Supernatural events in the Bible, For believers Options

[Flyinillini22]

How do the core beliefs of Christianity *not* fly in the face of science? I don't see how anyone can believe in one set of supernatural occurrences, but dismiss seas parting and young earth because that would be scientifically impossible. I mean c'mon....once you admit to believing in immaculate conceptions and undead carpenters, isn't it all pretty much up for grabs at that point?

I don't say this to disparage Christianity, I just find it amusing that we're splitting hairs over what supernatural occurrences from the Bible are plausible and which ones aren't. If God can take human form and resurrect himself after being crucified, then he can probably build a planet/species and falsify the evidence of our origins, too. I dunno why he'd want to, though. But he's a lonely fellow.

This is what I wanted the thread to be about. How can anyone believe in some supernatural events in the Bible but not others? THe earth is mostly water with huge canyons all over plus preserved dead animals (mostly sea animals) all over the place, but a global flood's not believable compared to being dead for 3 days, coming back to life, and then later rising through the air and disappearing into the clouds. It was to challenge Christians.

[marv]

Ha...I know, another analogy not to be taken literally. But remember, at that time man was very unevolved and obviously stupid, however within the last 150 years we can now discern the true meanings behind what God really meant to say. The enlightened elite discovering the true meanings of God's Word distinguishing fact from fiction from the unlearned writings of a few near ape-like hominids.

this is sarcasm, right?

[Bahgoon]

this is sarcasm, right?

More along the lines of an attempt at sardonic wit, I'm thinking. Pity he doesn't have a clue about the things he is trying to take to task.

[abuck75]

This is what I wanted the thread to be about. How can anyone believe in some supernatural events in the Bible but not others? THe earth is mostly water with huge canyons all over plus preserved dead animals (mostly sea animals) all over the place, but a global flood's not believable compared to being dead for 3 days, coming back to life, and then later rising through the air and disappearing into the clouds. It was to challenge Christians.

22, First off, I do completely agree that any Christian faith should follow the Bible, and nothing it teaches should be contrary to it. I also believe that the miracles in the Bible happened and were inspired by God, however I'm not always convinced they happened in the literal way they are written in the Bible (I'm not sure they weren't either).

Since you seem very intent on using literal translations, I'm very curious as to your thoughts on John 6?

I am the bread of life. 49Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. 50But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

52Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

53Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

I trust that you are consistent in applying the literal translation, and do believe in the real presence of Christ in communion and the required nature of being in this communion to remain in Jesus?

[Altotus]

While I admire what FlyinIllini22 is saying throughout this thread, it is important to realize that Christianity is not one religion. Christianity is a cluster of religions of the greatest diversity in the entire world. Those of you who consistently attack 22 asking "so if I don't believe in Jesus I don't go to heaven?" should not accept his answer as the only Christian answer. My church teaches that faith and good works are the keys to salvation. I choose to interpret that as, if you are a good person, you serve God in one way or another, whether or not you got to church or subscribe to a religion or even believe in Him.

I understand where some of you guys come from when you call Christians bigots. Some conservative fundamentalist Christians are so closed minded, I can't even understand how you could wish eternal damnation for your friend. I won't tell anyone they're bound for hell, because no just deity would waste a good person.

I also do not believe in preaching in any way and I can see why it irritates some of the people on this board. I subscribe heavily to the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus hides his identity throughout the book and is not revealed until the end. That being said, anyone should be able to start threads about whatever they want on this board. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it, but you really don't add anything by attacking the posters as some of you have done.

As far as the Bible events go, I have no doubt in my mind that Noah's flood did happen but that the Torah was no a historically written piece of material. I know for a fact that Genesis 1 did not happen and was a response to the myths of the era in which it was written. I believe the New Testament undoubtedly did happen. Some argue for the length of time between the death of Jesus and the written synoptic Gospels are cause for concern. But the stories were not just made up forty years after Jesus' death. In fact, there is no doubt that Jesus was a very hot topic of conversation for those forty years. That's all I have. I don't particularly care to preach to anyone.

In short, Christianity is a large group of people (1/3 of the world) to call bigots.

[ILL_INI]

This is what I wanted the thread to be about. How can anyone believe in some supernatural events in the Bible but not others? THe earth is mostly water with huge canyons all over plus preserved dead animals (mostly sea animals) all over the place, but a global flood's not believable compared to being dead for 3 days, coming back to life, and then later rising through the air and disappearing into the clouds. It was to challenge Christians.

I don't think people think these things are impossible with God, it's just that the stories in Genesis appear to be written as history in the form of a myth. For the global flood described in Genesis to happen, it would have required a miracle...

