The rainbow and biblical literalism

[Spurious Quirk]

OK, I was wondering just what would have to change, in optics and physics in general, if the rainbow phenomenon didn't exist. i.e. What would the antedeluvian world have to be like if light didn't refract through water droplets? I know that the law of refraction would have to be different, but what else?
I ask because if the world was significantly different then this poses a problem for biblical literalists -- i.e. why didn't Noah notice and record these other big changes as well (in addition to the rainbow) as part of god's promise never to flood the entire earth again? Or, if this requires a significant change in the nature of electromagnetism, could Noah (and matter) have even existed?

Or, if this subject has already been discussed on an earlier thread, could you provide a link?

Cheers

[john_v_h]

You won't get anywhere with this tactic. The believer will simply respond that God created a world just like ours today except there were no rainbows -- then he created rainbows after the Flood. After all, an omnipotent being can change the laws of physics at his whim.

[excreationist]

Earlier, creationists have said that rain simply didn't fall before the flood... in Eden, according to Genesis 2:5–6 (http://bible.crosswalk.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi?word=Genesis+2%3A5%2C6&section=0&version=nkj&new=1&oq=&NavBook=ge&NavGo=2&NavCurrentChapter=2) it seems that the place was watered by mists from underground water rather than rain. (Though you can see rainbows in mists sometimes...)

from Answers in Genesis (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dont_use.asp):
What arguments are doubtful, hence inadvisable to use?

- ‘There was no rain before the Flood.’ This is not a direct teaching of Scripture, so again there should be no dogmatism. Genesis 2:5–6 at face value teaches only that there was no rain at the time Adam was created. But it doesn’t rule out rain at any later time before the Flood, as great pre-uniformitarian commentators such as John Calvin pointed out. A related fallacy is that the rainbow covenant of Genesis 9:12–17 proves that there were no rainbows before the Flood. As Calvin pointed out, God frequently invested existing things with new meanings, e.g. the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper.

[premjan]

I'm pretty sure the bible was meant to be parables and metaphors (much as Jesus himself tended to use). So there is a meaning to (all) the words of the bible, but it may not be the strict literal meaning.

this probably happened even with respect to the ages of people (I cannot believe people really lived to be 900+ years old).

The bible is an early work of metaphorical philosophy. An early wisdom tradition.

[Spurious Quirk]

Originally posted by premjan
I'm pretty sure the bible was meant to be parables and metaphors (much as Jesus himself tended to use). So there is a meaning to (all) the words of the bible, but it may not be the strict literal meaning.

this probably happened even with respect to the ages of people (I cannot believe people really lived to be 900+ years old).

The bible is an early work of metaphorical philosophy. An early wisdom tradition.

I agree (with it being metaphor), and yet many people here in the US actually believe the literal meanings of biblical stories. So Jonah was actually swallowed by a great fish, Jesus actually turned water to wine, and Noah actually fit all the species in the world into a boat. Incredible, isn't it?

Cheers

[premjan]

well, words are nice things to hang on to. They give people a sense of meaning and people tend to believe them, especially if they're semi-literate, in emotional confusion, or if the words are well-written and well-composed.

this probably accounts for the tendency to take the bible absolutely literally. Also, there's the fact that the words do not reveal how much is metaphor and how much isn't.

[Spurious Quirk]

Thus spake john_v_h
You won't get anywhere with this tactic. The believer will simply respond that God created a world just like ours today except there were no rainbows -- then he created rainbows after the Flood. After all, an omnipotent being can change the laws of physics at his whim.

Yes, but there are consequences to changing physics on a whim -- things don't work quite the same way. I don't think you can get away with not have refraction without causing other major shifts in how things work.

Thus spake excreationist, quoting AiG
‘There was no rain before the Flood.’ This is not a direct teaching of Scripture, so again there should be no dogmatism. Genesis 2:5–6 at face value teaches only that there was no rain at the time Adam was created. But it doesn’t rule out rain at any later time before the Flood, as great pre-uniformitarian commentators such as John Calvin pointed out. A related fallacy is that the rainbow covenant of Genesis 9:12–17 proves that there were no rainbows before the Flood. As Calvin pointed out, God frequently invested existing things with new meanings, e.g. the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper.

This is a nice evasion, kudos to AiG. Yet if there was no rain before the flood then this plays havoc with the whole theory of cloud formation and the nature of moisture. If there was a sun before the flood, and if there were oceans before the flood, then you are going to have clouds and rain before the flood; unless you do something even more funky with physics than simply messing with optics.

The last part is so wishy washy that it is hard to refute. God gives new meaning to things? I guess that could be a viable answer... Of course, if rainbows existed before the flood, then this would be sort of like god saying "You know that whole gravity thing? Well gravity is now my promise not to blast you into space anymore, like I did last thursday".

Cheers

p.s. points to whomever picks up the "Flash Gordon" reference.

[excreationist]

Originally posted by premjan
I'm pretty sure the bible was meant to be parables and metaphors (much as Jesus himself tended to use). So there is a meaning to (all) the words of the bible, but it may not be the strict literal meaning.
Or perhaps it isn't made up of divinely inspired truths... perhaps the OT is a bunch of mythology and legend.

this probably happened even with respect to the ages of people (I cannot believe people really lived to be 900+ years old).
What profound truths do all of those metaphorical ages mean then?
See
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wenke/bible/genealogies.htm
Note that every time Jesus has a parable involve numbers, he uses simple ones... e.g. in the Parable of the Talents (Matt 25:14-30) there are three servants - one is given 5 talents, the next 2 talents and the next one talent. The first two exactly double their money and the third has the same amount. It's not like the one with 5 ended up having 11.5 talents or 9 talents... they are simple numbers. In Luke 16 there is a parable that involves 800 gallons of olive oil - not 853 or 917 - but the even number of 800. Then it talks about 3000 bushels of wheat. Not 3100 or 2931. In Luke 19:12-27 it has a similar parable to the first one... this time the first servant is given 10 minas, the next is given five and the last is given one. The first two double their money and the third one one keeps the one mina.
So the parables don't seem to use random-looking obscure numbers, while the genealogies in Genesis do... this suggests that the ages in Genesis are supposed to be realistic ages rather than metaphors... and notice how soon after the flood, most of the people give birth to the next in line at the age of about 30... that sounds like they're trying to be realistic. The ages eventually drop down to normal levels throughout the early OT.... creationists think this is because before the flood we had good genes (no mutations) and the possible water vapour canopy might have also increased our lifespan. Then we eventually accumulated lots of mutations. (Apparently we have on average about 3000 [usually recessive] bad mutations - like short-sightedness, etc) It was only in Exodus that Moses said incest was wrong. I think in early Genesis one of the men (Lamech) had sex with his daughters and I don't think that was said to be bad. And Cain and Seth would have married their sisters - assuming everyone descended from Adam and Eve. At present, there is a high risk of birth defects if you have incest... that is because the recessive mutations of the couple would be very similar, so neither would have a non-mutated dominated gene to mask that recessive defect, so the baby is born with a defect (or a few hundred).

The bible is an early work of metaphorical philosophy. An early wisdom tradition.
What about in Numbers 1-3 where they have lots of numbers related to a census... they are to the nearest 100. Numbers 2:32 says there were 603,550 camps (families?) of Israelites who were wandering in the desert for 40 years... is that a metaphor for some profound truth? If so, what exactly? Remember that in Jesus's parables, the meaning and significance of things were pretty obvious.

[excreationist]

Originally posted by Spurious Quirk
.....Yet if there was no rain before the flood then this plays havoc with the whole theory of cloud formation and the nature of moisture. If there was a sun before the flood, and if there were oceans before the flood, then you are going to have clouds and rain before the flood; unless you do something even more funky with physics than simply messing with optics.
As the quote said, AiG says the argument of there being no rain before the flood is "doubtful, hence inadvisable to use".

The last part is so wishy washy that it is hard to refute.
Well that is AiG's suggested alternative to the "no rain" argument (which they don't favour).

God gives new meaning to things? I guess that could be a viable answer... Of course, if rainbows existed before the flood, then this would be sort of like god saying "You know that whole gravity thing? Well gravity is now my promise not to blast you into space anymore, like I did last thursday".
:D (It isn't that ad hoc though, since as they mentioned, there was the bread and wine thing... and maybe other examples.... apparently "God frequently invested existing things with new meanings")

[Tickfast]

Wouldn't it just be easier to change the nature of light, such that it punches thru the water bubble instead of refracting?

After all, if there was a water canopy hanging overhead, between sun and earth, you'd need some special kinda light to illuminate anything under it.

So, superlight from the sun kept the plants green and the people tanned and waters warm and the leaves supple...then God saw his creation was tainted, repented his act of creation, and let the canopy fall.

Realizing that without the SPF+5,000,000 sunscreen, life was going to get toasted pretty well, he hit the dimmer switch at some point of Noah's year afloat.
Noah gets off the boat, sees a multi colored light in the sky, asks: "Whazzat?"
"Oh...uh...it's...uh...to remind me never to do that again!"

[Tickfast]

Originally posted by Spurious Quirk
Well gravity is now my promise not to blast you into space anymore, like I did last thursday".

p.s. points to whomever picks up the "Flash Gordon" reference.
Ming's Wedding Vows to Dale..."Do you promise...not to blast her into space....until such time as you grow weary of her?"
"I do."

[john_v_h]

Originally posted by Spurious Quirk
I don't think you can get away with not have refraction without causing other major shifts in how things work.

You and I and the whole of science can't get away with it, but an omnipotent being can, by definition.

[Mageth]

Originally posted by Tickfast
Wouldn't it just be easier to change the nature of light, such that it punches thru the water bubble instead of refracting?

After all, if there was a water canopy hanging overhead, between sun and earth, you'd need some special kinda light to illuminate anything under it.

So, superlight from the sun kept the plants green and the people tanned and waters warm and the leaves supple...then God saw his creation was tainted, repented his act of creation, and let the canopy fall.

Realizing that without the SPF+5,000,000 sunscreen, life was going to get toasted pretty well, he hit the dimmer switch at some point of Noah's year afloat.
Noah gets off the boat, sees a multi colored light in the sky, asks: "Whazzat?"
"Oh...uh...it's...uh...to remind me never to do that again!"

Lessee, "superlight" strking a planet enveloped in a water canopy. The water canopy lets some of the light through, but serves as an effective insulator that keeps generated heat in. I wonder how high the temperature of the atmosphere would rise to? The whole earth would be an extremely hot pressure cooker in this scenario, if you ask me.

[Spurious Quirk]

Originally posted by Tickfast
Ming's Wedding Vows to Dale..."Do you promise...not to blast her into space....until such time as you grow weary of her?"
"I do."

You get the prize!
(whatever it might be)

I love the exchange of looks between Ming and the priest whenever the priest forgets the "until such time as you grow weary of her" part....

Cheers

[NZAmoeba]

"You know that whole gravity thing? Well gravity is now my promise not to blast you into space anymore, like I did last thursday".

:notworthy nothing has made me laugh so much before on these boards...