History of Sin

[Sprafa]

History of Sin (by Oliver Thomson)

Part III

So what?​

“We witness the tremble and swaying walk of a social structure supported by an inadequate philosophy”
Robert Audrey

A theme has been regularly emerging since the times of the roman philosopher Seneca: the greatest crimes in History were committed by the official power, by leading groups in determined societies, or by individuals convinced of their own integrity instigated by ambitious aid men, acting apparently with the approval of its peers.

A second theme is the possibility there is some sort of subjacent sadism in human beings, especially in men, for whom the use of murder, torture or terrorism is a way to power or prestige. The result has been the rationalization of that sadism in every form. Historically, the 1st great rationalization of sadism was the acceptation of the generally spread out habit of sacrifice to the gods, including the most ancient variant in which the slaves were killed or buried with their masters. This custom was nearly universal on the pre-Christian era, from Norway to China, e later South America. The 2nd version was the slaughter of defeated armies or civilians, as a deliberate policy of terror, as practiced by the Assyrians, Egyptians, Vikings, Mongols and others. Then came the furious persecutions of minorities, starting with the enjoyment of Rome with the gladiators, the killing of Jews in the Crusades and, after the Black Plague, the frenetic attacks of the Inquisition against the heretic and witches.
Next, it was the time of ample exploration and cruelty, when slave traffic started again in the beginning of the Modern Age, servitude was renewed and followed by heavy industrial exploration. The later stage of institutionalized sadism was the one of megalithic tyranny, from Napoleon forward, with the hyperactive destructivity of the new rulers, which used recruitment and modern weaponry to considerably increase the scale of the killings. In all those periods, individuals and groups showed capability of becoming mega-sadistic wishful to use practically any level of cruelty to promote their ambitions. – Between them the Mongol Khans, the priests of the Inquisition, the Turks in Armenia and the Nazis. It’s not enough to blame it on these few people; each one of these groups created an ethos by which it looked like a moral act for it’s people to follow orders as torturers, witch burners, slave traffickers, gas chamber assistants, people that probably went back home and treated their family and pets well.

That leads to the possibility of a third theme, which is simply as follows: people are easily led. Throughout all human History, we’ve seen numerous examples of populations promptly persuaded to accept that what is normally black is white, that vendetta is not only justifiable, but genocide and deliberate imposture of suffering in mass is acceptable. As we’ve seen, humans can be led not only to sadism, but also to masoquism. The disposition to die (almost always uselessly) in the battlefield, sacrifice life for glory or obscure causes, suffer deliberate torments, as a religious demonstration with intention of public recognition, all that has a lot in common. Self complacency inversed has been a part of the regular pardon of masse movements since ancient times.

The fourth theme is the oscillation between the emphasis on self-control, puritanism and in family virtues and hedonist self-gratification and family abandonment. That swing may be recurrent of the reaction of a generation to its predecessor or of the fact that tendency itself tends to move to extremes pushes customs to the point where the inverse movement becomes inevitable. There is no specific evidence that societies that excessively permissive destroy themselves, although there are some examples that that form of decay indeed foretold the decline and fall of regimes. There are many examples of highly disciplined societies where moral fanatism lead to a level of intolerance or cruelty that sometimes is much more harmful to human life than the less vehement irresponsibility of permissive regimes. We can notice how frequently vehement moralities, whichever extreme they belong, are associated to periods of great creative force in arts, and also how vigorous codes are usually, in the tradition of Arnold Toynbee, an answer to adverse situations. Between the existing vices since the dawn of times, many were received with surprise, like if they were new in each area, and foretold a new fall in human behavior; but these vices present a flux and reflux, epidemics come to an apogee and then fall back , not having a permanent relapse.

