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« Mesmerizing | Main | Another Creation “Museum” »
More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!
Category: Creationism
Posted on: March 3, 2010 8:41 PM, by PZ Myers
Answers in Genesis explains how you can use a "Biblical framework" to figure something out. In this case, they use the Bible to… derive the existence of Atlantis and peg the time of its sinking to somewhere between 1818BC and 600BC.
The phrase that comes to mind is "Garbage in, garbage out."
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Comments
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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March 3, 2010 8:54 PM
Well, they figured out the times of the fictional creation of the earth, and of the fictional flood, why not the time of the fictional sinking of Atlantis?
Soon to come from the Bible--the date when the last unicorn died.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Holytape
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March 3, 2010 8:54 PM
Let's see you use your godless atheistic satanistic evolutionary model to come to more accurate date of Atlantis sinking? I bet you it doesn't work.
Posted by: Watson
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March 3, 2010 8:54 PM
From the article...
Powerful stuff.
Posted by: Charlie Foxtrot
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March 3, 2010 8:56 PM
OK - can anyone see the obvious comparison that the author seems to have missed here?
Yes, you in the back?...
Posted by: Newfie
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March 3, 2010 8:56 PM
..hmmm they're not sure on that. But they are sure on the flood and the drastic decrease in human lifespan after it.
Posted by: samilobster
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March 3, 2010 8:56 PM
Atlantis? Have they finally gotten bored trying to 'prove' Christian mythology and decided to start twisting evidence to fit Greek myths?
Posted by: rowmyboat
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March 3, 2010 8:59 PM
That's garbage in, garbage out even if you believe in the veracity of the Bible -- they've managed to figure out that Atlantis sunk time time in 20% of their entire history. That's not very good. It'd be like a scientist saying that modern humans evolved some time in the last billion years.
Posted by: Larry
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March 3, 2010 8:59 PM
Those elite academic atheist history professors are suppressing the facts about Atlantis in order to protect their sweet, sweet, high paying jobs. I say its time to teach the controversy. Let the children decide!
Posted by: Rorschach
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March 3, 2010 9:00 PM
Sounds familiar somehow !!!
*Sumerians, flood myth, fallen god, talking snake*
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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March 3, 2010 9:06 PM
Wouldn't Atlantis have been drowned in the Great Flud? Why did it have to be fluded twice?
Posted by: Mr Jack
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March 3, 2010 9:07 PM
At least they didn't do a Bishop Usher and tell us what day, and what time, it sunk...
Posted by: Kraid
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March 3, 2010 9:09 PM
Somehow "facepalm" just doesn't do justice to AiG.
http://bluejaunte.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/double_facepalm.jpg
Posted by: etfb
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March 3, 2010 9:10 PM
That's gold! Magnificent! Nobody could possibly lampoon these maroons more efficiently than they do themselves.
Posted by: KKBundy
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March 3, 2010 9:16 PM
Sure you can prove something with a biblical framework. In fact in certain veins huge amounts can be logically deduced from this never ending source of information. I have learned plenty of different things.
For example:
1. God is an asshole. Just finished my study on Genesis and that's it in brief.
2. “And the Lord God said all mankind will suffer greatly for me, and suffer they did. Greatly!” The Blessed Atheist’s brief summary of the entire Old Testament. Um... Too similar to # 1?
3. God is a huge bastard at times. wait... that's the same too..
Uuumm.. Well, I did learn that one thing. And Genesis did teach me that one thing very well. On to Exodus!
Blessed Atheist Bible Study @ http://blessedatheist.com
Posted by: Charlie Foxtrot
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March 3, 2010 9:16 PM
re #13
ah, there you go - so if you admit that Atlas (via Kittim) was a myth then you are admitting that Noah is a myth and the whole tapestry of lies unravels. Therefore... ummm...
Unicorns!
Posted by: ben
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March 3, 2010 9:17 PM
Let's be clear that Atlantis isn't even Greek mythology -- it's an example that Plato was using as a thought experiment, like Lilliput or Utopia.
