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Author Topic:   Some water measurements for the Flood
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 61 of 276 (729895)
06-21-2014 3:35 AM
Reply to: Message 60 by Faith
06-21-2014 2:13 AM


Re: why not miracle
Faith writes:
Now that may be regarded as a miracle. Unless we think in terms of animals having a special sense that moves them in such a way, as they apparently sense some natural things like earthquakes in advance.
ABE: But selecting by twos and sevens, no, I have to agree, that's a miracle.
Progress of sorts. So at least part of the flood story was miraculous. I see no reason why the rest couldn't be.
You're trying to make the case that because rain is natural it follows that the flood was natural. You're failing at that level because the sort of things that would have to happen with the water is impossible, but that aside, you are omitting causation.
God caused the flood to happen, he said as much, he predicted it and made it happen. That alone makes it a miracle - he manipulated the climate, the weather and seismic activity, what else could it be other than miraculous intervention?

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by Faith, posted 06-21-2014 2:13 AM Faith has replied

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 62 of 276 (729896)
06-21-2014 3:52 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by Faith
06-21-2014 2:09 AM


Re: why not miracle
Or we could find just one Christian with "faith as a grain of mustard seed".
For verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 63 of 276 (729897)
06-21-2014 6:46 AM
Reply to: Message 61 by Tangle
06-21-2014 3:35 AM


Re: why not miracle
No, that is not the case I am making. The case I am making is that the scripture does not present the mechanics of the Flood as miraculous.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 64 of 276 (729898)
06-21-2014 6:47 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by Dr Adequate
06-21-2014 3:52 AM


Re: why not miracle
That would work too.

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 65 of 276 (729899)
06-21-2014 7:24 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Faith
06-20-2014 5:48 AM


Evangelicals believe the flood was a miracle. This is from the definition of miracle in Baker's Evangelical Dictionary. Baker's uses the same definition of miracle you do but understands the world-wide flood described in the Bible couldn't have been natural. Baker's not only calls the flood a miracle, it calls it a "major miracle":
Baker's writes:
Although English speakers regularly use "miracle" to refer to a broad range of wondrous events, the biblical concept is limited to those not explainable solely by natural processes but which require the direct causal agency of a supernatural being, usually God...
...
The next major miracle, the flood, thus affirms both God's judgment on extreme wickedness...
Answers in Genesis also believes the flood a miracle. This is from Did Miracles Really Happen?:
Answers in Genesis writes:
Other miraculous events in Genesis would include the Flood...
--Percy

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 Message 20 by Faith, posted 06-20-2014 5:48 AM Faith has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 66 of 276 (729900)
06-21-2014 7:55 AM
Reply to: Message 65 by Percy
06-21-2014 7:24 AM


No, it's not just an intensification, it's a suspension of natural processes
Interesting. I don't see any reason to try to explain the mechanisms of the Flood naturalistically if it was a miracle, and yet the creationist ministries do of course make that attempt. ABE: There's no point in trying to explain the turning of water into wine naturalistically, or the feeding of thousands from a few pieces of bread and fish, or the parting of the Red Sea or bringing a dead person back to life and so on. /ABE
Essentially, a miracle is an unusual manifestation of God’s power designed to accomplish a specific purpose. The consistent Christian recognizes that God’s power is constantly displayed in the clockwork operation of the universe. The Bible teaches us that it is Christ’s power that holds everything together (Hebrews 1:3). Yet, we would not call that power a miracle because it is the normal way God upholds the universe. A miracle must be unusual if it is to be called a miracle.
A miracle is not necessarily a violation of the laws of nature. God could demonstrate His power by using the laws of nature in an unusual way.
Nonsense. Throughout scripture there are true miracles that are violations of natural law and they are ALWAYS used to prove that God is God; that was the purpose of Jesus' miracles too -- to demonstrate His being the Messiah, which means His Deity. Mere unusual natural occurrences have no such purpose.
That article is unfortunate, but I'm not going to try to find official arguments against it right now. I think the writer just can't cope with the extraordinariness of the Flood so he has to turn it into a miracle. If a miracle isn't a suspension of natural law, which has always been my understanding of it, but only a special intensification of natural processes, that's just boring. There are many who disagree with him about that and AIG should take that article down.
It just confuses things to include unusual events that don't violate natural law with the true miracles that do. The article claims the parting of the Red Sea was just an extreme expression of natural processes but that's just plain nuts. No natural wind is going to do such a thing and if it did the Israelites couldn't have walked across the sea. There is no natural way the water would part and make a dry path through it, that was a true miracle, a violation of natural law.
There may be no known mechanisms that explain the Flood NOW, but there is simply nothing in the description of it in scripture that makes it anything but an extremely unusual event, not a miracle.
But as I've also said, I'm not going to argue with those here who see it as a miracle, there's room for disagreement, I just see nothing in the Bible that defines it as a miracle myself.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 67 of 276 (729901)
06-21-2014 8:41 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by Faith
06-21-2014 12:25 AM


Re: why not miracle
So when you were claiming it was a Natural Process you were wrong?
Can you explain the model, mechanism and process for that "spiritual mechanism" and how to differentiate between a "spiritual mechanism" and a miracle?

