The Impossibility Of The Flood

Watching the debates on this forum, something has struck me.There are various views we could take with regard to the Flood:(1) It could only have happened by a miracle; and the evidence shows that it happened.(2) It could only have happened by a miracle; and the evidence shows that it didn't happen.(3) It could have happened without a miracle; and the evidence shows that it didn't happen.(4) It could have happened without a miracle; and the evidence shows that it happened.Now, the curious thing that strikes me is that when creationists argue for the "vapor canopy", or whatever, trying to make the Flood explicable in natural terms, they are arguing for proposition (4).But this is no use to them.By analogy, I am convinced that thunder and lightning happen, and that they are possible without a miracle, since they can be explained in purely natural terms. For this reason, I don't take their existence as evidence for Thor the Thunder God, because I have a naturalistic explanation for it.In the same way, if someone could convince me that the Flood happened and that it was possible without a miracle, then I wouldn't see this as evidence for Jehovah the Genocide God, because the creationists would also have furnished me with a naturalistic explanation. I'd be able to say: "Sure, the flood happened, but we can explain it perfectly well by the vapor canopy theory, without need for any divine intervention. So that's how it happened, and the fact that the Hebrews attributed it to their god instead of the vapor canopy is of no more significance that the fact that the Norse attributed thunder and lightning to Thor."Surely what creationists need to argue for is proposition (1): that the evidence shows that the Flood happened, and that it contravenes the laws of nature and so requires a miraculous explanation.Discuss.

I'd have stuck it in "Geology And The Great Flood" or "Is It Science?" Not Social Issues or "Bible Study".Maybe "Is It Science?" would be best.

I have absolutely no idea what creationists will reply to this, that's why I raised the question.Please put it in "Is It Science?"

I thought I'd bump this thread. Here we have dear old dotty old Buzsaw attributing Noah's Flood to the meteor strike which in reality we associate with the KT boundary.Now apart from everything else that's wrong with that, here we have another case of what this thread is about. He's looking for a naturalistic explanation for something that the Bible just attributes to the will of God.When it comes to explaining some real thing, such as the diversity of species, then creationists are quite happy to attribute it to God doing magic. But when it comes to an imaginary thing that didn't happen, such as the Flood, they go looking for materialistic explanations to shore it up.Why?

But what I'm discussing here is not their attempts to show that the Flood occurred, but their attempts to show that the Flood could have occurred, as a natural phenomenon, without the need for divine intervention.Why are they doing this? When it comes to things that really exist and have a well-evidenced naturalistic explanation, they insist that the naturalistic explanation is bogus and that God did it by magic. But when it comes to this miraculous flood that the Bible attributes to the will of God, they try to write God out of the picture and seek a purely naturalistic explanation.I am puzzled as to what can be going through their heads when they do this.

But that is not what they do.Look, if they tell me that Jesus walked on water then their whole point is that that would be a miracle.If they then tried to shore up their account by providing naturalistic explanations like saying: "Well, maybe he had big styrofoam boots strapped to his feet, and the boots were painted blue so that no-one saw them in the water, and maybe Saint Peter distracted them at the crucial moment by shouting "hey everyone, look over there", and ..."Well, you see my point, I hope. They try to make the miracle more plausible by making it less miraculous.

Yeah, yeah. God hides. Why does God hide? Why? Until you show your working, I have every reason to doubt it.Incidentally, why doesn't the Bible mention the meteor strike> The Bible says nothing about a warmer climate. Well, you should, but obviously you don't. Hence, for example, your ability to pretend that dinosaurs are the only extinct reptiles, a feat of blindness to the fossil record so total that I'm at a loss to see how you can manage it.

Don't be silly.