If the world was created with a uniform climate prior to the great flood, how did polar bears, arctic penguins, tropical parrots, and dessert dwelling snakes all survive simultaneously? Considering that humans were supposedly present during this flood (eg. Noah), it must have been relatively recently in geological terms. These animals would not have had enough time to evolve to their current states between then and now, so they must have existed prior to the flood, and have already evolved. How did the plants on Earth survive prior to the flood without seasonal variation? The bible is full of ridiculous contradictions.

I'm with you on this one 100% Don! There is no point in believing in religion because we are scared of what might happen on the off chance that it is correct. I wouldn't want anything to do with a God that uses fear tactics anyway.

Planetwatcher:
What we have to lose, is our ability to see things objectively, and to advance as a civilisation. Centuries were wasted because of humanity's obsession with religion. These centuries are rightly called "the dark ages".

Kashi

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Climate Change Australia

Well... in the chinese tradition a great flood at the same time (give or take a few years) as the biblical flood is recorded. I have no idea if the chinese say this was godsent or not. Babylonian texts (well .. their equivalent) talk about it too. Outside of these cultural reports there are, as far as I know (ie have read about), layers within the earth that show that there has been at least one worldwide flood. The evidence is found in terms of beds of sandstone, clay, shale, etc, all of which must have been placed where they are as the settling of great, sudden and violent floods.

Now ... often times myths have their roots in truth anyway. To my mind it is more likely that there was a devestating flood which the people attributed to a god rather than the other way around which says that a bunch of different civilizations made up the same story.

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The poor polar bear walking around on a nice tropical island.

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Climate Change Australia

A global flood would require much more water than what there is on Earth, as far as I know. Where did it come from, and where did it go? Local floods I can agree on. How could the people back then know that a flood was global, anyway? They had no knowledge about most of the rest of the world?

What you are describing is known as precession. It is the result of the Earth's slow, top-like wobble around its axis and does not affect the axial tilt but only which direction to which the poles point. (The magnitude of the tilt does vary by a few degrees on a semi-regular basis with a period of about 45,000 years.)

Presumably the 23.5 degree tilt was caused during the Big Whack when a planetoidal impactor known as Orpheus struck the young Earth about 4.5 billion years ago.

Dave Mitsky

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Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

As to the original question of the Genesis Flood - there are Flood Myths about most cultures. Some Christians argue this therefore means that there was a worldwide flood.

More prosaicly, perhaps, it is more likely just a symptom of the fact that human cultures always settled by sources of water - most commonly, water courses. And, of course, water courses rarely flood catastrophically.

Therefore the existence of Flood Myths worldwide is a reflection of very real local human histories, rather than a global one.

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...And Noah's ark, which was found high on Mt. Ararat, right where it was said to be was a local myth too wasn't it.

Kashi said that it must have been fairly recent for animals to have not evolved differently. I think that is a given.
I can't tell you how polar bears got to the artics, or how rattle snakes got into the western United States. Nobody ever found their bus tickets.

Parker said a universal flood would have required more water then is on Earth today. Another given. If that water was still here in its old form then we'd still be flooded. But water evaporates, it freezes, it soaks into the Earth, it is over 90% of the human body's composition, as well as animals, and plants.
So where is all the water from the universal flood? Where did it go?
It is in your body, in your spouses body, in your pet whatever, in the cement that built your roads, and your communitity.
In the wood, which came from the trees which was watered. In the lava and ash from the Mt. St. Helen's 1980 eruption.

It is in the last rainfall in your area, and in the first snowflake you see next month. In the snow you plow and shovel this winter, and in the garden you water next spring. It is even in the beverage you are drinking as you read my posting, and think about how lame my reply is.
It cooled the plastic metals your computer is made of before it came out of it's mold. It is even in the plastic and metals. It's in the glass window off to your side.

Water from the universal flood is everywhere, in many forms, in changed chemical composition, as well as in the great lakes, the seas, and polar ice caps.
You have the ability to ask for evidence of a universal flood because it is why you are now here. Not some great cosmic accident.

But nobody has explained how a yaht sized boat got most of the way up a mountain.
Maybe the Egyptians hauled it up there piece by piece, before they built the pyrmids and the Spinix, just so that the Christians today can present evidence to a 4,000 year old fairy tale.

Speaking of the Egyptians, do any of you know how they got a hold of so much gold as what they had in their accent culture?

To get that much gold, they must have built up a good share of their agracultural reserves over a span of good crop years, and held it until a great famane spanning several years occured, and then sold their grain for gold, (at greatly inflated rates) But that was a local myth too wasn't it.

