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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Noah
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pftaylor:
So the skeleton was just sticking out of the earth, while the rock grew slowly over it, was it? In fact, fossils can really only be explained by fast deposition of rock sediment, which would have occured during a global flood.
There are many, many, different kinds of fossils. Some made by fast deposition of sediment - as occurs during local flash floods or suddent filling of basins - others made by the slow deposition of sediment over years or millenia.
Most fossils (for very immense values of "most") are microfossils. They aren't all bones sticking round.
There are places where there are fossil trees still in place, upright, with roots in one kind of rock and trunks in another. And other fossil trees in strata above them. There are even places where the roots of fossilised trees are in soil or rock containing the aerial parts of older fossilised trees.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
Pilgrim's Progress or Middlemarch or The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe are presented as fiction, as non-historical. "False," at best, only applies to them in the most narrow sense of the term, and in practice, it would be considered a dubious description of them. The Noah story, in contrast, is a non-historical story presented as historical. That's the piece you were missing.
Nope, I still don't get it. There are large numbers of novels which either do not declare themselves to be fiction or which pretend to be biography (Robinson Crusoe is an example that springs to mind) and I still don't have any major trouble finding the meaning of them.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) Please. You are playing games.
Obviously, very few fiction works contain text to the effect of "This story is fiction." However, we know that those books you mentioned are fiction, nonetheless, because of context. They are advertised as fiction, placed in the fiction aisles of bookstores and libraries. They are consistently referred to as fiction. It is incredibly facile to imply that there is no difference between how one regards works that have consistently been represented as fiction and stories like Noah that had been regarded as true until about the last century and a half.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Let's play the game a bit further. Suppose in a thousand years time, when maybe people experience make believe stories through interactive holography and only use text to record important factual events (an example just to highlight potential differences in culture), an archaeologist was to dig into the ruins of your home and finds a copy of Robinson Crusoe. Would people in a thousand years time recognise it as fiction or biography?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
JJ, read the ninth post on this thread. I presented a single altar call as a historical fact that I personally witnessed. Can't you tell it is not an actual specific historical event but a dramatization? Still, is it not clear what went on? Do you not extract meaning from it? That is how story-telling went in ancient times.
JimT, the reason I can extract meaning from the altar call story is that there are plenty of cues that indicate how I'm supposed to take it. You are posting on a board that contains multiple posts in the "Ha, Ha, Only Serious" vein, so I know to expect some not-quite-serious stuff used to convey some serious points . You also give cues that indicate that your dramatization is based on your own real experiences, and conveys at least the "flavor" of your experience.
Note that if your post was not really based on your experience or knowledge of others' experience, then it could not be taken as a good conveyer of the "flavor" of an old-style Assemblies of God altar call, only as a cutesy story that may or may not have a relationship to reality.
quote:
You seem to be saying that it reads to you like a factual newspaper account, but we know it to be an event that could not have happened exactly as described.
It does not read to me like a newspaper account, but it does read like something that the author understood as factual. (Louise's points on the tendency of pre 18th-century people to mix myth and history and treat both as literally true makes it likely that the author/redactor of Genesis did see the account as factual.)
quote:
You conclude that it may therefore be the product of fantasy or deliberate deception and we have no way of knowing whether it is of value.
I would not go so far as to say that we have no way of knowing whether it is of value, but the way is difficult.
If the story were historical, then we would have a window on how God really acted and his motivations for acting. Loosed from any historical moorings, we now have a story whose originator could either be conveying genuine insights about God or merely expressing very flawed opinions. We may have insights into how the Hebrews viewed God, but not necessarily any insights as to God himself.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Let's play the game a bit further. Suppose in a thousand years time, when maybe people experience make believe stories through interactive holography and only use text to record important factual events (an example just to highlight potential differences in culture), an archaeologist was to dig into the ruins of your home and finds a copy of Robinson Crusoe. Would people in a thousand years time recognise it as fiction or biography?
The situation is still not analogous. Robinson Crusoe was both written as fiction and accepted as fiction from the get-go. The Noah account is not fiction in the modern sense, but myth, a story absorbed as fact by those to whom it was deliberately transmitted, and probably treated as literal truth within a generation. The Noah account was not a lost account recently rediscovered by moderns, but a story that has been with us continuously and only relatively recently found to be unhistorical.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
The Noah account is not fiction in the modern sense, but myth, a story absorbed as fact by those to whom it was deliberately transmitted, and probably treated as literal truth within a generation. The Noah account was not a lost account recently rediscovered by moderns, but a story that has been with us continuously and only relatively recently found to be unhistorical.
How do you know that it was treated as literal truth in ancient times? My take on it is that it's part of a collection of stories regularly retold that, together, formed the story of the genesis of the people of Israel. I don't know when these stories were compiled into a single coherent story (the book of Genesis) and written down - but I'd guess at some time significantly later than the traditional Mosaic authorship, but even at the earliest authorship at the hand of Moses that was still several generations after the accounts originated. Who's to say whether they understood it literally? Maybe it does conform to the "literary" (in the loosest sense since we're could now be talking oral transmission rather than writing!) conventions of a piece of pre-Israelite fiction. Perhaps the Flood account was a minor part of Hebrew oral tradition all but forgotten then discovered by the author(s) of Genesis ... analogous to the lost text rediscovered by my hypothetical archaeologist in the future.
