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...."

Comments

Gee...

[BlueCup]

10 to 1 they're going to bring back pictures. 100 to 1 says that others will try and find what they've taken pictures of but it will have "mysteriously disappeared" ...

Re:So.....

[Peyna]

Finding a boat at that altitude would raise some significant questions as to how it got there.

The survey says...

[zx75]

And when they reach this structure high on the mountain one of three things will occur.
1) It is not Noah's ark, we will go on with our regular lives, and the people who believe in it will say that it doesn't prove anything, they simply have not found it yet.
2) We don't know if its Noah's ark, we will go on with our regular lives, and still argue the existance of such a thing.
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?"

But in the end... regardless of what happens, I'll go back to playing World of Warcraft.

Re:The survey says...

[JoeBuck]

If you're a Catholic and don't believe in evolution, you are going against official doctrine. Interestingly, about 50% of American Catholics haven't gotten the word: they say they don't believe in evolution, despite the Vatican repeatedly saying that it's a fact as far as they are concerned.

"Scientific folk" only see religion as a competitor when politicians use religion to shut down science (as George Bush did with stem cell research), or to prevent teaching of science in the schools.

Re:The survey says...

[jeffasselin]

The problem, as often, is history. The concept and idea of God has evolved over the ages, and although religions try to preserve traditions and attempt to justify themselves by pointing back in time by saying that they've existed for a long time, the truth is quite different. The God of Genesis is not the God of Exodus, or of Kings, even less that of Isaiah.

But through that period, "Eli" was a tribal God who was worshipped by the Israelites ("I am the God of your fathers").Moise didn't claim that the Egyptian Gods didn't exist, he simply claimed that his God was more powerful, and that his people should only worship that single God. He used the stories (myths) they held from their ancestors before being enslaved to help free them. He was a tribal God. Vengeful and jealous, as he says in the Bible. Not evil, simply a different vision of God than we have today. Why? Because we create the image of God that we use. Not to say that there is no such thing as "God", but I say that what we hold, what we call God in various eras is really a reflection of ourselves, of what we believe could exist that is greater than us. A "father figure", in a way, and also a protector.

Now, from the time of the Exile at Babylon, things changed for the Hebrews. Their contact with Zoroastroism changed their vision of their God and that's when they turned a bit more philosophical. Further penetration from Greek hellenistic thoughts (Plato and others) furthered the drifting toward a new kind of monotheism: before, they believed that their God was the only one for themselves, but now they started to believe it was the only one there was, that other tribal Gods were false ones.

Then we get Jesus, and Paul, and the influence of Mithraism, but I don't want to get into this too far 'cause this post is going to be long enough as it is and I'm not sure getting into a deep religious debate on Slashdot is a good idea, but Jesus and his followers brought a different perspective, a universalism that the Jews never had: a single God for all.

Until I'd say Aquinas this fusion of Jewish monotheism and hellenistic philosophy progressed, and then it pretty much congealed, as far as the catholic church is concerned, at least. Other currents continued and are still progressing: pantheism, new age philosophies, people are still creating new, more progressive images and ideas of God.

The point is this: the God of Abraham is NOT the same God as the one we see today. The image has evolved, and changed. Although the ideas answer the same basic needs in humans, the need has evolved, as has the response to that need. The problem of entranched religions is that their traditions and history at one point prevents them from progressing in such a way. They get stuck, and Christianity (as a Jewish sect) is the worst of the lot, as its history dates more or less 4000 years into the past. Some traditions simply cannot be reconciled with modern viewpoints about the idea of God. You can only stretch it so far.

So I'm, not convinced that the idea of perfection and love that we attribute to our modern idea of God is a device of the church. I think it's more of an evolution of the modern mind.

Luckily, I have karma to burn lately. Hope you liked my little dissertation.

Re:The survey says...

[RevAaron]

If you're a Catholic and don't believe in evolution, you are going against official doctrine ...

