What if the Bible was true?

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Sorry - it is either the word of the creator of the universe than I would assume that at least a reasonable approximation of pi would be given, or if this this would seen fit, be no remark at all, or this is not the word of the creator of the universe, but of an uneducated chap without a deeper understanding of the world.

Have you ever read Kings? Or Samuel? Or Chronicles?

Here is an example of the Book of Kings, same chapter as the 30 cubit approximation measure is in, so you can see the level of detail being given and what was considered important and not:

Oh -yes. A funny collections of book written for total idiots. Just at the beginning: " ... My men will work with yours, and I will pay you for your men whatever wages you set. You know that we have no-one so skilled in felling timber as the Sidonians. 7 When Hiram heard Solomon's message, he was greatly pleased and said, Praise be to the LORD today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation. ... The LORD gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him." 1 Kings 5-12

You would call this wisdom to make a main order for a main building project and tell the contractor that he can charge what he wants to charge? And you will pay? This is hardly called "wisdom", this is plain stupidity! No wonder why Hiram was praising such a costumer.

Ah, so now it's not the approximation, but the wisdom of Solomon that is being mocked.

As for Solomon: big deal. Wisdom means nothing if it isn't used.

well, I, being a bible skeptic, find the pi thing to be meaningless and absurd to be used to refute the authencity and nature of the Bible.

Oh, it doesn't refute the nature of the Bible, it just refutes any claims as to the Bible's alleged accuracy. Anyone who believes in the total accuracy and absolute inerrancy of any version of the Bible either has not read the Bible in its entirety and researched every word, or they don't live in the real world.

What is the "nature" of the bible: If we see the bible as collection of books of dubious origin, a mixture of myths and stories, like the stories of Hesiod regarding Greek gods. Than my statement does not touch the "nature" of the bible. If you see the bible as something divine inspirited, the most important message from the creator of the universe, than we had to apply very high standards. and bible does fail here.

The author was obviously even not on the state of mathematics of his time, because the Rhind Papyrus, ca. 1000 years prior the given time of Salomon & Co., gives a number of ca. 3.16.

If ANY holy book that mankind has ever written was right, i'd instantly /facepalm , roll over and die.

These arguments about the validity of the Bible go on interminably because they are not about whether the Bible is believable or not but about the validity of belief in general and a great many people have been so thoroughly indoctrinated to believe that no argument would be convincing in either direction. If a form were printed and mailed out by the millions saying that it originated in heaven and that the bearer has been chosen to enter a good many would laugh and throw it in the trash and a reasonably large number of people would treasure it and but it into a safety deposit box for future use. Arguing about it would be a waste of time.

The funniest thing I see is how people seems to start to take things less and less literal as level of knowledge raises. It's no longer six days in the creation becouse "the word originaly used don't neccesaraly means day, but can mean any amount of time." (Yes, I've heard that argument, from several people.) So the more fuzzy something can be interpreted the truer it becomes.

Whether yom could mean things other than "day" or not is moot, since a
24 hour period would be what the text is intended to be read as meaning.

My ancestors concocted the Bible. Frankly, I prefer J.R.R. Tolkien. -The Silmarillion- is a dandy creation myth and related stories.

ruveyn

Some while back, I thought about the stashing problem, and the solution I came up with was Pokemon's Poké-Balls. A convenient way to store that Blue Whale on the ark. Resolves many feeding issues, too. Could even help explain the species distributions: Noah chucked some Poké-Balls into the ocean, and there they go.

