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Author Topic:   That boat don't float
greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3417 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 241 of 453 (522789)
09-04-2009 10:53 PM
Reply to: Message 238 by Coyote
09-02-2009 9:59 PM


Re: reed boats don't get waterlogged
Sorry, it is only an interpretation of the Bible that puts all animals of the world in the Ark. It is another and very doubtful interpretation that puts extinct animals on the ark. I have studied the passage, including the Hebrew and see that another valid interpretation is that it was a local flood and only the animals of that local region that were on the ark.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 238 by Coyote, posted 09-02-2009 9:59 PM Coyote has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 244 by Coyote, posted 09-04-2009 11:21 PM greentwiga has replied
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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3417 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 242 of 453 (522790)
09-04-2009 10:58 PM
Reply to: Message 239 by Theodoric
09-02-2009 10:48 PM


Re: reed boats don't get waterlogged
You ask for references, and I supply them. Here is the article again. Read the second and third paragraphs and look up their references and then respond.
http://findarticles.com/.../mi_hb3284/is_293_76/ai_n28946720
Or do atheists make up their mind and ignore the science that disagrees with their ideas?

This message is a reply to:
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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3417 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 243 of 453 (522791)
09-04-2009 11:16 PM
Reply to: Message 240 by greyseal
09-03-2009 7:24 AM


Re: reed boats don't get waterlogged
No that is not what I said. The ancients had thousands of years to perfect their reed boat building. We try to recreate their technology and make many of the mistakes they made. That is why I referred to the variety of mistakes we made. Though there were very good reasons that people eventually went to wooden boats, the reed boats were practical crafts. Practical Anthropology puts the theories of Theoretical anthropology to the test and often refutes theories. That has been happening with the reed boats. Even with the tar coating, we do not know why it was used. Was it waterproofing? Was it protection from wear and tear? some other reason? This is not settled.
More important was the length of time before reeds became waterlogged. One additional reference on my web site was the reed huts that the marsh Arabs lived in. They were floating structures. Every year, they added more reed bundles to compensate for the old (more than one or two years old) that had become waterlogged. Again, it shows the reeds do not become waterlogged in a few weeks.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 240 by greyseal, posted 09-03-2009 7:24 AM greyseal has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 245 by greyseal, posted 09-05-2009 3:26 AM greentwiga has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2096 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 244 of 453 (522792)
09-04-2009 11:21 PM
Reply to: Message 241 by greentwiga
09-04-2009 10:53 PM


Re: reed boats don't get waterlogged
Sorry, it is only an interpretation of the Bible that puts all animals of the world in the Ark.
Those who interpret it this way defend their interpretation vehemently.
It is another and very doubtful interpretation that puts extinct animals on the ark.
Very doubtful indeed, as the dinosaurs were extinct some 65 million years earlier.
I have studied the passage, including the Hebrew and see that another valid interpretation is that it was a local flood and only the animals of that local region that were on the ark.
I can see how this could have been the case. And then, in the words of Tolkein, "The tale grew in the telling."

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 241 by greentwiga, posted 09-04-2009 10:53 PM greentwiga has replied

Replies to this message:
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greyseal
Member (Idle past 3852 days)
Posts: 464
Joined: 08-11-2009


Message 245 of 453 (522803)
09-05-2009 3:26 AM
Reply to: Message 243 by greentwiga
09-04-2009 11:16 PM


Re: reed boats don't get waterlogged
dear greentwiga - you are moving the goalposts. You are changing the conditions. I can't keep up with that.
If you're happy that the account in the bible is impossible, I'll bow out. There's nothing more I need to say.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 243 by greentwiga, posted 09-04-2009 11:16 PM greentwiga has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 246 by greentwiga, posted 09-05-2009 12:07 PM greyseal has replied

  
greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3417 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 246 of 453 (522832)
09-05-2009 12:07 PM
Reply to: Message 245 by greyseal
09-05-2009 3:26 AM


