2 Genesis, Chapter 9 - somewhere, under the rainbow
Old Yahweh began this chapter (9:1) by commanding Noah and his sons to replenish the Earth. He gave them a couple of other commandments as well, that are worth a closer look.
He informed Noah (9:2), et al, that from that point forward, all living creatures would fear Man and that He would have dominion over them. But why would that be important to a god? How much easier to have venison stew for dinner, if a Man could walk right up to a deer and whack him over the head with a frying pan? And if you really want a fun-filled afternoon, try telling a hungry tiger just how much dominion you have over him - oh, and you might want to mention that god said so, that should help --
But there's good news too! Man could finally stop eating grass - in this verse, god granted Man the right to clog his arteries by wolfing down all of the cheeseburgers He wanted, though with only two of each creature left on earth (or seven, depending upon which fable you prefer), He likely wouldn't be having a Big Mac anytime soon.
God qualified this commandment by prohibiting the consumption of blood (9:4).
In his second commandment (9:6), god established a penalty for murder: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed:" But the ramifications of this commandment are far more complex than at first they might appear. If you kill someone, I must kill you - by god's commandment - but then to follow the commandment religiously (and what other way is there?), because I have killed someone, someone else must kill me, and someone else in turn, must kill Him, and someone else....ever get the feeling that sometimes this god really doesn't think things through?
Then (9:8-17), Yahweh established a covenant, a firm commitment to Man and all of the creatures that were with him, that never again would god bring a flood to extinguish all life on Earth. Epidemics, meteor impacts, global warming, "W," - these were all still on the table, but read my lips, no more floods!
How does a god seal a deal? Could he give his word? Probably not - who'd believe someone who drowned thousands of children and a zillion innocent animals? Maybe a handshake? No, that could be viewed as fraternizing with his peons, and he could never live down that reputation. So he decided on a rainbow! He would set a rainbow in the clouds (9:16), ("...that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.") Suddenly, this great and powerful Oz (pay no attention to the priest behind the curtain) was sounding a lot like an Alzheimer's patient - he needed to see a rainbow to remember not to drown everyone!
I took a class in Geometry in Junior High School. There, I learned an axiom: "the angle of reflection equals the angle of refraction," and this simple truth, along with some basic physics, is used all over the world in a wide variety of endeavors, from astronomy to billiard games. If I hit a billiard ball with a cue ball at a specific angle, the struck ball will move away from the point of impact at the same angle at which it was struck - it's that simple.
Rainbows work the same way, with three minor differences:
• Unless you happen to be standing at the one single point on the Earth at which the sun is directly overhead, the light from the sun always strikes the Earth (and our eyes) at an angle.
• In a vacuum like space, light travels at 186,000 miles per second. But through a medium other than a vacuum, it slows down.
• Light is composed of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, which combined, appear to our eyes as transparent.
Imagine light leaving the sun, headed straight for one particular spot on Earth - the spot directly beneath it - any other point on Earth, the light will strike at an angle. As it enters our atmosphere, it begins to slow as it encounters molecules of the gasses present on our planet. Then it strikes the moisture-laden atmosphere associated with rain, and it slows even more.
We Humans see, because of reflected light bouncing off of the objects at which we look. In the case of the rainbow, we are seeing that light from the sun, which has bounced off of the moisture-laden atmosphere - at the same angle at which it struck - and back to our eyes. The same light is striking moisture all around us, but we see only one rainbow (sometimes two) simply because at only one point are we aligned perfectly with the same angle at which the light struck the moisture.
It's simpler if we imagine the rainbow to be composed of a band of only the three basic, primary colors: red, yellow and blue, and to imagine that where they touch, they blend: red and yellow blend to become orange, yellow and blue blend to produce green, and blue and red blend to make violet. Due to the angle at which it strikes, the first portion of that band will slow appreciably as it hits, then reflect off of the moisture, then the next and so on, until the band of light has broken down - due to their slowing at different times, into the seven colors we know as the visible spectrum.
To follow, is an explanation far more coherent than any I could ever give you - it was blatantly purloined from the How Stuff Works website - science.howstuffworks.com/rainbow2.htm - that I would strongly recommend you visit for all of your knowledge needs, unless of course you're still religious, in which case, better not - we learned in the Garden of Eden that god frowns on Humans having too much knowledge - it makes us uppity --
The operative word in the sentence above, is natural, minus any reference to super!
The Bible would have us believe that before this Covenant, in which god grudgingly said, "OK SpoilSports, I promise not to drown you anymore --" the geometry and physics that combine to produce rainbows, didn't exist.
If the rainbow that this god created and set in the sky, was for the purpose of reminding him not to drown everyone again, of what do you suppose the rainbow the watering truck on the right produced, was designed to remind him?
