Zanzibar Fishermen Land Ancient Fish: What Does The Bible Say?

We wrote previously about evolution and the foolishness of intelligent design. Every once in a while there is a report such as this, July 15, 2007, from Reuters:

Fishermen in Zanzibar have caught a coelacanth, an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct when it disappeared from fossil records 80 million years ago, an official said on Sunday...The coelacanth, known from fossil records dating back more than 360 million years, was believed to have become extinct some 80 million years ago until one was caught off the eastern coast of South Africa in 1938 -- a major zoological find.

I guess those who read the bible too literally and believe animals have only been on the planet for 16,000 years or so, simply dismiss such stories as lies and fabrications.

Comments

[nonheroicvet]

Where did Noah keep the fish in the Ark?

[Anonymous]

I recall watching the news one night where they were reporting from some new discovery and the so called scientist picked up a bone fragment and said it was 12 to 15 billion years old. Very scientific.

I think science would be better to stay with what they can observe and prove rather than what they can imagine and make up stories about.

I recall ... the so called scientist picked up a bone fragment and said it was 12 to 15 billion years old. Very scientific.

You remember incorrectly. And very unscientific of you.

[illusory tenant]

"I think creationists would be better to stay with what they can observe and prove rather than what they can imagine and make up stories about."

Fixed.

[jimspice]

And any evidence of a theory which predates 6,500 years (say ice core samples and global warming), must be, prima facie, dismissed.

I would guess the correlation between warming denial and evolution denial to be quite tight.

Spice

[Anon]

IT - cute but science has been dupping societies for years with scams but Kings would eventually have them beheaded. Here we just keep on paying for it.

[Anon]

JSpice-

Wasn't it only a couple thousand years ago that North America was covered by a glacier down to Oklahoma?

Are we to suppose that humans were responsible for it melting all the way up? It appears that melting is a continuation and not something attributable to modern society.

Is it possible that the world is simply, but slowly returning to its pre-flood temperatures?

[Aaron]

You pray for god to kill people you disagree with? How very Christian.

[Aaron]

The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_ice_age

Maybe if you tried some of that reading, learning and thinking you wouldn't hate science so much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

[Jim Spice]

[quote]Wasn't it only a couple thousand years ago that North America was covered...?[/quote]

If you consider 10 to 70 thousand as a couple.

[quote]Is it possible that the world is simply, but slowly returning to its pre-flood temperatures?[/quote]

No.

[illusory tenant]

Anon, can you provide data as to "the world's pre-flood temperatures"?

I've the Book of Genesis at the ready, awaiting chapter and verse.

[Anon]

IT - Doesn't science generally know that the world froze rather suddenly? They have found both man and beast preserved in a frozen state meaning that it occured rather quickly.

As far as your request for Bible reference, I would say that you would have to start with that people were naked and didn't have to work to produce food. That would say that the enviroment had to be both tolerable to vegatation and to people. I don't recall any reference to cold temperatures in the preflood record.

[Aaron]

Just an FYI anon, the computer your are typing at was created by computer scientists.
It must be evil! Carefully step away from the keyboard. Quick before you learn something.

[Anon]

Aaron - I'm not sure if you are defending global warming or just attacking me. I didn't pray for science to be killed and I don't hate science. Only an idiot would think that all of science is good as well as all of science is bad.

Evolution is not a science as global warming isn't a science unless your saying that humans were responsible for the glaciers melting. Maybe they had to much gas from high fiber foods that got into the atmosphere, which melted the glaciers and created this great country of ours.

[Wolf]

Anon - you probably are wasting your time with these people, they're among the most fanatical in defending there religion, which is aethism.

We are not returning to preflood weather because you will find in Genesis 8, 22 that God said that "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." In other words, God started the seasons after the flood and said that they will remain as long as this earth does. However, I agree that the glacier melting and the warming has been occuring since the flood, not since Al Gore and company.

[anonymoose]

To anon:

you know, if you want to take the tack that the environment is suitable for both vegetation and people, please keep in mind that there are plenty of areas on the planet where this is possible. Like the equator? or other tropical zones. Nobody ever said Adam and Eve, if they existed, lived in Wisconsin.

[illusory tenant]

And Wolf spoke verily unto thee: "We are not returning to preflood weather because you will find in Genesis 8, 22 that God said that 'While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.' In other words, God started the seasons after the flood and said that they will remain as long as this earth does."

What, there was no "day and night" pre-fludd either? What's all that business about "evenings and mornings" in Gen. 1, then?

Not to mention the "greater light," the "lesser light," (that's our moon, incidentally, which isn't a light at all) and "the stars also."

[Wolf]

IT - your shallow reading rather surprises me because in some other situations (on other blogs) you impressed me to have some intelligence. It was the inclusion of seasons that occured after the flood that changed while other things did not.

