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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Noah's Flood
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Agreed Alan.
I ain't been here before ...
Been there, but accepted the miraculous in parallel, as more than theologically true, as true as well.
Hmmmmmm.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
That is, as we've established, it would be impossible for the Ark to hold a breeding stock of all animals, insects, fish, plants etc... Therefore, God would need to take additional steps to either preserve other creatures from the Flood, or to recreate them after the Flood has subsided.
Perhaps God gave Noah some directions about the design of the Ark which didn't make it into Genesis. It would certainly explain a lot.
Has that really been established?
Have you actually realised how huge the ark was?
web page
Yep. As described it had about as much deck area as 1.75 (American) football fields, or about 1.3 football pitches anywhere outside the U.S. Volumetric calculations, like the one at your link, make the fairly dubious assumtion that you can just stack animals on top of each other like crates.
At any rate there's still the question of not only storing the animals but also at least 150 days of food. While fodder is a lot more stackable than giraffes or butterflies, it takes up a lot of room.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Alan C: The rocks beneath our feet, the genes of the plants and animals that dwell here etc all declare that there was no global flood.
But ultimately, Alan, you were not there nor was anyone else now living.
We seem to have only two choices, work out what happened by ourselves best we can and put our faith in our own thinking and wisdom, or, accept that there is a divine revelation available if we care to accept it.
Now, if the rocks and stones tell a story, history tells a story and God tells a story..and we put those stories together assuming a triangular harmony, then surely that's the best we can do.
The issue to me is always the tendency to put the human mind above the Biblical facts and then tell ourselves what we want to.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But so far as I am aware, the Creation texts tell us that God "spoke" the rock into being as well. So why should it not record faithfully and without any deception, what had happened to it since it was made? In other words, what is wrong with the plain meaning of the rock? Did the rock fall into sin and become a deceiver?
As I said earlier, we have more than one eye witness for Creation - we don't just have the Genesis account (if, indeed, it is an eye witness account by God) we have the creation itself. The same is true in relation to the Flood. The material universe testifies concerning the proposed Global Flood. The rocks beneath our feet, the genes of the plants and animals that dwell here etc all declare that there was no global innundation and no wiping out of the vast majority of life on earth.
It is such a simple argument Alan, yet such a powerful one. So far as I can see, the only theological view which comes close to countering it is the notion that the fall was in some sense Cosmic. All of Creation fell and therefore all of creation is tainted by the Fall. This is the notion that the land itself has been consequentially cursed I think. So that even the rocks themselves may in their cursed state be instruments of deception.
I await the BHB response which may be along those lines, based on Romans 8. Here is the excerpt
quote:
19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
OK guys. For the Flood to have happened and leave no trace, which is the case, and to have been ball-park as described, 5000 years ago, three miles deep it would have to be the most stupendous miracle, greater than an Eden event by many orders of magnitude.
Evolution and biodiversity didn't skip a beat, didn't touch the Wallace line where each of two waves of evolution form a wall to the other where they meet.
And we know that God is pragmatic: the Sabbath.
Is He THAT pragmatic?
Jesus invoked the Flood and being fully human believed it. Or was He being head spinningly pragmatic, He who saw Satan fall. Did He remember that or know that it must be true?
Peter invoked Him in The Flood. Preaching to the disobedient spirits: the fallen angels in prison.
Is there room for my premiss ... posit that the geoLogos and bioLogos are utterly faithful and true witnesses, two witnesses in which the truth of a matter is established AND that a biosphere wide and deep traceless nested miracle of cascading miracles occured ?
The dimensions of the ark explain NOTHING. That it was the biggest ship described up to the SS Great Britain and has the right ratio even.
The Flood certainly is a test of faith ... and not in the fundamentalist sense at all.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Martin PC not:OK guys. For the Flood to have happened and leave no trace, which is the case,
But it is patently clear that this obvious 'case' you refer to, rests on the geological assumptions you start with.
Take a fossil fish; Now it could have been created by a flood. A fish is overwhelmed and entombed and buried suddenly in the midst of life.
We all know fossils don't easily occur. organic matter rots or becomes prey normally, so why did our fish not? Maybe a flood? Could've been.
