According to researchers from Indiana University, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin and the University of Minnesota, rivers can and do frequently change their course in an event known as an avulsion. The initial stage of this process is often a catastrophic flood costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
The authors speculate that these events could be the origin of numerous flood myths throughout history, especially the history of people living in flood plains of major river systems such as the Tigris and Euphrates on which the Epic of Gilgamesh was based.
The Suncook River, New Hampshire, 2006
The Epic of Gilgamesh, which even in its original form was never more than a story about a local flood, is believed to be the source of the Hebrew origin myth of Noah's Ark.
Ironically, these catastrophic avulsion events, of which the Noah's Ark myth is probably a result, are reminders of just how hostile this planet can suddenly become, giving the lie to parochial creationists assertions that Earth is perfectly designed for life (especially their life). Sudden major river avulsions impact dramatically on people living peacefully in river valleys where soil fertility and water can create the impression of a nicely ordered and well-designed place for life to exist.
Long-lasting volcanism has significantly warmed the climate in the Earth's history, which in turn has reduced the climate-regulating effect of vegetation over millions of years.
Image: Mateusz / Adobe Stock
Animals leaving the Ark - with nothing for the herbivores to eat.
A newly-published paper in Science shows how plants take millions of years to recover from catastrophic climate change, yet the silly Noah's Ark tale in the Bible, not only has plants magically reappearing after 'all living substance' on the face of the Earth had been destroyed (Genesis 7:22) (did the authors not think plants were living things?), but then continuing as though nothing had happened.
Plants, of course, are at the bottom of the food pyramid since they are eaten by the animals that the carnivores eat. This is a matter of common sense, yet the authors of the Bible myth seem to have assumed that when they got off the Ark, ecosystems and food pyramids would have resumed where they left off a year earlier.
The authors were, of course, ignorant of almost all biology save that which they needed to find the best places to graze their cattle as the seasons progressed. They even seem to have assumed that 'living' and 'breathing' were synonyms because 'life' could be breathed into nostrils. (Genesis 2:7; 7:22).
How does modern Christian apologetics account for the recovery of ecosystems post 'Flood', during which all living substance had supposedly been destroyed, in view of our understanding of the dynamics of ecosystems?
Modern Christian apologetics approaches the question of ecosystem recovery after the biblical Flood from various angles, often depending on the interpretive framework of Genesis—whether the Flood is understood as a literal historical event, a localized flood, or a theological metaphor. Here are some ways these issues are addressed in light of our current understanding of ecosystems:
Literal Interpretation with Divine Intervention
Divine Power and Miracles: Apologists who take the Flood narrative literally often argue that the recovery of ecosystems post-Flood was facilitated by divine intervention. They propose that God, who orchestrated the Flood, also supernaturally accelerated the repopulation and restoration of ecosystems. This might involve miraculous regrowth of plant life, rapid diversification of species from the animals that were preserved on the Ark, and an extraordinary rate of ecological recovery that is not bound by natural processes as we understand them.
Preservation of Genetic Diversity: Some argue that the animals on the Ark carried a rich genetic diversity, allowing for rapid adaptation and speciation after the Flood. This would theoretically allow for a swift recovery of ecosystems as species rapidly filled ecological niches.
Localized Flood Interpretation
Regional Impact: Another approach is to interpret the Flood as a localized event rather than a global one. This view posits that the Flood affected only a specific geographical area, possibly the Mesopotamian region. In this case, the surrounding ecosystems, untouched by the Flood, could have acted as a source for the repopulation of the affected area. This view harmonizes more easily with modern scientific understanding of ecosystems and their resilience after localized natural disasters.
Surviving Pockets of Life: Some apologists suggest that not all life was destroyed by the Flood, even within the affected area. Small pockets of life could have survived in higher elevations or isolated environments, providing a basis for the recovery of ecosystems after the waters receded.
Theological and Allegorical Interpretation
Non-Literal Reading: For those who interpret the Flood story allegorically or theologically rather than historically, the question of ecosystem recovery is not a pressing issue. In this view, the story of the Flood is primarily a moral or spiritual lesson rather than a literal account of historical events. The focus is on the relationship between God and humanity, rather than the specific logistics of animal and plant survival.
Symbolic Meaning of the Flood: This approach emphasizes the Flood as a symbol of renewal and new beginnings, rather than an event that necessitates a scientific explanation. The recovery of ecosystems in this context is seen as part of the broader theological theme of renewal and restoration.
Young Earth Creationism
Post-Flood Hyper-Evolution: Young Earth Creationists often propose that a form of rapid, post-Flood evolution occurred, where the animals released from the Ark quickly diversified into the myriad species we see today. This theory, sometimes called "hyper-evolution," is invoked to explain how ecosystems could recover so quickly despite the apparent bottleneck in species diversity that the Ark would have represented.
Scientific Considerations
Ecosystem Resilience: Apologists may also point out that ecosystems have an inherent resilience and can recover from catastrophic events more quickly than expected. They may draw analogies to modern ecological recoveries, such as the regrowth of forests after a volcanic eruption or the return of life after the last Ice Age, to argue that the Earth could have rebounded after the Flood.
