Just thought I’d throw my two cents in…I took bible class back in high school (HEY I needed a credit, get off my back!!). The smoke that they tried to blow up our asses was that before the flood, it had never rained. That, of course, was the reason that no one believed Noah when he said that water was going to fall from the sky and kill them all…etc. So that canopy that some of you have mentioned fell down and covered the earth. Eventually some of it receded into the earth and the rest of it left us with our oceans. Horseshit if you ask me…
Hoo hoo! That was great! I didn’t realize that all astronomers had the intelligence of an inebriated mountain goat. I’m going to have to pay very close attention to everything these creationists say to learn their wisdom! 
…against my better judgement, I post the following…
I read in a book by Hugh Ross (The Genesis Question? Maybe) that HIS explanation for the flood was that people, at that time, lived ONLY in the Mid-East… and therfore there was no need to flood the ENTIRE Earth, only the immediate area… thus obviating the need for multi-gajillion gallons of H2O…
That was his explanation…
Folks, I would have to say that you are beating a dead horse- except that in this case- there isn’t even any horse.
Only a very few inerrent fundamentalists think that the entire globe was covered in the Flood. We have none of those here, AFAIK.
Next, if G-d could create the earth in a couple of days- He could create enough water to drown it to whatever depht in way less than 40- and then take it all back again. Sheesh.
So argueing how many gallons of water it took to drown the globe, and where that water came form- is like argueing how many angels could dance on the head of a pin- but not as productive.
<Sigh>
DITWD, we argued this point before on another thread. I produced verse after verse demonstrating that the clear intent of the author(s) was to describe a global, not a local flood. I will be happy to dredge up those verses again if you are at all interested, to demonstrate just how thoroughly unsupported your position is.
**
So it’s somehow pointless to ask “What do fundamentalists believe about X?”
And regarding the second sentence, are you saying that when the Bible says…
…God was just kidding? All those “whole world”, “EVERY living thing” comments were just God having his little joke at our expense? How in the world do you justify this view from the text? When you read The Wizard of Oz, do you assume that when Baum said “Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prarie”, he actually meant that Dorothy lived in the Bronx, in a small apartment and, actually, her name was really Willhelmnina?
God may have made atoms, quarks, etc. How silly of scientists to study their nature and properties. God made rainbows. How arrogant of Newton to break white light into the rainbow. If it was a story, it’s worth wondering about what the writers meant, if it’s the inerrant word of God, it’s worth learning from. Either way, it’s worth discussing.
Fenris
Nah, the canopy was made of scrith(as everyone knows scrith is effective at blocking neutrinos) and the Protectors converted it to water with a modifies sciltang brone, then converted it all back to scrith and made a ring out of it which promptly got placed in a stasis field which will be discovered some distance away by the hindmost and company including but not limited to Luis Wu. and Speaker To Animals.
Wait a sec:
The canopy can’t be made of scrith! The basic postulate is that it always is/was water. You can’t mess with the text that way.
On the other hand: What if the water was placed in millions of stasis boxes by the Tnuctipun(sp) in their war against the Slavers? And what if, when Kzanol crashed through the stasis-sphere, he triggered some sort of Tnuctipun trap causing a chain reaction causing the statis fields to stop working, raining the water down on Ptavv-world.
Fenris
It is possible to interpret those verses in several diferent ways; I claim it is a fact that it is possible because many people do interpret them in different ways. Given only the information in those verses, the writer could be referring to the entire Earth, or the portion of the Earth of which the writer is aware, or the portion of the Earth that the writer considered to be important (as in “all roads lead to Rome”), or maybe something else.
You appear to be assuming something outside those verses leading to a literal interpretation, such as “The Bible contains the directly revealed and accurately transcribed word of God”. If so, you should be aware that not all people, dare I say not even a majority of the world’s population, share that view.
What’s the truth? Darned if I know. But it is a fact that people can and do garner different meanings from those verses.
Actually I’m assuming it’s just a story. And as such, I’m not assuming anything outside of those verses. As a matter of fact, I’m doing the exact opposite. I’m taking the words on the paper to mean what they say like I would with any story. When I read, I assume that the text literally means what it says, unless it’s an obvious metaphor, etc.
In the story, the text is clear: the world was flooded. Not the “country” or the “land” or the “city”. God wiped out all people, not one recalcitrant tribe.
The point of the Noah story’s pretty clear: God was unhappy that the world was filled with sin and wickedness, he drowned everyone/thing with water so deep it covered even the tallest mountains. One family and a boat full of animals survived to repopulate.
It’s possible to contort meaning to say otherwise, but the text of the story is self-evident. “All” the land. “Every” living creature. “The whole world”. Not much wiggle room for any other meaning, and the author of the story seems to be going out of his way to hammer the “whole world” idea home.
I suppose that if someone’s trying to use the Noah story to justify a belief in the flood (and I’m not suggesting you are) it might be worth their effort to distort the clear meaning of the text. But if we’re just talking about the text, the story, the words on the paper, there doesn’t seem to be much room for debate.
Fenris
**Although the geological calculations are fascinating, I’m afraid that this debate is like the one regarding Britney Spears’ breasts–we’ll never know for sure (sadly).
My apologies for going WAY off the subject, but:
Fenris, would you mind telling me what Fenris means? There’s a personalized tag that reads “FENRIS” on a black vehicle near where I live (I won’t post the state or type of vehicle on the off chance that it’s yours), but I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term otherwise.
