Global Warming

[DrBubbaLove]

Just to point out a few things I think you will agree with, there are no proofs in science, proofs are exclusive to mathematics. However, science does contain many facts we know to be true. As for theories, in the scientific world a theory is as good as it gets. A scientific theory is completely different from the general dictionary or layman's perspective of a theory, which to them is a guess or idea. In science a theory has a testable hypothesis, and facts to support it. In addition a theory contains predictions based on known facts. If the predictions are falsified, then so is the theory, but if they are found to be correct, then the theory is reinforced. And you are right about the 100% certainty. Scientific predictions are based on statistical reliability. Science is always open to being wrong when new contradictory information comes into the picture. As for a flood that has covered the entire earth, especially within the past 10,000, there is zero physical evidence to support it.

Precisely what the OP and myself have been attempting to express from the beginning of this exchange. Having no "proof" that it can be certain natural events do in fact explain exactly what has occurred in the past, science cannot declare a supernatural event is absolutely known to NOT have occurred.
All they can say is we see no evidence of a naturally occurring global flood that would corroborate what is described in all the numerous and global myths, which most of those myths assert as globally occurring event affecting all of humanity and animals everywhere. As I have repeatedly said, I am fine with that as it makes no claim at all about whether a supernatural event has or has not happened.

 

[The Barbarian]

As I have repeatedly said, I am fine with that as it makes no claim at all about whether a supernatural event has or has not happened.

Science can't make such a claim. They can only say what natural things might or might not have happened. Flood, for example. Whether or not there are windows in heaven through which water falls when the windows are opened, is not something that can be assessed by science, since Heaven is not observable by our senses.

 

[Aldebaran]

Science can't make such a claim. They can only say what natural things might or might not have happened. Flood, for example. Whether or not there are windows in heaven through which water falls when the windows are opened, is not something that can be assessed by science, since Heaven is not observable by our senses.

Supernatural events may or may not leave natural or scientifically measurable evidence behind. Being super-natural means that it's not natural, and therefore not measurable by scientific methods.

Sometimes athiests will come here wanting to debate whether God exists, or whether a miraculous event could have occurred. But it's impossible to come to a common understanding when one person is talking about the scientific and natural while the other is talking about things not measurable.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Science can't make such a claim. They can only say what natural things might or might not have happened. Flood, for example. Whether or not there are windows in heaven through which water falls when the windows are opened, is not something that can be assessed by science, since Heaven is not observable by our senses.

Exactly the OPs point and mine made repeatedly.

Statements like this next quote do not even agree with the statement in the above quote. It is presuming the inability of science to see it means it did not happen as the Scripture says it did AND it also presumes one knows something about what God would want in respect to how He chooses (rather than our demanding) to reveals Himself to mankind and also each of us;

The Barbarian- Global Warming
“If God wanted us to believe a world-wide flood, He would have told us there was one. And He certainly wouldn't have faked evidence showing there wasn't one, if He had done it.”

The fact remains true that the Scripture clearly says a global flood rising water above mountain tops (however high those may have been pre-flood is debatable in my view) and there are hundreds of similar myths with many of them having undeniable similar equivalent and principal elements. Those elements including that it was a global flood of water, nearly total human extinction, boats, saving animals, sending out birds to hunt for land (meaning it cannot be seen)....etc., as well as a few with a similar follow-on myths that rather share some details with the Biblical myth showing the dispersion of people not long after the flood (Tower of Babel).

Furthermore many of the posters here opposing a belief in a global thought are arguing exactly the point I am condemning; that science can make such claims. So it is not even true that some people are not arguing that science can claim it did not happen (supernaturally or not).

Here is scientist and Christian posting in this thread, [staff edit], excludes without any qualification the possibility of ANY global flood and opting instead for a belief in something occurring naturally (a regional sudden flood-ocean rise) to explain presence of the literal GLOBAL flood myth in the Bible as well as from other civilizations. So he is actually excluding as a scientist a global flood being a real possibility (supernatural or not):

RickG- Global Warming

“I know from my academic background in the earth sciences and experience as a professional scientist that there has never been a flood on the earth coming anywhere near covering the highest mountain.”

