The story of Noah' s Ark - or - God is dumber than you.

[arewethereyet]

They didn't...and..frankly, this is an absurd rejoinder in the context of a tall tale about the contents of a big bote.  Do you also think that those same nomadic tribes understood naval architecture when they dreamt up the SS Miracle?  Was some ancient meteorologist consulted on the specifics of the storm?

Absolutely nothing about the story pans out.  There was no collecting animals, there was no boat, there was no deluge.  None of it ever happened.  There's no use coming up with ludicrous explanations for a thing that never happened.

You are making my point which is that the ancient writers and the early listeners would have first hand knowlegble and experience of animal management, certainly enough to see the absurdities much more clearly than most modern First World citizens. So yeah, it is pretty dumb to consider the deluge narative a factual account of actual events. Apart from literal minded fundamentalists and atheist trolls, I do not know anyone who thinks giving a factual account was ever the point of the story.

What is the point of the story?

[Neo-Scholastic]

You are making my point which is that the ancient writers and the early listeners would have first hand knowlegble and experience of animal management, certainly enough to see the absurdities much more clearly than most modern First World citizens. So yeah, it is pretty dumb to consider the deluge narative a factual account of actual events. Apart from literal minded fundamentalists and atheist trolls, I do not know anyone who thinks giving a factual account was ever the point of the story.

What is the point of the story?

Hope of redemption from evil Seems pretty clear to me even if the message appears to be built over a framework of oral story telling and likely incorporates cultural memory of pre-historic tragedy.

[Fake Messiah]

So yeah, it is pretty dumb to consider the deluge narative a factual account of actual events. Apart from literal minded fundamentalists and atheist trolls, I do not know anyone who thinks giving a factual account was ever the point of the story.

Then the Gospel writers were also idiots or trolls because they included Noah in the genealogy of Jesus - meaning that at least one of Jesus' ancestors was just a metaphor.

[arewethereyet]

What is the point of the story?

Hope of redemption from evil Seems pretty clear to me even if the message appears to be built over a framework of oral story telling and likely incorporates cultural memory of pre-historic tragedy.

Could you flesh that out a little bit?

What seems clear to you as a believer isn't quite so clear to me.

[onlinebiker]

They didn't...and..frankly, this is an absurd rejoinder in the context of a tall tale about the contents of a big bote.  Do you also think that those same nomadic tribes understood naval architecture when they dreamt up the SS Miracle?  Was some ancient meteorologist consulted on the specifics of the storm?

Absolutely nothing about the story pans out.  There was no collecting animals, there was no boat, there was no deluge.  None of it ever happened.  There's no use coming up with ludicrous explanations for a thing that never happened.

You are making my point which is that the ancient writers and the early listeners would have first hand knowlegble and experience of animal management, certainly enough to see the absurdities much more clearly than most modern First World citizens. So yeah, it is pretty dumb to consider the deluge narative a factual account of actual events. Apart from literal minded fundamentalists and atheist trolls, I do not know anyone who thinks giving a factual account was ever the point of the story.

That goes for the rest of the nonsense - cover to cover........

[Jehanne]

What is the point of the story?

Hope of redemption from evil Seems pretty clear to me even if the message appears to be built over a framework of oral story telling and likely incorporates cultural memory of pre-historic tragedy.

Epic of Gilgamesh?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Hope of redemption from evil Seems pretty clear to me even if the message appears to be built over a framework of oral story telling and likely incorporates cultural memory of pre-historic tragedy.

Epic of Gilgamesh?

I find the possibility of a monomyth plausible...one that recalls wide-spread flooding from a post-Ice Age melt.

[Jehanne]

Epic of Gilgamesh?

I find the possibility of a monomyth plausible...one that recalls wide-spread flooding from a post-Ice Age melt.

Per Wikipedia, "Curve fitting is the process of constructing a curve, or mathematical function, that has the best fit to a series of data points, possibly subject to constraints."

[The Grand Nudger]

They didn't...and..frankly, this is an absurd rejoinder in the context of a tall tale about the contents of a big bote.  Do you also think that those same nomadic tribes understood naval architecture when they dreamt up the SS Miracle?  Was some ancient meteorologist consulted on the specifics of the storm?

Absolutely nothing about the story pans out.  There was no collecting animals, there was no boat, there was no deluge.  None of it ever happened.  There's no use coming up with ludicrous explanations for a thing that never happened.

You are making my point which is that the ancient writers and the early listeners would have first hand knowlegble and experience of animal management, certainly enough to see the absurdities much more clearly than most modern First World citizens. So yeah, it is pretty dumb to consider the deluge narative a factual account of actual events. Apart from literal minded fundamentalists and atheist trolls, I do not know anyone who thinks giving a factual account was ever the point of the story.

People believe all sorts of dumb things.

You, apparently, believed that the above was a good argument, for example. It never happened, but the people who come up with it certainly believed it did, and others after them, for all the usual reasons that anyone believes in any ignorant superstition. The urge to write out what comes to be seen as absurd and counter factual is understandable, but that's all it is.

Meanwhile, your question was one of who was likely to understand herding animals better - those nomads or contemporaries here on these boards. The answer to that is and remains and will always be..contemporary people - right here on these boards. The fact is betrayed when you acknowledge that you see it as absurd, because you do know better. They didn't, because they didn't know better...and you, for your part, won't even allow them the dignity of possessing those beliefs they did hold. All because you feel that it diminishes your equally silly contemporary beliefs, somehow.

No one's trolling you, and those fundies are absolutely right, when it's pointed out that this belief was literal. It's an incontrovertible fact of the history of the religion, it's myths, and it's adherents.

[Ahriman]

You are making my point which is that the ancient writers and the early listeners would have first hand knowlegble and experience of animal management, certainly enough to see the absurdities much more clearly than most modern First World citizens. So yeah, it is pretty dumb to consider the deluge narative a factual account of actual events. Apart from literal minded fundamentalists and atheist trolls, I do not know anyone who thinks giving a factual account was ever the point of the story.

People believe all sorts of dumb things.

You, apparently, believed that the above was a good argument, for example.  It never happened, but the people who come up with it certainly believed it did, and others after them, for all the usual reasons that anyone believes in any ignorant superstition.  The urge to write out what comes to be seen as absurd and counter factual is understandable, but that's all it is.

Meanwhile, your question was one of who was likely to understand herding animals better - those nomads or contemporaries here on these boards.  The answer to that is and remains and will always be..contemporary people - right here on these boards.  The fact is betrayed when you acknowledge that you see it as absurd, because you do know better.  They didn't, because they didn't know better...and you, for your part, won't even allow them the dignity of possessing those beliefs they did hold.  All because you feel that it diminishes your equally silly contemporary beliefs, somehow.

No one's trolling you, and those fundies are absolutely right, when it's pointed out that this belief was literal.  It's an incontrovertible fact of the history of the religion, it's myths, and it's adherents.

How would you know that?