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 68 of 276 (729903)
06-21-2014 8:52 AM
Reply to: Message 67 by jar
06-21-2014 8:41 AM


Re: why not miracle
You are referring to a post that was not about the Flood but about the Fall.
ABE: And there were no Biblical "Floods" in the plural, there was ONE Biblical Flood that destroyed the entire planet. I don't know where you get your nonsense but that's just one of your ways of turning the Bible into gobbledygook which can only confuse people who know nothing about it.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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 Message 67 by jar, posted 06-21-2014 8:41 AM jar has replied

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 69 of 276 (729906)
06-21-2014 9:48 AM
Reply to: Message 68 by Faith
06-21-2014 8:52 AM


Re: why not miracle
And there were no Biblical "Floods" in the plural, there was ONE Biblical Flood that destroyed the entire planet. I don't know where you get your nonsense but that's just one of your ways of turning the Bible into gobbledygook which can only confuse people who know nothing about it.
But that is not what the Bible says. There are two mutually exclusive stories smushed together. Have you actually read the Bible Faith?
You are referring to a post that was not about the Flood but about the Fall.
But there is no story about any Fall in the Bible and even if there was, can you explain the model, mechanism and process for that "spiritual mechanism" and how to differentiate between a "spiritual mechanism" and a miracle?

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 276 (729911)
06-21-2014 1:33 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Faith
06-21-2014 6:46 AM


Re: why not miracle
No, that is not the case I am making. The case I am making is that the scripture does not present the mechanics of the Flood as miraculous.
Yes, and your case is readily seen as weak to non-existent.
What part of the scripture presents the aggregating of the animal as miraculous? Did you not just agree that such was miraculous without checking to see how it was presented in the text.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 71 of 276 (729912)
06-21-2014 3:48 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Faith
06-21-2014 2:09 AM


Re: why not miracle
ABE: No, here's a big challenge: Las Vegas, where you live. Both the physical climate the moral climate could use an overhaul there.
Thing is, that bit of the Mojave Desert was hot and dry when no-one was living there. It was hot and dry when it was inhabited by God-fearing ranchers. It was hot and dry when it was run by the Mafia. It's hot and dry now. And then, of course, the whole of the Mojave Desert is hot and dry. It's hot and dry where there's gambling; it's hot and dry in the bits still occupied by God-fearing ranchers; and it's hot and dry in the bits occupied exclusively by desert tortoises. It's a desert. The weather varies neither temporally nor geographically according to how sinful people are. This leads one to think that other factors may be involved.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Faith, posted 06-21-2014 2:09 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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hooah212002
Member (Idle past 801 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 72 of 276 (729914)
06-21-2014 4:50 PM
Reply to: Message 59 by Faith
06-21-2014 2:09 AM


Re: why not miracle
A simple request: can you explain how the water cycle works?

Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Faith, posted 06-21-2014 2:09 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 73 of 276 (729916)
06-21-2014 5:30 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by hooah212002
06-21-2014 4:50 PM


Re: why not miracle
A simple request: can you explain how the water cycle works?
Sinners give off evil, which rises into the atmosphere and condenses as water, causing it to rain, unless they want it to rain, in which case it condenses as a hygroscopic substance which sucks all the water out of the atmosphere, preventing it from raining.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 74 of 276 (729920)
06-21-2014 6:24 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Dr Adequate
06-21-2014 3:48 PM


Re: why not miracle
Ah ye of little faith. A few hundred devoted prayer warriors could turn the Mojave into a lush green paradise.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Dr Adequate, posted 06-21-2014 3:48 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 75 of 276 (729921)
06-21-2014 6:29 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by hooah212002
06-21-2014 4:50 PM


Re: why not miracle
What Dr. A said. Water gives off vapor which rises into the atmosphere where it forms clouds which may or may not release the water they contain, depending on this that or the other. I've watched many a fat cloud pass overhead refusing to drop any rain on my area (High Desert) when we are parched. They drop a lot of it on the other side of the Sierra where they already have enough, and then just blithely float overhead ignoring us completely. I suppose if we weren't such sinners and prayed more the clouds might favor us more. I mean, after all, they DO dump rain on us once in a while, why not more often? One thing about our clouds though is that they can be spectacularly beautiful, every shade of white through lavender gray through deep purple sometimes.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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