Maybe they were just too darn big to get on the Ark.
According to that story, the remains of a dinosaur that could’ve been 157 feet long were found earlier this year in Argentina.
Think about that. If you placed that animal’s nose on home plate in Yankee Stadium and stretched it down the right-field foul line, the end of its tail would be half-way to the fence! Another comparison would be to put its nose on a NFL football field goal line; its tail would end up 7 feet beyond the fifty-yard-line!
And it could’ve been ten feet longer than that!
cmkeller, did dinosaurs truly live or are their remains just more fake evidence planted by God to make the Earth appear to be older than it really is?
Oh, and get a dictionary, will ya? According to Webster’s, the verb forge means “to make or imitate falsely with the intent to defraud.” Your example of someone who copies a piece of art and then ADMITS it is a copy is NOT an example of forgery. A forger is someone who copies an existing piece of art or an artist’s style and then claims it is authentic, a genuine work by the copied artist.
Sorry, jab; but for those who accept the inerrancy of the Genesis account (and nope, I’m not one of the literalist/inerrantists), either the dinosaurs didn’t exist or they took the trip with Noah. As the verses I cited above show, the Genesis account says every animal went with old Noah. The only species to have been wiped out (with the exception of Noah and his fellow human passengers) was Humanity, according to the Genesis account.
For those who’ve read “Orphans of the Sky,” my apologies for using the term “take the trip.” I’m not implying that the dinosaurs went to “Far Centauri” as it did in that SciFi novel.
Tough to say, but I’d lean toward the latter explanation.
Then why do you insist on referring to the Biblical G-d as a forger? He created the apparently-old Earth, and wrote the Bible to tell us, “This isn’t as old as it looks.”
But why did he only impart this knowledge to one group of people? Why were all the other people of the world unworthy? Weren’t they equally his creations? What did they do that made then unworthy? How were they to know that what they were doing made them unworthy?
Before any revelations to Abram, weren’t all men basically the same, having the same biological background, coming from the same ancestors? It sounds awfully arbitrary to me…and there’s nothing that frightens me more than a being in power who acts arbitrarily.
This violates Occam’s Razor so many times I nearly cut myself You must also believe that God removed any evidence of a global flood to preserve the “illusion”. And that light from stars was created “in route”, etc.
If you are going to believe in a trickster diety, why not assert that the Bible is the “fake” (since it is at best indirectly created by God) and the universe (his direct handiwork) is the real truth? I would think his direct work were more likely true than words written by man.
Thanks. Now perhaps you can also define the words “every” and “all” as they were used in Chapter 6 of Genesis (bolding brought to you by Monty):
The only way for it to work for the dinosaurs to not have been on the Ark is if they were plants and not animals. Or an even more plausible explanation is that the Deluge Story is just a myth.
cmkeller said “Most of the waters were not natural.”
Were they salty or fresh? If fresh, they would’ve killed all marine life. If salty, they would’ve killed all fresh-water life. Or was it some kind of magical water that would keep any type of aquatic life alive? If so, God could’ve created water that could have kept everything alive except people. And the Ark would’ve been necessary only for Noah and his family.
What, are you going to tell us that the seas were all fresh water before the Flood? Or that the rivers, streams, ponds and lakes were salty?
Well, I know you are upset by calling G-d a forger, but that’s what you just said! In addition, you have said that G-d gave us a brain that he doesn’t want us to use! Because if we use it, we see evidence that points to an old earth and universe, and a book that says it isn’t. I’m sorry, but if what you have said is true, that means G-d is a real jerk and would rather we all follow blindly than study the world. In all my years of “Hebrew school,” I was taught that Jews were studious and interested in learning. Now you are telling me that Jews shouldn’t be interested in learning, just in rereading an old book. That is, frankly, sad.
All fair questions, and here’s the answer: they’re not unworthy; the book is there to be learned; the Israelites are supposed to spread the word.
