Help: How do I know that your God is the one, true God?

[Kir Komrik]

Hi all,
I'm new here and have just read up on the policies and finished my signature, etc. I hope I've done everything correctly so far.
I would like to believe in an almighty power but the problem is that in my research I've found so many gods out there. Coming from a family that has been explicitly atheist for generations, I'm starting from scratch and am looking at all religions.
I am sincerely curious to know how would I know, for instance, that your god is the one, true God?
Thank you.

[Kir Komrik]

Yes but he also said this...

Which you're taking out of context. In that example I was talking to sickles about what a seeker would presumably be doing when trying to identify the One, True God in the context of trying to define what one is seeking.

Uh no your comment was directed to me AdHoc and how am I taking this out of context?…

Hi AdHoc,

My reasons for wanting to identify The One, True God are captured in that definition I provided in response to one of sickle's questions. It basically comes down to ensuring I don't worship an imposter.

Why are you pre-occupied with ad hominen garbage? Your inference is that I am dishonest and you have no clue what you're talking about, do you?
How could you know that?

I did not intend to infer that you were being dishonest I felt like you were setting a trap, which is not dishonest it’s clever. I have tried to do the same thing (though I haven’t been able to catch anyone yet). By the combative tone of your posts I am becoming more sure of my belief that you are not looking to be led to any God but of course I could be wrong.

As far as proving anything, how many times do I have to explain this?
I want to identify the One, True God with a reasonable degree of confidence. That's all.
Please listen and read more carefully in the future.
So, you see, of course this should be an easy question for an adherent to answer. But as we see from the question no one can and those who have issues with admitting being unable to answer something want to tangent for 500 posts.

Fair enough, can you answer my question, Why would you like to identify the one true God?

Well, for instance I know very little about my relative's personal beliefs beyond my grandparents ...

then you're an outliar because most people very much do.

I am not an outliar and I think most people most certainly very much do not.

it seemed strange to me that you could assert with such confidence the knowledge of your relative's belief systems... I hope this doesn't sound critical but it seemed to me like you were setting the stage for something.

?? No, you're trying to infer that I'm a liar.

I am not but I think you might be an outlier

Ok, then how would you expect it to be answered? With a verse of scripture or some kind of mathematical proof?

Please think very carefully before you ask questions or make statements like that. How would I know the answer to that if that is the very thing I'm asking?

This is me asking an adherent a question, and the adherent should have these answers, not me.

Ok, I don’t have a better answer than the one I already gave you.

I was talking to sickles about what a seeker would presumably be doing when trying to identify the One, True God in the context of trying to define what one is seeking.

So, I was referring to a seeker generally, not me personally. That's how you took it out of context.

Yes, I certainly am an outlier. Big time.

As for the rest, when I perceive, rightly or wrongly, that someone is deliberately trying to derail a thread my tone might change. Why? Because its disingenuous and a waste of my time if I'm making a sincere inquiry.

But notice that this tone was with two people, one of which was a mistake, as I take your word for it that you were not making the implicaiton that I was dishonest. That is fair enough.

And please note I didn't, would not and shall not take that tone with anyone else.

Finally, why would I "like" to believe? Probably for the same reason that everyone else does. Who wouldn't want such a fantastic story to be true? To perfect oneself beyond the corporeal to something grander and finer; a better soul. Eternal bliss, no pain, no suffering, no misery ... forever. Its universal I'd think.

Does this tie into my question somehow?

Speaking of which, would you care to answer Question 12?

[AdHoc]

Speaking of which, would you care to answer Question 12?

So, the question is:

Is it more likely that Noah’s flood narrative is the result of Agenticity or is it more likely that your god is The One, True God?

Well first of all I'm biased because I believe with all my heart, soul and mind that the God I worship is the one true God so you will, of course, need to take my answer with a grain of salt... but here's the best answer I can give.

