Literal belief in the flood story

[Hoopington]

An omnipotent and omniscient being having "regrets?"

I'm not entirely sure those words belong in the same sentence.

Why not?

It would be termed a "contradiction in terms" I think sir.

How does a God "regret" something he knows he is going to do?

[Brakeman]

Why not?

It would be termed a "contradiction in terms" I think sir.

How does a God "regret" something he knows he is going to do?

More aptly, why would a god regret something he has absolute control of across time and space? Since god can change anything in the past he wishes to anything his "perfect" knowledge can imagine, he couldn't have regrets because he could change anything anyway he wishes.

Ah, but a concept like that would be lost on a middle eastern goat herder...

[orangebox21]

So... what was the issue the flood resolved? Just saying it's present isn't the same as presenting it.

If you're asking what 'problem did the flood solve permanently?', then I'd have to think more about it, but for now I'd have to say I don't know of any problem it permanently solved. If your asking what issues were temporarily solved a few come to mind.
1. The world was no longer exceedingly wicked (though wickedness and its potential were not permanently eliminated).
2. The bloodline for the messiah was protected and maintained.
3. God's wrath was temporarily satisfied.
4. A prototype for Christ was revealed.
There may be more topics of this nature to discuss, just a few examples.

But... killing everyone but Noah's family didn't solve that problem,

True it didn't solve the problem but I'm not convinced the text says it is meant for a solution to the problem rather than a consequence for it. The text says it was because of something God did something. If I said I went to the store to buy milk because I was in need of milk and had none, would you conclude that I bought milk to solve my lack of milk problem? Certainly you wouldn't conclude that I bought milk at the store to permanently solve my 'milk need' issue. You would accept that buying milk was a consequence of having no milk, not necessarily a permanent solution to the problem of not having milk. So why the difference in conclusions?

so... why do it?

We'd have to get more into the character and nature of God to fully explore the reasoning here. Understand, God is Holy (set apart), and God is just. God actions are always consistent with His character and nature. If God is Holy and just and acting in a manner consistent with His character and nature, then at the proper time justice would be brought about. God acts because it is His nature to do so.

You mean I'm... *dramatic pause* ...MISINTERPRETING it?

Maybe so, maybe not, I'm not sure I fully understand your position yet so as to make an accurate judgement. Let me rephrase, the text says that God was going to wipe mankind from the face of the earth because they had become exceedingly wicked. Nowhere in that text does the word 'solution' occur. In order to maintain logical consistency you would have to insert the word 'solution' into the text to conclude that God did what He did as a solution to the wickedness problem. Why have you choosen to do this?

You will note that god's initial intent was to destroy all of humanity because it had become so wicked.

True. But that doesn't necessarily mean He did it to rid the world of evil versus because the world was evil. You could do something because of (as a result of) something without that necessitating it was as a solution to the initial something (see above 'milk' analogy).

As I said, that would have rid the world of all of those problems.

But killing every last human would have rid the world of wickedness, etc.

Of human wickedness I would agree.

God changed his mind because a single man turned out to find favor in his eyes.

Did Noah find favor with God before or after He decided to send the flood?

Heck, if he'd only saved Noah he still might have rid the world of wickedness.

Not consistent Biblically. For it is written, "there is no one righteous no not one." This position if further supported by Noah getting drunk after the flood.

Unless he was to poof up another wife for him. That seems to be the flaw in god's design of man: as soon as a second human enters the picture it all goes to hell.

Why would you presume it was Eve's fault that Adam sinned? The Bible teaches that sin entered into the world through Adam.

It would be termed a "contradiction in terms" I think sir.

It depends on how we are defining contradiction. If someone were to both simultaneously regret and not regret the same thing at the same I would say that is a contradiction. Being both all-knowing and not all-knowing at the same time would be a contradiction. If you wouldn't mind, please further discuss how both regreting something and being omnipotent and omniscient are a contradiction in terms. In what way do those terms contradict one another?

How does a God "regret" something he knows he is going to do?

Perhaps a bad analogy, but have you ever said: "I know I"m going to regret this, but ...." and then did it and regreted it?

More aptly, why would a god regret something he has absolute control of across time and space?

he couldn't have regrets because he could change anything anyway he wishes.

Why not? Why do you pressupose that God would use his "perfect knowledge" to create in such a way as to eliminate any personal regret? Why couldn't He choose to create in such a way as to willingly create regret?

Since god can change anything in the past he wishes to anything his "perfect" knowledge can imagine,

I'm not sure this is a Biblically accurate statement or not. Let me look into this assertion and I'll discuss more later. For now, when we say that God can do anything we have to define what 'anything' means. The Bible says that God can't lie. So does that mean there is something that God can't do? And if so does that mean that God isn't 'all-powerfull?'

[Rampant.A.I.]

God lied to Abraham, and without a valid reason. Allegedly it was to test Abraham's faith; but being omniscient, God would have already known the extent of Abraham's faith.

So it seems God lied to Abraham because he wanted to deceive.

[Chas]

God lied to Abraham, and without a valid reason. Allegedly it was to test Abraham's faith; but being omniscient, God would have already known the extent of Abraham's faith.

So it seems God lied to Abraham because he wanted to deceive.

Or maybe it's just a human-created myth.

[Esquilax]

If you're asking what 'problem did the flood solve permanently?', then I'd have to think more about it, but for now I'd have to say I don't know of any problem it permanently solved. If your asking what issues were temporarily solved a few come to mind.
1. The world was no longer exceedingly wicked (though wickedness and its potential were not permanently eliminated).

I consider near omnicide far more wicked than anything we humans could have been doing.

2. The bloodline for the messiah was protected and maintained.

Omnicide wasn't required for this.

3. God's wrath was temporarily satisfied.

This isn't a "problem" that needs resolving, it's your god being a psychopath.

4. A prototype for Christ was revealed.

Omnicide wasn't required for this.

True it didn't solve the problem but I'm not convinced the text says it is meant for a solution to the problem rather than a consequence for it. The text says it was because of something God did something. If I said I went to the store to buy milk because I was in need of milk and had none, would you conclude that I bought milk to solve my lack of milk problem? Certainly you wouldn't conclude that I bought milk at the store to permanently solve my 'milk need' issue. You would accept that buying milk was a consequence of having no milk, not necessarily a permanent solution to the problem of not having milk. So why the difference in conclusions?

Because "kill every living thing in the world bar a small number," is not a justified consequence of any action that could possibly happen, ever. It wasn't necessary, and your god's little tantrum doesn't have a valid justification after the fact: "Well, everyone was wicked! Of course he needed to murder them all!" isn't an argument.

We'd have to get more into the character and nature of God to fully explore the reasoning here. Understand, God is Holy (set apart), and God is just. God actions are always consistent with His character and nature. If God is Holy and just and acting in a manner consistent with His character and nature, then at the proper time justice would be brought about. God acts because it is His nature to do so.

That's circular reasoning: who told you god was just? Was it, perhaps, the bible?

[Tonus]

You mean I'm... *dramatic pause* ...MISINTERPRETING it?

Maybe so, maybe not, I'm not sure I fully understand your position yet so as to make an accurate judgement. Let me rephrase, the text says that God was going to wipe mankind from the face of the earth because they had become exceedingly wicked. Nowhere in that text does the word 'solution' occur. In order to maintain logical consistency you would have to insert the word 'solution' into the text to conclude that God did what He did as a solution to the wickedness problem. Why have you choosen to do this?

God identified a problem and proposed an action to deal with it. This is what people typically refer to as a solution. Unless you reject the notion that mankind becoming exceedingly wicked was a problem because the text never uses the word "problem."

You will note that god's initial intent was to destroy all of humanity because it had become so wicked.

True. But that doesn't necessarily mean He did it to rid the world of evil versus because the world was evil.

I get the impression that you are splitting hairs, since both of those can apply. God decided to wipe out mankind because it had become too wicked. This, therefore, was his solution to the problem.

God changed his mind because a single man turned out to find favor in his eyes.

Did Noah find favor with God before or after He decided to send the flood?

Hard to say, the text does not include the word "before" or "after." I would assume that it was after, since it seems god came to his decision to wipe out humanity, then recognized Noah as deserving of an exception.

Heck, if he'd only saved Noah he still might have rid the world of wickedness.

Not consistent Biblically. For it is written, "there is no one righteous no not one." This position if further supported by Noah getting drunk after the flood.

I was being facetious; if Noah was the only human saved from the flood, there would not have been a human race once he passed on, and therefore the problem of human wickedness would have been resolved.

Unless he was to poof up another wife for him. That seems to be the flaw in god's design of man: as soon as a second human enters the picture it all goes to hell.

Why would you presume it was Eve's fault that Adam sinned? The Bible teaches that sin entered into the world through Adam.

I'm only presuming that adding a second human to the mix would lead to trouble, seeing as that's how it worked out the first time. It may be more accurate to have said that things would have gone badly if god was to poof up another talking snake or tree of knowledge of good and evil. The story of Adam and Eve offers any number of ways to assign blame. We can blame Eve, Adam, the serpent, and/or god depending on how it is approached.

[orangebox21]

I consider near omnicide far more wicked than anything we humans could have been doing.

Humanicide.

Omnicide wasn't required for this.

You asked what issues were solved, not was the flood required to solve these issues. Are you changing your initial question?

This isn't a "problem" that needs resolving, it's your god being a psychopath.

So you say.

4. A prototype for Christ was revealed.

Omnicide wasn't required for this.

Again, are you changing your initial question?

Because "kill every living thing in the world bar a small number," is not a justified consequence of any action that could possibly happen, ever.

There is no way you can support this statement as you have it written.

It wasn't necessary, and your god's little tantrum doesn't have a valid justification after the fact: "Well, everyone was wicked! Of course he needed to murder them all!" isn't an argument.

Why do you continue to misrepresent the position? We've presupposed the Biblical account for the thread. It says that God wiped mankind from the earth because they were exceedingly wicked. You translate that into 'he needed to murder them.' That's not consistent with the account, nor with my argument. I can understand you questioning whether the punishment fit the crime or not. You calling it murder just shows you don't understand the argument.

That's circular reasoning: who told you god was just? Was it, perhaps, the bible?

We have presupposed the Biblical God for this thread.

God identified a problem and proposed an action to deal with it. This is what people typically refer to as a solution. Unless you reject the notion that mankind becoming exceedingly wicked was a problem because the text never uses the word "problem."

Gotcha. It would be Biblically consistent to view the account as cause and effect. The wickedness was the cause and the judgement was the effect. We learn later that the problem wasn't solved, so why assume God meant it as a solution?

I get the impression that you are splitting hairs, since both of those can apply. God decided to wipe out mankind because it had become too wicked. This, therefore, was his solution to the problem.

Not intending to split hairs. While I do agree that it is logical to infer that God's actions were meant as a solution that doesn't necessitate it was. More investigation is required. Consider:
God is omniscient.
There is no man righteous no not one.
Noah is a man.
Therefore Noah is not righteous.

Given these Biblical premises, how can you conclude that God sent the flood as a solution to wickedness (unrighteousness) of men and let Noah survive?

Hard to say, the text does not include the word "before" or "after." I would assume that it was after, since it seems god came to his decision to wipe out humanity, then recognized Noah as deserving of an exception.

If God is omniscient then wouldn't He have always known?

[Esquilax]

Humanicide.

No, he killed all the animals too.

You asked what issues were solved, not was the flood required to solve these issues. Are you changing your initial question?

No, just noting the cruelty with which you seem happy to let your god act.

There is no way you can support this statement as you have it written.

If you have an omniscient, omnipotent god, then there's never any reason for him to do anything other than the optimal solution to a problem. The "murder everybody" solution is just your god trying to dig himself out of a hole, in yet another act of his comedy of errors, but never forget that at any time he had the option to resolve his problems without killing anyone.

Additionally, I'm not even in favor of the death penalty; do I really need to tell you that I believe life has inherent worth and should not be snuffed out, least of all if it doesn't even solve any of the problems it was done to solve?

Why do you continue to misrepresent the position? We've presupposed the Biblical account for the thread. It says that God wiped mankind from the earth because they were exceedingly wicked. You translate that into 'he needed to murder them.' That's not consistent with the account, nor with my argument. I can understand you questioning whether the punishment fit the crime or not. You calling it murder just shows you don't understand the argument.

If he didn't need to murder them, and so far your argument seems to be that he didn't, then he wasn't justified in doing so. If there was any other option, and there was, then god selected one of the most cruel, and just went with it. And that's even with me just accepting out of hand that the bible's claim that everyone was wicked is true, which I don't actually accept; it seems like an ad hoc rationalization to me, even within the context of the biblical narrative.

We have presupposed the Biblical God for this thread.

Certainly, but then we're also presupposing that the only account we have of this god comes from human authors in the thrall of that god: I can assume for the sake of argument that this god exists, but I'm still well aware that in that case the bible is little more than propaganda authored by proxies of the being in question. It's still just a set of claims that can be true or false as any other, regardless of whether or not it's discussing a real being.

So presupposing the biblical god does not mean we're presupposing an inherently just one: his actions will determine his just-ness, and it's my contention that they don't uphold that claim.

[Minimalist]

God's reasons are stated within the text, it was because of the wickedness of mankind.

Then why did the fucker kill the animals, too?

At best your god is a murdering prick.