Summations Only

Is it seaworthy? It would seem quite easy to build the thing to scale, but not put it in the water. Hell, he could have made it from cement.

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"Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Othersfor example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einsteinconsidered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws."-Carl Sagan"On a personal note I think he's the greatest wrestler ever. He's better than Lou Thesz, Gorgeous George -- you name it."-The Hulkster on Nature Boy Ric Flair

Not exactly. You'd just be keeping with a literal reading. It pretty clearly states that Noah built the Ark, but that God gathered the animals for him, or at least that they magically appeared on schedule. So no inconsistancy there. No mention of the Robot Monkeys, though.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon

Yes, yes it does. But: then that depends on your definition of "clearly". if we read it literally, the animals just poofed there: no god involved.

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"Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Othersfor example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einsteinconsidered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws."-Carl Sagan"On a personal note I think he's the greatest wrestler ever. He's better than Lou Thesz, Gorgeous George -- you name it."-The Hulkster on Nature Boy Ric Flair

You are correct. Here's Genesis 7:8-9

quote:

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Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.

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Poof!

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon

But it wasn't a new god, was it? I admit it's been a long time since I read the story, but if I remember correctly the whole idea was that god was angry with mankind and wanted to wipe everyone out except Noah and his family. The story implies that the god and mankind had already been around for some time to get to that supposed state of affairs.And, as Son says, how was drowning almost everyone a test mankind's faith? If god wanted to get rid of all the sin, surely the way to do it was to either wipe the slate clean and start again with new species, or to somehow magically change the existing species. Wiping out all but a few of every species and then allowing those species to breed again without changing their behaviour (we're still sinners, aren't we?) didn't achieve anything. What is the moral?

quote:

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It was a test of Noah's faith and a test for humankind as a whole.

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Halfway through our states round of standardized testing a test where failure = drowning sounds delightful. That's pretty pass/fail then.

If Noah had not built the Ark then humankind would have come to an end. Noah's actions were based on faith, and that was the test.

Newer than the Mesopotamian gods. Given the lack of any evidence for the Exodus it is much more likely that the Hebrew religion originated in Babylonia. Given that the Bible borrows heavily from Babylonian religious myths this would seem to make sense. The Noah myth is a blatant copy of the Babylonian flood story. The Babylonian god Lilith makes an appearance in the Genesis creation myth in the form of the talking serpent. There are simply too many parallels to ignore.

Hi TaqI'm quite willing to accept that Noah's Ark and other stories originated in Babylonian myths.But the story still doesn't make moral or practical sense, even if it were a test of Noah's faith to see if he would build an Ark if he were warned about a flood.Firstly, and I can't remember the story exactly, but if God told Noah to build the Ark because he was going to make a big flood, Noah was already in dialogue with God, so what was the test of faith? It couldn't have been a test of faith in the existence of God. It could only have been a test of faith in God keeping his word. But surely there are easier and more ethical ways to prove you will keep your word than by flooding the whole world and drowning everything.And secondly, it still doesn't explain why it was necessary to build a boat to carry all the animals. If God could safely deliver a pair of animals from all over the world across the oceans to Noah, at what point and for what purpose did Noah's boat suddenly become necessary.And it still doesn't explain why God didn't just zap everything dead, thereby proving himself and his word.

Or by commanding you to kill your only son. On an altar. With a big knife.Sorry. Off topic.

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"My own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. J.B.S Haldane 1892-1964

I don't see it that way. When it is put into historical context and compared to the myths of the time it makes a lot of sense. You might as well ask why it was necessary to sink the Titanic just to get a couple of horny kids together. It's a moral tale writ large, an epic story. If it was just about a small event that happened to just one family what fun would there be in telling the story around the campfire?

I think we are discussing past each others here. You're arguing that how the story came to be and how it is interpreted can make perfect sense given the context while others are pointing out that the story makes no sense if you interprete it the way creationnists do. It's not even clear to me that those two propositions are contradictory (btw ignore my previous post, it was just a lame attempt at humor but somehow I never manage to be funny on the net).

Yet another That Boat Don't Float Discussion

I thought the story of Noah came from the ancient Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh? Since Sumerian culture predates Noah's time and the flood story sounds dreadfully similar to noah's.Then again, first the Sumerian then the Babylonian, right? Edited by xXGEARXx, : No reason given.Edited by xXGEARXx, : No reason given.Edited by xXGEARXx, : No reason given.Edited by xXGEARXx, : LOL! Finally figured out I forgot the first "s" to make a quote appear as a quote. ha ha!

Do you have a definition for kind? No other creationists seems to have a definition that stands up to questioning.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts