The great flood

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DeletedUser

Dusty the Cat said:
You can't argue with atheists because of their arrogance of attitude, prejudice of heart, and narrowness of mind. :dry:
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I'm no atheist; but I can safely say that nobody is more arrogant, prejudiced or narrow-minded than the Christian right.

Ollieman said:
To say that our society can explain everything with science would be very arrogant.
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Again, Dara Ó Briain's words of wisdom will help us out:

"Science knows that it doesn't know everything - otherwise it would stop!" - Dara Ó Briain

David Schofield said:
If a fool loses the lottery, then he knows there's always next time!
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Surely you're thinking of optimists...

SmittenKitten said:
http://www.conservapedia.com
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Sorry, you lost me when you treated Conservapedia like a real encyclopedia.
 
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DeletedUser

David Schofield said:
Faith gives us something to hope for :)
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So those with faith are happy, but reality challenged. Is this really a good thing? Is it better to be happy believing a lie than unhappy (supposing that knowing the truth necessarily makes one unhappy) knowing the truth?
 

DeletedUser

Hi SmittenKitten, I want to bring to your attention that you are not relying on the Bible, but on an interpretation of the Bible by some quite notable frauds. With respect to you, and anyone else who has been duped by these people, allow me to state that your stance at this time is that of cognitive dissonance. It's essentially the equivalent of someone crossing their arms and stating, "I don't care what proof you can provide, because I already made up my mind."

To be quite blunt, that is both a disingenuous stance and very unhealthy. The first thing you have been told is not necessarily the truth, and what you've been told, or what you may have read, by people like Morris and Whitcomb, should be taken with far more than a grain of salt.

Allow me to both indicate why I refer to them as frauds, and wherein are the flaws in the arguments they have presented, and for which people have accepted as Gospel when, in fact, they are actually sacrilegious because they attempt to distort evidence, facts, and even the scriptures in an effort to confuse and/or manipulate their audience. In short, they lied to gain access to the religiously devout with deep pockets.

Since you decided to quote Morris and Whitcomb, arguably the birthers of the modern creationist movement, I will respectfully begin with their gross ignorance and pseudo-scientific arguments. Granted, in order to read about them, you're going to need to actually step up and read about them. You're also going to need to try and read through the distorted 'hate' I noticed in some of these articles. But, it is as well what I have had to do when reading through the same, or similar articles, and while reading work presented by hostile creationists. It is in the nature of people to toss out their opinions alongside the evidence in support of, or in conflict with, whatever argument is being evaluated. It is up to us, as human beings, to sift through the opinions to examine only the evidence. I can only hope you are up to the task:

Henry Morris on Trial: How Creation Science Abuses the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Misrepresenting Both Science and Scripture

http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=53
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=54
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=55
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=57

The story of Noah and the Ark leaves much to be desired, from many different fields of knowledge.

http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=4&fldAuto=390

A collection of peer-reviewed articles pertaining to evidence that, without intent, discount the Great Flood story. What it demonstrates, by sheer volume and depth, is that scientific research has been extensive and the evidence does not support the Flood story, nor the timelines, as argued by Morris ~ http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/

An article on the fraud upon Christians (pertaining to Noah's Ark, published by the Christian Information Ministries ~ http://www.tentmaker.org/WAR/

"Christians of all different persuasions have developed the "tickled ear" syndrome. They are so busy chasing the things of the world while claiming to be seeking the things of the kingdom, there is not enough time to really study, search, and pray. We'll just find a nice looking man or woman who, for a little of our money and a couple hours on Sunday will keep us informed of what we need to do to be ready "when the Lord returns." And most of those who live like this do not realize that because of their own attitude about how to spend their time, they have prepared themselves to be a perfect candidate to attend a church with the same kind of leaders as Ron Wyatt." ~ Gary Amiaurlt @ http://www.tentmaker.org/Dew/Dew7/D7-AGreatChristianScam.html

"I consider Wyatt's misrepresentation of my views as morally wrong and dishonest. But his deception of multitudes of Christians who have not had the opportunity to check his claims firsthand as I have is an even worse crime." ~ John Baumgardner @ http://www.tentmaker.org/WAR/BaumgardnerLetter.html

"An ark of the size specified in the Bible would not be large enough to carry a cargo of animals and food sufficient to repopulate the earth, especially if animals that are now extinct were required to be aboard." ~ Mark Isaak @ http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