To anonymous - in the preflood world it didn't rain, to my knowledge all areas of the world now need rain.

[illusory tenant]

Wolf are you messing with me? You lay a verse on me that says, "While the earth remaineth, A & B & C & D shall not cease," and then you tell me that A & B & C are all brand new features, but not D? How arbitrary is that.

As for it not raining in the pre-fludd world, what's Gen. 2:6, a ham sandwich?

[Adam]

Wolf and anon - Please stop trying to read science into Genesis. The Bible is not a science book, it's a religious text. The concern of the Bible is to introduce you to God, to reveal His nature, and to provide an example of how to live in accordance with His will. That is what the Bible is intended to do. It's not intended to tell you everything you've ever wanted to know about the earth, when it was created, and how it developed.

Keep in mind that Genesis was written thousands of years ago. The people who wrote it and read it were not of the same mindset as the people who read it now. Add to that the fact that we don't even read it in the original language. When we try to take that text and use it to explain (or refute) scientific observations, we're trying to twist the Bible into something it isn't. To make a non-controversial comparison, if you hear a word, and you don't know what it means, do you go to the library and read a bunch of books to figure out the word from the context of those books? Or do you grab a dictionary and look it up? Likewise, if you want to examine a scientific theory, you are welcome to do so, and any serious scientist would agree that their theories need to be tested and questioned. But looking in the Bible for the answer you want to find is not the best way to do so for several reasons:
1) The scientist is not going to listen to your argument. Regardless of how you feel about the Bible, unless the person in question agrees with you on what the Bible says, your argument will fall on deaf ears.
2) The Bible does not give scientific answers, in fact, it uses demonstrably incorrect science as an example frequently. God does not correct the Israelites on their incorrect belief that you think with your stomach/intestines, but rather, He refers to this belief when communicating with them.
3) Finding the answer to every scientific question in the Bible will require you to read into the text more than you really ought to do. Example below:

Pre-Flood Temperature:
Does the Bible actually say, "The temperature was comfortable, and roughly between 80 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit?" It does not. But when you read it, and see that people are naked, and there are plants, you infer this? Does this tell us anything about the world that isn't still true today? If you go to Mesopotamia, I bet you would find temperatures that would allow for a person to be naked, and for plants to grow. To infer that there was no rain is an even larger stretch. Just because it doesn't mention rain doesn't mean it wasn't there, it just means it wasn't important to the point being made.

Post-Flood Seasons:
Why do you assume that the mentioning of seasons after the flood automatically means that the seasons weren't there before the flood? What about Gen 1:14 where God gives the celestial bodies the purpose of governing the seasons, days and years? Why does this mention of seasons not count?

The Bible is a fantastic way to come to an understanding of who God is, and what He has done for us, but it's not a science book, and you're not going to find an answer to all your science questions there. If you try to squeeze the Bible into the mold of a science book, then you're not being fair to the Bible or to the science text.

[Wolf]

IT - Ham sandwich - Genesis 2, 6 is exactly what it says, the mist came up from the earth, it does not say that rain came down. Rain and mist are two different things. The world as we know it is much different than it was preflood.

Did you know that people did not eat meat until after the flood. I'll bet you don't know why?

Adam - your premises are way off base. All science started with the Bible and the Bible is loaded with science. Not all scientist are aethieist so your also wrong about that.

[Charlie]

Thank you for taking the time to write that, Adam. It'll probably fall on deaf ears, but it's a great post nonetheless.

[Adam]

Wolf - without correcting your grammar, I'll respond to your reply.

I'll start with the easiest one, I never said anything about all Scientists being atheists. I know plenty of scientists who are Christians. My statement was that a scientist, even one who is a Christian or Jew, will value Empirical evidence over scripture in matters of scientific experimentation. I have no problem with a person being both a scientist and a Christian. But, if a person calls himself a scientist, he needs to behave as such. If a scientist sees something, he must say what he sees. If what he sees disagrees with what he personally believes, he can choose to state what he sees, or to ignore what he sees. If that scientist ignores everything that disagrees with what he believes to be true, then he ceases to be a scientist.

As far as my premises being off base, I'd appreciate a more lengthy explanation of how my premises are off base. It's hard for me to defend my point of view if I don't know what the criticism of it is.

Science did not start with the Bible, because the Bible is not a science book. I believe that what the Bible says is true. I believe that God reveals himself through scripture. I believe that the Bible does not contain errors, and is perfectly true. But I refuse to read more into the Bible than was written in it. I refuse to take an English translation of scripture, translated thousands of years after the original writing, and use it to refute science that has been discovered in the past 50 years.

