When Literalists have to literally lie to sell their literal truth (AKA Adventures in Ark-itecture)

[abaddon]

You know man is very easily corrupted. He will be teased and tempted by voices in his head seeded by the dazzling marvels of doing things against his good nature. It will go so far that the human being will be something else,desensitized of human decency, if you will become an abomination in Gods eyes.

If anything seems like an “abomination” to God, that is God’s choice that it happened. Don’t say “Free will” because God still could have made the abomination to NOT happen.

“Abomination” is a harsh judgment anyway. Human fallibility... that we're prone to mistakes ... is an explanation for the preference for old stories over observable evidence displayed by the theists in this thread. If there have been human abominations they’re explained by some very horrible things happening to them — a genetic brain disorder and/or major child abuse if you’re talking about a psychopath, or some ugly societal circumstances if you’re talking about the mass insanity that happened in Nazi Germany.

Free will doesn’t make people abominable like that, that’s either the non-choices of nature or the choices of a God. If it’s the choices of a God, that makes that God something that must be questioned.

People tell you that doubting God is a sin because they want to manipulate you. If it comes down to the evidence of the observable world against the say-so of some especially trusted sources (the Bible, a preacher or priest), then your choice is basically between physical laws and fallible humans. It’s not physical laws that wrote the Bible. So, that leaves who to have written the Bible?

It must be me/Christians for believing in God and not actually God himself.

This idea "it's humans that are flawed not God" is a psychological manipulation that someone has played on you, and which you took up as your own belief way too obediently. If God won't withstand an examination, that's a problem with God not the human. And if it is just our concept of God that is faulty, then you have the problem of finding what the real God is and not just keep saying you don't know but believing strange sources of strange information (the Bible, preachers or priests) anyway. Don't just brush it away with "i don't know" and "If you say so". You have the right to trust your closest friend, you own mind, to sort these beliefs better.

 

[Learner]

The Greeks had tall tales of ancient floods that wiped out most of humanity. Why? Because they had observed fossil fish and shells high on mountains. How did they get there? Floods of course. Plato theorized that from time to time such floods occurred and humanity had to start over basically from the beginning. Floods did occur but never the type of floods of the tall tales. But the fossils.....

Well that is an important point if not an interesting one. It is unclear what type of flood it was, in relation to Noah. There are speculations for stormy seas and speculations for calmer seas.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The Greeks had tall tales of ancient floods that wiped out most of humanity. Why? Because they had observed fossil fish and shells high on mountains. How did they get there? Floods of course. Plato theorized that from time to time such floods occurred and humanity had to start over basically from the beginning. Floods did occur but never the type of floods of the tall tales. But the fossils.....

Well that is an important point if not an interesting one. It is unclear what type of flood it was, in relation to Noah. There are speculations for stormy seas and speculations for calmer seas.

The literalists need very stormy seas, because they need the flood to have completely rewritten the geological record. That's how they explain the lack of evidence of a global flood in any of the strata: That the very existence of the strata IS the global flood. It's how the mountains were laid and the canyons carved and the dinosaurs sorted to certain depths and all man's remains to other depths so they APPEAR not to overlap...

There's no way a year's worth of gentle, calm seas could have churned the earth's surface sufficiently to arrange the Geologic Column to appear to have taken a long time to accrue.

Of course, this theory requires that for a given species of, say, dinosaur, the old bodies sorted to the exact same depth as the young bodies, the eggs, the hatched eggs, the partially devoured corpses, their nests, their scat, AND their footprints all carefully indexed in the strata to tell a complete and self-supporting, if fictional, story. Never mind that no one's ever observed a modern flood performing this sort of sorting... That's how it simply MUST have happened.

 

[abaddon]

The Greeks had tall tales of ancient floods that wiped out most of humanity. Why? Because they had observed fossil fish and shells high on mountains. How did they get there? Floods of course. Plato theorized that from time to time such floods occurred and humanity had to start over basically from the beginning. Floods did occur but never the type of floods of the tall tales. But the fossils.....

