…and this is a 
Ken Ham is spluttering in indignation. It's wonderful. He's really peeved at the ABC News report because it mentioned a detail that is thoroughly trivial, but he claims is wrong. The report describes how animals spread around the world after the Flood on floating islands of matted logs and plants.
We do have replicas of Darwin's Finches in the exhibit on Natural Selection where we discuss genetics and speciation, not God's will!!--and we do talk about floating log mats after the Flood, but certainly nothing about "mankind spread from continent by walking across the floating trunks of trees knocked down during the Biblical Flood."
Now see, this is where all the pictures we took in the museum become a very useful resource. I just rummaged about, and there they are!
Here's a text panel that talks about his imaginary "floating forest", giant rafts on which plants and animals spread around the world.
Here's his big map of the routes life took. One thing I can't find a picture of, because it was a video that was playing, was this same sort of map, animated, with streams of log shaped objects swirling about in the ocean currents. It was there, believe me.
And then there's this. It was a huge painting of one of his giant floating islands. I remember it vividly, because it contained the only image in the whole place of a cephalopod (the small blob on the far right).
This is precisely how Ham explains the dissemination of humanity after his Big-Ass Flood. Humans rode across the oceans on mats and clumps and lumps of floating debris that were churning about in the ocean currents.
PWNZ0RED, Ken Ham!
One more display from the museum: see, they were talking about log rafts.
Comments
Posted by: PGPWNIT | August 11, 2009 12:44 PM
PZ, trust you? I don't even know you. I think you phoneyed all the pictures too you big phoney.
Posted by: Thomas Joseph | August 11, 2009 12:47 PM
Actually Ken Ham is technically correct when he says that they do not make the claim that humans walked across these mats. They claim instead that they floated across the oceans on these mats. Go figure.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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August 11, 2009 12:47 PM
So marsupials and monotremes got on their special mat of vegetation to go to Australia after the flood (how'd marsupial mice trot on down to the sea from Mt. Ararat?)?
Why didn't they all just ride out the flood on mats of vegetation anyhow?
Well anyway, how sad for Ham that he is ashamed that the truth about his "museum" is getting out. Damn, it was just supposed to be the rubes who would see it and be taken.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: sharky | August 11, 2009 12:47 PM
This is where learning to believe in faith vs. that pesky evidence gets you.
Posted by: HumanisticJones | August 11, 2009 12:47 PM
Don't look now, he's not only just called you out, but he's calling out the whole of your University now.
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/aroundtheworld/2009/08/11/can-university-of-minnesota-professors-research-be-trusted/
Posted by: gmv | August 11, 2009 12:50 PM
PZ - you are an idiot. That is NOT what that section of the museum teaches, and there are many article on the AiG website about the dispersion of people after Babel, and they DO NOT mention floating log mats. They may mention certain animals, insects, or plants being dispersed by this method, however.
Also, the Tower of Babel display does NOT teach that black people are a result of the curse of Ham, as you stated. Rather, it teaches that there is only one human race, and that so-called racial differences are superficial. AiG NEVER has taught about the "curse of Ham" nor endorsed any sort of racism. So, please retract this moronic (if not intentionally misleading) statement of yours.
Posted by: Drekoguk | August 11, 2009 12:52 PM
What's with the last picture with all the women wearing the same kind of dress?
Did that polygamist cult from Texas visit the museum that day too?
Posted by: Roger | August 11, 2009 12:53 PM
Oh, and Hamster's not racist, no sirree!! Why, he went to a--gasp!--Black church! And he's friends with the Black pastor of the Black church!
Of course, this doesn't explain the nonsense in the "museum" about the "creation" of the races, does it?
Posted by: MikeM | August 11, 2009 12:54 PM
PZ, you need a better flash unit.
Just sayin'.
Posted by: Bostonian | August 11, 2009 12:59 PM
Someone's got to have a photo of the animated log map, what with all the cameras that were there. If someone would donate one, perhaps PZ will add it to this post as an update.
Posted by: flaq | August 11, 2009 12:59 PM
I love it when people get all wound up and demand a retraction. It's just so quaint and delusional.
Posted by: Stuart Weinstein | August 11, 2009 1:00 PM
"PZ - you are an idiot. That is NOT what that section of the museum teaches, and there are many article on the AiG website about the dispersion of people after Babel, and they DO NOT mention floating log mats. They may mention certain animals, insects, or plants being dispersed by this method, however."
Like Koalas?
You're right. Thats so much more sensible.
LOL
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | August 11, 2009 1:00 PM
Those things look a lot more comfortable than that stinkin' ark full of fundies.
Posted by: Dan! | August 11, 2009 1:01 PM
http://blogs.answersingenesis.org/aroundtheworld/2009/08/11/can-university-of-minnesota-professors-research-be-trusted/
I'm sure you've seen this by now, PZ. The gloves are off. Maybe a quote from the bible about slavery, Leviticus 25 perhaps?
25:44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
"Of them shall ye buy, and of their families ... inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever."
Buy some heathen neighbors for slaves. They are to be your possessions forever.
25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
25:46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 1:05 PM
Hey! Look at those good christian ladies in the picture. That's exactly how I used to cover the well filled bosom. Thanks for the memories of youthful folly!
Posted by: gmv | August 11, 2009 1:05 PM
It's obvious that the truth doesn't matter much to you (nor to most of the posters here). And PZ has never shown much of a concern for truthfulness or representing others correctly. But really, why should he?
Posted by: JefFlyingV | August 11, 2009 1:06 PM
Roger would Ham marry an african american black woman and would he be an endorser of inter-racial marriages?
Posted by: Dan! | August 11, 2009 1:06 PM
@Drekoguk
What's with the last picture with all the women wearing the same kind of dress?
There was a group of Amish families there that day. Its a fairly common sight in this part of the US.
Posted by: Heidi | August 11, 2009 1:06 PM
Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you taking photos and then claiming what is in the photos is actually *in* the photos?! Sheez.
They maybe should have hid the log mat exhibit before you guys got there. lol.
Posted by: daveau | August 11, 2009 1:07 PM
Yeah, PZ, get your "facts" straight.
Posted by: ZacharySmith | August 11, 2009 1:07 PM
Drekoguk (@ #7):
Looks like they could be Mennonites.The women all wear those pastel-clored dresses with either bonnets or scarves over their hair. And tennis shoes.
I am awash in a sea of Mennonite stupidity where I live.
They own most of the local businesses and you can get some of the most vile and hysterical anti-evolution tracts at restaurants or hardware stores.
I'm sure the Mennonites are on board with Ham's propaganda. In fact, just the other day I got stuck behind a mini-van with a bumper sticker from AiG that read, "We're Taking Dinosaurs Back!"
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Posted by: Alex C.
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August 11, 2009 1:07 PM
Where exactly does one find Hamster's bit on race? I'm lost in all the crazy.
Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings
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August 11, 2009 1:08 PM
gmv,
How did all the animals know to take the appropriate raft? For instance, many of the animals in Australia are closely related, genetically, even those that cannot interbreed. Did all those marsupials just happen to get on the same raft?
And what about the elephants? Those suckers take two years to gestate. Did the rafts hang around long enough for the elephants to breed several times, so one group could go to Southeast Asia, while the others went to Africa? Or did Noah have more than two of each species?
Why didn't more species hang around the ark after the flood abated?
How did the humans disperse, if not with the animals? After all, there were 8 humans, and only two of each "kind."
Great Grotty Grue! My head is spinning like a mat of floating logs after trying to make sense of this whole sloppy narrative.
Posted by: Hank Fox | August 11, 2009 1:09 PM
Looks like the beginning of the end for Ken Ham and Co.
All you have to do is publicize what conservative Christians really believe, what they really say, and they themselves will do the job of convincing other people how silly they are.
I'll say it again:
PZ Myers, I'm glad you exist.
And I'm soooooo glad you do what you do.
Posted by: midwifetoad | August 11, 2009 1:09 PM
Here's what AIG says about race:
That's quite a load of diversity being carried by eight people, especially considering genetic entropy and all. Does front loading cancel genetic entropy?
Posted by: HumanisticJones | August 11, 2009 1:09 PM
Wait... if those vegetation mats survived the massive torrent of rain and the geological upheaval required for the flood, then why didn't other people and animals get onto those and tough it out in the giant tree rafts. The density of the foliage in that one picture looks like it would have provided some decent shelter for many species. Why would you need the ark in the first place with all those things? Oh wait right... when science starts to poke a hole we just have to remember that MAN'S REASON is always trumped by GOD'S WORD because of MILLIONS OF YEARS and PYGMIES+DWARFS!
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 1:10 PM
You get one more free post....
Posted by: toth | August 11, 2009 1:10 PM
"PWNZ0RED, Ken Ham!"
Personally, I think it should be
"PZ'ED, Ken Ham!"
Come on, noble Pharyngulites, spread this new meme!
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 1:12 PM
So Ken Ham's mob are also explicitly contradicting the bible with their crackpot ideas. There would be plenty of opportunity for critters to survive on such floating island ecologies, without (ie outside) the ark.
Posted by: Kenneth | August 11, 2009 1:13 PM
@#6: Yes, you're absolutely right. This image (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2009/08/hamite.jpeg) says absolutely NOTHING about the descendants of Ham. And that would never lead someone to put 2 and 2 together that the "museum" implies Africans come from the curse of Ham.
Inconceivable!
Posted by: gmv | August 11, 2009 1:13 PM
Actually, Ham endorses inter-racial marriage, and sees nothing wrong with it. Read: Interracial Marriage by Ham.Posted by: JMk2 | August 11, 2009 1:15 PM
That sign says, as much as I can see:
"Today...We find exotic plant fossils in a regular
sequence from small plants to trees, evidence
of a huge pre-Flo[od?] ?n?ating forest."
(Any suggestions for what the last line actually says behind the flash bounce?)
Is this meant to be hydrologic[al?] sorting again - what exactly might the sign mean - that early plant/tree fossils are in a regular sequence of always increasing size? Is that so?
Bonus points for anyone who identifies the biblical verse which mentions floating forests - I'm not familiar with this.
Posted by: Sara | August 11, 2009 1:17 PM
Oh.
I wanted to say something intelligent but the sheer stupidity of the "exhibits" has rendered me speechless.
It's, possibly, the dumbest thing I've seen in my life.
AiG, have they no shame?
Posted by: E.V. | August 11, 2009 1:18 PM
Ken Ham quote: "...or just makes it up to try to make the Creation Museum (and those behind it) sound ridiculous!""
*facepalm*
Posted by: Jordan Licht | August 11, 2009 1:18 PM
God forcing people to speak different languages forced them to scatter? How? It wasn't possible for them to attempt communication without a common language or teach each other their new languages, as has been done throughout history whenever two groups without a common language met?And even if they couldn't convey information in any way, why would they have to move away? They can't live near someone who doesn't speak the same language as them? Does this mean that if someone who only speaks French moves down the street from me, that I should leave?
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 1:21 PM
The curse was on Cain, Gen. 4:15
And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
Those able to find him would be? er...gawd, Adam, Eve. Counting to three is rough on biblical writers.Posted by: Lars Dietz | August 11, 2009 1:21 PM
Young-earth creationists actually think the Carboniferous forest floated on the ocean, which is somehow supposed to explain how all the coal could get deposited in the flood. The idea actually goes back to the eccentric late 19th century botanist Otto Kuntze (who renamed 1000s of plant species based on his own version of the laws of nomenclature), but creationists mostly don't cite him. He wasn't a creationist himself. Of course, it doesn't agree with our current unnderstanding of the Carboniferous forests.
I haven't heard that before as an "explanation" for the spreading of animals after the flood, but I guess it makes sense in creationist "logic".
Posted by: Larry | August 11, 2009 1:23 PM
So, Costner's Waterworld was actually a documentary, much in the same vein as the Flintstones?
Posted by: raven | August 11, 2009 1:24 PM
I thought they claimed that the animals and humans spread by continental plates drifiting acoss the ocean at miles/hour speeds.
Supposedly before the flood, everything was one giant continent. After the flood plate tectonics kicked in and Edenland broke up and Australia and the Americas took off with animals and plants on them. That is why both areas have unique biomes.
That might have been last year's fairy tale.