A more positive point of view to review moral history is to consider it in terms of compassion. If you can say that most part of what is good in human behavior is related to the care for human life and well-being, then the main source of kindness is the natural instinct for compassion. What’s characteristic in human compassion is that, in the best possibility, it supplants substantially any anything similar in the behavior of other animals; however, in its worse performance, it shows a behavioral pardon a lot worse than any other animal. Many of the examples of cruelty in masse we’ve seen in this book suggest it was the obsessive leadership of small groups or individuals that, for a while, manipulated their peoples to ignore the normal sentiments of compassion.
In counterpart, many of the non-events in History are related to societies with discreet leaderships and non-fanatical ideologies, which, as such, did not win nor the glory nor the notoriety to project themselves in History. Westermarck supplies numerous examples: to Kolben, the Hottentots were “the friendliest, liberal and benevolent people that has ever existed on Earth”. The people of Madagascar, according to Doury, “treated each other with more humanity then we do”. The Artic explorer, Nansen, commented, “The Greenlanders are the most compassionate creatures with their neighbours. Their 1st social rule is to help one another”. The dyaks were “hospitable, generous and human”. (This goes on, but you can get the point – translator’s note)
These examples and many other suggest, even that they don’t prove it, that the natural human behaviour tends to be compassionate, and that a sadist attitude is an artificial mental state created by a leadership or other pressures. We should, then, look into those conflicting emotions that tend to get compassion dull between leaders and followers, because that shock has been the greatest source of collective cruelty in human history.
Compassion can be made dull by a sense of competition. Competitive spirit, as we’ve seen, can be easily awakened in human beings, quickly become obsessive, and in some cases contradicts directly the sense of compassion. Competitiveness is stronger in the elites, but it’s easily passed down, along the classes. The compulsion to win substitutes the sense of cooperation, which is lighter, and charity is lowered. This, by its own, creates individuals that feel superior. Competition leads to the idea of stratification, of superiority and inferiority, based off race, inherited social position, merit, richness or ideology.
The sentiment of superiority forms habits; becomes fanatism and prejudice, in a way that the disdain for the inferiors predominates over compassion. From disdain to violence is a small step.
Equally, compassion can be made dull by a sentiment of inferiority. If people fell they have been harmed or threatened, the source of good will dries. When exposed to myths of atrocity, stories of sabotage and usury, fear of war or hunger, compassion is corroded and subjacent violence can be easily introduced. It’s more than possible people abused during childhood can grow up with sadist or neurotic tendencies to recover equality or obtain superiority.
Third, compassion is made dull by superstition and prejudice, especially in the belief of life after death, good or bad. We’ve seen numerous examples of sadist persecution in name of religion, when fanatism takes the place of natural sentiments.
Finally, compassion can be made dull by super exposure - cruelty seen with frequency stops being seen. We’ve seen examples of important philosophers of their time that apparently ignored great evils of their time; Aristotle did not question slavery and Tomas de Aquinas accepted prostitution as necessary. People used to slave traffic, to see witches being burned, human sacrifice or genocide hardly noticed these things. For millennia, women and children may have suffered abuse without anyone being punished. Possibly, the main objective of education should be the promotion of natural compassion and the study of the forces that can destroy it; and maybe, that is a little more than the reaffirmation of the teachings of Buda, Mohammad, Christ and other great prophets.
To someone daring enough to consider which would be the tendencies for the moral codes of the XX century, it’s only possible that there are some lessons we can learn with the past. History shows us that there have been numerous periods where changes in the moral codes resulted in greater suffering and human disgrace, nothing less. Until certain point, that happened because of the obsessive quality acquired by objectives originally honest, because of paranoia, ambition or excessive enthusiasm of the leaders of a society. From there the world has supported so many periods of what Marc Bloch called of “collective error”, as the persecution of the witches, heretics, Jews and Trotskyites. Most of the suffering provoked by men in the World hasn’t been attributed to delinquents, abnormal people or others that rejected the moral norms of society, but to the ones that followed the norms with diligence, that were heroes of their own time, that had the capability to rationalize the cruelties they did.
New measures to avoid or diminish delinquency or individual shunting may be useful, but not as important as trying to guarantee that “collective errors” are conscientiously avoided in the future. The XX century was, without a doubt, a century of a lot of “collective errors”. We’ve seen that the process of the study of the creation of moral codes isn’t much less scientific so that someone is capable to create “clockwork oranges”, morally perfect robots, adequate to the needs of the next century. But it’s reasonable to suggest that the people should 1st agree in their collective objectives, and then maybe consider the appropriate terms of moral cooperation that would be best to achieve such ends.
Zoologists like Robert Audrey and Konrad Lorenz discussed the theme exactly that way. They are concerned with what they consider a great deviation in relation to Nature, and specially the reduced effects of natural selection affecting man presently. According to Lorenz:

“Under the conditions of modern civilized life, there is not a single factor that exercises selective pressure in the direction of kindness and generosity, expecting the innate feeling of natural justice”

Lorenz offered a new list of seven deadly sins: overpopulation, destruction of the environment, decay of compassion and lowering of pleasure, spoiled parental treatment, the growing doctrine of the masses and nuclear weapons. Particularly, he saw the obsessive and stressed out citizens of the Western society vulgarized by the pressures of mass industry, overloaded with perpetual contracts and emotionally impoverished by the endless subdivision of responsibility. If you look at the probable pressures and onslaughts of the last decade of the XX century, it’s quite possible there will be a greater pressure against population growth, in a way that the dominant ethics will probably favour marriage and childbirth later, small families and maybe more permissive behaviour. Because of economical standard and international job, there will be even more pressures to prevent the collapse of the commercial system, there will be the need of expanding the materialistic ethics of self complacency. There will be the pressure of an aging World population, making compassion for the elder dull. There will be a constant pressure so that technical abilities or cerebral capacity are developed in a competitive world, where the fittest will have more chances to survive and the awkward, of being explored. As the population of the world constantly drives away from subsistence agriculture and goes into the direction of a competitive marked of superfluous and services, there will be only even greater frustrations and readjustments to be solved, and the possibility of new kinds of civil war and violence, as the only way of escape, will increase. All over the world, there will be always more educated persons as childs pressured in the direction of material richness, with emphasis on educational competition, neurotic by right and status, not concerned with duties and with no time for compassion, for being deloused of modern philosophy and science and with no objective pardon or belief. As the mass ethos probably will be as subjective, self-centred, competitive and materialist, it will also tend to be quite vulnerable. The greater the demand for conquer and material success, the more frequent the inevitability of failure and greater is the susceptibility to create routs of escape or consolation.
So far it’s evident that the abolition of traditional and rational doctrines (especially the moderated like the great established religions) does not prevents the attraction for other quite extravagant and less rational. The adornments of the extravagant may be more attractive than the simpler disguises of the traditional beliefs. In the midst of materialist and rational crowds, there will probably always be, from time to time, irrational groups to the point of eccentricity, when not dangerous and violent. That will include the rebirth of small sporadic nationalisms and religions, and even new versions of both, as the frustrated masses react against the growing uniformity of the species.
The unshakable impulse that will transform the world population into an immense and conformist middle class will create new challenges to the inevitable wish of rebellion and identification of every generation.
Recently, our tendency has been to define the healthy morality as the one that leads to the maximum possible elimination of human suffering, but a factor has been neglected.
We are promptly capable of identifying the aspects of physical suffering – hunger, disease, genocide, war, negligence, persecution, slavery, torture and exploration – that is fair to say, moral codes should be structured to prevent.

