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This is a tough one. I mean, I believe there was a flood, but I'm not so sure about it being as "great" as is described in scriptures. I can totally see natural events causing severe flooding in a local area that would be worse than anything anyone had seen in their lifetimes. I can also see local animal populations being able to figure out a way to survive something like that without people's help.
quote:SOURCE
There are also certain scientific considerations which oppose the view that the Flood was geographically universal. Not that science opposes any difficulty insuperable to the power of God; but it draws attention to a number of most extraordinary, if not miraculous phenomena involved in the admission of a geographically universal Deluge.No Catholic commentator will repudiate an explanation merely for fear of having to admit a miracle; but no Catholic has a right to admit Biblical miracles which are not well attested either by Scripture or tradition. What is more, there are traces in the Biblical Flood story which favour a limited extent of the catastrophe: Noah could have known the geographical universality of the Deluge only by revelation; still the Biblical account appears to have been written by an eye-witness. If the Flood had been universal, the water would have had to fall from the height of the mountains in India to the level of those in Armenia on which the ark rested, i.e. about 11,500 feet, within the space of a few days. The fact that the dove is said to have found "the waters . . . upon the whole earth", and that Noah "saw that the face of the earth was dried", leaves the impression that the inspired writer uses the word "earth" in the restricted sense of "land". Attention has been drawn also to the "bough of an olive tree, with green leaves" carried by the dove in her mouth on her second return to the ark.
- First, no such geological traces can be found as ought to have been left by a universal Deluge; for the catastrophe connected with the beginning of the ice-age, or the geological deluge, must not be connected with the Biblical.
- Secondly, the amount of water required by a universal Deluge, as described in the Bible, cannot be accounted for by the data furnished in the Biblical account. If the surface of the earth, in round numbers, amounts to 510,000,000 square kilometres, and if the elevation of the highest mountains reaches about 9000 metres, the water required by the Biblical Flood, if it be universal, amounts to about 4,600,000,000 cubic kilometres. Now, a forty days' rain, ten times more copious than the most violent rainfall known to us, will raise the level of the sea only about 800 metres; since the height to be attained is about 9000 metres, there is still a gap to be filled by unknown sources amounting to a height of more than 8000 metres, in order to raise the water to the level of the greatest mountains.
- Thirdly, if the Biblical Deluge was geographically universal, the sea water and the fresh water would mix to such an extent that neither the marine animals nor the fresh-water animals could have lived in the mixture without a miracle.
- Fourthly, there are serious difficulties connected with the animals in the ark, if the Flood was geographically universal: How were they brought to Noah from the remote regions of the earth in which they lived? How could eight persons take care of such an array of beasts? Where did they obtain the food necessary for all the animals? How could the arctic animals live with those of the torrid zone for a whole year and under the same roof?
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No. Ice is magic stuff... like snow. We know not from whence it comes, but it makes things pretty and causes cries of jubilation from a great many children. /sarcasm
quote:I miss having snow. The quiet in my neighborhood was glorious after a 12" dump of snow.quote:
No. Ice is magic stuff... like snow. We know not from whence it comes, but it makes things pretty and causes cries of jubilation from a great many children. /sarcasm
You have no idea how much I want it to snow today to give me tomorrow off.
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No physical evidence - just faith. No evidence God hid the flood - Noah and his family saw it.
quote:Interesting that you asked what physical evidence supports my belief and I said none. Your conclusion (hidden in your predictable "So [insert mindless conclusion]?" question) is no physical evidence exists at all.quote:
No physical evidence - just faith. No evidence God hid the flood - Noah and his family saw it.
So God created the universe but can't leave a little physical evidence of a global flood?
quote:Why have faith in something physical evidence clearly says isn't true?
No physical evidence - just faith
quote:Physical evidence doesn't "say" anything. It's mostly dirt and rocks. And I hold a position that is fact. As facts can't lie, I can't alter my factual position using another fact. Maybe that's where you are confused.
Why have faith in something physical evidence clearly says isn't true?
I find it incredibly peculiar to hold a position that cannot be altered by facts.
quote:Oh, I love the semantics game. I'll go with dictionary.com
Define fact.
quote:You know, this thread and YEC threads bring to mind this quote from Augustine waaaaaaaaayy back when:
Pretty sure a large number of Christians believe that the Great Flood was local because of the impossibility of it being global.
You pretty much MUST be YEC if you believe the flood was global and wiped out every bit of life on the Earth.
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"Whenever [non-Christians] catch out some members of the Christian community making mistakes on a subject which they know inside out, and defending their hollow opinions on the authority of our books, on what grounds are they going to trust those books on the resurrection of the dead and the hope of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, when they suppose they include any number of mistakes and fallacies on matters which they themselves have been able to master either by experiment or by the surest of calculations?" St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (I.19.39)
quote:quote:Oh, I love the semantics game. I'll go with dictionary.com
Define fact.
fact (n.): something that actually exists; reality; truth
"Sapper having a mind is a fact."
quote:I know that quote, and that's what makes it hilarious and kinda sad that we are still actually having discussions about things like this.quote:You know, this thread and YEC threads bring to mind this quote from Augustine waaaaaaaaayy back when:
Pretty sure a large number of Christians believe that the Great Flood was local because of the impossibility of it being global.
You pretty much MUST be YEC if you believe the flood was global and wiped out every bit of life on the Earth.quote:
"Whenever [non-Christians] catch out some members of the Christian community making mistakes on a subject which they know inside out, and defending their hollow opinions on the authority of our books, on what grounds are they going to trust those books on the resurrection of the dead and the hope of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, when they suppose they include any number of mistakes and fallacies on matters which they themselves have been able to master either by experiment or by the surest of calculations?" St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (I.19.39)
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It's kind of like you with global warming or evolution. You haven't really seen any physical evidence, but you read something and believed it.