If you read the Bible, and squeeze it into your worldview, and then take the translated words to mean exactly what they say, you're missing the context of what was written. The Bible was written for you, but it wasn't written to you. It was written to people a long time ago, in a completely different culture, and in many cases, we can lose the context of the scripture in our desire to make the scripture fit our ideas. If you read the Bible in an effort to come to an understanding of the nature of God, this difference of worldview will generally not be a problem. But it's when you try to make the Bible into a science text that the differences can really affect your ability to understand what the Bible is saying.

The Israelites believed:
-Your guts are used for thinking, and your brain is useless
-The sky is a solid dome, with water above, and the entire (flat) earth is sitting on water as well
-The Earth is stationary, and the sun, moon, and stars move through the sky
-The stars occupy the same space as the sun and moon, and are capable of falling to the earth.

Do you reject the premise that the stars are actually suns billions of miles from Earth?, Do you reject that the Brain is used for thinking? Do you believe that if we shoot a rocket at the sky, it will puncture the sky, causing the waters above to fall through? The fact is, the Bible does not provide all the answers when it comes to scientific matters, and in some cases, it can confuse our understanding of the way things work. The simple reason is, God did not need to correct the science of the Israelites in order to reveal himself.

[Wolf]

Adam - nice try but anyone with any basic knowledge of scripture knows that your examples do not exist in them. In addition, the nature of man and his relationship to each other as well as God is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago and much of the Bible is observation recorded that has been proven over and over again.

[illusory tenant]

Charlie's "deaf ears" prophecy fulfilled.

For those following along at home:

Prophecy Scoreboard
Charlie 1 Bible 0

[Adam]

Wolf - I don't disagree with you that Man's relationship to God is the same today as it was during Genesis. In fact, In matters of faith, I probably agree with you about 90% of the time, maybe more, but in Matters of Science I don't agree. The Bible is completely relevant today, but if you are planning to use it for the purpose of scientific study, you would benefit from a study of the way that people in the ancient near-east thought at the time that scripture was written.

I have more than a basic knowledge of scripture, and I agree, it probably doesn't mention those beliefs directly in scripture, after all, it's scripture, not a science book. But if you look at near-eastern literature from the same time period, those things I mentioned are common thought at the time. There are references to the concepts in scripture, but looking at a translated Bible wouldn't clue you in to them. Do you know that when scripture refers to a person's mind, or thinking, etc... that the Hebrew word used is the same word for guts, or probably more accurately, Liver. The language of the Israelites didn't even have a word for Brain.

Here's an interesting tidbit for you: In the ancient near-east, existence was based entirely on function. Something did not exist simply because it could be touched, seen, or felt, but it existed when it was given a name and a function. The wilderness did not exist to them, because it had no useful function. The verb that is translated into the english "Create" throughout Genesis is the Hebrew "Bara." It is a word that is only used in reference to God, and only used in reference to intangible things. God Baras festivals, darkness, disaster, Jerusalem, etc... Go back and read Genesis 1, with the understanding that the people who read that originally would have been thinking function, not physicality.

I applaud your zeal for studying the Bible, keep studying, but you might benefit from reading a little about the context in which it was written, and get to know who the ancient Israelites and their neighbors were. It's amazing how much your eyes are opened to the context of the scripture after doing a little studying of some of the history recorded outside the scripture itself.

[Wolf]

Adam - I am not a PHD in history and I don't think you are either. However, my Uncle is and speaks both Hebrew and Greek and does not attempt to make the Bible a historic irrelevant book nor does he attempt to diminish its substance with irrelevant writings that have nothing to do with the scriptures.

This all started out with the ridiculus notion that evolution and global warming are science. You know as well as I do that evolution is simply aethist religion and that global warming is politics that has nothing to do with science.

I know this web site promotes these things and that its readers may not know any better and that a well spoken man like yourself can be there idle. However, there are those of us that see through it and want you to know that we do.

Best regards..

[Adam]

Wolf - That's the thing, I don't agree with you assessment of Evolution and Global warming. That's my point in this whole discussion. I am not attempting to diminish the substance of the Bible, or make it historically irrelevant book. I'm trying to point out that the Bible, like any other book, needs to be put into context of the time and place it was written. When you are reading the Bible, and trying to find scriptural answers to scientific questions, you're taking the scripture out of the context in which it was written. If you think that the writings of the Ancient Near-east are irrelevant to scripture, then you're overlooking a very large point. Comparison of Scripture to the other cultures is very useful, in similarities as well as differences. I strongly recommend you look into it.

Regarding Evolution, I won't correct your belief that it's atheist religion, because I think you have the right to think that. But I don't agree with you. I think there are those who use Evolution to try to disprove faith, but you only confirm their arguments by refusing to even have the discussion with them. Your inability to consider that anything you've been told could be wrong is not an asset to the cause of Christianity. I say what you've been told because I firmly believe that a person can read Genesis 1 and have absolutely no problem with Evolution, so it's not your study of the Bible that causes this, but rather the interpretation of that scripture that's been pounded down the throats of Christians for the past few decades, and is completely missing the context of that scripture.

