Summations Only

Hi kbertsche, That's fine and dandy, but you can't entirely blame the YECs for taking the text to mean a global flood. I mean, if I were attempting to describe a local flood, I wouldn't choose the phrase "and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.". That sounds pretty global to me. Further, the text specifically describes Mt. Ararat as being submerged. Given that Ararat is the forty-eighth highest peak in the world, that can only mean a flood of global - if not quite total - proportions. A flood that leaves all of, say, Australia under water is one heck of big local flood.It may in fact be true that the flood story is based loosely upon a real flood, but I think that anyone promoting this view is compelled to accept that the text is either a very inaccurate or largely mythic description of a real event or that it was never intended to describe a real event at all. No literalist or inerrantist interpretation makes sense of the text within the framework of a local flood. What can I say? I guess that defending the indefensible must get tiring after a while.Mutate and Survive

Hi Joseph,I believe that Professor Richards is a secular humanist. I don't think you'll have much luck getting a response out of him though. He's currently rather busy with his work on the Negative Zone.Mutate and Survive

Yeah? Neat trick.Now try and make it so that all the sediments that contain trilobite fossils are at the bottom and all those that contain whale fossils are at the top.In the real world fossil bearing strata are nothing like what you'd get in your blender example. They show clear evidence of having been deposited slowly, layer on top of layer. They show ancient orders evolving, diverging and eventually dying out. They show younger lineages emerging. They show complex environments. They do not show the chaotic jumble that would result from what you describe.Once again, you're over-simplifying. A naive approach like this is hopelessly inadequate in describing what we actually see.Mutate and Survive

Hi Lone77Star and welcome to EvC! I'm sure you'll find plenty to keep you busy here. I agree with you that a naive literalist position stands falsified. What I don't understand is why you seem so determined to adopt a modified literalistic position rather than just accept that the stories in Genesis are purely mythic. It seems to me that when we see a raft of myths that do not conform to what we know of history then we should be willing to accept that the events described therein were not actual events. What you seem to be doing is trying to find an interpretation that allows you to cling onto them as somehow being real. I don't see the point in that. I also think that you are taking several of these Bible quotes out of context in order to force-fit them into some kind of believable time-line. I'll show you what I mean. I don't think this is describing the creation of man as much as it is describing the family line of Adam - the House of Adam. Indeed in some modern translation this verse simply reads "mankind" where the text has "adam". It is not saying that Adam (which literally means man) was some sort of hermaphrodite. After all, this is much like Gen 1:27; "1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.". There is no hint of any sort of duel gender identity here.You are making this into something it's not. Or maybe they're just tall stories. They sure sound like tall stories. So it's just an inconsistency. What's the big deal? It has no special meaning, it's just an artefact of the Bible being written by disparate authors. Not even an interesting co-incidence. Not even a co-incidence really, given that Cayce was just a random lunatic. Or the story is just not true. You can't discount that possibility if you want to make any claim to being logical. Why does the flood need to symbolise any real-world event? Can't it just be symbolic of the wrath of God? Gen 3 doesn't mention the children of God, I think you mean Gen 6. The usual interpretation of the phrase "sons of God" is that these are angels or some other magical being. No, definitely not. Gen 1:26 describes the creation of man, not the "children of God". Further, it doesn't even begin to suggest what you're proposing. To me it simply reads as saying that God built humankind to look like he did. You are assuming that God is non-physical and solely spiritual. This is not an assumption that the author necessarily shared. He may well have imagined that God was a physical being (at least in part) who looked much as we do. This was a common way for deities to be depicted in the ancient Near East. That may well have been what early Jews believed, but I don't think that you can derive that form the text in the way you're using. The two chapters are written by different authors from slightly different traditions. Trying to mush them together into a single harmonious text is, in my opinion, a big mistake. No. It's the other way around. The "daughters of men" are... well, just that; the daughters of men, i.e. people, humans, Homo sapiens. The "sons of God" are the ones who are some sort of other. Except that this theory can't possibly be true. For a start, the offspring of these unions were likely synonymous with the giants of Gen 6:4. They are, at the least, described as "mighty men". But Neanderthals were not larger than modern humans.In fact we know what the offspring of matings between h. sapiens and H. neanderthalis would look like; they'd look like us. That's because they are us. Modern humans do have Neanderthal heritage. If God's flood was meant to wipe out these hybrids, then he failed miserably. Even if it were sufficient reason, you have the problem that there is no evidence that it actually happened. There is no record of a massive flood around the Mediterranean at that time. What's more, the tow groups - H. sapiens and H. neanderthalis - overlapped each other both chronologically and geographically. To flood one would have been to flood the other. In other words, there would have had to have been a literal ark for that to work, and that would not have been possible with the incredibly primitive technology of the time. Either that or there never was any such crime because the story never took place. I think you need to face facts; regardless of whether the authors intended it to be taken literally or not, the flood story recounted in Genesis never was never a real event.Mutate and Survive

