by Severus 108 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I love it Schism! So God used miraculous force fields a few thousand feet high to box in the human race and then miraculously filled it with water so as to kill all the plants and animals so as to save the 8 humans from viscious animals. Just why couldn't god give them a gun? Or maybe evn just "shut the mouths of the lions"?
A gun wouldn't do them any good without bullets, dumbass.
Or maybe evn just "shut the mouths of the lions"?
For how long?
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Flood thoughts:
Maybe the flood was a 'baptism' of the earth (the bible also talks of a time when it will be burnt in the future) - so we have a parallel with baptism by immersion and then a baptism of fire.
Scriptures mention 'deeps' being broken to release water which could refer to space or some hidden reservoir of water under the earth or ice sheets. I prefer the latter as the earth then isn't gaining and losing vast amounts of water in one go.
Why a flood and not a virus? Possible reasons: not just the people but their work had to be removed, a virus would survive to plague future generations, maybe the earth is alive and it had to do the cleansing so it used what it had at its disposal, maybe the flood created future conditions (oil?) that would play a big part in end time scenarios so there is an economy of effort or God needed people to understand His control over the elements (in LDS world Satan is said to 'rule' over the waters so in this case God would be proving His power over Satan). Just a range of ideas.
Problems of evidence: Ice cores, non-collapsed dry features such as giant asteroid impact sites, lack of flood run off features.
In my mind the only ideas I have is that the earth was covered in ice and the earth was much , much smaller (weight if ice + all water on the outside) - the great deeps (ice sheets) are broken up in a mad global warming (perhaps caused by a falling canopy of water releasing vast amounts of energy and allowing more sunlight in???) - the huge flooding would be global and would be over a 'lower' earth so requiring less water than currently. As the water then soaks into the earth you get the dual effect of expansion of the earth's crust from weight release and water absorbption. The ice cores thus survive as they are never covered, the small area of habitable land where man lives is flooded. Noah + family + all servants, non-covenant people live off the clean animals brought on the ship for food (not to save them) while God looks after the animals himself. After the flood the Ark opens and mankind spreads over a far larger inhabitable area, life spans reduced dramatically by loss of any water canopy and necessity to eat meat more than before and genetic issues from a reduced gene pool (not pure like Adam's.)
My understanding is that God doesn't have fingers to snap.
Do we need to split hairs here? It's a figure of speech.
Appears to me that what he did was quite 'effective'. Doesn't the account say that only 8 people survived? How much more effective do you think God needed to be in order to get the job done?
And how many years did he take to do so? The ark took a long time to construct, you can't tell me that was no easier way to accomplish the same thing. I also fail to see how the flood ended man's wickedness seeing as the big A is still coming. So to recap the earth is currently not in the condition that would bring it in line with god's will and neither is mankind. Sounds like it all worked for him eh?
A gun wouldn't do them any good without bullets, dumbass.
You think he couldnt make a gun with limitless ammunition? The jar of flour and oil never ran out after all. And are you telling me an all powerful god couldn't keep a few wild animals from tearing his creation apart?
Qcmbr,
Interesting angle with the baptism by water and fire.
A gun wouldn't do them any good without bullets, dumbass.You think he couldnt make a gun with limitless ammunition?
Without a doubt he could. The "problem" is that Peaceful Pete (the hit-&-run person who never came back to deal with the crap that came out of his mouth) suggested that God provide the Flood's survivors with "a gun" only. Peaceful Pete mentioned nothing about "ammunition".
My understanding is that God doesn't have fingers to snap.Do we need to split hairs here? It's a figure of speech.
So what you want is for YOU to be the only one allowed to "split hairs"?
Nothin' doin', Sis!
Or maybe evn just "shut the mouths of the lions"? -- peaceful pete.For how long? -- Schizm.
I'm still waiting for an answer to that one. For how long would you have God "shut the mouths of the lions" for the protection of the Flood's survivors?
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schizm,
I thought you made some good points.
I personally like researching the information of each side. There is a book out there written by two Geologists that give support FOR a global flood like the one mentioned in Noahs Day, it is called
Noahs Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries about the event that changed History, By Willian Ryan and Walter Pitman
I know this book is available at Amazon.com if anyone is interested for logical evidence given by two scientists that show the flood is plausable.
I think that just because the Jewish Nation wrote down the flood story in later times, it does not necessarily prove they stole it from legends of other nations. The Jewish people could very well have known and believed the flood prior to the Babylonians or Sumerians. The fact that these nations wrote it down on tablets first is not proof they made it up either.
