This reminds me of a funny story. When I was in middle school, I was fascinated by the Flood and by "antediluvian" civilization. I was convinced that Neandertal/Cro-Magnon society was pre-Flood (as it was very early, after all), and Mesopotamian civilization was post-Flood. Among the cave drawings was a depiction of a sex orgy, with countless erect peckers. I copied this image very accurately and kept it in my desk with all my other theocratic Bible materials. I seriously considered this a "historical document" of pre-Flood society, of the sin and lifestyle that occurred back then. Then one day my mom was snooping about my things and found it and asked me why I had drawn such a thing! I then realized that it could have been taken the wrong way. I assured her that my interest in the sex orgy was strictly theocratic and borne from a desire to understand the Bible, which actually was the truth (well, at least consciously lol).
Mammoths, Mastadons, Siber Tooth Tigers
by NewChapter 23 Replies latest jw friends
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laverite
Leolaia,
OMG, this is classic Leolaia.
I spit my tea out when I read what you wrote about drawing the sex orgy. What kids come up with! I can't even begin to imagine what went through your mother's mind as she discovered what you had drawn, including all the accurate details -- erect peckers and all.
Still laughing...
-LV
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Vidiot
I used to have fun with mammoths, too. I'd work a conversation towards the age of the earth, and mention in passing the Ice Ages.
There was always a faithful JW who felt compelled to chime in and state that there was no Ice Age, to which I would reply: "Then why did wooly mammoths have the thickest and heaviest fur of any known land animal?" Crickets chirped.
Once in a while, one of them would counter with the flash-frozen-at-the-deluge mammoth argument, saying that "hey, wooly mammoths DID live in the tropical Pre-Flood era!" To which I would reply, "Sorry, bud, those were Columbian mammoths that were frozen. Mostly hairless. Tropical animals."
I got some dirty looks, and a mild piece of counsel from an elder about focusing on more spiritual matters. It never stopped me.
Those same "victims" were the ones who would state that dinosaurs were contemporaries of humans, or that T-rexes and raptors were vegetarian. I have to confess, I had fun with them, too:
"If dinos and humans were contemporaries, why are there no cave paintings of them?"
"If theropods ate plants, why have they found allosaur teeth imbedded in apatosaur bone? Why have they found the fossilized remains of one species of dino inside the the fossilized body cavity of a completely different species?"
Yeah, I was a bit of a shit-disturber. Believe it or not, though, I was well-liked.
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Vidiot
Leolaia - "...I was convinced that Neandertal/Cro-Magnon society was pre-Flood..."
Ditto. In fact, one of the first major things that helped start my fade was stumbling across a Yahoo! news article about the Neanderthal Genome Project back in '06.
The thing that hit me like a ton of bricks at the time were the preliminary conclusions of the Project researchers; that there weren't enough genetic commonalities between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons for them to interbreed; that Neanderthals were, in effect, a completely different species of humans.
In an Awake! article in the late 90s ("'Ape Men' - What Were They?" *), the WTS had grudgingly acknowledged that Neanderthals were human (they wore clothes, used tools, etc.), and let the R&F (including me) fill in the blanks and assume that they were just some obscure "race" of humans - descendents of Adam and Eve - that had perished in the Noachian Deluge, perhaps.
Anyways, the mental transmission kicked into high gear; how the hell could modern humans and Neanderthals be two different species??? All humans were descended from Adam, therefore all humans had to be members of the same species, right??? I'd never bought into the idea that there was some kind of vast diabolical conspiracy to debunk Genesis; and my Mom - while a devout JW - had nontheless instilled in me a healthy respect for education and science. I came to the inescapable conclusion that the only way two different species could have a common ancestor was - gasp - evolution!
I tried discreetly to talk about this with a couple of trusted JW friends, but I could practically see the mental walls going up to prevent the cognitive dissonance; I realized right away that the WTS wouldn't - couldn't - ever reverse their position on this; they had way too much of an ideological stake in the Genesis-as-literal-history construct.**
I, on the other hand, picked up my balls, started to read about both evolutionary biology and other forms of religious expression, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Imagine my amusement years later, when the final published results of the Neanderthal Genome Project reversed their preliminary conclusions; that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons had, in fact, interbred. LOL!
