Noah's Ark vs running a zoo

[atheist buddy]

The directory of the Bronx Zoo shows that it takes 205 full time professionals to feed, manage and keep safe 650 species of animals. That's 650 out of 8.7 million species of animals and plants in existence.

By rough approximation, we could say that if it takes 205 people to manage 650 species, it would take 2.7 million people to manage all 8.7 million species in a megazoo hosting all known species.

Let's say it would take another million highly qualified professionals to build this megazoo, and another million to gather all the animals.

So, a total of 4.7 million trained experts to maintain and manage 8.7 million species in a man-made environment.

On average, approximately 1 person for every two species.

Assuming Noah had 19 people helping him, he would be operating on a ratio of 1 person for every 435,000 species.

In other words, if you believe in the story of Noah, you believe that a bronze age (600 year old drunk) was 217,500 times better at running a massive zoo than modern people are.

And did I mention this 8.7 million species zoo had to float on water during a massive storm?


In light of these simple empirical facts, can we agree that anybody who believes the story of Noah's Ark actually happened, is victim of such intense delusion that it borders on mental disability?

Why is a professed belief in a flat earth an instant disqualification from public office, or from getting a high level job, or from attaining any kind of social status, but professed belief in Noah's Ark put on a pedestal, and regarded as acceptable if not mainstream?

[OnceConvinced]

- you have not proven that this was not a miracle of GOD's so the ark was miraculously outfitted to achieve what was written to give the world HIS prophecy that no matter how horrible it gets down here, no matter if there are only 8 people to stand against the world, HE has it all under control and when the time comes in the end times to do it again with fire...

How can such a stilted point of view stand against a GOD of great miracles as Christians believe in? Pointing to the mundane to prove there are no miracles is just a shrug to most Christians who believe in and expect great and wonderous things from their GOD.

Peace, Ted

I wondered how long it would be before someone envoked "Magic" to explain away everything.

Anything can be explained by God saying "Abracadabra" but it makes me wonder why so many Noah's Ark supporters go to such great lengths to justify the story by trying to prove it "scientifically".

[higgy1911]

Why would god flood the world anyway? Why not rapture the evil people to hell, and not needlessly kill all the non offending plants and animals? And then still be left with the same situation as after the flood?
It's absurdly immoral to kill without some measure of necessity. How about a plague, which God seems expert in using? Why an indiscriminate flood?

The flood story damns the Being responsible for it. Whosoever flooded the world is worthy of scorn from lowly humans because only the worst of us would do such a thing.

[atheist buddy]

- you have not proven that this was not a miracle of GOD's so the ark was miraculously outfitted to achieve what was written to give the world HIS prophecy that no matter how horrible it gets down here, no matter if there are only 8 people to stand against the world, HE has it all under control and when the time comes in the end times to do it again with fire...

How can such a stilted point of view stand against a GOD of great miracles as Christians believe in? Pointing to the mundane to prove there are no miracles is just a shrug to most Christians who believe in and expect great and wonderous things from their GOD.

Peace, Ted

I wondered how long it would be before someone envoked "Magic" to explain away everything.

Anything can be explained by God saying "Abracadabra" but it makes me wonder why so many Noah's Ark supporters go to such great lengths to justify the story by trying to prove it "scientifically".

That is an excellent point.

Literalists go out of their way to calculate the length and width of the boat, and the number of animals, and the amount of water, and all sorts of empirical details, in an effort to make the fairy tale sound mechanistically plausible. Then when that fails, they just say "Oh, it doesn't have to make sense, God did it by magic".

Why go through the contortionist-worthy trouble of trying to explain in a rational way that 8 people were able to hoist several whales from different parts of the world onto tanks and then move the tanks to inside a wooden boat, if you're then gonna make up an anti-gravity ray-gun or a flying reindeer, or a superhero from Krypton, or some other silly fairy tale to bridge the gap between plausibility and your absurd story.

Why not jump to the voodoo superpowers of the hero directly?

[atheist buddy]

I just thought of something else about the ark story.

Feeding and giving water to the animals.

Let's pretend that we can ignore the irrefutable fact that there would HAVE TO be 17 million living organisms on the Ark, otherwise macro-evolution is real. That's an inescapable fact. There are 8.7 million species today. Either they evolved from earlier species through macro-evolution, or they were already there during the great flood.

Let's ignore this irrefutable fact and let's say there were only one million animals on the boat who would require feeding (2 of about 500,000 species).

Let's say that feeding them and providing them with water (butchering the pray for the carnivores, carrying tons of water for large herbivores, etc) would only take 10 minutes per animal. Ridiculously low, I know, but let's say that, for the sake of argument.

