A Different Look at Genesis

[Trekson]

Hi Junobet, I will get back to you on this but I've got a roofing project this week and time is short so I might not get to it until this weekend.

 

[kerwin]

Well that shows how much you know about meteorology, which is very little.

I am not a meteorologist and so have to look up such information. I have never, ever heard of a stable atmosphere before. Are they hypothetical? Are they healthy since I am fairly sure circulation is necessary for life.

 

[kerwin]

Dcopymote,

This is merely intellectual curiosity as the wording of Genesis 1 and Psalms 148:4 already disprove the canopy theory.

A heavier cloud cover is a possibility but even then atmosphere stability sounds like a bad idea.

Just looking at what Wikipedia says about it makes me think "temperature inversion" and in Los Angeles, California in U.S.A. that is the nasty thing that contributes to smog. At least they did not have the man made pollutants but natural ones are quite abundant today and theoretically would have been then as well.

 

[Dcopymope]

I am not a meteorologist and so have to look up such information. I have never, ever heard of a stable atmosphere before. Are they hypothetical? Are they healthy since I am fairly sure circulation is necessary for life.

Dcopymote,

This is merely intellectual curiosity as the wording of Genesis 1 and Psalms 148:4 already disprove the canopy theory.

A heavier cloud cover is a possibility but even then atmosphere stability sounds like a bad idea.

Just looking at what Wikipedia says about it makes me think "temperature inversion" and in Los Angeles, California in U.S.A. that is the nasty thing that contributes to smog. At least they did not have the man made pollutants but natural ones are quite abundant today and theoretically would have been then as well.

I'm not a meteorologist either, but I am a licensed Aircraft Dispatcher, and a big part of that job is understanding the weather. This is all somewhat hypothetical according to what some meteorologists have more or less stated about our atmosphere if it was stable, which is defined by how much the temperature decreases with altitude. I'll explain it another way to the best of my knowledge. Lets say that you have a parcel of air being forced upward due to lower level convergence, which is a term meteorologist use to refer to a weather front, like a cold front. If there is no temperature lapse rate with height, and if there is no upper level divergence, or upper level trough lowering the pressure at the surface, then that air being forced upward will resist convection regardless. It won't get anywhere. This is why you sometimes can still get crystal clear skies even if there is a cold or warm front moving through.

For that parcel of air to lift to a certain point and condense into a cloud thick enough to bring precipitation, the air will have to have been warmer than the ambient air around it, or less dense than the air around it. Its akin to putting a ball in a swimming pool and holding it under water with your hand. The moment you let the ball go, it becomes less dense than the water around it, allowing it to rise up on its own weight due to positive buoyancy. This is what defines atmospheric instability. But again, since there would be no temperature lapse, then for one, that parcel of air wouldn't get anywhere anyway, and for two, it won't condense to the dew point because the temperature of the atmosphere itself won't allow it to. There wouldn't be any dew point for the temperature of the air parcel to condense to. Not sure where you get this idea that there was such a thing as a natural 'pollutant' before the flood knowing that when God made the heavens and the earth, it was without corruption, it was considered 'good', not 'polluted'.

 

[kerwin]

Dcopymote,

Earth was not necessarily a paradise before the flood as it was subject to corruption as soon as Adam sinned. Due to that I would expect the lifespan of humans to decline from there but the highest point was Enoch, who walked with God and was not. The decline after that may have been due to interbreeding with Cain's line but given that the longest length is due to walking with God then it follows the shorter lifespans represent humanity pulling away from God.

Sources of natural pollutants include volcanoes, forest fires, biological decay, and other things. Of those biological decay definitely occurred as death existed and forest fires most likely did as humanity had fire. Volcanoes is the least likely as they they seem to be related to techtonic plates and the later may not have existed if Pangaea was still existent.

