BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!

Subject: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 09:33 PM

From a friend via email:


By Max Fisher | December 29, 2010 9:01am

Kentucky's state-backed $150 million creationist theme park, The Ark Encounter, will allow visitors to explore a literal interpretation of the Bible's story of Noah and the ark. But pseudonymous liberal Kentucky blogger Media Czech raises two important questions about that interpretation and how it will be manifest in theme park form. First, were there dinosaurs on the original ark? Second, what about unicorns?
Now, the blogger has found answers to both questions at Answers In Genesis, the official blog of the group behind The Ark Encounter. The group says "yes," to both, which implies that their creationist theme park will include dinosaurs and unicorns on the Ark. Here's Answers In Genesis explaining why dinosaurs were on the Ark, although the group prefers to call them "dragons":

    Being land animals, dinosaurs (or dragons of the land) were created on Day Six (Genesis 1:24–31), went aboard Noah's Ark (Genesis 6:20), and then came off the Ark into the post-Flood world (Genesis 8:16–19). It makes sense that many cultures would have seen these creatures from time to time before they died out.

And here's their position on Biblical unicorns:

    The biblical unicorn was a real animal, not an imaginary creature. ... The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.). ... To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God's Word, which is true in every detail.

The Kentucky blogger fumes:

    Kentucky will now be known as the state whose governor endorsed and gave $40 million in tax breaks to people who want to tell children that science and history explain that a 600 year old man herded dinosaurs, fire-breathing dragons and unicorns onto a big boat 4,000 years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Songster Bob
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 11:08 PM

You're talking about the "Park of the Covenant."

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 11:44 PM

What about the Fairies?

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 11:52 PM

I find it very upsetting that you all believe there was an ark in the first place. Ridicule the dragons and unicorns if you must but then look at your basic tenet - all the animals of the world on a single boat.
SHEESh

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Amergin
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 12:15 AM

Foolestroupe....the fairies will be in the Castro section of the park....

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: J-boy
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 12:27 AM

The Elves built ships of their own. They sailed to the Undying Lands and lived happily ever after. This happened shortly after the War of The Rings. Don't believe me? I read it in a book for Chrissakes!

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 01:46 AM

The absence of a unicorn in modern times, or a unicorn fossil in ancient rocks. Oh wait those aren't ancient rocks, they were laid down during the flood. But there aren't any unicorns in the deluvian rocks either.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 04:33 AM

The absence of unicorns from the ark has already been fully explained: Green Alligators

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 06:10 AM

Ark-Lore is alive & well!

Noah's Ark remains 'discovered'

And no red-blooded Fortean can fail to get excited by the Ark's anchor stones:

The Village of Kazan & the Anchor Stones

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Stu
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 08:15 AM

dinosaurs are still very much with us too of course.

However, if avian maniraptorins don't float your boat, who's to say the non-avian saurischians might still not be represented . . . Mokele-mbembe

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:32 AM

of course you need to read the article to see that AIG are not claiming a fairytale unicorn, but suggested possibilities as to the animal thus translated

studies have found that the ark was well able to house the original kinds that gave rise to the numerous varieties later.it was something like the length of a football pitch with 3 decks.
i understand that of the huge dynosaurs ;they begin much smaller and keep growing.no need to imagine huge leviathans thundering about the decks.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:37 AM

"gave rise to the numerous varieties later"

by evolution no doubt?

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:46 AM

depends what kind of evolution.eg-there were not all dogs from poodle to gt dane on the ark,but an original dog pair from which the breeds evolved or were engineered by men.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:48 AM

And the beetles? It would have foundered under the weight of the beetles alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:49 AM

When people are sure they know the basic answer, all future data must be interpreted to fit & correlate with the original premise.....no matter how silly their stories become....or what science they have to simply ignore.

(they wouldn't be able to attract many suicide bombers without convincing them there was Paradise waiting with 40 virgins and eternal life...)

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:49 AM

So we were all once in the same boat!

Now it's all we can do to co-exist on the same planet.

Whose turn is it to take the garbage out?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:52 AM

Why not train the cockroaches to eat outside?

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:59 AM

Not train, Manitas..."engineered by men..." like a pair of dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:07 AM

"(they wouldn't be able to attract many suicide bombers without convincing them there was Paradise waiting with 40 virgins and eternal life...)"

What about female suicide bombers?

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:09 AM

nah, it's just 40 virgins.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:14 AM

from an earlier link: "t has long been believed that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the Ark and it inhabitants came aground."

But there were many mountains in the world at that time taller than Mt. Ararat....are we now required to assume that either:1)No one lived near them in biblical times, or 2) that 'Noah' was only one of many ark builders, or 3) ....and 4...and 5.

