quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
I guess views on this nowadays fall into 3 categories:

1) it was global

2) it was local

3) it never actually happened at that time, it was copied from other texts to convey a moral lesson.

Does anyone firmly nail their colours to one particular mast?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by North East Quine:
When I was a girl (1970s) my grandfather told me that when he was a young boy (just pre-WWI) his grandmother showed him the medal which her father was given for saving life in the Moray floods of 1829. As an adult I investigated this story and it was true.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gentleman Ranker:
I have neither credentials nor amateur learning in geology or related subjects, but the pervasiveness of flood myths across cultures tends to make me think that something happened.

I would tend to assume, however, that it was some perfectly natural phenomenon currently unknown to us, perhaps acquiring legendary status over many generations.

It may also be that (local) floods are simply not that uncommon (in terms of geologic, rather than human time scales), so that all cultures have had independent opportunities to develop flood myths.

---

quote:

---

A creationist argument I've heard (which in this case includes Jehovah's Witnesses because I've heard it from them too) is that Jesus himself referred to the flood as a factual event. If it wasn't factual then Jesus is a liar, QED.

My own riposte to this is that Jesus was illustrating a point the same way I could illustrate a point by referring, say, to last Saturday's Dr Who.

This generally proves nothing one way or the other but at least brings the conversation back to 15-all.

---

 

---

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
Option 3
 

---

Posted by Shadowhund (# 9175) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
I guess views on this nowadays fall into 3 categories:

1) it was global

2) it was local

3) it never actually happened at that time, it was copied from other texts to convey a moral lesson.

Does anyone firmly nail their colours to one particular mast?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kfingers:
The age is a problem too. The Biblie states Noah died at 900 years old. According to the Torah time line that was 1755 BC.

http://www.akhlah.com/history_tradition/torah_timeline.php .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by kfingers:
Even if Noah had built the ark and sailed it by the time he became a man (12 years old) (I think) the ark (which sailed for a year) would have had its maiden voyage in about 2642 BC (4652 years ago). This all fits very nicely into a literalistic interpretation of the Noah story with one problem, no evidence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
I guess views on this nowadays fall into 3 categories:

1) it was global

2) it was local

3) it never actually happened at that time, it was copied from other texts to convey a moral lesson.

Does anyone firmly nail their colours to one particular mast?

---

May I raise yet another mast (I believe it would be 4c) and nail my colors to that? That it was never meant to portray an actual event, but was instead a parable from the start? It can be a small mast if there's any danger of sinking the ship - in fact, a small mast apparently would be more demographically representative.
 

---

Posted by Jamat (# 11621) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Given that there is no evidence for a global flood, and considerable evidence that such a flood did not happen then 1) is a non-starter.

A more local flood that was devastating to the people caught up in it, that could quite literally have washed away the world they knew (without affecting the rest of the planet) is entirely possible. As is a story inflated out of experience of much less severe floods for the purpose of relating a particular message. As there would have been some flood events that were more substantial than normal, and these would have been retained in the memory of the people involved (much as we still talk about "the great storm" when Michael Fish told us there wasn't a hurricane on the way) I tend towards parts of the story at least being derived from folk memory of a greater than normal local flood.

---

Let me quote you something.

Henry Howorth; Flood geologist but non religious; from 1877, on the vast animal burial sites in Siberia and other places:

"we want a cause that should kill the animals yet not break to pieces their bodies or even mutilate them; a cause which would in some casesdisintegrate the skeletons without weathering the bones. We want a cause that would not merely do this as a wide spread plague or murrain might, but one which would bury the bodies as well as kill the animals; which would take up gravel and clay and lay them down again, and which could sweep together animals of different sizes and species and mix them with trees and other debris of vegetation. What cause competent to do this is known to us? Water would drown the animals and yet would not mutilate their bodies. It would kill them all with complete impartiality irrespective of their strength, age or size. It would take up clay and earth and cover their bodies with it...not only could it do this, but it is the only cause known to me capable of doing the work on a scale commensurate with the effects we see in Siberia."
 

---

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
I would say that it was a huge and devastating local flood, where the known 'world' was destroyed few survived.

The flood story lived on, and grew. in myth and legend.

It is far from the only one.

Even on a small scale families have their stories which are passed down from generation to generation. These stories change and grow in the telling.

...
 

---

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
I set out my stall on the Noah's Ark thread just a few days ago.

Although as I said there I wouldn't go to the stake for it, I find myself tending to believe 1) or at least 1a): the whole of humanity destroyed. While I think that on the whole, events pre-Abraham in the Bible don't read to me like they were necessarily intended to be taken as literally true, I somehow find myself reading the flood account more that way.
 

---

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Pity the geological evidence for it is so non-existent.
 

---

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
You need to read my post on the other thread.

My education is an arts-based one. It gave me no scientific competency at all, but it did give me a sense that contemporary science might not always have the last word and that it might sometimes be tainted by the history of ideas. (By the way, I certainly don't side with what I see as the bad science of some creationists either, especially those not writing in their field of expertise).

I'm not attempting to change anybody's mind here, and such a position is certainly not an article of faith in the church I'm in. I just thought it was time somebody answered 1) to the OP.
 

---

Posted by Mr Clingford (# 7961) on :
 
Euty, you are giving arts-based educations a bad name. I have had one (including a little History and Philosophy of Science and Theology) and MT is dead right. You are using it as an excuse (and I find myself agreeing with you on a lot of things).
 

---

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
Oh man, I should have kept my mouth shut!

I'm just trying to be honest, really. I come out as having a lot of "N" (intuition) in Myers-Briggs and that's what my intuition tells me on this topic however loudly my intellect may complain. I'm not about to force my intuitions on anyone else in this respect and I'm certainly not going to attempt some half-baked Genesis Flood type argument.

I do however admit to wondering whether there are some too intimidated to post in Purg who might "intuit" the same way as me (you are not providing support for this theory!).

I'm not a YEC. Like I said on the other thread, I'm not attached to the literalism of Adam and Eve or the rest of Genesis 1-11. I wouldn't assert 1) from the pulpit, either. But internally, for some reason I kind of get stuck on Noah.
 

---

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Henry Howorth; Flood geologist but non religious; from 1877, on the vast animal burial sites in Siberia and other places:

"we want a cause that should kill the animals yet not break to pieces their bodies or even mutilate them; a cause which would in some casesdisintegrate the skeletons without weathering the bones. We want a cause that would not merely do this as a wide spread plague or murrain might, but one which would bury the bodies as well as kill the animals; which would take up gravel and clay and lay them down again, and which could sweep together animals of different sizes and species and mix them with trees and other debris of vegetation. What cause competent to do this is known to us? Water would drown the animals and yet would not mutilate their bodies. It would kill them all with complete impartiality irrespective of their strength, age or size. It would take up clay and earth and cover their bodies with it...not only could it do this, but it is the only cause known to me capable of doing the work on a scale commensurate with the effects we see in Siberia."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sabine:
... Unless there was circumnavigation that we don't know about in biblical times, the biblical account of the flood was interpreted by the POV of people who had never heard of south america and therefore would think the "entire" world was a much smaller place.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Let me quote you something.

Henry Howorth; Flood geologist but non religious; from 1877, on the vast animal burial sites in Siberia and other places:

"we want a cause that should kill the animals yet not break to pieces their bodies or even mutilate them; a cause which would in some casesdisintegrate the skeletons without weathering the bones. We want a cause that would not merely do this as a wide spread plague or murrain might, but one which would bury the bodies as well as kill the animals; which would take up gravel and clay and lay them down again, and which could sweep together animals of different sizes and species and mix them with trees and other debris of vegetation. What cause competent to do this is known to us? Water would drown the animals and yet would not mutilate their bodies. It would kill them all with complete impartiality irrespective of their strength, age or size. It would take up clay and earth and cover their bodies with it...not only could it do this, but it is the only cause known to me capable of doing the work on a scale commensurate with the effects we see in Siberia."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Shadowhund:

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
I guess views on this nowadays fall into 3 categories:

1) it was global

2) it was local

3) it never actually happened at that time, it was copied from other texts to convey a moral lesson.

Does anyone firmly nail their colours to one particular mast?

---

I would add (4) makes a lousy subject for a Broadway musical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Let me quote you something.

Henry Howorth; Flood geologist but non religious; from 1877, on the vast animal burial sites in Siberia and other places:

"we want a cause that should kill the animals yet not break to pieces their bodies or even mutilate them; a cause which would in some casesdisintegrate the skeletons without weathering the bones. We want a cause that would not merely do this as a wide spread plague or murrain might, but one which would bury the bodies as well as kill the animals; which would take up gravel and clay and lay them down again, and which could sweep together animals of different sizes and species and mix them with trees and other debris of vegetation. What cause competent to do this is known to us? Water would drown the animals and yet would not mutilate their bodies. It would kill them all with complete impartiality irrespective of their strength, age or size. It would take up clay and earth and cover their bodies with it...not only could it do this, but it is the only cause known to me capable of doing the work on a scale commensurate with the effects we see in Siberia."

---

As Alan says, nobody disputes that ancient flood sites exist or that they are a great place to find fossils. The reason why so many fossils are found at flood sites, however, is not that there was a massive global flood at one point in time. It's that a sudden flash flood (not that infrequent an event, but not everyday either), bringing layers of fine silt and anoxic mud creates an excellent environment to prevent the corpses from decomposing/weathering/being picked apart by scavengers. Therefore although the vast majority of ancient land animals didn't die in floods, we know a great deal more about some of the ones that did. As with today, however, the number of animals which died from injury, disease or being eaten is vastly greater than the ones that died in the specific circumstances which are good for fossilisation - we just don't have their remains to look at.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
So no evidence for 'global' flood.

Only massive flood site in mditerranean area, also in Mesopotamia and also in Siberia.

How interesting

No evidence for Flood?

Depends a lot on your assumptions.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
So no evidence for 'global' flood.

Only massive flood site in mditerranean area, also in Mesopotamia and also in Siberia.

How interesting

No evidence for Flood?

Depends a lot on your assumptions.

---

Yes, evidence of floods. But, each of those sites would have been places where flood waters deposited the bodies of animals, trees etc caught up in flood events. Each event might have only washed a few animals into the sediment trap, but in some cases such floods were practically annual events (eg: linked to spring melts of snow) or they might have been less frequent. The fossil beds developed over centuries of floods laying down more and more animal remains.

And, each site is often a different age than the others. You can't claim a global flood on the presence of flood deposits across the globe when some of those sites are a few 10s of thousands of years old and others millions or 10s of millions of years old.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
BTW Is this true..honest question

"The fossils of horses identical with our present domestic horse exist in uncounted thousands in the deposits of the Americas from Alaska to patagonia. Yet no horses were in america when the white man came, they had to be imported..Speaking of the disappearance of these and other creatures from regions where theonce may have been numerous, George Mcready Price 91913) says "How did such an assemblage of animals all become extinct together? The diluvialist has an easy explanation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
"The fossils of horses identical with our present domestic horse exist in uncounted thousands in the deposits of the Americas from Alaska to patagonia. Yet no horses were in america when the white man came, they had to be imported. Speaking of the disappearance of these and other creatures from regions where theonce may have been numerous, George Mcready Price 91913) says "How did such an assemblage of animals all become extinct together? The diluvialist has an easy explanation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
I guess views on this nowadays fall into 3 categories:

1) it was global

2) it was local

3) it never actually happened at that time, it was copied from other texts to convey a moral lesson.

Does anyone firmly nail their colours to one particular mast?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
I guess views on this nowadays fall into 3 categories:

1) it was global

2) it was local

3) it never actually happened at that time, it was copied from other texts to convey a moral lesson.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
Adeodatus, "punctuation myths" is an excellent term! I knew just what it meant when I saw it without your having to explain it. Would that more theological terms possessed such clarity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
...What difference does any option make to the meaning of the text?

Probably none. Hence, nails to masts become redundant.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
If all the judgements & works of God reported in the text are just stories, they didn't really happen then why should anyone believe in a God who doesn't actually do what he talks about?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Petaflop:
Why should anyone believe in a God who can come up with no better solution to the state of the world than drowning it or condemning most of it to eternal punishment? Such a God must be too stupid or too weak or too malevolent to come up with a better solution.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Jamat: evidence really doesn't depend on assumptions. It's the same whatever assumptions you make. You can cherry pick it, ignore it, twist it and so on, but it doesn't change. The evidence for an old earth, evolution and no global flood is so spectacularly strong and consistent that it takes assumptions, a particular theology and so on to dismiss it.

Horses originated in America, passed over the Bering Strait when it was a land bridge because of lower sea levels during a glacial period and established themselves in Asia. At the same time, humans crossed into America taking the same route in the other direction. Shortly after humans showed up, horses went extinct in America. This is almost certainly because they went from having few natural predators to being intensively hunted by humans with weapons. As the earth got warmer again, the sea levels rose, the land bridge disappeared and there was no way for horses to get back into America.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
[QB]Horses originated in America, passed over the Bering Strait when it was a land bridge because of lower sea levels during a glacial period and established themselves in Asia. At the same time, humans crossed into America taking the same route in the other direction. As the earth got warmer again, the sea levels rose, the land bridge disappeared...[QB]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Petaflop:
Why should anyone believe in a God who can come up with no better solution to the state of the world than drowning it or condemning most of it to eternal punishment? Such a God must be too stupid or too weak or too malevolent to come up with a better solution.

---

What would your solution have been?

---

quote:

---

His worked. Your existance is testimony to that.

---

I withdraw my previous post. Even if scientists were to strictly adhere to the most careful standards of reasoning and communication, our audience will never be able to tell a well constructed argument from a random assertion.
 

---

Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :
 
It was, as you say, a brief summary. It was more a response to the whole "How do you explain THIS?" thing. It can be explained in a way which is supported by scientific evidence, and which doesn't rely on the explanation of a global flood.

Moreover, from the flood believer perspective, it's a bit silly to pick on one species as though it proves the whole thing. If this view is right, and horses were wiped out by a flood, reappeared in the Middle East when they came off the ark, and then got spread around the world... then you'd expect that to happen to every other species as well. We should have kangaroos and platypuses and lemurs in the Middle East, or at least some evidence that they've been there at some point. We should find that biological diversity decreases the further you get from wherever it was that the ark landed as all the species in the world work their way outwards from this point.

I have wondered if the rise of sea levels as we came into this interglacial period could have gone down in folk memory as a great flood of some kind, or if it was just too long ago and too gradual. I don't know. It certainly didn't cover the whole world with water.
 

---

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Petaflop:

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Petaflop:
Why should anyone believe in a God who can come up with no better solution to the state of the world than drowning it or condemning most of it to eternal punishment? Such a God must be too stupid or too weak or too malevolent to come up with a better solution.

---

What would your solution have been?

