Scottie wrote:If God's whole plan was to destroy the entire population and start fresh, did he think about these other guys already on ships?
You know, this actually makes for a cool movie premise:
Pirates of the World Flood....
I swell another adventure for Captain Jack Sparrow....
"Whatever appears to be against the Book of Mormon is going to be overturned at some time in the future. So we can be pretty open minded."-charity 3/7/07
huckelberry wrote: One big problem with interpreting the story literally is that we no longer have much belief that there was once a time when all human evil reached a maximum leaving no alternative but distruction. .
Your belief is immaterial to its truthfulness - one way or the other.
huckelberry wrote: One big problem with interpreting the story literally is that we no longer have much belief that there was once a time when all human evil reached a maximum leaving no alternative but distruction. .
Your belief is immaterial to its truthfulness - one way or the other.
And so is yours.
Bottom line is that the global flood wiping out all of humanity save for Noah's family, a few thousand years ago, is unequivocally contradicted by mountains of credible evidence. It simply didn't happen. Period. And people can believe what they want, and that fact isn't changed.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
huckelberry wrote: One big problem with interpreting the story literally is that we no longer have much belief that there was once a time when all human evil reached a maximum leaving no alternative but distruction. .
Your belief is immaterial to its truthfulness - one way or the other.
Hoops, do you have any idea what I am saying? There are times I realize that I have posted sloppliy. There are times I notice that I have said something assuming people are already on the same page as my thought when they are not. I am willing to take others misunderstanding as a criticism of my own clarity. But in what way did I propose that my belief determines anything? There was a flood or there was not. It certainly does not depend upon my or your belief. You might consider that my quoted statement was about interpreting the story.
If you think it happened say what basis you have beyond your own opinion. How about something more substantial than that the story is in the Bible. We all know it is in the Bible. There is a question of whether the story in the Bible is literal history or parable. Which is it?
Last edited by Guest on Tue Aug 14, 2007 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
huckelberry wrote: One big problem with interpreting the story literally is that we no longer have much belief that there was once a time when all human evil reached a maximum leaving no alternative but distruction. .
Your belief is immaterial to its truthfulness - one way or the other.
Blixa wrote: Read some more. Check out Ganymede, for instance, the Trojan boy of great beauty whom Zeus carried away to be his lover and to be cupbearer to the gods. In most artistic representations of the myth its refered to as a "rape" and Zeus often assumed the form of an eagle (Ouch!)
You are correct, I'd forgotten that story. I now fear Zeus. :)
Quite right. Those talons are sharp...
Don't forget. Eagles mate on the wing.
"In a dogfight, indecision can be fatal. If you have even the slightest moment of hesitation -- then it is you who becomes the prey."
- Hans von Hammer
Hey, wouldn't most those people in other boats be out there for fishing? Um, food taken care of. Also, if it rain so long as to cause the oceans to rise over ALL the land in the world, then the amount of freshwater dumped on the salt water would have either 1) caused the water to separate with the salts below the freshwater giving access to freshwater to these other fishermen, or 2) the mix would have diluted the saltwater to the point that the water would be drinkable anyhow...
Problem solved. No wonder there are Hindu's in the world today! :P
Nephi wrote:Hey, wouldn't most those people in other boats be out there for fishing? Um, food taken care of. Also, if it rain so long as to cause the oceans to rise over ALL the land in the world, then the amount of freshwater dumped on the salt water would have either 1) caused the water to separate with the salts below the freshwater giving access to freshwater to these other fishermen, or 2) the mix would have diluted the saltwater to the point that the water would be drinkable anyhow...
Problem solved. No wonder there are Hindu's in the world today! :P
Actually, even if one were to assume that the Flood doubled, or even tripled, the volume of the ocean, and hence diluted the salt water, it would still have been brackish water, and humans can't drink brackish water.
Incidentally, I recently had looked up brackish water when I was doing some reading about reverse osmosis, and it turns out that fresh water is considered to have less than .5 parts per thousand of salt, and brackish water can have .5 to 35 parts per thousand, with "salt water" having 35 to 50 parts per thousand. If you took salt water with 40 parts per thousand of salt in it, you'd have to multiple the total volume of water, by adding fresh water to dilute it, by something like 200 times the original volume of water, in order for it to be drinkable by humans.
I'm curious where Noah got ~11 months' worth of fresh water on the Ark; water enough not only for him and his family, but indeed for the entire ark full of thirsty animals. I can see where he might have gotten fresh water during the first 40 days, but what about the next 11 months they were still at sea before they finally came to rest on dry land? Back in the days of sail, and we're talking about into the 1800s here, naval vessels and other ships could really only carry a couple to maybe a low few months' worth of freshwater on board, in giant barrels, and by the time these ran dry they were stagnant and had algae and whatnot growing in them, and it was disgusting. One of the things they did to avoid having to drink nasty, disgusting 3-month water that had been sitting in wooden barrels the whole time, was to drink a lot of beer instead, since beer kept better in the barrels than plain water did. In fact, the India Pale Ale was invented specifically to last on the several months' long voyages to India from Britain. It was specifically formulated with extra hops and extra alcohol, because hops and alcohol both had a preservative effect.
Was the Ark really just a giant party boat for most of that year they were at sea? Were Noah, his family, and all the animals, really chugging a lot of beer the whole time?
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
huckelberry wrote: we no longer have much belief that there was once a time when all human evil reached a maximum leaving no alternative but distruction. .
I was responding to the above. As YOU know, this is the crux of the REASON it may have happened. We have posters here who find the old testament God, and the stories within the Old Testament, to be cruel and evil. Yet, your statement above is at odds with that.
Personally, when one begins with the POSSIBILITY that there may be a deity, then the Noah story is quite plausible. Why is it necessary for this deity to always reveal himself within the framework we (humans) suggest? You may find this deity callous and capricious, fine, that's an argument we can thrash about. But to categorically claim there is no deity because Noah could not have happened is non-sensical. A deity ( or at least a powerful one of many sub-deities) is certainly capable to be active contrary to what we "know" to be possible.
Note: I am not claiming that the Noah story is not possible. And I am quite comfortable with a literal interpretation.