Posted by: zhukora | August 11, 2009 1:25 PM
@#30: What the HELL is that stuff they're trying to pass off as Arabic in the "different languages" section of that picture? Are they trying to make it look like it says "Shem" in English? That picture makes me facepalm all over.
Posted by: Suzanne | August 11, 2009 1:25 PM
#5 HumanisticJones -- it's not often I see virtually ever logical fallacy in a single piece of writing. I'm almost impressed!
Posted by: Ivan | August 11, 2009 1:27 PM
I love how Ham tries to weasel out of the curse-of-Ham thing, while ignoring the whole point about his casual promotion of a historically-racist theory.
Here's the story, direct from the Wholly Babble, for your reading pleasure:
Posted by: Chemgirl
|
August 11, 2009 1:29 PM
Jordan Licht @35:
Of course not! If history says people did that, then history must be wrong! It was GOD'S WILL for the people to scatter, and reconciling the communications differences in order to stay in the same place would have defied GOD'S WILL!
It's so hard to think like a young-earth creationist...you have to start with the Bible and assume it's literal and correct, and then manage to warp reality to fit that mold...
Posted by: Personal Failure | August 11, 2009 1:29 PM
gmv: HE HAS PICTURES.
gmv, reality.
reality, gmv.
Posted by: KI | August 11, 2009 1:29 PM
I will express some appreciation for the "we're all related" theme they champion. Genetic science has shown that all humans are pretty closely related and that "race" is a bogus concept. Since most fundies I've ever met were rabidly bigoted racists I do find this one facet of Ham's philosophy to be an encouraging development.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 11, 2009 1:30 PM
Says someone defending a museum built on the lies and career of a liar.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 1:31 PM
Perhaps one of the Hamites will explain to us godless heathens how there are animals on the earth today when Noah sacrificed half of them after exiting the ark? If you sacrifice one of only two specimans it makes being fruitful a bit difficult. (Gen. 8:20)
Posted by: Martin | August 11, 2009 1:32 PM
Look at the "Different Languages" sign in the lower left corner. The Hebrew example is backwards, except for the letters that are upside down and backwards. This is surprisingly sloppy, even for the venue. And don't even get me started on the Arabic example (at least I thing it's supposed to be Arabic). They couldn't even be bothered to go online and find correctly spelled Hebrew and Arabic to use as an example. Or maybe they did, and someone still managed to f*ck it up.Posted by: dinkum | August 11, 2009 1:32 PM
Hold up, my heathenistic hordemates...
From The Ancestor's Tale, Rendezvous 6, New World Monkeys:
"South America and Africa were closer to each other than they are now, and sea levels were low, perhaps exposing a chain of islands across the gap from West Africa, convenient for island-hopping. The monkeys probably rafted across, perhaps on fragments of mangrove swamps that could support life as floating islands for a short while. Currents were in the right direction for inadvertent rafting."
I seem to remember at least one other mention if this hypothesis.
I know it ain't the same thing, and you know it ain't the same thing, but look who we're talking about here. I figured I'd better bring it up before they did.
Posted by: D | August 11, 2009 1:35 PM
I don't think they're on speaking terms anymore.
Posted by: PGPWNIT | August 11, 2009 1:35 PM
#47,
My bible knowledge is pretty weak, but I seem to remember that there were 7 of every 'clean' animal and 2 of every 'unclean' animal.
Posted by: Bob L | August 11, 2009 1:35 PM
GMV,
Could please explain the little penguins, me and my Christian friends have a debate about them. Since the penguins couldn't possibly waddle all the way up to the Middle East how did they get saved when Jesus drowned wicked earth?
We see three choices;
* God gave them a pass because penguins both swam and walked
* Satan protected the penguins to mock God (God is not mocked)
* Noah and his sons collected the penguins using pterodactyls, much like the "airliners" in the Flintstones cartoon.
So what is it GMV?
I am sure everyone here would love to hear the AiG explanation. You shouldn't be shy since if Jesus could save little penguins He certain can save a board full of atheists.
Posted by: meh1963 | August 11, 2009 1:36 PM
@39: I thought they claimed that the animals and humans spread by continental plates drifting acoss the ocean at miles/hour speeds.
That is straight out of Tolkien: the fall of Numenor, when the previously flat world was bent, the seas covered over Numenor, and Valinor went away.....
Bet Ken Ham never thought of that interpretation.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 11, 2009 1:37 PM
Ham's whines are a classic example of the Courtier's Reply. Ham is complaining about minor discrepancies between what he wrote and what PZ reported. People and animals being carried on "floating log mats" are not the same as people and animals "being spread from continent [sic] by walking across the floating trunks of trees".
Posted by: Umkomasia | August 11, 2009 1:38 PM
The floating forest thing was also proposed and expanded upon by YEC "geologist" Steve Austin and smacked down by the real paleobotanist Robert Gastaldo many years ago.
Posted by: thalarctos | August 11, 2009 1:39 PM
Shorter Ken Ham: Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?
False witness, much?
Actually, that's not going to fix the problem. Either he needs to have enough light to shoot without a flash, or to stand off to the side and bounce the light rays off in the other direction (like banking a pool ball, if you can see what I mean without my being able to draw it here).
I learned this from experience (although if I'd paid sufficient attention in physics class, I wouldn't have had to stumble on it myself, since it really is quite obvious :), because so many skulls and other beautiful anatomical display specimens are in cases that reflect the flash right back at you if you shoot them straight on. But stand, say 45 degrees to the left from straight on, and the light bounces off at the same angle in the other direction. Voilà! nice, clear, well-lighted picture with no flash bouncing straight back at you.
Posted by: Dan Warren | August 11, 2009 1:40 PM
I'll have you know that my ancestors dispersed to the New World by extruding a long strand of silk from their anuses and ballooning across the Pacific.
Posted by: Eric | August 11, 2009 1:40 PM
Um sorry Hammie, but it's not just the "evil Atheist from Morris U" that says your museum is full of shit.
http://ncseweb.org/news/2009/06/paleontologists-dismayed-by-creation-museum-004877
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 1:41 PM
@ Patricia #47:
Are you overlooking the part of the re-write of the original ark story, in which it isn't simply a (mated) pair of each and every animal kind but 7 pairs of the kinds labelled "clean" - and hence suitable to be used in the post-ark sacrifice?
NB The additional difficulty with that part of the story is that the distinction of clean and unclean hadn't been invented at the time the Noah story is supposed to have been set. So it wouldn't have meant anything to the fictional characters in the story. Only the later (and real!) Jewish audience telling the story would have cared and understood.
Posted by: Cut and Paste | August 11, 2009 1:42 PM
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2009/08/hamite.jpeg
The photo clearly shows "The descendants of Ham" going to Africa.
While it it isn't explicitly "teaching" the racist interpertation of the "Curse of Ham", those who beleive that crap would see it as a tacit nod.
A lot of racist ideas float quietly in our culture, those ideas should be pointed out to all when recognized for what they are.
I saw good call PZ.
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 1:43 PM
NigelTheBold,
Noah took 7 of some species and 2 of others.
Noah took 7 of every 'clean' animal and 2 of every 'unclean' animal. Clean and Unclean basically defined as what is Kosher to eat or not (same basic rules, Cows good, pigs bad).
Split hooves and ruminate are the key points. Cows have divided hooves and chew their cud, they're clean. Rabbits ruminate but do not have hooves. Camels have hooves but do not ruminate. They are unclean.
Then there are curve balls, like all insects EXCEPT grasshoppers, locusts, crickets and katydids are unclean. You can eat as many crickets as you want, though.
Elephants should be unclean, so Noah had two.
Bible doesn't talk much about marsupials.
"source" Leviticus 11: 'Every animal that has a split hoof not completely divided or that does not chew the cud is unclean for you;'
Posted by: Erin | August 11, 2009 1:44 PM
I love coming here and reading all these wonderful, witty comments. It is a great restoration of my faith in humanity! (I need it--I'm trapped in Wyoming, which, while a great state, is filled with nutters.)
Posted by: thalarctos | August 11, 2009 1:46 PM
and, I forgot to mention, depending on the subject, shooting from a side angle is often compositionally more interesting, as it demonstrates perspective with lines converging to the horizon, as opposed to a flat-on 2D square look...
course, considering the subject here, that's probably over-thinking this one, but I'm remembering some panda hand bones and other specimens in glass cases.
Posted by: riktov | August 11, 2009 1:46 PM
Dinkum #49
I believe this is what you're referring to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafting_event
Posted by: Greg Peterson | August 11, 2009 1:47 PM
As a former journalist, I can assure Ham that a journalist doing an investigative piece would not go out of his way to alert the subject of the reportage to his presence. One might do that for a fluff piece intent on promotion...to champion a community event or grand opening, say...but one would not do that in hopes of getting at truth of a story. Perhaps Ham is just more used to "journalists" pandering to him with a big old reacharound. That's not actually journalism in the sense we were taught in our journalism classes. And these were journalism classes taught in an evangelical Christian college, by the way, so they were not part of the big atheist scheme to lie all the time because the truth doesn't matter to us, or whatver gibberish that one smear was supposed to articulate.
Posted by: Mena | August 11, 2009 1:47 PM
My favorite part of the Ken Ham post:
"Someone sent me a copy of what he put on his recent blog critiquing the Creation Museum"
What, he can't figure out how to access this blog all by himself? Maybe he thinks that he will burst into flame if he comes here?
Posted by: Wet Mogwai | August 11, 2009 1:48 PM
My understanding of all of that is that animals moved about on floating islands, but man is not an animal and didn't get around that way. I think, in this one instance and within his wrong view of the universe, Ham is right. Of course the instant you bring reality into the mix, he returns to being fractally wrong.
Posted by: Rainbow Rascal
|
August 11, 2009 1:48 PM
Of course, Ham's not a racist:
He's just going after teh gheys!
Posted by: mattb | August 11, 2009 1:49 PM
I don't think Ken Ham claims humans floated around the globe, just other animals.
Posted by: ex-christadelphian | August 11, 2009 1:49 PM
There is a good word that describes the like of people who preach anti-science, conman. The one word that describes people who believe Ken Ham has any knowledge of any god or science is, sucker.
About the only way you can describe people who believe Genesis is an accurate historical account is, "they are crazy". That's right, crazy, and that's on top of being mentally challenged.
That's one of the reasons why fundies can't seem to find their way home and so end up sleeping in someone else's bed so often.
But, adultery aside, they are the willing victims of religious conmen and a great source of income for the folks who build $27 million dollar museums, religious universities and colleges - not to mention big, expensive, gaudy church buildings.
Will people ever wise up to the religious con-game? After thousands of years of our history, I'd have to say, NO.
Posted by: Robert Madewell | August 11, 2009 1:50 PM
The denomination that I grew up in supports AiG and I was taught this Hamitic hypothesis when I was a kid. I was told that the reason black were slaves before the civil war was because their ancestor saw his dad naked. The Hamitic Hypothesis is still being taught in churches. Fundamentalism does have a racist past. That's a fact.
Posted by: OneSeeker | August 11, 2009 1:50 PM
Actually, #6 was correct in saying that the display does not mention humans migrating on the floating forests. It did indicate that other species used these log masses to migrate, but since humans are not animals, the obvious conclusion is that they didn't use them.
And the floating forests were not post-flood. They are a fictitious construct that supposedly existed pre-flood in an attempt to explain plant and animal material at the different strata in the geologic history.
What I find funny is that AiG is attacking a technical point, rather than attempting to defend the fundamental "truth" of their point... In the deluge of criticism, they point to one or two statements and say, "we didn't say that... that would be ridiculous." I just love the irony.
Of course, the personal attacks don't really lend credence to the AiG argument (or to #6’s), but what do you have left when there are no actual facts or evidence?
Posted by: Eneasz | August 11, 2009 1:50 PM
"If you sacrifice one of only two specimans it makes being fruitful a bit difficult. (Gen. 8:20)"
In their defense, he only sacrificed from the "clean" animals, of which there were supposedly seven of each.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 11, 2009 1:51 PM
.Or a wider aperture and / or higher ISO and /or different angle.
Posted by: Ryan Egesdahl | August 11, 2009 1:52 PM
Oh, snap!gmv #6 said:
I wasn't there, and I refuse to go to the AiG website, so I'll just accept your proposition as true for the sake of this argument. However...
Guess what? You are an idiot. Congratulations on contradicting yourself so handily, moron.
Yes and no.
