These arguments kinda crack me up. I mean really, since the greeks we've been arguing over this same stuff over and over. Us TA's decide to bring the argument back, thinking that we might be the ones that can actualy reach a conclusion even though the smartest humans ever known haven't.

I prefer to explain things with this:

earth how often have
the doting


fingers of
prurient philosophies pinched
and poked


thee
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy


beauty how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy
knees squeezing and


buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
but
true


to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover


thou answerest


them only with


spring
(e.e. cummings - O sweet spontaneous)

Can we just accept that there is no great answer? I think that neither science nor religion can figure this out, but feel free to keep trying, it gets quite entertaining.

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Originally posted by igottaknow You have said earlier in this thread that the bible is a more accurate source of historical information because it was composed by people who observed those events first hand. But here you admit that events of the Old Testament were indirectly communicated by god thousands of years later to Moses not by the actual participants, so they are NOT first hand accounts.

They are *accounts*, however.

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My interpretation of that quote is that the ice age was the aftermath of the flood, meaning it occurred after the flood. ie cloud cover for an extended duration would lower the earth's temperature triggering an ice age. So your explaination is water bubbled up from under the crust of the earth and after the flood the water seeped back under the crust? Don't you know lava is under the crust not water? Furthermore if the bible doesn't specifically say that this occurred then, what reason do you assume this to be true? Do you realize that all your explanations fly in the face of accepted natural laws. Speed of light isn't constant, radiation decay, red shift,...

Bubbled? Hehe...

I've never said I'm not making assumptions. Quit being ignorant. Bah, I sound like Opus now. Dammit.

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Btw, I just skimmed an interesting article on problems with the flood theory http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/flood.html It's quite long and complex but one point that is quite striking is that all plant life would be killed by the flood. How would any of plant eating animals survive afterwards? What about the supply of oxygen with no plant life on the planet?

Man, go back to 6th grade science class. Your assertion can be answered simply by the existance of algae.

As for what they ate afterward... use your imagination.

LOL i love how Seventil completly ignored my post on Noah's ark....i guess there really is no disputing common sense.

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Originally posted by tiesto14 One major flaw in the flood story that is not brought up often is, what did the carnivores eat to stay alive after the flood? Think about it - if Noah took 2 of each land animal (or 7 depending on which story you choose to read today) then they would not have enough food to last a month post-flood. It is an impossibility. Do you have any clue how much a lion or any other large carnivore eats in a single month. Common sense people, common sense.

Genesis 1:29-30 - NASB
29: Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;
30: and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so.

"What did carnivores eat? Well the question presupposes that there WERE carnivores, which may or may not have been true. It also presupposes that carnivores MUST eat flesh. There are plenty of examples of carnivores today that can live quite healthily on vegetation. In fact, I'm unaware of any land animal that cannot survive on a vegetation diet (let me know if you are aware of any...BR).

Still, with plenty of room to spare, there is no reason to believe that animals could not have been brought on board for food, or that quickly multiplying animals such as rabbits and mice did not provide some carnivorous snacks as well.

It's all educated guesswork, admittedly, but the IMPORTANT POINT is... that everything the Bible says happened , was EASILY within the realm of physical possibility, and doesn't even need a "miraculous" reason to believe even if it involves Dinosaurs."

From: http://www.seriousfaith.com/questio...?questionid=781

Gen 6:21 - "...take for yourself some of all food which is edible and gather it to yourself; and it shall be for food for you and for them."

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Here are passages from some thing i read once about the ark:: This boat would of been bigger than a super-tanker! The ark would have to be the single largest ship ever in the history of the world. Modern technology could not possibly create a ship large and stable enough to act as Noah's Ark

That's quite speculative to be used as justification of it never being built.

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Many species of land animal require highly specialised habitat and food to survive. Koala bears, for instance, eat one kilogram of fresh Eucalyptus- tree leaves per day, which provide all their water and nutrition (some people have suggested Noah had a year's supply of dried Euc. leaves. But Koalas need the leaves for their water. What did Noah do? Rehydrate them? With what, a desalination plant? Hold them out in the rain every morning?) Also, no matter what time of year it was, many creatures would be hibernating (it's always winter somewhere on the globe). Many creatures are only found on one continent, indeed some are limited to a small island/forest/mountain. It's a neat trick to be able to walk thousands of miles to the Middle East if you're hibernating on a remote island near Alaska.

