Noah's Ark: the facts behind the Flood

Discussion in 'Faith and Religion' started by tulianr, Jan 20, 2014.


  1. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    A recently discovered Babylonian tablet is a blueprint for a round-shaped ark that animals could board two by two
    ark-round_2791723b.

    EXCERPTS: (The original article is huge, but worth a look.)
    In the year 1872 one George Smith, a banknote engraver turned assistant in the British Museum, astounded the world by discovering the story of the Flood – much the same as that in the Book of Genesis – inscribed on a cuneiform tablet made of clay that had recently been excavated at far-distant Nineveh (in present-day Iraq). Human behaviour, according to this new discovery, prompted the gods of Babylon to wipe out mankind through death by water, and, as in the Bible, the survival of all living things was effected at the last minute by a single man.
    .....

    Smith announced his discoveries at a meeting of the Society of Biblical Archaeology in London, on December 3, 1872. August dignitaries were present, including the Archbishop of Canterbury – since Smith’s findings had serious implications for church authority – and the classically-disposed prime minister, WE Gladstone.

    For Smith’s audience, as it had been for the man himself, the news was electrifying. In 1872 everyone knew their Bible backwards, and the announcement that the iconic story of the Ark and the Flood existed on a barbaric-looking document of clay in the British Museum that pre-dated the Bible and had been dug up somewhere in the East was indigestible.

    A hundred and thirteen years after Smith’s breakthrough, a similar episode of British-Museum-curator-meets-amazing-cuneiform-flood-story befell me.

    People bring all sorts of unexpected objects to the British Museum to have them identified. In 1985 a cuneiform tablet was brought in by a member of the public already known to me, for he had been in with Babylonian objects before. His name was Douglas Simmonds. Gruff, non-communicative and to me largely unfathomable, he had a conspicuously large head housing a large measure of intelligence.

    He owned a collection of miscellaneous objects and antiquities that he had inherited from his father, Leonard. Leonard had a lifelong eye for curiosities, and, as a member of the RAF, was stationed in the Near East around the end of the Second World War, acquiring interesting bits and pieces of tablets at the same time.

    I was more taken aback than I can say to discover that one of his cuneiform tablets was a copy of the Babylonian Flood story.
    ....

    Decipherment proceeded in fits and starts, with groans and expletives, and in mounting – but fully dressed – excitement. Weeks later, it seemed, I looked up, blinking in the sudden light.

    I had discovered that the Simmonds cuneiform tablet (henceforth known as the Ark Tablet) was virtually an instruction manual for building an ark.

    ark-tablet_2791738c.

    The Ark Tablet, which dates from around 1900BC (Benjamin McMahon)

    The story of a flood that destroyed the world, in which human and animal life was saved from extinction by a hero with a boat, is almost universal in the world’s treasury of traditional literature. Many scholars have tried to collect all the specimens in a butterfly net, to pin them out and docket them for family, genus and species. Flood stories in the broadest sense have been documented in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Syria, Europe, India, New Guinea, Central America, North America, Australia and South America.

    The story of Noah, iconic in the Book of Genesis, and as a consequence a central motif in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, invites the greatest attention. In all three scriptures the Flood comes as punishment for wrongdoing by man, part of a “give-up-on-this-lot-and-start-over” resolution governing divine relations with the human world. There is a direct and undoubted Flood continuum from the Hebrew Old Testament to the Greek New Testament on the one hand and the Arabic Koran on the other.

    Since the Victorian-period discoveries of George Smith it has been understood that the Hebrew account derives, in its turn, from that in Babylonian cuneiform, much older and surely the original that launched the story on its journey.

    People have long been concerned with the question of whether there really was a flood, and been on the lookout for evidence to support the story, and I imagine all Mesopotamian archaeologists have kept the Flood at the back of their mind. In the years 1928 and 1929 important discoveries were made on sites in Iraq that were taken to be evidence of the biblical Flood itself. At Ur, excavation beneath the Royal Cemetery disclosed more than 10ft of empty mud, below which earlier settlement material came to light. A similar discovery was made at the site of Kish in southern Iraq. To both teams it seemed inescapable that here was evidence of the biblical Flood itself.
    .....

    Another big Flood question is where did the Ark end up? Ask anyone and they will say “Mount Ararat”. But what, we have to ask, is Ararat? There is more than one candidate mountain. The Assyrians in the Epic of Gilgamesh thought it was Mount Nitsir in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Islamic tradition has always favoured Cudi Dagh in Turkey. Rival set-ups allowed for vigorous local trade in Ark mementoes.

