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Researchers To Climb Ararat To Seek Noah's Ark
fudgefactor7 writes "CNN/AP has a story about researchers that plan on ascending Mt. Ararat in search of the Ark of Noah. My favorite quote: ''We are not excavating it. We are not taking any artifacts. We're going to photograph it and, God willing, you're all going to see it,' McGivern said.' As if pictures can't be doctored and are absolute proof...."
But at least it could be carbon dated to determine if it was from the right time. Carbon dating is a little more difficult to doctor than photographs.
I love how he assumes that he is going to find a large boat, and he assumes that any large boat he happens to find is going to be the one and only Noah's Ark. In his mind, "It" is Noah's Ark. He isn't looking for evidence that whatever it is on top of Mt. Ararat is Noah's Ark, he is already firmly convinced that it is.
Compare this with an arcaeologist excavating a tomb of someone. Who? I don't know, anyone: "Well, we're going to go inside the tomb, and hopefully we will find stuff. We hope we will find things that can prove who this person was, and what thier daily life was like, and maybe what their beliefs were; and maybe we'll find something really cool."
See the difference? This guy is no archaeologist. He is a christian on a quest for the 21st century holy grail.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
And we will get a picture of a printout of a carbon dating result and some text saying "we did it".
Groovy.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Like "Why would someone build a boat at this altitiude?"
3) It is Noah's ark, we will go on with our regular lives, and the scientists say "Umm... can we have a closer look at that book of yours?"
Umm. No. The scientists will not care any more about that book than they do now. It does not provide anything that helps us do research (otherwise known as science). They may ask to see the boat though, there is stuff to apply science to there.
Science is not some alternative to religion, it's only a tool. I guess the truth scares religous folk, and hence they always see science as some sort of competitor.
I am a little fuzzy on that point - you are saying that if they find something that is definitively identified as The Ark (like a little plaque on it, that says "The Ark"), then the laws of physics will be rewritten to accomodate a literal reading of the bible? Somehow I doubt that is going to happen, even if there is a little plaque.
sic transit gloria mundi
Now that you mention it-
From the story text;
As if pictures can't be doctored and are absolute proof....
If that is not a "troll" I do not know what is. What if they do come back with pictures, does that automatically make them liars?
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I'd rather they collect hair samples from it. A little monkey, a little giraffe here and there, etc... how does it compare genetically to the animals we have now? If this were indeed the ark then there would be some sort of definitive proof of paternity for every single sample found. Excluding those of the animals which were sacrificed or eaten of course . ;-)
-Don.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
> so feel free to mod me down.
Oh man, quit saying that. You are way too passive agressive.
A couple points: You can't have faith-based belief AND a theory. A theory is an explanation based on facts (tests, observations) while faith is complete belief in something without question with NO EVIDENCE. So you either believe this conspiracy of yours or you entertain it as a theory based on pure speculation (which makes for a lousy theory).
>My faith is in the word of the Bible,
You mean that obscene book full or murder, rape, advocating of genocide, slavery, etc?
For kicks take this fun Bible quiz. That's what you believe? Weird.
Don't you suppose that the money spent on finding the ark might be better spent feeding someone who is starving? Hell, they are going all the way to Turkey. It's just about as far to some starving kids in Africa.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
*sigh*
It's pretty hard to reconcile the bible with the abundance of archaeoligcal evidence that shows that dinosaurs ruled the earth for millions of years before the first humans showed up.
Reading and believing in the Bible doesn't require the reader to take it literally. Some random and eclectic examples of people who don't read the Bible literally.
These fairy tales don't fly on slashdot because the people here are educated enough to know better.
No, they really aren't; I read views on Christianity and other religions that are chock full of misconceptions or misunderstandings all the time.
There's a major tendency by various posters on Slashdot to overgeneralize American Protestant fundamentalism into Christian orthodoxy. If you don't know the differences between fundamentalism and orthodoxy, realize that your knowledge of Christianity ranks fairly low. (Which is to say that people can't be experts on everything. Even on Slashdot.)
