The Christian Taliban

#251
#251
VolsSportsFan said:
And they continue to confuse evolution and abiogenesis; related but not nearly the same thing, nor would any scientist ever claim abiogenisis is anything more than a widely accepted hypothesis.

Contrary to what seems to be believed, as far as what started it all, science has no problem saying "we don't know".
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Nail on the head.
 
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#252
#252
Grand Vol said:
So explain the Native American tales of the same nature. Or India. They didn't have access to the works of Gilgamesh. Perhaps the Indian civilizations did, but how would the tale of such a thing have crossed the oceans to lands unknown to the Sumerian people?
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All do not have to be based on the same story, and it's more likely there was a real localized flood those NA myths are based on.
 
#253
#253
Grand Vol said:
I have a question for some of the anti-religion crowd.

Specific to the story of Noah's Ark, how do you explain the wide and varied stories of a great deluge in ancient times that happened? Cultures from around the globe speak of a great flood that wipes out civilization except for the few lucky enough to survive it?

Curious as to your thoughts on the matter.
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Ancient cultures with no contact between eachother often will have similar dragon myths. Is your first reaction to assume that the earth was populated by dragons?
 
#256
#256
VolsSportsFan said:
Dinosaurs.

That's another serious answer.
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I know. That's my point. The obvious explanation for dragon myths is the existence of fossils around the world that, to ancient peoples, would appear to have belonged to dragons.

The obvious explanation for flood myths appearing in separate cultures is that they had their own localized floods. Not that the whole planet was flooded.
 
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#257
#257
Well even by the evolution theory humanity began around North Africa, Middle East. The great flood could have been in the Mediterranean and the stories traveled with the peoples as they moved around the globe.
 
#259
#259
VolsSportsFan said:
Depends on what you consider "similar".

I find much more likely than an actual real worldwide flood happened.
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I'm tossing it out for discussion. It just seems strange that many cultures have a common deluge story with details that are very similar, but happen to be vast distances apart and (at least at this time) unknown to each other.
 
#260
#260
Grand Vol said:
I'm tossing it out for discussion. It just seems strange that many cultures have a common deluge story with details that are very similar, but happen to be vast distances apart and (at least at this time) unknown to each other.
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I'll grant you it's fasinating stuff, but I find all this stuff extremely interesting. So much is a mystery.
 
#261
#261
Grand Vol said:
I'm tossing it out for discussion. It just seems strange that many cultures have a common deluge story with details that are very similar, but happen to be vast distances apart and (at least at this time) unknown to each other.
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Accepting the Mormon notion that Native Americans are the lost tribe of Israel would explain how they share the same flood story.
 
#262
#262
Grand Vol said:
I'm tossing it out for discussion. It just seems strange that many cultures have a common deluge story with details that are very similar, but happen to be vast distances apart and (at least at this time) unknown to each other.
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I'm not familiar with what is claimed to be similar about the floods.

What makes them similar?
 
#264
#264
MercyPercy said:
Ancient cultures with no contact between eachother often will have similar dragon myths. Is your first reaction to assume that the earth was populated by dragons?
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Did they all speak like Sean Connery?

Dragons, or mythical evil beasts, do differ from culture to culture. English dragons for example likely come from the Norse and were similar to snakes as they had no appendages originally. Chinese dragons could fly.

Minor differences in the tales, but yes, somehow each culture had a being that eventually would be lumped into the "dragon" category.
 
#266
#266
The reality is that we know there was no global food. The evidence of such a flood would be undeniably easy to observe if it existed. We can theorize and debate how we think the flood myths came about, and if you believe the abundance of the myth is mysterious or not mysterious. It's all inconsequential to the actual geological history of the planet.
 
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#267
#267
Grand Vol said:
I have a question for some of the anti-religion crowd.

Specific to the story of Noah's Ark, how do you explain the wide and varied stories of a great deluge in ancient times that happened? Cultures from around the globe speak of a great flood that wipes out civilization except for the few lucky enough to survive it?

