My Research Challenge Re Noah's Flood

AV1611VET said:

You wouldn't be around to laugh, if God hadn't of done that.

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The God I pray to does not deceive. That's all I can say.

My laugh is directed towards an overactive imagination about what God is thought to have done in order to hide any evidence of the Genesis Flood.

Any more, even as a Lover of God, the way I feel these days is that "Religion can take a Hike"

AV1611VET said:

Huh?

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Isn't "embedded age" one of your trajectories to account for the age of the planet, the different geology layers as well as the Universe?

AV1611VET said:

Not the different geology layers ... no.

Embedded Age only occurred during the Creation Week in 4004 BC.

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Why exactly do you think its important to believe in a global flood, when there is no natural evidence of it, when its not needed for the theological message of the story and when it changes nothing about Christianity?

jayem said:

Thanks for your reply. That’s interesting. If you could post some links to articles that discuss this, I’ll find time to read them. I’m always up for learning something new.

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Well not knowing exactly what the question is; I don't have any articles to point to. It's a logical assumption upon the humility of man that humans understand that we are not omniscient.

Now how omniscience operates in God? There's degrees of amount of understanding that we can grasp; yet some of that is still human hypothesis.

Some of the framework of these kinds of questions has to be set in defining what it means to be God.

Properties of the Entity that God is (logically has to be) = omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, immortal, and having no beginning and no end. And out of those properties one would have to conclude that God is wholly holy, moral and does not contain evil as part of the essence of the entity that God is. An entity divided against it's own intentions isn't capable of getting anything done. So the fact that we are here having this conversation would prove there is no evil in God.

Now where did evil come from? I have a hypothesis about that. (Which I don't know if my hypothesis is correct or not; but it makes logical sense. And I don't know if it's correct because I simply don't have enough information.

Which gets back to the Creator / created paradigm. How does an Entity that is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, immortal and has no beginning and no end impart an explanation of something He created of what it's like to be God? It's not possible to stuff infinity into a creation that has limitations (because it's not infinite). Does that make sense?

Then there's the factor of the free will of God to share with creation what He desires to be made known; which of course isn't omniscience. Because the creation isn't capable of being omniscient.

So how does a God who knows everything account for the fact that He knew the fall would happen and what does it mean when we see statements like "It repented the Lord to have made man on the earth" (or something of that venue - I know I'm paraphrasing).

The first answer that pops into my head regarding that question is that God is a real living entity. He's not just a concept that can't "feel" or "interact" or "direct". And in the Christian concept of Trinity; God is a relational Entity. He conveys "Self" as "Father", "Son" and "Spirit". Now why God is a "Trinity" and not an... "Hexagonally" or any other number? LOL I don't know. One could form a theory that might give a reasonable answer to that question; but again, we're limited on our information.

So because God is a living real entity; as it applies to our ability to receive information He wants us to know; He conveys the reality of His relational existence through an anthropomorphic statement about repentance and sorrow. Which obviously He really feels; which makes sense because an omniscient and omnipresent God would know what it's like to feel pain.

Would we say that's part of possessing the knowledge of good and evil? (It could be?) Did God feel pain before He ever created anything? I would say that's unlikely because the only thing that existed was Himself and having no "shadow of turning", no darkness and no evil; He would not have had a reason to experience the feeling of pain.

Obviously God possess the knowledge of good and evil because He's omniscient. But that knowledge is not capable of corrupting Him because of everything else that He also is. (omnipotent, omnipresent, immortal and eternal).

I don't know if that sheds any light on your question; but it is a degree of information that likely could be expanded upon.

myst33 said:

Irregularities that cannot be repeated are not too useful for science.

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True; that's a good observation.

AV1611VET said:

I always wondered why, if a person was a Christian, he gave up all this:

Psalm 34:8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.

Psalm 51:12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Hebrews 6:4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,

... to embrace atheism.

But Paul says why in Romans 1.

Evolution has a strong influence over one's mindset.

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The theological reason as to why they give it up has to do with the doctrine of election; which of course is a whole other subject!

dlamberth said:

Fossils are not an aspect of flood geology. When discussing the total lack of evidence for a Genesis flood I'm not understanding why one would need to bring in fossils. The flow of water on the land and the trail it leaves behind is what's studied in flood geology.

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When you say "flood geology" are you talking about observations of local flooding or massive global flood?

I believe the vast majority of the fossil record we currently have is because of Noah's flood. Now were there subsequent floods that also produced fossils? That's possible; and likely probable; seeing how fossils are formed by plants and animals being quickly buried in lots of mud and water. And we see how violent flooding can certainly do that.

Now if you had a catastrophic planetary event that involved a lot of water and mud burying everything; yeah, you'd get a lot of fossils.

AV1611VET said:

Because the Bible says it and that settles it.

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Where does the Bible say that the flood was global, meaning over the whole planet/globe?

AV1611VET said:

Christianity was built on a literal Flood.

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Why is it not in any Christian creed, then?

AV1611VET said:

Genesis 7:17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

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And you suppose that the word "earth" in the text means "the whole planet?

AV1611VET said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but creeds deal more with soteriology, than they do history.

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Creeds deal with the most important things for Christianity - i.e. there is one God... creator...trinity, birth of Jesus, death, burial, resurrection...

You said that Christianity is built upon the literal flood, if its true, why is it not in such creeds? And why is it referred to just in 4 places (or so) in the whole New Testament?

The Righterzpen said:

When you say "flood geology" are you talking about observations of local flooding or massive global flood?

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Any flood leaves evidence behind. Way more so for a supposed Genesis flood. It's not about the fossils. It's about the Earth itself.

AV1611VET said:

Yes.

One doesn't have to be a Rhodes scholar to ascertain this.

How did the Ark end up in the mountains of Ararat?

And for the record, I think the Ark was built in [what is now] New Jersey.

Not Mesopotamia.

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And is the same Hebrew word also a whole planet, in this place?

"By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry."
Gen 8:14