The only answer I can find is "wind" (Genesis 8:1), which isn't in chapter 6, and doesn't explain a whole lot.
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Archeaological evidence for the Bible
- Thread starter Hope
- Start date
Hope
Princesinha
To anyone who's interested, I've found an interesting article that points out how so many people take for granted the accuracy of "dating" in geology. I bring this up, because so many people use modern-day dating as it relates to geology as "factual" evidence that contradicts the Flood.
Now, I'm not claiming that all scientists are wrong, or all young-earth creationists are correct-----I'm merely pointing out that we all have assumptions when it comes to this matter, and many who seek to discredit the Bible immediately point to the reports of "peer-reviewed" geologists as indubitable "facts."
As the saying goes, never believe everything you hear, or everything you read. Why are so many putting so much faith in these "peer-reviewed" scientists? If creationist scientists can be wrong (and I'm sure they often are), could not other scientists be wrong as well? Could people's blind trust in the "peer-reviewed" (another way of saying I'll stroke your back as long as you stroke mine) scientific community be just an excuse not to think for oneself?
Many Christians' so-called "blind faith" in the Bible is really no different than others' blind faith in scientists. If people can claim that the Word of God cannot be trusted because it was written by fallible humans, then how is trusting in the word of fallible scientists any different? Regardless of how one might argue for the "infallability" of the scientific method, such infallibility doesn't cancel out the fallibility of the scientists themselves. I just find this apparent double standard very interesting.
So, back to my original point. Here is that article about methods of dating:
Tas Walker's Biblical Geology - The dating game
Now, I'm not claiming that all scientists are wrong, or all young-earth creationists are correct-----I'm merely pointing out that we all have assumptions when it comes to this matter, and many who seek to discredit the Bible immediately point to the reports of "peer-reviewed" geologists as indubitable "facts."
As the saying goes, never believe everything you hear, or everything you read. Why are so many putting so much faith in these "peer-reviewed" scientists? If creationist scientists can be wrong (and I'm sure they often are), could not other scientists be wrong as well? Could people's blind trust in the "peer-reviewed" (another way of saying I'll stroke your back as long as you stroke mine) scientific community be just an excuse not to think for oneself?
Many Christians' so-called "blind faith" in the Bible is really no different than others' blind faith in scientists. If people can claim that the Word of God cannot be trusted because it was written by fallible humans, then how is trusting in the word of fallible scientists any different? Regardless of how one might argue for the "infallability" of the scientific method, such infallibility doesn't cancel out the fallibility of the scientists themselves. I just find this apparent double standard very interesting.
So, back to my original point. Here is that article about methods of dating:
Tas Walker's Biblical Geology - The dating game
gnostic
The Lost One
Oh, CRAP!
Another bl#@dy young earth creationism advocate.
Having put up with months of FFH's pseudo-science mumbo-jumbo topics, this topic is nothing more than promoting Young Earth Creationism.
None of the Young Earth Creationists have any real background in science, particularly if they are getting their qualifications from schools, such as Pacific International University (PIU).
PIU have been provided unaccredited qualifications. None of the these so-called teachers have qualifications to teach science, and yet they are giving away Bachelors, PhDs, Masters, etc to anyone who can buy these qualifications. The "teachers" have absolute no right to call themselves "professors" and "doctors". A university that is not recognised by either Council for Higher Education Accreditation or United States Department of Education, so they really shouldn't giving out such qualifications to people.
I don't mind being open-minded, but if you are asking me to take YECs seriously, then I think you are asking too much. FFH have already shown what sort of absurdity that YECs teach in their brand of so-called scientific discovery. I am disappointed that you want us to read more of the same craps, Hope.
Seriously, I would prefer literal Creationists to Young Earth Creationists any day. At least Creationists don't make silly nonsense of "1 day of creation" equals "1000 years". Or that Eden is on US soil. Only some silly American Christians could make up such load of craps. YECs take the Bible out of context right to science fiction.
Another bl#@dy young earth creationism advocate.
Having put up with months of FFH's pseudo-science mumbo-jumbo topics, this topic is nothing more than promoting Young Earth Creationism.
None of the Young Earth Creationists have any real background in science, particularly if they are getting their qualifications from schools, such as Pacific International University (PIU).
PIU have been provided unaccredited qualifications. None of the these so-called teachers have qualifications to teach science, and yet they are giving away Bachelors, PhDs, Masters, etc to anyone who can buy these qualifications. The "teachers" have absolute no right to call themselves "professors" and "doctors". A university that is not recognised by either Council for Higher Education Accreditation or United States Department of Education, so they really shouldn't giving out such qualifications to people.
