A week's reprieve, good for everyone's head and heart.

Lion IRC wrote:
2. Those werent "challenges".

So what the hell are they?

Lion IRC wrote:

Genesis 6:13 wrote:
So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

This is why Flood debates always end in tears for atheists.

Tears resulting from pants-wetting laughter at the absurdity of the entire story, certainly.

Lion IRC wrote:The story begins with God saying what He is going to do.

Well since this entity has only ever been asserted to exist, that's your problem straight away. On the other hand, hard physical evidence from the real world says that your fantasy flood never happened. Which you can only try and circumvent by erecting a second assertion, namely that magic was involved. Which [1] is useless, because [2] there is no evidence for the existence of magic, and [3] there is plenty of evidence from the scientific literature to the effect that magic is superfluous to requirements and irrelevant with respect to vast classes of real world observational phenomena.

Lion IRC wrote:You cannot "debate" what God is and is not capable of doing.

But it's perfectly legitimate for supernaturalists to erect assertions about this? Congratulations on demonstrating the utter worthlessness of supernaturalist apologetics. Here's a clue for you: anyone can erect blind assertions, but it takes more effort to erect evidentially supported postulates.

Lion IRC wrote:For an atheist to attempt this it is like a boxer leading with their chin.

What part of "demonstrating that REALITY makes a mockery of supernaturalist blind assertions" is equal to this, precisely?

Lion IRC wrote:

hackenslash wrote:On the contrary. Since your preposterous fucking magic man doesn't exist, we can say with certainty that he can do exactly fuck all. Flood debates never end in tears for atheists, because the evidence says that your flood was a fucking fantasy.

That is a different argument.

No it isn't. You assert that the fantasy flood described in 3,000 year old mythology was a real event. We then provide evidence from the real world that it wasn't. Game. Fucking. Over.

Lion IRC wrote:You dont need to waste pages and pages arguing the fine details of MRCA or shipbuilding or plate tectonics and theists dont need to EITHER. You lose because the Noahs Ark account INCLUDES the assistance of a divine Being

The relevant mythology isn't an "account", because the event never happened. And your assertion that a purportedly "divine" entity participated in this is nothing more than another unsupported blind assertion.

Lion IRC wrote:and what you are trying to do now is have the debate with God airbrushed out.

No, what we're saying is that supernaturalist assertions that magic was involved remain unsupported blind assertions. Because if supernaturalists had any genuine evidence to bring to the table, they'd have brought it to the table before now.

Lion IRC wrote:In fact your entire case rests on the claim BY YOU that God does not exist.

We have yet to see evidence from any supernaturalists that this merely asserted entity is something other than the figment of Bronze Age imagination.

Lion IRC wrote:Its a non sequitur and you know it. This thread would have some traction for you if it was titled....

Ordinary Guy Expects Unusually Heavy Downpour
- Tries to Build Really Big Boat and Fill it With Animals All By Himself

The trouble is, your mythology erects the relevant assertions with respect to this purported "event". And, when those assertions are subject to testing to destruction on the anvil of REALITY, they crumble.

Lion IRC wrote:You lose.

No, you lose. Because you have to erect the assertion that a magic entity was involved, and no evidence exists to support the existence of ANY magic entity.

If Christians feel the need to use magic to prop up this absurd fantasy flud why the hate for Harry Potter?

Lion, I have a serious question for you.

Aside from the Bible, what evidence, indeed, what reasons have you to believe in your flood at all?

Alan C wrote:If Christians feel the need to use magic to prop up this absurd fantasy flud why the hate for Harry Potter?

Competition.



Seriously, their belief in magic ...er, the power of prayer... make them believe that other forms of magic works. That's why they got so worked up about Dungeons & Dragons and the "spell books" in the game back in the 80's.

Alan C wrote:If Christians feel the need to use magic to prop up this absurd fantasy flud why the hate for Harry Potter?

The magic has to be properly authorised. Only some ju-ju counts, and the fact that the story was stolen straight from the Gilgamesh myth is handily glossed over.

Alan C wrote:If Christians feel the need to use magic to prop up this absurd fantasy flud why the hate for Harry Potter?

But Harry Potter is BAD magic ... the Jeez only uses GOOD magic. Can't you see???

Besides, it's not really "magic" - it's miracles. Totally different.

Blitzkrebs wrote:Lion, I have a serious question for you.

Aside from the Bible, what evidence, indeed, what reasons have you to believe in your flood at all?

Hi Blitzkrebs,

Good question.

I have the quite reasonable logic that any number of a huge variety of events (whether natural or supernatural) would have no difficulty causing the extermination of every human being on earth except a "lucky" few and that those few could go on to re-populate the earth. This is not a preposterous scenario. Such an event could have happened at a time so long ago that the residual evidence may or may not support it.

You want to exclude the bible. That very convenient and a common request from atheists - fair enough. But I would argue that there was no bible record of this event until long after the event itself. Therefore, whoever wrote about the event didnt have a "bible" for evidence or reason to do so and was acting upon something else.

Lion (IRC)
PS - Thwoth - I take it from your last post (#p386564) that you dont really think I am a troll. You wouldnt want to engage in an ongoing discussion with someone you thought of as a troll would you?

Summaring Lion's answer to the question "apart from the Bible, what evidence do you have that the flood occurred?":

None.

Lion IRC wrote:
snip...
You want to exclude the bible. That very convenient and a common request from atheists - fair enough. But I would argue that there was no bible record of this event until long after the event itself. Therefore, whoever wrote about the event didnt have a "bible" for evidence or reason to do so and was acting upon something else.
snip...

Oh no, let's not exclude the Bible. There exists far too many internal contradictions, mistakes and outright falsehoods for us to simply let this pass. The story of the flood is one of the BEST examples of just such shortcomings.

The reason the flood myth was written in the temporal manner in which it was is because the author was making up shit to impress the ignorant. He was a master at his craft because there are millions of those which still believe the story. It's easy to make up stories when nobody can fact check things, but we now have the ability to discern there is no physical evidence that the flood ever happened. We've been looking for this evidence for a long time now, and the first to begin looking were those of faith, much like you, and they didn't find any either.

So, it now falls to you, Lion, to provide ANY testable evidence in support of your position. Stop evading, subject changing and questioning us. It's far past time for you to produce something of substance in your argument(s). I challenge you to impress us with something factual and that can be verified by independent observers. (Not just for Lion, but rather of all supporters of the flood myth).

RS

xrayzed wrote:Summaring Lion's answer to the question "apart from the Bible, what evidence do you have that the flood occurred?":

None.

Blitzkrebs did say "reasons"

I'm sorry if I'm repeating something that's already been asked (haven't read all 12 pages), but I've never heard a creationist explain the existence of more than four functional alleles in a diploid animal population's gene pool if they were all descended from the two survivors on Noah's Ark. It seems to me that we could point to many, many cases and they would be forced to say that either the Bible was wrong about the number of survivors or that quite a lot of beneficial mutations have occurred in a relatively short time since the flood... and with the mindset they have, neither admission is allowed.

Latimeria wrote:I'm sorry if I'm repeating something that's already been asked (haven't read all 12 pages), but I've never heard a creationist explain the existence of more than four functional alleles in a diploid animal population's gene pool if they were all descended from the two survivors on Noah's Ark. It seems to me that we could point to many, many cases and they would be forced to say that either the Bible was wrong about the number of survivors or that quite a lot of beneficial mutations have occurred in a relatively short time since the flood... and with the mindset they have, neither admission is allowed.

Sssshhhhhhhh!!!

Hi Latimeria,
There was a random mutation.
Lion (IRC)

Lion IRC wrote:Hi Latimeria,
There was a random mutation.
Lion (IRC)

Just the one then?

