Churches rejecting science altogether

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StAnastasia said:
Oh yes we can! The church does not require us to leave our brains on the doormat.
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That would be protestant thinking, that we can use our individual brains to figure out what Scripture says.

Catholics know we have to look at the constant teaching and understanding of the church protected by the Holy Spirit.
 
buffalo said:
That would be protestant thinking, that we can use our individual brains to figure out what Scripture says. Catholics know we have to look at the constant teaching and understanding of the church protected by the Holy Spirit.
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Except that the interpretation of the flood as a worldwide event covering the top of Mt. Everest is a Protestant literalist-fundamentalist interpretation, not a Catholic one. The Holy Spirit does not protect nonsensical declarations.
 
StAnastasia said:
Except that the interpretation of the flood as a worldwide event covering the top of Mt. Everest is a Protestant literalist-fundamentalist interpretation, not a Catholic one. The Holy Spirit does not protect nonsensical declarations.
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I see nowhere in the Bible that the water covered Mt Everest.
 
buffalo said:
I see nowhere in the Bible that the water covered Mt Everest.
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Genesis 7:19-20: “They [the waters] rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.”

One of our staff geologists assures me that while Everest may have traded heights with K2 and other mountains for the last few hundred thousand years, certainly during Noah’s Flood it was the tallest.
 
StAnastasia said:
Genesis 7:19-20: “They [the waters] rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.”

One of our staff geologists assures me that while Everest may have traded heights with K2 and other mountains for the last few hundred thousand years, certainly during Noah’s Flood it was the tallest.
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What does “covered” mean in the book of Genesis? I cover my whole floor when I cross it, but that does not mean I on every inch of the entire floor at one time. In this sense, water could have covered the entire face of the Earth in a huge sweeping wave, but not kept the entire planet immersed completely at the same time. The Ark would have drifted all over. Consider the big scene from 2012.
 
Peter_John said:
What does “covered” mean in the book of Genesis? I cover my whole floor when I cross it, but that does not mean I on every inch of the entire floor at one time. In this sense, water could have covered the entire face of the Earth in a huge sweeping wave, but not kept the entire planet immersed completely at the same time. The Ark would have drifted all over. Consider the big scene from 2012.
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Covered means “over the top of.” Since Mt. Everest is 29,035 feet high, the water was fifteen cubits deeper than 29,035 feet.
 
StAnastasia said:
Covered means “over the top of.” Since Mt. Everest is 29,035 feet high, the water was fifteen cubits deeper than 29,035 feet.
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Since Mt. Everest has grown 800 feet in the last 4,000 years, based on current growth rates, a wave did not even have to be that high to sweep over the top as it covered the whole Earth. A sizable Volcanic eruption under the ocean could cause it. A medium sized metorite could cause it, landing in the ocean halfway around the world from Noah.

Even in the early 19th Century Tecumseh predicted two signs that his people should look for to recognize they should follow him. This is not folklore but documented history. First the sign of the Panther Passing Across in the sky, followed by another in a specified length of time from the first, The second turned out to be the largest earthquake in U.S. history, exactly the length of time Tecumseh said after a meteor entered the atmosphere, broke into three pieces to resemble a leping panther crossing the north American sky.

Since Tecumseh was not a prophet of God and Noah was, I think we can give benefit of the doubt to the Biblical details.
 
Peter_John said:
Since Mt. Everest has grown 800 feet in the last 4,000 years, based on current growth rates, a wave did not even have to be that high to sweep over the top as it covered the whole Earth.
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A wave 28,000 feet high is not possible. And in any case, the Genesis story does not say a wave flowed over the top. It says the water covered the tops of the mountains, and the duration of the flood was 150 days.
 
StAnastasia said:
A wave 28,000 feet high is not possible. And in any case, the Genesis story does not say a wave flowed over the top. It says the water covered the tops of the mountains, and the duration of the flood was 150 days.
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The wave wouldn’t have to be a full 28,000 feet high, as the land was also rising beneath it. It only had to be deep enough with enough momentum to be 15 cubits higher than the top of Mt. Everest when it reached there, If a wave swept across the planet with with enough force to push it high enough to cover the tops of the mountains, and it took 150 days for all the waters to recede, the Genesis account is still valid.

I edited the initial response while you were responding and you may want to check that. An oceanic volcano or a meteor would not only create a massive wave but throw millions of cubic meters of water high into the atmosphere and spread it across the whole planet.

