Faith in Noah and the Flood

[Willum]

So, geological observations and geologic science tells us a global flood didn't occur.
Physics tells us is it not survivable, and the boat won't float.
Biological sciences give us problems with food, genetic diversity and so on.

In addition, every other culture in the world has a flood story that it considers is a fairy-tale, comedy, or children's story.

How can a believer have faith that one Jewish story is true, and all the other cultures and facts depicting it as a fairy-tale, and demonstrating no evidence, are false?

I mean virtually every indigenous culture has a Flood that it considers a fable, why is the Jewish version, true?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 26 by 1213]

Really, in this day and age, you need me to hit a few words in Google for you?
If I do, will you renounce this Flood story? Will you admit how impossibly unlikely such a coincidence is if I do?
What is my benefit for doing your homework for you?
Since we all know what the conclusion will be when I do.

BESIDES, answering a question WITH a question, is impolite, you answer mine first.
"Or do you believe that the creators of the fables were wrong in believing they were fairy-tales? What is your justification for assuming they are wrong and your champion goat-herders, are right?

[Replying to post 27 by 1213]

Kensaw has some great points too - which one of God's chosen gave us syphilis?

Yes, I believe what the Bible tells and I think all living nations are descendants of Noah’s family.

So, you believe that the entire human race is suffers from horrendous inbreeding? Cousins with cousins, brothers and sisters?

I tell you what - YOU can be related to Noah and sons, if that is what you want to believe. The concept of my great(^N) grandmother boinking my great(^N)granduncle, really does not fill me with holy zeal - but to each their own. You'll run to excuse Lot's daughters as well. Quite a genealogy.

PS-I believe God was imagined by goat-herders who were afraid of thunder, and turned into a conscription by the Romans, to make those goat-herders obey Rome. So, saying what I believe, without any back-up doesn't doesn't really do much, does it?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 26 by 1213]

[center]

Not skeptic enough, yo[/center]

Do you have anything to back up your claims? I find it difficult to believe your claims about what is impossible and what ancient people kept as fables.

I think Bible flood story is true, because I think we can find all things that would be results of that event.

ok.. two things:

1. It's great that you demand evidence.

2. It's weird that you don't provide any.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 27 by 1213]

…If you believe the bible, then you must believe that Noah and his family were the only ones who survived the flood. No one else on the planet could have possibly survived it. Thus all these fables of floods could only have come from one single source (ie Noah and his family), which only show that a flood happened.

Yes, I believe what the Bible tells and I think all living nations are descendants of Noah’s family.

That's nice.
I have one question, if you don't mind.

Here it is...

____________

Question:

• 
  
  Why?
  
  

____________

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 27 by 1213]

Yes, I believe what the Bible tells and I think all living nations are descendants of Noah’s family.

Then why did no line of descendents receive the incredible genes Noah must have had to be fathering kids at 500 years old with a woman of similar age, starting an ark build at 600, then living 350 years after the supposed flood to die at 950? We know for a fact that it is not even remotely possible for an anatomically modern human (and 4500 to 6000 years ago is a fully anatomically human as homo sapiens were the only members of the genus homo left on earth at such recent dates) to have lived to 950 years old. Surely there would have been some descendents with just a small dose of those magic genes still around living to even just a few hundred years, if not Noah's 950. Claims that such a person did live that long surely casts doubt on the rest of the fairy tale of Noah's flood.

Not to mention, as has been pointed out already, that every analysis based on geology, human genetic diversity, distribution of plant and animal life on Earth, etc. has proven that a global flood covering the highest mountains never happened in the period described for Noah's flood. Far too much evidence against it, not a shred of evidence to support it (that can pass any scientific scrutiny).

[Compassionist]

So, geological observations and geologic science tells us a global flood didn't occur.
Physics tells us is it not survivable, and the boat won't float.
Biological sciences give us problems with food, genetic diversity and so on.

In addition, every other culture in the world has a flood story that it considers is a fairy-tale, comedy, or children's story.

How can a believer have faith that one Jewish story is true, and all the other cultures and facts depicting it as a fairy-tale, and demonstrating no evidence, are false?

I mean virtually every indigenous culture has a Flood that it considers a fable, why is the Jewish version, true?

There is no proof that it is true. It makes no sense in terms of biology, geology, physics, etc. Just because some people believe something is true it doesn't make it so.

[1213]

Which one of Noah's descendants carried syphilis, yellow fever, scarlet fever, mumps, rubella, HPV, herpes, gonorrhea, the flu, all the colds, hepatitis (all of them), and the rest of the human diseases and virals on the Ark.