The Israelites were worthy of the favor of getting to witness the big parade and hoo-ha at Sinai because Abraham was, in an idolatry-filled world, the first one to come to recognition of G-d independently. As a reward, G-d told Abraham that his descendants by Sarah were in for a treat. However, all are welcome to learn it if they wish. Jethro, for example, was welcomed in, even though he wasn’t an Israelite.
As for how the nations were supposed to know if they were doing anything wrong, the Bible says that there were prophets assigned to minister to the nations, including Job and Balaam.
hardcore:
I won’t deny that at all. However, while I admit Occam’s razor has its uses, I consider it a last resort, to be used when two contradictory things absolutely can’t be reconciled. In that case, which of the two must get the boot? Occam’s razor. However, I don’t consider this to be such a case, since G-d is, by definition, omnipotent, and his reasons for creating things the way he did might not be apparent to humans.
There’s an interesting bit of logic. “If I believe in a diety (detectable nowhere but in the Bible), then why not believe that the Bible (the only source for my knowledge of the diety) is fake, and that the universe (which only the Bible tells us he created) is in fact the way it appears to be?”
If I believed the Bible were fake, there would be no basis for the belief in G-d to begin with. And you seem to be of the understanding that I believe the Bible to be “indirectly” his work, and the physical universe to be his only direct creation. Not true. In (Orthodox) Jewish belief, the Bible is G-d’s direct work as well.
Monty:
Or if they had already been extinct prior to the flood.
DavidB:
No, I said he created an imitation. Look again at the definition.
Not at all true! What I have said was that G-d gave us a universe with certain properties and scientific principles to be of use to us, and he gave us the Bible to explain what we wouldn’t otherwise know from regular observation of the universe. And in both spheres, he expects us to use our minds to draw conclusions based on properly applied logic.
It’s sad that this is the conclusion you’ve managed to draw from my statements. Certainly Jews are interested in learning. However, the Bible, to us, isn’t just “some old book.” It’s the word of G-d, a carefully crafted work of infinite depth which our ancestors were privileged to receive in a miraculous ceremony involving national-scale communication from G-d himself. And, as such, it is worthy of much “re-reading”…to quote from the Talmud, “You could read it 100 times, and still learn new things from a 101st reading.”
And so we should just believe what somebody claims to be “the word of G-d” rather than the actual alleged creation around us. You call it an “imitation” – well, try telling the bank that you’re giving them an “imitation” dollar bill. It’s a forgery, Chaim, and no amount of word games will change that.
Those two guys, and maybe a couple of their friends, were supposed to make it to every nation in the world? Vikings, Swedes, Mongols, Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Huns, Jutes, Danes, Magyars, Arabs, Indians, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Pacific islanders, Australian aborigines, Native (north and south) Americans, African tribesman, Eskimos…who did I miss? Not a single person among all this peoples, throughout the history of humanity, has been able to live up to G-d’s standards, except 1 guy? It sounds to me like the standards are too high, if the odds are only 1 in…say 9 billion (number of people who have lived through all history) that someone lives up to them. Sheesh, I’m more likely to win the lottery 3 times in a row (or have evolved(!)).
I don’t want my questions above to sound like they’re belittling your faith or heritage…I simply don’t understand the basis for that faith and am trying to find a reasonable, logical explanation for it.
Sixseatport: I would say that faith is its own basis. You either have it or you don’t. If you have it, you look for ways to support it. If you don’t, you don’t need to do that.
Well, you wouldn’t be accused of fraud, then, would you? That’s my point. Forgery is handing them the imitation dollar bill and saying it’s a real dollar bill. Because of your atheist leanings, you wish to view religious belief in the worst possible light, preferring the word “forgery” (which implies criminal fraudulent intent) to “imitation” (which does not). But if one subscribes to Biblical religious belief, the latter term is the appropriate one.
sixseatport:
These are just examples, drawn from the Middle-East millieu of the Israelite nation. Naturally (at least according to Orthodox Jewish beliefs) there were others to minister other regions.
Moors, Turks, Slavs, Siberians…I assume Caribs are included in you “Native North and South Americans”…
I’m not quite sure what this question refers to. Many people are able to live up to G-d’s expectations.
