Comment on the water cycle

[theo.m...@gmail.com]

Hi guys, I'd like to begin by congratulating TalkOrigins which is doing a great job at debunking creationists' claims. However, I have something to say about the water cycle (http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH133.html). It quotes something from Ecclesiastes and address this particular claim, dismissing . However there is another allusion to the water cycle, in Job 36:26-28 which is more accurate :

"He draws up the drops of water,
which distill as rain to the streams;
the clouds pour down their moisture
and abundant showers fall on mankind."

Therefore the argument that there is nothing about the process is wrong, however wrong the whole Bible may be. Point 2 of the rebuttal in TalkOrigins is therefore not valid, or only to some extent, but definitely not as much as is written.

I just wanted to point this out as what everyone does here is try to stay as precise as possible, as well as being honest about what the Bible actually says.

Cheers,

Théo

[eridanus]

El jueves, 24 de abril de 2014 19:38:12 UTC+1, theo.m...@gmail.com escribi�:

> Th�o

abundant showers is an exaggeration for the middle East. Perhaps the author
was thinking about the weather of the British islands.
Eri

[eridanus]

El jueves, 24 de abril de 2014 19:38:12 UTC+1, theo.m...@gmail.com escribi�:

> Th�o

this passage of Job probably refers to god Zeus that gather the clouds
and make them rain. This passage suggest that Zeus raises up the drops
of water that fall as rain to the streams. The rain falls on the streams
not on the floor in general, or in the slopes of the mountains. Then,
the streams are merely the water that runs on the surface of the slopes,
in hills and mountains, and run down. The writer of this story was not
well informed about how Zeus was doing the trick for the streams to have
running water. I can forgive him, for in this arid land of Judea, streams
only run during rains, or for some short periods after the rains. Then,
I understand that a person living in Judea was not well informed about
the miracles done by Zeus.
He had inverted the order of the versicles. First it rains, and later
the stream have running water. The author never asked Zeus about how he
was making this trick.

eri

[Richard Norman]

On Tue, 6 May 2014 09:53:13 -0700 (PDT), eridanus
<leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote:

>El jueves, 24 de abril de 2014 19:38:12 UTC+1, theo.m...@gmail.com escribi�:
>> Hi guys, I'd like to begin by congratulating TalkOrigins which is doing a great job at debunking creationists' claims. However, I have something to say about the water cycle (http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH133.html). It quotes something from Ecclesiastes and address this particular claim, dismissing . However there is another allusion to the water cycle, in Job 36:26-28 which is more accurate :
>>
>>
>>
>> "He draws up the drops of water,
>>
>> which distill as rain to the streams;
>>
>> the clouds pour down their moisture
>>
>> and abundant showers fall on mankind."
>>
>> Therefore the argument that there is nothing about the process is wrong, however wrong the whole Bible may be. Point 2 of the rebuttal in TalkOrigins is therefore not valid, or only to some extent, but definitely not as much as is written.
>> I just wanted to point this out as what everyone does here is try to stay as precise as possible, as well as being honest about what the Bible actually says.

>abundant showers is an exaggeration for the middle East. Perhaps the author
>was thinking about the weather of the British islands.
>Eri

You might be interested in the story in today's (May 6, 2014)
Telegraph: "Torrential rai, snow storms and flooding hit the Middle
East"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/9788747/Torrential-rain-snow-storms-and-flooding-hit-the-Middle-East.html

"Unusually heavy winter rains have hit the Middle East, forcing the
closure of main access routes to Tel Aviv. Torrential rains also swept
through desert Jordan, sparking widespread flooding and traffic chaos
but bringing welcome water to reservoirs in one of the world's 10
driest countries. Flash floods tore through Lebanon, where several
rivers burst their banks cutting highways off. "

You prefer to watch videos so try
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5YQ6LlhRHA

There are long swaths of regions with very good rainfall through
Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Thursday, 24 April 2014 19:38:12 UTC+1, theo.m...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi guys, I'd like to begin by congratulating TalkOrigins which
> is doing a great job at debunking creationists' claims. However,
> I have something to say about the water cycle
> (http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH133.html).
> It quotes something from Ecclesiastes and address this particular

> claim, dismissing [it][*]. However there is another allusion to the

> water cycle, in Job 36:26-28 which is more accurate :
>
> "He draws up the drops of water,
> which distill as rain to the streams;
> the clouds pour down their moisture
> and abundant showers fall on mankind."
>
> Therefore the argument that there is nothing about the process
> is wrong, however wrong the whole Bible may be. Point 2 of the
> rebuttal in TalkOrigins is therefore not valid, or only to some
> extent, but definitely not as much as is written.
>
> I just wanted to point this out as what everyone does here is try
> to stay as precise as possible, as well as being honest about what
> the Bible actually says.

[*] "obvious" addition.

I think I want to ask "whose side are you on?" However, the
bible doesn't belong only to creationists, and can be used
on either side.

The repository probably needs to be understood as an "Index to
creationist claims supporting the superiority of creationism".

In this case, the claim is specifically that "Ecclesiastes 1:7
demonstrates a knowledge of the physical world which is superior
to the other belief that was around at the time, that the world
is flat and water just runs off the edges. Therefore, you should
also believe that the bible is right when it says God made
everything in six days."

Job 36:27-28 according to <http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Job-Chapter-36/>
is not part of this creationist claim. But it's a legitimate
contribution. Please read on, because I'll come back to that.

However, point 1 (as it now stands) offered in refutation is that
the bible contains many claims about unseen parts of the physical
world, some of which agree with a modern understanding and some
of which do not.

Point 2 is that Ecclesiastes 1 doesn't fit the water cycle precisely.

However, it does express a view that there is a water cycle.