Migration and Colonization: The possibility of animals and plants migrating from less-affected areas to repopulate devastated regions is also considered. Modern ecology demonstrates that ecosystems can re-establish themselves through processes of colonization and succession.
Integration with Scientific Theories
Day-Age and Progressive Creationism: Some apologists integrate the Flood narrative with scientific understanding by viewing the "days" of creation as long periods of time (Day-Age Theory) or by suggesting that God guided the process of creation and recovery in a way that aligns with evolutionary principles (Progressive Creationism). This allows for a more metaphorical understanding of the Flood and lessens the tension between scripture and modern ecological science.
In summary, modern Christian apologetics addresses the recovery of ecosystems post-Flood through a variety of perspectives, ranging from literal divine intervention to non-literal, theological interpretations. Each approach seeks to reconcile the biblical narrative with contemporary ecological knowledge, though the degree of reconciliation varies depending on the interpretive framework.
Doesn't the need to include so much additional information not present in the Bible, cast doubt on the truth of the biblical account?
The need to include additional information to explain or reconcile the biblical account of the Flood with modern scientific understanding can indeed raise questions about the nature and interpretation of the Bible. Whether this casts doubt on the truth of the biblical account depends on one's perspective on biblical interpretation, the nature of religious texts, and the relationship between faith and science. Here are a few key considerations:
Different Interpretative Approaches
Literalism vs. Non-Literalism: For those who take a literal approach to the Bible, the need to introduce extra-biblical explanations (like rapid post-Flood speciation or divine intervention in ecosystem recovery) may seem necessary to defend the text's historical accuracy. However, this can raise doubts if these explanations appear contrived or inconsistent with observable reality.
Theological Interpretation: Non-literalists, on the other hand, may argue that the Bible is not intended to be a scientific textbook and that its truth lies in its spiritual and moral teachings rather than in literal historical or scientific accuracy. For these interpreters, additional explanations are not problematic because they see the biblical text as conveying theological truths through symbolic or allegorical narratives.
The Nature of Religious Texts
Ancient Context: Some argue that the Bible was written in a particular historical and cultural context, where the primary purpose was to convey theological and moral truths, not to provide detailed scientific explanations. The ancient authors might not have had access to the scientific knowledge we have today, so their accounts reflect their understanding of the world at that time. The need for additional explanations today could then be seen as a reflection of the evolving understanding of the world rather than a flaw in the biblical text itself.
Progressive Revelation: Another view is that God reveals truth progressively, and that the Bible provides foundational spiritual truths that can be further illuminated by later discoveries in science and history. In this view, additional explanations are seen as complementary to, rather than contradictory with, the biblical account.
Faith and Reason
Faith-Based Acceptance: For many believers, the truth of the biblical account is accepted on the basis of faith, and additional information is seen as a way to better understand and articulate that faith in light of contemporary knowledge. The need for such explanations does not necessarily diminish the believer's faith in the biblical narrative but may instead enrich it.
Critical Examination: On the other hand, those who prioritize empirical evidence and logical consistency might see the need for extensive additional explanations as a sign that the biblical account should be understood more metaphorically or symbolically, or that it reflects ancient cosmology rather than literal history. This can lead to doubts about the historical accuracy of the biblical account, especially when the additional explanations seem to stretch credibility or conflict with established scientific understanding.
Impact on Biblical Authority
Preservation of Biblical Authority: Some apologists argue that providing additional explanations helps to preserve the authority and relevance of the Bible in a modern context. They see this as a way of harmonizing ancient texts with contemporary knowledge, thus maintaining the Bible’s credibility as a source of truth.
Potential for Undermining Authority: Conversely, if these explanations are seen as overly speculative or inconsistent with observable evidence, they may indeed undermine the authority of the biblical text in the eyes of some, leading to doubts about the reliability of the biblical account.
Philosophical and Theological Considerations
Role of Mystery in Faith: Some Christian thinkers embrace the idea that not all aspects of faith can be fully explained or understood, and that mystery is a central component of religious belief. In this view, the need for additional explanations does not necessarily cast doubt on the truth of the biblical account but rather acknowledges the limitations of human understanding.
Dialogue Between Science and Religion: Others see the dialogue between science and religion as a dynamic process where both can inform each other. The need for additional explanations might then be viewed as part of an ongoing conversation rather than a reason for doubt.
Conclusion
The need for additional explanations to reconcile the biblical Flood with modern scientific understanding can raise questions, but whether it casts doubt on the truth of the biblical account depends on one's interpretive approach and understanding of the nature of the Bible. For some, it may indeed lead to doubts, especially if the explanations appear forced or speculative. For others, it may enrich their understanding of the Bible and deepen their faith, seeing the additional information as a way to harmonize ancient wisdom with contemporary knowledge.
For their tale to be even slightly plausible, the authors should have allowed for the long time-lag between the destruction of Earth's ecosystems and their recovery to the level at which they could sustain growing populations of animals and humans, let alone animals apparently evolving and speciating at the impossible warp-speeds creationists have now incorporated into their dogmas, to account for the impossibility of two of every species, living and extinct (some 220 million species) being housed on a wooden boat small enough not to be destroyed in a year floating about in turbulent waters, or being crushed under its own weight.
