Noachian Flood discussion - Bible skeptics vs Lion IRC and friends :)

[Bradskii]

Um ... by way of example, do you know what congenital syphilis is? fetal cocaine exposure? Thalidomide? any of that stuff?

They had Thalidomide back then? And all the mothers were on coke? I never knew.

B: Objection, m'lud. Misdirection.
J: Objection sustained. The jury will ignore insinuations that unborn children at the time of the flood were somehow corrupted by stds, drug use, 1960's morning sickness treatments or any of that stuff which then morally justified their drowning.

 

[AV1611VET]

They had Thalidomide back then?

Whoosh!

 

[Mark Quayle]

Just FYI, bro:

Ken Ham
Ray Comfort
William Lane Craig
Richard Dawkins
Christopher Hitchens

Six of a dozen, half of one of the other.

I thought he was being funny. Well, it was funny....

 

[Hans Blaster]

@AV1611VET
YAY
See, I knew I had friends.
This is everyone's thread.
Go for it Wingman



My "position" is Genesis 6:9 thru to Genesis 9:28
You are welcome to contest my position as stated in those verses.

9:28? from 9:20 onward it's just the tale of a drunkard who curses those that caught him out. Nothing to do with the flood itself.

When I finally read Genesis a few years back I was surprised how little there was in this account given the importance and how little it actually said. Most of what the various "Creationists" had constructed around the text was definitely not there. It is fairly repetitive and frankly, not that well written. (I thought Bill Cosby had the best retelling.)

As for the claims:

1. The whole of the earth was covered in water (7:19-20) and everything not on the ark (or at least of the kinds on the ark, nothing is said about fishes for example) is killed (7:21-23).

There are no global flood layers recorded in the rocks after the first people.

2. There were only two of each kind on the ark (6:19-20) or is it 7 pairs for "clean" animals (7:2-3). These are the animals that survive.

No animals show the kind of genetic bottleneck that would arise from only 2 (or 14) surviving a near extinction event.

3. Only Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives entered the ark (7:13), everyone else died (7:23). From them the whole earth was populated (9:19).

Just 8 people, and three of them were the offspring of two of the other survivers, so really only 5 genetic progenitors (Noah, his wife, and his three daughters-in-law. Like with the other animals, there is *no* evidence of a genetic bottleneck in humans.

 

[AV1611VET]

I thought he was being funny.

I did too actually.

He has my sense of humor:

I thought rocks were only indigenous, megamorphic, and sentimental?

 

[Mark Quayle]

I did too actually.

He has my sense of humor:

Alfred E Neuman strikes again!

 

[AV1611VET]

Just 8 people,

Yup.

And that's four times more than there were in Genesis 1.

 

[AV1611VET]

Alfred E Neuman strikes again!

Wood boat?

Most people think Noah's Ark was a ship -- but the Bible never calls it a 'ship'.

It was actually a submarine.

Notice that it is described as having 'one window' (periscope) at the top:

Genesis 6:16a A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above;

... thus the Ark was not subject to the stresses that would have been placed on ships on the surface.

 

[Mark Quayle]

What, me worry?

 

[Hans Blaster]

Yup.

And that's four times more than there were in Genesis 1.

And neither value comports with the genetic evidence, so either there were more survivors, or no global flood. In either case the story in genesis is then not an accurate rendering of history.

 

[Kylie]

My "position" is Genesis 6:9 thru to Genesis 9:28
You are welcome to contest my position as stated in those verses.

And as I said, you have no interest in showing that it happened in reality. What you're doing is no different than me arguing that the Battle of Wolf 359 really happened in the Star Trek universe.

 

[Kylie]

Do you realize, Kylie, that if God would have just snapped His fingers and everyone would have vanished, that most (if not all) of them would have gone instantly into Hell?

But by mercifully sending a flood, He gave them plenty of time to repent and get saved as the flood waters rose.

Remember when Peter walked on water and began to sink? what did he do?

Matthew 14:30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.

Those who repented and cried out for salvation in Noah's time went ahead and died, of course, because they had reached the point of no return.

But they woke up in a new place, with new bodies.

Doing it as you suggested would have removed that option.

And remember:

As they say, there are no atheists in foxholes.

God can do anything. And he knows everything.

So he would have known which people would have repented, and saved them, and the ones he knew would not repent he could have sent straight to hell.

There's no point in conducting a test when you know for sure what the outcome will be.

So your argument fails.

 

[VirOptimus]

Invoking god(s)/magic/miracles in an science debate is an autoloss.

This thread is a fail right from the start.

 

[trophy33]

Two questions for some YEC guy:

1. If you believe that the flood was planetary, i.e. the word "earth" means "the planet", what this verse mean:
By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
Gen 8:14

2. What leads you to a belief that ancient people having no idea about the globe or even other continents would write a story about the planet instead of their place of living.

 

[Bradskii]

Two questions for some YEC guy:

1. If you believe that the flood was planetary, i.e. the word "earth" means "the planet", what this verse mean:
By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
Gen 8:14

2. What leads you to a belief that ancient people having no idea about the globe or even other continents would write a story about the planet instead of their place of living.

I planted a chille bush this afternoon. We haven't had rain for a week or more. The earth was completely dry.

 

[trophy33]

I planted a chille bush this afternoon. We haven't had rain for a week or more. The earth was completely dry.

But a completely dry planet, without any water, that would be a challenge, right? Poor whales.

 

[Gene2memE]

Why should I accept that the Noachian flood occurred?

There's no good historical evidence that the biblical account is literal, rather than mythological. There is good evidence - from comparative historical literature - that it is a mytheme replication of flood stories from predecessor cultures and religions in the same general geographic area.

There's also no good physical evidence that a near species extinction level flood event on a global scale has happened during human history or prehistory. There is a concordance of good evidence that such an event did not occur, based on the total absence of physical evidence such an event would leave.

Finally, if it is true, the story is a searing endightment against the notion of a tri-omni God. The God presented by this tale is neither all loving, all knowing or all powerful. Why then bother to call it God?

 

[trophy33]

Why should I accept that the Noachian flood occurred?
There's no good historical evidence that the biblical account is literal, rather than mythological.

The biblical account is from the point of view of people living in Mesopotamian plain. There really was a huge flood that decimated the population.
And because Mesopotamia was the center of civilization back then, this story got into all other nations who spread from that area.

But some mythological themes are obvious, like the number 40.

 

[Kylie]

The biblical account is from the point of view of people living in Mesopotamian plain. There really was a huge flood that decimated the population.
And because Mesopotamia was the center of civilization back then, this story got into all other nations who spread from that area.

But some mythological themes are obvious, like the number 40.

There have been great floods, yes, but the Mesopotamian floods don't exactly correspond to those in the Bible. The Flood: Mesopotamian Archaeological Evidence | National Center for Science Education

 

[trophy33]

There have been great floods, yes, but the Mesopotamian floods don't exactly correspond to those in the Bible. The Flood: Mesopotamian Archaeological Evidence | National Center for Science Education

Yes, Noah's Flood May Have Happened, But Not Over the Whole Earth | National Center for Science Education

Not sure why our archeology must exactly correspond to the biblical record? These are two very different sources, both in time and genre. Archeology just guesses what it could look like in real life and what sediment is from what event.
Would archeological interpretation in 6000 AD correspond exactly with the stories written by people living in Hiroshima when the bomb fell?