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Noah's flood story, did it happen?

Fallen Prophet

Well-Known Member
Anecdotal evidence, indeed.

But it is far better than conspiracy theory that you believe the universities and colleges are involved in.

The very notion that teachers, professors and lecturers in every universities are influencing how students who to vote, is utterly absurd.

Btw, I have only attended colleges in Australia, so are you including Australian universities in your conspiracy?
Are you seriously telling me there are no demonstrations or protests at any Australian universities?
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Are you seriously telling me there are no demonstrations or protests at any Australian universities?

You didn't say anything about demonstrations and protests.

You were saying colleges were influencing students how to vote, which implied that they were doing the "influencing" in lecture rooms and classrooms.

I have attended a number of different courses in different colleges/universities, on and off, over the last 35 years, and not one of them talk about politics, and certainly not who or what party we should vote for.

Some of the other members here, have surely been students at universities and even a few each teach.

So others here have asked you the same things, where you getting your information from?
 

Fallen Prophet

Well-Known Member
Since my last post to you, I asked both my kids if they'd ever had a professor tell them how to vote. The both said they hadn't. I asked them if they ever had a professor talk politics, and they both said they had, but it was part of the course and the professors pretty much just facilitated the discussions (i.e., didn't take sides). I asked if any professors had tried to influence any students to any political view and they said they'd never seen that happen.

Then one of my kid's friends was over for a few hours and I asked her the same thing. She had basically the same answers.
That's great. I said as much the time you told me that your children hadn't come to you with any of this and I said something about my being glad they weren't having the "Southern California experience".

I hope that "woke-ism" and other political nonsense stops their spread in our schools - but I don't think that will be the case.

I believe that it will get worse - and my kids are still little - so I worry that it will be much worse by the time they are thinking about college.
Can you restate that first part without the triple negative? I keep reading it as you saying you believe every student is "being targeted for conversion", but I want to make sure before I reply.
Yeah sorry about that - you said that I "don't believe" something - so I kept that language of "not believing" - it it went over the rails.

What I meant was that all students are being targeted by either the right or the left. It may not be in obvious ways - like a professor coming out and saying it - but it is happening.

They are at the ripe age - a blend of naivete and conviction - that makes them perfect candidates as future zealots.
The Scandinavian countries are good examples.
I don't think they offer a good comparison.

They offer a subpar product and rely on other countries - like the United States - for research and development - not to mention defense.

And they have much smaller and homogenized populations compared to the U.S.

Not only that, but haven't those countries seen yearly increases in private healthcare coverage?

I lived in Canada for a couple years - my only experience with universal coverage - and the waits were long and the doctors seemed to only care about getting me out.

The three things that healthcare can offer are Quality, Affordability and Availability - and no system can offer all three - because any increase in one will cause a sacrifice in another.
Yes, in the country overall.
I'd ask for details - but I don't feel like reigniting this topic .

Considering what you have shared - I didn't think it was a stretch to think you'd be okay with left-leaning proselytization - I was wrong.
No, I'm not okay with any sort of "activism and proselytization" in public schools, be it from the right or the left.

We moved to the inland northwest US, and while I knew going in it was a conservative area, I didn't expect the high school to be as bad as it was. It was (and still is) considered a very good school by the locals, but in hindsight I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, especially if they're non-white and non-Christian.
Amen brother - sorry about that High School.
LOL about the fireworks. We can't have 'em out here this year (or most years lately)...too much fire risk.
It is so lush and green out here - they have no qualms.
LOL....well I suppose if you consider "this money is for college" to be "strings attached"....okay then, there was one string. :rolleyes:
BOO-YA! Score one for me! :p
Like I said, both my kids worked quite hard to get scholarships, which helped a lot.
That's good - I was only commenting because you said to give my kids money with no strings attached - and that's just not the way I roll.

Good on your kids.
And if either of them didn't want to go to college or felt they didn't need to, that'd be okay too. Like I said, it's their life, not mine, so they can do what they want with it.
You say this - but considering what you said about my father when I told you that he heavily encouraged me to go to college - I'm sure you probably made sure your kids knew from the get-go that you wanted them to go to college.

And there is nothing wrong with that - just like there will be nothing wrong with me encouraging mine to learn a trade.

If they decide to go to college - I cannot stop them - but I'm not going to pay their way.
Now that they're both adults, my role is to guide and advise them, not micro-manage them.
Or give them all the free stuff they want - right? :p
So where do you get this information about what goes on in college classrooms?

