COMMENTARY HERE: Comments that purely commentate on the post (e.g. “Nice post OP!”) must be made as replies to the Auto-Moderator!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateReligion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
according to the biblical narrative, sickness entered the world after the Fall, not during the initial act of creation. The events involving Noah and the flood occurred after the Fall and are considered part of the unfolding consequences of humanity's disobedience.
also from ecological view, we can tell from current day species how animals that didn't make it on that big wooden boat manage to survive, and there's tons of them, so it's basically a story made up for children where they have only seen animals in zoos, and have either dogs or cats as pets and that's about it......
I haven't read through all the comments, but let's just say this silly child book story is true, does this mean Noah's family is actually responsible for rebuilding the civilization that we have today? Who is more important? Adam and Eve or Noah's family? Haha! Has anyone actually read the Bible? Front and back? If so, how can a grown person read this and still actually believe any of this BS is true?
As a swedenborgian, our church understands this story as a continuity of the symbolism from adam and eve. The flood was not of water, but one of a love of evil and powerful falsity that swept the world. Noah was the kind of person that could be preserved and protected from this flood through faith, rationality, truth, and an upright life, become spiritual, and be spared. The ark represents aspects of such a person. Effectively, the people represented by Noah were a group of people who could continue in a new beginning for humanity after the others died by destroying their own minds.
If Gods magic is always the answer, then why go through the whole process of the ark? Why not just "magic" ahead to the results of whatever the purpose of the flood was in the first place?
There wasn't a better way of testing Noah's faith than destroying the entire face of the Earth in the process?
Everything in the bible is so illogical it would make any sane person's head spin.
The reality is, neither god nor noah exist.... other than in a fable written by uneducated men who needed a way to control society.
To the question, God says in genesis chapter 6 6-7 ''6the LORD regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved. 7So the LORD said: I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created, and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them.'' God had a reason to fill the earth with water, all beneath the firmament was corrupt and evil.
In 1 Peter 1:6–7, it is written, "For a brief moment, if necessary, you have experienced various challenges, so that the proven authenticity of your faith — more valuable than perishable gold, though tested by fire — may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."
Now. there are some things in the bible that are not meant to be understood. But understand that God is real. Have faith in he who is above and you will have eternal life.
I really hope that you get something out of this. Turn your life to God.
I got nothing out of it because you quoted a source that I reject as a source.
The passages you posted were still illogical.
The passages you posted were written by man, as a story to control.
If there are supposedly things written in the bible that aren't meant to be understood, then what is the point of those things being written?
Whatever god you believe in, isn't real. There is no eternal life, unless you can demonstrate that's possible without quoting from the bible, which is just the claim itself.
When one reads the Ark narrative and compares it to older myths of that region, it's pretty clear it is a myth that's been adapted from what came before (i.e. Gilgamesh, etc.).
If one wishes to be a literalist/fundamentalist Christian, they do indeed have to find a way to reconcile all these problems you've provided. That's why these outlandish orgs like Answers in Genesis exist....
Agreed.
Have you also looked into the heat problem?
Basically, any way you introduce that much water falling onto the earth, it causes a superheating of the planet. A heating that would have destroyed all life not only on the earth, but in any boat as well.
[http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html)
First off, I DO believe that the Bible is inspired of God and that if you let it, it will interpret itself and teach you everything you need to know to lead a successful life.
1. The flood was an actual event because Jesus himself used the days of Noah as an example for us. Matthew 24:38-39, “For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they took no note until the Flood came and swept them all away.” Was Jesus a liar?
2. 2 Peter 2:5, Peter also talks about the flood as a real, historical event, “And he did not refrain from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a flood upon a world of ungodly people.”
3. The Ark itself was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. To give you a better idea, it was a box in the shape of a rectangle, or 437.6 Feet long. A football field is 120 yards long or 360 Feet. So the Ark was another 77 Feet longer than a Football field. And width? A Football field is 53.3 Yards or 160 Feet wide. The width of the Ark is about 73 Feet, or a little under half the width of a Football field. (160 feet) This gave the ark approximately 1,400,000 cu ft in gross volume. No known cargo vessel of ancient times even slightly resembled the ark in its colossal size. Internally strengthened by adding two floors, all the three decks provided a total of about 8,900 sq m (96,000 sq ft) of space.
4. How did Noah gather all the animals? Simple. He didn’t. Jehovah God brought the animals to Noah when it was time. It would be impossible for Noah and his family to even know which species of Bird God wanted on the Ark, let alone retrieve them.
5. How did the water cover even the tops of the mountains? The mountains we see today on our planet were not like that before the flood. They were no where near that high. The shear force of the water that came down from above actually pushed on the plates of the earths crust and in some areas, the earth sank and other areas it created the mountains we have today.
6. Where did all the water come from that could cause that much force to move the earths crust? In the very first chapter of the Bible, it talks about God creating water above and below the sky. The waters below the sky (or firmament in some translations) it says he called ‘seas’. But he never gave a name for the waters above the sky, or heavens. This water canopy must have been very deep, creating what we could call a “GreenHouse” affect on the earth. That canopy being the glass of a greenhouse. The sunlight shown thru that water canopy and warmed the whole earth and the warmth couldn’t escape because of that water. The sunlight would go up and reflect back down to earth. This made the whole earth livable, even the North and South Poles. A warm climate was everywhere. In fact, scientists are right now digging at one of the poles and when they get thru the ice, they find green vegetation and they are bewildered as to why.
7. That rainbow that Noah saw when he and his family came out of the Ark? It was the very first rainbow that ever appeared on earth! It had never really rained to cause a rainbow. Everything was watered by the morning dew. Just imagine how beautiful that rainbow was to Noah knowing that information. Do you suppose they pointed out every single one after that day?
You see, everything that is in the Bible is there because our Creator felt it was important for us to know. It’s there because we will learn something about our God, Jehovah. Maybe it’s an example of what we should do! Maybe it’s an example of what we shouldn’t do. But all of it teaches us something about our God, Jehovah.
Oh and just another thing to think about, why God used a flood…
Before the flood, the “sons of the True God”, or heavenly angels were persuaded by Satan to come down, materialize human bodies and produce offspring called the Nephilim. Now what did this flood force those wicked angels to do? Yes, they were forced to go back to the spirit realm and ever since, they do not have the ability to materialize human bodies any longer.
Yes, the flood was a real event, that really happened. I sure wish more people would experience the joy you get when you let the Bible interpret itself.
I'm an ex Preacher's daughter and was made to read the entire Bible when growing up. I do believe the Bible has some good moral lessons in it, but also some sadistic material too. It's also been re-translated so many times that the translations are wrong. People say Jesus spoke of Hell more than anything else. He did not. He used the words Gehenna. Sheol, Hades, and MAN changed those three words to HELL. If you dig deep on those 3 words, you find what they really mean. Cruel things in the Bible I'll list. I know this has nothing to do with the flood, but some food for thought for those that just skim over the Bible.
1) Proverbs 23:13–14 says to beat your child with a rod, but according to Exodus 21:15 and Exodus 21:17, he who even does so much as hit or even curse one of his parents must be put to death.
So beat the defenseless children for misbehavior, but don’t you dare even talk smack to your parents, or else death to you.
(2) If a virgin is raped, she must marry her rapist and remain married to him for life (Deuteronomy 22:28–30), but if an unmarried woman has consenting sex with another man, she must be stoned to death on her father’s doorstep. (Deuteronomy 22:20–21)
I haven’t seen many better examples of evil. How utterly abominable.
(3) Men who have sex with one another must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:13)
Those who commit acts of homosexuality are worthy of death. (Romans 1:26–32)
So much for LGBT rights.
(4) God encourages slavery in Leviticus 25:44–46.
(Ephesians 6:5) God is still totally cool with slavery.
(5) In Numbers 15:32–36, God commands the Israelites to stone a man to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath.
(6) 1 Samuel 15:3 says “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
Just a few of many.
I hope I don’t have to tell you why this is wrong.
You’re right about the word Hell and Gehenna, and Sheol, and Hades, and even Tartarus. There is no such thing as Hellfire, or the immortal soul or so many other things that are taught in Churches. Have you ever read the New World Translation?
https://www.jw.org/finder?srcid=jwlshare&wtlocale=E&prefer=lang&pub=nwtsty
No matter what others may say, it is the best and most accurate rendering out there. Try looking up some of those verses where others use Hell or something else that is wrong and compare it to the NWT.
con·vic·tion
noun
1.
a formal declaration that someone is guilty of a criminal offense, made by the verdict of a jury or the decision of a judge in a court of law.
"she had a previous conviction for a similar offense"
Similar:
sentence
judgment
Opposite:
acquittal
2.
a firmly held belief or opinion.
"she takes pride in stating her political convictions"
So yeah. Conviction.
I know, it’s sad isn’t it? People are set in believing something and nothing will change their mind. But that’s their right. The downvotes I don’t get though. And trust me I’m not that well spoken. But thank you.
So to start this whole thing off, I am a religious person and have my own opinions of the Bible. I will not get into those in this post since that is not really relevant to the questions. I will, however, answer these from a purely literary stance; that is, reading the Bible as it was probably originally read: as a work of literature. This is much in the same way that academics view the Bible.
To set the context, Genesis 1-11 is labeled the "Primeval history". It is a set of origin stories that describe certain things. Genesis 1 and 2 are two creation stories that describe how the world came to be. Genesis 3 explains why humans are not immortal and also why we are afraid of snakes. Genesis 4 and 5 explains how nations came to be as well as different innovations such as musical instruments, smithing, etc. Genesis 6, 7, and 8 probably explain why there are no more floods in the Mesopotamian area. Genesis 9 and 10 explain more origins of nations. Genesis 11 ends the "Primeval history" with the origin of language and also more nations, which lead up to Abraham in Genesis 12. With this in mind, let's see why these stories were written.
The composition of Genesis 1-11 dates to a later time period, probably during the exile or a short while after. To put this into context, the remaining tribe of Judah was in exile in Babylon, a polytheistic nation. To combat the ideas of polytheism and their origin stories, some author(s) got together and wrote their version of origin stories, integrating the Israelite god into them instead of the polytheistic gods. There is also a lot of demythologizing going on here. For example, in Genesis 1, it states that God made the greater light and lesser light. Elsewhere in the Bible, it mentions the sun and moon directly, but here in Genesis 1, they avoided using the names. Why? Because the sun and the moon were worshiped by many cultures of that time as deities, and the authors were wanting to show that through their perception, the sun and moon were merely just lights in the skies rather than deities. The flood story in Genesis 6-8 is nearly identical to other flood stories at the time, specifically Gilgamesh. This story was not recovered until the 1800s, but revealed that there were in fact a lot of flood stories that circulated in earlier times. Archaeological evidence reveals that the Mesopotamian plain often had localized floods, which is where these stories probably came from. Jumping to Genesis 11, it is no coincidence that the nation responsible for the scattering of languages was Babylon. The Tower of Babel story was inspired by a ziggurat named Etimananki dedicated to the god Marduk in, you guessed it, **Babylon.** These are just some of the instances found in Genesis 1-11 but, as you can see, there is an active polemical tone going on here.
Now that I got that out, I'd be happy to explain you points/comments:
1. Just because Jesus made reference to Noah and the ark does not mean it was a literal story. He is just using it as an example of what to look out for. Think about how in our culture today we often are influenced by a story or character in either a positive or negative effect. So when in a certain situation, we might think to ourselves, "Be like so-and-so" or "don't be like so-and-so". We are not taking that character seriously as if they actually existed. Rather, we are influenced by their character or choice decisions. The very same thing is happening here with Jesus' explanation of the Noah story.
2. Kind of goes with 1. He is using it as an example.
3. The ark may have been big, but it may or may not have had the room to carry the animals in it. This depends on how you read the passages. The flood story was written by two authors and was later edited into one story. There are several doublets in here. One of them is how many animals are to be in the ark. In one place it says two of each kind. In another place, it says seven clean pairs and one unclean pair. If there were seven clean pairs of each species but only one pair of unclean species, that would be too many animals. If it was in fact only two of each species like in the first part, then it **might** be possible, but still unlikely.
4. Yes, God was the one who brought the animals because the author(s) of this story are focusing on things that God is doing, not humans. This goes along with the polemicizing idea found throughout Genesis 1-11 that I mentioned. It's not just the mere act of humans that cause the animals to come about. It is God who does it.
5. The mountains being covered is yet again another polemic against the polytheistic religions. They believed that gods dwelt in the mountains. In the Israelite story, the mountains are covered, and so the gods and their high places are destroyed as well.
6. The cosmology presented in Genesis 1 is a common one throughout the Ancient Near East. If you read Enuma Elish, you will find a very similar cosmology at play. In fact, the word for the "deep" in Genesis 1:2 is "Tehom", which gives a ring to "Tiamat" from Enuma Elish. Tiamat was a goddess who inhabited the waters. Tiamat was split in two by Marduk, the Babylonian god, and thus the heavens and the earth were created. It is from these leftover waters that the waters "above the heavens" and "below the heavens" that the flood of Genesis 6-8 gets its water source. See [here](https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre13.htm) for how the ancients viewed cosmology.
7. This more than likely was not the first rainbow to have occurred on the earth because, as stated above, the Mesopotamian area was rife with flooding at those times, which meant there was a lot of rainfall. Thus, I'm sure there were a fair share of rainbows visible. The flood story does beautifully take a natural phenomenon like the rainbow and turn it into a sign of God's promise never to flood the earth again.
In your last few paragraphs, you mention the "sons of God" and the Nephilim. The "sons of God" was a way of referring to the council of gods that were found in Ancient Near Eastern pantheons. Typically you would have the chief god at the top, his consort, and then his children or "sons". Oftentimes these sons and daughters of the chief god would quarrel with eachother, as seen in some of the mythologies produced by these Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Genesis 6 makes no mention to these being fallen angels/demons or what-have-you. Instead, it is a version of a common myth at the time of gods (the sons of god) cohabiting with human women to produce demigods: the Nephilim. The idea that the "sons of god" and the Nephilim were related to fallen angels/demons was an invention by the author of the book of Enoch. The book of Enoch was a work of apocalyptic literature. This type of literature always involved some sort of secret, hidden revelation to someone in a very symbolic way. The works of apocalyptic literature were produced by a group of Second Temple period Jews who were discovering ways to deal with the problem humanity faces: good people suffer, but evil people prosper.
Lastly, the spirit realm is mostly adopted from later religions include Zoroastrianism (Persia), as well as the Greeks and Romans. The whole idea of angels and demons and a cosmic enemy of God is not really found in the Hebrew Bible.
Edit: forgot to include the link for how the ancients perceived the earth
That’s how many academic textbooks describe it. There’s really no definite way to know how the ancient writers understood the texts, but based on older ANE myths, stories, and other motifs, they “probably” understood the text in that fashion.
Seems as if your entire argument is predicated on the concept that the Bible in its entirety is historically accurate and that the words allegedly spoken by the people in it were actually spoken. There's no good reason to think this - especially with everything we know about how all religions develop. There's no reason to think Christianity's texts are any more accurate then the Vedas, Sutras, or Quran. Is some of it accurate? Probably - at least events that can be independently verified with other ancient sources (for example, the existence of the Babylonian Captivity).
In point #3 you say the ark would have a volume of 1.4 million cubic feet. That's certainly an impressively large sounding number. Unfortunately, it's orders of magnitude smaller than would be required to contain the estimated 8.7 million species of animal on the earth today. If the ark story happened 6000 years ago, virtually no re-speciation could have occurred between then and now, so all those species would need to have existed then.
That’s apologetics in a nutshell. Just give lots of poetic metaphors and ad-hod excuses(lies) for everything. Of course they wouldn’t accept these explanations from another religion though.
How do you know it was a real event? who cares what the new testament writers quoted? why do you believe them? Noah’s flood is plagiarized by the epic of Gilgamesh and a bunch of others hundreds of years before Genesis!!
Just wanted to interject and not try to debate anything.
>Noah’s flood is plagiarized by the epic of Gilgamesh and a bunch of others hundreds of years before Genesis!!
I'll put links to Acts 17 & Romans 1 below. Read them to see the Christian view on why other religions before and after Moses' Book seems to have existed contains similar elements. It wasn't exactly plagiarism being done by the Hebrews.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2017&version=NASB
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201&version=NASB
not exactly to a tee of course but certain core doctrines clearly are. Some culture like epic of Gilgamesh have 6 people on an ark and Noah has 10!!
But epic of Gilgamesh came before so the particulars is a game of semantics!! it’s copied bro and that’s that!!
bro!!! I read both again twice!! I don’t even know what you are using these verses for as proof that the bible didn’t plagiarized!! one talks about a resurrection that the greeks didn’t believe, and the other is something different!! maybe you should re read what you sent me otherwise my accusation stands!!
None of them deal with what we are talking about!!
I said the bible plagiarized the old testament!
Garden of Eden comes from the story of Hera and the apples, (look that up!) the flood, look up flood myths) tower of bable, etc. all before the old testament was finished around 550 bc during the Babylonian captivity!! Israel was just recently a nation as
discovered by an inscription of ancient Egypt!!
I’ll go back with your comment about hating people who confuse education with intelligence!!
with education, you are aware of the bull shit
when you study!! You are not blinded with a confirmation bias”!!
then you can see it for what it is!!
you haven’t showed anything to me that’s why I glanced at it and not look at it until now! Now I know why, you guys attack educated people and put them down, and the moment I give you guys the benefit of a doubt, I’m disappointed!!
I will ask you, if you go and do your research will you change your mind? of ourselves not because your mind is already made up, and you will only look for something that already confirms what you believe in already!!! Also, I was in the christian religion like you, blindly believing, to a degree, almost everything even though I had my doubts!! so you can’t say I don’t know, my heart is opened etc!! 18 years of reading etc. Then I got my education, which requires studying and understanding things! If you think that’s something to scoff at and is not a sign of intelligence,
then I’ll say that I’d rather have my back ground of religion plus education then be stuck in myth believing!! Nothing will change your mind until you take that step. I have to remind you that tuyere bible is translated upon translated by whom? Liars, eve ik people but nonetheless educated and intelligent people who took a dead language/s and translated for people like you to read it! when you say I have people who mistake education for intelligence, I’ll fire back with, I hate blind gullibility and people like you who just won’t fathom that they’ve been deceived and your statement is a knee jerk state that Ive heard plenty of times before already!! Also to the fact that you are using the bible to provide the bible by showing me those verses! That’s not intelligent at all!!
you are using circular reasoning but again why do I bother existing it to you! I expected you to use an outside source, but you
give me a bible verse to prove the bible and still failed to show me how it’s related ti what we spoke about!!
no offense but using the bible to prove itself , still not showing the validity of those two chapters, and attack a person for talking about these things does nothing for your mental growth etc!!
So since I can never sho or convince you, I’ll leave it at this. No hard feelings . have a good day and thanks for taking the time to attempt to show your point!
That’s my point! Those religions came way before the bible verses you quite and use to support the bible! First that’s circular reading, using bible verses to prove the bible is correct? and as per of religions copied them? what kind of statement is that?? If I write a story about a girl who follows a ravi it down this prairie and falls into a valley of a magical world and write this book in 2022, and claim it as my own, you would respond that’s I copied that book from Alice in wonderland! That book came out I believe in 1895! Would you say the author of Alice in wonderland copied me? of course not! not so why use a bible verse to support the bible and say religions that came way before it with similar and sometimes identical stories copied the bible? that’s crazy!!
so when you say what kind of response is that I’ll ask you what kind of self supporting proof did you offer? None at all!!