Well that is an important point if not an interesting one. It is unclear what type of flood it was, in relation to Noah.

A mythical one, same as Noah’s.

There are speculations for stormy seas and speculations for calmer seas.

“Speculations”. Easy answers, like Plato's "it was a flood". But then he at least was trying to work with the info he had available, he didn't know about plate tectonics.

There are the impersonal facts of the world that trump speculations.

 

[Learner]

If anything seems like an “abomination” to God, that is God’s choice that it happened. Don’t say “Free will” because God still could have made the abomination to NOT happen.

He could have stopped it happening but that doesn't take away the notion of freewill.

“Abomination” is a harsh judgment anyway. Human fallibility... that we're prone to mistakes ... is an explanation for the preference for old stories over observable evidence displayed by the theists in this thread. If there have been human abominations they’re explained by some very horrible things happening to them — a genetic brain disorder and/or major child abuse if you’re talking about a psychopath, or some ugly societal circumstances if you’re talking about the mass insanity that happened in Nazi Germany.

Free will doesn’t make people abominable like that, that’s either the non-choices of nature or the choices of a God. If it’s the choices of a God, that makes that God something which you must, if you want to be honestly consistent in your thoughts on this, apply your skepticism to.

Abominations in the eyes of God I refer to is something non human or no longer human especially when originally created by his hand . My previous post was relating to going too far. for example ; Transhumanism ,Over curious unnecessary genetic manipulation, normalizing acceptance to have animal parts in humans or vice versa, so called cloning animals that may turn out wrong eventually getting into the food chain ...animals with human parts slipping into the chain. Going too far as technology advances. Safe controls are prone to human mistakes. This always happens and would be disastrous to humans.

People tell you that doubting God is a sin because they want to manipulate you. If it comes down to the evidence of the observable world against the say-so of some especially trusted sources (the Bible, a preacher or priest), then your choice is basically between physical laws and fallible humans. It’s not physical laws that wrote the Bible. So, that leaves who to have the written the Bible?

Not at all, There is only one preacher and teacher that is Jesus. Using this quote which I'm sure you'd agree with and also inline with your mentioned above ;

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

Mahatma Ghandi

This idea "it's humans that are flawed not God" is a psychological manipulation that someone has played on you, and which you took up as your own belief much too much obediently. If God won't withstand critical examination, that's a problem with God. And if it is just our concept of God that is faulty, then you have the problem of finding what the real God is and not just keep saying you don't know but believing strange sources of strange information (the Bible, preachers or priests) anyway.

According to the bible. God forgives even when you curse him.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

You know man is very easily corrupted. He will be teased and tempted by voices in his head seeded by the dazzling marvels of doing things against his good nature. It will go so far that the human being will be something else,desensitized of human decency, if you will become an abomination in Gods eyes.

Where pray tell? Divine providence hidden is no provision, it is nothing but a cruel parlor game played for the amusement of a crueler gamesman.

As the above reply

People's disbelief comes from the God. He has but to make himself know, not in signs and wonders, but in blatant acts that leave no question. Your God demands we take His existence on faith, then plagues us all with reason which demands we doubt. Your God is sick.

What can I say Athena, although your words are quite angry to something you don't believe in. It must be me/Christians for believing in God and not actually God himself.

That was 2000 years ago. What has He done lately? and why send His son? Why torture His son? Why must there be a blood sacrifice? Why all the suffering when with a wave of his hand, suffering could be no more? Which is what will happen after we all stand the test the judgement. A new heaven and new earth where the wicked shall cease from troubling and the weary shall be at rest. After that great gettin' up morning, for all eternity God will be surrounded by loving and good people who will praise him forever and never wane, never tire. Like Robomen.

I think we would never be tired to be with our parents and grandparents,close friends and family in that world. So what more of God and the son that makes it all happen? This is pure Joy!

But your God is responsible for nothing and to no one. He can and according to the Book has, caused great suffering and madness in the world, all of it unnecessary. Your God is sick.

