BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 May 07 - 10:53 PM

By the way. . . .

300

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 May 07 - 07:50 PM

Never underestimate the power of the obvious!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 May 07 - 07:37 PM

I was wondering who would say it first...

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 May 07 - 07:28 PM

Shatner as Leviathan? Could be. Judging from what I've seen lately, he hasn't missed very many meals.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 31 May 07 - 07:24 PM

"years later, I noticed the old deerfoot novelty ashtray in Grandpa's garage and there were several sets of full size sleigh runners in the barn" -

Reminds me of the incident the lady from Saskatchewan told me about ... She grew up on a farm, and one Christmas Eve, Santa Claus actually CAME RIGHT IN THROUGH THE KITCHEN DOOR, and gave presents to the kids. Directly. Into their hands. But then, she said, she always kind of wondered why Santa had that cowshit on his boots ...

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 31 May 07 - 06:39 PM

Perhaps he is not spoken of by name...

Maybe "Leviathan" is really Shatner?

John

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Bee
Date: 31 May 07 - 06:04 PM

Now, I've seen evidence of Santa! When I was eight, living at my grandpa's house, there was a bit of snow on the ground Christmas morning - and there were sleigh tracks and reindeer prints in the snow!!


(Of course, years later, I noticed the old deerfoot novelty ashtray in Grandpa's garage and there were several sets of full size sleigh runners in the barn.)

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Folkiedave
Date: 31 May 07 - 06:00 PM

Couldn't do the lead role - that takes three.......

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 May 07 - 05:57 PM

Or did he play the lead role:   God?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 May 07 - 05:52 PM

Well, having seen Shatner as Denny Crane in "Boston Legal," I'd say that casting him as the snake in the Garden of Eden sequence would have been a pretty good choice.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 May 07 - 05:43 PM

Santa Claus? Nope. Sorry. He came later, some time after the Christians managed to convert the Germans from their ancient Norse mythology. I think he was a Druidic figure or something. Anyway, he got remade into Saint Nicholas, and there you are. Bob's yer uncle.

Getting back to Shatner, I suspect that a great many of the passages in Holy Writ which begin, "And the Lord said................" refer to a certain person now walking among us...

Well, you know where I'm going with this, don't you?

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 31 May 07 - 05:26 PM

You mean, you mean ... the tooth fairy's not even mentioned in the Bible!? But, but, Santa Claus is in there ... isn't he?

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 May 07 - 05:12 PM

Aha!!! That's obviously it.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 31 May 07 - 04:58 PM

Perhaps he is not spoken of by name...

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 May 07 - 04:38 PM

Oh, there's a simply tremendous amount of evidence for William Shatner... ;-D

"He's everywhere! He's everywhere!"

But he isn't spoken of in the Bible. Not once. Not even in prophecy. Odd. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 May 07 - 04:17 PM

. . . and William Shatner?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 May 07 - 02:56 PM

As a matter of fact, there is no evidence whatsoever of a tooth fairy ever having existed, "meself". None. Zippo. I know you probably don't want to hear that, but it's true. If there was such a thing as the tooth fairy, it would have been written about in the Bible, right? And it wasn't. End of story. ;-) If you feel that you can't live now, I understand.

Here's another thing there's no evidence of: my 7th grade crush on Pam Ford.

Gosh! Maybe it never happened... Yeah, I'm probably just having some kind of delusions about that. False memory. I should get some $800/hour psychiatrist to deprogram me.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 31 May 07 - 02:21 PM

You mean, you mean ... it ain't necessarily so? Next I suppose you'll tell me there's no such thing as the tooth fairy!

(What about the serpent in the Garden of Eden? Obviously he a brontosaurous. What about Santa's flying 'reindeer' - does the word 'pterodactyl' come to mind?)

