what is best evidence against noah's flood?...... (page 6)

JWoods

Any way to get Ray's commentary here? is it availble for download?

Or at least give us a little synopsis - literal global flood believer, local flood legend, or what?

Remember this conundrum: either evolution is not true, and Noah crammed millions of species into the Ark, or evolution is true and it works at super-fast speeds, spreading millions of species all over the Earth in less than 4,000 years, with each continent having unique species.

reniaa

how did God produce Manna for the jews? how did Jesus walk on water? how did Jesus raise a 3 day old corpse.

I think it is safe to say with God's power you have to accept the impossible can happen if the bible says it does.

I'd rather have faith in God than a random big bang :)

Renia

TD

I think it is safe to say with God's power you have to accept the impossible can happen if the bible says it does.

I agree that if one accepts the existence of an all-powerful God, then simply saying that 'God did it' is pretty much the start and end of the explanation. This would work fine for a Hindu

But for JW's and many other Christian groups, there are additional issues at work. They (Especially the JW's) are rationalists. Biblical events can't simply be taken at face value without question, they have to make sense at other levels.

For example, when you stop and think about it, a global flood would be an incredibly clumsy, destructive and brutal way for an all powerful God to get rid of the wicked while at the same time, the building of an ark would be an incredibly labor intensive, inefficient and precarious way to save 8 people and all the animals.

Christians, including JW's get around the awkwardness and implausibility of this story via the belief that God is constrained in certain ways. They don't believe that Jehovah ever violates his own laws, including laws of physics and mathematics and they also believe that He desisted from any and all work shortly after the creation of Eve and that this Divine Sabbath will continue clear to the end of the millenium.

It's this belief that God is constrained which has always driven 'natural' explanations for events described in the Bible. This goes all the way back to the beginning of the JW movement and the writings of Russell. Why did God choose to get rid of the wicked via a global flood? --Well there was a 'Water canopy' already in place that God just 'Allowed' to fall. By God allowing natural forces to do his work for him, neither his Sabbath nor his physical laws are violated and an ancient story becomes more plausible to modern man. (For some strange reason, miracles performed by humans via God's power seem to be exempted from this rule.)

---But once anyone goes down that road, they're stuck with providing a rational explantion from start to finish; Anything less violates the basic precepts with which they approach the flood story.

daniel-p

I think it is safe to say with God's power you have to accept the impossible can happen if the bible says it does.
I'd rather have faith in God than a random big bang :)

Does God break his own laws?

daniel-p

---But once anyone goes down that road, they're stuck with providing a rational explantion from start to finish; Anything less violates the basic precepts with which they approach the flood story.

And thus the major mistake by most religions: using natural laws to explain miracles. Miracles, by definition, cannot be explained by logic or physics. So... religions people have to accept the fact that their belief is inherent to the illogical and physically "impossible." If that's fine with them, so be it. No skin off my back. Just don't feebly try to prove your faith with non-faith means.

reniaa

Rationalising the impossible is just not a thing for religious people. scientists also do it too. Currently time is the rationale, that if you throw enough time at nothing it turns into something.

Reniaa

ninja

I'd rather have faith in God than a random big bang :).....says reniaa

haven't you stopped going to meetings cos you prefer a random big bang to jehovah?....which produced your 3 kids?

bohm

Reniaa: I have a single question that i very much hope you will answer because its something i am trying to understand in people around me.

You seem to be a quite educated person, and i am sure you have done a lot of study in the past years on this an other topics. But obviously - to be educated on a subject in order to debate it means you must know the arguments for and against - would you consider a mormon who had only read mormon litterature sufficiently educated in biblical matters to take the right descision with regards to his faith?

So my question is this: Do you consider yourself educated on the arguments *against* the global flood? The arguments against the flood are scientific - how have you educated yourself on this topic? What books or texts have you studied? I am not asking if you accept the arguments you found, well, i know you didnt and thats okay and besides the point, i am simply interested in how you arrived at your conclusions :-).

Personally, if i were to answer that question, i have educated myself on arguments against the flood by reading creationist websites, a couple of creationist books, all books puplished by wt which touch the subjects and numerous articles on the cdrom (simply by searching on dna, dating methods, carbon 14, flood, etc. and reading what popped up).

ps.

The calculation i presented on the other page showed that de-orbiting a water canopy would raise the temparature of the atmosfeare well over ignition point. Were you aware of this, and are you aware of any mechanisms for removing that amount of heat before it sterelized the earth? (i ask you this not to make you 'stumble', but to educate myself as to not propegate falsehood)

bohm

reniaa: about the stuff about time - well - what caused big bang and the mechanisms and conditions that were in effect before it ('before' is a strange concept to use about an event which science believe created time) is something that is pretty much guesswork right now. There does indeed seem to be plenty of room for a god there :-) . However, thats hardly 'rationalizing the impossible' - science does exactly say that we cannot know anything for sure about that event and therefore we cannot make certain claims! thats hardly rationalizing anything impossible, unless you say that big bang was impossible or i completely misunderstood you?

what is best evidence against noah's flood?......

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