Applying Math, Physics, Archeology to THE STORY OF NOAH (page 27)

botchtowersociety

Yes, I know, but you're splitting hairs. What goes up must come down. A plane's propulsion system defies the law of gravity however you look at it.

No it doesn't. "What goes up must come down" is not the physics definition for the law of gravity.

If you want to know what the law of gravity is, best to start with Sir Isaac Newton.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gravitation

It isn't splitting hairs to point out you aren't defining your terms properly.

Planes fly and spaceships enter orbit because they obey the laws of physics, not defy them.

[W]e don't know how many animals - or how God teleported them to Noah's doorstep - or how the neighbours viewed these strange events (why wouldn't they repent and ask for a lift?) - or why the animals didn't eat or squash each other during the week . . .

Awhile back -- maybe as long ago as a year -- I fielded this question you ask here as well as a few other questions that related to the global deluge that I will just paste in here (making just a few minor modifications) with the hope that what I say here will perhaps answer some of your concerns, including this one as to how an almighty God could get what animals that boarded the ark on it without much ado (see Question #7 below).

QUESTION #1:

Is there any scientific evidence that the world at one time was rain-less, enclosed in a "water canopy"? not at all.

So do you, therefore, think it reasonable to conclude that there was no water canopy in the expanse above the earth because no scientific evidence exists to support what the Bible says?

QUESTION #2:

This is a completely retarded idea which is why they have stopped putting it into print....

What have "they" stopped putting into print? I would say that it is your conclusion here that is "retarded." Everything about the global deluge is based on the Bible, even if there is no scientific support for the water canopy that existed in that antediluvian world. There is, however, evidence of the global deluge, but the OP didn't ask about the existence of such.

QUESTION #3:

So now you have an idea with no scientific support which require magic to work as well as a rejection of numerous fundamental results in various fields of science -- it could hardly get any worse.

Not an idea; what I know is based upon what the Bible teaches as to the water canopy since the contents of it was responsible for the destruction of the ancient world in which Noah and those of his family survived the global deluge caused by the emptying out of that "watery deep." The same power that brought the water canopy into existence is the same power that emptied that canopy, and this supernatural power belonged to God. No magic trick or sleight of hand could have accomplished such a feat.

Whereas many of the ideas urged by scientists upon human beings over many centuries, which ideas were said at the time to have been scientific, have had to later be abandoned by these scientists to embrace new ideas based upon new scientific thought, there is nothing to which you could point in the Bible that has ever required revision. Not everyone has faith in what things the Bible teaches, so the fact that you and many others here on JWN find in easy to discount the evidentiary things put forth in the Bible in favor of science isn't surprising, considering that the Bible does speak to the fact that such "harmful and wicked men" do lack faith in the word of God. (2 Thessalonians 3:2)

QUESTION #4:

What is the C14 date of an object from the time of the flood?

What possible difference would it make what the carbon-14 date is for any particular object that you might have had in mind when you asked me this question -- I did notice btw that you were vague in your question by your deciding not to name any particular object -- when those flood waters would make using carbon-14 dating to determine the age of an object an unreliable method of reckoning its age in view of the fact that carbon-14 dating is based upon the assumption that the rate of radioactive decay has been stable? Please read this question again to make sure you understand it so that you do not ask me yet another foolish question as if the 5,568 years that constitutes the half-life of carbon-14 has scientifically been proven to be true.

Do you realize that because our planet's magnetic field had doubled in strength when compared to what it was 5,568 years ago, and the magnetic field is even now decreasing in strength, that it isn't possible to assume the rate at which cosmic rays were bombarding the earth? More radiocarbon is produced when more cosmic rays reach us, which is what occurs when earth's magnetic field becomes weaker in strength. You may not know this, but this is yet another assumption on which carbon-14 dating relies and is why it doesn't matter how old carbon-14 dating reckons an object to be.

It's clear to me that you really don't know enough about the assumptions upon which carbon-14 dating is based to be here challenging me on the science. If you don't want to believe that a water canopy such ever existed, that's ok. Perhaps you knew this already, but belief in the existence of a water canopy isn't a requirement for salvation.

QUESTION #5:

How do you explain the correspondence of dendrochronology, C14 and ice core samples?

Why do you now, after arguing about carbon-14 dating, bring up the technology that uses the relative radiocarbon date and tree ring count to come up with the absolute date of an object? Bone artifacts excavated here on the North American continent that had once been reckoned as being some 30,000 years old were, back in 1986, determined by archaeologists to have been only 3,000 years old. Why would you be here bringing up dendrochronology, carbon-14 dating or ice core samples if you really had an understanding of this subject?

QUESTION #6:

Was the water canopy in orbit or sustained by a [continuous] miracle?