Given the temperature at sea level was tropical the temperatures would increase with height rendering some areas of the earth inhospitable. The only way I could conceive of this occurring is if something heated the outer atmosphere to quite extreme temperatures and the atmosphere itself served as insulation so that the temperature decrease evenly the closer to sea level it became.

Hypothetically stability could also be obtained if temperatures were uniform all the way to the surface but that is extremely hard to believe.

 

[Dcopymope]

Dcopymote,

Earth was not necessarily a paradise before the flood as it was subject to corruption as soon as Adam sinned. Due to that I would expect the lifespan of humans to decline from there but the highest point was Enoch, who walked with God and was not. The decline after that may have been due to interbreeding with Cain's line but given that the longest length is due to walking with God then it follows the shorter lifespans represent humanity pulling away from God.

Sources of natural pollutants include volcanoes, forest fires, biological decay, and other things. Of those biological decay definitely occurred as death existed and forest fires most likely did as humanity had fire. Volcanoes is the least likely as they they seem to be related to techtonic plates and the later may not have existed if Pangaea was still existent.

Given the temperature at sea level was tropical the temperatures would increase with height rendering some areas of the earth inhospitable. The only way I could conceive of this occurring is if something heated the outer atmosphere to quite extreme temperatures and the atmosphere itself served as insulation so that the temperature decrease evenly the closer to sea level it became.

Hypothetically stability could also be obtained if temperatures were uniform all the way to the surface but that is extremely hard to believe.

We'll never know for sure how stability could occur that would not cause it to rain, but your former theory sounds more likely and lines up with my explanation of the temperature lapse rate that defines stability today, in that the temperature lapse rate was reversed. It only increased with an increase in altitude instead of a decrease. This kind of explains the mist that watered the whole earth. The temperature of the air would only become saturated and condense in the form of mist at the surface due to the stability, because there was no adiabatic lapse rate with height. Hebrews 11:7 is another verse that gives further credence to rain not occurring before the flood.

(Hebrews 11:1-3) "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. {2} For by it the elders obtained a good report. {3} Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

(Hebrews 11:7) "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."

The impression given here is that it was rain that God was warning him about that Noah hasn't seen. Considering that God specifically states that he would cause it to rain for forty days, which scripture states is something God had not caused before, this is the only possible conclusion one could come to. Beyond this, I can say that the earth was 'good', or without any kind of corruption before the fall, not after.

 

[kerwin]

...



The impression given here [Hebrews 11:1-3,7] is that it was rain that God was warning him about that Noah hasn't seen. Considering that God specifically states that he would cause it to rain for forty days, which scripture states is something God had not caused before, this is the only possible conclusion one could come to. Beyond this, I can say that the earth was 'good', or without any kind of corruption before the fall, not after.

Or it could be God warned of the coming flood as it written in Genesis.

Genesis 6:17Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

 

[kerwin]

We'll never know for sure how stability could occur that would not cause it to rain, but your former theory sounds more likely and lines up with my explanation of the temperature lapse rate that defines stability today, in that the temperature lapse rate was reversed. It only increased with an increase in altitude instead of a decrease. This kind of explains the mist that watered the whole earth. The temperature of the air would only become saturated and condense in the form of mist at the surface due to the stability, because there was no adiabatic lapse rate with height. Hebrews 11:7 is another verse that gives further credence to rain not occurring before the flood.

I agree that it is mostly speculative since both of us lack knowledge.

Now a couple of items.

1. Mist is water vapor in the atmosphere. I also believe it is equivalent to a low lying cloud.
2. In the AV of the KJV it states ground not earth. It gives an impression of a more local event and other verses link it to the Garden.

Genesis 2:6-10Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

With all the ands it looks like a list of related things that occurred.

 

[Trekson]

Well, I posted this on Sept. 28 but I guess it never showed up!