I've mentioned this before... the world (as we see it today) definately did not look the same as the world before the Flood. We can speculate all we like on what it looked like, and what creatures were where. I agree that it would be tough to do what you mention, but you're using backwards logic. Try thinking of it as everything that Noah gathered spread across into the continents we see today.

Also, as far as interconnectivity of the continents, a post-Flood ice age explains it perfectly. If their are ginormous masses of ice being moved and melting, the water levels will be significantly lower, allowing for walking access to everywhere - from Galapagos to Australia, Russia to Canada, etc.

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Where did Noah find the pitch to waterproof the Ark with? Flood theorists say that all the world's oil / petroleum deposits were formed during the Flood. How could Noah find and use pitch to waterproof the Ark before the Flood, when the pitch was formed during the Flood? Did he have SCUBA gear as well, and kept diving down to gather fresh pitch from the ocean floor and apply it to the Ark while it was floating around? Pitch is a petroleum deposit, which takes more than a couple of thousand years to form. (Some people argue that "wood-pitch" was used instead, although the commonly held belief is that it was petroleum-pitch).

I've heard this argument before. It's debatable. Perhaps if the expedition this summer to find the ark (I haven't heard any news about it) goes well, it will answer some speculative questions like this one.

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Using modern equipment, it can take a good shipyard years to build a large ship, using hundreds of men. Noah (five hundred years old at the time) apparently had himself, a few helpers and a lot of gopher-wood trees. We are expected to believe that he built the Ark, using crude hand-tools, over a period of many years in a world filled with evil, scheming criminals. ("The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.")

Part of your assertion is correct. However, take into consideration a pre-Flood world that people lived to be 900+, and also were "giants" by today's standards. A pre-Flood world was like living in a hyperbaric chamber, increased oxygen levels and blockage of harmful UV rays would allow people to be unfathomably stronger, healthier life. I don't see it out of the realm of reasonability that due to this, it was quite possible to build a ship of this size.

There is empirical evidence for what I just stated. There are numerous findings of human skeletons over ten feet tall. I can post some references if you wish.

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Some people might find it a little odd that God, omnipotent being who can create entire galaxies in an instant, takes weeks and weeks to flood the planet. Perhaps water is a bit fiddly to create?

I find it overwhelmingly comforting that God used the laws and rules He made to destroy the planet. It is much more assuring to me that He did use a slow and normal process to destroy His world and remind us of our fall. Also, He didn't "create" any new water - He simply destroyed the containment devices (fountains of the deep broke open, rain from heaven, etc) to leave a lasting, and also scientifically provable, effect on His world.

quote:

Assuming it was fresh water (as it rained) this would have severely diluted the oceans, causing devastation among the marine creatures. Ask anyone with a marine fish-tank just how sensitive reef-fish and corals are to changes in water conditions. Virtually all sea-life that could not stand brackish water would have been destroyed.

I agree. Virtually all sea life was destroyed. However, just as some species can live in both salt and fresh water, I believe that creatures adapted and survived.

Also, desalination of the oceans could easily cause a tremendous global temperature and weather effect (like in that horrific movie Day After Tomorrow) - causing Ice Age like effects to the globe.

quote:

Then, after the waters subside (where to?) there are still more problems with the story. What happened to all the corpses of the countless numbers of animals and humans that died? Surely there would have been terrible plague and disease caused by all that rotting meat.

I believe that the water filled the new oceans and eventually melted (from what was now frozen) - filling the oceans up even more. Some seeped back down of course, but I believe in the newly transformed world, the water slowly filled up the oceans, creating the continent divisions we see today. This would be somewhat slow (a few hundred years if not more). As for the animals and plant life, they are the coal and oil deposits we see today. If you take into consideration the pre-Flood conditions (higher pressure + oxygen) - the huge size of the animals and plants (pre-Flood) could easily account for the enormous deposits we see today. Most were buried, of course, creating the pressure needed for coal and oil deposits.

