Noah's Ark

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I agree with someone earlier that stated John's replies are more for the apologetics forum than SCIENCE.

Frumious Bandersnatch, I put in the Hovind comment to add the air of comedy to this thread.

I thought as much from the smily face. You certainly did that. Hovind is usually good for a few laughs. What is not funny is that some people take his nonsense seriously.

The Frumious Bandersnatch

 

[LaserCool]

please stop attacking one another please......

Relax Greg, there's a difference between attacking an argument, and attacking a person. I surmised from his posts that I wouldn't like him had I met JohnR7 personally, but I specifically attacked his preposterous notions that that the Bible was "absolutely true".

Re: Thickness of the vessel. The bible doesn't refer to such a thing, and there's no reason to believe that a vessel like that would have a stadardized thickness.

But we don't have to assume anything, the Bible later in 2 Chron 4:5 tells us that the thickness of the brim is a "handbreadth". So the difference between the correct value and the value given in 2 Chron is 0.45 cubits, or about 8 inches.

Splitting the difference, the vessel "could" be four inches thick, and that could include the handbreadth. But there's something troubling.

2 Chron 4:2 says "Also he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about."

It makes it clear that the measurement was taken from the outside as the circumference was. A "compass round" was used in both cases indicating the same kind of measurement. The Bible doesn't say "the distance minus the thickness of a handsbreadth was 10 cubits", but uses the same kind of measurement reference, the elusive "compass round" to describe both measurements.

Point: Undetermined.

The point here isn't whether or not the value *should* include teh handsbreadth thickness or not, the issue is all I have to do to defet your hypothesis JohnR7 is to find ONE case in which the Bible is wrong.

Re: On rabbits and cud. As a child I raised rabbits, and they do not chew a cud. In fact, rabbits haven't got the ability to do that, since they cannot regurgitate to chew a cud. Most rodents can't.

Point: LaserCool, Bible falsified

Re: Bats aren't birds. Bats are mammals, they have no gullet, they don't lay eggs, they have hair. Birds have gullets, lay eggs and have no hair. Birds and bats aren't the same.

Point: LaserCool, Bible falsified.

As far as the size of God, and approaching the throne, John, I have absolutely no reason to believe that is true. It's all mythology, nothing more.

It's not even relevant to the discussion. You're trying to make an Argument from Authority, a logical fallacy that says it's not what is said, but who says it. If God existed, even He would have to submit tot he laws of causality, logic and physics. If God operates in the Universe, even He has to acknowledge that the circumference of a circle is pi, not 3.

 

[JohnR7]

I surmised from his posts that I wouldn't like him had I met JohnR7 personally.

There is one little tiny problem with that. In order to qualify to get into heaven, you have to love everyone that is there. I plan to go to Heaven, do you?

 

[nyj]

Re: On rabbits and cud. As a child I raised rabbits, and they do not chew a cud. In fact, rabbits haven't got the ability to do that, since they cannot regurgitate to chew a cud. Most rodents can't.

Point: LaserCool, Bible falsified

http://www.tektonics.org/cudchewers.html

Point: Retracted from LaserCool, given to Bible.

Re: Bats aren't birds. Bats are mammals, they have no gullet, they don't lay eggs, they have hair. Birds have gullets, lay eggs and have no hair. Birds and bats aren't the same.

Point: LaserCool, Bible falsified.

http://www.tektonics.org/batbird.html

Point: Retracted from LaserCool, given to Bible.



Next time LaserCool, let someone else do the scoring.

 

[Arikay]

Actually, I would say next time, pick better things.

My favorite is where the bible says the earth is flat, because sites that claim they take the bible literally, have to skewer their literal taking in order to claim that it doesnt.

Also one thing to point out, is that it wouldnt falsify the bible, on the interpretation that the bible is a science book.

 

[bagfullofsnakes]

You can not falsify the Bible. You talk about truth, and the Bible is just that, absolute truth.

I'm curious then...exactly how long was Noah's flood?

Was it:

40 days? (Gen 7:17)
47 days? (Gen 8:6-10)
150 days? (Gen 7:24)
223 days? (Gen 8:5)
318 days? (Gen 8:13)
375 days? (Gen 8:14)

Should be an easy one, right?

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Re Rabbits chewing their cud

http://www.tektonics.org/cudchewers.html

Point: Retracted from LaserCool, given to Bible.

I have seen the literatists twist and turn on this one many times. Sorry eating S*** (coprophagy) and chewing the cud (rumination) are not the same thing no matter how much you want it to be and all these desparate rationalizations won't make them the same. There are also many other animals, rats for example, that practice coprophagy but none of them are mentioned as being unclean even though they "chew the cud". I wonder why not. However, compared to having plants created before the sun or all the animals in world descended from a pair of each that a 600 year old man and his family cared for on a big boat during a year long worldwide flood this is a pretty minor error.

