I want to extend to all you Earthlings a special greeting on the founding of your planet. According to the best researched creationist "science", October 22 at 6 AM (GMT) in the year 4004 BC, the world was created in all its glory. So, Happy Birthday Earth! For being only 6016 years old, you don't look a day over 5000!
. . . . . . . . . .
And, while we are on the topic of the Bible (where, for you laypeople, the creationist theory comes from), I would like to say that an old friend told me that I should read the Bible more! So, I did. And this is what I stumbled upon.
. . . . . . . . . .
We are all delighted to know that the CEO of the Chick-Fil-A restaurant chain supports "Biblical families." Naturally, when a civic and business leader such as Dan Cathy speaks out, simple laypeople such as myself have to find out what he is talking about, so that we too can come to an understanding of what Biblical "family values" he is promoting.
Take Abraham, for example. He is a central figure in the Bible. What were his family values like?
First of all, Abraham makes his wife, Sarai, tell a lie, claiming she is his sister, so that when the Pharaoh takes her into his harem he won't kill Abraham as a side effect (she was really hot). The Pharaoh discovers the lie, however, and gives her back and sends the two of them on their way. (Genesis 12) – no punishment from God. In other words, it's OK to prostitute out your wife if you are afraid of the consequences of not doing so.
But that's not all.
In Genesis 16, Abraham "goes into" Hagar, his wife's maid, and she conceived. Sarai was not pleased and expelled the maid from the house.
I bet you are thinking, "Naughty, naughty Abraham", aren't you?
Don't be silly!
This is one of those Biblical "family values" the restaurant CEO is supporting!
Of course, Abraham was not the only one.
In Genesis 19, Lot's daughters conspired to "lie with" their father in the cave where they had escaped to. They got him drunk the first night and the older daughter "lay with" him, and then the second night, they got him drunk again and the younger daughter "lay with" him.
Both conceived from this "laying".
Right!
Any man on the planet will tell you that if you are so drunk you don't have ANY idea who is "laying" with you (especially if she is your daughter), you are also "laying-impaired", if you get my drift.
This story shows more Biblical family values that provide important guidelines for us to take home and ponder in our hearts.
Apparently, Abraham was not the only one with a "maid-thing". In Genesis 29, Jacob (another prominent Biblical icon) is deceived by his father-in-law Laban. Wanting Laban's daughter Rachel, he agrees to marry her and "goes into her" on their wedding night. But the morning after, he discovers it is not Rachel at all, but her sister, Leah!
How bad is THAT?! He "went into her" and all but didn't know it was somebody else. The Biblical figures obviously were vision impaired at key moments.
Complaining to his father-in-law about the deception, Laban asks that Jacob continue his efforts with Leah for one week, after which Laban will give him Rachel too. But alas, Rachel was barren, so she told Jacob (lucky guy) to "go into" her maid, Bilhah, who later bore him a son.
Leah – not to be outdone by her sister, Rachel – decided to step up to the plate in the competition and invited Jacob to "go into" HER maid, Zilpah, as well.
The lesson in Biblical family values we can learn here is that hiring a maid is an important first step towards true holiness. You need to go to your wife and say, "Hi Honey! You know, I was just thinking that you work too hard around the house here. Why don't we hire a maid?!" I am sure, supporting Biblical values as you do, your wife will be delighted and even touched by your considerate approach.
Or how about the story of Judah and Tamar, his daughter-in-law, in Genesis 38. Judah insisted that Tamar remain a widow after her husband was killed (by God). But Tamar took off her widow's garments and covered her face with a veil. Apparently this was enough to convince her father-in-law that she was a "harlot", and he had no alternative but to "go into her" in exchange for a "kid from his flock" and his "signet, bracelets and staff".
Naturally, she conceived as a result.
This case and Lot's case above clearly show that for men, being easily deceived is a key Biblical value. There is nothing like a veil to make it impossible to tell who someone is. Getting drunk is also a good excuse.