The earth orbits around the sun in approximately 365.25 days, so it would stand to reason that if the water canopy would have been in orbit around the sun as well. Whether you think the orbitting of our planet around the sun to be miraculous or not, I think it to be nothing short of miraculous that everything that exists in the physical universe in which we live, including things like magnetism and gravity, all work in the way they do without any need for man to have to try to find a way to tweak things to make the scientific principles on which these operations are based work properly.

QUESTION #7:

What were the kinds on the ark?

Many that espoused the impossibility of Noah's having gathered some 30,000 to 40,000 animals of all kinds, both those of the "domesticatable" variety (e.g., horses, sheep, goats, camels) and of the "non-domesticatable" wild animal variety (e.g., lions, tigers and bears, oh, my!), and directing them to walk in lock-step, two-by-two, into one of the compartments, or "rooms," contained in that three-story ark, the dimensions of which were, according to Scripture (Genesis 6:15), 300 cubits long (437 ft. 6 in., 133.5 m.), 50 cubits wide (72 ft. 11 in., 22.3 m.) and 30 cubits high (43 ft. 9 in., 13.4 m.), in order to preserve them alive over the year that the ark was going to be their home. (Genesis 6:14-16)

Many people have speculated that if there was a flood, it was local in nature, and if Noah boarded any animals onto the ark, they, all of them, had to have been of the domesticated variety alone, for the rest of the animal kingdom unaffected by such a local flood would not have been in any real danger of extinction. Some have even suggested that seven days wasn't really enough time for Noah to have corraled a male and a female of each kind of animal, and to have boarded them all, believing it to be absurd also that Noah could have taken enough food into the ark to feed both Noah and the other seven family members, as well as all of these animal "kinds."

They believe that feeding so many animals and carting away the lion dung, the giraffe dung, the raccoon dung, the porcupine dung, the crocodile and alligator dung, all of the bird dung from the various birds, the deer and the antelope dung, the bear dung, and dog and cat dung, the pig dung, the cow dung and the bull dung, and all the other dung, in addition to the human excrement that would have been manufactured over the year that Noah and his family would have been aboard that ark would have been a tremendous chore that would surely have overtaxed eight people.

Scripture indicates (at Genesis 1:24) that God made 'cattle, creeping things, and the beasts of the earth after their kind,' just as He made plants and vegetation after their kind, so out of an estimated 1,300,000 species, 60% of which being of the insect variety, Noah didn’t really need to make accommodation for as many pairs of animals as some might imagine, considering inbreeding among the different "kinds" of animals. Scripture also indicates (at Genesis 7:2, 3) that Noah was commanded not just to take pairs of unclean animals, but sevens of clean animals and birds, so not all of these sevens were expected to survive the global deluge since Noah would be offering some of them up as sacrifices to God during the duration of their "voyage" of deliverance.

You asked me here about the kinds that were on the ark, but Scripture is silent on this, but I do have faith that Noah was told to bring flying creatures, domestic animals and all moving animals of the ground into the ark "according to their kinds." (Genesis 6:19, 20) If Noah didn't bring the various "kinds" into the ark, the wide variety of animals that exist today would not exist, since their existence is the result of both Noah's obedience and God's determination that these various animal "kinds" be preserved through the flood along with Noah and his family.

But one thing that often escapes the notice of many of the people that have actually taken the time to read the Genesis account with respect to his building of the ark is that Noah dealt with gathering what food would be needed for a year, while God handled the animals, male and female, that would "come unto [Noah]" (Genesis 6:20). God did something similar when he "brought [the animals] unto Adam to see what he would call them." (Genesis 2:19)

Also, what is hard for me to understand is why anyone should think that Noah would have had to concern himself with bringing more food than would be required to feed his family for a year. What with manna being at least one means we can know from reading the Bible that Jehovah could easily have provided to Noah as a provision to keep His family alive about which the Bible is also silent, I'm pretty sure that foodstuffs weren't a real issue for God, he being almighty and all, and someone scientifically astute enough to have figured out how he could actually suspend "the earth upon nothing." (Job 26:7) It also seems reasonable to me that whatever we might speculate as to the impossibility of a wooden structure like the ark could have survived that "heavenly ocean" of water that had fallen to the earth as rain, the proof that that ark did survive is the fact that we ourselves -- the descendants of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth -- are living today. I really don't think I'm dead, and maybe I'm just speculating about this, but this is where faith comes in, for my faith that I'm not dead is based on evidentiary factors. (Hebrews 11:1)

It seems to me that Noah would also have gathered sufficient food to accommodate the diet of the various animal kinds that would be on the ark, but only enough to last for about seven days' time, for once God closed the door to the ark, God could then have quelled all dissent among the animal kingdom to their feeling a bit cooped up in the ark by putting them all into a state of hibernation for an extended period of time. (Of course, I'm speculating here as to what almighty God Jehovah could have done, but perhaps before even entering the ark, the selected animals had been given an appetite such that they had ingested enough protein to last them for about a year, say, 370 days.) Recall that God did this something similar when he "caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept." (Genesis 2:21)