Specifically, from that article:
And then from the conclusion:
The implication here is that rejection or acceptance of God by culture is somehow tied to race, however loosely, and that those who are from a particular non-Christian racial culture are descended from "spiritual degenerates," to use that term.
Of course, they never tie acceptance of God to race (other than that person has overcome the spiritual degeneracy brought on by racial descent), but they do tie rejection of God to it. Essentially, all brothers in Christ are brothers, regardless of race, but all those who reject God probably do so for racial reasons. So what do we do? Well, we treat them with "respect" and try to win them over by judging their culture and finding it wanting, then getting them to overcome their culture and come to God.
This view is inherently racist and bigoted, however nicely and eruditely the position is argued.
Correct, but I am not going to thank you for mentioning it. Let's just remember that Ken Ham has repeatedly made the argument that "Darwinism" is essentially racism numerous times, despite the fact that it is simply not true. The man is obsessed with painting evolution (and by extension, atheists) in a racist light without realizing his own racist views.
Tit for tat. If you're going to make this request of PZ, you have to admit that the man you are defending is no better.
Posted by: dNorrisM | August 11, 2009 1:52 PM
Tree trunks?
Why float if there was only one continent until after the Flood?
Posted by: PZ Myers
|
August 11, 2009 1:52 PM
It's not my picture or my flash -- click on it to get to the flickr set from which I extracted it.
It is a problem with photography in the "museum". Everything is very, very shiny and reflective. I ended up taking two pictures of everything, once with the flash and all the glare, and once with no flash so the picture was a bit dark and sometimes a bit blurry.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 1:52 PM
*almost faints*
A re-write of the animals going into the ark two by two !!! That is an unchristian slander. If it got rewritten to 7 animals then it leaves out the obvious answer that GAWD created more animals after the sacrifice, and therefore another miracle.
It may take strong drink to recover from this shock.
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 1:53 PM
SEF:
I think you can either say Noah took 14 and 4 or 7 and 2, but not 7 pairs and 1 pair.
If memory serves the passage read "Take 7 of each clean animal, the male and his female. Take 2 of each unclean animal the male and his female."
So it could be read as take 7 clean animals, male and female. Take 2 unclean animals, male and female. Or take 7 pairs of clean and 2 pairs of unclean.
Sorta like debating Wonka's recipe for his new drink. It's not real, anyways.
93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple... That's 105%!!
Posted by: JefFlyingV | August 11, 2009 1:55 PM
I was saddened to see that you can't directly comment on Ham's page.
Posted by: dNorrisM | August 11, 2009 1:57 PM
Oops. Beaten as usual (by Raven)
Posted by: alopiasmag | August 11, 2009 1:57 PM
Some people have no shame. Preachers who con people out of their money for some "make-believe" theories.
Like seneca said:
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
Rulers in this case "Smart" conniving people who make a very lucrative living out of false ideals.
Posted by: waldteufel | August 11, 2009 1:57 PM
Ham, his little pet troll gmv, and the rest of the loonies from AiG are making roughly the same noises about your visit as that of a bunch of cockroaches scurrying for cover when a light is turned on them.
Many thanks to PZ and the Secular Student Alliance! Keep the light squarely on the cockroaches . . . .
Posted by: dinkum | August 11, 2009 1:58 PM
101% Evaporation's a negative. Fnar. Just shoot me.So, is it 7 animals, or 7 pairs, FFS? I've got my SavedSoul Certification exam coming up and I know they're gonna ask me that.
Posted by: Ryan Egesdahl | August 11, 2009 1:58 PM
gmv said:
And then I said:
Then, I promptly contradicted myself by going to the AiG website and retrieving articles to prove that gmv is a moron. Mea culpa. Isn't it funny, though, that I am accused of not caring for the truth, but when the chips are down I am willing to contradict myself in the pursuit of it?
I apologize for my stiff-necked reply. Now, gmz, would you like to explain your comment?
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 2:03 PM
The rewrite is Gen. 7:1,3 , which still leaves hanging my question about the animals that only had two specimans. There should be no unclean animals, i.e. pigs.
Posted by: Mike Daniels | August 11, 2009 2:05 PM
#6:
No, it doesn't say people who are black have greater pigmentation as a result of the "curse of Ham".
It says that people of Africa are the descendants of Ham.
Genesis 9:22-27
The Canaanites are thus cursed by Noah to be the "servant of servants" to the descendants of Shem and Japheth.
Where does Ken Ham say the descendants of Ham went? And what people would those be? African people, maybe?
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 2:06 PM
Nice - the cancel button didn't work. I'm going to lay down, gawd only accepts sacrifices of clean animals.
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 2:11 PM
@ Blaine #79:
No, you're wrong and I'm right - at least within the context of this wholly wrong story anyway!
The RSV translation (of Gen.7 v.2-3) in front of me is quite explicit:
"Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate*; and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive upon the face of all the earth."
* homosexual male penguins, as per the pair at one zoo, might therefore be allowed (since they aren't birds of the air)!
Posted by: Jose | August 11, 2009 2:11 PM
I think Ham's definition of 'organisms' and 'life' there doesn't include mankind and they just did a really poor job at that illustration. There's no explicit mention of /mankind/ spreading via floating tree trunks in those pics, and the clue is that it's not what one would expect them to say - they're cheerleaders for the Ark. That seems to be what he's all fussy about.
Posted by: T Mackiewicz | August 11, 2009 2:13 PM
The thing Ham doesn't mention when trying to compare his group of Ivy league scientists to PZ is the fact that his scientists, who may have learned about real science at one time in their lives, have sense began spouting pseudoscience and making claims of the supernatural that cannot be proven. These facts alone make his scientist's opinions turn to shit. It doesn't matter how big your education is, it only matters how you use it.
Posted by: John Salerno | August 11, 2009 2:13 PM
What about the other claim of "god's will" and the finches? Is that true? His claim that the finches are in the natural selection area doesn't necessarily disprove the claim of the reporter. The natural selection area could very well be meant to *disprove* natural selection in Ham Land.
Posted by: possummomma | August 11, 2009 2:13 PM
Ham (and I'm talking about the mean little man in Kentucky, not the lost Biblical tribe or the deliciously "unclean" food product) is a bully. Notice that whenever he's presented with the faults of his own folly, he bloats up like a cornered snake and, not once, but twice, proclaims that someone should lose their job or be punished in some way. He knows he has an audience and I believe, somewhere in that pin-head of his, he actually believes his message will reach the regents at PZ's school and touch a like-minded brethren. Ham believes he has that power. THAT will be his downfall - his ego. Just like he believes the media and atheists care if he was at the museum or hiding or elsewhere. Just like he believes we are afraid of his "ivy league" professors. Just like he believes he can intimidate people with his faux-police squad. Just like he believes he can call upon his God to damn everyone who disagrees with his perspective.
.
Posted by: Benjamin Geiger | August 11, 2009 2:15 PM
dinkum:
The difference is millions of years. Crossing the Atlantic was easy when Pangaea was just breaking up; you could practically wade from one continent to another. Ham assumes there's no continental drift (or that there hasn't been enough time to let the continents drift very far) and so they'd have to ride the rafts all the way across the current width of the ocean.
Posted by: Fellow Traveller | August 11, 2009 2:19 PM
I wonder whether Ken Ham got the idea of the floating plant islands from C.S. Lewis' novel Perelandra (1943)?
Posted by: Newfie | August 11, 2009 2:23 PM
So, he called what the 3 little bears were eating, "oatmeal" instead of "porridge". He got the fairytale mixed up. Glad you're taking such a strong stand on a book of silliness and superstition. The computer you're typing on was created through science... but I guess Jeebus made yours, so you can spread the
liesword.Somebody should set up a Norse, Inuit, African, Chinese, Japanese "creation museum" across the street from Ken Ham's, Hebrew Mythology Interpretation Center and Gift Shop.... you know, "Teach the controversy".
Feckin' Idjits
Posted by: Elwood Herring | August 11, 2009 2:26 PM
I think I posted this argument before, but why would god need a flood at all? Surely he could just "zap" all those naughty humans without having to destroy all the innocent wildlife in the process?
Any way you cut it, the flood myth fails. Fail fail fail. Supreme fail. Fractal fail. Ultimate fail. Why do they even try to support such a colossal (and here I quote the great Boris Johnson) "Inverted pyramid of PIFFLE"?
Posted by: dinkum | August 11, 2009 2:26 PM
Benjamin Geiger, I'm on board with you, my friend. But details are irrelevant when one is picking cherries, and it struck me as a tempting fruit. Of course, I doubt that anyone at AiG has actually read A.T. close enough to find it, but you never know.
Posted by: daveau | August 11, 2009 2:27 PM
Seems to me he had the perfect opportunity to get rid of 'em. Maybe he secretly likes them.
Posted by: Dave X | August 11, 2009 2:28 PM
Re #49: Ah-ha! One of the "secular scientists" who provided research for the creation of the scripts might be our very own Dawkins.
Now we must wonder if the museum's script-writers accurately represented the research provided by all those credentialed PhDs. Or if it is all just quote-mining.
Posted by: lose_the_woo | August 11, 2009 2:29 PM
Groups of people living in the ocean on floating piles of debris? Really? Hmmm. So you mean like a prehistoric version of Waterworld? Really?
Bwahahahaha....ROFFLE ROFFLE ROFFLE ROFFLE
Posted by: franz dibbler | August 11, 2009 2:31 PM
Did anyone else notice that Ken Ham never refers to PZ by name? He always uses "that professor" or "a professor in Minnesota".
Posted by: Ivan | August 11, 2009 2:37 PM
@95: Perelandra is exactly what I was thinking, too!
Posted by: Elwood Herring | August 11, 2009 2:38 PM
As an intellectual exercise, (one day) I'm going to try to prove that everything in Alice in Wonderland is 100% true. By twisting facts and inventing get-out clauses all over the place, I reckon I could do it. Talking rabbit? Easy. Smiling floating disappearing cat? No problem. Little girls that grow and shrink depending on whether they eat or drink? Obviously a genetic thing.
Give me as long as these creationist nutters have had to think about the various problems and I'm sure I can come up with plausible explanations - plausible that is, to people who believe that Lewis Carroll was really God.
Posted by: Jennifurret | August 11, 2009 2:38 PM
Here's a photo of the "rafting" that Ken Ham is denying, right in his own museum: http://www.flickr.com/photos/90783823@N00/3809959846/
Posted by: pcrthis | August 11, 2009 2:44 PM
#57 Dan Warren wins the thread.
Posted by: Ray S. | August 11, 2009 2:45 PM
For those confused about whether the Christian bible says there were 7 pairs or one pair, it says both. Most biblical scholars believe there are two separate narratives about Noah that are commingled. Google is your friend if you want to know more. Personally I don't care whether there were 2 or 14; the rest of the story is preposterous either way.
Posted by: Nemo | August 11, 2009 3:06 PM
gmv,
The misunderstanding is simple. PZ knows that humans are a type of animal, so when he reads that animals were distributed around the world on floating mats, he doesn't think to exclude humans from that claim. To Ken Ham, of course, humans and other animals are in completely separate categories, so it doesn't occur to him that there be could be confusion on this point.
So, I agree that PZ is technically incorrect -- but on a matter that's COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS, since both Noah's Flood and the Tower of Babel are fairy tales, and rather blatantly so.
Posted by: Austin! | August 11, 2009 3:07 PM
Here ya go, PZ—here's a display that shows their crazy 'floating logs' theory even more explicitly:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v485/highverbalfan/_CDA5141-1.jpg
Although...it only mentions that tortoises and other animals learned how to float on logs. It doesn't say anything about humans, so TECHNICALLY Mr. Ham doesn't claim this is how humans did it. Of course, the obvious implication from there is that humans lack the problem-solving skills of your basic tortoise...but no one could believe that, right? I mean, that would just be crrrrrrrazy.
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 3:08 PM
SEF:
The RSV Bible? Know who revised it? Satan.
PASHAWW. What about The King James Bible, the REAL* Bible:
"Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."
So one can clearly see that either he took the animals focusing on the 'male and his female' part... meaning he took 2x7 and 2x2, 14 and 4. Or focusing on the ordinal (right word?) direction. 7 and 2, with a mixture of genders.
*Bibles aren't real.