---

Restorative justice. A justice which can unwrong a wrong is greater than a justice which can punish it. A God who can unwrong a wrong, heal the damage to both the sinner and their victim, raise the dead, is greater than one who can merely punish it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
...What difference does any option make to the meaning of the text?

Probably none. Hence, nails to masts become redundant.

---

If all the judgements & works of God reported in the text are just stories, they didn't really happen then why should anyone believe in a God who doesn't actually do what he talks about?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Petaflop:
Restorative justice. A justice which can unwrong a wrong is greater than a justice which can punish it. A God who can unwrong a wrong, heal the damage to both the sinner and their victim, raise the dead, is greater than one who can merely punish it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
...How bout my question. Does it change the meaning of the text or not?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
It doesn't change the meaning of the words to us, but it does change theior effect on people since then if they believe God actually blesses the good and destroys the evil, rather than just deliver moral tales.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
[QUOTE]..Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that God blesses the obedient and destroys the disobedient?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
Following God's (alleged) orders seems to be the sole criterion for goodness as you've formulated it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
What is this "fire"?
Is this an idle warning?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:

I have wondered if the rise of sea levels as we came into this interglacial period could have gone down in folk memory as a great flood of some kind, or if it was just too long ago and too gradual. I don't know. It certainly didn't cover the whole world with water.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell
It's interesting that the enormous herds of Equus that fossil evidence indicates were common throughout North America, Eurasia and Africa (easily matching, if not exceeding, the more modern bison or wildebeest herds) all disappeared at about the same time - Equus ferus wasn't that far off being extinct in Eurasia at the time Equus scotti did become extinct in North America. The fossil record only really starts to show a recovery in horse numbers in Asia in relatively recent times (5-6 thousand years ago) at what seems to be the same time as humans started to domesticate them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
DNA studies have shown that all modern horses, including the wild ones, are descended from domesticated horses.

Moo

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Moo:
DNA studies have shown that all modern horses, including the wild ones, are descended from domesticated horses.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
His worked. Your existance is testimony to that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
No. 1 seems somewhat unlikely
.
.
.
One inch of rain in every 10.4 seconds.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by pjkirk:

quote:

---

Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
No. 1 seems somewhat unlikely
.
.
.
One inch of rain in every 10.4 seconds.

---

Sounds pretty realistic to me!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
...How bout my question. Does it change the meaning of the text or not?

---

It doesn't change the meaning of the words to us, but it does change theior effect on people since then if they believe God actually blesses the good and destroys the evil, rather than just deliver moral tales.

---

quote:

---

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

---

quote:

---

Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
To those that entertain the idea that the flood never actually happened but who believe the bible is true... what do you make of this:

"For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." (2 Peter 3:5-7)

What is this "fire"?
Is this an idle warning?

---

quote:

---

‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
22As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night,
shall not cease.’

---

But perhaps Peter is not contradicting God in saying the living and the heavens and earth will perish, but rather is using the fire analogy like a refiners fire; purification.

Latchkey, I didn't get it. Please explain? I hate not getting jokes. Must be a blond thing.

[ 14. May 2010, 04:17: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 

---

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
But perhaps Peter is not contradicting God in saying the living and the heavens and earth will perish, but rather is using the fire analogy like a refiners fire; purification.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
The idea that God blesses the good and destroys evil is a big problem in the bible.

The book of Job was included in the scriptures to show the idea is not so simple.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
By the time you get to the New Testament, judgment is reserved for the last day or the next life for:

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
You still reap what you sow throughout life,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
Job was motivated by fear.
"For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." (3:25)
When he realised this was no good (as God knew he would) he was materially blessed twice as much as before, and learned some lessons.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
This is why I hate the book of Proverbs so. Over and over it lies. The good do not all receive blessings. The evil do not all get their comeuppance. That's a lie invented by the rich to keep the poor in their place.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:
You still reap what you sow throughout life,

---

This is absurd. I can show you thousands of examples of truly evil people (the Borgias come to mind) who die rich and happy,

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
[QUOTE] and millions of good people who die poor and suffering.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Johnny S:
...You need to read Job again.
Especially chapter 42. The LORD says that Job's three comforters (who said what you say above) spoke wrongly about him (i.e. spoke wrongly about the Lord).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
...What difference does any option make to the meaning of the text?

Probably none. Hence, nails to masts become redundant.

---

If all the judgements & works of God reported in the text are just stories, they didn't really happen then why should anyone believe in a God who doesn't actually do what he talks about?

---

coz he's not talking in tongues? Is that the right answer?
 

---

Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :
 
coz when the Bible says "The Lord says to ...." thats what the writer believed the Lord was saying

No guarantee that he was right in that belief.
 

---

Posted by Amarante (# 15573) on :
 
In the biblical story of Adam and Eve, and also of Job, there would naturally be no mention in monotheism of the polytheist deities. However, the pre-biblical epic of Gilgamesh has almost all the components of the Eden myth,the big difference being that those stories - deemed histories - had root in polytheism in which the gods were not seen to be just.
In monotheism the stories were preserved interpreted from a new standpoint. Whereas the original naked couple, and the original Babylonian Job, knew their gods to be immoral, in monotheism Yahweh was seen as just and reliable. This created a problem of interpretation for centuries to come.
 

---

Posted by NJA (# 13022) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
.... Exploitative rich bastards who make life miserable...

Contrariwise people living in grinding poverty who are kind to their neighbours ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

PS: It's "whose" not "who's".

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
.... Exploitative rich bastards who make life miserable...

Contrariwise people living in grinding poverty who are kind to their neighbours ...

---

I wouldn't judge by appearances if I were you.
A rich person who exploit sis unlikely to be a happy person

---

quote:

---

They spelt mutton wrongly
(or is it: they spelled mutton wrong?)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Jamat: evidence really doesn't depend on assumptions. It's the same whatever assumptions you make. You can cherry pick it, ignore it, twist it and so on, but it doesn't change. The evidence for an old earth, evolution and no global flood is so spectacularly strong and consistent that it takes assumptions, a particular theology and so on to dismiss it.

Horses originated in America, passed over the Bering Strait when it was a land bridge because of lower sea levels during a glacial period and established themselves in Asia. At the same time, humans crossed into America taking the same route in the other direction. Shortly after humans showed up, horses went extinct in America. This is almost certainly because they went from having few natural predators to being intensively hunted by humans with weapons. As the earth got warmer again, the sea levels rose, the land bridge disappeared and there was no way for horses to get back into America.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by NJA:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Johnny S:
...You need to read Job again.
Especially chapter 42. The LORD says that Job's three comforters (who said what you say above) spoke wrongly about him (i.e. spoke wrongly about the Lord).

---

To speed things up, perhaps you can point to the verses where they said what I said?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Fogive (sic) me, I smell assumption here [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Amarante:
Whereas the original naked couple, and the original Babylonian Job, knew their gods to be immoral, in monotheism Yahweh was seen as just and reliable. This created a problem of interpretation for centuries to come.

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quote:

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Originally posted by NJA:
Job was motivated by fear.
"For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." (3:25)
When he realised this was no good (as God knew he would) he was materially blessed twice as much as before, and learned some lessons.

quote:

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
...You need to read Job again.
Especially chapter 42. The LORD says that Job's three comforters (who said what you say above) spoke wrongly about him (i.e. spoke wrongly about the Lord).

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To speed things up, perhaps you can point to the verses where they said what I said?

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quote:

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After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.

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quote:

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'The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.'

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Originally posted by sanc:
Why is global flood so threatening to science while global warming, global ice age, global etc. are not? Is there not an iota of probability that a global flood had occurred? How about huge chunks of asteroids hitting the sea causing it to effect an unprecedented tsunami inundating all land mass? Should we rule this out?

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quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Fogive (sic) me, I smell assumption here

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The assumption that the evidence of our senses is more reliable than a biased religious text? Good catch. [/QB]

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quote:

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by Alan Cresswell:
No, there is not one iota of probability that a global flood has occurred.

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quote:

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Originally posted by sanc:

quote:

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by Alan Cresswell:
No, there is not one iota of probability that a global flood has occurred.

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I'm taking this certainty with a grain of salt. The earth is almost covered with water, and the earth's highlands are diminutive compared with the earths ocean trenches, it's not that hard to postulate that a little agitation of the water will cover the land mass.

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quote:

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Originally posted by shamwari:
Global flood or not one thing is beyond question.

Noah was undoubtedly the best businessman ever.

The only person to float a company when the rest of the world was in a state of liqidation.

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Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by sanc:

quote:

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by Alan Cresswell:
No, there is not one iota of probability that a global flood has occurred.

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I'm taking this certainty with a grain of salt. The earth is almost covered with water, and the earth's highlands are diminutive compared with the earths ocean trenches, it's not that hard to postulate that a little agitation of the water will cover the land mass.

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quote:

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Originally posted by sanc:
Why is global flood so threatening to science while global warming, global ice age, global etc. are not?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by sanc:
Why is global flood so threatening to science while global warming, global ice age, global etc. are not?

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Global flood isn't the least bit threatening to science. Science doesn't care a whit what a bunch of deluded Christians think. There is no evidence for global flooding, and science is based on evidence.

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Not to mention that the mechanisms by which global warming and ice ages can happen are understood. For an actual global flood to occur to an elevation of Mt. Ararat would require nearly three times the water that exists on the planet, and to the height of Everest would require more than 4 times the water that exists on the earth.

I'm sure "science" is more than willing to entertain any theories once you can determine how this much water existed for a time, and then disappeared again, without leaving a trace of its existence.
 

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Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
There are some senses in which a Global Flood is a threat to science.

In a resource limited environment, a suggestion that scientists should spend time addressing issues of a supposed Flood wouldn't go down well. We've more than enough to do without chasing non-scientific conjectures. Though, I don't think that there's currently any danger of the government of any nation insisting that geology be conducted within a philosophical framework that includes something like a global Flood.

Perhaps more worrying (because it might be something that happens) is if a Global Flood was introduced into science lessons as part of the curriculum. With limited time to teach the science kids need to know to have a reasonable grasp of the subject giving Flood Geology time as a supposed scientific theory would make things even harder for teachers. Now, I would say that teaching kids the skills needed to critique junk science is actually very important, and in that context you could include Flood Geology. Unfortunately education has moved from imparting skills to imparting knowledge, and in a framework of imparting knowledge (especially without already teaching the skills to critique that knowledge) there are potential dangers when that knowledge is actually untrue.
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by shamwari:
Global flood or not one thing is beyond question.

Noah was undoubtedly the best businessman ever.

The only person to float a company when the rest of the world was in a state of liqidation.

---

...
 

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Posted by anglocatholic (# 13804) on :
 
I was under the impression that the story of Noah's Flood, like that of Adam and Eve, was 'myth''.As such, not to be taken literally, but a means to teach certain truths about God.
Pax
Jeffrey
 

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Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Amarante:
The story of a flood pre-dates the written Book of Genesis. It circulated in Abraham's country of Mesopotamia in the 2nd millennium BC. This record is preserved in the famous epic of Gilgamesh and tells of the building of a vessel in which to save all human and animal life in a flood to be sent by the gods (plural).

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Originally posted by fletcher christian:
If it really did happen, even in a small way, I'd have a few questions that modern zoo's might want to know too.
1. How did they deal with all the animal crap?
2. How did they feed all the meat eating animals? What did they feed them?
3. How did they stop the reptiles from getting metabolic bone disease after being kept out of direct sunlight for so long?
4. Was there two of every kind of animal and then a food store of animals to feed other animals?
5. How did they get the animals to breed after they left the ark? Some of these animals surely wouldn't stick together and the chances of them meeting up again after release would be fairly slim.
6. Two of every kind of animal would mean the gene pool was pretty shallow. Even with two very good examples of species, brothers mating with sisters is going to lead to inevitable genetic problems. How did they stop this?
7. Wouldn't the human survivors on the ark mean that their descendents would end up marrying their cousins? (ok a modern zoo doesn't need to know this!)

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
2. How did they feed all the meat eating animals? What did they feed them?

Um, read the text. According to the text, meat eating was not an issue yet. What you SHOULD be asking is how they carried enough feed for all the herbivores (basically everybody).

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
7. Wouldn't the human survivors on the ark mean that their descendents would end up marrying their cousins?

Same problem you have with Adam and Eve and co. Yes, inbreeding would definitely lead to major problems at the present day; but these people and animals were considerably closer to Eden than we are, and presumably much healthier genetically (which also explains the longer life spans). Plus, I have wondered whether God might not have "packed" additional DNA sets in the gamete-forming cells of these "founder" people and animals.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Okay, feel free to point and laugh.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Thank you. Actually, as I mentioned, I haven't been following the thread, and I thought you guys had covered that already. Also the herbivore bit. I mean, it's right there in the text--when they get off the ark (I think it's Gen 7, but am about to be hailed off to bed by my ear so can't look it up)--at that point God says to Noah that meat is on the menu now. This was an addition to the specified menu for Adam (fruits etc.). We are also told that from that point on the animals would be wary of people as a general rule (sensible, if they weren't to wind up as hamburgers)

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Re gene expression--God knows I am not a scientist, just an ordinary layman with a basic scientific education, but from that limited standpoint, I'd say no, I did NOT imagine the genes I spoke of being expressed. One set (the complement needed for the individual) would be fully functional; the rest, I hazily imagine, might (note the speculation here) MIGHT be stored away in the sex cells, one (half)set per, so that the offspring would possess traits not expressed in the parents. It would certainly make for a rather varied family group! But of course, this would be temporary, just until genetic diversity was sufficiently ... sufficient. I don't imagine it goes on today (though I wonder about exactly how Mary's chromosomes managed to come up with a male parthenogenetic offspring).

But again, this is all speculation on my part.

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quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by sanc:
Why is global flood so threatening to science while global warming, global ice age, global etc. are not?

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Global flood isn't the least bit threatening to science. Science doesn't care a whit what a bunch of deluded Christians think. There is no evidence for global flooding, and science is based on evidence.

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Not to mention that the mechanisms by which global warming and ice ages can happen are understood. For an actual global flood to occur to an elevation of Mt. Ararat would require nearly three times the water that exists on the planet, and to the height of Everest would require more than 4 times the water that exists on the earth.

I'm sure "science" is more than willing to entertain any theories once you can determine how this much water existed for a time, and then disappeared again, without leaving a trace of its existence.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I don't know anything really but I believe the Bible so there was a flood that killed the mammoths and the horses and you have to admit, it neatly explains the mass graves thing.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
The earth is actually 2/3 water on its surface and like a marshmellow underneatth its crust.

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Volcanoes and earthquakes can push up the hills and lower the trenches.

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The 'evidence' thing I find amusing since anyone finds evidence for what they want to be true and rationalisation is our great human gift.

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The "evidence" is all planted/fake/a lie! Oh noes!

Please - can you be less boring with your "trump cards"?

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I don't know anything really but I believe the Bible so there was a flood that killed the mammoths and the horses and you have to admit, it neatly explains the mass graves thing.

