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The Insignificance of Gilgamesh

Earthling

David Henson
Quran didn't copy anything from the Bible and or any other Scripture or no-Scripture of the non-believers, will that be correct in the same way?

Regards

The Quran doesn't copy anything from the Bible, but it does reference some of the content. The way you phrased the question confuses me. I'm not sure you understand the point, I know I don't understand your point. Correctness has nothing to do with it.
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
You hear this sort of explanation all the time. You can explain away anything with assumptions and call them facts, but, I've found those sort of "scientific" explanations to be baseless.
Are you a geologist? a scientist? Why are their conclusions supposedly "baseless" but your beliefs somehow not "baseless"? And why is it so difficult to accept that these accounts are likely allegory and probably not based on actual historical or scientific events?

Whether there actually was in a reality an ark means nothing today because any such supposed events are long gone. But what is important is what lessons can be derived from the narratives because these lessons are at the least potentially usable today.

IOW, it's "the moral of the story" that's important.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
You misunderstood my point, apparently not as simple as I thought. I wasn't referencing an article on the flood, I was pointing out that Gilgamesh having preceded the writing of the Bible is no indication that the Bible copied the account of the flood by comparing it to reading two different articles in two different publications of an event today.

Moses' didn't start writing the Bible until long after the scattering at Babel which the flood preceded so naturally the story would have been circulating before then. That doesn't mean Moses' account copied Gilgamesh, since they are not exactly similar.
Yes. Just read the descriptions of the vessels in each account! The Ark of Noah is much more viable than the E of G’s’ bobbing cube!
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Yes. Just read the descriptions of the vessels in each account! The Ark of Noah is much more viable than the E of G’s’ bobbing cube!
Not really. The Ark would tend to founder or if it ht a wave head on it would likely snap in half. The square cube law sinks Noah's Ark.
 
No. Again, let me clarify. The start of the flood was about 2370 B.C.E. Moses completed Genesis about 1513 B.C.E. That's 857 years for the story of the global deluge to spread. After it happened but before Moses allegedly wrote about it.
Im following your point your trying to make, but that date is way off. The oldest pyramid in Egypt, the Pyramid of Djoser was built in 2630-2610. There is no way the flood happened after that.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
New Pangea, Gondwanaland Laurasia. A warmer climate with fewer and lower mountains, riverbeds in ocean floors, seashells in mountain ranges, mammoths stuck in ice with grass in their mouths and stomachs . . .

None of which support flood accounts and all of which have rather explanations in geology. Like plate tectonics and stuff.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
I keep having to explain to science minded skeptics that looking for answers in the Bible from the perspective of science is pointless.

But looking for answers from the perspective of science in the real world in context of claims about the real world, is not.

That a megaflood which covered and killed as good as everything occured in precisely 2370 bc, is a pretty clear claim about physical reality. If this event occured, it should be almost trivial to come up with scientific evidence to support it. As such an event makes LOADS of testable predictions.

And that's exactly how we know that such event never occured. Because these predictions have been tested and each test revealed the exact opposite of the claim.


Just hypothetically speaking, if I could show you scientific "evidence" of a mega-flood at 2370 B.C.E. would that prove without a doubt that such a flood took place?

Scientific evidence doesn't get you as far as "proof" in the mathematical sense.
It can disprove ideas (like it has done with the flood claims), but it can't prove ideas in the same way. It can only support them.

And the fact is, that there is loads of evidence that disproves the account and no evidence at all that supports it.

Ergo, it never happened.


Don't perpetuate the illusion that evidence isn't subject to error, interpretation, or bias

Don't pretend as if this is a reasonable argument to defend an idea that not only has no evidential support at all, but is actually disproven into oblivion by the evidence we have.


It's unreasonable. I could show you possible evidence, the opinion of science, that could be misconstrued or correctly construed as interpretation of such a flood being possible but that evidence I've encountered in my past is at least 40 years old. The very fact that it's no longer pertinent is an indication of science's constant correction thereby nullifying current evidence as well.

