The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

Well to me the important bit is that there is little reason to suspect that this was an act of God, though it certainly makes sense that the people of these communities would justify and explain it in those terms.

Better take that up with someone who takes a literal approach to the story of Noah and the Great Flood, as told in the Bible.

prinz

Woger wrote: »

There are alot of flood myths form all over the world which more than likely resulted from large scale flooding resulting from the end of the last ice age around 12,000 - 15,000 years ago. Did Noahs Ark stop of in Australia (on his way back to Turkey/Armenia) just to leave kangaroos there?

The kangaroos and koalas took a life boat off the coast of Yemen, and went their own way. Apparently all was not well below deck between them and the polar bears.

Apologies to the Mods, not trying to belittle anything/anyone's beliefs. Just it's the weekend and I'm feeling lighthearted.

gaynorvader

Wicknight wrote: »

Well to me the important bit is that there is little reason to suspect that this was an act of God, though it certainly makes sense that the people of these communities would justify and explain it in those terms.

That was rather my point, that the Bible, while not literally true, has, like many stories, a small grain of truth to it. Not exactly proof of God's existence, but room for doubt from either viewpoint.(God does/does not exist)

2Scoops

wolfsbane wrote: »

I'm sure philosophers can be an embarrassment, poking around in search of truth, maybe lifting the lid and shining a light on things one might not like examined.

Yeah, teaching non-science in a science class is an embarrassment. :pac:

Maybe we should 'teach the controversy' in church as well? Show them all the non-existent evidence in favour of creationism? And explain why the Bible is just a story and all that?

wolfsbane

2Scoops wrote: »

Yeah, teaching non-science in a science class is an embarrassment. :pac:

Maybe we should 'teach the controversy' in church as well? Show them all the non-existent evidence in favour of creationism? And explain why the Bible is just a story and all that?

If Christianity were just another philosophy, seeking the Truth, then you would be right. Since it has the Truth, it would be foolish to teach Truth and Error.

All Christianity needs to do is strive to fully grasp and obey all the truth the Bible reveals.

wolfsbane

Mark Hamill said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Things are moral or they are not. My understaning of them may be imperfect and be a mitigating circumstance, but it still remains immoral if I do it.
You yourself have said that everything god does is inherently moral, so does that mean if i did everything god did, i would be moral? If i ordered the complete annihilation of a group of people? If i set bears on some youths who where insulting an old mans baldness? What if i ordered everyone to worship me as their only true god?

No, for you are not entitled to be treated as God. For example, it is moral for a judge to commit a criminal to jail, and for the prison officer to forcibly put him behind the bars - but it would not be moral for you to do so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Adam did not need to be able to fly or time-travel to exercise his free-will.
Peoples freewill is determined by there imagination. If someone doesn't think they can do something, or has no knowledge of something, then their freewill may not be directed at doing that. If your will is not informed then it is not fully free.

Adam & Eve knew it was forbidden to eat of the fruit. They did not need to know Gordon Brown would be my Prime Minister as I write this, for them to exercise free-will in choosing to eat the fruit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Yes, it all depends on what one means by free-will. God does not have free-will in the sense Adam had. God is not able to sin. But He can do anything that is consistent with His perfectly holy nature.
God is not able to sin because to sin would be to go against god and he is not going to that himself, he needed to create some other things to sin so that he could punish them.

Why is that a better explanation than Him wanting to create a free-will creation? Because it suits you to portray God as creating evil?

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Adam could not speak a universe into being, as God did. Yet most people will agree that Adam's ability to decide and do good or evil was free-will.
So now freewill is subjective? And i think most people would think that Adams ability to decide between good and evil was not freewill, as god would not allow Adam knowledge of good and evil (wouldn't allow him to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil) and would tell adam what he could and could not do.

No, free-will is not subjective. I was just pointing out that your definition of it might not be shared by most. But you could be right; maybe most people think Adam, Eve and all since have no free-will. In my discussions, I have found the opposite.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Because he was free to do so. He was not like us, prone to sin - yet he chose to do so. The ability is not sinful, the decision to do so is.
But adam had a sinless nature so why would he sin?

