McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1981, S. 3:580

Response to Comment: "It wouldn't be rational to believe the events from King Kong."

King Kong is a work of fiction.  The bible is a work of non-fiction.  The creator of King Kong does not claim divine inspiration.

Response to Comment:  "Do you want theists and atheists to tolerate each other or not?  Most people here would defend your right to believe anything you want.  You just can't keep it to yourself though, so we'll respond with words when it comes into our lives."

Theists and atheists should tolerate each other.  But a Christian would be negligent if he failed to warn his neighbor of a coming destruction.  We call "keeping it to yourself" apathy.  If you care about your neighbor, you warn him if he is in trouble.  If a big flood were coming, for example, you would warn others to get into a boat.  In Noah's day, 8 people survived.  The last days will be just like Noah's day (Mt 24:37).

Response to Comment:  "Most here did consider the possibility of a God existing, and had to really think about it with an open mind before moving to the atheist position."

As long as you are still breathing, it's not too late to consider the claims of Christ.  God has only one question for you:  "What will you do with my Son?"  No one is beyond hope.  "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Ro 5:6-8, NKJV)."

The apostle Paul did his very best to convince King Agrippa of the claims of Christ.  Agrippa "almost" believed (Ac 26:28).  McGee said of this passage:  "Friend, do you know that you can almost be a Christian and then be lost for time and eternity?"  Don't let that happen.

If you have open mind consider that you have hurt the Lord and others in your live.  "[Y]ou will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord (Je 29:13-14)." 

Response to Comment:  "[W]hat took place at the death on the cross was that payment (a propitiation). Jesus lived the perfect life that neither you, nor I could live...]  This really sounds weird. Could you break it down more? Explain it further?"

Sure, what part are you sincerely concerned about? (1 Pet 3:15). 

Response to Comment:  "[B]ased on what you say, there's absolutely nothing that has happened in natural life that helps me to understand what you mean here. Talk to your God and get back with us on this, please. There's no evidence of miracles that I have experienced in my life..."

Would a miracle make all the difference?  In the bible, when God performed a miracle, people hated him even more (Lk 16:31).   

Response to Comment:  "SerpentDove, I'm still pretty confused as to how you decided that the Bible was inspired and the Qur'an is perverse. I assume you came to both with an open mind, with no preconceptions, read through them both and then determined which was inspired by a God?  Please explain to me, without linking to some other site, the process you personally used to make this determination."

Mohammed was a rapist pedophile who heard voices from demons.  He believed that he heard the word of God.  Mohammed was rejected by authentic church members.  Reading the Koran myself convinced me that it is a false work.  Witnessing the fruits of the Islam faith has further demonstrated that it is perverse.  Mohammed wished to be accepted by Jews and Christians.  When he wasn't, he changed his prayer position from that of Jerusalem to Mecca. 

Response to Comment:  "And then explain how your process for deciding which religious text to believe [and why it ] is better than the average Muslim's process for deciding which religious text to believe."

I learned that the Koran has demonstrable errors.  It is also a hateful book.  It encourages it's followers to kill Christians and Jews.  It encourages lying to the infidel.  Because the law is written on our hearts, we know that these things are wrong (Ro 2:15).  I came to believe that the bible is in fact, the inspired inerrant word of God.  I did not begin to study other religions until becoming a Christian. 

Response to Comment:  "If a number isn't in your response, we'll all know you've just backed down from it. Ok? Here goes.  1) God created all things. God is the father of all things. I could give you four Bible verses off the top of my head that make this indisputable by your own rules-- the Bible (Nehemiah 9:6, Revelation 10:6, Colossians 1:16, Ephesians 3:9-10)."

Response to Comment:  "[S]omehow, that tricky old devil somehow managed to father a few offspring of his own instead? "Satan is your father not God (Jn 8:44)."

Satan cannot produce offspring.  The passage refers to who owns you.  You are his not the Lord's.  We are children of God or of wrath.  As you cannot be sort of pregnant, you cannot be sort of a Christian. 

