"The real Noah's Ark" on Discovery

[Technomancer]

You missed the point of my post. Saying that "God did it" as an explanation is no good if that is as far as it goes.

Suppose that a global flood DID occur. What would that mean for science? At present, science discounts the idea, so if there really was a flood, then it would suggest that there are HUGE amounts of scientific theories and assumptions which are wrong.

Science doesn't discount the idea because of systematic bias and assumption. Study the history of geology and you'll see that it was people trying to prove the reality of a global flood that eventually gave up on it, because the evidence did not fit the theory. If there were a global flood, we could readily predict what traces it would leave. For example, we would expect to see all creatures present in the same stratigraphic layer- we don't see this anywhere. We would expect to see, flood charactersitc sedimentary deposits, spread over the world and dating to the same age. Again, no such deposits. We can keep playing this game too, adding up a mountain of evidence contradicting the idea of a global flood, evidence coming diverse streams- geologcy, genetics, archaeology, etc, etc.

For this reason, some scientists choose to ignore new theories which would seem to threaten their established world view, or else dismiss them very quickly.

New theories emerge all the time. There are always younger scientists who need to make a reputation after all. Never mind general competitiveness. In any event you assertion is ultimately wrong. New ideas wil encounter resistance, and will be tested- but the truth will out. Read the history of science and you'll encounter names like Planck, Einstein, DeBroglie, Wegner, Margulis, etc. All of these people were instrumental in overturning the prevailing orthodoxies in their fields, and they did it based on the data. Although in Wegner's case vindication occured well after his death, mainly the result of the oceanagraphic surveys conducted by the US in the 1960's.

Edit: having a brief look at the site, I am not impressed. Take a look at his treatment of geomagnetic field reversals; it's flat out wrong owing to mainly to his inability to differentiate between scalar and vector quantities. You might want to look at Fowler's The Solid Earth or "Electromagnetics with Applications" by Kraus and Fleisch for more detail. Both of these are textbooks that I have used in the past by the way. Such elemtary errors on his part do not incline me in his favour.

[Shinja]

i hate to say it but theres no way you can prove there hasnt been a global flood, seeing how there was only one, we havre nothing to compare it too. looking at the largest flood since would not even be a good compareison, you either believe it or you dont.

[Bobtheduck]

Tech: Isn't it possible that they left no fossils when they died? Some leave fossils, some become fossil fuel...

We should look for natural signs of things, but the lack of natural signs dosen't disproove a supernatural act.

God did it won't satisfy someone who doesn't beleive in God, but saying it's physically impossible doesn't satisfy me, because I do believe in a God that is out of that jurisdiction.

I'm going to do what I should have to begin with... I believe that as Christians, we can find whether something is a plausible argument in light of the Bible.

6:17-"Then I myself will bring the flood of water over the earth to destroy from under heaven every living thing that breathes; everything on earth will be destroyed. But I will establish my covenant with you; you will come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife and your sons' wives with you. From everything living, from each kind of living being, you are to bring two into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they are to be male and female. Of each kind of bird, each kind of livestock, and each kind of animal creeping on the ground, two are to come to you, so that they can be kept alive. Also take from all the kinds of food that are eaten, and collect it for yourself; it is to be food for you and for them." This is what Noach did; he did all that God ordered him to do.

chapter 7 - ADONAI said to Noach, "Come into the ark, you and all your household; for I have seen that you alone in this generation are righteous before me. Of every clean animal you are to take seven couples, and of the animals that are not clean, one couple.

Ok, this is getting tedious, but I would like to point out verse 19:

The water overpowered the earth mightily; all the high mountains under the entire sky were covered. The water covered the mountains by more than (sorry, don't have the cubit measurement in this book, it converted it into what they think it would be in feet and inches)

vs 22 Everything in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life; whatever was on dry land died

I think that says it was a global flood. I think it was possible for a reason people just don't see yet. I think it's possible the breakthrough will come someday, maybe even with the discovery of part of the ark (artifacts, or something) in the real mount ararat and not what we call ararat today. Even if nothing shows up, I still think humans are limited and we can't figure everything out... We miss facts, even when we work together. I think that's the case.