Creationists of course, have no problem including lots of new information to supplement what they claim is the inerrant word of a god, presumably because the god forgot to include it.
So, of what modern science were the Bronze Age authors of the Bible particularly ignorant when they were making up the 'Flood' myth?
In a paper by an international team of Earth and environmental scientists from the University of Arizona, University of Leeds, CNRS Toulouse, and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), led by scientists from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, have shown how it can take millions of years for ecosystems to recover from catastrophes like volcano-induced climate change, and there could have been few such ecological disasters as a global flood and mass genocide would have been.
Their findings are the subject of a news release from UTH Zürich:
Millions of years for plants to recover from global warmingCatastrophic volcanic eruptions that warmed the planet millions of years ago shed new light on how plants evolve and regulate climate. Researchers reveal the long-term climate effects of disturbed natural ecosystems - its implications both in geological history and for today.
In brief
Disruption of the functioning of vegetation due to warming can lead to the failure of climate regulating mechanisms for millions of years.
Vegetation changes can alter the planet’s climate equilibrium.
Geological and climatic history provide insight into the effects of global warming today.
Scientists often seek answers to humanity’s most pressing challenges in nature. When it comes to global warming, geological history offers a unique, long-term perspective. Earth’s geological history is spiked by periods of catastrophic volcanic eruptions that released vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and oceans. The increased carbon triggered rapid climate warming that resulted in mass extinctions on land and in marine ecosystems. These periods of volcanism may also have disrupted carbon-climate regulation systems for millions of years.
Ecological imbalance
Earth and environmental scientists at ETH Zurich led an international team of researchers from the University of Arizona, University of Leeds, CNRS Toulouse, and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in a study on how vegetation responds and evolves in response to major climatic shifts and how such shifts affect Earth’s natural carbon-climate regulation system.
Drawing on geochemical analyses of isotopes in sediments, the research team compared the data with a specially designed model, which included a representation of vegetation and its role in regulating the geological climate system. They used the model to test how the Earth system responds to the intense release of carbon from volcanic activity in different scenarios. They studied three significant climatic shifts in geological history, including the Siberian Traps event that caused the Permian-Triassic mass extinction about 252 million years ago.
The Siberian Traps event released some 40,000 gigatons (Gt) of carbon over 200,000 years. The resulting increase in global average temperatures between 5 - 10°C caused Earth’s most severe extinction event in the geologic record.
Professor, Taras V. Gerya, co-author
Department of Earth Sciences
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Formed 252 million years ago, these mesas of the Putorana Plateau in Siberia consist of thick layers of rock of volcanic origin.
Image: Sergei / Adobe Stock.
Rivers have dug deep gorges over the course of time.
Image: Crazy nook / Adobe Stock
Move, adapt, or perish
The recovery of vegetation from the Siberian Traps event took several millions of years and during this time Earth’s carbon-climate regulation system would have been weak and inefficient resulting in long-term climate warming.
Julian Rogger, lead author
Department of Earth Sciences
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Researchers found that the severity of such events is determined by how fast emitted carbon can be returned to Earth’s interior – sequestered through silicate mineral weathering or organic carbon production, removing carbon from Earth’s atmosphere.
They also found that the time it takes for the climate to reach a new state of equilibrium depended on how fast vegetation adapted to increasing temperatures. Some species adapted by evolving and others by migrating geographically to cooler regions. However, some geological events were so catastrophic that plant species simply did not have enough time to migrate or adapt to the sustained increase in temperature. The consequences of which left its geochemical mark on climate evolution for thousands, possibly millions, of years.
Today’s human-induced climate crisis
What does this mean for human induced climate change? The study found that a disruption of vegetation increased the duration and severity of climate warming in the geologic past. In some cases, it may have taken millions of years to reach a new stable climatic equilibrium due to a reduced capacity of vegetation to regulate Earth’s carbon cycle.
Today, we find ourselves in a major global bioclimatic crisis. Our study demonstrates the role of a functioning of vegetation to recover from abrupt climatic changes. We are currently releasing greenhouse gases at a faster rate than any previous volcanic event. We are also the primary cause of global deforestation, which strongly reduces the ability of natural ecosystems to regulate the climate. This study, in my perspective, serves as ‘wake-up call’ for the global community.
