Difficulty on Noah's Flood?

Originally posted by sonhouse
You still have not answered the question as to why a god would destroy all animal land life just to kill some bad humans. Or continue to abuse the genetic lines of the animals saved and make the entire line now come from one reproducing pair.

Another thing, did the folks on the Arc have two mosquitos, 2 fly's, 2 ants, 2 bees, 2 wasps also? Because a worl ...[text shortened]... ave been no oxy to breathe with a couple of miles of water overhead.

Just think about that.

"You still have not answered the question as to why a god would destroy all animal land life just to kill some bad humans. Or continue to abuse the genetic lines of the animals saved and make the entire line now come from one reproducing pair."

There is a consistent answer in scripture, when the leadership is bad the whole body will
suffer for it. When the kings do evil the kingdom suffers So when God put Adam in charge
of the earth, it and everything in Adam's domain suffered when Adam fell.

Originally posted by sonship

Well do you have evidence that everyone around the world believes that they are descended from Noah and his sons?

No. And this is a leading question. I never said "everyone around the world believes that they are descended from Noah and his sons."

This, I think, is a leading question fallacy. I did say there are a lot of accounts o ...[text shortened]... 22:00) approximately.

Look at 28:54 in the structure revealed by metal detection.[/b]

I'm looking for evidence of your claims about supernatural things not about boat building.

Originally posted by KellyJay
"You still have not answered the question as to why a god would destroy all animal land life just to kill some bad humans. Or continue to abuse the genetic lines of the animals saved and make the entire line now come from one reproducing pair."

There is a consistent answer in scripture, when the leadership is bad the whole body will
suffer for it. When ...[text shortened]... od put Adam in charge
of the earth, it and everything in Adam's domain suffered when Adam fell.

So mosquito's knew mankind was the leader. Wow. So are you saying mosquito's, bees, wasps, ants, termites, roaches and the like all had their little share of the Arc? I don't see anything in that story except animals.

Do you really think those insects could survive a real world wide flood? Like a half inch of rain per minute for over a month? No way, they would have been quickly covered over without oxygen and would have all died.

But you still haven't answered the charge the genetic diversity would have been reduced to practically nothing so whatever got on the arc would have only 2 reproducing animals and you have to know there is tremendous genetic variations now for all those animals and that would have been impossible in the natural world just a few thousand years later.

Originally posted by roigam
(Matthew 24:38, 39) For as they were in those days before the Flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they took no note until the Flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.

These are Jesus' words. He spoke of the flood as being real. ...[text shortened]... an eyewitness of the flood, I believe him.

For me, I don't need to debate the flood anymore.

Amen.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
What scientific evidence may you be referring to?

The surface area of the Earth is 510 million square kilometres, Everest is 8,848 metres high. So the amount of water required to cover all land on Earth so that Everest is just covered is 4.5 Trillion cubic kilometers of water. Each cubic kilometer of water weighs 1 billion metric tonnes. This is a huge amount of extra water you need to find from somewhere.

There are various ways of interpreting the text. A local flood, global flooding of the kind AThousandYoung refered to (p1 post 13), or the complete flood a literal reading of the Biblical story requires. I think that the latter is scientifically impossible as there is no way of explaining where all the water went. However, since we are positing an interventionist God for whom it presumably doesn't present an insuperable problem, I'd just observe that there are simpler ways of wiping out humanity for a vengeful deity which leave all the other species not needing Noah to save them. One problem for the story is why are there kangaroos? Noah wouldn't have been able to do anything to preserve them.

Originally posted by sonhouse
We already have examples of that, people died by having their hearts pulled out while alive by the originals in South America, where we have found piles of skulls from ritual deaths and I can guarantee you the archaeologists were aghast at the torture inherent in those murders. That WAS 2000 years later and THEY cared. I don't see how you can be so cavalier ...[text shortened]... g deal to you either. Of course it MIGHT be a different deal if YOU were the one being tortured.

They were doing that until the Spanish turned up. It was a great honour to be sacrificed in this way. What your post is missing is that the victim would participate in their own sacrifice.

