First:
A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say wooden remains they have discovered on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey are the remains of Noah's Ark.On the other hand:
The group claims that carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old, meaning they date to around the same time the ark was said to be afloat. Mt. Ararat has long been suspected as the final resting place of the craft by evangelicals and literalists hoping to validate biblical stories.
Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah's Ark Ministries International research team that made the discovery, said: "It's not 100 percent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it."
Earlier this week a group of Chinese Christians held a news conference to announce they were 99.9 percent sure they had found Noah's Ark — the boat the Bible says was built by God's most righteous man before a "sinful" human race drowned in the Great Flood.I'm going to need a lot more evidence before I believe that this is the real Ark mentioned in Genesis.
Maybe the find on Mount Ararat in Turkey really is Noah's Ark. More likely, it isn't. But if it isn't, that won't stop Ark enthusiasts from believing it is out there somewhere.
Immediately in the wake of the news flash, experts weighed in to shoot it down. "The wood in the photos is not old enough" ... "There are no location pictures to verify the site" ... "No independent experts have looked at the data" ... "There's never been evidence of a great flood."
And the people voicing the loudest caution are biblical archeologists who believe the ark is real and that it can be found.
Not long after I did the arithmetic to determine the rate of rainfall, worldwide, I stopped arguing with Ark enthusiasts.
ReplyDeleteIf a six-inch-a-minute rate of rainfall doesn't convince them that maybe there's something wrong with the idea nothing will.
If you believe in the Bible as historical fact, and it helps you out in life . . .more power to you. But, you're wrong. and the only evidence I need to cite is that every other religion thinks they are right also. Statistacally, most, if not all, of you must be wrong.
ReplyDeleteAlternately, this could be Utnapishtim's boat.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth
-Mark Roulo