Thank you, Watson. OK, it did not rain before the flood. Yes, how a river?
River flowing from the garden of Eden
by joey jojo 45 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Finkelstein
Here's the baffling part; If it had never rained before, how is it that rivers existed before the flood?!!?
Whose to say it never rained before the flood ?
Vegetation existed so therefore rain existed.
By the way the flood of Noah is one of many fictionalized stories told and scribed by the ancient Hebrews to create power and relevance to their god YHWH.
There are many instances of the ancient Hebrews doing this and is not uncommon in the ancient world from different civilizations as well.
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Saethydd
Commendable effort my friend, but unfortunately I've never had bringing something like this up about the Flood be met with anything more than a dismissive hand wave and a "Jehovah could have handled that." So questions and observations like this never went anywhere:
How did animals like koalas, penguins, kangaroos, etc get from their respective environments to Noah's Ark? (God got them there)
It would be mathematically impossible to fit all of the animals, and food and water needed for every animal onto to the Ark described in the Bible, even if they were dived by the poorly defined "kinds." (Miracle)
Even if all the ice on Earth were melted there wouldn't be enough to reach the top of Mt. Everest. (The Flood caused some tectonic plates magic that lifted the land up higher out of the water, despite the total lack of geological evidence for this theory.)
Even if the amount of water needed to cover Mt. Everest were spirited into existence, the kinetic energy caused by its falling over a span of forty days would release so much heat that the entire planet would boil and the Ark would burn. (God rigged the physics.)
All of those herbivore animals that traveled over 12,000 miles to reach Noah now have to walk back with no food because all the plant life has been ravaged by a flood. (God cared for them)
All of the now carnivores (because apparently before the flood there weren't any, despite the clear fossil records of animals with other animals in their mouths and stomachs) can't eat anything either without wiping out an entire species. (God can control His creation.)
When the person you're telling this kind of stuff to can just invoke magic at any time, you may as well be debating a brick wall.
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joey jojo
Thx for the replies. Please assume that I am aware that scientific evidence does not support the flood account nor the general creation account.
My jw friend was guilting me into returning to the meetings and used the example of noah in that, although he had never seen it rain, he spent yrs building a giant boat to survive the mother of all rain events because of his faith. Also, once the door was closed, noone else can get in.
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Tech49
Not to hijack this thread, but a related question?
Are JW's the only people/religion that teaches the idea of no rain before the flood, and a "water canopy?
Just wondering......
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smiddy
waton ,the bible says " a mist would go up from the earth and it watered the entire surface of the ground" Gen2:6
? how does a mist rise up from the earth ? as the previous verse 5 says that it had never rained before and that their was no vegetation to be found so where did the mist come from ?
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waton
smiddy, I am not defending the discredited bible account, just citing it to prove it's wrongness.
Mist of course is a condensation due to the higher relative humidity in an air mass that has been cooled near the ground by radiating into the ~ 5 Kelvin temperature of space overhead. As I mentioned, the Colorado and other rivers have been running and cutting through rock for millions of years, never mind the 6000 years of bible's-human existence.
PS: There is much water underground in aquifers, and it percolates up in springs, geysers, and not just in Iceland, Yellowstone but also NZ?
not endorsing, but refuting. through sarcasm.
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Confusedalot
The Lord spoke in parables so that people hearing would not understand, only those that are drawn by his father.
Similar applies to Genesis. Here is the theory:
Water = Information (Good and Bad) thus Sea = mass of information and River = directed information and Rain = truth from God, and Flood = flood of information that drowns out the earth. Earth = our understanding.
Ever wonder why people are baptised in water? They show they overcome miss-information and emerged as servants of God. i.e Flood - only Noah and his family overcame the flood of information to emerge on a "new earth" (new understanding). Moses and the Israelites passed through the red sea symbolically showing them leaving behind the Egyptian understandings (sea used to show depth and peril of Egyptian understanding). The people of God passing through the Jordan river and entering the promised land. People being baptised self explanatory. The Lord walking on the sea......showing his authority over miss-information, Jonah not wanting to bring truth to the nations caused the sea to become agitated, the Lord made water into wine, showing his ability to change information into something of value....the list goes on.
The same method applies to many other things in Genesis. Sun = major enlightenment, Moon = minor enlightenment, Trees = ways of living, Beast = our fleshly desires e.g. to rule ourselves, snake = one of the beasts (also dragon of revelation), man = people, woman = worship of God (religion). Now read Genesis, the Lords words about the end Times in Matthew and Revelation again.....with these things in mind and you may be able to pass through the river of miss-information and into enlightenment.....
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pleaseresearch
Your going to absolutely hate me for this I'm sure. What I've been reading is fascinating and has made me think. But could the rivers have been formed by the underwater fountains as the bible states. Not sure but we know there are vast pockets of fresh water under the world. When I worked in Libya we they were sitting on one of the biggest underwater reservoirs. Yet above land is desert. Just throwing it out there.
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stillin
Confusedalot, why do you get to say what these things symbolize? It's belief systems like yours that cause people to try the literal approach to understanding the Bible. Convoluted and high-minded. The Bible says it never rained. It only misted. Then it says that there was a river. The science to this would be a different understanding of Earth's water cycle than what we have now. We can try to explain, but we just don't know.
I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.