Are there non-Christian religions where ALL nonbelievers suffer eternally?

[Archimedes]

You seem to be saying that all four rivers did survive the Flood - then why can't people agree on where they are...

Because the entire story is a great big heap of bullshit and therefore shouldn't be expected to make any sense or have any consistency with all the known facts. Is that not obvious?

The other explanation which is given by those two creationist links is that at least two of the rivers didn't survive the flood....

Which is a big heap of bullshit invented by creationists and therefore shouldn't be expected to have much consistency with the known facts. Is that not obvious?

 

[excreationist]

IF there was a global flood (or perhaps even a huge local flood) then I think it is reasonable that some rivers would change...

 

[Sheshbazzar]

Mount Ararat towers 16,945 ft above sea level (that is over 3 miles high)
The Bible claims that the mountains were covered (Gen 7:20) and that the waters covered all of the mountains for 150 days (Gen 8:3) before abating enough for Noah to land on the one of the peaks of the mountains of Ararat. .... with additional months passing before the tops of other mountains even emerged from their submersion. (Gen 8:5)

That IS NOT a description of any flood that could in any sense be described as being merely a 'local flood'.
What is the evidence that the mountains of Ararat have at any time within the last 100,000 years ever been covered over by 'fifteen cubits' (Gen 7:20) of water?


I'll give you a hint. The math presented was one hell of a lot more important to the writers of this story, than the literal truth of this tall tale. The tall tale only serving as a memorable container and mnemonic device for the maths.

 

[funinspace]

It doesn't make sense that Eden would survive the flood.

Sure, within the fantasy that there was a Deluge. However, there is a spoon, and there wasn't a world engulfing Deluge. We have a continuum of roughly 100,000 years of tree rings, and 700,000 years worth of ice core layer samples.

I haven't looked it up properly but I think that many non-Christians and Christian liberals believe in a local flood.... Eden could have also been destroyed in a local flood....

Yeah, and pink Unicorns might have lived in Australia in 5,000 BCE… Almost every aspect of the Deluge tale is complete BS. So what reason is there to suspect this magical, invisible, utterly impossible tale, caused Jack to stub his toe and then fail to climb the bean stock? That is the essence of your countering questions/comments about Eden…

....What evidence do you see within the site that supports the 400 year slavery, and specifically the Biblical Hebrews? All I found is that they suggest that the Biblical time frame was a little different than others think, and that in this other time frame Egyptians had more slaves. Other than the ancient Hebrews getting a couple Egyptian king names right and a couple city names right, I see nothing about archeological support for the Moshe/Exodus fable.

Well I haven't looked into it much.

I find it odd, for you to be referencing sites, that you haven't even bothered to do a cursory review of... That site is BS. You won't find archeological evidence of Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and the Exodus. We know more about peoples in Sumeria and Egypt from even a thousand years earlier.

Lately I've been watching documentaries (usually BBC) where the hosts are usually skeptics and don't seem to be Christian. They present some evidence on both sides... I'm going to keep on doing that... if I recall correctly the known history of the Jews begins at about the time many were enslaved in Babylon... they apparently believed their elders about their history. I'm wondering why Jews seem to believe that the first Passover happened just before they left slavery in Egypt - I mean if it was just a story why do they seem to believe it? I don't know about Muslims but I suspect they also believe the Jews were slaves in Egypt. (feel free to prove me wrong). I find it far easier to learn about theological problems than to learn all about Biblical archaeology.

Far too many, even generally neutral commentators, give Christian mythos far too much leeway in their vacuous claims. But each to their own… The Hebrews obviously (and generally) believed their Exodus tales. The creators of Christianity grafted itself upon the Jewish faith and added their own mythos. The Islamic creator(s) did the same. Why is it a surpise that they believe the parts that their theology also claimed?

One generally can’t prove something didn’t happen. I have never even tried to claim that some Hebrews were not ever slaves of Egypt. What I have said is that the Exodus mythos is without extra Biblical support, that there is zero archeological evidence for the characters we now of as Moses, Jacob, and Joseph. Sure someone could have lived in the 2nd millenia BC with those names, but the fables are no more true than Arthur Dent is real.

The earliest concrete archeological written reference to any part of the Hebrews is the Mesha Stela from 840 BCE, well before the Babylonian captivity. Ironically, King Omri is a bad guy in the Bible, and is the winner of the oldest outside record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesha_Stele

It is the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to the kingdom of Israel (the "House of Omri"), it bears the earliest certain extra-biblical reference to the Israelite God Yahweh (latinized: Jehovah), and — if French scholar André Lemaire's reconstruction of a portion of line 31 is correct — the earliest mention of the "House of David" (i.e., the kingdom of Judah).

Whatever history was the source of the Passover, it is lost in the fog of a thousand years between the claimed Exodus and the Babylonian captivity. Why do Mormon have no problem with the founder of their faith, Joseph Smith, and is much more modern silly golden tablets, and all his 19th century BS? Humans can be very, very gullible at times.

