Og

Of course the flood myth is common amongst cultures. Just as the transcendent prophet of a divine birth is common amongst cultures. The water metaphor is a universal symbol for the boundary between the conscious and subconscious mind.

Could you provide a reference to a peer reviewed journal article on the topic of the salinity measurements that you comment on in this post? The article you copied and pasted from offers no such supporting evidence. Basically it looks like a christian site with no supporting evidence (i.e. the story of the religion's existence).

I imagine most of your post was a copy/paste party from a variety of sources of questionable scientific value.

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tommi atkins

Thallus: He is writing 100+ years after the event. If i try to hammer out an account of the Boer War today by asking white south africans, i will get the same sort of accuracy.

Noah:Your saying , hey ok, I accept that lots of other religions had this flood the world idea centuries before Noah's story, but you have to PROVE its not ripped off them.
I just wrote a book today where a Young girl steps through a portal and meets a sentinent pack of playing cards and a white Squirrel and a insane cobbler and they sit and have a breakfast party and she drinks a drink that makes her fat and eats a cake that makes her thin. I want you to PROVE, that i havnt ripped that idea from anywhere. It's my totally original idea and its really really truely happened. Yeah right!

Social context. I love Social context. Why? Because what God says is good years ago is good today. That cant change. Why has god got to fit the idea of what is good into the social context of the time? Does he condone the stoning of the adulterer? Nay! Verily he commandeth it! If stoning the adulterer was intrinsicly evil, then God unchanging as he is , would have forbade it at the time, for his wurd is evarlasting. When a theist starts talking social context, they accept at the very least, that man has morally outgrown God.

duck

That is a rather interesting statement. One of the issues that I still, in my middle years, grapple with often.

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shaun

Your point? Again, just because there are similiarities does not disprove one or the other - to say so is a cum hoc ergo propter hoc (confusing correlation with causation) fallacy.

Furthermore, Christianity does not say that Jesus was a prophet, but rather that Jesus was God.

I can quote you the source:
"Noah, the Flood, the Facts," Reader's Digest, U.S. edition, September 1977, p. 133

shaun

First off, he lived in the middle of the 1st century to the late 2nd century - no more than 100 years after, and more likely wrote his accounts 60-80 years after 33ad.
Secondly, 70-80 some-odd years is a _wonderfully_ close time period for ancient history.
Thirdly, you're making a false assumption that he did not check his references, was not validated and checked by other writers of the time, and collected material from reputable sources. And you're assuming incorrectness without proving why it is invalid - or at least giving any reasons for it.

I seriously doubt you live in the same doubt of historians who today write about the Civil War, or even World War II (a closer comparison).

No, I don't. Can you back up your claim? If you're going to challenge my case - which I have said that there is no literal copying of texts - then you have to show me that there is. The burden lies on you.

Secondly, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. To say otherwise is fallacious.

What is good? You're still assuming things. You are assuming that one action is always, in any time period, good. I am challenging that assumption, saying that certain actions in different social contexts are good.

If hitting a child is always wrong, why is spanking good sometimes for children? If not allowing kids to eat is always bad, why is preventing your son from having cookies before dinner good?

Context is necessary for understanding.

Fallacy - no, I do not have to accept that at all - to say I do is a logical jump. I am saying that an actions moral value can change based upon the context. There is no changing of God's character in that at all, rather just the action.

WilliamBlue

FYI: http://www.pathofreason.com/globalfl...ati/4525397742

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Og

I don't believe I was making claims about the validity of the symbols being taken literally. Hence no fallacy possible. I was just illustrating some parallels that raise questions about validity of literal claims. I wasn't disproving or proving anything.

So that would be a no then eh? Reader's digest is hardly a peer reviewed marine biology journal.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

tommi atkins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_%28mythology%29

A Nice summary of some of the most popular Deietys who have wiped out civilisation.

AB517

all made up.
The only things I see at work some natural event. Weather or plate teck.

or

Men killing other men

Og

Flood myth is symbolic of a psychological/cultural event. Of course there was no global flood. The point is what it represents about the people from which the story came. Taking it literally destroys this meaning and blinds you to the transcendent truth of the myth/metaphors.

It represents change, social upheaval, a loss of the old ways.. etc.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are