If so, to bring food and water to all 1 million animals would take 10 million minutes. 166,666 hours. Assuming all 8 humans did NOTHING WHATSOEVER (no piloting the boat, for example) for 20 hours a day, it would take the 8 of them 2 years and 9 months to feed all the animals once.

In other words, in the first 3 days of feeding, they would only be able to reach 0.0002% of the animals.

That means that 99.9998% of the animals on the boat would not receive food or water within the first 3 days, and would therefore die.

Lets say it would take the 8 people only 10 minutes to dump overboard every corpse of the dead animals they couldn't feed in time. In the first three days, they'd have only removed 0.0002% of the carcasses. The remaining 99.9998% would be on the boat decomposing. Of course, if they spent any time disposing of te corpses, they wouldn't have time to feed the remaining 0.0002% of the animals, which would then die.

And that would be just the first 6 days. And the 8 people (of which one is 600 years old) would have to continue working 20 hours a day for the next 34 days, just to keep that 0.0002% of the animals alive in ever worsening conditions, with the decomposing 99.9998% of the animals making the air utterly unbreathable.

Assuming the 8 people had superhuman strength and will power, and assuming they spent the first three days only feeding animals, and the following three days half the time feeding the surviving animals and half the time disposing of corpses of dead animals, at the end of the 40 days, this is what they'd end up with: 0.0001% of the animals would be alive, and of the 99.9998% that had died, they would have only been able to dispose of 0.0012% of the carcasses.

How. HOW, is it possible that anybody who actually believes this happened is not immediately laughed at and never ever taken seriously ever again? How is it possible? How can any sane person not be physically scared to live in a society where these kinds of beliefs are held by a plurality? Do you, the person reading this, really think that if they had the power, the kinds of people in America who believe these absurdities, would be any less tyrannical in enforcing their beliefs than any middle eastern islamic dictator is?

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 10 by atheist buddy]

But why do you take the Bible seriously? Who cares what the Bible says. Any 8 year old today knows more about morality, about the world in general, than any Bible author. Why do you listen to what bronze age shephards have to say, and pay no credence whatsoever to what people who can build planes, perform brian surgery and put a man on the moon? Couldn't it be that these kinds of people know a little more about the physical universe than people who thought the earth was flat and desease was caused by curses?

On morality - I think you take for granted the common morality we had and do not value the historical tradition that brought you that common morality. I am not convinced that we will have that common morality going forward.

On airplanes - this is a false dilemma you are creating. It's not a Christian issue as to where and why we have science. If you value it as much as you seem to then why not wonder why science came about so recently in the history of evolution.

I would suggest that you have satisfied yourself with caricatures and stereotypes.

If death is bad and irreconciliable with a loving God, then billions of years of it are just as irreconciliable as 6000 years of it.

To say "God is loving, he wouldn't cause us to suffer and die for billions of years, he would only cause us to suffer and die for 6000 years" is absurd. It's like saying "Ted is a nice guy, he wouldn't rape 200 children, he would only rape 1".

If your starting premise is that death is incompatible with a loving God, then how many years of it, 6000 or billions, is completely irrelevant.

Your argument doesn't even begin to make any sense. Out of curiosity, is it something you put thought into it, or did you just come up with it on the spur of the moment?

The six thousand years of death is post fall not pre fall. Post fall I look to God's plan

But yes were this year 20014 then perhaps my faith would be less.

[Haven]

We don't believe in billions of years or 'goo to you' or 'molecules to man' because we feel the bible clearly doesn't indicate that creation was this way and because philosophically one can't reconcile billions of years of death with a loving God.

I agree with this, but that's a reason for rejecting theism, not science.

[Haven]

The ark story, when interpreted literally, is completely absurd. When interpreted allegorically, it shows basic philosophical themes (divine retributive justice, saving a righteous "remnant" for a new beginning, the extermination of evil) common in the Ancient Near East (ANE) at the time. Not surprisingly, there are parallels to the Biblical flood myth in other cultures surrounding the Levant.

I just thought of something else about the ark story.

Feeding and giving water to the animals.

Let's pretend that we can ignore the irrefutable fact that there would HAVE TO be 17 million living organisms on the Ark, otherwise macro-evolution is real. That's an inescapable fact. There are 8.7 million species today. Either they evolved from earlier species through macro-evolution, or they were already there during the great flood.

Let's ignore this irrefutable fact and let's say there were only one million animals on the boat who would require feeding (2 of about 500,000 species).

