The Faith & Religion mega Thread

@business_kid: I hope that you will never choose not to say something here, because you assume that "no one here will accept anyhow." This thread wouldn't be as wonderfully long as it is, if people around here actually felt that way.

"Say what you will, and I will then correct you."

The Roman Catholic Church™, as a social institution, far outlived the Empire. Yes, it began as "the State Church of Rome," and it was introduced specifically to replace the "old gods," to whose religious infrastructure Constantine had become opposed. But in the end, the [Western] Empire was gone but "the Church™" remained.

Study of "the Reformation" is certainly also insightful, because it shows how people reacted to the power of "the Church™" as it tried to continue its Imperial ways and ultimately failed to do so.

Meanwhile, it is also interesting to watch how new religious traditions – e.g. the Coptics – developed in the Eastern half of the now-divided Empire.

"Organized [State ...] religions" are to me an endlessly-fascinating human(!) study.

Originally Posted by enorbet ??? believable? I don't understand. The bubbles are ALL Earth's water, the bigger one is salt and the smaller ones fresh iirc, but together the sum total on or in the Earth including the moisture in our atmosphere. If you find that difficult to believe allow me to suggest you update your frame of reference of the dimensions of our Planet. All of us need reminders because the first person frame of reference of our 5 senses doesn't exist unless one has walked the full circumference of the Equator which would take nearly four years assuming a flat sidewalk with convenient supply stations strategically located and every day walking 12 hours and eating, sleeping, eliminating the other 12. Absent that experience, the only way to attempt a frame of reference is abstraction. It's not intuitive. The point is that there is nowhere near enough water to cover the Earth even a millimeter deep let alone over the peaks of the Himalayas and all other mounatain ranges. Much more to the mythical point, the sky isn't firmament held up by a very large tree or crystal spherers and Space isn't a sea that can leak in for 40 days and 40 nights, nor is there a drainage system to dump the quantities required to remove that incredible amount of water if it were so. It does reflect however the frame of reference of the people that wrote scripture rather nicely.

Well what I noticed, was that the pretty water bubbles were arranged as bullet formatting, like for another one of those slide show presentations where neoscientists present some graphs and charts to sell their products: of course the bubbles are not to scale. How could they make bullet marks out of the water bubbles if they were to scale? But if I wanted to be a neoscientific sophist, I would still orient the map over baikal, just in tribute to its fifth of the fresh water... it would give it a one/fifth more aqua of authenticity.

I think you are right to draw attention to this relationship between the faerie photos and neoscientific sophistries like charts, graphs, and maps, to alert we consumers of neoscientific products to read the fine print and look for the cardboard sillouettes.

Kindly remember that "the people who wrote that scripture" didn't even know that Earth was a planet. (Nor, likely, even what a "planet" was ... although maybe some of them did.) They [presumably ...] didn't know how big it is, nor that it is round. But what they did know was that: their world was inundated.

As I have said in other threads, "this, obviously, is a myth." But we should not dismiss the importance nor the fundamental validity of "myth-making." In fact we do it all the time. It is a perfectly legitimate thing for human beings to do, and we need not apologize nor rationalize.

To me, it is nonsensical(!) to try to impose upon this story what we technically understand today. (Ditto: "six days, and then God rested.") Something catastrophic happened to these people, and this is how they came to explain it, and perhaps to simply come to grips with the fact that "their world as they knew it" had been utterly wiped out by water. Discussions of the amount of water available on this planet are, in my view, irrelevant. "The myth is what it is," and we can afford to respect(!) both the myth and those who made it.

I don't see disproving the possibility of a planet-wide flood as irrelevant as long as some insist on what they assume is literal interpretation of scripture. At the same time I also don't discount the value of the myths of scripture when viewed in the context of what they really are - human.

The possibility (or not) of an earth-wide flood lies in how flat and low the earth was at the time. Obviously, today with so many high peaks and at least one crevasse 6 miles deep, it would be out of the question. But it is accepted that the earth was of a much more uniform height back before the Flood.

So in Genesis 8:4, we are told that the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat (Today's Kurdish mountains in Iraq). The tallest of them is around 17,000 feet. Josephus, who had access to and agreedd with all the historians of the ancient world, asserts that the ark came to rest on top of that. I'm as sure as I can be it's not there now. It was broken up for lucky charms.

