Noah's Flood

[Lost Boy]

1 minute ago, Grunt said:

Because the implication of your post was that the Apostles wouldn't come out and denounce parts of the Bible because it would shake the faith of its membership.  You can't serve Christ and lie to membership about the nature of doctrine.

When you found out that Santa wasn't real, did your parents change their tune with your younger siblings (assuming you had some) or did they keep the story going?  I just don't see Noah as that important of an issue to cause a disruption.  The implications are large if they do.   We have an area 70's in my ward that maybe I'll ask him next time I see him.  It would be interesting.

[Rob Osborn]

2 hours ago, MrShorty said:

At the risk of adding to the "meh, I just don't believe the Bible" trend, how about the possibility that Noah's boat was not really as large as the Bible says because some later scribe/editor decided that the real account wasn't "big" enough. Does one have to be a Biblical Literalist to "believe the Bible"? I don't know if this applies to Noah's account, but it is the easiest way for me to gloss over the genocides in Joshua's "conquest narrative" -- they didn't really happen but are an embellishment added by a later scribe/editor. If it could have happened with Jonah's narrative, why not Noah's?

To Grunt's point -- what does it mean to "believe the Bible"? Is it possible to "believe the Bible" without believing that "the Holy Spirit chose every word of the Bible" as Pastor James McDonald said a monthish ago? Can one "believe the Bible" and believe that some of it (like maybe Job or Jonah) is fictional? Can one "beleive the Bible" and believe that the flood account is more historical myth than historical fact? It probably deserves its own thread, but I have long wrestled with what it means for something to be scripture and what our model of "revelation to ancient prophets -> record revelation -> transmit revelation down through many generations (original copies get lost, so we only have copies of copies) -> us kind of scripture" really is.

Hum...perhaps Jesus was just a really good guy but didn't really perform miracles. Perhaps he was part of the Roman conspiracy to overthrow the Jews.

[Lost Boy]

8 minutes ago, Grunt said:

Because the implication of your post was that the Apostles wouldn't come out and denounce parts of the Bible because it would shake the faith of its membership.  You can't serve Christ and lie to membership about the nature of doctrine.

Is Noah central to his doctrine?  I don't think so.  If you remove the noah story, what changes?  We have an area 70's in our ward.  Maybe I'll bring up the question with him.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

Can the bible have personal philosophy in it that wasn't necessarily inspired by God?  I believe Joseph Smith struggled with this as well.

Well, we know that the translations of the Bible that have survived over the centuries have been influenced by the philosophies of men.  That is pretty much the common belief of the Church. 

So, what are you really asking?  Are prophets fallible?  Again it is common belief and teaching that prophets are fallible.  But the failings of prophets (true prophets) are not going to be that which will draw the Saints away from the Lord.  Consider the following two examples:

Quote

A prophet sees a vision wherein you are shot, fall to the ground, and bleed all over.

He tells you that if you go there, you will die.

You go.  You get shot.  You fall.  You bleed all over.  But by proper medical attention, you are saved and do not die.  So, you consider him a false prophet.

Well, no.  He gave you the knowledge of what he could easily surmise from the vision he saw.  The fact was that because you went, you were in mortal danger which was the impression of the Spirit which accompanied the vision.  But what he verbalized was that you would die.

The second is a metaphor:

Quote

A highway has 12 lanes all going in one direction.  The far right lane is right by the grass.  It has a curb between the lane and the grass.  And it is a standard 12 ft lane.  Cars are anywhere from ~5.5ft to ~7.5 ft wide.  One can easily drive down the middle of the lane and not hit the curb or the line into the next lane.

The far left lane is right next to a cliff.  Much of the world wants to drive there.  They also drive drunk.  This is not a good combination.

Other faiths vary from touching and crossing over into the far right lane -- to going very near the far left lane in their teachings.  Individuals may vary a lane or two from the faith they subscribe to and still feel like they are "Ok".