What about coal. vegetation buried and organically carbonised. How could coal happen at such depths? Could've been a flood..could've.
And hey, coal is everywhere...so..maybe the flood was universal..could've been.
Were you there? God says he was. "The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea the Lord sitteth, King forever." Ps 29:10
[ 13. December 2010, 23:05: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
As I said earlier, we have more than one eye witness for Creation - we don't just have the Genesis account (if, indeed, it is an eye witness account by God) we have the creation itself.
Fred Clark recently had a blog post on why the term "account" doesn't really apply to the first several chapters of Genesis.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Take a fossil fish; Now it could have been created by a flood. A fish is overwhelmed and entombed and buried suddenly in the midst of life.
We all know fossils don't easily occur. organic matter rots or becomes prey normally, so why did our fish not? Maybe a flood? Could've been.
What about coal. vegetation buried and organically carbonised. How could coal happen at such depths? Could've been a flood..could've.
And hey, coal is everywhere...so..maybe the flood was universal..could've been.
The above paean to ignorance is one of the best summaries of creationist "thought" I've come across in a long time. It starts from a position of ignorance (usually personal ignorance) and then tries to parlay that ignorance into a kind of shrug that justifies whatever crackpot theory they feel needs to be advanced. Don't know how coal is formed or how fish are fossilized? Hey, no need to do any research, just make an assumption that supports your pre-existing prejudices!
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
Cro quote:
Hey, no need to do any research, just make an assumption that supports your pre-existing prejudices!
Odd how your research fails to note that all dating calculations to date anything over 5700 year are based on assumptions, and of ALL these dating methods, over 90% of them provide dates far younger than is needed for evolution to be a remote possibility.
The Flood did indeed lay down most of the rocks and fossils we have today, they are dated by the rocks that surround them, and as I have already stated those dating methods are based on assumptions. And as for the flood being local and ignoring the worldwide coal and fossils, there are also flood legends in most parts of the World. Why would they have ever heard of a flood like that if it was only in the Middle East or only local elsewhere?
So as for "this Book is right, therefore this rock must be wrong", God never works on assumptions as He witnessed all these things, He leaves man to do that, with his own 'infinite' wisdom, which needs a truth update every now and then!
[ 14. December 2010, 00:04: Message edited by: ByHisBlood ]
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
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Seonaid
Shipmate
# 16031
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Posted
Please provide the evidence for the allegations you make about the dating methods, and please use reputable sites, not ones like answers in genesis or such ilk.
Posts: 195 | From: Scotland | Registered: Nov 2010
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Cro
quote:
Hey, no need to do any research, just make an assumption that supports your pre-existing prejudices!
Odd how your research fails to note that all dating calculations to date anything over 5700 year are based on assumptions, and of ALL these dating methods, over 90% of them provide dates far younger than is needed for evolution to be a remote possibility.
All dating calculations? I think "count the tree rings" (a method which can date things a lot further back than your asserted horizon of 57 centuries) is pretty straightforward and only makes minimal, easily checked assumptions. Just which assumption of dendrochronology do you find so hard to agree with?
I'm also curious about what problem you've got with uranium-lead dating. The half-life of uranium seems like a pretty well-known and stable figure.
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
The Flood did indeed lay down most of the rocks and fossils we have today, they are dated by the rocks that surround them, . . .
Or by the isotope mix found in them.
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
. . . and as I have already stated those dating methods are based on assumptions. And as for the flood being local and ignoring the worldwide coal and fossils, there are also flood legends in most parts of the World. Why would they have ever heard of a flood like that if it was only in the Middle East or only local elsewhere?
There are floods in most parts of the world. This works on the "disaster story" principle, where a good story is worked around some known disaster and exaggerated for dramatic effect. Making similar assumptions one could just as easily claim that Herakles, Samson, Karna, and Superman are all really the same person, because how many superhumanly strong men could there really be? Ditto Siegfried and Achilles.
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
So as for "this Book is right, therefore this rock must be wrong", God never works on assumptions as He witnessed all these things, He leaves man to do that, with his own 'infinite' wisdom, which needs a truth update every now and then!