 

[JackRT]

The biblical global flood supposedly covered the planet. Mount Everest is 8,848 meters tall and the diameter of the earth at the equator, on the other hand, is 12,756.8 km. All we have to do is calculate the volume of water to fill a sphere with a radius of the Earth + Mount Everest; then we subtract the volume of a sphere with a radius of the Earth. Now, I know this won't yield a perfect result, because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, but it will serve to give a general idea about the amounts involved.

So, here are the calculations:

First, Everest

V= 4/3 * pi * r^3

= 4/3 * pi * (6387.248 km)^3

= 1.09151 x 10^12 cubic kilometres


Now, the Earth at sea level


V = 4/3 * pi * r^3

= 4/3 * pi * (6378.4 km)^3

= 1.08698 x 10^12 cubic kilometres

The difference between these two figures, 4.525 x 10^9 cubic kilometres is the amount of water needed to just cover the Earth. Or, to put into a more sensible number, 4,525,000,000 cubic kilometres. This is one helluva lot of water.

For those who think it might come from the polar ice caps, please don't forget that water is more dense than ice, and thus that the volume of ice present in those ice caps would have to be more than the volume of water necessary.


Some interesting physical effects of all that water, too. How much weight do you think that is? Well, water at STP weighs in at 1 gram/cubic centimetre so:

4.252x10^9 km^3 of water,

x 10^6 (= cubic meters),

x 10^6 (= cubic centimetres),

x 1 g/cm^3 (= grams),

x 1o^-3 (= kilograms),

= 4.525X 10^21 kg.

Ever wonder what the effects of that much weight would be? Well, many times in the near past (i.e., the Pleistocene), continental ice sheets covered many of the northern states and most all of Canada. For the sake of argument, let's call the area covered by the Wisconsonian advance (the latest and greatest) was 10,000,000,000 km^2, by an average thickness of 1 km of ice (a good estimate...it was thicker in the zones of accumulation and much thinner elsewhere at the ablating edges. Now, 1.00x10^7 km^2 X 1 km thickness equals 1.00x10^7 km^3 of ice. Now, remember earlier that we noted that it would take 4.525x10^9 km^3 of water for the flood? Well, looking at the Wisconsinian glaciation, all that ice (which is frozen water, remember?) would be precisely 0.222 percent of the water needed for the flood.

Well, the Wisconsinian glacial stade ended about 25,000 BP as compared for the approximately supposedly 4,000 BP flood event. Due to these late Pleistocene glaciations some 21,000 years preceding the supposed biblical flood, the mass of the ice had actually depressed the crust of the Earth. That crust, now that the ice is gone, is slowly rising (called glacial rebound); and this rebound can be measured, in places (like northern Wisconsin), in centimetres/year. Sea level was also lowered some 10's of meters due to the very finite amount of water in the Earth's hydrosphere being locked up in glacial ice sheets (geologists call this glacioeustacy).


Now, glacial rebound can only be measured, obviously, in glaciated terrains, i.e., the Sahara is not rebounding as it was not glaciated during the Pleistocene. This lack of rebound is noted by laser ranged interferometery and satellite geodesy, as well as by geomorphology. Glacial striae on bedrock, eskers, tills, moraines, rouche moutenees, drumlins, kame and kettle topography, fjords, deranged fluvial drainage and erratic blocks all betray a glacier's passage. Needless to say, these geomorphological expressions are not found everywhere on Earth (for instance, like the Sahara). Therefore, although extensive, the glaciers were a local (not global) is scale. Yet, at only 0.222% the size of the supposed flood, they have had a PROFOUND and EASILY recognisable and measurable effects on the lands. Yet, the supposed flood of Noah, supposedly global in extent, supposedly much more recent, and supposedly orders of magnitude larger in scale; has exactly zero measurable effects and zero evidence for it's occurrence.


Even further, let us take a realistic and dispassionate look at the other claims relating to global flooding. Particularly, in order to flood the Earth to the Genesis requisite depth of 10 cubits (5 m) above the summit of Mt. Ararat (5,151 m AMSL), it would obviously require a water depth of 5,155.7 m, or over three miles above mean sea level. In order to accomplish this little task, it would require the previously noted additional 4.525 x 10^9 km^3 of water to flood the Earth to this depth. The Earth's present hydrosphere (the sum total of all waters in, on and above the Earth) totals only 1.37 x 10^9 km^3. Where would this additional 4.525 x 10^9 km^3 of water come from? It cannot come from water vapour (i.e., clouds) because the atmospheric pressure would be 840 times greater than standard pressure of the atmosphere today. Further, the latent heat released when the vapour condenses into liquid water would be enough to raise the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere to approximately 3,570 C.