During one of the Aztec sacrificial rituals, described in John Keegan's History of Warfare, the main purpose of Aztec warfare was to gain victims for sacrifice which is where Keegan's interest in this lies to support his thesis that warfare is a cultural activity, the victim would stand on a raised platform. Four warriors would surround him from ground level and use sticks with bits of flint at the end to make small incisions until the captive would collapse from blood loss. The officiating priest would then open his chest cavity and remove his heart. The warrior who captured him would be given the body which he would flay and walk around wearing the skin. The action on the plinth was not one sided. The sacrificial victim was given a club he was expected to attempt to kill the four warriors who surrounded him with. In the time between his capture and the sacrifice the victim would be treated as a highly honoured guest. It's not easy for people from non-sacrificing cultures to understand the behaviour, but people in cultures with human sacrifice would volunteer for sacrifice.

Originally posted by DeepThought
They were doing that until the Spanish turned up. It was a great honour to be sacrificed in this way. What your post is missing is that the victim would participate in their own sacrifice.

During one of the Aztec sacrificial rituals, described in John Keegan's History of Warfare, the main purpose of Aztec warfare was to gain victims for sacri ...[text shortened]... the behaviour, but people in cultures with human sacrifice would volunteer for sacrifice.

I was also talking about the torture going on in WW2 and now, definitely not a cultural thing, just the cruelest people on the planet having fun causing as much pain and death as possible. To call them animals would denigrate animals.

Just like the latest incident in Nice, the guy was smiling as he ran over and killed 84 people and injured hundreds more with his giant truck going full barrel into a crowd of innocents and undoubtedly all religions in that crowd but those people care less about such details.

Like the 9-11 attacks about 10% of the victims were in fact Muslim. Too bad, they were contaminated being around infidels.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So mosquito's knew mankind was the leader. Wow. So are you saying mosquito's, bees, wasps, ants, termites, roaches and the like all had their little share of the Arc? I don't see anything in that story except animals.

Do you really think those insects could survive a real world wide flood? Like a half inch of rain per minute for over a month? No way, t ...[text shortened]... nimals and that would have been impossible in the natural world just a few thousand years later.

You know what God can and can't do I keep forgetting the vast amounts of knowledge you have.

Originally posted by DeepThought
They were doing that until the Spanish turned up. It was a great honour to be sacrificed in this way. What your post is missing is that the victim would participate in their own sacrifice.

During one of the Aztec sacrificial rituals, described in John Keegan's History of Warfare, the main purpose of Aztec warfare was to gain victims for sacri ...[text shortened]... the behaviour, but people in cultures with human sacrifice would volunteer for sacrifice.

The Tlaxcalans were NOT volunteers at Mexican sacrifices to Huizilopochtli. As you point out they were captured in battle. Tlaxcala was the first city state to ally with Spain because they hated the Mexicans.

Originally posted by KellyJay
You know what God can and can't do I keep forgetting the vast amounts of knowledge you have.

I already said I wondered when someone would pull the 'so now you know the mind of god' card. Well done. I am not claiming the mind of god, I am claiming the actions. But it is just a myth so there is nothing in it except local accounts of flooding that blossomed into the Noah story. That is the sum of it.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I already said I wondered when someone would pull the 'so now you know the mind of god' card. Well done. I am not claiming the mind of god, I am claiming the actions. But it is just a myth so there is nothing in it except local accounts of flooding that blossomed into the Noah story. That is the sum of it.

Well lets see God created the universe, God judges man in the universe, God punishment
is a flood that He directs to do specific things. Why wouldn't God be involved?

As far you are concern every time I turn around you are telling everyone this is what God
should or shouldn't do if God were real as if you know, and that God can or cannot do
this or that as if you know.

You are claiming knowledge by stating God is limited so this or that cannot happen by
the will of God, I think the only real struggle with the story is between your ears.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Well lets see God created the universe, God judges man in the universe, God punishment
is a flood that He directs to do specific things. Why wouldn't God be involved?

As far you are concern every time I turn around you are telling everyone this is what God
should or shouldn't do if God were real as if you know, and that God can or cannot do
this or th ...[text shortened]... happen by
the will of God, I think the only real struggle with the story is between your ears.

You make statements you can't prove, god creates the uni, god judges, god's punishment and so forth, and you back it up with yet more circular logic. The bible says it is so, so it is so.

Pretty much the poster boy for circular logic.