Then why did He make so many fake old zircons? Not to mention fake old stars? It seems inherently dishonest. Of course, if God did indeed deliberately artificially deplete the uranium in zirconium crystals it could be argued that He did so because He wants you to believe that rock (and, by consequence, the planet it's part of) is a lot older than Genesis says.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Cro quote:
Hey, no need to do any research, just make an assumption that supports your pre-existing prejudices!
Odd how your research fails to note that all dating calculations to date anything over 5700 year are based on assumptions, and of ALL these dating methods, over 90% of them provide dates far younger than is needed for evolution to be a remote possibility.
The Flood did indeed lay down most of the rocks and fossils we have today, they are dated by the rocks that surround them, and as I have already stated those dating methods are based on assumptions. And as for the flood being local and ignoring the worldwide coal and fossils, there are also flood legends in most parts of the World. Why would they have ever heard of a flood like that if it was only in the Middle East or only local elsewhere?
So as for "this Book is right, therefore this rock must be wrong", God never works on assumptions as He witnessed all these things, He leaves man to do that, with his own 'infinite' wisdom, which needs a truth update every now and then!
Is that really the best you can do by way of argument? To claim that thoughtful, considered folks are making assumptions and in need of a truth update? Asserting that folks lack a decent argument in order to avoid addressing a decent argument is just rhetorical bluster.
At least the Cosmic Fall is an argument which one might reasonably claim to be evidenced to some extent in scripture. Whereas such airy dismissals butter not a single parsnip.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
thoughtful, considered folks are making assumptions
And nothing wrong with that. Just be aware of it.
What you and others argue is that your assumptions are more factual, knowledge based and reliable. Well it may be. They are assumptions nonetheless.
i'm always amazed at the vitriol that emanates toward anyone with the utter temerity to say outright that the Bible says something so that is good enough. It is good enough for me.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
i'm always amazed at the vitriol that emanates toward anyone with the utter temerity to say outright that the Bible says something
Th Bible doesn't say anything. In the process of reading it, we may hear the Spirit of God speaking to us. That's not a little picky point. The same fallible eyes and minds which are engaged in reading scripture are engaged in reading the world.
Those of us who are believers see the Bible as a book which may in its reading reveal God to us through its inspired witness and that the inspiration comes from God. That's my take on "the Spirit breathes upon the word". Without that breathing, all we have is just words. We are no more perfect interpreters of that "breathing on the words" than we are of anything else. Otherwise why would Christians of good faith see this special means of revelation differently. None of us has the right to claim an infallible interpretation of this process by which "the Spirit breathes on the word".
The words are a means of special revelation to imperfect people. At least that is what I think special revelation means. How that works in the individual human heart is ultimately a matter between us and God.
What I think Alan and I and others are arguing here is I believe generally referred to as general revelation. In scripture we find statements such as the heavens declare the glory of God. Also, quite specifically from Romans 1 we read this.
quote:
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Creation reveals in itself something of God's power and nature. Creation itself acts as a witness. Therefore, if the things that are made can be seen clearly i.e. understood, read, interpreted, they reveal something of God. They do not speak deceptively, any more than the words of scripture speak deceptively. Any deception, self-delusion, is in the mind of the fallible beholder.
The way I see this is that we need to be humble in the way we handle both these species of revelation. If they do not always cohere in our minds, then I think that is to be expected, given our fallibility. That incoherence is not resolved by arguing that in such cases our reading of the Book infallibly trumps the way others read the rocks. It is simply an assertion that one potentially fallible view is better than another potentially fallible view.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
Barnabas quote:
The Bible doesn't say anything
Here is some of the scientific NOTHING the Bible says.
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
BHB
Your post misses the point of mine, or seeks to obscure it? Not sure which. I can read the words and I knew they were there. I can also read other references e.g. to the word firmament.
But that is probably a different subject and probably a different DH thread.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
A quick apology to BHB and the DH Hosts. When I re-read my last post, I realised that my words might be taken to imply mischief on BHB's part - and that would be personal attack.
That was not at all my intention - I was thinking more about the understanding and effects of the post rather than your intentions as its writer. This is a contentious discussion but I do not want to darken the energetic discussions by any form of personal attack.
[ 14. December 2010, 08:48: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Barnabas quote:
The Bible doesn't say anything
Here is some of the scientific NOTHING the Bible says.
