Ages In Scripture

[DMagoh]

Actually I have and passed with flying colors. The professor tried to convince me to change my major because I was so good on proofs.

So then why are you totally ignoring everything he taught you?

Let's see... you are the one in another thread that told me that if I dont know what is right, that I should trust the advice of the person that is right.

(I think I said I didnt know what was right, so how can I trust the person who is right? )

Yeah, you sound proficient in logic.

 

[Dannager]

Let's see... you are the one in another thread that told me that if I dont know what is right, that I should trust the advice of the person that is right.

(I think I said I didnt know what was right, so how can I trust the person who is right? )

Yeah, you sound proficient in logic.

Man, if you have a problem with that, you're going to fail any logic class, whether KerrMetric's teaching it or not.

 

[Ringo84]

And science says that Jesus wasnt ressurrected (because it cant happen) ...but you believe that.

What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with disbelieving that there was a global flood? I've never taken any formal course in logic but it doesn't seem to follow that if you don't believe in a global flood then you don't believe that Jesus was resurrected. That makes no sense whatsoever.

I just wanted to point that out.
Ringo

 

[Dannager]

What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with disbelieving that there was a global flood? I've never taken any formal course in logic but it doesn't seem to follow that if you don't believe in a global flood then you don't believe that Jesus was resurrected. That makes no sense whatsoever.

I just wanted to point that out.
Ringo

I think everyone here but DMagoh is pretty clear on that.

 

[DMagoh]

What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with disbelieving that there was a global flood? I've never taken any formal course in logic but it doesn't seem to follow that if you don't believe in a global flood then you don't believe that Jesus was resurrected. That makes no sense whatsoever.

I just wanted to point that out.
Ringo

If you believe this:
Science says the flood is not possible
Therefore, the flood didnt happen

Then you have to believe this:
Science says resurrection of the dead is not possible
Therefore, Jesus wasn't resurrected

 

[DMagoh]

Let's see... you are the one in another thread that told me that if I dont know what is right, that I should trust the advice of the person that is right.

(I think I said I didnt know what was right, so how can I trust the person who is right? )

Yeah, you sound proficient in logic.

Man, if you have a problem with that, you're going to fail any logic class, whether KerrMetric's teaching it or not.

You're the one who is failing logic!

If I dont know what's right to begin with... how am I going to trust the person who is right because I wont know which person is right because I dont know what's right to begin with!

 

[ebia]

If you believe this:
Science says the flood is not possible
Therefore, the flood didnt happen

Then you have to believe this:
Science says resurrection of the dead is not possible
Therefore, Jesus wasn't resurrected

The problem with your logic is that most people don't start from "Science says the flood is not possible". They start from "Science says the flood did not happen because the evidence says it did not happen."

Science also says the flood is not possible, and that people do not 'resurrect'. The difference is that we have specific physical evidence about whether or not a flood happened 4000 years ago (or whatever). Science does not have the physical evidence (a body) in order to comment on the specific event of Jesus' resurrection.

There is a big difference between being able to say "x does not happen in the normal case" and "x did not happen in the specific case". For a global flood we can say both of those things. For Jesus' resurrection we can only say the first of them.

 

[DMagoh]

Science also says the flood is not possible, and that people do not 'resurrect'.

If you think science is the end-all, then you cant pick and choose what you want to believe that science says. If science says 'people do not resurrect', then how can you willy-nilly decide that you choose not to believe science on that.

On the other hand, if you are like me and believe that science is not the end-all, then I can believe in the supernatural.

 

[metherion]

This is how I put it in an earlier thread.

always thought of it this way: God can do what science says can't happen. God can (since God can do anything), but DID NOT do what science says didn't happen.

So it's really a case of can't versus didn't. God can do what science says can't be done, but God didn't do what science says He didn't do.

Science says a person can't be raised from the dead. Doesn't mean God didn't do it. No long-term measurable repercussions to say it didn't happen.

Science says the world didn't get created in 6 days 6000 years ago. Means God didn't do it. Long-term measurable repecussions say it didn't happen.

Science says a normal person can't heal a sick Roman's slave just by saying that he is healed from a distance away. Doesn't mean He didn't. No long-term repercussions to say otherwise.

