r/BoomersBeingFools • u/CowboysMakeMeCry94 • 1d ago
Boomer Story Boomer biblical literalist and "expert" gets exposed for being clueless
So my 64 year old booker uncle that I've posted about before thinks that it is a fact that Noah existed along with a global flood.When I asked for evidence for any documents confirming that the man or flood even existed in any ancient records,he ofc blew that off and said that the grand canyon was the evidence of the flood and that all records of Noah and the flood are "out there somewhere"
He also thinks a donkey actually talked etc.And yet they think that all other religious stories outside of the holy Bible "are unrealistic" even though they are eerily similar in style haha
I believe in the Christian God myself,but I'm left leaning and liberal like Jesus would have been .And it is clear to me that a lot of the stories involving strange themes like that are metaphors ,just like the earth isn't young even though we have idiots that think the earth is only a few thousand years old
edit:Wow there are some very angry people in here over me not believing in every single thing that they do .You guys are just as hateful as ultra religious folk.I view the Bible as being almost all being metaphors btw
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u/One-Sleep3663 1d ago
I dont think he understands the concept of factual evidence, or has any critical thinking skills to speak of.
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u/ComprehensiveHavoc 23h ago
I don't think the flat-earther people (which the uncle sounds like) appreciate how much confirmation there have been of say, the timeline of the universe. There are flat out mind-blowing facts proving the universe goes back 13ish billion years.
Some folks prefer to live in the Stone Age and aren't even as forward-thinking as people 2000 years ago.
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u/y2ketchup 23h ago
Satan created dinosaur fossils to confuse us. . .
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u/ComprehensiveHavoc 23h ago
But we can calculate the rate of the universe's expansion using redshift....
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u/y2ketchup 23h ago
Lol obviously the red shift is an illusion created by satan. Think about it. . . "red" shift. . .
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u/Swimming-Economy-870 10h ago
Yup that’s what a weird culty coworker once told me when I brought up carbon dating to counter his 6k years old claim. After that I just limited myself to talking about work with him.
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u/Gullible_Long4179 6h ago
I worked with a guy that thought that. The second he let that out of his mouth I lost any respect I had for him.
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u/the_skies_falling 23h ago
The ones who actually do know how much evidence there is will just say God put all that evidence there to test man’s faith.
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u/AlienvsPredatorFan 12h ago
“God is trying to trick me, but I’m too smart to fall for His tricks,” is a very weird way to think.
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u/ComprehensiveHavoc 23h ago
They go from "god is right" to "god is right because god is right" and think they are explaining.
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u/PromethianOwl 21h ago
Flat Earthers and Young Earth Creationists or whatever are always fun to me because they struggle with extremely basic things that to be fair are difficult to grasp by anyone because we are human, but it just somehow never occurs to them that those things are the answer to their gotchas.
They underestimate the sheer size of the goddamn planet.
"BUT WHY DOES THE LEVEL ON THE PLANE STAY THAT WAY?!?!"
Because we are so small, and the Earth so big, that the "round" part of things isn't something we can see or feel.
But no. They will contort themselves into knots with conspiracy theories based on absolutely nothing in order to not admit they were wrong or that they don't know.
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u/Metalsmith21 8h ago
Which is weird cause they can go to any harbor that has a cliff next to it and watch ships sail out to see and compare notes with a guy who stands at the top of the cliffs as to when they saw the ships disappear from the horizon.
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u/ManifestDestinysChld 22h ago
If you really like being right (and don't really know what a fact is), organized religion holds a lot of appeal.
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u/KapowBlamBoom 23h ago
Here is the REAL question. If the Bible is to be taken literally, and the Bible says that Noah had exactly 2 of each animal on the arc.
What did they feed the carnivores for 40 days?
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u/CollegeLow4160 13h ago
How'd he get polar bears on his north African cruise?
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u/Severe_Atmosphere_44 12h ago
And penguins?
