Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
Oh, we've found it. We just can't accept it!
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Do you believe that the flood actually happened
- Thread starter ThisShouldMakeSense
- Start date
Druidus
Keeper of the Grove
What seems far out is the fact that it happened at all.
Let me try to explain from the perspective of a non-believer, and please, try to understand:
1. Most of us believers in science are willing to believe in something if there is proof.
2. None of us believe in anything if we have no proof for it.
3. There is no proof for the biblical account of "the Great Flood".
4. Therefore, we cannot believe it.
It's simple really. We do not believe the bible, either because we were not brought up to believe it, or we recognized the inherent foolishness in believing in it only because we were brought up that way. However, we are willing to believe, if it can be proven.
Please tell me what the difference is between my monkey argument and your God argument. I really cannot see a difference.
Well, what with the billions upon billions of dead creatures, I think there would at least be a blip. Fossilization is easier underwater, and much easier under pressure.
Not necessarily. Life may have "started" several times. Even if they did come from one organism, that was billions of years ago, and the Prokaryotes/Eukaryotes were specialized for binary fission reproduction, meaning that it didn't matter that their DNA/RNA was all the same, barring mutations. The biblical flood, according the the apologeticist scientists, occured somewhere on the line of 4000-7000 B.C., and according to the bible, 4470B.C. (I believe) +/- 10 years. Genetics simply does not allow for a return to diversity in such a short time, if they had survived at all.
What about fish and frogs that fall from the sky? Storms can bring such organisms into the air, and drop them many miles inland.
We cannot believe in something merely because we are told it was done by the supernatural, or we are told that it is true. We need some proof. You agree that there are millions of flood myths worldwide? Why don't you believe one of those, rather than the biblical account?
It also shows a theo-centric point of view to say that it happened, and give no proof beyond saying that God was not constrained by pyhsics.
I simply don't buy into believing things merely because I read it, or am told it, when no proof exists.
Green Gaia
Veteran Member
I'm sorry, but I can't see killing EVERY child on earth as a good thing.NetDoc said:
Druidus
Keeper of the Grove
Neither can I, Maize. But I don't want to argue about the moral implications of the Great Flood. I want some proof as to how it happened. If no such proof exists, I cannot accept the Great Flood as presented in the bible to be true. I simply cannot accept the second hand "knowledge" (it's only true to the believers because tradition required every growing person to learn it as true).
Dammit Melody, you got me. But let's keep this between you and me, alright?
Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
Who says that I don't believe them? At least in part, they are remarkable in how much they agree with one another.Druidus said:
There is MUCH about the earth that I do not understand. Like the human artifacts found in caves in the Gulf of Mexico a hundred feet deep. The same applies for those on the Mexican side of the Gulf and on the Pacific side of Mexico.
Whowouldathunk?
I might suggest that there are still many things to find and to ponder over.
BTW, I am GUILTY of theocentrism.
As for fossilization... it is incredibly rare when we think of just how many organisms DIED and left no record whatsoever. Not only a year, but hundreds of thousands of year gaps exist in the record. A flood less than a year long would not leave an appreciable blip on the fossil scene. Fossilization takes more than a year, so the water would have little time to do it's thing.
But the flood is not the reason for my belief. While I don't understand it, and am not even sure that it has been translated accurately, I know whom I have believed and will trust him to sort it all out.
... i.e., the God brought to you by the same translator.NetDoc said:
But we are still left with the curious picture of Noah gathering the marsupials from Australia, and then watching them make there way back to that area (and only that area), in a landscape peppered with the bloated bodies of your deserving victims. Pity the poor Koala - not a eucalyptus tree in sight.
Mr Spinkles
Mr
Nor does Druidus' supernatural monkey followed by their supernatural trip to the Bahamas seem that far out. Hey, I got some supernatural real estate in Florida, if you're interested...NetDoc said:
Honestly NetDoc, it seems like you were merely playing devil's advocate at first, and now you've inadvertantly ended up defending a position with which you don't truly agree. I mean, come on....you go on about how falsifying evidence of a global flood makes no difference and how the physical impossibility of the story doesn't matter (since God supposedly did it), but then you slip in little pieces of "evidence" which (in your view) support a global flood here and there. It's just very self-contradictory and unconvincing.
Dayv
Member
Wow, this one's really going. Okay, first I'd like to ask, if only 2 or 6 or 8 people (however many) were on the arc and everyone else was wasted, how did all of these myths from different cultures get created, you know, if these cultures were all destroyed by one massive flood?