With the exception of the Bible, I don't just blindly accept things I hear or read... I have a very hard time watching that creationism show on TBN because I have a possible counter to most of the things he says, like "Explosions don't create" well, that's just not true... The "creating" that is reffering to isn't digital watches and human brains, but planets, and explosions do allow for planets to be born, because the matter is scattered and then gravity takes over... I don't just say "Oh, that sounds good, it will prove my point (ok, well sometimes I do, but I try to correct myself when I do that) so I'm not just saying this to say it... I'm saying it because from what I know of my life, I have enough proof that Jesus is God, and from that knowledge I also know that the Bible is true, so any proof otherwise has probably dropped a sign or is off by 1 (sorry, I was in my math class today... How easy it is to miss one little note and throw everything off!) In other words, they're missing something, that if they had it they would get the same answer I got. And I got my answer by cheating, so I know it's right... (ok, that was really bad...)

[uc pseudonym]

Why would a global flood necessarily have to take place entirely at the same time? If it slowly began in one area and by chance (or not, as we may believe, by evidence that has nothing to do with science) systematically hit every portion of the world at different times, wouldn't that accomplish the same thing?

Note, I just had that idea now, so it is completely undefended and unrefined.

[Gremio]

As Albert Einstien once said: "I want to know how G-d created the universe. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details."

That sums it up for me, The Bible tells me how G-d created the universe. That is all.

[Shinja]

Seven days from now i will send rain on the earth for forthy days and forty nights, and i will wipe from the face of the earth every livin ceature i have made. genisis 7:4

the waters rose and covered the mountians to a depth of more than 20 feet. genesis 7:20

theres no way this isnt a global flood, if the mountians are the highest plane of land then the whole of that land must be covered also, and this all happened in 40 days, meaning it was temendously fast.

[Technomancer]

If you follow a literal interpretation.

[Shinja]

well thats what it says, i cant change that

[Ammaranth]

About those mountains:

One of the arguments used to discount the flood is the very large amount of water necessary to cover the entire earth, and the problem of once the earth was flooded, where would it go? But this really isn't a problem at all when you consider that the continents themselves are like very large mountains sticking out above the water. However, if the continental land masses were smoothed out, the entire surface of the earth would be under water -- a condition of global flood.

This also solves the problem of where the water would go after the flood. It doesn't have to "go" anywhere. If the continents were shallower to begin with on the pre-flood earth, and then higher after the flood, the present day oceans might very well be the remnants of a flood which once covered the entire earth.

[Straylight]

The trouble is that it's hard to create mountains from water movements. The mountain ranges and continents today show every bit of evidence of having been pushed up due to geological activity - something that takes quite a lot of time.

[Bobtheduck]

...under normal circumstances... Just saying... God is far from "normal" in that respect. EDIT: In addition to that, no one said they had to be completely flat, just "flatter" and that it wasn't necissarily the water movement that moved the continents. Normally the continents don't move like that, but normally speaking something doesn't bring it into existance... Normally someone who's been dead for 3 days doesn't of their own power resurrect. Normally the ground doesn't open up and swallow people, then close back up. Normally bugs, sores, frogs, and darkness don't affect everyone but one certain group of people. God isn't normal. If we believe in God to begin with, than "not normal" is never a blow to our faith.

Another note (EDIT): There were no signs of leprosy (well, the skin disease translated as leprousy that was actually not leprousy) in one of the men Jesus healed... Missing skin, or appendages, they were restored... No physical sign means God has control over every detail.

[Bobtheduck]

Why would a global flood necessarily have to take place entirely at the same time? If it slowly began in one area and by chance (or not, as we may believe, by evidence that has nothing to do with science) systematically hit every portion of the world at different times, wouldn't that accomplish the same thing?

Note, I just had that idea now, so it is completely undefended and unrefined.

