[Mercedes Benzene]

I would consider myself very religious. I would also consider myself a "scientist". Most of the time, its seems as if scientists disregard religion, and instead adopt a more intellectual approach to life. For me however, I really do not feel as if science and religion cannot coexist.
I've found that pretty much anything that major religions say can be backed by science.
What do you guys think? Can scientific ideas be backed by religious ideologies? ...and vice versa?

[InfiniteNow]

Explain to me scientifically how Jesus was born from a virgin in pre-genetic manipulation times?

How a boat was filled with two of every animal?

How... whatever. One is faith, the other is observation.

[alexander]

You know what puzzles me more then the scientiffic explanation of how to actually put 2 of every animal in the boat, including bacteria which would need to be saved, and are asexual and viruses, which also have to be saved to control the animal population and reproduce using other animals? how come the story of Noah's flood is so dramatically similar to the way the flood was described in Epic of Gilgamesh, with minor modifications to accomodate only a single God, written some few thousand years before the first monotheistic religions even existed...

[kmarinas86]

Originally Posted by alexander

You know what puzzles me more then the scientiffic explanation of how to actually put 2 of every animal in the boat, including bacteria which would need to be saved, and are asexual and viruses, which also have to be saved to control the animal population and reproduce using other animals? how come the story of Noah's flood is so dramatically similar to the way the flood was described in Epic of Gilgamesh, with minor modifications to accomodate only a single God, written some few thousand years before the first monotheistic religions even existed...

Many Flood Legends:

Samples from six continents and the islands of the sea; hundreds of such legends are known

RANK
1)Humans Spared		35/35 yes
2)Destruction		35/35 yes
3)Preserved in a Vessel	32/35 yes
4)Animals Spared	24/35 yes
5)Divine Cause		18/35 yes
6)Warning Given		17/35 yes

Yes to all:
Babylon - Gilgamesh epic
Canada - Montagnais
East Africa - Masai
				Destruction	Divine Cause	Warning Given	Humans Spared	Animals Spared	Preserved in a Vessel
				35/35 yes	18/35 yes	17/35 yes	35/35 yes	24/35 yes	32/35 yes
Australia - Kurnai		yes						yes		yes		yes
Babylon - Berossus' account	yes				yes		yes		yes		yes
Babylon - Gilgamesh epic	yes		yes		yes		yes		yes		yes
Bolivia - Chiriguano		yes		yes		yes		yes				yes
Borneo - Sea Dayak		yes						yes		yes		yes
Burma - Singpho			yes						yes		yes		yes
Canada - Cree			yes		yes				yes		yes		yes
Canada - Montagnais		yes		yes		yes		yes		yes		yes
China - Lolo			yes		yes				yes		yes		yes
Cuba - original natives		yes				yes		yes		yes		yes
East Africa - Masai		yes		yes		yes		yes		yes		yes
Egypt - Book of the Dead	yes		yes		yes		yes				yes
Fiji - Walavu-levu tradition	yes		yes				yes				yes
French Polynesia - Raïatéa	yes		yes		yes		yes		yes		
Greece - Lucian's account	yes						yes		yes		yes
Guyana - Macushi		yes		yes				yes		yes		yes
Iceland - Eddas			yes		yes				yes				yes
India - Andaman Islands		yes		yes				yes				yes
India - Bhil			yes				yes		yes		yes		yes
India - Kamar			yes		yes		yes		yes				yes
Iran - Zend-Avesta		yes				yes		yes		yes		
Italy - Ovid's poetry		yes		yes				yes				yes
Malay Peninsula - Jakun		yes		yes				yes				yes
Mexico - Codex Chimalpopoca	yes				yes		yes				yes
Mexico - Huichol		yes				yes		yes		yes		yes
New Zealand - Maori		yes		yes				yes				yes
Peru - Indians of Huarochirí	yes				yes		yes		yes		
Russia - Vogul			yes				yes		yes				yes
U.S.A. (Alaska) - Kolusches	yes				yes		yes		yes		yes
U.S.A. (Alaska) - Tlingit	yes		yes				yes		yes		yes
U.S.A. (Arizona) - Papago	yes				yes		yes		yes		yes
U.S.A. (Hawaii) - legend of Nu-uyes		yes				yes		yes		yes
Vanuatu - Melanesians		yes						yes		yes		yes
Vietnam - Bahnar		yes						yes		yes		yes
Wales - Dwyfan/Dwyfach legend	yes						yes		yes		yes

Secular Flood Legend References

* A possible source of the Noah's Flood story Critical review by the Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_noah.htm

* An Anthropologist Looks at the Judeo-Christian Scriptures
http://cc.usu.edu/~fath6/flood.htm

* Choctaw Flood Legends Index USA
http://www.tc.umn.edu/~mboucher/mike...w/floodlgn.htm

* Comparison of Babylonian and Noahic Flood Stories
http://www.religioustolerance.org/noah_com.htm

* Flood Legends by Alan Feuerbacher
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acad...40/flood20.htm

* Flood Stories details of many accounts from around the world
http://www.crystalinks.com/floodstories.html

