The Bible doesn't say Noah "ate bad fruit", it says he became a "man of the soil" and "planted a vineyard" then relates a story of one night getting drunk drinking wine and passing out naked in his tent. You can get alcohol from simply eating fermented fruit, but not a lot. With modern technology/techniques- adding additional yeast and sugar and maintaining perfect temperature conditions- it takes about 2.5 pounds of grapes to get one bottle of wine. Which is about 400-700 grapes. You try eating that many grapes in a single sitting. (Or even half that many, I know not everyone can polish off a bottle of wine like I can.) With just the natural yeast, natural sugar and imperfect temperature conditions, you will have a much lower yield and need far more grapes to get the equivalent amount of alcohol. 

There is evidence that our ancestors developed the ability to metabolize ethanol as early as 10 million years ago, an adaptation that allowed for more life on the ground rather than trees as it became less necessary to pick fresh fruit. It is believed at the time that most primates could not metabolize ethanol. Most primates that are primarily tree dwelling today do not share the enzyme that breaks down ethanol, while those that are often ground dwelling do. The amount of ethanol you get from eating old fruit at the base of a tree is nowhere near enough to get you drunk. You get drunk when you drink more than your body can metabolize efficiently. 

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348385/description/Origins_of_alcohol_consumption_traced_to_ape_ancestor

Whether you find it hard to believe or not is irrelevant. We have physical evidence of what people ate and drank. We have methods of testing the containers they used and seeing what kind of residue there is. We have a lot of evidence of what was happening long before 10,000 BC and we can say with a great amount of confidence that humans were not farmers and did not create alcohol frequently. We have a lot of ways of getting high and drunk that didn't exist back then and we keep inventing more. Just because alcohol is plentiful now and almost everyone loves it, does not mean you can assume it has always existed. You are like a little kid that asks why General Washington didn't just go to Walmart to get new socks. Why would ancient cultures be different? Because they didn't have our knowledge or technology. 

I don't. All stories should be approached with skepticism because the author always is limited by their own perspective and biases even if they intend to make an accurate representation. We also know that many authors intentionally create inaccurate representations. Historical writings are useful in that they can often point us in the right direction and help us create explanations. They should never be accepted as absolute fact without actual physical evidence. We have discovered many historical stories are absolute frauds. Fortunately, we don't have to rely on stories alone. 

You are telling me that the Bible is the Truth. That it is so perfectly accurate that I should accept the exact words that it reports God as saying. I should believe that all the humans were wicked because God is reported in the Bible as saying they were all wicked. Either the Bible is an exact account of what God said, or it is less than exact. If it is less than exact, how can we say with certainty anything that God reportedly said? A few spoken sentences is a much smaller detail than whether Noah was a farmer or a nomad. If the Bible is factually wrong about one thing, then there is good reason to doubt it is factual about other things as well. And since ALL you have to support your entire belief is what the Bible says, then if it is inaccurate in the details, that would be a good reason to look for evidence elsewhere. You can't say "well yeah, the Bible is wrong about Noah being a farmer, but when it comes to God saying he would never drown the world again it is 100% accurate" That is the very definition of special pleading- claiming that one particular case is different from others with no logical reason. 

 

caposkia wrote:

What your claiming is not at all what I was saying.  It is generally known that the Bible stories were very carefully translated from one scribe to the next... in fact they are understood to be the most congruent through the generations compared to other writings that were translated in the same manner... google it.

That is completely irrelevant to how the story might have changed before it was written down and you are claiming the events happened millions of years before they were written down the first time.

No it doesn't support the Bible. You are claiming that it had to have happened millions of years earlier and these huts were built around 20,000 BC. Not out of brick, but with layers of clay with uncut stone and pebbles mixed in and primarily out of brush. And this is the oldest such structure ever found. And as you point out, that particular hut was unique from what was primarily used (probably because hauling giant pieces of stone around was very difficult). There is no evidence that strong houses were built prior, the evidence we have suggests that a few people lived in caves and other such natural shelters but most people were nomadic. 

If the technology we find is consistent with the times then your assumption that the flood occurred 2 million years ago is absolutely wrong because all the technology it refers to did not exist. So we are back to it happening around 10,000 BC something you told me you don't believe. Remember all the problems I pointed out to you about the timing which caused you to first claim 200,000 years ago and then later change it to 2 million+ years? Rather than looking at the facts and trying to figure out a plausible explanation to explain the evidence we have, you are starting with the story, assuming it is true and trying to hammer the facts into it. You are trying to put a square through a hole the shape of a circle and it is taking you an amazingly long time to realize it does not fit. 

All the "archaeological evidence" of the Bible comes from people who believe the flood occurred 5,000 to 15,000 BC or so and most of it from people who are YEC. You have told me that you don't believe that evidence. Why are you referring me to evidence that you do not believe is credible yourself? You can't say you don't believe the evidence then turn around and point to that same evidence to support your belief. (Well you can, but it just makes you irrational)

Yes, if such an event occurred, we would expect to find evidence of that technology. The materials are irrelevant, we find evidence of stone axes 2 million years old so if there was more advanced technology somewhere, we would expect to find that too. So far, we have found none. When we do, suddenly your explanation might make sense, but until the evidence is found that such technologies existed and then disappeared you have nothing but sheer speculation that is supported by absolutely zero evidence. You have exactly as much evidence as Scientologists and a story that is less entertaining.

All we have is this story, which you assure me is so accurate that I can trust that God did in fact promise to never do it again. And assuming that everything in the story is 100% accurate, God is evil. If the story is inaccurate, than perhaps God is not evil.

All we have to know what "other things" God has done is the exact same book. We can't disregard this particular story as not being accurate enough to make a determination on but the other stories as being accurate enough. That is special pleading. (As it happens, there are many other stories in the Bible which make God's morality questionable, we are just focusing on this one out of convenience. You claim that God's morality is perfect, so one exception proves you wrong.)

 

Scripture says God killed everyone. Everyone includes infants. Infants are innocent. God killed innocents. Intentionally killing innocents is immoral. Therefore, if scripture is accurate God is immoral. If you think intentionally killing innocents can be a moral act, you are also immoral. I tried really hard to give you the benefit of the doubt, but apparently you think killing innocents is ok. 

There is no special pleading on my part. I make the base assertion that intentionally killing innocents is immoral- which I freely admit is an opinion (all morality is based on opinions) but it is an opinion I would hope we can share. God killed innocents and is therefore immoral. No exceptions being made at all. I would find any human who does the same immoral. The special pleading is on the part of your God who says it is immoral to kill innocents, it is one of his top ten rules, but then makes an exception for himself. I agree it is immoral to kill innocents, I disagree that God should get an exception to the rule just because he is God. The burden is on him to show that such an exception is logical. Which he hasn't done and you as his advocate have failed at as well.

If intentionally killing innocents is immoral, God is immoral. So are you arguing that intentionally killing innocents is not immoral?

Whether their lives were miserable or not is irrelevant. If my neighbor abuses their children, that does not justify me going in there with a gun and shooting all of them (kids included). I am quite sure that you would call me immoral for such an act and support locking me in jail for a very long time, even if I could prove that the kids had a hellish life. You are the one making a special pleading that such an act is immoral if I do it, but is moral when God does it. And your only justification is that God made the universe so can do whatever he wants. You have absolutely no evidence or logical reason to support the idea that God should get a special morality that is different than ours. 

I have shown several areas where you have made special pleading in favor of God. You have accused me of doing so, show me. Where have I ignored any evidence you presented and where have I ever made the claim that one case should be excepted from the usual, used a double standard or made a claim that is inherently unverifiable? 

cj wrote:

When do you think the flood happened? (You may have said, but truthfully, I don't remember.)

Briefly, Egypt. The Egyptians were taxed based on the height of the Nile flood in that year. Because the amount of land inundated determined how much in the way of crops the farmers could produce. So we have found records of the Nile flood heights for thousands of years. There are no large gaps in this record. The recorded flood levels (that did NOT kill every Egyptian) continue uninterrupted for all those years.

If the entire world flooded, you would think there would be a gap in the record? Yes? At least a few years as the area was repopulated and the tax collectors got their act back together. No such gap in the record. No mention of a world wide flood that killed off all of the people.

My mom also declared me guilty before punishing me - and then she cried while and after whaling the tar out of me. Screwed me up big time - took years of therapy to get over it.

 

We've estimated based on evidence presented on this thread that it possibly could have happened upwards of 2 million years ago.  Egypt would not have been established yet.

 

For me to  suggest that God was justified in his actions, all I need to do is reference other parts of scripture where God reigned justice on a population and has a better explanation of why and what was happening... also in each scenario off the top of my head, He spared all that were innocent.  This leads me to logically conclude that the flood story was no different.  

all in all, you have to make a lot of assumptions to conclude God was unjust in His actions... you have to "plead" scenarios that can only be hypothetical based on nothing scripture or any other source says.

At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

caposkia wrote:

Logically, he could have used a sniper rifle... but if your goal was to take out thousands of people... do you really want to sit there and snipe each one of them? Let's think about this. If you had a mission to take out 1000's of people and chose to snipe them all, you'll likely find that you'd end up sniping the children that ultimately turned into adults before you were done with the population you originally sent out to destroy.

You're missing the point of the analogy. The point of differentiating between sniper rifle and C4 was to differentiate between selecting targets or hitting them all. We don't particularly care if God has one target or a thousand; he's God and he could simultaneously snipe them all.