Science says the world didn't get deluged in a global flood of (pun intended) Biblical proportians. Means it didn't happen. Long-term measurables say it didn't happen.

Metherion

 

[Ringo84]

If you think science is the end-all, then you cant pick and choose what you want to believe that science says. If science says 'people do not resurrect', then how can you willy-nilly decide that you choose not to believe science on that.

On the other hand, if you are like me and believe that science is not the end-all, then I can believe in the supernatural.

I still don't understand why or how the resurrection - which, up to now, nobody here questioned - got into a debate about age in scripture. You brought it up, so let's examine it.

You seem to assume that someone who doesn't believe in a literal flood believes that science is the "end-all"; that there is nothing further than the knowable and provable. You talked about what "most people" believe when it comes to the flood, but what so-called "most people" believe isn't in question here. What's in question is what the people in this thread believe, and I haven't seen any evidence to support the view that people who don't believe in a literal flood believe science without question - thereby also believing that there was no resurrection.

I don't know when "science" in general ever questioned the resurrection. If there ever was a scientific study done to refute the resurrection, was it the work of the science community or a hand full of scientists who already have preconceived notions?

In fact, there is evidence to support the view that the flood story is not a literal event but a mythological event, as there have been numerous flood accounts from various religions and sources - all of which have very similar (though not identical) storylines as the Christian flood story.

Even if the flood did happen, it's possible that the flood wasn't a "worldwide" flood, as the writer of Genesis asserts, but simply a long-spanning flood in the vicinity of the Middle East (which, in early Bible times, was "the world"). Don't forget that we're examining ancient writing from the modern perspective of science and possibly sociology. Peoples in Noah's time (if he ever existed) did not have access to the same kind of science.
Ringo

 

[ebia]

If you think science is the end-all, then you cant pick and choose what you want to believe that science says. If science says 'people do not resurrect', then how can you willy-nilly decide that you choose not to believe science on that.

Mary of Magdela, Peter, John and Paul all also knew that 'people do not resurrect'. That's the whole point.

On the other hand, if you are like me and believe that science is not the end-all, then I can believe in the supernatural.

You can believe that the sun is grapefruit on the end of a bit of string for all I care; I was addressing your particular piece of 'logic' above. In terms of what science can say about them the global flood and the resurrection are not like events.

 

[Dannager]

If you think science is the end-all, then you cant pick and choose what you want to believe that science says. If science says 'people do not resurrect', then how can you willy-nilly decide that you choose not to believe science on that.

On the other hand, if you are like me and believe that science is not the end-all, then I can believe in the supernatural.

Please stop ignoring the meat of people's posts and only commenting on the stuff that you're capable of deflecting. Everyone here knows what your logic looks like, and ebia did a pretty fantastic job of showing exactly how it is flawed.

 

[newchristian99]

Ringo again makes some excellent points. I think taking the era into account helps us realise that the people back then knew little or nothing of the outside world. Did they not for example still believe the earth was flat?

The point i am labouring to make is that when a mass flood hits an enclosed community of limited knowledge, there "whole world" may not always equate to "the whole world".

 

[Dannager]

Ringo again makes some excellent points. I think taking the era into account helps us realise that the people back then knew little or nothing of the outside world. Did they not for example still believe the earth was flat?

The point i am labouring to make is that when a mass flood hits an enclosed community of limited knowledge, there "whole world" may not always equate to "the whole world".

Precisely. You have to remember that while the Bible was divinely inspired, it was written by men and subject to their perception of the world around them. It was written for the people of the time.

 

[DMagoh]

What does the resurrection of Jesus have to do with disbelieving that there was a global flood? I've never taken any formal course in logic but it doesn't seem to follow that if you don't believe in a global flood then you don't believe that Jesus was resurrected. That makes no sense whatsoever.

I just wanted to point that out.
Ringo

Ringo again makes some excellent points...

You have to remember that while the Bible was divinely inspired, it was written by men...

Why would you want to follow someone who is a liar and a deceiver? If the story of Noah and the flood did not occur, then Jesus is a liar and deceiver. Jesus clearly taught:

37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Evidently, either Jesus believed it happened, or He is a liar and deceiver.

 

[KerrMetric]

You took logic/debate class?

