World's Largest Fossil Forest, and One of the Oldest

solitas writes in with news from last week of the discovery of a fossilized forest in Illinois. The forest was found in the ceiling of a working coal mine, 250 feet below the surface. It was drowned 300 million years ago in an earthquake, its discoverers speculate — here is a graphic of its formation. Geologists are excited because the huge fossilized forest, over 25 square miles in extent, preserves trees and other plants upright, as they grew.

Comments

There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 6000, tops.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[VoidCrow]

They have 6000 thousand finger? I knew inbreeding was a problem, but seriously.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Lithdren]

You've never been to Illinois have you? Or wisconsin for that matter...(Before ya flame, im from wisconsin. and becides, its a joke, laugh! Dang UPers!)

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

I was anticipating a jab at West Virginia. You disappoint me.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Anonymous Coward]

"As a Christian"

Why do Christians say that like it's a badge of honour? It's not, it's an admission of belief in invisible super-beings, magic, superstition and other rubbish. It's no more rational than "As an Santa Clausian" or "As an Easter Bunnyite".

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[bursch-X]

However, with 6000 fingers I'm definitely sure that they represent a species higher adapted to masturbation than any other form of human life. This is the utmost irony of fate that their own existence seem to be proof for the evolution theory.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[bursch-X]

A) There is historic evidence that a wandering priest called Jesus Christ did actually exist. So for the human person of Jesus Christ we can be pretty sure that he wandered the earth. We can't really say anything about his wondrous deeds, however.

B) The figure of Santa Claus has two origins one is Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra. But he was basically just used to "christianise" a much older pagan belief ( http://tinyurl.com/29sdow ). Anyway the Person of Saint Nicholas is a historic figure.

C) The easter bunny is apparently just a human invention

Why do you say it is just as irrational to believe in the easter bunny as it is to believe in Jesus or Saint Nicholas?

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> C) The easter bunny is apparently just a human invention

Die, you infidel!

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[joystickgenie]

Because when they say it they do it knowing that people (like yourself) will attack them for it and ridicule them, but they still say it because they want you to know they are proud of having their faith and are willing to display it even in the face of constant ridicule. Sure sounds like a badge of honor to me.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Nutria]

Sure sounds like a badge of honor to me.

Which is pride, and therefore a sin.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Red Flayer]

Why do you say it is just as irrational to believe in the easter bunny as it is to believe in Jesus or Saint Nicholas?

It's just as irrational to believe in the myths of Jesus and Santa Claus as it is to believe in the myth of the Easter Bunny.

In line with your questions, would you question the existence of bunnies at Eastertime?

I believe that the biblical Jesus Christ is based on a real person; I also believe that 99% of what is believed about him is absolutely false. Ditto for Santa Claus.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Red Flayer]

They have 6000 thousand finger? I knew inbreeding was a problem, but seriously.

Bah. Obviously God is the owner of Yes Group Inc, whose FM300 Former can make 6000 fingers an hour.

Just think, that's 315.6 billion fingers, or 31.56 billion normal humans since He made the world! Seeing as 39.8 billion people have ever lived in total, the question is, how did God make the extra 80+ billion fingers?!

Any fundamentalist Christian who can reasonably answer that question has my assurance that I will be converted.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[JoGlo]

It's no more rational than "As an Santa Clausian" or "As an Easter Bunnyite".

Or as a pagan, from whom the christians originally stole that christmas (return of the sun / winter solstice) festival and the easter (fertility / spring festival) festival as well!

I can't help but laugh my head off every Yule tide, when I hear some christian preacher stand up on his hind legs and begs the world to "return to the true and original values of christmas". Most of them probably don't realize that they're advertising for the pagan church!

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[JoGlo]

would you question the existence of bunnies at Eastertime?

More to the point, would you deny it to your 5 y/o when he/she comes up and asks if the easter bunny is coming this year?

You would? You B*****D! You've killed the easter bunny!

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Red Flayer]

You're missing the point.

It's quite possible to believe in Jesus Christ the man and Nicholas the man. It's also quite possible to believe in the existence of bunnies, and even more specifically, in the existence of one bunny that someone observed on Easter morning a couple centuries ago.

To believe that Jesus both literally turned water into wine and arose from the dead, and that Nicholas has 8 magic reindeer and scoots down chimneys to deliver gifts, is akin to believing that a bunny hops around and hides eggs on Easter morning. They are equitably irrational.

(which no one over the age of 8 actually believes in).

No one over the age of 8 believes in the Easter Bunny because adults evenutally let them in on the game when they express doubt. This is opposed to Christianity, when all evidence to the contrary, adults continue to enforce the myth of a supernatural being to whom we owe our salvation. There's also no political structure to support the existence of the EB, as there is with JC the Son of God/God/Holy Spirit (or whatever you believe). Annually, weekly, daily, 8-year-olds are encouraged to believe in JC the Redeemer, and punished for expressing doubt. You wonder why 8-year-olds discover the truth about the EB but don't discover the truth about JC? That's it right there.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[JoGlo]

"I don't believe it" is NOT the same as "just as irrational as the Easter Bunny" (which no one over the age of 8 actually believes in).

Well, I must have been slow, because I kept my belief in christianity until I was at least 16!

Just goes to show - some people are just born slow!

As for daddy claus and bun-bun, I got over them by about age 6 (courtopusy of fellow puils at my primary school, so I suppose it evens out in the end!

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Red Flayer]

Of course I wouldn't as I believe it is harmless fun. But if my 8-year-old asks me if Jesus really turned water into wine, I'll tell him no. If he asks me if Jesus really died for our sins, I'll tell him no -- but it makes a lot of people feel better to believe so.

Oh wait, you're making a joke. In that case, instead of telling him no, I'd serve Hossenpfeffer stew Easter morning, and explain the *real* reason the Easter Bunny isn't showing up this year.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[joystickgenie]

So unless you die for it no honor is involved? The only way to get honor is by dying? honesty, fairness, or integrity in one's beliefs and actions has nothing to do with it? I don't think Dying has ever been a prerequisite to having honor.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[joystickgenie]

Anything can be contrived into being called a sin if you try hard enough. Absolutely everything.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[fyngyrz]

There is historic evidence that a wandering priest called Jesus Christ did actually exist.

No. There isn't. The first mention of Christ occurs about 80AD, in writings by a man who was born in 55AD, to wit one "Tacitus." Only it isn't a mention of Chirst; it is a mention of a group of (to him) pests, a cult that called themselves Christians. After that, as the cult grew, there are more mentions of the cult. No mentions of Christ anywhere during the time he was supposed to have lived, or in other words, no contemporaneous historical evidence whatsoever.

That's not to say he might not have been a real person; that's still possible. But there is no evidence that is the case, and until or unless some is discovered, you should probably stop making claims like that.

Why do you say it is just as irrational to believe in the easter bunny as it is to believe in Jesus or Saint Nicholas?

I believe the usual, and sensible, use of the idiom is that it is just as irrational to believe in god as it is to believe in the Easter bunny. Or, it is just as irrational to believe in the supernatural acts and events attributed to Jesus and in the Jesus story as it is to believe in the Easter bunny. Those I can back up. The Jesus story... yeah, might have been some guy named Jesus that wandered around being a really nice fellow. Or maybe not. As for the supernatural stuff, no more likely than the Easter bunny, indeed. And for the same reasons.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[JackieBrown]

You really laugh your head off each time? And they say people are miserable during the holidays.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[errxn]

You forgot the "Global Warmians". Pray to St. Algore for forgiveness, son. Or at least remember to tithe your carbon credits every Earth Day like a good parishoner.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Galvatron]

Indeed. So far as I understand Christianity, this is the fundamental message. We are all sinners and nothing but. Salvation is gained through faith alone.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Nutria]

Anything can be contrived into being called a sin if you try hard enough.

Humility, for one, is a virtue, not a sin.

Unless, of course, you are proud of your humility.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Grishnakh]

No. There isn't. The first mention of Christ occurs about 80AD, in writings by a man who was born in 55AD, to wit one "Tacitus."

Huh? There's four books in the Christian Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, written by four guys about Christ. Now of course, these books were written by guys born after Jesus had died, and they were retelling oral stories that were told to them by others. But that's still historic evidence, though not terribly reliable.

The existence of the cult of Christianity in Tacitus's time is more evidence, because obviously they all got their info from somewhere.

All this points to strong evidence that a guy name Jesus really did exist. The things he did, on the other hand, are quite debatable, since those 4 books of the New Testament are actually quite contradictory and are just retelling folk tales.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[JoGlo]

Also, i have no idea how Christmas (Christ-mass... a meal shared in memory of Christ) is advertising for the pagan church,

Well, ya know, one of the abiding visions we have from the religion most christians in the world follow has the vision of the shepherds watching their flocks on the hills, and seeing this here star glowing in the sky (another civilization blasted to advertise the appearance of another god for earthlings, perhaps, as their sun goes supernova???). Well, let me tell you, that in December (a month not named after your god, BTW) It gets REALLY COLD on the hills around Bethlehem, and the sheep that were going to see it through the winter would be well and truly penned up - guess where - in all those barns with mangers, so they'd be pretty crowded around the time of the return of the sun.

So, the birth, if it happened, was PROBABLY at another time of year, BUT, the good ol' woad painting pre-christians of northern and western Europe were already celebrating the return of the sun back then, and for many centuries before then.

So the christians spread their word, and want to celebrate the birth of their savior - fair enough. BUT, instead of finding some day of their own to use, they park their festival on the 25th of December, which just happens to be the date when the ancient astronomer, with his stick in the ground, and marks where the sun cast the shadow to the previous day, can see that it is starting to come back, instead of still retreating.

Why would they do that? (I hear you say - hmmm - I must be psychic to hear you say that from way over here!). Well, it's like this. If you plonk your festivals down on the day when your main opposition has his festival, you can go to him and say "why don't you join in our festival. You can keep on worshiping your gods, but we can all celebrate together". Now, the older generation realized that this was so, and joined in, but the younger generation were seduced away from the old ways, and went with the new ways, and pretty soon, Yule is no longer a pagan festival, but a christian one!

Don't believe me? Go ask the Inuits in northern Canada what they think of the modern day christians doing the exact same thing with THEIR Holy Days!

BTW, it isn't limited to days of the year. The same thing happens with major religious sites. That's why one of the most "holy" Moslem sites is on the same site as the old Temple of David, and why the most important Eastern Orthodox site is now an Istanbul major mosque, and it's not only the Moslems who do this, but every wave of religion - it's part of the way in which the bureaucracy of each new wave earns its living.

Sorry, but i put all ministers or Mullahs, or Rabbis, or whatever on exactly the same level - moderately competent con men who have found a good way of suckering their "flocks" out of a living, and the better con job they do, the better THEIR lifestyle, on earth, anyway.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[nacturation]

Humility, for one, is a virtue, not a sin.

Unless, of course, you are proud of your humility. Why, I'm a shining beacon of humility, radiating for all the world to see.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Grishnakh]

They only lived long ages according to the Bible. Of course, this kind of claim seems to be pretty common in the Middle East. The ancient Babylonian texts talk about kings living 10,000 years. And I don't believe them, either. Egyptian records show pharaohs living to very typical human ages. Even the pharaohs who lived between 3000 BC and 2000 BC seemed to have normal lifespans.

This is pretty easy to explain, actually. The Egyptian pharoahs were just humans, so of course they had normal lifespans. The Babylonian kings, however, were aliens in human form, and were thus immune to the effects of aging that normal humans have.

The Babylonian kings may still be alive; they probably left through a stargate and are ruling over primitive people on another planet now.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[DeadChobi]

Why do Atheists proclaim their atheism like it's a badge of honor? Since it's impossible to know for sure can't you guys and the Christians keep off each other's tits and just enjoy life? Seriously, nothing ruins my day quite like having to listen to an Atheist bitch and moan about how stupid and illogical I am for believing in something. Just so you know, I'm not a Christian.

Of course, I'd like to point out that I'm making the assumption you're an Atheist. This may not be so, yet your diction would seem to imply it.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[joystickgenie]

Oh but if you are too humble you can not be an good example for your community and it will suffer for it, and if you are trying to be humble on purpose you are thinking of yourself and being vain

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[fyngyrz]

Huh? There's four books in the Christian Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, written by four guys about Christ. Now of course, these books were written by guys born after Jesus had died, and they were retelling oral stories that were told to them by others. But that's still historic evidence, though not terribly reliable

The bible is not known to be contemporaneous with the time that Jesus is described to have lived in. The earliest codexes come from 250 AD if you take the scholarly consensus, and from about 150 AD if you buy the idea that while everyone else was using scrolls, the P52 fragment (aka "St John's fragment) just "happened" to be put into codex form. We don't have a single copy earlier than that, and so cannot establish that the books of the bible come from any earlier. The bottom line is that the bible we have cannot trace its own roots back to Christ's time, or to the time immediately afterwards - everything we have is much younger than that.

The problem with works of this nature - that arise after an event, or apparently do - is that history and historical fiction are both even easier to write later than they are when the events are occurring. So to validate the bible as a history, rather than a historical fiction, we need to trace it back further than we have been able to thus far. It cannot serve as evidence of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John any more than Tom Clancy's novels serve as evidence of John Ryan. We need evidence that shows that Jesus - not to mention the four putative authors - actually existed outside the context of the cult of the mid 0000's, and outside the context of that cult's book of the 0100's...0300's. But there isn't any, and that's the problem with saying "there is historical evidence about Jesus."

There's another problem, too. That is that the bible - the NT - reports countrywide events that go unreported by a whole slew of writers working in that period. Such as:

Matt. 27:45; Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour...

Add to that reporting of supernatural events, and we have every reason to distrust the bible as a historical document. If there is no contemporaneous evidence for Christ (and there isn't) and the bible is telling untruths (and it is) then it is clear that to bring any rational validity to this we need more than we have so far. Perhaps someone will dig it up tomorrow, but until they do... it's just one religion among many, and a book.

The existence of the cult of Christianity in Tacitus's time is more evidence, because obviously they all got their info from somewhere.

Come now. How about "The existence of the temples of the Greeks is more evidence there was a Zeus, because obviously they got their info from somewhere." or "The existence of the cult of Mormonism is more evidence there was an angel Moroni, because obviously they got their info from somewhere." or "The existence of the remains of sacrificed children in Mexico is more evidence there was a sun god, because obviously the Aztecs got their info from somewhere." You see? Religions make things up. They write them in books, they drum up popular support, they build temples, sacrifice, pray, do good deeds, burn "witches"... this is what religions do. You can't say that because a religion, in this case Christianity, exists, that this verifies their central tenet, that their god or the son of their god existed as well. It just doesn't follow. In fact, if Christ were a blurry myth, it'd be a lot easier to raise him up to the status of the son of god, because there'd be no one around to say "No, I was there, and he didn't heal the leper at all, he just gave him a loaf of bread." Reality is a pain in the neck when you're trying to create a mythology.

