Did a World-Wide Flood in Noah's day Happen? (comparison, genesis, America)

[whoppers]

[quote=Mickiel;23412434]

Originally Posted by whoppers

Well I understand and I honor your apoligy, and agree how some fundamentalist are; That aside you are wrong about change, I changed many views I have had through debate; Evolution for one: I never accepted it until recently, even though my view of it is still different than some evolutionist; still, I changed. I changed my view on churchs being taxed last year. I changed my view on name calling in debates. Even during this debate, I have thought on changing my view on the flood; I now am leaning toward the possibility of the " World being flooded", to the world meaning the areas where humans populated being flooded- I am thinking on that, and debate helps me think- " Reasonable debate". And part of me is fundamentalist.

Well, then I stand corrected! Thank you for the words, and I'm glad to hear that you're open to other options. If one is not - then what is the point?
One of the issues I have with Fundamentalism is that it is intellectual death (though this is exactly what some of them claim to be desirable - faith, rather than reason), and for me Intellectual Death might as well be Death altogether. I can't think of a single day in which I don't learn something new and just go "wow".

Just jumping on the flood topic briefly. One of the many reasons scholars believe that the Israelite account is secondary (besides the linguistic and chronological evidence) is the environment (since you mention the "human population area flood"): Where is a Flood Myth most likely to occur? In Mesopotamia, flooding was common, frequent and could be devastating to the crop, livelihood and lives of the people; it is in such a land that a flood story would naturally strike the minds of the people, and this is exactly where we find the Flood myths of Gilgamesh, etc.. Israel - on the other hand - lying in Canaan, is located in dry and hilly country, for the most part, with mountainous regions, very little rain and prone to famine and drought because of this; Far from imagining a flood as the destructive force par excellence, the lack of rainfall would have conjured up different apocalyptic thoughts - it is here, and not in the other areas, that the storm-gods are popular, those who strike with lightning and shake the earth with their thunder, those who are masters of the fertility of the flock. Yahweh was a storm-God, and frequent bull iconagraphy accompanied him. A comparison may be made to Egypt, which didn't receive much rainfall (if any) and depended, instead, on the irrigation canals connected to the Nile River. Again - we don't really find a flood myth in Egypt, or a major storm-god, for that matter. Instead we have a lovely little destruction myth, which you can read about at this thread HERE. In this myth, the flood that is upon the earth is human blood.

Just more grist for the mill.

[dtango]

[quote=ancient warrior;23406085]
What records are you claiming Moses had to work with, except the old Sumarian legend of Gilgamesh?
[quote]

Neither Homer wrote the Greek epics nor a single author the epic of Gilgamesh or Moses the Torah and of course there never was Homer or Moses.

Originally Posted by ancient warrior

However, there is some truth in what you say. I don't doubt that there was a flood of some sort in ancient history. But it didn't wipe out all of mankind except for Noah and his kin.

That is the correct, the rational approach to the subject. Myths have a kernel of truth but we are interpreting myths depending or how we were indoctrinated as kids.
For believers the entire story of Noah is an undisputable truth. For non believers the entire story is garbage!!
To me, the best, or the more accurate, flood story comes from China.
The one that follows appears in many variations and the flood’s duration is from 22 to more than 100 years.

The Supreme Sovereign ordered the water god Gong Gong to create a flood as punishment and warning for human misbehavior. Gong Gong extended the flood for 22 years, and people had to live in high mountain caves and in trees, fighting with wild animals for scarce resources. Unable to persuade the Supreme Sovereign to stop the flood, and told by an owl and a turkey about _Xirang_ or Growing Soil, the supernatural hero Gun stole Growing Soil from heaven to dam the waters. Before Gun was finished, however, the Supreme Sovereign sent the fire god Zhu Rong to execute him for his theft. The Growing Soil was taken back to heaven, and the floods continued. However, Gun's body didn't decay, and when it was cut apart three years later, his son Yu emerged in the form of a horned dragon. Gun's body also transformed into a dragon at that time and thenceforth lived quietly in the deeps. The Supreme Sovereign was fearful of Yu's power, so he cooperated and gave Yu the Growing Soil and the use of the dragon Ying. Yu led other gods to drive away Gong Gong, distributed the Growing Soil to remove most of the flood, and led the people to fashion rivers from Ying's tracks and thus channel the remaining floodwaters to the sea. [Walls, pp. 94-100](source: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html)

In the variation found in the book “Essential Chinese Mythology”, by Martin Palmer and Zhao Xiaomin, the “Growing Soil” is described in a rational way:

For nine years Kun (the hero) undertook this task (to tame the flood). Kun looked at the raging floods, battering even at the gates of Heaven. He looked at the myriad black haired peoples (humans are called blackheads by the Sumerians –the gods are always white/blonde) and their suffering and his heart strained within him. Being descended from the god Chuan Hsu, great lord of the skies, he felt within him the power to fight the floods. He sought to use his powers to build ditches, channels and high banks to control the flow. But to no avail. No sooner would he have finished some great ditch, or bulwark against the waters, than it would collapse and the waters surge through again.
As the years dragged on he begun to despair until at last he thought of a plan.