The interpretation of evidence in science is an exercise that is scrutinized by scientifica methodology just as much as anything. It really doesn't help your case to pretend that it's all just opinion and arbitrary guesses.

The only reason you're trying to make it sound like it is, is because that is all YOU have: opinion and arbitrary guesses. You like to pretend that science is on the same playing field, but it really really isn't.

When it comes to science and theology all we can realistically say is "This is what we think right now, and that is subject to change. Fallible." In this regard it doesn't matter what science says. The evidence is conjecture.

The difference is that science actually provides you with means to test "what we think right now", while in religion not only is it untestable, it more often then not is seen as herecy / blasphemy / what-have-you to question the central dogma's and doctrines.

Science on the other hand, can actually only work when ideas are challenged, questioned and tested all the time. It's how it makes progress.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Abraham was from Ur...this clearly says that all the first chapters of the Genesis describe a mythology that originated in Mesopotamia.

There was no "Ur" at the time of Abraham. The Chaldeans don't appear until the 9th century BC.

Where was Abraham's Ur? - Accuracy in Genesis
www.accuracyingenesis.com/ur.html
Abraham was from the city of Ur according to Genesis 11:31 above. The problem is that there are several places called Ur. It is mostly translated as "Ur of the Chaldeans.". The problem with "Chaldeans" is that it is a late word used in the Neo-Babylonian times. …
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
At being wrong. But that's the point isn't it?
Finding out you are wrong is how progress is made.
Every time you find out you are wrong about something, you learned something.

Science isn't actually in the business of showing things correct. It's in the business of showing things wrong.

When you design a test for your hypothesis, you don't design the tests to try and show they hypothesis correct. You try to show it wrong instead.

You can't even show it "correct", in the sense of certainty.
At best, you can say that the results are consistent with your hypothesis.
Then the hypothesis may be correct. It might also be wrong, yet still consistent with results. If it's wrong, at some point it won't be consistent with results anymore. Like Newtonian gravity.

It works very well. So well, that it's still used today for calculations at sub-sound speeds or medium masses. Or when ultra-accuracy of decimal points isn't required.

At some point in history, calculations were required for things traveling at extreme speed, or for objects with massive gravity, or for purposes that required ultra-accuracy... Meet Einsteinian gravity. Newtonian physics doesn't work any more, as it doesn't account for relativistic effects.

So Newtonian physics is actually wrong, as a full explanatory model of gravity. Yet, it is consistent with our every-day experience of gravity.

See?

Einstein discovered that Newton was wrong. And as a direct result, we have things like GPS today. Technology that isn't possible with Newtonian physics, made possible when Einstein showed how Newton was wrong (or ignorant) about certain things.
 

sooda

Veteran Member
New Pangea, Gondwanaland Laurasia. A warmer climate with fewer and lower mountains, riverbeds in ocean floors, seashells in mountain ranges, mammoths stuck in ice with grass in their mouths and stomachs . . .

There weren't any people around.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
That is certainly possible but not likely. First of all it doesn't explain why so many other cultures around the world have a similar legend of a global flood. Not a local flood. A global flood.


It's really not hard.

Land in proximity of large bodies of water tends to flood sooner or later. Be it lakes, rivers, sea's,... At some point, something will happen, which will have flooding as a result. From big rainfalls to natural damn collapse to underground earthquakes, volcano eruptions or massive landslides triggering mega tsunami's, etc.

Back at the dawn of civilisation and earlier, most humans weren't really aware of much more then the land in a 300 mile radius. Mega floods, cataclysmic volcanic eruptions etc at that point would have been extremely traumatizing with only few survivors.

And considering that humans, especially in the old days but certainly still true today, have a tendency of settling in the fertile and easily accessible lands near important rivers, lakes and seas.... It would be surprising if there would be no cataclysmic flood legends....


