What IF Noah's Ark was found?

Great Debates
1

Ok, here I find myself in the firing squad again…
IF, and I said “IF”, and this is the preposition you are to work on, the following came to pass…

A boat, some 500 feet long, by 40 feet high, by 50 feet wide, made of wood, were found high on hills of Mt. Ararat were found, and the wood samples were dated to be circa 2000 B.C., and traces of animal fur and dung were found, as were evidence of human habitation found…

How would you anti-religious zealots deal with this?

I’d love to hear what you’d have to say.

Don’t be cheap and say “It could’nt ever/hasn’t happened.”

Just assume, for the sake of argument, it DID.

Patrick Ashley

‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ -Edmund Burke

2

Oh goody, can I go first? I want to be an ‘anti-religious zealot,’ and hate myself!

What if God was a lot like George Burns, and John Denver was His prophet?

What-ifs are so much fun. :cool:

3

Assuming for the moment that it did happen and that the evidence was complete, unambigious and appeared untampered then:

#1) I would take it as evidence of the possible existence of the so-called “Divine Weasal”.

#2) I take it as evidence that a flood like that found in the Bible took place.

It would not be definitive proof of the existence of the “Divine Weasal” (or anyother god for that matter), but it would certainly raise the question of explaining how such a flood came to be.

If it were determined at that point that it was absolutely impossible for a flood to have occured by natural means I would (just at the top of my head without giving it a lot of though) take that as fairly definitive evidence of the “Divine Weasal”.

If you next step Patrick is to post a link to the Ark Project or what-have-you, save yourself a post. Their evidence is not unambigious, nor complete.

4

I bet if they could Prove it was really Noah’s ark, the pieces would go for a huge price!

5

I’d say that a boat, some 500 feet long, by 40 feet high, by 50 feet wide, made of wood, had been found and said boat, if found, was aproximately 4000 years old. That’s not evidence of any event other than the event just described: that of the boat itself.

Look at this way: the Koran mentions three cities, by name even! Those cities are Jerusalem, Mecca, and Yithrab (which was subsequently renamed Medina after the Muslim conquest). Those three cities actually exist.

So how do you deal with not believing everything written in the Koran?

6

Well, I, for one would say, "I hate religion! Boy Howdy, do I hate it!"

Sheesh.

I think I’d say, that’s pretty cool. I don’t think it would change or amplify my Christian beliefs at all. So some dude had a big boat, and he put some animals in it. I have heard that the Bible got that whole “Roman Empire” thing right but I’m not paranoid that I’ll be knee-deep in locusts or swallowed by a whale. I take my bible with a pillar of salt.

I done run for president.
Didn’t win, though.

7

Taking the question more seriously, David Quammen discussed this in the early pages of The Song of the Dodo. I’ll try to summarize some of the problems from memory:

We’d still have to figure out how Noah fit two of all the unclean animals, and seven pairs of all the clean ones, on a boat that size. There were an awful lot of animals out there, and some of them are pretty durned big. (Some presently extinct large animals were still possibly alive in 2000 BC, too.)

We’d have to ask how the animals, after the flood, got from Ararat to where they are now, some passing through completely inhospitable climates, and others passing through, but ignoring, locales with climates identical to where they ultimately settled.

We’d have to ask how some of those animals crossed oceans and established themselves on their new continents so rapidly, and the other animals there just happened to be the ones they were engineered to be dependent on.

Creationists would have to be impressed at the accuracy of carbon dating, and the rest of us would be amused to note that the same dating that verified the age of the Ark also indicated that many living creatures substantially predated the Biblical age of the earth. We’d also eagerly await finding out how the creationists managed to have it both ways with respect to carbon dating.

There would probably be some more things we’d have to figure out, but that’ll do for now.

8

I could easily accept that a flood of Biblical proportions happened - after all, I accept that the Bible is a book of parables and stories, so why wouldn’t this one be true? After all, all these stories were handed down generation after generation, so it’s possible something like that really did happen.

There’s no proof, however, that God caused said flood.

Still, I’d pretty much sit back and say, “Wow.” :slight_smile:

Esprix

Ask the Gay Guy!

9

Hmmm. What would that prove.

I guess it would prove a boat got up there somehow. If there was evidence of flooding coincident with the deposit of the boat, that might mean something. IF somebody carved “Noah wuz here” in one of the timbers that might mean something to.

It would suggest there might be some truth to the quaint myth of Noah’s ark.

It wouldn’t prove anything though as alternate theories might present themselves.

It would be possible that some Babylonian tourists might have decided to go for a cruise.

A Three hour tour… a Three hour tour
the whether started getting rough, the tiny ark was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew the ark would be lost… the ark would be lost…

The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted mountain arafat with GIlligan, the skipper too…
I quote this not to make fun of you but to illustrate an example.

If I find a boat wrecked on an island with huts nearby, is this proof that Gilligan’s Island is true?
What if? What if?

Do any of you TV haters want to deal with this question? Huh, do you?

