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Why does jesus confirm the universal flood myth?


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Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

Incorrect.  I view them as authoritative with respect to matters of the church

Nonsense.  You would likewise claim, I suppose, that Billy Graham in his day spoke authoritatively for the BGEA (Billy Graham Evangelistic Assoc).  True enough.  However, that is not the same as saying that Billy's every interpretation of Scripture constitutes accurate biblical exegesis.  You clearly take it as a matter of fact that both the BGEA and the LDS Church are nothing more than secular organizations posing as otherworldly.  You regard the Mormon Canon as fiction, but you apply that as well to the Judeo-Christian Canons of Scripture.  Surely you understand that much.  So why do you continue to beat around the bush?  Why do you continue to pretend that those secular LDS Brethren are supposed to be infallible in their interpretation of Scripture?  :beatdeadhorse:

You are speaking out of both sides of your mouth.  We might call that Orwellian doublespeak.

Edited by Robert F. Smith
Posted
50 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

There is evidence that sea levels rose about 400 feet around 12000 years ago. What might happen to any civilizations  living at that time ? ( Gobekli Tepe anyone ) 

It happened over thousands of years with an average rate of 1m/ hundred years. So I’d say that nothing happened to the civilizations at the time. 

50 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

There is also evidence of vast flooding , marine uplifts , massive volcanic eruptions etc. 

Then there are the fossils , about 80% are marine and , of the rest, nearly all show rapid burial by mudflows. There are bone piles of numerous types of animals all jumbled together.

 

 

None of which support a global flood. Local disasters and flooding? Sure. Last global mass extinction event wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. 

 

Posted
5 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Last global mass extinction event wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. 

Yup, that was some serious global warming

 

7 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

average rate of 1m/ hundred years.

Let's see , 400 ft rise is about 130 m so according to you it took 13000 years to rise and that rise happened 12000 years ago. Hmmm !

Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, strappinglad said:

Yup, that was some serious global warming

 

Let's see , 400 ft rise is about 130 m so according to you it took 13000 years to rise and that rise happened 12000 years ago. Hmmm !


🙄 You misquoted the date not me:

Quote

Global sea level rose by a total of more than 120 metres as the vast ice sheets of the last Ice Age melted back. This melt-back lasted from about 19,000 to about 6,000 years ago


https://noc.ac.uk/news/global-sea-level-rise-end-last-ice-age

 

(edit for format)

 

Edited by SeekingUnderstanding
Posted
12 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

The evidence against a universal flood that killed all life with the exception of that on Noah’s Ark is overwhelming and indisputable to anyone willing to examine the evidence. To maintain a faith contrary to this evidence would be just plain conscience ignorance.

But it doesn’t negate the power and meaning of the story. It is one of the Bible stories from my childhood that taught me about obedience, hope, and redemption. Jesus knew the power of it, whether literal or figurative, he didn’t live in a vacuum. 

Posted (edited)
18 hours ago, bluebell said:

Ok. Either Christ disagrees with you or there is some other explanation.  If you are fully committed to the "Christ definitely agrees with me" idea, and if you care enough about the topic to find a way through the perplexing, then you should focus on finding other explanations.

From my perspective, you can believe whatever you want about it and it's no big deal, unless you 1) happen to be wrong and 2) decide that 'there was no flood and Noah is definitely a mythical character" is a hill worth dying on. 

That combination will obviously not end well.

I view the church and its truth claims as this massive box of jig saw puzzle pieces.  The instructions that came with the box indicate that each piece fits easily with the other pieces in the box to form the same  beautiful heavenly picture that is found on the Box Cover.  Truth is consistent right? Unfortunately I feel cheated by the seller because this has not been my experience.  Left within the box, unexamined, the picture on the box is magnificent and beautiful, but actually dumping the individual pieces out and attempting to fit them together to complete the promised puzzle is impossible.

Over the last several years I've been diligently attempting to put the puzzle together piece by piece.  Every once in a while I'll pick up a truth claim , examine it and attempt to make it fit within the Mormon Truth Claim Puzzle I am attempting to put together.  Oft time I'll find a piece that clearly fits within a few isolated pieces but when I attempt to place that collective of pieces together with the greater puzzle, they just don't fit or to be fair, I can't make them fit to my satisfaction.

