Noah and the Ark

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by notofworks

So Pel, do you give any plausibility to my college-days view that "In the beginning, God created...." and He made it exactly as it appears complete with aged appearances, coal, diamonds, etc.?

If one thinks about it creation had to have an appearance of age. For example, if you walked into the garden of Eden you'd see two young adults, one male one female, trees, rivers, etc. You would date the young adults at being mid to late twenties. You'd date the river by erosion, flow, etc. and it would appear to have been there many many years. The trees of the garden would appear to have been growing for many decades. Just on the surface level you'd have to admit an appearance of age.

Science isn't always right. A discovery could be made tomorrow that would could throw the entire scientific establishment on it's head. But odds are you and I would never you hear about that discovery. These are issues of "forbidden archeology". You see, there are discoveries that just don't add up to the current model and these discoveries are typically labled, catagorized, and put into storage. For example there are stories of very high tech machinery being discovered embedded in rock supposedly millions of years old. Artifacts that indicate that ancient Egyptians were in the British Isles long before "traditional" history would want you to believe they were there. You have mysterious objects found places that they just shouldn't be. You have gigantic human skeletons. Deformed, modified, or just plan perplexing human skeletons. You have items like the crystal skull that science can't really explain. Most are chalked up to being anomalous oddities. I'm not so sure of that. There's so much more information that you and I aren't told. Discoveries that the evolutionary establishment squints at and tosses aside because they're so sure of their theory. If they did find the ark... I assure you we'd NEVER hear about it unless some researcher opened the story... and he'd only get time on late night talk radio and be discredited by his colleagues.

Of course those who study forbidden archeology appear to push for a more ancient mankind because evidence is found in supposedly more ancient locations, sediments, etc. But what if the truth is the other way around? What if it isn't that man is older than the establishment wants us to know... what if mankind is younger?

Just some food for thought.

[notofworks]

Originally Posted by Aquila

If one thinks about it creation had to have an appearance of age. For example, if you walked into the garden of Eden you'd see two young adults, one male one female, trees, rivers, etc. You would date the young adults at being mid to late twenties. You'd date the river by erosion, flow, etc. and it would appear to have been there many many years. The trees of the garden would appear to have been growing for many decades. Just on the surface level you'd have to admit an appearance of age.

Wouldn't this only be true IF the creation took place in 24 hour days? If a "Creative Day" were millions of years, then the aged appearance would be the real deal.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by notofworks

So Pel, do you give any plausibility to my college-days view that "In the beginning, God created...." and He made it exactly as it appears complete with aged appearances, coal, diamonds, etc.?

The omphalos argument? No.

"Omphalos" is Latin for "belly button," as in "Did Adam have a belly button?"

For this theory to work we'd have to allow that Adam did have a scar on his abdomen (a navel) that gave the appearance that he had been in a womb prior to his birth/creation.

And, that he had the cross hatched patterns of wear on his teeth as if he had been chewing food for 30 years (or however "old" he was when he was created). Also, that he had the arterial sclerosis commensurate with a human being of that same age.

The trees all had rings - and not only that... they had the dead and decayed organic material around their roots that allow fungi to process nutrients into compounds that the trees can take up through their roots. Trees can't "eat" without fungi and the dead things the fungi live off of already in the soil.

God would have had to have place fossils in the rocks just to make it look like the earth had gone through billions of years of time. He would have had to go through every single one of the trillions and trillions upon trillions of mineral crystals and set the proportion of decayed isotopes in the proper ratio to the undecayed isotopes AND THEN...

... distributed these mineral crystals by layers in a complex pattern across the earth's surface to make it look like the earth was billions of years old AND that the surface of the earth had moved around, buckled and crumpled and was completely eroded away in places.

Why go through all of that trouble just to deceive us?

This question actually raises some very serious moral questions about the nature of God. Is he really an all knowing and all wise benevolent Creator Who actually wants the very best for His children? Or is He some sort of Loki - like trickster god who delights in deceiving His children at such a fine level of detail?

And I haven't even scratched the surface with the examples of the "appearance of age" and the problems with such a notion.

[Esther]

Originally Posted by NotforSale

This is an interesting post. All 3 of your first statements start out with; I'm guessing.

You say that it (Noah's Ark and the Flood) actually happened. My question is, what is your basis for having such a strong feeling that it did?

Another question is this; Is it possible it didn't? Will you even consider it didn't?

