Killing in the name of...

Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.." 

I have mentioned in my blog series "13 Pages Deep" that the Bible is a lot like an ancient iPhone in that it seems to have an app for everything. Accommodations and contingency plans have been made for some of the wackiest situations ever imagined. For instance: Not quite sure how to handle your slave girls? In Deuteronomy 21:10-12 you'll find specific instructions on how to prepare any "bond maids" that you might own for sex and marriage. Wondering what you should do if you find a bird's nest in your path? Check out Deuteronomy 22:6-7. How about if your'e unlucky enough to part ways with your penis here on Earth and are wondering if you may still get into Heaven? Well, there is an app for that too in Deuteronomy 23:1. If You should take the time to check out that last passage you will see just how lucky John Wayne Bobbitt was that the police found his member by the road.

Ironically, most people who "swear by the Bible" are probably not aware of most of it's bat shit crazy contents. Apologists will argue that pointing out these insane and often inconsistent passages is simply the uninitiated taking the Good Lord's word out of context. Which is of course hilarious when you consider the fact that the very heart of the Pro-life movement is Christian based, and yet no other book like the Bible advocates killing babies, and not in humane, sterilized medical facilities where favorably the procedure happens at a very early stage of pregnancy, but rather it promotes savagely ripping babies from the bellies of their mothers, who presumably also die. Case in point, God decrees that the infants of Samaria be massacred because "The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open." If you have the stomach for that sort of thing, read all about it in Hosea 13. I am compelled to ask ye, all knowing apologist, In what context is it ever acceptable to smash a baby's brains out on the ground? 

Not afraid to get his own hands dirty, and  rather than just sanctioning child and baby murder, god commits the act himself in Exodus 12:29 "And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle." Really? He even killed the firstborn cattle? What kind of diabolical deity extracts this type of revenge all the way down to livestock? Christian apologists have an answer for this as well. They will tell you that since god created all life, he is free by proxy to destroy it whenever he chooses. Want some real irony? Rule number nine of the "Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth," as it appears in the Satanic Bible is "Do not harm little children." 

Kill, kill, kill! It seems to be the answer to every problem in the book that we are instructed to receive our moral guidelines from. Perhaps you are not familiar with the bible, and if you read this far already and are bereft of an acute, morbid fascination with murder and mayhem, you may choose pass on this vile work of fiction. However, most people are at least dimly aware of the  Decalogue, or Ten Commandments. Perhaps at least a few of the biggies like thou shall not commit adultery, steal or kill stand out. The bulk of the commandments are pretty much instructions on how to stroke god's ego, but certainly the crowd pleaser has to be "Thou shalt not kill," right? Well, let's take a look at the actual commandments, in their entirety, at least as they appear in the King James version of the Bible to garner some perspective:

 I have used the Homeland Security Advisory System to color code their weight of importance, at least as I see them, when used as rules to govern a moral society. 

The Ten Commandments
(As written by the finger of God, and delivered, at least twice, by Moses.)

1.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

2.Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

3.Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

4.Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

5.Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

6.Thou shalt not kill.

7.Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8.Thou shalt not steal.

9.Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

10.Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Well, it took a while, but at least killing is covered by number six.This would probably be a prudent time to point out that the bible sanctioned punishment for breaking any one of these rules is death. Earlier, I mentioned the "Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth," and as point of interest, and in no way as a means to promote the Satanic Bible, here they are for your consideration:

The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth
(by Anton Szandor LaVey ©1967)

 1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.

2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.

3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.

4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.

6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.

7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.

8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.

9. Do not harm little children.

10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.

11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

Oh, and as another fine point of interest...

Okay, so where were we? Oh yeah, Kill, Kill, Kill!. So what else might you be killed for justifiably in the Bible? As it turns out, a shit ton of things, for instance:

* If an animal steps out of line, kill it. "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned."-Exodus 21:28

* If some one steps out of line with an animal, kill them. "Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death." -Exodus 22:19
And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast." -Leviticus 20:15
"And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." -Leviticus 20:16

* Have a problem with god, and speak in a non-flattering way to, or about him, you die. "He that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him." -Leviticus 24:16

* Thinking about getting some yard work done on Sunday? Dead, dead, dead! "Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death." -Exodus 31:14
"Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death." -Exodus 31:15
"Six days shall work bedone, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death." -Exodus 35:2

* Want to crack wise with your Mom or Dad? Sorry kid, your'e a goner. "He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death." -Exodus 21:15
"He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death." -Exodus 21:17 "For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him." -Leviticus 20:9

* Cheating on your wife? Guess what pal, you and your lady friend are going to the big "Motel No Tell" in the sky. "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death." -Leviticus 20:10


* Keeping slaves in the Bible is perfectly acceptable, but if you steal one, you are up shit's creek without a bull whip my friend. "He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." -Exodus 21:16

* Perhaps you had the heinous misfortune of being raped, well you better cry about it as convincingly as the best Hollywood actress because there might not be an Oscar in your future, but there will certainly be a lot of stones. "If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you."-Deuteronomy 22:23-24

* Gay? Better keep that freak flag in the closet because..."If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."-Leviticus 20:13

* We already know that worshiping false gods is a big no-no, but in case you missed the point... "He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed."-Exodus 22:20

* Like to "keep it in the family" you sick bastard? "And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." -Leviticus 20:11
"And if a man lie with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have wrought confusion; their blood shall be upon them." -Leviticus 20:12
"And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you." -Leviticus 20:14
(Of course, there is no mention of Lot's daughters paying this supreme price for their indiscretions with their father where they plied him with wine and both got themselves impregnated by him.)

* So your'e saving yourself for that special someone? Well you better be because come the big night and your new hubby suspects that you might be experienced, you could have a problem. "If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her ... and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate.... But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you." -Deuteronomy 22:13-22

* Looking for alternative enlightenment? Thinking joining a Wicca coven? Think again witchy-poo. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." -Exodus 22:18

* And finally, after all of this killing, if you kill, you will be killed.
Who so sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. -- Genesis 9:6

Exhausting isn't it? And this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the lunacy that awaits you in the bible. I have one more list of rules for you. More like guidelines if you will. They were written by  Robert Fulghum and are as follows:

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN

Share everything.

Play fair.

Don't hit people.

Put things back where you found them.

Clean up your own mess.

Don't take things that aren't yours.

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Even Arnold would agree, kindergarten was plenty informative.

Sapere aude, (Dare to know) my friends and may Zeus preserve you!

