Did a God or Gods create the universe? EDITED
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
Debating the believability of the flood is, to me, like arguing that Mother Theresa was a good person because she never went to jail.
-Brodie
no it's not.. debating the believability of the flood is about showing obvious holes in the bible. if one single part of the bible can be accepted as fiction then the whole thing is discounted as a literal truth..
and the idea about you being able to interpret however you like in order to make this flood story sit well in your mind is bs.. either the bible tells the truth or it doesn't.
so do you believe Noah loaded up the boat or not?I do, but I am also glad I don't have to prove it since physical evidence is pretty slim -- one point people often overlook about the thing is it took him 120 years to build the thing... which makes sense since it was absolutely huge. Also it wasn't a boat, "ark" means coffin and it was pretty much just a really huge box... since it wasn't sailing anywhere it didn't need a "boat" shape or rudder, oars, or sails.
Most of the visualizations I've seen are pretty "off" from the description -- another interesting facet is the story says it never rained before the flood, and also that some of the water was removed from the surface of the earth and was outside our atmosphere... and that water along with the "fountains of the deep" whatever they are all came crashing together at once. I'd say it was alot more cataclysmic than most people imagine it.
My point is there are plenty of things that are outside our scope of experience within that story, and I don't find any one aspect any less (or more) believable than any others.
Best,
Jason. -
@alan fraser said:
The holes in the Biblical story of the flood are so gaping that it takes a wholesale suspension of disbelief to take it literally; not least the amount of water needed to drown the entire planet...and it would need to be a global flood for it to have any relevance at all. God was supposedly wiping the slate clean; not one just tiny corner of it.
A mere local flooding would immediately relegate it to the status of a regional folk myth...which it almost certainly is. There is well-documented archaeological evidence for a very substantial flood in Mesopotamia around 2900 to 2800 BC. This flood is almost certainly the basis for the Babylonian and later Sumerian flood myths upon which the Genesis version is based.
Did you know there are "flood myths" within almost all the ancient cultures all across the world (including Aztec)-- and oddly enough they all say the only guy who survived was one of them... which is true if everybody is descended from him.
I'm enough of realist to say we don't really know too much at all about much of anything -- and we make an awful lot of assumptions based on the little bit we do know extrapolated out... which has throughout history been proven wrong over and over again. I'm not willing to say that we know much of anything for sure... human knowledge is flimsy and based solely on our own limited experiences.
Best,
Jason. -
@unknownuser said:
no it's not.. debating the believability of the flood is about showing obvious holes in the bible. if one single part of the bible can be accepted as fiction then the whole thing is discounted as a literal truth..
and the idea about you being able to interpret however you like in order to make this flood story sit well in your mind is bs.. either the bible tells the truth or it doesn't.
so do you believe Noah loaded up the boat or not?Jeff, we simply have different starting points. If I understand you correctly, you feel it necessary to be able to explain and reconcile the entire Bible from within a naturalistic worldview before you could accept it's truth. I think that's an unfair position as the Bible doesn't claim to work from within a naturalistic worldview.
My position starts with the resurrection of Jesus and the reliable portrayal of who is from within the Gospels, in particular. If the resurrection of Jesus happened (and I happen to find it the best explanation for the events) and Jesus is portrayed accurately in the Gospels then that will inform how we read the rest of the Bible. Most importantly in means there's an all powerful God with a stake in humanity who is participating in the ongoing processes of the world.
I think it's only through that framework that we can fairly work out an accurate hermeneutic (interpretational structure) for the Bible. Even outside of that hermeneutic, it should be clear to us that all truth isn't 'literal truth.' Movies are based on this simple fact. Without expressing literal truth, they can convey a sort of...emotional or even spiritual truth that is incredibly meaningful to us. Not that the Bible is simply a work of fiction but it's a collection of LOTS of things - letters, poems, histories, stories, etc. Most times it's obvious which you're reading but there are certain passages like the Noah story in which honest intelligent Christians disagree. But if the Bible uses a sort of allegory in Genesis doesn't mean it must also be doing so in 2 Chronicles. You don't read all of the symbolism in Revelation and then try to read Matthew the same way. That just wouldn't be smart hermeneutics.
