it was one massive troll attempt.

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I think characterizing the story as a lie is arrogant and nasty. It implies the people spreading it know it's untrue.

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It is most certainly appropriate to characterize the story as a lie because of the overwhelming evidence against any possibility of it actually being true. Claiming ignorance isn't sufficient defense when it comes to spreading lies. You can't just say whatever you want and expect it to not be questioned when the facts (or lack thereof) don't add up.

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A lie is a statement made with intent to deceive. Agrad characterized it as that. Then bailed and said people believe it in earnest.

If it's just a morality tale it's not a lie anyway.

And post under your real name. The sock creation trick here is lame.

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To phrase the argument in such an accusatory way is honestly pretty ridiculous. Aggrad (and I) do not believe the great flood literally happened. That doesn't mean the people who wrote Genesis did so with malice and were thinking "muahaha, we're going to confuse the hell out of people from the future!"

It's as if disbelief of anything in the bible implies we think it was one massive troll attempt.

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I think there is an interesting debate to be had here.

Why people believe.

Why people care.

Does it matter.

My sense in this, and I have discussed it with family that believes, is that it's what they believe, but not particularly central to anything.

Now, there are creationists and literalists this matters a great deal to. But I think many Christians probably just...believe. It probably wouldn't matter much at all to convince my sister this didn't happen. Except to make her feel dumb for not knowing or ignoring "evidence."

There are some whose faith this would shake. And whose faith it has shaken. I think those people see this of critical importance.

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Now why don't you look up how widespread humanity was by the time we had developed domestication and could make wine....

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We domesticated grains more than 12,000 years ago, beer was developed about the same time, and genetics suggests dogs have been domesticated for far, far longer (archaeologically distinct dog remains turn up 12,000 years ago, but obviously those wouldn't be the first domesticated dogs). What's your argument?

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That humanity was very very widespread 12k years ago. And I was speaking of live stock. I'm agreeing with you, it was a response to the claim that a flood could have wiped out all mankind by hitting only one continent.

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I think characterizing the story as a lie is arrogant and nasty. It implies the people spreading it know it's untrue.

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It is most certainly appropriate to characterize the story as a lie because of the overwhelming evidence against any possibility of it actually being true. Claiming ignorance isn't sufficient defense when it comes to spreading lies. You can't just say whatever you want and expect it to not be questioned when the facts (or lack thereof) don't add up.

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A lie is a statement made with intent to deceive. Agrad characterized it as that. Then bailed and said people believe it in earnest.

If it's just a morality tale it's not a lie anyway.

And post under your real name. The sock creation trick here is lame.

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To phrase the argument in such an accusatory way is honestly pretty ridiculous. Aggrad (and I) do not believe the great flood literally happened. That doesn't mean the people who wrote Genesis did so with malice and were thinking "muahaha, we're going to confuse the hell out of people from the future!"

It's as if disbelief of anything in the bible implies we think it was one massive troll attempt.

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I think there is an interesting debate to be had here.

Why people believe.

Why people care.

Does it matter.

My sense in this, and I have discussed it with family that believes, is that it's what they believe, but not particularly central to anything.

Now, there are creationists and literalists this matters a great deal to. But I think many Christians probably just...believe. It probably wouldn't matter much at all to convince my sister this didn't happen. Except to make her feel dumb for not knowing or ignoring "evidence."

There are some whose faith this would shake. And whose faith it has shaken. I think those people see this of critical importance.

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I think literalists are a minority. I also think that a good number of Christians don't give this idea much thought. But for the ones that do, I think most of them do not believe it to be 100% literal just due to the impossibility of it. Two of every species on earth put onto an enormous boat, built by an unskilled man who is centuries old.

Not one of them died on board. They repopulate the entire earth after the flood and Noah's family does so for the human race. Kangaroos make their way to Australia and poison dart frogs make their way to the Amazon. Subspecies of every animal start propagating within a matter of a few thousand years. Different races of humans emerge as well as humans spread all over the earth within about 2,000-4,000 years.

