That Boat Don't Float!!

You will never know for sure will you? all you can do is hope that you have, but remember, your after life depends on it.

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The Christian Faith according to Ding Dong:

"You shall believe in a literal Noah's Ark story or face eternal damnation."

Straw man down. Ding Dong wins.

Joshua_Masquelier said:

The Christian Faith according to Ding Dong:

"You shall believe in a literal Noah's Ark story or face eternal damnation."

Straw man down. Ding Dong wins.

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I actually know several Christians who believe that.

Originally Posted by Joshua_Masquelier

The Christian Faith according to Ding Dong:

"You shall believe in a literal Noah's Ark story or face eternal damnation."

Straw man down. Ding Dong wins.
​

I actually know several Christians who believe that.

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How unfortunate. I love them anyway.

dingdong said:

They look very tasty, thank you AV1611VET.

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You're very welcome!

I let my age show once in awhile --

BananaSlug said:

I actually know several Christians who believe that.

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I believe in a literal Noah's Flood, but not to the inclusion of eternal damnation if one fails to believe it.

Joshua_Masquelier said:

How unfortunate. I love them anyway.

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--- Awww, love you too, bro!

BananaSlug said:

Again, your personal experience does not apply to everybody.

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You have seen, but you have not understood.

Hespera said:

I dont have any "beliefs' as the theists think of them, and its never been a problem for me. Why should it be? i dont think superstition helps anyone.

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I am not limiting 'belief' to religious belief.

i am in the process of recovering from ptsd myself. its a long difficult haul.

I know what is meant by losing sustaining belief in everything. I drove away my best friends..etc.

When I am done with this I hope to be back where i was when I started, not to have attached myself to something that makes no sense and isnt even real.

That kind of "sustaining belief' is unsustainable for me.

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I am sorry to hear that you have had to deal with ptsd, Hespera. You are right in saying it is a long difficult haul.

I lost a lot along the way, as you have. Unusually, however, I did not lose my faith in God. Usually people with ptsd do lose God, along with other losses, so I am fortunate. Please take my word for it that I would also not attach to something that makes no sense or is not real. Can you at least understand that to me it does make sense and it is real?

Nobody can put their faith in something that they know to be false; you are right not to, but please don't make the mistake of thinking this is what theists do. We don't.

I wish you well in your recovery.

SkyWriting said:

Just following the story as it's written.

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That is not what you are doing at all. You are taking the story, imagining other bits, and then extrapolating from any bit of Scripture that takes your fancy to justify your interpretation.

In the process you stick Jesus in the boat with Noah, rebuking the waves. What is that all about?

Other parts of the Bible show God can control the weather, storms, and waves.

To say that God could not control the wind and the waves against the Ark
within the same story where He causes the worldwide flood waters
and in the same Bible where Jesus calms the wind and waves
would be disingenuous to the story.

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I didn't say he couldn't. I said you are making stuff up as you go along, to justify your own personal interpretation.

Meanwhile, you might care to check out the appropriate use of 'disingenous.' It may well be the right word, as you claim, but it is certainly not in the right place.

SkyWriting said:

1. I don't know how high the mountains were or what the sea level was before the Flood happened.

2. I don't know how much, if any, of the ice melted during the flood. Dating ice layers is a difficult task. Figuring out how they get sequenced is a monumental task.

3. I'm not aware of any "poofing".

4. Lots of very weird people make statements as if they were geology, biology, and history experts, that's for sure.

5. We know the "fountains of the deep" referred to were "Broken up" and no longer exist. Anyone who defines them past that is speaking as conjecture. Mr. Brown included.

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1. yes, i believe you dont know any historical or other kind of geology. others do; there are many good indicators of where sea level was at different times, and also for the size of the mountains.

2. there was no flood to melt ice layers. there certainly is no evidence to be found of such a flood. not in the ice, not nowhere. none. the work with ice cores is not easy; neither is going to the moon, or heart surgery. Being hard doesnt make it wrong.

The ice on greenland btw is about 2 miles thick, antarctica thicker. so your "flood" would have had to be deeper than that.

The sequencing can be and is being done on each core. i actually know two people who have been involved in it! handy, for asking questions.

What is your point? that there is some valid question as to the age of the deep ice?

3. "poof" refers to the instantaneous creation described in the bible.
i am also unaware of any, but some claim it happened.

4. you didnt address what I said about how science and scientists have absolutely nothing to do with trying to "disprove" god. please indicate taht you recognize that fact.

5 "we know" this? Who are we and how can you possibly claim to "know"?

( little weird, alleging that science oversteps from conjecture to stating facts, when you can say something like "we know" based on nothing.)

Catherineanne said:

I am not limiting 'belief' to religious belief.



