[k-pop]

(Original post by mmmpie)
Genesis, chapter 9, verse 13 is where the rainbow being a symbol of the covenant comes from.

It's actually a bit of a rip off from the Epic of Gligamesh, tablet 11. There the goddess Ishtar takes a beautiful jewelled necklace made for her by Anu, and lifts it up into the sky in memory of the great flood. The necklace is identified with the prototypical rainbow.

The flood myth itself probably originates from a sudden rise in sea levels associated with the end of the last ice age - personally I think it was the breaching of the Bosphorous by rising sea levels in the Mediterranean, which would have caused the Black Sea to suddenly and dramatically expand, but there is no consensus on exactly which event it was. The flood myth is found in every culture of that region and period though, so something must have happened.

So shouldn't that prove that The story of Noah might be real and God might have made the convanenat later on (years later) after the flood at the same time Ishtar admired her necklace then she saw a rainbow like no other at the same time. lol.



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[mmmpie]

(Original post by k-pop)
So shouldn't that prove that The story of Noah might be real and God might have made the convanenat later on (years later) after the flood at the same time Ishtar admired her necklace then she saw a rainbow like no other at the same time. lol.

Ishtar was a goddess, and was identified with the Cannanite goddess Athtart. The Epics of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, which give the Sumerian-Akkadian-Babylonian rendering of the flood myth predate the book of Genesis by about a thousand years.

Interestingly enough, Ishtar's father in Sumerian mythology (who made her the necklace) was Anu who was one of the Anunnaki, the triumvirate of three supreme gods - another of the three, Enlil, was credited with the sending of the flood and the idea of creating humans, while his brother Enki got the credit for the confusion of tongues. Enlil was thought the wises, and the Cannanite chief god El derives from him, as does the hebrew word Elohim.

Yahweh, the god of Israel (and by extension of all modern Abrahamic religions) is thought to derive his name from the word yahwi, meaning "he who creates", and which is probably a contraction of the sentence el du yahwi seba'ot which means "El who creates the hosts" - there are records of this sentence being used ritualistically. This strongly suggests an identification between the Abrahamic Yahweh, the Cannanite El, and the Sumerian Enlil, something which is reinforced by the similarity of their surrounding mythologies.

There are alternative hypotheses. Yahweh may come from Edom and not from Cannan, in which case the etymology of the name in south semitic languages would suggest a storm god - again conflation with Enlil is likely given that Enlil was the god of air and sky - in Akkadian Enlil literally means "Lord of the Storm". It's somewhat likely that Yahweh displaced Baal in this case, which fits with the rivalry between Yahweh and Baal (and their followers) described in the Bible.

Of all of these many gods, Enlil is the oldest. First myths relating to Enlil were recorded circa 2000 BCE, while the first myths about Yahweh were recorded about 600 BCE - although there a speculated to be sources as old as 1000 BCE.

So, as given in the Bible, the story of Noah has to be a derivative of earlier stories. According to the bible Noah lived for approximately 350 years after the flood, and Yahweh made the covenant with Noah, so for the story to be consistent it couldn't have been made too much later.

Sumerian and Akkadian mythology is very interesting, and sheds a lot of light on some of the unlikely aspects of modern religions that originate in the region. If you read the Epic of Atrahasis, you get a story which could in modern Christian terms be described as a trinitarian god arguing with a bunch of unruly angels, and creating humanity in order to spread the workload.

[Sheep]

the whole idea of him creating something and then destroying it because it didn't turn out like he wanted clearly implies that he's not omnipotent

in fact it just seems kind of human, which makes sense since it was imagined by a human

[TheGrinningSkull]

(Original post by Nacho King)
Sorry I quickly answer this without reading the origional discussion. Were you talking about judgement day at the supposed second coming, or the judgement day for Noah's Ark? I don't understand.

I was answering the point you made about God not getting involved anymore as you put it.