I don't mind being open-minded, but if you are asking me to take YECs seriously, then I think you are asking too much. FFH have already shown what sort of absurdity that YECs teach in their brand of so-called scientific discovery. I am disappointed that you want us to read more of the same craps, Hope.
Seriously, I would prefer literal Creationists to Young Earth Creationists any day. At least Creationists don't make silly nonsense of "1 day of creation" equals "1000 years". Or that Eden is on US soil. Only some silly American Christians could make up such load of craps. YECs take the Bible out of context right to science fiction.
I tried to read that, but overdosed on ad hominem.
Hope, how many instances can you recall of any historical source describing every compass on Earth spontaneously pointing in the opposite direction?
Given what you know of geology and plate tectonics, how long do you think it would take the continents to complete one cycle of drifting together, then drifting apart to something close to their present positions?
Hope
Princesinha
I'm neither a young earth nor an old earth creationist. I am a creationist, that's all. I don't know enough to claim to be either, and I have stated in previous posts that it doesn't affect my faith either way, young earth or old earth. So jump all over me all you want.
I wrote the previous post because of the double standard I see being used by those opposed to the Bible, and because I think it's worth considering the methods used for 'dating, instead of assuming they are always correct. All I'm trying to do here is keep an open mind, and encouraging others to do the same.
So you are welcome to jump to whatever conclusions you want to about me.....but I'm not bothered a bit, because they are your conclusions only.
rojse
RF Addict
I'm neither a young earth nor an old earth creationist. I am a creationist, that's all. I don't know enough to claim to be either, and I have stated in previous posts that it doesn't affect my faith either way, young earth or old earth. So jump all over me all you want.
I wrote the previous post because of the double standard I see being used by those opposed to the Bible, and because I think it's worth considering the methods used for 'dating, instead of assuming they are always correct. All I'm trying to do here is keep an open mind, and encouraging others to do the same.
So you are welcome to jump to whatever conclusions you want to about me.....but I'm not bothered a bit, because they are your conclusions only.
Young earth creationists believe that the earth was literally created six thousand years ago, as described in the bible, by God. Old earth creationists believe that God created the earth, but the "days" used are actually many, many years, and the earth is actually four and a half billion years old, as science has proven.
Hope
Princesinha
Hope
Princesinha
I tried to read that, but overdosed on ad hominem.
Sorry. I have the same problem when trying to read articles by atheists.
I confess I don't know too much about plate tetonics. Please enlighten me.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
O.K. then, I'll answer the question. Nowhere, because there was never any flood.
Thin regions of fossils, soils and rock on the western edge of Europe and Africa match those that are widespread in the Americas, but nowhere else in Europe or Africa, and thin regions of fossils, soils and rock on the easter edge of the Americas match those that are widespread in Europe and Africa, but occur nowhere else in the Americas.
The best (and IMO, the only plausible) explanation so far is that the continents started apart, drifted together, separated (generally along the original line, but not completely perfectly), and drifted apart to their present position at least once, if not several times. This puts a lower limit on the age of the Earth at however long it would take for all this to happen, PLUS the time it would take from the Earth to form from a big molten ball to a planet with a solid crust complete with continents to do the drifting back and forth.
The question I asked about compasses refers to the phenomenon of geomagnetic reversal (i.e. flipping of the magnetic poles - north becomes south and south becomes north), which we know occurs because of the crystal structures of igneous rocks (i.e. rocks formed from molten material), which are aligned with the Earth's magnetic field at the time the rock formed.
We can find clear evidence of hundreds* of geomagnetic reversals occurring many times throughout Earth's history, but none have occurred since humans discovered magnetism. Now, these are not evidence for a particular age of the Earth by themselves, but if we had to force all these reversals into a few million years, say, we'd expect that several times in human history, every compass would have spontaneously pointed in the opposite direction. If the Young Earth Creationist claims are true and the Earth is only a few thousand years old, the problem becomes magnified: everyone would be able to hear from their grandparents the story of the day they witnessed the poles flip, just as they had heard a similar story from their grandparents, who heard one from theirs, and so on.
*Edit: more, actually, but out best record of this phenomenon is the sea floor, the oldest of which is only 100 million years old or so because of the way sea floor constantly wells up from mid-ocean spreading ridges, then slides along and is finally subducted underneath a continental plate and re-melted. As a consequence, our best record is only for the last 100 million years of this phenomenon. Within that period, there were about 200 geomagnetic reversals.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Tas Walker is not a geologist. He's an engineer.
What I have faith in is the scientific method itself. I have faith in it because of its long track record of success. In short, it works. So I have confidence in the conclusions drawn from it not as being inerrant, perfect, or absolute, but as being the best state of our knowledge at the present time. It is not infallible, it's just the best we've got. Scientists are fallible, but if they use the scientific method they will contribute to and advance our knowledge. The best state of our knowledge at the present time is that there has never been any worldwide flood. This comes from the entire field of geology, not just because of radiometric dating, but because of everything we know about the earth and how it works. It also comes from biology, paleontology and archeology. All the evidence from every field that has looked at it is that there has never been any such flood. Chief problems:
1. There is not enough water on earth, including the oceans, the atmosphere and underground, to flood the entire planet. The quantity of water on earth is finite and does not appreciably increase or decrease.
2. There is no global sedimentary layer indicating a flood deposit.
3. There is not a layer of fossils all over the world from the same date that would have been laid down during a flood.
4. It is not possible to build a boat of that length out of wood and have it float and not break up. If it were possible, a fundamentalist literalist Christian would have done it, to demonstrate feasibility, just like Kon Tiki. They don't do it because engineers tell us it can't be done.
5. Ocean animals die if the water is not salty enough.;
6. Freshwater animals die if the water is too salty.
7. How many animals do you think they put on the ark? 10,000? That's an awful lot of animals. Try to picture it: elephants, kangaroos, hippos, pythons, 10,000 of them, on a wooden boat. We don't even know how many species there are in the world, since biologists are constantly discovering new ones, but right now we know of around 12 million. Say there's only 20,000,000 and half of those are animals and half of those live on land. (very rough numbers) So in the last 6000 years, 5 million species evolved from 5000? Do you see the problem? We'd have new species popping up every 5 minutes. You'd see them on your kitchen table. It would be inescapable. Further, evolution doesn't happen that fast. That would be like some kind of hyper-mega-uber evolution that could be observed in real time, and isn't. If evolution is not possible, how can it be possible at that kind of speeded up rate? It doesn't make sense.
Either you had fewer animals, which makes it worse, or more, and there's no way to fit them on the ark.
8. What about the plants???? Millions of plants, all under water.
9. Those darned Chinese people who forgot to notice they were underwater.
and so on and so forth.
It's obviously a creation myth, such as every culture has. They contain methaphorical, psychological truths and poetry, but not scientific fact. It's no more accurate than the Japanese myth, in which a male and female deity look down from the bridge over the earth, or the Chinese, in which the first God grows within the cosmic egg, etc. etc. They're all equally myths, interesting, beautiful, but to treat them as if they were fact is just--I don't know what word to use. Primitive?
The story is so obviously impossible and mythical that I hardly know how to talk to someone who takes it as a true story.
What you are saying, in effect, is that science is not the best way to learn about the natural world. This is very scary to me, as it is only through science that we have fought our way to knowing as much as we do about the world, and learned how to make technology to adapt to it better. When people talk about rejecting that, and going back to a Medieval approach to learning, it frightens me. There's a reason they were called the Dark Ages. Yes, the Church was in control, but, especially to me as a Jew and an atheist, that was not a good thing. And from the point of view of scientific progress, it was a horrific step backwards.
I also find it very ironic when people use their computers to decry the scientific approach to knowledge. It makes me want to urge them to get out their vellum and quill pens and copy off what they want to say, then carry it to all their readers. Obviously, without science, you don't get a computer to criticize science on?
The thing about the scientific method is, you can't pick and choose. It either works or it doesn't. What's your opinion, does it work, or doesn't it?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Further, Hope, do you want to reduce your religion to a primitive myth system? Or do you want it to work in today's world as a source of faith and understanding about God and His relationship to humanity? What I'm getting at is that Noah's flood, YEC, etc. are easily disprovable, and have been disproven by science. God, Jesus, salvation, are not disprovable and have not been disproven. If you hook your faith system to the former, then you have to throw them out the window when the latter is disproven, which they have been. [the only way to escape this fact is to reject science itself, which is even worse IMO.] So it is wiser to unhook your religion from science and not try to use the Bible as a science book. As I said, if you are diagnosed with leprosy, consult a doctor, not a priest to sacrifice the right birds in the right order.
rojse
RF Addict
You make an excellent point with your remarks about magnetic pole reversal, but you neglected to mention that while they are in the process of reversing (takes hundreds, if not thousands, of years), we are wide open to any radiation damage from solar flares, which occur fairly frequently in space. To survive radiation, you need to live inside several-metre thick walls of lead, for example, or you need to live in a magnetic field, like we do, which protects us from this radiation.