I didn't know what agenticity was until you introduced that term to me so I googled it and read it is "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency". I don't see how that would apply in this case. I have heard several possibilities A) The Genesis flood is a silly thing to believe, it's impossible and never happened B) The Genesis flood was a local flood based on the Epic of Gilgamesh C) The Genesis flood is true.

Which one is more likely? I'm not 100% sure but I think B is the least likely. I can't really imagine a religious group looking at a story that another religious group has and saying "hey, lets take that story about Bel and Gilgamesh and make our own story about a worldwide flood. Except for names and a few other changes it'll be the same story". Yeah, no, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

If there was a worldwide flood I would expect that many religions and cultures would have some sort of flood story that has been passed down through generations either written down or through oral tradition. Unless the story was copied down meticulously and repeatedly it would likely evolve over time and in the end may have some material differences.

So I guess the short answer to your question is that I believe its more likely that the latter is true.

[Kir Komrik]

The same conversation is well underway over at ThinkAtheist.com. There, a poster Sarah raised the same point as educhris, therefore, I addressed it there in full. I wanted to copy that here so that you can see that this has been fully addressed. Here it is:

I'm going to go ahead and fully digress on Sarah's point. Let me explain why. This discussion has certain parallels to deconversion conversations (though you cannot really deconvert online). One of the things that's interesting about deconverting someone of the general public as opposed to deconverting an academic (in my experience I'm guessing academics have constituted maybe 5% of the deconverted - its rare) is that the issues that come up are very different. Sarah never ceases to impress as the objection she is making is one typical of academics. I had this same discussion over at debatingchristianity in which an academic tried to derail the thread by making the same point Sarah is making. Normally its a tangent that just detracts from the conversation and doesn't add anything. But, if someone insists on the point, especially online, I'm beginning to think the digression is worth it. So, I'm going to dispatch it fully right here.

The subject Sarah is broaching by talking about how to interpret literature invovles one of the most profound areas of misunderstaning in academica generally, in particular the Humanities. What is actually going on here is that there are two fallacies in play, not one.

We've already explained the Conjunction Fallacy. But the other fallacy I initially didn't want to tangent on is the Genetic Fallacy. Basically, on their face, these two fallacies seem to be arguing against each other. They are not. The Genetic Fallacy basically says that if you remove details from an assessment you can do it in such a way as to merely channel yourself to a pre-conceived conclusion; by limiting details your desired inference does not augment but rather diminishes. So, taking Sarah's position as devil's advocate, I could say it this way: by choosing to ignore the various different interpretations, context and facts regarding the narrative you are artifically making your conclusion seem more likely.

In the presenting case this is false. I'm not trying to trick anyone or play psychology. Here's why.

The Conjunction Fallacy and Genetic Fallacy are not mutually exclusive. What the Conjunction Fallacy is saying, though it isn't clear in the equation used to define the Conjunction Rule, is that the Conjunction Rule only applies if the information added is:

less likely to be true than the initial proposition itself was OR, its likelihood cannot be assessed with confidence.

Let the proposition of the turth of a supernatural embellishment be regarded an uncertainty. Then, in the common vernauclar this is just saying

You cannot make an uncertainty more certain by adding an uncertain detail. If you do, you are committing the Conjunction Fallacy.

On the other hand,

You cannot make an uncertainty less certain by denying a detail that is certain. If you do, you are committing the Genetic Fallacy.

Academics in the Humanities screw this up a lot. While seemingly quite careful not to violate the Genetic Fallacy (they love to add details ad nausea to any discussion), they all too often do commit the Conjunction Fallacy because they simply have not thought through exactly how to apply these two fallacy warnings correctly. And who would? Its kinda slippery. It's why I didn't want to do this tangent. When talking to an academic you usually have to spend hours before starting just to clear the air on this.

So, if one talks of "historical context", "metaphor" or other "literary tools" they are talking about things less certain than, in our case, the proposition that Agenticity exists in human populations. And that is the key, if Sarah or anyone in her role can come up with a detail that is more certain than the proposition that Agenticity exists in human populations, then they have an argument. Otherwise, its fallacious and constitutes a mere embellishment.

