Creationist Wolf in Cheap Clothing

Oops - sorry - it was Hope.

 

All of it is extraordinary. Noah's ark would have been about 5 times larger than any ship built by any group before 2000 B.C., much less by one man. There are far, far more species than could possibly have fit in the dimensions given. We also have to assume that God magically transported them all to Noah (in which case, why not just transport them to heaven or somewhere and send them back when the waters recede?), not to mention food and other necessities. Then we have the fact that populations under a certain threshold are largely doomed to extinction, so whether you choose to believe that there were two of every animal or seven (Genesis says both), that would be far too few to ensure survival. Then you go back to the "no evidence of any worldwide flood in the geological record" point again. And no, there isn't any such evidence, there have only been various "massive" regional floods at various times, although we do see volcanic activity reflected worldwide occasionally.

And I'm saying it's completely impossible without a significant number of miracles that the Bible fails to mention (like shrinking the animals), that no such event is reflected in the geological record when it does reflect all sorts of other events, and the story itself is ripped off almost wholesale from an entirely different earlier religion.

Parts of the Bible are allegorical, but most of it isn't. I think you'll find that the vast majority of Christians not only don't have a problem with the idea that many of the parables are just stories and didn't actually happen, but that most of them actually think that way. Some people have problems with it, just as some people have problems with science defying the creation account, but there isn't really anything that can be done for those people.

And as for why I respect the Bible, for one, it played a large role in the development of my own sense of morality. In a more general sense, it's also something you appreciate simply because it contains wisdom and seeks the betterment of mankind. You don't have to be an American to appreciate the Constitution, do you?

 

The show I saw on miracles of the Bible, the same one that said the parting of the red sea was a tsunami, said they thought the Noah's flood was probably a regional flood and the people not knowing the scope of the world thought the whole world was flooded.

 

Don't be whizzin' on the big dog's tree. :imagestor




















j/k

You may very well know the Bible better than me, and if so, you wouldn't be the only one. Sly, for example, knows it a lot better than I do. I've only read it cover-to-cover once, though I've studied much of it repeatedly over the past 5 to 10 years, particularly the New Testament.

 

I respect anyone who has legitimate faith, and envy that to some extent, I just want you and everyone to also use the brain God gave you to think about the world in all ways that don't run counter to your religion.

 

That's why I excluded the building of the ark.

That really wasn't Noah's problem. His instructions were to put the animals in that God sent him. It's not like God brought him the animals and Noah said, "okay, to fit all these animals in, we've got to build a ship x by y by z..." My understanding of the passage is that Noah played more of a doorman than anything else. I don't think it was a 'micromanaged' job.

I think that judging by the fishing miracle during Jesus' apostle recruiting campaign, God's command of animals is not beyond the realm of consideration. And sure, He could've done something different -- cut Noah and his family out of the equation altogether if He wanted to. I don't really know why He didn't. I can speculate, but that's all it would be.

In the natural world without miracles, I'm sure you're right.

Is it beyond the realm of possibility to consider that a global flood might leave such uniform evidence that most of it might be overlooked? Or that as the floodwaters receded, that the evidence might be concentrated in various low lying areas of the world to suggest regional floods only? Hypothetically speaking, of course.

To reach that conclusion, you would have to assume the following:

1. If it isn't in the Bible, God didn't do it.
2. Every bit of geology from that time period has been recovered, studied, and explained in it's ultimate fullness. And, by the way, you know all of it.
3. If another civilization recorded it before Moses wrote Genesis, then it can't be true.

 

Wouldn't disagree with that at all, particularly in the New Testament. Many of the lessons Jesus taught were illustrated by stories He made up on the spot.

Not sure anything needs to be "done for them".

Fair enough.

I suppose not, but it's not really the same thing, is it? The Constitution doesn't promise damnation for those who reject it.

 

Might have been a tsunami. I saw that doc, too. I thought their conclusions on the plagues of Egypt were especially interesting.

Yeah, and that was a pretty strong argument. Taking into account Moses' probable grasp of "the world", that's an easily acceptable take on what might have happened.

 

This is where I'm going to have to disagree. Moses had a pretty wide scope of what the world was. Egypt knew a lot about other areas from middle Africa to maybe India and over to Spain.

Of course if they really do find teh ark in Mt. Ararat, then that was one heck of a flood.