Noah's Ark vs running a zoo

[atheist buddy]

The directory of the Bronx Zoo shows that it takes 205 full time professionals to feed, manage and keep safe 650 species of animals. That's 650 out of 8.7 million species of animals and plants in existence.

By rough approximation, we could say that if it takes 205 people to manage 650 species, it would take 2.7 million people to manage all 8.7 million species in a megazoo hosting all known species.

Let's say it would take another million highly qualified professionals to build this megazoo, and another million to gather all the animals.

So, a total of 4.7 million trained experts to maintain and manage 8.7 million species in a man-made environment.

On average, approximately 1 person for every two species.

Assuming Noah had 19 people helping him, he would be operating on a ratio of 1 person for every 435,000 species.

In other words, if you believe in the story of Noah, you believe that a bronze age (600 year old drunk) was 217,500 times better at running a massive zoo than modern people are.

And did I mention this 8.7 million species zoo had to float on water during a massive storm?


In light of these simple empirical facts, can we agree that anybody who believes the story of Noah's Ark actually happened, is victim of such intense delusion that it borders on mental disability?

Why is a professed belief in a flat earth an instant disqualification from public office, or from getting a high level job, or from attaining any kind of social status, but professed belief in Noah's Ark put on a pedestal, and regarded as acceptable if not mainstream?

[atheist buddy]

We don't believe in billions of years or 'goo to you' or 'molecules to man' because we feel the bible clearly doesn't indicate that creation was this way and because philosophically one can't reconcile billions of years of death with a loving God.

I agree with this, but that's a reason for rejecting theism, not science.

No, I don't like death cults. Evolution is the belief that death makes us stronger. It's a death cult.

I can't get over how misguided and absurd your statement above is.

To say that evolution is a death cult, is like saying that metereology is a hurricane cult.



Hurricanes are some of the physical phenomenons observed and recorded in metereology.

The fact that those that survive until reproductive age will pass on their genes and those that die will not, is a physical phenomenon observed and recorded in evolutionary biology.



I feel so hopelessly ashamed for humanity, that while we're able to produce such wonderful art, technology, discoveries and beauty, we are also able to produce such staggering ignorance. It's in moments like this that it dawns on me that we, as a species, are perfectly capable of blowing ourselves up and into extinction.

[OnceConvinced]

How hypocritical of a Christian to accuse something of being a death cult when Christianity is a death cult itself.

Christiainity endorses human sacrifices by celebrating one when it comes to Jesus. Just about everything a Christian believes revolves around the death of Jesus. The fact that there is a resurrection involved in the myth, doesn't change the fact it's obsessed with the death of Jesus.

Christianity is continually talking about dying and becoming a new creation. Things like baptism and repentence are all symbolic of death and resurrection.

Every Sunday in most churches a cannabalistic ritual called "communion" is practised, all revolving around the death of Jesus Christ.

Christians dream of the day they shall die and escape this earth. The talk about the blood of Jesus cleansing sin, they have a quote "to live is christ, to die is gain". They wear crucifixes, they sing praises about Jesus's death on the cross...

Christianity is obsessed with death!

[atheist buddy]

How hypocritical of a Christian to accuse something of being a death cult when Christianity is a death cult itself.

Christiainity endorses human sacrifices by celebrating one when it comes to Jesus. Just about everything a Christian believes revolves around the death of Jesus. The fact that there is a resurrection involved in the myth, doesn't change the fact it's obsessed with the death of Jesus.

Christianity is continually talking about dying and becoming a new creation. Things like baptism and repentence are all symbolic of death and resurrection.

Every Sunday in most churches a cannabalistic ritual called "communion" is practised, all revolving around the death of Jesus Christ.

Christians dream of the day they shall die and escape this earth. The talk about the blood of Jesus cleansing sin, they have a quote "to live is christ, to die is gain". They wear crucifixes, they sing praises about Jesus's death on the cross...

Christianity is obsessed with death!

The symbol of christianity is a guy being tortured to death!

This is what truly terrifies me: How can the thoughts "I'm a Christian" and "I don't like death cults" possibly coexist inside the brain of an otherwise (presumably) totally mentally healthy individual?

