# People raised Christian: what were you taught about Noah's Flood as a child? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 20, 2020, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700 "2020-01-20T13:57:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/81 "2020-01-22T17:18:40Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Creationists [use](https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/11/18/the-science-of-antediluvian-plushies/) [baraminology](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Baraminology). That is used to explain how to fit all “kinds” on the ark, but not how the limited number of kinds exploded into the number of species found today. I’ve heard one creationist, I think, claim the stress of the new earth did it. Not very convincing. ---
**Author:** ![TimfromNapa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@TimfromNapa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimfromNapa)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2020, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/82 "2020-01-22T20:53:57Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Specifically, were you taught that God deliberately caused the Deluge, or that He merely foresaw that a worldwide catastrophe was coming, warned Noah, and told Noah to warn others (a warning nobody heated)? > > I ask this question because I had a conversation yesterday with someone who was always given the relatively sanitized version as a child. Only as an adult, taking non-devotional religious classes in college, did she realize the genocidal implications of the myth? > > So I ask again? If you were raised Christian and regularly attended Sunday school or other such religious education/indoctrination, were you taught that Noah’s Flood was an act of God deliberately exterminating most of the human race, or that He, through Noah, attempted to save humanity from a disaster He had not caused (and mysteriously could not avert), only to be frustrated by human intransigence? > >  Though I was not raised in a Fundamentalist Christian sect, I was raised to believe that the Great Flood did happen and that God made it happen because He was unhappy with his creation. When I read the Bible as an adult, I got the same impression regarding God’s role in causing the Flood. By that time, however, I was already an atheist and judged the whole account to be a shaggy dog story told around countless campfires to explain rainbows. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2020, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/83 "2020-01-22T21:06:01Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > …I’ve heard one creationist, I think, claim the stress of the new earth did it. Not very convincing. Just for a point of reference do you find comic inflation convincing? [cosmic inflation - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=cosmic+inflation&oq=cosmic+in&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.4277j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) Expected answer, why sure, it’s science and all. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2020, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/84 "2020-01-22T21:13:19Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Just for a point of reference do you find comic inflation convincing? > [cosmic inflation - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=cosmic+inflation&oq=cosmic+in&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.4277j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) > > Expected answer, why sure, it’s science and all. Sure, some comic books do get more expensive as the years go by. That can be confirmed by observation. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2020, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/85 "2020-01-22T23:10:51Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Just for a point of reference do you find comic inflation convincing? > [cosmic inflation - Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?q=cosmic+inflation&oq=cosmic+in&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.4277j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) > > Expected answer, why sure, it’s science and all. Well yes, since it made a prediction about the fine structure of cosmic microwave radiation which were verified. That’s how science works. Der Flood story makes all sorts of predictions about what we should find, none of which have panned out. Making up post hoc justifications for the failure of ones predictions doesn’t hack it. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2020, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/86 "2020-01-22T23:33:31Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > It is not about animals getting put aboard the ark. It is that, considering the diversity of life today, evolution would have happened at double warp speed to turn the limited number of animals on the ark to all the animals we see today. > Creationists will justify this by being “microevolution” which they are forced to acknowledge, but can’t explain how it happened so fast. Corrupted DNA causes visible mutations to happen at a higher rate, which is also why close relatives should not breed today and why it wasn’t a problem when human DNA was relatively new. See, back in the day, humans could avoid the genetic diseases associated with inbreeding, and they also lived a lot longer, as they were designed to do. But over time their DNA accumulated so many mutations that genetic birth defects and premature aging have become common. It’s a similar mechanism for driving the high mutation rates needed for accelerated evolution. Or so I’ve been told by someone who managed to keep a straight face and, knowing her religious beliefs, likely believed it. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2020, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/87 "2020-01-22T23:51:19Z")
> [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > Raised Roman Catholic, east coast US, Catholic school from mid-1960s through high school. Taught the story with a deliberate flood to wipe out the infidels. Also eventually taught that most of the Old Testament was allegory and not literal; earth is billions of years old; humans evolved from learlier lower life forms; humans and apes had a common ancestor. > > Figured out much later that the OT god had to be more hardcore than competing gods for PR purposes. Same religion time period and region, was always taught that the OT had allegorical elements, and mainly important insofar as it was said to foretell Jesus, or to give the context for Jesus’ statements as ‘scriptural scholar’ in the Gospels. That said, since you don’t need much qualification to teach ‘CCD’ (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine), Catholic speak for what US Protestants call ‘Sunday School’, and generally taught by lay people even back then, I suppose all kinds of stuff was and is taught. And some priests and nuns I’ve known have also been a lot more ‘fiery’ than others. But it also gets back to exactly ‘correct’ interpretation of OT stories being relatively peripheral to Catholicism certainly in Vatican II era but even much earlier. A story where the Flood was strictly literal but mankind being ‘warned’ I’ve never heard of before. But in general God in OT does (like, really) harsh things and gives the Israelites harsh laws to live under. Catholicism generally draws a distinction between that and the message of the Gospels to be spread to ‘the ends of the earth’, and the gentiles (as per Paul), again as it interprets being foreshadowed in OT (Isaiah particularly). So while you might say the Flood was allegorical, it’s not claimed every harsh and vengeful act of OT God, of which there are many, or the harsh laws given to the Israelites, weren’t ‘real’. But rather the message of the NT is mainly ‘forward looking’ for believers in Christ, to oversimplify a book length topic. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/88 "2020-01-23T00:03:36Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > To be fair that’s how science works too. We have observed something find it provable and then have to do mental gymnastics to figure out how it might fit in. Creationism works in exactly the reverse way as science. Creationism starts with a description of how the world got to be the way it is, and then tries to fit observations into that framework. Science starts with observations, and from that tries to develop an explanation of how they fit together based on testable hypotheses. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/89 "2020-01-23T01:19:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Creationism works in exactly the reverse way as science. Creationism starts with a description of how the world got to be the way it is, and then tries to fit observations into that framework. Science starts with observations, and from that tries to develop an explanation of how they fit together based on testable hypotheses. Science starts with an existing premise of how, in this case the world, got started, which just happens to be based on prior science, instead of ancient wisdom in scripture. But the foundation of how the world works in some form is given to both creationists and scientists as a starting point and they have to figure out how new observations work in their chosen model. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/90 "2020-01-23T01:25:46Z")
I was raised fundamentalist Presbyterian, with a smidgen of Lutheran. I remember being taught that The Flood was the Literal Truth, but the distinction in the OP’s poll was not significant. God did what He had to do to save us from Godless Heathens. ---
**Author:** ![MollyCatherine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bc79bd/32.png) [@MollyCatherine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MollyCatherine)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/91 "2020-01-23T01:46:36Z")
I was raised Catholic. I’m not sure if CCD didn’t cover many Bible stories or if I just blanked them all out of my mind. I don’t really remember any of what the curriculum covered? Anyway, what my parents taught me about the flood was that Noah built an arky, arky; built it out of sticks and barky, barky. It was for the animals in twosies, twosies - elephants and kangaroosies, roosies. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/92 "2020-01-23T01:51:54Z")
I chose the closest one - that God was trying to wipe out the evil humans. But that’s not exactly correct. Specifically, I was taught that the Nephilim had lain with human women, and corrupted God’s created humans so much that we were no longer capable of good in his sight. So God sought to wipe out all the hybrids. I found that bit interesting as it seemed to jibe with the Greek and Roman mythologies. But I guess Noah and his family were good, so God convinced Noah to build the ark and keep his own family safe, thus the flood only wiped out the corrupted DNA lines. So yeah, we’re all the descendants of Noah’s family incest and inbreeding. The really bizarre part is, that these same people who taught this would also try to teach that there were tribes of humans today who were decided as they descended from the various sons of Adam. When I tried to argue that all these “tribes” would have been consolidated at the time of Noah, I was asked to go sit in the hall until I had learned to “respect the Bible as the Word of God.” Hmmmmmnn. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/93 "2020-01-23T02:10:49Z")