The things he did, on the other h

Re: There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Black Parrot]

The easter bunny is apparently just a human invention Whereas the Playboy Bunny is at least partly real.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[bigbird]

I can't help but laugh my head off every Yule tide, when I hear some christian preacher stand up on his hind legs and begs the world to "return to the true and original values of christmas". Most of them probably don't realize that they're advertising for the pagan church!

Most of them probably do. So Christianity took a pagan winter festival and adapted it for its own use. So what? This probably helped converted pagans have something to celebrate at the time of their old winter festival - a good tactic I think.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[LordSnooty]

Person A: See this Bible? It's the truth I tells yer!

Person B: Actually I've analysed it a bit and there are many inaccuracies and false statements, look I can prove it with these tests.

Person A: Well, when I said 'truth', I actually meant 'fiction' but it's the message that's important.
Person B: Please go away.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Fatalis]

Then don't read it.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[inode_buddha]

Ah ok. I thought I was the only one who had read "chariots of the gods" and etc.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[WheelDweller]

Sure, a lot of that goes on. But understand that reading the Bible with the intent to find fault will find one every time. Anyone can make a half-assed attempt at understanding something (sendmail, for example) and call it crap.

So on that basis the Bible (and sendmail) are crap?

The revelation of which I speak comes from Hank Hannigraff; he has the entire Bible, not to mention the books of Mormon, Jehova's Witnesses, and about a dozen other books not accepted into the canon in his _head_. For him, answering any question takes only the time to say the response- he's an expert on the subject.

And, unlike so many people before him, rather than giving a summary of the apocalyptic writings, he gives you the tools to read and understand what you're reading to make your *own* decisions. This is a very important point.

Check out some of his things- his site is http://equip.org/ and his book is The Apocalypse Code in bookstores, now.

He also does a lot of over-the-radio stuff; it's *amazing* to hear callers with questions, and with no keyclicks and no page-turning, he explains the text, with how it relates to the other books and passages.

He's a very humble guy...and only wants to get to the truth. He's a big fan of comparing scripture-to-scripture. He doesn't like mentally filling in gaps with ideas.

If you really want to know what I know, to understand it legitimately for yourself, this guy can help you. He has a "Bible AnswerMan vol 1 & 2" that you can scan at the bookstore; see if you don't think he's as fairminded about this stuff as people can be. I've been listening to him for about 2 years now.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Bucc5062]

No, that is the fundamental message of Paul or Peter, two founders of the catholic church. A great message if you wish to control the followers. Read the gospels, focus on the message of Christ and you find a much different meaning.

Chirst's teachings were about relationships; between each other, ourselves, and with God. His was a message of hope, love, and forgivness. Read the Tao, you'll see the same message. Read Budha you'll find similar meaning. Gof is not understood in the mechanics of religion, God is felt/experienced in how we treat ourselves and each other. When I see another human I see a piece of God, a part of me. I may describe myself as a christian as I was raised with that understanding, yet my Faith extends past the dogma of religious control to the more complex simplicity, the harder path of Loving one's neighbor even when you do not like them very much.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Maxo-Texas]

Haven't seen credible stuff about a wandering JC myself yet.
I've seen some credible stuff tying the JC myth (including resurrection) to osirus and other existing myths that predated christianity.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[mike2R]

Just as a nitpick, I think that's a specifically protestant doctrine. Catholicism would probably reject that - to some extent at any rate. Not sure if even most modern protestents would endorse it, at least to the extent of Calvanist predestination and the concept of the elect (faith alone justifies, true faith is a gift of God beyond Man unaided, therefore some are doomed to hell by God from birth).

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Paulrothrock]

You can arrive at similar conclusions without all the supernatural mumbo jumbo. We're all on this planet together, and we're all made of the same stuff, and you should treat other people nicely because you would want them to treat you nicely, even if they're mean to you. See? No god or fairies or eternal punishment or reward needed.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[grub]

Interesting++ !

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Bucc5062]

Yet the philosophical question is where did those ideas come from? Is it just genetic? It is meta-physical (from God)? Is it self-awareness and recognition of other "selves"? I'm not trying to make you accept the supernatural, but to understand that others do and they are not crazy, fringe, or extreme. For myself, I believe in God. I cannot give you a scientific reason for my belief. I cannot "prove" God (that's up to you and Her to figure out), but my Faith feels "right". I cannot see an Idea, but it is one of the most powerful forces on this planet. I cannot "see" God, yet His presence can be felt in the simple act of kindness to a stranger, in my darkest moment knowing I have a new day tomorrow, new opportunities to experience. I am not an Apostle, a disciple trying to covert you or anyone to my view. I just want to state my belief tbat a Faith in God is not about religion, supernatural miracles, mumbo jumbo; it is about accepting something greater then myself; accepting that it is more the just nature that shapes our spirit. So much more could be said, but I'll leave it at that. Glad to know another out there understand (in what ever way) that we are all made of the same stuff.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[kalirion]

Calm down, calm down. The Hare Club for Men will get him.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[frogstar_robot]

The capital 'A' is telling. Not all atheists are Atheists.........

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[cosinezero]

"Why do people like you care? If the belief bothers you so much, here's a novel idea.... *ignore* it."

-->Why not ignore it? Most Atheists realize that "ignoring" christianity would be:

- to allow them to preach intelligent design - or worse, the fairy tale called creationism - in schools where only teaching science should be.
- to allow their moral principles to be set as law.
- to condone the flagrant abuses of this planet's environment under the belief that "God gave it to us to do as we please".
- to permit the overuse of percieved renewable but actually non-renewable resources such as oil due to an unfounded belief that the earth is merely 6,000 years old, therefore oil is constantly being generated.
- to encourage the persecution of people who do not share their moral imperatives and beliefs, starting immediately with gays and if history is any example, proceeding to middle easterners and blacks.

And finally, to restrict freedoms in accordance with the all of the above.

No, I cannot simply "ignore" the christians and hope that they will go away. They spend altogether too much money on politicians to ensure that they do not.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[inviolet]

:golf clap:

I wish slashdot granted everyone a single-use "+5 glorious" mod point, so that I could spend it on you. :)

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[edremy]

I've read a bunch of the analyses of early Christian texts and have sort of decided that Jesus did in fact exist as a historical person, simply because his entire story is so embarrassing in so many ways that the gospel writers and interpreters had to spend tons of energy explaining things away.

Jewish prophecy that the gospel writers needed Jesus to fulfill required that he be from Bethlehem. (Micah 5:1) But he wasn't- he was from Nazereth. So suddenly you have the entire census story being added in to get Mary to Bethlehem.
He was born a bastard. Oops- my bad, virgin birth.
He was betrayed by a follower. Ugh- well, bad things happened to Judas so it's ok. (Yet the entire sacrifical act was required for human salvation, so why exactly is Judas the bad guy again?)
He got himself executed messily. Um, that's what actually saves you! Yeah!
He was to return within the lifespan of those alive at the time. (Matt 24:34 and others) Christian apologists have had to dance around this one for almost 2000 years.

If you have a choice of making up a savior out of whole cloth rather than working with a real, historical person wouldn't you design someone better?

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Paulrothrock]

Yet the philosophical question is where did those ideas come from?

Trial and error. Societies that didn't subscribe to it were less nice to live in than other societies. We could live like Mongol hordes (which even the Mongols don't do anymore), but it doesn't work as well as simply treating everyone nicely. Yeah, it's hard to do sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's not good.

I just want to state my belief tbat a Faith in God is not about religion, supernatural miracles, mumbo jumbo; it is about accepting something greater then myself

Of course. But why make something up when there's a whole universe greater than you, and that you and everything in it are made of the same stuff?

My problem with the supernatural isn't that it's supernatural. It's that the supernatural is inherently unprovable, and that breeds conflict. How many wars have been sparked because one group's idea of god wasn't compatible with another group's idea of god? Remove the supernatural and you still have good reasons to do the right thing, you just eliminate a point of contention.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[DeadChobi]

Frankly, I'm suprised this isn't modded flamebait or troll.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[operagost]

Of course I wouldn't as I believe it is harmless fun. But if my 8-year-old asks me if Jesus really turned water into wine, I'll tell him no.

How do you know that? Any negative evidence to prove that? Saying it didn't happen because it was a miracle is a circular argument.

If he asks me if Jesus really died for our sins, I'll tell him no -- but it makes a lot of people feel better to believe so.

You can't answer that question if you don't even believe that the man existed in the first case.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[operagost]

To believe that Jesus both literally turned water into wine and arose from the dead, and that Nicholas has 8 magic reindeer and scoots down chimneys to deliver gifts, is akin to believing that a bunny hops around and hides eggs on Easter morning. They are equitably irrational.

Believing that matter is composed of tiny particles called quarks, with odd names, and we can't see them, but they're there (and we can't know exactly where at any moment due to the uncertainty principle) sounds just as irrational. The only argument atheists have against the "miracles" in scripture is that miracles are impossible, which is a circular argument. In any case, Jesus wasn't about performing miracles: his purpose was much more important, and the miracles were meant to prove who he was. By the way, I believe in Jesus and quarks (sorry, fat man and hassenpfeffer).

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[operagost]

We don't have a single copy earlier than that, and so cannot establish that the books of the bible come from any earlier.

It's funny that you hold this high standard on dating manuscripts, when the rest of the archaeological community doesn't assume that a writing can't significantly predate its earliest extant manuscript. We have many other writings for which the earliest MS appeared a thousand years after the recorded events.

That is that the bible - the NT - reports countrywide events that go unreported by a whole slew of writers working in that period.

If anyone wanted to contradict that line from Matthew, they could have. You're arguing that it didn't happen just because we have only one witness. There are many cosmological and meteorological events that could have caused that darkness.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Grishnakh]

I'm a little taken aback as to why you'd accept the bible's depiction of the person of Jesus, when your position on the rest of the book is that it is "folk tales."

I'm just a believer in the idea that "there's a kernel of truth" to many mythologies. I think it's much easier for people to create mythologies from real things (although twisting them around greatly), than to create them from thin air. Granted, fiction authors do this all the time, but still...

I'm not saying I accept the bible's depiction of the person of Jesus, just that there may well have been a person named Jesus. Maybe he even did turn over some tables at a temple. The walking on water stuff? Probably not; that's where oral folk tales turn real events into mythology.

It's like the story of Arthur and the knights of Camelot. We've had these silly mythologies for centuries about him, a lady in the lake, a wizard named Merlin, etc. But according to Bruckheimer's recent movie, which he claims is based on some recently unearthed scrolls from Britain, it looks like there really was a guy named Arthur, except he was just a soldier, existed during the dark ages and didn't really have a magical sword, and Merlin was just some leader of a tribe of Pics (native people in Britain at the time). It's easy to see how such a relatively unspectacular story could be twisted by uneducated people (who are already prone to believing fantastic tales of other types) into a mythology with supernatural elements.

Come now. How about "The existence of the temples of the Greeks is more evidence there was a Zeus, because obviously they got their info from somewhere." or "The existence of the cult of Mormonism is more evidence there was an angel Moroni, because obviously they got their info from somewhere." or "The existence of the remains of sacrificed children in Mexico is more evidence there was a sun god, because obviously the Aztecs got their info from somewhere." You see? Religions make things up. They write them in books, they drum up popular support, they build temples, sacrifice, pray, do good deeds, burn "witches"... this is what religions do.

That's not what I meant. The existences of these things is evidence that there might have been something causing these people to create these mythologies. For many of them, it's pretty hard to say where they came up with the ideas for things like Zeus. Mormonism is pretty easily explained, though: Joseph Smith was a real person, and created the rest of the stories so he start himself a cult and be a polygamist.

For all we know, maybe Jesus was a real guy, but he was something like Smith, painting himself as a god, in order to create his own cult. After all, read objectively, the Old and New Testaments in the bible sure aren't very congruent, despite the amazing lengths Christians will go to to try to reconcile the two (angry god vs. loving god).

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Gonarat]

An interesting book about Jesus and his times (around 8 BC to maybe 50 AD) is The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History by Michael Baigent. He is one of the Authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the book that the Authors claimed Dan Brown "stole" the idea for The Da Vinci Code from (they lost the lawsuit, thank goodness).

Speaking of the Bible, I never have believed that the 6 days of creation (7 including the day of rest) were supposed to be literal 24 hours days -- it was supposed to be a history of the creation of the universe written to be easily understood. If you read it it makes sense -- the universe was created first, then stars, then the earth. After the earth was created, Oceans formed, then land, plants, and animals. Man came last in the scheme of things. Genesis was never meant to be a scientific account of the history of the universe up to the time man came along -- it was meant to be easy for someone back in those times to understand.

I'm glad they found these fossils in Vermilion County, Illinois -- it was where my Dad grew up and his side of the family still lives.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Jerry Smith]

There's a famous Dutch song commemorating some event like this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flappie

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Abcd1234]

Believing that matter is composed of tiny particles called quarks, with odd names, and we can't see them, but they're there (and we can't know exactly where at any moment due to the uncertainty principle) sounds just as irrational.

Umm... we can see them, in that their presence is indicated through the results of experiments. What do you think all those scientists around the world are doing? Smashing particles together at extremely high velocities, then going to a kegger and amusing themselves with how they're pulling the wool over everyone's eyes?

But, good to see you have "faith" in sub-atomic particles. Though, somehow, I'm unsurprised that you've never endeavoured to understand the science behind their discovery.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Red Flayer]

How do you know that? Any negative evidence to prove that? Saying it didn't happen because it was a miracle is a circular argument.

Why is it a circular argument to say that it would violate everything we know about the laws of nature? That the best evidence available supports almost unequivocally the fact that no water was alacazammed into wine, and that we didn't have a zombie Jesus.

You can't answer that question if you don't even believe that the man existed in the first case.

Well, first, I believe JC existed, just that he was a regular man and nothing more. Second, one could very well argue that if Jesus never existed, then there is no way he could have died for our sins. As a matter of fact, it's the strongest argument that he didn't die for our sins, since a nonexistent being couldn't very well die, could he?

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Red Flayer]

sounds just as irrational.

Right ther eis the problem... the word "sounds". Sure, it sounds just as irrational... but when you look into it further, it is plausible. That's the whole point of science.

The only argument atheists have against the "miracles" in scripture is that miracles are impossible, which is a circular argument.