And can you be sure that it's only recently been shown to be un-historical? Given it's place within a book that has been recognised as having significant non-historical elements since long before modern science (eg: by Augustine in 4th century) what makes you sure that such people hadn't also concluded that a global flood is also non-historical?
And, yes, I know there's a wee bit of wild speculation in this post. But then again claiming that the ancient Israelites considered it to be a historical account is also speculation. We simply don't know how the ancient Israelites thought about history, myth, legend and fiction when they compiled the book describing what they thought of themselves and their place in the world.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
The Noah account is not fiction in the modern sense, but myth, a story absorbed as fact by those to whom it was deliberately transmitted, and probably treated as literal truth within a generation. The Noah account was not a lost account recently rediscovered by moderns, but a story that has been with us continuously and only relatively recently found to be unhistorical.
How do you know that it was treated as literal truth in ancient times?
Louise had pointed out that pre-18th century, people tended to mix myth and history and treat both as literally true.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
We also have people from much earlier recognising that the Genesis accounts could not be literal history. That people, even relatively recently, were not too concerned about their founding stories being literal history (or not), should give us cause for concluding that we can't say an awful lot about how the ancient Israelites viewed the stories that described themselves. Whether or not they recognised the Noah story to be unhistorical in the way we view Robinson Crusoe is unknowable. Just as an Archaeologist a thousand years from now wouldn't be able to say whether Robinson Crusoe is fiction or biography on the basis of the story itself (though I admit he may have access to a 1000 years of carefully recorded commentary on our culture that would inform him - a shame we don't have anything similar for 3-4 thousand years ago).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
I think that ancient people, for whom the Noah story was directly written, knew exactly how to perceive it. My opinion is that with time, elements within The Church insisted on a perception of it as exact historical truth. I find support for this position in the push to reconcile every statement in the Bible with Greek science. It was in my opinion the first fundamentalist error: presenting the Bible as Fact rather than the Bible as True. I think it is a mistake to suggest that everyone saw Genesis as historical truth from the time it was written to 150 years ago.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Jim,
Don't blame fundamentalists for this! The original fundamentalists mostly believed in theistic evolution or else the gap theory. The Flood Geology ideas were briefly in vogue in the late 18th cenury & first quarter of the 19th, then died out, then were revived after "Tthe Fundamentals" were published round about 1900.
The US fundamentalists tended to either support the Day/Age readings of Genesis, or the Dispensationalist views, such as the ones in the Scofield Reference Bible (which explictly rejects Young Earthism & was partly written to oppose it).The US anti-evolutionists of the 1880s to the 1930s mostly didn't teach a young earth or flood geology. Not even William Jennings Bryan. (& what's more the "evolution" they objected to wasn't really Darwinism - it was a mish-mash of German Haeckelian wishy-washy neo-pantheism and
so-called "social Darwinsism")
Flood Geology yeccism grew out of the Seventh-Day Adventists. They (at the time) believed the writings of Ellen G. White to be inspired, and she had a very strong allegorical and symbolic interpretation of the Sabbath, that required God to rest on the a real Seventh Day.
It wasn't until the 1950s that these views became common even among US fundamentalists and evangelicals, and not until the 1970s that they started to be held up as some kind of shibboleth of a real belief in Biblical inerrancy.
In my view this isn't an argument between a literal and a non-literal view of Scritpture. It is an argument about what Scripture actually says. There are plenty of people who believe the Bible to be inerrant but who do not think that it tells us that the Earth is young.
Was it Alan who posted some of Augustine's piece about the literal interpretation of Genesis?
He was arguing against people who wanted non-literal readings, in other words allegorisations, or spiritualisations of the passage. He was saying that his reading was literal because he held that it really was about the creation of the physical world.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
Louise had pointed out that pre-18th century, people tended to mix myth and history and treat both as literally true.
I'm speaking about cases, like origin myths, where people take something written for its symbolism and later treat it as historical truth (which can happen quickly but which doesn't necessarily happen that way). What I'm saying is that when such things are found not to be historically accurate, they don't lose their symbolic importance. They don't become valueless 'mistakes'.
Equally, there were people at very early dates who were aware when they were dealing with things which were symbolic rather than literal eg. the example given earlier of Augustine.
I think the problem is that we make a big deal about which 'category' these stories fall into which leads us into anachronistic ways of looking at them.
Knowing that some kings on a king list were mythical and that some weren't doesn't invalidate a king list, it just means you have to treat it with more caution and look for collaborative evidence, if you are interested in what is historically true. However examining the mythical part of the list can still tell you very important stuff about who the people who compiled the list thought they were and what values were important to them.
L.
[fixed code while trying really hard not to laugh]
[ 03. June 2003, 14:49: Message edited by: Scot ]
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
… Please. You are playing games.
J. J., I was not playing games, I was serious, but it appears that we have been talking at cross purposes. Thanks for the clarification of the point that you were getting at.
You originally said that: quote:
… the question is whether we can extract meaning from something incorrect.
And I simply could not understand what you meant by that, nor what you were getting at with your distinction between ‘incorrect’ from ‘non-historical’. I wondered why it should occur to you that there might even be a remote possibility that we could not extract meaning from such a clear story as the flood narrative if it was an ‘incorrect’ narrative? No one discovering that the story of Noah is not actually historically true suddenly finds the story incomprehensible and meaningless and themselves incapable of extracting meaning from it. They don’t suddenly become unable to work out that it has a character in it called Noah, and a flood, and animals and so on. The meaning of the story changes, certainly, but extracting meaning from it, making any sense of it at all is not suddenly jeopardised. So I was baffled and hence my questions and counter-examples were intended to convey my bafflement with your statement that “the question is whether we can extract meaning from something incorrect”.
