Free Speech Wiki

[Pali]

*sighs* All right. I'm going to have to get into this. I can't help it.

The Bible's version of a worldwide flood has little to no geological evidence for it. The Bible claims that the flood covered the entire landmass of the Earth, to the highest mountain. (Genesis 7:19) I'm forgetting the exact amount, but something on the order of an additional 75 trillion gallons of water would need to be added to the Earth in order to do that. That water would've left a mark, and it hasn't. Now, evidence DOES exist that a large flood happened in Mesopotamia around the time the Biblical flood is said to have occurred, but not a worldwide one. Also, Genesis 6:15-16 clearly directs the ark to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. There is no possible way to get 2 of every animal into a space that size. Especially when you take in the space required for food (I'll exclude the requirement of freshwater, as it was supposedly raining most of the time). Now, if you're willing to admit that the dimensions on the ark are not literal, they are metaphorical, then the rest should apply to the rest of the Bible. If you're not willing to admit that the dimensions are metaphorical, that they are literal, then you're an idiot, plain and simple.

As to a few of your other arguments, such as the Grand Canyon... a flood that covers the entire landmass of the Earth would not leave the same kind of canyon as one carved by a river over millions of years. The Grand Canyon fits the expectations (in terms of rock formations/patters/content, shape of the canyon, etc) from a river, not a flood. Also, geologists don't "make up" ages when they date things. They go through a very, very extensive list of tests to determine age.

If the oceans now are the floodwaters, then, what, there were no oceans before? Sorry. There are TONS of evidence to refute that, and NONE to help it.

"Oh, and the school text books teaching kids that the embryo has gill-slits (a theory drawn by Ernst Haeckel, proven to be fraudulent in 1874) isn’t self perpetuating? They’re teaching kids as young as 4 that nothing blew up 6.5 billion years ago, making everything? This is a faerie tale, just like One God."

Any modern text books teaching that the embryo has gills should be corrected. I agree with that. And they're not saying "nothing" blew up 6.5 billion years ago. They're saying that "something" (a something that we cannot YET explain) blew up 16 billion years ago. 3 times the age. It's not a faerie tale, it's a theory that explains every observation made so far and that has not yet been proven wrong (as it would be if we found evidence that contradicts it). What many very religious people misunderstand about science is that while science makes claims, each of those claims has been tested extremely hard. Scientists are testing evolution all the time, for instance. So far, it's made it through every test and fits all the data. A scientist would LOVE to prove evolution wrong; he'd be in text books for the next 500 years.

"A court room cannot decide what a religion is."

Very true. But this statement has little relevance to the quote it's supposed to be in response to. ID and Creationism are both untestable theories, so they fail the basic requirement for being science.

And also, schools are NOT allowed to teach Creationism as science. As I said, it's been examined, shown to be an untestable religious explanation for the world instead of science, and rejected as science. Schools cannot teach it as such, and any who do should expect lawsuits from parents and the ACLU (which has done more than any Christian organization to protect the religious rights of students). Schools can teach ABOUT Creationism as a social/religious idea, but they cannot teach it as science. Saying "teach the controversy" requires you to agree to teach the "theory" that the Holocaust never happened alongside the "theory" that it did, the "theory" that we never walked on the moon alongside the "theory" that we did, etc. And yes, teaching that the Holocaust never happened as history is completely comparable to teaching Creationism in a science class. Both have NO grounding in their respective fields.

[Lunicant]

For Icor regarding the supposed 'flood':

1) Where did the water come from? If it came from beneath the earth’s crust, something would have to hold up the earth’s crust before the water was ejected. The fact that the earth’s crust has a higher specific gravity than water and would have sunk long before “Adam and Eve” doesn’t bother the Creationists. Of course, if you are “willfully ignorant”, your beliefs excuse you from knowledge about specific gravity. Also, if the water had come from the “Nether Regions”, then it would have been “Hot as Hell”, and the hapless fish in the oceans would have been cooked.