In the next chapter, we will learn that Ham had a son, whom he named, Canaan. The New American Bible, in a footnote, indicates an authoritative belief that this story was actually a composite of two separate legends (say it isn't so!) - one, in which Ham was the victim of Noah's drunkenness, and in the second, in which it was Ham's son, Canaan, rather than Ham, who exposed himself to a lifetime of nightmares. The footnote goes further to say: "One purpose of the story is to justify the Israelite's enslavement of the Canaanites because of certain indecent sexual practices in the Canaanite religion." Now there's a religion that might be worth exploring! (It's a shame my Groucho impression won't translate to text --)
On a sidenote, the Qur'an devotes an entire sura to Noah, as a prophet, but conveniently omits entirely, the incident of Noah's drunkeness. It would appear that religion, much like history, is written by those in charge, and any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.
On another sidenote, Noah's three sons were generally interpreted in medieval Christianity as the founders of the populations of the three known continents, Japheth: Europe, Shem: Asia, and Ham: Africa. In the 18th and 19th centuries, those passages that insist that the descendants of Ham would serve the descendants of Shem and Japheth, combined with the belief that Ham's sons in general had been literally "blackened" by the curse of Noah, was cited as justification for black slavery.
The chapter concludes by informing us (9:28-29), that Noah lived after the plagiarized flood for three hundred and fifty years, dying at the age of nine hundred and fifty, the last of the ten exceptionally long-lived patriarchs of the Hebrew religion, that correspond closely with those found in the Sumerian King List, mentioned earlier - the long-lived kings of the ancient Mesopotamian culture of the area from which the early Hebrews migrated.
All in all, a very effective fable for keeping human behavior of the superstitious within the acceptable limits of the day - the adult equivalent of telling a child the boogy-man will get him if he doesn't do as he's told.
If, after all of this, you still believe that a global, world-wide flood could ever have happened, and that the biblical Noah could have played the part in it attributed to him in the Bible, I invite you to peruse Problems with a Global Flood, Second Edition, by Mark Isaak, at www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html where you will find far more logical, scientifically provable reasons that this could not possibly have happened, than time, space and inclination would allow me to include here.
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
He informed Noah (9:2), et al, that from that point forward, all living creatures would fear Man and that He would have dominion over them. But why would that be important to a god? How much easier to have venison stew for dinner, if a Man could walk right up to a deer and whack him over the head with a frying pan? And if you really want a fun-filled afternoon, try telling a hungry tiger just how much dominion you have over him - oh, and you might want to mention that god said so, that should help --
But there's good news too! Man could finally stop eating grass - in this verse, god granted Man the right to clog his arteries by wolfing down all of the cheeseburgers He wanted, though with only two of each creature left on earth (or seven, depending upon which fable you prefer), He likely wouldn't be having a Big Mac anytime soon.
God qualified this commandment by prohibiting the consumption of blood (9:4).
In his second commandment (9:6), god established a penalty for murder: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed:" But the ramifications of this commandment are far more complex than at first they might appear. If you kill someone, I must kill you - by god's commandment - but then to follow the commandment religiously (and what other way is there?), because I have killed someone, someone else must kill me, and someone else in turn, must kill Him, and someone else....ever get the feeling that sometimes this god really doesn't think things through?
Then (9:8-17), Yahweh established a covenant, a firm commitment to Man and all of the creatures that were with him, that never again would god bring a flood to extinguish all life on Earth. Epidemics, meteor impacts, global warming, "W," - these were all still on the table, but read my lips, no more floods!
How does a god seal a deal? Could he give his word? Probably not - who'd believe someone who drowned thousands of children and a zillion innocent animals? Maybe a handshake? No, that could be viewed as fraternizing with his peons, and he could never live down that reputation. So he decided on a rainbow! He would set a rainbow in the clouds (9:16), ("...that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.") Suddenly, this great and powerful Oz (pay no attention to the priest behind the curtain) was sounding a lot like an Alzheimer's patient - he needed to see a rainbow to remember not to drown everyone!
I took a class in Geometry in Junior High School. There, I learned an axiom: "the angle of reflection equals the angle of refraction," and this simple truth, along with some basic physics, is used all over the world in a wide variety of endeavors, from astronomy to billiard games. If I hit a billiard ball with a cue ball at a specific angle, the struck ball will move away from the point of impact at the same angle at which it was struck - it's that simple.
Rainbows work the same way, with three minor differences:
• Unless you happen to be standing at the one single point on the Earth at which the sun is directly overhead, the light from the sun always strikes the Earth (and our eyes) at an angle.
• In a vacuum like space, light travels at 186,000 miles per second. But through a medium other than a vacuum, it slows down.
• Light is composed of seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, which combined, appear to our eyes as transparent.
Imagine light leaving the sun, headed straight for one particular spot on Earth - the spot directly beneath it - any other point on Earth, the light will strike at an angle. As it enters our atmosphere, it begins to slow as it encounters molecules of the gasses present on our planet. Then it strikes the moisture-laden atmosphere associated with rain, and it slows even more.
We Humans see, because of reflected light bouncing off of the objects at which we look. In the case of the rainbow, we are seeing that light from the sun, which has bounced off of the moisture-laden atmosphere - at the same angle at which it struck - and back to our eyes. The same light is striking moisture all around us, but we see only one rainbow (sometimes two) simply because at only one point are we aligned perfectly with the same angle at which the light struck the moisture.
