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It's gotta be a duck right? (i.imgur.com)

submitted ago by kay41

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[–]Corrinth 15 points16 points ago

A repost it may be, but I'm new in town and this is the first I've seen it.

Thanks for the laugh.

[–]kay41[S] 0 points1 point ago

You're quite welcome! I really only wanted to facilitate discussion and share something that was not only new to me but hopefully many other redditors. I will definitely use the search function, beforehand, in the future but all content does come from somewhere and given how big the internet is, reposts are almost inevitable.

[–]xPulse 12 points13 points ago

I had a atheist vs Christian argument with my Uncle that eventually tore our family in two, in it we were arguing over how long the earth had existed to which he replied, well how do we know how long a 'day' is in the bible? He went on to say further "Unless you can prove to me that the bible specifically said how long a day is, I have nothing more to say." I pointed him to the beginning of Genesis, where God talks about the morning, day, evening and night being a single day. He then said "Well how do you know that was still 24 hours?" I replied "Its still our sun, our Earth. We can assume that since those 2 things are true, it should be evident that a day would be 24 hours. To which he replied "WELL HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN ALASKA THEN SCIENCE BOY?" I was shocked.... This reminded me of that, sorry it was so long.

[–]Corrinth 4 points5 points ago

I attended a Christian private school for my high school years, and the teacher invoked the same "a biblical day isn't necessarily an earth day" logic. But she did so while embracing evolution and science in general, so I didn't mind.

It's a common enough tactic among creationists. There actually is some scripture to back the idea up ("With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." -- 2 Peter 3:8), so it's not like they're entirely pulling it out of their asses. Then again, the context of that quote has nothing to do with the creation story and is instead talking about how God always delivers his promises, but does so on his own schedule, and that might take a long fucking time (another cop out, by the way -- "Jesus hasn't answered your prayers... yet!")

But, and correct me if I'm wrong, if your uncle was already using that logic, then he must have already conceded that the earth is as old as scientists say it is. Right? Those who usually use that line are attempting to force the Bible to conform to science, rather than ignoring science altogether.

[–]SockGnome 0 points1 point ago

Jesus will deliver on my prayer request, he won't disappoint.

[–]AdrianBrony 0 points1 point ago

there is also scripture that can be used to counter this argument if you must.

in Joshua 10:

12 Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.

Just an interesting tidbit to keep in consideration.

[–]LkCa15 1 point2 points ago

What did he mean with the alaska bit?

[–]tawkwin 1 point2 points ago

The further north you go, the more hours of sunlight/darkness there is depending on the month of the year. Eventually, you would get north enough that there is 6 months of daylight and then 6 months of darkness. I'm not exactly sure the specifics for Alaska, but I assume that's what he was referring to. He must have been unaware that this was due to the tilt of the earth, and not that the 'days' were different

[–]LkCa15 0 points1 point ago

Ah yes! Thank you for clearing that up :D

[–]LucifersCounsel 0 points1 point ago

Actually, to give the man his dues, he was arguing that the definition of "day" given in the bible refers to a cycle of day and night, not a number of hours. So technically he's right. If the bible was written by someone who lived very near a pole and never went anywhere else, they might think a day was about 6 months.

But even if that was the case, the world was created in 3.5 modern standard years. Still way off.

[–]jianadaren1 0 points1 point ago

This is what I want to know: was he confusing the changing length of "days" in the polar regions with a change in the speed of the earth's rotation?

[–]Lykus 0 points1 point ago

I think you knew this and just typed the wrong things, but the change in length of daylight is because of the sun's position relative to Alaska's position. Alaska has extreme hours of day and night due to the tilt of the Earth while it rotates.

[–]jianadaren1 0 points1 point ago

Yeah I know. Alaska has longer summer "days" because the north is tilted toward the sun.

I was asking if the uncle was erroneously attributing this phenomenon to changing speeds in the earth's rotation/ confusing the concepts.

[–]Lykus 0 points1 point ago

Ah, okay, that clears that up. I understand your point now.

Sorry for the mis-read, I'm a little tired.

[–]xPulse 0 points1 point ago

Sorry I should have clarified. He as under the impression that Alaska had 6 months of darkness and 6 months of light. I know this not to be true but he didn't apparently. I assume he was trying to say that a day could have indeed been 6 months or a year depending on how you look at it but that is a stretch and just plain stupid. Even if it did it doesn't make up for billions of years haha. He didn't know that though apparently.

[–]eezfeedz 2 points3 points ago

lol wut?

That shit cray

[–]JimDixon 0 points1 point ago

  1. Even in Alaska, a day is still 24 hours long. Just because the sun is above the horizon for several months, doesn't mean a day is several months long. The sun still moves around the sky and returns (almost) to its original position once every 24 hours.

  2. Even if you allow that a "day" can be several million years, the 6-day creation story still doesn't make sense because it gets the sequence of steps wrong.

Edit: I should have clarified, it's only above the Arctic Circle that the sun stays above the horizon for more than a day at a time. Only a small part of Alaska is above the Arctic Circle.

[–]SimilarImage 13 points14 points ago

Age User Title Reddit Cmnt Points
2 months communistcow What faith looks like here 820 1266
1 month antonarn1991 It's a Duck here 26 205
1 month ivysaurus stolen from 4chan. atheism vs christian thinking. here 41 286

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[–]XenoXilus 7 points8 points ago

It might be a repost, but this is the first time I've seen it, so I don't give a flying shatterfuck.

[–]JimDixon 2 points3 points ago

In my opinion, a serious flaw of reddit is that there doesn't seem to be any way to refresh an old thread--that is, make it appear again on the front page--after it has disappeared. Thus if anyone wants to discuss something that has already been discussed, they have no choice but to start a new thread on the same subject. That being the case, it seems stupid and futile to criticize anyone for starting a new thread. It seems unreasonable to expect that once a subject has been discussed, it should never be discussed again.

[–]jimmythesquid 1 point2 points ago

But then you realise: Its a donkey.

[–]floppykittens 1 point2 points ago

oh kay41, you know it's a repost, you know.

[–]Zed4711 1 point2 points ago

This is a great analogy

[–]TheCheatIsNotDead 1 point2 points ago

Old as dirt, one of my favorite images ever. Have upvotes!

[–]kay41[S] 3 points4 points ago

My apologies. I didn't realize that this had been posted already. I don't frequent r/atheism that often but when i found this on 4chan i knew that it belonged in this subreddit.

[–]JimDixon 0 points1 point ago

See my message elsewhere in this thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/s9agl/its_gotta_be_a_duck_right/c4cblym

There is no need to apologize.

[–]Nate-XzX 2 points3 points ago

No wait, it's a repost.

[–]BipolarBear0 0 points1 point ago

This may be one of the most reposted images on /r/atheism. However, its message still holds true.

[–]Ampleslacks 0 points1 point ago

Yo, at least put in a repost tag. Please? Pretty please?

[–]RickRay1 -1 points0 points ago

Sounds like creationists' reasoning when an evolutionist is explaining it to them. LOL

[–]JimDixon 0 points1 point ago

Yeah, that's the whole point.

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