In the flood story, people are distinctly split into two groups: wicked and not wicked. You have two choices:

1) Declare the children wicked and worthy of death, which is creepy, or

2) Declare the children not wicked and claim that they were collateral damage. This gets back to the sniper rifle and C4 analogy. God could have killed all the wicked people and no others, but he didn't

Your two options are that the children themselves were wicked and deserved death (creepy) or that they weren't, but God killed them anyway (God is creepy). That's it. There's no magical third answer. You can place all the blame you want on the parents, but concerning God, you have two options.

caposkia wrote:

The problem is you can't blame someone "more" someone is guilty and someone is not. Who brought upon themselves the flood... or any destruction through the judgement of God?

Yes you can. God is in complete control here.

caposkia wrote:

First you have to suggest that the parents were not responsible for their children. You also have to suggest that God went beyond the law and destroyed humanity for no good reason which then would suggest that scripture was wrong to say that population was nothing but evil. You then need to suggest that God killing these children was worse off then letting them live which would then assume despite the evils this population had, the children were not being sacrificed, abused, raped, tortured, killed and eaten, turned into slaves etc. and that there was no where else for them to go. This would also assume that God when 'killing" the children left their souls to despair and did not bring them into heaven for eternity. This is also assuming there were a lot of children left living after sacrifices, beatings etc that might have killed off many already. I could go on, but you get the point.

That's not what special pleading means.

caposkia wrote:

you mean are going through it... or are you suggesting I have this? I'm at peace in the matter. I'm trying to grasp from your perspective how I can rationalize what you're telling me... I still can't. There's not enough rational conclusions to base your understanding on from what i can see. I still see the parents fully responsible for the death of the innocent children you speak of. We in this country may have laws that allows some of the blame to be put elsewhere, but consider that in any situation where a human being is not the source of the danger and yet a child is killed because of it, the care taker is to blame regardless of what it may be or how it may have happend. Gods laws do not allow many to hold blame for what one person did. Instead it falls completely on their shoulders. e.g. a police officer might have shot a child, but the parent who brought their child to the gunfight when they had the opportunity for the child to be no where near the gunfight is fully responsible for what happens to that child. To associate it further with the story, the parent also had the opportunity to make better choices considering the family they had to look after so as to not cause a reason for a conflict with the police to happen in the first place. Still fully on the parent according to Gods laws. Even still, the parent still had a choice when then confrontation began to realize their child was with them and take action to keep their child safe. Best choice in this metaphorical story would be to not pick a fight with the police and accept the consequences for your actions. In the flood story, ask of God for forgiveness at least so as to allow their children to survive.

Still none of it happened despite happening in other stories. I have other examples (stories) to back it up, what do you have?

You.

You are doing it again. To try and justify your "blame just the parents and not God" position, you keep using an analogy where God is likened to a human police officer, complete with human limitations. You do not believe this. You go not believe that your god is a fallible human. You believe he is quite powerful (all powerful?) and capable of all of the wonders of the Bible. You believe he is capable of precision striking people when it suits him (as is evidenced in various stories in the Bible where one person is singled out). Yet, to remove any culpability from God, you put this all on hold, compare him to a human, and attempt to absolve him from any responsibility. You cannot have it both ways. Either God is great and is capable of more than a police officer or he is not. He isn't great and powerful, except when dispensing death to kids.

This is why I'm saying you're suffering from cognitive dissonance. You see the inherent problems with an all-loving God doling out death to children to punish their wicked parents, and this is how you attempt to remove the dissonance. The normal, rational responses are to remove one of the two competing issues (either admit that God isn't all-loving or dismiss the flood story as having never happened). You, instead, are taking the path of psychological least resistance, and are trying to create an illusion where God is all-loving and where the flood story totally happened.

One of the reasons grapes are the primary choice for wine is that they are so efficient at making alcohol. It takes roughly 3 pounds of strawberries to make the same amount of wine. If you want to go the cider route, it takes about 10 pounds of apples to make one gallon of cider. Whatever fruit you want to choose, you would have to eat an inhuman amount of rotten fruit to get a good buzz.

It is not well known that animals get drunk eating overripe fruits. Those claims are an internet legend that has gone around and are completely false. Perhaps the best known example is the video of the Elephants supposedly getting drunk off of Marula fruit. That particular video was faked by sedating the Elephants beforehand. Actual scientific studies have proven the whole concept false. 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/499983 

The only wild animals that have been demonstrated to get high alcohol content in their blood are birds, bats and the pen-tailed tree shrew. Which makes sense because birds and bats have very light body weights compared to the amount of food they can eat. The shrew manages to consume significant amounts of alcohol because the bertam palm produces nectar that has a 3.2% alcohol content. Monkeys in cities have been known to get drunk from stealing human made alcohol from unwary tourists, but never in the wild from eating fruit. Don't believe everything you see on youtube. 

So now you are saying Noah existed 10 million years ago? We keep pushing this back and Noah is going to be riding a T-Rex.  

We know general tools existed long before there is any evidence of farming whatsoever. Humans used tools when they were nomadic and it is pretty safe to assume that when humans were nomadic they did not farm since farming requires fairly consistent attention. The first evidence we have of farming is at Ohalo II and it isn't farm tools. They collected large amounts of seeds and had large amounts of grain in storage, the seeds had apparently been dried, so the assumption is that they were farming because there isn't much reason to collect a pile of seeds if you don't plan on planting them and drying seeds by a fire or in the sun was the first step for preserving them to be planted next year. (If seeds stay wet they tend to develop mold and will not grow when you plant them next year.) This was dated slightly after 20,000 BC. I think it is safe to assume that they used some form of tools, we know they had crude axes and spears, and it isn't a huge leap to assume that whoever was digging up the soil realized it would be easier not using their hands. Specialized farming tools such as sickles, spades, scythes etc. took a bit more time to appear. We know when people started farming because we can tell what they stored, whether they stayed at the same location permanently and what they ate.  

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4256914?uid=3739704&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102622508601

I am assuming for the sake of discussion that the story is accurate because you claim it is accurate. I am pointing out the huge flaws in the story which makes it unlikely. I have provided you with significant amounts of evidence to support the problems I have pointed out in the story. The only evidence you have presented is the story itself and your rationalization of it. You are now admitting that parts of the story are absolutely false. So why should I believe the rest of the story that has zero supporting evidence?

You have no history, archaeology, science or statistical inference. At least none you have presented here. The history strongly suggests that the stories of the Abrahamic god all come from the same culture and that cultures that didn't come in contact with them have absolutely no knowledge of him. The archaeology suggests that there has never been a massive flood that wiped out all of humanity except for one family- certainly not recently. If we go back the 2 million years as you suggest, the archaeology suggests that the technology levels in the story did not exist any more than my cell phone did. The science suggests that a worldwide flood on the scale the story says is impossible and if one were to somehow happen through magic Noah and family would have died no matter how big their boat was as well as virtually every plant, sea animal and freshwater animal on the planet. There is no evidence of such a massive event. Godsuse did a good job laying our many of the scientific problems with the story.

And what statistical inference do you have? The story, even if true, is statistically exceedingly unlikely.

All you have is the bible and your personal feelings. You have already admitted that at least parts of the bible are less than completely accurate, which should lead us to be a little more skeptical of other claims it makes that can't be verified. And do I really need to explain how humans can easily be misled by their personal feelings?

What does a rainbow prove?

I think that an omnipotent God would make sure his biography was accurate in all details if he was really concerned with people believing in him. How important the details are to the reader are irrelevant to whether or not they are true. If there is a god, whether or not he is going to come kill all of us is very important to me. I am not reassured that he won't because a book says he said he wouldn't, especially when that book is demonstrably inaccurate on other details. If I were an omnipotent god, I would understand why someone would be concerned about that and come down to clear that misunderstanding up. Of course, it is rather arrogant to think that an omnipotent being would consider our lives as important as we consider them to be. I don't even expect other humans to consider my life to be as important as it is to me.

No matter how good your memory is, memorizing a story is not as accurate as writing it down. That is the whole reason that humans started writing down records of things that happen. They had to take great care in the scribing process and errors did happen, at which point they would destroy it and do it again. Such a process of double and triple checking is not possible with thoughts like it is with written words. And you have already admitted that the story changed before it was written and the writer was using "what they know" as opposed to what actually was in the context of Noah being a farmer, so it seems pointless to claim that the story has flawlessly been passed down orally through millions of years now. Especially since the language it was written in did not exist when the event happened.   

Yes, a strong house was built and it is the first example of a strong house ever being built. Millions of years after you claim that humans built cities of strong houses. It would be like me saying that evidence of rotary phones existing 30 years ago is proof that someone could have called Socrates on the phone. My point was that prior to that, there is no evidence of humans building such stable shelters and they tended to be made of brush or natural shelters like caves. 

You are using other parts of the story to prove the story. You don't see the problem with that?

 

caposkia wrote:

I'm sorry.. what pages were you referring to so i can answer to that directly?  I'm assuming you looked it up in the Archaeological study Bible that was mentioned and saw something that suggests a YEC pov, which possibly is there.    From what i saw, I only found cross references to other extra-Biblical texts that referenced to a flood of the same magnitude...  

I know you weren't making an assumption without doing the research first... riiiiiighht????