"When one reads the story of the great flood in the book of Genesis, one is struck by the matter-of-fact style of the narrative. While it definitely has the larger-than-life flavor typical of legends, the reader would not suspect that he or she is dealing with the bizarre impossibilities we have detailed above. After all, the ancient Hebrews lived on a small, disc-shaped world with a dome overhead and waters above and below. There were only a few hundred known animals, and subjects such as ecology, genetics, and stratigraphy were not even imagined. The deluge was a mighty act of God, to be sure, but nothing that the ancient Hebrews would have found too extraordinary.When, however, this same story is brought into the twentieth century and insisted upon as a literal account of historical events, a considerable change is observed. No longer a simple folk tale, it has become a surrealistic saga of fantastic improbabilities. Events which seem relatively straightforward at first glance—building a boat, gathering animals, releasing them afterwards—become a caricature of real life. The animals themselves are so unlike any others that they may as well have come from another planet; genetic Frankensteins with completely unnatural social, reproductive, and dietary behavior, they survived incredible hazards yet remained amazingly hardy and fecund.
In fact, these sixty-eight verses of Scripture, when interpreted literally, are crammed with more miracles than any comparable piece of literature anywhere on earth—miracles that are often pointlessly complicated and unedifying. Building one large ship of wood rather than many small ones, landing it on a volcano instead of a plain, preserving all five varieties of venereal disease while permitting thousands of species to become extinct—these examples plus more add up to a thoroughly senseless level of supernaturalism. If there was ever a situation in which Hume's distinction between the credibility of miracles and the credibility of miracle-tellers applies, this is it.
How can we account for this transformation? Put simply, the tale of the ark grows taller in inverse proportion to the advance of science. Two centuries ago, when biology and geology were in their infancy, the theory of a worldwide flood as a major event in the earth's physical history seemed perfectly plausible and, in fact, was advocated by various scientists." ~ Robert A. Moore in The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark ~ (article printed in the Creation/Evolution Journal) ~ http://ncseweb.org/cej/4/1/impossible-voyage-noahs-ark

Problems with Flood Geology ~ http://www.chem.tufts.edu/science/FrankSteiger/elders-flood-report.htm

"I do not consider it a violation of the integrity of the biblical text to suppose that the biblical flood account uses a major Mesopotamian event in order to make vital theological points concerning human depravity, faith, and obedience and divine judgment, grace, and mercy. The evangelical church serves no good end by clinging to failed interpretations of the Bible and refusing to explore new directions. Christian scholars have an obligation to lead the way toward a renewed reverence for God's truth wherever it can be found. Conservative scholars must develop a more aggressive attitude toward creation and encourage the church's youth to enter not only the pastorate, mission work, and theology but also such fields as the natural sciences, archeology, anthropology, and the social sciences.
If anything, Christians should be preeminently motivated to investigate the intricacies of God's created order, confident that a better grasp of both God's Word and God's works will be forthcoming. If the fruits of that improved understanding are to be communicated to the Christians in the pew, their preachers will have to do the communicating. And this means that the theologians and commentators who educate the preachers have an obligation to consult more frequently with Christian scholars in other disciplines before making pronouncements on matters in those areas." ~ A History of the Collapse of "Flood Geology" and a Young Earth by Davis A. Young, an evangelical Christian geologist from Calvin College, in an excerpt from his book The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Evidence


Finally, Smitten --- Henry Morris, whom you quoted, founder of the Institute for Creation Research, birthed the vast majority of the Creationists' movements arguments and erroneous claims. He wrote books that were not merely incorrect, but outright wrong and is the very same man who argued evolution was a belief (a religion), claimed the moon's craters were due to a battle between Satan's minions and archangel Michael's army, and said "evolutionism" is satanic and responsible for racism, abortion, and a decline in morality. --- Source

In fact, The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, which is what you quoted in your earlier post, has been criticized for being scientifically inaccurate, by no less than Brian J. Witzke - Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Iowa and managing editor, Journal of Paleontology, "The Genesis Flood Review" in Reviews of Creationist Books ed Liz Rank Hughes, National Center for Science Education, 1992. page 131, 132

Smitten, Dave, others, ultimately Mr. Morris (and by default, Mr. Whitcomb who has no scientific background) has only succeeded in grossly undermining the Christian community by both misrepresenting scientific information and distorting the interpretation of the Bible beyond mere literalism, and into the absurd. His pseudo-scientific analysis of the Bible birthed creation science and, along with it, the literal fallacious arguments on material both scientific and theological. Accepting the Noah's ark story as figurative, allegorical and not a literal story, does not undermine your belief in God.

The root to understanding is education.
 
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DeletedUser

nashy19 said:
I wonder how many fish tanks were on the ark :bandit:
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Yeah, it always makes me wonder how freshwater fish survived the flood. Or snails and clams or larvae of insects that all can't survive with freshwater, let alone all the plants. Or if that supposedly great worldwide ocean was actually freshwater then how did all the sal****er dependant organisms survive?

I hope someone can answer this, after all believers must have an explanation other than evolution or a second (or even more) creation(s), right?
 
nashy19

nashy19

Nashy (as himself)
Jack Beauregard said:
Yeah, it always makes me wonder how freshwater fish survived the flood. Or snails and clams or larvae of insects that all can't survive with freshwater, let alone all the plants. Or if that supposedly great worldwide ocean was actually freshwater then how did all the sal****er dependant organisms survive?

I hope someone can answer this, after all believers must have an explanation other than evolution or a second (or even more) creation(s), right?
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I think the bible says that everything that wasn't on the ark was killed.
 

DeletedUser

Not to mention there were not enough people on board the ark to care for all of those animals. Feeding, cleaning out the stalls, tending to sick animals, exercising them, etc. Just look at a zoo and size of the exhibits needed for some animals plus all the caretakers employed. You aren't going to be able to put 2 Asian elephants in a hold on a ship and not let them roam around and have lots of their habitat to do it in. That is one way to make for some angry elephants. PETA would never have stood for Noah and his Ark.
 

DeletedUser

Actually, Deni, the Bible stated 7 of each type (14 per species), not 2.
 

DeletedUser

aye, it also tends to significantly blow up the numbers as to how many would be needed to fit on the ark.
 

DeletedUser

Some animals have a gestation period of 2 weeks. So if you have 14 of each or 7 couples then you are talking by the end of 40 weeks having a significant higher number of those animals on board. Not to mention fresh water fish like guppies that live an average of 28 days but can spawn up to 100 babies at a time and be ready to conceive again in just a few hours.

I suppose God suspended the natural life and reproductive flow of all these animals though.
 

DeletedUser

Did you know that there are between 5 and 8 million species of bettles, alone? How did they all survive the flood?

BTW, was the rain water fresh or salt? Whichever you choose, tell me how the animals of one type of water survived in the other type for so long.
 

DeletedUser

Don't you think it was a bit overkill of god to flood the entire planet just to kill off all humans but Noah's family? Couldn't he have instructed Noah to build some sort of bunker for his family and then just released a virus on the world that only affected humans. Or struck down all humans except for Noah's family some other way? God doesn't seem to be very efficient.
 

DeletedUser

I just think about all the pregnant women at the time of the flood. God is obviously an abortionist.
 

DeletedUser

Ultimately, if God intervened in such a fashion, he could very well have intervened by not even bothering to utilize the physical efforts of a man. The omnipotence alone, associated with God, brings question to the story. That if in all things He could do whatever He pleases, bypassing all the laws we have come to understand, then there is no need for water as a medium, no need for a man to chop down a hundred thousand trees, no need for man to be the utility in saving all these creatures, etc, and so on.

But, ultimately, if we take the story as a literal interpretation (which, in my opinion, grossly cheapens the meaning), "God works in mysterious ways" becomes the ringing answer to any question as to the lack of logic or reason in viewing the story in a literal context.
 

DeletedUser

Lets look at another flaw in the Noah's Ark theory. There were 2 of each animal, to keep the species alive, and they were male and female.

After several generations the Species would die out because of Inbreeding, the mutations would strike down the species faster than lightning.
 

DeletedUser

sdjx22 said:
Still, that's a lot of in-breeding going on when they get over the flood.
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All glory to God, for he by his divine will has shown us there is nothing wrong with incest; for how else would the descendents of Noah populate the earth?

Adelei Niska said:
I just think about all the pregnant women at the time of the flood. God is obviously an abortionist.
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Rofl. Good one!

@Hellstromm: Great post back there. Too bad they will use their ignorance as a shield and deflect reason.
 

DeletedUser

John Rose said:
All glory to God, for he by his divine will has shown us there is nothing wrong with incest; for how else would the descendents of Noah populate the earth?
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They don't. They die ;)

Aliens repopulate us! Waaah!

(I do not take Noah's Ark seriously, it is far too scientifically improbable for me to comprehend with even the utmost extreme imaginative streak.)
 
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