Ok, FIRST of all please don't lynch me for starting this thread. If there is already one around let me know where I can find it.

I know how heated religious debates can get...regardless, I would like some answers.

Ok, to kick things off - I am a non-believer. I do not believe the Flood happened. I do however want to know why people DO believe it happened.

We have some pretty intelligent people here, I'd like their thoughts.

Ok, the questions - (pretty ordinary/simple questions)

1 - How could Noah have fit two of every animal (millions) into such a small Ark?

2 - Where did he find room for his family/friends, food, water, etc?

3 - How did they keep the animals under control? There was a lack of drugs in those days.

4 - How did Noah, in such a short time, gather these animals from all continents? It would have taken him decades. If he knew where to go...

5 - What about fresh water creatures? The world was covered in salt water wasn't it?

6 - Wouldn't there be a lack of fresh water these days if the planet was covered in salt water?

7 - Where'd all the water go?

8 - The Flood was brought on by God...why would he slaughter billions of his own creations? To purify humanity? What about the children? The kittens even?

9 - It happened 3,000 years ago, correct? Wouldn't there be some other evidence? Other than the Bible?

10 - What about those civilizations that are far older than 3,000 (the aborigonies for example) who have no record of this flood? Hell, the aborigonies shouldn't even be around if Noah and his family were the only humans left, no?

Again, this isn't meant to criticize...please don't misinterprete what I'm saying.

PS. If anyone has any other points, feel free to add them.

First of all, generally speaking, if you want to search whether something is posted in the past or not, use the Search function.

Now, to your post..
It's a bit hard to understand why you don't believe the flood happened, since it's the ONE and ONLY element that is common in more than one mythology/religion. In fact, in the ancient greek mythology (which goes really far back to the past) there are 3 recorded floods.
Anyway, to the questions. I will answer rather trying to use logic than dogmatic approaches.

For questions 1-5, I would think that there is no sense in trying to find rational explanations for a matter that it's metaphoric and not meant to be taken literally. If Bible was meant to be tken literally, I may as well as "How the heck did Moses made the sea part?" Long story... Also, check the following reasoning...

As for the practical questions, e.g. about fresh water, where did the water go etc, you should keep in mind that by flood, nobody should think that the whole planet was covered with water (like those funny pictures show on th kids' edition bibles). Picture rather something like the monsoons in Far East, and the recent disaster in Haiti, only in a much more "international" scale (known-world international maybe). That would explain most of these questions..

As for

First of all, lol about the kittens
Second, who said "God sent it"? Why not Earth itself, passing thru some ancient type of El-Nino? Just because the Bible says God sent it, doesn't mean we have to take it literally. (Personally, for example, I never understood why the good-loving God slaughtered babies in Egypt to punish the Pharaoh. It's a really large topic, relevant with what is God and what is life and what is "free will") Another long story...

*sits next to Mad Manfred and awaits lynching*

Scientific researchers today are looking at the Black Sea in respect to the "great flood" of Noah's time.

The Great Flood - PBS Channel 1998 - Discoveries from recent commercial deep sea diving in the Black Sea are showing more and more proof that the Black Sea was formed from the flood of Noah’s time.

Their thoughts are that there was a slight degree of global warming that melted many glaciers, which in turn flowed down and through the Bosphorus. The waters were great and formed what is the Black Sea today. Many artifacts have been discovered putting multitudes of people on that land where the sea is today.

You need to remember that the people of that day did not recognize the existence of other continents. To them, the world was simply the land they stood on and not the whole planet. Another definition of "the world" means "the one they live in, in that day". Words can be tricky so you must look at the oldest definitions when reading about things of old.

Taking a male and female of every animal was quite possible since he would have only taken the animals that he knew existed in "his" world. He didn't know of any other animals because he didn't even know there were other continents. The seas and oceans were their barriers for thousands of years.

