Crazy Bible Stories

[Learner]

I suggest that you carefully read Genesis 7 and Gemesis 8 carefully and for comprehension.

Indeed. Temporarily covered for 150 days, not temporarily covered by a big wave.

¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸ The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹ They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. ²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.^[a]...²⁴ The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

^a That is, about 23 feet or about 6.8 meters
^b Or rose more than fifteen cubits, and the mountains were covered

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+7&version=NIV

Maybe God just sent a big wave around the planet continuously for forty days, just to make sure all the mountainous regions got a good rinse.

Yes the big wave or big tsunami at many miles per hour was introduced which set-the-scenario for some people's arguments. (there's a phrase for that)

and...

Covered for 150 days sure...but not that the mountains were sticking out during the flood (to which Lion did not claim).

 

[ideologyhunter]

Dragging this back to my OP: take another look at Genesis 30, in which hero Jacob pulls a shyster move after being promised all the streaked or spotted sheep and goats in a herd. He creates a whole mass of streaked and spotted livestock by placing striped sticks near the spots where the farm mommies drank and mated. Any takers from the faith community on the compatibility of this holy swindle with Mendel, genetic variation, mutation?...i.e., why bother to seek scientific, empirical backup for mythic writing? IMO, if you can read Genesis 6-8 (God's Murder Swirly) and not recognize it straightaway as mythic (and part of a literary tradition in the ancient world of flood narratives), then you should not need a 'scientific' landing strip to validate your truth claim.

 

[skepticalbip]

^ ^ ^
The Bible does seem to be a collection of unrelated ancient urban myths. It has made me wonder how well a collection of current urban myths would sell.

 

[atrib]

Dragging this back to my OP: take another look at Genesis 30, in which hero Jacob pulls a shyster move after being promised all the streaked or spotted sheep and goats in a herd. He creates a whole mass of streaked and spotted livestock by placing striped sticks near the spots where the farm mommies drank and mated. Any takers from the faith community on the compatibility of this holy swindle with Mendel, genetic variation, mutation?...i.e., why bother to seek scientific, empirical backup for mythic writing? IMO, if you can read Genesis 6-8 (God's Murder Swirly) and not recognize it straightaway as mythic (and part of a literary tradition in the ancient world of flood narratives), then you should not need a 'scientific' landing strip to validate your truth claim.

Exactly.
As a Christian you have two options:
1. You can believe the Biblical story based purely on faith, disregarding all evidence to the contrary, or
2. You can review the objective, measurable and testable scientific evidence and conclude that the story cannot possibly be true.

The scientific evidence that speaks against the Biblical flood story is so overwhelmingly abundant and clear, there can be no overlap between the two options. There is very little to debate here from a scientific viewpoint.

 

[Lion IRC]

I suggest that you carefully read Genesis 7 and Gemesis 8 carefully and for comprehension.

Indeed. Temporarily covered for 150 days, not temporarily covered by a big wave.

Genesis 7/8 talks about the 150 day end-to-end duration of the Flood during which time the waters rose and receded. 150 days is NOT the length of time the flood waters remained at their peak.

3rd Month
First forty days - the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose.

By the end of the 150 days
"...the water had gone down" (PAST TENSE)

The Ark had already come to rest on the top of Mt Ararat before the end of the 150 days.

7th month
"the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. "

The waters continued to recede

10th month (that's AFTER the Ark was already 'beached' on Mt Ararat)
"...and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible."

 

[James Brown]

Be careful, Lion. Genesis 8 does not state that the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat but actually on the "mountains of Ararat."

 Mountains_of_Ararat

 Mount_Ararat

Like my old pastor used to say, "If we must read the Bible literally, we must literally read the Bible."


By the way, where did all that water go?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

By the way, where did all that water go?

Lion has already addressed that question by pointing out "huge shifts in subterranean water."

Personally I think it drained into a big hole at Chicxulub. Or it may have been absorbed into the ark of the covenant.

 

[James Brown]

Or it may have been absorbed into the ark of the covenant.

That's not a bad idea. It does appear to be bottomless in Raiders.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Or it may have been absorbed into the ark of the covenant.

That's not a bad idea. It does appear to be bottomless in Raiders.

So that means somewhere in an X-Files warehouse is a crate that holds enough water to drown the Earth...again.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We're not talking about the same faith then.

We aren't talking about faith at all. We are talking about arrogance and pride.

What unkowns do you mean? Unseen forces? I was talking about having faith and still being able to be rational within mutual reasonable boundries (for lack of better phrasing).

You can try to wrap it up in as much pretty language as you'd like, but ultimately, the trouble we have is that it is still the same arrogance. Instead of trying to resolve a book with what we do know, you are trying to resolve reality to the book, via tossing aside well established, reproducible science that you don't understand because it is inconvenient to your belief.

I accept there could be an arrogance of some degree depending on a variety of particulars with each individual... and what they have claimed as faith who may have the follwong attributes: being in denial, being delusional, or as you say, having arrogant pride.

The arrogance is that you hold to positions counter to science you don't understand, with "faith" that you are right and they are all wrong.

 

[Learner]

We aren't talking about faith at all. We are talking about arrogance and pride.

I thought we were, in context to the underlined quote below.

