Posted by Al; [Aldurant] on April 02, 1999 at 10:47:05 {ppHCdFLRUMbNVk78PDhst74NX2uzuA}:
In Reply to: ******Tropical Evidence! posted by WW on April 02, 1999 at 09:53:21:
Hi there-
There probably was a flood in the middle east. I believe there are specific sedimentary deposits over a local area. I guess you can call this "some truth". There may have been a tremendous volcanic explosion in the
Mediteranean around that time. No one doubts that there have been floods. The issue is, was it global, and was it from God? We cannot possibly tell if it was "from God" from geology. But if there is any area whatsoever that was not flooded
then we don't have global, and we don't have anything beyond a metaphor in The Bible, at best. The story is at least 4000 years old. There doesn't have to be any truth behind it simply because someone told the story. It would seem that the
Sumerians had such a tale but the Egyptians didn't. As has been discussed on an earlier thread, many other tales are not demonstrably pre-Christian missionary, as the cultures that have them were pre-literate.
I think the idea of "trusting" science versus trusting allegations about a 2000 year old collection of religious writings has been discussed. The real big deal about this is that each of us can become scientists ourselves. We don't have to "trust". We can actually understand. Alan is not intimidating if he recomends that people study it for themselves. That's not the bottom line for the religious viewpoint, though. We are told we are evil, or whatever, and are going to die prematurely, or whatever, if we don't agree. No one offers for us to become the experts in these revelations in The Bible. If we do we are called "higer critics" and are discredited as faithless. The difference is that we can test things and make things with science, and we can't do this with The Bible. We have peer review in science, but the factions in religion all irreconciably condemn each other. Why would it matter if we think there was a global flood anyway? Are we going to be immoral if we don't think there was a flood? If God going to kill us because we don't think there was a flood? Doesn't it look a bit like a con-game to threaten people if there don't believe things? I'm not saying that you did this. But we've all been threatened not to disbelieve, rather than be simply openly convinced with evidence. They act like they are open until we disagree, and then we get threatened. Not very convincing. Why do you feel that you need to be convinced of this flood?
Al