The Bible provides us with other important social information about values as well. In Deuteronomy 21, for example, the Israelites are advised that if they have two wives who each bear a son, husbands should not favor the son of the second-born even if they hate the wife who gave birth to the first-born.
The moral here is that having two wives is OK, but don't take out your hostilities towards one of them on the children they bear you.
It truly is a vital and personally meaningful exercise to find out what the Biblical values are in "Biblical families". Reading these passages makes me realize just how un-Biblical I have been! I need to reform my ways and get right with God! The maid thing sounds like a good place to begin.
Showing posts with label creationism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creationism. Show all posts
Monday, October 22, 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Commercial Calories
I was going to write about the religious right in the US again and its incomprehensible belief in creationism. The rest of the world shakes its head in wonder that these citizens of the most powerful nation on the planet seem to believe something that is so starkly wrong.
Didn't they get ANY science in school?
I wanted to explain this phenomenon to our friends abroad by showing that these folks themselves are evidence that the Theory of Evolution is correct.
They are proof that humans are evolving from earlier life forms; they ARE the missing link between our benighted past and our enlightened future.
But a more pressing discovery intervened.
As I have discussed in a previous post, Americans tend to pack on the pounds. In fact, we carry the equivalent of two entire Swedens on our national body in excess blubber.
How did we let ourselves go like this?
The reasons might seem obvious: we eat too much, we don't exercise, we spend too much time in church, but clearly these cannot account for all the added pounds. If you talk to anyone who is overweight, many seem to be just as baffled by their bulk as you are.
"I don't know why I look like the Goodyear blimp; I only eat salads!"
And as you watch them, you see it is true. They often don't eat any more than thinner people.
So how can one account for this national problem? Could millions of people have some sort of metabolic disorder?
Unlikely.
What they do have, however, is TV.
99% of Americans have an average of 2.24 TVs in their homes and spend many hours a week in front of the flickering screen.
What are they watching?
Food commercials! A lot of food commercials.
The commercial for the never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden, for example, shows a healthy looking group, preparing to enjoy endless bowls of differently flavored pasta — all shown, close up in their calorie rich redolence. Or consider the Pizza Hut commercial. It shows pizza after calorie laden pizza, but the two couples in the ad are not fat at all! Another ad, Carl's Jr, shows two slim and trim women in bikinis making and eating enormous, pulled pork-stuffed cheeseburgers.
Clearly the food is not doing THEM any harm.
So what gives?
We need to approach this scientifically and analyze the data. Who watches the most TV in the US? Men watch an average of 29 hours per week while women log in at 34 hours per week. Who tends to be more obese? Men or women? The stats show that women tend to be more obese than men.
Clearly watching the food commercials themselves is what is making the US population overweight! Somehow, seeing the deliciously presented food in all of its savory splendor causes our bodies to react by storing up fat, a kind of Pavlovian reaction. In the same way that a fearful situation can make our bodies respond with adrenaline and a "fight or flight" reaction, watching food commercials on TV makes us gain weight. Your brain sees an almost pornographic food commercial on the boob-tube and says, "OMG! Look at that chicken pot pie!" and sends a message to your fat cells to "go Goodyear".
Which brings me to my new diet idea.
Since your weight gain is most likely to have been caused by watching these commercials and NOT by the half-gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough, Häagan Dazs ice cream you had after dinner, you can reduce your weight by the simple expedient of turning off the TV when a food commercial comes on, or – better yet – get up from your couch and go get a beer and some chips and salsa to avoid exposing your body to those pernicious, subliminal (and subcutaneous) influences.
Didn't they get ANY science in school?
I wanted to explain this phenomenon to our friends abroad by showing that these folks themselves are evidence that the Theory of Evolution is correct.
They are proof that humans are evolving from earlier life forms; they ARE the missing link between our benighted past and our enlightened future.
But a more pressing discovery intervened.