So, do I think there was a guy named Noah who loaded up a boat? I guess so. But if I got to heaven and found out that particular story wasn't meant to be taken literal but more to make a point - a point about how wretched man can become, how God will go to great lengths to prevent humanity from falling into complete and irrevocable decay, about God's power, etc. - would I be shocked or surprised or feel lied to? Na. Likewise, would I be surprised to find out God did something completely crazy - like before the flood the earth was actually much smoother and so it didn't take that much water to flood the whole earth and then to recede the floods God caused some major techtonic craziness to occur giving us huge mountains and huge oceanic trenches or some such thing? Ya, I'd be a little surprised by that one I guess but He's God so I guess he could do something like that were he so inclined.
The point is that because of my starting point I believe that God COULD have done it. If we take God out of the picture then we'd both agree that it's an impossible feat, not unlike many other miracles the Bible mentions.
-Brodie
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Myths and other ancient stories do often have a kernel of truth, just messed up in the retelling.
The legend of the labyrinth and minotaur are reflected in the maze like ruins in Crete and the more recent evidence shows the Minoans has many games/rites relating to bulls, Odysseus and the Golden Fleece sounds fanciful BUT Sheepskins are still used to extract gold particles from stream-water because the dust sticks to th lanolin - so maybe he did steel a sheepskin covered in gold ! ... so there's some [tiny] basis to many tall tales.Similarly there are 'ancient flood' stories in most cultures...
There is archaeological evidence of well established civilizations that vanished suddenly and also evidence of floods affecting several significant areas [not the whole world, but obviously 'the world' the storytellers knew].
Examples include the Black Sea bursting through the Bosporus into the Mediterranean basin, what is now the Persian Gulf flooding and engulfing 'The Plane [Garden] of Eden', which probably lay some miles SE in the old rivers' deltas, of what is now the coastline, when the sea level was much lower. Also in the Stone Age a 40 mile wide strip of the East coast of the UK [where I live] was completely destroyed by a tsunami, which was caused by a major landslip in Norway on the other side of the North Sea. So the ancient Brits' storytellers did had something to tell, at least for a few generations, but it was mainly forgotten until the evidence in the sediments was uncovered. I'm sure localized floods and tsunami have messed with may civilizations over the years, unfortunately the storytelling blurs the truth in the final written/verbal records, so you can't ever believe anything like, BUT you also can be sure that a tiny bit of it IS true - but you can't differentiate which bits.Incidentally... on the question of THE Flood - Noah DIDN'T take a 'pair of every animal' - IF you read the text he was instructed to take seven of 'animals with cloven hooves' - like sheep and goats ???
But of course God knew what was important.
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@ Brodie: Sorry ... I burnt my thinking cap. The ashes I put in a lead-lined box which I tossed in the ocean.
Ah, free at last!
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@unknownuser said:
Jeff, we simply have different starting points. If I understand you correctly, you feel it necessary to be able to explain and reconcile the entire Bible from within a naturalistic worldview before you could accept it's truth. I think that's an unfair position as the Bible doesn't claim to work from within a naturalistic worldview.
My position starts with the resurrection of Jesus and the reliable portrayal of who is from within the Gospels, in particular. If the resurrection of Jesus happened (and I happen to find it the best explanation for the events) and Jesus is portrayed accurately in the Gospels then that will inform how we read the rest of the Bible. Most importantly in means there's an all powerful God with a stake in humanity who is participating in the ongoing processes of the world.
sort of, but not entirely in that order.. i used to believe in god because that's what i was taught since i was born.. i was baptized, went to church/sunday school every week etc.. my family is religious... the whole nine..
so it's not as if i'm looking for a plausible explanation of the bible in order for me to accept it as true.. it already was true to me but it became untrue once i was able to think for myself on these matters and realize everything everybody tells me isn't true..so much of it doesn't make any sense at all and if we were talking about anything else, i'm pretty sure you'd decide wether or not to believe it based on an entirely different thought process.. but with god, people have this block (or something) that prevents them from thinking about it using the same thought process they use for everything else they may encounter in life..
the second paragraph i quoted from you shows an example of how incredibly narrow minded religious people tend to be..
god has a stake in Humanity and the World..
