Christianity Stuck with Flood Story

Image result for the ark experience"





On Thursday I had a strange experience. There is a poster on You Tube who has a video about arguing with ark people at the big ark exhibit  in Grant County, Kentucky in 2016. The guy seemed reasonable and he said he next wanted to talk to a Christian about Christianity. I volunteered. I commented saying, "talk to me next." He contacted me and  we arranged to talk on the phone, I want give his name because this is all a private phone. I will try to be fair. I'll call him "Mike." I wont say it was"a perfect phone call" but he tried to be fair as best he could.We did get excited and shouted but we did not degenerate into name calling or insulting. I liked Mike I thought he was a nice guy, but I can't accept his position.

After 20 years of arguing with skeptics (Mike says he is not an atheist but  is skeptical of Christianity) i have seen skeptics (some of them atheists) who have  similar position. His position seemed to be that  because  the God of the Bible wiped out most of humanity in the flood  that God is evil. Since Jesus professed to worship the God of the OT Jesus is wrong and thus Christianity is wrong.


Skeptics of this sort always  seem to think that Christianity invented the flood story. We are stuck with the flood story, we inherited it.  It's not enough that I say it didn't happen. No when it comes to blaming God the flood story is somehow true although generally it's not true. Mike agrees there was never a flood but he still blames God for killing all those people even though he didn't, So   say well God did not authorize the writing of the flood story,  Mike still speaks as though God is to blame.


He asserts that Jesus must have believed in killing all those people because he worshiped the God of the OT  even though he never says that, about killing the people. I pointed out that he is constructing a scenario of what  he thought Jesus would think based upon an absence of pronouncement to the contrary. So Jesus doesn't say  "the flood was wrong." Moreover, he refers to "in the days of Noah" (Matt 24:37) so he must have believed the story was historical. 


Here's the whole passage:

36No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark.…
This passage contains an admission that Jesus did not have total omniscience. that implies that he could have been wrong about history (because he chose to limit himself). Moreover, he's just speaking from within the myth because he is speaking to people whose world view was limited to that myth. In other words, could be get into Dr. Who's TARDIS and go back to the past and ask Jesus "do you know nuclear physics?" He would probably say "I have cone to save the world from sin not to teach physics." I might refer to "the days of King Arthur" to mean the middle ages without meaning I believe there was a king Arthur.

Mike, though not an atheist, exhibits a strategy I've seen many atheists use. He needs a fail safe. He has to have an issue that absolutely disproves  the Christian view and then he has to link that to Jesus.  In order to pull off his strategy Mike has to assert that we must believe the whole Bible to be Christians. Funny how the skeptics always think they have the right to define other people's faith. He asserts Jesus believed in the flood as historical with no proof that he really did.


If he didn't have the flood story he would find another fail safe. The flood story was known to everyone in that time, it came into Hebrew culture when they were slaves in Babylon and thus the real point of it is faith in God will get us through any crisis. The flood story itself is not the issue. We know the flood story was used in other cultures much older than the Hebrew, They were using the well known myth to make a theological point. God never killed most of the world's population and the point of the story is not that God should kill them. But Mike kept insisting this disproves Christianity because they have the story in the Bible. That is based upon fundamentalist assumptions about the Bible. Don't be a fundamentalist. Problems solved.




Comments

The Pixie said…
Joe: Skeptics of this sort always seem to think that Christianity invented the flood story. We are stuck with the flood story, we inherited it. It's not enough that I say it didn't happen. No when it comes to blaming God the flood story is somehow true although generally it's not true. Mike agrees there was never a flood but he still blames God for killing all those people even though he didn't, So say well God did not authorize the writing of the flood story, Mike still speaks as though God is to blame.

I think you have missed the point.

We do not know if (literal) Christianity is true or not, but hypothetically, if it is true, then it is true that God sent a flood to destroy most of the world. In that hypothetical case God really is to blame for those deaths.

EITHER (literal) Christianity is false OR God slaughtered millions of people in a flood.

[I say "(literal) Christianity" as I appreciate there are various beliefs about the flood in Christianity]

Joe: Mike, though not an atheist, exhibits a strategy I've seen many atheists use. He needs a fail safe. He has to have an issue that absolutely disproves the Christian view and then he has to link that to Jesus. In order to pull off his strategy Mike has to assert that we must believe the whole Bible to be Christians.

I agree - but worth pointing out that plenty of Christians say the same thing.
I think you have missed the point.

We do not know if (literal) Christianity is true or not, but hypothetically, if it is true, then it is true that God sent a flood to destroy most of the world. In that hypothetical case God really is to blame for those deaths.

No that is a false assumption: If one thing in the Bible is true than all is true that's your logic, I think in any other case you would see the fallacy. The flood can be myth and Jesus can be real.

EITHER (literal) Christianity is false OR God slaughtered millions of people in a flood.

Obviously fallacious Jesus never said the flood was real. You might also try to deal with the concept that as creator of all things God has the right to kill his creation. But that need not even be the case since the flood didn't happen,


[I say "(literal) Christianity" as I appreciate there are various beliefs about the flood in Christianity]

the flood story comes to Christianity from Judiasm I dare to say it

Joe: Mike, though not an atheist, exhibits a strategy I've seen many atheists use. He needs a fail safe. He has to have an issue that absolutely disproves the Christian view and then he has to link that to Jesus. In order to pull off his strategy Mike has to assert that we must believe the whole Bible to be Christians.

I agree - but worth pointing out that plenty of Christians say the same thing.

they don;t have MTS degrees

11/25/2019 01:37:00 AM
Anonymous said…
But Joseph, Jesus clearly believed the OT was divinely inspired. So did Paul. Do you think Jesus and Paul were wrong for believing the OT to be historically true? (If you think Jesus could be wrong, that creates a host of different issues from a Christian perspective.)
-ChristSeeker
But Joseph, Jesus clearly believed the OT was divinely inspired. So did Paul. Do you think Jesus and Paul were wrong for believing the OT to be historically true? (If you think Jesus could be wrong, that creates a host of different issues from a Christian perspective.)

Jesus can't be wrong about a theological issue. But he never said the food was historical, He speaks of the days of Noah and refers to the ark story story but he did not say it was historical. I might refer to the days of king Arthur without belief in the Arthurian legends
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Pixie said…
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-no-such-thing-as-conscious-thought/
that does not prove hat consciousness is replaceable nor does it disprove consciousnesses
Anonymous said…
http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2010/01/how-to-debunk-christianity.html

Pix
Loftus is a crackpot. btw U was raised in the chruch of Christ
I was raised in church of Christ
Anonymous said…
http://exapologist.blogspot.com/

Pix
Anonymous said…
I knew you could not address the link i gave
Anonymous said…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25JD2wrCLsQ

Pix

Popular posts from this blog

How Many Children in Bethlehem Did Herod Kill?

Where did Jesus say "It is better to give than receive?"

The Bogus Gandhi Quote

A Non-Biblical Historian Accepts the Key "Minimum Facts" Supporting Jesus' Resurrection

Exodus 22:18 - Are Followers of God to Kill Witches?

Discussing Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Jewish writings and a change in the Temple at the time of the Death of Jesus

Revamping and New Articles at the CADRE Site

Asherah: Not God's Wife

A Botched Abortion Shows the Lies of Pro-Choice Proponents