As I have discussed in a previous post, Americans tend to pack on the pounds. In fact, we carry the equivalent of two entire Swedens on our national body in excess blubber.
How did we let ourselves go like this?
The reasons might seem obvious: we eat too much, we don't exercise, we spend too much time in church, but clearly these cannot account for all the added pounds. If you talk to anyone who is overweight, many seem to be just as baffled by their bulk as you are.
"I don't know why I look like the Goodyear blimp; I only eat salads!"
And as you watch them, you see it is true. They often don't eat any more than thinner people.
So how can one account for this national problem? Could millions of people have some sort of metabolic disorder?
Unlikely.
What they do have, however, is TV.
99% of Americans have an average of 2.24 TVs in their homes and spend many hours a week in front of the flickering screen.
What are they watching?
Food commercials! A lot of food commercials.
The commercial for the never-ending pasta bowl at Olive Garden, for example, shows a healthy looking group, preparing to enjoy endless bowls of differently flavored pasta — all shown, close up in their calorie rich redolence. Or consider the Pizza Hut commercial. It shows pizza after calorie laden pizza, but the two couples in the ad are not fat at all! Another ad, Carl's Jr, shows two slim and trim women in bikinis making and eating enormous, pulled pork-stuffed cheeseburgers.
Clearly the food is not doing THEM any harm.
So what gives?
We need to approach this scientifically and analyze the data. Who watches the most TV in the US? Men watch an average of 29 hours per week while women log in at 34 hours per week. Who tends to be more obese? Men or women? The stats show that women tend to be more obese than men.
Clearly watching the food commercials themselves is what is making the US population overweight! Somehow, seeing the deliciously presented food in all of its savory splendor causes our bodies to react by storing up fat, a kind of Pavlovian reaction. In the same way that a fearful situation can make our bodies respond with adrenaline and a "fight or flight" reaction, watching food commercials on TV makes us gain weight. Your brain sees an almost pornographic food commercial on the boob-tube and says, "OMG! Look at that chicken pot pie!" and sends a message to your fat cells to "go Goodyear".
Which brings me to my new diet idea.
Since your weight gain is most likely to have been caused by watching these commercials and NOT by the half-gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough, Häagan Dazs ice cream you had after dinner, you can reduce your weight by the simple expedient of turning off the TV when a food commercial comes on, or – better yet – get up from your couch and go get a beer and some chips and salsa to avoid exposing your body to those pernicious, subliminal (and subcutaneous) influences.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Evolyrics
Normally when I run out of stuff to write about, I would rant on and on about how dumb Republicans or members of the religious right are, but today I want to talk about something even more important, Evolution.
No, not evolution of the species, evolution in pop culture.
It may be my imagination, but doesn't it seem like modern "music" lyrics have really gone downhill over the past 50 years or so?
Take hip hop music with its rap sounds. I am sure you have heard them, blasting from cars that slowly cruise down the streets with their windows puffing in and out with the base tones.
Drake and Lil Wayne released their popular hit "Gonorrhea" in 2010. You can tell by the title that the lyrics are going to be a major contribution to world culture.
Drake raps,
"Big Mo, Big Red, two cups made of styrofoam
big cheese big bread call that sh-t a calzone
I will break your f-cking collar bone"
To which Lil Wayne responds in part,
"uh, you keep talkin’ that sh-t I’mma see ya
kill ya senorita and and f-ck ya mama mia!"
Call me old fashioned, but what ARE they talking about? Now back in MY day, the musicians really had a way with words!
Who could forget the Beach Boys and their big hit release in 1964, Papa Oom Mow Mow (listen from 1:30)? Sample lyrics:
"Papa-papa-hoooo
(A papa-oom-mow-mow a papa-oom-mow-mow)
Papa-papa-papa-hoooo
(A papa-oom-mow-mow a papa-oom-mow-mow)
Doot doot doot"
I am telling you, they just do not write lyrics like that anymore.
