The Flood did it or didn't it happen

[jedi]

What is your perspective? Please try to bring informed answers to this discussion so that everyone can gain a proper perspective on your argument for or against.

[rufian]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Believe it did based on the culture involved, their ability to understand nature(with help of course), their boat building ability, etc.

If it didn't it is just another one of those educating tales.

[Mutty]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Well I for one believed that it happened. I do know that there is a segment of society that likes to use the concept that things in the Bible (namely the Old Testament) were only written to TEACH something and were NOT actual facts. This helps to undermine the story and take away the effect in a very subtle fashion because once you remove the miracle, then you work on removing God and then you can just about do anything after that. I also feel that IF this story was NOT in the Bible, it would have been easier accepted, but to some, to give ANY credibilty to the Bible is as if they are endorsing it and God forbid that happens!

In the case of the Flood, people talk about it as a mythical tool to simply show that the righteous will be saved by God or as Sukuna pointed out, make up this grandiose story simply to explain boat building. I just find it very coincidental that the TWO subjects in the Bible that are mentioned as being universal (One God and the Flood) are still to this day mentioned universally from one corner of the globe to the next. The death and resurrection of Jesus is NOT as well known, but go the peoples of the South Pacific all the way up to the cold reaches of the north and even in the remote jungles in between and you will hear faint memories of one supreme being and a great Flood that covered the earth even if the earth to them meant their border limits.

And while we may hear about faint memories of a supreme Being once worshipped by the great ancestors, the Flood narrative is still so vivid and fresh in many cultures. It's the ONE story found in the Bible everyone, generally speaking, seem to agree on even if the extended details may vary.

[jedi]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Well I would like to use some back up for this post so I promise to check out data or research being done on the question. What I do know is that on Mount Ararat explorers have discovered a building or thing that resembles very closely the biblical discription of Noah's ark. Now it happens that according to what they say, with global warming, a huge amount of the ice has melted on the mountain side and this building has surfaced. Now if there is an Ark discovered then that must validate the biblical flood. I believe of course that the flood did happen because of other evidence, given from the same Discovery Channel which I watch quite often myself. The thing is the Discovery channel does not give arguments for or against anything they quite simply give the facts as scientist produce them. I donot believe of course everything to be fact, but as I said I believe that it is true. The rainbow is also evidence of this to me since I have seen rainbows on many occasions after a great thunder shower.

Anyway I am going to look into this more and come back.

[rufian]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

To Mutty. About the story being similar in many parts of the world could be explained with anthropology & ethnology. The people also have other things in common.

[rebelgirl]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

I don't believe it happened as I stated in my post on the other thread. the link to the FAQs on talkorigins did a great job of explain some of the reasons I don't believe it happened. My position is one based on archeological and mostly Geological evidence. I don't know if it is necessary for me to elaborate further but I can if there are specific things in my position you would like me to elaborate on.

Oh Mutty I wasn't trying to work at removing God [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But I don't believe that the bible is literal, and over the course of my learning have questioned many of it's tales and found that facts do not support most of it's stories. As for dismantling God that is not my purpose but I don't believe in a single deity, so my statements, and expressions reflect that. Still I'm not concerned with destroying your belief in God I figure it's and answer we will all receive in death and it's not really of concern to me who is wrong or right. I respect your belief in your God. I like to debate on philosophical, and spiritual matters though, because I enjoy the thought process it inspires in me.

I hope when I said "thanks Mutty this is fun" that you weren't offended, because it was the philosophical debate I was enjoying and that was fun. Not any desire to kill your God [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Mutty]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

No Rebel. Not offended at all. Up against work so can't elaborate much right now.

Sukuna, yes they have a a few things in common. But think about it, this is ONE story they all seem to have in common. Are the chances greater they are ALL lying or that something DID happen to actually give basis to this story. Remember, we are not talking about people in one area or just on one side of the world, but the from one end to the next. Some of these people are not even aware another group of people exist, plus they had the stories long BEFORE any Christian missionaries showed up with it. In fact, it is one of the few things that stunned missionaries...hearing so called remote "savage" people recreate the story for them without the aid of the Bible.

[rufian]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Originally posted by Mutty:
[qb]Sukuna, yes they have a a few things in common. But think about it, this is ONE story they all seem to have in common. Are the chances greater they are ALL lying or that something DID happen to actually give basis to this story. Remember, we are not talking about people in one area or just on one side of the world, but the from one end to the next. Some of these people are not even aware another group of people exist, plus they had the stories long BEFORE any Christian missionaries showed up with it. In fact, it is one of the few things that stunned missionaries...hearing so called remote "savage" people recreate the story for them without the aid of the Bible.[/qb]

Well Mutty I am refering to their ancestral origin and not like most mean it either. Distance means nothing, let's not forget that procreation and travelling occurred the people having this original story have been spread all over the world.
For example, African pygmies are not aware of Papuan pygmies' existance, but if one observes both groups they are about 80% the same in every aspects of culture. If both were to tell the same tale it would not mean that it is more likely to be the truth both that we are dealing with one and the same people.