I won't name names on the off-chance that I violate forum rules - and I also don't want to reignite this part of our discussion so much.

There are many individuals and organizations that go to college campuses to ask questions of students and staff, to speak at events (except when protestors threaten violence - which happens a lot), sneak audio or video of college classes, search social media for what students and teachers are saying - stuff like that.

Not to mention stuff we see on some MSM - like parents congregating at School Board meetings to protest all the CRT and other left-wing activism they have discovered being shoved on their kids (I'm talking K-12 here) - they saw it via Skype or whatever because of the lockdowns.

Most of the things I see are not being covered by the MSM though.
If I recall correctly, I didn't say it wasn't inappropriate (because I don't remember you sharing exactly what they said, or what you said to prompt it); rather I said that it was just the words of one or two people who weren't really relevant.
They are relevant if the point I was making was that there are "teacher-activists".

I wasn't just crying.
That's what I'm wondering.....how do you know it's gotten worse?
The volume of content I have seen.
Okay, maybe you didn't translate that into every professor being like that, but you certainly translated that into "many professors" being like that. My question is....why?
The volume of content I have seen.
 

Fallen Prophet

Well-Known Member
continued....

So this all ties into what I wanted to ask you about. Honestly, your posts strike me as pretty consistent with conversations I've had with other conservative Christians lately, in that you come across as a bit angry and frustrated, especially at higher education. I frequent conservative media sites, as well as conservative Christian media (websites and radio mostly), and I see the same thing.....a lot of anxiety over recent changes and where the country is headed, especially when it comes to the younger generations. And of course there has to be a boogeyman to blame for it all, and again your posts seem very consistent with what I hear from conservative Christian media....it's mostly because kids are going to colleges and being brainwashed by Marxist liberal professors.

I've called in to a few of these radio shows and each time I ask the same thing.....when was the last time you set foot in a college classroom? Each time the answer is effectively the same....they haven't. So if I get the chance (some cut me off), I ask how they know so much about what goes on in college classrooms, if they've not actually been in one (or haven't been in one in a very long time)? Again, the answer is the same....reports from conservative media.

As I mentioned, I go out of my way to pay attention to conservative media, so I've seen many of these horror stories about what some professor said, or what some student group is demanding, etc. But if you actually look at those stories in context, even if they're being reported accurately, they represent a teeny, tiny fraction of all the colleges in the country. Yet they're presented as if they're part of some nationwide epidemic!

Have you ever looked at it that way? Have you ever wondered if some media is deliberately pushing your buttons to gin up outrage, which gets them more clicks/views and revenue?

Also, I've noticed since I was a kid back in the 80's that conservative Christian leaders were discouraging their followers from sending their kids to college, and that narrative has persisted through to today. Well, if enough conservatives and Christians heed that advice, what will be the result of them self-deporting from higher education? It seems pretty obvious to me that the colleges would become less conservative and less Christian, right?

You see the disconnect there? Isn't that basically a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts?

Finally, I have to go back to the study I posted about a while ago and you had strong objections to, where the researcher looked at the talking point (typically among conservatives) that the reason so many conservative kids come out of college questioning their faith and/or conservatism is because of the specific classes they take, and found that it's not the specific classes as much as it's them getting better at critical thinking.

From my perspective, much of what I see from the right, and especially the Christian right, is denial of a lot of reality and creation of alternate versions of reality. So when these kids get to college, they find out that evolution isn't a hoax/conspiracy, global warming really is happening, our country has a very racist past and still has problems with racism today, and they meet actual LGBTQs and discover that they're not diseased, depraved predators lurking in bathrooms seeking to "convert" children, and are instead pretty much just regular people.

IOW, these kids get fed this alternate reality and when they get to college they find out it isn't true (or is wildly exaggerated), which causes some of them to question what they've been told and taught their whole lives. So the problem isn't so much with the colleges or professors, it's with conservatism creating and living in a version of reality that.....well.....isn't real.

Does that seem at all plausible to you?
I believe that both liberals and conservatives are creating and living in their own versions of reality. No one is exempt.

I also believe that liberals make for better activists than conservatives - because conservatives generally want to be left alone - while liberals seek out injustices to correct.

Therefore - conservatives tend to see anything as potentially encroaching on their privacy and liberals tend to see injustices in everything.