As far as the flood being brought on by God, you can, I hope, imagine that everyone believed then that all natural disasters were the creation of God. So their first thought was that God was angry with them. More then likely, a God was angry for the same reasons that Jericho was sacked by the Israelites and Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed by -------- more on that later. I say it was venereal disease that was rampant throughout "their world". Had it survived, we wouldn't be here. I think instead, I'll do a topic on God and venereal disease instead because this is too lengthy to explain here.

Your 3,000 year ago date is way off course. 3,000 years ago would only be 1,000 BC. David was ruling Israel at the time and that would be about 350 years after Moses lived. The flood did not kill "billions" of people. Not even millions. Approximately 80 billion people have ever lived on this earth thus far as it is. Forget the kitten thing.

Have you ever read Gilgamesh or the Enuma Elish?
The story of the great flood actually goes back long before Moses told of it.

Here is a piece from the website put together by the commercial divers- about 7,500 years ago - the global climate was still rapidly warming following the last Ice Age, causing the seas to rise. Ryan and Pitman hypothesize that, when sea levels rose beyond a critical point, the Mediterranean Sea overflowed, deluging
the Black Sea basin with salty water and destroying the fertile plains around the once-shallow freshwater lake.

Any people living on those plains at the time would have witnessed what must have seemed like the wrath of an angry god. Based on the still northern flowing undercurrents of what we call the Bosporus Straits, Ryan and Pitman estimate the water rushed northward through this channel with force many times greater
than Niagara Falls. As the waters rose about six inches per day, human settlements would have been washed away or under hundreds of feet of water within a year or so. Traumatized refugees from the flood must have told their story to shocked listeners. Is this the story so many of us still tell our children today? These stories originated in Gilgamesh 700 years before Abraham.

You have to remember that the Bible and the Torah are not very old in comparison to mankind. Many events took place long before anything was written by Moses and in particular, the great flood. If you read Gilgamesh, which is dated long before Moses, and compare it to world history, you will see that the flood story was passed down through generations. Even Hammurapi believed in a god, based on the great flood and he ruled the empire of Babylon in 1750, which was 350 years before the Exodus when Moses spoke.

It was more of a spiritual ark than a material one... Either that or it was a giant UFO...

God can kill off or create anybody it wants to... Even kittens...

Another Purification day is coming, The Native Americans are getting really anxious about it...

So much for the Rainbow... I guess we didn't keep our promises either...

"How the heck did Moses made the sea part?" Long story... Also, check the following reasoning...

It is actually a natural occurance on the Red Sea. In cycles, the Red Sea has been known many times to receed greatly. It receded probably exactly when Moses was with his people. Weeks passed - and only then did they try to catch up to Moses and the Hebrews, but the seas banks had already changed by then.

Just like we already know now that the plagues, i.e., locusts came and ate all the crops, cattle died, the flies came and multiplied on the dead cattle and hence, the plague of flies and the waters turn red naturally by a particular clay in the banks of the Nile used to make pottery.

These are all natural occurances. What I would like to know is "who" was playing God during this time in human history?

God was on Noah's side - He would have been with him..
Noah didn't have friends - He was ridiculed for building a huge ark - nowhere near the ocean. His own family were the only ones who were still righteous - and followed Gods laws.
God is a God not to be mocked - a jealous God. He gives people free will to follow him and if rejected - he gives fare punishment for those who refuse to abide by his rules.
God would have been on Noahs side - he would have helped many animals to get into the ark - also at this time - there was very little crossbreeding - something which is against God - There would not have been as many species as there are today....

It not included in the mythology/religion of three to four times more cultures (past and present) than cultures that include it. Most of the cultures that include a flood in their mythology/religion, have a flood story that bears little or no resemblance to the one in Genesis (except for the older Semite cultures that the Hebrews stole the story from), most cultures came into being near a river or lake (water supply) and consequently would be subject to flooding. A particularly severe flood could/would enter their mythology. No other flood story takes place because of sin, only the one told by Hebrews!


