- Joined
- Nov 29, 2004
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ob said:Henceforth jewfish?
I'm WAYYYY too LA to use that old term. Don't think it would make me very popular.
ob said:Henceforth jewfish?
ob said:I guess it doesn't make me very popular, either, then; no offense intended
bobwonderbuns said:I haven't figured out how to quote something in my reply.
cthulhu77 said:They also seem to not believe in King Arthur, which horrifies me.
One reason I have no clue how to respond to this is that in looking at what's known to science to try to explain what is essentially a miraculous event in the Bible, one has to decide what parts of traditional science to disregard. Since you are willing to believe in the literal fact that Jonah was eaten by a large fish in the mediterranian, and that God miraculously allowed him to live for days, why wouldn't one believe that God created a special, customized fish as well. At least some Biblical literalists (I have not figured out whether you fall in this category or not) do not believe the Earth is old enough for any of this discussion about extinct fishes to be meaningful-- if the Earth is 6000 years old, then talking about conclusions we've reached about sharks that we believe were extinct a million years ago is a contadiction. Unless you somehow specify where you draw the line between science and faith, asking for some sort of scientific guess as to what might be referred to in this story seems to me to be an ill-posed question. From my understanding of science, which is of course not perfect, the some of the fish and whales listed might swallow a man, although many of them would be likely to chew them to death first, but none would allow him to live for days afterwards. If you are willing to accept supernatural explanations to get around this issue, then why limit yourself to the known natural possibilities for what species of fish it could be?
I don't think anyone is meaning to object to your faith, I think it's not obvious how to reconcile the parts of your faith that don't seem consistent with science in such a way that science can answer your question. Science pretty much says that there is no fish that can fit the bill... if you want the "closest fit," and assume that a miracle accounts for the difference, there's still a lot of room for argument as to what the "closest fit" would be, because once you accept that miracles are occurring, it's hard to decide whether it is a more likely miracle for it to have been a big whale, a big shark, a big clownfish, or a big river catfish that miraculously swam out of the amazon into salt water and made its way to the Mediterranean.
Just my -- I just haven't seen a coherent question so I'm not surprised that there's not much agreement on the answer. Monty
run away run awayPhil said:
cthulhu77 said:Well, while the scientists scoff at the existance of large carcharodons, their only proof is "well, we haven't dissected one yet."...