It's simpler if we imagine the rainbow to be composed of a band of only the three basic, primary colors: red, yellow and blue, and to imagine that where they touch, they blend: red and yellow blend to become orange, yellow and blue blend to produce green, and blue and red blend to make violet. Due to the angle at which it strikes, the first portion of that band will slow appreciably as it hits, then reflect off of the moisture, then the next and so on, until the band of light has broken down - due to their slowing at different times, into the seven colors we know as the visible spectrum.
To follow, is an explanation far more coherent than any I could ever give you - it was blatantly purloined from the How Stuff Works website - science.howstuffworks.com/rainbow2.htm - that I would strongly recommend you visit for all of your knowledge needs, unless of course you're still religious, in which case, better not - we learned in the Garden of Eden that god frowns on Humans having too much knowledge - it makes us uppity --
When white sunlight hits a collection of raindrops at a fairly low angle, you can see the component colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet - a rainbow. For simplicity's sake, we'll only look at red and violet, the colors of light on the ends of the visible light spectrum.
The diagram below shows what happens when the sunlight hits one individual raindrop.
When the white light passes from air into the drop of water, the component colors of light slow down to different speeds depending on their frequency. The violet light bends at a relatively sharp angle when it enters the raindrop. At the right-hand side of the drop, some of the light passes back out into the air, and the rest is reflected backward. Some of the reflected light passes out of the left side of the drop, bending as it moves into the air again.
In this way, each individual raindrop disperses white sunlight into its component colors. So why do we see wide bands of color, as if different rainy areas were dispersing a different single color? Because we only see one color from each raindrop. You can see how this works in the diagram below.
When raindrop A disperses light, only the red light exits at the correct angle to travel to the observer's eyes. The other colored beams exit at a lower angle, so the observer doesn't see them. The sunlight will hit all the surrounding raindrops in the same way, so they will all bounce red light onto the observer.
Raindrop B is much lower in the sky, so it doesn't bounce red light to the observer. At its height, the violet light exits at the correct angle to travel to the observer's eye. All the drops surrounding raindrop B bounce light in the same way. The raindrops in between A and B all bounce different colors of light to the observer, so the observer sees the full color spectrum. If you were up above the rain, you would see the rainbow as a full circle, because the light would bounce back from all around you. On the ground, we see the arc of the rainbow that is visible above the horizon.
Sometimes you see a double rainbow - a sharp rainbow with a fainter rainbow on top of it. The fainter rainbow is produced in the same way as the sharper rainbow, but instead of the light reflecting once inside the raindrop, it's reflected twice. As a result of this double reflection, the light exits the raindrop at a different angle, so we see it higher up. If you look carefully, you'll see that the colors in the second rainbow are in the reverse order of the primary rainbow.
And that's really all there is to rainbows. Light and water happen to combine in just the right way to paint a beautiful natural picture.
The Bible would have us believe that before this Covenant, in which god grudgingly said, "OK SpoilSports, I promise not to drown you anymore --" the geometry and physics that combine to produce rainbows, didn't exist.
If the rainbow that this god created and set in the sky, was for the purpose of reminding him not to drown everyone again, of what do you suppose the rainbow the watering truck on the right produced, was designed to remind him?
We'll wrap up this chapter with a few more of the wacky antics of Noah's version of My Three Sons shortly, but I'd like to take a closer look at that flood - floods like that don't come along every day, if ever, and I'd hate to leave it without a really close inspection.
Besides, we're not quite ready to leave the subject of Geometry just yet.
The Earth is an oblate ellipsoid - a sphere slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator. The distance around the Earth at the equator is 24,901 miles. The distance around the Earth through the poles is 24,860 miles. For the sake of simplicity, let's average the two and settle on 24,880 miles.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. Its elevation of 29,035 feet (c.5.5 miles) was determined using GPS satellite equipment on May 5, 1999. It was previously believed to be slightly lower (29,028 feet), as determined in 1954 by averaging measurements from various sites around the mountain. The new elevation has been confirmed by the National Geographic Society.
Mount Ararat is located in Eastern Turkey on the borders of Iran, Armenia, and Nakchivan. This volcanic mountain rises 5,165 meters or 16,945 feet (c.3.2 miles) high.
Since the circumference of a sphere can be determined by multiplying the diameter of the sphere, when it is known, by pi (3.1416), and since we know the circumference already (c.24,881 miles), we can find the diameter by doing the opposite - dividing the circumference by pi, which gives us: c.7,920 miles.
To summarize:
• Average diameter of Earth: c.7,920 miles.
• The elevation of Mount Everest is c.5.5 miles.
• The elevation of Mount Ararat is c.3.2 miles.
If I drew a sphere, to scale, whereby a certain fraction of an inch represented a mile, the sphere would be of a certain diameter - let's call that the diameter of the Earth, or c.7,920 miles.
If I were to draw another sphere, using the same scale, that would include the diameter of the Earth in addition to the height of Mount Ararat, that sphere, of course, would be larger. We would have to make it equal on all sides, for the water to be of an equal depth globally, so the diameter of the Earth (c.7,920 miles), plus the height of Mount Ararat (3.21 miles X 2), would give us the figure of 7,926.17 miles.