    The Ark Tablet, like many documents of its period, is designed to fit comfortably in the reader’s hand; it is much the same size and weight as a contemporary mobile phone.

    The tablet was written during the Old Babylonian period, broadly 1900–1700BC. The document was not dated by the scribe, but from the shape and appearance of the tablet itself, the character and composition of the cuneiform and the grammatical forms and usages, we can be sure that this is the period in which it was written. It was composed in Semitic Babylonian (Akkadian) in a literary style. The hand is neat and that of a fully trained cuneiform scribe.
    ....

    The most remarkable feature provided by the Ark Tablet is that the lifeboat built by Atra-hasıs – the Noah-like hero who receives his instructions from the god Enki – was definitely, unambiguously round. “Draw out the boat that you will make,” he is instructed, “on a circular plan.”

    Confronting the fact comes, initially, as a shock. For everyone knows what Noah’s Ark, the real Ark, looks like: a squat wooden affair with prow and stern and a little house in the middle, not to mention a gangplank and several windows. No respectable child’s nursery at one time was without one, with its chewed pairs of animals.
    .....

    As I stared into space with the tablet precariously poised over the desk, the idea of a round ark began to make sense. A truly round boat would be a coracle, and they certainly had coracles in ancient Mesopotamia; a coracle is exceptionally buoyant and would never sink, and if it happened to be difficult to steer or stop from going around and round that would not matter, because all it had to do was keep its contents safe and dry until the waters receded.

    coracle-building_2791742c.

    A Twenties photograph of Iraqi coracle-builders
    .....

    Before the arrival of the Ark Tablet, hard facts for the boatbuilder were sparse. We have had to wait until now for the statistics of shape, size and dimensions, as well as everything to do with the matter of waterproofing. The information that has now become available could be turned into a printed set of specifications sufficient for any would-be ark-builder today.

    Enki tells Atra-hasıs in a very practical way how to get his boat started; he is to draw out a plan of the round boat on the ground. The simplest way to do this would have been with a peg and a long string. The stage is thus set for building the world’s largest coracle, with a base area of 38,750sq ft, and a diameter of, near enough, 230ft. It works out to be the size of a Babylonian “field”, what we would call an acre. The walls, at about 20ft, would effectively inhibit an upright male giraffe from looking over at us.

    Atra-hasıs’s coracle was to be made of rope, coiled into a gigantic basket. This rope was made of palm fibre, and vast quantities of it were going to be needed. Coiling the rope and weaving between the rows eventually produces a giant round floppy basket, which is then stiffened with a set of J-shaped wooden ribs. Stanchions, mentioned in lines 15-16, were a crucial element in the Ark’s construction and an innovation in response to Atra-hasıs’s special requirements, for they allow the introduction of an upper deck.
    .....

    The next stage is crucial: the application of bitumen for waterproofing, inside and out, a job to be taken very seriously considering the load and the likely weather conditions. Fortunately, bitumen bubbled out of the Mesopotamian ground in an unending, benevolent supply. Atra-hasıs devotes 20 of his 60 lines to precise details about waterproofing his boat. It is just one of the many remarkable aspects of the Ark Tablet that we are thereby given the most complete account of caulking a boat to have come down to us from antiquity.

    johans-ark_2791731c.

    Johan Huibers' full-scale model of Noah's Ark was built according to the instructions given in the Bible (EPA/Ed Oudenaarden)

    Boat-building notwithstanding, one cannot help but worry about the various Noahs, Babylonian and otherwise, and all their animals: the thought of rounding them up, marching them up the gangplank and ensuring good behaviour all round for a voyage of unknown length…
    .....

    What gave me the biggest shock in 44 years of grappling with cuneiform tablets was, however, what came next. My best shot at the first two signs beginning line 52 came up with “sa” and “na”, both incompletely preserved. On looking unhopefully for words beginning “sana” in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, I found the following entry and nearly fell off my chair as a result of the words: “sana (or sanâ) adv. Two each, two by two.”

    This is a very rare word among all our texts – when the dictionary was published there had only been two occurrences. To me, it is the world’s most beautiful dictionary definition.

    For the first time we learn that the Babylonian animals, like those of Noah, went in two by two, a completely unsuspected Babylonian tradition that draws us ever closer to the familiar narrative of the Bible. (Another interesting matter: the Babylonian flood story in cuneiform is 1,000 years older than the Book of Genesis in Hebrew, but reading the two accounts together demonstrates their close, literary relationship. No firm explanation of how this might have really come about has previously been offered, but study of the circumstances in which the Judaeans exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II found themselves answers many crucial questions.)
    .....