I believe that all these nations and people were talking about the same event in history which was a great flood. They all had common ancestors in the survivors of the flood. Schizm makes a good point that the whole earth would not have to be flooded even though the bible says whole earth. The people could have been living in one specific area of the earth back then becuase remember there was no transportation like we have today so why would we expect them to be all through out the earth like we are today? Threfore what represented the "earth" for them would have been different than our understanding today.
Either way, I am still looking at information for and against and I would recomend everyone to do this. When I was in college I learned the importance of reasoning on issues from both sides and it really helps you to develop critical thinking and to be able to analyze information.
For those who feel this is a stupid thread anyway, why are you reading it then? It may not be an important issue for you but for some people of faith - it is.
I think sometimes he wants us to use our brains (aka "intelligence"). Our brains tell us that a global Flood is illogical. The idea that God would flood the entire globe in order to drown a people who are confined to a comparatively small area in a certain region of the world is ludicrous.
Whereas the logical thing is to assume god used forcefields? My intelligence is telling me that it is a retelling of a much older flood legend (it probably has its roots in a real event where some goatherder shoved his family and goats on a boat somewhere to avoid an entirely natural local flood) but is being retold as a morality tale.
I wonder how many christians who believe the story would start on a new career in shipbuilding if some nutcase came up to them in the street and told them god was going to flood the world again. Of course they might say that god has promised not to destroy everyone in a flood again, but it doesn't stop him doing it on a local level now and again does it (just to keep his hand in I guess)
What was the puspose of the flood? Why kill all the land going animals and leave the sharks alive? If he just wanted to kill the people, why not just create a virus, or wave his figurative hand and make them all disappear? What was the purpose of the flood? To catbert---regarding the above.....maybe it has something to do with the symbolism of water as a rebirth type of thing.....almost like baptism....submerging completely in water as to wash clean and become something new i dont know....just a thought
I think sometimes he wants us to use our brains (aka "intelligence"). Our brains tell us that a global Flood is illogical. The idea that God would flood the entire globe in order to drown a people who are confined to a comparatively small area in a certain region of the world is ludicrous.Whereas the logical thing is to assume god used forcefields? -- Caedes.
Yes, it definitely IS logical to assume God placed a high barrier around the circumference of the area where mankind lived at the time, in order to confine the flood waters to that specific area of the earth's surface. Why is it logical? It's because there is an additional example in the Bible where he basically did the same thing again.
Exodus 14:21-2221 Moses now stretched his hand out over the sea; and Jehovah began making the sea go back by a strong east wind all night long and converting the sea basin into dry ground, and the waters were being split apart. 22 At length the sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on dry land, while the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
Notice how that God prevented the waters of the Red Sea from spilling into the path the Israelites used to get to the other side of the Sea. Is it really such a stretch of the imagination to assume that God used the same method in order to keep the flood waters confined to a specific area in Noah's day? The only difference would be the height of the "wall" needed so that the waters would cover the mountains in the area where God caused the Flood. Are we to assume that "height" is a problem for God? To do so certainly would be illogical.
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Of course the WTS's reference book, Insight On The Scriptures disagrees with me, as seen on page 609:
Extent of the Deluge. This was no local flash flood.... How unreasonable to believe that Noah spent perhaps 50 or 60 years building a huge vessel of approximately 40,000 cu m (1,400,000 cu ft) for the survival of his family and a few animals through a mere local flood! If only a comparatively small area was affected, why the need of bringing into the ark specimens of "every living creature of every sort of flesh" in order to "preserve offspring alive on the surface of the entire earth"? (Ge 6:19; 7:3) Definitely this was a global deluge....
I wonder if it was perhaps Raymond Franz who was assigned to write on this subject? Doesn't really matter who it was, I suppose, but I know that he shared in writing the "Aid" book, which later evolved into "Insight On The Scriptures".
Insofar as the idea of Noah bringing onto the Ark specimens of "every living creature", this doesn't have to be understood in the strictest sense. It CAN be understood to simply refer to "every" creature which happened to have made that part of the world their habitat. In other words, Noah was to take on board ONLY those animals that lived in the specific area where the Flood was to take place. Of course this would greatly reduce the size of the Ark needed to preserve them all alive. Rather than having to make room for the specimens of every animal that exists, the only thing necessary was to make room on the Ark for the comparatively few species that lived in the affected area where the Flood occured.
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Yes, it definitely IS logical to assume God placed a high barrier around the circumference of the area where mankind lived at the time, in order to confine the flood waters to that specific area of the earth's surface.
Hmm so much more logical than it being a simple morality tale for children, of course. You can't assume that your interpretation is correct due to bearing some similarity to another morality tale in the same book.