10

Although I don’t consider myself to be an anti-religious zealot, my response is I wouldn’t deal with it. I would allow archeologists to complete the excavation. So someone found a boat, what does that imply? If there were a plaque that stated something to the effect of “The ARK OF NOAH, seeth the main cabin for the blueprints HE hath given unto meeth…”, several theories could be formulated as to how the boat came to the current location, it’s purpose, etc. These theories would be theories, no singular infallible assertion could be formulated based on the data. The data could be construed to support the verification of the existence of “Noah’s Ark” or simply indicate that there was a boat.

11

If scientists studied the ship and did determine that it sailed around the time of Jesus and belonged to a guy named Noah, It’d be interesting, but it would prove nothing.

12

“And thus did the Lord say unto the Skipper, Thou shalt built thee an ark and thou shalt name it Minnow, for the heavens shall bring forth rain for three hours. Thou shalt gather thy passengers by seven: the millionaire, his wife, a movie star…and the rest. And I have chosen for thee a first mate, and thou shalt call him Gilligan, for whilst he is a mighty sailing man, thou may find occasion to smite him with thine hat.”

13

What if they found fossils that indicted unicellular creatures existed 3 billion years ago? And what if they found fossilized remains that indicate a very logical and more or less orderly progression of creatures over the last 550 million years? And what if they found the distribution of elements throughout the viewable universe indicated a Big Bang event? And what if the physics that lets you use your computer sits in the middle of this body of knowldege that indicates a 12-13 billion year old universe?

Whoops, they already have done that. No “what if’s” necessary. You can believe in God and Christianity without the baggage of 2700 year old myths (although the Flood myth is much older thatn that).

14

I am afraid you will not find the Ark, for it is mounted on the wall of My rec room.

15

Wow, a lot of idiots posting here. Not all, but some.

As I thought, they would all say it proves nothing, or goes onto “Well, what about all the problems of the animals” rhetoric. I was asking what it would mean in relation to the validity of the Bible. Again, no evidence would even challenege them that at least that part of the Bible was true.

Ok, let me take my turn:

Assuming everything in my OP, you could extrapolate:

1: The boat, being so huge, would take at least a year or two to build, likely much more. Even modern steel ships of that size take at least that long, and that’s with heavy moving equipment and hundreds of workers.

2: If it took that long to build, the person that built it must have had foreknowledge of an impending flood. Why would he have built it then, committing so much time and resoursces to it? I doubt he just noticed the ocean getting a little higher, he would have moved farther inland.

3: If foreknowledge was had, it was not provided by sattelites, experts on meteorology, plate tectonics or global warming.

4: Any guesses on who could provide that knowledge?

Now, before you completley close down your mind and hit the “reply” button, don’t bother with the concerns regarding the animal gathering/dispersion.

Just deal with the premises above.

16

Pashley said:

[Moderator Hat ON]

I feel fairly certain that you can make your point without insults, Patrick. If you can’t, take it to the BBQ Pit, not here. The “anti-religious zealot” remarks are looking pretty silly, too, since a lot of people disagreeing with you are quite religious.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

17

Good points, pashley. Given all that, I’d consider the possibility that God spoke to him. Or that he had a vision of some sort. Or that he was a scientist ahead of his time. Or that aliens told him. Or that he was a time-traveller.

All of them are possibilities, to greater or lesser extents.

Esprix

Ask the Gay Guy!

18

The problem with “what ifs” is that there are many different possible “what ifs” all of which can explain the event.

#1) He could have been paranoid or perhaps overly cautious. Just look at the people who build VERY elaborate bomb shelters. Look at people who get all worried over provably false predictions by Nostradamus. If there were a “wise man” saying that there would be a VAST flood, Noah may have overreacted and built a big boat.

#2) We don’t know what evidence there could have been for a coming flood.
#2a) He could have recognized a coming flood but not one of that severity and was simply being safe. I.e. as in #1 above.

#3) It could have come from space aliens. :slight_smile:

19

That post didn’t make any sense to me. Please ignore it.

The problem with your logic is in step #2. You are assuming that there was no clear indication of a pending flood. This isn’t necessarily the case. Having considerable foresight doesn’t mean that a miracle has, in fact, occured. Why attribute to a miracle what could be either dumb luck of the overly cautious or actual human knowledge?

20

First, as a friendly gesture, I would like to remind you to refrain from using terms such as “idiot” lest you incur the wrath of the moderator (which I do separate from David B). It will be difficult to continue with the debate if your posts are deleted.

Thanks for the clarification about the type of response you sought. I feel that some of the posts do reflect an acknowledgement of your intention. Please refer to the lines below.

Your conclusion does not logically follow from your premise. Knowledge of an impending flood is not a prerequisite for the construction of a boat, large or otherwise. Since the premise does not support your conclusion, items 3 and 4 of your post are irrelevant.

The gathering and dispersion of animals are pertinent to the validity of the biblical tale. You cannot select which issues are relevent. Regardless of this fact, based on the premises you presented, the biblical tale cannot be validated with the evidence presented in any of your posts. Bear in mind that I am not attempting to attack your faith, but the arguement you present is not logical in nature. You have not offered concrete empirical evidence (even hypothetical evidence) which is not subject to multiple interpretations.