Err, no. The argument atheists have is that no miracle is reproducible, and yet they contravene all the scientific principles that have been tested for ages. Furthermore, there is a much more likely explanation, which is that they were made up. In the face of overwhelming evidence that miracles could not occur, and with a very likely explanation that supports this, most rational scientists would acknowledge that there is some miniscule possibility that miracles occurred -- but the overwhelming evidence, to the point of being established fact, is that they could not and did not. Blind faith in the existence of miracles precludes the infinitely more likely explanation, which is the piece of the puzzle you're choosing to ignore.

The stories of miracles should be interpreted as allegory only.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[provigilman]

Why is it that Atheists must contstantly insult what they don't understand and don't believe. Granted, some Christians are self righteous and judgemental, but that's not how we're supposed to act.

it's an admission of belief in invisible super-beings, magic, superstition and other rubbish.

I'm sorry, I don't believe in Superman, magic or throwing salt over my shoulder, so I guess I'm an exception to your rule. I believe in a God that created the universe, what do you believe? That somewhere, somehow, a infintesimally small and inititely dense object exploded and created everything around us? You're so quick to accept the idea that something you've never seen existed and created the universe, and then so quick to dismiss someone else's idea that something they've never seen existed and created the universe. Seems a bit hypocritical to me... Oh, and if you're soooo sure of how right you are, why don't you post with a name? There's a reason they credit anonymous posts to "Anonymous Coward."

Oh, and as for why we say "As a Christian"...it's because that's what we are. Just as one might say "As an Italian" or "As an American." It's a belief and an identity that we're proud of. You want to say "As a Scientist" or "As an Atheist" go right ahead, I won't stop you... I don't go around putting down everything I don't understand or agree with, so I promise I won't bug you about it. =)

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Grishnakh]

I've never read that. I've only watched "Stargate".

While only fiction, "Stargate" is a lot more believable than the idea that there really are all these gods that were active on earth 2000 or more years ago, and haven't really been around for a while.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[fyngyrz]

I like the argument. It isn't evidence, per se, but it is a very nice bit of reasoning.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[RockModeNick]

What amuses me most about attempting to reconcile angry and all loving god is that it's really totally unnecessary, if we take the premise that god was himself incarnate in Jesus, then it only makes sense that the rules will all change... once god has his run at being human, he sympathizes with us, rather than punishes.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[fyngyrz]

It's funny that you hold this high standard on dating manuscripts, when the rest of the archaeological community doesn't assume that a writing can't significantly predate its earliest extant manuscript. We have many other writings for which the earliest MS appeared a thousand years after the recorded events.

You misunderstand me. What I mean to say is that the earliest copy we have is, absolute earliest, most hand-waving estimate, from 150 AD. That's the earliest the copy was written. That means that whatever it was copied from is from 150 AD or earlier. The problem I am pointing out is that we have been unable to establish what the date of the original storytelling is, and for that reason, the copies don't meet the standard of contemporaneous evidence - quite aside from the content issues. Again, perhaps tomorrow, we'll find something stuck in a jar in a cave and we'll have something from, say, 0030 or so. That would be something one could point to and say it was contemporaneous with the story-telling it does. But right now, given the evidence we have, it appears just as likely the story was created out of the Christian's verbal traditions in 150 AD, or even in 250 AD.

One more thing: If the book were a mundane history, I'd probably be one of the first to say we should trust it first, and doubt it only when we find contradictions. But the bible has numerous problems, typically couched as describing events that are impossible (rising from the dead, feeding the many from a few scraps, water into wine and so on.) Consequently, it disqualifies itself as a history and makes it clear that it is a work of fiction by its very contents.

Because of the directly supernatural parts (meaning, actual reports of supernatural events, rather than vague, 3rd-party references to worship or gods), it doesn't rise to the standard of an historical fiction; it is more like a thriller set in the past. Considering this, taking the parts that don't seem supernatural as history isn't a very reasonable thing to do without some kind of confirmation that rises to a higher standard. So I don't unless I have those confirmations (eg, we know there were Romans, and also that Romans had a nasty tradition of crucifying people.) It isn't just that the copies are a lot more recent than the story. The story itself is what motivates me to want something more in terms of evidence. To be blunt, once someone starts directly lying to me, my trust goes south, and I tend to look for a new source.

If anyone wanted to contradict that line from Matthew, they could have. You're arguing that it didn't happen just because we have only one witness. There are many cosmological and meteorological events that could have caused that darkness.

At this point in time, there were many writers and many people recording events in the skies. They certainly would have noticed if it suddenly got dark during the day. Furthermore, for cosmological events, we can work things backwards and figure out when eclipses happened. Eclipses being the only "many" cosmological event that can be called to task for this report. For weather, "darkness all across the land"... no, sorry. They knew what clouds and storms were. They could have just said so. Aside from the reporting in the bible, there are no other reports of this, and it only seems reasonable that there would have been - Cosmological events from other times are reported in great detail and by many sources. Something like sudden darkness all across the land inconveniences many, and even more so at that point in time. Furthermore, it probably would have frightened the heck out of most people, making it all the more notable.

However: If you think that this was an eclipse, then by all means, direct me to the evidence that backs that up. If you can show that an eclipse happened scientifically, I'll be willing to accept that for some very odd reason, it wasn't reported by anyone else. Eclipses

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Grishnakh]

But that anthropomorphizes such a god. If a god is supposed to be omnipotent, then it shouldn't need to experience "being human", and certainly shouldn't "change its mind" about anything.

I think some better explanations are 1) that Jesus wasn't god at all, and only claimed to be, or 2) Jesus wasn't the same god as the one in the Old Testament.

Either way, I think it's pretty clear that Jehovah is really an alien, as evidenced by the writings in the book of Ezekiel which clearly describe the landing of a spaceship.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[fyngyrz]

if we take the premise that god was himself incarnate in Jesus, then it only makes sense that the rules will all change... once god has his run at being human, he sympathizes with us, rather than punishes.

What you've left out of your reasoning, however, is that the Christian god is also supposed to be an all-knowing god, and so hanging out as Jesus wouldn't have taught him anything.

Aside from that, an issue for your premise itself is that Jesus, according to the story, didn't refer to himself as god; he called god his "father" (John 14:2: in my father's house are many rooms) and he addressed remarks to him as if he were a third party. One example being "Matthew 27:46: Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani?"

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[provigilman]

Umm... we can see them, in that their presence is indicated through the results of experiments. What do you think all those scientists around the world are doing? Smashing particles together at extremely high velocities, then going to a kegger and amusing themselves with how they're pulling the wool over everyone's eyes?

Have you ever seen a quark? You personally? If not, you're putting your faith in some research paper published in a sientific journal that eventually made it's way into your high school Physics text book. Heck, as far as I know we don't yet have a microscope that can actually see an individual quark...we have seen evidence that can be explained by the existence of objects that meet the definition of a "quark", but no one has actually seen a quark.

And as for whether the scientists are having a kegger and amusing themselves or not, I don't know. But why is everyone here seemingly ready to believe that the religious leaders are doing the same?

For the record though, I do believe in science. Until further evidence comes along the best theory at the moment is that the universe was created in the big bang, it's made up of quarks in various combinations of greater and greater complexity and we evolved from a organic chemical soup a little while after the early stages of Earth's formation. But all that doesn't preclude the existence of God. Somehow though, *I'm* the narrown minded one.... ;)

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Darby]

There is historic evidence that a wandering priest called Jesus Christ did actually exist.

No there really isn't any. That's why it's so amazing that all these people buy into that idiotic story.
The only single scrap of supposed historical evidence was the Josephus document, but it has been pretty much totally debunked as either a forgery or a mistake in transcription.

That leaves a massive amount of historical records from the time and place, but no mention of an historical Jesus at all. No mention of earthquakes, censuses, miracles or executions on a high holy day which would have trumped everything else for incredibleness had it ever happened since it was not allowed by their religion, or any of the other things which would have been documented had they occurred but weren't

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Darby]

The only argument atheists have against the "miracles" in scripture is that miracles are impossible, which is a circular argument.

Bull ass.

Provide some shreds of evidence for your made up miracles, then we'll happily debunk them.

Your making up the silly idea that any crazy lunacy you spout is somehow incredibly valuable.

I don't need to prove your "miracles" false, since there is no evidence for any such thing.

Just because I read a fantasy book with miraculous events does not put an onus on you to disprove them.
You are trying to pretend that it does. Of course you will only treat that as valid (or even sane, let's be honest) if it's restricted to your favorite fantasy book.

The difference is that you are making miraculous claims without *anything* to back them up. You have nothing, nada, zip, zilch... And yet you expect your fantasies to be automatically treated as if they were in any way anything but your own delusion.

Come up with some real rational reason to believe in your favorite fairy tale, and you will have something. As it stands you have nothing, so there is nothing to debunk.

In any case, Jesus wasn't about performing miracles: his purpose was much more important, and the miracles were meant to prove who he was.

He's so important, but he couldn't be bothered to leave a single scrap of evidence that he was ever here?!?

Do you ever stop and think critically about your beliefs?
They really are deeply stupid and full of holes you could drive a truck through.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Darby]

But that's still historic evidence, though not terribly reliable.

No it isn't. It is evidence of only one thing: That people were telling fairy tales about a Messiah. That's it. Evidence of fairy tales is not evidence for the subject of said fairy tales.


All this points to strong evidence that a guy name Jesus really did exist.

No it doesn't.

That is exactly zero evidence of any such thing.

The only way that could be evidence for what you're trying to make it look like it is would be if you went as far as to say the the Iliad is proof of the existences of Zeus and Achilles.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Darby]

And as for whether the scientists are having a kegger and amusing themselves or not, I don't know. But why is everyone here seemingly ready to believe that the religious leaders are doing the same?

Because that's pretty much the only thing they've ever done for many thousands of years?

There really is a deep fundamental difference.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Darby]

Anything can be contrived into being called a sin if you try hard enough. Absolutely everything.


So an entirely valueless religion then, wouldn't you say?

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Grishnakh]

The only way that could be evidence for what you're trying to make it look like it is would be if you went as far as to say the the Iliad is proof of the existences of Zeus and Achilles.

Not proof, just evidence of a possibility. After all, the city of Troy is probably a real thing: ruins of a city in the right location have been found in Turkey, along with evidence of a war, IIRC. The evidence points to the Iliad being a fantastical, heavily fictionalized retelling of the actual events there. Maybe Achilles was a real warrior who was shot in the foot, and people created a mythology around this about him being dipped in the river Styx, overlooking the arrowheads stuck in his chest when he was dead.

I wouldn't call it "zero evidence". Good evidence? Definitely not. Accurate evidence? No. But not zero, either.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Abcd1234]

If not, you're putting your faith in some research paper published in a sientific journal that eventually made it's way into your high school Physics text book.

And if I so chose, I could partake in the necessary education, then review the experiment results, themselves, and make a decision regarding their validity. Further, I could posit my own predictions, based on those theories and test them. Or I could propose my own theories, which generate their own predictions, and test those. This is precisely the *opposite* of faith, which, by definition, is unfalsifiable belief without evidence, and is exactly why science and religion are not equivalent.

But why is everyone here seemingly ready to believe that the religious leaders are doing the same?

Who said I was? Personally, I think religious leaders, for the most part, honestly believe their own bullshit. But that doesn't make those beliefs any more true, or testable, or falsifiable.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[RockModeNick]

My argument is based on that knowing and experiencing/feeling are different, which was part of the lesson god learned. As for if Jesus is god or not, I never reasoned that part out, simply took that the father, the son, and the holy spirit are one as an assumption. I'm not Christian, btw.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[joystickgenie]

You shouldn't base the values of a religion by the actions of the people who exploit, twist, and reinterpret it for their own benefit.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[provigilman]

And if I so chose, I could partake in the necessary education, then review the experiment results, themselves, and make a decision regarding their validity. Further, I could posit my own predictions, based on those theories and test them. Or I could propose my own theories, which generate their own predictions, and test those.

That's entirely true, but have you done so? If not, then you're still accepting those theories on faith.

This is precisely the *opposite* of faith, which, by definition, is unfalsifiable belief without evidence, and is exactly why science and religion are not equivalent.

I never said that science and religion are equivalent, I merely said that for someone to believe in Quarks that they have never seen is equivalent in some way to a person that believes in a God they've never seen. You accept that the accounts of scientists doing the research are accurate, just as I accept that the Gospels are accurate. You believe that there are those who know far more about these things than you, and you trust their judgements and conclusions, just as I do.

As far as the layperson is concerned, science and religion are both articles of faith. At least the religious folks are willing to admit it though.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Abcd1234]

That's entirely true, but have you done so? If not, then you're still accepting those theories on faith.

Sorry, but that's just fucking ridiculous. By that logic, the reason I accept the theory that Europe and giant sea turtles exist is faith.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Darby]

Not proof, just evidence of a possibility. After all, the city of Troy is probably a real thing: ruins of a city in the right location have been found in Turkey, along with evidence of a war, IIRC.

Technically, they found city on top of city on top of city and evidence for war after war after war, but that certainly doesn't say anything contrary to your point...just being pedantic. I'd think that would even go farther to demonstrate that it was Troy, since in the Iliad they talk about how... I believe it was Diomedes' Grandfather and a few friends sacked Troy back in their day.

As far as "evidence of a possibility", well, the bible constitutes that much.
Sure, there's a nonzero probability that there was a historical Jesus. There is zero historical evidence for it though which was my point.


I wouldn't call it "zero evidence". Good evidence? Definitely not. Accurate evidence? No. But not zero, either.

I'd still call it zero evidence. AFAIK, the Iliad while containing fantastical representations of various deities doesn't contradict itself.

Paul's writings in particular talk of a messiah who still has never been to earth. Paul claimed to have been visited by an incorporeal Jesus who spoke of his *future* coming within Paul's lifetime. He never claimed that he was talking about somebody who had lived within the last several decades.

It's that sort of thing throughout the Bible which demonstrates its uselessness as any sort of historical evidence for the existence of Jesus.

Granted, archaeologists have managed to use it to make some pretty impressive finds, but that's talking about physical cities which existed for hundreds of years.

Evidence or even proof that people in a given time and place believed certain things (or didn't believe such as the early Christians *not* believing in the divinity of Jesus until that was added much later) does not constitute evidence or proof that the things they believed in were real.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Darby]

You shouldn't base the values of a religion by the actions of the people who exploit, twist, and reinterpret it for their own benefit.

Actually, that's exactly what you have to do if you want to honestly assess a religion as those are the people who invent them, run them, and determine the values thereof.

What you shouldn't do is take the stated values as meaningful as they are tangential at best to the actual practice, purpose, and actions taken by the religion as a whole.