Even as late as 1975, musicians like KC & The Sunshine Band were writing moving songs with compelling poetry, such as, "That's the Way I Like It" (you can sing along!).
Lyrics that have a way of staying with you over the ages:
"That's the way
uh huh uh huh
I like it
uh huh uh huh.
That's the way
uh huh uh huh
I like it
uh huh uh huh."
Let's be honest here, even Shakespeare could not have come up with lyrics like those!
But I digress; what we want to talk about is evolution, right? The evolution of romantic lyrics is what I specifically had in mind.
In 1963, The Beatles released their big hit, "I Want to Hold Your Hand". How touching! A whole song about wanting to hold his girlfriend's hand!
It wasn't long, however, until Tommy James and the Shondells pushed the romantic envelope with "Hanky Panky" in 1966.
"My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky"
It leaves a little less to the imagination than what might happen after holding hands with the Beatles. But still, "hanky panky" could be something like serious flirting or even petting; there is some room for interpretation. Naturally the lyricists evolved until by 2006, Akon and Snoop Dogg laid it ALL on the table with their big hit, "I wanna f**k you". Absolutely no question there about the romantic intent! Holding hands is for wusses.
A lot of deeply disturbed people don't believe in evolution and complain that there is no evidence to support the view that evolution exists, but clearly they will have to admit that in popular culture at least, things is moving along!
No, not evolution of the species, evolution in pop culture.
It may be my imagination, but doesn't it seem like modern "music" lyrics have really gone downhill over the past 50 years or so?
Take hip hop music with its rap sounds. I am sure you have heard them, blasting from cars that slowly cruise down the streets with their windows puffing in and out with the base tones.
Drake and Lil Wayne released their popular hit "Gonorrhea" in 2010. You can tell by the title that the lyrics are going to be a major contribution to world culture.
Drake raps,
"Big Mo, Big Red, two cups made of styrofoam
big cheese big bread call that sh-t a calzone
I will break your f-cking collar bone"
To which Lil Wayne responds in part,
"uh, you keep talkin’ that sh-t I’mma see ya
kill ya senorita and and f-ck ya mama mia!"
Call me old fashioned, but what ARE they talking about? Now back in MY day, the musicians really had a way with words!
Who could forget the Beach Boys and their big hit release in 1964, Papa Oom Mow Mow (listen from 1:30)? Sample lyrics:
"Papa-papa-hoooo
(A papa-oom-mow-mow a papa-oom-mow-mow)
Papa-papa-papa-hoooo
(A papa-oom-mow-mow a papa-oom-mow-mow)
Doot doot doot"
I am telling you, they just do not write lyrics like that anymore.
Even as late as 1975, musicians like KC & The Sunshine Band were writing moving songs with compelling poetry, such as, "That's the Way I Like It" (you can sing along!).
Lyrics that have a way of staying with you over the ages:
"That's the way
uh huh uh huh
I like it
uh huh uh huh.
That's the way
uh huh uh huh
I like it
uh huh uh huh."
Let's be honest here, even Shakespeare could not have come up with lyrics like those!
But I digress; what we want to talk about is evolution, right? The evolution of romantic lyrics is what I specifically had in mind.
In 1963, The Beatles released their big hit, "I Want to Hold Your Hand". How touching! A whole song about wanting to hold his girlfriend's hand!
It wasn't long, however, until Tommy James and the Shondells pushed the romantic envelope with "Hanky Panky" in 1966.
"My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky
My baby does the hanky panky"
It leaves a little less to the imagination than what might happen after holding hands with the Beatles. But still, "hanky panky" could be something like serious flirting or even petting; there is some room for interpretation. Naturally the lyricists evolved until by 2006, Akon and Snoop Dogg laid it ALL on the table with their big hit, "I wanna f**k you". Absolutely no question there about the romantic intent! Holding hands is for wusses.
