I will preface this by saying my father has a P.H.D. is qualified as a Chemist so I know he's not stupid. I'm just venting some frustration. You when Richard Dawkins (who by the way I don't pay much attention too) talks about the perfect teacher/lecturer who teaches science perfectly but who simultaneously hold views contrary to science? Well my father fits that description perfectly. He once said to me: "I believe the Earth is 6000 years old less than I used to." And he teaches people about science...
So anyway, I was watching a television show this morning called "The Big Questions" and they were asking one Big Question (as opposed to three small ones like usually happens): Is there free will? Over lunch we spoke about it. I first mentioned the Canaanites having their free will taken away and I can't believe my father said killing was acceptable. Apparently everyone was killing each other back then so that makes the genocide of the Canaanites acceptable. Apparently one needed to kill to survive.
Putting Canaan aside, I began to talk about Noah's flood. I touched on the absurdity of the story. Even as a child I could not get my head around this story. Like how did all the food and animals fit aboard? What about the plants? The freshwater fish? The dinosaurs? Did Noah save every species of bacteria that couldn't survive in water? So many details are missing.
I don't know that much about the Bible, but I know enough to know the flood was not local. This is something Mummadans are always clamouring about too - how the Quran flood is local (when it actually isn't see Quran 11:42) and how the Biblical flood is global and therefore impossible. According to my father, there is enough water on Earth so that if the Earth was all at sea level (with no elevations) the Earth would flood like the Bible says.
It's stupid to say there were no mountains because there must have been mountains because how else would Noah end up on Mount Ararat? It gets worse. Apparently, mountains suddenly formed in the time between the rain stopping and Noah finding mount Ararat because the movement of the tectonic plates spend up or something, and Noah was on the ark for long enough (between the rain stopping and finding Ararat) for mountains to suddenly form.
Now that I think about it I should have asked these questions:
1. Just how local is "local"? It was obviously big enough to warrant building a huge boat.
2. If it was really was "that local" then why didn't Noah simply move away from the flood area? In the time it took to build the boat he could have traveled far enough away, surely.
3. Surely there are better ways to teach people lesson than to flood them all (and therefore take away their free will)?
I don't understand why he believes this, as it sounded like he was making up excuses as he went along. There's that book on why intelligent people believe stupid things which I ought to get. I can't remember who the author is though.
So anyway, I was watching a television show this morning called "The Big Questions" and they were asking one Big Question (as opposed to three small ones like usually happens): Is there free will? Over lunch we spoke about it. I first mentioned the Canaanites having their free will taken away and I can't believe my father said killing was acceptable. Apparently everyone was killing each other back then so that makes the genocide of the Canaanites acceptable. Apparently one needed to kill to survive.
Putting Canaan aside, I began to talk about Noah's flood. I touched on the absurdity of the story. Even as a child I could not get my head around this story. Like how did all the food and animals fit aboard? What about the plants? The freshwater fish? The dinosaurs? Did Noah save every species of bacteria that couldn't survive in water? So many details are missing.
I don't know that much about the Bible, but I know enough to know the flood was not local. This is something Mummadans are always clamouring about too - how the Quran flood is local (when it actually isn't see Quran 11:42) and how the Biblical flood is global and therefore impossible. According to my father, there is enough water on Earth so that if the Earth was all at sea level (with no elevations) the Earth would flood like the Bible says.
It's stupid to say there were no mountains because there must have been mountains because how else would Noah end up on Mount Ararat? It gets worse. Apparently, mountains suddenly formed in the time between the rain stopping and Noah finding mount Ararat because the movement of the tectonic plates spend up or something, and Noah was on the ark for long enough (between the rain stopping and finding Ararat) for mountains to suddenly form.
Now that I think about it I should have asked these questions:
1. Just how local is "local"? It was obviously big enough to warrant building a huge boat.
2. If it was really was "that local" then why didn't Noah simply move away from the flood area? In the time it took to build the boat he could have traveled far enough away, surely.
3. Surely there are better ways to teach people lesson than to flood them all (and therefore take away their free will)?
I don't understand why he believes this, as it sounded like he was making up excuses as he went along. There's that book on why intelligent people believe stupid things which I ought to get. I can't remember who the author is though.