Rejecting some official dogma is part of being a Catholic. I think non-religious people and especially folks from other christian sects have a hard time with this. largely, I think they think "if you don't agree with it, why not leave?" hell, in my confirmation interview with the woman who ran the program and the priest, I told them outright I rejected the very idea of the pope, although i agreed with some of the biblical justification of it, I just didn't think it was the best idea. Among many other things. Confirmed. In some ways, I'm still Catholic, although I've not believed in something recognizable by anything remotely christian in many years. Funny, that.

But yeah, what the pope said about evolution was pretty interesting, and I have to say it makes sense. I often bring it up with super-christians when they're getting weird. Basically, the pope said that with all of the evidence for evolution that we have, there were two basic possibilities. Either:

1. Evolution is more or less the way life happened on earth. It may have been "guided" by god or somesuch, but in this option we are trusting what we find out by science. Or-

2. God is being nasty, and "planting" all sorts of evidence, in geology, the fossil record and living beings. Perhaps just to trick us, to test us, whatever. If that's the case, then we cannot trust the information science brings us on the topic.

If you accept #2, then you have to reject pretty much everything else, including the bible. If not, how can we know how far the ruse extends? Is the bible itself a jest? etc etc.

Strangely enough ...

[vlad_petric]

Arafat is actually geographical. If you don't believe me, google for "Arafat plains".

Both Arafat and Sharon took their last name from geographical locations that have historical connotations for their respective peoples.

But I agree, it'd be quite difficult to climb Arafat ...

Doomed to fail

[BlueOtto]

I've done a lot of research for school into the search for Noah's ark, and I think this mission is doomed to fail. Every documented mission to find the ark has failed. Three major factors have kept searchers from looking on Mt. Ararat-- #1. The frigid weather, #2. The Turkish Government (security concerns, blah blah blah) #3.Kurdish people who have the nasty habit of killing people who want to go up the mountain. I find it amazing that nobody has been able to check out this 'anomaly' on the mountain that has been documented by the CIA and was classified for 50 years, especially in the day and age of technology that we live in-- able to get to the moon, but not to a mountain. Personally, and go ahead and mod me down for this, but I believe God has kept people from checking out the location. Cool stuff, to me.

When loved ones are weirder than you

[linzeal]

I had a hell of a time dealing with my ex-ex-gf and her belief in chakras, OTO, and the like. Than I got turned on to a Mr Shermer who wrote things like Why People Believe Weird Things and The Borderlands of Science (which is unfortunately out of print, try to grab a used!) helped me understand her predicament. People of even average intelligence are gullible when it comes to science like people a hundred years ago were prone to believe the local parish's view on the "big questions." When you combine these two it is like a double alluring dose of sweet fantasy that non-science types slam down like a tequilla sunrise in an 80's movie.

If you want to help people buy books like this on tape, and than lock them in a car and drive around till they realize how foolish it is to believe that their are dinosaurs at the bottom of lakes and secret nazi occult space temples on the dark side of the moon.

Re:Uhhh

[microwave_EE]

While I have my qualms about the various and sundry radio-dating methods (Carbon14, Potassium-argon, Uranium-lead, et al) I'd like to see some good sources in the scientific community (for example, an article in a widely accepted research journal) that can show some sort of proof that the depositing of Carbon14 into the atmosphere is a uniform event. Additionally, I'd like to see the research supporting/or not supporting a stance of uniformitarianism with regards to the depositing of C14 into the atmosphere.
Essientially, I'd like to read whatever ya' gots on the commonly held presupposition that the present rate of depositing of C14 has *always* been the rate of C14 depositing.
Any links to scientific journals appreciated.

Re:The Bible has been shown again and again to be

[Black Art]

Actually the worldwide flood of Noah was disproven at least 100 years ago. (Further back than that if you count Leonardo Divinci's treatise on the motion of water.)

There are very ancient and fragile geological structures that would have been destroyed by a flood.

But then the claims in the Bible for the worldwide flood as absurd on its face. If you calculate how many animals there are and the time needed to load them into the ark in the period of time described, they would be going so fast they would be a fine paste at the back end. (Not that they would fit.)