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Bee
Date: 31 May 07 - 02:03 PM

Oh dear, weedwacker44, you may believe that, it is your right, but there isn't a shred of evidence to back you up. Leviathan could have been a whale, or a giant squid, or a fairy tale monster, and there are controversies over that word translated as 'dragon'. There's also not a shred of evidence for a global flood; Noah's ark, as described, could not float, nor could it carry the required number of animals, nor the food for them, nor did it reputedly even carry enough humans to clean up the mountains of manure, nor enough humans to account for the genetic heritage of humanity. It's a fine fable, a great story, with all kinds of interesting moral points (some of them frankly rather appalling), but it is not a historical account, and dinosaurs did not walk with us, except possibly as modern birds.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Bill D
Date: 31 May 07 - 01:54 PM

ummmm...that's quite a stretch, weedwacker.
"Leviathans" could simply refer to whales, and the story of the Ark has many, many problems....

and why would anyone hunt dinosaurs, with all the nice deer & elk?

You're inventing reasons to keep believing a legend.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: GUEST,weedwacker44
Date: 31 May 07 - 12:49 PM

There is actually evidence of dinosaurs in the Bible.

Leviathan in the Bible is used as a reference for sea dinosaurs.

Job 41:1
Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?


Psalm 74:14
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.


Psalm 104:26
There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein.


Isaiah 27:1
In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Some dinosaurs would also be present on Noah's Ark.

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.

So some dinosaurs would have been present on the Ark. It is likely that they were hunted after they came off the Ark, and may have died out because of this.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:30 PM

Yeah. ;-) And many things that we do today would be considered abhorrent by people in a great variety of ancient cultures. (sometimes with considerable justification)

We're all nuts. It just depends what you're used to.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:29 PM

[Beat me to it, Bill, but I'll post it anyway.]

It's not surprising that there are legends of massive floods among various cultures around the world, considering a few historical facts.

In eastern Washington State, there is an extensive area of unusual geological formations, as if the whole area had been scrubbed clean. Geologists have determined the cause of this.

The Channeled Scablands were created in the Columbia Plateau by cataclysmic Ice Age Floods between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago. The floods occurred about every 50 years and lasted a few days to a few weeks, leaving a deeply scarred plateau.

During the last Ice Age, huge lakes or inland seas existed in a number of places around the world. For example, the Bonneville Salt Flats is the bottom of what was once an inland sea. And many of these lakes and seas were kept in place by massive ice dams.   At the end of the Ice Age, the ice forming these dams melted and often release cataclysmic floods. Geologists have determined that a wave some 700 feet high swept across what is now the Scablands as many as eighteen times as the ice dam thawed, refroze, and thawed again over a period of a couple of thousand years at the end of the last Ice Age.

Northwest Indians have some pretty hairy flood legends. You might say the floods in these legends are of "Biblical proportions."

I recently saw a science program in which, around 1997, scientists discovered the remnants of several villages about 200 feet below the surface of the Black Sea. The claim is made that both the Black and Caspian Seas were vast freshwater lakes at one time, but that about 5600 BCE, an ice dam thawed and broke, allowing the Mediterranean to pour in through the Bosporus and inundate villages that had been built at the lakeshores. "This has led some to associate this catastrophe with prehistoric flood myths."

At the end of the last Ice Age, the melting of ice dams released a lot of water and caused a lot of floods of epic proportions. It should be no surprise that there are lots of flood myths and legends.

And as we know, there is a tendency for the fish—even the big ones—to get bigger every time the story gets told.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: frogprince
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:23 PM

"curious that you would reject Christianity on the basis that the Bible condemns incest and rape"
John, that would certainly be real, real "curious"; you'll have to show us who said that.

Regretablly, some garbled versions of Biblical incidents have cropped up here, as well as the implication that whatever is mentioned in the Bible is condoned by the Bible. That only serves to muddy the water.
It remains that any number of things that God allegedly did, and that his followers allegedly did with His approval, would be considered abhorrant by any sane person today.

Apart from fundamentalist assumptions about the bible, that doesn't
prove a thing about God's actual actions or desires. It reflects on the bible, not on God.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Bill D
Date: 29 May 07 - 09:14 PM

I have seen a couple of TV programs about the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus and the Great Flood. There is quite a bit of evidence that the Biblical flood legend came from those events:

see these...