Response to Comment:  "I'm sure you're going to say that he's just the father in my mind, right? But doesn't that dispute that all of humanity is made in God's image, too. If we are made in God's image, then why are we sinful? If he made us perfect to begin with, why are we sinful? If God created all things, including us, then he also created sin...um...and us.. thus creating us sinful.  This leads to a sadistic paradox of God...[He] made us flawed, damned us for being flawed and then came to earth, killed himself, demands un-doubting worship while not providing enough evidence to support these claims (which should be easy if you're God. So, either he wants us to doubt, or he's incapable of providing enough proof so we don't) and then damns to everlasting pain anyone that doesn't believe it-- the thing he can't provide enough proof for."

Satan is referred to as "the prince of this world" (Jn 12:31).  Most belong to (or are deceived by) him (Mt 7:14).  Satan has been very good at deceiving most of the world (Re 12:9). 

We have internal testimony (conscience [Ro 2:15]); external testimony (God's workmanship [Ro 1:20]), as well as scripture.  Therefore no man has an excuse (Ro 1:20).   

We are made in God's image and likeness (Jm 3:9).  But we are sinners by nature and by our own action (Ps 51:5).  God is not responsible for sin.  Man is.  God provided a way back to himself if man will humble himself before him.

We were not made flawed.  We were made perfect to live in a perfect world.  Sin changed all that.  Jesus reconciled himself to the world (2 Cor 5:19).  Doubt (or lack of faith) in God is sin.  But God encourages us to reason with him--put him to the test.  "'Come now, and let us reason together,' says the Lord, 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.' (Is 1:18, NKJV).

God has given all that we need (Jn 17:7) and he proved his love (Ro 5:8).

Response to Comment:  "2) Oh yeah, about proof. You make a pretty wild claim here. "We are encouraged by scripture to " test all things" (Ac 17:11)....Riiiiight. So, I've put a few things to the test, and here is what fail[s]. A) There are not two lights hung in the sky. There is one light and the reflection of one light. Genesis FAIL."

I think you may be referring to Gen 1:15:

On the first day of creation, God created and energized the entire universe, the infinite sphere of divine activity and purpose. On the second day, He made the primeval hydrosphere and atmosphere for the terrestrial sphere. On the third day, He made the earth’s lithosphere and plant biosphere. Finally, on the fourth day, He made the astrosphere, the “celestial sphere” of the stars and planets surrounding and illuminating the terrestrial sphere.

On the first day, He had said: “Let there be light!” (Hebrew or). On the fourth day, He said: “Let there be lights” (or light-givers, Hebrew ma-or). Intrinsic light first, then generators of light later, is both the logical and the Biblical order.

The chief purpose of both the light of the first three days and the light-givers of all later days was to “divide the light from the darkness” (verses 4, 18), and this can only mean that the two regimes were essentially identical. The duration of the days and nights was the same in each case, and the directions of light emanation on the earth from space must have been the same in each case.

In other words, light rays were impinging on the earth as it rotated on its axis during the first three days of essentially the same intensities and directions as those which would later emanate from the heavenly bodies to be emplaced on the fourth day. Light was coming during the day as though from the sun and during the night as though from the moon and stars, even though they had not yet been made.

If such a concept sounds strange, let it be remembered that it is as easy for God to create waves of light energy as to create generators to produce such waves. There was no need for such generators except to serve the additional function (after man’s creation) of marking “signs and seasons, days and years.”

It therefore did not take a billion years for the light from a star which is a billion light-years distant from the earth to reach the earth after the star was created. The light-trail from the star was created in transit, as it were, all the way from the star to the earth, three days before the star itself was created! As noted earlier, the universe was created “full-grown” from the beginning; God did not require millions of years to develop it into its intended usable form. The purpose of the heavenly bodies was “to give light upon the earth”; so this is what they did, right from the beginning.

Some have objected to this concept on the basis of evolutionary changes supposedly taking place in the stars. The fact is, however, no one has ever observed such changes taking place. As long as men have been observing the stars, they have always looked as they do now (allowing, of course, for the changes in orientation due to the earth’s rotation, orbital revolution, and axial wobble). The only possible exception of any consequence to this statement might be the novas or supernovas that are occasionally observed in the heavens when stars apparently heat up or explode. Some of these have been observed in galaxies supposedly hundreds of thousands of light-years from the earth; the argument is, therefore, that the stellar event producing the nova or supernova must have taken place the corresponding number of hundreds of thousands of years ago.

This may constitute a minor problem, but there are several possible answers. The tremendous stellar distances commonly cited are obtained only on the basis of a number of very esoteric and questionable assumptions. Geometric methods for measuring such astronomical distances can reach only to about 330 light-years; so any greater distances are uncertain, to say the least. Furthermore, there is no assurance of the uniformity of the speed of light at such tremendous distances. There exist respectable models of relativity and space curvature, for example, which yield light motions such that light would reach the earth even from infinite distances in only a few years. Finally, there is no reason why God could not, if He had so willed, created “pulses” in the trails of some of the light waves created traversing space in the beginning. When such pulses reach the earth, they would then be interpreted as, say, novas, when they were in reality merely created bursts of energy in the light trails connecting with various stars. Though the reason for God doing such a thing is not yet clear, that in itself is no argument against it. God may have reasons for some of His acts of creation which we do not yet understand, and our ignorance is no reason for questioning His purposes. In any case, our uncertainty as to the exact reconciliation of these distant novas with a recent creation of the universe cannot offset the clear Biblical testimony to such recent creation.

The lights were set in “the firmament of heaven,” but this was not the same firmament as formed on the second day. The latter is the “open firmament of heaven” where birds were to fly (verse 20). As noted above, the term “firmament” may apply to any particular region of space, as determined by context. In verse 8, we were told that “God called the firmament Heaven.” Evidently “firmament” is the common term and “heaven” is the formal name for any firmament (or space) which has been designated as a particular sphere of God’s creative or purposive activity.

The fact that both sun and moon are called “light-givers” does not suggest that they are of the same substance. One actually generates light, whereas the other only reflects light; but both “give light” as far as their functions relative to the earth are concerned.

It is interesting that the stars are mentioned as of only minor importance relative to the sun and moon. “He made the stars also.” Even though stars are incomparably bigger than the earth, and many of them even larger than our sun, they are of much simpler structure than the earth. A star is mostly hydrogen and helium, essentially quite simple; whereas the structure of the earth is of great complexity, perfectly and uniquely designed for living creatures. Complexity and organization are much more meaningful measures of significance than mere size!

There is no need to try to correlate this simple record of the making of the stars with various modern theories of stellar and galactic evolution. It is sufficient to note that these are all at best only interesting speculations, none of which is generally accepted and all of which encounter important objections. On the other hand, there is no reason at all (other than naturalistic prejudice) not to believe that the stars were made just as they are now. No one has ever seen a star or galaxy evolve, or change at all.

Since the heavenly bodies were to be used to denote the “seasons” (as well as “days and years”), it is obvious that there were to be distinct seasons through the year, and this implies that the earth’s axis was inclined as it is at present. Although the vapor canopy maintained a warm climate everywhere, there would still have been slight seasonal changes in temperature.

The use of the stars also “for signs” is somewhat more uncertain in meaning. Although various suggestions have been made, the most natural interpretation is that this term has reference to various star groupings which would serve both for easy visual recognition of the advancing days and years and also, by extension, for tokens of the advancing stages of God’s purpose in creation. If so, however, these zodiacal “signs” were soon corrupted into pagan astrology.

The phrase “and it was so” occurs in this passage for the fourth time (out of six) in Genesis 1 (verses 7, 9, 11, 15, 24, 30). The account thus stresses that what God says, He also does. The phrase “and God said” occurs ten times (verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29). The first seven of these were each followed by a creative command beginning with the imperative word “Let …!”

Finally the work of this fourth day of creation was also summarized by an assertion that God saw it all to be “good.” There was at that time nothing on any of the stars, planets, satellites, or any other heavenly body that was out of place or indicative of conflict or catastrophe in any way.

Morris, Henry M.: The Genesis Record : A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. Grand Rapids, MI : Baker Books, 1976, S. 64

Response to Comment:  "B) Snakes apparently speak Hebrew. Genesis FAIL."

Cited above.

Response to Comment:  "C) According to the divine blueprints that God gives Noah, a few of every animal on the face of the earth (who are now in walking distance) can survive (without climate control) 40 days and 40 nights. The fish that were in the oceans and rivers also survive the salinity mix and restructuring of habitat. After all creatures including plants are sufficiently destroyed, a dove manages to find an olive branch to bring back and everyone disembarks. All animals make it back to their natural climates despite the fact that with no surviving vegetation there is nothing to eat...but each other. Yet the world repopulates just fine. Genesis FAIL."