Creationists have been pushing the ark myth and various other Biblical claims for a while now. There is plenty of physical evidence that shows that they are wrong.

But faith overrides reason.

The "hatred" you are precieving is that of having to deal with a large group of supposedly educated people who will not listen to reasoned arguments or physical evidence. You insist on making claims that are shown over and over to be without merit, yet you insist on claiming that there is no evidence refuting them.

talk.origins on usenet has been dealing with the same arguments over and over for more than 10 years.

The Creationists have yet to be able to present any sort of theory that has any predictive value about the world. Their excuse is "God did it". No evidence. Nothing but contradictory religious writings.

It is not hatred, it is frustration. Frustration with the willfully ignorant. People who are willing to believe Creationists who have been shown over and over to be lying and ignore Scientists who have physical evidence showing them that they are wrong.

Seeing people tell the same lies over and over just starts to get you pissed off after a while.

Re:Why so negative?

[JoeBuck]

This kind of stuff makes most of the world think that the most powerful nation on earth is run by some Taliban-like cult: the last nation on earth of Christian heritage where significant numbers of people count the "begats" and argue that the world is under 10,000 years old, that almost all living things were destroyed by a world-wide flood, that dinosaur bones were (pick one) created by the devil, or by God to test our faith, or were forgotten by Noah when he collected two of each animal for the ark.

There are a lot of Christians I respect, but they treat the Bible as inspiration and consider most of the stories in it to be legends and parables. Just as Jesus told the story of the mustard seed, the Bible tells the story of a man named Job. It's a lesson, like Aesop's fables.

History and Theology Don't Mix

[buckhead_buddy]

Trying to establish biblical tales in the chronology of actual history is usually an attempt to "prove the truth" or "expose the fraud" of the bible. I find this tiring. Suppose they find a boat sealed with pitch? Suppose they find what looks to be a still nearby? There's no context other than what the expedition is trying to impose. History doesn't give the satisfactory answers to the questions that theology is trying to answer.

Trust is built from a person's knowledge and experience with someone else. (Your parents, friends, teachers, etc.) Faith, on the otherhand, is at best only second-hand trust for most people. You trust in the bible, God, Allah, Jesus, because someone else that you trust has said they trust in it. It's very hard to evaluate and build that trust first-hand yourself. With the different translations and interpretations of the bible, even RTFB doesn't always build trust. Trying to somehow "verify" the Bible with science is so sought after because people trust science more than they actually trust the bible (their faith may prevent them from admitting this though).

I have to say that it more than bugs me when I see the bible refer to pi as 3.0. This one mistake really blows my trust, but not my faith. Seeing more and more contradictions really makes me start to question how my parents reconciled these discrepencies. After reading enough of them it really makes me question my faith.

I don't pretend to give answers. But I recently started to read one of the best "intellectual examinations" on the Jewish version of the Old Testament. It's called God, A Biography and it's "agenda" is to explain God as an evolving character in a book. Quite deservedly, it won the pulitzer prize in biography because its quirky title is more than just a marketing effort. It really does try to be a good biography of God.

It doesn't try to explain away contradictions in the bible other than saying that God can change just as man can (and yes, I know some people who will find that fact alone to be sacrilege). The author doesn't seem to push either a pro or anti religious agenda. God is just a character. If you want, you can read it like you'd read the Cliff's Notes version of Hamlet strictly for a deeper understanding of the character portrayed in this book whether you "beleive" the book is the truth or not.

Having been nastily betrayed by two life long friends in the name of Christianity, I still don't feel that I'm ready to accept most churches as anything other than as organized political organizations. But I still have theological questions myself and this biography has been able to make more sense of the Bible and God. No clue where this will lead me in my spiritual journey (heck, I may even go back to agnosticism or athiesm), but it was a very helpful read.

No expeditions to Mt. Arrarat or carbon datings of the pollen found in the shroud of Turin is really going to come up with as satisfactory an answer. My apologies in advance if this is considered off-topic.