How many steps does it take to go from

1) I'm a member of a death cult but I don't like death cults

to

2) Murder is bad, but it's not murder if the victim is a member of a different religion


How hard is it for a charismatic religious/political leader to talk people who are death cult members and simultaneously don't like death cults, into committing atrocities a la Inquisition or Stalinism?


This stuff keeps me up at night. Why can't people just think?

[FarWanderer]

How hypocritical of a Christian to accuse something of being a death cult when Christianity is a death cult itself.

Christiainity endorses human sacrifices by celebrating one when it comes to Jesus. Just about everything a Christian believes revolves around the death of Jesus. The fact that there is a resurrection involved in the myth, doesn't change the fact it's obsessed with the death of Jesus.

Christianity is continually talking about dying and becoming a new creation. Things like baptism and repentence are all symbolic of death and resurrection.

Every Sunday in most churches a cannabalistic ritual called "communion" is practised, all revolving around the death of Jesus Christ.

Christians dream of the day they shall die and escape this earth. The talk about the blood of Jesus cleansing sin, they have a quote "to live is christ, to die is gain". They wear crucifixes, they sing praises about Jesus's death on the cross...

Christianity is obsessed with death!

The symbol of christianity is a guy being tortured to death!

This is what truly terrifies me: How can the thoughts "I'm a Christian" and "I don't like death cults" possibly coexist inside the brain of an otherwise (presumably) totally mentally healthy individual?

How many steps does it take to go from

1) I'm a member of a death cult but I don't like death cults

to

2) Murder is bad, but it's not murder if the victim is a member of a different religion.

However many or few they need it to.

How hard is it for a charismatic religious/political leader to talk people who are death cult members and simultaneously don't like death cults, into committing atrocities a la Inquisition or Stalinism?

This stuff keeps me up at night. Why can't people just think?

Thinking won't fix it.

If someone wants to commit an atrocity, they'll adjust their worldview accordingly. Any "thinking" they do would be nothing more than justification within their worldview. Doing more of it won't help.

[WinePusher]

To say that evolution is the belief that death makes us strong, is as insane as saying that gravity is the belief that jumping from buildings makes us stronger.

I'm not here to defend Wootah's statement, but I've seen many users here and elsewhere draw comparisons between evolution and gravity as if both of these theories were equally supported and equally substantiated. Sorry to burst your bubble, but they aren't. Newton managed to mathematically prove gravity using the inverse square law, on the other hand Darwin developed his theory based purely upon qualitative observations and to this very day evolutionary theory lacks the mathematical rigor that exists in nearly all theories in physics. So please, stop comparing evolution to gravity. You are overstating your case.

It's completely and utterly nonsensical. It's also highly offensive and disrespectful to all the brave Americans (such as all the astronauts that died in failed launches) who willingly sacrificed their life in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

These brave Americans died to defend our right to free speech and freedom of thought, which is something liberals and atheists seem to have a problem with. I mean, people like you always claim to be scientifically versed and scientifically driven, yet you seem to forget that skepticism and dissent are hallmark virtues of the scientific enterprise.

The portion of evolution that you refer to in making your highly offensive remark (natural selection) truly is nothing more than the empirical observation that animals that are better at surviving are more likely to get to the age at which they reproduce. In essence: If you don't die as a pre-teen, you are more likely to get a girl pregnant. That's all.

Wow, you really think that what Wootah wrote is offensive? Seriously?

You are getting confused with "social darwinism", a misguided right-wing social movement whereby the poor and the week and the disabled and the less fortunate are just left to die, and the rich and powerful get to call all the shots.

That is absoutely despicable, and it's why I didn't vote for Romney, despite hating Obama. The law of the jungle (survival of the fittest) should NOT apply to modern society. Humanity is stronger as a whole if we care for our weaker brothers and sisters.

Yup, I think you said it perfectly with this sentence: "We finally have the single most absurd sequence of words ever spoken." Social Darwinism was and is an outgrowth of Darwinian evolution theory, rather than applying Darwinian mechanisms to biological systems (which is what the latter does) these mechanisms are applied to social systems. The idea originated with Darwin and was further expounded upon by Nietzsche (not right wing) Lamarck (not right wing) Haeckel (not right wing) and Malthus (not right wing). Again, I'm not here to defend Wootah. I agree that his statement didn't make much sense and it'd probably be good if he clarified what he meant, however your entire post was full of many errors that needed correction.