Well, that list is entirely inaccurate. To begin with, the first entry is a lie. It's actually the Bible that says in the Isaiah passage referred to that the Earth is a flat 'circle', while ancient Greek philosophers were the first to suggest the Earth was spherical (around 330BC) and no reputable scientific thinker claimed the earth was flat ever since, (though we quickly worked out it's not actually a sphere, more sort of ovoid).
I could go on but it's too easy. The Bible doesn't say what the list claims it says, in fact often the opposite. And its understanding of historical science is just pulled out of thin air.
If you link to lies to support the Bible it actually damages its standing in the world, not improves it. Please be more careful in future as I'm sure that's not what you're meaning to do.
[ 14. December 2010, 08:56: Message edited by: Hawk ]
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
But it is patently clear that this obvious 'case' you refer to, rests on the geological assumptions you start with.
Take a fossil fish; Now it could have been created by a flood. A fish is overwhelmed and entombed and buried suddenly in the midst of life.
We all know fossils don't easily occur. organic matter rots or becomes prey normally, so why did our fish not? Maybe a flood? Could've been.
What about coal. vegetation buried and organically carbonised. How could coal happen at such depths? Could've been a flood..could've.
And hey, coal is everywhere...so..maybe the flood was universal..could've been.
Could also have been magical pixie dust.. could've. And quite frankly, the magical pixie dust doesn't contradict anything we know about the behaviour of water or of the formation of coal. Or any one of a number of other things. Therefore magical pixie dust is a much more likely explanation than yours.
And quite frankly when magical pixie dust beats your explanation for plausibility it's time to find a new one.
quote:
Were you there? God says he was. "The Lord sitteth upon the flood; yea the Lord sitteth, King forever." Ps 29:10
No. That is not God saying he was. That is King David (probably) saying that God was as recorded in the Bible. Newsflash: nether King David nor the Bible are themselves God. And if God really wrote Psalm 29 about himself then he is the most boastful jackass I can think of - something that seems to contradict what we know of Creation. It is also explicitely not a psalm in the first person - "Give unto the LORD" is not the same thing as "Give unto me" as it would be if God was speaking. You therefore explicitely can not use it to say what God says about himself because it is explicitely not God speaking there. It is some human worshipper of God.
The First Commandment is "Thou shalt have no other God before me". Why, then, do you put the works of King David as recorded as the Psalms before the works of God as recorded as the Universe?
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The First Commandment is "Thou shalt have no other God before me". Why, then, do you put the works of King David as recorded as the Psalms before the works of God as recorded as the Universe?
I think this gets to the centre of the argument Justinian.
Thank you.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Those lost to the meme of wooden literalism cannot be reasoned with.
They are all damnationsists too due to the same psychological limitation.
Despite wooden literalist inerrantism being rationally impossible and theologically unnecessary to be faithful, it feels safe to them.
Barnabas. You raised the possibility of creation becoming a lie, as it were, in the fall. How could it? How can radiometry, the rocks and biodiversity and the fossil bridge between them be misconstrued? Actually contain the story of The Flood and we can't see it?
It isn't there Barnabas. The only way it could have been there is miraculously. Miraculously it came and miraculously it went.
Is there a conservative theological basis for that? For God intervening without a trace? All biblical miracles have that characteristic so I oscillate back toward an acceptance of even the great, least parsimonious, miracles.
Is there a conservative theological basis for extending God's pragmatism way beyond the institution of the Sabbath?
To God not minding that we regard Him as Killer, as He regarded Himself - BY FAITH - when incarnate, whilst in fact never having laid a finger on us.
Passive and pacifist?
Hmmmmm.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Barnabas. You raised the possibility of creation becoming a lie, as it were, in the fall. How could it?
I thought I made it clear that this view of a "Cosmic Fall" was not one I held, just one I had heard argued.
Happy to confirm that I do not support the view.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
To God not minding that we regard Him as Killer, as He regarded Himself - BY FAITH - when incarnate, whilst in fact never having laid a finger on us.
That's not entirely true.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
My apologies Barnabas. It's me age. A mere boy to you I realise.