The only evidence you have linked to was a YECer (Andrew Snelling) in the other thread which you pointed to as proof that a worldwide flood happened. Do you have other archaeological evidence of the flood? If you have it, stop hiding it. I read archaeological journals on occasion, I have never come across one which validated anything supernatural that has occurred in the bible. There is evidence that some of the places were real and perhaps some of the people or similar people. There is none which supports any of the supernatural claims and none which supports the flood story in particular. 

Translational isn't evidence. You can't use the bible to prove the bible is true. I'm not terribly worried about losing credibility, I think my credibility is just fine to any educated lurker out there. I'm not moving on to other stories because I don't want to hijack this thread from the initial topic which was the flood. Our other thread has covered a wide variety of topics, all of which you have the same amount of evidence- nothing but stories and the ones that are falsifiable were easily proven false.  

The story says that God killed them. The only thing I am assuming is that infants existed and since humans have not spontaneously started appearing as adults that is about as big an assumption as assuming that the people drank water and ate food. This point is kind of moot though because you have already stated multiple times that you apparently don't have a problem with God murdering children to punish adults. I started this conversation with the assumption that you were a generally moral and decent person. That assumption was a bad one. In your reply to Robby and the hypothetical you suggest it is clear to me that you are an extremely immoral person.

I started this because I couldn't understand how you could believe God is good and be a moral person. In this reply to Robby it is crystal clear to me that you are not moral and you do not hold god to moral standards. A police officer who intentionally shoots a child is immoral regardless of how terrible that child's parents are.  

 

caposkia wrote:

I don't know how many more ways I can explain it to you.  

maybe this using your scenario.  if your abusive neighbor ended up killing their children and you did nothing about it, but knew about it, should you be held responsible for their deaths?  By your knowledge you would be an accessory.  but by your logic you'd be innocent.  

No, my logic has been quite consistent. Killing the child to stop the abuse would be immoral.  

I don't, but did you look into it at all or just conclude based on previous understanding that it must be false?

my grandfather was a farmer as well... most of his plants were planted by either natural gestation or by extracting the seeds from the final few batches before winter and storing them.  Granted his storage was miniscule and kept in a drawer, but he also was only farming for the family and was not selling or providing for the community.  I wonder if such a small amount of seed storage would be able to be found if it was happening 2 milliion years ago... I think i can safely assume... NO.   To store to the abundance of what was found in your reference, there must have been a long time of farming prior to to come to the understanding of how to store seeds. 

  

There are also people thorughout history who did not settle in one location for long periods, but would settle for seasons... plant foods, and then take the seeds to their new location and plant again.  consider the Native American tribes... yes some were settled, but some constantly traveled yet were still known to plant things.

I have admitted that these stories have the same flaws as most other ancient scripts of the tiem.  that does not suggest I claimed they were false.

I have presented historical reference to other ancient scripts and also language research along with cultural understanding

Archaeology does not suggest ever that something didn't happen, rather only suggests what could have happened if evidence suggests it.... therefore:

      A.  archaeology has never suggested that a flood didn't happen and actually has shown evidence of other floods that suggest such a flood could have been possible.

     B.  archaeology can only suggest that thing existed at least as far back as X... in no way does that suggest that it didn't exist before, rather the evidence found only shows to that point in history.

 

Also I have agreed with you that there is no evidence that we can see of with the flood... which is why I find it hard to believe that people can be so sure this never happened.  No evidence in no way is ever a basis for conclusion, rather a reason to do further research.

 

You say all I have is the Bible and my personal feelings.  My personal feelings have not always supported my belief, so then I guess all I have is the Bible... backed up with history, archaeology, science, etc.  But because you're set on determining what I have, you know there's nothing more.

 

Also I have agreed with you that there is no evidence that we can see of with the flood

It would be wise to do your homework on this subject if you're going to be so conclusive.  You might be surprised at what you find.  If what I believe is false, then what I'm asking you to do is very daring of me because that would reveal something you and others claim I'm trying to hide.  You could be the one who cracks the case.

 

Beyond Saving wrote:

What does a rainbow prove?

According to scripture in this case, it is the covenant between man and God.    We have to go by scripture be it that this is the source of the debate.

that's where people I think misunderstand God.  God is not concerned with people "believing in Him".  He is concerned about people building a relationship with Him.  I understand why if there is a God why it would be important to know beyond scripture whether God would destroy you or not... but you have to think of a few things... what are the errors in scripture and do they change the core beliefs and understanding of the followers of this God?  Also, God came down through His son Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, "if you know me, you know my father."  in other words, He did exactly what you suggested He should do, if you read the gospels, you will find that Jesus took a lot of time clarifying things that were blatently misunderstood by the Jews.

 

the thing with God is we understand that God values our lives more than we could ever possibly value our own lives, let alone others around us.

You're looking at this as if none of it was ever written down until it was compiled and scribed... that's simply not true.  Scraps were used to keep parts of the story accurate here and there.  The scribes ultimately took the scraps and complied them into a whole story.  they took the process of similarties and differences and ultimately compiled a story that made sense and was consistent with most of the texts in hand.  Some of it was likely completely by word of mouth, but if anyone found it of importance, they would have notated it somewhere so as to not forget.

...but again, no evidence is never a reason to conclude anything

Beyond Saving wrote:

You are using other parts of the story to prove the story. You don't see the problem with that?

not when one story is known to consist of sometimes hundreds of separate unrelated scripts.  This is why people claim the Bible supports itself.  A story is a compilation of years of texts compiled.  Usually not from the same source.

you never referenced it... can you reference it?  The only thing you're claiming I'm hiding is what you seem to suggest you researched... you're likely hiding it then.  please reference the pages so i can answer to it directly

Again, if all these were easily proven false, then why are we still talking? 

I started this because I couldn't understand how you could believe God is good and be a moral person. In this reply to Robby it is crystal clear to me that you are not moral and you do not hold god to moral standards. A police officer who intentionally shoots a child is immoral regardless of how terrible that child's parents are.  

yes, intentionally shoots a child I agree.

No, my logic has been quite consistent. Killing the child to stop the abuse would be immoral.  

I never said you had to kill the child

RobbyPants wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Logically, he could have used a sniper rifle... but if your goal was to take out thousands of people... do you really want to sit there and snipe each one of them? Let's think about this. If you had a mission to take out 1000's of people and chose to snipe them all, you'll likely find that you'd end up sniping the children that ultimately turned into adults before you were done with the population you originally sent out to destroy.

You're missing the point of the analogy. The point of differentiating between sniper rifle and C4 was to differentiate between selecting targets or hitting them all. We don't particularly care if God has one target or a thousand; he's God and he could simultaneously snipe them all.

That is definitely special pleading though on your part.  God could have done this so because He did it differently He's wrong and evil.  

You forget the original intention of the event... that God intended to wipe out humanity.  

caposkia wrote:

1.  Pharaoh's father had done that very same action to God's people 2 times a generation earlier, but on top of that, enslaved them, children and all... read Exodus 1:8-22.

How does that matter at all? Morality isn't multiplication, two negatives do not make a positive. I'll agree, the Pharaoh was an extreme asshole according to the story. How does that justify killing a bunch of children who had nothing to do with the Pharaoh?

How does that justify god murdering all the children? Obviously, the Pharaoh didn't give a shit about them, God, being GOD, would have known that. He would have realized he was dealing with a sociopath on a power trip. You don't threaten a sociopath with killing a bunch of people that are not him, he will say "go ahead, I don't care." It even specifically says it even killed the first borns of people in prison. I imagine the people in prison were not big supporters of the Pharaoh since... well he was the one who threw them in prison. So why did God put the fate of innocents in the hands of a tyrannical man he knew didn't care about them?

Maybe the Pharaoh did give a shit about his own son. Killing his son might be an effective (albeit still immoral) way to make the point. But why include all the extra collateral damage of people who did nothing wrong except happen to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time?

1 Samuel 15?

Quote:

Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy[a] all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” 

 right... and in verse 6; "Saul said to the Kenites, "Go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, so that I do not destroy you with them; for you showed kindness to all the sons of Israel when they came up from Egypt."  showing an example of a situation where the innocent who could have been included in the slaughter were given a chance to leave.  

Beyond Saving wrote:

So why didn't God kill just the Pharaoh and the Pharaoh's son? He killed the victims rather than the perpetrator. Do you think that is just? Apparently, God thinks killing innocent children is a good way to get people to do what he wants. I think that is immoral and my original point was that killing innocent children is a method God has used to enforce his idea of justice more than once, which is contrary to your claim that God always spared innocents. He clearly has no problem with collateral damage.  

I should ask you.... why is it ok here for God to kill pharaoh's son according to you?

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

 

Nor would Homosapiens. 

except that these non-homosapiens apparently made their own tools.

So what species was Noah? Tools or not, the likelihood of these hominids having developed speech is pretty well 0. Factor in the amount of time it would have taken to populate the world from the time of Adam to the time of Noah, and that puts Adam and Eve back further still. Yet, Genesis makes reference to Adam speaking. Hence, your interpretation of the bible, while very unique and unusual, simply does not work. Just like all of the other ones I've heard thus far. 

 

 

I'm not the one claiming Noah was another species.  the 2 million year date is a rough estimate based on evidence brought forth literally from this thread alone.  that could still likely be way off one way or another.  

