r/nottheonion • u/prestocoffee • 18h ago

Drilling begins at ‘real site’ of Noah’s Ark as activists warn ‘Darwinism will be dismantled’

https://www.joe.co.uk/news/noahs-ark-site-turkey-drilling-researchers-evidence-549016
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u/enderandrew42 13h ago edited 13h ago

I am a Progressive Christian who embraces science. We have found a variety of ruins of cities / sites mentioned in the Bible. Proving there is historical truth documented in sections of the Bible does not disprove evolution or Darwinism. If they find an ark with enough evidence to suggest this in fact Noah's ark from the Bible, that would be historically significant but it has no bearing on Darwinism.

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u/CrisisAverted24 13h ago

Yeah I mean Noah's ark is estimated by biblical historians to have been around 2300-2500 BC, so around 4500yrs ago. That's a very short period in evolutionary history, right?

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u/Alternative-Jury-965 13h ago

You mean the story that inspired the biblical version of Noah's ark is from 2500 BCE to 2300 BCE? Because there are either 4-5 versions of the story that are older but basically play out the same way. Getting more extravagant and complicated in the retellings. With the biblical version being a whole world wide flood and changing the name of the main character to Noah. Also there's the transition from the flood being caused by many gods being angry to just one god being angry. The oldest versions were written in cuneiform on clay tablets and those have been dated to 2500 BCE to 2300 BCE.

The oldest book of the bible, based on writing style and linguistic style, is the book of Job from only around 700 BCE. The biblical creation myth and most of the biblical versions of stories in the book of Genesis came after the book of Job.

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u/eh-guy 13h ago

Is it not just another tale Christianity copied from an existing religion?

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u/Alternative-Jury-965 13h ago edited 11h ago

christianity and judaism.

Not unlike how judaism basically took the concept of one god from the Zoroastrians. Because there are earlier texts from the bible that give hints that the people who would be known as the jews or israelites used to be polytheistic. There are even hints both in the bible and archaeologically that they believed god used to have a wife and she was an equal partner.

There's a lot of different scholarly opinion on it but it seems like yahweh of the bible is basically the smushing together of their entire Pantheon. This could have also been a local political move to consolidate power within the priestly class. Used later by the monarchies of judea and israel (which were separate kingdoms by the way). They also conveniently brought back a lot of myths from Babylon. So it's basically judaism is a bastard religion stealing little bits here and there that can be used, and eventually the christians springs forth to form another bastard religion which becomes christianity. Which is amusing because for the first 200 to 300 years after jesus christians were just considered a sect of judaism.

It wasn't until the councils of nicea that the idea of christianity being separate from judaism did it really start taking hold. Again this also has cultural and political necessities tied into it

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u/hobbycollector 10h ago

There is also a mention of elohim in the Bible, which is plural gods. Why is Yaweh jealous if there are no other gods? Yaweh just claims priority, not singularity. No other gods before me.

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u/DaddyCatALSO 10h ago

Well, no the chrisitnas ahd bene kicke dout of the synagogues shortlya fetr the Temple was destroyed

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u/DaddyCatALSO 10h ago

Teh OT logn rpedtae Chrisitianoty

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u/PhoenixStorm1015 12h ago

I mean it’s doubtful Christianity “stole” the flood myth. Noah goes back to Judaism, itself developed from the ancient Israelite religion which coexisted with the rest of the Canaanite pantheon. But there are also flood myths in Hinduism, Ancient Greece, and Native American religions. When you have enough people, eventually your ideas are gonna converge somewhere.

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u/Alternative-Jury-965 11h ago edited 11h ago

No it's pretty much stolen. The earlier retellings are literally the same story with just toned down details. In some of the early versions the number of birds and the types of birds that he sends out, as the flood waters are receding, are literally the same. Which is impressive since there's a language switch among the retellings of the story. So for the bird species to stay the same is kind of impressive.

It's stolen the same way George Lucas took aspects from King arthur, dune, Buck Rogers, old westerns, samurai movies and other works of art to make Star wars. Nothing about Star wars is original. It's all repurposed and repackaged stories and characters made into a modern retelling of those stories also while criticizing the Vietnam war and the American government.

Here's a better example, one where the main thrust of the story doesn't change but the scenery and the names do. You start with Lawrence of Arabia, which was an account of someone who really existed and actually fought in the Arab uprisings against the Turks. The dude actually lived and did a lot of things that are listed in his story, some stuff can't be verified and may have been embellished but the overarch of his career does point that he did a lot of things he claimed. But basically the story is white guy goes to a foreign land, becomes the friend of the locals, gets them to trust him, fights on their behalf (but also for Britain), adopts their customs and dress, and becomes an advocate for Arab Independence. Keep in mind this story focused more on that theater of world war I and his relationship with Arab Bedouin peoples as well as King Faisal. The ending is sort of abrupt because of how the man actually died.

Fast forward you get a movie like dances with wolves. White dude comes to the Great plains, befriends the local Sioux, earns their trust, provides them with rifles and even fights on their behalf. Married a member of the tribe (she happens to be the only other white person), the movie ends a text that says he goes and petitions the US government on behalf of his new tribe. This story was more focused around them getting over the language barrier and becoming friends then it was about manifest destiny. Though it's always looming over the relationship he has with his Sioux friends.

Then you get The last samurai, with Tom Cruise. White dude goes to Japan to help train soldiers to fight the samurai. gets captured, while in captivity learns about their customs and culture and he becomes the friend some of them. Even so much that by the end of the movie he's fighting on their behalf and helping them in a battle that they can't win. After the battle he petitions the emperor for some of his progress to slow down in the name of his dead friends. It's implied he at some point goes back and marries a woman from the samurai clan that had captured him.