It's ludicrous if you think of it this way. If such a flood occurred, it had to be localized.

Purpose of my OP:

I'm new to the R&P board. I asked this question to try to help me figure out how some people who likely received an education similar to mine could believe as historical fact, a story that is so obviously allegorical in nature.

Just because the Great Flood didn't happen (as described in the English Bible) that doesn't invalidate the existence of God.

Any Christian who believes the flood account is allegorical is going to have to explain that to Jesus himself, who absolutely didn't regard the flood as allegorical.

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Any Christian who believes the flood account is allegorical is going to have to explain that to Jesus himself, who absolutely didn't regard the flood as allegorical.

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Have you given e up claiming the flood is reasonably and has evidence to back it?

What an unhappy lot the none believers are. Sad really.

This is for you, hopefully these guys lift your spirit!

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Any Christian who believes the flood account is allegorical is going to have to explain that to Jesus himself, who absolutely didn't regard the flood as allegorical.

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You have absolutely no idea what Jesus thought of the flood story and neither do I. If you are basing that on the NT, it has the same translation issues as the OT. It just bugs me when people say Jesus said this or that when none of us ever heard him speak,

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It is not that complicated, life is rather simple.

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I will pretty much categorically disagree here, regardless of interpretation.

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What an unhappy lot the none believers are. Sad really.

This is for you, hopefully these guys lift your spirit!

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What a strange categorization... My life is great and has only gotten better since I freed myself from the shackles of religion. I know many aren't going to like hearing that, but it is absolutely the truth.

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Any Christian who believes the flood account is allegorical is going to have to explain that
to Jesus himself, who absolutely didn't regard the flood as allegorical.


Have you given e up claiming the flood is reasonably and has evidence to back
it?

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Of course not. I'm just reasonable about how much evidence can we really expect. The area in question has had several flood episodes since the great flood, it's been through a glacial period, and parts of it are now under water beneath the persian gulf. It'll be pure luck if we ever find anything direct and indisputable to trace back to the great flood.

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Any Christian who believes the flood account is allegorical is going to have to explain that
to Jesus himself, who absolutely didn't regard the flood as allegorical.

You have absolutely no idea what Jesus thought of the flood story and neither do I. If you are basing that on the NT, it has the same translation issues as the OT. It just bugs me when people say Jesus said this or that when none of us ever heard him speak,

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I actually have a very good idea of what Jesus thought because I am literate and know how to read words and use context, but ok.

When are you trying to argue the great flood happened? The last glacial maximum ended around 12,000 years ago.

Folks taking science that couldn't pass HS chemistry.

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When are you trying to argue the great flood happened? The last glacial maximum ended around 12,000 years ago.

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The great flood happened around 50,000 years ago, plus or minus. Before the dispersal of humanity across the globe. The minority but loud and vocal and influential YECs are way off on their proposed dates for anything prior to Abraham. They are nice people and have good intentions (at least the ones I've come across, some might be more combative lol), but it would be nice if they could just quiet down and let the professionals take over. Seems like everyone looks for evidence of the great flood within the last 5,000-10,000 years, which means you're looking in the wrong place, which means you aint gonna find what you're looking for.

And someone mentioned what about domestication, wine, ship building, etc. My simple answer to that is I think early humans were far more advanced and developed and capable than we modern folk give them credit for.

And I guess I should clarify one more point. Humans as described in the bible and what I mean when I say humanity are behaviorally modern humans. Anatomically modern humans, neanderthals, hominids, all those species are part of the animal kingdom (and the genetic DNA backs this up: Neanderthal DNA, the most modern hominids if you will prior to our arrival, is much closer to chimpanzee DNA than it is to human DNA). Behaviorally modern humans arose about 60,000-some odd years ago (again plus or minus), this is supported by the archaeological record.

Probably won't check back on this until later today, so thought I'd add to my post a little bit.

Oh great....Winags is here. This will be hilarious (in a trainwreck kind of way).