My opinion, having been a Slash reader since the site's infancy, is that there's actually a fairly low level of religious knowledge amongst the learned Slashdot crowd. This tends to [unfortunately] manifest itself in haughty arrogance. QED indeed.
Yeah, I wish religious people would do that.
You want an example? How about the story of Onan? Homosexuals get a lot of trouble from that one today. I doubt many of them decide to be homosexuals, they can't help it and the bible says to treat them... the way it says to treat lepers, which is another part that led to tremendous pain on the part of innocents.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
A few reasons. First, these gentlemen, as far as I can tell, are doing this in an attempt to prove Christianity. They are not out to learn anything they do not already know, and if they are, they are not intending to share it with the rest of the world by any verifiable means (pictures, are as the story points out, weak as evidence for anything). Their ultimate purpose is to deliver a conclusion, not facts. Your typical archaelogist visits a location to learn more about an unknown culture, not to offer conclusions, but simply to offer knowledge and let the information speak.
Do you see the subtle distinction here? On one hand, we have the scientist that assumes something to be true then goes looking only for evidence that supports it. On the other hand, we have the scientist that that explores and records only what is observed and lets the facts speak for themselves. Which of these categories is likely to get the most cynical reaction? Which category do you think these guys fall into?
There is also a negative reaction from many rational people to the heavy-weight evangelistic nature of Christianity. Rational people usually want evidence to back up claims, evidence which is often not offered by evangelism. This can put people at odds against an idealogy. Would you dislike it if people of other religions came thumping you with their religious beliefs using threats of punishment and slander? Would it make you uncomfortable? Also, many active religions today (key point to remember with your claim--many ancient religions of noteworthy attention are no longer practiced) use fear and coersion to recruit new members. Fear of eternal suffering or punishment is commen. Religions often do this at great financial benefit to themselves.
I could go on and on, but I digress. Nevertheless, I think when you look at all this, you find that there is a great deal of cause for people to express hostility towards religion. Perhaps you should take these things into consideration before you feel like you or your belief system are being picked on.
Join Tor today!
Yeah... I thought it was cool when I was a Christian too. Seriously! A kind of curse-of-the-ark thing. It poses a difficult question for theologians though: God loves you enough to torture his own son to death, but he's pretty meticulous about sealing off any avenue of empirical verification.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
I'd like to take small exception to your assumptions about flooding in the area. Non-literialist biblical researchers had long thought that flooding in Mesopotamia led to the story of the Flood, as a major flood is recorded in the Summerian Epic Of Gilgamesh. More recently, a case has been made that the flooding of the Black Sea basin, which previously held a smaller fresh water lake, would have provided the seed for the story.
Compare this localized 1000 foot (300m) flood with the 17000 foot (5000m) global flood posited by the biblical story. Now, before someone lays into me for discounting the power of the Lord, consider how scientific research approaches this.
1. make observations of nature.
2. based on those observations, make an informed guess about why something came to be what was observed.
3. develop series of tests that might support your assertion, tests that other people can make independently.
4. collate data collected from many such tests, and see if the results support the theory.
For a localized Black Sea flood, there is previously collected evidence that due to the end of the last ice age, ice sheet melt flooded the eastern Med area, and what is now the Bosporus strait was breached about 7000 years ago. Salt water added 300m to the level of the Black Sea within a matter of months, drowning hundreds of square miles of land. Recent archeological dives along this now submerged land seem to show paleolithic human settlements. Further research is needed before strong conclusions can be drawn.
For a global 5000m+ flood, the very first thing we need to account for is the lack of suitable debris that would have washed ashore at high elevations as the waters subsided. If the Ark survived, some of the other wood left floating around might be expected to. The next thing would be to account for the volume of the ocean being doubled, and then halved, all in the course of a few months. Where did it come from, and where did it go?