And larger still would be a sphere including the diameter of the Earth in addition to the height of Mount Everest. We would have to add the height of Everest - c.5.5 miles - to each radius, which would give us c.7,920 miles for Earth, plus c.11 extra miles for Everest, or (let's see, carry the one ...) c.7,931 miles.
Below we have such a sphere, representing the Earth (green), the mountain in question (brown), and the water it would take to cover both the Earth and the mountain (blue).
Besides, we're not quite ready to leave the subject of Geometry just yet.
The Earth is an oblate ellipsoid - a sphere slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator. The distance around the Earth at the equator is 24,901 miles. The distance around the Earth through the poles is 24,860 miles. For the sake of simplicity, let's average the two and settle on 24,880 miles.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. Its elevation of 29,035 feet (c.5.5 miles) was determined using GPS satellite equipment on May 5, 1999. It was previously believed to be slightly lower (29,028 feet), as determined in 1954 by averaging measurements from various sites around the mountain. The new elevation has been confirmed by the National Geographic Society.
Mount Ararat is located in Eastern Turkey on the borders of Iran, Armenia, and Nakchivan. This volcanic mountain rises 5,165 meters or 16,945 feet (c.3.2 miles) high.
Since the circumference of a sphere can be determined by multiplying the diameter of the sphere, when it is known, by pi (3.1416), and since we know the circumference already (c.24,881 miles), we can find the diameter by doing the opposite - dividing the circumference by pi, which gives us: c.7,920 miles.
To summarize:
• Average diameter of Earth: c.7,920 miles.
• The elevation of Mount Everest is c.5.5 miles.
• The elevation of Mount Ararat is c.3.2 miles.
If I drew a sphere, to scale, whereby a certain fraction of an inch represented a mile, the sphere would be of a certain diameter - let's call that the diameter of the Earth, or c.7,920 miles.
If I were to draw another sphere, using the same scale, that would include the diameter of the Earth in addition to the height of Mount Ararat, that sphere, of course, would be larger. We would have to make it equal on all sides, for the water to be of an equal depth globally, so the diameter of the Earth (c.7,920 miles), plus the height of Mount Ararat (3.21 miles X 2), would give us the figure of 7,926.17 miles.
And larger still would be a sphere including the diameter of the Earth in addition to the height of Mount Everest. We would have to add the height of Everest - c.5.5 miles - to each radius, which would give us c.7,920 miles for Earth, plus c.11 extra miles for Everest, or (let's see, carry the one ...) c.7,931 miles.
Below we have such a sphere, representing the Earth (green), the mountain in question (brown), and the water it would take to cover both the Earth and the mountain (blue).
Now the volume of a sphere - how much of anything that the sphere can hold - may be found by using the formula: (4/3)(pi)(radius, cubed) = cubic units.
First we need to cube the radius of the sphere. Since the average diameter of Earth was c.7,920 miles, to find the radius, we would divide that figure in half, giving us c.3,960 miles. To cube that figure, multiply it times itself three times, which gives us 62,093,255,524 - (62+ billion) - cubic miles.
Next we need to multiply that figure by pi (3.1416), the product of which is 195,072,171,554 billion miles.
Finally, we need to multiply that figure by 4/3, which can be expressed as the decimal fraction 1.3333 - that process tells us that the volume of the Earth is approximately 260,089,726,333 - (260+ billion) - cubic miles in volume.
Applying the same process, we find the volume of a sphere to include Mount Everest, to be 261,174,777,009 - (261+ billion) - cubic miles, while the volume of a sphere to include Mount Ararat, as would be expected, is somewhat less, or 260,722,755,051 - (260+ billion) - cubic miles.
Are we having fun yet?"
So how much water would it take to flood the entire Earth to such a depth that it would cover Mount Everest with an additional 15 cubits (22.5 ft.) of H20?
So how much water would it take to flood the entire globe to such a depth that it could cover Mount Everest, with an additional 15 cubits (22.5 ft.) of H20? To find out, we'll need to subtract the volume of the Earth from the two figures above.
We find the volume of the area from the surface of the Earth to the top of Mount Everest - (261,174,777,009 cubic miles, minus Earth's volume, 260,089,726,333 cubic miles) - to be c.1.085 billion cubic miles.
And the volume of the area from the surface of the planet to the top of Mount Ararat, is c.633 million cubic miles.
First we need to cube the radius of the sphere. Since the average diameter of Earth was c.7,920 miles, to find the radius, we would divide that figure in half, giving us c.3,960 miles. To cube that figure, multiply it times itself three times, which gives us 62,093,255,524 - (62+ billion) - cubic miles.
Next we need to multiply that figure by pi (3.1416), the product of which is 195,072,171,554 billion miles.
Finally, we need to multiply that figure by 4/3, which can be expressed as the decimal fraction 1.3333 - that process tells us that the volume of the Earth is approximately 260,089,726,333 - (260+ billion) - cubic miles in volume.
Applying the same process, we find the volume of a sphere to include Mount Everest, to be 261,174,777,009 - (261+ billion) - cubic miles, while the volume of a sphere to include Mount Ararat, as would be expected, is somewhat less, or 260,722,755,051 - (260+ billion) - cubic miles.