 

[Sprafa]

But that is essentially negative, and if the physical discomforts are eliminated, history has frequently shown us that we can still end in a unadjusted, unhappy, bored and unmotivated society, whose mere ennui can spread the seeds of moral collapse and consequent physical disgrace in the next generation. The caliph Abdul Rahman commented, after a realm of 50 years, in which he had enjoyed victory, peace and all material benefits, that from his memories he could only identify only 14 days of true happiness. The human mind has other needs that can be called emotional or spiritual that a rational moral philosophy may not be able to satisfy. Well succeeded ideologies in the past tend to; therefore, make part of the important spiritual packages or religions, in which you add the irrational components to give charisma and motivation to the rational code. It’s that irrational element that usually has offered the fanatic tone that took moralities in other way healthy to tolerate or encourage extraordinary levels of persecution, nearly invalidating, thus, the original reason for the evolution of the code. We should, however, recognize the necessity of a charismatic package, of superrational objectives and a spiritual life structure. Edward de Bono claimed that “all the ancient religions, including Marxism, were elaborated for a world of suffering. It is also true that most of the great moral systems of the world were mad for difficult times. The Jewish code came from a dispossessed tribe from the desert, the Spartan ethics, from an isolated minority in struggle, puritanism, from an era or persecutions by several catholic governments, the Victorian values, of the severe competitive environment of the Industrial Revolution, and so on. Most of these systems were funded over a strong demand of sacrifice from the individual, in a way that the energy could be directed to collective ends. This sense of repression of I in favour of country or king, of ideals or gods, is what gives to many important ethical codes the sense of altruism.
The more wrong that collective objectives may be, the fact that society isn’t totally self-centred on the individual level provides a certain positive quality. The people that make these sacrifices may manage to obtain as much, if not more, happiness sharing collective objectives as enjoying personal pleasures. Even fighting for lost causes, or sharing persecution, can be more gratifying than achieving materialistic goals individually; collective goals intrinsically useless may in fact be valuable due to the personal sacrifice they demand.
If we look at typical moral codes, in periods where life was less harsh, we see a tendency to low demands for collective objectives and personal sacrifice. The end of the Roman Empire, the Renaissance and the Edwardian eras were characterized by a perplexed and never totally satisfied search for personal pleasure and disdain for rules. For the most part of the World, the ending of the XX century and the beginning of the XXI establish the single greatest challenge in its low level of demand and low credibility by collective goals. Life (with exception of the Third World) is excessively comfortable, in a general way, to encourage the cooperative impetus of survival that helps to create the personal resignation. From the loss of the sense of direction, the experimental self-destructive growth and low reputation of personal sacrifice, typical of affluent societies.
The problem with developed societies with no obvious goals to fight for, with a long life expectancy and little fear of the horrors of a life after punitive death, with no unifying inspiration for collective objectives, is like canalizing the motivational excess with which gifted human beings are reasonably well supplied with, in a way they are less prone to self-destruction, to polygamy, to alcoholism, to violence and shady obsessions. There is also the problem to oppose the amazing cynicism: the rough realism of the media makes increasingly more difficult to create new mythologies, justify collective goals in this world or in the next one. The great tragedy of History is the dominant ethos until the present has been nearly always the model of self dither of the land owner, with its implications of racial exclusiveness, some times accompanied of religious elitism. This single factor has been responsible by the most part of the suffering endured by mankind in the elapse of the centuries. In the last 200 years this model has been imitated 1st by the middle class regimes, then even by the so called working class regimes, with dreadful results. In the 2nd half of the XX century, that essentially acquisitive ethics, without compassion, that seeks glory, until certain point has been followed by women, the last great grouping to demand equality. Men certainly don’t have the right to complain, but the results can be devastating if women don’t learn with the long records of masculine madness.
The moral codes of the future must not fall in the trap of over motivating their followers, of turning them into fanatics that might turn them into elitists, intolerant and even violent in the defence of their system. It makes sense to follow Aristotle and Buda in the search for the “middle path”, not as puritan or permissive. History clearly indicates that radical societies have been the less stable. We’ve seen the importance of not allowing the State component in a moral system to become excessively dominant; societies where patriotism and other macho behaviour are seen as the most important tend to get into crisis and breaking the moral system they should protect.
Decisively, morality must not be considered as a magical happening, but pondered upon with the objectives that matter the most to a determined time and place: in example, the conservative content of moral systems probably will increase. Then we must recognize that the organization of moral codes doesn’t only has moral precedents as it’s probably just a present and future necessity – therefore, we need new or revised mythologies, new images, new dramatizations, maybe even new “stone tablets”, however, at the same time, we have clear conscience of it’s purpose, functions, and limitations. That leads to the final characteristic; to the fact the moral codes need some level of objectivity, maybe even some mixture of precedent, scientific validity and collective ideology. The residual codes of great religions may very well adapt to that, as well as the observation of natural morality. The natural ethos that persists between some primitive peoples and in many peasant communities, that survived as E.P. Thomson identified as “popular morality in its roots” from the XVIII possesses qualities that frequently got away from the more complicated moral systems from great civilizations.
The lesson of History is to keep things simple: the well-succeeded moralities were based off fear – fear of pain, punishment, ridicule, disapproval or eternal torment. You remove these fears, as generally happens in affluent societies, and the system falls into disequilibrium. There’s only a sign of rebirth when the disequilibrium starts to produce enough destruction to restore fear.

