More Questions for Christians

[Jenny A]

Sorry, no one reading Jonah would conclude he was dead three days. I can't imagine a resurrection in the Bible not highlighted in bold. The grave he was referring to was a watery one from which the fish saved him at god's command.

The story I remember from memory. And though the whale makes good pics, the point of the story is what happens when a prophet runs from god. Old Jonah was on the lam. The fish tale is just extra that lends additional unbelievability. Shoel, is not a straightforward word to translate. It means Hades, but also destruction.

You're write the story is about a prophet trying to go against God's will, yet within that story there's the Messiah story. Sheol also refers to the grave. Jonah was also in the fish for thee days before he started to pray, the word "Then" in verse 1 of chapter 2 shows us this plainly. The fish did keep Jonah from drowning as was God's plan, but Jonah couldn't have lived in the fish for three days, if he had don't you think he would have had more than one prayer, especially before three days in a fishes belly.

GC

Oh I agree no man could live in a fish for three days. But then no man could be resurrected from the dead either. I find the idea that death and resurrection is the less improbable of the two quite funny. It's fiction either way.

The only real reason for choosing death is to shoehorn the tale into a pre-Jesus three days death and resurrection story. It won't wash for two reasons. First, Jonah is far from an ideal pre-Jesus. Remember he is not a willing victim and he ends up in the sea because he was running from god.

Second, Jonah's prayer is highly poetic and there's no reason to read it as a literal trip to the grave.

Finally, the traditional Jewish understanding of the story, and it is after all their story, is that Jonah was alive all three days. The Christian tendency to rewrite the OT is appalling in i's impudence. Fishy in fact.

[Minimalist]

My conclusion is anyone who plays with himself is desperate and will say many crazy things.


GC

I don't know about the other people here, but I am really quiet when I play with myself. I really can't say anything, I have to concentrate.

G-C doesn't have to concentrate. He's a professional jerk-off.

[abaris]

G-C doesn't have to concentrate. He's a professional jerk-off.

You don't need a diploma for taking a dump either.

[Esquilax]

Again e-lax The Whole Skeleton weighs 7700 pounds. Is it your contention that each vertebra weighs 2000 lbs each?

No, it's my contention that whales are heavy, a claim that I doubt is particularly controversial.

There are 356 bones in a blue whale. if so that is 712,000 lbs, nearly 10 times what a blue whale skellaton actually weighs. But if you take 7700 and divide it be 356 the number of bones the average bone weighs in at 21.629 lbs.. light enough to be pushed around like drift wood by passing waves..

My other contention is that the buoyant parts of a whale are not the bones. Weight has nothing to do with floatation; if I drop a pebble into the tide it'll sink and stay put, but yet as you say, driftwood will float just fine even if it's bigger. It's an issue of density, not weight; as I've already pointed out, only select whale bones are capable of floating by themselves. Otherwise, they sink.

That said, some bones are much heavier than 22lbs. Some can weigh several hundred lbs.. that also means if there are bones heavier than 22lbs the average bone weight must also go down to compsenate for the more dense/larger skull bones. Which again goes back to what i said in the very beginning. 'I have no doubt that some of the heavier skull bones would be found but the much lighter bones should have been washed away by the waves and normal ebb and flow of the tides.'

Unless those lighter bones, few as they are, were shielded from tidal pull by the larger bones. Assuming there actually are any bones in a baleen whale- not a blue whale!- that float alone.

We don't have to pretend or assume anything. I posted links to several confirming articals which also pointed to maps. i am speaking to what has been recorded.

But you don't know the specific physical setup of the outcropping where the fossils are. It's possible for things to be by the ocean without getting tides, you know. Or hell, maybe the tides just plain didn't reach. What I'm saying is, you don't have any idea on the specifics. Nobody does. But only one of us is making firm, declarative statements about what did happen.

That is also known as Argumentum ad hominem. If what i said was uninformed/uneducated then it would have been easy enough for you to address the content of my statement with corrective fact, but rather you chose to attack the messenger rather than the message.

No, an ad hom would be if I insulted you. Telling you you're not a paleontologist isn't an insult, it's a statement of fact. You aren't. As for the content of your argument, I did address it; you simply are not in a position for the statements you are making to be factually based.

