Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – Part 5 – Not so much geology but dueling myths

We are now at section 13.  One can see the desperation rise noticeably.  I’ve posted the typed text of his post at the end of this paragraph, rather than put it into the body of the blog post.   It’s a pdf of sections 13-18 (so I’ll be referring to it in subsequent posts). Be warned, it is ridiculous. PDF of text from original illegible post   

(An aside: our Christian did indeed tell me that I needed to talk to my husband about the things I’ve written about, just like JZ predicted.  TrueChristians^tm, all about the bits in 1 Timothy, where women are supposed to know our place by sitting down and shutting up.  🙂  ). 

In this section, despite starting with claims of geology, we have our Christian claiming that flood myths support his claim that the biblical flood happened just as described.  Immediately, our Christian claims that we should only be interested in those flood accounts that are from “civilizations with ancient roots” which has yet to be defined. 

However, we still get back to the problem where we have had continuous civilizations in some areas that go back longer than the date that the Christian gives.  We have no sudden breaks in the archaeological or geological record.  Sumer and Egypt may have flood myths but they have been around earlier than the biblical flood’s supposed occurrence. 

And, to address the tangential claims of “Babel”, we also don’t have any linguistic markers that show that languages suddenly stopped and then completely restarted with everyone talking a different language. 

Bible literalists, at least this one, claim that the myths have many things similar so that means their god exists.  And indeed they do have similarities between the stories; lots of water, most people drowning and someone surviving.  And, if you look at these myths, that’s essentially it.  Our Christian says about having all of the animals on board as a similarity: “one that cannot really be used is the preservation of all animals on the boats because this is only logical if you’re about to have a earth destroying flood”.  The only reason to assume this is logical is if your god isn’t omnipotent (can’t make more) and you assume your flood story is the only right one. He also takes a swipe at any family type other than one man/one woman and children, by saying that since God put that on the boat, that’s the only “real” family to have.  

Our current TrueChristian^tm goes out of his way to note some of the myths that are fairly similar to his myth: that the Chinese, Toltecs and Hawaiians have a world-wide flood that covered the highest mountains and killed every wicked person. However, a bit of research shows the following: The Toltec myth seems rather different, with people becoming fish not being murdered.  A Chinese myth (and here)has that there was indeed a flood but people were stuck on mountains and had to live contesting with wild animals; no dove is mentioned. There appears to be no “one” Hawaiian myth and those that do exist either do not agree with the claims of our Christian or they appear as cross-contamination. Missionaries will do that to you. 

The Chinese are also claimed to have written characters that “prove” that the Chinese and Jews are much closer than they seem. The claim is based a book called “Discovery of Genesis” and has nothing but the author’s claims, no actual evidence (Dr. Ethel Nelson, a Seventh Day Adventist medical pathologist, you know one of those heretics that celebrate the Sabbath on a Saturday!). It is not supported by linguistics. It does seem to be one of those typical selection bias thing that Christians go through, deciding that they need an older source to “confirm” their religion and when they wish to claim that any decent people they find simply *must* have been Christians all along. Always nice to try to stack your team, just like the Mormons and their posthumous baptisms. 

Dr. Nelson and a Chinese pastor declare that the word for “boat” is really meaning the ark.  Screw that the myth doesn’t fit; there has to be an ark for these Christians. Reviews of the claims can be found here and here.  I am not a linguist so I cannot vouch for these, but the Iron Chariots site makes some very good points on selection bias. 

Then we have the tower of Babel invoked again, that the Toltecs have one too.  The only source that the Toltecs had this myth is a Catholic native.  Gee, I wonder where he got his ideas?  Again, just-so stories don’t mean gods exist.  

Our Christian goes onto claim that he has hundreds more great comparisons but can’t bother actually showing them.  If one reads the myths, one understands why he can’t. We can even see in this post why he can’t since we know that there are many many differences. However, we get the usual about-face by a Christian in claiming that, now, it is the  differences that “prove” that the myths are the same one, because one simply must expect differences in things that are spread by word of mouth.  Yes, one sees this nonsense used often in things like “the fact that atheists don’t believe in the bible means the bible is true!” Trying to have it both ways is always entertaining.  Heads I win, tails you lose!  

He then tries to claim that Christians don’t try to claim that since there are flood myths that means that their god is real. Really?  Well, here we have the lovely comments section on Glen Beck’s ‘news’ site insisting that the possible Black Sea myth is exactly like the global flood and the commenters claiming that the flood myths are just so much like the bible’s story that it shows that the bible is reliable and god is real.  Oh and here’s another one. Oh and darn, Answers in Genesis claims the same thing.  Hmmm, I suppose that those people aren’t TrueChristians^tm now per our very own TC^tm since they dare disagree with him.

One thing that has our Christian’s knickers in a twist is that I mentioned the Pygmy flood myth.  I had mentioned it as an example of how the myths aren’t very similar at all.  In that the flood myth for the Pygmy is also a creation myth, this flood myth and the Christians one are obviously not the same story at all.  As they often try to do when claiming that there are ever so many Christians in the world, they are not very discriminating on what myths they want to claim as “theirs”.  As difference are pointed out, between myths and between those who call themselves Christians, the numbers of actual flood myths that can be used by bible literalists and the numbers of Christians accepted by all, shrinks considerably.   

Christians want to point to similarities but when dissimilarities are pointed out, they suddenly aren’t important.  That’s simply cherry picking and being quite transparent about it.  If the Pygmys’ myth is true about the flood, then there is no reason to say it is false about the creation part because both are equally fantastic and have no evidence.  Our poor Christian then tries to claim that either all myths are wrong or one is completely right: “Logically (and you cannot refute this fact) either they are all wrong on several points or only one right on all points. Right?”  Not even remotely.  In fact, that claim right there is the fallacy of a false dichotomy/dilemma.  The myths could be right in vastly varying parts, they could be all wrong in every detail, and one could be right in all parts. Again, such stereotypical nonsense still makes me wonder if someone is pretending to be a TrueChristian^tm just to make them look bad.  Our Christian also tries several other things again:

• that if you disbelieve in something, for instance a myth, then you can’t use it to show how ridiculous their myths are.
• that if the bible is right, the Pygmy myth is wrong (he forgets that can be reversed or expanded to every myth is wrong or partially right, etc)
• He tries so very hard to claim I think that the Pygmys are right, of course with no evidence aka a lie.

Next up, some real geology, honest!