Professor Loïc Pellissier, co-author
Professor of Ecosystems and Landscape Evolution
Department of Environmental Systems Science
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Reference
Rogger J, Judd EJ, Mills BJW, Goddéris Y, Gerya TV, Pellissier L:
Biogeographic climate sensitivity controls Earth system response to large igneous province carbon degassing.Science, 8. August 2024, doi: 10.1126/science.adn3450
Abstract
Periods of large igneous province (LIP) magmatism have shaped Earth’s biological and climatic history, causing major climatic shifts and biological reorganizations. The vegetation response to LIP-induced perturbations may affect the efficiency of the carbon-climate regulation system and the post-LIP climate evolution. Using an eco-evolutionary vegetation model, we demonstrate here that the vegetation’s climate adaptation capacity, through biological evolution and geographic dispersal, is a major determinant of the severity and longevity of LIP-induced hyperthermals and can promote the emergence of a new climatic steady state. Proxy-based temperature reconstructions of the Permian-Triassic, Triassic-Jurassic, and Paleocene-Eocene hyperthermals match the modeled trajectories of bioclimatic disturbance and recovery. We conclude that biological vegetation dynamics shape the multimillion-year Earth system response to sudden carbon degassing and global warming episodes.
The mystery of what the Ark survivors ate when they got off the Ark onto a sterile world is just one of those things that the Bible's authors were too ignorant of biology to have thought about. Others are how many herbivores did the carnivores exterminate in the first days and weeks. Shrews need to eat their body-weight in worms, slugs, snails and earthworms every 24 hours and are not averse to eating hatchling birds in nests. Bats consume moths by the dozen every night.
So, rather than being the saving of every species during creationism's favourite mass genocide by drowning, the 'Flood' if it had been real would have resulted in a mass extinction to rival anything caused by a meteor strike, catastrophic volcano activity or run-away global warming.
And, as science has now shown, Earth's ecosystems would still be struggling to recover from it, and yet the ignorant authors of the tale thought everything was back to normal within a few thousand years.
A visualisation of the Milky Way galaxy, with the stars that Khyati Malhan and Hans-Walter Rix identified in the Gaia DR3 data set as belonging to Shiva and Shakti shown as colored dots. Shiva stars are shown in green and Shakti stars in pink.
Between 12 and 13 billion years before creationism's little god decided to create a small flat planet with a dome over it in the Middle east, where the only people to notice were simple goat-herders from the Bronze Age, natural forces were creating the Milky Way galaxy out of two smaller galaxies that astronomers have named Shiva and Shaki.
The discovery was made by two scientists working at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany who have identified the components of two proto-galaxies that merged to form the Milky Way, by combining data from ESA’s astrometry satellite Gaia with data from the SDSS survey. The astronomers have published their findings in a highly technical paper in The Astrophysical Journal and explain it in a Max Planck Institute for Astronomy news release:
Who are Shiva and Shaki?
Shiva and Shakti are two fundamental concepts in Hinduism, representing aspects of the divine.
Shiva: Shiva is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is often referred to as the destroyer within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity that includes Brahma (the creator) and Vishnu (the preserver). Shiva is also known as the god of meditation, yoga, and arts. He is usually depicted as a yogi, adorned with snakes and a crescent moon on his head, with a third eye on his forehead representing wisdom and insight. Shiva is often associated with asceticism, but he's also a family man, as he's married to the goddess Parvati and has two sons, Ganesha and Kartikeya.
Shakti: Shakti is the divine feminine energy and the primordial cosmic power in Hinduism. She is the personification of the creative energy of the universe. Shakti is often depicted as a goddess, sometimes alongside Shiva, and sometimes as an independent deity. She represents the dynamic forces that move through the entire cosmos. Shakti is considered the mother goddess, the source of all, and is revered in various forms such as Durga, Kali, Parvati, and others.
In some philosophical interpretations, Shiva represents the male principle (Purusha) while Shakti represents the female principle (Prakriti), and their union is seen as the basis of creation and existence. This union is often symbolized as Ardhanarishvara, a composite androgynous form of Shiva and Shakti, depicting the inseparable nature of masculine and feminine energies.
Astronomers have identified what could be two of the Milky Way’s earliest building blocks: Named “Shakti” and “Shiva”, these appear to be the remnants of two galaxies that merged between 12 and 13 billion years ago with an early version of the Milky Way, contributing to our home galaxy’s initial growth. The new find is the astronomical equivalent of archeologists identifying traces of an initial settlement that grew into a large present-day city. It required combining data for nearly 6 million stars from ESA’s Gaia mission with measurements from the SDSS survey. The results have been published in the Astrophysical Journal.
The early history of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of joining smaller galaxies, which makes for fairly large building blocks. Now, Khyati Malhan and Hans-Walter Rix of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have succeeded in identifying what could be two of the earliest building blocks that can still be recognized as such today: proto-galactic fragments that merged with an early version of our Milky Way between 12 and 13 billion years ago, at the very beginning of the era of galaxy formation in the Universe. The components, which the astronomers have named Shakti and Shiva, were identified by combining data from ESA’s astrometry satellite Gaia with data from the SDSS survey. For astronomers, the result is the equivalent of finding traces of an initial settlement that grew into a large present-day city.
It's a fundamental part of the Abrahamic religions and other religions that there is something materially different to humans, above and beyond the sort of difference that distinguishes one species from another. Biologically, of course, this is nonsense as any study of comparative anatomy and physiology will show. Humans are just another mammal, albeit with some highly evolved abilities that other species lack such as language, the ability to invent narrative, etc. The differences, as with the differences between any pair of related taxons is quantitative, not qualitative.