This is sufficient justification to dismiss what you say.

The proof i attached to my 'opinion' does indeed trump your hurricane explaination.

But you didn't attach any proof. You attached some vaguely applicable information about the physical setup of the area that doesn't say what you think it does, followed by a bunch of assertions about the tides in the area, millions of years ago. And then you decided to strawman me by pretending my hurricane idea was at all serious.

ahh, no. your opinion aligns itself with those who wrote the artical.

So, where's the peer reviewed data from the on-site paleontologists that state the creatures were deposited there by a worldwide flood event?

I am the one who quoted known verifiable sources concerning the fossilization process, the age and time period in which the area in question could sustain aquadic life, the time period in which the various species lived, I've stated known facts about bone densities, and bone counts, tidal patterns, and the basical fundamentals of tidal errosion.

All of which rely upon highly specific details about an area millions of years ago, which you simply do not have. I've no doubt you've gone to great lengths to cherry pick data to support your position, but given that you're basing all of that upon a set of assumptions about the area that you have no way of knowing, it's all for naught.

To be clear, the scientists on board don't agree with your conclusions. You're paying lip service to science when it suits you- and don't think I haven't noticed your derisive attitude to the topic when it doesn't agree with you, little bit hypocritical there- but if you care so much about the science in this case then you cannot seriously ask me to believe the opinions of a layman with a couple minutes on google over the qualified professional conclusions of trained scientists without completely undercutting your own point.

You blindly believe what is contained in a singular artical and have not crossed those facts with anyother than your faith in 'science.'

Just post the peer reviewed report that states the bones got there in the Noachian flood and we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Again because i have quoted fact, and can verify absolutly everything I have stated from reputiable sources. While you on the other hand keep point to your faith as if that were enough to dismiss the evidence i have provided.

Do you not even see the underlying assumption in your position, that the environmental setup is exactly as you need it to be to invalidate my position, and no different? Where's your justification for that? You haven't given one!

Meanwhile, as I keep pointing out, all your reputable sources do not say that this could only come about via a Noachian flood event, so drawing that conclusion from them is baseless, and an argument from ignorance. You fail to address this point every time, most likely because you have nothing to say in your defense on this critical issue.

What you dont seem to get, is your argueing from a position of faith while trying to retain the typical atheist position of arguing from fact. Again, just so you understand you have no facts. Only faith in those in whom you have deemed smarter than you, and what thay have said in an artical.

Did. They. Ever. Say. It. Had. To. Happen. Via. A. Wordwide. Flood?

And if not, how is it a faith position to dismiss another faith position?

My question is why should anyone believe those who wrote the articals and those who provided the material in the articals if they do not align themselves with known verifiable fact?

So, you're still just assuming that your laymen's google mining is exactly right, and that you haven't misinterpreted the data at all? Your position is "I'm necessarily right, all the time, even in fields I have no training in, and so therefore when the science contradicts me the science must be false... even though I'm using the pretense of science to come to that conclusion"?

Fucking hell, take a step back and look at what you're arguing here.

So the encyclopaedia britannica does not contain 'science', BUT one of the top ten articals your google search found automatically contains a brand of 'science' that can not be questioned? Oh, my goodness you have skipped into the atheist equilivant of a Jonestown level of faith haven't you? Because only the fanitically faith blind commit themselves this deeply to a fallacy of false authority.

It's not just a matter of the articles, Drich. I've yet to see a single reputable source claiming the conclusions you've reached, and you yourself are working from a patchwork of minute-long google searches. You can accuse me of faith all you want, but it's not going to make the shaky basis you're arguing from any more solid.

My flustered brother you can't classify my work as a straw man fallacy if i quoted what you said and addressed it. Nor can you identify my efforts as a false dichotomy unless there are viable alternitives to the two discussed possiablities. That sir would be a fallacy of equivalence.

Although I don't believe it happened, my hurricane idea is still possible. It's unlikely, yes, but it is a third option, which proves that there are additional options you're unaware of. It suits its purpose as a hypothetical, demonstrating that yes, you are guilty of a false dichotomy.