A lot of deeply disturbed people don't believe in evolution and complain that there is no evidence to support the view that evolution exists, but clearly they will have to admit that in popular culture at least, things is moving along!
Monday, September 12, 2011
Fossil Flatulence
I know I have been intolerant and ranted here about creationism and the people who believe in that theory, but recently I have come around to thinking that they may have a point. I admit that I might have been hasty in my criticism and also too quick to make fun of them and their ideas. I should be more thoughtful and weigh the evidence carefully before rushing to judgement.
One of the ideas that creationists bandy about in tandem with the "young Earth theory" is that global warming is not due to human activity. Since they believe that dinosaurs and humans occupied our planet at the same time, clearly they might be right.
One of the most potent greenhouse gases is methane, a gas found in flatulence. Humans (with the exception of a few people I know) do not generally produce all that much of this gas. The occasional hiss and squeak in faculty meetings, for example, could not possibly create more than a few cubic centimeters of global warming gases even if the meeting goes on for hours and Prof. K. is in attendance. A jumbo-jet full of gassy seat cushions would not equal the output of even one cow.
It is a well-known fact that flatulence and burps from cows contribute to global warming, but in a world that is only about 6000 years old, this can only be a minor factor. On the other hand, dinosaurs must have been around with humans AND cows for a long time in the early years of our planet, even surviving the flood of Noah's ark fame. A large cow, weighing in at about one ton, is estimated to produce about 1000 liters of heat-trapping methane and other gases per day!
Dinosaurs, on the other hand, could be as large as 50 or even 100 tons!
Tyrannosaurus Rex, for example, weighed in at about 7 tons. It's diet consisted largely of meat which it consumed in large gulps without proper chewing. Not chewing your food thoroughly can result in flatulence and other bowel problems such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. For T-Rex this ill-mannered way of eating necessarily put a lot of the food-processing responsibility on its digestive tract, resulting in copious amounts of greenhouse gases being vented into the atmosphere. The IBS must also have put it in a cranky mood. The appearance of a cranky and gassy T-Rex must have been a real scare for the people of the time!
Consider also a large plant eating dinosaur such as a sauropod which could weigh as much as 100 large cows and probably produce 100 times as much gas! Imagine, one animal spewing out 100,000 liters of gas a day! It would be eligible for membership in OPEC. The sauropods are thought to have traveled in vast herds, much like cattle today, eating enormous amounts of vegetation (probably becoming real pests for people and their farms) and farting up a storm. Clearly their flatulence would have been a much more potent influence on global warming, not to mention the dangers of having them around open campfires where humans were trying to cook their food. A passing herd and its accompanying cloud of gas could result in a phenomenon not unlike a fuel-air explosive. I am surprised we have not found large scorched areas in the sedimentary record, but maybe they remain to be discovered by scientific investigators from the creation science organizations.
As ancient records show, the dinosaurs disappeared from the planet before recorded history. There are pictures of crocodiles in Egyptian art, for example; they were even considered gods, but none of T-Rex. So we know that the dinosaurs were gone before humans learned to write and draw. There are no cave drawings of the dinosaurs either. We can be relieved, therefore, to know that the global warming that was accelerated by their various gases will also drop off in the years ahead. Unless, of course, too many humans like Prof. K. come to inhabit our small, blue world.
One of the ideas that creationists bandy about in tandem with the "young Earth theory" is that global warming is not due to human activity. Since they believe that dinosaurs and humans occupied our planet at the same time, clearly they might be right.
One of the most potent greenhouse gases is methane, a gas found in flatulence. Humans (with the exception of a few people I know) do not generally produce all that much of this gas. The occasional hiss and squeak in faculty meetings, for example, could not possibly create more than a few cubic centimeters of global warming gases even if the meeting goes on for hours and Prof. K. is in attendance. A jumbo-jet full of gassy seat cushions would not equal the output of even one cow.
