BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Atheist The Flood

Vance,

If the biblical rendition of the Flood is true, then how is it that the Atrahasis Epic and the Gilgamesh Epic have very similiar deluge myths that actually pre-date that of the Hebrew?

Sikpiksie

The only resaon I can give for the survivors not wondering abiut the cessauibt of wqterk uus thhat they still hsf okanety on their handsssssssssssssssss, (I polofizeup forntk yakeboain mmedicienmakes tyroign harderd - heop you can understnand me).

At that point the flood was in hthe psrt and Moses said "leadme" and He did, And the ientime mMiseis tried ti==it wohtout gOgo he wasnounushued..

OI have mire btu cnnot see my heyes any akigerm ejll ontinute whe noyaking migraine keds!

I doubt that the Israelites ever worked in Egypt as slaves. I learned that those who built the pyramids, the tombs, were well paid. So maybe it's just a story.

OK- 1st let me apologize for my previous post,

I take Ambien for insomnia- and it sometimes causes my to sleepwalk (or in this case sleeptype). My husband usually thinsk i am quite lucid until he reads what I have actually witten. At one point in time he had my compiuter cut off at midnight-we m,ay hve to look sat doing tht again.

You can read some of my other amusing and embarrasing stories all around the forums. Hubby keepst threatening to videotpe me.

But what I won't even try to conjure back up what ae in my head then...

These are some of the thoughts I have had for years.

Madeleine L'Engle as part of her "Wrinkle in Time" series wrote a fascinating take on the flood called "Deep Water" (judging by her writings, I do believe she was a Christian).

Part of the writing theorized that it was after the flood that mankind's longlife spans were decreased (Methuselah's 1000 yrs no more) because we humans could not handle the temptation of sin for thast many years.

Also, the ark metnioned Noah's sons and their wives, but remember- daughters were not of much worth bac then. So there wuite possible were more people on that boat than first theoraized-if Noah had several daughters and/or grandaughters with spouses.

Also, mention is made of the number of "clean & unclean" animals that were brought aboard. This was because they could eat the clean animals- so they needed more of them on board.

But I am left wondering (just my own musings) if dinosaurs were not considered worth bringing along on the ship, there just was not enough room, so that is why they are extinct. {shrugs}.I am not a scientist - these are just things I have gone "hmmmmmm" about over the years.

None of this may hold up t scientific scrutiny -but then a lot of early scientific discoveries have not held up to scientific scrutiny either. And in 1000 yrs (if we haven't killed the Earth yest) will our discoveries hold up to modern scientific scrutiny?

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm....

(No Ambien this time, I promise, just me on my own brain trip)

I really don't have any other kind of answer. You are all saying that it is impossible for all of that water to recede and I was just saying that God is the answer to the impossible.

If He can make all of that water appear, He can certainly make it disappear. You see, being a Christian, there are still a lot of things I don't understand about how He works and we are not supposed to. It is written that all mysteries will solved one day and I believe that. I believe that some things are supposed to be far fetched as it is supposed to test our faith. Christians are after all, supposed to have the "faith of a mustard seed".

As far as science goes, it is not exact either. Has there been no scientist that has ever made a mistake? Heck, there was a time that scientists thought the world was flat.

Darwin was a devout Christian until his daughter died and he blamed God for her death. He turned his back on God and came up with a theory of evolution and now his word is irrefutable. Why? Because he turned his back on Christianity? I know its hard for atheists and agnostics and even some Christians to understand faith as you all feel the need to have something seemingly tangible to hold on to.

There is scientific evidence that three prehistoric men they found were not really men at all. They were Piltdown Man, Neandrathal Man and Nebraska Man. There is also a reason why it is called the THEORY of Evolution as well. It isn't called the Science of Evolution or the Fact of Evolution. It is still a theory.

You tell me not to use the Bible as a go to book. Why not? That is my Science book and my History Book and so on. If I can't use the Bible as a book of proof then you cannot use any science book or any book written by humankind to explain evolution. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?

Look at all of the numbers in the bible and how they are repeated throughout and built upon each other. The number 3, the number 7, the number 40, just to name a few. 3 days in the grave, 3 days on the cross, Moses was hidden for 3 months, Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him 3 times, I saw 3 unclean spirits, etc...

7 days in a week, 7 things Christ said on the cross, Jesus will open the 7 seals of fate on the day of Judgment, the child sneezed 7 times, forgive him 7 times, He who holds the 7 stars, 7 plagues, etc...

40 days in the desert with Moses, 40 days and forty nights of rain, Jesus fasted for 40 days, these 40 years of the Lord, 40 years in the desert, more than 40 of them lie, 40 stripes minus one( note it isn't 39 stripes. It is 40 minus 1), saw My works 40 years, etc...

I suppose these are all coincidences as well. I've explained how the Bible works and how it is the answer and all you can say is no its not and don't use the Bible. So where does that leave a person who is a Christian? That is the Book that we are supposed to use.

I have given you scientific evidence about the Chinese written language and certain characters for the words describe biblical events about a thousand years before the Bible was even written and you cannot even dispute that.

If we all originated from one source like sludge or monkeys or whatever, then why do we speak so many different languages? I'll tell you why. It's because people were trying to build a tower to get to Heaven (the Tower of Babel) and God had dispersed them and given them different languages to speak so they could not understand each other and build such a tower but again that is too hard for the mortal mind to comprehend so I am sure there is a scientific explanation proving this wrong.

It's impossible for there to be all of that water from the flood and yet you believe that the world was covered in ice. Where did all the water go when that ice melted? If there was an ice age and it killed every living thing off, how are we existing today? What did we evolve from after the ice age? Everything was dead.