Want a fourth option? Just a local flood. Does the same job without being so needlessly ridiculous as a worldwide one.

which is...

The ordered layering of sediment over time, demonstrating seasonal accumulation of layers that take weeks to form, and yet at no time indicates the passing of a lengthy, worldwide flood.

That's not true. What you're parroting back to me is based on the typical flood plain senerio. where flood water picks up debris from one point and deposits it onto another. Think the of the 04 sunami. water comes in from point A and picks up debris and deposits to point B.

This is not the model of flood described in the bible. The bible describes a flood from the top down and bottom up. (Rain and well springs) This would be more like a large boat being swamped from below with sea water and rain water from above. The vast majority of the boats conents will remain in place.

If it came up from below you'd see a marked disordering of layers on the stratigraphic column both before and during the flood, and you'd still see sedimentary laydown from the flood once it finished... which we don't see. At all. Anywhere.

How is this not what you are doing in your defense?

Because my position is in line with that of the expert's. Yours is not. In fact, yours is directly contradictory of the findings of multiple scientific fields at once.

Here is how this is not what I am doing:
I have clearly stated my arguement was to refute the data provided in the articals several times. i then set out to quote the relevent source material that disprooves what was said in those articals.. You on the other hand keep returning to the dry well of internet articals proping yourself and your arguements up with them as if they are the scientific standards in of themselves. (Isn't that exactly what you just accused me of?)
Project much?

I'm not talking about the articles. I'm talking about the scientists doing their research. In fact, I haven't referenced the articles one time in developing my points here.

If that is what has got you in a tail spin take the flood off the table and ask the same question of the hypothsis reprsented in the internet articals concerning the perservation of said bones in a desert plateau. Do the fact support your articals? the ones you have been refering to as "Science/scientists?"

Look, I understand you posted some news articles. But you do understand that it was actual scientists who excavated, cataloged and investigated the bones, right? Like, you realize there were some actual findings involved here that have nothing to do with the news articles? Why do you keep going back to the articles? They aren't what I'm talking about at all.

Not true. The best I could say is that there are two theories. One the facts concerning fossilization do not support and one the facts of fossilization do indeed support.

Assuming that we take our ideas of how fossilization occurs exclusively from a layman, who is still assuming that he couldn't possibly be wrong and that, instead of the much simpler explanation that he's misunderstanding the data, is going with the idea that his lack of knowledge on the subject has allowed him to find such a glaring flaw in what he thinks is the official story.

Additionally, your "theory" is still contradicted by geology, history, and paleontology in general, not to mention evolutionary biology. So, at best, your "theory" is in accordance with one single, strictly one-scenario set of facts, and discordant with the modern understandings of multiple other scientific fields. It's not as well grounded as you're pretending it is.

Actually i quoted the fossilization process as support of a great flood theory several times.

Yeah, and you still don't know jack about fossilization. Let's not forget, you're a layman just using what feels right to you; you haven't quoted a single goddamn source about fossilization this entire time.

I am asking for a viable hypothsis on how the various marine mamials were fossilized intact. At this point you have to either poop or get off the pot.

They were poisoned by algal blooms, washed up on shore, and were fossilized there. That's the determination of the scientists involved, and your gainsaying of them requires you to have knowledge of the immediate environment of those fossils, millions of years in the past, which you do not have.

It is also common sense that tells us that when a man writes an artical it does not mean he is also taking into consideration all the different variables concerning what he has been told.

Yet again, you strawman me.

It is also common sense that tells us that when a professor of anything is being interviewed for a given artical, he speaks to what he knows and fills in the gaps with material known to him at the time. But often does so with the same authority.

Quit talking about the articles. Nobody is mentioning the articles but you.

It is also good common sense to not take a man (especially hypothetically speaking) on his word nor his degree. But rather we must verify everything. If known fact conflicts with a man's word then common sense tells one to stick with known fact.

Yet again, you're just assuming that your few minutes on google, and limited understanding of the process at hand, has yielded to you concrete facts, even though they conflict with what the actual trained people think. Why are you just dismissing the possibility that you got things wrong out of hand? Are you that arrogant, that you think your few minutes on google is worth more than another man's years of study?