Let's say that feeding them and providing them with water (butchering the pray for the carnivores, carrying tons of water for large herbivores, etc) would only take 10 minutes per animal. Ridiculously low, I know, but let's say that, for the sake of argument.

If so, to bring food and water to all 1 million animals would take 10 million minutes. 166,666 hours. Assuming all 8 humans did NOTHING WHATSOEVER (no piloting the boat, for example) for 20 hours a day, it would take the 8 of them 2 years and 9 months to feed all the animals once.

In other words, in the first 3 days of feeding, they would only be able to reach 0.0002% of the animals.

That means that 99.9998% of the animals on the boat would not receive food or water within the first 3 days, and would therefore die.

Lets say it would take the 8 people only 10 minutes to dump overboard every corpse of the dead animals they couldn't feed in time. In the first three days, they'd have only removed 0.0002% of the carcasses. The remaining 99.9998% would be on the boat decomposing. Of course, if they spent any time disposing of te corpses, they wouldn't have time to feed the remaining 0.0002% of the animals, which would then die.

And that would be just the first 6 days. And the 8 people (of which one is 600 years old) would have to continue working 20 hours a day for the next 34 days, just to keep that 0.0002% of the animals alive in ever worsening conditions, with the decomposing 99.9998% of the animals making the air utterly unbreathable.

Assuming the 8 people had superhuman strength and will power, and assuming they spent the first three days only feeding animals, and the following three days half the time feeding the surviving animals and half the time disposing of corpses of dead animals, at the end of the 40 days, this is what they'd end up with: 0.0001% of the animals would be alive, and of the 99.9998% that had died, they would have only been able to dispose of 0.0012% of the carcasses.

Atheist Buddy, welcome to the forum! It's nice to see another capable, thoughtful secular debater here .

Yes, this is just another reason why the Ark myth, when interpreted literally, flies in the face of all reason, logic, and science. In light of this, creationists would be wise to do one of two things:

1. Simply say the Ark events were miraculous and God simply performed a number of miracles to get around the numerous biological, mathematical, and logical problems in the narrative, and then miraculously erased the evidence of the events after they occurred.

This would, of course, completely remove young-Earth creationism from scientific falsifiability, making it a position of pure faith -- but realistically, that's what it is now (there's not a shred of evidence supporting it and a mountain of evidence against it). Doing this would end the debate over the Ark, but it would, if nothing else, make creationism more intellectually honest.

2. Abandon belief in the Ark story and accept the relevant scientific facts.

[atheist buddy]

We don't believe in billions of years or 'goo to you' or 'molecules to man' because we feel the bible clearly doesn't indicate that creation was this way and because philosophically one can't reconcile billions of years of death with a loving God.

I agree with this, but that's a reason for rejecting theism, not science.

Point well made.
It's a fact that there have been billions of years of death. Irrefutable.

A loving God is incompatible with reality, therefore the theist will reject reality.

If rejecting reality isn't the perfect definition of delusional, I don't know what is.

[ttruscott]

...

"Magic"

...

We are speaking about the Creator of the universe are we not? What part of miracle does not apply and should be reduced to (a pejorative) magic when we discuss the Creator of the universe?

What part of the Creator of the universe should be reduced to magic?

You do understand that by dissing my belief in miracles that you are trying to force your belief system on me with this kind of remark, not just discuss the pros and cons of the internal logic of my belief system?

Are you allowed your belief system? Am I not to be allowed the same? When have I scorned your belief system? I thought this was about logic, not emotional bias.

Peace, (still), Ted

[atheist buddy]

The ark story, when interpreted literally, is completely absurd. When interpreted allegorically, it shows basic philosophical themes (divine retributive justice, saving a righteous "remnant" for a new beginning, the extermination of evil) common in the Ancient Near East (ANE) at the time. Not surprisingly, there are parallels to the Biblical flood myth in other cultures surrounding the Levant.

Yes, when interpreted allegorically, some kind of theme can be extracted from these contorted fairy tales.

It's very important to note that these fairy tales are in no way superior to any number of stories ranging from Greek Mythology, to Pinocchio and The Lord of the Rings, to last week's episode of Sesame Street.

It's important to note this, because the next step in most theists' rambling, right after they have been put in a corner whereby to maintain viable belief in their stories they have to completely reject manifest reality, is for them to say "Fine, it's not literal, it's allegorical, but these allegories are truly beautiful".

They're not. Cindarella is better. The Three Musketeers is better. Tom & Jerry is better.

Nobody praises rape, murder and slavery in any of these works of fiction.