Why did Noah's descendents forsake God so quickly?

I went searching around EvC and found a topic that was similar to this that was started in 2002 and closed later that year for going off topic. However, this is a question that I've had rattling around in my head since having the discussion with ICANT on the nature of time.Bible literalists believe the Bible to be true. They will argue that Flood did happen because it says so in the Bible. The aftermath of the Flood is that there were eight human survivors: Noah, his wife, their 3 sons and the wife of each son. From this population of eight we balloon to a population of 6 billion in the modern day. Now we know humanity has a dizzying array of various beliefs, many that are polytheistic with extremely few monotheistic faiths. We know that Noah, his wife, their sons and wives were monotheistic and believed in God.So:
1) Noah, wife, sons, and sons' wives believed in God (knew God to exist).
2) Noah and company experienced an event that showed the awesome might of God.
3) Noah and company are the ancestors of all people.Now it would seem to me that having witnessed what God did to sinners, they would've made certain that their children, their children's children, and so on down the line would have kept to the faith in God. Yet in only 500 or so years, you have Egyptians with their polytheistic beliefs, the East Asian traditions and Hindus with their polytheistic beliefs, the Norse, Greeks, and Celts with their polytheistic beliefs - the point being that nearly all belief systems around the world subscribe to polytheism. So in 500 years you go from a certain belief in one God to many, many polytheistic faiths.So how can anyone explain this apparent immediate forsaking of a belief in God whose power was proven just a few hundred years prior? How is it that we can get from eight people with one belief to the variety of beliefs we have today especially if those eight people knew, for a fact, that their belief was true?Edited by Izanagi, : No reason given.Edited by Izanagi, : No reason given.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott

Maybe. But when you consider the Pyramids of Giza and that construction was greatest during the 23rd Century BC, one hundred years after the Great Flood, that would mean that Noah's descendants, while Noah was alive, forsook God, adopted Egyptian myths, and built some of the Pyramids of Giza all within a hundred years. In one hundred years after witnessing the awesome power of God, people decided to give up that faith and go to polytheism, even while seeing animals and plants multiply around them at miraculous rates. And Noah and his family were the God-fearing people too. It doesn't make sense. How can creationists explain this?

Adam still believed in God afterwards, so did Cain. You may know God exists and still turn your back on God. They knew God existed and and turned their backs on God, but they didn't start worshiping Shiva. But Adam still knew God existed. You know who was a descendant of Noah... Abraham. Why did this small group of people remember God but the others completely forgot? Certainly, Noah and his sons lived long enough to properly chastise their descendants, right? No, Noah and his sons would've proven two things:
1) The Flood happened.
2) The Flood happened because of the awesome power of God.To say that cultures remembered one and forgot the other is ridiculous, more so when you consider that they forgot the other within one hundred years of the Flood. Think about it - one hundred years after the Great Flood, some of Noah's descendants, probably grandchildren and great-grandchildren, went to Egypt, conveniently forgot all knowledge of God, established a polytheistic religion based on leader worship, and built the Pyramids of Giza. All of this while Noah and his sons are still alive. Does that make sense to you? In this day and age it is extremely hard to change the beliefs of people who don't even know God exists. And Noah's immediate descendants are people who knew for a fact that God existed - imagine how hard it should have been to change their minds. So how can you explain that one hundred years after the Flood most of Noah's descendants completely forgot about God?

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts..." - Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Sorry about the confusion, but I had wanted to understand the creationist argument for the flood in light of the fact that most religions are polytheistic with few religions in the world subscribing to a monotheistic faith and how creationists could account for this.Essentially, rather than looking at the scientific evidence against the Flood, I am looking at the cultural evidence against the flood.I'm not sure if that clears it up.Edited by Izanagi, : No reason given.Edited by Izanagi, : No reason given.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts..." - Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

No, that would show they did forget. Making a story of one god into many gods in the span of a hundred years is incredulous, especially if it was something so important as religion. If you can argue that those people could change their interpretation of their faith so much so quickly despite knowing someone who dealt with God being alive at the moment, then how can you say that the Bible as it is now is the accurate? What if what is written in the Bible is just as you say - they changed the story? Distortions may happen, but the stories should still be similar regardless of how many languages were formed. A single God to a group would still remain a single God, not become multiple ones. They did forget. They went from worshiping one God to worshiping many gods. And even the attributes of the strongest god of the various pantheons don't correlate with the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Greek gods were selfish and arrogant, certainly nothing like God, right? Loki was a trickster. Is God a trickster? The stories are similar in the Mesopotamian region, but go farther and farther out, the stories become very dissimilar. And that's the point, the stories should all be similar. But why aren't they? It doesn't take a generation or two for people to change their beliefs in God so greatly. People today can pass down stories of ancestors on ships sailing to the New World with little distortions, why couldn't they?I agree that stories do change over time, but not so drastically over so little a time. There has to be another explanation. If you could somehow believe that stories about God could change so much in so short a time, then why can't you believe the Bible could have changed so much?Edited by Izanagi, : No reason given.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts..." - Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

