[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Mar 26 2009, 05:22 PM, said:

Lobowolf, on Mar 27 2009, 01:12 AM, said:

luke warm, on Mar 26 2009, 05:09 PM, said:

you should have made it a poll

That would be value-neutral, and anonymous. You're supposed to "admit" ("confess," "concede") your belief.

I readily admit that I expect that many members of the forum would make a value judgment about anyone who admitted to believing in Noah's Ark...

yes, that's a strange thing... so far only Elianna and i have said they have a belief that the flood occurred (even if not sharing the exact same belief), and i believe we are less likely to make "value judgments" then the non-believers... maybe not, maybe that in itself is a value judgment

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Mar 27 2009, 01:15 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Mar 26 2009, 05:22 PM, said:

Lobowolf, on Mar 27 2009, 01:12 AM, said:

luke warm, on Mar 26 2009, 05:09 PM, said:

you should have made it a poll

That would be value-neutral, and anonymous. You're supposed to "admit" ("confess," "concede") your belief.

I readily admit that I expect that many members of the forum would make a value judgment about anyone who admitted to believing in Noah's Ark...

yes, that's a strange thing... so far only Elianna and i have said they have a belief that the flood occurred (even if not sharing the exact same belief), and i believe we are less likely to make "value judgments" then the non-believers... maybe not, maybe that in itself is a value judgment

Just to be clear:

I also think that its perfectly plausible that some kind of traumatic flood occurred way back when.

There are too many flood related myths in that part of the world to dismiss that something weird have happened. The explanation that I'm most comfortable with involves the sudden flooding that occurred when the Mediterranean broke into what is now the Black Sea...

However, the original subject of discussion wasn't belief in some kind of a flood. I specifically asked about Noah's ark.

[Winstonm]

Elianna, on Mar 26 2009, 08:07 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Mar 26 2009, 03:49 PM, said:

It is nothing but Jewish mythology.

Funny, I thought that it was in the Christian Bible too. I guess I'm confused about that.

I also thought that there was a similar great flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

But maybe it IS just "Jewish mythology".

Anyway, I don't believe that it was literally true, though I do believe a giant flood happened, and I also view the Bible as having allegorical truths.

A myth that grew out of a certain culture, not religion. Noah's ark is what was being discussed. I place Noah's ark in the category of a cultural myth.

[Phil]

I always need to ask the motivation of question like this.

[kenberg]

http://home.att.net/...y/t133/noah.htm

[655321]

hrothgar, on Mar 26 2009, 04:56 PM, said:

Curious whether any of the poster's here are willing to admit that they believe the story about Noah and the ark...

I shouldn't, but ...

[hrothgar]

Phil, on Mar 27 2009, 03:30 PM, said:

I always need to ask the motivation of question like this.

The motivation should be pretty clear cut...

Luke Warm, DrTodd and the like have some pretty strong convinctions in a wide variety of areas. The make some interesting assertions about evolution, global warming, religion, and the like...

I think that pinning them down and seeing whether they believe in the literal truth of some of the more outlandish pieces of the Bible might have some bearing on the reliability of their analysis in other areas.

So how about it Peter...
I'm asking you for the third time...
Do you believe in the story of Noah's ark...

The cock is getting ready to crow

[luke warm]

you are making, not for the first time, a logical fallacy (actually several)... whether or not i believe that noah's ark occurred in the way the bible describes it, and for the reasons given in the bible, has absolutely no bearing on my reasoning abilities or my opinions of other matters

for example, the fact that you believe co2 to be causing global warming has no bearing on anything else you might believe or reaons, regardless of the ridiculousness of the co2 argument

[helene_t]

Richard, if someone whose intellectual level and core values you generally respect appears to disagree strongly with you on some important issue, I can certainly understand you want to dig into it. But if someone you consider morally and/or intellectually bankrupt appears to disagree with you, why not just ignore him/her? Especially on a bridge forum. I mean, it would be nice if you could convince the World that the Pope is an evil moron, but who cares about anonymous posters at the off-topic section of an entertainment forum?

Well I guess it's your own choice.

[Hanoi5]

If I'm not mistaken the deluge story appears in several cultures, so it might have some truth to it, the truth being, IMO, that there were floods which wiped out lots of people except for some who had 'ships' and they were the ones able to save others. I think I even watched a program where they showed evidence of an inmense flood ocurring somewhere around present-day Turkey.