An easier way to explain this is to think of it in terms of how you would actually perform this step. What we need to do is to see if the proposition, for example, that the author intended his or her statements metaphorically is more likely than the existence of Agenticity in the population in question.

The first thing we notice about this is that we really don't even have a way to assess the odds that any given author meant to use metaphor. So the argument fails before we can even compare it. If we could assess the odds, if the odds that the author intended to use metaphor were lower than the proposition that Agenticity existed in that population, the argument would fail. Either way, the added detail is an embellishment and the argument fails. Which is what I sought to show.

[Kir Komrik]

Speaking of which, would you care to answer Question 12?

So, the question is:

Is it more likely that Noah’s flood narrative is the result of Agenticity or is it more likely that your god is The One, True God?

Well first of all I'm biased because I believe with all my heart, soul and mind that the God I worship is the one true God so you will, of course, need to take my answer with a grain of salt... but here's the best answer I can give.

I didn't know what agenticity was until you introduced that term to me so I googled it and read it is "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency". I don't see how that would apply in this case. I have heard several possibilities A) The Genesis flood is a silly thing to believe, it's impossible and never happened B) The Genesis flood was a local flood based on the Epic of Gilgamesh C) The Genesis flood is true.

Which one is more likely? I'm not 100% sure but I think B is the least likely. I can't really imagine a religious group looking at a story that another religious group has and saying "hey, lets take that story about Bel and Gilgamesh and make our own story about a worldwide flood. Except for names and a few other changes it'll be the same story". Yeah, no, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

If there was a worldwide flood I would expect that many religions and cultures would have some sort of flood story that has been passed down through generations either written down or through oral tradition. Unless the story was copied down meticulously and repeatedly it would likely evolve over time and in the end may have some material differences.

So I guess the short answer to your question is that I believe its more likely that the latter is true.

Well first of all I'm biased because I believe with all my heart, soul and mind that the God I worship is the one true God so you will, of course, need to take my answer with a grain of salt... but here's the best answer I can give.

And there is nothing wrong with that. I'd only qualify that by saying that, by your own admission, you're biased.

I didn't know what agenticity was until you introduced that term to me so I googled it and read it is "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency". I don't see how that would apply in this case.

??
A flood of this magnitude would have been a monstrous disaster eclipsing anything anyone had ever seen before or would likely see again. Agenticity is the tendency to explain the incomprehensible in, for example, natural events. I think this is clear.

I have heard several possibilities A) The Genesis flood is a silly thing to believe, it's impossible and never happened B) The Genesis flood was a local flood based on the Epic of Gilgamesh C) The Genesis flood is true.

I think you're confusing two things. Both of us could likely agree that a major geological event occured, this massive flood. But the question is whether or not divine Agency was involved. The event itself is not debated.

Which one is more likely? I'm not 100% sure but I think B is the least likely. I can't really imagine a religious group looking at a story that another religious group has and saying "hey, lets take that story about Bel and Gilgamesh and make our own story about a worldwide flood. Except for names and a few other changes it'll be the same story". Yeah, no, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

I think you are more concerned about narrative duplication than I am. It isn't really key to my point. We can either have the duplication or not. The point is to ask which is more likely in the Gilgamesh narrative, divine Agency or Agenticity, right?

If there was a worldwide flood I would expect that many religions and cultures would have some sort of flood story that has been passed down through generations either written down or through oral tradition. Unless the story was copied down meticulously and repeatedly it would likely evolve over time and in the end may have some material differences.

Riiggghhhtttt. Agenticity. They will tend to attribute divine agency to these stories even when it wasn't necessary. That's human nature and that's what the studies on Agenticity clearly show.

So I guess the short answer to your question is that I believe its more likely that the latter is true.