Even if the Earth was as flat as a billiards table, there exists not enough water to cover it all even a millimeter deep. More to the point, SPACE IS NOT A SEA! and the sky is not firmament. Rain is not caused by opening windows in the sky. Planet wide flood is completely impossible unless you imagine God lives by no rules, no principles. Even if that were so, the scripture is WRONG if it were literal. It has value only as allegory and metaphor. You can't have it both ways with regards to Nature. It is perfectly valid, but not at all logical to speculate that a Divine Creator exists. However it IS and must always remain speculation and one everyone is free to choose. Scripture can not be literally the exact words of God. However that happened, well-meaning scam or misinterpretation, scripture was written by humans. Proof to the contrary is impossible.

Geoengineering or what? Fact is, Florida is being either weashed away or cleansed, depending on one's POV.

One has to be either willfully ignorant or blind or both to deny humankind's part in it all, melting glaciers and all!

Some must be genetically challenged, it seems, to value kings and queens and money over Life and its Ceator.

Frankly, I suggest that we need a little bit of realism injected here. For all the talk that we have of "an omnipotent, omniscient, celestial God," who very often does not answer the phone when first called, I think that what we are very much left with is ... humans, and politics.

I won't intrude into your personal religious space so far as to say that "this is all that there is," but since many of the recorded texts were more-or-less "official pronouncements," given in an era where "church (religion)" and "state" were one and the same, I think that we must give very serious consideration to this angle. "Religion" was, and still is, very much about "crowd control." It's entirely up to you to decide if all of this was a consequence of powerful people perverting their positions.

Originally Posted by enorbet Even if the Earth was as flat as a billiards table, there exists not enough water to cover it all even a millimeter deep.

Really? https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/...er-there-earth

In the tables, it mentions 1,388,000,000, cubic km of water on the earth. There a number of slightly differing figures for the surface area of earth, most about 510 Million square km. Now the scientists about the place here will be able to calculate exactly how deep we'd be in water.

Originally Posted by enorbet Even if the Earth was as flat as a billiards table,

But then it wouldn't be a sphere any more, so all the water would run off the edge!

there exists not enough water to cover it all even a millimeter deep.

Originally Posted by business_kid Really? https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/...er-there-earth In the tables, it mentions 1,388,000,000, cubic km of water on the earth. There a number of slightly differing figures for the surface area of earth, most about 510 Million square km. Now the scientists about the place here will be able to calculate exactly how deep we'd be in water.

The answer really depends on which parts of the Earth become flat.

According to the table you linked, filling in the current ocean basins takes 1,338,000,000 km^3 leaving 50 million km^3 per 510 million km^2 surface area = 0.098 km or 98 meters. https://phzoe.com/2019/12/27/average...ns-and-depths/ says "Average height above sea level is 231.4 meters" (counting sea level as 0).

But if you also make the ocean basins flat: "Treating the ocean bottom and land top as a surface, the average height is 2382.3 meters BELOW sea level." So there are certainly configurations of the Earth's material where everything would be covered in over two kilometers of water (if you froze the Earth's core stopping all volcanic activity, erosion doing its work should eventually get you there).

When people living many thousands of years ago experienced a catastrophic flood which completely inundated their world and lead to catastrophic loss of life, then I can personally accept the stories which they constructed to explain it at the time. I have zero interest in trying to concoct "scientific" (sic ...) explanations of how this could be "literally true." It wasn't.

It's a beautifully-crafted story – right down to that "olive leaf" that came from ... somewhere. But to me it is silly(!) to now try to equate all of this to "the planet as we now know it." It is, to me, a waste of time and intellect. And, completely pointless. "These ancient texts are what they are."

(P.S.: The story of Noah is recounted in other contemporary ancient texts, as well. Including the Qur'an and others. And the similarities and differences are quite interesting. "Yes, this particular story got around, but only in the texts of the people of a comparatively small geographic area.")

Originally Posted by business_kid Really? https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/...er-there-earth In the tables, it mentions 1,388,000,000, cubic km of water on the earth. There a number of slightly differing figures for the surface area of earth, most about 510 Million square km. Now the scientists about the place here will be able to calculate exactly how deep we'd be in water.