Lion IRC wrote:

hackenslash wrote:According to your turgid book of preposterous wibble, they're all descended from the 8 that were on board. Of course, you could only accept such moronic drivel if you had no understanding of the importance of genetic diversity.

You still have no argument.

Eight post-flood humans is eight MORE than the number of humans on earth at the time when there were NO humans on earth. Seems like eight is a good head start for MRCA genetic diversity compared to starting out at zero.

This seems like a perfect example of what I was just talking about, except with the number of people.

Source of the quotes below: http://paleo.cc/ce/ark-gene.htm

and within the human population, a given gene can have many different alleles--in some cases 20 or more. One gene locus in the human leukocyte antigen complex has 59 different alleles (Ayala, 1993). However, each individual person normally has only two alleles for a given gene locus (one allele from each parent).

Even if we allow the possibility that Noah's sons were adopted and that all eight people on the ark were unrelated, each could have carried only 2 different alleles for each gene locus, and the entire ark family would have 2 x 8 = 16 alleles for each gene locus. One might propose that there were more than 8 people on the Ark (one would need at least 30 to supply the necessary alleles), but this contradicts the Biblical account.

Lion IRC wrote:Hi Latimeria,
There was a random mutation.
Lion (IRC)

Not just one, Lion.
There would have to be a hell of a lot of random mutations going on across the entire gamut of living species... the example I just gave illustrates how problematic it can be even for humanity, which had more representatives than the other animals that survived.

Lion IRC wrote: You want to exclude the bible. That very convenient and a common request from atheists - fair enough. But I would argue that there was no bible record of this event until long after the event itself. Therefore, whoever wrote about the event didnt have a "bible" for evidence or reason to do so and was acting upon something else.

The Biblical Flood story is strkingly similar to Gilgamesh Flood which predates it, even Answer in Genesis points out the similarities. The main difference between the two being one is theistic and the other polytheistic. Plain and simple, Christianity adopted that myth but made changes too fit their beliefs.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/flood/ch2.asp.

Lion IRC wrote:I have the quite reasonable logic that any number of a huge variety of events (whether natural or supernatural) would have no difficulty causing the extermination of every human being on earth except a "lucky" few and that those few could go on to re-populate the earth. This is not a preposterous scenario. Such an event could have happened at a time so long ago that the residual evidence may or may not support it.

That's it? "I believe it can happen?".

Oh, and it is a preposterous scenario.

You've already been told - I don't know how many times - that the flood myth as explained in the Bible could not possibly have even happened. So far you haven't even been able to explain why the scientific community is in error regarding the fundamental laws of physics, mathematics and chemistry. Indeed, the mathematician John Allen Paulos managed to demolish your bullshit in a single paragraph using contemporary understanding thereof:

The Book of Genesis says of the Flood that ‘… all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered…’ Taken literally, this seems to indicate that there were 10,000 to 20,000 feet of water on the surface of the earth, equivalent to more than half a billion cubic miles of liquid! Since, according to biblical accounts, it rained for forty days and forty nights, or at least for only 960 hours, the rain must have fallen at the rate of at least fifteen feet per hour, certainly enough to sink any aircraft carrier, much less an ark with thousands of animals on board.

- Innumeracy

What part of this don't you understand? But I'll leave the physics to Cali, especially since he's dealt with your kitsch before and could easily bring back some old threads from RDF for your enjoyment.

Lion IRC wrote:You want to exclude the bible. That very convenient and a common request from atheists - fair enough.

Bullshit. We're looking for corroborative evidence for the Bible's testimony. In case it hasn't registered with you, a global, genocidal flood dating from as recently as the Bronze Age is a big fucking deal. The repopulation of nigh every species at the time via only two individuals of each is a big fucking deal. The truth thereof should be within reach of the modern tools of science, which are powerful to detect the existence of planets that aren't even in the same solar system.

Lion IRC wrote:Therefore, whoever wrote about the event didnt have a "bible" for evidence or reason to do so and was acting upon something else.

[/quote]

Mythology?