+1

Have you read the original story? Do you realise how much ice it takes to float a man, how deep it has to be, and for this to form in a storm(agitated waters are much harder to freeze), and there is no mention of ice at all. You also cannot forget that Peter also went walking.

In my opinion, you either have to throw the whole thing out, or accept it, not just take part of it.

i don't think anyone was attacking the xtian faith here. just an interesting theory that someone came up with. true or not, we will not know. we can *believe* one way or another, but as for "knowing"- i think not.

if copies of this researcher's article were printed on flyers and posted on every door of every church in the nation/state/city/town/village or whatever region, maybe then it could be called an "attack".

it was just a sharing of some ideas and/or developments. take it easy. if you believe in your religion, nothing posted on ppot should really rattle you this much.

btw, isn't nostatic a professor or some sort of 'member of the academia'? (or was?) i just simply cannot picture him as a pompous, regurgitating ass, no matter how much i squint....


was there even an awareness/knowledge of "ice" back then? if i understand correctly, it was all desserts and sands and lots of heat and sun.

That's all well and good, but the hatchet-fin should have been a dead giveaway...

dude, you aren't squinting hard enough...

Academia is like anywhere else...some are good, some are bad, many (most?) are annoying at some level. Ego rules the roost, and tenure has created an environment where some put up their feet and become more idiotic right before your eyes (no really...saw it in faculty meetings).

Sometimes people in one field are qualified to speak expertly in another (eg....me :p). Others should stick to what they were trained to do. This guy should probably just worry about krill migration patterns and leave it at that...

On a light note: My old boss said he was the second (Third after Peter, but he was sinking..) to "walk" on the Sea of Galilee. He was a research diver and one afternoon went barefoot water skiing off the back of a speedboat. This being around 1962 - I am inclined to belive him..

Here’s my theory. Religion meets a number of basic human needs. Until humans get these needs met in other ways, religion will never go away. It meets these needs so well that believers are utterly convinced that god exists. The bible must be true, otherwise how could it meet my needs so well? Here’s a short list of some of the needs I’ve identified that are met by religion. I see some of these needs in myself, but I don’t meet them via religion. If you are honest with yourself, you will see some in yourself and you should recognize those that are met via religion. The list is not complete, and every individual has their own set, with their own priorities. In no particular order:

1) Something to explain the unexplainable
2) The need to know that death is not the end
3) Something to absolve guilt, e.g. forgiveness from your “sins”
4) The need to belong to a group
5) The need to feel superior to others
6) The need for unconditional love
7) An absolute authority for morals
8) Direction on how to live your life

For some people, these needs leave a huge hole in their lives until they get these needs met via religion. This is perfectly normal for them. However, they feel that others have this hole as well, and need religion to fill it. Of non-believers, they say things like “I feel pity for them because they are truly alone and do not know the incredible serenity and peace that can only come from true belief in god.” This leads to proselytizing. It also leads to “our religion is the right one, and all the others are wrong.” And since the bible meets their needs so well, it must be 100% literally true, in every aspect.

I think the answers to most questions religion tries to address can be found in Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and "Pale Blue Dot".

Ehee, check out this guy. One of my online freind's proffesors.

http://media.putfile.com/High-Hall

I found this diagram on-line. It seems entirely reasonable to me, as long as you don’t throw logic out the window. You can also find the entire research article here: http://www.doronnof.net/files/kinneret.pdf

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1144255933.jpg

Anyone ask this dude how Jesus got out of a boat with no mention of ice being there, stepping into near freezing water (onto ice no less) either BAREFOOT or in SANDALS and just did the disco duck for a bit before asking Peter to come out into the freezing water also BAREFOOT or in SANDALS to dance along?

Come on...why does he need to try and explain it anyway??

Ever see a friend experience snow for the first time? I've had a few who've (no *****) run around barefoot/topless/naked in it.

That's probably what this was.

Hey, you know Jesus can't eat M&M's?



















They fall through the holes in his hands.

Or how Jesus knew that at that exact moment there would be this freak occurrence that has since then gone un-noticed or un-documented?

(shrug) I'm going to feel free to add this into the collection of random pseudo-scientific "explanations" for biblical events. My personal favorite is that the people who saw Jesus alive after having witnessed his death were suffering from mass hallucinations. lol.

Thom, no comment. Not worth the electrons.

Bluesky, while I did attend classes at a community college that was 25 years ago. I don't know of those professors were worth a darn, I can't remember back that far.
I've been taking college courses on and off since then and the professors that impressed me the least were at Cal state Long Beach and Fullerton. I 've also met several professors in social settings, they all managed to reinforce my opinion.

Nof doesn't believe Jesus walked on water. So, he has to scramble for an explanation. Like many (like many here in fact), this fellow needs to regard Jesus as a hoax, which is pretty challenging in light of the historical record. So, we'll always see these complex, twisted attempts at explaining away stuff that's impossible to dismiss and inconvenient to accept.

BTW, I've met Todd (nostatic) a couple of times at Porsche get togethers, he did not seem to be cut from the same cloth as the professors I was referring to but we didn't get into any deep discussions either ;)
Plus he has a very good sense of humor, that means he doesn't take himself too seriously.

Well, I see it the other way around. Your belief is so strong (because it meets your needs, see above), that you can’t accept a rational, logical explanation. You’d rather believe in a miracle. You find complex and twisted ways to dismiss the logical (see all the arguments above). To you, the logical explanation is inconvenient to accept.

According to the article, the climate back then would have allowed this ice to form, but the climate now does not. Plus, the ice would have been in a small spot (see the diagram above), possibly slightly below water line, and hard to see. This explains why the ice has not been seen before since. And Jesus did not know the exact moment there would be ice. He just happened upon it, so he walked on it in sandals or bare feet. Big deal, I saw kids walking across a frozen swimming pool in their bare feet just last weekend. Stupid, I know, but there it was.

And to djmcmath, the latest theory is that Jesus survived the crucifixion. He was only up there a few hours, after all, and typically they left people on the cross for days. Perhaps he passed out or something, and people thought he was dead. Besides, there is a section in the Koran that states that it wasn’t Jesus that got crucified, but some other guy. The Koran is just as historically accurate as the bible, in my mind. They both came from the same period, and as an outsider, carry equal weight.

Why do Christians need to take every aspect of the bible 100% literally? Can’t some things, even most things, be taken metaphorically? The message is not diminished at all. Who or what says that the bible should be taken 100% literally anyways? The message, if you take it metaphorically, does not contradict science one bit. Even the Catholics are saying that evolution and genesis are not contradictory. Genesis was never meant to be scientific, it was just meant as a metaphor to what happened.

Kang, your plasma doesn't seperate and you still live afterwards.

Also, how did Jesus even get to this peice of ice in the first place? I will accept a physical explanation only if it works, IMO, this one doesn't. This would only explain someone being able to stand on a peice of ice in the Sea, and does not account for the entire story, Jesus did not step out of a boat onto the water, but was left behind several hours before, and passes a rowed boat in a storm strong enough to be steadily sinking it.