i don't know if the story is or isn't based on historical events. what i do know is the story has value regardless of its historical basis. in general, myths and legends are more powerful than history class.
should probably add that since the flood story predates the development of hebrew by at least a millenium, at the very least we do know that the original "word of god" is lost since the extant texts have Noach speaking....hebrew. so we may have a translation of a "true" story, but we don't have the original story itself. but again, none of this really matters any more than it matters whether Voltaire's "Candide" was a historical or fictional character.
Truth, fact, actuality, matters not? The understanding of what is, or is not put forward as true, matters not?
Faith has no legitimacy from your perspective, nor perhaps the perspective of material science, yet that doesn't mean that is has no legitimacy. Yes it does, until you can show how faith has its own legitimacy of itself, without the need to use evidence (of which none is yet forthcoming) to show its legitimacy. You show how the intellect has legitimacy on the basis of the intellect itself? Circular. Faith has no need for evidence, as the results of faith are self evident. Those who fail with faith rail against it, those who succeed are content with it. A man who eats a piece of chocolate and enjoys the taste needs no evidence that he has eaten chocolate and enjoyed the taste. YOU may need evidence to convince you to eat the chocolate, but that really is your issue, not the man who ate the chocolate. You are hardly the ultimate authority on what is or is not legitimate when it comes to human experience. Then neither are you. I never claimed to be. Were we computers, bound by only the digital processing of linear and relativistic logic, I would agree with your conclusion. By your own remarks, you are not the ultimate authority (not any other form of authority from what I have seen) to make that conclusion about human experience. I am not claiming to be the ULTIMATE authority, but it is a fact that computers are bound by their design to process data digitally and human beings are not. However, we are more than computers with more than limited senses and relativistic intellect at our disposal. You have yet to show how that statement is a legitimate one. Are computers capable of intuitive thinking? Are computers capable of emotional reactions? Are computers sentient beings? How absurd that you would even argue this point. You have made so many references in the past to validation on the basis of scientific "fact" as to make your present denial of science validating anything quite Kerryesque. I swear, you get more strange each time Your strangeness is very consistent and unchanging, but that is the nature of denial. Very predictable.
Who suggested anyone had faith in how (any) God should, could, or would act?? Only you it seems. You have commented previously about God's actions and judged them according to your standards, why deny it now? How absurd that they would claim to know more about how God should act than God Himself, given that God is understood to be an Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Eternal Personality. Then how absurd it is that anyone would claim to know about how God is ONLY... understood to be an Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Eternal Personality,... and therefore s/he might not be !?!? People claim to have faith in God. Given it is by the limits of their intellect that they evaluate and judge God, is it any wonder that they never find Him? You evaluate and judge God as ONLY understood to be an Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Eternal Personality, by the limits of your intellect . By that then you will have difficulty finding a light switch, will you not? I don't judge God. I know myself to be limited, that is the starting point. That I seek a higher power begins with an admission that I am not God. Not much progress there then. Ah, you are the judge of progress? Computers don't make progress, they simply compute. YOU make no progress that I see, as you compute only on a circular path.
I need to show YOU how faith has legitimacy? I need to show a failed theist the "reason" faith has legitimacy? I need to show you that a movie I watched is funny? How could I do that when you won't watch the movie? You have already failed at faith. When you had your first doubt, you chose to favor doubt over faith. That was the failure and the unwillingness or inability to follow the simple instructions to doubt the doubt and continue on the path of faith. You could have used your intellect to support your faith, but you chose to use your intellect to doubt your faith. Personal choice, nothing more. Prove to me that your choice to suspend faith was "legitimate" and the right choice. You use anti-faith to condemn faith, fully circular. It is an argument from conclusion, and one that you will never win, even logically if not practically speaking.
Lets get a few ideas together. The bible has been the most exceptionally useful bit of kit for those that propagate it. The basis of the whole thing is this. you must do exactly what I tell you. Or you're fucked. You must not have any money. You must give it to us. Or you're fucked. Sounds like a winner to me.
Not as the story is told, no. I'll start a quote: Gen 6:7 >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; The basic answer to your basic question: A god that I would respect would at a minimum not decide to drown all the innocent creatures he had created because of the "ungodliness" or "wickedness" or "evil" nature of man. His statement smacks of him losing his temper frankly and along with it his sense of reason. The problem we have here Shoe is that you will pick and choose (and this is your right) which parts of the story you believe are literal and which ones are figurative and create a story of your own. Example: You declare these following statements from Genesis 7 to be hyperbole (or some other version of not what they actually say since it was a "local" flood): >...and every living substance that I have made will >I destroy from off the face of the earth. >And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; >and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, >were covered. >And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both >of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping >thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: >all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was >in the dry land, died. >And every living substance was destroyed which was upon >the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the >creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they >were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained >alive, and they that were with him in the ark. And after rejecting the above "alls", "wholes", "everys" and "onlys", you will accept the "alls", "everys" and "only" below as justification for destruction of all (oh wait...only some) of the earth. >And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was >great in the earth, and that every imagination of the >thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. >And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was >corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the >earth. Hey, you can believe anything you wish about your god. Your version of god as demonstrated by your version of this story simply does not deserve my respect. JB