Someone has suggested that all the water needed to flood the Earth existed as liquid water surrounding the globe (i.e., a "vapour canopy"). This, of course, is staggeringly stupid. What is keeping that much water from falling to the Earth? There is a little property called gravity that would cause it to fall.


Let's look into that from a physical standpoint. To flood the Earth, we have already seen that it would require 4.252 x 10^9 km^3 of water with a mass of 4.525 x 10^21 kg. When this amount of water is floating above the Earth's surface, it stored an enormous amount of potential energy, which is converted to kinetic energy when it falls, which, in turn, is converted to heat upon impact with the Earth. The amount of heat released is immense:

Potential energy: E=M*g*H, where

M = mass of water,

g = gravitational constant and,

H = height of water above surface.

Now, going with the Genesis version of the Noachian Deluge as lasting 40 days and nights, the amount of mass falling to Earth each day is 4.525 x 10^21 kg/40 24 hr. periods. This equals 1.10675 x 10^20 kilograms daily. Using H as 16,000 meters), the energy released each day is 1.73584 x 10^25 joules. The amount of energy the Earth would have to radiate per m^2/sec is energy divided by surface area of the Earth times number of seconds in one day. That is: e = 1.735384 x 10^25/(4*3.14159* ((6386)^2*86,400)) = 391,935.0958 j/m^2/s.

Currently, the Earth radiates energy at the rate of approximately 215 joules/m2/sec and the average temperature is 280 K. Using the Stefan- Boltzman 4th power law to calculate the increase in temperature:

E (increase)/E (normal) = T (increase)/T^4 (normal)


E (normal) = 215

E (increase) = 391,935.0958

T (normal) = 280.


Turn the crank, and T (increase) equals 1800 K.


The temperature would thusly rise 1800 K, or 1,526.84 C (that's well above melting temperature of lead). It would be highly unlikely that anything short of fused quartz would survive such an onslaught. Also, the water level would have to rise at an average rate of 5.5 inches/min; and in 13 minutes would be in excess of 6 ft deep.

Finally, at 1800 K water would not exist as liquid.


It is quite clear that a Biblical Flood is and was quite impossible.


By Dr. Marty Leipzig at:


*http://www.holysmoke.org/cretins/fludmath.htm

 

[The Barbarian]

Exactly the OPs point and mine made repeatedly.

Statements like this next quote do not even agree with the statement in the above quote. It is presuming the inability of science to see it means it did not happen as the Scripture says it did

Actually, no. Scripture, for example, does not say that the flood was worldwide. What I am saying is that while God could do a miraculous worldwide flood and then cover up all the evidence for it, there is no reason to believe that, in absence of a scriptural reason to believe so.

Barbarian observes:
“If God wanted us to believe a world-wide flood, He would have told us there was one. And He certainly wouldn't have faked evidence showing there wasn't one, if He had done it.”

The fact remains true that the Scripture clearly says a global flood rising water above mountain tops (however high those may have been pre-flood is debatable in my view) and there are hundreds of similar myths with many of them having undeniable similar equivalent and principal elements.

"The mountain tops" does not mean "worldwide."

Those elements including that it was a global flood of water, nearly total human extinction

Doesn't say that, either.

Furthermore many of the posters here opposing a belief in a global thought are arguing exactly the point I am condemning; that science can make such claims. So it is not even true that some people are not arguing that science can claim it did not happen (supernaturally or not).

Three reasons to not believe it happened:
1. Scripture does not say it was worldwide.
2. No evidence whatever to support the idea
3. God is truth, and therefore would not have faked evidence to the contrary.

Here is scientist and Christian posting in this thread, who in spite of also objecting to doing this elsewhere, excludes without any qualification the possibility of ANY global flood and opting instead for a belief in something occurring naturally (a regional sudden flood-ocean rise) to explain presence of the literal GLOBAL flood myth in the Bible as well as from other civilizations.

