Tuesday, October 28, 2008

You've Gotta Love Arguments Like These...

The Jewish Philosopher* has a post about the Flood on his blog. In his post, he brings up the questions that many people have about the flood -- where did the water come from, where did it go, how did all the animals fit, etc. He then answers it by stating, simply, that God did it. Or, to use his words:

The answer is: God did it. In other words, these events cannot be explained according to the laws of physics, chemistry, biology etc. They can only be explained by miraculous divine intervention.

He follows this up later by taking the view that the lack of evidence (and, perhaps, the evidence of lack) does not matter. He says:

There is no geological evidence of the Biblical Deluge, however when one considers the miraculous nature of the Deluge, this is hardly surprising. Surely no one would argue that the lack of scorch marks on Mount Sinai proves that the Ten Commandments were never given there.

OK, that's fine. If you choose to simply ignore all the physical evidence and posit that God deliberately created counter-evidence to a global flood, you're free to do so. *I* don't believe it, but I won't stand in your way of believing it either.

However, in the same post where he says that physical evidence doesn't matter, he brings archaeological evidence of the dating of the Flood**. In other words, his position is this: where evidence exists to support me, I welcome it. Where evidence exists against my position, I'll simply ignore it by saying "God did it..."

You've gotta love these "heads I win, tails you lose" games.

The Wolf

Related posts:

Exactly Whom Is Doing The Arguing? (on the approach Young Earth Creationists SHOULD take)
Of All God's Miracles Large and Small (on the Flood and miracles)


* Believe it or not, this is the post I was going to publish about the Jewish Philosopher today, not the one I put up earlier today.
** I'm not going to comment on whether or not his evidence is correct or not. It's not relevant to the point.

15 comments:

Frum Heretic said...

I just posted this about an hour ago:

http://frumheretic.blogspot.com/2008/10/dang-he-busted-my-mabul-crapometer.html

Anonymous said...

Anyone reading the story of the Flood and taking the time to look at the specifications of the Ark must accept that it was one miracle after another. The ship was a triangle with the flat, heavy part at the bottom. A normal ship like that would never float!
What's wrong with seeing it all as one large miracle that defies natural law? Especially as the Creator of that natural law was pulling it off?

Nice Jewish Guy said...

>>the ship was a triangle with the flat, heavy part at the bottom. A normal ship like that would never float!

Says who? There are plenty of boats with flat bottoms. Barges? Come on.

The "world" could simply mean the populated world; and we all know that many parts of the world were unpopulated for millenia. No one denies there was a regional flood. So if a flood affected the populated world, then for all practical purposes, it affected the World.

No?

And Jacob Stein couldn't think his way out of a wet paper bag.

Anonymous said...

What I don't get is why Wolf keeps arguing with him. Waste of time.

Zach Kessin said...

In terms of Evolution v Creation debate when it last came up in a courtroom the ID folks (IE the creationists) got their buts handed to them.


The case in Question was Kitzmiller Et Al Vs Dover. You can find it on Wikipedia or watch the nova episode on it (Its on youtube)

The judge ruled that ID was not science and slammed the folks pushing it. He even went so far to recommend a few members of the school board be charged with perjury. And this was a right wing christian Bush appointed judge.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, but that's just stupid. Intelligent design isn't science, it's an opinion. That's the real problem is all of this.

The evolutionists prove evolution happened and then announce "See, there's no God!" The ID guys prove evolution happened and then announced "See, this is how God made it happen!" But neither of the conclusions are scientific, rather they're philosophic.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of what's driving the ID crowd is the evolution crowd's crossing from science to scientISM in the first place. Not that it excusees the ID's, mind you, I'm just trying to note the cause and effect.

jewish philosopher said...

Evolution is a science? Anyone earned a Nobel for contributions to evolution?

BrooklynWolf said...

Anyone ever heard of a Nobel for contributions to creationism?

The Wolf

BrooklynWolf said...

(N.B.: I am, of course, a Creationist. But the argument that JP uses is fallacious because the same could be said about his point of view).

The Wolf

Rich said...

Take a step back from the Mabul issue and our blogging buddy JP for a sec.

The bigger issue I have with his type of thought process is that I think it is intellectually dishonest. Basically, he (and others like him) begin with the claim that the whole Torah is 100% literally true. Then, when proof or logic get in the way, they just decide that that section must be allegorical since they KNOW it is true.

I know plenty of people who would love to take kosher as allegorical and take the laws of kashrut to mean that we should take care to properly nutrient our bodies :) Or something like that.

Rich
http://frustratedorthojew.blogspot.com/

Rich said...

Garnel - since you mentioned the boat itself . . .

Do you find it odd that the torah is so specific about the dimensions, but then glosses over other stuff regarding the flood?

Also, I took several classes in college some specific to ship building and some general engineering classes. personally, i question whether the boat would be sea worthy (and not because of a flat bottom)

Anonymous said...

'Evolution is a science?'

No Evolution in a set of ideas in Biology, which is a science. Teaching Biology without Evolution would be like teaching physics without mentioning gravity. There are a great many things in biology that can not be explained without Evolution.

' Anyone earned a Nobel for contributions to evolution?'

Yes, quite a few, but I would have to call my father (Who is a biologist) for a list. I spend my time on astronomy

BrooklynWolf said...

Zach,

Don't you realize that astronomy is just as bad as biology? :)

The Wolf

Zach Kessin said...

Of Course I do.

My real "Problem" is that I have enough background that generally I can spot someone trying to BS about ether without much problem.

Though I know more about Astronomy. For Biomedical stuff ask Charlie Hall.

Yirmiahu said...

It is not just a matter that God "could" do something. The disanalogy between a miraculous event and a natural one is too great to make inferences about what we should expect of the former from the latter. This is especially so when the narrative itself includes outcomes which would be inconsistent with a natural flood.

http://machzikeihadas.blogspot.com/2008/10/parshas-noach-evidence-for-global-flood.html