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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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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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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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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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Posted                          

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

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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.

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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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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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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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.

Posted                      

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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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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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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.

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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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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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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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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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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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Posted                       

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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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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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Posted                      

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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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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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Originally posted by Jamat:

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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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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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Posted                          

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.

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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).

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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.


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* 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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Originally posted by mousethief:

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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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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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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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Originally posted by Jamat:

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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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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by orfeo:

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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.

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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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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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Originally posted by Crœsos:

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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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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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Originally posted by Jamat:

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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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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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

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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.

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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?

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