    The relationship between Enki and Atra-hasıs is conventionally portrayed as that between master and servant. If Atra-hasıs was not a king but a private citizen, this does raise the question of the grounds on which these “proto-Noahs” were selected to fulfil their great task. It is not evident that either was an obvious choice as, say, a famous boatbuilder. There is some indication of temple connections, but nothing to indicate that the hero was actually a member of the priesthood. Perhaps the selection was on the grounds that what was needed was a fine, upright individual who would listen to divine orders and carry them out to the full whatever his private misgivings, but we are not told.

    In each case the right man seems to have been offered the job. All the stories agree that the boat, whatever its shape, was successfully built, and that human and animal life was safely preserved so that the world could go on. A story that recommends foresight and planning in order to ensure that outcome has lost none of its resonance.

    Noah's Ark: the facts behind the Flood - Telegraph
     
  2. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    Great story Tuli. I as a Christian scholar have no problems with the Babylonian accounts. They are so similar that they could only, in my mind, have come from the same source. The fact that there was a great deluge is unquestioned. The oft repeated factoid that the "Gilgamesh" epic predates the Bible I take with a grain of salt. The story itself may have been recorded on cuneiform tablets before the stories of the Hebrews were recorded in the scrolls of the old testament but both are describing events that happened in a remote past that have been handed down orally for generations. So saying that the Babylonian flood stories predate the bible is disingenuous and leads to unfounded assumptions that the one must be based upon the other.
    The problem with religion is that it spawns doctrines and those doctrines become entrenched in the minds of it's adherents and are zealously defended and those who cast aspersions on that doctrine are ostracized and shunned. No different than the zealous adherents of the cult of Darwinism. Many an esteemed scientist have had their names besmirched and their careers ruined for daring to question the prevailing dogma.
    The language could easily be interpreted as to meaning a circular pattern as well as the standard "Sunday School" model. And the scripture itself does not say that the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat, it says on "the mountains of Ararat", plural. So it could be anywhere in a vast region of mountain ranges in central Asia.
    I think the "two by two" is very interesting. I love archeology especially when it relates to biblical events.
     
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  3. Gopherman

    Gopherman Sometimes I Wish I Could Go Back to Sleep

    Very well put brother!
    I found this article in the mainstream Yahoo link when I woke up the other morning, right after reading about Noah in Genesis.
    Shocking Discovery: Noah’s Ark Found! | Alternative
    In Genesis it talk specifically about Noah Using Iron, millenia before it was supposedly invented! Not only that but he actually created Aluminum and used it as well. Aluminum does not exist naturally, it has to be created. It has only been since the mid 1900's that we even use aluminum.
    The Bible has covered all the bases in any of the "Sciences". So called scientist are thousands of years late to the party!!
    For example;
    1) Iron Age; The bible said Noah used Iron in the building of the Ark: Status: Proven
    2) They are saying now that there maybe alternate Parallel Universes; The Bible gives many accounts of this; There is a spiritual war going on all around us, Jesus was walking to the water and Many Demons threw themselves prostrate at his feet declaring you are the Son of...... there are many references to the spiritual realm, A Parallel Universe? Sure sound like it to me.
    3) The Bible states that God created the universe; Status: Proven! Scientist now admit that there is intelligent design
    to the Universe. There is an Equation that appears over and over in the natural and atomic structure of everything, sure sounds like someone has a plan!!
    4) every City mentioned in the Bible they set out to find, They do!
    5) Chariot wheels found encrusted by thousands of years worth of Barnacles in the middle of the Red Sea.
    6) The Discovery, and then Cover up, of all the giant bones found of the Nephillum! They can't cover them all up, there are too many pictures out there, but they sure try. The Bible explains where these come from.
    The list goes on and on!!
    People who choose not top believe in the Legitimacy of the Bible are doing just that, refusing to believe!! That's a choice, no wait, that's THE CHOICE! We are all called to make that choice one way or another!!
     
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  4. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    Whether one is a believer in one of the Judeo-Christian religions or not, the history behind the story amazing. If one is looking for facts to support their belief, they can find it; and if one is looking for facts to support their doubt, they too can find it. For me, the fact that a man sat and penned this story, four thousand years ago; and we are sitting here reading it and discussing it today, is stupendous. This story has helped to link cultures and societies thousands of miles apart, and thousands of years apart, and deserves study and discussion.
     