Seriously, no offense, but it would be difficult for you to be more wrong about anything than you are in that statement, since those who exploit, twist, and reinterpret *are* the religious leaders. That's what they do. That's really all they can do since we're talking about fantasies that were explicitly *made up* for that purpose. That's why so many questions can only be answered in a religious context by "you have to have faith" because they were made up by people who didn't have any answers.
That's why religion has always been such a great evil and a blight on society.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[provigilman]

Sorry, but that's just fucking ridiculous. By that logic, the reason I accept the theory that Europe and giant sea turtles exist is faith.

What proof do you have? Writings about them? If that's all then Narnia must be a real place too... Perhaps you mean film? Is Jaws real too then? Or maybe Borat...he's a real person, right...not just a character? Oh, I know...you know that Christians are wrong because you took a ride in the TARDIS back to the time of the crucifiction. I mean, I *saw* a time machine on TV once, so they must be real...right?

As offensive as the idea may be to you, if you could pull your head out of your ass for a second you would see that 99% of the universe is filled with things that we've never experienced with our own senses, and things that happeneded before we even drew our first breath. Yet belief in them is considered to be perfectly rational.

Oh, and if it's a numbers question, Christianity was estimated to have around 2.1 billion adherents in 2001 (according to Wikipedia). So you're willing to say that almost 2.1 billion people are wrong and that their beliefs are irrational; but you'll believe the word of, at best, a few thousand scientists who have actually worked at a particle acceleration facility when they tell you about Quarks.

I'm not saying that science is wrong, not by any stretch... I've studied just about every branch of science there is and I love to learn all about the world around us. But don't for a second kid yourself and pretend like you're so high and mighty that you've never taken something on faith.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Abcd1234]

But don't for a second kid yourself and pretend like you're so high and mighty that you've never taken something on faith.

You really can't see the difference, can you? It's quite remarkable, actually.

Let me illustrate: I belief that rain falls up. You say it doesn't. You provide evidence it does not. There, my belief is falsified.

By contrast: I believe god create the universe. It is impossible for you to disprove this supposition.

How can you not see the *drastic* difference here?

I admire you for being so "open minded" about religious faith. But, honestly, to claim that belief in science and faith in religion is exactly the same is taking political correctness *WAY* too far.

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[joystickgenie]

So you are saying that we should base our opinions on the museum people and their religion by the actions of the terrorists that act "in its name" even though their actions don't follow the same belief structure that they clam to act for? Granted that is an extreme example but it is a valid on for what you are implying.

You seem to be very confused between the religion and the church (I use this term because I am most familiar with Christian religions). Religion is a series of beliefs and values that in the vast majority of examples are put together to inspire good will, courtesy, and ethical treatment to themselves, others, and many times the world around them. Whatever way that started be it a direct act of a supreme being, divine inspiration, generations of learned practices, or just some old coot just making up stories, they are defiantly a positive influence on the people who take the lessons to heart.

The church on the other hand is an organized group that organizes the religion and enforces its beliefs with its followers. The church is made up of people. Just like all things when someone is given too much power over those around them they may be corrupted by that power and use their position for their own benefit though pushing their own personal grudges and prejudices on the followers, using their position of power for political/social gain, taking financial benefits from the church, or many other things.

Your clam that religion is "a great evil and a blight on society" shows your complete ineptitude in being able to perceive what religion is over the errors of fallible people and what people do "in its name." Religion in its self is not a bad thing, sure it can be used to do bad things but so can just about anything else. Religion and its teaching should never be taken just at face value, you should always know the why and not just because "the religion tells me so", that is why many religions promote religious study and discussion. Don't blame religion for the faults of its troubled "followers".

Re:There's no way it's 300 million years old

[Walter Carver]

He didn't say it's irrational to believe in the easter bunny. He said that christians say "I am a Christian" (or "as a Christian" in this case) like it's a badge of honor. But then, Christians are not the only to do this.

He also points out, something that I agree with, that saying "as a Christian" is as rational as saying "as an Santa Clausian" or "as an Easter Bunnyite". If you find believing in a god irational, then believing in the bunny and claus is also irrational.

Re:Upright

[Bender0x7D1]

because trees should still be standing upright underground.

I'm assuming the the 30 foot high wave of water, mud and debris that rushed in to fill the area would have knocked over and snapped most of the trees.

Speculating already!

[dublinclontarf]

"It was drowned 300 million years ago in an earthquake, its discoverers speculate" They only just found this thing and they're giving it's life story. In other news: Archaeologists found a small piece of pottery near the site, they believe it to have been a pre-historic settlement. They have managed to reconstruct their entire society.... here's an artists impression. http://www.speedygrl.com/Racer/wallpaper/flintston es.jpg

Re:Speculating already!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Yes, they're speculating

They're not asserting, they're not theorizing, they're not even hypothesizing. Because before you can get to that point, you have to ask questions. You have to say, "I wonder if ..."

For every scientist who actually makes an outrageous claim, there are a million idiots saying, "Those damn scientists, always claiming stuff they can't prove!" whether or not that bears any relation to what's really going on. Sure, unsupported claims in science are a problem. But a bigger problem is anti-scientists who deliberately fail to differentiate between theory, hypothesis, and that first-step sense of wonder which is at the root of discovery.

Re:Speculating already!

[dublinclontarf]

It's the way the article is worded, it's stated as a fact, then "the discovers speculated" is tacked on the end, which is very misleading. Plus I just want to take the piss, this is the first time on slashdot I've been given +3 funny.

Re:Speculating already!

[Traa]

If you read Bill Bryson's "A short History of nearly everything" you will read some wonderful stories on how in archeology as well as the field of paleontology wild speculation is used frequently to fill in the gaps. Books upon books have been written on the findings of sometimes just a single bone, even when that bone wasn't shared among scientists! Fascinating fields of science :-)

Re:Speculating already!

[grub]

Damn well said. Unfortunately the "million idiots" tend to breed faster than rational people so the going gets tougher for reason.

Re:Speculating already!

[PPH]

Whatever they discover, please don't tell me that these aren't real!

Re:Speculating already!

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I agree. It's a lot like the creative process, brainstorming, and then narrowing down your options based on whether or not they fit the circumstances.

Not fuel!

[sunami]

I swear, I had to read that 3 times before I stopped seeing "fossilized fuel forest."

Re:Not fuel!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Good thing it's not, 'cause otherwise we'd be invading Illinois first thing tomorrow.

Re:Not fuel!

[Cervantes]

Nah, they're safe, Congress just passed a new law. In order for us to invade a place, the President has to find it on a map first (with Karl Rove safely sealed in carbonite, to ensure no cheating).

Re:Not fuel!

[JBHarris]

Don't you mean liberating Illinois?

Re:Not fuel!

[gstoddart]

I swear, I had to read that 3 times before I stopped seeing "fossilized fuel forest."

Good thing it's not, 'cause otherwise we'd be invading Illinois first thing tomorrow.

Dude, it's in a friggin coal mine. Fossil fuels are at play here, just not new ones.

Cheers

Re:Upright

[ElectricRook]

did the ground below just sank/moved suddenly (25 square miles no less)?

Yes, the same thing happened a few weeks ago in the Solomon Islands. In an earth quake, a tectonic plate under one of the islands was thrust up ten or twelve feet.

Remember the tsunami a year and a half ago? There, an under water fault thrust up a tectonic plate just a few feet, but several miles long. That was the cause of the tsunami.

Go take a geology course at your local college (Junior College?). I did that last semester and loved it. I'm thinking about changing from Electronics to Geology. It's outside work, it pays pretty well, and there's actually a growing demand... And I'm getting really tired of computers kicking my ass on a daily basis.

Illinois is near the equator.

[Etherwalk]

The accompanying graphic is surreal for a moment, until you connect the dots. Hehem: "Illinois is near the equator."

For a moment, you think, like Pluto not being a planet any longer, someone has changed the rules of the game. Did we throw Mercator maps out the window? Are we using real maps now, that show the world as it is, and it's not really a globe at all? What is Illinois, really? And why is it at the equator?

-----
(Yes, continental drift. I know. But surreal, for that moment. And therefore fun.)

Re:Upright

[Anonymous Coward]

Ordinary subsidence of the crust can do that (e.g., the modern Mississippi Delta continues to subside and slowly bury old swampland forests in sediment), but sudden drops due to earthquakes are well-known too. An excellent example is Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, which was formed (or at least enhanced) due to ground shifts related to the 1812 New Madrid earthquake -- this was not far from Illinois.

Burial of trees happens all the time. Sites with fossil forests are known from all over the world. But having them exposed in a roof of a coal seam is quite cool, even though that isn't unknown either (e.g., in the area near Price, Utah -- some of the seams even have dinosaur footprints in their roof in addition to tree stumps).

The original article being referred to is in the latest issue of the journal Geology, but you have to be a subscriber to view it.

Re:Upright

[Anonymous Coward]

From the summary, which you obviously didn't read:

>>>Geologists are excited because the huge fossilized forest, over 25 square miles in extent, preserves trees and other plants upright, as they grew.

25 Square Miles???

[malarkey]

The second sentence from the article:

The four-square-mile fossil forest the largest find ever is just south of Danville in Vermilion County, Ill., in the 300-million-year-old Herrin coal bed, a 6-foot-thick strip mined by a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Peabody Coal.

Investing money in the young Earth

[Dr. Manhattan]

For anyone who says they really believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old, I have a a modest proposal:

Let's assume the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Where did the oil come from? Was it created in the ground with the rest of the Earth? If so, is there a way to predict where it might be found? Or perhaps it really did form from plants and dinosaurs, but about 10,000 times faster than any chemist believes it could? Any way you look at it, a young Earth and a Flood would imply some very interesting scientific questions to ask, some interesting (and potentially extremely valuable) research programs to start. How come nobody's actually pursuing such research programs?

Why don't fundamentalists put together an investment fund, where people pay in and the stake is used as venture capital for things like oil and mineral rights? If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn't anyone doing this?

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Dr. Manhattan]

It doesn't add anything important, but here's the correct link.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[dwarfsoft]

Maybe there was a sect that did fund this research, but they blew all their money on something and went broke ...

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Red Flayer]

Was it created in the ground with the rest of the Earth?

Yes.

If so, is there a way to predict where it might be found?

Who are we to presume knowledge of the wisdom of he-that-is-all-knowing-and-all-powerful?

How come nobody's actually pursuing such research programs?

What you're asking, in essence, is why is no one researching the intent and methods of YHWH. If you feel the need to research this, then obviously your faith is lacking -- perhaps you should spend less time at the Universityy of Faithlessness and attend Church more often.

If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does.

Again, you're trying to use logic to reason the will of YHWH -- this does not work; if faith predictions fail, it is because He chose it to be so -- maybe He's testing our faith in his infinite Wisdom.

The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn't anyone doing this?

You're conflating profits with prophets; your attention should be on the Spiritual rewards of faith, not on the material rewards of speculation and gambling with mineral rights.

I think the biggest problem all you intellectuals have is that you assume that using the power of the human mind, you can know the mind of an infinitely superior being, instead of feeding on the scraps of wisdom he imparts to us through the holy men He chooses. Pshaw -- like it's even possible to use reason to know the unknowable.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[bigbird]

You may not agree with creationists, but they are hardly ignorant of questions like this. Here's a couple of links which indicate they have at least explored these issues:

Forked seams sabotage swamp theory

Oil in less than a century?

Too much coal for a young earth?

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Korin43]

Is there a way to mod something -1 stupid? I shall sum up this comment in one sentence: "We shouldn't even try to think. Only God can do that."

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Red Flayer]

Sorry. Left off the sarcasm tag.

Your response is exactly what I alluding to -- the OP challenged creationists to apply reasoning to their view of creation -- and it's impossible to debate a matter of pure faith.

The problem cannot be addressed via logic, reason, or scientific processes. IMO, it will only ever be resolved through education of the young before they are brainwashed, and that will never happen as long as we don't enforce 100% secular education.

And, unfortunately, guess what population has the highest birthrate in the US? It's ironic, but ignorance is learned. The majority of children of the US are being taught well.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[pnewhook]

Basically the fundamentalist creationist God is a magic God that does illogical things to try and trick you into going to hell.

There is no point in arguing with a group of people who gives counter arguments along the lines of 'you couldn't possibly understand the great wisdom of God', or 'God can do anything'. No amount of logic can change the mind of such people.

Just take solace in that the creationist sect is a tiny, tiny majority of the worldwide Christians - probably much less than 1%. Arguably they shouldn't even be called Christians since their beliefs are so different than the rest of the religion.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Red Flayer]

I hope you detected the sarcasm...

Just take solace in that the creationist sect is a tiny, tiny majority of the worldwide Christians - probably much less than 1%. Arguably they shouldn't even be called Christians since their beliefs are so different than the rest of the religion.

I wish it were so. Fundamentalist Christians represent about 35% of the voting US population (approx 70% of those who voted for Bush) according to many researchers, and the disparate birth rates will only serve to increase that proportion. I know, I'm kind of conflating fundamentalism with creationism, but they go hand-in-hand and have similar repercussions on the fate of the nation.

Please don't underestimate how powerful the fundamentalist Christians are, to do so is to allow them to take over our nation more than they already have. Consider the fact that John Ashcroft is a creationist, and he held a high-level cabinet position under Bush.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[dsanfte]

"Faith" is too kind a word for what their ilk resort to. I prefer "willful self-delusion".

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[sarathmenon]

So, if the earth is only 6000 years old, did the cities of these people ship with the earth when it was created? You also seem to be ignoring literature from other civilizations which mention their gods to be from the period when the Christian Earth was created. I re-read what you wrote, if there is a satire in your argument, then it is very subtle and I have missed it.

But assuming that evidence is false while putting in a blind belief in God is a very disturbing thought.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Grishnakh]

I'm sorry, but I don't see the difference. "Faith" means believing in something without a shred of evidence. The only difference I can see between the young-earth Christians and others (like, say, the Jews) is that the young-earth people hold a faith that directly contradicts overwhelming evidence.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Wavicle]

You may not agree with creationists, but they are hardly ignorant of questions like this. Here's a couple of links which indicate they have at least explored these issues:

Forked seams sabotage swamp theory

Oil in less than a century?

Too much coal for a young earth?

Okay, I'll admit that I only read "Oil in less than a century" but good heavens that has got to be the worst evidence imaginable. For starters: oil is used in leatherwork, so you need to ensure that you are looking at newly created oil. Secondly leather is not expected to turn into oil. If leather does turn into oil, they've happened upon quite a discovery. Thirdly, everything in that link was hearsay "yeah we heard this report from someone who said." If their discovery were genuine, they'd parade it around the world. Heck if oil could be produced in the earth in less than a century, they owe it to society to say something. We could use that information to find new sources of oil.