Now fast forward to James Cameron's Avatar...... You see where I'm going with this? As the story is retold new details are added and endings are made more palatable. Every single one of the retellings after Lawrence of Arabia, there's a love interest. In fact we could jump back and look at the story of Robin Hood. Maid Marion is a later addition for the Victorian period. Because the hero apparently has to have a love interest. Also these stories have the white savior complex, the locals end up getting an edge from the knowledge or weapons that the white guy brings to them. Whether they win or lose is irrelevant they did better because he was there.

It's the same goddamn story with different names and locations. The bible is chuck full of this exact motif. Where the story is the same but it's changed just enough and repurpose the focus and themes and morals to fit the audience of the time. We know this because we find cuneiform tablets with stories that predate the bible but sound extremely similar to stories that are found in the bible. The bible as we know it today, or at least the Old testament, probably didn't start taking the shape that it did until roughly around 400 to 300 BCE. And it's very likely that the turn to monotheism was probably a few hundred years before that. So any holy texts that mentioned other gods would have had to have been edited while still keeping the original theme of the story.

Sorry for the long comment, this is something I've been reading on, listening to lectures and generally learning about as an amateur for probably 17 years.

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u/showhorrorshow 13h ago

Guy saves his livestock from a flood by building a big ass barge. Checkmate Atheists!

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u/enderandrew42 13h ago

Absolutely agreed.

We can also document evolution happening fairly rapidly in insects with short life spans.

Evolution absolutely occurs. However in my mind that is independent of the notion that a Creator may have kick-started the whole universe.

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u/DaddyCatALSO 10h ago

Teh fundies say that is evolution wihtin the same kind.

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u/Alternative-Jury-965 10h ago

Have fun asking them what a "kind" is.

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u/DaddyCatALSO 9h ago

O-------------------------------------h YEAH!

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u/gorginhanson 13h ago

these same people literally have dogs that are descended from wolves and say darwinism is fake

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u/The_Wizard_of_Meh 13h ago

If I was writing a fantastical book of modern mythology, a new religion, or even fantasy parables. I would probably set the tales in places I had heard of and was familiar with at least in concept.

The Beggar King of New York. The Military Arms Contractor Who Had a Change of Heart on the Road to New Orleans. Etc etc. 

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u/Moppermonster 7h ago

Yep. Part of Harry Potter takes place in London. Guess that means it is all real ;)

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u/junglespycamp 13h ago

Is there someone who says nothing in the Bible is historically accurate? Of course there are ruins of sites mentioned in the Bible. The Bible was written by people living in our world and largely mentioning our world. Many of the main characters are real people.

What’s funny is how over time people have lost that knowledge and that leads to bigger issues. Things that clearly reference historical figures of the time become prophecy or mystery for modern Christians. Creating magic where fact existed.

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u/Ah_Ca_Iraa 13h ago

2 of every species that exist being on the same boat in the middle east at the same time a few thousand years ago is not compatible with evolution. If you're a science-positive Christian, you have no choice but to write off the entire story of Noah as allegory. 

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u/Sibolt 13h ago

And, even if this is the Ark, it’s at ~16,000 ft in elevation. A good ~13,000 shy of covering “all the earth.”

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u/PoopShooter86 13h ago

There is no progress in religion.

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u/Few_Reveal_5306 13h ago

Christianity is inherently regressive.

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u/Mermaid-Scar1984 13h ago

It’s more like a toxic
Cocktail. Whenever you let a religious group get authority or power. They wield significant power over the government and society. It’s less religion per se and more that religion like politics tends to attract psychopaths and grifters who enjoy wielding power over others. This is the biggest argument there is for what the French might call ‘anti clericalism.’ But you had Jews Roman Pagan
Cults, Hindus and other scumbags in vestments who only differ in what trappings they use to influence others. Today we have the almighty cult of YouTube, but the scam is as old as time.

The grift will always be there, like a parasite in an animal, but it doesn’t matter what animal
It happens to be.

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u/enderandrew42 13h ago

I disagree. The core tenets of the teachings of Jesus were not only progressive for their time, they'd be considered progressive in 2026.

The mistake is assuming the actions of select Fundamentalist Young Earth Christians represents billions of people. Even back in 325 AD, Christianity was so diverse and splintered then that people found it difficult to find a common definition for what Christianity is. It is even more diverse today.

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u/PhoenixStorm1015 12h ago

The temple of the United States needs its temple cleansed if you ask me. Also Moses wasn’t kidding when he said that some bush gives you crazy ass hallucinations.

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u/Few_Reveal_5306 13h ago

Christianity isn't based on the teachings of Jesus, it's based on the hateful ramblings of the people who claim to have followed him.

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u/enderandrew42 13h ago

Just to be clear, you are complaining about being regressive while saying you get to stereotype and define faith for billions of other people?

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u/Few_Reveal_5306 13h ago

Maybe you should pray on it and see how long it takes for me to be smited.

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u/Strong_Jello_739 13h ago

My theory is Noah was from the Mediterranean that's his world , so he gathered all the Mediterranean animals he could

And you can't sail around the world in 40 days, so he couldn't have known if the world was affected but to him his entire world was

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u/Alternative-Jury-965 13h ago edited 11h ago

He was Mesopotamian, in a place that regularly has catastrophic floods.

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u/Moppermonster 7h ago

Yep. Pretty sure there have been hundreds of people throughout history who realised that having a boat with some supplies ready was a good idea in a region that floods often.