Are we having fun yet?"
So how much water would it take to flood the entire Earth to such a depth that it would cover Mount Everest with an additional 15 cubits (22.5 ft.) of H20?
That means either that the water covered all of the Earth, to a height of 15 additional cubits above the highest mountains, or it simply means the flood was only 22.5 feet in total height, as it was in the original, factual, historical, Mesopotamian flood of the Euphrates River in 2900 BCE, from which Noah's flood was blatantly plagiarized, in which case, it couldn't even have covered a three-story building - you decide.Genesis, 7:19-20:
"19: And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth;and all the high hills which were under the whole heaven, were covered.
"20: Fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail; and the mountains were covered."
So how much water would it take to flood the entire globe to such a depth that it could cover Mount Everest, with an additional 15 cubits (22.5 ft.) of H20? To find out, we'll need to subtract the volume of the Earth from the two figures above.
We find the volume of the area from the surface of the Earth to the top of Mount Everest - (261,174,777,009 cubic miles, minus Earth's volume, 260,089,726,333 cubic miles) - to be c.1.085 billion cubic miles.
And the volume of the area from the surface of the planet to the top of Mount Ararat, is c.633 million cubic miles.
Next, we need to convert the cubic miles to cubic feet. One cubic mile contains c.147.2 billion cubic feet (i.e., 5,280ft X 5,280ft X 5,280ft.), we can do the math right here, but I'm kinda hoping you'll just take my word for it, or do it on a rainy day, when there's absolutely nothing on TV - you'll thank me later.
The volume of a sphere, to include Mount Everest, would involve c.159.72 quintillion cubic feet, and Mount Ararat, a bit less, weighing in at c.93.18 quintillion cubic feet - we'll do old Yahweh a favor and just forget about the extra 15 cubits.
Again, for the sake of clarity, because there are a lot of numbers flying around out there, let's summarize:
The volume of a sphere, to include Mount Everest, would involve c.159.72 quintillion cubic feet, and Mount Ararat, a bit less, weighing in at c.93.18 quintillion cubic feet - we'll do old Yahweh a favor and just forget about the extra 15 cubits.
Again, for the sake of clarity, because there are a lot of numbers flying around out there, let's summarize:
The volume we need to fill with water, in the case of Mount Everest, is c.159.72 quintillion cubic feet.
The volume we need to fill with water, in the case of Mount Ararat, is c.93.18 quintillion cubic feet.
OK, we're coming down the home stretch.
One US gallon is 0.133681 cubic feet, or 7.481 gallons per cubic foot.
Using that figure, we learn that the number of gallons of water required to cover the Earth from its surface to the top of Mount Everest is - drumroll please - 1,194,845,753,604,350,656,512 - (1+ sextillion) - gallons of water!
And for Ararat, a mere 697,083,551,264,802,594,816 - (697+ quintillion) gallons of water!
From the National Geological Survey, we know that there are 326 quintillion gallons of water on, in, under, and above, our planet.
But I saw a TV commercial last week that said there was 358 quintillion gallons of water on Earth and we all know that TV commercials, much like Bibles, are noted for their honesty and accuracy, don't we? So let's go with the higher amount, just to give old Yahweh one more benefit of the doubt.
Using the larger figure leaves us only c.836.85+ quintillion gallons short - I believe it was Mr. Spock who once said, "A difference that makes no difference, is no difference." Sounds logical to me --
The volume we need to fill with water, in the case of Mount Ararat, is c.93.18 quintillion cubic feet.
OK, we're coming down the home stretch.
One US gallon is 0.133681 cubic feet, or 7.481 gallons per cubic foot.
Using that figure, we learn that the number of gallons of water required to cover the Earth from its surface to the top of Mount Everest is - drumroll please - 1,194,845,753,604,350,656,512 - (1+ sextillion) - gallons of water!
And for Ararat, a mere 697,083,551,264,802,594,816 - (697+ quintillion) gallons of water!
From the National Geological Survey, we know that there are 326 quintillion gallons of water on, in, under, and above, our planet.
But I saw a TV commercial last week that said there was 358 quintillion gallons of water on Earth and we all know that TV commercials, much like Bibles, are noted for their honesty and accuracy, don't we? So let's go with the higher amount, just to give old Yahweh one more benefit of the doubt.
Using the larger figure leaves us only c.836.85+ quintillion gallons short - I believe it was Mr. Spock who once said, "A difference that makes no difference, is no difference." Sounds logical to me --
But what about Mount Ararat? Surely there's enough water to cover Mount Ararat! Even using the higher, unsubstantiated number, Yahweh would have to come up with an additional c.339.08+ quintillion gallons of water - clearly twice as much water as there is on the entire planet - if he had any intention of soaking the peak of Mount Ararat!
We've done all of our mathematical calculations (well, I have, while you were off doing who knows what with who knows whom) based on the premise that the Earth is a solid, smooth ball, which it isn't. We didn't even factor in the oceans, and that's where the vast majority of Earth's water lies.