Sounds intrigueing, but according the the geological data, aren't there areas that haven't ever been flooded? I don't know... Maybe I shouldn't have started this as I obviously don't know what I'm talking about...

BTW, just a question (not stating where I stand on it) but where do the literal interpretations start and the the non-literals end? Did Jesus not resurrect? Just because there's no artifacts around his life specifically (but there are many around the lives of disciples as well as the world rulers mentioned) I don't follow wholeheartedly the young earth nor the new earth theory, but if we take one part of the Bible to be non-literal, where do we start taking it literally? Do we ever? I mean, the line is never drawn by the non-literalists... Maybe the Gap theory, that there was a creation before that was corrupted, and that's where the billions of years go, but even if that were true, Noah's flood DEFINATELY takes after the "gap" verse, so where do we draw the line? Was the story of Moses just proverbial? Just a story made up to make an analogy? Maybe Elijah's just some clever fantasy? Perhaps the figure we rest our entire faith on wasn't a literal person? Where does it end? I am not repeating that to prove some sort of point, but this is a question that I wrestle with...

[Technomancer]

About those mountains:

One of the arguments used to discount the flood is the very large amount of water necessary to cover the entire earth, and the problem of once the earth was flooded, where would it go? But this really isn't a problem at all when you consider that the continents themselves are like very large mountains sticking out above the water. However, if the continental land masses were smoothed out, the entire surface of the earth would be under water -- a condition of global flood.

Actually, it's a very serious problem- neither continental nor oceanic crust float on water. Additionally, water being forced up from a great depth would be superheated (at 10km depth temperature is ~250 deg. Centigrade) steam jet, which would essentiallly cook every living thing (Noah and family included). Incidentally, water vapour does sometimes play a role in augmenting the violence of volcanic eruptions e.g. Tambora and Krakatoa). You also need to show some evidence of such gushers having existed in any case. Impact craters won't work unless you also account for the presence of coesite and shitsovite, not to mention the massive erosional features that would be expected.

Also, the flood itself would tend to flatten out the existing relief, not build it up. Neither would the fine layering occur that is readily visible in many sedimentary outcropings, nor the folding deformations often visible in mountainous areas.

[Bobtheduck]

Try the feb 2004 edition of Signal Processing. I'll also be published in the Proceedings of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (where I will be presenting).

No, that's not what i meant... I mean, I haven't looked for anything on the new aether theory, or the relatively new theory that was being researched that was similar to aether.

[Technomancer]

No, that's not what i meant... I mean, I haven't looked for anything on the new aether theory, or the relatively new theory that was being researched that was similar to aether.

Ah. I thought it was an odd non-sequitor; that makes more sense.

[uc pseudonym]

BTW, just a question (not stating where I stand on it) but where do the literal interpretations start and the the non-literals end? Did Jesus not resurrect? Just because there's no artifacts around his life specifically (but there are many around the lives of disciples as well as the world rulers mentioned) I don't follow wholeheartedly the young earth nor the new earth theory, but if we take one part of the Bible to be non-literal, where do we start taking it literally? Do we ever? I mean, the line is never drawn by the non-literalists... Maybe the Gap theory, that there was a creation before that was corrupted, and that's where the billions of years go, but even if that were true, Noah's flood DEFINATELY takes after the "gap" verse, so where do we draw the line? Was the story of Moses just proverbial? Just a story made up to make an analogy? Maybe Elijah's just some clever fantasy? Perhaps the figure we rest our entire faith on wasn't a literal person? Where does it end? I am not repeating that to prove some sort of point, but this is a question that I wrestle with...

One thing to remember is that the Bible is 66 different books. People who say they take the entire Bible literally need to ask themselves this question: "Do you believe that trees talk to each other and get kings?" Of course not... they'll tell you it is a parable. In the same way, other parts of the Bible are parables (...Jesus in general), and you could argue some books are as well (it's possible Esther is a play). But just because one section is not a literal history says absolutely nothing about all of it.