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  5. Gopherman

    Gopherman Sometimes I Wish I Could Go Back to Sleep

    My son used to consider himself an Agnostic, he knew there was a God just didn't know the manifestation. We started looking at Current events and how they tie in with whats going on today. Revelations of Daniel who predicted all kinds of Current events, Isaiah also predicted current events , Then the other morning we we're reading Genesis and right after we were finished we found that article on Yahoo, far from being a Right Wing Rag. The timing is what some might call Miraculous.
    My point is when a document has been proven by modern science to be factual over and over again, standing the test of time, and explains the inexplicable thousands of years ago only to be discovered and verified in modern times, it begs to ask the question If what can Be Proven, Is Proven, It only takes the barest amount of Faith to imagine that we don't have all the answers, and that maybe, just maybe, when god cast the light against the Darkness, that Was The Big Bang... Just Sayin"
     
  6. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    I started out Christian, and became agnostic. I got there by asking myself what I truly believed; and by a study of the Bible and related historical context. It's all a matter of perspective and interpretation, I think. If one chooses to interpret current events in a prophetic light, they can find plenty of validation ; but from a different perspective, a person may find no validation of those prophecies. It's the old, "If you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I like to think that I understand both perspectives. I'm still intensely interested in faith and religion; but from a primarily historical and sociological perspective. For myself, I don't find a lack of personal faith to be an impediment to the appreciation of religious history and discussion.

    I tend to agree with you that the "Big Bang," the creation of something out of nothing, does seem better explained religiously than scientifically. I suppose I'm scientifically agnostic, as well as religiously agnostic. :D
     
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  7. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    I came about on just the opposite tack. I was an avowed atheist for most of my young life. I was very interested in science and had fantasies of becoming an archeologist. My scientific mindset left no room for a faith based explanation of life. It wasn't until I had a "road to Damascus" experience that I learned that God was real. But then I started to discover that religion was flawed and held many man made doctrines and few scriptural truths. My further studies for the last 30 years has been an amazing journey of seeing the hand of a creator in all things. Is it seeing what I want to see? Maybe to some degree but I like to believe that I examine everything in a non biased light. My philosophy has always been that if doctrine must be sacrificed on the alter of truth so be it. I hold no pre-ordained, denominational doctrines. I search for the truth in all things. It amazes me how if seen in an unbiased light so much of science tends to confirm scripture rather than refute it.
    The dogged adherence to doctrine is prevalent not only in the religious community but in the scientific as well. History is rife with examples where evidence that contradicted the accepted doctrine has been squashed, scoffed at, ignored and hidden. And not just where religion is concerned.
    If the walls could be torn down and the scientists in both camps could compare notes and share research without the burden of those who see a threat from knowledge then I think we would find that science and biblical history are not incompatible at all. But we have to discard our pre-concieved ideas and put aside our ingrained doctrines, whether they come form the pulpit or the lectern.
     
  8. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    I used the above story about the Ark in my son's homeschooling the other day. I try to fairly present to him the different religious faiths, and the stories they have produced, in a balanced light. I have to tell you though, from the perspective of a six year old who has been raised on a farm, he's a bit dubious about certain elements of the Noah and the flood story. He pointed out to me the likely consequence of putting large numbers of predators and prey on a single vessel, in close proximity to each other. I explained that some stories of this type were allegorical, and then tried to explain what "allegorical" meant; but he still had an eyebrow raised. He's a hard sell.

    Some time back, during one of our discussions of religion, he asked what "faith" meant. The next day, I presented him with a sealed box, and told him that it was his, but that he must never open it. He asked what was in it, and I, in turn, asked him what he thought was in it. He said, "a toy." I told him, "that is faith." You "believe" that a toy is inside the box.

    He asked if he could open it and find out, and I told him no, that we weren't going to open it. He then asked why he should want a box, if he couldn't see what was inside of it. I shrugged and asked him if he wanted me to throw it away. He quickly replied with a no. I asked him why not, and he said that there might be something good in it. I again told him, "that is faith." We still have it on a shelf, and it still annoys him greatly.
     
  9. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    You should have told him it was a cat. ;)
     
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  10. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    I'm not looking forward to explaining Schrodinger's Cat and quantum theory to him. He's going to tell me to cut back on my alcohol intake.
     