As a biblical literalist, if your answer is basically that the Lord gave, and the Lord took away, then you've provided faith as evidence. While one's faith can be tested, it can't be independently checked and verified. The scientific method of investigating the works of the Lord assumes - baring evidence to the contrary - that the Lord maintains His creation in a consistent state: hot air rises, the sun sets, gravity sucks. If He doesn't, then the method will need to adjust.
So far, however, the method has proved useful at measuring the nature of Nature, such that we can reliably do things based on many of the conclusions we've drawn so far.
Luke, help me take this mask off
The difference is that science, by definition, can never claim to have actually *achieved* absolute truth. That's indeed what we're looking for, but science can never claim to have found it.
The best that science can say is "We have this model that, so far, doesn't conflict with any data. If you've got an argument that our model is wrong, we'd love to hear it."
Religions, on the other hand, generally claim absolute certainty about something: "We know the Earth was created 6000 years ago, because this book says so. To question this is heretical."
It's this claim of certainty that pisses off science types. I've got no problem with the idea of a deity, just the "take it on faith that there is a deity with these traits" bit.
IAAP (I am a physicist)
I doubt many of them decide to be homosexuals, they can't help it and the bible says to treat them... the way it says to treat lepers, which is another part that led to tremendous pain on the part of innocents.
Bruce, check out the second half of the Bible. There is this one guy who hangs out with lepers, prostitutes and even tax collectors (much worse than homosexuals, in my book). He had this funny habit of loving everyone despite their sins or social status. Of course, the powers that be kill him for this but it all works out in the end.
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Disclaimer: Staunch athei-ostic (I don't believe in religion).
"If one believes in God, Christ, and The Holy Spirit then one has to believe that The Bible is the Word of God."
Now this is an obvious logical fallacy. Even working from an assumption that God, Christ, et al are true deities there is no assertion that they have ensured the validity of the bible.
I think the standard response by believers is "do you know the mind of God?". Implying that God could have written a pile of crap as a test or some-such...
Q.
Insert Signature Here
Lots of the comments revolve around a few themes
:)
1. the bible is all made up
2. there's no way $situation could happen
3. this wont prove anything
To which i have a few short responses. Please give them some consideration before flaming me
1. This is a hard argument to make. The bible talks about lots of different things. Some of these things have been verified via archalogical evidence. Insofar as a recording of ancient history, the bible is surprisingly accurate in all of the things it depicts which are verifiable
Note that this is sort of the same as me writing a book with 100 pages, and on 3 randomly distributed pages, i describe newtonian physics, and the other 97 pages contain stuff that doesn't make sense to anybody, and can't be proven or disproven using any known technique
From a scientific perspective, my book isn't very interesting.
Until somebody figure's out page 4. And then in another 50 years, maybe someone figures out what page 5 means. And so on.
There's lots of stuff described in the bible that has been shown to be historically consistant. Much more than has shown to be historically inconsistant.
2. This won't be a very satisfying answer, but here goes.
the bible is sort of axiomatic. If you beleive
- that god is all powerful
- always does what is right
- is smarter than you
- the bible is the inerrant word of god as transcribed via people divinely inspired to do so
then a lot of what happens in the bible can be swallowed. Still, some things are hard to beleive. It's hard to beleive that somebody could part a body of water so that people could walk through it unharmed. It's hard to beleive because we've never seen anything like it, and because we cant explain how it would work.
There are lots of things in the bible that we have a hard time buying for those reasons - we've never experienced it, and we can't understand/explain how it would work.
The first "Reason" isn't a reason at all. We never experienced the creation of planet earth, but we know it happened. None of us were alive when president lincoln was shot, but most of us know it happened. The issue of never experiencing something personaly is really not an effective argument against unbeleivable things depicted in the bible.
The more interesting and common argument is the second one - there's no way that could happen. This usually revolves around some scientific argument, or rather, some lack of a scientific explanation for how it _could_ have happened. Parting seas, turning water into blood, feeding thousands with just a little food, healing blindless/leprosy/etc.
This is where the axiomatic nature of things comes into play.
If you buy that God is all powerful, then god can do whatever he wants to, certainly any of the above mentioned things.
