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Those who claim that god could not have written into Genesis things that would not be understood by ignorant people ignore the fact that thre were already in existence much more accurate models than those outlined in the OT. Several hundred years before the christian canon was being decided upon, at which time there was surely the opportunity to honestly drop or rewrite Genesis, Plato's model of the solar system was far more sophisticated. That god 'inspired' a third-rate consmology even by ancient standards is telling. Plato has the stars attached to a firmament that is outside the solar system, although the model is not yet heliocentric.
See bottom of:
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec01.html
…noting on the way the Mesopotamian model that has two firmaments!Kejonn your post is relevant because it shows that the OT is composed of ancient mythology, and has no better than any other creation story. As we know, far from being unique and divine-inspired specifically for a chosen people, the OT myths are just copies from Balylonian and Mesopotamian ones. The reasons are entirely political.
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ April 09 2008,18:58) There was mention of the Too Hard Basket in another thread. There are many very good questions that have been asked in these fora for which no one has produced a good answer. Science has a Very Hard Basket and a We Think It Could Be Impossible Basket but no 'Too Hard Basket'. First item:
How did the Kiwi get from Mt. Ararat to Auckland after the supposed flood?
Stuart
This is not in the too hard basket at all. Far from it.http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/how-did-animals-spread
Quote (Is 1:18 @ April 24 2008,20:57) Quote (Stu @ April 09 2008,18:58) There was mention of the Too Hard Basket in another thread. There are many very good questions that have been asked in these fora for which no one has produced a good answer. Science has a Very Hard Basket and a We Think It Could Be Impossible Basket but no 'Too Hard Basket'. First item:
How did the Kiwi get from Mt. Ararat to Auckland after the supposed flood?
Stuart
This is not in the too hard basket at all. Far from it.http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/how-did-animals-spread
From that page: “Starting from our presupposition that the Bible’s account is true”…yep that's how apologetics seem to sound good to those who already believe in the “answer”.Hey, were there cobras, black widow spiders, scorpions, poison dart frogs, etc. on board as well?
From a better explanation that doesn't require the suspension of reason, try http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html
Quote This is not in the too hard basket at all. Far from it. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/how-did-animals-spread
stu, is it true that there were once lions in Israel. I can't believe that, because there are no fossils. Were there?
And what would this mean for our kiwi?
Quote Science accepts it could be wrong, but gives the best evidence-based theory it can. –stu
Just out of curiosity, what is science wrong about?
Science accepts it could be wrong, but it isn't ever wrong, until it is proven.
I accept the Bible “could” be wrong, but it isnt, until it is proven.
These seem very similar to me.
The difference is that science is wrong almost all the time. It's always changing what it knows is true. It's often wrong, but always getting closer to the truth. And then, when they discover they were wrong, it's like it was so obvious.
The Bible hasn't changed. People have changed how they interpret it. Often, their bias is obvious. But what the Bible actually says has not ever been proven to be wrong.
You can say on here that “you” think God is morally wrong because he condemns homosexuality, or you can say the Bible doesn't explain how the kiwi's got to where they are, or why their are no fossils of them anywhere else, but that doesn't actually “prove” anything. You do know that, right?Quote David, Colter tells us to look at the Urantia papers, they are very detailed, no vague allegories or symbolism. Your defense of the Genesis creation story would apply to them as well. So what is the difference?
Cato, I was referring to the flood account in genesis. To my knowledge, all the other accounts (including gilgamesh) seem fairy tale like and absurd. They all have a “once upon a time” thing going, and a let's get in the boat that's “cube” shaped. Day, month, year, place, duration, Noah's geneology, etc all suggest this is written as though it actually happened.Quote If you don’t know the answer, and I can show you evidence that says the bible cannot be right, –stu
I thought that's what you were attempting to do. My mistake.
Quote No scientists says that placing striped rods near cattle can affect cattle genetics. Your bible does. Where does it say that? Didn't you read further down where it says God did this?
What you're suggesting is that someone who knows more than you cannot do what you consider impossible, a miracle. That is absurd. How long have we even been studying genes and dna? If there is a creator, I think he would know how to manipulate them, as humans today are trying to figure out how to do.
Stu, if anyone from the past century, only a hundred years ago, would pop into our existence, most everything would be a miracle. Imagine if someone from 500 years ago were given a glimpse of the next 500 years. How would he understand that? Impossible.
What you are suggesting is basically that something is impossible BECAUSE you do not understand how it works.
But that is not a good reason for saying something is impossible.Quote Why is it a ‘false question’? Are you saying god did it all along? Are you playing your miracle trump card here, as prophesised by kejonn? That does not constitute an explanation. No, STU, I'm stating exactly what the Bible says, if you would have read down a little further. God was behind this. Hence, that's what THE BIBLE says it is. The BIBLE doesn't suggest this just happened by itself. Does it? No, so then that would make it a…. you guessed it…a miracle.
