Magus55

Science has found no evidence for life on other planets either, yet they are determined to prove there is.


You assume those clues are accurate and what you're looking for. If the Earth was 100% different than it is now, and never fit the model that science proposed the Earth started out as, your assumptions and clues would be way off.


Really? Like what? Please enlighten me on what the world would look like if the entire Earth was covered with water. What would it look like if the ocean floor rose thousands of feet, and volcanoes and Earthquakes were triggering all over the planet? What would it look like if billions of tons of water, debris and dirt disintegrated parts of the Earth? What would it look like if tectonic plates collided together with astronomically more force than they currently do?


[quote]There are many places on earth where the "geologic column" goes back for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years uninterrupted by any evidence of such a global flood.[quote] And what would the geological column show in every area anywhere you look on the entire planet?

I meant destroyed all life on Earth. And are you sure that a local flood would mimic a bigger one? How big would the local flood have to be? As being in the direct path of Hurricane Isabel, iv'e seen some extensive, massive flooding in my area - covering an entire cities mainstreet over cars and none of it is even slightly close to what I'd expect of a flood on the scale of the Biblical one.


And again, how would you know what to look for? What would consitute evidence of a flood that the world has never seen or dreamt of?

And this is where science will always fail. If God exists, its not a physical impossibility so that rules that argument out ( since God can't be proven nor disproven, you can't just assume God doesn't exist so your theories work). Science concludes walking on water and ressurecting the dead is impossible too. Yet even Christians who accept evolution don't disagree that that happened. Science concluding something is false really doesn't mean much. Things can exist without having been proven yet. Science is still in its infancy. Maybe it will take technology and science another 1000 years to find the evidence for the flood. Doesn't in any way mean its wrong. What would have happened if everyone before Geology was founded concluded that, we don't see the evidence for such and such, therefore it can't exist? We'd be no where.

A couple hundred years ago, no one had a clue what dinosaurs looked like or were. So, I guess hundreds of years ago, we could conclude dinosaurs didn't exist and were a myth right? Thats what your logic states. If the evidence hasn't show up yet, its false.

So is human evolution Mageth.

Mageth

Originally posted by Mathetes
I am with Magus here. The Bible is either 100 % inerrant or it falls apart as a creation of an omnipotent being. How can there be errors if he is omnipotent? The attempts of liberal Christians at reading the Bible "metaphorically" are just attempts of attributing some vague authority to a text when it is plain obvious that it is wrong. As someone else has said, what does "reading a book non-literally" mean? A book is either intended to be read literally, or it is plain fiction. How do you read Herodotus non-literally?

Just because something is fiction or metaphor does not necessarily mean that it is not "true", i.e. that it does not contain "true" information that one can take and apply in one's life. Myths and metaphors can, and have been, useful tools in dealing with the human condition (note that I don't necessarily think all of the myths and metaphors found in the Bible are necessarily useful for us today).

Further, the Bible containing myth (e.g. the Flood account) does not per se make the Bible "in error". The error comes when those myths are wrongly interpreted as history.

I would also say that a book (the Bible is really a collection of books) can contain both fiction and literal truth (history).

As Magus said, Jesus and Paul and everyone else around them believed that what the OT related was true 100 %. Apples and snakes, floods, talking donkeys, suns stopping in the sky, whales eating people, etc. Nobody ever suggested that these were parables.

Perhaps, but they gleaned moral lessons from the stories - whether they were history or myth doesn't necessarily keep one from doing that, though interpreting myth as history may preclude one from discerning the intended meaning of the myth or metaphor.

Besides, in Jesus parables the supernatural does not appear. There are common people doing ordinary things (rich men, poor men, samaritans, grains of seed).

Well, I remember one parable where some guy died and went to Hell and had a little chat with Abraham or someone....

You either believe the whole thing, or the Bible is not more a moral guide than the Odyssey.

One can glean moral lessons from the Odyssey. Indeed, that is one of the intents of such myths.

As Magus said, how can you know what is right and what is wrong?

The problem being addressed here is in discerning what is myth and what is history, not in determining what is right or wrong (that is really a separate problem, independent of whether the tales are myth or history).

MrDarwin

What Magus and other biblical literalists don't seem to realize is that the rest of us have no ulterior motive to disbelieve in a worldwide flood. A global flood would not disprove evolution. A global flood would not make the earth 6,000 years old. A global flood would not make humans and dinosaurs co-exist. A global flood would not make Christianity the one true religion. A global flood would not make the Bible true.

rmadison

Yet, science doesn't state - with inerrant certainty - that there is.

So, once again, you utterly fail to make any sort of point.

Why would you assume that the Earth was 100% different than it is now?

What evidence do you have to support that fairy tale?


There'd be evidence. Lot's of it.

Only there isn't. Any.


