NOAH'S ARK DISCOVERED..Sort of..

Great Debates
1

The eternal question for many folks is: Where is noah’s Ark? I offer a possible, perhaps likely, explanation.

Genesis 6 says: Noah was ordered by God to build the Ark approx.450 ft. long X 75 ft. wide X45 ft. high ,these measurements equal over 1.5 million cubic feet of space. It ain’t the Titanic, but it is fairly roomy. The Ark has three floors, a roof one big door for the ‘two of every kind of animal, all flesh…’.

Gen 7 says: 'Take 7 pairs of every clean animal and 2 pairs of every unclean animal plus all the food etc. for a trip of at least 150 days. Now 2 of each is a major logistical problem but 9 pairs of each is a really packed house.

God seals the big door so all that’s left for access (not to mention ventilation) is one little window.

The Theorem: When animals eat food -microorganisms convert the food to…Poop!
…Work with me People!..Gravity would send the sludge downward where it would soon fill the bowels… (Ark humor)…of the Ark. Day by day the lower portion of the Ark would fill, the microorganisms would work away converting the sludge to muck and…Gas! The resulting gas would be primarily methane which rises and would ultimately fill the Ark. SO WHAT… you say?

Have you ever walked into a bathroom after Grampa or Aunt Minnie had pinched a loaf? You slap your hand over your mouth and nose and run like the devil for a gasp of fresh air! I’m guessing that Noah’s family were fighting each other to get their own head out that one little window.

Speculation: Noah says to his son…HAM ,check on those pigs. Ham dutifully lights the oil lamp…KABOOM! THE FIRST NEAR NUCLEAR EXPLOSION!

The water covered Earth is floating with …toothpicks and grilled meat ( At least this explains what happened to the Dinosaurs).

Epilogue: Either Noah’s Ark was a simple explanatory story or… WE don’t exist!

2

Got a debate in there somewhere?

3

Forgive me for stripping it of its humor, but your basic thesis is that the waste products from the ark would’ve made the whole project impractical, right?

A fair point, definitely–but the ark is impractical even without the waste products. Even if you had only two of each species, you STILL can’t manage the ark. cite.

Daniel

4

Besides, wouldn’t we see evidence that all animals radiated out from a single place on earth…i.e. we’d see migration etc of every species starting from a single location…instead of what we see.

Basically the arc story is only plausable if you know nothing about the wider world, about biology, etc…i.e. its plausable to a primitive people who hadn’t been out of the neighborhood so to speak. Who had no idea there were other continents, other species they’d never seen or heard of…hell, other peoples living on said other continent when the flood supposedly went down.

Why not just give up on the tale and see it for what it really was??

-XT

5

The premise has been made, (obviously). So make the dabate!

6

Re-read the epilogue…then THINK!

7

So what makes you think an absurd folk tale is a good start for a serious discussion of actual historical events?

8

When an absurd folk tale, and it’s parent assemblage of absurd tales, is used as justification for much of the worlds mayhem, it seems to me it has created it’s own good start!

9

It isn’t such a simple dichotomy; the actual range of possibilities is quite broad, for example, It could be a malicious fiction (rather than an explanatory story), or a wildly exaggerated account of a much less important event… etc.

10

Agreed! Patf

11

To be technical, it is not a folk tale. Folk tales are generally considered part of oral tradition and used by the peasants. Mythology would be a better word.

12

True enough - i.e., Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian etc. folktales which all pre-date the ‘Bible’. The biblical Ark story is didactic–My version of the story, incl. epilogue, is an ’ implied absurdity’. Patf

13

Sure, Noah’s Ark wouldn’t be scientifically possible. Neither would, say, Young Earth Creationism, parting the Red Sea, walking on water, coming back from the dead and many other things.

If you believe in the literal truth of the Bible, you probably don’t particularly care about scientific evidence against it. To point out that Noah’s Ark is scientifically impossible isn’t anything special, and there’s no debate here.

14

The Scopes- so called “monkey” trial is probably the most well documented refutation to your statement (though certainly not the only one). It was not a trial in the legal sense, (it was an agreed upon contest to get a question before the Tenn. State Supreme Court). It was, however, a DEBATE between biblical and non-biblical literalists. It was broadcast -blow by blow to the world at large and failed in it’s mission. patf

15

We could debate whether patf is the closest phoenetic representation of the sound of a silent fart.

16

Frankly I dont see a debate here. What exactly are you after, patf? Don’t be shy, come right out and ask. What is it (in plain English) that you want to debate about the Ark story?

Ok, I’ve re-read the epilogue and I’ve thought…and I still haven’t any idea wtf you are getting at. Why is it either Noah’s Ark was a ‘simple explanatory story’ (whatever the hell THAT means) OR “WE don’t exist!” Want to go into some details here instead of trying to be deliberately wierd? Leave that to aricthegoth…he see’s wierder stuff than you in his breakfast cerial.

-XT

17

Yup, I know what you’re saying.

From a scientific point of view, the biblical literalists are wrong. No debate there. You’ve found yet another place where biblical literalism, from a scientific point of view, is wrong. Clever, I guess, but so what? No debate there.

There’s no disagreement here, no debate. Maybe if you posted this on a purely Christian board you might get a rise…

18

Oh, two other things, patf: Welcome to the boards, for a start. You should also be told that putting titles on each post is unnecessary. You’ll find hardly anyone here does it.

19

And to bring in tourism. Don’t forget the tourism.

20

Left Hand of Dorkness said:

This post (and the few that followed…) reminded me of a conversation I had a few years back with a good friend who is a semi-religious Christian.

He believed also that the acount of the ark was impossible because the vessel as described would not have been able to withstand the tremondous pressure applied to the hull. (He’s a mechanical engineer…)

I asked him if he believed in God (I knew he did)—not just believed in him but saw him as the creator of all [human] life. (He did) I pressed him further and we talked about the simple fact that humans exist in a tiny fraction of the total spectrum of light and energy and that if the earth was only marginally closer of farther to the sun we’d burn/or freeze to death. He acknolwedged all of this as being handiworks of God. I reminded him that as the architect/builder of the universe/ solar system that we live in he conceived even the weather patterns we live in-----that for example he would have had the ability to even control the weather if he chose to; and not just to control the weather but to suspend or even warp physical laws that we know of. He agreed without any apparent conflict.

Yet he was convinced that God couldn’t build a seaworthy vessel. When put in that context he simply laughed and made a funny comment. If you believe that Noah’s account was a fairy tale, cool! If you are atheist or agnostic, cool!

But from a purely intellectual perspective, I find it untenable to believe in God and reject the account of Noah because somehow God couldn’t have pulled it off; or in the alternative Noah couldn’t have pulled it off. (despite getting his building plans, marching orders and direct support from God)

Thiest or not, atheist or not, I can make sense of someone who says that this was just a fairy tale. But I have to laugh at the utter intellectual silliness to use the argument that the account of Noah has to, by necessity, be a fairy tale because God must be constrained with the same limitations that a human (Noah for example) has, or would have been subject to, or constrained by, physical laws that he not only conceived but controls.

I say this not as a believer, but to simply point out the silliness of defining God in human terms, and with all of the human limitations.

Left Hand of Dorkness’s post above is a good example. If you want to make the case that God doesn’t exist, go ahead. But, if you begin by imlicitly accepting his potential existence, it is off the chart presumptous to assail the account on technical/engineering grounds.

You’re right, you ‘STILL can’t manage the ark.’ That certainly doesn’t mean that (if God exists and endeavored to execute (no pun intended) the account of Noah) God couldn’t manage it, or that Noah, with God’s support, couldn’t.