The time line Xians adhere to says it occurred between 2500-2300 BCE, yet there has been recorded history since 3100 BCE, with no breaks in the sequence. Strange how folks (Egyptians/Sumerians/Akkadans/Chinese) could spend nearly a year under 6 miles of water and not notice!


This is the question you ask to watch Creationist waffle and tap dance....they come up with no real answers, finally assigning it to an act of God!

You left one thing out, Waste Removal! Can you imagine how much manure Noah and family would have had to shovel a day? No way that small group could have kept up, they would been praying for death in a matter of days!


Which god is that? Show me proof (not from your pagan mythology) that he even exists!


This is the all knowing God, right. Then why does he even bother to let the sinners be born? He already knows they will sin - might as well send them straight to hell....Xianity and it's reasoning is totally ridiculous!

About the Red sea. That is also something that was a mistranslation. In hebrew, it was something different, but it meant the Reed Sea... which there was a huge marshland, that was like a sea of reeds... They accually now suspect that, it wasn't Ramses who chased after the fleeing slaves. He was proclaimed a god.. he wouldn't have bothered to go after them.. That was beneath him.

Instead, his first born son, who had became Pharaoh in all but name had most likely gone after them. Which, they suspect, the slaves then ambushed their pursuers, killing Ramses's son.

But they are still investigating this. And yes, I got this from the program on sunday, as well as reading up on a few other things.

I watched a special about this the other day on Discuvary. It was a people who bardered in Gold etc. And he built a large barge to transport his goods.

They said Noah was a King of a City, basicly a buisnessman. He loaded up the barge with Beer, some food and animals to barder down river, and was doing something with his family on the barg when the River had a flash flood and it started down poring. They floated down the river and into the Red Sea, and then about a week later they made land fall. And then they told of there story and it eventualy made its way to the Jewish people wrighting the Bible.

~Thanato

hmmm... never heard that version, but I could definatly see how something like that could happen, then get misconstrued as some act of god for a great story;) (but nothing more than a story mind you)

1 - How could Noah have fit two of every animal (millions) into such a small Ark?

he didn't fir every single animal on earth. God chose some land animals for extinction. He also instructed Noah to build the arc in very speciffic dimensions. It took roughly a hundered years to build give or take. I'm sure God perfectly factored in the amount of space he chose for which animals would be kept. You see, God accounted for the atmospheric changes that would occur after such a massive flood, and didn't waste space by attempting to preserve large animals, such as dinosaurs, because they would not be able to survive after the flood anyways. I think that many many species of animals were destroyed in the flood. Which is probably why we have millions of fossils of animals that no human is recorded as ever seeing.

2 - Where did he find room for his family/friends, food, water, etc?

It must have been cramped and smelly. They did however take 7 of every clean animal for food and such. I'm sure they also gathered water as per God's instruction. but like I stated earlier, all water may not have been salinized before the flood, and salinization may have occurred after the water boiled up from the depths of the earth. Just a simple theory.

3 - How did they keep the animals under control? There was a lack of drugs in those days.

By the hand of God. Perhaps God chose speciffic specimens which were by nature peaceful.

4 - How did Noah, in such a short time, gather these animals from all continents? It would have taken him decades. If he knew where to go...

Noah did not gather the animals by himself. God led the animals into the ark through divine intervetion. Remeber, Noah talked quite directly with God in a very pure language. I'm sure God had deep plans.

5 - What about fresh water creatures? The world was covered in salt water wasn't it?

It's possible. We don't know whether or not the water was fresh. Perhaps before the flood all water was fresh, and the animals adpated either way. I don't know. I assume God had a hand of protection over many water based life forms.

6 - Wouldn't there be a lack of fresh water these days if the planet was covered in salt water?

We don't know if it was salinated water or not.

7 - Where'd all the water go?

Into the depths of the earth. It says in scripture that most of the water came up from inside the earth anyways. The rest evaporated I assume, drastically chaging the atmosphere. Even in modern day, we know of water springs in the depths of the ocean. And no, I am not referring to thermal vents.

