"The Whole Silly Flood Story"

Originally posted by 11Bravo
Show me a history book, one that is older than the Bible, or shut up.

The Histories of Herodotus, for one. I'll let you google it. And don't tell me to shut up. I'm trying to deny your ignorance here while you're attempting to pave over me with it.

Dont refer me to the epic of gilgamesh, thats a story.
Dont tell me the necronomican is a history book, because it isnt.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is just as much a historic document as the bible is. To discount that is to completely throw away your credibility in any argument that should follow. The Necronomicon isn't even a real book, why would anyone attempt to use it as a record of ancient history?

You name drop to make it look like you've done your homework, but you haven't. Next you'll be saying the Qur'an is "just a story", even though both sit at roughly the same historically accurate level. I'm fairly certain I know where this will lead.

I said the Bible was the oldest history book that we have and you clowns jump right up and say there are older texts.

It's not. And your referral to us as "clowns" is both totally disrespectful and a clear conveyance that your position on this matter was solidified before you even typed a word in reply. We jump up and say older documents exist because of their relevance to history being greater than the bible's, even if they are only fragments.

I didnt say the Bible was the oldest text, I said it is the oldest 'history' book that we have.

I doesn't matter. The bible isn't the oldest historic text and it's not the oldest 'history' book that exists. I didn't mention explicitly that I was referring only to fragments either, but you made that jump rather well on your own making you just as guilty as I am.

Read, research, rethink.

You're quick to spout a happy little slogan in your belief that it will absolve you of all accountability for your own ignorance by attempting to shunt it onto us, but I'll tell you now that it doesn't work and you're still wrong.

You two are so quick to defend your beliefs that you totally ignore what I wrote.

They're not beliefs, they're fact. I'm sorry, but these documents exist. You made a hell of a blanket statement, I corrected you, you fought back, and I've found and exploited the holes in your argument once more.

In your next reply, which I'm sure will come, try to argue from an intellectual standpoint rather than an emotional one, which is what you're doing now. "Read, research, rethink", as you say.

Originally posted by 11Bravo
I was never brought up as anything.
I only remember going to church twice when I was a kid. Once for a wedding and once for a funeral.

well, that's good
children can't even begin to grasp what they truely believe

I was taught evolution in school.
It made sense to me at the time, but it left some big questions in my mind.
As I have grown older I have come to realize that evolution is absurd.
It is nothing more then the fairy tale of the princess kissing the frog plus millions of years.

if you really buy the whole anti-evolution frog prince argument, then you have a sad misunderstanding of evolution

Madness you must understand, no matter what you think about the Bible, it is the oldest, and by default the best, 'history' book that we have.
There is no denying that the 'people' and places named in the Bible exist or existed.

the bible isn't a history book, it's a religious text
and it isn't even the oldest one we have. there are many sumerian historical accounts that predate it, there are records from china that predate it.

Is the Bible 100% actual fact?
Thats up to the individual to choose.
Does it contain atleast some facts?
Yes, without a doubt.

well, it would be impossible to write any document without having some facts

Whether the flood happend or not, I dont know.
But neither do you, or anyone else.

no, i know
the geologists know as well. there isn't a single fact supporting the flood myth(s if you want to get technical)

Im inclined to believe it did happen though.

go with your gut all you want, i'll trust my reason

one last thing i'd like to add. nearly every single mythos has a flood story, there's a reason for that. look into the works of joseph campbell.

The flood was real and there is ample evidence to support it. God may have created more people after the flood in order to repopulate the earth. Adam and Eve were the first He created. It doesnt say they were the only and last.

Originally posted by ozmorphus
The flood was real and there is ample evidence to support it.

are you talking a flood accounting for the exact biblical story?
with every animal within walking distance of noah's house

and what evidence?

God may have created more people after the flood in order to repopulate the earth. Adam and Eve were the first He created. It doesnt say they were the only and last.

....
now isn't that convenient?

Originally posted by ozmorphus
The flood was real and there is ample evidence to support it. God may have created more people after the flood in order to repopulate the earth. Adam and Eve were the first He created. It doesnt say they were the only and last.