This too, is from How Stuff Works http://www.howstuffworks.com/
This too, is from How Stuff Works http://www.howstuffworks.com/
"The oceans are huge. About 70 percent of the planet is covered in ocean, and the average depth of the ocean is several thousand feet (about 1,000 meters). Ninety-eight percent of the water on the planet is in the oceans (emphasis, mine), and therefore is unusable for drinking because of the salt. About 2 percent of the planet's water is fresh, but 1.6 percent of the planet's water is locked up in the polar ice caps and glaciers. Another 0.36 percent is found underground in aquifers and wells. Only about 0.036 percent of the planet's total water supply is found in lakes and rivers."
So we've already determined that there isn't enough water in, on, under, or above this planet to have flooded the Earth to the extent the Bible says actually happened, yet with 98% of the 326-358 quintillion gallons - which was way too short as it was, to have caused a global flood - locked into the oceans, if a world-wide flood looked impossible before, it appears absolutely ridiculous, now that we've been reduced by the water in oceans, to an even smaller fraction of the original amount needed.
"But," you may well say, "that's not necessarily all of the water there was - Gen. 7:11 says, '...the same day were all of the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened.
I prefer simply to present, rather than interpret the contents of the Bible, otherwise I would sound too much like a preacher steering you in the direction he wants you to go, but in this particular instance, I'll set that approach aside to explain to you this mysterious "deep" we've heard so much about (I have what I'm about to explain, from several reliable sources, it's not just coming off the top of my head).
Pure water is actually clear (check your Evian bottle) - a body of water appears blue to us simply because it's reflecting to our eyes, the blue of the sky - on a cloudy day, for example, it no longer looks blue. Early Man didn't quite grasp this concept, in fact, he believed something closely approaching the converse to be true. Recognizing air to be invisible - transparent - He believed the blue of the sky to be due to "space" (as we know it today) consisting of a large body of (blue) water, which, seen through the transparent air, leaves us with the impression that the sky is actually blue. In other words, this planet, to some early civilizations, floated in a bubble of air, adrift in a vast ocean of water. Genesis, then, is telling us that "...the windows of heaven were opened," allowing that water surrounding our little planetary bubble, to fall to Earth. An omniscient god, creator of both the heaven and the Earth (Gen. 1:1), would have known better, and would never have inspired Man to say otherwise.
If a world-wide flood looked improbable before, it now appears absolutely laughable.* - **
*[Author's note: if any of you reading this can find any mathematical errors in my calculations - other than the circular logic of, "It happened just like the Bible says it did, because the Bible says it did!" - please point it/them out to me, and if I've erred, I will promptly make corrections.]
**[I would like to personally thank Mr. Arnold Reinhold of diceware.com for creating and freely providing for public use, his BigNumber Calculator - world.std.com/~reinhold/BigNumCalc.html - without which, I'd still be scrounging through my desk, looking for extra erasers!]
BUT WAIT, there's more --
At the risk of beating a dead horse - which isn't nearly as much fun as it's cracked up to be - let's look at one more indicator that the biblical flood never happened.
So far, this section has examined flood fables from around the world - it would seem that nearly every culture had one - but just for variation, let's spend a minute or so chatting about a culture that didn't. Maybe we could call it, The Little Flood That Wasn't - or not --
In 1994, Peter A. Clayton wrote a book with a rather lengthy title: Chronicle of the Pharaohs, The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt (London. Thames & Hudson. 1994).
In his book, Clayton demonstrated that the Egyptian Pharaonic Civilization predated the biblical flood. Clayton gave the following dates for Egyptian Dynasties and their Pharaohs.
• Dynasty 0
I prefer simply to present, rather than interpret the contents of the Bible, otherwise I would sound too much like a preacher steering you in the direction he wants you to go, but in this particular instance, I'll set that approach aside to explain to you this mysterious "deep" we've heard so much about (I have what I'm about to explain, from several reliable sources, it's not just coming off the top of my head).
Pure water is actually clear (check your Evian bottle) - a body of water appears blue to us simply because it's reflecting to our eyes, the blue of the sky - on a cloudy day, for example, it no longer looks blue. Early Man didn't quite grasp this concept, in fact, he believed something closely approaching the converse to be true. Recognizing air to be invisible - transparent - He believed the blue of the sky to be due to "space" (as we know it today) consisting of a large body of (blue) water, which, seen through the transparent air, leaves us with the impression that the sky is actually blue. In other words, this planet, to some early civilizations, floated in a bubble of air, adrift in a vast ocean of water. Genesis, then, is telling us that "...the windows of heaven were opened," allowing that water surrounding our little planetary bubble, to fall to Earth. An omniscient god, creator of both the heaven and the Earth (Gen. 1:1), would have known better, and would never have inspired Man to say otherwise.
If a world-wide flood looked improbable before, it now appears absolutely laughable.* - **
*[Author's note: if any of you reading this can find any mathematical errors in my calculations - other than the circular logic of, "It happened just like the Bible says it did, because the Bible says it did!" - please point it/them out to me, and if I've erred, I will promptly make corrections.]
**[I would like to personally thank Mr. Arnold Reinhold of diceware.com for creating and freely providing for public use, his BigNumber Calculator - world.std.com/~reinhold/BigNumCalc.html - without which, I'd still be scrounging through my desk, looking for extra erasers!]
