The story of Noah' s Ark - or - God is dumber than you.

[zwanzig]

In the region of half of American take the Noah's Ark story literally (it was around 60% in 2004, so progress). But let's pretend it's a fringe belief that skeptics shouldn't even bother to address, else they'll be considered to be trolling.

The 2004 poll:

https://abcnews.go.com/images/pdf/947a1V...eBible.pdf

It's just not very interesting to shut down because it IS so ridiculous, and it has some disturbing things to say about the character of God. It's one of those things where if I engage with a theist on it and we can't even get past "This story proves that your god is an immoral tyrant because drowning everyone is how he deals with disobedience; he'd rather everyone be dead and start the earth project over than allow people to have their agency and disobey him." if they're defending the story as an example of god being just and good to his creations, his children, then the "proof" parts of shutting the story down are not really going to matter. It's a story believed not because the believers are really good skeptics with a mind for scientific thinking; it's emotion.

[Angrboda]

It's believed because the bible tells them so. They aren't called a flock for nothing.

[The Grand Nudger]

Some portion of the remainder think that "a localized miraculous flood"..that also never happened..is a non literal interpretation of deluge myths.

[arewethereyet]

It's also easy to hold the attention of little kids when you have an adorable story of animals boarding the ark two by two while you downplay the death and destruction and simply don't mention the incest required to repopulate the world. Get 'em while they're young.

[Abaddon_ire]

Get 'em while they're young.

Ah. The motto of the RCC.

[Angrboda]

Get 'em while they're young.

Ah. The motto of the RCC.

In more ways than one.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Hope of redemption from evil Seems pretty clear to me even if the message appears to be built over a framework of oral story telling and likely incorporates cultural memory of pre-historic tragedy.

Could you flesh that out a little bit?

What seems clear to you as a believer isn't quite so clear to me.

<movie promo voice> "In a world filled with bloodshed and violence....one righteous man...inspired by God...endures years of hardship and delivers his family and innocent animals through disaster and into God's favor."

Depending on which trailer you watch, it either ends with a rainbow (the children's version) or in vineyard (the darker, grittier version).


Also, I concede that like all mythological tales Noah's ark, Adam & Eve, etc. had indeed been widely considered, even by educated people as "how it happened." At the same time, I imagine that's mostly by default since there were not really any competing accounts. Of course early explorers were eager to learn if the old stories were true scientifically and they quickly learned that they weren't. Good. Now interested people can focus on the moral of the story and not memorable particulars.

---

In the region of half of American take the Noah's Ark story literally (it was around 60% in 2004, so progress). But let's pretend it's a fringe belief that skeptics shouldn't even bother to address, else they'll be considered to be trolling.

The 2004 poll:

https://abcnews.go.com/images/pdf/947a1V...eBible.pdf

It's just not very interesting to shut down because it IS so ridiculous, and it has some disturbing things to say about the character of God. It's one of those things where if I engage with a theist on it and we can't even get past "This story proves that your god is an immoral tyrant because drowning everyone is how he deals with disobedience; he'd rather everyone be dead and start the earth project over than allow people to have their agency and disobey him." if they're defending the story as an example of god being just and good to his creations, his children, then the "proof" parts of shutting the story down are not really going to matter. It's a story believed not because the believers are really good skeptics with a mind for scientific thinking; it's emotion.

Personally, I consider complex character motivations and challenging incongruities features that make a text more interesting and allow for multiple perspectives, your own included.

[zwanzig]

Personally, I consider complex character motivations and challenging incongruities features that make a text more interesting and allow for multiple perspectives, your own included.

I don't share this opinion when it comes to a god that demands my worship and obedience. We're talking about truth claims here, the example I used was in speaking to someone who not only believes that god exists but that the Noah's ark story is true. So, it's not just some story character that is made more entertaining by being contradictory and flawed. You don't get to be "complex" and have conflicting motives from moment to moment if I'm going to be on my knees serving you, loyally and with praise. I am complex and confusing all on my own and the closest I'll get to worship is putting my needs above others most of the time. If there's going to be a god that is real and deserves worship, he needs to be better than the one I already got.

[onlinebiker]

Personally, I consider complex character motivations and challenging incongruities features that make a text more interesting and allow for multiple perspectives, your own included.

I don't share this opinion when it comes to a god that demands my worship and obedience. We're talking about truth claims here, the example I used was in speaking to someone who not only believes that god exists but that the Noah's ark story is true. So, it's not just some story character that is made more entertaining by being contradictory and flawed. You don't get to be "complex" and have conflicting motives from moment to moment if I'm going to be on my knees serving you, loyally and with praise. I am complex and confusing all on my own and the closest I'll get to worship is putting my needs above others most of the time. If there's going to be a god that is real and deserves worship, he needs to be better than the one I already got.

Yeah - 

Needing to drown off 99 percent of your creation because it turned out poorly isn' t something a competent supreme being should have on their resume...

[arewethereyet]

Gawd Etch-A-Sketched his first attempt and started over.