Like madness said, there is no evidence of a worldwide flood. Indeed, such a geological event is impossible - not to mention the logistics of how the animals supposedly spread out afterwards to repopulate the planet, and let's not even talk about inbreeding.

In terms of the created humans, it doesn't say they were the only and last, true. But it also doesn't say he made more, which is just as telling. I'd like to think that the creation of additional humans from nothing would at least garner a footnote somewhere.

As an aside: it's been almost two weeks without a response, 11Bravo. Normally I don't poke around in threads like this too terribly long, but as a clown who can't shut up, I'm kind of curious to see what your answers to our arguments are. Are you still out there?

Since there are people still espousing "The Whole Silly Flood Story" as factual, I just wanted to bump yet another one of my ancient, dusty threads.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul

Since there are people still espousing "The Whole Silly Flood Story" as factual, I just wanted to bump yet another one of my ancient, dusty threads.

You apparently haven't had to deal with compound interest.

Math is not my strong suit but here it goes.

My mother and father come from families with over 10 kids each, which inspired this post.

Eight people survive a deluge.............Oh, and they only did it on Wednesday's...........

4 couples have 40 kids
20 couples have 200 kids
100 couples have 1000 kids
500 couples have 5000 kids
2500 couples have 25000 kids
12500 couples have 125000 kids
62500 couples have 625,000 kids
312,500 couples have 3,125,000 kids
1,562,500 couples have 15,625,000 kids
7,812,500 couples have 78,125,000 kids

All in 360 years!

Now if you are arguing that there should be less people, throw in war, famine, disease, or a lower birth rate.

I'd just like to throw in an argument against the Ark story from the perspective of population genetics, and it's more complicated than what I'm about to summarize:

When you take a small group of animals from a large population and establish a new population, you get what is called the Founder Effect. This Founder Effect is essentially a loss of genetic variability in the new population due the fact that individuals only have 2 alleles (different versions) for each gene and that you have a small group of founders to begin with. If two of each animal really were taken upon an ark, this would equate to 4 alleles for each new population. It's quite possible that of these 4 alleles you would have duplicates, further decreasing the genetic variation in the new populations. This would have been devastating, especially because of Inbreeding Depression. Inbreeding Depression is where individuals are mating with their relatives and thus reducing the genetic variation of the population. Given the time period that the Ark story is placed at, a miracle would have been needed to give us the genetic variability we see today.

Why is genetic variability important in a population? It gives the population a larger variety of traits, and in the case of natural catastrophe (like a flood), introduction of a new predator, exhaustion of a food source, etc., this larger variety of traits would give certain individuals a better chance of survival than others (natural selection).

Basically, what I'm saying is that if a god really did order a guy to grab two of every animal, then he wasn't considering the genetic repercussions of the endeavor.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Your first assumption is that God would allow this disease to come upon the ark and is not a product of godless society and their perverted lifestyle choices.

secondly the population can easily be what it is today more from a flood perspective than that of your belief. Wheres the billions upon billions of dead bones and why are there not more of those prehuman fossils????

ldolphin.org...


"...Assume that C = 2 and x = 2, which is equivalent to saying that the average family has 4 children who later have families of their own, and that each set of parents lives to see all their grandchildren. For these conditions which are not at all unreasonable, the population at the end of 5 generation would be 96, after 10 generations, 3,070; after 15 generations, 98,300; after 20 generations, 3,150,000; and after 30 generations, 3,220,000,000. In one more generation (31) the total would increase to 6.5 billion.

"The next obvious question is: How long is a generation? Again, a reasonable assumption is that the average marriage occurs at age 25 and that the four children will have been born by age 35. Then the grandchildren will have been born the parents have lived their allotted span of 70 years. A generation is thus about 35 years. Many consider a generation to be only 30 years. This would mean that the entire present world population could have been produced in approximately 30 x 35, or 1,050 years.

The above formula readily shows the absurdity of evolutionary time scales for mankind. In one million years, if n = 23,256 generations, C = 1.25, and x = 3, the present population of the world would be

P = 3.7 x 102091 persons.

In contrast the total number of electrons in the universe is only 1090!

the bible is nothing more than plagiarisms gathered by the jews to give their lives a direction,a beginning.

why would god choose a single people over all others he loved and created?