Posted by: Austin! | August 11, 2009 3:09 PM
Whoops—Jennifurret@105 beat me to it :)
Posted by: Stacey C. | August 11, 2009 3:11 PM
@ franz dibbler #102
You beat me to it! I was just going to remark that he acts like PZ is some sort of super villain. The Professor ™ is at it again!
Posted by: sharky | August 11, 2009 3:14 PM
@109:
Wait, a big flood made billions of trees float for CENTURIES?
1. Okay, where'd coal come from, then? The trees either went up to serve as a ferry for four hundred years, or down to immediately turn into rock.
2. What was IN that water!? You can't get a wooden boat to stay afloat for a year without treating it, but here comes that cedar with another shipment of koala bears, same as it has for the past two centuries. The water must have been so dense with magical preservatives small lizards just WALKED to Malaysia.
...I need to stop reflexively applying intelligent thought to their claims, don't I. Ow, ow.
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 3:15 PM
Ray S:
Well... which Bible is the "museum" using?
How do other museums handle discrepencies in science books?
Like if Science Book A says "Jupiter is roughly 11x the diameter of the Earth." and Science Book B says "Jupiter is 3x the diameter of the Earth and put there by God"?
Both are equally scientific... they're in Science Books!!
Posted by: Watt de Fawke | August 11, 2009 3:21 PM
Drifting on natural rafts at 2 knots would make a short trip of 4800 nautical miles take 100 days, whether the animal was a mouse, a moose, a mongoose, or a marten. Riding a raft requires little effort, true, but I have to ask: how were they supplied with fresh water, food, and shade from the sun for the trip?
Posted by: AnneH | August 11, 2009 3:23 PM
I'm confused. Is the creation museum presenting the rafts as a way for some animals to survive the flood? If so, that directly conflicts with the bible, since genesis states that every land animal that was not on the ark died in the flood.
(the flood story, for reference -
http://www.readbibleonline.net/?page_id=76 )
If it was after the flood, according to the bible, the flood waters took just a few years at most to dry up, NOT centuries as the display seems to claim:
"13 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dried."
Even if I ignore the silly stretching of the biblical timeline, I have trouble buying the idea that animals would willingly go rafting of their own accord.
Posted by: R Hampton | August 11, 2009 3:29 PM
My favorite Noah's Ark incongruity are the sloths of Central and South America. Because their vegetarian diet contains so few calories, they sleep up to 20 hours a day to conserve energy. But when they're awake - watch out. Climbing through tree tops these speed demons can top out at 1mph!
So how long would it take for a pair (or seven; are sloths "clean" given that algae grows in their fur?) to disembark in the Middle East, cross Europe or Africa and then the Atlantic, and subsequently "diverge" into a family of six members split between two and three toed species?
I'd love to see a creationist's mathematical model for said impossibility!
Posted by: nigelTheBold, Minister of Spankings
|
August 11, 2009 3:31 PM
Wow! The log rafts floated around "for centuries." Wow.
Having grown up in a logging camp, I can assure you that log rafts don't float "for centuries." Wood gets waterlogged *very* quickly. Within a couple of years, at most.
I just had an ugly thought. What if there was a rift between our world and Bizarro world, and Ken Ham is really the Bizarro version of a real scientist? What if he is the Bizarro version of PZ?
I need some mental floss.
Posted by: Ken Cope | August 11, 2009 3:31 PM
You beat me to it! I was just going to remark that he acts like PZ is some sort of super villain. The Professor ™ is at it again!
And that would make us commenters "All the rest!" as in, "The Professor and all the rest, here on Gilligan's floating island of logs."
Oh, wait. I remember now. The Professor, who employed henchmen like Rock Bottom, is the nemesis of Felix the Cat and Poindexter.
Posted by: Josh | August 11, 2009 3:32 PM
Insert miracle here.
Posted by: sharky | August 11, 2009 3:34 PM
R Hampton: Obviously, you mistake the problems arising from animals not being in their habitats--koalas clearly did not evolve, for example, since they're alone in their clines. But there weren't eucalyptus trees growing anywhere else but Australia, as we know because there aren't today. Pandas? Another example, but they were in Turkey without food either.
So hungry koala bears and panda bears mistook the sloths, which god tinted green with algae just for this purpose, for food, and when they went rafting they took them with them.
OBVIOUSLY.
Jeez.
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 3:36 PM
@ Blaine #110:
If you're trying to play the authority game, the KJV is rubbish. Go for the original hebrew translated by people who actually speak it:
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0107.htm
So the extra pair of unclean ones is a dodgy insert. You definitely don't get to have the seven singles you originally suggested.
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 3:45 PM
@ possummomma #93 - the full significance of which I previously missed:
Yay - you're back! :-D
Posted by: Austin! | August 11, 2009 3:49 PM
Somewhat off-topic: I couldn't help noticing that God's limitless creativity and his love of diversity are on display everywhere in the museum...including the family in photo #3. Lovingly created by God to be unique individuals, each and every one.
/snark
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 3:54 PM
SEF:
The King James Bible was divinely inspired! Co-Translated by God himself!! That's authoritai!!! You wouldn't question Rick Flair's biography which he also co-wrote!?!
My seven singles is only necessary if you're invoking a single pair. Your citation says 14 and 4, which is I also said.
So if someone is saying the unclean were a pair, then clean were seven. If unclean were two pair then clean were fourteen.
Take by sevens and twos. If the later is literal, the former is literal. Since they're both written the exact same way.
I'm just saying you can't mix and match your fiction. He either took pairs or singles. There's no reason to assume a matched set of one but not the other.
And if I'm wrong, may God strike me dead!
Posted by: AnneH | August 11, 2009 3:55 PM
Another inconsistency-
Creationists claim that god created every species as they are today. High salt tolerance does not exist in most land species today. To most land species, both plant and animal, salt water is poisonous. The plants and animals on the rafts would have lived only a few days before they died of thirst and/or excessive sodium chloride poisoning.
Posted by: R Hampton | August 11, 2009 3:57 PM
sharky, Thanks for the explanation! "Mmmm... sloth algae"
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 4:04 PM
@ Blaine #125:
That's the whole point - they're not! Look at the actual hebrew, fool.
Posted by: Ray S. | August 11, 2009 4:04 PM
Blaine@114
I presume they favor the KJV; most fundamentalist seem to do so, despite its problems. But the issue of contradictory info isn't restricted to the KJV. What I was referring to is that there are two different descriptions of the flood story that were taken and woven together. As far as I know this affects all bible translations.
To improve your analogy, it's as if the two differing sizes of Jupiter were in the same book about a paragraph apart. reasonable people would would notice this, bring it to the attention of the editor and get it corrected. Ham can't do this because the bible is inerrant in his view. He'd much rather work off the premise that sometimes 2=7.
Posted by: Mu | August 11, 2009 4:09 PM
Regarding 47 and the sacrifice - the animals were cooped up for 40 days, if they hadn't gotten any fruitfulness under way in that time you could safely sacrifice the male anyway, that species is a goner.
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 4:11 PM
I looked at the one you posted and linked. "Dodgey Insert" is your opinion. It's there.
And I don't have to look at the Hebrew. God wrote the KJV... (K.G.B.!!?)
And he didn't strike me dead.
QED.
Game Set Match.
Point.
Blaine.
Game Over.
End of Game.
http://www.entertonement.com/clips/mmtccgzzlj--gamesetmatch
Posted by: Akiko | August 11, 2009 4:14 PM
Check out the babes in their Little House on the Prairie dreses! I heard that fundie women ar required to wear dresses at all times so their husbands can get to the goods quicker. The Roger Dean ripoff of the floating space island is super groovy though. Pass the bong!
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 4:16 PM
Unless you're merely being dishonest, you evidently didn't look at it very carefully.
No, it has been marked as such on the translation side. Meanwhile, that spelling mistake is entirely your own. Don't try to blame it on me by pretending it's a quote.
Posted by: Ed Darrell | August 11, 2009 4:24 PM
Oh, come on, P.Z.! You know I can't use that in Sunday school now.
But "big-ass" is a lot more memorable than "Noachic," ain't it?
I do wonder, though: Is this a throwback to the early days of the David Letterman show, and his gifts of Big Ass Hams to audience members?
Posted by: OneSeeker | August 11, 2009 4:28 PM
@Blaine (#131) --
You really do have to look back at the original Hebrew. God didn't write the KJV. That was translated from the original.
The infallibility argument of the bible only applies to the "original" scriptures.
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 4:30 PM
Dude... what the hell are you talking about. Spelling Ad Homs aside...
I read the entire link. The words 'dodgy' and 'insert' and what have you never appear.
"2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, each with his mate; and of the beasts that are not clean two [and two], each with his mate;"
Whole quote. Exactly what you posted.
In fact, there's 0 commentary on that link at-all. There is no reason given why it's in brackets.
There's a link to listen to it in hebrew and then links to all the other sections of Genesis. Nowhere on that page does it say anything approaching 'dodgy insert'.
The translation notes read:
"...addition is not at once to be inferred from the original wording and yet seems necessary for the understanding, it has been enclosed in brackets. " I see the word 'necessary' there.
Necessary != Dodgy.
You sited a shitty source, that's not my fault or problem.
Posted by: strangebrew | August 11, 2009 4:37 PM
Hammy is busted...and he knows it...but he will splutter and blather and whine about atheist conspiracy till the metaphorical rafts float all the way to Pangaea and back again...
Creationist clones like gmv will continue to pretend to defend the indefensible with rather lame inane and pathetic excuses and when those excuses are demolished in a logical and fully explained manner ... they go all flouncy and righteous ...go figure!
One would think by their petulance that they just had their metaphorical chubby but ignorant bottoms reddened by a passable imitation of good Christian Catholic love and glory...it stings because in reality...a difficult concept to be sure...they were chastised by the godless...
Hambone is a sad sack of lies deception and pomposity...and he senses that his little scam is about to start true terminal decline...it might even go extinct ...welcome to evolution hammy...don't let the good lord smack ya on the way out...bye bye Hambone...bye bye!
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 4:40 PM
#136
Source is shitty for supporting your point, I mean. It may well be the finest Hebrew bible translation ever created.
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 4:42 PM
There's the evidence of the hebrew - in which it doesn't appear! Besides which, you did (eventually) manage to find the site's own explanation of the brackets denoting something having been added in (although that's standard editorial markup anyway).
However, I disagree that in this case the insert is necessary for understanding. That necessity is very much only their opinion (and yours too, by current temporary convenience to you). It could quite viably mean a single two intended, as written, there. Or it could instead be, in order to mean what you want it to mean, an error in the allegedly inerrant bible/torah ...
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 4:42 PM
We're still at it? Must have been a short nap.
MU - Now wait, those were good christian animals. They needed to abstain from the naughty stuff until disembarking.
Posted by: OneSeeker | August 11, 2009 4:43 PM
You know, I think it's pretty funny that people here are debating the slight inconsistencies in the Bible, when the story as a whole isn't accepted as truth...
It's kinda like saying my Purple Horse actually has 6 legs. Prove me wrong! :-)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | August 11, 2009 4:53 PM
Blaine is proving that denial isn't just a river in Egypt. But rather a staple to godbot thinking. He just must make his version of the babble the Official Word Of GodTM, never mind it is a translation of a translation of a translation of a fable cobbled together over decades or centuries. Sigh, godbots just don't do diligent scholarship.
Posted by: daveau | August 11, 2009 4:54 PM
OneSeeker@141
Then we spend all our time arguing that there's no such thing as a purple horse...
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 5:02 PM
If you disagree with what your source says, take it up with them. Not me.
You linked it and it says it's necessary.
Again... you invoked that site and now are applying caveats?
'Trust the Hebrew portion is properly transcribed, but the translator's opinion is bunk'.
Even if I could read Hebrew, how could I trust that they didn't mess up the Hebrew since - by your opinion - they're imperfect as is?
Sorry it's a shitty citation. Your fault. Not mine. I wouldn't think it fair you calling me a dishonest fool because I read what YOU provided the topic with.
I have softball in an hour so I gotta go get ready, I can't do this all day.
OneSeeker:
The reason you don't have a 6 legged Purple Horse is Horses don't have legs. They have arms with feet attached. So sayth the Psalm*.
*Psalm 0118999881999119725...3- "Horses hath not legs, but arms with feet upon".
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 5:08 PM
#142
Exactly. I'm a staunch atheist and go by authority of the scientific community as a whole.