Re: reed boats don't get waterlogged
At various times I have stated exactly where I stand. I believe that every word of the Bible is accurate, but the traditional interpretations are not. All along I have stated that the flood was regional, the ark was a giant reed boat/raft, and the animals rescued were only the ones that lived in the region, the Sumerian marsh area. Don't expect me to defend the traditional interpretation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 245 by greyseal, posted 09-05-2009 3:26 AM greyseal has replied

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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3417 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 247 of 453 (522834)
09-05-2009 12:13 PM
Reply to: Message 244 by Coyote
09-04-2009 11:21 PM


Re: reed boats don't get waterlogged
Yes, once a bad interpretation is chosen, one has to keep inventing new miracles to defend the original mistaken theory. This is much like the Ptolamaic earth centered star system. Copernicus made the sun the center of the solar system and eliminated all the corrections. I read someone who claims King Arthur was a warlord in a small section of Cornwall. The Archaeology seems to agree, but later writings magnified the event. People writing after the Bible magnified the event.

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 Message 248 by lyx2no, posted 09-05-2009 12:54 PM greentwiga has not replied

  
lyx2no
Member (Idle past 4706 days)
Posts: 1277
From: A vast, undifferentiated plane.
Joined: 02-28-2008


Message 248 of 453 (522839)
09-05-2009 12:54 PM
Reply to: Message 247 by greentwiga
09-05-2009 12:13 PM


Get Your Ass Out of Town
If they were saying Noah built an ark 30 cubits by 5 cubits by 3 cubits and got his asses, goats and pigs to high ground we'd not be having this discussion?

It's not the man that knows the most that has the most to say.
Anon

This message is a reply to:
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Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 3.8


Message 249 of 453 (522842)
09-05-2009 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 241 by greentwiga
09-04-2009 10:53 PM


All the High Hills
Hi greentwiga,
I have a problem with this. In Genesis 7:19, we see this claim;
7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
All the high hills. So, even if this was a local event and the account is only talking about the known world, that leaves us with some pretty big hills. Mount Ararat, for instance, stands at nearly 17 000 feet above sea level. If that was covered in water, you got yourself a worldwide flood right there, big enough to cover most of the earth, leaving only the very highest areas above water. Take a look at this list of the highest points above sea level in 245 countries. Turkey comes in at #25 with Mt. Ararat. So if Ararat is covered, that leaves us with 100% flooding of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Venezuela, Indonesia, France, Italy, Uzbekistan, Switzerland, Ethiopia... You get the idea.
If your local flood was big enough to cover the known world of the time, it would most certainly have had to cover Ararat, just as the text implies.
On the other hand, if you are claiming that the Bible supports a flood of lesser proportions, how do you explain reference to "the whole heaven"? The authors must have known that "the whole heaven" included the sky over Ararat. It features prominently in the story after all. How do you explain Gen 8:4, which has the ark resting upon Ararat before the waters have even subsided?
Ararat must have been covered during the flood and if Ararat was covered, the event would most certainly have been worldwide.
If you want to believe that the flood story was based upon a small flood and that the tale grew in the retelling, fine, but this must have occurred before the Bible was written, as the event described therein could only have been worldwide in scale.
Mutate and Survive

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

This message is a reply to:
 Message 241 by greentwiga, posted 09-04-2009 10:53 PM greentwiga has not replied

Replies to this message:
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bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4180 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 250 of 453 (522847)
09-05-2009 2:49 PM
Reply to: Message 249 by Granny Magda
09-05-2009 1:40 PM


Re: All the High Hills
If your local flood was big enough to cover the known world of the time, it would most certainly have had to cover Ararat, just as the text implies.
Try this. What if the flood story was actually the composite of 2 or more earlier stories that got intertwined. This would explain both a local flood & the "Ark" resting on Mt Ararat. There is some evidence of a large meteor or asteroid striking off the coast of Madagaskar about 5000 years ago. A Tsunami could have pushed this boat up on Ararat. The second story is of a boat, carrying animals getting caught in a severe rainstorm. The composite story gives the whole story a world wide flood scenario considering that the story teller's view of the world would appear that a local flood covering all he could see would be, at least to him, the whole world.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 249 by Granny Magda, posted 09-05-2009 1:40 PM Granny Magda has not replied