I am sorry to hear that you have had to deal with ptsd, Hespera. You are right in saying it is a long difficult haul.

I lost a lot along the way, as you have. Unusually, however, I did not lose my faith in God. Usually people with ptsd do lose God, along with other losses, so I am fortunate. Please take my word for it that I would also not attach to something that makes no sense or is not real. Can you at least understand that to me it does make sense and it is real?

Nobody can put their faith in something that they know to be false; you are right not to, but please don't make the mistake of thinking this is what theists do. We don't.

I wish you well in your recovery.

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Thanks, Catherine! You are one of my favourites, you show a lot of compassion, good sense and grace.

I wish you ever success too, in your recovery.

I know you didnt just mean "belief" as religious things! And I know what it is to lose belief, it seemed like the ground dissolved under me, nothing was good or decent or nice or anything anywhere ever again. I turned on my family and my ever loyal boyfriend; i turned on myself too.

Well not to make this into something thats not the forum topic.

I am sure you wont attach yourself to something that you dont think is real.

I never thought theists believe what they know to be false. Its about what they believe to be true.

Then I see that all of the thousands and thousands of faiths and subdivisions of same are all the one true one, and i get suspicious.

Catherineanne said:

That is not what you are doing at all. You are taking the story, imagining other bits, and then extrapolating from any bit of Scripture that takes your fancy to justify your interpretation.

In the process you stick Jesus in the boat with Noah, rebuking the waves. What is that all about?



I didn't say he couldn't. I said you are making stuff up as you go along, to justify your own personal interpretation.

Meanwhile, you might care to check out the appropriate use of 'disingenous.' It may well be the right word, as you claim, but it is certainly not in the right place.

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As for the literal reading of the bible in q here, literal reading is the way to avoid knowing what it really means. "god is a rock" does not mean limestone, diorite, fledspar of gneiss. Or any other kind of rock.


its particularly tough to do literal reading without even knowing what the words themselves mean. English is my second language, so maybe that is why i take its usage and meaning so seriously.

A person who keeps misusing a word, like, say "disingenuous" even after being told it makes no sense as he used it is obviously on thin ice trying to interpret what each word in the bible literally means.

dingdong said:

You will never know for sure will you? all you can do is hope that you have, but remember, your after life depends on it.

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It's a common mistake for non-believers to assume ones faith is not based on actual interaction with God. There was a time when my faith was based on the testimonies of others and their experiences. Now I have my own rock solid experiences to form a foundation for my Faith. Looking back, Over the years I've not been able to tear them apart as possible coincidence or mind tricks. Plus I can add new ones as often I allow myself to.

AV1611VET said:

I believe in a literal Noah's Flood, but not to the inclusion of eternal damnation if one fails to believe it.

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People need to believe what they read in the scriptures. But if they don't have the benefit of the Christian Bible, they still need to trust God. As long as they don't put their faith in this existence on this earth or in themselves, then they have a very good shot at accepting the Holy Spirit.

But if you reject the Holy Spirit, it's all eternity to live with your sad decision.
Imagine spending all eternity knowing you choose not to reach your potential.
It's Hell.

Catherineanne said:

That is not what you are doing at all. You are taking the story, imagining other bits, and then extrapolating from any bit of Scripture that takes your fancy to justify your interpretation.

In the process you stick Jesus in the boat with Noah, rebuking the waves. What is that all about?

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It's a passage about boats, water and waves and illustrates that God could not only make it rain, but could also control the sea conditions as well.

If people are going to imagine that if the Ark endured 50ft waves and would crack in half, then I can respond that
1. the story mentions no waves
2. God could control them if there were any as illustrated by other passages.

"Extrapolating from any bit of Scripture" is often part of a process known as "Bible Study". Part of those that I've attended anyway.

Catherineanne said:

Nobody can put their faith in something that they know to be false; you are right not to, but please don't make the mistake of thinking this is what theists do. We don't.

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A majority of people do knowingly do put their faith in things they know are not correct, right, or even good. Because they think they can't find anything "better."

They will believe in majority opinion (or peer pressure) and blindly trust what peers trust is OK. Some will blindly follow profits, knowing that profits are a false "God" but they prefer the benefits of having money, and choose to believe that "if it's profitable, then it's right." Full knowing it's a False guideline to what's right and wrong. Even theists will choose a faith that is not embarrassing in front of others.

Catherineanne said:

I said you are making stuff up as you go along, to justify your own personal interpretation.

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You are making that claim all right.
I give. What stuff?

