[N8 v2.0]

...


Jesus may have walked on ice?
By Jim Loney
Wed Apr 5, 9:20 AM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation -- he walked on a floating piece of ice.

Professor Doron Nof also theorized in the early 1990s that Moses's parting of the Red Sea had solid science behind it.

Nof, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said on Tuesday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern Israel could have led to ice formation on the Sea of Galilee.

Nof used records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the dynamics of the Sea of Galilee, which Israelis know now as Lake Kinneret.

The study found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1,500 and 2,600 years ago could have included the decades in which Jesus lived.

A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice thick enough to support a human to form on the surface of the freshwater lake near the western shore, Nof said. It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water.

Nof said he offered his study -- published in the April edition of the Journal of Paleolimnology -- as a "possible explanation" for Jesus' walk on water.

"If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don't," Nof said. "Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don't know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it."

"We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."

When he offered his theory 14 years ago that wind and sea conditions could explain the parting of the Red Sea, Nof said he received some hate mail, even though he noted that the idea could support the biblical description of the event.

And as his theory of Jesus' walk on ice began to circulate, he had more hate mail in his e-mail inbox.

"They asked me if I'm going to try next to explain the resurrection," he said.

 

[MudGrrl]

"They asked me if I'm going to try next to explain the resurrection," he said.

Jesus was a zombie

 

[N8 v2.0]

Jesus was a zombie

Wow! Never thought of it that way, but it sounds plausable.

God is a necromancer then?

 

[JRB]

Wow - what a genius. Coming up with there "could have" been ice that Jesus walked on. I hope he gets a lot of awards. Lame.

 

[JRB]

WTF??? How is this political now??? Jeebus.

 

[MudGrrl]

Jeebus is political

 

[JRB]

Jeebus is political

I think you have confused politics and religion.

 

[peter6061]

"They asked me if I'm going to try next to explain the resurrection," he said.

Uh, someone came in during the night and stole his body?

"OMG, he's gone, he must have risen from the dead..."

:redhot: <-- Me burning in hell

 

[MudGrrl]

I think you have confused politics and religion.

great, now I'm like the supreme court........



fck

 

[JRB]

great, now I'm like the supreme court........



fck

hahaha

 

[ohio]

Jesus was a zombie

Nah, really long nap. Being the Messiah is WAY tiring.

 

[Changleen]

I think you have confused politics and religion.

Don't be dumb Loco, Religion is a control mechanism just like Politics.

 

[JRB]

Don't be dumb Loco, Religion is a control mechanism just like Politics.

I disagree. It's a thought provoking mechanism that you may or may not choose to believe. What I find funny, or ironic, or whatever, is that it's the anti-Christians that so passionately condemn Christianity. I guess on a grand scale, maybe these people believe the government controls religion, or wants to. The reality is, I don't hear people promoting it in my day to day life. I sure do see lots of folks condemn it here and bikemojo. For that matter, I don't find politics so controlling.

 

[ohio]

It's a thought provoking mechanism that you may or may not choose to believe.

No offense, but that doesn't make the least bit of sense. If it's a mechanism, than it's not something that you can or can't believe in. That's sort of like the converse of confusing science with a belief system.

The reality is, I don't hear people promoting it in my day to day life. For that matter, I don't find politics so controlling.

Maybe that's because you're a Christian? For the minority of us that aren't (~80% of the country identifies themselves as Christians), I see members of that religion attacking everything I care about in this country (education, the environment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to privacy, my income, equal opportunity, public safety, charity, public health). Sometimes they explicitly justify it with their religion, sometimes they implicitly justify it with their religion, and sometimes religion doesn't play a part except that these truly horrible people happen to identify themselves as Christian.

I despise these people and see Christianity as the biggest gun in their arsenal. Right now I feel similarly about Muslim extremists. Yes, it's the people and not the religion that are extreme, but the religion gives them a tool to spread their hate, and the mainstream is too weak to pipe up and stop it. I'm going to judge a religion by its effects and not its content, and right now the effects are looking pretty awful. In fact, the effects over the last two thousand years are a bit of a net negative. So until I see the mainstream members of religions grow some spine and prevent the abuse of their religion, I'm going to do my best as an outsider to disarm, nullify, and prevent the spread of those religions.

 

[JRB]

<snip> So until I see the mainstream members of religions grow some spine and prevent the abuse of their religion, I'm going to do my best as an outsider to disarm, nullify, and prevent the spread of those religions.