As for Global warming, I will say, unequivocally, that you are completely fooling yourself if you think that global warming is made up for political reasons. Open your Eyes! What about global warming is Biblically offensive? The only thing political about global warming is the refusal by many conservatives to admit that they might need to drive a smaller car, or find an alternative fuel, or actually change their lifestyle. This may be a conservative position, but it's not a Christian position. God gave us the job to take care of the planet that He created for us. Nowhere does it say that He will prevent us from royally screwing it up, and if you've studied any history, we've been screwing it up from the start. Don't you see that as a Christian, it's your duty to take care of this place? Wake up, and stop letting other people tell you what to agree with. Be intellectually honest with yourself, Global warming is real, and we need to do something about it. There's nothing in your faith that prevents you from this one.

I agree that this site has a tendency to bait people who believe in Creation rather than Evolution, and I don't agree with that practice, but you're reconfirming all the stereotypes that lead people to continue baiting.

[Anon]

Adam

I reviewed your writing according to the logic and reasoning used and place you being about a Sophmore or Junior in high school debate. Is that about right?

Anon, I reviewed your posts and place you being about a moron or imbecile.

And I already know that's about right.

[oh my]

Regardless if global warming and evolution are "sciences" or "religions" or whatever the f*** you want to call them, the earth is slowly warming meaning the oceans will flood rendering millions of people homeless in the years to come. Do you care if this happens to your fellow human beings? If you do ... leave your god damn computer and help figure out how we can reverse this problem regardless if god has made it his will, or indeed we have created our own demise through our greedy use of resources.

Anon -
Thank you for attempting to insult my intelligence. You're a fabulous example of how a Christ Follower should act. Tell me, what about my arguments upsets you the most? Is it that I'm a Christian who can make biblically sound arguments that acknowledge Global warming and Evolution? Or is it that I'm challenging you to think critically about your faith, and you'd just rather keep sitting back and ridiculing all the "atheist evolutionists" who think the world is more than 16,000 years old?

But maybe we should take a look at the arguments and logic that a "mature adult" makes:

"As far as your request for Bible reference, I would say that you would have to start with that people were naked and didn't have to work to produce food. That would say that the enviroment had to be both tolerable to vegatation and to people. I don't recall any reference to cold temperatures in the preflood record."

and my personal favorite:
"Evolution is not a science as global warming isn't a science unless your saying that humans were responsible for the glaciers melting. Maybe they had to much gas from high fiber foods that got into the atmosphere, which melted the glaciers and created this great country of ours."

Fart jokes are very mature... Nice work

[Anon]

Adam -

Your arguments have a certain feminine style to them that equate to that of a contentious woman. You lost all credibility when you inserted things were in the Bible that aren't. You're a fraud masquerading as a Christian and you didn't and can't make one sound argument from the Bible.

[Brian]

I'm curious. Would I be considered anti-semitic if I called the religious beliefs of Jews foolish, ignorant, intolerant, bigoted or just plain stupid? What if I referred to Muslims in the same manner? What about the beliefs and religious practices of Native Americans? Are Native Americans equally gullible, naive, and foolish for their beliefs? If so why are there no posts on this site criticizing those beliefs? What about the other religions of the world? Are they foolish? Why are you folks so afraid of those who believe in intelligent design? Evolution is a well established scientific theory. Bush and his fellow evangicals aren't going to demolish it. Let's start showing respect for all. Disagree without resorting to name calling.

[Anonymoose]

Okay, okay yall, let's start with some basic facts.

"Science" has been around since before the Bible was written. I do believe a number of ancient civilizations would argue with you for that one.

Bible enthusiasts have claimed that the world was flat and that the sun revolves around the Earth. They have prosecuted and executed as heretics people who said otherwise.

People of other religions would disagree with this basic premise completely.

The point of Paul's post was that some people caught a big fish.

Okay?

[Anonymoose]

Also, that people who read the Bible literally would dismiss the post as lies and fabrications, which is exactly what you did, thus proving the point in a ridiculously long, drawn-out process in which you all mostly managed to embarass yourselves in your attempts to out-right each other.

Can we be done now?

[LEO THOMET]

LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT; HUMANS, CREATED BY THE BRUTAL PROCESS OF NATURAL SELECTION SEEK TO CREATE A SOCIETY BASED UPON PROTECTING THE WEAKEST AMONG US. HOW DOES COMPASSI0N FACTOR INTO DARWINISM?

[Peter Kubicki]

Intelligent Design does not conflict with a step-by-step process of biological change, nor does it conflict with a 4 billion year old Earth, nor does it conflict with the existence of the coelacanth.