Your question was a false question because you are wrongly assuming God played no part, and the Bible indicates you are wrong in that assumption.
Moving on…
Quote I take it from your snide tone of voice that you don’t approve of carbon dating. Why not, do tell? “It is highly significant that, if the earth were either warmer at an earlier time or had more water in the atmosphere, [from, I don't know, the water canopy that fell during the flood] the C-14 clocks would slow down dramatically; that is, register longer periods of time than they should.”
Whereas scientists start with the assumption that there was no flood, I start with the assumption that there was.
Interestingly, they use carbon dating to prove there was no flood, but if there was a flood, would that not throw their figures off quite a bit?
Quote (Is 1:18 @ April 25 2008,13:57) Quote (Stu @ April 09 2008,18:58) There was mention of the Too Hard Basket in another thread. There are many very good questions that have been asked in these fora for which no one has produced a good answer. Science has a Very Hard Basket and a We Think It Could Be Impossible Basket but no 'Too Hard Basket'. First item:
How did the Kiwi get from Mt. Ararat to Auckland after the supposed flood?
Stuart
This is not in the too hard basket at all. Far from it.http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/how-did-animals-spread
The animals’ recolonization of the land masses was therefore determined by God, and not left to chance.
…God desired the ecological reconstruction of the world, including its vulnerable animal kinds, and the animals must have spread out from a mountainous region known as Ararat. One accusation thrown at biblical creationists is that kangaroos could not have hopped to Australia, because there are no fossils of kangaroos on the way. But the expectation of such fossils is a presuppositional error. Such an expectation is predicated on the assumption that fossils form gradually and inevitably from animal populations. In fact, fossilization is by no means inevitable. It usually requires sudden, rapid burial. Otherwise the bones would decompose before permineralization. One ought likewise to ask why it is that, despite the fact that millions of bison used to roam the prairies of North America, hardly any bison fossils are found there. Similarly, lion fossils are not found in Israel even though we know that lions once lived there.This is a particularly ironic one, given David’s pleading for the flood on the basis of it’s supposed appearance in so many cultures. There is no mention in any indigenous cultures other than Maori of kiwi, or indeed any fauna native to New Zealand.
A third explanation of possible later migration is that animals could have crossed land bridges. This is, after all, how it is supposed by evolutionists that many animals and people migrated from Asia to the Americas—over a land bridge at the Bering Straits. For such land bridges to have existed, we may need to assume that sea levels were lower in the post-Flood period—an assumption based on a biblical model of the Ice Age.
Land bridges need evidence. Just like most of Answers in Genesis, there is none presented. The kiwi did not need a bridge in order for its ancestor to settle in NZ. These people make up lies to cover the shortcomings of their absurd conjectures. What a joke they are. When I was studying I had cause to share a laboratory with a fellow student who is now one of the staffers at AiG. Let me tell you from personal experience, he is a very bright chap but is not interested in the scientific truth, only the bible. Land bridges would make the connection over the Bering Sea, but not anywhere else. Just look at a map of the sea floor to see where the mid-oceanic ridges lead. It is along the line half-way between the continents! Of course the creationist can always pull out the miracle trump card, as is done in the ‘determined by god’ part. No explanation here.
One proposed theory is that marsupials—because they bore their young in pouches—were able to travel farther and faster than mammals that had to stop to care for their young. They were able to establish themselves in far-flung Australia before competitors reached the continent.
Similar statements could be made about the many unusual bird species in New Zealand, on islands from which mammals were absent until the arrival of European settlers.Notice that there is no mention here of how flightless birds made it over many hundred kilometers of sea.
Can someone who is not laughing too hard at this, please point out to me the bit that explains how Kiwi got from Mt. Ararat to New Zealand. It says it will explain then it doesn’t.
Stuart
Quote (david @ April 25 2008,18:02) Quote This is not in the too hard basket at all. Far from it. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/how-did-animals-spread
stu, is it true that there were once lions in Israel. I can't believe that, because there are no fossils. Were there?
And what would this mean for our kiwi?
I don't know what it means for the Kiwi. Less chance of being eaten on its long walk back to NZ? It must have been pretty disoriented for it to have been removed from its habitat, put on a boat with unnatural predators with the concurrent risk of being eaten, then having to walk back through tropics to which it is decidedly poorly adapted and swim across shark-infested waters only to find there was nothing to eat when it got back to its utterly destoyed home environment. Unless worms can crawl faster than Kiwis can walk. It must have been pretty miserable having to carry all known kiwi-specific parasites with it too.Stuart
Hi David
Stu: Science accepts it could be wrong, but gives the best evidence-based theory it can.
