Does anyone actually believe the story of Noah's Ark?

[Topaz27]

I know a bunch of Christians, and so many of them believe that Noah's Ark is a myth. Basically just a story to teach morals and lessons. I personally see a lot of things wrong with the story of the flood. So I was wondering, if anyone believes the story of Noah's Ark, and the world flood, to be the truth?

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 73 by Topaz27]

• How Noah even got two of every animal He didn't get two of every animal, he got at least two of every "kind"
• How those animals didn't kill each other Have you never been to a zoo? Animals likely to harm each other would probably been kept apart. Further it is a fact that nearly any animal can be tamed and it's unlikely, being raised together, there was much danger of them all killing each other especially the herbivores.
• How literally no animals could've died, or their entire species would've died out: We don't know that no animals died; possibly some did and those animals are now extinct. Animal extinction is a ecological fact. Probably, since animals reproduce, if some died their offspring survived. In any case enough animals survived to ensure the continuation of animal life on earth.
• How Noah would've fed the animals; with food he would have taken or produced on-board
• How much food he would've need to store (especially for animals like pandas and koalasA massive amount but not more than could have been stored or produced on-board (I think Pandas are a type of bear so Noah probably just had a couple of bears (that don't eat much when they hybernate).
• How the island animals would somehow needed to get to Noah, take Galapagos tortoises for exampleMy guess he didn't take "Galapagos tortoises", he took a pair of tortoises from which"Galapagos tortoises" later evolved.

CLARIFICATION REQUESTED

• How Noah would deal with deep see animals that would've needed to be kept in salt water but still with immense pressure: this is nonsense, obviously Noah didn't have "to deal" with marine life. Perhaps you can explain your point a little further.
  
  How we have no fossil records of say kangaroos anywhere in between the middle east and Australia
  So what!? Are you claiming Kangeroos don't exist? Please explain
  
  The breathability of the ark Can you write in complete sentences that fully explain your objection. I cannot respond because I have no idea what you are talking about, do you think there was no air inside the ark?!

Earlier Objections DEBUNKED
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 892#973892

Thread INDEX
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 067#984067

[JehovahsWitness]

And Nephillim showing up later after he is supposed to killed, is probably one of the many inconsistencies of the Bible

The bible does not record any reappearance of the Nephillim after the flood. It indicates they were completely wiped out as it reports Noah and his family as being the only survivors of the event.



JW


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[Elijah John]

PREFACE: Ultimately I don't think anyone that holds to a literal global flood does so without pointing out it was a miraculous event the result of the actions of an omnipotent God, for whom nothing is impossible.

Yes, an Omnipotent God could do it, but what is the evidence that He actually did it? Other than "The Bible tells me so", or "The Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it". I think we need a little more, even in this subforum. There is room here, even here, for the metaphorical, and room for debate as to what should be taken literally, vs what should be taken as allegory, etc.

Simply to claim that an Omnipotent God could do anything and therefore did everything attributed to Him in the Bible seems like a case of special pleading. Is there any corroborating evidence to back up the story of the flood, as presented in the Bible verbatim?

[Topaz27]

Jehovah's Witness:
How exactly can we determine what a kind is? For example, does kind just mean 2 vertabrates and 2 invertabrates, does it mean 2 mammals, 2 amphibians... does it mean 2 canines, 2 felines... Or does it mean 2 lions, 2 ocelots, 2 cheetahs... With turtles/tortoises, does God just need 2 shelled scaly animals, or does he need 2 turtles and 2 tortoises specifically. Or maybe 2 "land" turtles, 2 sea turtles, and 2 tortoises.
How can we tell what God means by kind?

And btw the picture has 2 monkeys and 2 gorillas. I'm guessing those are the same "kind" though, accourding to you.

I have been to a zoo, I also know it takes a lot of employees to run a zoo of that size. Take San Diego zoo for example, the zoo with the most different "kinds" of animals. They have 2,850 employees. Now obviously some are just vendors, and tour guides. But I think it's not hard to imagine that the San Diego zoo has more people working with animals then 8. They have 650 different "kinds" of animals there. That's a tiny portion of the animals found on this planet, and they needed 2,850 employees. I don't believe 8 people could keep that many animals alive for even a month, let alone 150 days. And that's just 650 different "kinds."