Since it doesn't say it was global, we can hardly conclude that it was.

So he is actually excluding as a scientist a global flood being a real possibility (supernatural or not):

In the absence of scriptural support for a global flood, and in the absence of any evidence showing such a flood, why not just accept that it wasn't a global flood?

Those who focus on the perceived necessity of it being a global flood miss the whole point of God telling us this story.

 

[Cearbhall]

While I am not a believer in AGW, I believe that climate cools and warms naturally.

Of course it does. The problem is that it can also do so unnaturally and irreversibly, and it is currently doing so.

So...I want to ask why it is that nobody wants to believe there was a real world-wide flood event? Every culture on earth, from the Aboriginal People to Native Americans has a worldwide flood scenario.

If you're even considering the possibility that it happened, with what we know in 2017, then clearly you aren't interested in the science of it, so I'll ask you this: How would they have known about it and written about it if they all died in it? Those cultures wouldn't even exist if there had been a worldwide flood.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

The biblical global flood supposedly covered the planet. Mount Everest is 8,848 meters tall and the diameter of the earth at the equator, on the other hand, is 12,756.8 km. All we have to do is calculate the volume of water to fill a sphere with a radius of the Earth + Mount Everest; then we subtract the volume of a sphere with a radius of the Earth. Now, I know this won't yield a perfect result, because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, but it will serve to give a general idea about the amounts involved.

So, here are the calculations:

First, Everest

V= 4/3 * pi * r^3

= 4/3 * pi * (6387.248 km)^3

= 1.09151 x 10^12 cubic kilometres


Now, the Earth at sea level


V = 4/3 * pi * r^3

= 4/3 * pi * (6378.4 km)^3

= 1.08698 x 10^12 cubic kilometres

The difference between these two figures, 4.525 x 10^9 cubic kilometres is the amount of water needed to just cover the Earth. Or, to put into a more sensible number, 4,525,000,000 cubic kilometres. This is one helluva lot of water.

For those who think it might come from the polar ice caps, please don't forget that water is more dense than ice, and thus that the volume of ice present in those ice caps would have to be more than the volume of water necessary.


Some interesting physical effects of all that water, too. How much weight do you think that is? Well, water at STP weighs in at 1 gram/cubic centimetre so:

4.252x10^9 km^3 of water,

x 10^6 (= cubic meters),

x 10^6 (= cubic centimetres),

x 1 g/cm^3 (= grams),

x 1o^-3 (= kilograms),

= 4.525X 10^21 kg.

Ever wonder what the effects of that much weight would be? Well, many times in the near past (i.e., the Pleistocene), continental ice sheets covered many of the northern states and most all of Canada. For the sake of argument, let's call the area covered by the Wisconsonian advance (the latest and greatest) was 10,000,000,000 km^2, by an average thickness of 1 km of ice (a good estimate...it was thicker in the zones of accumulation and much thinner elsewhere at the ablating edges. Now, 1.00x10^7 km^2 X 1 km thickness equals 1.00x10^7 km^3 of ice. Now, remember earlier that we noted that it would take 4.525x10^9 km^3 of water for the flood? Well, looking at the Wisconsinian glaciation, all that ice (which is frozen water, remember?) would be precisely 0.222 percent of the water needed for the flood.

Well, the Wisconsinian glacial stade ended about 25,000 BP as compared for the approximately supposedly 4,000 BP flood event. Due to these late Pleistocene glaciations some 21,000 years preceding the supposed biblical flood, the mass of the ice had actually depressed the crust of the Earth. That crust, now that the ice is gone, is slowly rising (called glacial rebound); and this rebound can be measured, in places (like northern Wisconsin), in centimetres/year. Sea level was also lowered some 10's of meters due to the very finite amount of water in the Earth's hydrosphere being locked up in glacial ice sheets (geologists call this glacioeustacy).