I can assure you that old cultures in the proximities of volcano's etc, have their own myths and legends concerning fire, trembling earth, molten rocks falling from the skies and things involving sulfer.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Here we go. The American Dreamer. Your Internet and the personal computer wasn't invented by the U.S. Army and a couple college drop outs in their parent's garage, it was invented by a vague Utopian concept we will call . . . SCIENCE! Now the best fart jokes and pornography known to man is readily available to everyone! Praise Science. Now, asbestos, weapons of mass destruction and genetically modified foods, those things are taboo.

Science created all things great and wonderful. Science tells us eggs are bad and fluoride is good. Eugenics on the other hand . . . and we keep getting sicker and fatter and lazier and more sure that we are headed for our own destruction.


Sounds like you are confusing the practice of science (research; information gathering about the world) with the practice of engineering and development.

Science didn't create the computer. Engineers did, using the findings of science.

Science first needs to figure out how electro magnetism works and how it can be manipulated / generated / harnassed, before an engineer can create an electrical circuit resulting in a computer.

But praise Science!

Science comes up with atomic theory.

Engineers then use that knowledge to create technology like nuclear bombs or MRI scanners.

Or to put it simplisticly... you could say a scientist figured out how to extract iron from rocks and then a blacksmith used that knowledge to create a sword.

It's a thin crust we walk upon.

Compared to the total distance of the inner radius, sure. But it's still a good 30km's thick under continents.

Imagine the force of a water canopy crashing down

What canopy?


Not to mention those tall mountains didn't exist at one time so would be far more easy to cover the tops of with water in a global flood.


:rolleyes:
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Sounds like you are confusing the practice of science (research; information gathering about the world) with the practice of engineering and development.

Science didn't create the computer. Engineers did, using the findings of science.

Science first needs to figure out how electro magnetism works and how it can be manipulated / generated / harnassed, before an engineer can create an electrical circuit resulting in a computer.



Science comes up with atomic theory.

Engineers then use that knowledge to create technology like nuclear bombs or MRI scanners.

Or to put it simplisticly... you could say a scientist figured out how to extract iron from rocks and then a blacksmith used that knowledge to create a sword.



Compared to the total distance of the inner radius, sure. But it's still a good 30km's thick under continents.



What canopy?


:rolleyes:

It is funny if idiotic.. I have heard creationists aka cretins claim the earth was flat and the mountains popped up AFTER Noah's worldwide flood.

Top 10 Oldest Mountain Ranges On Earth - BuzzFeed
https://www.buzzfeed.com/top10s/oldest-mountains-on-earth-ww6q
Top 10 Oldest Mountain Ranges On Earth. Mountains are ancient and majestic. The Himalayas are supposed to be around 55 million years old, the Rockies 80 million, and the Alps possibly 100 million!
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
Sorry, God did not write the Bible. And since the evidence clearly tells us that there was no flood you are left with two options. Either there was no flood, or God lied by creating false evidence.

I believe God was instrumental in the writing of the Bible.

The evidence that I have seen is that there was a flood. If you haven't seen it you should look on Wikipedia.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
I believe God was instrumental in the writing of the Bible.

The evidence that I have seen is that there was a flood. If you haven't seen it you should look on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia says it's a myth.

Flood myth - Wikipedia

A world-wide deluge, such as described in Genesis, is incompatible with modern scientific understanding of natural history, especially geology and paleontology.[16][17]

Genesis flood narrative - Wikipedia

The Genesis flood narrative is a flood myth found in the Tanakh (chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis).[1]


What evidence are you referring to?
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
It is funny if idiotic.. I have heard creationists aka cretins claim the earth was flat and the mountains popped up AFTER Noah's worldwide flood.

Top 10 Oldest Mountain Ranges On Earth - BuzzFeed
https://www.buzzfeed.com/top10s/oldest-mountains-on-earth-ww6q
Top 10 Oldest Mountain Ranges On Earth. Mountains are ancient and majestic. The Himalayas are supposed to be around 55 million years old, the Rockies 80 million, and the Alps possibly 100 million!

I don't believe there is any evidence to support their view.
 
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