The prophet's job is to teach what is at the curb.  His mistakes can be anywhere within the far right lane.  We take those words and may vary an additional lane or two from his counsel.  Not that this is right.  But we tend to.  The thing is that anything he says that isn't RIGHT AT the curb is actually not correct.  But it is close enough that it is enticing us towards the curb.

When others are sitting in lane 7 and trying to entice Mormons over that way, well, that's the wrong direction.  However, if they're working with people in lane 12, then those folks are heading in the right direction.

 

[Grunt]

4 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

When you found out that Santa wasn't real, did your parents change their tune with your younger siblings (assuming you had some) or did they keep the story going?  I just don't see Noah as that important of an issue to cause a disruption.  The implications are large if they do.   We have an area 70's in my ward that maybe I'll ask him next time I see him.  It would be interesting.

Are you comparing my parents to the Apostles?  Are you comparing Santa to the testimony of Jesus Christ?  Are you stating the Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would withhold or lie about the revelation of doctrine to keep the membership in line?  That's dangerously close to Apostasy.

[dellme]

17 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

So you wage war, and instead of killing the victims, you enslave them....  That sounds pretty Christlike.

as for individuals that are incarcerated, that is hardly slavery.  Slavery has always been used for economic reasons.  Inmates are not an economic boon for anyone.  They are a huge drain on society.

Again presentism-you need to learn what that means.

Actually it has only been in the last 20+ years that inmates are not used for economic things.  I remember chain-gangs growing up, inmates in chains picking up trash on the side of the road, with a guard and a shotgun-that's about as close as you can slavery without actually calling it slavery.

No slavery has not "always" been used for economic reason-please go read some history and educate yourself-I gave you links to do so.

And yes I guess since you have no clue that the world is really, really messy enslaving people (where they can earn their freedom after a number of years) vs. killing them is actually quite Christlike.

[Lost Boy]

1 minute ago, Grunt said:

Are you comparing my parents to the Apostles?  Are you comparing Santa to the testimony of Jesus Christ?  Are you stating the Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would withhold or lie about the revelation of doctrine to keep the membership in line?  That's dangerously close to Apostasy.

Maybe it is.  But maybe the analogy is correct and Noah just doesn't matter all that much.

[Rob Osborn]

5 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

Is Noah central to his doctrine?  I don't think so.  If you remove the noah story, what changes?  We have an area 70's in our ward.  Maybe I'll bring up the question with him.

If you remove Noah you create waves and it's ramifications effect the LDS scriptures such as  the Book of Mormon, D&C and PoGP as Noah and the flood are all part of those scriptures.

[Grunt]

Just now, Lost Boy said:

Maybe it is.  But maybe the analogy is correct and Noah just doesn't matter all that much.

This is why I don't think your dialog is good for investigators.

[Lost Boy]

1 minute ago, Rob Osborn said:

If you remove Noah you create waves and it's ramifications effect the LDS scriptures such as  the Book of Mormon, D&C and PoGP as Noah and the flood are all part of those scriptures.

Exactly....  The Noah story itself really has very little to do with the doctrine, but if you now try to take it out, it turns into a mess.  So you leave it be.

[dellme]

I honestly don't understand, some serious cognitive dissonance going on.

How is it easier to believe in a man who lived 2000 years ago who took upon the sins of the world, died, was resurrected 3 days later and then ascended to heaven yet not believe in the power of God to flood the earth?

Shoot if Jesus can literally come back from the dead than not much of anything else is impossible.

[Rob Osborn]

3 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

Exactly....  The Noah story itself really has very little to do with the doctrine, but if you now try to take it out, it turns into a mess.  So you leave it be.

It actually has a lot to do with the doctrine. Understanding the flood correctly adds a lot to understanding covenants, promises, revelation, prophecy, salvation for the dead, etc.

[Lost Boy]

2 minutes ago, Grunt said:

This is why I don't think your dialog is good for investigators.