And well said Croesus, but nuanced, ambiguous, obscure (I prefer enigmatic, but there you are) old pedant that I am, He might have laid a whip on us when He were a bloke, but I'm positing that as ZayGod He let us attribute all the zottings to Him when in fact it was just the weather as Huxley said.
I'm bipolariously yo-yoing with high frequency and amplitude to the point of wossname, indeterminacy and thingy, you know superposition (HAD to look it up, BUGGER, via 'concurrent quantum states') on all of this.
Nah, the God of the Exodus HAS to be real.
Jesus believed ALL this stuff. Didn't refute a jot or tittle of it.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
I would have thought that a Hawk would have seen further than the English text?
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
In the process of reading it, we may hear the Spirit of God speaking to us.
In the process of reading what it says, we may hear what he is saying.
David wrote Ps 29 certainly. If he wrote under the annointing of the Holy Spirit, God has revealed himself through these words. God both caused and witnessed the flood. He says so.
You are not actually arguing with people so I'd be quite careful, whoever suggested God is a jackass. We have one day to answer for our idle words.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Martin: old pedant that I am
You one of the dear brothers ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) For the bipolar.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Jamat, Jamat. My apologies. I'm not bipolar. Sad and frightened more than most perhaps. I have been diagnosed as mildly clinically depressed. However I am VERY familiar with cyclothymia and bipolarity in my close family.
I was using it as a figure of speech.
Your compassion moves me very much and reminds me, to say the least, that the differences in our thinking processes are as NOTHING compared to the commonalities in our feelings and our need for transcendent relationship.
God bless you my brother.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
In the process of reading it, we may hear the Spirit of God speaking to us.
In the process of reading what it says, we may hear what he is saying.
Marks on paper do not say anything. We read for comprehension. If there is Divine involvement in the communication, then He must somehow be present in our reading. The words are simply a nexus. A means of connection. If we understand and believe what Jesus is recorded to have said about the Spirit of God in John's gospel, then He is with us and will be in us. He is our counsellor, our guide, while we are reading.
So we read in the presence of a Divine Teacher (who will teach us all things and bring all things to our memory). And so there is another nexus as well. Another connection. Between the Spirit of God and us.
Do we hear Him clearly as we ponder meaning? You know the answer to that. There is static in the communication, caused by our fallibilities, which include ignorance, weakness and fault. How teachable are we? How deaf are we?
If this communication were straightforward with all of us, then we would be in perfect harmony over what the Spirit of God is saying to the church and to ourselves as members. Clearly the communication is not straightforward.
quote:
You are not actually arguing with people so I'd be quite careful, whoever suggested God is a jackass. We have one day to answer for our idle words.
I disagree. I am arguing with people. I am not suggesting that God is a jackass, I am suggesting that all of us can be. In which suggestion, I am greatly comforted by the ancient story in scripture that God can actually speak through an ass.
We all fall into traps of automatic thinking and we parrot phrases. I said it elsewhere. I'm not a parrot, I'm an antiparrot. The distinguishing mark of the protestant Dissenter. The phrase "The Bible Says" is at best shorthand, at worst quite misleading. It may blind us to what is going on.
There remains the question "why this book"? A good question, but this post is long enough.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
BHB
Do you know the etymology and provenance, origin of the word 'atom'?
No, neither does the compiler of that infantile list.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
I would have thought that a Hawk would have seen further than the English text?
What an odd remark. I assume this is directed at me but I have no idea what you're referring to. Is this in some way an attempt at replying to my earlier post? If so could you elaborate?
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
In the process of reading it, we may hear the Spirit of God speaking to us.
In the process of reading what it says, we may hear what he is saying.
David wrote Ps 29 certainly. If he wrote under the annointing of the Holy Spirit, God has revealed himself through these words. God both caused and witnessed the flood. He says so.
He may say so. But not there. There it is David speaking. And at most, David is only a witness. Once again you seek to put the Bible rather than God on the pedestal to be worshipped.
quote:
You are not actually arguing with people so I'd be quite careful, whoever suggested God is a jackass. We have one day to answer for our idle words.
If God is worthy of worship then God is a God of Truth. Not the Prince of Lies the contradictions between your reading of the Bible and the very rocks of Creation make him out to be. If God is the Deceiver then what role does that leave for the Adversary? Teacher? Enlightener? Truth-teller?
