30,000 feet of water?????

[Subduction Zone]

As I have explained many times and ways, now, obsessing over factuality completely misses the point. As is evidenced by the fact that no one is even discussing the meaning or message of the story, which is the whole point of it's existence.

Including you.

That is a matter for another thread. I have said many times that the story fails as history, but that it may work as a fable, as allegory, or other sort of teaching tool. It simply does not work as history. Since I am not a Christian I do not think that it is my part to tell them how they should interpret it except when they make the gross error of interpreting it literally.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Sorry, I don't believe that. I believe the flood happened as told in the Bible, because it gives the most reasonable explanation for it.

Except that it doesn't appear to meet your own criteria for reasonableness. The most reasonable would involve the least assumptions, conjecture and no need to fit the evidence to the story after the fact. The most reasonable explanation would be that the evidence takes us to the best conclusion. That, unfortunately, is no global flood.

However, the others did not necessary copy the story from Jews. All people who survived from the flood, would have had the story with them, that is why it is possible that the children of Noah had the same story and told it to their children and so it was transferred in some way to all nations.

And all cultures and nations do not have the flood story. Some have none. Some have only stories of local floods. Some are clearly the results of cultural contamination which is what being demonstrated by the fact of the Sumerians.

Funny how you speak like that your belief would be knowledge.

I find this the height of irony.

No intelligent reason to thinks so.

I see the basis for an argument from ignorance here.

There are intelligent reasons to think so. The very absence of an expected flood layer whose existence based on our knowledge of flooding is the most intelligent reason.

No intelligent reason to except single layer in the event Bible describes.

Again, flaccid denial. If all floods leave layers and the evidence supports this, why would the greatest flood ever leave no evidence? That is a very intelligent question requiring sound reasoning to explain. No one has yet. All that are offered are empty references to intelligent reasons and nonsense reasons.

Not necessary.

A bottleneck would exist and be evident. It does not exist. It is only "not necessary", because the absence cannot be explained in any other way than "no flood" and that is one I believe you cannot accept for any reason.

I think I already explained it. After the flood, all the sunken stuff has been compressed, causing the water level go down. Also part of it is in the great glaciers.

A pseudo-scientific handoff is not an explanation. There is nothing supporting what you call an explanation as being even potential possibility.

We have lot of evidence for it, maybe the greatest evidence is the modern continents.

There is no evidence that hasn't been contorted and twisted in every attempt to achieve fitness with the facts and failed.

What I have never understood and an a thing that is not an issue for me personally is why the story must be believed as a fact. It is not a requirement to worship or for salvation. Except perhaps for people to believe you believe. That isn't a biblical requirement for belief either.

 

[PureX]

That is a matter for another thread. I have said many times that the story fails as history, but that it may work as a fable, as allegory, or other sort of teaching tool. It simply does not work as history.

It works just fine as IMAGINED history. Which is what history actually is ... the imagined past. This obsession with facts (on both sides of the current argument) has to do with the erroneous idea that facts = truth. But they don't. Facts are just facts. We can learn from them, but we can and do also learn from fiction. From IMAGINED realities. And this foolish obsession with facts is blinding us to this other very important method of gaining both knowledge AND wisdom.

Since I am not a Christian I do not think that it is my part to tell them how they should interpret it except when they make the gross error of interpreting it literally.

I don't think anyone should tell anyone how to interpret any story. But I do think it's very useful for us to share with each other how we interpret them, and even more-so, how our interpretations inform our experience of reality in the present. Because in doing that, we broaden each other's perceptions and intellectual possibilities, and we come to understand ourselves and reach other more.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

As I have explained many times and ways, now, obsessing over factuality completely misses the point.

Yes. Of course. You've said it and said it and said it...But you have not demonstrated that seeing a point or life lesson is necessary in the particular argument however many times you've claimed it is.

I see no reason that it be as you want it to be.

As is evidenced by the fact that no one is even discussing the meaning or message of the story, which is the whole point of it's existence.