13 PAGES DEEP: Page four, Part 2

"Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah and his party didn't miss the boat." 
Mark Twain

When we last left Noah he had just received news that his three unborn sons and their future wives, his wife and himself were to be spared God's aquatic genocide. This on the heels of learning about his new occupation as ship builder. Well, when it rains it pours because in Genesis 6:19 God then informs Noah that he is about to become caretaker of the world's largest floating phylogenetically complete zoo. "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female." Furthermore, "Of fowls after their kind, and cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive." So Noah, who probably knew a thing or two about goats and sheep, was somehow now expected to know how to care for all the animals and insects of the world. Strange, exotic creatures that he would have never imagined in his wildest dreams even existed were now to be in his charge. Don't forget, according to Christian logic, this would include dinosaurs. Would you know how to care for a dinosaur? What do you feed a hungry dinosaur? Oh, I know, every fucking thing else on the ark!

Let's set aside our thoughts of Velociraptors and T-Rex's running amok on the ark for a moment and consider the Henry Doorly zoo in Omaha Nebraska. It is the world's largest zoo. There are some zoos that are bigger, but only in terms of actual acreage and not animal species. As it is, The Doorly zoo sits on 130 acres of land. It has around 17,000 animals representing 962 different species. A mere drop in the bucket with regard to an overall representation of all animal species, but pretty damned impressive just the same. Remember, it is the world's LARGEST zoo. It features the largest cat complex in North America and has the world's largest indoor Swamp, rain forest and desert. The desert is contained in the world's largest glazed geodesic dome. However, zoos, even the world's largest aren't the ideal place for animals. No matter how expansive, or accurately habitational they are made, they are often never an exact representation of most animals natural environments. As a result, 10-15% of the animals kept in captivity die each year.

The Henry Doorly Zoo from above. 130 acres, housing around 17,000 animals, representing only 962 animal species of the estimated 8.7 million species of life on Earth.

How many people do you suppose the Herny Doorly zoo employs to take care of it's animals? I wish I knew. I cannot find an answer to this question on line and am still waiting for a response from the zoo itself. My guess would be more than eight. However, I did find the requirements for your basic entry level caretaker and they are as follows: a four-year college degree. Training in animal science, zoology, marine biology, conservation biology, wildlife management, animal behavior, or other related field. Do you think that Bronze Age desert dwellers would make the grade?

Not ready for prime time Zookeepers 

To date, we have named and catalogued over a million species of life.  Scientists discover on average, 15,000 new species each year. So far, this rate of discovery shows no sign of abatement. In fact, a recent study estimates that there are about 8.7 million species of life on earth. (click me for species study) The number of different species that would have had to make it on to Noah's ark in order to account for the diversity in creatures that we find today would have been prodigious to say the least. Keeping this in mind, we are to believe that Noah and his family were able to share space on God's improbable lifeboat with two of every kind of animal then in existence. Well that shouldn't have been a big problem right? Except, it kinda is. A problem that is in orders of magnitude bigger than say, the inconvenience of having to explain to the police and your wife why there is a dead hooker in your closet.

Click on cartoon to enlarge if you are as blind as I am.

Christian apologists, using their own very special math, have tried to whittle the number of animals on Noah's ark down to 16,000. They should be embarrassed by this gross miscalculation, but using this absurdly low number does nothing to undermine the ridiculousness of this lark. If we recall, the ark's floor plan was 450' x 75' x 3 floors.  Allowing for walls one foot thick, which they would have had to be minimally, you end up with 448' x 73' x 3 floors which gives you 98,112 sq ft. One third of this space would be unavailable because it might be a novel idea to install stairs and ramps for access and egress and structural support to keep the ark from collapsing in on itself. Not to mention pens for the animals. Oh, and don't forget the aquarium tanks, (complete with high ground) that you would need for the amphibians.

Seems probable that Noah would have a set up like this to house every species of amphibian, right?

 Biological fun fact: amphibians can live on both land and in water, but not exclusively in either. Flooding the entire planet for over a year means that amphibians drown. You would also need magically oxygenated  aquariums (In Lieu of magic, today we commonly use electricity to power pumps and filters, something even Christian apologists wouldn't say was available to Noah. At least, not yet.)  to house the shit load of fish that live only in fresh water and for those that live only in salt water. Why? Because covering surface of the earth completely in water would mean mixing all of it's fresh and salt water together. This means entire species of fish would- sleep with the fishes.

So now we are down to about 65,00 square feet. Christian apologists have cited "scientists"  who have determined that when you average the size of all creatures during the time of Noah, from say, fleas (about the size of a grain of rice weighing 0.8 grams.)  all the way up to Argentinosaurus (120 feet long, 70 feet high, weighing over 100 tons) you come up with an animal the size of a sheep.

Click on image to enlarge and see the size Noah would be relative to Argentinosaurus.

But wait, wouldn't all of these creatures, including Noah and his mates need food and water? Not to worry, because the Good Lord, wellspont of infinite giving that he is, provides just that in Genesis 6:21 "And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee; and for them." Well that's simple enough, just go "gather it to thee." So somehow after mustering the resources to build what was at the time, the world's largest boat, Noah now must come up with the capital to obtain enough food and water for his family and 16,000 animals to live on at sea for over a year. Sounds plausible. Question: how in Zeus's blue butt would Noah know what all of these animals ate? Did he know that Koalas, which he couldn't even had possibly heard of in his time, eat only eucalyptus leaves?

I am a bit of a Diva.

Would he know that of the 700 species of eucalyptus trees, most grow only in Australia, with a smattering found in Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Philippines? Would he know that of those 700 species of eucalyptus trees, koalas will only eat 14 as their primary food source? Would he know which 14? Speaking of cute, fuzzy animals, what about panda bears? Very unlikely Noah ever saw one of these, especially when you consider that they hail from China, you know, homeland of the civilization that existed thousands of years before the creation. Do I even have to ask how Noah would know that pandas only ate bamboo?

Koalas and pandas are primarily plant eaters. What about the carnivores? How would Noah store meat for them? In magical refrigerators? Well if Noah had a magic fridge he must have put the smallpox virus in there because it wouldn't have survived the flood either. Nor would have pneumonia, measles, typhus, typhoid fever, syphilis, poliomyelitis, gonorrhea and leprosy just to name a few other germs that, except under very special lab conditions, cannot exist outside of the human body. Unless of course you are willing to concede that one or all of Noah's clan had contracted every disease known to man before their fateful trip.

Could one or all of Noah's group been "patient zero" for every disease on Earth today?

 Biologically, the authors of the Bible were not different at all from you or me. Their brains were precisely the same size as ours. It's not that they were stupid, they were just ignorant to a bazillion facts that we now know and understand through the attrition of time and a ever growing compendium of knowledge. In much the same way that people thousands of years from now will look back upon our commonly held beliefs, innovations and science and see a very primitive civilization. This disparity of knowledge now grows at a exponential rate because computer technology enables developments and breakthroughs to occur at an incredible rate of speed that is constantly increasing. It is estimated that computers will be as complex as the human brain in only decades. Futurists like Ray Kurzweil envision a brain-computer interface called "singularity" where we will reach superintelligence through computer aided bio-enhancements. In other words, the Xboxes and Playstations of the future may be a pill you swallow or a chip inserted into your head.