Posted by: BlueEyedVideot
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March 3, 2010 9:19 PM
At the end of the article, there is a map showing the islands in the Atlantic near Gibraltar. The caption says "Several of these island chains, such as the Azores (A.), Madeira (B.), or Canary (C.) islands, could be the remnants Plato wrote about. But without further research, it would not be wise to comment further."
The author should have taken his own advice.
Posted by: alopiasmag
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March 3, 2010 9:19 PM
It's a shame they do not allow comments. . . maybe because they do not like being proven wrong? I tell you, the morons in this world never cease to amaze me.
Posted by: nonsensemachine
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March 3, 2010 9:20 PM
What else would you expect from a website whose sole purpose is to rectify any possible science or history related tidbit with the bible? The article reads not like "hey we believe Atlantis is a real place and the bible proves it!" but more like "well if Atlantis were real, that might throw a wrench into the bible, so let's make an article about how the bible may or may not support it just in case."
Posted by: ibyea
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March 3, 2010 9:36 PM
From 1818 BC to 600 BC... That is not exactly precise, in my opinion,
Posted by: Horse-Pheathers
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March 3, 2010 9:39 PM
I read the article. The whole thing. And now I am fighting the urge to tie a nappy on my head and bellow "My brain hurts!" barely intelligibly.
/It'll have to come out, Mister Gumby....
Posted by: funnyguts
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March 3, 2010 9:44 PM
Oh no! They forgot to factor in Plato's ten-fold error!
I'm sorry, that was obscure.
Posted by: bungoton
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March 3, 2010 9:45 PM
I actually did learn something useful. It sounds like they are losing all the kids who attended Sunday School to secularism.
They have a link to a book about it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicStore/product/Already-Gone-Book,6131,224.aspx
I guess I'm not alone in being a former Sunday School Xtian who survived and gained a functioning brain.
Posted by: feralboy12, der Ken-Puppe Sie außerhalb in 1983 verlassen
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March 3, 2010 9:48 PM
What year did Zeus sew Dionysis to his thigh while he revealed himself to Semele?
Posted by: Nick
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March 3, 2010 9:56 PM
Wow, accurate to within 12oo years. In a time frame of 3800 years. The Bible is amazing(ly shite).
About the only thing I have ever found our family Bible useful for is working out our family tree (it is written in the inside cover), and 'curing' ganglions. But a phone book does the same trick (cures ganglions that is).
Posted by: ckitching
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March 3, 2010 9:58 PM
The phrase that came to my mind was "intellectual masturbation". Not as fun as physical masturbation, but much messier.
Posted by: MadScientist
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March 3, 2010 10:06 PM
That's hilarious. When I was a little one and people talked about 'learning' things from the bible that way I said "Oh, so it's divination, like tea leaves and kabbalah". Apparently not because divination was the work of the devil and the priests of false religions, but the jesus bible was somehow different. Even as an 8-year-old I could tell that was a load of crap - and I said so (and was shunned by the nice jesus cultists).
Posted by: Ellie
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March 3, 2010 10:48 PM
@ Kraid #12 *headdesk*?
My personal favourite part of the while thing is:
I wonder I Col. Gaddafi knows his country is part of modern day Turkey?
Posted by: waldteufel
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March 3, 2010 10:55 PM
The little article is by Bodie Hodge, who is in a class of stupid all by himself.
AiG is a parody of itself, but these frauds are making out like proverbial bandits. They rake in the bucks from the pasty-faced fundie rubes hand over fist.
Ugh.
Posted by: Kraid
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March 3, 2010 10:57 PM
@23
My sympathies.
My favorite Sunday School memory was probably the one where the teacher was babbling about how stars were satanic symbols (like pentagrams, you know?) and how this somehow connected to Hollywood "stars" being immoral. In retrospect, given the idiocy of the lesson and the fact that he kept hiccuping, I kinda wonder whether he was drunk.
Posted by: Peter H
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March 3, 2010 10:59 PM
"Let's see you use your godless atheistic satanistic evolutionary model to come to more accurate date of Atlantis sinking? I bet you it doesn't work."
You will win that bet every time. Every time. Hands down.
God, atheism, Satan and evolution have absolutely nothing to do with the non-existence of Atlantis.