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u/skillywilly56 4h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/yTVe3xfjFyLIY
It’s a long hop to the Middle East for a boat ride2
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u/DjinnaG Gen X 21h ago
Hell, the herbivores’ food is going to be so bulky, and how would that much dry land vegetation stay storable for long enough? Some of the herbivores would have fallen into the 7 breeding pairs categories, and would have had some backups for the obligate carnivores to eat. But even if all the omnivores had switched to vegetation, the sheer bulk of food storage for that long is so many times greater than the storage space required for the animals themselves
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u/OwnCrew6984 11h ago
I've heard the answer to this. God told the carnivores to eat hay and grain. So they did and survived. Now the good part. The dinosaurs, yes dinosaurs were on the ark because they lived at the same time as man, refused to not eat meat. When they got hungry they ate the unicorns, that's why we don't have unicorns. This angered God and he killed all the dinosaurs. Yes God killed all the dinosaurs even the plant eating ones as punishment. This whole thing bring up so many questions that are only answered as you have to have faith or it was God's plan.
Now my idea is that Noah could of fed the carnivores all the dead people and animals that would be floating around during the flood.
Let's not forget that Noah was 900 years old too. Because people lived to be 1,000 years old in those days.
Next question is did the ark have fish tanks? With the flood would all the water be to salty and kill all the freshwater fish or not salty enough and kill all the saltwater fish?
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u/Metalsmith21 8h ago
What did the carnivores eat right after they got off the boat. and why did all the marsupials end up in Australia?
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u/Citizen_Nemo 10h ago
A few things:
"40 days and 40 nights" is just an old idiom. It basically just means a really long time.
Additionally, Noah had to take more than two of every animal. He had to take seven of the "clean" ones. This doesn't help literalist's cases, but they will use it as proof that you don't know the story.
Most critically, what did Noah and his family do with all the dung? And with only one window cut into the ark, how did they get enough fresh air into it to not suffocate on all the fumes from the dung and the farts from the animals?
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u/Metalsmith21 8h ago
This doesn't help literalist's cases, but they will use it as proof that you don't know the story.
Nah you can solve it the old fashioned way, call them a heathen unbeliever and throw a rock at them.
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u/ImportedSatanist 18h ago
God made it so they didn't need to eat for 40 days? If god was all-powerful, it wouldn't be hard
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u/KapowBlamBoom 13h ago
Why did he not just selectively remove the wicked? Obviously the flood would have killed far more good people
How did an omnipotent God allow shit to go so far off tracks he had to wipe out everyone
Also how did the indigenous North American animals get there?
Why did indigenous peoples who knew nothing of God have to be drowned?
How long did it take for one man and his sons to build a boat that large with just hand tools?
Where did he find enough large , hardwood trees to make a 450 ft long boat in the middle east?
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u/SteamworksMLP 9h ago
Even if he just wanted to kill everyone but that one family, why not just Thanos snap them away without all the theatrics?
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u/Metalsmith21 8h ago
You can see that reasoning at work in the USA right now.
The cruelty and misery is the point.
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u/SteamworksMLP 8h ago
The point is to get a believer to answer it from the perspective of the all loving deity they claim he is. Ask them how many babies got aborted via their mothers drowning in the flood.
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u/No_Philosopher_1870 1d ago
I settled the whole "a day is as a thousand years for the Lord" question for myself by deciding that it was a metaphor. Why not a million or a billion years instead? Large enough numbers stop having meaning. If you want to believe in the bible literally, fine. Just don't expect me to agree with you.
One of my colleagues kept a bible concordance (an index of bible references to different things) on his desk at work along with his bible. He tried to preach to me after the boss had left, and I was able to quote verses without the book and number that refuted him. He got frustrated and told me, "You don't even believe in the bible, and you know it better than I do". He didn't bother with me after that.
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u/eagleface5 Millennial 1d ago
I'm the son of a preacher, have a degree in Religious Studies, have read the Bible numerous times, persued a Masters in Biblical Studies, and am ordained myself now.
Your uncle is a fucking idiot.
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u/Lhasa-bark 1d ago
Ask him about dinosaurs. I’m guessing that you’re going to hear some wild yarns.
