No one else knew to build/get on a boat in the middle of torrential rains

Not all boats are going to survive a great flood and have provisions for 40 days or whatever. Also, it's a myth you retard.

its like just a METAPHOR idiot

they didnt have the golden ratio of instructions on how to construct it like Noah did

"Behind me? Yeah. That's a dude."

...

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

>Also, it's a myth you retard.
kek
bannerworthy desu

It’s called a fishing poll.

>no one could build a boat during torrential rains.

Exactly. They probably thought it was a regular storm until it was too late. Remember, Noah was the only one God warned. It must have been absolute hell for the people who survived past the first few days of rain when they realized it wasn’t going to stop raining

>Da Bibel rly happend XD XD XD

This isn’t about the Bible being real, this is about Noah’s Flood being a stupid, poorly conceived of story.

Mary had a little lamb

>multiple accounts of a giant flood
>scientific evidence of said flood
>hurrr da bible neva happened

Noah would be on the ark and you’d be drowning in the sea

Source?
Please avoid any obvious biases like Christian Science Monitor or the Atheist Thinker or what have you

It's a myth, you dip. Do you think Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor, Wotan, the Golden Calf or the Flying Spaghetti Monster are real?

You'd die of starvation on a little boat.

It isn't a myth. It's a legend.

Supposedly it had never rained and I guess all the naive land dwellers weren't accustomed to bodies of water, nevermind floating on them.

Real talk, though: it's not real.

I don't want to argue semantics, but I'm pretty sure it qualifies as a myth. I'm open to hearing why you think otherwise though.

Wrong.

Old Testament
Epic of Gilgamesh
Plato’s dialogues. Laws book III specifically.
The Quran

Honestly you guys let’s be real here. The flood is NOT the story from the Bible that is implausible.

And if you’re looking for evidence just do a quick search on the web. News sites who are religious publish findings of the evidence of a flood often.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis

No one's saying there haven't been large floods. We're saying the story of Noah and his ark is a myth.

>Old Testament
>Plato’s dialogues. Laws book III specifically.
>The Quran
All those books were influenced by the Epic of Gilgamesh, you retard.

>And if you’re looking for evidence just do a quick search on the web. News sites who are religious publish findings of the evidence of a flood often.
Most of these "news" sites will publish fake info all of the time, not a trustworthy source.

And it’s not. There was one large flood that all of these things are referring to. In other words I am asserting that these sources are ALL talking about Noah’s flood. This happens all the time with literature. We ARE on the literature board right??? Multiple accounts of a single event are reported in different ways throughout time. It’s why Herodotus’ version of the Persian war is different than other historians, but they are still reporting on the same events.

Or just confirmatory of the flood that actually happened??? I don’t see your point when you start talking about people plagiarizing The Epic of Gilgamesh, this tale was passed down from word of mouth. Same with the Platonic dialogues which are LITERALLY the word of mouth. Just shut up, there was a thread about this the other day. This isn’t how plagiarism works retard.

And the news sources being religious doesn’t mean what they are publishing is fake. To /r/atheism with you retard!

>The flood is NOT the story from the Bible that is implausible.

It...it had never rained. That’s almost as asinine as Aphrodite emerging from sea foam fully formed.

So, a bunch of fictional storybooks and compendiums of legends say that a wor-

You know what? I’m just going to laugh at you.

When discussing narratives its important to actually get the name of the genre right. Myths are not legends and legends are not myths. These words are not synonyms. They're different genres.

The protagonist and main character is a *mortal human* with numerous biographical details provided. The story fits into the larger historical chronology of the culture and isn't just disembodied story. It's set in a specific place and time. It's clearly based on an actual man who survived a flood that took place at some point in time, just exaggerated. That makes it a legend, not a myth.

A story based on an actual event is a legend, not a myth.

>guys, did you hear about the time that it rained so long and so hard that Noah had to build a boat to keep his livestock from drowning?

Is a legend

>god sent a flood to drown the children of men and angels such that the entire world drowned

Is a myth

I'm going to refer to the seminal cinematic classic, Darren Aronofsky's "Noah", to help provide a bit of context.