Difficult to know, without any information about that, but I believe no one of them had those diseases.

If you do a search at this website I believe you can find several threads about flood geology that thoroughly debunk any notion that there was a worldwide flood.

I have only found speculation and beliefs, no real evidence or proof against the great flood as described in the Bible.

In fact the existence of certain geological features directly contradict the claim that there was a worldwide flood, because they couldn't possibly have happened if the flood story was true. You think it is true, but the entirety of the physical evidence disagrees with you...

Obviously, I disagree with that opinion.

[1213]

Really just how reliable were the Jews at passing down tales from one generation to the next?

I believe they were amazingly accurate. Reason why I think so is that they have kept things that would seem to basic person unreasonable. Also, when people compare oldest Jewish scriptures to newest, they seem to be very similar, so there is good reason to assume that they have done good job in preserving stories.

How did the story of Noah get so messed up as Noah's descendants spread throughout the world?

It seems to me that most people are not as meticulous as Jews.

[1213]

Really, in this day and age, you need me to hit a few words in Google for you?

No thanks, you couldn’t get anything meaningful by doing so.

BESIDES, answering a question WITH a question, is impolite, you answer mine first.
"Or do you believe that the creators of the fables were wrong in believing they were fairy-tales? What is your justification for assuming they are wrong and your champion goat-herders, are right?

I apologize. I think your question is like asking “have you stopped beating your wife�. You make question that seems to be based on assumption that I have no reason to believe. Why should I believe that the other nations originally taught their flood stories as fables? Maybe it is true, I don’t think it really is an argument against Bible flood.

I believe Bible story, because I see the evidence for it.

So, you believe that the entire human race is suffers from horrendous inbreeding? Cousins with cousins, brothers and sisters?

Yes.

I tell you what - YOU can be related to Noah and sons, if that is what you want to believe. The concept of my great(^N) grandmother boinking my great(^N)granduncle, really does not fill me with holy zeal - but to each their own. You'll run to excuse Lot's daughters as well. Quite a genealogy.

It is not about what I want to believe. I believe it, because I see it to be true.

PS-I believe God was imagined by goat-herders who were afraid of thunder, and turned into a conscription by the Romans, to make those goat-herders obey Rome.

I think that belief is not very reasonable. On what basis the “goat-herders� were afraid of thunder? Why would the Romans tell a story about rebels who they killed or kept in prison?

[1213]

[Replying to post 33 by Blastcat]

Why? (believe what the Bible tells)

Because I see evidence for it to be true. Also, if we would think Bible is just an imaginary story, there should be an explanation, why was it made. I don’t think there is any reasonable explanation for Bible, other than things really went as described in the Bible and people wrote it down. So, by using Occam’s razor, I think Bible is true, because it is the best explanation for its existence.

If people would be just human imagination, it would be something like what atheists could manage to do. Not very good, not very farsighted and without “contradictions�. It would be without things that natural people don’t comprehend.

[1213]

Then why did no line of descendents receive the incredible genes Noah must have had to be fathering kids at 500 years old with a woman of similar age, starting an ark build at 600, then living 350 years after the supposed flood to die at 950?

Probably because of the inbreeding.

Also, Bible tells God limited human life at one point so that people could not live as long as Noah.

Not to mention, as has been pointed out already, that every analysis based on geology, human genetic diversity, distribution of plant and animal life on Earth, etc. has proven that a global flood covering the highest mountains never happened in the period described for Noah's flood. Far too much evidence against it, not a shred of evidence to support it (that can pass any scientific scrutiny).

In all those analysis, the idea of the flood event is constructed stupidly. So obviously, the result is bad for the Bible story, if all the premises are unreasonable and wrong.

If the flood happened as the Bible suggests, the important premises are:

1. There was one continent at the beginning
2. There was vast water storage below the original continent
3. Flood came when the original continent was broken and collapsed
4. Most animals and plants drowned
5. Sediments were carried by flooding water
6. Few peoples survived from it

Now, if those things really happened, we should find following things in nature as evidence for the event:

1. Fossils
2. Oil and gas fields that are from the death organic material
3. Several continents
4. Sedimentary rocks and strata in great measures
5. Compression lines of the new continents that are parts of the original continent
6. Stories of the great flood

Now, all those things can be seen in nature, so there is great amount of evidence for the flood. And on the other hand, we don’t have any reasonable evidence against it, at least if one understand what really happened.