First a word of testimony to those reading this. The roofing project went well and was completed in six days. God heard my prayers and held off the rain for the whole six days and the rains came a couple of hours after it was completed. Normally, this is part of the wet season here. It might be a week or more before I reply again as I’m going on an unexpected road trip. My goal is a round trip of a total of 3200 miles in five days. Prayers for a safe journey and traveling mercies would be appreciated.
Hi Junobet, You wrote: “Well, that raises the question how Noah could have known which animal was clean and which was unclean.”

That is a question I’ve often pondered myself. At what point did which animals become unclean?

Your words: “In my church Sunday school kids are about 7-10 years old. Kids at that age are mostly capable of telling fact from fiction without a grown-up pointing out the difference. And by no means did any of my Sunday-school kids look down on fiction: They just loved the Noah-Story and I hope it infused them with the trust and hope in God that I think this story means to convey.”

But how much more trust and hope in God would they have if they knew it was the literal truth and not a “story”.

Your words: “So what book of the Bible do you think Jesus wrote? And is there one that promotes the kind of hubris you are displaying here? Even Paul himself admitted not to know everything (1 Cor. 13:12). He also advises never to be wise in your own sight (Romans 12:16).”

In all fairness I never claimed I “knew” everything, just that I believe that all the basic claims in the bible are true. I can honestly say that you’re the first one to ever accuse me of having hubris because I believe what the bible says to be true. If faith in the word of God is your definition of hubris then I guess I’m guilty as charged! As far as your first question above, hmmm, if we consider the bible to be the “word of God” and if Jesus is also known as the “word of God” and if we understand the absolute unity of the Trinity then the answer to; “what book of the Bible did Jesus write?” would be ALL OF THEM, through the hands of His servants!

Your words: “I haven’t got the faintest clue what exactly drives so many evangelical fundamentalists to deny the scientific consensus about man-made climate change – by no means can I see the Bible excluding the possibility that humans make a mess of things and the Bible certainly does not encourage Christians to take part in making a mess… These industries don’t want you to care when they destroy God’s beautiful creation, and they don’t want you to care how your children and grandchildren and grand-grandchildren will survive with no resources left, nor do they want you to care for our fellow-men in poorer parts of the world, who are already suffering under man-made climate change.”
We deny the “scientific consensus” because it’s constantly being proved to be false and made up to advance their ideals of social justice and inequality. I seriously doubt anyone is suffering from “man-made” climate change because it doesn’t exist on a global scale. You are again giving man more credit than they deserve. Do these companies make money? Of course they do and they probably suffer from greed in their stockholders as well. As Christians we are only responsible for that little piece of the world which is the community we live in. You seem to only get your news from “left-wing” European propaganda media that always want to vilify the US but come crawling to us for help when everything goes wrong.

The US helps more poor people around the world in one year then the rest of the globe does in a decade! I’m probably beating a dead horse here but “social justice” is not part of the Christian mandate. The bible tells us we will always have poor people around and it’s not “our job” to improve their life circumstances. Our “job” is to point the way to salvation and help those who God brings into our lives in any way we can. Here in the US there are still enough faith based organizations around to make a big difference in the lives of some of the poor. I can’t say I’ve heard the same about European Christian organizations. Are there any? There is a reason why Christianity seems to be dying in Europe.

Maybe you should question what you’re teaching your children so that their faith can be sustained through adulthood, not just amusing them with nice ‘stories” about faith. It can’t become “real” to them, if they are taught that most of the bible stories aren’t true, they’re just stories. Percentage wise America still has the largest amount of Christians in the world per capita. Just why do you think that is? As many of our churches slowly become agents of social justice we are losing the younger generations ourselves, maybe if we concentrate more on ‘eternal justice” we can get back some of that lost ground!

 

[Trekson]

Even though this was posted late my round trip of 3200 miles was completed in 3 1/2 days driving 12-13 hours a day. I'm tired but God blessed our journey and there were no significant problems along the way.

