You guys have no idea how though it is not to comment on this thread

Scuba how long did it take the water to recede from your ark. I don't remember seeing in the bible it settled in Tennessee.

I like your style Mark. Let's learn from the scriptures rather the projecting our own knowledge back onto them. It makes all those strange stories so much more meaningful and gives them some serious gravity (pun intended). The theme you mentioned (and I quoted) above is a good example. Trace the words "see", "take", and "good/desirable" through the Tanakh, and your mind will be blown.

Regarding the flood narrative, it may be entertaining to do the mathematical projections, genealogies, and fossil-explaining, but to do so misses the point (or points, there's a lot going on there). The main purposes of the scriptures aren't to provide mechanistic explanations of anything but instead to provide functional explanations (i.e. the nature of ourselves, God, and the world). An interesting place to start on the flood might be to think of it as the second iteration (and there are many - reread Genesis 1, check out Moses, the Israelites crossing the Jordan, or Jesus's baptism) of God's rescue of humanity through the chaotic waters. There are lots of other themes and concepts that pop up in this story too, but this is one that should be easy enough to grasp and to track. If you can start to see how some of these themes and symbolic images are woven into the Bible, I promise that it will not only make more sense but it will also take on a more important personal meaning, and I think that's kind of the point.

If you believe the news, its still rising

One year while elk hunting in Colorado, one of my hunting buddies climbed to the top of a mountain. He was looking for elk sign and found seashells up there. He put some in his pocket, but most were so fragile, they crumbled. Still, you could easily make out that they were shells. He said before he picked some up they were whole.

Good thing Noah was a really good carpenter so he could build huge and strong cages to keep the T rexs from killing all the other dinosaurs and the food storage needs were huge. Just the tree twigs for the elephants alone would take up a lot of space. Needed a lot of extra gazelles to feed the lions water buffaloes for the tigers etc. etc.

Bryce

There is so much evidence for a world-wide flood it is undeniable. You also have to realize that the world looked a lot different back then than it did now. It had never rained for one thing, The atmosphere was totally different and people lived hundreds of years; the world was enveloped in a thick cloud of ozone layer and during the flood, the mountains heaved up, the tectonic plates moved, etc. Gigantic reptiles could no longer live in the new environment. It's all very explainable with so much evidence. it's just that most people are totally ignorant about it because for some crazy reason it's taboo to talk about it in school science class. Science in schools these days are more like religion than they are science.

People will believe crazy nonsense about the mayans, etc. when the explanation for it all is clear to see. The one that really gets me is when they find footprints of humans and dinosaurs in the same layer and even on top of each other, they make up all kinds of ridiculous, implausible excuses for it.

Most people have no idea how much they have been lied to.

I got force fed this type of stuff as a kid in church, then I got old enough to start doing my own research and when I found out I had been given a load of BS my entire childhood I left the church.

Sounds like alot more people need to watch Ancient Aliens. It is a documentary style show, that gives all the true evidence. It is what i fully believe in, and there is infinitely more evidence on the ancient alien side than anything else. Every one of the "big" religions on earth are just a control and power scam. If you actually research every single religion and all of the different groups, tribes, etc, on the planet, thoroughly, you will see that everything has been misinterpreted, and also manipulated. They all say the same thing, gods came down from the skies on fiery chariots, dragons, snakes, disks, etc..they didnt understand the technology they were looking at. People honestly believe that two of every animal would of been gathered up onto this ark!? No! But their DNA, yes it would hold all of the DNA....

Read and meditate on the Bible

Don't put your faith in Man

jht,
You are a wise man. May your tribe increase.

God's sending His Son was not
Biblical Symbolism

Well who doesn't like a good old fashioned wager....

Here's one I enjoy reading about, from the annals at the end of the Renaissance, that time in history when great thinkers built upon other great thinker's works from the previous 2,000 years. They still teach Aristotle and Plato in schools today, so themes such as this are in a way "timeless". You might not realize you were Aristotled in school, but you were.

French philosopher, mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) premised that humans bet with their lives; that either God exists or does not.
A non-Christian himself, he argued; "A rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss, whereas he stands to receive infinite gains and avoid infinite losses, if God does exist.



You've heard themes of this man's work when you heard,
"You bet your life!"
or...
"The bet of a lifetime!"
That's Pascalian.

That is way to simplified. You would need to add all the other religions to the box and then decide if one is true which one is it. You yourself are wagering that Judaism is not right or Islam etc.

Well said Donnersurvivor. Well said. It is simple. Not way too simplified. Just simple.
Not too hard to pick the victor really. He's the One who rose from the dead on the third day.

The prophet Mohammed - he died and stayed dead.
The Mormon Smith - he died and stayed dead.
False prophets throughout history - all died and stayed dead.
And all the other Gods wouldn't work, because Pantheists believe we're all particularized in form, there is no good and evil. They don't exist. Their God is everywhere in everything. There's no after life to the Hindu or Buddists, so that's not what Pascal was referencing.

There are many cults

But one Creator

His Name is Yahweh who Sent His Son!

I would never try to live the Christian life as though it were nothing more than fire insurance, I wouldn't waste my time that way. I know God exists. I can't prove that to anyone else, but then, it's not my job to. God reveals himself to those who diligently seek him. One encounter is all it takes and you'll never doubt again.

So so Very True Posco ...all you said!

So so Very True Posco ...all you said!

Neither would I Posco. Pascal's work, like many apologists throughout history, is rationalistic, humanistic endeavor trying to explain what can not be replicated and reproduced (the modern definition of science). His writings were, and still are deep theology, at the core.

Augustine of Hippo (4th century) may have summed it up nicely in the 4th century, "We are speaking of God, what marvel if thou do not comprehend? For if thou comprehend, He is not God."

Blessings
Mark