Quote Just out of curiosity, what is science wrong about?
How would it know, until the new evidence comes to light? Are you genuinely confused, or are you being ‘cleverly’ rhetorical?Quote Science accepts it could be wrong, but it isn't ever wrong, until it is proven. I accept the Bible “could” be wrong, but it isnt, until it is proven. These seem very similar to me.
So what then when the bible is proven wrong? Do we do what science textbook editors do, and correct the wrong bits? Don’t remember that ever happening, do you? When NASA failed to bend a rocket nose-cone on a solid firmament, did anyone correct Genesis in their bible? When the Dalai Lama expressed his view (Buddhist, presumably) that the soul is imbued in a newborn child at the moment of ejaculation and was told by a biologist that it can take several days for the sperm to find the egg, he said “We must have been wrong then”. Christian fundamentalists are so self-assured in their mythology that they have lost all sense of when it might be wrong. Again and again such people here refuse to say how they distinguish between allegory and literal truth in the bible. That is why fundamentalism is dangerous, and christian fundamentalism a pitiful joke.Quote The difference is that science is wrong almost all the time. It's always changing what it knows is true. It's often wrong, but always getting closer to the truth. And then, when they discover they were wrong, it's like it was so obvious.
It is up to you to tell us what is wrong. Otherwise we use the provisional conclusions that science reaches to give you a warm house and a car and a computer and modern medicine and the latest in entertainment and space exploration and objective, unbiased knowledge about your origins. How wrong are those things? Is it not usually just that the new evidence places new sophistication on an idea that was approximately right already? That was exactly the manner in which Newton was ‘wrong’. Einstein’s work is important for the sub-atomic level and for very high speeds, but Newton is still right for everything humans do commonly. So, put up your objections with evidence. We are all ears.Quote The Bible hasn't changed. People have changed how they interpret it. Often, their bias is obvious. But what the Bible actually says has not ever been proven to be wrong.
I’m sorry? Flood? Solid Firmament? Biological evolution? The bible is so wrong it is indefensible, if you recall the title of the thread you are posting this in. Your bending of scripture hardly qualifies as literalism. You have to change the meanings of words to make it work. Otherwise it is as disproven as the flat earth model.Quote You can say on here that “you” think God is morally wrong because he condemns homosexuality, or you can say the Bible doesn't explain how the kiwi's got to where they are, or why their are no fossils of them anywhere else, but that doesn't actually “prove” anything. You do know that, right?
Science can certainly prove hypotheses wrong. The bible is disproven on scientific grounds on these points. You might be thinking of science proving positives, which it cannot do. My opinion about homosexuality is not negated by any evidence. The Levitican opinion that homosexuality is ‘an abomination’ is not supported by any specific definition of that word, or by any evidence.Stuart
Hi again David
Stu: No scientists says that placing striped rods near cattle can affect cattle genetics. Your bible does.
Quote Where does it say that? Didn't you read further down where it says God did this? Gen 30:39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.
Where does it mention god anywhere here? Your ‘god did it’ is buried in the next chapter, and ‘god did it’ is not an explanation anyway. Miracle trump cards explain nothing.Quote What you're suggesting is that someone who knows more than you cannot do what you consider impossible, a miracle. That is absurd. How long have we even been studying genes and dna? If there is a creator, I think he would know how to manipulate them, as humans today are trying to figure out how to do.
Can any biblical literalist explain it? No.Stu, if anyone from the past century, only a hundred years ago, would pop into our existence, most everything would be a miracle. Imagine if someone from 500 years ago were given a glimpse of the next 500 years. How would he understand that? Impossible.
Quote What you are suggesting is basically that something is impossible BECAUSE you do not understand how it works. But that is not a good reason for saying something is impossible.
I agree, and I think I should retract my use of the word ‘impossible’ there. All I am saying here is that biblical literalists can’t explain it, which is still true.Stu: Why is it a ‘false question’? Are you saying god did it all along? Are you playing your miracle trump card here, as prophesised by kejonn? That does not constitute an explanation.
Quote No, STU, I'm stating exactly what the Bible says, if you would have read down a little further. God was behind this. Hence, that's what THE BIBLE says it is. The BIBLE doesn't suggest this just happened by itself. Does it? No, so then that would make it a…. you guessed it…a miracle. So once again, at the risk of getting boring, you cannot explain this.
Quote Your question was a false question because you are wrongly assuming God played no part, and the Bible indicates you are wrong in that assumption.
