the bible consists of a lot of books which some people decided to combine into a single book, so the bible was EDITED. valid information in one book does not necessarily give validity to the entire bible.
this is about REVELATIONS only.
the word chernobyl means wormwood. wormwood is a plant which grows in the area around the chernobyl reactor, hence its name. of course it could still have been named something else. revelations says a star falls to earth poisoning 1/6 of the land and water. it says quite specifically “the name of the star is wormwood.” a nuclear reactor operates on the fission of uranium or plutionium atoms. i do not know of any sustained nuclear fission reaction in nature. the only sustained nuclear reaction i know of is fusion in a STAR. a star uses gravity to produce the temperatures and pressures to produce a continuous hydrogen bomb explosion. this is impossible on a planet. so the “star falling to earth” in revelations is an interesting analogy. who knew about nuclear reactions 2000 years ago or that radioactive maerial was poisonous. who would you calculate the probability of the only explosive nuclear reactor accident being named wormwood.
velly intelesting. and it happend in our lifetimes. wonder what “the whore of babylon” stands for. not the catholic church, surely.
One problem I have with the question being dealt with here is that it seems like both sides in the argument usually insist on painting it in black and white. Hey, I’m posting this on the Straight Dope Message Board, and writing it in a library. Strangely enough, there are works of fiction here. Does the fact that they are not factual accounts (though many have their own virtues) mean that nothing I find here can be trusted. Do hiryuu’s discourses on the importance of phi and JDT’s rants on the foreskin mean that nothing of intelligence has ever been said on this board, or conversely does the high signal-to-noise ratio on this board mean that I ought to give credence to those two posters’ betes noires?
It’s entirely possible that portions of the books of Kings are quite factual accounts (told from the POV of someone who thinks that kings’ longevity and prowess are in direct proportion to their piety) of the history of two small Middle Eastern kingdoms. This does not therefore validate the historicity of the novel about the Persian royal consort who risked her life to save her people, or mean that the prophecies of Ezekiel are less literal statements than the product of someone under the influence of some sort of hallucinogen (possibly from his own body’s biochemistry).
There are manuscripts containing significant portions of the existing text dating back to within a couple of hundred years of the composition of the New Testament and to the first century B.C. for much of the Hebrew Bible. There’s an extensive scholarship aimed at identifying the most accurate reading from among textual variants. And there is absolutely no proof outside the Bible that some particular miraculous event described in the Bible happened in the particular way the Bible describes. Which of these issues are we trying to resolve? And why?
I thought it was clear from my first post - we’re discussing dreamer’s belief in the Bible. In particular, she claimed in the earlier thread that there was evidence outside the Bible that proved it was true.
OK, you (and I) don’t think there is any such proof.
But dreamer does.
She thinks the earth is thousands of years old, but I don’t.
So we’re discussing sources, which can offer support for our views. (Mine are talkorigins.)
I note that usually discussions between fundamentalists and atheists usually break up, rather rudely. Well this one hasn’t so far, because fortunately dreamer and I are polite.
And other well-mannered posters such as yourself are welcome to join in.
You see? You see what happens when the rational mind applies itself to spiritual matters. Theology! All theology is at best hokum, and the worst…well, no need to point that out.
The very best work on this subject…well, the best I’ve read at least…is Finkelstien and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed. Their point of view is that most of our concern with the Old Testament derives from a desire to have it be seen as an accurate historical document. In truth, it fails any archeological support, and, * if it weren’t the Bible*, would receive no more notice than any other primitive origin-myth.
If you read the Bible as an excercise in spiritual communion, facts are as irrelevent as they are when you are reading poetry. If you would read the Bible as history, you must compare it against the archeological record.
If you try to both, you are most likely on a fools errand.
Interesting observation. If 90% of the water were stored in the underground “fountains of the deep” and only 10% as water vapor to provided the “40 days and nights” of rain, the surface temperatures and pressures would be unbearable. At least it would as humans are now constituted.
If the total water were 5 miles high then 10% of that is a column 0.5 miles, or 2600 ft. high. That much water exerts a pressure of 1100 psi. Water vapor weighs the same as water so that much water vapor in the atmosphere would exert a surface partial pressure of 1100 psi. However, at ordinary temperatures that much pressure would liquify the vapor so the temperature of the water vapor, in order to remain as vapor, would have to be above the critical temperature which for water is 374[sup]o[/sup]C (705[sup]o[/sup]F).