By breathability I mean:
With the amount of animals needed to be carried, they would obviously go through the oxygen pretty quickly. Without proper ventilation some would die for sure. God specifically tells Noah how to create to Ark, but never mentions ventilation. Why do you just assume he creates some form of ventilation.

I think you brush off the food quite quickly, some animals need massive amounts of food to survive. Once again take koalas. They are extremely picky about their food. They only eat fresh leaves from the tree they've been imprinted on. Noah would need to somehow get 2 koalas from Australia and the tree they're imprinted on and now take care of that tree as well. That's a lot of effort for 2 little Koalas. Now he has to do similar things for every single animal, and probably more because some would've most likely died on the Ark.
Let's take elephants, they eat aroung 200-400 pounds of grass a day. According to you Noah was at sea for 150 days. That's at least 30,000 pounds of food for just one of the elephants. That's not even mentioning the waste management.

With the kangaroos and their fossils:
Let's say Noah somehow got kangaroos to the middle east from Australia. How would they get back? They would've most likely traveled from the middle east through southern asia, and then somehow island hopped all the way to Australia. Let's say somehow they do that. Why are there no remains of any kangaroos in southern Asia, or even any close relatives to the kangaroo living there today? Why aren't there any kangaroos living in the Middle East? Wouldn't that just have been easier for the kangaroos?

I appologize for the brevity of my last post, I didn't want it to be overwhelming. But because of that I did a bad job at explaining some of my points.

[onewithhim]

I know a bunch of Christians, and so many of them believe that Noah's Ark is a myth. Basically just a story to teach morals and lessons. I personally see a lot of things wrong with the story of the flood. So I was wondering, if anyone believes the story of Noah's Ark, and the world flood, to be the truth?

Yes, I do. If a person believes in Jesus, and believes the Bible is an inspired work of God, that person will believe the account of Noah---Jesus spoke of it as a fact. I would stake my life on what Jesus is recorded as saying. (See Matthew 24: 37-39.)

It remains to be seen if every small detail of the account is literal. But the basic story is surely true, as evidenced in other civilizations' accounts of a great flood.

[onewithhim]

Thank you all for replying.

Jehovah's Witness: There are a lot of the things that don't make sense about the story of Noah's Ark to me. For example the amount of water need to create a world flood, would be about 3.3 times the amount of water that we have on Earth. This includes, lakes, rivers, glacial shelves, bottled water etc. How did that water get there and then disappear after?

Then the part that I never hear people talk about are salt water animals. If the water came from rain, it would heavily dilute the water. Basically making it into fresh water. So how would whales, sharks, sponges, deep sea fish etc. survive?

And I'm sure you also know of many other arguments that people have about the story. Those are just the two that seem the most difficult to explain

Aetixintro: My parents share a very similar belief to you, so I think I understand your point. But does that mean that no story about Noah was real? Are the other parts of Genesis real? Finally, how do we know, which parts of the Bible are only meant to teach, and never really happened?

Thank you for your responses.

Good questions! The water that rained down during the Flood came from the water out in space that encircled the earth like a terrarium situation. Genesis 1:6,7 tells us that there was "an expanse between the waters, and...a division between the waters and the waters, and then God went on to make the expanse and divided the waters beneath the expanse from the waters above the expanse."

When the waters subsided it was because very high mountains on the land and chasms down on the floor of the ocean were formed, which accommodated the extra water that rained down and then subsided. (The oceans were smaller, and the continents were larger than they are now.)

I will have to do more research on the salt water issue. That is an interesting question.

[onewithhim]

Jehovah's Witness:
The Bible does in fact tell us where the water comes from. Look at Genesis 7:12. It specifically says that it rains for 40 days and 40 nights.

To measure the amount of water needed for a world flood, isn't too hard. All you need is a basic understanding of the volume of spheres. We know how fast Mt. Everest is "growing" so we can back track to find what the highest point at the time of the flood would be. And it turns out to be basically the height that it's at now.

From there we can calculate the amount of water need to "fill" the Earth, up to that height. We also know the approximate amount of water that the Earth has. The fact is, that there's not enough water on Earth to create a true world flood. We would need, approximately, 3.3 times the amount of water that is currently on Earth. If you want I can give you the exact calculations.

I would also like to know your explanation, of how hundreds of thousands of salt water animals could survive the fresh water environment a downpour of that size would create.