The challenge for the XXI century is to build a new, mature ethos, based off positive goals and not negative; that understands the crisis the planet and the population is challenged with, a code that is built thru compassion and not only fear.

 

[Sprafa]

ok, I'm done


This is the final chapter of History of Sin by Oliver Thomson.

It changed my view of the World, I hope it does the same thing to someone else

Thanks to SHIPPI for helping me translate it.

 

[CrazyHarij]

Quiet a long text and a very good one, I must say.

 

[CptStern]

"That leads to the possibility of a third theme, which is simply as follows: people are easily led. Throughout all human History, we’ve seen numerous examples of populations promptly persuaded to accept that what is normally black is white, that vendetta is not only justifiable, but genocide and deliberate imposture of suffering in mass is acceptable."


how else could you explain the invasion of Iraq? (please dont flame ...this thread isnt about Iraq)

great find, interesting read Sprafa

 

[Shippi]

Definately an interesting read

And I'm glad I could help

 

[Sprafa]

I didn't spent the entire day translating this text for this thread to die with 5 replies!

 

[The Dark Elf]

45 minutes.. jeez stop worrying

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Too.....many....words.....brain....melting.....

 

[theGreenBunny]

As you wanted replies, I'll mention I'll be reading this tomorrow. I'm too tired to read somewhat intelligent articles right now. Thanks for spending a bunch of time translating it just so we can read it though.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Yeah, I think the large amount of text put most people off...you should have placed in interludes, with small jokes. Perhaps a little fun fact, or pieces of trivia

 

[Dedalus]

i think the article is a bit optimistic about the future, or maybe unrealistic.

certainly a very thorough exploration of human nature. everything written there should not be new to anyone. it's just another way of saying the same things we think of each day, but don't have the power or bravery to say it.

Sprafa, i told you to read this book in another thread, but you absolutely have to read "Simulacra & Simulation by Jean Baudrillard". it's based on similar material to this, and just as rewarding.

nice find.

 

[Letters]

The lesson of History is to keep things simple: the well-succeeded moralities were based off fear – fear of pain, punishment, ridicule, disapproval or eternal torment. You remove these fears, as generally happens in affluent societies, and the system falls into disequilibrium. There’s only a sign of rebirth when the disequilibrium starts to produce enough destruction to restore fear.

Bulllllllllshit...

The challenge for the XXI century is to build a new, mature ethos, based off positive goals and not negative; that understands the crisis the planet and the population is challenged with, a code that is built thru compassion and not only fear.

The whole thing is saying how we need to do this, we should do this, blah blah... how pointless. And it's all based off bullshit... that's great.