 

[kerwin]

Trekson,

I seriously doubt anyone is suffering from “man-made” climate change because it doesn’t exist on a global scale

The argument is flawed inductive logic. Which makes it a deductive argument and all deductive arguments are of questionable worth. They are essentially the poor humans version of an inductive argument.

Even as a deductive argument there is questions such as the evidence presented in the news is concentrated in the northern hemisphere with some bleed to the southern one possibly due to wind flow differences. In addition the natural contribution to greenhouse gases is higher than the man-made contribution. There is also particle pollution that is reduced by laws and causes cooling. I am am not sure that is accounted for in the models since our media does not mention it.

In short I think global warming is more of a political scheme to unite the world than reliable science.

 

[StanJ]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-global-warming-a-myth/

 

[kerwin]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-global-warming-a-myth/

That is a poor quality paper as it cites nothing. I actually look at the evidence available instead of even trusting scientists who are human beings and thus untrustworthy by nature. This is an image of carbon-dioxide concentration and you can easily see that it is not uniform and how the hot spots are in certain places though they drift with the prevailing winds.

 

[StanJ]

That is a poor quality paper as it cites nothing. I actually look at the evidence available instead of even trusting scientists who are human beings and thus untrustworthy by nature. This is an image of carbon-dioxide concentration and you can easily see that it is not uniform and how the hot spots are in certain places though they drift with the prevailing winds.

It's not a paper it's a synopsis and it cites various sources, so go check out the various sources.

 

[kerwin]

StanJ,

The evidence I presented actually disproves the idea that carbon-dioxide is causing global warming simply because the carbon-dioxide is concentrated in certain areas. China seems to be the largest producer and perhaps Japan though that may be flow from China. By the time it reaches the U.S. it usually drops down to 60 odd percent of its high and even lower as it flows to Europe. The high concentrations in the south hemisphere is most a part of Africa and it flows to South which may contribute some but other than that flow and the bleed that connects it to the northern hemisphere it drops off to 40% of the concentration over the ocean. The poles are quite a bit opposite with 0 concentration in the south pole at some places and between 50% and somewhere in the 60%'s in the north pole.

It does look like it might be connect to industrialization as a lot of that has moved to China and that area but I lack facts to test that hypothesis. What I do see it the evidence is not supporting the idea of a global rise in carbon-dioxide.

The strongest case for it is that we do not have all the evidence but that just lead to those supporting making either an argument from ignorance or an appeal to authority fallacy. Neither are flawed argument is convincing and as I said earlier it looks like a political scam.

 

[StanJ]

The Empirical Evidence
As temperatures started to rise, scientists became more and more interested in the cause. Many theories were proposed. All save one have fallen by the wayside, discarded for lack of evidence. One theory alone has stood the test of time, strengthened by experiments.

We know CO2 absorbs and re-emits longwave radiation (Tyndall). The theory of greenhouse gases predicts that if we increase the proportion of greenhouse gases, more warming will occur (Arrhenius).

Scientists have measured the influence of CO2 on both incoming solar energy and outgoing long-wave radiation. Less longwave radiation is escaping to space at the specific wavelengths of greenhouse gases. Increased longwave radiation is measured at the surface of the Earth at the same wavelengths.

 

[kerwin]

The Empirical Evidence
As temperatures started to rise, scientists became more and more interested in the cause. Many theories were proposed. All save one have fallen by the wayside, discarded for lack of evidence. One theory alone has stood the test of time, strengthened by experiments.

We know CO2 absorbs and re-emits longwave radiation (Tyndall). The theory of greenhouse gases predicts that if we increase the proportion of greenhouse gases, more warming will occur (Arrhenius).

Scientists have measured the influence of CO2 on both incoming solar energy and outgoing long-wave radiation. Less longwave radiation is escaping to space at the specific wavelengths of greenhouse gases. Increased longwave radiation is measured at the surface of the Earth at the same wavelengths.

I did not actually until after I heard that Venus' Gehenna-like conditions were due to global warming.

