[Windwalker]

Originally Posted by matcat

As far as your mentioning scientific explanations for biblical events, who is to say God did not do it via those methods? A lot of people today ask the question, "If God did all of these fantastic things in biblical days, how come he does not do it today?" Well he does, only difference is today we have 'science', in Noah's day, they didn't understand the concepts of poisonous gas from volcanos, so to them it is a fantastic feat only God could perform, today science understands these things, and people put their faith into 'science' instead of the One that actually designed the volcano, and controls its workings via a natural set of laws He created.

This was exactly my point. While they were all natural events, it's the TIMING. To have one happen exactly on time, ok. Two? Well, maybe. But, three or more? The more there were, the more odds are against being chance. And, who among us has the ability to control these things?

Originally Posted by matcat

Brings up another point, a lot of Christians and non-christians, get hung up on the Science vs Faith/Religion thing, I have tried to explain to Christians espially, that there is nothing wrong with science, it is simply a way to explain how God orchestrates the natural order he created, just that sometimes scientists go in the wrong direction with their theories.

Also by the way, I too studied the time line. Noah lived for something like 800 years. The timeline from Adam to Noah is documented in the bible, however with Noah there is a 400 year gap that is not explained. Simply because it gives when he was born, and when he died, however it does not give his age at the time of the flood. So therefor the flood happened somewhere within a 400 year spread of his life. I came about this because I was trying to figure out the actual age of the Earth, but the buck stops at Noah, with a 400 year gap! If I remember correctly I came to the conclusion that from Adam until now, it has been between 8000 to 10000 years, and that is not just based on biblical knowledge alone, but is also based on the oldest known civilizations in history and their timelines.

There seems to be a general agreement between Creationists that the earth was created 40,000 BC. The oldest writing ever found, the oldest text ever found by archeology, was dated at 38,000 BC and appears to be Hindu. Slimland, when we were discussing ancient text (before his wife had a crisis with cancer), said the oldest Hebrew test he found was 26,000 or 28,000 BC. The Dead-Sea Scrolls are believed to be copies of still earlier text that may not have survived. And, it may or may not be a translation of that earlier text as well. If we are able to point to errors in translation, and information that has been in error, such as Mount Sinai, Then we must also allow for errors in translating and copying still earlier text as well.

My arguement with Slimland was with the 7 days of Creation. Creationists take a day as a hard and fast rule of 24 hours. But, due to human error in translation and perhaps errors in copying, I suggest that a "day" of creation should be taken as a relative term. A period of time. And, that period of time could well exceed the 24 hour limit by tens of thousands of years. (Talk about having a "long day".) In that case, one of GOD's days could well be 78 million years long, and evolution would become an instrument of GOD's handi-work. It would also mean that Creationists and Evolutionists no longer have anything to fight about and could begin to expend their energies working together.

Originally Posted by matcat

I love discussing theology and biblical science, but I hate debating with people whom just want to try to disprove the bible on some point.

I don't have any interest in disproving the Bible. More so, an interest in explaining why the difference between science and the Bible. Scientific data does not change. Nature is reasonably constant, but the Bible, as we have it today, is subject to human error. While the "ORIGINAL BIBLE TEXT" may have been entirely accurate, we don't have it. And, what we do have, may have been translated and copied a number of times. How many errors have been introduced with this? Does this make the Bible wrong? Absolutely not. Just not quite as accurate as many would have us believe.

If GOD used natural events during Exodus, isn't it also possible that in creating man, he may have also guided natural events to do his will? ie Evolution?