Mathetes

I may have misunderstood Magus, but I thought that in this thread he claimed to be a literalist. That, to me, means that he believes that the Bible is God's word, fully inerrant.

Calzaer

He'd better not be saying that, or else he'd be admitting that humans and free will are both perfect.

In any case...

Perhaps it'd be better to focus on what makes us certain the flood DIDN'T happen, rather than why it COULDN'T HAVE happened. That's the only way we're going to get around the "it was a supernatural event" cop-out, unless Magus wants to go into Great Deciever mode.

The first piece of evidence we'd have is a massive strata of flood geology just a few dozen feet below the topsoil. We know what the geological layers look like after minor flooding and massive flooding; world-wide flooding would, from our current evidence, just be more profound. All the rock and soil on earth would have been evenly distributed into three gigantic flood layers: A bottom layer of gravel and rocks, created by the water physically pushing around particles too large for it to pick up (saltation), a middle layer that would be MILES deep of all the particles that were picked up by the water and gradually settled out (suspension), and then a relatively tiny top layer of ultra-fine particles picked up and actually dissolved by the flood water (solution) that settled out once the waters calmed down a bit.

Further, since the flood was global and only occured about 3k years ago, I should be able to take a shovel out into my back yard and find the top two layers just in the process of digging out my new in-ground swimming pool.

Unfortunately, not only do we NOT find these layers in our backyards, we don't find them ANYWHERE.

rmadison

But, the flood didn't happen because it couldn't have happened.

I'll just go ahead and pick my personal favorite reason: not enough water. Not then, not now...not ever.

(To say nothing of 600yr old men, god, gopher wood, internal contradictions in the myth itself, seaworthy ships, or animal..."difficulties", to name a few...)

It is physically impossible for a global flood to have occured. Thus, I conclude that it did not occur.

cjack

That's all well and good, but the literalist will remind you that God does impossible things all the time.

See, that's one of the benefits of being God.

You can poof a world into existence instantly, but since it would work better for the storyline of a book you're working on, you spend a week poofing.

You can create a couple of perfect people, and also create an irresistible temptation, put it in their back yard, then create a talking snake that fucks with the people.

Further on down the road, you can get fed up with the people you created, and poof them out of existence.

Having a flair for the dramatic, you instead decide to drown everyone...well almost everyone.

Then, feeling a little sheepish about genocide, you decide to hide all the evidence.

Later on, you change your mind, decide your book doesn't flow well without the flood story, so you tell Moses to put it back in.


Impossible you say? Not with the help of Mr. I-Like-the-game-Hide-and-Go-Seek-so-much-I-play-every-day!

Mathetes

I agree that there is an anthropological and pshychological value in myths, but this is in spite of the myth being wrong. It was not their primary intent.

We cannot be sure of what was in the head of whoever created the myth, but I personally think that the guys writing them really believed them (probably they were recording pre-existing myths, adding some more details if you want). Even if they did not, they intended future generations to believe them as true.

Whoever read Genesis in the times of Jesus, he really believed that God created the world in one calendar week. He really believed the explanation for why snakes crawl. He really believed that there had been a global flood. He really believed that the Babel Tower was the explanation for the different languages in the world.

Whenever anybody in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) refers to an existing story, nothing suggests that they interpret that as non-literal myth. The gospels very clearly take for granted that Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, existed as described (maybe you can find a counter-example?).

rmadison

Hmmm...how about the popular, "Square Circle"?

Oh, wait a second...I just read this...

http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/fundy.html

Logic and reason

These are the playthings of the unbeliever, and you should have no truck with them. Faith in the Lord is all you need. The atheist will try to imply that God should be bound by the rules of logic, but God invented logic and so cannot be constrained by it! The more illogical and unreasoning you are, the harder it becomes for atheists to refute your statements. They will scream "But that doesn't make sense! It is logically impossible!" - be that as it may, your faith will tell you that you are correct. With God, all things are possible - including impossible things. What more do you need?

rlogan

This has been really good, you guys.

Mathetes reminds Cjak that magus did answer "why" literalism. I promised Magus I would not jump down his throat over it, so I won't.

Mageth - thank you for interceding on the all-or-nothing hypothesis. We don't all have to agree on that point, and Tod does make the observation that we accept historical accounts with obvious B.S. in them. Someone earlier pointed out mermaids in Columbus' ship log, for example.

Biff and Bag o snakes would do well in bare knuckle boxing.

McDarwin, I think you are very loosely outlining the composition of the Bible that culminated with the Nicean conference? I know there is some argument over that, but there is a point here I want to explore with Magus or others that bears directly on the Ark and other things in the Bible.

Magus, again I am not going to pulverize you for being gracious in answering me. Thank you.

In your view, how was the Bible put together in its present form? Was there sort of a discreet "creation" event for it, or rather a continuous guiding hand of God throughout time, with oral histories and written accounts being standardized by Him, an omnipotent winnowing out of misguided texts like Thomas, and divinely inspired redactions and such?

rmadison

[devils advocate]

Well, to be fair...it sounds as though you are implying that if it's not 100% true, then it must be 100% false.

But that isn't the case.

Jerusalem exists as a place in the bible, and we know that Jerusalem does, in fact, exist in reality.

Thus, some things in the bible are true.

There really is a Mt. Ararat. There really is a Red Sea.

[/devils advocate]

Mageth

While I concur, remember that some proponents of the historicity of the Flood (e.g. Magus) believe in magical solutions to any objection we might pose as to its physical impossibility. And I agree with them in principle; if one accepts magic as a premise, then magical solutions are possible. Since they believe in magic, physical impossibility will not be effective as an argument against them.

But that leaves them with the real problem - even a magically-performed flood would leave evidence (unless the evidence itself was "magically" poofed away for some reason). So the real killer for the Biblical flood story is that the evidence (or lack thereof) does not support the historicity of the story, indicating that it is myth.

Biff the unclean

But...to accept magic is to completely discard reason. So presenting a reason, like the complete absence of evidence, is useless.
This appears to be some kind of mental problem like a phobia or obsessive compulsion. Better treated with medication than debate