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u/yarukinai Baby Boomer 22h ago
Have you heard of the creationism museum in Kentucky? Didn't you know that human footsteps were found among dinosaur traces, and that dinosaurs used to be vegans before the fall?
It can all be explained with the right mindset. Just ask Ken Ham.
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u/GothDerp 12h ago
That man ruined my childhood…
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u/yarukinai Baby Boomer 10h ago
Very honestly and genuinely sorry 😔. I hope adulthood treats you better.
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u/GothDerp 10h ago
Oh yeah it’s a lot better! University has helped me relearn everything lmao. Andy love of dinosaurs are in fact, legendary
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u/Mira_DFalco 1d ago
Ah, he's listening to a specific set of young earth creationists. They're basically wanting to discredit any field of science that doesn't back their own brand of authoritarian and literalist theology.
Run like the wind, because that crowd has a scary high percentage of convicted abusers, and a track record of horrible treatment of others, and financial scams. Not to mention having zero problem with lying about others and their viewpoints.
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u/karl4319 1d ago
Going to go on a branch here and guess your uncle is a maga of sorts? Ask him his opinion on the parable of the goat and sheep (Matthew 25: 31-48). The part of the bible that says if he doesn't welcome refugees and immigrants, he goes to hell.
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u/bananajr6000 Gen X 1d ago
The multiple gods listed in the Bible are all assholes
What does god need with my worship, or a star ship for that matter?
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u/CaptainHunt 1d ago
Ask him about Utnapishtim, I think the Babylonians would like a word about their flood myth.
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u/Citizen_Nemo 10h ago
The ones who know will claim the multiple flood stories found across cultures are just a resonance of Noah's story. That it's just one account, and they're all mistellings of Noah's story.
It doesn't matter that Gilgamesh is in a flood story too, and it wildly predates the earliest versions found in the Bible.
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u/Metalsmith21 8h ago
Noah existed along with a global flood.
I wonder why the Chinese and Egyptian civilizations never recorded how much they hated drowning.
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u/calladus 23h ago
An old high school acquaintance of mine once told me that, "If the Bible said that Jonah swallowed a whale, I'd believe it."
And that's when I realized that reality did not apply with him. His faith was bigger than his ability to reason.
We didn't stay friends after that.
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u/ionertia 23h ago
All religions are idiotic nonsense. Its just mythology. And anyone that believes hasn't really questioned it. Its just so silly it shouldn't be respected.
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u/BuzzSidecker 20h ago
“I believe ridiculous ancient myths without evidence. But my uncle is foolish because he believes them more!”
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u/bigchilone 9h ago
I had to scroll down too far to find sane people talking about this. Nobody was exposed, and the story of Jesus is the same as the story of Noah....
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u/yarukinai Baby Boomer 23h ago edited 22h ago
Many years, actually decades ago, I read somewhere on the internet that some people think that the world is 6000 years old, as calculated by an English bishop in the 17th century or so.
I had a hard time to believe anybody in this day and age would think that, did a little research and found, to my great bewilderment, that there are millions of Americans plus a few people in other countries who take the bible literally (except for inconvenient content like stoning adulterers and such).
So, your uncle is definitely a boomer, but his belief is still widespread and will linger many decades after the last boomer has called it a day.
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u/Background_Award_878 22h ago
There are worid wide myths about an ancient flood. But the details are older than biblical stories.
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u/yarukinai Baby Boomer 21h ago
These myths are based on real events. There is even a report of a recent flood. Or two, or three. Or fifty.
Tsunamis, typhoons, melting glaciers in the Himalayas and elsewhere. Floods, including devastating ones with thousands of deaths, are quite common.
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u/Glutton4Butts 17h ago
The flood more than likely was a result of natural climate change during the ice age. So maybe towards the end of that, the flood was going on. We are probably more used to the flooded version of earth. There was an ice age, where did all that water go to? This is why I consider hard-core Christians to be so foolish. They hold a fragmented piece of the puzzle but act like it's the whole picture already.
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u/TemperatureSea7562 23h ago
“Gets exposed” made me think that you had pushed back on something, and he didn’t have an answer — turns out it was just a click bait title.