Posted by: redrabbitslife
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March 3, 2010 11:28 PM
Someone actually sat down and wrote that? I hope there was a HUGE spliff involved, because... really there's no other explanation.
Reading that nonsense makes me realise that the people who were too stupid or lazy to go into another field clearly had to become clergy or they would starve. I kind of knew that already.
Posted by: Lynn Wilhelm
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March 3, 2010 11:29 PM
@Charlie #4
You beat me to it--I saw this and just about died:
Don't they realize what they are saying here? Amazing. I don't need to read any more.
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
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March 3, 2010 11:42 PM
"And considering that this story was passed down several times before Plato recorded it, we can assume that it has some inaccuracies."
*SPOING*
Posted by: TransHero
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March 3, 2010 11:52 PM
"When it comes down to it, either Atlantis was a real place or it wasn’t. If it wasn’t, then the discussion is more-or-less finished. And considering that this story was passed down several times before Plato recorded it, we can assume that it has some inaccuracies."
...And what makes you think that didn't happen to the Bible?
Because that's clearly part of the problem. People who learned how to read and write BEFORE coming up with fiction usually have an alibi when they make contradictions - they KNOW its fiction and don't memorize every little bit of it.
It has amazed me ever since I found out about the most blatantly obvious contradictions (i.e. Creation, the occupants of the Ark, etc) that no one who 'believes' notices them. And its either because they don't read it or are too dumb to understand a contradiction. And how they would've originated - clearly by people who couldn't get their gobbledygook straight.
Still, the irony is so awesome with these morons. And irony is - like revenge - a dish best served cold
Posted by: lordshipmayhem
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March 3, 2010 11:53 PM
I am certain that using the same Biblical methodology, we can determine the exact date and time when Captain Christopher Pike first took the Starship Enterprise (NCC-1701) out of space dock.
Posted by: Hypatia's Daughter
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March 3, 2010 11:59 PM
OK, you guys can mock but, seriously, why has modern Xtianity collected so many scraping the bottom of the IQ-barrel stupids? I thought many years ago, that people believing in a 6k year old Earth was the bottom. But, Oh, No!! Now they believe in dinosaurs on the ark; no death (for everything) before the Fall; unicorns & dragons......Jesus must be weeping that his modern followers are more gullible & stupid than the average peasant in the Middle Ages - and modern Xtians have to work really hard to get that way.
Posted by: jcmartz.myopenid.com
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March 4, 2010 12:20 AM
GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) at work.
I wonder if the next time they'll be 'promoting' crystal from Atlantis.
Posted by: inverse
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March 4, 2010 12:55 AM
Actually, the phrase that comes to mind is "false implies anything."
Posted by: Autumn
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March 4, 2010 12:57 AM
Wait! Did anyone else notice that Atlantis was either destroyed in the flood, so "no evidence" of it would exist . . .
Aren't all the dinosaur fossils evidence of the flood's massive killing ability?
Jeebus, these morons can't even keep their crazy straight.
Posted by: Autumn
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March 4, 2010 1:02 AM
How many of AIG's contributing authors are actually Poes? This seems like the cat has to know that he is undermining both his own explanations as well as the entire mission of AIG. The bit about inaccuracies arising with repeated telling is just too inviting.
Posted by: DLC
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March 4, 2010 1:28 AM
Did you note the tags at the top of the post?
one of them was "Semi-technical" . . .
all I can think of to say is
W
T
F
?
Seriously. This is a major league case of SIWOTI.
Or it would be if they could even see wrong from where they are.
using biblical "authority" to pin down when another myth happened. . . hahaha!
(x - h)^2 + (y - k)^2 = r^2 ?
Posted by: blf
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March 4, 2010 1:44 AM
Puts on ID/AiG “scholar” tinfoil hat… When Teh Grate Flud happenedinated, them Unicorns learned to swam really reilly quickierly, and becomes Narwhals. Hat melts…
Posted by: Tige Gibson
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March 4, 2010 1:48 AM
The flood of Ziusidra who was given "rest" (Nuach) was real. It was just a river flood.