If the 29,000+ ft. of water came from the sky (atmosphere), then before the 40 days of rain started, the weight of this water would have crushed anything living on the earth’s surface. One cubic foot of water = ~62.4 pounds. Thus 29,000 feet of it would have pressed down with 62.4 x 29,000 = ~1,809,600 pounds (equals about 500 average cars) of force per square foot for every square foot of the earth’s surface. It would also require a temperature of 1,000 deg. F. to keep the water as a vapor. Finally, the heat released by the first 3,000 feet of rain (Latent heat of condensation) is more than enough to bring the entire content of the earth’s present oceans up to the boiling point.

2) Where did the water go? If the earth’s surface were covered by an additional 29,000+ feet of water, how do you get rid of it? Water is less dense than the rock of the earth’s surface. Thus it would not drain down below the surface. Even if you forced it down, where is it? No oil or gas well has ever hit a subterranean ocean 29,000+ feet thick.

Your quote 'We can test the world wide flood, as I hope you understand' makes very little sense as there is no evidence of this world wide flood outside of the stories in a book. What exactly are we going to test? How about we test the things that DO exist that we CAN see and that ARE here now.

[Sneak]

Still I say dont bother arguing.

If you believe theres a god up in the sky who created the world - if thats a fact (which it of course isnt as there is no more prove God is real than Santa is) then its very easy arguing for all the other stuff thats in the bible.

Cause if God was able to create the world then what limits are to his powers?

[Icor]

Here we go.

The Bible's version of a worldwide flood has little to no geological evidence for it.

I think the oceans, millions of fossils (such as thousands of petrified trees standing up through hundreds of layers of rock, metal objects found in coal beds, etc), and sorted rock layers are plenty of geological evidence. All those things exist, right? It just depends on how you translate what they mean.

The Bible claims that the flood covered the entire landmass of the Earth, to the highest mountain. (Genesis 7:19) I'm forgetting the exact amount, but something on the order of an additional 75 trillion gallons of water would need to be added to the Earth in order to do that.

Remember, the earth before the flood was probably much flatter than it is now. The highest mountain was not Mount Everest – Mount Everest didn’t exist yet.

That water would've left a mark, and it hasn't.

I disagree. I think it has left a massive mark.

Now, evidence DOES exist that a large flood happened in Mesopotamia around the time the Biblical flood is said to have occurred, but not a worldwide one. Also, Genesis 6:15-16 clearly directs the ark to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet tall. There is no possible way to get 2 of every animal into a space that size. Especially when you take in the space required for food (I'll exclude the requirement of freshwater, as it was supposedly raining most of the time).

Maybe not every currently existing animal; the bible says that two of every KIND of animal entered the ark.

Now, if you're willing to admit that the dimensions on the ark are not literal, they are metaphorical, then the rest should apply to the rest of the Bible. If you're not willing to admit that the dimensions are metaphorical, that they are literal, then you're an idiot, plain and simple.

I believe the dimensions in the bible are very literal. Insulting my intelligence is not a good strategy in winning a debate, I’d like to note.

As to a few of your other arguments, such as the Grand Canyon... a flood that covers the entire landmass of the Earth would not leave the same kind of canyon as one carved by a river over millions of years. The Grand Canyon fits the expectations (in terms of rock formations/patters/content, shape of the canyon, etc) from a river, not a flood. Also, geologists don't "make up" ages when they date things. They go through a very, very extensive list of tests to determine age.

Look, you either believe that receding flood waters washed that dirt into the Gulf of Mexico, or you believe millions of years helped a river drag it all away.

Oh, another thing: The place where that river starts is lower than the highest part of the Canyon. As the river enters the canyon, the walls get higher and higher, so either the river flowed uphill for millions of years, or a lake spilled over natural dam and carried out all that dirt very quickly.

If the oceans now are the floodwaters, then, what, there were no oceans before? Sorry. There are TONS of evidence to refute that, and NONE to help it.