It is a well-known fact that flatulence and burps from cows contribute to global warming, but in a world that is only about 6000 years old, this can only be a minor factor. On the other hand, dinosaurs must have been around with humans AND cows for a long time in the early years of our planet, even surviving the flood of Noah's ark fame. A large cow, weighing in at about one ton, is estimated to produce about 1000 liters of heat-trapping methane and other gases per day!
Dinosaurs, on the other hand, could be as large as 50 or even 100 tons!
Tyrannosaurus Rex, for example, weighed in at about 7 tons. It's diet consisted largely of meat which it consumed in large gulps without proper chewing. Not chewing your food thoroughly can result in flatulence and other bowel problems such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. For T-Rex this ill-mannered way of eating necessarily put a lot of the food-processing responsibility on its digestive tract, resulting in copious amounts of greenhouse gases being vented into the atmosphere. The IBS must also have put it in a cranky mood. The appearance of a cranky and gassy T-Rex must have been a real scare for the people of the time!
Consider also a large plant eating dinosaur such as a sauropod which could weigh as much as 100 large cows and probably produce 100 times as much gas! Imagine, one animal spewing out 100,000 liters of gas a day! It would be eligible for membership in OPEC. The sauropods are thought to have traveled in vast herds, much like cattle today, eating enormous amounts of vegetation (probably becoming real pests for people and their farms) and farting up a storm. Clearly their flatulence would have been a much more potent influence on global warming, not to mention the dangers of having them around open campfires where humans were trying to cook their food. A passing herd and its accompanying cloud of gas could result in a phenomenon not unlike a fuel-air explosive. I am surprised we have not found large scorched areas in the sedimentary record, but maybe they remain to be discovered by scientific investigators from the creation science organizations.
As ancient records show, the dinosaurs disappeared from the planet before recorded history. There are pictures of crocodiles in Egyptian art, for example; they were even considered gods, but none of T-Rex. So we know that the dinosaurs were gone before humans learned to write and draw. There are no cave drawings of the dinosaurs either. We can be relieved, therefore, to know that the global warming that was accelerated by their various gases will also drop off in the years ahead. Unless, of course, too many humans like Prof. K. come to inhabit our small, blue world.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Creationist Cretins
I am taking a break from writing humor about Japan to say something about the nuthouse developments in the United States. The religious fervor that is sweeping a certain segment of our nation is starting to get on my nerves. High on the list of irritants are those who believe in Creationism. For those of you who may not yet have heard of this movement, it is a Christian fundamentalist attitude that takes the Bible literally and believes (please, no laughing yet, ok?) that the Earth was created about 5000 years ago and that the process of evolution has not happened.
Key to this "theory" is the adjunct belief that the whole world was inundated in a flood (as said in the Bible) and that all the living things that breathe were saved on Noah's Ark.
According to the Bible, noah's ark was 300 cubits long (450 feet, or 135 meters);
its width was 50 cubits (75 feet, or 22.5 meters), and it had three stories with a height of 30 cubits (45 feet, or 13.5 meters). Noah and his family along with all the animals were on his Ark about 377 days – something more than a year.
Consider:
Giant Anteaters eat 30,000 termites and ants a day. Noah had to have 2 of them, so 60,000 termites and ants a day needed to be provided. Do the math yourself – 8,527,740,000 termites and ants on a wooden ship to provide food for only two anteaters. Normal ant colonies have around 50,000 ants, a large colony of army ants (which you would not want on a boat) have about 700,000, but do not stay in one place. One of the largest ant colonies ever discovered was found in Japan. It contained only "306 million worker ants and one million queen ants living in 45,000 nests interconnected by underground passages over an area of 2.7 km²". Ants do not live in pairs. Ants do not swim. There are about 10,000 different species of ants. Two of each ant and termite species would also have needed to be protected from the seas and from the anteaters.
How about bats? There are around 5000 different species of bat, many of which eat one third of their body weight every night in insect prey. I am unaware that any bat species is pelagic. The bats need to hunt the insects, most of which would have to be flying around for them to be caught.