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Many claims are made for sighting of the remains of the Ark in the mountains of Turkey. These Ark-pieces are supposed to be about nine thousand feet up the side of one precipitous mountain or another (usually Ararat). Now, these mountains are not gently rolling hills. They're huge great things covered with snow and full of jagged crevices. The mountain-goats, birds and flying squirrels could have probably got down safely (as long as they didn't freeze or starve on the way), but elephants, penguins, camels and crocodiles are not noted for their natural mountaineering ability.

I'm as curious as you. We can only speculate; it may or may not be the ark there. Hopefully we (as mankind) will find an answer to this soon.

quote:

How did the koalas and kangaroos get back to Australia? How did the polar bears and penguins get back the north/south poles? How did the giant tortoises get back to the Galapagos islands? How did the flightless dodos get back to Mauritius? How did the army ants get back to the Amazon rain-forests? As there were only two of each species, how did they manage to travel thousands of miles back to their place of origin without being eaten, dying in accidents or of starving to death due to lack of their normal (specialised) food supply?

My above statements should answer this.

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Many of the animals hibernated, or went into some sort of suspended animation. As mentioned above, how the already-hibernating beasties get there in the first place? Was this a natural form of hibernation (which requires the build-up of large fat reserves first), or some sort of miraculous state? How did the animals build up enough fat whilst walking thousands of miles to the Ark (which would be quite good exercise)? If it was all done with miracles, then why do creationists insist on explaining everything in naturalistic terms? Which is it? Magic or mundane?

And this.

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Once Noah had seen all the animals off, he then had to set about repopulating the world. Again, incest in the bible rears it's ugly head. Noah's family had to inbreed to have children. Sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, first cousins and first cousins (as Noah's sons had their wives with them - eight people altogether) all nicely mixed together

Look up the biological reasons behind inbreeding, and take into consideration a pre-Flood world where the DNA and genes of humans were not mutated or harmed by harmful effects of the sun. Noah's family was still "pure" in a pre-Flood sense of the word.

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There was no flood and the bible was made up to scare the ignorant masses so they stay in line. Oh ya..to bible huggers...here's a question i have still never heard an answer to. DID TREES HAVE RINGS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN?

While I can't empirically answer your tree question, I would like to point out the oldest living tree ever found is around 4300 years old.

While I sympathize with your harsh assertion, I disagree. I'm currently researching the topic of religion and it's effects on society, and we can discuss this if you wish. My personal view is that science and religion are compatible. While I am Christian, I only adopt this belief because it is my personal belief. I believe man and orginized religion has wrongly done many things in the past in the name of religion. I also believe science should not be limited by the church; nor do I believe that science should be done in the name of their own philosophical beliefs (evolution). I believe science is the pursuit of truth, and should be kept that way.

My views above are that of my own. In no way am I saying that I can empirically prove Creation. What I am saying is that evolution can, in no way, disprove Creation without using generous and blatant assumptions that masses of people take for literal truth. I believe science is, and should be, another way to find God. It saddens me when I see people crusade against God for no reason than to sound like an arrogant devil's advocate.

A quote from Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" that I like:

Science and religion are not at odds;
Science is simply too young to understand.

I would just like to add my few cents.
I myself am a strong evolutionists. (I have read through this entire post wich is one of the longer ones on this site)
And after reading all the posts I myself an evolutionist find that Seventil has done a really good job answering your challenges and has brought to the table a pretty logical agrument. As for igottaknow you have said some really dumb questions and
Seventil has answered and replied with good arguments to your stupid remarks wich make us evolutionits look dumber than how you veiw creationists. As for Opus your trying to attack Seventil from any angle ya can and he has done a good job defending his positions. I myself admit there is alot of bulshit in are evolutionary theories and I myself have found that I will try to make a theorie valid even if I know it is bullshit just to spite a creationist. Both sides take faith but I will admit we evolutionists have changed are minds and reworked are theories on a hell of alot more subjects than creationists have, and I find that we are wrong on ALOT of things.

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Originally posted by tiesto14 LOL i love how Seventil completly ignored my post on Noah's ark....i guess there really is no disputing common sense.

Quiet down kid, it took me a while to type that shit out.