On the other hand, it seems to me quite reasonable to interpret
it to mean that at night, when no one's there to see and it's
dark anyway, rivers run uphill out of the sea, to run downhill
again the next day. Except that the river water isn't salty.

After all, Ecclesiastes 1:6 says that sometimes the wind blows
towards the south, and sometimes it blows towards the north.

Point 3 I don't exactly understand or accept. Ecclesiastes
claims that nothing is new, but I don't see that Ecclesisastes
is claiming to have new knowledge itself. Sacred writings since
Adam might have included a description of the water cycle -
although Genesis 2: 5-6 is quoted describing something
different happening, which I'd provisionally allow to mean
that when the Garden of Eden was in business, something
different /did/ happen, which seems to be the point; but
I don't believe that it actually happened: regardless,
I think it may be /saying/ that rain never happened at all
before either Noah's flood, or the invention of farming.

My point is that Ecclesiastes could contain exclusive
information that is not new information. And anyway,
so the wind sometimes blows north and sometimes to
south; we don't know which (unless we have a good
forecast) until it happens, although we know it's
going to be one or the other (or east or west or
in between).

Point 4 of the refutation questions whether any of this
/is/ exclusive information. Thoughtful people can
observe natural phenomena that other people don't notice.
In particular, that the earth's surface is, or appears
to be, curved - this was known, if not known to everybody.
Or that water evaporates and takes the form of mist.

Another point is that any translation of the bible
since the twentieth century has been written by
scholars who have access to a modern understanding
of the natural world, the water cycle, and so forth.
One way to remove that issue is to read King James's
"Authorised Version" - ideally without any revision
for a modern reader, although people have taken the
trouble to translate the AV into modern English.

On the other hand, for a modern translation of what
is actually in ancient scriptures in ancient language,
I like better the "New Electronic Translation" or
"NET Bible", which you can read on its own web site.
But they're not always right, and it isn't impossible
that they provide the traditional interpretation and
translation of scriptures, or provide an interpretation
that includes their own modern understanding of
the physical world. And anyway, there are different
ancient copies of the ancient scriptures...

From the link I included above, here is an AV version,
with or without such revisions, of your passage in Job:

26 Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can
the number of his years be searched out.

27 For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down
rain according to the vapour thereof:

28 Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly.

29 Also can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or
the noise of his tabernacle?

30 Behold, he spreadeth his light upon it, and covereth the
bottom of the sea.

31 For by them judgeth he the people; he giveth meat in abundance.

32 With clouds he covereth the light; and commandeth it
not to shine by the cloud that cometh betwixt.

33 The noise thereof sheweth concerning it, the cattle also
concerning the vapour.

Okay.

First I'll point out that your version has the word "distil"
in verse 27, but mine has it in verse 28.

Second, I'm going to propose that the ancient scripture
is mostly not intelligible at all, and that King James's
bible scholars were guessing at the meanings.

And now that I have consulted The NET Bible web site,
I still think so. It's full of footnotes about meanings.

Actually, these include verse 30 maybe having "mist"
instead of "light", and verse 31 having "he nourishes"
instead of "he judges", to make a coherent story -
whether or not it's realistic - in which God provides
water out of the sky on which both human and all other
life ultimately depends for survival.

In this case, I think the NET has preferred to agree with
the AV, which is not better or worse than preferring to
choose a story that makes sense instead of the story that
is actually there.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job#Composition>
offers some reasons that the book of Job, compared to
other parts of the bible in the original ancient version,
could be particularly difficult to interpret.

[eridanus]

El martes, 6 de mayo de 2014 18:29:06 UTC+1, Richard Norman escribi�:

I was thinking if that storm in the middle east was the one that passed
through the south of Europe some days before.

But for what I had read, I do not watch only videos, for I had not any
before recently in youtube; I mean, for what I had read I presumed that
heavy deforestation started some 2 or 3 thousand times ago in the Eastern
shores of Mediterranean sea. Not only because on average they had much
less rainfall that the Western parts, but because it started to become
overpopulated much earlier. I remember that at the times of Pericles
the forest of Greece were already very light and sparse. The famous
Athenian fleet that made the war against the Persians were build with
timber bought in the Thrace, from the mountains there. Then in another
video, the speaker was talking about Ephesus. Two thousand years ago
it was a busy port of the easter Mediterranean. But due to deforestation
and erosion from the rains, the city of Ephesus is now some 20 km. (12.5
miles) from the sea. The nearby mountains after being cut of their
trees become a place for grazing goats. The forest had a little
opportunity to regrow, the goats do let this little trees to grow up
and they get exhausted and disappear. In Spain, during the last half of
the twenty century, most people in the country migrated to work in cities,
and 90% of the grazing of sheep and goats was abandoned. I watched
in some country of Castille that have mountains good for grazing, and
they had passed from being rather bare with only some grasses to become
almost reforested, with a lot of scrub and some patches of tall trees.
In some rural city near those mountains they had a hall to entertain
tourists with some printed photos on how were those mountains some
50 years ago, and how they look now full of greenery.

If human population grow a lot, they need to consume the natural
resources in form of forests and scrub, to sell timber and firewood,
and even to make charcoal. Then, the grazing of sheep and goats
is also a way of exterminating the regrowth of all trees and scrubs
of some mountains. Then, all that greenery is converted in meat and
cheese to feed people.
As the population grows up, there is a moment that it can surpass
the natural productivity of the land, that is limited by the average
rains, the sunlight and temperature.
In general, as the population grows up, the forests shrink. For humans
are consuming those forest for timber, and firewood. Even to make room
for agriculture. In rich countries, the consumption of oil and gas
for cooking and heating the homes, had given a respite for forests to
regrow in some places. The abandon of old ways of life like the grazing
of sheep and goats, are also some good news for the regrowth of forest.

eri