It seems that I completely misunderstood where you thought that the problem lay. You think that I have been implying quote:
that there is no difference between how one regards works that have consistently been represented as fiction and stories like Noah that had been regarded as true until about the last century and a half.
I have said nothing of the kind, and as you say to do so would be “incredibly facile.” But what you say does very much clarify what you see as the problem. Perhaps I can have a go at expressing it:
For there to be a threat of meaninglessness hanging over the Noah story it is not sufficient for it merely to be ‘incorrect’ or false or non-historical. It also requires a context in which its historicity appears to be essential. It is the problem facing someone who has had a particular idea of the nature of scripture such that when he realises that the story is not historical he cannot conceive how it can function as scripture at all. His world totters. The story is still intelligible but its significance for him is now baffling, since he has no way of understanding how God can use a bible that is so unclear about the way a passage is to be taken, which genre it lies in. Typically, conservative approaches to the Bible often see the Bible as God’s revelation rather than as a human witness and testimony to God’s revelation. The latter approach has much less difficulty in continuing to affirm and use a bible that is a very human, ambiguous and fallible document but which is nonetheless used by God in nourishing people.
Glenn
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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Then there is the water coming up from the fountains of the deep. This, for the scientific mind, is maybe harder to understand. That there are fountains in the depths of the oceans is admitted, how they actually work the humble, I believe, will admit they don’t know. But, another simple thought, not knowing exactly how something happened should not lead us to say, it didn’t happen.
I take it that you are referring to the hot water vents found along the mid ocean ridges where two continental plates are being created and diverging. Sea water penetrates very deeply down through the fissures caused by the tectonic activity and reaches very hot areas heated by the mantle. The heated water rises and emerges at the vents sometimes generating plumes of sediment and minerals. The source of these 'fountains' is thus sea water and does not therfore give us an additional source of water for the flood.
That the world was flatter then and only since then has mountain building gone on is one theory put forward sometimes, but if just a few metres of uplift from and earthquake can cause such devastation, what devastation must have been caused by thousands of metres of uplift happening in so short a time? And what tidal waves and what a colossal amount of vulcanism too. Surely enough to cause worldwide devastation? And where is the evidence for that? Such a theory is just incredible.
Of course if you want to believe it afish you have only got to invoke the almighty power of God to tidy away the evidence to get over any difficulty in your account.
Glenn
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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
How do we derive truth from a false story? That is the question, and the answer is not simple.
Then why did our Lord teach in parables?
Reader Alexis
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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afish
Shipmate
# 1135
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Posted
MouseThief
Because as JJRamsey as ably pointed out parables are not false stories in the same sense that it is claimed Genisis is.
Glen, Alan and others who I want to respond to; I'm working on it. Where do you folks get the time for this?
Heck I'll post this bit anyway.
Glen O.
“The canopy of water over the earth as a source of water for the flood runs into the problem that the atmospheric pressure would have been lethally high. But i guess you would just say that the land was so low that the amount of water needed to cover it was so small that the atmospheric pressure would have only been slightly increased. (what and still be enough to rain for 40 days and 40 nights all around the globe?)”
No Glen I would say what I’ve said. We don’t know what height the land was. The amount of water/water vapour needed to rain continuously for 40 day/nights? That would depend on how many windows were opened, how big they were and (yep) so on.
But sure the pressure thing does give pause for thought. However it still gets caught in the same net. We are taking what is now and saying “therefore then”. As one with very limited knowledge of “atmospherics?” I would be asking questions like; what was the exact nature/quantity of the waters above, what was the composition/depth/density of the earth's atmosphere before the flood. Again, we don’t know.
><>
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"Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much"
Bob Dylan
Posts: 168 | From: France | Registered: Aug 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
I would be asking questions like; what was the exact nature/quantity of the waters above, what was the composition/depth/density of the earth's atmosphere before the flood. Again, we don’t know.
><>
And the answers make no difference. Sufficient water to flood the earth, previously existing as vapour in the atmosphere, would still cause a massive greenhouse effect on the earth, not to mention the huge atmospheric pressure.
It's as simple as this - 30 feet of water would double the current atmospheric pressure. 60 feet triple it. You see the problem?
Holiday on venus anyone.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
MouseThief
Because as JJRamsey as ably pointed out parables are not false stories in the same sense that it is claimed Genisis is.
Who is claiming this?
(Well, Karl might be I suppose...) But a lot of us are sticking to the millenia-old Christian (and Jewish) understanding of the scriptures, and not being misled by the young-earth "Flood Geology" ideas which are:
- false readings of the scripture
- based on an additional prophecy added to the Bible (Ellen G White)
- and are in fact non-literal and intensely symbolic and allegorical
All that guff about canopies or whatever is nonsense. No-one really believes it. It is a fantasy. It can only make sense if you assume that the entire appearance of the world is miraculously altered by God. In which case of course anything could be true.
Flood Geology is a fiction. It can only be made to work if you think that God is deluding us, that the world itself is in fact a fiction.
There is no point in talking about those silly ideas "scientifically". It would be as absurd as trying to use judgements based on Klingon to read Greek.