I have made no assumptions about god at all. You are postulating something that you says explains fancy miraculous genetics, but it doesn’t explain anything without itself making an assumption. Read above for other uses of this assumption, especially the one highlighted by kejonn.Stuart
Quote “It is highly significant that, if the earth were either warmer at an earlier time or had more water in the atmosphere, [from, I don't know, the water canopy that fell during the flood] the C-14 clocks would slow down dramatically; that is, register longer periods of time than they should.”
Whereas scientists start with the assumption that there was no flood, I start with the assumption that there was.
Interestingly, they use carbon dating to prove there was no flood, but if there was a flood, would that not throw their figures off quite a bit?Would you like to elaborate on exactly the size of effect you would expect from a difference in the environment of a matter of some tens of days on the abundance or rate of decay of buried C14?
Stuart
Next question: How did the ark do what is claimed in Genesis?
1.A wooden boat half the length of the alleged ark would be reaching the stress limits of wood
as a building material, let alone one 450 feet long.2.To accommodate animals and food the ark is too small. Even if you limit it to the minimum ‘kinds’ there is no reasonable way to fit everything in.
3.Even a conservative calculation of the total mass of the animals and their food would have the ark exceed its buoyancy by 1/3. This ark would sink not long after it was half-filled.
The details of calculations are entertainingly outlined here:
http://groups.google.com/group….rnum=17
How did the ark do what is claimed in Genesis?
Stuart
Quote No scientists says that placing striped rods near cattle can affect cattle genetics. Your bible does. stu, I know you really, really, really WANT it to say that. But “burried in the next chapter” as you say, VERSE 9 to be specific, we are told that God did this. Yes, it is a miracle.
““In this way GOD has taken the stock from your father and given it to me. ” (Gen 31:9)
Quote Either you agree it is a factual account of a real event, or it is not. Are you saying this is a fable, not an historical record? I'm saying it's a miracle, I'm saying “God has” done this thing. If you want to call that playing the miracle card, then that is what I have done. But, THAT IS what the Bible says.
The Bible does not say this strange thing happened for no reason, and that it must be because conceiving near those different colored things. If it had just out of nowhere mentioned that as something that happened, yes,you'd be right. The Bible would be wrong.
But God was behind this, as the Bible states, buried, way down deep, a whole 10 or so verses later! Come on!
So, your argument I must believe is that if there was someone who created DNA, genes, the human body, etc, they wouldn't have the know how to play with these things.
Yet, humans are just beginning to play with these things. What do you think they'd be capable of in 50 years? And how would that compare with someone who created it in the first place?
Your thinking seems so small to me, so narrow. You argue essentially, is that this could not have happened because science has yet to understand dna perfectly, along with all the laws of the universe.Quote David, Colter tells us to look at the Urantia papers, they are very detailed, no vague allegories or symbolism. Your defense of the Genesis creation story would apply to them as well. So what is the difference?
Colter, I've never read them. Would you mind quoting them.
Quote 2. To accommodate animals and food the ark is too small. Even if you limit it to the minimum ‘kinds’ there is no reasonable way to fit everything in. Really stu? Which “kinds” were you referring to. Can I see your list.
Quote (Stu @ April 25 2008,19:22) Quote (david @ April 25 2008,18:02) Quote This is not in the too hard basket at all. Far from it. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/how-did-animals-spread
stu, is it true that there were once lions in Israel. I can't believe that, because there are no fossils. Were there?
And what would this mean for our kiwi?
I don't know what it means for the Kiwi. Less chance of being eaten on its long walk back to NZ? It must have been pretty disoriented for it to have been removed from its habitat, put on a boat with unnatural predators with the concurrent risk of being eaten, then having to walk back through tropics to which it is decidedly poorly adapted and swim across shark-infested waters only to find there was nothing to eat when it got back to its utterly destoyed home environment. Unless worms can crawl faster than Kiwis can walk. It must have been pretty miserable having to carry all known kiwi-specific parasites with it too.Stuart
So you do think there were lions in Israel?Quote When NASA failed to bend a rocket nose-cone on a solid firmament, did anyone correct Genesis in their bible? I don't remember ever seeing “solid firmament” in the Bible. One meaning of firmament is “sky” remember?
I think you somehow connect sky to something symbolic, obviously symoblic in Revelation and bent everything in sad and obvious ways to try to make the Bible incorrect.
Quote Would you like to elaborate on exactly the size of effect you would expect from a difference in the environment of a matter of some tens of days on the abundance or rate of decay of buried C14? 10 days? Is that how long the water canopy, or extra water was in the sky (“firmament” for you).
Quote (david @ April 28 2008,15:58) Quote David, Colter tells us to look at the Urantia papers, they are very detailed, no vague allegories or symbolism. Your defense of the Genesis creation story would apply to them as well. So what is the difference?
Colter, I've never read them. Would you mind quoting them.
Now you've really done it
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