Did God drown women and children in noah's flood?

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cornbread_r2 said:
As I understand it, the scientific consensus is that anatomically modern humans have been around for about 200k years. I’m unaware of any concerted mainstream scientific effort to establish Adam’s birth date.

Also, if you’re going to cite a reference that gives the impression of being from a reputable source, it might be advisable to cite one that doesn’t have the following disclaimer on their home page:

This material does not necessarily represent any organization, including the University of North Carolina and the State of North Carolina.
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Based on inaccurate mutation clock rates. As time goes on we see this age being lowered.
 
Dave_B said:
So if I understand correctly you are saying the story is symbolic. But that Jesus thought Noah was a real person.

I just wonder is it more likely that the Noah story was based the on earlier Mesopotamian myth, the Epic of Gilgamesh?

And if we dont believe the story. Shouldnt we say clearly that it is not true, rather than skate around it?
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Giglamesh is a corruption of the flood account.
 
nordskoven said:
creationism.org/swift/Acambaro/index.htm

Did God drown dinosaurs in the Great Flood? How come there are figurines of dinosaurs when they were supposed to be long gone when mankind started tromping about? How did these guys know what Godzilla looked like when we are still confused as to how the joints articulated?

I don’t see any reason to jettison the Great Flood. It would be hard to erase any part of Genesis for that matter as it can easily be reconstructed from other cultures, from the creation of the First Man & Woman, the universality of a male priesthood atoning for the First Man’s sin triggered through woman’s disobedience/eating (strawberies per the Miao of China…hehe); Cain & Abel sibling slaughter; king lists paralleling the first ten patriarchs of Genesis; and of course the dramatic Great Flood where man floated to safety in a big drum…or on a turtle…and landed on the sacred mountain memorialized with pyramids or mini-mounds or naming mountains as THE Sacred Mountain; with those animal pairs undergirding thrones of Noah & Wife.

Science shows we are made of the stuff of the Earth; we had one first daddy and mama; anesthesia is a good thing for sleeping through medical procedures like Adam’s divinely-induced sleep; that cloning from another’s tissue is possible; as is gene tweaking in the literal “refinement” describing the First Woman; that we came from four main genetic groups like the four couples on Noah’s or Yu’s or Zeusudra’s Ark. Now what? Good science is good religion. How can we get rid of God’s history of hope? Will the atheist materialists attempt to choke us with the cares of the world? God forbid. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize. See you in Heaven, please God.
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It seems so - dinosaur pits show mass burials with arched backs.

And now we have this one:

**Australia’s Stampeding Dinosaurs Take a Dip: Largely Tracks of Swimming Rather Than Running Animals http://images.sciencedaily.com/2013/01/130108190250.jpg
**
 
cornbread_r2 said:
If UNC web hosting policy permits linking to professors’ personal websites, even to sites pertaining to work not affiliated with their university work, then I apologize for both my ignorance on that subject and for accusing the author of dishonesty.
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That’s correct. It is standard practice for websites to host special pages for the different departments of the university and the professors of those departments.
 
Dave_B said:
Do we have evidence of this? I thought the tablet versions of this pre-date the Bible.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh#Versions_of_the_epic

“This first, “Old Babylonian” version of the epic dates to the 18th century BC … Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.”
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Let’s look at a couple of the Giglamesh vs Bible points:
  1. Size of ark
Bible - 450x75x45
Gig - 200x200x200 - ( a cube? probably not seaworthy)
  1. How did deity react to flood?
Bible - God is in control
Gig - gods ran away from waters
  1. How long did it rain?
Bible - 40 days
Gig - 7 days
  1. What was the roof made from?
Bible - wood
Gig - slate
  1. Who made the decision to flood?
Bible - God
Gig council of gods
  1. What happened after the flood?
Bible - God promised to destroy humanity by a flood ever again
Gig - gods quarrel with each other, god Ea lies to Enlil. Utnapishtim and wife given immortality like the gods

Bible - God tells Noah and his family to procreate
Gig - Ea and Mami created 14 human beings to procreate
  1. What was the reason for the flood?
Bible - people were wicked
Gig - people were nosiy

Bible - God is sorry He made men because of their wickedness
Gig - gods could not sleep
  1. When told about impending flood
Bible - Noah warned his neighbors
Gig - Told by Ea to lie to neighbors so that they would help build the ark

How was the ark launched?

Bible - by flood
Gig - pushed to the river

How long did flood last?

