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Dave_B
Guest
or do we admit this tale is an unpleasant myth?
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kentuckyliz
Guest
Why do you devalue men?
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Dolezal
Guest
Yes.
Genesis 6:17: Thou must know that I mean to bring a flood of waters over the earth, and destroy every creature that lives and breathes under heaven; all that earth holds must perish.
No.
I Peter 3:20: Long before, they had refused belief, hoping that God would be patient with them, in the days of Noe. That ark which Noe was then building, in which a few souls, eight in all, found refuge as they passed through the waves.
II Peter 3:5, 6: They are fain to forget how, long ago, heaven stood there, and an earth which God’s word had made with water for its origin, water for its frame; and those were the very means by which the world, as it then was, came to perish, overwhelmed by water.
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Nimzovik
Guest
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Dave_B
Guest
Ok, I’ll rephrase the Q. Did Jesus drown millions of men, women, children and aminals in noah’s flood?
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Dave_B
Guest
So you think the earth is 6000 years old, despite all the evidence to the contrary?
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Fidelis
Guest
How did Dolezal’s answer imply that? There are ways of accepting the basic facuality of the Flood account without necessarily holding a Young Earth position. (Dolezal may hold a Young Earth position, for all I know, but the issue of the basic historicity of the Flood account is a separate one)
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centurionguard
Guest
Biblical dates all throughout scripture text are often conjectured; especially the writtings of Genesis. One could easily include the whole Pentateuch dates being misunderstood in exact terms. I’ve heard some conjectured estimates that put the Flood anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago. Not 7000 or 8000 years as many suspect.
The Jewish people call this year 2013 in their own Hebrew calendar year 5772 from the time of Abraham
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davidmlamb
Guest
I believe the story of Noah’s Ark is an inspired Fable. A Fable is a story with a lesson to be learned. The Ark represents God’s covenant with man. Those who enter God’s covenant are safe. The Church is “The Ark of the Covenant.” Those who entered the Ark were safe from death, they gained redemption and thus salvation from a catastrophic flood, Those who enter the Church, through baptism and obey God’s commands gain salvation from spiritual death.
Peace,
David
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JRKH
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GEddie
Guest
Assuming this event transpired as described, every single one of these beings would have died in any case; and it would have been just as distressful to them whenever and however it happened.
God as the author of natural life can terminate it as He sees fit.
ICXC NIKA
God as the author of natural life can terminate it as He sees fit.
ICXC NIKA
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Josephene
Guest
Would it not be more truthful to see that The Lord , in His respect for the freedom of those He had allowed to exist , chose not to interfere and allowed nature to do what it was to do , nature that was possibly very much influenced by the evil of the humans !
Hopefully , many of those found repentance and mercy , when The Lord descended to the abode of the dead , after His death !
Many who are under the grip of evil , in our times too , may they too find His mercy and even trust in His merits , to call on His mercy ,through repentance for the wickedness of the past generations too - our God is beyond time and His merits are infinite - way more than any flood waters !
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and the whole world !
Hopefully , many of those found repentance and mercy , when The Lord descended to the abode of the dead , after His death !
Many who are under the grip of evil , in our times too , may they too find His mercy and even trust in His merits , to call on His mercy ,through repentance for the wickedness of the past generations too - our God is beyond time and His merits are infinite - way more than any flood waters !
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and the whole world !
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COPLAND_3
Guest
Mankind was so corrupt at that point that even the women and children were beyond repair. Yes, women can be evil too, men do not have a monopoly on evil no matter what the radical femenists say. As for the children, God has foreknowledge, meaning he knew ahead of time that the corrupt generation bore children that were going to carry on the moral rot of their parents.
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centurionguard
Guest
When looking at Genesis specifically as a Catholic its far beyond being just a Fable.
Although it is not a dogma of the Catholic Faith that Genesis is either a myth or historical, yet we are obliged to accept with religious assent that the Genesis account on creation is historical narrative in the literal sense.
philvaz.com/apologetics/p100.htm
The Pontifical Biblical Commission enumerated nine “narrated facts” in Genesis whose “literal and historical meaning” should not be questioned: 1. The creation of all things by God in the beginning of time; 2. The special creation of man; 3. The formation of the first woman from man; 4. The unity of the human race; 5. The original happiness of our first parents in a state of justice, integrity, and immortality; 6. The divine command laid upon man to prove his obedience; 7. the transgression of that divine command at the instigation of the devil under the form of a serpent; 8. The fall of our first parents from their primitive state of innocence; 9. The promise of a future redeemer. Catholic Bible Dictionary, page 308, Ed. Dr. Scott Hahn
Therefore, in obedience to the Magisterium of the Church we must reject the opinion that Genesis is a myth, and accept the ancient tradition of the Church that the Genesis account on creation is a historical narrative in the literal sense.