I agree, but that's not the question. The question is,

is it more likely that the flood narrative (which supposes divine agency) is attributable to Agenticity or is it more likely that Utnapishtim is The One, True God?

[micatala]

Now we get to watch what happens when a fanatical belief system is confronted with its own invalidation. This is the point in the questions which some have been so desperately trying to prevent by derailing the thread.

Moderator Comment



Here and in a couple of other posts you refer to beliefs or positions being fanatical. There seems to be no other purpose for such a comment other than as an attack or pejorative comment. It is best to avoid such adjectives in civil debate.

Please review the Rules.


______________

Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster.

There is another purpose that is not for the purposes of attack or for making a pejorative comment. It may just be the wrong word for this application. The term "fanatical" I use to refer to a line of reasoning that is compromised by a an emotional attachment to a preconceived belief.

People who study the sociology of Religion call these "core beliefs" but in this context no one would know what I mean. This is necessary and material to the conversation if I wish to demonstrate that the ideas are flawed due to the context in which they were created. If there is any alternative word someone can offer I would greatly appreciate it. That's the only one I could think of. I'm afraid if I just use the word "biased" or "compromised" it would be too general. "Intellectually compromised"? I dunno.

Moderator Warning


The rules do clearly indicate that challenges or comments on moderator actions should be made via PM.

Feel free to PM me, and I can elaborate further.

Please review our Rules.

______________

Moderator warnings count as a strike against users. Additional violations in the future may warrant a final warning. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

[sickles]

I can't really imagine a religious group looking at a story that another religious group has and saying "hey, lets take that story about Bel and Gilgamesh and make our own story about a worldwide flood. Except for names and a few other changes it'll be the same story". Yeah, no, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

That doesnt seem likely to you? you can trace almost all worldwide religions and practices to Animism. How do you propose this was accomplished without "hey, lets take that (popular) story about bel and gilgamesh..." There is a demonstrated causal link between the two. Its hard to imagine you could read the two stories, like as they are, and see one came many hundreds of years before the other, within 500 miles of one another, and deny that they could very likely be one inspired by the other. Strange.

[AdHoc]

Speaking of which, would you care to answer Question 12?

So, the question is:

Is it more likely that Noah’s flood narrative is the result of Agenticity or is it more likely that your god is The One, True God?

Well first of all I'm biased because I believe with all my heart, soul and mind that the God I worship is the one true God so you will, of course, need to take my answer with a grain of salt... but here's the best answer I can give.

I didn't know what agenticity was until you introduced that term to me so I googled it and read it is "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency". I don't see how that would apply in this case. I have heard several possibilities A) The Genesis flood is a silly thing to believe, it's impossible and never happened B) The Genesis flood was a local flood based on the Epic of Gilgamesh C) The Genesis flood is true.

Which one is more likely? I'm not 100% sure but I think B is the least likely. I can't really imagine a religious group looking at a story that another religious group has and saying "hey, lets take that story about Bel and Gilgamesh and make our own story about a worldwide flood. Except for names and a few other changes it'll be the same story". Yeah, no, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

If there was a worldwide flood I would expect that many religions and cultures would have some sort of flood story that has been passed down through generations either written down or through oral tradition. Unless the story was copied down meticulously and repeatedly it would likely evolve over time and in the end may have some material differences.

So I guess the short answer to your question is that I believe its more likely that the latter is true.

Well first of all I'm biased because I believe with all my heart, soul and mind that the God I worship is the one true God so you will, of course, need to take my answer with a grain of salt... but here's the best answer I can give.

And there is nothing wrong with that. I'd only qualify that by saying that, by your own admission, you're biased.

Shoot did I say that?

I didn't know what agenticity was until you introduced that term to me so I googled it and read it is "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency". I don't see how that would apply in this case.

??
A flood of this magnitude would have been a monstrous disaster eclipsing anything anyone had ever seen before or would likely see again. Agenticity is the tendency to explain the incomprehensible in, for example, natural events. I think this is clear.

