Literal belief in the flood story

[Esquilax]

If humans were eliminating humans (humanicide) for no other reason than their own pleasure, this would certainly qualify as worse than omnicide as you have defined it. On one hand you have punishing people for their wickedness, on the other hand you have people killing people for fun.

But one of the reasons you posted for why god needed to kill everything was to assuage god's wrath, so apparently he was doing it to appease his own emotions anyway.

More importantly, this doesn't address the issue: A, the answer to a crime is rarely more of the same crime, regardless of the motivations behind it, and B, since when does "punishing people for their wickedness" involve sweeping every other sentient being in the world, including those humans who hadn't killed anyone? How is that just, to punish entities who merely inhabit the same space as criminals for crimes they didn't engage in, nor had the ability to prevent?

How do you know that His actions in this case were not the optimal solution to the problem?

Because an omniscient and omnipotent being, by definition, can accomplish what he needs to without killing anything. Hell, he could have just wished the wickedness out of everyone, since he clearly wasn't concerned with free will at the point that he was going to terminally rob everyone of theirs.

Again with the murder equivocation. What options do you have in mind?

Equivocation? What else would you call the unnecessary, unwarranted taking of life through violence?

While I'm not adamant one way or another I tend to also not be in favor of the death penalty. Perhaps for different reasons. Men are fallible and the death penalty is final. By nature fallible men cannot serve perfect justice. I think where you are running into trouble is that your viewing God like you view people. His ways are not our ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts.

Sorry, no double standards here: god doesn't get a free pass to behave worse than you'd expect people to, and no amount of "mysterious ways" handwaving is going to change that. This is just an argument from ignorance you're using here.

If God exists, and He is all knowing and all powerful there would be no logical reason to believe that any of His actions were anything other than optimal. They would be perfectly 'thought out' and perfectly 'carried out.'

Even when they're demonstrably not? Seriously, you can't worm your way out of logical issues by simply presupposing that they don't exist.

Again with the 'murder'. If killing someone is a just punishment then it is by definition not murder. In using this term you are using an argument by emotive language.

Do you seriously not understand that I don't find god's actions just, and that I don't find your baseless presupposition that they are just a compelling argument?

If you accept the claim that everyone was wicked as you have done above, calling it an ad hoc (a made up statement to justify a claim) is a self-refuting claim. While a statement can be either true or false, it cannot be both at the same time (which is what your statement does).

Sorry, that was poor sentence structure on my part. I personally believe the claim of wickedness to be ad hoc, but I'm saying that even if I didn't and took it one hundred percent seriously, god's actions still wouldn't be justified.

Then you have not presupposed the Biblical God but simply God in general terms. The topic here is not one of deist but rather Biblical deism. See more discussion in the 'hidden' response below.

I'm willing to presuppose the existence of a god, even one that caused the christian bible to be written as an accurate account of his actions; however, claims about his attributes would still be internally inconsistent within that framework based upon his actions. If I'm presupposing the god as depicted in the bible is real, then I cannot logically reconcile his claim of being just with the actions he's performed. If some of those actions, the flood among them, are true, then he cannot be a just god. If those actions are untruthful, then he cannot be an infallible or honest god. Either way, the bible is out of whack with its description of the creator.

I'll make presuppositions if you want, but only up until the point where they stop making sense. At that point, I've gotta start untangling some of this stuff.

At this point I must interject the circular reasoning argument upon myself to clarify. I agree that if I was using the above argument to prove the truth of the words of the Bible it would bear having to defend against the circular reasoning fallacy. However, if we presuppose the Biblical God (as we have for this conversation), I am under no obligation to prove the Biblical God exists but rather to show the logical consistency that if we presuppose the Biblical God we must also presuppose the Bible is true. The two cannot be divorced.

If the Biblical God is true then the Bible is true (as shown above), if some or all of the Bible is false then we would be making an argument with the premises that God does lie, and God does not lie. We would be introducing premises that would directly contradict one another.. We would be simultaneously assuming 'the Biblical God' and not 'the Biblical God'. Both of these practices violates the law of non-contradiction.

