Kirby D. P.
Member
- Joined
- May 12, 2015
- Messages
- 393
Yes. Just keep in mind that's different from really wanting dinosaurs around.Lord, why are there no dinosaurs and t rexes around today? This guy really really wants to know!
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SignUp Now!Yes. Just keep in mind that's different from really wanting dinosaurs around.Lord, why are there no dinosaurs and t rexes around today? This guy really really wants to know!
Oo! Job! My favorite! BRB...Ok kirby...you got a Bible?
Turn to Job chapter 41
"...God's saving work at the time of the flood did not completely fulfill the promise of salvation..."
Ah. Thank you. That is actually a very clear and comprehensible answer. And it seems to cohere quite naturally with my understanding of Christian doctrine. Thanks for something significant to chew on.
(If you don't mind saying, what about it do you find over-simplistic?)
Oo! Job! My favorite! BRB...
...Note that God cursed the serpent above all the other animals and told the serpent to eat dust...
Hi, folks. A friendly atheist here. I’ve been thinking about the tale of Noah’s ark and something occurred to me that I don’t recall ever hearing discussed (or at least discussed in any meaningful detail) by the more popular apologists in lecture, or debate or youtube vids.
I admit, it is exactly the nitpicky thing a skeptic would ask, but I promise I do not offer it here as an excuse for some sort of fight. I am just genuinely interested in thoughts from people of faith. Also, it is a little science-y. I am neither a scientist nor an expert and I do not expect anyone here to be, either. If you know of a site or some other resource that would present a good faith-based perspective, I’d definitely be glad to check it out.
Anyway, here’s my question:
Acknowledging that God commanded Noah to take between 1 and 7 pairs of each kind of animal with him on the ark to keep them from being blotted out from the world, to wit: “…two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive,” Gen. 6:20 (KJV), what are some (of your own) Christian thoughts on the extinction of what is estimated to be several billion animal species between then (let’s allow roughly 4,000 years ago) and now?
I know there is controversy among certain Christians over the distinction between “species” and “kinds” of animals. But I think the issue is ambivalent to both classifications. It is just as valid to ponder the extinction of species like Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops as that of “kinds” like bipedal dinosaurs and quadruped, horned dinosaurs.
I wonder because the reason God charges Noah with his mission is explicitly “to keep them alive,” or, in other words, to stave off extinction.
The range of answers I can imagine (which is, admittedly, quite a limitation) are:
1. These animals became extinct BEFORE the flood. But this conflicts with notions that the fauna of the Earth is eternal from generation to generation, etc. And it conflicts with assertions like, “Dinosaurs accompanied Noah and his family in the ark.”
2. These animals became extinct AFTER the flood. But this would seem to conflict with God’s omniscience and/or omnipotence. If he knew they would become extinct after the flood, he did not mention it to Noah. There is no mention in the rest of the Bible that God reconsidered he decision to keep such species/kinds alive, nor does/do the author(s) of the Bible mention nor even seem to notice the vanishing of such a vast diversity of wildlife (several times more varied than what we can observe today). Indeed, there is no extra-Biblical evidence that humans noticed this striking decimation of huge swaths of the animal kingdom over the brief course of 4000 years. And this great extinction is even more dramatic. To the best of my knowledge there is no record of any mass extinction since the time of Christ, so these creatures must have almost all perished in just the two millennia between Noah and the crucifixion. It seems inconsistent that God deliberately saved all kinds of animals just 2,000 years after creation without either knowing that they were all going to go extinct in the subsequent 2,000 years, or without being able save them during those 2,000 years. Or choosing (without informing any humans) to allow them to become extinct.
3. Specific “species” may have become extinct since Noah, but representatives of their “kinds” still survive. If this is the case, then we should be able to identify extant representatives today of every “kind” of animal thought to have been extinct. So, Triceratops might be extinct, but its “kind” survives. One could argue that Tricerotops and rhinos are of the same “kind,” but not any more persuasively than claiming a surviving relic of Ticeratops’s “kind” is the Nile Crocodile. And, I would argue, any definition of the term “kind” that would include any two of rhino, croc and Triceratops is so ambiguous as to be meaningless, and that the diversity of wildlife it is suggested Noah took onboard the Ark exceeds his instructions of between 2 and 7, and NO MORE THAN 2 and 7, pairs of each kind of creature.