I call shenanigans.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[bigbird]

I cited the articles to show that creationists have considered these issues, as the parent post apparently thought their "modest proposal" was a new thought. The article "Oil in less than a century" doesn't claim to be evidence, just a citation of how someone found some oil apparently made from leather. It even says "if indeed it was oil derived from the leather...".

And you claim "leather is not expected to turn into oil." It is organic matter is it not? Oil is made of organic matter. So why shouldn't it, given the right circumstances?

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[dsanfte]

Well, "Faith" has a positive connotation that I'd prefer not to see ascribed to such intellectual laziness.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[LordVader717]

I know a way to make oil within a few months. It uses my patented technology called "vegetable".

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[StoatBringer]

"Why isn't anyone doing this?"

Well obviously it's cheaper, easier and more accurate to just use dowsing rods http://www.randi.org/library/dowsing/

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Dr. Manhattan]

I cited the articles to show that creationists have considered these issues, as the parent post apparently thought their "modest proposal" was a new thought.

The original (or at least, 'one I haven't seen presented this way') thought isn't "creationists haven't considered where oil, coal, etc. have come from". (Of course, 'The huge deposits of coal came from the more than 60% of the forests before the Flood that were actually floating on the surface of the oceans, but somehow none of the species of plants involved in such a hypothetical aqueous forest managed to survive the Flood or leave a single fossil' is not exactly convincing.)

The original thought is that, if creationists were right, and believed they were right, that should have concrete economic consequences. Oil companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars hiring geologists to find oil. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars are riding on them finding oil. Which kind of geology do they actually use, mainstream or "Flood geology", and what does that say about which kind actually delivers the goods?

I don't expect to crack any creationists out of their hermetically sealed little mental compartments. But this is a simple, obvious, testable notion that illustrates to others exactly why and how creationism is wrong.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[dmonder]

Why is it that the truth is only the truth if it makes someone money. Just because you can't make money by believing what is so obvious to true scientists does not make it false. The world's formation by God and the transformation via the Flood are easily seen if you use a truly open SCIENTIFIC mind. That is, consider all the options and see what the evidence BEST fits. You will quickly see that it is not uniformitarianism and evolution.

You might also check out Answers in Genesis (http://www.answersingenesis.org/), the Institute for Creation Research (http://www.icr.org/), the Creation Research Society (http://www.creationresearch.org/), and True.Origins (http://www.trueorigin.org/). All of these organizations provide resources from scientists credentialed in their fields of study showing how the Bible explains the creation of the world better than uniforitarianism.

David

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Dr. Manhattan]

Why is it that the truth is only the truth if it makes someone money.

Uh... not what I said. What I said was that truth (particularly truth about concrete, measurable and tangible things like geology) should have testable consequences. And one prominent test is economic utility. Mainstream geology does . If mainstream geology is totally and fundamentally wrong, how do you explain (in a "SCIENTIFIC" way) that it makes testable predictions and they're right often enough for people to bet on them and make good money? If Flood geology is solidly correct, why doesn't it make those kinds of predictions? Why can't anyone make money from it?

The world's formation by God and the transformation via the Flood are easily seen if you use a truly open SCIENTIFIC mind.

That hasn't been true for a long, long time now.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[pnewhook]

Just take solace in that the creationist sect is a tiny, tiny majority of the worldwide Christians - probably much less than 1%. Arguably they shouldn't even be called Christians since their beliefs are so different than the rest of the religion.

I wish it were so. Fundamentalist Christians represent about 35% of the voting US population (approx 70% of those who voted for Bush) according to many researchers, and the disparate birth rates will only serve to increase that proportion

Yes the US is a strange anomoly - I don't know what it is with the culture that promotes such backward ideas. That's why the US is such a laughing stock when it comes to the world stage in religion - fundies are generally viewed as uneducated rednecks.

But worldwide, there are over 2 billion Christians. Almost three quarters of them are Catholic which do not have funademtalist beliefs (the catholic church has publicly embraced evolution), and the next several major Christian denominations are also non-creationist. I get annoyed when as a Christian I get lumped in with these creationist crazies when they are just a small (but annoyingly vocal) minority, and their beliefs do not represent Cristianity as a whole.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[l33t gambler]

- Why is it that the truth is only the truth if it makes someone money. Just because you can't make money by believing what is so obvious to true scientists does not make it false. The world's formation by God and the transformation via the Flood are easily seen if you use a truly open SCIENTIFIC mind. That is, consider all the options and see what the evidence BEST fits. You will quickly see that it is not uniformitarianism and evolution.

I don't think you have your definitions right. As Stallmann would suggest, correct your discussion partner first. Science doesn't say "we are right" or "that is wrong," science is about theories predicting observations, or bein cancelled out by observations.

What do you mean "I will quickly see?" How do you know I will convert quickly, if at all? Seems like you are fresh out of indoctrination class.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[powerpants]

Well, "Faith" has a positive connotation... Not to me, it doesn't.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Forge]

I don't get it.

Why should "flood Geology", (I.e. The notion that 4 or 5 thousand years ago the earth was flooded) predict where oil, coal and natural gas are buried?

According to the scripture, the whole flood lasted less than 3 months, from 1st raindrops till water subsided enough for the Arc to land and it's passengers disembark.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[operagost]

Faith can mean believing in something without hard evidence, but it doesn't preclude the knowledge of said evidence. In other words, it doesn't require pigheaded ignorance as the atheist apologists would imply.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Dr. Manhattan]

Almost three quarters of them are Catholic which do not have funademtalist beliefs (the catholic church has publicly embraced evolution)

I don't know if "embraced" is the right word. It tolerates it, mostly: "The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, insofar as it inquiries into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter." - Pope Pius XII

For an example of a (vocal) Catholic who's also a young-Earth creationist, see this guy.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[LunaticTippy]

No, if there is hard evidence nobody needs faith. If a glowing fightin' Jesus came down on a cloud and started stomping around, performing miracles, overturning tables, and pissing off the religious right nobody would need faith to believe in Jesus. They could just watch him burn Focus on the Family HQ to the ground and know that Jesus is Love, Jesus is Lord.

Until that glorious day, if you want to believe in Jesus you need faith.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Red Flayer]

I get annoyed too, when people apply sterotypes to me. While it's true that Catholics tend to be less fundamentalist (the church hierarchy allows them to interpret the Bible less literally than other Christian sects), the portion of the world's Christians who are not Catholic are extremely worrying. First, they are growing faster than other sects. Second, they wield disproportionate influence in the US, currently the world's most powerful military and economy. Third, they have infiltrated the less-fundamentalist Christian sects, and are making those sects more fundamentalist.

I don't want to downplay the fact that the fundie crazies are currently a minority... however, they are very close to being a majority in the US.

At any rate,

I don't know what it is with the culture that promotes such backward ideas.

Read American Theocracy (by Kevin Phillips, 2006) and The Closing of the Western Mind (by Charles Freeman, 2004) to understand both the short-term and long-term reasons for the US's Christian backwardness. I highly recommend both books.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Red Flayer]

I re-read what you wrote, if there is a satire in your argument, then it is very subtle and I have missed it.

I thought maybe the "pshaw" would tip people off that it was tongue-in-cheek. I was trying to point out the futility of challenging fundamentalists based on reason.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Grishnakh]

Faith can mean believing in something without hard evidence...it doesn't require pigheaded ignorance as the atheist apologists would imply.

It can mean the former, yes; however, these days (at least in the USA), the latter seems to be the norm.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[pnewhook]

Almost three quarters of them are Catholic which do not have funademtalist beliefs (the catholic church has publicly embraced evolution)

I don't know if "embraced" is the right word. It tolerates it, mostly: "The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, insofar as it inquiries into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter." - Pope Pius XII

Hmm... haven't seen that quote..

How about

"Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth" - (Catechism of the Catholic Church 159)

or

"no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits" - Pope Leo XIII

or

"Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things the of the faith derive from the same God" - (CCC 159)

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[halfelven]

"the portion of the world's Christians who are not Catholic are extremely worrying"

The Orthodox Christians (Eastern Europe, Greece, Armenia) are pretty close to the Catholics in many ways. The differences between the two are entirely superficial. And the Orthodox church is a pretty sizable chunk of the entire Christianity.

So, it's just a small minority of lunatics that create problems.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Copid]

Why should "flood Geology", (I.e. The notion that 4 or 5 thousand years ago the earth was flooded) predict where oil, coal and natural gas are buried?

The point is this: Why should mainstream geology, which completely rejects flood geology, accurately predict where oil, coal, and natural gas are buried while flood geology fails to make any meaningful predictions? The obvious answer is that flood geology is bunk and mainstream geology more accurately reflects reality. The GP is requesting an alternate explanation for the disparity. I doubt that one will be forthcoming.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Red Flayer]

Sorry, conflated them, since they are technically catholic-with-a-small-c (but not according to modern usage) as far as I've been able to determine.

It's the North American fundamentalist protestants that worry me, for reasons stated previously. Also, note that the NA fundies evangelize & proselytize widely all over the world, and their Churches are growing much faster than other Christian churches in Asia an in Africa.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[Dr. Manhattan]

A Catholic threw these quotes at me:

Between 1905 and 1915 the Pontifical Biblical Commission emitted fifty-nine authoritative replies regarding certain doubts raised by historical critics. Among other things the Commission in 1905 denied that "those books of Sacred Scripture which are regarded as historical, either wholly or in part, sometimes narrate what is not history properly so-called and objectively true, but only have the appearance of history and are intended to convey a meaning different from the strictly literal or historical sense of the words" (EB 161). In 1909 it excluded that "the various exegetical systems which have been elaborated and defended by the aid of pseudo-science to exclude the literal historical sense of the first three chapters of Genesis are based upon solid arguments" (EB 324). And also in 1909 it denied that "the three aforesaid chapters . . . contain [purified] fables derived from mythologies and cosmologies belonging to older nations . . . ; or that they contain allegories and symbols destitute of any foundation in objective reality but presented under the garb of history to inculcate religious and philosophical truth; or, finally, that they contain legends partly historical and partly fictitious, freely handled for the instruction and edification of souls" (EB 325). -Monsignor John F. McCarthy, Pontifical Biblical Commission: Yesterday And Today (Homiletic and Pastoral Review)

In other words, he found nothing in Catholicism that compelled him to give up young-Earth creationism and, indeed, felt that it was most consistent with church teaching. (Of course, as Larry Niven said, "There is no cause so noble that it will not attract some kooks.")

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[pnewhook]

Interesting. Mainly in that I'm Anglican (close to Catholic) and I know a lot of Catholics (including my ex wife and her family), and I've never met someone in those denominations that bought into the young earth creationism, or thought that the church preached it (but no problems believing that God created the universe)

Always surprises me when I meet one as I still have a hard time believing they actually bought into that story.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[terjeber]

The one thing I really don't get in these debates is why it is so hard for the current generation to understand the relatively simple concept of sarcasm. Our school system is failing completely, even when it educates people in science.

Re:Investing money in the young Earth

[terjeber]

Which kind of geology do they actually use, mainstream or "Flood geology", and what does that say about which kind actually delivers the goods?

The creationists are not fazed by such trivia. God created the oil there and the coal where it is so that it looks like it was created naturally. I once spoke with a creationist and pointed out the fact that we are able to see stars that are millions of light-years away. The light that we are seeing has therefore been in transit for millions (or billions) of years. When I asked him about this his response was as immediate as it was "convincing", God created the light in transit.

There is no way you can use evidence to convince these lunatics. If you are a superstitious person who tend towards "magical" thinking, in other words, if you believe in gods, tooth fairies, Santa Clauses and other magical entities, no amount of evidence will convince you that you are wrong. Evidence is irrelevant in the lives of these people. You have to tackle them at a slightly different level. As a contrived example:

Assume the creationists are right. God created the earth and the universe as we see it. He is all mighty and all powerful. He intentionally created the universe so that it looks like it is far older. Most creationists will readily admit that he did so in a debate. In fact, in most debates you don't have to make this point, the creationist will tell you that God intentionally created the world and the universe to look really old to test our faith. Either make that point or accept it. So you are left with some facts that a creationist can easily accept: (1) God created the world. (2) He created humans with brains so that we have the ability to analyze the world. (3) God created the world so that it looks really old.

What does that make God? It makes God into a lying sack of shit not worthy any sane persons respect. Individuals, be they people or deities, who habitually lie, cheat and steal should be shunned and banned from polite society, not respected and cherished. If God is the way the creationists say he is, we should spit in his face, not dedicate beautiful buildings to him.

Please note that I am not saying that God is the way they say he is, or that he is at all. I am just presenting them with the inevitable conclusion of their absurd belief.

And don't get me started on divine entities that demand human sacrifice (God and Abraham, remember) to test faith. Oh, and remember Job, the poor dude who was the victim of a bet between God and Satan (according to that horrible book they call the bible)? The two deities have a bet and in the process they slaughter this guys family, strikes him with deceases too horrible to live with, takes away his life, property, dignity etc. Any entity that does that to a human being just because they have a bet with another entity deserves only one thing from me, my complete, total and utter contempt.

Oil = Temptation!

[myowntrueself]

If "Flood geology" is really a better theory, then it should make better predictions about where raw materials are than standard geology does. The profits from such a venture could pay for a lot of evangelism. Why isn't anyone doing this?

Because God put the 'fossil' fuels there as a temptation and the objective for any good Christian is to do without 'fossil' fuels?

Re:Oil = Temptation!

[LordSnooty]

Ha, so that's why I only ever see a vicar riding a bike, never driving a car.

Re:Oil = Temptation!

[myowntrueself]

Ha, so that's why I only ever see a vicar riding a bike, never driving a car.

Totally.

Why do you think they call it 'crude' oil?

Its sinful I tells ya!

Informative!?!?! Mods, try Offtopic

[246o1]

The parent is just your standard lecture on how the Bible isn't as stupid as is implied by some jokester (the gp), it has nothing to do with this article.

Besides saying crap like "Nothing in the Bible suggests racism," or "people used to live sometimes *much* more than the 30-40 years," the first of which is just blatantly false and the second of which is completely unsupported outside the oral traditions of the Jews, recorded later as the Bible, the whole post is rather pointless. If he were selling something besides Christianity everyone would assume he's getting paid.

I say all this 'as a Christian,' which apparently at least the PP should find conveys some validity.

Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Hi,

One of the authors here (Scott Elrick - geologist from the Illinois State Geological Survey). I would be happy to answer questions from folks... or at least try!

I can start by giving a basic overview of the discovery, what we found, and how it is important (to paleobotanists that is).