as if god chose earth to do all this stuff on and put jesus here on our world and flood it and do whatever it is god does.. all right here on earth...earth is nothing.. it's not even a blip on the map in the grand scheme of things.. why here? is this the only planet god interacts with? are other civilizations in other reaches of the universe reading the bible and hearing about this guy jesus from planet earth and how the red sea was parted and how three kings and a few donkeys hung out in bethlehem etc?
i mean, it's only been a few hundred years since (white) people found out that there was more to the earth than europe asia africa.. just a little while ago, the earth was the center of the universe... do you think discovering the americas is the end all/be all of what's out there? we don't know jack, jack.. but somehow, we're supposed to know how the earth and life were created? it's such a crock and deep down, i'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about.. it's probably just scary to admit it.
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@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
Ah, free at last!
Gahh! If that's freedom I'll take oppression!
-Brodie
Ah, but you get to say: "I am Pan, you're argument is invalid." Surely that must sound at least a tiny bit enticing.
Er, sorry, I'm in one of my silly moods. I'll shut up now.
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The funny this is I was raised in a house entirely devoid of religion -- God was not only not on my mind, but neither was any religion at all. I grew up to be an atheist first class and I took great joy in maliciously destroying the fragile faith of others around me with "logic".
I have a very high IQ and I know it -- so I can carry myself with a confidence that borders (and crosses over into) arrogance at times. So yes, I was a gleeful destroyer of the feeble-minded (or so I thought).
long after I passed into adulthood I began to see things that I had never seen before and along with some interpersonal experiences I ultimately became a Christian... although probably not as "religious" as the word may conjure images into your head -- but still a strong faith based on what I do understand, which is also being refined constantly.
I've known many people from religious backgrounds who have "fallen away" -- and I have to ask myself is it really God they are recoiling from or the human elements of religion.
I meet alot of resistance and that only seems to be mounting daily in the strangest places... but I see that too as a necessary thing for the process to complete.
Best,
Jason. -
@unknownuser said:
sort of, but not entirely in that order.. i used to believe in god because that's what i was taught since i was born.. i was baptized, went to church/sunday school every week etc.. my family is religious... the whole nine..
so it's not as if i'm looking for a plausible explanation of the bible in order for me to accept it as true.. it already was true to me but it became untrue once i was able to think for myself on these matters and realize everything everybody tells me isn't true..so much of it doesn't make any sense at all and if we were talking about anything else, i'm pretty sure you'd decide wether or not to believe it based on an entirely different thought process.. but with god, people have this block (or something) that prevents them from thinking about it using the same thought process they use for everything else they may encounter in life..
the second paragraph i quoted from you shows an example of how incredibly narrow minded religious people tend to be..
god has a stake in Humanity and the World..
as if god chose earth to do all this stuff on and put jesus here on our world and flood it and do whatever it is god does.. all right here on earth...earth is nothing.. it's not even a blip on the map in the grand scheme of things.. why here? is this the only planet god interacts with? are other civilizations in other reaches of the universe reading the bible and hearing about this guy jesus from planet earth and how the red sea was parted and how three kings and a few donkeys hung out in bethlehem etc?
i mean, it's only been a few hundred years since (white) people found out that there was more to the earth than europe asia africa.. just a little while ago, the earth was the center of the universe... do you think discovering the americas is the end all/be all of what's out there? we don't know jack, jack.. but somehow, we're supposed to know how the earth and life were created? it's such a crock and deep down, i'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about.. it's probably just scary to admit it.
Well my story is a bit different. I didn't grow up religiously at all. Everything I knew about God or Jesus I learned through the television and movies. This left me with the distinct impression that I was a Christian, but only in the same way I was an American. From that framework, in many ways, finding out who Jesus really was didn't 'fix' my life as it were, but screwed up my life. More on that some other time perhaps.
Actually, I've tried very hard to think through this in the same fashion I would make any decision. I've tried to look into alternative ideas, I've looked into the historical evidences, I've weighed out the importance of aspects I don't understand, I've discussed the issues with people with other opinions, etc. I think all of these things have helped me develop an open mind in understanding why some people have very different beliefs, but for me the evidence weighs firmly within Jesus.