I think it is dangerous and irresponsible to follow an Ancient writing (s) that can't be proven. Another post in this thread talked about many other "Miracles" that can't be proven, yet we believe them without question even though our own experiences and good science counters what has been handed down to us as Facts.

The more I live, the more I see that people of yesterday could be told many things with no way to prove otherwise. But now, we are well able to look at our whole Globe doing research that brings accountability to those who've been guilty of presenting outlandish claims that defy common sense, the balance of nature, and a God of mercy and love.

I haven't talked much about other problems with the Flood other than a scientific response, but I also have a very deep problem with portraying God as wanting to wipe the Earth clean of evil, leaving only 8 people as survivors. To me, this is not only heartless but makes no sense. God is all knowing and could see into the future that this plan wouldn't work.

Wiping out the entire human race was, and is, really the only cure to stop man’s continued failure. And, if we believe in the Great Flood, we see that man just got off the boat to start all over again with his evil agenda.

The Great Flood carries a host of moral and ethical problems that taint God as a tyrant, and I refuse to feel this way about a Father in Heaven who made us, knowing we are pitiful and are in dire need of mercy. Humans are weak and we fail miserably. There's no rocket science in knowing that. We cycle in and out of moral chaos and our struggles to maintain an honest existence is always dipping into the doom of failure.

When I see children, the handicapped, crying mothers, and helpless elderly people screaming as waters drown them, my heart breaks trying to conceive that Jesus, the one who said, "Allow the little children to come unto me" is being labeled the person responsible for this mass slaughter. I more than struggle with this and refuse to darken my heart with concepts that can't be proven to be true.

You can call this heresy, doubt, or rebellion, but in this life I’ve learned how helpless we are at times and that people can be so unfortunate. My wife was sexually abused for the first 9 years of her life by her father. He recently died in prison as a sex offender. She told me it took over 20 years to be able to call God her Father. You think about this. Her mind is a delicate place and one thing said in the wrong context can leave her in a mental war for days, if not weeks.

The World is full of people like this (past and present) and we are in desperate need of a Savior. I’ve fallen on my face and pleaded with God to help my heart to understand that the World doesn’t need a Great Flood, the World needs the “Great Blood”. Calvary I can conceive, the Flood of Noah I cannot.

I think Christianity needs to stop looking at life through an "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" lens.

Do you believe that there is a hell? Do you believe the scripture that says the road to hell is wide and the way to heaven is a narrow road and few be that find it? (paraphased)

My concern with people trying to minimize the punishment God used on the people of the earth is that that same mindset will cause many to be lost thinking "God loves me and therefore He won't send me to hell". And He doesn't, you chose whether to obey His Word or not.

And for those who don't believe there was a flood, have you ever seen a rainbow?

God gave it as a reminder He would never cover the earth with water again, but the next time He would use fire.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by NotforSale

This is an interesting post. All 3 of your first statements start out with; I'm guessing.

You say that it (Noah's Ark and the Flood) actually happened. My question is, what is your basis for having such a strong feeling that it did? ...

Jason's a good guy, but I too would like to ask each of us to consider the many ways we go from "I'm guessing..." to "Thus saith the Lord (I think!)."

Originally Posted by NotforSale

...
When I see children, the handicapped, crying mothers, and helpless elderly people screaming as waters drown them, my heart breaks trying to conceive that Jesus, the one who said, "Allow the little children to come unto me" is being labeled the person responsible for this mass slaughter. I more than struggle with this and refuse to darken my heart with concepts that can't be proven to be true.

You can call this heresy, doubt, or rebellion, but in this life I’ve learned how helpless we are at times and that people can be so unfortunate. My wife was sexually abused for the first 9 years of her life by her father. He recently died in prison as a sex offender. She told me it took over 20 years to be able to call God her Father. You think about this. Her mind is a delicate place and one thing said in the wrong context can leave her in a mental war for days, if not weeks.

The World is full of people like this (past and present) and we are in desperate need of a Savior. I’ve fallen on my face and pleaded with God to help my heart to understand that the World doesn’t need a Great Flood, the World needs the “Great Blood”. Calvary I can conceive, the Flood of Noah I cannot.

I think Christianity needs to stop looking at life through an "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" lens.

The story of the Flood and the destruction of so much life really boggles the mind and cries out for an explanation. It should give us pause when we can't find any evidence for such an event in the last 4 - 5 thousand years. (Or even millions of years, for that matter).