Conservatives tend to be on the defense and liberals tend to be on the offense.

I don't really know much about "Christians" in general - I don't follow Christian people on radio or podcasts or anything.

The whole idea that we need to be in a classroom to know what is happening there is pretty weak in my opinion.

The only reason that I - because I cannot speak for all Christians and conservatives - am so alarmed by what I hear about college today is by how the information is being covered and by whom.

I could hear the same story covered by two different media sources - one who spin it as a positive and the other a negative.

And there are other stories - the ones I care most about - that are not being covered at all by most media sources.

As to that other OP where you mentioned that study - I don't like the assumption that the acquisition of "critical thinking" was the reason - without considering other factors.

I'm sure that young people who leave home at all - not just for college - tend to rebel against what was taught them. Isn't that to be expected?

And that isn't even to mention that many college students that I have met - and seen - seem to lack critical thinking skills at all.

And I believe that is because they tend to see - or have been shown - only one side of any given topic or issue - rather than all sides.

I just don't like the idea that people get in their head that those who don't go to college or university are going to lack critical thinking skills.

It is no different than Christians and other religionists thinking that everyone who doesn't go to church is somehow immoral.

I just don't think that evolution, global warming, the supposed racist past or present of our country, and homosexual or other issues are all that important to Christian living.

You can believe anything you want on these issues and still be a Christian - but people on both sides are telling these impressionable kids that that is not that case.

You cannot be a Christian if you believe that any form of evolution has transpired on our planet - or - you cannot be a Christian unless you believe in the Genesis account of the Creation of Man as recorded.

I reject these and other positions about global warming, racism in the U.S. and homosexuality - you can be on either sides of these issues and still be Christian.

I believe it was more of the social aspects of college that lead to children abandoning their faiths - that and the change in their priorities.

Going to church early on Sunday is difficult if you've been up late partying or studying - and church will always be there - you are only young once - and the schoolwork is due now the tests are being had now.

Did the study include numbers indicating what percentage of these kids went back to their religious lifestyle after college?

I personally haven't seen anything to convince me that human beings evolved from Apes - which is all I care about in terms of my religion.

The temperature of our planet is not static - it has gone up and down in the past - so global warming could be a possibility - I just see no reason to feel that Man is responsible for it or that Man can change it at all.

Racism has always existed - but the foundation of our country was not racist - and our founding fathers and the documents they wrote are proof of that. It took time for some people to get with the program.

There is no reason to treat homosexuals any differently than anyone else.

Children come into the world ignorant, naïve and impressionable and I don't believe they ever become anything else until they get some real-life experience.

And - in my opinion - college and university does not offer real-life experience. It is just an extension of childhood.

I went to college right out of high school - then left for a two-years of preaching - went back to school when I got back and was surprised at how...child-like...my classmates here.

So - in a nutshell - both sides are creating and living in their own versions of reality - and anything you can accuse conservatives of are being done by liberals and vice versa.

It's all a case of the ignorant and impressionable trying lead the ignorant and impressionable.

My wife went to a private Christian school growing up - Elementary to Freshman year - and I told her I'd allow my boys to go to a similar school if she wanted - but it would not be my first choice.

I don't want religion and politics at school - except maybe in history classes and such - but the world keeps demanding that our children be indoctrinated and made into little soldiers for one side or another and I'm sick of it.

That's why I just want them to learn a trade - have their families - and be happy - as the world burns.
 

tas8831

Well-Known Member
You won't encounter it so much if you already agree with them.
And you will see what is not there when you are trained to be paranoid and fear that The Marxists are trying to brainwash you!
I got my education from reading and studying - but I got my degree at a university.
So, you're just overly sensitive when people do not explicitly endorse your preferred takes on various subject.
There's a difference between getting a degree and getting educated.
And of course, YOU got educated. Funny how that works.
Someone wrote on here one time that 'the self-educated suffer both from having a bad teacher and a substandard education.'