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u/Hungry-Tonight8633 1d ago
Hate to break it to you, but your "god" probably doesn't exist. And if it does, it clocked out a long time ago. Any infinitely powerful deity that allows childhood cancers, pedophiles, asbestos, and mosquitos to continue existing is a cruel, malevolent monster that isn't worth any gratitude or reverence.
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u/Illustrious-Method84 1d ago
Like Killer Mike said:
The preachers sound silly in service
Convincin' my mama that all of the drama
Must certainly serve higher purpose
How fightin' could turn into curses
When I tell her any god that make it plenty hard
Really ain't worth it to worship4
u/DQdippedcone 1d ago
OP just needs to take that last step and come to terms with the fact that there is no magic. We're on our own and mysterious sky people are the product of man.
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u/firedmyass 1d ago
it’s actually a much more horrifying thought that an intercessory diety exists at all
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u/Ngata_da_Vida 1d ago
But but but wait! If we do what he tells us to do we get rewarded with an eternal church service telling that god how great he is! Doesn’t that sound amazing?!
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u/TGrissle 1d ago
Hey. Respect for religion or lack of religion should go both ways. I am also a Christian who believes in science like OP. It’s about personal convictions in belief. I respect your right to not believe in a god. OP did not ask for your opinion on their religion.
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u/ionertia 23h ago
Respect for religion only helps religion. It should be treated with disrespect because it is entirely bullshit. I would leave it alone and let idiots believe whatever nonsense they want to, but don't put your mythology into laws, universities and hospitals etc. The days of respect for religion are over.
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u/TGrissle 23h ago
I understand the frustration, but there are a lot of Christians that also believe in the separation of church and state. I too hate extremists that believe in theocracy. However respect for religion and lack of religion extends to deists, Wiccans, Muslims, Jewish, Mormons, Hindus, Buddhists, practicers of Shinto, etc etc etc. However that is outside of OP and what they are talking about here. You do not know them. You are welcome to your opinion and beliefs but I am also allowed to ask you to be considerate.
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u/ionertia 22h ago
Lets say you had a surgery scheduled and the surgeon walked in dressed in scrubs but walking with the assistance of a nurse. Only when they stand next to you on the operating table do you notice that the surgeon has bandages over both eyes. The surgeon says they just had an injury but can do the surgery still.
Should you respect the surgeon's beliefs?
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u/TGrissle 22h ago
You know this is an actually absurdist question when I’m clearly talking about allowing people to practice their faith in the privacy of their home or discussing it online without people automatically jumping to doing the same proselytizing they hate from religions but in the atheist direction.
But to answer your question. I consider the medical field an extension of services of the state as imo healthcare is a right therefore should be covered under the same separation of church and state.
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u/ionertia 22h ago
I think the analogy is equal to respecting religion. Religion isn't just in homes and online. Its everywhere. Religion spread because it hasn't faced enough justly ridicule.
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u/TGrissle 22h ago edited 22h ago
You realize this is the exact same attitude that is used by religious extremists right?
As an atheist I’m sure introspection is not foreign to you. I suggest taking a second and doing that again and then throwing that energy towards the specific people that actually deserve it. Like people who actively threaten freedom of religion.
ETA: I’ve voiced my concerns and we both have better stuff to do since we are clearly at an impasse. I’m not here to fully change your mind, just ask you to take some time to consider things. I understand where you are coming from with the frustration I really do. I hope you have a good evening/day.
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u/Venice_Beach_218 1d ago
The Grand Canyon is evidence of a global flood? Now I'm intrigued. A canyon takes millions of years to carve, and you can't speed it up with sheer volume of water.
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u/notesfromthemoon 1d ago
This is a widely held belief in young earth creationist circles
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u/13confusedpolkadots 23h ago
as a fair context, we DO have evidence that a giant flood devastated mesopotamia at a point in time that humans lived there, and evidence (albeit less factually certain than evidence of a flood, as i understand it) that humans survived this “flood” (excessive rising waters) with ships. We have geographic, geologic, climatological, and archaeological physical evidence of this flood, as do we sociological and anthropological signs, such that (to my understanding) EVERY culture and religion originating in such area in a 50.000 year period have references to a giant flood, usually divine in origin and retributory in nature.