Levopoly said:

Key word there is "Imagine"
"Well it wasn't really a boat, it just needed to float
God didn't actually take all the species onto the boat, but "kinds"
Animals that don't hibernate in nature hibernate in the ark
People can live for over five centuries, just not in modern times

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As the Ark Story clearly states:
The Ark had no propulsion and was a rectangle box with no keel mentioned.
Kinds, not species...correct.
Hibernation is not mentioned, yet the conditions leave little other choice. It's dark, there's not a lot of room, and the Ark had no deck.
Often people in the Bible lived longer than modern people.

Hespera said:

"disingenuous" means
1. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating:

2. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naïf.

I wonder if that is really what you intend to say.

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You're correct. My usage is wrong.

Hespera said:

Thanks, Catherine! You are one of my favourites, you show a lot of compassion, good sense and grace.

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Mutual.

I wish you ever success too, in your recovery.

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Thank you. Sadly I have had to accept that there will be no recovery for me, this side of eternity. However, as long as I can survive somehow, and help others to do more than survive, that is enough.

I know you didnt just mean "belief" as religious things! And I know what it is to lose belief, it seemed like the ground dissolved under me, nothing was good or decent or nice or anything anywhere ever again. I turned on my family and my ever loyal boyfriend; i turned on myself too.

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Been there .... t shirt. You are probably the only person here who knows, as I know, what it is to lose everything, by losing belief in everything. It is certainly not easy.

Well not to make this into something thats not the forum topic.

I am sure you wont attach yourself to something that you dont think is real.

I never thought theists believe what they know to be false. Its about what they believe to be true.

Then I see that all of the thousands and thousands of faiths and subdivisions of same are all the one true one, and i get suspicious.

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Fair enough. Suspicion is good. However, do you get suspicious of evolution, because there are thousands of species, and millions of sub species? If not, why not?

Here is how I see it (and nobody has to agree, of course). First, for the moment, assume God. Then consider; in a world with 10,000 different types of butterfly, why would God only want one kind of faith? Why would that make sense? Profligacy of variety on the one hand, stilted uniformity on the other.

If nature teaches us anything, it is that God delights in diversity. Which means if we then look at those thousands and thousands of faiths and subdivisions, we imagine God admiring them, as he admires the butterflies. If we were all the same, perhaps he would get a shade bored; as it is, he can look out for rare species, and take great joy when he finds them. Or he can see the more common ones, and delight in their great numbers.



Then, with this kind of God, think of our position. I am a Christian, a member of a faith which has historically been elitist, intolerant and imperialist, and has defined its Deity as that stilted, uniformity loving kind of God, willing even to destroy in order to retain a single, pure form of worship. Is this intolerance of diversity actually of God, or is it a reflection of man's intolerance? A projection, in other words.

Recognising this as projection (as indeed is much that is said of God in the Old Testament in particular) Does it make sense for me to think that this is true of the actual God revealed in Christ himself. If the Old Testament got it right, why did Christ have to come at all? Is this elitism a necessary part of my faith, or does it make sense for me to see that elitism as a cultural, rather than spiritual, aspect of my faith, and therefore NOT necessary, in any way. And having found this, intolerance changes to tolerance, as we get to know other people and other cultures better. This doesn't mean I have to change what I believe, I only need to accept that we are not all called to the same life, or the same faith.

So I have moved to accepting that, while there may only be one mountain, there are many paths up that mountain, and another one for the Buddhists around the foothills. We each have a different journey to make, including those who do not know they are climbing a mountain at all. Nonetheless that is what we are all doing, whoever we are, whatever our faith, and whether we even know we have a faith or not.

This approach gets me in trouble with those who retain the outdated elitist view of our faith, but if they start to complain, I ask them for the Scripture reference that says that every person of every faith other than Christianity is necessarily damned. (To save you going to look for it, I can assure you there is no such Scripture.) Then I offer them these verses:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
The King will reply. 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me. ... For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or sick or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

Matthew 25:31-45

Forget the theology, forget the dogma, forget the divisions. THIS is the only gospel that matters, and it applies to every single person on the face of the earth. It applies to theists and atheists. It applies to heathen and believers. It applies to men, women and children, gay and straight, black and white, rich and poor. It is for all people, in all time. Either our faith is universal, in the sense of applying to all people, or it is nothing. But this does not mean that it has to be expressed by all people in the same way as I express my own version of it.

I know the atheists won't like me talking like this, but I can't talk any other way. I cannot put God on and off like a coat, depending on who I talk to, just as they can't put evolution, the Big Bang, gravity etc to one side, and speak as if they sometimes apply, sometimes don't. All I can do is to say that all people are the same, and all people have the same journey to make. There are not two species of human being, only one.

Elitism is morally repugnant, contrary to these words of Christ and a disgrace to our faith. It is way past time to get rid of it.

The proof is in the butterflies.

(Sorry this got a bit long. Not trying to evangelise, because that is not what I do. Only trying to explain. )