Genesis makes reference to Adam speaking and we claim today that animals have a language and are able to communicate with each other... what is that suggesting really?  

If I have a horrendous track record as you say, then it's pretty clear that you have not done your homework for each claim....  Just to make sure before I made such claims, I would double check by doing a quick google search on the topic.  I easily found many sources for each claim...  I would not have said so otherwise.  

just to triple check I googled it again... after getting through a bit of flack about elephants getting drunk on a particular African fruit that likely does produce a lot of alcohol when fermenting, but would not have been eaten by elephants from the ground, but rather from trees, on the same front search results page, I found this:

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/09/the-alcoholics-of-the-animal-world/

this is a quick search... maybe you know something I don't about this story...

it is quite amazing what archaeology can find... what is the dating of the discoveries you reference in the first paragraph?  I'm assuming this is your defense for farming not happening 2 million years ago

the writer wrote of an event that happened using the means by which the writer understood those events to happen... it doesn't mean that part of the story is false... e.g.  If we had similar understanding of our history as these ancients had of theirs, it is not out of the question that one could write about a victim getting run over by a car in 1759... of course we know that cars were not around then and that actually they got trampled by a horse drawn carriage... but in no way does a claim that it was a car negate the fact that the person in question got run over and killed by a means of transportation...

to compare, there's no reason to think that Noah didn't in some way get drunk, whether from a vineyard he planted or by some other means of getting stoned, high, drunk or whatever the case may be that would cause him to not be coherent enough to know what was happening next... which is actually the point of the story at this part.

Beyond Saving wrote:

A. You can't prove negatives.

exactly! I'm glad you get it

there's also reason to consider why we haven't found such a flood and we've already discussed the many possibilities of why, but to add to that archaeology also accepts that we might not have dug far enough down yet in the right spot.

Beyond Saving wrote:

B. I addressed this slightly above. It is difficult to get exact dates of when things were invented/discovered because by its nature archaeology is a field where we have only a few puzzle pieces and a lot of holes. But we can get in the ball park. When we are talking about something that occurred 20,000 years ago, no one is going to be surprised if we find out we were a couple thousand of years off. Such inaccuracy is expected when you are dealing with missing so much information. However, it is another thing entirely to suggest that our estimates are off by 2 million years. That kind of revelation would be the archaeological equivalent of the sun rising in the west tomorrow morning , gravity suddenly disappearing or Obama peeling off his skin to show that the world really is ran by a race of lizard aliens.

I've never suggested that... and I don't think anyone else is either.  Rather I'm suggesting as evidenced in history that things can faze in and out.  If a particular branch of any species is eliminated, that species evolutionary calendar can be set back... why would that not be the same with people?

the first problem with this comparison is you're talking about a place we can actually visit and observe to see if the claim really happened.  A nuclear bomb leaves quite a mark, a little bit more than water, but even so, it's also so close in history to today that it would be very easy to figure out.

the other problem is you're also looking at my perspective that this happened as if I'm basing all my beliefs off of this story.  That's illogical and irrational.  

Rather I take the sum of all stories in scripture and conclude that this story is also true based on the evidences supporting other stories and occurances in scripture.  

In other words, to use an example like you did above, if I claimed that I've driven across country 6 times, but for some reason, though everyone knows I've already done it 5 times no one seems to know that I did it a 6th time, would it be more logical to believe that I still did it or that I was just lying about the last time?

Considering the flood, of course no one has produced anything, as you posted from me, there is no evidence that we can see of, but if you look at all that I said above, I'm not just talking about the flood story now am I and I've repeatedly offered for you to read the archaeological study Bible... don't even need to buy it, just google the section you're looking for.  

wait.. is it google?  is that why you haven't searched?  Bill Gates fan are you?  Alright, try bing.  

yet you're the one claiming you're not well versed in scripure... those links obviously have not provided an appropriate defense for your conclusion... I have offered you many links myself and quick sources for reasoning for what I'm claiming... The search takes 2 seconds, but you do actually have to read a bit.  

I'm sorry, I'm getting snide, not meant to be offensive, but a significant amount of homework means nothing if you're not looking at the right information.

As you say, an omnipotent deity could do anything including hide all the evidence, so why is your defense the lack of evidence?  I'm not claiming that's what happened, but I am curious about this.

I already have that in my memory bank, thanks for the google reference though.  How btw, does that understanding prove that God didn't make a rainbow a covenant?

except that it's also accurate about things we can verify... that should at least make us hesitant to unquestionably deny that it's a perfect transcript.

If your response is going to be 'like what' then see the myths parables and legends or real thread with me and pjts.. you'll see numerous pages discussing that very thing based solely on historical evidence.

Beyond Saving wrote:

Blatantly false even within the bible. You have said multiple times that God intended to wipe out humanity. Obviously, he thought people were better off dead. I imagine most of them didn't agree. Therefore, those humans valued their lives more than God did. Further evidence is the sheer amount of effort us humans put in to extending our lives while God does nothing. 

is that so... you must be reading the Torah.  The Bible has this whole other Testament called the New Testament.  your conclusion is very Jewish

which would be why we find no evidences of writings before then.  

it is generally understood that all historical happenings, unless written down by an official scribe for a king or pharaoh was not written down close to the time it occurred.

 

the problem with you getting stuck on the idea that this person is a YEC is that he was using actual evidence of a flood to the magnitude that could be comparable to the flood of the Bible to support his YEC beliefs.  Though I don't believe the evidence he presented is of the Biblical flood, I do believe that it shows evidence that such a flood could occur within the rules of nature.  

I guess I'd have to say I'm still here for the same reason... so one of us is ignorant to an amazing level.  I have been level and strait with you since the beginning even challenging you to bring up things that you claim make me look more ignorant... yet when you do I still shut it down pretty efficiently with rationalizations that are pretty clear to most people... what is that saying?

Here's my problem with your claim that God intentionally killed children.  It's like me telling you something is going to happen.  It will utterly destroy your house and property and it is because you brought it upon yourself.   Instead of choosing to leave your residence or allow your children to get to safety you keep them all in the house even though you know an event is going to occur that was set in motion due to your actions.  Are you really trying to blame me for you putting your children in danger?  it makes no sense to me.  

1. if you were innocent in the matter whatever it may be, the event would have never happened.

2.  the fact is it's going to happen and you still did nothing to protect your family from it.

yet you still blame someone else for the result...  I know why, but it's non-sensical.  How many more bad choices would you have to make before it becomes your fault or would it never be your fault because you never made the ultimate destructive event happen yourself?

I said it would have been better for them if that was the case especially seeing as no one would be there after to guide their lives and or provide for them.  though you seem to think it would be better for these abused children to suffer in starvation with the memories of their abuse until they die naturally.  If there are no adults left to take care of these innocent infants, how do you expect that they'd be ok if God chose to let them live?  No special pleading about how God can do anything so he could have fed them and raised them himself please.

You are aware that Pharaohs were not elected right? The vast majority of people had absolutely no say in who was Pharaoh. Whether they supported the Pharaoh or not was irrelevant. They either obeyed or were killed/imprisoned/enslaved. Like I pointed out, the story specifically says the first born of people in prison were killed. I doubt people in prison were fans of the Pharaoh and many were probably their because they opposed the Pharaoh! And again, the people killed were the children- not the adults who may or may not have supported the Pharaoh. Do you think children are generally in to position to have an opinion on whether they should support the Pharaoh or god? 

 

caposkia wrote:

actually the pharaoh did end up caring in this case because it was that action that resulted in the pharaoh releasing all the Jewish slaves...

So as long as it works slaughtering children is okay?

And how are infants supposed to leave or even comprehend the danger? Is a 7 year old child supposed to realize their parents are evil and willingly leave?

It isn't okay according to me. I think your god is an immoral sack of shit as he is portrayed in these stories. 

 

Exactly, you did a quick search and found a news story about a Moose that got stuck in the tree. The NEWS reporter reported that the POLICE said the Moose was drunk. Neither the reporter nor the police necessarily have any clue what they are talking about. Just because it is written down doesn't make it true. We can apply some critical thinking and look to actual scientific studies to determine if this claim is likely. Let us see what the actual facts are:

1: A Moose got stuck in an apple tree. We can be quite certain this did in fact happen, it is documented, we have a picture etc.

2: Moose eat apples. Plenty of evidence to support that.

3: People in the area believe that moose get drunk on rotten apples.

The question is whether the belief 3 is the most likely explanation for 1 & 2. While no scientist has started testing Moose blood alcohol levels, we have a very similar case we can compare this to that scientists did go through the effort to research.

1: Elephants act in weird ways. Documented and proven, yes they do act odd sometimes those funny beasts. 

2: They eat marula fruit. Yep, they do. 

3: People in the area believe that the elephants get drunk on the fruit.

Sound familiar? Like maybe we have already driven across this country and back?

As it turns out, the idea of the moose getting drunk on apples is unlikely on its face for many of the same reasons.

First, like the elephants, a moose would have to eat a ridiculous number of rotten apples to get drunk.

Second, like the elephants, moose tend to eat the apples out of the tree rather than off the ground. Why do you think the moose got stuck in the tree? Because she was trying to reach apples from the higher branches. There is plenty of documented evidence of moose pushing trees in an attempt to reach higher branches. 

Third, like marula fruit, apples tend to fall out of the tree when they get ripe. This means that the fruit that is more fermented is on the ground, while the fruit in the tree is more fresh and has a lower and often non-existent alcohol content. 