Posted by: waynerobinson4
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March 4, 2010 1:54 AM
I don't know. It was kind of fascinating reading the account of Atlantis from an AIG viewpoint (sort of like watching a multi-car crash on the freeway). I always thought that the destruction of Atlantis was based on the Minoan eruption in the mid second millennium BCE which allegedly wiped out the Minoan civilisation on Crete.
Posted by: Armand K.
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March 4, 2010 2:27 AM
Ha! Gotta love it how they start the quote from Platon's Kritias right after he says nine thousand years (or something like that) has passed since the war between the Greeks and the Atlants. Makes sense, after all: including that part would mean Atlantis was at least twice as old as the Universe, in AiG's view...
Posted by: roddick18
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March 4, 2010 2:33 AM
No Lilliput??? Then how do you explain the little men climbing all over my body?
Posted by: laurarodgers
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March 4, 2010 3:21 AM
http://xkcd.com/704/
Posted by: Alan B
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March 4, 2010 6:48 AM
2 thoughts come to mind:
First (from Yes Minister)
"Round Objects."
(To which Sir Humphrey asked, "Who is 'Round' and to what does he object?)
Secondly
"What a trailer-full of antediluvian shoemakers!"
Posted by: Q.E.D
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March 4, 2010 7:23 AM
AIG: Using one allegorical text to define the existence of an island in an older allegorical text.
While gobsmacked and struggling to comprehend the magnitude of this stupid, the image that popped in my mind was the scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where they open the Ark.
Posted by: voice0reason
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March 4, 2010 7:29 AM
Except that we'd feel bad for the folks in the crash.
Posted by: Vineeth Nair
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March 4, 2010 7:51 AM
I guess they wanted the error to be of "biblical proportions"
Posted by: First Approximation, L'esprit de l'escalier
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March 4, 2010 8:10 AM
LOL!
We can't trust this story because it was passed on orally before it was written. So, let's try and interpret it in terms of our inerrant story that was passed down orally before it was written.
Posted by: Vineeth Nair
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March 4, 2010 8:14 AM
Makes me almost want to believe the argument from insanity.
ARGUMENT FROM INSANITY
(1) No sane person could have thought up Christianity.
(2) Therefore, it must be true
(3) Therefore, God exists.
Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
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March 4, 2010 8:16 AM
I guess if you think that the bible is nonfiction, you'll probably believe that Atlas and Poseidon were real people, too. (And it's King Atlas, not Atlas the titan.)
@funnyguts (22):
I did an LP (video walk-through) of that game. http://www.youtube.com/user/ceilingninja#p/c/2EF8A8F24FD9A16D
Posted by: mikerattlesnake
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March 4, 2010 8:35 AM
@54 lifeishard
uhhh... it seems like there's another possibility for #2...
Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
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March 4, 2010 8:49 AM
@mikerattlesnake (56):
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm - Number 72, specifically.
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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March 4, 2010 9:17 AM
Maybe they can use it to figure out when Frodo threw the ring in the fire. Or when Anakin was born.
Posted by: broboxley OT
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March 4, 2010 9:24 AM
years ago before Peter Jackson hit the big screen I would walk amongst groups of non christians and athiests sneering at the bible then discussing middle earth as if LOTR was a historical document.... somethings never change.
The article was trying to discuss a myth within an artificial construct and did a very nice job of doing so. Almost as good as some of the anthropology folks out there.
Posted by: sqlrob
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March 4, 2010 9:35 AM
Hear that whooshing sound above you? It's the point of his post.
Posted by: Harry Tuttle
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March 4, 2010 9:46 AM
What year did Zeus sew Dionysis to his thigh while he revealed himself to Semele?
ca. 2,000 BCE according to Cadmus via Herodotus.
According to historians and anthropologists the 'event' probably occurred somewhat later, ca. 1500 BCE, as the Helenes migrated through Thrace and into Greece proper concocting new myths to justify their subjugation of the existant Thraco-Phrygian earth goddesses to their sky god.
But I would, indeed, like to see AiG's answer to the question... especially in regards to another, probably earlier, variant of the myth in which Semele is the "virgin mother" of Dionysius.
Seems like someone took that particular idea and ran with it.... I'm looking at you Paul of Tarsus!
