Tuesday, January 11, 2011

frustration at the 'in window' and Noah's Ark

This is a unique posting for me since it is done in the morning rather than the evening or night. I just woke from a dream which merited mentioning here. I was at a theme park entrance.....a Disneyland type thing if you will......and I was filling prescriptions for people. There was a line of perhaps 100 plus people yet they were waiting. The people I was trying to help were an seeming amalgam of every difficulty I've ever had at the 'in window' where I work.

Let me see if I recall all the details. It was a young lady that had just been recently married. As is often the case in this sitatuation I was asking her questions but she would answer by looking at her husband as if to ssay, "you want to handle this one honey?". I can certainly understand that if a newlywed couple had some stranger coming up and asking for her phone number and address it would be a huge problem. A problem that might very well be best handled by her new husband. I'm your pharmacist. There are good reasons (one of them being legal requirements) why I need to know this stuff. So grow the **** up!

The dream continued as I went through her demographics. "What is your address?". The first address made no sense being something like 60 North 1170 North. So I asked is that 1170 E or 1170 W. Then they start giving me another address, but this one without coordinates i.e. I live on 2175 11th St.. Then they get into a lively debate about what city they live in. I really enjoy this one. People who live squarely in West Valley or Magna will most frequently say the live in Salt Lake City. My personal favorite was a guy that lived on 35th South and about 56th West and stridently maintained he lived in West Jordan. There is another city between the city he lives in and West Jordan!

The dream still continued with phone numbers. Should it be her cell, or his cell since he's a trucker and on the road a lot, or their home phone. (I always love it when trucker's explain to me that they are on the road a lot. NO SHIT!! That comes as a complete surprise to me since your job is to operate trucks and transport goods on the road!).

I woke up about here. What a relief it was. I hadn't made it to her allergies or insurance. I've had lots of frustrating answers to these over the years. Maybe that will be tonight's dream.

Moving on.........Noah's Ark. Like many others, I have been fascinated by this one for years. I think my particular take is unique hence I am sharing it here. My first beef is with those who believe that everything in the bible happened literally and precisely as it is written. I do not believe for a second that the entire earth's surface was covered with water. Where did the water come from? Where did it go? Yes, yes, yes I know that God works miracles. I've seen them and experienced many. I also know that God, being the creator of the universe, uses natural means subject to rules and contraints that he created. So was there a Noah? Yes. Did he build and ark? Yes. Was their a flood that deluged where he lived? Yes, but just his area not the entire earth's surface. Did he have two or more of every species on the earth? Without answering this directly I would ask how at least two of every species could be housed in the dimensions that the bible provides us. Or perhaps it was just a sample that when released migrated out and covered the entire earth in an impossibly fast time and evolved wildly. Oops, I forgot evolution doesn't exist. It doesn't matter that it is being actively observed in species right now. It just seems to me that if someone hadn't postulated that Man descended from apes but everything else is evolved then Darwin's 'theory' would instead be referred to as what it is......FACT

What has perplexed me is the where and when of Noah. I have studied maps to come up with my answer. Not land maps though, rather ocean maps. Before discussing the four options I propose, I wish to talk about Mount Ararat. I don't believe it is the mountain in Turkey that carries the name today. We have had people all over it for years and they have uncovered zilch. Why? Because it didn't stop there. The ark probably came to rest at the BASE of some large hill which Noah called Ararat. They then piled out and went back to living with his livestock which is all he probably threw on the boat. Look, I realize that I am taking all the magic out of the story but I am not disputing nor diminishing the miraculous nature of what happened. As I mentioned earlier, I believe the story.

I digress again. Where could Noah's ark have occured. Where could a combination of sudden and prolonged rains (with maybe an earthquake to shift around a large body of water......hint.....hint) could deluge a large enough area that people cannot merely flee for high ground. We also know that the oceans were at a lower level a few thousand years back.

Option 1: The areas surrounding the Red Sea. This would put Noah squarely in "Bible Land". The population, the wood, the mountainous terrain (including a mountain called Arafat in the Sinai). Besides God did in the Egyptian army here as a favor to Moses.

Option 2: The northern Persian Gulf near in Southern Iraq. Hey why not! Abraham came out of the area. The population is there, the wood. A combination of floods coming out of the north via the river and a sudden rise in the gulf might do it. The only problem? No mountains anywhere close to the area.

Option 3: The central Med. There is a subterranean land bridge that connects Tunisia to Sicily. If the strait of Gibralter had landlocked the Med at this time, then the disparity of levels between the Atlantic and the Med would widen. The Med has a much higher evaporation rate so it would be even lower. This would open up a large swath of land between Tunisia and Sicily. Could mere rainfall flod the entire Med. No. Could a breach at Gibralter do it. YES. Perhaps this might be Atlantis?

Option 4: This is a variant of 3. The western shores of the Black Sea. There would be a second choke point for water in the Dardanelles. A combination of high rains, spring runoff, and the aforementioned breach of Gibraltar would have flooded the entire 'world' of Noah and would have done it quickly and unlike the Red Sea or Persian Gulf variants the water wouldn't have gone anywhere soon. The Crimea was probably the final resting place of the ark. There is ample archaelogic evidence for the Gibraltar breach. There are subterranean city sites along the Egytian and Greek coastline. There is also a lot of these in the Western Black Sea in the massive fan on the Danube. A large flat area from which there is no fleeing to higher ground, especially when spring floods have already bogged everything down.

Don't believe me? Check out the ocean maps.

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