The point of experience of the story, but not of the argument. As I've clearly explained.

Including you.

Of course. Far be it from me to exclude myself as a pawn in a straw man argument. Heaven's to Betsy! By all means. Paint me with your big brush.

Being stubborn about a favorite pile of straw doesn't suddenly grant it life.

I didn't expect to see anything in the nature of evidence or reason to reject my observations and claim. You didn't fail me.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

As I have explained many times and ways, now, obsessing over factuality completely misses the point. As is evidenced by the fact that no one is even discussing the meaning or message of the story, which is the whole point of it's existence.

Including you.

The point of the flood story is to explain something with the available means in the context of the belief and bias of the story teller. The mere attempt is not evidence of the validity, value or veracity of the story.

Our means and knowledge have changed. Any lesson may be conserved, expanded or expounded, but that is irrelevant to a debate on the factual basis of the flood story.

For the "literalist", the lesson only seems to exist if the story is demonstrated to be a fact. For the "dissenter" of this "fact", recognizing or knowing the lesson has not been demonstrated necessary to counter the claims of a factual global flood. No evidence has been provided that "dissenters" do not recognize a lesson contained within.

Focus on that is a straw man. One that seems to me to be entirely built on a bias against certain, specific portions of the group of "dissenters". Though clearly not exclusive to just that portion.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It works just fine as IMAGINED history. Which is what history actually is ... the imagined past. This obsession with facts (on both sides of the current argument) has to do with the erroneous idea that facts = truth. But they don't. Facts are just facts. We can learn from them, but we can and do also learn from fiction. From IMAGINED realities. And this foolish obsession with facts is blinding us to this other very important method of gaining both knowledge AND wisdom.

The wisdom that I get from your posts are that facts are irrelevant and whatever anyone wishes to believe are the "actual" facts of anything.

I don't think anyone should tell anyone how to interpret any story. But I do think it's very useful for us to share with each other how we interpret them, and even more-so, how our interpretations inform our experience of reality in the present. Because in doing that, we broaden each other's perceptions and intellectual possibilities, and we come to understand ourselves and reach other more.

Interesting.

Right now, I have Covid for the first time. It has been like a cross between the flu and a suped up cold. Just within the hour a friend recommended I drink plenty of Schwepps tonic water that contains quinine. Because, as we all know, quinine cures Covid.

Except that there is no evidence that it is a miracle cure or even a palliative. In some instances, people have died from believing this myth.

So, what is the lesson of the myth? What reasons should be applied to letting the myth persist so that others might also harm themselves in their misguided belief of miracle Covid cures?

Where is the valuable life lesson in the quinine myth that renders demonstration of it as anything but factual to be moot?

 

[Subduction Zone]

It works just fine as IMAGINED history. Which is what history actually is ... the imagined past. This obsession with facts (on both sides of the current argument) has to do with the erroneous idea that facts = truth. But they don't. Facts are just facts. We can learn from them, but we can and do also learn from fiction. From IMAGINED realities. And this foolish obsession with facts is blinding us to this other very important method of gaining both knowledge AND wisdom.

I don't think anyone should tell anyone how to interpret any story. But I do think it's very useful for us to share with each other how we interpret them, and even more-so, how our interpretations inform our experience of reality in the present. Because in doing that, we broaden each other's perceptions and intellectual possibilities, and we come to understand ourselves and reach other more.

No,, pretend history just does not work. That is the one way that it does not work. Some people will always make the mistake of taking it seriously.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The wisdom that I get from your posts are that facts are irrelevant and whatever anyone wishes to believe are the "actual" facts of anything.

Interesting.

Right now, I have Covid for the first time. It has been like a cross between the flu and a suped up cold. Just within the hour a friend recommended I drink plenty of Schwepps tonic water that contains quinine. Because, as we all know, quinine cures Covid.

Except that there is no evidence that it is a miracle cure or even a palliative. In some instances, people have died from believing this myth.