Hope
Princesinha
I'm not sure why you have such an axe to grind with the Christian faith, but rest assured, you have no idea how much I've read, and am still reading, in order to enlighten myself with regards to why I believe what I do. One of the reasons I started this thread was to get my mind "out of a box" so to speak. I make no claims to have all the answers, nor do I have a scientific background. I'm simply endeavoring to understand others' points of view, and to better understand my own. I've learned so much already from many very bright people (yourself included) on this forum, and I'm humbled by my own lack of knowledge in many areas compared to the knowledge of others. The cool thing is that these debates have challenged me to really be more informed than I already am.
However, the interesting thing I've noted in these debates is that "blind faith" is not limited to Bible-believing Christians. I've pointed this out already. I have just as much skepticism for strict Biblical literalists as I do for those who put all their faith in science, and accept it dogmatically. I don't believe the Bible is a science book. However, its validity is very important to me, because if it isn't trustworthy, then the God I believe in isn't trustworthy. I don't expect the Bible to give me scientific insight; but I do believe that ultimately science will not contradict it.
Science is always changing, theories are always changing, new discoveries are constantly being made.....so for people to claim that science conclusively proves or disproves everything is a very premature statement. There are certain things it cannot prove at all. You and many other people are merely substituting religion with science, whether you realize it or not. I'm not rejecting science at all in making that statement----I believe science is vitally important to understanding our physical world----but I'm pointing out that science has its limits. Science, for many people, has become "god."
So, while I'm doing my best to really think outside of my normal "box", to really examine all the theories and scientific data out there, I feel as if those whose total faith is in science aren't willing to get out of their "box" and look at things differently as well. I don't understand why we can't meet halfway at least, instead of people of faith doing all the work. Both sides have blindspots, and if each side is truly interested in discovering the truth, then they can both work together to see the whole picture.
rojse
RF Addict
The very things that you rail against about science is why I like it so much.
I like the fact that scientists always test their beliefs. I like that scientists challenge eachother's results. I like the fact that science can admit it was wrong. I like the fact that science becomes more accurate as we learn more. If we have to discard theories that we thought were correct but were wrong, that is good too - we have removed old dogma and replaced it with something that is more accurate, describes the world more correctly, and covers a wider variety of situations.
Your complaint that some people have blind faith in science may be correct for a minority, but many of the people that highly regard scientific ideas and processes tend to do research into the areas that they are interested in. I have an interest in evolution, for example, so I have done a lot of personal research into that subject, not merely accepting common knowledge of the subject. I am sure that this is the same case for many of the people that staunchly defend scientific process, too.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Good for you, Hope, I commend you. If you look at the post you are quoting very carefully, you will see that I am trying to save the Christian religion. Do you see what I'm getting at? If Christianity = flood, you have a problem, because the flood didn't happen. So that would mean no Christianity. So by proposing to you that Christianity doesn't have to include such a primitive, superstitious and false belief, it becomes possible to save it.
Well, that depends. If you take your Bible as telling you (just for an example) that flood happened, again you have a problem. Science contradicts it. So then you'd have to choose: your Bible vs. Science. If you choose your Bible, please give up your computer. But if you can read your Bible so as not to require you to believe that, or that the earth is 10,000 years old, then you don't have to make such a choice.
Science can't prove anything. Ever. Science is not about proof. Saying goes: proof is for whiskey. Nothing in science is 100% certain--that's not how science works. Science is about evidence. There's always some degree of uncertainty, or looking at it differently, a degree of certainty. When you reach a certain point, you consider it so certain as to be as close as we can get to knowing something.
Of course science has limits. In fact, it is very, very, limited. And it's also the best we've got. We've gotten pretty darn far with it, wouldn't you agree? You wouldn't want to try to do without it, would you? Neither would I. That's why I want people to respect and defend it within its sphere, which is the natural world. One of science's limits is that it has absolutely nothing to say about God. If there is a God, or if there is not, science will not and cannot tell us. As a person of faith, you can continue to have faith, with science, and as a person without, I can continue to do without, also with science. What I'm saying is that science and any true religion are not in conflict.
Good for you. I have looked at the other box quite hard, and as a result, do not believe that faith is a good way to decide things. However, that is a separate discussion entirely, because what we do know is that science is the best way to learn about the natural world--do you agree or disagree?
A
angellous_evangellous
Guest
Hmm... given that life on Earth did survive through countless geomagnetic reversals, I tend to think that you're a bit too worried about the effect. Yes, it'd be unpleasant (and quite likely fatal) for the individual organisms subjected to the radiation of a solar flare, but the paleontological record indicates that life did go on.
It'd be interesting, though, to compare the fossil record with the geomagnetic reversal record and see if there are any correlations... higher-than-normal numbers of extinctions during the reversal period, for example.
sandy whitelinger
Veteran Member
That's not a scriptural position.
sandy whitelinger
Veteran Member
The water came from the "deep" and from the "windows of heaven." The water returned from where it came. Very simple.