[Jordan]

I did not mean to come off sounding harsh. But your post seemed pretty straight forward to me. You said people worship God because they fear death. I disagree.

I'm just bitter I can't post my new avatar and i've edited 4 times trying to get it to fit.

Nice post Supes. That was interesting.

[civilian_number_two]

Supes, there is another possible explanation for why various cultures worldwide have flood myths, and it is simple. These people write about floods because they know floods. To make the flood more epic, they make it bigger. Various cultures around the world have myths about giants as well. This is because they have seen men. To make them more epic, they make them larger in their stories. This is not to say that giants have ever walked the earth. So too plagues, and rains of fire, and immeasurable hanging gardens and fountains of gold. These myths do say something fundamental about the human imagination: to make mundane things seem interesting in our stories, we like to make them big.

I agree with Jordan that people didn't invent God out of fear of death. That's what they invented Heaven (the afterlife) for. God is more fear of the unknown in general.

[Supes]

Supes, there is another possible explanation for why various cultures worldwide have flood myths, and it is simple.  These people write about floods because they know floods.  To make the flood more epic, they make it bigger.  Various cultures around the world have myths about giants as well.  This is because they have seen men.  To make them more epic, they make them larger in their stories.  This is not to say that giants have ever walked the earth.  So too plagues, and rains of fire, and immeasurable hanging gardens and fountains of gold.  These myths do say something fundamental about the human imagination: to make mundane things seem interesting in our stories, we like to make them big.

Ha ha! I had a feeling you might jump in here Civ. after me not completing the post. I was a little reticent to include all my thought as I'd decided that the post had gone long enough to prompt some discussion.

I had originally intended to include some detail about our current situation with the Tsunami causing such havoc upon the world. Who is to say that in a less communicatively in touch world, this very incident would not have been seen by many as a great flood. I firmly believe that many of the myths that we have today are in part based upon something. Your examples of the giants is another good one. I personally believe that it is likely that something like this did occur and as you have pointed out over time our own story telling ability has exaggerated events and in some instance placed religious significance to them

What is to stop todays tsunami from being tomorrows wrath of god? At the moment it is like to be mass communication. But in the past, we were not so in touch with what is happening on the other side of the ridge let alone on the other side of the world. A farmer from ancient times might go to the market one day and then return two days later to find the entire market gone. Washed away in a flood that did not reach him. But to him, this could be an act of the gods, or any other such thing. He may perceive that the whole world except fro his small part was flooded and only the grace of his deity saved him. It's all about perspective and who gets to tel the story.

Hope that clears up a bit more for you and I should really not let word limit concerns hold me back in the future

[SimeSublime]

Interesting. You also have to take into account the dating of the various flood stories. Although it's all "a long time ago", there is usually a chronolgical ordering of a peoples religion. If we know the flood took place between two events which we can date through archeology(or whatever), we can determin when the various floods took place. Sadly, when done like this, a lot of the 'world floods' don't match up.

[Jane Sherwood]

What about the breaking of the continents? Every time I start hearing about the "Great Flood" or whatever people call it, that always pops to mind. I'm no expert in the subject and even though I know I learned about it at some point, my memory is crap so I've forgotten a lot of it, but when you think about it all - Pangea, the Ice Age, the melting of the glaciers and continental drift - doesn't the flood story sort of make sense to a degree?

On a different topic, last night I was watching something on the history channel with my mother about ideas of the devil and hell throughout history. One thing came up that surprised me: when they started talking about the story of Job, my mother said that that was one of the reasons she didn’t want prayer and Bible readings in public school. When she was growing up, they read stories like that to them in school, and they freaked her out. She said that was one of the reasons she was so “twitchy” to this day. It started when I had said that god seemed like a bastard in this story because the whole bet with Satan seems so petty and childish in the “Oh yeah, well I’ll show you!” sense, but she said that what disturbed her was that nobody seemed to give a second thought to Job’s family. They were all crushed to death for the sake of a bet. Nobody, not even god, seemed to care about their fate, he just wanted to show the devil up while they were given about as much thought as horror movie fodder. There was another one she mentioned where a man said he would sacrifice the next creature that came through his gate, but then his daughter came in. Instead of sending something else in to kill in her place like he had done with Abraham and Isaac, god still made the guy sacrifice his own daughter! He certainly didn’t seem to care much about the daughter just as long as the guy kept his word and he got his sacrifice! What's the lesson in that? Keep our mouths shut? Never be ambiguous when the big man's listening, else you'll be on the wrong end of his twisted sense of humor?