Posted by: canuckian_atheist
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March 4, 2010 10:06 AM
highlight for me:
"And considering that this story was passed down several times before Plato recorded it, we can assume that it has some inaccuracies"
O RLY?
Posted by: God
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March 4, 2010 10:24 AM
The story of Atlantis has some inaccuracies, as it was passed down before Plato recorded it, but the Bible is inerrant because I protected My Word miraculously.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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March 4, 2010 10:34 AM
Neither nor. It's most likely a story about the Trojan War that went to Egypt and back and got distorted in the process, notably months becoming years. The story contains a war with the Greeks (if not outright Athenians), and lots of geographical and "historical" details (like a more or less mythical Atlas playing a role in the founding of Troy) fit together. Oh, and, the Pillars of Hercules (behind which Atlantis lay) used to be the Bosporus before the meaning gradually shifted (in Roman times) to the Strait of Gibraltar.
Near the end of the story, it looks like Plato noticed this and tried to save it by adding in some moralizing. When this, too, failed, he added a council of the gods at the end, which is exactly how the Iliad begins. And then the story ends abruptly, even though Plato lived on to write another big work.
Holytape was joking.
The problem is that I only know this because Holytape is a regular here who has demonstrated sanity many times. You've fallen victim to Poe's Law.
So you don't know about the dinosaur denialists yet?
Link doesn't work.
<facepalm>
Wow! That's more embarrassing than the city named "ruins" mentioned later in the Bible!
Posted by: destlund
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March 4, 2010 12:22 PM
Aren't these the same folks who claim that the Theories of General and Special Relativity are fiction?
Posted by: freemage.geo#b98e9
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March 4, 2010 12:54 PM
Guys, obviously the unicorns died out in the Flood. This is clear from analysis of Scripture. After everyone was back on dry land, Noah's daughters realized they needed to get jiggy with Daddykins if they wanted to re-populate the Earth. Now, since sex ed in those days was probably almost as bad as at your average Baptist Church Camp, we can figure the girls knew how things work from "experience".
Ergo, no virgins on the Ark, so no one to round up the unicorns.
Posted by: JJ
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March 4, 2010 1:23 PM
@32
Well if there's one thing the Bible is useful for, it would be rolling paper. Sounds like this guy took a page out of the middle though, as inhaling that ink can cause hallucinations.
Remember kids, only use blank pages (front and back is best) when using the bible (or other thin sheeted book) to roll your spliff.
Posted by: PeteJohn
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March 4, 2010 2:10 PM
I just want to say this.
Fuck!
Atlantis is not real!!! (THREE exclamation points!) Who cares what the Bible has to say about it? I mean, really. I suppose next you could figure out when man first climbed aboard and rode a triceratops or some equally ludicrous b.s.
Posted by: Moveable Type
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March 4, 2010 2:44 PM
How come that the ancient Greek legends were re-told many times and therefore contained inaccuracies but the Judeo/Xian Bible is inerrant?
Posted by: RijkswaanVijanD
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March 4, 2010 3:37 PM
So plato wrote the bible.. Must have been quite fond of pseudonyms I guess.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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March 4, 2010 4:46 PM
PeteJohn #68
Atlantis is not real??? (THREE questions marks?)
Are you calling Plato and AIG liars?
Posted by: brindalin
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March 4, 2010 10:38 PM
To Feynmaniac @
Actually, the bible was probably written down from a very early time period, so there is little evidence of oral transmission left, if it even was oral. Contrast it with the Illiad or the Oddessy and all it'sa tricks for memory.
-funnyguts @ 22SQUEEE!!!! God that was a wonderful game!!!
Klaus Kerner: Activate the machine!
Dr. Hans Ubermann: [sighs] A test is a test. Plato suggested 10 beads; let's try that.
Indiana Jones: Hang on a second!
Klaus Kerner: What now, Jones?
Indiana Jones: What about Plato's tenfold error?
Klaus Kerner: What about it?
Indiana Jones: Ten beads might give you size ten antlers.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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March 6, 2010 6:31 AM
No Lilliput??? Then how do you explain the little men climbing all over my body? - roddick18
Delirium tremens?