Noah's Ark found...

[Happy Times]

So you claim to have seen God and previously said i was rude for saying to get help for yourself?

Once someone here declared he was getting instructions from God.

Anyones beliefs dont interest or bother me as such but when someone is clearly displaying signs of mental health problems im not going to stay silent.

[CaptainHaplo]

Happy Times - so everyone that thinks they have seen God needs mental help? I see God every day - not in a physical sense - but I see the presence of the supreme in everything. People have near death experiences - and usually the descriptions are remarkably consistent.

Your entitled to your opinions - just as everyone is. And its ok to be concerned and even PM a person respectfully about them pursuing some mental health assistance if you really feel strongly. But calling someone out publicly is rather rude - and mocking someone's personal beliefs on their own experiences (which you cannot judge, not having them) - isn't necessary either.

I have met people who swear they have had experiences that I personally deem impossible. Doesn't give me the right to automatically assume they are crazy. There are any number of reasons one can interpret a personal experience, and if Castout wants to think one of his is having looked at the face of God - thats his deal. Why mock a man for his beliefs if your sure of your own? Isn't being secure in your own thoughts enough?

Lets say that your right for argument's sake - that maybe Castout has a mental problem. Does giving him grief here help fix that? Mental illness can't be helped in a forum, not will calling him out make him seek help. People who do have problems - if you really feel he does, need support and acceptance to feel safe enough to get help. Think on it my friend.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

So you claim to have seen God and previously said i was rude for saying to get help for yourself?

Once someone here declared he was getting instructions from God.

Anyones beliefs dont interest or bother me as such but when someone is clearly displaying signs of mental health problems im not going to stay silent.

Well another mocking it's okay I didn't not anticipate it. I wrote what I wrote because I felt compelled to testify what I know. I knew the possible consequences. It's actually a very good thing being mocked for speaking the truth. It's at the other extreme of being praised for speaking a lie.

Well another person can't judge another person's experience without having full knowledge. That much is true. You jumping in to conclusion well it is not wise. . .

@CaptainHaplo
It's okay I already anticipated that kind of response. It was just a matter from whom. I certainly didn't write that to get praises or recognition or whatever. Had I wanted them I would be wise not to write about them in the first place.

and umm I didn't see God's(Jesus) face as light was coming from the direction of His face so bright it enveloped the whole figure so what I saw basically was a very very very bright white light whose source was coming from the face(at least that was what I felt) as the intensity grew the closer I stared into the face until it was overwhelming and made my eyeballs hurt like being pierced by a hundred needles in the end. And it was a looong time ago when I was in the 7th grade. Now I'm 30 years old. It was a one time event.

[Task Force]

Wow, at this rate there must be a fleet of arks. its a crock... How many other times have they found someting like this.

The entire story is completly not possiable. there are 100,000s of species of animals, people didnt even know about then. and what about black people, asian people, whites? did he bring two of them to. cause if he didnt those blacks went through one hell of a change.

[tater]

I was hoping for some sort of idiotic defense of the literal arc story. Woulda been a fun thread

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by tater

I was hoping for some sort of idiotic defense of the literal arc story. Woulda been a fun thread

Hah, me too.

[AVGWarhawk]

Has anyone stopped to think that perhaps the Bible is a good 'rule book'? Lets change some words..."Ten Commandments" to "Ten Rules to Live Buy" or "Rules Set By Your Local Government" Would a different light be shed upon these 10 commandments, rules, law?

We can not just wish away the Dead Sea Scrolls and what is contained with in. Are these scrolls just an elaborate hoax?

1.The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea between the years 1947 and 1956. The area is 13 miles east of Jerusalem and is 1300 feet below sea level. The mostly fragmented texts, are numbered according to the cave that they came out of. They have been called the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times. See a Dead Sea Scroll Jar.

2.Only Caves 1 and 11 have produced relatively intact manuscripts. Discovered in 1952, Cave 4 produced the largest find. About 15,000 fragments from more than 500 manuscripts were found.

3. In all, scholars have identified the remains of about 825 to 870 separate scrolls.
4. The Scrolls can be divided into two categories—biblical and non-biblical. Fragments of every book of the Hebrew canon (Old Testament) have been discovered except for the book of Esther.
5. There are now identified among the scrolls, 19 copies of the Book of Isaiah, 25 copies of Deuteronomy and 30 copies of the Psalms .
6. Prophecies by Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Daniel not found in the Bible are written in the Scrolls.
7. The Isaiah Scroll, found relatively intact, is 1000 years older than any previously known copy of Isaiah. In fact, the scrolls are the oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts ever found.
8. In the Scrolls are found never before seen psalms attributed to King David and Joshua.

9.There are nonbiblical writings along the order of commentaries on the OT, paraphrases that expand on the Law, rule books of the community, war conduct, thanksgiving psalms, hymnic compositions, benedictions, liturgical texts, and sapiential (wisdom) writings.
10. The Scrolls are for the most part, written in Hebrew, but there are many written in Aramaic. Aramaic was the common language of the Jews of Palestine for the last two centuries B.C. and of the first two centuries A.D. The discovery of the Scrolls has greatly enhanced our knowledge of these two languages. In addition, there are a few texts written in Greek.
11. The Scrolls appear to be the library of a Jewish sect. The library was hidden away in caves around the outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt (A.D. 66-70) as the Roman army advanced against the rebel Jews.
12. Near the caves are the ancient ruins of Qumran. They were excavated in the early 1950's and appear to be connected with the scrolls.
13. The Dead Sea Scrolls were most likely written by the Essenes during the period from about 200 B.C. to 68 C.E./A.D. The Essenes are mentioned by Josephus and in a few other sources, but not in the New testament. The Essenes were a strict Torah observant, Messianic, apocalyptic, baptist, wilderness, new covenant Jewish sect. They were led by a priest they called the "Teacher of Righteousness," who was opposed and possibly killed by the establishment priesthood in Jerusalem.
14. The enemies of the Qumran community were called the "Sons of Darkness"; they called themselves the "Sons of Light," "the poor," and members of "the Way." They thought of themselves as "the holy ones," who lived in "the house of holiness," because "the Holy Spirit" dwelt with them.
15. The last words of Joseph, Judah, Levi, Naphtali, and Amram (the father of Moses) are written down in the Scrolls.

16. One of the most curious scrolls is the Copper Scroll. Discovered in Cave 3, this scroll records a list of 64 underground hiding places throughout the land of Israel. The deposits are to contain certain amounts of gold, silver, aromatics, and manuscripts. These are believed to be treasures from the Temple at Jerusalem, that were hidden away for safekeeping.
17. The Temple Scroll, found in Cave 11, is the longest scroll. Its present total length is 26.7 feet (8.148 meters). The overall length of the scroll must have been over 28 feet (8.75m).
18. The scrolls contain previously unknown stories about biblical figures such as Enoch, Abraham, and Noah. The story of Abraham includes an explanation why God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac.
19. The scrolls are most commonly made of animal skins, but also papyrus and one of copper. They are written with a carbon-based ink, from right to left, using no punctuation except for an occasional paragraph indentation. In fact, in some cases, there are not even spaces between the words.
20. The Scrolls have revolutionized textual criticism of the Old Testament. Interestingly, now with manuscripts predating the medieval period, we find these texts in substantial agreement with the Masoretic text as well as widely variant forms.

21. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls actually appeared for sale on June 1, 1954 in the Wall Street Journal. The advertisement read — "The Four Dead Sea Scrolls: Biblical manuscripts dating back to at least 200 BC are for sale. This would be an ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an individual or group. Box F206."
22. Although the Qumran community existed during the time of the ministry of Jesus, none of the Scrolls refer to Him, nor do they mention any of His follower's described in the New Testament.
23. The major intact texts, from Caves 1 & 11, were published by the late fifties and are now housed in the Shrine of the Book museum in Jerusalem.
24. Since the late fifties, about 40% of the Scrolls, mostly fragments from Cave 4, remained unpublished and were unaccessible. It wasn't until 1991, 44 years after the discovery of the first Scroll, after the pressure for publication mounted, that general access was made available to photographs of the Scrolls. In November of 1991 the photos were published by the Biblical Archaeological Society in a nonofficial edition; a computer reconstruction, based on a concordance, was announced; the Huntington Library pledged to open their microfilm files of all the scroll photographs. 25. The Dead Sea Scrolls enhance our knowledge of both Judaism and Christianity. They represent a non-rabbinic form of Judaism and provide a wealth of comparative material for New Testament scholars, including many important parallels to the Jesus movement. They show Christianity to be rooted in Judaism and have been called the evolutionary link between the two.



Discuss..........

[tater]

I don't think the scrolls are a hoax, but them dating to whatever period says nothing at all about the veracity of any claims they make. I can find papers and books written on the Soviet Union by (apologist) historians that are contemporary to the CCCP, but utterly wrong.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by tater

I don't think the scrolls are a hoax, but them dating to whatever period says nothing at all about the veracity of any claims they make. I can find papers and books written on the Soviet Union by (apologist) historians that are contemporary to the CCCP, but utterly wrong.

True! We must also take into consideration the word of mouth passed from generation to generation then finally put to paper. Stories change and sometimes embellished. There is really no main claim made about the scrolls but we can not just brush it under the carpet. Are these just embellished stories to entertain? Still, it makes one ponder and sometimes makes one create a movie such as the likes of the Indian Jones movies. The Arc of the Covenent and or cup used at the last supper. As strange as the movie might be there are those that find things. You have to admit these scrolls do make one think. Many have spent a better a part of their lives studying these scroll.


Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if 1000 years from now someone finds say, Harry Potter books and says this is how it was back then. Harry was a Warlock or some such thing.

