A bit more of your merciful god.

[BreezeWood]

Genesis chapter 6 gives four reasons why God sent the Flood:

1. ‘The wickedness of man was great in the earth’ (v. 5).
2. ‘Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’ (v. 5).
3. ‘The earth was filled with violence’ (v. 11).
4. ‘The earth…was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth’ (v. 12). (All the people on earth had corrupted their way.)

IOW god was mad at his children

the above was paterfamilias ... few core truths found in the c bible -

the desert religions do not define noah - somehow lost, the core truth redefined in the 1st century, lost again in the 4th.

 

[hadit]

So then why not write his own scriptures?

Why is the NT not written by the the ultimate source?

If god felt the need to walk the earth as Jesus it must have been because people were doing something wrong and he wanted to tell them so why not just write it down?

It makes no sense that an all knowing all powerful god would have to rely on word of mouth

Because you would give a hand-written account from Him no more credibility than you give the spoken testimony of those who have met Him. Be honest, if God showed up on the field in the Super Bowl half-time show, would you acknowledge Him as Lord or would you insist it was nothing more than special effects, even if you were sitting on the 50 yard line? IOW, if you are determined to not believe you simply will not believe.

And Jesus did not come to tell people they were doing anything wrong, He came to tell them He was opening the door and that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

 

[surada]

Depends upon whom you ask, I have seen estimates from 100 years to 700 years

Consider the life of Peleg. Had to be less than 300 years

 

[Meriweather]

It is supposed to be the word of god I think it would be a bit more original

Perhaps rethink that. God works with what is. That is why it is vital to understand the "is" at the time each account was written.

That, by the way is why you see plagiarism and why I call it bad plagiarism. Everywhere, through all times, mankind faces many of the same issues, so we see stories from all over rooted in these issues. There are also different ways mankind approaches and addresses these commonalities.

Basically, you see "plagiarism" while I see where/how the accounts differ--how different nations and societies tackled the common issues and questions before them with different perspectives and even with a different kind of approach to them.

Look at our different approaches: You focus on similarities while my focus is on dissimilarities.

 

[BreezeWood]

Well, the stories sure aren't history.

what history, antiquity was referencing their primordial metaphysical existance for their future.

 

[Meriweather]

Identify the setting. What was the justification for mass slaughter?

Then you believe God sends floods? That is your belief/understanding today? That God sends every flood, blizzard, and draught?

 

[surada]

what history, antiquity was referencing their primordial metaphysical existance for their future.

I don't know what that means.

 

[Meriweather]

What was the justification for mass slaughter?

Today, are you calling deaths due to weather and natural disasters mass slaughters by God? Is that what you believe?

 

[surada]

Today, are you calling deaths due to weather and natural disasters mass slaughters by God? Is that what you believe?

The Bible says God sent the flood. Evidently that's what you're supposed to believe. I think they are just morality tales borrowed and adapted from other cultures.

 

[Hollie]

Then you believe God sends floods? That is your belief/understanding today? That God sends every flood, blizzard, and draught?

Actually, no.

Do you not believe god sends floods? That would suggest you don’t believe the Bible is true and factual.

 

[Meriweather]

God was peeved that he wasn't being worshiped properly

Who wrote the account? Whose perspective? I believe a human wrote the account from the human perspective. I also believe the account was written after the fact....and with reflection.

1. In reflecting back, humans noted that before the flood, their worship of God was lacking. Not only that, they didn't bother with listening to God.

2. The author calls the attention to one man who did take time to listen. He makes a huge point in how he presents the account. If Noah was listening, what wasn't he doing that others were doing?

3. Besides not giving God proper due, what did the author see the people doing that he thought brought about their downfall?

Today, most of us understand the concept that a butterfly flaps its wings on one continent which puts things in motion to result in a disaster on another continent. What did the author say the people were doing that brought disaster down upon them? They saw the consequence, i.e., the flood. What were they doing that caused the disaster?

 

[hadit]

How do you know they were "inspired by " a god?

You people speak of the bible as something divine and all you have for proof of that is what a few people said thousands of years ago.

The bible is a work of men and men alone there is nothing in it that proves any divine intervention

What would you accept as sufficient proof? Perhaps you could tell us what would be convincing that manuscripts written thousands of years ago were divinely inspired. Be precise.

