A great deal of time and effort is spent by fundamentalist
Christians to validate that the story of Noah's Ark was a literal
fact as portrayed in the Bible. For believers, the story of the
Noah's Ark is one of the pillars of a Bible that has no errors
and is to be taken literally as absolute fact. Skeptics naturally
have problems with this story.
A common Christian remark regarding Bible accuracy is to point
out that many skeptics say that the Bible must be in error
because the Ark could not possibly have carried all the different
types of animals.
Christians will then produce a wide variety of detailed
feasibility studies, lengthy speculations, and good old
fashioned, "with God all things are possible"
rationalizations to prove that the whole Noah's Ark story is
historical fact.
The Noah's Ark scenario will always be claimed as accurate by
anyone who wants to believe that it really happened.
No rationalization is too far fetched if someone really wants and
needs to believe it happened.
If you need the story to be literally true, then it is.
Far more disturbing are the ramifications involved with
wanting to worship the deity that was supposed to have caused the
flood.
Christians will also display simulated models of Noah's Ark, and
while doing so they also present the biblical account of the
Flood, warning viewers about the judgment of God upon sin and of
the final coming judgment when all humans will stand before Jesus
who sits on his mighty throne(2 Cor 5:10).
Then they will claim that their God has provided a way to escape
any unpleasant consequences of this judgment through the precious
blood of Jesus, who paid the penalty for human sins by his death
on the Cross.
And here we come to the reason for the entire tedious
rationalization process in order to establish the Noah's Ark
event as factual history.
If the Noah's Ark story isn't 100% true, then other elements of
the Holy Bible may not be true either.
If people begin to doubt that the Holy Bible is the "Word"
of an infallible God, then the whole theological house of cards
can tumble down.
People are told to believe as "fact" that the
tribal Bible God which caused the Flood will judge them at some
future date.
In order to escape this judgment, people are told that they must
worship a man/god hybrid sacrifice called "Jesus".
All the disturbing elements of the Flood are bypassed and people
are steered away from examining the revealing insight into the
character of this tribal God which this story provides.
It's hard to imagine how animals are "wicked" or how
human fetuses are "sinners", yet these beings are
destroyed by the Bible God despite the fact that they had
committed no transgression.
Gen 6:6-7,17
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and
it grieved him at his heart.
And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping
thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have
made them. And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters
upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of
life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth
shall die.
That a God would repent of what it created and kill off its own
entire creation, and not just the "sinful"
humans, indicates the kind of mental instability found in humans,
and should certainly not manifest itself in a perfect "God".
And if Jesus is really God as many Christians claim, then he is
the same deity responsible for this tremendous and widespread act
of destruction.
Many Christians chirp and sing that Jesus loves all the little
children of the world.
However, if the Bible is to be taken seriously, then Jesus loves
all the little children of the world only when it suits his
fancy. Jesus the God had no problem annihilating not only small
children and fetuses, but all the little animals and other
creatures of the world as well.
This is the same God who finds the aroma of burnt offerings
pleasing, who gives detailed instructions on how to kill animals
and burn them, who rejects some people before they are born, and
who hardens human hearts so they can serve his purpose.
The fact that Noah is told to take "extra" clean
animals along(Gen 7:2) is disturbing in itself since soon
after the ark lands, Noah takes some of the animals he went to
all the trouble of saving and kills them so God can sniff the
pleasing aroma of their burning flesh. This act of killing some
of the saved animals and birds and burning their flesh on an
altar was so sweet smelling to the nostrils of God that he
decided to never again flood the world(Gen 8:20-21).
The righteous Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives are
saved by the "grace" of God to start the earthly
game all over again.
Yet, it isn't long before trouble starts.
After the Ark lands, the righteous Noah gets drunk and passes out
naked in his tent. One of his sons, Ham, sees his father passed
out naked and tells his two brothers about it. An utterly bizarre
sequence of events follow which result in Noah cursing his
grandchild(Ham's son Canaan), along with his offspring, to serve
an inferior, slave like role in society.
Gen 9:18-25
And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and
Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth
overspread.
And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered
within his tent.
And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father,
and told his two brethren without.
And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their
shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their
father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their
father's nakedness.
And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had
done unto him.
And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of
servants shall he be unto his brethren.
The end result of this sorry episode is that Canaan and his
offspring are cursed because his father Ham saw Noah naked and
passed out in a drunken stupor. The offspring of Canaan, known as
Canaanites, are the very people that God instructs Moses and his
followers to utterly destroy as part of God's cosmic script being
acted out on earth(Deut 7:1-2).
The effects of the curse on Canaan are present over thousands of
years and vividly illustrated when Jesus himself referred to
Canaanites as "dogs", and reinforces the
inferior role of these people in society.
Matt 15:21-26
Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and
Sidon.
And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of
the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O
Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a
devil.
But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and
besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.
Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
But he(Jesus) answered and said, It is not meet to take the
children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
By virtue of being a descendant of the cursed Canaan, this woman
has assigned to her the status of a "dog" and is
forced to play the role of a dog by begging and flattering Jesus
into healing her daughter.
The Flood itself is a monument to inept solutions as it failed to
solve the problem of wickedness which had infected the earth.
Since God is supposed to be omniscient, he flooded the world knowing
ahead of time that it wouldn't really solve anything.
After the flood, according to Christians, things then muddle
along for a few thousand years and at some point this Bible God
decides that a human sacrifice is the best "solution"
to the problem and cancels all his laws, his procedures for
atonement, and replaces them with a new system called
Christianity.
People are then told that they must believe all these
theological gymnastics or face eternal punishment at the hands of
this holy tribal "God".
Lost in all the hoopla is the question of what a person should do
if they simply can't bring themselves to respect, serve, and
worship this "God".
If a person makes it that far and still hasn't accepted this "savior",
they are told not to question the motive or actions of this "God"
because they are hopeless sinful wretches who are incapable of
proper thought because they are blinded by another character
called "Satan", who was also created by "God".
The whole mess boils down to a cosmic game invented by an alleged
"God" so it can amuse itself.
Legions of apologists have spent years and countless resources
trying to prop up this salvation shell game, which never once
addresses the question of what a human wretch is to do if he
finds this "God"( which is defined to him by
others) isn't holy or worthy of worship.
Skeptics are instructed that since God created everything, he has
the right to do whatever he wants with it.
No action on the part of this God, regardless of what it is, can
ever be examined or evaluated by any human standard.
God's ways are simply beyond scrutiny of any type because they
transcend all human analysis.
Isa 55:9
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my(God's)
ways higher than your ways, and my(God's) thoughts than your
thoughts.
At this point the Christian circular logic loop takes over and
unbelievers are told that:
"God is Holy because the Bible says so and the Bible is
the Word of God."
The whole cycle then spins around and around, century after
century, never resolving itself, proving that the human power of
rationalization has no equal.
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