Board index ‹ Noah's Ark & the Flood

[Ernest]

Why did god wipe out every single creature on earth except for two of each animal and Noa and his family. Why didn't god simply wipe out all humans except for Noa and his family, his almighty after all so murdering the animals was very unnessesary. And why didn't he simply make the humans good instead of genociding them for being evil.

[jimwalton]

I don't believe the Flood was global, but rather regional but massive. What God wiped out were the corrupt and incorrigible people of Noah's surroundings.

> Why didn't god simply wipe out all humans except for Noa and his family, his almighty after all so murdering the animals was very unnessesary.

It sounds as if you are asking, "why did he kill innocent animals?" Am I reading that correctly? The animals were collateral damage to teach humanity that their corruption reaches further than their own person and even their own species. We don't stand apart from nature, but rather as a part of it. Our rebellion against God affects our entire environment. It's a valuable lesson.

> And why didn't he simply make the humans good instead of genociding them for being evil.

He did make humans good (Gn. 1.26-31). They had turned and become evil (Gn. 6.5-8) by their own choices.

What God is interested in is a love relationship with people, not just that we are good. No one can force another person to love them, because if it's forced it isn't love.

[Ernest]

I really don’t see the point of slaughtering innocent animals to prove a point to humans, especially since compared to the slaughter of humans the killing of animals really doesn’t deter us in any capacity that the murder of us could not.

And if god kills people for not loving him and punishes them severaly(not going to heaven) for not living him then you can’t honestly claim that that is not forced love. Imagine if I told someone to do something with the threat of a gun to their head, if I then claimed that whatever I made them do was up to them and they had a free choice then you would think that unfair wouldn’t you?

And you think that you missed the fact that who we are talking about is an almighty god, love or strong affection can indeed be forced and if you are god you can do it with a thought so yes indeed you can force someone to love you.

[jimwalton]

> I really don’t see the point of slaughtering innocent animals to prove a point to humans

You speak of animals as if they have a moral compass. It seems that with that reasoning I could criticize a person anytime they pull a leaf off a tree or walk on the grass. Are they innocent leaves, if we accept your reasoning?

To take it from another angle, when there is a forest fire, a tsunami, or a volcano, for instance, what is our feeling about the innocent animals?

In other words, what place do they play in our world? What do we mean by innocent? Are all of these situations the same?

> especially since compared to the slaughter of humans the killing of animals really doesn’t deter us in any capacity that the murder of us could not.

I'm not sure I understand your point. Try again.

> And if god kills people for not loving him

I'm not convinced this was the reason at all. I think they were killed because they were ruining any chance of the survival of the species. It may not have been as a judgment or as a deterrent, but rather as the only hope humanity had to continue on the planet.

> then you can’t honestly claim that that is not forced love

Therefore your conclusion may not stand since your premises are probably false.

> And you think that you missed the fact that who we are talking about is an almighty god, love or strong affection can indeed be forced and if you are god you can do it with a thought so yes indeed you can force someone to love you.

Absolutely not. Love can never be forced. Don't assume I "missed the fact." Love at its very foundation is an act of the will. If you believe love can be forced, you have changed the definition of love so that it's not love any more. Now it's constrained allegiance. But it's not love, even if a deity does the forcing.

At base I think you have largely misunderstood the context, the motive and the means of the Flood. You seem to be operating on a worldview driven by cruelty, pettiness, and injustice rather than anything the Bible talks about in that narrative.

[Ernest]

From a provable standpoint of science animals are just unintelligent humans, due to this they don’t deserve as much morall consideration as humans but they do warant some. Animals do have brains, they can think and feel as humans do, leaves or volcanos are not.

The person i was responding to claimed that god killed the animals in part because he wanted to show man that our actions affect everything including other things then us. I answered by claiming that there was no point in killing animals since if he wanted to scare the humans into being nice killing almost all of them was enough, killing animals doesn’t really matter to us in comparison especially to christians who seem to have little to no concern for animals.

God could have just made a new planet instead of killing the old one. He could have given Noah spaceship scemathics. He did not have to kill them.

And in what english language definition of the word love does it state that love requires choice by definition. All I could find was strong affection and liking but it said nothing about it having to be a choice.

And if I have misunderstood then maybe do the constructive thing and tell me what I missunderstood instead of just stating it.

[jimwalton]

> From a provable standpoint of science animals are just unintelligent humans, due to this they don’t deserve as much morall consideration as humans but they do warant some. Animals do have brains, they can think and feel as humans do, leaves or volcanos are not.

But since you are having a conversation with a Christian, you want to know what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that animals have value and worth as life with God's breath in them, but they are not just unintelligent humans. According to Christian theology, humans are created in the image of God, and it sets them apart from the animals. I agree that they don't deserve as much moral consideration as humans but they do warrant some.

> God could have just made a new planet instead of killing the old one. He could have given Noah spaceship scemathics. He did not have to kill them.

I don't believe the Flood was global, but was instead a large regional (continental) flood. God didn't kill the planet. My concept was that sometimes the death of innocents (because of our behavior) is motivational and trips our conscience to better choices.

> And in what english language definition of the word love does it state that love requires choice by definition. All I could find was strong affection and liking but it said nothing about it having to be a choice.

Let me play this to its extremes and see if it holds: so if I torture you until you say you love me, when you do I can consider your love for me to be genuine?

> And if I have misunderstood then maybe do the constructive thing and tell me what I missunderstood instead of just stating it.

The Flood was not an expression of God's anger. There is no indication of wrath. The worldview of the ancients was defined by concepts like order, disorder, and non-order. The world had become disordered by humanity's depravity, and God acted to bring it back to a state of order. Sin was an act of disorder that had to be counterbalanced. The people could do that by repentance, but they refused. Here YHWH seeks to redress the situation. He is auditing the accounts because He had made humankind, and in the process enforces a system of checks and balances to part of the equilibrium He is maintaining in the world. Other accounts of such a view and actions by God are in Jer. 26.13; Jonah 3.9-10; Jer. 8.6; 18.1-12; Dan. 5.27.

[Ernest]

You have a point in the love and torture thing however, no amount of torture would make someone love their torturer. However if I could go into someones brain and change some things around with the knowledge of how to do it (which god can as he is all powerful) then making that person love me would not be a problem.

[jimwalton]

Sounds like the Stepford Wives. If God made us all love robots, the world would be a better place. It's still not real.