The problem with the so-called "creation scientists" isn't their science, it is their theology.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
Is this a good time to point out that Robinson Crusoe is semi-biographical? That is to say, it is an exaggerated and embellished retelling of a true story.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Is this a good time to point out that Robinson Crusoe is semi-biographical? That is to say, it is an exaggerated and embellished retelling of a true story.
There is no time like the present, Scot. ![[Not worthy!]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) Alexander Selkirk - of course - why didn't that cross my mind at the time. Still, it was written by Defoe presenting himself as Crusoe, so my earlier point still stands (now redundant after I understand J. J.'s point rather better than I did).
Glenn
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Heck I'll post this bit anyway.
I am often encouraged by the attitude of Elliot Aronson who, when writing about why he doesn't wait for perfection before he publishes his research, said: quote:
I have faith that if I do an imperfect piece of work, someone will read it and will be provoked to demonstrate this imperfection in a really interesting way. This will almost always lead to a greater understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. Readings About The Social Animal 7th edition page 6 W H Freeman &Co 1995
Glenn
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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
Knowing that some kings on a king list were mythical and that some weren't doesn't invalidate a king list, it just means you have to treat it with more caution and look for collaborative evidence, if you are interested in what is historically true.
And what if someone is looking for what is spiritually true (rather than historically true)? Hmm.
I suppose the same rough approach can be taken. Look for collaborative evidence that what is presented in a myth is true rather than mere human opinion. It would be different evidence than of the sort used to affirm historicity, perhaps introspection, observing people, looking at parallels in other myths.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
For there to be a threat of meaninglessness hanging over the Noah story it is not sufficient for it merely to be ‘incorrect’ or false or non-historical. It also requires a context in which its historicity appears to be essential. It is the problem facing someone who has had a particular idea of the nature of scripture such that when he realises that the story is not historical he cannot conceive how it can function as scripture at all. His world totters. The story is still intelligible but its significance for him is now baffling, since he has no way of understanding how God can use a bible that is so unclear about the way a passage is to be taken, which genre it lies in. Typically, conservative approaches to the Bible often see the Bible as God’s revelation rather than as a human witness and testimony to God’s revelation. The latter approach has much less difficulty in continuing to affirm and use a bible that is a very human, ambiguous and fallible document but which is nonetheless used by God in nourishing people.
You are about 80% correct.
I have no problem in seeing the Bible as "human witness and testimony to God’s revelation." Human testimony can be error-ridden and still approximately correct. To use your words to express my position:
"For there to be a threat of meaninglessness hanging over the Noah story it is not sufficient for it merely to be ‘incorrect’ or false or non-historical. It also requires a context in which its historicity appears to be essential. . . . [W]hen he realises that the story is not historical he cannot conceive how it can function . . . at all." [The ellipses are intentional.]
Ok, the Noah account is historically wrong. I can live with that. I do not expect the Bible's noise-to-signal ratio to be zero. But I have a hard time seeing the Noah account as anything but noise. There's doesn't seem to be an obvious way to tell whether it is mythic divine revelation that was misapprehended as historical, or just a made-up human story that was found out to be, well, made up. If it's the latter, then treating it as an allegory or otherwise figurative is pointless: massaging noise does not make it data.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Funny thing is, I think I'm that last person left standing here who thinks the account of Noah is historical...
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Funny thing is, I think I'm that last person left standing here who thinks the account of Noah is historical...
I would be interested to hear why you think that Ken.
Ben (who's NOT being sarcastic but is being genuine)
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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Kevin Iga
Shipmate
# 4396
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Posted
I've got another question, then, for the 3 camps on this thread (1. The Noah story is historical; 2. it's allegorical and not historical; and 3. it's misinformed blather). Why did God want it in the Bible?
For the historicals, why did God mention this and not other major historical events like the invention of the plow, the crossing of the Bering Strait into the Americas, the invention of writing, the beginning of fertility religions, etc.? Surely God knew about these things and if the point this part of the Bible is to tell history, why doesn't God do more of it?
For the allegorical-not-historicals: Why didn't God trim it down to the bare essentials like you have? Why bother with the dimensions of the Ark, the number of animals, the number of days, and so on?
For the misinformed-blather-people: why did God allow a misinformed story to be in the Bible, when (we as Christians believe) He wanted it as an instrument of salvation? Why would God bother with telling the story at all, if it has no value?
Kevin
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Presbyterian /prez.bi.ti'.ri.en/ n. One who believes the governing authorities of the church should be called "presbyters".
Posts: 521 | From: Pepperdine University | Registered: Apr 2003
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Iga:
I've got another question, then, for the 3 camps on this thread (1. The Noah story is historical; 2. it's allegorical and not historical; and 3. it's misinformed blather). Why did God want it in the Bible?
Maybe he didn't. Maybe the Bible was written without God's explicit permission.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
I want very much to explain why I think the story is there. I am in the "probably historical but exaggerated into legend and myth" crowd. I read Henry Morris in high school while taking earth science and could see that he simply appealed to the supernatural every time scientific evidence conflicted with the Bible. God can change erosion rates, the effect of water vapor on atmospheric pressure, etc., any time he wants. Despite being a PhD in hydrogeology, he did not believe in Uniformitarianism: that is, natural processes in the present are the same as they were in the past. At the same time, I don't think Noah came out of thin air because catastrophic floods do happen and in ancient times when catastrophe happened the people reflected: why are the gods doing this to us?