Now if God demonstrated the ability to put a man to sleep for awhile (and we have absolutely no idea how long the "operation" involving his taking a rib from Adam’s body and forming Eve took, perhaps it took as long as nine months or a year, or even 15 or 20 years, before God completed Eve's creation -- yet another thing about which the Bible is silent), why couldn't God have "caused a deep sleep to fall" upon the animals in the ark? If God needed Noah to bring some of the seeds necessary to grow fruit trees and certain plant life, Scripture is silent on this, too, but if it was necessary, obviously Noah would have brought these seeds aboard the ark to preserve them as well, in view of the fact that flora and fauna exists today not just in New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Australia and Palestine, but in other places as well, such as in the mountains of Kenya, Malaysia, Tahiti and Brazil.

God asked Noah to build an ark, and Noah obediently did so, so I do not think that Noah would have balked at being asked to bring a few seeds into the ark as well. It does seem to me though that an ecological balance does exist in nature for a reason; of course, I could be wrong. It does occur to me though as I speak of the ecology here that possibly one of the proofs that God had removed the curse that had been upon the ground until after the Flood (Genesis 3:17) is the very existence of flora and fauna, and the rainbow that appears in the cloud after a rain (Genesis 9:11-17) being another proof that serves as a visible reminder of God's promise to mankind, a sign that he would never again bring judgment against the earth by water again. At least, the very existence of the rainbow as a sign is consistent with there having been a global deluge and gives credence to it having occurred. Likewise, I believe the idea that a water canopy once existed from which the flood waters that fell to the earth came to be just as plausible.

The "tradeoff" though is the extremes in temperatures, the intemperate weather, that people have had to learn to live through in certain regions of the earth since the Flood, due to the emptying of the water canopy ("the waters which were above the firmament"--Genesis 1:7) that destroyed that antediluvian world (when "the windows of heaven were opened"--Genesis 7:11), in exchange for the tropical climate that formerly existed when that canopy was in place. Whatever sanitation issues that one might imagine would have arisen during the year, I believe these issues could have been managed by the eight people aboard the ark since the animals would have not have been a problem for anyone should it turn out to be the case that these animals passed the entire year that they spent in the ark in a state of deep slumber (as do hibernating bears for roughly six months of the year).

While Scripture is silent as to many of the details that many find perplexing regarding the ark, the point that should not be overlooked by Christians is that it is due to Noah's faith in building the ark during that 120-year period of judgment upon an ancient world that we are alive today, so that we are now able to consider the significance of the salvation the ark represents, for that ark -- a massive three-deck structure the length of three football fields and then some, the tangible demonstration of Noah's faith, which led to his salvation and the salvation of seven other souls -- has become a symbol of our faith in Jesus, as we die as to sin when we are momentarily buried under the waters of baptism and become alive as to righteousness upon our coming up out of those waters. (1 Peter 3:20, 21)

@djeggnog

truthseeker

It seems you can only edit posts 2 or 3 times before they throw up error messages.

Also, does anyone know why you get an error when you open a new PM? I have to open it twice to read it.

botchtowersociety

a massive three-deck structure the length of three football fields and then some

A hollow wooden vessel cannot be built that long and work in water. The limit is somewhere around 60 yards in length--which is the length of the largest wooden ships built during the age of sail (and even then they turned out to be failures because wood doesn't provide the necessary rigidity). Wood isn't strong enough to be used in a ship 300 yards long: it flexes too much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogging_and_sagging

botchtowersociety

Even using steel, the world's longest ship is only 50% longer than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawise_Giant

That ship took a thousands of people years to build.

How did 4 people manage to build something 75% as long?

You might respond that it took them nearly 100 years, but that is still far short on manhours...and with bronze age technology, no less (no power tools or heavy equipment!!!).

Furthermore, the wood laid in on year 1 would probably have rotted or been eaten out by wood destroying organisms by the time the last pieces were laid in the final year.

breakfast of champions

BOTCHTOWER - God stopped the ark from hogging and sagging, just like he closed the door. DUH!

Back to the Orange Plane

poopsiecakes

the very existence of the rainbow as a sign is consistent with there having been a global deluge and gives credence to it having occurred

So you don't believe that rainbows are visible because of falling rain refracting through sunlight at the right angle? In order for a rainbow to appear rain has to be FALLING - it doesn't happen AFTER the rain has stopped...you should check it out sometime, it's really cool.

What about rainbows that appear through a crystal prism? Is that proof of the flood too?

breakfast of champions

Technically, rainbows don't exist. They are an illusion.

Applying Math, Physics, Archeology to THE STORY OF NOAH

truthseeker

botchtowersociety

james_woods

djeggnog

truthseeker

botchtowersociety

botchtowersociety

breakfast of champions

poopsiecakes

breakfast of champions

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