1) to gather all of the animals from all over the world, including Antarctica and the Americas.
2) to find room for all of the animals on the ark.
3) to feed all the animals, without some of them killing the others, and to take care of their waste.
4) to keep the animals from the various habitats (desert, arctic, rain forest, etc.) alive.
5) to assemble enough water to cover the highest mountains by 15 cubits and then remove all this accumulated moisture from the world in such a short time.
6) to keep the salt and fresh waters from contaminating each other.

Yet these miracles, some of the most amazing miracles in the Bible, are, if even mentioned, not discussed as miracles. Instead, the story focuses on God's mercy towards Noah. On the contrary, Christ's victory over death is the point.

[RockHollywood]

I don't think people think these things are impossible with God, it's just that the stories in Genesis appear to be written as history in the form of a myth. For the global flood described in Genesis to happen, it would have required a miracle...

1) to gather all of the animals from all over the world, including Antarctica and the Americas.
2) to find room for all of the animals on the ark.
3) to feed all the animals, without some of them killing the others, and to take care of their waste.
4) to keep the animals from the various habitats (desert, arctic, rain forest, etc.) alive.
5) to assemble enough water to cover the highest mountains by 15 cubits and then remove all this accumulated moisture from the world in such a short time.
6) to keep the salt and fresh waters from contaminating each other.

Yet these miracles, some of the most amazing miracles in the Bible, are, if even mentioned, not discussed as miracles. Instead, the story focuses on God's mercy towards Noah. On the contrary, Christ's victory over death is the point.

It also would have required covering up the evidence afterward. In a global flood during the history of a 6,000-year-old Earth, we should see land and sea organisms, and organisms that science regards as hundreds of millions of years apart but which a young Earth would see as having lived together, all settling into the same stratum. We should find remains of humans, T-rexes, trilobites and barracudas jumbled together in the flood aftermath. That doesn't happen.

[Flyinillini22]

It also would have required covering up the evidence afterward. In a global flood during the history of a 6,000-year-old Earth, we should see land and sea organisms, and organisms that science regards as hundreds of millions of years apart but which a young Earth would see as having lived together, all settling into the same stratum. We should find remains of humans, T-rexes, trilobites and barracudas jumbled together in the flood aftermath. That doesn't happen.

I don't understand how you can say this. If there was a global flood, there would be evidence everywhere, and that's what there is. There are absolutely animals buried together, with a huge % sea creatures. And the fact that the millions of fossils are preserved also lead's credence to an event that happened quickly versus millions of years. If there was a global flood, it would have broken up the continents and there would have been huge underwater mudslides. THe mountain ranges shot up and the oceans depths changed. Then afterwards there would have been the ice age and volcanic activity.

IF the Bible is correct, and IF there was a global flood with huge catastrophic events on the earth, then there would be some animals buried together, and some buried deeper than others.

[Flyinillini22]

I don't think people think these things are impossible with God, it's just that the stories in Genesis appear to be written as history in the form of a myth. For the global flood described in Genesis to happen, it would have required a miracle...

1) to gather all of the animals from all over the world, including Antarctica and the Americas.
2) to find room for all of the animals on the ark.
3) to feed all the animals, without some of them killing the others, and to take care of their waste.
4) to keep the animals from the various habitats (desert, arctic, rain forest, etc.) alive.
5) to assemble enough water to cover the highest mountains by 15 cubits and then remove all this accumulated moisture from the world in such a short time.
6) to keep the salt and fresh waters from contaminating each other.

Yet these miracles, some of the most amazing miracles in the Bible, are, if even mentioned, not discussed as miracles. Instead, the story focuses on God's mercy towards Noah. On the contrary, Christ's victory over death is the point.

Without researching I will give some responses.

1) there wasn't an Antarctica nor Americas. THere was one land mass.
2) There was room enough for two animals of 'each kind'
3) I'm sure this was a full-time job. pure speculation, but God was involved in bringing the animals, and many of these animals could have spent much of the time hibernating.
4) THere weren't deserts or the arctic
5) The mountains weren't the same mountains you see now, plus the Bible talks about the oceans depths opening up. Most of the water came from the depths of the earth initially, and drained off into the oceans we have now when the weight of the water caused tremendous volcanic activity, mountain ranges, and the entire topography of the earth changed.
6) The salt content of the oceans are increasing. THis is one of many issues people have who believe that the earth is billions of years old, because there would be so much salt in the ocean by now that you could walk across it. I know there has been research on this subject, and I can look it up if necessary, but many marine animals have possibly became salt water through adaptation from fresh water originally. Before the flood the salt content may not have been a big issue.

