Creation Museum Scheduled to open in 2007

superluminal said:
So, the exposed land surface "at the time" was completely submerged. This must be so for the story to be true.

This means that a volume of water capable of raising sea level by approximately 8000 meters or 5 miles (there were very tall mountains (everest, K2, etc.) "at the time") issued forth within forty days.

How did this happen and how did it recede again? Remember, according to your link much of this water is in molecular form trapped in crystal lattices.

This is getting kind of dumb. I mean your question is good, but if I believe God created the world from nothing (which I do), then he can add or take away water as he sees fit. It can come from nowhere and go to nowhere.

Then what was the point of the flood to start with -- why didn't He just kill everyone that was evil, spare the animals that didn't do anything wrong, and get on with life? I honestly don't know why. One thing is for certain -- he got everyone's attention with the flood. Maybe that is just part of God's personna -- he hates being ignored.
 
This is getting kind of dumb. I mean your question is good, but if I believe God created the world from nothing (which I do), then he can add or take away water as he sees fit. It can come from nowhere and go to nowhere.

And with that, I believe the debate is over...
 
Woody said:
This is getting kind of dumb. I mean your question is good, but if I believe God created the world from nothing (which I do), then he can add or take away water as he sees fit. It can come from nowhere and go to nowhere.

Then what was the point of the flood to start with -- why didn't He just kill everyone that was evil, spare the animals that didn't do anything wrong, and get on with life? I honestly don't know why. One thing is for certain -- he got everyone's attention with the flood. Maybe that is just part of God's personna -- he hates being ignored.

Hey Woody. Go to page 7 and you will find this post by me:

SL:

Woody, this is a completely stupid thread.

Why are you applying logistics and reasoning to a situation in which god could easily have simply put all of the species into suspended animation for the duration? No food required. Also, each "pair" could easily have been reduced in size by an appropriate factor. Or even better, the inside of the ark coud have been trans-dimensional with more than enough space for tens of thousands of creatures.

I don't see the problem.

You're the one who wanted to "go on logistics" about this whole thing. Your post here makes you either an idiot or brain damaged in some fundamental way that affects your memory.
 
Woody said:
I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross and was raised from the dead. You can't prove that he didn't anymore than I can prove he did.

That's the main problem with debating magical thinkers about mythology. They always pull the magic card. "It was magic and you can't prove otherwise."

Woody said:
According to the bible all of humanity came from Noah and his sons Ham, Shem, and Japheth. It is highly likely their descendants had their own versions of the account.
According to the bible. Circular argument. The bible is clearly a collection of myths stolen from all over he Near East.

The only argument that a believer can really present is "my god is magic, so he can make it be anything he wants however he wants."

Again, Woody makes very clear his only purpose here is to proselytize the heathens with his mythology here at a science message board. This is obvious because he claims to seek logical arguments, but when they are actually formulated his final card is the "magic" one. What a wuss.
 
I really don't see much point in arguing about Noah's flood and the existence of the ark and so on, if supporters are allowed to invoke supernatural explanations willy-nilly.

Why should we expect to find an ark on Mt Ararat? God could have made the ark disappear once it was not longer needed - just like he made all the flood waters appear from nowhere and disappear again, leaving no trace.

And God could have teleported all the animals onto the ark. Which makes me wonder why he needed an ark in the first place. Why not just levitate the animals into the air during the flood, or make them so they could all breathe water? And why kill people with a flood? Couldn't God just command that all the bad people would die immediately?

And given that God chose a flood, why was he then so careful to make the world look as if the global flood never happened? Wouldn't he want people to be reminded? Wouldn't he make the evidence obvious?

None of it makes any sense.
 
James R said:
Wouldn't he make the evidence obvious?

James, you are just a radical communist atheist trying convert the freedom loving people of faith. Evidence for the flood has been very well documented in the bible.
 
Ah yes. I forgot that the bible is infallible. Silly me.

I'll just duck off and kill some people I saw eating shellfish - since the bible says they are an abomination.
 
superluminal said:
Hey Woody. Go to page 7 and you will find this post by me:



You're the one who wanted to "go on logistics" about this whole thing. Your post here makes you either an idiot or brain damaged in some fundamental way that affects your memory.


There are plenty of books on the logistics of the Ark. I didn't come here to prove a point.
 
James R said,

I
really don't see much point in arguing about Noah's flood and the existence of the ark and so on, if supporters are allowed to invoke supernatural explanations willy-nilly.

I agree. The animals coming to Noah, and then boarding the ship can be explained no other way.
 
I agree. The animals coming to Noah, and then boarding the ship can be explained no other way.

How about the dude that penned this all those thousands of years ago... made the whole damn thing up.

Yes, imagine that Woody, it's a story.
 
Woody said:
The fact of the matter is -- I accept evolution as being true, the world was not created in six literal 24 hour days, the earth is not 7,000 years old, and even if man evolved, it's not a deal-breaker for me. Likewise for Noah's ark and any other notable relic such as the ark of the covenant.
Well then.... I don't get it. On the other hand, I wouldn't accuse Woody of "proselytising" either. He doesn't believe in what he has been posting, so presumably he's just been making sport. That was rather what I thought. When I last posted here, I was going to point that out, but still got sucked into demonstrating my self-aggrandised "knowledge and rationality". Woody then managed to keep up his charade for three or four more pages.