Monty:
And I see that you have confused Christian-style evangelism with actual Judaic belief regarding other nations.
In the last month on this board:[ul][li]I have been witnessed to by an Atheist – complete with Scriptural prooftext.[]I have been arguing for Mormon doctrine.[]Philosophical alliances have changed faster than underwear.[*]And now Chaim has been accused of being a Christian evangelist.[/ul][/li]
The obvious next step is for Adam to announce his conversion to libertarian atheism!
That isn’t at all clear from your actual arguments. You’ve said that you believe in an old universe, but you have also said that the sloth physically travelled to SA (rather than being teleported there by God) and have argued over whether mammoths could remain non-miraculously frozen during the Flood. So I think you can understand why I would wonder whether you believe that synclines and anticlines were created de novo or are the result of the Flood, despite having explained your beliefs “numerous times before.”
**
But this is a total straw man- it doesn’t even remotely address what I actually said. I never asked you to abandon your beliefs simply because of what someone said on the message board. What I did was to criticize you for your clear double standard. You have stated that you have a particular standard of proof, and once that standard of proof is met, then even the most massive evidence against a claim no longer counts. But when I ask you what you would do if Mormons met your standard of proof, you don’t say, “I’d talk to some Mormons and make certain that they really claim to be descended from 6 million people who saw God.” Instead you say that you’d talk to the rabbis and find out why the Mormon’s six million ancestors don’t count as much as your own.
**
But this is a clear double standard. Why couldn’t the event at Sinai have been caused by a sorceror? Throughout this discussion you’ve been using precisely the same logic used by every other theist who wants to fancy himself as having rationally proven his beliefs. You create a standard of proof which is tailored to prove whatever your mother taught you (“I don’t believe in Islam because Mohammed didn’t rise from the dead,” “I don’t believe in Judaism because the Torah isn’t miraculously beautiful like the Koran,” "Mormonism is the only true form of christianity, because reading the BoM caused a ‘burning in my breast,’) and if you come dangerously close to finding another religion that meets your standard of proof anyway, then you have to find some sort of new (and oftentimes rather arbitrary) disqualifying condition (‘Jim Jones raised the dead, but the Bible tells us that the devil can perform miracles too’) Plus, you say that it’s not a big deal to discard one or two teensy-weensy rules of logic, just like every other person who wants to fancy himself as being rational when he thinks irrationally. If you discard Occam’s Razor, you can prove anything at all. * That’s why people do it! *
Allow me to clarify: I believe that G-d created the universe, with the appearance of antiquity, 5760 years ago. I also believe that all land-based animal life was wiped out 4704 years ago, with the exception of breeding pairs (and some extras of humans and sacrificial animals) preserved on an ark. Thus, anything implying the universe, Earth, living beings, etc. pre-date the 5760 mark is explained as part of G-d’s imitation-aged creation, while any discrepancies re: the flood do have to have some explanation.
Your definition of “double standard” was that I wouldn’t immediately abandon my beliefs, but rather, I’d ask my Rabbis to provide a satisfactory explanation of why they say the beliefs they taught me are superior to the message board stuff (and then decide whether I was satisfied with their answer).
Sorry; I thought that was a given…“meeting my standard of proof” would include their having answered those questions. However, after hearing what they have to say, I’d still ask my Rabbis; after all, it’s entirely possible that there is a critical difference that I, not being a Rabbi, am unaware of that they are.
Because at the event of Sinai, all millionm plus of the people heard what they agreed was G-d’s voice…not heard a human or human-like being say that he or she was a god.
I did not create that standard of proof. The writer (whoever it may be; of course, I believe it was G-d) of Deuteronomy did.
Occam’s razor is never a proof in any case. Occam’s razor is a reason to believe one thing over another. If you had proof, Occam’s razor wouldn’t be necessary to begin with.
You must also believe that God removed any evidence of a global flood to preserve the “illusion”. And that light from stars was created “in route”, etc.