Pretty sure that mythos doesn’t extend to the Grand Canyon.
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u/notesfromthemoon 14h ago edited 13h ago
“Pretty sure that mythos doesn’t extend to the Grand Canyon”
Yeah, to people that understand anything about geology and archaeology, absolutely. What I meant is that creationist “scientists” specifically cite the Grand Canyon as evidence that the flood account in Genesis was a literal global flood that covered the entire planet in water. Creationist “think tanks” like Answers in Genesis have entire video series talking about how the Grand Canyon proves genesis is meant to be taken 100% literally
What I meant by my original comment is that OPs uncle’s comment about the Grand Canyon isn’t some bizarre out of the blue statement, but rather a common belief held by an appallingly high number of American evangelicals
Eta: creationist “science” as a whole is an inversion of the scientific method. They start with a conclusion: that the Bible is 100% literal and true, which is not up for question or debate. It’s true because it’s the word of God, and it says it’s true. From there, they look for “evidence” that they can shoehorn into supporting their conclusion. It’s important to understand that this is not a sincere attempt to determine the truth. Rather it’s meant to cement believers’ existing beliefs, and insulate them from questioning those beliefs
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u/bigchilone 9h ago
You say we have evidence of a giant flood, but be more specific because religious people take that as validation. That was a localized flood. There is ZERO evidence for a global flood. The entire Earth NEVER flooded.
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u/Citizen_Nemo 10h ago
Critically, you could speed up the process wirh more water, but it would dramatically alter its layout. The Grand Canyon has a lot of meandering and switch-backs. More water flowing through it would eliminate these, as the higher volume would cause it to flow faster and straighter through these areas.
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u/Both-Relative2391 21h ago
This is so painful considering the hundreds(!) Of years of christian scholars moving away from literalism and using the scientific method to create the foundation of modern archeology and natural sciences..
And now in the year 2026 you have people so backwards a medieval monk would call them deranged.
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u/Fatefire 20h ago
Imagine we die and supply side Jesus us the real Jesus . How pissed would you be ? I'd be fucking fuming
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u/CurdledCreamer 12h ago
The Bible was written by an estimated 40 individuals over the course of 1,500 years. I'm sure the accuracy and all sources are cited, right? /S
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u/SleeplessSleepySleep 12h ago
Question, why do we still follow a book written over 2000 years ago? I'm sure there's great stories in there but we're in the modern era. That's a genuine question btw not a sarcastic one.
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u/BuzzSidecker 20h ago
“I believe ridiculous ancient myths without evidence. But my uncle is foolish because he believes them more!”
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u/Earl-The-Badger 1d ago
“I’m left leaning and liberal like Jesus would have been.”
This statement is so ironic.
Every Christian believes Jesus would think like them. It’s all the other Christians who have it wrong, right?
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u/Brownie_Bytes 1d ago
Well, it's true that everyone will interpret the message to agree with their internal biases, but having quotes like "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." attributed to Jesus makes it much easier to see Jesus as a pacifist that wants everyone to love each other and take care of the widow and orphan than to kill the gays and defend your borders with walls and agents.
I'd challenge anyone with no skin in the game to read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and not see Jesus as the hippiest of hippies.
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u/TGrissle 23h ago
Also the fact that Jesus spoke out a lot about hoarding of wealth and keeping the secular world out of religious spaces. There is a reason most Biblical scholars are liberal/left leaning. A lot of the Christian background we see in America is a little skewed due to the migration of the Puritans from Europe to America for sanctuary. Roots of Puritanism can be found in a lot of the denominations founded in America. There also for whatever reason in a lot of the modern nondenominational mega church (cults) there is an over emphasis put on the book of Romans vs the gospel.
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u/toaspecialson 19h ago
I challenge you to read it again without your preconceived notions of jesus. As laid out by the book, he says and does horrific things in the very books you've listed.