Ararat

[sdjunky]

Who says that what is recorded in the Bible as Ararat is the same mountain we know of today as Ararat?

Re:Conspiracy

[mikehoskins]

Now, I actually believe there was a literal ark. However, I don't believe they'll ever find it, at least not there.

Why? Because according to Genesis 8:4, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

That would be like saying that I own a moderate-sized building somewhere in the Rocky Mountains; now go find it. That's a BIG region to cover -- a whole mountain range....

Ararat is only one mountain in the mountains of Ararat. I think they're looking in the wrong place, assuming that 5,000 years of decay has left anything standing, in the first place.

Re:Conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

also assuming, that they didn't tear the bitch down for firewood, and building materials.

i mean, after 40 days floating around, you _will_ build some solid accommodations.

Real archeologists would do better homework.

[cwspain]

If you're going to use an ancient text to launch an expedition like this, you should understand what you are reading. The genre of the first 11 chapters of Genesis is myth. It is best read within the context of neo-Babylonian mythology, in which humanity is created as an afterthought and destroyed in a flood because they were making too much noise and annoying the gods. In the Genesis account, however, mankind is the pinnacle of creation and companion of God. When man fails to live up to his potential and is thoroughly evil and violent, creation is uncreated then recreated so humanity has a chance to start again.

Note that calling the story a myth is not the same as calling it fiction. It is the genre of literature. My point is that it does not have to be historical in order to be true. (In fact, an argument about historicity would have been puzzling to the Jewish community living in exile in Babylon that gave us the story in its current form.) OK, so you've decided that the story of Noah is in fact historical, or at least there is enough of a possibility that it is worth trying to find the ark? Read the text more closely: "the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Gen. 8.4). The Hebrew text is definitely plural. When the waters of chaos recede, the ark would naturally come to rest on high ground, such as the mountainous region of Urartu (called Ararat in Hebrew) to the north, rather than the plains of Mesopotamia. Mount Ararat is one mountain in the range, but the ancient text does not specify a particular mountain.

Re:Gilgamesh

[Gallowsgod]

Well, at least part of it is belived to be true: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2982891. stm

Wether the flood story part is true or not, is in my opinion not to relevant. Both the Gilgamesh epos and several other myths at the time tells a story about a flood that is very similar to the story told in the bible. Most of these myths are much older than any parts of the bible.

There has also been found evidence that an early sumerian culture was destroyed by a great flood.

Another funny fact is that the first sumerians lived in the plains south in Mesopotamia. The sumerian word for plain is 'Edin'

Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee...

[Lumpy]

Actually the bible suffered most of it's "modification" in the hands of the catholic church.

they removed and bansihed the texts of mary Madgeline, and other "unappropriate" sections.

The Old testamanent has been altered by the jewish leaders before the Catholics arrived, and the Koran has certianly been modified by the extremist muslim leaders trying to ensure their desires are there and the ideas against them were squished.

If you could point to proof that says "God Wrote THIS!" what we have today has been overly perverted by man so much that it is almost nothing like the origional.

Hell, many properly translated sections lose almost all the meaning in translation. Like whaty Jesus said on the cross at his death was not "it is finished" but "the debt is paid" which mean two very different things... yet is any english bibles corrected? nope..

If anything on this planet was handed to man by God, man certianly perverted it to his own uses by now.... and we all know that the church is generally interested in power and control instead of their real purpose... why does a church that asks for feeding the needy have to be made out of solid marble and granite cost 22 billion and have a solid gold statue or three? you could house and feed for 5 years EVERY homeless person in america with the hidden wealth in the catholic and prodistant churches.

Just my beef, 90% of christians are hippa-christans.. they have the fish on their car as the careen through traffic flipping off the slower drivers... so they tell the world.. "I'm christian! I'm an ASSHOLE!.... Christians are Assholes!"

and for the record, yes I AM christian.

Re:Ignorance truly is bliss

[voicecrying]

I challenge those who disagree to tell me where I can find an Evolution Temple where people pray to Darwin.