Before the industrial revolution, (1750-1850) and certainly before the advent of computer technology and the world wide net, the progress of information, ideas and innovations moved sluggishly ahead. Often this progress was bogged down and stifled by religious doctrine. In 1633 Galileo was rewarded for his significant contributions to observational astronomy by Pope Urban VIII with a life sentence of house arrest for offending his Holiness's delicate sensibilities with his heretical idea that the earth revolved around the sun. He remained in home bound captivity until he died at age 77 in 1642.

 Pope Urban VIII "schools" Galileo on "what's up" with outer space.

I once read that if it were not for all the world's religious interference we might have had the Internet before the industrial revolution. That sounds a little far fetched, but just Imagine what Einstein could have accomplished with a computer. Further along in history, during the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII would remain publicly indifferent at best to the plight of the Jewish people and while the Vatican has yet to excommunicate a single Nazi they did eventually find it in their hearts to forgive Galileo of his heinous crime and pardon him posthumously in 1992. Ah, the beauty of enlightenment.

 To be fair, amazing displays of ignorance are not limited to the spiritually inclined. Men of science can be equally obtuse. Take for instance the case of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. Slightly ahead of the personal hygiene curve, in 1847 Dr. Semmelweis put forth the idea that doctors should wash their hands in between attending to patients. Especially when delivering babies. At the time, infant mortality was horrible. What perplexed him, and what became the impetus for his theory was the fact that midwives at the clinic where he practiced were having much greater success delivering babies than learned doctors.  After eliminating all other possible causes he determined that the only difference between the midwives and the doctors was that the midwives did not have their hands shoved in the guts of cadavers as doctors often did before attempting a delivery. Unknowingly, he had stumbled onto the doorstep of germ theory. 

He postulated that some 'cadererous material' was the culprit and decided that washing one's hands with in a solution of chlorinated lime (or calcium hypochlorite, a compound used today in household bleach.) would do the trick. Once the doctors at the clinic started washing their hands infant mortality all but disappeared with their patients.

It is hard to imagine how many babies Dr. Semmelweis saved with his discovery. If the story ended here you probably would have known his name already. However, his suggestion to other doctors to wash their hands offended their delicate sensibilities. He was practically laughed out of his profession and as a result of being unable to convince the medical world of his lifesaving theory, he had a nervous breakdown. He was committed to a mental hospital against his will and when he tried to leave the guards beat him severely. He was laced into a straight jacket and thrown into a dark cell where he was occasionally treated to cold water dousings and forced to drink castor oil. He would die at 47 only two weeks after being admitted. Ironically, germs killed him. He died from an infection caused by the beatings.

Well, at least they put him on a stamp after they ridiculed and drove him insane and to an early grave.

So where were we? Oh yeah, trying to shove 16,000 animals whose size was averaged out to that of sheep into the ark. For a sheep to stand in one spot it would need about 4 square ft. 4 square ft x 16,000 = 64,000 sq ft. Guess what? We are just about exactly out of room. And this is the best case scenario only if all of the animals stand in one spot and don't move during the entire voyage.  Unfortunately, we have no room for 13 months worth of food, water or the enormous pile of shit that 16,000 animals would generate in that amount of time. In fact, there isn't room for Noah and his shipmates either. Anyway, according to Genesis 6:22, "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he."

Stand just like this for over a year? No problem, I am the Zen master of standing. I could,...Hey! Is that a fucking Velociraptor?

"And the lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." Genesis 7:2 "Over every clean beast thou shall take to thee by sevens, the male and his female:and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."  This new bit about the seven pairs refers presumably to the distinction between animals suitable for consumption and sacrifice and those that are not. It predates Mosaic law considerably and might be an indication of an all knowing God who anticipates Moses and the New testament or further proof of the pagan origins of the Christian cult. People have been making sacrifice of crops, animals and all manner of things including other people for  thousands of years before any of the events in the bible, including the "creation" were said to have occurred.

  And to whom or what were these offerings made? Well , to everything from the sun, the moon, and the stars to a pantheon of mostly forgotten gods. As point of interest, many of these gods were born of a virgin on or around the winter solstice, died and returned to life. So, how many gods have come and gone since the dawn of man? The exact answer can never be known, but my first guess would be a shit-ton.



 Tediously forward we trudge and arrive at Genesis 7:3 -7:4, which spews forth, "Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.  For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made I will destroy from off the face of the earth."

"For yet seven days"  is thought to mean that God grants the people of earth an additional week to repent but by all accounts they chose to piss it away and some even spend it ridiculing Noah for building a giant ship in the desert.

In Bill Cosby's version of the story he imagines how Noah's next door neighbor might react...

Neighbor: Hey! You up there!

Noah: What do you want?

Neighbor: What is this?

Noah: It's an ark.

Neighbor: Aha, you wanna get it out of my driveway? I gotta get to work!

Genesis 7:5 -7:11 "And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood waters was upon the earth. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth. There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundreth year of noah's life , in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." 

Lord knows what "the fountains of the great deep" are.  Apparently, rather than the nearly moon-sized, fiery ball of iron that we now know is in the center of the earth surrounded by roiling mass of liquid iron and nickel alloy , churning at a blistering 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit, these fine folks thought the antediluvian world had water inside. It makes sense when you consider that the commonly held geographical and cosmological beliefs of most people at the time was that the earth was a flat disk, supported by either giant pillars, or on the back of a giant turtle with a solid dome sky fixed over it to keep out the waters of outer space while giving God something to sit on when he wanted to look down upon us.

Ugh. 

Genesis 7:12-7:16  "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Ham, and Shem, and Japeth," the movie star, the professor and Mary- sorry. "the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earthafter his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in." 

This last part, "and the Lord shut him in" is believed to mean that God closed and sealed the door behind Noah, thus safely securing him, his family and all the representative animals of the world against the raging storm that would shortly ensue. Safe, secure and packed impossibly worse than sardines with bed bugs, lice, mosquitos, tarantulas, scorpians, venemous snakes, lions tigers and bears, and oh my, T-rexes and velociraptors. All squeezed for thirteen months into a confined space with no lights, heat or air conditioning and just a single 18" x 18" window for ventilation. Oh, and also as a means to remove the shit, piss and other waste materials produced by 16,000 animals. Comfy. I think even the normally ambivalent honey badgers would be forced to "give a fuck" about this arrangement.

Finally we reach the end of page four. Page four?  Good Lord, it seems like it should be page one thousand. Did I really commit to thirteen pages? I am beginning to feel like what I imagine Morgan Spurlock felt when he committed to eating only Mc Donalds food for a 30 days in his documentary, "Super Size Me." Like I have bitten off more craziness than I can chew. At any rate, page four concludes with Genesis 7:17-19, and this nonsense,  "And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered."

