Well, I've been waiting for a long time to post this one. It's my personal favorite. Usually, when people critisize the flood, they concentrate on the logistics, because the pickings are so easy. However, I get hung up on the motivation. I mean really, just think about the implications of horny angels.
As always, if you would like a formatted copy of the whole book, just drop me your email address.
THE FLOOD
One of the more colorful stories in the Bible is the story of the flood. It is a story that appeals to the imagination. It contains all the elements of a good children’s story - animals, crime and punishment, sweeping events that captivate the reader’s interest, and a happy ending. In fact, children’s literature is precisely where the flood story should end up, placed along side Mother Goose and Cinderella.
There are many reasons why the flood story as told by the Bible could never have happened. For instance, the amount of water required to cover the highest mountains would be astronomical. It is physically impossible for the atmosphere to absorb that much water, and drop it as rain. Even if it could be done, five miles of water hovering over the heads of the pre-deluge earth would have created atmospheric pressure so intense that they would have been as flat as pancakes, not to mention the fact that they would be in complete darkness due to the blocking of light from the sun. Core samples of arctic ice show no evidence of either a global flood or a pre-flood tropical climate. Then there is the fact that several civilizations, such as the Egyptian and the Chinese, have written histories that predate the flood. The pyramids were built about two hundred years before the flood, and show no water damage. And, of course, the zoological difficulties are huge. How could fresh water and salt water fish survive in a common pool? And, did Noah drop off kangaroos in Australia on his way to Ararat?
The list of arguments against the literal interpretation of the flood account is so long that it would be tiresome to go through it all. Besides, others have already done this better than I can. Most people don’t take it seriously, anyway.
I would like to take a completely different approach. I will assume that the flood story is literally true in all of its details, and follow the logic through to its inevitable conclusion. Particularly, I am concerned with its motivation. To begin, a short recap of the events is in order.
The Story of the Flood
After the creation of the human race, things went along on their merry way for a long time. If you follow the list of who begat whom, and how long each of them lived, you come to the conclusion that Adam was created around 4000 BC.But, after about a millennium and a half, trouble started to brew. Some angels became inflamed with lust for human women and took on human form. They mated with humans, forming a race of huge bullies. Things got so bad that God decided that he would wipe out all life from the earth and start over again.
It turns out that in all the earth, there was only one good man. So, God told this man, Noah, to build a huge boat that would house samples of every form of non-water based life.Then, after working for 100 years, God loaded Noah, his family, and all the animals onto the ark, and then it started to rain. By this time, it was around the year 2400 BC.
It rained for 40 days and nights, during which time, enough water fell to cover even the highest mountains.When the earth was wiped clean, the waters receded, and Noah let his family and the animals out of the ark to begin repopulating the planet.
The Problem
As I mentioned earlier, this is a story that appeals to persons on a childish level. Unfortunately, there are persons who believe that it is literally true in its every detail. This belief forces these persons into a very distasteful position, as we will now see.The remainder of this essay is intended for a mature audience, so Christians may want to skip to the next one.
The initial act that started the chain of events, is described by the following bible verses:
“Now it came about that when men started to grow in numbers on the surface of the ground and daughters were born to them, the sons of the true God began to notice the daughters of men, that they were good looking; and they went taking wives for themselves, namely all whom they chose.” - Genesis 6:1,2 (NWT)
Within the next three verses, things deteriorated so much that the only reasonable act for a loving God would be to murder all life. It seems a little odd to me that the angels who started all of this escaped back to heaven, but the humans, who were only secondary to the story, and the animals, who didn’t know what the hell was going on, were executed.
The key point here, is that the event that kicked off the flood was the desire of angels to mate with humans.
In other words, the angels got horny. Now, this has some interesting implications. From this story, and a few other Bible references, we can piece together an interesting picture of the nature of heaven.
The sex drive in humans and animals is caused by chemicals that are produced in the body. In fact, a person’s sex drive can be eliminated or changed through surgery and hormone therapy. The point of the matter is that, without these chemicals, there is no sex drive.
At this point, we must pause a moment to consider the nature of angels. According to the Bible, angels are direct creations of God. They do not reproduce. As well, they do not have the inherited original sin of Adam and Eve to taint them. They are perfect. This does not mean that they are incapable of sin. It merely means that they are incapable of accidental sin. If an angel sins, it is because he meant it. It also means that if an angel feels sexual desire, it must have been placed there by his creator.
In order for an angel to become inflamed with lust for a human woman, it would be necessary for the angel to have a sex drive of some sort. If they were completely neuter in every way, they would find human women about as attractive as we find rocks. For this story to function, God must have created angels with sex drives.
Conclusion # 1: Angels are created with a sex drive.
Now that we have established this unusual fact, let’s continue. Notice that the Bible says that the angels found human women attractive, and they took on the bodies of men. Also, notice that it does not say that any of them found human men attractive, and none of them took on the bodies of women. This leads us inescapably to our next conclusion.
Conclusion # 2: All angels are men.
Some of you may be tempted to jump ahead of me, but let’s go slow, and develop this carefully. Our next area of inquiry is regarding the possibility of angelic reproduction.
Jesus gives us some insight into the nature of angelic interrelationships:
“For in the resurrection, neither do men marry, nor are women given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven.” - Matthew 22:30 (NWT)
In addition to this direct statement, we note that there is no reference anywhere in the Bible to female angels, angelic marriage, or angelic reproduction of any sort. This leads us to our next conclusion:
Conclusion # 3: Angels have no natural outlet for their sexual urges.
Finally, I must add some information regarding the quantities of angels.
The book of Daniel makes reference to “ten thousand times ten thousand” standing before God. A quick multiplication shows that there are one hundred million angels present in this scene, and there may be others as well.
Also, angels have been in existence for a long time. The Bible says that God rested after creating Adam and Eve, so any angels that exist must have been created before them; therefore, angels are ancient.
Conclusion # 4: There are lots and lots of angels and they have a lot of time
on their handsNow, for the slower ones among us, who have not yet figured out what I am getting at, let’s put all four conclusions together, and finish this off:
- Angels are created with a sex drive
- All angels are men
- Angels have no natural outlet for their sexual urges
- There are lots and lots of angels, with lots and lots of timeWith this logic in mind, we can deduce that heaven must be like a huge prison shower room. I suppose that there are some people who have always had this concept of heaven, or at least hoped for it, but you will have to admit that this is not the mainstream viewpoint. If it were, the Cistine Chapel would be restricted to adults only.
I think it’s safe to say that this exercise illustrates just how ridiculous is the story of the flood. These conclusions, although absurd, are the natural outgrowth of the story, itself. In order for the events of the flood to get off the ground, this must be true.
So, choose for yourself: either heaven is a massive San Francisco bath house, or the story of the flood is just another yarn.