by Zechariah 66 Replies latest jw friends
Zechariah,
The selected gene pool theory of the populating of the world contradicts that limited world argument. All races of people can tace heir heritage to Noah descendants. Why is that?
I'm sure AlanF has cleared everything up fine for people committed in discredit the Bible.
But I'm not at all impressed.
Zechariah
I have to agree with Navigator.
A 'true-believer" Creationist would tell you that the Flood of Noah's day took place aboout 4,000 years ago, then he'll tell you that in those 4,000 years fewer than 200 sample animals could easily diversify (evovle) to account for all the animals that we know exist or did exist.
He'll ask you to imagine great climate shifts - also within the past 4,000 years - a period of fairly well documented secular written history by many cultures world wide that offers no evidence that this actually happened.
Lastly he'll borrow some ideas from the tales of the Great Sea Kings and tell you that Noah's children got off of the big floating box - which was built by God's design - and knew how to build seagoing vessels with which to transport Kangaroos to Australia, Penguins to Antatrica (they didn't fly there!) and Polar Bears to The Great White North - that they delivered these sub-viable sample populations to these remote locations and then - what? Returned home to thier sand castles in the Middle East?
OK..... sure.
Put me down as Atheist Evolutionist, please.
Edited by - Nathan Natas on 12 November 2002 9:11:21
Hi Zechariah,
Science was not invented to discredit the Bible. By studying the history of science we discover that quite the opposite is true. Many early researchers were Christians seeking evidence which would strengthen their faith. Clergyman and the upper class were the only folks in those days with the time, education, and resources needed for studying nature and as Naturalists they sought evidence for natural history as it was recorded in the Bible. After years of painstaking research the collected evidence just did not add up the way they had hoped. Many had the courage and honesty to admit that the Bible did NOT accurately depict the flow of natural history. Scientists listen to what the evidence says and not to what their cultures want them to believe. All the evidence shows that there could not have been a World wide flood just a few thousand years ago as the Bible's own timelines insist.
All branches of science, not just some, have found that their evidence cannot support the biblical flood claim. Archeology proves that many civilizations have existed continuously for much longer than the Flood's time. These cultures and ruins show NO evidence of having been stopped by a World wide flood, and yet more convincingly they could not have restarted themselves with the same relgions, languages ,arts, and architectures if only one family from another culture survived this event. Geological evidence provides NO indication of a World wide flood, especially in the last 5000 years.
I could go on describing the reasons why other branches of science cannot support a global flood event either but I would prefer some common sense problems we can ask ourselves. One of the biggest problems with the Flood is how do we explain away the fact that there are two distinct forms of aquatic life on the Earth today, marine life from the salty oceans and fresh water life found in lakes and rivers. A world wide flood would have required that the bulk of the waters be either salty or fresh since they were mixed up and could not have retained their individual chemistries. If a flood event occured one of these distinct aquatic environments would have been destroyed so there would only be fresh water life or marine life left alive today but clearly not both, since each environment is deadly to the other. Yet we still retain both environments only a few thousand years after this supposed event. We know this without conjecture because the evidence is here right now for you to see. This is especially impossible if you do not accept evolution as an adaptive mechanism. This evidence alone is enough to prove without question that a global flood did not occur and it does not rely on carbon dating, theories, or conjecture from conspiring scientists. I would be intersted in a reasoned response to this problem because I have been unable to find one.
The list goes on and on if you have the courage and love of truth to study it. Your explaination of kangaroos in Australia makes no sense since Australia is unique in all its life forms and not just kangaroos because there were NO placental mammals there until the arrival of man. If post flood survivors from the middle east brought animals with them to repopulate this flood cleaned island why didn't they bring the placental mammals they were familiar with and depended on for food and clothing such as goats, sheep, camels, horses, and cattle? Why would they bring a completely unique class of animals which their own religion prohibited them from eating and whose tits are hidden in pouches making them very difficult to milk? Why did they neglect to bring ANY familiar animals on their journey to Australia? The only placental mammels found on the island before Europeans arrived just a few hundred years ago were dogs and humans who were clearly there long after the marsupials had already established themselves. Your explaination is illogical and does not fit the evidence. Why didn't other post flood survivors take the same unique Australian animals with them as they repopulated other parts of the World? Common sense alone disproves the theory. Common sense alone disproves a World wide flood.
You say science was not invented to disprove God. Maybe not but evolution is not science and it for certain was created and intended for just that purpose. All your declarations about what all science and scientists say and believe is grossly untrue and self serving.