I actually think of it as a transation, of a translation of a TRANSCRIPTION of fables.
The writing down of stories of first hand accounts. That even if you got a 1st edition Werd o' Gawd... it's still prone to errors.
Ever watch a live sporting event with closed captioning? Same thing.
Posted by: OneSeeker | August 11, 2009 5:10 PM
Well, I hold that to be true for your "kind" of horse. My purple horse is more like a finch.
HAHA! Making stuff up is fun! Why hasn't any one thought of this... oh, wait. I was at the "museum" too... nevermind.
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 5:23 PM
You're dishonest because you pretended to read it but didn't actually do so properly at all. You repeatedly missed things and then had to make up more and more excuses for doing so.
Incidentally, you wouldn't actually have to read hebrew in order to be able to do the pattern matching exercise on the text. So you fail there as well as being ignorant of the relevant language, being ignorant of and ignoring the significance of mark-up, being rubbish at cut-and-paste for quotes and not even very proficient at english (judging by the numerous mistakes - which go way beyond a simple occasional typo).
If you are, as you claim (#145), an atheist (rather than a fake), then you're an example of the yellow quadrant.
Posted by: CJO | August 11, 2009 5:29 PM
What's amusing to me is the probable reason why the P text has seven pairs, vs. the two by two of the J text. The P (Priestly) source is always and everywhere concerned with --surprise!-- priestly matters, especially sacrifice. And so of course Noah has to make a sacrifice a part of the new covenant with God following the flood. Small problem with there only being two each of the clean (meaning 'allowed for sacrifice') animals...
Posted by: Michael D. Barton, FCD | August 11, 2009 5:29 PM
Wow, Darwin did experiments about dispersal using single seeds, immersing them in artificial seawater, then planting them to see if they would germinate. He must not have known he needed to experiment on whole floating forests!
Posted by: dean | August 11, 2009 5:35 PM
"It's kinda like saying my Purple Horse actually has 6 legs. Prove me wrong! :-)"
Actually, your purple horse has infinitely many legs.
Posted by: R. Schauer | August 11, 2009 5:37 PM
PZ, you're being Ham-handed.
Debating Genesis and the Flood is simply a moronic waste of time, IMHO. Look at the largest glaring facts from the 2000 year old book of lies:
-The flood was suppossed to rid the world of the unfaithful...yet, here we are...in spades!
-Second, there is no archeological records supporting the global flood claim from, what ~2348 bc? More bunk.
-Third, Noah was something like 500 years old and he built a frackin arc and had kids...come on now!
I could go on and on about this outrageous flood lie but like I said above...it's not worth the effort.
I will however, say this: for an accurate description of the latest in this creation/flood area using the latest devices man has such as the WAMP satellite...please read:
Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku. You can thank me later.
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 5:39 PM
But are those legs fractal?
Posted by: bastion of sass | August 11, 2009 5:40 PM
AnneH wrote:
Obviously, the animals were still
under God's magic spellaffected by the miracle that made them docile enough for Noah to easily capture and load them all on the ark, care for them, and keep the predators from making meals out of their prey, as well as Noah and his family, for 40 days.Posted by: aratina cage | August 11, 2009 5:46 PM
I never thought I would see Pharyngulites arguing over whether or not Noah took enough animals on the Ark so that he could sacrifice a few later. It is a funny discrepancy that was pointed to for ridicule while ignoring the elephant in the room: How the fuck could an Ark hold small sets of all the animals in the world in the first place? And what about the unicorns?!
Posted by: cheech | August 11, 2009 5:46 PM
man i dropped a floating log today..big time. ham's right. animals coulda traveled on that sucker.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 5:50 PM
CJO - Reminds me of children making up rules for a new game.
Posted by: bastion of sass | August 11, 2009 5:51 PM
Ham wrote:
...
OTOH, we creationists can lie as much as we want, on the basis that our worldview is the absolute truth, so lying for Jesus is always the moral and correct thing to do. For confirmation of how we lie because we believe, please come visit our museum.
Posted by: CJO | August 11, 2009 5:53 PM
Patricia, yep.
Total ret-con.
Posted by: MadScientist | August 11, 2009 5:54 PM
That would have been fun - jumping onto platforms that moved by and literally took you for a trip around the world.
I have some obvious questions though:
1. where did all the water come from to create the global flood?
2. where did the water go to?
Or are those "miracles" - the water came from nowhere and disappeared to nowhere?
The Global Flood claims aren't even consistent with the Local Flood and Creation of the Grand Canyon claims.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 5:56 PM
Aratina - It's a fun game called nitpicking while you wait for a troll.
If you like we could sort the chaff on why gawd hates lesbians and bacon? :p
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 11, 2009 6:03 PM
All races therefore have developed from this one family [Noah's] since the end of the flood in Noah's day. The Australian Aborigine, the Chinese, and the European have come into existence only in recent times. The culture (technology and religions, etc.) of each racial group in the world started at a common point-Noah-with full knowledge of God and a sophisticated ocean liner technology. The current states of culture of the races, which varies from space age to stone age, from animal worship and spirit worship to Christianity, is not a result of innocent, ignorant people searching for improvement. It is a direct consequence of whether the ancestors of any race worshipped the living God or deliberately rejected Him. - AiG, quoted by Ryan Egesdahl
Hmm, the ancient Hebrews must have done a whole lot more living-God-rejecting by the 6th century BCE than, say, the contemporary Chinese or Greeks! Odd, too, that Chinese and Islamic technology kept advancing, and remained more sophisticated than that of any Christian culture at least until the 12th century.
Posted by: Apologetics Dude | August 11, 2009 6:12 PM
1. where did all the water come from to create the global flood?
2. where did the water go to?
It's all, like, tooootally cosmic dude. See, when Yah-way made the world, the first thing was, like, he had to separate the waters above from the waters below. Deep, yeah? Also, this is like so totally lifted from Babylonian mythology, but like whatever.
So, anyway, like, all along, the fountains of the deep are just like hanging over our head, like, Yah-way's just totally lookin' for an excuse. Like make my day, yeah? Like do you feel lucky punk? So, anyways, one day, after his main man Noah was like cruisin' on his bad-ass boat, Yah-way just totally lets 'er rip, man! Like serious water, worse than a hurricaine, yeah? Biggest storm, evah! And then, when it's all over, like, say Uncle! humanity, you just got schooled! he can just pull the same stunt as he did when he made the thing, right? Just separate the waters, like John from Roger, right? and boom! All better. 'Tain't nothin' but a thing.
Posted by: strangebrew | August 11, 2009 6:13 PM
# 160
"why gawd hates lesbians and bacon"
that is just being silly...cos gawd lubbs bacon...where did Ham come from then?...see gottcha...and no comebacks!...not sure about the lesbi part though ;-)
Posted by: OneSeeker | August 11, 2009 6:14 PM
@ #159:
The claim is that a significant portion of the water was said to have been released from the magma in which it was contained (YEAH! That's what the CM board said!). It was accompanied by a nice bit of animation that showed how a single column of "center of the earth" magma caused tectonic plate shifts and ALSO released a HUGE amount of liquid water onto the surface of the Earth.
Posted by: Talley | August 11, 2009 6:22 PM
The five Mennonite women in the second to last picture made me chuckle.
Posted by: Josh | August 11, 2009 6:29 PM
Uh, no.
The AIG folks would be far better off just standing on miracles, because there is nothing in that whole paragraph that isn't completely full of FAIL.
I mean seriously, no.
No.
Sorry, no.
I mean, WTF?
No.
Posted by: Attila | August 11, 2009 6:30 PM
So PZ is now The Professor capable of smiting all cretards by calling down the wrath of the ancient squid gods. So what ranks does that give us. Who are the minions, henchmen, and lackeys?
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 6:31 PM
Strangebrew - You heathen! The only god that loves bacon is Moccus.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 11, 2009 6:35 PM
*red alert* Fainting couch for Josh!
Posted by: moonkitty | August 11, 2009 6:37 PM
OK, just to be clear on the vital how-many-of-each-kind did Noah take on the ark question:
Genesis 6:19
And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shall thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
Genesis 7:2
Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens: the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
Per my cheapo KJV.
Yup, the good book contradicts itself. (Who woulda thought? ; ) There are a lot of these contradictory "couplets". If you're interested, or just want to learn a few of them so you can mess up a fundie's day, I recommend Tim Callahan's book Secret Origins of the Bible.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | August 11, 2009 6:39 PM
Here Josh, maybe some three day old grog will help...
Posted by: SEF | August 11, 2009 6:40 PM
Creationists still require pigs to have been made by god though - and declared to be good. Unless the pigs were supposed to be something else pre-fall and only got cursed into being pigs (for something omitted in the current versions of the holy babble) and doomed to get roasted and have apples stuffed into their mouths. That's rather symbolic ...
Posted by: Josh | August 11, 2009 6:45 PM
Josh doesn't faint*.
--Although (even though I do have a very nice pint of Leffe beside me) the idea of some Three-D-O grog sounds pretty nice, right now. Yum.
*Oh come on! It was kinda funny.
Posted by: R Hampton | August 11, 2009 6:46 PM
Another great Noah's Ark incongruity: And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
And the Ark's dimensions? And this is how thou shalt make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. It must have had a shallow draft!
Using the most generous definition of a cubit reveals a flood depth of about 34 feet. And because the original hebrew can be read as either hills or mountains, a "deluge" on the order of the 1993 Mississippi flood seems to be a logical interpretation.
Of course the creationists interpret the scripture to read 15 cubits above the highest mountain. Now if we play along and pretend that pre-Flood mountains were no higher than one mile, then arable land at sea level would have been subjected to 160 atmospheres of "semi" salt water for 150 days.
Imagine the rotting, morbid muck - and entire planet's worth of animals and plants - littered across a soupy, lifeless earth! Seems to me it would take a many years if not decades for the soil to recover. In the meantime, Noah and most of his rescued critters would have died from starvation.
Posted by: co | August 11, 2009 7:18 PM
I'll be a toady, if I have the chance to advance through the ranks to henchman or minor minion.
Posted by: Tulse | August 11, 2009 7:27 PM
Exactly -- I don't understand at all why they bother to attempt naturalistic explanations at these kind of events. It's not like science is offering some competing explanation, and it's not like they shy away from invoking miracles at various times, so why do they insist on hypothesizing about water locked in magma or log rafts when they can just say "goddidit"?
Posted by: Elwood Herring | August 11, 2009 7:28 PM
Seems to me that in order to explain the Flood story you can either try to explain it all scientifically (which as we all know is impossible) or just throw up your hands and say "goddidit" - because as soon as you invoke even a single miraculous event you leave yourself open to such absurdities as "Why cause a flood at all?" Why does God need to summon up a global flood to smite all the evildoers, which involves such a lot of work arranging everything just so - why not simply use his godly powers to remove everyone who "offends" him from the face of the earth simply and cleanly?
The whole story is either physically impossible or logically absurd, one or the other. Unless God is a huge practical joker who loves making work for himself and doing everything the hard way. Fail fail fail.
Posted by: Elwood Herring | August 11, 2009 7:36 PM
Miracle... miracle... we've got an explanation for that bit... miracle... this is how we explain that bit away (using mangled science)... miracle...
No.
Either Goddidit and did it in this ridiculously complicated way because he's a monumental inconsistent bad-tempered asshole who couldn't find his almighty butt with both hands and a garden fork
OR...
It's all bollocks. Pure and simple.
Guess which one I'm going for.
Posted by: Owlmirror | August 11, 2009 7:38 PM
Actually, you have that exactly backwards. P has two of everything; J has seven of the clean animals. J also has Noah perform a sacrifice (presumably from the extra animals) after the flood. P just says that the animals all left.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/jepd_gen.htm
I recall seeing it explained like this, though: the P document was concerned with centralization of worship (as was Dtr, as I recall). J and E preceded that, so they had people making sacrifices whenever and whereever. P wanted to emphasize that sacrifices could only be made by priests (of the correct lineage) at the Jerusalem temple. Having Noah offer a sacrifice on his own authority would have undermined that.
Or something like that.
Posted by: NewEnglandBob
|
August 11, 2009 7:47 PM
As we here gloat on! I love it.