So, what is the lesson of the myth? What reasons should be applied to letting the myth persist so that others might also harm themselves in their misguided belief of miracle Covid cures?

Where is the valuable life lesson in the quinine myth that renders demonstration of it as anything but factual to be moot?

I hope that you do much better. When I got it the first time it was like truck had hit me. Well the first day the symptoms were an extreme reaction to cold air. I tried to walk somewhere, telling myself that I was not sick. The snails trail that I left behind convinced me otherwise. I am sure it was not a pretty sight. Once I got back inside the extra phlegm production went back to a controllable state. In fact that may have helped. I am sure that I cleared every free virus out of my nasal cavities.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I hope that you do much better. When I got it the first time it was like truck had hit me. Well the first day the symptoms were an extreme reaction to cold air. I tried to walk somewhere, telling myself that I was not sick. The snails trail that I left behind convinced me otherwise. I am sure it was not a pretty sight. Once I got back inside the extra phlegm production went back to a controllable state. In fact that may have helped. I am sure that I cleared every free virus out of my nasal cavities.

Thank you @Subduction Zone.

Perhaps I had a more mild strain, have some level of tolerance or was just lucky so far. I have it, and it was not trivial, but I seem to be recovering. The fatigue, feelings of walking around detached in a sort of cloud and vertigo are the most debilitating symptoms that I've experienced. Especially the vertigo. It got so bad, I was vomiting up on an empty stomach from it. It reminded me of my younger days of having enjoyed far too much to drink and trying to stop the rotating room. Oddly, no stomach upset of its own. I have kept a moderate appetite and what food I've eaten during the course of this hasn't caused any distress and stayed where I put it.

I'm pretty sure, I haven't been the prettiest of sights either. Unfortunately, more true these days even in my healthier states.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I hope that you do much better. When I got it the first time it was like truck had hit me. Well the first day the symptoms were an extreme reaction to cold air. I tried to walk somewhere, telling myself that I was not sick. The snails trail that I left behind convinced me otherwise. I am sure it was not a pretty sight. Once I got back inside the extra phlegm production went back to a controllable state. In fact that may have helped. I am sure that I cleared every free virus out of my nasal cavities.

Humans have not stopped creating myths. If the lessons of a myth are important and essential to discussions of validity in that they eliminate need of such discussions as a mere distraction. Then it should be that simple to show the debate of factuality is irrelevant and unnecessary and not just another straw man to hold against one side.

I've offered one example and I await the explanation showing me the meaning in this particular case and how we need not worry whether the myth is a fact or not.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Thank you @Subduction Zone.

Perhaps I had a more mild strain, have some level of tolerance or was just lucky so far. I have it, and it was not trivial, but I seem to be recovering. The fatigue, feelings of walking around detached in a sort of cloud and vertigo are the most debilitating symptoms that I've experienced. Especially the vertigo. It got so bad, I was vomiting up on an empty stomach from it. It reminded me of my younger days of having enjoyed far too much to drink and trying to stop the rotating room. Oddly, no stomach upset of its own. I have kept a moderate appetite and what food I've eaten during the course of this hasn't caused any distress and stayed where I put it.

I'm pretty sure, I haven't been the prettiest of sights either. Unfortunately, more true these days even in my healthier states.

I had the early pre-vaccination version. I also had it again later. Either the vaccine which I did take, my previous infection, a change in the virus itself, or perhaps all three, made it much less severe.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The most interesting thing about that story is why it's in Genesis. It seems odd to describe a deity in such unflattering terms - it errs in its creation of man, regrets its error and attempts to remedy it in an inefficient and cruel manner, and then clumsily attempts to repair the problem using the same breeding stock.

If the story is going to be relevant to its audience, it has to relate to their experience.

These would have been people who experienced flooding, sometimes severe, so it's a given that their god would have had a use for destructive flooding, even if it makes God look cruel.

I see a lot of Genesis as a series of "just-so" stories. The flood myth can be seen as the "just-so" story of why floods happen.