Now, glacial rebound can only be measured, obviously, in glaciated terrains, i.e., the Sahara is not rebounding as it was not glaciated during the Pleistocene. This lack of rebound is noted by laser ranged interferometery and satellite geodesy, as well as by geomorphology. Glacial striae on bedrock, eskers, tills, moraines, rouche moutenees, drumlins, kame and kettle topography, fjords, deranged fluvial drainage and erratic blocks all betray a glacier's passage. Needless to say, these geomorphological expressions are not found everywhere on Earth (for instance, like the Sahara). Therefore, although extensive, the glaciers were a local (not global) is scale. Yet, at only 0.222% the size of the supposed flood, they have had a PROFOUND and EASILY recognisable and measurable effects on the lands. Yet, the supposed flood of Noah, supposedly global in extent, supposedly much more recent, and supposedly orders of magnitude larger in scale; has exactly zero measurable effects and zero evidence for it's occurrence.


Even further, let us take a realistic and dispassionate look at the other claims relating to global flooding. Particularly, in order to flood the Earth to the Genesis requisite depth of 10 cubits (5 m) above the summit of Mt. Ararat (5,151 m AMSL), it would obviously require a water depth of 5,155.7 m, or over three miles above mean sea level. In order to accomplish this little task, it would require the previously noted additional 4.525 x 10^9 km^3 of water to flood the Earth to this depth. The Earth's present hydrosphere (the sum total of all waters in, on and above the Earth) totals only 1.37 x 10^9 km^3. Where would this additional 4.525 x 10^9 km^3 of water come from? It cannot come from water vapour (i.e., clouds) because the atmospheric pressure would be 840 times greater than standard pressure of the atmosphere today. Further, the latent heat released when the vapour condenses into liquid water would be enough to raise the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere to approximately 3,570 C.


Someone has suggested that all the water needed to flood the Earth existed as liquid water surrounding the globe (i.e., a "vapour canopy"). This, of course, is staggeringly stupid. What is keeping that much water from falling to the Earth? There is a little property called gravity that would cause it to fall.


Let's look into that from a physical standpoint. To flood the Earth, we have already seen that it would require 4.252 x 10^9 km^3 of water with a mass of 4.525 x 10^21 kg. When this amount of water is floating above the Earth's surface, it stored an enormous amount of potential energy, which is converted to kinetic energy when it falls, which, in turn, is converted to heat upon impact with the Earth. The amount of heat released is immense:

Potential energy: E=M*g*H, where

M = mass of water,

g = gravitational constant and,

H = height of water above surface.

Now, going with the Genesis version of the Noachian Deluge as lasting 40 days and nights, the amount of mass falling to Earth each day is 4.525 x 10^21 kg/40 24 hr. periods. This equals 1.10675 x 10^20 kilograms daily. Using H as 16,000 meters), the energy released each day is 1.73584 x 10^25 joules. The amount of energy the Earth would have to radiate per m^2/sec is energy divided by surface area of the Earth times number of seconds in one day. That is: e = 1.735384 x 10^25/(4*3.14159* ((6386)^2*86,400)) = 391,935.0958 j/m^2/s.

Currently, the Earth radiates energy at the rate of approximately 215 joules/m2/sec and the average temperature is 280 K. Using the Stefan- Boltzman 4th power law to calculate the increase in temperature:

E (increase)/E (normal) = T (increase)/T^4 (normal)


E (normal) = 215

E (increase) = 391,935.0958

T (normal) = 280.


Turn the crank, and T (increase) equals 1800 K.


The temperature would thusly rise 1800 K, or 1,526.84 C (that's well above melting temperature of lead). It would be highly unlikely that anything short of fused quartz would survive such an onslaught. Also, the water level would have to rise at an average rate of 5.5 inches/min; and in 13 minutes would be in excess of 6 ft deep.

Finally, at 1800 K water would not exist as liquid.


It is quite clear that a Biblical Flood is and was quite impossible.


By Dr. Marty Leipzig at:


*http://www.holysmoke.org/cretins/fludmath.htm

That's nice and certainly we can reduce this to calculable volume estimations. But in doing so we must make a lot of assumptions there that not everyone is necessarily required to agree with, but are still required to be assumed accurate just to make volume calculations possible. Which if the assumed mountain heights at the time of a global off are significantly off, will grossly overestimate the required injection of "external" water volume. According to some understandings of the Biblical version of the story water also "came up" from the ground suddenly, which would need to be counted as a subtraction from the total extra volume required to cover anything.