I do my best to stand with the Light of Truth and against the Deceiver. If those words are held against me I hope it will be because of how far short of the ideal I fall. And if they are not, eternally worshipping the Deceiver would be hell anyway. Or I'd need my discernment to be removed.
Likewise if having to "answer for our idle words" has the risk of burning eternally in Hell. The Creator of a system involving Eternal Torment is either evil or fucked up badly. Hitler himself doesn't deserve eternal torment. And if God really is choosing to send people into eternal torment then Heaven is no true heaven as others are suffering. The only being that deserves eternal torment is one who willingly sends others there - and the mark of a system being good is that it is forgiving. If petty words would have me sent to Hell then God is a petty tyrant and not worthy of worship. (He may be able to claim it through fear or through deceit but he is not worthy of it).
I do my best (and too often fail) to stand on the side of compassion, of forgiveness, and of nurturing. And I try to return good for evil. If God returns endless evil (as Hell is) for finite evil let alone the petty evil of words then God is endlessly evil - and I hope to be able to one day spit in his eye although I am not sure I have quite that much courage. Of course, if God isn't that petty or that evil, this isn't an issue. If he is, to even enter his Heaven I'd need my compassion surgically removed.
And if it's a choice between the Deceiver and the one who believes Eternal Torment is just, the most important question becomes whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Powers, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep no more – and by a sleep to say we end.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
I would have thought that a Hawk would have seen further than the English text?
What an odd remark. I assume this is directed at me but I have no idea what you're referring to. Is this in some way an attempt at replying to my earlier post? If so could you elaborate?
As near as I can tell BHB seems to be implying that the Hebrew word commonly translated as "circle" in Isaiah 40:22 is better translated as "sphere", but doesn't want to come right out and say so, much less explain why this is so. Of course, this is not the case and Isaiah seems to mean "circle, the two-dimensional figure" rather than "sphere, the three-dimensional object" given his use of the same root word elsewhere. This is fairly standard creationist practice, since they typically maintain that believing correctly is more important than the actual search for truth.
BTW, the infamous list contained one of my pet peeves as well by deliberately conflating "invisible" and "microscopic". These are not the same thing.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Jamat-
So are you arguing that true science supports your Flood theory, or are you arguing that science is irrelevant? You seem to be doing the former until your evidence is refuted by the actual scientists, then falling back, saying "don't blind me with science" and claiming that faith in the literal truth of scripture trumps mere evidence anyway. Then if people take that on theologically, you start proposing quasi-scientific theories about trees turning into coal in 5000 years, etc.
You can't have it both ways.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Barnabas. You raised the possibility of creation becoming a lie, as it were, in the fall. How could it?
I thought I made it clear that this view of a "Cosmic Fall" was not one I held, just one I had heard argued.
Happy to confirm that I do not support the view.
I also don't support that view, although it seems to be very common in some traditions. The argument goes that the Fall affected all of creation, for all of time. The very fabric of the universe became distorted and enslaved to the Deceiver. Therefore, the 'witness of the rocks' is deceiptful and the evidence for an old earth (radiometric dating etc) is there to deliberately deceive us and lead us away from the Truth in Scripture. I have heard people use that argument in one breath, and then immediately launch into a tirade of how all the sedimentary rocks, or fossil fish on Mt Everest, show that there was a global flood. Apparently they don't see the probem with their logic.
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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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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Alan, I think the Cosmic Fall might be worth a bit of an unpack in this tangent to the main theme of the thread. Not intended as comprehensive, but here are a few thoughts I have had about the notion.
I came across the idea in C S Lewis's first book (the Pilgrim's Regress), but cannot quite remember whether it was something he himself believed or something which he attributed to a particular kind of church view or philosophical view he was criticising! (He says the book is needlessly obscure).
In scripture, we do find these twin notions that somehow creation does demonstrate the glory of God. Even though it has no speech, it is a witness which pours out words (Psalm 19). And the demonstration is clear (Romans 1).
But creation somehow groans, is somehow burdened, by the state of human beings, and cannot wait to see that lifted (Romans 8). Creation waits "on tiptoe" as the children's hymn puts it. The images are poetic of course; inanimate objects in creation are not of themselves sentient and have no speech, so they cannot literally groan.