The location of the fossils is just to the south and west of Danville, IL, itself about 30 miles to the east of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (say hi to HAL when you come to visit). The forest was found directly above the Herrin coal seam in the Riola and Vermillion Grove coal mines, owned by Black Beauty coal (a subsidiary of Peabody Energy). The mines cover approximately 15 square miles and the study area was about 4 square miles... actually 1000 hectares. (I'm rounding up the square miles)

Okay, so what's so cool? If you are a geologist and read the headlines that have been popping up about the story, you may have scoffed and shook your head saying, "What do they mean largest fossil forest? A coal seam is nothing but the fossil remnants of a fossil forest. And a coal seam like the Colchester coal extended from Pennsylvania all the way to Oklahoma!" And you are correct! (This is my first exposure to the modern day media... and its been an eye opener! Give them credit, they do a pretty god job overall)

What is 'largest' about this fossil forest story is that it is the largest STUDY of a mostly entact fossil forest. Specifically one that is looking at the ecology of that forest. The largest study before this that looked at the overall ecology was about 25 hectares.. say about 1/10th of a square mile. So this study is an order of magnitude greater. The meat of the matter here is that we had an opportunity to examine a fossil forest at just a wonderfully huge scale and as a result were able to see subtle changes in the make-up of the forest as we walked the multiple miles of passageways in the mine.

The analogy is that previous studies were like blindfolded people examining an elephant. Each person has a wonderfully detailed and accurate description of his or her patch of the elephant, and when they compare notes a decent group consensus exists as to what the elephant probably looks like... but nobody has a chance to see the whole elephant. Our study is where we get to step back from the elephant a bit and take a pretty good peak under the blindfold at the whole animal. (I wont go so far as to say we are able to clearly see the whole thing as that is stretching the analogy. The point being it is an important and exciting step forward, but not necessarily a monstrous revelation!)

A couple of things to highlight.

First, the part that I find the coolest about work like this. In much of geologic science (field aspects more so), geologists look at vast spreads of time in small geographic slices. For example, standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon and peering across to the other side, your eye takes in millions of years of geologic time... but you are only able to see a thin 'slice' of each unit in profile. What does a particular rock unit look like 500 feet into the side of the canyon walls? The only way to find out is to drill a hole and take a core sample.

Geologic research, or in this case paleontological research, in an underground mine such as these coal mines is orthogonal to the norm above! At these mines, looking up at preserved trees and ferns in the mine ceiling, we were looking at single slice of time, a T(0) event, over a huge (relatively speaking) geographic area. That means that we were able to get a snapshot in time look at the forrest landscape of 300 million years ago. It's the 'worms eye' view of a fossil forest.

I should point out that the 'discovery' of this fossil forest was a gradual process. One of the responsibilities of the Illinois State Geological Survey is to try to understand the geology of the state of Illinois... and for us in the coal section that means coworker John Nelson and I (also one of the aut

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Reality Master 101]

Thanks for the interesting post!

and by counting the neap and spring cycles, covered it 10 feet deep in as little as four months.

Maybe this answers my question, but did animals and insects get trapped along with the plants? It would be fascinating to have an entire ecosystem frozen in time. But if it took four months, I'd guess all the moveable entities moved out before things got buried.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Assassin bug]

First, your post should be enlightened to a sticky!! (If /. had such a thing)

Second, this entomologist would like to know if you are finding any insect fossils in your Pennsylvanian rocks? Should be some winged insects in there too, if memory serves. If so, who is taking on the task of determining them? Grimalidi at the Smithsonian is the only paleoentomologist I know of in the US these days (Maybe Poinar is still actively into research in California). I have some experience with insects in amber, but some of the smashed up impression fossils I've seen look like an interesting challenge for determination. Or maybe the INHS is working on it?

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the info. Would you care to upload and link some photos of the trees? None of the articles I found seem to have any pictures, and an article like this NEEDS pictures!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

An excellent question Assassin bug,

I've had a few emails on the very topic.

Howard Falcon-Lang and Bill Dimichele did find Eurypterid parts and pieces for certain and in some 'hashy' areas we may have found insect parts but it was hard to tell. Truthfully, the study area was so dang large that we were forced to really 'make tracks' to cover what we could, I am certain short-changing areas of interest such as your own in favor of the dominant plant fossils. I think I described the task to one reporter as trying to make a map of all the store fronts in New York city in a few days of walking the city, ending up with your 'chinatown area' ' little italy area' etc..

A shame now in retrospect that we didn't make more of an effort to look for those other parts of the system... but oh baby did we have a lot of ground to cover!

We do have representative samples from the mine roof that are currently in the Smithsonian collection, and hopefully Grimalidi can snag some time to give them a look over.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Assassin bug asked nearly the same thing. We did find Eurypterid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_scorpion) pieces mixed in with the plant fossils and there is the possibility of some insect parts (legs, etc..) in some of the 'hashier' areas of the roof.

But, as I mentioned to Assassin bug, we had a LOT of territory to cover in fairly short amount of time, so we had to concentrate on the dominant plant fossils.

Your speculation on the moveable critters in the system 'getting the heck out of dodge' when the ground dropped out from underneath them may well be true. I would hope that at least some died and stayed put! Time (to collect data) was our enemy here.

I should probably have mentioned this before, but we are very thankful that Peabody Energy allowed us into the mine to study and record this wonderful fossil forest. It costs them man power and time to shepard us in their mines and they have been very supportive of our efforts. Truthfully, without them extracting the coal in the first place, we would never have been able to see the steady unveiling (10 years time!) of this 300 million year old snapshot in time.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Yes!

We should have a website with detailed pictures and explanatory text online this by this Friday at the Illinois State Geological Survey home page:

www.isgs.uiuc.edu

look for a link on the 'recent news' portion.

(now guess what I get to do all day tomorrow...)

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Puff of Logic]

Hi Scott,

First, thanks for one of the most informative posts I've ever seen on Slashdot. Getting an explanation from one of the scientists involved without the media-filter effect (oversimplification) or the dense text of a published paper is a treat. I'm only sorry that such a great post was buried below yet another futile debate on religious fundamentalism. People, we can mention radioisotopic dating without bringing up belief systems!

With that out of the way, I do have a question. You mention that this discovery lets us get a better overall view of the "elephant", specifically the ecology of the forest. However, you note that the immersion of this forest happened fairly catastrophically. I'm certainly not a botanist, but wouldn't such an event be quite destructive to forest-floor plants? While I can see trees mostly surviving, I would have thought that most of the smaller life so critical to an understanding of forest ecology would have been either destroyed or washed to different areas. Am I off-base on this assumption? If not, how do you think this will affect the scientific value of this find? Unfortunately my knowledge of geology and botany is fairly limited, so I'm not sure that I'm asking an intelligent question here.

Finally, thanks for this:

Geologic research, or in this case paleontological research, in an underground mine such as these coal mines is orthogonal to the norm above! At these mines, looking up at preserved trees and ferns in the mine ceiling, we were looking at single slice of time, a T(0) event, over a huge (relatively speaking) geographic area. I always enjoy it when someone gives me a completely different perspective about something. What a fascinating sample!

regards,

Richard

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Hi Richard!

It's a pleasure to be posting. I have been a super-ultra-long-time-gets-the-funny-all-your-base -jokes lurker for just about forever.

Part one of your question is asking if the catastrophic event of earthquake induced flooding be destructive to forest-floor plants. A very good question.

To answer that I'll steal some text that will be going on the website this Friday as written by Bill DiMichele to describe the ground cover plants and follow up afterward:

"Ground cover plants:

Plants inferred from their growth forms to have been ground cover are not common at Riola. This suggests that the soil surface may have been inhospitable to the growth of small plants, perhaps due to flooding.

One plant in particular, Sphenophyllum, was widespread throughout the mine but rare. Sphenophyllum (Images 51 & 52) is a sphenopsid, the same higher-level group that includes the horsetails. Like that group of plants, it has "node-internode" construction and its leaves and branches are borne in whorls. In this instance, however, the leaves are wedge-shaped, a distinctive attribute of these plants. Some Sphenophyllum species have hooks or barbs on their leaves, suggesting that they too formed thickets or tangles, and perhaps may have climbed other trees for support.

Another potential ground cover plant, a possible small fern or seed plant, is Sphenopteris (Image 53), which is rare in the Riola mine. Sphenopteris is characterized by small fronds that have small, variously lobed pinnules."

One reason to believe that the flooding, while catastrophic in the sense that it was sudden, may not have been particularly violent is the lack of strong linear orientation of both plants and logs, nor any preferred 'piling' of leaf litter and debris up against upright tree stumps. I personally would imagine the flooding of the forest to be in the multiple minutes category and not the 'large imposing' violent wave category. As Bill writes above, the ground surface may not have been conducive to thick luxuriant cover, but I also wonder to what degree the Sphenophyllum 'hooks and barbs' may have rooted them in place under flooding duress!

The second part of your question asks about the importance of smaller life being critical to an understanding of forest ecology.

You got that right! In modern forests the importance of 'smaller life' is undeniable.

In geology we are often forced by lack of data to fill in the gaps as best as we are able to infer. Or we are required to 'complete the puzzle' with the available puzzle pieces. Along those lines, much of the picture of these 300 million year old peat mires comes about through many many many individual finds and discoveries. A few insects here... an amphibian there... ground cover plants here... massive monster of tree there... a complete coal ball collection detailing plant diversities and general ecologies here... glimpses of many of these individuals (but not all unless you've got good karma) together in one spot there... etc.. Put all the individual puzzle pieces together and a cohesive picture starts to form.

For this particular study I feel pretty confident in saying that we are almost certainly missing big chunks of 'the little stuff'. For example, we may have seen some insect parts, but we can't be sure. Did they get swept away? Fly away? Hard to know. We are absolutely missing the entire ecological picture here and in that sense the answer to your question is a disappointing, "Nope, we don't have it all, so we don't have the honest to gosh whole picture"

But what this study does provide is some confirmation that the picture we have theorized about... i.e. we think the Pennsylvanian peat mire ecology looks like 'X' is correct. That the subtle variations in forest ecology that you would see walking down a hiking trail in your nearby state park ("Hmm, first I saw maples, and 300 feet later I saw a few oaks, and then the maples thinned out and the oaks were dominant"

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Bin Naden]

Hey Scott Elrick,

I found your post very informative. However, I was hoping that you would give us more insight into what you actually learned from this study. For example, how different were the species then and how much did they adapt since that time. Have you done dna analysis on some of those species? Have you discovered new species. etc.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Grishnakh]

Since this find is in the middle of America, where conservative values are very strong, how do you deal with people who refute your claims about this forest being 300 millions years old, since they believe the earth is only 6000 years old? Before you brush this off as a troll, remember that nearly 50% of America's population now believes this literally.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Hello!

If you check out the response to 'Puff of Logic' just above, I sort of touch on what we learned in the study. Essentially that the complexities and subtles of the ancient 300 million year old Pennsylvanian age peat mire forests are at a similar level as the forests of today.

The question of species evolution was not really the focus of this study, but I can say that some of the plants alive then such as the seed ferns have no modern day equivalent, whereas the long, crazy-tall reed-like plants called calamites have modern day equivalents (or closest relatives anyway) in horsetails. (a fairly common plant in water filled ditches).

DNA analysis is probably not possible, however, I am certainly not an expert in that area. A lot of the organic material has been cooked and in the case of the peat, cooked and compressed to form... (you guessed it!) Coal. So that is probably a dead end I'm afraid.

No new species were found, but we did have some head scratcher "What the heck is that?" "I don't know" "Get a sample, we'll see what we can figure out later" kind of stuff! And no, I don't think we have identified everything yet...

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Puff of Logic]

Good point. I'm so often browsing with mod points though that I tend to browse at zero and in the order of posting, on the theory that I can mod more accurately if I see how things are flowing in the thread. I'll give your suggestion a shot though..it never occurred to me to try that.

cheers.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

To be honest, I really have not had much of that at all. Now, granted I live in a university town (UIUC) and am probably pretty insulated, but even heading out to various towns around the state for field work or otherwise I just really don't get much!

Of course, my sample is my state... Illinois, which probably swings in the middle or a little blue.

Thats not what you are asking though. You would like to know what I say to people who would prefer to believe the earth to be 6000 years old.

Now, I have not said this to any person in particular, but one thing that comes to mind that I find a bit humorous. Coal seams are sometimes considered by the '6000' groups to be the remnants of the great flood. The idea being that a great peat swamp from an indeterminate area was torn asunder during the great flood and then covered by sediments settling out from the great flood. The evidence then being the thick sediments found on top of the coal.

In the Illinois Basin there are 7 major coal seams (each covering a good percentage of Illinois in map view) and a total of about 80 minor coal seams all stacked (roughly speaking) vertically on top of each other with 'thick' sediment on top of each seam... So are we to infer that God was practicing his flooding technique?!? Eighty times??

Sorry, maybe it's just my sense of humor, but I think it's woth a chuckle.

Seriously, it seems to me that the core of the issue here is one of belief and personal belief, not of science or investigative logic. It is entirely possible to layout all the necessary proof and interconnected evidence in as grand a scheme as you desire towards proving a thing, but in the end when this discussion is broached you are no longer talking about ideas. A comment that is made against a belief is inevitably a vicous strike against the very essense of the person. In effect a personal attack... no mater what you say!

My real answer is not a satisfying one I'm afraid. In truth I prefer not to engage anyone who wants to combatively challenge me in 'belief match' contest. I certainly respect others beliefs, no matter how incorrect I think them to be, and hope they would respect mine, but in the end it is not a battle to be won. The battle, to the extent it is a battle anyway, is in education and getting people to ask questions, wonder why, wonder how, wonder who, and what.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[jonfr]

As a amature in recording earthquakes and monitoring volcanoes. I was wondering if it is known if the fault line that did cose the forest to sink was on a subduction zone or other type of fault line. Since the only incidents that I know of ground falling or rising is when the plate slips and create a earthquake. Given recent examples (Solomon Islands, Sumatra and so on), I would think that the earthquake that did sink the the forest 300 million years ago must have been around mag 7.0 to 8.? on the richter scale.

I did try to find a map with outlines of the continental plates 300 million years ago, but didn't find any. So I don't know where the this forest was actually located 300 million years ago. But I have a great interest in seeing where the continentals where located during this time.

For your interest, as a geologist. Here is my earthquake page (link below). If you are lucky, you will see a earthquake there, sometimes many. But it has been quiet for few weeks here in Iceland. The plot mostly shows noise at the moment. Since I was doing a little maintaince on my geophone yesterday.

http://www.simnet.is/jonfr500/earthquake/tremoren. htm

Re:Some background information for folks.

[frogstar_robot]

Seriously, it seems to me that the core of the issue here is one of belief and personal belief, not of science or investigative logic. It is entirely possible to layout all the necessary proof and interconnected evidence in as grand a scheme as you desire towards proving a thing, but in the end when this discussion is broached you are no longer talking about ideas. A comment that is made against a belief is inevitably a vicous strike against the very essense of the person. In effect a personal attack... no mater what you say!