What is your evidence then? If I told you there was evidence of penguins living on Pluto without showing that evidence, would you believe me?

"Oh, and the school text books teaching kids that the embryo has gill-slits (a theory drawn by Ernst Haeckel, proven to be fraudulent in 1874) isn’t self perpetuating? They’re teaching kids as young as 4 that nothing blew up 6.5 billion years ago, making everything? This is a faerie tale, just like One God."

Any modern text books teaching that the embryo has gills should be corrected. I agree with that. And they're not saying "nothing" blew up 6.5 billion years ago. They're saying that "something" (a something that we cannot YET explain) blew up 16 billion years ago. 3 times the age.

And the person who wrote the book, was he there 16 billion years ago to see it happen?

It's not a faerie tale, it's a theory that explains every observation made so far and that has not yet been proven wrong (as it would be if we found evidence that contradicts it).

Just because it hasn’t been proven wrong doesn’t mean its right.

What many very religious people misunderstand about science is that while science makes claims, each of those claims has been tested extremely hard. Scientists are testing evolution all the time, for instance. So far, it's made it through every test and fits all the data. A scientist would LOVE to prove evolution wrong; he'd be in text books for the next 500 years.

I can’t stress this enough: the flood theory can be tested, and it has been. Fault lines, coal beds, fossils – these things speak just as much for Creationism as they do for Evolution.

And also, schools are NOT allowed to teach Creationism as science.

That is quite untrue. Go ask.

As I said, it's been examined, shown to be an untestable religious explanation for the world instead of science, and rejected as science. Schools cannot teach it as such, and any who do should expect lawsuits from parents and the ACLU (which has done more than any Christian organization to protect the religious rights of students).

Court rooms, again I say, cannot decide what a religion is. People, like myself, are treating creationism as a science, and the government and the schools cannot stop that. It is a field worthy of study. The American Communist Lawyers Union (ACLU) tries very hard to preserve “tradition” when what they’re doing is actually very biased and one-sided. Keeping God out of the public schools is not doing Christians a favor.

-------------

1) Where did the water come from? If it came from beneath the earth’s crust, something would have to hold up the earth’s crust before the water was ejected. The fact that the earth’s crust has a higher specific gravity than water and would have sunk long before “Adam and Eve” doesn’t bother the Creationists. Of course, if you are “willfully ignorant”, your beliefs excuse you from knowledge about specific gravity. Also, if the water had come from the “Nether Regions”, then it would have been “Hot as Hell”, and the hapless fish in the oceans would have been cooked.

Then they were cooked. The bible says the chambers of the deep broke open. Maybe the crust did collapse in many places. Maybe parts of the crust slid away from the fault line. Maybe the pressure of the geysers shot water several miles into the clouds.

If the 29,000+ ft. of water came from the sky (atmosphere), then before the 40 days of rain started, the weight of this water would have crushed anything living on the earth’s surface. One cubic foot of water = ~62.4 pounds. Thus 29,000 feet of it would have pressed down with 62.4 x 29,000 = ~1,809,600 pounds (equals about 500 average cars) of force per square foot for every square foot of the earth’s surface.

That’s a lot of weight. And if there was a canopy of water over the earth in those times, the oxygen content in the air would have been more mighty, not to mention the air pressure. Have you ever spent time in a Hyperveric Oxygen Chamber? After you step out of one, you feel like a billion dollars. If those conditions covered the earth, then you can expect to find massive 300-foot tall trees, like the ones found in Barrow Alaska (some folks up there found a tree standing up under 1000 feet under permafrost soil while drilling in -80 degree weather); you would find massive coal beds where thousands of plants and animals were crushed together by billions of tons of water and soil, along with oil. Go figure.

It would also require a temperature of 1,000 deg. F. to keep the water as a vapor. Finally, the heat released by the first 3,000 feet of rain (Latent heat of condensation) is more than enough to bring the entire content of the earth’s present oceans up to the boiling point.

Well, it did kill everyone, save the people in the ark. That was the point.

2) Where did the water go? If the earth’s surface were covered by an additional 29,000+ feet of water, how do you get rid of it? Water is less dense than the rock of the earth’s surface. Thus it would not drain down below the surface. Even if you forced it down, where is it? No oil or gas well has ever hit a subterranean ocean 29,000+ feet thick.

I’m thinking that the crust buckled under the weight of the water running into the low parts of the world, namely the oceans we see today. 75% of the planet is covered in water. I’m asking you, where did that water come from?

Your quote 'We can test the world wide flood, as I hope you understand' makes very little sense as there is no evidence of this world wide flood outside of the stories in a book. What exactly are we going to test?

We’ve been talking and testing a flood theory now for... Several posts.

How about we test the things that DO exist that we CAN see and that ARE here now.

Like oceans, coal beds, oil, fossilized up-standing trees, animal fossils, mountains, artifacts, and reoccurring cultural tales about a world wide flood?

EDIT:

Err, and yeah. We prolly shouldn't go on like this and just end it. The debate didn't start on proper terms.

[Pali]

Agreed. I'm done.

[Dizz]

I applaude you all for keeping an intelligent discussion civil.

I believe that some higher power created all things. (Where did it all come from?) He created the universe with a set of rules. (Scientific laws) He set it in motion. All life and nonlife has been a result of all the forces working together. Evolution is part of that motion. Christianity fits in there mostly that I think some divine intervention is possible. (Why WOULDN'T God find out what it's like to be human? i.e. Jesus)

[Pali]

*won't answer, won't answer, won't answer*

Sorry. Strong atheist here. ^_~

[Dizz]

I must admit, most of my faith in the divine has to do with my dad. Before I was born, he had a quadruple bypass and had a near death experience. He described it as every soul was a light, they communicated with feelings. He felt he needed to go back. A couple years later I was born.

BTW, my dad wasn't the type to just make things up. He was extremely logical and didn't kid around much.

[Lunicant]

What is your evidence then? If I told you there was evidence of penguins living on Pluto without showing that evidence' date=' would you believe me?[/quote']

Yet you expect us to believe in an unseen being creating the universe. I would however point out that we KNOW Pluto exists - we KNOW penguins exist - we CAN get spacecraft to Pluto. I could formulate it is a possibility (although unlikely). However once the spacecraft has gone there and deduced there is not an atmosphere capable of sustaining a penguin I would have to *adjust* my theory and deduce there are no penguins living on Pluto. That is what science is about. To continue believing something even when the evidence around you does not support your belief shows faith - not science. There is no evidence for creation theory only hypothesis supported by a book. There is evidence for evolution supported by what we can observe around us and in distant solar systems. We can also test theories using scientific methods. One must wonder if there were two of every animal taken onto a little wooden boat why there are species that have come into existence AFTER the flood. This is assuming you believe the Bible story and are prepared to accept the date of the supposed 'flood' as being factual. Really it's a little worrying that in these days of scientific discovery people can stand covering their eyes and ears claiming it cannot be true.

[Lunicant]

I applaude you all for keeping an intelligent discussion civil.

I believe that some higher power created all things. (Where did it all come from?) He created the universe with a set of rules. (Scientific laws) He set it in motion. All life and nonlife has been a result of all the forces working together. Evolution is part of that motion. Christianity fits in there mostly that I think some divine intervention is possible. (Why WOULDN'T God find out what it's like to be human? i.e. Jesus)

And such a belief stems from....? There is any evidence to support any of that?

[Pali]

Lunicant, please stop. I can back out unless there's another rational person still debating with the religious ones. Then I gotta back him up. Please, for my sake, stop. PLEASE.