Replies to this message:
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greentwiga
Member (Idle past 3417 days)
Posts: 213
From: Santa
Joined: 06-05-2009


Message 251 of 453 (522854)
09-05-2009 5:19 PM
Reply to: Message 250 by bluescat48
09-05-2009 2:49 PM


Re: All the High Hills
There are no high hills in the region of Sumer. Visibly, it is just a very flat plain with a "bowl" of the heavens above. The only hills/mountains were the proto-ziggurats. They were considered the mountains that reached into the heavens, the heavenly mountains by the Sumerians. It would make sense that the Jewish/Christian God would cover them and then have the ark land on them as an emphasis that that religion was false. All the visible "mountains" under the visible heavens were covered.

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Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 3.8


Message 252 of 453 (522859)
09-05-2009 6:15 PM
Reply to: Message 251 by greentwiga
09-05-2009 5:19 PM


Re: All the High Hills
Hi Blues,
At this remove there is no way to do any more than speculate wildly about where the flood myth may have originated. My hunch is that there was no original event; the story simply uses flooding as a mechanism for the wrath of the god(s) because it was known to the ancient world as an implacable disaster capable of wreaking great havoc.
I am actually less interested in the origins of the myth and more interested in why so many Christians seem keen to violate their own scriptures by twisting their meaning to suit modern science.

Hi greentwiga,
quote:
There are no high hills in the region of Sumer.
So what exactly? We're not talking about Sumer, we're talking about Ararat. The Bible very clearly includes Mount Ararat in the area flooded. That precludes a local flood for the reasons presented earlier.
quote:
The only hills/mountains were the proto-ziggurats.
Total crap. Do I have to quote the Bible for you again?
8:4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
Ararat yes? Not Sumer, not some ziggurat, but Mount Ararat. That is what it says in the Bible. You are welcome to hold whatever opinion you like about the Flud, but if you want to pretend that your version is Bible-based, you need to include Ararat.
quote:
It would make sense that the Jewish/Christian God would cover them and then have the ark land on them as an emphasis that that religion was false.
It would make more sense if you just read the text and gave its authors credit enough to know what they were writing. It doesn't say ziggurats, it says hills. It specifically mentions Ararat. For the ark to rest upon Ararat, it means that Ararat had to be flooded. Pretending otherwise is contrary to the text.
In message 241, you say;
greentwiga writes:
I have studied the passage, including the Hebrew and see that another valid interpretation is that it was a local flood and only the animals of that local region that were on the ark.
It seems you didn't study very hard. Any interpretation of the Biblical flood myth that claims to be in line with the Bible, must include Ararat. Your version of the story might just be correct, but please don't pretend that it is supported by scripture, because it just isn't.
Mutate and Survive

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

This message is a reply to:
 Message 251 by greentwiga, posted 09-05-2009 5:19 PM greentwiga has not replied

  
greyseal
Member (Idle past 3852 days)
Posts: 464
Joined: 08-11-2009


Message 253 of 453 (522948)
09-06-2009 7:19 PM
Reply to: Message 246 by greentwiga
09-05-2009 12:07 PM


Re: reed boats don't get waterlogged
greentwiga writes:
I believe that every word of the Bible is accurate, but the traditional interpretations are not.
Ah, so, it's all literally true, except where it's not.
so it's literally true that he made a boat from wood and tar, but it could still be made of reeds.
He could still literally have made a boat 30 cubits high and 5 across (or whatever the distances measured in the bible are) but it's not literally that big.
The whole world could still have literally flooded higher than the highest hill and the ark could have come to rest on mount Ararat as it literally says in the bible...except it was obviously in Sumer because the bible is literally correct even when it's not.
...look, I'm sorry - either it's literally true like so many people here say it is, or it is not literally true.
You CANNOT have your cake and eat it.
Is the bible:
1) literally true in every word
2) NOT literally true in every word
choose 1 or 2. They ARE mutually exclusive. It's either an accurate statement of fact, or it is a fictionalized account.
If you say #1 is your choice, then YOU are wrong on the location, building materials, size of "floating object", class of "floating object" and the extent of the flooding and rescue effort, and the duration of the event.
If #2, then please try to understand I'm agreeing with you, but that your objections to my statements are pointless - we've both just agreed it's not literally true as written.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 246 by greentwiga, posted 09-05-2009 12:07 PM greentwiga has not replied

