The story of Noah (in the Bible) is so infuriating...

[Crossless2.0]

Well, how about this?  In the U.S., there are millions of people who literally believe this story.  They 'educate' their children to believe likewise.  They vote people into office, including school boards.  They can have an enormous effect on the quality of science education that other people's children receive.  Is that enough of a difference to rouse you from your indifference?

No. Doesn't matter.

All that matters is that your kids are healthy, are good to others, and grow up to be able to live a good life and take care of themselves.

No, that's not all that matters -- at least to those of us who value truth and wish to instill a respect for truth in our children.  If you don't care about that, that's your business.  Fortunately, not everyone shares your indifference.

[ajarnfalang]

No. Doesn't matter.

All that matters is that your kids are healthy, are good to others, and grow up to be able to live a good life and take care of themselves.

No, that's not all that matters -- at least to those of us who value truth and wish to instill a respect for truth in our children.  If you don't care about that, that's your business.  Fortunately, not everyone shares your indifference.

So go ahead and instill whatever truth you want to. Who's stopping you?

Better yet, why don't you let your kids find their own truth?

[Crossless2.0]

No, that's not all that matters -- at least to those of us who value truth and wish to instill a respect for truth in our children.  If you don't care about that, that's your business.  Fortunately, not everyone shares your indifference.

So go ahead and instill whatever truth you want to. Who's stopping you?

Better yet, why don't you let your kids find their own truth?

Way to misread what I wrote.  "Instill a respect for truth" is not the same as instilling "whatever truth" one wants and does not preclude one's kids from finding truth on their own.

[ajarnfalang]

So go ahead and instill whatever truth you want to. Who's stopping you?

Better yet, why don't you let your kids find their own truth?

Way to misread what I wrote.  "Instill a respect for truth" is not the same as instilling "whatever truth" one wants and does not preclude one's kids from finding truth on their own.

So who's stopping you from" instilling a respect for truth"? Instill away. Who is there stopping you?

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So go ahead and instill whatever truth you want to. Who's stopping you?

Better yet, why don't you let your kids find their own truth?

Way to misread what I wrote.  "Instill a respect for truth" is not the same as instilling "whatever truth" one wants and does not preclude one's kids from finding truth on their own.

Who are these people stopping you from "instilling a respect for truth"? Who's stopping you?

[Wyrd of Gawd]

---

I will preface this by saying my father has a P.H.D. is qualified as a Chemist so I know he's not stupid. I'm just venting some frustration. You when Richard Dawkins (who by the way I don't pay much attention too) talks about the perfect teacher/lecturer who teaches science perfectly but who simultaneously hold views contrary to science? Well my father fits that description perfectly. He once said to me: "I believe the Earth is 6000 years old less than I used to." And he teaches people about science...

So anyway, I was watching a television show this morning called "The Big Questions" and they were asking one Big Question (as opposed to three small ones like usually happens): Is there free will? Over lunch we spoke about it. I first mentioned the Canaanites having their free will taken away and I can't believe my father said killing was acceptable. Apparently everyone was killing each other back then so that makes the genocide of the Canaanites acceptable. Apparently one needed to kill to survive.

---

Putting Canaan aside, I began to talk about Noah's flood. I touched on the absurdity of the story. Even as a child I could not get my head around this story. Like how did all the food and animals fit aboard? What about the plants? The freshwater fish? The dinosaurs? Did Noah save every species of bacteria that couldn't survive in water? So many details are missing.

I don't know that much about the Bible, but I know enough to know the flood was not local. This is something Mummadans are always clamouring about too - how the Quran flood is local (when it actually isn't see Quran 11:42) and how the Biblical flood is global and therefore impossible. According to my father, there is enough water on Earth so that if the Earth was all at sea level (with no elevations) the Earth would flood like the Bible says.

It's stupid to say there were no mountains because there must have been mountains because how else would Noah end up on Mount Ararat? It gets worse. Apparently, mountains suddenly formed in the time between the rain stopping and Noah finding mount Ararat because the movement of the tectonic plates spend up or something, and Noah was on the ark for long enough (between the rain stopping and finding Ararat) for mountains to suddenly form.

Now that I think about it I should have asked these questions:
 
1. Just how local is "local"? It was obviously big enough to warrant building a huge boat.
2. If it was really was "that local" then why didn't Noah simply move away from the flood area? In the time it took to build the boat he could have traveled far enough away, surely.
3. Surely there are better ways to teach people lesson than to flood them all (and therefore take away their free will)?


I don't understand why he believes this, as it sounded like he was making up excuses as he went along. There's that book on why intelligent people believe stupid things which I ought to get. I can't remember who the author is though.

The flood story is a metaphor for a military invasion of the region.  If you read the story you will see that it uses a lot of war metaphors.  The Bible even says that the idea of a water flood is BS since Assyria, Persia, Ethiopia, and Arabia existed when Adam & Eve were running around naked if the Garden of Eden and those same places with their same people existed after the Noah's flood.  

Noah was able to survive the enemy invasion and his grandson Nimrod went on to become the big wig in the area, including taking over Assyria and buiding a number of cities there including Nineveh.