So, from where did religions and, especially the Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - get the idea of human exceptionalism from and why did they need to invent narratives to explain it, usually in terms of a special creation or a special closeness to gods - even a familial relationship or at least created in their image like children to their parents? In fact, as we will see, it’s much more likely that gods were created by humans in their image.
In the following article, reprinted from The Conversation, Professor Julia Kindt, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Sydney, SNW, Australia, explains the ideas origins in Ancient Greece and why it is wrong. Her article has been reformatted for stylistic purposes:
I've made the point several time before, but another paper published recently, reinforces it again, that when old gods are forgotten and old religions die, there is nothing on which they can be reconstructed because religions are never founded in verifiable evidence.
Unlike religion, science, which is a description of reality, could be rediscovered if it, or a major branch of it, was somehow wiped from our collective memories and all text books on the subject were wiped clean. And the rediscovered science would be the same as it is today. Atoms would have the same structure and properties, chemistry would do what we know it does today; physics would have the same explanations for the different colours of light, for the way energy is conserved; entropy and the laws of thermodynamics would be the same; and the description of the universe, together with the Big Bang, how suns form and how planets form around them, would be the same.
In fact, we can be as sure as eggs is eggs, that if ever we contact intelligent life from another planet, their science will be the same as ours, although they'll use different words to describe it and their numbering system may well have a different base.
But, expunge every trace of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hindi, Shintoism, etc., and erase everyone’s memory of them, and we would never again know what the followers believed or what they believe their god(s) did or didn't do. We would know no more about the major religions of today than we know about the ancient religions before writing was invented. We have not the slightest idea what inspired the builders of Stonehenge and Silbury Hill in Wiltshire; we don't have a clue what the people who built the oldest existing roofed building in Europe, in Menorca in the Balearic Islands believed or what the Minoans of Crete believed, or even the names of their gods, and, unless someone decodes the language the Minoans wrote, we never will. We only know anything about the Egyptian and Sumerian pantheons because someone learned to read their writing.
And we know nothing about the gods and religion of the people who buried horses and dogs with their dead in Late Iron Age, Northern Italy - the subject of a recent paper in PLOS ONE.
In information from PLoS, cited in Science Daily, the authors explain their findings:
A creator god would not have got so much wrong when it tried to describe the world it had created and described is as though it knew no more than a parochial Bronze Age pastoralist who knew almost nothing and had to rely on guess-work and folkloric superstitions from the fearful infancy of our species.
A picture is worth a thousand words:
The universe from descriptions of it in the Bible.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1: 6-10.
How the Universe really is, as revealed by science:
10,000 years ago, according to the Bronze Age Canaanite creation myths in the Bible, a magic man in the sky created humans without ancestors, and either before or afterwards, according to the two different versions, he created all the animals too. And animals and humans went forth and multiplied to populate Earth.
A few thousand years later, in a fit of pique, because his 'perfect' design hadn't turned out the way he intended, he murdered almost everything in a genocidal flood and Earth had to be repopulated from just eight humans and either two or six of the other animal species (again depending on the version) after the humans had sacrificed one of every species as a thank you for the genocide, Earth was again repopulated from these impossibly narrow genetic bottlenecks.
Creationists also insist that all sedimentary rocks were deposited in their mythical genocidal flood.
Some people still believe that myth to be accurate history, despite all the evidence against it and the fact that there is no evidence for it, save only for the origin myths in a book which, as science discovers more, is becoming increasingly 'allegorical/metaphorical' in order to avoid admitting it's just plain wrong.
One piece of evidence was revealed in 2021, by researchers from Bournemouth University, UK, the US National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Cornell University, USA and the University of Arizona, USA., which showed that humans were leaving footprints in mud at the edge of a lake in what is now White Sands National Park in New Mexico, North America, 10-13,000 years before Earth was created according to the ancient origin myths.
2,500 years ago, just 1,500 years after creationists believe the human population of the world had been reduced to just 8 people in a genocidal flood, there was a volcanic eruption on one end of the island of Kadavu in the south of the group of Pacific islands now known as the Fijian Islands.
The people who were already living there, having presumably migrated there from the Middle East in just 1,500 years, remembered the details of the eruption and passed them on, complete with the local gods to whom they attributed the events, not in writing, but encoded in riddles and a symbolic oral tradition which "included fantastic beings flying through the sky, fighting each another furiously and noisily, drinking the ocean dry, and throwing giant spears with force enough to leave massive holes in rocky headlands", according to research by a group of scientists including Professor Patrick Nunn of the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.
Curiously, if the Bible tales of a global flood had been true, people to whom a local volcanic eruption was such an important event in their history that they remembered it in such an elaborate way, regarded a genocidal global flood as not worth a mention, and the god who allegedly caused it as unworthy of inclusion in their pantheon.
This is the ludicrously unlikely scenario that creationists have to try to rationalise in order to avoid considering that their favourite Bronze Age fairy tales are anything other than literal truths.
The research which has decoded the Fijian oral traditions is the subject of an article by Professor Nunn in The Conversation. His article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:
The thing about creationists claims of a global genocidal flood with just eight survivors, is that there is no evidence that such a flood ever occurred and what evidence there is all points to it never having happened.