> [@MollyCatherine](#): > > Anyway, what my parents taught me about the flood was that Noah built an arky, arky; built it out of sticks and barky, barky. It was for the animals in twosies, twosies - elephants and kangaroosies, roosies. Get those children out of the muddy, muddy ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/94 "2020-01-23T02:19:08Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Get those children out of the muddy, muddy As if the old guy didn’t have enough to do building an ark big enough for all the animals, he also had to get them across oceans in several cases. Unless you believe continental drift didn’t happen until later, of course. Maybe the total land mass on earth was about the size of Vermont. Yeah, that’s the ticket. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/95 "2020-01-23T03:04:40Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Science starts with an existing premise of how, in this case the world, got started, which just happens to be based on prior science, instead of ancient wisdom in scripture. But the foundation of how the world works in some form is given to both creationists and scientists as a starting point and they have to figure out how new observations work in their chosen model. Not even close. Science in the 18th century mostly accepted the Bible but as facts were discovered about the age of the earth the facts and observations led to hypotheses to explain them - and then those hypotheses were tested. The Earth (and universe) kept getting older as new data came in. Fact about the earth caused scientist to dump the Biblical creation story and come up with a story fitting the data (and they revised it). Facts about the Earth caused creationists to either reject the facts or pile up the bullshit explaining how the Bible was still correct no matter how much contradictory evidence was found. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/96 "2020-01-23T04:12:10Z")
> [@lingyi](#): > > Okay, someone has to post this: > > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4bc9UwZsYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4bc9UwZsYs) I was sure that was gonna be [the Cosby routine.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bputeFGXEjA) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/97 "2020-01-23T08:44:37Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I chose the closest one - that God was trying to wipe out the evil humans. But that’s not exactly correct. Specifically, I was taught that the Nephilim had lain with human women, and corrupted God’s created humans so much that we were no longer capable of good in his sight. So God sought to wipe out all the hybrids. I found that bit interesting as it seemed to jibe with the Greek and Roman mythologies. But I guess Noah and his family were good, so God convinced Noah to build the ark and keep his own family safe, thus the flood only wiped out the corrupted DNA lines. > > So yeah, we’re all the descendants of Noah’s family incest and inbreeding. The really bizarre part is, that these same people who taught this would also try to teach that there were tribes of humans today who were decided as they descended from the various sons of Adam. When I tried to argue that all these “tribes” would have been consolidated at the time of Noah, I was asked to go sit in the hall until I had learned to “respect the Bible as the Word of God.” > > Hmmmmmnn. I think you are referring to the serpent seed doctrine, which purports that Eve engaged in sexual intercourse with the serpent (often believed to be Satan incarnate) and thus produced Cain. even apart from the anti-scientific and non-biblical aspects of this notion, it is often used to support anti-African and antiSemitic beliefs. It is, in other words, highly stupid. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2020, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700/98 "2020-01-23T18:12:19Z")
I was raised Catholic and had religious ed throughout my whole time in school. I can’t remember where I first heard about the Noah story, but I suspect it was from a “Bible” for kids which I had that was mostly a picture book with short accompanying text. It was just a neat story with animals, and I’m sure it didn’t mention that God caused the flood to wipe out humanity. I remember myself as kid (and haven’t changed in that regard), and if I had known that aspect I would have protested that all the other animals were unjustly killed as collateral damage when wiping out the wicked humans. I also think that nobody ever gave me the impression that the story was anything other than a pious legend. I don’t remember learning about the story in school, because even in elementary school (Grundschule), the Old Testament wasn’t a frequent subject, the only story from the OT I remember having heard in school was Exodus. At grammar school (Gymnasium), we didn’t talk about the OT ever again in religious ed as far as I remember. ETA: just remembered, [this song could also have been](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk2KUKIXePc) my introduction to the flood story. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-raised-christian-what-were-you-taught-about-noahs-flood-as-a-child/846700.md?page=4)