So why create that story? I have a hypothesis: they had found marine fossils on mountaintops and needed an explanation for it. Not knowing about seafloor raising, they probably assumed that the mountains as they found them had been there since their creatin and therefore must have once been submerged.

Also, these are a people who likely experienced flooding and were trying to reconcile that experience with their theology.

It's also another example of the larger theme in the Old Testament: that the Jewish people have been called out from a larger population. One message of the story is that the story's audience are the descendants of Noah, implying that they're part of the remnant of the population that God has entrusted to live in a "godly" way, further implying that living in a "godly" way is an attainable goal for them.

 

[blü 2]

As I have explained many times and ways, now, obsessing over factuality completely misses the point. As is evidenced by the fact that no one is even discussing the meaning or message of the story, which is the whole point of it's existence.

The story starts as a tale that once existed in Sumerian Mesopotamia, later adopted by the Semitic part of Mesopotamia, about a great flood. It's very tempting to think that a flood on the Tigris or Euphrates or both back in far antiquity is the origin, and that the tale is a rationalization of that event ─ a rather odd rationalization about how the gods screwed up when making humans, so that they ceased to find them entertaining or useful and set out to kill them all ─ one boatload excepted. The Semitic version became, or evolved into, the bible's story of Noah.

 

[Brian2]

actually what is down there is not water it is in the form of a hydroxyl radical (OH), which is bound into crystal structure.

That is under pressure and high temperature. There has been evidence of the water coming out of the crystal (the melting of the crystaline form.)

Earth has a vast interior ocean, 400-miles under our feet, that creates 'ringwoodite' gems

Aided by a mineral called ringwoodite, researchers found evidence of a vast ocean trapped inside Earth, deep beneath the United States.

www.earth.com

Anyway the water is there and the argument that there is not enough water is wrong.

there are many cultures with the myth of the sun being moved across the sky by various forms of animals. Should the existence of so many myths like that be taken as evidence that the sun is pulled across the sky by horses?

If we can see horses pulling the sun then we should accept the stories.
There is evidence of a huge flood in the region and there are stories also.

 

[Brian2]

All this silly arguing over a mythical story, and not one comment yet on what anyone thinks the story is intended to tell us about the world. I guess in this sense the religion haters succeed at distracting everyone away from the actual purpose and message of these kinds of myths by obsessing on factuality. It's too bad that the 'believers' keep taking the bait. But why? Perhaps they are not that interested in the message of the myth, themselves, but only in defending their irrational insistence that the myth is not a myth.

Like two fools chasing each other around the idiot tree.

Perhaps this particular myth is about how God, through nature, forces a 'clean slate' on we humans, occasionally. A 'restart'. Especially when we become incorrigible. An interesting thought given that humanity is now facing a similar possible 'restart' due to our inability to reign in our own greed and stupidity.

I suppose that for people who see the story as untrue and that there was no God who created a flood, there is no lesson to be learned in the story. There is no God teaching anything.
But yes, we are heading to destroying the earth and nature through our greed and stupidity. But I see this also as showing the truth of the Bible prophecies on what will happen to the earth.
It is important to see our greed and stupidity and to stop destroying the earth but it is more important to see the truth about God and the Bible and the judgement that God is bringing and the gospel message.
It is not just the earth that is being destroyed. Humans also need to be saved from their blindness and the judgement of God. The salvation of humans is more important.

 

[Brian2]

You really still don’t understand that a rock like limestone or gypsum that contains hydrogen and oxygen is not “water”?

Of course I understand that. The water is there even if it is bound in crystalline form because of the conditions in the mantle. The water can be released when the conditions change.
It is scientists who are talking about vast oceans in the mantle of the earth.

 

[Hooded_Crow]

Of course I understand that. The water is there even if it is bound in crystalline form because of the conditions in the mantle. The water can be released when the conditions change.
It is scientists who are talking about vast oceans in the mantle of the earth.

