Carson: Pyramids aren't tombs, but Joesphe's grain storage

[WanderingWinoZ]

Does this win for stupidest thing he's said to date? 

talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ben-carson-pyramids


GOP frontrunner Ben Carson, in a 1998 commencement address, floated his own personal theory that the pyramids in Egypt were built by Joseph -- the biblical patriarch known for his coat of many colors -- to store grain, Buzzfeed reported.



In the speech -- given at Andrews University, a school with ties to Carson's Seventh-day Adventist faith -- the neurosurgeon shot down claim that aliens had built the pyramids. But he also disagreed with the archaeological consensus that the pyramids were constructed as tombs for the pharaohs.



“My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson said. “Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.”




In the video surfaced by Buzzfeed Wednesday, Carson goes on to lay out his argument that the pyramids were constructed for grain storage.



“And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons," Carson said. "And various of scientists have said, ‘well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how-’ you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.”

[2curlydogs]

W.T.F.

[omgzombies]

Why can't he just believe the pyramids were built by aliens like a normal person?

[Nonny]

I know I always house mummified corpses, furniture, and jewels with my grain. Keeps the rats away.

[smock]

Uh, the pyramids are almost completely solid. They would be really, really shitty and expensive grain silos. So is Dr. Carson saying that Joseph was dumb?

[elleblue]

This is satire, right? I won't be fooled again!

[saz]

[tacosforlife]

This might be the one and only time that it's actually OK to read the comments.

[Nonny]

Nov 4, 2015 17:28:21 GMT -5 tacosforlife said:

This might be the one and only time that it's actually OK to read the comments.

"Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not an archeologist!"

/dying

[heyjude]

My own personal theory is that I'm hallucinating the entire GOP race.

[Deleted]

This man is living in his own special Carson-world.

[YeahSure]

Nov 4, 2015 17:24:13 GMT -5 elleblue said:

This is satire, right? I won't be fooled again!

I remember a day where you could tell the difference!  :?

[racegrrl714]

We are being punked. We just have to be.

[picksthemusic]

*facepalm*

[ESF]

If there is a god, there will be a "raise your hand if you believe the pyramids were built as tombs for pharaohs" round at the next debate.

Because you all know there is no way he's the only one who thinks this.

[derp]

Neurosurgeon.

This may have already been discussed. I'm not quite sure what a neurosurgeon does, in technical terms. But I'm imagining this guy rewiring people's brains and it's terrifying. Like a Carson-zombie legion.

[ttt]

Joseph also invented cornrows.

Source: homeschool

[josieposy]

Dazed and Confused (legit source):

"Did you ever look at a dollar bill, man? There's some spooky shit goin' on there. And it's green too!"

[WanderingWinoZ]

OMG! He's doubling down AND ALIENS!!

talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/carson-doubles-down-plus-space-aliens

Ben Carson is doubling down on his theory that the Egyptian pyramids were not built as funerary monuments but in fact were built by the biblical Joseph, when serving as Pharoah's Prime Minister, to store grain. "It's still my belief, yes," Carson told CBS News today in Naples, Florida.

But after this story went live on the site today a number of you wrote in to say that we'd buried the lede. And when I looked again at the story I discovered you were definitely right.

In the course of his explanation, Carson said "And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons. And various of scientists have said, ‘well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how-’ you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.” (emphasis added).

All religions believe things that can look quite odd or irrational from outside that religious belief. And even though I don't believe this pyramid theory is a part of Carson's religion per se, clearly it's rooted in his fairly intense biblical literalism. But the scientists who argue that the pyramids were built by space aliens? I don't think religion helps you on this one. Unless you are unable to distinguish between legitimate scientists from quacks in fringe publications or weird paranormal shows on The Discovery Channel I really don't think any scientists propose that the pyramids were built with knowledge brought down by space aliens.

Except. And this only dawned on me as I was writing this post. Except ... And here I had to go back to my childhood, reared by my beloved rationalist father. One of my pop's pleasures was mocking the endlessly discredited charlatan Erich von Daniken, a former hotel manager and serial fraudster from Switzerland, who managed to become a bestselling author in the late 60s and early 70s with a series of books which claimed that basically ever human achievement from the ancient world - in the Near East, Egypt, the Americas, everywhere - was done with the help of space aliens.

His biggest book, the first, was Chariots of the Gods. You can get some of the flavor here from the wikipedia entry on von Daniken.

Stonehenge, space aliens. Easter Island head figures, space aliens. Pyramids in Egypt and the Americans, space aliens, the Nasca Lines in Peru, space aliens. In their own way, his theories and writing are rather entertaining - much as you might expect from a professional con-man who reinvented himself as an faux archeologist.