The vapor theory variation of the liquid water canopy as well the flexible crystal variation and also a frozen solid canopy variation (my father favored) were all mentioned or linked to. But do not recall any proponents of those theories being present in this thread. It is an interesting point in that it goes to our ability to not limit our imaginations in what might be possible, which one need do to ponder how God might have done it (not a proof, just a maybe)

People are capable and often reasonably so, of imagining all sorts of things. That ability in itself, when it is so freely grants at least some possibility for other possible explanations for things, makes denying God could do something we could imagine (even without fully understanding al the details) suggests such a denial is more about the existence God and/or a denial of His abilities than about whether it is possible or not.

So for some of us anyway, like the OP, the fact people are so quickly willing to imagine alien intervention as a possible explanation when an apparent discontinuity in the evidence is observable or a single mythical reference to a "lost" city supports a truth about such a place suddenly disappearing or that a warming trend is principally attributable to a single cause...etc., all of that acceptance conflicts with and suggests there is more going on here than simple doubts about the alleged difficulties in imagining God's abilities for creating a global flood that we cannot now understandably perceive in the geological record. The objection has to be more than that.

 

[The Barbarian]

So for some of us anyway, like the OP, the fact people are so quickly willing to imagine alien intervention as a possible explanation when an apparent discontinuity in the evidence is observable or a single mythical reference to a "lost" city supports a truth about such a place suddenly disappearing or that a warming trend is principally attributable to a single cause...etc.,

Merely points out that a lot of people can be convinced of some pretty odd things. However, you may have noticed that scientists, while willing to do some investigation of such claims, tend to be inclined to debunk them rather than accept them.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Actually, no. Scripture, for example, does not say that the flood was worldwide. What I am saying is that while God could do a miraculous worldwide flood and then cover up all the evidence for it, there is no reason to believe that, in absence of a scriptural reason to believe so.

Barbarian observes:
“If God wanted us to believe a world-wide flood, He would have told us there was one. And He certainly wouldn't have faked evidence showing there wasn't one, if He had done it.”



"The mountain tops" does not mean "worldwide."



Doesn't say that, either.



Three reasons to not believe it happened:
1. Scripture does not say it was worldwide.
2. No evidence whatever to support the idea
3. God is truth, and therefore would not have faked evidence to the contrary.


do
Since it doesn't say it was global, we can hardly conclude that it was.



In the absence of scriptural support for a global flood, and in the absence of any evidence showing such a flood, why not just accept that it wasn't a global flood?

Those who focus on the perceived necessity of it being a global flood miss the whole point of God telling us this story.

No Scriptural support for a global flood????

That is like saying there is no evidence of myths being present globally among the records of ancient civilizations.

The setting how offensive mankind's sins were to God - the set up for God's desire to act to correct it suggests he did it as a reset by choosing to eliminate all humans but save a few.
Genesis 6:6 Lord disturbed by mankind's offenses against him to the point of being disturbed abiout having made mankind.

His actions for correcting what bothers Him about creating mankind. All means all.

Genesis 6:13 - God says this is the end of all flesh, will destroy it with the earth [along with the earth by flood]
Genesis 7:4 - Lord will destroy off of the face of the earth ever living substance made.

The results of God's Actions.

Genesis 7:21-23 His flood did cause all flesh, every living substance on the earth died

God's vow afterwards rather precludes the notion of any naturally produced flood (as those have probably been repeated more than once since the). Also rather makes the myth be global ("every living thing") in effect.

Genesis 8:21 - never again will He kill every thing living, as He just did [by floof].
Genesis 9:11 - never again kill all flesh by flood or destroy the earth [whole understood] by flood.

No evidence to support the idea in myth what so ever?
Geologically & scientifically that statement is impossible without making a lot of illogical and unnecessary assumptions. It also ignores that obvious support from the global presence of very similar myths as being indicative of anything.

What would be the point of attributing God's righteous Wrath to Justifiably nearly erasing humanity if in fact He did not such thing at all?
How could we see God as Just in acting against widespread wickedness to the expressed level of regretting having made anyone at all, to suggest His action would be kill a small portion of the wicked along with saving select few of the righteous?

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Merely points out that a lot of people can be convinced of some pretty odd things. However, you may have noticed that scientists, while willing to do some investigation of such claims, tend to be inclined to debunk them rather than accept them.