"Glub, glub, glub!"

Right. For this to actually happen, you would need five times the amount of water currently found on the Earth. It would merely take 4.4 billion cubic kilometers of the stuff to cover Mt. Everest. Where did that water come from? Where did it go? Do you know what that much pressure would do to the Earth's mantle? Do you know what that pressure would do to any improbable aquatic survivors in the oceans? 

I am through with this nonsense for now. I mean, if you still believe this story, you might want to consider killing yourself for the good of all mankind, or at least asking yourself some of the questions posed by Mark Isaak found here.

Thanks for doing the heavy lifting Mark, I need a break. And a bourbon. For now, and as always, May Zeus preserve you!

Why Hell is Overkill

Why Hell is Overkill

or

The Parable of the Bazooka and the Twinkie

So there we were, at the mouth of Main st. USA in Walt Disney World. Before us lie an iconic view known to millions world wide. It was the breathtaking visage of the majestic Disney castle. It seemed to hang in the sky as if some portal to another fantasy dimension had opened in the shimmering distance. The bright Florida sunshine on this perfect October day made the many colorful shops on Main st. appear surreally crisp and somehow more 3-D than reality itself. Children ran haphazardly, everywhere and nowhere all at once, not sure which magical sight to take in first. At thirty years old, this was my first trip to Disney. Looking around me, I took a deep breath and appraised the scene as a whole. I found the sights, sounds and even the smells to be utterly amazing. "This," I thought to myself, "is Heaven!"

Surely it can be said that Disney is a small piece of Heaven here on Earth. That is, if such a place as Heaven existed. It can certainly be said to be an antithesis of what our idea of Hell is. Unless, of course, your wife is moments away from an atomic mental meltdown, as mine was on that beautiful sun washed day in the Magic Kingdom. People will sometimes toss the phrase She or he "has a heart of gold" around. My wife truly has a heart of gold. She is the most loving, caring and thoughtful person I know. Despite these virtues, she can wax emotionally over reactive in certain situations. Which is to say that she can go full-blown, bat shit crazy from time to time.

We had made this pilgrimage to America's answer to Mecca in a large group comprised of most of my wife's relatives and, (at the time) our own small family.  We have four children now, but back then we only had two. My daughter was a mere six months old and therefore only technically at Disney for the first time. My oldest Son however, was five which is the exact perfect age to experience unfettered, the pure magic of a place like Disney World.

Now I know for a fact that my extended family only had the best intentions for my son when  they decided to immediately take him  on the Walt Disney World railroad to see all the sights of the park. Unfortunately, they did so without conferring with my wife, who's sole purpose on this trip was to see the wonderment reflected in our son's eyes as he took in each and every new fantastical thing. These were the days when not everyone had a cell phone. In fact, cell phone service was spotty at best anyway. Besides myself, only two other people in our group of 25 had them. Inexorably, the group who had our son did not.

We knew my son was safe. That was not the point. At least not as far as my wife was concerned. Maybe it was a combination of jet lag, the heat and some raging hormones left over from her recent pregnancy, I'm not exactly sure why, but she began a slow and steady burn. "How could they be so insensitive?" her rant began as a trickle of comments that soon became a torrent of invective that resonated in my head as if a 747 was taking off from between my ears. Although early in our marriage, I already knew by that time not to try and reason with her when she got this way. And besides, she did have a point after all. I was a little annoyed myself, but I always strive to see the big picture and not make such a big deal out of small things. I had no idea how big things were about to get.

We watched the handsome little Disney train pull into the station and soon my son came bouncing merrily down the steps into the courtyard at the top of Main st where my wife and I waited. Directly behind him were my hapless in-laws, who were seconds away from learning the true meaning of the phrase, "fuck blasted." Before they were anywhere near within conversational range my wife launched into a vociferous, obscenity laced tirade which seemed to bring the idyllic scene described in the first paragraph to a thunderous halt. It was as if Cruella Deville, Ursula sea witch, and the wicked Queen had combined into one super villianess and blotted out the sun with her boisterous evil. Children ran for their mothers, adults scowled and I am fairly certain I heard Mickey Mouse tsk, tsk.

Later, after the dust had settled and all was well again, I had  a conversation with my wife where I tried to explain why I thought she may have been a tad reactionary. It was then that I invented a metaphor that has become part of my personal philosophy. The parable of the "Bazooka and the Twinkie." The lesson goes like this, if you were a convenience store clerk and someone came in and stole a Twinkie, (in case you don't know, a Twinkie is a snack cake that is loaded with enough preservatives to maintain a shelf life of ten years, unwrapped.)you would be perfectly within your right to call the police and have this individual arrested. However, should you instead, reach behind the counter and pull out a bazooka and shoot this person in the face, you become the criminal.

Clearly, she had shot her family in the face with a bazooka in the happiest place on Earth that fateful day. Since then, I often use this metaphor whenever dealing with the subject of overkill. Which brings me to the topic of this article, which is the concept of Hell. I don't often think of Hell in much the same way that I don't spend too much time thinking about the land of Oz, Hobbiton Shire or Narnia. I just don't believe it exists. Perhaps my recent musings on the Holy Bible in my "13 Pages Deep" blog series has me thinking about Hell. I am only four and a half pages in and already the amount of punishment and damnation doled out by God is staggering.

At any rate, I came to the conclusion the other day that if Hell actually existed, it would definitely be a bazooka shot in the face of any sinner. Yes, I said any sinner. Think about it, Hell is presumably the worst possible suffering for all of eternity. Now what type of crime warrants such punishment? Murder? Child molestation? Certainly Child molestation combined with murder is the worst possible crime any human can commit. If one of my children were molested and murdered, I would want the worst possible punishment available to be implemented. I would want that person dead. I would probably even want to be the one that is the instrument of their death. Depending on your disposition, even a slow, painful death by torture would hardly seem like overkill for a twisted individual who brutally rapes and murders a child.

Perhaps you don't agree with my last sentiment. Maybe you are of the mindset that such an individual is not evil, but unbalanced and therefore society should try to heal or reform this person. You may actually be right, but then, the idea of Hell really wouldn't sit well with you. Remember, it's FOREVER. Again, it is the worst possible suffering imaginable. It NEVER ends. EVER.

 By most reports, hell is a roiling lake of fire in which the damned burn for all eternity. Seems a little extreme doesn't it? Can you wrap your head around the concept of forever?. Let's scale this scenario way back to say, one million years. Would you be satisfied to know for a fact that a child molesting murderer would burn in a lake of fire, feeling the ceaseless, unremitting, mind blowing pain of every square inch of their body burning, for one million years? One million years is not even a tear in the ocean of time when compared with all infinity. Yet it might just serve as sufficient punishment. Perhaps not. So let's bump it up to ten million years. Enough? Ten million years seems a little excessive, but fair enough, we are talking about an extremely heinous crime.