Two of every animal boarded the ark.  Young animals of each kind can fit easily with room to spare.  God would have had no problem calming the animals.  If you can create a T-Rex, I suppose you can calm it.  The fish stayed in their habitats for the most part, though many died due to drastic earth changes which resulted. 

Genesis 8:5–12

Securely anchored on the earth again, Noah and the others needed only to wait until the waters receded enough for them to disembark. But this took yet another seven months, so that they were in the Ark slightly over a year—371 days altogether. After 21/2 months, they could see the tops of the nearby lower mountains. Forty days later, Noah released a raven and (seven days later) a dove from the Ark. The dove returned; but the raven, a scavenger bird with no qualms about resting on unclean surfaces, stayed. A week later, Noah sent out the dove again, which returned this time with a fresh olive leaf, indicating that seedlings or cuttings from the hardy olive tree were already beginning to grow again on the mountain sides.

The frequent references to “seven days” in this narrative (7:4; 7:10; 8:10; 8:12) have suggested to some that these were Sabbath Days. However, there was not an even number of weeks between the first of these and the second of these; so this is doubtful.

The narrative is not completely clear on the chronological details, but it does seem most likely that Noah sent out the raven on the 264th day after the onset of the Flood, then the dove on the 271st day. The dove was sent out again, and returned with the olive leaf, on the 278th day.

Morris, Henry M.: The Genesis Record : A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. Grand Rapids, MI : Baker Books, 1976, S. 209

Genesis 8:15–19

A year and seventeen days earlier, God had said to Noah: “Come thou and all thy house into the ark” (Genesis 7:1). But now He said: “Go forth of the ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy son’s wives with thee.” These two commands are not contradictory, but complementary, reminding us of two complementary commands of Christ. First, He said: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 1 will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). This command (all the more meaningful in light of the fact that “rest” was the very meaning of Noah’s prophetic name) is but the, preparation for His great command: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). The Ark had been like the great sheep-fold, with Christ the door, through whom the sheep “shall go in” to be saved, but also, through whom, they shall “go out, and find pasture” (John 10:9).

The animal occupants, awakened from their long rest in the Ark, were also brought forth and instructed to “breed abundantly” and to “multiply upon the earth.” They and their progeny gradually spread out from Ararat, migrating and multiplying over many generations, until they found environments and biologic communities of plants and other animals suited to their needs. Scripture is clear in insisting that “every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.” All the earth’s present dry-land animals, therefore, are descendants of those that were on the Ark.

In like manner, all the present tribes and nations of men are descended from Noah’s family. “These are the three sons of Noah; and of them was the whole earth overspread” (Genesis 9:19).

As both animals and men later radiated out from Mount Ararat, they found open country ahead of them. They could move east into Asia, west into Europe, south into Africa. Some of their descendants found a land bridge across what is now the Bering Straits into the Americas. Others found a similar land bridge down the Malaysian Straits into New Guinea and perhaps into Australia. Such land bridges are known geologically to have existed during the Ice Age, when there was a considerable lowering of sea level due to the vast amounts of water stored in great ice sheets. Modern computer studies have shown, interestingly, that the geographical center of the earth’s land areas is located within a short distance of Mount Ararat, a “coincidence” that can hardly be other than providential.²

Lack of competition permitted animal populations to multiply very rapidly; so there was much incentive for the different groups to keep pressing forward until they found an ecological niche for which they were more suited than other groups. These conditions (rapid multiplication, small inbreeding populations, rapidly changing environments) were ideal to permit rapid variation to take place in each kind (not evolution, but rather opportunity for the originally created variational potential latent in the genetic system of each kind to become expressed openly in distinct varieties). Consequently, different varieties (or even species, and perhaps genera, in some cases, as arbitrarily defined by modern taxonomists) could rapidly develop and become established in appropriate environments.

Although God had implanted genetic factors for wide-ranging adjustment and variation in each created kind (especially was this true in the case of the “clean” kinds), permitting them to adjust to many different environments, nevertheless this potential variation was limited. Never could one kind change so much that it would become a different kind; “after its kind” was the divine principle. Since the environment was so drastically different after the Flood, there were many kinds of animals, especially those that were highly specialized or unusually large, that found it difficult to adjust. Finally, after a number of generations, these became extinct. Included in this group were the dinosaurs, the pteronodons, the creodonts, the glyptodons, and other bizarre creatures of the past.

