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As far as I'm concerned, whatever you have explained has had nothing to do with the simple and direct questions I've asked you.
I have no choice but to assume that either you have not thought about these issues very deeply or that you're being dishonest. In charity, I'm going with the former assumption.
I'm not the one who ignores both the vast amount of scientific evidence which disproves Noah's Flood, nor ignores the biblical scholarship which understands the Bible in its ancient Near East context.
As for dishonesty, you are being intellectually dishonest by rejecting the science simply because the flood story appears in the Bible. You have a total disconnect with reality as it pertains to the matter. There was no Noah's flood. You can't accept that fact on the basis of your religious beliefs and will and do reject any and all evidence which disproves the flood. So again, you've taken up enough of my time.
I'm not the one who ignores both the vast amount of scientific evidence which disproves Noah's Flood, nor ignores the biblical scholarship which understands the Bible in its ancient Near East context.
As for dishonesty, you are being intellectually dishonest by rejecting the science simply because the flood story appears in the Bible. You have a total disconnect with reality as it pertains to the matter. There was no Noah's flood. You can't accept that fact on the basis of religious beliefs and will reject any and all evidence which disproves the flood. So again, you've taken up enough of my time.
Our first principles are opposed and cannot be reconciled.
You operate on the first principle that evolution is true. Every other claim must be subjected to that foundational dogma. Therefore, if a religious claim contradicts evolutionary dogma, your presumption is that there is a flaw in the religion.
I operate on the first principle that the Catholic Church is God's divine institution on earth. Every other claim must be subjected to that fundamental dogma. Therefore, if "scientific evidence" contradicts a dogma of the Church, my presumption is that there is a flaw in the science.
Our first principles are opposed and cannot be reconciled.
You operate on the first principle that evolution is true. Every other claim must be subjected to that foundational dogma. Therefore, if a religious claim contradicts evolutionary dogma, your presumption is that there is a flaw in the religion.
I operate on the first principle that the Catholic Church is God's divine institution on earth. Every other claim must be subjected to that fundamental dogma. Therefore, if "scientific evidence" contradicts a dogma of the Church, my presumption is that there is a flaw in the science.
Except that the Roman Catholic church doesn't have a problem with evolution. You do. But the topic is Noah's Flood, not evolution.
You completely misunderstand. God exists. He is real. But God wasn't concerned with providing the actual details about how the universe came to be. The ancient Hebrew peoples could never have understood it. They could never have comprehended 21st century cosmology. So though divine inspiration God allowed the biblical writers to express things in their own way. And that involved using the cosmology of their time to communicate certain things about God. It's divine accommodation - God condescending to where the ancient Hebrews were in terms of their understanding of things in order to communicate divine truths.
I've already told you why the Genesis creation story shows the Hebrew God to be better than the gods of the pagan ANE peoples. Explaining it again won't do any good.
You know, I was ready to throw away the OT out of frustration, until this crucial principle was gradually revealed to me from various sources, including you, Michael.
It's so difficult for our modern minds to comprehend that the Bible was never intended to be a scientific book. And the concept that God allowed the writers to explain things in terms the ancient people could understand.
How do we explain the natural world to children? Not in scholarly, advanced scientific terms.
You know, I was ready to throw away the OT out of frustration, until this crucial principle was gradually revealed to me from various sources, including you, Michael.
It's so difficult for our modern minds to comprehend that the Bible was never intended to be a scientific book. And the concept that God allowed the writers to explain things in terms the ancient people could understand.
How do we explain the natural world to children? Not in scholarly, advanced scientific terms.
You know, I was ready to throw away the OT out of frustration, until this crucial principle was gradually revealed to me from various sources, including you, Michael.
It's so difficult for our modern minds to comprehend that the Bible was never intended to be a scientific book. And the concept that God allowed the writers to explain things in terms the ancient people could understand.
How do we explain the natural world to children? Not in scholarly, advanced scientific terms.
Same idea.
Exactly. In order to communicate effectively you must speak in terms which your intended audience can understand. And the biblical writers themselves could only write within the framework of their own understanding. They themselves believed the earth was flat and round (sort of like a dish), and that the firmament was a solid dome over the earth in which the sun, moon, and stars were embedded while being able to move. To them the earth rested on pillars as did the firmament. That was their understanding of the cosmos. All this is reflected in the Hebrew Bible.
And I'm glad that I could play some small part in helping you to understand why the Bible says what it says. Sometimes I think that I'm wasting my time on this forum. It's nice to know that that's not entirely the case.
Exactly. In order to communicate effectively you must speak in terms which your intended audience can understand. And the biblical writers themselves could only write within the framework of their own understanding. They themselves believed the earth was flat and round (sort of like a dish), and that the firmament was a solid dome over the earth in which the sun, moon, and stars were embedded while being able to move. To them the earth rested on pillars as did the firmament. That was their understanding of the cosmos. All this is reflected in the Hebrew Bible.
And I'm glad that I could play some small part in helping you to understand why the Bible says what it says. Sometimes I think that I'm wasting my time on this forum. It's nice to know that that's not entirely the case.
Its a myth that educated people believed the earth to be flat.
I agree
The Scriptures are not about the literal natural world - the literal and natural is used as figures/metaphors and the narratives are built up - they (the Scriptures) are theological in nature and they (the writers/scribes) knew perfectly well about allegory and figurative things because the art of writing itself has to do with symbolism and representation
Tit 3:9**But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.
At the time in question everyone believed the earth was flat. It wasn't until a later time that it came to be realized that the earth was spherical.
The Greeks, Romans, Egyptians were playing around with various concepts from early on and not everything recorded was actual history or as separate as we like to think
If you read Strabo, Philo, Josephus you should be able to see overlaying type language which goes way back using the same type of figures that are in the Scriptures themselves
The science of Geography, which I now propose to investigate, is, I think, quite as much as any other science, a concern of the philosopher; and the correctness of my view is clear for many reasons. In the first place, those who in earliest times ventured to treat the subject were, in their way, philosophers — Homer, Anaximander of Miletus, and Anaximander's fellow-citizen Hecataeus — just as Eratosthenes has already said; philosophers, too, were Democritus, Eudoxus, Dicaearchus, Ephorus, with several others of their times; and further, their successors — Eratosthenes, Polybius, and Poseidonius — were philosophers. In the second place, wide learning, which alone makes it possible to undertake a work on geography, is possessed solely by the man who has investigated things both human and divine — knowledge of which, they say, constitutes philosophy. And so, too, the utility of geography — and its utility is manifold, not only as regards the activities of statesmen and commanders but also as regards knowledge both of the heavens and of things on land and sea, animals, plants, fruits, and everything else to be seen in various regions — the utility of geography, I say, presupposes in the geographer the same philosopher, the man who busies himself with the investigation of the art of life, that is, of happiness.
Last edited by Meerkat2; 12-12-2021 at 03:00 PM..
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