I said that things would be getting worse nearer to the end of time which we don't even know when it would be anyway. Although there may be indications which you can try to query or look up if you're that interested

[GStevens]

(Original post by chickenonsteroids)
You can't use the properties of the god (that you have to assume exists) in order to prove that it doesn't exist. It's like me saying that I have a green chair but I hate the colour green so it must not exist.

You can use the claimed properties to demonstrate that the entity supposedly described by them can't exist.

What you think is bad isn't necessarily bad especially if the god you're arguing against has the properties of benevolence.

I think we can pretty much say what is bad and what isn't. There are gray areas and differences of opinion about some things but we can be as sure as we need to be about others. It would be quite difficult to say that it is good for millions of people to die of horrible diseases and only a moron would try. Of course many of our religious friends will do just that in some weird defence of the god they invented.

Quite simply god cant have all of the three essential properties ascribed to him. At best he can have any two of the three. Then he would still be a god, he just wouldn't be the Xtian god who by definition is all three.

[GStevens]

(Original post by Pitt1988)
I'm not religious, but Kevin Bridges put it well once. That he has lots of other things to attend to and he's just been gone for a while, leaving an 'empty'. When he gets back and sees the state of the place a lot of people are getting kicked out!

Sadly he can't use that cop out. As well as the essential properties of omniscience, omnipotent, and omnibenevolence there are also accidental properties, those which are not required for his existence but which he is reckoned to have. God is eternal, he exists in all places, at all times. This means that he would have no problem dealing with us as well as juggling an infinite number of other universes.

[miser]

While I agree with your points, an important part about that story is that God promised never to do it again, and created the rainbow as a reminder of that promise between man and god.

[hopingtobeadentist]

(Original post by Nacho King)
Okay, so I was thinking today, many are familiar with the story of Noah's Ark, and although I could tear this story to bits about is credibility and its lack of logic, I thought of a different angle on the story that we should all consider.

So the story is in Genesis (Old T.), and God's reason for flooding the world was that he saw the wickedness of man and is grieved by his creation, resolving to send a great flood to cleanse the Earth.

What I ask is how bad would people and society have had to been back compared to today for him to do this then but not now? How can anything be worse than society now? We have government corruption, people with billions and people with literally nothing, we have the most athiests on the planet than ever before, big corporations ruining lives, child labour, the list goes on...

So if God really does exist, firstly, why is he so incompetent and more importantly, why hasn't he shown his face and flooded the world or done something else to rid the world of his creation? He has no reason not too, he was happy influencing the world every so often back in the Bible days, but for some reasons in todays world where we are desperate for proof he exists, he doesn't seem to get involved anymore (most likely because he doesn't exist.)

You can't deny that I make an interesting point. What are your thoughts.

The world before was actually worster, men used to treat women more harshly and used to control them, women didn't have freedom and were mostly treated like ****, parents used to bury baby girls alive because they wanted boys, there was more slavery etc.

He hasn't shown his face because life is a test, he is testing everyone to see who has faith and believes in the works and who is going towards the route of the devil (basically being bad and denying everything), if he did show his face then everybody or the majority of people would believe he's real and it wouldn't be a test any more :s think about it

In the bible, Qur'an etc. he does mention the signs of judgement day and these are the major signs, earthquakes, wars, those kinda things. It basically means judgement day is coming. He doesn't do anything (or more preferably less) because he's trying to show us judgement day is coming fast.

And if you don't believe God exists, how do you think the world was formed? The big band theory? So you believe the world was created from small particles? Well who created them particles? Did they occur just like that? Don't be a joke.

[PandyAndy]

(Original post by hopingtobeadentist)
The world before was actually worster, men used to treat women more harshly and used to control them, women didn't have freedom and were mostly treated like ****, parents used to bury baby girls alive because they wanted boys, there was more slavery etc.

He hasn't shown his face because life is a test, he is testing everyone to see who has faith and believes in the works and who is going towards the route of the devil (basically being bad and denying everything), if he did show his face then everybody or the majority of people would believe he's real and it wouldn't be a test any more :s think about it

In the bible, Qur'an etc. he does mention the signs of judgement day and these are the major signs, earthquakes, wars, those kinda things. It basically means judgement day is coming. He doesn't do anything (or more preferably less) because he's trying to show us judgement day is coming fast.

