The Flood of assumptions

Cmass · Post by **Cmass** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:14 pm

What assumptions must be made. Part 2:

What assumptions must we make about the story of The Flood that would render the story a true fact?

* Can we make assumptions that are based soundly in science that could render the story plausible?

* Christians, what assumptions have you made about the flood story that has kept it alive for you over the years?

In another thread we discussed the Ark but in this one concentrate on the actual flood. For example, if all the ice in the world melted, could it cover the whole planet? If not, where did the extra water come from? Did God provide it? etc...

Cathar1950 · Post by **Cathar1950** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 11:03 am

QED wrote:You know, for me the climax of the flood story is the bit where God creates the rainbow as a sign that he will never again subject humanity to another mass extinction by his hand... as though the rainbow could be conjured up when it didn't exist before. Like the bow, this story has to be symbolic as it stands in contradiction to physics. But this isn't all that stands in the way of the literal interpretation, there are plenty of good observations that can be made. Perhaps we ought to summarize them in this topic?

That is right, God put down his bow and is no longer at war with mankind.
It goes back to the original story of the gods putting down the bow.
I have actually read creationist that said there was no rain before the flood and no rainbows.

Chem · Post by **Chem** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 11:14 am

That is right, God put down his bow and is no longer at war with mankind.
It goes back to the original story of the gods putting down the bow.
I have actually read creationist that said there was no rain before the flood and no rainbows.

How the hell can you have a decent argument/disagreement with people who seem to have lost all sense of reality?

Cathar1950 · Post by **Cathar1950** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:11 pm

Chem wrote:
That is right, God put down his bow and is no longer at war with mankind.
It goes back to the original story of the gods putting down the bow.
I have actually read creationist that said there was no rain before the flood and no rainbows.
How the hell can you have a decent argument/disagreement with people who seem to have lost all sense of reality?

The same reason you can never find a contradiction or error in the bible. It is impossible for them to see it and can always be explained or "rationalized" away. If you get them in a corner then you might here some thing like "I never said it was with out error" or "it is with out error in the important things".
I don't know of anything that humans have a hand in that is with out error or less than perfect yet they claim it for a collection of books.

methylatedghosts · Post by **methylatedghosts** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:58 pm

Could it be that there were rainbows before, but god said "let THIS particular rainbow symbolise............ and all other ones after it too."

Something like that....?

achilles12604 · Post by **achilles12604** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:59 pm

Chem wrote:
That is right, God put down his bow and is no longer at war with mankind.
It goes back to the original story of the gods putting down the bow.
I have actually read creationist that said there was no rain before the flood and no rainbows.
How the hell can you have a decent argument/disagreement with people who seem to have lost all sense of reality?

I think my grasp of reality is quite firm thank you.

Cathar1950 · Post by **Cathar1950** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:25 pm

methylatedghosts wrote:Could it be that there were rainbows before, but god said "let THIS particular rainbow symbolise............ and all other ones after it too."

Something like that....?

Do you mean like it was the bestest rainbow ever?

Sorry Jose so added another line.

Ok what day is the forth of July in Canada?
Blame Canada, Blame Canada.(Southpark)

Jose · Post by **Jose** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 6:09 pm

This has been fun reading! But, I hate to intervene and remind us that The Rules tell us to avoid one-liners.

I think this intervention comes from reading achilles' post, and thinking, "achilles doesn't really have much to debate here; the others haven't been giving enough information to support their claims." How do we get to the conclusion that someone has "lost all sense of reality"? That's a Big Statement. While it may be true that it's hard to argue with such a person, it's not so straightforward to demonstrate that a particular way of thinking demonstrates being out of touch with reality. After all, theists tend to say that non-theists have lost touch with reality. Uhhh...I don't like where this is leading...uhh...what's "reality"?

I think we'd be on safer ground if we went back to the OP, and stuck with simple things like the assumptions we need to make to get the Flood story to be "true."

methylatedghosts · Post by **methylatedghosts** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 6:30 pm

Cathar1950 wrote:
methylatedghosts wrote:Could it be that there were rainbows before, but god said "let THIS particular rainbow symbolise............ and all other ones after it too."

Something like that....?
Do you mean like it was the bestest rainbow ever?

Whether it was or not I don't know. But it is like "jesus was born on this day, so every other time this date comes around, it's a reminder and we should celebrate" That date (whether or not it IS the 25th of Dec) has always been there, only now we attribute something to it. So every day there is a rainbow, one can reflect on what happened.

achilles12604 · Post by **achilles12604** » Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:57 pm

Jose wrote:This has been fun reading! But, I hate to intervene and remind us that The Rules tell us to avoid one-liners.

I think this intervention comes from reading achilles' post, and thinking, "achilles doesn't really have much to debate here; the others haven't been giving enough information to support their claims." How do we get to the conclusion that someone has "lost all sense of reality"? That's a Big Statement. While it may be true that it's hard to argue with such a person, it's not so straightforward to demonstrate that a particular way of thinking demonstrates being out of touch with reality. After all, theists tend to say that non-theists have lost touch with reality. Uhhh...I don't like where this is leading...uhh...what's "reality"?

I think we'd be on safer ground if we went back to the OP, and stuck with simple things like the assumptions we need to make to get the Flood story to be "true."

I am actually planning a full rebuttal to the numbers offered on page one or two. However, I haveing to review my textbooks on physics and it taking me a bit to write it up. Bear with me.