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Originally posted by djverne I would just like to add my few cents. I myself am a strong evolutionists. (I have read through this entire post wich is one of the longer ones on this site) And after reading all the posts I myself an evolutionist find that Seventil has done a really good job answering your challenges and has brought to the table a pretty logical agrument. As for igottaknow you have said some really dumb questions and Seventil has answered and replied with good arguments to your stupid remarks wich make us evolutionits look dumber than how you veiw creationists. As for Opus your trying to attack Seventil from any angle ya can and he has done a good job defending his positions. I myself admit there is alot of bulshit in are evolutionary theories and I myself have found that I will try to make a theorie valid even if I know it is bullshit just to spite a creationist. Both sides take faith but I will admit we evolutionists have changed are minds and reworked are theories on a hell of alot more subjects than creationists have, and I find that we are wrong on ALOT of things.

Well thanks for the pat on the back... glad to see some sanity every now and then! I agree both are taken on faith and neither can be proven empirically.

If you wish to discuss anything, let me know. I'll be discussing some philosophical religious things with Arbiter for a bit, but will check back here periodically.

Asfor the remarks made about noahs ark and the great flood, I don't see it as being a problem just an alternative to the ice age theorie. both present good facts. And I don't see were the issue of food and gathering the animals becomes a problem if as a creationist you believe that God was guiding this whole process, that a pretty consistant LOGICAL view point, if your an evolutionist you might as well give up on trying to bump that because your not gonna logicaly.

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Originally posted by djverne Asfor the remarks made about noahs ark and the great flood, I don't see it as being a problem just an alternative to the ice age theorie. both present good facts. And I don't see were the issue of food and gathering the animals becomes a problem if as a creationist you believe that God was guiding this whole process, that a pretty consistant LOGICAL view point, if your an evolutionist you might as well give up on trying to bump that because your not gonna logicaly.

Hehe, well said. I haven't mentioned this because I like debating, and, they have posed a few questions I haven't heard before (which is the main reason I do this in the first place).

Nice to hear it from an evolutionist though.

We'll be discussing some of the philosophical views of not believing in God, or embracing a naturalistic/humanistic sort of lifestyle, in the "Crusade vs. Blind Faith" thread, if you wish to join in.

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Originally posted by Seventil I've mentioned this before... the world (as we see it today) definately did not look the same as the world before the Flood. We can speculate all we like on what it looked like, and what creatures were where. I agree that it would be tough to do what you mention, but you're using backwards logic. Try thinking of it as everything that Noah gathered spread across into the continents we see today. Also, as far as interconnectivity of the continents, a post-Flood ice age explains it perfectly. If their are ginormous masses of ice being moved and melting, the water levels will be significantly lower, allowing for walking access to everywhere - from Galapagos to Australia, Russia to Canada, etc.

So you're suggesting that giant tortoises which can move only 0.17 mph over short distances somehow migrated back to the galapagos islands by walking over "masses of ice" or land-bridges formed by lowered water levels while sustaining a highly specialized diet (http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/dietcons.html) and in an inhospitable climate?

You've made an admirable attempt at apologetics but you're really starting to reach now.

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Originally posted by Arbiter So you're suggesting that giant tortoises which can move only 0.17 mph over short distances somehow migrated back to the galapagos islands by walking over "masses of ice" or land-bridges formed by lowered water levels while sustaining a highly specialized diet (http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/dietcons.html) and in an inhospitable climate? You've made an admirable attempt at apologetics but you're really starting to reach now.

Hewwwoooo Arbiter. Good to see you again.

I may be off on this - but can't turtles swim? I vividly remembering chasing one in April while I was in Egypt scuba diving... They can swim fast as hell!

TortoiseTrust... I can't stop laughing from that name. Hahah!

I have done absolutely no research on giant tortoises and the like, but I'll attempt an answer (and I may disprove my own statements later) using pure Biblical logic (or lack thereof! heh)

Correct me if I'm wrong - but haven't giant tortoise fossils and whatnot been found - ones that are huge compared to todays?

Keep in mind the Creationist pre-Flood world - a world that can be imagined as what evolutionists claim to be a "Jurassic" type environment. Both plants and animals are huge. Also, due to the lack of harmful mutations in lifeforms (in a pre-Flood world, once again) - a giant tortoise of 2200 BC would be not only significantly larger, but a lot more healthier ("pure") from a biological standpoint. Logically, it could be reasonable to assume that whatever dietary problems they have today (which you've linked above) were not present then.

And thank you for calling my apologetics "admirable"...

Read my post in the other thread if you have time, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.