I don't see it that way at all.  I see it as keeping it real.  Showing potential investigators that even members have questions, yet they believe in Christ, have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, of the prophets.  It is OK to not have a testimony of everything in the scriptures.  You can still progress.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lost Boy said:

Perhaps.  Most of the help I get is people giving me guesses how it might have happened.   Unfortunately, I guess, I am an engineer and pick things apart to the nth degree.  I scrutinize everything.

Well, I'm an engineer.  Scrutinizing doesn't mean automatically disbelieving.  You've heard the joke about he engineer and mathematician place across the room from the pretty girls.  I wrote it recently on another thread.

Engineering means the practical application of scientific knowledge.  And often that means judgment without all the facts.

EXAMPLE:

I was once given a problem to solve regarding a certain compressor.  It was a fairly common thing to happen.  The earlier engineer didn't do his job and it was having problems. So, I presented the most obvious solution.  It was very common, highly proven.  It was even fairly cheap.

The client came back and said that solution wouldn't work because.... reasons.  The reasons weren't really that onerous.  It just meant it would cost more than normal.  So considering the additional costs, I came up with a second solution.  Again, it was a common solution that is used for sligthly different circumstances than the first.  It too was shot down. 

The same happened with a third solution.

So, I had to reach into my magic hat and pull out a rabbit.  I was in the realm of no data.  I had to go to fundamental engineering principles and address all the constraints and still solve the problem using unknown tools for an application that hardly anyone uses these tools for.

The client looked at it and realized it would satisfy all the constraints.  They then asked me if I could 100% guarantee that this would work.

My response: I can't be 100% sure of anything here.  All the industry standard solutions for this problem have been shot down because of logistics, cost, schedule...  What I can say is that with the constraints given to me, this is the best solution I can offer you.  I'll give it a 50% chance of being adequate.

They put it all together and turned the thing on.  It worked.  So, they told me I'd done a good job.

This wasn't because I disbelieved everything that didn't quite fit everything I wanted.  It was because I made some judgments in the right direction.  That comes with a lot of experience.  If a younger engineer who hadn't seen all the failures I have made a similar judgment, it would easily have been the wrong direction.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Guest

[dellme]

4 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

Exactly....  The Noah story itself really has very little to do with the doctrine, but if you now try to take it out, it turns into a mess.  So you leave it be.

Nope incorrect:

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2001/01/a-latter-day-testament-of-biblical-truth?lang=eng

The Prophet Joseph Smith identified Noah as the angel Gabriel and taught that he (Noah) stands next to Adam in authority in the priesthood.⁶ The Doctrine and Covenants teaches that Noah was among the mighty ones in the world of spirits (see D&C 138:41). He was ordained to the patriarchal priesthood when he was 10 years old (see D&C 107:52). According to the Old Testament, Noah found favor with the Lord and was commanded to build an ark to preserve human and animal life during the Flood (see Gen. 5–9). Noah was among those redeemed by the Lord at His Resurrection (see D&C 133:54). As a resurrected being, Noah also instructed the Prophet Joseph Smith (see D&C 128:21).

[Grunt]

1 minute ago, Lost Boy said:

I don't see it that way at all.  I see it as keeping it real.  Showing potential investigators that even members have questions, yet they believe in Christ, have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, of the prophets.  It is OK to not have a testimony of everything in the scriptures.  You can still progress.

There is a difference between not having a testimony and believing it to be false.

[Rob Osborn]

5 minutes ago, dellme said:

I honestly don't understand, some serious cognitive dissonance going on.

How is it easier to believe in a man who lived 2000 years ago who took upon the sins of the world, died, was resurrected 3 days later and then ascended to heaven yet not believe in the power of God to flood the earth?

Shoot if Jesus can literally come back from the dead than not much of anything else is impossible.

It's truly mind boggling.

[Lost Boy]

4 minutes ago, dellme said:

I honestly don't understand, some serious cognitive dissonance going on.

How is it easier to believe in a man who lived 2000 years ago who took upon the sins of the world, died, was resurrected 3 days later and then ascended to heaven yet not believe in the power of God to flood the earth?