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Except for the non-global nature of them, the wrong timing, and vastly different timing between them. Yeah...neatly explains a lot of stuff
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
The 'evidence' thing I find amusing since anyone finds evidence for what they want to be true and rationalisation is our great human gift.

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Science, that great ediface is pretty built on theoretical constructs that we tenaciously hold on to whether the emperor turns out to have clothes or not.

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I don't know anything really but I believe the Bible so there was a flood that killed the mammoths and the horses and you have to admit, it neatly explains the mass graves thing.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
It might help to keep in mind that what I'm daydreaming about is NOT the kind of process you'd see today.
...
Speculation. But interesting, at least to me.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It would actually need to be a very substantial agitation. Yes, the ocean trenches are deep, but it's still a relatively small proportion of the earths water in them. Even to raise the ocean surface by 1km, not enough to cover all the mountains but enough to effectively innundate most of the places people live, would take an upheaval of the sort that lifts the ocean floor by a feww hundred metres, and then a second upheaval of equal magnitude to put them back in their place. Certainly something that would leave an undeniable record in the geology of the earth.

Of course one can't discount the possibility that the Flood occured by the miraculous intervention of God suspending the normal way things happen. He could have created the water from nothing, and uncreated it afterwards.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Science, that great ediface is pretty built on theoretical constructs that we tenaciously hold on to whether the emperor turns out to have clothes or not.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Petaflop:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Science, that great ediface is pretty built on theoretical constructs that we tenaciously hold on to whether the emperor turns out to have clothes or not.

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Now that is an important observation. So the question is, what is the emperor wearing?

You are right about theoretical constructs - science is based on chains inference (or at least pretty much everyone except Popper holds that it is).

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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They spelt mutton wrongly
(or is it: they spelled mutton wrong?)

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Wrong.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
It might help to keep in mind that what I'm daydreaming about is NOT the kind of process you'd see today.
...
Speculation. But interesting, at least to me.

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And, of course, if you're speculating about processes radically different from those observed today we're back in the realm of "God changed the way the universe works, and left no sign that he'd done so". Which is a logically consistent position. It's just not amenable to any sort of scientific analysis. It could be amenable to questions like "what does it say about God that He did that?" and you need to decide whether you like the idea of a God who made things look radically different from how they actually are - ie: if God created all things in 6 days within the last 10000 years, and at one point destroyed everything except a handful of people and animals, why does all the evidence indicate beyond all reasonable doubt that the earth is billions of years old and there was no global flood? Is there any answer to that except God deliberately set out to deceive us?

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
For that matter, there's no reason to suppose the offloading took place in a single generation. Perhaps daughter 1 got a tenth of the gene bank (all still dormant except what she needed to be herself), daughter 2 another (possibly overlapping) tenth, and so forth. Sons slightly different after their own processes.

Speculation. But interesting, at least to me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Petaflop:
Now that is an important observation. So the question is, what is the emperor wearing?

You are right about theoretical constructs - science is based on chains inference (or at least pretty much everyone except Popper holds that it is).

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I'm not sure why you feel the need to drag poor Karl Popper's name through the mud.

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Originally posted by shamwari:
In which case the Flood story comes into the same category as creation and the Garden of Eden. To my mind the attempt to read it as historical only gives rise to the kind of angst on this thread.

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Originally posted by Petaflop:
I tend to think of a Bayesian version of falsification as a starting model for 'normal science' (as opposed to paradigm shifts, in which social factors become important too). However, I don't think Popper's claim to have 'solved the problem of induction' reflects the way science is actually done on the ground.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I think in a sense the 'problem of induction' was solved long before Popper - to get beyond mere induction (which basically describes what's observed) to explain why things are as they are you need to postulate and test hypotheses. Popper proposed a solution to the new problems that hypothesis postulation and testing generated - namely that any finite data set can be described by multiple theories (one solution to that problem was proposed by Okham, that if all else is equal go with the simplest theory), and that no amount of positive results can prove a theory because a negative result can be produced tomorrow. Popper proposed that if you can't prove a theory true then might be able to prove it false, and suggested that a definition of a scientific theory should include tests that could in principle falsify it. Popular understanding of what Popper said tends to stop there, and indeed take the whole concept of falsification far further than Popper himself did, without recognising that Popper himself quickly realised that you can no more falsify a theory than prove it.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Actually, I believe I was suggesting a form of chimaerism. (I vaguely recall reading a medical report on such a case sometime in the past couple years--the chimaerism centered around the woman's eggs rather than being widespread throughout her body, and resulted in her bearing a child whose bloodtype was "impossible" for her to be the mother of. Investigating that was how they discovered the chimaerism.)

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History of ClimateThe sudden rise at the left side of the plot, at about 9,000 BCE (i.e. 11,000 years ago), was the end of the last ice age. The abruptness of the termination is startling. Agriculture, and all of our civilization, developed since this termination. The enormous glacier, several kilometers thick, covering much of North America and Eurasia, rapidly melted. Only small parts of this glacier survived, in Greenland and Antarctica, where they exist to this day. The melting caused a series of worldwide floods unlike anything previously experienced by Homo sapiens. (There had been a previous flood at about 120 kyr, but that was before Homo sapiens had moved to Europe or North America.) The flood dumped enough water into the oceans to cause the average sea level to rise 110 meters, enough to inundate the coastal areas, and to cover the Bering Isthmus, and turn it into the Bering Strait. The water from melting ice probably flooded down over land in pulses, as ice-dammed lakes formed and then catastrophically released their water. These floods left many records, including remnant puddles now known as the Great Lakes, and possibly gave rise to legends that persisted for many years. As the glacier retreated, it left a piles of debris at its extremum. One such pile is now known as New York’s Long Island.[/url]

wiki, etc. - and a large part of what is today the North Sea was dry land connecting Jutland with Britain.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period

Shrug, where else would all that ice melt go but to cover the earth? How couldn't it have been world-wide? 360 ft rise is a lot of water.

What is the North Sea now was mostly dry land 10,000 years ago, that's when and how Britain and Ireland became islands.

Myrrh
 

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Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 
And Myrrh returns, in full force
 

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Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :
 
If that Wiki article is correct, North America and NOrthern Europe were once covered by glaciers thicker than Mount Everest is high? Several kilometres?

I think whoever was editing that entry needs professional help.

John
 

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Posted by Dave W. (# 8765) on :
 
That depends on how you interpret "several". Britannica says the Laurentide ice sheet had a thickness of 2.4-3 km or more in places; Everest is 8.8 km.
 

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Posted by Myrrh (# 11483) on :
 
But.. the Himalayas were not so high 10,000 years ago..

quote:

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Interestingly, a vast shallow sea, the Tethys, existed where the Himalaya stands today. The submerged landmasses on either side started pushing towards each other, giving birth to these mountains. This was a relatively recent occurrence in the geographical time frame, so the Himalaya is considered a young and fragile land formation. Scientists speculate that the whole process took five to seven million years. Fossil finds at heights of over 8,000 metres (26,000 feet) support these theories. The Himalaya has risen about 2,000 metres (6,600 feet) in the past 20,000 years and continues to rise at the rate of 7.5 to 10 centimetres (3-4 inches) a year. travel-himalayas

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Originally posted by mousethief:
People have existed for less than 2 million years. The Himalayas were raised 7-8 million years ago. If there was a global flood in which people were saved by boat, it would have to have been after the Himalayas were raised. So much for saving water.

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quote:

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the first Greek lawmaker and statesman Solon had recently - c. 560 BCE at Sais, a cosmopolitan city of north-east Nile delta - conferred with the Egyptian priest Sonchis.

This was what Sonchis and his scholars told Solon:-

"O Solon, you [Greeks] are all young in your minds which hold no store of old belief based on long tradition, no knowledge hoary with age"

"The reason is this. There have been, and will be hereafter, many and diverse destructions of mankind, the greatest by fire and water, though other lesser ones are due to countless other causes"


Scroll down to bottom of page to continue

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Originally posted by Myrrh:
Dogmatic bad science is just as distracting as dogmatic bad religion when it comes to unravelling our history, and attempting to see our future..

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
...I happen to be convinced that certain researchers have data sets that are hooey, and are therefore finding mares' nests; but that doesn't entitle me to sneer at them unless I can bring positive proof of intellectual dishonesty. There are such things as mistakes, skewed data, sample errors, and even honest disagreements.

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Originally posted by Mr Clingford:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
...I happen to be convinced that certain researchers have data sets that are hooey, and are therefore finding mares' nests; but that doesn't entitle me to sneer ....

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I am curious. Which data sets are hooey?

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I don't think the amount of water on the earth is, in itself, an issue in relation to a global flood. So, whether a data source is from 1912 or more recent is largely irrelevant.

The issue is how do you relocate that water so that all the land is covered (or, at least all the land where people live ... I can see leaving a few thousand feet from the top of the Himalayas dry wouldn't make any significant difference to the impact of a global flood), and then redistribute that water back to where it came from (more or less). Remembering that in the process of what must be two substantial geological events (to start the Flood and end it) you need to leave no evidence in the geological record of this happening, nor of there having been water covering the land for that period, and also somehow preserve enough of the life that wasn't on the Ark to start over.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Myrrh:
You're assuming that the waters retreated to the same level.

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Originally posted by Imaginary Friend:
So Myrrh, how do you square away your biblical literalism (and presumably an earth which is 6500-odd years old) with arguments including ice ages, stone age relics and like which are significantly older than that?

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quote:

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"O Solon, you [Greeks] are all young in your minds which hold no store of old belief based on long tradition, no knowledge hoary with age"

"The reason is this. There have been, and will be hereafter, many and diverse destructions of mankind, the greatest by fire and water, though other lesser ones are due to countless other causes"

" Thus the story current also in your part of the world, that Phaethon, child of the Sun, once harnessed his father's chariot but could not guide it on his father's course and so burnt up everything on the face of the earth and was himself consumed by the thunderbolt - this legend has the air of a fable; but the truth behind it is a deviation of the bodies that revolve in heaven around the earth and a destruction, occurring at long intervals, of things on the earth by a great conflagration...."

"Any great or noble achievement or otherwise exceptional event that has come to pass, either in your own parts or here or in any place of which we have tidings, has been written down for ages past in records that are preserved in our temples;"

"whereas with you and with other peoples again and again, life [had only just] been enriched with letters and all the other necessities of civilization when once more, after the usual period of years, the torrents from heaven [swept] down like a pestilence, leaving only the rude and unlettered among you"

"And so you start again like children, knowing nothing of what existed in ancient times here or in your own country.... To begin with, your people remembered only one deluge, though there were many earlier;"

"and moreover you do not know that the noblest and bravest race in the world once lived in your country. From a small remnant of their seed you and all your fellow citizens are derived; but you know nothing of it because the survivors for many generations died leaving no word in writing"

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Originally posted by mousethief:


The problem of where the water came from and went to is, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same.

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Originally posted by Boogie:
There is no way that complex ecosystems would recover after a global flood.

Not well enough to support many, many creatures which need very specific conditions to survive at all. Small changes in habitat can wipe out a species.

To expect animals to walk off a boat and survive is nonsense.


...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Amarante:
Freddy was right: the story of Noah's Flood and the story of creation in the Garden of Eden are in the same category because both are rooted in the famed epic of Gilgamesh that flourished in the Mesopotamia of Abraham. Because they are seen as myths they are sometimes dismissed as fairy tale. But myth is a form of history, and in the light of their origins they preserve 'history'. However, that history cannot be understood in literal terms.
The components of the Eden myth in particular have to be glimpsed in an earlier light to see the uplifting event long buried in the garden.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:


It's all well and good repeating that the North Sea, Black Sea, Indian coastal cities etc were inundated at the end of the last glaciation ... but that's not really relevant as the flood waters were a) not deep enough to be global and cover any highland of substance, b) haven't reversed. You seem to be presenting evidence that would fit option 2) in the OP (a local flood) while arguing for option 1) (a global flood).

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
It is worth mentioning that the reference to sunken cities off the Indian coast is to "city-like structures" in the Gulf of Cambay, reported in 2001.

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quote:

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vedanet

Ambhrini is a female teacher and student in the tradition, we note. Her status, along with Ila-Vak's is important, as it reminds us of modern southern Mother-Goddess Gurus, such as Sri Ammachi and Mother Meera. The Garbharakshambika temple in Tanjore in the South is associated with the tale of the Vedic Nidhruva Rishi, and his wife Vedhika.

This all shows us that Ila and her ancient land, lay to the South, and the entire Vedic-Manu tradition of the Aryas came from there, before setting up their new land of Ila or the Aryas on the Sarasvati River of the North.

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ephemeris history india

Although Manu dates from before the Rig Veda his codification of law, the Manu Smriti, only survives in a later form of post-Vedic Sanskrit. Manu, the Hindu father of mankind, was mentioned as the king of Dravida (southern India) before the flood, who resettled in the Himalayas to the north after the flood.

This tale of a flood has some parallels with the Mesopotamian tale of amphibious fish people who warned of a flood and guided kings in matters of science and law.

In southern India and Sri Lanka, ancient Tamil stories survive telling of days thousands of years ago when Sri Lanka and the Indian mainland were one land. Their legends tell of mighty empires that were engulfed by the sea. In his book, Underworld: The mysterious origins of civilization, Graham Hancock discusses how many of these stories are highly credible, knowing what we know today about glacial melting and ensuing worldwide floods.

Tamil legends speak of ancient learning centers (Sangam) that were swallowed by the sea, with only a few rishis (wise men) surviving each inundation to carry forward their sacred knowledge. The first Sangam, according to legend, was created circa 9,600 BCE in the land of Kumari Kandam, an ancient kingdom between present-day India and Sri Lanka submerged thousands of years ago.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Myrrh:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:


It's all well and good repeating that the North Sea, Black Sea, Indian coastal cities etc were inundated at the end of the last glaciation ... but that's not really relevant as the flood waters were a) not deep enough to be global and cover any highland of substance, b) haven't reversed. You seem to be presenting evidence that would fit option 2) in the OP (a local flood) while arguing for option 1) (a global flood).

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Both. And these are relevant.

There was certainly a vast rise in sea level from the beginning of our current interglacial (the sea level during the ice age is some 450 ft below present levels) and particularly the Holocene, though its effects have been different at different locations. And has to include the 1000 year rapid re-freeze and equally rapid melting again (some say this could have been as short as a decade), of the younger dryas which cause is still not certain - comet sounds reasonable as it would explain the extinction event.

Plato's Atlantis which someone recently, sorry offhand can't recall the name, placed quite convincingly in S. America, could be seen as one end of the spectrum of local flood events over the next centuries beginning with the Holocene period (because of its dramatic rise in temperature) depending on how and where the ice melted. So would include such events as the birth of the Sarasvati in India and the flooding of the cities around its coast in existance around that time as well as the formation of the Great Lakes in the north Americas and all the individual stories from the variety of people around the world as they experienced such flooding.

