prophecy....

[Rhea]

There are quite a few factors to clear up, which are of course debateable. Sea fossils (whale bones and seashells) on mountains and building formations and old ruins still lay fathoms deep, under the sea. The ice itself wasn't there in places , as you mention of "ice core records" ,where plants for example , are found in ice cores.

These have already been “cleared up.” Long ago. It would be interesting to explore how it is that a modern human of adult age does not know this. And I don’t mean this as snark, either. I mean it as, “what type of communication and authority leads a person to not know that phones work by radio transmission and plate tectonics are responsible for the uplift of former sea-bottom material.”

It’s rather fascinating to think about. This science is so well documented, so well understood, so consilient, that many multiple scientific disciplines all point to the same description and conclusion.

And yet, there are adult humans in the modern nations who still ask, “why are sea fossils at high elevations,” while simultaneously ignoring the simple geometry that could be computed by any 9th grader that proves the extant water on the planet is not suffient to cover mountaintops.

What can we do about the state of our education to overcome whatever source is causing people to not know the answer to this fully-understood natural phenomenon?

 

[lpetrich]

Where is Earth's water? USGS Water-Science School,  Water distribution on Earth

• Oceans: 96.7%
• Other salty water: 0.9%
• Freshwater: 2.5%

Freshwater:

• Glaciers and icecaps: 68.7%
• Groundwater: 30.1%
• Surface and other freshwater: 1.2%

Surface and other freshwater:

• Ground ice and permafrost: 69.0%
• Lakes: 20.9%
• Soil moisture: 3.8%
• Swamps, marshes: 2.6%
• Rivers: 0.49%
• Living things: 0.26%
• Atmosphere: 3.0%

So there isn't enough water to completely flood our planet with its current topography.

Will the world ever be all under water? | AMNH -- melting all the glaciers would raise sea level by 70 m / 230 ft. It would drown a lot of lowlands, but most mountains would stay high and dry.

 

[Lion IRC]

Bible skeptics assume that the average depth of the ocean, and average height of land above sea level, today is the same as it was at the time of the Noachian Flood.

They also assume that there was no gravitational or other causes of ocean swells which could have swamped mountains.

ETA - oh yeah, and they also assume there's no God and no supernatural intervention.

 

[Lion IRC]

Ipetrich will know this.

In metres, what IS the approximate difference between the average depth of the ocean and the average height of land above sea level?

I bet it's not much more than 300 cubits.

 

[Bronzeage]

Everybody loves a good flood story, which is why it's a very common piece of folk lore in many different ancient cultures.

Look at it from the point of view some prehistoric farmer, who had a pretty sweet piece of bottom land, until one day the water rose so fast only people who had boats survived, and for some unknown reason, the water never went down, like it always did before. That would be a story worth retelling.

 

[lpetrich]

Another thing -- many fossils are of organisms that are now extinct. There are oodles of fossils of trilobites in the Paleozoic, but none in any later rocks, and no living trilobites have ever been found. There are also oodles of fossils of brachiopods in the Paleozoic, but this shellfish is not very common in present-day oceans. Instead, there are lots of bivalves.

A seeming counterexample is the coelacanth fish, which was thought to have gone extinct in the K-T disaster, But that is not as big a counterexample as one might think, since this fish lives deep in the ocean, meaning that it can easily escape fossilization, and also discovery.

Bible skeptics assume that the average depth of the ocean, and average height of land above sea level, today is the same as it was at the time of the Noachian Flood.

Thus requiring a heck of a lot of mountain building since Noah's Flood.

Lion IRC, what Flood Geology requires is why Flood Geology was discredited long ago, in the early nineteenth century.

They also assume that there was no gravitational or other causes of ocean swells which could have swamped mountains.

Lion IRC, I've seen fossils, and they are embedded in rocks.

ETA - oh yeah, and they also assume there's no God and no supernatural intervention.

Miracles can explain *anything*, and they thus explain nothing. Having to invoke miracles is a great weakness.

 

[Learner]

The earth's surface being 71% water doesn't imo, seem so difficult to think that a deluge in the past , could have been quite plausible / possible.

Now, on a completely different note, from the OP, how do I trust the claims of prophecy attributed to the god that couldn't foresee his own failure from a mere year previous?

Sorry about that .

 

[Keith&Co.]

