On Kinds... again.

how they fit enough food for the animals into the ark for 100 days that is...

Well then Mendy, I think you will find that you don't have many arguments with the science based thinkers here then. Most of us don't have any intention of fighting with individuals religeous beliefs as such.We do argue about any natural "proofs" of the supernatural. And we really fight with any attempt to mess with the teaching of science by those who pretend that they have scientific demonstarations of thier religious ideas.If you wish to believe in miracles and wish to believe most anything you are welcome to it. Just don't think that anyone who is more interested in how the natural world works is going to be all that interested in how one individual precieves the supernatural world.

(Note: all these comments are based on the KJV or NIV, I don't know how these differ (if at all) from the Torah versions.)No miracles are mentioned in the story. The story simply says he built a boat of a precise size and then he took the animals onto it in specified numbers; no mention is made of supernatural intervention. Firstly, why give precise boat measurements if God's just going to go all TARDIS on it? Secondly (IIRC) everywhere else in the bible that God makes a supernatural intervention it is mentioned as such.Finally while you are clearly smart enough to realise a natural interpretation is absurd, there are others (as have been mentioned) who are attempting to claim otherwise.

Mr Jack wrote, a while back:

quote:

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Er, yes. I'm aware of that but I couldn't find a picture to illustrate my point as well as yours does.

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A bit late I'm afraid, but here's one of my favourite pics
to show creationists:I think it's "kinda neat", as the colonials might say.
Certainly no sign of homologies there... Cheers, DT attempts to fix page width - The Queen[This message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 11-04-2003][This message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 11-04-2003]

First- i dont know where you get the biblical principle of - a miracle must be announced - as oppossing being able to see that from context. Also -here the story is G-d tells him to make a box like thing [note it doesnt say a 'boat' or 'ship' in the original hebrew its says 'teivah' which literally means a 'box']. a box can hardly expect to survive, expecially with that kind of baggage. Especially in those impossible conditions [what didnt anyone else in the time know how to build a boat? so why didnt the rest get on their boats?] it then says take all animals either as twos or sevens,depending on type. so we already said this cant be natural. you yourself agreed to that[although i have heard one rabbi say that he thought it meant a limited number of animals actually enter ..the remainder perished and from those that boarded the rest evolved to those found today..somehow i think youll prefer this rabbis explanaiton ]. When you look at the hebrew exegesis, they learn that the waters [from the deep that came up]were boiling waters...how could anything survive? yet the fish seem to survive...everything is covered, even over the highest mountains, yet later the dove finds a leaf from tree to prove that the waters resided [or is the idea there that it just found a leaf on the ground? need to check]...how did a tree grow so fast? how did the animals all survive together? how did he get that much food? drinking water? what did he do with the waste? what about light for animals that require light? didnt any animal die in those difficult conditions?how did he dowithout a mate? animals didnt rebel? how did they not get sick from lack of fresh air,excersize etc? so i think from the content one does see that a miracle is meant. and that is what is meant by the text. ie use your head man. So why the exact numbers? you could ask - if its a miracle, why bother building a 'boat' at all? G-d could just stick him on a cloud or something..i think a principle is G-d 'hides' miracles...under natural events...so he made noah build this ark but a miracle will occurr causing a woman to have all her pitchers fill miraculouly with oil - but she had to start with a little oil..miracles dont go on nothing [i think thats a talmudical statement]because in this physicla world -G-d hides his presence [to retain our free choice and even by miracles there has to 'appear' a natural explanation]......actually rashi, a medieval jewish commentator, says it took noah 120 years to build this ark -all for what -so ppl of his time will ask noah -whats up with the boat noah -and hell answer that G-d will destroy the world so change ur ways..and they didnt....[this is midrashic stuff i think]..this explains how G-d cld destroy a civilzation without warning them - i mean he sent jonah to warn one city of ninveh -what about a whole world? ...so the answer is - he did it seems..via noah....[ i think rashi is basing it on exegetical suff which i dont recall...] - anyway - what does TARDIS and IIRC mean?
be well

Well, listen - this is a forum on bible....and science...not only science..... so all biblical principles can be used..but im going to let this argument go, i hope you do the same.
btw, i notice that this whole forum [the creationists that is] is entirely christian... and jewish understadnign of things[ and they had it first] is ver differnet...
one day im going to start a topic on - jewish logic in belief in G-d... its not based on any 'proof' from text or trying to force science into verses...etc just a few extra biblical logical principles ...but as it is..i dont have time for my own posts here...