[RockHollywood]

I don't understand how you can say this. If there was a global flood, there would be evidence everywhere, and that's what there is. There are absolutely animals buried together, with a huge % sea creatures. And the fact that the millions of fossils are preserved also lead's credence to an event that happened quickly versus millions of years. If there was a global flood, it would have broken up the continents and there would have been huge underwater mudslides. THe mountain ranges shot up and the oceans depths changed. Then afterwards there would have been the ice age and volcanic activity.

IF the Bible is correct, and IF there was a global flood with huge catastrophic events on the earth, then there would be some animals buried together, and some buried deeper than others.

If there was a global flood, there would be evidence, yes. Problem is, there isn't any, and there is evidence to the contrary.

There is no evidence of a flood in ice core data. There is no evidence of a global flood in tree-ring dating, which goes back 10,000 years. On the ocean floor, a global flood would leave traces in an uncharacteristic amount of detritus from the land, different grain size distributions in the sediment and different oxygen isotope ratios. None of that is present.

If the mountains were raised in a global flood, different ranges should show similar erosion levels. They don't. .

Settling out of a global flood would not separate organisms on a consistent, worldwide basis. Nowhere on Earth do we find human remains in the same stratum as trilobites, or pterosaurs in the same stratum as whales. Organisms of like geologic age are found together, consistently, throughout the world. There is no jumbling together of organisms science regards as different geologic eras.

Settling out from a global flood should also jumble together inland organisms with deep sea organisms. Again, this does not happen. Fossils of deep sea organisms are found with deep sea organisms. We do not find lions with giant squids, nor oak trees with sea cucumbers.

At least some modern plants should have settled into the same stratum as pre-Cambrian bacteria. They didn't. At least some human artifacts should have settled into the same stratum as dinosaurs. They didn't.

There is no jumbling of all these different life forms. Easily enough explained, since they lived at different times. With a flood, there should have been jumbling, but there isn't.

[Flyinillini22]

If there was a global flood, there would be evidence, yes. Problem is, there isn't any, and there is evidence to the contrary.

There is no evidence of a flood in ice core data. There is no evidence of a global flood in tree-ring dating, which goes back 10,000 years. On the ocean floor, a global flood would leave traces in an uncharacteristic amount of detritus from the land, different grain size distributions in the sediment and different oxygen isotope ratios. None of that is present.

If the mountains were raised in a global flood, different ranges should show similar erosion levels. They don't. .

Settling out of a global flood would not separate organisms on a consistent, worldwide basis. Nowhere on Earth do we find human remains in the same stratum as trilobites, or pterosaurs in the same stratum as whales. Organisms of like geologic age are found together, consistently, throughout the world. There is no jumbling together of organisms science regards as different geologic eras.

Settling out from a global flood should also jumble together inland organisms with deep sea organisms. Again, this does not happen. Fossils of deep sea organisms are found with deep sea organisms. We do not find lions with giant squids, nor oak trees with sea cucumbers.

At least some modern plants should have settled into the same stratum as pre-Cambrian bacteria. They didn't. At least some human artifacts should have settled into the same stratum as dinosaurs. They didn't.

There is no jumbling of all these different life forms. Easily enough explained, since they lived at different times. With a flood, there should have been jumbling, but there isn't.

Ice cores are based on assumptions that the accumulation of ice is pretty much the same year after year, and each layer is counted as one year. However, there would have been multiple sublayers of ice, plus instead of ice accumulating a couple centimeters a year, it would have accumulated many meters per year initially.

I read that 95% of all fossils are marine animals, which make sense because they are closest to the bottom of the sea. Land animals wouldn't be buried at the same levels of trilobites or squid. Plants would probably be buried before land animals. Next would be the non-swimming land animals such as dinosaurs. Next would be the animals who could swim for awhile. And last would be humans who could not only swim, but survive for days on floating trees, etc. Humans would have been able to recognize the flood coming and would have ran to the hills/mountains, and wouldn't have been buried and fossilized as much from being buried in mud quickly. Most would have died, bloated on the surface of the water, and disintegrated.

[RockHollywood]

Ice cores are based on assumptions that the accumulation of ice is pretty much the same year after year, and each layer is counted as one year. However, there would have been multiple sublayers of ice, plus instead of ice accumulating a couple centimeters a year, it would have accumulated many meters per year initially.

I read that 95% of all fossils are marine animals, which make sense because they are closest to the bottom of the sea. Land animals wouldn't be buried at the same levels of trilobites or squid. Plants would probably be buried before land animals. Next would be the non-swimming land animals such as dinosaurs. Next would be the animals who could swim for awhile. And last would be humans who could not only swim, but survive for days on floating trees, etc. Humans would have been able to recognize the flood coming and would have ran to the hills/mountains, and wouldn't have been buried and fossilized as much from being buried in mud quickly. Most would have died, bloated on the surface of the water, and disintegrated.