Ahhh I think I understand

I have heard several possibilities A) The Genesis flood is a silly thing to believe, it's impossible and never happened B) The Genesis flood was a local flood based on the Epic of Gilgamesh C) The Genesis flood is true.

I think you're confusing two things. Both of us could likely agree that a major geological event occured, this massive flood. But the question is whether or not divine Agency was involved. The event itself is not debated.

Which one is more likely? I'm not 100% sure but I think B is the least likely. I can't really imagine a religious group looking at a story that another religious group has and saying "hey, lets take that story about Bel and Gilgamesh and make our own story about a worldwide flood. Except for names and a few other changes it'll be the same story". Yeah, no, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

I think you are more concerned about narrative duplication than I am. It isn't really key to my point. We can either have the duplication or not. The point is to ask which is more likely in the Gilgamesh narrative, divine Agency or Agenticity, right?

If there was a worldwide flood I would expect that many religions and cultures would have some sort of flood story that has been passed down through generations either written down or through oral tradition. Unless the story was copied down meticulously and repeatedly it would likely evolve over time and in the end may have some material differences.

Riiggghhhtttt. Agenticity. They will tend to attribute divine agency to these stories even when it wasn't necessary. That's human nature and that's what the studies on Agenticity clearly show.

I'm finally picking up what you're putting down and now I don't know how best to answer the question.

So I guess the short answer to your question is that I believe its more likely that the latter is true.

I agree, but that's not the question. The question is,

is it more likely that the flood narrative (which supposes divine agency) is attributable to Agenticity or is it more likely that Utnapishtim is The One, True God?

Definitely the former

[AdHoc]

I can't really imagine a religious group looking at a story that another religious group has and saying "hey, lets take that story about Bel and Gilgamesh and make our own story about a worldwide flood. Except for names and a few other changes it'll be the same story". Yeah, no, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

That doesnt seem likely to you? you can trace almost all worldwide religions and practices to Animism. How do you propose this was accomplished without "hey, lets take that (popular) story about bel and gilgamesh..." There is a demonstrated causal link between the two. Its hard to imagine you could read the two stories, like as they are, and see one came many hundreds of years before the other, within 500 miles of one another, and deny that they could very likely be one inspired by the other. Strange.

What about the possibility that they were both written seperately about the same event?
Can you elaborate on the "demonstrated causal link" that you refer to?

[The Tongue]

Speaking of which, would you care to answer Question 12?

So, the question is:

Is it more likely that Noah’s flood narrative is the result of Agenticity or is it more likely that your god is The One, True God?

Well first of all I'm biased because I believe with all my heart, soul and mind that the God I worship is the one true God so you will, of course, need to take my answer with a grain of salt... but here's the best answer I can give.

I didn't know what agenticity was until you introduced that term to me so I googled it and read it is "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency". I don't see how that would apply in this case. I have heard several possibilities A) The Genesis flood is a silly thing to believe, it's impossible and never happened B) The Genesis flood was a local flood based on the Epic of Gilgamesh C) The Genesis flood is true.

Which one is more likely? I'm not 100% sure but I think B is the least likely. I can't really imagine a religious group looking at a story that another religious group has and saying "hey, lets take that story about Bel and Gilgamesh and make our own story about a worldwide flood. Except for names and a few other changes it'll be the same story". Yeah, no, that doesn't sound very likely to me.

If there was a worldwide flood I would expect that many religions and cultures would have some sort of flood story that has been passed down through generations either written down or through oral tradition. Unless the story was copied down meticulously and repeatedly it would likely evolve over time and in the end may have some material differences.

So I guess the short answer to your question is that I believe its more likely that the latter is true.

WAS THERE AN EVENT WHEREIN THE KNOWN WORLD OF THAT DAY WAS INUNDATED ?