The Mount Ararat part indicates that Noah had some positive links to the Hittite kingdom.  

[Mudhammam]

(1) The flood story is a metaphor for a military invasion of the region.  If you read the story you will see that it uses a lot of war metaphors. (2) The Bible even says that the idea of a water flood is BS since Assyria, Persia, Ethiopia, and Arabia existed when Adam & Eve were running around naked if the Garden of Eden and those same places with their same people existed after the Noah's flood.  

(3) Noah was able to survive the enemy invasion and his grandson Nimrod went on to become the big wig in the area, including taking over Assyria and buiding a number of cities there including Nineveh.

(4) The Mount Ararat part indicates that Noah had some positive links to the Hittite kingdom.  

I noted 4 assertions.
And 0 demonstrations.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

(1) The flood story is a metaphor for a military invasion of the region.  If you read the story you will see that it uses a lot of war metaphors. (2) The Bible even says that the idea of a water flood is BS since Assyria, Persia, Ethiopia, and Arabia existed when Adam & Eve were running around naked if the Garden of Eden and those same places with their same people existed after the Noah's flood.  

(3) Noah was able to survive the enemy invasion and his grandson Nimrod went on to become the big wig in the area, including taking over Assyria and buiding a number of cities there including Nineveh.

(4) The Mount Ararat part indicates that Noah had some positive links to the Hittite kingdom.  

I noted 4 assertions.
And 0 demonstrations.

The Noah story is just a damn fairy tale.  If you think the world was completely flooded with water fifteen feet over the tallest mountain go for it.  And if you think that the Earth is the oldest object in the universe have a six pack.

[Iroscato]

I noted 4 assertions.
And 0 demonstrations.

The Noah story is just a damn fairy tale.  If you think the world was completely flooded with water fifteen feet over the tallest mountain go for it.  And if you think that the Earth is the oldest object in the universe have a six pack.

Of course it is, but I think Nestor meant 'where are you getting this interpretation from?' I've never heard the flood be used as a metaphor like that before, only that it's rooted in localised flooding in areas, which to the people living there would indeed have felt like the end of the world.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The Noah story is just a damn fairy tale.  If you think the world was completely flooded with water fifteen feet over the tallest mountain go for it.  And if you think that the Earth is the oldest object in the universe have a six pack.

Of course it is, but I think Nestor meant 'where are you getting this interpretation from?' I've never heard the flood be used as a metaphor like that before, only that it's rooted in localised flooding in areas, which to the people living there would indeed have felt like the end of the world.

The flood story as a metaphor for war is obvious if one reads the story and understands how the words are used.

For one thing the word flood is used to signify an irresistible force.

A flood metaphor is used in 2 Samuel 5:20 (CEV) 

20 David attacked the Philistines and defeated them. Then he said, “I watched the Lord break through my enemies like a mighty flood.” So he named the place “The Lord Broke Through. “
In 2 Samuel 22:5 (NKJV) = “When the waves of death surrounded me, The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

In 2 Kings 21;16 (CJB) = Moreover, M’nasheh shed so much innocent blood that he flooded Yerushalayim from one end to the other — this in addition to his sin through which he caused Y’hudah to sin by doing what is evil from Adonai’s perspective.


In Matthew 7:25 (RSVCE) the writer uses a couple of metaphors to convey an idea.  In this verse floods and rock are the metaphors.
"...and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock."

Visualize Acts 17:16 (CEB) =  While Paul waited for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to find that the city was flooded with idols.


There might have been countless idols in Athens but was the city actually flooded?


Anyway, you can easily find over 100 different verse in various versions of the Bible where the word "flood" doesn't mean actual water.  


Likewise you can find about 800 verses in various versions where the word "water" doesn't mean H2O.   


Do you think the Jesus character was talking about H20 water instead of spiritual truth and spiritual knowledge in John 7:37-38 (RSVCE) =
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. 38 He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” 


Now as why the Noah flood didn't mean actual wet water but rather war consider the metaphor of the words "raven",  "dove" and olive branch in Genesis 8:7-12 (RSVCE) =
7 and sent forth a raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; 9 but the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put forth his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. 10 He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; 11 and the dove came back to him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. 12 Then he waited another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she did not return to him any more.

Ravens are associated with carrion and there are a lot of corpses in war.  In the Noah story the raven went to and fro feeding its young until the invasion was over.  The raven signifies a war party.  See Job 38:41.

Doves are associated with peace.  So Noah sent out peace delegations.  The first one returned empty handed.  The second one returned with a peace treaty (the olive branch).   

Here's a link to some biblical metaphors http://http://www.biblesecrets.org/METAPHOR.htm

Here's another http://http://literarydevices.net/15-fam...the-bible/

There are many more such links and you can Google them if you want to.

This had to be a long post in order to partially explain that words in the Bible have different meanings than those normally associated with them.  It would take pages to examine all of them.

[ThomM]

I will preface this by saying my father has a P.H.D. is qualified as a Chemist so I know he's not stupid. I'm just venting some frustration. You when Richard Dawkins (who by the way I don't pay much attention too) talks about the perfect teacher/lecturer who teaches science perfectly but who simultaneously hold views contrary to science? Well my father fits that description perfectly. He once said to me: "I believe the Earth is 6000 years old less than I used to." And he teaches people about science...

So anyway, I was watching a television show this morning called "The Big Questions" and they were asking one Big Question (as opposed to three small ones like usually happens): Is there free will? Over lunch we spoke about it. I first mentioned the Canaanites having their free will taken away and I can't believe my father said killing was acceptable. Apparently everyone was killing each other back then so that makes the genocide of the Canaanites acceptable. Apparently one needed to kill to survive.

Putting Canaan aside, I began to talk about Noah's flood. I touched on the absurdity of the story. Even as a child I could not get my head around this story. Like how did all the food and animals fit aboard? What about the plants? The freshwater fish? The dinosaurs? Did Noah save every species of bacteria that couldn't survive in water? So many details are missing.

I don't know that much about the Bible, but I know enough to know the flood was not local. This is something Mummadans are always clamouring about too - how the Quran flood is local (when it actually isn't see Quran 11:42) and how the Biblical flood is global and therefore impossible. According to my father, there is enough water on Earth so that if the Earth was all at sea level (with no elevations) the Earth would flood like the Bible says.

It's stupid to say there were no mountains because there must have been mountains because how else would Noah end up on Mount Ararat? It gets worse. Apparently, mountains suddenly formed in the time between the rain stopping and Noah finding mount Ararat because the movement of the tectonic plates spend up or something, and Noah was on the ark for long enough (between the rain stopping and finding Ararat) for mountains to suddenly form.

Now that I think about it I should have asked these questions:
 
1. Just how local is "local"? It was obviously big enough to warrant building a huge boat.
2. If it was really was "that local" then why didn't Noah simply move away from the flood area? In the time it took to build the boat he could have traveled far enough away, surely.
3. Surely there are better ways to teach people lesson than to flood them all (and therefore take away their free will)?


I don't understand why he believes this, as it sounded like he was making up excuses as he went along. There's that book on why intelligent people believe stupid things which I ought to get. I can't remember who the author is though.


It would be better if YOU DID NOT go to a Christian site for a SPIN of these stories. IF the bible is the word of a god - then there is NO human who would have the right to SPIN the story.

Much of the Old Testament - and even a lot of the New Testament  - is simply MYTH - LEGEND - and FAIRY TALES. Too many of the things did not happen - can't have happened - or we have NO evidence that they happened - or we have evidence that they DID NOT happen.

The flood simply DID NOT HAPPEN. BY all accounts - a column of water the height of the tallest mountain would have exerted enough force to pulverize - every human created object on the planet. Yet - the Great Pyramid - which according to the Jewish Chronology of the bible - would have existed before the flood - shows NO sign of Flood damage at all. The mixing of the Salt and Fresh water of a worldwide event would have left the soil EVERYWHERE unable to support plant life for centuries. And that is even before you add in that it would not have been possible for the "ship" to keep safe lots of animals that require specialized weather conditions. IF such a flood happened - all on the ship would have perished afterwards due to lack of FOOD.

Obviously - and again based on the chronology of the bible that show that the earth is about 6000 years old - this is the first fantasy. There never was a time when ALL the animals that have ever lived on the planed existed at the same time. (IF the god was all knowing - the "day" would have to be a "Day" too = not some other time period) The earth is clearly Much older than the bible claims - and can be proven with simply arithmetic - not carbon dating (we have tree sections with over 9000 ANNUAL rings - PLUS we have Ice cores with over 200,000 annual layers - so the 6000 years is nonsense.)

Archeology and Science have shown that much of the Old Testament - cannot be supported Physically on this earth. There is no evidence of a Million people wandering in the Dessert - and no evidence that half that many jews were EVER in bondage to Egypt. The earth is NOT a circle - it is a sphere - a circle is a two dimensional flat object. The earth is not the center of the Universe - not even the center of the Solar System - and the Universe does not revolve around the earth. Why does Egypt have the same Language - and by DNA tests of mummies - the same genetic line of rulers before and after the FLOOD - when the only people who should have been living after the flood should have been Jews?

The bible -is nothing more than the myths and legends of a bunch of Superstitious Fishermen and cave dwellers - from the mountains of north Africa - and some of the things in the bible - do not even originate in the bible - virtually ALL areas of the earth have a Flood Myth - of course a different times and for different gods and reasons. It is clear that the Noah tale is LIKELY based on the story of Gilgamesh - noting that the father of Abraham was of Sumerian blood - according to the bible.  However - we have no reason to believe that there ever was a flood, a tower of babel, Moses, Soloman, David, and even jesus.  THere is no mention of any of these in the historical record of their times - noting that the bible were not written during their supposed times.  

In the end  - the bibles "are" (Plural intended) simply Humans creating a way to control other humans through a being that they simply could not understand. We no longer need religion - which is simply outdated nonsense.