[Bobtheduck]

One thing to remember is that the Bible is 66 different books. People who say they take the entire Bible literally need to ask themselves this question: "Do you believe that trees talk to each other and get kings?" Of course not... they'll tell you it is a parable. In the same way, other parts of the Bible are parables (...Jesus in general), and you could argue some books are as well (it's possible Esther is a play). But just because one section is not a literal history says absolutely nothing about all of it.

Genesis is one book. Where does Genesis start being literal? Or, the torah entirely for that matter (since I view them as one story)

Metaphor and poetic language are common in the Bible, but they should be clear. Due to language, they are not always so (such as the "light eye" and "dark eye" Jesus talked about, when he was reffering to being generous or stingy) However, I would think that there would be some refference in Genesis to say what was literal..

Note: one thing non-literalists use to say Genesis isn't literal, and one thing atheists use to "disprove" the bible is Genesis Chapter two. It seems to give a different order of creation, but what it actually says is "before wild plants" had grown, not before there were any plants. No plants had grown from seeds when God made adam and eve, so that doesn't contradict Genesis 1. It's an answer to 1 point of contention out of potentially thousands, but it is an example of something that people tend to miss... And if that's the case in one literary work, think about complex formulas and mathematical equations, as well as much wider observation... Missing one detail can throw everything off.

[uc pseudonym]

You make a point about Genesis (though we certainly narrowed down parts of Christianity in question, didn't we?), and arguably about the Torah. I will never consider Leviticus to be a part of a story (unless the author is Herman Melville).

I'm not too sure I can answer your question, as I do not have the time or thought necessary to be accurate. However, no one claim's Jesus's parable actually happened, and he speaks of them all as if they did. We understand that these are actually parables, but Genesis is not so specific. Could perhaps a similar principle apply?

[Shinja]

it apears to me that when there is need for interpritation it is either a parable or a prophsey, both of wich cant be compared with the book of genisis wich lays out a story as a record of events.

[Bobtheduck]

You make a point about Genesis (though we certainly narrowed down parts of Christianity in question, didn't we?), and arguably about the Torah. I will never consider Leviticus to be a part of a story (unless the author is Herman Melville).

I'm not too sure I can answer your question, as I do not have the time or thought necessary to be accurate. However, no one claim's Jesus's parable actually happened, and he speaks of them all as if they did. We understand that these are actually parables, but Genesis is not so specific. Could perhaps a similar principle apply?

Perhaps... I suppose it could. I just wish they had made it more clear, so as not so cause so much confusion... Jesus explained the Torah and the Prophets to his disciples, I wish the Holy Spirit would explain it all to us... Maybe he has, and I just wasn't listening... Who knows.

About Jesus' parables, at least one of them DID happen... I'll have to look up the source. I agree that I don't think most of them happened, though.

[ThaKladd]

there was mentioned mountains and where did the water go?

the most common answer to this is that the mountains was not that high before the flood... lets say the highest was... about 1 km..

When then the water came from the deep and form the heaven, it was no problem to cover this, because there was no mount everest(8km). Because the water came "from the deep", what creationist explain as "under the crust of the earth". They say that the main places this happened was in the mid atlantic, and pacific ocean(as you can se in the "under water"maps). The old earth scientict say that lava has come out there for millions of years, creationist say that lava probably came out at the same time, and a time afterwards. This caused the continental plates to move, press into each other, and make moutains...

To make it short: the land rised, and the water ran off in to the big oceans. The moutains came to sight because they rised... therefore the time the water "drained" was only a year...

If you see at todays facts, you can read that if the Earth was flat, it would be about 2.6 km water on top. Before the flood, there are never mentioned that much of water(unless in the begining before God seperated them) in the bible. That means, there was less water on the surface before the flood than after...

[Straylight]

I have a real problem with this -- throwing up mountain ranges all over the place in such a short timespan would have serious effects - loads of dust and crap would be released into the atmosphere because there would be LOADS of volcanic activity. The chances of any type of life taking root after such a global event would be slim - we're talking something akin to nuclear winter.