It’s probably terrible message board etiquette to ask this in the middle of a thread, but I plead ignorance and curiosity. Thanks.
ben901
No prob:
The name “Fenris” refers to a character in Norse mythology: one of Loki’s children, Fenris is a giant wolf who, when Ragnarok (the Norse armageddon) comes, will bite the hand off of one of the good Gods and is then killed by another one of the good Gods.
I picked the name back in my younger BBS days simply because it sounded “kewl”, and at this point, I’m just used to it, although I’m slightly embarrassed by it.
Fenris
Which position are you talking about? That, assuming that G-d did create the world in a couple of days, it would be a snap for him to create enuf water to drown said world, and than remove it?
Or are you talking about a position that I have not even given here, that some very large local fooding might possibly the basis behind the Flood myths? I did say once, that if you accepted that the OT writers did sometimes use poetic license, that you could allow a flood that drowned “their whole world” to be expanded into a flood that covered the entire world. I have never stated, and do not accept that there was a flood that covered the entire earth. Nor did i deny that a literal reading of the Flood story would say that.
So, which position of mine do you think is unsupported?
Almost, but not exactly, right. Fenris was a giant wolf, the offspring of the usually-but-not-always-malevolent trickster god Loki. Fenris was restrained by a magical, dwarven-made chain (or, in some versions, a ribbon) which was unbreakable. Someday, Fenris is supposed to get free and swallow the sun, thus plunging the world into enternal winter. This is the sign that Ragnarok, the final, apocalyptic battle between the Gods and the frost giants, has begun. Fenris did bite the hand off one of the Gods, Tyr, when he was being bound by the magic chain. When the gods tried to trick Fenris into wearing the chain, the wolf agreed only if one of the gods would place his hand in his maw. Knowing what the wolf would do when he found out the chain was unbreakable, Tyr volunteered and ended up with the nickname “Lefty.”
I always knew that someday, all those hours playing Dungeons and Dragons would come in handy. This isn’t that day, or anything, but I remain hopeful.
To DITWD:
This is the thread I’m talking about. I provided several Bible verses demonstrating that the flood described in the Bible is clearly meant to be a global one. This does not conform with reality, and therefore the Bible is errant. Any other interpretation of the flood story (global flood, metaphor) is unjustified by the text.
True creationists (re- morons) are required to conceed that the flooding was in fact global. Its the only way to explain the geological record and keep it consistant with ‘the world is 6000yrs old, dagnabbit’ myth. But no one who can read believes the world is young, surely. Unless they have some mental problem of tenacious-believing-against-all-the-freaking-evidence.
Re- DITWD
Are there any horses that arent dead or non existant when it comes to the bible?
I think the dude (DITWD) who mentioned “beating a dead horse (without the horse)” was correct. You’re trying to argue a miracle using a scientific basis.
It’s like trying to argue that it is scientifically impossible for God to grab a rib from Adam and create Eve.
It’s like trying to argue, using wind velocities and water currents, that it was impossible for Moses to part the Red Sea.
It’s like trying to argue that the ressurection of Jesus couldn’t possibly happen because it’s been proven that people can’t rise from the dead.
Instead of attempting to try to prove the miraculous portions of the Bible wrong, stick with weeding out the inconsistencies, the blatant misinformation, or the moral atrocities commited by God.
Actually there are no absoulutes on this one fella’. Norse theology (call it mythology if you want but then you better say the same about them Jeebus worshipers as well) was pretty much word of mouth, handed down by storytellers and added to or altered by by bards and generations. You could probably go from village to village and get a different story at each place you happened to visit.
So neither of you is correct and both or you are correct depending on which village you happen to be in.
Yeah, but the “scientific” creationists are always trying to give Biblical miracles a “scientific” basis; e.g., all that jive about the antediluvian “vapor canopy”. If creationists merely said “We believe all living things, Earth, and the rest of the entire Universe were created about 6,000 years ago in a six day period; we believe this because it says so in the Bible, and we believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God; and any evidence to the contrary must just be because that’s how God made things during that six-day period 6,000 years ago” then any arguments to be made against them would have to be philosophical, not scientific. (“Oh yeah? Well, I say the Invisible Pink Unicorn created everything last Thursday; I believe this because it says so on this bar napkin, which I believe to be the infallible Word of the IPU, which I was just inspired to write down; and any evidence to the contrary must just be because that’s how the IPU made things last week. Why’s your story any better than mine?”) But if you check out your typical creationist web site or other literature–like those linked to in this thread, for example–it seems they can never resist the temptation to try and beat science on its own turf.
Actually there are no absoulutes on this one fella’. Norse theology (call it mythology if you want but then you better say the same about them Jeebus worshipers as well) was pretty much word of mouth, handed down by storytellers and added to or altered by by bards and generations. You could probably go from village to village and get a different story at each place you happened to visit.
So neither of you is correct and both or you are correct depending on which village you happen to be in.
**
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Yeah, well, so was the Iliad, but I’m pretty sure all the different versions took place in Troy. I admit I’m hardly an expert on the subject of Norse folklore, but I think that my version of the Fenris story is going to be pretty much constant no matter what village you go to. Sure, petty details may change (such as wether it was a chain or a ribbon) but certain aspects of the myth are fairly constant, such as Fenris eating the sun during Ragnarok, or Tyr losing his hand when binding the giant wolf. Both of these stories are central to the identity of the dieties in question.
Oh, and excuse me for refering to pre-Christian belief systems in Scandinavia as “mythology.” I’d hate to offend any Vikings who read this.