Bible - 370 days
Gig - 14 days

Giglamesh is a corruption of the Hebrew account.
 
Dave_B said:
or do we admit this tale is an unpleasant myth?
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What is unpleasant about it is not the fact that He did it, but why He did it. Genesis 6:5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
Verse 13, “And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.”

Therefore, let us all take warning and repent!

1 Peter 3, “remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
 
HansTrappist said:
The age of the earth is not really the important question.

The more interesting question is, how old is the Human race? And, when was Adam created? It is in trying to answer this question where the “6,000 years old” comes into play. Modern scientists still can’t reach a consensus on the birth date of Adam. They keep revising their estimates to an earlier and earlier date, getting closer and closer to the Biblical estimate of around 4000 B.C:

“Mitochondrial DNA mutation rates were measured directly (Parsons, Thomas J., et al., A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region, Nature Genetics vol. 15, April 1997, pp. 363-367). The mutation rate in a segment of the control region of mitochondrial DNA was directly measured by comparing mitochondrial DNA from siblings and from parents and their offspring. Mitochondrial DNA was found to mutate about 20 times faster than previously thought, at a rate of one mutation (substitution) every 33 generations, approximately. In this section of the control region, which has about 610 base pairs, humans typically differ from one another by about 18 mutations. By simple mathematics, it follows that the human race is about 300 generations old. If one assumes a typical generation is about 20 years, this gives an age of about 6000 years.” (cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/humanity.html)
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interesting ! Send us updates as new info is gathered…
 
cornbread_r2 said:
If UNC web hosting policy permits linking to professors’ personal websites, even to sites pertaining to work not affiliated with their university work, then I apologize for both my ignorance on that subject and for accusing the author of dishonesty.
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Ok Cornbread …

Apology accepted…no longer any obstacle for ya

Now, read the article and give us your expert opinion of !
 
brb3 said:
Ok Cornbread …

Apology accepted…no longer any obstacle for ya

Now, read the article and give us your expert opinion of !
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I’ve never claimed to be an expert on any subject. That’s why I rely on experts to critique each others’ work through the peer review process. Regrettably, I have been unable to find any peer review of the article in question. Perhaps it was never submitted to a relevant journal for review? However, based solely on my limited scientific knowledge, I’m going to go way out on a limb here and assert that any article that concludes that homo sapiens sapiens is only 6,000 years old – thereby contradicting virtually all of the peer reviewed evidence and conclusions of multiple scientific fields accumulated over the past 150 years or so – is likely to have some significant flaws.

BTW, that same opinion will apply to any other article that may be submitted for my consideration which attempts to prove a 6,000 year-old Earth, for the same reasons. You may rightly conclude that my mind is closed on the subject.
 
cornbread_r2 said:
I’ve never claimed to be an expert on any subject. That’s why I rely on experts to critique each others’ work through the peer review process. Regrettably, I have been unable to find any peer review of the article in question. Perhaps it was never submitted to a relevant journal for review? However, based solely on my limited scientific knowledge, I’m going to go way out on a limb here and assert that any article that concludes that homo sapiens sapiens is only 6,000 years old – thereby contradicting virtually all of the peer reviewed evidence and conclusions of multiple scientific fields accumulated over the past 150 years or so – is likely to have some significant flaws.

BTW, that same opinion will apply to any other article that may be submitted for my consideration which attempts to prove a 6,000 year-old Earth, for the same reasons. You may rightly conclude that my mind is closed on the subject.
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Closed-minded on the subject ? Well if not objective ( as a ‘true’ scientist must ) …at least:D you’re honest !
 
cornbread_r2 said:
I’ve never claimed to be an expert on any subject. That’s why I rely on experts to critique each others’ work through the peer review process. Regrettably, I have been unable to find any peer review of the article in question. Perhaps it was never submitted to a relevant journal for review? However, based solely on my limited scientific knowledge, I’m going to go way out on a limb here and assert that any article that concludes that homo sapiens sapiens is only 6,000 years old – thereby contradicting virtually all of the peer reviewed evidence and conclusions of multiple scientific fields accumulated over the past 150 years or so – is likely to have some significant flaws.