Can we possibly have any perspective on a duration of time spanning ten million years? I will go out on a limb and say that if someone simply poked you in the forehead for that amount of time the torture would be beyond maddening. Let's consider an easier length of time to grasp, like five minutes. Suppose you were strapped to a chair, facing a large atomic clock. A maniac wielding a blow torch tells you he is going to burn your face for exactly five minutes. You will not die, your skin will bubble and blister, yet it will not dissipate and you will feel the searing pain at it's height for the entire sitting. How long does five minutes seem like now?

You may think that I am trying to trivialize heinous crimes and just punishment. You may suppose that I am untouched so far in my life by an evil act of violence. You would be dead wrong. Let's go back through an actual span of time. Eight years ago to a particularly muggy June night. I was a student locomotive engineer, doing my best to stay afloat in a sea of technical manuals and rule books. I never went to college, but most in my class did. They all assured me that this course was harder than anything they encountered in their higher learning. I don't know if that is true, but one of these guys worked on Wall street, one was a teacher and another one was an airline pilot. There was also, a retired fireman, a civil engineer and a guy who flew helicopters. I was a roofer, and to be brutally honest, the dumbest guy in the class.

I stayed alive by virtue of the fact that we formed study groups and religiously maintained a steady schedule of them. I spent nearly all of my free time studying. I read so much technical jargon that i couldn't pick up a book for enjoyment or even read an article for at least a year afterwards. It felt as if I broke something in my head. I can't imagine that this course was as hard as trying to acquire a medical degree, or completing an internship, but it may have well been particle physics for a guy like me. Adding to the stress, was the fact that there were over one hundred and fifty tests and five exams to take in the first eleven months of a twenty-two month course. A score of less than 90 was a failing grade. Fail three tests in a row and you were discharged. Score less than 90 on an exam and you were discharged. And signal tests, which we had every day, were pass fail.

It felt a lot like being on the reality TV show, "Survivor." We started out with twenty guys and finished with only eleven. Most classes averaged between six and nine at their completion. We were dubbed "The Smart Class" because of our large number of "survivors." We had to bring our giant bags full of books and equipment to every exam and line them up by the examiner's desk so that if we failed we could be immediately discharged. I watched grown men who didn't make the grade walk out with tears in their eyes because like me, most had walked away from the security of a job they couldn't return to. Most had families to support and mortgages.

It was two days before my very first exam, so rather than go to an annual local fair with my wife and children, I opted to stay at home and study. After a couple hours with the books, I took a break and sat down at the computer in my dining room. A short while later, from the corner of my eye, I noticed an ominous looking black sedan slide up in front of my house. I went to the front window and looked out to see a large black man and an equally large white man in plain suits start to walk up my driveway. I remember thinking that they looked like mafia hit men. I am not a meek person by any means but I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared shit less. I looked around for some sort of melee weapon. I settled on a steak knife that I grabbed out of the butcher block in the kitchen and slipped it into my back pocket.

The doorbell rang. I contemplated not answering and running out the back door, but after a moments pause, during which I considered the fact that I really didn't have any involvement with the mob, I opened the door. The two men identified themselves as policeman. Somehow this did not make me feel any easier. I thought immediately about my wife and kids. Had something terrible happened? I still remember the sick feeling of panic I had in my stomach. But these men were not here to tell me about my wife and kids, instead they told me two very unexpected things about my brother. One was that he was gay, and the other was that he had been murdered.

My younger brother was a genius. As a boy he would drive my parents insane by taking clocks and other mechanical devices apart to see how they worked. Of course, he would never put these things back together. Like many people of high intellect his attention was everywhere and nowhere at once. Although two years younger than me, we looked very much alike and while we were never mistaken for twins, people would often mistake one of us for the other when we were apart. The similarities pretty much ended there between us. He was the life of the party and lit up a room when he walked in. He had real presence. He would constantly make people laugh with his wit or entertain with some magic trick that he had learned. Everyone who met him loved him and he was very empathetic to other people's problems which he would often take on as his own.

Unfortunately, for all his intelligence, he ran a little lean on common sense and good judgement. He fell in with a bad element and started to do drugs. He had an altercation with a "friend" who smashed a beer bottle across his face, leaving a wicked scar. He never seemed to be able to hold a steady job and got in trouble with the law a few times in attempts to augment his salary with theft. He was no angel, but neither was I. It would be extremely hypocritical of me not to point out that I was involved in everything he was and worse. In fact, as the older brother, I was more than likely the negative influence in his life. I just never got caught as much and always seemed to land on my feet for the most part until one day, I simply decided to grow up.

My brother had just started to reach a positive place in his life.  He had a steady, decent job and had been out of trouble for a good while. He and friend rented their own place and it finally looked as if he himself was growing up. He was a magnificent uncle to my children. He never showed up empty handed, he always had at least some small gift to bestow upon them. However, it was the time he spent with them that they enjoyed most. He had a natural knack for engaging them on their level and holding their attention, making them laugh and giggle and beg for more of his time that he never grew tired of giving. God I miss his  laugh, a laugh so genuine and infectious that it made even a curmudgeon like me follow suit.

I loved my brother dearly. Of course we fought many times the way that brothers will, but I must have shared a million laughs with him on just as many adventures. Despite my own personal loss, when I grieve my brother, it is for the loss that my children suffered. He was only around them briefly, but he has left a lasting impression on my kids till this day. The anger and rage I feel sometimes towards his murderer is unbearable.

 He was murdered at home, sitting in a recliner, most likely asleep at the time. His roommate, a man who the police informed me was his lover, apparently became violently jealous when my brother slipped into another room to do drugs with another couple of guys. At least this is the story his murderer used in his confession. Some type of argument broke out that may had at one point been physical and certainly raged on at some length verbally. And then later, after my brother fell asleep in a chair, his roommate/lover brutally bludgeoned him to death from behind with a cement statue. The details are very sketchy, the two other guys stole some of my brother's things and disappeared never to be caught or seen again. The murderer, like everyone else involved, was intoxicated and more than likely lying about most of the story anyway.

My brother's murder would only be an abstract idea to me at this time if it weren't for the fact that I was the one who had retrieve his belongings from the murder scene. My parents and other siblings couldn't bear to do it. I don't blame them. I have always been strong in these types of situations but little could have prepared me for what I saw. The amount of blood and it's sickening smell in the small living room where he died was overwhelming to say the very least. The police, medical examiner, or whoever is assigned such duties had cleaned up most of the scene before I arrived. Unfortunately, the stains on the chair and carpet gave an all too visceral account of the brutal nature of the murder. Despite their efforts, I still had to clean my brother's blood and tissue of many of his belongings in the immediate vicinity. I cannot impart to you how much this sort of thing removes a piece of you that you will never recover.