 

[Yakuza]

"Christ and other great prophets."

Meh, he lost all credibility. It was interesting however.

 

[CptStern]

"Christ and other great prophets."

Meh, he lost all credibility. It was interesting however.

hmmm how is that losing credibility? some people believe he was a prophet and not the son of god ...in fact many religions recognize him as a great man, which at least shows that they have some respect for him. His argument shouldnt be invalidated because he stated an opinion. Using that same logic much that christianity holds to be true can be discounted as opinion because much of it can unsubstantiated on purely logical terms. ei: the flood ... logic points that it is an impossiblity to cram all the world's species into a single boat, but many people take that as a truism because of their faith

 

[Jackal hit]

the article is okay...

...actually i think more people should read things like this. some of us already understand these concepts, but many many people still think that black and white exists (nothing is ever black and white, good vs bad is always subjective etc...). but, thanks for bringing this text to us sprafa

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

hmmm how is that losing credibility? some people believe he was a prophet and not the son of god ...in fact many religions recognize him as a great man, which at least shows that they have some respect for him. His argument shouldnt be invalidated because he stated an opinion. Using that same logic much that christianity holds to be true can be discounted as opinion because much of it can unsubstantiated on purely logical terms. ei: the flood ... logic points that it is an impossiblity to cram all the world's species into a single boat, but many people take that as a truism because of their faith

As a matter of fact, there is much to say something such as the flood could have happened...Its something for another thread though really. But in brief, think comets, high humidity, dust and large underground seas.

 

[CptStern]

I'm not disputing that it happened, I just dont think noah could have crammed in all those millions of species into a boat

 

[Tr0n]

Damn A.D.D....

 

[Yakuza]

hmmm how is that losing credibility? some people believe he was a prophet and not the son of god ...in fact many religions recognize him as a great man, which at least shows that they have some respect for him. His argument shouldnt be invalidated because he stated an opinion. Using that same logic much that christianity holds to be true can be discounted as opinion because much of it can unsubstantiated on purely logical terms. ei: the flood ... logic points that it is an impossiblity to cram all the world's species into a single boat, but many people take that as a truism because of their faith

Because word "Christ" is synonymous with the Hebrew Messiah. The expected king and deliverer of the Hebrews; the Savior; Christ. Not a great prophet.

He contradicts himself by calling Jesus the Christ and then calling him a great prophet. It was he who the prophets foretold.


"logic points that it is an impossiblity"


That in of itself is an illogical statement, for this to be truly logical for you to say you would have to know the possibility of ALL things. Do you know the possibility of all things? How do you know that God didn't give Noah 2 of every animal that were runts of their species or maybe he shrunk them all to fit. It cant be proven and I dont realy believe this but logicaly I cant say it was impossible.

 

[poseyjmac]

yep very true. reminds me how atheism is such an illogical way of thinking

 

[Neutrino]

yep very true. reminds me how atheism is such an illogical way of thinking

What? That's complete nonsense. It's no more illogical than religion. In fact it's a far more logical way of thinking in my opinion. Though I do concede that claiming to know anything for a fact that is unprovable is illogical, though one can use common sense in certain circumstances. If you have a reason though, please explain why you think atheism is any more illogical than anything else.

That in of itself is an illogical statement, for this to be truly logical for you to say you would have to know the possibility of ALL things. Do you know the possibility of all things? How do you know that God didn't give Noah 2 of every animal that were runts of their species or maybe he shrunk them all to fit. It cant be proven and I dont realy believe this but logicaly I cant say it was impossible.

Well as long as we're nitpicking, niether of those two options would work either. Even if the runts were chosen and were say 5 times smaller than normal the total amount of biomass needed would still be far greater than any ship could carry. As for the second option, you can't geometrically shrink an animal and still have it live. For example it's impossible to have a living human that is 5 inches tall but with the same dimensions of a full size human. Though there are several reasons for this, it mainly has to due with the surface area to volume ratio of the living structures.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Logic...Heh, such a stupid concept amoung humans.


