Did the Great Flood really happen? - Living Faith - Home & Family - News - Catholic Online
Many Christians today argue the flood story is only a myth. It is a cautionary tale, not intended for literal interpretation. What's important, they say, is that we accept the lessons in the story rather than the story itself. There is merit to this approach. The story has no value if we ignore the lessons it teaches.
I don't have any position on the theology of the Flood but, unless it was a supernatural event unlike any before or since, historically there was no global flood. There is no geological evidence for it and no natural forces that could cause such a global flood.
The burckle crater on the bottom of the indian ocean under 11,000 feet of water dated to the approximate time of gilgamesh is 25 times larger than meteor crater in arizona. The impact would have instantly vaporized billions of metric tons of water into the atmosphere causing a worldwide deluge that lasted for weeks, sweeping away every village,town or city built near rivers and streams and washes, worldwide, not to mention the immediate tsunamis that would have swept away all coastal civilizations.
According to scripture the next time the earth, including the atmosphere, will be destroyed is by fire, which would be the result of a similar impact on land or a larger one on the ocean again.
This, or some other similar impact events have been presented as probable cause.
If an impact event and the object detected while still "far out there", that would explain the advance notice and construction of an "ark" to survive. Warning and blueprints provide by the "gawds" ~ ???
Most humans are born with a capacity to anticipate future events that may present as dreams.
Any more highly advanced beings visiting the earth would have been perceived as gawds by our ancestors and any sufficiently highly developed technology would have seemed to them, as well as many today, like magic.
humans have the capacity to drop nuclear weapons anywhere on earth and to warn the people in advance.
Hell, people now have the technology and means to deliberately nudge an asteroid and calculate exactly when and where it will hit on earth.
more advanced living beings from another sphere of intelligent life could have been doing this to the earth for millions of years.
Thanks!
Much of this is what I was implying, but leaving unsaid. So thanks for grabbing the ball and running with it.
There is much that appears to happen before human records recorded. Surviving records that is. And the geological "record" is also far from complete and subject to much subjective interpretation.
My collective impression from many sources is that there is some fantastic stuff ~ events from the time humans~homo sapiens appeared up to the present, and much may be lost in the haze of accounts from before about 6-7,000 years ago when the last round of civilizations and records first appears.
"Evidence" is a dicey item since some will see such and others deny such, and this applies to past events and remains~evidence as much as it does more recent and current events.
You do understand, i hope, that casting a blanket of irrational doubt on all evidence does not in ANY way lend evidence or credence to anything you say or imply....right? In fact, it does precisely the opposite, just as it does to any other idea. You guys pull the rug out from under yourselves without even realizing it.
I think you may misunderstand.
Not a "casting a blanket of irrational doubt on all evidence" so much as stating how one side's "evidence" can be seen by another side as "fable". Often these reflect subjective bias. For example the case of those whom want to take the words in the Bible/OT as verbatim versus those whom see such as more allegorical, or distorted, or exaggerated.
Earth is a relatively new world/planet based on what we think we know about the formation and age of the universe. And humans a very new and recent species on this planet. Yet still, been here long enough to wonder if anything was accomplished before the last Ice Age and "Noah's Flood". ??? !!!
Consider that most timelines suggest that "The Flood" may have been within the past 13-15,000 years matching up with the end of the last Ice Age; when those mile thick glaciers rapidly melted away and flood many areas of the globe. Yet within a few to several thousand years afterward there are enough humans present to start the seeds of "first" civilizations about 6-7,000 years or so, ago, and in many parts/regions of our planet.
Or, if we take the theological texts/dogmas like the OT of the Bible literally, just those @ 8 humans surviving on the Ark and within the past 15,000 (or less) years; YET we have the sum of our historical records, rise and fall of scores of civilizations, and pushing about 8 billion people on this planet. Rather fantastic results some might say.
Or, to use other accounts from around the global and timelines, scattered survivors in many other global locations of what might be seen as a global disaster, or chain of disasters. ??? !!!
This is a jigsaw sort of puzzle with many pieces, some can fit in many ways with each other, but collectively they could present a picture beyond what most of us have been taught to see, or expect/accept.
Either way and collectively, we could be seeing what the late Charles Fort observed, to paraphrase;
"That we humans, and our world(planet=Earth), are the property of "Others"!
Or put another way, we 'humans' are but " livestock that come with the 'farm' "!!!
With that in mind, Genesis Chapter 6, verses 1-4/8, take on a new and underlain subtext of many and varied meanings....
(Continued in another post)
en.wikipedia.org
