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Started by Huxley, July 26, 2006, 01:09:28 AM

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Whitney

Quote from: "maestroanth"I honestly don't think you need math to prove that story is ridiculous.  At best the bible can be taken in a methaphoric sense.

You'd think you wouldn't need to go to great lenghts to show that an obviously alegorical story didn't happen in real life.  However, places like "answers in genesis" exist which lead people to think there is evidence for the flood and all sorts of other biblical nonsense.  Basically, the use of math is for those who have been convinced through white (and some black) lies that the flood story was a real event.

G.ENIGMA

Quote from: "Whitney"
Quote from: "maestroanth"I honestly don't think you need math to prove that story is ridiculous.  At best the bible can be taken in a methaphoric sense.

You'd think you wouldn't need to go to great lenghts to show that an obviously alegorical story didn't happen in real life.  However, places like "answers in genesis" exist which lead people to think there is evidence for the flood and all sorts of other biblical nonsense.  Basically, the use of math is for those who have been convinced through white (and some black) lies that the flood story was a real event.

What is true obviously though is that great floods happen ... and if it was not for real history and science creating a way of letting the majority "eat from the so called tree of knowledge" (news) we would have had people claiming the 2004 Tsunami ( I can't believe nearly 5 years has past :unsure: ) was the new great flood caused by god (and in some quarters where news is kept from the people I an sure they did).
To those who are overly cautious, everything seems impossible.

Struzball

Just read through this thread, as somebody stated it was most likely a localised flood as the people in the Northern Africa region hadn't explorered the world fully (even Americans don't know there's more to the world than them).

If they only had explored the North African region; rather than designing a story to suit the 1.7 million species of animals on earth, they would have only had to design a story which had a boat to hold more like the thousands of species around Egypt/Israel.  Therefore the boat story is proof that it wasn't a world flood, as the boat described would fit only the known about animals in Africa at the time.

And also on the salinity point, I'm not scientist but it's probable if there were enough water to flood the world and water in the ocean quadrupled, I'd imagine the salt content would also increase substantially.

Nulono

The whole story just reeks of a fairy tale.

G.ENIGMA

Quote from: "Struzball"If they only had explored the North African region; rather than designing a story to suit the 1.7 million species of animals on earth, they would have only had to design a story which had a boat to hold more like the thousands of species around Egypt/Israel.  Therefore the boat story is proof that it wasn't a world flood, as the boat described would fit only the known about animals in Africa at the time.


http://www.skepticreport.com/creationism/sillyflood.htm quite a good read
To those who are overly cautious, everything seems impossible.

cyberateos

The entire Earth is a kind of Noah`s Ark. :eek:

MikeyV

Quote from: "cyberateos"The entire Earth is a kind of Noah`s Ark. :eek:

Earth is exactly like Noah's Ark, only completely different.

Not made by man.
Not made of wood.
More than 2 (or 7) of each species.
Not floating on water.

The only commonality I see is...um...animals?
Life in Lubbock, Texas taught me two things. One is that God loves
you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the
most awful, dirty thing on the face of the earth and you should save
it for someone you love.
   
   -- Butch Hancock.

Ben-AG

Quote from: "Enoch Root"Personally I wouldn't argue with Christians against the Flood story based on scientific or physical impossibilities.  Clearly, they're claiming it was a supernatural event.  God ordered the building of the ark, God caused the rain, God shut the door on the ark.  The logical continuation of that belief is that God allowed all the animals to fit on it, God provided them with food, God saw the boat safely through the ordeal.  If he's an omnipotent God he can do that.

I would ask them about the implications of such an event.  An all-knowing, all-powerful God suddenly realizes that he screwed up royally with the human race and decides to start over.  He could have just snapped his fingers and every guilty adult human would have dropped dead.  He could have magically transported all the rotting corpses to Antarctica or the moon or Australia or somewhere out of the way.  Presto, Noah and his family and a whole bunch of innocent kids would have wide empty world to live in.  Instead, no, he decides to nuke-by-water the whole thing.  Men, women, children, horses, puppies, kittens, all of it.  And yet he singularly failed to address ANY of the problems with basic human nature, so surprise! once the Earth is repopulated it goes right back to the same old sin and rebellion.

Did God think that one through at all?

Mind you, this is the same God who, after the fall of Adam and Eve, decided to punish all snakes for the devil's actions.  Sucks to be a snake.  "Why the hell do I have to crawl on my belly from now on?!  I didn't do anything!"

I feel like I can offer an alternate view on your analysis.  I do believe that the story of Noah's Ark is possible.  God is beyond limits and restrictions and all-powerful.  He can do anything.  Obviously, you don't have to believe there is a God, but, like you said, there's no sense in arguing with a Christian on Christian terms because you will lose that discussion for the mere reason that God is omnipotent.

As for your second argument, you raise a valid point.  I first want to say I don't assume to know how God does things, this is just my opinion.  I believe that one of the primary purposes of the Old Testament was to show how truly "broken" people actually are.  God went through struggle after struggle but was always disappointed in the end because, as you said, people resorted back to sin and rebellion.  This has been true of people since Adam & Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge till this very day.  Now, yes, He could have just erased every soul from the Earth and started over with Noah's family, but they too have the capability and potential of the same sin and rebellion.  So, I think where your argument goes astray is that God was not trying to erase sin and rebellion.  If He wanted to do that, He would have done it after the fall of Adam & Eve.  

He was teaching us something!  Laying down lessons and foundations!  If He would have just started over with Noah's family, what would they have learned?  Where goes the story and teachings of Noah's Ark and his immense trust and faith in God?  They are not there; they are non-existent.  Thus, God planned it all out.  He knew exactly what He was doing when He was doing it.  

Now, like I said, you can deny the whole story in place of a fallacy because you do not believe in a God that could possibly orchestrate such a perfectly schemed story, but you cannot diminish the effectiveness of the story and the great teachings Christians gather from it.  Also, do not take my views on the matter to be the facts; they are merely my opinions on the matter because God does not unambiguously answer the "hows" and "whys" in the Bible.  Not to mention that those questions don't seem so important when you really trust that God loves you.

I hope I was effective in shedding some light on the matter from a Christian point of view.  :D

karadan

Quote from: "Ben-AG"He was teaching us something!  Laying down lessons and foundations!  If He would have just started over with Noah's family, what would they have learned?  Where goes the story and teachings of Noah's Ark and his immense trust and faith in God?  They are not there; they are non-existent.  Thus, God planned it all out.  He knew exactly what He was doing when He was doing it.  

Oh, I get it now. Even though I have the ability to teach children things by just telling them through word of mouth or practical experimentation, I need to kill most of them first, just to drill it home.  :|

What I find astounding is intelligent, articulate people can spend the majority of their lives living as normal rational humans and all-of-a-sudden do an intelligence and reason reversal and start to defend fairy tales as 'fact'. You even said you don't care about the specifics because you feel the love of god! Wtf is that even supposed to mean?

I care about FACTS. If god did fit the hundreds of millions of species of animal this planet has to offer on one boat, I'd like to know how he managed to get so much mass to occupy the same space at the same time. I'd ask what sort of 4th dimensional device he was using to accomplish this or whether he was using parallel universes to store the animals. Maybe it was just their DNA he stored but didn't write that into the bible because primitive worshippers probably wouldn't understand what DNA was.

Quote from: "Ben-AG"I hope I was effective in shedding some light on the matter from a Christian point of view.

You were effective in revealing how nefarious brainwashing techniques can twist the minds of normal intelligent people.
QuoteI find it mistifying that in this age of information, some people still deny the scientific history of our existence.

Enoch Root

Quote from: "Ben-AG"I feel like I can offer an alternate view on your analysis.  I do believe that the story of Noah's Ark is possible.  God is beyond limits and restrictions and all-powerful.  He can do anything.  Obviously, you don't have to believe there is a God, but, like you said, there's no sense in arguing with a Christian on Christian terms because you will lose that discussion for the mere reason that God is omnipotent.

Huh.  I think I would fail to convince the Christian to change his mind.  I don't think I would lose the discussion, as I'm not the one inventing invisible sky wizards to explain away the impossibilities of my story.

Quote from: "Ben-AG"So, I think where your argument goes astray is that God was not trying to erase sin and rebellion.  If He wanted to do that, He would have done it after the fall of Adam & Eve.  

He was teaching us something!  Laying down lessons and foundations!  If He would have just started over with Noah's family, what would they have learned?  Where goes the story and teachings of Noah's Ark and his immense trust and faith in God?  They are not there; they are non-existent.  Thus, God planned it all out.  He knew exactly what He was doing when He was doing it.

And I reject the idea of a god that would destroy every living thing, including innocent children, in order to "teach us something".

Quote from: "Ben-AG"Now, like I said, you can deny the whole story in place of a fallacy because you do not believe in a God that could possibly orchestrate such a perfectly schemed story, but you cannot diminish the effectiveness of the story and the great teachings Christians gather from it.

You have some odd criteria in declaring a story "perfectly schemed".  But no, I can't change what other people "gather" from this story any more than I can change what people get out of Mother Goose tales.  All I can do is point out the absurdity of it.

Quote from: "Ben-AG"Also, do not take my views on the matter to be the facts; they are merely my opinions on the matter because God does not unambiguously answer the "hows" and "whys" in the Bible.  Not to mention that those questions don't seem so important when you really trust that God loves you.

I hope I was effective in shedding some light on the matter from a Christian point of view.  :D

I'm not trying to be rude, but the fact is I've heard and preached your explanation before, for 15 years in fact.  And at the end of the day I have to reject it for being just ridiculously illogical.  And while it used to work in the past, I can no longer sweep God's injustice and cruelty under the "He loves me" carpet.  That house of cards fell quite thoroughly for me.

Ben-AG

Quote from: "Enoch Root"Huh.  I think I would fail to convince the Christian to change his mind.  I don't think I would lose the discussion, as I'm not the one inventing invisible sky wizards to explain away the impossibilities of my story.

Sorry, if it makes you feel better, I'll retract the word "lose" in place of fail.

Quote from: "Enoch Root"And I reject the idea of a god that would destroy every living thing, including innocent children, in order to "teach us something".

If you preached this for 15 years you would know that He did not destroy every living thing.  He commands Noah: "And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female" -Genesis 6:19.  You are also wrong regarding the "innocent."  He says, "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence" - Genesis 6:11.  He also says, "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" Genesis 6:5.   Wherein do you get the notion there was innocent people left?  Obviously not from scripture.

Now, if you don't believe that God does these things to teach us, by all means, don't.  But, that is the basis of your arguments, just disbelief.  

Quote from: "Enoch Root"You have some odd criteria in declaring a story "perfectly schemed".  But no, I can't change what other people "gather" from this story any more than I can change what people get out of Mother Goose tales.  All I can do is point out the absurdity of it.

Absurdity is subjective.

Quote from: "Enoch Root"I'm not trying to be rude, but the fact is I've heard and preached your explanation before, for 15 years in fact.  And at the end of the day I have to reject it for being just ridiculously illogical.  And while it used to work in the past, I can no longer sweep God's injustice and cruelty under the "He loves me" carpet.  That house of cards fell quite thoroughly for me.

If your looking for a religion that has all the answers, good luck.  God never intended for us to understand everything.  He doesn't want us to be robots that He constantly controls.  He gave us free-will so that we may have a choice.  A choice whether or not to put our faith in Him.  Fact is, faith means belief that does not rest on logical proof or physical evidence.  And, if someone's faith is like a house of cards, I'm not sure how faithful that faith can be.  :lol:

BadPoison

Quote from: "Ben-AG"If your looking for a religion that has all the answers, good luck.  God never intended for us to understand everything.  He doesn't want us to be robots that He constantly controls.  He gave us free-will so that we may have a choice.  A choice whether or not to put our faith in Him.  Fact is, faith means belief that does not rest on logical proof or physical evidence.  And, if someone's faith is like a house of cards, I'm not sure how faithful that faith can be.  :lol:
Yet he could have made us robots with the freedom to make our own choices without imposing a unbelievable punishment for making the "wrong" choice. Clearly God wants some of us to suffer otherwise being omniscient he wouldn't have made such a consequence.

Ben-AG

Quote from: "BadPoison"
Quote from: "Ben-AG"If your looking for a religion that has all the answers, good luck.  God never intended for us to understand everything.  He doesn't want us to be robots that He constantly controls.  He gave us free-will so that we may have a choice.  A choice whether or not to put our faith in Him.  Fact is, faith means belief that does not rest on logical proof or physical evidence.  And, if someone's faith is like a house of cards, I'm not sure how faithful that faith can be.  :lol:
Yet he could have made us robots with the freedom to make our own choices without imposing a unbelievable punishment for making the "wrong" choice. Clearly God wants some of us to suffer otherwise being omniscient he wouldn't have made such a consequence.

With the gift of free-will comes the choice of good or evil.  Of course, evil has its consequences, how else would we know we made the wrong choice?  

This is another debate altogether.  I am going to try and stick to discussing Noah's Ark, not that I do not want to discuss it but merely because I do not want to flood this thread with another topic.

PipeBox

Quote from: "Ben-AG"If your looking for a religion that has all the answers, good luck.  God never intended for us to understand everything.  He doesn't want us to be robots that He constantly controls.  He gave us free-will so that we may have a choice.  A choice whether or not to put our faith in Him.  Fact is, faith means belief that does not rest on logical proof or physical evidence.  And, if someone's faith is like a house of cards, I'm not sure how faithful that faith can be.  :lol:
Addressing your next post would be off-topic, so I'll stick to this one.

Are you claiming knowledge removes choice?  See, because then you're arguing that we should make some very important decisions from a position of ignorance.  That doesn't feel like a love-check to me.  A choice of whether to put faith in God definitely remains despite knowledge of his existence.  You don't know whether you can rely on God for anything in this world, just look at all the prayers that go unanswered (or answered "no", if you prefer).  I thought that was the foremost article of faith, trusting in something you know to exist.  At some point, faith came to mean "hoping something exists without evidence", which I think is a perversion, but these are my interpretations and the dictionary likely does not back me up.  Knowledge does not strip choice, it's always up to you how you deal with the knowledge.  Two people given the same knowledge may do different things with it.  You're banking on knowledge of God forcing us to love him, or have faith, but neither is true.  It only makes God easier to love if he is obviously real, it doesn't force people to not despise him or just plain ol' know he exists.  And like I said, this is an extremely important thing to leave to the sovereignty of ignorance, the lack of knowledge is almost malicious.  I have trouble calling it faith, it's almost hope.

That still came out off-topic, but it's an untenable position, this "God has to keep secret and make his book look bronze age, giving us no special knowledge except that he exists, and with nothing to solidly back that up, it's for our own good."
If sin may be committed through inaction, God never stopped.

My soul, do not seek eternal life, but exhaust the realm of the possible.
-- Pindar

maestroanth

#44
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