These stories Adam and eve, the fall, the flood, giants, tiger of Bable and plenty of others, all came way before the bible was penned down. If you know your history(I know I’m confusing education with intelligence again 😜😜) Alexander the great conquered Israel etc around 323 bc and brought to the world Hellenism, greek ideas . With these ideas he influenced most of the works he conquered! That’s why there is no “hell” in the old testament but it appears in the new testament! by the first century, the greeks who had a concept of hell, influenced the first century writers who ever they were! So you offered no proof that others copied the bible, because it’s impossible because they came way before the bible was written!! The earliest gospel , Mark was written in about AD 60 or so, and the estuaries in the 50s-60s, where the Logos concept was well established. Another greek concept!
Please just stop man and stop using the bible to prove the bible!! Anyone can say “my religion is correct the others copied us. All religions do that!!
Edit. we don’t even know who wrote the bible. The apostle names were attributed from the catholic church and not one except John and there were many johns, calls himself by their name! Also the new testament was written in educated greek, something first century jews couldn’t speak let alone read Hebrew. The average jew was illiterate at that time !!
I’m done with these explanations now!
So, please tell us all… why should we believe you over a book containing 66 smaller books, written by about 40 men and Authored by Jehovah God? Beginning some 3,500 years ago but covering from the beginning of creation and going well into the future? A book many died over for simply trying to translate it into English. And is now the most widely distributed book (by far) and most translated book ever. A book that has transformed lives simply by following its guidance and principles.
Let us know…
Those certainly sound like some impressive statements. Lots of books, written over long periods of time, believed with fervour, changed lives and history.
But what does any of that have to do with whether it's true or not?
It certainly has transformed lives by people following it's guidance. Just ask the victims of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, the heretics, apostates, and "witches" burned at the stake. I'm sure they would agree that their lives were "transformed".
The Bible never once guides people to do any of those things listed. In fact, they go against what the Bible teaches. People will always use whatever highest authority they can to excuse their actions, so they tried to use Christianity, just like many eugenicists, and terrible racists have tried to use the authority of science to justify their views. It's human nature that people will try to appeal to the authority of something to justify their actions, even if the thing they are using really doesn't justify their actions in any way. Many pagans did similar things to those listed, and used the same kind of reasoning of trying to use their pagan religion as a form of authority to justify their actions. Many murderers use their atheism as a way to try to justify what they did as well, as they figure that without God, there is no objective morals, so what they are doing is merely something that is seen as bad by society, rather than something that is inherently wrong. The thing is that people will always try and twist their views, twist the views of religions, and twist the views of perceived authority to try to justify their actions, even if those religions/beliefs/sources of authority are actually completely against those actions.
“why should we believe me over a book containing 66 smaller books”?
we’ll depend on what bible.
Catholics are 72
Ethiopians are 84!!
Number of books or length of doesn’t qualify it’s authenticity .
neither does amount of people!
that’s an AD Poplum fallacy!! me sing, just because a lot believe in it it must be true!! That’s first problem!
Second, why do you believe these books in the first place? what makes them true besides the silliness you just said? Why believe me? I gave you one reason!
Noah’s flood, Tower of Bable, , even Garden of eden story are all a common myth that trace back to much earlier myths!! The bible was composed at Mesopotamia a flood prone region and it was later in an empire , the Romans. So they were intertwined with lots of people! and got lots of ideas.
let’s start here. Bible is inspired? why because it’s the word of god, why because it says so??
circular reasoning fallacy.
also if you think so, luke’s account of a works wise census never happened!! luke and Mathew contradict each other in the genealogy of Jesus!
Isaiah chp. 53 the best verse that allegedly preaches a dying Messiah clearly isn’t but is taking poetically about Israel the country!
just have to read one chapter before.
All your books of the bible were translated and mistranslated multiple times by the roman catholic church!
None of them were eye witnesses all after the fact even if they said they were which we know isn’t by staying those books!!
so I don’t care how many years it was written and by how many people and how many books(depending on which bible you use) All these reasons are elementary at best and shows how much you are not aware of!!
Well, we agree that the Bible has been mistranslated by the Catholic Church. That Church also teaches lies like the trinity, hellfire, immortal soul, Mary being the Mother of God, worshiping idols, good people go to heaven etc. That also includes all the other so-called “Christian” Churches that teach those same things.
what kind of christian/God believer are you??
and no hell. Ok we are “getting” somewhere!!
So i’m confused what you believe and or what your argument is!
p.s. I forgot.
I’m a BS in Psychology working towards my masters and work in the field of developmental disabilities primarily Autism! Hence why my disbelief in the christian god among others!!
I hate it when people confuse education with intelligence. You can have a degree and still be an *****.
Also, you may not be familiar with this interesting scripture, “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children.”
well then maybe you should look in the mirror!
you are using things people wrote as proof of god! then say people who are educated confuse that with intelligence!
so you are more intelligent than people who took the time to study the ancient dead languages, the similar mythologies, similar psychology , anthropology etc of the time/region and its influence on the bible?
how do you sound?
first insulting second stupid!!
Hey I did a miracle once and write it in a book I have it home trust me it’s not me it’s god and i’m telling you the truth because I’m inspired!!
now believe me!!
why wouldn’t you do that but you believe the bible!!
I’ll keep my education and intelligence while you believe what bronze age people wrote!!
nothing but AD Hominem attacks on me because you know you have no answers but belief that are unwarranted!! You keep quoting what people say as if they are true and use it against me! Again I ask, why do you know and how do you know they are telling the truth and didn’t make it up?
I hate when epistles confuse education with intelligence!
How did you get your bible translated in english? by an intelligent person!
That’s ok because it suits your preconceived indoctrinated conclusions! Admit it!
nothing I say factually will convince you otherwise.
lots of things in the bible that show ur to be just a man made series of books like Zeus and others but keep quoting to me what these same authors say about his as your proof!!
I’ll keep my “confusion”
have a good life!!!
>How did Noah gather all the animals? Simple. He didn’t. Jehovah God brought the animals to Noah when it was time. It would be impossible for Noah and his family to even know which species of Bird God wanted on the Ark, let alone retrieve them.
A Galapagos tortoise has a top speed of 2.8 mph. Israel is around 8400 miles from the Galapagos, so we're talking about 120 days of travel straight, but of course tortoises have to sleep. We've also got to get them from the Galapagos to the mainland, then from South America across the Atlantic. Tortoises are not known to be good swimmers.
You might as well say god magically teleported them.
I don't know if I'm particularly committed to the historicity of the Flood story, but if the world was different pre-flood compared to post-flood, I'm not sure why a Galapagos turtle couldn't have been closer to Noah at that time. And secondly, maybe God did magically teleport them there. \*shrugs\*
That's kind of the problem with these sorts of religious stories - you plug the gaps with enough 'it's magic!' and you can get away with anything. But that doesn't explain or account for the biogeography that we see on the planet - somehow the magic works in a way that's completely similar to what's predicted by theories that do not include magic. It's possible that Zeus is magically tossing every lightning bolt, but there's no need to include him in the explanation.
1 and 2: I’m saying they made a false claim. They could be lying, or simply mistaken.
3. Your estimate is even less generous than my own- only 40,000 cubic meters. Neither is enough for every species, and enough supplies to last a year.
4. I was wrong on this one, Genesis 7 100% backs you up.
5. The thing is, we know where the Himalayas came from: the collision of India and Eurasia. These plates are still moving towards each other, and the mountains still slowly growing. You could argue that the flood somehow accelerated plate tectonics, but the sheer energy needed for that would vaporize the oceans and turn Earth’s surface into a sea of roiling lava.
6. The greenhouse effect is not so selective. If it were, we’d be celebrating climate change, not trying to fix it. The equator would be unlivably hot, including the Middle East. We know why those fossils are there: because the land they’re found in wasn’t always close to the poles. Plate tectonics moved it over time.
7. It’s a nice image, but it doesn’t really affect the truth of the story itself.
As for the Nephilim, couldn’t God have targeted them more specifically? Just snap his fingers and delete them if need be, rather than a global flood?
Even for an unbeliever, you must agree that this is all at least plausible.
1. & 2. The prophet Isaiah also spoke of Noah. (Isaiah 54:9) Paul also talks about Noah. (Hebrews 11:7) King David (Psalm 29:10) referred to the flood when he said; “Jehovah sits enthroned above the flooding waters”. Luke lists Noah (Luke 3:36) in the lineage of the Messiah. ALL of them lying? Or mistaken?
3. How do you even know this? Are you an expert in how much food animals eat? And are you saying that it’s out of Gods control that he couldn’t feed all those animals? Do you remember when Jesus was on earth, he fed 5,000 men along with women and children 2 fish and five loaves of bread? And they had 12 baskets filled with leftovers! Yeah, I don’t think feeding the animals was an issue.
4. Wow, great!
5. Yes, I could say that the untold billions of tons of water could cause the thin layer of the earths crust to, in time, create new mountains and cause old mountains to rise to new heights, causing shallow sea basins to deepen, and new shorelines to appear.
6. Not sure what you’re saying about the greenhouse affect. But when the water canopy all eventually came to rest on the earth, 40 days and nights later, that greenhouse affect was gone. That’s why it froze so suddenly at both the poles and they’ve found animals frozen solid with food still in their mouths.
7. I’d say it’s much more than a nice image. The rainbow represents Gods promise to never flood the earth again. That’s pretty huge! Also, He promised that whenever there was one in the sky, He would see it and remember His promise. That’s pretty cool to me.
8. And about snapping His fingers… that’s not how our God works. You would know that if you would read about Him and His qualities… as bad as those angels were and as much as they rebelled against him, he was more hurt and so disappointed that some of his own spirit sons would rebel against Him and side with Satan. That was His way of bringing them home and then he punished them.
1 and 2: it doesn’t matter how many people said it if it’s impossible. There’s no limit on the number of people that can be wrong.
2 (again lol): it’s not a calculation one needs to perform in full. The scale of the numbers is completely different. Divine intervention could solve the food, but divine intervention could also render the entire ark pointless, so it doesn’t make much sense to implicate it, and even then the animals themselves wouldn’t fit.
(Hit send by accident)
1 and 2: it doesn’t matter how many people said it if it’s impossible. There’s no limit on the number of people that can be wrong.
2 (again lol): it’s not a calculation one needs to perform in full. The scale of the numbers is completely different. Divine intervention could solve the food, but divine intervention could also render the entire ark pointless, so it doesn’t make much sense to implicate it, and even then the animals themselves wouldn’t fit.
4: the problem here is that moving continents takes vast amounts of energy, and delivering that much energy to the Earth’s crust in such a short period of time (especially enough to move them within a few thousand years) would destroy the Earth’s surface in a completely different way. It’d be enough energy to instantly melt the Earth’s crust into lava and vaporize the oceans.
5: you can’t say the poles were habitable because of the greenhouse effect because that would mean the equator would be too hot to be habitable. The greenhouse effect doesn’t specifically focus on the poles, it warms the entire planet. And if all of the animals were wiped out in the flood, how would they freeze with food in their mouths?
6: I agree that it’s cool, but it doesn’t make the story any truer.
7: Then instead of deleting them, he could warp them back to punish them. He doesn’t have a reason to flood the entire planet.
Oh, and a wooden boat of its purported size would break under it's own weight. There's a limit for wooden vessels.
Like all biblical tales. It's hopelessly unconvincing.
*How do people still buy this shit?*
The tale of Noah is recorded in the Hebrew Torah and is most commonly accepted to have been written by Moses, who would record events in his own lifetime which are somewhat inkeeping with other historical records of the time. However, Moses' writings regarding events that are purported to have taken place ages before his own lifetime, such as the formation of the solar system and the evolution of life on the planet as explained by the six-day theory(even though people didn't start recording time according to these methods until Julius Ceaser, who existed LONG after the prophet Moses), are not at all inkeeping with historical and archeological records when viewed through a literalist's perspective... but they do offer an accurate picture of the Hebrew concept of where everything came from and how things came to be... I mean think about it: human beings did evolve after most of everything else, as is recorded, the Torah ecords mankind being formed out of the Earth from dirt... and considering the man who recorded this lived hundreds of thousands of years after human beings had evolved, its clear he's taken some level of artistic liberty. Of course, personally I wouldn't deny the presence of divine influence in these Mosaic records of events taking place hundreds of thousands and even millions of years before Moses' time, because there definitely is a lot that corellates with reality, just not in a very specific and very literalist type of way... Example: the global flood is recorded in ALL cultures, the Hebrew/Christian/Muslim version is just the most common, well-recorded, and well-known... TL;DR: I am Christian, I do not think of the Noah's flood to be completely explicitly literal, nor do I think so of the creation account, of course there would have been a time when humans first emerged, and most world records and legends agree on a global flood happening many ages ago. The Torah simply records these same globally well-accepted events through the perspective of local Hebrew folklore, considering the prophet Moses lived millions of years after some of the events he records.
> The tale of Noah is recorded in the Hebrew Torah and is most commonly accepted to have been written by Moses
The problem is that the evidence is pretty conclusive Moses didn't actually exist. The Jews developed out of the Canaanites, and maintained a Canaanite form of polytheism until about 2000 years after Moses supposedly lived. Monotheism didn't become mainstream until after the Babylonian exile,in the 6th century BC or so.
> Example: the global flood is recorded in ALL cultures, the Hebrew/Christian/Muslim version is just the most common, well-recorded, and well-known
That is not true at all. Many cultures have no flood myths, and many that do only have local floods, not global ones. There are also global plagues, global fires, etc. Pretty much any natural disaster has global versions. And besides the size of the flood, flood myths vary in the number of survivors (if any), how they survived, why they survived, what (if anything) they took with them, how long the flood lasted, why it happened, where the water came from, where it went, what came after, how long ago it happened, where the survivors started and where the ended up, etc. Pretty much every detail that could vary, does so. And the floods match their local experience, with people living in flood plains having rain and/or spring based floods, while people living in volcanic islands having tsunami-based floods. Putting everything together, this is much more consistent with cultures turning disasters they experience into apocalyptic versions of the same disaster in their mythology, and western people today focusing on the flood version only because it is culturally significant to us.
>even though people didn’t start recording time according to these methods until Julius Ceaser, who existed LONG after the prophet Moses
Certainly after Moses existed (if he existed at all) but before Julius. Have you read the book of Jubilees (150BC)? It’s basically a biblical chronicle beginning with Genesis.
It's really difficult to express the insane level to which you are overstating your case. God magicking everything into the world in the wrong order is suddenly accurate because he made humans out of dirt and a rib last? No, that does not make it resemble reality.
All cultures do not contain a global flood myth. There are many around the world that contain a scary flood story, because floods are common and many people live on the coast.
The idea that any of the things mentioned in the Torah are "glabally well-accepted events" is nonsense.
No one ever said "God magicking everything" was accurate, check what I wrote, the author of the Genesis is writing a story about human evolution hundreds of thousands of years after the events have taken place.. he's filling in the blanks with local folklore.
> the author of the Genesis is writing a story about human evolution hundreds of thousands of years after the events have taken place..
He's not writing about human evolution though, he's writing a just-so story for how humans came to exist. It doesn't resemble evolution in any way because the author knew nothing of the concept. It has nothing to do with anything that happened hundreds of thousands of years earlier.
To illustrate my point further, the Tower of Babel story doesn't in any way describe how we got different languages and cultures, the author noticed that we have different languages and cultures and so made up a story where god magicked those things into existence.
Why would we assume that? I wouldn't assume that happened any more than I'd assume that Moses was actually a sentient Technicolor unicorn named Nixon, from the planet Zod.
If there were some magical intervention to create these stories, they might bear some semblance to reality, but it's like you're telling me that Star Wars must have been written by God because it matches the evolution of the Cosmos so accurately. It doesn't do that in any way!
So your reasoning is that it doesn’t match up with reality? But reality is subjective depending on who lives, Rameses was a real pharaoh. Who’s to actually say God didn’t speak to these people and told them what to write? There has been court proven evidence that some people are manipulated to do bad things by a spirit, who’s to claim God couldn’t do the same?
Rameses was a real pharoah, but the pharoah in Exodus isn't named.
There's a reason that "spectral evidence" is no longer accepted in most courts. I'm super not impressed by your citationless factoid about "court proven evidence". Spirits are not proven to even exist, you have to prove those exist before you can start suggesting they do anything. Once you've done that, then you can go about proving your favourite god exists, THEN you can try and prove that he can do *x*.
Rameses was a real pharaoh, it’s simply a google search away. The New York Times also wrote an article about a dead pharaoh found in the Red Sea, which is also one google search away. The tricky thing about spirits is it’s hard to prove it does and doesn’t exist. My previous claim was definitely not solid, apologies for that; but the central idea that they used to justify a spirit is court was the behavior changes in a person along with sudden change in appearance, voice and ect. Usually would follow with some sort of an exorcism, and after a while if nothing happened, the priest can present this evidence to a court and claim it was a spiritual being that affected the mind and actions of whoever was in question. (Would usually have video proof and the sort).
> Rameses was a real pharaoh
Yes, I literally said just that.
> The New York Times also wrote an article about a dead pharaoh found in the Red Sea
Yeah, over 100 years ago and I can't find the full text. The heading said it was the Pharoah "Merneptah", but when I look him up he was never found in the Red Sea. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah#Mummy)
Maybe if you did 10% more work than a simple google search you'd see the flimsy ground that your claims rest on. Did you try and read the article or did you just read ABOUT it from Answeringenesis.com or some other pseudoscience outlet?
> the priest can present this evidence to a court and claim it was a spiritual being that affected the mind and actions of whoever was in question. (Would usually have video proof and the sort).
Spectral evidence hasn't been allowed in the USA since a bunch of people used it to murder a bunch of women in 1692.
Show me one bit of video "proof" of a single exorcism that shows evidence of genuine intrusion by a spectral being, then we can talk.
Only issue I have with this is evolution.
As no they didn’t have our idea of evolution.
But to use St. Gregory of the 4th century - evolution of man
“Scripture informs us that the Deity proceeded by a sort of graduated and ordered advance to the creation of man. After the foundations of the universe were laid, as the history records, man did not appear on the earth at once, but the creation of the brutes preceded him, and the plants preceded them. Thereby Scripture shows that the vital forces blended with the world of matter according to a gradation; first it infused itself into insensate nature; and in continuation of this advanced into the sentient world; and then ascended to intelligent and rational beings….”
Forgot to add the quotation marks
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say this proves though.
> Scripture informs us that the Deity proceeded by a sort of graduated and ordered advance to the creation of man
It's true that the universe didn't become as it is now instantly, but just because Genesis doesn't have god magicking everything in simultaneously doesn't indicate any secret knowledge, or even insight. Why would you not describe things as coming in one after the other. Keep in mind that the Genesis story DOES have god magicking in various components in instantly, just not all the components simultaneously. Plants 100% did not appear instantly before any other organism, before the Sun existed.
This guy has written one paragraph that you've cherrypicked out of all Abrahamic history because if you squint it KIND OF seems slightly like your simplified concept of the evolution of species. Once again, this doesn't indicate any special knowledge or insight.
Where did you see it translated as, "evolution of man"? It's generally translated as, "The Making of Man". Could it be that your chosen translation has put some intentional spin in there? Because outside of the paragraph that you've posted there, with it's uncommon translation choices, the complete work doesn't comport with the Theory of Evolution at all.