The major volcanic explosion of Hekla 4 in Iceland, which spewed out massive amounts of larva, coupled with a close encounter with a passing comet and a Tunguska like fireball, are believed to have been major issues in the inundation of Ireland that is said to have been left waste for 30 odd years, and the devastating flood around the Mediterranean Sea, and the lands of Mesopotamia, which was the known civilized world in the days of Noah around 2350 B.C, the time when this catastrophic event is said to have occurred.

To those who are interested, I would advise them to read the “Report on Second Cambridge Conference,� an article by Mark Bailey Posted December 15 1997. Following is a small extract from said article.

Marie-Agnes Courty (CNRS, Grignon) presented new archaeological data concerning a catastrophe inferred to have occurred in the Middle East c.2350 BC. She emphasized the importance of high-time-resolution archaeological investigations in the assessment of natural catastrophes on societal collapse, the data in this case indicating the combination of a burnt surface horizon and air blast, consistent with a Tunguska-like fireball, but possibly also a major volcanic event.

The evidence for regional environmental change at about the same time was confirmed and extended by Mike Baillie (Queen’s University Belfast), whose tree-ring analyses of Irish bog oaks showed very significant narrowing of the rings around the year 2345 BC, associated with identified tephra from the Icelandic Hekla 4 volcano, dated to 2310 +/- 20 BC. This suggests a volcanic origin of the c. 2350 BC event identified by Courty, but the period in question is also associated with other events, including floods, the creation of new lakes and even the traditional start of Chinese history! In Baillie’s words, 2345 BC ‘is a classic marker date, i.e. a date which will show up on a regular basis in studies of various kinds’.

Although the flood story as handed down from Noah to his descendant Abraham the Chaladean who left the city of Ur, where his father “Terah’ had been high priest, had been a local event around Ireland and the coasts of the Mediterranian Sea and beyond into the land of Mesopotamia, according to the “Report on Second Cambridge Conference,� an article by Mark Bailey,� there were world wide volcamic eruptions, tsunamis, and destructive floods, which have been recorded from many different civilisations around the globe.

Do you think that the people of the pre-flood days knew that the circumference of the earth was almost 25,000 miles, or knew how many continents and islands there are on this earth? And if not, just how big do you think that their known world was, which known world of their would have been covered with water from horizon to horizon?

According to the OT, it was some 400 years after the flood that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, and the daughters of the righteous Lot, believed, that of every man in the world, their father was the sole survivor. How big did they believe the world was?

The animals that were taken into the ark, would have been those, which were chosen from the animals that had been forced to flee from the rising water to the higher ground upon which Noah would have presumably built the ark, which animals would have only been those of his known world, that was flooded around the year 2350 BC.

I believe that the flood that occurred in Noah’s day, around 2,350 BC, was an event that would have been recorded and handed down by a witness of that era, as "A WORLD-WIDE FLOOD".

I’m not too sure from where the following (IN BLUE) came from. I am assuming that it was googled up by somebody and posted to me, and which I found interesting enough to file away in “MY DOCUMENTS�.

Over 2000 years before George Smith’s discovery of the deluge tablets in Iraq, there existed an account of the Chaldean (pre-Babylonian) flood myth. Berosus, an ancient Chaldean historian living in the time of Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.E, relayed to the Greeks the antiquity of his people’s deluge myth in the following words:

“After the death of Ardates, his son Xisuthrus reigned eighteen sari. In his time happened a great deluge; the history of which is thus described. The deity Cronos appeared to him in a vision, and warned him that upon the fifteenth day of the month Daesius there would be a flood, by which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to write a history of the beginning, procedure, and conclusion of all things, and to bury it in the city of the Sun at Sippara; and to build a vessel, and take with him into it his friends and relations; and to convey on board everything necessary to sustain life, together with all the different animals, both birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fearlessly to the deep.