Here is an interesting quote from one research source: "It is believed that there was a time when the oceans were smaller and the continents were larger than they are now, as evidenced by river channels extending far out under the oceans. It should also be noted that scientists have stated that mountains in the past were much lower than at present, and some mountains have even been pushed up from under the seas. As to the present situation, it is said that 'there is ten times as much water by volume in the ocean as there is land above sea level. Dump all this land evenly into the sea, and water would cover the entire earth, one and one-half miles deep.'" (National Geographic, January 1945, p.105.)

[Tcg]

Let's take elephants, they eat aroung 200-400 pounds of grass a day. According to you Noah was at sea for 150 days. That's at least 30,000 pounds of food for just one of the elephants. That's not even mentioning the waste management.

The occupants of the ark spent slightly more than a year in the ark. Your estimate then would be more than doubled. More than 60,000 pounds of food for just one elephant. If elephants were considered "clean" animals, according to the story, there would have been 14 elephants on board.


Tcg

[Tcg]

Further it is a fact that nearly any animal can be tamed and it's unlikely, being raised together, there was much danger of them all killing each other especially the herbivores.

I've owned a number of cats in my lifetime. They were all tame. However, not a single one would refrain from killing a mouse or, even in some cases, a bird. The fact that they were tame did not change them into herbivores. Their natural instinct is to hunt and kill prey. Taming them doesn't change this instinct.


Tcg

[onewithhim]

Jehovah's Witness:
I know that mountains are taller then they used to be, I stated that in previous posts. I am also aware that we can measure how much a mountian "grows" each year. So we can go back to when the flood would've happened, and calculate the highest point at the time. Using that knowledge we can determine how much water would have been needed. The simple fact is that, there isn't enough water on Earth to complete this.

Futhermore, you previously gave me this article.
https://www.astrobio.net/extreme-life/s ... rly-earth/

This article also states that life most likely started 3.5 billion years ago. According to the Bible it only started a few thousand years ago. The article then goes on to talk about the Cambrian expansion and how salt almost definitely played a huge role in it. The Cambrian expansion happened about 500 million years ago. Once again the Bible states that the world has only existed for a few thousand.

Therefore, according to this scientific article. Oceans, a few thousand year ago, were saltwater.

So once again, how would salt and fresh water animals be able to survive in the same enviroment.

No, the Bible does not state that the earth is only a few thousand years old. That is an inaccuracy that fundamentalists and "young earth" expounders have set forth, but as anyone can see who wants to check it out, there is no where in the Scriptures that indicate that the earth is "young." It is a lie.

Notice:

Genesis 1:1 says simply that "God created the heavens and the earth." There is no indication of how long it took Him. When He decided to prepare the earth for life, we go into the next several verses and see the order of things, but there is no statement as to how long each of these various creations took. Young Earth people say, Oh look, it says "there was an evening and there was a morning" after each development! This must mean that these things happened in a 24-hour period!

Can anyone see the ridiculousness of this thinking? "Evening" and "morning" don't necessarily refer to the beginning and end of a 24-hour period! "Evening" refers to the ending of something, without stipulating a definite time period, and, too, "morning" refers to the beginning of something, with no time allotment indicated.

It does say that each development encompassed a "day." But again, does this mean a period of 24 hours? No! And why on earth would God create in 24-hour increments? Was He in a particular HURRY to get it done? It is a silly thought. A "day" merely meant an unspecified period of time, during which God set about to either create or adjust.

This point is strengthened when we look at the verse 4 in the second chapter of Genesis. If we accepted the Young Earth advocates' view of "days," then this verse tells us that God created the earth and everything on it, AND the heavens, in ONE DAY. Isn't that what it indicates? "This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time they were created, in THE DAY that Jehovah made earth and heaven." Wow! He did it in one day!! Never mind the 6 days that the Young Earth people talk about.

Can we see that, really, instead of a fixed time of 6 24-hour days or even ONE 24-hour day, we are dealing with indefinite periods of time that could be millions of years or even billions of years long? It's exactly like what we mean when we might say, "Well, in my grandfather's day they rode to school on horses." Right?

Well, after acceding to sound reasoning, we can understand that the earth is undoubtedly billions of years old, as Science says. We still have the dilemma of the salt water animals vs. fresh water animals. This will be a continuing research project.



[/i]