The part is what people _Really_ dont like to hear. Just because _you_ cant explain something, doesn't mean god doesn't know how it works. Your inability to come up with a thoery or explanation for how something could have happened isn't standing in the way of an all powerful smarter-than-you god in the slightest.
So, if you buy the basic axioms of god, the rest sort of comes out in the wash. It's nice when science or achaeology catches up with what the bible has already described, but its not necessary.
3. Of course not. The point isn't to prove god exists. You either think he does or you don't. If it was factually obvious that god existed then you having a choice in the matter of wether to beleive or not wouldn't be very useful, now would it ?
I'm frankly not sure what the point of this trip is, but it won't prove god does or doesn't exist. People that refuse to beleive in god will read the results of this journey how they want to. People that refuse to beleive in anyting but god will read the results of this journey how they want to.
But there's the ever important swing vote.
W
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I'm going to safely assume you are not a zoologist or botanist.
What do you think is the first thing the lions would do when they left the ark?
EAT THE MEASLEY TWO GAZELLES. Oops, no more gazelles.
You can argue it all you want, but the gestation period of any 3 generations of gazelles, zebras, or whatever required to even begin feeding the a single generation of lions or other carnivores would mean a lot of carnivores would go hungry if everyone started with a PAIR at the same time.
You can't just "start up" the food chain like that. Ever do a "rabbit and foxes" related rates problem in diff eq? The stable state is impossible to achieve with a deficit of prey in the initial conditions.
A little thought is dangerous.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I don't understand why anyone would find the fact that most cultures have some sort of flood myth unusual. Humans tend to collect themselves around bodies of water for various reasons having to do with commerce, agriculture, transportation, etc. People that live near bodies of water occasionally experience floods. Flood stories tend to be dramatic because people have to make heroic efforts to make it through the tough times that ensue. It's not surprising that these flood stories make it into their mythology.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
Do you people realize you are acting like religious zealots, in dismissing the findings of an expedition that hasn't started yet?
Mount Ararat is named in the Bible as the resting place of the Ark. That section of the Bible was written more than 2000 years ago. Scientific principles absolutely demand that someone must go up there and search for it.
If they find what looks like the remnants of a big wooden ship then whoopee, we get to debate what it really is and launch further expeditions and employ other technology and analysis to see if this is true.
If they find nothing, Someone will claim that they looked in the wrong place and try again. (Ararat is a big mountain)
If they die trying; tough luck. That happens sometimes to people trying to test an important theory.
At the very least searching for the Arc on Ararat is more important than going back to the Moon or climbing Everest again. It is roughly on par with searching for signs of life on Mars and the SETI program. I.e. Published and authenticated success would revolutionize thinking.
For the record There were many attempts to launch such an expedition in the 20th century, They all suffered political trauma. I.e. Ararat, sat on a border between enemies. The political climate has changed and former enemies are now tolerant neighbors.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
This is definitely my second or third post on Slashdot. After not commenting for a long time, I think I'll step in for a bit. So what is this tolerance stuff that I keep hearing about? As in, tolerate gay marriage. Tolerate all religions. Tolerate points of view that are different from your own. And yet when I come on Slashdot and read this article, and all the (I read at +4) comments, my face turns sour because of the horrendous amount of crap that I see from people here. Look, you don't believe Christianity, fine. You think the ark idea is crap, and that science proves yadda yadda yadda, fine. At least have the guts to refrain from bashing those who do. It takes a mature individual to let people have their say without exploding in anger or cracking up in laughter. You have to understand that most people have developed for themselves a framework for how they view life. Most /. readers, I'm guessing, are scientifically minded. So they believe in all the things that science has accomplished. Good work. Hooray for you. Then there are those who believe that a God exists and has made everything we see, and created laws that science is discovering and utilizing. Good work, hooray for you. If you were really tolerant, and if you were really following what you believe you should be doing, then you'd have a solid discussion with them based on the facts, based on what you've seen, etc. etc. But... no. All we see are lousy jokes and other definitive statements - "the Bible is crap," "the Bible has contradictions," etc. etc.