I can only speak for myself, but if the church is everything that it claims to be, there should be a consistency and a common thread that makes each of its truth claims sync perfectly with every other claim.  This unfortunately has not been my experience.  Instead I find islands of claims that work well in isolation from other claims but do not fit under any circumstance when attempting to match them to the whole.

For me this is disappointing for it undermines the claims of truth I am attempting to confirm.

Why Jesus would speak of a mythical flood is beyond me in light of the conflicting evidence and yet he seemingly does so across multiple scriptural references. So I must assume that Jesus was either misinformed, being deceitful, or used the flood as purely a metaphor to teach us.  Of course concluding either of the first 2 options is out of the question if Jesus is God. So I must assume that Jesus was speaking in parable.  And yet we have other puzzle pieces that require Noah to be an actual historical figure.  So the puzzle pieces don't fit.

Edited by Fair Dinkum
Posted (edited)
10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Nonsense.  You would likewise claim, I suppose, that Billy Graham in his day spoke authoritatively for the BGEA (Billy Graham Evangelistic Assoc).  True enough.  However, that is not the same as saying that Billy's every interpretation of Scripture constitutes accurate biblical exegesis.  You clearly take it as a matter of fact that both the BGEA and the LDS Church are nothing more than secular organizations posing as otherworldly.  You regard the Mormon Canon as fiction, but you apply that as well to the Judeo-Christian Canons of Scripture.  Surely you understand that much.  So why do you continue to beat around the bush?  Why do you continue to pretend that those secular LDS Brethren are supposed to be infallible in their interpretation of Scripture?  :beatdeadhorse:

You are speaking out of both sides of your mouth.  We might call that Orwellian doublespeak.

^^^^^^This is the impression I have left with you Robert?^^^^^^ Groan. Even after I read your book?  I sense you are getting tired of my presence here.

Let me state this in clear English, one of several languages I speak and also my mother tongue.  I want the church to be true, which is why I even post here. Do I believe it is?  Honestly, I don't know.  I don't hate the church but yes I am extremely frustrated with the church and its truth claims.  If someone, perhaps you, held a gun to my head and made me make a decision today, I would lean toward it being a man made enterprise and like all human enterprises it reflects the foibles of its human masters, imperfect, with good intentions but often falling short of its intended goals.

But the church doesn't claim to be a human institution, it claims to be run by the creator of the universe having direct access to that entity.  And seeing the church that makes this claim coupled with it's very real human failings, makes my head explode.

Edited by Fair Dinkum
Posted
13 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

In order for the flood to have any meaning it had to perform the baptismal purpose of cleansing the earth.

Even if it didn't cover the globe at the very least it had to cover all inhabited land.

And I agree with you...we have men who claimed to be prophets with direct links to God claiming that the earth was baptized by the flood.  And yet when we dismiss these men as merely speaking as men and opining within their limited understanding we are in fact throwing the entire institution of Prophethood under the bus.

Posted
11 hours ago, strappinglad said:

There is evidence that sea levels rose about 400 feet around 12000 years ago. What might happen to any civilizations  living at that time ? ( Gobekli Tepe anyone ) 

There is also evidence of vast flooding , marine uplifts , massive volcanic eruptions etc. 

Then there are the fossils , about 80% are marine and , of the rest, nearly all show rapid burial by mudflows. There are bone piles of numerous types of animals all jumbled together.

 One can argue dates and times but don't say there is NO evidence of flooding on a grand scale ever in earth's history. 

Love him or not, Kurt Wise has some interesting views on the subject. 

Lots of folks think Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed , David and most all the Biblical figures were mythological not " real " so Fair Dinkum is not alone in his skeptical views. 

Just one example of many: World's Largest Dinosaur Graveyard Linked to Mass Death | Live Science

 

And yet the mythical flood supposedly took place 4,000 years ago

Posted
13 hours ago, Fair Dinkum said:

The evidence against a universal flood that killed all life with the exception of that on Noah’s Ark is overwhelming and indisputable to anyone willing to examine the evidence. 

...while ignoring the obvious evidence that the account COULD BE figurative or a parable.

For intelligent folks there are probably a hundred ways of seeing this, you are intelligent,  so why are you so locked in on one way of seeing this?  USE that intelligence you have. 

You are wearing sunglasses at midnight!

Get out of "Kansas" and see all the colors of the rainbow!

