Huh? There’s lots of evidence of a flood, and I believe that most religions have a flood story. The most logical explanation to me is that there really was a flood.
There’s also a lot of evidence that the earth is more than 6,000 years old… including evidence in the Bible!!!
The sun was not created until Day 4, so we can’t possibly claim that God was restricted by the earth’s movement around the sun to make the first 3 days the precise modern equivalent of 72 hours. They could have been the equivalent of billions of years each. And since days are determined by the earth rotating on its axis and being exposed to the sun, days 4-6 might have had slower rotation than the current speed.
So I don’t even think that accepting the Bible as literal truth requires believing in a 6,000 year-old earth, but that would probably get me excommunicated from multiple churches.
Of course there’s been floods. Flooding is common (even now). Global flood that wiped out everyone on earth? Most of those who originated religions have never even traveled out of their towns, their “world” is like 25 squared kilometers. I wouldn’t call that evidence.
I think by evidence we’re talking about geological evidence.
Yeah, most likely not the entire surface of the planet, but I think there’s geological evidence of a “great flood” much larger than the common flooding that we see today.
And more evidence gets uncovered periodically too.
There is a lot of geological and some archeological evidence supporting the theory that the Med overtopped the Bosphorus straight around 5600BC leading to a dramatic rise in water levels of the Black Sea (at the time a fresh water inland sea). Estimates place a large proportion of the human population at the time in the area and it is very close to ME where many of the main religions developed.
That type of overtopping is most likely to occur during heavy rains and winds lasting several days. Doesn’t take a lot to get from that to Noah.
Why is that a serious issue? In real life, we automatically deal with probabilities.
I’m making a 150 mile round trip to visit a relative this week. I fully intend to arrive safely and return safely. I do that even though I know that there are about 100 traffic deaths per million Americans in a typical year. I can’t think of any decision I make that requires absolute certainty.
In Joshua, God makes the sun stand still so the Israelites could rout the Amorites. I’m sure that later Hebrews who believed that story went about their lives with the expectation the sun would rise and set on schedule. They weren’t going to adjust their plans to allow for the 1 in a million chance of a miracle.
So you believe that the UV rays are why people don’t live as long and that UV rays are significantly increased in modern times due to the age of the sun?
This sounds completely preposterous
There is ZERO evidence of a world covering flood. That evidence would be clear an abundant.
This is a better argument. God created logic. It’s wrong for humans to expect God’s actions to be “logical” in our sight. Christians use this argument all the time.
It doesn’t “make sense” to me that God would tell us one thing in the written word, then something different in the physical world. It doesn’t make sense to me that God would expect us to “believe” with no evidence when he could just as easily provide overwhelming evidence.
I know Christians who can quote multiple verses that say that is exactly God’s intent. Faith is confidence in things not seen (i.e. things without physical evidence). Thomas got the physical evidence, but we’re the blessed because we believe without it.
So ignore my “how could God create a world which neither had evidence of a long history, nor evidence of a short history?” and simply accept that God does what God chooses to do, not what makes sense to us. He chooses to make us rely on faith, period.
Now apply that logic now to people who kill in the name of God, and see how dangerous that line of thinking becomes. One cannot possibly question God, as God is beyond comprehension. If God tells you to kill your parents, you don’t question, just do it. God defines morality, and God defines logic. If God tells you to kill, then it must be a moral act.
No, just commenting on the UV rays bit, not the living longer bit.
I mean, UV rays do cause skin cancer, which is responsible for some tiny fraction of deaths. So there would be a tiny uptick in life expectancy with weaker UV rays, all else equal.
But that wouldn’t be solely responsible for people living to 900 or more vs 120 max.
What does that mean? Suppose a painter paints a portrait of an old man, from his own imagination, and I see the painting soon after it is finished. Is the man “really” old, or really “new”? That painter is allowed to create pictures of old men without first painting pictures of young men.
“Time” and “the past” are both God’s creations. He isn’t required to follow natural laws of before and after, or actions and consequences. He gets to perform “miracles”.
It happened to Noah and the people of his day. God decided not to leave physical evidence. He created the water, which was every bit as real as all the other water he created, then uncreated it when he no longer wanted it. HIs rules.
It makes just as much sense as believing “God loves me” when life is going terribly. That’s what “faith” is, confidence in things that are at odds with your senses or reason.
Even if skin cancer was completely irradiated by this proposed reduction of UV rays (which is unlikely to be true) then I dont think the life expectancy of people 8,000 years ago would have been 120 years. I dont think skin cancer was nearly that impactful or widely prevalent. I’m pretty sure most people died of other things like lack of medicine, vaccines, sanitation, etc.
Note, I didn’t verify the details here, but it sounds like what I’ve independently read on the topic in the past, so assuming that RDO is right on the details. I tend to forget these types of details.
If you replace “all the land” with “all the populated land” then the science seems to align pretty well… other than precise timing, which I don’t put a lot of stock in.
Just like it’s also entirely possible that Jeffrey Dahmer was the second coming of Jesus and is now reunited with God in the heavens. Don’t need proof. Just have faith. And since God defines logic, murder can indeed be a moral deed.
I dont think this is true either. Humans were widespread across the planet and I double the flood covered all of modern day Egypt and Turkey simultaneously.
The 1 in a million happened to come from 3,000 x 365, about the number of days the Hebrews might have thought the earth had existed up until then.
Miracles are extremely rare. This is the only case we have in recorded history of the sun standing still. Because they are rare, we can make plans without expecting miracles.
If they were common, we wouldn’t be able to invent physical “laws” by inductive reasoning.
We’re probably convicting innocent people due to our own limitations, without any regard for miracles.
If some miracle causes us to convict an innocent person, that was God’s doing and it was the Right Thing in regard to His will. So we don’t need to worry about that possibility.