And for those of us that don't care about your lack of belief, that is an insult. You should take something that I care about away because you don't agree. Seems conflcting with your beliefs. Kind of like BeerDemon said, live and let live. I'm done in here. This thread wasn't supposed to turn out this way, but it did, so you all have fun. See you back in DH or the Lounge.

 

[Old Man G Funk]

And for those of us that don't care about your lack of belief, that is an insult. You should take something that I care about away because you don't agree. Seems conflcting with your beliefs. Kind of like BeerDemon said, live and let live. I'm done in here. This thread wasn't supposed to turn out this way, but it did, so you all have fun. See you back in DH or the Lounge.

Loco,
I for one am not trying to take away something you care about. I only want to keep you from forcing me to care about it. When it is printed on all of our currency, when the pledge of allegiance forces me to acknowledge that which I don't believe in, when I'm the most distrusted figure in my own country, simply because I don't believe in god, then yeah, I feel like Christianity is being foisted upon me. If we were to take all of that away, you would be free to believe what you want, and I would finally be free to do the same.

So, please stop feeling like you are being persecuted. You aren't. You are the majority, and right now you guys have it really good in this country.

 

[ohio]

You should take something that I care about away because you don't agree.

I'm assuming you meant "shouldn't take away..."

It's NOT that I don't agree. There are plenty of beliefs that I don't agree with but am not actively seeking to change; however, there are also those beliefs that in my experience are harmful, and I would feel irresponsible if I didn't do something to change them.

Extreme example: In college, as a frat boy, I encountered a lot of guys that felt it was their right to yell insults and huck objects at women in the frat house. They cared about that; it was important to them and made them feel good. They felt they were justified because it was their house (and mine too). I didn't agree with that belief because I felt it was harmful. Therefore I did what I could to speak out against it and prevent the spread off those beliefs to new members of the fraternity.

I'm not going to discourage someone from being a Christian, but I am going to encourage them to think critically about everything they hear and examine the effects of their actions. I am also going to challenge them when they use their religious affiliation as justification for actions that I don't agree with.

What I don't get is why you blame me, and not the extreme Christian right for the perception of Christianity I curerntly have.

 

[chicodude]

Don't be dumb Loco, Religion is a control mechanism just like Politics.

It's okay that I'm loaded, because in the next life, we'll ALL be loaded!*













*10% tithe required for entrance into next life. Some terms and restrictions apply. Please see your local priest for details.

 

[kinghami3]

No offense, but that doesn't make the least bit of sense. If it's a mechanism, than it's not something that you can or can't believe in. That's sort of like the converse of confusing science with a belief system.


Maybe that's because you're a Christian? For the minority of us that aren't (~80% of the country identifies themselves as Christians), I see members of that religion attacking everything I care about in this country (education, the environment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right to privacy, my income, equal opportunity, public safety, charity, public health). Sometimes they explicitly justify it with their religion, sometimes they implicitly justify it with their religion, and sometimes religion doesn't play a part except that these truly horrible people happen to identify themselves as Christian.

I despise these people and see Christianity as the biggest gun in their arsenal. Right now I feel similarly about Muslim extremists. Yes, it's the people and not the religion that are extreme, but the religion gives them a tool to spread their hate, and the mainstream is too weak to pipe up and stop it. I'm going to judge a religion by its effects and not its content, and right now the effects are looking pretty awful. In fact, the effects over the last two thousand years are a bit of a net negative. So until I see the mainstream members of religions grow some spine and prevent the abuse of their religion, I'm going to do my best as an outsider to disarm, nullify, and prevent the spread of those religions.

My problem with this is that you're making a horrendously massive generalization based on the outspoken Christian right in the US. The vast majority don't fit your description, but are plagued by those, especially in America, who think that it is their God given duty to impose their religion on others, often in a vile and repulsive form. Take a look at the persecuted Church in China and you will see something that rises far above any sort of control mechanism. It is very similar to the Liberation Theology of South America; it is about subverting political and religious authority.

This is similar to the common generalization that Americans have of Muslims in the Middle East; we tend to lump them together as uneducated idiots bent on killing the 'infidels'. I guess I'm just asking you to take a deeper look into any religion before making unsubstantiated generalizations like that.

 

[Changleen]

This is similar to the common generalization that Americans have of Muslims in the Middle East; we tend to lump them together as uneducated idiots bent on killing the 'infidels'. I guess I'm just asking you to take a deeper look into any religion before making unsubstantiated generalizations like that.

The trouble is that for the most part it's the 'extremist' end of the religion that pushes its ideas and agenda on 'the masses' and that's what 'normal' people have a problem with.