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  11. Gopherman

    Gopherman Sometimes I Wish I Could Go Back to Sleep

    I used to be an Atheist, I think God loves it when people say that, it gives him somewhere to start, I know for a fact he love's a Hard Luck Case! [whiteflag]
    I think Minuteman did a very fine job of stating it "The dogged adherence to doctrine is prevalent not only in the religious community but in the scientific as well. History is rife with examples where evidence that contradicted the accepted doctrine has been squashed, scoffed at, ignored and hidden. And not just where religion is concerned."
    "Religion" of all types tends to attract the Very Best, and the Very Worst of people, Society tends to latch on to the negative, it plays longer. Science tends to attract a particular type of person as well, from what I see it tends to be those who are having a struggle with their own spirituality, therefor want to disprove what others believe.
    In my life I have experienced many "Miracles" things that have happened that defy explanation of anything even closely resembling coincidence. When I put Him to the test and was extremely specific, he not only gave me what I was looking for, but he doubled down and gave me twice what I asked for. I guess for me I can never understand how anyone could even question the existence of God, from the other side of the discussion, I have been asked how I can so blindly follow something that has no tangible proof.
    That's where the fly is in the ointment, I was given my proof, over and over again. I am currently working on a collection of personal Miracles called "Crazy God Stuff" which chronicles the miraculous events that I have experienced throughout my life.
    I respect everyone's right to believe as they choose, and can accept people for who they are. I have many acquaintances who are not Believers in anything, that's there right and I have no right to Judge them, that's not my job.
    What I have found is a striking and venomous lack of tolerance for those who do not believe to allow me the same courtesy.
    My wife's Father is a devout "Atheist", has been all his life, he is 84, he sent me a copy of some of his poetry recently, which we read, though it was very well written, it was dark, very dark. It all had direct correlation to his inner spiritual battle. Not just one or two of them, but all of them, and there were about 20. All I could think was how badly I pitied this man, not because he was an Atheist, more because it so totally consumed him that after his long life he was still struggling, unable to move past it.
    At least with the convictions that I hold, I am able to not only move ahead, I am Thriving! I guess that's what I see as the major difference in the 2 camps.
    PS;It's nice to have a civil conversation about these matters, Thank You.
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2014
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  12. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    I agree, that it is nice to have a civil conversation about a subject all too often used as a reason for conflict. I think what makes such a conversation possible is civil people.

    Arguing about religious belief isn't going to change anyone's mind anyway. It's all about how we view the world. My cousin is a good example. I just read a post by him on his Facebook page this morning. He shot himself in the leg sometime back, while retrieving his rifle from his truck, following a hunting trip (Don't ask me how. I haven't been able to get my mind wrapped around it.). The resulting damage has had him in and out of the hospital a dozen times, mainly from blood clots and nerve damage. This most recent visit was occasioned by a minor stroke, brought on by complications from the initial injury. While in the hospital, he was moving from his wheelchair to the commode, and slipped, breaking his foot in the process. Today, he's been released from the hospital, and his post was "GOD IS GREAT!"

    Now me, I see things a mite differently. I'm thinking, if this is God watching over you, I'd ask him to watch over someone else for a while. He sees the fact that things could always be worse (I suppose) as proof of God's love and presence within his life. Me, I'm thinking that if God was going to make a move, it would have been cool if he'd done it as my cousin began to drag his loaded rifle from his truck. Maybe a little voice in the back of his head saying, "Hey doofus, is that rifle loaded? And should you really be pulling it from your truck barrel first?"

    Believers will always find the silver lining, and non-believers will always fail to find that silver lining. No matter how terrible someone's fate turns out to be, the believer can always say, "God works in mysterious ways" or "It is not for us to question the will of God" or "Maybe God was using his condition to help someone else" or "Just imagine how bad it could have been if God hadn't been looking out for him!"

    My cousin and I cannot discuss religion at all. We've tried, at his insistence, and it didn't go well. Now, also at his insistence, we don't go near the topic. He's a lay-minister and was once concerned about my salvation, but he views my inability to see his perspective as an attack on his beliefs. I see his "concern for my salvation" to be a condescending criticism of my view of the world. And apparently, once I demonstrated to him that I had no intention of seeing things his way, his concern for my salvation diminished greatly.:D
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2014
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  13. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    It has always been my Belief "that GOD, doesn't fix Stupid"... It would seem to this reader, that this fellow was to lazy, to properly stow his Weapon, after Hunting, by "clearing the chamber" of his weapon before stowing it in the Vehicle. That to my mind puts him in the above Category. Now if his GOD, had whispered with that "Still Small Voice" and he ignore that prompting, then he certainly wouldn't claim to be anything else, but. I have, and likely will continue to ignore, some of those type promptings, in my Life, and I accept the consequences of my actions, when I recognize, that I was warned, and choose to ignore it. My Opinion... YMMV.....
     
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  14. tulianr

    tulianr Don Quixote de la Monkey

    I'm a big believer in that little voice in the back of your head. The times that I have ignored it, I have generally regretted it. I don't know what that little voice is, whether it is innate common sense trying to be heard, or whether it is something more spiritual. If people want to call it God, that seems as good a name for it as another. For myself, I keep it simple, and just call it my little voice.
     
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  15. DarkLight

    DarkLight Live Long and Prosper - On Hiatus

    I grew up with the same name for it as BTPost - 'the still, small voice'. Named as such because it isn't intrusive (usually) and you have to both be listening for it and willing to hear it.
     
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  16. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    I see some peoples dependence on the benevolence of God as akin to some peoples dependence on the government. They want everything in their life taken care of. I have never believed that God works that way, I hold to the saying that "God helps those who help themselves". He told Noah it was going to rain, he didn't build him a boat, he told Joseph that a famine was coming, he didn't miraculously store 7 years worth of food for him. The instances where God divinely provides are very scarce in scripture, the only one that comes to mind is the manna from heaven during the exodus. Even at the parting of the Red Sea Moses had to "stretch forth his arms over the waters". There is always a requirement from us. It is the ultimate free will, we can choose to listen or not. Our very nation is an attempt to duplicate that model of free will in an earthly government. But just as there are those who cannot live in a free society and want government to be their caretaker, so there are many faithful who can't live in a free world and expect the creator to care for every aspect of their lives.
    It is very easy as Tuli points out to assign every good thing in life to the direct influence of God and every negative as "God's will". That is a term that I absolutely hate. It's the biggest cop out in Christiandumb. It is not God's will for you to suffer, to struggle, and to go through trials and tribulations. Scripture says that he wants us to have life and have it more abundantly. But you have to do your part. He isn't going to do everything for you. You have the free will to be stupid.
     
  17. Gopherman

    Gopherman Sometimes I Wish I Could Go Back to Sleep

    I am a firm believer that when Jesus told his disciples to go to a house and spread the good news, if they receive you bless the house, if they do not, dust yourself off and move on. The watchmen has the charge of sounding the alarm and if he does not, and people perish as a result, the price will be extracted from him, if he does and they do not heed the warning, then their blood is on their own hands.
    I cant believe I finally get to use this emoticon [deadhorse] There is no use standing around and arguing about anything, he didn't say to stay and beat them over the head with a bible, he said tell them and then move on.
    I have friends that try to talk to their kids about religion and get so sad and frustrated over it. I can't see the point. It is all about free will.
    I do doubt, that his concern for you spiritually, has diminished, but I don't know him, he may have the move on my job is finished here attitude.
    If he has love for you, he will still be praying for you, kinda like SPIRITUAL SNIPING!![sawgunner]

    Don't forget, during the battle, as long as Moses held the staff up they were winning, when it dropped down they were losing, Two other men held his arm up until the battle was won! God allows us to help each other out! Not every mission God puts forth has to be traversed alone.
    Jesus at one point had 72 disciples, a lot of people don't know that, he gave them the authority, then sent them out to heal and cast out Demons. He ended up with the 12, after telling them that the day would come when they would have to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. Wow!! Though he was speaking figuratively, you kinda have to know what was going through their minds.
    To the point of Gods will, I believe God has a plan, we are all players in a Cosmic Chess Game, we can be Rooks, Knights, Bishops, or we can be Pawns. Everyone knows what pawns are used for, sacrifice! The good thing about being a major player in the game, is being able to move around more freely, even though the Big guys are more powerful than the Pawns, the thing to remember is , if you aren't careful, a Pawn can take you out, if you let them get too close!
     
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  18. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    If one believes in a GOD, and his Son, Jesus Christ, then it all some down to, "We are saved by the Grace of Christ's Eternal Atonement, AFTER all we can do, for Ourselves, and Others." No one enters into the Fathers Presents, except thru Jesus Christ, and if He doesn't Know, or Acknowledge, You, how can you receive your Reward, in the Fathers Kingdom? If one believes in a different System, then that System will have it's own Rewards. If one believes in No System, then upon death, they have no Reward, because they are DEAD, and Gone.. and received their Due in this life. My Opinion.... YMMV.....
     
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