And if you don't believe God exists, how do you think the world was formed? The big band theory? So you believe the world was created from small particles? Well who created them particles? Did they occur just like that? Don't be a joke.

So you believe God created the world? Who created God? Is he conveniently eternal? Don't be a joke

[hopingtobeadentist]

(Original post by PandyAndy)
So you believe God created the world? Who created God? Is he conveniently eternal? Don't be a joke

Well then who created the Big bang? I guess we both lose.

[PandyAndy]

(Original post by hopingtobeadentist)
Well then who created the Big bang? I guess we both lose.

I have no idea;who says it had to be a someone? The best we can do is remain neutral on it.

[hopingtobeadentist]

(Original post by PandyAndy)
I have no idea;who says it had to be a someone? The best we can do is remain neutral on it.

Well yeeh it is, but I still have faith in God and believe in him, I just don't believe in religions, just makes life harder

[Frankie_say_relax]

(Original post by TheGrinningSkull)
You try to make a point using religious reasoning.

I expand on your point based on the religious knowledge.

You refute my claim because you do not believe in the religious text anyway.

What sort of debate is this?

I already explained to you that things would be getting worse building up towards judgement day. Can't say much for whatever great natural disasters that may come like the great flood.

But... THE RAINBOWS!!!!

[Horatio-]

(Original post by LeeC)
It's fine to joke but some people actually believe that kind of stuff. So if you are going to get upset if somebody asks you if you really believe that on a dsicussion forum about beliefs, then frankly you need to get off your high horse.

Do not intervene if you don't even understand the situation.


I was not upset. More so disappointed that he decided to result to name calling instead.

Whether I believe it or not it's never really acceptable to just start slagging someone off because you disagree. Obviously in this argument there is no established right or wrong answer so using ad hominem only makes you appear foolish and unable to present a decent argument.

[LeeC]

(Original post by Horatio-)
I was not upset. More so disappointed that he decided to result to name calling instead.

There is no ad hominem/name calling in the part where you quoted him..he said 'to me that's stupidity', but he didn't actually attack you personally.

[Will_to_power]

Ark of Noah's just a myth, don't take it so serious

[Lowie_B]

(Original post by Nacho King)
Okay, so I was thinking today, many are familiar with the story of Noah's Ark, and although I could tear this story to bits about is credibility and its lack of logic, I thought of a different angle on the story that we should all consider.

So the story is in Genesis (Old T.), and God's reason for flooding the world was that he saw the wickedness of man and is grieved by his creation, resolving to send a great flood to cleanse the Earth.

What I ask is how bad would people and society have had to been back compared to today for him to do this then but not now? How can anything be worse than society now? We have government corruption, people with billions and people with literally nothing, we have the most athiests on the planet than ever before, big corporations ruining lives, child labour, the list goes on...

So if God really does exist, firstly, why is he so incompetent and more importantly, why hasn't he shown his face and flooded the world or done something else to rid the world of his creation? He has no reason not too, he was happy influencing the world every so often back in the Bible days, but for some reasons in todays world where we are desperate for proof he exists, he doesn't seem to get involved anymore (most likely because he doesn't exist.)

You can't deny that I make an interesting point. What are your thoughts.

Ok, first things first if you don't believe that's your choice I'm not knocking your views and beliefs and there's no shame in questioning this I'm certainly not offended
Personally I believe that God did that back then because he saw ill in man but after Noah collected those animals together and saved them as well as himself he proved to God that there is good in man. Although we have incidents today which are not pleasant I believe God knows that not everyone is perfect but for those who avoid sin and wrong doing that is why he does not show himself. He realises that nobody is perfect and we have the right to do what we do even if it is wrong. If people act out then the law punishes them now - not God. So I guess it gives the guy a break x