Hustlers of the Lost Ark
Ah, Newsweek.
This is a story that seems to enjoy popping up every once in a while. Some explorers claim to have found Noah's ark. They promise that they have evidence, evidence that will convince everyone, but which must remain secret for now. In the meantime, they need money to continue their work, and are asking Christians to chip in so that everyone will be convinced of the joy of our faith Any Moment Now.
It's always a scam.
The same basic Biblical illiteracy that causes a respectable number of American Christian tourists wandering through the Judean Desert to ask every year if the Inn of the Good Samaritan is really the real inn from the real story of the real Good Samaritan. In reality, it's not even an inn; it's a converted hostel that's been open as a souvenir shop since 2009. But if you're looking for evidence of the "real" Good Samaritan, you're missing the point of the story.
Of course, for a certain kind of faith, this kind of illiteracy is the entire point. People who are told that there is one, and only one, proper way to understand Scripture, and that this "literal" interpretation is what they are told it is, are easy to control. And get money from.
I was tempted to go over each point of Newsweek's gullible and breathless reporting in detail, but my personality forced me to zero in on this:
The existence of the Great Flood itself is highly contested for obvious reasons, but there's evidence accepted by both religious and secular scientists [...] that such an event could have occurred, even if the timeline differs a bit from what appears in the Book of Genesis.
Follow the convenient link at "both religious and secular scientists" (which also exists in the original article) and, after you've sifted through all the ads and automatically playing videos and other nonsense, you will be taken to another article by the same author, which discusses a 280-million-year-old fossilized forest in Antarctica. Of course, 280 million years ago, Antarctica wasn't what it is today; it was still firmly part of the most recent supercontinent on our planet, Pangaea. But -- as evidenced by the article's title ("Antarctica: Can Ancient Flood in Bible's Book of Genesis Explain Mysterious Fossilized Forest?") -- the author seems to think that this is proof of the Noahic flood.
Because, somehow, an old forest buried in volcanic ash shows that there was a global flood once. Or something.
Two hundred eighty million years is a long time, and arrived at by several different independent dating methods that all give the same result. This would have happened long before humans. This would have happened long before the dinosaurs. That's quite a lot to glibly pave over with a phrase like "even if the timeline differs a bit"(*).
There is scientific evidence of enormous floods, in recorded human history and long before. But there is absolutely zero scientific evidence that there was ever a global flood -- and there's plenty of evidence to indicate that there could never have been a global flood. Religious and secular scientists are not in agreement that "such an event could have occurred" at all.
Stories like this help to keep people ignorant. And you have to keep people ignorant to make potential discoveries of Noah's ark sound plausible. You have to keep them ignorant scientifically, literarily, culturally, and theologically. You have to keep them convinced that the universe we live in is far more plain and boring than the one we've actually got. You have to convince them that there's nothing to be found, discovered, or understood -- that they understand everything, and there's no new finding that could ever bring anything surprising to the table.
That's a really sad existence... but it's absolutely critical. The faithful adherents must be reassured that we don't have to do things like search for meaning; history is no more significant than a collection of things that happened. The last thing you want is people puzzling stuff out around a book that doesn't speak kindly about the rich and powerful. They might accidentally start thinking.
---
(*) This makes me wonder what I could get away with phrasing things like that. "I'm an astrophysicist -- even if accredited universities and I differ a bit on education." "My house is paid off -- even if the mortgage company and I differ a bit on finances."
I sense my life is about to change substantially.
This is a story that seems to enjoy popping up every once in a while. Some explorers claim to have found Noah's ark. They promise that they have evidence, evidence that will convince everyone, but which must remain secret for now. In the meantime, they need money to continue their work, and are asking Christians to chip in so that everyone will be convinced of the joy of our faith Any Moment Now.
It's always a scam.
The same basic Biblical illiteracy that causes a respectable number of American Christian tourists wandering through the Judean Desert to ask every year if the Inn of the Good Samaritan is really the real inn from the real story of the real Good Samaritan. In reality, it's not even an inn; it's a converted hostel that's been open as a souvenir shop since 2009. But if you're looking for evidence of the "real" Good Samaritan, you're missing the point of the story.
Of course, for a certain kind of faith, this kind of illiteracy is the entire point. People who are told that there is one, and only one, proper way to understand Scripture, and that this "literal" interpretation is what they are told it is, are easy to control. And get money from.
I was tempted to go over each point of Newsweek's gullible and breathless reporting in detail, but my personality forced me to zero in on this:
The existence of the Great Flood itself is highly contested for obvious reasons, but there's evidence accepted by both religious and secular scientists [...] that such an event could have occurred, even if the timeline differs a bit from what appears in the Book of Genesis.
Follow the convenient link at "both religious and secular scientists" (which also exists in the original article) and, after you've sifted through all the ads and automatically playing videos and other nonsense, you will be taken to another article by the same author, which discusses a 280-million-year-old fossilized forest in Antarctica. Of course, 280 million years ago, Antarctica wasn't what it is today; it was still firmly part of the most recent supercontinent on our planet, Pangaea. But -- as evidenced by the article's title ("Antarctica: Can Ancient Flood in Bible's Book of Genesis Explain Mysterious Fossilized Forest?") -- the author seems to think that this is proof of the Noahic flood.
Because, somehow, an old forest buried in volcanic ash shows that there was a global flood once. Or something.
Two hundred eighty million years is a long time, and arrived at by several different independent dating methods that all give the same result. This would have happened long before humans. This would have happened long before the dinosaurs. That's quite a lot to glibly pave over with a phrase like "even if the timeline differs a bit"(*).
There is scientific evidence of enormous floods, in recorded human history and long before. But there is absolutely zero scientific evidence that there was ever a global flood -- and there's plenty of evidence to indicate that there could never have been a global flood. Religious and secular scientists are not in agreement that "such an event could have occurred" at all.
Stories like this help to keep people ignorant. And you have to keep people ignorant to make potential discoveries of Noah's ark sound plausible. You have to keep them ignorant scientifically, literarily, culturally, and theologically. You have to keep them convinced that the universe we live in is far more plain and boring than the one we've actually got. You have to convince them that there's nothing to be found, discovered, or understood -- that they understand everything, and there's no new finding that could ever bring anything surprising to the table.
That's a really sad existence... but it's absolutely critical. The faithful adherents must be reassured that we don't have to do things like search for meaning; history is no more significant than a collection of things that happened. The last thing you want is people puzzling stuff out around a book that doesn't speak kindly about the rich and powerful. They might accidentally start thinking.
---
(*) This makes me wonder what I could get away with phrasing things like that. "I'm an astrophysicist -- even if accredited universities and I differ a bit on education." "My house is paid off -- even if the mortgage company and I differ a bit on finances."
I sense my life is about to change substantially.
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