Posted by: Josh | August 11, 2009 7:54 PM
Regarding the flood, the evidence is unambiguous. Not only is there no supporting evidence from geology, but the evidence that we do have amounts to an absolute and utter condemnation of the very idea of a Noachian-type deluge. The rock record lays the flood myth out, dead.
There are two possibilities: either the global flood never happened, or whatever deity was responsible for it subsequently removed all evidence of said event and replaced that evidence with a rock record that screams with one voice, echoed by every sand grain, every clay skin, and every set of slickensides, that "there was no flood!" I'm sorry but it really is that simple. Those who would argue otherwise are either profoundly ignorant on the subject, or they are lying.
You delusionists have the option of standing on miracles. Use it. The rock record is your ruination.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 11, 2009 7:56 PM
Are dinosaurs clean or unclean?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | August 11, 2009 8:05 PM
As near as I can figure out, unclean.Posted by: Josh | August 11, 2009 8:10 PM
Yeah, I think that they're unclean.
Posted by: Cut and Paste | August 11, 2009 8:42 PM
#167
Whatever title,position you want.
In a guerrilla war, everyone can be a general.
Posted by: Owlmirror | August 11, 2009 8:51 PM
Birds are dinosaurs, some birds (I think anything within superorder Galloanserae, more or less) are kosher, so some dinosaurs must be kosher.
Posted by: Barry | August 11, 2009 9:20 PM
Dispersal by floating logs and mats of vegetation? I didn’t buy that crap when I sat in a lecture hall and listened to G. G. Simpson spout it decades ago; and I wont buy it from the Creation Museum today.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | August 11, 2009 10:11 PM
R. Hampton [#174], maybe cubits were bigger in those days .
Josh [#181], and when there is massive flooding, it's generally repeated as in the evidence of glacial dams in the U.S.
Posted by: Blaine | August 11, 2009 10:17 PM
SEF:
Again with the ad hominum attacks. Even if I have a weak grasp of English doesn't ameliorate the fact... you're wrong. Still.
You have failed, repeatedly, to address the fact that your cited source agrees with me and not you. Your cited source says the addition is necessary. It appears that you're the one who didn't read your precious hebrew translation notes before you stuck your foot in your mouth with your "dodgy" comment.
This is, of course, after you already posted your RSV link which... agreed with what I said as well. But we've forgotten about that.
All you can do is attack me and not even address the simple fact at hand. Simple name calling.
It's apparent you have a total lack of intellectual integrity.
Posted by: NoGurus | August 11, 2009 10:36 PM
Like to know how each pair of the 14,000 species of ants (Wikipedia) crammed on to Noah's Ark, and who did the inventory. Mind you, that is just, ants, a minuscle part of the insect population. Noah's Ark would have to have been the size of Africa to carry all those bugs. But of course the termites alone would have eaten the wood... and wait, I got it! Noah's Ark must be the lost city of Atlantis, sunk by a thundering herd of insects!
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | August 11, 2009 10:52 PM
And all the time while complaining about you, Ham still doesn't have the minimal guts or courtesy to actually link to the blog entries in question... Amazing.
Posted by: John F | August 11, 2009 11:11 PM
@30
My Arabic language skills are mediocre at best, and I do occasionally run across an Arabic font that I find incomprehensible, but I'm 99% sure the "Arabic" in that picture isn't real Arabic. It looks more like what someone with no understanding of Arabic might think Arabic kind of looks like.
Posted by: Louise | August 11, 2009 11:17 PM
In my shortish lifetime thus far I have been witness to the dam raising flooding of x3 river valleys (with significant tree coverage)Awonga Dam in Gladstone, Faust Dam Proserpine and Lake Jindabyne all in Asutralia- never seen a raft island - nope never!
Posted by: Tulse | August 11, 2009 11:26 PM
Species? Of course they didn't have one of every species, as that would be silly. No, instead they simply took one of every "kind" or baramin. A single pair of ants (a mommy ant and a daddy ant) represented the ant baramin and would have been sufficient to recreate the diversity of ant species (which are all within that baramin) that we see today post-Deluge.
No, really.
Posted by: KevinC | August 11, 2009 11:34 PM
Ken Ham wrote:
It's stupid to believe something just because it's written in a book. So, yeah.
Posted by: NoGurus | August 11, 2009 11:43 PM
Tulse #194
I looked at your link to "baramin," which is simply a euphemism that has no scientific validity or meaning nor any peer reviewed research that validates it as a scientific concept based on reality (Wikipedia). I also saw the link you provided went directly to a preacher's website. Your are talking gobblydegook, and I suggest you take a bromide to cure your sad case of baraminitis (euphemism for wacky disease). No, really.
Posted by: Dan W | August 11, 2009 11:48 PM
Umm... yeah, I was wondering what this "floating forests" thing was about. There was a woman on Youtube who apparently visited the Creation "Museum" with the group of atheists last week, I believe her account is "PandyFackleresque". She mentioned these "floating forests" in a couple of videos she posted about her experiences at the "museum", and apparently she wasn't sure what they were talking about there. I was similarly confused by this "floating forests" thing, so I'm glad to see it explained here. Just like most (or all?) of the stuff at the Creation "Museum", it makes no sense.
Posted by: Uncle Glenny
|
August 11, 2009 11:53 PM
Posted by: Louise | August 11, 2009 11:17 PM
... never seen a raft island - nope never!
I read about one in the last few years in a lake in, I think, western Massachusetts. It was apparently clumps of brush and debris with things growing on it, and drifted around and caused problems by bumping into people's (very expensive lakefront) boatslips.
Posted by: Levi in NY | August 12, 2009 12:22 AM
I actually see very strong evidence for an old earth in that world map there. Notice how the coastlines of the Americas and Europe/Africa fit neatly together, as if they split apart some time in the distant past. And how coasts near the poles are very jagged and fjord-y, as if they had been carved out by ice in some sort of an Ice Age. I would be interested to know why Ham thinks God designed the Earth that way. Maybe he had Slartibartfast design the coastlines for him?
Posted by: Qwerty | August 12, 2009 12:51 AM
My favorite paragraph from Ken Ham's diatribe:
"Sometimes I wonder if the writer has just heard distorted information from others, has read information too quickly and just jumps to conclusions or just makes it up to try to make the Creation Museum (and those behind it) sound ridiculous!"
After reading and watching the various posts on this so-called museum, it seems to be the most ridiculous place since PT Barnum's museum in NYC.
If I go there, I expect to see the giant egress.
Posted by: strangebrew | August 12, 2009 2:20 AM
#168
"Strangebrew - You heathen!
That is sheer unadulterated flattery...as such it is about the nicest thing I have ever been accused of...ever....
That has really made my day ;-)..thanx Patricia!
Posted by: Charlie Foxtrot | August 12, 2009 3:10 AM
I'm sure that was because the BENEVOLENT and guiding HAND of GOD kept pushing them off the floating rafts and holding them under the water for a while.
He can be a dick that way...
(hey, that all caps thing is kinda fun...)
Posted by: Charlie Foxtrot | August 12, 2009 3:28 AM
#158
I heard they are planning to reboot the series with a new movie...
Posted by: ObSciGuy | August 12, 2009 3:38 AM
"I remember it vividly, because it contained the only image in the whole place of a cephalopod (the small blob on the far right)."
Not so fast!! There was ANOTHER CEPHALOPOD in their Intelligent Design video... Here's a still at
http://theobligatescientist.blogspot.com/2009/08/creation-museum-part-3-intelligent.html
Posted by: Mau de Katt | August 12, 2009 3:49 AM
I like that painting of the floating forest.... You know, that would be an interesting premise for a science fiction book -- a tribe of people living in one of those floating forests, and their encounters with other floats and coastal regions and such. Provided, of course, that the biology for a sustainable ecosystem could be worked out, and the logistics for such a thing surviving the centuries on the ocean and such. Failing that, it could be a fantasy novel, and magic could hold it all together.
It's a damn shame that such a thing is being taught as "scientific truth" to kids who may never get a chance to learn better.
Posted by: Anton Mates | August 12, 2009 4:00 AM
NoGurus #196,
Tulse is Poeing.
Posted by: Mau de Katt | August 12, 2009 4:20 AM
I wonder whether Ken Ham got the idea of the floating plant islands from C.S. Lewis' novel Perelandra (1943)?
Oh durrr!!! I ~knew~ that idea seemed vaguely familiar.
Well, in my defense, it's been several decades since I read Perelandra, and I was a kid at the time as well. (Hm, now I think I'll re-read it.)
But I still think it would make a good idea for a secular science fiction or fantasy novel.
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 4:41 AM
@ Blaine #189:
Untrue - just like the last time you made that false accusation against me. Evidently you are also bad at latin and logic. But pretending to know it is really only embarrassing yourself not me (even if it's only the other high quality people who can recognise that rather than your fellow low quality ones).
False. The source disagrees with you and agrees with me. The opinion of the editor on that source is not the same thing as the source itself. If you were at all honest I'd suggest you try to learn the difference sometime. As it is, I'll let that at least be a suggestion for any others who might still be reading.
Similarly, Ken Ham's opinion of what the source evidence is and says (eg about a world-wide flood) does not change or trump what the source evidence actually is.
I posted no such thing and what I did post didn't do what you claim. You are very inobservant and inaccurate as well as dishonest. The RSV text (which I merely reproduced here #89) agreed with me. Hardly surprisingly, since that was the bible which I first read all the way through and probably best remember (hence the off the cuff #59). I acquired other versions a little later. And then the internet was invented ...
It's apparent that you're projecting.
That's why the yellow box trash like you aren't really people you want on your side if you're in the right as a blue box person. When they're insane (can't see reality) and/or dishonest (lie about reality) it's somewhat irrelevant that they claim to be on the same side. You certainly wouldn't want to have them representing you; and they can't meaningfully be engaged either - because they are delusional liars. The conversation is only worth it for the potential enlightenment of the lurkership.
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 4:51 AM
I've seen some on UK TV (one of the documentary type things which are really an excuse for presenter X to go on an extended holiday!). But these particular ones were deliberately constructed and ancient things - for growing crops of various kinds, including flowers. There were lots of them connected together on the water. I forget the location though (it might have been South America somewhere).
Posted by: FishNChimps
|
August 12, 2009 4:53 AM
A shame that Conservapedia has removed this wonderful piece of text from its entry on kangaroos:
"Modern kangaroos are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood.
After the Flood, these kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers that migrated to Australia. There is debate whether they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters"
I saved it to use in presentations and it always gets a disbelieving laugh.
Posted by: Mau de Katt | August 12, 2009 5:07 AM
NoGurus #196,
Tulse is Poeing.
Actually, sadly, no. Tulse is explaining, very tongue-in-cheekly, the actual Creationist explanation for why you wouldn't need 14000 separate ant species on the ark. The pastor's site he linked to contains a very "good" explanation of the whole "baramin" thing, too, one held by AiG and mentioned in their Hamseum.
Yes, a "baramin" is a made-up concept with no link to reality, but many pictures from the CreoZerg show the panel in the Hamseum describing how Creationist "baraminologists" "study" these things. And I read somewhere on AiG (my mind has mercifully erased the full memory) that Creationists roughly equate a "baramin" or "kind" with the taxonomic level of Family.
No, really.
(*snerk*)
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 5:08 AM
Has Conservapedia recently(?) removed a lot of embarrassing (to itself) creationist stuff then? Or might that one have been specifically removed because you linked to it a lot and drew attention to it?
Unless the standard wiki page history feature works there (or the internet archive wayback machine kept copies of it) I wouldn't be able to tell because I never frequented the place.
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 5:24 AM
So much so that they hadn't even taken snails etc into account at all, last time I checked what passed for the official research page! Not bothering with a huge range of animals (which perhaps, like plants, don't count as alive anyway for creationists because they don't do any blatantly obvious breathing - the original basis for judging life, "spirit" etc) certainly makes it easier to jam things onto an ark.
Rather obviously, the greater one's ignorance of the diversity of life, of physics and of reality as a whole is, the easier creationist lies are to believe - hence them working best on primitive peasants and innocent children and not so well in an information-rich mass-communications world (at least when people have the time and inclination to check).
Posted by: Mau de Katt | August 12, 2009 5:36 AM
Tulse is Poeing.
me: No, he's not. blahblahblah
My apologies. Of course Tulse was Poeing.
I've just spent the last 12 hours reading blog accounts of the CreoZerg, and my brain shorted out. Thus, not only have I reverse-remembered a definition, but I contradicted myself in my own explanation.