The proof is in the changed lives of those who hear and accept it. If you have a headache and I say, "This pill has been proven to give you relief from your pain. Take it and feel better", would you take it or would you demand to see something miraculous before believing that it would relieve your pain? No, you would probably say something like, "If millions of people have taken it and felt better, I believe it will work", and you'd take it. Billions of people throughout history have accepted the Bible's prescription for eternal life, and not just after we die, but now, and have experienced the changes it makes in their lives. They have seen the changes in their loved one's lives as well. You can't reduce God to a special effects trick to be trotted out on demand.

I see this all the time. I call it "do a trick" theology. Non-believers want to see something miraculous so they'll believe. Here's the problem with that. The original people did see something extraordinary, they saw the miracles that Yeshua did, they saw Him risen from the dead and ascending to Heaven. They saw the miracles the apostles did in His name as they preached. If God does a trick now to satisfy you, the very next generation that did not witness that trick will say about you the same things you say about those who saw what Yeshua and the apostles did, and they will demand their trick before they believe. God would be in the business of doing ever more tricks to satisfy a disbelieving people.

 

[BreezeWood]

I don't know what that means.

a&e is a mission - antiquity was a progression for that purpose the great flood was a reaffirmation, the return to paradise - the mission is lost in the 4th century, forward.

 

[Blues Man]

Because you would give a hand-written account from Him no more credibility than you give the spoken testimony of those who have met Him. Be honest, if God showed up on the field in the Super Bowl half-time show, would you acknowledge Him as Lord or would you insist it was nothing more than special effects, even if you were sitting on the 50 yard line? IOW, if you are determined to not believe you simply will not believe.

And Jesus did not come to tell people they were doing anything wrong, He came to tell them He was opening the door and that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I actually would give writing by Jesus himself much more credence than a second, third or 2000th hand account.

It still might not convince me that Jesus was divine but I would certainly attribute a greater weight as an original source.

And I neither believe nor disbelieve that any gods exist. I haven't seen any proof of it but lack of proof does not imply something does not exist.


And even if a god appeared to me and millions of other people at the same time ( if it was just me I would question my own mental state) to prove to all of us that he did indeed exist I would have to agree that a god did indeed exist but I would not worship it.

 

[Meriweather]

Genesis chapter 6 gives four reasons why God sent the Flood:

1. ‘The wickedness of man was great in the earth’ (v. 5).
2. ‘Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’ (v. 5).
3. ‘The earth was filled with violence’ (v. 11).
4. ‘The earth…was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth’ (v. 12). (All the people on earth had corrupted their way.)

A human wrote the story, listing all the things humans were doing. Keep in mind, while they also believed God was beyond human emotions, human emotions were all they had to project onto God so people understood just how badly they had been behaving. What we take from this is that at least after the fact, part of the population was peeved at how people were behaving. They saw people's behavior as bringing about disaster.

Specifically, what was seen as the root of this bad behavior? What were they doing that Noah was not doing?

 

[surada]

a&e is a mission - antiquity was a progression for that purpose the great flood was a reaffirmation, the return to paradise - the mission is lost in the 4th century, forward.

There's no evidence for a global flood. Borrowing a myth and adapting it isn't even an eye witness account.

 

[Meriweather]

Nothing new almost every ancient culture has a flood story.

Exactly. The setting is a flood. How are the stories the same? How do they differ?

 

[Meriweather]

This is just one more reason not to think that the bible has any divine meaning

Or, perhaps you missed the divine meaning one man brought to his account of the flood? Again, written by man, inspired by the Divine.

 

[hadit]

How many years between the flood and the tower of babel?

Why does that matter?

 

[Hollie]

Today, are you calling deaths due to weather and natural disasters mass slaughters by God? Is that what you believe?

You don’t believe that? If we are to believe the fables, your god created the planet. He created the peculiar tilt of the planet and the planet’s rotation. He created the atmosphere and convection currents when combined cause tornadoes. He must have known the consequences, right?

Was that just incompetent design or was the intention to remind us that being a disappointment could mean far worse?

Or,

Do we accept that there is no supernatural father figure watching over us. Nature is unfeeling and unconcerned with gods, devils, angels, demons, spirits, etc., who are apparently much too busy with their petty feuds so naturalism managed to proliferate.