[AVGWarhawk]

Gabriels Vision in stone:

What: Three-foot tall stone inscribed in ink with 87 lines of Hebrew text describing a vision given by the angel Gabriel
When: The stone was written in the 1st century B.C. and it was discovered 8-10 years ago and sold by a Jordanian antiquities dealer to an Israeli-Swiss antiquities collector.
Where: It was found in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, possibly on the Jordanian side. Ada Yardeni: "You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone."
Forgery?: Even though this was not uncovered in a legal excavation, scholars believe the inscription to be authentic.
The Sensational Claim: The end of the inscription mentions a messiah who would rise in 3 days. Since the text was written before Jesus' resurrection, it explains how the story of Jesus' resurrection came to be.
The Sensational Quotation: "Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story" (Israel Knohl, professor of biblical studies at Hebrew University and proponent of this theory).

[tater]

Heheh, true.

What is funny is that these so-called archeologists were even looking at 13,000 feet. As I posted above, even if you assume there was some sort of actual, historical event that would be called a "flood" by the illiterate locals of the time in that region (asia minor, eastern med, middle east)—you need to at least assume a REASONABLE event. A plausible event. Heck, all the polar ice melting while unlikely, is at least POSSIBLE. So add 30 million km^3 water to the earth, then calculate about where the sea level rises to.

Works out to 50-60 meters. Melting every ounce of ice on earth.

Looking above 50-60 meters is absurd. Any result above that is made up. And that sort of flood still assumes a radical event (and doesn't make it rain).

That sort of rise also gives lie to the notion of god exterminating everything, since it clearly would not have resulted in that, so even if such a historical flood of that extreme level—and certainly anything lesser—gives lie to the claimed plan of god in the whole thing.

The flood needs to be as deep as the mountains or sinners are left alive, and god is all powerful, so it MUST be that deep. There is no way (or evidence) of such a deep flood to have happened. Looking for proof is asking to look the fool.

[AVGWarhawk]

So, now we have a large wooden structure found in Turkey....to be sure, this wooden structure was found years ago. I remember seeing a movie on it as a kid. I'm now 44. Turkey forbid anyone from going to look at this structure. There were photos taken by air. There was much speculation. Furthermore, we need to wonder how this very large wooden structure arrived 13000 feet up on a mountain. That in itself is an oddity. Certainly draws anyone attention. We just can not brush it off as some shepards shack.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by tater

Heheh, true.

What is funny is that these so-called archeologists were even looking at 13,000 feet. As I posted above, even if you assume there was some sort of actual, historical event that would be called a "flood" by the illiterate locals of the time in that region (asia minor, eastern med, middle east)—you need to at least assume a REASONABLE event. A plausible event. Heck, all the polar ice melting while unlikely, is at least POSSIBLE. So add 30 million km^3 water to the earth, then calculate about where the sea level rises to.

Works out to 50-60 meters. Melting every ounce of ice on earth.

Looking above 50-60 meters is absurd. Any result above that is made up. And that sort of flood still assumes a radical event (and doesn't make it rain).

That sort of rise also gives lie to the notion of god exterminating everything, since it clearly would not have resulted in that, so even if such a historical flood of that extreme level—and certainly anything lesser—gives lie to the claimed plan of god in the whole thing.

The flood needs to be as deep as the mountains or sinners are left alive, and god is all powerful, so it MUST be that deep. There is no way (or evidence) of such a deep flood to have happened. Looking for proof is asking to look the fool.

But we can not always explain things away scientifically. We are talking about a being that according to the Bible is superior in all. One that creates hail stones, pillars of fire, burning bushes, turns a city to ashes, creates all living creatures. Seems to be a lot of embellishment. Perhaps it is, perhaps not. The 'perhaps not' is the statement that drives the folks who do not wish to explain away scientifically. Sometimes being the fool is not always a concern of those willing to look! I find there is more evidence to support that some of these things did happen. These people did walk the earth and create these writings. I can not help but think the story changed as it was passed by word of mouth until it was written by the author. At any rate, it is very intriguing.

[tater]

Since fossils are all from an earth only a few thousand years old, we should see a radiation of fossil remains from Turkey, right? How long did it take the marsupials to walk from there to Australia? Where did the Koala get food?

LOL.

The bible story is very clear that the raining caused the flood, and when the rain stopped the floods receded. So we're back to that 162 inches per hour nonsense I posted above.

It would be interesting to calculate the number of genera of animals required, then figure out how long it would simply take to muck their stalls. There were claimed to be what, 6 humans... a lot of sh*t to shovel, might not be time in the day for any other activity

[AVGWarhawk]

Ah, you are of the scientific mind and look at things scientifically. That is good because were would be without scientific minds? You ask where the koala got food. Perhaps from the same place the men whos nets were void of fish all of sudden were laden with fish. We will have to ask Peter how this fish got there.




Personally, I do not know what to think. I do like to keep an open mind because of things like the Dead Sea Scrolls and Gabriel Vision stone. I do however feel that the Shroad of Turin is not authentic.

Edit: Sorry but about the sh!t...shovel it out the window!