As with my first reply

God created the world and Satan. If Satan owns the world, it is by God's will. What kind of father turns his children and their home over to the enemy?

One who knows man can believe enough to overcome his enemy.

What do you mean today? You know of time when evil did not exist in the world? People do profane things. People do profound things. And this has been true ever since there have been people. The only difference today is that WE can bring about the end of the world, no deity required.

Yes indeed the only difference now.

Yes he will destroy the world the unfair world not the Earth!

Revelation 21:1

1And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more.
.

More or less the same thing, I am trying.

God worship is idolatry and idolatry is a sin.

Step out of the darkness and into the light and there sin no more.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Free will? What free will? All has been predetermined from the beginning. God, the great potter makes some vessels for honor, some for destruction. Some are created elect and saved, many reprobate and damned. Paul, Romans 11. Why did the Jews reject Jesus as the messiah? Because God hardened their hearts not to. If free will means so little to God, why not make all men believers?

 

[Learner]

Free will? What free will? All has been predetermined from the beginning. God, the great potter makes some vessels for honor, some for destruction. Some are created elect and saved, many reprobate and damned. Paul, Romans 11. Why did the Jews reject Jesus as the messiah? Because God hardened their hearts not to. If free will means so little to God, why not make all men believers?

I'don't know about that really. Throughout the bible God warns of dangers when doing the wrong thing. Just by this our 'common sense' gives good grounds to understand that freewill is necessary (more so for creationists) . Now of course when you bring in the science, as you mention that 'all things are determined' It doesn't really sit well with the accordance to creation . However there is some common sense to determism if seen differently.

I would be more inclined to believe that there are Predetermined Choices! and why not? Sounds like common sense to me (IMO).

 

[Learner]

God worship is idolatry and idolatry is a sin. Step out of the darkness and into the light and there sin no more.

Join us, you have the ability !

 

[Lion IRC]

How is "God worship" idolatry?
God is not a 'thing'. Not a statue or inanimate object.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Free will? What free will? All has been predetermined from the beginning. God, the great potter makes some vessels for honor, some for destruction. Some are created elect and saved, many reprobate and damned. Paul, Romans 11. Why did the Jews reject Jesus as the messiah? Because God hardened their hearts not to. If free will means so little to God, why not make all men believers?

I'don't know about that really. Throughout the bible God warns of dangers when doing the wrong thing. Just by this our 'common sense' gives good grounds to understand that freewill is necessary (more so for creationists) . Now of course when you bring in the science, as you mention that 'all things are determined' It doesn't really sit well with the accordance to creation . However there is some common sense to determism if seen differently.

I would be more inclined to believe that there are Predetermined Choices! and why not? Sounds like common sense to me (IMO).

The Bible is self contradictory on the issue of free will. But the Bible is clear that free will is not the way things work. Martin Luther wrote a book "The Bondage of the will" that goes through the Bible looking for what it says about free will, and concludes "Free will is impossible".

John Calvin agreed. Providence, God's Plan, controls all. Islam is even worse as far as free will is concerned Google Qadar. In the final analysis, the Bible and Quran leave no room for free will despite the contradictions that seem to be rampant in these supposed revelations.

 

[Learner]

The Bible is self contradictory on the issue of free will. But the Bible is clear that free will is not the way things work. Martin Luther wrote a book "The Bondage of the will" that goes through the Bible looking for what it says about free will, and concludes "Free will is impossible".

John Calvin agreed. Providence, God's Plan, controls all. Islam is even worse as far as free will is concerned Google Qadar. In the final analysis, the Bible and Quran leave no room for free will despite the contradictions that seem to be rampant in these supposed revelations.

I won't deny that the bible is difficult to understand at times. What they meant may have been in the context that God created everything,sees everything, intervenes in every moment. A philosophy of sorts and if not, it could only be an opinion even if they were right without actually knowing it (which I doubt).

 

[AthenaAwakened]

How is "God worship" idolatry?
God is not a 'thing'. Not a statue or inanimate object.