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Folks taking science that couldn't pass HS chemistry.

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And you know that because?

I passed high school chemistry. Biology, even.

And geology 101. Is the argument that there was a flood that covered the entire planet but there is just zero evidence of it?

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And someone mentioned what about domestication, wine, ship building, etc. My simple answer to that is I think early humans were far more advanced and developed and capable than we modern folk give them credit for.

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We know when we developed these technologies due to the evidence. To pretend that human society was that developed at the time is just as anti science as anything else posted. The time frame those YECs mention is actually much closer to what is congruent with the bible. It's no more realistic than Noah's supposed age.

And mankind and neanderthal mated so our DNA is very close (and as long as you aren't black you probably have traces of this DNA in your own genome) and is in fact more similar to human DNA than chimp DNA.

"According to preliminary sequences, 99.7% of the base pairs of the modern human and Neanderthal genomes are identical, compared to humans sharing around 98.8% of base pairs with the chimpanzee.[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genome_project#cite_note-first-solid-evidence-5][5][/url] (Other studies concerning the commonality between chimps and humans have modified the commonality of 99% to a commonality of only 94%, showing that the genetic gap between humans and chimps is far larger than originally thought."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_genome_project

Also anatomically modern humans are considered to have come about closer to 200k years ago than 60k years.

And mankind had already spread to the whole of africa and beyond by 60k years ago.



So even 50k years ago you are still flooding the majority of the planet. Even flooding africa itself is a gross stretch given it's incredible size.

And both the Gilgamesh and biblical account seem to correspond to an area around modern lebanon rather than subsaharan africa. Whose trees were commonly used in early shipbuilding and where native olive growth (the branch the bird brings back) is plentiful. This also puts the story in close proximity to the rest of the OT which is located within the levant.

Anthropology is an open ended field, there's always more to discover. Skeptics once upon a time said the bible was wrong about the hittites. Whoops.

Neanderthals weren't behaviorally modern humans. They were basically apes. They were on this planet at least 200,000 years if not more, and still didn't advance as far as a species as we did in 20,000 years. If they were humans, they would have accomplished a lot more, wouldn't have gone extinct so quickly, and they would share 100% of our DNA, not 99 point whatever. Hell, the brown bear in europe has lasted way longer than they did once humans arrived. 200,000+ freakin' years, and they couldn't graduate past basic primitive tools and maybe burials (hell, elephants bury their dead, big deal, don't think anyone is claiming elephants are humans) and couldn't outlast the brown bears. Us humans have been around way less than half that time and we've already colonized the entire planet and gone to freakin outer space and to the moon. Not a very impressive resume for the neanderthals.

The out of africa theory tries to pinpoint the geographic origin of anatomically modern humans, which weren't behaviorally modern humans, they were apes (As I mentioned previously, their resume is less than impressive) and part of the animal kingdom if you're relating it to the biblical model. Behaviorally modern humans are a completely separate species apart from all previous forms of life. In the historical and anthropological and biological record, behaviorally modern humans 1) arrive suddenly without warning (read up on the great leap forward and continuity hypotheses, secular darwinist scientists are directionless and have no explanation or mechanism to explain this), and 2) some of the earliest evidence of presence of behaviorally modern humans is being found in the middle east region, which corroborates and supports the biblical model. Basically the out of africa model is a completely unrelated topic and irrelevant to the biblical model discussion, it's a completely different topic.

It's also very haphazard to declare the existence or lack of animal population bottlenecks based on genetics, as I've seen some people claim. They did a study where we knew there was a bottleneck among kangaroo rats from direct observation, but when the analysis was conducted, there was no genetic marker of a bottleneck. Well that begs the question, how many other bottlenecks have happened that escape the genetic signature. If someone is using genetic analysis as a primary piece of evidence, then their position is very dubious and on shaky ground IMO, it's just not very reliable. The only reliable way to determine a bottleneck is to have actual demographic observation and reports. Here's a link to the study.