So what is the most likely explanation? The moose was attempting to get an apple that was out of reach and her legs slipped or a branch broke (moose are really heavy) and the moose landed in the embarrassing position. Or that a moose managed to eat enough fermented apples off the ground to get drunk? Everything we have documented points towards the former. The latter makes a much more entertaining news story, hence why it is the explanation the news reporters ran with. Maybe someday a scientist will bother with a journal article debunking this BS. Probably be awhile though, not a lot of scientists focus on moose compared to those who focus on elephants.  

The other animals in the story you linked to were given human made alcohol, except for the shrew, which you will notice I pointed out in my first post on the topic. 

 

caposkia wrote:

it is quite amazing what archaeology can find... what is the dating of the discoveries you reference in the first paragraph?  I'm assuming this is your defense for farming not happening 2 million years ago

Evidence of eating meat occurred 2.6 million years ago. There is some evidence that suggests it might have been more than 3 million years ago but that is disputed because there isn't much. 

http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/evidence-for-meat-eating-by-early-humans-103874273

The first evidence of domestication of dogs was dated 33,000 BC.

http://www.livescience.com/27691-dogs-domesticated-oldest-skull.html

We are not nearly as clueless about how humans lived back then as you try to pretend. 

 

caposkia wrote:

the writer wrote of an event that happened using the means by which the writer understood those events to happen... it doesn't mean that part of the story is false... e.g.  If we had similar understanding of our history as these ancients had of theirs, it is not out of the question that one could write about a victim getting run over by a car in 1759... of course we know that cars were not around then and that actually they got trampled by a horse drawn carriage... but in no way does a claim that it was a car negate the fact that the person in question got run over and killed by a means of transportation...

to compare, there's no reason to think that Noah didn't in some way get drunk, whether from a vineyard he planted or by some other means of getting stoned, high, drunk or whatever the case may be that would cause him to not be coherent enough to know what was happening next... which is actually the point of the story at this part.

If I was reading a history book and it said someone was ran over by a car in 1759, I would throw it away. Obviously the author is completely unreliable and I would no longer be able to trust even the plausible sounding stories. Would you trust that history book?

 

caposkia wrote:

Beyond Saving wrote:

A. You can't prove negatives.

exactly! I'm glad you get it

Unfortunately, you don't. Since it is impossible to prove any negative, it is completely irrational for you to hold the stance that your belief must be true because no one can disprove it. 

 

caposkia wrote:

there's also reason to consider why we haven't found such a flood and we've already discussed the many possibilities of why, but to add to that archaeology also accepts that we might not have dug far enough down yet in the right spot.

Archaeology accepts no such thing. 

There is absolutely no evidence that it happened and it is highly improbable that humans were advanced enough to discover farming and then it was lost for millions of years. If they were that advanced, there would be some evidence and it becomes increasingly unlikely that we will find it as we have more and more finds that don't support the hypothesis. You are simply pulling a hypothesis out of your ass with absolutely no basis, there is no evidence of it and it is not believable. Your hypothesis should be treated exactly as seriously as the lizard aliens because it is just as likely and has exactly the same amount of evidence. 

Floods leave a lot of evidence too. A worldwide flood would leave a gigantic amount of evidence and it wouldn't even matter if we were digging in the right place because by definition any place is the right place. 

Huh? So it is irrational to base your beliefs off a story but if the story repeats itself it is suddenly rational? You are basing whether or not one story in scripture is true on other stories in scripture. Using that justification, Harry Potter 1 must be true because it is consistent with the rest of the series....

No, it is completely logical to believe things that are plausible based on prior experience. That is how science works. And we know what happens when there are floods, time after time they happen and things are similar. And it doesn't match the story. According to all our observations of literally thousands of floods, a worldwide flood is impossible. You are not asking me to believe something that happens regularly, you are asking me to believe something happened only once in history and based on all of our experiences and observations is impossible.

 

caposkia wrote:

Considering the flood, of course no one has produced anything, as you posted from me, there is no evidence that we can see of, but if you look at all that I said above, I'm not just talking about the flood story now am I and I've repeatedly offered for you to read the archaeological study Bible... don't even need to buy it, just google the section you're looking for.  

wait.. is it google?  is that why you haven't searched?  Bill Gates fan are you?  Alright, try bing.  

Why should I bother when you JUST said there is no evidence? If there is NO evidence google isn't going to produce it no matter how many times I type in the search. You have zero evidence. None. Not one shred. You have admitted it. So why do you want me to find it?

Then link me to the "right information". I just scanned this whole thread and you haven't linked to anything except one link talking about the expansion of homo-sapiens to argue we were all in a small geographic location 200,000 years ago. To which I linked you to several journal articles detailing archaeological finds of tools being used millions of years ago in diverse geographic locations. That is when you came up with the absurd idea that Noah's flood must have happened 2 million years ago. 

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/32780?page=4

The relevant posts are 210 & 214.

Other than that, I have not seen you post anything except for the geological BS from the YEC'er in Australia in the other thread, which you linked to then promptly said you didn't believe him.

We have had a lot of posts, so if I missed something or have forgotten something that is relevant, by all means give me to link again.

 

caposkia wrote:

As you say, an omnipotent deity could do anything including hide all the evidence, so why is your defense the lack of evidence?  I'm not claiming that's what happened, but I am curious about this.

Because it is irrational to believe something when there is zero evidence it happened. I could as easily theorize that God is a giant mouse that pooped out our planet after eating a star made out of cheese, but since this mouse is omnipotent he erased all evidence of his existence and created Christianity to distract us from finding the truth. You can make up any random thing in your head and if there actually exists an omnipotent being absolutely anything you can think of could be true. How do you choose which one to believe? All you have is evidence for or against any given hypothesis.

It suggests that rainbows existed long before humans. 

If one thing is wrong, it is by definition not perfect. You have admitted that at least one thing is wrong, therefore it is not perfect by definition. It might be exceedingly accurate, but it is not perfect. 

I have gone over there a few times. I think pjts has done an admirable job pointing out the numerous flaws in the myths and the suspension of disbelief required to believe in them. He is clearly much better informed about the archaeology and historical evidence of that particular corner of the world than I am. The only way the biblical stories can be found plausible at all is if you believe in a significant use of magic and that these things all occurred once and are a huge exception to everything we have observed and documented since. Even over there though you have admitted that the bible isn't perfect. Last time I read you were discussing whether or not the number of Jews in the exodus was accurate and didn't you admit that the bible might be wrong on the numbers? Therefore, the bible is not a perfect transcript. 

The old testament is part of the bible, no? Last time I checked the New Testament didn't say "ha ha, that last part was a joke, ignore it." I will agree the god portrayed in the New Testament seems fundamentally different from god as portrayed in the Old Testament as far as his disposition towards humans and his temperament. That doesn't change his actions in the past though, and since according to you God is perfect and unchanging, then the vengeful god of the OT still exists. 

 

caposkia wrote:

which would be why we find no evidences of writings before then.  

it is generally understood that all historical happenings, unless written down by an official scribe for a king or pharaoh was not written down close to the time it occurred.

Really? Who generally understands that? I guess all those foolish historians reading all those primary sources written during the times they are studying didn't get the memo. Why we should probably through out diaries, letters, newspapers and the vast majority of written evidence that historians rely on when trying to piece together what happened.  

As soon as I confronted you with the credibility of the man, who is universally dismissed as a quack among geologists, you said you didn't agree with him. How can you not believe he has evidence of the biblical flood but believe it proves such a flood is possible? That doesn't make any sense. Either the sediment he analyzed is evidence of a gigantic flood as he believes, or it is evidence that the world is billions of years old as everyone else in the world believes. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The same sediment can't have been created both billions of years ago and 10,000 years ago. 

Lol. You haven't shut it down. I have gotten you to change your hypothesis from the flood occurring 200,000 bc to 2 million bc. I have gotten you to admit you have zero archaeological evidence of the flood. You have come up with pretty far fetched rationalizations to justify the morality because you won't admit that god murdered innocent children in the story. See below.

The problem is this isn't an event that is happening that you are powerless to prevent. It is an event that you are the cause of the event with absolute power to either make the event happen or not. You yourself compared it to god using C4. So it is like you warning me you are going to blow up my house, me ignoring it and then you blowing up the house. Now I might be somewhat responsible because I failed to stop you or run for my life, but ultimately, you are the one who planted the C4 and pushed the trigger button knowing full well that not only me but my child was in the blast radius. In that case, I believe every moral human would blame you. But we have already established you are not a moral human so I don't expect you to agree.

You really need to do your research on the topic of special pleading. Several people have corrected you on the definition yet you continue to use the accusation improperly. 

I don't know who was in prison or why, but the problem I have with your statement is you claim they're probably there because they opposed the pharaoh...

then you go on to say the people killed were children and then ask if children are in a position to have an opinion for support... If they're in jail for opposing the pharaoh, then they're in a position to have an opinion.

 

 Opposed or for the pharaoh it wasn't about the pharaoh really, it was about Gods people.  They were not of Gods people, so they unfortunately had to endure the plague that was brought on by the pharaoh's stubbornness.

just for the record on this one, any one of Gods people if they forgot to put the blood of the lamb on their doorpost would have lost a firstborn child as well.   It sounds to me as if an angel was sent down by God to do the deed... they were likely given a specific command kill all firstborns but those who are in a house marked with the blood of a lamb.  