No biblical scholars seem to worry about where all that rain came from, or where all that water went AFTER the 'flood'. (If asked, they will no doubt add in suppositions that God, being all-powerful, simply created 'extra' water to drown everything, then made most of it disappear afterwards.)

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:17 AM

(I really don't know what they are supposed to promise female suicide bombers...perhaps that they will BE virgins in Paradise...*shrug*) Perhaps a 'few' do it simply for ummmm... altruistic motives.)

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:17 AM

Well, the Bible does refer to the 'waters above' and the 'waters below'. Scientists have discovered that there is an awful lot of water bound up in the rocks below us. How it got out is another matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:19 AM

A male virgin is as virgin as a female virgin, Dave MacKenzie. Surely they promise the same to the women?

Nah. Come to think on it, the females must be promised one true love. Just about as likely to happen. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:25 AM

Look up 'houri' on Wikipedia.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:27 AM

I gotta clarify.... none of what I said above proves or disproves anything relating to the ultimate 'truth' about whether there is or isn't a 'god'.... all I try to do is show stuff about fallacious and awkward reasoning and why one needs to be VERY careful about the details of what one believes, as it is easy to get locked into accepting totally incongruous & contradictory premises.

...but, that's how you get funding for strange museums...

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Stu
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 12:05 PM

"dynosaurs"

Shooting fish in a barrel.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: TheSnail
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 12:18 PM

What about the Fairies?

The Fairies are fallen angels lead astray by Lucifer when he started the War in Heaven. Sources seem to differ as to whether they were trapped on Earth when God closed the doors of Heaven and Hell while they were on the way from one to the other or whether they are not bad enough to go to Hell but not good enough to be allowed back into Heaven.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 12:43 PM

I know that God botherers complain when the likes of me have a laugh at their superstition, but this theme park?

I'd laugh all the more but as we see in all walks of life, instead of superstition being banished to a simpler age in the past, there are those who try to keep it relevant, by coercion and force if it pleases their aims to control others.

Anyway, don't mention fairies, you'll have Akenaton foaming at the mouth as usual......

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 12:57 PM

I think I saw a unicorn at Disney World theme park....between the talking rabbit and chattering duck, just next to the personable mouse...but maybe not, I was drinking a bit at the time.

It has been rain'n alot lately. Anyone have the plans of such an Arc? I do have a lot of surplus wood. How does one separate the cats from the dogs...and, no, I don't want to take the skeeters.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 01:06 PM

(sigh)

Given the fact that many other ancient civilizations besides the Judeo-Christians also have had legends about a great flood in ancient times...and that ALL of those legends describe various survivors who built rafts and boats of various sorts and rode out the floodwaters....

(but why do I even try?)

The error of the more fundamentalist Christians and Jews is that they cling literally to their own ONE parochial little story about it, and apparently live in blissful ignorance of a great many other cultural stories about the same global event...stories that make no mention whatsoever of Noah or his Ark, but which mention other survivors of the event.

Something clearly happened. There probably was a great inundation that affected much of the planet, and it was probably due to some major change in atmospheric conditions at the time, one which might have been triggered by a magnetic axis shift or a physical axis shift or a passing comet or other body or a major change in conditions on the sun which affected the Earth and the other planets.

Whatever it was, it has been remembered by a variety of ancient civilizations all over the planet. It probably happened a lot longer ago than the Christians think it did, and it probably involved a great many survivors in many different areas...NOT just Noah and his family, for heaven's sake!....and there were probably a lot of areas of higher ground where many animals and survivors escaped to, and then things got started up again after that as conditions stabilized and waters receded into the oceans.

But all the average fundamentalist Christian is familiar with is the one little parochial, locally-grown tribal story that he finds in his Bible...a story deriving from a small number of tribal people in one localized area...and he takes it literally and imagines that it is the last and only word on the matter??????????

(sigh)

Like I said above...why even try...??? It would be like telling someone in the 1500s about airplanes and space travel. No hope of getting them to listen to that, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 01:08 PM

The one thing which really was scary in that article, imo, is that they expect to create 900 jobs AND expect 1.6 million visitors per year! May their god bless and wake them up!:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 01:49 PM

Here are som additional weird theme parks...no shortage of them in the world. weirder still, is people go to them in numbers:

http://www.concierge.com/ideas/family/tours/501023



Weird theme parks

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 02:10 PM

And the fleas and the bedbugs and the ticks and.......

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 02:22 PM

LH -- "Many"? Maybe four, and three of them from the eastern Mediterranean, so sharing can't be ruled out.

Any time some arkist (believer in the historicity of the ark story) starts trotting out "scientists have shown" it's a good bet that the "scientists" are arkists themselves and are twisting the data to fit the hypothesis.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 02:35 PM

So, Noah got all of these lions and donkeys and unicorns and pigs and chickens and dinosaurs and fairies and beetles and stuff on to the Ark ... right?