Having asked the Deity whither he was to sail, he was answered, To the Gods; upon which he offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine admonition and built a vessel five stadia in length, and two in breadth. Into this he put everything which he had prepared, and last of all conveyed into it his wife, his children, and his friends. After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel; which not finding any food, nor any place whereupon they might rest their feet, returned to him again. After an interval of some days, he sent them forth a second time; and they now returned with their feet tinged with mud. He made a trial a third time with these birds; but they returned to him no more: from whence he judged that the surface of the earth had appeared above the waters.

He therefore made an opening in the vessel, and upon looking out found that it was stranded upon the side of some mountain; upon which he immediately quitted it with his wife, his daughter, and the pilot. Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the earth: and, having constructed an altar, offered sacrifices to the gods…� .

It should be noted that the account of the deluge relayed in the tablets discovered by George Smith differ only vary slightly from Berosus’ account, which differs only slightly from the story handed down by the Chaldean Abraham, who lived with Noah for about 58 years before the old patriarch died some 350 years after the great flood.

The Flood of Noah didn’t come as a surprise. It had been preached on for four generations. But something strange happened when Enoch was 65, from which time "he walked with God." Enoch was given a prophecy that as long as his firstborn son “Methusulah� was alive, the judgment of the flood would be withheld; but as soon as he died, the flood would be sent forth.

Enoch named his firstborn to reflect this prophecy. The name Methuselah comes from two roots: muth, a root that means "death;" and from shalach, which means "to bring," or "to send forth." Thus, the name Methuselah signifies, "his death shall bring." And, indeed, in the year that Methuselah died, the flood came.

Remembering that Abraham was the son of “Terah,� the high priest of the Chaldean city of Ur, and he was 58 years old when Noah the Chaldean died and would have heard the flood story from his oldest patriarch. Could the Chaldean name “Ardates,� mean, “When he dies it will happen?� And could the name “Xisuthrus� have the same meaning as the name “Noah� which is, “One who brings relief or comfort?�

The Chaldean month of “Daesius,� is the second month, which corresponds with the biblical account that it was in the second month that the flood came. But there is a two day discrepancy. The biblical account is the 17th day, whereas the other is the 15th day.

It is written in the ancient records that Eve knew that the world was to be destroyed by water and by fire, but she didn’t know in what order they would come.

Wanting to leave a written account of their life and times, she was stuck with the problem of what material should be used for those records. If they used clay tablets, and the fire came first, the clay tablets would bake hard and survive, but should the flood come first, the clay tablets would dissolve and their record would be lost.

But should they etch their record on stone, the flood would not affect them, but should the fiery destruction come first, the stone would crack and crumble into dust with the intense heat and the records would be lost. It was finally decided to engrave their history on stone tablets and wrap them in clay, upon which their history would be recorded also.

The more that I am forced to look at the flood accounts, the more I am convinced that some catastrophic event occurred some 4350 years ago, which caused worldwide devastating floods and tsunamis, of which the more accurate account, can be found in the Hebrew culture that came down from the Chaldean Abraham, and his family, who have remained intact as a racial religion for some 4,000 years.

Could the lakes and floods which Mike Baillie of (Queen’s University Belfast), suggests were formed around the time of the 2350 BC event identified by Courty, have been the result of impact, strikes, by a swarm of meteors that crossed earth’s orbit causing world-wide tsunamis and craters which have long since filled with water, which world wide event could have been the cause of all the flood stories that have come out of all the old ancient civilisations?

[Kir Komrik]

Shoot did I say that?

Ha, ha, pretty sure.

Well first of all I'm biased ...

I'm finally picking up what you're putting down and now I don't know how best to answer the question.

Whuuttt? I'm not putting down anything, or that wasn't my intent. I'm just saying that it is human nature to ascribe Agency to perfectly natural events, or that is what the research shows.

~ Kir Komrik: is it more likely that the flood narrative (which supposes divine agency) is attributable to Agenticity or is it more likely that Utnapishtim is The One, True God?

Definitely the former

Good choice. I agree.

Ready for the next question?