My intent has always been to let God be found true though every man a liar. We as man have made a God out of worldly wisdom and the case is continuously made that we have to be intellectually honest and accept the facts as presented by the SCIENTISTS. I am a man of faith dominated by the spirit and not the mind. As long as there is a plausible way to rectify what the Bible says is true I will believe it.
You obviously are just as biased the other way.
I believe that the connection
of all races to Noah counteracts anything else.
You said scientist believe what the evidence teach and not what the cultures want them to believe. So you seem to discount the passed down records of the cultures as to what they believed as being evidence. You are going to dismiss that with qustionable and speculative physical analysis biased to unbelief.
Zechariah
Zech, why do you call someone self serving when they present an idea? Why don't you address the implausibility of people not bringing useful animals that they were used to, e.g., cattle and sheep and instead brought marsupials to Australia? Why are there no marsupial fossils in the middle east. Why is there only one Marsupial in North America, and how would it get here? Your theory sounds very implausible to me.
My intent has always been to let God be found true though every man a liar.
Yeah, Zech does this by putting his faith in an ancient collection of books written by primitive goat herders.
I'm truly interested in your data supporting that all humans can be traced back to Noah. Did someone get Noah's DNA somehow and I didn't know about it?
rem
Sorry Zech,
You didn't address my primary argument against the global flood which does not rely directly on what scientists say or believe. I can make my own observations about fresh water life and marine life without the influence of scientists. I know from my own experiance that you cannot keep most of these life forms in an aquatic environment which is the opposite of that from which they came. You did not give me an explaination at all, let alone a well reasoned one, as to how, after a recent global flood, we can still have both life forms surviving on the Earth today. It seems you didn't even read my post since I made it clear that there are common sense problems with the biblical flood even if we forgot about the scientific evidence against it.
I don't claim that God is a liar but I do know that the Bible is filled with false information. The Bible is not God. The Bible has been proven to be a book written by men and men alone as it contains nothing which was not already known to the ancient world at the time of its writing. There is no evidence that super spirit beings capable of creating the Universe had anything to do with the Bible. I can't prove God a liar because He never has claimed anything to be true or false. God has presented no case so it cannot be proven true or false. I do know what my eyes and mind tell me and everything I've seen tells me that the Bible is often mistaken. There was NO Flood, Tower of Babel, or Creation sequence as described by the Bible because common sense and my own observations of the natural world do not fit the biblical model. You refuse to see the evidence because the Bible is your God. You cannot answer the challenges presented because you defend the unprovable. Your culture made you a Christian and you remain one despite the evidence that your only tangable link to your God, an old book, is filled with faulty and outdated information. If you will not listen to your own reasoning from observations or trust your own eyes to see reality then we cannot help you. You are unable to present any compelling evidence for your beliefs so how can you help us become believers? If you answer the problems presented we can try and understand your position but if I am given no reasons for believing in your book why should we blindly accept it as reality? If there is no evidence from the real world that the Bible is true then why not believe all ancient books are equally inspired by God because they are all equally unprovable and defy logic?
Perhaps the bible writers should have checked with the Babylonians they borrowed the story from in order to get it all straight.
Yeah, and maybe the Babylonians should have checked with the Samarians THEY borrowed the story from to get it all straight. Wicked circled, idn't it?LOL!
TR
I'm sure AlanF has cleared everything up fine for people committed in discredit the Bible. But I'm not at all impressed.
Zechariah,
The greatest harm done to Gods word is done by people and organizations that do not understand it. They teach false doctrines derived from ignorance and prejudice and when faced with evidence that they are wrong they attack the enlightened person or science that exposes their error. Nothing will change their mind as they continue to support such false teachings telling everyone that their view is based upon scripture when it is not. This is what harms the word of God not truth. For example, can you show from scripture that the entire planet was flooded?You offer no evidence to refute the real truths and evidence provided in this thread. And from what has been demonstrated here on this board and on other forums Watchtower witnesses and many that have followed fall into such a harmful group. Few escape the lies to discover the truth long hidden by them.
Joseph
Edited by - JosephMalik on 12 November 2002 13:4:9
Joseph,
Is this all you needed?
Genesis 6:17
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.
Genesis 7:17
For forty days the flood kept coming on the
earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth.
Genesis 7:24
The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.
Genesis 9:11
I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."
Genesis 10:32
These are the clans of Noah's sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.
I dont think there is any doubt about what the Bible teaches about the flood. Its whether we believe it or not. Do you deny the evidence that from the descendants of Noah the nations spread out over the earth. Just like the scriptures say.
I am well aware of the different uses of the word "world" in the Bible. That is not what we're faced with here.
Zechariah