True. However, rarer oddities aside, my point is in general we seem to be selective in what myths we view as having some truth behind them, even ones that have scarcely any historic mention (lost city of Atlantis) or the tales of Sinbad and such. The later formerly thought to have no basis in reality at all, just fanciful tales, now suspected to, like many myths, have some actually rather firm connections to actual events and places. Yet when it comes to the mythology presented in the Bible a lot of people seem to immediately insist on a higher standard to accept there being any reasonable possibility of there being any merit behind the tale.

 

[RickG]

Precisely what the OP and myself have been attempting to express from the beginning of this exchange. Having no "proof" that it can be certain natural events do in fact explain exactly what has occurred in the past, science cannot declare a supernatural event is absolutely known to NOT have occurred.

I agree with what you are saying but not the way it is being expressed terminology-wise. Recall I said that there are no proofs in science. For example, we cannot see stars in the day while the sun is shinning. In science that is a fact, not a proof. Conversely, from a non-science point of view it is both a fact and proof. I guess what I'm saying is we use the word "fact" rather than proof because proofs are exclusive to mathematical terminology, not science.

Concerning the comment: "science cannot declare a supernatural event is absolutely known to not have occurred", is quite correct.

All they can say is we see no evidence of a naturally occurring global flood that would corroborate what is described in all the numerous and global myths, which most of those myths assert as globally occurring event affecting all of humanity and animals everywhere.

I disagree. Many of those events are quite explainable with physical evidence and historical documents. They are all separate events occurring at different times under different circumstances. All floods leave specific physical evidences that are unique to floods. As I mentioned previously, if there was a single global flood event we would see a single specific layer unique to floods in the same layer of strata and of the same age. No such layer exists.

 

[JackRT]

The Arctic sea ice maximum is on track to be the smallest in the modern record by about 100,000 square miles. For the last 40 years the sea ice maximum has been declining at 3.2% per decade. In fact there is almost no multi-year heavy sea ice left. As a side note the Antarctic sea ice minimum is on track to be the smallest ever observed. On a more local note, the Great Lakes are almost entirely ice free. Lakes Erie and Huron used to freeze over completely. It wasn't that long ago (~10 yrs?) that a couple of young men walked across Lake Erie. The Gulf of St Lawrence is also almost ice free.

 

[The Barbarian]

True. However, rarer oddities aside, my point is in general we seem to be selective in what myths we view as having some truth behind them, even ones that have scarcely any historic mention (lost city of Atlantis)

Not a city. It was mentioned by Plato as a great civilization on an island beyond the pillars of Hercules, destroyed in a single day. Almost certainly it was the Minoan island of Thera, which was destroyed by an eruption that likely sent a tsunami through out the Mediterranean. Apparently, it gave enough warning that the island was evacuated before it was destroyed.

In classical times, the "Pillars of Hercules" referred to a strait in the south of the Peloponnese. But note how the story grew in the telling.

or the tales of Sinbad and such.

The rocs which everyone thought were so fanciful turned out to be true. The elephant birds of Madagascar were nearly as large as the stories told.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

I agree with what you are saying but not the way it is being expressed terminology-wise. Recall I said that there are no proofs in science. For example, we cannot see stars in the day while the sun is shinning. In science that is a fact, not a proof. Conversely, from a non-science point of view it is both a fact and proof. I guess what I'm saying is we use the word "fact" rather than proof because proofs are exclusive to mathematical terminology, not science.

Concerning the comment: "science cannot declare a supernatural event is absolutely known to not have occurred", is quite correct.


I disagree. Many of those events are quite explainable with physical evidence and historical documents. They are all separate events occurring at different times under different circumstances. All floods leave specific physical evidences that are unique to floods. As I mentioned previously, if there was a single global flood event we would see a single specific layer unique to floods in the same layer of strata and of the same age. No such layer exists.

Saying a concept is possible or not excluded by science is one thing, then following it up with the suggestion no naturally occurring global flood has ever happened is placing doubt where none belongs IMO. It like saying one agrees anything is possible but still doubt it really true that anything is possible.