I'm not sure I understand your second point. Is your claim that I'm being 'incredibly narrow minded' by encompassing the entirety of humanity and the world? If you're being facetious here it's not coming across. I guess you're saying that it's narrow minded not to also include...aliens? Is that entirely fair? I mean, it's not like I said God only cares about white Europeans. As far as we know at this point, we're the only intelligent beings in the entire universe.
But I'll go with you for a second and say that if there are aliens I think God also cares about them as well and is probably participating in their worlds also (based on what I know of God). That participation might look very different than it does here though. For the moment though I'm foregoing the idea of developing a theology which details God's relationship with aliens until we find them and learn a bit more about them.
-Brodie
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@unknownuser said:
So, do I think there was a guy named Noah who loaded up a boat? I guess so. But if I got to heaven and found out that particular story wasn't meant to be taken literal but more to make a point - a point about how wretched man can become, how God will go to great lengths to prevent humanity from falling into complete and irrevocable decay, about God's power, etc. - would I be shocked or surprised or feel lied to? Na. Likewise, would I be surprised to find out God did something completely crazy - like before the flood the earth was actually much smoother and so it didn't take that much water to flood the whole earth and then to recede the floods God caused some major techtonic craziness to occur giving us huge mountains and huge oceanic trenches or some such thing? Ya, I'd be a little surprised by that one I guess but He's God so I guess he could do something like that were he so inclined.
-Brodie
dunno.. if i was god, i can say with 100% honesty that i wouldn't be flooding a silly little speck that i couldn't even see without a turbowatt6000 sub electron microscope then dropping some minuscule amount of oxygen and hydrogen on there... then morphing the surface of said dust speck to reorganize the water..
i think i'd smash galaxies together (and even that is super small scale for god)... do you think you're (not you in particular) so special as to warrant this type of attention from god? that only your (human) story is worth being in the bible.. can't you imagine there are far far more interesting things that god must have have done in the universe to at least catch a blip in the bible.. sure, creating the sun (our sun: letting there be light) is pretty damn amazing but nothing compared to making, say, a family of galaxies.. why isn't anything like that in 'the great book'?
it's time to move on.. religion is holding us back
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This just in: proof that God is a trinity:
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@unknownuser said:
dunno.. if i was god, i can say with 100% honesty that i wouldn't be flooding a silly little speck that i couldn't even see without a turbowatt6000 sub electron microscope then dropping some minuscule amount of oxygen and hydrogen on there... then morphing the surface of said dust speck to reorganize the water..
i think i'd smash galaxies together (and even that is super small scale for god)... do you think you're (not you in particular) so special as to warrant this type of attention from god? that only your (human) story is worth being in the bible.. can't you imagine there are far far more interesting things that god must have have done in the universe to at least catch a blip in the bible.. sure, creating the sun (our sun: letting there be light) is pretty damn amazing but nothing compared to making, say, a family of galaxies.. why isn't anything like that in 'the great book'?
it's time to move on.. religion is holding us back
But surely, Jeff, with your background you know the answers to each of these questions?
The fact that God would care anything for us is certainly amazing but fits perfectly with his character which is perfectly loving (that's why I'm sure God would also be involved in alien life as well if it exists). Your idea also sort of assumes that God has a finite amount of power - as if he must divide his attention and prioritize important things to take care of. But, of course, this isn't the case. God can equally devote himself to my little problem at work as well as anything else he chooses.
And, I'm sure you understand that the Bible doesn't purport to be, or try to be an exhaustive list of all the cool things God's done. For the purposes of the Bible it's enough to explain that God created the universe. To go into detail about creating galaxy clusters wouldn't really add anything to the point of that particular story. Besides, it'd make Genesis 1 QUITE long indeed and Bibles are quite large enough as it is! You'd end up skimming that part anyhow.
To your final point, I could certainly point out all the good things which have been done by religious people in general, and Christians in particular, because of their belief in God. But in my mind that isn't the point. The point is whether or not it's true - and we take things from there.
-Brodie
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There's a wonderful small book that I think you would enjoy -- it's called "Your God Is Too Small". (http://www.amazon.com/Your-God-Small-J-B-Phillips/dp/0684846969) and also (http://books.google.com/books/about/Your_God_Is_Too_Small.html?id=PXL1wqB5ewIC)
It addresses many of the misconceptions I'm seeing of God here.