Plantae is relatively easy, since they come in their own mini-Poké-Balls: seeds. But there is that one part about the dove bringing back an olive branch. Where did that come from? Brainstorm:

• The olive tree managed to make it through being stormed on, struck by debris, having the soil washed out from under it, and being submerged under hundreds to thousands of meters of water and the pressure involved. The tree didn't live, but the branches and leaves managed to stay intact through all that until the waters receded, even though it has trouble holding onto leaves for one season in normal air (winter).
• Or, the olive tree grew on a plot of land that was just barely -- but still technically -- covered by water. Say, for example, 3 cm between dirt surface and water surface. The tree managed to grow leaves when the sun started shining again, after months and months of storm stress, solar starvation, and root drowning... which was after the many years the olive tree firmly established itself upon the rocky soil-less summit of Mt. Everest.
• Or, as the water receded, an olive tree managed to germinate, grow into a mature tree, and blossom, within the span of a few days -- from a seed that was destroyed with all other life outside the ark.
• Or, maybe, just maybe, after weeks of fruitless searching across a featureless water-stripped landscape, the dove got fed up, made an end-run around the ark, pillaged the ark's plant stock, stole an olive seed, flew off to run away, made a wrong turn at Albuquerque, fell into a wormhole, grew hyper-intelligent out of sheer boredom, created a "pocket universe" within which the olive tree can grow free from the annoyances of a sun-less water world, cultivated the olive tree to maturity, then sent the tree and itself back in time and space to when/where the water was just receding, transplanted the olive tree onto a self-propelled hydroponics island, which sought out and attached to the first piece of land exposed, thereby implanting the tree upon the Earth, whereupon the dove plucked off a branch, flew back to the ark, making sure not to run into its past self nor going faster than 88 miles per hours (what per hour?), and maintained its appearance of non-intelligence as it dropped off the olive branch. As a token of appreciation for its efforts, the bird was immediately killed for a religious sacrifice, setting back human technological and philosophical advances by 3 millenia.

As for the water, I had always assumed freshwater, as I remember some mention about the flood starting with rain -- to my knowledge, almost all atmospheric water precipitation is salt-free. But atmospheric moisture arises from water evaporated off the surface (Water Cycle). So if there were enough rainwater to flood the Earth, the Earth already had enough surface water to flood the Earth. All that water must have come from, or gone to, somewhere. As mentioned before, polar caps melting would add a trivial amount to a global flood. And in any case, since ice has greater volume than liquid (ice expands), if there were enough water to cover Mt. Everest, that would be enough ice to create gigantic icy super-mountains towering over any rocky heights. Or there were such ice super-mountains before, which melted into floodwater.

But the water still has to go somewhere. It's not like there's a giant drain hole in the middle of ocean to flush away the water (it would hit superheated rocks, and immediately boil back to the surface). The only place left is venting into space. How much energy would that take?

V = volume of floodwater = 18.10e9 km^3 = 18.10e21 l (from quoted post; 1 km^3 water = 1e12 l water)
m = mass of floodwater = 18.10e21 kg (1 l water ≈ 1 kg)
v = escape velocity of earth = 11 186 m/s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth)
E = energy to launch floodwater into space = KE = 0.5 * m * v^2 = 1.132e30 J
S = total annual solar energy received on Earth surface = 3.85e24 J / year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy)
Y = number of years of solar energy to attain launch energy = E ÷ S = 294 000 years

Thus, Earth would need on the order of a 0.3 million years to collect enough sunlight to eject all that water into space, assuming 100% efficiency; but clouds from evaporating water will act as mirrors reflecting sunlight away from surface, and some of the energy will go into evaporating the water (i.e. change liquid to gas), and so on. (Note: any speed less than escape velocity means the water will eventually fall back to Earth to create another flood (q.v. rainbow), and thus represents a minimal velocity/energy required to clear out the floodwaters).

And that amount of water represents a gigantic sphere of water 4700 km in diameter. Our Moon is a mere 3475 km in diameter. The floodwater is a Moon-sized volume of water, and then some.

That actually complicates gravitational matters a bit, too. Meh.

The waters of the Flood would be the same waters that fill the current sea basins and trenches.

If the surface of the Earth were level, all points equidistant from Earth's center,
then how deep would the ocean that covers the Earth be?

If the bible was true, pi would be a round number: 3
1 Kings 7:23 -- He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim [diameter] and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. [circumference]

Seriously though, God would still have to demonstrate that it is a deity worthy of my worship. If the bible is true, that means the Old Testament is true, which means God is an evil and malevolent creature deserving of my scorn.

It's worth noting that what most modern Christians believe about God and what the bible literally says about God are two different things.