DINOSAURS! Noah's Flood & other awesome questions.

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Kind: a species of animal. 2 dogs. 2 cats. 2 birds. Obviously these kinds would not have looked like the animals we have today, and most definitely would've been less of a variety being so close to creation. So thinking critically here, it is not hard to realize that there is more species nowadays than there was back then.

So you believe in very fast evolution. An odd stance for someone who denies evolution.

 

[Hieronymus]

Clearly the global flood was a supernatural event under God's direct control, so you don't need to worry about trying to come up with possible non-supernatural explanations. Just accept that it was so. The same applies to the parting of the Red Sea or when Jesus walked on water/turned water into wine/raised the dead, etc. Do you need to worry about finding a non-supernatural explanation for those events? Of course not.

But then they just don't believe it apparently.
It seems God in their view is incapable of interacting with his creation, o wait, He didn't even create it according to their view...

You've missed the obvious - the water is still here for all to see! Just travel to the coast and look out from the sea shore and there you'll find it - trillions of gallons of it. When God raised up the land masses after the great flood and reshaped the entire face of the earth, the water that was previously covering the whole planet to a depth of about a mile simply drained back into the lower parts of the earth's surface and formed the oceans and places like the Grand Canyon in the process.

They don't believe it.

 

[Colter]

Jesus Christ also referred to Noah.

So the story about Jesus says. Jesus knew the story of Noah was a vast exaggeration on the part of the Hebrew authors who used a local flood legend to drown the wicked world. When stories get retold they are often misremembered. People don't believe the flood story because it sounds remotely true, they believe it because it's in the Bible. If it wasn't in the Bible people would laugh at such a story in other cultures.

 

[Colter]

So, God is forgetful? If he weren't God himself, it might be understandable
seeing he's been around literally forever.

God is neither forgetful nor did he ever regret his creation. The flood story is a human creation, no other culture on earth remembers being related to the Jews.

 

[Colter]

So you believe in very fast evolution. An odd stance for someone who denies evolution.

Ya know, Noah, supposivly the only righteous man on earth, was found passed out drunk and naked in his tent by his kids. Maybe he made the whole thing up?

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Ya know, Noah, supposivly the only righteous man on earth, was found passed out drunk and naked in his tent by his kids. Maybe he made the whole thing up?

I don't think so, but it does add credibility to the whole story in that Moses recorded Noah's moment of embarrassment. If it were merely fiction then adding such a scene would have simply damaged the otherwise righteous Noah unnecessarily.

 

[RickG]

The Bible says the Ark went to ground "on the mountains of Ararat." Ararat at the time was a hilly region comprising a portion of northwestern Iran and the adjacent of Armenia. The mountain we know as Ararat was not so named until about the 5th century AD.

There are connections that make sense for the origin of the flood story. (1) The 8200 event of the final outbreak of glacial lake Agassiz that cause a sea level rise of over 2 meters. (2) the breech of the St. of Bosporus around the same time in creasing the size of the Black Sea "Lake" by more than a third. (3) The the Mountains of Ararat border the southeastern portion of the Black Sea. I can provide links to the scientific literature for anyone wanting to investigate this for themselves.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

After the ark comes to rest...time passes before the tops of
the mountains are seen by Noah, then more time passes before
all leave the ark. Noah plants a vineyard soon after, and I have
wondered how that was done on the high cool mountains of
Ararat in Turkey.

I don't think the mountain would have been high or particularly cool to begin with, so I guess that would have given time for a vineyard to become established. Also, since God had just saved Noah and his family, it wouldn't make sense for him just to abandon them at that stage and hope that they survived.

 

[Hieronymus]

There are connections that make sense for the origin of the flood story. (1) The 8200 event of the final outbreak of glacial lake Agassiz that cause a sea level rise of over 2 meters. (2) the breech of the St. of Bosporus around the same time in creasing the size of the Black Sea "Lake" by more than a third. (3) The the Mountains of Ararat border the southeastern portion of the Black Sea. I can provide links to the scientific literature for anyone wanting to investigate this for themselves.

As long as it's not the Biblical story, right?

 

[RickG]

Actually, if this earth were billions of years old, I wouldn't expect
to see the complete column anywhere.

Having no background or understanding of stratigraphy and sedimentology would explain that.

Catastrophism would not
let layers last that long and without the catastrophes, they would
build up too much.