Let's see ... Just for starters, plants aren't buried in different strata than sea animals or land animals. Sea plants are found in the same strata as sea animals of the same age, and land plants found in the same strata as land animals of the same age. Deciduous trees are found in the same strata as sabre tooth cats, but not with Dimetrodons. Lepidodendron trees are found with the mammal-like reptile pelycosaurs, but not with coyotes. This sorting is consistent with organisms living at the same time being preserved together, and is not consistent with preservation of organisms that perished in a global flood.

By your reckoning, shouldn't strong swimmers, fish and octopi and plesiosaurs, be found in the top strata, above land animals that would become waterlogged and sink after drowning? Shouldn't there be at least some human remains, or bear remains, or deer remains, in strata BELOW plesiosaurs? That doesn't happen.

Among sea creatures, shouldn't what science regards as ancient and modern forms be together in the same strata? Shouldn't whales and plesiosaurs and trilobites be found in the same strata? That doesn't happen.

What we find is that organisms of the same geologic age are found in the same strata, the same organisms with the same organisms, consistently, at different locations. No dinosaurs are found with woolly mammoths, no sea lions are found with trilobites, no elm trees are found with giant club mosses.

The organisms that lived at the same time are in the same stratum, while another stratum contains organisms that lived at another time. The strata have been building through the 3 billion-year history of life on Earth.


Nothing about the fossil record is consistent with a worldwide flood. Nor is ice core data --- for one thing, any flood, no matter how rapid the freezing, would show up in layers with different salinity levels, since rainwater is less salty than seawater. Nor is there evidence in tree ring data, seabed grain differentation, deep sea oxygen isotopes. There is no trace of a global flood.

What has left traces is 4.6 billion years of geologic activity, continental drift, mountain building through tectonic plate collision and the long history of life.

[Flyinillini22]

Let's see ... Just for starters, plants aren't buried in different strata than sea animals or land animals. Sea plants are found in the same strata as sea animals of the same age, and land plants found in the same strata as land animals of the same age. Deciduous trees are found in the same strata as sabre tooth cats, but not with Dimetrodons. Lepidodendron trees are found with the mammal-like reptile pelycosaurs, but not with coyotes. This sorting is consistent with organisms living at the same time being preserved together, and is not consistent with preservation of organisms living at the same time that perished in a global flood.

By your reckoning, shouldn't strong swimmers, fish and octopi and plesiosaurs, be found in the top strata, above land animals that would become waterlogged and sink after drowning? Shouldn't there be at least some human remains, or bear remains, or deer remains, in strata BELOW plesiosaurs? That doesn't happen.

Among sea creatures, shouldn't what science regards as ancient and modern forms be together in the same strata? Shouldn't whales and plesiosaurs and trilobites be found in the same strata? That doesn't happen.

What we find is that organisms of the same geologic age are found in the same strata, the same organisms with the same organisms, consistently, at different locations. No dinosaurs are found with woolly mammoths, no sea lions are found with trilobites, no elm trees are found with giant club mosses.

The organisms that lived at the same time are in the same stratum, while another stratum contains organisms that lived at another time. The strata have been building through the 3 billion-year history of life on Earth.


Nothing about the fossil record is consistent with a worldwide flood. Nor is ice core data --- for one thing, any flood, no matter how rapid the freezing, would show up in layers with different salinity levels, since rainwater is less salty than seawater. Nor is there evidence in tree ring data, seabed grain differentation, deep sea oxygen isotopes. There is no trace of a global flood.

What has left traces is 4.6 billion years of geologic activity, continental drift, mountain building through tectonic plate collision and the long history of life.

Sea plants are buried with sea animals, and land plants are buried with land animals. I probably shouldn't have said land animals who couldn't swim would be after plants, because I was assuming they could walk or run to a hill and be buried soon afterwards. You would not find trilobites with sea lions because they wouldn't have been together in the first place. You wouldn't find dinosaurs with mammoths because they didn't hang out together. All of the animals of the huge land mass didn't decide to live side by side suddenly before the flood. Fish fossils in particular are interesting because they are often found contorted from the sudden burial of mud. Why would they be contorted otherwise? Ferns are found in coal seams with folded over stems, and were preserved very well unlike a fern leaf you would find today laying on the ground. Why are fern fossils found bent over and perfectly preserved?

Also the churning of the mud would have resulted in multiple underwater landslides. So obviously things would not be orderly.