If creationism were based on evidence, those two demonstrable facts should at least cause them to do the unthinkable and consider being wrong. However, considering being wrong is such an existential threat to creationists that it is something that must never even be contemplated.
So, what are these demonstrable facts?
The evidence that should be there is of course the global layer of silt containing a jumble of fossils from disconnected land masses than would be the inevitable result of such a flood with no land barriers to how far debris could float. Creationists also claim that extinct orders such as dinosaurs were living at the time of the flood, so the predicted jumble of fossils should contain extinct and extant species in haphazard order.
But that's not what we see.
The evidence that should not be there is of course archaeological evidence of continuous cultures which pre-dated the supposed flood 4,000 years ago and continues in an unbroken sequence through the time of the alleged flood and up to modern times. The culture should have been destroyed along with the evidence for it in a catastrophic global flood, of course.
But that's what we see.
Normally, having inevitable predictions from a hypothesis refuted is a reason to abandon the hypothesis, but creationists are not normal people, at least in their use of logical deduction. To a creationist, the conclusion is sacred, so facts must be ignored.
Evidence of the latter fact, which shouldn't be there but is, was the subject of a recent paper on PLOS ONE a couple of days ago. It concerns the stratified layers of the remains of food plants in a the 'El Gigante' rock shelter in Honduras, Central America, going back to 11,000 years. The site was recently nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Not only does this show a pattern of continuous occupation but it also records the dynamic nature of hunter-gatherer societies and the adaptations to climate and environmental change.
Of course, the scientists were interested in what this tells us about how the local culture evolved from hunter-gatherers to farmers and what lessons can be learned of relevance to today's society. The refutation of the creationist flood myth was purely incidental, like the other frequent scientific refutations of creationism, where the revealed facts speak for themselves.
The international research team included scientists from the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB).
A UCSB news release explains the discovery and its significance:
As it is Easter, when Christians traditionally celebrate the repugnant notion of vicarious redemption through the blood sacrifice of a supposedly innocent person, I thought it would be good to examine the whole notion of the crucifixion of the legendary founder of the Christian religion, Jesus.
What I'm not going to do is point out the glaring and irreconcilable inconsistences in the accounts of the crucifixion and the alleged resurrection, which betray the fact that any pretense to be eye-witness accounts are just that - pretense.
If you want more information on that you're more than welcome to try the Easter Challenge to see if you can resolve the accounts into a coherent narrative incorporating all the alleged events.
The origins of Easter have nothing to do with the alleged crucifixion of course, being based, at least in part on the Roman festival of Hilaria:
For example, the timing of Easter is determined by the first full moon after the vernal equinox, which was also an important time in the Roman calendar. The Roman festival of Hilaria, which was held in honor of the goddess Cybele, was celebrated around the same time as the vernal equinox and involved parades, feasting, and gift-giving.
Reference:
"The Origins of Easter" by Mark Cartwright, Ancient History Encyclopedia: https://www.ancient.eu/article/1294/the-origins-of-easter/
"Easter" by Christine M. Tomassini, Encyclopædia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday
"The Pagan Roots of Easter" by Jennifer Billock, History: https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-easter-origins-of-easter-traditions
The name 'Easter' comes from the Old English 'Ēastre', the name of an Anglo-Saxon festival celebrating the spring equinox which was used by the Christian Church as the arbitrary date of the alleged crucifixion of Jesus, which has as much basis in fact as the supposed date of his birth, i.e., none at all.
Perhaps the first thing to point out about the story is its unlikelihood.
Long before a clan of camel herders and traders along the western edge of Arabia were forced by tribal loyalty to follow a new, charismatic 'Prophet of Allah", and long before a tribe of Canaanite hill farmers in the hill of southern Syria adopted the god Yahweh from the local pantheon as their own, and created a mythical history to give them a unique identity and justify their land-theft, genocide and territorial expansion, scattered bands of early pastoralists had banded together to build hundreds of massive monuments for religious rituals in the Al-Nafūd Desert in the north of Arabia, close to the Western end of the 'fertile crescent'.
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Detail of north-west (preserved) interlocking cells of associated feature IDIHA-F-0011149.
The main (central) chamber of mustatil IDIHA-F-0011081 with three up-right stones (A-C). Flat stones in centre of image acted as support for primary up-right stone in the rear. The blocked doorway is visible in the left of the photo.
Horns found on a collapsed “bench” in Phase 4B. Left to right, large cattle horns/sheaths (#0043) and (#0033), goat horn sheath (#0047), goat (#0041), and cattle horn (#0040).
These structures were only discovered in 2016 by satellite imagery. Now known by the local people as Mustatil ('rectangles")., they were constructed some 7000 years ago, before the Pyramids of Egypt or Stonehenge in southern England and are probably the oldest man-made stone structures on Earth. The organisation and manpower required to build these structures suggests some unifying idea across a large area to give a commonality of purpose to scattered tribes, pointing to a single religion with maybe an accepted central religious authority associated with the site in northern Arabia where these structures were created.