He knew that in Heaven, in the charge of the god of Heaven, there was a miraculous kind of earth, earth which if sprinkled upon the waters would reproduce itself and thus provide the very substance with which to fortify the land and build up the defense against the flood.

Kun stole the Swelling Soil but he was killed by the god of Heaven and thus he failed to control the flood.
Kun’s son, Yu, was born after his father’s death. When he grew up he fought the flood for ten years, he blocked over quarter of a million of the springs (the supposed source of the waters) leaving only those that fed the fields of the black headed people.

According to the Chinese the flood lasted for over 100 years and the waters did not recede. The waters’ advance was just stopped; exactly what the God is reported to have done in the book of Job where he ordered the waves of the sea not to proceed any further.

The flood was battering even at the gates of Heaven!! A poetic expression! For the Chinese the waters reached heaven, for the Hebrews and many others only up the mountain peaks!

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by QuixoticHobbit

It says it plenty of times. Ever heard of a fellow named Job, for example?

But tell me, where in the Bible does it say Noah freeze dried food for the countless species of animals he was supposed to have on the ark?

I got it from the same verses that say Noah and sons went to the bathroom every day. Or do you believe if the Bible doesn't say they did that they didn't?

Funny yuy have no qualms pulling BS like that of your arse whenever it's convenient.

Yep, same place you guys get your BS about evolution. Fair is fair. If you can so can I.

And yes I've noticed you've ignored my recent posts destroying your creationist tripe...

Tripe is actually good for you if you get if fresh and know how to prepare it.

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost

Do you want me to begin with the first step (creation), or the subsequent steps and ignore the first?

Either way, wouldn't God be responsible? For creation, for planning and implementing a spreading mechanism, and eventually to punish them as already planned.

Of course God is responsible for diseases. He created them. They didn't just evolve from pond skum you know.

God used certain nations to punish Israel in the past. Then God would judge the nations that punished Israel due to the evil of their hearts.

God hardened Pharaoh's heart against Moses' requests to let His people go in Egypt. This is so God could bring plague after plague in order to bring down the greatest nation at that time to its knees. God told Moses He would harden Pharaoh's heart but told Moses to go and tell him to let them go. The end result was that Egypt's power base was disrupted for the next 100 years at least. Now you can say: Look how mean God is. But you have to first look at how Egypt mistreated His people 400 years. But God had Egypt mistreat His people so His people would be like in a furnace to get the dross out of them. Now you can say God is a terrible God for doing that all you want but in the end they will all be saved and will have learned very valuable lessons they would not have learned otherwise. Dig?

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by QuixoticHobbit
(Wondering where Noah found a location to freeze dry all the food (not just Koala but millions of other species specific dietary staples), or the time to do so in between gathering animals, finding & transporting lumber and shaping it into ark-timbers with iron age tools)

They had very high mountains in that region you know. Just like South American people did thousands of years ago. They used mountains to freeze-dry their foods. Don't you know that?

Who said he collected millions of other species? Let's see, he needed one pair of baby horses, one pair of baby elephants, one pair of baby dogs, etc. Some scientist speculated he needed 16,000 animals.

As to iron age tools, yes they worked with iron prior to the world-wide flood of Noah's day:

Gen 4:22 And Zillah, moreover, she bears Tubalcain, a forger of every tool of copper and iron. And the sister of Tubalcain is Naamah.

[rifleman]

Originally Posted by highflyertoo

I believe the onus is upon God to give more detail about Noah's Ark...

Surely God knows how people in the future would question the validity of Noah's Ark with many more distant lands to be discovered in the far flung reaches of the Four Corners of the Earth,with those lands containing animals strictly to those regions,with the food only available to those specific regions[b].Such as Koalas found in mainland Australia, and the large flightless Moa bird found endemic to New Zealand.

If the OP thinks he can recruit people to join the faith by mixed up explanations about animals that Noah didn't know existed to tend and feed specific foods and correct amounts of foods to those animals,then conclusively he has failed.

I say again,where's the required fine detail to the greatest event ever to take place on Earth under the leadership of one man?

So very well put, highflyertoo! And to top it all off, the obviously very logical points that follow here should of course be addressed by our various IDTrs, but I know; they really can't.