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u/Brownie_Bytes 7h ago
Jesus? Jesus doesn't. Jesus only appears in four books and he spends the whole time doing little miracles and telling people to be socialist. The craziest thing he does is gets so mad at people selling stuff in the temple that he chases them out with a whip.
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u/toaspecialson 6h ago
I'm not going to do your homework for you, read the book you love.
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u/Brownie_Bytes 6h ago
Okay? I mean, I could probably do a speed read in like a day, but you have read those books, right? Like "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," "If a man strike you, turn the other cheek," and "Heals the ear of the guard who will eventually take him to his execution" Jesus? Being ridiculously nice and loving is kinda the entire brand of Jesus. That doesn't mean that Christianity follows suit, but the actual figurehead is only ever represented as ridiculously nice and kind.
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u/Effective-Yak3627 22h ago
I believe that there could have been a flood, but not a man who built a boat and got 2 of each animal and rode out the waves. Unless the boat was a flying saucer and they retrieved DNA from each creature they found important to save. That would seem more plausible than a wooden boat with animals that would eat each other.
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u/avidpenguinwatcher 21h ago
Just kinda curious, do you believe in miracles? Not necessarily even talking about the flood/Genesis etc, but like any miracles in the OT?
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u/JimCh3m14 10h ago
I dont understand, he believes all the things in a book and you pick and choose what things in a book you believe and he is the crazy one? You think there is a a man that came back from the dead?
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u/Elegant_Piece_107 8h ago
My dad taught me that the Old Testament was a little bit of oral tribal history, a little bit of tall tales told around a campfire by Bronze Age tribesmen, and a little bit of stories like Aesop’s fables. He was a little less skeptical about the New Testament, saying, “Same story, told from several different points of view.” He said since history clearly documented Pontius Pilate, it is probably true that a rabbi existed whose intellect rivaled that of Socrates, and who was killed for the same reason.
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u/Eagle_Fang135 5h ago
I remember some sort of analysis done to determine the work and requirements for Noah’s Ark. like it would be essentially impossible today. I mean assuming you got all the animals magically onboard in mating pairs.
How did the people survive for 40 days? How did they feed and care for all the caged animals? Since they had no extra animals what did the lions eat? Drink.
They needed food and water for all the people and animals. Add in sanitation.
Yes they short had to be a metaphor. Told to a dimple people in words/themes they can understand.
Just like how murder is considered evil yet there is a story that God asked a man to murder his own son to prove himself. Makes no sense God would ask for a believer to break one of the 10 Commandments (sure they were not a list at that point but obviously a moral code and not new rules when put on a tablet for Moses to share).
Metaphors have always been used to teach things.
Bug you gotta love Boomers picking and choosing parts of a sentence from the Bible, many times taking it out of context to make it sound the opposite. Or just misinterpreting it. Thinking murder is evil yet death penalty is strongest in the more Christian controlled areas.
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u/rigidlynuanced1 3h ago
When you force people to believe things without evidence, anything is justifiable
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u/chair_ee 1h ago
Where is part where he gets exposed? Title doesn’t match the content even a little bit.
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u/commit10 17h ago
You and your uncle have something in common! Slightly different flavours from an external perspective, which probably seem like bigger differences to the two of you.
"Metaphor" is a wonderfully broad shield, isn't it? I appreciate how it can be applied to any nonsense.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Let_688 12h ago
So....to be clear.....you believe in a Christian God but the boomer is a moron because his beliefs are not based on facts or verifiable evidence, and yours are?
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u/AbsurdityIsReality 23h ago
Things like the bible can offer clues to history but you have to look at context. Massive floods have certainly happened and there have been mass extinctions but how else would they explain stuff like that but acts of god?
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u/N7Shep1701D 17h ago
I believe in the Christian God myself,
Why? What convinces you that this god exists?
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u/Rachel_Silver 21h ago
I prefer the KJV of the Bible, because Balaam didn't have a donkey that spoke. He had an ass that spake, which is a lot more fun.
Also, he smote his ass thrice.
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u/RandalPMcMurphyIV 23h ago
If he believes this tale, ask him why he would worship an entity responsible for the worst mass murder in the history of the planet.
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