They are also associated with elaborate rock-carvings of strange geometric shapes and patters, which were probably originally painted.
As with the Pyramids and the Bronze Age structures of Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, in Wiltshire, UK, they suggest an organised state with an economy strong enough to provide a surplus wealth and food production sufficient to finance these constructions and feed the workers.
And yet, because they left no records, like the religion that inspired the building of Knossos in Minoan Create, we have no idea what that religion was or why it was able to inspire the creation of these structures for the rituals that were performed there, and why the people living there considered it necessary and worth all the effort!
Clearly, the god(s) (and it was probably a pantheon of gods, like the neighbouring Mesopotamians had later) had massive imaginary powers, giving the priesthood enormous powers of command and control, and elaborate rituals were considered necessary to appease or thank them. Yet we have no idea what those imaginary powers were, and whatever they were believed to have done, or not done in response to the rituals continued to be done or not done when the rituals ceased, their last believer died, and the monuments crumbled.
The First Law of Theodynamics:
Gods can be created out of nothing and will disappear without trace.
This is a phenomenon that has been repeated time and again throughout human history as religions have come and gone together with their imaginary gods. No one now mourns at the graveside of these old dead gods.
No-one believes in Mars, Ra, Wodan, Thor or Saturn, and no-one says the rituals that were once essential to keep the seasons coming and going, the crops growing or the Nile flooding, and yet the seasons continue to come and go, the crops grow and the Nile still floods at the right time.
The prayers and rituals that once influenced these old gods are no longer needed, and the natural occurrences that were once 'obviously' caused or created by them are now just as 'obviously' caused or created by different gods in response to different prayers and rituals. And they will still occur when the current batch of gods have been consigned to the graveyard of the gods along with all the others.
What started me thinking in that line, was a recent article concerning the Arabian monuments in The Conversation by Melissa Kennedy, and
Hugh Thomas, Lecturers in Archaeology at the University of Sydney. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency. The original can be read here
Enigmatic ruins across Arabia hosted ancient ritual sacrifices
A group of three mustatil and later Bronze Age funerary pendants on a rocky outcrop, southeast of AlUla County.
Source: AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided
Over the past five years, archaeologists have identified more than 1,600 monumental stone structures dotted across a swathe of Saudi Arabia larger than Italy. The purpose of these ancient stone buildings, dating back more than 7,000 years, has been a puzzle for researchers.
Our excavations and surveys reveal these were ritual structures, constructed by ancient herders and hunters who gathered to sacrifice animals to an unknown deity – perhaps in response to ancient climate change. The study is published in PLOS ONE today.
Desert discoveries
In the 1970s, the first archaeological surveys of northwest Saudi Arabia identified an ancient and mysterious rectangular structure. The sandstone walls of the structure were 95m long, and although it was determined to be unique, no further study of this unusual site was undertaken.
Over the following decades, airline passengers would see similar large “rectangles” dotted across the country. However, it was not until 2018 that one was excavated.
The main architectural features of a mustatil.
Credit: AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided
These structures are now known as mustatils (Arabic for rectangle). We have been studying them for the past five years as part of a larger archaeological study sponsored by the Saudi Royal Commission for AlUla.
The smallest mustatils are around 20m long, while the largest are over 600m. Previous work by our team determined that all mustatils follow a similar architectural plan. Two thick ends were connected by between two to five long walls, creating up to four courtyards.
Access to the mustatil was through a narrow entrance in the base. There would then have been a long walk, perhaps in the form of a procession, to the “head”, where the main ritual activity took place.
Previous studies determined that the mustatils are at least 7,000 years old, dating to the end of the Neolithic period.
Cattle remains
In 2019–2020, we undertook excavations at a mustatil site called IDIHA-0008222. The structure, made from unworked sandstone, measures 140m in length and 20m in width.
Excavations in the head of the mustatil revealed a semi-subterranean chamber. Within this chamber were three large, vertical stones. We have interpreted these as “betyls”, or sacred standing stones which represented unknown ancient deities.
The excavated mustatil at IDIHA-0008222.
Credit: AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided
Surrounding these stones were well-preserved cattle, goat, and gazelle horns. The horns are so well preserved that much of what we find is the horn sheath, made of keratin – the same substance as hair and nails. We found only the upper cranial elements of these animals: the teeth, skulls, and horns. This suggests a clear and specific choice of offerings.
Further analysis suggests the bulk of these remains belonged to male animals and the cattle were aged between 2 and 12 years. Their slaughter would have formed a significant proportion of a community’s wealth, indicating these were high-value offerings.
Human remains
Current evidence suggests that the mustatils were in use between 5300 and 4900 BCE, a time when Arabia was green and humid. However, within a few generations, the ancient inhabitants of Saudi Arabia began to reuse these structures, this time to bury human body parts.
At IDIHA-0008222, a small structure had been built next to the mustatil. Inside were a partial foot, five vertebrae and several long bones.
Their placement suggests soft tissue was still present when they were buried. Forensic anthropologists were able to determine that the remains likely belonged to an individual aged between 30 and 40 years.