It is the nature of free-will to be able to do what one is not compelled to do. He chose to follow his wife's example. Eve was deceived, and chose to believe Satan over God.

If he was not prone to sinful, had no sin in his nature then why was he punished when he was tricked by the serpent into eating from the tree? Where is the sin in being tricked by the devil, a far more powerful creation than him?

Because they knew what God had said, and all the lies of Satan should not have persuaded them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Yes, if that's how one defines free-will. That's why I always have to give more than a YES or NO to the question, Do you believe we have free-will? I prefer to say our will is free to make the moral choice our natures desire. Because the sinner has a sinful nature, they will by nature never choose to love and obey God.
But we are all sinners, as a result of original sin, therefore we will never choose god by nature, so therefore those that supposedly do choose god aren't really choosing god, they are using the outward appearance of choosing god to accomplishment something for their sinful nature, or they are going against their god given nature, which must be a sin in itself.

No, those who choose God have already had their sinful nature replaced by God with a regenerated nature - a nature that loves God and is therefore willing to repent and believe.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
The circumstances do not make us sin. We sin because we are sinners by nature. And God did not give us sinful natures; we got them from our originator, Adam.
The circumstances, when created by an ominpotent and omniscient god who knows we will sin, do make us sin.

We must disagree on that.

EDITED TO ADD:
When an omnipotent and omniscient being creates a set of circumstances, it does so knowing the outcome.

Agreed.

Therefore the being desires the outcome, otherwise it would not allow it to be.

The absolute ultimate outcome, without necessarily desiring all the steps between.

The natures of any other individual involved are merely part of the circumstances, and the all-powerful entity uses the natures (which it created in the first place) as a part of the circumstances to get whichever desired outcome it wants. the circumstances (including the natures) are made, on purpose, to create sin (if that was the outcome) because every outcome that actually happens is desired by an omnipotent omniscient being, should one exist.

Again, not necessarily. All that is required is the ultimate outcome. God is able to overule all sinful choices He permits to occur, even though they are against His desires for our conduct.

wolfsbane

AtomicHorror wrote: »

So? Why does the evidence-free, personal opinion of anyone matter? ID is refuted conclusively by science. Science is not about weighing up the opinions of a variety of authority figures. Mind you, if you were to apply that concept evenly you'd still end up accepting evolution, albeit for completely the wrong reasons.

So, why no love for my explanation of the tree of life? You answered pretty much everyone else and J C has gone all quiet on me again.

The fact that I have answered so many posts both on this and other threads is the reason I haven't dealt with the more scientific issues yet. That is not my field, as you know, so I am reading up a bit on the creationist explanations. Hope to be back to you over the weekend.

wolfsbane

Galvasean said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
I can't see anything wrong with punishing the wicked. I'm sure you agree. It's just that you and God have a different take on the gravity of man's wickedness.

I also think it's a bit rich that he created evil, knowing that people would do it and then punishes them- which was my point.

God did not create evil - which is my point.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Have you considered that God might be right, and you wrong?
Nice argument from authority there.
Have you ever considered that I might be real, and God might not be?

I have, but the evidence is overwhelming for the reality of you both.

It is also overwhelmingly for God being right and you being wrong.

Zombrex

gaynorvader wrote: »

That was rather my point, that the Bible, while not literally true, has, like many stories, a small grain of truth to it. Not exactly proof of God's existence, but room for doubt from either viewpoint.(God does/does not exist)

I don't think anyone imagines that the authors of the Bible were living in New Zealand just making up wild and crazy stories about some far off place in the Middle East. The Bible is an attempt for the people of the time to explain, in the only way they knew how, the natural events that were happening around them.

They did what most other cultures did, put them within the context of human like supernatural agents who caused things to happen for human like reasons (love, anger, justice). Out of that emerged stories about "God" who caused events to happen for this reason or that. This is because they didn't understand about tidal movement, soil erosion, rain fall cycles. It was easier for them to understand if it was put in the context of god X did Y because of human emotion Z

So I wouldn't see the fact that these stories relate back to actual events as particularly surprising. It would be more surprising if we never found any record of a local flood, and we had to imagine that the authors of these stories completely invented the idea.

wolfsbane

Woger wrote: »

There are alot of flood myths form all over the world which more than likely resulted from large scale flooding resulting from the end of the last ice age around 12,000 - 15,000 years ago. Did Noahs Ark stop of in Australia (on his way back to Turkey/Armenia) just to leave kangaroos there?