TARDIS is a reference to the masterful science fiction series Doctor Who, commonly understood to mean 'larger on the inside than the outside' in my country, but apparently not elsewhere. Sorry. The actual acronym stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, if you care.IIRC, is a common internet abbreviation for If I Recall Correctly. I can recall nowhere in the old or new testament where a miracle occurs without God's intervention being mentioned. It has been a while though so I could be wrong. You are right, of course, that the whole story is clearly absurd without miracles; that's why I think it's absurd - Full Stop.

My personal understanding is that God needed a sign of faith before Noah could be saved. That sign was building the Ark and the ridicule that Noah had to endure.As to the numbers of animals, it is quite obvious to me that it is rooted in Numerology. You know, the Sabbath is the seventh day, 14 generations from Adam to David and 14 generations from David to Jesus (7x2, I believe this is the geneology in Luke), 7 good deeds 7 times. Seven is a very holy number to Jewish numerologists. Therefore seven of all the clean animals and so forth.But I still don't understand the need to hide miracles. Surely the death of the firstborn preceding the Exodus was not precieved as a natural occurence. Do you think God was allowing the Pharoah free will when he killed his first born? Was Jonah given free will when he was swallowed by a fish?But, this is the christian viewpoint that I grew up with and was taught in college.

well, i'll have to look for examples but mean while -what about:
-when the 'mouth of the earth' opened and swallowed korach ?
-the various cases where the jordan river is split by prophets like eliyahu [elijah] and elisha
-naaman, general of aram curing his leprosy by dipping in the jordan river
-moses making the copper snake -look up at it and your cured!
-EVERYBODY 20 and up dies in the dessert [not one can survive neturally to old age?]
-that moses' burial ground was never found
-winning the battle against amalek depends on moses' hands going up and down!?
are these good examples of things thatG-d is not mentioned but are understood as miracles

well, i understand the looking for a sign of faith idea. i think however that he was chosen BEFORE his 'sign of faith'. Actually jewish traditon has it that though noah was a great man, he did NOT deserve completly to survive but was allowed to anyway. [i blanked out now and forgot the details here]
as for why 7 pure animals - i just dont know. it might be a mystic thing....
actually i know one medieval commentator ,rabbi david kimhi says -why so many pure animals? bc aftger the flodo noah and humanity were for the first time allowed to eat meat, and G-d preffered them eating from pure animals, so make sure there are more of those....they will produce more too..and in fact, to this day most of us [i odnt knwo about the far east htough] eat maninly 'kosher' pure animals -cow,calf,goat,chicken,turkey, etc not too much horse meat being eatne or hawk meat or cokaroaches..so it seems to have worked out...um..no offense but there are way more than 14 generations form adam to david.... from adam to moses is exactly 26 generations.... and then i'd have to look it up but id guess another 4-8 gens...so guess 30 or so... but not 14, no way.as for from david to jesus -cant say. no offense again, but i dont rely on NT at all.
what do you mean by 7 good deeds 7 times, i dont recognise the reference?as for 7 being an important number -- yes, bc its tied to the seventh day of sabbath, 7 year of shemittah [agricultural rest] and 7x7 yrs=jubilee -rest again...all the rest is a way of admitting that there is a G-d... so is there a tie between resting and the idea of sabbath and impure animals? i dont see it....do you?as for the diea of 'covering' miraceles- if a perosn sees a direct miracle - ie G-d talks to you -how can you then even have to struggle to search and find belief in G-d? theres no choice any mroe..so the point of life in a sens eis over....in a sense theres no test.... so G-d hides it in a way so that man, who rationalisez everything, will try to rationalize it....and nowhe must choose between being logical or rationalizing it away....the choice, the test is kept....jewishj though has it that all of existnece is in fact a miracle, but were so used to everythin that it becomes'noraml' why should our planet be in 'just' the right orbit to sustain life..not too close to the sun...not too far..and we just happen to have th eatmosphere we need.and the water... and the rain cycles...etc etc etc..right? a dead seed when given water and dunlight all of a sudden lives....a miracle..no its "nature"...its 'supposed' to be that way...think about it...yet we find no other life anywhere in the universe..and im no expert [hey experts..please correct me i want to leanr] but i dont think theyve found any planet or sattelite anywhere as conducive to life as ours...mars? europa? venus..ccrushing pressure, killer gases....
there are 2 exceptions to this rule:
[1] the exxodus story and generation -ther ethe point was to instill into one generation so many open miracles to utterly convince the jews thatt hre is G-d. From this one moment [or 40 yr moment of living in amiracle -how can 3,000,000 people survive ina desert for 40 yrs?] they carrid to the world the firm belief in G-d, so much so that in our time we need whole webstire to fight against this belief, since its so ingrained.... so that generation did its job well....but even they had a free willl...the choice of whether to obey....thats why their punishemnts are worse for smaller infracirons.. the more you now G-d, the closer you are, the more he expects from you....As for Jonah - jonah was a prophet given a mission which he somehow tried to refuse.....a prophet is an expceptional case again bc a prohpet may not 'opt out' of his mission... so he still had a choice to obey or not....but G-d wanted to teach him a lsson rather than just punishing him...bc he wanted him to fulfill th emission..wich he in the end did...