  
Blackwodin
Junior Member (Idle past 5259 days)
Posts: 1
Joined: 10-09-2009


Message 254 of 453 (529570)
10-09-2009 6:55 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by pandion
08-19-2009 12:34 AM


quote:
My opinion of Noah's ark is that that boat don't float.
  —Pandion
You're probably not aware of the logical fallacy you've committed but thankfully I'm here to point it out to you.
Depending on how you look at you've committed either an argument of incredulity or an argument from ignorance. If I may paraphrase, you are saying, "I/we don't know how this could be done so therefore it can't be don't."
We have very little information about the Ark so it is difficult to judge Noah's construction. Much has been written about the ship. You have cited some examples where engineers have struggled to build practical, large wooden ships. However, one problem with the examples you've cited is they were built for navigation including masts. This would have been an unnecessary feature on Noah's Ark and his ship would not have suffered for it. You have also failed to cite other examples such as Zheng He treasure ships which, according to some reports, were as long as the Ark.
Much has been written about this subject - far more than I can include here. But suffice it to say that your incredulity alone is not evidence that the Ark could not have been built.
Edited by Blackwodin, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Otto Tellick
Member (Idle past 2321 days)
Posts: 288
From: PA, USA
Joined: 02-17-2008


Message 255 of 453 (529640)
10-09-2009 11:15 PM
Reply to: Message 254 by Blackwodin
10-09-2009 6:55 PM


As I understood the OP, it's not a matter of incredulity or ignorance. It's a matter of having a number of firmly established observations about large ships with wooden hulls. Wood is not rigid enough, and the available means of binding together beams of that size are not strong enough, to eliminate severe flexing of the beams and failures in the bindings. The joints leak, and this would happen regardless of whether there are masts or not.
BTW, if you think masts would have been unnecessary, you would have to make up some story about how the ark could be steered into the wind to avoid being capsized by waves. Or else you would have to make up some story about how the waves wouldn't have been so very big, but then you'd have to reconcile that scenario with how the flood could have caused all the geological mayhem that creationists attribute to it, without making waves.
Of course, all that mayhem consists of made up stories as well, having absolutely no plausibility in relation to actual physical processes of fluid dynamics, erosion, sedimentation, volcanism, and so on. So it's really just a matter of trying to reconcile some incompatible flights of pure imagination, each of which is equally at odds with reality.
OBVIOUSLY, GOD COULD HAVE MADE ANYTHING POSSIBLE, given any typical definition of "GOD". But then, why not have Noah just build a big box that God could then cause to float in the air or be teleported to a safe place -- Mars, maybe -- while He destroyed the rest of land life on earth?
Simple answer: the Hebrew culture in the millennia Before Christ had no concept of science fiction comparable to what we have today, so they could not make up such a story. And there's also the fact that some slightly earlier culture already had this nifty ark idea going around in the popular mythology.
If you want to tell your kids "amazing stories", there's no problem with that -- whether they believe the stories or not is their own business. Whether you believe the stories or not is your own business. Trying to assert the stories as fact (even asserting the possibility that such stories could be factual despite plenty of clear evidence to the contrary) is another matter. It doesn't work.
I could just as well say "We have very little information about the turtle who carries the world on its back, so it is difficult to judge the turtle's color. Much has been written about the turtle..." Same thing.
{Added by edit:} Having "little information" about the ark, and having "much written about it", strikes me as a very enlightening statement about the subject: so much writing, and so little information...
Edited by Otto Tellick, : (added last paragraph)

autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

This message is a reply to:
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