My theory is that the tellers of the story used it as an object lesson to underscore that the God of Israel was different from other gods in that He was universal and he was not to be feared for his wrath. Specifically, he did not require human sacrifice as other gods did. The theme repeats with the story of Isaac. Yahweh does not require human sacrifice. The legendary explanation is that he once did, and was overwhelmed by his anger.
If the story described a local flood, then perhaps he is not the God of all people. Perhaps as well, his anger against part of mankind is slaked, but not against all. In addition, and I find this compelling, his covenant at the end of the story would not unambiguously be for all people but only those whom he had wronged. Yahweh is the loving God of All.
Yahweh is not like a pagan god who says, "I am angry at you. Find a slave from outside your tribe, or a precious young virgin whom you prize, and kill them for me. Disobey and I will open the floodgates, light the volcanoes and show you my fearsome wrath and unimaginable power."
Sadly, the religious leaders who believe that the people must be controlled through fear managed to keep the vengeance angle and eternal punishment angle in the Bible. The worst part of those today who hold to "God must be feared to avoid Hell" and "the Bible is literal" are forced to present God as a legalistic Pharisee: he only promised in the time of Noah that he would not destroy the earth with water. Next time, fire. That's the way my Daddy told it to me anyway. No doubt that is why discussion of the story cranks me up so much.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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markporter
Shipmate
# 4276
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Posted
quote:
Funny thing is, I think I'm that last person left standing here who thinks the account of Noah is historical...
no....I'm just about standing, and my preferred viewpoint is that it is historical...although I am unsure as to the details.
Posts: 1309 | From: Oxford | Registered: Mar 2003
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
I still think there is something to the idea that people truly did live longer way back when due to a less-ruined Earth from Garden to Flood... less UV exposure , for one thing. And it wouldn't take a super-canopy of an actual shell of liquid water up there to shield us.
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I'm a Fundagelical Evangimentalist. What are you?
Take Me Home * My Heart * An hour with Rich Mullins *
Posts: 13788 | From: Below the Bible Belt | Registered: Sep 2002
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
Just to get it off my chest, I'd like to also say what I think is the wrong interpretation of Noah. It is a literalist interpretation I've heard many times, not just in the church where I grew up. It goes like this: God has told us that Hell is prepared for those who reject him. It is just like in Noah's time. No one takes God seriously. But he *will* destroy wickedness, not with water, but with the fire next time. We need to have faith like Noah. Blind faith. Even if eternal fires have never been seen before, we need to believe they are waiting for us as surely as a flood was waiting for Noah even though he didn't even know what rain was.
That is perhaps not the gentlest way to describe the position, but it is the way I've heard it. The bottom line is the opposite from my interpretation. It concentrates on the willingness of God to kill what he hates, so you had better do what he wants.
I do see the strong element of faith in the story. But to me, the blind faith of Noah is justified by the fact that he has backed the right God, the loving God of Israel. The God who does not kill in anger. There were such other gods in cultures with which the Jews came into contact. This story gave a reason not to believe in them.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
He killed everybody in anger except Noah and his family, and felt so bad that he said he would not kill in anger again, right?
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
Sorry to double post, but I think I see the question. I mean, "God is no longer a god who kills in anger." According to the story, he did once, but regretted it.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
You are about 80% correct.
To use your words to express my position:
"For there to be a threat of meaninglessness hanging over the Noah story it is not sufficient for it merely to be ‘incorrect’ or false or non-historical. It also requires a context in which its historicity appears to be essential. . . . [W]hen he realises that the story is not historical he cannot conceive how it can function . . . at all." [The ellipses are intentional.]
Ok, the Noah account is historically wrong. I can live with that. I do not expect the Bible's noise-to-signal ratio to be zero. But I have a hard time seeing the Noah account as anything but noise. There's doesn't seem to be an obvious way to tell whether it is mythic divine revelation that was misapprehended as historical, or just a made-up human story that was found out to be, well, made up. If it's the latter, then treating it as an allegory or otherwise figurative is pointless: massaging noise does not make it data.
Thanks for the response, J. J. but I am puzzled by the second ellipsis. You seem to be saying that if "the story is not historical it cannot function at all", and again I am puzzled by such a sweeping statement. The Noah story is surely a great story, a piece of dramatic literatature with weighty themes to it. It still works, or fuctions in that sense. That still remains.
But your use of the noise/ information and data metaphors and your earlier wheat/ chaff metaphor suggests that you need to see the story as reliably conveying information about God, or man or whatever. I think that you have a point here, but I am still struggling to understand the threat of menainglessness involved.
You say that: There's doesn't seem to be an obvious way to tell whether it is mythic divine revelation that was misapprehended as historical, or just a made-up human story that was found out to be, well, made up. One resposnse to this is that it is in the bible and so part of the Christian tradition; it tells us something about how the writers of that time viewed the world; we also know that the story was incorporated and used by later generations too; and in that total context what can we draw from it today? It has themes like the idea that mankind is, or can be, or was terribly evil; that God is disgusted with evil; that God desires to recreate a world damaged by evil; it has themes in common iwth other parts of the bible like the saving of a remnant, the choosing of a person or group, the righteousness of one person saving others and so on. These are rich themes surely?
Out of time I am afraid!
Glenn
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I don't have a problem with a literal flood, whether global or local. I don't have a problem with the ark, the animals, or the height of the land at the time. (Not that I'm not *interested*.)
My real problem is the idea that God purposely did the flood, and what that says about God's nature. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
I still think there is something to the idea that people truly did live longer way back when due to a less-ruined Earth from Garden to Flood... less UV exposure , for one thing. And it wouldn't take a super-canopy of an actual shell of liquid water up there to shield us.
My immediate questions are:
* Why does the archaeological and palaeontological evidence indicate that we live longer today on average than we have ever done?
* Why do you propose the world was "less ruined" then than in say the Iron Age, when we hadn't yet polluted the world and had an average life expectancy of about 45, if we survived infancy?
* What would it take to shield the UV? What evidence do you have that whatever it was existed?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Papio
Ship's baboon
# 4201
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JimT:
Sorry to double post, but I think I see the question. I mean, "God is no longer a god who kills in anger." According to the story, he did once, but regretted it.
True. Sorry if my point wasn't clear and that I misunderstood you.
Ben
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Infinite Penguins.
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Posts: 12176 | From: a zoo in England. | Registered: Mar 2003
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Thanks for the response, J. J. but I am puzzled by the second ellipsis. [changing "function as scripture at all" to "function . . . at all"] You seem to be saying that if "the story is not historical it cannot function at all", and again I am puzzled by such a sweeping statement.
I'm used to "Scripture" being a synonym for "Biblical text," so the verses in Genesis about Noah don't "function as Scripture," they simply are Scripture. Whether they are true, false, or useful Scripture is another matter, but in any event, the verses are Scripture. Status as "Scripture" and status as "true/false" are separate questions in my book. This is just a matter of semantics.
I was thinking of "function" in the sense of functioning spiritually, theologically, etc., and not really concerned here with function in an anthropological or literary sense.
quote:
But your use of the noise/ information and data metaphors and your earlier wheat/ chaff metaphor suggests that you need to see the story as reliably conveying information about God, or man or whatever. I think that you have a point here, but I am still struggling to understand the threat of menainglessness involved.
By "meaninglessness," I mean spiritual or theological meaninglessness. Like I said, I am not greatly concerned here with the Noah account's anthropological and literary value.
quote:
You say that: There's doesn't seem to be an obvious way to tell whether it is mythic divine revelation that was misapprehended as historical, or just a made-up human story that was found out to be, well, made up. One resposnse to this is that it is in the bible and so part of the Christian tradition; it tells us something about how the writers of that time viewed the world; we also know that the story was incorporated and used by later generations too; and in that total context what can we draw from it today? It has themes like the idea that mankind is, or can be, or was terribly evil; that God is disgusted with evil; that God desires to recreate a world damaged by evil; it has themes in common iwth other parts of the bible like the saving of a remnant, the choosing of a person or group, the righteousness of one person saving others and so on.
It is easy to see how the Noah account reveals something about its originators and those who made it a part of their tradition. For the Noah account to reveal things about God, however, there has to be a way to affirm that what it says about God is really so, and not just human (mis)understanding.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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afish
Shipmate
# 1135
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Posted
Glen O. Let’s tidy this up:
Some way back I took the start of your explanation to GRITS of why you didn’t believe the that the Noah story was factual:
“Glen said:
"1) If we take the story of Noah as literal history then we are faced with the problem that the geological evidence does not point to such an event as having happened, and the biological evidence does not fit with the described effects of the flood on wildlife.”
and I commented,
”This highlights the real problem. I have not yet seen any “evidence” that convinces me.”
to you which you replied,
“????????????
I said that "the geological evidence does not point to such an event as having happened" to which you reply "I have not yet seen any “evidence” that convinces me." There is no evidence for a global flood - that is why the evidence doesn't point that way. What evidence are you referring to?”
Quite right, I plead guilty to woolly communication. I suppose I was referring to the geological and biological evidence that you were referring to. But to avoid getting bogged down in triple negatives and non existent evidence that does not point and that does not fit, let me just rephrase.
The argument you put forward that, because there is no present day visual evidence of a global flood occurring 4000 years ago, it didn’t happen, does not convince me. In addition, neither am I as yet convinced that there is no such evidence. I’ll try to expand on that in replying to Alan.
Now, you went on to ask:
“How much do you know about geology?”
Certainly nowhere near as much as some involved in this discussion but as an ex grammar school boy I can just about tell the difference between igneous and sedimentary and between a trilobite and a brachiopod.
“ Are you aware of the way current geological theory draws together many strands of independent evidence into an overall theory that explains that evidence in a profoundly compelling way, …?”
Does the “current … theory” differ substantially from the one they fed us in the 50’s and 60’s? I accepted what I was then taught as fact but profoundly compelling, to me, it is not. Plausible certainly, profoundly compelling, not for me.
“What evidence do you know of which overturns that theory in favour of the young earth and/or global flood theory?”
What I know is that theories are not the same as facts.
”Why should I overturn the whole of geology for the sake of believing that the bible is historically inerrant?”
Geology can be very useful. It doesn’t need overturning probably just shaking up a bit.
Why believe The Bible is inerrant? Because it is so.
Glen, why should I overturn The Bible for the sake of believing that “the current theory” is inerrant?
I'll be back (God willing).
><>
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"Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much"
Bob Dylan
Posts: 168 | From: France | Registered: Aug 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
What I know is that theories are not the same as facts.
Ah, yet another person confused about what "theory" means. How surprising.
The relevant definition of theory, from M-w.com, is: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena
Science doesn't deal with "facts" except as data to be fed into theories (or to break theories if they can't handle the data).