But what I want to know is, who saved the plants ... and how?

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 03:03 PM

Who saved the happy plants...so we could smoke 'em?

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 03:10 PM

""the ark was well able to house the original kinds that gave rise to the numerous varieties later.it was something like the length of a football pitch with 3 decks.
i understand that of the huge dynosaurs ;they begin much smaller and keep growing.no need to imagine huge leviathans thundering about the decks.""

1) With the exception of the saurians (crocodiles and alligators), land dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, roughly 61 million years before the first human evolved.

That must have given Noah a bit of a headache, lacking time travel technology.

2) There are more separate species of insect than there are individual humans on this planet, which kind of makes the concept of transporting just two of each on one vessel extremely iffy.

Then you have to make space for two members of each animal species. Even being able to ignore the dinosaurs, it just ain't gonna work.

So, with the story exposed as the allegory which it really was, in comes the old faithful "God done it 'cos he's all powerful".

Naah!! It's no more a collection of facts than Aesop's talking animals, and constructed for exactly the same purpose.

If those who composed the Old Testament could see the effect on today's Creationist Nutjobs, they wouldn't stop laughing for all eternity.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: mousethief
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 04:29 PM

I want to know where they kept the termites, carpenter ants, and teredos.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 05:01 PM

Not to mention the Death Watch beetles and Woodpeckers.

I said not to mention..............!

Mayday, Mayday!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 05:32 PM

"I want to know where they kept the termites, carpenter ants, and teredos".

In the non wooden parts of the great ship, or course....what da ya got for brains.

A Teredo would not be on the ships router list, 'cause they did'nt have pooters then".

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 05:32 PM

No, Mousethief, the North American Indians also have beliefs that came down to them from ancient times about a continent-wide inundation in those ancient times, due to longterm torrential rains. I've heard some of their medicine people discussing it in meetings. They had this idea long before they encountered any Christians with Bible stories.

Furthermore, there are Asian legends about the same time of thing, again, not sourced from people in the Middle East. I think it was a planetary event, but I do not think "God" did it. And I think it probably happened a lot longer ago than the Bible would appear to indicate.

It would have been natural for people in each localized geographical area to tell survival tales about the event involving strictly their own people, and that's what the tribal peoples in the Middle East did, just the same as the tribal peoples elsewhere. They "saw" as far as their own cultural horizon and no farther. Their cultural horizon was very limited. With the typical self-absorption of most people, the ancient Israelites decided that their particular symbolic survivor story (Noah and his Ark) was the ONLY survivor story...just like they decided that their God was the only God! Such parochial and self-serving notions are typical of people's shortsightedness, and they are exactly what has led to ignorance, zenophobia, and war between tribes and nations since time immemorial. People usually just don't look far enough, that's all. They think it's all THEIR story, and it isn't.

The Noah story is clearly allegorical. It would have been utterly impossible for one man and his family to gather up ALL the present day animal species on their planet in their time, the plant species, and the other vulnerable lifeforms on the planet, for gosh sakes! ;-) And anyone can see that with but a moment's reflection. Think how hard it would be to do it even now, with all our modern transportation devices!

Kangaroos aren't found in the Middle East, and they weren't found there in Noah's time either. So how the heck could he have saved the kangaroos? The polar bears? The penguins? The koala bears? the lemurs? The elks? The ocelots? The prickly pears? The maple trees? And on, and on, and on....sheesh! It's incredible the stuff people will accept just because some priest or other authority figure told them to. And it happens generation after generation.

Basically it comes down to three things:

1. People tend to believe what they are told to believe when they're young and impressionable.

and...

2. People tend to believe what they want to believe and go ON believing it, no matter what.

and...

3. They regard anyone who challenges those beliefs with considerable hostility! (as well as contempt and derision)

And there's usually not a darned thing anyone can do to change the way they feel about it...except to slowly and grudgingly replace one set of hallowed authority figures (the Church)...with a new set of hallowed authority figures (the scientific community).

And that's more or less what's been happening in the last 500 years...a bit at a time.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 05:55 PM

Great Flood legends from around the world...over 500 of them!

I think these legends all arose out of one...or several...ancient catastrophic events, and it probably happened many thousands of years ago, long before the time fixed upon by Bible scholars who accept the Christian traditional viewpoint.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 07:03 PM

"I think it was a planetary event..." why? How could that be when considering a fairly sudden happening? Even the end of an ice age and melting of glaciers would take many years and only raise total sea level a couple of feet.


One possible explanation for the biblical flood which there is evidence for in the area the Bible is concerned with.