 So as long as it works slaughtering children is okay?

if that's how you want to look at it... pretty twisted if you ask me.  

In context, God gave pharaoh 6 other chances before taking this extreme... which was done because it was something the pharaoh knew his father had done to Gods people some time ago.  It's apparent that nothing else would have worked and also.  Which scenario is the better choice, slaughtering children so that the slavery would stop or enslaving children and beating them and killing them when they don't do enough with the promise that if they ever had children their children would suffer the same fate?    The scripture mentions 400 years... that's 400 years of slavery where every family member was labored to death... I'm not sure exactly what age it was when pharaoh decided it was ok for the children to start working for him, but its' generally understood that pharaoh gave no regard to that and so likely when a child was old enough to carry something they were put to work.  

Why not just kill pharaoh and his son right?  because another supporter would take pharaoh's place and continue the slavery is my guess.

this goes back to who's responsibility it is for these kids safety.  Good question, how are infants supposed to leave or even comprehend danger?  They don't and can't, they rely on... god.... no wait.. let's have a reality check for a moment... they rely on their PARENTS to keep them safe when there's danger.  If their parents aren't in the right state of mind to keep them safe, then I guess they're screwed.

 

Times were terrible, but again, you can't know the alternative of keeping them alive... you can only assume it would have been better off that way.  But there again would be no one around to take care of these infants taht would ultimately be parentless.

...and yet you just asked not only why didn't God kill pharaoh, but also his son... your rules seem to be changing a bit... which also btw, I answered above remembering you asked this.  

These were hard times.  With the pharaoh story, the point of having 6 other plagues come upon Egypt before this horrible event was to show that nothing else would have worked to get the pharaoh to let Gods people go and stop the slavery.  

Sorry, you have no footing here.  it's just that simple really.  It's horrible that God had to make such a choice, but it was worse what would have continued if the choice hadn't been made.  e.g. what would have stopped this pharaoh from doing the very same thing to the slaves if for some reason he thought they were getting too populated again?  ok, so kill the pharaoh, what would have stopped any other pharaoh supporter who took pharaoh's place from doing the very same thing? 

   

I would love to hear... without special pleading please, on what would have been a better choice and why... keep in mind killing just adults abandons children most would likely die and killing no one leaves the same people to continue torturing, enslaving and killing children themselves for an infinite number of days to come.  

Let's use a pool scenario.  Do you take people out of the water who are playing dangerously and could hurt or drown someone or do you let them play until they end up drowning themselves?  You seem to think it's better to let them drown themselves.  How does this fit?  God "kills" people and their souls live on... this is not special pleading.  If God is real then the soul must be real too, it's existence by association... both or none.  If souls are real, then God was just pulling everyone out of the water, banning those who were guilty and protecting those who were innocent.

 

I get that you don't like what my God did, but you're ignoring what the people were doing and/or likely doing in the flood story.  What the people were doing was much worse... e.g. not only were the first born dying or being tortured and enslaved by the pharaoh, but all children probably from age 3 or so on and it continued generation after generation, child after child... one child dies in slavery? oh well, another will be old enough soon and you're trying to tell me it was more wrong of God to take an extreme measure to stop that.  I know you're going to try to deny that, but you don't have a better alternative... you can't just kill the adults and hope the children survive... it doesn't work that way... God can take care of them... in heaven... it's the parents responsibility here on Earth.  

I still discuss with you though because you're different than others who really have it out to prove me wrong... you still seem to be trying to understand and so I get your frustration.  My conclusion is a discussion on the flood story is not the best way at going about why you should believe what I do.  Rather it might be better to discuss what evidences we do have which is again a reference to the archaeological study Bible be it that you like to see to believe... then from there discuss the plausibility of a metaphysical existence. 

I get it... literally perfect, not perfect in portraying what happened.  fine, not perfect, but still portrays an event that took place that had a result as said in the story... e.g. worldwide flood... or localized.. that ended up killing every living thing exept for who was in the boat.

you will also notice that in our discussions PJTS, who I will agree is more knowledgeable in that particular corner of the world that you and I both, has admitted logic to my perspective on a lot of the scriptures that have more history to go on.

The imperfections of scripture never changed the result of the story, rather that it was just on a smaller scale.  The name issues as we discussed over there are as if I called Russia the USSR, same geographical location and names of course are based on what people remember, but are the most insignificant of possible flaws in the information... e.g. king Doofenschmirtz or king David, both are understood to be the same king ruling over the same territory regardless of what name you put there.  There is evidence of a king David here in history so the name is likely accurate for this particular king..

it's perspective, not a change in rules.  

Yes the vengeful God of the OT does still exist, but the Laws have been fulfilled by a sacrifice once for all.  Gods wrath has been satisfied for those who accept that sacrifice.

which would be why we find no evidences of writings before then.  

it is generally understood that all historical happenings, unless written down by an official scribe for a king or pharaoh was not written down close to the time it occurred.

Really? Who generally understands that? I guess all those foolish historians reading all those primary sources written during the times they are studying didn't get the memo. Why we should probably through out diaries, letters, newspapers and the vast majority of written evidence that historians rely on when trying to piece together what happened.  

historians generally understand that... they didn't need a memo, they're the ones who discovered that.

As soon as I confronted you with the credibility of the man, who is universally dismissed as a quack among geologists, you said you didn't agree with him. How can you not believe he has evidence of the biblical flood but believe it proves such a flood is possible? That doesn't make any sense. Either the sediment he analyzed is evidence of a gigantic flood as he believes, or it is evidence that the world is billions of years old as everyone else in the world believes. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The same sediment can't have been created both billions of years ago and 10,000 years ago. 

I believe it shows such a flood is possible becasue the evidence he presented was of a massive flood capable of wiping out life to the magnitude of scripture in a much more localized area as described... though He seems to think it's teh actual flood... again perspective... His perspective is that the Earth is not that old and therefore that must be the flood... my perspective is that the Earth is much older and that it couldn't have been the flood so close to our past.

You have gotten me to change my hypothesis and someone else has gotten me to change it again... I don't know the dating if that's not obvious... it also should be obvious I don't base my belief on abstract dating.  

and yet I've been quoting the definition each time..  e.g. "the need to apply additional considerations without proper criticisms of these considerations" (a direct quote from the definition)...e .g. children when they're never mentioned and no one knows anything about any aspect of their lives.  That is special pleading... don't believe me yet?  I'll quote another part of the definition: "claims to data that are inherently unverifiable, perhaps because too remote or impossible to define clearly."    See how it's special pleading yet?

Do you think the pharaoh throwing his friends in prison? 

Have you read your bible? It says he killed the first born of people who were in prison. So yes, he killed the kids of people who were in prison.

And that was Gods choice no? He chose who his people were. There is no rational reason that god had to do it along racial lines, unless god is a racist. He could have declared all innocent people "his people". He didn't. He preferred to kill them. 

Oh, so it is kind of like when a Recon Marine fucks up on the ground and paints the wrong target resulting in civilian casualties? How could a perfect god allow such a mistake to happen? 

That is my point, it is extremely twisted. 

 

So our brilliant omnipotent God that we should worship couldn't figure out how to overthrow a human government and get one of his guys in control without slaughtering a bunch of children? Funny how a number of mere mortal humans managed to overthrow their governments and put leaders on their side in control.

So are you categorically opposed to interfering with the parent/child relationship and assuming responsibility of caring for a child who is put in danger by their parents either through negligence or intent? If you see a child playing in the road that is not yours, are you saying you have no moral responsibility to protect them from the semi truck about to run them over?

Um, God? Is politics too complicated for God to figure out?

Yeah, you pull them out of the pool, you don't drown them. Are you seriously suggesting that God killed them to stop them from killing themselves? That is like saving a friend from suicide by cutting off their head...

Us mere mortals figured out how to end organized slavery without murdering all the slaves. 

 

But that is irrelevant because I don't dispute every claim in the Bible. As I said before, I'm sure many of the stories in the bible are loosely based on real people, real places and real events. I dispute the mystical claims, such as the flood or the plagues of Egypt. Whether you can show that some of the battles related in the Bible actually happened is irrelevant. Even if you can prove the Jesus existed is irrelevant, because I don't dispute that (although I'm aware of many who do, I simply don't care enough to be informed enough to come to an opinion one way or the other). I do dispute that Jesus died and came back to life. So if you have archaeological evidence of that, I would be interested. 

There is a gigantic difference between worldwide or localized. Did the flood kill every living human on the planet or not? If it didn't, then we are talking about a small village experiencing a flood which I won't doubt. We have tons of evidence of small scale floods in the area and several archaeologists have found evidence of floods that they believe may be the origin of the myth. They were big floods for the area, but not world wide and not supernatural. They didn't kill every living being, but probably did kill most or even all of the local community.

 

Yes, and if you eliminate God and all the magic, you have a nice small scale and a story that makes sense. Most likely, the majority of the Bible was composed of stories used to pass along the lessons of history to future generations-it is myth. Just like Homer's Iliad is a record of the Trojan War. That doesn't make Aphrodite real, although I would love if she was. 

So you have a wrathful and vengeful god that is sated. Not my definition of moral. 