The separation of the continents and natural selection is the likely reason for the unique varities of life in several parts of the world. Check the creationist sites for fuller explanations of this.

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

It was the Black Sea actually

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory

It provides geological evidence for where a myth such as the Biblical Flood could have come from, but of course this isn't evidence for the Biblical Flood itself. This flood rise in sea level would have been devastating to communities living in the area but it certainly didn't wipe out all human kind. There is no evidence that such an evident happened, and given that we know about near extinctions of humans thanks to things like genetic studies, if such an event had happened there really should be.

The Black Sea event would not account for the Biblical Flood being an accurate account. One must reject it as mistaken or look elsewhere than the Black Sea.

Since the whole earth bears record of being submerged at some time - the dating is in dispute - and there is (correct me if I'm wrong) evidence of a genetic bottleneck, that is something to support the Biblical account.

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

Better take that up with someone who takes a literal approach to the story of Noah and the Great Flood, as told in the Bible.

I'm some what confused?

If this event happened, or at least an event that was turned into a more elaborate myth, but the event was nothing to do with God, then why would the Bible have it in it as a metaphor for God?

That would be like my house burning down and my local priest saying "See, God is vengeful! I'm not saying he burnt down your house. In fact I don't think he had anything to do with your house burning down. But the fire can be seen as a metaphor for God's wrath"

Which would a bit silly. If the fire had nothing to do with God then you can't read anything about God from the fire.

Likewise with the Flood. If the Flood actually took place on a smaller scale, but was nothing to do with God, you can't read any interpretation about God from the story. If the Flood story's origins are natural then you lose any metaphor from it.

So why is it in the Bible? And why do Christians, including yourself if I understand correctly, read from the story insights into how God is supposed to be?

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

I'm some what confused?

If this event happened, or at least an event that was turned into a more elaborate myth, but the event was nothing to do with God, then why would the Bible have it in it as a metaphor for God?

That would be like my house burning down and my local priest saying "See, God is vengeful! I'm not saying he burnt down your house. In fact I don't think he had anything to do with your house burning down. But the fire can be seen as a metaphor for God's wrath"

Which would a bit silly. If the fire had nothing to do with God then you can't read anything about God from the fire.

Likewise with the Flood. If the Flood actually took place on a smaller scale, but was nothing to do with God, you can't read any interpretation about God from the story. If the Flood story's origins are natural then you lose any metaphor from it.

So why is it in the Bible? And why do Christians, including yourself if I understand correctly, read from the story insights into how God is supposed to be?

Sorry, I didn't realise a metaphor/allegory now had to relate directly to what it represents to be valid..... when did this happen?

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

The Black Sea event would not account for the Biblical Flood being an accurate account. One must reject it as mistaken or look elsewhere than the Black Sea.

Nothing accounts for the Biblical Flood as it is written in the Bible. There is no known amount of water on or in Earth that could ever cover the planet in water. If there was the Earth would be covered in water.

In fact the term "flood" doesn't make any sense in the context of a world wide covering of water (this would not have occured to the original authors who did not understand that the Earth was round) since a flood is a movement of water from one place to another. If the Earth was to be covered in water there is no where for the water to come from

But this is probably a discussion for the Creation thread. I agree with you that a flooding of the Black Sea coast line would not in anyway account for the story as described in the Bible. I imagine that this myth, like most myths based on fact, was greatly embellished as it was passed down orally from generation to generation. The original version of the story could have more closely described the events of a coastline flooding, but as it was told from father to son to grandson details were added to make the story more dramatic until eventually, hundreds of years later, it was incorporated into the early Hebrew religious stories.

wolfsbane wrote: »

Since the whole earth bears record of being submerged at some time - the dating is in dispute - and there is (correct me if I'm wrong) evidence of a genetic bottleneck, that is something to support the Biblical account.