In addition to all of his theories being palpable nonsense rejected by everybody with any knowledge of archeology or history of the periods and regions in question, von Daniken also managed to get imprisoned for fraud and admitted to making up various things to make his books more interesting. His melange was a mix of condescending assumptions about people who lived in the distant past, spurious logic, quackery and charlatanism wrapped into a package of vaguely endearing performance art.

For our present purposes though, von Daniken was not a scientist. He was somehow who every scientist with relevant knowledge of the fields in question pointed to as the epitome of a charlatan and a fraudster. I can't prove it. But given the complete dearth of any actual scientists who believe space aliens built the Egyptian pyramids, I'm pretty sure Carson's scientist(s) is none other than Erich von Daniken.

I think this is as I said this afternoon. Carson may have smart hands. But the guy is a bonafide ignoramus. No two ways about it.

[eclaires]

I feel like I'm being punkd.

Also, I have had two people share his stuff and it's making me reevaluate my whole life. I should probably just unfriend the one because he's my best friend's cousin. He's like a brother to her so he was always around and I was close with him when we were younger but our only contact is via Facebook now. The other just likes him because he's loud and proud about being Christian.

But I will say something dickish - neither is very intelligent or intellectually curious. Too bad there are so many dumb people.

[NewOrleans]

And this further proves that folks saying he's just pandering / doesn't mean his shitastic comments are wrong and lying. He was a nuttier than a jar of crunchy Jif even 20 years ago.

You know who you are.

[tacosforlife]

Nov 5, 2015 7:58:58 GMT -5 eclaires said:

I feel like I'm being punkd.

Also, I have had two people share his stuff and it's making me reevaluate my whole life. I should probably just unfriend the one because he's my best friend's cousin. He's like a brother to her so he was always around and I was close with him when we were younger but our only contact is via Facebook now. The other just likes him because he's loud and proud about being Christian.

But I will say something dickish - neither is very intelligent or intellectually curious. Too bad there are so many dumb people.

I shared it on Facebook, but it was accompanied by the appropriate   sentiment that this statement should elicit from everyone.

[smock]

Follow up question for Dr. Carson: how long does he think Joseph lived? Because it took a really long time to build those pyramids.

[Velvetshady]

It makes total sense. Spend years of thousands upon thousands of labor to build a giant grain silo, with just enough interior space to store enough grain for, maybe, one meal for each of the average daily workforce. The interior of the Great Pyramid makes King Tut's tomb look like a giant warehouse, I wonder what he thinks the tombs were really for?




I have a cousin that keeps posting updates on FB excited he is making progress over Trump--I keep trying to convince myself she wants him to win because he doesn't have a chance in hell of beating H<--

[nessness]

Nov 5, 2015 9:49:38 GMT -5 smock said:

Follow up question for Dr. Carson: how long does he think Joseph lived? Because it took a really long time to build those pyramids.

And they stored grain for seven years, starting pretty much immediately after Joseph interpreted the Pharaoh's dream. So the pyramids would have had to have been built in less than seven years. Sounds feasible...

[jillboston]

Nov 5, 2015 9:49:38 GMT -5 smock said:

Follow up question for Dr. Carson: how long does he think Joseph lived? Because it took a really long time to build those pyramids.

No follow ups!! that's not fair!!

[saz]

Nov 5, 2015 10:55:55 GMT -5 nessness said:

Nov 5, 2015 9:49:38 GMT -5 smock said:

Follow up question for Dr. Carson: how long does he think Joseph lived? Because it took a really long time to build those pyramids.

And they stored grain for seven years, starting pretty much immediately after Joseph interpreted the Pharaoh's dream. So the pyramids would have had to have been built in less than seven years. Sounds feasible...

Well the earth is only 10k years old, right? So really, with God, anything is possible.

[Deleted]

I don't really understand what the alien part means. There were aliens or not?

[Velvetshady]

Nov 5, 2015 12:05:41 GMT -5 @notquiteblushing said:

I don't really understand what the alien part means. There were aliens or not?

Yes.








or  No.










Which makes you want to vote for my kind of crazy?

[sushi]

Nov 5, 2015 11:12:44 GMT -5 saz said:

Nov 5, 2015 10:55:55 GMT -5 nessness said:

And they stored grain for seven years, starting pretty much immediately after Joseph interpreted the Pharaoh's dream. So the pyramids would have had to have been built in less than seven years. Sounds feasible...

Well the earth is only 10k years old, right? So really, with God, anything is possible.

6k. Oil is produced by the pressure of the flood (literally, I've been told this)

Plus, dinosaur bones are satan's trick.