There are also about 5000 species of frogs who do not do well on the open seas, especially seas that covered the whole planet, including presumably Mt. Ararat at 5,137 m/16,854 ft. (We will be generous here and suggest that Mt. Everest and other much higher mountains did not exist at the time.)
Literal readers of the Bible claim that "Bible scholars have calculated that approximately 45,000 animals might have fit on the ark". Oh really?
Consider:
The Oasis of the Seas, a very large cruise ship, has a length of 360 m or 1,181 ft, more than double the length of the Ark. Its beam is 47 m (154 ft), again more than double the Ark's width. It's height is 72 m (236 ft) above the waterline, more than 5 times as high as the Ark. It's capacity for short one- and two-week cruises is around 5,000 passengers and 2,000 crew, or a total of 7,000 people. Granted, people traveling on a cruise require a lot of services and special food, etc. but does it seem likely that a much smaller vessel could support 45,000 animals and their food for over a year? If you believe that, you have a major short circuit in your brain somewhere.
You get the picture here? People who take this beautiful surviving story from our prehistoric days (it's in the Koran too) as gospel truth have taken serious leave of their senses and intellect. This movement is anti-science pure and simple. I thought we got over that 500 years ago.
Apologies for the rant.
Key to this "theory" is the adjunct belief that the whole world was inundated in a flood (as said in the Bible) and that all the living things that breathe were saved on Noah's Ark.
According to the Bible, noah's ark was 300 cubits long (450 feet, or 135 meters);
its width was 50 cubits (75 feet, or 22.5 meters), and it had three stories with a height of 30 cubits (45 feet, or 13.5 meters). Noah and his family along with all the animals were on his Ark about 377 days – something more than a year.
Consider:
Giant Anteaters eat 30,000 termites and ants a day. Noah had to have 2 of them, so 60,000 termites and ants a day needed to be provided. Do the math yourself – 8,527,740,000 termites and ants on a wooden ship to provide food for only two anteaters. Normal ant colonies have around 50,000 ants, a large colony of army ants (which you would not want on a boat) have about 700,000, but do not stay in one place. One of the largest ant colonies ever discovered was found in Japan. It contained only "306 million worker ants and one million queen ants living in 45,000 nests interconnected by underground passages over an area of 2.7 km²". Ants do not live in pairs. Ants do not swim. There are about 10,000 different species of ants. Two of each ant and termite species would also have needed to be protected from the seas and from the anteaters.
How about bats? There are around 5000 different species of bat, many of which eat one third of their body weight every night in insect prey. I am unaware that any bat species is pelagic. The bats need to hunt the insects, most of which would have to be flying around for them to be caught.
There are also about 5000 species of frogs who do not do well on the open seas, especially seas that covered the whole planet, including presumably Mt. Ararat at 5,137 m/16,854 ft. (We will be generous here and suggest that Mt. Everest and other much higher mountains did not exist at the time.)
Literal readers of the Bible claim that "Bible scholars have calculated that approximately 45,000 animals might have fit on the ark". Oh really?
Consider:
The Oasis of the Seas, a very large cruise ship, has a length of 360 m or 1,181 ft, more than double the length of the Ark. Its beam is 47 m (154 ft), again more than double the Ark's width. It's height is 72 m (236 ft) above the waterline, more than 5 times as high as the Ark. It's capacity for short one- and two-week cruises is around 5,000 passengers and 2,000 crew, or a total of 7,000 people. Granted, people traveling on a cruise require a lot of services and special food, etc. but does it seem likely that a much smaller vessel could support 45,000 animals and their food for over a year? If you believe that, you have a major short circuit in your brain somewhere.
You get the picture here? People who take this beautiful surviving story from our prehistoric days (it's in the Koran too) as gospel truth have taken serious leave of their senses and intellect. This movement is anti-science pure and simple. I thought we got over that 500 years ago.
Apologies for the rant.
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