So I ALWAYS am wrong, you are ALWAYS right. In spite of the fact there are thousands of religions on the planet. According to you and a few billion other christians, only the BIBLE is right and all that other rot is false, Quran, Torah, Ipanishads, Buddhist writings, all false, only Christianity is THE true religion. They can't all be right but they sure as hell can all be wrong.

Some dude gets a wave by a preacher, hands on forehead, HEAL. HEAL in the name of the lord. The dude gets up and walks away, throws away his crutches, Praise the Lord he healed him.

Of course you don't like to talk about the 200 MILLION who died in torture and religious wars and secular wars of century 20 and 19. I guess all those men, women, children, infants, all were sinners and deserved to die. But that dude with the crutches, THAT guy the lord cured.

What's wrong with this picture?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
The Tlaxcalans were NOT volunteers at Mexican sacrifices to Huizilopochtli. As you point out they were captured in battle. Tlaxcala was the first city state to ally with Spain because they hated the Mexicans.

I imagine they were also not the Aztec's only neighbours. Further, whose testament is that based on? I'm making my statements based only on what is in Keegan's book (and similar things in European history). You may be repeating Spanish propaganda.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I imagine they were also not the Aztec's only neighbours. Further, whose testament is that based on? I'm making my statements based only on what is in Keegan's book (and similar things in European history). You may be repeating Spanish propaganda.

Pretty much any history source tells the same story. The Tlaxcalans remained honored allies of the Hispanics in Mexico for a long time afterwards.

http://houstonculture.org/mexico/tlaxcala.html

In time, the Tlaxcalans came up against the powerful Mexica (pronounced "me-shee-ka" ) Indians who inhabited the Valley of Mexico to the west. As the Mexica spread out from their base of power in Tenochtitlán, the Tlaxcalans became their traditional enemies. The Tlaxcalans and Mexica shared a common origin, both of them speaking the Náhuatl language. As a matter of fact, both the Tlaxcalans and the Mexica belonged to the Aztec culture, looking back to the legendary Aztlan (Place of the Herons) as their ancestral homeland in the northwest.

For more than two hundred years, the Tlaxcalan nation lived in the shadow of the Mexica and their rapidly expanding Aztec Empire. Starting in 1325, the Mexica had begun building an empire with their military force. They subdued neighboring city-states and compelled the people to surrender part of their production as tribute. By 1440, the Mexica had spread their influence as far south as Guatemala.

In 1519, the Aztec Empire was the most powerful Mesoamerican kingdom of all time. The Mexica capital of Tenochtitlán had become a city of about 300,000 citizens. And the Aztec Empire itself ruled over about 80,000 square miles of territory extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and southward to Oaxaca and Chiapas. This empire contained some 15 million people, living in thirty-eight provinces. In all, the Emperor received the tribute of 489 communities.

Although the Mexica put together an extensive and powerful empire, Tlaxcala never fell into their hands. When the Spanish conquistadors, under the command of Captain-General Hernán Cortés, reached the Tlaxcalan republic in 1519, Tlaxcala was an independent enclave deep in the heart of the Mexica Empire. At this time, the Tlaxcalan Confederation ruled over some 200 settlements, boasting a total population of about 150,000. Surrounded on all sides and economically blockaded, they had never yielded to the Mexica and had been subjected to almost continuous warfare and human sacrifice for many decades.

Some historians believe that Tenochtitlán could have overwhelmed Tlaxcala without too much difficulty, and the reason it did not is probably that it wanted a nearby source of victims for the human sacrifices. The clashes between the Tlaxcalans and Mexica were called the "Flower Wars" (Xochiyaoyotl). The chief purpose of these "ceremonial battles" was to furnish captives to be used in their sacrificial rites...

...

On April 22, 1519, a fleet of eleven Spanish galleons, which had been sailing northward along the eastern Gulf Coast of Mexico, dropped anchor just off the wind-swept beach on the island of San Juan de Ulúa. Under the command of the Spanish-born Captain-General Hernán Cortés, these vessels bore 450 soldiers, 100 sailors, and 16 horses. The first indigenous peoples that Cortés met with were the Totonac Indians who inhabited the coastal area near the city-state of Cempoala. Although this town of 14,000 was subject to the Aztec Empire, Cacique (Chief) Tlacochcalcatl and his people offered a warm welcome to Cortés, expressing the hope that the Spaniards may help them to gain independence from their Mexica overlords.