This flood whether true or not is a very important story. As to geology, I trust the oral traditions of my forefathers above all.

[Mutty]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Well Sukuna, you make the other point I made in the other thread. That is, the Flood affected an initial group of people, whose survivors told it to their descendants who in migrating across the globe took the story with them ensuring it could be found in every part of the world. This however still does NOT explain whether it happened or not. However, one has to wonder why THIS particular story stuck so deep into the pysche and fabric of human history. Why are whole traditions built around it, again, all around the world? Why is its hero immortalized and revered, again, worldwide. And we are not taling about something in recent human history either, but something that stretches back to a time into the deep reaches of man's existence. The only two other items I personally have ever come to realize is so universal are the idea of one supreme being (or just the idea of supreme beings and the notion that gods once walked amongst men.

The story has five basic ingredients. 1)Man became unbearable in the sight of God(s). 2)God(s) sought out a righteous man and warned him and instructed him to built a safety vessel. 3)The safety vessel. 4)The subsequent disaster most often by water. 5) the birth of a new race of man.

[rufian]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Real nice discussion indeed. But this is why I gone to the other side. I have to give you a voodoo answer sorry. And still we agree, I think.

- The meaning of water
- The meaning of birth
- The meaning of death
- The meaning of the woman

[Mutty]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Now we are drifting from the literal to the mystical. Such things could have been gleaned from it but they never occured to me as being the PRIMARY reasons or truth. And I gather these mystical 'truths' are taken from but one people and not the whole world per se.

[jedi]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Well here is a little information I dug up on the Flood: Excerpt for a book "THE FLOOD"
By Alfred M. Rehwinkel, MA, BD, LLD Professor of Theology.

Dr. Rehwinkel, gives many different perspectives on the "Flood" debate. His book includes the Biblical, Geological, Anthropological as well the Evolutional examination of the event. Here are just some of what he has to say:

From chap. 1.
The Biblical account of the Flood is found in the sixth, seventh, eight, and ninth chapters of Genesis.

oops to be continued.........

[Mutty]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Have that book right here in my hand Jedi. Have had it for years in my library now.

[jedi]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

(((Mutty))) Mi busy yuh see it is a shame. I am going to try to do some work on this later. Carry on, me gawn again.

[Mutty]

Re: The Flood did it or didn't it happen

Was roaming through my library and came across a bit of interesting information. Considering the book and the author (well known and renowned), the first person who came to mind was Rebel. The author is not a Christian as far as I know, does not promote the Bible or the God of the Bible. If anything, he is probably more in line with New Age thinking. However, his work (not beliefs) is impressive to me.

I was reading where he speaks of the Great Flood myths around the world. This is what he states:

'More than 500 deluge legends are know around the world, and in a survery of 86 of these (20 Asiatic, 3 European, 7 African, 46 American and 10 from Australia and the Pacific), the specialist researcher Dr Richard Andree concluded that 62 were entirely independent of the Mesopotamian and Hebrew accounts'

He goes on to point out that when Jesuit priests finally made it to China and were given access to the Imperial library (over 4,230 volumes) which was said to contain knowledge handed down from ancient times and contained 'al knowledge,' they were shocked to find a number of traditions which speak of a Great Flood. Some of these accounts mention how the waters in the bosom of the earth rushed upwards with violence and overflowed the earth which is a strinkingly simlar account to the biblical version which states that the fountains of the deep broke.

Of great note to me though is how so many of these traditions mention a common theme...that of men becoming evil and the gods reacting with a flood. One such account was found in the funerary text in the tomb of the Pharoah Seti I. It tells of the reason for the Great Deluge. Interstingly enough, the reason is set out in Chapter CLXXV of the book of the Dead. The speech is attributed to the moon god Thoth who is associated with the biblical Enoch who lived in the days when "the sons of God" (Genesis 6) came down to earth and taught men evil. It reads as thus:

'They have fought fights, they have upheld strifes, they have done evil, they have created hostilities, they have made slaughter, they have caused trouble and oppresion...[Therefore] I am going to blot out everything which I have made. This earth shall enter into the watery abyss by means of a raging flood and will become even as it was in primeval time.'

Compare that to Genesis 9:5-7 AND 17

'Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every intent of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

'"And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which [is] the breath of life; everything that [is] on the earth shall die."'

Again, could all these people have gone to bed with a full stomach and dreamt the same nightmare? Fantasy, pure myth, legend or an actual event which has haunted the pages of history in the fantasies, myths and legends?