None of us knew that my brother was gay. To be honest, none of us cared. We were more upset with the fact that he didn't feel comfortable enough to tell us. Maybe he was going to. We will never know. I do know that at the time I wanted the worst possible punishment available for his murderer. I fantasized about killing him myself countless times. In those early days the idea of him languishing forever in a lake of fire was pretty appealing. Appallingly, he only received a thirteen year sentence. In fact, he is up for parole very soon.

I've gained a little perspective in these last eight years, and while I don't want to see this individual walk out of jail just yet, I feel mostly sorry for him. He has ruined his life. Even if he did get out today, what kind of future does a convicted murderer have in today's economy? He has to live with what he did everyday. It was a crime of passion, that much I believe. If he was in fact my brother's lover than I know he had to care for him at least half as much as the rest of us did. He was too lovable of a person not to. Personally, I could have watched this person be put to death for his crime and still feel fine with it today. Especially when I think about my Mother's loss and all the positive experiences my children were robbed of, but nothing will bring my brother back.

So, what about eternal Hellfire? Do I want this guy who took so much from my family and myself to burn forever in a lake of fire? Not really. Again, if he were executed I wouldn't have batted an eye, but that's not the sentence he received. He will spend a good chunk of the prime of his life in jail if I can help it at the parole hearing. If he doesn't, well there is not much I can do about it, unless I want to ruin my own life. My internal moral compass, not some invisible Deity in the sky tells me it would be wrong. Honestly, I am too busy trying to spend my what precious little time I have here on this rock the best way that I possibly can. I think using this approach , rather than a bazooka, is the best way to honor my brother's memory.

May Zeus preserve you!

13 Pages Deep: Page Four, Part One

"Don't Rock The Boat"

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip."

The Ballard of Gillagan's Island-George Wyle & Sherwood Schwartz

Before starting with page four we must peel back the page a little to take a look at the end of page three. We learn some additional, very interesting information about Lamech, the warrior pimp. In Genesis 5:28-29 we are told that when Lamech was still in his prime, (182 years old.) he sired a son "And he called his name Noah, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed." This verse is generally thought to imply that Noah, aside from becoming the first and most famous skipper ever, had invented plowing equipment. In these, the times before Home Depot, It is unclear if men had any spade or rake-like utensils with which to farm, or whether they simply dug with their hands.

Lamech ran through a little dry spell with his ladies and after a mere "five hundred ninety and five years, he begat sons and daughters." But alas, life in the biblical fast lane has it's price. It seems that his two wives, Adah and Zillah wore poor Lamech out. His life was cut short after a measly "...seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died." It's a shame, I was really starting to like Lamech. His brief life is out shined by his more famous son Noah and his adventures on the high seas. Noah, after soldiering through that initially awkward "getting to know you" period with his wife, starts his own family at "...five hundred years old" when he "begat Shem, Ham, and Japeth." From all accounts Noah was a good family man and unlike his great, great, great, great grandfather Cain, he knew how to please the Lord with proper offerings. This was very fortunate for Noah because God was doing the slow burn with the rest of humanity, and we all know by now, when the good Lord gets pissed, there is usually hell to pay.

Genesis :6:1-10 depicts the reasons for God's growing displeasure for mankind. He is particularly annoyed with the "fair daughters of men" co-mingling with the "sons of God."  It seems that these vixens of antiquity whom the S.O.G. chose to be trove were from the wrong side of the genealogical tracks and therefore not worthy of the descendants of Seth. These Godless tramps were presumably of the bloodline of Cain. The actual verses from Genesis 6 are as follows: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. That the sons of God saw the daughters that they were fair; and they took them wives of all they saw."

The first four sentences of the last paragraph are my facetious appraisal of the literal translation of these verses. The Old Testament was written mostly in ancient Hebrew. Some parts of Ezra, Daniel, and Jeremiah were written in Aramaic, which if he actually ever lived,  would have been the language that Jesus spoke. The New Testament was written in Greek, and has a smattering of Aramaic words sprinkled throughout it's gospels. The point of all of this being that translating these ancient cannons was not easy. And by that I don't mean for a wise ass like me, but for the actual scholars who devoted their lives to the endeavor. And as I realize that my King James version of the bible is at best- a translation of a translation of a translation- I have made it a point to visit several Christian and Biblical websites for a interpretation of each and every verse I review, lest the casual Bible reader wonder where my additional musings come from. I have said all of this I suppose to convey to you that I am really trying to grasp what is commonly held to be the actual meanings behind these words. So far, in deference to the esteemed ladies and gentlemen scholars, I find it to be ludicrous drivel at best.

In Genesis 6:3 God says to himself, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." So God, with his tolerance for the ungodly shenanigans of man waning, makes up his mind and sets a doomsday clock in motion. He gives mankind 120 years to get their collective shit together. This period starts about twenty years before the birth of Noah's sons and ends with what is, in a very strong field, one of the most ridiculous tales in the Bible. The myth of "The Great Flood."

Much has been made of the first part of the next verse of Genesis 6:4, "There were giants in the earth in those days; " which titillatingly continues, "and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renow" Many take the first part of this verse to mean that there were literally giants roaming about during this time. As a result, hoaxes of giant human bones being unearthed, citing Genesis 6:4 as validation, have gone on since at least the 1800's and continue to this day. (In more recent times, many have found Photoshop to be a useful tool for perpetuating this nonsense.) People have claimed to have found bones so large as to have come from beings that are 16 feet tall or better. Humans, over twice the size of Shaquille O'Neil cannot exist because of the "square-cube law" ( Square Cube Law explained here )

Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in recorded history thus far was 8 feet 11 inches tall. His extreme height was due to hypertrophy of his pituitary gland. As he grew and grew, this condition became a physical burden for him. He eventually needed braces on his legs to support him as he walked. An infection from a blister he received as a result of the braces rubbing against his skin would end his life at the age 22. He was still growing at the time of his death.

Since there are references further along in Job that pertain to the sons of God as being angles, some believe that this reference in Genesis means that Angels were screwing earth girls. They explain that this is why God becomes irritated and inflicts his watery wrath upon the world. Yet, in much the same way that garlic wards off vampires and feeding gremlins after midnight is prohibited, it has been "reasoned" that since Angels are spirits, they could not mate with humans. (As if you would bat an eyelash in response to this revelation should it occur otherwise given all of the fantastical nonsense rendered thus far.)