I got my degree - but I'm never done getting educated.
Lack of response noted.
That is something that people forget - that we are always learning.
And some people mistake forming opinions based on biased media presentations as 'learning.'
Having a degree doesn't necessarily mean you were educated or that you are smart.
And claiming to have learned all one needs to at a library or to have "common sense" does not mean you actually learned anything, or have any sense at all. Of course, claiming to be smart and not 'educated' is a bit of a quandary - I have encountered folks - on forums just like this one, making the same kinds of claims - who claim to be smart and to have "studied" things for years or even decades, yet cannot provide more than caricatures re: evolution (and science in general). I can name names AND provide links to both their claims of "studying" for years or decades as well as to their laughable claims. But I think I might get in trouble for that.
I get that it is a thing to bash higher ed because of the fear of "indoctrination", but that is just political nonsense ("I love the uneducated"). Over the years, I have asked probably hundreds of people who have claimed that professors 'tell you how to vote' or are 'openly Marxist' or try to 'disprove god' or 'hate America' etc. to provide actual examples from their own experience and/or to name names, and at BEST, I've gotten a couple of links to conservative websites with lots of anonymous claims, or to YouTube videos of the same, but never a single actual example. Sort of like the people that claim Obama was the REAL racist. Asked a guy recently who made that claim to back it up. After me asking about 20 times, he finally wrote that there are 'hundreds' of examples, but the "best" one was when he called the white cop that arrested Henry Gates (black Harvard professor) for trying to 'break in' to his own house 'stupid.' Wow, totally racist. I suspect that the "best" examples of professors telling people how to vote and such are on par with that, especially since it seems to be the same sorts of people making the claims.
I'm not claiming that can't be true - but the belief that it is always true is indefensible.
In my experience, it is the case.
There is so much dogmatism and group-think in higher education and the scientific communities that I value their opinions less and less as times goes by.

The projection is astounding -

There is so much dogmatism and group-think in conservative media and the religious communities that I value their opinions less and less as times goes by.

I'm guessing your evidence of all this would be... books by David Horowitz and whiny chumps on YouTube.

That's not even mentioning the politicization of everything.
Whatever - believe what you have to to keep the fantasy alive. Like the ark story:




Bison are clean, meaning, according to some, that 7 pair of them were to be on the ark. According to the Wiki, "...European bison can weigh from 800 to 1,000 kg (1,800 to 2,200 lb)." Lets go with an average - 2000 lb.

Just the 7 pair of the bison kind represent about 28,000 lbs of bison. The Wiki tells us that "European bison feed predominantly on grasses... an adult male can consume 32 kg of food in a day." Creation dot com claims they were on the ark for 364 days.(not the 375 JW does - and yes, I am aware of the wiggles that the YECs use - they could have been babies, blah blah blah - not buying it - none of that is stated in Genesis).

So, just for the bison, 600 year old Noah (I read somewhere that those ages are actually months, which would be more reality-based, putting Noah at 50 when he built the ark) had to load some 3.5 million Kg of food - 8 million pounds of food. I found various estimates for water consumption - let's say 10 gallons/day. About 50,000 gallons. Now, one will be tempted to claim that it was raining for 40 days, so they didn't need to store water!

Ok, but what about the 324 days they were on the ark and it wasn't raining?

Bottom line, just for the Bison-Kind, we need space for them (~10 feet long, ~4 feet wide) 40 sqft/bison - 560 square feet for the Bison Kind (that is if they were packed like sardines; also, ~6 feet tall, so ~3300 cubic feet).

Now back to that food and water - a gallon of water takes up about 0.13 cubic feet, so 6500 cubic feet of water.
For the food, for simplicity I will use a bale of hay as a reference - I found on the webs that "The dimension of a small bale held together by three strings is approximately 16” high x 22” wide x 44” long and usually weighs 100lbs. " - so, 8 million/100 = 80,000 bales, at 16x22x44 hay bale size = ~10 cubic feet = 800,000 cubic feet.

So, 800,000+6500+560 = 807,060 cubic feet JUST FOR BISON-KIND.

According to biblestudy.org, the total volume of the ark was 1.5 million cubic feet - using an 18 inch cubit. AIG prefers a 20.4 inch cubit - I will just pad the volume up to, say, 1.8 million cubic feet.

But that is just open space - the ark had 3 floors, and you would need internal bracing, ramps/stairways, enclosures, etc. - all of which take up space. None of the ark size estimates I came across even mentioned any of that - but let's say all that accounts for, say 70,000 cubic feet - so we are back down to about 1.73 million cubic feet.

So, 1.73 million cubic feet total usable ark volume - 807,000 cubic feet for animal, food, water storage for the bison kind = 923,000 cubic feet left...


That is, almost HALF of the entire internal volume of the ark is needed JUST to fit in the bison and its food and water!

Then we have cattle - 14 of them.

Deer - 14 of them.

