There are four possibilities:

1. God really did flood the world and kill countless humans and other animals, in which case he is sadistic, with morals inferior to practically every human alive.

2. The story is a myth, but God, who inspired Scripture as well as the authorities who decided what would become part of the Bible, made sure that the story would be included in the Bible,in which case God wanted credit for doing this horible thing, meaning that he thought it was consistent with his image.

3. The story is a myth and God had no power to prevent it from becaming part of the Bible, meaning that the Bible is really a human invention without divine inspiration, and therefore is completely suspect in whole.

4. God is a myth and humans wrote the Bible.


If you are a practicing jew, christian, or mormon, you will automatically rule out option 4, but you must select one of the other three, and by all accounts, they are all quite "smelly."

So, believers, which one is it?, or do you "punt on fourth down."

What about a fifth option? God is nothing like what anybody on earth thinks, had nothing whatsoever to do with any flood or any Bible.

This

Mormons cannot go through door number five.

The flood is taught as a literal, God instigated event.
Mormon's are confined by their own doctrine to accept it has to be 1 or 2 and add the caveat that all the world was wicked except for the eight people on the ark.

A few years ago in an email with Jeff Lindsay regarding this issue which was started by a GA saying that we as a church believed in the literal story being true, it was explained that the flood was probably a local event, and that the world as they knew it was flooded. Okay fair enough.

But then in HighPriest class we actually read something about how the Earth was baptized in that flood and it had to be by immersion. Crap- Jeff turned out to be an apostate who tried to lead me astray.

So the easy answer is that the story is a myth and so is the Garden of Eden being located in Missouri. Which reminds me- centuries before Cain the crop farmer slew his brother Abel the herdsman, the Sumerians wrote of the great conflicts between the herdsmen and the crop farmers.

And as far as Noah, anyone can make a rainbow and noone can explain how the Kangaroos got to Australia (and only Australia)after the flood.

JoD3:360 Wrote:
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> And as far as Noah, anyone can make a rainbow and
> noone can explain how the Kangaroos got to
> Australia (and only Australia)after the flood.

In my wildest dreams I can imagine the Kangaroos hopping to Australia.

However I can't imagine the Koalas doing anything but curling up in the first tree they find.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2011 11:52PM by baura.

What snockers me is that so many Christians consider the Bible to be the inerrant word of God. A bunch of "church fathers" a couple of centuries after the time of Jesus sit down and decide which of the various manuscripts going around (many of them anonymous) will be considered "scripture." They vote on it and now, almost two millennia later this stuff is considered COMPLETELY authoritative and INERRANT. Where did that idea come from?

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that it's complete or inerrant. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Moses wrote the first five books of the OT, the "Pentateuch." In fact Moses is referred to in the third person throughout. It never says, "and I, Moses, did thus-and-so."

A bunch of men write a bunch of stuff. A bunch of other men--centuries later--take gazillionth generation copies of copies of copies of the stuff and canonize it. How does that make it reliable, much less literal and inerrant?

To Christian fundamentalists who say the only reliable source of knowledge is the Bible, I say the Bible never says that, so you must be getting it from what you would call an unreliable source. Therefore you are contradicting yourself from the start.

The revengeful,dominating God is from the old testment, which in from Judeism. The kind forgiving God is the new testment which teaches the wisdom of Jesus. The OT was words to keep the Jews whipped into shape, Christ came to teach that that wasn't the way, but loving God and loving man was the way to salvation. The Bible is the work of people that had their own axe to grind and heavily influenced where they wanted things to go.

Let's overlook that your options are limited to your own view. To rule out number 4 for christians - and other groups - you'd have to define christian. I was told we need parameters to carry on a discussion. Can you provide that definition? It might help people answer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2011 11:00PM by thingsithink.

no need to over-think this question, one of the four options must be true, which do you think is most likely?

if deference to an earlier comment, let's make #4 state the God "of the bible."

There are number of possibilities for the source of the legend. There possibly could have been catastrophic floods in both the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf when the last ice age glaciers were retreating. A believer could claim that the legend was included in the Bible as a demonstration of God's willingness to do what ever it takes to protect his righteous children.

This is just off the top of my head, I'm sure others could come up with other reasons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2011 11:18PM by jacob.

ollie Wrote:
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> you must select one of the other three

I'm really bad at following directives, so I don't feel that I "must" do anything.

I don't know about the Noah story. It may reflect a dim memory of some primaeval time, or there may have been a germ of truth in there somewhere.

Can believers watch The Book of Noah, according to Ricky Gervais without laughing?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb2DyHRu-bY

;-)

Thanks for that :))

I have no idea.

number 3 seems the most reasonable of all choices, but I'm not a believer.

5.) The bible is a wholly human product that contains the religious texts of two communities, ancient jews and christians. It is neither inspired or inerrant but in the christian church it _functions_ as a sacred (set apart) and canonical text.

The documents represent the man made lenses through which two ancient groups of people saw God. It contains differing and opposing viewpoints from different schools of thought. Is there life after death? Yes (Daniel), No (Ecclesiastes). Does God create evil? Yes (second Isaiah), No (Hebrews). Does God consistently reward good deeds and punish evil deeds in this life? Yes (Proverbs), No (Job).

It is quite possible to believe that Jesus opened himself to God in such a way that people experienced God through him and his teaching. It is also a fact that people began to experience Jesus as a living reality in their lives even after he was dead and buried (as they still do), and they interpreted this post-easter experience of Jesus to mean that he had now in some way been raised from the kingom of the dead and had become one with God. Whether that experience was and is in fact real, instead of a mere delusion, is a matter of faith and personal experience. For christians, the post-easter Jesus experience is real.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2011 09:03AM by seaweed.

