8.7 Million Species

[_Milesius]

However, I have already shown you that "nature" as we know it today was vastly different. Animals and humans were both vegeterians and came from the ark and began to eat meat. That seems a rather significant shift in the natural order.

This is so obviously ridiculous. Why can't you see that, for example, a lion is what it is in shape, size, musculature, and dentition exactly because it is a hunter and meat eater. In its defining gross structure it is adapted to a specific type of prey (large and quick moving etc.)

Its teeth are adapted to tearing flesh and its muscles and skeleton are adapted to hunting, chasing and overpowering game.

Form follows function in the biosphere!

We can even see the evolution of this carnivorous adaptation for many animals in the fossil record.

Again, form follows function and if a lion were not the sharp toothed, flesh tearing, powerful beast that we all know, then it would hardly look like a lion (internally or externally). Indeed, it wouldn't be a lion.


You can keep on imaging silly things like sabre tooth tigers munching on grass and leaves but this is clear nonsense to anyone not driven to intellectual blindness by biblical literalism.

I like Lewis Black's take re: all creatures being vegetarians before the Fall.

[_ludwigm]

This is so obviously ridiculous.

Well, you constantly ridicule, so it's a match made in heaven.

Tarski's biggest social problem is he can not cease to think.
Hoops' biggest soc!@£........... ooooooops I should not continue............. I must remain in terrestrial environment.

____________________________

What is it you think I'm not getting? I'm simply explaining the Biblical record.

For example these ones?
Leviticus 11
5. And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

6. And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

[_Chap]

I have to say, in all honesty, that even when I was a religious believer I would have shaken my head at arguments of the kind you put forward here.

Of course. I can't help that though.

Fair enough. But your interpretation of those two Psalms as referring to Noah's Flood is one I have never seen before, and I think that I would not have been alone as a believer in finding it improbable. To test my view, can you find any Bible commentary that agrees with your view that these two Psalms are referring to events during the Noachic Flood? If so, please cite it. There are many such commentaries available online. I don't think you will be able to. But I would be interested to be proved wrong!

Unlike Psalm 104, there does not seem to be even the slightest pretext for making these Psalms refer to Noah's flood specifically, apart from the fact that you need a proof text, and you have already rejected Psalm 104, which is the one most widely used for this purpose.

I specifically stated that Ps 104 had relevance. And you wonder why I don't think you're reading?

I am sorry - I phrased that too quickly. What I meant was that when you said you were thinking of a Psalm referring to mountains being raised up during the Flood, I took it that you meant Psalm 104, which is the only one I have ever seen discussed in that context. When you said you meant another Psalm, I was surprised. But no, you did not 'reject' Psalm 104, although I still wonder why you do not use it as your main argument, since the arguments that connect it to the Flood are potentially much better (though still in my view flawed) than those you can make for the two Psalms you cite. But then I did state the counter-arguments clearly enough so that the use of Psalm 104 may have seemed a less attractive option after all.

]The first psalm is clearly hypothetical 'even if awful things were to happen, like waters raging' we shall not be scared, even if it gets so bad that mountains collapse' - and why do you think Noah's flood was the only possible event in the Psalmist's mind in which waters might 'rage and swell'?

How in the world is anything "clearly hypothetical"? I come from the perspective, firstly, that when the text speaks of raging waters and such, I think it's refering to raging waters. I'm not sure why that is not reasonable to take the text for what it is.

Here is the whole Psalm:

1God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

4There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

5God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.

6The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

7The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

8Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.

9He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

10Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

11The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Isn't the Psalmist simply talking about God's protection for Jerusalem in the midst of all threats, including hostile Goyim who make war upon her? Why do you feel that the only possible reference of 'raging waters' has to be Noah's Flood? The reference to the mountains is to them being washed away, surely, not about them rising up our of the waters? Again, can you find a commentator who takes your view?

Your argument on the second psalm you quote uses a modern understanding of 'geological event' that seems quite anachronistic. God creating stuff is not a 'geological event'.

I'm not sure of your disagreement here. I'll grant you that I was using the term "geological event" loosely, let's call it a weather event then of such proportions as to potentially impact the earth in a significant and permanent way.

Psalm 90 begins:

1 LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

I really don't see how you get from the Psalmist saying that God was God before the mountains were created to saying that this means the present-day mountains were only created during the Noachic Flood. Again, can you find any commentator who takes this view?

[_schreech]

Are those polar bears actually racing toy boats? Eh, seems as reasonable as the story of the ark...maybe bears were super smart before the flood....

Well, clearly two of them were smart enough to catch the last boat to survival, migrate down to where that boat was docked (in the middle of some field, no less) and them migrate back without leaving a trace of their trip. I bet all their polar bear friends thought they were nuts, but those two had the last laugh, didn't they?

Smarter than your average polar bear... hey Boo Boo?

Hey, any polar bear that knows how to race toy boats is tops in my book - maybe that is why god chose to kill all the other polar bears and allow these 2 to live...

by the way. I just noticed that there are dinosaurs in that picture....It is now my favorite depiction of the Noah fable ever...

Hoops - were there ducks on the ark or did god figure they could swim the flood out? how about alligators?

[_schreech]

Yes, that is one of the things wrong with you.

So I should teach my children that fiction/fables are real? The Bible isn't my cup of tea but I suppose I could enroll them in wizardry school or a Jedi academy...Would that humble them properly? Would that be enough to dissuade them from their arrogant and rational ways?

[_Themis]

So I should teach my children that fiction/fables are real? The Bible isn't my cup of tea but I suppose I could enroll them in wizardry school or a Jedi academy...Would that humble them properly? Would that be enough to dissuade them from their arrogant and rational ways?

I have never viewed science as arrogant. I would say it is the exact opposite. Sure some scientists can be very arrogant, but the best quality of science is the ability to show itself wrong and change as a result. Religion tends to be much more arrogant and slow to change in comparison. in my opinion good science will make you more humble.