Catastrophism is purely made up by the creation science community, ignoring all the physical science that shows that the earth we have become a molten mass, which would still be molten even today. Thermodynamics 101, and never mind all the other problems with the idea.

Speaking of catastrophes, what is the current explanation for the
lack of sediment around every continent and the newness of the
sea floors, especially the Atlantic Ocean?

Seafloor spreading due to plate tectonics. Sediment thickness and age increased with distance from the mid-Atlantic ridge. Magnetic anomalies also match on both sides of the ridge.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

As long as it's not the Biblical story, right?

I think you've hit the nail on the head. When you reject the supernatural, you're only left with the option of trying to find natural explanations. I'm still waiting to hear scientific explanations for how Jesus walked on water, turned water into wine, calmed the wind and the waves in a storm and rose from the dead. Should be interesting.

 

[Hieronymus]

I think you've hit the nail on the head. When you reject the supernatural, you're only left with the option of trying to find natural explanations. I'm still waiting to hear scientific explanations for how Jesus walked on water, turned water into wine, calmed the wind and the waves in a storm and rose from the dead. Should be interesting.

There aren't any, because it's beyond the scientific paradigm.
And to many that paradigm is all there is, and then God doing anything is impossible.

 

[RickG]

As long as it's not the Biblical story, right?

??? Care to be more specific.

 

[Speedwell]

As long as it's not the Biblical story, right?

it may well be the biblical story. It certainly fits.

 

[Hieronymus]

Having no background or understanding of stratigraphy and sedimentology would explain that.

For the last time:
We all have the same evidence to work with, but there are different views on it.
You have condemned yourself to naturalism, people like me believe God can do great things.
So you assume the natural is all there is to explain itself (which is potentially a logical fallacy), whereas people like me believe in causes beyond the natural, in this case God of the Bible, who makes this claim and has a strong case and the explanatory power for our reality.
So indeed, we draw different conclusions.
This has little to do with backgrounds and understanding, but with the glasses through which the evidence is looked at.

Catastrophism is purely made up by the creation science community.

And that's just plain nonsense.

 

[Hieronymus]

it may well be the biblical story. It certainly fits.

It doesn't fit your beliefs, does it?
You have to interpret it differently from what it says, like the worldwide thing, the Ark and its contents, etcetera.
...or am i wrong about you?

 

[RickG]

I think you've hit the nail on the head. When you reject the supernatural, you're only left with the option of trying to find natural explanations. I'm still waiting to hear scientific explanations for how Jesus walked on water, turned water into wine, calmed the wind and the waves in a storm and rose from the dead. Should be interesting.

I see, a story passed down through countless generations (several thousand years) before being written down. Using current context of words and phrases ignoring possible meanings and context of the time, which could and is more likely different.

And you are wondering how Jesus walked on water? (1) The story is not contemporary, i.e., no eye witnesses. (2) it occurs at night during a storm. Have you ever been to the beach and walked out to a sandbar that is barely covered by water? From the shore it looks like one walking on water.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

How does that work, there are millions of species of living things on the earth some of which have very short life spans, less than a year, with unique requirements???

I think it probably has to do with the immense (staggeringly-so) amount of potential for variety in the genes of living things, so that they can change dramatically, while still remaining the same type of creature (e.g., birds remain birds, insects remain insects, fish remain fish, humans remain humans, etc). I don't know where this came from, but I've heard it said that the likelihood of a couple having two identical children is in the order of 1 chance in 10 to the power of 2000+, which is incredible, given that the known universe supposedly only has 10 to the power of 80 atoms. The power and knowledge of our creator is just mind-blowing (it would have to be anyway, in order to create our universe out of nothing).

 

[Hieronymus]

I see, a story passed down through countless generations (several thousand years) before being written down. Using current context of words and phrases ignoring possible meanings and context of the time, which could and is more likely different.

Never mind the mess the earth's crust is and the rock layers with millions of rapidly fossilized animals in them...

 

[RickG]

For the last time:
We all have the same evidence to work with, but there are different views on it.

The creation science does not present a different view, it makes stuff up. They do not use any of the actual scientific data and information that you claim to be the same evidence. Challenge, show me a single paper from the creation science literature that actually shows and explains the data differently.

[/quote]You have condemned yourself to naturalism, people like me believe God can do great things.[/QUOTE]
The only thing I am condemning is the creation science literature because it is misrepresented science.