That webpage notes that if all the Earth's water was confined to the surface area of the US it would be 107 miles (i45 km) deep. Even if we factor in the fact that the US is less than 2% of total Earth land area that would still be covered and quite deeply.

So I do stand corrected if we assume the Earth is "as flat as a billiard table". However it is not flat. Much of even just the oceans and seas are many miles below what is currently sea level and they cover over 70% of Earths area.

Look here for a current glimpse into distribution of all water on Earth - https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/oceanwater.html. Just for starters 97% of all of Earth's water is in our oceans. 100 years of continuous rain would not create a worldwide flood as we define "the world" today. Even if we assume an average global temperature high enough to melt all the glaciers and poles, that would be a substantial effect but only on coastlines. Again, ALL ancient Floods were local events, not planetwide.

Originally Posted by enorbet So I do stand corrected if we assume the Earth is "as flat as a billiard table". However it is not flat. Much of even just the oceans and seas are many miles below what is currently sea level and they cover over 70% of Earths area.

Yes, but business_kid already acknowledged this:

Originally Posted by business_kid The possibility (or not) of an earth-wide flood lies in how flat and low the earth was at the time. Obviously, today with so many high peaks and at least one crevasse 6 miles deep, it would be out of the question. But it is accepted that the earth was of a much more uniform height back before the Flood.

Although I imagine "it is accepted" doesn't exactly hold for most people who don't believe the biblical flood story is literally true...

Quote:
Originally Posted by enorbet View Post
So I do stand corrected if we assume the Earth is "as flat as a billiard table". However it is not flat. Much of even just the oceans and seas are many miles below what is currently sea level and they cover over 70% of Earths area.

Originally Posted by ntubski Yes, but business_kid already acknowledged this: Quote: Originally Posted by business_kid View Post The possibility (or not) of an earth-wide flood lies in how flat and low the earth was at the time. Obviously, today with so many high peaks and at least one crevasse 6 miles deep, it would be out of the question. But it is accepted that the earth was of a much more uniform height back before the Flood. Although I imagine "it is accepted" doesn't exactly hold for most people who don't believe the biblical flood story is literally true...

According to https://royalsocietypublishing.org/d...rsta.2017.0406 study of Plate Tectonics the subduction resulting in the current depth of the oceans occurred between 30,000,000 and 50,000,000 years ago.

According to Fundamentalist interpretations of Christian Scripture the Earth is less than 10,000 years old but even ignoring that massive error the "record of the rocks" holds corroborating evidence that the relative depths of the oceans as well as heights of mountain ranges has been essentially like modern times for many millions of years, long (like REALLY long!) before any evidence that any Homo Sapiens walked the planet.

Sorry but no amount of fantastic "What Ifs.." lead to the possibility of a worldwide flood described in scripture. Not that such facts would or do deter the fundamentalist faithful, some of whom have stated that "If the Bible said Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it".

Originally Posted by enorbet Sorry but no amount of fantastic "What Ifs.." lead to the possibility of a worldwide flood described in scripture. Not that such facts would or do deter the fundamentalist faithful, some of whom have stated that "If the Bible said Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it".

If I were responsible for Fundamentalists confusing people with their codswallop, I could apologise for them. But as it stands, I lack the authority.

However, in 1 Kings chapters 17 & 18, the prophet Elijah

1. Proclaims a drought, because the false God Baal sold himself as a provider of rain.
2. Laid low while the drought really began to bite.
3. Met with King Ahab, and demanded a showdown with the prophets of Baal & the Sacred Pole.
4. Proposed a test: Each side would prepare a sacrifice, but not light it. The true God would answer by fire.
5. Won the challenge when Jehovah answered by fire.

There's no conclusive proof in the ground today, but this is no obstacle to a believer. Hardly any believer has difficulty accepting Jehovah God answered by fire. If God was able to create life (and the silence from science on an alternative to that point is embarrassing), and wanted to drown people here earth wide, it would have happened. Whether you think it's possible or not is irrelevant.

You don't have faith, we get it. We are sick of hearing it from you. On a faith and religion thread, people ought to feel free to express their faith without fear of criticism or attack from you. On a faith & religion thread, people shouldn't be attacked for their faith, or their religion. Interesting lines of enquiry don't develop when you're spamming the thread with denials of faith. It's also unwelcome when you denigrate any not accepting your atheistic alternatives.