However, I think the Noah story is centred around the Black Sea inundation which is about 5-4000 BC which would be along that spectrum further down the centuries - as more of the ice in the frozen northern hemisphere still existing as a barrier wall containing earlier melted ice sheets, as vast lakes, finally gave way. In which case the breakthrough to flooding would be for all practical purposes instantaneous - and this is the effect described and understood in the northern Americas and North Sea events.

I also think that this Noah story is the same event as described in the Hindu literature dating back to around 3,500 BC and also the likely original 'keeper' of this story which then gets spread in the Sumerian, Akkadian and Hebrew retelling and elaboration. India at that time had a vast body of 'literature' in sophisticated oral tradition passed on practically unchanged and there has been some work done on tracing the spread of the survivors of the Black Sea event to the Ukraine, to India and Mesopotamia - as I mentioned earlier, Abraham's father is said to have come from the 'other side of the flood' and likely part of this migration.


So both. What actually tipped the balance to produce the local flood events will be different for different locations, but the scale in many places is of the Noah ilk. Descriptions such as covering the mountains or rising to the heavens and leaving barely any survivors, sometimes only one, are commonplace.

The greater our understanding of the geological aspects re time taken of these billions tons of ice melting at the beginning of the repeated cycles of interglacials the better we'll get the picture to the sequence of these local events. There is always this sharp rise in temperature at the beginning of 'holocenes' (Vostok graph, earlier posted link).

And, from the Vostok graph it's quite clear that we are also repeating the same pattern of decrease in temperature since that beginning, we're heading rapidly back into our ice age again.

When this will happen, estimates vary. From within the next hundred years to some centuries. Examine the graph and decide for yourself, but global warming and another Noah's flood isn't going to be a problem until our next interglacial and by then will there be anyone around still passing down in memory that the rainbow story was wishful thinking...?


Myrrh

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Nice post Myrrh. Well researched and all in all a pretty good case for a global flood..which would also explain the extinction event. [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Nice post Myrrh. Well researched and all in all a pretty good case for a global flood..which would also explain the extinction event.

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I think you might need to re-read that. The "global" flood Myrrh speaks of seems very divergent from the flood you speak of earlier in the thread. [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Nice post Myrrh. Well researched and all in all a pretty good case for a global flood..which would also explain the extinction event.

---

I think you might need to re-read that. The "global" flood Myrrh speaks of seems very divergent from the flood you speak of earlier in the thread.

---

Certainly, Myrrh's underlying assumption is that flood events were localised, However, that is just one way of interpreting the evidence she quotes. Say, for instance the timing assumed for these 'local' events was not accurate? Say also that Extinctions and glaciation events were the simultaneous result of a catstrophic climate adjustment due to the collapse of the prediluvian eco system? Since no one alive now was there and there are plenty of vested interests in finding alternative non Biblical explanations of what we see in and on the earth, why not have an alternative alternative explanation, viz: the Bible is accurate in what it says about a global flood.

By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams? [/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:
The "global" flood Myrrh speaks of seems very divergent from the flood you speak of earlier in the thread.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams?

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quote:

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By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams?

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As a non scientist my own interest is purely speculatory. There are apparently man made artifacts that have been found in coal seams and rock strata that should not exist.

Whilst not accepting everthing Graham Hancock puts forward, one of his themes is that ancient men (pre flood perhaps?) had advanced knowledge and skills, way beyond what is traditionally thought possible.

He cites a number of things which seem to support that idea. There are many unexplained sites in the world, Puma Puku in S.America for one, which clearly show very advanced stone cutting technology that helped cuts 200 ton to 400 ton stones (these are way beyond primitive tecnology and the pin point machine made drill lines are clearly observable); the remains of the cuts can be seen to this day.

Much of the speculation on who did this is unhelpful (aliens for instance Arrrggghhhhh ! ), but if we accept pre flood civilisations did exist and possessed skills as advanced or more advanced than ours today, we can 'explain' these phenomenon to an extent.

Whatever we think, there are many unexplained aspects like the man made object buried in seams that are suppossedly ''millions'' of years old. These are inconvenient artifacts to the conventional scientist , who sees only 'primitive' men existing at the dawn of time.

There are many things that just don't add up. I for one think there is much we do not know and some of our sacred shibboleths will need examining and rethinking.

Saul
 

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Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Jamat said:

quote:

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By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams?

---

As a non scientist my own interest is purely speculatory. There are apparently man made artifacts that have been found in coal seams and rock strata that should not exist.

Whilst not accepting everthing Graham Hancock puts forward, one of his themes is that ancient men (pre flood perhaps?) had advanced knowledge and skills, way beyond what is traditionally thought possible.

He cites a number of things which seem to support that idea. There are many unexplained sites in the world, Puma Puku in S.America for one, which clearly show very advanced stone cutting technology that helped cuts 200 ton to 400 ton stones (these are way beyond primitive tecnology and the pin point machine made drill lines are clearly observable); the remains of the cuts can be seen to this day.

Much of the speculation on who did this is unhelpful (aliens for instance Arrrggghhhhh ! ), but if we accept pre flood civilisations did exist and possessed skills as advanced or more advanced than ours today, we can 'explain' these phenomenon to an extent.

Whatever we think, there are many unexplained aspects like the man made object buried in seams that are suppossedly ''millions'' of years old. These are inconvenient artifacts to the conventional scientist , who sees only 'primitive' men existing at the dawn of time.

There are many things that just don't add up. I for one think there is much we do not know and some of our sacred shibboleths will need examining and rethinking.

Saul

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quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
All I would put forward is that there is much we do not know and what we think we know (say about the Noahaic flood etc) is probably not much more than the Biblical account anyway.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
To be fair there is little (on the web at least) about such artefacts.

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I suspect much conventional knowledge may in fact have to eat humble pie as we discover more and more about God's amazing creation.

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Astronomer Copernicus reburied as hero in Poland

Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose findings were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heretical, was reburied by Polish priests as a hero on Saturday, nearly 500 years after he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

His burial in a tomb in the cathedral where he once served as a church canon and doctor indicates how far the church has come in making peace with the scientist whose revolutionary theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun helped usher in the modern scientific age.

Copernicus, who lived from 1473 to 1543, died as a little-known astronomer working in a remote part of northern Poland, far from Europe's centers of learning. He had spent years laboring in his free time developing his theory, which was later condemned as heretical by the church because it removed Earth and humanity from their central position in the universe.

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At the urging of a local bishop, scientists began searching in 2004 for the astronomer's remains and eventually turned up a skull and bones of a 70-year-old man — the age Copernicus was when he died. A computer reconstruction made by forensic police based on the skull showed a broken nose and other features that resemble a self-portrait of Copernicus.

In a later stage of the investigation, DNA taken from teeth and bones matched that from hairs found in one of his books, leading the scientists to conclude with great probability that they had finally found Copernicus.

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Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
By "reliable evidence" I was hoping for something written by, y'know, a respected scientist (preferably in a peer-reviewed journal), not some crazy Mormon guy who goes around the internet reporting things like the Calaveras skull from a completely uncritical creationist perspective when the person who placed it where it was found has owned up and said it was a hoax. If you're going to tell me that these artefacts are there, unexplained and causing scientists to lose sleep, I'd really like to see some scientists confirming that.

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Originally posted by Louise:
He probably believed in various monsters and dragons, there's nothing wrong with that in a first century bloke, but if someone thinks it makes it compulsory for us to believe in them, then I have a dragon-hunting safari I want to sell to them... and then the trip to find the Ark!

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Graham Hancock is a controversial and disputed author. I would say he raises some interesting questions (about advanced pre flood societies)and tends to point to very advanced civilisations and in that broad brush stroke way i would tend to agree with him.

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quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Nice post Myrrh. Well researched and all in all a pretty good case for a global flood..which would also explain the extinction event.

---

I think you might need to re-read that. The "global" flood Myrrh speaks of seems very divergent from the flood you speak of earlier in the thread.

---

Certainly, Myrrh's underlying assumption is that flood events were localised, However, that is just one way of interpreting the evidence she quotes. Say, for instance the timing assumed for these 'local' events was not accurate? Say also that Extinctions and glaciation events were the simultaneous result of a catstrophic climate adjustment due to the collapse of the prediluvian eco system? Since no one alive now was there and there are plenty of vested interests in finding alternative non Biblical explanations of what we see in and on the earth, why not have an alternative alternative explanation, viz: the Bible is accurate in what it says about a global flood.

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[/QB]

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quote:

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Pardee went on to propose that the way this occurred was that the ice dam had blocked the water until the water became deep enough to lift up the ice dam and allow the blocked water to rush out with almost unimaginable force so that the lake was completely emptied within just 48 hours. He suggested that the lobe of the Cordilleran Glacier was the actual plug or dam that blocked the Clark Fork River. This ice dam caused the formation of Lake Missoula (4,150 feet above sea level) to reach a depth of about 2,000 feet over some 3,000 square miles.5 When the ice dam failed, 500 cubic miles of water rushed out of Lake Missoula at 50 to 60 miles per hour (or 9.46 cubic miles per hour), which translates into a 2,000 foot wall of water smashing with Herculean force all the way to the pacific ocean. Scablands

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Therefore, the authors are proposing that the most likely scenario was as follows:

a) Noah lived in the Aras (Araxes) river valley and there he built the famous Ark. (see Noah's Ark, How to build one )
b) When the flood came, and when "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail" the Ark with its passengers were floated on a severely flooded Aras river.
c) That when the flood receded the Ark finally settled somewhere around the rim of the Aras valley, not far from where it started its journey.
d) Then after the flood Noah and family settled in the area of Nakhichevan (Naxcivan).
There are two traditional landing spots in the area, the Ilandagh (Snake mountain) chain (peak at 7825 ft. (2385 m))(from http://www.faik.00server.com/ index.html) and also Gapicig mountain as follows.
Ararat

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Do I think that (as I think Petaflop pointed out some time ago) God opened the windows of heaven, that within forty days the peaks of the mountains were 30 feet under water, that 150 days later it was all over, and that a handful of people in a boat saved vast numbers of species of animal? No I don't, not remotely. I think it is physically impossible.

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quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:
I'm curious then - if the Flood is likely to a remaining cultural memory of localized flooding during the beginning of this interglacial, perhaps the Garden of Eden is an even further back memory of the previous interglacial period?

It seems farfetched, but it blows my mind already that the memory of flooding at the beginning of this interglacial could still be remembered....

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Secret Garden

According to David Rohl, however, the true identities of the Gihon and Pishon were cracked by one Reginald Walker, a little-known scholar who died 10 years ago. Walker had published his findings in the quaintly titled "Still Trowelling", newsletter of the Ancient and Medieval History Book Club, in 1986. "But because the prevailing wisdom even among most biblical scholars is that the Old Testament is little more than myth," said Rohl, "nobody took him seriously."

So let's reconsider Walker's findings. Just north-east of where Rohl and I, with our half daft smiles, had entered the supposed Eden, there's a river called the Aras. But before the Islamic invasion of the 8th century AD, as Walker discovered, the Aras was known as the Gaihun, equivalent of the Hebrew Gihon. Amazingly, as Rohl subsequently found, Victorian dictionaries had referred to the river as the Gihon-Aras.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Myrrh:


There is nothing more irritating in these discussions than having posts taken out of context. If you want to argue about Rohl's Egyptian chronology and whether or not he's a dumbass then he has a website where you can do this, it is irrelevant to the chronology I'm presenting here. So is lumping all of Hancock as an objection, he's matured quite a lot over the years, which he's the first to admit..

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In the information sheet STILL TROWELLING no.8, issued by the Ancient History Book Club, there is a short piece by R. A. Walker on the possible geographical origins of the Greek Olympians as argued from etymological considerations of the names of Zeus and his immediate family. He concludes that Hephaestus, at least, originated in the Caucasus.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Louise:
Different horses for different courses, I might trust them on aqueduct technology but not on determining whether there had or had not been a global flood.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams?

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I've never heard of such a thing - what's your source?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Louise:

quote:

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Originally posted by Myrrh:


There is nothing more irritating in these discussions than having posts taken out of context. If you want to argue about Rohl's Egyptian chronology and whether or not he's a dumbass then he has a website where you can do this, it is irrelevant to the chronology I'm presenting here. So is lumping all of Hancock as an objection, he's matured quite a lot over the years, which he's the first to admit..

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Rohl and Hancock are as reputable archaeologically as Nigerian princes who email to say they're going to put millions in your bank account. Now if you could cite someone reputable who agrees with Rohl's argument in this case and who has published to the effect that contrary to Rohl's usual track record, this might be worth looking at, that would be different.

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quote:

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If you want me to believe he's a reformed character, then please do show me a review in a proper archaeology journal of how this book stands up to scrutiny - preferably by an archaeologist who hasn't been caught dynasty-fiddling and preferably by someone who's basing his findings on something a bit better than a 24 year old article in "Still Trowelling" - the information sheet of Ancient History Book Club'*

L.

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quote:

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*as it turned out to be, in the very few references I could find to this stunningly obscure publication from the 1980s.

quote:

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In the information sheet STILL TROWELLING no.8, issued by the Ancient History Book Club, there is a short piece by R. A. Walker on the possible geographical origins of the Greek Olympians as argued from etymological considerations of the names of Zeus and his immediate family. He concludes that Hephaestus, at least, originated in the Caucasus.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
Graham Hancock is a controversial and disputed author. I would say he raises some interesting questions (about advanced pre flood societies)and tends to point to very advanced civilisations and in that broad brush stroke way i would tend to agree with him.

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But wouldn't you have thought it odd that such very advanced civilisations didn't seem to have got round to building any boats until God handed the blueprints to Noah?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

I think that conventional science with its millions of years time spans and endless changes as to how dinosaurs died out takes as much if not more faith to believe in than a creationist view IMO.


Saul

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quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
But wouldn't you have thought it odd that such very advanced civilisations didn't seem to have got round to building any boats until God handed the blueprints to Noah?

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If you take the strict creationist viewpoint, there had been no rain (pre flood) as the earth had a 'firmament' around it, which kept it a constant ideal temperature and a water mist watered the land.

So Noah would have created a stir building a boat and hence the merriment at his handiwork.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I think that conventional science with its millions of years time spans and endless changes as to how dinosaurs died out takes as much if not more faith to believe in than a creationist view IMO.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
But wouldn't you have thought it odd that such very advanced civilisations didn't seem to have got round to building any boats until God handed the blueprints to Noah?

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If you take the strict creationist viewpoint, there had been no rain (pre flood) as the earth had a 'firmament' around it, which kept it a constant ideal temperature and a water mist watered the land.

So Noah would have created a stir building a boat and hence the merriment at his handiwork.

---

Reasonable only if you assume it requires rain to sail a boat. Most people think the main requirement is an open body of water, which a literal reading of Genesis would say existed since the third day of creation.

quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I think that conventional science with its millions of years time spans and endless changes as to how dinosaurs died out takes as much if not more faith to believe in than a creationist view IMO.