Elk, moose, reindeer - 14 each of them.

And the elephant Kind? Just 1 of them (but to account for all of the Elephantids, gomphotheres and such - that will require a good amount of post-flood macroevolution!), but they are bigger and eat more than any of the above.

And dinosaurs - 1 seismosaurus kind and the ark is keel-up..


Bottom line - it really does not matter one hoot if the ark could have floated on paper, or even in real life - it could not possibly have held all it needed to by virtue of Jehovah's command to bring living creatures “of every sort of flesh, two of each" or 7 pairs of clean animals, no matter what the smaller ones were.

Even if I omit the water storage and arbitrarily half the amount of space needed for the Bison-Kind, this is DEVASTATING for a reality-based ark tale.

The creationist is forced to remove themselves from the arena of mere plausibility of the ark floating, and rely 100% on God magic to make their tale possible, and thus, creationism is NOT reality-based, or scientific.

Oh - and a question - why are these critters "abominations"? Didn't Jehovah create them? Why did Jehovah create abominations?
Deuteronomy 14:1-29
“You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. “You shall not eat any abomination. These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. ...

ADDENDUM: I just realized I made a math error - a bale of hay is closer to 8.6 cubic feet, not 10 - I don't feel like re-doing all the calculations, but I also don't think it really matters - even if the result is that the Bison-Kind, their food and water only take up 1/4 of the ark, it STILL shows, when one considers all of the other large mammal-Kinds that need to be accommodated, that the ark story CANNOT actually do what it is described as having done, whether it 'floats' or not.
 
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tas8831

Well-Known Member
Where in Genesis II does it say that the 'mist' remained until the flood?

How can plants grow when it is is foggy all the time?
Is there a verse in Genesis II that describes light being able to penetrate "mist" up until the flood?
Dude?
 

Jose Fly

Fisker of men
I hope that "woke-ism" and other political nonsense stops their spread in our schools - but I don't think that will be the case.
From what I've seen, being "woke" mostly just means being aware that racism and hatred exist and affect people today, both in negative (discrimination) and positive (privilege) ways.

What I meant was that all students are being targeted by either the right or the left. It may not be in obvious ways - like a professor coming out and saying it - but it is happening.

They are at the ripe age - a blend of naivete and conviction - that makes them perfect candidates as future zealots.
I agree that education has become politicized, which isn't a good thing. That doesn't mean that every, or even most, classes are attempts to convert students to a political view; it means that so many subjects have become the focus of political debates. I have my thoughts on why that is, but I suspect you would disagree quite strongly.

I don't think they offer a good comparison.

They offer a subpar product and rely on other countries - like the United States - for research and development - not to mention defense.

And they have much smaller and homogenized populations compared to the U.S.

Not only that, but haven't those countries seen yearly increases in private healthcare coverage?

I lived in Canada for a couple years - my only experience with universal coverage - and the waits were long and the doctors seemed to only care about getting me out.

The three things that healthcare can offer are Quality, Affordability and Availability - and no system can offer all three - because any increase in one will cause a sacrifice in another.
Actually, the data shows that those countries' systems cost less, deliver better care, and cover more people than the US system. Yes, in some cases there are longer wait times for non-essential services and the question of population/immigration is important, but that doesn't mean it's not still superior to the US system.

That's why most of the opposition is ideological ("it's socialist") rather than practical.

You say this - but considering what you said about my father when I told you that he heavily encouraged me to go to college - I'm sure you probably made sure your kids knew from the get-go that you wanted them to go to college.

And there is nothing wrong with that - just like there will be nothing wrong with me encouraging mine to learn a trade.
Oh definitely. My wife and I certainly have encouraged our kids to go to college, but we didn't force them to either. When my youngest was fielding offers from different schools and was about to decide where to go, I made it a point to tell her that not going at all was also an option. Of course she looked at me like I'd gone insane, because she really, really wants to go.

Or give them all the free stuff they want - right? :p
LOL.....I don't have that much money. :rolleyes:

I won't name names on the off-chance that I violate forum rules - and I also don't want to reignite this part of our discussion so much.

There are many individuals and organizations that go to college campuses to ask questions of students and staff, to speak at events (except when protestors threaten violence - which happens a lot), sneak audio or video of college classes, search social media for what students and teachers are saying - stuff like that.