Personally, I've found any arguments from scripture in favour of the Cosmic Fall to be unconvincing. The beautiful imagery in the Psalms and the reflections in Romans seem to add up to a view that the natural created order is a reliable witness to fallible human beings of the power of God in its creation. Our fallibility is a caution of course. We can and do misread anything either through ignorance or our own purposes.
Theologically, the notion that the forces of darkness can muck about with the created order and do some creating of deceitful evidence on their own seems to fly in the face of the understanding that the devil can destroy or deceive, but he cannot create. I think the old divines came up with that one because they believed that the dualisms found in Manichaeism and Gnosticism were against Christian truth. I think they were wise in that.
Scientific enquiry is at its best a humble process. At its heart it recognises the fallibility of the observer and analyst. That seems entirely consistent with the guidance of our faith on how best to live.
All of these things stack up for me. Cosmic Fall seems to include a means of special pleading, so that the profound signs which can be read in the created order can be argued away.
And I agree with you entirely about the incoherencies. Any view which would argue that the evidence of the created order must be treated with deep suspicion as possibly deceptive, then uses that evidence in such a way as to accept it, is incoherent. Such apologetics seem to be heading in opposite directions at the same time.
A long way away from Noah's flood, I suppose, but it entirely endorses your succinct earlier argument of the myriad witness against the notion of a Global Flood to be found in the things which are made. Creation is a reliable witness examined by unreliable enquirers. A high view of scripture says pretty much the same about scripture, despite the fallibilities of its human authors and editors.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
Tim quote:
Then if people take that on theologically, you start proposing quasi-scientific theories about trees turning into coal in 5000 years, etc.
Well all THESE were made in the last 5000 years.
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
Posts: 220 | Registered: Nov 2010
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
From your keyboard to my last post's penultimate paragraph, BHB.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
I would have thought that a Hawk would have seen further than the English text?
What an odd remark. I assume this is directed at me but I have no idea what you're referring to. Is this in some way an attempt at replying to my earlier post? If so could you elaborate?
As near as I can tell BHB seems to be implying that the Hebrew word commonly translated as "circle" in Isaiah 40:22 is better translated as "sphere", but doesn't want to come right out and say so, much less explain why this is so
I wondered if that was his point but if that is the case (and we can only speculate since BHB refuses to actually engage in conversation and defend his beliefs) then that would definitely surprise me from what else I’ve read of his inerrantist POV. Since ALL of the English translations I’ve seen translate the word as ‘circle’, (including the usual suspect for fundies – the KJV) then if their translation is wrong or deceptive, then that means their work of translation hasn’t been divinely protected against error by the ‘Author’ – human error has crept in and suddenly reading the Bible becomes a matter of critical interpretation, rather than plain, simple Truth. ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Tim quote:
Then if people take that on theologically, you start proposing quasi-scientific theories about trees turning into coal in 5000 years, etc.
Well all THESE were made in the last 5000 years.
Hilarious. I've seen these trotted out by YECies before as 'proof'. I think there's a 'Ripley's' character in America that keeps a sort of creationist folk-museum of this stuff and keeps making wild, unverified claims on the internet that filters through to sites like this. When the objects are investigated by people with an understanding of geological processes, it's suddenly seen that there's no documented evidence for where the object was found, none have been documented in situ so the claims about how old/which strata of rock the object was found in cannot be scientifically verified. And alterntive explanations for how the rock accrued around the object are far more plausible considering everything we know about the formation of coal and rock. This site is pretty good at arguing against all these so-called 'out-of-place' artifacts. This is a link to their page dealing with the 1912 finding of the iron pot in coal.
In regards to any object found encased in coal they explain:
quote:
If a man-made object falls into such a sediment-laden slurry, the sediment will often consolidate around it. Over a period of years this sediment can dry and harden considerably, forming a concretion like structure resembling a piece of the original formation. … Mineralization is common in the coal and surrounding debris of coal mines because rainwater reacts with the newly exposed minerals and produces highly mineralized solutions. Coal, sediments, and rocks are commonly cemented together in just a few years. It could easily appear that a pot cemented in such a concretion could appear superficially as if it were encased in the original coal…Thus, a person who broke open such a nodule might mistakenly conclude that it was part of the host formation, rather than a secondary product of the mining environment. This phenomena has been documented with objects as modern as soda bottles and World War II artifacts, and thus cannot be used as anti-evolutionary evidence.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
Well worked out, and if the Bible had been originally recorded English we would have something to gripe about. It wasn't, we don't.
