Noah's Ark

[Gabu]

The logical consequences of the story of Noah's Ark are astounding if it is indeed literally true:

- There are hundreds of thousands of species of animal.  Noah would have had to build his ark large enough to accomodate two of everything.  If we reject the theory of evolution, this includes such things as two elephants, two rhinoceroses, and all of the acquatic life present on the planet, including all of the whales (and presumably he would need to build a tank big enough to hold all of the acquatic life, since he needed to keep them alive for forty days and forty nights).

- Noah would have had to get all of the animals.  This includes all of the acquatic animals that live on the ocean floor.  Noah must have built one hell of a diving suit to accomplish this feat.  Noah would also have had to capture two lions, two cheetahs, two bears, etc. without having the animals kill him.

- Noah and his family would have to monitor every single carnivorous species twenty-four hours a day to ensure that nothing ate anything else.  This includes all of the acquatic life.  I suppose that diving suit will come in handy here as well.

- Somehow, God caused it to rain so much that all of the water-dwelling animals would die as well.  I'm not sure how this one would work.

- What if there were, say, a Himalayan guru living on a mountain some 1,000 meters above sea level?  It would take no less than 5.11 x 10²² liters of rain water to drown this person.  That's 51,100,000,000,000,000,000 liters.  That's an average rainfall of 1.28 x 10¹⁹ liters per day.  That's an awful lot of rain, and I'm not even touching on how long it would take the sun to naturally evaporate that much water.

Of course, this could all be explained away by saying "God allowed it to happen", but if God could do all of the above, why did he need Noah to go to all the trouble to make the Ark?  Couldn't he just have snapped his fingers and have all of the bad people on the world disappear?

[Gabu]

Animal in the biblical sense pretty much translates as Mammals+Birds, so forget the fish stuff.

I thought that the Great Flood was supposed to eliminate everything living on the planet so the world could have a fresh start.

[Gabu]

As I said earlier, Genesis claims that there were only eight pairs of animals on board.  But this of course creates many more questions that serve to make the story completely ridiculous.

Eight pairs?  The way I read it, there were 7 pairs of each clean animal (deer, cows, etc), and 1 pair of every unclean animal (pigs, etc).

So... that makes Noah need to accomodate even more animals than I previously thought, then.

[Gabu]

maybe new amninals were added after the flood

If we reject evolution, as I suspect... someone here does, then the only other conclusion is that all animals currently present were present at the time of the Great Flood.

[Gabu]

The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.

Oh yes, I had forgotten that God gave Noah measurements.

I find it kind of hard to believe that you could fit every single land-based animal in such a small ark...

[Gabu]

You all need to think out of the box* (so to speak) a little more over this... same goes for a lot lot of the OT.

*By this I don't mean picking and choosing what to believe depending on other viewpoints

Personally, my take on the story of Noah's Ark is that a huge flood probably did actually happen at some point in time that did kill a lot of people, but it neither was sent by God nor killed everything on Earth.  It probably got embellished over time until it became what we know today.  There are way too many things in the literal version of it that just don't make any sense or that are not physically possible.

[Gabu]

The Bible says nothing of acquatic animals.

It says that all life on Earth would perish, and we have animals that live in the ocean today.  Did God fail to kill those animals?

And, the ark is really, really big.

It's not "really, really big" if you run through the list of all species on Earth and realize how many there are.

God sent the animals to Noah.  If God can do that, he can presumably make them peaceful.

If God could do all that, then why did he need Noah to do the rest?

Meat was not consumed before the Flood.

Carnivorous animals such as lions did not exist before the flood?  I'm not talking about what Noah would have eaten.

Thats assuming the surface features before the Flood are the same as it is today.

Even if there was a peak on the earth 100 meters high, it still would take a whole lot of water to drown anyone on top of it.

[Gabu]

God sent the animals to Noah.  If God can do that, he can presumably make them peaceful.

If God could do all that, then why did he need Noah to do the rest?

Maybe you should pray and ask God.  I don't have all the answers; I'm just reciting what the Bible states.

Or, perhaps you could the power of logic instead of just blindly reciting the contents of the Bible as if it were known to be the absolute truth.  Or would that be too much effort?

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Carnivorous animals such as lions did not exist before the flood?  I'm not talking about what Noah would have eaten.

I didn't say that, did I?  Maybe you can think a bit more and it will dawn you.  I re-iterate: meat was not consumed before the Flood.
[/quote]

I don't know what you're saying, and it will help things along greatly if you just say it instead of attempting to be mysterious about it.

[Gabu]

And how could they feed those 11 billion people with primitive farming methods?

Who said anything about primitive farming methods?

You're quite the fan of the deus ex machina, aren't you?

[Gabu]

And how could they feed those 11 billion people with primitive farming methods?

Who said anything about primitive farming methods?

You're quite the fan of the deus ex machina, aren't you?

Just sick and tired of people making unsubstantiated assumptions.

...says the person who is claiming that Noah's Ark was entirely real, that Noah's Ark has been found, that people lived to 900 years of age, that there used to be 11 billion people on Earth before the flood...

And how could they feed those 11 billion people with primitive farming methods?

Who said anything about primitive farming methods?

You're quite the fan of the deus ex machina, aren't you?

How the hell is that deus ex machina?  I didn't even mention God.  No wonder Mcleans' says what it does.

It doesn't have to literally involve God to be a deus ex machina.  That answer just seemed to be rather, shall we say, convenient.

[Gabu]

In terms of Noah, I think you detractors are trying to take the story a little too seriously.

It would be hard to debate with those who take it seriously if you didn't take it seriously in your rebuttals.

[Gabu]

Hole closed...all animals ate plants at that time:

Gen 1:29-30 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

Do you believe in evolution?

If not, the transition from being herbivores to being carnivores is an awfully big one.  Did lions, and tigers, etc. all of a sudden just decide to eat meat?

This is another big deus ex machina - "Oh, there's no problem; we'll just have there be no carnivorous animals until after the flood!  Issue solved!"

Also, if God killed everything, but only mammals and birds were saved by Noah, where did lizards, amphibians, and acquatic animals come from?

[Gabu]

The animals came to Noah:

Gen 7:8-9: Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.

I'll repeat my other question: if God could do all this, why couldn't he just wave a magic wand and eliminate the need for the ark entirely?

[Gabu]

This article might be worth the time taken to read it.

You could also produce just as much data showing that Jesus' resurrection was impossible.

"For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. " (1Cor 1:21)

I don't know why it is so hard for you to understand that God's intention was to make the message of salvation "foolish" to unbelievers.

So, basically, God dislikes intelligent, rational people and wants them all sent to hell?

Nice guy.

It's quite the useful thing for believers to be able to just explain away anything that doesn't make sense by just pointing to God and saying, "well, he can do anything, so there".  Of course, I have to wonder whether you would prefer it if scientists just sat back and said, "well, God does everything, so there's no point examining anything critically".  I can only imagine how advanced our civilization would be if they did that!  Then there's the issue regarding how God conveniently decided to stop intervening in people's everyday life before any of us came into existence... but oh well, we mere mortals simply can't understand it, but we know that it's true nonetheless, right?