Well, God got fed up with man's sinful nature.
He saved Noah because he was righteous, and Noah saved the animals etc.
The thing is though, it didn't work, somehow sin got on the boat too and sin went right on doing what it does.
So I guess the moral could be, we're stuck with sin , you can't separate it from the man, we all have sin, even Noah must have been affected with it else it would have been lost in the flood.

That is indeed the majority of the story, but you miss the end. The end should answer all.

Do you mean the end as in mount arrarat? The dove? Noah's death?
His children? Hem, shem, and jehosaphat ( or jehosa something).

Fine, think you have just been told the story very long ago, or something.

Then let me explain, God regretted his flooding of the earth, and as a pact between man and God he put the rainbow as a sign of his promise never to flood the world again.

As I interpet it, he won't meddle in our ways, and punish us anymore.

Well, that's ok to take that interpretation, but, the covenant specifically states that he won't ever allow the water to become a flood to destroy mankind again.
It says not one word about never punishing us anymore, only that he won't wipe us out with a flood again.

Imo that's an extremely poor interpetation when you take account for how the story starts out.

It's not an interpretation, it's what it says. I'm not about to start adding to or subtracting from it.
The covenant states that God will never again make a flood to destroy the earth, man , nor any living thing upon the earth.
Thats it ,all of it, no more no less.

Tbh ..I don't care, specially taking into account for the general simpleminded preception of things christianity else has conjoured up of "intelligent" things.

Needest I say ..a flat earth? Earth is the center of the universe? A rabbit is a fish? ...etc..etc.

I agree, to some extent, Let's get back to the original question about how much I don't know about the bible.
Where were we?

Ok let me repharse, you may have great knowledge of the bible, but imo have poor understanding, preception and ability to interpet it ..like an autistic savant. ..AND you are vunerable to group think.

Not at all, I am not a subscriber to faith of that variety.
I also have the same difficulty in interpreting it, I can never be sure if what I think it means is correct and everyone else seems to hear something different too.

Because the story about Noah should eliminate your former post's questions.

HexHammer,

I do not think you are being very cordial to other posters in this thread.

I would like to reply to your statement about the story of Noah. I am not a biblical literalist, so my paradigm is that since there is absolutely no physical/ scientific evidence for the flood we must assume that it is fiction/allegory. This is just my paradigm.

The story of Noah, to me, is the story of how sin brings death--that separating yourself from God by sinning brings you to spiritual death. This is true of individuals and as nations. That God saves Noah from this wrath is a symbol of the offer that God makes us to be redeemed from sin and death (spiritual). The covenant that God makes with Noah gives a promise of redemption for the future. All of the bible's "covenants" point to the covenant of Christ in which God promises to redeem man through Christ.

Yes, I know I'm a total bastard, and probaly should best be banned ..I admit it.

What puzzles me is why so many disregard the end with the pact between god and man.

20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. 21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

22 "As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease."

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you-the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you-every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

12 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

17 So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."

LOL I don't think you should be banned -- you are definitely making me think, for one! And I'm pretty sure you're not a TOTAL bastard ..:shifty:

I'm still not entirely sure to what you are referring

My only concern here is why are you so bothered by my(and other Christians) beliefs? There are rational explanations that can be given for every one of your concerns(if there were not the religion would have been vanquished long before either of us came along) but I'm not even sure that is your point. And I am almost certain that it would be outright rejected as a nonsensical answer even if I did give my explanations(I will though). I don't know that I've ever been upset enough with a persons religious beliefs to feel the need to attack them.

I have shared the gospel with people I've felt led to do so with but never once have I felt the need to call their beliefs "silliness" or any other term of the sort. Typically I share what I believe and why I believe it and let them decide. Part of me always feels compelled to answer any questions(such as these) that people raise because I think the bible says we should be willing to defend the gospel but at point it becomes less about a mutual respect and more about lampooning what you consider 'silliness' and that is disheartening.

I would wonder why it is or rather where it is that you have acquired such certainty about spirituality as to be able to criticize anther's religious beliefs.

I know I personally have a spiritual nature. I have a desire for such things. I've always had a desire for such. I've always had a curiosity about God and an existence that transcends this one. As C.S. Lewis once said "Creatures are not born with [natural]desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." (Note: I added the natural) And it seems rather egotistical for someone to boldly state that such things are nonsense when I know better. I know I've personally been enriched through my spirituality and I can't imagine existing without it.

---------- Post added 04-24-2010 at 07:33 PM ----------

Nevertheless my responses:

what was the point of casting the people out?

The bible explicitly states they were 'cast' out because the tree of life was there and God did not want man to live forever in their sin. Tell me what's worse.....being wrong or being wrong and not knowing it? IMO, I might would say the latter because at least if you know you're wrong there's the chance you can correct it.

Shouldn't God have seen it coming from a mile away?

He did! God knew from the beginning it would happen. Not because He wanted it to happen but because He had foreknowledge of their free-willed choice. God's only option was to figure out a way to rectify the situation. But it goes even deeper than that. God, knowing our psychology, had to let us fail first because otherwise we would think that we could make it on our own strength or that we 'deserved' everything we were getting or that we were entitled to it. We probably would have even placed ourselves ahead of God or equal with God. Same thing with Old Testament law. OT law was supposed to make us ''righteous before God'', but it failed to do that according to Paul(Romans 8:3 etc..), so it's quite obvious that, failure, was the point all along. That attempting to obey laws alone was not the path to righteousness.

Or was it planned all along and set up for man to purposely fall?

You fail to realize that God could both know ahead of time that it was going to happen, while also not causing it to happen. Free will and that whole thing. As I said, if God wishes to maintain our free will then His goal should not be preventing the fall but rescuing us from the fall. And Hallelujah that He has.

what is the point in letting it continue then?

so that we could learn. . . why do we fall off the horse? Why let anything 'difficuly' occur? Because it is through such things that we learn who we truly are. Without the 'trials' of this life, how could anyone know what they were truly capable of...what they were made of? What kind of person they were? As Arjuna said in a thread once, the trials are only a medium by which greatness can be known.

He lets Noah and his family live, for what purpose?

Because Noah's faith was counted as righteousness before God. And because through his bloodline the savior of the world would come. Let us not forget that Noah warned everyone for 120 years that a flood was coming and to repent.

Yes, I know I'm a total bastard, and probaly should best be banned ..I admit it.
What puzzles me is why so many disregard the end with the pact between god and man.

Christianity is not just some bunch of ideas, but the people who accept them as fact; so silly or not, I would recommend you to be more political, because if you would change a mind you must change the way people feel first, and an attack only hardens people to a change of feeling... If folks get all hurt and defensive you can forget any meaningful change...

Why is the bible written by Jesus's companions when some christans call it the word of god??