Not to mention stuff we see on some MSM - like parents congregating at School Board meetings to protest all the CRT and other left-wing activism they have discovered being shoved on their kids (I'm talking K-12 here) - they saw it via Skype or whatever because of the lockdowns.

Most of the things I see are not being covered by the MSM though.
Right, but again....have you ever put all that in context? For example, if a group puts out videos or recordings of say....100 examples of these sorts of problematic events, do you ever ask how many videos or recordings they had altogether? IOW, did they have 500 recordings, picked out the 100, and never told anyone about the 400 that were just fine?

Have you ever put them in context of the overall number of colleges and classrooms in the country?

It's like how one of the websites I read now and then likes to post videos of Christian preachers saying crazy, stupid, or bigoted things. When I see those, I always remind myself to see those in the context of the overall number of preachers in the country. Otherwise I might get the mistaken impression that they represent all Christian churches in the US.

The volume of content I have seen.

The volume of content I have seen.
See above. Context is vital.
 
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Jose Fly

Fisker of men
I believe that both liberals and conservatives are creating and living in their own versions of reality. No one is exempt.
While I agree somewhat, I don't think the two are at all equivalent. I think the right has created a very different reality on a number of fronts that doesn't correspond to actual reality, and they are getting increasingly angry and frustrated that the rest of the world doesn't agree with it. I see them invoking conspiracies and hoaxes for so many things.....evolution is a hoax and a conspiracy by atheist scientists, global warming is a hoax and conspiracy by climatologists/globalists/communists, COVID is a hoax and conspiracy by the Chinese/globalists/scientists, the vaccines are a hoax and conspiracy by Bill Gates/globalists/doctors, elections are now a hoax and conspiracy by well....just about everyone...

The only reason to invent so many conspiracy theories is to explain why the rest of the world isn't going along with your alternate reality.

I also believe that liberals make for better activists than conservatives - because conservatives generally want to be left alone - while liberals seek out injustices to correct.

Therefore - conservatives tend to see anything as potentially encroaching on their privacy and liberals tend to see injustices in everything.

Conservatives tend to be on the defense and liberals tend to be on the offense.
I think that's generally accurate.

I don't really know much about "Christians" in general - I don't follow Christian people on radio or podcasts or anything.
Why not?

The whole idea that we need to be in a classroom to know what is happening there is pretty weak in my opinion.
Seems pretty obvious to me that if you're going to talk about what's going on in classrooms, you need to have spent time in classrooms.

The only reason that I - because I cannot speak for all Christians and conservatives - am so alarmed by what I hear about college today is by how the information is being covered and by whom.
Do you think at least part of what's going on is the result of conservative Christians urging their followers to not send their kids to college for the last 40+ years? If y'all have effectively self-deported from higher education, should it surprise you that universities subsequently become less conservative and Christian?

I could hear the same story covered by two different media sources - one who spin it as a positive and the other a negative.
That's why I make an effort to have diverse sources of info, and make sure I understand what I'm looking at (e.g., understanding that a Breitbart article is from a right-wing perspective, and a Daily Kos article is from a left-wing perspective).

And there are other stories - the ones I care most about - that are not being covered at all by most media sources.
What are those?

As to that other OP where you mentioned that study - I don't like the assumption that the acquisition of "critical thinking" was the reason - without considering other factors.

I'm sure that young people who leave home at all - not just for college - tend to rebel against what was taught them. Isn't that to be expected?

And that isn't even to mention that many college students that I have met - and seen - seem to lack critical thinking skills at all.

And I believe that is because they tend to see - or have been shown - only one side of any given topic or issue - rather than all sides.

I just don't like the idea that people get in their head that those who don't go to college or university are going to lack critical thinking skills.

It is no different than Christians and other religionists thinking that everyone who doesn't go to church is somehow immoral.
It looks like you're thinking of it in a black/white, all-or-none manner where the kids have absolutely no critical thinking skills going in to college, and only acquire them after attending. That's not what the study said. It said that they increased and further developed those skills.

I just don't think that evolution, global warming, the supposed racist past or present of our country, and homosexual or other issues are all that important to Christian living.

You can believe anything you want on these issues and still be a Christian - but people on both sides are telling these impressionable kids that that is not that case.

You cannot be a Christian if you believe that any form of evolution has transpired on our planet - or - you cannot be a Christian unless you believe in the Genesis account of the Creation of Man as recorded.

I reject these and other positions about global warming, racism in the U.S. and homosexuality - you can be on either sides of these issues and still be Christian.
That's reasonable.

I believe it was more of the social aspects of college that lead to children abandoning their faiths - that and the change in their priorities.
I definitely agree that that's a factor. I've told my kids that it won't be the professors who challenge their views, beliefs, and assumptions, rather that sort of thing will mostly come from other students. I certainly experienced that in my college days.

And to be clear, I see that as a good thing. I think if you go through life never having anything you think or believe challenged, you're far more likely to be duped.

Going to church early on Sunday is difficult if you've been up late partying or studying - and church will always be there - you are only young once - and the schoolwork is due now the tests are being had now.

Did the study include numbers indicating what percentage of these kids went back to their religious lifestyle after college?
I don't remember seeing that. I can only access the article from my work, so I can't look at it now.

I personally haven't seen anything to convince me that human beings evolved from Apes - which is all I care about in terms of my religion.

The temperature of our planet is not static - it has gone up and down in the past - so global warming could be a possibility - I just see no reason to feel that Man is responsible for it or that Man can change it at all.

Racism has always existed - but the foundation of our country was not racist - and our founding fathers and the documents they wrote are proof of that. It took time for some people to get with the program.
IMO, those are examples of the alternate reality inhabited by so many conservatives and what's behind so much of the anger and frustration I'm seeing from them. I imagine it's gotta be pretty frustrating to see your country moving away from your beliefs and rejecting your version of reality on so many fronts. And now that demographic changes are starting to show their effects electorally, the frustration anger seems to be growing rapidly.

There is no reason to treat homosexuals any differently than anyone else.
I'm glad to see you say that, because the absolute hate I see towards LGBTQs from conservative Christians lately is really disturbing.

So - in a nutshell - both sides are creating and living in their own versions of reality - and anything you can accuse conservatives of are being done by liberals and vice versa.
What alternate realities do you see liberals creating? Is it just the ones above (evolution, global warming, US having a racist past)?

My wife went to a private Christian school growing up - Elementary to Freshman year - and I told her I'd allow my boys to go to a similar school if she wanted - but it would not be my first choice.

I don't want religion and politics at school - except maybe in history classes and such - but the world keeps demanding that our children be indoctrinated and made into little soldiers for one side or another and I'm sick of it.

That's why I just want them to learn a trade - have their families - and be happy - as the world burns.
It's hard for me to respond to what you're talking about without specific examples.
 

River Sea

Active Member
The biblical story was not the original, but the previous stories came from lands that had a river that flooded regularly, so it's natural for the theme to be important. Israel does not have that. The Bible writers liked to take previous stories, change the names and pretend it was theirs to begin with. Naughty, naughty.

  • Do you know any other stories due to @Sand Dancer you observe The biblical story wasn't the original? @Bharat Jhunjhunwala what stories were there before the bible was written? How did the bible affect these other stories?
  • What if lands are more bowl-shape would that cause floods to remain longer?
 

Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
  • Do you know any other stories due to @Sand Dancer you observe The biblical story wasn't the original? @Bharat Jhunjhunwala what stories were there before the bible was written? How did the bible affect these other stories?
  • What if lands are more bowl-shape would that cause floods to remain longer?

The Sumerian and Babylonian stories preceded the Hebrew story.
This was a world wide flood, so local bowls wouldn't matter.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
There was one in my basement about 40 years ago, so does that count?
It happened to you too?

Well I'll be dipped, the Bible is true. God be praised.




Hold on a minute, I was just thinking, floods are bad. Should we praise a God thast kills people (including fetuses and babies) and destorys lives like this? Let's keep thinking.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
  • Do you know any other stories due to @Sand Dancer you observe The biblical story wasn't the original? @Bharat Jhunjhunwala what stories were there before the bible was written? How did the bible affect these other stories?
  • What if lands are more bowl-shape would that cause floods to remain longer?
There are various theories about events that could have inspired the Middle Eastern flood myths. These include the regular flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates, and the inundation of the Black Sea or that of the the Persian Gulf, which occurred at the end of the last ice age. But nobody knows.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
  • Do you know any other stories due to @Sand Dancer you observe The biblical story wasn't the original? @Bharat Jhunjhunwala what stories were there before the bible was written? How did the bible affect these other stories?
  • What if lands are more bowl-shape would that cause floods to remain longer?
Lands are not "bowl-shape" ed. You should try to learn at least the basics of science.
 
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