Also only a small percentage of the flood waters came from rain. THe Bible talks about the springs of the deep being opened up. So the salinity question is mute, and back then the sea may not have been salty or as salty anyway. The rain was the result of the massive water vapor that exploded into the atmosphere from the mixture of sea water and mantle.

Most of the evidence used by secular science assumes orderly change over long periods of time, and rules out huge changes over a short period of time. That;s why two people can see the same evidence and get dramatically different results. It's the assumptions that make the difference.

[ChainsawFan]

Most of the evidence used by secular science assumes orderly change over long periods of time, and rules out huge changes over a short period of time. That;s why two people can see the same evidence and get dramatically different results. It's the assumptions that make the difference.

"Secular science" is redundant. There is no other kind.

[GhostofRoyko]

It's the assumptions that make the difference.

Damn skippy. It's just too bad that you don't understand that it's you primarily at fault in this regard.

[RockHollywood]

Sea plants are buried with sea animals, and land plants are buried with land animals. I probably shouldn't have said land animals who couldn't swim would be after plants, because I was assuming they could walk or run to a hill and be buried soon afterwards. You would not find trilobites with sea lions because they wouldn't have been together in the first place. You wouldn't find dinosaurs with mammoths because they didn't hang out together. All of the animals of the huge land mass didn't decide to live side by side suddenly before the flood. Fish fossils in particular are interesting because they are often found contorted from the sudden burial of mud. Why would they be contorted otherwise? Ferns are found in coal seams with folded over stems, and were preserved very well unlike a fern leaf you would find today laying on the ground. Why are fern fossils found bent over and perfectly preserved?

Also the churning of the mud would have resulted in multiple underwater landslides. So obviously things would not be orderly.

Also only a small percentage of the flood waters came from rain. THe Bible talks about the springs of the deep being opened up. So the salinity question is mute, and back then the sea may not have been salty or as salty anyway. The rain was the result of the massive water vapor that exploded into the atmosphere from the mixture of sea water and mantle.

Most of the evidence used by secular science assumes orderly change over long periods of time, and rules out huge changes over a short period of time. That;s why two people can see the same evidence and get dramatically different results. It's the assumptions that make the difference.

So NO modern organisms "hung out" with ANY organisms regarded as ancient? Allosaurs wouldn't have traced any deer? And even if they were placed, neatly, with no overlap, rushing flood waters didn't jumble ANY of them together? The deep oceans were marked off between where plesiosaurs hung out, and where whales hung out, and never the twain shall overlap?

My favorite quote in your post is "Also the churning of the mud would have resulted in multiple underwater landslides. So obviously things would not be orderly." Problem is, things ARE orderly, in the sense that organisms from like times and like enviroments are found together. Always. Everywhere. A churning, disorderly process with millions of creatures dying at once should have churned some modern animals together with some dinosaurs or pelycosaurs or giant Carboniferous amphibians, but it didn't.


I'll stick with the mechanism that better explains why whales aren't buried with plesiosaurs, nor saber tooths with T-rexes, thank you. They lived millions of years apart, and are preserved with other organisms of their own age.

The notion that science assumes orderly change is nonsense. Science recognizes the catastrophic impact of volcanism, of plate tectonics, of climate change, of collision with celestial bodies. The geologic record is dotted with mass extinctions, with all of the above having their impact on them.

The ice core data doesn't assume orderly change at all, but a tremendous inrush of water, from rain, from springs, from anywhere, would have left its traces in a layer or layers of dramatically different concentration of minerals. There is no such change.

Most fish fossils are not contorted, but it's only natural there would be some. Fossilization captures dead or dying animals, and some will be dying from violent events. Yes, there are ferns that were crushed or contorted. Could be from a mudslide, could be from high winds, could be from being trampled by animals, could be from a number of things. Being fossilized does require burial, after all. There also are ferns preserved without such contortions. Given hundreds of millions of years of multicellular life, you will see fossilization of organisms that died/were buried in a large variety of states.


Again, I don't really care if you want to believe in a global flood despite the physical evidence. But the physical evidence is not consistent with such an event.

[larue33]

Dinosaurs and mammoths were like the Crips and the Bloods, the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples. Turf was everything. No dino would dare to go into a mammoth neighborhood, not even to escape a flood.

So NO modern organisms "hung out" with ANY organisms regarded as ancient?

[RockHollywood]

Dinosaurs and mammoths were like the Crips and the Bloods, the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples. Turf was everything. No dino would dare to go into a mammoth neighborhood, not even to escape a flood.

See, that I didn't know.

*incorporates dinos and mammoths into book on gang history*