I just don't understand how some /. readers can force Christians onto a pedestal ("You have to be perfect, you Christian moron, and aren't you supposed to LOVE everybody?!") and cannot subject themselves to any sort of standards.
If you're going to argue that the Bible has bad teachings, or that it has contradictions, read the Bible yourself before you make a decision. Actually, don't do just that - be a real student and go and find commentaries from Christian writers. Find commentaries from non-Christian writers. (Why commentaries? Have you ever really been able to explore a book without seeing what lots of people thought about it?) Read it with an unbiased eye. If you think you've found a contradiction, then see what the other side has to say. Read it for yourself. If you end up unconvinced the Bible is true, then great. If you don't find contradictions, then great too. Decide for yourself what you want to believe.
What astounds me is how FEW people actually take that offer. Personally, I don't know of anyone who has. Why? Because they're lazy. Too lazy to go and find out things for themselves. In the meantime, they (non-Christians AND Christians) rely on a few lousy articles and information (which are debunked by different people, depending on who you ask), and then post knowingly uninformed, uneducated entries on /. to the approval (and subsequent positive moderation) of their knowingly uninformed, uneducated peers.
Watch people read this comment and ask, "Is the author of this comment a Christian?" If the answer is yes, they immediately go and trash it because suddenly none of my arguments and comments make any sense. "Those moronic Christians, what a bunch of idiots, they must not believe in science..." right?
So maybe I am, or maybe I'm not. I will say that I HAVE taken up my own challenge. That should be enough for you.
Once he'd and his mates had accomplished this amazing feat of nautical engineering never to be equalled before or since, he then went around the world rounding up 2 of every type of animal and loaded them on this Ark, and somehow it didn't sink? Whats more, Noah was able to identify the sexes of hundreds of different species, and even identify those that reproduced asexually thousands of years before the enlightenment.
Then you believe that somehow it rained so much, that the entire earth was covered, something which would involve the melting and evaporation of the entire polar ice caps.
Now, once this boat of his was afloat, you seriously believe he managed to survive for 40 days and 40 nights on what food could be stored in the ship, as well as keeping his mates and all the animals alive durinmg this period.
Then you believe that the flood waters receeded leaving no trace of this world covering flood.
Even the most die hard christian fundamentalists would have a job believing so much patent bullcrap. Please, if you want to be christian then at least be one of the ones that whines "well, you ren't supposed to take it all litterally" every time you are challenged.
The written history of the Jews (which Christians call the Old Testament) was compiled during their exile in Babylon, with the intent of solidifying the Jewish identity against absorbtion by the Babylonians. As such, it made many exagerated claims about Israel's military prowess, to instill a sense of nationalistic pride. But no one has ever found any evidence of great wars or the exodus. In this case, lack of evidence is evidence--as one Biblical archeologist put it, "If it had actually happened, we would have found something." So the vast conquests probably amounted to a few tribal skirmishes. But hell, the Trojan war was a tribal skirmish. The rest is myth. We do know that the Jewish tribes probably originated in Egypt (though probably not as slaves), because most of the myths in the Old Testament are almost exact copies of older Egyptian myths (as is Christianity.)
Judaism is not and never has been a triumphalist religion. It does not proseletize and has no interest in converting others unless they become affiliated by marriage. It is first and formost a tribal religion providing an ancestral memory. To this end, it has been wildly successful, and has avoided most of the excesses of the triumphalist religions, Islam and Christianity.
As for Noah's Ark, this too is a much older myth predating Judaism (Atlantis is one version of it.) The story of the flood may have a historical basis; at the end of the last ice age, the melting of European glaciers flooded the Mediterranean Sea until a natural barrier collapsed. The water flooded the Black Sea in a massive rush, with water levels rising hundreds of feet in a matter of months. There is evidence that this displaced a lot of people living on the shores of the Black Sea. The flood myth may have originated with this event.