Shoot if Jesus can literally come back from the dead than not much of anything else is impossible.

That is where your understanding is wrong.  I have no doubt that God has the power to flood the Earth.  What I doubt is the history in the Bible.  As the history really makes no sense.  The atonement for whatever reason makes perfect sense for me.  It is central to our religion and without it, we have no religion.  

Have you ever really thought what the atonement means?  It was a God suffering for our sins to pay the price for sin to satisfy justice?  Why couldn't God who is all powerful just with a wave of his hand, wipe out the debt?  Why was a sacrifice needed?  Did God the Father not have this ability?

Am I asking a question that shouldn't be asked?

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

I don't see it that way at all.  I see it as keeping it real.  Showing potential investigators that even members have questions, yet they believe in Christ, have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, of the prophets.  It is OK to not have a testimony of everything in the scriptures.  You can still progress.

You can progress if you allow yourself to progress.  You have to learn what is useful for your spiritual progress and what is not.  That is part of the mortal experience.  His sheep know His voice.  Your type of scrutinizing is not helping you.

Another story.

I had designed a piece of equipment.  There was nothing wrong with the thing.  It was very typical of many other similar pieces.  There was really nothing to complain about.

We sent it to the client for final approval.  Their lead engineer decided that there was a spot where water could puddle.  "That was obviously not a good design." came the comment.

I took a look at it and realized that the only time there could possibly be any water in that area was when we were shipping it on a truck.  And even then only a few drops could get in there for a period of a week.  After that, it would evaporate away.

His response: But it could rust.  The conversation degenerated from there.  He simply didn't know the difference between the concerns that didn't matter and the concerns that did matter.

The owner of the company who hired me told me that he had worked with this guy before.  He's always been that way.  People keep him around because he really is quite intelligent and highly knowledgeable.  But no one likes working with him for long because he pulls stuff like this all the time.

[dellme]

2 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

That is where your understanding is wrong.  I have no doubt that God has the power to flood the Earth.  What I doubt is the history in the Bible.  As the history really makes no sense.  The atonement for whatever reason makes perfect sense for me.  It is central to our religion and without it, we have no religion.  

Have you ever really thought what the atonement means?  It was a God suffering for our sins to pay the price for sin to satisfy justice?  Why couldn't God who is all powerful just with a wave of his hand, wipe out the debt?  Why was a sacrifice needed?  Did God the Father not have this ability?

Am I asking a question that shouldn't be asked?

I'd say you are severely confused and have lots of cognitive dissonance in your own mind that don't make sense.

1) You don't doubt God could flood the Earth, but you doubt the recording of God's actions written down by His prophets.

2) You take on faith the recordings of historians as accurate, yet those same historians doub the existence of God

For the atonement, yes I have thought deeply about those types questions.  I feel pretty confident in my logical mind as to why those things needed to be-but it would be too long to get into here. 

I will just say, once you start doubting the miracles of God written down in the Bible-it becomes easy to dismiss other miracles. 

https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/parallel/paral12.cfm

Did God really flood the Earth?  Did Moses really part the Red Sea? Did the 10 horrible plagues really come upon the Egyptians? Was there really a Garden? Was Jonah really in the belly of a whale? Did Shadrach, Meshach reallly not get burned? And on and on and on.

If you get up in technical details about how these things happened (and then say well I can't figure out in my modern mind how they happened therefore they didn't happen), you miss the larger picture that they did happen! and that God is a God of miracles! And if you don't think God is a God of miracles then He just becomes a nice fairytale to make us all feel good.

That's why the best response is simply "We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly".

B/c if it's not the Word of God and it can't be trusted, then it's all just a bunch of made-up goobly-gook by a bunch of ignorant, stupid, bronze-age sheep-hearders-right?

[Lost Boy]

11 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Well, I'm an engineer.  Scrutinizing doesn't mean automatically disbelieving.  You've heard the joke about he engineer and mathematician place across the room from the pretty girls.  I wrote it recently on another thread.