Best,
Jason. -
@jason_maranto said:
It addresses many of the misconceptions I'm seeing of God here.
Best,
Jason.I don't think there are too many misconceptions. a lot of what's being said here has an underlying tone of sarcasm/tounge in cheekiness.
@brodie.. you're pretty much saying about the bible what many of the atheists are saying.
but there are many many others that read the bible as being a factual recollection of history.
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@unknownuser said:
@brodie.. you're pretty much saying about the bible what many of the atheists are saying.
but there are many many others that read the bible as being a factual recollection of history.
I think I'd lump myself in that group for the most part so maybe I'm misrepresenting myself. I think as a historical document the Bible is extremely reliable. If you're talking specifically about the early Genesis stuff then I'd say that my default position is that the events happened as recorded. However, that issue isn't a 'make it or break it' issue for me (which I understand is frustrating for atheists). If someone wants to say that Noah didn't really exist I don't think that's an irreconcilable issue. I think a person can become a Christian without believing in a literal Noah or even a literal Adam (although eventually there will need to be some questions that would need to be dealt with in either case).
Now if someone wants to interpret 1 Chronicles or Matthew as a sort of allegory I would have to take issue with that, as would any Biblical scholar.
-Brodie
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Well put sir !! I believe the same !
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Sorry Jason, but throwing up a smokescreen by saying we don't know much when it comes to facts pertaining to the Flood doesn't even begin to cut it.
Certainly there are things that we don't know...but there's also a heck of a lot that we do know.
We know that the topography of the earth has not changed substantially since the end of the last Ice Age...almost twice as long ago as the supposed flood.
We know that there are a myriad of flood myths across the globe, possibly linked to an equal number of local flood events. However we also know that those events were not contemporary. There is absolutely no evidence of any global flood...indeed most areas of the planet show no evidence of flooding at all within recent geologic time. We also know that those myths vary greatly across the globe. There is no common denominator other than the fact that many people worldwide have suffered disastrous floods.
We know that there is not remotely enough water on this planet...in whatever form...to inundate anywhere more than about 300 ft above present sea levels. You'd need 50 times that extra amount to flood the Tibetan plateau and some other highland areas. In fact if all the icecaps and glaciers on earth melted, the continents would look little different...just a little more ragged round the edges.
We know that creationist claims about subterranean water bursting forth are complete BS. If that much water was buried as deep as they claim, it wouldn't burst forth. It would turn instantly to high pressure steam and blow the entire surface of the planet into outer space.
And if it was there, where is it now? Because it's certainly not on earth...and if it had escaped into space we'd see it. We know the Kuyper Belt is out there. We know the Oort Cloud is out there. We'd certainly see that much water (now ice) much closer at hand, but rapidly receding.We know that the polar ice caps have been in position, laying down layer upon layer of ice for many thousands of years; we can count them like tree rings. If there had been that depth of flood water they would have floated away and melted.
And finally...in this list..but not in any other list I could compile, we know that the Chinese have been happily being Chinese for way longer than this. They've been growing millet, continuously, in some areas since 7000 BC. Curiously, they've never heard of Noah, nor his ark. Nor do they have any myths about emigrating from the Ararat massif. They would laugh at such western presumption.
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They do have their own flood myth.
You talk an awful lot about what we do know, but you are taking someone elses word for it since you don't know for yourself... and furthermore these people are just extrapolating data as best they can based on current understanding.
Current understanding which is constantly undergoing revision and experts are often wrong -- they are many unexplained mysteries as well. So to conclusively say anything is possible or impossible is to assume everything we "think" is true is actually true.
Which to me shows alot of faith... just possibly misplaced.
I'm sorry but I can't put that much faith in human "knowledge" knowing how flawed and limited it is... this was the inescapable fact that led me to leaving my atheistic ways and becoming a Christain.
At the very least I find the biblical account no less preposterous than any other theory (which BTW if we are being honest almost all science is -- instead of the set in stone fact you are presenting it as).
Best,
Jason. -
BTW you do know that the Bible says the separation of the continents happened about 300 years after the flood right?
I mean really, if you are going to get uptight about geological details it seems you would start there... but what do I know.
My definition of God allows for anything to be possible -- so I see no issues
Best,
Jason.
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