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2003AM/finalprogram/abstract_63243.htm

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-85557-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

http://www.amazon.com/Noahs-Flood-Scientific-Discoveries-Changed/dp/product-description/0684859203

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 07 - 08:59 PM

Wow! That's an interesting one, BB. I hadn't heard of it before.

What I find fascinating is that the American Indians have legends of a great flood too, and I don't mean just a local one, but one that affected probably the whole continent. They also have stories about survivors who built boats and rode out the flood until it receded.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 May 07 - 08:42 PM

LH,

There are theories that the "flood" is a story from the break-through of the Atlantic ocean into the vally that became the Mediterranean. There have been human settlements ( in Turkey, I think) that were located several hundred feet below the present surface.


No idea what the general opinion on those theories are.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 May 07 - 06:38 PM

"Incest and rape as a form of moral guidance? What interesting interpretations you christians do have."

...and even more curious that you would reject Christianity on the basis that the Bible condemns incest and rape. Do you really mean to imply that you condone them?

"Abraham went around introducing his wife as his sister on a couple of occasions and then almost set fire to his son Isaac on God's command. Symbolic maybe, allegory possibly - clearly straightforward child abuse."

Is it lost on you that Abraham was condemned for his cowaradice in so introducing his wife as his sister? ...or that God also commanded Abraham not to follow through with the sacrifice of Isaac? The fire woulda come after Isaac was already offed, so I won't point out your slip there.

"The problem is that whatever you tell us there are plenty of people in the USA (not so many in Europe thank goodness) who have political power over people and who will tell you the Bible is the literal truth. "

oh please. such paranoia.

Of course, if they happen (through their immense power doncha know) to put the kabash on your rapin' and incestin' then I can see why you might get a bit a-skeered.



"Clearly they read a different Bible to me.

...or they actually read it, and therefore don't make such "slips" as the death by fire abuse of Isaac. But, yes, clearly they read a different Bible than you.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 May 07 - 06:23 PM

I don't know in which version you find that Abraham was to set his son afire, Folkiedave- the version I'm familiar with had Abraham about to cut his throat.

(Incidentally, an illustrated book of 'Bible Stories' that my mother frequently read to her children showed that scene very graphically. For years- until well after I was grown I couldn't bear to tip back my head, leaving my throat vulnerable...)

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 07 - 06:16 PM

Folkiedave, my guess is...and I emphasize that it's only a guess...

My guess is that there was some kind of worldwide inundation in a very ancient time....meaning that there were tremendous and sustained rains of an unusual nature over a very large part of the globe...perhaps over most of the globe. This could have occurred if there had been a planetwide change in the nature of the atmosphere, for instance, or a great climatic shift. Such things seem to have happened from time to time, according to the geological record...that is, there have been some radical climate shifts due to global warming and cooling. If such a phenomenon had occurred, a lot of people would have been flooded out and drowned, but many people would also have survived by getting to high ground, floating it out on boats and rafts, and so on. Their ancestors would have remembered their exploits in a herioc fashion, and would have passed on stories about it. With time the stories would have gotten better and better. I figure the Babylonian story is one of those, and the Noah story is a further variation on it.

I would prefer not to be lumped in with "you Christians", thanks. I'm not a Christian. I'm a human being, period. That's the only designation I want. Human being. I don't see "incest and rape as a form of moral guidance"! Nor would virtually anyone. I was simply pointing out that a story that doesn't make sense now might have made sense to a completely different culture of people several thousands years ago.

For instance, Aztecs thought it was perfectly okay to rip the hearts out of large numbers of people as a way of appeasing their gods. That was normal to them. Accordingly, a story that made sense to them might make no sense at all to you or me, right? Things change as the millennia roll by, and the fact that they do is one reason why so much of the Old Testament is unpalatable in modern terms.

I understand that Jerry Falwell thinks the Bible is " the inerrant... word of the living God", but how do I know Jerry Falwell is infallible? ;-) I seriously doubt that he is. He's welcome to his opinion, as are the rest of you human beings out there.

I don't mind a bit that there are other people who believe a variety of things I don't. It makes life more interesting. It would be one heck of a limited world if we all believed the same things...not even a place worth living in, as far as I'm concerned.