* I noticed even at the time that despite the Awake! article's title, the question of "what 'Ape-Men' were" was never actually answered in the article. I found that weird at the time and a little annoying.
** This was happening around the same time I was learning about authoritarianism as a social phenomenon, which helped me reach the conclusion so quickly, and in retrospect, avoid a shitstorm.
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seawolf
As evidence of the flood, it's an idea that was discredited many years ago and even the Witnesses don't repeat anymore.
They used it here in a bible study just a couple of weeks ago so I think some of them aren't getting the memo.... yeah no surprise I know.
oh! and according to the study they actually found noah's ark, too!
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Vidiot
NewChapter - "The trouble with the WT, is they feed enough info to make a person feel like they've been educated. People who THINK they are educated are worse off because they don't search any further. In that way, WT is much like Fox News, imo. Adherents are walking around ignorant thinking they are smart."
Bwaahahahahahahahah!
Back in the day, my highly educated (yet devout) JW mom and her BFF were always joking about the "proudly ignorant".
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ihadnoidea
When I first became awake 3 years ago now, the flood was one of the more interesting topics to study. Most of the information I researched centered around the arguments presented in the TalkOrigins site. See here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html
I would start by researching each argument against the WT CD-ROM and see how it stands. Usually the JW arguments did not.
Like everyone has mentioned, the WT has been silent on alot of these issues in recent times.
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sir82
As evidence of the flood, it's an idea that was discredited many years ago and even the Witnesses don't repeat anymore.
They used it here in a bible study just a couple of weeks ago so I think some of them aren't getting the memo.... yeah no surprise I know.
Yeah, in the "Flood of Noah's Day" talk (can't remember the exact title), one of the optional references to include is a quote from a 1960 article in the "Saturday Evening Post" about a mammoth being caught in flood waters and "flash frozen". The reference is used to imply that the explanation for the frozen mammoth is the Noachian flood.
That outline, and that reference, are still current. Although, since the talks were reduced from 45 to 30 minutes, most speakers probably leave that part out now.
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moshe
NewChapter, hang your hat on another obscure scientifc specialty- Arctic lake sediments. It seems that in Arctic lakes the annual spring thaw brings in sediment that forms a layer on the floor of the lakes. Then for over 6 months a year the lake is frozen over. Scientists have extacted cores of the sediment that contain over 10,000 annual bands (yearly) of sediment. This is very odd, as if there had been a worldwide flood, then the cores would only have no more than 5000 years of annual data.
No you can't go back to believing the idea of a worldwide Noachian flood.
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unshackled
Moshe...great stuff on the Arctic lake sediments. Some other main reasons why the flood never could've happened...
• Polar ice caps: ice cores from Greenland give us a history going back 40,000 years, and would give clear evidence of a global flood. None.
• Tree rings: they show us a climate record of the last 10,000 years...and no flood.
• Modern plants: majority would have died submerged in water for 150 days, let alone the salt water. Plus soils would've washed away...they couldn't grow after flood.
• Fresh water fish: simply they would have died. Not just the salt water mix, but massive polution due to dirt, sediment.
• Wooden ships: the largest wooden ship was around 300 feet long, Noah's was 450. Plus, even the longest required iron strapping. Noah didn't have that. Even more, the longest wooden ships leaked and required constant pumping.
• Where did the water come from to cover the earth?: Rain, nope. Not even rain for 40 days/nights would do it; Geysers? Nope, if that much water came from the earth the crust would collapse; Ice Caps? Still not enough water; Comets? Water needed from a comet that size would destroy the earth.
• Atmospheric pressure: even IF it were possible to cover the earth in water it would've drastically changed the earth's atmosphere. Noah and his fam wouldn't be able to breath, let alone stand the pressure from so much water vapor.