My brain has been infected by Hamseumitis! Quick, what's the antidote?
Posted by: FishNChimps
|
August 12, 2009 5:46 AM
#212 The kangaroo piece was a much-cited example of Conservapedia idiocy. I have plenty of others saved, e.g:
THE 19TH CENTURY: "The 19th century was the time period between 1800 and 1901. It was a busy time, because lots of things were going on at once."
FEMININITY: "feminine traits include being emotional, demure, affectionate, sympathetic, sensitive, soft-spoken, warm, tender, childlike, gentle, pretty, willowy, submissive, understanding and compassionate"
PEN: "A writing implement. It uses ink, as opposed to graphite or blood."
and, just in case you were confused about the difference between the fellow who has just removed your appendix and a fish:
SURGEON: "Do not confuse with Sturgeon"
Posted by: strangebrew | August 12, 2009 5:46 AM
#214
"My brain has been infected by Hamseumitis! Quick, what's the antidote?"
REALITY....Simples!
Posted by: Christophe Thill | August 12, 2009 5:55 AM
Ken Ham's floating forests are a crazy idea. Evidence? Well, for one, they're not mentioned in the bible! No, actually, there were FLYING forests, not floating ones. Prove me wrong, Mr Ham!
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 5:57 AM
Judging by the sort of stuff which frequently appears on forums, they need many more of those entries not fewer. Eg one on not confusing "tenant" with "tenet".
Posted by: Josh | August 12, 2009 6:03 AM
Yes, exactly! We know what floods do, and we know what the evidence they generate looks like. Flood deposits are distinctive.
*shakes head*
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 6:24 AM
Incidentally, another important issue raised by the creationists invention of baraminology (ie a very limited number of kinds on the ark which only diversified later) is the fact it necessarily includes an inadvertent admission by them that evolution is true. Not only is evolution, the creation of new and distinct modern species from progenitor catch-all species, required by them but they also require evolution (the spontaneous generation and spread of many beneficial mutations, long after the supposed singular era of creation, leading to differentiated isolated populations) to occur much more rapidly than it has ever been observed in science - while simultaneously still denying it happens at all.
They are more evolutionist than the evolutionists are!
However, they also lack anyone noting this startlingly rapid change of species during human recorded history (ie the only couple of thousand years in which they believe) all over the world. You'd think such a thing would have been worthy of a mention somewhere. Especially since another of their simultaneous claims is that evolution has never been observed. Were all the descendants of Noah afflicted with either the most incredible inattentiveness or illiteracy?
Posted by: strangebrew | August 12, 2009 6:54 AM
Methinks that fundamentalist creationism depends on the top charlatans really secretly realising that Darwinian evolution is indeed the mechanism...but have to twist and shoe horn it into the creationist myopic version forced on them by the wholly babble....
That must be a curse...thing is although the premise is quietly accepted by the ones that can see it...they have to lie about it for the 'benefit' of the minions beneath !
The minions have not clue anyway...they are ignorant of scientific method and do not read...or cannot read...the texts that might illuminate this process.
They get the creationist message passed down to them orally...in every sense of the term...they do not question...they do not know how...they accept the bullshit verbatim...they are told what to think and how to interpret the biblical scripture...this they do from a very young age!
But they provide the feeding ground for these scum that profit from the nonsense....the moderate church is complicit...they do not dare argue with creationist crap...it might turn and bite the bum ecclesiastical....
That scam is reinforced by continually casting doubt on the scientific evolutionary theory...using pliable and sensationalistic media outlets.
Cast doubt and the chattering classes will do the rest.
This is the ploy hinted at in the 'wedge' document.
In other words baffle them with bullshit...but benefit from the confusion to reinforce the jeebus crapola...
Called keeping them off balance...and striking under the guard!
Even been known that some creationist gurus have admitted that even if the evidence was overwhelming... and in many many areas it actually is...then the default position is to always revert to 'godwotdidit' in spite of the facts...
Behe is a prime example...lie... prevaricate....change tack and lie again...but never admit gross error...tis wot they do!
This is an attempt to keep 'team creation' together...the more capable and manipulative top doggy worshippers know deep down tis a load of balls...but they maintain the ignorance to pacify the legions...smoke and mirrors ...never so chocking or so cracked methinks!
Posted by: JefFlyingV | August 12, 2009 7:03 AM
SEF, the creationists are going to butress their mythology with added new mythologies. The additions are less credible than their original belief.
Which 4th century scholar said that Christianity was so silly it had to be true and that was why he had converted?
Posted by: Elwood Herring | August 12, 2009 7:14 AM
I think Roger Dean should be informed - he might want to sue for infringment of copyright over that "floating island" painting.
Posted by: crs | August 12, 2009 7:51 AM
The devil (if he existed) is in the details. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for breaking the "rule" of hospitality where a stranger is treated kindly while in a strange land. It was (and still is) common practice in some instances to humiliate and degrade others by rape. That was the sin of S&G.
Sorry for the long cut and paste post, but this sort of justification for homophobia really pisses me off.
Posted by: Tsu Dho Nimh | August 12, 2009 8:03 AM
@47 ... Only sacrifices were of "clean" animals and birds. He planned ahead, and had 7 of each of those species.
The pairs of unclean animals were allowed to go forth, hop on a waiting clump of floating trees, and float off to their appointed spot on the Earth.
Except for the unicorns, of course, which had been too busy hopping and playing and getting jiggy before the flood and they missed the boat.
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 8:11 AM
@ crs #224:
So that particular god is pro travellers / nomads / gypsies and anti the people who don't like caravans on the roads and who won't let them trespass temporarily on other people's property nor set up permanent trailer parks for stationary "travellers" without prior planning permission (which is almost certainly going to be denied them anyway).
Non-UK people may not get the relevance of this.
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 8:30 AM
@ JefFlyingV #222:
They are also completely unevidenced - no surprise there. As a result of rapid evolution (or subsequent sudden new creation) and massive extinction, the rest of the bible and other, completely independent, human records (of all types) ought to look very different than they do. They should be dotted with references to, depictions of and recipes for critters which do appear and only appear in the fossil record, rather than being around today. Instead we only have obviously made up stuff like the sphinx, dragons, mermaids, gryphons and the jabberwocky which never appear in the fossil record at all.
Ship's log, Captain J.T.Noah presiding: We've been snacking on all the dinosaur eggs which the good lord directed their grieving parents to leave in our care. They were very tasty - yum! I don't think god saw us. Hopefully he won't notice the mysterious absence of all these huge beasts after the flood if we keep him distracted with lots of diversionary sinning. He won't be able to prove a thing.
New world log, Captain J.T.Noah still presiding: That naughty boy, Ham, has been over-fishing the trilobites again. That's the end of them then. I also accidentally trod on one of the two remaining baby mammoths. Oops.
Meanwhile, or a little later, somewhere in South America: Today we found that all our maladapted camels had suddenly transformed into llamas overnight. Praise be to Quetzalcoatl.
Posted by: dean | August 12, 2009 9:05 AM
More on the great flood.
http://www.farleftside.com/2008/11-10-08.html
Posted by: dean | August 12, 2009 9:08 AM
@225:
The true reason unicorns didn't get on the arc.
http://www.farleftside.com/2009/1-26-09.html
Posted by: Cowcakes | August 12, 2009 9:26 AM
So what the fuck did the animals eat while they were floating on log rafts for months/years until they reached landfall. Again on behalf of all intelligent Australians I apologies for the cretinous monstrosity that is Ken Ham. But bloody hell were really glad he doesn't live her any more.
Posted by: SEF | August 12, 2009 10:10 AM
Ken Ham would probably either ignore that question or make something up. But were he engaged in any sort of honest enquiry (which we already know he isn't!), he'd go to the locations where he has determined that these vegetation rafts of his must have landed and look for the unusual collection of dung residue which must also be there and examine it for its contents (and confirmation of the identities of the raft inhabitants and constituents). That's what real investigators, archaeologists etc, do.
Posted by: DingoJack | August 12, 2009 10:49 AM
"To the scientifically minded community, I say the following:
On behalf of Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry.
On behalf of the government of Australia, I am sorry.
On behalf of the parliament of Australia, I am sorry.
On behalf of the people of Australia, I am sorry.
I offer you this apology without qualification.
We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering that Ken Ham, his minions, and his "Flintstones theme park" , have caused you by the logical fallacies, distortions and flat out lies.
We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these lies embodied.
We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were insulted by the patent falsehoods of that odious little man, Ken Ham.
In making this apology, I would also like to speak personally to the members of the scientific professions and their families: to those here today, so many of you; to those listening across the net - from Fairbanks, in the central west of Alaska, to Homestead, in Southern Florida, and everywhere in between.
I know that, in offering this apology on behalf of the Australia and it's people, there is nothing I can say today that can take away the pain you have suffered personally.
Whatever words I speak today, I cannot undo that.
Words alone are not that powerful; grief is a very personal thing."
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 12, 2009 10:51 AM
Can you apologize for Crocodile Dundee too?
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 12, 2009 10:58 AM
So what the fuck did the animals eat while they were floating on log rafts for months/years until they reached landfall. Cowcakes
Manna from heaven?
Posted by: DingoJack | August 12, 2009 11:08 AM
Kev hasn't quite got around to apologising for Mel Gibson (well, one of yours really}, Kylie Minogue, Rolf Harris, The Seekers, Germaine Greer (come back Doctor Greer, all is forgiven), Home & Away, Neighbours, Paul Hogan, Joe Dolce and the rest...
'till then:
Just insert the appropriate name into the apology. :D - DJ
Posted by: JefFlyingV | August 12, 2009 11:25 AM
DingoJack, what is the need for apology? So we changed the wording on the Statue of Liberty ...send us your stupid and charlatans...
Ken Ham is living the American dream, he is cashing in on a product with little or no development on his own. He has written books and created an edifice to "biblical science", which delivers what the suckers want. Ken Ham is the religious equivalent of P.T. Barnum. If anything is at fault, it is American society that supports Ken Ham instead of starving him.
Posted by: DingoJack | August 12, 2009 11:40 AM
Jeff - Yes, but his idiocy was born and bred here - and for that I, personally, apologise. - DJ
____________
PS: For those who are not Australians read: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/13/1202760379056.html?page=2 , bear with it and you will find a surprising convergence.
Posted by: BK | August 12, 2009 12:14 PM
It seems to me that the museum took a rare and very localized phenomenon and tried to apply it globally. I read once about a small island off of Mexico getting suddenly populated by iguanas after a hurricane blew over a lot of trees that some iguanas happened to be in. But, they didn't have to ride very far (maybe a few days at most if that), and probably only a small handful survived out of many. Most likely it has happened before but the animals were dead upon arrival. It would take a half-wit though to make the leap from that rare happening to make it populate the entire earth.
Posted by: CJO | August 12, 2009 12:24 PM
Actually, you have that exactly backwards. P has two of everything; J has seven of the clean animals.
D'oh! Stupid of me too; I should have considered that P is the cosmic version in which the charming little bit about God smelling the smoke of Noah's sacrifice would have been entirely incongruous.
Thanks Owlmirror.
Posted by: Heleva Pryce | August 12, 2009 12:57 PM
1. Does anyone find the myth of Ham a little disconcerting that because he sees his dad's nads, His child is cursed? I am not following this logic, dysfunction family values aside.
and...
2. If there are no other deities BUT the primary deity, how does Noah have the POWER to really effectively curse his grandson and all descendents in the first place? Doesn't that ability make Noah deity-like?
3. Not ALL locusts, Grasshoppers, crickets etc. – just a specified Sephardic species of Locust is kosher.
4. Dinos are OU-T (Orthodox Union – Treyf) just like bacon and pork products and the sour cream and butter on my baked potato with my steak dinner. I hear they taste like chicken though.
5. Why is it when anyone attempts to translate Torah, it comes out in the same vernacular as the xtian kjv? I mean really now folks.
6. Kosher just means fit
7. Are there any other Jewish agnostics/atheists (yes, some of us identify our Jewishness as a distinct genetic and cultural inheritance - not just a faith system) who are disconcerted about how anti-Semitic some of Ham's (and other xtians like him) stuff is? The fundamentals of Judaism would tell Ham that things are absolute without fudge room or speculation of “Floating mats of Vegetation”. Although given that Schneerson was the Moshichiac they might believe this feldercarb too. They already subscribe to the Flat Earth and YEC.