There is evidence of a genetic bottlenecks but they have the total human population going down to possibly as low as 5 or 10 thousand humans, not 6. If humans had decreased this small amount it should be startlingly evident in the genetic record of all humans through out the world. It isn't. But I suppose when you are dealing with the supernatural you can't say anything for certain, God could have fiddled with our genes to make it look otherwise (why not)

We can also trace these bottle necks back far before human society developed the type of culture described in Genesis, such as modern(ish) tools for ship building. The technology required for the Genesis story of the Ark emerged with in the last 10,000 years of human existence, where as the last identifiable bottle necks in humans took place approx 70,000 years ago (interestingly enough roughly around the time geologists suspect a super volcano exploded in Asia)

So while there is genetic records of human bottle necks that reduce human population significantly, and these can be roughly correlated with know or suspected natural events, there is no evidence that within the last 10,000 years the human population was reduced to a small handful of survivors. And if this happened there should be. But again the supernatural you can't say anything, God could have simply fiddled the numbers.

Not sure where you got the idea that there is geological evidence that the world was under water at one point (I'm guessing AnswersInGenesis). Billions of years ago a large amount of the Earth was under water, but then you don't accept any geology that supposes the world was even around billions of years ago?

Zombrex

prinz wrote: »

Sorry, I didn't realise a metaphor/allegory now had to relate directly to what it represents to be valid..... when did this happen?

No that is exactly my point. A metaphor doesn't relate to something that actually happens because it is trying to make a point about something. And if the something has nothing to do with the event in the metaphor then it can't. Real natural events don't have points. If the point of the flood story was to make a point about God's mercy what is it doing being based on an actually event that had nothing to do with God?

That was my point with the story about my house burning down. For the priest to say that my house burning down is a metaphor for God's wrath when God had nothing to do with my house burning down is silly. If God had nothing to do with my house burning down then my house burning down doesn't tell us anything about God.

How can the story of the flood be a metaphor about how God is or how he behaves if a flood actually happened but was natural and had nothing to do with God?

It is just an event, it has no message or point. It is not a metaphor, it is just something that happened. And since God had nothing to do with it you can't infer anything about God from this event, even if the primitive people of the time did think their god was angry at them.

If would be like saying you can infer from the story about an ice cream truck crashing that God doesn't like ice cream, even though you know that the story is based on a real truck that crashed because it was snowing and this had nothing to do with God.

MatthewVII

wolfsbane wrote: »

Galvasean said:
God did not create evil - which is my point.

Wouldn't it make sense though that evil was created as a byproduct of creation, which God foresaw and could have changed but chose not to? For example, not creating Lucifer since he knew how things would turn out would have been decent of him.

prinz

Wicknight wrote: »

No that is exactly my point. A metaphor doesn't relate to something that actually happens because it is trying to make a point about something. And if the something has nothing to do with the event in the metaphor then it can't. Real natural events don't have points. If the point of the flood story was to make a point about God's mercy what is it doing being based on an actually event that had nothing to do with God?

That was my point with the story about my house burning down. For the priest to say that my house burning down is a metaphor for God's wrath when God had nothing to do with my house burning down is silly. If God had nothing to do with my house burning down then my house burning down doesn't tell us anything about God.

How can the story of the flood be a metaphor about how God is or how he behaves if a flood actually happened but was natural and had nothing to do with God?

It is just an event, it has no message or point. It is not a metaphor, it is just something that happened. And since God had nothing to do with it you can't infer anything about God from this event, even if the primitive people of the time did think their god was angry at them.

If would be like saying you can infer from the story about an ice cream truck crashing that God doesn't like ice cream, even though you know that the story is based on a real truck that crashed because it was snowing and this had nothing to do with God.

