5.1: Noah's Ark - a monotheistic version of a polytheistic tale

An explanation of why many of the baffling details within the tale of Noah & the Ark begin to make sense once the story is read from the perspective that it's a monotheistic version (in which God is said to be Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Benevolent) of a story that was originally polytheistic (in which the gods were none of the above).

By Todd Allen Gates, author of "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer."

This video series is also posted on the Rational Response Squad site, where there's no word/character limitation on the Comments section: see http://www.rationalresponders.com/noahs_ark_a_monotheistic_version_of_a_polyt...

An overview of whole series:

1 of 7: a brief description of videos 2 through 7.

2 of 7: a description of the Socratic Method.

3 of 7: the ground premises that the skeptic needs to establish with the Christian in order (a) for the Socratic Method to work, and (b) to focus on the issue at hand, which is "Are there valid reasons for me to believe that the Judeo-Christian Bible is the Word of God?"

4 of 7: the skeptic and the Christian read through scriptures and stories from non-Christian religions. Both agree that the following three characteristics are strong clues that a religion was not created by an Omniscient Wisdom, but just made up by people: (1) a cluelessness about the true layout of the universe, (2) senseless prejudices, (3) the borrowing of ideas & stories from pre-existing religions.

5 of 7: the skeptic and the Christian read through the Judeo-Christian Bible, and examine it by the same critical light just held up to non-Christian religions.

Science, Religion, and "truth" vs. "Truth": An explanation of how science and religion are opposites of each other when it comes to how permanent each considers its own knowledge to be--why religion spells its truths with a Capital T, and why science uses the lowercase t. This discussion is a continuation of a topic brought up in Video 5, but as my notes for this tangent issue grew longer and longer, I decided to give this 3-part series a separate title.

5.1 -- 5.4: Further details on the origins of the Judeo-Christian bible--how many of its ideas & stories can be found in religions that pre-date the bible by centuries.

5.1 explains why many of the baffling details within the tale of Noah & the Ark make sense once the story is read as a monotheistic version (in which God is said to be Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Benevolent) of a story that was originally polytheistic (in which the gods were none of the above).

5.2 discusses the pre-Christian religious stories from the Greeks, Romans, and Zoroastrians about unions between gods & mortals, miraculous virgin births, and offspring that were both human and god. It also covers the "Satanic pre-plagiarization" explanations from early Church Fathers Justin Martyr and Tertullian on how the pagans knew about these phenomena centuries before the time of Jesus.

5.3: Richard Dawkins refers to the Christian premises behind the belief that Jesus/God sacrificed Himself to appease Himself as "barking mad." This video looks at each of those premises--Divine Anger, the need for sacrifice, the use of a scapegoat--from the perspective of comparative mythology. A subtitle for this video would be "Richard Dawkins meets Joseph Campbell."

5.4: the evolution of the afterlife. Stage One - the 37 out of 39 Old Testament books that don't mention, or deny, an afterlife. Stage Two - the 2 Old Testament books that say there IS an afterlife. Stage Three - The New Testament, in which the afterlife becomes one of Christianity's main selling points.

6 of 7: a discussion of an abbreviated form of using the Socratic Method with proselytizers.

7 of 7: a discussion of why my approach focuses on skepticism of so-called revealed religions rather than skepticism of a Creator.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Noah
• ark
• Sumerian
• Sumer
• Epic
• Gilgamesh
• Utnapishtim
• flood
• myth
• Atheism
• skepticism
• comparative
• mythology
• bible

[MrPinkUnicornz]

This doesn't prove the genesis flood never happened, Gilgamesh may have been first to record it in writing, but he only wrote down what the ancient hebrews told him about the flood and then stole the story for his Gods.The genesis flood was written more than 1000 years later but maybe it was verbally passed round for many years prior? At least thats what the theist will say.

[ToddAllenGates]

@MrPinkUnicornz

> At least thats what the theist will say.

Agreed ... that's why I argue that the probability that the polytheistic version came first is based not just on the chronology of the records, but the coherency of the storytelling. "Divinity" in the story is full of rash decisions and ill will and regrets: characteristics that don't match Omniscience & Omnipotence & Omnibenevolence, but that match up well the flawed gods of polytheism.

[MrPinkUnicornz]

I agree 100%. The craziest thing about christianity for me is the first five books of the bible. This so called one God is making reference to other Gods left right and centre, yet they tell us he is the beginning and the end and the one and only God.

[ToddAllenGates]

@MrPinkUnicornz

> This so called one God is making reference to other Gods left right and centre,

Yes -- His "#1 Commandment is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me": something that makes sense *only* within the context of polytheism.

> yet they tell us he is the beginning and the end and the one and only God.

That's b/c they rely on the Sunday School / Reader's Digest version of the bible--the one that skips over or "cleans up" the contradictions.

[wwhisko]

I applaud you, sir! The quest for true knowledge, requires the debunking of religious "beliefs". There's a very good reason why Zeus and the Pantheon of Olympus is no longer accepted as truth...it's because the story is RIDICULOUS! As is the continued belief of an invisible man who lives in the sky. People need to get past this tribal barbarism.

[ToddAllenGates]

@wwhisko

> I applaud you, sir!

Thanks!

[ToddAllenGates]

@billy5939

> ppl claimed christ n horus were the same too

I know some skeptics make this charge, but I don't know of any evidence that supports this claim: I haven't come across ancient Egyptian texts that include passages that have striking similarities between Christ and Horus.

The similarities between the flood myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh vs. the bible *are* striking, however. And Gilgamesh clearly predates the Bible.

> shame on you

For what? I'm just discussing comparative mythology.

[billy5939]

@ToddAllenGates the devil in the bible is known as the great lie and a counterfit....ppl claimed christ n horus were the same too...they slander God and his son..shame on you

[1Waddup]

@ToddAllenGates foolish reponse, u aint worth the respomse

islam is satan

[ToddAllenGates]

@1Waddup

> man trying to question God's authority, how righteous are u?

Do you feel you have the right to question what millions of Hindus believe is the Divine Word of the Rig Veda? Would you dare question what millions of Muslims say is the Divine Word of the Koran?

Why are you skeptical of the divinity of the Rig Veda and the Koran?

If you can answer that question, then you have the answer to why I'm skeptical of the Christian claim that the Bible is God's Word.