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I'm not sure what's so unreasonable about "millions of years time spans". Doesn't the fact that we can look out into the universe for several billion light years mean that the universe is several billion years old?

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quote:

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Yes, like I said, my own perspective is non scientific and is based on a simple reading of Genesis. I don't put forward any pet personal theories. I've read an overview of what creationists and conventional evolutionists think.

My view is based on a straight forward reading of the Genesis account...but....heres the rider....there is so much within the account which leads to more and more (unanswerable )questions. So I am a reverend agnostic in these matters, but find my 'allegiance' towards the broad literalist interpretation of scripture and bizarre as it may sound I believe the earth is a young earth and the massive time spans as put forward by evolutionists are created because they're necessary for their beliefs.

There was in my view a worldwide (deluge/flood etc) catastrophe and this seems to have been accepted by Jesus himself and Peter as well as most of the early church and into the time of the church fathers etc.

I am not a ''militant crusading creationist'' as such, I just feel drawn towards a broad brush reading and acceptance of the Genesis account. I am not into rubbishing anyone elses view either, its just my personal prespective as a Christian (and non scientist).

There are indeed more questions than answers and there are anomalies in the evolutionist approach; the arguments are well rehearsed on either side of the 'divide'.

Saul

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
I think that conventional science with its millions of years time spans and endless changes as to how dinosaurs died out takes as much if not more faith to believe in than a creationist view IMO.

---

I'm not sure what's so unreasonable about "millions of years time spans". Doesn't the fact that we can look out into the universe for several billion light years mean that the universe is several billion years old?

---

Yes, like I said, my own perspective is non scientific and is based on a simple reading of Genesis. I don't put forward any pet personal theories. I've read an overview of what creationists and conventional evolutionists think.

My view is based on a straight forward reading of the Genesis account...but....heres the rider....there is so much within the account which leads to more and more (unanswerable) questions. So I am a reverend agnostic in these matters, but find my 'allegiance' towards the broad literalist interpretation of scripture and bizarre as it may sound I believe the earth is a young earth and the massive time spans as put forward by evolutionists are created because they're necessary for their beliefs.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
So I am a reverend agnostic in these matters

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quote:

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I believe the earth is a young earth and the massive time spans as put forward by evolutionists are created because they're necessary for their beliefs.

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quote:

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There was in my view a worldwide (deluge/flood etc) catastrophe and this seems to have been accepted by Jesus himself and Peter as well as most of the early church and into the time of the church fathers etc.

---

quote:

---

I am not a ''militant crusading creationist'' as such, I just feel drawn towards a broad brush reading and acceptance of the Genesis account. I am not into rubbishing anyone elses view either, its just my personal prespective as a Christian (and non scientist).

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quote:

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There are indeed more questions than answers and there are anomalies in the evolutionist approach; the arguments are well rehearsed on either side of the 'divide'.

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quote:

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Originally posted by kfingers:
I am sometimes quite envious of those who take the Bible at face value in a literal sense. Things must be so much easier to just do that. I respect people who will stick to their beliefs against overwhelming odds.

If you wanna believe it then that's fine. If you wanna call it history that's ok with me. Just don't go teaching it as the only way of looking at and interpreting one section of The Bible at the expense of all other points of view. That's bigotry and it annoys me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams?

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I've never heard of such a thing - what's your source?

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Look
What do you make of it?

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quote:

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The stone is real, and it looks impressive to someone unfamiliar with geological processes. How could a modern artifact be stuck in Ordovician rock? The answer is that the concretion itself is not Ordovician. Minerals in solution can harden around an intrusive object dropped in a crack or simply left on the ground if the source rock (in this case, reportedly Ordovician) is chemically soluble (Cole, 1985).

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"The cup was likely dropped by a worker either inside a coal mine or in a mine's surface workings. Mineralization is common in the coal and surrounding debris of coal mines because rainwater reacts with the newly exposed minerals and produces highly mineralized solutions. Coal, sediments, and rocks are commonly cemented together in just a few years. It could easily appear that a pot cemented in such a concretion could appear superficially as if it were encased in the original coal. Or small pieces of coal, including powder, could have been recompressed around the cup by weight" (Isaac, 2005).

Thus, a person who broke open such a nodule might mistakenly conclude that it was part of the host formation, rather than a secondary product of the mining environment. This phenomena has been documented with objects as modern as soda bottles and World War II artifacts (Al-Aga, 1995; McKusick and Shinn, 1980)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:

There was in my view a worldwide (deluge/flood etc) catastrophe and this seems to have been accepted by Jesus himself and Peter as well as most of the early church and into the time of the church fathers etc.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams?

---

I've never heard of such a thing - what's your source?

---

Look
What do you make of it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
So Noah would have created a stir building a boat and hence the merriment at his handiwork.

---

quote:

---

I think that conventional science with its millions of years time spans and endless changes as to how dinosaurs died out takes as much if not more faith to believe in than a creationist view IMO.

---

quote:

---

My view is based on a straight forward reading of the Genesis account...but....heres the rider....there is so much within the account which leads to more and more (unanswerable )questions. So I am a reverend agnostic in these matters, but find my 'allegiance' towards the broad literalist interpretation of scripture and bizarre as it may sound I believe the earth is a young earth and the massive time spans as put forward by evolutionists are created because they're necessary for their beliefs.

---

quote:

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There are indeed more questions than answers and there are anomalies in the evolutionist approach;

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:

---

Yes, like I said, my own perspective is non scientific and is based on a simple reading of Genesis. I don't put forward any pet personal theories. I've read an overview of what creationists and conventional evolutionists think.

My view is based on a straight forward reading of the Genesis account...but....heres the rider....there is so much within the account which leads to more and more (unanswerable )questions. So I am a reverend agnostic in these matters, but find my 'allegiance' towards the broad literalist interpretation of scripture and bizarre as it may sound I believe the earth is a young earth and the massive time spans as put forward by evolutionists are created because they're necessary for their beliefs.

There was in my view a worldwide (deluge/flood etc) catastrophe and this seems to have been accepted by Jesus himself and Peter as well as most of the early church and into the time of the church fathers etc.

I am not a ''militant crusading creationist'' as such, I just feel drawn towards a broad brush reading and acceptance of the Genesis account. I am not into rubbishing anyone elses view either, its just my personal prespective as a Christian (and non scientist).

There are indeed more questions than answers and there are anomalies in the evolutionist approach; the arguments are well rehearsed on either side of the 'divide'.

Saul

---

Hmmmmmm - this sounds like 'I will believe in young earth creationism as it fits what I already believe, so don't bother with any evidence as I'm not going to think about it anyway'

You seem to be closing your eyes and blocking your ears here.

My question about how those animals survived without the complex ecosystems they need remains completely ignored - and I am not in the least scientific. It's a simple straightforward impossibility that they would last long enough to breed. (even if the many predators hadn't eaten them first)

...

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
By the way, does anyone have an explanation for the occasional man made artifacts found in coal seams?

---

I've never heard of such a thing - what's your source?

---

Look
What do you make of it?

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1. There's a human face on Mars. We see what we want to see sometimes, and patterns we are used to may be gleaned out of natural formations. Jesus on your toast, anybody?

2. We know human artifacts are buried. Any number of buried artifact stories are completely irrelevant, unless you can verify that they were in untouched-by-human-hands strata that are verified to be pre-human. "I found it in my well" just doesn't cut it. Normal wells don't cut through pre-human rock.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
One needs to bring a humble mind to scripture, very hard for most of us to do that but God states that he resists the proud.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You forgot to say there was a man in the moon.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:

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Yes, like I said, my own perspective is non scientific and is based on a simple reading of Genesis. I don't put forward any pet personal theories. I've read an overview of what creationists and conventional evolutionists think.

My view is based on a straight forward reading of the Genesis account...but....heres the rider....there is so much within the account which leads to more and more (unanswerable )questions. So I am a reverend agnostic in these matters, but find my 'allegiance' towards the broad literalist interpretation of scripture and bizarre as it may sound I believe the earth is a young earth and the massive time spans as put forward by evolutionists are created because they're necessary for their beliefs.

There was in my view a worldwide (deluge/flood etc) catastrophe and this seems to have been accepted by Jesus himself and Peter as well as most of the early church and into the time of the church fathers etc.

I am not a ''militant crusading creationist'' as such, I just feel drawn towards a broad brush reading and acceptance of the Genesis account. I am not into rubbishing anyone elses view either, its just my personal prespective as a Christian (and non scientist).

There are indeed more questions than answers and there are anomalies in the evolutionist approach; the arguments are well rehearsed on either side of the 'divide'.

Saul

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Hmmmmmm - this sounds like 'I will believe in young earth creationism as it fits what I already believe, so don't bother with any evidence as I'm not going to think about it anyway'

You seem to be closing your eyes and blocking your ears here.

My question about how those animals survived without the complex ecosystems they need remains completely ignored - and I am not in the least scientific. It's a simple straightforward impossibility that they would last long enough to breed. (even if the many predators hadn't eaten them first)

...

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I think you're straining at a gnat here.

Noah stayed inside his ship for quite a long time after the rain stopped. He did not leave it until receiving divine sanction to do so.. Well, you wouldn't would you; what if it started raining again?

The dove came back with a fresh olive branch. That is proof don't you think that the eco system had begun to recover?

Saul the Apostle is right about this stuff to my mind. One needs to bring a humble mind to scripture, very hard for most of us to do that but God states that he resists the proud.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You forgot to say there was a man in the moon.

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If this shows your ability to engage in rational discussion, no wonder you believe in a literal flood.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Looked in the mirror lately old chap?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
One needs to bring a humble mind to scripture, very hard for most of us to do that but God states that he resists the proud.

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quote:

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The Bible is telling us nonsense or all the smart asses are.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Saul the Apostle:
There was in my view a worldwide (deluge/flood etc) catastrophe and this seems to have been accepted by Jesus himself and Peter as well as most of the early church and into the time of the church fathers etc.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
One needs to bring a humble mind to scripture, very hard for most of us to do that but God states that he resists the proud.

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And that raises the question: what is humble and what is proud.

quote:

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The Bible is telling us nonsense or all the smart asses are.

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Is thinking that all the world's biologists and physicists are "smart asses" a sign of humility? Is it what a humble person would do? Or is it not a sign of pride?
Is creationism motivated by the humble desire to learn from God, or is it motivated by the desire to look down on scientists, the pride of thinking that one knows better, and the pleasure of thinking of them as "smart asses"?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
But the man in the moon and the face on mars show the same thing: that people are prepared to see what's not there and persist in stubbornly believing it even when disproven.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:

Jamat - do you also believe that there were no rainbows pre flood and that God caused them to happen afterwards. If so the laws of physics must have changed too.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
One needs to bring a humble mind to scripture, very hard for most of us to do that but God states that he resists the proud.

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And that raises the question: what is humble and what is proud.

quote:

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The Bible is telling us nonsense or all the smart asses are.

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Is thinking that all the world's biologists and physicists are "smart asses" a sign of humility? Is it what a humble person would do? Or is it not a sign of pride?
Is creationism motivated by the humble desire to learn from God, or is it motivated by the desire to look down on scientists, the pride of thinking that one knows better, and the pleasure of thinking of them as "smart asses"?

---

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
It is simply not true that the flood is disproven.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
But you pit your opinion against scripture.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:

Jamat - do you also believe that there were no rainbows pre flood and that God caused them to happen afterwards. If so the laws of physics must have changed too.

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I do not know. I am superstitious about rainbows though. When I see one I always feel privileged and sort of special. 'Thank you God..you said you won't do it again.'

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
It is simply not true that the flood is disproven.

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Well, that depends a bit on what is meant by "flood" in that context.

If you mean an event that resulted in the inundation of the land surface, to sufficient depth to cover at least the higher foothills of mountains, for several weeks by act of divine intervention such that there is no evidence of such an event in the geological record (or, for example, the genetic record of living species) then, of course, such an event can't be disproven. The lack of evidence for such an event is part of the event.

On the other hand, if you have the same inundation event but want to claim that there was no special action by God to cover up the evidence then there's no real option but to declare it disproven. There's no way that such an event could happen without leaving evidence.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
OK, Take sea created fossils on high mountains. Now, that is evidence..of what, is the question. You can say water was up there, or you can say the land pushed up over a few mill years.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
The Bible also says unless you eat Jesus' flesh and drink his blood, you have no eternal life. Eaten any jesusflesh lately? Where do you get it? My fishmonger doesn't carry it. Gee, but the Bible says plainly. I think it means one thing. My Baptist friends think it means another. None of us think it means we find the man Jesus and hack his muscles and skin off and eat them. But that's what the Bible plainly says.

You don't believe what the Bible plainly says everywhere. Nobody does, because it contradicts itself. But it doesn't, you say. Only because you don't take both of the contradictory things actually literally.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
OK, Take sea created fossils on high mountains. Now, that is evidence..of what, is the question. You can say water was up there, or you can say the land pushed up over a few mill years.

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Well, if you accept the basic physics of nuclear processes and radioactive decay then we know that those fossils were created millions of years ago, and that different fossil beds were created at different times over the course of hundreds of millions of years. Of course, known tectonic processes are more than capable of pushing mountains up, taking fossils with them. There's no real problem there, unless for some perverse reason you wish to reject practically the whole of the scientific enterprise.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
Evolution is not about origins, but about process.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Louise:
Jamat,
If we're in the realms of defining 'humble' as uncritical acceptance of the literal inerrancy of one's chosen Holy Book, then there's really no point.

Some of the usual well-known chronological/archaeological frauds have been put forward, but they turn out just window dressing. Their dodgy books and claims are not the real reason for the literal belief in the flood that's being held - which probably ultimately derives from Christology.

The sad thing is that the association of belief in the credibility of Jesus with well-known and easily disproved frauds can actually end up putting Jesus in that category for a lot of people. Instead of elevating the Bible, this approach actually ends up dragging it down to the level of the 'God was a Spaceman' 'Secrets of Atlantis' 'Holy Blood and Holy Grail' type books to be found in the New Age/Alternative history remainder bin.

L.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Bearing in mind I'm no scientist, some creationist aguments query whether C 14 would have been produced in the biological system prior to the flood because they postulate that a vapour canopy would have shielded it from cosmic rays. This of course would give pre flood fossils the impression of infinite age when dated by this method.