[atheist buddy]

To say that evolution is the belief that death makes us strong, is as insane as saying that gravity is the belief that jumping from buildings makes us stronger.

I'm not here to defend Wootah's statement, but I've seen many users here and elsewhere draw comparisons between evolution and gravity as if both of these theories were equally supported and equally substantiated. Sorry to burst your bubble, but they aren't. Newton managed to mathematically prove gravity using the inverse square law, on the other hand Darwin developed his theory based purely upon qualitative observations and to this very day evolutionary theory lacks the mathematical rigor that exists in nearly all theories in physics. So please, stop comparing evolution to gravity. You are overstating your case.

You are just factually incorrect. While it's true that it's difficult to compare level of certainty and evidentiary support for theories belonging to different branches of science, it's generally correct to say that evolution is as clearly established a fact as gravity. The evidence that evolution and gravity are real is overwhelming and conclusive. Both evolution and gravity, much like any aspect of scientific exploration, will never be fully understood and we'll never be 100% certain. It's in the nature of science to keep asking questions and to keep expanding the boundaries of what is known.

You mention that gravity is based on more mathematical rigor. I don't know if that's true, because there is some rigorous and finite maths going on in the statistical extrapolations of evolution. But even if that were true, then that would just be because physics overall is more numerical than biology, which is more observational.

To keep the analogy stricktly within the field of biology, it's not controversial at all to say that we are as certain that evolution is a fact, as we are that the heart pumps blood is a fact. Or that dinosaurs became extinct between 60 and 70 million years ago.

It's completely and utterly nonsensical. It's also highly offensive and disrespectful to all the brave Americans (such as all the astronauts that died in failed launches) who willingly sacrificed their life in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

These brave Americans died to defend our right to free speech and freedom of thought, which is something liberals and atheists seem to have a problem with. I mean, people like you always claim to be scientifically versed and scientifically driven, yet you seem to forget that skepticism and dissent are hallmark virtues of the scientific enterprise.

I'm a big fan of skepticism and dissent. Wootah's remark qualified as neither of those.

If you stated "The earth orbits around the sun", and I replied "Hurray for the great green turtle that ate the moon. The sun is made of maccaroni and cheese", I wouldn't be expressing skeptical dissent for your scientific statement.

The portion of evolution that you refer to in making your highly offensive remark (natural selection) truly is nothing more than the empirical observation that animals that are better at surviving are more likely to get to the age at which they reproduce. In essence: If you don't die as a pre-teen, you are more likely to get a girl pregnant. That's all.

Wow, you really think that what Wootah wrote is offensive? Seriously?

Well, to me something is offensive if it's the kind of thing that if lots of people did it or said it, great harm would come to society.

There is no doubt in my mind that if lots of people thought that evolution was a death cult, our scientific literacy would take a hit, with long term repercussions in the job market, our ability to innovate, and our position in the global economy. So, yes, I find his remarks very offensive. Of course, he has every right to speak out, as do I, as do you. The marketplace of ideas will eventually assign the correct value to any given idea.

You are getting confused with "social darwinism", a misguided right-wing social movement whereby the poor and the week and the disabled and the less fortunate are just left to die, and the rich and powerful get to call all the shots.

That is absoutely despicable, and it's why I didn't vote for Romney, despite hating Obama. The law of the jungle (survival of the fittest) should NOT apply to modern society. Humanity is stronger as a whole if we care for our weaker brothers and sisters.

Yup, I think you said it perfectly with this sentence: "We finally have the single most absurd sequence of words ever spoken." Social Darwinism was and is an outgrowth of Darwinian evolution theory, rather than applying Darwinian mechanisms to biological systems (which is what the latter does) these mechanisms are applied to social systems. The idea originated with Darwin and was further expounded upon by Nietzsche (not right wing) Lamarck (not right wing) Haeckel (not right wing) and Malthus (not right wing).

Social Darwinism is inspired by evolution, but it's a social movement, not a scientific fact. It's as absurd to try to tie a social movement to a scientific theory. It's like blaming Newton every time someone commits suicide by jumping off a building.

