Apparently, 'god' works through magic tricks
I can't help but feel sorry for people who have been taught to believe this is history.
sharesentient amoeba,
How do you feel for those of us who are educated people that choose as adults to believe that this is history?
I say more power to you. But to believe a sea magically parts (as in the movie) is wishful thinking.
shareIt's called a "miracle". For a religion that puts a strong emphasis on faith, miracles can and do happen. How you view miracles depends entirely on your view of faith. It is not "wishful thinking" any more than believing that someone died for your sins is "wishful thinking".
I wish that this bad remake had never began production. That, however, would be true "wishful thinking".
most of the miracles mintioned in the Bible have been discovered as natured phenominons (not sure how to spell that). The parting of the Red Sea as described in the Bible if not the films is supposedly due to some fluke events in the tides that is known to have happened at the same time that the Red Sea parted in the Bible.
he's being mugged
well let's hope we don't cover him!
It's very interesting that all of those 'natural phenomenons' should occur so close to eachother, and when Moses is saying for them. Either Moses was in contact with God, or maybe Moses can just control natural phenomenons.
No ammount of science can explain the power of God.
Well, if you assume that the story played out exactly as the Bible states, yes, it is strange that all of these situations should happen at once. Science would have an incredibly difficult time explaining it. But, if you are willing to believe that the Bible's story is edited and changed to make it seem more miraculous, then it's not so amazing. All of the plagues could happen over the course of a couple of years. All claims would simply have to be exaggated to monumental proportions. If you believe that the Bible is unerring and God's words, then this explanation is void.
For example (The plagues may be out of order, excuse me for that, but they make sense this way. Remember, this is if you don't take the Bible as literal, unerring truth.):
Water to blood: Red bacteria/algae in the water massing in huge amounts in the river. This has been documented in the modern day. Of course, the entire Nile doesn't turn red, only small parts, but this can be exaggerated.
Gnats: Born from water. Annual Nile flooding could spawn a very large gnat hatch.
Locusts: Plagues of locusts are common in the Middle East, especially Egypt. They come in, eat all the crops, then leave.
Frogs: The extra large gnat hatch causes larger numbers of frogs to hatch, due to larger food resource. Locusts only add to the food quantities for the frogs. Food runs out eventually, frogs die. Perhaps a drought.
Diseased Livestock: Diseases run rampant quite often in livestock. Especially starving livestock, because the locusts ate all the food. If some disease takes hold, then disease could spread quickly. The flooded Nile may also hatch a large number of blood-sicking insects (like mosquitoes)who transmit disease.
Flies: Flies take advantage of dead livestock, feasting upon and laying eggs on all the dead livestock. Maggots, then more flies, etc.
Boils and Blisters: Comes with the diseased livestock. All the death leads to poor living conditions. People get sick and are bitten quite horribly by insects. This may have been a small outbreak of the bubonic plague due to the poor hygiene of the area during the livestock death.
Thunder & Hail: Simple, Egypt has a thunderstorm with hail. Something that doesn't happen all that often in the desert. Large hail causes damage. The fires could be totally fictional or may be due to oil lamps being knocked over by the hail (or Moses' people) causing fires throughout Egypt.
Darkness: Total eclipse of the Sun during that period that couldn't be explained as anything but an act of God at the time.
Death of the First Born: This is cause for debate. One theory says a disease swept over Egypt, killing many young children (thus, it becomes the death of the first born). Another theory says that the death of the Pharoah's son (his first born), who helped chase the Hebrews, during the pursuit creates this idea. So rather than all the first-borns of Egypt, it was the death of the Pharoah's first-born and the Pharoah signifies Egypt. I know, the death of the first born was supposed to happen before the Hebrews were freed, but what nice imagery to change the story to reflect that?
This is a possible way that the plagues happened. Remember, I said that this is if the true story happened over a 1-3 year period or even 5 years. These things could, conceivably, all happen. If these things all fell into place and a Moses character began a revolution to free the Hebrews, using thes plagues as God's work, then the idea of the 10 Commandments is very believable. It would just be improbable.