8 - The Flood was brought on by God...why would he slaughter billions of his own creations? To purify humanity? What about the children? The kittens even?

Yes, he had to purify humanity because the fallen angels had polluted human genetics and created a demonic races refered to as the "Nephilum", who are also called "Giants" or "The heros of old" in the bible. It says Noah was of pure decent, meaning he had no polluted genes. His wive, and his sones wives, on the other hand, most likely did. He cleansed the human genepool by causing the flood.

Also, it was not nearly billions. More like a few million.

Children of polluted genes were judged by God, as only he can. Kittens have no soul persay, and it is only a tradgety to us that they were lost. To God, the tradgedy was the fact that his fallen angels were destroying humankind.

9 - It happened 3,000 years ago, correct? Wouldn't there be some other evidence? Other than the Bible?

Many many different religions have tales and accounts for a great flood. India, and Thailand to name a very few.

10 - What about those civilizations that are far older than 3,000 (the aborigonies for example) who have no record of this flood? Hell, the aborigonies shouldn't even be around if Noah and his family were the only humans left, no?

Human mind despersed over the earth afterward. The age of aboriginies is up for debate regarding this subject. Noah and his family became the father of all nations. His sons, and their sons, dispersed over the earth and formed civilizations.

Again, this isn't meant to criticize...please don't misinterprete what I'm saying.


Very good questions. Though alot of my answers will probably seem vague. They are. And the only gaps I have to fill them with is my own spirituality, which describing to you wouldn't really fit into your mind regarding to these events.


Another good question is how did noah manage to seal up the ark from inside. In scripture, it says that the hand of God sealed the ark.

The rainbow ONLY refers to the covenant God made in regards to never again destroying mankind with WATER, or FLOODS. He never says anything about fire, plague, or war.

This is the question you ask to watch Creationist waffle and tap dance....they come up with no real answers, finally assigning it to an act of God!

Untrue. The water came up from the depths of the earth, as described, and then descended back down. Most people I know understand that.

You left one thing out, Waste Removal! Can you imagine how much manure Noah and family would have had to shovel a day? No way that small group could have kept up, they would been praying for death in a matter of days!

I'm sure the threw alot of it into the waters. Besides, God never said the ark was going to be a comfy place. Quite the opposite.


Which god is that? Show me proof (not from your pagan mythology) that he even exists!

Science cannot prove evolution, neither can it prove creationism. Any real advocate of either side realizes they are both taken on faith. Don't ask for something you already know the answer for.

This is the all knowing God, right. Then why does he even bother to let the sinners be born?

A primitive argument. You aren't even trying anymore.

*laughs* What child is born with sins already on his soul? A person must have some seblence of knowledge of good and evil before they can even think about sinning,


He already knows they will sin - might as well send them straight to hell....Xianity and it's reasoning is totally ridiculous!

Damned if you aren't a beligerant one. DO you see me atacking you beliefs every where you turn? No, it seems you only see me defending my beliefs, everywhere I turn. Go figure.

God functions outside of time, observing things. He does not dictate our every action. he does not control our world with an iron fist. He created matter and energy, and set them into motion, and then left them be. He only created TWO, count em TWO original human beings, and set life into motion. . They themselves had the choice to either reproduce, or not reproduce. they chose reproduction. God did not force them to. Sure, God knows if we will sin. He knows if we will repent. But he does not control the process. He just observes. We ourslevs make the choices. It says this countless COUNTLESS times all throughout scripture.

"It not included in the mythology/religion of three to four times more cultures (past and present) than cultures that include it. Most of the cultures that include a flood in their mythology/religion, have a flood story that bears little or no resemblance to the one in Genesis (except for the older Semite cultures that the Hebrews stole the story from), most cultures came into being near a river or lake (water supply) and consequently would be subject to flooding. A particularly severe flood could/would enter their mythology. No other flood story takes place because of sin, only the one told by Hebrews!"