 

Posted
9 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

........................ I want the church to be true, which is why I even post here. Do I believe it is?  Honestly, I don't know.  I don't hate the church but yes I am extremely frustrated with the church and its truth claims.  ..................... I would lean toward it being a man made enterprise and like all human enterprises it reflects the foibles of its human masters, imperfect, with good intentions but often falling short of its intended goals.

Exactly, and you are not alone in such thoughts.  Indeed, this is a very common assumption in our modern world.

The LDS version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not true because I say so, but can only be affirmed by those with a testimony of such.  The LDS Church is a human run institution, and as such will always fall short of someone's expectations.  Even the pretend God which you posit would presumably not expect perfection or infallibility from His Church and the leaders which superintend it.  Where you fall short is in making grandiose assumptions about that human institution.  No person or institution can survive such unfair scrutiny.

9 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

But the church doesn't claim to be a human institution, it claims to be run by the creator of the universe having direct access to that entity.  And seeing the church that makes this claim coupled with it's very real human failings, makes my head explode.

Again the classic pathetic fallacy:  Churches don't make claims, people do, and the Mormon Canon of Scripture repeatedly makes the frank, unapologetic point that humans are flawed -- including prophets.  I realize full well that those raised in rigid religious homes have a very hard time accepting that, to the extent that they often falsely claim that humans "have direct access" to deity, but assertion is not fact.  Why do you automatically reject such nuances?

Posted
9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

...while ignoring the obvious evidence that the account COULD BE figurative or a parable.

For intelligent folks there are probably a hundred ways of seeing this, you are intelligent,  so why are you so locked in on one way of seeing this?  USE that intelligence you have. 

You are wearing sunglasses at midnight!

Get out of "Kansas" and see all the colors of the rainbow!

 

I see the beauty in metaphor and nuance and I love the stories Jesus uses to teach a principle through parable.  But the historical existence of an Adam, Noah, Moses or Abraham are core to the foundational claims of the church.  If anyone of them was merely a character within a parable the entire foundational narrative of the church falls apart.  Yes these stories can still offer inspiration and valuable lessons in life, but they can't fulfill the eternal promises that the church makes, that requires these Biblical characters to have actually existed.

Posted (edited)
38 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

Is Elder Uchtdorf teaching here that Bilbo Baggins was a real person, er, hobbit? 

From the talk:

Quote

A beloved children’s fantasy novel written many years ago begins with the sentence “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”1


Can you give one example of a modern prophet seer or revelator hinting that the flood or Noah were anything other than literal and historical (similar to “a children’s fantasy novel”)

I think it’s fine for people to step away from the literal truth claims of the church. I think it’s wrong to pretend that the church doesn’t make those literal truth claims. 

Edited by SeekingUnderstanding
Posted
19 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

It's pretty standard to talk about even fictional events and people as if they were real.  Doesn't mean the speaker believes they are real or expects that his listeners will believe they are real. 

From Elder Uchtdorf's General Conference talk in October 2019:

 


Is Elder Uchtdorf teaching here that Bilbo Baggins was a real person, er, hobbit? 

 

Are you equating biblical characters with fictional characters?  Yes we can learn lessons from fiction but putting faith in fiction is just placing faith in a false hope.

Posted
52 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

I want the church to be true, which is why I even post here. Do I believe it is?  Honestly, I don't know.  I don't hate the church but yes I am extremely frustrated with the church and its truth claims.  If someone, perhaps you, held a gun to my head and made me make a decision today, I would lean toward it being a man made enterprise and like all human enterprises it reflects the foibles of its human masters, imperfect, with good intentions but often falling short of its intended goals.

With respect you can’t force what you believe. You appear to believe that belief/faith is good, but you don’t actually believe. 
 

https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/belief-in-belief

Posted
9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Pick a side or admit you are just stirring the pot because you can. I can respect the latter but why be all disingenuous about it?

Sorry I'm confused with what exactly you are asking me. Could you please elaborate.

Posted
19 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

And I agree with you...we have men who claimed to be prophets with direct links to God claiming that the earth was baptized by the flood.  And yet when we dismiss these men as merely speaking as men and opining within their limited understanding we are in fact throwing the entire institution of Prophethood under the bus.

The old infallibility claim again -- "prophets with direct links to God" -- even though Scripture tells us repeatedly that those prophets do have "limited understanding."  Are you truly so unfamiliar with the Mormon Canon?