Curious as to your thoughts on the matter.
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Regional catastrophic floods.
 
#268
#268
MercyPercy said:
The reality is that we know there was no global food. The evidence of such a flood would be undeniably easy to observe if it existed. We can theorize and debate how we think the flood myths came about, and if you believe the abundance of the myth is mysterious or not mysterious. It's all inconsequential to the actual geological history of the planet.
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And the Bible is filled with stories about the "world" ending. And likely during a regional flood, the known "world" might have been destroyed.

Which does tread into the area PKT was discussing about the literal translation of the stories of the Bible. You can take them as literal that only a single family survived or you can take it as metaphoric that a regional flood wiped out the known civilization that constituted the "world" at that time.
 
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#269
#269
Grand Vol said:
And the Bible is filled with stories about the "world" ending. And likely during a regional flood, the known "world" might have been destroyed.

Which does tread into the area PKT was discussing about the literal translation of the stories of the Bible. You can take them as literal that only a single family survived or you can take it as metaphoric that a regional flood wiped out the known civilization that constituted the "world" at that time.
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Unfortunately, there are a lot of religious folks who do believe in a literal interpretation of the bible in every aspect, including the story of Noah. As for those believers like you with a more nuanced understanding of reality, I don't have a problem with someone interpreting the story as "a localized flood devestated an area, and to those local peoples who had no worldly knowledge, it might have made sense that all of civilization was being flooded as well". Anything beyond that, I'm not buying.
 
#270
#270
MercyPercy said:
Unfortunately, there are a lot of religious folks who do believe in a literal interpretation of the bible in every aspect, including the story of Noah. As for those believers like you with a more nuanced understanding of reality, I don't have a problem with someone interpreting the story as "a localized flood devestated an area, and to those local peoples who had no worldly knowledge, it might have made sense that all of civilization was being flooded as well". Anything beyond that, I'm not buying.
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So you think some of the stories in the Bible have historical basis?
 
#272
#272
Grand Vol said:
So you think some of the stories in the Bible have historical basis?
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This is a vague question. Obviously, there are aspects of the bible that are based in actual history. For example, Egypt was a real nation. So therefor, one could say that the story of Moses has some basis in history(the setting of the story). However, historians today agree that it is extremely unlikely that any event described in Exodus is historically accurate. So, while technically you can say that something has some basis in history(however small it is), it is not historically accurate.

I'm not sure what kind of answer you wanted, I tried my best to explain why I don't think it's a good question in regards to debating the historicity of the bible(of which there is ample amounts of study and findings on).
 
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#274
#274
VolsSportsFan said:
Pretty much; really no different than a lot of legends and tales.
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The ancients came up with many stories of how life began, most crediting it to a supreme being of one type or another, a God.

There are actual historical events or stories based on events in the OT but as with any historical record, over time it gets twisted and changed to fit different narratives. Like the old saying, the victor writes the history.
 
#275
#275
MercyPercy said:
This is a vague question. Obviously, there are aspects of the bible that are based in actual history. For example, Egypt was a real nation. So therefor, one could say that the story of Moses has some basis in history(the setting of the story). However, historians today agree that it is extremely unlikely that any event described in Exodus is historically accurate. So, while technically you can say that something has some basis in history(however small it is), it is not historically accurate.

I'm not sure what kind of answer you wanted, I tried my best to explain why I don't think it's a good question in regards to debating the historicity of the bible(of which there is ample amounts of study and findings on).
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Well, such as the story of Noah. Would you believe that story to have some historical backing since there is evidence of regional floods that caused major destruction?

Or Jesus for another example. Whether or not you believe in the religious aspects, do you think there was a person that claimed to be the son of God? Too much historical evidence outside of the Bible points towards there being such a man instead of just a myth. And furthermore, how was it the people of that time were so convinced such a man existed?
 
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