Before we learn about the ark, let's consider the fate another incredible sailing vessel. She was the largest ship of her day, her creator called her one of "the greatest of the works of men." She was declared " unsinkable." Despite these boasts she sank in the frigid waters of the north Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. Most of her passengers would die in the icy water, because tragically, despite her grand size, there were not enough lifeboats on board. You think you you know this story right? You probably think I am talking about the ill-fated RMS Titanic, but you are wrong. The ship I am referring to is the Titan. It is a fictional ship in a book called "Futility, or the wreck of the Titan" written by Morgan Robertson. It was not written after the Titanic sank, but 12 years before in 1898. Before the Titanic was even designed actually. The similarities between the fictional Titan and the real Titanic which sank in 1912 are uncanny. The Titan was 800 feet long displacing 75,000 tons and the Titanic was 882 feet long and displaced 63,000 tons. Both were triple screw (propeller). Each had a crew and passenger capacity of 3,000 and both had fewer than half the needed life boats to facilitate the number of souls on board. Finally, cruising at a brisk 22.5 knots, the Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic sea in April, four hundred miles from Newfoundland on her starboard side. Ditto for the Titan, except in Robertson's book she was doing 25 knots.

What are we to make of this? Was Robertson a psychic? Was he a prophet? As you might imagine many people certainly thought so after the Titanic sunk. He probably could have made a fortune had he been unscrupulous, but he freely admitted to anyone that would listen that it was just a huge coincidence. That it was mainly the direct result of his vast knowledge of ships and seamanship and not testimony of his supernatural prowess that spawned these parallel details. The story of Noah can be said to share this type of coincidence. One of the oldest works of literature known to man is "The Epic Gilgamesh." It comes down to us from the Mesopotamian area courtesy of the Babylonians.  Gilgamesh, who in real life was the fifth king of Uruk, (modern day Iraq.) became something of a mythological figure in Mesopotamian lure. His adventures chronicled in "The Epic of Gilgamesh" where he meets Utnapishtim, who was chosen by the gods for his goodness to weather a storm they employ to flood the world and destroy mankind. He is given specific instructions on how to build a boat large enough to his family and all the animals of earth. The storm lasts for six days and nights and his boat lands on top of a mountain. After  seven days on the mountain he sends out birds, first a dove, then a swallow then a raven to find land. He then leaves the boat and immediately offers sacrifice to the gods. Sound familiar? Just in case you have any chicken or egg type questions, the story of Gilgamesh predates the Bible date of creation by at least 1,000 years and perhaps as many as 3,000.

However, the Babylonians weren't beyond plagiarism themselves. Utnapishtim, who is obviously Noah, was at first Zisudra. Zisudra hails from Sumeria, which used to lie nestled between the the Tigress and Euphrates rivers to the north and west of the current Persian Gulf coast. It was first settled around 4,500-4000 BC. (This might be a good time to point out that according to Arch Bishop James Usher, and an army of Christian zombies, the earth was created on October 23, 4004 BC.) It was in this region, in what was the ancient city of Nippur that a clay tablet was found. It is commonly acknowledged to be the inspiration for the later Babylonian tales of Gilgamesh. The first 37 lines are missing from this tablet, which is itself only the lower third of a six column set. It picks up with the creation of man and animals and plants. (we've heard this story before as well.) Another 37 lines of text are missing and then the writing makes reference to five cities that existed before the flood and presumably some ways after the creation. Then it takes another 37 line break and picks up after these cities have been around for a long time. We are told that the behaviour of the inhabitants of these cities find them at odds with the gods. The god's growing displeasure with the miscreant humans prompts them to bring about their destruction. Excluded from these reprisals is Zisudra, who is described as "a pious and god-fearing king." One of the gods advises Zisudra to, "Take my word, give ear to my instructions: A flood will sweep over the cult centers. To destroy the seed of mankind, is the decision , the word of the assembly of gods."

There is another break of 40 lines on the tablet where scholars presume it was described to Zisudra how to build a giant boat since every subsequent version of this same tale contains this plot point. The text then goes on to describe the the storm and the flood raging for seven days and seven nights and how the boat was tossed about. Yada, yada, yada. Then on the eighth day the sun comes out and Zisudra makes a sacrifice of an ox and a sheep to the sun god. After another text break which by now we can fill in the blanks about making landfall on a mountain, we find Zisudra standing before the Sumerian assembly of gods. The gods apologize for their decision to wipe out humanity and are so happy that Zisudra had built an ark and survived that they make him immortal. This is where the story ends, because inexorably, the last 39 lines of the tablet are missing. As we shall see, this "feel good" ending is somewhat repeated in the Bible's version of this very fishy tale.

In the instance of the Titan vs Titanic stories, one is obviously fiction and the other a real ship that met with a tragic end. The two of them tied together by extreme coincidence. With regard to the tales of  Zisudra, Utnapishtim, and Noah I think we can safely assert that they are all fairy tale nonsense. The three of them tied together by plagiarism and extreme bullshit. Having said that, I believe that these stories, and the nearly 500 other flood myths that exist in almost every culture on earth do in fact spawn from a real event, or series of events. Geologists have determined that about 10,000 years ago at the end of the last glacial period of our current ice age,  we have lost about 5% of the earth's surface as a result of rising sea waters fed by glacial melting. That is an area of land of about 10 million square miles, or roughly a land mass that would be three times the size of Canada. This didn't happen overnight however, but over a period of about 10,000 years between 7,000-17,000 years ago. This inundation occurred primarily along all the shorelines of all oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, etc. In other words, where just about everybody who lived during that period would have resided.While this accounts for the slow but steady loss of prime real estate, it would not account for a sudden flood event large enough to inspire these myths.

We have to consider how very unstable the world's environment was at this time. There were many other factors effecting our planet in and about the period of the last glacial melt. Volcanic activity was booming and occurring on a global scale. Savage earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis were raging. Huge climatic shifts were also taking place that created massive thaws and equally massive freezes. These rapid temperature fluxes caused the extinctions of entire  species of animals. Throw in the asteroid and meteor strikes that we know  also occurred during this period and you can start to get a picture of how miserable the quality of life must have been.

Locally, in the region of our bronze aged yarn spinners of the deluge, Some geologists have speculated that at about 5600 BC, run off from the melted glaciers began to overwhelm the Mediterranean sea. Eventually all of this extra water caused the sea to burst forth through the Bosporus straight. This in turn flooded the Black sea which spread out to envelope about 60,000 square miles of dry land. This is actually called the "Noah's Flood Hypothesis." Others are skeptical and believe that this event was not an outburst flood, but an inundation that  took place slowly but surely over a period of time. But more importantly, in the exact area of the Sumerians, the original authors of the flood myth, we know that the Tigress and Euphrates rivers were prone to seasonal flooding. The rivers would overflow their banks every summer, which had to present major logistical problems for the Sumerians who used these waterways as their main source of commerce and trade. It is believed that the flood myth was born during an event of greater than usual flooding. (Think of some type of weather event occurring in the magnitude of Hurricane Irene.) Archaeologists have indeed found evidence of a great flood that occurred around 2900 BC in Mesopotamia that was in fact responsible for the quick destruction of several Sumerian cities.