ETA - oh yeah, and they also assume there's no God and no supernatural intervention.

Miracles can explain *anything*, and they thus explain nothing. Having to invoke miracles is a great weakness.

so, lion and learner are trying to defend the Flood. But my question is not whether the Flood happened, it's that it was a huge waste of time.

Assuming it happened as described in the books, why didn't the skybeast see that it was pointless mass murder?

 

[Opoponax]

What can we do about the state of our education to overcome whatever source is causing people to not know the answer to this fully-understood natural phenomenon?

Nothing, because what you're talking about doesn't come from lack of accessible knowledge. It comes from indoctrination.

When we're little, we believe what we're told. And we can't force parents to not tell their children mistruths. It's not only impractical, it's a parent's fundamental right under the 14th Amendment to raise their child as they see fit. We also have the Establishment Clause which says that the state can't endorse any one religion. However, this also works to prevent the state (e.g. public schools) from telling the kids that their religion is hogwash.

But legal stuff aside, how many people did you know growing up, and still know now, who still believe the same Sunday school stuff they were taught when they were 8 years old? I know several. Hell, my entire family on my mom's side have never grown out of what they've always believed. Zero expansion/progression.

Looking at it from a distance, it's really sad. What a small world to live in. What they/we were taught as kids effectively put their brain in a cage--a life sentence of forced ignorance and illogic.

A former friend is an RN. He had to take anatomy, two semesters of chemistry, biology, and microbiology. None of that education changed his mind about his YEC bullshit. To put this guy in the proper context, suffice it to say that his dad used to give us Chick tracts when we were kids. No amount of education will ever change his mind.

Maybe it's like trying to install Windows 10 on an old 1980s Apple Macintosh. It's just not a thing that can be done.

As for older converts, I've always seen them as sad empty vessels that got filled by religion. But that's another subject entirely.

 

[Opoponax]

ETA - oh yeah, and they also assume there's no God and no supernatural intervention.

Miracles can explain *anything*, and they thus explain nothing. Having to invoke miracles is a great weakness.

so, lion and learner are trying to defend the Flood. But my question is not whether the Flood happened, it's that it was a huge waste of time.

Assuming it happened as described in the books, why didn't the skybeast see that it was pointless mass murder?

Of course. Why didn't an all knowing god not know that its experiment with humanity was gonna go sideways? Why didn't it see that it was going to have to wipe out millions to fix it? Why didn't it see that wiping them all out wasn't going to fix it, but instead that things would get exponentially worse? And why is it so bad at fixing things?

"Oh, they're getting too strong so I'll confound their languages to keep them from accomplishing things only I should be able to do." But then it obviously didn't foresee skyscrapers or space travel, and it clearly didn't foresee or even seem to be aware that people can learn and therefore speak more than one language. Those are things that one would think an all knowing god would see and know about. Not only at the time of his non-fix, but a million, or a billion, or a trillion years before.

Yet this thing is credited with the creation of every atom of matter in the universe as well as the creation of humans? I suppose if god made a perfectly functional car he'd try to put it to use by tipping it over and pushing it down the street. It's like he needs a personal assistant to constantly tell him, "No God, that's not how that works."

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Or in other words, the supposedly all wise God of Judeo-Christianity and Islam lacks simple common sense.

 

[Learner]

Of course. Why didn't an all knowing god not know that its experiment with humanity was gonna go sideways? Why didn't it see that it was going to have to wipe out millions to fix it? Why didn't it see that wiping them all out wasn't going to fix it, but instead that things would get exponentially worse? And why is it so bad at fixing things?

Or put it this way. HE knows NOW. Therefore revelation?

"Oh, they're getting too strong so I'll confound their languages to keep them from accomplishing things only I should be able to do." But then it obviously didn't foresee skyscrapers or space travel, and it clearly didn't foresee or even seem to be aware that people can learn and therefore speak more than one language. Those are things that one would think an all knowing god would see and know about. Not only at the time of his non-fix, but a million, or a billion, or a trillion years before.

There has been a great advancement in technologies during the centuries , but in the whole scheme of things cosmic... not so much that advanced , e.g. space travel quite limited. Perhaps revelation comes to pass, before even such notions of humans are actually inhabiting other planets (I say theistically).