The only evidence I have to go on is from media which means the evidence is by nature flawed.

Inductive reasoning tells us the argument that the average temperature is increasing does not mean that all regions temperatures are increasing. In order to prove global warming one would have all regions temperatures have continued to increase over time and it is an argument that is easily disproved by revealing that one region has in fact gotten colder or failed to rise. That is possibly why global warming has evolved into climate change which has been an established fact since God chose to give the world different climates. (Note: we disagree on the when)

There may well be regional warming and that restricted mainly to the Northern hemisphere and developed nations by wind flow. Global warming could occur if something causes those winds to bleed into the southern hemisphere even more than they do today. I do not even know if that is possible as the earth's rotation may resist it. The water also behaves the same way.

The carbon cycle also plays a part.

In conclusion the evidence reveals support for the hypothesis of regional warming with too little supporting global warming. As I point out in the notes the hypothesis for global warming is not eliminated it just lacks support.

Notes

• The CO2 is more concentrated in the northern hemisphere and so the greenhouse effects from it are also.
• The places in the southern hemisphere where the CO2 concentration is 0 have no greenhouse effect from CO2.
• Just as the CO2 concentrations varies so to does the greenhouse effect from that CO2.
• I have no idea what concentration of CO2 leads to a warming trend in a given area.
• CO2 is only one factor that could cause warming.
• A hypothesis cannot be discarded due to lack of evidence as it still remains a possibility though the possibly may grow less as evidence mounts up to support another one.

 

[StanJ]

I did not actually until after I heard that Venus' Gehenna-like conditions were due to global warming.

The only evidence I have to go on is from media which means the evidence is by nature flawed.

Inductive reasoning tells us the argument that the average temperature is increasing does not mean that all regions temperatures are increasing. In order to prove global warming one would have all regions temperatures have continued to increase over time and it is an argument that is easily disproved by revealing that one region has in fact gotten colder or failed to rise. That is possibly why global warming has evolved into climate change which has been an established fact since God chose to give the world different climates. (Note: we disagree on the when)

There may well be regional warming and that restricted mainly to the Northern hemisphere and developed nations by wind flow. Global warming could occur if something causes those winds to bleed into the southern hemisphere even more than they do today. I do not even know if that is possible as the earth's rotation may resist it. The water also behaves the same way.

The carbon cycle also plays a part.

In conclusion the evidence reveals support for the hypothesis of regional warming with too little supporting global warming. As I point out in the notes the hypothesis for global warming is not eliminated it just lacks support.

Notes

• The CO2 is more concentrated in the northern hemisphere and so the greenhouse effects from it are also.
• The places in the southern hemisphere where the CO2 concentration is 0 have no greenhouse effect from CO2.
• Just as the CO2 concentrations varies so to does the greenhouse effect from that CO2.
• I have no idea what concentration of CO2 leads to a warming trend in a given area.
• CO2 is only one factor that could cause warming.
• A hypothesis cannot be discarded due to lack of evidence as it still remains a possibility though the possibly may grow less as evidence mounts up to support another one.

So in other words you expressed an opinion without knowing all the facts and now you're back peddling... typical.

 

[kerwin]

So in other words you expressed an opinion without knowing all the facts and now you're back peddling... typical.

Scientist do it all the time since they seldom have all the facts. You can go on only what you know.

Here is an animated image for Methane as well and like CO2 Methane is also concentrated in the northern hemisphere.

The evidence I have seen so far reveals that any greenhouse effect and thus any warming would be concentrated in the northern hemisphere where CO2 and Methane are more concentrated.

It could be that the media and all those places trying to convince of global warming are incompetent and so do not release sufficient evidence to reach the conclusion that the whole globe is effected.

We are off topic and you do not actually seem interested so I think it wise to stop here.

Thank you for the conversation.

 

[Born_Again]

Yes, this is way off topic. Thank you all for the lesson in meteorology! LOL I learned a lot.