Our work at other mustatils has revealed similar deposits of human remains. Were these remains buried in attempt to claim ownership of the structure or some form of later ritual? These questions remain to be answered.
Pointing to water
The mustatils are changing how we view the Neolithic period not just in Arabia but across the Middle East. The sheer size of these structures and the amount of work involved in their construction suggests that multiple communities came together to create them, most probably as a form of group bonding.
Moreover, their widespread distribution across Saudi Arabia suggests the existence of a shared religious belief, one held over a vast and un-paralleled geographic distance. Currently, fewer than ten mustatils have been excavated, so our understanding of these structures is still in its infancy.
Mustatil locations in Saudi Arabia, with the location of site IDIHA-0008222 marked in red.
Credit: Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, the GIS User Community, USGS, NOAA / AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided
The key question to be answered is “why were they built?” A survey trip by our team may have, in part, solved this mystery.
While recording these structures after rain, we noted that almost all mustatils pointed towards areas that held water. Perhaps the mustatils were constructed and the animals offered to the god or gods to ensure the continuation of the rains and the fertility of the land.
The possibility remains that the mustatils were built in response to a changing climate, as the region became increasingly arid like it is today.
Two mustatil in Khaybar County pointing to standing water after rain.
Credit: AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla, Author provided
Our study of the mustatils is ongoing. Our new project at the University of Sydney is focused on understanding why these monumental structures and others were built and what brought about their end.
We hope future excavations and analyses will reveal further insights into the life and death of the mustatils and the people who built them.
Melissa Kennedy, Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Sydney and Hugh Thomas, Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Sydney
Since the 1970s, monumental stone structures now called mustatil have been documented across Saudi Arabia. However, it was not until 2017 that the first intensive and systematic study of this structure type was undertaken, although this study could not determine the precise function of these features. Recent excavations in AlUla have now determined that these structures fulfilled a ritual purpose, with specifically selected elements of both wild and domestic taxa deposited around a betyl. This paper outlines the results of the University of Western Australia’s work at site IDIHA-0008222, a 140 m long mustatil (IDIHA-F-0011081), located 55 km east of AlUla. Work at this site sheds new and important light on the cult, herding and ‘pilgrimage’ in the Late Neolithic of north-west Arabia, with the site revealing one of the earliest chronometrically dated betyls in the Arabian Peninsula and some of the earliest evidence for domestic cattle in northern Arabia.
Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And what of Huitzilopochtli? In one year—and it is no more than five hundred years ago—fifty thousand youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried on with the sun. When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with ten thousand gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Alien G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now the peer of General Coxey, Richmond P. Hobson, Nan Patterson, Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler, and Tom Sharkey…
But they have company in oblivion: the hell of dead gods is as crowded as the Presbyterian hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsalluta, and Deva, and Belisama, and Axona, and Vintios, and Taranuous, and Sulis, and Cocidius, and Adsmerius, and Dumiatis, and Caletos, and Moccus, and Ollovidius, and Albiorix, and Leucitius, and Vitucadrus, and Ogmios, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshiped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose—all gods of the first class, not dilettanti. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them—temples with stones as large as hay-wagons. The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests, wizards, archdeacons, evangelists, haruspices, bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake. Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels: villages were burned, women and children were butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence. Worse, the very tombs in which they lie are lost, and so even a respectful stranger is debarred from paying them the slightest and politest homage.
It's hard to find a scientific paper these days that doesn't utterly refute the basic dogmas of Creationism. Take for example this paper which deal with the origins of the population of the British Isles at the end of the last Ice Age. There is no intention on the part of the authors to refute the Bible narrative Creationists adhere to, yet they do, simply by revealing the facts.
At the end of the last ice age, what is now the Island of Great Britain was still joined to continental Europe by an area of land, 'Dogger Land', now submerged beneath the North Sea, which stretched across from East Anglia to Holland.
During the glacial maximum, the northern two-thirds of the island and most of Northern Europe was glaciated and so it was repopulated when the ice retreated.
Traditionally, the first anatomically modern humans in Britain were assumed to be hunter-gatherer migrants from Northern Europe who became isolated when sea-level changes inundated Dogger Land and broke through the chalk downs at Dover creating the island of Great Britain, from which Ireland had been separated for hundreds of years. Humans along with the flora and fauna of the island reflects this repopulation over a land bridge from newly-repopulated North-Western Europe, in the immediate post-glacial period when sea-levels were still low enough to allow Dogger Land to be populated.
Fig. 1: Location, genetic ancestry and AMS date of individuals discussed within the text.
Surprisingly though, new research by researchers from University College London (UCL) Institute of Archaeology, the Natural History Museum and the Francis Crick Institute has shown that at least two distinct human populations, with different origins and cultures existed in Britain in the immediate post-glacial period. This conclusion came from an analysis of thee DNA from some of the oldest human remains so far discovered - the remains of an individual found in Gough's Cave, Somerset, England and an individual from Kendrick’s Cave, North Wales, both of whom lived more than 13,500 years ago.
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