I do not see it as my sacred duty to persuade everyone else that they are wrong in their beliefs and I'm right in mine, and I would be very pleased if the rest of you would extend a similar courtesy toward all people who are different from yourselves...but I know better than to imagine that's going to happen! ;-) Ha! I know that many of you would much rather fight than get along.

So, if you really want to fight about it, here's my suggestion: We make an appointment to meet behind the barn at 3:00 tomorrow, and slug it out.

And if I'm not there.............................











Start without me!

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Folkiedave
Date: 29 May 07 - 05:54 PM

The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
-- Jerry Falwell, Finding Inner Peace and Strength

Are you aware that a great many non-Christian, non-Judaic cultures also have folk tales about a great flood in ancient times? The North American Indians, for example, have such tales.

Yes - I was aware that it probably derived from the identical myth was in Babylonian culture and several others. As a folkie I am used to folktales. But if it is symbolic - what is it symbolic of?

Actually good old Jerry Falwell wants a return to a male-orientated society. I am sure you can find your own quotes but try this one:

"It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening".

On the other hand, it could be another symbolic tale, a parable, told in order to prove a point of some kind. There were many such tales in ancient times, and people took them quite seriously as a form of moral guidance.

Incest and rape as a form of moral guidance? What interesting interpretations you christians do have.

Abraham went around introducing his wife as his sister on a couple of occasions and then almost set fire to his son Isaac on God's command. Symbolic maybe, allegory possibly - clearly straightforward child abuse.

The problem is that whatever you tell us there are plenty of people in the USA (not so many in Europe thank goodness) who have political power over people and who will tell you the Bible is the literal truth.

People will constantly ask atheists from whence their morality derives. The christian derives theirs from the Bible we are told.

Clearly they read a different Bible to me.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 May 07 - 04:57 PM

....right about the use of "literal". I disagree about the "neutral".

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 May 07 - 04:57 PM

You're right. I mis-read them.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Bill D
Date: 29 May 07 - 04:45 PM

#2 & 3# do not use the word 'literal'.

#1 uses it once.

Those sites are MUCH closer to being neutral than someone who has memories & emotional baggage connected with religious language.

'Neutral' does not have to imply that there are no other ways to approach the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 May 07 - 04:31 PM

those are not "neutral".

And the only one that gets it even close to right is the last ("wisegeek"), as that is the only one that doesn't interject the word "literal" into its definition so as to prejudice it.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 May 07 - 03:46 PM

From the University of Virginia Religious Movements web site:    Fundamentalism #1.

From the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance:    Fundamentalism #2.

From the National Humanities Center:    Fundamentalism #3.

From the "WiseGeek" web site:    Funtamentalism #4.

There is a large number of articles on the internet about Fundamentalism, many of which are, as one would expect, very biased either one way or the other. Some, however, such as those found in the links above, appear to me to be fairly neutral.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Bee
Date: 29 May 07 - 03:20 PM

But then, I have found people educated as theologists usually are able to expound on their personal beliefs in such a manner as to make them appear (given God in the first place) at least reasonable, if obscure. The vast majority of religious fundamentalists are not so trained and educated, and somehow, reasonableness is not filtering down from the lofty heights to the pews.

I sometimes debate with a fundamentalist theologian on another board: we have very reasonable and amiable conversations, and he has gone a long way towards explaining his position to me. We seldom agree, but I've learned a lot and really admire the man's patience and skill.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: frogprince
Date: 29 May 07 - 02:41 PM

Don, in fairness to John Hardly, he explained the position taken by a major share of those fundamentalists who have at least tried to sort out their beliefs in an intelligent way. If you had "been there", you would know that his definition is much more genuinely representative than what you are apt to get from a general dictionary, or what it is easy to surmise from exposure to the sort of characters you cited experience with.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 May 07 - 02:12 PM

demanding the right to sodomize them ... ?

I'm told that this interpretation did not appear until ca. 89 AD, a few hundred years after the original story.

John

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 May 07 - 02:12 PM

Then we get back to there apparently being different definitions of "fundamentalism." You seem to be using one different from the dictionary definition or from what I have heard from people I've met who tell me they are fundamentalists.