---

quote:

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Now, my point is not to argue the toss about this but just to point out that the argument comes down to dating and that not everyone accepts the dating process based on radio active decay.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
But you are quite right. I do not believe what the Bible says is everywhere to be literally applied, or that its every injunction is for today; or that every word is to be literalistically interpreted. Why ever did you think that?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Jamat: If you don't take every detailed bit of Biblical writing as "literal", why do you insist that this one set of verses MUST be taken literally. There are valid reasons why one would accept this specific set of verses as poetic metaphor, probably better reasons than those suggested for other questionable passages.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The half life of 14C, about 5730y, makes it an ideal method of dating modern stuff less than about 50000 years old (it's a bit of a problem for really modern stuff from the last few centuries because human activity has dumped low 14C carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and then added a load of additional 14C from nuclear power and bombs).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
No. You interpret the passage as narrative. And, it's your interpretation that it makes historical claims. Which is not the same as it actually being narrative with historical claims.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Boogie:
Jamat said :-

And MT. The Bible says a flood happened. My interpretation of the Scripture is irrelevant. It categorically states it

It categorically states many things which are plain wrong.

But, I imagine, that's another poorly pony.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
We've been over this in the other thread.

Genesis 7:11b: on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
You say there is no indication in the text to justify treating this as allegory. It's really what happened.
You say there is no indication in the text to justify treating this as metaphor. There really are windows in the heavens. Oh wait - you don't say that.
You know that sciences says that there aren't literal windows in the sky so here you say that the Bible isn't being literal. But you don't make the case that it's a metaphor from the text: you just handwave it.

If you don't need to make the case that there's no windows from the text - if it's just nitpicking to ask you to - then you don't need to make the case that the whole flood story is an allegory from the text. It's just nitpicking to say that it has to be actual history.

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Well, whatever. What I object to is being told I'm 'interpreting'as if this was some self evident rebuttal of a 'plain text' reading of the story, and posing the question, 'if that is the case, how we can 'know' anything through the medium of language?
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
I think I am bowing out now.

I see the flood story as history but viewed through ancient eyes - i.e. the whole known world was flooded and the rest of the story grew from there.

I've given lots of reasons for thinking so (the main one being the impossibility of life without pollinating insects - which no-one has answered) and would be repeating myself if I stay in the discussion.

:wave:

Enjoy
 

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Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The half life of 14C, about 5730y, makes it an ideal method of dating modern stuff less than about 50000 years old (it's a bit of a problem for really modern stuff from the last few centuries because human activity has dumped low 14C carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and then added a load of additional 14C from nuclear power and bombs).

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I've not generally got a problem with carbon-dating, but when I read this I feel like there's a step missing. If there's been a dump of 14C in the last few centuries, why would that only be a problem for dating modern things?

Can you clarify, please? I take it that one reason is that ancient things aren't incorporating any further atmospheric carbon. However, I would have thought that there'd also be a problem in assuming what the base value for 14C was, if we've been altering it since before we actually had the know-how to calculate it.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
No. You interpret the passage as narrative. And, it's your interpretation that it makes historical claims. Which is not the same as it actually being narrative with historical claims.

---

So you assert. To say a text that clearly says something doesn't say it is actually to deny the possibility of objective communication through language. It's not honest.

If you want to see the flood story as allegory I think the onus is on you to make the case.

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1. There's no evidence that the ancient world had an understanding of historical narrative that we would recognise as imparting objective accounts of what actually happened. Ancient histories are almost always highly selective in their choice of what parts of a story to include, they're almost always written with a specific aim. In many apsects they read more like propoganda than anything else.
2. The Flood narrative sits within a section of the Bible that includes many other stories that include fantastical elements - talking snakes, magical trees, angels with flaming swords, people of incredible age, towers that reach to the heavens etc. It seems inappropriate to take one story from that collection of fantasies and declare it to be actual history.
3. The story itself includes impossible elements. The Ark was big, but not that big ... even with a small number of animals from different species it wouldn't be big enough for representatives of all species, let alone the food they'd need. Plus the issues of getting those animals to the Ark. The story doesn't tell us anything about how fish and plants survived the Flood, yet we have an olive tree flourishing almost as soon as dry land reappears.

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
There's no evidence that the ancient world had an understanding of historical narrative.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
No. You interpret the passage as narrative. And, it's your interpretation that it makes historical claims. Which is not the same as it actually being narrative with historical claims.

---

So you assert. To say a text that clearly says something doesn't say it is actually to deny the possibility of objective communication through language. It's not honest.

If you want to see the flood story as allegory I think the onus is on you to make the case.

---

First off, we all interpret the Bible. The decision that a "plain reading" is possible is, in itself, an act of interpretation. When you start deciding that some passages are best understood with a "plain reading" and others need more nuanced study, you're interpreting. Most of us read the Bible in translation; translation is an act of interpretation. There's absolutely nothing wrong with interpreting Scripture. Indeed, to fail to do so would be IMO a means of not listening to what it says and deny it's authority to address issues of our lives today. The problem comes when one interpretation is arbitarily held as superior to another.

To address the main point. Evidence that the Flood narrative is not best understood as a description of objective, historical events. There's so many potential points I could make, even if I don't mention the fact that science tells us it can't possibly be.

1. There's no evidence that the ancient world had an understanding of historical narrative that we would recognise as imparting objective accounts of what actually happened. Ancient histories are almost always highly selective in their choice of what parts of a story to include, they're almost always written with a specific aim. In many apsects they read more like propoganda than anything else.
2. The Flood narrative sits within a section of the Bible that includes many other stories that include fantastical elements - talking snakes, magical trees, angels with flaming swords, people of incredible age, towers that reach to the heavens etc. It seems inappropriate to take one story from that collection of fantasies and declare it to be actual history.
3. The story itself includes impossible elements. The Ark was big, but not that big ... even with a small number of animals from different species it wouldn't be big enough for representatives of all species, let alone the food they'd need. Plus the issues of getting those animals to the Ark. The story doesn't tell us anything about how fish and plants survived the Flood, yet we have an olive tree flourishing almost as soon as dry land reappears.

That's just for starters without even really thinking about it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Regarding historicity claims, I suppose you could count the times the phrase "These are the generations of.." is used in Gen 1-11. Six times in fact. Clearly authorial intent was to reflect a narrative history.

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quote:

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Elesewhere in scripture, The flood is mentioned by Job, the Pslams, Matthew, Peter, maybe otherss. In pretty well all cases (Psalms is poetry genre,) the references suggest those writers thought it was factual not allegorical.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
By the way, using a conservative cubit length of 18inches, The ark was 450 feet long and contained 1.5 million cubic feet of storage over its three decks.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
So,to summarise your view, "Because it is supernatural, it didn't happen." Fair comment?

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quote:

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Alan Cresswell:..within the Flood story, and stories that set the context for it, there are elements that indicate quite strongly that there was no intention of it being read as a factual account of historical events.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Myth is, of course, a human cultural memory primarily. God's actions are the foundation of all human myth so whats the deal that his Bible contains what seems to us, mythical elements?

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quote:

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Croesos: Ah, the argument by big numbers. 1.5 million square feet sounds like a lot, but what do the Ark dimensions translate to in modern terms?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Alan Cresswell:..within the Flood story, and stories that set the context for it, there are elements that indicate quite strongly that there was no intention of it being read as a factual account of historical events.

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And far more,that indicate the opposite.

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quote:

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Originally posted by pjkirk:
So, you think that the estimated 5 million species on the planet could fit in there, and somehow find their habitats once they got out? Species so fine-tuned to their niches that one is a mite that lives on the feet of an ant that lives on an epiphyte of a vine of a tree in a certain cloud forest on a specific mountain in Chile?

Get real. There is *no* scenario where the ark or flood is reasonable. Your "humility" in this thread involves a lot of arrogance in dismissing 97 different areas of science which say there is no way this happened. None. whatsoever.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Bearing in mind I'm no scientist, some creationist aguments query whether C 14 would have been produced in the biological system prior to the flood because they postulate that a vapour canopy would have shielded it from cosmic rays. This of course would give pre flood fossils the impression of infinite age when dated by this method.

---

OK, I'll try and explain in a way accessible to a non-scientist. We'll start with 14C dating, as you raised it, even though it's irrelevant to dating fossils. 14C is mostly* produced by reactions with cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere. Atmospheric circulation then brings it down to the surface where it is absorbed by plants, and then animals as they eat the plants. For a 'vapour canopy' to prevent 14C production it would need to exist above the atmosphere, which would be physically impossible, and to be so dense that it would significantly restrict sunlight reaching the surface. Such a canopy would certainly obscure the stars and moon far more effectively than a cloudy night. Perhaps it's your idea of Paradise, but I can't imagine Eden being a perpetual twilight of heavily filtered diffuse sunlight and very little warmth.

The half life of 14C, about 5730y, makes it an ideal method of dating modern stuff less than about 50000 years old (it's a bit of a problem for really modern stuff from the last few centuries because human activity has dumped low 14C carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and then added a load of additional 14C from nuclear power and bombs).

There are a whole load of additional dating methods that cover different time scales that are largely independent of cosmic rays. Dating methods based on the decay of primodial radioactive materials (ie: stuff that was incorporated into the earth when the planet formed) can stretch dating back billions of years - that's basically using the uranium series, thorium series and 40K decays. It's these methods that are used to date fossil beds.

Luminescence methods, which use electrons trapped in excited states in quartz or feldspar crystals, can date materials upto a few hundred thousand years old. They're no good for dating fossils, but can provide an independent cross-check on 14C dates and extend chronologies back from them. Events that leave annual or seasonal records can also produce dating evidence. This would include tree-rings with one ring each year (and variations on ring size depending on the environmental conditions each year) which with trees giving overlapping dates can take us back in time a few millenia. Similar patterns in glaciers (reflecting seasonal influxes of fresh snow) or lake sediments can do the same. Again, no good for dating fossils but further independent verification of 14C dates (actually, generally they can provide absolute dates as counting rings/layers gives a precise age, and so are often used as a calibration on 14C to adjust for changes in cosmic ray flux and anthropogenic influences).

quote:

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Now, my point is not to argue the toss about this but just to point out that the argument comes down to dating and that not everyone accepts the dating process based on radio active decay.

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It's clearly the case that not everyone accepts dating methods based on radioactive decay. But, to reject that dating method you need to reject a large chunk of nuclear and quantum physics. And, usually that goes hand in hand with rejecting the scientific disciplines of geology (which had determined that the earth is old long before there was an absolute method of dating the past), and biology (because, again, the evidence of biology for evolution over long periods is consistent with the dating methods). And, because the fields of biology, geology and physics are basically outworkings of the scientific method, presumably they think there's something deeply flawed about the scientific method as it's failed to 'correct' the findings of these fields of investigation.

As I said, some people perversely reject practically the whole of the scientific enterprise.


-----------
* Most 14C is formed in the atmosphere, a very small proportion is formed at the surface. This doesn't affect the argument against a 'vapour canopy' because it's such a small contribution to the total. It can be an important contribution to some dating methods though. In particular surface-exposure dating which uses cosmogenic isotopes, including 14C, formed in exposed rock surfaces by the action of the very small fraction of cosmic rays that reach the surface.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Myth is, of course, a human cultural memory primarily. God's actions are the foundation of all human myth so whats the deal that his Bible contains what seems to us, mythical elements?

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Nothing's the deal. We acknowledge that. What's the deal with not accepting that they're myths?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Perhaps that is because 'Science' is actually the work of fallible, fallen humans with an agenda to support rather than some kind of secular 'papal' authority; and why this is a bona fide 'dead horse'.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Thank you for this explanation [of various scientific dating methods] which is very accessible to this non scientist. If it is not too much of an imposition could you explain briefly if Uranium and Thorium dating work on the same principle as 14C?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Myth is, of course, a human cultural memory primarily. God's actions are the foundation of all human myth so whats the deal that his Bible contains what seems to us, mythical elements?

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Nothing's the deal. We acknowledge that. What's the deal with not accepting that they're myths?

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Because most people define myth as non factual. I see Genesis as intentionally factual. if God says something,it is right; if Science contradicts this, then Science simply represents human folly.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The half life of 14C, about 5730y, makes it an ideal method of dating modern stuff less than about 50000 years old (it's a bit of a problem for really modern stuff from the last few centuries because human activity has dumped low 14C carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and then added a load of additional 14C from nuclear power and bombs).

---

I've not generally got a problem with carbon-dating, but when I read this I feel like there's a step missing. If there's been a dump of 14C in the last few centuries, why would that only be a problem for dating modern things?

Can you clarify, please? I take it that one reason is that ancient things aren't incorporating any further atmospheric carbon. However, I would have thought that there'd also be a problem in assuming what the base value for 14C was, if we've been altering it since before we actually had the know-how to calculate it.

---

Plants take up carbon through photosynthesis, converting atmospheric CO2 to sugars and other long-chain carbon molecules, in proportion to the isotopic abundances of 12C, 13C and 14C at the time. When a plant dies, that exchange of carbon stops, and the carbon in the plant becomes fixed until the plant decays (or, is eaten). Even decayed plant matter (eg: peat) doesn't significantly exchange carbon with the atmosphere in a manner that would alter the isotopic composition. A sample of wood from a tree that died 1000y ago would have the carbon-isotope ratio of the atmosphere 1000y ago, less the 14C that has decayed. A sample of wood from a tree that died 10y ago would have the carbon-isotope ratio of the atmosphere 10y ago. The complication with modern samples is that the significant swings in atmospheric carbon isotope concentrations create concentration ratios in the samples that are consistent with older (or, newer) samples as well. There are natural variations in atmospheric concentrations, following changes in cosmic ray flux, which also create problematic results (as an extreme example, if the production rate over a 100y period slowed at a rate equivalent to the decay rate of 14C then samples from plants that died throughout that century would have the same carbon isotope ratio and the same apparent age). Which is why we use a calibration curve, and produce results that show the probability of different ages based on the observed isotope ratio. Often you'd need other data to determine which age is most likely to be true (eg: if your sample was from a building that was known to exist in 1800 and one of your possible dates is 1850 you can reasonably exclude that one).

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quote:

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Mousethief: It is patently clear from the world we see that there was no global flood as described in Genesis. Interpretations of Scripture which insist that this story portrays historical fact represent human folly.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Perhaps that is because 'Science' is actually the work of fallible, fallen humans with an agenda to support rather than some kind of secular 'papal' authority; and why this is a bona fide 'dead horse'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Thank you for this explanation [of various scientific dating methods] which is very accessible to this non scientist. If it is not too much of an imposition could you explain briefly if Uranium and Thorium dating work on the same principle as 14C?

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Why bother with further explanations? You're not objecting to the methodology but to the fact that it produces answers you don't like. If you're determined to reject out of hand any data which contradicts your pre-established ideas, why do you care what the data says?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Mousethief: It is patently clear from the world we see that there was no global flood as described in Genesis. Interpretations of Scripture which insist that this story portrays historical fact represent human folly.

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To be so categorical suggests you have an iron clad cage to defend. If you are right you shouldn't give a toss if creationists are cretinous seeing you have the real good oil.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

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Mousethief: It is patently clear from the world we see that there was no global flood as described in Genesis. Interpretations of Scripture which insist that this story portrays historical fact represent human folly.