If you can argue this, then how can anyone argue the Bible is true and accurate? By your argument, since man tries to erase all knowledge of God, then the Bible would have been one of those things that people would've changed. The similarities in nearly religion is to tell how people should live their lives, but that is the purpose of religion. Beyond that, each religion has very different beliefs. Buddhism has no god and Greek mythology has many gods. Greek mythology had selfish and arrogant Gods whose top guy was horny and adulterous while Odin of the Norse gods was wise. The thing is, the polytheistic faiths supposedly arose from belief in a single God. And within those polytheistic faiths, the gods have many different characteristics, from noble to self-serving. But we know from experience that the stories that people tell don't change so much so quickly. People do tell stories of ancestors traveling on ships to reach the New World. Their stories may change a little here and there, but over a couple of hundred years, it doesn't change so much as to be barely recognizable.And if you can argue that people can change their faith and aspects of their faith so much, then how can you argue that the Bible is accurate and true? Couldn't it be that some people changed it because, as you say,

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On the one hand it points to the ends that sinful man will go to to plaster over the knowledge he has that God exists

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Edited by Izanagi, : No reason given.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts..." - Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

I have to agree with bluescat48. Your case would be better served if you could find a civilization not near a river or an ocean that was never near a river or ocean that has a flood story.

But that's the point. If not everyone is going to forsake the worship of God, then there should be some mention of the God of Abraham somewhere else in the world, anywhere else. But the God of Abraham is uniquely Middle Eastern in that beyond the Middle East, there has never been a belief in God.We would expect mention of the Abrahamic God somewhere outside the Middle East if humanity began again after the flood with eight people who were fervent believers in God. Remember, Noah and his family were unique among the rest of the world prior to the flood because of their faith. That's why God choose to save them. So you would expect Noah and his family to make sure their descendants held to those beliefs. So there should have been some people out there who held similar beliefs as the Hebrews, shouldn't there? Yet consider that for at least a generation a great majority of the Hebrews were able to keep to their faith under the whips of Pharaoh. Doesn't it seem contradictory to say that they lost faith so quickly in one instance while in another instance they kept to their faith so strongly?

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, "Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it's all true you'll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn't then you've lost nothing, right?" When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, "We're going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts..." - Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

So are you saying that people who witnessed an act of God, i.e. the flooding of the entire world, would probably not be fervent believers of God? Isn't what makes someone a fervent believer in God are the events that happen in a person's life that they attribute to God? Noah says God told him that a flood was coming, that God told him to build an ark in preparation for the flood, built an ark in preparation for the flood, gathered two or seven of each animal in preparation for the flood, after which a flood does occur, and after the flood waters subside they all survive - are you seriously arguing that's not enough to justify a fervent belief in God? Yet Noah goes to his sons after walking with God and says, "Sons we need to build an ark because God told me a flood is coming." Wouldn't you think the fact that their father was right gives a little credence to Noah's sons becoming believers of God? People have believed in God for far less reasons than actually seeing the vengeful power of God. No, people don't believe because there's no objective evidence to give them a reason to believe. There isn't any material evidence for God. But a F*ing global flood is more than enough reason to believe. That's wrath of God territory and something that can't be denied. No, there isn't. Try again. Learn a bit more about the mythologies of other cultures and you'll realize that few religions are monotheistic; in fact, it's argued that the Hebrews were unique in their monotheism. Even worse, creation stories vary to such a large extreme that it can't be argued that any other mythologies had a basis in the Abrahamic God. I'm talking about the generation that still believed someone would come from God to set them free from the bondage of Egypt. Didn't they still believe in God? They railed against Moses, not God. They didn't say, "God, it sucks to be out here so we'll stop believing in you." There's a big difference at being angry at the messenger and being angry at the person who sent the message.Edited by Izanagi, : No reason given.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

No, that was about whether Jesus was the son of God, not about the existence of God. There's a difference. The Jews knew about Moses and that people could be given supernatural powers by God. That story still proved the power of God, not whether or not Jesus was the Son of God. Whether or not Jesus was the Son of God is a different issue than whether or not God real. I'm sorry, but on another thread someone made the very clear distinction that railing against God's man is railing against a man, not God. If you say one thing, and another fundamentalist Christian says another, who am I to believe? Once again, a fundamentalist Christian did make the distinction. I think it was Calypsis4. You fundamentalists should better coordinate your beliefs to be in sync.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

Yet they still believed in God. That's the point. The Hebrews weren't worshipping the Egyptian gods. They didn't make up some new religion. However they may have turned their back on God, they still believed in him. God worship as a whole did not die out. There were always some group that believed in God. Worship of God continued to survive. And that's what we should find in other cultures around the world if everyone was descended from Moses and his sons - traces that the worship of a monotheistic God existed elsewhere. But we don't find that, do we?

