Defiant Heretic

I will now discredit your attempts to justify your beliefs by attempting to discredit your attempts to discredit the act of discrediting christianity.

Gonorrhea is not a trait. It is a parasitic form of life. It would need to have been present in one of the crew. So would every other disease that exists today. That would make it difficult for the people on the ark to survive the duration of the flood.

schu

This is a very good point! Again this Bible story can be exposed as a fairy tale. Let's see how they try and wiggle out of this one. Remember folks, you have to keep it real or it is unbelievable.

beejay

Which is why there are no Egyptians or Chinese alive today.


I know shouldn't feed the troll, but this is just too ludicrous.

Answerer

Nonsense, where the hell do you get this idea? The Chinese had no historical record of being punished by any God or gods(rather mythical demons). Our ancient civilization existed long before Judaism. Come on, please wake up.

Frivolous

The recessive traits of Noah had nothing to do with gonorrhea. Sorry for the ambiguity. I'm saying that his recessive traits are what allowed the present diversity of cultures today, including the chinese and the egyptians. Because these races appeared after the flood, they have no record of the flood.

No because i felt that it was her thread.


Parasitic species weren't necessarily taken into the Ark. They may have lived in the bloodstream of mammalian whales during the flood. Or large sharks that ate human flesh in big enough pieces. Some deep sea sharks can grow very large, and their metabolism could have been slowed by a drop in temperature.

Another thread, another day. This is the Ark thread.

Physically impossible by your standards. Many people once believed that it was physically impossible to send man to the moon, until it was done.


Animals in times of distress can alter their normal living habits to cope with changes in environment.


They didnt exist in the Middle East at the time, but perhaps some time before the flood they were given an environmental cue to begin migrating towards the Ark in small groups. Evidence of this would be hard to find because individuals would have to have died in mud to have been fossilised. And we have no way of knowing what the sandy deserts looked like back then, perhaps they were more trek friendly.


They choose to eat these leaves, but we cannot be sure that they cannot survive on anything else. After all, what is it that bamboo has that no other plant has?

Perhaps water exists in fissures, i agree. And also water expands when heated.


Their carefully preserved history is in what form? And who is to say that their history is truth.

The Admiral

There are just two types of people who claim knowlege of god. Credulous fools and snakeoil salesmen.

The Admiral

Sojourner553

LOL. You mean “my” standards like “common sense”? Even early Christians such as Origin thought the story of the ark must be a myth when being challenged on the “space” issue by pagans. Why? Because the MATH DOESN’T ADD UP. Even then, the known species in the classical world could not physically be added up to fit the known ark dimensions– and this was before North America, South America, and Australia was discovered and Africa fully explored –and all their species of animals added to the list.

Using a little imagination: Conceivably a God would have the TECHNOLOGY to either (1) build a super-large ark OR (2) shrink the animals to fit.

(1) The dimensions of the ark are clearly given in the bible so this was not the case (else the OT is in error here).(2) As for shrinking all the animals down to size – This would have been one of the GREATEST MIRACLES ever presented in the Bible.

We see the OT authors presenting everything they can think of as a miracle. Really think it possible they forgot this one? By the way: Most of the OT stories and miracles have parallels in OLDER pagan stories. There is no earlier pagan story (I am aware of) of shrinking things. What a lost opportunity to have a UNIQUE miracles clealy listed in the OT to distinguish it from pagan myths!#@

The people who thought it was physically impossible were religious ("If God had meant for man to fly he would have made him with wings"). Most scientists (especially the non-religious one) have always thought it possible.

You see it is religion that teaches man is getting too "uppity" in challanging the powers of God.

Look at the Tower of Babel. By the way, want to argue that one is real too -- ie if humans build humans too high they might reach heaven?


You're making it up! If you want to know the truth, why not go out and look: Observe what zoos have to do to keep penguins alive as one example. How many do you think would exist in an arid envirnment? Please, and that is just one example -- you need to look at them ALL since you are the one making FANTASTIC MAGICAL CLAIMS.

“Perhaps” you are making it all up without even going out to observe what is reality. By the way, I was focusing more on the migration FROM the ark, not to it. That’s where the bones SHOULD be found.

And scientists do have a way of knowing what sandy deserts looked like “back then” if you care to read up on it.

What do you mean “we cannot be sure that they cannot survive on anything else?”

I dare you to find a panda bear that can survive without eating bamboo, only found in China. Ever bothered to check out the facts on this?

If you are holding out on a solution, please do yourself a favor and get it patented and collect your well-deserved royalty checks.

Gee basic science. Water also expands when frozen.

The point is that some creationists have tried to locate the “deep seas of water hidden” in the earth. There are some deep seas there. But so far, the math hasn't added up that there would be enough water to flood the earth.

Indeed, in summary there is simply NO evidence for a large flood covering the ENTIRE earth!

How about the writings from archeological remains. Every hear of the pyramids and hieroglyphs? Archelogists learned how to read these with the Rosetta Stone.

Let me guess, you don’t believe in Carbon-14 dating either? The magical waters of the Flood affected this scientific dating mechanism so it doesn’t work? (Just helping you out with a common apology ruse.)