Um, just curious...but did Isabel leave any...oh...say...evidence?

Trees blown over, boats a little too far inland, houses destroyed, etc. etc?

And you can't assume that he/she/it does exist, so your little fairy tale works either.

Doh! Didn't think about that did you?

Why, oh why, am I not surprised?

[/"Theology of the gaps" Argument]

No..."no evidence" doesn't mean false, it means (typing slowly here)..."no evidence".

It's tricky...I'll grant you that. Work on it.

Mathetes

I don't think you understood me, Mageth. My point is that if the Bible is not inerrant it cannot be the creation of an omnipotent being. It can be right at parts and wrong at parts, and there is no way to know. You cannot trust it any more than the writings of any other Bronze Age mythologizer.

Precisely my point. I have read the Odyssey plenty of times, even struggling with the Greek original. I do not have it as an inerrant text in any sense, though.

Just to understand your position: do you believe that the guy that reinterpreted the Ut-Napishtim myth into the Noah myth and wrote it down in the first draft for Genesis did not believe it to really have happened? I am sure he clearly believed it 100 %.

What do you think is the "deeper meening" of the Flood story, if he did not believe it?

Tod

Yeah, and in every case of written history aside from the Bible that includes supernatural claims, the supernatural claims are REJECTED.

Herodotus makes many extraordinary claims in his history. Do those make it into the history books? No, they are rejected even though the ordinary claims he makes are accepted. Herodotus' accounts comprise a significant amount of what we know about Egyptian history. However, when you were in school do you recall reading about the fire-breathing, flying serpents he speaks of? No...

Many Roman historians claimed Ceasar had supernatural powers, many like Jesus' alleged powers, including performing miracles and curing the sick. Do those make it into history books?

Most of our historical accountings, from anonymously written heiroglyphics on Egyptian tomb walls to the writings of famous historians like Herodotus, make extraordinary claims in their accounts. Do historians or the general public accept those claims along with the more ordinary? No, and I see absolutely no reason to give the Bible an exemption in this case. Its supernatural claims are just as unbelievable, and yes, downright silly as those made by any other culture.

cjack

Why not?

So you're saying that God cannot create something that is not perfect!

If creating something imperfect is outside of God's abilities, then you've just ruled out God as an omnimax deity.

Mageth

Originally posted by Magus55
Science has found no evidence for life on other planets either, yet they are determined to prove there is.

Scientists are not determined to prove there is, but are interested in determining if there is. A big difference. But a non sequitur. Keep to the topic at hand, please.

You assume those clues are accurate and what you're looking for. If the Earth was 100% different than it is now, and never fit the model that science proposed the Earth started out as, your assumptions and clues would be way off.

The model that scientists have for the earth is based on those "clues" (e.g. what we see), Magus. If the clues told us something different, we'd have a different model.

Really? Like what? Please enlighten me on what the world would look like if the entire Earth was covered with water. What would it look like if the ocean floor rose thousands of feet, and volcanoes and Earthquakes were triggering all over the planet? What would it look like if billions of tons of water, debris and dirt disintegrated parts of the Earth? What would it look like if tectonic plates collided together with astronomically more force than they currently do?

What would it look like if all that were true? Certainly not what it actually looks like now. That's the rub.

Further, those are your claims. What do you think the world would look like if all that really happened a few thousand years ago?

I meant destroyed all life on Earth. And are you sure that a local flood would mimic a bigger one? How big would the local flood have to be? As being in the direct path of Hurricane Isabel, iv'e seen some extensive, massive flooding in my area - covering an entire cities mainstreet over cars and none of it is even slightly close to what I'd expect of a flood on the scale of the Biblical one.

Exactly. And the evidence for such a massive global flood a few thousand years ago would stick out like a sore thumb all over the world. It's simply not there, Magus.

And again, how would you know what to look for? What would consitute evidence of a flood that the world has never seen or dreamt of?

I'm pretty sure we'd recognize it if it were there (the very magnitude of it would make it obvious), but it's not. Besides, you're the one claiming it happened; what evidence do you think we should be looking for?

And this is where science will always fail. If God exists, its not a physical impossibility so that rules that argument out ( since God can't be proven nor disproven, you can't just assume God doesn't exist so your theories work).

This isn't responsive to my statement, which wasn't addressing whether an omnipotent God could magically flood the entire earth, but whether there is evidence that he did as alleged.

If the Flood happened, it physically happened, and thus would leave physical evidence (unless God "poofed" this evidence out of existence). There's no evidence that such a flood ever happened. Hence, science can safely conclude that the flood didn't happen as described in the Bible.

Science concludes walking on water and ressurecting the dead is impossible too.

Well, of course it does, because they are physically impossible.

Yet even Christians who accept evolution don't disagree that that happened.

Because they believe in magic (but apparently only up to a point they feel comfortable with).