John, there is no need to feel animosity toward me because I'm asking these questions. I'm not challenging you, I'm trying to understand.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:59 PM

"Now you're saying that's not true? Please explain."

I already have. There is a difference between not explaining, and not explaining to your satisfaction.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:56 PM

John, I have always been told--by fundamentalists--that the Bible is not to be interpreted, it is to be taken literally. And that this is what it means to be a fundamentalist.

Now you're saying that's not true? Please explain.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:46 PM

Or maybe The Bible, to them, makes sense in a way you have not explored, or dismiss. Just maybe there are ways to interpret the events of the Bible and not conclude what you demand that they conclude from them.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: frogprince
Date: 29 May 07 - 01:40 PM

I really believe that the great majority of Christian fundamentalists simply filter their beliefs through their own intelligence and human decency, without realizing the degree to which they do it. The implications of much of what God supposedly literally did in the Biblical narratives just never really "click in" in their thinking. At the very raggedest fringes, despised by even most fundamentalists,
you will find the Fred Phelps types, who are quite willing to accept a conception of God as a hateful, pitiless sadist and to serve "him" as such.
                         Dean

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 May 07 - 12:54 PM

Folkiedave, when I asked my roomie in Denver and the guy leaning his elbows on my drawing table at Boeing about things such as than, their response was either to tell me that I had to have "faith," (in what and about what?) or become tight-lipped and end the conversation by walking away.

Job got screwed over pretty good. And it was all just to win a bet.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: John Hardly
Date: 29 May 07 - 12:52 PM

"John, in your own opinion, is it possible to be a fundamentalist without literally believing (for examples) 1. that God ordered Abraham to kill his son Isaac, as a test of faith, and then praised and rewarded him for being willing (however reluctantly) to do as he was told.
2. that God ordered the Israelites to kill a number of groups of heathens to the last man, woman, and child?"

Sure, I suppose it's possible for a fundamentalist to do an honest and thorough search of the Bible, using good methodology, and conclude that those examples weren't "literal".

That said, I think I can safely say that every fundmentalist that I know would tell you that those two passage describe real, historical events.

....BUT...

...not all of them, or even (in some cases) meaningful majorities of them would tell you what you must conclude about those historical events.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 07 - 12:40 PM

Folkiedave - "how am I to know which is which?"

You are to do what you do in every other situation in life and use your own intelligence, your own powers of understanding, and your own best judgement. Don't expect that everyone else will agree with whatever conclusions you arrive at. ;-)

"As far as I can gather, animals went into the Ark two by two and then God drowned the world - and everyone and thing in it, including children except for one family. What made them lucky and to be honest wasn't that a bit drastic?"

That is probably a symbolic tale, a very simplified version of something that happened where various people and creatures survived a great inundation...but it is exceedingly unlikely that it would have happened in precisely the manner described in the Bible with Noah, his family, the animals two by two, etc. In fact, I would submit that the part about all the animal species is completely unbelievable. Noah could not have managed that part. Are you aware that a great many non-Christian, non-Judaic cultures also have folk tales about a great flood in ancient times? The North American Indians, for example, have such tales. So do oriental peoples. They do not say anything about Noah and his family, they describe other survivors of the flood. The Judaic tale probably arose from a specific group of people in a certain geographical area who were explaining it as they best understood it and best remembered it...

"In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - Lot and his family were saved as uniquely righteous. A couple of angels were sent to warn Lot and the people of Sodom gathered around demanding the right to sodomize them - what else!! Genesis 19:5 Certainly Lot refuses which looks good for someone uniquely righteous; until you realise he offers his two virgin daughters as replacements!! Genesis 19:7-8."

Well, that tells you something about the relative status and importance of men vs. women in the culture of the time, doesn't it? ;-) A patriarch was very important, his daughters were not. This is shocking to a modern audience. It would not have been nearly as shocking to the audience for whom it was written, I would gather.

Those who are "saved" in time of great calamity (meaning that they survive it) usually go about constructing a story afterward which proves that they were saved because they were more righteous than those who perished. (and they probably believe it...)