Common sense also states when one compares the predictiable ebb and flow of the literal sea tide with wave partical physics in an attempt to dismiss his way into a position of authority.. It means The man is bluffing, and has nothing of substance in which to counter what is being discussed.

Given that I never made that comparison outside of the strange, poorly spelled, overly literal prism through which you strawman everyone else, I think it's safe to say that I'm not bluffing when I say your reliance on your own ignorance won't get you very far.

Bottom line e-lax, you can't argue the nature of ebb and flow of the tide nor the errosive qualities of simple waves. You only have two options. Eliminate the tidal forces by either removing the moon from the equasion 9 million years ago, or put the ToD in still water, and subsequently silt that would foster fossilization.

Or neither. I could just remind you that neither of us knows what happened, or what the scene looked like when it did. I'd then remind you that you are someone with no education on this topic, and that those who do have that education disagree with your conclusions.

Why do you think that not believing you when you make stupid statements is the same as believing the exact opposite?

To put the ToD in still water we are either talking great flood (Which would account for silt) OR when that portion of land was under the sea pre triassic period. (Which is not consistant with the animals evolutionary progression for that time period.)

Or we could be talking about a local flood. See? Third option, way more believable than your ridiculous fantasy. You're posing a false dichotomy.

...think about that statement for a minute...
What do 'we' have in the way of science and history that would support or deny the life events of one man who live 5000 years ago?

But the bible, which is what you are talking about, isn't just the work of one man, isn't it? It's an account of quite a large span of time, any number of things within which can be demonstrably proved false. Like the great flood, the creation account, Exodus, and so on. That's why I'm saying, you need to look at each claim the book makes individually; confirmation of one is not confirmation of the whole book any more than Spiderman living in New York is confirmation of Doctor Octopus.

[Drich]

riddle me this e-lax

Does science support the notion that these marine mammal bones were deposited, and fossilized on a sea shore?

[Godscreated]

riddle me this e-lax

Does science support the notion that these marine mammal bones were deposited, and fossilized on a sea shore?

Without a great flood it would not be possible, need tons of sediment, but I'm sure he makes something up.

GC

[abaris]

Might do some actual look - see, I even refrain from using the word research in your case - into the matter. Just the first hit cropping up when googling fossils on sea shores. Nice place actually and obviously educational too.

http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/bartononsea.htm

And something scientific about jurrassic coastlines and their formation. OooH, science, scary....

http://www.jurassiccoastline.com/jurassic_fossil.asp

Amd by the way. There are only 12.900.000 results for the search for fossils on sea shores. So it might be a little tricky to find something with so few options.

[Harry37]

1. If the holy spirit inspired which books of the bible were to be canonized, why were hebrews, james and 3 john left out the first few times? Did the spirit change it's mind?:

angel-cloud: Your question is ambiguous, but let me see if I can help. The Bible is the word of God - His word. All scripture is therefore God-breathed. If there were any books of the Bible that were "left out the first few times", they were not "left out" by God. God didn't "canonize" the Bible. He simply declared it to be the truth.

Finally, the Spirit did not "change its mind" since God is immutable. And the Spirit is not an "it"; He's one of the Persons of the Godhead.

2. Do you believe jonah really was able to live in a fish and survive?

Yup.

3. Is the entire bible the truth?

Yup.

4. If the entire bible is the truth, how do we not accept slavery anymore? How do we say homosexuality is ok?

First, who's the "we" who don't accept slavery anymore, and what kind of "slavery" are you talking about? Can't answer an unclear question. You need to clarify it.

Second, practiced homosexuality is not accepted by everyone, and God never has accepted it. He classifies it as an abomination.

5. Was the flood through out the entire earth? If so, do we have fossil evidence of a massive killing of everything?

The flood was worldwide. Don't know about the fossils. Do you?

[FatAndFaithless]

The flood was worldwide.

Provide evidence please.

[Mystical]

ANother flood believer!

Say, have you guys like,looked up the (lack of evidentiary) science behind your flood claim, or do you just believe the bible is infallible and stopped right there?