Documentaries on the Great Flood?
By Matt Watson
And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. – Genesis 7:19
My posts are becoming few and far between, but that is not because I ever discontinued my trifling thoughts. I’ve been too lazy to publish them, held back by other studies, a job, tailgating parties, football, watching television, etc.
However, I spent the weekend with a good like-minded friend of mine from down south, one of my high school teachers from way back when, and we had a lot of interesting conversations while critiquing television programs. In our own sneaky, religious right way, we came up with a few insights from watching television.
First, men who take Cialis or other medicine for erectile dysfunction probably have consumed too much pornography and are therefore sexually desensitized. Not very scientific, you might say, but neither is anything else I’m about to say. Prepare yourself. Profounder thoughts await you.
Second, and last, and most importantly, TV documentaries are interesting when examined with creationist sentiments combined with conspiracy theory mindsets. I shall divide this second point into two smaller points.
Smaller point number one: The first documentary we watched was on the History Channel and covered different perspectives on how the island of Britain became geologically separated from the rest of Europe. The view given the strongest credibility in this documentary was that in some manner, a cataclysmic flood ripped through Europe and created the English Channel. Hmm. Cataclysmic flood. Need I say more?
Not only that, but at approximately the same time (geologically speaking), it is supposed by some geologists that a similar type of cataclysmic flood occurred across the world in North America, creating some of our current land features in the West. Hmm. A cataclysmic flood occurring at the same time as another cataclysmic flood a world away. Sounds like some kind of worldwide … coincidence.
Smaller point number two: A second documentary, one on Discovery Channel I believe, covered a crew of scientists unearthing a woolly mammoth. The mammoth had been perfectly preserved after getting stuck in a pool of water thousands of years ago during the Ice Age. Hmm. An entire mammoth preserved in water. I’m just sayin’.
I don’t mean to ostracize any of my theistic evolution friends or to take a holier-than-thou attitude. If you believe God guided the evolutionary process and created everything with man separate from the animals, I don’t want to argue with you. There are fine arguments to be made there, just not fine enough for me to accept.
The primary entertainment I get out of these documentaries is that the scientists on the evolution side of the spectrum, scientists who do not cease to ridicule creationists as ignoramuses, don’t even get it themselves. Not even the faintest memory of some ignorant creationist, I suppose, stirs in the minds of scientists when concluding that perhaps a catastrophic flood had some type of effect in X, Y and Z locations.
September 17, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I notice the same things when I watch documentaries. Actually, it’s all too common that people on both sides throw insults at each other and whine about who is right and wrong. Scientists begin to think Christians are anti-Science, which we should not be, and Christians begin to think Science is anti-Christian, which it shouldn’t be. A girl I used to know is getting ready to drop out of college because she thinks Biology class might be teaching her things against God.
Science is Science, Theology is Theology. The Bible is not a History or Science text book. It’s fine to believe whatever you want, but at some point we are pushing the line by getting more and more pushy on what Science teaches and whether or not it can be true. Sorry, but there really isn’t a big conspiracy to make up stories about evolutionary evidence in order to just belittle religion, there are real findings that deserve an honest scientific inquiry.
At the same time, Scientists need to stop trying to add fuel to the fire by agging on their critics or attacking religion as something utterly wrong. This battle between scientists and fundamentalists I’m afraid is going to spiral terribly out of control in the next few years, to the detriment of Christianity and Science.
September 17, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Thanks for your comment, Joseph. You are right in what you say, that science is not theology. Objective study of nature shouldn’t be influenced by our own religious inclinations, even if we believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old. It’s the same way in journalism. You can’t let your own bias go into a story. That being said, I think the controversy stems from the fact that no matter how hard “fundamentalists” like myself try to be objective, it’s going to be extremely hard to get us to accept something that goes against a literal interpretation of the Bible, especially if it can’t be proven (e.g., evolution). Same goes for atheists. It’s going to be extremely hard to get them to believe in a creation, especially when it can’t be proven scientifically.
September 20, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I’m sorry, But I’ll have to butt in with my own two cents here! Humanistic theology(Evolution} is just that, Theology. It is religious in nature, It simply transfers the power of creation from God to nature. Case in point, The Gaia theory is supported, outlined and defined in my Earth Science text book/Understanding environmental systems McGraw Hill Publishing 0-07-234146-7 Spencer, Earth Science page 28/
which in simple terms states that the earth is alive and maintains the conditions for life, guides life as Mother earth see fit.
What? I had to spend $180 on this textbook and take this required class for my IT degree? Why? What does gaia have to do with Internet Technology? Could it be a means of restricting the resources of those who might disagree? No degree, No job. Laugh if you must, but I suggest that you look up “The Reese Commission”. That is exactly what is going on. and has been since the early 1900’s
November 11, 2008 at 9:03 pm
The Bible is not a science textbook, but it is scientifically accurate. It is not a history textbook, but it is historically accurate.
Isaiah 40:22
“It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.” (this was written at least 300 years before Aristotle suggested the earth might be a sphere)
And I will agree with Rob when he says that macro Evolution is a faith, not a science. It is constantly trying to be empirically proved, but to no avail thus far.
December 16, 2008 at 2:08 am
Nice take Matt. Interesting. The reconciliation of Science, Creation and Evolution is not, as some suggest, a black and white, yes or no in this era of Human validation efforts. We like to tag issues like this with tangible labels, so we can feel resolved and dignified. The truth for me is that we simply lack the hard technology and intellectual understanding at the moment to do just that, however, Michal Heller summed it up best for me on my Validating Creation post Thus:
“If we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about the cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the great blueprint of God’s thinking about the universe; the question on ultimate causality: Why is there something rather than nothing? When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes. Science is but a collective effort of the human mind to read the mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made.”
He earned a bit of research funding on this angle as well.
-Dave