Noah's Ark.....i know call me crazy.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The claim is an empirical one that God will answer you. The question then arises what happens for those who don't receive answers or claim to receive a negative answer. But the claim put forth isn't circular but empirical.

Now to explain those who don't get the answer people might devolve into circular apologetic. I don't think the "you don't have enough faith" is an adequate explanation. There's lots of reasons it might not work but realistically at best you can say "I don't know why they didn't get an answer." (At least typically - in some cases there are external reasons to hypothesize a view) To the person praying, assuming they were sincere, studying, and earnestly trying, then they'd be justified in the belief the Church isn't true even if it is. 

Exactly and this is why I am pushing James so much because his view justifies both Evangelicals "knowing they are saved" and us "knowing the church is true" and even Atheists NOT using God's existence to define their personal meaning in life BECAUSE "radical empiricism"  INCLUDES all of experience even as WE give that experience MEANING.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism

Radical Empiricism:

 

Quote

 

Postulate[edit]

The postulate is a basic statement of the empiricist method: our theories shouldn't incorporate supernatural or transempirical entities. Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that emphasizes the role of experience, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, while discounting a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. James allows that transempirical entities may exist, but that it's not fruitful to talk about them.

Fact[edit]

James' factual statement is that our experience isn't just a stream of data, but a complex process that's full of meaning. We see objects in terms of what they mean to us and we see causal connections between phenomena. Experience is "double-barreled": it has both a content ("sense data") and a reference, and empiricists unjustly try to reduce experience to bare sensations, according to James. Such a "thick" description of conscious experience was already part of William James' monumental work The Principles of Psychology in 1890, more than a decade before he first wrote about radical empiricism.

It differs notably from the traditional empiricist view of Locke and Hume, who see experience in terms of atoms like patches of color and soundwaves, which are in themselves meaningless and need to be interpreted by ratiocination before we can act upon them.

Conclusion[edit]

James concludes that experience is full of connections and that these connections are part of what is actually experienced:

Just so, I maintain, does a given undivided portion of experience, taken in one context of associates, play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of 'consciousness'; while in a different context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a thing known, of an objective 'content.' In a word, in one group it figures as a thought, in another group as a thing. And, since it can figure in both groups simultaneously we have every right to speak of it as subjective and objective, both at once. (James 1912, Essay I)

 

 

 

So James admits that for example God may exist as a  "transempirical" entity but DISCOURSE about God is not "fruitful" in an "empirical" context.

YET subjective and objective experience include the meaning we individually give it and may be subjective or objective according to the context in which it appears.

I take this to mean that in an LDS testimony meeting, where all agree, the statement "I know the church is true" is an empirical statement. 

And this is why I am here, to spread the word that LDS beliefs are perfectly reasonable even in a philosophical context.  

This "thick experience" is where I think we differ and have such a hard time defining the word to each other.

Edited April 19, 2018 by mfbukowski

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

This "thick experience" is where I think we differ and have such a hard time defining the word to each other.

Well I think the issue is future experience. I think given sincere inquiry conducted long enough that we'll coincide in beliefs. But in terms of the short term I think we agree. In terms of long term then I start parting ways with James. (At least some of the time - he was at times inconsistent and often spoke of a position closer to Peirce)

So to deal with Moroni's promise I recognize we can't convince each other but think that reality will act on us given enough time. And of course not to weasel out, although I'll know it'll sound like it to some, but Moroni's promise doesn't have a time limit.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Well I think the issue is future experience. I think given sincere inquiry conducted long enough that we'll coincide in beliefs. But in terms of the short term I think we agree. In terms of long term then I start parting ways with James. (At least some of the time - he was at times inconsistent and often spoke of a position closer to Peirce)

So to deal with Moroni's promise I recognize we can't convince each other but think that reality will act on us given enough time. And of course not to weasel out, although I'll know it'll sound like it to some, but Moroni's promise doesn't have a time limit.

OK but I don't think we have to wait that long to be certain of what works to give us joy. 

Heck the test will be over before we figure out what we should have done.  

[clarkgoble]

26 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

OK but I don't think we have to wait that long to be certain of what works to give us joy. 

Heck the test will be over before we figure out what we should have done.  

If something persists through continued inquiry typically one can be quite confident. Subjective certainty rather than external certainty as it were.

[sunstoned]

9 hours ago, mrmarklin said:

I don’t have a problem with Peleg’s times being a division of lands. The Atlantis myth backs this up somewhat.  There is also current archeological evidence that this division took place. 

The flood myth is likely universal because it’s true and is the history of a clearly small population reboot. 

There is no physical or scientific evidence for any of this.  Any division of the continents happened over 200 million years ago.  There is no physical evidence of a global flood, and a mountain of scientific facts that point to it never happening.  The least of which is that the written history of several nations, like Egypt remain uninterrupted through the time the flood supposedly took place.   

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

If something persists through continued inquiry typically one can be quite confident. Subjective certainty rather than external certainty as it were.

Sigh.

Always the dualist

What am I going to do with you?

 

[Marginal Gains]

13 hours ago, The Nehor said:

If you believe the story of Noah’s Ark literally and the diagnosis of the spiritual condition of the people in the story literally there were no loving gay couples to adopt them. It was not an “off chance” they would get it wrong. Also, God knowing the future does not destroy agency.

In what way did God not destroy the earthly agency of an entire planet of humanity when he drowned all but 8 of them?

For those that believe the story, literally, why didn’t the wicked and evil people storm Noah’s boat when the water was, say, up around their ankles? What happened to all those other boat owners, did they forget they had boats?

Edited April 19, 2018 by Marginal Gains

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Marginal Gains said:

In what way did God not destroy the earthly agency of an entire planet of humanity when he drowned all but 8 of them?

For those that believe the story, literally, why didn’t the wicked and evil people storm Noah’s boat when the water was, say, up around their ankles? What happened to all those other boat owners, did they forget they had boats?

Death is not a violation of agency. If it were aging would be Satan's ultimate victory.

You picture the flood as a slowly rising water level? Funny that you would mock others for their childish understanding of reality. Cataclysmic floods are almost never characterized by a slowly rising water level which you can easily travel through. And you think the average fishing boat could survive that kind of torrential rain and the kinds of waves you would see in that kind of flood? You're cute.

 

[Marginal Gains]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Death is not a violation of agency. If it were aging would be Satan's ultimate victory.

You picture the flood as a slowly rising water level? Funny that you would mock others for their childish understanding of reality. Cataclysmic floods are almost never characterized by a slowly rising water level which you can easily travel through. And you think the average fishing boat could survive that kind of torrential rain and the kinds of waves you would see in that kind of flood? You're cute.

 

We aren’t talking about death, we are talking about God committing murder. How do dead people exercise their agency on earth (you know, the reason we are all put here)?

The rainfall and rising waters supposedly lasted for forty days and nights. A fishing boat would easily survive that, because, well, they’re designed to, you know....float. And the people would have plenty of time to storm the ark in those forty days. Or are we now discounting the inconvenient forty days and nights part of the narrative?

Edited April 19, 2018 by Marginal Gains

[Marginal Gains]

For those wishing to believe in a local flood, this from lds.org 

Still other people accept parts of the Flood story, acknowledging that there may have been a local, charismatic preacher, such as Noah, and a localized flood that covered only a specific area of the world, such as the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers or perhaps even the whole of Mesopotamia. Yet these people do not believe in a worldwide or global flood. Both of these groups—those who totally deny the historicity of Noah and the Flood and those who accept parts of the story—are persuaded in their disbelief by the way they interpret modern science. They rely upon geological considerations and theories that postulate it would be impossible for a flood to cover earth’s highest mountains, that the geologic evidence (primarily in the fields of stratigraphy and sedimentation) does not indicate a worldwide flood occurred any time during the earth’s existence.

There is a third group of people—those who accept the literal message of the Bible regarding Noah, the ark, and the Deluge. Latter-day Saints belong to this group. In spite of the world’s arguments against the historicity of the Flood, and despite the supposed lack of geologic evidence, we Latter-day Saints believe that Noah was an actual man, a prophet of God, who preached repentance and raised a voice of warning, built an ark, gathered his family and a host of animals onto the ark, and floated safely away as waters covered the entire earth. We are assured that these events actually occurred by the multiple testimonies of God’s prophets.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1998/01/the-flood-and-the-tower-of-babel?lang=eng

[snowflake]

17 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

This is an unbelievable fantasy that it is baffling how a land/rock formation could lead you to believe this thing is a ship. I spent most of my free time hiking/exploring in utah's deserts and have a dozen very good samples of human/animal looking rock formations I understand the longing tendency of Pareidolia. Before going the Noah's Ark, you should realize that before this tale was writeen 99%of all living species of the Planet was extinct. There was no possible way for Noah to carry out this mission.

Hey I am not saying that this is noah's ark.....I'm just saying that the country of Turkey has recognized it as such and that there has been some interesting finds at this site. Never was my claim that this is the ark....that is several other people's claim.  

[Marginal Gains]

25 minutes ago, snowflake said:

Hey I am not saying that this is noah's ark.....I'm just saying that the country of Turkey has recognized it as such and that there has been some interesting finds at this site. Never was my claim that this is the ark....that is several other people's claim.  

Turkey has a vested interest in laying claim to a potential tourist attraction.

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

In what way did God not destroy the earthly agency of an entire planet of humanity when he drowned all but 8 of them?

For those that believe the story, literally, why didn’t the wicked and evil people storm Noah’s boat when the water was, say, up around their ankles? What happened to all those other boat owners, did they forget they had boats?

God cursed all outboard motors, didn't you know that?

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

We aren’t talking about death, we are talking about God committing murder. How do dead people exercise their agency on earth (you know, the reason we are all put here)?

The rainfall and rising waters supposedly lasted for forty days and nights. A fishing boat would easily survive that, because, well, they’re designed to, you know....float. And the people would have plenty of time to storm the ark in those forty days. Or are we now discounting the inconvenient forty days and nights part of the narrative?

Some things to remember if you're going to have this conversation with a believer.  1) God can't commit murder.  He has complete authority to decide when someone is born and when someone dies.  2) death to us is not death to God.  His perspective is completely different and that must be acknowledged.  3)  We all die.  No one gets out of this life alive.  Death, itself, is not a tragedy.  

[bluebell]

7 minutes ago, Marginal Gains said:

Turkey has a vested interest in laying claim to a potential tourist attraction.

Last I heard, Turkey won't let anyone visit the site.  Has that changed?

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

We aren’t talking about death, we are talking about God committing murder. How do dead people exercise their agency on earth (you know, the reason we are all put here)?

The rainfall and rising waters supposedly lasted for forty days and nights. A fishing boat would easily survive that, because, well, they’re designed to, you know....float. And the people would have plenty of time to storm the ark in those forty days. Or are we now discounting the inconvenient forty days and nights part of the narrative?

God cannot commit murder as in the crime version. Life and death are His to give and take. We are commanded not to mess with death or intentionally accelerate  but God is under no such obligation.

Boats are designed to float but in forty days and forty nights of rain so torrential that the end result is to cover the earth an ancient fishing boat will swamp and sink assuming it is not outright destroyed by the raging water first. A large enough modern boat might survive those kinds of conditions for forty days but even that is questionable. I spend a fair amount of time piloting and maintaining boats. There is a reason boats avoid storms. Even modern carrier groups can be messed up by an intense storm and yet you think you are clever to smugly point out that ancient wooden fishing boats float?

The ark as described sounds more like an ancient sub. Designed to be protected from both water above and below. Even then it would be a miracle/insane luck for that thing to survive that kind of a storm.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

For those wishing to believe in a local flood, this from lds.org 

Still other people accept parts of the Flood story, acknowledging that there may have been a local, charismatic preacher, such as Noah, and a localized flood that covered only a specific area of the world, such as the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers or perhaps even the whole of Mesopotamia. Yet these people do not believe in a worldwide or global flood. Both of these groups—those who totally deny the historicity of Noah and the Flood and those who accept parts of the story—are persuaded in their disbelief by the way they interpret modern science. They rely upon geological considerations and theories that postulate it would be impossible for a flood to cover earth’s highest mountains, that the geologic evidence (primarily in the fields of stratigraphy and sedimentation) does not indicate a worldwide flood occurred any time during the earth’s existence.

There is a third group of people—those who accept the literal message of the Bible regarding Noah, the ark, and the Deluge. Latter-day Saints belong to this group. In spite of the world’s arguments against the historicity of the Flood, and despite the supposed lack of geologic evidence, we Latter-day Saints believe that Noah was an actual man, a prophet of God, who preached repentance and raised a voice of warning, built an ark, gathered his family and a host of animals onto the ark, and floated safely away as waters covered the entire earth. We are assured that these events actually occurred by the multiple testimonies of God’s prophets.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1998/01/the-flood-and-the-tower-of-babel?lang=eng

I don't recall Noah being on the temple recommend interview.

What ends up in ensign has gotten a bit more sophisticated since 1998

Ensign is not definitive doctrine, but that is a whole other question

We believe in orthopraxis not Orthodoxy.

Edited April 19, 2018 by mfbukowski

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Marginal Gains said:

For those wishing to believe in a local flood, this from lds.org 

Still other people accept parts of the Flood story, acknowledging that there may have been a local, charismatic preacher, such as Noah, and a localized flood that covered only a specific area of the world, such as the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers or perhaps even the whole of Mesopotamia. Yet these people do not believe in a worldwide or global flood. Both of these groups—those who totally deny the historicity of Noah and the Flood and those who accept parts of the story—are persuaded in their disbelief by the way they interpret modern science. They rely upon geological considerations and theories that postulate it would be impossible for a flood to cover earth’s highest mountains, that the geologic evidence (primarily in the fields of stratigraphy and sedimentation) does not indicate a worldwide flood occurred any time during the earth’s existence.