 

[The Barbarian]

Saying a concept is possible or not excluded by science is one thing, then following it up with the suggestion no naturally occurring global flood has ever happened is placing doubt where none belongs IMO. It like saying one agrees anything is possible but still doubt it really true that anything is possible.

Rather it's like saying "all things are possible with God, but that doesn't mean we should believe God has done everything possible for Him."

 

[The Barbarian]

Genesis 7:21-23 His flood did cause all flesh, every living substance on the earth died

The word translated as "earth" is "eretz", meaning "land." It is used for example as "eretz Israel", the land of Israel. So it doesn't mean the whole world. That's just not supported by the verse.

 

[RickG]

Saying a concept is possible or not excluded by science is one thing, then following it up with the suggestion no naturally occurring global flood has ever happened is placing doubt where none belongs IMO. It like saying one agrees anything is possible but still doubt it really true that anything is possible.

I think our only disagreement is really whether the flood story is literal or not and I am fine with that. God bless.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Am familiar with the concept of literal vs non-literal renderings of Biblical stories. Usually non-literal messages are given for our edification. I see no value or edification for imagining this story originates from even a Katrina level event. At best I guess one could say God was really miffed at all of mankind, so He allowed this apparently legendary local flood of Noah's valley to demonstrate His Wrath as a demonstration of ---what? The power of nature?

Why wouldn't everyone hearing this legend smack their heads and ask why God did not just tell Noah to move his family to safety?
Why make him spend all the time building a boat he did not need when a wagon and Two Men would have been sufficient?

I guess I do not see the value of making a legendary supernatural event into something very ordinary. Why would that flood be recorded and not some other bad flooding?

I quite agree, but there are different ways that the story can be literal/non-literal.

Does it matter that the unnamed 'man' in the parable of the Good Samaritan be left 'half dead' as opposed to 'nearly dead' or 'with a broken leg' or 'unconscious'?

Is the edification about whether it was a Levite rather than some other kind of person who passed by? Or is the edification about answering the question 'who is your neighbor?' Does the edification require that these things ever happened literally?

Is the edification of the story of the flood about the depth of the water? Is the edification about whether it was a raven or a parrot that was first released? Or is it about the wrath of god about sin, but also his future promise to withhold similar punishment, and his mercy in saving his people.

If Peter can see the story of Noah as a symbol of baptism

"to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water,
and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,"

If the story has a non-literal meaning, must there have been a literal flood, regardless of its size?

 

[Kenny'sID]

How a complete run down on How God told Noah to make a big boat, what was to be done with it, how to build it, and what not can be taken as non literal is honestly, completely beyond me. That is if one believes in God and that the bible is actually an account of all God wants us to know. However, if one is an atheist, or somewhere in between as it sometimes goes these days, and they take little or none of the bible as fact, I can certainly understand that, but otherwise, I do not. The account was detailed, lengthy and not in anything close to parable form.

How bout he "story" of Christ, a complete rundown on his life, what he was there for, then the actual carrying out of his purpose? I don't understand how that can be taken as literal and not the flood.

Literals and non literals are "generally" fairly clear in the bible, and this one, at least IMO, doesn't even get close to being non literal. No indications whatsoever that I can see, make that so.

I recall the Hamm/Nye Creation vs. Evolution debate, when Nye asked something to the effect of how we know what can be taken literally from the bible, and Hamm calmly replied, something to the effect of "some things are to be taken literally and some things not" and Nye as I recall anyway turned in disghust, his body language making it appear that was ridiculous, ot "see there", when ineed it made perfect sense, and there was no "see there" to it. I would have thought even an evolutionists would have noticed Nye's unfair/odd response. The debate is easy to find on youtube, but I'm not sifting through 2.5hrs to find it, however I would be happy to be corrected on anything I said about it that is not factual. Again, it's as I recall, but something I paid close attention too at the time.

We have little trouble discerning literal from non literal on most everything else, but when it comes to the bible the question comes up all too often, even with things that are pretty darned clearly one or the other. I personally think the created confusion on that can come in handy for some, and that's all the question amounts to, at least at times... a tool for those who want to do away with one Biblical fact or another, and turn it into a non literal untruth..

I should add, these are general thoughts I'm reminded of but not directed at anyone in particular. It happens all over the place, not just by a person or group here.