Some water measurements for the Flood

Some physicalistic picture of actual openings in the sky as "windows" is the literalistic rendering I'd object to, which leaves metaphor as the meaning of "windows." I would think the word itself as applied to the sky or heavens would be clue enough that it has to be a metaphor.

WHAT example of a single person moving God to change things on a great scale? There's the faith of a mustard seed comment but otherwise what are you talking about?There are lots of scriptures that imply that you have to pray in a certain way to get results, pray persistently, fervently, unceasingly and so on. The woman who kept bugging the judge until he finally gave her the justice she wanted is one example. Faith is a gift, though, and those with great faith may accomplish more in prayer than those with less faith. I extrapolate from these biblical references along with personal experience of course. I have books on prayer too that discuss it as a practice you can develop, quoting lots of scripture of course. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Moses stayed God's hand when he was about the destroy Israel, how about Hezekiah, Nehemiah, what about when Ezra intercedes for Israel, and Daniel's prayer for the captives?Your response really doesn't address my question, though.Yes persistence and faith are important, but that doesn't justify saying: However, this is WAY off topic, so I will let it go.HBD

Except that I've backed my position up with detail and Bible text; do that and you've got something. Sham and unbiblical refer to your position and not to your personally. If I call you a shyster for perpetrating a sham, that would be name calling. But it would also be wrong because I accept that you believe what you are posting. You've provided next to nothing. You have refused to answer any of the most obvious questions about the water/vapor canopy. But I believe you are right when you say that there is nothing more. You don't have any better answers. You posted a topic in the science forums. These forums are not a soap box for you to spout off Creation Science without response or debate. You have a blog for that kind of exposition and besides that its all been done in more detail elsewhere. Some sites even attempt to address the questions I've asked you. When you post stuff here, you should expect to be asked to back it up. I owe you no apology for insisting on that.Quite frankly, even indulging your 'understanding' on Biblical terms only is a courtesy here. I didn't even ask you for any evidence for your position.

No need to check any of it, although you are welcome to do so. If water was water back then, and if spheres were spheres, your vapor canopy is impossible. Those are the only assumptions. If there was a vapor canopy, its existence was a miracle and it's condensation was another miracle.Do you agree that water back then was like water today? Or are you going to argue that back then the fundamental laws of physics and chemistry were wildly different and water was something totally unlike water today?Or perhaps the formulas for the surface area and its volume were different?Maybe energy wasn't conserved? Magically heat energy disappeared?That's all that my analysis is based on. It's valid and correct until you come up with some valid issue {hah!} The Bible indicate the existence of something totally unlike a vapor canopy. There are no interpretations of that reference that are viable other than a miracle. Or a universe totally unlike the one in which we live. Oh, it could rain for forty days and nights. Just not enough to make any significant contribution to a global fludde. The analysis is simple and based on fundamental physical and geometrical properties. If you can come up with a mitigating factor that might (hah!) make the vapor canopy viable. However, the lack of any possible non-miraculous mitigating factor has led YECs to abandon the vapor canopy, except for the looniest of the looniest of the ignorant loons. Anyone who's actually investigated it, and there have been lots of YECs who have, has given up on the idea. Just ain't viable.

Yeah, God couldn't do that, create water and pour it down on the Earth. He's far too impotent. I guess we know that because you told him he couldn't and he does whatever you say?

Hard to see how Elijah and the prophets of Baal is, first, about prayer, and second, about affecting things involving millions on a worldwide scale, and all your other examples are about God's people praying for God's people, and God's chosen prophets and leaders too. I'm thinking of Americans praying to move the governments of the Middle East and Africa to stop persecuting millions of people. I hope we have success, and the fact that Meriam Ibraham was released from her Sudanese imprisonment is encouraging but of course a lot of active intervention was required along with prayer.But yes this is off topic.

What?!

Totally ignores the main point of my post. WHY is it obvious that referring to "windows" in the sky a significant clue that it is meant to be taken metaphorically?The Ancient Hebrew Cosmology image presents a plausible model for how the universe works and is based on Biblical ideas. It is how the ancients view the universe and it explained the know characteristic of the universe. It doesn't present an impossible situation - there is no reason that I can think of why this model couldn't be an accurate representation of our universe.But neither of us believe that it actually represents reality. Why?Seeing as you hold that Biblical evidence trumps all other knowledge including science...While I, on the other hand, accept the Bible as the Word of God, but also accept that we can understand the reality around us and that understanding can change the way we understand and interpret the Bible.And yet we come to the same conclusion on this issue. Why?Do you also accept that our understanding of the reality around us (understanding we gain from science, for example) changes how we understand and interpret the Bible?If Biblical evidence trumps all other knowledge, then why could there not be "windows" in heaven?HBD

I don't reject scientific knowledge at all, except where it clearly contradicts the Bible. In this case, though, literal openings in heaven contradict science -- contradict simple observation -- and it isn't necessary to take them literally from a biblical point of view either. The Bible uses metaphor a lot so there is no problem with taking such an expression as metaphorical. In fact I'd think even an ancient Israelite should have taken it as metaphorical. All you have to do is look at the sky. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me you let science do a lot more than just change the way we interpret the Bible, or like No Nukes if the contradiction is too severe you just decide to interpret the Bible allegorically or something like that? Because the contradiction isn't all that severe, or in fact there really isn't a contradiction at all. The Bible often does use metaphor. No, I never look at it that way although of course I notice that there are no actual windows or openings in the sky, which affects my understanding that the word must be metaphorical, but I would assume even the ancients should have seen it that way so their physicalistic rendering seems odd to me. Nobody reads the Bible in a total vacuum, that would be impossible. See above.It's a natural reading in my opinion.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Interesting. For the parts of the flood story where it's "obvious" that it must be miraculous - such as the animals arriving at the ark two by two from all points of the globe - you are ok for them to be miraculous. The parts where you want there to be a "natural" explanation but where there plainly isn't; it's metaphorical. But where there is still some tiny hope that you can shoehorn in some part of science that fits your model, you still feel the need to do so.I don't get it. Make the whole damn thing miraculous and we have no argument with you. What's with the need to make something natural that is claimed by god himself to be god's work? Trying to say that it was a natural event diminishes god, reduces its religious power to zero and makes the event humdrum.You're shooting your beliefs in the metaphorical foot.

Makes the destruction of the entire world by water "humdrum?" You must be joking.Again I don't see a problem if you want to call it a miracle either although I don't see it as a miracle myself and I think I've made the case for that. The whole creation science enterprise treats the event as natural, that's the reason they try to explain it in naturalistic terms.I don't see why it matters ultimately, He still brought the Flood for the purpose of doing away with that sinful world. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Your statement is incorrect. Examples to the contrary have been provided in this thread.

OK, some see it as miraculous. Hard to keep that in mind it seems so silly to me.

In other words, you totally reject the scientific method.If the scientific method is valid, it it valid whether one agrees with the results or not, and it is valid whether the results agree with the bible or not.To pick and choose based on the results is to reject the method completely.But then you've told us this before.Given all of this, you have no right whatsoever to even try to pretend to do science. You have forfeited all claims to objectivity, reason, logic, and use of evidence.