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
Posts: 220 | Registered: Nov 2010
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
Hawk,
Holding together the evolution faith from an increasingly large list of contradictry evidences must be quite a task but nothing new; only 10% of the evidence presented 85 years ago still remains as a possibility!
Another material is mentioned in this next article:
The London Times in 1851 reported that Hiram DeWitt, of Springfield, Mass, brought a piece of California. When the stone was accidentally dropped it split open and inside was a cut-iron six-penny nail. The nail was described as perfectly straight and with its head still intact.
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
Posts: 220 | Registered: Nov 2010
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
Mobile phone joys, let's try the start of that again:-
The London Times in 1851 reported that Hiram DeWitt, of Springfield, Mass, brought a piece of quartz home from a trip to California.
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
Posts: 220 | Registered: Nov 2010
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Hawk,
Holding together the evolution faith from an increasingly large list of contradictry evidences must be quite a task but nothing new; only 10% of the evidence presented 85 years ago still remains as a possibility!
Whatever that means. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
But it's not that much of a task to refute obvious BS, thanks. It's pretty easy and quite enjoyable.
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Another material is mentioned in this next article:
The London Times in 1851 reported...
Yes BHB, and in 1986 the Sun reported that "Freddie Starr ate my hamster". ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Editorial integrity to print the truth is hardly reliable these days, let alone in the nineteenth century when crackpots, fraudsters and the credulous could write anything they liked.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Alan, Barnabas, Hawk, Croesos: I'm looking for my thinking to be tested.
For the first time in my life I've come to the point of positing that The Flood in particular may be purely allegorical. At the very best based on some local catastrophe where Ararat can't mean Ararat.
Not a miracle that would HAVE to be covered up by God.
So, I'm left with much LESSER miracles: Eden, Babel, S&G, The Exodus that would NOT have to be covered up.
Or would they ?
All miracles explicitly accepted by God incarnate.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
Hawk quote:
in the nineteenth century when crackpots, fraudsters and the credulous could write anything they liked.
Really? Well it seems now they have access to the internet and religious-style websites ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
Posts: 220 | Registered: Nov 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
Really? Well it seems now they have access to the internet and religious-style websites.
They do, they most certainly do!
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
quote:
Holding together the evolution faith from an increasingly large list of contradictry [sic] evidences must be quite a task...
Same can be said for the creationist faith. How do you do that?
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
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ByHisBlood
Shipmate
# 16018
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Posted
Tou,
We just stick to what God said, it's an odd approach but strangely never needs revision!
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
Posts: 220 | Registered: Nov 2010
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ToujoursDan
Ship's prole
# 10578
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Posted
I already do that, yet believe that evolution is the best description of how God created plants, animals and humans.
Genesis 1 and 2 and the flood narrative are beautiful poetic stories that valid convey theological truths rather than historical/factual truth.
So I also believe what God said, just like you do. The difference between you and I is that I believe these passages used a different genre of literature than you do in order to convey what God said.
You haven't convinced me (or the vast, vast majority of the world's Christians) that your choice of genre is more valid than mine. Instead you have to ignore a lot of scientific data and logic that contradicts your choice of genre. Fortunately for me, I don't have to do that.
You assume that truth is only (or more) true if it factual/historical. I accept that God used many different genres to transmit his truth. In this case the observations don't fit with a historical account, so God used a non-literal way to transmit His truth.
[ 15. December 2010, 17:29: Message edited by: ToujoursDan ]
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"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility" - Archbishop Peter Akinola
Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/toujoursdan
Posts: 3734 | From: NYC | Registered: Oct 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ByHisBlood:
We just stick to what God said, it's an odd approach but strangely never needs revision!
Well, actually, you stick to what YOU SAY God said, based on your interpretation of the Scriptures. As do we all.
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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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