The Frumious Bandersnatch

 

[euphoric]

http://www.tektonics.org/cudchewers.html

Point: Retracted from LaserCool, given to Bible.

In addition to being a hilarious bending of the text in an attempt to justify a clear error of observation on the part of ancient Hebrews, this defense conveniently fails to mention a couple of key facts. First, the coney (commonly accepted as the modern rock hyrax) is neither a ruminant, nor does it practice copraphagy. It doesn't regurgitate or redigest food at all. The constant motion of it's mouth is simply to facilitate sniffing the air for danger. The "chewing" isn't really chewing at all. Which makes it ridiculous to include such an animal in this list given perfect scientific knowledge.

The second omission, as Frumious noted, is that other animals practice coprophagy, but are not listed in Leviticus. Given that the other two animals in the list are the camel (a ruminant) and the swine (used as an example of an animal that is cloven-hoofed but not a ruminant) it seems quite clear what the author was trying to compose a list of. Such a misunderstanding is perfectly understandable for a Bronze Age people. It is only when one tries to make an absurd claim of absolute scientific accuracy for the Bible that things get sketchy.

-brett

 

[JohnR7]

I'm curious then...exactly how long was Noah's flood?

Was it:

40 days? (Gen 7:17)
47 days? (Gen 8:6-10)
150 days? (Gen 7:24)
223 days? (Gen 8:5)
318 days? (Gen 8:13)
375 days? (Gen 8:14)

Should be an easy one, right?

Oh, you want to have a Bible study. Ok.

Genesis 7:17
Now the flood was on the earth forty days. The waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.

Here we see that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.

Genesis 8:6
So it came to pass, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.

At the end of 40 days and 40 nights it quit raining.

Genesis 7:24
And the waters prevailed on the earth one hundred and fifty days.

The water remained at high flood level for 150 days. Then it began to decrease or go down.

Genesis 8:5
And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

The water continued to decrease for 223 when the tops of the trees were first seen.

Genesis 8:13
And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

The ground was dry in the land of Eden or Adamia

Genesis 8:14
And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried.

Here we are told the ground was dry on the earth or the "erets".

 

[LaserCool]

JohnR7: There is one little tiny problem with that. In order to qualify to get into heaven, you have to love everyone that is there. I plan to go to Heaven, do you?

No, since I don't believe such a thing as "heaven", as the Bible defines it, exists. Nor do I think you are going to such a place, regardless of how well you treat anyone.

I've written on this forum about love, and what I think of it. You may find it quite offensive John, but I've been quite consistent in my principles regarding love and judgement.

In short, you haven't earned my love. I will treat you with basic human decency, but I don't love you. Love means far more to me than it does to most Christians, I believe, because they "cast thier pearls before swine".

I invite you to read about my own form of love consistent with Rational Selfishness .

Nyj: Next time LaserCool, let someone else do the scoring.

After reading your links I realized you've underscored another point I really didn't get a chance to cover well: "Absolute truth" should be translationally invariant. No one disputes that 2+2=4, either in decimal form, English, binary, fingers, etc., but the arguments you offer are basically linguistic in origin, i.e. that translations into English were excessively limiting.

If the Bible were perfect, then such issues wouldn't exist. The "absolute truth" of the Bible would be so good, one wouldn't need to take translation into account.

The operative term is "ABSOUTE". You cannot allow any non-truth, or any gray areas of truth in any case. Any possible misunderstanding by way of language indicates that the statement in the Bible isn't the "absolute" truth, but truthful only under certian conditions.

Conditional truth i.e. only when translated a certian way, is not absolute truth. Absolutes transcend conditional arguments, such as the one you are offering.

I'll take those two points back, thank you.

*edit, post script* I'd like to add that John was using an English version of the Bible, not a Hebrew one. Perhaps you should redirect John to find "absolute truth" only in the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, and perhaps the Aramaic version of the New Testament? Would that be closer to "absolute truth"?

But the argument I offer still stands, "absolute truth" is translationally invariant.

 

[JohnR7]

In short, you haven't earned my love. I will treat you with basic human decency, but I don't love you. Love means far more to me than it does to most Christians, I believe, because they "cast thier pearls before swine".

No one can earn God's love. They are not worthy of it in any way. Also God's love is a sacrifical love. God loved the world so much that He gave. What did He give, His only begotten Son. Jesus went to the cross and gave Himself for us, for our sake. Why? Because of the Joy set before Him. Because He knew that we could be redeemed.

You can reject God's love, mercy, grace and forgiveness if you want. It is freely given, and you can freely receive it or not as you please. That is why to be redeemed is of your own free will and choice. It is up to you if you want to walk in God's unconditional love.