Now work that out.

 

[Neutrino]

Logic...Heh, such a stupid concept amoung humans.


Now work that out.

Logic is infallible. Human are fallible. The combination produces, shall we say, some interesting results.

 

[Farrowlesparrow]

Well done my friend...I don't think a human will ever be truely logical, no matter how hard we try. Everything we do has a flaw somewhere along the line.

 

[Yakuza]

For example it's impossible to have a living human that is 5 inches tall but with the same dimensions of a full size human. Though there are several reasons for this, it mainly has to due with the surface area to volume ratio of the living structures.

Are you saying that God (with the possibility that he exists) could not shrink animals to a certain size if he wanted to.

 

[Neutrino]

Are you saying that God (with the possibility that he exists) could not shrink animals to a certain size if he wanted to.

Not without changing some fundamental laws of the universe. So I doubt it.

 

[Yakuza]

And considering that God would the creator of the universe, couldn'y he have created these animals for the purpose of a fitting on a boat when he knew a big flood was going to happen???

 

[Yakuza]

Also something interesting to read.


http://www.carm.org/questions/noahsark.htm

Could the ark really contain all the animals of the world? Again the answer is "Yes." But let's look at the last question in more detail. The ark took about 120 years to build. Noah was 480 years old when he began the work and he had the help of his wife, three sons, and his son's wives. He probably hired local people to help in the construction.
The dimensions of the ark have a ratio of six to one. The Ark was six times longer than it was wide. This is the best ratio for modern ship building. Model stability tests have shown that the design is stable for waves up to 200 feet high and that the ark could have rotated 90 degrees and still righted itself.
The volume of the ark would be 450 feet long by 75 feet wide by 45 feet high. This equals 1,518,750 cubic feet and is comparable to 569 modern railroad boxcars. Therefore each boxcar, by comparison, would be 1,518,750 ÷ 569, or 2,669 cubic feet of space. The average size of an animal on the earth is smaller than a cat. But, just to keep it safe let's consider the average size of an animal to be a sheep. The average double deck stock car holds 240 sheep. The Ark capacity would be about 569 x 240 equaling 136,560 animals of that size. However, that still is not accurate for our needs. Since most birds, reptiles, and amphibians are much smaller, let's double the boxcar capacity for them. Therefore, the boxcars could each hold 480 different kinds of birds, reptiles, amphibians.
Noah had to take two or seven of every kind of animal on the earth. Though it is not really known exactly what is meant by a biblical kind, it is generally considered to be animals that are fertile within their own groups. Any dog can breed with any dog, therefore, dogs are one kind. It would only be necessary to bring representatives of each kind since the parents could produce offspring that would carry the genetic information for all variations within their kind.


Classification . . . . Number of Species . . . . Number of Kinds on the Ark
Mammals . . . . . . . . .3,700 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,700 (a few live in water).
Birds . . . . . . . . . . . . 8,600 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60,200 (seven pairs according to
Gen. 7:3)
Reptiles. . . . . . . . . . .6,300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,300
Amphibians. . . . . . . .2,500 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,500
Fishes. . . . . . . . . . . .20,600. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .zero
Other marine life . . . 192,605. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .zero
Insects . . . . . . . . . . . 850,000 . . . (Since insects are very small, and a great many could be stored in a small area, calculation would be difficult.)
Total . . . . . . . . . . . .1,072,305 . . . . . . . . . . . . .72,700
The total number of mammals would be 3,700 times two pair which equals 7,400 animals. 7,400 divided by 240 = 31 boxcars used.
Since Gen. 7:3 says to take seven pairs of every bird then the total for birds would be 8,600 times two pair times 7 or 120,400 animals. 120,400 ÷ 480 = 250 boxcars. The reptiles and amphibians would be 6,300 plus 2,500 or 8,800. 8,800 times two pair equals 17,600 animals. 17,600 divided by 480 = 37 boxcars.
The total number of boxcars used would be 318 with a total number of animals at 145,400. There would be 251 boxcars left over. That means that only 56% of the ark would be used for storing the animals. Obviously, then, the rest of the space would be used for food for the people and animals and sleeping quarters. In addition, considering that insects are extremely small, it is easily conceivable that they could be housed in part of the remaining space.
It should also be considered that many animals can hibernate. Additionally, predators and prey have been known to habitat peacefully together during situations of stress like fire, flood, or earthquake. In the Ark, normal animal behavior would probably have been different from normal. Specialists in animal behavior have noted that animals can sense danger and have often migrated to escape it. Perhaps God used their migratory instincts to get them to the Ark.
Though this is only a brief analysis, it should present enough evidence that the Ark account is certainly within the realm of possibility.