About a possible large-scale local flood:
http://ncse.com/rncse/29/5/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth

.....it would be possible for a flood to have occurred in mid- Mesopotamia, perhaps about 2900 BCE, as evidenced by the scientifically dated flood deposits....

Ok, then we should be wondering about the truthiness of the Epic of Gilgamesh, not Noah. After all, we have copies of this tale from circa 2,000 BC, which is far older than anything we have of Hebrew history, and even far older than the Exodus claims. In that tale there is an interesting tidbit that hints at one of the sources of Hebrew mythos. From page 149 of The Sumerians; Their History, Culture, and Character (Samuel Noah Kramer; Paperback 1977)

But perhaps the most interesting result of our comparative analysis of the Sumerian poem is the explanation which it provides for one of the most puzzling motifs in the Biblical paradise store, the famous passage describing the fashioning of Eve, “the mother of all living,” from the rib of Adam-for why a rib? Why did the Hebrew storyteller find it more fitting to choose a rib rather than any other organ of the body for the fashioning of the woman whose name, Eve, according to the Biblical notion, means approximately “she who makes live.” The reason becomes quite clear if we assume a Sumerian literary background, such as that represented by our Dilmun poem, to underlay the Biblical paradise tale; for in our Sumerian poem, one of Enki’s sick organs is the rib. Now the Sumerian word for “rib” is ti (pronounced tee); the goddess created for the healing of Enki’s rib was therefore called in Sumerian Nin-ti, “the Lady of the rib.” But the Sumerian word ti also means “to make live” as well as “the Lady of the rib.” In Sumerian Literature, therefore, “the Lady of the rib” came to be identified with the “the Lady who makes live” through what may be termed a play on words. It was this, one of the most ancient of literary puns, which was carried over and perpetuated in the Biblical paradise story, although there, of course, the pun loses its validity, since the Hebrew words for “rib” and “who makes live” have nothing in common.

 

[excreationist]

....Far too many, even generally neutral commentators, give Christian mythos far too much leeway in their vacuous claims. But each to their own… The Hebrews obviously (and generally) believed their Exodus tales. The creators of Christianity grafted itself upon the Jewish faith and added their own mythos. The Islamic creator(s) did the same. Why is it a surprise that they believe the parts that their theology also claimed?

I found Wikipedia helpful in confirming some things you have been saying:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_exodus
"No archeological evidence has been found to support the Book of Exodus and most archaeologists have abandoned the investigation of Moses and the Exodus as "a fruitless pursuit""

I am quite a fan of Wikipedia and they wouldn't be able to claim that for very long without good evidence.

Whatever history was the source of the Passover, it is lost in the fog of a thousand years between the claimed Exodus and the Babylonian captivity. Why do Mormon have no problem with the founder of their faith, Joseph Smith, and is much more modern silly golden tablets, and all his 19th century BS? Humans can be very, very gullible at times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus
About that:
"Despite the Exodus story, scholars believe that the Passover festival originated not in the biblical story but as a magic ritual to turn away demons from the household by painting the door frame with the blood of a slaughtered sheep"

About a possible large-scale local flood:
http://ncse.com/rncse/29/5/yes-noahs-flood-may-have-happened-not-over-whole-earth

.....it would be possible for a flood to have occurred in mid- Mesopotamia, perhaps about 2900 BCE, as evidenced by the scientifically dated flood deposits....

Ok, then we should be wondering about the truthiness of the Epic of Gilgamesh, not Noah. After all, we have copies of this tale from circa 2,000 BC, which is far older than anything we have of Hebrew history, and even far older than the Exodus claims....

I don't think the Babylonian stories are necessarily older - they just were written down earlier. Also according to creationists the Babylonian boat was a cube or something. I haven't really looked in the various flood stories.

 

[funinspace]

.....it would be possible for a flood to have occurred in mid- Mesopotamia, perhaps about 2900 BCE, as evidenced by the scientifically dated flood deposits....

Ok, then we should be wondering about the truthiness of the Epic of Gilgamesh, not Noah. After all, we have copies of this tale from circa 2,000 BC, which is far older than anything we have of Hebrew history, and even far older than the Exodus claims....[/quote]
I don't think the Babylonian stories are necessarily older - they just were written down earlier. Also according to creationists the Babylonian boat was a cube or something. I haven't really looked in the various flood stories.[/QUOTE]
Well the Gilgamesh tale copy is from circa 2,000 BC; the purported Exodus is from circa 1500 BC; most scholors think the Books of Moses took their final form from anywhere from 1000 BC to 500 BC; the oldest copies we have are from roughly 200 BC. The Sumerian copy is 1,800 years older....almost two millennia.

 

[doubtingt]

Judaism doesn't have eternal suffering in the afterlife, but it doesn't say much at all about the afterlife in general. It is focused more on the this world. Thus, Judaism focuses its intolerant hatred (inherent to all Abrahamic monotheism) for making non-believers suffer in this world, commanding their torture, murder, and genocide.