This assumes to begin with that the atmosphere was in the same state as it is now before the cataclysm. AS I recall off the top of my head the Bible does not say that the Earth was watered by rain before the flood, but that it was watered from the ground (high dew point, extreme humidity). It suggests there were no rainbows before the flood, and that night and day were not the Sun and the Moon but a greater and lesser light. Hence, it suggests that a lot of the Earth’s water was locked in the atmosphere, until the flood, creating diffuse illumination. This means nobody ever got exposed to direct sunlight. That and a vegetarian diet (God did not want anilmals killed for food until after the flood) would explain longer lifespans, even if those described in Genesis are exagerrated.

I do concede that this had to have happened much longer ago than the Biblical account suggests, even tens of thousands of years longer.​

I also think the Black Sea theory holds merit.
 
Peter_John said:
This assumes to begin with that the atmosphere was in the same state as it is now before the cataclysm. AS I recall off the top of my head the Bible does not say that the Earth was watered by rain before the flood, but that it was watered from the ground (high dew point, extreme humidity). It suggests there were no rainbows before the flood, and that night and day were not the Sun and the Moon but a greater and lesser light. Hence, it suggests that a lot of the Earth’s water was locked in the atmosphere, until the flood, creating diffuse illumination. This means nobody ever got exposed to direct sunlight. That and a vegetarian diet (God did not want anilmals killed for food until after the flood) would explain longer lifespans, even if those described in Genesis are exagerrated.
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I’m sorry, but this is all “flood geology” nonsense, for which there is not a shred of geological, hydrological, paleontological, or genetic evidence. This sort of biblical literalism lurks in the dark corners of the Internet, but rarely crawls out into the light of day at theological or scientific conventions. It is an enemy of the Catholic faith, for it creates the scandal of apparent ignorance on the part of Catholics.
 
buffalo said:
Now show me where this was overturned by an official Magisterial document.
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So soon? That was just 1909. Most people still believed the earth was only 5909 years and one week old.

It took orbiting the Earth, landing men on the Moon, sending probes all over the solar system and out into the galaxy before Galileo was exonerated in 1992. Since plate tectonics wasn’t even proposed until 1912, I figure the Magisterium has until about 2250 to reconsider the 1909 decision in light of the Geologic discoveries in that interim. 102 years is just too short a time to learn enough about the planet to reconsider something so important.

Back-up Answer: Vatican II trumps the need for a Magisterial reconsideration of such details. Took care of it in one fell swoop.
 
StAnastasia said:
I’m sorry, but this is all “flood geology” nonsense, for which there is not a shred of geological, hydrological, paleontological, or genetic evidence. This sort of biblical literalism lurks in the dark corners of the Internet, but rarely crawls out into the light of day at theological or scientific conventions. It is an enemy of the Catholic faith, for it creates the scandal of apparent ignorance on the part of Catholics.
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Well it was either Velikovsky’s comet or Von Daniken’s ancient astronauts then.👍

(I’m still partial to the Black Sea flood theory. Best way to explain both the Biblical and Gilgamesh accounts.)
 
buffalo said:
Concerning the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis [Response of the Biblical Commission, June 30th, 1909]

June 30, 1909 (AAS 1 [1909] 567ff; EB 332ff; Dz 2121ff)

I: Do the various exegetical systems excogitated and defended under the guise of science to exclude the literal historical sense of the first three chapters of Genesis rest on a solid foundation?
Answer: In the negative.

II: Notwithstanding the historical character and form of Genesis, the special connection of the first three chapters with one another and with the following chapters, the manifold testimonies of the Scriptures both of the Old and of the New Testaments, the almost unanimous opinion of the holy Fathers and the traditional view which the people of Israel also has handed on and the Church has always held, may it be taught that: the aforesaid three chapters of Genesis contain not accounts of actual events, accounts, that is, which correspond to objective reality and historical truth, but, either fables derived from the mythologies and cosmogonies of ancient peoples and accommodated by the sacred writer to monotheistic doctrine after the expurgation of any polytheistic error; or allegories and symbols without any foundation in objective reality proposed under the form of history to inculcate religious and philosophical truths; or finally legends in part historical and in part fictitious freely composed with a view to instruction and edification?
Answer: In the negative to both parts.
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Well … So should I consider the covering the whole Earth literal, or the timeframe literal, or did someone intentionally fabricate thousands of continual records in China going back until hundreds of years before the flood? There is one Chinese herbal manual used since about 700 years before the Biblical date of the flood.
 
Good morning, Peter John,

I think the flood account in Genesis is true. It’s only ignorance that says there’s not that much water on earth, because there could be clouds of water vapor in space, through which the earth passed at the time of the flood. I think that it’s valid Catholic faith to remember, “… with God all things are possible.”

God loves all of you,
Don
 
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