God is an idea. God is a way humans attempt to contain all the mysteries of existence. God is shield against all the things man fears. God is a useful concept for man, but how man defines, refines, and confines that concept has very little if anything to do with the nature of existence and everything to do with what men need God to be.

For the sake of argument, let's say there is some kind of intelligence to the universe. Could humans ever really understand it? I say they could not. As your own Apostle Paul said, For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Paul gets the first part right, we do only see in the glass darkly and we do only know in part. The second part (then face to face; I shall know fully) is an article of faith that is based on fulfillment of a wish and that the first part actually undermines.

So even the book says we don't know the nature of existence, the nature of God. Yet we take our partial and paltry knowledge, tag it God and worship it. We do not worship God, we worship our idea of God. Except we don't even do that because we worship not OUR idea of God, but the idea of god that comes from a collection of books written thousands of years ago by people who knew even less than we. And in the end, believers wind up really worshiping the book. And a book is not God.

Religion is as a finger pointing to the moon. Most people live and die worshiping the finger.

 

[Learner]

God is an idea. God is a way humans attempt to contain all the mysteries of existence. God is shield against all the things man fears. God is a useful concept for man, but how man defines, refines, and confines that concept has very little if anything to do with the nature of existence and everything to do with what men need God to be.

I'll just reply to this for now (Duty calls) . Yes it rings true but it doen't necessarily apply to all believers in this particular way.

 

[Lion IRC]

Ok, fine. You say we are unjustified in assuming Noah only had access to the technologies available at the time estimated by Ussher. Fine. I don't agree that this is a reasonable suggestion, but it is fair.

As I said before, I don't hold to Usshers dating. (It's not theologically impossible but it requires a lot more divine intervention than is in the text and stretches the exegesis pretty thin.)
And my point about technology was that a catastrophic extinction event would reset the clock.
We can't presume there weren't two bronze ages - one before the Flood and one after.

...Please tell us what the correct time was.
Please tell us what the time between the Creation and that time was.
Please tell us what the equivalent technological level was in terms of recorded history.
Please tell us why you think they could have achieved this technological level in the time between Creation and the Flood.

Nope. Nice try.
You don't get to propose a debunking theory based on gaps in the biblical account and when I point out that the bible doesn't give sufficient age/date information to enable your counter-theory, you expect me to provide you the missing times and dates.

...Now, you have presented biblical 'evidence' that metalworking was known before the flood. And apparently, you believe after the flood, the ability to forge iron (and possibly bronze) was lost.

Nope - not lost. Just put on the shelf while civilization rebuilt itself.
Noah's sons would have had more pressing and immediate needs in the aftermath of the Flood than passing on the accumulated know-how of millions of Flood victims. The most important skill would have been finding clean water and catching food. That may have remained the case for generations of descendants by which time Noah and his sons were a distant memory.
How often on that TV show Survivor do you see contestants practising their blacksmith skills or building water wheels to grind wheat into flour?

... Now please explain to me why this, possibly THE MOST useful skill ever, was lost. Iron is not scarce, especially not in Turkey near mount Ararat.

Forging iron is a luxury and requires spare time - or time paid for by other workers who are out finding enough surplus food to provide others the spare time to indulge in innovation and invention.
Clean water. Food. Shelter from the elements. Security from predation.
...then you can start with your cave paintings and carving little statues and contemplating the invention of tools that will free up your time.

... I said, 'they couldn't build the ark without iron'. You replied, 'they did know how to make iron' (Gen 4). So, why was iron working forgotten?

Here - let me break it down for you.
Noahs ancestors knew about melting bronze, copper, iron.
They all died in the Flood.
Noah and maybe his sons also had recollection of the old days when that was possible.
But Noah got old and died. His sons didn't have the luxury of gathering rocks and building really hot fires and smelting metal. They were too busy and getting old. Perhaps they never got around to writing their memoirs. Perhaps they died unexpectedly and never got around to teaching their kids about the finer points of making iron nails. Perhaps their children were too young and/or too stupid to be taught by their widowed mothers. Maybe it never occurred to Ham and Shem and Japheth to teach women (their wives) about men's work and they took the secrets of metallurgy to the grave?
The point is, iron rusts and dissapears. So there is no certain archeological proof that there never was an Iron Age prior to the Flood.