Sure you could. If you want to start being a dick this early into proceedings, then calling me a bigot would be the perfect way to go. Well the stories in Genesis clearly contain a mythic element. They are morality plays, symbols about God and our relationship with him. This is undeniable. The question here is whether you have a shred of proof that the stories are also true accounts on some level. In the absence of such proof, I shall assume that they are merely mythic.You go on to mention Troy. This is in fact a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The remains of Troy are enough to convince us that the city was real and even that some parts of the myth might have been real, but they are not sufficient to convince us that Zeus and Poseidon are real. In a similar way, even if you had archaeological evidence that some of the locations mentioned in Genesis were real, it ought not be enough to convince us that man was made from clay. The supernatural elements of the story require a far greater level of evidence before such unlikely things can be believed.And you don't really have much archaeology for Genesis anyway. I am not being biased. I am merely basing my opinion on the available evidence. I notice that you provide no evidence that the Genesis creation story is true. Meanwhile, there is a vast plethora of evidence showing that it is false. We know how humanity evolved and it was not from clay. Yup. Rightly so. It's still dismissed now and unless you feel like providing us with some evidence that existed (which I notice you do not), then it will continue to be dismissed. That's how things generally work; evidence first, then belief. No evidence, no belief.The topic is not Atlantis, so that topic properly belongs in its own thread. Although I have to say, if you want to convince people you're not a nut, Atlantis may not be the one to choose. That's another topic again. Nothing to do with the flood. And all of them disagree on the specifics. This is evidence against the flood. You have not presented a shred of evidence that places the flood at that date, nor have you addressed the objections that I raised previously. In fact your entire post fails to address my points. The only reason you have to place the flood at this date is a rather dubious number game that you've played. That is puny evidence indeed compared with the obvious lack of a worldwide flood layer in the Earth's geology. A single flood capable of wiping out such a geographically widespread species as H. Neanderthalensis would leave evidence in the rocks. No such evidence exists. End of story. In fact the evidence of interbreeding between us and our Neanderthal cousins suggests a gradual demise for the species, not a sudden catastrophe.Oh, by the way, a cursory check reveals that the youngest definite Neanderthal remains are over 30,000 years old, not 28,000 years old, so you have your figures wrong on that score. What's more, there is evidence that might be interpreted as evidence of Neanderthal activity from well after your flood date. There are also remains of a Cro-Magnon population with extensive Neanderthal traits dating back to 24,000 years. This leaves your hypothesis in tatters I think. If you want to return the favour you might try actually addressing my arguments. I took on your points, you seem to have almost entirely ignored mine and gone off on a side issue.Your posts so far are long on supposition and short of evidence. The nearest thing to evidence you have is a sort of "this could have happened" attitude. Well that's great, but unless you have concrete evidence that it did happen (and can deal the wealth of evidence that shows that it did not) then you really have nothing.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.