Unfortunately, what i see there is an individual who ignores scripture and the wealth of references in scripture that support the literal reading of Genesis BECAUSE secular science that he was raised with disagrees with it…despite coming to the realization that secular science cannot explain our existence…and now here you are!
I was raised initially in a non Christian family with evolution…now I am Christian. I am what i am because the realisation that science cannot explain our existence adequitely also means science cannot be relied upon to discredit a natural reading of language in the bible…particularly when multiple bible writers over hundreds to a thousand years say the same things about Creation and the Flood that Moses is recorded as having written. If Christ (God) says the world was destroyed by a flood, If Peter also makes the same claim 30 years after the death of Christ…then that shows internal consistency and the interpretation therefore is correct
Theologically, yours is 100% wrong…you know its wrong because you refuse to theologically address the issue instead reverting to non biblical answers. If yours was correct, you would have overwhelming biblical support for your claim…the undeniable fact is, you do not have that evidence.
So you know what…prove me wrong theologically. If you are able to provide a sound and overwhelming theological position from the bible that aligns with the evolutionary claims that Creation, Noahs Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorah, and the Exodus are not to be taken literally, and im confident that you cannot do this, I will accept your theology publicly here on these forums. I am happy for someone to even start a new thread about it…i look forward to the challenge.
No. I do not see why this disagrees with what I am saying. If these aborigines had a story which was identical to the one in the Bible (and I don’t see that it is any such thing) that would be an example of the same story being brought to them from elsewhere. After all there are so many different flood stories among these aborigines, it seems they collect them from all over.
The first migration of the people from Africa was so long ago because this was an easy route for people to take (filled with food to eat) compared with others like the one to the Americas. And this means it is an easy migration to repeat many times, and the evidence agrees this is exactly what happened. It does show the first people (leaving Africa 72,000 years ago) prospered in Australia and the later migrations were too small to replace them. But that doesn’t mean the newcomers didn’t bring things like flood stories with them to add to the many other flood stories we find there.
As I try to find out what this story actually said, the only reference I find is on AIG. That seems to be the only place this story even exists. For I certainly don’t find anything like that coming from the Gulf of Carpentaria in Australia as it claims. Though some Australian aborigine flood stories do have animals being saved by means of boats.
you aren’t very good at going through evidence are you? For someone who claims to be scientific, you really don’t join dots very well.
The significance of the Perth Newspaper article is that it is almost exactly the same as the biblical Flood story, whereas other dreamtime stories are quite vague and do not directly align with it…indeed most of them dont talk a single catastrophic global event at all (such as the aboriginal story about how rivers were formed).
When we look at evidences, we are looking for significant similarities in the testimony that evidence presents to us. What we have there is:
clearly not a localized flood…this story is a global catastrophe (TEism on these forums has gone to great length trying to use the argument “Noahs flood must be a local one”…you cannot deny this claim i make because you know its 100% true of these forums)
The aboriginal story is about a man and a women…Noah and his wife
They floated on a wooden tree…given aboriginals used dugouts, that explanation should come as no surprise
Read the article title (it appears you missed that obvious red flag to your response). The newspaper author himself makes the connection in 1930’s article title!
The really big problem here is not whether or not i agree with secularism, naturalism, or any other ism. The problem is, my world view must remains consistent. Given my world view comes from the writings of the Bible, as a Christian, i must harmonise with those writings. If something outside of the bible dissagrees with it, then the Bible isnt where the error lies…its the outside evidence that is wrong. So in that event, i seek to figure out where the external interpretation has got it wrong. I have always found that if i do that honestly, the Bible turns out to be correct as written and im not compromising the credibility of the bible when i do that.
Whats important here is credibility in the internal consistency for my belief. I can actively immerse myself into every aspect of the bible without any fear of tearing my belief system apart…im never on unsteady ground as a Christian, however, i note that a number of individuals on these forums have deep worries about the credibility of religion…science has them deeply worried that the bible isnt true…they are literally hanging by a shoestring and they full well know science is telling them the God of the Bible is a mythical fairytale.
What makes that worse for these individuals is when others on these forums who claim to be sort of Christian make statements directly against individuals like the Apostle Peter, or the Apostle Paul…claiming these men were either poorly educated or blind as a means of supporting scientific beliefs over the bible!
BTW…complete side issue but what the heck im feeling oppositional…the apostle Paul did write Hebrews! (whilst someone else may have written the words down, its Pauls work for sure)
Except that it isn’t the same at all. This is another example of you editing the Bible. No it was not just Noah and his wife who survived the flood. No it was not a tree or a tiny boat they were on. And there is so much in Noah’s story which is not in this story: like Noah was instructed in building a large boat and gathering animals, the length of the flood, and the story of what happened afterwards. This is typical of your attention to detail in the Bible only when it agrees with this magical fantasy of yours.
The fact is not only are floods common but a man and his wife surviving by clinging to something is hardly rare or unusual either.
So… frankly, what I am really hearing here, is that if you are willing to tell yourself big whopping lies then you can imagine dots conforming reality to a fantasy you have constructed based on a magical interpretation of the Bible. And if you make a habit of telling yourself lies like this then you can invent bizarre conspiracy theories and even call anything you do good no matter how evil it is.