Many of these extinctions probably took place during the Ice Age. The sharp change in temperatures following the Flood, occasioned by the precipitation of the vapor canopy that had maintained the greenhouse effect over the world, led to the buildup of great thicknesses of snow and ice near the polar regions. These eventually radiated out in the form of tremendous ice sheets, covering northern Europe and reaching down into the northern third of the United States in this hemisphere. The Ice Age probably lasted several hundred or a thousand years (not several million years, as believed by evolutionary geologists) and undoubtedly had a profound effect on the earth’s animal kinds.

² Andrew Woods, The Center of the Earth (San Diego: Institute for Creation Research, 1973), 18 pp.

Morris, Henry M.: The Genesis Record : A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. Grand Rapids, MI : Baker Books, 1976, S. 214

Response to Comment:  "...Ok, I'm bored with this and we are still on the first book.  Let's move on to Jesus and his apparent lack of time-keeping abilities. Matthew 24:34, Matthew 26:64..How about the only way Jesus could have been the savior is if he could trace his linage back through Joseph.  Either the virgin birth is wrong, or the prophesy handed down by God is wrong. Jesus FAIL."

Response to Comment:  "Hmm.. natural selection and evolution? No. Hate to get caught up on the Noah thing, but again.. a world wide flood? NO.

The tree of life is in actuality a tree of death.  There are not links from species to species.  Darwin himself said if this were the case, his theory would break down.  Darwin hated God due to the loss of his child.  He had to come up with a way to understand the world without God. 

Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?  It's pretty good evidence for a dramatic flood and its effects.   

Response to Comment:  "The fact of it is, the human mind is created to recognize patterns and make connections...whether they exist or not. You will look at this book and see what you want to see, interpret it ways that twist the words to suit your needs and refuse to read the black and white contradictions. You will always have excuses."

Then we each see what we want to see then do you recognize creation and all of its wonder (Ps 97:6)? 

These supposed "contradictions" are refuted each and every time the critic attacks the bible.  The bible has been critiqued more than any other book and it passes the test.

Who will have excuses and who will submit answers for consideration?

Response to Comment:  "3) Even if God were to exist (and all evidence points otherwise)..."

What evidence?

Response to Comment:  "...[T]he God of the Bible is an utter a-*%@!...."

Finally, an honest statement.  You know God exists, you just hate him.  This is why God says that your own thoughts and words will be used to condemn you.  I suggest you through yourself upon the mercy of the court.  Apologize for these words before it's too late. 

The gentile Jesus in the parable of the parable of the ten minas, said:  "'Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant (Lk 19:22, NKJV, Mt 12:37).'"

Response to Comment:  "...Murder, rape, human sacrifices, domestic violence, abuse and every conceivable abomination is perfectly ok..."

Where does God say murder, rape, human sacrifices, domestic violence and abuse is ok?  Liberals believe this, not God.

Response to Comment:  "...but eating shellfish, having sex with a consenting adult of the same gender and wearing a cotton-spandex blend is horrible in the sight of his holy eyes. Give me a break..."

God does not force believers to abstain from shellfish (Col 2:16).  Homosexuality is rebellion and an abomination--consenting perverts or not (See Our Rainbow).  God is not opposed to people wearing certain fabrics.  We have freedom in Christ to wear what we would like.  Have you noticed that pastors are not concerned with wool blends in bible churches?  They are not legalists.  For the most part, they no longer appear in super pious attire.  Rather, the understand that that they are freed from the law because they are found in Christ (Ga 5:22).  The law is for the lawless.   

Response to Comment:  "[E]very inch of your holy book plainly spells out the fact that it was written by male control-freak goat herders 2,000 years ago.. not by an omnipotent being."

The Bible is very pro-women: 

A few housekeeping items:

Response to Comment:  "I've noticed you've picked through which arguments to answer and which to evade."

I am a student of the bible so I follow its instruction.  "4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him.  5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes (Pr 26:4-5).  Sometimes a Christian will use verse 4.  Sometimes a Christian will use verse 5. 

Response to Comment:  "[N]ot enough to believe it all (I hate not being able to edit posts in blogs)."

What would you remove?  I've been banned from many atheist's sites (Jn 15:20).  FYI, if I get banned on ThinkAthesit, please join in on the conversation at Atheist QOTD.  I am happy that I have not been thrown off yet.   

SerpentDove Achieves