This means Noah and his shipbuilders were working in an atmosphere at 1100 psi and 705[sup]o[/sup]. They weren’t sissies in those days.
If I could show you my heart, allow you to read my mind and feel what’s in my soul, then I would GLADLY show you the evidence that convinced me Czarcasm. Since I cannot I will go back to what this thread is suppossed to be about - Evidence.
(I tried to find the LA Times article but it’s in the archives and you have to pay for it)
continuing…
So the question is, can you argue that this could possibly be evidence?
I’d also like your feedback on this…
Could you, from now on, please tell us where your quotes are from, dreamer? “…This is being haralded…” by whom?
You ask if the possible finding of a building is evidence. Evidence of what? What does the finding of this building signify to you?
What part of the Bible is supported by the finding of this structure?
Was this certainty that is in your “heart” and soul ever evidence that was external to your heart and soul? If so what was it? If it was always internal to you, as a revelation maybe, then it is testimonial evidence from one who has an interest in the outcome of the debate and is therefore not unbiased.
No one denies that you will find evidence of floods all over the world. The question is; are they the same flood as described in Genesis? Even if this archaeological find is dated at the presumed date of Noah’s flood it still doesn’t prove anything about a simultaneous, worldwide flood from which one family escaped by building an ark.
This is certainly evidence that there was once a settlement that is now below the surface of the Black Sea. That is all it is exidence of.
I don’t think that you have yet produced any evidence other than a private revelation to you, or citations from the Bible which is the very book for which external evidence is asked.
Then I give up. You win. There is no evidence anywhere in the world of a loving, all knowing, all powerful creator who loves the ones he made in life and in death. None. No God who gave his creation the ability to love, to question, to seek to find the meaning of life. No God who made an earth so full of beauty, natural wonders and life itself so complex and yet so simple.
I can’t prove him to you. I never will and we all know that. The evidence to me is in everything I see, hear, feel and experience every single day of my life. The evidence that there is a loving God out there who loves me despite all the things I do and will do, all the things I am and am not. Who loves me when I am at my worst. A God who can take me back into his arms when I have run as far away as I could to get away. A God who undersands me when I cry out because I have done something terrible to someone else. How could I possibly prove any of that to any of you. Never in a million years will that be possible.
I’m sorry if I’ve dissappointed any of you but I see no reason to continue on posting when your really never going to believe a word of anything to be true.
Ballard has indeed brought some evidence to light which indicates that the Bosporus (the narrow channel where the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea meet today) had been blocked until about 7-9 thousand years ago. Prior to this time, the Black Sea was a much smaller inland fresh-water lake. However, some time between 7000 and 9000 years ago, the “Bosporus Dam” broke, and the salty waters of the Mediterranean flooded into the Black Sea, raising the water level by several hundred feet.
This flood would have been catastrophic for anyone living near the Black Sea. Not only would the entire coastline have been submerged in under a year, but all the fresh-water marine life that had previously been living in the Black Sea would have been killed as the water increased in salinity. And, of course, anyone who’d previously relied on the Black Sea for their drinking water would have been out of luck.
Ballard’s evidence is intriguing, but is not conclusive. However, even if Ballard is 100% correct and the Black Sea really was on the receiving end of a catastrophic flood at about the time the Epic of Gilgamesh (and the story of Noah) were supposed to have taken place, this flood does not match the flood story in Genesis. The Bosporus flood would have been caused by the rupture of a natural dam; the Genesis flood was supposed to have been caused by a combination of severe rains and suddenly-erupting groundwater springs. The Bosporus flood only affected the area surrounding the Black Sea; the Genesis flood was supposed to have covered the entire Earth in water.
And, finally, evidence for a flood that may have inspired the myth of Noah in the Old Testament is not evidence for God.
—The evidence to me is in everything I see, hear, feel and experience every single day of my life.—
But things you see cannot JUST “be” evidence: to be evidence you have to explain HOW they demonstrate what you claim they do.
—How could I possibly prove any of that to any of you. Never in a million years will that be possible.—
Heck, I’ll settle for learning about your explanation of how you can prove it to yourself.
Pure speculation here, but I would imagine that it’s possible that a natural catastrophe of such proportion could affect local weather, plus underground water courses could, as a result of the (fairly)sudden influx, become blocked with silt and start ‘backing up’, or start flowing in reverse for that portion of their length that was beneath the new sea level.