BUT WAIT, there's more --
At the risk of beating a dead horse - which isn't nearly as much fun as it's cracked up to be - let's look at one more indicator that the biblical flood never happened.
So far, this section has examined flood fables from around the world - it would seem that nearly every culture had one - but just for variation, let's spend a minute or so chatting about a culture that didn't. Maybe we could call it, The Little Flood That Wasn't - or not --
In 1994, Peter A. Clayton wrote a book with a rather lengthy title: Chronicle of the Pharaohs, The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt (London. Thames & Hudson. 1994).
In his book, Clayton demonstrated that the Egyptian Pharaonic Civilization predated the biblical flood. Clayton gave the following dates for Egyptian Dynasties and their Pharaohs.
• Dynasty 0
3150-3050 B.C.E.
• Dynasty 1
3050-2890 B.C.E.
• Dynasty 2
2890-2686 B.C.E.
• Dynasty 3
2686-2613 B.C.E.
• Dynasty 4
2613-2498 B.C.E.
• Dynasty 5
2498-2345 B.C.E.
• Dynasty 6
2345-2181 B.C.E.
Now Noah's flood occurred in either 2958 BCE, as calculated by the Roman Catholic scholar, Euseibus, or 2348 BCE, as calculated by Archbishop Ussher and Sir John Lightfoot. We must bear in mind that the comedy team of Ussher and Lightfoot had access to the Gregorian calendar we use today, while Euseibus, who lived in the third century BCE, had only the less accurate Julian calendar with which to work, which inclines one to lean more toward acceptance of Ussher's and Lightfoot's date, than Euseibus'.
Unless, of course, one sees the irony of attempting to establish an exact date for the occurrence of a fictitious event, as being much like trying to deduce the age of Superman by accurately determining in exactly what year he was born - and failing to see the irrelevance.
Clayton informs us that archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of the above Pharaohs for the associated six Dynasties (3150-2181 BCE) and excavations showed no flood layer of silt above their tombs, deposited by Noah's alleged Universal Flood, or Utanapishtim's, or Zuisudra's, or Atrakhasis' or the primeval octopus', nor any other.
Nor do the records or annals of Egypt, and those guys were anal about annals - meticulous record-keepers - make any mention of a universal, world-encompassing flood.
Clayton's conclusion was that if there had been a universal, globe-encompassing flood in the third millennium BCE, there is no evidence of it in Egypt, just a drone's flight away from the Mesopotamian region where Noah's flood reputedly began - as the crow flies, or as the water flows, Baghdad and Cairo are roughly 800 miles apart.
In Clayton's own words:
Unless, of course, one sees the irony of attempting to establish an exact date for the occurrence of a fictitious event, as being much like trying to deduce the age of Superman by accurately determining in exactly what year he was born - and failing to see the irrelevance.
Clayton informs us that archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of the above Pharaohs for the associated six Dynasties (3150-2181 BCE) and excavations showed no flood layer of silt above their tombs, deposited by Noah's alleged Universal Flood, or Utanapishtim's, or Zuisudra's, or Atrakhasis' or the primeval octopus', nor any other.
Nor do the records or annals of Egypt, and those guys were anal about annals - meticulous record-keepers - make any mention of a universal, world-encompassing flood.
Clayton's conclusion was that if there had been a universal, globe-encompassing flood in the third millennium BCE, there is no evidence of it in Egypt, just a drone's flight away from the Mesopotamian region where Noah's flood reputedly began - as the crow flies, or as the water flows, Baghdad and Cairo are roughly 800 miles apart.
In Clayton's own words:
"The absence of the mention of such a flood in Egyptian records and annals, from the same general Middle-Eastern area where can be found 'the mountains of Ararat,' combined with the archaeological evidence from the Pharaohs' tombs, created before the 2958/2348 BCE flood occurred, reveal that the tale of Noah's flood is a myth."
Or, possibly just a myth-take --
Sorry Boys and Girls, if this segment is running a bit longer than the others, but bear in mind that I have had to spend hours putting together all of the facts, physics and logic to refute the absurd, while the Fundamentalists have only to say, "It's all true, because the Bible says so!"
Six-hundred-plus-year-old Noah finally decided (9:20) what he wanted to be when he grew up, a little old wine-maker. So he planted a vineyard, grew some grapes, made some wine and was seriously over-served (some might say he under-declined) - at any rate, he passed out buck-naked in his tent.
His son, Ham, apparently deciding he would drop in and see how his Pop was doing, glimpsed his naked, 600-year old father's decrepit, wrinkled body, and was somehow (miraculously?) not struck blind. He hurried outside and told brothers Shem and Japheth what he'd seen, possibly gagging and retching in the process.
The two brothers (9:23) took a garment, stretched it between them over their shoulders, and walking backward into Noah's tent, covered his shriveled body - thus they were spared a memory they'd never have been able to forget, as well as years of therapy!
When god's pick of the litter awakened from his drunken stupor, did he blame himself for being unable to hold his vino? No, he did not --
Did he blame himself for failing to drink in moderation? No, he did not --
Did he blame god for creating him the way he was? No, he did not -- (and I wouldn't recommend you try it either, if ever you find yourself in court for a DUI!)