....Oh, and why would ironworking be lost and bronzeworking not be lost?

Both can be re-discovered in just the same way as they were before the Flood.
But as I said, it takes time - spare time. And that requires civilization.

All in good time. All in good time.

When people in modern times talk about cataclysms like asteroids hitting earth or nuclear war holocausts or even bombing a certain enemy "back into the Stone Age" they realise that we literally would be sent back to the Stone Age.

Even if remnant people still alive after such an event DID remember the internet, it could be hundreds/thousands of decades before circumstances allowed the reemergence of facebook and emails and undersea cables connecting nations.

 

[Keith&Co.]

That's funny, Lion.
Survivors of the Flood had to prioritize the technologies
they preserved and/or recreated. That makes sense.
So what's the first thing on record that they did?

Wine. Growing grapes and fermenting something to get drunk with.

Sloppy drunk, too.

Canaan would maybe have done better if Noah had preserved ironworking as a hobby, instead.

 

[Sarpedon]

Thanks to Kieth's brilliant point: The bible does not in fact show that life post flood was a barely scraping by lifestyle that you postulate.

I also would point out that blacksmithing is not a leisure activity. Making tools is essential for humans. Whether you make them out of flint or iron. It is not, in fact, more time consuming to make tools out of iron than stone, and the tools produced are better. It does not make any sense to go backwards in this field. If they had time to cultivate vines (which takes years) and make wine, they had time to make iron tools out of the iron they could scavenge from the ark itself. No mining or refining necessary.

Oh: and what do you mean by 'catching' food. What food was there to 'catch?' Just the pairs of animals that came off of the ark.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Oh: and what do you mean by 'catching' food. What food was there to 'catch?' Just the pairs of animals that came off of the ark.

Well, they had all the unicorn steaks and brontosaurus burgers.

 

[funinspace]

I can relate to you on this ,the fascination of Sumerians. I was pointing out that there were floods great and small during the times of early civilizations. There are controversies or theories if you like on the Egyptian cronological dating for example. Are we sure that their timeline really doesn't match the biblical accounts.? Sure I'm no expert but I am also a sceptic. Not because of being a Christian but because of human error or to put it another way having the controversy rise up has put more doubt in my mind.

It is not just the Egyptians that one needs ‘controversies’ generated by people peddling contrarian notions. One needs to also have parallel ‘controversies’ for the Sumerian and Chinese chronologies to create wiggle room for other ‘theories’. And this still ignores the geological record.

The Sumerians are fascinating, with Kings lists date back to 2600 BCE; and they also have fabled long lived people in their past. Archaeologists have documented the long process of the Sumerian development of writing reaching back into the previous millennium.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_tablet

The Kish tablet is inscribed with proto-cuneiform signs. It has been dated to ca. 3500 BC (middle Uruk period), although some scholars believe it may be from somewhat later -- Uruk IV period (ca. 3350-3200 BC).[1] Several thousands of proto-cuneiform documents dating to Uruk IV and III periods (ca. 3350-3000 BC) have been found in Uruk.

The Chinese were recording solar eclipses by at least 4600 years ago.
http://education.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/pages/traditions_Calendars.html

By 2300 BC, ancient Chinese astrologers, already had sophisticated observatory buildings, and as early as 2650 BC, Li Shu was writing about astronomy. Observing total solar eclipses was a major element of forecasting the future health and successes of the Emperor, and astrologers were left with the onerous task of trying to anticipate when these events might occur. Failure to get the prediction right, in at least one recorded case in 2300 BC resulted in the beheading of two astrologers.

There is plenty of geological data that contradicts the notion of a world engulfing flood in human history, unless one believes in a trickster god.

Floods happened is my point!

Great, but so what? And what Keith & Co said… I assume that your faith doesn’t include a trickster god? I know that wasn’t part of my Christian faith back in the day…

When do you think this Noah Deluge could have happened?

