Dear Christians: What does your god actually do?

[drfuzzy]

Sorry Crossless!  Didn't mean to derail your ark stowage and stability challenge.        
That's a good puzzle.

No problem. It's not like any of them will ever try to answer it.

Besides, it's not answerable because the craft wouldn't have been seaworthy to begin with.

That's true.  I like the Rational Wiki article on the subject.   It explains the whole thing clearly . . . outlines each problem, discusses the science, and has a LOT of useful citations.  Rational Wiki: The Great Flood    Those who believe the bible story to be literal probably won't read it though - stupid scientific atheist propaganda and all that.

[drfuzzy]

Fundamentalists, though . . . 
When I was a little girl, my parents told me that God brought the animals from all over the world.  He had angels carry them.  Then when they got on the boat (that had to have been a HUGE boat!) he put the animals into a deep sleep.  They did not need to be fed or cleaned up after - - when the ark hit land, they magically awoke, and the angels distributed them.   If you were to suggest to my Mother, today, that the ark was not seaworthy, she would just shrug and say that God would have MADE it be seaworthy.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

No problem. It's not like any of them will ever try to answer it.

Besides, it's not answerable because the craft wouldn't have been seaworthy to begin with.

That's true.  I like the Rational Wiki article on the subject.   It explains the whole thing clearly . . . outlines each problem, discusses the science, and has a LOT of useful citations.  Rational Wiki: The Great Flood    Those who believe the bible story to be literal probably won't read it though - stupid scientific atheist propaganda and all that.

That's a good article. 

To be honest, it actually kind of infuriates me when they use that "flood myths from all over the world" line, because it's only partly true. Where you have civilizations in or near floodable areas, like coastlines that get hit by tsunamis or in river valleys, then yes, you find them all over the world. What you do NOT find are floods in central Asia, or in the Sahara, or in central Australia, the Andes, the Alps, etc. Taking legends of massive flooding, in the conventional sense, and then trying to say that cultures all around the world have something like the Ut-napishtim/Noah story, is not only ridiculous, it's patently dishonest.

[Minimalist]

Chariot wheels have been found at the bottom of the Red Sea, do you think the Egyptians were trying to make floating chariots for battles at sea.

No.  They have not. 

Really, G-C?  Ron Wyatt? 

http://www.truthorfiction.com/chariot-wheels/

Much of this eRumor is based on the findings of Ron Wyatt, a colorful and controversial amateur archeologist who claimed to have found Noah’s ark, the Biblical Ark of the Covenant, the location of Sodom And Gomorrah, the Tower of Babel, the true site of Mt. Sinai, the true site of the crucifixion of Jesus, and the original stones of the Ten Commandments.

He's the kind of crackpot who gives crackpots a bad name.

[Ravenshire]

Somehow I doubt they ate better than the Egyptians, the Chinese, the early inhabitants of the Americas, or any of the other civilizations that seem not to have noticed the worldwide flood. Why are you so wedded to this particular story? There are Christians who don't think there was literally a worldwide flood, yet they continue to believe in Christ resurrected. If you were to acknowledge that it is a myth or a legend of a particular people of a particular time and place, would that invalidate your faith or cause you to consider the Bible, as a whole, suspect?

I'm not trying to play gotcha. I mean that as a serious question.

 This is what I believe, if any one thing is not true in the scriptures how am I to trust any other part. If the flood is false then how do I know that Christ isn't false. It has to be true from the beginning to the end, if any part is false then how do I determine what is real, or how could you. People who start reading the Bible and come to the conclusion that this part or that part isn't true, then they put doubt into the equation before they can find the truth through God, in other words a person stifles the Holy Spirit's conviction without being able to be lead to the truth. Why people do this is beyond me, it's like telling your math teacher he/she doesn't know what they are teaching simply because when the student first encounters the math they do not understand it so they reject it.
 You know I didn't say they were eating a king's meal, what I did do, was point out it was very possible for Noah and his family and the next generation or two to easily survive and not cause any extinction of any animal before the world could recover from the flood. I did this with only three animals and some vegetation, there are more possibilities to go with what I proposed, viable ones.

GC

There is absolutely no viable solution to the problems of keeping that many animals fed for the length of time required for the flood fairy tale without resorting to magic.

[Minimalist]

 This is what I believe, if any one thing is not true in the scriptures how am I to trust any other part. If the flood is false then how do I know that Christ isn't false. It has to be true from the beginning to the end, if any part is false then how do I determine what is real, or how could you.

Yes, keep thinking G-C.  I'm sure its a new experience but at least you have figured out the problem.

[JesusHChrist]

It ought to give the believer pause if they need to rely on a crackpot such as ron wyatt, but, nope!

[Minimalist]

Wait, now.  I've given G-C a very hard time over the years but at least he has now shown that he understands the problem, even if he is not yet ready to deal with the reality.

[Aractus]

One of the problems with the Abrahamic god is that he doesn't do anything, despite what the Bible says he should be doing.

You know this how?