You won't believe it, but he blamed Ham, for having seen him naked! He cursed him, saying that from that time forward, Ham (whom Noah called, Canaan, on this occasion), and presumably his descendants, would be the servants of Shem and Japheth - as if the poor boy hadn't been punished enough already!
This is the man the Bible's god chose to begin Human Race II!
Sorry Boys and Girls, if this segment is running a bit longer than the others, but bear in mind that I have had to spend hours putting together all of the facts, physics and logic to refute the absurd, while the Fundamentalists have only to say, "It's all true, because the Bible says so!"
Six-hundred-plus-year-old Noah finally decided (9:20) what he wanted to be when he grew up, a little old wine-maker. So he planted a vineyard, grew some grapes, made some wine and was seriously over-served (some might say he under-declined) - at any rate, he passed out buck-naked in his tent.
His son, Ham, apparently deciding he would drop in and see how his Pop was doing, glimpsed his naked, 600-year old father's decrepit, wrinkled body, and was somehow (miraculously?) not struck blind. He hurried outside and told brothers Shem and Japheth what he'd seen, possibly gagging and retching in the process.
The two brothers (9:23) took a garment, stretched it between them over their shoulders, and walking backward into Noah's tent, covered his shriveled body - thus they were spared a memory they'd never have been able to forget, as well as years of therapy!
When god's pick of the litter awakened from his drunken stupor, did he blame himself for being unable to hold his vino? No, he did not --
Did he blame himself for failing to drink in moderation? No, he did not --
Did he blame god for creating him the way he was? No, he did not -- (and I wouldn't recommend you try it either, if ever you find yourself in court for a DUI!)
You won't believe it, but he blamed Ham, for having seen him naked! He cursed him, saying that from that time forward, Ham (whom Noah called, Canaan, on this occasion), and presumably his descendants, would be the servants of Shem and Japheth - as if the poor boy hadn't been punished enough already!
This is the man the Bible's god chose to begin Human Race II!
On a sidenote, the Qur'an devotes an entire sura to Noah, as a prophet, but conveniently omits entirely, the incident of Noah's drunkeness. It would appear that religion, much like history, is written by those in charge, and any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.
On another sidenote, Noah's three sons were generally interpreted in medieval Christianity as the founders of the populations of the three known continents, Japheth: Europe, Shem: Asia, and Ham: Africa. In the 18th and 19th centuries, those passages that insist that the descendants of Ham would serve the descendants of Shem and Japheth, combined with the belief that Ham's sons in general had been literally "blackened" by the curse of Noah, was cited as justification for black slavery.
The chapter concludes by informing us (9:28-29), that Noah lived after the plagiarized flood for three hundred and fifty years, dying at the age of nine hundred and fifty, the last of the ten exceptionally long-lived patriarchs of the Hebrew religion, that correspond closely with those found in the Sumerian King List, mentioned earlier - the long-lived kings of the ancient Mesopotamian culture of the area from which the early Hebrews migrated.
All in all, a very effective fable for keeping human behavior of the superstitious within the acceptable limits of the day - the adult equivalent of telling a child the boogy-man will get him if he doesn't do as he's told.
If, after all of this, you still believe that a global, world-wide flood could ever have happened, and that the biblical Noah could have played the part in it attributed to him in the Bible, I invite you to peruse Problems with a Global Flood, Second Edition, by Mark Isaak, at www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html where you will find far more logical, scientifically provable reasons that this could not possibly have happened, than time, space and inclination would allow me to include here.
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
Posted by archaeopteryx at 10/6/2011 7:08 AM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Bible Atheism religion Quran Noah Ham. Shem Japheth the flood rainbows science Christianity Judaism Islam god biblical inerrancy biblical mythology quantity of water on Earth how rainbows are made
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: Bible Atheism religion Quran Noah Ham. Shem Japheth the flood rainbows science Christianity Judaism Islam god biblical inerrancy biblical mythology quantity of water on Earth how rainbows are made
You sold me. While possibly running a little long for the average attention span, this piece goes a long way (pun intended) toward debunking certain biblical myths. Thanks a lot, archaeopteryx, for spoiling the party. It was so much easier to just trust the word of my local clergyman.
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Yes Tom, as I acknowledged in this chapter itself, it did indeed run longer than I might have wished, but had I left a t undotted or an i uncrossed, someone would have found a way to use my omission as an invalidation of my points. The others are much shorter.
As for trusting your local clergyman, I think I summed it up in my post, when I said: "(Pay no attention to the priest behind the curtain!)" - fastforward through the list of current TV Evangelists, while saying to yourself, "Would I buy a used car from this man?"
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
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All you could ever want to know about the unlikely chances of a global flood, with humor to boot.
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Thanks, Fizzy - of course it reads a lot more coherently when you begin at the beginning - just a thought --
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
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Well done! Tonight was "cult night" across he street. My neighbor has about 10 people over for, you guessed it, bible study. You don't know how tempted I was to print of a few chapters and drop them off for his review.
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