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

Because turning your back on God isn't the same as suddenly worshipping many gods. Because having most people turn their backs doesn't mean that everyone turns their back on God. If all people were raised with the same faith in God, as you might expect, then there should be mention of monotheism somewhere else around the world. God should be found somewhere else simply because some people would've held onto those beliefs. But the fact is, we don't find that. Belief in a monotheistic God is nearly strictly Middle Eastern. No other place on Earth records such a belief.

Then no one in the world currently has faith because no one in the world has seen an act of God. I think that's where your argument leads to, right? That doesn't make sense. A hundred years later, people replace a God of whom they can see the evidence of God's existence firsthand with gods that they just arbitrarily made up because they seemed more real? If you are seriously arguing that acts from above are required for faith, then the Egyptian gods are no more real than the God of Abraham. There should be no reason to decide to worship some guy named Ra because Ra hasn't done anything and won't do anything because he isn't real. If anything, people would fall to their default religion, which is the religion they were taught to believe in growing up. That religion would've been God.Edited by Izanagi, : No reason given.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

Then what's preventing the immediate descendants of Noah from believing in the same way? What makes you so special that you can believe without empirical observation and Noah's immediate descendants cannot? Cultural beliefs or not, they are beliefs. Atheists who were raised Christians didn't leave Christianity and start worshipping the Greek gods, did they? More often than not, they become atheists, that is, believing in no god. And you still have people with cultural beliefs that still believe in God no matter what.Furthermore, earlier you argued that people believe because God acted no matter who was doing the believing. In this case, those people with cultural beliefs should have faith just as strong as Noah's because they believe that God acted. If they can have faith as strong as Noah's why not Noah's immediate descendants? I imagine the fact that there are no plants, the bodies of dead things everywhere, very few animals inhabiting the world, sediment everywhere, a huge empty world, uprooted trees all over the place would be evidence enough for a global flood for anyone. But you're assuming that God didn't act upon Noah's immediate descendants. You're assuming that God decided to go on vacation right after flood until Jesus was born. What, was God tired from all the miraculous stuff he had to do during the flood? I guess I'd be pretty tired too if I had to resculpt the entire world, find water to produce a global flood, suspend the laws of physics so Noah and the ark don't get fried to ash and then find someplace to put that water away after a year.But seriously, what makes you think God wasn't acting upon Noah's descendants?

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole

So why didn't God show his existence (empirically or unempirically) to the immediate descendants of Noah? I reject this definition of an atheist. Atheists worship no God because they don't believe in a God. Atheists do not believe in naturalism, science, or humanism - they accept that the world around us has natural reasons, that science can explain those reasons and that humanism is a guide to moral behavior. And to be honest, I believe atheist aren't concerned with such questions such as "Who am I" or "Where do I go when I die" simply because the answer is "I define who I am" and "In the ground." To atheists, the here and now and how we act in the here and now is the most important aspect of life. From what you said in Message 68:

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Whether through empirical manifestation or no, faith is unaltered: the person believes because God acted - whether that person is Noah or me.

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you seem to be making contradictory arguments. Your quote from the Bible has Jesus saying:

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blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed

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which means to me that people who don't have evidence of God but still believe still have a faith worth blessing (i.e. a strong faith). You even say that faith is unaltered whether God has acted or not implying faith is faith. But then you argue:

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A God-acted-upon parent telling a not-yet-God-acted-upon child about God would produce the same kind of belief in the child then as it does now - a cultural belief. Which is not much of a belief at all - as countless atheists brought up with cultural Christianity will tell you. Cultural beliefs are easily dispensed with.

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which means to me that a person who believes but hasn't seen an act of God has a weak faith.How do you reconcile the two? I'm sorry, trees take time to grow and spread, animals need time to bear and raise their young and spread, corpses need time to decompose, etc. The children and grandchildren of Noah would've seen a desolate and empty world. It would've taken decades just for the part of the world they're in to start flourishing again. Which again begs the question: Why is it that you have faith and the immediate descendants of Noah do not? You argue that you have seen God acting in your life, then why didn't God act in the lives of Noah's immediate descendants? Don't make assumptions about people you don't anything about. I am very spiritual about what I believe and I am not what anyone could call atheistic.

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It's just some things you never get over. That's just the way it is. You go on through... best as you can. - Matthew Scott
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Marge, just about everything is a sin. (holds up a Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically we're not supposed to go to the bathroom. - Reverend Lovejoy
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You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe. - Marcus Cole