Engineering means the practical application of scientific knowledge.  And often that means judgment without all the facts.

EXAMPLE:

I was once given a problem to solve regarding a certain compressor.  It was a fairly common thing to happen.  The earlier engineer didn't do his job and it was having problems. So, I presented the most obvious solution.  It was very common, highly proven.  It was even fairly cheap.

The client came back and said that solution wouldn't work because.... reasons.  The reasons weren't really that onerous.  It just meant it would cost more than normal.  So considering the additional costs, I came up with a second solution.  Again, it was a common solution that is used for sligthly different circumstances than the first.  It too was shot down. 

The same happened with a third solution.

So, I had to reach into my magic hat and pull out a rabbit.  I was in the realm of no data.  I had to go to fundamental engineering principles and address all the constraints and still solve the problem using unknown tools for an application that hardly anyone uses these tools for.

The client looked at it and realized it would satisfy all the constraints.  They then asked me if I could 100% guarantee that this would work.

My response: I can't be 100% sure of anything here.  All the industry standard solutions for this problem have been shot down because of logistics, cost, schedule...  What I can say is that with the constraints given to me, this is the best solution I can offer you.  I'll give it a 50% chance of being adequate.

They put it all together and turned the thing on.  It worked.  So, they told me I'd done a good job.

This wasn't because I disbelieved everything that didn't quite fit everything I wanted.  It was because I made some judgments in the right direction.  That comes with a lot of experience.  If a younger engineer who hadn't seen all the failures I have made a similar judgment, it would easily have been the wrong direction.

That's a great story.  But this is the way I see the flood.

I see it as a customer asking you to design a square box that looks like a circle.  You tell them that it can't be done and they come back and say so and so says it can, so why can't you?  because square boxes don't look like circles.

It is almost like the can God make a rock so big that even he can't lift it conundrum.  But dressed much more elegantly.  Can God put all the tens of thousands species of the Earth by twos, or 14s into a boat for a year, while he makes rain for 40 days that somehow covers the mountain tops and then within months drains all the water away?

Now I could certainly see Noah building a large boat, putting a bunch of animals on it and floating out to sea and as he was floating out to sea he was watching the mountains and as he got further away from them, they appeared to be swallowed up by the floods when in reality he was just experiencing the curvature of the Earth.  And then the story got embellished.

From an engineering perspective, the ark containing all species of the Earth isn't a 50/50% chance.  If all the species that exist today or at least most of them, they wouldn't have fit on the ark and wouldn't have lasted a year.

Why do I have to analyse this so much?

[Lost Boy]

50 minutes ago, dellme said:

I'd say you are severely confused and have lots of cognitive dissonance in your own mind that don't make sense.

1) You don't doubt God could flood the Earth, but you doubt the recording of God's actions written down by His prophets.

2) You take on faith the recordings of historians as accurate, yet those same historians doub the existence of God

For the atonement, yes I have thought deeply about those types questions.  I feel pretty confident in my logical mind as to why those things needed to be-but it would be too long to get into here. 

I will just say, once you start doubting the miracles of God written down in the Bible-it becomes easy to dismiss other miracles. 

https://www.blueletterbible.org/study/parallel/paral12.cfm

Did God really flood the Earth?  Did Moses really part the Red Sea? Did the 10 horrible plagues really come upon the Egyptians? Was there really a Garden? Was Jonah really in the belly of a whale? Did Shadrach, Meshach reallly not get burned? And on and on and on.

If you get up in technical details about how these things happened (and then say well I can't figure out in my modern mind how they happened therefore they didn't happen), you miss the larger picture that they did happen! and that God is a God of miracles! And if you don't think God is a God of miracles then He just becomes a nice fairytale to make us all feel good.

That's why the best response is simply "We believe the Bible to be the Word of God as far as it is translated correctly".

B/c if it's not the Word of God and it can't be trusted, then it's all just a bunch of made-up goobly-gook by a bunch of ignorant, stupid, bronze-age sheep-hearders-right?

