Malfunc

Hi Atheos,
actually you make some very good points; food for thought.
Malfunc

Malfunc

Hello anthrosciguy,
archaeogologists believe that the Australian aborigines walked from the Malaysian region about 16,000 years ago. (?)
Malfunc

credoconsolans

They had no modern pollutants. Even in the pure mountain streams you can get giardia. No additives, no preservatives, but they did have disease, parasites, predators and other little additives (wealthy ancient Egyptians had a healthy diet...well, except for all the sand they ate that ground away their tooth enamel allowing the development of abcesses that killed them).

bajan

You are kinda on the right path, Malfunc, but you would do much better if you stopped 'cherry-picking' from Genesis. Why would you wish to cling on to any bits of it at all? It is a story that provided an explanation to uneducated people at a time when scientific knowledge and understanding was almost non-existent. There is no need to consider that any bits of it satisfy today's quest for truth. Nowadays we apply the scientific method - and we are doing pretty well by it too.

Malfunc

Hello bajan,
I have a tendency to believe that much of the Old Testament was written in a historical context. Yes I agree with you regarding 'scientific knowledge and understanding'. Afterall, the people at the time believed the world was flat (LOL). But there is some historic value in much of what was written.

Malfunc

judge

There are ideas within science that are not at necessarily odds with your view.

Mitochondrial Eve

Tangent

Hi Malfunc

Looking at your OP, I see you still hold on to a few of the beliefs from the Bible's creation account as being factually accurate. Having been in a similar position, I can understand not wanting to completely give up what you've been raised to believe as true. To me this involved trying to "reinterpret" the Bible in terms of the new scientific evidence I was discovering.

Just as a word of warning though, many people here have been discussing this subject for a long, long time. Most have covered these subjects time and time again to the point of them being inherently obvious to most. This being the case expect some pretty flat rejections/refutations as you tread the 'familiar ground' from indoctrination to free-thought.

The posters here are a very well educated, accepting and colourful lot. I can only speak for myself when I say that I often forget that the transition from belief to non-belief is not a binary flip and that it's a gradual transition. I've been known to be rather dismissive or flippant when presented with positions that are now seemingly obvious or trivial to me and I'm sure others here aren't completely innocent of it as well. I hope that if you encounter any of that behaviour during your stay that you do not allow it to dissuade you from critically evaluating the evidence presented.

In other words, welcome to IIDB :wave:

DBT

All life on Earth cannot be destroyed by localized flooding, no matter how large.
So what then is the point of the biblical flood story?

Without a world flood there was no need to save 'every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird ofevery sort' - as most of these could have simply moved to higher ground, or in the case of birds, out of the area entirely.

Gen; 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:

22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.

Put into biblical context- without a world flood, the account of God's destruction of life on Earth is meaningless.

Malfunc

Thank you Tangent
Malfunc

Malfunc

Hi again Tangent (p/s),
I do agree with you on "not wanting to completely give up what you've been raised to believe..." It's left me in a real quandary. If you go not the forum 'Existence of God' and read my post 'Only speaking from experience' you may see why I've wrestled with these things. I'm of two minds.

Malfunc