Because he makes promises and then breaks them. Do you not subscribe to the dispensationalist view point? And if you don't what is your opinion on his ancient covenants then?

Are you going to keep this within the confines of scripture or will you draw on speculation from outside the scriptures.
Isn't this God's right as creator of the universe and all that is contained in it. God says He is perfect and His creation was perfect until Adam and Eve change things by rejecting His love in disobedience, God's judgement is appropriate and does, as you say, stand today.

I believe I kept well within the confines of the Biblical scriptures.

By the way, if God is perfect then how are his created beings able to modify his creation? If you're saying Adam and Eve could do that - and they were just two human beings - imagine how much a celestial being like Lucifer could change God's creation? Imagine how much he and his legion of 1/3 of the angles of heaven could change God's creation then?

Yes humans were vegetarians before the flood, after the flood there was little vegetation and what was there the animals needed. Animals were plentiful and God gave man permission to eat meat to sustain both the vegetation and man. I would think that most of what man had consumed pre-flood was extremely limited and widely scattered. God made the animals fear man so they wouldn't be hunted to extinction quickly, it is for their survival and man having to toil for his food as God said under Adam's judgement. He hasn't flooded the earth again. Man wasn't killing animals before the flood, so God gave a distinction by law on killing, man's value is greater than an animal. Before the flood God punished, post flood God is allowing man to carry out punishment, this is new. Man was not allowed to punish Cain. As for the homosexuals this could be something new with man and we know God calls it an abomination, unnatural, against the creation command it populate the world and against what God set-up as marriage.

Humans cannot manufacture Vitamin B12. We need to import it wholesale from meat. Therefore it is impossible for us to survive without meat, we could not ever have been a vegetarian people.

You can argue modern humans can get B12 injections from their physician - and I have a family member who does this because their B12 levels are low despite the fact they eat meat every day.

There are many animals that don't fear us.

We still see rainbows. Surely if this covenant no longer applies than God would have removed the visual seal by now?

Do you see the problem? God sealed the covenant, and the seal is still visible today, yet he no longer keeps the covenant.

• Abrahamic covenant: Genesis 15. This is the single most disturbing covenant Yahweh makes, because he blatantly lies to and misleads Abram. He foretells that the Israelite people will be enslaved in Egypt for four hundred years and promises to deliver them, with great possessions, and then to lead them to the land of Canaan, the land where Abraham is now, to possess. In Genesis 17 he renews the covenant with Abram (now Abraham) and tells him that his descendants shall have the whole of the Canaan land to possess as an eternal possession.
  

What lie, you believe God lied because He didn't give Abraham all the details of the future, exactly why would the Creator of the universe be required to give all details, because you think the omniscient and omnipotent God should do as you want, that's simply a crazy notion. They would have the whole of the land of Canaan to posses as long as they obeyed Him. They were disobeying God from the get go and started suffering the consequences of the disobedience. Do you know all the land God was going to hand over to them as long as they obeyed? I believe what I've stated here eats up what you have said below.

I wasn't talking about what he "doesn't say" GC. I was talking about what he does say. He tells Abram explicitly that the whole of the Canaan land shall be an inheritance for his offspring to possess forever. It is an unconditional covenant, meaning he doesn't require Abram do anything or keep any commandment to earn it. Hid descendants didn't have to obey anything to receive the covenant, it's unconditional.

Let me explain, God first delivers the covenant in Genesis 12. It's not until Genesis 17 that he instructs Abram to keep the ritual of circumcision. In any case, by Jesus's time by every account the Jewish people had kept the custom of circumcision as instructed in Genesis 17 but did not any longer possess the land God promised Abram.

Just because no one has disproved the Exodus or proved it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Chariot wheels have been found at the bottom of the Red Sea, do you think the Egyptians were trying to make floating chariots for battles at sea. They didn't possess the whole of Canaan because of their disobedience and lack of trust and faith in God. God said this would happen before they entered Canaan and that it would be seized by other nations before they entered Canaan.

I have a six hour trip tomorrow so I need to stop here and go to bed, maybe I can find the time to counter your points later.

GC

Ron Wyatt was a quack. If he had really found chariot wheels in the Red Sea he would have documented it properly so it could be properly investigated - which he didn't. Who knows what he saw.

And again, the Genesis 12 Abrahamic covenant is UNCONDITIONAL. It doesn't matter if they disobey; and if you're claiming otherwise then God pulled a bait-and-switch.

[robvalue]

Fundamentalists, though . . . 
When I was a little girl, my parents told me that God brought the animals from all over the world.  He had angels carry them.  Then when they got on the boat (that had to have been a HUGE boat!) he put the animals into a deep sleep.  They did not need to be fed or cleaned up after - - when the ark hit land, they magically awoke, and the angels distributed them.   If you were to suggest to my Mother, today, that the ark was not seaworthy, she would just shrug and say that God would have MADE it be seaworthy.

Ask enough questions, and eventually you end up with "by magic". Which always makes me wonder what's with the laborious methods when magic is on the menu.