* Flood Stories From Around the World by Mark Isaak Mirror - @ Talk.Origins Archive
http://www.best.com/%7Eatta/floods.htm

* Incan Legends of the Great Flood!
http://www.labyrinthina.com/flood.htm

* Language Grouping for Flood Stories by Mark Isaak
http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/floodlang.htm

* Morgana's Observatory: Universal Myths (Flood Myths Part One)
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/titania.htm

o (Flood Myths Part Two)
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/puck.htm

* Myth - Flood by N.S. Gill
http://ancienthistory.about.com/libr...ms=Flood+Myths

* Native American Indian Lore: The Great Flood
http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/lore126.html

* Ojibwe - Ancient native American creation story tells of world wide flood.
http://www.ancestraltrails.org/ojibwe.html

* Robert Best's Essays on The Ancient Flood Legends
http://www.hist.unt.edu/best.htm

* The Atrahasis Epic and its Significance for our Understanding of Genesis 1-9
http://home.apu.edu/~geraldwilson/atrahasis.html

* The Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet XI - The Story of the Flood
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/...mesh/tab11.htm

* The Eridu Genesis The Sumerian Noah
http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myt...i/eridugen.htm

* The Flood, Greek Mythology Link
http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Flood.html

* The Myth of Noah's Flood by Joseph Francis Alward
http://members.aol.com/JAlw/flood_myth.html

* The Story of Atrahasis
http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Atrahasi.htm

[Mercedes Benzene]

wow.
that's a lot of info. haha.

[Michaelangelica]

All religions require a leap (or leaps) of Faith.
ie Jesus is a god ( or The God). the Bible is the Word of God etc
After that it is all fairly cognitivly consistant.
There is no point discussing Religion between people who have made the leap of faith and those that haven't.

[Mercedes Benzene]

There is no point discussing Religion between people who have made the leap of faith and those that haven't.

That's true.

[alexander]

kmarinas86, that is an awesome post i will use it if you dont mind from now on...
also, i was using gilgamesh because it is the earliest writing known to man, it was dated 2100 to 2000 BCE so it was written well before bible, i know that there were a good couple of dozen flood legends, even at the time, but i find Gilgamesh to be the a very extremely close even in some wording to the story in the Bible, but yeah, could you perhaps include some dates for the reading material?

[Stargazer]

Religion and science are so different in method that they are incompatible. Religious myths come about by just making stuff up. Science is about making observations and looking at evidence and data.

The "cosmology" in Genesis turns out not to be true. But, then some Christians say that, well, that part of the Bible is obviously myth. But the rest then? No, it turns out that some of the Bible is not true, some is myth and some is historical fact. Apparently, the "cosmology" and the descriptions of the solar system and the universe are not necessarily true, and not the flood story either. And no, the parts where God was evil, those aren't true either, because it's no fun worshipping one of the most evil characters in literature.

What's left? Often a glorified image of Jesus as a nice guy who went around doing good things for others. I'm not sure he was that nice all the time, anyway. How much of the Bible can be removed in the process of cherrypicking, before one is no longer really a Christian? Even when taken to its most extreme, that is, one removes everything except Jesus, one is still on thin ice. There is virtually no good evidence that Jesus ever existed in the first place. But I guess one of the points with religious faith is to believe in something for which there is no evidence. Otherwise it's not much of a faith, is it?

Something that puzzles me is how it's possible to be rational and logical when looking at the world, but ready to make leaps of faith when it comes to some things? Actually, religious faith alone is puzzling. Why believe one religion, but not one of the other? My reasons for disbelief in all religions are, perhaps in some cases similar to a believer's reasons to disbelieve all but his own religion.

I've heard the same suggested about some people's "belief" that there is life elsewhere in the universe. Is that not a faith too? It is, in a way. But, it's not the same thing. We know that something we call life is possible in this universe, and that if it can exist, it likely will, for as long as it can.

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by alexander

You know what puzzles me more then the scientiffic explanation of how to actually put 2 of every animal in the boat, including bacteria which would need to be saved, and are asexual and viruses, which also have to be saved to control the animal population and reproduce using other animals? how come the story of Noah's flood is so dramatically similar to the way the flood was described in Epic of Gilgamesh, with minor modifications to accomodate only a single God, written some few thousand years before the first monotheistic religions even existed...

That is actually consistent, since Noah did precede Abraham. And the flood came because of wickedness, such as ritual sex, or human and child sacrifice by paganistic idolators. (See link)

Polytheism is the worship of objects such as the sun or rain, concepts such as love and life, and events such as sunrise and springtime. It's called idolatry or paganism and it's taken many forms. Some not so pleasant or enchantingly mystical, but none of them contain any information beyond what is observed.

http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/JO-Eo.html

Monotheism is unique in that they all trace back to Abraham. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Rastafarianism or Zionism. So it would be entirely reasonable to assume that monotheism was a divine revelation to a self-delusioned humanity, which was then later deluted by the make-it-up-and-worship-it idolators, leaving an ignorant few to war amongst themselves over trivial differences.

A holy and caring God, and an unconcerned and ungrateful humanity: consistent.

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

All religions require a leap (or leaps) of Faith.

Lots of things require leaps of faith.