I'd assume this is because all others are false religions. Does that make any sense to you? Does the fact that there could only be ONE true God and countless other fallen "gods" make any sense? Well, not to you of course. I'm sure you'll find any way around it you can, and really, that's the beauty of the free will we have. God made our minds so complex, that we are able to fully reason and believe completely in a following that goes 100% against his teachings. He did this so we WOULD have free will. If he was sitiing up on a cloud and everyone could see him, then no sane person wouldn't believe in him. God wants us to want him. He created man to have genuine relationship with sentient beings. He made it so we could go either way for that speciffic reason.

Spell-check is there for a reason, man.

"How the heck did Moses made the sea part?" Long story... Also, check the following reasoning...

It is actually a natural occurance on the Red Sea. In cycles, the Red Sea has been known many times to receed greatly. It receded probably exactly when Moses was with his people.

interesting, because it says in scripture that Moses and the Israelites walked on DRY GROUND. It is quite speciffic. It doesn't say they waded through the water, it doesn't say they walked on damp ground. By receed, did you mean to say "completely dry up?"

Weeks passed - and only then did they try to catch up to Moses and the Hebrews, but the seas banks had already changed by then.

Interesting, because in scripture, it clearly states that every single one of the horses and riders were killed by the waters:

And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen. 27 And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. 28 And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them. 29 But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. 30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore. 31 And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses.


The seas didn't receed, they formed walls on either side, and Moses and the israelites walked on dry ground. The passing of moses through the sea, and the resulting demise of the egyptians happened within 1 day of each other. Not a few weeks.

The seas didn't receded, they formed walls on either side, and Moses and the israelites walked on dry ground. The passing of moses through the sea, and the resulting demise of the egyptians happened within 1 day of each other. Not a few weeks.


i would assume that the story was exagerated....would be a crap way to preach....why say "But the children of Israel wadded through the receeding waters; the only place they could have crossed as the rest of the sea was too deep"

when they can exagerate...and entice more people into their faith by saying

"But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left"

besides even if it had been just very shallow water, who would be there to say that it wasn't parted? the isralites would have been more worried about the egyptians than whether the sea was partd. if you were escaping captors would you run or walk?? do you really think that the isralites would have just walked off??


and as for god giving humans free will...why give free will to humans if you are only going to destroy them for thinking freely and creating their own ideas?

I think floods are merely extreme climate phenomena, reported as they have from people of that time frame.

I say I am intrigued how many different mythologies seem to have common points on the story behind it. With all we hear about contact between civilisations from one corner of the world to another though not so strange perhaps.

Still the context of most mythologies is very metaphorical to know what needs to be considered in literal terms. So before we go asking how could we fit all the animals in one Arc and some of us actually responding to that, we should consider how we would put into words those experiences without the amount of understanding and knowledge we possess today.

I agree with bio-mage and the original article. If there was a mighty flood in the only part of the world you were aware existed, it stands to reason you would say that the 'entire Earth was covered'.

Ok, heres the simple answer.
Faith.

How can one not accept any and/or all of ones religous teachings with faith at hand?
... Now where is that number for lynch-mobs-R-we...
** goes off to look for a rope...

Even at that he would have ended up with several million species and it he had two to seven of each, it would take more space than the piddling 513’L x 85’W x 51’H dimensions given in Genesis. The infamous Exxon Valdez is 967’L x 166’W x 200’H nearly half again the size of the Ark described and could not hold even half of the animals that would have had to been carried on the Ark.

Yep, since there wasn’t enough room (by those dimensions) for all the animals, they couldn’t very well have carried any food for those animals that they had managed to get on board! Smelly would have been and understatement!

Since they couldn’t have carried any food, even the most peaceful by nature Lion would have started “thinning the herd” by the end of the 1st week, some of the smaller carnivores (shrews) would have started on the smaller herbivores by the end of the first day! Peaceful would not have been a factor in the face of starvation!

I assume that God built bridges for those animals in America, Australia and the Pacific areas! Maybe he called Capt James T. Kirk from the future and had the Enterprise beam two of each American, Australian and Pacific species! I am being ridiculous because you answer was ridiculous!

