Tuesday 4 May 2010

The impossible Ark

Thankee koindlee to Jim West for this link to an article on the Ark over at The Bible & Interpretation.

It's kind of sad that these common sense points even need to be made in the twenty-first century, but the human instinct to believe nonsense - "as many as six impossible things before breakfast" to quote the Queen of Hearts - is still a powerful drive.

3 comments:

  1. A flood was entirely possible!

    The current situation on earth is not necessarily the same as the way things were in the past. There very well might have been much more water above the earth, and beneath the earth, than there is now.

    Genesis 1:6-8 talks about an expanse called "sky" that separated the waters that were above it from the waters that were under it.

    A book called The Flood by Alfred M. Rehwinkel mentioned a theory that a vapor canopy might have once surrounded the earth, intercepting the suns direct rays and providing the uniformly mild climate that the entire earth once enjoyed.

    God had not initially caused it to rain. The collapse of the vapor canopy could account for much of the flood. Afterwards, there were rainbows.

    People who say that the Biblical flood story is unscientific are really just making that up without really knowing anything or seriously thinking about it. Just carelessly using big words like "unscientific" does not make it so.

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  2. What rubbish. Your comments are a pointless exercise in wishful apologetics.

    I read Rehwinkel's book as a teenager. It is way out of date, and Rehwinkel had no relevant qualifications on the subject to begin with - unless you consider a masters degree in theology from a sectarian institution has something to do with biology, geology and anthropology. The Flood was not a credible text, but a production of the fundamentalist fringe in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.

    You need to wear your own diatribe about "making that up without really knowing anything or seriously thinking about it." See the previous series of posts here about a more recent piece of YEC schlock from the same publishers.

    No wonder you post your comments anonymously!

    There. Now I've spat the dummy I feel so much better.

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  3. I don't believe the flood is nonsense. I am a rational, logical person but I don't believe that is incongruous with believing in a great flood as depicted in the Bible.
    God exists in another dimension- outside of time and space which are bound by natural laws. If God created the heavens and the earth, He can also shake up the natural laws every once in a while. That's not too far of a stretch to believe for me.
    Whether it is creation, resurrections, healings, a flood, burning bushes, plagues, talking donkeys, old women giving birth, a virgin conceiving, or whatever that cannot be "scientifically proven", it doesn't mean they didn't happen. They are reminders to me that God is God and that this physical existence is only a glimpse into the realm where God is.

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