I'm still not getting your point, I'm trying though. In my opinion the story of the great flood, probably originating at some time in an actual flood, but imo the Noah story isn't based on any actual person or historic event, I see it as a metaphor, not only for God, but for the destruction,near extinction, and regrowth etc on Earth. I see at as an attempt to write in story form, a explanation on the history of the world, and God's role in that. So why can I not see it as a metaphor? Shakespearean works are permeated with weather reflecting the mental states of his protagonists, King Lear for example. But your mental state doesn't affect the weather so is that not possible now?

robindch

wolfsbane wrote: »

The separation of the continents and natural selection is the likely reason for the unique varities of life in several parts of the world.

Oops -- watch out! You're believing the wrong thing here!

You've just described Peripatric speciation, one of the principal ways in which evolution does its magic.

I'm sure the Bearded Buffoon has produced something thoroughly misleading upon the topic!

2Scoops

wolfsbane wrote: »

JC is a scientist. Deal with it.

A scientist without any science in favour of creationism. Seems to limit himself to quotes and bawdy humour these days...

gaynorvader

prinz wrote: »

I'm still not getting your point, I'm trying though. In my opinion the story of the great flood, probably originating at some time in an actual flood, but imo the Noah story isn't based on any actual person or historic event, I see it as a metaphor, not only for God, but for the destruction,near extinction, and regrowth etc on Earth. I see at as an attempt to write in story form, a explanation on the history of the world, and God's role in that. So why can I not see it as a metaphor? Shakespearean works are permeated with weather reflecting the mental states of his protagonists, King Lear for example. But your mental state doesn't affect the weather so is that not possible now?

I think you and Wickinight are arguing two different points. Wickinight is arguing that a story in which it is admitted God had no direction over cannot be used to show God's 'ways' (ie. the way in which God works). But you are saying that the story isn't really about the flood, but about how God cut the human race down to smaller numbers and the flood story is just a metaphor for this ( perhaps the volcano as anyone hearing about debris falling from the sky and clouds of smoke, who haven't seen a volcano erupt are going to think rain ). You seem to be saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that noah, his family and the animals represent all the animals, and humans that survived, the ark represents God's protection of these beings(ie.God's compassion) and the flood represents the catatrophe (ie. God's cleansing/wrath) , all metaphors.

wolfsbane

gaynorvader wrote: »

I think you and Wickinight are arguing two different points. Wickinight is arguing that a story in which it is admitted God had no direction over cannot be used to show God's 'ways' (ie. the way in which God works). But you are saying that the story isn't really about the flood, but about how God cut the human race down to smaller numbers and the flood story is just a metaphor for this ( perhaps the volcano as anyone hearing about debris falling from the sky and clouds of smoke, who haven't seen a volcano erupt are going to think rain ). You seem to be saying (correct me if I'm wrong) that noah, his family and the animals represent all the animals, and humans that survived, the ark represents God's protection of these beings(ie.God's compassion) and the flood represents the catatrophe (ie. God's cleansing/wrath) , all metaphors.

I think Wicknight has the argument.

If the Flood was merely a natural event, then no truth about God can be argued from it. One could use it as an illustration of an ultimate Judgment to come - all-encompassing, separating saint from sinner, etc. - but one's information about the coming Judgment would have to be based on some other revelation. If the Biblical account of the Flood is only a metaphor, were is the revelation which it is supposed to support?

In the Old Testament there is an historical narrative presentation from the creation of the heavens and earth in Genesis 1 through to the return from the Exile in Babylon. Nowhere in this does it give the suggestion that history has been dropped and metaphor begun. When one starts interpreting what is presented as history as metaphor, one has no way of telling which is which.

Was there an Eden? Were Adam & Eve real people? Noah? Abraham? Moses? Was there an Exodus? King David? Solomon? Daniel?

Into the New Testament: was there a virgin birth? Is Jesus really the Son of God? Was there a Jesus? Did He do miracles? Was He crucified? Did He rise again? Was it all a metaphor used by 1st C. messianics to give hope to an oppressed people?

Unless one can show the doctrinal revelation on which the metaphor is based, one has no right to suggest it is a metaphor. If our understanding of history or science makes us reject the historicity of the account, then let us have the courage to say the Biblical authors were mistaken.

wolfsbane

2Scoops said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
JC is a scientist. Deal with it.
A scientist without any science in favour of creationism.