As I've explained above, those two presuppositions, of the existence of god and the accuracy of the bible, also violate the law of non contradiction. For the purposes of this argument we kind of need the flood story to be truthful, and henceforth the claims of god's attributes must be, in my position, false in order for that to be so.

Just because I presuppose some things for this thread doesn't mean I need to agree with every part of the bible, else you've got no more work to do with your argument.

Where do you get your contentions from?

My brain meats?

Here: Premise one: a A god exists that has the power to resolve the wickedness issue without killing anyone. Premise two: Despite this, that god opted to kill everyone, even those that had nothing to do with the proposed problem. Premise three: Killing the innocent is morally wrong. Conclusion: God did not perform the morally or logically optimal set of actions when he flooded the world.

Still waiting for proof of that assertion.

It's a simple biological fact that self awareness doesn't appear in children until at least fifteen months or so after birth. Things that aren't self aware cannot be moral actors, as there isn't a person in there to act. Therefore, any child younger than a certain age at the time of the biblical flood was a murdered innocent.

[Tonus]

Omniscience is a tricky one, though. The Bible doesn't claim that god is omniscient,

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Job 37:16

Do you know the balancings of the clouds,
the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge.

1 John 3:19-20

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.

Psalm 147:5

Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

Isaiah 55:9

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Job 28:24

For he looks to the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.

Hebrews 4:13

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Isaiah 46:9

I am God, and there is none like me,
declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done.

Psalm 139:4

Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

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Fair enough, I'll concede the point.

and at times it shows that he changes his mind (as he did when he decided to spare Noah).

A difficult understanding. I will defer to someone who knows more than I do: Does God change His mind?

If I'm reading that correctly, it sounds as if they're explaining why god would change his mind, or why he would make it seem as if he did. The implication that god played a fairly elaborate word game just to provide very subtle prophetic clues is a whole other discussion, I think.

If man is made in god's image, and man is a creature given to experimentation and occasional failure on the way to reaching goals, it doesn't seem so odd to assume that god would be the same.

That is a very logical approach to the subject. There are a few things to consider in your assertion. First, while man was created in God's image, that doesn't mean that man is God. Man being made in God's image does not necessitate that what man does God does or vice versa. We often can only understand God by viewing Him through human understanding which reduces Him to our level so to speak. Secondly, while man was created in God's image, man has fallen from that image and has been cursed. It is quite possible that in our created state we wouldn't make mistakes on our way to understanding.

That leaves us in the position of having to blindly determine which of god's qualities are reflected by man, and to what degree. We can pick and choose those which are convenient to our argument, one way or another. And if you run into any inconsistencies you can fall back on the lack of understanding, or on man's imperfect nature. Now god's actions become inscrutable and can be used to justify pretty much anything. That is one of those areas that was a problem for me as a believer.

Yes, or if he can really see into the hearts of men and determine what sort of person they are. But if that was the case, he could have headed off the problem long before it would have necessitated destroying almost all life on the planet. Otherwise we are left to wonder why he let things get to that point before taking action.

Why do you think He waited?

Forgive the snark, but I think it's because he is a fictional character in a story that needed for him to wait to set up the action.

The JWs teach that Satan turned Adam and Eve against god to prove that humanity did not need god to guide them, and that god therefore allowed a period of time for humanity to prove Satan's point. When we consider the rank unfairness of the way god rigged the game (by cursing humans with imperfection and a world that suddenly turned against them), it makes the flood narrative completely illogical. If humanity had --within a few hundred or a few thousand years,-- gone almost completely bad, then god's point was proven. Man in his fallen condition without god was doomed. Why draw out the drama for another few thousand years, knowing that the end result would be no different?

[RobbyPants]

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The code is acting up so I'll respond in a way that hopefully you'll understand what quote I'm responding to.

What I mean by 'consistent with the account in question' is that the account does not contradict the conclusion. Therefore, it is a possibility that is consistent with the account in question.

Actually the Bible does speak of another time in human history in which there were no children: the survivors of the flood, eight adults, no children.

7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. (Genesis 7:7)

and elsewhere:

Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. 1 Peter 3:20.

Note: 8 souls= four men and their four wives. Explicitly no children.

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You're bringing up the circumstances after the flood to explain how there might not have been children before the flood? You're saying that after everyone drown except eight adults, that there were no children, so there might not have been children before? You're violating causality. Do you see the problem with this?

The point is: the Bible never establishes no children as "normal". The only two times you will find are:
1) Creation, and
2) After the story in question.
You will not find anything else. There is no compelling reason to assume this is the case.

I agree that 'no children' is not the established consistent normal. The flood is also not the established consistent normal.

It doesn't matter if the flood was normal. You've admitted that it is normal to consider children existing in human civilizations. Just because the Bible didn't explicitly state there were children doesn't mean it's reasonable to assume that maybe they weren't there.

Did the story explicitly state that gravity was in effect? I bet you were assuming it was, because there's no compelling reason to believe that gravity wasn't behaving normally that day.

you open yourself to every conceivable and even non conceivable possibilities because you believe God 'magicked all the evidence away'.[/Hide]

No. The "magicked away" claim is in response to the idea that Genesis says X happened and there is no evidence that X happened. For X to have happened, something would have had to tamper with the evidence.

That in no way opens up the door to unicorns or leprechauns. The argument was "God used magic to pull off the flood but not to save children" not "God used magic to pull off the flood, therefore all magic is up for discussion". That's called a non sequitur.

[orangebox21]

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God, who repeatedly instructed humans to kill other humans "for fun"

Where does it say "for fun"?

suddenly decided killing EVERY ANIMAL, PLANT, and HUMAN BEING, INCLUDING BABIES, CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMAN ON EARTH was morally superior to just wiping out the "evil people"?

Given that the scripture says mankind was exceedingly wicked, two questions. How do you know there were babies, children, and pregnant woman on earth at the time of the flood? If there were babies, children, and pregnant women on earth at the time of the flood, do you have a reason why the word 'mankind' would exclude these groups (thus absolving them of being exceedingly wicked)?

Scripture teaches that condemnation is based on the clear rejection of God's revelation--whether general or specific--not simple ignorance of it (Luke 10:16; John 12:48; 1 Thess. 4:8).
2 Samuel 12:23, Romans 1:18–20 ,

Furthermore, belief is a necessary requirement for salvation John 3:18–19

Where does belief come from, is it from the will of man or the will of God?

Can we definitely say that the unborn and young children have comprehended the truth displayed by God? No? Then that renders them with excuse.

The answer to this question is found in the answer to the question I have proposed above.

Or are you one of those mental abusers that would make a mother think her baby died and went to hell?

That feels a bit like a loaded question.

To clarify my initial response, I was asking for proof of the assertion that there were babies at the time of the flood.

But one of the reasons you posted for why god needed to kill everything was to assuage god's wrath, so apparently he was doing it to appease his own emotions anyway.

Why do you assume wrath is an emotion? If a person commits a crime and a judge gives a punishment you certainly wouldn't consider the judge or the punishment to have anything to do with emotion.

More importantly, this doesn't address the issue: A, the answer to a crime is rarely more of the same crime, regardless of the motivations behind it,

Rather than assuming I'll ask, so if a judge hands out a death penalty sentence, do you consider the judge and/or executioner guilty of murder?

and B, since when does "punishing people for their wickedness" involve sweeping every other sentient being in the world, including those humans who hadn't killed anyone? How is that just, to punish entities who merely inhabit the same space as criminals for crimes they didn't engage in, nor had the ability to prevent?

A misrepresentation of the account/argument. The account leaves no room for the innocent. It states all mankind was exceedingly wicked.

Because an omniscient and omnipotent being, by definition, can accomplish what he needs to without killing anything. Hell, he could have just wished the wickedness out of everyone, since he clearly wasn't concerned with free will at the point that he was going to terminally rob everyone of theirs.

Perhaps we need to define omnipotent. When we say that God is all powerful we mean He can do anything consistent with His character and nature. Certainly we wouldn't say He could make Himself not exist, or could create a rock heavier than He could lift. Even the Bible qualifies God's omnipotence when it says He cannot lie, or cannot deny Himself. I bring this up because your solution to the problem here creates injustice. If people are doing wrong and are not held accountable then injustice is done. This would mean that God is unjust. This would be contrary to His character and nature.

Equivocation? What else would you call the unnecessary, unwarranted taking of life through violence?

You must continue to misrepresent the reasons for the flood in order to call it 'murder' and 'unnecessary, unwarranted taking of life through violence.'

Sorry, no double standards here: god doesn't get a free pass to behave worse than you'd expect people to, and no amount of "mysterious ways" handwaving is going to change that. This is just an argument from ignorance you're using here.

Quite the contrary, the argument from ignorance is: (I don't understand why) God kills people as a means of justice when there are other hypothetical options available therefore it's murder.

I'm not arguing that I would justify God's actions because I don't understand them, in that I can't know or understand His thoughts (an argument from ignorance), rather it is because God's knowledge is complete (far above our comprehension) He can make perfect judgments.

Even when they're demonstrably not?

Again on what logical and/or moral standard are you showing God's actions are 'demonstrably not'?

Do you seriously not understand that I don't find god's actions just, and that I don't find your baseless presupposition that they are just a compelling argument?

I do understand that you don't find God's actions just.

Sorry, that was poor sentence structure on my part. I personally believe the claim of wickedness to be ad hoc, but I'm saying that even if I didn't and took it one hundred percent seriously, god's actions still wouldn't be justified.

Got it. Is that because you don't believe in the death penalty in any circumstance? Or some other reason?

I'm willing to presuppose the existence of a god, even one that caused the christian bible to be written as an accurate account of his actions; however, claims about his attributes would still be internally inconsistent within that framework based upon his actions. If I'm presupposing the god as depicted in the bible is real, then I cannot logically reconcile his claim of being just with the actions he's performed. If some of those actions, the flood among them, are true, then he cannot be a just god. If those actions are untruthful, then he cannot be an infallible or honest god. Either way, the bible is out of whack with its description of the creator.

I'll make presuppositions if you want, but only up until the point where they stop making sense. At that point, I've gotta start untangling some of this stuff.

I understand what your saying and it makes sense in that there's only so much you're willing to presuppose. So your thought process (and I'm being very presumptuous) goes something like: ok we'll presuppose the Biblical God, the Bible says He's like this and that, and He's acts like this and that, wait those things aren't consistent, therefore the Bible isn't true and the Biblical God doesn't exist.

I can understand how you can come to that conclusion. That thought process does inadvertently retroactively cancel out the presupposition of the Biblical God's existence. It makes it near impossible to remain consistent within a "presuppositional" argument because eventually you will default back to 'there is no Biblical God' and at that point the argument becomes logically inconsistent.

As I've explained above, those two presuppositions, of the existence of god and the accuracy of the bible, also violate the law of non contradiction. For the purposes of this argument we kind of need the flood story to be truthful, and henceforth the claims of god's attributes must be, in my position, false in order for that to be so.

This statement exemplifies the above explanation. You begin your assertion by presupposing the Biblical God and the flood and end your statement by denying the Biblical God. We can't draw logical conclusions from this kind of inconsistency.

My brain meats?

So.... because your brain says so?

Here: Premise one: a A god exists that has the power to resolve the wickedness issue without killing anyone. Premise two: Despite this, that god opted to kill everyone, even those that had nothing to do with the proposed problem. Premise three: Killing the innocent is morally wrong. Conclusion: God did not perform the morally or logically optimal set of actions when he flooded the world.

Fair enough. Prove that your premises are consistent with the Biblical God.

It's a simple biological fact that self awareness doesn't appear in children until at least fifteen months or so after birth. Things that aren't self aware cannot be moral actors, as there isn't a person in there to act. Therefore, any child younger than a certain age at the time of the biblical flood was a murdered innocent.

You had written this earlier and I had asked for some references but I'm assuming you didn't see the post. In any case I've had some time to reflect on your assertion that people don't become self-aware until at least 15 months. Consider that children as young as 6 months old can be taught sign language to communicate with their parents. This means that they are self-aware of their own hunger and can communicate their need to a parent prior to being physically able to speak.

That leaves us in the position of having to blindly determine which of god's qualities are reflected by man, and to what degree. We can pick and choose those which are convenient to our argument, one way or another. And if you run into any inconsistencies you can fall back on the lack of understanding, or on man's imperfect nature. Now god's actions become inscrutable and can be used to justify pretty much anything. That is one of those areas that was a problem for me as a believer.

I can see that being a problematic question. To clarify a bit. The qualities themselves were not affected by the fall but rather our ability to utilize them. For example, rationale and logic are a trait of the image of God that we were made in, but because of the fall we don't always, and I would argue we don't naturally, think logically or rationally. I'm not proposing this as an answer to your problem, just trying to define terms so to speak.

Some would say because God says so and I trust in His word is a sufficient response. Others would say this is a superficial and circular reasoned response. I do think there are some compelling answers to some of the tough 'moral questions' of Biblical history that offer a deeper explanation than because the Bible says so. To address them one would have to go through them individually.

Regardless there are only two ways to make judgments about these moral issues. We either use the Bible as the authority or we use man(ourselves) as the authority (there could be a third possibility, any suggestions welcome)

Forgive the snark, but I think it's because he is a fictional character in a story that needed for him to wait to set up the action.

Snark forgiven. While I disagree with the assertion it is at least consistent with your position as an atheist.

The JWs teach that Satan turned Adam and Eve against god to prove that humanity did not need god to guide them, and that god therefore allowed a period of time for humanity to prove Satan's point.

Are they teaching that this period of time would be from creation until the flood?

When we consider the rank unfairness of the way god rigged the game (by cursing humans with imperfection and a world that suddenly turned against them), it makes the flood narrative completely illogical.

So do JW's teach that the curse God placed upon mankind and the earth was not a consequence to their sin but rather an unwarranted change in the created order?

If humanity had --within a few hundred or a few thousand years,-- gone almost completely bad, then god's point was proven. Man in his fallen condition without god was doomed. Why draw out the drama for another few thousand years, knowing that the end result would be no different?

Are you still talking about the period of time between creation and the flood here?

If I'm remembering correctly you have on at least a few occasions quoted JW theology. Is that the association you were involved with when you considered yourself a Christian?

You're bringing up the circumstances after the flood to explain how there might not have been children before the flood? You're saying that after everyone drown except eight adults, that there were no children, so there might not have been children before? You're violating causality. Do you see the problem with this?

Prove there were children at the time of the flood.

The point is: the Bible never establishes no children as "normal". The only two times you will find are:
1) Creation, and 
2) After the story in question.
You will not find anything else. There is no compelling reason to assume this is the case.

I've already stated that I agree with you that the Bible does not establish 'no children as normal'.  

It doesn't matter if the flood was normal. You've admitted that it is normal to consider children existing in human civilizations. Just because the Bible didn't explicitly state there were children doesn't mean it's reasonable to assume that maybe they weren't there.

I'll try to clarify one more time:  I'm not arguing that because the Bible didn't specifically say there are children that there were none.  I am stating that among the survivors there were no children so that leaves open the possibility that there were no children at the time of the flood.  And again, the burden of proof is not on me to prove that there were no children, but rather on you to prove that there were.  

Your argument is:  Because I(you) have always observed that the earth's population includes children therefore there were children at the time of the flood.

That is a faith based statement.  It's not proof, it's an assumption.  Furthermore remaining consistent in your thinking:  I have always observed that the earth has never undergone a worldwide flood that wiped humanity off the face of the earth with the exception of 8 people therefore the flood never occurred. 

You grant an 'exception to the rule' in one case but not another.

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[Mystical]

Wait, so.. in a hypothetical (and not at all physical world backed up) scenario, you want me to prove to you that your god not only killed every man, woman, child save for 8 chosen ones, and you think the burden of proof lies upon me to prove that that breeding population of human beings didn't have a single child or baby in utero?

I'm not that tenacious.

Where does belief come from, is it from the will of man or the will of God?

Seeing as how I believe god doesn't exist, this seems like a silly question.

[Tonus]

I can see that being a problematic question. To clarify a bit. The qualities themselves were not affected by the fall but rather our ability to utilize them. For example, rationale and logic are a trait of the image of God that we were made in, but because of the fall we don't always, and I would argue we don't naturally, think logically or rationally. I'm not proposing this as an answer to your problem, just trying to define terms so to speak.

This is an example of the problem I was referring to, I think. The Bible itself gives only a few scattered details as to how humanity was degraded by imperfection. We know that they would grow old and suffer pain and sickness and eventually die, and there is the implication of a lack of self-discipline and control, but that's about it. The rest is conjecture. We're forced to fill in a lot of large gaps, IMO. The JWs were one of the groups that believed that mankind is only using about 10% of our true mental capabilities, but that doesn't seem to have a Biblical basis.

Regardless there are only two ways to make judgments about these moral issues. We either use the Bible as the authority or we use man(ourselves) as the authority (there could be a third possibility, any suggestions welcome)

I think it comes down to that, though the latter is probably not as simple. God is a recognized authority who can easily prove that he deserves to be our moral authority, or if necessary can 'make us an offer we cannot refuse' in regards to that authority. Individual men either must prove themselves or must con people into accepting their authority. I think man's ability to write down his experiences and learn from those experiences without having to repeat them is a major influence on our development of ethics, morals, and laws. By taking at least some (and I would think, nearly all) of the authority from individual men and putting it on centuries of human experience and experimentation, we have a more reliable guide, if not a more reliable authority.

Are they teaching that this period of time would be from creation until the flood?

No, they base it on a longer timetable backed by what they call 'Biblical chronology' that considered that the seventh day of creation would last 6,000 years and end in our current day.

So do JW's teach that the curse God placed upon mankind and the earth was not a consequence to their sin but rather an unwarranted change in the created order?

They consider it a consequence of their sin.

Are you still talking about the period of time between creation and the flood here?

Yes.

If I'm remembering correctly you have on at least a few occasions quoted JW theology. Is that the association you were involved with when you considered yourself a Christian?

Yes, I was raised as a JW and served as one for some 30-something years before becoming inactive and eventually becoming an atheist.

[pocaracas]

Ignorance of the existence of the epic of Gilgamesh and its flood story is no excuse, in this day and age... and yet... many suffer from this condition.
Curious...

[RobbyPants]

Prove there were children at the time of the flood.

Prove there was gravity at the time of the flood. Prove there was a sun at the time of the flood.

I've already stated that I agree with you that the Bible does not establish 'no children as normal'.

Then why do you insist on asserting unreasonable assumptions as reasonable third options?

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I'll try to clarify one more time: I'm not arguing that because the Bible didn't specifically say there are children that there were none. I am stating that among the survivors there were no children so that leaves open the possibility that there were no children at the time of the flood. And again, the burden of proof is not on me to prove that there were no children, but rather on you to prove that there were.

Your argument is: Because I(you) have always observed that the earth's population includes children therefore there were children at the time of the flood.

That is a faith based statement. It's not proof, it's an assumption. Furthermore remaining consistent in your thinking: I have always observed that the earth has never undergone a worldwide flood that wiped humanity off the face of the earth with the exception of 8 people therefore the flood never occurred.

You grant an 'exception to the rule' in one case but not another.

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You can call it faith-based, but that doesn't mean that it's unreasonable induction. Your stance is to assert a really weird, admittedly not normal assumption to prove a "possible" third way.

The possible fourth way is unicorns. The possible fifth way is leprechauns. I don't care about infinity other "possibilities". If you can't prove leprechauns, I'm not going to assume leprechauns. If you can't prove the not-normal situation of no kids, I'm not going to assume it.