There is a third group of people—those who accept the literal message of the Bible regarding Noah, the ark, and the Deluge. Latter-day Saints belong to this group. In spite of the world’s arguments against the historicity of the Flood, and despite the supposed lack of geologic evidence, we Latter-day Saints believe that Noah was an actual man, a prophet of God, who preached repentance and raised a voice of warning, built an ark, gathered his family and a host of animals onto the ark, and floated safely away as waters covered the entire earth. We are assured that these events actually occurred by the multiple testimonies of God’s prophets.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1998/01/the-flood-and-the-tower-of-babel?lang=eng

That is from a BYU professor. Cool opinion and all but not a General Authority.

I think there is a concern amongst the global flood believers that the more local flood people are not convinced God could make a global flood happen. I am not one of them. I am a God could command the sea to turn into sand type believer. I believe in a more local flood because, at the present moment, there is no geological evidence for a global flood. Now God could miraculously hide the evidence and there could be a good reason for that that I am not aware of but I am not convinced of that. In addition the flood story itself suggests Noah was not sure if the whole world was flooded (he sent out birds) and the description of Noah loading animals onto the ark sounds like he was loading breeding stock for his flock and not two of every species on the planet. Perhaps God worked in more miracles than I suspect. If so, great. I will laugh at my silliness when I find out the truth.

Also, you look really dumb when you ridicule both the people who believe in the account and the account itself. It comes across as “You have to believe this and also look how stupid this thing you have to believe is. Lol!”

[Marginal Gains]

20 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I don't recall Noah being on the temple recommend interview.

What ends up in ensign has gotten a bit more sophisticated since 1998

Ensign is not definitive doctrine, but that is a whole other question

We believe in orthopraxis not Orthodoxy.

What is definitive doctrine? 

[Marginal Gains]

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

That is from a BYU professor. Cool opinion and all but not a General Authority.

I think there is a concern amongst the global flood believers that the more local flood people are not convinced God could make a global flood happen. I am not one of them. I am a God could command the sea to turn into sand type believer. I believe in a more local flood because, at the present moment, there is no geological evidence for a global flood. Now God could miraculously hide the evidence and there could be a good reason for that that I am not aware of but I am not convinced of that. In addition the flood story itself suggests Noah was not sure if the whole world was flooded (he sent out birds) and the description of Noah loading animals onto the ark sounds like he was loading breeding stock for his flock and not two of every species on the planet. Perhaps God worked in more miracles than I suspect. If so, great. I will laugh at my silliness when I find out the truth.

Also, you look really dumb when you ridicule both the people who believe in the account and the account itself. It comes across as “You have to believe this and also look how stupid this thing you have to believe is. Lol!”

It’s hard to debate when someone plays the “I believe in magic” card.

[Marginal Gains]

33 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

God cannot commit murder as in the crime version. Life and death are His to give and take. We are commanded not to mess with death or intentionally accelerate  but God is under no such obligation.

Boats are designed to float but in forty days and forty nights of rain so torrential that the end result is to cover the earth an ancient fishing boat will swamp and sink assuming it is not outright destroyed by the raging water first. A large enough modern boat might survive those kinds of conditions for forty days but even that is questionable. I spend a fair amount of time piloting and maintaining boats. There is a reason boats avoid storms. Even modern carrier groups can be messed up by an intense storm and yet you think you are clever to smugly point out that ancient wooden fishing boats float?

The ark as described sounds more like an ancient sub. Designed to be protected from both water above and below. Even then it would be a miracle/insane luck for that thing to survive that kind of a storm.

What’s your rationale for why people during the forty days didn’t remember Noah was building the one boat built to withstand the storm and take it by force? 

[Marginal Gains]

36 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Last I heard, Turkey won't let anyone visit the site.  Has that changed?

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g790195-d4801988-Reviews-Noah_s_Ark_site-Dogubeyazit_Agri_Province.html

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Marginal Gains said:

It’s hard to debate when someone plays the “I believe in magic” card.

Then don't.  No one asked you to come here and no one is making you debate anyone (though I hope you stay).  When you want to debate faith and miracles with believers though, you have to acknowledge that the parameters of their perspective is a huge part of the debate.

 

[bluebell]

2 minutes ago, Marginal Gains said:

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g790195-d4801988-Reviews-Noah_s_Ark_site-Dogubeyazit_Agri_Province.html

I must be thinking of a different 'noah's ark.'  The one I'm remembering was on a very high mountain with no roads that reached it.  

[Marginal Gains]

2 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I must be thinking of a different 'noah's ark.'  The one I'm remembering was on a very high mountain with no roads that reached it.  

Noah had more than one ark?