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To be so categorical suggests you have an iron clad cage to defend. If you are right you shouldn't give a toss if creationists are cretinous seeing you have the real good oil.

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If I didn't argue with people I disagreed with, and you didn't, and nobody else did, there would be no Ship of Fools. Are you trying to tell me to shut up?

I give a toss because I care about truth and it bugs me to hear people ascribe things that aren't true to God. I'm not defending anything, I'm attacking (if you really must use military metaphors) -- attacking sloppy thinking and bad theology.

I don't need an iron clad "cage" (did you mean "case"?). Indeed I don't think I have one -- that's your bailiwick, from what you've displayed on this thread. I haven't seen a lot in your writings that says, "hey, I could be wrong." So to hit me with this "categorical" stuff is just a little ironic. And hypocritical. And not a small bit amusing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You are unlikely to change my mind

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quote:

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It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Thank you for this explanation which is very accessible to this non scientist. If it is not too much of an imposition could you explain briefly if Uranium and Thorium dating work on the same principle as 14C?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

... whether all lead was previously uranium?

---

quote:

---

Why is 14C not useful in dating fossils?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hawk:
But do you know which obscure passages from Genesis St Augustine did attempt to provide meanings for and what were his explanations for them?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Crœsos:
Why bother with further explanations? You're not objecting to the methodology but to the fact that it produces answers you don't like. If you're determined to reject out of hand any data which contradicts your pre-established ideas, why do you care what the data says?

---

Because I'm not afraid of facts. You may know whether all lead was previously uranium? Or whether that is a fair assumption. Why is 14C not useful in dating fossils?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:
Because they are mostly so old that almost all the 14C had reverted to C12

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
But the man in the moon and the face on mars show the same thing: that people are prepared to see what's not there and persist in stubbornly believing it even when disproven.

---

But you pit your opinion against scripture. It is simply not true that the flood is disproven.

The issue is what the evidence points to neh? We have ice ages, extinctions and vast reserves of vegetable matter. We have fossils that each side claims as evidence for their case. The issue cannot be established beyond doubt. Vast amounts of time are disputed by one side and insisted upon by the other. A comet has been mentioned ..pure speculation. Burial grounds and glaciation are explicable in terms of flood. Sure we don't have it all tied down despite extreme claims on both side of the argument.

The Bible has never let me down in any way over many years. it has been exactly what the Lord says it is ..to me. A lamp to the feet and a light to the path. It says there was a flood.I think, therefore, there was.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:
But the man in the moon and the face on mars show the same thing: that people are prepared to see what's not there and persist in stubbornly believing it even when disproven.

---

But you pit your opinion against scripture. It is simply not true that the flood is disproven.

The issue is what the evidence points to neh? We have ice ages, extinctions and vast reserves of vegetable matter. We have fossils that each side claims as evidence for their case. The issue cannot be established beyond doubt. Vast amounts of time are disputed by one side and insisted upon by the other. A comet has been mentioned ..pure speculation. Burial grounds and glaciation are explicable in terms of flood. Sure we don't have it all tied down despite extreme claims on both side of the argument.

The Bible has never let me down in any way over many years. it has been exactly what the Lord says it is ..to me. A lamp to the feet and a light to the path. It says there was a flood.I think, therefore, there was.

---

And this is the problem. It would be honest--though foolish--to say "Science is human folly--scripture is the only source of truth." It is profoundly dishonest to say, "Science is useful so long as it confirms my preconceptions and makes my life more comfortable, but is otherwise untrustworthy." There is no scientific controversy in this matter--only science and anti-science.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
My point is that the only consistent way to believe in "The Flood™" is to reject science as a useful way of knowing anything about the world. You can't have it both ways.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:
I think that you could consistently believe that science is generally true and useful, but that in this particular instance, God has deliberately and flawlessly covered up all evidence of what happened in the past. That wouldn't invalidate science as a way of knowing - it would be in the same catergory as a human interloper switching the labels on all the bottles of chemicals in a lab: the unwitting scientist will fail to get 'true' results in a test-tube from which all the necessary reagent is missing - not because science doesn't work, but because it does.

The problem for that approach is what it says about God, not what it says about science.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
My point is that the only consistent way to believe in "The Flood™" is to reject science as a useful way of knowing anything about the world. You can't have it both ways.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Science is not the issue. An evolutionary and uniformitarian take on the geologic evidence is the issue.

---

1. The catastrophes would be events that are scientifically plausible.
2. Geologists would resist a catastrophic explanation where the data can be explained by processes we can study today.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
My point is that the only consistent way to believe in "The Flood™" is to reject science as a useful way of knowing anything about the world. You can't have it both ways.

---

Science is not the issue. An evolutionary and uniformitarian take on the geologic evidence is the issue. Evolutionary thought is a construct. It is a framework for interpreting realities we see. It is, nevertheless not the only framework. In the strictest sense it is theory and its conclusions do not have the status of fact.

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quote:

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AlanCresswell:all geologists accept some form of catastrophism where there are some events that are due to things not currently observed on Earth (asteroid strikes, super-volcanoes, widespread glaciation etc). Although there are two caveats to that.

The catastrophes would be events that are scientifically plausible.
Geologists would resist a catastrophic explanation where the data can be explained by processes we can study today.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
...Evolutionary thought is a construct. It is a framework for interpreting realities we see. It is, nevertheless not the only framework...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Theory: Correct me please but is it not a suggested or posited scenario that one then tries to experimentally test?

Looking on Wiki, Uniformitarianism seems to have morphed, somewhat like evolution. It now seems to say that things got like they are through the laws of nature we see presently operating but sometimes this means catastrophic events. My understanding of it was more Lyellian.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jamat:
Theory: Correct me please but is it not a suggested or posited scenario that one then tries to experimentally test?

Looking on Wiki, Uniformitarianism seems to have morphed, somewhat like evolution. It now seems to say that things got like they are through the laws of nature we see presently operating but sometimes this means catastrophic events. My understanding of it was more Lyellian.

---

Catastrophic events that can be explained by the same processes we can observe today, certainly. Meteorites strike the Earth frequently--we can extrapolate to very large ones. Floods are common events (especially this week)--we can figure out what a very large one would be like, what conditions might lead to it, and what signs it would leave behind. But a literal understanding of the Genesis flood requires a flood unlike any ever observed, with different causes and, remarkably, without similar effects.

---

It happened way long ago though. Imagine a world virtually covered in giant trees, all undermined, uprooted and meshed into floating carpets of vegetation 1000's of sqare miles in area, waterlogged, buried and finally, voila! coal!

[ 18. June 2010, 22:03: Message edited by: Jamat ]
 

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Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
Tell it to a geologist.
 

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Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on :
 
Jamat: how long in your view is "way long ago"? 6,000 years? 6 million years? 600 million years? Longer? It makes an enormous difference as to what kind of evidence we'd expect to find.

And as Alan said, scientists would most likely use the word "hypothesis" to describe what you said, not "theory". In science, a theory is an overarching explanation which ties together a massive amount of existing evidence. If you think of something like "musical theory" (ok that's an art term but bear with me) it explains how all the musical notes, clefs, keys, time signatures, musical terms and so on hang together to create pieces of sheet music that make sense. In a similar way, "evolutionary theory" explains how all these bits of evidence from diverse areas in biology, genetics, paleontology, geology, medicine and so on all hang together in one system of how life on earth works. It is much, much more than a hypothesis.
 

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Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 
We have a pretty good idea of the evidence left by massive flooding 12,000 years ago. The explanation was, in fact, initially dismissed on the basis of Uniformitarianism when it was first presented, but later research showed the same types of features as we see with normal water flow, just on a much larger scale, and included further research to identify a source for the water.

At the moment we can describe this flood as a theory: we have no written human account of it, but a wide array of data and geological formations support it. There may be alternative explanations for some pieces, but nothing that ties all the diverse evidence together as well.

So we know that large floods can happen. And when they do the water has to come from somewhere and go somewhere. The coming and going of that much water tends to leave marks that give us clues to the depth, flow rate, direction of flow, etc.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Josephine and I have driven through some of the areas that were scarred by that flood. The coulees are quite impressive and in the sere ecosystem of central Washington, very beautiful. If you like check out some photos of Dry Falls, near Coulee City, WA.
 

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Posted by Nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
bouncing this up for ByHisBlood.
 

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Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :
 
Timothy

quote:

---

My point is that the only consistent way to believe in "The Flood" is to reject science as a useful way of knowing anything about the world.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Timothy

quote:

---

My point is that the only consistent way to believe in "The Flood" is to reject science as a useful way of knowing anything about the world.

---

Really? And what verified scientific facts would they be?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Timothy

quote:

---

My point is that the only consistent way to believe in "The Flood" is to reject science as a useful way of knowing anything about the world.

---

Really? And what verified scientific facts would they be?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
Science assumes that the world is consistent: the same observation made under the same conditions will yield the same result. It also assumes that you can understand the world by carefully and systematically observing the world. These are assumptions--they can't be proved. But without them science is impossible, so if you reject them, you reject science.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
...Science assumes that the world is consistent: the same observation made under the same conditions will yield the same result. It also assumes that you can understand the world by carefully and systematically observing the world. These are assumptions--they can't be proved. But without them science is impossible, so if you reject them, you reject science.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by sharkshooter:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
...Science assumes that the world is consistent: the same observation made under the same conditions will yield the same result. It also assumes that you can understand the world by carefully and systematically observing the world. These are assumptions--they can't be proved. But without them science is impossible, so if you reject them, you reject science.

---

But it cannot be proved that conditions remain the same over time.

---

• Nuclear Physics (decay rates)
• Archaeology
• Anthropology
• Evolutionary biology
• Marine Biology (fish have ... issues with the wrong levels of salinity)
• Genetic diversity (how many species are there? Australia on its own would be more than enough)
• Animal husbandry (The food for the ark must have been massive)
• Geology
• Paleontology
• Botany (Because many plants don't survive under water y'know)
• Horticulture (Flooded land)
• Genetics (A recent five person bottleneck)

quote:

---

For example, popular current scientific thinking tells us that the universe came to be from nothing, and that life emerged from non-life. Yet the arguments against such things as the flood assume there is no change in conditions from what we currently observe. This is a difficult thing to grasp from a logical point of view.

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quote:

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And, of course there's not enough water

---

Two points here:-

1. If we look how the toplogy of the Earth's surface altered after the flood, the flattening out of Earths mountains (raised during the flood according to God's Word) and the stores of water of the deep since discovered, would allow the volume of water on earth to cover the original terrain to a depth of 2 miles.

2. Science today amazingly has declared that Mars - a planet with close to nil water - may once have experienced a global flood! Of course those same scientists insist that Earth - a planet mainly covered in water - could never have experienced the same
 

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Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
1. If we look how the toplogy of the Earth's surface altered after the flood, the flattening out of Earths mountains (raised during the flood according to God's Word) and the stores of water of the deep since discovered, would allow the volume of water on earth to cover the original terrain to a depth of 2 miles.

---

quote:

---

2. Science today amazingly has declared that Mars - a planet with close to nil water - may once have experienced a global flood! Of course those same scientists insist that Earth - a planet mainly covered in water - could never have experienced the same

---

quote:

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
and the stores of water of the deep since discovered

---

What, please, is this in reference to?
 

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Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :
 
Alan,

This is one of a few sources with the link at the end:-

All the fountains of the great deep broke up …
Adding to the irony is a recent news release on analysis of images from the Mars Express. It claims that deposits called LTDs, which most closely resemble Earth sediments, were formed “when large amounts of groundwater burst on to the surface”.1
And now, in addition, comes a claim of still more frozen water on Mars—from the well-regarded journal Science (322, p.1235, 21 November 2008). Ground-penetrating radar on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggests the presence of “vast Martian glaciers of water ice”.2 To date, the only ice found on Mars has been at polar latitudes. The report suggests that because the ice exists “under protective blankets of rocky debris” this has prevented it from evaporating into outer space. True, there still has been no liquid water found on the red planet, but these ‘blanketed’ storehouses of ice are huge. Added to the water at higher latitudes,3 it would probably represent enough water to cover the entire planet to some 20 cms in depth. And remember that they think this is the remnant of water that has not yet dissipated into space—either because it is at high (cooler) latitudes or protected under insulating layers of dust and rock -
LINK

As for the topology, Psalm 104:8 describes some of the events during the flood when it says, "The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place which You established for them”.
 

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Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
Yes, there are flood deposits over large parts of the Martian surface for which the most likely cause is an outburst of water from melting of an underground reservoir of ice. There's nothing to indicate these were a sinlge event, rather that they happened at widely dispersed times over a very long period of time.

And, the "Noachan Epoch" on Mars is simply a recognition that the evidence appears to be that at one point in the early history of Mars the planet was substantially covered by water. That's hardly unusual, after all our own planet is substantially covered by water.

And, your Ps 104 quote is out of context. Ps 104 refers to the original creation myth, when God seperates the seas and dry land. Also it appears to be a mistranslation, other versions I know have that the water flows down the off the hills, rather than the hills rising out of the water.
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
BHB if you are ignoring my question -

<If God caused a flood to destroy everything on Earth - WHY?

If the plan was to get rid of wickedness, it failed miserably. How does a God who does such massive, seemingly impossible miracles then fail so dismally in his objective?>

that's fine.

Psalm 104 is a beautiful Psalm. I am a Worship Leader in my Church and I use it often.

Have you ever heard of Metaphor?
 

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Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :
 
Boogie,

I would never knowingly ignore any of your questions, so do feel free to PM me if it seems I have, thanks.

1. If God caused a flood to destroy everything on Earth - WHY?/ If the plan was to get rid of wickedness, it failed miserably

Well let's remember that all people are wicked in some fashion, we read that "the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things", so God's action could never alter that, yet I think there were a number of things happening here, the Sons of God were becoming too active and widespread (as discussed on the other thread atm) so God served a 120 year warning via Noah and with the amount of space remaining in the Ark (ask me if you want the data) there was sufficient room to house the many who could have chosen to repent. Just like Christ's offer now, so many more could choose to turn to Him, there is sufficient room, but they ignore His offer

2. How does a God who does such massive, seemingly impossible miracles then fail so dismally in his objective?

Well as you have pointed out elsewhere, you don't recognize my God as being your God.
My God is Almighty and a Global Flood is hardly testing His limits, have you ever considered the size, power, beauty and order of what He did make?

And you say He failed? I would say mankind failed to listen, mainly failed to repent and now look like repeating that error.

3.Have you ever heard of Metaphor?

Indeed I have, and I use Biblical and non-Biblical examples when I teach and preach, but when I see them in scripture they ALWAYS fit the context, the way liberals suggest they are there when they are not is rather desperate, but why stick with the context if your World view is being threatened?
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
Have you considered that God is indeed creator of everything and all powerful, but limits his own power due to his Love - thus giving us freedom?

Consider also that ancient texts can contain wonderful passages which can be used to worship our creator - without having to believe in a world wide flood?