On the other hand, it could be another symbolic tale, a parable, told in order to prove a point of some kind. There were many such tales in ancient times, and people took them quite seriously as a form of moral guidance.

"After their mother was turned into a pillar of salt the daughters get their father drunk and he makes them both pregnant"

That is indeed a hilarious example of Old Testament weirdness! I guess maybe this was a case of "the end (continuance of the familial line) justifies the means"??? ;-)

"I wonder if this is the book you would really choose to lead your life by??"

Yeah, it's strange, isn't it? But what people have always done is that they first of all interpret the Bible and filter it through the understanding of their own society, their own time and culture. Then they mainly focus on the parts they can relate to best and they give less attention to the parts they don't relate to so well. People are very adaptable, and they will find ways of adapting to a book like the Old Testament once they have made the initial decision to believe in it.

It's just like millions of people adapting to a political philosophy, regardless of what is done in the name OF that political philosophy. Consider the horrible things that have been done (at times) in the name of Communism, Naziism, or the British or American systems. Pogroms, death camps, invasion and plunder, destruction of Native people's entire way of life, dropping atomic bombs on cities, etc...

Yet millions of well-meaning people have subscribed to those systems and still do. They choose to focus on the good points of the system and not to take much notice of the bad ones.

It's the same with a religion.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 May 07 - 12:29 PM

Ah, Folkiedave, you don't understand.

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Folkiedave
Date: 29 May 07 - 11:48 AM

They believe that the actual, flawless scripture would be the first one written. Therefore, though they would contend that the various versions contain the word of God, no one translation or version is perfect.

They would say that proper interpretation of scripture would accept cultural context -- that the scripture, to be best understood would have to first understand that much of it was written to a specific recipient.

They would say that proper interpretation of scripture would also accept historical context -- that some of what was written will not be understood if explained into the wrong timeframe.

They would say that that which is meant to be literal, and theological/ethical/moral principle, is, indeed, to be taken literally -- don't steal, don't murder, don't listen to Billy Ray Cyrus.

They would say that that which was written as poetry is meant to be read as poetry.

They would say that that which was written as symbolism is meant to be read as symbolism.

Whilst at first that looks like a comprehensive answer it does lead me to ask the obvious question - how am I to know which is which?

If the bible is (as you suggest) that the various versions contain the word of God then I need more help.

Let me take some examples:

As far as I can gather, animals went into the Ark two by two and then God drowned the world - and everyone and thing in it, including children except for one family. What made them lucky and to be honest wasn't that a bit drastic?

In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - Lot and his family were saved as uniquely righteous. A couple of angels were sent to warn Lot and the people of Sodom gathered around demanding the right to sodomize them - what else!! Genesis 19:5 Certainly Lot refuses which looks good for someone uniquely righteous; until you realise he offers his two virgin daughters as replacements!! Genesis 19:7-8.

After their mother was turned into a pillar of salt the daughters get their father drunk and he makes them both pregnant. Genesis 19:31-36

Now I am not sure whether this is of the time; allegory; poetry; or what but it seems to me a very weird a way to behave. But no doubt some fundamentalist will be able to explain it to me......

(The same thing happens a bit later in Judges 19:25-6 where an unnamed Levite hands over his virgin daughter and his concubine for gang raping - so clearly there was a lot of it about!! Not such a happy ending this time - she dies and so he kindly cuts her into twelve and distributes her into all the coasts of Israel).

I wonder if this is the book you would really choose to lead your life by??

Subject: RE: BS: No Dinos in the bible? wtf....
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 May 07 - 11:33 AM

No, Ebbie, I bet they don't. ;-)

Don, I thoroughly enjoyed your stories about your past encounters with people who wanted to "save" you...

PMB - Or god could enjoy a situation where every sentient being has free will. If so, it would explain pretty well everything that's going on now, wouldn't it? No point blaming the "bad" stuff on God, really...when all of us are perfectly free to make our own mistakes and engage in our own silly behaviour if we want to.

As for the Trinity, well, anyone can look at a 3 dimensional Universe in 3 symbolic ways if they want to. Why not?