Why was there a need for a global flood?

You missed my point completely. My point being:A lot of people talk about Noah's Flood.If you don't believe so just go through the different flood threads on this site alone.Then see how many threads you can find on extinction events.Had God just killed everybody but the occupants of the ark without the flood NOBODY would be talking about it.It would have been filed away with all the other extinction events that have taken place.Therefore it would not be an example.God Bless,

---

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Are you under the impression that simpler is always the way things should be?What would you rather have? a portrait by Van Gogh or a photograph he took?

I doubt that. People talk about the flood bcause it's in the bible and some christians try to prove that it happened. If the story in the bible was "god snapped his fingers and all but Noah and his family fell dead" you'd still have christians talking about it and trying to find evidence for "the biblical finger snapping".

---

soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

This is not a quote from the Scriptures. The Scriptures do talk about the wickedness and continual evil in the world. The remainder of that statement was my perception of how children could suffer in a world such as the one that the Bible describes. The Scriptures are clear about sins such as sexual immorality and there are examples of child sacrifice.I was hoping that this wording would give the idea that it was my perception of Scripture:

quote:

---

Let us think about this for a moment though ...Is it not possible ...Could that be ... Think of every way ...

---

Looking back, it was probably inconsistent. I should have been clearer about what I was trying to say.I think the term incomprehensible really struck me. I should have chosen my words more carefully.

---

"There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be." - Charles Sanders Pierce

Excellant point.

---

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Because humans are loud.That is the reason in Gilgamesh where the flood story comes from. The various Gods in the Gilgamesh story got sicked and tired of the racket that man was making so they decided to kill all of man to restore the peace and quiet. Good thing that one God, Ida I think is her name realized if no more humans, no more sacrifices.

The real reason given for the flood and not any other method of destruction was to give the people of that generation a time to repent. Noah had to work hard building the ark for many years. Bringing the animals was not an easy task at all. Also, the entire time that Noah was building the ark, he would warn the people who noticed what he was doing of the purpose of his ark. The people had a chance to repent. G-d does not enjoy destroying His creations. G-d was giving the people a fair chance to repent, and the flood would not have happened. If you want more on this concept, see the book of Jonah. This book also gives the story of a wicked nation that is given the chance to repent. Even as the waters started to come down, it was not dangerous. The people had a chance to repent until the bitter end. The method shows an attribute of G-d's mercy.

What chance did newborn infants, born in the months and weeks before the flood, have to repent? What could a newborn infant possibly have done that would require repentance anyway?How could collective punishment on this scale possibly be merciful?Mutate and Survive

---

"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade

A "chance"? OK, let me put it like this. Suppose I was to go about preaching the following: Now, do you not see that if I went around saying stuff like that, you wouldn't believe that I was a prophet of God, you'd just think that I'd gone off my head.Same with Noah. Just because someone goes around saying: "God tells you this, that, and the other" is no sign that you should pay attention to the man. I've met people who thought they were the second coming of Jesus.One bloke telling people stuff does not constitute a divine warning.

Two birds with one stone. After Marduk defeated Tiamat and divided her body to make the firmament with the earth in the centre, the El/YHWH guy had to deal with all that water that was held back. He knew that the firmament wasn't going to hold indefinitely (humans would eventually start trying to break through it...) so he decided to pierce holes in the top and bottom of Tiamat's body. That was one bird: the mess left by the Babylonian religion that needed sorting out.The second bird was the terrible wickedness of mankind. He killed that one literally, using the first bird as the stone. It's very clever like that.So basically God threw one bird at another bird, killed them both and drowned the world.

---

But seriously: Genesis is more of an attempt to describe God's evolving relationship with mankind. The God of Genesis, elohim, was much like Zeus. He was a physically present being (later in Exodus he'll travel with the Jews in a special tent), who was limited in his knowledge of humans (he had some prophesy and manipulation abilities, but it was not entirely perfect).His first attempt was to create two of them, and try and keep them 'captive' in a garden of paradise. They rebelled against this and became partially divine in nature, with a sense of morality and the will to do wrong. Then God sort of let them go about their business and tried to let them find their own destiny, trusting that eventually they would initiate a relationship with him perhaps. It failed, there was no easy going back. This time, he chose one family (Noah's) of people to survive and hoped their goodness would be heritable.This didn't pan out too well, so he got down and personal and started micromanaging one bloodline to realize his great vision. He would create a great nation out of the loins of Abraham, eventually. After a loooong time. Indeed, we're still kind of waiting for it to pan out since the children of Israel are still fairly thin on the ground compared with those nations (compare with the population of Egypt).So - God killed everyone as part of his experiments in 'how to best deal with a creature which has the power to defy me'. He quickly realized it was a really stupid way of dealing with humans, and promised not to do it again. So that's OK. Who hasn't inadvertantly murdered hundreds of thousands of people in an effort to develop a relationship with them?Ultimately, though it isn't the party line, God was an evolving character throughout Genesis and Exodus with the occasional massacre learning experience, argument, bargaining and the like. He didn't start off as 'omnipotent' in the sense our imagination has come to understand. Though the creation is represented as a 'let there be...and there was' kind of guy, the following chapters has him wandering around chatting to people. Why bother asking Adam where he is? God is everywhere and all knowing. Why ask Adam why he hides his nudity, he knows your heart. Clearly, this is a lesser deity than the perfect celestial dictator, though still pretty damn impressive.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

---

No - I don't believe a cosmic Jewish zombie can make me live forever if I eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that I accept him as my master, so he can then remove an evil force from my soul that is present in all of humanity because a dirt/rib woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree about 6,000 years ago just after the universe was created. Why should I?

