Jonah and the whale - It happened!

If you want to say that Jonah survived because of a miracle of God, I think I'll grant you that as being OK. But that does not seem to be the case.If your trying to sell that, outside of a Godly miracle, someone can survive as such, then I think your going to have a might hard sell. I don't think even small children would buy it.Most of all, how is taking the story as anything but a miracle of God, build support for the Bible.Moose

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You asserted that a man could not survive in a whale.

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OK - For the sake of this discussion, I'll concede that a man could survive in a whale (for 3 days wasn't it), without the intervention of a miracle of God. I really don't care, one way or the other.BUT, I would think that the essence of the Jonah and the whale story, is that God laid a miracle on Jonah. Science can accept that man exists, whales exist, and that a whale could have swallowed a man. As far as I'm concerned, it is not sciences business to either confirm or deny a miracle by God, that Jonah survived this event.YOU sure seem to be the one removing God from the equation. YOU sure seem to be the one who is denying a miracle by God, by trying to support the whale story as a plausible scientific reality.This action, coming from someone of your beliefs, makes no sense to me.MoosePs: Please use the little reply button at the base of the individual message, if you are replying to that message. Just like I am here.{Edited to add the "ps", which I had ommited when I did the copy from the Microcoft Word document - Moose}[This message has been edited by minnemooseus, 02-08-2004]

I think, that if the "Jonah and the Whale" is invoked as a miracle by God, science has no argument against it.If no miracle in invoked, what's the point of the story being in the Bible?I say, let it be a Godly miracle, and lay this topic to rest.Moose

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Moose granted him this for the purpose of argument,...

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I must make clear that this was a "don't care one way or the other" thing. I still would think that the message of the Bible was that God had a hand in saving Johah.Ken strikes me as that most rare individual, one who is arguing Biblical inerrancy from an atheistic position. Jonah lived - God wasn't part of it.By the way, a while back Ken was referring to material directed towards him, from "Minnesota". He referred to a message number, which was one of his own messages. I'm sure this "Minnesota" wasn't me.Cheers,
Moose

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I think most fundy's are happy to have a "scientifically possible" explanation.

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I guess there is a legitimacy, in recognizing that there are "levels of miraculous".There are the "total miracles" - Totally outside of any context of science, and thus not to be contested by science. Perhaps examples: The burning bush, Lot's wife turned to piller of salt.Then there are the "with a little help from God miracles" - At least (seemingly) partly outside any context of science, and still (IMO) not to be contested by science. Perhaps examples: Jonah and the whale.Then there are the "problematic miracles". They may be of the "total" variety, or the "little help" variety, but the kicker is that it would be expected that there would remain significant evidence of the event.I could accept, as a non-science contested miracle, part of the Noah's ark story. God could have laid some heavy miracles on Noah. The Ark got built; The animals got gathered; The animals somehow fit into the ark; The ark somwhow held together during the flood; The animals somehow survived, in the ark, during the flood.All this, if accepted as "heavily miraculous", could be considered outside of the considerations of science. BUT, the kicker is, that there is NO evidence of the flood having happened, which is very much part a legitimate consideration of science.Science will not conflict with the miraculous, as long as the miraculous does not conflict with what we can currently see in "the real world".Or, as I implied in my statements elsewhere - "The reality of what can be seen in the creation, trumps any "reality" of what may have been written about the creation".Moose