Any local school will do - or university for that matter. Just look at the controversies surrounding the preposterous idea of trying to get schools to teach the scientific problems with the theory of evolution. No, we can't have that. We must indoctrinate our little children to believe evolution even though it has known problems.

The origins of life and the earth are a matter of faith, whether you believe the Bible or you believe in evolution. No person was there and no person can scientifically prove molecules to man, goo to you via the zoo evolution - just as no man can scientifically prove the 6 day creation account. Creationists and evolutionists both have the same facts, the same evidence. It's just a matter of how you try to fit that evidence into your worldview.

If you believe the Bible account of creation, then you believe that by faith in God. If you believe in the big bang or any other of the assorted theories, then you believe those by faith in man. You either trust God and what he said about it, or you trust man and what he says.

IAAT (I am a Theologian)

[Megaport]

I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to use the IAAT tag :)

So here's the deal folks, I've got a B.Theology with majors in systematic theology and biblical studies, I read/write biblical greek and ecclesiastical latin and I'm a soon-to-be candidate for ordination. I have some Christian street-cred.

Also, look at my /. user ID number, and compare it to your own. I'm a professional software developer and I've worked with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Also, for the record, I love science and see no conflict between it and religion, just as long as they keep out of each others hair. If science tries to tell me the meaning of my existance or if religion tries to tell me the true value of Pi, I yell bullshit and bitch-slap 'em back where they came from.

So what I want to say, and hopefully my short intro is enough to make some of you pause for a moment to listen, is that many people here seem to have an innacurate idea of what Christianity is all about.

I come from the Catholic tradition, and about 1 in 5 people on this planet identify themselves as Catholic so I think I'm safe in saying that official Catholic doctrine would be a safe place to start if we are looking at 'what do Christians believe?' I'll let the smaller denominations speak for themselves rather than attempt to cover their views too, but here is the official Catholic view on whether we should take the bible literally.

The following quotes come from the document, Verbum Dei (Latin, "The Word of God") which has the status of being an 'Apostolic Constitution' of the Second Vatican Council. Basically, it doesn't come any more official than this folks - All Catholics are required to adhere to these guidelines or otherwise get out of dodge, so this is what a numerical majority of Christians on the planet believe.

Is the bible history?

However, since God speaks in sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.

To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to "literary norms." For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at the period in their everyday dealings with one another

Sorry if your neighbourhood or country is full of Christians who are sure that the true value of pi is 3.0 because that's the figure that the bible gives, but you can be rest assured that the vast majority of Christians do not hold anything like that view.

Noah's Ark is clearly a literary form (flood story) that is documented to have existed all over the ancient world. The official methodology that Catholics would use to understand this story involves looking at the ways in which the Jewish version is different from say, the Sumerian version, thereby gaining some insight into what the Old Testament authors thought was important about it. Also, we'd look at it to see if it can shed any light on our understanding of the New testament too, because, well shucks, we're Christians not Jews and we like to see eveything in terms of Christ - even the Old Testament.

But you won't find any Catholic theologians freezing their ass off on top of

Re:Evidence of Atheism as a Religion? Re:Gee...

[STrinity]

The "modifications" to the Bible theory was disproved by the Dead Sea scrolls... that's why they were such a big deal! The Dead Sea scrolls contained thousands of parchments preserved since 100BC.

Since the person you're responding to referred to texts concerning Mary Magdalene, I hardly think the Dead Sea Scrolls apply.

There are numerous texts dealing with Jesus that don't appear in the Bible. Why? Well, a bunch of men meeting in Nicaea several hundred years ago decided that they weren't canonical. Now tell me, why should I trust a committee appointed by the Catholic Church to decide such things? Why should I believe that Jesus raised a man from the dead but not that killed a boy who picked on him as a child? Why should I believe that a Roman stabbed Jesus on the cross, but not that Mary Magdalene preserved Jesus' foreskin in oinment which she used when washing his feet?