How do you know that each account covers the same period of history? There is no way to confirm that Australia flooded at the same time a s the Middle East. There is no common calendar
It has ben said that there is not enough water on the planet to cover the whole land mass, even if the ice cap completely melted. That may not bother God or the person of faith, but it becomes a problem for the scientist.
The same period in history isnt relevant here…the evolutionary claim is that the aboriginals are tens of thousands of years older than the biblical flood anyway.
It doesnt matter that one is trying to confirm the flood came to Australia and the middle east…the Aboriginal tale says it was a global catastrophe and not a localised one.
your claim about water levels is false. The facts are that if all the ice on the earth melted, the average water level is well above the average land height…if memory serves its by something like 70 metres higher.( google search confirms my memory in this case)
The heights of high mountains like Everest are not an issue, tectonic plate movement and uplift has caused that elevation in those mountains and even you know scientifically that they were not that high in the past.
whilst i dont agree with the timeline, the evidence of how it formed is consistent with my worldview. The difference is, i believe it was caused reasonably quickly during and after Noahs flood, you believe it was over millions of years. The activity that caused it is essentially the same for both of us.
Scientifically a local flood may be hard to justify as there needs to be a basin to hold it. It doesn’t have to be water tight but it has to drain slower than the influx of rain.
However if it was supernatural science can go out the window, I guess.
Perhaps this whole discussion is pointless.
One thing is for certain, the minutia of faith will never dictate God, or His judgement, if he chooses to judge at all. It has become clearer over the years that, although faith is important, the actions that come from that faith are equally important. As James puts it, faith without works is dead, but the works are not “Brownie points” they are the fruits that Jesus talked of.
I thought the Aboriginal story was about how a giant frog in dreamland drank all the water in the world and the problem was getting it back, not the other way around.
So you just admitted that you only are interested in what supports your views, not in any other data.
BTW, even if you read the AiG article about the Aboriginal flood myths, it’s obvious you have to be very creative to make them match the Noah story.
That can be said of your view. Your arguments don’t rest on scripture as it was written, they rest on your own views of the world that you force into the scriptures.
You have never shown from scripture that they should be taken literally.
In any substantive source, yes, that’s true – since Adam seems to love Google, I’ll just note that in the top 100 results when I searched for “Aboriginal story of a global flood” AiG is the only source that actually has such a tale – and it isn’t even a single tale!
That’s a fallacious approach to begin with! It’s called “picking and choosing”, or “quote mining”, and all it means is that the one looking isn’t interested in truth.
Nothing in any of the versions found in the top 100 web results says anything about a “global” flood.
Who just happened to be out in a canoe with their dog.
You’re not only hunting just for things that agree with you, you’re only picking out the pieces of stories that agree with you – that’s dishonest research at best, wht is normally called “fraudulent”.
By the evidence of your posts here, your worldview does not come from the Bible, it comes from your personal concept that you don’t need to do your homework because somehow you can see what something means without having to study anything at all.
That view all by itself counts as devangelism.
Stop with that lie already – and it is a like, at least if you have a clue about how science works.
Really? How many times have you read all of Paul’s epistles in Greek, studying how he writes? How much have you studied the use of Koine Greek in various parts of the ancient world, so you can guess which style it matches?
Good point – aboriginal artwork of the Rainbow Serpent and associated flood go back over 6k years, which means that according to Adam’s date of Noah’s Flood, Australia had a different flood since it happened before Adam’s date for Creation!
The aboriginal story doesn’t have that anyway – it has the sea gathering into a big wave that rolled across the land, not a flood that covered everything at once.
As my first statistics professor said, using averages is a potent way to lie.
Yes – over a period of at the very least hundreds of thousands of years. That doesn’t depend on any assumptions, just on laboratory measurements of how minerals deform.
Only if the extent of your geological interest is what a child can do in a sandbox.
Again, Jesus did not say that the Flood was global. He said it surprised some people. If you do not examine your own arguments but just put out anything that seems to support your position, you lose credibility. The young-earth movement has the challenge of being a highly fragmented grassroots movement, so there isn’t much that someone can do to stop some nut from making wild claims. But it is possible to admit that some professional young-earth advocates should be ignored and that all young-earth models face serious scientific challenges while still favoring a young earth. In practice, however, each individual or organization typically claims to represent the biblical view, dismissing other young-earth claims as well as everyone else. Although young-earth claims have evolved considerably over the past 60 years, admitting to learning and correcting is rare, especially fully honest corrections. For example, at one point the AiG (before the split) had posted a list of arguments not to use. This generated pushback from other young-earthers, and AiG didn’t actually stop using those arguments. But also they claimed that the arguments were determined to not be so good based on young-earth analysis of new data, when in reality old-earth workers pointed out old data that showed how bad the arguments were.
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
I wonder if that verse means anything on this forum
A great radio preacher once spoke on this passage and noted that it is impossible to not cause others to stumble, it’s just a matter of which ones will be made to stumble by what one does.
A good guide to the best course then is to stick close to facts and clear thinking, since presenting things falsely will be more damaging than presenting them correctly.