BTW, that same opinion will apply to any other article that may be submitted for my consideration which attempts to prove a 6,000 year-old Earth, for the same reasons. You may rightly conclude that my mind is closed on the subject.
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Clearcut: Publish the Claim, then Destroy the Data

Most of the data to support claims about Darwin’s Tree of Life over the last two decades have been “irrevocably lost,” a survey found.
Bryan T. Drew, working in conjunction with the Open Tree of Life Project, decided to check the data supporting the growing construction of Darwin’s tree. He reported the somewhat shocking results in Nature:Of 6,193 papers we surveyed in more than 100 peer-reviewed journals, only 17% present accessible trees and alignments (used to infer relatedness). Contacting lead authors to procure data sets was only 19% successful. DNA sequences were deposited in GenBank for almost all these studies, but it is the actual character alignments that are pivotal for reproducing phylogenetic analyses. We estimate that more than 64% of existing alignments or trees are permanently lost. (Emphasis added.)This implies that nearly 4,000 published papers cannot back up their claims with the actual evidence. Perhaps improved practices in the future can rectify the situation, but Drew believes it is serious:This problem will increasingly hinder phylogenetic inference as the use of whole-genome data sets becomes common. Journals need to reinforce a policy of online data deposition, either as supplementary material or in repositories such as TreeBASE (treebase.org) or Dryad (datadryad.org) – including for data sets based on previously published sequences. Ecologists, evolutionary biologists and others will then have access to rigorous phylogenetics for **testing **their hypotheses.The “others” could reasonably include skeptics of the Tree of Life who want to evaluate whether the claims made are justified by the data or instead are held aloft by prior assumptions that Darwinian evolutionary common descent is true.

more…
 
brb3 said:
Closed-minded on the subject ? Well if not objective ( as a ‘true’ scientist must ) …at least:D you’re honest !
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How much time would you spend investigating the remote possibility that invisible pixies frolic in my crab apple tree? While you’re doing that – for the sake of objectivity – I’ll be spending my time investigating things that hold a bit more promise.
 
Dave_B said:
or do we admit this tale is an unpleasant myth?
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There appear to be a number of stories like this in Genesis. Take for instance Sodom and Gomorrah. What is the difference between that story and the story of the flood? They are basically the same. In Sodom and Gomorrah you have a city that is entirely corrupt. God wants to wipe it off the face of the map as a judgment against it, but spare those who are still righteous by warning them ahead of time to flee. The righteous wants God to spare the city and gets God to agree that if there are 10 righteous in the city it will not be destroyed. Unfortunately, there were not even 10 who did what is right. So the righteous flee the city and it is destroyed by fire.

In Noah’s flood you have basically the same thing but larger area. Everyone is wicked except Noah who obeys God to build a boat. The story is basically telling us the value of being obedient to God and how it can save us from even natural disasters or in this case judgment.

In the bible we see ‘natural disasters’ being used as judgments all the time. In the book of Revelations for instance we have a series of 7 judgments that involve plagues, locusts, etc. that are similar to the judgments in Egypt where we saw plagues of frogs, locusts, and the Angel of death. In Egypt the only first-born people who survived the angel of death were those marked with the blood of the lamb. They were obedient to the message of God to kill a lamb and spread the blood on the door. Similarly, we see in revelations those who are spared the 7 judgments are those who are marked with the seal of God, those who have been forgiven and those that overcome with the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

Whether you consider these stories to be literal or metaphorical all these examples lead to the inescapable conclusion that in order for us to escape falling into similar judgments in our lives we need to be part of those considered righteous who are sealed and marked by God as belonging to him rather than those who reject God.

Examining the morality of judgment. I always find it helps to quote from the book of wisdom as it describes the mercy of God in his judgment. God uses mercy in his judgment. It might not seem like it when we read certain passages of scripture and take them out of context but if we look at the whole of scripture we see that A. God does not want anyone to perish and B. God does not punish those who do not deserve it. So we end up the view that yes God does punish and judge people but he does it in a way that is just, fair and merciful. He punishes the wicked and just how wicked were they and how was God merciful to them? Let us examine Wisdom 12 to see an answer to this. If these people were extremely wicked then God can be seen as correcting a grave injustice all the time with the salvation of the wicked in mind.