Yes and then wait for those happy men in their clean white coats coming to take you away to the funny farm.

You may not realize it but you have stumbled upon a very important question in Judaism, and all other religions for that matter. The question you are asking is: Why should I be held responsible for not believing in G-d if it does not make any sense? How can G-d punish people for not believing something? You now ask why G-d would imagine that anyone would be responsible to listen to what Noah was doing and accept it as a sign. Similar questions go along the lines of how can G-d expect little kids to believe in G-d while the great scientists are atheists? How can G-d expect anyone to believe in G-d if there are so many smart people that don't? All of these questions have been addressed already, and the answer uniform to all of these questions. The existence of a G-d is logical to children that have not tasted the sweetness of sin. However, when someone begins to engage in pleasurable sins, doubt will fill his mind and he will not be able to think clearly without the bias of leading his own life in the manner that he sees fit. Many people believe that they are intellectually honest with themselves, but this is not the case. Indeed, when one decides whether he believes that G-d exists he is being swayed by the bias of his own sins. It is hard to give up a pleasurable lifestyle and admit that most of ones pleasures have been sinful. Therefore, what seems to be intellectual honesty is nothing but falsehood. This kind of bias is clearly affecting human beings in all aspects of life. Now getting back to the topic at hand, the people in the time of the flood knew that they were being wicked. They also knew that G-d existed, before they began to taste the sweetness of sins. It was obvious to all of them that Noah was not a crazy man, and they knew that a punishment of this nature would not be so far fetched. People who openly deny the existence of G-d are actually wondering why G-d does not destroy them at any given instant. They use this as a proof against G-d. The people of the time of the flood were no different than the atheist of this time. They were trying to deny the existence of G-d in order to engage in their own forms of pleasure. They did not even need a warning because they understood that bad would befall them if they continued to deny G-d. G-d gave the warning as an act of mercy, and gave them a reason to want to repent.Just as a side note, I have explained that the waters did not start as a flood. In the beginning it was nothing more than a strong rain storm. Noah and his family went into the ark, and the people still refused to repent. Not only that, the people tried to prevent Noah from entering the ark himself. The wild animals were there in order to protect Noah from the sinners that wanted Noah to die as well.

How do you know what the people at the time of Noah believed? What about those nowhere near Mesopotamia how could they know what Noah was doing and why?

---

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Boloney. This "sin" crap has nothing to do with my atheism. You're making stuff up.

---

"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD

I am trying to answer the question in the beginning of this thread. The question is why G-d used a flood in place of any other method of destruction. The question does not ask why destruction was necessary to begin with. But in case you think you have some good questions, let me inform you that the Jewish Rabbis have already come up with better questions. For example: Why did the animals deserve to die? What did they do wrong? What about any other righteous person in the world? Was Noah the only righteous person that existed? Also, you’re right, what about all of the innocent little babies? What did they do wrong? You would have a better question regarding the sin of Adam and Eve. Why should all of the children of Adam and Eve be punished for the sins of two people? Very good question. The answer involves the status of the world that existed in that time, and the reason for the world’s existence. The Torah describes the corruption that existed in the world at that time. The worst sins were being committed by every single human (other than very few individuals), and the world was a most barbaric place. Murder, rape, robbery, idolatry, and general immorality were all over the world. Let us just say that you would have had a miserable time living in that generation. People did not want to believe in G-d, and everyone did what was right in his or her own eyes. The purpose of the world is to have a human with free will able to receive reward for choosing good. However, if a human does evil, the entire world becomes corrupted. The entire world had become almost completely evil, and there was no turning back for the human beings (this is of course after the time given for repentance during the 100 years when Noah was building the ark). The Torah testifies that the animals were not mating in the normal manner, and even they were engaging in sexual pleasures without the will to have children. The animals had become corrupted because of the evil that the humans were polluting the world with. You mention about the innocent children as if such things must have existed. The people of that generation were trying out many different methods of birth control, and they had no desire to actually father or mother children. The generation of the flood was completely selfish, and they believed in the right to choose. Let us just say that the world was a torturous place, and letting such things continue would have been unjustifiable. Many atheists agree that if G-d does exist he would have all the right in the world to punish atheists. G-d was removing the suffering brought about by uncivilized behavior of the human beings. The children born into such a world (those that managed to be born through an accident) would not have enjoyed themselves. They would have not been cared for by their parents, and they would be molested by the savage humans. Then they would grow up to become savages themselves (if they would survive the torture). The flood should not be seen as a punishment but as merciful intervention into this world.