But what about the suffering and the killing and dying that DID go on? You don't need a "Noah's Flood" to find human suffering and calamity, you don't really even need an Internet connection. It's all around us and always has been.

So why? Why the suffering and pain?

Perhaps, the "Flood of Noah" was intended to address just such questions. The idea that the "righteous" were sorted from the "unrighteous" provides a glimpse of justice, but even the "righteous" suffered from the effects of the flood and even they had their own weaknesses and moral failings.

But the flood story ends with a covenant. God makes a deal with the human survivors, indeed with all of the earth. He will never destroy all life. He will never undo the creative work that made our existence possible. No matter how bad it gets at times, it will never be for nothing.

God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him.

Thanks, NotforSale.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Esther

Do you believe that there is a hell? Do you believe the scripture that says the road to hell is wide and the way to heaven is a narrow road and few be that find it? (paraphased)

My concern with people trying to minimize the punishment God used on the people of the earth is that that same mindset will cause many to be lost thinking "God loves me and therefore He won't send me to hell". And He doesn't, you chose whether to obey His Word or not.

And for those who don't believe there was a flood, have you ever seen a rainbow?

God gave it as a reminder He would never cover the earth with water again, but the next time He would use fire.

Still can't answer the earlier questions?

[notofworks]

Originally Posted by pelathais

The omphalos argument? No.

"Omphalos" is Latin for "belly button," as in "Did Adam have a belly button?"

For this theory to work we'd have to allow that Adam did have a scar on his abdomen (a navel) that gave the appearance that he had been in a womb prior to his birth/creation.

And, that he had the cross hatched patterns of wear on his teeth as if he had been chewing food for 30 years (or however "old" he was when he was created). Also, that he had the arterial sclerosis commensurate with a human being of that same age.

The trees all had rings - and not only that... they had the dead and decayed organic material around their roots that allow fungi to process nutrients into compounds that the trees can take up through their roots. Trees can't "eat" without fungi and the dead things the fungi live off of already in the soil.

God would have had to have place fossils in the rocks just to make it look like the earth had gone through billions of years of time. He would have had to go through every single one of the trillions and trillions upon trillions of mineral crystals and set the proportion of decayed isotopes in the proper ratio to the undecayed isotopes AND THEN...

... distributed these mineral crystals by layers in a complex pattern across the earth's surface to make it look like the earth was billions of years old AND that the surface of the earth had moved around, buckled and crumpled and was completely eroded away in places.

Why go through all of that trouble just to deceive us?

This question actually raises some very serious moral questions about the nature of God. Is he really an all knowing and all wise benevolent Creator Who actually wants the very best for His children? Or is He some sort of Loki - like trickster god who delights in deceiving His children at such a fine level of detail?

And I haven't even scratched the surface with the examples of the "appearance of age" and the problems with such a notion.

Your best statement in that, to me, was, "Why go through all of that trouble just to deceive us?" I think the word, "confuse" could also be used in the place of "deceive". My response (college days) to all the other points you made would have been, "Why sure, any God who could create all this stuff could also go to all the trouble to make it appear aged."

But ultimately, the one word question, "Why?" would make all that pointless.

[notofworks]

Originally Posted by NotforSale

When I see children, the handicapped, crying mothers, and helpless elderly people screaming as waters drown them, my heart breaks trying to conceive that Jesus, the one who said, "Allow the little children to come unto me" is being labeled the person responsible for this mass slaughter. I more than struggle with this and refuse to darken my heart with concepts that can't be proven to be true.

Well said. I have a son in a wheelchair and attempting to see him floating in raging waters while begging for help, and having God say, "Too bad, you should've listened" is a view of God I don't ever want to have.

And I know, already, what the "God's gonna getcha" crowd would say to this.

But this concept goes for SO many "Flannelgraph" stories..."The battle of Jericho", Gideon, Samson...on and on and on. Can anyone give a reasonable explanation for those stories being true?

"Reasonable" would be the key word, there."

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by notofworks

Wouldn't this only be true IF the creation took place in 24 hour days? If a "Creative Day" were millions of years, then the aged appearance would be the real deal.

And Adam would be a highly developed ape and there would be no need for God, natural processes would have been man's origin.

[Aquila]

What's wrong? No one know how to fit the findings of foribidden archeology into their "scientific" theories?