[Icor]

Just listen for a moment. My only point is that Creationism is study worthy, and I have already pointed out why. I don't care what you believe in - if you think that Evolution has evidence and Creationism doesn't, fine. However, there are people (I am proof) that believe the exact opposite to what you believe; not many, but there are (as if that mattered. Following the majority is not in any way scientific). Telling me I’m stupid because I’m not an evolutionist nor an atheist is not telling me you are in favor or science and I am not. Until you have listened to what I have said about how I think the rock layers got to where they are now, how the fossils have gotten to where they are now, etc, then you are basing your beliefs on other people’s analysis’s just like me. The only difference is this: I’m willing to learn about Evolution if you’re willing to actually teach it rather than tell me how wrong I am about what I believe – you’re not willing to learn about Creationism, which I say again, is worthy of scientific study.

But whatever. The debate should just end, because neither of us have yet to learn anything. If I’m going to debate, I’d like to at least get something out of it.

Thank you for changing the forum title, Warpnow.

[Pali]

*sighs* Creationism is not testable. Therefore it does not fit the requirements for being a scientific theory. Your application has been rejected.

[Mister E]

I would like to know what the bible has to say about the vast majority of the world that is infact no christian and never was. From nearly all of asia, to the ancient greeks and egypitians. Are all these people burning in hell? And are all of us non-christians going to burn in hell? Where is one iota of evidence supporting said hell, or even heaven for that matter?

I also find it very coincidental that the worlds largest christian contingent, the catholics, started during the roman empire. They did just hat rome was doing at the time. (aka copying all they could from othersm and in some cases improving it) Catholicism has roots in greek mythology and paganism, and it was designed to unite people under a common rule. The bible is not the only book we have from centuries ago. There were many accounts of the scientists and philosophers who were killed or sent into hiding because of things they did and said that were contrary to the religious powers. Why would it be logical to assume the bible is the only correct account of the past? I wont even delve into the fact that people were discouraged from even reading or understanding the bible because it would undermine the powers at be. This sounds to me like religion was more of a tool to control peoples thoughts and behavior than an answer to many of lifes questions. The reason we have so many sects of christianity itself is due to the elightenment which allowed people to read write and reason for themselves. Taking that into consideration, what sense does it make for any given christian to say with certainty that their brand of christianity is the true one?

With so many different religions, and so many ancient cultures it is ludicrous to be certain one is the true one. And to take only fragments of scientific data to twist into shape helping support your cause is just silly. True science takes everything into consideration, it forms a hypothesis based on te facts and then tests it for truth and falsehood in all lights. What religion does is the opposite, it starts with a conclusion and it looks only for "evidence" that makes it true, and if there is only partial evidence they will take that, and if there is no evidence, conveniently "God doesnt want us to know" or whatever the equivalent line is.

I am actually a man of faith. I believe in karma, and a higher power. I have no proof that a higher power exists, so I wont tell you it does, but I believe. I am quite certain that karma exists, because it has been made crystal clear to me in my life. Again, no proof so I cant say it does for sure, but I believe. The point is, I am not mixed up about what I believe and what is actually known to be real. Science evolves and learns from its earlier mistakes. There are countless technologies and medicines we never would have had if we did not try and fail. Organized religion seldom evolves, and only tries to cover up its mistakes.

nuff said

[myrek]

This will be my only post on this topic:

I think it's the 3rd law of thermodynamics that says you can't create energy. So where did it come from? It came from the same place God did: faith. You can't prove Creationism. You can't prove MACRO-evolution or spontaneous life.

You're all nuts.

[Icor]

*sighs* Creationism is not testable. Therefore it does not fit the requirements for being a scientific theory. Your application has been rejected.

...Someone is feeeeeeding you those wooooooords. Some text book professor out there is feeding you words, open your mind up, and look at what I wrote.

Myrek is right though. Everyone's nuts.

[Pali]

Nobody ever said you could prove macroevolution. That's the beauty of science, the lack of arrogance... a scientific theory can be proven wrong, but never 100% true.

[Wathok]

Anyone who wants to continue arguing this can do so on another forum. Such as Free Speech Wiki.

http://www.freespeechwiki.com