Sorry Dumb-ass science trumps your bile

I have been mulling this story over for a few days weeks now but my irritation has not gone away.  I couldn't put my finger on the why until this past weekend when two news stories came to light.  First, did you know that the sun revolves around the earth?

But the kicker for me was when news broke about the death of snake handling Pastor Jamie Coots. Religion and the inane beliefs associated do kill! The root cause of those deaths, a literalistic view of the Bible demonstrated by proponents such as Ham and Fischer.

Most churches view the passage as a metaphor, but for almost a century a small number of believers in Tennessee, Kentucky and other parts of Appalachia have followed the passage [Mark 16:18] literally. Coots and Hamblin believed that, if they did not practice the snake-handling ritual, they would be condemned to hell.

It is this anti-science that is bandied about that bothers me.  I am no genius when it comes to the sciences, but I do have a solid understanding of the basics; what I don't know, I learn!  Every time I hear that "evolution is just a theory" I flashback to the time I tried to test the "theory of gravity."  I ended up in a nut house for 3 1/2 weeks.


The initial report from the Guardian, starts simple enough:

That they processed aboard the enormous floating wildlife collection two-by-two is well known. Less familiar, however, is the possibility that the animals Noah shepherded on to his ark then went round and round inside.

According to newly translated instructions inscribed in ancient Babylonian on a clay tablet telling the story of the ark, the vessel that saved one virtuous man, his family and the animals from god's watery wrath was not the pointy-prowed craft of popular imagination but rather a giant circular reed raft.

That was in 2010, but then something weird happened.  There is no mention of Finkel's work in the MSM, a four years lapse (that I am aware of). So why the sudden interest?  The Russel Crowe movie is due out soon.  Nah that can't be it.




Hmm,,,maybe it is because Finkel's book, ARK BEFORE NOAH was just release.  Well that is part of it.  The other part, some dumb-asses decided to show their ignorance to the whole world.  First was Ken Ham:

Over the weekend, media outlets from around the world ran a story about a “recently deciphered” tablet that bears strong resemblance to the biblical account of Noah, the Ark, and the Flood. We have been asked by many people (especially those who visit the Fox News website) to respond to yet another Ark report attempting to undermine the historicity of the Genesis account.

[,,,]
Should this tablet “cause consternation among believers in the Biblical story” as the article suggests? Of course not—in fact, this is just another archaeological find that corroborates the biblical Flood account. It is only reasonable that people in cultures the world over—being descended from the eight people that got off the Ark—would recall various versions of the Flood in their cultural memory and traditions. Hundreds of flood stories have been found in cultures around the world. While many of these contain legendary embellishments, it is very obvious that many of them refer back to a real event described in Genesis, many of the details of which were passed down through the generations.

[,,,]
Secular researchers often jump to the conclusion that the Bible borrowed from other ancient records. Yet other explanations exist for the similarities between Scripture and these ancient myths. It could be that the other myths borrowed from the biblical writers, assuming the tablet model is accurate. Or it could be that the Bible and the ancient myths are records of actual events, but while the Bible records the true history of our world, these other myths are loaded with legendary embellishments but still contain strands of truth.  [Emphasis mine]

You see part of Ken's problem, an issue he so aptly displayed in his recent debate with Bill Nye, no amount of evidence will change his mind.  He has a belief in the Bible that will never go away.  His irrational and steadfast belief in the truth of the Bible is what makes his religion work for him despite the scientific evidence.  In his mind science is wrong, Bible is right.

Next on our short list of dumb-asses is Bryan Fischer who two days later tweeted this:

Now if Fischer had actually read the article by the Jill Lawlwss of the AP, he would have discovered one key piece of information,

"I'm sure the story of the flood and a boat to rescue life is a Babylonian invention," he said.

He believes the tale was likely passed on to the Jews during their exile in Babylon in the 6th century B.C. And he doesn't think the tablet provides evidence the ark described in the Bible existed. He said it's more likely that a devastating real flood made its way into folk memory, and has remained there ever since.

"I don't think the ark existed - but a lot of people do," he said. "It doesn't really matter. The Biblical version is a thing of itself and it has a vitality forever.

Totally blows my mind!!