My real answer is not a satisfying one I'm afraid. In truth I prefer not to engage anyone who wants to combatively challenge me in 'belief match' contest. I certainly respect others beliefs, no matter how incorrect I think them to be, and hope they would respect mine, but in the end it is not a battle to be won. The battle, to the extent it is a battle anyway, is in education and getting people to ask questions, wonder why, wonder how, wonder who, and what.

Thank you! That is exactly the way I feel about this. Now if only someone could explain this to that ass Dawkins as he and his ilk do far more harm than good for science and rationalism.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Hello jonfr,

The Royal Center fault, our candidate fault for the earthquake, is a deep crustal fault that is probably similar in character, though NOT in size or 'genetic affinity' to the huge crustal faults responsible for the present day Rocky Mountains. The examples you list in your post are indeed subduction zone related tectonics and the plate shifting up or down is a result of that close proximity.

The Royal Center would have been an intra-plate earthquake perhaps in a fashion similar to the New Madrid earthquakes of recent historical fame. (google New Madrid earthquake for a pleathora of interesting links!) As to the scale of our proposed earthquake, I'll readily admit to not knowing enough to intelligently speculate on exact magnitude, but to drop an area like this multiple feet at once, it probably wasn't small!

An excellent website on paleogeographic reconstructions and continental plates through time is Dr. Ron Blakey's (of Northern Arizona University) page here:

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/nam.html

In fact, check out his reconstruction for 300 million years ago here:

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/namPP300.jpg

Notice that this reconstruction shows all of Illinois to be covered by water. This is well supported in the geologic record here in Illinois. A repeating pattern of sea-level rise and fall, (we think caused by global glaciation taking up water to ice form and then melting away) has lead to the also repeated cycle of sea level fall, exposure of the land surface, colonization by land plants, then rise of sea level and covering with sediment. Repeat again and again. The geologic record shows this as a repeating rock pattern called a 'cyclothem'. Cyclothems being viewed throughout much of the Pennsylvanian period and much of the midcontinent of the U.S. (the Mississippian has a glacial overprint as well, though few coal measures)

In short, I just wanted to point out that showing a sea covering Illinois at 300 million years ago is not a mistake, the 300 million year time indicator in Dr. Blakey's image is a generalized one and shouldn't be taken to mean an absolute rigid date.

Thanks for the link to your earthquake page! I'll be sure to check it out!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Thanks frogstar,

As a geology professor of mine once said: "You can lead a horse to water, but can't make him think!"

My professor was unfortunately describing we students and our inability to 'see' the geologic story that was laid out like a cold lunch in front of us, but it does make a good turn of phrase!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[caffeine_monkey]

Hi Scott, I'm curious about the logistics of finding important discoveries within a setting such as a working coal mine. Given the significance of this find, does the ISGS have any authority at all to ask the company to slow or stop work in sections of the mine while research is done? How accommodating is the company to your requests for access? Thanks for showing up on Slashdot! This is great. I majored in geolgoy at UBC.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[fimbulvetr]

Hello,

I recently finished a lecture by Stephen Nowicki ( http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?c id=1500&id=1500&pc=Science%20and%20Mathematics ).

In it, he spoke about how one of the ideas about why there is coal/oil is that during the carboniferous period there were no heterotrophs at the start of the period, and none for about 60MY afterwards. Since they couldn't decompose the biological material, it simply all "pooled up".

I find this idea spectacular and was wondering if the amount of preservation could possibly be used to reenforce/disprove this idea by identifying heterotrophs or the lack thereof?

Re:Some background information for folks.

[jonfr]

Thanks for the picture. It was most informative. Based on what they say about The new Madrid fault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Fault_Zon e), the ground did sink, lake did vanish and so on in the last earthquake events that did happen there more then 200 years ago (19th century). I find it more then possible that something like that did happen in the fossil area that you are studying, given that it has similar fault lines in the rock. But that is just my speculation and nothing more.

I did try to find information on the the royal center fault, but I didn't find any information on it.

I have seen swamps that have tree remains in them here in Iceland (~10.000 years old?), in a area that once was a dry land but was a swamp later on and until it was dried up by farmers. The land is always changeing, and it is no different in Iceland then in the U.S.

300 million years is a long time for things to change in the rock. Have you seen any notable deformation in the rock of the area ? Like bend rocks, remains of hot springs and so on. I also wonder if any animal remains have been found, besides sea scorpions. But there is a good chance that nothing more had evolved during the time the forest got under mud and changed into fossils.

Thanks for the answers.

I am located in Iceland, on a rock base that is 3.3 to 8.5 million year old. Quite different from what you have in the U.S.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Good questions.

The ISGS is not a regulatory agency in any way. We are a scientific branch of state government and charged with understanding (to the best of our ability) the geology of the state. So we are not really in a position to make demands!

Having said that, I have nothing but positive things to say about Peabody Energy and their accomodation of our desires and wants. If we needed to get into just about any part of the mine that was still open (baring safety issues of course) they found a way to get us there.

When we show up for visits, we cost the company the man work hours of the miner showing us around as well as his salary cost and the cost of transportation in the mine. I know for certain that our mere presence was disruptive to their operations and yet they went out of their way to help us out. Like I said, nothing but praise from us! In fact, they even shared drill hole information with us to help figure out the rock layer thicknesses that was vital to our landscape reconstructions.

We actually want them to mine as much coal as possible. Why? Because every mined passageway is a new exposure of roof rock for us to look for fossils. And the company, for their own economic reasons, wants to leave as much of that fossil bearing shale behind as it is junk rock to them for the purpose of selling coal! A nice symbiotic relationship!

The logistics aspect is kind of interesting too. Coal mines are dusty somewhat confusing places to work. You have only the light on your cap lamp to see with, you need to keep your location pinpointed on the mine map (no GPS in the mines! Though in-mine navigation is coming to a few mines), keep an eye out for fossils... keeping track of what you are seeing and how it fits into the bigger picture is a physical and mental challenge.

Anyone who has been out mapping geology or working in a field that requires concurrent mental and physical activity, knows that sometimes you can work for hours in a particular spot and only after seeing large areas can you start to build a framework in your head of whats going on. In fact, one of the most important lessons on this was taught to me by my co-worker John Nelson at the ISGS. When John encounters some interesting geology in a mine, the first thing he does is NOT examine the feature, but to look all around the feature, up adjacent passageways and everywhere else but at the actual feature. Only after he has seen the surrounding geology, i.e. the context of the thing in question does he start to examine the feature in question. It really helps hone your thinking in on what the possibilities may be.

Sorry, digressed there. In this investigation a big issue was the really large area we needed to cover. We're talking about a lot of feet of passageways to walk down, looking for good sampling locations. So we had to make 'intelligent haste' (sounds like a cool new spell for AD&D), picking our target areas carefully in order to get maximum sampling coverage as well as the flexibility to target in on specific areas for more concentrated study on resolving geologic issues.

All this while keeping an eye out any possible dangerous conditions (loose rocks overhead, bad roof conditions, mud holes in the floor). Is it any wonder the mine sends an employee to look after us? A mine is not a place for the absent minded professor!

In short. I loved every minute of it. :)

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Yes, not much in print on the Royal Center fault on the web that I could find. I know we have some publications that reference it but I can't recall the pub titles off hand. (need to look back at my compiled notes)

As to deformation features, the Illinois Basin has certainly seen the 'far-field' effects of continental collisions but it is really pretty well protected in the center of the North American plate and has mainly seen deformation along reactivated basement faults. Every time something big was happening out east or west on a continental scale those basement faults would jostle and shift a bit, sliding up or down bending the rocks above the faults into gentle folds... or sometimes breaking and faulting to the surface. Pretty tame though when compared to California! For this area, the dominant structural feature (aside from the down-dropped fault block) is the Illinois Basin itself. A large, slowly subsiding cratonic depression that has been a locus of deposition since at least the very latest pre-cambrian, 600+ million years ago.

I'm sure animal remains were there to be found... but we missed them, only seeing the Eurypterid pieces. The fossil plants certainly dominated the setting and the bulk of our efforts were in fleshing that part of the story out.

By the way, I would very much like to visit Iceland! What a beautiful combination of fire and ice!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Interesting!

I admit to this being the first time I have heard of this idea so forgive me if I don't have a reasoned answer for you. (knowing ones ignorance is a good thing!)

I think some of the complicating factors in testing out this concept would be that there are major oil and coal deposits in the world of Jurassic (180 million to 140 million years ago) and Cretaceous (140 million to 65 million years ago) age, well after the arrival of heterotrophs.

Now it could be that the volume of oil and coal is less for these more recent time periods in comparison to the pre-heterotroph time, but I don't have any direct knowledge about this and you should consider the above speculation only!

I also wonder how the geographic arrangement of the continents over time has affected the productivity of these biologic dumping grounds. For example, the Pennsylvanian time period has just the right combination of climate, geographic distribution of land, sea and species to turn the then equatorial belts of central North America and Western Europe into veritable vegetation producing power houses. I would speculate that a different geographic setting.. say alot more ocean at the equator and less land could have produced a different biologic concentration.

I hasten to add though that this is the first I have thought about this and I'm figuratively spinning my wheels!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[jlowe]

I surely do not want to have another trollfest on religion, but what data do you quote to say that 50% of people literally believe the world was created 6000 years ago?

Re:Some background information for folks.

[coolGuyZak]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that Dawkins, Harris, et al. are complete douches. :D

I've been following this thread for about 10 or so posts now, and I'd like to thank slashdotsyncline/Scott for answering our many questions. It's given me quite a few ideas for several personal projects (designing virtual worlds--I'm quite interested in making them more immersive/believable).

And, to those ends, I have a question for syncline: Could you describe the process used to collect the fossils once they were discovered? You went into it briefly in this post.

And for fun: As a member of your state geological survey, what would you do if you encountered hyper-evolving alien life at a meteor crash site?

Thanks once again for your help, Scott!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[drew]

I was curious about that too. Perhaps we was stating the percentage of Americans who consider themselves to be "Christian" or "strongly religious" or whatever wording happened to be used in some particular survey. Even among strongly religious people, not everyone believes in the literal interpretation of Genesis. After all, Genesis also mentions God laying out the four corners of the earth, and you don't hear too many fundamentalists still arguing that the earth is flat, do you?

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Excellent links. Thanks for adding them!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Grishnakh]

I'm not saying the 6000-year-old-earth this isn't ridiculous; it plainly is. What's scary is that so many Americans believe this way, and these people are also extremely vocal and active in politics, and worse, pushing for their beliefs to be taught as science in place of credible science. This is going to spell disaster for this country in a generation or two.

As far as respecting beliefs, I'm afraid I can't say the same, at least on this kind of thing. It's not much different from looking up at a bright, blue sky, and the person next to you telling you they "have faith" that the sky is green, when it's plainly not. Should we respect this person's ridiculous belief, or dismiss them as a crackpot? Another good comparison would be to flat-earthers. Beliefs are fine if they deal with things that simply aren't knowable by direct observation, but if someone insists on believing things in direct contradiction with overwhelming evidence, there's something clearly very wrong. And if we have a whole culture doing this, that's extremely disturbing.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[Grishnakh]

I was curious about that too. Perhaps we was stating the percentage of Americans who consider themselves to be "Christian" or "strongly religious" or whatever wording happened to be used in some particular survey.

Actually, the statistics I've seen show somewhere between 40-50% of Americans call themselves Evangelical Christians, not just "Christian". The Evangelical ones are the fundamentalists, which also entails the young-earth belief.

Even among strongly religious people, not everyone believes in the literal interpretation of Genesis.

That's true for other sects of Christianity, and typical of the rest of the Christian population in the world, but the in the USA, evangelicalism has somehow exploded in the past few decades.

After all, Genesis also mentions God laying out the four corners of the earth, and you don't hear too many fundamentalists still arguing that the earth is flat, do you?

No, because that one's too easy to disprove by modern travel. But the young-earth idea isn't much different, considering the overwhelming evidence against it. Then again, when these people just dismiss all that as false and planted by God to test our faith (or planted by the devil to weaken our faith), overwhelming evidence isn't of much use.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

I guess my overall feeling can be summed up by a Winston Churchill quote:

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject"

I agree that ignorance of science is a problem... especially as it impacts policy decisions and the future of my baby daughter (it only really hits, when it hits home). Will things need to get worse before they get better? Does the U.S. need to lose its (arguable) science and technology leadership role in the world before changes occur. I.e. do we need another Sputnik to give us a kick in the pants? The answer may be yes. I do however, believe that things like this can change rather quickly given the proper motivation. The motivation? Either get with the times or get eaten. (as a relevant culture) It is my fervent hope that our society, that prides itself on 'We're number 1!' will do what is necessary to get back there.

The question becomes then, what do I (you) do about this? Personally, I think the most effective use my time is not spent trying to convince the unconvinceable. Instead I prefer to educate and motivate, try to get those brains wondering and thinking. The effort in letting lose an active questioning mind is worth way more than banging your head against that particular brick wall.

Am I worried? Yes.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[jonfr]

Thanks for the answers.

I was wondering how the bottom of the man made "cave" looks like. If there are rocks to be found there that is.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Hi CGZ!

Glad to be inspirational for you!

Question about the fossil collecting process:

There are two answers to your query. The first details what we do for our sampling study (i.e. population counts, etc..). The second details the physical sampling process (which is painfully obvious once you read it...).

The first step in any population sampling of course is getting the lay of the land first. I.e. what areas are available for the study. Because of the huge distances to cover in our study, we would go to an area in the mine, scout around and see what the make up of the forest was and then try to find a representative locality to sample. Sampling then consisted of 'quartering' the locality and proceeding to rate each identified species as 'rare', 'common', etc.. within each quarter. (Counting actual numbers would be an exercise in futility as the numbers are just too great)

The physical collection process was based on what we observed in the population sampling. We wanted to collect physical specimens that reflected the general plant distributions of each locality. So for example, if there were alot of seed ferns and very few reeds we looked for a physical specimen that showed just that. The collection itself?

Heh heh, like every other geologist in the world looking for samples! Find the stuff that is already loose and free! Basically we looked in the fallen roof material until we found a slab that contained just the right balance of species to reflect what we observed. That could mean taking two or three smaller chunks to get the right balance.

The fun question? Do I get to date Julianne Moore? Sign me up! (sorry honey, I don't mean it... really!)

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

A coal mine looks a lot like an extremely dusty low-ceiling network of orthogonally intersecting hallways.