Sure...there's disagreement over whether it was **ENORMOUS** enough...but maybe it was locally big enough to whoever started the legend.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:00 PM

I said "I think", Bill. I was merely expressing a hypothetical opinion, that's all. I didn't say "I know". The link you provided is one interesting possibility.

Many of the flood legends seem to be based on a flood caused by a lengthy period of extraordinary rainfall. It might have been local. Or it might have been continental. Or it might have been planetary. Whatever it might have been, I think that local people everywhere who experienced would have given it an explanation based on their own necessarily limited view of what happened. In other words, they'd have told their story, and made themselves the primary participants, heroes, and victims, wouldn't they? ;-) That's what people do. That's why your news tells you how many Americans died this month in Afghanistan, but not how many Afghans.

Hence, the Israelites spoke of Noah and his family, and the people in other places spoke of someone else. Because our civilization got dominated by a religion that followed in the tradition of Noah, we get to hear about Noah. We do not get to hear about similar people (survivors) in a great variety of other Great Flood legends out of ancient times.

One might as well look into all of it, right? Instead of talking about just one religious tradition's view of it...namely, the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition.

But that is something most Christians aren't willing to do.....and never even thought of doing, because they think their story is the only one.

It isn't.

As for legends, I think they usually arise out of some real event...but the story gets both simplified and exaggerated as time goes by, and it often gets put into terms that suit someone's political purposes at the time. People usually can't resist improving on a good story, after all, can they? ;-)

If there was a planetwide catastrophe in our own near future which truly wiped out advanced civilization as we know it...but left scattered survivors across the globe, survivors who then gradually got civilization going again bit by bit....how much do you think the legends about it 1,000 or 5,000 years later would resemble the reality of it? Not very closely, I would bet. But I'm sure it would be a very dramatic story, and that countless generations of future kids would have it told to them.

And future skeptics would laugh at it too, and dismiss it out of hand, because they would think they know better than that! ;-D I'd bet money on that, for all the good it would do me....you've always got believers and skeptics...and then you have those like me, who like to ask questions and consider the various possibilities, knowing that there's no way yet to be absolutely certain one way or the other.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:11 PM

I am curious. If it flooding were global, where would all the water come from? Raid just recycles existing water. Could a possibly be melting of land based ice. If the ice is already in the eater, I suspect it would have little new impact on water levels? just wondering.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:42 PM

"I said "I think", Bill. I was merely expressing a hypothetical opinion, that's all."

Hmm..well, "I think that...xxx" usually implies something more than noting a hypothesis...it suggests one tentatively accepts a hypothesis, thus inviting contrary views ...etc. So I provided mine.
Much of the rest of your analysis IS a likely scenario, noting how local stories get passed on and added to.

I suppose it is a matter of 'style', but if you sound like a 'believer', someone's gonna pounce.....no matter the subject. :>)

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 10:54 PM

I don't necessarily believe anything in particular about it, Bill, but I consider it reasonably probable that all those legends of a Great Flood are based on some kind of large catastrophe...or a series of them. It's just a subject I find interesting, that's all.

I don't get how the heck anyone in any present day religion can possibly believe that some patriarch called Noah built a boat capable of holding two of every species on Earth! Yikes! Or how he would have gone about gathering a healthy breeding pair of every single living species on Earth either! Double yikes!!!!

I doubt that even Michael Moore or James Cameron could pull off such a daunting project... ;-) Hell, it would even give William Shatner pause.

If people believe stuff like that, it's just because it has never even once occurred to them to question it....or they're afraid to, because it would call their entire view of life into question.

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:00 PM

Bill, your bit about "I think" reminds me of a phrase my old sales manager came up with when asking us for our sales projections. We'd go down our lists of clients one by one, tell him how much we thought we'd be able to sell them in radio advertising and he'd get on us about just how sure we were of each claim. He'd say, "Is that for sure?" One of us would, "Yeah, maybe?!" He'd say, "Okay, that's a Possible-for-Sure-Maybe!"

Subject: RE: BS: Dinosaurs and Unicorns on the Ark!
From: GUEST,erbert
Date: 30 Dec 10 - 11:53 PM

As any unemployable guitar player idly channel-hopping day time satellite TV documentaries
should know..

..one recent theory of a sudden world wide ancient mega flood event
posits the idea of a tremendously huge sheet of Arctic Glacial ice breaking off
and causing such a cataclysmic tsunami
that all key civilizations from the mediteranean [overflowing and engulfing the Black sea hinterlands]
to the coast of India and beyond , were devasted within mere hours... or something like that...???

Oh and that's when Atlantis sunk as well..
but that's another speculative documentary..
and I wasn't really paying attention as I was too busy looking through the front room curtains
watching the police car & ambulance outside the junkie flats across the road...