Your love is conditional, you say people have to earn it in some way. Well, there is no way you could ever earn God's love. The kinda love you talk about is to weak and flimsy.

 

[Cantuar]

Could someone explain why the Bible doesn't really mean birds when it says "birds" and includes bats? Even modern translations use the word "bird," and if, as stated in that apologetics link, the original really meant "winged creatures," then there was no reason for the translators of the modern versions to stick with a wrong word when a correct version was available.

 

[sfs]

Could someone explain why the Bible doesn't really mean birds when it says "birds" and includes bats? Even modern translations use the word "bird," and if, as stated in that apologetics link, the original really meant "winged creatures," then there was no reason for the translators of the modern versions to stick with a wrong word when a correct version was available.

The Bible doesn't really mean birds when it says "birds" because it doesn't say "birds", it says whatever the Hebrew word is. The English word "bird" was not available to the author(s), and the Hebrew word seems not to have the same semantic range as the English word. As for the translators, it's not obvious that there a single right choice. For most purposes, "bird" is the right, while "winged creature" is not a very common expression.

 

[JohnR7]

Could someone explain why the Bible doesn't really mean birds when it says "birds" and includes bats?

Ok, what is the difference between a bird and a bat?

 

[sfs]

*edit, post script* I'd like to add that John was using an English version of the Bible, not a Hebrew one. Perhaps you should redirect John to find "absolute truth" only in the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, and perhaps the Aramaic version of the New Testament? Would that be closer to "absolute truth"?

But the argument I offer still stands, "absolute truth" is translationally invariant.

Standard formulations of the doctrine of inerrancy do not claim that Biblical truth is absolute or translationally invariant. They say that the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts, or words to that effect.

 

[Arikay]

But of course, that leaves the question, if god can inspire, and the bible is gods work, why does he not inspire the translators to get the correct translation?

I mean, if he has the power to keep them from messing up his words by "inspiring" them to get the translation correct, then why doesnt he?

It would seem odd that the original text is inspired, but when men of god translate it, he completly ignores them and lets them slightly taint his bible. Makes you wonder if the original text was inspired at all.

 

[JohnR7]

But of course, that leaves the question, if god can inspire, and the bible is gods work, why does he not inspire the translators to get the correct translation?

There are people who believe that and they do teach in the church I attend that the KJV is the inspired word of God and you can trust it as the word of God.

But when it comes to translation of the word of God, you would have to have someone like a Moses, who was really dedicated to being Holy and Sanctifed before God. Who really understood the deep things of God.

The simple answer is, if someone: You, me or anyone is not as inspired as the people who gave us our Bible, then it is because we are not willing to pay the same price they did. God is no respector of persons, what He does for one person, He will do for everyone.

 

[sfs]

But of course, that leaves the question, if god can inspire, and the bible is gods work, why does he not inspire the translators to get the correct translation?

It also leaves the problem that we don't have the original manuscripts of any Biblical book, nor is it at all clear what we should count as the original manuscript for some books that changed over time. Oh yeah, plus the fact that the doctrine is simply wrong.

 

[Firscherscherling]

No one can earn God's love. They are not worthy of it in any way. Also God's love is a sacrifical love. God loved the world so much that He gave. What did He give, His only begotten Son. Jesus went to the cross and gave Himself for us, for our sake. Why? Because of the Joy set before Him. Because He knew that we could be redeemed.

You can reject God's love, mercy, grace and forgiveness if you want. It is freely given, and you can freely receive it or not as you please. That is why to be redeemed is of your own free will and choice. It is up to you if you want to walk in God's unconditional love.

Your love is conditional, you say people have to earn it in some way. Well, there is no way you could ever earn God's love. The kinda love you talk about is to weak and flimsy.

That's good for me. I wouldn't want to be loved by a being who's love I could not earn. Sounds like a pretty nasty bloke. I am quite lovable according to my beautiful daughters. I'll put my faith in them.

And lets save the whole Jesus sacrifice for another thread, shall we. The "God created himself in human form so he could sacrifice himself to himself, even though the sacrifice was eternal peace and happiness in heaven' topic in one for its own space. Besides, the last time we discussed it, none of the Christians could seem to make a clear explanation of why it makes any sort of sense at all. In fact, as I recall, it became a discussion among the Christians, no two of which could completely agree.

 

[JohnR7]

And lets save the whole Jesus sacrifice for another thread, shall we. The "God created himself in human form so he could sacrifice himself to himself, even though the sacrifice was eternal peace and happiness in heaven' topic in one for its own space. Besides, the last time we discussed it, none of the Christians could seem to make a clear explanation of why it makes any sort of sense at all. In fact, as I recall, it became a discussion among the Christians, no two of which could completely agree.

What is to understand, He died for you. He took your place on Calvery.