Creation Museum / Ark

[RickG]

Gen 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
Gen 2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

So it says that it didn't rain before man was created. That would have nothing to do with it not raining after man was created nor the time between then and the flood.

 

[Tallguy88]

Gen 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
Gen 2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

I am very surprised that most Christians do not seem to know this. But I guess that's because Gen. 1 and 2 are not considered literal any more.

All that says is that it didn't rain before God created Adam. It does not say how long this state lasted. Presumably nature began to take its current course after the Fall when sin, death, and sickness entered the world.

 

[Martinius]

Besides all the physical evidence, there are some other passages that seem a little off. In Genesis 4 we read that certain descendants of Adam were the ancestors of those who dwell in tents and keep livestock (Arab nomads?), play the lyre and reed pipe, and forge instruments of iron and bronze. Of course, those descendants would have all perished in the flood, but the author of that part of Genesis 4 apparently did not consult with the guys who wrote the stories about Noah and the mythical flood.

Another classic conundrum is where the sons of Noah found their wives, but also I wonder who exactly Cain was afraid might kill him, since there was no one else around to do such a deed (unless there were, since Cain found a woman to have children with, and that woman had to have parents, and perhaps siblings; all of a sudden, that part of the earth, which had recently contained just two humans, has a fairly robust population, big enough for farmer-turned-wanderer Cain to found a city). Trying to interpret Genesis literally is like a game of Twister: one must use a lot of uncomfortable contortions to get anywhere.

 

[tadoflamb]

So does that mean that the people who believe the Bible should be read literally believe there really was a dome? What do they think happened to the dome?

I'm not sure. Shortly after they said that there was no rain before Noah, something whispered "rain drops" into my ear. After class I went home and looked up fossilized raindrops as I didn't think I had ever heard of them before. I stayed away from the bible study after that because, for one, I thought they were teaching error, and two, I don't like spirits whispering in my ears!

 

[tadoflamb]

In the six day creation, did the trees already have tree rings?

 

[RickG]

In the six day creation, did the trees already have tree rings?

The real problem is having "the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit" before the Sun was created.

 

[Vicomte13]

Of course, those descendants would have all perished in the flood, but the author of that part of Genesis 4 apparently did not consult with the guys who wrote the stories about Noah and the mythical flood.

Well, not certainly. There were eight people on the Ark. Their genes and skills could have been stored among those eight.

 

[Vicomte13]

The real problem is having "the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit" before the Sun was created.

Not necessarily. There was still light and dark. The light was coming from God, not the Sun.

Also apparently all of that plantlife existed as seeds, because it didn't actually sprout until Adam was created on the 6th Day, per Genesis 2.

 

[RickG]

Not necessarily. There was still light and dark. The light was coming from God, not the Sun.

Also apparently all of that plantlife existed as seeds, because it didn't actually sprout until Adam was created on the 6th Day, per Genesis 2.

Yes, I saw the post earlier about not being visible light, which ignores that that non-visible light is the greater electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays) that has nothing to do with sustaining life of any kind in any form.

 

[mmksparbud]

That doesn't really answer my questions. It just leaves me with even more questions.

Did you not read how the waters abated? That was one of your questions. The land was dry when they got out of the ark, that was another question. God said they could eat meat after the flood, that is how they survived--that is another question-all in there. As for how the animals got all over the world after the flood--well, gee, I guess on foot by those with feet, by air by those with wings!

 

[mmksparbud]

The first mention of rain was at the flood--only the ground was cursed at the fall, and cursed again after Cain killed Abel. The flood was a curse upon the whole of creation and that changed it all completely.

 

[Vicomte13]

Yes, I saw the post earlier about not being visible light, which ignores that that non-visible light is the greater electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays) that has nothing to do with sustaining life of any kind in any form.

I didn't read that. My point was simpler: All that the text says is that God created light, and alternated light and darkness, starting on the FIRST day. He didn't put the Sun and Moon up there until the Fourth.

So, if we're reading Genesis literally, and treating days as days, then we don't really have a problem with the plants. They were in the ground, as seeds, for three days (if we take the "none had sprouted" language of Genesis 2 and apply it - in which case the plants were created, and sitting dormant as seeds, and didn't sprout and grow out until God made Adam on Day 6). OR, if we decide that God DID make the trees and plants all full blooming on the 3rd day, then either:
(a) God was providing the light, not the Sun, and God knows what sort of light he needed to provide, and/or
(b) Plants and trees will not die after only one day without sunlight in any case, and he created the Sun the day after he made the plants. So they sat there overnight, but then got the Sun the next day.

This is all a literal read. Of course, if one takes a literal read, then one is ascribing all of creation to creative miracle, in short order, and the regular rules of nature don't apply, because God is creating the rules along with the stuff governed by the rules.

Ultimately, it's an interesting thing to think about, but it doesn't really matter unless one decides it has to matter. Which I don't.

 

[Vicomte13]

Yes, I saw the post earlier about not being visible light, which ignores that that non-visible light is the greater electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays) that has nothing to do with sustaining life of any kind in any form.

In a similar vein, here's how the Flood worked. The water that fills the oceans was trapped and compressed several miles below the crust. The continents fit together in the Atlantic and the Pacific, on a much smaller world. And that's the way the world was, until the day Methuselah died and the Flood was unleashed. Then, the "fountains of the great deep" cracked open - meaning that the earth's crust was breached and that compressed water began to vent. As it vented, it opened the crack wider and wider, eventually creating the unique, linked, world-girdling crack that looks like a canyon at the middle of all of the mid-oceanic oceans, which makes them look so different from terrestrial mountains on dry land. Those are the "fountains of the great deep".

So, that's where the water came from: below, and it was salty after having been in contact with the underground minerals since creation.

Now then, the water vaulted forth, but also, because the structural integrity of the intact surface of the earth was broken, the water was able to expand while still in the earth as well, acting as a hydraulic driver that blew the earth upward and outward like a souffle, spreading out the basaltic ocean basins as it spread. Eventually this reached an equilibrium, and as the ocean basins spread, the water filled them. Ultimately the water stopped blasting out and falling, but the inflationary pressure continued a bit longer, causing the ocean basins to spread enough to take the excess water and allowing the land to emerge again.

IF the Flood is real, that's probably how it happened, where the water came from, and why the continents physically fit together in the Atlantic and the Pacific too - because they were once a solid, continuous surface of a smaller world.

That's as near as I can come to a plausible explanation for things that fit at least some of the visible traces (namely, the continents fitting together by visual inspection, and the need for a planet to have enough water, but then for the water to settle.

Do I believe it? Eh. Maybe. I recognize the contras. I've seen religion and science both fail rather spectacularly over the course of my lifetime, and in truth I don't really care either way. But I know it is of crucial importance to others in their faith, so I at least have tried to find a way to make it work in my head. And that does make it work enough for it to be plausible to me.

That it doesn't line up with certain geological facts doesn't really concern me. I remember the utter ridicule that the doctor who asserted that ulcers were caused by a bacteria. In the 1960s and 1970s the medical community knew that well enough to be confident to just absolutely ridicule and professionally harm the doctor who insisted otherwise. But he was right and the entire consensus medical opinion was dead wrong. I recall that they had the science, and that they gave all the logic, and it all seemed right. But it wasn't.

I've also met Thalidomide babies, and seen in my lifetime eggs going from being the healthiest breakfast to being reported, medically, as being akin to smoking cigarettes in terms of their harmfulness...and now I see that the cholesterol in eggs is not harmful, and that in fact eggs prevent heart attacks. At NO POINT along that trajectory was there ANY HUMILITY AT ALL in the scientific and medical community. They jumped from CERTITUDE, to CERTITUDE, to CERTITUDE, and were quite harsh and dismissive of the opposing viewpoints, both popularly but also scientifically.

We see the hostility and the competing realities today in the global warming/global cooling/neither camps, and the UTTER insulting disregard that trained scientists train on each other, just like politicians, on the matter.

So I don't take scientists as seriously, or credit them with the sort of accuracy and truth in the things they say, that they credit themselves with.

Ditto for the religious. I've delved enough in the Hebrew and Greek of the manuscripts enough to know that whole swathes of bitterly (and historically murderously) asserted doctrine, are just utter poppycock and not actually IN Scripture at all. I also know that Scripture is, in fact, full of contradictions. And no matter how many times some ignoramus who has not done the work I've done screams in my face that THAT'S NOT TRUE! It nevertheless remains true, and I know it, because I've done the work directly and seen for myself.

It's a lot easier with words on a page than with the mute evidence of rocks and tissues and stones and fossils. All sorts of things have to be taken into account there that can't be known. Natural science is harder than scriptural theology, because scripture is bound by a limited number of texts, and is written in human language that can be read, while natural science is written in mute physical objects that have to be interpreted.

I have great respect for the inquiring mind, and so I try to see how this works and that works. Once some religious or scientific person starts getting arrogant and doctrinaire, I recall the long experience of seeing both be utterly humiliated and disgraced by over-asserting things that cannot be known for sure. Which is why I don't go there.

I do know what I have seen and done with my own eyes and hands, and rather than discounting my OWN direct experience as "subjective", to the contrary, I assert that IT is just as much objective fact as the "subjective" records of what scientists do in the laboratory. After all, they too are simply doing things with their hands and eyes, and there is no aspect of either their eyes, hands and minds that renders them any more objective than me. They write it down, and that is believed by many to somewhat magically convert subjective observation into objective data. But it doesn't.

It's objective if it's real and was done in truth, by me or by them. It's not if it wasn't. And just like any other thing, there's no way to know for sure. Genesis could be real. Or it could be an ancient novel. It is pleasant to read it both ways and consider how it could be real. That doesn't mean it IS. It is also pleasant to examine the evidence against that, the scientific evidence, and consider why that may be more accurate, but then again, where there are potential weaknesses in the data.

For example: the fact that the dating of very ancient things is done by radioactivity is ultimately determined by the constancy of "c", as radioactivity is an energic reaction ultimately derived from the behavior of energy. If "c" has been constant, then radioactive clocks can be trusted to have been constant. But if "c" has not been constant over time, if it has decayed, then the clock used to move faster.

Does this mean everything we know is wrong. Maybe not, if the change is insignificant. Most certainly, if the decay is significant. When I was a scientific pantheist, I actually got ANGRY when I read the summary of the Soviet study suggesting that the speed of light HAD decayed over time. I wondered at my own anger, and realized that an inconstant speed of light was actually a THEOLOGICAL threat to my belief system. I marveled that I, the closest thing to an atheist at the time, actually DID have a religion: my firm believe in science - and I was ready to really go after those Soviets for their heresy. Of course I didn't think in those terms, but that's what it amounted to.

So I'd say that when it comes to the earth and Genesis and the Flood, the conversation OUGHT TO BE lighthearted, because there is NOTHING really at stake...unless of course you have elevated things like books - be they religious or geological, to greater importance than they really have. And for that, I stand as a corrective, with a mixture of knowledge, wisdom and humor.

 

[Vicomte13]

The flood was a curse upon the whole of creation

No, only upon the breathers that lived on land. The fish and marine mammals were fine.

 

[Cimorene]

Did you not read how the waters abated? That was one of your questions. The land was dry when they got out of the ark, that was another question. God said they could eat meat after the flood, that is how they survived--that is another question-all in there.

Yes, I read the verses, but no I did not read "how" the waters were abated bc it doesn't explain the how. Not in a way that makes logical sense. It said the waters returned from off the earth continually. What exactly does that mean? I get that it stopped raining, but where did all the flood water go? That much water just evaporated? How come that doesn't happen after floods today?

Where did the meat come from if all the animals not on the ark had been killed in the flood? Did Noah & his family start eating the animals they'd saved? I'm assuming they were eating fish from the water from all along, but the verses made it sound like they were eating meat from cattle too.

As for how the animals got all over the world after the flood--well, gee, I guess on foot by those with feet, by air by those with wings!

The "well, gee" attitude throws me off even more. I honestly don't know if you're being serious. It said the ark rested upon Mount Ararat. That's in modern day Turkey, right? How did land animals walk from there to the rest of the world? Penguins walked from Turkey to Patagonia

& What happened to the bodies of all the people killed in the flood?

 

[Martinius]

I am going to beg out of the remainder of this thread. FYI, this is by far the most "successful" thread I have ever started, as most tend to be duds. My original question was whether the Catholics on this forum were interested in visiting the Kentucky Ark or the Creation Museum. I think there were a few responses, mostly negative. Then the thread spun out of the solar system. We have been at the point where people on two sides are arguing back and forth, and we all know that none of us will have a change of mind.

I appreciate all your responses and input, for I have gained much insight into how creationists think. Please continue on if you like, but I will be moving on to other topics.

 

[tadoflamb]

Penguins walked from Turkey to Patagonia?

Penguins weren't on the ark.

likewise, of every bird of the air, seven pairs, a male and a female, to keep their progeny alive over all the earth.

Penguins and emus were left out for some reason.

Probably because both live in Australia.

 

[Cimorene]

I am going to beg out of the remainder of this thread. FYI, this is by far the most "successful" thread I have ever started, as most tend to be duds. My original question was whether the Catholics on this forum were interested in visiting the Kentucky Ark or the Creation Museum. I think there were a few responses, mostly negative. Then the thread spun out of the solar system. We have been at the point where people on two sides are arguing back and forth, and we all know that none of us will have a change of mind.

I appreciate all your responses and input, for I have gained much insight into how creationists think. Please continue on if you like, but I will be moving on to other topics.

I'm sorry for not sticking to your OP. Idk if the q's I asked here are answered at the Ark Encounter.

 

[Fish and Bread]

I remember when at one point probably 15 years ago or so, there was a book by Rick Warren called "Purpose Driven Life" that was really popular in Protestant circles. You were supposed to read a small chapter every day with some scripture, a reflection, and a prayer, or something along those lines. I was okay with it right up until one early "day" in the book where Warren insisted that there was no rain on the earth until some point in Genesis that was, even within the Genesis narrative, well after human beings were walking around, and that prior to that point water had just sort of come up from the ground, and did this whole analysis based on believing that literally. It was at that point where I put down the book and never touched it again. He lost all credibility with me. I just can't take someone who thinks that's a fact seriously.

St. Augustine of Hippo warned people about that sort of pseudo-science based on biblical literalism as far back as the 5th century AD. Specifically, he pointed out how bad stuff like that made Christianity look to non-believers who were experts in their fields and knew believers were talking out of their you-know-whats, and encouraged believers to stop doing it. I agree with St. Augustine. The bible is not always intended to be literal, and it's definitely not intended to be a history or a science textbook.

 

[Cimorene]

Penguins weren't on the ark.



Penguins and emus were left out for some reason.

Probably because both live in Australia.

I thought of penguins bc of this:

Ok, so then what about other animals like wallabies? Does the Ark Encounter explain how they got from Turkey to Australia?