Here are some possible ways believers might answer your statements:

>1. God really did flood the world and kill countless humans and other animals, in which case he is sadistic, with morals inferior to practically every human alive.<

Or, it could be that the people and animals he killed ended up in a better place, which would not make him sadistic. This human life is but a blip in time and therefore, all pain, suffering and death are also just a blip. Besides, since God is the ultimate judge of what's good an evil, it's human morality that's inferior to his.

- - - - -

>2. The story is a myth, but God, who inspired Scripture as well as the authorities who decided what would become part of the Bible, made sure that the story would be included in the Bible,in which case God wanted credit for doing this horible thing, meaning that he thought it was consistent with his image.<

The story is, indeed a myth, meant as a warning, but unenlightened literalists have messed up the meaning and intent. Nonetheless, God saw it as a useful story and, being secure in his self-esteem, doesn't care if people think he's a bastard, because they will eventually discover how fabulous he is.

- - - - -

>3. The story is a myth and God had no power to prevent it from becaming part of the Bible, meaning that the Bible is really a human invention without divine inspiration, and therefore is completely suspect in whole.<

See above. Also, when God gave humans the ability to choose, that included the ability to get things totally screwed up. It would be a violation of free agency if God were to prevent the screwups. In the end, though, the screwups will be punished and those who suffered because of the screwups will be rewarded for obeying what they believed God wanted them to do, even though it was false.

- - - - -

>4. God is a myth and humans wrote the Bible.<

This is because you're trying to judge God and his holy scriptures by flawed human standards.

Now, personally, I'm down with number four. It's all made up.

> >4. God is a myth and humans wrote the Bible.<
>
> This is because you're trying to judge God and his
> holy scriptures by flawed human standards.

I have heard TBMs (and others from other churches) attempt this argument.

Personally, I wouldn't say that refraining from commiting mass-murder or genocide was a particularly flawed human standard.

It's usually at this time that TBMs trot out one of three lines:

1: "This is not something we will understand until the next life"

2: "This is not necessary to understand for your eternal life. Don't think about these things, concentrate on the basics."

3: "They were bad, bad people deeply into sin. God showed mercy on them my killing them to stop themselves getting even deper into sin"

Where did all that water come from and where did it go ?

Dave the Atheist Wrote:
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> Where did all that water come from and where did
> it go ?


I've heard many Mormons say that God opened up 'The Windows of Heaven' and sent the waters down. After everyone had been comprehensively drowned, the windows were opened again and the water sucked back up to heaven again.

Sheer mental Gymnastics.

PS: I happen to know thta the windows of heaven are non-existence; God uses Linux :-)

..."Where did all that water come from and where did it go ?"

It came from the same place that covered Denver (the Mile-High City) with hundreds of feet of water in 'Waterworld', yet also magically covered 14,000ft. Rocky Mountain peaks nearby.


Where are the apologists to sort conundrum out!? :-)

I asked my 2 TBM sisters if they believed in the whole literal noahs ark thing.

One quickly said yes without any thought whatsoever. I then asked if water just changes (evaporation/precipatation cycle) and is the same amount since the beginning where did all the water from the flood go?

The other sister who is a science teacher said it was prob. justa local flood and it was the whole earth to them since that is all they knew.

Studying the ot was the first step in my final apostacy. Pure crazieness.

You guys are aware that many many Christians and Jews, and that includes some Mormons, are aware that much of the OT is myth and their faith does not depend on a literal Noah or his ark?They are also aware of how the Bible was written and realize that it is not infallible.

... which would be the many many more who do take the bible and its goofy stories as the literal word 'o' god.

Timothy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2011 08:04AM by Timothy.

They still would have to settle on #2 or #3, neither of which is particularly faith-promoting. Of course the best strategy for anyone desiring to maintain their faith is to put their mind in a cage. A bird that flies free sees too much.

2 and 3 have been part of both some Christian and Jewish belief almost since the beginning. St Augustine believed much of the OT was myth for instance. Non literalists simply do not see it the way you do, as non faith promoting. The simply see it as fact and believe that while the Bible may contain God's word it is not all literal history or science..

Believers include all Christians and Jews regardless of their views on Biblical literalism.

RAG Wrote:
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> http://www.gallup.com/poll/148427/say-bible-litera
> lly.aspx

That is a lot. And it has been pretty stable for the last 34 years.

I think some of that is due to lack of knowledge of what is in the Bible. Other studies have shown that Americans, including believers, are Biblically illiterate. They can't even name the 4 Gospels or the 10 Commandments. It is pretty easy to say you believe in something if you haven't read it and don't know what is in it. Seems a lot of Americans do just that.

When someone says that God commanded JS to practice polygamy, ask them this question. If anybody needed it, these guys did.

My wife and I left the church together. She really believes in the Bible, and we have talked a couple of times about Noah.
- I have done the math (space in the boat per species).
- I have thought about the logistics of gathering the animals.
- I have a degree in Zoology and have thought about what would be needed to keep everything alive, etc.

All I want to say here is that some Noah images in my head make me smile. Imagine Noah and his sons traveling back to the boat after a quick trip to America to pick up a pair of Buffalo and a couple of rattle snakes.

Noah: "Son, would you check one more time to make sure we have a male and female rattle snake?"
Son: "Awe, dad! Why can't he do it? I did it last time."
Noah: "Don't make me stop this buffalo!"