[Shinja]

i dont see why this has to be explaned with our undertsnding of nature today, the world changed severly due to the flood i would imagine, and if the land was resting on water like some believe then interaction of the land forming mountians would have little effect on volcanic activity. and anyway if we are to view this as an act of God then it cant be explaned by science anyway , much like the turning of water into wine
or a virgian birth, or bread from the heavens,somethings cant be explained

its wierd how this is always the subject that people try and make it fit science, or try and prove it through science, while everything else save a few other acts of god are not ever looked at with this mind set. it was like anyother mirical, it cant be explaned, disected, or proven. it can only be looked at, and what ever evidance is left is like the rubble of a a fallen building, you can imagine how it may have looked with whats left but, you can never know the truth of its consruction, or intricacys of its design. theres a piece here and a piece there.

[Bobtheduck]

I have a real problem with this -- throwing up mountain ranges all over the place in such a short timespan would have serious effects - loads of dust and crap would be released into the atmosphere because there would be LOADS of volcanic activity. The chances of any type of life taking root after such a global event would be slim - we're talking something akin to nuclear winter.

...

With all the things God did that were impossible to do, why couldn't something impossible to FINISH be possible for God? Not having the evidence in geological data isn't enough for me to say it didn't happen that way... I used to feel dogma was evil... It's this big taboo thing, but honestly, since it exists in everyone in some way, demonizing it is pretty shortsighted. I don't know the answers to these questions, but the lack of scientific research to back up what the Bible says isn't enough for me to disprove it.

God can create the world, even looking old, and everything that should be in motion, instantly as if it were billions of years old, and he can flood the earth without causing death to Noah. He could get all the animals on the Ark, he could do it with the specifications he said, and he could turn my stuffed "graduate cat" doll and make it get up and dance the macarena... The material world can't disprove the spiritual world in my eyes... Because I believe in an allmighty God, I believe that we can't possibly discover everything and know everything.

[Straylight]

My personal theory (warning -- could be a bit far fetched):

In genesis 1, God layed the plans for the universe. He calibrated the laws of physics and set variables. He then hit a "switch" / issued a command, and the universe began to unfold, over several billions of years. Before He hit the switch, He knew exactly how everything would unfold, and He had planned it. Every atom and subatomic particle in the universe accounted for.

Water into wine + all of Jesus's other miracles? In this theory it's the cumalitive result of various fine tuned physics variables (some of which we don't know about yet -- much of quantum physics is still a great mystery) colliding together in one concentrated area to create something "supernatural". Looks like a miracle to us, and it is, for without God's planning in that particular area, it would never have happened. IMO, God exists outside time and has planned absolutely everything, using nature as a vehicle to carry it out. Science is the study of nature -- the vehicle by which God does things.

Think about those Mandelbrot sets -- it takes a small amount of code to generate something infinately large. Perhaps God took the same approach with creation. If you look around nature you can see clues -- the "golden ratio" appears all over nature. What if evolution was a planned process meticulously triggered by God?

Sure, we have our own choices and mindsets. Does this clash with the theory? Not really -- God knew how our lives would start and end. God exists outside time.. impossible to grasp. Somewhere in the Bible it says about God's ways being far above anything we could possibly imagine, and this seems to fit that glove particularly well - no human mind or computer could possibly calculate the intricate details of a Big Bang.

A good example of a "miracle" - freak entropy in promordial soup gives rise to single celled life. Something that science has proven to be extremely unlikely.

[Bobtheduck]

Is this just an attempt at trying to reconcile faith an science in a way you feel might not be possible? Is science dictating your faith? This theory sounds like this is something you came up with because you were bothered by scientific finds, so you create the new catchall... God is the divine watchmaker, or God is the consistantly interactive, either way it's the identity... It's the thing that makes every variable fit, it's the dogma that can't be argued with. Either way, it is unacceptable to people who refuse to believe in a creator, due to their own dogma.

[Ashley]

Blanket warning here--play nice. It's ok to discuss things, but I don't want any insults or accusations thrown, ok?