HE WOULDNT HAVE which makes the bible a load of crap

I'm going to provide another, incredibly basic refutation of the flood myth, which I brought up in another thread:

Any system with enough water to uniformly cover the surface, including its tallest peaks, would require that the system stay submerged

There is no way the Earth could have flooded completely without it still being flooded today, that is simply the only way there could be that much water.

Originally posted by ACTS 2:38
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

secondly the population can easily be what it is today more from a flood perspective than that of your belief. Wheres the billions upon billions of dead bones and why are there not more of those prehuman fossils????

There are a lot more "of those prehuman fossils" in existance than you will see on creationist sites.

Where are the masses of human bones, all at one level in the sediment, from the hordes who were drowned in the flood? That would have made great conditions for the preservation of fossils, allowing easy proof for the flood story.

I have always thought the Noahrian Flood was based in fact. Many cultures in South and Central America have the same story at the same time. This is too much of a coincidence.

The obvious is dangerous and a path away from God in fundamentalist's eyes. The possibility of error leads to uncertainty and their reality quickly becomes that house on quick sand. That said, I think much of the bible was written about actual events...they were probably heavily embellished though.

Originally posted by earthdude
I have always thought the Noahrian Flood was based in fact. Many cultures in South and Central America have the same story at the same time. This is too much of a coincidence.

Cultures all around the world have experienced disastrous floods.
That doesn't mean their stories of the event are all of the same flood though.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


You stated

"Any system with enough water to uniformly cover the surface, including its tallest peaks, would require that the system stay submerged"

But that is all it is, is a statement where is your empirical evidence????

Just because one does not believe it happened and does not like to admit that the large fossil grave yards or hundreds of thousands of square miles of sedimentary rock exist proves the bible more than it does some ho hum idea of long slow process's does not make such a statement true or even plausible because it is breathed.

Originally posted by Kailassa

Originally posted by earthdude
I have always thought the Noahrian Flood was based in fact. Many cultures in South and Central America have the same story at the same time. This is too much of a coincidence.

Cultures all around the world have experienced disastrous floods.
That doesn't mean their stories of the event are all of the same flood though.

www.talkorigins.org...

# Europe

* Greek, Arcadian, Samothrace
* Roman
* Scandinavian, German
* Celtic, Welsh
* Lithuanian, Transylvanian Gypsy
* Turkey

# Near East

* Sumerian
* Egypt, Babylonian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Hebrew, Islamic
* Persian, Zoroastrian

# Africa

* Cameroon
* Masai (East Africa), Komililo Nandi, Kwaya (Lake Victoria)
* Southwest Tanzania, Pygmy, Ababua (northern Zaire), Kikuyu (Kenya), Bakongo (west Zaire), Bachokwe? (southern Zaire), Lower Congo, Basonge, Bena-Lulua (Congo River, southeast Zaire)
* Yoruba (southwest Nigeria), Efik-Ibibio (Nigeria), Ekoi (Nigeria)
* Mandingo (Ivory Coast)

Just a few there are many more but hey stick your head in the sand and deny ignorance

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Are you aware that there are other flood legends besides the one from the christian bible?....
Virtually every tribe and race all over the world has such a legend,so your thread is limited in meaning.

reply to post by Kailassa


Sorry you are wrong,

95 % of fossils found in the world are of sea creatures

of the left over 5% they are mostly incomplete

www.slate.com...
There are currently about 3,000 so-called "full" dinosaur specimens—complete or near-complete skeletons or just a complete or near-complete skull—in museums around the United States

That is a claim of complete or near complete skeletons or skulls?? That means not very much in a world of millions of years old.

The Biblical Flood

www.drdino.com...

Second Peter 3 tells us that the scoffers in the last days will be willingly ignorant of how God created the heavens and the earth. They would also be ignorant of the Flood. These two great events must be considered before making any statements about the conditions on earth today. Only about 3% of the earth today is habitable for man. The rest is under water, ice, deserts, mountains, etc. If the earth before the Flood were, for example, 70% habitable, it could have supported a huge population. Most of the water in today’s oceans would have been under the earth’s crust before the Flood.1