Science concluding something is false really doesn't mean much.

Well, yes it does; it means, in this case, that it's physically impossible. Science does not deal with magic, Magus.

Things can exist without having been proven yet.

Yes, but if you and a thousand other people thoroughly read a book and all conclude that a certain sentence isn't in the book, rereading the book countless times won't make the sentence magically appear. Geology, archaeology, and other disciplines have "read the book" of the earth thoroughly, and nowhere in the book does the sentence "there was a flood as recorded in the Bible" appear.

Science is still in its infancy. Maybe it will take technology and science another 1000 years to find the evidence for the flood. Doesn't in any way mean its wrong.

If such a catastrophic flood happened a few thousand years ago, any novice geologist could go out to the local road cut and see the evidence.

What would have happened if everyone before Geology was founded concluded that, we don't see the evidence for such and such, therefore it can't exist? We'd be no where.

First you denigrate science, and then you promote and defend science. It's geology that's primarily told us the Biblical Flood did not happen. Make up your mind.

A couple hundred years ago, no one had a clue what dinosaurs looked like or were. So, I guess hundreds of years ago, we could conclude dinosaurs didn't exist and were a myth right?

No, because hundreds of years ago "dinosaur" was not defined; no one had any conception of "dinosaur" as we now understand it, and so no one could conclude that dinosaurs did or didn't exist or were a myth. Think before you make such statements, Magus.

Thats what your logic states.

Obviously not. The Biblical Flood story has been "known" for thousands of years, so people today, can come to the conclusion, based on the (lack of) evidence, that it is myth. People hundreds of years ago may or may not have been able to confidently reach that conclusion.

Dinosaurs: lots of evidence for, therefore we, today, can conclude they are not a myth.

Flood: no evidence for, therefore we, today, can conclude that it is a myth.

If the evidence hasn't show up yet, its false.

Keep holding out your hope that this evidence will magically appear, Magus. You're gonna have a long wait. Science has read and reread the book, and it's simply not there.

So is human evolution Mageth.

Once again, please try to stay on topic (but, like dinosaurs, there's lots of evidence to support human evolution as not myth but history).

MrDarwin

Except that all involved here (including, apparently, Magus) already agree that the Christian bible is the creation of men, not the creation of an omnipotent being. Which makes it all the more puzzling to me why some people think everything in it must be true.

Mageth

Originally posted by Mathetes
I don't think you understood me, Mageth. My point is that if the Bible is not inerrant it cannot be the creation of an omnipotent being.

I agree with cjack on this one. An omnipotent God could, for example, pass on a myth to be recorded. I can't think of anything that would preclude him from doing so.

It can be right at parts and wrong at parts, and there is no way to know. You cannot trust it any more than the writings of any other Bronze Age mythologizer.

I agree in principle with this, but I would say it could be history in parts and myth in parts rather than "right" or "wrong" in parts. But we obviously do have ways to determine what is myth and what is history; we've been discussing some of them on this thread.

Precisely my point. I have read the Odyssey plenty of times, even struggling with the Greek original. I do not have it as an inerrant text in any sense, though.

Nor do I. But, like the Bible, we do have ways for determining what is (or may be) history and what is myth in Homer's account.

And don't get me wrong; I don't think the Bible or the Odyssey should be considered "inerrant texts". Heck, I don't think any book, esp. not such ancient mss., should ever be considered "inerrant".

Just to understand your position: do you believe that the guy that reinterpreted the Ut-Napishtim myth into the Noah myth and wrote it down in the first draft for Genesis did not believe it to really have happened? I am sure he clearly believed it 100 %.

Personally, I suspect he knew he was creating myth. After all, he modified the story considerably to "fit" the local tribal mythology.

What do you think is the "deeper meening" of the Flood story, if he did not believe it?

Well, one would perhaps have to go back to the original source of the particular myth (which I don't believe we know). But we do know that similar flood myths occur in many mythologies, all over the world, and that dissemination is not the best explanation for why that myth is so prevalent (though it is a possible explanation). So I think it may be a widely held myth that deals with a general "rebirth" theme ("birth" in the creation account, "rebirth" in the flood myth) or a "cyclic" theme that the earth cycles, in parallel to all living creatures, the seasons, and the moon, through birth, adolescence, adulthood, and the corruption of age until it is "cleansed" by death and resurrection. Keep in mind that that's speculative, but that general theme runs through a lot of mythologies.

We, today, often tend to dismiss such myths as merely primitive fantasies or fictions that were simply intended to explain the "unknown". I believe that many myths had deeper intent; to metaphorically illustrate and teach aspects of the human psyche and the human (and world) condition, and to help one deal with the phases of the typical human life (e.g. to help one in the transformation from adolescence to adulthood, from adulthood into old age, and then into death).