The Noachian Flood

[Dee Dee Ramone]

[in before the apologists]

God was just pretending, amirite?

If he pretended not seeing Adam, he might have pretended his whole creation as well.

But that's just my interpretation.

[Zen Badger]

Can't find two people hiding behind a tree.....


Satan fucks up his carefully crafted plan with just a few words.....

Is so utterly inept that he has to destroy the whole biosphere in order to eliminate a few hominids( imagine blowing up your house to get rid of a spider).

Still can't get his shit right so he sends his son/himself so he can be "sacrificed" to himself as penance for humanity acting the way he originally planned them to act in the first place.

World still full of sinners....

Yep, sounds like the work of a perfect, omnipotent deity.

Don't know if I'd trust him to put up book shelves though.

[pocaracas]

Satan? yahweh?
yahweh descended from An: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anu
I wonder what "sat" meant in sumerian or akkadian....

I know this is for a laugh(or is it?) but I'm actually interested to find out.

I don't know the answer myself... so, I'd go with thought-provoking laughs!

[catfish]

The whole problem with this narrative is that not one person has proven that it was written by God and not a human. There are other problems with it also...

1. The flood would have been at least the third time humanity had started "fresh" according to Genesis.
2. The Bible isn't specific about the flood being world-wide.
3. Based on the text, it could be argued that the flood was to eradicate genetic impurities, not so much just to eliminate "evil"...
.

[Zen Badger]

The whole problem with this narrative is that not one person has proven that it was written by God and not a human. There are other problems with it also...

We know it was written by people, that's the point.

1. The flood would have been at least the third time humanity had started "fresh" according to Genesis.

Citations please.

2. The Bible isn't specific about the flood being world-wide.

Genesis 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
Pretty conclusive as far as your creationist buddies are concerned.

3. Based on the text, it could be argued that the flood was to eradicate genetic impurities, not so much just to eliminate "evil"...

Genesis 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

What bit of the text do you wish to counter with?

[catfish]

1. The flood would have been at least the third time humanity had started "fresh" according to Genesis.

Citations please.

Genesis 1:28 (KJV)

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

2. The Bible isn't specific about the flood being world-wide.

Genesis 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
Pretty conclusive as far as your creationist buddies are concerned.

הָאָרֶץ , the orinal Hebrew word translated to "earth" had/s multiple meanings...

הָאָרֶץ = nf. country, land; earth, ground, geo-; territory : http://translation.babylon.com/hebrew/to-english/

3. Based on the text, it could be argued that the flood was to eradicate genetic impurities, not so much just to eliminate "evil"...

Genesis 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

What bit of the text do you wish to counter with?

Genesis 6 (KJV)

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

The bolded and/or italicised aboves indicates what some believe to be an arguable point of contention. I agree...
.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

Yahweh's Garden of Eden experiment either goes spectacularly wrong or is one hundred percent successful, depending on unspecified criteria for success.

I'd say a great success, considering the objective was to produce a small percentage of boot-licking slaves that would kiss His holy ass for all eternity and the rest of the population being discarded into the incinerator for kicks. Mission accomplished.

Protohumans Adam and Eve learn to distinguish good from evil, in defiance of Yahweh's manipulative instructions against the act, and are expelled from their petri dish existence into the world at large, tainted with Original Sin. Generations pass...

A brilliant move, really. It's like putting a loaded gun on the coffee table in the living room, instructing your kids not to play with it, leave the room and peak around the corner to watch the fun. Hey, you did tell them not to play with it so you can pretend to not be responsible. All part of the Lord's grand plan to produce this world as a test to separate the boot-lickers like me from fools like you who go around thinking for yourself.

You know, Christians dismiss me as a "troll" but really, if you take all the Bible's teachings to their logical conclusion, how can you not come up with the same beliefs that I have? I mean, what else could this world be but a testing ground to separate the gullible slaves from the willful and independent?

Now after that preamble, here are my observations. First, it's clear from the narrative that Yahweh has not yet been granted the omniscience upgrade. Indeed, the character at this early stage is really rather limited in comparison with its later portrayal; it has trouble locating characters hiding behind a tree, for instance.

Correct and there are many other passages in scripture that confirm the lack of omnipotence and omniscence.

First and foremost, there was the fact that the Lord needed a breather after his work creating the universe.

Gen 2:2-3 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

...and it was later confirmed that the Lord REALLY needed a breather.

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Then there are passages that speak to the limitations of our Lord's might:

Num 23:22 God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

Modern translations say "wild ox" instead of unicorn. I don't know about unicorns but wild oxen aren't omnipotent.

The Lord can't defeat a people who have iron chariots.

Judges 1:19 And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

He's also not omniscient at this point. One example is when he plays hide-and-seek with Adam (which you already cited) and another is when he needs to go check on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Gen 18:21 I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

The Lord still needs to check things out at this point. Either He's not omniscient at this point or has deep feelings of insecurity that cause Him to second-guess Himself a lot of the time. Given His need for validation from the likes of people like me, it's not an easy call as to which it is.

He doesn't get to be omnipotent until the NT.

Really, an inspiring story of a deity pulling Himself up by His bootstraps. Remember, He got His start as just a volcano god in a pantheon of some obscure tribe to become the multinational tycoon He is today.

[Cyberman]

One of the original rags-to-riches stories, in fact. As Lister puts it in an early Red Dwarf (when it didn't have to try so hard to be funny): "Working class kid makes good!"

[The Grand Nudger]

Genesis 7:19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
7:20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
Pretty conclusive as far as your creationist buddies are concerned.

הָאָרֶץ , the orinal Hebrew word translated to "earth" had/s multiple meanings...

הָאָרֶץ = nf. country, land; earth, ground, geo-; territory : http://translation.babylon.com/hebrew/to-english/

Doesn't matter in the least. The amount of water required to accomplish the narrative destroying and wholly less miraculous flood you're proposing (and maintain it for an apocalyptic 40 days and nights - let's be honest, you haven't given this any thought at all.....) what with water seeking it's own level....well, may as well just abandon the local flood nonsense because you're already invoking enough magic to make the real world (and it's limitations) irrelevant. Imagine a storm capable of dumping as much rain per minute as a category 5 hurricane does in an hour - dumping it for over a month straight. That's what we'd be talking about if it didn't happen in fantasy-land. Meanwhile, Noah and his raft..just riding it out..lol- and the water? Well hell, it just "stayed" in the region.



Ridiculous, you clearly figured that god was filling a swimming pool sized hole in the earth or something. This narrative cannot be reconciled with reality, regardless of who wrote it Cat. Had anything like the flood described in the bible ever occurred anywhere on earth we would not be here to talk about it, no living thing would be left alive on this rock, the entire planet would be uninhabitable. It's a bit different than filling a tub -of any size-.

[Cyberman]

Maybe the word for "Earth" does indeed have multiple meanings; then we'd have to consider the appropriate meaning that fits with the word "mountains", which we are led to believe were completely covered. Are there multiple meanings for that word too? Any that rescue the nice 'n' fluffy non-genocidal version of the story?