Let's be consistent: Who are YOU to say withoug checking out the facts that the OT history is truth? Using "faith" as a measure of truth, who is to say the ancient Babylonian story of the Flood is not true too – Not to mention Zeus, and Mithra, and Casper the Friendly Ghost?

I would guess you want to go out and “look” to see if the claims of OTHER religions were true. You just refuse to do so for your OWN religion.

BTW: I thought it was important to comment on some of the OTHER known superstitions in the OT. You realize where I am coming from: If there are some superstitions in the Bible, isn’t it even MORE important to check for the other claims as well.

PS: I don't mean to be too hard on you: I was once a religious person too. But I do expect to see some rationality. Many Christians would have no issue with what I have written above regarding there being many myths in the Bible -- including the Flood Story.

Sojourner

[ November 24, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Greg2003

The wonderful example of his saving grace and mercy. Oh no, wait a minute, it was the other example of his being the greatest mass murderer of all time.

Sorry, I keep getting those confused.

Frivolous

Is this a fact? And where did you gain this information. It seems somewhat inaccurate to me.

My dear heated sojourner. I havent seen your maths. And also, bugs are small and can hover and fly as well as sit on top of other animals like cows, even feeding on their dandruff. Some may have laid eggs while on the ark, perpetuating their life cycles and supplying food to others. Also remember the dung beatles would have proliferated and been a handy addition, logistically speaking. The animals may have migrated as many animals still do cued by environmental signals.


That is not my point. My point was that sometimes people conceive of things to be impossible, when in fact it isn't.


Provide water and fish i presume. The Ark may have had a platform for them to jump off into the water. Example of stress inducing survival response: hungriness. When an animal gets hungry, it lowers its metabolism and becomes less motive.


Not all bones are found. A very small group of migrating animals back then would be very lucky to have their bones preserved and found today.

If i put topsoil on sand, grow a plant and then erode the topsoil and remove the plant, how would anyone know what i had just put on top of the sand?

This is an unfair proposal. I suggest that maybe it would be more feasible to test a group of pandas to see if they can survive on a range of other food combinations. I cannot perform such tests.

I am trying to point out that maybe the geothermic energy of opening fissures in the earths crust heated the water in some areas so that it expanded extensively, as well as force out water reserves deep in the earths crust.


Carbon dating cannot be proven and is based on extrapolations and presumptions that carbon 14 decays at a steady rate. But no one has observed it decaying for a long enough period of time to prove it.

I'm proposing that perhaps other records are inaccurate, and this proposal frees the OT version from being disproven by the fact that there are other records out there

Yes it is important. But we must do this one step at a time to avoid confusion.

ApostateAbe

Welcome to the boards, Frivolous. Despite my disagreaments, I cannot mock you, because you have more courage and intellectual responsibilty than most fundamentalists I know. I used to be a creationist, and I eventually lost my entire faith when I tried to defend my beliefs on the Internet. I even wrote arguments explaining "why the ark floats" like you are doing now. Just beware of might happen if you try to defend your religion too much.

Anyway, God in Genesis 6:15 says that the ark should be 450 ft long, 75 ft wide, and 45 ft high. I prefer metrics, so we'll say 140 x 23 x 13.5 meters. This equates to 43470 cubic meters or 4.347e10 cubic cm.

The next question is how many animals went on the ark.

One universtiy website at <a href="http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/species.htm#Biodiversity%20Lecture%201" target="_blank">http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/species.htm#Biodiversity%20Lecture%201</a> addresses the question:

To give Genesis the benefit of the doubt, we will use the lowest estimate: 4 million species. Keep in mind that these are the species that are alive today. We are not counting the many extinct species that are found in fossils.

If there were 4 million species aboard, then we must multiply that number by the number of animals of each species. The Genesis account is not clear on how many of each kind were aboard (all 2 or some 2 and some 7?). However, we know from biological science that at least six of a species are needed to repopulate an environment (you cannot produce healthy children by marrying your mother or sister). So we multiply 4 million by six and we get 24 million total animals.

Finally, the average space each animal takes on the ark must be (4.347e10 cubic cm) / (24 million animals) = 1811 cubic cm per animal. A cube of 1811 cubic cm is 12 cm along a side.

So if you piled six of all the minimum number of species into the ark, they could all fit, granted that their average volume must be less than 1811 cc. However, that is not the only thing we must consider with regard to space.

The website talkorigins.com states the problem:

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#fitting" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#fitting</a>

So you see, piling all the animals in the ark, even of there was enough room, wouldn't leave enough room for all their other needs.

Some creationists have argued that we should not count the total number of species necessary, but the number of "kinds", which can evolve into the diverse number of species after the flood. This has several problems. One: "kind" is purely a creationist concept and is not clearly defined. It is used as an unfalsifiable dodge, not an explanation. Two: 10,000 years is not nearly enough time for such diverse speciation to occur. Three: This would force them to admit the truth of evolutionary theory. Many creationists contend that speciation cannot occur.

I encourage you to explore the talkorigins website. You may be surprised at how outrageous the Genesis flood seems in light of present day science.

[ November 24, 2002: Message edited by: Apostate ]</p>