Something he got right, in my opinion at least, was the supreme belief and trust in "The Creator." And that The Creator will provide. Theoretically, the people in Noah's era did not know how to build a boat because The Creator had not provided then with the knowledge or wherewithal to do so. Remember, in the story, if I'm remembering correctly, Noah is 10 generations removed from Adam, who was sent into the wilderness from Eden. Again, it's plausible to assume that they did not have the seafaring knowledge and certainly not of the magnitude it would require to build a ship the size of the ark without divine guidance and intervention.

>Is a legend
No, that's a folktale. You have no idea what you're talking about.

>Is a myth
It would be a myth if it didn't focus on the life of a mortal with biographical details living situated in a historical chronology. But it does. So it's a legend.

The next word you should misuse is "fairytale," you ignoramus.

HAD

Noah is said to have lived to be almost one thousand in the Biblical story.

Yes but there were many people in the time of Noah. They all lived for centuries back then too. But they all fell to sin.

This is why no one would listen.

Also, no offense because I also believe in God and it’s nice to see another believer, but where on Earth did it say that people didn’t know how to build boats in the Bible?!?! Surely they knew how to build boats.

They did not know how to build the Ark

A legend is an outlandish or exaggerated story based on actual events. In fact the degree of that embellishment is what distinguishes a legend from a folktale or an oral history. The protagonist's lifespan can be exaggerated in a legend without somehow pushing the story under the genre of myth. This should be obvious if you understand the different narrative modes.

People had weird thoughts back then, what can you do?

>When discussing narratives its important to actually get the name of the genre right. Myths are not legends and legends are not myths. These words are not synonyms. They're different genres.
Yes. Genesis is a myth.

>It's clearly based on an actual man

Genesis isn't a single narrative.

You've presented no argument. I dismiss your position as worthless and without merit and based on nothing but wilful ignorance and bad faith. Consider your intellect summarily rejected.

>>>reddit.com/r/atheism

Well I am a believer but I read the Bible a bit different than other believers. I believe the Genesis story to be an oral tradition and preservation of the antideluvian ancestors. Similarly, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Instructions of Shurupak tell a similar tale. I believe all of these are attempts to reconcile and interpret, and certainly much was lost in translation to poetic license. For example, I think it's reasonable to infer that the description of Noah's age at 950 years is a mistranslation. Let's say what was translated as a year really was supposed to mean a moon cycles. A moon cycle is approximately 30 days. If we recalculate, that gives Noah's death at around 79 years old. Alternatively, I believe that the character names of the antideluvian period could stand for the names of tribes/families of those living in the region who ruled in early history. Let's say Noah and his descendants ruled for 950 years in the region. I can expound on it a bit if you like.

As for the boats, it's certainly reasonable to think they had knowledge of sailing, however primitive. That being said if you were a descendant of a family living primarily in a desert wilderness, how much knowledge about seamanship would you really require or have need to pass down?

Which leads to further questions about divine intervention. A mysterious stranger showing up to teach Noah how to build a boat the size of an ark and the necessity for building a boat the size of the ark could reasonably be misconstrued as divine intervention.

There's nothing to argue, you're just making your own definitions.

Is Gilgamesh a myth or a legend? Is the Iliad a myth or a legend?

>There's nothing to argue
Indeed. I've already identified you as arguing in bad faith from wilful ignorance. There's no reason for anyone to engage with you. Wikipedia "citations" are for retards, by the way.

Well we differ greatly. And you also differ in your faith. At first you said that it was divine instruction then you said it wasn’t. How did Noah know to build the Ark? How did Noah know HOW TO build the Ark. this is problem with mixing scientism with religion. It just doesn’t work. He could not have foreknowledge of this happening unless told. And no one had foreknowledge of the future like that except God. Therefore he must have been told by God.

Such a try-hard cunt. Don't post here ever again.

Piss off, faggot.