D&C 1:24, "these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language"

I Nephi 19:6, "And now, if I do err, even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself."

II Ne 31:3, "For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding."

II Nephi 33:11, "I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness."

Your automatic assumption is that a complete immersion baptism is spoken of, which is nonsense simply as a practical matter -- unless the sprinkling rain of worldwide precipitation is meant (the great Pluvial Rains, which the Earth has not seen since the end of the last Ice Age).  A much simpler approach is to review St Paul's claim that Israel crossing the Sea of Reeds dryshod was a "baptism"

I Corinthians 10:1-2, "...all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;  And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;"

Plainly, no immersion took place.

Your biggest problem, Fair Dinkum, is your unfamiliarity with Scripture, and with scholarship on the subject.  You are not alone in this, but it plays havoc with your attempts to bring clarity to the issues.

Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, Fair Dinkum said:

You conveniently forgot to cite the immediately preceding introduction:

Quote

Bible Chronology

Bible chronology deals with fixing the exact dates of the various events recorded. For the earliest parts of Old Testament history we rely entirely on the scripture itself; but the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint or Greek translation, and the Samaritan Pentateuch do not agree together, so that many dates cannot be fixed with certainty. From the time of David onwards we get much assistance from secular history, such as inscriptions on monuments and other state records. Much work has still to be done in this direction. The dates found at the top of many printed English Bibles are due to Archbishop Ussher (1581–1656). Some of them have been shown to be incorrect.

© 2013 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. Source: 2015/03/24

You take the KJV English translation as normative, completely unaware of the actual nature of the dates in the text.  The Chronology Chart provided in the LDS and other Bibles are not canonical Scripture, but only helps, leaving no warrant whatsoever for your claim.  If you understood LDS history, you would have other means by which to explore this issue, but you are dealing with this matter instead at the Sunday School level -- instead of applying scholarship.

Edited by Robert F. Smith
Posted
52 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You have no reasonable warrant for that time scale.

If the position published by the church (with caveats) and taught by its leaders = "no reasonable warrant" I'd say your beef is with the church not Fair Dinkum. Maybe get them to update the dates they use.

Posted
7 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The old infallibility claim again -- "prophets with direct links to God" -- even though Scripture tells us repeatedly that those prophets do have "limited understanding."  Are you truly so unfamiliar with the Mormon Canon?

D&C 1:24, "these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language"

I Nephi 19:6, "And now, if I do err, even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself."

II Ne 31:3, "For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding."

II Nephi 33:11, "I have been commanded of him to write these things, notwithstanding my weakness."

I find it ironic that on the one hand you point to my supposed ignorance of Mormon Scripture when I refer to "prophets with direct links to God" and then quote from LDS scriptures wherein prophets have such perfect direct links with God that they can quote Him word for word.  Hmmm

7 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Your automatic assumption is that a complete immersion baptism is spoken of, which is nonsense simply as a practical matter -- unless the sprinkling rain of worldwide precipitation is meant (the great Pluvial Rains, which the Earth has not seen since the end of the last Ice Age).  A much simpler approach is to review St Paul's claim that Israel crossing the Sea of Reeds dryshod was a "baptism"

I Corinthians 10:1-2, "...all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;  And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;"

Plainly, no immersion took place.

I agree I am not the one that made the silly claim of an earth baptized by immersion, those statements were made by prophets of God

7 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Your biggest problem, Fair Dinkum, is your unfamiliarity with Scripture, and with scholarship on the subject.  You are not alone in this, but it plays havoc with your attempts to bring clarity to the issues.

I don't completely disagree with you here, I don't claim to be a scriptorian but to assert my complete unfamiliarity would be unfair as well.

Posted (edited)
28 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You conveniently forgot to cite the immediately preceding introduction:

You take the KJV English translation as normative, completely unaware of the actual nature of the dates in the text.  The Chronology Chart provided in the LDS and other Bibles are not canonical Scripture, but only helps, leaving no warrant whatsoever for your claim.  If you understood LDS history, you would have other means by which to explore this issue, but you are dealing with this matter instead at the Sunday School level -- instead of applying scholarship.

Fair enough, but it kind of throws the entire Adamic timeline out of wack doesn't it. But then I don't buy into an actual Adam or that time line anyway.  The Adam and Eve Story is fiction pure and simple

Edited by Fair Dinkum
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