Brings up a few questions for me. One being to wonder if it may represent a critter that diverged from an ancestral group. Whatever group of pre-mammals that would go on to develop the complex ear bones arrangement may have split before that was accomplished. Could be that that splinter lineage endured for some time before becoming extinct. Speciation isn't tidy, and here we're looking at the origins of a higher level classification than species. It will be interesting to see how the pieces come together.

I strongly doubt that any future discoveries will ever dissuade those looking for evidence of a godly intervention which did not involve evolution. Funny that xtians who are more than ready to attribute pure magic to god's creative methods are so willing to rule out evolution as His chosen means. Hard to see how xtians will be inheriting anything if that is predicated on their meekness or humility.

(June 27, 2014 at 7:16 am)Stimbo Wrote: Is there a similar example of the text making clear the flood was anything other than global?

another 'world' example - Caesar decree was issued for 'all the world' to be registered. his authority only extended as far as the roman empire. the decree was understood not to be global.

(July 3, 2014 at 1:54 am)snowtracks Wrote:

(June 27, 2014 at 7:16 am)Stimbo Wrote: Is there a similar example of the text making clear the flood was anything other than global?

another 'world' example - Caesar decree was issued for 'all the world' to be registered. his authority only extended as far as the roman empire. the decree was understood not to be global.

Gen 6:6;7

Quote:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Gen 7:4

Quote:4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

Apologetics, AHOY!

In fact genesis is pretty clear on there global aspect. 'All of the earth' and all that, unless you're saying that this omnipotent, omniscient god didn't know where the boundaries of the 'earth' were...you know, this planet it supposedly created?

Have you ever been called a heretic before?

Thank you. What I was asking for was a reference in the text describing this flood which makes it clear it was a local, rather than global, event - not examples of similar language employed elsewhere in the book in a hyperbolic sense. I don't care what Caesar said; he wasn't there at the flood nor was he describing it. Clearly the flood narrative in context is quite unambiguous on the point of its being worldwide and can't in all conscience be interpreted otherwise.

When will people read the damn fairy tale? It plainly states that the Garden of Eden naked Adam & Eve ran around in with the talking snake was just down the road from Cush and Assyria. Then after the flood Nimrod waltzes into Assyria and builds several cities. There was no flood of wet liquid water. It was a flood of Assyrian troops sweeping over the land killing, raping, pillaging, and being bad asses. The story is told as a flood of water because fiction makes better stories than truth does and it's easier to remember.

The bottom line: There was no goddamn flood of water that ever covered the tallest mountain in the world. It's embarrassing that 21st Century American adults believe in such shit.

Maybe what really happened is that all of those troops doused their enemies with urine. After repeated retellings, the term "golden shower" morphed into "global flood." Because the latter was more poetic and far less icky.

Sounds legit.

Yeah, lets go with that.

Okay any other thorny bible issues need resolving or are we done here?

(July 2, 2014 at 9:12 am)Jenny A Wrote:

(July 1, 2014 at 8:48 pm)snowtracks Wrote: nice try - these thoughts ( 1 & 2) go together - 1) Because of the complexity of the bone arrangement, some scientists have argued that the innovation arose just once—in a common ancestor of the three mammalian groups. 2) Now, analyses of a jawbone from a specimen of Teinolophos trusleri, a shrew-size creature that lived in Australia about 115 million years ago, have dealt a blow to that notion. The recently discovered fossil, one of six jawbones by which the species is known, is also the best preserved, says Thomas H. Rich, a paleontologist at the Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. Rich and his colleagues describe their find in the Feb. 11 Science.

New data caused scientists to revise their opinion about whether the mammalian ear bones developed once or twice among mammals. That's it. The shrew sized creature does not call evolution into question, just clarifies one of the details.

Again notice that the shrew is brought to you by scientists openly and proudly discussing it. So the scientists (notice that it was some not all of them) who thought that the mammalian ear bones developed from one common ancestor will have to revise their opinion about the development of the ear bones in mammals. New data has clarified a detail. That's how science is done.

Creationism, on the other hand is done by looking for arguments among scientists and declaring that any disagreements about the details of how evolutions occurred prove god created the universe.

did you know that disproving evolution, doesn't prove God? after moses was given instruction by God, he asked: who should i say sent me? the answer was 'I am who I am". in other words, God proves God.

Checkmate Atheists!