Can you provide a source of evidence for these 'vast oceans in the mantle of the Earth'?

 

[Brian2]

No, all that water under the earth is under the earth, and all that water in the streams lakes and oceans is in the streams lakes and oceans and all the water in the atmosphere is in the atmosphere, but you're still 1.1 billion cubic miles of water short of what would be required to cover the tallest mountains 20 feet deep.

And there remains the problem of the missing genetic bottlenecks.

And the absence of a single geological flood layer all over all continents and islands and the ocean floor.

And those three are not the only elephants in the room, only (in my view) the biggest.

All I said is that there is plenty of water in the mantle. This water could have been released for a world wide flood. The Bible actually seems to talk about something like that happening in the flood story. So your argument about the lack of water is gone.
I believe the flood was a large local flood and the evidence is there for that and the Bible can be translated to agree with that. So arguing that the Bible is wrong is gone also.

For the same reasons as above.

And the fact that the Sumerian story is attested some two thousand years or so before the god of the bible appears in history.

As I said, the Bible story is about a large local flood and the evidence points to that, and part of the evidence is also the earlier story of such an event.
The God of the Bible is the same God that created the earth billions of years ago, so what you said about when the Bible God appeared in history is irrelevant.

Yes, henotheism for a start, then from about the end of the Babylonian captivity monotheism, then the division into the Jewish god and the Christian god when Paul renounces the covenant, then the division of the Christian god into three when the Trinity notion is adopted in the 4th century, then the division into West and East, then Catholic and Protestant, then &c &c &c

Humanity, in searching for God, invented other gods and worshipped them. The one true God, YHWH, revealed Himself and His name to Moses and from that time monotheism was taught from God but humans continued to worship idols, contrary to what the true God told them.

So in your view the ancient authors of the Tanakh, and the early Christians, were familiar with the theory of gravity, and orbits, and satellites, and planets, and deep space, and the nature of stars, and galaxies, and the expanding universe and so on?

Funny, then, that there's absolutely no evidence to that effect, then, and they talk instead about the earth being immovably and unshakably fixed and the sun going round it, and the sky being a hard dome you can walk on, to which the stars are attached such that if they come loose they'll fall to earth, don't you think?

No I don't think the ancient authors were familiar with scientific cosmology.
Nevertheless a metaphor is a metaphor and as humans find out more about science and cosmology then that is how we recognise the metaphors.

There is absolutely no basis for asserting that when the bible speaks of a day, you're at liberty to read that as a thousand years.

I don't read it as a thousand years for every instance where the Bible mentions a day. But "a day" in the Bible does not always mean a literal 24 hour day.
I suppose that insisting that the Bible must be read literally is the only way that you have to say that it is wrong however.
It is better to seek the true meaning of the Bible than to just seek to show that it is wrong.

 

[Brian2]

Can you provide a source of evidence for these 'vast oceans in the mantle of the Earth'?

New Evidence for Oceans of Water Deep in the Earth

Based in part on studies at Brookhaven Lab's National Synchrotron Light Source, researchers from Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico report evidence for the ingredients of water bound up in rock deep in Earth's mantle.

www.bnl.gov

I just read the reports from science. I have been seeing similar things for about 20 years, but it has become more certain recently with more research.

 

[Argentbear]

I suppose that for people who see the story as untrue and that there was no God who created a flood, there is no lesson to be learned in the story. There is no God teaching anything.
But yes, we are heading to destroying the earth and nature through our greed and stupidity. But I see this also as showing the truth of the Bible prophecies on what will happen to the earth.
It is important to see our greed and stupidity and to stop destroying the earth but it is more important to see the truth about God and the Bible and the judgement that God is bringing and the gospel message.
It is not just the earth that is being destroyed. Humans also need to be saved from their blindness and the judgement of God. The salvation of humans is more important.

So a myth about God destroying the earth and killing billions of animals and people is to be taken as a lesson to not destroy the earth?