 

[Dedalus]

ok let me fill you in a little. the bible's various stories are not meant to be used as 'fact' or taken as 100% infalliable, no matter what christians will tell you. the purpose of the stories is for people to get the meaning behind everything. even if there were floods and massive arks and seas parting, there's little solid evidence for it.

but really, read the bible as something to teach you lessons rather than as a fact book.

 

[Yakuza]

ok let me fill you in a little. the bible's various stories are not meant to be used as 'fact' or taken as 100% infalliable, no matter what christians will tell you. the purpose of the stories is for people to get the meaning behind everything. even if there were floods and massive arks and seas parting, there's little solid evidence for it.

but really, read the bible as something to teach you lessons rather than as a fact book.

What would be the meaning of Noahs Ark, if it wasn't ment to be somthing that really happened.

 

[Dedalus]

What would be the meaning of Noahs Ark, if it wasn't ment to be somthing that really happened.

i haven't a clue.

ask a christian or a priest or someone. there's probably some sort of meaning in there if you examine it.

 

[Letters]

I'm a Catholic and I can say that if you actually believe the Ark was real, you have issues.

 

[Yakuza]

I'm a Catholic and I can say that if you actually believe the Ark was real, you have issues.

And yet you dont have any problems with a man named Jesus Christ who not only was resurrected but made the blind see, heal uncurable diseases, WALKED on water, Calmed a storm with a simple command......??

 

[Yakuza]

i haven't a clue.

ask a christian or a priest or someone. there's probably some sort of meaning in there if you examine it.

I am a Christian and I believe Noahas Ark to be true.

 

[Neutrino]

And considering that God would the creator of the universe, couldn'y he have created these animals for the purpose of a fitting on a boat when he knew a big flood was going to happen???

That doesn't seem like a very smart thing for him to do though. Why not just stop the flood? Be a lot easier.

 

[Letters]

But when God messes up, he gets to kill everybody so he can try again!

 

[moz4rt]

But when God messes up, he gets to kill everybody so he can try again!

God didn't mess up. People did. He gave people free will to do what they want. They chose to live the wrong way and they were punished for it.

 

[moz4rt]

"That leads to the possibility of a third theme, which is simply as follows: people are easily led. Throughout all human History, we’ve seen numerous examples of populations promptly persuaded to accept that what is normally black is white, that vendetta is not only justifiable, but genocide and deliberate imposture of suffering in mass is acceptable."


how else could you explain the invasion of Iraq? (please dont flame ...this thread isnt about Iraq)

great find, interesting read Sprafa

Holy crap I didn't see this!

How else could you explain Saddam's torture and genocide of his own people? (please don't flame ...this thread isn't about Iraq)

 

[Yakuza]

That doesn't seem like a very smart thing for him to do though. Why not just stop the flood? Be a lot easier.

Well we could go back and forth all day about Gods intensions or what his plans are but the point of what I was getting at is that we can not logically stand on the word impossible, unless we know all that is possible.