I can't stop you from thinking I am confused...  maybe I am.

I know exactly where you are coming from because I have already had that same discussion with myself many times.  But yet, I still come back to it.

It does amaze me how someone can go from,  so you don't believe in the flood to so that most likely means you don't believe God is a God of miracles.

And don't forget, I don't think God created the universe in 6 days either.  That has a lot of scientific implications as well, particularly with how light from distant galaxies got here in six days.

[Lost Boy]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

You can progress if you allow yourself to progress.  You have to learn what is useful for your spiritual progress and what is not.  That is part of the mortal experience.  His sheep know His voice.  Your type of scrutinizing is not helping you.

Another story.

I had designed a piece of equipment.  There was nothing wrong with the thing.  It was very typical of many other similar pieces.  There was really nothing to complain about.

We sent it to the client for final approval.  Their lead engineer decided that there was a spot where water could puddle.  "That was obviously not a good design." came the comment.

I took a look at it and realized that the only time there could possibly be any water in that area was when we were shipping it on a truck.  And even then only a few drops could get in there for a period of a week.  After that, it would evaporate away.

His response: But it could rust.  The conversation degenerated from there.  He simply didn't know the difference between the concerns that didn't matter and the concerns that did matter.

The owner of the company who hired me told me that he had worked with this guy before.  He's always been that way.  People keep him around because he really is quite intelligent and highly knowledgeable.  But no one likes working with him for long because he pulls stuff like this all the time.

I got one of those.  We supply millions upon millions of parts to the auto industry to about every OEM out there.  These parts usually have a low carbon steel nut which is then plated for rust resistance.  However, one OEM stipulates that we use the much more expensive stainless steel version.  

Nothing wrong with that, but then they requested cost savings ideas so I suggested going to the lower cost low carbon steel nut.  We did the testing that their technical expert required and have over a decade of flawless record.  However that expert go moved to a new division and the new expert came in and nixed the whole change stating that he could conceive of a failure mode..  A failure mode that hasn't presented itself in over 20 million products.  

Basically made stuff up to fit his narrative. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lost Boy said:

That's a great story.  But this is the way I see the flood.

...

Why do I have to analyse this so much?

That story was not addressing your position on the flood.  It was about your claim that just because you're an engineer, you scrutinize everything.  My point was as I said in the introduction.  Just because you're scrutinizing things, it does not mean that you must first disbelieve.

After gathering all the necessary information, one of the first questions an engineer tends to ask is: "What is wrong with this?"  Instead, one should ask,"Is there anything wrong with this?"

This is not literal.  But the slight difference in wording I've chosen is to indicate an attitude.  Are you looking for a reason to say it is wrong?  Or are you actually being unbiased in your approach?

Most of the work I've gotten in my career is because I don't look for a REASON to tell the client to shove off because it can't be done.  I look for a WAY to change our design to still meet the needs of the client so I can tell them it CAN be done.

It seems that many of the problems you have with scriptures and even doctrines/beliefs of the Church is because you seem to almost be LOOKING for a reason to doubt.  Start looking for a reason to believe and you'll be surprised at what you find.

 

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

I got one of those.  We supply millions upon millions of parts to the auto industry to about every OEM out there.  These parts usually have a low carbon steel nut which is then plated for rust resistance.  However, one OEM stipulates that we use the much more expensive stainless steel version.  

Nothing wrong with that, but then they requested cost savings ideas so I suggested going to the lower cost low carbon steel nut.  We did the testing that their technical expert required and have over a decade of flawless record.  However that expert go moved to a new division and the new expert came in and nixed the whole change stating that he could conceive of a failure mode..  A failure mode that hasn't presented itself in over 20 million products.  

Basically made stuff up to fit his narrative. 

Yup.  Sometimes extra scrutiny is really nothing more than that (something to fit the narrative).  Scrutiny is good.  But too much of a good thing is just plain too much.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Guest