I think taking things from any book and stating that they are facts without proving them with other data is just wrong. It's like reading a fable and believing animals used to talk in the past, is like reading and listening to anyone and believing everything they write or say. There are many sides to every story. Some people even deny facts from History, some historians add make-up to facts in order to embelish them and not to use any 'Universal' history fact:

In Venezuela's independence war there was this country man who led other country men into battle. In one famous battle they were being chased by the Royalists who happened to fall into a ditch or something like that. The country man leader shouted something to the troops so that they were back into the fray and they did, winning an important battle. Venezuelan history books claim the country man shouted 'Turn your faces back!' (Vuelvan caras!), while some people argue that the guy wouldn't use such a refined vocabulary and that the troopers wouldn't understand it either. He probably said 'Go f****** back!' (Devuelvanse, carajo!) or something like that.

Anyway, people should just try to get the deep meaning from anything they read not just the surface stuff.

[hrothgar]

helene_t, on Mar 27 2009, 04:15 PM, said:

Richard, if someone whose intellectual level and core values you generally respect appears to disagree strongly with you on some important issue, I can certainly understand you want to dig into it. But if someone you consider morally and/or intellectually bankrupt appears to disagree with you, why not just ignore him/her? Especially on a bridge forum. I mean, it would be nice if you could convince the World that the Pope is an evil moron, but who cares about anonymous posters at the off-topic section of an entertainment forum?

Well I guess it's your own choice.

Ever seen the following

http://xkcd.com/386/

[Al_U_Card]

Gilgamesh, Noah or whomever, nice story, good moral, happy ending....why not take it for what it is and leave the pontificating to the pontiff?

The use of tracts to convince (and convict) based on belief is as old as writing. Some day we may well get beyond it, if we survive.

[PassedOut]

Using stereotypes as a helpful time-saver, it's a very good bet that those who argue most confidently are wrong. Conversely, those who admit the possibility of being wrong are much more likely to be correct.

I learned this first as a young man in the corporate world (and then found that I had an inclination to overuse that stereotype, so became more willing to hear people out). A good place to start, nevertheless.

[Al_U_Card]

Exactly. Neither the verisimilitude nor the intent but what you do with the information and how it impacts those involved.

Creating a belief or a sectarian movement.....hardly the intention of the storyteller.

[Lobowolf]

Phil, on Mar 27 2009, 07:30 AM, said:

I always need to ask the motivation of question like this.

No, Phil, you really don't.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on Mar 27 2009, 10:39 AM, said:

Using stereotypes as a helpful time-saver, it's a very good bet that those who argue most confidently are wrong.

how stereotypical

[mikeh]

What's a good religion-bashing thread doing without me contributing to it?

I'm with helene here, and perhaps Phil as well.

There is no real point served by goading the literalists. They are generally impervious to reason, since they have minds that accept revealed truths as absolute. Surely we have seen enough of this in other threads.

And, frankly, I see no reason to think that we need some kind of litmus test in order to realize how Jimmy or Dr. Todd prefer to believe rather than to weigh evidence and think... Richard already knows this... asking this kind of question reminds me of when, as a young child, I developed a large cavity... sticking my tongue in it make it ache, but I couldn't resist doing it anyway.

I have been doing some reading (work related) on the functioning of the brain, with emphasis on what happens when it is subjected to traumatic injury. It is fascinating, in a morbid sort of way. There is something called cortical blindness, which arises from damage to the occipital lobes, responsible for sight. In some cases, the patient is completely blind AND had NO awareness of being blind. I am still trying to wrap my head around that concept: the authors of the text I am reading afford no insight into what that subjective experience would be. But it carried with it, as I read this, that maybe that is what it is like to be Jimmy. He has no awareness of his own intellectual form of blindness: he has his certainties and can't even comprehend life without them.

Of course, this could be and probably is condescending and meaningless bs on my part, but the feeling was there. The point being, as I belatedly realized after other protracted exchanges with Jimmy, that there is no useful purpose served by provoking him or responding to his posts.

[Lobowolf]

On a related topic, there's no need to fucking cuss, either.

[jdonn]

Lobowolf, on Mar 27 2009, 11:56 AM, said:

On a related topic, there's no need to fucking cuss, either.

If the implication is that when two people disagree strongly and one calls the other unreasonable then the first must also be being unreasonable, I do not agree.

[Lobowolf]

jdonn, on Mar 27 2009, 12:00 PM, said:

Lobowolf, on Mar 27 2009, 11:56 AM, said:

On a related topic, there's no need to fucking cuss, either.

If the implication is that when two people disagree strongly and one calls the other unreasonable then the first must also be being unreasonable, I do not agree.

I wasn't trying to imply that. It was just a flippant response to parts of Mike's response that I found really funny, in conjunction --

1. Let's not goad the literalists.
2. They're impervious to reason.
3. Jimmy's like someone who has suffered severe head trauma and is blind without even knowing it.

Well, ok...as long as you don't goad anyone!

I don't think anyone who posts here is particularly thin-skinned or will be offended/hurt etc. Just struck me as funny.