The chief of the Totonacs complained that the Mexica tribute collectors had picked the country clean and that hundreds of young Totonac children were brought to the altars of Tenochtitlán for sacrifice. The Cempoalans, impressed by the superior firepower of the Spaniards and the hope of overthrowing Aztec rule, helped Cortés and his men establish a base on the shore. On June 28, 1519, Cortés formally gave this town the name La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (The Rich Town of the True Cross). At this point, Cortés decided to lead his troops westward into the interior of the continent to find and meet with the Mexica monarch, Moctezuma.

Cacique Tlacochcalcatl warned Cortés that, on his journey inland, he would pass through the territory of the Tlaxcalans, who held a deep and uncompromising hatred toward the Mexica. It was his belief that the Tlaxcalans might be willing to ally themselves with the Spaniards. With the help of Totonac guides, Cortés planned his march to Tenochtitlán through territories that might represent fertile ground for more alliances. Finally, on August 16, 1519, Cortés assembled a formidable expedition to move inland from Cempoala. His army now consisted of 400 Spanish soldiers, 15 horses, 1,300 Indian warriors, seven pieces of artillery, and a thousand tamanes (porters), who helped transport baggage and guns across the land. About 150 of the porters were Cuban Indian servants who were brought along from Cuba. The force brought along many dogs that had been well-trained to fight. The distance from Cempoala to Tenochtitlán is 250 miles, as the crow flies.

On August 31, at a point ten miles into Tlaxcalan territory, Cortés' army encountered a hostile force of at least 30,000 Tlaxcalans. Despite the tremendous size of the army, the Spaniards managed to fend them off. Unlike other Indians, the Tlaxcalans seemed to have no fear of the horses and killed two of the animals. That night, the Spaniards, exhausted from their battle, rested in the open, some twenty miles from the capital city of Tlaxcala. The Tlaxcalan council then decided on a night attack against the Spaniards and their allies, but they found to their surprise that Cortés' troops were ready for them and reversed the ambush.

In the next battle, Cortés claimed that he faced a Tlaxcalan army of well over 100,000 warriors. In this battle, some sixty Spaniards and several horses were wounded by the enemy. But, on the following day, Cortés led a punitive expedition, burning some ten Tlaxcalan towns (with a total population of over 3,000). Many Indians were killed in this campaign. After a third day of battles, the Spaniards had lost 45 men who died in battle, died of wounds or succumbed to disease.

Watching the Spaniards prove themselves in battle, the Tlaxcalan King Xicotenga was very impressed and decided to allow Cortés' army to pass through the confederation. As the Spaniards entered the Tlaxcalan capital on September 18, they were welcomed into the town as if they were heroes. For twenty days, Cortés and his army stayed in Tlaxcala. As his men recovered from their wounds, Cortés forged a relationship with Xicotenga and other Tlaxcalan leaders. Xicotenga agreed to provide necessary provisions and manpower to the Spaniards. This change from hostility to alliance was brought on by Cortés' claims that he was opposed only to the Aztec empire and that there would be a place for Tlaxcala in a Spanish-dominated Mexico.

Xicotenga saw in Cortés a powerful ally who could help the Tlaxcalans destroy the Mexica and undermine the power of the Aztec Empire. The alliance between the Spaniards and Tlaxcalans is one of the most important events in Mexican history. This alliance of the Europeans with the Totonac and Tlaxcalan Indians gave birth to a formidable coalition which would eventually lead to the downfall and destruction of the entire Aztec Empire. The allegiance of the Tlaxcalans with the Spaniards would become an enduring partnership, lasting several centuries.

Originally posted by KellyJay
There is a consistent answer in scripture, when the leadership is bad the whole body will suffer for it. When the kings do evil the kingdom suffers.

What moral lessons about the nature and administering of justice can humans draw from this example set by your God figure? In East Timor here in the 70s and 80s [and 90s in fact] the Soeharto regime's military forces used to use 'whole family executions' where the fathers were suspected of being disloyal/dissident. Would that be an example of someone putting the morality laid out in the "scripture" you subscribe to into action correctly?