Weltall

Umm, there are plenty of people who insist that the Flood as described in Genesis is literally true, so that's not a mistake.
More Jungian random word generation with a religious theme. Very nice, but does it actually mean anything?
Well, that makes as much sense as the literalist interpretation...
I agree with you there, it is a myth and was probably intended as allegory. Pity so many other people insist on it being a literal occurance.

Chili

And that's too bad, and worse if they act upon it and live accordingly. I call it the 'only' mistake in that it is much better to find a convincing argument wherein the myth is explained as an allegory for a real life event that can happen to us. The solution here is found in the philosophy of religion.That's just the point. If it did not mean anything religion would be a hoax. To me religion is a game with a purpose wherein we are uniform sheep-like creatures that are moved into the rational world where we are encouraged to built our own little kingdom or castle. Our sins are forgiven as temporary courage builders so we might move 'on' in the world to 'sunnier' places that shine upon our ego and make us sparkle like self-made diamonds (from a "A Streetcar Named Desire"). The Church knows this (don't ask the priest because he is also an 'ark builder' in is own life) and 'on the way out' we are given these eternal truths called Sacraments that are placed along the way as milestones of faith to which we return (often in remorse) and from which we depart again with a renewed courage and determination to complete "The Spire" that we are working on.

The problem is that this spire was built on the crossroads of our chest where this "large heart of Stephen hero" (Joyce), was built upon the courage of 'this' age only, and must inevitably come in conflict with the 'human heart' that lies beneath it. This is where the great flood begins wherein we must abandon our ego (the Integral in "We") or find the 'silver bullet' (Emperor Jones) 'if' we are to find new land on the other side of life (the pivotal speech made by Mark Antony in Julius Caesar).

To show that the flood metaphor is based on a reality I intertwined different authors to show this movement.

The conflict that caused the flood is between the courage of this age (our temporal ego) and our eternal human heart that lies beneath it. If I may, let me suggest here that the ark is really the instrument needed to raise our Kundalini from the crotch to the heart to say that we cannot do this on our own.If faith must be brought to understanding it must point at reality or at least lead us there so we may find understanding in our life about who we are. The flood is where religion comes to a sudden stop and will have served it's purpose for us as ark builder and that is why there are no churches in the New Jerusalem (which is the new conscious mind after all has been made clear). Myth is real and you can't really blame the sheep for being misled. I feel for them especially since Golding tells us that metamorphosis is as easy as eating and drinking when the flood comes our way.

Yes it is tragic.

B_Sharp

You can always use the "Jurrasic Park" proof. Glass vials of 1000s of animal DNA would only require the size of a small room for all the animals.

Clivedurdle

You mean the Tardis is not original? I can't cope! (AND I AM NOT TRANSLATING CULTURALLY SPECIFIC COMMENTS!!)

Clivedurdle

Oh all right, a clue..

Tardis

LP675

It doesn’t need to sail.

It just needs to float. I don’t think they had anywhere to sail to, they weren’t trying to circumnavigate the world or anything .

Harry Bosch

Wow, good job: you totally changed my opinion!! Sorry to be sarcastic, but there is just so much evidence against poor Noah that it gets harder for me to even argue the point!

Vortex

Do either of those figures count species that we know of and are now extinct?

Let's say that, since this flood happened several thousand years ago and not long after everything was created, then by right all the species that are extinct today would be alive for the ark to take on. Then this ark would have to deal with HUGE organisms like dinosaurs — and where would the food to sustain the carnivorous ones come from?

On the point of organisms, what becomes of plants in this flood? They'd die of they were submerged in water too long, and taking just one of every species in the entire plant kingdom would take some effort — even if they were just seeds, you'd still need a fair amount of room to carry them.

BeamMeUpScotty

I understand what you're saying, and if I were to take this argument to its nearly ad infinitum conclusion, I would include it. However, I was just showing with only four animals, most of the space of the ark would be filled. Of course if one is to assume that dinosaurs were alive when Noah was around, one can create some great mental images. I would love to see a Jurassic Park style movie of Noah wrangling some T-Rexes!!! Not to mention how they keep them from eating the other animals on the ark.

LP675

Lol. Didn’t shake you world hey?

It just a pet peeve of mine, people saying it couldn’t sail when it obviously doesn’t need to.

Another pet peeve is when people say “oh don’t bring all that ‘got could have kept them calm’ or ‘made them hibernate’ crap! It’s a bunch of God dunnit rubbish!�.

Obviously God dunnit. Very few Christian would suggest Noah could have done it by himself. Comments like “I would love to see a Jurassic Park style movie of Noah wrangling some T-Rexes!!! Not to mention how they keep them from eating the other animals on the ark.� are totally missing the point because the story is clear in that God was controlling the animals which were brought to Noah:

Gen 6:19 “You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.
20 “Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.�

“7:8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground,
9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.�

So why would it be supposed that God intended to keep all these animals alive, and so somehow controlled their natural impulses so as to make them come to Noah in pairs and to enter the ark, but once they were inside the ark God would just let them go wild and attack each other?

So I guess my point is I think there is no good reason for a Christian to accept premise one in your OP: “Religious arguments based outside known translations of the Bible shall not be valid. (e.g., God “spiritually feeding� the animals)�. This would include the ‘perhaps they hibernated’ idea and many others. There is no reason to believe that God would miraculously bring the animals, miraculously and supernaturally close the door, and miraculously and supernaturally send a great flood, but then just leave Noah to his own devices. Sven seems to think it is illegitimate to appeal to supernatural help “that there's no shred of evidence either inside or outside the bible� for, but I can’t see why. If God wants to do something, has already supernaturally intervened to control animals etc, and has the power to supernaturally make it work, then I can’t see why you would say it is illegitimate to suppose he did somehow make it work.

But I am not even sure such miracles are necessary. The author of “Noah’s Ark: A feasibility study� (john Wood-something? ) from memory seemed to think there wasn’t a need to posit all these additional miracles (e.g. extra space inside the ark, spiritual feeding). He argues that there is more than enough room, and sanitization feeding etc can be answered. I think there was a page or two at ‘talk origins’ on it, and creationist replies on ‘true origins’ if you were interested in attacking a well known creationist work on the subject.