The Great Flood and the Foundations of the Earth

[Bonky]

Kan you said

So if the Bible was written later than the earlier legends, it proves that the line of Israel was more intelligent than previous generations. This is an argument that we won't hear from the so called 'intelligent' today, because they believe that knowledge and intelligence has progressed and not declined. It is nigh impossible to convince such of the truth. Even Christians say that the ancient peoples like the Jews were primitive, while people today are much brighter, - because they have mobile phones?

I don't think I follow with your first statement, you lost me.   I wouldn't say that we're brighter today, but our understanding of the natural world has certainly increased.   When we observe primitive tribes in places like Papua New Guinea, we do see a tendency for people to resort to supernatural explanations more readily.  It's not that they're stupid, it's that they're not educated.  They live and survive in a jungle with little to no access to education, other than what they hand down from one generation to the next.

So I don't think the Israelites were dumb, but I don't see why some of their writings couldn't have been influenced by neighboring cultures.  As a matter of fact the Bible makes it very clear that they had that exact problem, incorporating pagan beliefs into their household.  It got to the point where YHWH had to tell them to stop marrying pagan women!

[FresnoJoe]

I don't think I follow with your first statement, you lost me.   I wouldn't say that we're brighter today, but our understanding of the natural world has certainly increased.   When we observe primitive tribes in places like Papua New Guinea, we do see a tendency for people to resort to supernatural explanations more readily.  It's not that they're stupid, it's that they're not educated.  They live and survive in a jungle with little to no access to education, other than what they hand down from one generation to the next.

~

As For The Spirits, I Have No Doubt These Primitive Are Much More Aware Than

But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don't desire that you would have fellowship with demons. 1 Corinthians 10:20 (World English Bible)

The Average Dirt Bound And Spiritually Dumbed Down American PhD

But the Spirit speaks expressly, that in latter times some shall apostatise from the faith, giving their mind to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons. 1 Timothy 4:1 (Darby Bible Translation)

[archaeologist55]

I amsure you all are aware of the gigantic river flowing 4kms underneath the Amazon, right?

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/26/underground-river-amazon

 

Covering more than 7 million square kilometres in South America, the Amazon basin is one of the biggest and most impressive river systems in the world. But it turns out we have only known half the story until now.

Brazilian scientists have found a new river in the Amazon basin – around 4km underneath the Amazon river. The Rio Hamza, named after the head of the team of researchers who found the groundwater flow, appears to be as long as the Amazon river but up to hundreds of times wider.

 

Most likely, Atlantis refers to the pre-flood world, not some mythical kingdom. Whomever told Plato the story most likely embellished the information but sadly too many modern people take the ancient's writings as gospel truth instead of placing them in the correct categories covering the literary world.

 

Scientists can explain many things but that doesn't mean they are correct

I assume you mean unless the ancient writing is in the Bible?  Many folks think the Genesis flood account is a variation of an earlier story the epic of gilgamesh.  

many people think that but Noah came before the author of the gigamesh epic thus it was th latter who copied from the former

[archaeologist55]

What they don't know is that when a civilization began to use written languages and codes to record and transfer information, it was a sign that the memory and intellectual powers were weakening. This was one reason God inspired men like Moses to make a written record for future generations, because He knew that the information cannot be entrusted to memory alone. The human intellect would decline with future generations.

this is absolutey not true. it takes mre memory to remember codes and language use has little to do with memory power.  if you buy into the myth that the anients did not and could not write and only used oral transmission then you are listening to ideas that cannot be supported by evidence but comes from an agument from silence

So if the Bible was written later than the earlier legends, it proves that the line of Israel was more intelligent than previous generations. This is an argument that we won't hear from the so called 'intelligent' today, because they believe that knowledge and intelligence has progressed and not declined. It is nigh impossible to convince such of the truth.

sorry but that is complete gibberish.

the Bible was written over a period of time but that does not make its content copies of secular myth nor younger than the myths of the secular world.

You may have heard of a secret book or diary that Noah's wife wrote and kept, which somehow was found by who knows? We know it's fake, because written material was not necessary for these people.

again complete nonsense.  the presence of written mateial does not indcate a decline of memory  and recolletion ability.

[Bonky]

I assume you mean unless the ancient writing is in the Bible?  Many folks think the Genesis flood account is a variation of an earlier story the epic of gilgamesh.  

many people think that but Noah came before the author of the gigamesh epic thus it was th latter who copied from the former

I'm just going off of what I read based on various resources that state the epic was one of the earliest known examples of writing [2000bc or so].  I found Christian resources that put the writings in Genesis to be around 1450bc.  

[Guest shiloh357]

 

Most likely, Atlantis refers to the pre-flood world, not some mythical kingdom. Whomever told Plato the story most likely embellished the information but sadly too many modern people take the ancient's writings as gospel truth instead of placing them in the correct categories covering the literary world.

Scientists can explain many things but that doesn't mean they are correct

I assume you mean unless the ancient writing is in the Bible?  Many folks think the Genesis flood account is a variation of an earlier story the epic of gilgamesh.  