Social Darwinism and the concept of commiting suicide by jumping from skyscrapers were invented by man. Evolution and Gravity would exist even if humanity didn't. They are objective facts about the universe that humans happen to have discovered.

It's therefore unimpeachable for me to clarify that there is a complete separation between Evolution and Social Darwinism, and that the justified dislike for the latter, says nothing whatsoever about the former.

In response to your other point, I understand that social darwinism originated with thinkers that wouldn't necessarily identify with the more modern concept of being right wing, but I would still propose that insofar as Social Darwinisim is embraced by anybody today, it's embraced more by right-wing proponents of self-reliance and personal responsibility, than those that embrace the concept of the nanny-state. I don't think it's controvertial to say that in America, republicans are more geared towards rewarding success, and Democrats more towards helping the unsuccesful to keep up. It's a simplification of reality, but I would say that it's close enough to the truth.

[KenRU]

Getting back to the OP, and the discussion over whether the story of Noah's Ark is absurd or not, let me add this:

According to Answers in Genesis, dinosaurs were also on the ark.

https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/ ... noahs-ark/

Imagine that scene, if you will. Noah running from stable to stable, trying to keep the T-Rex from eating the zebra's.

Even my 11 year old son thinks this story is completely ludicrous, and he sometimes thinks he's as good at football as Cam Newton.

Dino's on the Ark. How does that factor in when calculating "kinds"? Good luck with those numbers.

If true, and dino's were on the ark, I'm betting they ended up with less animals then when they started!

-All the best,

[atheist buddy]

Getting back to the OP, and the discussion over whether the story of Noah's Ark is absurd or not, let me add this:

According to Answers in Genesis, dinosaurs were also on the ark.

https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/ ... noahs-ark/

Imagine that scene, if you will. Noah running from stable to stable, trying to keep the T-Rex from eating the zebra's.

Even my 11 year old son thinks this story is completely ludicrous, and he sometimes thinks he's as good at football as Cam Newton.

Dino's on the Ark. How does that factor in when calculating "kinds"? Good luck with those numbers.

If true, and dino's were on the ark, I'm betting they ended up with less animals then when they started!

-All the best,

I agree completely.

Close your eyes and imagine that the Bible didn't exist, Christianity didn't exist, and there was just one person sitting in his rocking chair, professing a profound belief in the laughable notion that there was a global flood and the Ark, which is physically impossible in about two dozen different ways.

Is there any way that anybody would disagree that the person in question was completely crazy?

Is there any way this person would be able to be elected to any kind of office, or get hired as an executive of a company, or get hired as a nanny, or even win a legal battle with his ex-wife over custody of his children?

No.

And yet, because it's part of Christianity, this inane literal belief in an absurd fairy tale, this stain on the grandeur of the human mind and human spirit, is... mainstream. It's ok. No problem.

And that's the true problem with religion/dogmatism.

Any social force that can persuade millions to believe insane things, can also persuade millions to carry out insane actions.

And thence Inquisition, Crusades, 9-11, Witch Trials, Stalinism, Anti-Semitism, North Korea, etc.

[Randall]

Personally, I believe we should bring back the Aztec ritual of removing beating hearts out of people. Most rational people would say that this is insane...yet the practice continued for nearly 100 years!!
One day humans will look back on this Era as another ridiculous moment in human evolution.

Oh...and let's thank Noah for saving the mosquito...jackazz!!

[atheist buddy]

Personally, I believe we should bring back the Aztec ritual of removing beating hearts out of people. Most rational people would say that this is insane...yet the practice continued for nearly 100 years!!
One day humans will look back on this Era as another ridiculous moment in human evolution.

Oh...and let's thank Noah for saving the mosquito...jackazz!!

I think about that a lot.

Christians, think of how low an opinion you'd have of somebody who literally believed in Apollo, Thor or the thousands of other Gods nobody believes in anymore.

Imagine one of the absurd stories of their fairy tale religion involved belief in talking animals.

And then realize that so does your religion discus talking animals.

Your descendants will look back upon you, and try to forget that they come from somebody who believed in virgin births.