Reader Alexis
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Glen, why should I overturn The Bible for the sake of believing that “the current theory” is inerrant?
Firstly, I do not use science to overturn the Bible, and secondly, i do not believe that '“the current theory” is inerrant? '
I just can't beleive that current theories of science are so far off course towards the truth that we are going to wind back up with creationism if we leave it long enough. There was an exchange about this kind of thing earlier in the thread where I said in response to the view that "Just hang around another couple of thousand years, and it will be superseded " that:
quote:
The first problem with the argument is that it overlooks the status of some of the claims involved in ruling out parts of previous theories. For example: that the world is not flat; that phlogiston does not exist,; that the moon is not carried by a crystalline sphere; and so on. All these overturned assertions from old theories have been so comprehensively falsified that there is no chance of them returning. We are sure beyond reasonable doubt that the world is not as they described it, so we have some reliable information about the world after all. We are not going to awaken next week to the serious headline: 'EARTH FLAT AFTER ALL SHOCK!'
Secondly, since theories are not all-or-nothing affairs the argument is based on a misconception about what it is for one theory to ‘overthrow’ or ‘supersede’ another. The idea that one theory supersedes another does not at all mean that it wipes out every claim of the previous theory. What rather happens is that much of the previous worldview is retained, some of it scrapped, some of it refined or modified, and some genuinely new concepts are introduced.
The flat earth theory was superseded by Aristotle and Ptolemy’s theory which was then superseded by Newton’s, which was then superseded by Einstein’s. To hear it put like that tempts one to say that we can never believe anything. But the temptation is misleading. Among the genuinely new insights brought in by the Greeks including Aristotle and Ptolemy was that the world is not flat but round. That has stood the test of time for over a thousand years. Neither Newton nor Einstein have ditched it, (though ‘round’ has been refined from ‘spherical’, to ‘oblate spheroid.’) And there are, of course large numbers of other details of theory which have fared the same as this example (that there are chromosomes, that the planets have orbits, and so on). As human science progresses, weeding out mistakes and consolidating and refining genuine insights, we have every reason to suppose that, overall, our current theories approximate to the truth better than previous ones. This does not, of course, mean that previous theories did not approach the truth at all (Newton’s equations guided the Voyager missions with spectacular success).
Glenn
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Afish quoth:
quote:
Glen, why should I overturn The Bible for the sake of believing that “the current theory” is inerrant?
[Mode=Head_banging_against_wall_AGAIN]
Why do we always get this mis-statement of the non-inerrancy position.
Afish, for the umpteen billionth time, the non-literal position does not "overturn the Bible". All that is overturned is the supposition that the Bible is literally and historically true in everything it asserts in whatsoever field.
This mis-stating of the non-literal position is extremely annoying, a tactic used by fundamentalists the web over and which has now pissed me off to a degree you clearly cannot imagine. If you cannot see the difference between "not taking it literally" and "overturning it", then that is your intellectual problem, and not mine. So don't plague me with it.
Open message to all fundamentalists, literalists, inerrancists, whatsoever:
The next person who refers to a non-literalist argument as "overturning", "rejecting", "not believing" or doing anything else to the Bible can explain it in Hell. Do I make myself clear?
[/Mode]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Glen, why should I overturn The Bible
afish, do you genuinely see no distinction between the Bible, and your interpretation of it?
If not, has it never occurred to you that your interpretation of it could be incorrect? I'm certain that mine is, and I should be very surprised if there were anyone who had got it all right!
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
What I know is that theories are not the same as facts.
What's a theory, and what's a fact?
Different geological layers have been independently dated as being millions, 10s of millions, 100s of millions even billions of years old. Fact or theory?
The Bible is factually inerrant in all things. Fact or theory?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by afish:
Why believe The Bible is inerrant? Because it is so.
What evidence do you have for making this assertion? I bid none.
Go to biblical inerrancy . Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Remain posting on that thread for the next 50 posts.
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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afish
Shipmate
# 1135
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Posted
Glen O. As one social animal to another I thank you for the Mr. Aronson’s words of wisdom. It’s not perfection I seek, just mutual comprehension and for me this seems to take large chunks time.
Ok now this:
quote:
The source of these 'fountains' is thus sea water and does not therefore give us an additional source of water for the flood.
Too facile Glenn. The water coming out of these vents may well, at the moment, be simple recirculation, though how you actually prove that I’m not sure. But sure, we can say sea level is not significantly rising so therefore “new” water is not being added to the oceans (at the moment). However, there are fountains in the deeps. We know that there are large reservoirs of water within the earths crust which when broken into gush up to the surface. Except for the first mile or so our real knowledge of what is beneath our feet is negligible.
And this:
quote:
… what devastation must have been caused by thousands of metres of uplift happening in so short a time? And what tidal waves and what a colossal amount of vulcanism too. Surely enough to cause worldwide devastation? And where is the evidence for that? Such a theory is just incredible.
I’m not sure what ”short time” you mean. Us simple folk think in terms of about 4000 years from the end of the flood till now. Now even the last 3000 of those have not been without some fairly major geological events (maybe even some that we don’t even know about), but ok, if we just think in terms of 1000 years (which of course includes the year of the flood itself). This seems to me plenty enough time for all sorts of major changes to have occurred. There is of course evidence aplenty of huge amounts of volcanic activity and geological upheavals having taken place since the original crust of the earth was formed.