Yes, many have said that the Bible is largely based on much older writings than Moses, i,e. the legends and myths before Israel. 

What they don't know is that when a civilization began to use written languages and codes to record and transfer information, it was a sign that the memory and intellectual powers were weakening. This was one reason God inspired men like Moses to make a written record for future generations, because He knew that the information cannot be entrusted to memory alone. The human intellect would decline with future generations.

 

You don't understand oral transmission very well. It has little to do with memory ability.   Oral traditions were sung.  They had rhythm and meter.  They had a melody and that is how you kept errant information from intruding into the transmission.  You could not add or subtract information without completely destroying the meter and rhythm.  It was easier to memorize as well.   You can memorize something put to music hundreds of times faster than you can by just rote memorization without music.    I know that for a fact.  I speak and read Hebrew and I learned an entire paragraph by singing it in two hours, and it would have taken me days to just memorize without music or singing.

Oral transmission is more complicated than people think and can last as long as the written record.   Human intellect is far  from any kind of decline.

[Kan]

I would not say that all Christians are unaware that intelligence has declined, but the majority follow the trends of society which is based on evolutionary theories rather than Biblical fact. Besides, if the latter is true, then how could people today possibly know, unless God revealed it somehow?

God made man in His own image,- an extremely intelligent person. People don't know that Adam already knew every facet of science that we have today. The idea that science has made the modern generation intelligent and advanced in knowledge is a delusion that cannot and will not be helped. Yet through this state of ignorance and mental numbness the Devil will introduce and has introduced all kinds of inventions to clamp down corruption onto the human race, and this is what they call advancement. Another argument used is the clever use of medicine, necessary for the lack of knowledge on basic health, that allowed the world to be inundated with all kinds of diseases.

The Bible says that by the lack of knowledge and vision the people perish.

Before the flood, mankind had fallen to the lowest state and was headed for self destruction in the cruelest possible manner, when God in His mercy quickly blotted them out. Such will be the state of man before the end.

[Kan]

If you have seen video footage of tsunamis, you will notice that the actual speed and depth of water is relatively slow and shallow, and yet this body of water continues inland and even up hill as if there were no gravity. What is more the amount of debris does not seem to hinder this progress.

It goes to show that once a large body of water is moving, it is very difficult to stop it. Water just changes shape and rolls on.

Such a wave weighs around 40 - 90 million tonnes. And yet it is only a ripple on the ocean. 

When we look at the earth from space, we can see that the land is just a sliver above the ocean, just a thin layer of crust above the oceans, and of course the ocean looks like a layer of blue gel, that's all. 

This image does not present the mountains as impossible objects to cover, but if the oceans moved in one direction, even at a walking pace, they would cover the continents and mountains with ease, flowing up hill, building up and flowing down over the mountains. Yet even the larger mountains would be moved and dissolved by the ocean before any water flowed over them. This is the power of water. Can you work out the weight behind a moving ocean, and compare that with an object such as a mountain range? Which is greater?

The water by far. So how many tonnes would that be? The pacific ocean is at least 675,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes. That's 675 zillion tonnes. We could double that without exaggerating. The Andes mountain range is about 200,000,000,000,000 tonnes, or 200 trillion tonnes, which includes its structure below sea level. The ocean would only have to move a third of that to get rid of them. That's about 7 trillion tonnes.

Remember that when water is moving, we have to add its inertial mass, and the effect of shifting and changing that mass back and forth according to fluid dynamics. 

The oceans cover more than 70% of the earth's surface. The average height of land above the ocean is only 850 meters, the average depth of the ocean is 3,670 meters. That's over 4 times the average height of the land.

If we work out the volume of water to the volume of land above sea level, what does that tell us?

The oceans are about 1,350,000,000 cu km or 1.35 billion cubic kilometers. The land above sea level is about 140,000,000 cu km. So there is ten times more water than visible land. 

When people say that there could not have been a global flood, what are they thinking? Or not thinking.

 

[archaeologist55]

I assume you mean unless the ancient writing is in the Bible?  Many folks think the Genesis flood account is a variation of an earlier story the epic of gilgamesh.  

many people think that but Noah came before the author of the gigamesh epic thus it was th latter who copied from the former

I'm just going off of what I read based on various resources that state the epic was one of the earliest known examples of writing [2000bc or so].  I found Christian resources that put the writings in Genesis to be around 1450bc.  

yes it is possible that the book of Genesis was written at that time but that does not indicate nor mean that the events described in it were copied from earlier sources, were fabricated or that they did not take place as recorded.

since Noah came first and he and his family would know the details of what took place in the pre-flood world, and then told their descendants what had happened, the gilgamesh epic and  other ancient stories altered the details of those accounts and recorded their own versions of what took place.

[archaeologist55]

God made man in His own image,- an extremely intelligent person. People don't know that Adam already knew every facet of science that we have today. 

there is no record verifying this idea and it is preposterous.  you need to back up your statements with credible, verifiable, legitimate sources and stop making nonsensical statements that have no hope of being true.