Here is an excerpt from wisdom 12. It would be helpful to read the entire chapter though. -

Wisdom of Solomon 12:1–16 (RSVCE)
“1 For thy immortal spirit is in all things. 2 Therefore thou dost correct little by little those who trespass,
and dost remind and warn them of the things wherein they sin,
that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in thee, O Lord. 3 Those who dwelt of old in thy holy land 4 thou didst hate for their detestable practices,
their works of sorcery and unholy rites, 5 their merciless slaughter of children,
and their sacrificial feasting on human flesh and blood.
These initiates from the midst of a heathen cult, 6 these parents who murder helpless lives,
thou didst will to destroy by the hands of our fathers, 7 that the land most precious of all to thee
might receive a worthy colony of the servants of God. 8 But even these thou didst spare, since they were but men,
and didst send wasps as forerunners of thy army,
to destroy them little by little, 9 though thou wast not unable to give the ungodly into the hands of the righteous in battle,
or to destroy them at one blow by dread wild beasts or thy stern word. 10 But judging them little by little thou gavest them a chance to repent,
though thou wast not unaware that their origin was evil
and their wickedness inborn,
and that their way of thinking would never change. 11 For they were an accursed race from the beginning,
and it was not through fear of any one that thou didst leave them unpunished for their sins. 12 For who will say, “What hast thou done?”
Or will resist thy judgment?
Who will accuse thee for the destruction of nations which thou didst make?
Or who will come before thee to plead as an advocate for unrighteous men? 13 For neither is there any god besides thee, whose care is for all men,
to whom thou shouldst prove that thou hast not judged unjustly; 14 nor can any king or monarch confront thee about those whom thou hast punished. 15 Thou art righteous and rulest all things righteously,
deeming it alien to thy power
to condemn him who does not deserve to be punished. 16 For thy strength is the source of righteousness,
and thy sovereignty over all causes thee to spare all.”

So we see that God was patient with these people and warned them time and again yet they refused to repent from their extreme wickedness. Next, we can see how God spares those under judgment who choose to repent as in the story of Jonah and the whale who warned Nineveh that unless they repented they would too come under judgment. And, to Jonah’s surprise they repented in sackcloth and ashes and God spared them. This shows God’s mercy in action. For while God deemed it just to crush them based on what they had done, his mercy spared them because they turned to him in repentance. This shows that while someone could deserve to be punished, yet, if they repent and turn to God, He will forgive them anyway because of his mercy for them. This shows God is not a tyrant but a merciful judge.
 
Next thing that occurs to me is that when someone looks at the story of the flood and says but what about all the innocent children they are reading something into the story that is not actually there. No where does it say in the story that God destroyed all the innocent children. That is not the intent of the story. The intent of the story is that it describes God’s just judgment against the wicked, not against innocent children. To say that is to read the story too literally. Whereas the story is likely more like a parable. It may be based on a true story but it designed to teach a lesson to us. The purpose of the story is as I said to show God’s just judgment over the wicked yet spares the righteous who obey him. To read anything else into it is to take it too literally or to read in between the line something that the author was not intending to convey. As we have already seen in Wisdom 12 that God does not punish the innocent. So to try and say that God punished the innocent in the flood would be a contradiction of Wisdom 12. Rather we see how the innocent were spared in the flood, ie. Noah and his family. That is the intent of the story.
 
fisherman_carl said:
Whether you consider these stories to be literal or metaphorical all these examples lead to the inescapable conclusion that in order for us to escape falling into similar judgments in our lives we need to be part of those considered righteous who are sealed and marked by God as belonging to him rather than those who reject God.
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I just want to clarify one thing. God only desires what is best for us because God is love. It is possible then to not even know God or his law yet be spared judgment. For instance in Romans 5 it says:

“Or do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.”
  • Rom 5:4-8
So every man is judged according to what he did.

" For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus."
  • Rom 5:13-16
So even the Gentiles who do not know God’s law can be saved if that law is written on their hearts.
 
We love God not out of fear but because he first loved us.

“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us.”
1 jn 4:15-20

‘as he is so are we in the world’. Our view of God determines how we will be ourselves. If we view God as a vengeful tyrant we will tend to be like that ourselves. But if we view God as merciful, as someone who does not give up on people we will be like that.

" If any one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. "
  • 1 Jn 4:21
And I would say that this person who claims to love God yet hates his brother does not really know God. He is hating his brother according to his image of God. Because how we see God determines how we are to others. If we see God as an overly judgmental person who wants to condemn everyone at the slightest provocarion then that is how we will be ourselves. If God can do it why not us? We can make ourselves quite miserable this way. However, if we see God as a loving person, someone who loves everyone and does not give up on people, someone who is long suffering, and merciful, and someone who sent us His Son to demonstrate his love for us and save us, a Shepherd who finds the lost sheep, and a Father to prodigal sons, then that is how we will be like towards others.

We love others because God loves us first. We dont love him to earn his love. He loves us first and his love and kindness is what brings us to repentance, not the other way around.

‘He who has been forgiven much loves much.’
 
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