You can try to wrap it up in as much pretty language as you'd like, but ultimately, the trouble we have is that it is still the same arrogance. Instead of trying to resolve a book with what we do know, you are trying to resolve reality to the book, via tossing aside well established, reproducible science that you don't understand because it is inconvenient to your belief.

As I previously mentioned. There are scientisits who are also theists, they haven't been convinced.

* The arrogance is that you hold to positions counter to science you don't understand, with "faith" that you are right and they are all wrong.*

There is only skeptiscism of some scientific conclusions made by people and not denial of science - finding out things.

(I owe Atrib responses to his previous questions and I'll answer there when theres available time)

 

[atrib]

I thought we were, in context to the underlined quote below.



As I previously mentioned. There are scientisits who are also theists, they haven't been convinced.

What have they not been convinced of? The age of the earth or the universe? Evolution, common ancestry, the fossil record? Stratigraphy in the geologic column? That the Biblical flood is not a historical event but a myth? The efficacy of the scientific method?

Who are these scientists? Can you name them? Can you tell us about the arguments they make that you find convincing?

* The arrogance is that you hold to positions counter to science you don't understand, with "faith" that you are right and they are all wrong.*

There is only skeptiscism of some scientific conclusions made by people and not denial of science - finding out things.

In order to be skeptical of dating methods, or geological interpretations, or biology, or paleontology, or archaeology, or history, you need to be at least somewhat educated about these subjects. Are you sufficiently educated to hold meaningful opinions about whether they are right or wrong? No. Yet here you are, telling us you are "skeptical", but you can't actually tell us what you are skeptical of and why. That is the arrogance Jimmy was talking about.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

* The arrogance is that you hold to positions counter to science you don't understand, with "faith" that you are right and they are all wrong.*

There is only skeptiscism of some scientific conclusions made by people and not denial of science - finding out things.

It can't be skepticism because you have argued you don't even know better, but have "faith" that all of the scientists are wrong, despite have a mountain of reproducible science to back them up. To suggest you know better, while admitting you know nothing is quite arrogant.

 

[skepticalbip]

I thought we were, in context to the underlined quote below.



As I previously mentioned. There are scientisits who are also theists, they haven't been convinced.

That is pretty much a meaningless statement.
... Scientists are humans and are subject to human compartmentalization, bias, and erroneous beliefs concerning subjects outside their field of expertise and sometimes even within their field.
... Science covers a lot of specific fields and some expert in stellar nucleogenesis doesn't necessarily know diddly about geology, genetics, etc.
... Some of those scientists who are theists are not Christian. They are Deists, Shinto, Hindu, etc. and so reject the idea of a divine Jesus and/or the Bible as 'the word of god'.

* The arrogance is that you hold to positions counter to science you don't understand, with "faith" that you are right and they are all wrong.*

There is only skeptiscism of some scientific conclusions made by people and not denial of science - finding out things.

That is so vague as to be essentially meaningless. Which scientific conclusions do you reject? If it is 'only' those that contradict something in the Bible then you would reject almost all of science.

 

[Learner]

That is pretty much a meaningless statement.
... Scientists are humans and are subject to human compartmentalization, bias, and erroneous beliefs concerning subjects outside their field of expertise and sometimes even within their field.

... Science covers a lot of specific fields and some expert in stellar nucleogenesis doesn't necessarily know diddly about geology, genetics, etc.

... Some of those scientists who are theists are not Christian. They are Deists, Shinto, Hindu, etc. and so reject the idea of a divine Jesus and/or the Bible as 'the word of god'.

Scientists are human, I totally agree and also agree with, how you didn't say it was either one or the other... believers and non-believers of faith.

Certainly - Science covers a lot of specific fields ..... theists could be among those respected fields.

I was only talking about the Christians in general but yes I agree with that too. I'll use people of faith, including them all from now on. That will make a big contextual difference.

(bear with me with the rest of your post, it ties in with Atribs and J.Higgins posts will combine a little later in one post..got to finsh some jobs).

 

[Lion IRC]

We aren't talking about faith at all. We are talking about arrogance and pride....

Not tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or peril or the sword. Nor height nor depth nor any other creature neither death nor life neither angels nor principalities neither the present nor the future nor any powers...

Yeah, I guess that does sound a little arrogant now that I think about it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We aren't talking about faith at all. We are talking about arrogance and pride....

Not tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or peril or the sword. Nor height nor depth nor any other creature neither death nor life neither angels nor principalities neither the present nor the future nor any powers...

Yeah, I guess that does sound a little arrogant now that I think about it.

Feel free to respond to me based in context what I have said at any time now.

If you don’t want to defend a cosmological and immediately local world view of people who wrote stories over 2500 years ago and rather make snide remarks in an attempt to troll a response, that really is off-topic and belongs in another thread.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Feel free to respond to me based in context what I have said at any time now.

Really?
Does Lion do that?

 

[Lion IRC]

Feel free to respond to me based in context what I have said at any time now.

Really?
Does Lion do that?

Um...I was AGREEING with him.

Remind me not to do that again.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Feel free to respond to me based in context what I have said at any time now.

Really?
Does Lion do that?

Um...I was AGREEING with him.

Remind me not to do that again.

You really couldn't have been agreeing as that wasn't in the context I was writing.