Also, I find it hilarious when people use the "fossils in the mountains" argument. Have you ever heard of platechtonics (sp?)? How mountains rise over millions of years due to two plates running head on into each other. These fossils were brought up from the bottom of the ocean, as were the mountains. Besides, in less than a year, could that many nearly immobile mollusks migrate to the top of a mountain?
Also, I find it hilarious when people use the "fossils in the mountains" argument. Have you ever heard of platechtonics (sp?)? How mountains rise over millions of years due to two plates running head on into each other. These fossils were brought up from the bottom of the ocean, as were the mountains. Besides, in less than a year, could that many nearly immobile mollusks migrate to the top of a mountain?
EnhancedSpirit
High Priestess
I still say the bible allows for this to be a localized event. Whether archeologists have found evidence of A FLOOD or THE FLOOD is not an issue with me. Can't you understand that the people who wrote these events had very limited understanding of the world? They did not know the world was round, and if everywhere they looked, there was water, it would appear to them that 'the whole world was under water'.
The main point of the story in the bible is the fact that Noah had 'insight' to the event. He was informed of the coming tradgedy and able to prepare for it.
The main point of the story in the bible is the fact that Noah had 'insight' to the event. He was informed of the coming tradgedy and able to prepare for it.
I certainly can understand this, plus the fact that limited understanding typically expresses itself as poorly limited superstition. But tell me, when was this flood, specifically who were "the people who wrote these events", and when do you think those events were written?EnhancedSpirit said:
I think you might be hard pressed to find well-respected exegesis suggesting Noah's insight as the main point of the flood narrative.EnhancedSpirit said:
Funny you say that. Are you suggesting that parts of the bible were written by people with a lack of understanding of the world? I thought Gods hand was in it? Or is that just the NT? If indeed parts are written by people with a poor understanding of the world, can we really take any of their claims seriously? (eg God)EnhancedSpirit said:
EnhancedSpirit
High Priestess
I have actually had a lot of problem with the bible. Just trying to read the KJV was too confusing for me and was full of contradictions. I learned how to study the bible in it's original language which has helped clear up a lot of the confusion for me. The fact that the bible has survived all this time despite all the persecution against it, allows me to give it some merit.Tawn said:
I also need to put myself in the authors shoes. I cannot study the bible as if it was written by a modern writer. I do not have a typical belief in God. I do not completely agree with any religion. I believe that God is Love. I believe that to be the 'energy' that started everything we know in the material world. I don't see God's love as an emotion, but an energy. I think the ancient writers of the bible were only able to describe God in ways that they could comprehend, this is were the misconceptions of God being a 'punishing parent' came from.
Any way, the topic of the thread is 'did the flood actually happen?' It does not ask: was the bible completely accurate in the story of Noah. As for whether a great flood happened or not, there are scientist who suggest that yes, a great flood occured, not a global flood, but a great flood no less.
Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
I agree with EH... God had to relate to us as a society. For the "simpler" societies, he used "simpler" words... words that were in their vocabulary. I don't think that the time frames were that important to God... at least they really don't seem to be.
It would be like going on trial for the words I used with my children when they were young:
You DID say that they grew in their mommy's tummy, didn't you?
Well, yes but...
No buts! And in fact the fetus grew in the uterus, now DIDN'T IT???
Yes, but my child didn't KNOW what a uterus was!
Rubbish! You purposely mislead your kids to believe in a LIE!
We can't always understand things all in one go. The Isrealites were the same way. Did God tell them that they were in the middle of a Global warming? How would they understand that? God kept it pretty simple for a reason.
The funny part is that MOST still don't have a clue as to what is going on!
It would be like going on trial for the words I used with my children when they were young:
You DID say that they grew in their mommy's tummy, didn't you?
Well, yes but...
No buts! And in fact the fetus grew in the uterus, now DIDN'T IT???
Yes, but my child didn't KNOW what a uterus was!
Rubbish! You purposely mislead your kids to believe in a LIE!
We can't always understand things all in one go. The Isrealites were the same way. Did God tell them that they were in the middle of a Global warming? How would they understand that? God kept it pretty simple for a reason.
The funny part is that MOST still don't have a clue as to what is going on!
Scuba Pete
Le plongeur avec attitude...
You are looking at it from a modern perspective, Pah. Without the cleanliness laws, the Isrealites may not have made it through the desert. Without the Isrealites, we would indeed be lost.
Such a myopic God. An alternate approach might have been to keep the harmful parasites off the Ark in the first place, but God works in mysterious ways and you never know when you might need the black death or aids to wipe out a few undeserving souls. It's also worth noting that the trek though the desert is no more evidenced than is the trek out of Egypt or, for that matter, the global flood.NetDoc said: