Literal belief in the flood story

[Esquilax]

Whatever happened to taking the Bible for what it says? It literally says: '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.' Your telling me they weren't. Should I take your word for it? Can you read everyone's thoughts?

So, the bible makes a claim, that everyone on earth was wicked. But claims can be evaluated based upon what we know about reality, not just on the basis of what made the claim, and we would be wise to examine each claim on its own, rather than just assuming the truthfulness of every claim contained within a set of claims; after all, things can be wrong on one issue, while right on another.

We know the global flood couldn't happen, but in this thought exercise we're granting it because you guys like the idea that it happened, for some reason. The claim that everyone was wicked is separate from that, and we know, based upon what is scientifically demonstrated in reality, that this second claim simply cannot be true. Literally, it's impossible that this is true. So even assuming that the flood happened, god's stated reasons for doing that are untrue.

But let's also add in some extra sloppy apologetics to make up for this factual inaccuracy in your inerrant book; if you want to go the route that says the children would have been evil growing up, then god interfered with their free will and you never get to use the free will excuse for anything ever again. If you want to just say that the babies were evil, aside from looking a little ridiculous, you'll also be endorsing thought crime, which is hardly moral to begin with.

Either way, you don't really have a lot of solid ground to stand on, with this position you're taking. Oh, and you ask me if I can read everyone's thoughts; I don't have to. Babies aren't self aware until like fifteen months at the earliest. Since there is no actor in their thoughts before then, there is no moral position that can be affixed to them. Telepathy not required.

[ManMachine]

A while back, I got into this argument with someone on RRS. If you believe in a literal account of the flood story, the take home is that God willingly killed children because he wanted to, and there is no other possible conclusion.

So, to start with this, if we assume there exists a god that is powerful enough to create universes out of nothing, then it's certainly plausible that there exists a god who could summon a bunch of water out of nothing, leave it on earth a while, and then magic it all away. It's not that difficult to accept once we've made the initial assumption. That being said, there are a lot of other problems with the flood myth that don't jive with the really real world:

• The mixing of fresh and salt water would have killed countless fish.
  
• Most or all terrestrial plants would have died.
  
• The herbivores wouldn't have had enough to eat when they came off the ark.
  
• The carnivores would have quickly killed all the herbivores when they got off the ark, then starved when there was no food.
  
• Every species on the planet would have had a genetic bottle neck 5,000 years ago.
  

So, if we assume God can magic up universes from nothing, and magic water up out of nothing and magic it away, then presumably he can magic up some solutions to those problems. So he uses magic to keep the fish alive. He uses magic to keep the plants alive or simply respawns a bunch of new ones later; it's all the same. He either magically sustains the carnivores and keeps them from reproducing while herbivore populations increase to where they could sustain the carnivores, or he holds them in suspended animation during this time. He also makes sure that none of the species get wiped out by a single disease until the species can become more genetically diverse.

Again, this isn't hard to accept in terms of feasibility if he's out there creating universes. We can certainly question why he'd go through such a convoluted plot to kill all the wicked people when a bunch of well-aimed lightning strikes would have done the job. We can question why he magiced all the evidence of the flood away and later based admittance criteria for heaven on belief. Still, it doesn't prove that he couldn't have done it.


The problem is: the children. The whole notion is God was mad at the wicked people, so he killed them and their kids to make things right. Now, there's no way that the children who were sufficiently young would have been wicked, so why did he kill them? Given all the hoops he had to jump through that I outline earlier, he could have totally saved them; he saved all the fish and terrestrial plants. Also rock formations. He took the time to save fragile geological rock formations, but not the kids. The take home message here is God wanted to kill the children; he had other options. Literally, according to the apologetics, an infinite number of other options.


Now, I've heard Christians respond that the other kids were going to grow up wicked, so that's why he killed them. Two problems:

1) Couldn't Noah have raised them in a moral manner while God fed them manna from heaven, or something?

2) Doesn't this completely violate the concept of free will? Whoops! There goes most of your contemporary apologetics for the problem of evil and the reason for the flood in the first place!


This myth is stupidly contrived and terrible. When people accept it as true, they make some of the most creepy, and morally bankrupt excuses for God I have ever heard.

The biblical version of the flood myth (there are a few), is not the earliest example. A recent discovery of a small, mobile-phone sized Babylonian tablet with a flood epic written on it in cuneiform pre-dates the bible version. There are versions in Sumerian mythology and it appears in other Babylonian sources mainly the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Anyway, the bottom line is it is almost certainly (as certain as we can be about historical matters), not originally a biblical myth but much earlier.

MM

[archangle]

You mean other people that lived near water had a flood story?

No way.

[DarkHorse]

People have wild imaginations. The bible proves just that. Floods happen all the time, but religions need to dramatize and super size these events. Hence, a global flood. The same way that they claim a man was not just a man, but the saviour of all, and the lord of lords, who did miraculous things. Just a man, just one of plenty of floods. The days where fairy tales reigned and were maybe needed, has now come to an end. Time to grow up, and use logic.

[Faith No More]

In summation most of the arguments stated here misrepresent what the scriptures say. God judged the earth because the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Somehow that statement in the posters minds becomes: God murders babies. You have created a false image, a straw man, to be precise.

So, there were no babies in the flood? Are you telling me that god didn't murder babies?

No one is misrepresenting the scriptures here, and the fact that you think it is a straw man is quite telling. We're just appalled at what the scriptures say, and even more appalled that you somehow think you can defend them.

[RobbyPants]

So I take it you don't buy into the "age of accountability" apologetics? Assuming a baby hasn't made a conscious effort to accept Jesus as his/her lord and savior, the baby goes to hell if it dies?

I do believe the Bible speaks of the age of accountability. Prior to the age of accountability or in cases of the mentally handicapped, situations where a person cannot make a profession of faith, Christ's grace covers their sin without a profession. So no, a person before the age of accountability does not go to hell, just the opposite.

So, were the children that drown before the age of accountability wicked?

And even still, you haven't addressed the part of my OP where I asked why God couldn't have had Noah raise the children in a moral fashion. We know that children are impressionable and can be raised in a good or bad way, and it will influence how they turn out.

Are you proposing he kidnap them?

Are you proposing you strawman me? I said it right in the OP: God magiced up all sorts of solutions to problems that would have arose. Seriously: how did the carnivores survive right off the ark without obliterating the herbivore populations? God had to do something to correct that problem. If Noah had brought something like sixty herbivores and two carnivores, it wouldn't be a problem, but that's not what the Bible says.

So, the point is: God obviously is capable of intervening in very specific ways to make his whole flood plot play out in the way as it's described. He had an infinite number of ways to keep the kids safe until after the waters receded and he didn't.

If you are going to assert that they are wicked and nothing could be done, then I take it you do not believe in free will?

It is not my assertion to make, I'm simply relaying the message written in the Word. It says what is written. They used their "free will" to use their minds to let "every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts to be only evil continually."

But there's no way the children before the age of accountability could have been raised in a moral fashion by Noah and improved? It's getting right into the two options mentioned below.

Free will is the entire justification for the flood myth. You can't have it both ways. Either:

1) God could have taken steps to make sure the children were saved so they could be raised in a better way (remember, he went out of his way to magically solve all the things I listed in the OP), or

2) The children are incapable of being raised in a moral way and having it work. If that's the case, there is no free will.

There is no magical third option.

The dilemma has been created in your own mind and it is a 'false' one. You believe in magic but not more than two options?

In summation most of the arguments stated here misrepresent what the scriptures say. God judged the earth because the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Somehow that statement in the posters minds becomes: God murders babies. You have created a false image, a straw man, to be precise.

Then please, elaborate. What is this magical third option of which you speak. If you can't explain how that's a false dilemma, then I can't take your accusation very seriously.

Do you believe that if the children had had survived the flood that they could have improved under the moral guidance of Noah? Yes or no?

If yes, then why didn't God save them? The only answer is he wanted to drown them, and nothing more.

If no, then what about free will? If there's no way they can be changed, then that flies against free will.

[Justtristo]

The truth of it is God is very very very very evil.

You Sir, have committed blasphemy of the holy spirit, a sin you will never be forgiven in this life or the next one

On a serious note that is the most common explanation for the "blasphemy of the holy spirit" sin I have gotten from Evangelical Christians. Namely, claiming that Yahweh is evil.

[hobie]

A friend on Facebook once again shared a link providing "proof" that the flood happened.
https://www.facebook.com/1mill.creationi...nt_count=1

Did the flood need to happen? Why would God kill everyone on Earth just to send them to hell? Couldn't he just have snapped his finger and wiped them out of existence?

[Minimalist]

Whatever happened to taking the Bible for what it says?

That's called - in some circles- being an idiot.

[Zen Badger]

Something to ponder.....

The flood only happened about 2450-2500bce according to the cretinists and Noah's family was the only one to survive it.

Yet outside of the bible, not one civilization remembers Noah.

Hmmmm.