We did have a guy either here or on the Science Forum, David F., who claimed to be a scientist going for a doctorate, but also for whom the literal truth of Genesis 1 was indeed a deal-breaker. He was a young-earth Creationist, and when pressed on why, when all the scientific evidence contradicted it, he said that, as a Christian, he believed in four things: the Creation; Original Sin; The Virgin Birth and the Resurrection. If you believe in God, his having Created the Universe is a no-brainer, but many people don't accept the rather primitive account to be found in Genesis. The story of Adam and Eve, the Serpent and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as a symbol of the constant urge within humanity to sin - even if only in ones thoughts - is woefully inadequate, reducing it ultimately to "no matter how silly and inconsequential the order, you must obey God" - which in itself says nothing about real moral issues and dilemmas, and meanwhile implies a God who requires us to remain ignorant, not a position encouraged by the Catholic Church or Judaism. The Virgin Birth - inserted into the Jesus story not because it seems natural that the Son of God should have a miraculous conception, but because of a misinterpretation of a Biblical verse, which had been mistranslated in the first place. Even without that knowledge of the actual origins of claiming Jesus's conception to be a mystical event in the body of a virgin, a lot of people find the Virgin Birth isn't a dealbreaker either. And as to the Resurrection, certainly in the Church of England there are men who were raised even to the level of Bishop who didn't believe in that part, preferring to base their Christianity on what Jesus said rather than any outré manifestation of his godhead.

However, those positions are anathema to the Evangelical Church, for whom blind acceptance of every word of the Bible is for some reason key to their belief system. Someone on amazon posted a link arguing in favour of KJV-Onlyism, which after arguing a couple of points made about the Textus Receptus, stated "I firmly believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and that there were no scribal errors whatsoever." If your position is based on overtly nonsensical (and manifestly disprovable) statements of that sort, where is the benefit in trying to argue rationally?
 
Silas says,

Well then.... I don't get it. On the other hand, I wouldn't accuse Woody of "proselytising" either. He doesn't believe in what he has been posting, so presumably he's just been making sport. That was rather what I thought. When I last posted here, I was going to point that out, but still got sucked into demonstrating my self-aggrandised "knowledge and rationality". Woody then managed to keep up his charade for three or four more pages.

Faith is something that nobody gets to by reasoning. If faith came by logic and by sight then it would not be faith.

I believe the supernatural does exist, and that people continue to live after they die. The idea of not being prepared for it is a fearful thought. I personally had to come to grips with this issue, and nothing anybody says or does will convince me otherwise about the supernatural. There is no other alternative, and Christ has the words of life.
 
Woody: Lets assume for a minute there is no afterlife, and just before death this was revealed to you as fact... Would you not then regret the fact that you wasted your life believing in it?
 
Woody said:
Silas says,



Faith is something that nobody gets to by reasoning. If faith came by logic and by sight then it would not be faith.

I believe the supernatural does exist, and that people continue to live after they die. The idea of not being prepared for it is a fearful thought. I personally had to come to grips with this issue, and nothing anybody says or does will convince me otherwise about the supernatural. There is no other alternative, and Christ has the words of life.
I understand all that, Woody. I was talking about your sturdy defence of the reality of Noah's Ark, and then saying that you don't have to believe every word of Genesis as literal to maintain your faith.

Now I re-read what you wrote, you talk about "being prepared" [for eternity]. Those in the Fundamentalist movement would claim that being prepared meant what amounts to worshipping the Word of God and maintaining its literal truth. Is this something you've thought about and have come down on one side or the other?

KennyJC said:
Woody: Lets assume for a minute there is no afterlife, and just before death this was revealed to you as fact... Would you not then regret the fact that you wasted your life believing in it?
What if it happened the other way? From a sincere believer's point of view, this outcome still wins Pascal's wager, because as someone to whom the reality of death is revealed may feel a momentary pang of regret about having "wasted their life" (which they probably wouldn't anyway, but that's not the point I'm making), whereas the atheist who discovers that God and the afterlife are real now faces eternal damnation - which may mean the same oblivion he always believed in, but only if he's lucky. The sense of regret felt by the atheist is bound to be orders of magnitude greater. But I still don't believe that a believer who discovered that they were due for oblivion would still feel that much regret over the way they lived their life, because that belief still (for the most part) made them feel happy, or gave them the impetus to do good in their lives for other people.
 
KennyJC said:
Woody: Lets assume for a minute there is no afterlife, and just before death this was revealed to you as fact... Would you not then regret the fact that you wasted your life believing in it?

No, because it changed my life for better in the here and now. My life after becoming a christian is much better.
 
Silas said,

Those in the Fundamentalist movement would claim that being prepared meant what amounts to worshipping the Word of God and maintaining its literal truth. Is this something you've thought about and have come down on one side or the other?

Being prepared means having faith. It (faith) can manifest itself in many ways. The bottom line is that I trust God to look out for my best interests. In my mind there is no other alternative. I lived a long time without faith before I came to faith. It is possible that there could be a real genuine God but no afterlife for any human -- but that would be His choice not mine. In any case I trust him for whatever outcome I might have, and thank Him for what He has given me. There is no other choice but to make the most of whatever life I have - now or in the hereafter.
 
Quote Woody:
“Maybe that is just part of God's personna -- he hates being ignored.”

* And you are quite comfy to place 100% faith and trust in such a fickle being?

Quote W:
“There is no other alternative, and Christ has the words of life.”

* Nah, you`ve got Allah, Jehova, Krishna, Apollo, etc. All based on FAITH. Interpreted by you as:
“Faith is something that nobody gets to by reasoning. If faith came by logic and by sight then it would not be faith.”

* So by your very own reasoning, the average Muslim must be right on track as well? You don’t see anything wrong with this picture perhaps?
 
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