See, as I said before – watch the Creationist waffle and tap dance. Sorry, maybes don’t pay the light bill. Either way – all water salinated or all water fresh, one group of fish is royally screwed

Genesis says that “all the fountains of the great deep broken up”, this implies physical change to the earth, change that would not be undone by the water draining off. There are no great amounts of water underground, most water is in the oceans, rivers, glaciers, as vapor in the atmosphere and in the ice packs of the polar areas. Yes, there fresh water springs under the ocean, that doesn’t mean that it is coming from a vast underground reservoir, just that the water table is universal over the surface of the earth, whether dry land or under water. Nowhere in Genesis does it say most of the water comes from underground, it just says that it came from the fountains of the great deep and that it rained 40 days and nights.

We have discussed this before, why did he have to kill everything? He could have tailored a plague that would have been 100% fatal to men and Nephilum and made Noah and family immune. Instead he destroys all life – I guess that cute little kittens father was a Nephilum! Either that or your god is either blood-thirsty or stupid!

As I mentioned before, of the many thousand recorded cultures and religions in the history of mankind, only a handful have a flood story and even then only those of older Semitic religions are even similar. All civilizations grow up on the shores of lakes or rivers, so flood stories would tend to be common and unusually severe floods might enter legend and eventually religion.

That does not explain the Egyptians, Sumerians, Akkadans, or Chinese all who had been writing and keeping records since 3100BCE (the flood supposedly was in 2500-2300 BCE) and never seemed to notice that they were underwater for nearly a year. Then was no break in their records and no mention of a great flood!

You don’t seem to understand how much “doody” a herbivore generates a day. Because of the low energy content of vegetable matter, it is a constant eat and defecate with them! Add in the birds, shrews, carnivores and all others and the small number of people could even start to keep up and oh yes, add in the people poop too! The ark would have sunk from an overload of feces within days! Yeah you’re right, it wouldn’t have been very comfortable

I notice you had no answer to the question! I am only pointing out how illogical your belief are - go figure!

If you will check Genesis, he did it twice, once on the 6th day and then again on the 8th day, or is there two semi-conflicting creation stories in your mythology. Dang, don’t you hate it when your ancient scribes get carried away stealing stories from other religions and the ancient editor misses it!

MORE RECENT EVIDENCE THAT THE FLOOD CREATED THE BLACK SEA

Funny thing though - Black represents evil and Sea represents people

http://ocean-ridge.ldeo.columbia.edu/Black...ackSeaText.html

Abstract
At this time (7,550 calendar years BP), farming, which had already been established in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and along the coast of the Marmara Sea (Özdagan, 1983; van Andel and Runnels, 1995), spread rapidly inland along the major river valleys of southeastern Europe (Greg, 1988; Hodder, 1990). The light plow and simple irrigation appear abruptly in the Transcaucasus (Glumac and Anthony, 1991). Such "wave-of-advance" population movements (Sokal, Oden et al., 1991) could have been induced by the permanent expulsion of inhabitants which had adapted to the natural resources of the formerly-emerged Black Sea peripherynamely, its arable loess, alluvial soil, and the moist loam of the freshly exposed bed of its shrinking shoreline.

Fig. 5. Reconstructed levels in the Mediterranean “M” and Black Seas “B“, and their connections/isolations via the SOÇ-Dardanelles and SOI-Bosporus sill “S“. On the left is a portrayal of the gradual inflow model (Degens and Ross, 1972; Deuser, 1972; Deuser, 1974) in which the first connection was made at (9,000 calendar year BP). The depth of the strait deepened slowly as global eustatic sea level continued to rise, leading to an acceleration in the strengthening of the Black Sea's salinity. On the right is our catastrophic flood model in which the Mediterranean broke through a barrier in the inlet at (7,150 calendar year BP) and rapidly flooded a partly evaporated freshwater lake. Here increase in the Black Sea's salinity is shown to have been initially abrupt and then to have later decelerated.