4. No animals have ever gone extinct. But this is to ignore evidence for the extinction of literally billions of different species and does not explain the apparent absence of any of these creatures in the present day.
5. All evidence of extinct species are forgeries. It would be easy to scoff at this as absurd, but even if we refrain from doing so, proponents of young Earth creation would have to go back and entirely re-jigger what theories they have developed till now. Did Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops ever actually exist? If so, why are they not around today? If not, why assert they rode in the Ark with everybody else. And why haven’t young Earth creation scientists successfully debunked such hoaxes?
I’ll also add that a fallen world state should have no bearing on the matter. Noah’s flood occurred long after the expulsion from Eden. The animals God saved through Noah were of a world every bit as fallen as today. Indeed, one could argue, the world into which the flood survivors emerged was substantially more pure, having been ritually cleansed by floodwaters, than the world they left behind. Yet, if they existed at any time, they are definitely (well… almost certainly) extinct now. Remember, BILLIONS of species.
Just for fun, one high-end estimate of extinct species tallies them at about 5 billion. (Again, how many “kinds” these represent is not the interesting part, at least for me.) If we allow 1,447 BC as the exact year of the food (A typical given date. I found this one in an essay at creation.com) and species began to suffer extinction at regular intervals from the moment they disembarked, about 164 species would have to have been dying off on the hour, every hour, of every day since then till now.
I don’t point this out as any kind of “gotchya.” I just think it’s a cool and staggering permutation of what is necessitated by a literal reading of the Ark narrative.
As I say, I am genuinely interested in any of your thoughts. I have made a very cursory sampling of available young Earth creation material, especially Answers in Genesis. Everything I’ve examined so far has struck me as intellectually unsatisfying and technically insufficient. However, if you have a good opinion of any particular resource I would be just as happy to discuss those as well.
Thank you for any consideration. I look forward to dialoging with any of you. Cheers.
KIRBY
Hi, folks. A friendly atheist here. I’ve been thinking about the tale of Noah’s ark and something occurred to me that I don’t recall ever hearing discussed (or at least discussed in any meaningful detail) by the more popular apologists in lecture, or debate or youtube vids.
I admit, it is exactly the nitpicky thing a skeptic would ask, but I promise I do not offer it here as an excuse for some sort of fight. I am just genuinely interested in thoughts from people of faith. Also, it is a little science-y. I am neither a scientist nor an expert and I do not expect anyone here to be, either. If you know of a site or some other resource that would present a good faith-based perspective, I’d definitely be glad to check it out.
Anyway, here’s my question:
Acknowledging that God commanded Noah to take between 1 and 7 pairs of each kind of animal with him on the ark to keep them from being blotted out from the world, to wit: “…two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive,” Gen. 6:20 (KJV), what are some (of your own) Christian thoughts on the extinction of what is estimated to be several billion animal species between then (let’s allow roughly 4,000 years ago) and now?
I know there is controversy among certain Christians over the distinction between “species” and “kinds” of animals. But I think the issue is ambivalent to both classifications. It is just as valid to ponder the extinction of species like Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops as that of “kinds” like bipedal dinosaurs and quadruped, horned dinosaurs.
I wonder because the reason God charges Noah with his mission is explicitly “to keep them alive,” or, in other words, to stave off extinction.
The range of answers I can imagine (which is, admittedly, quite a limitation) are:
1. These animals became extinct BEFORE the flood. But this conflicts with notions that the fauna of the Earth is eternal from generation to generation, etc. And it conflicts with assertions like, “Dinosaurs accompanied Noah and his family in the ark.”
2. These animals became extinct AFTER the flood. But this would seem to conflict with God’s omniscience and/or omnipotence. If he knew they would become extinct after the flood, he did not mention it to Noah. There is no mention in the rest of the Bible that God reconsidered he decision to keep such species/kinds alive, nor does/do the author(s) of the Bible mention nor even seem to notice the vanishing of such a vast diversity of wildlife (several times more varied than what we can observe today). Indeed, there is no extra-Biblical evidence that humans noticed this striking decimation of huge swaths of the animal kingdom over the brief course of 4000 years. And this great extinction is even more dramatic. To the best of my knowledge there is no record of any mass extinction since the time of Christ, so these creatures must have almost all perished in just the two millennia between Noah and the crucifixion. It seems inconsistent that God deliberately saved all kinds of animals just 2,000 years after creation without either knowing that they were all going to go extinct in the subsequent 2,000 years, or without being able save them during those 2,000 years. Or choosing (without informing any humans) to allow them to become extinct.
3. Specific “species” may have become extinct since Noah, but representatives of their “kinds” still survive. If this is the case, then we should be able to identify extant representatives today of every “kind” of animal thought to have been extinct. So, Triceratops might be extinct, but its “kind” survives. One could argue that Tricerotops and rhinos are of the same “kind,” but not any more persuasively than claiming a surviving relic of Ticeratops’s “kind” is the Nile Crocodile. And, I would argue, any definition of the term “kind” that would include any two of rhino, croc and Triceratops is so ambiguous as to be meaningless, and that the diversity of wildlife it is suggested Noah took onboard the Ark exceeds his instructions of between 2 and 7, and NO MORE THAN 2 and 7, pairs of each kind of creature.
4. No animals have ever gone extinct. But this is to ignore evidence for the extinction of literally billions of different species and does not explain the apparent absence of any of these creatures in the present day.
5. All evidence of extinct species are forgeries. It would be easy to scoff at this as absurd, but even if we refrain from doing so, proponents of young Earth creation would have to go back and entirely re-jigger what theories they have developed till now. Did Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops ever actually exist? If so, why are they not around today? If not, why assert they rode in the Ark with everybody else. And why haven’t young Earth creation scientists successfully debunked such hoaxes?
I’ll also add that a fallen world state should have no bearing on the matter. Noah’s flood occurred long after the expulsion from Eden. The animals God saved through Noah were of a world every bit as fallen as today. Indeed, one could argue, the world into which the flood survivors emerged was substantially more pure, having been ritually cleansed by floodwaters, than the world they left behind. Yet, if they existed at any time, they are definitely (well… almost certainly) extinct now. Remember, BILLIONS of species.
Just for fun, one high-end estimate of extinct species tallies them at about 5 billion. (Again, how many “kinds” these represent is not the interesting part, at least for me.) If we allow 1,447 BC as the exact year of the food (A typical given date. I found this one in an essay at creation.com) and species began to suffer extinction at regular intervals from the moment they disembarked, about 164 species would have to have been dying off on the hour, every hour, of every day since then till now.
I don’t point this out as any kind of “gotchya.” I just think it’s a cool and staggering permutation of what is necessitated by a literal reading of the Ark narrative.
As I say, I am genuinely interested in any of your thoughts. I have made a very cursory sampling of available young Earth creation material, especially Answers in Genesis. Everything I’ve examined so far has struck me as intellectually unsatisfying and technically insufficient. However, if you have a good opinion of any particular resource I would be just as happy to discuss those as well.
Thank you for any consideration. I look forward to dialoging with any of you. Cheers.
KIRBY
but genus is only a branch of a species. No species are noted as being extinct! So, Yes! Evidence of extinct species IS fake.
Did Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops ever actually exist? If so, why are they not around today? Answered above.
If not, why assert they rode in the Ark with everybody else. I believe that they speculate that the dinosaurs were on the ark because they have no other answers that are acceptable to them.
And why haven’t young Earth creation scientists successfully debunked such hoaxes? I’ll answer this way…Why do 99% of universities on the planet insist that evolution is the key of life on this planet when they cannot produce one single shred of evidence? They cling to their fairy tales tightly in order to deny the existence of intelligent design. In order to deny the God that gives them life.
Good points bendito sort of what I was trying to explain with crocodiles and the like. There are still them around today just not the giant kinds because of the flood and subsequent climate change. And possibly humans killing them off. I mean stories of humans vs dragons abound its not like they didnt exist together and that man is like the last one on the planet and all the animals that we dont find today are lesser evolved or something. I dont know, if you try and be in mindset of Darwin you just end up chasing your own tail really that Darwin insisted humans once had, we just evolved from monkeys. Well if thats true why are there still monkeys,
Some people really have the wrong end of stick maybe too much peering in the microscope and not enough common sense.