Look again at the context of Psalm 104. I think you'll see how timeless it is.
 

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Posted by ByHisBlood (# 16018) on :
 
Amen Boogie,

The Word of the Lord shall endure for ever. But in the meantime you are correct, it does cause us to worship Him more and more.

Yet while we remain in time it has many other functions including rescuing us from false teaching and ungodly attitudes, and in 2 Peter 3 we read about certain people when it says:-

5 They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. 6 Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

So do YOU accept all theses ancient writings including verse 6
 

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Posted by koshatnik (# 11938) on :
 
[tangent]
One of my grandmother's favourite phrases (used when one of us expressed disbelief in something or other) was: 'In the last days, there shall be scoffers'.
[/tangent]
 

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Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
As for the topology, Psalm 104:8 describes some of the events during the flood when it says, "The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place which You established for them”.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
1. If God caused a flood to destroy everything on Earth - WHY?/ If the plan was to get rid of wickedness, it failed miserably

Well let's remember that all people are wicked in some fashion, we read that "the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things", so God's action could never alter that,

---

quote:

---

with the amount of space remaining in the Ark (ask me if you want the data)

---

quote:

---

Just like Christ's offer now, so many more could choose to turn to Him, there is sufficient room, but they ignore His offer

---

quote:

---

2. How does a God who does such massive, seemingly impossible miracles then fail so dismally in his objective?

Well as you have pointed out elsewhere, you don't recognize my God as being your God.
My God is Almighty and a Global Flood is hardly testing His limits, have you ever considered the size, power, beauty and order of what He did make?

---

quote:

---

And you say He failed? I would say mankind failed to listen, mainly failed to repent and now look like repeating that error.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Eliab:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
As for the topology, Psalm 104:8 describes some of the events during the flood when it says, "The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place which You established for them”.

---

Genesis 7:19 has the flood waters covering "the high mountains". What's that about, then?

---

quote:

---

OK. We need to combine this with the fact that God created Man. And that God created Man in his own image. God's creation in his own image is therefore "deceitful and desperately wicked above all things".

---

quote:

---

Please post it. There are too many animals there as it is.

---

quote:

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Jesus Christ's offer is contained in a book that directly contradicts the natural world. The world was made in a naturalistic manner with no direct evidence of the Creator being real

---

quote:

---

If mankind failed to listen then God failed to communicate. Your supposedly Almighty God therefore failed

---

quote:

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Justin

quote:

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Please post it. There are too many animals there as it is.

---

And there you have evidence of the greatest problem re Genesis and people reading it today, the humanists have intercepted the reader and the reader come at it with mis-information which makes God's account 'unrealistic' to begin with. You must congratulate them, it was indeed money well spent for that doomed kingdom. And what does it lead to? .............. well Justin tells us >>>

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Jesus Christ's offer is contained in a book that directly contradicts the natural world. The world was made in a naturalistic manner with no direct evidence of the Creator being real

---

Humanistic mission accomplished (for many).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
The Bible refers only to “high hills,” and the mountains today were formed only toward the end of, and after, the flood by collision of the tectonic plates and the associated upthrusting.

---

quote:

---

In support of this, the layers that form the uppermost parts of Mount Everest are themselves composed of fossil-bearing, water-deposited layers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Alan,

Your comments re the Psalm are a view many hold, and many hold the other view, here is an article which mentions within it option 2 - LINK

---

quote:

---

Psalm 104 suggests an answer. After the waters covered the mountains (verse 6), God rebuked them and they fled (verse 7); the mountains rose, the valleys sank down (verse 8) and God set a boundary so that they will never again cover the earth (verse 9)[1].

---

quote:

---

they [the waters] flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them - NIV
[And the water flowed] down the mountains and through the valleys to the place you prepared - CEV
They [the waters] go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them - KJV

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by pjkirk:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
The Bible refers only to “high hills,” and the mountains today were formed only toward the end of, and after, the flood by collision of the tectonic plates and the associated upthrusting.

---

Well, at the rate that Everest has been growing since the time of the Flood (.5cm/year), the mountain was only about 3 meters shorter then. So this doesn't help you out much as far as quantity of water, etc....

Or you could posit that the flood was at least 600,000 years old when the last major upthrusting of the Himalayas ended.

Of course, there's no evidence for a Flood back then either.

quote:

---

In support of this, the layers that form the uppermost parts of Mount Everest are themselves composed of fossil-bearing, water-deposited layers.

---

As this is evidence for the standard geologic model as well, you cannot use it as evidence for the flood over other models.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
with the amount of space remaining in the Ark (ask me if you want the data)

---

quote:

---

Please post it. There are too many animals there as it is.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Justin

---

quote:

---

He certainly is now, have you read Genesis 3 and Genesis 5 carefully to see what initially happened to those in God's Image and in whose image the following generations were?

---

quote:

---

is Genesis 3 the largest blind-spot in literary history?).

---

quote:

---

And there you have evidence of the greatest problem re Genesis and people reading it today, the humanists have intercepted the reader and the reader come at it with mis-information which makes God's account 'unrealistic' to begin with.

---

quote:

---

You must congratulate them, it was indeed money well spent for that doomed kingdom.

---

quote:

---

Humanistic mission accomplished (for many).

---

quote:

---

Really, well what are you doing here then if there is no God and faith and therefore talk about faith is futile?

---

quote:

---

Before we get into some detail re Creation and an Earth around 6000 years old (hence 600,000 years is a non-starter), do you have a problem with the Sole Witness to these events, or do you find His testimony reliable?

---

quote:

---

The ones directly made in God's image ate a green apple and died. (Well, ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and were thrown out of the garden for disobedience to subsequently die).

---

quote:

---

So are we supposed to believe that the events recorded were dictated inerrantly by the Creator?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Hello Liop,

I would hate you to think that I was ignoring any of the species needing to survive, this is one of many sources that deal with the issues you are are speaking about, please note the links near the end of the article that deal with freshwater fish and other seemingly 'impossible' problems - ARK THE HERALD...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
PJ,

Before we get into some detail re Creation and an Earth around 6000 years old (hence 600,000 years is a non-starter), do you have a problem with the Sole Witness to these events, or do you find His testimony reliable?

---

quote:

---

which is clearly far more than a few thousand years old.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Ken

quote:

---

which is clearly far more than a few thousand years old.

---

So why do thousands of scientists say otherwise, including this sample of 50 who cover many sciences from A to Z? IN SIX DAYS .....The 50 authors from around the world represent a small sample of the scientists who acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Creator-God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
The fact is that a lot of faith is required to believe the theory of evolution,

---

quote:

---

Got the Father created the world. His son, the second person of the trinity might have been an agent but was not the creator.

---

quote:

---

Lots of people acknowledge Christ as creator God but don't believe that the opening verses of Genesis are historical. I am one among them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
So why do thousands of scientists say otherwise, including this sample of 50 who cover many sciences from A to Z? IN SIX DAYS

---

quote:

---

Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Dan,

quote:

---

Lots of people acknowledge Christ as creator God but don't believe that the opening verses of Genesis are historical. I am one among them.

---

Well like the scientists, you seem to like majorities (although you misread the fact that they were a selection of 50 among thousands of others), but they don't always come through, if you doubt that ask those outside the Ark.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Justinian

quote:

---

The ones directly made in God's image ate a green apple and died. (Well, ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and were thrown out of the garden for disobedience to subsequently die).

---

And what did you learn about their offspring and the image they were made in?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Ken

quote:

---

which is clearly far more than a few thousand years old.

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So why do thousands of scientists say otherwise, including this sample of 50 who cover many sciences from A to Z? IN SIX DAYS

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From the link - Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould, on CNN's Crossfire in November of 1999, said no legitimate scientist in the world believes the Genesis account of creation.

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The 50 authors from around the world represent a small sample of the scientists who acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Creator-God.

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
PJ,

Before we get into some detail re Creation and an Earth around 6000 years old (hence 600,000 years is a non-starter), do you have a problem with the Sole Witness to these events, or do you find His testimony reliable?

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And, it takes a lot less mental gymnastics to understand that account than is needed to believe the novel interpretation that the Earth was created 6000 years ago in six 24h days

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Alan

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And, it takes a lot less mental gymnastics to understand that account than is needed to believe the novel interpretation that the Earth was created 6000 years ago in six 24h days

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Yes, and experts would have dated the wine in John 2 as 12 minutes old. Doesn't help much does it?

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I think God is loving, true, and honest. The world looks old. So it probably is.

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I see, so God must restrict Himself in Creation to only do those things that the limited minds of His creatures can understand! At that wedding, though the servants may not have understood it, Mary said, "whatever He says to you, do it".

Now of course it's too hard for many to accept - whatever He has stated to believe it - because man is so 'wise', he has come so far that the Almighty must fully explain Himself so man's intellect can grant his essential, valued approval

Luther once said - “When Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days, and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day. But, if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honour of being more learned than you are”.
 

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Posted by Louise (# 30) on :
 
I'm locking this thread until people read my previous post and decant the creationism elsewhere. Please cut and paste any creationist-related posts you want to reply to from this thread onto one of the creation/evolution related threads and reply there.

thanks,
Louise
Dead Horses Host

[reopened now - for people to stick to the subject of The Flood]

[ 12. December 2010, 16:48: Message edited by: Louise ]
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
We've been here before haven't we BHB ?

Who were you then ?

I'm sure it's been said, but just in case, the 'compromise' between wooden literalism and pure materialism, extreme faith positions added to Christianity by most here, is that miraculous events leave no trace and so are perfectly acceptable to those who fully accept the scientific record (but not its self refuting premiss of mandatory materialism) and the miraculous.

It's a third way that says a plague on both your houses really.

Interesting that both these extreme heterodoxies have gnosticism in common.

YECists compound their error by trying to have all three faith positions, which is quite an astounding feat. First comes wooden literalism (errant inerrantism, even more self defeating than materialism) and then comes the attempt to sanitize it by applying science to that imparsimonious faith position.

Oh yeah and then they tack on damnationism which the vast majority of Christians have always believed.

Thrice wrong. Cool.
 

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Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 
You're gonna get the thread locked again, Martin.
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Ah c'mon PeeJay. That would assume somebody knew what the Hades, Gehenna and Tartaroo I'm on about!
 

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Posted by pjkirk (# 10997) on :
 

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Ah c'mon PeeJay. That would assume somebody knew what the Hades, Gehenna and Tartaroo I'm on about!

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I'm sure it's been said, but just in case, the 'compromise' between wooden literalism and pure materialism, extreme faith positions added to Christianity by most here, is that miraculous events leave no trace and so are perfectly acceptable to those who fully accept the scientific record (but not its self refuting premiss of mandatory materialism) and the miraculous.

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It's a third way that says a plague on both your houses really.

Interesting that both these extreme heterodoxies have gnosticism in common.

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Thrice wrong. Cool.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
That is, as we've established, it would be impossible for the Ark to hold a breeding stock of all animals, insects, fish, plants etc... Therefore, God would need to take additional steps to either preserve other creatures from the Flood, or to recreate them after the Flood has subsided.

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Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
OK, sea-level rises and falls a mile or three 5000 years ago over a three month period, what geological evidence would there be?

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Never mind the biological. If it happened naturally there would be somewhat of an evolutionary choke point.

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And why was it a universe changing miracle?

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Pragmatic to the degree that He doesn't care what we believe from the OC/T, and what He believed as a human from the Torah (are what He PRETENDED to believe!). He's quite happy us believing that He is a killer God. Is it a test? For when we've evolved to be nice enough to realise that?

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The evidence is NOT. No one is convinced by a liberal Zen Zaphod Cheshire God any more than they are convinced by a wooden damnationist one.

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Well let's examine this Leo.....

Leo

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Got the Father created the world. His son, the second person of the trinity might have been an agent but was not the creator.

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Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things have been created through Him and for Him.

Why would all things be created for an agent?

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
That is, as we've established, it would be impossible for the Ark to hold a breeding stock of all animals, insects, fish, plants etc... Therefore, God would need to take additional steps to either preserve other creatures from the Flood, or to recreate them after the Flood has subsided.

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Perhaps God gave Noah some directions about the design of the Ark which didn't make it into Genesis. It would certainly explain a lot.

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Therefore, God would need to take additional steps to either preserve other creatures from the Flood, or to recreate them after the Flood has subsided. Which rather begs the question of why Noah needed to build a boat to hold a small fraction of animal species when God was going to save the rest of the species anyway

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But so far as I am aware, the Creation texts tell us that God "spoke" the rock into being as well. So why should it not record faithfully and without any deception, what had happened to it since it was made? In other words, what is wrong with the plain meaning of the rock? Did the rock fall into sin and become a deceiver?

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
That is, as we've established, it would be impossible for the Ark to hold a breeding stock of all animals, insects, fish, plants etc... Therefore, God would need to take additional steps to either preserve other creatures from the Flood, or to recreate them after the Flood has subsided.

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Perhaps God gave Noah some directions about the design of the Ark which didn't make it into Genesis. It would certainly explain a lot.

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Has that really been established?
Have you actually realised how huge the ark was?

web page

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Alan C: The rocks beneath our feet, the genes of the plants and animals that dwell here etc all declare that there was no global flood.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But so far as I am aware, the Creation texts tell us that God "spoke" the rock into being as well. So why should it not record faithfully and without any deception, what had happened to it since it was made? In other words, what is wrong with the plain meaning of the rock? Did the rock fall into sin and become a deceiver?

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As I said earlier, we have more than one eye witness for Creation - we don't just have the Genesis account (if, indeed, it is an eye witness account by God) we have the creation itself. The same is true in relation to the Flood. The material universe testifies concerning the proposed Global Flood. The rocks beneath our feet, the genes of the plants and animals that dwell here etc all declare that there was no global innundation and no wiping out of the vast majority of life on earth.

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19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

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Martin PC not:OK guys. For the Flood to have happened and leave no trace, which is the case,

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
As I said earlier, we have more than one eye witness for Creation - we don't just have the Genesis account (if, indeed, it is an eye witness account by God) we have the creation itself.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Take a fossil fish; Now it could have been created by a flood. A fish is overwhelmed and entombed and buried suddenly in the midst of life.

We all know fossils don't easily occur. organic matter rots or becomes prey normally, so why did our fish not? Maybe a flood? Could've been.

What about coal. vegetation buried and organically carbonised. How could coal happen at such depths? Could've been a flood..could've.

And hey, coal is everywhere...so..maybe the flood was universal..could've been.

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Hey, no need to do any research, just make an assumption that supports your pre-existing prejudices!

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Cro

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Hey, no need to do any research, just make an assumption that supports your pre-existing prejudices!

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Odd how your research fails to note that all dating calculations to date anything over 5700 year are based on assumptions, and of ALL these dating methods, over 90% of them provide dates far younger than is needed for evolution to be a remote possibility.

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Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
The Flood did indeed lay down most of the rocks and fossils we have today, they are dated by the rocks that surround them, . . .

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