A Good God would not send a Flood!

[liamconnor]

Skeptics like to parts of the Bible literal, and leave out other parts. In one sense, they are no better at fundamentalist Christians!

Thus they like to attack Genesis 6 as depicting the Jewish and Christian God as wiping out all humanity with a flood.

Educated answers that this passage needs to be read against its own ancient background, is answered with contempt.

Fine. But do they take the rest literal?

Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Gen 6:5 NAS)

I am guessing they don't. I am guessing they want to eat their cake and have it too. They want to read the ancient text as having some doubtful deity destroy out of chaotic vengeance man; at the same time, they will no doubt defend the accusations against them: surely, they will say, not "every intent of their hearts" was only evil!!

But that is what the text says. The same text which they love to treat as literal because it adds ammo to their position, yet also, if read literally--as they are already are doing-- states that there is not a single good leaning of their impulses.

So what do you do? Take the flood as literal (because it suits your purpose) but defend the people (because surely people are not that bad...but wait! that means you can't read the first part as literal!).

Or do you admit this is an ancient piece of literature; and that YOU probably are not qualified in assessing it. Whether it is truly from a supernatural deity is irrelevant: you, at any rate, are not equipped to analyze it.

[Divine Insight]

Or do you admit this is an ancient piece of literature; and that YOU probably are not qualified in assessing it. Whether it is truly from a supernatural deity is irrelevant: you, at any rate, are not equipped to analyze it.

I reject your line of thinking entirely.

To being with, if the Bible is nothing more than ancient literature then probably no one is qualify in addressing it. Moreover, addressing fiction is hardly important anyway.

On the other hand, if this story is supposed to be a true account describing the interactions of our "creator" with humans then every human is qualified to analyze it for themselves.

What you seem to be missing here is that no human needs to appease liamconnor.

All that is important is whether or not the God depicted in this tale is real or not. If I'm not convinced by this story that it is a true description of God, then that's the bottom line. That would then be between me and the God this story is supposedly describing.

I'll be more than happy to take my chances on that. In fact, if the God described in this tale actually exists, then I can't see how he could complain for me seeing him as a complete inept idiot.

So there you go. That's all that needs to be addressed. There's no need to address any theists who don't understand how utterly absurd the Bible true is.

Also, as a theist you should be asking yourself why this God allowed things to get so far out of control in the first place? Even humans are wise enough to know to nip things in the bud before they get totally out of control. Yet the Bible expects us to believe that this God is such stupid that he waits until everything is totally out of control before intervening.

To each their own. But if you think that represents wise behavior then I just don't know what else to say.

Also, what did it solve?

Apparently NOTHING.

It solved nothing at all. After the flood everything just went right back downhill again until this very same God finally had to have humans crucify his only begotten Son to offer them undeserved amnesty for not being any better than the people he had previously drowned out.

And even that didn't work!

Even according to Jesus only FEW will make it into the kingdom of heaven.

What does that say? That says that this "creator God" loses the vast majority of human souls that he creates. That's a terribly record for a creator God.

Why should I believe in ancient tales that has our creator God being such an inept creator?

How is that supposed to make any sense?

[otseng]

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[ttruscott]

...at the same time, they will no doubt defend the accusations against them: surely, they will say, not "every intent of their hearts" was only evil!!

I know of no Christians who reject that every intent of their hearts was only evil. It is a corollary of born a sinner theology. So you can start doubting they will be defended by all...

[Tcg]

...at the same time, they will no doubt defend the accusations against them: surely, they will say, not "every intent of their hearts" was only evil!!

I know of no Christians who reject that every intent of their hearts was only evil. It is a corollary of born a sinner theology. So you can start doubting they will be defended by all...

You do realize that this assessment was of pre-flood humans? God, according to the myth, sent the flood to resolve this problem. If Christians believe it still exists, they must also believe their God is most incompetent.

The best laid plans of mice and God.


Tcg

[Zzyzx]

.

Skeptics like to parts of the Bible literal, and leave out other parts. .

Are some parts of the Bible literally true? Which ones and how can anyone interested make that determination?

[Divine Insight]

So what do you do? Take the flood as literal (because it suits your purpose) but defend the people (because surely people are not that bad...but wait! that means you can't read the first part as literal!).

Who needs to defend the people?

Who supposedly created these people in the first place? If God created them and they all turned out to be so horrible then who's fault is that? Doesn't this creator need to take some responsibility for the kinds of people he creates?

Also, why react with the ignorance and desperation of a mere mortal human? This is the type of solution I would expect from an uneducated barroom drunkards who can't even think of an intelligent creative solution.

We're supposed to be talking about an almighty omnipotent God who's in no rush to do anything in a hurry. He's magical remember? He can say things like "Let there be light", and light comes into being. He can turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt etc.

What would I expect from an intelligent creator?

And yes, what I would expect is paramount if I am being asked to believe these fables.

To begin with, as I stated in my previous post, I would expect this God to deal with this situation long before it gets this far out of control.

Secondly, since God is the one who creates new human souls why not just make the corrupt humans sterile? No more babies for them. Why would this God continue to place new human baby souls in the wombs of evil people? IMHO, that would be utterly stupid. Why should I believe that the creator of the entire universe and humanity is stupid?

I shouldn't. Therefore these ancient fables must be nothing more than man-made fictional tales. Most likely caused by an actual catastrophic flood that people actually believed was caused by an angry God.

This God is supposed to be the epitome of wisdom. So why continue to allow evil people to procreate? Just make all evil people sterile and they'll die off within a single generation. Problem solved with no need to a messy flood or having Noah build an ark to save the animal kingdom.

As far as I can see, the story is obviously false. It's that simple.

So what do you do? Take the flood as literal (because it suits your purpose) but defend the people (because surely people are not that bad...but wait! that means you can't read the first part as literal!).

By the way, we don't the flood as literal. We take the STORY of the flood as literal.

After all, if the flood isn't real in the story, then what exactly was the point in having Noah build an ark to save every pair of every kind of animal?

Besides, we know from science that no such global flood ever occurred during the history of humankind. Had that happened, it would not only show up in geological evidence (which is hasn't), but it would also need to necessarily show up in the history of human development. Again, there is no evidence for that either.

In these cases, lack of evidence for this global flood that supposedly killed all but a handful of humans acts as evidence that it never happened. So this is one case where lack of evidence equals evidence.

So the question isn't whether or not the God in this story is a decent God, the real question is whether this story even makes sense for any intelligent God to have been responsible for. Never mind the morality issues, there are a ton of other issues that demonstrate why these fables make no sense even if we allow that the people deserved to die.

There would still be the question of why the creator God is so inept at creating humans in the first place. A God who has to kill ever single human he created can hardly brag about being an efficient or even an effective creator. This would be a creator who is clearly a bumbling idiot and apparently can't even create a single decent human being. Not so much as ONE!

In fact, in Christianity, it's not even permitted that so much as a single solitary human could be righteous on his own merit, that would violate the need for Jesus.

So Christians worship a God who can't even create so much as a single solitary decent human being. What an extremely inept creator.

And we are all being blamed for his extreme ineptitude.

My only question is how anyone could take this religion seriously?