Yet this thing is credited with the creation of every atom of matter in the universe as well as the creation of humans? I suppose if god made a perfectly functional car he'd try to put it to use by tipping it over and pushing it down the street. It's like he needs a personal assistant to constantly tell him, "No God, that's not how that works."

God's mechanics is functioning quite fine , in my view , the governing laws that the universe abides to.
While man can make his cars , that may need fixing now and then.

 

[Opoponax]

Or put it this way. HE knows NOW. Therefore revelation?

Wait a minute. So now... what???

God's mechanics is functioning quite fine , in my view , the governing laws that the universe abides to.
While man can make his cars , that may need fixing now and then.

Bah. Fine.

 

[Lion IRC]

ETA - oh yeah, and they also assume there's no God and no supernatural intervention.

Miracles can explain *anything*, and they thus explain nothing. Having to invoke miracles is a great weakness.

so, lion and learner are trying to defend the Flood. But my question is not whether the Flood happened, it's that it was a huge waste of time.

Assuming it happened as described in the books, why didn't the skybeast see that it was pointless mass murder?

You incorrectly claim the Flood didn't accomplish anything.

The Flood wasn't intended to take away man's ability to choose between good and evil.

What the Flood did do is show that God has the universal ability and intent to punish unrepentant evil. We have been warned. See? It's right there in the text..."behold, I will destroy them"

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

So, God allows original sin to exist. God could have eliminated it by fiat on day one. Original sin causes man to be evil, destroys mankind's free will but God does not choose to take care of the problem of why mankind is evil at it's root cause. Original sin. This whole theological scheme seems to paint God as a as moron. A God with no common sense. God could have created man with a good moral nature, as God supposedly enjoys, and a free will to freely choose to do moral good because of his good moral nature, as theologians tell us is how God does things. Again, God seems to not have much of a problem solving ability. And a bad temper on top of it. Why should I believe in such a god as Judeo-Christianity / Islam tells us exists?

Why does God lack common sense?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

16. The cause of a nature causes the characteristic and natural movement of that
very nature. But God causes the nature of the will, and the characteristic and natural
movement of the will is turning away from God, just as the characteristic and natural
movement of a stone is downward, as Augustine says in his work On Free Choice.8 There*
fore, God causes the will's turning away from him. And so it seems that God causes moral
wrong, since the nature of moral wrong consists of turning away from him.


Thomas Aquinas - On Evil

 

[abaddon]

so, lion and learner are trying to defend the Flood. But my question is not whether the Flood happened, it's that it was a huge waste of time.

Assuming it happened as described in the books, why didn't the skybeast see that it was pointless mass murder?

You incorrectly claim the Flood didn't accomplish anything.

The flood was a response to how violent humans are. Which they still are, only more-so: Hundreds of millions of people have been slain by other people since 1900.

If the flood weren't a myth (as everyone who isn't a superstitious chump knows), it improved nothing and so it completely failed as a warning.

The Flood wasn't intended to take away man's ability to choose between good and evil.

It was intended to take away millions of person's ability to breathe.

What the Flood did do is show that God has the universal ability and intent to punish unrepentant evil. We have been warned. See? It's right there in the text..."behold, I will destroy them"

Followed by the promise (after he huffed on some burning flesh) that he'll never do it again. Thus making it a pretty lame threat.

What did the threat accomplish? Nothing, obviously: Hundreds of millions of people have been slain by other people since 1900.

So the Flood was (except that it's a myth) a huge waste of time and life. And God is obviously a projection of the authoritarian, simple, superstitious human minds that created him.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Again, God is a lousy problem solver. If as claimed, God is the wisest being in the Universe, how can that be?

 

[Keith&Co.]

What the Flood did do is show that God has the universal ability and intent to punish unrepentant evil. We have been warned. See? It's right there in the text..."behold, I will destroy them"

.

I love fanfiction.
Cool story, bro, but we were talking about the Bible.

'Destroy them? My copy says 'i will destroy man.' The whole batch.
And not because of evil ACTIONS but because they were evil in their imagination and he regretted their creation.

Nothing about warnings to future believers, he's intent on wiping out all wickedness, with a special case for Noah, who was perfect.

But at the end, he admits he cannot wipe out wickedness. Man, who he made, is wicked intrinsically.


So, yeah, waste of time.

 

[steve_bank]

Nostradamus and Edgar Casey had many accurate prophesies....acceding to a cable show. Both have many believers.