Let's Talk Rainbows

[_bcuzbcuz]

I'll bypass the garble in Genesis 6 of the numbering of human days, being 120 years, since I know without a doubt I'll never even come close to that age and I sincerely doubt anyone on this board ever has or ever will.

I'll skip all the nonsense of the Lord regretting his creating humans and all living things on the planet (after he declared them all good a few chapters before).

I'll avoid the endless arguments of trying to figure out how Noah got all species....sorry, kinds of animals,.... 2 by 2 or 7evens aboard a wooden structure, three storey ship. I'll even let it slip through that feeding all of these animals requires another miracle or three.

I'll skip over all the lacking of geological evidence of any worldwide flood.

I'll avoid getting into a discussion of Ken Ham preaching that Noah brought the dinosaurs on board (after all, he's not Mormon)

I'll dismiss the impossibility of genetic variation in present animals and humans developing in the mere 4000 years since the flood.

Let's just stick to what Genesis 9 says that God did in his covenant to Noah following the flood. (Genesis 9: 11-17).

Do Mormons honestly believe that, prior to the flood, that the optical division of light rays into a visible spectrum of six colours never happened? Now granted, the Bible doesn't mention anything about lawn water sprinkling systems and waterfalls are only mentioned in Psalms, but rain must have happened sometime between Adam and Noah. After all, when God tells Noah that he's going to cause rain for 40 days and 39 nights there is no excited expletives from Noah asking "What the Hell is rain?"

Wait a minute, Genesis 2:6 says there was a mist that watered the earth. Are we to believe that no one, ever, saw anything similar to a rainbow in this mist?

Think back to water sprinklers....mist.... When was the last time you looked at a mist? Did you see a rainbow?

I find it hard to believe that the physical properties of light dispersion were voided for the 1500+ years between Adam and Noah. Anyone here with an opinion?

[_just me]

Yes, I know Mormons who believe there were no rainbows pre-Deluge. I was probably one of them, but I don't know that I actually gave it much thought. I'm sure I had it compartmentalized since I was fairly confident that god somehow used evolution to create everything and that science was compatible with the gospel (haha!). Obviously it does not make sense for there to be no rainbows, just like it makes no sense for the whole earth to be covered in water.

There are some LDS who believe the Flood was a localized deal. This makes the Rainbow Covenant senseless since there have been countless local floods since the alleged time of Noah.

[_LDSToronto]

To say that rainbows didn't exist prior to the flood is sort of like saying gravity didn't exist prior to the earth's creation.

Between rainbows and severed foreskins, there sure are some strange symbols of covenants.

H.

[_bcuzbcuz]

I'm sure I had it compartmentalized since I was fairly confident that god somehow used evolution to create everything and that science was compatible with the gospel (haha!).

Good point. I'm sure I did the same back when I was active and a believer. Amazing how directly oppositional matters can somehow be pushed aside to give peace of mind. I did the same thing with the churches policy towards the blacks. I was ardently opposed to rascism but somehow allowed this policy to go past the reasoning centre of my brain.

[_Bret Ripley]

Between rainbows and severed foreskins, there sure are some strange symbols of covenants.

Granted, but at least the bow seems to make some sort of sense. Remember, before YWHW was Israel's national god he was identified by some peoples as a storm god (in some respects similar to his arch-rival, Ba'al). A storm god displaying his unthreatening weapon (bow without arrow) seems to be an apt symbol in this instance.

OTOH, "I place my severed foreskin in the clouds" would probably make for a more interesting Sunday School lesson.

[_Franktalk]

...Wait a minute, Genesis 2:6 says there was a mist that watered the earth. Are we to believe that no one, ever, saw anything similar to a rainbow in this mist?

Think back to water sprinklers....mist.... When was the last time you looked at a mist? Did you see a rainbow?

I find it hard to believe that the physical properties of light dispersion were voided for the 1500+ years between Adam and Noah. Anyone here with an opinion?

If you are truly interested then you can read this. It is a theory about light and how it traveled through space differently in the past.

http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html

But more important is this paper.

http://www.worldsci.org/pdf/abstracts/a ... s_5349.pdf

[_ludwigm]

about science according to Barry J. Setterfield

These types think it seriously.

by the way
viewtopic.php?p=226556#p226556 Posted: 2009.03.04
viewtopic.php?p=485099#p485099 Posted: 2011.07.26

[_Franktalk]

about science according to Barry J. Setterfield

These types think it seriously.

by the way
viewtopic.php?p=226556#p226556 Posted: 2009.03.04
viewtopic.php?p=485099#p485099 Posted: 2011.07.26

Your post has a familiar ring to it. It seems that I have heard this type of argument before. In fact I have read about it many times in history. Sometimes the attitude is valid and sometimes not. The important ones got it wrong and the course of human knowledge was enhanced. In order to see examples of this kind of rejection of information by inspection look up the history of these men.

Bretz as in Bretz flood
Olaf Roemer as in speed of light

Myself I read many things. Some of which I think are totally wrong but I read them anyway. It seems that true relationships in nature are independent of my attitude. No matter which way I feel about something the data always wins over time.

John Sanford is being proved correct but I suspect he will never receive recognition from those who rejected him. This is the way of the world and many do not check into things with an open mind.

My question to you is did you read the papers or did you search his name and just parrot back what others have said?

[_bcuzbcuz]

It is a theory about light and how it traveled through space differently in the past.

In your first reference article it states, "Their data seemed to show that a small (but statistically significant) decrease in "c" had occurred during the past 400 years."

No! What it actually shows is that ESTIMATES of the speed of light have decreased over the past 400 years. The speed of light has gone from "infinite" down to 300,000 km per second. I wouldn't call that a "small" decrease in speed if we were actually talking about the speed of light and not simply our ability to measure it acurately.

[_Franktalk]

There will be a time when Barry Setterfield will be taken more seriously than he is today. I have read many post on astronomical blogs and the young men think that Barry has not received a fair hearing of his ideas. Maybe in twenty years when the old guard dies off maybe Arp and Barry will have their work truly evaluated by the discipline. But until then their ideas stand as presented and the rejection by the men in ivory towers stands as well. Time will tell who stands into the future and who falls. But since Barry's work deals with the past it will be difficult to show it to be true if indeed it is. I tend to see these things as theories and they all have equal weight as theories and none may be representative of the past.

Right now we have a majority of climate scientist saying that man has warmed up the world and soon it will warm up with run away greenhouse gases as the cause. They are wrong and driven by agendas. All of their projections have turned out to be false yet they refuse to be turned from their opinion. The earth has in the past been much warmer than today and man according to science was not there. If indeed the earth gets warm and cold without man then why do we blame man today? Could it be the billions of dollars being spent on research is the prize?

So those who view the past as static and a copy of today may be wrong. The past is a mystery and we should always keep in our mind that we are not the center of the universe. What has happened in the past happened and we may never know the whole truth of it.

Arp finally found a place in the heavens where a quasar was in front of a galaxy. The redshift of the quasar would indicate that the quasar was in back of the galaxy. But you could see that it was clearly in front of it. NASA gave an opinion of the situation, they basically said that sometimes you can't believe what you see. So being shown proof means nothing. They came back and said you can't believe your lying eyes but you can believe the redshift formula. What a wonderful world we live in.