But I'm not arguing it wasn't divine intervention. I'm trying to emphasize that somehow Noah was told to build an ark and how to do it and he and his family were saved from the deluge. Whether he "heard" the word of God within himself or he heard from a mysterious stranger, I interpret that as being the voice of God, regardless. I'm trying to help your argument the poetic interpretation of the event IS reasonable. If you're asking me if I believe the Bible is uninterpretable then no, I disagree. But I do believe the stories passed down, and I believe they were changed and reinterpreted as they were passed, are still the divinely inspired word of God. I mean that literally. And no, I'm not a Catholic or a Jew.

Right. I’m a Neoplatonic Muslim also.

I think your stance less foolish after hearing what you have to say. I think that God CAN directly communicate to us but he does so indirectly often as well. I resonate with your stance, sir.

It’s a story. You might as well ask someone to disprove Lord of the Rings. Prove to me that Gandalf the Grey didn’t lead a small band of individuals from the great races of middle earth to destroy Sauron.

This is actually a good thread, lots of interesting discussion. Good job Veeky Forums

You fucking moron. Fiction is its own genre. That's the only reason you insist on misusing the technical word "myth," is because you think it gives you rhetorical power in your political pissing match vendetta against Christians? I'm ashamed to be the same species as you. Tolkien himself wrote his own fictional analogues of myths, legends, and folklore, and he was only able to do that, and to distinguish among them, because he actually read these stories and understood the different types of traditional stories as well as their differences from fiction, you absolute fucking retard. Read a book.

>throughout much of christendom, most people were biblical literalists and believed in magical salves and saint apparitions etc., even the clergy
>suddenly the hot new modernist church says dude the bible is just metaphors n shiet

the important question here is: why did god allow everybody to be such a retard for so long? did he want them to believe bullshit or something?

Modernism is shit.

Christians have understood that the Bible contains metaphors ever since the ministry of Jesus. Jesus taught in parables. The Church Fathers recognized metaphor as one of the four modes of scripture.

While metaphor has always been important to Christianity, it's dishonest to claim that throughout most of history, most Christians didn't literally believe in shit like Le Flood. They did. What did God mean by this?

What vendetta? Persecution complex much? I’m sorry man, I’m under no obligation to think of a storybook as anything other than what it is. I give it exactly as much respect as I give the Vedas, the Odyssey, the Epics of Gilgamesh, the Quran, the Baghavad Gita, etc.

I have nothing against collections of myths, man. In fact, I have a rather large amount of respect for them as modern fiction wouldn’t exist without ancient mythology. We wouldn’t have Moby Dick if not for Judah and the Great Fish and the Christians practically invented the heroic sacrifice. Can’t even imagine Shakespeare without Christianity.

Your mythology is fundamental to Western fiction, a subject that I’ve devoted my life to studying, so...I have quite a lot of respect for it. You’re imagining a grudge where none exists.

There is not one Church Father who says the events recorded by Moses are not historical. They find other meanings in them also, but every one of them teaches that they are historically accurate.

How many Indonesians started building arks when that mega tsunami hit? and they even had the media informing them hours/days in advance.

You don't understand what the word "myth" means because you don't want to understand what it means, because such understanding would be inconvenient for you, would interrupt you barging into the field of folkloristics like a filthy pig and shitting over all the books you don't understand because you haven't read them. By conflating myths with modern fiction as well as legends and folktales, you've demonstrated that you haven't even read any of those stories you claim to collect. If you had, you would understand the different genres. And you're deliberately misusing this word because you're an atheist and you think it's a pejorative that you can employ in rhetoric. The Bible contains both myths (yes, actual fucking MYTHS you dumb shit) and legends and numerous other genres. The Noah narrative is a legend not a myth, because its own internal features mark it as a legend not a myth. Characterizing the whole of the Bible as mythology is utterly asinine, because it's a compilation that includes narratives of many genres. Now fuck off.

First of all, calm down. Second of all, none of that wall of text contradicts anything that I said, nor does anything that I’ve said imply ‘shitting’ on anything. Refusing to refer to works of fiction as if they were true is not any more disrespectful than referring to the Odyssey as fiction because those who originally transcribed the story thought that it was true at the time.

