To ask a stupid question? Noah's Ark

[Besttimelftheyear]

So I am not religious, but I would say I was brought up Christian. I would say my parents were non practicing Christians, but I was taught bible stories as truth and facts. The logical adult in me now says that most of the events can be explained quite simply.

Onto the question. Noah's Ark, is there any evidence of a global flood? Noah was supposed to have taken two of each animals onto the boat while the earth was flooded and wiped out everything else.

Surely this was simply a regular flood like we see today?

What are peoples beliefs or knowledge on this?

Noah preached for 120 years

Nope, that's another of the things that didn't happen.

He knew that those babies and children would grow up to also rebel against His law.

Free will?

Also, if he invented humans, in his image, and he's omniscient and all-powerful, how did the vast majority of them, including babies FFS, end up evil. So evil that they deserved to be drowned (remember, as babies). You'd think the mass murder of 99.9999% of the babies on earth would be, you know, completely evil. But Satan never did that, right? It was God, in his infinite wisdom.

If all the baby-murdering, slave-owning, raping stuff isn't enough to turn people off, I don't know what would. Faith is a funny thing.

Really.. what's so unrealistic about it, in your mind?

Tbh the only 'realistic' element at all is that the god described in the Old Testament would decide that drowning nearly every thing was an appropriate response to some of the people 'rebelling against his law' - including all of the people who had never heard said 'law'.

Fortunately, it didn't happen and there's no evidence this terrible entity exists.

I mean the story does not stand up to scrutiny because there are literally millions of species on the earth so the very idea you could get all of them is pretty unrealistic, especially since a lot live over the other side of the world and there is no way of getting there.

It's probably an embeliished story of a guy who built a boat because he thought there would be a flood and everyone laughed at him. Then there was a flood and he took a couple of chickens and a cow on board. Then the flood went away and he was the richest guy in town because he was the only one with a cow left and everyone thought he was great.

Grain of truth maybe that has expanded over the millenia, its not inconceivable to think that there were floods and animals were led off to a safer place and that they probably couldn't take all of them ,over the years this ja expanded to an ark and animals being led off two by two etc.

The word "species" doesn't appear in the text at all, but "kinds" does which isn't the same thing.

So, it doesn't mean every living thing was on the Ark which I think the text is clear on.

I don't suppose Bronze Age people had a clear understanding of what a 'species' is. But what difference would it make? Even if all living things weren't put on the ark, only the 'kinds' which were got off it alive (barring whatever fish could survive in the temporarily brackish water). Is the desperate theory of literalists that these basic kinds speciated within a few thousand years?

I was raised a Catholic and went to a Catholic school. My R.E teacher (who was a nun) in my secondary school actually said some bible stories were faith stories. Not sure if the story of Noah's Arc was classed as a faith story according to my teacher, as i think sometimes they are built on things that actually happened and as the story was passed on they had been sensationalised.

So how did the non-domesticated ones survive? And how did Noah get the kangaroos from Australia (for example)?

It's a MYTH.

I remember being told in RE ( Catholic school) that the the eye of a needle as in in its easier for a camel to pass through the eye of needle than a rich man To get into heaven actually referred to the very narrow streets which were called needle, s my memory is hazy ,rather than an actual needle.

I don't take it literally and I'm.agnostic but I guessing the people of the time didn't know about Australia or the animals there as they couldn't have explored that far on foot.

God spoke directly to Noah, you would think he would have mentioned that the earth is vast and that there were animals far and wide to be saved. It's all well and good passing off these things in the Bible as 'faith stories' or metaphors when people realise the stories are ridiculous. Where do you draw the line? It's all a nonsense.

We had an au pair who was a young Earth creationist. I tried to avoid religious discussions, but I did ask how did Noah fit all animals on the ark? The 400,000 species of beetles alone would have weighed 32 tons. She rolled her eyes and said “it was a miracle, of course!”

What utter silly bollocks

So... I may not be descended from Adam & Eve, but from the first humans then and I'm not affected by 'original sin'. That changes everything. I'm surprised no Christian has spotted that and why they are all so sure Adam & Eve were the first for that matter.

It does make me wonder why god had to create eve out of Adam's rib and didn't just fetch one of the many other women.

And why the word 'woman' had to be invented for her as though she was the first.

As for kinds if you want him to have take 2 birds and 2 donkeys and a pair of elephants and have them breed all the other species from them then you must believe in evolution and you must believe it's been millions of years since the Flood.

Anyone interested in the bible being literally true should read Numbers 22:21-33 which has a talking donkey (well an ass)

It's a great character anyway because it's basically saying to Balaam "you're beating me? What did I ever do to you?" and I can't read it now without seeing it as Donkey from Shrek 😁

This thread has blown my mind. I've just lost a good friend to religion recently and i didn't think too many of him existed these days but seems i'm wrong!

The text seems very clear that everything on land was wiped out.
Start at Genesis 6 and continue to chapter 7 and beyond. It's a horrific story, fortunately completely and utterly incredible.

www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%206&version=NIV

I mean, it's not actually random.

The Bible is a collection of many different kinds of books written at very different times. Some are poetry, some are mythological, some belong to types of literature like prophetic literature, some are more historical (although they don't use modern historical forms.)

There's also a whole history of their production, compilation, and usage within the religious community. They are all used as sacred authoritative texts, but they aren't all the same kind of writing. Just like a James Patterson novel, a self help book, and a set of knitting instructions aren't the same.

Most of the evidence for King David was in the Bible, I believe there is some rather recent archeological evidence that seems to support his existence.

However - there don't necessarily need to be historical sources outside the Bible for scholars to think something it talks about was real. The Bible, like other ancient texts, is itself a historical source.

Non-historians seem to get confused about this a lot for some reason. Many of the things we know about the ancient world have only one or two contemporary records, and actually quite a few have no contemporary records at all, the information was only recorded some time later.

The Bible is to a large degree the Hebrew's history of their people, and that's how scholars treat it.

Edit: Oh, as far as Moses, sure, there are scholars who think he was real.

Its more interesting what people do and don't remember about things

Yes... especially in a discussion in which the reliability of information from oral history is highly relevant!

they aren't all the same kind of writing. Just like a James Patterson novel, a self help book, and a set of knitting instructions aren't the same.

But if you went into a library you wouldn't find them in the same section, never mind bound together in the same book, with a single title, and a man telling you that yes, this is all a history.