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Hence why we are in dire straits in the new century.

Nancy, thank you. I try to spice up every day by having my mind blown by some strange fact. Today, you've added enough "spice" to last the rest of the week.

How the heck a MAJORITY of people in this nation can accept stories like Noah, Eden and all the rest of this list as "fact" is beyond mind-boggling. If anything, this indicates a strong need for our schools to teach critical thinking to children before they reach the age where they can drop out of school. We can't afford to leave any child behind on that set of skills.

fn & n'tac,
Sounds like sour grapes as apparently you guys are in the minority here in the u.s.a. In your narrow minded views you have identified me as someone who is responsible for this great country being in dire straits. if someone doesn't believe the way you do, they are labeled as one who has no skill in critical thinking and you guys accuse Christians as the one who are small minded, go figure.
what Christians possess and you all are lacking, is faith. you need to be able to see, feel, taste, hear, etc. in order to state something as fact. faith is based upon the realization of what you hope for and the need not to have to 'see' things for them to be evidence (or facts). but i suppose i'm actually mistaken about you two for you both really must have faith - i suspect you both believe in gravity (though you've never seen it) and probably believe in light (though you've never seen it) and most likely believe in this substance called air (though you've never seen it) - so you have a certain kind of faith, just not the additional faith that the Holy Spirit imparts to those who are believers. but this discourse must be taken with a grain of salt, as i am just simply a non thinker and a scourge who places this world in such a dire strait.

i am Anonymous in above post - didn't want you to think i was cowering in the corner - i just forgot to fully sign in.

All the physical effects you list, anonymous, can be tested and verified for their properties using empirical methods.

For a world-wide flood to have occurred, it would have required more vapor than has ever been present in Earth's atmosphere or below ground. That's high school meteorology as taught as part of earth science. Maybe you were asleep? Maybe we should have teachers edit out how we teach about precipitation?

Using the Bible's own records of Noah's age and Creationist dates for Eden, etc., the supposed flood would have been during the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The Egyptians kept detailed histories, and nothing like this is ever mentioned.

No boat was built even approaching such size for over 4000 years after, and certainly not of wood. Structurally not possible. Especially if it were expected to navigated open seas.

And the influx of salt and fresh water would have killed all the marine life. Or did Noah keep them on board, too? The weight of the water needed to fill all the aquariums needed (have to separate predators and prey) would have sunk the ship.

Same issues of feeding the land animals, not to mention maintain different biospheres for such disparate species. And even once the floodwaters supposedly subsided, how did all these creatures survive and feed? How did they get to where we find them today? Nothing in any of the fossil records or any sources at all show such vast migrations and changes in diet, etc.

It is a myth. The same story is in Gilgamesh, written by early ancestors of the Babylonians, and the Jews heard it while they were captive there.

fn,
for you it's all a myth simply because you have no reasonable and logical explanation. apparently your definition of 'empirical' is different than that merriam-webster dictionary which states "1 : originating in or based on observation or experience ". it seems from that definition that it can either be observered OR experienced. so seeing is not the only method of proof. let me give you an example....love.....can you see it, i don't believe you can, you can observe two young hormone driven individual who are making all kinds of public display which may be interpreted as 'love' - yet what is actually occurring is lust - but mistakenly observed as love - now if you have ever been in love and 'experience' the host of feelings and emotions which it provides (albeit you cannot see the actual feeling or emotion, but rather observe the outward manifestation of those) you know what love is - it is experiential not necessarily observable. so unless you experience the present of God within you (i.e Holy Spirit) no outward evidence is proof you are a believer.
what you fail to have understanding of is Gods power - you base all the impossibilities on your knowledge and your sight, which allows no supernatural event to occur. i'll grant that logically and intellectually these events seems rather impossible but the God i know is not bound by such
impotent human attributes. i'll further grant that your intellectual prowess and knowledge far exceeds mine but i am neither intimidated or embarrassed by it, for if i was like you in this regard, we would not be having this conversation. btw i am a ninth grade drop out ( not proud of that fact either ) so i know i can't hold a candle to many others intellect & knowledge but what i do posses that you do not is a unshakable faith in God, intellect did not lead me to God but it was Himself who called me and i responded and i will be eteranlly grateful.

If it were possible for God to completely overturn all the laws of nature and manage to make the flood and its various effects as I noted above, the very weight of the atmospheric pressure needed to produce that much moisture on Earth would crush every bit of physical organic matter. Or would God make sure the physical bodies of all creatures who survived were made into something more like pig iron or titanium, even? That would only further exacerbate the problems of feeding and care, not to mention weight on the boat. It's just all such nonsense and any attempts to make sense of it leads into deeper contradictions of the way this universe must and does and will always work (at least, perhaps, until it either expands into stray atoms or explodes into a dense black hole...in either case destroying all known life).

Maybe God plans to continue playing with human bodies through evolution so we become space-dust mites?

Space dust mites, hunh? Some hope. I'll take a Resurrection body and eternity with God over that any day of the week.

