10 Questions Every Christian Needs To Answer.

[The Grand Nudger]

I never asserted that the properties of light have changed, that was your assertion.

That would be the implication of a world without rainbows before that moment. Understand?

I mean some scientific, historical, or philosophical reason that you have come to the conclusion that there have always been rainbows.

A scientific reason, would be that the properties of light don't seem to be variable. Rainbows are an effect of our planets water cycle, and the water cycle is pretty well tied to the properties of what we call "light" coming from the sun. If the relationship between light and water that allows a rainbow to exist now did not exist prior 4k years ago - we'd be pressed to explain all the vegetation that -did- exist prior to 4k years ago..just for starters. A historical reason would be that they are mentioned in the epic of gilgamesh, fully 1k years older than where you've placed your story, and a philosophical reason would be that any statement that claimed that the properties of light could have been altered around 4k years ago runs afoul of being described as "sound" based on little more than the scientific and historical examples offered. The conditions which allow for a rainbow did occur, and people did see them.

He created the rainbow, then used it as a sign.

Clearly not 4k years ago though, eh?

How do you know God hadn't put His bow in the sky in the past but this was the first time He put His bow in the sky as a bow and a sign?

-beyond the fact that it's turned into a word game?

A couple of posts back you were talking about spinning electrons and shit, deep stuff, remember, I thought it would be fun. But now we're on to text based apologetics? Count me out on that. I was simply thrilled at the prospect of someone looking to explain a god that interacts with this world by reference to that interaction. The "how" of creating a rainbow, where before there were none. When we make statements like that - they are demonstrable - (and often have been tested). We would expect to see evidence of a change in the water cycle. The same property that allows light (in our case solar energy-more specifically) to drive the water cycle also allows us to see rainbows(and for rainbows to exist so that they might be seen). Bit of a package deal. The evidence would be vast, uniform, and pretty much undeniable (mostly because of how much is tied into the water cycle here-and has been for a much longer stretch of time than some 4k years). It's a good postulate (as far as building one goes), whether right or wrong - simply because it can be demonstrated. It is, as far as we can tell, wrong - but just the act of wondering about things in that manner makes god (and the miracles he's said to have gotten up to) a more reasonable and ultimately "knowable" proposition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecohydrology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleobotany

Some starter stuff on why that idea doesn't pan out. Just from the science angle. The historical angle is meh, some folks decided to talk about rainbows in a story that's older than your flood. That one is pretty cut and dry and doesn't take too much thought to work out.