I can accept that as a fair definition, given your beliefs about creationism. You accept he is a scientist - my objection was to marco_polo denying that. I don't expect him to agree with JC's arguments, but I do expect enough respect for an opponent's professional qualifications/status. JC has chosen to be anonymous on this list, but that is no reason not to take his word on the matter of his employment. His ability to argue the details should be enough for all to give his claim credibility. Some of us know him off-list and know is his who he says.

Seems to limit himself to quotes and bawdy humour these days...

Maybe he's got tired of the roundabout - but I suspect he may jump back on soon enough and make your heads dizzy again.

wolfsbane

robindch wrote: »

Oops -- watch out! You're believing the wrong thing here!

You've just described Peripatric speciation, one of the principal ways in which evolution does its magic.

I'm sure the Bearded Buffoon has produced something thoroughly misleading upon the topic!

While I'm happy to believe in speciation, I don't accept the idea that marsupials, for example, developed from common ancestors with the octopus and the zebra. Isolation would have refined the original ancestors - speciation being no more than the relatively small changes of the wolf/dog/hyena type. The original kangaroo ancestor found Australia a happy home and prospered there. Elsewhere they died out.

The lack of great marsupials in other continents need be no more of a problem than the lack of dinosaurs. As with many species today, they just died out—a reminder of a sin-cursed world. 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.
How Did Animals Spread All Over the World from Where the Ark Landed?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/how-did-animals-spread

wolfsbane

Wicknight said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
The Black Sea event would not account for the Biblical Flood being an accurate account. One must reject it as mistaken or look elsewhere than the Black Sea.
Nothing accounts for the Biblical Flood as it is written in the Bible. There is no known amount of water on or in Earth that could ever cover the planet in water. If there was the Earth would be covered in water.

Have you considered that a redistribution of continents and heights above sea-level would in fact leave enough for the whole earth to be covered by water:
Note that the Bible talks about mountains rising (in connection with God’s rainbow promise, so after the Flood): see CEN Technical Journal 12(3):312–313, 1998. Everest has marine fossils at its peak. Therefore, the mountains before the Flood are not those of today. There is enough water in the oceans so that, if all the surface features of the earth were evened out, water would cover the earth to a depth of 2.7 km (1.7 miles). This is not enough to cover mountains the height of Everest, but it shows that the pre-Flood mountains could have been several kilometers high and still be covered.
Noah’s Flood covered the whole earth
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v21/n3/flood

In fact the term "flood" doesn't make any sense in the context of a world wide covering of water (this would not have occured to the original authors who did not understand that the Earth was round) since a flood is a movement of water from one place to another. If the Earth was to be covered in water there is no where for the water to come from

You presume too much about the knowledge of the ancients. However, if your assertion was true it only supports the credibility of the writer - even if he did not understand how it could be, he nevertheless put down what God had told him.

But this is probably a discussion for the Creation thread.

I agree.

I agree with you that a flooding of the Black Sea coast line would not in anyway account for the story as described in the Bible. I imagine that this myth, like most myths based on fact, was greatly embellished as it was passed down orally from generation to generation. The original version of the story could have more closely described the events of a coastline flooding, but as it was told from father to son to grandson details were added to make the story more dramatic until eventually, hundreds of years later, it was incorporated into the early Hebrew religious stories.

Or Noah's story was a true and accurate account of what actually happened.

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Since the whole earth bears record of being submerged at some time - the dating is in dispute - and there is (correct me if I'm wrong) evidence of a genetic bottleneck, that is something to support the Biblical account.
There is evidence of a genetic bottlenecks but they have the total human population going down to possibly as low as 5 or 10 thousand humans, not 6. If humans had decreased this small amount it should be startlingly evident in the genetic record of all humans through out the world. It isn't. But I suppose when you are dealing with the supernatural you can't say anything for certain, God could have fiddled with our genes to make it look otherwise (why not)

Or our understanding of genetic behaviour is not sharp enough to distinguish between 6 and 5-10K; or those are not the Noahcian bottleneck.