4500 years ago maybe ? I don't know .

That would be the logical and literal conclusion of reading thru the OT passages recording the generations between Noah to Abraham in Genesis 5:3-28; then Abraham to Isaac; Isaac to Jacob; Jacob to Joseph; and Jacob entering Egypt; and then the 430 (Ex 12:40) years in Egypt; then the 40 years of wandering. All one has to do then is to estimate the invasion Canaan. And there is the problem with trying to force feed the Deluge into human history, this tale collides with known human history and multiple geological record types as well as dendrochronology. All these problems are probably part of why C.S. Lewis discarded the Deluge among a couple others to the fable side of life.

 

[Learner]

It is not just the Egyptians that one needs ‘controversies’ generated by people peddling contrarian notions. One needs to also have parallel ‘controversies’ for the Sumerian and Chinese chronologies to create wiggle room for other ‘theories’. And this still ignores the geological record.
The Sumerians are fascinating, with Kings lists date back to 2600 BCE; and they also have fabled long lived people in their past. Archaeologists have documented the long process of the Sumerian development of writing reaching back into the previous millennium.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_tablet
The Kish tablet is inscribed with proto-cuneiform signs. It has been dated to ca. 3500 BC (middle Uruk period), although some scholars believe it may be from somewhat later -- Uruk IV period (ca. 3350-3200 BC).[1] Several thousands of proto-cuneiform documents dating to Uruk IV and III periods (ca. 3350-3000 BC) have been found in Uruk.

For sure and of course if we were to ignore the biblical accounts and just tally the remaining choronological timelines of other cultures and civilizations we would undoubtedly come across very similar mismatches. This just means we're not accurate to know dates at all especially going further and further several thousand years. This wouldn't necessarily conflict with geological records depending on correct interpretation of the geology and the correct intepretation of the data, lining up various chronological records in correct relative order, but we know these cultures existed at least. There's something to go on when we get it right.

The Chinese were recording solar eclipses by at least 4600 years ago.
http://education.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/pages/traditions_Calendars.html

By 2300 BC, ancient Chinese astrologers, already had sophisticated observatory buildings, and as early as 2650 BC, Li Shu was writing about astronomy. Observing total solar eclipses was a major element of forecasting the future health and successes of the Emperor, and astrologers were left with the onerous task of trying to anticipate when these events might occur. Failure to get the prediction right, in at least one recorded case in 2300 BC resulted in the beheading of two astrologers.

Yes people were fairly advanced and very aware of their surroundings understanding the nature of things and materials.

There is plenty of geological data that contradicts the notion of a world engulfing flood in human history, unless one believes in a trickster god.
Great, but so what? And what Keith & Co said… I assume that your faith doesn’t include a trickster god? I know that wasn’t part of my Christian faith back in the day…

Would it be best to first establish the actual description the type of flood if we're to make provable evaluations to the geological data. As it is mentioned in various cultures (Including Plato ) there were many floods during mans existence. Floods for example that unfortunately happened in New orleans or torrential rains in monsoons causing loss of life, animals and people and serious damage to environment and this is obviously being on a much smaller scale. It wouldn't need that supposed type of flood that geological records says it rejects, but a flood nevertheless big enough to be very destructive.

When do you think this Noah Deluge could have happened?

4500 years ago maybe ? I don't know .
That would be the logical and literal conclusion of reading thru the OT passages recording the generations between Noah to Abraham in Genesis 5:3-28; then Abraham to Isaac; Isaac to Jacob; Jacob to Joseph; and Jacob entering Egypt; and then the 430 (Ex 12:40) years in Egypt; then the 40 years of wandering. All one has to do then is to estimate the invasion Canaan. And there is the problem with trying to force feed the Deluge into human history, this tale collides with known human history and multiple geological record types as well as dendrochronology. All these problems are probably part of why C.S. Lewis discarded the Deluge among a couple others to the fable side of life.

C.S. Lewis was a remakable man.We can at least take note of his feelings towards it.