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

It has been observed ... that, if Noah's family were the best that God could find, He was a most unintelligent designer.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Of course God is responsible for diseases. He created them. They didn't just evolve from pond skum you know.

God used certain nations to punish Israel in the past. Then God would judge the nations that punished Israel due to the evil of their hearts.

Now you can say God is a terrible God for doing that all you want but in the end they will all be saved and will have learned very valuable lessons they would not have learned otherwise. Dig?

As someone else back a wee bit here so eloquently and accurately noted, He did this hyper-flood thing to cleanse and rinse the earth once and for all, right? And yet.... here we we all are back in full force again, but way more of us Evil™-do-ers than ever before and our Evil™ numbers climbing exponentially; all 7+B of us milling around and wrecking havoc on His glorious Creations and being righteously chastized daily by arrogant & hyper-indignant End-Timer hopefuls, all yowling that the entire world and it's occupants are all evil.

And then, the IDTrs tell us they will all get to gloat when He doth cometh back. So then follows that utterly inane Pascal's Stupid Wager idea ("But... what if you're wrong?") is again unleashed, as if we should all believe in sumthin' really 'tuupitt just because it's the best chance we might get, esp. since or if we atheists are all wrong!?

Yup: that's true tribal-native intelligence at work!

Well now... mommy says don't stay up too late waiting for that shiny Golden Ship to dock; it hasn't happened yet (though a whole lot of individuals have absolutely promised us, time and again, that it would happen, on such and such a date... <yawn.. please wake me when He or It comes, OK? I'll quick-grab my "Run Bag" and scamper innocently aboard!! "Never doubted you for a minute, Lord!">)

Remember children: We're all Evil™ disbelievers unless we unconditionally, and without any critical thinking, just accept Jee-sus into our hearts and minds! From the biblical write-up you fervently insist is absolutely unambiguous and undeniably literal, it seems to me that God really does not know how to properly run even a medium-security corrections facility does He? It's also real obvious that He picked the wrong 4-person (what a joke...!!) genetic stock to refurbish the world, even when such population macro-dynamics are ENTIRELY RUBBISH-LEVEL IMPOSSIBLE.

Well; Just don't think about it: it'll only hurt your fragile mindset! Reality can be SUCH a bu$$uR to swallow when you don't want to, eh?

OK then: you fundies? Have a nice repeat-delusional day!!

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

I got it from the same verses that say Noah and sons went to the bathroom every day. Or do you believe if the Bible doesn't say they did that they didn't?



Yep, same place you guys get your BS about evolution. Fair is fair. If you can so can I.



Tripe is actually good for you if you get if fresh and know how to prepare it.

Now you are just resorting to being silly. I was going to explain how, but I doubt it's necessary and will just elicit more nonsense, so I'll just leave it that you have has to resort to playing the clown.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Of course God is responsible for diseases. He created them. They didn't just evolve from pond skum you know.

God used certain nations to punish Israel in the past. Then God would judge the nations that punished Israel due to the evil of their hearts.

God hardened Pharaoh's heart against Moses' requests to let His people go in Egypt. This is so God could bring plague after plague in order to bring down the greatest nation at that time to its knees. God told Moses He would harden Pharaoh's heart but told Moses to go and tell him to let them go. The end result was that Egypt's power base was disrupted for the next 100 years at least. Now you can say: Look how mean God is. But you have to first look at how Egypt mistreated His people 400 years. But God had Egypt mistreat His people so His people would be like in a furnace to get the dross out of them. Now you can say God is a terrible God for doing that all you want but in the end they will all be saved and will have learned very valuable lessons they would not have learned otherwise. Dig?

I doubt any of that really happened - and stay on topic, eh?

[Mickiel]

[quote=whoppers;23414193]

Originally Posted by Mickiel

Well, then I stand corrected! Thank you for the words, and I'm glad to hear that you're open to other options. If one is not - then what is the point?
One of the issues I have with Fundamentalism is that it is intellectual death (though this is exactly what some of them claim to be desirable - faith, rather than reason), and for me Intellectual Death might as well be Death altogether. I can't think of a single day in which I don't learn something new and just go "wow".