We can also trace these bottle necks back far before human society developed the type of culture described in Genesis, such as modern(ish) tools for ship building. The technology required for the Genesis story of the Ark emerged with in the last 10,000 years of human existence, where as the last identifiable bottle necks in humans took place approx 70,000 years ago (interestingly enough roughly around the time geologists suspect a super volcano exploded in Asia)

As I said, there is a dispute on the dating.

So while there is genetic records of human bottle necks that reduce human population significantly, and these can be roughly correlated with know or suspected natural events, there is no evidence that within the last 10,000 years the human population was reduced to a small handful of survivors. And if this happened there should be. But again the supernatural you can't say anything, God could have simply fiddled the numbers.

Or our present knowledge of genetics is not complete.

Not sure where you got the idea that there is geological evidence that the world was under water at one point (I'm guessing AnswersInGenesis). Billions of years ago a large amount of the Earth was under water, but then you don't accept any geology that supposes the world was even around billions of years ago?

Yes, I don't accept the dating. But glad to agree that the world was covered in water - albeit for a short period.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

speciation being no more than the relatively small changes of the wolf/dog/hyena type.

How long do Answers in Genesis speculate it takes a female dog to evolve a second vagina? 100 years? 50 years?

Also how long would it take a dog to lose its complex placenta and evolve the biological machinery to gestate young externally to the the womb? 20 years? 10 years?

Do we see this a happening a lot these days?

wolfsbane

pts wrote: »

In principal that makes sense, and yet there seems to be much disagreement among Christians even on issues which are well covered in the Bible, for example the role of women.

Yes, even true believers have prejudices/cultural baggage to overcome.

But He gives us His Word and His Spirit to sanctify us, and by their means He will keep us for the Day of Salvation. There is a lot of learning and repentance going to happen between now and then.

Fanny Cradock

Wicknight wrote: »

How long do Answers in Genesis speculate it takes a female dog to evolve a second vagina? 100 years? 50 years?

Also how long would it take a dog to lose its complex placenta and evolve the biological machinery to gestate young externally to the the womb? 20 years? 10 years?

Do we see this a happening a lot these days?

Please take it to the creationism thread, guys.

Bobeagleburger

OP, The Earth only 10,000 years old ???

Tell me another one :pac:

wolfsbane

AtomicHorror said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
That's just your bigotry speaking. Try to be impartial even to those with whom you disagree. JC is a scientist. Deal with it.
Is he?

Yes.

Does it matter?

It is disrespectful to say he isn't when he is.

He won't even tell us his field or qualifications, so we can't vaguely verify his status as a scientist in the professional sense. But that doesn't really matter- he'd be wrong if he had a degree, PhD or a Nobel prize. It's not about authority but evidence. But I can say this; he's certainly not a scientist in the philosophical sense, that is verifiable just by reading his posts.

As long as you accept he is one in the real sense. You have dismissed all the Phd scientists who are creationists on the same naturalist presuppositions, so I don't expect anything different for JC.

You confess to not knowing anything about science, that you cannot assess it and so you have to judge the person rather than the content of what they're saying. Conveniently you seem to judge people who agree with you rather well and so your views are confirmed. That's not how scientists work. The likes of J C are dismissed by scientists on the basis of the bit you claim you have no capacity to judge- the science. The evidence does not support him, much of it directly contradicts him. You'll dismiss that because you don't trust what I have to say on this matter, but the great thing about science is that you don't have to trust me. But hey, we've had this conversation so many times. You're never going to try to look at the evidence in a meaningful way, when it feels so much nicer to look at it through the filter provided by AIG and the like.

Your argument depends on your group of scientists being correct and it conveniently dismisses the other group, equally qualified to speak, who dispute your lot's understanding. Hardly a proof of who is right.

Yes, I am unable to fully assess the scientific argument and I therefore rely on the character of those scientists who tell me this is their considered scientific opinion. I know enough of them to be certain they are not lying and are competent scientists.

To that I add my little bit of common sense - I can detect logical errors and unwarranted presuppositions at work, and I have seen enough of those in the evolutionists' work to make me not take all they say as objective science. Same applies to the creationists' work, of course.

wolfsbane

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Please take it to the creationism thread, guys.

Done. Thanks.