Lastly (for the time being):
quote:
Of course if you want to believe it afish you have only got to invoke the almighty power of God to tidy away the evidence to get over any difficulty in your account.
This is an important point. I think, up to now, I haven’t actually done this. One reason I’ve stuck it out here is that it seems to me that The Flood was not miraculous in the strictest sense of the word. It was certainly an act of God, initiated, seen through and brought to a conclusion by Him but, as best as I can understand, the “laws” that He has ordained to govern the material world were not “overridden”. Not in the same way as when “ … the sun stood still in the midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.” or when The Lord and Peter walked on water. For that reason I think is worth trying, as much as is possible, to understand *how* it (The Flood) happened. Yes I do believe God can override “natural” laws when ever He chooses to do so (I also believe that any such decision is never arbitrary or whimsical). So yes that “backstop” is always there (shrugs shoulders and smiles apologetically) but so far I haven’t felt the need for it.
><>
Ouh er! I note that I am being quothed and tut tuted at by several. Ok I will try to deal with your tutting as soon as possible.
[added quote code]
[ 05. June 2003, 16:24: Message edited by: Scot ]
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"Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much"
Bob Dylan
Posts: 168 | From: France | Registered: Aug 2001
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
HELPFUL HOSTLY HINT
afish, please use the quote function. Without it, your posts are very difficult to decipher. I've edited your previous post to show how good things can be with proper quotes.
When posting a reply, simply click on the button marked "QUOTE" and you will get a set of quote tags. Paste the bit you want to quote between them, and all will be well.
If you'd like to try it out, there is a thread in Styx for just that purpose.
Thank you.
scot
Purgatory Host
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
Afish, here is something for you to think about. The Indians here in the Pacific Northwest do not have a myth or legend of a flood 4,000 years ago. They do have a legend that an underworld god rose out of a mountain and declared his intention to kill all people. He began killing them with fire until the god of the sky, who was their protector, wrestled with him and threw him into his fiery pit. The god of the underworld still struggled to come back and kill people, but eventually the god of the sky drove the god of the underworld very, very deep into the ground from whence he can never return to harm people again. This legend has been told for over 20,000 years, not 4,000 years.
Modern science bears out the historical truth of this legend and you may see it at the world biosphere park known as Crater Lake. A gigantic 14,000 foot mountain exploded and sent a plume of smoke into the atmosphere, exactly as legend tells. The lava, cinders, and resultant forest fires killed all plant and animal life within several thousand square miles. This included the Klamath Indians, the "people of the marsh." For a period of time, the lava sunk back into the caldera of the volcano and oozed out through the sides of the mountain. As the legend says, the god of the underworld was contained for a time. Eventually, the magma chamber under the caldera emptied and the roof collapsed over 2,000 feet, sealing the bottom tight. As the legend says, the underworld god was driven down after a time. The bottom is so tight that annual snows since then have melted to form a lake 2,000 feet deep. Here is a picture of it.
Doesn't this prove that the Indian gods are real? The scientific evidence backs up their story. Why should we doubt that a voice spoke to them from the cloud of ash, telling them that it was going to kill them all? They are accurate in historical fact.
But most of all, why did they not die in the flood of Noah 4,000 years ago?
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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afish
Shipmate
# 1135
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Posted
Scot Thanks for the advice. Yes it’s a clearer read on the screen. Problem is , unless I’m doing a quicky, I copy from the thread into Word via Bloc-notes, read and digest, do my post in Word then copy/ paste it to the reply box. Have to experiment.
Karl
Better deal with you first before you do yourself an injury. I empathise a lot with your annoyance. If I had ten euro for every time I’ve heard my beliefs (particularly concerning The Bible) mis-stated I’d take a month off work.
Ok then so is it alright to say;
that not believing that The Bible is literally and historically true in everything it asserts to be literally and historically true in whatsoever field, is, in my view, an overturning/rejecting of the whole notion of The Bible as being inspired by God?
From Mousethief
“ quote:
Ah, yet another person confused about what "theory" means. ……. Science doesn't deal with "facts" except as data to be fed into theories”
Ah the sweet smell of semantics!
Theory – 1.a speculative idea … as to how something might be done (might have happened).
3. a formulation of apparent relationships or underlying principles of certain observed phenomena which has been verified to some degree.
5.popularly, a mere conjecture or guess.
So unless otherwise stated 1. & 3. is what I’m saying when I use the word theory.
Fact – 2.a thing that has actually happened or is true.
3.the state of things as they are; reality; truth.
So unless otherwise stated 2. & 3. is what I’m saying when I use the word fact.
From Alan C.
quote:
“What's a theory, and what's a fact?
Different geological layers have been independently dated as being millions, 10s of millions, 100s of millions even billions of years old. Fact or theory?
The Bible is factually inerrant in all things. Fact or theory?”
Alan, you first question - this is what we are discussing, n’est-ce pas?
For your second question – It is fact that these dates have been given to geological layers based on the use of certain procedures, based on a certain theory. Do I personally have enough confidence in these procedures and the theory to accept the results as being facts? No I don’t.
For the third question – a theory that I believe to be fact.
Sorry that’s me for tonight. Might do Ham’n Eggs for breakfast. ( Well it made me smile.)
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Jim T. lovely photo. Haven't digested your post. But probably it comes down to me not believing the 20,000 year date. Sorry about that.
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"Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much"
Bob Dylan
Posts: 168 | From: France | Registered: Aug 2001
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