I have to agree with her, that is freaky, and it makes absolutely no sense. For being such a “just and loving god,” he certainly seems like a right bastard in most stories.

[Slade]

Is that New Testament or Old Testament stuff? In the Old Testament God was a downright asshole. Curses all of humanity for one mistake (only made because of his own creative flaws - why make humans temptable?), sends fire and brimstone all over the place, turns people into pillars of salt for disobeying him, encourages the deaths of non-believers... May he strike me down right now if I'm wrong.

I haven't read much into the New Testament except for Revalations though...

[civilian_number_two]

Actually, Jane, that is the ppoint of the story. It's fucked, I agree, but the message at the end of Job is summarized in the line "Where were you when I created the heavens and the Earth?" God calls Job out for whining, and says "listen, prick, I can do as I damn well please, so shut your trap."

The lesson of Job is about God's power, and how we ought to kowtow. It has nothing to do with benevolence or mercy. That appears elsewhere, sure, but not in Job.

-----------------

I have always figured that at one point Spain and Morocco were joined, and that the ocean came rushing in and created the Mediterrranean. I have no evidence for this, but I think probably a lot of people would have died when a think like that hapened, and it would have created an oral tradition of a great flood. Probably (high odds, most likely true), my idea is total bullshit, but I like it as an analogy at least. Supes's tsunami analogy works fine for me as well. 13000 people? That's the wrath of God! Imagine how many more might have died in a more primitive society, or what percentage might have died with a combination of more primitive + fewer people on the planet.

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 29 December 2004 - 05:26 AM

[Despondent]

As long as we're delving into bullshit :

I know this will sound crazy, but what if the tsunami was created by an asteroid?
(bad joke withheld)

I most certainly believe civilizations, and their historical remains on our planet could be affected by tsunami, earthquake, or what have you.

[SimeSublime]

What about the breaking of the continents?  Every time I start hearing about the "Great Flood" or whatever people call it, that always pops to mind.  I'm no expert in the subject and even though I know I learned about it at some point, my memory is crap so I've forgotten a lot of it, but when you think about it all - Pangea, the Ice Age, the melting of the glaciers and continental drift - doesn't the flood story sort of make sense to a degree?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But the dates are all wrong. The ice age is actually the latest of many ice ages, and even that was so long ago that any religious topics a moot. Same with the breaking of the super continent. Humans were just not developed enough, though I'm not sure we were even around at that time.

[Slade]

Aye. According to the guys in the lab coats, the continental drift happened far before the "Dawn of Man" (tones of 2001 Space Oddesey because that just popped into my brain. The monolith thingy...) Although I think some popsicle people have been found with wolly mammoths and such, and they say that people crossed the Beiring Strait during an iceage to get to Alaska from Asia... I say it's all moot, because people are made from sand!

[SimeSublime]

No, they are made from dirt! I shall kill you for your blasphme

[Shawnathan]

I did not mean to come off sounding harsh. But your post seemed pretty straight forward to me. You said people worship God because they fear death. I disagree.

I didn't mean to be offensive either, just stating my opinion. Sorry if I sounded offensive.

What I'm really trying to say is, people who are criminals, maybe older ones. They don't want to have to live the last few years of their life wondering if he's going to suffer for all eternity. So the crminial is going to try and get forgiveness from God.

When it comes to people who were raised around Christianity, then of course they aren't going to worship God because they don't want to burn for all eternity.

I'm also wondering, what becomes of people with disabilites. You know, "special people" who can't control their bodily funtions very well. They are know to break the law of the bible, as far as we know they don't know any better. Will he go to hell? If God did create us all, did he create retarded folks? How the hell an I supposed to know, he hasn't bothered to tell us that he exists. Wouldn't things be easier is God came down and told us that he exists. It would be nice if he'd do so, this world wouls be a better place if he did.

You aren't a very nice person God.

This post has been edited by Shawnathan: 30 December 2004 - 10:22 AM

[Slade]

Well, babies get sent to purgatory.

[SimeSublime]

I always thought it rather depressing that anyone born before Christ got stuck in Limbo, at best.

[Slade]

Well, Limbo's probably not that bad. They just make Paradise out to be this big beautiful thing so people can be envyous in Limbo. So there you are, drinking gin and tonics, playing full contact basketball with people, trying to discuss modern subatomic theory with someone, and you think "Damn, I wish I was in Heaven...", while the people in Heaven are playing their harps and singing "Aleluyah" for eternity.