I need some evidence that "historians generally understand that" because again, historians don't ignore writings made near the time of a particular event. They tend to give those writings more credibility than those written afterwards. During biblical times, yes it is rare to find writings made at the time of the events. That is because writing was rare and much of it is lost, but if found historians are not going to ignore it, that is absurd.

Obviously you can't because at any given date it can be shown the flood story as reported is extremely unlikely.

 Special pleading is when you ask for special consideration for a premise that is different from the norm. There are always going to be holes in evidence and things that are unverifiable. Special pleading is when you try to claim something is different from the norm without justification. Children existing is the norm. Where there are human societies there are children and we have mountains of data to support that. The bible doesn't specify one way or the other in these stories, so it is natural to apply the norm. It doesn't say the sun rose in the east that morning, but we can assume it did and that is not special pleading. You are trying to say that the situation was different from the norm, but there is no evidence to support that. Special pleading only applies when you are asking for an exception from what is common.

Now if other stories of the Bible demonstrated God going to great lengths to protect children, you might have a point. If God commanded them to kill everyone except the children, if God protected all the children in Egypt etc. Then you might have a point calling special pleading because in the flood story it doesn't say anything about the children but it being the norm that god protects children we could assume that he maintained that norm absent of evidence to the contrary. The reality is that nowhere does God seem to give special consideration to protecting the lives of children. The only people he seems to provide that consideration to are adults who are his followers and seems willing to allow even his followers children to die.

Now my claim is that x = Y (the humans killed in the flood were societies with children) I'm not making an exception. I'm following the standard rule. Now if you want to formally prove my argument wrong you can either dispute the rule, dispute the premise x=X or demonstrate that this situation is a legitimate cause for an exception. If you succeed at any of these, that doesn't make me guilty of the fallacy of special pleading, it makes me guilty of having a faulty premise or not recognizing a legitimate exception.

So far, the most persuasive argument you have made to justify the exception is that God decreed them evil and you can't believe that God would kill innocent children, so they must have been dead. Which led to me demonstrating that God has killed or ordered killed innocent children in other stories, so him drowning children in the flood is not inconsistent with otheories in the Bible, which really I think you agree with because much of your time has been devoted to explaining that the blame for the children's deaths rests on the parents not on God. A moral position I think we have to simply agree to disagree on, because I can't wrap my head around it.  

I'm assuming you don't dispute the first two, but feel free to correct me. 

 

 

R e :: Perplexing,  A clear mistake to post this, although a mistake on my part to do so; it is important

    Servant, no longer   Servants ..  I called you Friend.

Quote from :: Jabberwocky

  Jabberwocky wrote :;

This thread is specifically myself seeking answers from those who completely deny that biological evolution is possible. 

Now going in, I realize that somewhere between many and all creationists will acknowledge that "micro evolution" does occur. This is commonly synonymous in the creationist world as "change within kinds". Creationists concede that genetic change can, and in fact will, occur within what they call a kind. They will even be comfortable (usually) with the phrase "adaptation within a kind". Based on this, I have three questions for creationists (using creationist terminology when possible even!)

1. Let's posit a scenario where two groups of one "kind" suddenly become separated from one another. Let's posit that one group didn't move at all from the original location, whereas the other did move to a quite different habitat over time. Now after many generations, the combination of genes which affect traits that are likely to benefit survival vary in these two populations due to their different habitats. After some time, some people find these two populations, posit that they have a common ancestor, and bring them back together, and find them reproductively incompatible. You may say "well, you're just suggesting macro-evolution is true here". Perhaps I am. However, it's not just us heathens that suggest this. Here is a video of Kent Hovind suggesting exactly that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-ilMYc5xdQ#t=316 . Now this isn't a video of just Hovind, so bear with me here Creationists. Just watch the first 5 minutes or so. 

At about 1:54, Kent says "If they can bring forth, they're the same kind! Simple definition. A dog and a wolf can bring forth. A dog and a banana can not." This is quite a concise statement, and while I don't ever see Kent Hovind as an authority on anything (except perhaps how to go to jail for the dumbest of reasons), it's pretty much a working definition in the creationist world. From Answers in Genesis, I present the following:

Quote:

If two animals can produce a hybrid, then they are considered to be of the same kind.1 However, the inability to produce offspring does not necessarily rule out that the animals are of the same kind, since this may be the result of mutations (since the Fall).

Zonkeys (from a male zebra bred with a female donkey), zorses (male zebra and female horse), and hebras (male horse and female zebra) are all examples of hybrid animals. Hybrid animals are the result of the mating of two animals of the same “kind.” Perhaps one of the most popular hybrids of the past has been the mule, the mating of a horse and donkey. So, seeing something like a zorse or zonkey shouldn’t really surprise anyone, since donkeys, zebras, and horses all belong to the horse kind.

 

Between the above, and Kent Hovind's spiel about rabbits, creationists seem to concede that considerable amount of genetic change can occur in animals with a common ancestor, to the point where (in the AIG example) animals can produce offspring that are almost always sterile, or (in Hovind's example of Alaskan vs. southern rabbits) aren't reproductively compatible at all! 

Given that information, how can one posit the theory of evolution in its entirety to be impossible? With this concession, once you have two groups of animals with a common ancestor that are no longer reproductively compatible, what is to stop their genes from diverging so far that an uneducated person hundreds of thousands of years later would not be able to tell that there is a common ancestor at all? I will assert that given the evidence for this, (fossil evidence, DNA evidence which I will address further shortly, and homology for sure) to say that it could not have happened, one would have to show a biological mechanism that remembers its ancestral genes, and refuses to change past a certain point. Failure to find any such mechanism in genetics allows the theory of evolution to hold the position that creationists hate so much; one where we know it's true. 

2. Further on hybrid animals as touched on above. If it's true that everything is designed, why weren't mules? Surely, if god wanted us to have mules (a working animal that is for certain applications favourable to either of horses and/or donkeys) he would have made a "mule kind", with horses and donkeys being reproductively isolated. Instead, he made us figure out mules on our own. If mules are more useful than horses and donkeys, why would god have made us figure this out on our own? Also, why would he have made the overwhelming majority of mules sterile, instead of making their own "kind" so that they can bring forth, and perhaps help us selectively breed better mules?

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk <--Pretty well fully explained here. Why is human chromosome #2 homologous to two chimpanzee chromosome? The explanation that "god made it that way" is simply not good enough here. The link I posted is a talk by a biologist who is also a Catholic. Should you be Christian but not Catholic, do note that he says in this video that he believes in a designer, but not a deceptive one. Wouldn't you agree? If not, then:

A. Why is he deceptive, or

B. Why is Kenneth Miller wrong? 

  This is too important an issue to allow to die on the vine, only because Jabberwocky certainly formally announced he was choosing to no longer engage with Caposkia. Please be advised, Full attributions MUST be given to, completely the work of , Jabberwocky (himself)

 

---

 

  Unrelated pic  ::

 

 

 

  That's a shame. I mentioned that I enjoyed the quite specific topic of this thread as opposed to the other one, where it's just sort of become about everything. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok. so you turned on a dime saying that perhaps it occurred around 2 million years ago when Beyond Saving pointed out hard evidence of humans being spread at least as far as Indonesia 1.6-1.8 million years ago (post #219 is when you concede the point). The reason you did is because Beyond Saving pointed out that it would not have been possible to spread the word of the flood coming, nor spread the word of Noah's existence, hence you needed to go further back in time to back up before we are CERTAIN that humans became significantly spread out across the world. The reason you were quick to concede that point is because you realized "You know what? That's completely correct. The entire world population of humans in a world with no mass communication or vehicles (not even horses) would have to be much closer in order to be able to effectively spread such news." You would be correct in making that assumption. Then, just now, you have conceded that humans would also require a certain level of language skills that is far more recent than 2 million years ago, and an estimate of 400 000 years is probably closer (which is still a remarkably ambitious estimate when it comes to the development of complex enough language to communicate a world-wide catastrophe being cooked up by an omnipotent deity). However, by that time, the populations were already too spread out. It doesn't work either way. So what's next? Are you to propose another date? The more recent you get, the further humanity is spread out, making effective communication impossible (not to mention different languages). The more ancient you get, the more deficient our language is. There exists 0 overlap where your assumption of the flood narrative could take place. ZERO! Are you ready to concede and finally admit (to us, and yourself) that there is no way a worldwide flood could have occurred in any way even remotely resembling the way the bible describes it?

I used to say that there are two ways to interpret the bible. 

1. Full on young earth creationist: Every word is literally true, and the world began in about 4016 BC. This position is irreconcilable with reality, and the bible's internal contradictions make it incoherent as well. 

2. Beyond moderate view: Almost everything is allegory, but Jesus was real, died on the cross for our sins, came back from the dead, etc. This position is irreconcilable with itself, and a theological disaster. The sacrifice is unnecessary if original sin isn't real. Any description of the story of the fall being "simply an allegory, but 'something' happened" is a giant cop-out, and also an admittance that the bible is not all true, putting into question its authenticity entirely. 

But there is 3rd way. I have dubbed it:

3. The D'Souza: This is an exercise in moving the goalposts, supersaturated with dishonesty, sometimes with malicious intent, and sometimes not. If one is dishonest with themselves in an examination of the bible (almost always due to delusion, and fear...plain FEAR of a torturous afterlife, suggested by this awful awful book), I can not seriously blame them for trying to justify it to other people in order to themselves feel that it's at least remotely possible that it's true.