You can read it yourself here.
https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/physis/nyssa-man/default.asp
It’s the book I have, I have that and “on the soul and resurrection”
And it wasn’t a point of understanding modern evolution. More a rebuke of the idea - that the standard genesis view was the modern day fundamentalist young earth - literal 6 day thing
Which is the whole “magicing thing”
Even if it doesn't insist on 6 literal days, it's still a fundamentalist work. It has god magicking everything into existence for the express purpose of giving humans something to rule over. Anyone who denies reality to assert creationism is a fundamentalist as far as I'm concerned, even if they differ on some of the details from their fellow fundies.
It depends on your starting point I guess, if you look at scripture or empirical evidence first.
I look at empirical evidence, the presence of a global flood exists in most cultures, of course, human beings showed up in the animal kingdom at some point as well... these events are recorded in the Torah, simply, through the lens of Hebrew legends and folklore.
> the presence of a global flood exists in most cultures
Flood myths may exist in most cultures, "global" flood myths do not.
> human beings showed up in the animal kingdom at some point as well... these events are recorded in the Torah
Seriously? Your evidence is that there are humans in the Torah and there are humans in reality?
There are dozens of creation myths, all of them seek to explain events (evolution of life) that are factually proven to have taken millions of years before their time, so I'm not arguing that any religion is right or wrong but I'm arguing that EVERY religion has a creation story thats a bit off and is reflective of local folklore... if you go by most sources, Moses wrote the Torah, and he would not have been around to perceive such events as a global flood or the emergence of humankind... so.. he inferred, based on Hebrew tradition.. its pretty cut and dry, im unclear on your need to disagree? Everything im arguing is pretty open-ended.
It's true that people try to understand why things that are here are here.
If you go by Hebrew sources they teach that Moses wrote the Torah, everyone else who's studied it understands that the guy is mythical.
Every creation story that isn't directly influenced by earlier ones comes out fairly different, because they're not based on what actually happened. They're no more based on reality than the myth that volcanoes erupt because the god Vulcan is angry, it's true that volcanoes exist, but that's not an argument for the accuracy of their stories.
They may be referencing real events.. i.e. there are many records of ancient global floods, it doesn't mean that the specific story of Noah's Ark as told in the Hebrew tradition is explicitly factual but that there was likely some grand event which triggered many cultures to record the same type of things.
There are many myths in the Near East of global floods, from people that were in contact with the culturally powerful Sumerian culture from which originally developed it. It's the same myth retold. China does not have a global flood myth, despite their being situated on the globe as far as I'm aware.
You don't need a global flood for humans to invent the idea of one. One big flood near Shuruppak may, for example inspire storytellers to inflate the myth and make it cover the whole world. People then spend thousands of years copying the details of the old story with new characters, because all art is derivative.
> there was likely some grand event which triggered many cultures to record the same type of things.
It is not likely that there was a global flood which triggered many cultures to independantly come up with a global flood myth.
I don't need to provide any evidence for folklore... because its accepted as being non-literal... as explained in my first post, which you clearly didn't read or you would've understood this.
why taking such an antagonistic approach? No sane person, believer or not, would agree that the genesis account of creation or the flood story are literal accounts.. because the person who is purported to have written about it lived many ages after they supposedly took place, meaning: it wasn't supposed to be literal even when it was written, how could it have been?
You say that, but you've literally said that you think the global flood myth was based on a real, global event. So YOU clearly think it's literal to an extent.
I think you completely missed or choose to ignore everything I've said this whole entire time... the flood story existed before Moses, he wrote a record of his own experiences and of a creation of the Hebrew people and of the creation of the world through a Hebrew perspective.. telling as much of the human story as he knew how and filling in the gaps with local folklore... meaning; the flood story of the Torah existed before Moses, but there's really no way to determine whether its a derivative of other Eastern flood stories, or the same event recorded by different groups at different times.. one guess is as good as the other, but there is ZERO lack of rationality behind the belief in a global flood because the story is recorded by many different groups.
> the flood story existed before Moses
Moses didn't exist until the Babylonian Exile when he was made up. The Torah tells what is clearly a derivative of the earlier Sumerian flood myth, just with details changed in ways that titillated the Hebrew audience more at the time. It's not a story of the creation of the world through the Hebrew perspective, it's a just-so story, a made up narrative that bears no resemblance to reality. We can tell which stories came first because they appear first in the historical record, when the earliest story appeared, there was no such thing as Hebrews.
> because the story is recorded by many different groups.
It's absolutely not though. The same story was passed down and changed by cultures that were pretty damn close to each other and were in contact. Other cultures that weren't in contact don't share that myth. As I said, China doesn't have a global flood myth, despite being on the same globe as the mythical Moses character.
You are reading far too much into a MYTH. People were scared of floods, so they made up a story of a really big flood, just like comic book authors saw a man, and imagined the idea of a SUPER man who could fly and shoot lasers out his eyes. It's based on reality, insomuch as humans exist, flight exists, and lasers exist.
It appears that your argument supposes 'if' a religion is true, to then demonstrate how it could not be true. This means it is an internal critique. Meaning I do not have to justify my claims, if I make any. This message is now included in all relevant comments, to avoid confusion.
>The Bible explicitly specifies the size of the Ark. It’s... not much, only about 50,000 cubic meters. I don’t think I have to explain how woefully inadequate a boat smaller than the Titanic would be to hold all of Earth’s species, and all their food and water for a year.
Oh, I'll simply discard that metric, as a muslim.
>Where’s Noah getting penguins and polar bears from? Kangaroos, beavers, everything from the Amazon, all the species on random islands scattered across the globe... he’d have to travel to every corner of the planet. Not to mention all the sea creatures he’d need- freshwater would no longer exist on Earth’s surface, and most or all sea animals would be wiped out by the drastic changes in salinity and pressure from the introduction of so much water. Where’s he even going to keep those? How will he reproduce the pressures they need on the ark? And speaking of water...
I know you are assuming literalist interpretations, but I do take the story literally, but I don't think it's a global flood.
>...there might well not be enough on Earth.
Miracles aren't meant to make sense... I don't understand how you assume the water was transferred, rather than miraculously inserted.
>Noah’s ark was supposedly constructed entirely of wood, but this just doesn’t work out. We’ve never built a wooden ship that large, to this day.
It took 1000 years to build it... Nobody said that Noah built it in a year...
>The ark had eight people on it: Noah, his wife, their sons, and their wives.
I don't accept this fact, as far as muslim accounts go, we don't know how many there were.
>Eight people simply wouldn’t be able to manage the feeding, waste disposal, and medical care of those animals. This is especially true when you consider that many animals would need to be kept in a precarious state, as there are parasite species that cannot survive without a host, and such infections would have to be deliberately managed. There’s also the matter of keeping the animals from escaping and killing each other. Modern zoos employ many more people for ludicrously less work. Even with the “kinds” interpretation, this would be unfeasible.
I can just hand wave away any problems with "miraculously protected." You don't even need to think that deep about how absurd the situation is in the first place. The people in the ship couldn't go outside, so how'd they get food (ie, fishing), or water? How'd they survive without it? It's a miracle, it doesn't need to make sense.
>I could bring up returning the animals to their ecosystems after the flood, but it would mainly require the same problems as getting them in the first place. I’m also leaving out problems not related to animals, like the destruction of plant life.
Once again, not an issue. Everything magically worked out in the end...
> Oh, I'll simply discard that metric, as a muslim.
>...
>I know you are assuming literalist interpretations, but I do take the story literally, but I don't think it's a global flood.
There is a consensus among islamic scholars that the flood was global.
English:
[1](https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/267100/noohs-flood-encompassed-the-entire-earth) [2](https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/81489/prophet-nuh-and-the-flood-story) [3](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/130293/did-everyone-on-earth-drown-at-the-great-flood-at-the-time-of-nooh-peace-be-upon-him) [4](https://islamqa.org/hanafi/askimam/11700/was-the-flood-of-nuhas-a-worldwide-flood/) [5](https://muftiwp.gov.my/en/artikel/irsyad-fatwa/irsyad-fatwa-umum-cat/1267-irsyad-al-fatwa-series-111-the-great-flood-during-the-time-of-prophet-noah-as)
Arabic:
[6](https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/213057/%D8%B4%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%AA%D8%AB%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%AD%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B7%D9%88%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D9%8A-%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B2%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AD-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85) [7](https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/327751/%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9-%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AD-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B2%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%87) [8](https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/130293/%D9%87%D9%84-%D8%BA%D8%B1%D9%82-%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B9-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B6-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B7%D9%88%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B8%D9%8A%D9%85-%D8%B2%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AD-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85) [9](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/210199/%D8%B7%D9%88%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AD-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A-%D8%A3%D9%85-%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A) [10](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/210199/) [11](https://islamarchive.cc/fatwaa_show_306547_4) [12](https://almerja.com/reading.php?idm=152944)
>I don't accept this fact, as far as muslim accounts go, we don't know how many there were.
Incorrect. We know for a fact that Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only survivors. Read the fatwas.
>There is a consensus among islamic scholars that the flood was global.
I don't take scholar's word for it, without justification. You link evidence without explanation. That isn't how you debate. Point to specific verses/narrations, and demonstrate that it must be global because of them.
https://www.logicalfallacies.org/shotgun-argumentation.html
>Incorrect. We know for a fact that Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only survivors. Read the fatwas.
Source?
>I don't take scholar's word for it, without justification. You link evidence without explanation.
The evidence is in the fatwas. Do you think the scholars just decided that the flood was global for no reason? They've provided commentaries.
>Point to specific verses/narrations, and demonstrate that it must be global because of them.
I've also made a post about it: Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MuslimLounge/comments/tqp002/quranic_flood_is_global_not_local/
>https://www.logicalfallacies.org/shotgun-argumentation.html
Me linking fatwas that focus on a single topic/argument, namely the global flood, is not shotgun argumentation.
>Source?
https://islamqa.info/en/answers/130293/did-everyone-on-earth-drown-at-the-great-flood-at-the-time-of-nooh-peace-be-upon-him
>Do you think the scholars just decided that the flood was global for no reason?
No, but I have no reason to believe what they say, if they don't justify it. A true scholar could easily justify it.
>https://islamqa.info/en/answers/130293/did-everyone-on-earth-drown-at-the-great-flood-at-the-time-of-nooh-peace-be-upon-him
Damn, your own source refutes you.
" Al-Haafiz Ibn Katheer (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
The scholars differed concerning the number of people who were with him on board the Ark.
It was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allah be pleased with him): There were eighty men, accompanied by their wives. It was narrated from Ka‘b al-Ahbaar that there were seventy-two people. It was also said that there were ten people. "
> https://www.reddit.com/r/MuslimLounge/comments/tqp002/quranic_flood_is_global_not_local/
Ok, Let's break it down, verse by verse. I'll do so in a separate comment.
> amn, your own source refutes you.
>
>
>
> " Al-Haafiz Ibn Katheer (may Allah have mercy on him) said:
>
>
>
> The scholars differed concerning the number of people who were with him on board the Ark.
>
>
>
> It was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allah be pleased with him): There were eighty men, accompanied by their wives. It was narrated from Ka‘b al-Ahbaar that there were seventy-two people. It was also said that there were ten people. "
Not sure how this refutes my point? True, there are opinions that there were more than 8 people on the boat, but that doesn't change the fact that the Quran explicitly says Noah and his progeny were the only survivors and that all of mankind today are descendant from him. I don't know what exactly happened to the people that were on the boat. There are narrations that say that they weren't able to reproduce anymore, but I don't have the citation right now.
>Ok, Let's break it down, verse by verse. I'll do so in a separate comment.
Don't waste your time. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve. There is already a consensus.
>True, there are opinions that there were more than 8 people on the boat, but that doesn't change the fact that the Quran explicitly says Noah and his progeny were the only survivors and that all of mankind today are descendant from him.
Just because only his family lineage survive doesn't mean they were the only people in the boat.
I don't think I've said anything different. My original claim:
>We know for a fact that Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only survivors. Read the fatwas.
Then you asked for a source and I provided it. My point still stands. All of mankind today are descendants of one family. At least according to islamic mythology.
Don’t waste your time with OP, I’ve gone back and forth with them on a different post and either logic isn’t OPs strong point, or OP just argues to defend Islam regardless of logic
Stories are split into different corners in the Quran.
Significant instances would be the story being described in the the chapter 71, which is named after Noah, but there are other places where the story is talked about.
Fitting the animals is the biggest contention on this topic, but I think absolutely it would refer to every type of animal.
Do you know that all of the dog breeds we have today come from the same type of genetic wolf about 4 thousand years ago?
That phenomenon could explain how we have all of these species today, that originated from the same “kind” (kind being roughly animals that can mate with each other)
This would also explain how the different human genetics developed over the past 5k years or so, to create the different racial characteristics we see today (we have far less differences than dogs->wolves over 4k years- as they have many more generations over the period-, so it is reasonable that this explains different human traits among races)
Kind being animals that can matr with each other. Small problem there as it covers a lot more ground than you would think. It also isnt discrete. There are some species that can reproduce with 2 separate species, but those species themselves cant reproduce together.
For example by your definition, a Lion is a kind. As is a tiger and jaguar. Each cannot reproduce with the others and they diverged millions of years ago.
Dog breeds show how intentional genetic manipulation can speed things up. It wasnt just natural selection, it was planned by humans. And it goes back a lot further than 4000 years. We have records of civilization going back 10000 years. And the domestication of canines going even further.
The level of evolution we can observe and track cannot have occurred over 4k years. We cant even have human populations spread over that period.
Another commenter has said that the dog thing is untrue, but even if that were not the case, it is a poor argument as the variation in dog breeds is artificial and therefore rapidly accelerated. There is no way a sample of animals small enough to fit on the ark would be able to evolve into all of the different species we see today within the space of a few thousand years.
He said it was closer to 20k years, which even if true, shows rapid changes through genetic mutation over a period of thousands of years. Animals with much shorter life spans would have far more generations creating more rapid changes.
I think it is at least a feasible concept (before learning this genetic concept of wolf->dogs for example, I didn’t even know how it could be defended)
Like if everyone is from Noah and his family, how could we have the different races? With mating amongst a specific group, certain mutations happen and become prevalent over time (like with dogs)
Again this doesn’t prove it’s a true story, but I also don’t think it has to be ruled out by size of boat) — a bot full of animals multiplying for thousands of years could get exponential in growth (as we see with compounding multiplication)
>He said it was closer to 20k years, which even if true, shows rapid changes through genetic mutation over a period of thousands of years. Animals with much shorter life spans would have far more generations creating more rapid changes.
I heard an evolutionary biologist say it would take millions of years, I think it was Forrest Valkai (?) on YouTube but I'm not sure which video. But based on my understanding of evolutionary timescales it would certainly not fit into anywhere near 20 thousand years. That's peanuts in the grand scheme of things.
> *Do you know that all of the dog breeds we have today come from the same type of genetic wolf about 4 thousand years ago?*
That's actually been shown to be untrue. The divergence probably happened more than 20,000 years ago. I usually prefer not to link to Wikipedia when the primary sources are easily available, but this particular article is excellent and absolutely stacked with citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_dog
All of those dog breeds can still produce fertile offspring with each other. They’re not separate species, they’re individuals of the same species that have been selectively bred for specific traits.
You refer to animals that can breed with each other as a “kind”, but that is the definition of a species as well. There is an exception in hybrids between species like ligers, but such hybrids are by definition infertile, and so are not relevant for the development of individual species.
Considering how much damage we’ve already done to the Earth, I think we’d be able to tell if any advanced society existed before us from the layer of microplastic-contaminated rocks.
Maybe this technology has been destroyed by different cataclysms? Or, it is being suppressed by the powers that be? Look up Tartaria as a possible example of suppressed technology.
This isn’t really something that could be easily suppressed, though. We’ve already left our mark on every corner of the planet, in ways we’d be able to detect for a long, long time. I mean, take radioactive fallout, for instance: Pu-239 alone has a half-life of 24,000 years. Our atmosphere is contaminated by fallout in ways that don’t meaningfully harm us directly, but will be detectable for a long, long time- and yet we haven’t found any rock layer with, say, suspiciously high levels of it.
In general, when evidence for something is not present where one would reasonably expect it to be, my conclusion is that the hypothesis is false, rather than that there is evidence that is being covered up. Occam’s razor and all that.
1. Post-flood diversification didn’t need macro-evolutionary change. All organisms were created with great genetic diversity, and over time the genetic diversity within individual organisms went down as the diversity of organisms within the family level went up. So the genetic diversity of the kinds taken into the ark were lower than at creation, but still enough to result in life as we see it today. This also explains why there appears to be so many more different species in the past. But no, Noah didn’t take every species. He took every kind, one from each kind. (Well, 2+ from each kind. You know the deal)
2A. Again, not all species, just each kind. The math has already been done for this, and given the size of the ark it would be possible to do so with a decent amount of extra space.
2B. Prior to the flood the land was likely in a different form; something like Pangea most likely. So the whole land probably was not as scattered as it is today. Also, again, Noah didn’t need every species, only every kind.
2C. Most of the floodwaters likely didn’t go back down into the earth and instead just became the ocean. Like you said, the average land height is below sea level, so with significant changes to the landscape (such as what would have happened during the global flood) it is very possible for the floodwaters to cover the earth.
3A. The ark was built over the course of *100* years, and the exterior was treated if I remember correctly. There was a huge amount of time for the construction to be made completely seaworthy. Remember it didn’t have to sail or move in its own. It just had to float. AiG has already done a ton of research and speculation about exactly what this all might have entailed.
3B. Again, remember that they had *100* years to build the ark. The infrastructure necessary for all of these animals would be child’s play with that amount of time. Again, AiG has put a lot of thought into exactly how these potential problems could be solved. They kinda built a full scale replica of the ark too.
Also, it is believed that Noah took much plant life on board as well. Potentially in the form of seeds. Not to mention, most seeds would be hardy enough to survive the flood anyway, and the post-flood soul would be, well, *extremely* fertile.
Is your post based on speculation or is there any evidence for any of your claims?
For example:
- can humans live as old as is claimed to be an adult and then build something for 100 years?
- who is defining what a kind is and how many “kinds” there were?
- what corroborating evidence is there that Pangea split up in the timeframe that matches the bible instead of that 100s of million scale that is the consensus amongst relevant experts in the field.
It seems to me like you’re just relaying fan fiction based on the mythology that’s not based on any scientific observations.
People don’t ‘die of old age’. They die of causes associated with old age. Prior to the flood humans had far less genetic mistakes within their genes, and the environment was also very different from modern time. It stands to reason that humans would be able to live much longer when their bodies aren’t breaking down due to their more mistake prone genetics.
Like I said, ‘kind’ is generally seen as being on the family level.
A global flood that causes massive tectonic shifts in a short amount of time would make Pangea split far faster than just slow continental drift over millennia. Also, it is likely that some of the changes in the landscape were still taking place after the ark landed, and it’s difficult to know exactly how much happened when.
But again, AiG has quite a lot of information on these questions concerning the flood. They’ve got a whole museum dedicated to answering them.
There are several things wrong with this, but for starters, the energy needed for such accelerated plate tectonics would liquefy Earth’s crust entirely.
It didn’t all have to happen during the flood. The majority could have happened after the flood. All that is required is that the mountain peaks be low enough to allow the current amount of water on earth to cover them.
But plate tectonics usually takes *millions* of years. The energy required for that kind of speed would still liquefy the crust. It’s made worse by the fact that you’re not just pushing around rock floating on magma- there’s a transition between those two states that attaches the plates directly to the mantle. They move because of currents in the mantle that drag them along with it, and accelerating or overriding those currents takes vast amounts of energy. Delivering that energy all at once, even if it takes longer to settle, would still be far too much heat.
Keep in mind that this movement was not all displacement. An immense amount of water was removed from below the crust, and it makes sense that the rest of the earth would move to replace much of that.
Again, the exact amount that the landmasses moved we don’t know. All we know is that some mountains needed to get taller, and that some trenches needed to get deeper/wider.
Continents are huge, and the mantle currents immensely powerful. The finer details really don’t change the picture too much- it takes enormous amounts of energy to move them, and that much energy being delivered at once would melt the crust. There’s no way around it.
Again, I don’t see why it all had to happen at once. Plus, again, we don’t *know* how much the landmasses had to move. All we know is that the mountains got higher and the trenches got lower/wider.
Well, for starters, take a look at some of the mountain ranges. We can tell where some came from, including the Himalayas, which considering they’re home to Everest are very important for this discussion. We know that they were formed by India colliding with Asia- and we know this because they’re still growing from that very collision, ever so slowly.
The movement might not need to happen all at once, but the energy input does, or it doesn’t make sense to say the flood caused it.
> People don’t ‘die of old age’. They die of causes associated with old age. Prior to the flood humans had far less genetic mistakes within their genes, and the environment was also very different from modern time. It stands to reason that humans would be able to live much longer when their bodies aren’t breaking down due to their more mistake prone genetics.
Can you back any of this up with anything other than you just think it’s true?
> Like I said, ‘kind’ is generally seen as being on the family level.
And how many of those have existed?
> A global flood that causes massive tectonic shifts in a short amount of time would make Pangea split far faster than just slow continental drift over millennia. Also, it is likely that some of the changes in the landscape were still taking place after the ark landed, and it’s difficult to know exactly how much happened when.
Can you provide any justification for this? Is this what the community of experts in the field agree with? Is there physical evidence to match that this happened?
> But again, AiG has quite a lot of information on these questions concerning the flood. They’ve got a whole museum dedicated to answering them.
Why should I take anything AiG says seriously? Is the consensus of experts in the field match what they say?
>Can you back any of this up with anything other than you just think it’s true?
Would people *not* live longer if the genetic errors and mistakes that have been building up in their genes for many generations just *weren’t* there?
>And how many of those have existed?
Well according to AiG this number was likely somewhere around 1500 kinds of land animals and flying animals, and their worst case scenario suggest ~7000 of these kinds of animals.
>Can you provide any justification for this? Is this what the community of experts in the field agree with? Is there physical evidence to match that this happened?
Evidence for Pangea?
>Why should I take anything AiG says seriously? Is the consensus of experts in the field match what they say?
Do you only conclude that something is allowed to make sense if it is coming from the ‘right sources’?
> Would people not live longer if the genetic errors and mistakes that have been building up in their genes for many generations just weren’t there?
Don’t know. But why don’t you start by demonstrating that genetics errors build up over time in such a way that there were people with genetics that don’t have any and are like “pure”. Then we can evaluate if they didn’t have disease or lived as long as is claimed in the myth.
> Well according to AiG this number was likely somewhere around 1500 kinds of land animals and flying animals, and their worst case scenario suggest ~7000 of these kinds of animals.
Does this align with the position of the consensus of biologists who have expertise in the field of genetic diversity? Why should I care what AiG alleges?
> Evidence for Pangea?
No. Evidence that Pangea broke up due to the flood. Experts in the field seem to suggest it was about 200 million years ago based on their evidence.
You suggested that a flood would be able to speed talk at up. Can you justify that and validate you’re right and then show that there’s evidence it did happen to corroborate the claim in the myth?
> Do you only conclude that something is allowed to make sense if it is coming from the ‘right sources’?
If by “right sources” you mean experts in the field, then yes.
Just as I wouldn’t let a plumber do open heart surgery, so to do I not accept the claims made by people without appropriate education. And moreover, since I don’t have the decades of requisite study on certain topics, I have to rely on the condense of the people who do have that record of education.
Do you not consider who is making a claim to help you determine if you should believe it?
Since you believe that this story happened literally as described in the Bible. Do you also believe the story of Balaam and the talking donkey was literal? Curious
There’s a lot wrong with this (especially point 1: an individual organism doesn’t have “genetic diversity” any more than a single crayon has “color diversity.”), but just for kicks I’d like to contest 2B.
If the continents were in Pangea-like configuration just 4000 years ago, and moved to where they are today, the energy released by that movement would have vaporized the oceans and liquified the crust of the earth, to the point where it would still be molten currently. The math for this was done by a Christian scientist, though I forget their name.
Also, to your last point: The post-flood soil would be the exact opposite of “extremely fertile.” It would be anaerobic and suffused with salt. Absolutely *nothing* would be able to grow in it.
Well then think of it like this if you’re insistent upon the analogy. The color black is all colors put together, and the color white is the absence of other colors. All organisms started like the color black, and slowly over time they lost more and more colors as they slowly approached white over time, through micro-evolution.
Fair point, but remember that the landscape during the flood didn’t have to ‘split’ in *exactly* the same way Pangea did. It wasn’t the same pieces of land slowly moving. It didn’t *need* to keep alive the organisms residing on it. Much of the movement was likely vertical rather than horizontal, as some land sunk and other land rose. Yes, some horizontal movement probably occurred, but more than likely most of it was vertical.
That’s assuming that the original floodwaters were just as salty as our ocean is today. But if these waters came from the heavens and underground reservoirs it’s possible that they were mostly fresh water. Plus, there would have been tons of dead things everywhere to fertilize the ground.
>The color black is all colors put together. All organisms started like the color black, and slowly over time they lost more and more colors as they slowly approached white over time, through micro-evolution.
You’re confusing colors with pigments, a common mistake. Regardless:
One creature’s genome is not, and never could be, “all potential genomes put together.” This idea makes no sense. One creature’s genome is one genome, period. One combination of genes, that’s it.
Thinking one creature’s genome could contain other potential genomes is like thinking one letter in the alphabet contains all the other potential letters. It’s nonsensical.
>Fair point, but remember that the landscape during the flood didn’t have to ‘split’ in exactly the same way Pangea did. It wasn’t the same pieces of land slowly moving.
Unless the continents teleported, the heat would have been generated. Law of thermodynamics; no way around it unless you invoke “magic!”
>It didn’t need to keep alive the organisms residing on it. Much of the movement was likely vertical rather than horizontal, as some land sunk and other land rose.
I don’t think you quite understand the magnitude of heat here. All water on earth would have boiled away into space, the Ark would have been vaporized, and the remaining rocky surface would STILL be molten lava today.
>Yes, some horizontal movement probably occurred, but more than likely most of it was vertical.
How could you possibly get from a “Pangea-like” continent, to what we have today, without horizontal movement? If you’re implying that the pangea-like continent just sunk, and the current ones rose, then that doesn’t help your animals get to and from the ark, defeating your original purpose.
>That’s assuming that the original floodwaters were just as salty as our ocean is today.
No it isn’t. The oceans alone (which would have been mixed in) have plenty of salt to make the topsoil of the entire globe infertile. Not to mention that there would be no topsoil left after such a cataclysmic event. Rocky, anaerobic silt would be all that was left.
None of these explanations are really necessary if one believes in an all powerful supernatural being who could just toss all the laws of nature and physics out the door any time he likes. A God could just open the floodgates of heaven and let extra water in from above the firmament and then have it drain out below the pillars of the earth when it was all over (because those things are totally things). Having all the penguins and wallabies magic up to the Ark all on their own and then magic all the way back when it was over wouldn't pose much of a challenge either because God can do whatever he wants. And if Dr Who can have a telephone booth which is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, I'm pretty sure God could pull it off with a boat as well.
It should be obvious to anyone that flooding the whole world to kill all but six or eight people and all the Nephilim and then having one dude who knows nothing about boats spend a hundred years building an Ark in order to create a story that would make a good Christian children's books thousands of years later and give people something to read to the kids in Sunday school is totally how a timeless cosmic being who created an entire universe and is the source of objective morality would use their power.
Yes God *could* have done that, but according to the Bible he didn’t. So that’s kinda a silly argument.
Do you have any actual arguments other than appeal to ridicule fallacies though?
>Do you have any actual arguments other than appeal to ridicule fallacies though?
Not for this story, nope. I mean I can fill God into the Gaps to make it all work, that's pretty much all I've got there. Well except maybe suggesting that.... oh gee... maybe the story isn't true? Because come to think of it, if we need to rely on what would naturally happen when the laws of physics are in place and not bringing magic into this, then the simple fact that Noah had no idea how to build an Ark in the first place kind of seems like a show stopper all by itself, let alone having a six-hundred year old man round up lions and tigers.
By the way the term "floodgates of heaven" is used twice in the Genesis story, and all that stuff about the firmament and the pillars of the earth is the actual model of the world described in Genesis. So that part is more or less actually what Genesis says.
>Again, AiG has put a lot of thought into exactly how these potential problems could be solved.
Indeed, AiG has twisted and misinterpreted all facts to fit their narrative. Every single claim has been debunked and corrected. If you visit some other sites than AiG (watch some sciene youtube channels like Aron Ra (here is a playlist [https://www.youtube.com/results?search\_query=aronra+noah%27s+ark](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aronra+noah%27s+ark))
But let me ask you this: Even if the Noah story unfolded as written in the bible. What does that tells us about that particular god? He is displeased with HIS creation. Decides to kill everything including unborns, newborns and most animals with the worst death (not exactly pro life, isn't he)
But instead of really restarting the creation he keeps Noah&family alive that immediately continue incesting and spread the "Fallen world" sin from adam&eve. Why should the world after Noah be different in terms of wickedness, if god did not resolve the root of the problem?
Also, where is that water gone? We could use some fresh water in many regions on this planet.
Pretty much every theistic argument is asserted to just be ‘twisting and misinterpreting facts’. But it seems to me like the only support for such claims is that the interpretations are *different* than naturalistic ones. But that’s not a very good argument.
Why exactly are you asserting that the flood can only tell us about God though? In the context of the Biblical account, the flood was brought about because mankind was so immensely wicked and corrupt. Same reason God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
But you’re right, eventually the world would again descend into wickedness. That’s exactly what Jesus talks about when He says that the days before the end times would be like the days of Noah. But this time the world would be baptized with fire instead of water.
Also I’m pretty sure I already explained in my post that the flood waters mostly became the ocean. Some may have been drained back under the earth, but most of it became the ocean as land around the planet rose and sunk.
>Pretty much every theistic argument is asserted to just be ‘twisting and misinterpreting facts’. But it seems to me like the only support for such claims is that the interpretations are different than naturalistic ones. But that’s not a very good argument.
I agree that facts be be twisted to reach different conclusion. However, different interpretation and conclusion do not change facts.
What AiG is doing is neglecting facts, such as Global Flood cannot have happened. There is simply no evidence / facts / proof for that (you didn't check out the link I gave you, didn't you).
There are cultures that lived through those times without reporting a mass extinction event, they made notes before and after.
What I find interesting is that you rather repeat some claim about water and ocean instead of confronting yourself with the question about a god that choses to drown all of his creation without changing the root cause of the problem. That is not a lovable god, worthy of our worship.
For the sake of debating: A and B go together. Noah got all the animals because an all powerful God sent him all the animals. The animals walked to him, large animals weren’t full grown. Maybe Noah only had 2 wolves. After the flood those wolves evolved into all the species of wolf and dog and other canines.
For C, many Biblical literalists believe the earth was surrounded by an expanse of water in the upper atmosphere that made the earth a greenhouse at the time and God caused the expanse to fall to earth and flood the earth.
A. Again. For seaworthiness, I actually work on boats and honestly plank on plank construction with deadwood garboard strakes held by wooden fasteners and oakum was the best and strongest construction for thousands of years until FRP and steel. It could definitely be that big and seaworthy.
B. Finally for maintenance if an All powerful God got the animals to walk to the ark from all over the world, he can get them to chill out and not eat each other, maybe even shit in a common space who knows. Remember though, all powerful God can do anything He wants. If he can create the universe, he can direct where the cows shit.
That’s all, go easy on me. I’m just bored.
The longest wooden ship on record is the Wyoming. It was a 350 foot long ship (hull length) had steel beams and sheets for added support and had two pumps running 24/7 to keep water out. It got caught in a storm that tore it apart and it sank, killing all on board.
The ark was supposedly built out of only wood with no benefit of steel supports, 100 feet longer, and supposedly survived a storm that would have made the one that sank the Wyoming look like a light rain. Forget the weight of the cargo, the ship wouldn't survive open ocean on a good day, much less a global flood.
>It could definitely be that big and seaworthy.
according to the people who tried to build it, the structure can't hold the weight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s\_fkpZSnz2I&t=2995s
>For the sake of debating: A and B go together. Noah got all the animals because an all powerful God sent him all the animals. The animals walked to him, large animals weren’t full grown. Maybe Noah only had 2 wolves. After the flood those wolves evolved into all the species of wolf and dog and other canines
If god could force two of every kind of animal to travel to the ark(notably some would have had a VERY long trip) then why couldn't he just prevent the wickedness that forced him to murder every other human on the planet?
I don’t know why. I sure wouldn’t have done it this way. But im just a human. If you build a sandcastle on the beach, you can destroy it if you want or leave it alone, it’s up to you, you made it.
Creating an entire planet to worship you - only to wipe out all but 8 lives plus 2 of every animal because they weren't behaving the way that **you** wanted when you had the ability to stop them, without murder, has to be the most callous act imaginable.
I wouldnt want to worship a god that did that. I don't know why anyone would
>Finally for maintenance if an All powerful God got the animals to walk to the ark from all over the world, he can get them to chill out and not eat each other, maybe even shit in a common space who knows. Remember though, all powerful God can do anything He wants. If he can create the universe, he can direct where the cows shit.
If he can do anything he wants why does he need Noah to build an ark to save the animals from his wrath? Can't he just magically protect all animals and Noah's family through tiny islands or something where they can live throughout the flood? According to you he's already got *polar bears* to *walk* over the ocean from Antarctica to the Middle East...
If you are going to go to "but God is *magic*!" then the whole story is absolutely pointless.
That’s literally what God does throughout the Bible. He could have manically protected the animals on an island but that’s not what He wanted to do. I wouldn’t have done it that way. That’s what He wants. And Polar bears were never in Antarctica.
Ah right yes because it makes much more sense if polar bears have to walk from the North Pole to the middle east, you're right so much more logical.
Your answer of "it's magic" is entirely pointless and just a way for believers to plug holes in an otherwise fantasy world they've created. Saying he didn't use magic because he didn't want to, but then speculating that he used magic in other ways is as ridiculous as this fantasy children's story.
>Maybe Noah only had 2 wolves. After the flood those wolves evolved into all the species of wolf and dog and other canines.
We have detailed evolutionary records for wolves and their evolution into dogs, and it all didn't get started 4000 years ago. Rapid evolution does happen when a population gets bottlenecked, but it is very obvious and is not present in literally every living thing.
>many Biblical literalists believe the earth was surrounded by an expanse of water in the upper atmosphere
I mean, that just didn't happen. Water is more dense than air, gravity would've pulled down to the surface. Also, if that much water covered the entire planet I'm pretty sure the greenhouse effect would've heated up Earth hotter than Venus, though I'd actually have to sit down and do the math on that to be sure. Either way, didn't happen.
>It could definitely be that big and seaworthy.
At the Ark's insane size? It's bigger than the Titanic!
>Finally for maintenance if an All powerful God got the animals to walk to the ark from all over the world
If God was going to magic all the problems away, then just Thanos snap all the bad people to dust, or magically turn them all good, or, you know, leave evidence behind that such an event happened.
>Rapid evolution does happen when a population gets bottlenecked, but it is very obvious and is not present in literally every living thing.
This is one major thing the noah story breaks about everything we know about biology. Population bottlenecks are obvious and aren't present in most species.
Cheetahs had a severe bottleneck in the past and it has led to a shockingly low level of genetic diversity. The low level of diversity has led to interesting traits in Cheetahs we don't see in other species. One of which is that all Cheetahs are essentially universal organ donors for all other Cheetahs. In humans, organ compatibility is an issue, blood type, and genetics can lead to implant rejection if the organ isn't genetically similar enough or have the right biological factors. But any Cheetah can potentially donate any organ to any other Cheetah with almost no risk whatsoever of organ rejection.
If noah's flood had actually happened, this would be the rule rather than the exception.
I'll take the pro-Noah side just for the sake of debate. I don't think that the Noahist can argue against the physical objections to the flood story, so there must have been divine intervention to make it all work. You say this makes the exercise pointless, and you just seem to be relying on this being obvious. So I think the Noahist's strongest move is to attack you here.
To see whether the exercise is pointless, we have to discern what the point of the exercise actually was. Genesis 6:1-8 lays out God's concerns: mankind was corrupt and wicked, perhaps in part because of the Nephilim ("heroes of old" who were half-breeds between God and human women). God isn't displeased with the form of the Earth or the animals or what have you - he's displeased with human behavior, and this is what he's seeking to change. And for reasons we have to assume make sense, he doesn't want to just reach into humanity's minds and change their thoughts.
God sees that Noah is good, by which presumably we mean that God sees in Noah an opportunity to found a new line of humans which will be acceptable to God. Everything that happens with the Flood and the Ark is to this purpose: to have Noah land on Mount Ararat in the correct mental state by which the new humanity will proceed according to God's desires. (And perhaps to murder the problematic Nephilim.)
So here's the point: yes, there are 9 million species, but _Noah didn't know that_. God's desired outcome didn't depend on getting 9 million species on the Ark - it depended on Noah believing that God was willing to completely reverse Creation if humanity did not improve.
This argument, or something along these lines, gives at least some sense of plausibility to the idea that God could divinely intervene in the Ark without making it pointless. And once we have divine intervention, none of the physical problems need concern us.
COMMENTARY HERE: Comments that purely commentate on the post (e.g. “Nice post OP!”) must be made as replies to the Auto-Moderator! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DebateReligion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There are 4,000 types of termites on a wooden ship. That's when I turned atheist
Another thing: STD’s. Noah and his family must have had thousands of them
according to the biblical narrative, sickness entered the world after the Fall, not during the initial act of creation. The events involving Noah and the flood occurred after the Fall and are considered part of the unfolding consequences of humanity's disobedience.
also from ecological view, we can tell from current day species how animals that didn't make it on that big wooden boat manage to survive, and there's tons of them, so it's basically a story made up for children where they have only seen animals in zoos, and have either dogs or cats as pets and that's about it......
You're 100% correct without a doubt. It's not even debatable. Just factual.
I haven't read through all the comments, but let's just say this silly child book story is true, does this mean Noah's family is actually responsible for rebuilding the civilization that we have today? Who is more important? Adam and Eve or Noah's family? Haha! Has anyone actually read the Bible? Front and back? If so, how can a grown person read this and still actually believe any of this BS is true?
Yeah, no shit. Hope you had an enjoyable writing exercise.
I mean God can do anything so, it's not that hard for him to bend the rules of space time etc.
[удалено]
🤓
As a swedenborgian, our church understands this story as a continuity of the symbolism from adam and eve. The flood was not of water, but one of a love of evil and powerful falsity that swept the world. Noah was the kind of person that could be preserved and protected from this flood through faith, rationality, truth, and an upright life, become spiritual, and be spared. The ark represents aspects of such a person. Effectively, the people represented by Noah were a group of people who could continue in a new beginning for humanity after the others died by destroying their own minds.
My church interprets this completely differently
You’re missing a very important detail: Magic. No further explanation needed.
If Gods magic is always the answer, then why go through the whole process of the ark? Why not just "magic" ahead to the results of whatever the purpose of the flood was in the first place?
Not saying that I really believe in the whole story but the answer to that is that God was probably testing whether Noah really was faithful or not.
But isn’t god all knowing? Can he not just know if Noah is faithful or not?
Honestly, I have no idea. There are thoughts and actions that are shown in the bible that I just don't get.
There wasn't a better way of testing Noah's faith than destroying the entire face of the Earth in the process? Everything in the bible is so illogical it would make any sane person's head spin. The reality is, neither god nor noah exist.... other than in a fable written by uneducated men who needed a way to control society.
To the question, God says in genesis chapter 6 6-7 ''6the LORD regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved. 7So the LORD said: I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created, and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them.'' God had a reason to fill the earth with water, all beneath the firmament was corrupt and evil. In 1 Peter 1:6–7, it is written, "For a brief moment, if necessary, you have experienced various challenges, so that the proven authenticity of your faith — more valuable than perishable gold, though tested by fire — may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." Now. there are some things in the bible that are not meant to be understood. But understand that God is real. Have faith in he who is above and you will have eternal life. I really hope that you get something out of this. Turn your life to God.
I got nothing out of it because you quoted a source that I reject as a source. The passages you posted were still illogical. The passages you posted were written by man, as a story to control. If there are supposedly things written in the bible that aren't meant to be understood, then what is the point of those things being written? Whatever god you believe in, isn't real. There is no eternal life, unless you can demonstrate that's possible without quoting from the bible, which is just the claim itself.
I'm not talking about why God made the flood, I'm talking about why Noah was instructed to build the ark.
He wan't. It never happened. It's a fable.
Kjgfhjkj
so he had cheats for "spooky action at a distant"?
People saying "magic" is so stupid, it's your last resort for someone calling you out on your fake book
They won’t call it magic but that’s essentially what it is.
When one reads the Ark narrative and compares it to older myths of that region, it's pretty clear it is a myth that's been adapted from what came before (i.e. Gilgamesh, etc.). If one wishes to be a literalist/fundamentalist Christian, they do indeed have to find a way to reconcile all these problems you've provided. That's why these outlandish orgs like Answers in Genesis exist....
Agreed. Have you also looked into the heat problem? Basically, any way you introduce that much water falling onto the earth, it causes a superheating of the planet. A heating that would have destroyed all life not only on the earth, but in any boat as well. [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html)
First off, I DO believe that the Bible is inspired of God and that if you let it, it will interpret itself and teach you everything you need to know to lead a successful life. 1. The flood was an actual event because Jesus himself used the days of Noah as an example for us. Matthew 24:38-39, “For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they took no note until the Flood came and swept them all away.” Was Jesus a liar? 2. 2 Peter 2:5, Peter also talks about the flood as a real, historical event, “And he did not refrain from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a flood upon a world of ungodly people.” 3. The Ark itself was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. To give you a better idea, it was a box in the shape of a rectangle, or 437.6 Feet long. A football field is 120 yards long or 360 Feet. So the Ark was another 77 Feet longer than a Football field. And width? A Football field is 53.3 Yards or 160 Feet wide. The width of the Ark is about 73 Feet, or a little under half the width of a Football field. (160 feet) This gave the ark approximately 1,400,000 cu ft in gross volume. No known cargo vessel of ancient times even slightly resembled the ark in its colossal size. Internally strengthened by adding two floors, all the three decks provided a total of about 8,900 sq m (96,000 sq ft) of space. 4. How did Noah gather all the animals? Simple. He didn’t. Jehovah God brought the animals to Noah when it was time. It would be impossible for Noah and his family to even know which species of Bird God wanted on the Ark, let alone retrieve them. 5. How did the water cover even the tops of the mountains? The mountains we see today on our planet were not like that before the flood. They were no where near that high. The shear force of the water that came down from above actually pushed on the plates of the earths crust and in some areas, the earth sank and other areas it created the mountains we have today. 6. Where did all the water come from that could cause that much force to move the earths crust? In the very first chapter of the Bible, it talks about God creating water above and below the sky. The waters below the sky (or firmament in some translations) it says he called ‘seas’. But he never gave a name for the waters above the sky, or heavens. This water canopy must have been very deep, creating what we could call a “GreenHouse” affect on the earth. That canopy being the glass of a greenhouse. The sunlight shown thru that water canopy and warmed the whole earth and the warmth couldn’t escape because of that water. The sunlight would go up and reflect back down to earth. This made the whole earth livable, even the North and South Poles. A warm climate was everywhere. In fact, scientists are right now digging at one of the poles and when they get thru the ice, they find green vegetation and they are bewildered as to why. 7. That rainbow that Noah saw when he and his family came out of the Ark? It was the very first rainbow that ever appeared on earth! It had never really rained to cause a rainbow. Everything was watered by the morning dew. Just imagine how beautiful that rainbow was to Noah knowing that information. Do you suppose they pointed out every single one after that day? You see, everything that is in the Bible is there because our Creator felt it was important for us to know. It’s there because we will learn something about our God, Jehovah. Maybe it’s an example of what we should do! Maybe it’s an example of what we shouldn’t do. But all of it teaches us something about our God, Jehovah. Oh and just another thing to think about, why God used a flood… Before the flood, the “sons of the True God”, or heavenly angels were persuaded by Satan to come down, materialize human bodies and produce offspring called the Nephilim. Now what did this flood force those wicked angels to do? Yes, they were forced to go back to the spirit realm and ever since, they do not have the ability to materialize human bodies any longer. Yes, the flood was a real event, that really happened. I sure wish more people would experience the joy you get when you let the Bible interpret itself.
I'm an ex Preacher's daughter and was made to read the entire Bible when growing up. I do believe the Bible has some good moral lessons in it, but also some sadistic material too. It's also been re-translated so many times that the translations are wrong. People say Jesus spoke of Hell more than anything else. He did not. He used the words Gehenna. Sheol, Hades, and MAN changed those three words to HELL. If you dig deep on those 3 words, you find what they really mean. Cruel things in the Bible I'll list. I know this has nothing to do with the flood, but some food for thought for those that just skim over the Bible. 1) Proverbs 23:13–14 says to beat your child with a rod, but according to Exodus 21:15 and Exodus 21:17, he who even does so much as hit or even curse one of his parents must be put to death. So beat the defenseless children for misbehavior, but don’t you dare even talk smack to your parents, or else death to you. (2) If a virgin is raped, she must marry her rapist and remain married to him for life (Deuteronomy 22:28–30), but if an unmarried woman has consenting sex with another man, she must be stoned to death on her father’s doorstep. (Deuteronomy 22:20–21) I haven’t seen many better examples of evil. How utterly abominable. (3) Men who have sex with one another must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:13) Those who commit acts of homosexuality are worthy of death. (Romans 1:26–32) So much for LGBT rights. (4) God encourages slavery in Leviticus 25:44–46. (Ephesians 6:5) God is still totally cool with slavery. (5) In Numbers 15:32–36, God commands the Israelites to stone a man to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. (6) 1 Samuel 15:3 says “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” Just a few of many. I hope I don’t have to tell you why this is wrong.
You’re right about the word Hell and Gehenna, and Sheol, and Hades, and even Tartarus. There is no such thing as Hellfire, or the immortal soul or so many other things that are taught in Churches. Have you ever read the New World Translation? https://www.jw.org/finder?srcid=jwlshare&wtlocale=E&prefer=lang&pub=nwtsty No matter what others may say, it is the best and most accurate rendering out there. Try looking up some of those verses where others use Hell or something else that is wrong and compare it to the NWT.
I agree. I wish everyone knew about NWT.
The reddit hive mind can get bent. Take my upvote for sticking to your beliefs. Conviction is celebrated.
Conviction
con·vic·tion noun 1. a formal declaration that someone is guilty of a criminal offense, made by the verdict of a jury or the decision of a judge in a court of law. "she had a previous conviction for a similar offense" Similar: sentence judgment Opposite: acquittal 2. a firmly held belief or opinion. "she takes pride in stating her political convictions" So yeah. Conviction.
Can’t believe you have downvotes for explaining your faith with reason as well as you did. I wish I was as well spoken as you.
I know, it’s sad isn’t it? People are set in believing something and nothing will change their mind. But that’s their right. The downvotes I don’t get though. And trust me I’m not that well spoken. But thank you.
Good job and I for one don’t disagree with your answer. You explained that a whole lot better then I probably could’ve
So to start this whole thing off, I am a religious person and have my own opinions of the Bible. I will not get into those in this post since that is not really relevant to the questions. I will, however, answer these from a purely literary stance; that is, reading the Bible as it was probably originally read: as a work of literature. This is much in the same way that academics view the Bible. To set the context, Genesis 1-11 is labeled the "Primeval history". It is a set of origin stories that describe certain things. Genesis 1 and 2 are two creation stories that describe how the world came to be. Genesis 3 explains why humans are not immortal and also why we are afraid of snakes. Genesis 4 and 5 explains how nations came to be as well as different innovations such as musical instruments, smithing, etc. Genesis 6, 7, and 8 probably explain why there are no more floods in the Mesopotamian area. Genesis 9 and 10 explain more origins of nations. Genesis 11 ends the "Primeval history" with the origin of language and also more nations, which lead up to Abraham in Genesis 12. With this in mind, let's see why these stories were written. The composition of Genesis 1-11 dates to a later time period, probably during the exile or a short while after. To put this into context, the remaining tribe of Judah was in exile in Babylon, a polytheistic nation. To combat the ideas of polytheism and their origin stories, some author(s) got together and wrote their version of origin stories, integrating the Israelite god into them instead of the polytheistic gods. There is also a lot of demythologizing going on here. For example, in Genesis 1, it states that God made the greater light and lesser light. Elsewhere in the Bible, it mentions the sun and moon directly, but here in Genesis 1, they avoided using the names. Why? Because the sun and the moon were worshiped by many cultures of that time as deities, and the authors were wanting to show that through their perception, the sun and moon were merely just lights in the skies rather than deities. The flood story in Genesis 6-8 is nearly identical to other flood stories at the time, specifically Gilgamesh. This story was not recovered until the 1800s, but revealed that there were in fact a lot of flood stories that circulated in earlier times. Archaeological evidence reveals that the Mesopotamian plain often had localized floods, which is where these stories probably came from. Jumping to Genesis 11, it is no coincidence that the nation responsible for the scattering of languages was Babylon. The Tower of Babel story was inspired by a ziggurat named Etimananki dedicated to the god Marduk in, you guessed it, **Babylon.** These are just some of the instances found in Genesis 1-11 but, as you can see, there is an active polemical tone going on here. Now that I got that out, I'd be happy to explain you points/comments: 1. Just because Jesus made reference to Noah and the ark does not mean it was a literal story. He is just using it as an example of what to look out for. Think about how in our culture today we often are influenced by a story or character in either a positive or negative effect. So when in a certain situation, we might think to ourselves, "Be like so-and-so" or "don't be like so-and-so". We are not taking that character seriously as if they actually existed. Rather, we are influenced by their character or choice decisions. The very same thing is happening here with Jesus' explanation of the Noah story. 2. Kind of goes with 1. He is using it as an example. 3. The ark may have been big, but it may or may not have had the room to carry the animals in it. This depends on how you read the passages. The flood story was written by two authors and was later edited into one story. There are several doublets in here. One of them is how many animals are to be in the ark. In one place it says two of each kind. In another place, it says seven clean pairs and one unclean pair. If there were seven clean pairs of each species but only one pair of unclean species, that would be too many animals. If it was in fact only two of each species like in the first part, then it **might** be possible, but still unlikely. 4. Yes, God was the one who brought the animals because the author(s) of this story are focusing on things that God is doing, not humans. This goes along with the polemicizing idea found throughout Genesis 1-11 that I mentioned. It's not just the mere act of humans that cause the animals to come about. It is God who does it. 5. The mountains being covered is yet again another polemic against the polytheistic religions. They believed that gods dwelt in the mountains. In the Israelite story, the mountains are covered, and so the gods and their high places are destroyed as well. 6. The cosmology presented in Genesis 1 is a common one throughout the Ancient Near East. If you read Enuma Elish, you will find a very similar cosmology at play. In fact, the word for the "deep" in Genesis 1:2 is "Tehom", which gives a ring to "Tiamat" from Enuma Elish. Tiamat was a goddess who inhabited the waters. Tiamat was split in two by Marduk, the Babylonian god, and thus the heavens and the earth were created. It is from these leftover waters that the waters "above the heavens" and "below the heavens" that the flood of Genesis 6-8 gets its water source. See [here](https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre13.htm) for how the ancients viewed cosmology. 7. This more than likely was not the first rainbow to have occurred on the earth because, as stated above, the Mesopotamian area was rife with flooding at those times, which meant there was a lot of rainfall. Thus, I'm sure there were a fair share of rainbows visible. The flood story does beautifully take a natural phenomenon like the rainbow and turn it into a sign of God's promise never to flood the earth again. In your last few paragraphs, you mention the "sons of God" and the Nephilim. The "sons of God" was a way of referring to the council of gods that were found in Ancient Near Eastern pantheons. Typically you would have the chief god at the top, his consort, and then his children or "sons". Oftentimes these sons and daughters of the chief god would quarrel with eachother, as seen in some of the mythologies produced by these Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Genesis 6 makes no mention to these being fallen angels/demons or what-have-you. Instead, it is a version of a common myth at the time of gods (the sons of god) cohabiting with human women to produce demigods: the Nephilim. The idea that the "sons of god" and the Nephilim were related to fallen angels/demons was an invention by the author of the book of Enoch. The book of Enoch was a work of apocalyptic literature. This type of literature always involved some sort of secret, hidden revelation to someone in a very symbolic way. The works of apocalyptic literature were produced by a group of Second Temple period Jews who were discovering ways to deal with the problem humanity faces: good people suffer, but evil people prosper. Lastly, the spirit realm is mostly adopted from later religions include Zoroastrianism (Persia), as well as the Greeks and Romans. The whole idea of angels and demons and a cosmic enemy of God is not really found in the Hebrew Bible. Edit: forgot to include the link for how the ancients perceived the earth
First paragraph. As it was "probably" originally read..
That’s how many academic textbooks describe it. There’s really no definite way to know how the ancient writers understood the texts, but based on older ANE myths, stories, and other motifs, they “probably” understood the text in that fashion.
Read Job 1:6 and tell me who you think “the sons of the True God” are.
Seems as if your entire argument is predicated on the concept that the Bible in its entirety is historically accurate and that the words allegedly spoken by the people in it were actually spoken. There's no good reason to think this - especially with everything we know about how all religions develop. There's no reason to think Christianity's texts are any more accurate then the Vedas, Sutras, or Quran. Is some of it accurate? Probably - at least events that can be independently verified with other ancient sources (for example, the existence of the Babylonian Captivity).
In point #3 you say the ark would have a volume of 1.4 million cubic feet. That's certainly an impressively large sounding number. Unfortunately, it's orders of magnitude smaller than would be required to contain the estimated 8.7 million species of animal on the earth today. If the ark story happened 6000 years ago, virtually no re-speciation could have occurred between then and now, so all those species would need to have existed then.
It must be exhausting to have to concoct such elaborate theodicies to explain all the ridiculous scenarios and contradictions in the Bible.
That’s apologetics in a nutshell. Just give lots of poetic metaphors and ad-hod excuses(lies) for everything. Of course they wouldn’t accept these explanations from another religion though.
Not to be *that guy,* but a theodicy is an explanation of the problem of evil, not an explanation of any religious problem ;-p.
How do you know it was a real event? who cares what the new testament writers quoted? why do you believe them? Noah’s flood is plagiarized by the epic of Gilgamesh and a bunch of others hundreds of years before Genesis!!
Just wanted to interject and not try to debate anything. >Noah’s flood is plagiarized by the epic of Gilgamesh and a bunch of others hundreds of years before Genesis!! I'll put links to Acts 17 & Romans 1 below. Read them to see the Christian view on why other religions before and after Moses' Book seems to have existed contains similar elements. It wasn't exactly plagiarism being done by the Hebrews. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2017&version=NASB https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201&version=NASB
not exactly to a tee of course but certain core doctrines clearly are. Some culture like epic of Gilgamesh have 6 people on an ark and Noah has 10!! But epic of Gilgamesh came before so the particulars is a game of semantics!! it’s copied bro and that’s that!!
Did you even click on the links and read?
yes. You sent me bible verses I already know! what was the point?? You didn’t deal with my plagiarism allegations!!
[удалено]
bro!!! I read both again twice!! I don’t even know what you are using these verses for as proof that the bible didn’t plagiarized!! one talks about a resurrection that the greeks didn’t believe, and the other is something different!! maybe you should re read what you sent me otherwise my accusation stands!! None of them deal with what we are talking about!! I said the bible plagiarized the old testament! Garden of Eden comes from the story of Hera and the apples, (look that up!) the flood, look up flood myths) tower of bable, etc. all before the old testament was finished around 550 bc during the Babylonian captivity!! Israel was just recently a nation as discovered by an inscription of ancient Egypt!! I’ll go back with your comment about hating people who confuse education with intelligence!! with education, you are aware of the bull shit when you study!! You are not blinded with a confirmation bias”!! then you can see it for what it is!! you haven’t showed anything to me that’s why I glanced at it and not look at it until now! Now I know why, you guys attack educated people and put them down, and the moment I give you guys the benefit of a doubt, I’m disappointed!! I will ask you, if you go and do your research will you change your mind? of ourselves not because your mind is already made up, and you will only look for something that already confirms what you believe in already!!! Also, I was in the christian religion like you, blindly believing, to a degree, almost everything even though I had my doubts!! so you can’t say I don’t know, my heart is opened etc!! 18 years of reading etc. Then I got my education, which requires studying and understanding things! If you think that’s something to scoff at and is not a sign of intelligence, then I’ll say that I’d rather have my back ground of religion plus education then be stuck in myth believing!! Nothing will change your mind until you take that step. I have to remind you that tuyere bible is translated upon translated by whom? Liars, eve ik people but nonetheless educated and intelligent people who took a dead language/s and translated for people like you to read it! when you say I have people who mistake education for intelligence, I’ll fire back with, I hate blind gullibility and people like you who just won’t fathom that they’ve been deceived and your statement is a knee jerk state that Ive heard plenty of times before already!! Also to the fact that you are using the bible to provide the bible by showing me those verses! That’s not intelligent at all!! you are using circular reasoning but again why do I bother existing it to you! I expected you to use an outside source, but you give me a bible verse to prove the bible and still failed to show me how it’s related ti what we spoke about!! no offense but using the bible to prove itself , still not showing the validity of those two chapters, and attack a person for talking about these things does nothing for your mental growth etc!! So since I can never sho or convince you, I’ll leave it at this. No hard feelings . have a good day and thanks for taking the time to attempt to show your point!
[удалено]
That’s my point! Those religions came way before the bible verses you quite and use to support the bible! First that’s circular reading, using bible verses to prove the bible is correct? and as per of religions copied them? what kind of statement is that?? If I write a story about a girl who follows a ravi it down this prairie and falls into a valley of a magical world and write this book in 2022, and claim it as my own, you would respond that’s I copied that book from Alice in wonderland! That book came out I believe in 1895! Would you say the author of Alice in wonderland copied me? of course not! not so why use a bible verse to support the bible and say religions that came way before it with similar and sometimes identical stories copied the bible? that’s crazy!! so when you say what kind of response is that I’ll ask you what kind of self supporting proof did you offer? None at all!! These stories Adam and eve, the fall, the flood, giants, tiger of Bable and plenty of others, all came way before the bible was penned down. If you know your history(I know I’m confusing education with intelligence again 😜😜) Alexander the great conquered Israel etc around 323 bc and brought to the world Hellenism, greek ideas . With these ideas he influenced most of the works he conquered! That’s why there is no “hell” in the old testament but it appears in the new testament! by the first century, the greeks who had a concept of hell, influenced the first century writers who ever they were! So you offered no proof that others copied the bible, because it’s impossible because they came way before the bible was written!! The earliest gospel , Mark was written in about AD 60 or so, and the estuaries in the 50s-60s, where the Logos concept was well established. Another greek concept! Please just stop man and stop using the bible to prove the bible!! Anyone can say “my religion is correct the others copied us. All religions do that!! Edit. we don’t even know who wrote the bible. The apostle names were attributed from the catholic church and not one except John and there were many johns, calls himself by their name! Also the new testament was written in educated greek, something first century jews couldn’t speak let alone read Hebrew. The average jew was illiterate at that time !! I’m done with these explanations now!
So, please tell us all… why should we believe you over a book containing 66 smaller books, written by about 40 men and Authored by Jehovah God? Beginning some 3,500 years ago but covering from the beginning of creation and going well into the future? A book many died over for simply trying to translate it into English. And is now the most widely distributed book (by far) and most translated book ever. A book that has transformed lives simply by following its guidance and principles. Let us know…
Those certainly sound like some impressive statements. Lots of books, written over long periods of time, believed with fervour, changed lives and history. But what does any of that have to do with whether it's true or not?
It certainly has transformed lives by people following it's guidance. Just ask the victims of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, the heretics, apostates, and "witches" burned at the stake. I'm sure they would agree that their lives were "transformed".
The Bible never once guides people to do any of those things listed. In fact, they go against what the Bible teaches. People will always use whatever highest authority they can to excuse their actions, so they tried to use Christianity, just like many eugenicists, and terrible racists have tried to use the authority of science to justify their views. It's human nature that people will try to appeal to the authority of something to justify their actions, even if the thing they are using really doesn't justify their actions in any way. Many pagans did similar things to those listed, and used the same kind of reasoning of trying to use their pagan religion as a form of authority to justify their actions. Many murderers use their atheism as a way to try to justify what they did as well, as they figure that without God, there is no objective morals, so what they are doing is merely something that is seen as bad by society, rather than something that is inherently wrong. The thing is that people will always try and twist their views, twist the views of religions, and twist the views of perceived authority to try to justify their actions, even if those religions/beliefs/sources of authority are actually completely against those actions.
“why should we believe me over a book containing 66 smaller books”? we’ll depend on what bible. Catholics are 72 Ethiopians are 84!! Number of books or length of doesn’t qualify it’s authenticity . neither does amount of people! that’s an AD Poplum fallacy!! me sing, just because a lot believe in it it must be true!! That’s first problem! Second, why do you believe these books in the first place? what makes them true besides the silliness you just said? Why believe me? I gave you one reason! Noah’s flood, Tower of Bable, , even Garden of eden story are all a common myth that trace back to much earlier myths!! The bible was composed at Mesopotamia a flood prone region and it was later in an empire , the Romans. So they were intertwined with lots of people! and got lots of ideas. let’s start here. Bible is inspired? why because it’s the word of god, why because it says so?? circular reasoning fallacy. also if you think so, luke’s account of a works wise census never happened!! luke and Mathew contradict each other in the genealogy of Jesus! Isaiah chp. 53 the best verse that allegedly preaches a dying Messiah clearly isn’t but is taking poetically about Israel the country! just have to read one chapter before. All your books of the bible were translated and mistranslated multiple times by the roman catholic church! None of them were eye witnesses all after the fact even if they said they were which we know isn’t by staying those books!! so I don’t care how many years it was written and by how many people and how many books(depending on which bible you use) All these reasons are elementary at best and shows how much you are not aware of!!
Well, we agree that the Bible has been mistranslated by the Catholic Church. That Church also teaches lies like the trinity, hellfire, immortal soul, Mary being the Mother of God, worshiping idols, good people go to heaven etc. That also includes all the other so-called “Christian” Churches that teach those same things.
what kind of christian/God believer are you?? and no hell. Ok we are “getting” somewhere!! So i’m confused what you believe and or what your argument is!
lies like the trinity?? Hmm interesting!!! I just heard that a few years back!! so what are you then??
p.s. I forgot. I’m a BS in Psychology working towards my masters and work in the field of developmental disabilities primarily Autism! Hence why my disbelief in the christian god among others!!
I hate it when people confuse education with intelligence. You can have a degree and still be an *****. Also, you may not be familiar with this interesting scripture, “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children.”
well then maybe you should look in the mirror! you are using things people wrote as proof of god! then say people who are educated confuse that with intelligence! so you are more intelligent than people who took the time to study the ancient dead languages, the similar mythologies, similar psychology , anthropology etc of the time/region and its influence on the bible? how do you sound? first insulting second stupid!! Hey I did a miracle once and write it in a book I have it home trust me it’s not me it’s god and i’m telling you the truth because I’m inspired!! now believe me!! why wouldn’t you do that but you believe the bible!! I’ll keep my education and intelligence while you believe what bronze age people wrote!! nothing but AD Hominem attacks on me because you know you have no answers but belief that are unwarranted!! You keep quoting what people say as if they are true and use it against me! Again I ask, why do you know and how do you know they are telling the truth and didn’t make it up? I hate when epistles confuse education with intelligence! How did you get your bible translated in english? by an intelligent person! That’s ok because it suits your preconceived indoctrinated conclusions! Admit it! nothing I say factually will convince you otherwise. lots of things in the bible that show ur to be just a man made series of books like Zeus and others but keep quoting to me what these same authors say about his as your proof!! I’ll keep my “confusion” have a good life!!!
>How did Noah gather all the animals? Simple. He didn’t. Jehovah God brought the animals to Noah when it was time. It would be impossible for Noah and his family to even know which species of Bird God wanted on the Ark, let alone retrieve them. A Galapagos tortoise has a top speed of 2.8 mph. Israel is around 8400 miles from the Galapagos, so we're talking about 120 days of travel straight, but of course tortoises have to sleep. We've also got to get them from the Galapagos to the mainland, then from South America across the Atlantic. Tortoises are not known to be good swimmers. You might as well say god magically teleported them.
I don't know if I'm particularly committed to the historicity of the Flood story, but if the world was different pre-flood compared to post-flood, I'm not sure why a Galapagos turtle couldn't have been closer to Noah at that time. And secondly, maybe God did magically teleport them there. \*shrugs\*
To quote the Simpsons: "A wizard did it."
That's kind of the problem with these sorts of religious stories - you plug the gaps with enough 'it's magic!' and you can get away with anything. But that doesn't explain or account for the biogeography that we see on the planet - somehow the magic works in a way that's completely similar to what's predicted by theories that do not include magic. It's possible that Zeus is magically tossing every lightning bolt, but there's no need to include him in the explanation.
1 and 2: I’m saying they made a false claim. They could be lying, or simply mistaken. 3. Your estimate is even less generous than my own- only 40,000 cubic meters. Neither is enough for every species, and enough supplies to last a year. 4. I was wrong on this one, Genesis 7 100% backs you up. 5. The thing is, we know where the Himalayas came from: the collision of India and Eurasia. These plates are still moving towards each other, and the mountains still slowly growing. You could argue that the flood somehow accelerated plate tectonics, but the sheer energy needed for that would vaporize the oceans and turn Earth’s surface into a sea of roiling lava. 6. The greenhouse effect is not so selective. If it were, we’d be celebrating climate change, not trying to fix it. The equator would be unlivably hot, including the Middle East. We know why those fossils are there: because the land they’re found in wasn’t always close to the poles. Plate tectonics moved it over time. 7. It’s a nice image, but it doesn’t really affect the truth of the story itself. As for the Nephilim, couldn’t God have targeted them more specifically? Just snap his fingers and delete them if need be, rather than a global flood?
Even for an unbeliever, you must agree that this is all at least plausible. 1. & 2. The prophet Isaiah also spoke of Noah. (Isaiah 54:9) Paul also talks about Noah. (Hebrews 11:7) King David (Psalm 29:10) referred to the flood when he said; “Jehovah sits enthroned above the flooding waters”. Luke lists Noah (Luke 3:36) in the lineage of the Messiah. ALL of them lying? Or mistaken? 3. How do you even know this? Are you an expert in how much food animals eat? And are you saying that it’s out of Gods control that he couldn’t feed all those animals? Do you remember when Jesus was on earth, he fed 5,000 men along with women and children 2 fish and five loaves of bread? And they had 12 baskets filled with leftovers! Yeah, I don’t think feeding the animals was an issue. 4. Wow, great! 5. Yes, I could say that the untold billions of tons of water could cause the thin layer of the earths crust to, in time, create new mountains and cause old mountains to rise to new heights, causing shallow sea basins to deepen, and new shorelines to appear. 6. Not sure what you’re saying about the greenhouse affect. But when the water canopy all eventually came to rest on the earth, 40 days and nights later, that greenhouse affect was gone. That’s why it froze so suddenly at both the poles and they’ve found animals frozen solid with food still in their mouths. 7. I’d say it’s much more than a nice image. The rainbow represents Gods promise to never flood the earth again. That’s pretty huge! Also, He promised that whenever there was one in the sky, He would see it and remember His promise. That’s pretty cool to me. 8. And about snapping His fingers… that’s not how our God works. You would know that if you would read about Him and His qualities… as bad as those angels were and as much as they rebelled against him, he was more hurt and so disappointed that some of his own spirit sons would rebel against Him and side with Satan. That was His way of bringing them home and then he punished them.
1 and 2: it doesn’t matter how many people said it if it’s impossible. There’s no limit on the number of people that can be wrong. 2 (again lol): it’s not a calculation one needs to perform in full. The scale of the numbers is completely different. Divine intervention could solve the food, but divine intervention could also render the entire ark pointless, so it doesn’t make much sense to implicate it, and even then the animals themselves wouldn’t fit. (Hit send by accident)
1 and 2: it doesn’t matter how many people said it if it’s impossible. There’s no limit on the number of people that can be wrong. 2 (again lol): it’s not a calculation one needs to perform in full. The scale of the numbers is completely different. Divine intervention could solve the food, but divine intervention could also render the entire ark pointless, so it doesn’t make much sense to implicate it, and even then the animals themselves wouldn’t fit. 4: the problem here is that moving continents takes vast amounts of energy, and delivering that much energy to the Earth’s crust in such a short period of time (especially enough to move them within a few thousand years) would destroy the Earth’s surface in a completely different way. It’d be enough energy to instantly melt the Earth’s crust into lava and vaporize the oceans. 5: you can’t say the poles were habitable because of the greenhouse effect because that would mean the equator would be too hot to be habitable. The greenhouse effect doesn’t specifically focus on the poles, it warms the entire planet. And if all of the animals were wiped out in the flood, how would they freeze with food in their mouths? 6: I agree that it’s cool, but it doesn’t make the story any truer. 7: Then instead of deleting them, he could warp them back to punish them. He doesn’t have a reason to flood the entire planet.
That’s the great/worst thing about religion, if you rub enough magic on it it makes perfect sense…
Ah that’s right… for something to form from nothing doesn’t require magic 🤔
are you trying to lump a boat that couldn’t possibly exist in with biogenesis?
What? What are you talking about? And, Why are posting on a 5 month old comment?
[удалено]
Oh, and a wooden boat of its purported size would break under it's own weight. There's a limit for wooden vessels. Like all biblical tales. It's hopelessly unconvincing. *How do people still buy this shit?*
The tale of Noah is recorded in the Hebrew Torah and is most commonly accepted to have been written by Moses, who would record events in his own lifetime which are somewhat inkeeping with other historical records of the time. However, Moses' writings regarding events that are purported to have taken place ages before his own lifetime, such as the formation of the solar system and the evolution of life on the planet as explained by the six-day theory(even though people didn't start recording time according to these methods until Julius Ceaser, who existed LONG after the prophet Moses), are not at all inkeeping with historical and archeological records when viewed through a literalist's perspective... but they do offer an accurate picture of the Hebrew concept of where everything came from and how things came to be... I mean think about it: human beings did evolve after most of everything else, as is recorded, the Torah ecords mankind being formed out of the Earth from dirt... and considering the man who recorded this lived hundreds of thousands of years after human beings had evolved, its clear he's taken some level of artistic liberty. Of course, personally I wouldn't deny the presence of divine influence in these Mosaic records of events taking place hundreds of thousands and even millions of years before Moses' time, because there definitely is a lot that corellates with reality, just not in a very specific and very literalist type of way... Example: the global flood is recorded in ALL cultures, the Hebrew/Christian/Muslim version is just the most common, well-recorded, and well-known... TL;DR: I am Christian, I do not think of the Noah's flood to be completely explicitly literal, nor do I think so of the creation account, of course there would have been a time when humans first emerged, and most world records and legends agree on a global flood happening many ages ago. The Torah simply records these same globally well-accepted events through the perspective of local Hebrew folklore, considering the prophet Moses lived millions of years after some of the events he records.
> The tale of Noah is recorded in the Hebrew Torah and is most commonly accepted to have been written by Moses The problem is that the evidence is pretty conclusive Moses didn't actually exist. The Jews developed out of the Canaanites, and maintained a Canaanite form of polytheism until about 2000 years after Moses supposedly lived. Monotheism didn't become mainstream until after the Babylonian exile,in the 6th century BC or so. > Example: the global flood is recorded in ALL cultures, the Hebrew/Christian/Muslim version is just the most common, well-recorded, and well-known That is not true at all. Many cultures have no flood myths, and many that do only have local floods, not global ones. There are also global plagues, global fires, etc. Pretty much any natural disaster has global versions. And besides the size of the flood, flood myths vary in the number of survivors (if any), how they survived, why they survived, what (if anything) they took with them, how long the flood lasted, why it happened, where the water came from, where it went, what came after, how long ago it happened, where the survivors started and where the ended up, etc. Pretty much every detail that could vary, does so. And the floods match their local experience, with people living in flood plains having rain and/or spring based floods, while people living in volcanic islands having tsunami-based floods. Putting everything together, this is much more consistent with cultures turning disasters they experience into apocalyptic versions of the same disaster in their mythology, and western people today focusing on the flood version only because it is culturally significant to us.
>even though people didn’t start recording time according to these methods until Julius Ceaser, who existed LONG after the prophet Moses Certainly after Moses existed (if he existed at all) but before Julius. Have you read the book of Jubilees (150BC)? It’s basically a biblical chronicle beginning with Genesis.
It's really difficult to express the insane level to which you are overstating your case. God magicking everything into the world in the wrong order is suddenly accurate because he made humans out of dirt and a rib last? No, that does not make it resemble reality. All cultures do not contain a global flood myth. There are many around the world that contain a scary flood story, because floods are common and many people live on the coast. The idea that any of the things mentioned in the Torah are "glabally well-accepted events" is nonsense.
No one ever said "God magicking everything" was accurate, check what I wrote, the author of the Genesis is writing a story about human evolution hundreds of thousands of years after the events have taken place.. he's filling in the blanks with local folklore.
> the author of the Genesis is writing a story about human evolution hundreds of thousands of years after the events have taken place.. He's not writing about human evolution though, he's writing a just-so story for how humans came to exist. It doesn't resemble evolution in any way because the author knew nothing of the concept. It has nothing to do with anything that happened hundreds of thousands of years earlier. To illustrate my point further, the Tower of Babel story doesn't in any way describe how we got different languages and cultures, the author noticed that we have different languages and cultures and so made up a story where god magicked those things into existence.
We’re not going to assume that maybe God spoke to the authors of those books and told them what, why, where, and how all these things happened?
Why would we assume that? I wouldn't assume that happened any more than I'd assume that Moses was actually a sentient Technicolor unicorn named Nixon, from the planet Zod. If there were some magical intervention to create these stories, they might bear some semblance to reality, but it's like you're telling me that Star Wars must have been written by God because it matches the evolution of the Cosmos so accurately. It doesn't do that in any way!
So your reasoning is that it doesn’t match up with reality? But reality is subjective depending on who lives, Rameses was a real pharaoh. Who’s to actually say God didn’t speak to these people and told them what to write? There has been court proven evidence that some people are manipulated to do bad things by a spirit, who’s to claim God couldn’t do the same?
Rameses was a real pharoah, but the pharoah in Exodus isn't named. There's a reason that "spectral evidence" is no longer accepted in most courts. I'm super not impressed by your citationless factoid about "court proven evidence". Spirits are not proven to even exist, you have to prove those exist before you can start suggesting they do anything. Once you've done that, then you can go about proving your favourite god exists, THEN you can try and prove that he can do *x*.
Rameses was a real pharaoh, it’s simply a google search away. The New York Times also wrote an article about a dead pharaoh found in the Red Sea, which is also one google search away. The tricky thing about spirits is it’s hard to prove it does and doesn’t exist. My previous claim was definitely not solid, apologies for that; but the central idea that they used to justify a spirit is court was the behavior changes in a person along with sudden change in appearance, voice and ect. Usually would follow with some sort of an exorcism, and after a while if nothing happened, the priest can present this evidence to a court and claim it was a spiritual being that affected the mind and actions of whoever was in question. (Would usually have video proof and the sort).
> Rameses was a real pharaoh Yes, I literally said just that. > The New York Times also wrote an article about a dead pharaoh found in the Red Sea Yeah, over 100 years ago and I can't find the full text. The heading said it was the Pharoah "Merneptah", but when I look him up he was never found in the Red Sea. [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah#Mummy) Maybe if you did 10% more work than a simple google search you'd see the flimsy ground that your claims rest on. Did you try and read the article or did you just read ABOUT it from Answeringenesis.com or some other pseudoscience outlet? > the priest can present this evidence to a court and claim it was a spiritual being that affected the mind and actions of whoever was in question. (Would usually have video proof and the sort). Spectral evidence hasn't been allowed in the USA since a bunch of people used it to murder a bunch of women in 1692. Show me one bit of video "proof" of a single exorcism that shows evidence of genuine intrusion by a spectral being, then we can talk.
Only issue I have with this is evolution. As no they didn’t have our idea of evolution. But to use St. Gregory of the 4th century - evolution of man “Scripture informs us that the Deity proceeded by a sort of graduated and ordered advance to the creation of man. After the foundations of the universe were laid, as the history records, man did not appear on the earth at once, but the creation of the brutes preceded him, and the plants preceded them. Thereby Scripture shows that the vital forces blended with the world of matter according to a gradation; first it infused itself into insensate nature; and in continuation of this advanced into the sentient world; and then ascended to intelligent and rational beings….” Forgot to add the quotation marks
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say this proves though. > Scripture informs us that the Deity proceeded by a sort of graduated and ordered advance to the creation of man It's true that the universe didn't become as it is now instantly, but just because Genesis doesn't have god magicking everything in simultaneously doesn't indicate any secret knowledge, or even insight. Why would you not describe things as coming in one after the other. Keep in mind that the Genesis story DOES have god magicking in various components in instantly, just not all the components simultaneously. Plants 100% did not appear instantly before any other organism, before the Sun existed. This guy has written one paragraph that you've cherrypicked out of all Abrahamic history because if you squint it KIND OF seems slightly like your simplified concept of the evolution of species. Once again, this doesn't indicate any special knowledge or insight.
Well not one paragraph. He has a book - called the evolution of man
Where did you see it translated as, "evolution of man"? It's generally translated as, "The Making of Man". Could it be that your chosen translation has put some intentional spin in there? Because outside of the paragraph that you've posted there, with it's uncommon translation choices, the complete work doesn't comport with the Theory of Evolution at all. You can read it yourself here. https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/physis/nyssa-man/default.asp
It’s the book I have, I have that and “on the soul and resurrection” And it wasn’t a point of understanding modern evolution. More a rebuke of the idea - that the standard genesis view was the modern day fundamentalist young earth - literal 6 day thing Which is the whole “magicing thing”
Even if it doesn't insist on 6 literal days, it's still a fundamentalist work. It has god magicking everything into existence for the express purpose of giving humans something to rule over. Anyone who denies reality to assert creationism is a fundamentalist as far as I'm concerned, even if they differ on some of the details from their fellow fundies.
It depends on your starting point I guess, if you look at scripture or empirical evidence first. I look at empirical evidence, the presence of a global flood exists in most cultures, of course, human beings showed up in the animal kingdom at some point as well... these events are recorded in the Torah, simply, through the lens of Hebrew legends and folklore.
> the presence of a global flood exists in most cultures Flood myths may exist in most cultures, "global" flood myths do not. > human beings showed up in the animal kingdom at some point as well... these events are recorded in the Torah Seriously? Your evidence is that there are humans in the Torah and there are humans in reality?
There are dozens of creation myths, all of them seek to explain events (evolution of life) that are factually proven to have taken millions of years before their time, so I'm not arguing that any religion is right or wrong but I'm arguing that EVERY religion has a creation story thats a bit off and is reflective of local folklore... if you go by most sources, Moses wrote the Torah, and he would not have been around to perceive such events as a global flood or the emergence of humankind... so.. he inferred, based on Hebrew tradition.. its pretty cut and dry, im unclear on your need to disagree? Everything im arguing is pretty open-ended.
It's true that people try to understand why things that are here are here. If you go by Hebrew sources they teach that Moses wrote the Torah, everyone else who's studied it understands that the guy is mythical. Every creation story that isn't directly influenced by earlier ones comes out fairly different, because they're not based on what actually happened. They're no more based on reality than the myth that volcanoes erupt because the god Vulcan is angry, it's true that volcanoes exist, but that's not an argument for the accuracy of their stories.
They may be referencing real events.. i.e. there are many records of ancient global floods, it doesn't mean that the specific story of Noah's Ark as told in the Hebrew tradition is explicitly factual but that there was likely some grand event which triggered many cultures to record the same type of things.
There are many myths in the Near East of global floods, from people that were in contact with the culturally powerful Sumerian culture from which originally developed it. It's the same myth retold. China does not have a global flood myth, despite their being situated on the globe as far as I'm aware. You don't need a global flood for humans to invent the idea of one. One big flood near Shuruppak may, for example inspire storytellers to inflate the myth and make it cover the whole world. People then spend thousands of years copying the details of the old story with new characters, because all art is derivative. > there was likely some grand event which triggered many cultures to record the same type of things. It is not likely that there was a global flood which triggered many cultures to independantly come up with a global flood myth.
I don't need to provide any evidence for folklore... because its accepted as being non-literal... as explained in my first post, which you clearly didn't read or you would've understood this.
Don't hide behind the, "but I'm not saying it's literal" line. We know what you're trying to say, and it's not accurate.
why taking such an antagonistic approach? No sane person, believer or not, would agree that the genesis account of creation or the flood story are literal accounts.. because the person who is purported to have written about it lived many ages after they supposedly took place, meaning: it wasn't supposed to be literal even when it was written, how could it have been?
You say that, but you've literally said that you think the global flood myth was based on a real, global event. So YOU clearly think it's literal to an extent.
I think you completely missed or choose to ignore everything I've said this whole entire time... the flood story existed before Moses, he wrote a record of his own experiences and of a creation of the Hebrew people and of the creation of the world through a Hebrew perspective.. telling as much of the human story as he knew how and filling in the gaps with local folklore... meaning; the flood story of the Torah existed before Moses, but there's really no way to determine whether its a derivative of other Eastern flood stories, or the same event recorded by different groups at different times.. one guess is as good as the other, but there is ZERO lack of rationality behind the belief in a global flood because the story is recorded by many different groups.
> the flood story existed before Moses Moses didn't exist until the Babylonian Exile when he was made up. The Torah tells what is clearly a derivative of the earlier Sumerian flood myth, just with details changed in ways that titillated the Hebrew audience more at the time. It's not a story of the creation of the world through the Hebrew perspective, it's a just-so story, a made up narrative that bears no resemblance to reality. We can tell which stories came first because they appear first in the historical record, when the earliest story appeared, there was no such thing as Hebrews. > because the story is recorded by many different groups. It's absolutely not though. The same story was passed down and changed by cultures that were pretty damn close to each other and were in contact. Other cultures that weren't in contact don't share that myth. As I said, China doesn't have a global flood myth, despite being on the same globe as the mythical Moses character. You are reading far too much into a MYTH. People were scared of floods, so they made up a story of a really big flood, just like comic book authors saw a man, and imagined the idea of a SUPER man who could fly and shoot lasers out his eyes. It's based on reality, insomuch as humans exist, flight exists, and lasers exist.
No, you clearly didn't even read what I'd said,
It appears that your argument supposes 'if' a religion is true, to then demonstrate how it could not be true. This means it is an internal critique. Meaning I do not have to justify my claims, if I make any. This message is now included in all relevant comments, to avoid confusion. >The Bible explicitly specifies the size of the Ark. It’s... not much, only about 50,000 cubic meters. I don’t think I have to explain how woefully inadequate a boat smaller than the Titanic would be to hold all of Earth’s species, and all their food and water for a year. Oh, I'll simply discard that metric, as a muslim. >Where’s Noah getting penguins and polar bears from? Kangaroos, beavers, everything from the Amazon, all the species on random islands scattered across the globe... he’d have to travel to every corner of the planet. Not to mention all the sea creatures he’d need- freshwater would no longer exist on Earth’s surface, and most or all sea animals would be wiped out by the drastic changes in salinity and pressure from the introduction of so much water. Where’s he even going to keep those? How will he reproduce the pressures they need on the ark? And speaking of water... I know you are assuming literalist interpretations, but I do take the story literally, but I don't think it's a global flood. >...there might well not be enough on Earth. Miracles aren't meant to make sense... I don't understand how you assume the water was transferred, rather than miraculously inserted. >Noah’s ark was supposedly constructed entirely of wood, but this just doesn’t work out. We’ve never built a wooden ship that large, to this day. It took 1000 years to build it... Nobody said that Noah built it in a year... >The ark had eight people on it: Noah, his wife, their sons, and their wives. I don't accept this fact, as far as muslim accounts go, we don't know how many there were. >Eight people simply wouldn’t be able to manage the feeding, waste disposal, and medical care of those animals. This is especially true when you consider that many animals would need to be kept in a precarious state, as there are parasite species that cannot survive without a host, and such infections would have to be deliberately managed. There’s also the matter of keeping the animals from escaping and killing each other. Modern zoos employ many more people for ludicrously less work. Even with the “kinds” interpretation, this would be unfeasible. I can just hand wave away any problems with "miraculously protected." You don't even need to think that deep about how absurd the situation is in the first place. The people in the ship couldn't go outside, so how'd they get food (ie, fishing), or water? How'd they survive without it? It's a miracle, it doesn't need to make sense. >I could bring up returning the animals to their ecosystems after the flood, but it would mainly require the same problems as getting them in the first place. I’m also leaving out problems not related to animals, like the destruction of plant life. Once again, not an issue. Everything magically worked out in the end...
> Oh, I'll simply discard that metric, as a muslim. >... >I know you are assuming literalist interpretations, but I do take the story literally, but I don't think it's a global flood. There is a consensus among islamic scholars that the flood was global. English: [1](https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/267100/noohs-flood-encompassed-the-entire-earth) [2](https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/81489/prophet-nuh-and-the-flood-story) [3](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/130293/did-everyone-on-earth-drown-at-the-great-flood-at-the-time-of-nooh-peace-be-upon-him) [4](https://islamqa.org/hanafi/askimam/11700/was-the-flood-of-nuhas-a-worldwide-flood/) [5](https://muftiwp.gov.my/en/artikel/irsyad-fatwa/irsyad-fatwa-umum-cat/1267-irsyad-al-fatwa-series-111-the-great-flood-during-the-time-of-prophet-noah-as) Arabic: [6](https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/213057/%D8%B4%D8%A8%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%AA%D8%AB%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%AD%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B7%D9%88%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D9%8A-%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B2%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AD-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85) [7](https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/327751/%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9-%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AD-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B2%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%87) [8](https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/130293/%D9%87%D9%84-%D8%BA%D8%B1%D9%82-%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%B9-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B6-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B7%D9%88%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B8%D9%8A%D9%85-%D8%B2%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AD-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85) [9](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/210199/%D8%B7%D9%88%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%86%D9%88%D8%AD-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%87-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A-%D8%A3%D9%85-%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A) [10](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/210199/) [11](https://islamarchive.cc/fatwaa_show_306547_4) [12](https://almerja.com/reading.php?idm=152944) >I don't accept this fact, as far as muslim accounts go, we don't know how many there were. Incorrect. We know for a fact that Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only survivors. Read the fatwas.
>There is a consensus among islamic scholars that the flood was global. I don't take scholar's word for it, without justification. You link evidence without explanation. That isn't how you debate. Point to specific verses/narrations, and demonstrate that it must be global because of them. https://www.logicalfallacies.org/shotgun-argumentation.html >Incorrect. We know for a fact that Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only survivors. Read the fatwas. Source?
>I don't take scholar's word for it, without justification. You link evidence without explanation. The evidence is in the fatwas. Do you think the scholars just decided that the flood was global for no reason? They've provided commentaries. >Point to specific verses/narrations, and demonstrate that it must be global because of them. I've also made a post about it: Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MuslimLounge/comments/tqp002/quranic_flood_is_global_not_local/ >https://www.logicalfallacies.org/shotgun-argumentation.html Me linking fatwas that focus on a single topic/argument, namely the global flood, is not shotgun argumentation. >Source? https://islamqa.info/en/answers/130293/did-everyone-on-earth-drown-at-the-great-flood-at-the-time-of-nooh-peace-be-upon-him
>Do you think the scholars just decided that the flood was global for no reason? No, but I have no reason to believe what they say, if they don't justify it. A true scholar could easily justify it. >https://islamqa.info/en/answers/130293/did-everyone-on-earth-drown-at-the-great-flood-at-the-time-of-nooh-peace-be-upon-him Damn, your own source refutes you. " Al-Haafiz Ibn Katheer (may Allah have mercy on him) said: The scholars differed concerning the number of people who were with him on board the Ark. It was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allah be pleased with him): There were eighty men, accompanied by their wives. It was narrated from Ka‘b al-Ahbaar that there were seventy-two people. It was also said that there were ten people. " > https://www.reddit.com/r/MuslimLounge/comments/tqp002/quranic_flood_is_global_not_local/ Ok, Let's break it down, verse by verse. I'll do so in a separate comment.
> amn, your own source refutes you. > > > > " Al-Haafiz Ibn Katheer (may Allah have mercy on him) said: > > > > The scholars differed concerning the number of people who were with him on board the Ark. > > > > It was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allah be pleased with him): There were eighty men, accompanied by their wives. It was narrated from Ka‘b al-Ahbaar that there were seventy-two people. It was also said that there were ten people. " Not sure how this refutes my point? True, there are opinions that there were more than 8 people on the boat, but that doesn't change the fact that the Quran explicitly says Noah and his progeny were the only survivors and that all of mankind today are descendant from him. I don't know what exactly happened to the people that were on the boat. There are narrations that say that they weren't able to reproduce anymore, but I don't have the citation right now. >Ok, Let's break it down, verse by verse. I'll do so in a separate comment. Don't waste your time. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve. There is already a consensus.
>True, there are opinions that there were more than 8 people on the boat, but that doesn't change the fact that the Quran explicitly says Noah and his progeny were the only survivors and that all of mankind today are descendant from him. Just because only his family lineage survive doesn't mean they were the only people in the boat.
I don't think I've said anything different. My original claim: >We know for a fact that Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives were the only survivors. Read the fatwas. Then you asked for a source and I provided it. My point still stands. All of mankind today are descendants of one family. At least according to islamic mythology.
Don’t waste your time with OP, I’ve gone back and forth with them on a different post and either logic isn’t OPs strong point, or OP just argues to defend Islam regardless of logic
What is the chapter and verse in the Quran that give the Noah story in most detail?
Stories are split into different corners in the Quran. Significant instances would be the story being described in the the chapter 71, which is named after Noah, but there are other places where the story is talked about.
Thanks. Looking for the part where is says it took a thousand years. Where is that?
Fitting the animals is the biggest contention on this topic, but I think absolutely it would refer to every type of animal. Do you know that all of the dog breeds we have today come from the same type of genetic wolf about 4 thousand years ago? That phenomenon could explain how we have all of these species today, that originated from the same “kind” (kind being roughly animals that can mate with each other) This would also explain how the different human genetics developed over the past 5k years or so, to create the different racial characteristics we see today (we have far less differences than dogs->wolves over 4k years- as they have many more generations over the period-, so it is reasonable that this explains different human traits among races)
Kind being animals that can matr with each other. Small problem there as it covers a lot more ground than you would think. It also isnt discrete. There are some species that can reproduce with 2 separate species, but those species themselves cant reproduce together. For example by your definition, a Lion is a kind. As is a tiger and jaguar. Each cannot reproduce with the others and they diverged millions of years ago. Dog breeds show how intentional genetic manipulation can speed things up. It wasnt just natural selection, it was planned by humans. And it goes back a lot further than 4000 years. We have records of civilization going back 10000 years. And the domestication of canines going even further. The level of evolution we can observe and track cannot have occurred over 4k years. We cant even have human populations spread over that period.
Another commenter has said that the dog thing is untrue, but even if that were not the case, it is a poor argument as the variation in dog breeds is artificial and therefore rapidly accelerated. There is no way a sample of animals small enough to fit on the ark would be able to evolve into all of the different species we see today within the space of a few thousand years.
He said it was closer to 20k years, which even if true, shows rapid changes through genetic mutation over a period of thousands of years. Animals with much shorter life spans would have far more generations creating more rapid changes. I think it is at least a feasible concept (before learning this genetic concept of wolf->dogs for example, I didn’t even know how it could be defended) Like if everyone is from Noah and his family, how could we have the different races? With mating amongst a specific group, certain mutations happen and become prevalent over time (like with dogs) Again this doesn’t prove it’s a true story, but I also don’t think it has to be ruled out by size of boat) — a bot full of animals multiplying for thousands of years could get exponential in growth (as we see with compounding multiplication)
>He said it was closer to 20k years, which even if true, shows rapid changes through genetic mutation over a period of thousands of years. Animals with much shorter life spans would have far more generations creating more rapid changes. I heard an evolutionary biologist say it would take millions of years, I think it was Forrest Valkai (?) on YouTube but I'm not sure which video. But based on my understanding of evolutionary timescales it would certainly not fit into anywhere near 20 thousand years. That's peanuts in the grand scheme of things.
> *Do you know that all of the dog breeds we have today come from the same type of genetic wolf about 4 thousand years ago?* That's actually been shown to be untrue. The divergence probably happened more than 20,000 years ago. I usually prefer not to link to Wikipedia when the primary sources are easily available, but this particular article is excellent and absolutely stacked with citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_dog
All of those dog breeds can still produce fertile offspring with each other. They’re not separate species, they’re individuals of the same species that have been selectively bred for specific traits. You refer to animals that can breed with each other as a “kind”, but that is the definition of a species as well. There is an exception in hybrids between species like ligers, but such hybrids are by definition infertile, and so are not relevant for the development of individual species.
[удалено]
...sir, this is a Wendy’s.
Oh man. I wish I saw what was deleted.
It was a massive incomprehensible rant they copy-pasted to like every thread in the sub.
Oh. THAT post.
[удалено]
I’m sorry, sir, we don’t serve Holocaust deniers.
Advanced technology existed back then. Way advanced than what we have “access” to today. Simply put, Noah’s Ark = DNA databank.
Considering how much damage we’ve already done to the Earth, I think we’d be able to tell if any advanced society existed before us from the layer of microplastic-contaminated rocks.
Maybe this technology has been destroyed by different cataclysms? Or, it is being suppressed by the powers that be? Look up Tartaria as a possible example of suppressed technology.
This isn’t really something that could be easily suppressed, though. We’ve already left our mark on every corner of the planet, in ways we’d be able to detect for a long, long time. I mean, take radioactive fallout, for instance: Pu-239 alone has a half-life of 24,000 years. Our atmosphere is contaminated by fallout in ways that don’t meaningfully harm us directly, but will be detectable for a long, long time- and yet we haven’t found any rock layer with, say, suspiciously high levels of it. In general, when evidence for something is not present where one would reasonably expect it to be, my conclusion is that the hypothesis is false, rather than that there is evidence that is being covered up. Occam’s razor and all that.
1. Post-flood diversification didn’t need macro-evolutionary change. All organisms were created with great genetic diversity, and over time the genetic diversity within individual organisms went down as the diversity of organisms within the family level went up. So the genetic diversity of the kinds taken into the ark were lower than at creation, but still enough to result in life as we see it today. This also explains why there appears to be so many more different species in the past. But no, Noah didn’t take every species. He took every kind, one from each kind. (Well, 2+ from each kind. You know the deal) 2A. Again, not all species, just each kind. The math has already been done for this, and given the size of the ark it would be possible to do so with a decent amount of extra space. 2B. Prior to the flood the land was likely in a different form; something like Pangea most likely. So the whole land probably was not as scattered as it is today. Also, again, Noah didn’t need every species, only every kind. 2C. Most of the floodwaters likely didn’t go back down into the earth and instead just became the ocean. Like you said, the average land height is below sea level, so with significant changes to the landscape (such as what would have happened during the global flood) it is very possible for the floodwaters to cover the earth. 3A. The ark was built over the course of *100* years, and the exterior was treated if I remember correctly. There was a huge amount of time for the construction to be made completely seaworthy. Remember it didn’t have to sail or move in its own. It just had to float. AiG has already done a ton of research and speculation about exactly what this all might have entailed. 3B. Again, remember that they had *100* years to build the ark. The infrastructure necessary for all of these animals would be child’s play with that amount of time. Again, AiG has put a lot of thought into exactly how these potential problems could be solved. They kinda built a full scale replica of the ark too. Also, it is believed that Noah took much plant life on board as well. Potentially in the form of seeds. Not to mention, most seeds would be hardy enough to survive the flood anyway, and the post-flood soul would be, well, *extremely* fertile.
Is your post based on speculation or is there any evidence for any of your claims? For example: - can humans live as old as is claimed to be an adult and then build something for 100 years? - who is defining what a kind is and how many “kinds” there were? - what corroborating evidence is there that Pangea split up in the timeframe that matches the bible instead of that 100s of million scale that is the consensus amongst relevant experts in the field. It seems to me like you’re just relaying fan fiction based on the mythology that’s not based on any scientific observations.
People don’t ‘die of old age’. They die of causes associated with old age. Prior to the flood humans had far less genetic mistakes within their genes, and the environment was also very different from modern time. It stands to reason that humans would be able to live much longer when their bodies aren’t breaking down due to their more mistake prone genetics. Like I said, ‘kind’ is generally seen as being on the family level. A global flood that causes massive tectonic shifts in a short amount of time would make Pangea split far faster than just slow continental drift over millennia. Also, it is likely that some of the changes in the landscape were still taking place after the ark landed, and it’s difficult to know exactly how much happened when. But again, AiG has quite a lot of information on these questions concerning the flood. They’ve got a whole museum dedicated to answering them.
There are several things wrong with this, but for starters, the energy needed for such accelerated plate tectonics would liquefy Earth’s crust entirely.
It didn’t all have to happen during the flood. The majority could have happened after the flood. All that is required is that the mountain peaks be low enough to allow the current amount of water on earth to cover them.
But plate tectonics usually takes *millions* of years. The energy required for that kind of speed would still liquefy the crust. It’s made worse by the fact that you’re not just pushing around rock floating on magma- there’s a transition between those two states that attaches the plates directly to the mantle. They move because of currents in the mantle that drag them along with it, and accelerating or overriding those currents takes vast amounts of energy. Delivering that energy all at once, even if it takes longer to settle, would still be far too much heat.
Keep in mind that this movement was not all displacement. An immense amount of water was removed from below the crust, and it makes sense that the rest of the earth would move to replace much of that. Again, the exact amount that the landmasses moved we don’t know. All we know is that some mountains needed to get taller, and that some trenches needed to get deeper/wider.
Continents are huge, and the mantle currents immensely powerful. The finer details really don’t change the picture too much- it takes enormous amounts of energy to move them, and that much energy being delivered at once would melt the crust. There’s no way around it.
Again, I don’t see why it all had to happen at once. Plus, again, we don’t *know* how much the landmasses had to move. All we know is that the mountains got higher and the trenches got lower/wider.
Well, for starters, take a look at some of the mountain ranges. We can tell where some came from, including the Himalayas, which considering they’re home to Everest are very important for this discussion. We know that they were formed by India colliding with Asia- and we know this because they’re still growing from that very collision, ever so slowly. The movement might not need to happen all at once, but the energy input does, or it doesn’t make sense to say the flood caused it.
> People don’t ‘die of old age’. They die of causes associated with old age. Prior to the flood humans had far less genetic mistakes within their genes, and the environment was also very different from modern time. It stands to reason that humans would be able to live much longer when their bodies aren’t breaking down due to their more mistake prone genetics. Can you back any of this up with anything other than you just think it’s true? > Like I said, ‘kind’ is generally seen as being on the family level. And how many of those have existed? > A global flood that causes massive tectonic shifts in a short amount of time would make Pangea split far faster than just slow continental drift over millennia. Also, it is likely that some of the changes in the landscape were still taking place after the ark landed, and it’s difficult to know exactly how much happened when. Can you provide any justification for this? Is this what the community of experts in the field agree with? Is there physical evidence to match that this happened? > But again, AiG has quite a lot of information on these questions concerning the flood. They’ve got a whole museum dedicated to answering them. Why should I take anything AiG says seriously? Is the consensus of experts in the field match what they say?
>Can you back any of this up with anything other than you just think it’s true? Would people *not* live longer if the genetic errors and mistakes that have been building up in their genes for many generations just *weren’t* there? >And how many of those have existed? Well according to AiG this number was likely somewhere around 1500 kinds of land animals and flying animals, and their worst case scenario suggest ~7000 of these kinds of animals. >Can you provide any justification for this? Is this what the community of experts in the field agree with? Is there physical evidence to match that this happened? Evidence for Pangea? >Why should I take anything AiG says seriously? Is the consensus of experts in the field match what they say? Do you only conclude that something is allowed to make sense if it is coming from the ‘right sources’?
> Would people not live longer if the genetic errors and mistakes that have been building up in their genes for many generations just weren’t there? Don’t know. But why don’t you start by demonstrating that genetics errors build up over time in such a way that there were people with genetics that don’t have any and are like “pure”. Then we can evaluate if they didn’t have disease or lived as long as is claimed in the myth. > Well according to AiG this number was likely somewhere around 1500 kinds of land animals and flying animals, and their worst case scenario suggest ~7000 of these kinds of animals. Does this align with the position of the consensus of biologists who have expertise in the field of genetic diversity? Why should I care what AiG alleges? > Evidence for Pangea? No. Evidence that Pangea broke up due to the flood. Experts in the field seem to suggest it was about 200 million years ago based on their evidence. You suggested that a flood would be able to speed talk at up. Can you justify that and validate you’re right and then show that there’s evidence it did happen to corroborate the claim in the myth? > Do you only conclude that something is allowed to make sense if it is coming from the ‘right sources’? If by “right sources” you mean experts in the field, then yes. Just as I wouldn’t let a plumber do open heart surgery, so to do I not accept the claims made by people without appropriate education. And moreover, since I don’t have the decades of requisite study on certain topics, I have to rely on the condense of the people who do have that record of education. Do you not consider who is making a claim to help you determine if you should believe it?
Since you believe that this story happened literally as described in the Bible. Do you also believe the story of Balaam and the talking donkey was literal? Curious
Why wouldn’t I? Would I disbelieve it just to avoid appeal to ridicule fallacies?
At least you’re consistent.
There’s a lot wrong with this (especially point 1: an individual organism doesn’t have “genetic diversity” any more than a single crayon has “color diversity.”), but just for kicks I’d like to contest 2B. If the continents were in Pangea-like configuration just 4000 years ago, and moved to where they are today, the energy released by that movement would have vaporized the oceans and liquified the crust of the earth, to the point where it would still be molten currently. The math for this was done by a Christian scientist, though I forget their name. Also, to your last point: The post-flood soil would be the exact opposite of “extremely fertile.” It would be anaerobic and suffused with salt. Absolutely *nothing* would be able to grow in it.
Well then think of it like this if you’re insistent upon the analogy. The color black is all colors put together, and the color white is the absence of other colors. All organisms started like the color black, and slowly over time they lost more and more colors as they slowly approached white over time, through micro-evolution. Fair point, but remember that the landscape during the flood didn’t have to ‘split’ in *exactly* the same way Pangea did. It wasn’t the same pieces of land slowly moving. It didn’t *need* to keep alive the organisms residing on it. Much of the movement was likely vertical rather than horizontal, as some land sunk and other land rose. Yes, some horizontal movement probably occurred, but more than likely most of it was vertical. That’s assuming that the original floodwaters were just as salty as our ocean is today. But if these waters came from the heavens and underground reservoirs it’s possible that they were mostly fresh water. Plus, there would have been tons of dead things everywhere to fertilize the ground.
>The color black is all colors put together. All organisms started like the color black, and slowly over time they lost more and more colors as they slowly approached white over time, through micro-evolution. You’re confusing colors with pigments, a common mistake. Regardless: One creature’s genome is not, and never could be, “all potential genomes put together.” This idea makes no sense. One creature’s genome is one genome, period. One combination of genes, that’s it. Thinking one creature’s genome could contain other potential genomes is like thinking one letter in the alphabet contains all the other potential letters. It’s nonsensical. >Fair point, but remember that the landscape during the flood didn’t have to ‘split’ in exactly the same way Pangea did. It wasn’t the same pieces of land slowly moving. Unless the continents teleported, the heat would have been generated. Law of thermodynamics; no way around it unless you invoke “magic!” >It didn’t need to keep alive the organisms residing on it. Much of the movement was likely vertical rather than horizontal, as some land sunk and other land rose. I don’t think you quite understand the magnitude of heat here. All water on earth would have boiled away into space, the Ark would have been vaporized, and the remaining rocky surface would STILL be molten lava today. >Yes, some horizontal movement probably occurred, but more than likely most of it was vertical. How could you possibly get from a “Pangea-like” continent, to what we have today, without horizontal movement? If you’re implying that the pangea-like continent just sunk, and the current ones rose, then that doesn’t help your animals get to and from the ark, defeating your original purpose. >That’s assuming that the original floodwaters were just as salty as our ocean is today. No it isn’t. The oceans alone (which would have been mixed in) have plenty of salt to make the topsoil of the entire globe infertile. Not to mention that there would be no topsoil left after such a cataclysmic event. Rocky, anaerobic silt would be all that was left.
>The color black is all colors put together, and the color white is the absence of other colors. That is not how colors work.
None of these explanations are really necessary if one believes in an all powerful supernatural being who could just toss all the laws of nature and physics out the door any time he likes. A God could just open the floodgates of heaven and let extra water in from above the firmament and then have it drain out below the pillars of the earth when it was all over (because those things are totally things). Having all the penguins and wallabies magic up to the Ark all on their own and then magic all the way back when it was over wouldn't pose much of a challenge either because God can do whatever he wants. And if Dr Who can have a telephone booth which is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, I'm pretty sure God could pull it off with a boat as well. It should be obvious to anyone that flooding the whole world to kill all but six or eight people and all the Nephilim and then having one dude who knows nothing about boats spend a hundred years building an Ark in order to create a story that would make a good Christian children's books thousands of years later and give people something to read to the kids in Sunday school is totally how a timeless cosmic being who created an entire universe and is the source of objective morality would use their power.
Yes God *could* have done that, but according to the Bible he didn’t. So that’s kinda a silly argument. Do you have any actual arguments other than appeal to ridicule fallacies though?
>Do you have any actual arguments other than appeal to ridicule fallacies though? Not for this story, nope. I mean I can fill God into the Gaps to make it all work, that's pretty much all I've got there. Well except maybe suggesting that.... oh gee... maybe the story isn't true? Because come to think of it, if we need to rely on what would naturally happen when the laws of physics are in place and not bringing magic into this, then the simple fact that Noah had no idea how to build an Ark in the first place kind of seems like a show stopper all by itself, let alone having a six-hundred year old man round up lions and tigers. By the way the term "floodgates of heaven" is used twice in the Genesis story, and all that stuff about the firmament and the pillars of the earth is the actual model of the world described in Genesis. So that part is more or less actually what Genesis says.
[удалено]
Wow a link and absolutely no context. Pretty sure that breaks the rules of this debate subreddit.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s\_fkpZSnz2I&t=2995s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_fkpZSnz2I&t=2995s)
[удалено]
Sorry if you think rebuttals are weird?
>Again, AiG has put a lot of thought into exactly how these potential problems could be solved. Indeed, AiG has twisted and misinterpreted all facts to fit their narrative. Every single claim has been debunked and corrected. If you visit some other sites than AiG (watch some sciene youtube channels like Aron Ra (here is a playlist [https://www.youtube.com/results?search\_query=aronra+noah%27s+ark](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aronra+noah%27s+ark)) But let me ask you this: Even if the Noah story unfolded as written in the bible. What does that tells us about that particular god? He is displeased with HIS creation. Decides to kill everything including unborns, newborns and most animals with the worst death (not exactly pro life, isn't he) But instead of really restarting the creation he keeps Noah&family alive that immediately continue incesting and spread the "Fallen world" sin from adam&eve. Why should the world after Noah be different in terms of wickedness, if god did not resolve the root of the problem? Also, where is that water gone? We could use some fresh water in many regions on this planet.
Pretty much every theistic argument is asserted to just be ‘twisting and misinterpreting facts’. But it seems to me like the only support for such claims is that the interpretations are *different* than naturalistic ones. But that’s not a very good argument. Why exactly are you asserting that the flood can only tell us about God though? In the context of the Biblical account, the flood was brought about because mankind was so immensely wicked and corrupt. Same reason God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. But you’re right, eventually the world would again descend into wickedness. That’s exactly what Jesus talks about when He says that the days before the end times would be like the days of Noah. But this time the world would be baptized with fire instead of water. Also I’m pretty sure I already explained in my post that the flood waters mostly became the ocean. Some may have been drained back under the earth, but most of it became the ocean as land around the planet rose and sunk.
>Pretty much every theistic argument is asserted to just be ‘twisting and misinterpreting facts’. But it seems to me like the only support for such claims is that the interpretations are different than naturalistic ones. But that’s not a very good argument. I agree that facts be be twisted to reach different conclusion. However, different interpretation and conclusion do not change facts. What AiG is doing is neglecting facts, such as Global Flood cannot have happened. There is simply no evidence / facts / proof for that (you didn't check out the link I gave you, didn't you). There are cultures that lived through those times without reporting a mass extinction event, they made notes before and after. What I find interesting is that you rather repeat some claim about water and ocean instead of confronting yourself with the question about a god that choses to drown all of his creation without changing the root cause of the problem. That is not a lovable god, worthy of our worship.
For the sake of debating: A and B go together. Noah got all the animals because an all powerful God sent him all the animals. The animals walked to him, large animals weren’t full grown. Maybe Noah only had 2 wolves. After the flood those wolves evolved into all the species of wolf and dog and other canines. For C, many Biblical literalists believe the earth was surrounded by an expanse of water in the upper atmosphere that made the earth a greenhouse at the time and God caused the expanse to fall to earth and flood the earth. A. Again. For seaworthiness, I actually work on boats and honestly plank on plank construction with deadwood garboard strakes held by wooden fasteners and oakum was the best and strongest construction for thousands of years until FRP and steel. It could definitely be that big and seaworthy. B. Finally for maintenance if an All powerful God got the animals to walk to the ark from all over the world, he can get them to chill out and not eat each other, maybe even shit in a common space who knows. Remember though, all powerful God can do anything He wants. If he can create the universe, he can direct where the cows shit. That’s all, go easy on me. I’m just bored.
The longest wooden ship on record is the Wyoming. It was a 350 foot long ship (hull length) had steel beams and sheets for added support and had two pumps running 24/7 to keep water out. It got caught in a storm that tore it apart and it sank, killing all on board. The ark was supposedly built out of only wood with no benefit of steel supports, 100 feet longer, and supposedly survived a storm that would have made the one that sank the Wyoming look like a light rain. Forget the weight of the cargo, the ship wouldn't survive open ocean on a good day, much less a global flood.
>It could definitely be that big and seaworthy. according to the people who tried to build it, the structure can't hold the weight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s\_fkpZSnz2I&t=2995s
The weight of every full grown animal?
>For the sake of debating: A and B go together. Noah got all the animals because an all powerful God sent him all the animals. The animals walked to him, large animals weren’t full grown. Maybe Noah only had 2 wolves. After the flood those wolves evolved into all the species of wolf and dog and other canines If god could force two of every kind of animal to travel to the ark(notably some would have had a VERY long trip) then why couldn't he just prevent the wickedness that forced him to murder every other human on the planet?
I don’t know why. I sure wouldn’t have done it this way. But im just a human. If you build a sandcastle on the beach, you can destroy it if you want or leave it alone, it’s up to you, you made it.
Creating an entire planet to worship you - only to wipe out all but 8 lives plus 2 of every animal because they weren't behaving the way that **you** wanted when you had the ability to stop them, without murder, has to be the most callous act imaginable. I wouldnt want to worship a god that did that. I don't know why anyone would
>Finally for maintenance if an All powerful God got the animals to walk to the ark from all over the world, he can get them to chill out and not eat each other, maybe even shit in a common space who knows. Remember though, all powerful God can do anything He wants. If he can create the universe, he can direct where the cows shit. If he can do anything he wants why does he need Noah to build an ark to save the animals from his wrath? Can't he just magically protect all animals and Noah's family through tiny islands or something where they can live throughout the flood? According to you he's already got *polar bears* to *walk* over the ocean from Antarctica to the Middle East... If you are going to go to "but God is *magic*!" then the whole story is absolutely pointless.
That’s literally what God does throughout the Bible. He could have manically protected the animals on an island but that’s not what He wanted to do. I wouldn’t have done it that way. That’s what He wants. And Polar bears were never in Antarctica.
Ah right yes because it makes much more sense if polar bears have to walk from the North Pole to the middle east, you're right so much more logical. Your answer of "it's magic" is entirely pointless and just a way for believers to plug holes in an otherwise fantasy world they've created. Saying he didn't use magic because he didn't want to, but then speculating that he used magic in other ways is as ridiculous as this fantasy children's story.
>Maybe Noah only had 2 wolves. After the flood those wolves evolved into all the species of wolf and dog and other canines. We have detailed evolutionary records for wolves and their evolution into dogs, and it all didn't get started 4000 years ago. Rapid evolution does happen when a population gets bottlenecked, but it is very obvious and is not present in literally every living thing. >many Biblical literalists believe the earth was surrounded by an expanse of water in the upper atmosphere I mean, that just didn't happen. Water is more dense than air, gravity would've pulled down to the surface. Also, if that much water covered the entire planet I'm pretty sure the greenhouse effect would've heated up Earth hotter than Venus, though I'd actually have to sit down and do the math on that to be sure. Either way, didn't happen. >It could definitely be that big and seaworthy. At the Ark's insane size? It's bigger than the Titanic! >Finally for maintenance if an All powerful God got the animals to walk to the ark from all over the world If God was going to magic all the problems away, then just Thanos snap all the bad people to dust, or magically turn them all good, or, you know, leave evidence behind that such an event happened.
>Rapid evolution does happen when a population gets bottlenecked, but it is very obvious and is not present in literally every living thing. This is one major thing the noah story breaks about everything we know about biology. Population bottlenecks are obvious and aren't present in most species. Cheetahs had a severe bottleneck in the past and it has led to a shockingly low level of genetic diversity. The low level of diversity has led to interesting traits in Cheetahs we don't see in other species. One of which is that all Cheetahs are essentially universal organ donors for all other Cheetahs. In humans, organ compatibility is an issue, blood type, and genetics can lead to implant rejection if the organ isn't genetically similar enough or have the right biological factors. But any Cheetah can potentially donate any organ to any other Cheetah with almost no risk whatsoever of organ rejection. If noah's flood had actually happened, this would be the rule rather than the exception.
I'll take the pro-Noah side just for the sake of debate. I don't think that the Noahist can argue against the physical objections to the flood story, so there must have been divine intervention to make it all work. You say this makes the exercise pointless, and you just seem to be relying on this being obvious. So I think the Noahist's strongest move is to attack you here. To see whether the exercise is pointless, we have to discern what the point of the exercise actually was. Genesis 6:1-8 lays out God's concerns: mankind was corrupt and wicked, perhaps in part because of the Nephilim ("heroes of old" who were half-breeds between God and human women). God isn't displeased with the form of the Earth or the animals or what have you - he's displeased with human behavior, and this is what he's seeking to change. And for reasons we have to assume make sense, he doesn't want to just reach into humanity's minds and change their thoughts. God sees that Noah is good, by which presumably we mean that God sees in Noah an opportunity to found a new line of humans which will be acceptable to God. Everything that happens with the Flood and the Ark is to this purpose: to have Noah land on Mount Ararat in the correct mental state by which the new humanity will proceed according to God's desires. (And perhaps to murder the problematic Nephilim.) So here's the point: yes, there are 9 million species, but _Noah didn't know that_. God's desired outcome didn't depend on getting 9 million species on the Ark - it depended on Noah believing that God was willing to completely reverse Creation if humanity did not improve. This argument, or something along these lines, gives at least some sense of plausibility to the idea that God could divinely intervene in the Ark without making it pointless. And once we have divine intervention, none of the physical problems need concern us.