Back to the sea story at hand. In Genesis 6:5 God seems to be seething with disgust as he "...saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." So, after condemning these primitive people that he had created of thought crime, he laments having ever made them to begin with. He then very rationally decides to "...destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth," Additionally, in further display of his fair and loving judgement, God decides not only to destroy every last living soul on the earth, but "both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." Whoa! Talk about taking your bat and ball and going home! So to sum up this condemnation, every last man, woman, child, and baby- both born and unborn, every puppy, kitten, salamander, and every damned living thing, all the way down to microbes (Of course the people who wrote the Bible and a hole slew of subsequent "holy" men did not know about microbes and attributed plague and disease to punishment from God. In fact, no one would know about them until the late 1800's.) was destroyed because of the thoughts and actions of a few bad apples mucking about in the desert. Fair enough.

Except of course for the good skipper, Noah. Because out of every single living entity on earth, only he "...found grace in the eyes of the Lord." For whatever reason at this point in Genesis 6:9-10,  just nine verses after the first time, the birth of Noah's three sons is mentioned again. And then "...God looked down upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." After this grim assessment, God gets a hold of Noah and tells him that "...the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth." I have to admit, that is a bad ass verse. It is easily one of my favorites. But not because I relish the idea of the wanton destruction of all life, but because it sounds like something Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger might say in a movie.

Now I would imagine at this point that Noah must have felt a little apprehensive. The creator of all things just told him he was going to wipe out his home planet and everybody on it. I picture him casting a wary glance up at the moon to ponder how hard it's soil might be to till, and how the hell he could get his ox up there. But God had some rather specific plans for Noah. In Genesis 6:14 God tells Noah to "Make thee an ark of gopher wood.; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch." Bill Cosby used to do a hilarious routine about Noah in his stand up act. I am fairly certain that Cosby's interpretation of what this simple, peasant farmer's reply would be probably hits the mark, "Right, what's an ark?"

Pitch is the ooey-gooey stage of bitumen which is more commonly known as asphalt. It was and still is a resource found in abundance in the middle east. It was used  to waterproof ships and other wooden containers. It was more than likely used in Noah's time for these purposes as well as a fuel source for torches and as we shall see in a couple pages, for mortar in a very ambitious skyscraper project. In Noah's neck of the woods, (probably modern day Iraq.) pitch was just laying around in pits. Wood on the other hand wouldn't had been quite as available, at least not to the extent that you would be able to build the largest wooden ship ever in a timely fashion. Unless gopher wood came from a very special tree before the flood. One that perhaps could be cut down with your bare hands and fabricated into planks almost instantly. Planking that would then be super lightweight as to allow for quick construction and tough enough to bear the weight of bulky cargo, such as elephants and dinosaurs. The word gopher only appears just this once in the bible and does not pertain to the fuzzy little rodent that terrorized Bill Murray in Caddy Shack. It's actual meaning is unknown and it remains, like quite a few other ancient Hebrew words, untranslated.

One might wonder how this illiterate desert dweller would have been up to snuff for such a large construction project. But alas, he was given specific instructions from the Lord in Genesis 6:15-16, where God explains "And this is the fashion that thou shalt make it of: the length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits." And in my head I hear Cosby's Noah say, "Right, what's a cubit?" Well, no Home Depots also meant no tape measures in ancient times. The had to use what was on hand, or in this case- their forearms. One cubit was the length of a man's forearm. Therefore a cubit was typically 18 inches long, ( 45.72 centimeters for my European friends.)  This would make Noah's ark 450 feet long by 75 feet wide by 45 feet high. Right. Well, this is where most would do a comparison between the ark and the world's largest wooden ship ever actually built, the six masted New England gaff schooner Wyoming. I shall do so myself, but only briefly.

Measured from end to end, or from the tip of her jib boom to the tip of her spanker boom, the Wyoming was 449 feet long. There were other ships built a little bigger, but these incorporated a good deal of iron in their design to stave off the leaks that would occur due to the wood flexing. Despite this countermeasure, some of these ships sank immediately after launch. The Wyoming herself was fitted with ninety iron diagonal cross bracing across both sides of her hull to combat flexing. She would often take on copious amounts of water in rough seas and required sea pumps to keep her hold dry at all times. Fourteen years after her maiden voyage, she foundered in high seas in 1924. Foundered is sea-speak for sinking to the bottom of the ocean. All souls on board perished.

Consider what must have been involved in the Wyoming's construction. How many people would it take to build it? How long would it take? What would be the logistics and effort required to gather enough wood in one place to build it? If you have ever built an average sized wood deck in your backyard, you know that you need a good set of plans to do so. What type of detailed plans might you need to build a giant wooden ship? Well God didn't leave Noah hanging, his precise instructions continue in Genesis 6:16, "A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side of the thereof; with lower, second and third stories shalt thou make it."  So basically, God gives Noah the outside dimensions, tells him to make the ark three stories and wisely suggests that he install a window and a door. Simple right? It's easy when you know how, and now you do!

Alright, so there are probably some details missing from God's plan. And maybe if you wanted to contract someone to build a giant ship you probably wouldn't choose a guy pushing 600 years old to get it done. Nor should you expect the project to be completed any time soon. But if you do the biblical math, Noah's age at the time of the birth of his sons, the time it would take for them to be old enough to find wives and Noah's age when God contracted his building services, and when he actually brought the flood on and you come up with around 75 years. Would this be enough time? Probably. I mean if you believe a guy over five centuries old would still be spry enough to do carpentry on this scale, then why not?

As we reach Genesis 6:17, we are winding down towards the end of the first half of page four where we find God proclaiming, "And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." This verse smacks a bit of megalomaniacal overkill, I mean, we get it God, you're ALL POWERFUL and going to destroy EVERYONE. But not quite everyone. In Genesis 6:18 God makes a special pact with Moses and his immediate family, "But with thee I establish my covenant; and thou shall come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee." Talk about lucky lottery. Out of every person begat since the creation, about 1,600 years according to the Biblical timeline, these lucky eight are chosen to be spared God's wrath. Many think that this whole conversation takes place at the outset of the 120 year doomsday warning. This is interesting when you consider that it would be 20 years before Shem, Ham, and Japeth were born, let alone found wives. I would assume that we are to believe that God, all powerful and knowing would simply be aware of their coming births as he is of all things. Two things come to mind though, first, HUGE spoiler alert for Noah and his wife. Two, if God can already see the outcome of everything, like say, Eve eating forbidden fruit, and man's overall douchebaggery, then why go ahead with this twisted sea monkey experiment in the first place?

I will leave you for now to ponder that and perhaps a few other things mentioned here. Some very extrodinary events have transpired on the first half of page four. I assure you, they pale in comparrison to the second half. If our ability to suspend disbelief has been tested here, it will be pushed past breaking point as our fish tale continues. Until the, May Zeus preserve you!