8. The prairie dress gals could pass for Chabdnik Bubbes.
9. How did I miss this blog before today?
10. Am I the only acknowledge Jew to make a comment in 200 plus posts? Oy Vey!
Posted by: bastion of sass | August 12, 2009 1:05 PM
SEF @ #209 wrote:
Are you perhaps thinking of the floating gardens of the Aztec capital of Tenochititlan (the present location of Mexico City)?
Posted by: E.V. | August 12, 2009 1:06 PM
Welcome Heleva Pryce. You're going to be fun, I can tell.
Posted by: bastion of sass | August 12, 2009 1:14 PM
I wrote:
Darn it! I knew that I was going to misspell Tenochtitlan, even though I was looking at the word as I typed it.
Posted by: Sven DIMilo | August 12, 2009 1:24 PM
Yes!
(see what I did there?)
Posted by: Heleva Pryce | August 12, 2009 1:27 PM
DingoJack, never apologise for other's mistakes. Ham should own up and admit it s'h'itself or just live in infamy deservedly.
Posted by: Heleva Pryce | August 12, 2009 1:32 PM
Sven and the other guy RE: Roger Dean's artwork - as an artist I have found copycats to use the term "interpretation in the style of" to get away with copyright difficulties.
Sven, great name, I named my Rajapalayam Hound Swen. He is a great dog.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | August 12, 2009 1:48 PM
DingoJack - What are you on about? We have George Bush & Dick Cheney, every miscreant in your country, stinging insect, and deadly serpent can't add up to that pair.
Posted by: fnxtr | August 12, 2009 1:53 PM
I'm having a hard time getting the idea of "Perelandra: Illustrated by Roger Dean" out of my head... I supposed Jon and Vangelis will have to do the movie soundtrack... about time "Olias" was recycled anyway...
Posted by: Jamie | August 12, 2009 2:00 PM
I don't know if this has been brought up elsewhere, but why did the aquatic reptiles go extinct? They're claiming that god didn't save the dinosaurs in the flood right, well, how/why would something like the mosasaur go extinct?
Posted by: Wayne | August 12, 2009 2:17 PM
From #48 - Look at the "Different Languages" sign in the lower left corner... And don't even get me started on the Arabic example (at least I thing it's supposed to be Arabic). They couldn't even be bothered to go online and find correctly spelled Hebrew and Arabic to use as an example. Or maybe they did, and someone still managed to f*ck it up.
Isn't this some sort of blasphamy against Islam that is punishable by death?
Posted by: Heleva Pryce | August 12, 2009 2:33 PM
Posted by: Wayne | August 12, 2009 2:17 PM #250
From #48 - Look at the "Different Languages" sign in the lower left corner... And don't even get me started on the Arabic example (at least I thing it's supposed to be Arabic). They couldn't even be bothered to go online and find correctly spelled Hebrew and Arabic to use as an example. Or maybe they did, and someone still managed to f*ck it up.
Isn't this some sort of blasphamy against Islam that is punishable by death?
Only if they meant to spell Aleph, Lamed, Lamed, Aleph, He in vain. /sarcasm
Posted by: thalarctos | August 12, 2009 3:09 PM
Let's just call it even on Mel Gibson, and agree to never speak of him again.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 12, 2009 3:27 PM
"What's with the last picture with all the women wearing the same kind of dress?
Did that polygamist cult from Texas visit the museum that day too?"
Nah, all female creationist extremists look like that. Because the creationst men are sexist pigs who think women should look like that. It's in the Bible. (Actually, the Bible says men and women are equal, but creationists are famous for not even knowing the book they supposedly base their views on.)
I am Christian, but I'm not a biblical literalist and I absolutely dispise all of creationism, including Ken Hampster and his AiG bullcrap. And I love it when his mentally retarded claims are exposed for the dog dung they are.
Posted by: hibob | August 12, 2009 4:46 PM
Ok.
1. ABC reports the museum has displays depicting humanity dispersing on log rafts
2. Hamm says the museum says no such thing. Plenty of rafts, sure, but no human passengers
3. PZ shows exhibits from the museum that describe animals rafting about, but do not (from what I can see) show humans.
Where's the fire? It looks to me like ABC misrepresented the museum (on this one picayune distinction).
Anyway, I'd rather go to the Museum of the Jurassic
http://www.mjt.org/
Posted by: Lyle | August 12, 2009 4:54 PM
What did the animals on the "log mats" eat while waiting for their "log mat" to float to its destination?
Posted by: Knockgoats | August 12, 2009 5:13 PM
Actually, the Bible says men and women are equal - Anonymous
Yeah, right:
1 Corinthians 11:3
3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman [is] the man; and the head of Christ [is] God.
1 Corinthians 11:7 - 9
7 For a man indeed ought not to cover [his] head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
1 Corinthians 14:34 - 35
34. Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but [they are commanded] to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
Ephesians 5:22 - 25
22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in every thing.
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Colossians 3:18
18. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
1 Timothy 2:9 - 15
9. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.
Romans 7:2
2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to [her] husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of [her] husband.
Titus 2:3 - 5
3 The aged women likewise, that [they be] in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 [To be] discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
1 Peter 3:1 -3
1. Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
2 While they behold your chaste conversation [coupled] with fear.
3 Whose adorning let it not be that outward [adorning] of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
1 Peter 3:5 -7
5 For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:
6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with [them] according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
Genesis 3:16
16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Leviticus 12:2
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean.
Leviticus 12:5
5 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.
Esther 1:22
22 For he sent letters into all the king's provinces, into every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, that every man should bear rule in his own house, and that [it] should be published according to the language of every people.
Posted by: NoGurus | August 12, 2009 5:38 PM
SEF #213,#220,#227
Great discussion about the lack of accounting and explanation for what could only be an underlying (and contradictory) Creationist belief in evolution at light speed if one were to swallow the "baramin" nonsense.
Why no account of snails and dinosaurs on the ship manifest? I'm surprised you missed the connection here. Snails make great garnishments (escargot) when animals are feasting on dinosaur eggs. Depraved but true! Hence no snails or dinosaurs got off the boat, but plenty (14,000 species) of ants with high cholesterol marched off the landing plank!
The snails that remain today hitched a ride on the rotting wood spit out by the termites, the only species that ate a healthy diet rich in fiber. Some dinosaur species, most famously the winged pterodactyls, had heart attacks en route due this fatty diet. They went extinct mid-flight trying to keep up with the speedy Ark.
No, really!!!
Posted by: David | August 12, 2009 5:39 PM
How long before the Creation Museum prevents anyone from taking pictures or Video?
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 12, 2009 5:44 PM
Ken Ham is living the American dream, he is cashing in on a product with little or no development on his own. He has written books and created an edifice to "biblical science", which delivers what the suckers want. Ken Ham is the religious equivalent of P.T. Barnum. If anything is at fault, it is American society that supports Ken Ham instead of starving him.
heh. reminds me of why it's not terribly productive to spend billions pursuing foreign suppliers of drugs to the US, and meanwhile ignore the fact that there wouldn't be any suppliers if there wasn't a huge demand.
If we made religion illegal in the US, there would of course end up being a HUGE black market for it.
LOL
Posted by: Foggg | August 12, 2009 6:36 PM
Heleva Pryce @240
The phrase "saw his father's nakedness" is a Torah euphemism. See Leviticus 18:6-19.
It meant "had sex with his father's wife"; in this case, Ham's own mother.
Noah then curses, not Ham, but Ham's youngest son, who may not have been born yet. The implication could be that Canaan actually was the bastard child of momma incest, making all his blackety-black descendants even more skeevy.
Posted by: zilch | August 13, 2009 3:25 AM
Glen@3:
So marsupials and monotremes got on their special mat of vegetation to go to Australia after the flood (how'd marsupial mice trot on down to the sea from Mt. Ararat?)?
Oh you of little faith. This is God we're talking about, remember? He can do miracles, as far as I know. Anytime there's a pesky problem with reality, God just snaps His Fingers, and lo! Problem solved! In this case, He probably gave special instructions to each baramin: "you marsupials get on Mat 37B", or somesuch. Hey- if He can part the Red Sea, what's so hard about this?
The same is true of ID's "Intelligent Designer", of course. Anytime we don't know exactly how something happened, He, I mean It, snaps It's Fingers, and lo! A flagellum!
Posted by: echidna | August 13, 2009 3:41 AM
Foggg@260 said: "The phrase "saw his father's nakedness" is a Torah euphemism."
This observation should be enough to give any fundamentalist pause. The fact that Jewish literature has always been replete with allegory, metaphor, euphemisms and so on, means that a literal reading of the Torah was never the appropriate way to approach these texts.
Posted by: Drosera | August 13, 2009 8:49 AM
So the Hammites now admit that this log story was too stupid even by their own execrable standards?
*facepalm*
Posted by: Calton Bolick | August 14, 2009 4:26 AM
#205: "a tribe of people living in one of those floating forests"
Actually, there kinda already is, namely the Uros of Lake Titicaca in Peru, who live on very small islands (or large rafts) made up of woven reed. Not particularly elaborate, and yeah, it's on a lake, but still at least vaguely similar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uros
Posted by: Heleva Pryce | August 15, 2009 12:46 AM
Posted by: Foggg | August 12, 2009 6:36 PM Post 260
Heleva Pryce @240
'Does anyone find the myth of Ham a little disconcerting that because he sees his dad's nads, His child is cursed? I am not following this logic'
"The phrase "saw his father's nakedness" is a Torah euphemism. See Leviticus 18:6-19.
It meant "had sex with his father's wife"; in this case, Ham's own mother.
Noah then curses, not Ham, but Ham's youngest son, who may not have been born yet. The implication could be that Canaan actually was the bastard child of momma incest, making all his blackety-black descendants even more skeevy."
Ummm Euphemisms aside the incident happened in Bereishit 9:22 not Vayikra and the sages consensus is of two thoughts:
1. וירא חם אבי כנען: יש מרבותינו אומרים כנען ראה והגיד לאביו לכך הוזכר על הדבר ונתקלל:
That Canaan was the observer of Noah's actual nakedness and therefore immodesty which still makes one wonder what the offense was or is it the voyeurism? Still pretty harsh.
2.וירא את ערות אביו: יש אומרים סרסו ויש אומרים רבעו:
That Noah sodomised Canaan and castrated him as part of the curse. Which then makes one wonder how he could have proliferated and why is the victim still being punished?
Posted by: Heleva Pryce | August 15, 2009 12:52 AM
Posted by: echidna | August 13, 2009 3:41 AM Post 262
Foggg@260 said: "The phrase "saw his father's nakedness" is a Torah euphemism."
"This observation should be enough to give any fundamentalist pause. The fact that Jewish literature has always been replete with allegory, metaphor, euphemisms and so on, means that a literal reading of the Torah was never the appropriate way to approach these texts."
Heck, the great Rebs and sages can't even agree on it and the Chabadniks take it literally too!
Back to Spinoza for me.
Posted by: Kevin | September 2, 2009 7:04 PM
I have a few problems with your blog, first off you keep stating that humans used giant floating log mats when the museum clearly states that they believe animals did. How is this so out of the ordinary? Its how some animals arrived in islands today.
Also, the vegetation mats are not the same thing as the floating forest. The mats would simply be floating debri from the flood. However the floating forest is a theorized ecosystem that may have existed before the flood and was destroyed in it. It actually is a good theory that explains many features of the coal beds. It explains the thickness of the coal seams and also the lack of interrupting soils within the seams. The science as a whole really has explanitory power if you try to apply it, the only thing is it won't work in the long age system, only in the biblical timescale. I know that is asking a lot, and I don't expect many people to be willing to look at the world in this way but just thought I'd bring it up.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.
Posted by: nonogo
|
June 13, 2010 7:09 PM
Are Ken Ham and crew claiming that animals, insects, etc. distributed around on the earth on these "floating forests" from the progeny of the survivors in the Ark? If not they are contradicting the BIble they claim as their absolute authority.
Genesis 7:21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
BTW - I'm a former fundy myself. I left many years ago and was often very confused by Creationist rhetoric even then. Even so it's only been recently that I've started extensive reading on Evolution, the Fossil record, etc. Fascinating!
It's good to now breathe the fresh air of real science.