Could you give chapter and verse references for your examples, so I'm not left searching through the old testament for them?

You are absolutely correct, I was kind of winging it from memory. It's been 10 years since I took New Testament so most of the information is a little hazy. What I was actually alluding to was in Mathew 1:17 "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."I believe Mathew was written for the Jewish community to show them that Jesus of Nazareth had fulfilled the Messianic (sp?) prophecies, hence the 14 generational thing.I understand that you don't don't read the New Testament, in fact you probably don't like the term Old Testament. I was just using this as an example of the numerology in the Bible. Seven is just a holy number, period. That its applied to rest does not preclude it from being applied to other things, IMO. Oh, and the seven good deeds seven times, can't find it. Must be a figment of my over imaginative mind. I did however type in "seven times" as a keyword search on an online bible sight and found numerous passages with that phrase in it. Most of them do not relate to the Sabbath or Jubilee, a lot of them from the Torah. I understand your logic, but it still seems selective when looking at events in Jewish history, which you hint at here . . . My memory is a little hazy, but didn't the Sun stop for Joshua's army? I think obvious miracles happened after the wandering in the dessert. I could be wrong, correct me if I am. Interesting hypothesis, and I think it is covered on another recent thread, so I will be brief. If life were found off of Earth, what would this mean to your interpretation of the Torah or Jewish interpretations of life? It's an interesting topic, if just for debate.It's great that you are one this site, it gets a little bland with all of the christian fundamentalists sometimes. Hope you post more. BTW, I hope I didn't offend you in anyway, I'm more curious than judgmental.

Or rather in this case, baraminology recapitulates development would be the watch phrase. I could not understand when my Grandfather said o r's p but I could make SOME sense of PrO as in snakes it was clear to me that growth and development were TWO different things. SOooo, if your translation into English is correct the answer may lie in biology for/as particulate inheritance claims against Russian biology still failed to envelop Mendel's symbolic difference of the parental and hybrid (not what we have instead which has been a proliferation of genetic exceptions to Mendels laws). As I understand it the current Creationist critique however beyond its positive contribution baraminically still is hooked on negating Greek contributions especially Aristotle's while it may indeed be the physicist that needs to clean house (before a more extended criticsm of Aristotle can be launched in the community) (on the history of atomism)for/therefore this INTERPRETATION of the Bible may remand that the "particle" while not in the "sex"(or rather is so in a division of Aristotle causation causes) IS NOT the DNA but in principle, which is thought of as material instead of Boscovich lack of compenetration for instance. Just a guess. I saw what you meant by Owl vs other Owl etc.[This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 11-07-2003]

sorry, i just gave them from memory..dont even have them now..

From Abraham to David are 14 -thats right. From David till th eexile i thought was 16, but need to check.
I cant comment on why Mathew was written or for whom, but i can tell you [as ithink you know] that Jews dont consider Jesus to have filled the Messianic prophesies or the basic expectations of a Messiah...
youre right about the sun stopping for Joshua for a while.... the only asnwer i can give is that that whole generation lived in 'open' miracles... so they lived through exodus, giving of the Torah, manna feeding them and the wars agaisnt the Canaanites which included that miracle..but i think after the wars and the capture, i dont recall any blatant supernatural miracle on a grand scale....occasionaly here and there an individual prophet will do something if the nation is at the edge of being lost.. like Elijah on Mt. Carmel and the fire from the sky....... but i think in general, miracles are hidden....even by the Reed Sea splitting..it says an eatern wind blew....mayube to cover it then too...
Well, so far no tohe rlife forms. If other life were found i dont think that would upset anything. So theres other life - that doesnt really change the nature of our belief except that g-d created life elsewhere - im not sure the torah precludes that per se. But first we have to get to that point...So far, it hasnt been a problem...Likewise i hope havnt offended you.