Rightly understood, the biblical narratives are not contradictory to science. But it takes a bit of study and insight to correctly understand and interpret ancient thought MOs - symbolism, allegory, religious imagery, etc. Truth has many modes of perception and expression.

And Gilgamesh is VERY different from the biblical flood narative. The Bible is a unique book compared to all ancient texts - morally, theistically, and continutiy-wise.

Left to his own secular imagination man seems to devolve (not evolve) into absudity, not enlightened wisdom. Dust mites! Hmmm.

"The Bible is a unique book compared to all ancient texts - morally, theistically, and continutiy-wise."

More propaganda, I see. There is no continuity in the Bible worthy of the name, unless you take to re-defining practically the whole thing to make it so. Morally, it is suspect on several counts (slavery, government, parenting issues are all outdated or non-existent, and many of its notions of what constitutes "justice" are barbaric and primitive). Being unique on the theological front is hardly something to be wondered at.

Got anything new worth discussing?

nAMtaC,
as long as man=god your argument is valid but the moment one is enlightened and realized/acknowledges God as creator, your argument ceases to exist.
imo Christians are subject the ethos which you described but may not be as simple as you prefer. even in the 'slavery' you called out, there were specific guidelines which were followed pertaining to them. paul spelled out clearly that God places/supports governments (rom.13:1-7).scriptures teach and encourage parents to be a strong figure in their childrens lives, even to the point of corporal punishment (much to the chagrin of spockies). ah justice, we live in an era where no one assumes reasonsibilty, it is societies fault that children misbehave and adolescents maim and murder. a little time out and a pat on the head to reassure our delinquents that they are special and it's everyones fault but theirs that thay act as they do. no fear of any consequential reprisal just leads them to more atrocious behavior. we fear the radical muslims because they are not afraid of the consequence of their actions, much like many in our society today. justice should be swift and befitting the infraction without regard or prejudice to someones social status - equal justice for all. yes cultures change and the way we function in it also change - but God is constant and unchangable and though you kick against the goads of His word, they don't change either. when mankind has no higher morals to subject itself to, we end up in the condition(s) we find ourselves in today. but alas " Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
i just love it when a plan comes together (from "A" team)

"There is no continuity in the Bible worthy of the name" Namtac

What an absurd, unstudied opinion. Jesus himself used the OT voluminously, both in direct quote and conceptual affinity. He said, "I have not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it." There is obvious continuity here.

The moral Law forms the basis of all the Epistles' values and morality. Continuity. And the writer to the Hebrews uses OT cemeronial typology throughout his treatise in showing the fulfillment of them in Yeshua (Melchisedec, the High Priest, etc). Continuity.

The protoevangelion (first prophetic reference to the Gospel) in Genesis 3:15 connects with John 3:16.

And the book of Revelation is replete with imagery taken directly from several OT prophetic books. Continuity.

"Morally, it is suspect on several counts (slavery, government, parenting issues are all outdated or non-existent"

Slavery was part and parcel of life in the ancient world, and was not generally like the slavery of Africans in the entire Western Hemisphere. The slavery of the OT was primarily indentured servitude for criminal and cival offenses, and was a kind of penal system - certainly better than the enslavement of the secular-humanist-overseen prison system in mordern America. And God delivered the Hebrews from the slavery of Egypt, seen as a bad and ungodly thing. Yours is a shallow and vacuous critique on this subject - an old humanist shibboleth devoid of true theological study and research.

Morally, the biblical norms and standards were aeons beyond any other in the ancient world. And the incidents recorded in the Bible which transgress them were simply historical narrative designed to show what was done to deserve God's judgmnets - NOT to affirm the sinful behavior.

I don't really know what you mean by "government" except that the establishment of the monarchy in the OT was a concession on God's part (I Sam. 8:5), complete with warnings of tyranny and abuse. Jethro urged Moses to select representative men to help him judge (govern) Israel. And in the NT the government of the Church was based on the synagogue model of representative elders; and both Jesus and the Apostles warned against unjust government.

It was Reformed concepts of pluralityof elders (in opposition to the monarchical tradition of Engalnd) that helped to form the general affinity for representative government in the colonies prior to the framing of the Constitution. David was told that the one who rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. There can be no higher or more just government than that. Practical issues must, of necessity, be left ot he particular circumstances of a country or locality, but principles are universal - and God's are supreme in every respect. Man's failure to live up to them are just that - human failures.

Yea, let's continutiy to implement the modern permissive humanist model of child rearing. It has produced such wonderful family and educational success!!!!!! No further comments are necessary. Again, human sinful abuses do NOT impinge upon biblical principles.

" . . . its notions of what constitutes "justice" are barbaric and primitive)."

To what are you referring? Probably the old "man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath" dead horse. Again, modern versions of law have neither stopped crime nor satisfied people's desire for justice. Capital punishment may not jive with bleeding heart liberal "sensitivities" but it is justice - lex talionis. The principle of just and fair punishment permeates all the case laws of the Israelite system. The only thing not good about the OT legal codes is that human sin often perverted them, or they weren't consistenly applied.

"Got anything new worth discussing?"

No, just the same old truth.