Let's take James Frey's books. As we all know, not entirely true, but they're based on truth. Perhaps, if the bible told the literal story, people would be bored. Everyone exaggerates the truth.
Burning Bush- In dry climates, like desert, dry brush can spontaneously catch on fire with assistance of wind and other materials. Maybe Moses imagined that God talked to him, and he thought God was trying to give a message. A strong gust of wind comes by, no more burning. It's in the realm of possibility.
smitmatja- any ideas on the sea?
This is more of an "in general" comment.
This really bugs me when people try to "explain" miracles with science. It's fine if you don't believe in them, but for Pete's sake don't try to make up wild scenarios and then say that they are "based on science". One recent example that I found really annoying was the theory that Jesus was "floating on an iceberg" while walking on the water.
According to the Bible, the "burning bush" was consumed with a fire, but did not burn. A voice came from the bush as well.
The Red Sea parting can not be explained by any type of seismic or volcanic activity. It's fine if you don't believe that it happened, but don't make up stupid scenarios that require pretty much the same amount of blind faith as the miracles do. I saw another person try to "explain" the Red Sea parting as a mirage.
Actually, National Geographic is doing a special on the parting of the Red Sea and the plagues. My first post was all common sense that I thought up. No help from the special. The following is a summary of the National Geographic special.
The idea is that when the Red Sea is low during a drought (as it's actually a large lake), a strong wind can actually clear a high spot in the lake floor that can be walked on. Think land-bridge from Russia to North America during the ice ages. Only this one is caused by wind. Wind does this on all lakes anyway. When the wind is blowing across a lake, the water on the down-wind side is actually higher than the up-wind side. In the case of the Red Sea, this change in water level could be as much as 10 feet. So there is a 10 foot-high land bridge that the Hebrews cross over. Suddenly, the wind changes directions/stops and all the water that was displaced by the wind sloshes back into it's normal position, covering the Egyptians in a wall of water. This water level change can be sudden and drastic, with little warning. Tests have been done to show this is possible. I'm wanting to think that similar things have actually been witnessed.
Of course, there is also the theory that the translation in the Bible is incorrect in that it wasn't the Red Sea that was "parted," but a body of water called the Reed Sea, named for all the reeds around it's edges. This is a relatively large and deep body of water in spots, as well, just nothing like the Red Sea. Effectually, the same type of water-level changes described earlier could occur here, just like any other lake.
Some would ask why the Egyptians wouldn't just go around. Well, the quickest point between 2 points is a straight line, and in all likelihood, Pharoah Rameses probably didn't think the water would flood back over the land bridge again, so he followed. A freak natural event happened and it's bye-bye Pharoah's army.
Overall, the idea is implausible, but possible. It's entirely possible nothing similar even actually happened, but that's only if you are a real skeptic. There is no proof either way and there likely will never be proof, just plausible possibilities.
I prefer to keep an open mind. I believe it's possible to believe in both the Bible story as fact and understand the plausible reasoning as to how things could happen. I refuse to label something supernatural before looking at the evidence.
Death of the First Born: This is cause for debate. One theory says a disease swept over Egypt, killing many young children (thus, it becomes the death of the first born
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Hmmmmmmm a disease that only kills the first born. and science says that it happen ALL the time? BS! That would be one very discriminating virus wouldn't it? BTW it was not just kids that died it was the first born period even if that person was 45 at the time if that person was the first born they died.
Huggie Bear
smitmatja,
The explanation that Moses used current events to help his cause is unbelievable. If that were so, how would Pharoah have realized that God was punishing Egypt for keeping the Hebrews as slaves? The fact that the events don't make a lot of sense is proof that God caused them to happen that way to show His power and make the Egyptians free the slaves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrN4lzVOXgM
JudasIscariot, I couldn't have said it better myself. So what if those are natural phenomenons? The fact that they occured so close together shows the hand of God. How does the fact that they're natural make it any less miraculous.
Interesting name, JudasIscariot. Have you heard about that Gospel of Judas that was recently uncovered?
Kat
Demons I get. People are crazy
The real Miracle is how they happened when where and how God said they would.
Baldwin08.com
The next best thing to Ron Paul!