Not surprisingly, it was a hoax. If it's not, then where is the evidence? And why am I asking for evidence that would prove a fictional story?

:huh: i dont think there is any use trying to cross examinate scientific 'evidence' in religious traditions/ chronicles.
Noah could very well be just a parable, of a religious/philosophical/teaching impact,
how can you seriously talk about Noah on scientific level in year 2003 ?

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If you remember the bible never says anything about putting on microscopic life onboard Noah's ark, they didn't know about microscopic life when the bible was written, but surely microscopic life would have had too go onto the ark to survive.

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Planetwatcher, the water you mention would be a miniscule fraction of what is required to flood the whole Earth. Honestly! Do the math it you'll see how ridiculous it is.

I've talked to someone who knows alot about the bible, and apparently in the original Hebrew translation, the word for "whole Earth" technically just means "the known Earth". It could have been just that region that was flooded.

This doesn't explain why Noah needed to save the animals. Perhaps this is just a metaphor for saving a few of his prize winning goats :P

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Climate Change Australia

Firstly, Matthew, the bible says "animals" and then goes to describe them as beasts, birds ... etc. Microscopic life forms aren't considered animals.

Now ... I'm sure yesterday I read in here that Parker wrote about 8 things or questions regarding the ark story. Where did that post go? Parker? did you remove it? Now most of those 8 I would have said could be explained away using religious texts etc .. BUT ... the question (unless I dreamt that i read this) about being able to trace back every animal on earth to mt ararat in Turkey got me. I can't see how the bible answers that one. The only answer I can see believers able come up with is "It's a miracle". So how did an indigenous kangaroos of australia, for eg, manage to make there way to the ark and then when it stopped make it back to australia without any trail of dead kangaroos along the way and without other settlements of kangaroos throughout the world .. given that it only happened about 3500 years ago.

Yeah .. good question.

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Ahh .. the stuff about Noah and his ark antics is in the Bible and the Big Bang thread on this page close to the bottom. I knew I wasn't going crazy

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Are you denying the earth is flat still, DO YOU DENY THE EXISTANCE OF GOD!
DO YOU HOLD TO YOUR BEILIEF THAT THE EARTH REVOLVES AROUND THE SUN!
PAGAN :angry: PAGAN :angry: BURN Josh at the STAKE him and parker his non believing freinds BRING BACK THE INQUISITION :angry:

WHEN will you sinners learn, repent repent, or your sole will surly burn in HELL :angry:

AMEN :wacko:

anyone got a coke :unsure:

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Hell is going to be one hell of an interesting place. And you can't burn me at the stake ... I'm vegetarian. Burn my at a celery stick (celery ... YUCK).

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Hehe, yes I admit that I do not believe in the big guy in the sky. I admit it; I'm an atheist heathen satanist pagan. I have no excuse ;-)


Serious note:
A belief that needs to be upheld by the means of terror, oppression and burning people, is a belief that completely lacks evidence or support in any way. (As if we didn't know that already!)

Ah, but there are 'animals' that the human eye cannot see. Are they microscopic?

Or maybe I'm just mistaken.

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MacTalk - The Australian Apple Community - iPod, iPhone and Mac.

Parker .. you satanist. If you are a satanist you have to accept that satan was a fallen angel and created by god. How do you explain THAT? hehe

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Terror? Is that how we can save your eternal soul, hangon :huh:

Serious note, if we all have eternal souls, I guess time must be infinate and therefore, theologically speaking, so must space

What's the matter Josh :angry: Isn't Gods meat good enough for Ya :angry: Eh, Eh?

ps I'm vegatarian as well

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you guys are freakin me out here =/

... :mellow:

:unsure:

um... are people burning yet?
...did i miss the good parts? did any1 bring marshmellows...?

=P

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. ..-={A}=-.. .

the thread seems to have wandered a great deal over the course of the discussion, but in a (possibly futile) attempt to return to one of the orriginal topics i must say that the current thinking regarding the axial tilt of the earth is understood as being a relic of the formation of the earth-moon system. the collision of the primordial bodies that resulted in our current "double planet" system, a circumstance which is unique in our solar system, was almost certainly the cause of the earth's current 23.5 degree tilt. in the view of many biologists, the seasonal variation resulting from our axial inclination, together with the complex tidal effects of the moon on our oceans and weather, is largely responsible for creating the conditions on earth that make life possible.

starrman

Planetwatcher said:

found? when? and where is it now?

and on Mt. Ararat? which Mt. Ararat? the one in present-day turkey? or the one in gaza? or the one in syria?

enquiring minds want to know.

starrman