You fall into #3 sir. Dinesh D'Souza once went as far as to say something along the lines that people used to laugh at the bible saying "let there be light" with the sun only coming into existence a few days later, but according to modern cosmology it's actually correct (while completely ignoring all of the other chronological inaccuracies of Genesis 1). I have just in this first part of the post provided you with the reason why your account of the flood is completely irreconcilable. While you claim to have an open mind, you refuse to drop your view that the worldwide flood happened, even though you have established that people would need a certain complexity of language, and proximity to one another. So, since I doubt you will drop your view, what's your next argument as to how the flood still could have occurred in some way similar to what the bible describes, even though complex language and global human proximity could not have existed at the same time? 

I kind of skimmed through that so if I missed something in this response, please let me know.  I skimmed because I got the gist of your statement.  Goalposts. 

Problem, we have nothing to go on for dating this story, so yes, we can only go on what we know.  If such an event occured, is it illogical to consider that humanity was set back a few centuries or even millenia?  If so why?  I can turn on a dime with the dating because... we have nothing to go on.  I still feel your dating was more logical.  2 million made sense with the basis of communication across great distances... then again there's theoretically 120 years that passed... how far could an ancient person or group travel to spread a word in 120 years?  I feel further than I originally assumed when agreeing to 2 million years.  So many factors to take into consideration, the dating I feel is not the issue to focus on be it that it's never going to be satisfied until we have evidences that allow us to scientifically date it. 

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Due to the advanced communication that seems to have been portrayed in these stories, it would be logical to think your dating is more accurate.  I know people are going to come back on this and either claim goalpost shifting or inconsistency, but the problem I have with that is we're concluding on assumptions.  And I'm not trying to prove anything, rather I'm questioning your/their rationality as to why I should accept this as a reason to doubt what I know.

Covered above. I like how you accused yourself of goalpost shifting before I had to. You at least seem to be able to detect that logical fallacy (although you still don't understand what special pleading is. You saw me post the phrase, and kept on using it in situations where it doesn't apply whatsoever). Remember, your goalposts are several hundreds of thousands of years apart. So how do you close them so that I can no longer score at will here? 

did I call it or what... read the last statement again then try to respond.  esp. the last sentence.

Jabberwocky wrote:

Provide me a link with the date of the ice man specimen and evidence that grain was a large part of their diet please. Don't just say google it like you have a ton of times in your threads.  I want a link from you (no creationist sources please. I find them deluded at best, and opportunistic liars at worst). 

http://www.naturalnews.com/029653_paleo_diet_health.html  shows that seeds, veggies, fruits, meats were staples not as much grains

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/iceman-last-meal.html shows ice man ate local grains. 

 

Jabberwocky wrote:

Know where to dig? This flood was supposed to be worldwide.

yet we discussed that it may not have been.   We're back tracking

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Ok. so you turned on a dime saying that perhaps it occurred around 2 million years ago when Beyond Saving pointed out hard evidence of humans being spread at least as far as Indonesia 1.6-1.8 million years ago (post #219 is when you concede the point). The reason you did is because Beyond Saving pointed out that it would not have been possible to spread the word of the flood coming, nor spread the word of Noah's existence, hence you needed to go further back in time to back up before we are CERTAIN that humans became significantly spread out across the world. The reason you were quick to concede that point is because you realized "You know what? That's completely correct. The entire world population of humans in a world with no mass communication or vehicles (not even horses) would have to be much closer in order to be able to effectively spread such news." You would be correct in making that assumption. Then, just now, you have conceded that humans would also require a certain level of language skills that is far more recent than 2 million years ago, and an estimate of 400 000 years is probably closer (which is still a remarkably ambitious estimate when it comes to the development of complex enough language to communicate a world-wide catastrophe being cooked up by an omnipotent deity). However, by that time, the populations were already too spread out. It doesn't work either way. So what's next? Are you to propose another date? The more recent you get, the further humanity is spread out, making effective communication impossible (not to mention different languages). The more ancient you get, the more deficient our language is. There exists 0 overlap where your assumption of the flood narrative could take place. ZERO! Are you ready to concede and finally admit (to us, and yourself) that there is no way a worldwide flood could have occurred in any way even remotely resembling the way the bible describes it?

I used to say that there are two ways to interpret the bible. 

1. Full on young earth creationist: Every word is literally true, and the world began in about 4016 BC. This position is irreconcilable with reality, and the bible's internal contradictions make it incoherent as well. 

2. Beyond moderate view: Almost everything is allegory, but Jesus was real, died on the cross for our sins, came back from the dead, etc. This position is irreconcilable with itself, and a theological disaster. The sacrifice is unnecessary if original sin isn't real. Any description of the story of the fall being "simply an allegory, but 'something' happened" is a giant cop-out, and also an admittance that the bible is not all true, putting into question its authenticity entirely. 

But there is 3rd way. I have dubbed it:

3. The D'Souza: This is an exercise in moving the goalposts, supersaturated with dishonesty, sometimes with malicious intent, and sometimes not. If one is dishonest with themselves in an examination of the bible (almost always due to delusion, and fear...plain FEAR of a torturous afterlife, suggested by this awful awful book), I can not seriously blame them for trying to justify it to other people in order to themselves feel that it's at least remotely possible that it's true.

You fall into #3 sir. Dinesh D'Souza once went as far as to say something along the lines that people used to laugh at the bible saying "let there be light" with the sun only coming into existence a few days later, but according to modern cosmology it's actually correct (while completely ignoring all of the other chronological inaccuracies of Genesis 1). I have just in this first part of the post provided you with the reason why your account of the flood is completely irreconcilable. While you claim to have an open mind, you refuse to drop your view that the worldwide flood happened, even though you have established that people would need a certain complexity of language, and proximity to one another. So, since I doubt you will drop your view, what's your next argument as to how the flood still could have occurred in some way similar to what the bible describes, even though complex language and global human proximity could not have existed at the same time? 

I kind of skimmed through that so if I missed something in this response, please let me know.  I skimmed because I got the gist of your statement.  Goalposts. 

Problem, we have nothing to go on for dating this story, so yes, we can only go on what we know.  If such an event occured, is it illogical to consider that humanity was set back a few centuries or even millenia?  If so why?  I can turn on a dime with the dating because... we have nothing to go on.  I still feel your dating was more logical.  2 million made sense with the basis of communication across great distances... then again there's theoretically 120 years that passed... how far could an ancient person or group travel to spread a word in 120 years?  I feel further than I originally assumed when agreeing to 2 million years.  So many factors to take into consideration, the dating I feel is not the issue to focus on be it that it's never going to be satisfied until we have evidences that allow us to scientifically date it. 

You're missing my point entirely. You said that the flood couldn't have happened much more recently than 2 million years ago, because people were too spread out after then. Then, you agreed with me that it had to happen at least in the last couple hundred thousand years, because language had to be developed more-so than it was 2 million years ago. It can't have happened over 2 million and under 400 thousand years ago simultaneously. Your idea of how the flood could have happened has been proven to be incompatible with reality. Either admit it, or say something else (as you did below, which I'll address).

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

caposkia wrote:

Due to the advanced communication that seems to have been portrayed in these stories, it would be logical to think your dating is more accurate.  I know people are going to come back on this and either claim goalpost shifting or inconsistency, but the problem I have with that is we're concluding on assumptions.  And I'm not trying to prove anything, rather I'm questioning your/their rationality as to why I should accept this as a reason to doubt what I know.

Covered above. I like how you accused yourself of goalpost shifting before I had to. You at least seem to be able to detect that logical fallacy (although you still don't understand what special pleading is. You saw me post the phrase, and kept on using it in situations where it doesn't apply whatsoever). Remember, your goalposts are several hundreds of thousands of years apart. So how do you close them so that I can no longer score at will here? 

did I call it or what... read the last statement again then try to respond.  esp. the last sentence.

You should accept it as a reason to doubt a world-wide flood, because we have proven that people were either spread too far, or had not developed a useful enough language. By the time people developed an advanced enough language, they were too far spread out. That is why you should doubt it. I have no idea how you aren't understanding this.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Provide me a link with the date of the ice man specimen and evidence that grain was a large part of their diet please. Don't just say google it like you have a ton of times in your threads.  I want a link from you (no creationist sources please. I find them deluded at best, and opportunistic liars at worst). 

http://www.naturalnews.com/029653_paleo_diet_health.html  shows that seeds, veggies, fruits, meats were staples not as much grains

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/iceman-last-meal.html shows ice man ate local grains. 

 

So your example for people farming hundreds of thousands of years ago is a guy having eaten it a few thousand years ago? Of course you did mention that the find showed that perhaps we ate grain (and therefore probably farmed) longer ago than we thought. I'm too lazy to look that up, but I'll grant you that. So, because we found farming to be perhaps 1500 years older than we thought it was decades ago, does it mean that it's plausible to tack another few hundred thousand years? No! I've been granting you a hundred thousand to help aid your arguments, and you're still over a million years away from a coherent flood narrative for the flood.

caposkia wrote:

Jabberwocky wrote:

Know where to dig? This flood was supposed to be worldwide.

yet we discussed that it may not have been.   We're back tracking

We did? Perhaps you did with someone else. If it's not world-wide, how come your book says that it is? Also, how come you've been attempting to argue for a world-wide flood this whole time, if you're willing to just drop it?