 

[ebia]

Why would you want to follow someone who is a liar and a deceiver? If the story of Noah and the flood did not occur, then Jesus is a liar and deceiver. Jesus clearly taught:

37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Evidently, either Jesus believed it happened, or He is a liar and deceiver.

Not at all. That works whether or not the Noah story is historically accurate - all it requires is that it be a shared story of significance. People talk about shared stores in the same langage as so called "true" stories all the time, without distinguishing between the two in the words they use.

 

[Ringo84]

Why would you want to follow someone who is a liar and a deceiver? If the story of Noah and the flood did not occur, then Jesus is a liar and deceiver. Jesus clearly taught:

37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Evidently, either Jesus believed it happened, or He is a liar and deceiver.

I didn't say that Jesus was a liar and a deceiver. I said that the flood story could very well be a myth that was handed down from generation to generation. Not everything in the Bible literally occurred as written; the Bible is chock full of symbolism and parables. Jesus Himself spoke in parables quite often.

This is becoming a discussion about Bible interpretation and less about the subject at hand. Nobody disbelieves Jesus because they think that the sotry of Noah never happened. It's an acknowledgement of the limitations of science in Bible times and the fact that many of the stories in the Bible were symbolic.

You say you took a class in logic (and I have no reason to question whether you really did take that class), but the logic does not follow. You can acknowledge that there are parables in the Bible and still believe what Jesus taught. There is no mutual exclusivity.
Ringo

 

[ParsonJefferson]

I didn't say that Jesus was a liar and a deceiver. I said that the flood story could very well be a myth that was handed down from generation to generation. Not everything in the Bible literally occurred as written; the Bible is chock full of symbolism and parables. Jesus Himself spoke in parables quite often.

This is becoming a discussion about Bible interpretation and less about the subject at hand. Nobody disbelieves Jesus because they think that the sotry of Noah never happened. It's an acknowledgement of the limitations of science in Bible times and the fact that many of the stories in the Bible were symbolic.

You say you took a class in logic (and I have no reason to question whether you really did take that class), but the logic does not follow. You can acknowledge that there are parables in the Bible and still believe what Jesus taught. There is no mutual exclusivity.
Ringo

I think part of the problem here is that Jesus did not allude to Noah in parabolic form, nor mention the flood as a "myth of old." He spoke of it as actually having happened.

This leaves us to conclude any number of things:
1. Jesus was mistaken. But that would cut to the heart of his claim of being God, because God is omniscient.
2. Jesus knew the flood story is a myth, but didn't say so. But this would mean Jesus was misleading people and/or outright lying.
3. Jesus was speaking parabolically, but didn't say so. This, of course, presents a problem because that wasn't what Jesus did elsewhere.
4. Jesus was speaking of an actual literal, historic event that took place only in an isolated geographic area. This, of course, leads us to have to contend with the Ark being set on ground on a mountain. Surely the height of the water would mean it was not a "local flood".
5. Jesus was speaking of an actual, literal, historic event that was of cataclysmic and/or world-wide proportions.


I'm going to say that I believe option #5 is most likely. Do I have to accept that option on faith? Yes - because it cannot be absolutely, empirically proven to be either true or false.

But any other option that you - or anybody else - chooses, has to be chosen and accepted on faith as well.

 

[ebia]

I think part of the problem here is that Jesus did not allude to Noah in parabolic form, nor mention the flood as a "myth of old." He spoke of it as actually having happened.

No he did not.

His words are compatible with it being an account of a real, historic, event. They are equally compatible with it being a shared story of theological significance.

People commonly use the same way of speaking to talk of events in a shared story as they do of events in "real life". They do so now - when people talk about what happened on The Bill last week they very often don't include anything that would lead an outside observer to know that "The Bill" is simply a TV story.

How much more so in a culture far less concerned about historical accuracy and far more concerned about theological truth in its shared accounts.

3. Jesus was speaking parabolically, but didn't say so. This, of course, presents a problem because that wasn't what Jesus did elsewhere.

This, of course, is also a load of steaming .... Jesus (like anyone else) frequently spoke less than literally without explicitly saying so. Sometimes when his hearers recognised that. Sometimes his hearers at the time didn't recognise that. And sometimes they thought he was speaking metaphorically when he was, in fact, speaking quite literally.