[Technomancer]

...
God can create the world, even looking old, and everything that should be in motion, instantly as if it were billions of years old, and he can flood the earth without causing death to Noah. He could get all the animals on the Ark, he could do it with the specifications he said, and he could turn my stuffed "graduate cat" doll and make it get up and dance the macarena... The material world can't disprove the spiritual world in my eyes... Because I believe in an allmighty God, I believe that we can't possibly discover everything and know everything.

But this makes God a deceiver, and everything He creates a stage managed illusion. And The world, in its most exquisite detail a forgery, with fossils of creatures that never lived, and ripples from non-existant oceans all left in stone. If the hand of God is so evident in the works of nature as the Bible attests, how can we trust its writ on an Earth deliberately made to appear indistinguishable from one billions of years old? This is worse than no God at all it seems to me.

But instead if Genesis was meant to tell us about ourselves and our relationship to God and creation, then I think sense can be made of the world. The stories communicated these relationships to a people without science or mathematics]only[/i] have understood those truths when conveyed in such fashion. And It makes sense that God would use a familiar mythopoetic framework to communicate these truths. We see in Genesis the ancient myths of Mesopotamia changed into something much more profound than before. Where those stories described a dreary kind of servitude before the gods, Genesis transforms them so that they describe the great dignity and purpose of human life, as well as its tragedy.

[Bobtheduck]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean it as an insult to Straylight, but rather as a point to ponder for everyone. I say that because I used to try to come up with explanations for things supernatural by using the physical. Even reading the reactions in this thread have made me think otherwise. People have tried to give me reason not to believe in what Jesus did for me, saying there is no proof or that pain and suffering prove he doesn't exist, or similar arguments, but the thing is, maybe because first off I had a prayer covering, and partly because I needed it (a doubting thomas, if you would) God showed me things to reaffirm my faith. I saw someone who needed money get the exact amount they needed from a complete stranger who knew nothing about them. I have a friend who's leg grew to proper size after it was prayed for. I've seen so many things that they won't accept as proof, even though the chances of them being coincidental are incredibly small, to the point where for people to say they are coincidental really sounds like they are trying to cover it up. That is the cop out.

I never meant to insult anyone's intelligence, but Straylight's comment (besides sounding like Deism) brought some stuff back up. I think this thread has been good for me. Before this, I didn't know where I stood on a lot of issues and I didn't have answers for things people would ask me, but participating in this thread has let me take firm grasp of some more of my beliefs. I do admit I was a bit aggressive, but I just don't know how to keep that aggression down... I don't have that skill refined enough yet. The point of what I said still stands, though.

[Bobtheduck]

But this makes God a deceiver, everything He creates a stage managed illusion. The world, in its most exquisite detail a forgery: fossils of creatures that never lived, and ripples from a non-existant ocean.

I dont' think so. I think it makes man the one who draws the wrong conclusions from the data. He didn't make it that way to fake it's age, but because if it wasn't that way, life wouldn't work. These people with the backing of years and thousands of people's research don't equate it with God, so if God does exist and they didn't get it from their research, what's to say that more of their research isn't wrong.

I have talked about the consistantly interactive God, and I used Deist terminology to summarize straylight's statement, but I believe in both. Where he said he made it that way, he did, where he left blank, it was because he set it into motion.

As for writing in language that they could understand, I agree to a point, but not to the extent of God, once again, being a deceiver.

BTW, I do tire of my two posts in a row... It tends to make people ignore the previous post, I think.

-5x 2x + 4 = 7
-5x +2x=7-4
7x=3
x = 3/7

Oops... Missed the sign, there. That minus is a very small detail, but there can be a big difference between -1 and 3/7

This is a very simple problem, and a lot of people in the class forget the sign at the beginning. A lot of them, missing that small fact, got the SAME wrong answer. I think that we can be missing something, and we can ALL be missing it because it's something we haven't discovered yet. And as long as we're on earth, that will be a problem. I think that it looks contrary to the Biblical story because we're missing one small detail. Small, but significant.