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cornbread_r2
Guest
Yet, according to the story, God saved eight humans who were all still fallen creatures and who, in turn, also bore descendents who weren’t apparently any better than the people destroyed in the flood.
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HansTrappist
Guest
The Flood was a historical event.
Noah really existed and really did build an Ark.
In Matthew 24:37-40, Jesus tells us that:
As it was in Noah’s day, so will it be when the Son of Man comes. For in those days before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept all away. It will be like this when the Son of Man comes.
And, yes, men, women and children were chastised by God. God is Merciful but He is also Just. Sin brings death and suffering upon everyone in society, the innocent and the guilty alike. God gets to set the rules and then when his creatures break the rules, God gets to decide what is an acceptable punishment. For a mere creature to whine and complain about the punishment after breaking the rule and engaging in wickedness, is rather laughable. In the Old Testament, in the *Book of Wisdom *we read that:
But children of adulterers, these shall have no future,
the offspring of an unlawful bed must vanish.
Even if they live long, they will count for nothing,
their old age will go unhonoured at the last;
while if they die early, they have neither hope
nor comfort on the day of doom.
Yes, harsh is the fate of a race of evil-doers.
Better to have no children yet to have virtue,
since immortality perpetuates its memory
and God and men both think highly of it.
Present, we imitate it,
absent, we long for it;
crowned, it holds triumph through eternity,
having striven for blameless prizes and emerged the victor.
But the swarming brood of the godless shall bring no advantage;
offspring of bastard stock, it will never strike deep roots,
never put down firm foundations.
Branch out for a time they may;
but, frailly rooted, they will sway in the wind,
be torn up by the violence of the storm;
hardly grown, their branches will be snapped off,
their fruit be useless,
too unripe to eat,
fit for nothing.
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Dolezal
Guest
No, I accept a 4.5 billion year old earth and the standard Big Bang theory singularity, a point of infinitely high temperature and density from which the cosmos arose 13.7 billion years ago (but not as an ultimate explanation because the singularity was contingent). I also accept Christ, St. Peter, and St. Paul’s historical claims about the flood.
Matthew 24:37-39: When the Son of Man comes, all will be as it was in the days of Noe; in those days before the flood, they went on eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the time when Noe entered the ark, and they were taken unawares, when the flood came and drowned them all; so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
Luke 17:26-27: In the days when the Son of Man comes, all will be as it was in the days of Noe; they ate, they drank, they married and were given in marriage, until the day when Noe went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
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HansTrappist
Guest
The age of the earth is not really the important question.
The more interesting question is, how old is the Human race? And, when was Adam created? It is in trying to answer this question where the “6,000 years old” comes into play. Modern scientists still can’t reach a consensus on the birth date of Adam. They keep revising their estimates to an earlier and earlier date, getting closer and closer to the Biblical estimate of around 4000 B.C:
“Mitochondrial DNA mutation rates were measured directly (Parsons, Thomas J., et al., A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region, Nature Genetics vol. 15, April 1997, pp. 363-367). The mutation rate in a segment of the control region of mitochondrial DNA was directly measured by comparing mitochondrial DNA from siblings and from parents and their offspring. Mitochondrial DNA was found to mutate about 20 times faster than previously thought, at a rate of one mutation (substitution) every 33 generations, approximately. In this section of the control region, which has about 610 base pairs, humans typically differ from one another by about 18 mutations. By simple mathematics, it follows that the human race is about 300 generations old. If one assumes a typical generation is about 20 years, this gives an age of about 6000 years.” (cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/humanity.html)
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cornbread_r2
Guest
As I understand it, the scientific consensus is that anatomically modern humans have been around for about 200k years. I’m unaware of any concerted mainstream scientific effort to establish Adam’s birth date.
Also, if you’re going to cite a reference that gives the impression of being from a reputable source, it might be advisable to cite one that doesn’t have the following disclaimer on their home page:
This material does not necessarily represent any organization, including the University of North Carolina and the State of North Carolina.
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COPLAND_3
Guest
There is a difference between being a sinner (fallen) and being wicked. God being all-knowing can determine among people who have hope for conversion and who has no hope. God being a just Judge, I give Him the benefit of the doubt about His Judgment upon humanity.
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