Just jumping on the flood topic briefly. One of the many reasons scholars believe that the Israelite account is secondary (besides the linguistic and chronological evidence) is the environment (since you mention the "human population area flood"): Where is a Flood Myth most likely to occur? In Mesopotamia, flooding was common, frequent and could be devastating to the crop, livelihood and lives of the people; it is in such a land that a flood story would naturally strike the minds of the people, and this is exactly where we find the Flood myths of Gilgamesh, etc.. Israel - on the other hand - lying in Canaan, is located in dry and hilly country, for the most part, with mountainous regions, very little rain and prone to famine and drought because of this; Far from imagining a flood as the destructive force par excellence, the lack of rainfall would have conjured up different apocalyptic thoughts - it is here, and not in the other areas, that the storm-gods are popular, those who strike with lightning and shake the earth with their thunder, those who are masters of the fertility of the flock. Yahweh was a storm-God, and frequent bull iconagraphy accompanied him. A comparison may be made to Egypt, which didn't receive much rainfall (if any) and depended, instead, on the irrigation canals connected to the Nile River. Again - we don't really find a flood myth in Egypt, or a major storm-god, for that matter. Instead we have a lovely little destruction myth, which you can read about at this thread HERE. In this myth, the flood that is upon the earth is human blood.

Just more grist for the mill.

I understand, yet I think it should go both ways, I rarely see an Atheist change their views either. Be that as it may, I tend to see the Irag area as the eye of the flood, all along the ancient fertile cresent; its soil is enriched by years of slit deposited from somewhere back then, and that fits a flood account. Also, if you look at the area, its literally surrounded by water; The Persian Gulf; The Mediterrainean Sea; The Black Sea; The Red Sea; The Caspian Sea, all these Arabian Seas came from somewhere? And they are full of valleys and gorges and " Sand." We know that sand is transported by water, and the area is surrounded by sand now.

So I think these facts do lend to a great flood in the area. How far that flood extended is unknown, but all it had to do in biblical times was technically cover all the areas that humans populated, to be a world flood; and I think that to be reasonable assumption, people are the world in scripture. It had only to hit the fertile cresent and Africa really; and Africa , at the time and perhaps even now, was more fertile with animals than any other area. Noah could have easily got to them, in theory which is reasonable.

[dtango]

Originally Posted by whoppers

Where is a Flood Myth most likely to occur? In Mesopotamia, flooding was common, frequent and could be devastating to the crop, livelihood and lives of the people;…

In Mesopotamia river flooding was part of every day life and thus nobody’s home would be flooded. In the desert he who would wake up to see his home flooded would certainly think that the god decided to flood the entire earth.

Originally Posted by whoppers

Far from imagining a flood as the destructive force par excellence, the lack of rainfall would have conjured up different apocalyptic thoughts - it is here, and not in the other areas, that the storm-gods are popular, those who strike with lightning and shake the earth with their thunder,…

Originally Posted by whoppers

Gods who command rain and thunder are no popular ideas. They are theological fantasies. The people learned from their culture and their folklore that Zeus was constantly raping women and the wise ancient Greek philosophers interpreted mythology allegorically and preached that what Zeus was actually doing was opening of holes in the ground for the grass to emerge.
In the ancient Greek literature the theories and ideas of the philosophers have been recorded. Google “Theagenes of Rhegium,” he was the father of the allegorical interpretation of the myths. Neither ancient Greeks nor any other people were that stupid to imagine a man on the sky sending down rain. When philosophers and theologians said that the gods ascended to the skies, they also endowed them with the power to order nature about.

Evidence, my dear friend!
What you imagine, and what I imagine, is of no value.

[Eusebius]

:
Originally Posted by QuixoticHobbit
It says it plenty of times. Ever heard of a fellow named Job, for example?

But tell me, where in the Bible does it say Noah freeze dried food for the countless species of animals he was supposed to have on the ark?

I got it from the same verses that say Noah and sons went to the bathroom every day. Or do you believe if the Bible doesn't say they did that they didn't?

Originally Posted by AREQUIPA

Now you are just resorting to being silly. I was going to explain how, but I doubt it's necessary and will just elicit more nonsense, so I'll just leave it that you have has to resort to playing the clown.

No, it isn't being silly. You asked a question about where in the Bible it says Noah freeze dried food. Why does it have to say he did? It doesn't have to say he took a crap every day but we know he did. The only silliness is on your end.
If the people of South America have been freeze-drying their food for thousands of years by taking it up into the mountains to freeze dry it, why could Noah not do that?
Here is a little history of the ancient Inca people and their freeze-drying of their foods:

"It is believed that one of the reasons behind the mighty growth of Inca

Empire was the techniques they developed to store and preserve foods.

They had storehouse of foods throughout the Empire. Inca had store three

to seven years of foods at their state warehouse.


"They stored potato and other tubers by setting out them in dry days and

cold nights. So the foods became freeze-dried very soon. They also

preserved meat. They dried and slated meat and store them in the state

warehouse. So these techniques helped them to combats droughts. Even

during the droughts they could feed the standing army for years.
Inca Food