I don't know. Like I said it doesn't matter what I say or believe, you are going to stick to your inexact science and I have to stick with my Bible and the twain shall probably never meet.

Gaye,

I did not mean to imply that "The Flood of the Bible" took place in pre-historic times. I brought up the fact of the Nevada desert once being an ocean to use an an example that a great force can push waters into a vast area and then the waters can recede, leaving the land high and dry.

.

I didn't ask about the water. I asked the questions below.

How did plants survive?

How did whole species of animals survive? Their habitats were devastated. What about random influences?

How did they migrate to other places without food, and not manage to leave any of their young behind? ie: How did the duck billed platypus manage to travel from Mt Arafat to Australia?

Why was inbreeding not a problem for the animals?

How is there such a diverse human population today if only Noah, his wife and their 3 sons and wives were on the boat.

Why wasn't inbreeding a problem for humans after the flood?




We were discussing the flood not evolution!



Again...this discussion is about the flood...not evolution!



Actually Vance, I can use science because this is an Atheist/Agnostic forum but you can't use the Bible as your only source. That's just an exercise in futility because I believe the Bible is a fallacy!



I have no idea what this has to do with whether the biblical account of the flood is true!



Vance, I have christian friends who can discuss things using sources other than the bible. They do this thing called...research!



I have no idea what you're talking about!

.

Again with the evolution!



When did I say I believe the world was covered in ice????

Sikpiksie

I cannot speak to the Nevada dessert as I am unfamiliar with that geography. However, many or in fact all of the land masses that exist were at one time under water due to plate tectonics or continental drift. What this means is that at one time the land which is Navada was below sea level. It does not mean that the sea was forced onto the land by forces. I know that hurricanes do force the sea onto the land but not in the catastophic amounts we would be talking about here and most certainly not for the time periods that Nevada spent under water.

>Why did we stop evolving from monkeys or sludge or whatever you all think we evolved from into what we are today?

We didn't stop -- but it is a slow process, and in terms of human life, not observable. As individuals, we can't evolve, because we have a fixed genetic code. However, what we pass to our children may be different, who knows. And some of those differences may not be readily visible.

>As far as science goes, it is not exact either. Has there been no scientist that has ever made a mistake?

Yes, and after sufficient time (scientists can be hard-nosed about their pet theories, after all!), they will evaluate the new data, and adjust their theories or hypotheses. I haven't seen people saying, "Well, the data doesn't support x in the Bible, so we need to adjust how we view it..." Or not many people!

>Darwin was a devout Christian until his daughter died and he blamed God for her death. He turned his back on God and came up with a theory of evolution and now his word is irrefutable. Why? Because he turned his back on Christianity? I know its hard for atheists and agnostics and even some Christians to understand faith as you all feel the need to have something seemingly tangible to hold on to.

Darwin wasn't the only one who came up with the concept of evolution; he IS the one who managed to get credit for it.

>Look at all of the numbers in the bible and how they are repeated throughout and built upon each other. The number 3, the number 7, the number 40, just to name a few. 3 days in the grave, 3 days on the cross, Moses was hidden for 3 months, Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him 3 times, I saw 3 unclean spirits, etc..

That is because people viewed these numbers (as well as 4 -- the four cardinal directions) as special, so when they wrote or told stories, those numbers would recur. It is a part of human nature. It is sort of like their version of "once upon a time..."

>
I didn't ask about the water. I asked the questions below.

>How did plants survive?

>How did whole species of animals survive? Their habitats were devastated. What about random influences?

>How did they migrate to other places without food, and not manage to leave any of their young behind? ie: How did the duck billed platypus manage to travel from Mt Arafat to Australia?

>Why was inbreeding not a problem for the animals?

>How is there such a diverse human population today if only Noah, his wife and their 3 sons and wives were on the boat.

No, no, Sikpicksie, you aren't supposed to QUESTION those things... ;-)

Of course, since I don't believe in a literal world-wide flood, I would find it impossible to answer those questions!

The stories of most mythologies will deal with floods, drought and famine, because those are major concerns to people all over the world. When they happen -- without the stores that we currently have, no less, they are devastating, and noteworthy -- and so those stories get told and retold. And people want to prevent these disasters, so try to find connections (even though they may not actually exist -- we humans have an amazing capacity for seeing connections, just like we see faces in mountains and such, because we are wired to see faces), and maybe, like in Tom Sawyer, they see a connection between spilling salt and a calamity 2 years later. Gosh, that's amazing! ;-)

Well said Ms A.

I would add:

>Darwin was a devout Christian until his daughter died and he blamed God for her death. He turned his back on God and came up with a theory of evolution and now his word is irrefutable. Why? Because he turned his back on Christianity? I know its hard for atheists and agnostics and even some Christians to understand faith as you all feel the need to have something seemingly tangible to hold on to.

This implies that Darwin was so distraught over his daughters death that he looked for an alternative belief. In fact he delayed publishing for 20 years for fear that his idea would cause hardship, he only publish when word got out that another scientist was going to publish similar ideas.
And... we do not take him at his word. That is not at all how science works. That is how faith works. We take his idea and criticize it, test it, see if it stands up to scrutiny and see if it make predictions. An idea that does this then becomes consensus. That is science. It is no longer Darwin's idea, it has changed much since then and is now the consensus view of the scientific community and while the details will continue to be argued over the process is established and denial of this is denial of reality.


>Look at all of the numbers in the bible and how they are repeated throughout and built upon each other. The number 3, the number 7, the number 40, just to name a few. 3 days in the grave, 3 days on the cross, Moses was hidden for 3 months, Jesus told Peter that he would deny Him 3 times, I saw 3 unclean spirits, etc..

What does that mean. Are you demonstrating that 3 occurs in a book more than once and that number ncrease in size when listed in that order. Don't answer please.