>Le

Not even going to respond to you beyond telling you to fuck off back to Redit.

Patently false. Check New Advent for Church Father commentaries on Genesis and read a few.

You don't even know what the word "fiction" means. I'll calm down when you stop raping the English language.

I'm defiantly on this guise side. It's a doggy dog world out there.

Fiction, as opposed to fact. Something that didn’t happen. Not real. A story.

You sound like you’re a ton of fun at parties.

myth
noun
1.
a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

Just because you're too busy sucking Peterson's cock to actually read your bible, yes, the bible and Quran and other religious doorstoppers are woven together collections of myths.

...

>Fiction, as opposed to fact. Something that didn’t happen. Not real. A story.

You aren't intellectually equipped to discuss literature, at least as far as this topic goes. I suggest you read up on folkloristics and literary criticism before offering your opinion to anyone. Once you have a nuanced understanding of the technical terminology and some of the theoretical framework, feel free to participate in discussions. Until then it's better for you to develop your understanding on your own.

If myths and legends are narrative forms, then there must be a line between them. And as all forms, that line be crossed and stepped over, leading some pieces of narrative work to be somewhere between these. Often this forms are also incredibly subjective and when academic cataloguing gets involved, one can become convinced that they're in fact real. But you should be aware that they're not. A myth or a legend are both artifice, constructs used for convenience. There exists different approaches to defining these. Even though you can define them as you do and provide very well reasoned opinions as to whether one things is a myth or legend, it only takes a second for you to see how they may not be such. To any non christian person, The Biblical flood is a myth. Its apparent historicity is treated as falsehood. There are many different floods in other religious texts and historical ones, those aren't necessarily myths, but the one with Noah and God, is.
To address one on your points directly, if doesnt really matter how much the story focus on Noah and whether those facts are exaggerated or otherwise, if God is involved in anyway and is an intrinsic part of the narrative, its a myth. As I sees it, a legend is "you heard John fought a 10 ton bear and won?" And a myth is "you heard John fought this *insert mystical animal* and was inducted into the pantheon along with *insert other Gods and goddesses here*"

"Oh, Jordan, your slave is here. please let me circle the tip of my tongue around your asshole while stroking your shaft. I love it when you erupt over my face. Oh, Jordan, tell your slave all about Cain and Abel again."

"Call me Dr. Peterson or Daddy, you bloody postmodern neo-marxist, and bend over. I've got a bible reading later so no time for foreplay this time, bucko. I'm gonna fuck your ass raw, man, and it's no bloody joke"

"Yes, Doctor Peterson. I'm sorry, Daddy. Do you at least have time to talk about Marduk while your slave spreads his cheeks for you?"

You might think that folkloristics might have developed a more nuanced technical definition to distinguish narrative forms than an online dictionary would offer. We're on a literature board, for the discussion of literature. You're expected to be careful with your words.

>any work that mentions any god automatically becomes mythology
This is the dumbest thing I've read all day.

throaty chuckle/10

>Patently false. Check New Advent for Church Father commentaries on Genesis and read a few.
Quote one who denies that the events in Scripture happened.

You've shifted the goalposts repeatedly from my original statement:

>Christians have understood that the Bible contains metaphors ever since the ministry of Jesus. Jesus taught in parables. The Church Fathers recognized metaphor as one of the four modes of scripture.

To your latest demand:

>Quote one who denies that the events in Scripture happened.

Why are you doing that?

If you reformulated your question to more reasonably reflect the discussion that we've had, I'd be happy to provide you with a quotation.

For example, if you were to ask for evidence that a Church Father recognized that sections of Genesis are allegorical rather than literal, I'd be happy to oblige with citations from the works of Origen and Augustine. Otherwise you're just obnoxiously strawmanning.

Anyway, a strict insistence on absolute literalism with regards to Genesis only rose in certain Protestant sects. Some in the Patristic age that preceded the Reformation by over a thousand years did advocate literalism, but others held an allegorical approach. Your argument that nothing beside literalism ever existed before a few centuries ago is the opposite of the truth. Your view of history is anachronistic.