The walls, floor and ceiling are covered in whitish gray limestone dust... sprayed on just after the mining process in order to protect against explosions propagating in the mine. (the basic idea is that if there is an explosion in the mine, from excess methane for example, the limestone dust gets kicked up into the onrushing air mass, snuffing out the combustion.)

Areas that have been exposed for some time often will show signs of roof sloughing. Yearly summer humidity in the air swells clays in the roof shale, making them expand and winter dry air makes the clay contract (dries the clay out). Over time the 'pulsating' roof shale spalls off the ceiling and exposes big gray swaths of roof shale which in this mine also contained many black carbonized plant fossils.

Hope that helps!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[iamlucky13]

Hi Scott,

This is probably an odd question, but your praise of Peabody Energy at a time when criticism of coal producers runs high interests me. It's very encouraging and counters arguments that corporations are inherently evil, etc., yet at the same time, I wonder at their reasons for being so generous with their resources. Do you know if their operations managers share some interest in the unique finds that can be made in a coal mine or like the distraction from the daily grind? Perhaps upper management sees this as an opportunity to build positive public image? Or maybe these resources, despite how hard they are to come by for a state-funded researcher, are glossed over as trivial in a major coal mine?

Whatever the reason, good luck to you and your colleagues. Don't spend too much taxpayer time replying with your thoughts. ;)

Re:Some background information for folks.

[slashdotsyncline]

Actually, most of my replies as well as my initial posting have been from home! So minimal tax dollar waste I assure you! :)

Phew... Well, I can't even begin to speculate on larger questions such as the ones you've posted, and honestly can only speak from my own experiences. But as I mentioned before, Peabody has been very accomodating to us and we do appreciate it!

Re:Some background information for folks.

[lpangelrob]

I tried to come up with something insightful to ask, but I'm just glad you managed to find something of value near Danville.

Re:Some background information for folks.

[coolGuyZak]

Awesome. Thanks for the response.

Bite your tongue

[Gazzonyx]

Listen, dude, say what you will, think what you want, but don't believe that aren't Christians who die every day for their faith. If you think it's funny you've never worried day and night for a family member.

I always wonder why the world hates America and then I understand it all when I read crap like this. You have your religious freedom and freedom of speech; and you use them to arrogantly make jokes while others who aren't so fortunate die for what they believe in. And you don't even have the common courage to put your name on it. I urge you to think long and hard about yourself.

Re:Bite your tongue

[Gazzonyx]

I'm an American; that's why I assume that the quote could only come from an American. However, you're right. Forgive me, I didn't mean to lash out the way that I did; I meant no offense to my fellow countrymen.

Aw crap...

[Cervantes]

Aw crap, an actual expert showed up ...

*sigh* CmdrTaco, close the doors, put up the sign, slashdot is now officially closed.

CleverNickName, time to end the charade... everyone deserves to know you're actually William (fucking) Shatner just pretending to be WW. Please let Wil out of your basement, his mother misses him.

Would all editors who are actually bots step forward? We have a betting pool going.

Rob, it's time to admit you never actually got married, and are still a virgin. Yes, yes, most of us bought it with the "Will you marry me" post, but after last years "OMG Ponies!"... well, let's just say that ruined any image of you as a heterosexual male.

Thanks everyone, for many fine years of uninformed and biased internet discussion. I know it was only a matter of time till an actual expert showed up, but still, I'm a little sad to see it all end. I'm not sure how I'll get my next chapter of the scientology books... but at least now I can safely view "the poisoned post" without forever losing my mod rights.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.
RIP /.
(Netcraft confirms it)
1997 - 2007

(PS: Thanks for the excellent, informative post, and congratulations on your find!) :D

Re:Aw crap...

[slashdotsyncline]

Heh heh.. Thanks a bunch Cervantes!

When I was making my nightly visit to Slashdot... (no I shant admit the ACTUAL number of times I visit!) I saw the headline, sighed and thought, "Okay bucko, time to earn your keep!"

It's actually been a lot of fun to share our excitement!

Re:Aw crap...

[Cervantes]

Actually, I know how you feel... last year I made my once-daily visit to Slashdot, and saw the movie I'm working on had made the front page... it's a weird, yet great, feeling. :)

On more serious notes... it sounds like you only had a short time to explore this find. Did the mining company keep mining? Is this the kind of thing that (would have/should have/could have) been preserved as a historic artifact? Why wasn't it? Because it's too big, or the coal is too valuable, or it's something you can look at and then be done with and not have to preserve much of?

I thought peat bogs had aquatic creatures in them still. Shouldn't you have expected to find some sort of prehistoric salamanders or something trapped in there?

And because I'm a little unclear on the actual process... did you actually find organic (or formerly organic) material, or just the imprints thereof? I know this isn't bugs-in-amber kind of stuff, but what's the actual state of the items you found?

Re:Aw crap...

[slashdotsyncline]

Yeah, the fifteen minutes will probably run out any moment now!

Peabody Energy (owners of the coal mines) was extremely accommodating of our work in the mine. As they mined the coal, they exposed more and more roof shale for us to examine... and yes they kept on mining. We were able to easily go around their operations and stay out of their way.

I'm afraid you are correct in that it is something you look at, record and describe to the best of your ability and then take out the best samples you can. That's one of the reasons we try to visit the mines on a regular basis. To see what's going on geologically! Fortunately, you can go see a bit of this fossil forest today at the museum of science and industry in Chicago. When they remodeled their coal mining exhibit a few years ago (6 or 7 I think) Riola mine donated a big slab of shale containing plant fossils for display.

We did find a few pieces of a Eurypterid, a fossil 'sea-scorpian' but this was a plant dominated fossil assemblage and thats where we spent the majority of our time!

Good question about the state of the fossils. As you will be able to see from the pictures we post on Friday, most of the plants show up as carbonized impressions on the shale. Some of the plant material actually transforms all the way to coal if it was thick enough to begin with.

Re:Aw crap...

[Cervantes]

Hey, here's another odd question. How rare is it?

I mean, I know it's damn rare to find something of this scale, and created this way. But the actual contents, fossil imprints, and little bits of critter... ignoring the scale, are they (relatively) common to find, or are these rare finds being lost to the march of industry? Did you find a buried school lab of Apple ]['s, or a functional Enigma machine complete with users manual and an old, grey-bearded knight who will explain it all as long as you don't go beyond the seal in the greatroom?

Re:Aw crap...

[slashdotsyncline]

In a funny way, the 'march of industry' will end up both providing the chance to see and study... and eventually (when the mine closes) close it as well.

I would say that plant fossils in general are relatively common in association with coal seams and by extension with coal mines in Illinois. More so mines with non-marine sediment rock covering the coal. (like the gray shale of these mines). Outside of coal seams the rarity increases quite a bit. Often times concretions found in a variety of localities will reveal fossil plants. (Mazon creek in Illinois for example).

To answer by way of your analogy? I would say buried school lab of Apple ]['s... found in Cupertino, CA! In otherwords, common in the places where you would expect to find them.

Hows that?

they don't have much of a choice

[misanthrope101]

But a bigger problem is anti-scientists who deliberately fail to differentiate between theory, hypothesis, and that first-step sense of wonder which is at the root of discovery

But if they stopped caricaturing science then it would be much harder to oppose what they've been opposing since the Enlightenment. They have to build a case, go on the offensive, and attack the scientific/methodologically materialistic way of looking at the world, which they can't credibly do if they don't "fail to differentiate between theory, hypothesis, and that first-step sense of wonder which is at the root of discovery".

They have to jumble it up so they can quote-mine any sentence made by any science-type person, at any time, on any subject, out of context to show their audience, "Look how silly scientists are! They think they're smarter than God!" They can't make a case without caricaturing science, because they have no case of their own, and science works so well (as they plainly see, looking around them). So they're stuck with misrepresentation--i.e. bearing false witness.

Re:Informative!?!?! Mods, try Offtopic

[WheelDweller]

Well, when I saw the original post, I quickly determined it to be one of two things: 1) A goofball like the one that posted the GPL, or 2) a Christian spreading around the kind of crap that makes people like you hate Christianity. Either way, I wanted to set the record straight.

There are a great many mistruths that abound about Christianity; assumptions by people who've never really read the Bible and want to denegrate it read snippets out of context and share it with the world because, if they actually read it like they where meant to, they'd feel guilty about the things they do to other people.

The Bible is, in fact, mono-racist; references to Isreal are about the people with a relationship to God, not a scrap of terra firma that inspires great pain these days. At the well....seems like it was in Matthew, a Samarian woman sat with Christ, just days before his crucifixion. He said "Soon no one will make sacrifices in those temples." He also said, "You will destroy this temple (me) and I will raise it back up again in 3 days".

God isn't a God, unless he's here for everyone. Why would he care, Jew versus Greek, slave versus free? These are minor differences, many we assign ourselves.

Leviticus 26 has the patent for the Promised Land; it also tells the Jews how to live there, and flourish. It also says "Ignore my laws, and the land will vomit you out [like the Caananites before you]." Another old-testament scripture warns of there being 490 years of living there before judgement is given them, and they were brutally savaged, about 2/3 of them. THIS is the tribulation spoken of in Revelation, not some future time.

Christians mean well, but moving as many Jews as possible back there, with the intent of setting up altars for animal sacrifices again (and having 2/3 of them killed) is just not how the Bible reads. Why would Christ die on the cross, in complete redemption of our sins, and then have those that ignore his sacrifice start with animals again? It's just wrong.

The Jews had 490 ("7*70") years in which to live in the Promised Land, with a chance to keep the Mosaic law, and they didn't. Jews, like the rest of the world, need to find Him.

What's sad is that the Muslims are not permitted to address their God at all; perhaps in fear that they might actually find the real one. There's just these millions of people, living in misery, by the sword, who'll never know the articulate genious of a loving God. And how so many people simply ignore Him completely and throw stones at those who know Him.

Re:Informative!?!?! Mods, try Offtopic

[246o1]

Well, I hate to continue this offtopic discussion, but suffice to say that I do NOT hate Christians, Christianity, etc. I happen to be Christian, as I noted (though I understand the mocking quotes might have made it seem untrue). I just don't see how anyone can think the Moabites, just to pick a random name out of my head, are not treated in a racist way in the Bible. God's always telling the Israelites to go and kill the other races, talking about how unclean they are, etc. There's a reason the Old Testament God is thought of in terms of fire and brimstone.

I find your biblical interpretations completely unconvincing, and your pointless anti-Islam comment, well, pointless. Anyhow, that's all I have to say on the topic, time to go eat dinner

Re:Informative!?!?! Mods, try Offtopic

[WheelDweller]

Anti-Islam? That's not a charge I'd have guessed would be leveled. Unlike most Christians, I'm anti-zionist; that's an Arab viewpoint.

Yeah, it kinda looked like what I see so much here, any time I try to chime in on secularist programming gone awry. "Hate" was a little strong, and I'm sorry...I couldn't think of the next level below it.

Now sure, there's times where the Jews were directed to kill other races; one that comes to mind was one where genocide was called for. In that case, the parents of that clan were killing (sacrificing) and then EATING their own children. But things were different under Mosaic law.

By non-racist, I mean in it's redemption. Nothing in there for example, says that dark-skinned peoples need to be punished. Age-old thoughts that 'the mark of Caanan' means negro is just ill-guided. But there's been a lot of this sort of thing from Christianity.

Capernicus is a good example; for the 'crime' of suggesting the Earth isn't the center of the universe (though it certainly seems to be the center of attention) he spent the last 8 years of his life confined to his house. That was just dumb.

Similarly, thinking that the world is only 6,000 years old from a crude, literal reading of Genesis and Numbers (without in-depth understanding of the books and the style of the text) is so easily defeated by commonly available evidence. But Christians seem slow to correct themselves. My original post was intended to illuminate that the 6,000 figure is wrong, and we should stop saying it.

Anti-Islam? I thought that realizing the culture of hate, preventing them by law to find redemption was one of the saddest things in the world. I'm no more anti-Islam than I'm anti JW or Mormon. Like so many times, it's not the people, but the organizational limitations. I'm for *everyone* finding their maker...not just people whose language I share...

[And yeah, off-topic, now...let's let it go.]

Re:Upright

[titusjan]

Not that I'm actually thinking of leaving job my job or taking up a geology study, but geology does interest me. So I'm curious: why is the demand for geologist growing? Is this in the industry or at universities?

Re:Upright

[sc7007]

I would encourage taking as much geology as possible. I am a geologist. I must, however unfortunately, correct one thing. The outside work is tough to get and doesn't typically pay as much as the inside work. The better paying outside work usually is one's own research in academia, though I am sure that many geologists in the petroleum industry spend a bit of time outdoors. Most of the rest of the jobs are low paying grunt work, such as groundwater monitoring. That being said, I can think of no better career than that of a geologist.

What is going to happen now ?

[unity100]

Will state or federal geological survey or a university take over the coal mine ? Or will mining operations continue ?

this is an important find, even someone not affiliated with archeology, geology, prehistory and whatnot can tell that. if coal mining operation destroys stuff, it wont be good.

Re:Upright

[ElectricRook]

The demand growth in the US has several causes. The number of college Students into sciences is down. The majority of Geologists are older, and retiring. The amount of environmental cleanup/monitoring/planning work increases with government regulations. Not only existing environmental issues, but growth. Increased demand for fuel oil, coal, uranium. Increased demand for raw materials such as clay, gravel, base metals, precious metals. Go checkout geology.com.

Re:Upright

[ElectricRook]

As a break from electronics, I worked in agriculture for three years 13 years ago. Now that my kids are teen-agers, I can travel without being a huge burden on the wife. I've been trying to get back out of doors. And electronics is increasing in it's flight from the US.

Re:Upright

[shplorb]

Demand is growing because China and India are booming and rapidly industrialising. The resultant demand for raw materials has seen a boon in mineral exploration and mining.

You can earn incredible money in the Australian mining industry right now because there's a huge shortage of skilled labour. It's not just geologists, surveyors and engineers - it's also everyday trades like electricians, welders, metalworkers, carpenters, concreters, etc. as well as unskilled labour like drill rig operators, dump truck and excavator drivers and even cleaners and caterers!

The boom in commodities prices means that mines can pay big bucks to get people in, and it's draining people away from all other industries. It's particularly hurting farming districts because the country is in the grip of a drought that has been going on for five years or so and all the farmers and tradesmen that depend on farmers spending money are leaving to work in the mines.

Re:Upright

[sc7007]

... And electronics is increasing in it's flight from the US. Well, at least the rocks aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Carboniferous

[5c11]

You might remember the Carboniferous era as a "swampy time of giant dragonflies and tree ferns"...

Re:spring festivals

[JoGlo]

Easter was not stolen from the fertility / spring festivals of pagans. It was a takeover of Passover.

... which itself was a rip off from the pre Judaic festival.